Chapter Text
Traveling to the other side of the planet alone would scare most twelve year old's, but Orion took great joy in it. The chance to leave his father and his problems behind wasn’t something they could easily pass up; especially since the memories Orion had of his grandmother seemed much better than how his father treated him. Although their grandmother had wanted to accompany him, they had told her not to waste her money doing so, seeing as her precious grandchild was more than capable of defending himself.
“Do you need anything, dear?” Once he had found his seat, a concerned looking flight attendant came to check on him, her green eyes examining them with a curiosity he didn’t like.
“No, thank you.”
“Enjoy your flight then!” The flight attendant gave Orion a gentle smile, and he gave one in return before grabbing their headphones and a book out of his bag, opting to act like nothing around them existed for a few hours.
Orion was halfway through their second book when the flight landed, and he was grateful to finally be able to stand up and stretch his wings, which he had been forced to hide for the entirety of the flight so his father could buy cheaper tickets. Flights for people with mutation quirks tended to be more expensive in America, but Orion was pretty sure that was illegal everywhere else. Orion’s quirk gave them large black wings, and although the resting state of his wings were like ravens feathers, black with blue and purple highlights, if he was tense or scared, his wings would turn into metal. The same metal that made up the weapons he could summon with his quirk.
“Orion!” They turned a corner to see their grandmother waiting for them at the baggage claim.. She was a small older woman with short dark hair, her frail frame was covered in very soft looking clothing in different shades of purple with black accent pieces.
“Baba!”
“How was your flight, dear?”
“It was good,” her accent was thick, but Orion had heard it often recently and was used to it.
“Glad to hear that.”
They quickly made their way back to her house, not saying much else until they arrived. Orion’s memory of the rest of that day was fairly fuzzy, and he wasn’t really sure why he was thinking about it while on his way to school, either. It was a fancy ass school that their grandmother insisted on getting him into; UA High. Rubbing the sleep out of their eyes, the dark haired boy sat up straighter. Usually he had more energy in the mornings, but something about today was already incredibly draining. Luckily enough today was only supposed to be the entrance exams, which he had studied for months to prepare for. Once the train came to a stop, they only had a short walk to the school from the bus stop. Everything was so bright in the early morning sunshine, and Orion found themselves squinting as they looked around.
“Maybe I should just skip,” they muttered in English. There was a large group of students going into the school, and soon the group turned into a crowd, making Orion feel horribly claustrophobic. Still, just like they were taught, he silently observed the crowd. They had spotted a few mutant quirks, including a girl with pink skin and someone else with weird circle elbows Orion couldn’t figure out the use for. Does something appear in the circles? Does it turn into other shapes? Surely they don’t plan to be a hero, they don’t seem like very useful elbows. Shaking his head, Orion continued forward, trying to keep his head in the game as he looked at the other people around him, trying to size them up and guess which of them would be might be going for the hero course like him. Scarlet eyes caught on Orion's deep blue, and he found himself looking into the eyes of a blond boy about his age that clearly had a nasty temper and was just a bit taller than him. Keeping his face neutral, Orion quickly looked away; something about that boy's glare made a chill go down their spine that they tried to ignore as they stepped into the building.
Once the written exams were over, the different students went their separate exam rooms depending on which course they were trying to get into, which meant the hero course students had to do a physical exam with the stupidest rules the winged boy had ever heard. They had to fight robots. These robots would try to harm the literal children that were the student body, and one of the bots wasn’t even worth any points? Seemed like a wonderful fucking idea.
“Fucking stupid,” he muttered in English for probably the fifteenth time that day as they changed in the boys locker room.
“What?” The red headed boy next to Orion asked, and they turned to look at him. The boy’s hair was spiked up, and he had a small scar above his left eye.
“Oh nothing,” they gave a dismissive laugh as they took note of how muscular the boy was, and that he was just a bit taller than Orion. Though he didn’t have a very obvious quirk, Orion assumed it was a very physical one.
“My name's Kirishima Eijiro,” the boy tried as Orion moved to turn away from him.
“Mine is Takami Orion.” Making friends would be beneficial, seeing as these idiots might be heroes of Japan with him one day.
“It’s nice to meet you!”
“It’s nice to meet you as well.”
“Your scars are cool,” Kirishima obviously meant this as a compliment, but it took every ounce of Orion’s willpower not to flinch at the comment.
“Thank you, the one above your eye is cute,” the redhead blushed at that, and Orion went back to getting into their outfit, it was black leggings and a black turtleneck sleeveless bodysuit with their hair up in a tight bun, revealing their freshly shaved undercut.
“Are you anxious about the exams at all?” Kirishima whispered as they walked out of the locker rooms and headed to the exam grounds.
“Nah, I’ve trained enough with my quirk.”
“You have?”
“Yeah, you don’t get wings and then just not use them,” Orion tried to laugh, and Kirishima joined in.
“Oi! What’s so funny, extras?”
There he was, the blond boy with an attitude problem, “obviously we’re laughing about the fact that you can’t seem to mind your damn business, you asswipe.” Was Orion’s retort, making the boy flinch. Even Kirishima looked surprised.
“W-we were just talking about how we felt about the exams," Kirishima chuckled nervously, glancing between the two of them.
“And you think it’s a joke?” The other boy sneered.
“The only joke is you thinking you belong in this conversation.” Orion turned to face the blond fully now, glaring at him and his stupid sneer.
“The fuck is your problem?” The boy was only an inch taller than them, and he seemed malnourished, they could tell he was supposed to look bigger. Orion guessed his quirk was related to his hands, they never seemed to stay still unless they were in his pockets.
“I should be asking you the same thing, seeing as you constantly look like someone just took a shit under your nose," they tried to keep their tone neutral as they registered the way he was sizing them up as well.
At that, he seemed to growl before responding, “yeah and I bet you think you look so much more approachable when you look like you’d rather die than be here.”
“I think I’d rather-” They were cut off by an alarm that sounded through the locker room, letting them know it was time to go to the exam area. They shared one last glare before Orion and Kirishima walked outside together.
"Who was that?!" The redhead demanded once the other boy was out of earshot.
"I have no idea," Orion admitted as they walked with the rest of the students to the exam area, which was a massive enclosed space with two giant metal doors for entry. After a few moments of silence, the metal doors to the exams area opened. They shared a nod before dashing into the enclosure.
"Good luck," they said it at the same time, and Kirishima laughed as Orion flew into the encloser. Sonner than they expected, they caught sight of the blond from before. The boy's quirk was explosions, which he summoned out of his hands to propel himself forward, and he was almost as fast as Orion as they used their wings to race forward, cutting into the first robots with their wings before summoning two large swords to use to start hunting down more of the poor bots.
“What the hell?” Orion’s head snapped to look at the blond boy, who had found him again a few minutes later. Both of them now covered in sweat from running around finding robots to destroy.
“You need something, asswipe?” They spat as they started looking around again, focusing on anything else but the boy that was getting closer to them.
“What the hell are you?” He grunted.
“That’s not a nice question to ask someone, blondie.” Orion was then distracted by a large robot that was making it's way around a building nearby, and to his disappointment, it was the utterly worthless one. Just when he was starting to consider slicing it in half just to make sure he didn’t have to deal with it in his face, a very small and very green figure jumped up and punched it in the face, and then fell back. Not really thinking, Orion flew to him, catching the smaller boy midair. He had curled dark green air, freckles, and was heavier than he seemed. Oh and his arm was definitely fucked.
“Is there a medic around?” The blond boy was on the ground, holding up a brunette who was watching Orion fly down with the pale green boy in his arms.
“I’m not sure, I was too busy dealing with your nosy ass when the rules were being told to me.” The blonds face screwed up like he was about to start screaming at Orion, when he was conveniently interrupted by another alarm going off, signaling the end of the exams.
Not only because he felt obligated, but also because he was forced to, Orion ended up visiting the injured boy in the medical wing after he changed out of his exam outfit.
“Is he alright?”
“Yes yes, he just overexerted himself.” The school nurse was a small, older woman. Apparently her quirk made her heal wounds almost instantly, though from what he knew, it drained her energy; much like their own quirk.
“I’m glad he’s alright.”
“He’s awake if you want to say hi, dearie.”
Although he didn’t want to, they walked around the white curtain to see the small boy sitting up in the bed he was on, and a woman that looked to be his mother was sitting on a chair next to his bed.
“Izuku please be more careful next time,” she was crying.
“I will mom I- Oh, hello!”
“Hello, my name is Takami Orion, I caught you when you fell.” They stiffly replied, suddenly unsure where to put their hands.
“Oh! Thank you so much-”
The boy was cut off by his mother gasping, “thank you for catching my son! He-”
“It’s no problem, really,” he was already regretting this, and he tried to back away.
“I’m Izuku Midoryia, and this is my mom!” the boy cut in, making Orion stop in his tracks.
“It’s nice to meet you, although I wish it was under better circumstances.” Were they doing it right? Orion wished it was socially acceptable for him to be holding a knife right now, the comfort the handle brought was something he had started to depend on.
“Do you have any dinner plans tonight dear? I would like to thank you for helping my son.” The woman gave them a sweet smile, making it impossible for them to refuse.
“Oh, well,” he thought about it for a moment, looking between the two of them, noting how their freckles were almost in the same spots, and how their eyes and faces were similarly round. “I do not have plans tonight, I can let my grandmother know I’m getting dinner elsewhere.”
“Deku are you-!”
Orion turned, and to his horror, it was the blond boy from earlier calling for Midoriya, “you.”
“You.” Orion returned the boy's dead tone with his own.
“Kacchan! I’m alright! Have you already met Takami?” Midoriya asked nervously.
“That’s your name?” The blond demanded, leaning back as he looked Orion up and down.
“My name is Takami Orion, and yours?” Putting on a polite mask, the winged boy tried to keep their face neutral.
“Bakugo Katsuki," he supplied before clenching his jaw and shoving his hands in his pockets.
“Nice to meet you, Bakugo.” Although they spoke calmly, some kind of rage was sitting underneath their skin as they watched those scarlet eyes flicker over their form.
The blond smiled, immediately putting away his horrible attitude to mock Orion’s mask of calm, “nice to meet you too, Takami.”
“Would you also like to come for dinner, Katsuki?” Ms. Midoriya asked, completely oblivious to the tension in the room.
“Sure,” his smile turned into a smirk, but Orion kept a very polite, yet very fake smile painted perfectly on their face.
After about an hour or two of waiting, Midoriya was released from the nurses office and they all went to Ms. Midoriya's apartment. Although it was a small space, it was very homey. Smelling of allspice, lemon grass, and faintly of incense.
“Make yourselves at home! I’ll get started on dinner.” With that Ms. Midoriya disappeared, and, like they’ve done this a thousand times, Bakugo and Midoriya migrated to what Orion assumed was the green haired boy's bedroom. Which was completely covered in All Might merchandise. Sure, he was the Number one Hero of Japan, but there was no way he had this much official merchandise.
“Ha! See, Deku? It is a nerd cave.” The larger boy smacked Midoriya's arm, who cringed.
“Shut up Kacchan!”
Quickly fixing his face, Orion gave the small boy a gentle smile, “it’s not that nerdy, I used to have a bunch of, oh, how do you say it in Japanese…” The winged boy furrowed his eyebrows in thought, “it’s this movie series about fairies, I loved it as a kid and decorated my room with it for as long as I was allowed to.”
“Your parent’s made you take down your decorations?!” Midoriya demanded, his eyes widening.
“Yeah after I turned six my father said I didn’t need to anymore,” the dark haired boy shrugged, and Midoriya’s jaw dropped. Bakugo wasn’t phased.
“Just because your moms too nice to tell you your room looks like-”
“Bakugo!” Orion tapped the blond's shoulder to shut him up, making the boy flinch.
“What?”
“He likes his room! And it genuinely looks fine. Look, it’s even organized well and the posters fit the walls perfectly.” Midoriya glowed at the compliment, but Bakugo just scowled.
“Oh please, you should see his closet, it’s a disaster.”
“Can’t be any more of a disaster than your attitude problem.” The winged boy spat the words without thinking.
“Excuse you?!” Bakugo turned his head to look Orion dead in the eyes, the scarlet red seeming to burn into the winged boy, who tried to look unphased even though they felt like someone lit a fire under their skin.
“Okay guys, there’s no need to fight,” Midoriya held up his hands, and Orion clenched his jaw, looking away from Bakugo to watch the green haired boy standing in front of the desk in the small room.
“Why the fuck should we listen to you, Deku? You lied to me.” The blond demanded, looking at Midoriya once again.
“What do you mean, Kacchan?” The green haired boy suddenly became very anxious, glancing between Bakugo’s face and his hands.
Orion glanced between Bakugo and Midoriya, and that’s when it hit him. Years of bad blood sat between these two, and this was not going to end very well if they all kept arguing. “How about let’s all try not to fight, aye?” Orion asked, making the other two boys look at him, and the green haired boy nodded immediately, looking at Bakugo expectantly.
“Fine, but I have questions that you will answer later, Deku.”
“Of course, Kacchan.” Midoriya looked ashamed, but he turned to Orion with a small smile, “could I ask a few questions about your quirk?”
“Oh, uhm, sure.” Although he was happy to change the subject, this was not one Orion was hoping they would land on. Midoriya excitedly sat at his desk, and Bakugo migrated over to the bed and sat down heavily, showing that he actually was tired from the exams. This left Orion to stand next to the desk, watching as Midoriya grabbed a notebook and opened it to a fresh page.
“What’s your quirks name?”
“Guillotine," both of them gave Orion a confused look, "my father chose it.”
“You could choose a new one,” the green haired boy tried.
“What would I even pick?” They sighed as they summoned a baton to toss and catch in the air
“Well, tell me about your quirk," Midoriya suggested.
“As I’m sure you’ve noticed, I have wings,” the green haired boy chuckled, and the blond scoffed from his place on the bed. “When I’m relaxed or resting, they are normal feathers, but when I’m tense or think I’m in danger, they turn into metal.”
“How?” His voice was nearly lost in the scratching from the pen.
“I don’t know, how did you jump well over a hundred feet in the air and then punch a robot in the face?” Orion raised an eyebrow at the smaller boy, who pursed his lips.
Bakugo scoffed, “what measurement did you just use?”
Orion felt their face flush as they pursued their lips, “I’m still not used to using meters.” They admitted, and Midoriya gave them a patient smile.
“It’s alright, and I’m not sure how I did it either.”
Moving forward simply to ignore the blond, Orion summoned a knife to show the boy sitting in front of them, “I can summon weapons. They are made of cold metal and are always perfectly sharp. Which is why my quirk is called Guillotine.”
“What can it cut through?” A perfectly innocent question.
“Anything," Orion breathed, pushing back memories of bloody basements and ruined knife throwing boards.
“Can I hold your knife?” The small boy lifted his hand up and opened his palm, and the gesture caught Orion by surprise.
“You,” they paused, still in disbelief, “want to touch my knives?”
“Well sure, if you don’t mind, of course.” Midoriya’s nervous energy returned, and he rubbed the back of his neck with his other hand, leaving his pen on the desk.
“Just be careful, I guess,” he handed Midoriya the knife, now noting how when the boy was focused, his eyebrows furrowed and he held his tongue between his teeth.
“It’s very cold,” he muttered.
“Lemme see,” Bakugo now stood on Midoriya’s right, and the boy looked to Orion first, and it took him a moment to realize the green haired boy was asking for his permission.
“Oh, yeah, go ahead. Just-”
“Yeah be careful, I fuckin’ know.” Orion watched Bakugo carefully, tuning out the sound of Midoriya’s pen scratching on the paper. The blond was surprisingly gentle with the knife, turning it in his fingers, but his mistake was putting his finger to the edge of it, even the gentle pressure cut into his skin. “What the hell?” Orion made the knife disappear into a dark mist before Bakugo could hurt himself anymore.
“I told you they could cut through anything," they shrugged.
“I wasn’t even putting pressure on it.”
“I know,” they looked at each other in silence for a few moments, trying to gauge how to act around each other without sparking another argument. Orion wasn’t sure what it was about the blond that upset him so much, maybe it was his resting bitch face, or maybe the fact that he had a shit attitude most of the time. Either way, something about the boy in front of him made Orion want to punch Bakugo square in the face.
“What other weapons can you summon?” Midoriya asked, not looking up from the pages of his notebook.
“Anything nonmechanical. Swords, knives, arrows, even chains.”
“Chains?!” Midoriya’s head whipped up to look at Orion, who only nodded.
“Show me,” Bakugo motioned to Orion with his chin, making the winged boy roll his eyes. Sighing, Orion used his chains like a whip to grab an All Might figurine from the bookshelf nearby, catching it in his hand and letting the chain hang freely as the two other boys watched in awe.
“That’s so useful, you could,” the green haired boy began to mutter under his breath, and Orion had to focus solely on him to keep up with it.
“It’s very hard to catch people in it, yes it can hurt my hand, no I never thought of that, no I can’t make the chains sharp, I’ve tried, yes I can summon a scythe, no I can’t summon a working bow, I can’t make the string for it.” Bakugo was glancing between the two, but Orion didn’t catch the blond’s surprised expression at how well the dark haired boy could keep up with Midoriya.
“Have you tried double edged swords?”
“Yes, but they’re hard to work with.”
“Batons?”
“Of course, I can’t be a hero if all I do is murder people,” Midoriya nodded as Orion gave a small chuckle.
“What about your quirk, Deku?” Bakugo’s tone and how still Midoriya went told Orion that the small boy’s quirk was a touchy subject, and they couldn’t help but wonder why.
“It amplifies physical abilities, if its user is unable to control it, it destroys their body because they aren’t fit to handle it.”
“Sounds dangerous,” Orion’s head cocked to the side, and Bakugo’s eyes narrowed onto the small boy, who was still looking at his notebook.
“It can be very useful when applied correctly,” he muttered, but Orion picked it up easily.
“What was that?!” Bakugo demanded.
“It’s useful when applied correctly, asswipe.” Orion hissed before Midoriya could even open his mouth.
“Any quirk is, dipshit,” the blond rolled his eyes.
“Then how do you apply explosions to helping people? Toppling the rest of the building on them to end their misery?!” Midoriya stilled, as if he had never heard anyone talk back to Bakugo and get away with it before.
The blond was silent, his lips forming a thin line as he turned to look at Midoriya’s notebook again. “Their suit was a turtleneck, not a V-neck, Deku.” He spoke with surprising calm, and Orion raised his eyebrows as he looked down at the notebook. Midoriya had drawn Orion in their hero outfit, wings and all.
“Wow, that’s impressive, Midoriya," they momentarily forgot about Bakugo as they stared at the drawing, it was surprisingly accurate.
“Thank you,” it was barely a whisper.
“Boys! Come help set the table!”
“Coming!” They all shouted back in unison, and then looked at each other. Orion and Bakugo shared a glare before they all raced to the kitchen to help finish preparing the food.