Chapter Text
As much as I love my job, it is nice to get out, thought the small… thing, as he wandered the streets. Perhaps a bear, perhaps a large mouse, or maybe even a dog— he would surely never clarify which— he had pristine white fur, a crisp vest and slacks, and a deep pink scar over one eye. Deciding to stay in a little known condo in the city that he leased for when he wanted to get away from his job but not wander too far lest he be needed, the being had decided to spend the weekend alone to process everything that had happened in recent days. To relax.
And to plan.
Puffing happily from a cigar, a small bag of fresh snacks and a container of a new brand of tea bounced in the air as he walked, waiting for him to indulge. He was only a block or two from his temporary residence, just passing a small public playground when it happened.
In hindsight, it was a blessing that it happened right after sunset, when traffic was light and kids were going inside upon the lack of light rather than sticking around outside. The neighborhood was lazy, too, calm and languid with very few people about.
Very few, it seemed, save for the ambiguous-species animal with his snacks, and a small child in the park with their mother. The animal had overheard the child excitedly mentioning how pictures had suddenly appeared on their hand, and they could swipe between them like their skin was a phone screen. The mother’s response had clearly been the amazement and pride indicative of seeing someone develop their quirk for the very first time. From the excited rambling that the white-furred man had listened vaguely to as he walked, he had put together that they could switch between images of a skull, a swarm of bats, and a rocket.
That last one was the most important though, as landing on that image made the child go concerningly quiet, before their next words made the mouse-bear-dog drop his groceries.
“It hurts! It hurts mom, I need— I can’t— I need to stop it!”
The rocket, even though he could not make out its exact shape from this distance, started to glow bright green on the back of the child’s left hand. He wasted no time, knowing the chances of a seemingly benign quirk like pictures on the skin easily becoming something unpredictable and destructive once it started making the kid it belonged to experience other symptoms. Pain was never a good sign. Painful quirks usually caused pain when they were first used not just to the user, but also to everyone around them.
A transparent box quickly unfolded around the mother and child, the elder of whom was desperately trying to calm the kid down to quell whatever reaction was happening. The man reached the two just as the box solidified, colors filling in all at once in a blinding display.
They were not in the park anymore.
The light had both dimmed and brightened, intense fluorescent lightbulbs replacing the street lamps and moonlight. Sterile white tiles stretched around them, roughly fifteen feet in every direction until the square ended abruptly. The walls were hospital-blank, pure white and pristine. The man figured the room was probably bigger in reality, only two walls visible where the other two faded into inky blackness— the child’s quirk had a spatial limit, then. Good. Hopefully they could escape out from those shadows.
But before he could do more than form rudimentary observations, muffled screaming dragged everyone’s attention to the center of the room. What was there made the blood in the man’s veins go suddenly, violently cold.
A teenager. Impossible to tell age more specifically at this vantage point, he had white hair, glowing green eyes, and a black and white jumpsuit cut away at the torso. Limbs strapped down. A large man, roughly the same size as Endeavor and dressed in a full-body orange hazmat suit and mask, stood over the boy.
The little creature growled when he noticed that the large man was roughly holding down a muzzle on the boy’s face.
A muzzle.
Another adult, a woman in a teal hazmat suit, held a bloody scalpel in one hand as she groped for a better weapon with the other.
“Who are you? More ghost scum?” The woman asked, in clear unaccented English. “How did you get here?! Jack, can you see the blasters?”
“No honey, it’s like they disappeared,” the man holding the muzzle replied, sounding gleeful of all things. “But look! This means more test subjects!”
Oh, hell no. Not again. Never again.
Luckily, the shorter man understood English just fine. He understood the desperate look shot at him by toxic green eyes even more, the boy frantically trying to move his head enough to get a good look at the newcomer to this grisly scene. Scared wouldn’t even begin to describe the poor teenager’s emotional state.
Thinking quickly was the animal’s specialty, though. He didn’t bother with words. These people were lower than dirt in his opinion, trying to talk to them would only waste time and air. Tossing his still-lit cigar with pinpoint accuracy, the lit end landed on the woman’s exposed chin, causing her to shriek out at the sudden burn and drop the scalpel she was holding. As expected, this caused the older man to loosen his grip on the muzzle he was holding down, clearly more concerned about his significant other.
“Maddie!”
The metal table had wheels. A quick kick with one leg, and the animal had them unlocked. In the same move, he shoved his shoulder into the back of the large man’s knee, destabilizing him enough for even the small man to direct his mass into falling on the ground. The woman had recovered, but ran to the large man’s side rather than immediately going after the stranger.
Taking advantage of a hunch and very short window of opportunity, the animal gripped one leg of the exam table and hurled it with all his strength towards one wall that melted into shadow. If he focused, he could hear the sound of wind and traffic in that direction.
It led outside of the quirk’s radius, it had to. Please, for the boy’s sake, let him be right.
The teen let out a small warbling sound that was half startled yell, half sob of relief as he and the table he was on disappeared from view straight through where the wall would have been.
Whipping around, the small man braced himself for a fight. Both scientists were up now, but only had a single scalpel between them to use as a weapon. In the corner, the frightened mom still clutched a quickly tiring child.
“I… can’t… sleepy,” the child muttered, filling the small man with a tidal wave of relief and fear in equal measure. Hoping he had analyzed how this quirk worked correctly, he could only metaphorically cross his fingers as the kid passed out and the laboratory snapped away from reality like a holograph shutting off.
The threats were gone. No more tile, no more scientists, no more—
The boy!
Spinning around to look behind him, the bear-mouse-dog-man felt the air get punched out of his lungs in relief. The boy was there, he was safe.
He was unconscious, and now the small man could see an unfinished Y-shaped incision that nearly made him lose his lunch right then, experience be damned. Only the first two angles were done, curving over the boy’s chest. They hadn’t gotten to the point of breaking his ribs, thank fate.
The man pulled out his phone, keeping one ear on the frantic mother behind him.
“Hello, Musutafu police? Yes, this is Principal Nezu. I need the police and an ambulance to my location ASAP. I intercepted during a child’s quirk awakening, it appears to be a form of localized teleportation or location merging quirk. It brought us temporarily into a lab setting, two unknown villains were in the beginning of a vivisection of a human, a teenage boy. He needs immediate assistance. No, the villains were removed when the quirk deactivated.”
He gave them the cross streets he was at, and hung up. Help was on the way, but in the meantime—
“Ma’am, what is your quirk?” He asked the mother gently, but urgently. She blinked, startled.
“O-oh, I, uh, my quirk is a form of empathy. I can feel the emotions and physical state of anyone I have a close enough connection to.”
“Does this include any healing ability?” Nezu asked, already having removed his vest as he spoke. The mother shook her head. “No worries. Could you lend me your jacket? I need to bind his wounds, but I am afraid I shed too much to be able to use my own. You should be proud, this quirk activation may have just saved a life.”
—*—*—*—*—*
“I do not see how I am necessary,” a slightly scratchy voice drawled lazily. The man the voice belonged to looked like death itself, covered nearly head to toe in bandages and his visible eye having extremely deep dark circles clinging to them.
“Sure you do,” Nezu disagreed cheerfully, hands clasped behind his back. “This poor boy will not be comfortable in a medical setting, or with strangers in general. I will likely have a less severe effect on his nerves, as I am not physically intimidating nor human. However, his brain will take time to realize he is no longer in danger, so we need someone capable of handling any quirk outbursts he makes in self defense. Add in your current appearance, which would make you look more like a fellow victim,” the bandaged male rolled his eyes, “and you make the perfect backup, Aizawa!”
“If you say so,” Aizawa grumbled half heartedly. Nezu was no fool, though, Aizawa’s eyes had barely left the mystery teenager since he joined Nezu in this hospital room.
Hook, line, and sinker, Nezu thought to himself smugly.
“What did you mean, not human?” The boy’s voice startled both heroes with him, though the only way to tell was in how their eyes widened. His breathing had been nearly nonexistent the whole time, it must have been child’s play for him to pretend to be asleep so he could eavesdrop on these strangers.
“You speak Japanese?” Nezu asked instead, intrigued. “I was under the impression that we were teleported to America when we ran into you.”
The boy, whose green eyes were still vibrantly toxic despite the lack of glowing now that he wasn’t panicking, wrinkled his eyebrows in confusion. A moment passed, and then it smoothed out.
“Oh,” he said slowly. “I, uh, don’t. Or I didn’t? I thought I was speaking English until you pointed it out, so I don’t really know. And, uh, I was. I,” he swallowed thickly. “I was in Illinois. Am I… in Japan now? If we’re speaking Japanese?”
Nezu and Aizawa traded a glance. It was highly unlikely that this kid had a quirk as subtle as language learning or translation if his eyes could glow, and it was less likely of a quirk to encourage vivisection. Not that anybody willing to do such a gruesome thing ever had a truly valid reason, of course.
“Yes, you are in Musutafu, Japan,” Nezu decided to answer, brain rapidly cataloguing all of his questions and observations into a neat little list. “And as for my comment, allow me to introduce myself properly. I am Nezu, the principal of UA high school. This is Shouta Aizawa, one of our Hero Course teachers at UA. I am a rare case of an animal developing a Quirk, which means that despite my intelligence and capability for speech, I am not human in any biological respect.”
Both heroes noted how the boy’s shoulders immediately relaxed.
“He won’t tell you what he is though,” Aizawa chimed in bluntly, hands fully visible but hanging loose at his sides. “The top guesses right now are a medium sized dog, a very small bear, or the world’s largest rat.”
The kid’s eyes were comically large in his face as he absorbed this, staring at each of them for a long time before his eyes unfocused. The heroes let him process, unhurried. With a deep breath, the kid seemed to gather himself.
“…my name is Danny,” his voice was barely more than a whisper, hands tightly clutching the thin hospital blanket that covered his legs. He slowly sat up, wincing as his wounds pulled. “One quick question, if that’s okay?”
Nezu nodded instantly, though he almost regretted it when he heard:
“What is a quirk?”
—*—*—*—*—*
See, Danny could be foolish and impulsive sometimes, but he wasn’t an idiot. This Nezu guy didn’t set off his ghost sense, but he clearly wasn’t a person in a suit. He seriously looked like a bipedal, plain white bull terrier if Danny was being honest. Complete with that face shape that made it nearly impossible for him to read the guy’s facial expression, and beady eyes that concealed pretty much all emotion. It would have been offsetting, being so completely unable to read a person, if the otherness wasn’t so comforting. If Nezu truly wasn’t human at all, then maybe he’d side with Danny.
Maybe they’d hear him out.
But more than that, Danny trusted that they at least had his best interests in mind for now. Not out of some blind faith, but rather because he had never actually slept or passed out. He wouldn’t risk showing them his human side, not this soon and not with this little knowledge about them.
He had just gotten out of the frying pan, he would rather not fall right into the fire, thank you.
So, no. He had used the fact that his ghost form didn’t need to breathe to his advantage, faking unconsciousness so that he could observe them. When the ambulance couldn’t register a heartbeat, he faked one by pulsing his core— and they immediately picked up that he had an alternate organ that kept him alive rather than a heart. That kind of deduction, from picking up on a pulsating energy signal rather than the thumping of blood, was just not normal.
Like, Toto we’re not in Kansas anymore levels of not-normal.
And if an animal could walk, talk, speak, wear a suit, and be a high school principal? Well. Danny was willing to bet he probably wouldn’t be the weirdest thing they’d ever seen, for once.
That conclusion just became more and more solid as the two strangers— Nezu and Aizawa— explained about quirks. About nearly everyone nowadays having some sort of power or ability that they are either born with or develop in very early childhood.
But one thing Danny wasn’t good at? Masking his facial expressions or emotions.
“None of this is familiar to you,” the mummy— Aizawa— was he actually a mummy? No, Nezu said he was injured back when they thought Danny was asleep— Aizawa’s statement was deadpan, certain in his observation. Danny slowly nodded, seeing no point in lying.
“I’ve… never heard of quirks before,” he admitted slowly. “Powers aren’t common where I’m from, I think only two other people…” he paused as he thought how to phrase what he was going to say, then shrugged and continued. “Only two other people besides myself have powers, and it’s definitely not something I’ve seen anywhere else I’ve traveled. I mean, I haven’t left America before now, but…”
“But that still doesn’t explain the difference, since Illinois has a perfectly normal quirk ratio, and the rest of America is extremely hero-focused, much like Japan,” Aizawa agreed with a nod. “You wouldn’t have been able to escape something as basic as knowing about quirks for this long, regardless of how smal of a town you lived in, if you traveled even a little bit.”
“I believe,” Nezu spoke up, rocking up onto the balls of his feet and back again in barely-suppressed curiosity. “That we may need to reevaluate that young child’s quirk. The one that allowed us to save you,” he elaborated for Danny’s sake. “It is extremely uncommon for anybody to develop teleportation quirks in general. They are difficult to control, typically take a lot of energy and skill to master, and are far too tempting for villains to try and take advantage of. However, there have been a few even rarer instances of people developing quirks that allow them to connect outside of our reality,” Nezu clasped his hands behind his back as a lecture naturally surged up in his chest. “Most of the time, those rare instances merely allow people to create, store, or briefly travel through a pocket dimension. If they travel through it, the pocket dimension almost invariably acts as nothing more than a hallway, a path between point A and B in our reality. Though I know of no previous cases right off the top of my head, I find it to not be a stretch to imagine a child developing that sort of ability further. Perhaps to even temporarily merge our reality with a parallel universe. The multiverse theory itself is extremely interesting, of course, dealing with—“
“You think Danny is from another universe?” Aizawa interrupted what would otherwise be an hours-long rant for sure. “That sounds like a bureaucratic nightmare.”
Danny snorted. Honestly, paperwork and bureaucracy seemed like the least of their problems. Of his problems, certainly. He could feel the stitches in his chest already dissolving.
“It is only an issue if the government finds out,” Nezu’s voice held a very particular tone of cheeky mischief that Danny couldn’t help but be endeared by. It felt oddly… familiar. Relatable. “All anybody knows as of now is that a child’s new quirk temporarily brought us to a lab where I rescued Danny. We have no jurisdiction in America, so we can claim that keeping Danny here avoids the cost and diplomacy required for a full investigation— assuming you agree, of course,” that last part was aimed at Danny himself, who just gave a lopsided grin.
“Pretty much anywhere is better than back home,” he admitted with wry humor. “And being stuck with you doesn’t seem too bad.”
“You seem remarkably calm for somebody in an alien world,” Aizawa remarked dryly, eyes narrowing. “And the suit we found you in…”
The boy blinked, and then promptly blushed green. Recalling the brief mention of licenses to use quirks and professional heroes that was made during the breakdown of what a quirk even was, Danny squirmed a bit. His shoulders, thanks to the wounds on his chest and how tightly he had been restrained, hurt too much for him to rub the back of his neck like he usually would when he was nervous or embarrassed. He settled for scratching the back of one hand.
“Ah. Well. I’m not unfamiliar with different universes?” His voice tilted up at the end, and he wracked his brain for how to say what he needed to say. He didn’t trust them with everything, he just met them! But they deserved an explanation, at least, for saving his hide. And it did look weird, how quickly he just accepted an alternate reality.
It was Nezu that helped him decide. Looking in the small chimera’s eyes— steady, inhuman but empathetic, and yet still so hard to read… it steadied something inexplicable in Danny’s chest. Like his core recognized the safety of a kindred soul.
Danny felt his shoulders slump in resignation as he made his (slightly rash) decision.
“My world doesn’t have quirks, if you couldn’t tell,” he couldn’t help the slight sarcasm leaking in at the end, a bitter smirk tugging at his lips. “But we have ghosts. They generally exist in a dimension parallel to ours— or mine? I don’t know if still connects here, or if the connection is strong, but— sorry, probably not relevant right now,” he shook his head a little to get his thoughts in order. “Point is, ghosts are powerful. My… my parents are ectobiologists, they study and hunt ghosts. They opened a portal in our basement to the Ghost Zone, or the Infinite Realms, where ghosts— uh, not live, obviously, but exist.”
“And you just happen to have the abilities to keep quirkless humans safe against these, in your words, powerful beings?” Nezu gently prodded when Danny trailed off. The kid took a shaky breath.
“I guess I’d be considered a vigilante, back home,” he admitted in a whisper, as if it was some shameful secret. He refused to meet either of the adult’s gazes. “I… something happened, I don’t— I’m not—“
“That’s okay,” Nezu assured him. “Skip the how, for now.”
Danny nodded gratefully. “I’m not normal,” he was still whispering, staring down at the bed and nothing else. “Not for my— where I come from. And probably not by your standards either. I’m not ready to say anything more specific but… I’m just not normal anymore.”
“I’m sure being kidnapped didn’t help,” Aizawa muttered, finally feeling like Danny was comfortable enough to risk moving a bit closer, and sitting down by his side. Nezu, naturally, took advantage of his small size to climb up and use Aizawa’s scarf like a hammock.
The ridiculous scene made Danny snicker weakly, which was probably the whole goal, before his brain caught up to the mummy-man’s words and his eyebrows furrowed in confusion. Aizawa decided to elaborate.
“The villains, the scientists, who tortured you,” his words were blunt, but his tone was soft. Empathetic, but unyielding. “They might be in a different dimension, but do you know who they were?”
Danny’s lips thinned, pressed tight together as he fought back tears at the reminder. Eventually, he nodded.
“…they’re my parents.”