Chapter Text
All men were not created equally. It was a truth Izuku Midoriya had learned far too early.
When other children were flying or firing explosions from their hands, he was simply there—though not in any way people remembered. No one remembered people like him: quirkless, useless. Well… not for anything good. When they did remember him, it was only to ridicule him, to remind him of that one unchangeable fact—that he was quirkless.
Though according to the scientists, it wouldn’t be unchangeable for long. Just a minor setback, they said. If anything his greatest strength, they said.
It certainly didn’t feel like it as he bounced with each step, grounded only by the moment his foot struck the treadmill. The sterile air felt cool against his bare body. If only he could enjoy it instead of inhaling whatever gas they pumped through the mask strapped to his face. He spared a glance at the doctors and scientists, then fixed his eyes forward and continued running.
How long had he been here? A month? A year? Time dragged on as the days melted together in this lightless hell.
Izuku wondered how his mother was doing. She must have been worried sick. He hadn’t meant to worry her. No one ever means to get kidnapped and experimented on.
“Maybe she moved,” he mused. That cramped little apartment was too big for her nowadays. It had already felt too big after his father passed away. He hoped she wasn’t staying there, clinging to the hope that he’d return. That hope would only hurt her more.
Suddenly, the bell rang—lunchtime. Funny how routine it had become. How had he even ended up in this position?
Oh right. It was after All Might told him he couldn’t be a hero. After he rushed in to try to save Bakugo’s life. After he started walking home and felt a prickling sensation on the back of his neck. Everything since then had been nothing but a blur.
Izuku sat down in his assigned seat, picking at the carefully crafted food. It might have been perfect nutrition, but the taste left much to be desired. He glanced around the empty room.
At one point, it had been filled with kids of all ages but now he was the only one left. Fate, apparently, had a sense of irony: the weakest had outlived them all. The beginning had been easier, when he’d had others to suffer alongside. They weren’t allowed to talk or even acknowledge one another, but the presence alone had been enough.
Now it was just… lonely.
I never even managed to learn their names, Izuku thought mournfully. Once he got out, he’d make a grave for them. Even without their names or bodies to bury, it was better than letting them be forgotten.
The bell rang again.
“Guess it’s time to sleep,” Izuku muttered. The habit had once gotten him in trouble, but the scientists had stopped caring once there was no one left to talk to.
As he stepped through the automated door, it shut behind him, revealing a stylized red S on a yellow diamond-shaped shield with a red border.
***
Lying down on his bed, Izuku counted the seconds before the knockout gas filled the room. Staring up at the featureless grey ceiling, he wondered if he would ever be saved. The realist in him told him to give up, to wave the white flag. And yet… he refused. Part of him still believed the heroes would rescue him one day.
He pictured All Might bursting through the door, shouting “I am here!” and taking Izuku home to the warmth of his mother’s embrace. It didn’t even have to be All Mighty. He’d take Superman too. He’d take anyone, really. But he refused to abandon the tiny comfort those fantasies gave him.
“It’d be funny if both came to save me. Imagine that,” he whispered just as the countdown reached zero and the gas began to seep in.
Soon enough, the world faded to black.
***
When Izuku’s eyes fluttered open, the world greeted him with the harsh, sterile glare of fluorescent lights. A cold weight tugged at his arms and legs, it was the IV lines pumping foreign liquids into his veins. He inhaled, and the scent of antiseptic bit at his lungs.
“Good morning to you, Dr. Lecter,” he murmured, voice raw.
A figure stepped into view, the soft rustle of fabric announcing him before his face appeared. The man’s black hair framed a mask that concealed everything but his eyes—calm, dark, unreadable.
“And a good day to you as well, Mr. Midoriya,” Dr. Lecter replied, tilting his head. His tone was smooth, polished, almost warm. “I trust you’ve been well.”
Izuku let out a humorless snort. “If I didn’t know any better, I’d think they hired you to be my personal comedian.”
A soft laugh drifted from behind the mask.’’
“No, unfortunately not. Though I do hope our conversations bring you some comfort.”
Izuku managed to tilt his head, a weak smile tugging at his lips. “Well… the bar isn’t exactly high, is it, Dr. Lecter?”
“No, I suppose not.” The doctor’s eyes softened. “If it’s any consolation, today is your last day here, young man.”
A bitter laugh tore from Izuku before he could stop it.
“Now that,” he said, “was a good joke.”
But Dr. Lecter didn’t laugh. Instead, he reached into the pocket of his coat and retrieved a syringe—a slim needle filled with a dark, viscous liquid that seemed to swallow the light rather than reflect it.
“Tell me, Izuku,” the doctor said gently, almost conversationally, “have you ever heard the Latin phrase ad maiora natus sum?”
Izuku frowned. “Can’t say that I have.”
Dr. Lecter lifted the syringe, inspecting it with almost reverent attention. “It means: I was born for greater things.”
“I don’t see how that applies to me,” Izuku muttered.
This time, the doctor smiled behind his mask. It was genuine, sincere…unsettlingly. “You, Izuku Midoriya, were born for greater things. I never told you this, but I was the one who insisted on bringing you in.”
Izuku stared, in a mix of betrayal and confusion. “Why would you do that?”
“I had been monitoring you for some time,” Lecter said lightly, as though he were discussing a school project and not a human life. “But I knew—I knew—you were the one when I saw you run into that burning plaza for your friend. In that instant, you weren’t another quirkless nobody. You were… a hero. And I saw exactly what you could become.”
He stepped closer, lowering the syringe. His voice dropped to a whisper meant for confessions and last rites.
“This lab was meant to create another Superman… or someone who could kill him. Depends on who you ask. But that isn’t my goal.” His eyes glimmered. “I’m here to create a Superman for people like us. For the ones who know what it means to be weak, to be at the bottom, to be…afraid.”
Izuku’s breath hitched. Instinct clawed at him, urging him to move, run, do anything but the straps held firm. He tried anyway, panic creaking through his bones.
Dr. Lecter’s hand settled almost tenderly on his arm. “Let’s begin the final round, shall we?”
The needle pierced his skin.
The liquid burned the moment it entered him. It was cold and searing all at once, like it was rewriting his DNA. Pain detonated through every nerve, every muscle. Izuku arched against the cot, a raw scream ripping from his throat as the fluorescent lights above blurred into streaks of white.
And Dr. Lecter watched calm, collected, and almost proud as Izuku Midoriya’s world dissolved into agony.
The young man collapsed back onto the cot, knocked out from the sheer sense of pain.
“Good luck young man. Your path is not to be Superman, it is to be something more. Something he could never be.”
***
Alarm bells wailed through the darkness, painting the ruined laboratory in frantic flashes of red. Somewhere nearby, explosions rippled through steel and concrete, each one a dull, distant thunderclap.
Izuku stirred.
His eyes fluttered open to the chaos, but his mind barely registered any of it. Pain still clung to his nerves. The world swam before him in a haze of sound and color. Everything was too sharp, too loud, too bright. He didn’t notice the restraints. Not even when they snapped like brittle twigs beneath the slightest twitch of his arms.
He only stumbled forward.
His hand slapped against the wall for balance. Fingers sank into solid concrete as if it were damp clay. His footsteps punched shallow craters into the tile, dust rising around him with every unsteady step.
But Izuku didn't see any of that. All he could think—if it could even be called a thought—was, Maybe today’s a rest day. I should get back to my room.
Muscle memory guided him through the smoke and falling debris. He found his door too easily, opened it without realizing the knob twisted off in his hand, and collapsed face-first onto his bed.
The darkness welcomed him like an old friend.
***
Shouting dragged him back to consciousness.
Then a loud crash.
His door slammed against the wall, ripped from its hinges with violent force.
“Don’t worry, kid! You’re safe now! I am here!”
Izuku peeled his eyes open. Through the blur, familiar blond spikes came into focus. Before he could process the sight, arms scooped him up and he was lifted from the bed, cradled as though he weighed nothing at all.
“Don’t give up, kid! We’ll get you out of here soon!”
The man’s voice trembled between urgency and comfort. “Batman, his pulse is weak! He needs a doctor!”
Izuku’s lips moved on their own. Barely a whisper, barely a thought, “Give up…? I can’t give up now. I’m still… not a hero.”
“Keep talking, kid! Don’t close your eyes,” another voice commanded. It belonged to someone towering, someone in a brilliant blue suit with an S shining on his chest. Izuku tried to make sense of it, tried to connect the symbol to a name, but it slipped through his fingers like water.
He felt himself being passed from one pair of arms to another.
“I’ll get him to the hospital,” the man in blue said. “Stay with the others in case there are hostiles.”
And then everything stood still, except for them.
The world blurred into streaks of grey and white as he shot upward with impossible speed. Wind roared in his ears, tearing through his messy green curls. They burst through reinforced concrete as if it were paper, each layer giving way to the next until light flooded his eyes. The sun exploded across his vision, warm, golden, blinding.
Izuku reached toward it with trembling fingers, as though it were something he could hold, something that could pull him back from the brink. The warmth washed over him, seeping into his bones.
He needed to get closer. He had to. And suddenly Izuku Midoriya was no longer being held. He was weightless. Suspended between sky and sun.