"Yeah, I got the kid… No, the doctor is dead… yes, there is plenty of evidence of his crimes, videos, documents, and it details everything that he did to the kid."
Aizawa spoke into the phone as Izuku sat on the curb, wearing some ragged pants Aizawa had found in the lab. Apparently, Izuku had been kept in a warehouse not ten miles from where he was kidnapped. It itched at Izuku as he thought about it. He was so close to home. Why hadn't anybody found him for years? He shook his head, dispelling those thoughts; he was free.
The words felt like fire in his veins, staving off the chill of the night air as sirens grew closer. Then he laughed. It was quiet and full of relief, but he did laugh, after years of silence and pain, he could actually live how he wanted! The laugh grew loud, echoing off the dark, empty buildings around them as Aizawa turned to him.
"You ok, kid?"
Izuku turned to him, the unfamiliar feeling of smiling making his face hurt in a way he enjoyed.
"Yeah… I think for the first time in a long time I am ok."
"Good to hear, unfortunately, you're going to need to give a statement, then we'll figure out what to do with you."
Izuku snorted, and he looked just as surprised as Aizawa.
"Did…did I make that noise?"
Izuku asked, tilting his head like a confused dinosaur.
"Yeah, ya did kid, what are you snorting at?"
"Sorry… its just…"
Izuku kept laughing as he pointed behind the hero, and they both looked at what he was pointing at.
It was a cat.
A cat in no uncertain terms, looked exactly like Aizawa. It was slipping on an old box, its entire body a deep black color while the neck had stripes of white resembling Aizawa's scarf.
*Snort*
Izuku looked at Aizawa in surprise, and the hero looked mortified.
"Did you…?"
"No"
"But-"
"No"
"I just-"
"No"
"Ok"
"Good"
Eventually, the cops made it, and the ambulance gave him a perfect bill of health, but the hundreds of scars littering his body gave them somber looks. Izuku was just happy to ask about everything and everyone.
"What's that?"
"It's prescription drugs to numb pain."
"What about that?"
"It's a defibrillator to help resuscitate people."
"Ok, who is she?"
"That's first responder Shisu. She's new but does good work."
"What's her quirk? Also, what's wrong with her chest? It keeps bouncing like a ball."
Izuku asked in confusion as the admittedly very endowed responder blushed, while the responder tending to Izuku chuckled.
"She thinks if she doesn't wear a bra she will get more attention from guys. Also, her quirk is healing light."
"Huh, what's a bra?"
That was the gist of the conversation the entire way to the police station, as Izuku caught on quickly to everything but was actually quite dense for most things. The responders found it funny, and they would continue to rib Shisu long after they got back to the hospital.
"Hello, Midoriya, I am Officer Tsukachi. My quirk is a lie detector. Could you please answer the following questions truthfully?"
Izuku nodded while poking at the audio recorder on the table.
"Sure, how's this thing even work?"
Tsukachi passed, then opened his mouth again, then closed it.
"I-I don't know. I just know that it records our sound waves and then repeats them."
Shaking his head, the detective got back on track and leaned forward while Aizawa brooded in the corner.
"Is your name Izuku Midoriya?"
"Yes"
*Truth*
"Is the man who kidnapped you and kept you in that warehouse Dr Sane?"
Izuku paused, seeming lost in memories, but then he seemed to remember something and smiled. Probably remembering how he tore that man's head from his body.
"Yes, he is."
*Truth*
The detective nodded and flipped through some papers he had.
The questions went on for a while, with the detective's quirk never going off as a lie once unless Izuku had no way of knowing that what he was saying was wrong.
"Now, do you have any family you can live with?"
Tsukachi asked, and Izuku looked down.
"My father left when I was a kid, don't know why, don't know where. I have no family anywhere else."
Izuku said softly, and the detective and Aizawa shared a look.
"Does my mother have a grave?"
The sudden question was expected as well as unexpected.
"You know that your mother is dead?"
Tsukachi asked, and Izuku looked at his hands, watching them tremble lightly.
"Yes. I know my mother was murdered, I watched it happen."
The adults in the room shared another look, probably wondering how much trauma the kid went through, and now this on top of it. Izuku was like a surprise cake full of trauma. And they had only seen the frosting. The detective hadn't gone into the details of the experiments and trials that had been done to Izuku. They were horrific, safe to say. The tests had been noted down with disturbing detail, even the pimples on the boy's face when he was a teen had been noted down, including the amount of pus in each one.
Aizawa sighed a long and almost comical sigh as both Izuku and Tsukachi watched him in confusion.
"I know a rat."
The next day.
Izuku had crashed at Aizawa's house for the night as he was the safest person to be around at the time but bright and early in the morning, they both woke up, and Aizawa dragged him towards a big ass school.
"Welcome to UA, kid, best hero school in the nation."
Izuku spun around, wearing clothes slightly too small for him as he was more muscular than Aizawa. His adaptations and rebirths had a strange synergy. Whenever he was injured, his body would use the restored nutrients and stamina to heal his body to be stronger than his rebirth would realize he was missing stamina and would restore it. So that led to some questions about whether he would die of old age or not.
'Why's it look like an H?"
"Don't know."
"Seems impractical. Also seems like a safety issue."
"Why?"
"Glass windows, Sniper."
"…"
"What? I can always remember the Mission Impossible movies."
Izuku followed Aizawa through the empty halls as their feet echoed down.
"Why is there nobody here? It's a school?"
Izuku asked as he peered into a classroom full of portraits and paint supplies.
"It's summer, classes don't start up for two months."
"Why are we taking the stairs? I could fly."
"You haven't moved in thirteen years. And now you think you can fly?"
"You watched me turn into a raptor. Think I can't?"
Aizawa turned to him and gave him a blank stare at the now comfortable kid who could finally speak his mind and do what he wanted.
"I liked you better when you were quiet."
Izuku grinned at him as they continued up the stairs to the top of school and made their way down a long ass hallway.
"Why's it so long?"
"The rat likes his theatrics."
"Why do you call him a rat?"
"He's a rat."
"Mentally?"
"No."
"Emotionally?"
Aizawa ignored him and went to knock on the large mahogany doors, but before he could, they swung open.
"What the? How did they do that?!"
Izuku was already up and in the doors, inspecting every inch, trying to figure out how they did what they did. Even I don't know how they did what they did. They did what they did because they could do what they did.
"Hello! Am I a dog? A bear? A rat? Or a mouse? Who knows what's important is I am the principal. Welcome, Aizawa and guest. What can I do for you?"
Izuku turned to the room and zeroed in on the mouse.
"…That's not a rat."
Izuku said after a moment, then started circling the principal.
"Aizawa, you said he was a rat. How long do rats live?"
"Three years at most."
"And how long has the rat lived?"
"Much longer than that, I would say!"
Nezu spoke up with a pep in his voice as he analyzed Izuku.
"You seriously don't know what he is?"
Izuku asked Aizawa who was watching Nezu now with a hint of fear.
"No, I don't. You know what he is?"
"Yep."
Aizawa then waited for a moment before turning and glaring at Izuku.
"Well?"
"Well, what?"
Izuku asked, looking super innocent.
"You gonna tell me what he is?"
"Nope."
"Why not?"
"Why should I?"
Aizawa stared at Izuku for a long moment while Nezu watched the drama, then Aizawa sighed a long, suffering sigh, then turned and left the office.
There was silence in the office for a minute, then Izuku turned to Nezu.
"I am right about you being a Josephoartigasia, right?"
Nezu's eye glittered as he sipped his tea and gave him a single nod.
"Since you were able to discover my species, not that the rest of the world has ever been able to, I'll tell you how I have lived so long."
Izuku sat down, taking as much space as possible of the chair now that he wasn't forced to sit in one a certain way.
"When I was born, I was a normal rat in a world of monsters and giants. The only difference was when I began to watch my family die around me. I felt perfectly in my prime as I watched my own children and grandchildren and their grandchildren be eaten and rot away."
Izuku was now wrapped up in the story as he expressed genuine interest in it.
"I even watched as the giants and monsters I had once been so afraid of fell. I took trophies from their corpses as I watched each moon rise and fall. As you can guess, I was the first living thing with a quirk. I was not immortal; I could be injured. But I would not die, no matter the hunger, no matter the pain. I would survive. Got stuck in some amber trying to kill myself. Spent several thousand years in it as well."
Izuku had taken the tea offered to him silently, then swallowed the contents whole in a quick swig.
"Then, of course, the extinction happened. I watched as the horrible and beautiful rock tore across the sky. I watched as the kings of the land and sky fled in fear of something they could not control. But I watched. I watched in ecstasy as I hoped that finally this would be the thing that killed me-"
Aizawa entered the room again, and Nezu stopped. Izuku paused in confusion, then mock glared at Aizawa.
"You came in at the best part."