Atlas (Vigilante Izuku AU)

Chapter Three- Living in a school bus

(Just letting the ghosts reading this know that Izuku does have trouble with his stutter, and it is pretty prominent in this chapter because he was worried about Eri)

Dagobah beach was less a beach and more a junk yard. Yet this was where Izuku had been living for almost five years. He had left home when he was ten and had spent a couple nights sleeping under door frames or inside dumpsters until he had found the beach.

He had tried cleaning it up, and usually removed as much trash as he could while Eri ran around and got some exercise, but trash always managed to reappear on the shore. 

Izuku sprinted down the stairs to the beach and dashed around piles of rubbish until finding one of the larger ones compiled mostly of scrap metal. If somebody bothered to try and clean the beach, they would notice the potentially valuable metal. But nobody did, and so it worked pretty well to hide Izuku's shelter.

He pushed aside a large metal panel which revealed what looked to be an incredibly rusty door to a school bus. Holding his breath, he tapped a specific rhythm out onto the door and waited.

 Almost immediately the door was pushed open forcefully, its panels folding and squeaking as the door attempted to open the right way.

"Izu!" A white-haired girl poked her head around from the back of one of the two seats left on the bus, her eyes growing impossibly wider.

"H-hey Er- oh!" Izuku broke off with a gasp when Eri suddenly started crying.

He hurriedly pushed the door closed and scooped the six-year-old up into a hug.

"Eri? Wha- what's wrong? Are you h-hurt?" He held one of her delicate arms closer to his face to examine it for injuries.

"No! Y-you are Izu!" Eri managed to blubber out, making Izuku remember that he was in fact injured. He glanced down at his ripped and bloodied hoodie with a grimace.

"This? It's n-nothing, just looks wo-worse than it actually is." Izuku ran has hand up and down her back in circular motions, trying to calm her down.

Eri obviously hadn't managed to sleep well last night, as her eyes were puffy and droopy. So, when her sniffles slowed and eventually stopped Izuku was not surprised to find her asleep. He carefully walked to the end of the bus where a beanbag was wedged in a corner next to the fire escape, and gently layed her down on it.

When Izuku found the bus, it had been stripped of all but two of its seats which were right at the very front and covered in rips, tears, and numerous attempts at what looked like middle school graffiti. The removal of the seats made the bus much more spacious and easier to live in, with a small mattress and beanbag at the back and a thin 'desk' (really just a laundry basket flipped upside down with paper, pencils, folders, and a chunky patched up laptop resting on top) situated next to Izuku's book bag that contained his vigilante gear, and regular clothes. 

Izuku had scraped together enough money to buy Eri nice clothes. They weren't brand new, but they weren't found in a dumpster or junkyard either. The same couldn't be said for Izuku's clothes. But Eri's comfort was much more important than his own, and if he noticed her eying a red bow to tie in her hair, he had no trouble working an extra hour to buy the length of ribbon. The little girl had gone through so much, it was the very least he could do.

He gave a long sigh and ran a hand down his face, feeling a scar that stretched from just below his eye to under the right side of his chin. 'Eri wouldn't like it if I started bleeding again.' he realized, peeling the hoodie off of his skin.

The boy walked over to his bag and pulled out his only other spare hoodie. He peeled off the old one and examined the wound. It was exactly as he had thought; shallow but covering a large area. But to avoid scaring Eri and to keep jumping about like normal, he fished out some cheap sterile thread and a needle to start stitching the wound.

Eri had woken up at about 7PM and hesitantly told Izuku that she was hungry. Thankfully, Izuku had finished sewing the slash in his side and had already cleaned up the mess.

"We can run to the store and grab something." He smiled down at her.

She sent him a small smile back and his heart instantly swelled. It had taken him eight months to get her to smile, and even though her smiles were much more common now he still treasured each individual one.

"Get dressed and we can head out." Izuku turned around to give her some privacy and grabbed his wallet, sliding it into the pocket of his skinny jeans.

Once she was done, Eri tugged on his oversized hoodie. Izuku turned around and patted her on the head before taking her hand and starting the small trek to the nearest convenience store.

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Whoa, two updates in one day. Thats something new for me.

Also over 800 words. mhm. be proud of me ghosts