Crossing Fates : Book 1 - Escape (BakuDeku)

3 - How It Started

Izuku spent the next hour trekking across town.

He witnessed how the city transformed after that unholy sound, as if it were a painting some artist smeared with sinister streaks of dark colors. Stress carved itself into the expressions of the people he passed on the street.

Anger erupted in shouted confrontations, and clumps of uniformed policemen appeared. Pedestrians moved with greater urgency. Smaller shops and kiosks put out 'CLOSED' signs and locked their doors.o6k6

In normal circumstances, he would have taken the subway, but as ugly as the mood had turned on the streets, he wasn't about to risk getting trapped underground. At last, he stood in front of the jerk's door.

The tenement where the man lived was in miserable condition.

Izuku breathed through his mouth and tried to ignore the used condom on the floor of the stairwell and the baby squalling two apartments down. After he did this one last thing and he stopped by work to say good-bye to Shinso, he was so out of here.

The door yanked open.

Izuku's fist was moving before he had fully laid eyes on the man.

The man doubled over as Izuku punched him in the stomach. He wheezed and coughed. "Fuck!"

"Ow!" Izuku shook open his fist.

Thumb outside, not inside, dummy. He might be small but he'd had enough self defense classes in his sleeves.

The jerk straightened and glared at him as he rubbed his abdomen. Then he started to smile. "You did it, didn't you? You actually, really did it."

"Like you gave me a choice," he snapped.

He shoved at his ex's shoulder. It knocked him back enough so Izuku could stalk inside and slam the door shut.

The loser's smile turned into a gleeful laugh. He fist-pumped the air. "Yes!"

Izuku regarded the man, his gaze bitter. Jerk, aka Monoma Neito, had amiable good looks with blonde hair and a surfer's body. His cocky grin had men and women flocking to him like flies to honey.

Izuku had been one of those flies once. Then disillusionment had set in. He had thought Neito was kind and charming. He had taken the man's caressing manner for real affection and called him boyish when the truth was he was just selfish to the bone.

Neito was Captain Fantastic in his own mind. He created the fiction that he was a risk taker when in reality, he was a gambling addict.

Izuku had broken up with him a few months back, then just last week, Neito's betrayal had punched Izuku in the teeth, but it felt like much longer.

Izuku had been so lonely since his mother died six years ago. There was not another single creature who knew him for who and what he was.

Only his mother had known. His mother had loved him so much she had devoted her life to safeguarding Izuku's welfare and safety. She had raised her son with a fanatical attention to secrecy and with every protection spell she could muster or buy.

Then Izuku had thrown away almost everything his mom had taught him for a sweet smile and the promise of some affection.

I'm so sorry, Mom. I swear I'll do better now, Izuku said in his head.

He stared at Neito doing a touchdown shimmy. The man pretended to slam a ball on the ground and grinned at him.

"I know I had that punch comin' to me. I owed you one. No hard feelings, sugar."

"Speak for yourself," Izuku's words were coated in frost. "I've all kinds of hard feelings going on over here."

He dropped his backpack to the floor and glanced around even though he was pretty sure they were alone.

Fast-food wrappers littered the thrift store coffee table. A dirty T-shirt draped the back of the couch. Some things never changed.

"Aw, come on, Izuku, there's no need to be like that. Hey, listen, I know you're still pissed, but you gotta understand somethin', honey. I did this for us," Neito reached for his shoulder, but Izuku jerked back before his fingers could touch him.

Neito's smile dimmed, but he didn't lose his easy, caressing manner. "Izuku, you don't seem to get it. We're gonna be rich now. Really fucking rich. Why, you can have anything you want. Won't you like that, baby?"

Neito was the one who didn't get it. The dimwit didn't realize he was collateral damage. He had constructed this fantasy world in which he was a player while his gambling debts grew worse, and he fell more and more under the control of his business associates.

Those 'associates' were shadowy connections a couple times removed from Neito's bookie. Izuku imagined them as a cackle of hyenas gathering around their prey with languid purpose.

Neito was lunch, but they had decided to play with their food before the kill.

Izuku didn't know who Neito's contacts were and he didn't want to. It was awful enough that he knew there was real Power somewhere up that food chain.

Human or Elven, Nyr or Fae, it didn't matter.

Something nasty had turned its attention this way. It had enough magic and muscle to take on one of the premiere Powers of the world.

And here was Captain Fantastic, a mere human with not a single spark of Power in him and not a lick of sense, either. The fact that he had ever hooked up with Neito, even for a few months, would keep Izuku humble forever.

Izuku told him, "You sound like the dialogue from a bad movie."

Neito's flirtatious manner fell away and the man glared at him. "Yeah? Well, fuck you too."

"And it goes on," he sighed. A headache had begun to pulse in his sinuses. "Look, let's get this over with. Your handlers wanted me to steal something from Bakugo- "

"I bet my associates that I could get them anything from anywhere," Neito sneered. "And they suggested something from Bakugo."

Today had been a long bad day on top of a long bad week. It had started the moment Neito had put an object of Power in his hand and told him he was going to find Bakugo's lair with it.

The shock still clung as Izuku remembered the pulse of serious magic that had seared his hand.

The feeling was compounded by a rush of terror for whoever, or whatever, had the kind of mojo to create that artifact and hand it to Neito.