Chapter Text
“Tomura,” Kurogiri said as he stepped through the portal into the bar.
“What? What do you want?” Tomura rasped as he paused his game to look up at the bartender.
“I would like to inquire about the location of the Nomu that the doctor lent to you to play games with. He needs to run some experiments on it.”
Tomura grumbled in frustration. “The bastard beat me at Smash Bros, so I told it to go kill itself.”
“…What?”
———————————————
Izuku knew he should have stayed home from school today. He woke up with a sore throat, which made his voice sound all raspy. But because the universe hated him, he had a test scheduled that very same day, and knew the teachers wouldn’t let him make it up if he missed it.
He thought he did alright on the test, but any joy from that was quickly stomped out when Katsuki and his cronies decided to give him a free ticket to the nurse’s office. How nice of them.
Izuku shook his head at the bad memories. That was all behind him. The school day was over now. Best he could do was hope tomorrow would be better, though he secretly doubted it.
As he walked down the street, wondering what his mom would make for dinner that night, his pace came to a sudden halt when he saw a figure lying in the middle of the road.
Now, Izuku wasn’t Quirkist or anything, but he could still recognize an odd-looking mutant Quirk when he saw one. And that man lying on the street fit the bill to a tee with his pitch-black skin, bird-like beak, muscles so bulgy you’d think he was on steroids, and an exposed brain. Yeah, this guy was odd, even by Quirk standards.
But Izuku didn’t focus on that. At that moment, he panicked at the sight of a man lying down flat on the road just as a car was speeding his way.
“Sir! Watch out!” He tried to warn him, but he didn’t move, and a car ran over him. Though, oddly enough, it didn’t seem to leave any noticeable mark on his body.
“Sir, are you-” A pickup truck zoomed right over the man, then a bus, then a motorcycle, then a steamroller, then a fireworks truck. But no matter what ran over him, the strange-looking man didn’t seem to flinch.
Despite that, Izuku still panicked at the sight of a man getting run over by all those vehicles. He ran over to him as fast as he could and started giving him CPR.
“You’ll be fine! I called an ambulance! Just stay with me!” Izuku yelled in his raspy voice. The voice was so raspy, in fact, that the Nomu registered it as Tomura’s. As such, he followed the last command he heard, which was ‘stay with me.’ A command the Nomu interpreted as ‘stay by my side.’
Izuku stumbled back in shock as the odd-looking man stood up and peered down at him. He felt like an ant under a microscope, but he still went to respond. “Are - are you okay?”
No words came out of the man’s mouth, so Izuku tried a different question. “Um, can you tell me your name?”
“NO! MOO!” The man replied. Though, it sounded less like words, and more like animalistic screams that just so happened to resemble human speech.
“Nomu? Okay. I’m Izuku Midoriya. Now, could you please get out of the street? Please?”
Nomu silently complied, and Izuku breathed a sigh of relief. “Thank god you’re okay. Listen, I know life might be tough sometimes, but no matter the situation, suicide is never the answer. You have your whole life ahead of you.” At least, he assumed he did. Izuku wasn’t exactly sure of the birdman’s age. “Uh, how old are you again?”
Nomu didn’t respond, instead letting an awkward silence fill the air as Izuku’s posture shrunk more with each passing second.
“Uh, hello?” He hesitantly tried again. “Can you tell me how old you are?”
Now that his question was phrased as a command, Nomu had no problem holding up one finger and thirteen toes, as that was how many days ago he was created.
“You’re fourteen? Well then yeah, you have your whole life ahead of you. So please, don’t make a mistake you can’t take back.” Izuku felt slightly intimidated by Nomu’s continued lack of a response, so he decided to change gears. “Is there anyone you can call? Anyone else you can rely on?”
“…”
“Any parents? Siblings? Friends? Neighbors? Significant others?”
“…”
“So it’s just you? You’re all alone?”
“...”
“Well, I guess there’s only one thing to do.”
———————————————
“Izuku, did you bring another homeless person home?”
“Actually, Mom, he followed me.”
“Would you have brought him home if he didn’t follow you?”
“…”
“…”
“Okay, hypothetically…”
Inko just sighed as she opened the door the rest of the way, and Izuku and Nomu walked in. “Honestly, Izuku. I know you have a big heart and all, but homeless shelters exist for a reason.”
“I’m sorry, Mom. It’s just… He’s the same age as me and I found him in a really bad place. He doesn’t have anyone else to turn to.”
“Alright, he can stay for dinner and then sleep on the couch. But we are having a serious talk about this, young man.”
“Thank you, Mom.”
———————————————
Izuku and Inko sat awkwardly at the dinner table as they both confusedly stared at Nomu, who hadn’t moved an inch since Izuku asked him to sit down.
“Ummm…” Izuku spoke up. “Nomu, you don’t have to worry about being rude. You can eat.”
Nomu complied as he lifted up his plate and took a big bite. He ate the plate, that is. Not the food.
“Is he always like this?” Inko whispered to Izuku.
“I think he’s just having an off day.”
———————————————
“You can sleep here, Nomu.” Izuku gestured to the living room couch. “And if you have trouble sleeping, you can borrow this.”
Izuku held up an All Might plushie, and Nomu’s ‘Kill All Might on Sight’ protocol blared in his head. He snatched the plushie out of Izuku’s hand and tore into it like a dog with a chew toy.
Izuku slowly and cautiously backed up at the ravenous sight. “Ok, I get it. You’re more of an Endeavor guy.”
———————————————
The Next Day…
“Alright, Nomu. I have to head to school. You have to go.”
Nomu interpreted this command as ‘I have to go to school, you have to come, too.’ So he marched behind the green-haired boy on his way to class.
Izuku wanted to shoo Nomu away, considering he wasn’t officially enrolled in Aldera, but he figured that since he didn’t bring up having any family or friends earlier, that made him his only lifeline. He couldn’t just abandon someone in their time of need like that. That’s not what heroes do!
So, against his better judgment, he begrudgingly let this guy follow him to school. He just hoped Nomu wasn’t secretly a delinquent or something. His school already had way too many of those.
Sure, a couple of security guards tried to stop Nomu at the school gate, but they physically couldn’t. He just marched along, completely ignoring their attempts to detain him.
It was clear as day that no one could stop Nomu. However, there was only one person who tried to stop the boy he was following.
“Deku! What the hell did you bring to school?!” Katsuki yelled as he shoved Izuku to the ground.
“In my defense, he followed me here, and no one was physically capable of stopping him.”
“Like I care! Just look at him!” Katsuki gestured to Nomu, who looked impassive as ever, “Look at those dead, soulless eyes. He’s planning something, and I’m gonna put him in his place.”
Izuku was quick to get between Katsuki and Nomu. “Hold on, you can’t just attack somebody unprovoked.”
“Fine!” In a rare act of compliance, he peered up towards the emotionless husk of a human being. “Hey Bird-Brain! I’m gonna attack you now!”
Izuku’s instincts took over, and he used himself as a human shield against Katsuki and yelled, “No! Please! Someone help!”
Nomu immediately responded to the command. He darted over to Katsuki with speed only comparable to All Might and grabbed him by the torso, holding him aloft.
“What the hell? Let go of me, you braindead freak!” Katsuki released several explosions in Nomu’s face, but they didn’t even flinch him. “Why the fuck isn’t this working?!”
It took five minutes of continuous explosions for Katsuki to run out of sweat and give up, finally giving Izuku the chance to speak. “Nomu, I think you’ve taught Kacchan his lesson. Could you please put him down?”
Something Izuku didn’t know was that when given a command, Nomu was programmed to choose the most violent option possible. As such, he interpreted ‘put him down’ in the same way you would put down a sick pet. His other hand grabbed Katsuki by the head and began to twist.
“No! Don’t snap his neck!” Izuku quickly corrected, “I meant you should drop him!”
Nomu went upstairs to the third floor and held Katsuki out the window.
“I meant you should pacify him!”
Nomu began smothering Katsuki’s face with a pillow.
“I meant you should let him go!”
Nomu pulled back his arm, prepared to throw Katsuki as hard as he could.
“Put him on the ground!”
Nomu prepared to slam Katsuki’s face into the ground.
“Don’t kill him! Do what a hero like All Might would do!”
Now, since he was built with the express purpose of fighting All Might, Nomu had every last one of the Number One Hero’s mannerisms and behaviors drilled into his head. As such, Nomu knew exactly what All Might would do when faced with a case of aggravated Quirk assault (based on the explosions from earlier), so he brought Katsuki to the police station.
“You can’t do this! You’re not a police officer!” Nomu did not care about Katsuki’s complaints, he simply shut the cell door and clenched the lock in order to jam it shut.
“Great job, Nomu!” Izuku patted his friend on the back as soon as he returned. “You should train at UA to be a hero someday!”
Master commands, Nomu obeys.
“Wait no!” Izuku grabbed his friend by the arm when he made it clear what he was about to do. “You can’t just go to UA like that and expect to be a hero. You have to pass the entrance exam first.”
Nomu continued walking toward the school until Izuku jerked his arm again. “No, don’t take it right now. The entrance exams aren’t for another eleven months. You have to wait.”
Nomu understood. He planted his feet on the ground and resigned himself to eleven straight months of waiting.
Izuku didn’t know that, however. When he heard the bell ring from inside the school, he grabbed his new friend by the arm and pulled him towards the doors, where Nomu made no attempts to resist. “Come on! We’re gonna be late for class! I don’t know how we’re gonna fit you into a desk, but we’ll figure it out.”
They never figured it out.