Work Text
𝙰𝚜 𝚏𝚘𝚛 𝚊𝚗𝚢 𝚜𝚊𝚍
, depressing story,
the light had left the city. The sun had just been swept underneath the skyline, taking its warmth and security away with it. Cold breezes flew around the air, suggesting a chilling night to come. Dreary storm clouds bounced overhead the city, the air buzzing with a warning, raising hair on the back of people’s arms.
As a result of such swirling events, the sky was much blacker than it should be at such an hour. If one were to guess the time based on the darkness around them, they would say something like
4023,
not 0223
.
Many people had turned in earlier today than they normally would. The streets that would be assumed to be crowded and busy were desolate and lonely. Not a single person was in sight.
—No, Midoriya Izuku, a tiny, yet well-built young man was still out and about. He wore a rugged sweater that had seen better days, the hoodie hiding his shocking green hair, which normally curled elegantly around his face. The drawstrings were tightly drawn, tied into a thick knot that was inches from his mouth. There was only one small hole left, showing only his eyes to the world. His intelligent green eyes were attentive and alert as he scanned the street for activity.
He walked with great speed as he made for his house, of which was still a few blocks away. Izuku was not very fortunate today. Not only had he been caught in a storm without an umbrella, but he had just barely missed the bus as he dashed for the bus stop. What was arguably the worst thing to happen to him tonight, however, was catching two swanky figures in an alleyway laughing maniacally at something.
The two figures were both squatted down, one of them holding a stick, whilst the other attempted to grab something. Both of them shivered and trembled oddly. The way they did so had Izuku doubting it was just from the cold. His curiosity peaked, but he had little time to do anything. Besides, for all he knew they were playing with a worm that had crept up from the dirt.
Izuku had made up his mind, and if you asked him years from now if he had intended to ignore them, he would tell you that he had started to. He would explain that he had just walked past that alleyway, moving on with his day, when he heard a weak animalistic snarl of pain. One that was so quiet, so muted, he stopped without thinking.
Izuku had a bad habit of moving or doing things without thinking. Especially heroic things. He had scared his family many times over the years because of this, and he had promised to do better—
do better
, not stop doing it. This, perhaps, was a good thing, considering what he was about to do.
As he turned back, starting to return to the alleyway, his steelhead boots clicked dangerously against the damp cement. The clouds flashed white and lit up the area around him. Droplets of cold, refreshing rain slipped down the sky, sprinkling down on the city. The air was musty now, and Izuku could taste how wet the air felt.
Another yelp filled the air, followed by an odd crackle, one that came from the alleyway, not the sky. A low, deep mew sounded after.
“
Hahahaaha,”
a high-pitched laugh brown through the alleyway, followed by scuffling, then another yowl.
Izuku turned into the alleyway, lightning striking as he did, giving him the light he needed to take in the situation in front of him. It left his blood cold.
They were torturing a tiny kitten. It had been poked with the stick he had seen one of them holding. It was digging dangerously deep into the feline’s skin. The tension around them grew, Izuku felt disgust wound around him like a snake.
A hiss filled through the air, and as the light faded and a loud bang filled the air, he saw another, much bigger cat shoot out to claw at the one who was laughing. It was quick and nimble.
The man yelled out in pain, and suddenly the cat was tossed against the wall of the alleyway. Izuku rushed in, alerting them to his presence. They turned around to meet his gaze.
The rain grew harsher. “What are you doing?”
Izuku watched the two of them tense, their large—very oversized—pupils shrink for a moment before growing again. A smile grew on one of their faces.
One was very short in comparison to the other. He was lacking anything that resembled a hairline, and his smile was missing a lot of teeth. His clothes were very dirty and unkempt.
The other was tall, muscular, and held a cruel look on his face. He looked just the slightest more lucid than the other, though he looked worse for wear compared to the other.
“Look at the lil’ birdy, thinks he’s gonna save the kitties,” the muscular one said, his tone arrogant and frigid.
The shorter one stared at Izuku before replying, “Careful. He looks smart.”
The quick but accurate observation had Izuku dubbing the two of them brains and brawns. He felt it was suitable, considering that the brawny one looked to hold enough muscle for the two of them. Brains was watching him intently, in a way that made him uncomfortable.
Izuku needed to be quick, he needed to diffuse the situation if he could. He eyed Brawns carefully before stating, “Thanks, I try. Wanna leave the kitten alone now?”
“Funny little dude,” Brain drew out, “Now why would we do that? If anything we’re helping out the environment, with them being overpopulated and everything.”
Izuku felt his throat clench as he met Brawn’s dim eyes, “
Wow
. How thoughtful.”
“You’re torturing it,” Izuku continued, his voice stern and angry, “It’s cruel.”
Brawn’s face was oddly blank, and he had little to say in response, only offering up a small grunt in reply. Brain’s smile softened, and his teeth glinted dangerously as he offered a short, vague reply of, “Aren’t we all?”
“Tell you what, Kid,” Brains addressed him with very little tact, his smile gone as he grew serious, “if you care so
very
much, you can have ‘em. All three of ‘em. We won’t stop you at all.”
“Three?” He found himself asking without much reason.
Brawns scoffed. Brains smirked cruelly. “Yep. All three. Don’t wanna save them as much as you did before, right?”
“Don’t worry too much about it, Kid. Most spunks your age seem to believe that the world is split evenly between good and evil,” he shrugged indifferently. “Everyone’s got their reasons.”
Izuku tried not to let the comment bother him, instead biting his cheek as he finally sharpened his wits enough to force up an intelligent remark, “That doesn’t make it right.”
Brawns took this moment to snort, unamused with his opinion, it seemed. “Sure, dung-rag. Whatever ya say.”
Brains rolled his eyes, turning them over to look at Izuku once again. His jacket was dripping at this point. “Listen, you want them or not? You’re not doing them any favors waiting. They’ll die from hyperthermia if you take too long.”
Izuku had very little to argue with. “Is there something around here I can use? Something to hold them in?”
“Actually, there is,” Brawns offered up, straightening his arms out in front of him, “We watched some scum drop them off not too long ago.”
Brains kicked something toward Izuku. Once his eyes adjusted on it, he found it to be a large crate. He eyed it, confused about why the door to it was closed shut.
Brains saw this and just said, “the skittish one is in there. She’s a mean one.”
Izuku resisted to look inside, a pathetic mewl directing his attention once again. “Why are you doing this?”
Brawns eyed him heavily before finally sighing, leaning into the wall as he spoke, “I don’t care what happens to them to be honest. The kitten was entertainment. You taking them in is more interesting.”
Izuku ignored the bike that sloshed unsteadily in his stomach as he listened to his reply. He refused to get sick. He needed to save someone first. Three of them, to be exact.
“Yo, think it’s time we took our leave,” Brains tossed out suddenly, his voice much more relaxed and casual as he spoke to his friend. “Definitely outstayed our welcome with this one.”
Brawns nodded in response. Brains walked towards Brawns as he yelled out to Izuku, “Peace, Kid.”
And then, as both of their hands reached out and barely grazed one another, they were gone, leaving the three cats and Izuku only in the thunderous weather. Teleportation quirk, how useful.
Izuku, with his mind going into a state of calm but rapid panic, sprung into action. He needs to work now and ponder later.
The conversation between him and the two had only been five minutes at most—more likely to have actually ranged at about three minutes—but that still was a lot of time to be consistently losing blood.
What was worse was the other cat was still guarding the kitten, having crawled back from whatever wall it had been kicked to. It too, looked much worse for wear, and it struggled to stand straight on all four paws.
Izuku took a chance and crouched near it, reaching his hand out to hover over the cat. Understandingly, it hissed and moved to wack his finger. Izuku was smart though, and his opened the crate’s door and shoved the cat in while it was distracted.
“Ouch,” he muttered to himself, the rain roared in his ears, looking over at the scratches he had received. He was lucky to have not gotten bitten.
He inclined his head to listen inside the crate. There was no sound of complaint or annoyance from the creatures inside, and as he took a chance and peered inside, he saw that they were curled comfortably around one another, shivering.
He assumed this would be fine, considering they just have all shared a crate to get dropped off, but he still had not known for sure. Unfortunately, he did not have many choices, and he needed to act quickly, so while this was not one of his most well thought out plans, he was glad that it had been well executed. The response had been worth the overall risk.
Izuku turned toward the kitten, which was still struggling as it laid out on the concrete. He resisted the disgust that rolled off him as he thought about the man who had done this. He had managed a full conversation with Brawns, and for some reason, that made him feel guilty.
He examined it as best as he could, but ultimately decided that since no fresh blood was rapidly leaking out, and that there were no signs of fresh or open blood wounds, he needed to focus on getting the kitten out of the cold.
He unzipped his jacket slightly, then curled around the feline. It opened its eyes just the faintest bit, but did little to react otherwise. Running out of time, Izuku slowly reached out and finally lifted the creature.
A small yowl of pain filled the air as he gently raised the kitten and pushed it into his jacket. He got it comfortable and then zipped it up. With his warmth beating up against it, it should make it feel a little better.
Izuku walked up to the crate and lifted it up, sighing as he adjusted to the awkward weight while also trying his best to hold the kitten inside his jacket. With the rain still pouring down, and the uncertainty that surrounded him, he was not sure how to feel, but he did know that his way home was going to be a long one, regardless of how much time it actually took to get there.
While he was worried for the little kitten, his brain and gut told him that overall, as long as it did not get hyperthermia, it would be fine. Most of the injuries he saw were superficial and minor.
The light was poor, so some things could have been worse than he had thought, but that seemed much more relative when he could feel and hear every breath the little animal took as it leaned into his warm body heat.
Izuku genuinely wanted to help. He wanted them to live, and he wanted them to be happy. He heart clenched as he thought back to how he had almost walked away from the alley.
He gripped the crate handle tighter in his hand. He would be the best owner possible, they deserved as much.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
𝙲𝚑𝚊𝚙𝚝𝚎𝚛 𝙸𝙸 |
Housemate
𝙳𝚛𝚒𝚙𝚙𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚠𝚒𝚝𝚑 𝚠𝚊𝚝𝚎𝚛
and thoroughly exhausted
to the bone, Izuku closed his door as he slid himself into his house, water flooding into the tile of his mud room. With careful balancing and lucky precision, he slipped off his shoes and placed his feet into some slippers. Izuku set down the crate, ignoring the warning hiss that filtered through the cheap plastic as he shrugged off his jacket.
The kitten did not protest as he brought it out of his jacket. It shivered violently when pulled out, which suggested that it may have just entered the initial stages of hyperthermia. He noted that it was still, in fact, wet, but not to an extreme degree. His jacket has blocked out most of the terrorizing cold. Holding the kitten up, he looked to see it looking back at him curiously.
Its eyes were a startling blue, and inside the pupil he could see himself. Its eyes were very large as it sat in his firm, yet gentle hold. Despite looking attentive, the kitten also looked uncomfortable. Izuku knew that more than the cold was making it feel that way.
Izuku could see fleas all over it, and he knew it needed a bath. If he lowered the water to about the cat's temperature, maybe a little higher, it could perhaps be fine, but the risk weighed on his mind. With a final decision in mind, he went through with deciding to give it a moderately warm, even slightly cold bath, but would look for signs of discomfort. If the symptoms of hyperthermia persisted, he would stop.
Izuku ran over to his closet, found an old towel, and threw it in his dryer. With that done, he turned his direct attention back to the kitten. Should anything happen that would worsen its symptoms, the warm towel would help immensely with bringing its temperature back up.
Filling up his sink with mildly heated—one might even push for room temperature—water, Izuku clogged the drain, holding the scrawny kitten into the crook of his elbow. The water pressure in his house was good, so it filled the sink quickly. The kitten did not have to sit shivering against him for very long. As it shivered, Izuku could not help but notice how thin it was; it was akin to a shaking leaf.
With a single movement Izuku turned off the water and grabbed his soap. It was safe for animals, and the picture on the brand’s bottle advertised it being used for animals during oil spills. He dripped a line of soap along its neck and slowly dipped the kitten into the water.
The line would stop any other fleas from crawling up into its face as the water reached them. It was a tip he had seen in cat videos before.
It stilled. As if testing to see if the water was too hot, it tensed as Izuku lowered it into the water, no resistance coming from the little feline. Izuku directed the feline’s lower body at an angle as to avoid the raw wounds there. The marks and scratches from the stick were obvious and were easy to detect because of their irritation that had made them red; however, there was no fresh blood spilling from them, and they were superficial for the most part. Izuku decided that they could be attended to afterwards.
The kitten was roughed up. From the nightmare it had just experienced and from living on the streets. Past scars blemished the soft belly of the—oh, it was a boy— animal. His ears were covered in scabs and his body was covered in scars. It had been tough for the kitten, but he had definitely fought hard to live.
Izuku was lucky enough to have a small, thin comb on stand by that he could use to take the fleas off of the little boy. He also had an open zip up baggie nearby, and so, with very little resistance, he began extracting them from the feline, pushing them off the comb into the bag, crushing the bodies, then repeating.
It was a slow, tedious process. Izuku had to take breaks to add some more warm water in so it did not get too cold, and he had to go over spots more than once. The amount of fleas was ridiculous; it took quite a while to get them off.
The kitten was still very calm, his eyes peering up at him inquisitively, but with a begrudging sort of trust. When Izuku got to his face, he mewled once, but did nothing else in protest. Izuku’s comb got caught on something in the kitten’s coat, causing him to pause.
He peered down to the area he was combing, finding a ginormous and uninvited insect: a tick. It was latched very tightly to his kitten’s skin. Izuku liked to pretend that he was not scared of a lot of things that most germaphobes would be, but he found ticks to be atrocious. They could make you terribly sick, and looked odd. Overall, they freaked him out.
What was worse was it was a hardback one. He attempted to not squirm and ran, with the kitten in hand, for some tweezers. When he found some in his bathroom, he ran back, leaning over the sink as he pulled it off with a sickening noise, and pushed it into the bag he had been using for fleas and closed it in.
Luckily for Izuku, there were no more fleas on him, and all he had to do was finish washing the little kitten down before pulling the funny looking feline out of the water. With how drenched he was, he looked more familiar to a drowned rat.
He ran over to his dryer and pulled out the towel, finding it to be the perfect temperature. Laying down onthe floor, Izuku rolled him into a cat burrito, watching for any signs of discomfort before taking the kitten to his room and placing him in a pile of blankets in the bathtub.
“You stay here for a moment, got it?” He mumbled out sternly, his strong voice sounding barely coherent.
He was very tired. Not only had walking in the rain taken a lot out of him, but fighting the fleas had too.
The kitten just stared back at him blankly, eyes full of nothing. Izuku stared back with the same sort of eyes before snapping back, the exhaustion slipping from his body as he ran towards the crate. He had moved it from the mudroom to the living room sometime or another, using the logic that the living room would be warmer. The cats inside the crate had barely gotten wet, and they were almost completely dry when he peered in to check on them.
He walked back into the kitchen and went over to the zip up bag, looking at the tick with a wrinkled nose. Izuku went over to the junk drawer and pulled out a lighter. He went outside and dealt with the vermin before coming back inside.
With that done, he cleaned out the sink and everything else that he felt needed to be cleaned. It was then that he realized he still needed some kitty litter, and he did not feel like going back out.
He looked around the room and looked at the clock, finding that the time was around 0323. With a quick sigh, he pulled out his phone, and he called his first contact.
The phone connected silently, and the person on the other end waited for what he wanted, not at all in the mood for a greeting. Izuku could understand, he was feeling the results of having stayed up late. Not even breathing could be heard from the other end, as Izuku finally conjured up as single request.
“Get some Kitty Litter and a box on your way home, would you?” Izuku heard himself whisper out in a slurred tone, “Unless—no, you have a box already, right? You said that the other day, I think.”
A single sigh slithered from the line. “Yes, I do. It’s in my closet.” A pause, “Midoriya-
san
, what do you need Kitty Litter for?”
“I think it’s obvious,” Izuku replied deliriously, hoping that made sense, “besides, all that matters is that I have them now, and so now I need kitty litter.”
“Fine,” another sigh, and a pause of hesitation,
“How big is it? Need to know for the food.”
Izuku cringed and then slowly replied, “Two adults, one kitten.”
And then he hung up.
He knew that his roommate might have a few things to say about this, but he cared very little at the moment. Izuku wanted to go to bed.
He looked around the house before retrieving the kitty litter box from his roommate’s closet, setting it up in the bathroom. It was much too big for the kitten, so he got out a small tin and placed it in the other bathroom. Izuku also got out a few boxes and cut an opening in them. Once that was done, he grabbed the kitten and waited on the couch.
During this time he rubbed the towel against the kitten, trying to warm him up even more. Eventually this made the feline fall asleep.
This made a certain idea pop into his head. He jumped up and made some tea, deciding that maybe, just maybe, that would help lessen some of his roommate’s anger. It was chamomile tea. Izuku knew by the obvious eyebags and odd sleeping schedule that he had trouble sleeping. He held the kitten the whole time he did this.
Ten minutes later, the lock on the door clicked and his roommate’s black clothing came into view, dripping with water. His eyes glared at Izuku as he dropped the kitty litter and food to the ground. Izuku sat the kitten down carefully, his body still as he slept peacefully.
“I’ll make food tomorrow,” Izuku told him as he went over and picked them both up. “Apologies.”
“A week,” his roommate countered lightly as he took off his jacket and looked at it distastefully. “You’re better at cooking.”
“That’s a bit excessive,” Izuku replied, tossing a glance at him, “don’t you think?”
“No, considering that I had to wait for an old lady to slowly swipe two items at three in the—,” he paused.
“Careful,” Izuku smirked, a laugh bouncing off him as he ran to the bathroom,“your crankiness is showing.”
A scoff was heard before he shut the door, and he tried not to laugh as he heard it. Opening the door slightly, he yelled out, “Tea’s on the counter.”
He filled the box up and then paused. Tomorrow he would have to get another, as for three cats this was not quite enough. Izuku could also get some toys and treats for the cats. That could help them get comfortable. The little one would still have to use the tin for a while, but it would be beneficial to go ahead and get one. He also added some covers into the other bathroom’s bathtub, that way the two cats could have something to warm themselves with. Something other than themselves.
Before he forgot, he went into the other bathroom and placed the rest of the kitty litter in it. It wasn’t very much, but it would do. He placed the tin in the bathtub.
Izuku knew very little about his roommate. Overall, he was a mystery. When Izuku moved in, he was worried he might have roomed with a serial killer or something. Luckily, Izuku was smart and observant, so with time he had narrowed it down to vigilante or underground hero. He didn’t ask.
Izuku had just moved in about three months ago, so the move was still fresh, and if his roommate was a vigilante, he could understand the secrecy. If the police came one day, Izuku would be able to say he didn’t know. It was a good system. He liked it.
He came out of the bathroom, deciding that everything was set up. His roommate was waiting on the living room, peering into the crate with an impassive look. His expression was surprisingly soft. Maybe he had a thing for cats.
When he heard Izuku enter, he turned around and nodded his head. “Thanks.”
Izuku smiled, not acknowledging it in any other way as he replied. “Be careful, they’re feral, Shinsou-
san
.”
“Where’d you get them?” The question was serious, and his eyes held an edge of anger.
Ah, so he noticed the scratches,
Izuku thought offhandedly.
“I’ll explain tomorrow, I’m too tired to right now,” Izuku explained as he lifted the crate and brought it to the bathroom.
He let them both sniff the kitty litter from inside the crate before turning it and releasing them. Neither of them came out, and he knew he wasn’t going to be able to check them for any injuries tonight. Izuku sighed and closed the door, leaving them be as went to the living room and grabbed the kitten.
He went to his bathroom and placed the kitten into the bathtub on the pile of covers. He also unraveled him from the burrito. He didn’t wake up as Izuku shut the door.
Finally, with all of his resolve gone, Izuku went over to his bed and fell into it. Sleep was instantaneous, and he drifted into a dreamless slumber.