Izuku was cursed. He'd been cursed ever since he was four years old and first discovered his quirk.

  He'd been cursed ever since the 'accident' that killed his mother happened.

  He'd been cursed when the foster home burned down.

  He'd been cursed when that hero got killed because of him.

  The only time he wasn't a curse was when he put on the mask. When he was wearing the mask, his curse became a blessing.

  Izuku was the vigilante 'Return'. He was called Return because he always seemed to keep going back into a fight, no matter what. Izuku himself found the unintentional joke hilarious.

  His costume was simple. A pair of baggy cargo pants, a black hoodie and a pair of goggles. He also had a steel respirator he'd 'borrowed' from a support company dumpster. It just needed a few wires and a smack or two to bend it back into shape.

  Izuku perched on a rooftop, his hood low over his face. His signature freckles were hidden by the respirator, his hair was hidden by the deep hood. The only visible feature on his face was his glowing green eyes.

  A shrill scream echoed through the night, and Return was up and running in an instant, leaping across rooftops and over alleyways with seemingly little regard for his own life.

  A similar dark shadow streaked across the rooftops beside him, white scarf and yellow goggles glinting in the moonlight.

  "Shrill scream. Woman or child. Short, cut off. Probably not a quick crime, like mugging. Silenced victim because of expected duration." Return contemplated.

  "Loud scream, adult woman. Kidnapping unlikely." Eraserhead responded.

  Return frowned, not liking the implications. The two shadows dove into an alleyway filled with muffled movement and grunts of pain.

  "Ow! Stop- kicking- me!" A tall, bull man growled.

  There were three guys and one woman. A tall, bull headed guy restraining the victim, and a dude with long noodle arms. The third guy probably had an emitter of some kind.

  Return kicked bull guy in the back of the head rendering him unconscious in an instant. Eraserhead wrapped the other two up in his capture weapon, slamming them together.

  The police were notified, and the shadows left when the red and blue lights flashed at the end of the alleyway.

  Izuku perched on a other rooftop, this time with Eraserhead beside him.

  "Thanks for the assist Eraser. That guy's noodle arm quirk looked like trouble." Izuku said.

  The hero grunted.

  "It's two already, nothing else is going to happen tonight. Take the rest of tonight off, you've got school tomorrow." Eraserhead said.

  Izuku snorted.

  "I don't have school. I've already finished my online courses. Besides, aren't you and Midnight looking into that drug gang on the weekend?" He asked.

  Eraserhead sighed.

  "How do you even know about that?" He asked.

  Izuku grinned.

  "I have my ways. I hacked the underground hero discord." He explained.

  Eraserhead sighed in resignation.

  "I don't want you going. These guys are dangerous, really dangerous. They're not like the street thugs you and I normally deal with." He said.

  Izuku grinned behind his respirator.

  "So, warehouse by Dagobah, 5th one along, Saturday night? Gotcha."

  Izuku jumped off the building ledge, kicking off of the fire escape and sliding down the side of the opposite building. Aizawa did not almost jump up in concern for his problem child.

  Izuku waved to the tired pro, running through alleyways and around back streets, making his way home.

  Izuku Wandered up to Dagobah, to the 3rd warehouse along, crawling in through a broken window. The doors and other windows had been blockaded for a few years now, originally by Izuku.

  The greenette slumped down onto the patched up sofa, pulling the goggles, respirator and hood off. He sighed, putting the headpieces down on the small side table.

  "Fifth warehouse along huh... Maybe I should go greet the neighbours a little early?" He muttered.

  Izuku shrugged to himself, curling up on the sofa. He'd set his safe space first, then go see the drug dealers in the morning.

  ________________

  Little Izuku was playing by the fireplace, his All Might action figure flying through the air.

  "Have no fear, I am here!" He cheered, bashing All Might's fist into the 'villains' face.

  "Begone, evildoer!" Izuku said in a deep voice.

  There was a tug in Izuku's mind, and a villain came flying through the living room wall.

  The snake man and tiny child stared in shock at one another, before a rookie pro hero came through the hole after the villain.

  "Begone, evildoer!" The hero cried, lashing out.

  Everything happened in an instant.

  The villain reached for Izuku, hoping to take a hostage to keep the hero at bay.

  Inko threw herself between the villain and her son, unintentionally getting in the way of the hero's attack.

  The hero discharged his quirk, launching a ball of condensed energy straight through Inko, and the villain.

  Izuku watched the light go out in his mother's relieved eyes. The authorities, thinking he was a danger to himself, kept any sharp objects away from the young boy.

  He couldn't fix it. He cried himself into a fitful sleep, and his quirk registered him as 'safe'.

  Inko Midoriya was dead for good, and Izuku's quirk was the culprit.

__________

 
  Izuku woke up calmly. Every night, for the past eight years, Izuku had been having nightmares. That was the only drawback of his quirk, his curse.

  Return by Death.