SCARRED | the series
જ⁀➴ cw: vigilante deku, fem!reader, quirkless!reader, murder, fighting, warped sense of heroism, stalking, angst, kidnapping, slight gore.
pt. 1 |
Six years ago.
“You’re quirkless, All Might. You don’t need to follow me anymore,” Izuku mumbled, voice hoarse and frayed at the edges. “You can’t keep up like this. It’s dangerous.”
“You need to eat, Young Midoriya! You haven’t slept in days!” All Might pleaded, his once-powerful frame now frail, trembling as he held out the bento box like an offering. It hurt—watching his successor drown under the weight of the world All Might himself was supposed to carry. The fight he had failed to finish.
Izuku’s eyes glowed too bright in the dim alley, fractured emeralds under sunken sockets. For a second, something like guilt flickered across his scarred face. Then it was gone.
He charged One For All—just enough for a single, devastating leap. The wind howled as he vanished into the night, leaving All Might stumbling desperately behind him. The bento box slipped from weakened fingers and clattered to the ground, rice scattering across wet pavement.
Izuku never meant to hurt him.
But staying in one place too long meant danger.
For everyone.
He was already gone, senses screaming, Danger Sense burning like static in his skull. Burnt out. Starving. Running on nothing but fractured willpower and the ghost of a smile that once believed in heroism.
It wasn’t long before he used Smokescreen to drop from the shadows like a nightmare. One punch sent the low-tier villain crashing into a wall. Dust and plaster rained down.
“Tell me where the League is,” Izuku growled, voice muffled behind his torn scarf and cracked mask. He hauled the man up by the collar until they were inches apart. “Where is All For One?”
“DEKU!”
Izuku’s head snapped toward the voice. A storm of red feathers cut through the smoke—Hawks, frantic, wings beating hard.
“It’s All Might—get there now! Dabi’s got him!”
“…What?”
Present Day
Deku crouched on the rooftop like a gargoyle come to life, green eyes glowing faintly in the dark. His hero suit—once bright and hopeful—was caked in old blood, grime, and worse. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d eaten more than a handful of stolen protein bars. Sleep was a luxury he’d abandoned years ago.
The city hummed beneath him, indifferent. He preferred it that way.
His gaze locked onto the lit warehouse across the street. Soft, broken sobs drifted through the cracked windows.
He had been tracking the League for weeks. They needed a quirkless civilian—a temporary vessel to hold the decaying quirks while the Doctor rebuilt Shigaraki’s failing body into something that could contain them all.
Just like the Nomu.
Deku’s scarred fingers flexed. Blackwhip coiled restlessly around his arm, sensing the violence to come.
Another civilian. Another life they want to break.
The thought was mechanical. Cold. Just another wrong that needed fixing.
In a blur of green lightning, he was gone. Float carried him silently onto the warehouse roof. His breathing was ragged, chest heaving under the strain of constant 100%. Veins glowed beneath scarred skin like cracks in porcelain.
He dropped through the skylight like judgment.
The villains below scattered like roaches the second his boots hit the concrete, most of them prioritizing Shigaraki’s decaying body over their hostage.
“Shigaraki,” Deku growled, glowing green eyes locked on the crumbling villain before they flickered—briefly—to the terrified civilian girl chained in the corner.
Quirkless. Just like he used to be.
Something sharp twisted in his chest. Not quite rage. Not yet. But close.
“Izuku Midoriya,” Shigaraki drawled, voice like gravel and rot. “What a surprise—”
Deku was already moving. One brutal punch sent a goon flying into a stack of crates. In the next heartbeat he was chest-to-chest with Shigaraki, scarred face inches from the villain’s decaying one.
“Didn’t mind dropping in,” Deku snarled, voice muffled and raspy behind his bloodstained mask. Danger Sense screamed as another lackey tried to blast him from behind—Blackwhip shot out like a living spear, stabbing through the man’s shoulder and flinging him into the wall with a sickening crunch.
“That wasn’t very heroic,” Shigaraki taunted, sick grin splitting his face even as his body trembled under the strain of his own power. “I wonder how All Might would feel if he saw you now?”
Izuku’s whole body shook with barely contained fury. Heroes don’t kill. The mantra repeated in his head like a broken record, the last fraying thread of the boy he used to be.
But God, he wanted to.
More than anything.
“Oh, that’s right…” Shigaraki laughed, strained and wet. “Dabi killed him, didn’t he?”
The words snapped something.
Izuku’s fist connected with brutal force, launching Shigaraki across the warehouse. The villain dodged and weaved, slipping between strikes while Izuku’s Blackwhip tendrils lashed out independently, brutalizing the remaining grunts. Bones cracked. Flesh tore. The warehouse filled with the sounds of violence.
Shigaraki slowed, coughing up black blood, body failing him. Izuku’s punches landed harder, faster—each impact echoing like thunder.
He was so close. So close to ending it.
A warp gate tore open behind Shigaraki. Kurogiri’s misty form flickered into view.
In the next instant, the League’s leader was gone.
Again.
Like always.
Izuku stood there, chest heaving, green lightning crackling violently over his skin. His head snapped toward you.
You were huddled against the wall, chains digging into your wrists, staring up at the figure looming over you. He looked nothing like a hero. Hunched, scarred, eyes glowing an unnatural, piercing green in the dim light. Blackwhip writhed behind him like restless shadows. This was the vigilante they whispered about on the streets—the one the pros both needed and feared.
He dragged his battered body closer. With a single finger—One For All humming dangerously—he snapped the chains like they were nothing. Then he scooped you up, one arm locking around your waist with iron strength.
For a moment he seemed dazed, mumbling under his breath—nonsensical fragments about “safe” and “can’t lose anyone else.” Then he leaned in close, nose brushing the side of your neck as he inhaled deeply, checking for the metallic scent of hidden blood or internal injuries.
“No blood,” he rasped to himself, voice hoarse and low. You trembled violently in his grip, fear rattling through every nerve.
Blackwhip gently—almost clinically—probed your vital areas, tendrils careful not to bruise as they assessed for breaks or hidden wounds. He didn’t fully trust his own hands right now.
One second you were frozen in terror. The next, the world blurred as he launched skyward with Float, leaping across rooftops in powerful bounds. You gasped and instinctively wrapped your arms around his neck, clinging for dear life. His grip on you never wavered—secure, almost possessive already.
Wind whipped through his messy green curls, stained with blood that definitely wasn’t all his. His glowing eyes stayed focused ahead, deranged yet sharply alert. The scarred, gaunt face beneath the torn mask looked exhausted… and strangely determined.
Before you could process it, he landed heavily in the alley behind the police station. He carried you straight to the back entrance, setting you down carefully on your feet in front of a stunned officer who had stepped outside for a smoke.
The vigilante spoke quickly, voice clipped and raspy as he explained the League’s plan, your kidnapping, and Shigaraki’s condition. Thorough. Efficient. Then, without another word, he was gone in a flash of green lightning.
You stood there, legs shaking, still feeling the ghost of his grip and the warmth of his breath on your neck. The officer’s eyes widened as he recognized who had just dropped you off.
“Deku was spotted at the east precinct!” he barked into his radio, already alerting the heroes.
── ⋆
After long days of interviews, police reports, and endless questions from heroes who looked at you with a mix of pity and suspicion, you were finally allowed to go home.
Home. The word felt hollow now. Your small apartment, once a quiet refuge after long shifts, now carried an invisible weight. You needed the money—rent wouldn’t pay itself—and the League’s plan had already cost you too many days of wages. So, despite the fear clawing at your throat, you went back to work.
But terror followed you like a second shadow.
The League might come for you again. That was a real, logical dread. Yet what scared you most wasn’t the thought of Shigaraki’s decaying hands or the Doctor’s needles.
It was him.
Deku.
You knew he was watching.
The memories of that night didn’t soften the image. If anything, they made it worse. The way he’d moved—like a force of nature barely contained in scarred skin. The glowing green eyes that burned too brightly in the dark. The iron grip that had carried you across rooftops while Blackwhip tendrils had clinically checked your body for injuries. The way he’d leaned in, breath ghosting your neck as he sniffed for blood like some kind of feral medic.
Everywhere you went now, you caught remnants of those same green sparks.
Especially on the long walk home from your late-night shifts. A flicker of emerald lightning at the edge of your vision, gone the second you turned your head. A shadow detaching from an alley wall, too tall and gaunt to be anyone else. Sometimes you swore you heard the faint crackle of One For All in the distance, like static electricity before a storm.
At home it was worse.
You’d catch movement in the corner of your eye—figures in the window reflection when you knew the fire escape was empty. Or you’d wake up in the dead of night, heart hammering, skin prickling with the unmistakable feeling of being watched. No sounds. No evidence. Just the heavy certainty that glowing green eyes had been studying you from the darkness moments before you opened yours.
You were scared. There was no way this was still a hero. Not with the way he’d nearly beaten Shigaraki to death in front of you. Not with how the police and pros immediately scrambled the second he dropped you off, treating him like a threat instead of a savior. The rumors you’d overheard in the station painted him as unstable. Violent. A vigilante who had gone too far years ago.
And yet…
There was a nagging feeling you couldn’t shake.
At the end of the day, he had saved your life. Even if it wasn’t the way heroes were supposed to. Even if his methods made your stomach twist. He had torn through the League for you—a quirkless nobody they’d planned to use as a disposable vessel. He could have left you there. He didn’t.
Some nights, when the fear kept you awake and staring at the ceiling, you found yourself whispering into the empty room:
“…Thank you.”
You never got a reply. But sometimes, just sometimes, the shadows outside your window felt a little less cold.
© sorenellebrair
