Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Stumbling footprints. Shouta can make out the unsteady, rolling gait from the way the bloody imprints of bare feet blend, incomplete and scattered, as if the person walking dragged their feet. And he can only imagine the scene that the person must have walked away from - no, the child , because those are the feet of a child - given the volume of the blood that makes the marks.

Behind him, he can hear the other heroes searching through the hideout. The raid was meant to uncover a stronghold of the League of Villains, but it seemed like they had been forewarned, because it had been empty when they arrived. Empty, with a singular trail of bloody footprints staggering out of the front door. 

“Where do they go?” Tsukauchi’s voice crackles in his earpiece. “You’re following them, aren’t you, Eraserhead?”

“Yeah,” he replies, taking careful steps over the cracked floorboards of the dusty warehouse. “They’re leading to a room. Going in.”

He ignores the other sounds, focussed instead on the tracks that lead into an empty room, one with no windows, just a single lightbulb on a string that sways slightly in some unseen breeze. A quick sweep tells him that there is no secondary exit, but the footsteps stop at a corner. There is no returning track.

“They end in the room,” he reports, but before he can continue, his sharp ears pick up on a sound. A sniffle, or maybe an aborted sob. A shaky breath sucked in.

He pauses, forcing himself to listen carefully, beyond the distant sounds of the others in the rest of the warehouse. 

Did I imagine it? Or is it a quirk?

Shouta is no stranger to camouflage quirks. One of his students literally has an invisibility quirk, for crying out loud. He wouldn’t be a good hero if he didn’t explore all the possibilities.

It barely takes a second - his quirk flares up, his eyes glow red, and his hair rises. And in that second, what he sees sends his stomach down to the ground.

A child is huddled in the corner, hands over his ears. He’s shaking, whether from fear or from the cold, he can’t tell, but it could just as well be from the sheer pain of the wounds that criss-cross the back that he can see through a torn shirt. The bottom of his feet are covered in blood, and Shouta has a sinking, horrible feeling that if he cleared the blood off, he would find more wounds. All he can make out from the trembling form is a thatch of hair that could be green, or maybe brown, if only he could see under the layers of blood and grime that cake it.

“Eraser,” Tsukauchi says, but Shouta reaches up wordlessly to press his speak button twice. The resulting squawk of feedback should tell them that he has a situation where he needs discretion.

Shouta takes a single step forward, and the child huddles closer into himself, and Shouta can make out tightly closed eyes, tears running down grimy cheeks. He stops, and then lowers himself to the floor.

“Hello,” he says gently, and the child flinches, a full-body movement that tears at Shouta’s heart. The reality of his job is that he often comes across scenes like this, with abused children cowering in fear, and each one never fails to send a pang of horror through him. But it also means that he knows how to talk to them, and how to help to the best of his abilities.

“My name is Eraserhead,” he says again, and watches the child freeze up. “I’m a Pro-Hero, and I’m here to save you.”

It seems like the words sink in, because the boy uncurls just slightly, lowering his hands from his ears.

“Do you -”

Shouta winces at the hoarseness of his voice, which sounds like it is shredding his throat on the way out. It speaks of screaming, maybe, or crying - emotion taking over. 

“You see?”

Huh?

He turns, and finally, he can make out dull green eyes through a fringe that falls a bit too long over his forehead.

“C-can you see me?” he asks again.

“Of course,” Shouta replies, confused, and in that moment, drops his quirk. Instantly, the boy vanishes. “When I have my quirk on,” he clarifies. “When I’m erasing your quirk.”

“I - A quirk?” He sounds confused. “I - I was right?”

“What do you mean?” Shouta asks gently. “Right about what?”

In the course of the conversation, the boy has moved, slightly, his posture more open now. He slumps against the wall and Shouta has to bite back a curse at the sight of the raw, red scar that runs across the right side of his head, from the top of his ear to the back of his skull. It looks like it’s in the early stages of healing, but it seems inflamed and angry.

“I - I don’t - I don’t have a quirk,” the boy finally says. He looks up and meets Shouta’s eyes as if expecting him to recoil, move away, leave. Shouta simply settles more comfortably on the floor, and his heart breaks at the shock that flashes through those dull, listless eyes. The kid had been fully prepared to be abandoned, left behind.

“I’m not supposed to have a quirk,” he continues. “But- but I just wanted to hide and not be seen. And - and - no one noticed when I left.” He looks down at his hands. “They couldn’t see me walk right past them.”

That explained the footprints, and also the haste with which the hideout had been emptied. If the League thought that their prisoner had escaped, they would have made it a first priority to move all their important things away to a safe house, before leaving themselves. At least, that is what Shouta would have done.

“They didn’t see you,” Shouta repeats. “But I do. Will you let me help you?”

He holds out a hand, open and empty, palm facing up so that the boy can reach over when he is ready. He doesn’t move, simply keeps his expression neutral, and his hand steady. Inside, though, his heart is pounding in his chest, the wave of emotions threatening to spill over. He doesn’t know what it is about this boy who looks at him with the eyes of a seasoned pro, with the barely-there glimmer of hope, that makes him hurt so much. Maybe it is because he has gotten so close with his class, that he can’t help but see them in this kid.

But it doesn’t take long. Shouta only has to blink twice, before the kid comes to some decision.

Slowly, he moves forward, and Shouta is struck again, when he realises that the speed is less because he’s scared, and more because he physically cannot move faster, not with the cuts marring his back and the open wounds seeping blood on the soles of his feet. But he moves forward with some dogged determination that he would be hard-pressed to find in his own colleagues, until he can reach Shouta’s hand.

And he grabs on, clinging to it hard enough that his nails leave crescents of impressions on Shouta’s skin. He doesn’t mind, not when he can surge up and grab the child, stop him from having to carry his own aching body, cradling him in his arms.

“Th-thank you for coming,” the kid says faintly, laying his head against Shouta’s shoulder, his eyes going half-lidded. “Thank you for finding me.”

“Kid, you can’t sleep just yet,” Shouta admonishes him, rising to his feet with care so he’s not jostling the too-light body in his arms. The kid’s hands are clenched into the material of his hero suit, but even that strength is fading. “Tell me something about you, come on now.”

The kid’s eyes slide lower, but he pulls them open with sheer will and determination. There is a spark in those brilliant green eyes now, a spark that seemed almost manic.

“I-zu-ku,” he whispers. “My name is Izuku.”

Chapter Text

When Izuku opens his eyes, he isn’t fifteen and chained to the wall in the hideout of the League of Villains, cold metal against the skin of his wrists. Instead, he is seven and looking up at a man his mother said was his father, as he loomed over them both. All he can remember now was a blurred face and dark, curly hair.

“Your father wants to take you out for a meal,” Inko says, kneeling to be on Izuku’s level. “Do you want to go with him?”

Izuku, fresh out of school and the taunts of his bullies ringing in his ears, says yes. Of course he had a dad! Look, he was even here for him!

Somehow, his memory ends there, with him reaching out to take his father’s hand, the deep rumble of the man’s voice echoing in his own chest. Somehow, he never really knew what happened next, until he was opening his eyes in the dungeon with Kurogiri looming in the corner, and the ache of strained muscles pulsing through him.

He never knew what happened to his mother. Her face is a blurred image in his mind these days, and he can’t tell if she really sounded the way she did in his head, or if he had forgotten her voice and chosen to make up something that sounded warm and comforting. 

Was that her voice he was hearing again? The soft words that seemed to blend all together, sounding like meaningless noise, but somehow being comforting? But he never heard her, not after the League - Sensei took him. 

The vague recollections of the events of the evening solidify, and the voice takes on a deeper timbre, one he remembers.

Eraserhead, holding out his hand, waiting for him.

Eraserhead, carefully holding him to make sure that he didn’t press on any of the wounds that marred his back.

Eraserhead, carrying him out into the light.

He blinks, and the image of his house vanishes, replaced by a white ceiling. The faint, steady beep of a machine fills his ears, and he can feel that there are tight bandages wrapped around his limbs.

And he can’t really feel his feet, but that was a problem for later, because all he can zero down on is the cold metal of the cuffs around his wrists. Metal cuffs that are just a touch too tight.

Metal cuffs that meant he was on the table and the doctor would come and there would be pain pain pain -

The machine beeps faster, but it barely registers in Izuku’s head as he reaches for the cuffs, his nails slipping on them to score raw, red lines along his wrist in his urge to peel them off.

“-id, kid!” A pair of hands slip over his, holding them down. “Someone get the cuffs off!” 

He struggles against the grip, but it is steady and tight, and then all of a sudden, the cuffs are gone, cool air brushing against the bruised skin.

He sucks in a sharp breath, and blinks, clearing his vision. He isn’t in the dungeon, or even in the doctor’s lab. He is in a different hospital room, one with windows draped with lacy, white curtains that have been pulled open to let some fresh air into the room. He is in a bed that was propped up at an incline, fluffy pillows behind his back. 

And Eraserhead is kneeling on the bed beside him, holding his arms and looking at him with a red, quirked gaze, steady, warm, calm.

“What -” he coughs, and Eraserhead pats his hand for a moment before leaning to grab a glass of water, never taking his eyes off him. “What happened?” he asks.

“You panicked at the quirk cancelling cuffs,” he replies. “I’ve asked them to get you suppressants instead, because it’s not going to be fun for anyone if you keep going invisible, huh?”

And there it was. The main thing that Izuku hasn’t been able to wrap his mind around - the fact that he supposedly had an invisibility quirk, one that let him escape the dungeon.

Izuku doesn’t really have anything else to say, not until a nurse finishes adding the quirk suppressants to his IV, and Eraserhead can blink without him vanishing again.

“You good, kid?” 

Izuku looks up from where he had been examining the new bandages around his wrist, and stares. “Is this real?” he asks bluntly. He knows it has to be, since he had never really had a dream so vivid that the pain across his body followed him through. But it still feels incredibly unreal, that he has actually been rescued. That heroes came for him, like he had prayed All Might would, all those years in the dark.

Eraserhead shifts closer, holding out his hand again, like he had before. Izuku hesitates only slightly before taking it, the callouses warm and hard against his own cool skin. 

“It’s real, Izuku. You’re really out of there. And we’re going to keep you safe now.”

The tears that have been building for all those years spill out of him in silent sobs. He doesn’t know what it is about Eraserhead that makes him trust the man so much, but for the first time since he had been seven and in his home, his mother laughing as she cooked in the kitchen and an All Might cartoon played on the TV, he feels safe.

He doesn’t even register when Eraserhead moves closer to cradle him in his arms, not tight enough to be restrictive, but close enough that he doesn't feel unmoored. He cries, shaking with the force of his shuddering breaths, and lets himself fall apart, before putting himself back again.

“Th-thank you,” he sniffs after a minute or maybe an eternity, pulling back slightly. Eraserhead lets him go easily, but stays close enough, his hand a steady pressure on his thighs. “Thank you for saving me.”

Eraserhead levels him with a face that seems slightly gentler than before. “I did my job, kid. Any hero worth their salt would have done the same.”

Izuku is already shaking his head. “It doesn’t matter,” he rasps. “Because you did it first.”

Eraserhead smiles at him, a soft thing that seems out of place on his haggard face. “Then I’ll accept it,” he hums. “You’re very welcome.”

The door to the room slides open, and Izuku flinches almost instinctively, the sound taking him back to the lab. But Eraserhead is quick to reassure him with a gentle hand on his arm - he really noticed that Izuku hated the feeling of anything on his wrists - and turns to the newcomer.

“Eri’s up and in her classes,” the tall, blond man says, adjusting the glasses on his nose. “She cried a little, but when we told her you needed to help someone, she cheered right back up.”

“Thanks,” Eraserhead replies. “I’ll make it up to her when I get back.”

The blond man winks. “It might take more than ice cream! Hitoshi seemed intent on loading her up with chocolate all evening.”

Eraserhead groans, but there isn’t any real sense of discontent in the sound. Not like the way the doctor groaned when whatever he was doing to Izuku didn’t work out the way he wanted it to.

“Oh, the listener’s awake!” the blond man exclaims, finally noticing him. “How are you feeling?”

Izuku takes a moment to really assess himself. “I can’t feel my feet,” he says. “But it’s nice to see you..?” He turns to Eraserhead to confirm that it really was okay to greet him. 

“It’s good to see you awake and alright too, little listener,” the man cheers. “I’m Yamada Hizashi, but you can also call me -”

“Present Mic,” Izuku breathes, the pieces finally clicking together. “You’re Present Mic.”

The man - no, Yamada Hizashi extends two finger guns at him and winks. “Bang on, little listener, you’ve got that right! Incredible, since not a lot of people get it right the first time around!”

Izuku grins, but then he is distracted from everything by a slight tug by Eraserhead.

“Did you say you can’t feel your feet?” the man asks, frowning.

Izuku wiggles his toes - or tries to - and shakes his head. “Are they - are they moving?”

The blanket covered lumps stay resolutely unmoving. A slight jolt of anxiety shoots through him again. 

“Am I - is something wrong?”

Yamada is at his side in an instant, laying a comforting hand on his shoulder. “It’ll be alright, little listener,” he says. “Your feet were pretty torn up when Eraser here found you, so they’ll just need some more time to heal, you hear me? You’ll be alright.”

But Izuku keeps his eyes fixed on his hero, on the person who had told him that he would be alright in that dingy little bloodstained room. 

“Eraserhead,” he whispers. “Please.”

The man meets his eyes. “It’ll be alright,” he says firmly. “You’ll heal, and you’ll be alright.”

Those words relax him, and he lets himself sink back into the pillows, suddenly tired to the bone.

“Izuku,” Eraserhead says, leaning over to adjust his blanket over him. “I know you want to sleep, and you can, but can you just tell us one thing? So we can help you find your home.”

Izuku nods drowsily. “What is it?”

“Do you remember your full name?” he asks. “Do you remember anything about - is there someone waiting for you?”

Deep green hair and a worried smile.

A warm hug.

A final goodbye.

“Mom,” he whispers. “I left Mom behind.”

He doesn’t bother trying to wipe away the tears that pool at the corners of his eyes as he looks up at Eraserhead, because what was the point? He can’t hide this pain, this ache that pierces him through the heart and makes him well up with sadness.

“I can’t - I can’t remember her voice.”

He closes his eyes on Present Mic’s exclamation, and on Eraserhead’s steady gaze. And when he sleeps, almost instantly, his dreams are filled with vague figures who run around a house, playing Heroes and Villains, and a woman who laughs as she hugs him tight, her little Small Might.

Chapter Text

Shouta slides the door to the hospital room shut behind him softly, pressing his fingers against the corners of his eyes and massaging them. The last couple of days have been particularly rough on them, from the excessive use of his quirk to keep the kid visible until they got the cuffs on him, and the suppressants into him. He can still see him through the little window in the door, curled on his side and deep asleep, curly green hair messed up against the pillow. He knows that if he was closer, he’d be able to hear his laboured, pained breaths, from the aches that no healing quirk could remove completely, not without multiple rounds of healing.

“Shouta,” Hizashi says, and Shouta allows himself to collapse almost bonelessly into his waiting arms. “Are you alright?”

Shouta simply hums and burrows closer, sucking in lungfuls of that fresh ocean scent that always seems to hang around Hizashi. “He’s so scared, Zashi,” he whispers into his shirt. “And he’s so lost.”

“Good thing we have experience with lost children, huh?” Hizashi replies, and Shouta has to huff out a laugh at that. They already have two kids at home, and he seems ready to adopt a third already.

“We’ll have to track down his family, and talk to him when he’s more awake,” he says, finally pulling his face away. Hizashi keeps his arm around his waist though, and the touch steadies Shouta more than he would ever admit. “Why would the League want him?”

“Well, the listener did mention that he was supposed to be quirkless,” Hizashi murmurs, and Shouta takes a moment to mentally hit himself for missing that little detail in his sleepy haze. “We know the nomu have multiple quirks, and they couldn’t bear it. Maybe -”

“Don’t,” Shouta says softly, holding out a hand. “Don’t speak it into existence, Zashi. Not to a kid like that -”

Hizashi smiles at him slightly before leaning over to nudge his shoulder. “Growing soft in your old age, huh, Eraser? You’re ready to go to war for this kid already.”

Shouta shrugs. “What can I say,” he admits. “This class of mine has grown on me, and I can’t help seeing them in him.”

Before he can say anything else, his phone vibrates in his pocket, and when he fishes it out, he sees Tsukauchi’s name flash on the screen.

“Hello,” he answers brusquely.

“Eraser, we’ve got some information on the kid,” Tsukauchi says, sounding exhausted. Shouta can imagine the detective, poring over old files all through the night just to figure this out. They both cared more than they would admit, and despite being in a profession where these sorts of scenes should be heartbreakingly common, he never gets used to it.

“Tell me,” he says, waving a hand at Hizashi to tell him to go back into the room and keep an eye on the kid, so that he doesn’t wake up alone. Besides, the doctor is supposed to be returning to take another look at his feet.

Hizashi shoots him a thumbs up and slips back into the room. Izuku shifts uncomfortably at the sound of the door, but settles almost immediately, face creasing in pain as he tries to shift onto his back.

Shouta rips his gaze away to focus on Tsukauchi’s words.

“Midoriya Izuku, age 15. Reported missing by his mother Midoriya Inko almost eight years ago, but no one followed it up because he was listed as quirkless. We tracked him down using the quirk status. Turns out, there aren’t a lot of quirkless kids in Musutafu.”

Shouta’s fingers tighten on his phone, and he wants to scream. To think that it took them eight years to get here, and find the kid - if he ever found the people who dismissed the case earlier, he might not be able to hold back.

“The mother moved out a couple of months later, and we don’t have records mentioning where she went. It’s possible she moved to another city or something like that.”

“Keep an eye out,” Shouta grinds out. “I’ll let you know when the kid is awake and ready to talk.” He pauses for a second. “Thanks, Nao.”

“I’m just doing my job,” Tsukauchi says, and Shouta has to laugh. “What?”

“No, it’s just something the kid told me,” he says. “He thanked me for saving him, and when I said it was just me doing my job, he said that it mattered because I did it first.”

Tsukauchi echoes his laughter over the line. “Well, he sounds like a good kid,” he says. “Keep me posted, Eraser, and I’ll let you know if there are any leads. Oh, and until we find a solution, about the kid -”

“I can take care of him,” Shouta says. “He’s used to me, and he seems comfortable around me. Besides, him being on campus would be safer, and he’ll have time to recover.”

“Sure,” Tsukauchi says, and Shouta knows that the man probably has a shit-eating grin on his face even as he sounds unaffected. “You have the experience anyways.”

Shouta runs a hand over his face. “I wish I didn’t,” he admits. “Why do I have to be proud of being the person to find all these traumatised kids?”

Tsukauchi’s voice is gentle as he answers, “It’s because you found them, Eraser. You saved them all, so be proud of yourself for that.”

Shouta simply hums in response before cutting the call. He leans his head against the wall behind him and exhales deeply, letting out a breath he feels like he has been choking on for the last few hours. He can’t get the image out of his head, of the scars that cover the kid’s torso, neat and surgical, as if they were calculated to cause pain. He can’t stop thinking about the look on his face when he said that he couldn’t feel his feet. 

It’s not fair, he thinks, rubbing his dry eyes shut. It’s not fair that this happens to kids.

But this is his reality. This is a world he willingly entered, a world where he sees this happen and does his best to protect them from the consequences. 

And damned if he won’t do that for Izuku.

Chapter Text

It takes three days of testing for them to finally come and tell Izuku that all his tests came back normal, or at least as normal as they could be, given the circumstances. His captors had kept him properly fed, even if it was only so they could continue experimenting on him without the possibility of him dying. He knows it’s a morbid train of thought, and one he should not find so easy to fall into, but there’s really nothing he can do about it.

Or so he tries to tell himself, even when he finds himself retching into the bin at the side of his bed in the middle of the night. The nightmare was so vivid, so clear, he felt the phantom shocks of pain still running up and down his arms. He could still see their faces - the Doctor, Chisaki’s men, Sensei - past, present, future tormentors. And even as he holds the bin with shaking hands, he can’t get rid of the feeling that there had been more. More than had happened that he had simply chosen to forget.

The light of his room clicks on, and he flinches at the sudden brightness. Eraserhead - who else could it be? - murmured a soft apology before making his way to his side, gently taking the bin from his hands.

“What do you need?” he asked quietly, holding his hands out, palms facing upward, like always. This had quickly become their thing, with Izuku making the choice to reach out every time, clinging to calloused hands that were slowly becoming as familiar to him as his own. 

“S-stay,” Izuku chokes out, feeling the words die on their way to his lips. Eraserhead doesn’t say anything; he simply adjusts his position so he’s a little more comfortable, the line of his body a comforting weight against Izuku’s side, reminding him more constantly that he’s not back there, he’s not alone.

“You were really brave today,” Eraserhead says, squeezing his hands in a steady rhythm. Izuku doesn’t even know when he started, but somehow, his racing heart is slowing, and his choked breaths are steadying to the rhythm. “I know it must have been hard to talk about everything.”

The detective had come. Nondescript, with a tan trenchcoat and a hat, he had settled at the end of his bed and asked him questions. Izuku had almost wanted to ask him more about his quirk, but he’d held himself back. The impulse had been beaten out of him often enough.

“Tsukauchi wanted me to tell you that he’ll be up to answer any questions you may have,” eraserhead continues, and Izuku blinks, turning to look at him in confusion. “He said he could feel you get really excited about Lie Detector.”

Izuku squeezes his eyes shut and hunches, waiting for the blow. It always comes when he lets it show.

All that comes is the steady squeezing of Eraserhead’s hands around his. “You’re not going to be punished for a bit of curiosity, kid,” he says, and Izuku’s head shoots up at the strange note in his voice. Eraserhead looks…sad? He’s not sure.

He opens his mouth, but his throat is still choked, and the words don’t seem to want to come out. His frustration must be visible in his face, because Eraserhead shifts, and without letting go of Izuku’s hand, pulls out a notebook from somewhere.

“Wanna write what you wanna tell me?”

Izuku nods, and carefully lets go of one hand, the other still gripping Eraserhead. His handwriting is horrible, but he manages to scrawl out the words, “Why are you sad?”

Eraserhead reads it, and sighs, a small smile on his face. “You’re a little too perceptive, kiddo. I’m - I’m not sad. I’m angry that you had to go through all of that, that you had to feel like asking a question would get you beaten up. I’m sorry we didn’t come sooner.”

Izuku is already writing the next words before Eraserhead can finish his sentence.

“It’s not your fault!!!” he writes, placing the exclamation marks very vehemently. “You came in the end, and that’s enough!!”

“I know,” Eraserhead replies, rubbing his thumb in circles along the back of his palm. “But give me this, kid, this guilt that every hero feels when we see an injustice we were a little late to solve.”

Izuku hesitates, and then nods. He understands it, strangely enough. He knows there are some things he never wants to forget, like the look on Eri’s face when he left her, or the way Tomura looked when his hand came down on his shoulder for the first time. He feels the guilt of leaving Eri alone every day, but there’s nothing he can do about it. In the beginning, he had wanted to save Tomura too.

He doesn’t think he’ll get the chance now.

“A penny for your thoughts?” Eraserhead asks, and Izuku jolts back into awareness, the strange, dissociative haze vanishing. “Or do you feel up to sleeping again?”

Izuku doesn’t want to go back to sleep. He doesn’t want to see the phantoms circle him again, doesn’t want to feel the sharp pain in the scars on his arms. So, he simply moves closer to Eraserhead and leans against the man’s shoulder, sighing.

“What happens next?” he writes, and tilts the paper towards him.

“You can leave the hospital in a couple of days,” he tells him, slipping an arm around his shoulder but leaving enough space that Izuku can shrug him off if he wants. He doesn’t; he simply snuggles closer because he has learned that he loves to be held, to feel the outside world against his skin in a way that doesn’t bring pain.

It seems like it has been forever since Izuku knew that touch didn’t mean pain.

“The nerve endings on your feet were pretty badly fried, so you won’t have feeling there for a little longer. But Recovery Girl said she can take a look at you, and you will definitely heal, you hear me?” He looks down at Izuku with a slightly severe expression on his face, as if he can hear the uncertainty and the terror building in his mind at the thought of his unresponsive feet. “And then, you’ll come home with Hizashi and me, since we can help you figure out your quirk.”

Izuku can’t hide his little jolt of surprise at that. “You…you want me?” he writes hesitantly, and Eraserhead barely reads the words before turning to meet Izuku’s eyes.

“We want to help you, Izuku,” he says solemnly, and the words make his chest feel funny and warm. “We want to protect you, and make sure this never has to happen to you again. Since we don’t know where the League is, you’ll be safe on campus, with us.”

“Thank you,” he writes, and Eraserhead squeezes his shoulder gently.

“Don’t thank me until you’ve seen my hellions,” he says roughly. “I’ve got two kids at home, and they’ll probably be a little skittish around you for a while, at least until they get used to you.”

Izuku’s eyes light up at the thought of this grumpy man having two kids.

“Tell me about them?” he writes.

Eraserhead talks long into the night, and Izuku doesn’t catch everything, but he feels a warmth settle into his chest as he sinks deeper into the man’s side. He hears of a boy his age, cynical and let down by the world, and of a girl who is young, yet who has known the horrors of the world personally.

He thinks, as he drifts off, that it only seems right that Eraserhead takes in the broken kids and fixes them, because just his presence, his warm, steady presence, seems to be putting Izuku’s pieces back together again.

Chapter Text

Shouta pushes the wheelchair towards the bed and has to stifle an amused grin at the look of disgust that crosses Izuku’s face. He doesn’t blame the kid, considering that he would also like to leave the hospital on his own two feet whenever possible, but considering that he can barely stand on his feet without crumpling in pain, this is the best option.

“Tough luck, kid,” he says, somehow close enough that teasing doesn’t bring that haunted look into his eyes. “You’re gonna have to get in this.”

Izuku’s face scrunches up in displeasure, but he seems to give in. “Not at home,” he says, his voice hoarse. He has been speaking on and off since the night when his voice went away, the night he gave his statement. They still don’t know what causes it, but Shouta isn’t surprised. He would be surprised if a traumatic past like this left no scars on the kid’s mind.

“Yeah, not at home,” he agrees. “Recovery Girl said we have to drop by her office for a quick checkup, and that should make your feet better.”

His face lights up, and he settles himself into the wheelchair with no more complaints. Shouta can tell there’s more he wants to ask, but that he’s almost literally biting his lips to keep it inside. They haven’t gotten that far with the comfort and the trust, but he’s sure they’ll get there, get to a point where Izuku won’t have to question his every action and thought, where he’ll be able to ask what he wants to and say what he wants to without feeling like he’ll be punished for it.

“Zashi’s waiting with the car, so are you ready for that?”

Izuku nods. “It’ll be nice to see him again,” he whispers, but there’s a hint of uncertainty in his voice. It only takes a moment for Shouta to realise what it’s about.

“He missed you, kid,” he says, telegraphing his movements carefully and reaching out to ruffle the hair that has been cut to a more manageable length. “He’s gonna be happy to see you too.”

“And - and the others?” he asks hesitantly. “I’m - do you want me?”

Shouta pauses the wheelchair and crouches in front of the kid, balancing on the balls of his feet. “Do you remember when I told you to call me by my name?” he asks. Izuku nods slowly. “I don’t do that unless I think that person is going to be around for a while, okay? So if you know my name, you’ve got to stay.”

Izuku looks slightly more reassured, and Shouta realises it’s probably because of his phrasing. He phrased it as an order, not as a request, or not as an option, and his stomach sinks with a sense of unease. 

Orders are more welcome than requests?

He’s not stupid. He knows you don’t walk away from a past like this one without scars. But Izuku has been so…cheerful, so accommodating, he almost forgot that something like that can be a trauma response too. To accommodate and accept everything that comes, so that you can escape any further damage.

Dammit.

“Hey,” he says, calling Izuku’s attention back to him. “I want to help you, okay? And so does everyone in my house. So, we’d be glad to have you with us.”

Izuku nods timidly, and Shouta decides that there can’t really be anything else done right now. With a groan that has the kid giggling softly, he rises to his feet again, his knees cracking, and they continue their journey out of the hospital. 

The kid gasps when they step out of the front door, his eyes wide and unblinking. He’s staring at the trees that wave in the gentle breeze, the clouds that drift across a sky that seems impossibly blue. The faint hints of the oncoming winter makes the air cooler, but it’s still sunny and bright outside.

Shouta pauses, so he can see the world.

There’s a moment of silence, and it feels like the rest of the world has dropped away. All there is is this too-thin boy drowning in a Present Mic hoodie, his feet wrapped up in bandages, a barely-healed scar running across his head, and a quirk cancelling cuff clipped around his arm, who stares at the sky as if he’s never seen it before. Shouta pretends not to see the line of tears that steadily make their way down his cheeks, even as Izuku reaches up with trembling hands to wipe them away.

“Okay, kid?” he asks gently.

Izuku nods, eyes still fixed on the ground. “Okay,” he replies, a little snotty and congested.

“Come on, Hizashi is waiting for us.”

Yamada really is waiting, leaning against the car as he scrolls through something on his phone. At the sound of their footsteps, he looks up, a bright smile on his face.

“Hello there!” he calls, tucking his phone back into his pocket. “You look pretty good, if I do say so myself!”

Shouta wishes he had his capture scarf on so he could duck into it and smile, but the collar of his shirt would have to do. 

“You bought his clothes,” he says fondly. “You’re being a menace, Zashi.”

Hizashi pouts. “The listener looks like he likes it,” he says, going over to open the door for them. “Don’t you?”

Izuku blinks, put on the spot. A blush covers his cheeks and he waves his hands in front of his face almost frantically. “I’m fine!” he yelps. “I’m very grateful for it when you didn’t have to and it really means so much to me and I’ll take good care of it so I can return it properly and -”

Hizashi laughs looking over his glasses at him. “Calm down, little listener,” he says casually. “You don’t have to return it to me, this one’s all yours, ya hear? And if you like it, there’s more like that with your name on it!”

Izuku seems struck dumb, overwhelmed, and Shouta sees the blush spread further up his face.

“Alright then,” he says, breaking into the conversation. “Let’s get this show on the road first, talk later.” He slides his arm under Izuku’s knees, lifting him into the car like he weighs nothing. He feels a warmth bloom in his stomach when Izuku barely flinches at his touch. Carefully, he makes sure his feet remain elevated, and buckles him in. Hizashi loads the wheelchair into the trunk, and then they’re off.

“I’m so tired,” Shouta groans, the moment he can recline his seat. “Did you not tell the gremlins anything at all? They blew up my phone last night.”

Hizashi glances at Izuku in the rearview mirror, noting that he seems enraptured by the sight of the passing trees. 

“You’ve been out of class for a week, Sho,” he says quietly. “Even USJ didn’t keep you out for more than a day. What do you think your class thinks?”

“That I’m on a sensitive mission?” he grouches. But as much as he’s complaining, he really doesn’t mind. He understands where the class is coming from. Having faced so many villain attacks this year, he’s a little antsy when he can’t see them too, and the messages that light up his phone at inhuman times of the night actually put a little smile on his face, because he now apparently has all their texting habits down pat.

Disgusting.

“How are Toshi and Eri?” he asks. “I know they missed me, and I missed them too.”

“Who are you and what have you done to Aizawa Shouta?” Hizashi jokes, looking over at him. “Making all these emotional confessions - someone might think you actually had a heart!”

“Shut up.”

“They’re alright,” Hizashi replies, turning to look back at the road after cackling at him. “A little lonely, but she really understood what was going on. If not completely, that you found someone who was hurt by a bad man, and who needed you like she needed you. And she’s happy to share.”

Aizawa sighs, sinking deeper into his seat. “She shouldn’t feel like that,” he mumbles. “She shouldn’t feel like she comes secondary at any point. Mic, do you think we’re taking on more than we can chew here? I don’t want to fail any of them.”

Hizashi places his free hand over Shouta’s rubbing circles onto his palm. “You worry like this every time,” he says fondly. “You worried like this when we got Toshi, and then when we got Eri. Don’t worry, love. You’ve got so many people to help us out. Besides, last I heard, Nemuri and Eri were really getting along like a house on fire!”

Shouta opens his mouth to make his displeasure with that arrangement known - no way is Nemuri replacing him as favourite parent, he will fight her - when Izuku leans forward slightly.

“You - you keep saying Eri,” he says, his voice shaking, eyes wide. “Is - is that -”

“She’s our second kid,” Shouta tells him, turning to face him. “We got her out of a bad situation a couple of months ago, and we’ve been taking care of her.”

“Was it - was it Chisaki?” Izuku whispers, his face turning whiter by the minute. “The bad situation - was it the Shie Hassaikai?”

Hizashi and Shouta freeze, exchanging startled glances. 

“How did you know, kid?” Shouta asks, breaking free first. “How do you know Chisaki Kai?”

“I was there,” Izuku says, sounding haunted. “For just a little while, I was there.”

It’s a good thing that it’s Hizashi at the wheel and not Shouta, because if it had been him, they would have swerved off road three sentences ago. Instead, the car is still moving smoothly, but Hizashi’s knuckles around the steering wheel are white.

“He had her, and - and he told me he was - he was hurting her. Like me. Before - before he gave me back, and - and he said I was useless to him, not like her, and -”

“Izuku, breathe,” Shouta says, noticing his breath speeding up, his words coming in panted gasps. “Zashi, pull over -”

Hizashi already has the car on the side, and the moment it rolls to a stop, Shouta is out of his seat and crawling into the back, so he can hold out his hand to Izuku, palm upwards, and wait for him to respond.

Izuku clings to him with desperate strength.

“She - she’s okay?” he rasps, even as Shouta begins to squeeze his hands in a steady rhythm, forcing his body to follow along. “She got out?”

“She did,” Shouta says, knowing that when he gets like this, it’s only Shouta’s words that will get through to him. “She got out, Izuku, she’s safe, and so are you. You’re going to see her pretty soon, and you’re going to be okay.”

Izuku leans forward slightly, and Shouta moves closer so Izuku can lean his forehead against his shoulder, his hands letting go of Shouta’s to clutch his shirt tight enough to crease the material.

“Promise,” he chokes out.

Shouta places his arm around his shoulder carefully, holding him as he shakes and then pulls himself back together.

“I promise,” he replies, and Izuku’s breathing finally steadies back out.

Chapter Text

Hitoshi knows Aizawa is a Pro Hero who can take care of himself, and he also knows that if anything had happened to his guardian, his other guardian, Yamada, would have raised hell about it. The two were so codependent it was ridiculous. But last week had been nothing of that sort.

Except Aizawa had still been gone.

Usually, they considered Hitoshi old enough to know the details of problems that would keep them away from home for long periods of time. But this time, all Hizashi had said before leaving the house in a whirlwind of action was that this was an incredibly sensitive case, there’s nothing wrong with Shouta, calm down Toshi, he’ll probably be home tomorrow!

And then he’d left this morning to pick up Aizawa.

Eri crawled into his lap, startling him back to awareness. Her cartoon had stopped playing on the TV, for some reason, and she was looking at him with her head tilted to the side.

“What’s wrong, Toshi?” she asks, and he shakes his head. 

“Nothing much, Eri-chan,” he says, forcing some cheer into his voice. “I just miss Shouta.”

She nods seriously, cuddling into him. “I miss him too,” she says, focussing on where her fingers worried at a loose strand of thread on his sweater. “But Mic said he was helping someone like they helped me, so it’s okay.” She looks up at him. “He helped us nicely, so he should help others too.”

“It’s okay to miss him and feel bad anyways, Eri-chan,” he says, hating that she’s so ready to give away the comfort that Aizawa gives them. “It’s okay to want him.”

“I know,” she replies, sounding wiser than her years. “I still want him to help other people.”

The front door clicks as it opens, distracting both of them. Eri scrambles to the floor, only kneeing Hitoshi a couple of times in the process, before dashing to the entryway. Hitoshi follows more slowly, not sure what exactly is holding him back.

“Eri-chan!”

Wait. That’s not Shouta or Hizashi…?

Hitoshi speeds up at the hoarse call and the sound of something falling to the ground. When he turns the corner, he stares, confused.

There’s a boy on the floor of the entryway, his feet wrapped in bandages and nearly drowning in a Present Mic sweatshirt. His green hair looks like it has been messed up by a storm, and he’s crying, clutching Eri. Who is not resisting.

“What -” he looks up, bewildered, to catch Aizawa and Yamada exchanging a sad glance. Yamada adjusts the bag he has on his shoulder and whispers something to Aizawa, before waving at Hitoshi quietly and heading back out. Aizawa, on the other hand, sinks down to the floor to lay a hand on the boy’s shoulder.

“Izuku?” he says gently, and Hitoshi remembers this voice, this was the voice that told him that everything would be alright when he was ten and crying, the muzzle a little too tight on his face. 

The boy - Izuku? - shudders, his arms tightening around Eri.

“Nii-chan,” she whimpers, her own hands clinging to his sweatshirt. “You - you’re here.”

“I’m here,” he says wetly, his face still buried in her silver hair. “I’m here, Eri-chan, I’m here .”

She wriggles slightly, as if asking to be let down, but her hands don’t release his shirt. In fact, she uses the little space she has created to dive closer to him, to clumsily pat at the tears that run down his cheeks.

“Did Zawa help you?” she asks tearily. “Nii-chan?”

He nods into her hair. “He did,” he replies shakily. “Eri-chan, he saved me.”

Hitoshi feels his throat close up at the tone with which Izuku says it. The reverence, the disbelief, the relief - it’s all so familiar to him. He doesn’t want to be reminded of that time in his childhood, of the anger and the pain that used to follow him around, but it seems like he doesn’t really get a chance with this.

Not that he’s mad about it. 

Yamada comes back in pushing a folded wheelchair, and all at once, the bandages on the boy’s feet make a lot more sense.

“Toshi, can you help me with this?” he asks softly, not breaking the bubble that Aizawa is sitting with on the floor. He simply looks up with gratitude at Hitoshi, and he manages to shoot him a wobbly smile before reaching out to grab the bag from Yamada.

“Guest room?” he asks shakily. “I cleaned it up when you said it was a sensitive case, since the last time that happened, Shouta came back with Eri.”

Yamada laughs throatily and ruffles his hair. “You’ve always been a smart one, Toshi,” he says, guiding him into the house. “I told Shouta there would be no hiding this from you, not when we told Eri that he was needed to help someone.”

“Is this - is this another wild quirk?” he asks, using his hip to push the door open so Yamada can roll the wheelchair in comfortably. “An out of control quirk?”

“Sort of,” Yamada replies evasively. “At least, for a while, until we found quirk cancelling cuffs that didn’t need to go on wrists.”

The implications of that sentence make Hitoshi sick to his stomach. 

“Is he - is he okay?” he whispers, feeling like he’s treading on forbidden ground. When Yamada turns to smile at him, it’s not his usual vibrant smile. It’s smaller, sadder, and a little tighter than he ever remembers it being.

“He’ll…he’ll be okay,” he replies, sinking onto the bed and patting the mattress to get Hitoshi to sit too. “We’re going to have a few changes around the place, until then.”

Hitoshi is already nodding. “I know. It’s alright.”

Yamada pulls his glasses off and sighs, pressing his face into his hands. “Hitoshi, I know it’s not fair to you,” he begins, and Hitoshi blinks, confused. “Us bringing home another kid,” he clarifies. “I know we didn’t really give you a heads-up, and we never really explained this to you, but…kid, Izuku, he’s imprinted on Sho and he’s the only one who can calm him down, so we couldn’t really do anything else.”

“I don’t blame him,” Hitoshi says, thinking back to his own childhood. It had taken him over a month to get used to talking to Yamada, even when they lived in the same house. He had found so much comfort in Aizawa’s presence, considering that the man had literally saved him. “Mic, what…what happened to him?”

Yamada sucks in a harsh breath and lets it out in a slow exhale. “The League happened to him,” he says, and Hitoshi winces. “The League and the Shie Hassaikai.”

“What the fuck?” The words burst from Hitoshi before he even registers what he's saying. And it speaks volumes about the topic of their discussion that Yamada doesn’t even chastise him for his language.

“What do you mean, both of them?” 

Hitoshi remembers the fear and terror that the USJ brought them, and he remembers Kamino. He knows just how horrifying the nomu can be, and to think that this boy, who looks like he could be his age, was there, held captive - he really doesn’t want to think about it. And God , the Shie Hassaikai case had wrecked his classmates. Uraraka had a solid month of counselling before she even began to process the horror that was Nighteye dying in her arms. And he’s seen what it did to Eri.

“Let’s not get too caught up in this,” Yamada says, breaking him out of his spiral. “Toshi, you alright?”

He hadn’t even realised when he’d started shaking. But his hands are trembling, and he’s filled with an anger and a sorrow that isn’t really his, because it belongs to the boy on the floor of their house, crying into a little girl’s shoulder.

“Did you catch them?” he asks sharply, looking up at Yamada. “The people who hurt him, hurt Eri - are they gone?”

Yamada winces. “The hideout was empty when Sho and the others got there. Toshi, I know this is hitting a little hard for you -”

“You think?” Hitoshi mumbles under his breath.

“- but we’re looking into it. All you can do now is help Izuku get better. Give him friends, a place to feel safe. Take care of him, ya hear?”

Hitoshi sighs, the fight leaving him. “Of course,” he replies, a wry grin on his face. “Isn’t that what it means to be a hero? Saving someone’s heart?”

Yamada ruffles his hair again and then pulls him into an one-armed hug. “That’s my boy,” he whispers. “I’m so proud of you, ya hear? You’ve been incredibly strong and you’ve grown into an incredible person. I’m very proud of you, Hitoshi.”

Hitoshi feels the warmth of Yamada’s words sink into him, and the satisfaction glows in his chest. But with it comes his limit for emotional talks and he pulls away slightly. 

“We should stop hogging his room,” he says, rising to his feet. “Come on, or else Shouta will come searching for us just to kick us out.”

“You’re not wrong,” a deep voice says from the door, and Hitoshi spots Aizawa leaning against the doorframe, his arms crossed over his chest. 

“He’s talking to Eri, so I came to see where you two vanished off to,” he says, reading Yamada’s glance almost instantly.

“He was just explaining the situation to me,” Hitoshi tells Aizawa. “Not everything, just…he’s been through some shit, huh?”

Aizawa sighs, his head sinking into what could count as a nod. “It’s been a hard few years for him, and the last week has been harder.”

“You don’t have to worry,” Hitoshi says, brushing his shoulder with his. “I’ll play nice.”

Aizawa’s lip quirks up in a small smile, and he ruffles Hitoshi’s hair, which seems to be turning into a literal bush with all the ruffling he has been subjected to since the adults came home.

“Thanks, Toshi.”

He waves away the words with characteristic awkwardness. “I’m gonna go check in with them,” he says, and walks out of the room. He can hear the adults talk in low voices behind him, but he doesn’t try to listen in. For once, he knows that he’d much rather focus on someone else.

Eri seems to have refused to let go of Izuku, who has been moved to the couch. His feet are elevated on the footstool, a cushion underneath them, and Hitoshi can see that the bandages have been newly tied. He must have torn something in the process of Eri’s mad rush, and had to get them replaced.

He flinches when Hitoshi enters the room, but doesn’t react otherwise. Eri keeps patting his hand and rambling about…princesses? Hitoshi can’t tell, but at least it’s keeping Izuku calm enough until Hitoshi can perch on the edge of the sofa adjacent to him.

“Hi,” he says, wondering just how else he could talk to him. It’s like all his social skills have left him in this instant, and he has reverted to his old awkward self.

“Hello.” Izuku’s voice is hesitant, but loud enough that Hitoshi can hear him.

“I’m Shinsou Hitoshi,” he says, introducing himself. He expects and receives the confused head tilt from Izuku, who somehow seems to match Eri when it comes to the wide, puppy dog eyes.

“I’ve been adopted for five years now, but I still kept my old last name,” he said. “It’s - I was in a bad foster situation, but my parents, they were nice. I wanted to remember them.”

Izuku seems to relax at his words. “I’m sorry th-that happened to you,” he says quietly, and Hitoshi is bowled over at this boy who has clearly gotten out of a worse situation than him, extending his sympathy and empathy to Hitoshi. 

“It’s been a while, I’m okay now,” he says quickly. “Especially since I have Aizawa and Hizashi!”

“Zawa and Zashi will help, Nii-chan,” Eri pipes in. “They’ll make the hurt go away!”

Izuku’s eyes fill with tears again, and he wipes them away with his wrists. He doesn’t really say anything, but Hitoshi can make out the look in his eyes - a desperate hope that is familiar enough to him that he can’t help the smile that creases over his face.

“Yeah,” Hitoshi says firmly. “They’ll make the hurt go away.”

Chapter Text

Midoriya Inko wakes up to the very familiar sound of Hisashi stumbling into the bathroom, his crutches falling with a clutter. She hears him retch a couple of times, heavy breaths echoing against the bathroom tiles.

The clock on the bedside table reads 1:24 A.M. She takes an extra moment to look at the date on her phone, and she knows . 

“Hisashi?” she asks quietly, slipping out of bed to go after him.

“‘M fine,” he mumbles back, right before leaning over the toilet to throw up again.

“I’ll get your meds.”

The apartment is quiet and empty as she pads to the home office, searching for Hisashi’s medicine pouch. The curtains cover all the windows, and the shadows of the night are long and heavy over them.

Inko comes back to the room with the pills in her hand to find that Hisashi has managed to make his way out of the bathroom. He sits on the floor, head leaning against the wall behind him, his leg stretched out in front of him. He looks so old, so tired, with the grey streaks running through his dark hair, visible even in the dim light of the room.

She’s not sure she’s much different. 

“What do you need?” she asks gently, handing him the bottle and a glass of water. “Tell me.”

Hisashi holds out a hand to her and she goes easily, settling in beside him and leaning her head on his shoulder. He clutches her hand desperately, and she immediately knows what he is thinking of.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers hoarsely. “Inko, I’m so sorry.”

She feels the tears pricking at the corners of her eyes and tries to stop them, but Inko is weak. She is weak and she is scared, and she misses her son so much.

“You - you tried,” she says, and Hisashi twitches in response, his bad leg jumping. “Hisashi, at least - at least you came back.”

He is already shaking his head. “No,” he says. “It should have - I should have been faster.”

Inko looks over at a shadowed alcove that is visible through the barely open bedroom door. She knows that if she were to go over there and open the curtain, she would see pictures. 

Photographs of a young boy who grinned up at the camera with a wide smile, freckles dark against his cheeks, green hair tousled from playing in the mud. He would be laughing at them, a snapshot captured two years ago, a memory that vanished in smoke and dust.

She remembers the day as if it just happened.

Izuku had been so excited to see his dad, who had come back to Japan after so many years. Hisashi had been so excited to take him out on a trip. All it took was one villain attack, and their fragile happiness crumbled to pieces.

Two went out, one barely came back. Inko remembers the nights spent at Hisashi’s bedside, listening to him struggle to breathe with the ventilator, and wishes, not for the first time, that they at least had a body to bury.

But she doesn’t say anything about it to Hisashi. She instead nudges him to make him look at the pill bottle he dropped.

“Take your meds and I’ll help you back to bed,” she says, her voice sounding flat even to herself. “We can go in for another appointment tomorrow, to make sure there hasn’t been any change.”

He sucks in a sharp breath and lets her tap out a pill for him to take. She holds herself together, forcing her breaths to be even and steady as she helps him to his feet and acts as his crutch to lead him back to bed. She brings his crutches back from the bathroom, leaning them beside the bed. 

It’s only when she crawls back under the covers that she lets herself break, her sobs shattering the silence of the room. Her body shakes, trembles, and she curls in on herself, as if that will stop her bleeding heart from feeling like it will burst through her skin. Hisashi reaches over, and she goes, blindly, into his embrace. He holds her carefully, a hand settled across her back and another cradling her head against his shoulder.

A part of Inko hates this. He’s the one who woke up from a nightmare. 

He’s the one who saw it happen.

He’s the one who nearly died.

But why is she crying?

Why does she feel like she is using her own quirk against herself, pulling at her heart?

“I’m sorry,” she whimpers into his shirt. “I’m so sorry!”

He simply holds her tighter, and she can feel a few drops of tears slide down his face into her hair. Hisashi’s grief is quiet, slow. Not like hers, a crashing wave that overwhelms her all at once and then draws back, leaving her lost and empty. 

Neither of them speak any more that night, as the clocks shift to 2 A.M., and then 4 A.M., and then 6 A.M. Sleep doesn’t come back to them, so they simply lie there in each others’ arms, waiting for the sun to rise above the New York skyline.

At least if the sun comes up, there will be other things to do.

They don’t open the curtain in the alcove for a week.

Chapter Text

Shouta is almost asleep when he hears the clatter of something falling. He’s not the only one to jolt awake; Hizashi shoots upright with a bleary “huh!?” and he hears Hitoshi’s door click open. 

He is not surprised to be woken up in the middle of the night. He knew that despite the easy conversations and the surprisingly uneventful meals, Izuku would have trouble at night. He has not been able to sleep through it since the hospital, and he doesn’t expect him to be able to do it any time soon. 

When he scrambles into the corridor, it’s to the sight of Hitoshi blinking into Izuku’s room.

“He’s gone?” he says incredulously. “I can’t - where did he go?”

Shouta peers past him to spot an empty room. For a moment, his sleep-addled brain is both confused and terrified that he managed to lose the kid, but then his rational brain comes back online, and he remembers.

“Shit,” he hisses, stepping into the room. “Izuku? Kiddo, it’s me, Eraserhead! Can you make a noise if you’re here?” 

Yamada has woken up sufficiently to turn on the lights and usher Hitoshi to the living room. Shouta listens carefully, and then gives in, turning on his quirk. And in an eerie sense of deja vu, just as his eyes flash red and his hair rises up, the shuddering, huddled figure of Izuku materialises against the wall.

“I’m sorry, it fell off and I was scared and I didn’t - I swear I didn’t go anywhere and - I didn’t do anything, let me go, please let me go -”

Shouta’s heart breaks all over again.

“Oh, Izuku, kid, look at me,” he breathes, crouching down to his level again. “It’s fine, no one’s angry, this happens, come on now, look here.”

Izuku’s shaking reduces just slightly, but his hands stay clenched around his hair, tugging it slightly. Shouta frowns, spotting the movement pulling at the scar over his ear. 

“Izuku?”

He keeps his gaze level even as he searches around with his hands for the fallen quirk cancellation cuff. It must not have been secured properly, and the jolt of waking up from a nightmare must have dislodged it. That must have been the clatter that woke them up, or maybe it was the sound of Izuku falling, crawling to the corner.

“Izuku, it’s Eraserhead, and I promised to save you, didn’t I? I’m here, look at me now, come on.”

Izuku turns just slightly, and when he sees Shouta’s red eyes, he throws himself forward, just like that night in the basement. Shouta is ready; he catches him and steadies him, even as he curls into Shouta’s arms, his breath wheezing in his chest and his pulse thrumming against Shouta’s hand through his back. 

“Here,” Hitoshi whispers, holding out the quirk cancelling cuff. Shouta shoots him a quick thanks before fixing it back on Izuku’s arm and dropping his quirk. When he stays visible in his arms, he settles more comfortably, still holding onto Izuku.

“Eri didn’t wake up,” Hitoshi says, and Shouta simply nods. He runs his hand down Izuku’s back in a steady motion, maintaining a slow rhythm that guides his breathing.

“Didn’t you go to the living room?” he asks Hitoshi, who seems content to sit beside him in silence.

“Guessed you might need some help if you had your quirk on,” he replies. “And I was right. Mic’s making hot chocolate, by the way. Since we’re all awake.”

“’M sorry,” Izuku mumbles, his words almost lost in the fabric of Shouta’s shirt. “I’m sorry.”

“You have nothing to apologise for,” Shouta says almost severely. “You did nothing wrong.”

“Woke you up,” he says, and it seems directed at Hitoshi, because he turns just slightly to look at him from under his fringe. “Sorry.”

“Nah.” Hitoshi lounges back on his hands, his posture deceptively casual. It’s only because Shouta knows him so well that he can make out the stress in him. “I don’t usually sleep a lot, so you didn’t do anything of that sort.”

Yamada picks that time to enter with a tray of steaming mugs. The warm, sweet scent of chocolate fills the air, and Shouta feels his own muscles relax instinctively.

“Hot choco for everyone,” Hizashi says, muted but still somehow bouncy as fuck given he was woken up barely ten minutes ago. “Come on, boys, let’s drink up.”

Shouta wishes he could kiss Hizashi, but there are kids in the room and he’d rather not deal with the teenage angst that oozes out of Hitoshi every time they kiss in front of him. And Izuku’s curled up in his lap, so he’s not in the right position anyways.

“Do you think you can go back to sleep?” he asks Izuku, who simply shakes his head and curls up into a smaller ball. Shouta shifts slightly to make sure he isn’t squeezing any healing wounds together. “Kiddo, relax a little bit? Once Chiyo-san has looked at you, you can cosplay a pretzel to your heart’s content.”

Izuku lets out a sound that could be a huffed laugh, or maybe a choked groan, but Shouta will take it. It’s hard enough to make the kid relax, so every little reaction is worth solid gold.

“Do you want to talk about it?” he asks quietly, once the kid uncurls slightly. His hand is still tightly fisted in the material of Shouta’s shirt, pulling it taut. 

“I was back,” he whispers in reply. “Dark.”

Shouta remembers the rooms that they found in the warehouse, the dark rooms with nothing more than chains and ties. 

“I’m sorry,” he says, stricken. “We didn’t think about that.”

“Not your fault,” Izuku murmurs, shaking his head. 

Hizashi leans back to rummage through the drawer, calling Hitoshi over to him. In a few minutes, they emerge victorious, an old nightlight clutched in Hizashi’s hand.

“Hey, little listener,” he says gently, leaning closer. “Will this help?”

Hitoshi takes the nightlight from him and plugs it in, turning it on to show the constellation that it forms on the ceiling. “I used to be really scared of the dark too,” he says, sitting down cross-legged against Hizashi. “They bought me this until I got better at dealing with the dark.”

Izuku looks up, and something in his face softens, and then it crumples, tears welling up in his eyes.

“Th-thank you,” he sobs. “I’m sorry.”

Shouta holds his shoulders with a gentle pressure. “Don’t apologise for something you can’t control, kiddo. This is fine.”

It takes them a little longer to coax him back to bed, and when they turn the lights off, the nightlight throws bright enough stars against the walls and the ceiling that the entire room is still visible. Shouta can see Izuku’s eyes glimmering with those specks of light, as he watches them leave from under the blankets.

“Good night,” he says, instead of the apology that sits on the edge of his tongue every time he learns something new about Izuku’s life.

“Good night.” Izuku’s voice is subdued, but he closes his eyes and turns on his side.

“So. Invisibility quirk, huh,” Hitoshi says, when they’ve closed the door, leaving it open just a little bit so that he won’t panic if he wakes up to a shut room again. 

Shouta pinches the bride of his nose and sighs. “It’s been a lot of work finding the right quirk cancelling cuff, since he can’t have things on his wrists. We should -”

“Texted Chiyo-san, she said - why is she still awake, that old lady - she said we should bring him over to the infirmary tomorrow for another quick check and she’ll dig into her stock of cancelling cuffs to find a better one.” Hizashi waves his phone at him, and this time, Shouta gives in to the impulse and kisses him, winding an arm around his waist. 

“You are the best,” he says against his lips, before slumping and pressing his forehead to his shoulder. 

“Yeah, that I am,” Hizashi says smugly. 

“And that’s my cue to get out of here,” Hitoshi says, fake-vomiting from behind Hizashi. 

“Go to sleep, Toshi,” Hizashi calls out softly, but Hitoshi simply waves his hand at him.

“It’s almost four, I’d do better trying to take some rest before going for a run.”

Shouta knows he should be a better parent and try to get Hitoshi back in bed and asleep since he’s supposed to be heading to class in the morning, but even he knows it’s not going to be possible to fall back asleep after an event like this. There’s too much in his head, and he can see it in Hitoshi’s face; the confusion and the concern and the fierce desire to do something . He can guess that when Hitoshi goes back to his room, he’ll be on his phone until his alarm rings, looking up everything he can about invisibility quirks and trauma.

“Is it too much to ask you to go to bed too, Shouta?” Hizashi asks almost plaintively. Shouta kisses him on the cheek before stepping towards the living room. 

“Gotta get on top of my paperwork for this case,” he says regretfully. “I’m going to be up for a while, love.”

Hizashi sighs. “I’ll put the coffee on, none of us are going back to sleep now.”

Shouta grins as he pulls his laptop out from under the coffee table. “Thanks, Zashi. I appreciate it.”

Hizashi simply smiles as he heads into the kitchen, and the soft sound of the coffee machine fills the room, bringing with it the gently wafting scent of fresh coffee. Shouta is simply glad that he has an environment that is comforting enough, even as he opens his files and continues to search for more information on the elusive Midoriya Inko.

Chapter Text

Izuku can remember brief snatches of his nightmare when he wakes up to the ray of sunlight that shines through a chink in his curtains. The warm beam falls over his soft blanket, another reminder that he’s not still stuck in the dungeon or in the warehouse, but he can’t shake the sticky feeling on his skin at the memory of Chisaki’s hand on his shoulder, slotting almost perfectly into the scar left by Tomura’s hand from the time one of the quirk experiments failed.

He shivers, burrowing deeper into the blanket, reaching up to tug at his hair again, a nervous tic that he can’t seem to let go off. In the early morning light, he can see the scars that criss-cross his entire arm, and it leaves his stomach feeling uneasy.

How is this real? He thinks, clenching the blanket as if to reassure himself that the softness is real, he is real, this entire place is real.

He thinks back to the previous night, when he woke up in a panic because of a half-forgotten dream - or was it a memory? - of an explosion, a searing heat, a panic, and a hand just out of his reach. Now, in the mild, golden light of day, it seems far away, but he knows that it is lurking at the edges of his mind, tantalizingly out of reach.

There’s a knock on the door, jolting him out of his thoughts and reminding him again that he’s definitely still not stuck with the League. Yamada pokes his head in through the crack when Izuku manages to whisper a “come in”, and smiles at him.

“You up for breakfast, little listener?” he asks, pushing the door open just a little bit more. “Toshi and Aizawa have already finished, since they need to get to class soon, but I’m here to hang out with you today!”

Izuku tries to sit up in bed, but when his feet get caught in the blankets, Yamada is right there, gently untangling them without loosening his bandages. 

“We’ll get breakfast and then head right over to Chiyo-san’s, alright? She’ll give your feet another round of healing, and hopefully, you’ll be out of the wheelchair and on your own feet by the end of the day!”

Yamada seems to have an endless amount of energy for this time of the day. Izuku finds himself basking in it, strangely enough. He wants to be like that - free and friendly and happy, able to move around without a care for the way he takes up space in the world.

He remembers being happy as a child, and talking endlessly. He hopes he can be like that again, some day.

Yamada carries him over to the living room when Izuku looks a little unsteady when he even thinks of standing on his feet. Somehow, it doesn’t feel patronising. It doesn’t feel like he’s being treated like a child. Somehow, Yamada makes it feel like the most ordinary of things, and Izuku loves it.

“So!” Yamada says brightly as Izuku starts to eat the eggs slowly. “What do you want to do today after your feet are set?”

Izuku nearly chokes on his food when Eri pops up from under the table with a glob of jam in her hair.

“Zashi!” she whines, crawling into his lap. To his credit, Yamada doesn’t blink when she arrives and simply moves to help her up more carefully. “Can I come with nii-chan?”

Yamada looks at Izuku, and cocks an eyebrow. “Is that alright with you, lil listener?” he asks carefully. 

“Yeah, is it okay?” Eri asks, turning to Izuku with wide eyes. He huffs, a sound that could be understood as a laugh, and both Eri and Yamada light up like stars.

“Not fair, Eri,” he says. “Not when you look at me like that.”

Eri simply smiles, and Izuku can’t help the tears that well up in his eyes. He can’t help but remember the old Eri, the scared, tiny child who had such a solemn look in her eyes. The Eri who crawled into his lap, shaking and trembling, bandages stained red around her arms. The Eri who never really opened her mouth to speak to him. When he thinks of that Eri and places her beside this one, he really can’t help the tears that come.

Yamada is saying something, panicked, and then steady, but Izuku is crying too hard to hear. He wants that - that reassurance that the world is going to be alright. That the happiness that came to Eri will come to him too, but he’s so scared.

“Is - is this real?” he chokes out, his eyes squeezed shut. He can feel the warmth of a body right beside him, not touching, but right there, and when he blindly reaches out, he finds a hand, waiting for him. He latches on, and it’s different, it’s not got the same callouses by the thumb and along the palm, but it’s a warm, kind hand either way.

“This is real, Izuku,” Yamada says, his voice a gentle rumble that somehow breaks through the static in his ears. “You’re safe, lil Listener, and you can be happy now. You will be alright.”

It takes a moment, but his vision clears up, and the ringing in his ears dies down, so that when Izuku opens his eyes, he’s looking at the open window in the kitchen, puffy clouds floating serenely across the bright blue sky. He can feel the cool breeze lifting his hair, drying the tear tracks on his cheeks.

He can see Eri and Yamada waiting for him, twin smiles on their faces.

And Izuku smiles back.

*

“It’s not as bad as I worried,” Chiyo-san says, puttering around Izuku’s bed. He watches her with an eagle-eyed gaze, carefully tracking her every movement. His feet are on a towel, the bandages unwrapped. They sting, slightly, and he can wiggle his toes now, but he can’t really stand on them for long.

“What about the nerve damage?” Yamada asks, crossing his arms as he leans against the side of Izuku’s bed. “Can you tell what caused it?”

Chiyo-san glances at Izuku for just a moment, and he feels his heart twist. He knows what caused it. He doesn’t want to say it.

“Decay,” she says simply, and Yamada curses under his breath. Izuku hunches up, shoulders hiked, because now that she has said it, he can remember it. He can remember the look on Tomura’s face as Izuku crawled away, terrified. He can feel the grip on his foot yank him closer, and he can feel the fingers come to rest on the soles of his feet.

“Nii-chan.”

He blinks, and he’s not there. He’s not screaming with Tomura’s hands on his feet so that he can’t try running away.

He’s in Recovery Girl’s brightly lit infirmary, primary coloured posters on the wall. Eri is on the bed beside him, her small hand gripping onto his. 

“You’re not there anymore,” she says, and he can’t help the shudder that runs through him as he relaxes his muscles.

“Oh, lil listener, sorry, I shouldn’t have asked,” Yamada frets, crouching down to look him in the face. “I’m so sorry.”

“‘t’s fine,” Izuku mumbles. “I’m - I’m a little broken, that’s all.”

Chiyo-san comes around to place her hands on his bed beside him. “Listen here, Dearie,” she says in a firm, but kind tone. It makes Izuku feel a little calmer. “No one blames you for what happened to you, you hear me? But now, we’re going to try to help you feel better about yourself after everything. And that includes telling us if there’s something we should be careful about. You understand?”

He nods, head still low. She pats his thigh and hands him a gummy. 

“Now, I’ll give you another healing kiss, and you’ll be able to walk small amounts. This isn’t something that can be healed immediately, so be very careful, alright?” She levels a glare at Yamada at the end of her sentence, and he immediately holds up his hands in defence.

“I am very careful when it comes to the listeners,” he argues. “If it wasn’t for me, they’d be eating Shouta’s jelly pouches three times a day and calling it a meal!”

“Zawa makes more pancakes than you,” Eri says, and Yamada gasps in mock horror.

“Betrayed!” he screeches. “Betrayed by my own little princess!”

Eri giggles, and leans into Izuku. He’s a little silent, a little distant from this conversation. He knows how it works, but he doesn’t really want to be a part of it right now. He’d much rather just listen, and bask in the newfound freedom he has.

When they leave Recovery Girl’s office one kiss later, Izuku walks on his own two feet. A little stumbly, a little weak, but he insists. Yamada walks beside him, holding a hand out just in case, but otherwise giving him his own space. Eri skips along in front of them, looking more pleased than Izuku feels.

The memories of the nightmare feel so distant when Yamada leads him to a little, secluded grove and they all lie on the grass. The leaves rustle above them in the breeze, and when Izuku curls his fingers, he can feel the slightly damp earth beneath him, and the smooth texture of the leaves of grass. 

A bird darts across his vision, twittering brightly.

Eri’s fingers curl over his pinky, and he smiles.

It’s a whole new life after all.

Chapter Text

Shouta hates that he has to go back to class. The last few days have been strangely peaceful without the chaos of his hell class dogging his footsteps. Sure, he was dealing with a whole different brand of chaos, but that was different . He knows that he’s just complaining for the heck of it. He’s standing in front of 1-A’s door, his yellow sleeping bag slung over his shoulder. He can hear the chatter of the class behind the door, and despite his hatred of the fact that he had to wake up early for this, something in his chest settles. 

They’re all okay.

He slides the door open and barely has to look at the class before they’re all in their seats, silent, but vibrating with barely concealed energy. He takes a deep breath and stalks to the podium, knowing that this fragile peace will not last long.

Sure enough, the moment he opens his mouth, it explodes.

“Sensei!” Kirishima calls out, waving his hand in the air. “You’re finally back!”

Kaminari looks glad to see him back, but also turns to Ashido with an abject dejection on his face. “Can I pay you in installments? I really don’t have the money on me now. I swear, I’ve also learned my lesson on betting against you.”

Ashido waves her hand magnanimously. “I will take payment in the form of shopping as well,” she declares. “Maybe an ice cream if you catch me at the right moment.”

Uraraka looks like she’s bursting to say something, but Iida looks like he’ll burst if he says something, so Shouta takes pity on them - and on Todoroki and Shinsou who both look tired and overwhelmed - and flashes his quirk at the class. A hush descends on them immediately.

“I did not die,” he says blandly, and a cheer breaks out. Mainly from Hagakure and Ashido, but they settle quickly enough. “I was on a mission, and there was something I had to do. I hope you’re up to date with the work I’ve been sending through Mic and Midnight. If I find below par submissions, god be with you. Me being away is no excuse to slack.”

“Sensei!” Uraraka thrusts her hand in the air. “How injured were you before you showed up today?”

Shouta pinches the bridge of his nose between his fingers. Problem children, every single one of them. 

“I was not injured,” he replies. “Like I said, there was another emergency that kept me away. But that’s my business and none of yours, so take out your books and study or whatever for the rest of the homeroom. Do not bother me.”

He slings the sleeping bag to the floor in his favourite corner and crawls into it, closing his eyes. He doesn’t actually sleep - this corner lets him watch the entire class, and take note of their words and reactions. The whispers that fill the air are surprisingly soft. Maybe they really do have a sense of self-preservation, something he thought was not possible given their frankly reckless actions sometimes.

Uraraka has dragged Iida into a conversation with Shinsou and Todoroki. He watches them carefully, because Shinsou knows what is going on. They’re not ready to let other people know about Izuku, especially not when he’s still vulnerable and healing. They want to give him the choice on when he talks to people and joins in, because there is no telling the depths of the scars that his experience has left on him. But it seems like Shinsou is doing a well-enough job of convincing them that Shouta’s mission was fine, and that there’s nothing wrong.

Bakugo is staring out of the window. He’s not talking to anyone, and he’s strangely not blowing up at Shinsou and the group talking behind him. There’s an unsettling blankness in his eyes, and Shouta wonders if he should be sending him back to Hound Dog for a couple more sessions. The counselling sessions after Kamino had revealed nothing much about Bakugo’s mind, but Hound Dog had said that there could be later repercussions.

Ashido, Kirishima, and Kaminari seem to have picked up on Bakugo’s mood, and aren’t trying to include him into their conversation on - did Kaminari just say mpreg ? Shouta respectfully checks out of that conversation, because he values his sanity and his mind.

Yaoyorozu, Asui, and Jirou seem to be leading some study circle with Shoji, Kouda, and Tokoyami, while Hagakure, Aoyama, and Ojiro discuss something quietly. He makes a mental note to speak to Hagakure about her quirk. It’s a mutation, while Izuku’s is definitely an emitter, but it can’t hurt to talk.

Overall, they seem to be settled. There isn’t a lot that shakes them, and class 1-A has had to become incredibly resilient.

But Shouta is glad that even in his absence, they managed to stay out of trouble, and that they all seemed to have managed quite well.

The bell rings, and he drags himself to his feet. “Be good,” he says to the class, ignoring the way they all stare at him as if he spoke in German or Latin. He ignores the looks and steps out of the class, stretching.

“Ah, Aizawa-kun!” 

There’s the headache his hell class spared him. 

“All Might,” Shouta says, inclining his head to him. “Why are you here?”

All Might is in his deflated form, a sight that has been more and more common since the fight at Kamino to retrieve Bakugo. He still manages to flash a wide smile and stick his thumb up at Shouta.

“I heard you were back in class, so I came to see if there was anything I could do to help!” he says brightly. “Yamada told me you’ve been busy with a case.”

Shouta raises an eyebrow. “And you don’t have a class yourself?”

“I am not due until Heroics in the afternoon!” he says, and Shouta takes a moment to suck in a breath that will hopefully prevent him from blowing up.

“Thanks, Yagi,” he says, pointedly using his name. “But I’m alright. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have some stuff to check up on.”

Yagi waves at him and sends him on his way with a smile. As much as "All Might-the man" had bothered Aizawa, he can’t help but admit that Yagi Toshinori is a much better person to know.

Before he can even take a step in the direction of the teacher’s lounge in the hopes of taking another nap, his phone buzzes in his pocket, and Shouta closes his eyes in a prayer for strength. Because that was the designated buzz for Nedzu.

Office, please :)

The damn rodent even said please. Shouta simply sighs and sticks his phone back into his pocket before turning to trudge in the opposite direction. On his way to the Principal’s office, he thinks about Izuku. He should get his feet checked and cleared, and they’ll be able to let him take things at his own pace. 

But Shouta can’t fight the itch to go back and find the kid, make sure he hasn’t worked himself into a panic over something again. He really has grown fond of him.

Nedzu’s door slides open even before he knocks, and for the first time since he started working as a teacher here, Shouta is startled out of his thoughts by it.

“Come on in, Aizawa,” Nedzu calls, and Shouta slouches into the room. He takes his usual seat at the sofa after levelling a nod at the Principal, and sinks into the worn leather cushions.

“Tea?” Nedzu holds out a steaming cup of black tea. It smells faintly spicy, but Shouta has tried this before and grudgingly found it to be the only flavour of tea that he can stand.

“What is this about, Nedzu?” he asks, taking a sip. The sharp flavour stings his tongue for a moment, before the warmth washes over him, loosening muscles he hadn’t even known were tight.

Nedzu takes a sip of his own tea - Chamomile Honey, if Shouta is smelling it right - and smiles. “I am glad to see you back at work after the raid last week,” he says.

Alright, a non-answer. Shouta can navigate this. 

“I’m glad to be back at work myself,” he says, making sure to meet Nedzu’s glance head on. “It was a long week.”

“And the result?”

He hums. “Satisfactory.”

Nedzu hums in response, taking a sip of his tea. “Really?”

There’s a glint in his eye that Shouta hates, because it means that the rat came up with something that will make absolute sense while making Shouta’s life an inconvenience.

“Hound Dog is always available, in case your new guest wants to take advantage of the facilities we offer,” he says, running his paw over the rim of his mug. “And we are a school. I’m sure there’s more we can offer.”

“Not until he’s ready,” Shouta says immediately. “I’m not tossing the kid into a high-stress environment the moment he just got out of one.”

Nedzu’s eyes gleam, and Shouta has the sinking feeling he just signed his own warrant.

“Ah, which is why I would like to extend my own services,” he chirps, and Shouta, propriety be damned, slumps, cradling his face in his hands. “I am sure I will be able to help Young Izuku get used to the world outside his cage.”

Oh . There’s more layers to this. Shouta peers at Nedzu through a gap in his fingers, and although the rat looks as composed as ever, Shouta knows what to look for. And he sees it in the red around the scar that runs through his eye, as if he has been worrying at it more often than before. 

“I think the kid will understand you,” Shouta concedes. “He also seems smart, from what I could make out through our chats when he was at the hospital.”

Nedzu grins, an animalistic baring of teeth that is an almost grotesque imitation of human smiles. “I am intrigued by this boy,” he says. “I shall await him.”

He turns back to his table in a clear dismissal, and Shouta takes the hint. He pauses, though, near the door as he leaves.

“Tsukauchi said he was having trouble uncovering Midoriya Inko’s files.”

Nedzu hums from behind his computer. “Thank you, Aizawa-kun. That will be an interesting puzzle to solve.”

Chapter Text

It takes Izuku another week to get used to the new apartment and their space within UA. For the first couple of days, he doesn’t leave the room unless he has either Aizawa or Yamada with him, too scared to consider a world outside that he has to be a part of. The next couple of days, he starts to find his own paths directly around the building; the gardens that Midnight and Thirteen maintain together becomes his favourite spot, but he’s still too scared to talk to either of them. He settles for sitting on a bench slightly hidden by a bush, a notebook on his lap and a pencil clutched in his crooked fingers. Thankfully, Midnight and Thirteen don’t mind. 

“Welcome back!” Thirteen calls out, smiling at him. She’s not in costume, so her hands are covered in gardening gloves, and Izuku can see the kindness in her eyes as she waves. He waves back shyly, and then huddles back down behind the bush. She simply continues with her repotting, while he makes his own drawings in the notebook.

“Hello!” He jumps slightly at the exuberant voice, but settles almost immediately, because he recognises the owner. Togata Mirio is familiar enough from the number of times he has come to Aizawa’s apartment to spend time with Eri. He heard the entire story - how the young hero-in-training had found Eri, running from Chisaki.

“I was trying to be brave like you,” she’d whispered to Izuku, curled up in his lap. “I wanted to find you.”

He tightened his grip on her in response, as if to remind them both that they were no longer there, no longer locked up, no longer separated.

He had heard how Mirio had lost his quirk defending Eri from Chisaki.

“Hello, Togata-san,” Izuku says, not as brightly as Mirio, but brighter than he had been at the beginning of the week. “You’re early.”

Mirio settles onto the bench beside him and leans back on his elbows, looking up at the sky. “Ah, I didn’t really have anything else to do, so I thought I’d come check on you!”

Izuku hears what he is not saying. That he can’t exactly train without a quirk. He doesn’t mention it though, simply humming before looking back at his notebook.

“Can you -” he starts, and then pauses for a moment, sucking in a deep breath. While Aizawa and Yamada have been teaching him that it’s alright for him to ask for things, and he has spoken to Hound Dog about some of the more… painful punishments, he still finds it hard to ask. On bad days, his throat clogs up and the words don’t even cross his lips.

But this is a good day, so he manages to turn to Togata.

“Can you tell me more?” he asks, fiddling with his pencil. “About your quirk?”

Togata’s eyes widen, but he doesn’t look sad, like when Izuku asked him the first time. “Sure thing!” he chirps. “What do you want to know?”

Izuku pushes his notebook towards him, and they lose themselves for the next hour going over different applications of Mirio’s quirk. He knows that Eri is training to be able to return it, to rewind Mirio to when he had his quirk, so he makes sure to structure his notes as a suggestion.

Tips on how to make his quirk stronger.

“Sir would have really enjoyed talking to you,” Togata says, a little sadly. “You’ve got the same brain, and the same light in your eye as he used to.”

“Who?” he asks, cocking his head slightly to the side.

“Sir Nighteye,” Mirio clarifies, and oh, Izuku remembers now. 

“All Might’s sidekick,” he states, more than asks, and Mirio nods. 

“I did my internship under him, and he taught me how to use my quirk offensively. I - I’m the hero I am now because of him.”

Mirio sounds a little melancholic, so Izuku scrambles to find something to say, anything that would be able to clear the air.

“I think,” he starts in a hurry, “that he’d be really proud that you saved Eri, and you’re -”

He pauses. You’re saving me, he was going to say.

You’re saving me, he realises, looking at Mirio with new eyes.

“You’re saving me,” he says softly. “You’re - Aizawa and Yamada are trying, and I’m trying too, to be better, to be less broken, and - and I’m so scared, sometimes, that it’s a dream, but,” his eyes gleam, “you’re always smiling. Like All Might.”

Togata looks taken aback, for a moment, before a smile creeps onto his face. “That’s an honour,” he says, and his smile is softer than usual, but somehow feels real. “Really, Midoriya, thank you.”

Izuku shakes his head and returns to his notes, his cheeks burning. “No, thank you,” he says. “Because you’re not giving up.”

When Togata has to leave, Izuku isn’t alone, because Midnight slides into the seat that was barely vacated, and simply watches him draw. At some point, he got used to the presence of the others in the garden (it’s open, he can run if he needs to, he’s not locked away), and he no longer minds it when the other heroes who are not Present Mic or Eraserhead come and join him.

“What did you tell Togata?” Midnight asks, curiously. “He was practically bouncing on his way back to class.”

Izuku chews his lip, considering if he should mention it or not, but then gives up. “I told him he was saving me,” he says. “Because he is, just like Aizawa or Yamada. Just. They remind me that the world is so much more.”

“We’re so glad you think that.” Izuku startles at Yamada’s voice, and turns hurriedly, scrambling to catch his notebook before it falls. Midnight already has her own hand out, grabbing the pencil that rolls down his knee. Yamada takes a seat on the ground, leaning against the bench so he can look up at Izuku, and his green eyes (so familiar, but just the wrong shade, who am I remembering?) are soft behind his yellow glasses.

“We’ve been hoping we saved you too,” Yamada continues, and Izuku ducks his head, “At the very least, we’ve got some food in you, so we’ve saved your stomach!”

Izuku’s stomach takes that moment to grumble, and the three of them burst into laughter after a second of stunned silence. Izuku finds his cheeks don’t hurt as much as they used to when he laughs now, as if he’s getting used to it.

The quirk cancelling cuff lies heavy under his sleeve, warm against his skin.

And Tomura’s hand curls over his shoulder, an ominous breath that never stops.

He tries to ignore it, pull his mind back into the light, back into this place where his heroes are waiting for him, but it’s so hard.

All of a sudden, he thinks that the heroes are building him up only so he can fall and shatter again.

Chapter Text

Every year, without fail, Inko receives a phone call from Mitsuki in a particular week of September. It’s an inane call, where they don’t really talk about anything of substance. Inko gives her an update on Hisashi’s treatment, and Mitsuki gives her an update about Masaru’s newest argument with someone in the office. She always finds it funny how people think Masaru is always quiet, when he was her source of never-ending gossip when Mitsuki dated him.

“The doctor here says Hisashi will be at a higher risk for asthma,” she tells Mitsuki, deftly cutting carrots as she talks on the phone that’s on speaker on the counter. “We went in for his monthly checkup yesterday.”

“Any hiccups after the recovery?” Mitsuki’s words are punctuated by a yawn, and Inko feels a warmth flow through her at the idea of her best friend staying awake just so she can catch her on call in the morning before she heads out for work.

“His lungs developed a lower tolerance to his own quirk, so he can’t use it,” Inko says with a sigh. “He hates cooking now, since even the smoke of a barbeque irritates him so much he can barely breathe.”

“And the leg?”

Inko looks at the crutches that lie balanced against the wall of the kitchen. They look so small, but she knows they can carry the weight of a man as large as Hisashi. 

“He’s always going to have a limp, and his mobility is getting better with therapy. It’s been years, Mitsuki, but the doctors say there’s nothing else to be done.”

There’s silence over the line for a moment, and Inko knows she has stepped over an invisible line. Their conversations never really address the time that has passed since the villain attack that left Hisashi with permanent injuries, because that’s the next step to talking about -

“Inko?” Mitsuki sounds hesitant. “Would you ever consider coming back? To Musutafu?”

Inko’s hand tightens on the knife, and her eyes inadvertently stray to the alcove in the hallway. For once, the curtain is open, and she can see the frame of the biggest picture. She doesn’t really have to go look at it to remember.

And she remembers her son, her baby boy, smiling as he reached out to take his father’s hand. She remembers the happiness in Hisashi’s voice when he told her that he might be able to come home for good. And she remembers just how much has changed in seven years.

“Mitsuki, you can’t ask me that,” she chokes out, dropping the knife to bury her face in her hands. “Of all the things, you can’t ask me that.”

“I’m sorry, Inko,” Mitsuki says, and she really does sound contrite. “But…I barely see you guys, and Masaru says Hisashi never tells him anything worthwhile. It’s always recycled garbage about how work is going and he’s being smart and - Inko, I can’t take it any more! You need to find some closure!”

Inko thinks about the hurried funeral they had had before Hisashi had been declared well enough to travel. The sun had been hidden by heavy grey clouds, and it had started raining sometime in the middle of the service. She couldn’t remember much of it, just sitting, empty-eyed at the edge of a grave, her fingers tracing the newly carved letters of her son’s name.

He’s dead, you should let him go , is what so many people had told her as she cried at Hisashi’s bedside, clutching the hand with the wedding ring in hers. 

Hisashi had not been able to rise from his wheelchair, his portable oxygen machine tangling him down even without the mangled leg. But she had seen the anguish in his eyes, the guilt, the self-blame. And she hated that her own eyes had looked back at him with accusation. That she blamed him for Izuku’s loss.

“Inko? At least fucking talk to Katsuki,” Mitsuki says, and Inko is back in her kitchen, her hands shaky as she drops the half-cut carrot again, reaching for the phone to hold it to her ear. “The brat’s got some news to share.”

“You - you always sound so crass when you’re not being emotional,” Inko says, proud that she managed to pull herself together enough that the slight waver of her voice goes unnoticed under the teasing tone. 

“Yeah? Well, emotions are important and all that shit, but seriously, think about it.”

Inko nods, then realises Mitsuki can’t actually see her, and makes a noise of affirmation.

“What is Katsuki’s news?” she asks.

“Hold on, I’ll pass the phone to him. KATSUKI!”

Inko winces at Mitsuki’s shout, which echoes through the static of the phone into her ear. But a part of her misses it. Misses hearing her best friend’s voice in person, misses hearing Katsuki’s excited voice mingling with Izuku’s high-pitched chatter as they kick their shoes off into the foyer messily in a rush to go to Izuku’s room. 

Briefly, she thinks about going back.

“Shut up, hag, I’m fine!” She hears Katsuki’s voice faintly, and has to suppress a sigh and a shake of her head at how similar mother and son are.

“Katsuki-kun?” she says, and hears the rant cut off in the background.

“Hi Auntie,” he says, and Inko feels tears well up in her eyes, because he sounds so grown up now, what would Izuku sound like?

“Hi,” she chokes out, and she knows Katsuki can hear it. 

“I wanted to tell you,” he starts off in a subdued tone, one that never used to come out of him until after Izuku was gone and he had cried to them about the way he had treated his once best friend. “Uh - I wanted to tell you, I got into UA. I’m gonna be a hero, Auntie. For both of us.”

Hisashi chooses that moment to hobble into the kitchen in his tousled sleep clothes, hair rising up in unruly curls of black and silver. He pauses on the threshold as soon as he spots Inko sobbing into her hand, curled over the phone.

“Inko!?”

She doesn’t say anything, just holds the phone out to him as she shudders with heavy sobs. He sinks into the chair beside her, a comforting arm coming to fall over her shoulder and pull her into his side even as he takes the phone from her.

“Hello?”

“Hi, Uncle ‘Sashi,”  he hears Katsuki say. “Is Auntie crying?”

“Katsuki-kun,” he says with a sigh of relief - because it’s not bad news - that leaves a cough tickling at the back of his throat. He swallows it with a grimace, because he does not want Katsuki to hear. “It’s good to hear from you.”

“Stop fucking swallowing your coughs, old man,” Katsuki says, and Hisashi has to laugh at his tone, just to collapse into wracking coughs. Inko pulls herself together to pat his back until he settles, and they’re both crying, tears pouring down their cheeks for very different reasons.

“You win, Katsuki-kun,” Hisashi says hoarsely. “Now tell me what you told your Auntie so I know why she was crying so hard.”

“I - I got into UA. I’m gonna be a hero, and I’m gonna do it for the nerd - for Izuku.”

Hisashi understands exactly why Inko is creating an indoor swimming pool in their kitchen. 

I’m gonna be a hero with Kacchan!

We’ll be the Wonder Duo, Auntie, just watch!

“I- I’m really proud, Katsuki-kun,” he says, his voice wobbling. “I’m so proud of you.”

“You’ll be a great hero,” Inko sniffles, and Hisashi realises that at some point, she’s switched the phone to speaker mode and he never even realised.

“I’ll be the fucking number one, okay? Better than All Might. I’ll be the best hero, and I’ll save them all. You just watch.”

Inko and Hisashi exchange tear-stained smiles at the conviction in Katsuki’s voice, especially when he sounds more like himself than he has in years. 

“We’ll be watching you for sure,” Hisashi says, and Inko reaches out to clasp his hand in hers. She brings it up to her lips, and closes her eyes for a moment.

“We will definitely be watching,” she says, but she’s looking at the half-hidden frame of the picture on the wall.

They cut the call after a few more words from Masaru and Mitsuki, mostly admonishments to keep going to therapy and pay attention to their health. When the kitchen is enveloped in silence again, Inko looks up at Hisashi.

“He’ll be a good hero, won’t he, Hisashi?” she asks tremulously. “Even after everything?”

Hisashi thinks about the way Katsuki cried when they were told to give up on Izuku. “I think he learnt from what happened,” he says, his voice low and breaking. “And I think he’ll make sure it never happens again.”

She leans into him again, and he cradles her close, revelling in the warmth of her body beside him, a confirmation that he’s alive, and this is real, and he has her with him. Neither of them say anything about the small space they leave between them, just enough for an eight-year-old to crawl in. 

When they get the photo from Mitsuki of Katsuki in his new school uniform for the first time, they pretend like they don’t see the smiling shadow of a green-haired boy over his shoulder.

Chapter Text

Shouta knows All Might has to be brought into the case. 

Tsukauchi sits him down and tells him in no uncertain terms that All Might needs to know what has been done to Izuku. 

“Is it because All For One could have been involved?” he asks Tsukauchi over the phone as he walks back to the student dorms after classes. “Or is there something else you’ve found?”

“It’s because I know Toshinori,” Tsukauchi says, sounding sombre. “He would be beating himself up for having missed anything about Midoriya-kun.”

Shouta sighs, looking up at the evening sky. Unfortunately, he knows exactly how Toshinori would feel, because he watched that man’s reaction to finding out about Shimura Tenko in real time.

“I’ll think about it,” Shouta finally says, as he opens the main door and is met by the strong scent of spices from whatever Bakugo is cooking in the kitchen. “I don’t want to make the man feel guilty, Tsukauchi.”

“Well, it comes with the territory of finding people who have been in bad situations,” Tsukauchi says wryly. “Especially when Toshinori has his entire ‘Symbol of Peace’ shtick to uphold.”

“I always said that was a bad idea,” Shouta says, and hears Tsukauchi sigh over the line.

“You’re so tenacious with this singular idea,” he says. “Why couldn’t you be like that for literally anything else?”

“I am!” Shouta protests. “I’ve been constantly following up Midoriya’s case, haven’t I? Really Tsukauchi, if you wanted me to ask if you had any updates on Midoriya Inko, you should have just told me.”

There’s a loud clatter from the kitchen and Shouta almost stumbles to a stop at the sight of Bakugo in front of him, his apron haphazardly tossed onto the kitchen island while a ladle rocks gently on the floor from where he has dropped it. The boy never leaves anything messy in the kitchen, or even in the dorms. So the fact that he is standing there, glaring at Shouta with some hidden emotion glimmering in his eyes while ignoring the mess behind him is raising warning signs.

“Tsukauchi, I’ll call you back,” he says, and cuts the call on Tsukauchi’s words.

“Did you just say Midoriya?” Bakugo asks, his voice shaking just slightly. “Why the fuck did you just say that?”

Shouta blinked. That was not what he expected from his most explosive student. “What do you mean?” he asks. “What does that name mean to you?”

“Auntie doesn’t need more stress in her life, you hear?”

Shouta mouthed Auntie to himself. “Bakugo, I think we need to have a talk.”

He gestures, inviting him to fall into step with him. Bakugo narrows his eyes at him, and maybe there’s something in Shouta’s face to give him away, because he simply scoffs and joins him in going up the stairs.

“What the fuck’s going on?” he asks. “First you take a week off, and then you’re talking about Midoriya?”

“Wait,” Shouta replies. “Not here.”

He pushes the door to his room at the dorms open, remembering that it’s Togata’s turn to watch Izuku over at the garden in the teachers’ dorms, and Hizashi looks up from where he’s reading a book on the couch. He frowns, placing it down.

“Sho - Aizawa? What’s up?” he asks, and Bakugo snorts.

“Half-n-Half figured you guys were together weeks ago, Sensei, you don’t have to fucking act. You’re shit at it.”

Shouta sighs, and chivvies Bakugo to the single seater sofa before settling beside Hizashi.

“Never mind that,” he says tiredly. “What does the name ‘Midoriya’ mean to you, Bakugo?”

Hizashi startles beside him, but Shouta presses a hand to his thigh in warning. Bakugo frowns.

“Auntie’s been my auntie since I was a kid,” he says. “She and Mom were like, close friends or some shit, and we - I grew up with her around all the time.”

“What can you tell us about her?” Shouta asks. “This is for a case, so don’t hold anything back.” He hasn’t missed the aborted “we” in Bakugo’s sentence, but something in his face shuts down when he says that, so Shouta’s going to let him build up to it by himself.

“She moved to the States to live with Uncle Hisashi,” he says, pinching the edge of the sofa between his fingers. “After the whole thing with Zuku.”

Shouta notices Hizashi making a quick note on his phone, and he can bet that when he checks his own messages, there will probably be a message from Nedzu with all the information on Midoriya Hisashi.

“Zuku?” The name just registers. “Who’s that?”

Bakugo’s frown turns…sadder. “Auntie Inko’s kid,” he mumbles. “I was - we used to be friends. Until I turned into an ass and he vanished.”

Shouta is not oblivious to Bakugo’s attitude problems. He has spent the semester keeping an eye on him and making sure that he knows what he can and cannot be doing, and he’s proud of the change that he sees. Bakugo really tries to be better; being beaten at Battle Trials must have opened his eyes to the fact that he can’t brute force his way through life, and being the best means something more than just beating up his opponents. So he’s not surprised at the tone with which he says that.

What does surprise him is the sorrow that still sounds loud and clear when he talks about the vanished kid.

“Friends?” Hizashi asks gently. He’s better at picking up emotional notes like this, so Shouta has no problem letting him take the lead.

“Yeah,” Bakugo breathes out, a bittersweet smile on his face. “We were gonna be a hero duo together, like All Might and Sir Nighteye. But then - one day he was gone, and his dad was left at the scene. And we searched, and Auntie asked the police, but when they heard the nerd was fucking quirkless they turned away so damn easily. We - we gave up, what else could we do?”

Shouta thinks that he finally has an answer to his question about the source of Bakugo’s anger. He sees himself in that story, himself and Hizashi and Oboro. He sees them all; optimistic children with wild, high hopes, happy, before tragedy tore their dreams away from them. 

Shouta and Hizashi threw themselves into work and learned to work through the grief. It still stayed with them, but they had fewer bad days than good days. It seems like Bakugo still has more bad days than good ones.

“Do you have Midoriya Inko’s number?” Shouta asks. He wishes he could just tell Bakugo that his friend is not really dead, but they can’t do that. Not with the high profile nature of the case, and not until they can be sure that Izuku himself is ready for this. And the first step to that is finding out what his mother is like.

Bakugo digs his phone out of his baggy pants and opens his messages. “I was supposed to jump on a call with her and Uncle Hisashi this evening,” he tells them, even as Shouta’s phone pings with an incoming message. “I can tell her to keep an ear ready for you.”

“I’d appreciate that,” Shouta says. “Please let her know that she’s not in any trouble.”

Bakugo looks up at him suspiciously. “How the fuck did you know that she’d think that?” 

Shouta thinks back to a pair of wide, green eyes that fill with fear at the insinuation of a conversation. “Intuition. I’ve been a Pro Hero for years, so obviously I know.”

He huffs, rising to his feet. “I’m gonna find out, you know,” he says, shoving his hands back into his pockets. “Auntie Inko tells my mom everything, and I’m gonna weasel shit out of my mom anyways.”

Shouta tilts his head to the side. “I think you’ll find this case a little harder to break into like that,” he says quietly. “And Bakugo?”

He stops at the door, his hand on the handle. 

“I think your friend would be proud of the progress you’ve made. You’d be a good hero.”

Shouta pretends like he doesn’t see the tears that Bakugo fiercely wipes away before he slams the door shut behind him.

Chapter Text

Izuku stares in open-mouthed awe at the way Amajiki turns his fingers into tentacles.

“That’s so cool!” he says, his eyes almost twinkling as his fingers twitch, searching for a pen. He wants to write down stuff about it, ask Amajiki more stuff about it, but he’s still a little scared. He knows Togata won’t do anything to him, because Eri is currently sitting in his lap and earnestly twisting something into his hair, but you can never be too careful.

“Tamaki, you should tell him more!” Togata calls out cheerfully, and both Izuku and Amajiki flinch equally.  

Hado bounces over with a notebook and drops it in front of Izuku. “Hey, don’t you want to write? Your fingers are twitching, aren’t they? Aren’t they, Mirio?”

Izuku takes a deep breath - like Hound Dog told him to - and lets it out. No one is going to hurt me here. No one will hate me for talking. No one will do anything to my things.

The words help, just a little bit, but it’s enough for him to lean forward and slide the notebook closer to himself.

“May I - Can -” he stumbles over what he wants to ask, because surely Amajiki will not be happy with all the questions he has. 

“Midoriya-kun,” Amajiki says quietly. “It’s alright.”

It dislodges a lump that has unobtrusively made its home in Izuku’s throat, and he manages to ask, “Can you Manifest rocks if you eat sand?”

There’s a moment of silence while Hado, Togata, and Amajiki stare at him, Amajiki’s face turning progressively redder. 

“You know, Midoriya,” Togata begins with a thoughtful tone, and Izuku is ready to throw himself into a bow of apology, “we never really tried, so it’s really possible, you know?”

That throws him for a loop. He’s actually trying to answer?

“Hey, Tamaki-kun, didn’t you Manifest crystals during the Shie Hassaikai raid? Didn’t you eat that guy’s crystals for it?” Hado asks, and Amajiki nods.

“I think I could,” he says, addressing Izuku. “I ate the crystals and it worked, so maybe I could become like - like Kirishima.”

Izuku makes note of the unfamiliar name, his pencil already leaving scrawls over the page. The crooked fingers of his right hand give him a little trouble, but he ignores the atrocious handwriting in favour of writing down all the things he thinks Amajiki could eat and Manifest.

“Thanks for keeping him company,” a voice says, and Izuku startles so hard, his pen scores straight through “wood” and leaves a weird squiggle on the page. It takes him an embarrassingly long moment to recognise the voice as Aizawa’s, and to notice that he had entered the apartment a while ago.

“Anytime, Aizawa-sensei!” Togata says cheerily, rising from where Eri seems to have decided that he was her couch. “We had fun with him too!”

Hado and Amajiki add their own noises of agreement, one softer than the other, before they all file out, waving to Izuku and Eri. 

“Eri-chan, do you want to go spend some time with Hitoshi?” Aizawa asks her, kneeling to her height, and that is the first indicator for Izuku to know that something is happening. He knows that they don’t usually send Eri away unless some serious conversation is happening. 

Eri, however, is still an oblivious child, so she simply nods and grins when Hitoshi appears to whisk her off to his room in the dorms. And then it’s just Izuku with Aizawa and Hizashi.

“You’re not in trouble,” Aizawa starts off, and contrary to expectations, it only makes Izuku’s shoulders tense up further.

“Then?” he asks in a soft voice.

Aizawa sighs and leans back into the cushions of the couch. “There is…no easy way to say this, kiddo,” he says. “But we found your mom.”

Mom?

Izuku remembers the vague feeling of a warm hug, a kitchen filled with laughter and a figure - blurry and indistinct, leaning over to press a kiss to his forehead. He still can’t make out the voice that should come out when her lips form the words “my Small Might” .

But he is seized by a terror that he will lose this even before he finds it.

“What happened to her?” he asks, his voice shaking, and Hizashi is on the floor, hands open to him immediately. Izuku reaches out with trembling fingers to grip his wrists. Enough contact to stay grounded, but enough distance that he can run, if he needs to.

“Shit, sorry, that came out wrong,” Aizawa says in a rush. “She’s okay. She’s fine, she just - apparently she moved to the States, to be with your dad, after you went missing.”

“I don’t - who’s my dad?”

Izuku thinks he can remember a faceless, tall man with black curls, and a warm voice surrounding him like a blanket. He thinks he can remember a blast of fire from laughing lips, but he can’t be sure if those memories are real.

“Midoriya Hisashi,” Hizashi chooses to tell him this time. “He’s a Quirk Scientist in America, and he’s pretty famous for it in the hero circles.”

“My dad - he’s connected to heroes?” Izuku cocks his head to the side. “But - but why did it take so long, then?”

“That’s on us,” Aizawa says sheepishly. “We didn’t exactly expand the search abroad.”

Izuku snorts, the sound leaving him involuntarily at the idea that even heroes and police could make such a silly mistake.

“But!” Hizashi says brightly. “The good news is, we’ve got in contact with them, both your mother and your father, and they’re coming back to Japan, to see you.”

“Will I have to go back with them?” Izuku asks, the fear suddenly grabbing his heart. He drops Yamada’s hands and scrambles towards Aizawa, who is caught off-guard for a moment, before he realises what Izuku needs. And then he has those familiar, warm, calloused fingers in his hands, pressing steadily in a simple rhythm.

“No one will make you do anything you don’t want to,” Aizawa says firmly. “You hear me, Izuku? I know they’re your parents, but if you don’t want to talk to them, I will tell them that. If there’s anything that you need, I will do it for you. You hear me?”

Izuku is still trembling, but the steady tenor of Aizawa’s voice calms him down more than anything else ever could. He keeps a loose grip on his hands even as he relaxes.

“How did you find them?” he asks, curiosity finally rearing its head in his heart once more. “If you weren’t able to find them earlier?”

Yamada laughs a little. “Turns out we were asking the wrong people!” he says brightly. “There was someone here who could help us!”

“A student,” Aizawa says more carefully. “He recognized your name - Midoriya - and told us about your parents.”

Izuku frowns, a small furrow forming between his eyes. “There’s someone here who knows - knew me?”

He thinks about his half-forgotten dreams, of childish laughter and hands reaching for each other, of indulgent and loving smiles, alongside that ever-present warmth of a mother’s hug. But try as he might, he cannot bring the faces to mind, or even a name.

But he’s not stuck in a room by himself, left to wonder about the past he doesn’t remember. He has people now, people who are helping him fill in the holes left in his memory from days and nights in the lab that stripped him of his own sense of self sometimes. He turns to Aizawa and Yamada.

“What is his name?”

“Bakugo Katsuki,” Aizawa says, and the name stirs something in Izuku’s mind. Nothing strong, just a slight memory of the sun sparkling on the surface of a creek, an outstretched hand.

Kacchan?

He shakes his head, as if that would dislodge the haunting whisper and bring something to the forefront of his mind. But it eludes him again, and the frustration is almost enough to drive him to tears.

“I don’t remember,” Izuku whispers, and Yamada slides forward to place his hands on his shoulders, after making sure that Izuku is watching him as he moves. 

“It’s alright, Little Listener,” he says softly. “We can do this slowly. At your pace. Do you want to meet him? See if it helps?”

Izuku doesn’t know how to say that he’s scared. He has spent so long in the company of two, maybe three people, that he no longer remembers how to be normal in company. It took him so long to be alright with Midnight and Thirteen smiling over at him in the garden, and for the Big Three to sit with him. And it only helped because they were there for Eri just as much as they were there for him.

“I don’t know,” he manages to choke out. “I - What if - What if I don’t remember? He’s going to think - think that I’m not trying, but I swear, I’m trying so hard, but what if it doesn’t help? What if I do so much, and never even recognize my own mother?”

It isn’t until he registers the rhythmic pressure on his hands that he realises he was nearly hyperventilating, brain running into spirals of what-ifs that threatened to drown him. But Aizawa looks at him with that steady gaze, and simply shakes his head.

“He will not hate you for it,” he says. “He would understand. Bakugo is training to be a hero, Izuku, and that means he will know what it means to rescue someone from a situation that hurts them. It may hurt him, if you were close and you don’t remember, but he will understand.”

The words “training to be a hero” make Izuku think of a hazy promise made under a tree, of a Wonder Duo that was supposed to happen.

“Can I - will you be there when I meet him?” he asks. Aizawa and Yamada both nod. 

“We’re not leaving you alone to deal with this, Izuku,” Yamada says kindly. “You have us for as long as you need.”

Izuku gathers up all the resolve in his body and sits up, gently removing his hands from their tangled position with Aizawa’s. He lets him go easily, and watches with an inscrutable gaze as Izuku pulls himself onto the couch, settling into the cushions comfortably.

“Can I meet him now?” he asks, his heart thudding into his throat. Izuku doesn’t know if he’s ready, but he does know that if he delays this, he will never actually do it. And he knows, somewhere deep down, that this is the first step to being able to look his parents in the face. 

“I’ll ask him to head on up,” Aizawa says. “Zashi, will you stay?”

Yamada nods resolutely. “Of course, Sho, no worries! I’ll grab some snacks for the listeners, and it’ll all be ready when you come back, alright? Now go, go!”

Yamada almost chases Aizawa out of the apartment, and Izuku manages a weak giggle in the middle of his nerves. Yamada throws him a smile before bustling into the kitchen, digging into the cupboards to find some snacks. In the meantime, Izuku finds himself curling up into as small a ball as possible on the couch, his fingers fretfully worrying at a hole he finds in the corner of the pillow. He pokes at the sponge filling he can feel, letting the action calm him down.

He’s going to meet someone who knew him. He’s going to find out more about himself.

He’s terrified.

A knock on the door jolts him out of his reverie, and he flinches into himself just a little bit more. Yamada tosses a worried look at him before ruffling his hair.

“You alright, Izuku?’ he asks gently. “You don’t have to do this if you can’t.”

He shakes his head. “I need to,” he whispers in reply. “But stay?”

“Of course.”

Yamada opens the door, and Aizawa steps in first, speaking over his shoulder to someone else, telling them to find the guest slippers. Izuku finds himself leaning forward in anticipation, waiting for a voice, a face, something.

It’s a blond boy with red eyes who walks in, a scowl painted on his face. Izuku has only a moment to wonder if Aizawa even explained anything to him, before the boy’s eyes fall on him and he freezes.

For a moment, there’s silence in the apartment.

Green meets red, and the silence swells.

It’s the popping of explosions in the palms of the boy’s hands that finally breaks it.

“What the hell is this?” he asks, his voice shaky. “Oi, Teach, what - what do you mean by this?”

Aizawa flares his quirk, and the explosions die away, but Izuku remembers.

“Bakugo, this is -”

“Deku.”

The name slots into a memory perfectly. Izuku doesn’t think it’s the best memory, or the best time, but he knows.

“Kacchan,” he whispers. 

And it comes back to him in a flash.

Chapter Text

“Kacchan?” Izuku whimpered into the dark. He knew it wasn’t going to help, that he would much rather Kacchan never came here, where the cold seeped into his bones and the cuffs around his wrists bit painfully into the skin. But somehow, saying his name out loud made him feel just a little bit braver.

Because Kacchan was always the strongest.

“Kacchan?”

Saying it out loud makes it real. Izuku remembers a childhood spent running around with claims of becoming superheroes, but he also remembers a history of flinching away from explosions and the derision of children echoing in his ears.

“It’s - it’s you, isn’t it?” he asks the blond boy, who still stands and stares at him as if seeing a ghost. Izuku has to stifle a choked, almost hysterical laugh at the idea that he’s not too far off. Izuku feels like a ghost, wafting through this new life, not secure enough to put his roots down. 

“Deku,” Kacchan whispers. “How is this real?”

Izuku stands from his seat, and takes a step forward. His heart squeezes, sinking into his chest when Bakugo takes a step back. He pauses, and throws a pleading glance at Aizawa.

“Izuku was rescued recently in a raid we conducted on one of the League’s facilities,” he says, taking pity on him. Aizawa also moves naturally to come to Izuku’s side, his presence comforting at his shoulder. “We only just started finding out more about his past.”

“You don’t remember?” Bakugo asks, a strange note in his voice. “About Auntie, Uncle, me?”

Izuku swallows. “I remember…bits of it. Not all, but…you. I remember you.”

“Why?” Bakugo asks, and he sounds strangled now. “Why me, after all I did? After how I treated you?”

Aizawa shifts at Izuku’s shoulder, but doesn’t say anything. 

Izuku makes eye contact, and holds it for a moment. “Because Kacchan was always the strongest,” he says softly. “And thinking of you made me stronger.”

He wishes there was more he could say, more that would let him articulate just how much it means to him that this part of his memory remained untouched, that at least he remembers this, but his voice fails him. He opens his mouth, but nothing comes out.

Bakugo is still staring at him, an unreadable expression in his eyes. He follows the way Izuku’s throat bobs when he swallows, the look he sends Yamada’s way, for the man to come take his hand and let him sit back down, and looks away. 

Izuku can tell he caught sight of those deep scars on his feet when he moved.

“I don’t - what the hell do you want me to do?” Bakugo finally asks. “I didn’t plan for - for so many years - I thought you were dead, but you’re not, you shitty nerd, and how the hell am I supposed to move on from this now?”

“I’m sorry,” Izuku writes on the whiteboard that Yamada passes him, and Bakugo scoffs.

“The hell are you apologising for? I - It should be me, ya hear? Me, apologising for the way I treated you. For not caring until you fucking died , and Uncle ‘Sashi nearly died too, and then it was too late to say sorry.”

Bakugo sucks in a breath, and clenches his hands.

“I don’t know what happened to you then, and I don’t know how this is happening. But I’m not gonna look a gift horse in the mouth and kick it off the track. De - Izuku. I was a prick. As a child, I was so scared of the way that you - quirkless, weak you - was always jumping in front, always running ahead, braver than all of us. I wanted to be the best, but you didn’t even try. And I was stupid, and mean, and I hurt you. I’m sorry.”

He bows sharply at the waist, and Izuku is scrambling to his feet to reach out. But he stumbles, knees giving out, and Bakugo straightens just in time to catch him by the forearms.

“No,” Izuku chokes out. “Don’t - you don’t have to bow, I - I accept, and please , Kacchan -”

He doesn’t even know what he’s asking for, because all he can think of is the way the arms on him feel natural, as if he is clicking back into place. The sweet, sharp scent of burned caramel fills his nose, and it feels as if he is back in his childhood, following after a confident young Katsuki as they chase bugs. And he can’t help the tears that fill his eyes as he leans forward to place his forehead against his shoulder.

“You’re finally something I can recognise,” he sobs, and Kacchan’s arms tighten around him. “Don’t let go of me, Kacchan.”

“I won’t,” Katsuki whispers. “Not this time.”

By the time Izuku has settled again, this time with Katsuki squeezed into the sofa with him, arms and legs touching as if to make sure that he really is here, Yamada and Aizawa are back from the kitchen. Yamada holds two glasses of orange juice, while Aizawa lifts up Izuku’s feet to slide the compression socks back on before setting them down on the footstool. Katsuki follows the movement with narrowed eyes.

“What the hell happened to you?” he asks, and then holds up a hand. “Wait, rhetorical question, I ain’t ready for the whole story.”

Izuku huffs a laugh and accepts the juice with a whispered thanks to Yamada, who simply smiles as he ruffles his hair and settles down beside Aizawa.

“It’s a really long story, Kacchan,” he says, dragging a finger through the condensation on the side of his glass. “And - and I wanted to thank you.”

“Thank me?” 

“For being there, I guess.” Izuku shrugs. “If you hadn’t overheard Aizawa-san, we wouldn’t know anything about Mom. And Dad.”

Katsuki glowers over at Aizawa and Yamada. “Is this why you asked me about Auntie?”

Aizawa nods. “All we had to go off of was his name and old quirk status.”

Katsuki picks up on the phrasing almost instantly. “Old quirk status?”

Izuku lifts up his hoodie sleeve to expose the suppressor cuff clamped around his arm. “They think it’s the stress, because I wanted to hide so bad. I just wanted to not be seen.”

“So?” Katsuki traces the cuff. “What -”

“I go invisible,” Izuku says wryly. “I haven’t figured out much yet, but -” he stops, and he knows he was going to say ‘ I have time to do it’ , as if that was a given. He’s still not used to thinking of time in terms of such absolutes.

“Holy shit,” Katsuki breathes. “Sucks that it came like this though, what the hell?”

Izuku snorts, and the weight on his chest leaves. “Yeah, it’s weird, getting used to it, but then again, with all the quirks that came and left, I shouldn’t be struggling -”

He freezes.

With all the quirks that came and left . 

What is he saying? What is he not thinking of?

There’s a hand, reaching out to him in the darkness. The hole in the centre of the palm glows, and something shoots out, punching through his shoulder.

It hurts so much, make it stop, he can’t breathe!

When the tendril pulls out, he sags against the bindings holding him to the chair, and his eyes flutter shut. But before he passes out, chest heaving and heart fluttering too fast for him to control, he hears it.

“He’s holding three, with minimal strain. Run the test, Doctor, we might have our winning combination.”

“-uku? Izuku, hey, kiddo, I need you to look at me! I need you to breathe!”

Izuku coughs, heaving a huge breath as someone pounds his back, forcing air back into his lungs. He’s on his knees, and there’s a puddle of bile between his hands on the ground, and this is such a familiar position to be in, that he flinches away from the hand reaching for him.

“Izuku,” the deep voice says, but Izuku is too caught up in the memory, in the feeling of the tendrils puncturing his skin, the buzzing all over his body, that he can’t think -

“Oi, shitty nerd!”

Kacchan?

His voice is so incongruous. It doesn’t belong here, with the Doctor and the looming figure and the pain. He has to - he has to be somewhere else, doesn’t he? If Kacchan is speaking, and it’s not in his head, then -

He lifts watering eyes to see Aizawa kneeling in front of him, hands on his shoulder and pressing in a steady rhythm. But he heard Kacchan, where is he -

“I’m right here, Deku,” he says, and Izuku thinks he’s crying, not just tearing up from the pain of vomiting, when a hand takes his chin and turns his face so he can see Kacchan, his other hand still rubbing into his back. Kacchan looks scared, his red eyes wide and filled with worry. Izuku tries to move his own hand, to touch his knee, but he’s so tired, all he manages to do is destabilise himself, flopping over into Aizawa’s arms.

“You back with me, kiddo?” Aizawa asks, his voice gentle and soothing. He still hasn’t stopped pressing steadily at Izuku’s shoulder, the place where there should be shooting pain, but where there is instead the comfortable warmth of a trusted hand. 

“Yeurgh,” Izuku manages to say with his numb tongue, and Aizawa hums, lifting him up a little higher so he’s resting his head on his shoulder.

“Come on, let’s get you cleaned up,” Yamada says, and they’re all standing, Izuku still leaning heavily on Aizawa. He doesn’t really check back in, while someone wets a washcloth and cleans his face and hands, or while they tuck him into bed with the weighted blanket. 

He watches, but doesn’t really register the way Katsuki paces around the room, his hands clenched into fists at his side. Aizawa and Yamada look steady as they explain to him that this was supposed to be a test-run, to see how he reacts to someone close, since his parents are supposed to be coming soon. 

He wants to tell Kacchan that it’s not his fault, that Kacchan is the reason he even snapped out of the memory so fast, but he can’t bring himself to move. He feels like he’s been drugged all over again, unable to control himself, and can only watch as Kacchan leaves, the door slamming shut behind him.

The hand is reaching out to him again.

Chapter Text

The kid is sleeping when Shouta peeps into his room. He’s curled into a small ball, tucked under the vast expanse of the weighted blanket, his hands somehow still covering his head, as if expecting an attack even in his sleep. The sight makes bile rise into Shouta’s throat, because that’s not how kids should be . Fifteen-years-old and scared of sleeping uncovered? Fifteen-years-old and cowering in your sleep?

He shuts the door with a soft click and leans his head back against the wood with a sigh. He can hear Hizashi cleaning up in the living room, mopping the floor with something that smells like lemons. 

“Good thing Toshi’s staying at the dorms, huh,” he murmurs, knowing Hizashi will still be able to hear him. 

“We’ll have to pick Eri up in a bit,” Hizashi replies, and Shouta stifles another sigh. It’s not that he hates this, but there is something incredible soul-draining about…everything they’re dealing with. They’d barely gotten settled with Eri and her own history, and to see it happen all over again with another kid - it’s hard.

“Do you ever regret this?” Shouta finds himself asking Hizashi, moving to join him in the living room. 

“You’re gonna have to be more specific, Sho,” Hizashi says, looking up at him over the frame of his glasses. “There’s a lot going on here.”

He plays with the glasses on the table for the sake of having something to do with his fingers. “Taking in the traumatised kids, I guess. I wouldn’t say regret , that’s a hard word, just…” he huffs out a breath, unable to find the right words.

Hizashi stands up straighter, balancing the mop against his shoulder. “You mean the part where we see the worst parts of traumatised kids because they imprint on us and we’re too soft-hearted to do anything else but take them in?”

There’s a quirk to his eyebrow that tells Shouta that only a part of that statement is probably joking.

“I mean, it’s hard, seeing them hurt so much. There’s a reason I refused to become a teacher until you and Nemuri forced my hand,” he says, turning to look at him. “I don’t want to see more kids I know die.”

Hizashi hums noncommittally, and then turns to look properly at Shouta. “One life saved is still a life saved, Shouta. And as much as it hurts, I think it helps to think of it as saving that one kid. There’s a reason the kids can smile and laugh, and that’s because we helped them. Would you have done this if the kid hadn’t attached himself to you? If you hadn’t been the fastest to find him, to bond with him, to figure out what he needed? Maybe not, but at the end of the day, you did it. You gave him that thread to hold on to, so he could pull himself out. When he backslides, all you need to do is hold tighter to that rope so he can gather himself up and then pull himself up again.”

Shouta chuckles, tucking his chin down, missing the warmth of his capture scarf around his neck so he can hide his face.

“You’re right,” he says, and Hizashi pushes the mop to the side so he can pull Shouta into his arms. “You’re right, Zashi. I just needed to be reminded of that.”

Hizashi leans his head slightly to the side so he’s laying his cheek on top of Shouta’s head, and Shouta slumps slightly, letting his forehead thunk onto Hizashi’s collarbone. 

“What’s going on in that head of yours?” Hizashi whispers into his hair. “This isn’t like you.”

“I keep thinking of Oboro,” Shouta whispers back. “We were barely older than these kids, Zashi. I’m proud of us for having been able to solve the problem and - and move on, but he reminds me of Oboro and it’s hard to remind myself that it’s in the past.”

Hizashi’s arms tighten around him, just a bit, and he buries his face in his hair. Shouta heaves a sigh, snaking his arms around Hizashi’s waist so he can get into a comfortable position. He knows that just as much as he needs this, Hizashi needs it more. To be reminded that they still have each other is a blessing; it’s taken years of therapy for Shouta to even be able to say it out loud that he needs Hizashi. But when he does, Hizashi is always there for him.

“Hey, Shouta?”

“Hm?”

“I wanna go shopping tomorrow.”

Shouta pulls back slightly to frown. “What the hell? Why?” He’s mildly pissed that their moment has been ruined, but -

“Izuku still doesn’t have things that tell us about him . He’s simply gone with the stuff we already had in the guest room, and I want to get him some new stuff. Bright stuff, like a nightlight that’s not a hand-me-down, and a blanket that’s not an old, unused one. Something he’d want.”

Shouta tries not to frown. “Do you even know what he wants?”

Hizashi grins, and leaves Shouta’s arms - he mourns the loss of contact for half a second before pulling himself together - to grab a notebook from the TV cabinet. 

“I got Mirio-kun and the gang to probe, gently, to figure out what he likes!”

Hizashi looks so proud of himself that Shouta can’t hide the laughter any more. It bursts out of him, and he finds a matching grin on Hizashi’s face.

“You have to accept, I’m a genius,” Hizashi insists, and Shouta simply presses a kiss to his cheek before pulling him to the couch.

“Yes, yes, you are, but did you consider that the Big Three kids may not have asked the right questions?”

Shouta knows they didn’t ask the right questions, because the conversations invariably happened in Nemuri and Thirteen’s garden, and Nemuri loved to come talk about how “cute and adorable these kiddos can be”. 

“I’m pretty sure they have something I can use in here,” Hizashi says, and then stares at the first page.

Shouta bites his lip to keep from laughing again.

“What does it say?” he asks, his voice wobbling just slightly. He’s proud of the control he has, honestly.

Hizashi looks up in confusion. “Why does it say that he likes asking Amajiki-kun to eat sand?”

Shouta can’t really pinpoint the way the conversation goes after that. It’s a bit of a flow, and he lets himself get pulled along by the tide that is Hizashi, his easy laughter and voice letting Shouta relax, just slightly. It’s exactly what he needed, after the stress of the evening, but it’s also exactly what forces him to bring up a topic that has been fermenting in his mind all week.

“We’re going to have to discuss the arrival of the Midoriyas, you know,” he says, cutting Hizashi off in the middle of his conjecture about All Might-themed blankets. “They’re supposed to be reaching tomorrow.”

Hizashi slips into a sober mode, the casual animation vanishing.

“Well, that’s gonna be a hard one, Sho,” he says ruefully. “You saw how the little listener reacted today, and that was from casual conversation the likes of which he never had with us.”

Shouta nods, humming. It’s true that they’d never gotten Izuku to speak casually, without worrying about what he was saying. It had always been carefully thought out questions, forced out from between stuttering lips and a choking throat. Bakugo had been good for him, Shouta had thought, and then he hadn’t.

He doesn’t think he’ll ever be able to get that image out of his mind, of the way Izuku just froze, his breath catching in his throat, eyes fixed on something only he could see. The sheer panic that flooded his veins was second only to the horror that filled him when he had first found the kid, his feet destroyed and blood all over the room, because this time? This time he wasn’t even breathing.

He’d frozen so completely, his hands clenched on his knees, that he had even stopped breathing, and as much as they both had lunged for him, to try and talk, it had been Bakugo who had treated it like another choked meal. He’d thumped him on the back, and then Izuku had gone limp, slipping to his hands and knees, throwing up but only bringing up bile. The sound of his shaking, wheezing breath had actually felt like a blessing.

“He’s going to start remembering a lot more, and that’s going to be challenging, both for him and for us,” Shouta says. “But I think he needs it.”

“I agree,” Hizashi says. “Maybe it’ll help, just to know , especially given how he’s lost so much of himself. All we can do is be here and make sure he knows he can rely on us.”

Shouta sighs and leans his head on Hizashi’s shoulder. Hizashi leans back on him, and they sit there on the sofa, watching the shadows fall over the room as the sun goes down.

Chapter Text

Midoriya Inko’s fragile facade comes tumbling down on a normal Wednesday evening. Even though Katsuki’s call kept her forewarned, the call from his teacher Aizawa Shouta regarding a case he was involved in leaves her off-balance. She knows, deep in her heart, that despite his reticence when it comes to speaking of just how she’s involved, it has to do with her son.

Call it a mother’s intuition. Losing a child did not make her stop being a mother.

Hisashi lays a hand on hers, holding her cold fingers and rubbing some warmth back into them. The hard cushion of the airplane digs into her back, and she can’t tear her eyes away from the tarmac outside her window.

Because Midoriya Inko is back in Japan.

“You have to calm down, my love,” Hisashi says reprovingly, rubbing her hands. “We can’t do anything from here, so we’ll have to wait.”

“How am I supposed to wait?” she asks, her eyes tearing up and her voice wobbling. “How am I supposed to calm down when I’m back in the country where my son’s grave lies? I wish I could be like you, Hisashi, and have nothing bother me at all.”

Hisashi doesn’t say anything, but his lips press into a thin line. Inko knows it’s hard on him when she enters these moods, when she misses Izuku so much it’s like a knife digging slowly into her heart. It makes her harsher, meaner, and makes her say more painful things.

“It’s hard for me too, alright?” he says quietly. “I’m not made of steel, Inko. I’m a man who lost his son too.”

Inko knows , she knows she's not the only one struggling, and that it’s hard on Hisashi too, since he almost died with Izuku. But she can’t stop herself from feeling like the burden of grief has lain too heavily on her shoulders this entire time. She stops herself from responding to him, turning to look out of the window instead. Hisashi sighs, and his hand leaves hers. 

She doesn’t miss his warmth, she really doesn’t .

They’re quiet as she helps him with the cane, slinging their bags over her shoulders. Slowly, they make their way down the stairs, into the shuttle bus, towards the conveyor belt. The smell of the cool, sharp air stings her nose, and she is hit with the reminder that when they left Japan for the first time, after Izuku’s death, it had been the same weather. On the brink of spring, but not quite yet. Winter’s dregs still littering the corners of the pavements, the cold air still hovering over them.  It seems almost poetic that they’re back at the same time.

“Come on,” Hisashi says, reaching out to grab her bag and sling it over his shoulder before readjusting himself with his cane. “Can you grab the suitcase?”

It has wheels, and they hum over the stone floor as they head for the exit. Inko feels like every single sound has been magnified, drilling into her head like the buzzing of an annoying insect. 

“Inko!”

The loud voice jolts her out of her own head, all the other sounds receding. She glances up in shock, and sure enough, Mitsuki is standing there, waving her hand over her head. Beside her, Masaru is waiting, and Inko can see the soft smile that’s already on his face.

“Hisashi!” 

They collide in a hug, and Inko isn’t even sure when her feet began to run towards her oldest friend, her strongest pillar. It is comforting to be back in Mitsuki’s arms, to smell the floral perfume that she always uses, to feel her hand already cradling her head against her shoulder. 

“Let me look at you,” Mitsuki exclaims, pulling back to hold Inko at an arm’s length. “Oh, you’re looking well, Inko,” she says, very politely not mentioning that the last time they saw each other, Inko had looked like a walking skeleton, worn thin with worry and grief. Now, she has put on some healthy weight, and her hair is shorter but still pulled into its usual style. 

“You look the same, Micchan,” Inko laughs, the sound watery with tears. 

“Oh dear,” Hisashi huffs, and Inko turns to see that Masaru has grabbed their bags after a quick pat on Hisashi’s shoulders. “There come the waterworks. Mitsuki, you’re in charge now.”

“It’s good to see you two again,” Masaru says, adjusting his glasses. “I’ve missed you and your banter.”

“Oh, you mean you missed me telling your wife to go do things for my wife?” Hisashi jokes. “She would have skinned me alive in college if I told her you were like that.”

Masaru simply waves a hand. “It’s not a big deal,” he says. “Mitsuki would do anything for Inko, and that’s that.”

Inko chuckles through the tears that slip down her cheeks. That’s that indeed. She hadn’t known how much she missed her old friends until they were standing right in front of her again, wide smiles and bright eyes bringing a breath of fresh air to her. Mitsuki slips her arm into hers, and begins to guide her towards the exit. 

“We’ve gotten permission to go to the brat’s campus tomorrow,” she informs Inko. “I knew you wouldn’t want to wait, and you aren’t going to be able to sleep anyways.”

“Jet lag really is a bitch,” Hisashi agrees from behind them. “And thank you, Mitsuki. We - we can’t wait.”

There’s a moment of sober silence. 

“Katsuki called us yesterday,” Masaru says softly. “He says he knows what his teacher wants to talk to you about. But he can’t say anything about it.”

“Strange, little Katsuki knowing to keep a secret?” Inko says, but her smile falls flat. “At least we’ll know soon enough.”

~

UA is huge. Inko feels like she’ll fall over when she leans back to look up at the looming buildings, and it’s only Hisashi’s hand on her back that steadies her. Mitsuki and Masaru are charging forward, used to the grandeur of this building from the number of times they’ve had to visit for Katsuki. Now that she thinks about it, she can’t remember Mitsuki saying anything much after Katsuki’s very publicised kidnapping from the school’s summer camp. All she told them was that All Might got him back. 

Inko feels like she has been a very bad friend, taking, but not really giving much to her friend. Maybe it’s time to change that. She’s not sure how, just that she will.

“Midoriya-san?” It’s an unassuming man who stands at the entrance of the building to welcome them. His tan trenchcoat is open over a neat suit, and he holds a hat in his hand. “My name is Tsukauchi Naomasa, and I’m a detective with the Tokyo force. I’m the one who reached out to you, with my colleague, Pro-Hero Eraserhead.”

Inko and Hisashi bow, Inko’s hand latching around Hisashi’s elbow. “Hello,” he manages to say. Inko’s throat is too clogged for her to do more than make a soft sound of acknowledgment.

“If you’ll follow me, I’ll lead you to the meeting room where we’ll be able to discuss the matter that forced us to call you here.”

“O - one moment,” Inko says. The pressure in her chest is building and building, and she needs an answer. Tsukauchi stops to look at her, a questioning look on his face. “Is - Does this have anything to do with Izuku?” Her voice breaks on his name, and Hisashi is quick to reach out to adjust his hold to her shoulders, pulling him into him.

Masaru and Mitsuki exchange a worried glance.

Tsukauchi simply smiles, and Inko hates him at that moment, because she can’t read anything from his face. Oh, how she wishes that everyone was like her son had been, his wide, green eyes so bright and expressive, so unable to hide his feelings.

“I promise you, I can give you answers when we go inside,” he replies. “It’s confidential, you know?”

It’s not an answer. It’s not an answer Inko wants to hear, but it tells her something. It tells her that she’s not entirely off the mark, because there is nothing else but the villain attack that nearly killed her husband and killed her son that could be of interest to a school of heroes.

It’s not until she’s seated in a small conference room, a hand over her mouth, that her whole world comes tumbling back down.

Because Aizawa Shouta, that black-haired man with the tired eyes and the perpetual slouch, says four words that sing in her heart, no matter that she has no proof at the moment.

He says, “Midoriya Izuku is alive.”

And Inko falls apart.

Chapter Text

Izuku wakes up disoriented.

He stretches his arm and freezes.

Where are the chains? I’m - my hands - they’re free?

I can escape.

His eyes shoot open and he barely registers the dim lighting in the room before he’s ripping the sheets off of him, stumbling off the bed as they tangle through his legs. He needs to get out, he needs to run before they remember they haven’t put the chains back on, he needs to -

“Nii-chan?” Eri’s voice cuts through his mental fog, and he immediately switches tracks because he has to get her out too, he can’t leave without her.

“Nii-chan, what are you doing?” She sounds confused, not scared, and it trips him up. Why is Eri not scared?

It’s only then that he stops. He realizes that he has been panting, hyperventilating as he tries to free himself from the sheets, not noticing anything else. Now that he knows that, though, he slowly starts to calm back down, and the black fog recedes from his sight.

He’s not back in the lair. He’s in the spare room, the one with the nightlight that throws stars up against the ceiling. That hand is gone, the one with the hole in the palm that promised pain and a new quirk and nothing else.

And Eri is in the entrance of his room, clutching her toy unicorn, her head cocked to one side. She’s watching him, half-awake. 

“Eri,” he breathes, and the traitorous tears prickle at the corners of his eyes. “Help me, please?”

She nods, slipping in to help him untangle his sheets. 

“Did you have a bad dream?” she asks quietly. “It’s okay, Zawa and Zashi will help.”

He shakes his head. “Not a bad dream,” he replies, just as quietly. “A bad memory.”

She nods sagely. It pricks at his heart that she understands, and relates to the idea that there are bad memories that will always creep up on them, that they will forever stand in the shadow of those who tormented them.

“But Zawa and Zashi will still make them go away,” she says, and grabs his hand before he can object. She drags him out of his room, slowing down but not getting any less resolute when she notices him limping on his sore feet. 

“Zuku-nii had a bad memory,” she announces, dragging him into the kitchen. Izuku wants to hide his red face in the carpet, but Eri’s grip on his hand is too comforting for him to let go.

Both Yamada and Aizawa are in the kitchen, the former stirring something on the stove while the latter looks like he’d much rather be drowning in his mug of black coffee. At Eri’s pronouncement, they both look up, and there’s a look of stark relief on both their faces.

“Izuku,” Yamada says, turning the stove off and hurrying towards him. He’s holding his hands awkwardly, like he wants to reach out for Izuku but still doesn’t know how it’ll be received. Izuku decides to relieve him of that crisis and leans forward so Yamada can wrap his arms around his shoulder and pull him into a hug. 

He feels solid and warm, the scent of warm tea clinging to his clothes. Izuku feels his muscles relax, the tension stuck in them since the memories of last night fading away.

“You okay?” Aizawa asks, his voice gruff and lower than usual. 

“I remembered…stuff,” Izuku replies. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

Through the gap of Yamada’s arm, he can see Aizawa nod as if there’s nothing more to be said.

“Get some breakfast, kid, today’s going to be a rough day.”

Izuku slips into his chair, and Eri, proud of herself for finding a resolution to Izuku’s problems, climbs onto his lap. He settles his arms around her in a loose hug, the action settling him.

“Why?” he asks Aizawa, even as Yamada lays a plate of stew in front of him. “What are we doing?”

“Your parents are coming today,” he says, and Izuku drops his spoon.

He knows Kacchan came over yesterday, and he knows it didn’t go very well. He only remembered more of his past before he literally passed out and became a burden on them all. Now if his parents see him like that, what’s to say they’re going to decide they were better off without him? Without broken, hurt, useless him?

“They’re not going to be so harsh, little listener,” Yamada says, and Izuku clamps his mouth shut because he’d been rambling out loud. “They hopped onto the earliest flight they could get on so they could come here. They don’t know it’s for you, because that’s classified information, but they know it has to do with you and your accident.”

“Will they - will they like me?” he asks hesitantly. “With Kacchan - I knew him. He was familiar, I remembered him, but my parents…I don’t - I still can’t remember my mom’s voice.” His voice trails off towards the end. He knows that his memory still has holes, because while he can think of a warm house and a green-haired woman with a soft smile, he can’t remember his father at all. Maybe a hint of smoke and fire. But no voices, and no feelings. He almost feels embarrassed that he can’t remember them.

Aizawa gives him a shrug. “You can simply get to know them now, can’t you? You have all the time in the world.”

And he really does, because the moment they come into the house behind Aizawa, it’s like time stands still.

The first person to enter the house is a woman, short and green-haired, just like him. Her eyes are wide and tear-rimmed, the green watery and filled with shock. Right behind her is a man, much taller than them both, and built strongly. But there’s a sense of fragility to his muscles, as if a single shove would knock him over. The strands of grey stand out starkly against his black hair, and the freckles are clear on his paling cheeks. He leans heavily on a cane, one leg crooked under him.

“Izuku?” the woman - his mother - whispers, and the voice slots into his memory perfectly. The shaky tone, the longing, the pain . Maybe this is not how she used to speak when he knew her, but there is no denying her voice.

“Mom?”

The man - his father - is quick to drop his cane and grab his mother as her knees give out under her, and they sink to the ground. Izuku is still standing near the couch, gripping the armrest as if it is the only tether holding him to this world, and he watches them.

It’s strange, that he felt so much when he saw Kacchan, but when he sees his parents, all he can feel is a bone-deep weariness. None of that clicking into place that Kacchan brought with him, none of that urge to reconnect.

Simply weariness.

“Izuku, is that really you?” the man asks, looking up at him with pleading eyes. “Please, tell me.” He turns to Aizawa and Yamada with equal fervour, begging them to respond.

Yamada is the one who kneels beside them, helping them back to their feet. “It is, Midoriya-san,” he says gently, handing him back his cane. “Come on now, let’s get you all seated comfortably for this conversation.”

Aizawa helps his mother up and leads her to the sofa, and when she sits next to Izuku, he can smell her perfume. It’s not the same thing he remembers.

Somehow, something this small makes him want to cry.

His father sinks into the armchair, and Aizawa pulls up two chairs from the dining table for him and Yamada. 

“We couldn’t tell you much because the investigation is concerned with several confidential issues,” Aizawa begins. “But now that you’re here in person, we can afford to give you the information without any possibility of leaks. We found Izuku in a hideout belonging to the League of Villains, Midoriya-san. It appears he has been in their custody for years, probably since your accident.”

He nods to his father, and Izuku’s eyes follow the way his fist clenches on top of the crooked knee. 

“Izuku, please, say something?” his mother asks, tears coursing down her cheeks, and he reaches out, almost on instinct to wipe them away.

“Please don’t cry,” he chokes out, the crawling feeling on his skin getting worse. “Or I’ll start crying too.”

He already is crying, but they’re all polite enough to not mention it. Aizawa gives him a questioning glance, raising his eyebrow, and Izuku shakes his head. He knows this is an out that he’s being offered, but he wants to try to figure out what he remembers. He wants to try and place these people in front of him into the cracked molds he has in his head.

“Dad?” he says hesitantly, and he straightens up.

“Yeah, kiddo?”

“Do you really - do you really breathe fire? Or - or have I made that up?” he asks. His father’s face falls just slightly before he blinks away whatever expression was building.

“I used to be able to, buddy, but since the accident, I haven’t been able to make a spark,” he says, rubbing his chest. “All my smoke tolerance is gone too.”

“Your father used to play with you,” his mother says suddenly, and Izuku startles, turning to look at her. “He’d make smoke figures by blowing out tiny flames, and you - you’d try to grab them with your little hands, even when they hurt you.”

He can almost imagine it - small chubby fists waving up above him, with the gentle timbre of a deep voice admonishing him as he reached for the pretty flames.

“And your mother - she took good care of you, kiddo,” his father continues. “I wasn’t always around, since work was taking me abroad more often than not. But she was always there.”

“I was Small Might,” Izuku murmurs, and his mother laughs through her tears. 

“Yes,” she gasps. “You were my Small Might, Izuku, you saved Mama so many times.”

“I don’t - I don’t remember you very much,” he says, and the words make him feel so guilty. “I’m sorry! I remembered Kacchan, and so much of him, but I can’t remember you, no matter how much I try, and I know I loved you and I missed you and - Mama smelt of jasmine but now you don’t and Dad used to carry me and now you can’t and - and it’s all too different and I’m too changed!” 

He hangs his head and blinks away the tears that blur his vision. The room is silent. He wonders whether Aizawa or Yamada will say something, whether they’ll come and take his hand and lead him away, because he can’t even do this right, this single meeting with his parents. He almost expects them to walk away, seeing the mess that he is.

That’s why it comes as a surprise when he hears the muffled click of a cane on the floor before a figure sinks down to his level. It’s his father, his eyes kind and knowing.

“It’s alright, Zu-kun,” he says, and that sounds so comforting and warm. It raises a single moment of a memory, being heaved into strong arms with a gentle touch on his scraped elbow. “It’s alright.”

Izuku chokes on a sob, and then there’s a second presence beside him. His mother leans closer, a hand slipping around his thin shoulders to rub at his arm. She leans down to gently lift his face, before wiping it with a handkerchief that smells of jasmine.

“I have my baby back,” she whispers through her tears. “It doesn’t matter, Zu-kun. Mama and Dad are here for you. We’ll figure it out somehow, alright? You’re safe home now.”

He wants to argue that he’s not home, that he’s still waiting for the moment when this stops feeling like a dream and starts feeling like real life, but then his parents are hugging him, and it feels so familiar and comfortable and safe . 

It doesn’t matter that he doesn’t remember most of his childhood with them. It’s like Aizawa said. They’re here now, so he can just start again.

Chapter Text

Hitoshi takes a deep breath as he stands at the base of the stairs. He can hear the laughter and chatter from the rest of his class as they take advantage of the rare free weekend. None of them are out on work studies, and Bakugo is being surprisingly agreeable and cooking something that smells incredible. He can hear Ashido’s loud laughter followed almost immediately by Hagakure’s bubbly voice, and from where he stands, he can see that Kaminari and Kirishima are very passionately discussing something that probably involves guts, chivalry and manliness.

For Izuku , he thinks, and dives into the fray.

“Toshi!”

Kaminari is the first to notice him, and he lights up like a stupid bulb, his blond hair somehow standing up like he’s covered in static electricity. 

“You’ve finally descended from your lair!”

Hitoshi almost turns and runs back upstairs, but the memory of Izuku’s wide eyes as he looked down at the quirk suppressor cuff forces him to make a more resolute choice.

“Yeah,” he says, and pushes Kaminari over so that there’s space on the sofa. “I guess I wanted to come downstairs for a bit. It’s not like I live by myself, huh?”

“It’s good to see you, Shinsou-san,” Yaoyorozu says, drifting by with a cup of tea. “Would you like some tea? Mother sent me a new pack, all fruit flavours. This strawberry chamomile is exquisite.”

Hitoshi blinks at the combination she mentions, before waving his hand. “No thanks,” he says. “I’m not really up for some tea right now.”

“Coffee?” Kirishima holds out his mug. “There’s more in the kitchen but Bakugo seems to be waging a battle in there so you can have some of mine. Wouldn’t want you to become a casualty of his.”

“If I was so inclined, I would be kissing you,” Hitoshi informed Kirishima before taking a sip of his gloriously sweet coffee. Kirishima turns almost as red as his hair and sputters for a bit.

“Bro, if all it took for a proposal was a mug of coffee, I’d be married right now,” Kaminari says, and Hitoshi levels him with a bland glance. “Really, Bolts? You?”

Kaminari shrugs. “A man can dream, and dream he does of the day that people see him as an object of desire.”

“You’re toeing the Mineta line!” Jirou calls over, and Hitoshi chokes on his coffee. It’s not just him; almost every single person in the vicinity who heard both Kaminari and Jirou does a spit take, and Jirou looks smug even as she hands Yaoyorozu a napkin to wipe the stain on the coffee table. 

“I can’t believe he’s a description now,” Kaminari says dejectedly. “And all I wanted was to be loved.”

“You are, bro,” Kirishima says brightly. “I love you!”

“Thanks bro.”

“No problem bro!”

“I am surrounded by masochists,” Hitoshi says in a deadpan tone.

“So come on over to the good side!” Ashido calls, and Hagakure’s sleeve waves at him. He remembers what he actually wanted to do when he came down, and pats Kaminari on the shoulder before heading over to the circle with Ashido, Hagakure, Uraraka, Asui, and Iida. He’s so glad that Iida is also there, because otherwise this would become awkward for him.

“So!” Ashido claps her hands. He flinches slightly at the sudden noise, and Asui shares a commiserating look with him.

“We need gossip. It’s been too long since we could say anything to make Uraraka go red.”

“You dating Iida took all the fun out of teasing you, Ochako-chan,” Hagakure says, and Uraraka looks smug as she scoots closer to Iida. 

“Well, Tenya and I will no longer be the subjects of discussion at this circle,” she declares, and Ashido and Hagakure groan in mock dismay.

“Hey, Hagakure,” Hitoshi says, giving up on waiting for a natural segway into the topic. “I had a question about your quirk.”

“My quirk?” she asks, surprised. “Sure, what’s up?” 

“How does it work?”

She turns - or Hitoshi assumes she does, because her t-shirt swivels - to him, her entire figure radiating confusion. 

“What? Why?”

“Humour me,” he says, wondering why exactly he put himself in this position and opened himself up to questioning about sensitive matters. And then he thinks of Izuku, and the way Eri clung to his hand, and steels his heart once more. “I can’t exactly tell you why , but it’s important.”

She shrugs, and explains. “It’s all in the refraction of light. It’s a mutation, so I can’t exactly turn it off. I think - and so does my dad, that it’s because of his quirk, which was to refract light through touch. He could make things invisible if he held them.”

Hitoshi ponders it for a moment. “So you would have no advice about how to turn it off?”

“No, not really,” she replies. “It’s not like I can, unless I refract the refracted light, which just makes me pass out.”

“Yikes, let’s not do that then,” he says. “Thanks anyways, Hagakure.”

“This is genuinely the first time I have seen Hitoshi have a solid conversation with someone who is not Aizawa-sensei,” Ashido says, sounding awestruck. “I think it’s going to rain today.”

“It already is, kero,” Asui says drily, inclining her head to the window. True enough, a soft drizzle is pattering against the glass, and Yaoyorozu has attacked the heater to raise the temperature of the living room. Asui shoots her a grateful glance before shivering slightly and curling up in her seat.

“Mina-chan, you’re psychic!” Uraraka exclaims, and Iida adds his own opinion on that very vehemently with chopping arms, but Hitoshi has already checked out of the conversation because of a prickling sense of unease, like someone has been watching him.

He spins around suddenly, and catches Bakugo staring at him, a strange look in his red eyes. On any other day, he would laugh and maybe tease Bakugo for that green, leaf-patterned apron he is wearing, but there’s something he needs to confirm.

“Bakugo,” he says, standing up. The conversation dies down all around them. “We need to talk.”

Bakugo stares at him for a moment, before reaching over and turning down the stove. “Octo-Arms!” he barks. “You’re the only one I trust, so keep an eye on this and turn it off when it’s done.”

Shoji blinks, and then simply shrugs, moving into the kitchen gingerly. Bakugo strips off his apron and marches over to Hitoshi.

“Your room or mine?” he demands, and Hitoshi fights the urge to punch him.

“Wow,” he says instead, his voice completely deadpan. “What a wonderful way to proposition me.”

Bakugo clenches his fists. “Shut up, Troll Face,” he says, seething. “I’m not kidding.”

There’s something fragile about Bakugo that Hitoshi has never seen before, so he chooses to stop his traitorous mouth from saying something else. Instead, he simply gestures to the staircase.

“After you,” he says smoothly, and follows Bakugo up to his room. He can hear the conversations burst back up in the living room, and knows that he’s never going to hear the end of it from Kaminari and Kirishima, but it’s alright. He’s not really thinking about that now, because Bakugo’s room has a wall of pictures, and from every single one of them, Midoriya Izuku smiles back at him.

Chapter Text

“You know about Izuku,” Hitoshi says numbly, his feet carrying him forward until he is almost going cross-eyed from looking at the pictures. “That’s him, isn’t it?”

Bakugo snorts. “Of course you know about the nerd,” he says, jamming his hands into his pockets. “What with Hobo-sensei being your dad and all.”

Hitoshi hears the note of question in his voice and steps back, turning to look at him. “What did you want, Bakugo?” he asks. “Why were you staring at me the entire time?”

“You were asking Invisible Girl about her quirk.” It’s not a question, and Hitoshi does not deign to answer it like it is one. He can see Bakugo visibly grinding his teeth, and some part of him relishes in that. After spending close to a year watching Bakugo being a bit of an asshole to everyone, Hitoshi thinks he’s justified in being one back to him.

“Do you have any tips for the nerd?” Bakugo finally asks. 

Hitoshi simply stares at him. “Why?” he says. “Why do you want to know?”

Bakugo grits his teeth so hard Hitoshi can hear a crack in his jaw. It is a miracle that he doesn’t actually spit out a broken tooth when he opens his mouth to speak.

“I knew him when we were kids. The nerd was…so optimistic. He always said he was going to be a fucking hero, and I - I didn’t agree.” His voice cracks, and Bakugo looks away, his forehead creasing in an almost violent frown. “I thought he was looking down at me, that Quirkless nerd who was so much more heroic than I was. There wasn’t a single unheroic bone in his stupid body.”

Hitoshi thinks back to the way Izuku interacts with Eri, setting her needs before his own, and hearing from Eri the story of Izuku protecting her from Chisaki to the best of his abilities, even offering himself up for his sick experiments.

“You’re not wrong,” he says. “Izuku would tear the muscles from his body if someone asked him for them, and he would drain himself dry if he thought it would save someone else.”

“That’s why I’m asking you, Shinsou.”

Hitoshi’s eyebrows rise up his forehead in shock. Surely he didn’t mishear this. Bakugo really did just call him by his actual name.

“You know my name?” he asks stupidly. “You actually do?”

Bakugo glares at him. “That’s not fucking important, Eyebags,” he says, and Hitoshi notes the return of the nickname with a ridiculous amount of relief. “Can we fucking focus on what’s important right now?”

“Right,” Hitoshi says, shaking his head. “You asked me if I got anything from Hagakure.”

“Yeah,” Bakugo says. “I want to do something for the fucking nerd. He sees everything as an opportunity to sacrifice himself, and he’d never do anything for himself. It’s on us to do it, and I want to do something. So, for the last fucking time. What did Invisible Girl say to you?”

It sinks into Hitoshi that in his own brash, rude way, Bakugo is trying to help Izuku. He’s trying to find a way to help him manage his quirk, because that’s the only thing he knows to do right now. Maybe in the past, having a quirk was a point of contention between the two of them. If Hitoshi is reading between the lines correctly, Bakugo was a bit of an asshole to Izuku before he got kidnapped, and it was all because he dared to try to be a hero without a quirk. But now, they’re on the other side of the discussion.

“She says she can’t turn hers off voluntarily,” Hitoshi tells him, and Bakugo’s shoulders relax slightly out of their tight twist. “She thinks it’s a mutation of her dad’s quirk, which is to turn things invisible with a touch.”

“So there’s nothing we can tell Izuku,” Bakugo muses, digging the toe of his slipper into the plush mat beside his bed. “There’s nothing we can do to help him there.”

Hitoshi opens his mouth, unable to believe that he is actually about to have a civil conversation with Bakugo in which he is actually helping the explosive blond talk about friendship. There has never been anything weirder than this in his life .

“It’s not that there’s nothing we can do for him,” he says, and nudges Bakugo. Somehow, he lets him do it, and they both perch on the edge of Bakugo’s bed. Hitoshi notices that it is placed perfectly opposite the photo wall, as if Bakugo wanted to be able to see it every time he sat down or woke up. 

He’s not sure if it is grief or penance, or a combination of both, but that is also a problem that he is not paid to touch, so he delicately skirts that mental pit and moves back to the topic at hand.

“Izuku is supposed to be meeting some quirk counsellor tomorrow, with his parents and Aizawa-sensei,” he tells Bakugo. “Something to help him work with his quirk in an ‘unconventional setting’, since he hates all forms of clinical spaces and also quirk specialists.” Hitoshi put air quotes around ‘unconventional setting’, because he’s been to the person his dad is taking Izuku to, and it was…something. He can’t wait to see how it’ll work for Izuku, who seems to have a brain that runs on hyperspeed at all times.

“And?”

Hitoshi pulls his mind back to the conversation. “And, we can still help him outside of his quirk, alright? He’s been through shit, and he’s just gotten out, so he needs friends again. And he remembers you.”

Bakugo grunts. “S’not fair that he remembers me and not Auntie,” he grumbles, and Hitoshi senses another issue that is not for him to be poking at. 

“Well, that’s just how it is, and we’re not therapists who can help fix his brain,” Hitoshi snaps. “So pull yourself together and just think about how you can bring some sense of normalcy into his life again.”

“How the fuck do you know all of this?” Bakugo asks, and there isn’t even a hint of a challenge in his words. He sounds, for all intents and purposes, genuinely curious. It makes Hitoshi’s skin crawl, because it makes him feel like being nice back to Bakugo.

“I had a pretty shitty life before Aizawa-sensei and Mic-sensei, alright?” he says. “I don’t wanna talk about it, but I know what it feels like to have your entire world crumble around you - whether your world was good or bad - and not know what to do with yourself after that. The one thing that saved me was making some friends, which is insane.”

“You’ve got that right,” Bakugo snorts, and wow, he just agreed with something Hitoshi said, this is truly a day of miracles.

“Alright then,” Hitoshi says, standing up with an exaggerated stretch, leaning back just enough that the photo wall vanishes from his sight. “I’m gonna head back downstairs and then go over to Aizawa-sensei’s place.” And then, because he’s feeling a little nice, and also because he feels like he has entered into a begrudging pact of civility with Bakugo, he offers, “Do you want me to say anything to Izuku?”

Bakugo throws himself backwards to lie against his pillows, his arms crossed over his face.

“Should I…take that as a no?” Hitoshi hedges, even as he starts taking small steps towards the door. He purposely moves slower than he usually would, because this is a moment of vulnerability that Bakugo is showing him, and he’s not that much of an asshole to spit on it.

“Tell him I have pictures,” Bakugo says, his voice muffled, when Hitoshi’s hand is on the doorknob. “Tell him my mom has more of him with Auntie.”

Hitoshi pauses.

“I’ll tell him you have something for him,” he says quietly. “You tell him about the pictures yourself.”

He closes the door softly behind him, but it’s not quiet enough to mask the sound of an unmistakable sob.

Chapter Text

It has been three whole days since Izuku met his parents, and he still has no memories of either of them. Or at least, no tangible memories. It’s not for a lack of trying on either side - his mother scrounged up a set of photographs from “Auntie Mitsuki” and showed them to him, and he tried to bring up events that always floated at the edges of his memory. But nothing clicked, not like with Kacchan.

And isn’t it just sad that the only person he was actually able to reconnect with was his father, simply because he never had enough memories of the man earlier to mess with him now?

Sometimes, at the end of the day, when his parents have left, Izuku finds himself curling up against Aizawa on the couch, burying his head into Aizawa’s side, and he just lets him sit there, hiding from the world. When Izuku pulls his arm over him, he simply scratches into his scalp like he would to a cat, and lets Izuku decompress.

The guilt feels like it’s eating him alive.

“Zu-kun?” Hisashi’s voice pulls him out of the spiral he finds himself falling into more and more often. “Is everything good?”

Izuku blinks, his hands automatically going to the bracelets around his wrists, twisting them against the skin nervously.

“Yeah,” he says, his voice cracking. “Sorry, I got a little lost in my head.”

Hisashi smiles at him, and it’s warm and comforting, a smile without any expectations behind it.

“That’s a good place to be in, but not right now,” he says, leaning a little heavily on his cane so he can shift a little and move closer to Izuku. He leaves enough space that Izuku can choose if he wants to close the gap, and he does, knocking shoulders with him. 

“Is this going to work?” Izuku asks, looking up at the front desk of the building that Aizawa called them to. Through the frosted glass, he can make out his mother and Aizawa talking to the receptionist, even though the dark, bold letters reading “Sakura’s Garden” cover a part of their bodies. “I mean - it’s different, but still, it’s quirks and thinking, and I don’t even know how many there are in me or how to figure that out and then mitigate the effects of any of them in case they’re passively hurting me? But I wouldn’t know because this is the best I’ve felt in years and - do quirk cancelling bracelets cancel out everything that runs with my energy or do they nullify any and all effects that may linger on me? Because what if there’s something that they left, and I never know - ”

“Kiddo, breathe,” Hisashi says, laying a hand on his shoulder and forcing Izuku to suck in a deep breath. He hadn’t realised that he had started hyperventilating, not until he stopped talking.

“Zu-kun, it’s alright to be scared. Hound Dog tells you that, right?”

Hisashi waits for Izuku’s hesitant nod about his therapy sessions before continuing. “And regardless of how this is, we’ll figure out a way to get you better. Get you back to who you want to be. Mama and Dad are here, kiddo.”

The warmth of Hisashi’s voice seeps into Izuku’s body, and over and over again, he finds it so hard to believe that Hisashi’s quirk is currently unusable with his lasting injuries. Because his quirk may have been to only breathe fire, but there is a warmth that still lingers in his words that makes it feel like the flames still linger in his throat.

“Sakura is ready for us,” Aizawa says, walking over to them. He gives Izuku a quick once-over, and then nods sharply, as if satisfied with what he sees. And maybe he is satisfied, because Izuku is leaning on his father for the first time.

Inko is at their side in an instant, and Hisashi leans on his cane heavily, one hand in hers. Izuku follows along, his heart in his throat. He knows that this is a space that has been vetted by the people he trusts, and also that he is not alone here, but he can’t help feeling like the walls are closing in on him, trapping him into another space.

“Welcome,” an airy voice calls out, and Izuku snaps back to the present. In the time that he checked out, they had entered a giant gym, with a high, vaulted roof with creepers hanging from the beams. Flowering plants climb along the walls, their bright blossoms filling the room with both their fragrant scent and their splashes of colour. The mats along the floor are not a solid grey, like he expected. Instead, they look like separate patches of grass, and when he places a tentative foot on them, he feels the soft coolness between his toes. It almost feels real.

“I heard you may have issues with traditional offices and learning spaces,” the airy voice continues, and Izuku looks up to see who it is. “So I made sure that we feel like we are outside without the slightest danger of being outside.” A tall, willowy woman, almost the same height as Aizawa walks over to him. She has short cropped hair that lies around her face in feathery tufts, the black making her pale face even paler. Her hair shimmers when she moves her head, little streaks of silver peeping out through the black. Her eyes are kind when they fall on Izuku, the blue a warm, comforting colour. It reminds him of the evening sky he can see from Aizawa and Hizashi’s balcony. A collection of bracelets hang from her wrists, clinking when she gestures to the room. “Did I do a good job with the space?”

Izuku nods. “Thank you!” he exclaims, tears already pooling in his eyes. He had been so scared, so nervous about the upcoming session, only for this woman to go out of her way and find a way to make him comfortable.

She smiles softly at him, tilting her head to one side. The action makes her eyes vanish into curved slits, her cheeks puffing up.

“I’m just doing my job. Now, shall we begin, Izuku-kun?” she asks, leading him forward. She waits for him to nod before pointing him towards one of the grassy mats. 

“Now, the process of identifying quirks and learning their limits is one that is so deeply rooted in our society, but it’s so often treated as a solitary action,” the woman says, sinking gracefully to sit cross legged on her own mat - one that is covered with small pink flowers. “Which is why I am very glad to see that the entire family has come to support Izuku-kun in his endeavour.”

Aizawa sighs. “You still haven’t introduced yourself,” he says, and Izuku realises that she really had not said anything. She simply smiles again.

“My name is Sakura, and I’m a quirk counsellor,” she says, inclining her head to Inko and Hisashi, both of whom have found their own seats. “My quirk is especially suited to helping people identify the limits of their quirks. I call it Energy Flow. Izuku-kun, what do you think it does?”

Izuku frowns, his finger coming up to tap at his lips. “If it’s called Energy Flow, and it helps you identify limits of quirks, then it must involve some form of neural mapping, to understand how the brain controls the quirks, and also how the quirks interact with the rest of the body, so that we can understand what the limits would be. But that’s so fascinating, because it would defy categorisation as a support quirk, and would simply be a part of someone else’s quirk interpretations. If there was no one around, then -” He pauses. “You would almost be quirkless.”

Sakura tilts her head again - Izuku is coming to realise that this is just something she does - and says, “Shouta-san, you did not lie when you told me about Izuku-kun.” Her voice is not surprised or shocked. She simply sounds pleased and calm. She turns to Izuku. “You’re right, Izuku-kun. My quirk allows me to trace the flow of energy within a human body, specifically when directed towards the usage of their quirks. I can identify where the most energy is expelled, and find ways to free blocks that often cause overloads in young children who have trouble finding the happy balance between on and off.”

Inko raises her hand hesitantly. “And…Sakura-san, how are we going to be helping Izuku?”

Sakura waves her hands in front of her. “Please don’t raise your hand like you’re in a classroom, Midoriya-san, we are all adults in this room. And to answer your question, we’re going to start with some meditation, so I’d like you all to join in. I’ve found that working together, exploring together, is always a source of comfort for us humans, who are such social animals.”

Hisashi and Inko settle in more comfortably, while Aizawa lounges against the wall on his own patch of grass. He seems very familiar with the place, having found and pulled out a very specific grassy mat before sitting and closing his eyes. Izuku watches them with apprehension building in him. As much as the space feels very untraditional and different, he can’t help but feel nervous.

“May I hold your hand?” Sakura asks him, and his breath hitches in his chest. Hisashi leans forward, mouth opening, but Izuku pulls himself together and nods sharply. 

“Yes.” He holds out his hands, and is proud of the fact that there is only a slight tremor to them. Sakura simply smiles that proud smile again, and reaches out to place her hands beneath his, so that the back of his hands are resting on her palms. Her fingers remain relaxed and uncurled, which means that Izuku can pull his hands away at any point of time. The realisation settles something in him, and he sighs deeply.

“Good,” she whispers. “Now, everyone, close your eyes, and breathe in this moment with me. We’re going to simply calm ourselves down so that I can see his energy better.”

They all do, even Aizawa. Izuku can feel his heartbeat flutter and then slowly grow steady, as the silence fills him up. He can feel a steady warmth emanate from the point of contact between his and Sakura’s hands, and he can feel it trace a path through his chest.

After what feels like eternity, Sakura moves her hands away. Izuku opens his eyes, only to see Sakura frowning.

“Shouta-san, I will need your help,” she says, looking over at Aizawa. “It seems your information was incomplete. Even with the quirk cancellation cuffs, his energy is running wild. There’s something else that is draining him.”

She turns to Izuku, whose heart has chosen to restart its tap dance in his chest. 

“Izuku-kun, steady. May I remove your cuffs? I will know exactly where you are, and you will not be lost.”

Izuku looks over her shoulder to Inko and Hisashi, who are already rising, Hisashi struggling slightly. But they are both ready to come to him the moment he asks them to. 

“Alright,” he whispers, his voice barely audible. 

“Thank you,” Sakura says, bowing to him. “Midoriya-san, please stay where you are. I have a feeling that I know what will happen now.”

Inko freezes, her hands digging into Hisashi’s arm. He also stands steadily, his eyes fixed on Izuku’s so that he can read the reassuring smile on his face.

With careful fingers, Sakura twists the bracelet that lies cold against Izuku’s wrist and presses the switch. When it disengages, she slides them off just as Izuku vanishes, a depression in the grass the only sign of his presence.

“Alright, Izuku-kun, I want you to place your hands on mine, just like we did before, alright?” Sakura sits, her hands open on her knees. “At any point that you want to stop, just press my hand twice and we will stop immediately. If you need a break, or if you’re not comfortable, just ask to stop, and we will do it. You call the shots here.”

Izuku hesitantly places his hands on hers and presses them once. Words don’t seem to be forming in his throat, and he thinks he will only be sick if he tries.

“Thank you, Izuku-kun. Now, can you close your eyes and breathe with me?”

Sakura breathes in a slightly exaggerated rhythm that is slow and steady. Izuku finds himself following it almost unconsciously, and his body begins to relax. It is at that moment that he feels Sakura’s energy again. Surprisingly, the warmth spreads to his head, this time, not his chest.

“Shouta-san, if I can ask you to erase his quirk?”

Izuku opens his eyes to see Aizawa’s eyes gleam red, his hair rising over his shoulders.

And in that exact same moment, he sees his mother, and the dam bursts open.

It’s like a movie sequence, snippets of memories flashing in front of his mind. He remembers her - the way she made curry and katsudon, the way she always cuddled him close, the way she cried to him when his quirk failed to manifest, the way she always tried so hard to make sure that he went to sleep with a smile.

But the moment Aizawa’s hair drops, the moment his red eyes dim, they vanish, pulled behind a fog of exhaustion that descends over him. Izuku manages one croak of “I remembered you, Mama,” before he lists forward into Sakura’s waiting arms. He’s awake long enough to hear the quirk cancelling bracelets click back around his wrists before everything goes dark.

Chapter Text

Usuba Sakura is terrified.

Her fingers tremble as she reaches for her phone. Maybe this time, the call she makes will have a result. Maybe this time, something will actually change.

Maybe this time, someone will come save her.

Sakura shoots awake, her hands clenched against her blanket. Sweat beads on her forehead, and she curls forward, forcing her heaving breaths to settle. Her hands are still shaking like they were in her dream, and she can feel the phantom ghost of his breath on her face.

‘Come on, Sakura. It’s over now. You’re safe.’

She slides her feet out of bed and stands, shaking her hands forcefully as if that will push the jitters out of them. Her short hair is a mess, but she is used to it, running her fingers through it to smoothen it down. In the dim light of her room, the few silver strands seem to glimmer in the moonlight.

She goes through her usual routine for when her sleep is interrupted by nightmares. She grabs a glass of chilled juice from the kitchen and leans against the balcony door, her forehead pressed against the glass. She finds it too scary to open the door and step out, so she settles for just being able to look outside, at the few orange lights she can see in the windows of the apartment block opposite hers. It’s such a different view from his house, that it reminds her more forcefully that she is actually not there anymore.

The tree that reaches up to the balcony rustles in the wind, its sound reaching her even through the closed door. She closes her eyes and sighs, letting her breath escape her in one steady movement.

When she does this, she can feel the movement of the energy throughout the building. In order to affect someone else’s energy, she would have to be touching them, but otherwise, she can still track them all, the flowing, undulating rivers of power inside each and every person. She can tell where people are, and how they are feeling.

It’s heady, this power of awareness, but Sakura only feels peace from it. She knows where she is, and who is around her.

She knows that she is safe.

It’s only when she finally returns to her room to try sleeping again that she notices the light blinking on her phone. 

‘This must have been what actually woke me up,’ she thinks, sitting down on top of her comforter to open her messages.

It’s from Aizawa Shouta. It’s simple and to the point.

“I need your help. Is your gym open tomorrow?”

She blinks. It’s 3 a.m. on her clock, so Aizawa must have just been coming off of patrol.

“Yes,” she replies.

A response comes in almost immediately. 

“Please break out the grass mats. The kid can’t handle training spaces.”

Sakura’s eyebrows rise. A kid? That’s new. Whenever Aizawa texted her asking for her gym space, it was for him to spend time away from what she assumed were bad memories. Especially since he always picked one of her grass mats and conked right out in a corner of the room if he wasn’t beating the shit out of her training dummies. 

“Any other requirements?” she asks back. If it’s someone who doesn’t like training spaces but needs a training space regardless, she has some old decorations she can bring back out, and if she asks Hikari-san nicely, he’ll probably help her move her plants into the gym in the morning.

The bubble appears and disappears multiple times, like Shouta-san is typing and deleting whatever he wants to say. Sakura’s curiosity grows, because she has never really seen him like this, so flustered yet earnest. Whoever this kid is must be important to him. Sakura has met with both Hitoshi and Eri, and she knows that Aizawa never does things by halves. He’s probably going to bring another incredibly traumatised child into her gym and ask her to fix them.

“Ask him to figure out your quirk,” Shouta-san finally says. “He likes talking about quirks. He’s smart, too.”

Sakura’s eyebrows go even higher up her forehead. It’s a strange request, but one she has no problem accepting. In fact, she and Shouta-san have a bet going, about the way people understand her quirk. She’s currently winning, with no one ever having stumbled right into the correct answer. Not even Hizashi-san or Nemuri-san.

Maybe this kid of Shouta-san’s will surprise her.

It’s almost an hour later when Sakura tosses her phone back onto her bedside table and flops onto her pillows. The chill of the night has begun to sink into her bones, so she pulls her comforter back up to her neck, burrowing into the soft, downy fabric. It’s only as she dozes off that she realises that the breathless panic that woke her up is completely gone now.

Her conversation with Shouta-san is what fills her mind, with the possibilities for a changed environment, and for the ways in which she could modify her session. With the ways in which she could help this Izuku without triggering him. Because Shouta-san made it a point to tell her that he was worse than Eri in some ways. It makes her heart hurt to think of it, because she remembers when little Eri walked into her gym, her eyes wide and scared. She had never protested anything that Sakura asked her to, and her only tantrum had been when Sakura asked if she could hold her hand while her quirk was active.

Traumatised children, Sakura can learn to deal with. They just need a little more understanding - she knows that intimately.

As her eyes slip close, she sees the light shine off the screen of her phone, and she smiles, just a little bit.

‘Thank you, Shouta-san,’ she thinks sleepily. ‘You’re still saving me, even when you’re not here.’

She is asleep almost instantly, and this time, her dreams are filled with comforting red eyes, and the feeling of freedom.

Chapter Text

Izuku wakes up to Sakura’s puffy cardigan spread over his shoulders like a blanket. His head is pillowed on his mother’s lap, and both she and Hisashi keep running their hands along his shoulders and through his hair, as if they are afraid that he will vanish if they are not touching him. A headache pulses behind his eyes, as if his old memories have returned to take up more space than is available in his head.

He must groan or make some sound, because Inko is cradling his face with fingers that feel blissfully cool. “Zu-kun?” she asks, worried. “Zu-kun, do you hear me?”

“Yeah,” he groans. “What - what happened?”

Sakura crouches down beside them and reaches out. “May I touch you, Izuku-kun?” she asks gently. He nods, squeezing his eyes shut when the movement sends another wave of pain through his head. Her fingers come to rest on his forehead, and the now-familiar warmth begins to spread.

“It has been activated again,” she murmurs. “At least one other quirk, apart from the invisibility.”

A heavy stone sinks into Izuku’s stomach. “What do you mean?” he asks, before coughing from the dryness in his throat. Inko helps him sit up, and Hisashi is right there with a water bottle in his hand, cap already opened. Their touch grounds him, and he leans almost unconsciously into the warmth of Hisashi beside him.

“When I asked Shouta-san to erase your quirk, I wanted to see what happened,” Sakura explains, sitting cross-legged in front of him. He focusses on the little golden flecks that dance in her eyes, a remnant of her quirk usage. “We know that the cuffs suppress your invisibility, but something was still drawing on your energy. So, by removing your cuffs, I made sure that all your energy streams were equally connected, and then got Shouta-san to cut it off. That way, anything else that was active would also have been turned off. Does that make sense, Izuku-kun?”

He nods slowly. It does , in a strange way, but only if he imagines Sakura’s quirk to be sensing his energy not in an intangible way, but as tangible streams. Which is even more fascinating the more he thinks about it, because it means that it’s Sakura’s quirk that makes people’s energy coalesce into these streams for her to ride, and she has a greater impact on people’s quirk functions than he previously thought. But this is all a digression, and he forces his attention back to her.

“So you made sure that both my quirks were connected before turning them off?” he asks hesitantly, feeling the absolute shock coursing through him at the idea of having two quirks at once. The ramifications of that…it’s scary.

“Yes,” she confirms. “And I was able to see that the second quirk is a passive one, that will always remain on. It’s only in a few moments that you will be able to break through it.”

“What is it doing?” Inko asks anxiously. “Is it hurting him?”

“I don’t think so,” Izuku says, tapping at his lower lip. “I didn’t feel anything until the moment when Aizawa-san used his quirk on me, and then - then I felt so tired , but also like I remembered you.”

“You were looking at us,” Hisashi says, his voice filled with realisation. “You were looking at us when Aizawa-san turned your quirk off, and you remembered us. Is it blocking off a part of your mind?”

“Possible,” Aizawa says, startling them all. The man must have crept over in silence a while ago, because he stands right beside them, his arms crossed across his chest. “You remembered Bakugo when I used my quirk on him, and by extension, you. You were facing him, weren’t you?” he asks Izuku.

He thinks back to that evening, when Bakugo stepped in, and it clicks. The explosions dying out, and the feeling of memories breaking into a tidal wave over the terrain of his mind.

“Yes,” Izuku replies. “I think it did work then.”

“Did you face any adverse effects?” Sakura asks sharply. “Your energy is split quite drastically when your cuffs are on, so cancelling out the secondary quirk at the same time would have been quite a harsh shock to your system.”

“He had a flashback and - yeah, it was a bad evening,” Aizawa says. Izuku is inordinately grateful that he spoke up, because he still remembers feeling so helpless, his breath stuck in his throat until he thought he was going to die right there, staring into a puddle of his own vomit. He doesn’t want to give voice to that evening at all, because the idea of speaking it out loud makes him feel weak again, like he did in the Doctor’s lab.

“So what does Zu-kun have to do now?” Hisashi asks, and Izuku finds himself reaching out to grab his hand. He presses his hand gently, his larger fingers curling comfortably over Izuku’s smaller ones. “What do we do now?”

Sakura frowns, and it’s the first sign of a negative emotion that she has shown all day. But she still manages to wipe that expression away quickly and settle back into her smile.

“Well, there’s quite a bit that goes into this now,” she says thoughtfully. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen someone with more than one quirk.”

“That’s because the body can’t handle it,” Izuku says quietly. “People would lose their minds.” It’s only just sinking in for him now that he is in that position. He is in the position that so many others found themselves in before they were turned into the nomu. He is the only success story in a long list of tragedies.

“What do you mean?” Inko asks tremulously. Aizawa is watching Izuku from behind her shoulder, his eyes sharp. Izuku can read the words in them, that Aizawa will swoop in and stop her if Izuku doesn’t want to answer, and that he is ready to speak if he doesn’t want to. But contrary to how it was the first few days after his rescue, Izuku finds that words well up in his throat, fighting to leave his mouth like he can’t control them. 

“Sensei - the villain - he could move quirks between people. And - and he wanted to test that out on me, because I’m quirkless. I’m the perfect test subject for a lot of people, and he got to me first. He would give me quirks and then pull them away, seeing how they interacted with each other. And - I lost track, sometimes, of what he put in me, or how he did it. I think this must have been one of those last subtle ones that he couldn’t take out before I manifested invisibility and left, because judging from its action, it requires a longer incubation period, to ensure that it builds the required wall around the mind more securely. If it didn’t, then applications of Erasure would easily break it, not just cause the momentary confusion and discomfort that it does now. And maybe that means I’ll have to work on it? I might be able to identify how the wall is being made, and how to put a crack in it. But I’ll also have to track the invisibility, and see how to turn it on and off on command, so -”

“Zu-kun,” Hisashi says, sounding a little shocked. “Can we rewind to when you said you were the “perfect test subject”? Don’t tell me -”

Izuku clamps his mouth shut, his heart sinking. It has been a while since he found himself comfortable enough to ramble like this, and it doesn’t help that the first thing he said is so incriminating. He tenses, readying himself for the barrage of questions from his parents, questions that will surely dig deeper and deeper into the painful wounds he tries so hard to cover up, but -

“Zu-kun,” Hisashi says, his voice impossibly gentle. He has a hand on Inko’s shoulder, and she seems to be clinging to it to physically stop herself from saying anything. Hisashi leans forward, and Izuku follows, almost like a sunflower in search of the sun, unable to stop himself from seeking out that warmth. “Did it hurt?”

That’s not the question he was expecting, but it’s a question that digs at a scab in his heart either way. It’s a question he wishes he didn’t have to answer, but he can’t stop himself from answering either.

“So much, Dad,” he whispers, tears pooling in his eyes. He can almost feel the scalpels sinking into the skin of his arms, the cracking of his bones as his arm grew, bigger than he ever thought possible, the bone-deep ache of more than a single quirk fighting inside his body. “It hurt so much.” His voice cracks and he drops his head, unruly curls falling to cover his eyes.

“Oh, Zu-kun,” Hisashi murmurs, and both of them curl closer to him. Izuku leans forward, his head coming to rest on Hisashi’s collarbone as he gently cradles the base of his head. Inko leans her own head on Izuku’s shoulder, and her hands come forward to hold his, her thumb moves over the scarred skin of his knuckles.

“I’m sorry,” Inko whimpers. “I’m so sorry we never came sooner.”

Sakura and Aizawa leave the room, giving them some space, and Izuku lets himself fall apart once more. He has never really had strong emotions about the quirks that Sensei put in him, because they were gone before he could even think about them. But this one, this subtle little thing that has sent its roots deep into his mind - he hates it. He wants it to be a physical thing, something he can dig his nails into and pull out, freeing the memories and feelings that dance so tantalizingly out of reach. 

He sits there, cocooned in the hands of parents he has not been allowed to remember, and cries for everything that bright-eyed little Midoriya Izuku lost eight years ago.

Chapter Text

“Now, are you seeing the switch in your mind?” Shouta asks, directing his question to the general area where he thinks Izuku is. Considering that the kid is invisible, he can’t exactly be sure, but this is an exercise in figuring out how to control his invisibility. He can’t be doing it with the suppressor cuffs on.

“I see it,” Izuku says, his voice sounding a little strained. Shouta has to hide a smile in his capture weapon, ducking his chin down just a little bit. He can imagine the look on Izuku’s face, that earnest, focussed frown tugging at the scar over his ear and pulling his eyebrows inwards. “It’s like a lever.”

Shouta blinks. That sounds a little excessive, but who is he to judge the coping mechanisms of others?

“Alright, then do you remember how Sakura guided you through your quirk?”

“Mm,” he hears. He thinks he can guess how Sakura would have done it, guiding Izuku through the entire breathing exercise until his energy had been pliable in her hands, and she shut it off. That was, after all, the way he had met her for the first time. She had turned off the quirk of an abusive boyfriend and then challenged him to arrest her for illegal quirk use. He helped her find her way to a shelter and then supported her through her counselling licence instead of arresting her.

“I’m ready,” he hears Izuku say breathlessly, and snaps his attention back to the general area that the voice came from. 

“Alright then,” Shouta says. “Pull the lever.”

Nothing happens.

The room remains the same way, with the small depression in the grassy mat the only sign of Izuku’s body. He huffs, and Shouta can hear the frustration building in that little sound. Letting this go on for any longer would only hurt him, so he flares his quirk, and Izuku appears, cross-legged and slumped on the grass mat. He is pouting, picking at some strands of grass and tearing them to small pieces between his fingers. The moment he feels his quirk get erased, he looks up to catch the quirk cancelling cuffs that Shouta tosses to him, and then clicks them on around his wrists.

“It didn’t work,” he murmurs, as Shouta settles beside him. “I pulled the lever, but it just…stayed.”

“Hmm,” Shouta hums quietly. He leans back to look at the tall roof of the training gym at UA. “Do you think it’s the place?” he asks. “Would you be more comfortable trying it out at Sakura’s place again?”

Izuku looks frustrated. “I could do it there,” he argues. “I’m not a kid who needs to be comforted every time something hard happens. I can make it work here too.”

“I’m not saying you can’t,” Shouta says. “I’m just saying you might benefit from some help. You’re essentially starting off from the position of a toddler with your quirk. Would you begrudge a five-year-old the need to go to a specialised gym to learn to control his quirk?”

“I’m not five, though,” Izuku mutters sulkily, and Shouta sends up a prayer for patience to whatever God decided to make him a father at thirty. 

“Okay, how about we ask Sakura to join us here, then? She’ll be able to tell you what’s not working with your visualisations.”

Izuku keeps his eyes fixed on the ground and keeps playing with the grass, so Shouta sighs internally and reaches for his phone.

“Can you also…” Izuku begins, and Shouta snaps to attention. Izuku doesn’t look up. “Can you also call Mom?”

While he keeps his face neutral and simply nods, Shouta is proud on the inside. This is the first time that the kid has openly asked him for something else, and that too, for someone else. It pricks him a little that he can’t help here, but the fact that the kid is able to ask him, and identify him as someone who can still help is a great step forward.

When he makes the call and tells Inko that her son asked for her by name, he is treated to three minutes of hysterical sobbing while Hisashi makes confused yet consoling noises in the background. He suspects that this is normal for this household by the way he takes the phone from Inko and informs Shouta that they will be there soon.

Izuku looks floored when the door opens and both his parents are standing there, as if he expected a net zero parent presence instead. Shouta pretends like that doesn’t hurt his soul, and simply nudges the boy forward.

“Go spend some time with them, and then we’ll try again with your quirk,” he tells Izuku. “Give yourself a break.”

Izuku looks a little suspicious, but he takes it and moves towards his parents, who open their arms and welcome him in with a hug. He is like a cat, leaning towards them for contact while still moving skittishly away, but he is getting better. 

Shouta picks up his phone and curls up in a corner of the gym, keeping only a single ear focussed on the little family. He scrolls through his messages to find Sakura’s number.

“Are you free?” he sends, and then switches over to Hizashi’s chat. The last message is a picture of Eri and Hitoshi frowning at the burnt mess of pancakes on the table.

“They don’t appreciate my cooking :(” it says, and Shouta snorts.

“Of course they don’t” he replies. “They have tastebuds that work”

“RUDE!!!” Hizashi replies almost immediately. “I’m going to be nicer than you. How’s the Little Listener doing?”

“Struggling,” Shouta sends back. “Trying but it’s not clicking.”

Hizashi sends back a stream of crying emojis, and then the bubble starts coming and going, like he’s typing a long message. Shouta waits, but then a notification pings. It’s Sakura.

“Izuku?” she has asked, and Shouta thinks her quirk probably does a thing where it stays in whoever she has used it on. Her prescience is uncanny at times.

“He’s seeing a lever but it’s not clicking his invisibility off. He refuses to come back to your gym. He’s apparently not a baby to need it.”

Sakura’s speech bubble appears and disappears, and then his phone vibrates with a call from her. 

“He’s not a baby if he needs some extra help,” Sakura says without a preamble when he answers. “As unlikely as the image is, have you been babying him, Shouta-san?”

Shouta snorts. “You said it yourself. I’m not babying him, I’m simply treating him like I treated Hitoshi in the beginning.”

Sakura sighs, the sound sending static crackling through the line. “I don’t think he and Hitoshi-kun work the same way, Shouta-san. For one, Izuku-kun has more on the line than just simple quirk control.”

“More on the line?” Shouta frowns. That’s a little strange. What is there that is more than just quirk control? What does Izuku want that is more important than learning to be visible for good?

“Izuku-kun is struggling with not just one quirk, he’s got two fighting inside him.” Sakura, bless her, sounds patient. If Hizashi had been having this conversation with Shouta, his exasperation and frustration would have sent them into an argument immediately. “With me, I was able to streamline his energy and focus his mental image. I think he’s trying to do too much at once. Talk to him, Shouta-san. He’s different, and he needs a different touch.”

Shouta hums, thinking about it. It’s true that he only ever saw the physical and tangible effects of Izuku’s thought process. His confusion, his crisis, his fears. He never really thought very deeply after the reveal that he had a second quirk passively running in his head. He simply pushed it aside. Passive means harder to control means not a priority. But maybe it’s been a priority for Izuku.

He looks up sharply as Izuku’s voice grows louder, cutting through the air. He sounds upset, so Shouta is scrambling to his feet and murmuring something to Sakura before cutting the call without even registering the movement.

“I want to break the damn wall!” Izuku shouts when Shouta is close enough to hear him clearly. Hisashi and Inko look stricken, so maybe there is some context here that Shouta has clearly missed. “I’m so scared of the inside of my own head, so I need to get that lever to work and bring it down!”

It’s almost funny how the realization strikes Shouta like Hizashi’s pillow in his face. It was right there, the explanation to Izuku’s struggles.

“Izuku,” he says, and all three of them jolt like they’ve forgotten that Shouta is in the room. Izuku looks scared for a moment, before Shouta makes a point to squat down and reach his level, keeping his hands open and free. “Izuku, have you been splitting your energy like Sakura taught you? Like Sakura guided you to in her gym?”

Izuku’s guilty expression is answer enough.

Shouta sinks all the way down with a sigh, his knees creaking in protest. But this is a conversation that needs him to be comfortable, because it seems like there’s a lot he needs to discuss.

“Describe your process to me,” he says firmly. “I want to know what you feel when you’re trying to turn your quirk off.”

Izuku is looking back down at the grassy mat, but Inko gently catches his hands before he can start twisting the skin and picking at the grass. She runs a soothing finger along his knuckles.

“Zu-kun,” she says softly. “I know you really want to see us and remember us, and we miss you just the same amount. But there are steps to this process, and you can’t hurt yourself trying to jump before you’re even standing.”

Hisashi’s eyes light up with understanding. “You’re not failing us, kiddo,” he says, and a sob catches in Izuku’s throat.

“I keep trying to turn them both off together,” he says in a rush through shaking breaths. “I just - I just want it to be gone.”

Shouta firmly shakes his head. “It’s not something that can be fixed so quickly, Izuku,” he says. “You remember how it felt the last couple of times we turned it off by force?” He doesn’t want to remember it, the way Izuku crumpled onto his knees, choking, or the way he slipped to the ground like Hisashi’s cane as he tried to catch him before he hit his head. “It will only hurt you. Analyse this quirk for me. Tell me what you know of it.”

Maybe this will help him, Shouta thinks. Maybe this will teach him that the quirk is not something to be scared of, but something to learn around.

Izuku curls up, clutching his knees to his chest. “It’s a memory inhibitor,” he starts quietly. “An inhibitor that prevents me from accessing memories of certain people, times and places. It’s a passive quirk, which means it’s always on. It needed an incubation period, because I remembered some things when I was imprisoned, even if I didn’t know why. It must have been working through the blocks it wanted to set up in my head, to identify the things I should not be remembering. It has severe backlash when turned off by force, resulting in migraines and unconsciousness."

“You made one mistake,” Shouta says, even as he finds himself reeling from the information that the boy has been able to outline. “You treat the quirk like it’s sentient. Like it chose what to hide from you, and chose what you could access.”

Izuku cocks his head to one side. “Is that not how it works?” he asks, confused. 

“Why would it - the quirk - want to stop you from thinking about your family and your parents?” Shouta asks. “Who stands to gain more from a blank slate?”

He can see the understanding dawn on all three faces in front of him.

“You’re saying - the villain used a quirk to make this block out certain parts of his memory,” Hisashi breathes. From the way he looks when he says it, Shouta feels like Izuku has probably been talking more to his father, at least, about the life he led in the labs.

“Zu-kun told us that they wanted him as a blank slate for testing the quirk compatibility,” Inko says, looking quite green. “Did they mean that, not just because he was quirkless, but also because he was not supposed to be…anyone?”

It really does sound horrifying when they think about it, but that’s the only answer Shouta can think of. That the villain wanted to erase everything that let Izuku resist him, and turn him into a perfectly pliant empty book.

“So I can fight the quirk,” Izuku says. “Just…not right now.”

Shouta nods. “We’ll need to build up to it, figure out how to navigate the multiple energy paths that Sakura spotted. But for now, focus only on the invisibility when you pull that lever. It’s a track you’ve walked before, so let’s give it another go?”

Izuku nods determinedly and pulls off his quirk suppressor cuffs. He vanishes instantly, but there’s only a moment of a sucked in breath before he says, “I can see the lever.” He sounds much more confident than he did at the beginning of the session, and Shouta is glad that his parents are here to see him like this, confident, brave, and strong.

“What is your lever connected to?” he asks.

Izuku hums. “Lots of things, but I’m going to pull on a very specific power channel when I pull the lever.”

Sounds complicated, but what the hell, sure.

“Go for it,” Shouta says.

They wait for a few silent breaths. It seems like Inko and Hisashi aren’t even breathing as they clutch each other’s hands and stare intensely at the depression on the grassy mat.

And then.

Izuku pops back into view.

He’s crying, but he’s also smiling, and he’s holding out his arms to fall right into his parents’ embrace.

He pulls Shouta close and clings to his sleeve even as he’s smothered by his mother, and Shouta pretends like that doesn’t send a proud warmth blossoming through his chest.

Chapter Text

Izuku revels in the feeling of being able to turn off his quirk. He finds himself doing it all the time for the next few days. He has been getting better at it, the repetition letting him hold the lever down for longer and longer. Soon enough, down will be the default state, and he’ll only have to try extra hard to turn the invisibility on. The thought is a freeing one, as he throws himself back onto his bed, staring up at the ceiling.

He can hear Hitoshi’s voice from the living room, and deduces that he must have dropped in to visit his parents. It has been a few days since Izuku saw him anyways. He’s been too occupied with a small side project that he didn’t really explain to anyone else. Every time he thought about it, he could only remember the way Hisashi looked so kind and quiet when he said “You’re not failing us”, and he knew they wouldn’t understand.

He doesn’t understand it himself, the creeping, crawling urge under his skin to just break the barrier in his mind. After all those sessions with Sakura, he can feel it now. He can tell which bits of his energy go to the lever connected to the invisibility, and how much of it connects to the tall wall that he finds himself staring up at whenever he meditates. Which is incredibly fascinating if he thinks about it, and he already has five pages of notes on how he thinks Sakura’s quirk works, allowing her to not just read energy signatures but also actually modify them and control them, making her a very dangerous opponent in a hypothetical fight.

But that’s a distraction. 

Izuku is trying very hard not to think of the fact that he has been spending a solid chunk of his quirk training sessions digging into the foundations of the wall that the mental quirk has erected in his mind. He knows Aizawa-san told him to wait, and his parents told him that there will be time for him to figure it out, but he can’t bring his mind to stop worrying at the problem. After so long, he has been able to actually do something, ask questions, and live for himself. This one thing has been an obstacle in his path for long enough.

Izuku flips over to sit back up, curling his feet under him and pulling the blanket over his lap. His feet ache slightly, probably a sign of the rain coming. The soles have completely healed, but the scarring is severe enough for them to feel tight and achy at times. It’s another thing he has begun to learn to live with, that he wishes he could erase from his body.

He closes his eyes and sucks in a deep breath, his chest feeling like it is about to burst. When he lets it out, he imagines himself going weightless, like he could simply float away. The feeling of intangibility comforts him - he doesn’t feel like he is in his own body; his scarred, aching limbs feel miles away.

And he can feel it.

The stream of energy that goes steadily towards what he visualises as a giant wall in his mind. The sounds of conversation from the apartment die out, and he pulls himself completely inward, focussing only on that giant wall.

‘If it’s a wall, then it has to have its places of wear,’ he remembers Sakura telling him during one of his sessions. ‘All you have to do is find that spot, and slowly chip away at it. Maybe one day, that thinning patch will turn into a door, and you will be able to push that open into your own mind.’

But as before, he finds himself drained and tired before he has made any headway into understanding the quirk. With a sigh, Izuku flops back on his bed and opens his eyes, staring up at the glow-in-the-dark stars on his ceiling.

A sudden knock on his door startles him.

“Hey, Izuku? It’s me, Hitoshi.”

He blinks, surprised. Hitoshi? Why -

“I was gonna head back to the dorms, and I - I guess I wanted to ask if you were up for it. Bakugo’s cooking something.”

Hitoshi still has not opened the door, and Izuku slips out of bed to softly, quietly, pad over to the closed door. He leans his head against it, thinking.

Maybe this is a different wall I need to break down first.

Izuku has spent his entire time since his rescue and recovery hiding away. He justified it to himself as him needing the time to recover, but he can’t deny that it was also him hiding. Running and hiding from a world he didn’t think he belonged in.

But now, Hitoshi is holding out a hand and inviting him into that world. He has been here long enough that he can’t deny that maybe he belongs here. He has settled in enough that he can admit to himself that he has actually been rescued and the world is still going on.

He makes up his mind.

Hitoshi almost falls into his room when he pulls the door open suddenly, his hand raised to knock once more.

“Oh, shit, you were right there,” he says, awkwardly standing with his raised hand. Then he slowly moves it to the back of his head, rubbing his hair like that’s what he meant to do all this time, and Izuku can’t help the small snort of laughter that leaves him.

“Thanks for asking me to join you, Hitoshi,” he says, before his courage can leave him. “I’d like to join you.”

Hitoshi, to his credit, does not look surprised. He simply narrows his eyes at Izuku, sending a little bit of anxiety coursing through him.

“Are you sure you want to come like this?” he asks, and Izuku takes a moment to look down at himself. 

He’s wearing a loose t-shirt that reads “Pants” and loose pants with cat hair on them. His hair is probably even worse - a messy rat’s nest from the time he spent clutching it during quirk training. It has grown out now, enough to hide the scar that extends over his ear, but Izuku is still a little self-conscious about it.

“I won’t have a problem if you don’t,” Izuku tells Hitoshi, because these are the most comfortable clothes he can find in his cupboard. And if he is throwing himself into social interaction, he needs the comfort.

Hitoshi simply shrugs. “Not a problem.” He sticks his hands into his pant pockets and heads down the hallway. “Come on, then. Let’s go before Bakugo calls, yelling about no prior information or some shit.”

Izuku trips along after him, his heart pounding in his chest. Aizawa doesn’t blink when they tell him that Izuku is going with Hitoshi. Hizashi simply grins and tells Izuku to call him when he’s ready to leave, so that Hizashi can come walk with him.

“Or carry you if your feet are giving you too much trouble!” Hizashi chirps, as Izuku slides his compression socks on before slipping into his shoes. He hides the slight blush on his face from the casual show of comfort, lets Hizashi ruffle his hair and pull him into a loose side hug, and then follows Hitoshi out into the night.

Izuku shivers slightly as the cool breeze washes over him, and he rubs his arms, trying to bring some warmth back into them. Hitoshi looks back, concerned.

“Hey, are you cold?” he asks, already stripping off his coat before Izuku can even say anything.

“It’s f-fine,” Izuku stammers, but Hitoshi simply drapes the coat over his shoulders.

“I know you’ve had issues with temperature regulation,” Hitoshi says, continuing to walk. “It’s going to be hard until you get back to completely healthy weights, but that’s no reason to suffer.”

There’s a strange note in his voice, as if Hitoshi is not talking about him. This is personal, Izuku realises. This is something Hitoshi is saying from experience.

“Thank you,” he says softly. “It really helps.”

Hitoshi doesn’t say anything for a few moments, and Izuku wonders if he has messed up somehow, or said the wrong thing, before he speaks. “I had a muzzle on for a few weeks at a time when I was younger,” he says, looking forward. “I didn’t really get food very often, and that fucked up my body until Shouta-san got to me. He told me that - the thing that I told you.”

Hitoshi doesn’t look at Izuku, and Izuku doesn’t ask him to either. This doesn’t feel like something they would be able to talk about face to face, so he simply hums, adjusting the coat to cover his arms properly.

“Aizawa-san seems to have a set of platitudes he uses very often,” Izuku says instead. “He told me that I was more than the quirk that controls me, and Eri told me later that he told her the same thing when she was rescued.”

Hitoshi snorts. “Or maybe he’s just got a thing for rescuing traumatised kids who are scared of their quirks.”

Izuku laughs softly. “That too.”

They walk in silence for a few feet, Izuku looking all around him with interest and excitement, because this is the first time he’s walking through this side of the UA grounds. 

“Hey,” Hitoshi says, startling him. “I just wanted to ask you something.”

“What is it?” Izuku asks.

Hitoshi hesitates for a beat, and then it almost seems like he’s forging ahead. “Did you ever manage to remember anything more?” he asks in a rush. “About people or places or just - general things, you know?”

“Are you asking for Kacchan?” Izuku asks shrewdly. The way Hitoshi is flustered and waving his hands around is honestly funny.

“It’s not like that!” he says firmly, once he has finished choking on his spit. “I just - I tried to find out stuff that might help with your quirk, but then it didn’t, and he said he was gonna do something to help with your memory, and we never really knew if that worked either!”

Izuku feels a warm comfort surround him, and it’s not just from the slightly oversized jacket that is currently hanging over his shoulders. It’s the realisation that there have always been people around him who cared for him, so much more than he knew. He hasn’t had the opportunity to meet Kacchan again, not after their disastrous first meeting, but Auntie Mitsuki had shown up with baby photo albums and suspiciously wet eyes. He never really did anything with Hitoshi, but he’s here, walking him to the dorms so that he can spend an evening out by himself, feeling more like himself, like a normal teenager. 

“The memory thing is because of a quirk,” he tells Hitoshi. “I really appreciated the photos that Auntie brought, but - it’s like a wall in my head stops me from really seeing what they meant to me.”

“That sucks,” Hitoshi says drily, and Izuku has to laugh. He doesn’t think he has laughed this much in a while.

“Yeah, it really does,” he says in reply. “But I’m working on it.”

“I think you’ll find that there’s a disgustingly cheerful group of people who are ready to help you out if you need it, all right here in this building,” Hitoshi says, waving a hand at the brightly lit Heights Alliance that they have reached. “They gave me more than I ever expected.”

“Awwww, Shinsou has emotions, guys!” a loud voice calls from the open window, and Izuku and Hitoshi both jump at the sudden noise. Izuku almost ducks behind Hitoshi, who has raised his arms into a protective fighting position, before Hitoshi relaxes, sighing.

“Mina, if you do that again, I’m not responsible for what happens to you,” he calls back, and the pink-skinned girl cackles loudly before ducking her head back inside.

“Ashido Mina,” Hitoshi says blandly, turning to Izuku. “I’m sorry about her, she’s really bad with boundaries.”

Izuku presses a hand to his chest, feeling the rapid beating of his heart under his shirt. It’ll take him a while before his racing pulse calms, but there’s no fear here, not like before. He thinks he’s actually excited.

“It’s fine,” he gasps out. “I’m fine.”

Hitoshi gives him a look that almost exactly mirrors Aizawa’s look of judgement. “Are you sure? We can just go back if you’re not up for the loud chaotic mess that this evening might become.”

Izuku shakes his head firmly. “I want to do this,” he says. “I want to - I want to feel normal.”

Hitoshi’s eyes soften and he nods once. “Alright then,” he says, walking up the pathway to the main door. “Let’s do this.”

Izuku takes another step forward, and another piece of the old stone wall crumbles in his mind.

Chapter Text

The dorms are warm. That is the first thing that strikes Izuku when he takes a step into the foyer. Hitoshi slips off his shoes and pulls on a pair of slippers with practiced ease, but Izuku lingers there for a moment, unsure of what he should be doing.

Do I even belong here? he thinks for a moment. He can hear laughter and conversation just beyond the door, which is just a few inches away from him. It feels like a few miles.

"Come on," Hitoshi says, and he sounds so casual, as if Izuku being here is not a mindblowing change to both their routines. "The mob will attack us in a few minutes if we're not in before then."

Izuku slips into the guest pair of slippers that Hitoshi nudges his way, and grips the end of his sleeves with nervous fingers. Hitoshi throws him an encouraging glance and then strides into the living room.

"Toshi!"

A red-haired teen comes careening forward to slap Hitoshi's back, but he dodges neatly.

"Guys, inside voices please," Hitoshi calls out, and all action in the room ceases. Izuku winces when all the eyes turn to fix on them.

"Hello," the red-haired boy says, grinning at Izuku, exposing the sharp ends of his teeth. "You're new, aren't you? I'm Kirishima! Hitoshi's best bro!"

Hitoshi looks supremely uninterested. "I don't have bros," he says, somehow managing to inject Aizawa's level of disdain into the last word. "Anyways, this is Izuku. Be nice."

Izuku can't help but muffle the snort that leaves him at the very bland introduction that Hitoshi gives. He is, at that moment, without a doubt Aizawa's son.

"Oi, Deku, you're here?" A very familiar voice emerges from the kitchen, and Izuku latches onto Kacchan with both relief and desperation.

"Hitoshi said you were cooking," he says, his voice barely above a whisper. "I decided to give it a chance."

"Haaah!? Give it a chance? It's a blessing that I'm cooking for you, you hear? Now go sit your ass down before you fall over. Your feet are cramping up, aren't they?"

Izuku winces as the words remind him of the sharp, stinging pain that is running through his feet. He simply takes Bakugo's words to heart and hobbles to the couch. The moment he sits down, Hitoshi simply lifts his feet onto the seat of the couch, sliding a couple of cushions under them. He doesn't look at Izuku's face as he does it, but it warms Izuku's heart either way.

(Another piece crumbles off the wall, but Izuku's not really looking at it, no he isn't.)

It's like Izuku's entrance into the dorms has opened up a veritable flood of excitement and curiosity. In what feels like a second, the entire room is occupied, with people - students, Kacchan and Hitoshi's classmates, not threats - taking up every sittable spot.

"Izuku, right?" Kirishima says brightly. "How do you know Bakugo? And Shinsou?"

He wonders for a brief moment just how much he wants to tell them, but just like before, it feels like the words are fighting to leave his mouth.

"Aizawa-san rescued me. I - I used to know Kacchan as a kid, but - I just got to meet him again now." Izuku pauses. "I didn't even know I'd forgotten him until I'd remembered him all over again."

"Damn, that sounds rough," a blond with a black streak in his hair says. "So when did this -"

Someone smacks him before he can finish his sentence, and Izuku flinches away, startled. The girl - with short black hair and elongated earlobes - notices and takes a step back.

"Sorry about that," she apologises. "But Kaminari was going to ask a dumb, intrusive, personal question, and I wanted to stop him." She turns to Kaminari with a frown. "You don't just ask people about their obviously traumatic pasts, you idiot!"

"Indeed!" Izuku feels his breath leave him in a relieved sigh, because he knows this person. Iida Tenya, the brother of Iida Tensei, Ingenium. The one who had almost died at the hands of the Hero Killer but only survived because Izuku had chosen that day to run from the League, and the chaos had distracted Stain enough for Endeavour to arrive.

Iida waves his hands firmly, and Izuku notices that he doesn't move his left arm with the same force as the right.

"We should respect the boundaries that people are setting for us, and until Izuku chooses to tell us something about his past, we must not pry!" he says.

"Tenya, I love you, but also calm down," a round-faced brunette says, grabbing his arm and twining her hand around his elbow. "You're freaking him out."

"N-No! I'm fine!" Izuku manages to squeak, waving his hands around in front of him. "It's just - it's a lot of people and - I - I haven't really gotten used to it yet. But I will!"

There's a flash of what could be sympathy on all their faces, but it vanishes almost immediately. Izuku can't help but feel gratitude when none of them bring up his past again. Instead, they begin to talk about Bakugo, Shinsou, Eri, and all the people and things he should know. He thinks he has heard more gossip in these twenty minutes than he has in his entire life.

(And all the time, Izuku is poking and prodding at the wall in his head, because he doesn't want it to spread, to eat up the memories of these people that he is clinging onto with strained fingernails.)

Uraraka - the brunette with Iida - brings him a hand warmer when she notices him rubbing at the scars on his right hand.

Asui "Call me Tsu" Tsuyu drops a weighted blanket on the couch with a whispered "I use it in winters to keep from hibernating" and walks away.

Hagakure Tooru doesn't show up like everyone else, but her t-shirt waves with enough enthusiasm that Izuku is left with no doubts about her feelings about him.

It feels warm and welcoming, but unreal in its comfort. It feels like something should be happening, something should be crashing, like there should be something going wrong because Izuku is happy.

And it really does happen, like he called it up with his own thoughts. His control over the lever in his mind slips, for just one second, because he's distracted by a new crack in the wall, and he knows by the gasps that he has gone invisible.

"What the hell? Did we just lose him?" Kaminari asks, already sounding hysterical.

"Oh dear," a composed voice says, and Izuku thinks that might be Yaoyorozu Momo, because Hitoshi has spoken about the Class President and her state of inner peace in the face of chaos. "Should we call Aizawa-sensei?"

"Nah, give him a moment," Hitoshi says, his hand reaching out to Izuku's nevertheless. He catches it and clings on to it, forcing his breath to slow. No one is going to have a problem with him right now. No one is going to hurt him or scream at him, or lock him up.

He simply needs to focus.

"Do you need me to help?" Hitoshi whispers softly, low enough that no one else can hear him. "We can try what we did earlier."

"No," Izuku breathes out. "I can do it myself."

He focuses on the feeling of Hitoshi's hand in his, like a tether holding him back on this planet. He thinks back to all the times he was able to pull that lever and shut off the streams of energy that Sakura showed him. With a sharp inhale, he forces it down, and he blinks back into sight.

"Sorry about that," he chuckles awkwardly, pulling his hand away from Hitoshi's to rub at his head. "I didn't mean to - that's just a little accident. I'm still - still learning."

There's a moment of silence, and then there's a loud clap. Izuku flinches, more out of shock than fear, but there's an immediate uproar of apologies.

"I'm so sorry!" Hagakure wails. "I didn't think, but I was just so excited! You have a quirk just like mine!"

Izuku nods. "It's a little different though," he says. "Have you been able to turn yours off?"

"I tried when I was a kid and it made me pass out, so my dad made me promise never to try it again unless there was a dire situation that literally changed the way my quirk worked," she says, her voice bubbly.

"Oh." Izuku blinks. That's…a lot in a very casual tone. "I'm…sorry?"

"Don't be," she says, and Izuku can hear her smile. "People always have that reaction, like 'Oh, I'm so sorry you're invisible! I'm so sorry I can't see you! Oh, it must be really sad that you can't be seen!' which is all bullshit, because if you really cared, you'd try to make me feel seen, you know?"

Izuku thinks back to the way Aizawa always made him feel like he was real, like he really existed, even when the cuffs were off and Izuku went invisible. There were times when the training got so frustrating that he felt like he didn't really exist, and Aizawa always managed to find him, clamping a hand around his shoulders and erasing his quirk.

His parents always managed to find him too. They were always there, their arms wide open and waiting for him, their fingers careful as they stroked through his hair.

"Yeah," he says, a genuine smile breaking out on his face for what feels like the first time. "If they really love you, they'll see you anyways."

"Oh my gosh!" Mina jumps in between them. "Lovely moment, but hold on!" She points an accusatory finger at Hitoshi, who looks startled. "This is why you were asking Tooru about her quirk that day!"

"What?" Izuku asks, turning to Hitoshi. "I didn't know you were interested in quirks like that!"

Hitoshi goes bright red and pulls a pillow out from behind him just so he can bury his face in it.

"Eye Bags asked her so that he could find a way to help you, Dumbass," Katsuki says, finally exiting the kitchen. He brings with him a steaming bowl of soup that has a thin film of spicy oil on top, and the scent of chillies and tomatoes hangs around him like a cloud. He shoves the bowl into Izuku's hands and stands there, his hands on his hips. "Now eat that before I force it down your throat," he orders.

Izuku opens his mouth to say something, when he feels something crack.

(And the wall that he has spent so long poking and prodding at, just splits down the middle.)

His fingers tremble on the side of the bowl.

"Oi, what's the matter?" Katsuki asks, frowning. But this time, Izuku recognizes that frown. It's the frown that means he's worried, not angry.

It's a frown Izuku recognizes from the memories of his childhood, that are now seeping through the crack in the wall.

"Nothing, Kacchan," he says, his voice only slightly shaky as he takes a sip.

When the voices around him continue to speak, and the people around him see him and know him, he knows with full certainty what the wall in his head was meant to do.

But Izuku also knows that he can beat it now.

Sensei, I won't let you control me anymore. I'm my own person, and I'm not alone.

Chapter Text

When her alarm rings, Sakura is already awake, carefully painting on a layer of makeup over the bruise at the corner of her eye. Ito had not been easy on her last night, and she can feel it in the twinges of pain down her back. She tries to think about something else, maybe the gym that Hikari-san lets her hide out at, pretending like he's not got any other reason to be teaching her how to throw a punch.

But she can't stop remembering the feeling of Ito's fist hitting her face, of his voice grating in her head as he screamed at her in a drunken rage.

Sakura finds herself looking at her dull eyes in the mirror and wishing that there was someone who could save her. Someone who would see what was happening.

Sakura opens her eyes with a sharp inhale. The memories fade with time, but she can't stop thinking about how she used to be. Even as she stretches, picking up the broom to sweep through the gym before opening, she feels the threads of the past pulling her deeper into them.

Ito is being suspicious. He's on his phone more often, even when they are in bed and Sakura is being pliant. He doesn't even look at her, sometimes, his eyes and mind far away even as he pounds into her, uncaring of her gasps of pain. She doesn't know when it changed, when he stopped caring for her - caring about her.

Maybe it was the day he met that man in the black suit. The man with the white hair and red eyes, who had held out a business card between immaculate fingers and smiled at them both.

Sakura catches Ito looking at her over breakfast one day, his frown contemplative. She doesn't like the look on his face.

"What's the matter?" she asks him bluntly. "You've been acting weird lately, Ito. It's scaring me."

He blinks, and then it's like a curtain falls over his face. He runs a hand through his red curls and grins at her lazily, the sharpened edges of his canines peeking through the gap between his lips. "Nothing you should bother yourself about, Blossom," he says, his voice dripping with condescension. "I'm just really close to finalising a business deal that will leave me set for life."

She really should have noticed his phrasing. It was all about him; he never mentioned her in that future.

Sakura stands in the middle of her gym and sucks in a deep breath. She forces herself to slow down, to simply exist in the moment. It is easy enough to slide right into her yoga routine, the one she uses to guide the older people through regaining control of their quirks after accidents. It tests her flexibility, but not to the extent that she hurts herself. It helps her centre herself, but it also reminds her of the first time she met Aizawa Shouta, the person who put her on this path.

Sakura's fingernails are bloody, but Ito is lying on the ground, unconscious. She is crouched in a corner of the alley, her breath catching in her bruised throat and making her ache. She's still shaking, the adrenaline leaving her body. She is one inch away from a fully blown panic attack, her hyperventilating breaths feeling much too loud to her ears. Her head buzzes, and she stares, unseeing, at Ito's prone body.

"Hey," a deep voice calls, and Sakura moves on instinct, reaching out with pointed fingers to stab into the person's eyes. They dodge easily, and take a step back, out of her space.

"Hey, I'm a hero, and I heard a commotion here. What happened?"

Sakura blinks. It's a strangely comforting voice that she hears, one that is so different from the thin, thready voice that left Ito when she dug her nails into his arms and yanked at his energy.

The man is dressed in a black jumpsuit, a strange grey scarf around his neck. A pair of yellow goggles hangs on top of it, and he's crouched beside her like she's a feral alley cat. Somehow, that thought makes a hysterical giggle break out of her. The man looks even more concerned now, and Sakura doesn't blame him. She feels like she's losing her mind. The last ten minutes feel like a haze, floating just out of her grasp.

"I used my quirk in public," she manages, meeting his eyes. "Are you going to arrest me?"

The man - she later learns his name is Aizawa Shouta, Pro Hero Eraserhead - huffs out something between a laugh and a sigh.

"Not if you didn't do anything illegal," he says. "Come on. Let me help you."

"Come on," Sakura whispers to the little kid sitting on a grassy mat. Riko is barely three, and her quirk came in early. It makes her float, a little block of air forming under her like a chair. The more scared she gets, the higher she goes, and it's a cycle that doesn't really stop.

"Let me help you, hm?" she says, and the little girl nods, her nose pink from the tears she's holding back. Sakura gently sends her own feelers out, tracking the energy that leads to the quirk. It's a robust thread, and she finds it easily.

"That feels warm," Riko whispers, her fingers tightening on Sakura's hand. "I can feel it."

"That's good," Sakura says encouragingly. "Can you feel it when I do this?" She gently tugs on the energy, like the twang of a string of a violin, and Riko giggles.

"Yeah," she says. "I can feel it."

"We're gonna work with this, and it's gonna be alright, okay?" She waits for Riko to respond before she gently pulls a little harder, and the energy cuts off. She's ready for it, and catches Riko as she falls, her little block of air vanishing.

"Oh, thank you so much, Sakura-san!" Riko's mother exclaims, darting forward to take her daughter from Sakura's arms. "We've been struggling so hard to find someone who could help her get it under control quickly, especially since she gets so scared."

Riko looks up at Sakura from the comfort and safety of her mother's arms, and smiles at her. It's a watery little thing, and it doesn't quite light up her entire face, but it reaches her eyes.

"Thank you, Sakura-san," she whispers, reaching out to cling to Sakura's fingers. "You were like my hero just now. You saved me from floating aaaall the way to the sky!"

Sakura laughs and reaches out to ruffle Riko's windswept brown hair. "I'm not a hero, Riko-chan," she says softly. "I'm just doing my job."

"Some might say what you do is heroic in its own way," Riko's mother tells her. "I don't think they're as separate as we like to think."

Those words linger in Sakura's mind, even as she goes through the rest of her day. She never really thought of what she did as heroic. She's just…helping people control their quirks. What's so heroic about that?

"You know, you could do some real good with that quirk of yours," Shouta-san tells her one evening. They're sitting in a corner of Hikari-san's gym. Sakura is furiously scribbling notes on one of her quirk counselling testing books, while Shouta-san is curled up in his yellow sleeping bag. "You don't have to be out there, fighting the villains to prove that you're doing something good."

"I'm not hero material, Shouta-san," Sakura says absently, swearing under her breath as she spots a mistake in her notes. "I'm not the sort of person people feel comfortable around."

"Really?" Shouta-san asks, and even without looking at him, Sakura knows he's staring at her with his Deadpan Scowl of Judgement. "Not like you managed to calm that kid down and help him get his quirk under control in a minute flat."

"What's so heroic about that?" she counters. "That's like saying a school teacher is a hero."

"And they are, in my books," Shouta-san says, closing his eyes and stretching out with a groan. "Imagine it, having to deal with twenty entitled brats who think they run the world because they have a fancy quirk."

"They aren't villains, though." Sakura has given up all pretence of studying now, focussed on the conversation instead. "Stopping them isn't like a hero stopping a villain."

"Heroes don't just stop villains, Sakura," Shouta-san says, his eyes still closed. "Heroes find a way to help someone and make the world less of a toxic cesspool. That's it."

Sakura remembers not being so convinced by his arguments. That wasn't the idea of heroism that they all grew up learning and watching, with All Might's beaming laughter and bright presence. But she still finds herself wondering.

The door squeaks open, and she looks up with a smile on her face. It's so easy to slip back into work mode, to greet people with a smile and help them feel at ease. She wonders if she should be worried, but she thinks it's a good skill to have. Especially in her job, where you never know how distressed a person will be when their quirk doesn't work right.

It's Izuku who darts in, Shouta-san slinking in after him. Sakura notes with pleasure that he looks brighter, more filled-out, like he has been getting some solid healthy food into him. He doesn't hunch into himself anymore, and he meets her gaze with a sparkling green eyes that simmer with barely contained joy.

"Already time for your next session?" she asks him, matching his smile. Something about him makes his energy so infectious, she can't help but want to keep up.

"I have something to share with you," Izuku says, almost bouncing on the balls of his feet. "I think I had a breakthrough. With the wall."

Sakura doesn't bother trying to hide the flush of pride that washes over her face.

"That sounds great, Izuku-kun," she says warmly. "Talk me through it."

They find a seat on the chairs arranged against the wall of the room, but Izuku doesn't sit. He stays on his feet, bouncing gently. Shouta-san sighs, but Sakura can make out the tone of fondness in it.

"Calm down, Problem Child," he says gruffly. "You're going to pull a muscle."

"I warmed up," Izuku says brightly, and Sakura hides the laugh that breaks out of her. It's good that Izuku is talking more, and is able to joke around. She remembers the first session, where he was so scared that failure meant he lost all worth.

"Yes, but Hizashi had to carry you back to the house after your feet cramped up, so don't undo all of his amazing work in getting you back on your feet."

Sakura gives him a questioning glance, and Izuku is quick to explain. "I went out for dinner with the class - Aizawa-san's class - and Kacchan and Hitoshi. To the dorms. And we - we just talked a lot." He chuckles a little, looking down at his hands. "I don't think I've ever felt like I did that evening."

"Like what?" Sakura asks gently. If there's one thing she has learned from all her conversations with Shouta-san, and the years she has spent helping people with their quirks, it's that sometimes, it's less about the physical and more about the mental. Quirks respond just as much to the state of your mind as they do to the state of your body. She knows it herself; the fatigue that dogs her limbs when she uses her quirk on too many people is testament to the fact that it takes a toll. And so does the reminder of that little-thought-of period when her quirk refused to work, refused to let her control the energy streams, refused to let her do anything more than sense the haphazard rivers in the night, because her mind was too rattled and unsettled by the entire thing with Ito to focus.

So, Izuku-kun needs his time to think about his quirk more than he needs to use it.

"Hm?" he asks, distracted. "What did you ask me?"

"What did that evening make you feel like?" she repeats. "Remember, sometimes, quirks respond to our subconscious minds. It may just be intuition, or some sense of connection with the world around you."

"I think that's what it was," Izuku says. "The connection. When I talked to them, and when they talked to me, I felt…like I belonged. Like even though I was meeting most of them for the first time, I was a part of them. I wasn't alone."

"That's very good to hear," Sakura says. "That's the first step to healing, isn't it? The realisation that you're not alone?"

"But the thing is," Izuku continues, still fiddling with his fingers, "that's what the quirk was meant to make me do. Feel so alone, that I could never believe that I was actually safe and free and healing. That people cared for me." He finally looks up at her, and her eyes widen. He has tears in his eyes, but he's smiling, and it's so blindingly bright.

"When you saw my quirk, and when you tried to find my energy streams, you saw me, Sakura-san," he says. "And you saved me. Because I kept remembering what you said, about us being social animals, about us trying to find meaningful connections with everyone around us, and it worked. I spent time with the class and - and the wall cracked." He pauses for breath. "I remembered Kacchan without the pain or the fatigue or anything. I just…remembered him."

He's crying, his breath leaving him in soft, trembling huffs, but he's still meeting Sakura's eyes. She can't move, can't breathe, not when he's laying his soul bare in front of her, and showing her a new world she never thought she would see.

"You're like my hero, Sakura-san," Izuku says, and Sakura can't stop the tears that well up in her own eyes. "You saw me, and you saved me."

Ito scoffs as he tosses the dented plate to a side. Sakura sits up gingerly, feeling the rising bumps on the side of her head. Her eye throbs with pain, and she can taste the sour, metallic tang of blood from the cut in her lip.

"You, a hero?" Ito snarls. "All your bloody quirk is good for is hurting people. All you do is cut them off from something that is fundamentally theirs. And you think you can do something with that? Dream on."

The metal rings as it hits the ground, and it keeps on ringing even when Ito has left, leaving Sakura still on the floor, staring dully at her own warped reflection in the bent surface of the plate.

"Who am I kidding?" she says out loud, her voice echoing through an empty apartment. "Who is going to see me? Who is going to save me?"

Shouta-san reaches out to her, his eyes kind even though his face doesn't really do anything but stay expressionless. "Let me help you. You can still be someone's hero by just helping them with one small thing, you know."

Sakura reaches out to a sobbing little kid, who can't stop his fingernails from growing and curling, scraping the skin off his fingers. "Let me help you," she says gently. "It's going to be alright."

"You alright?"

Sakura startles at the familiar voice. Shouta-san is looking at her, concerned. It's then that she realises that she is crying, tears streaming steadily down her face. Izuku looks stricken, like he is already running to blame himself for her tears.

"I'm fine," she says, her voice wobbling. "Thank you, Izuku-kun." She reaches out to him, and he takes her hand easily. She can feel his energy coursing through him now, so close to the surface. It's a marked difference from the first time she felt it - roiling and angry and almost uncontrollable. Now, it flows smoothly, and she can see the little dams he has built around it, controlling the direction in which it goes.

"You've done a great job with your quirks," she tells him. "I am very proud to have been able to teach you."

Izuku squeezes her hand back, gently. "You've been a great teacher too, Sakura-san." He smiles at her, and she matches it, equally watery, equally shaky, but no less genuine.

"You've both done well."

Sakura knows where she started, and she knows where she's standing now. But those words from Shouta-san mean more to her than she will every admit to anyone.

Because those words make everything worth it.

Chapter Text

This time, when Shouta watches Izuku sit cross-legged on his favourite grassy mat with his eyes closed, there is none of the strange apprehension that used to be there for his invisibility quirk. There is none of that frustration that coloured every twitch of Izuku's expression, and none of that tired concern that tied Shouta's limbs down. Strangely enough, Izuku looks like he is at peace.

His hands lie on his knees, completely relaxed, and there is no tension holding up his shoulders. He even has a slight smile on his face.

"What is happening?" Shouta asks Sakura, leaning slightly close to her. "He looks completely different this time."

Sakura smiles. "It seems like he is simply sitting with all the memories that have been leaking through the crack that he mentioned the other day. I have no expectation that he will break through the entire wall so quickly, but I think it is important for him to just…breathe through all the people and things and places he is rediscovering now."

That sounds incredibly heavy the more that Shouta thinks about it. Having a quirk, specifically designed to block off all memories and thoughts that would allow or even induce rebellion, and having it fall apart. There are so many memories that Shouta hates to remember on a daily basis. So many people he wishes he could remember again. But at least he had the luxury of choosing who he wanted to remember and who he wanted to forget. At least he knows who he's bringing back to himself.

"But I wonder," Sakura muses, snapping Shouta out of his thoughts. "If this quirk was supposed to completely cut him off from what made him him, how did he still remember Eri-chan? I remember you telling me that he knew her, and he remembered everything about her."

"Maybe it was the timing," Shouta says, pinching the bridge of his nose. "We theorised - as much as we could from what he and Eri remembered - that they were separated soon before the Shie Hassaikai raid. It's possible that the quirk entered him before that, and didn't quite manage to include his newer memories and motivations."

Sakura hums, thoughtful. "That seems like a rather big oversight."

"Well, we know he went there after All For One got his head beaten in by All Might at Kamino," he says, and they both share a shudder. That night was…a lot to take in.

Sakura opens her mouth to say something else, but Izuku bounces up from his seat, interrupting them.

"Sakura-san!" he says, his eyes shining with excitement. "Can you check on this new energy stream right now?"

She sinks to a cross-legged position almost immediately, allowing him to pretty much shove his hands into hers. It's a strange sight to see for Shouta, that the boy who had been so scared of touching other people or being touched now had no compunctions whatsoever. Or maybe it's just a glowing endorsement of how much Izuku trusts them both now.

When they open their eyes, Shouta bites back a little sigh at the twin looks of almost deranged excitement that meet him.

"This is incredible, Izuku-kun!" Sakura gushes, and wow - Shouta has never actually heard her express so much emotion. It's like a dam has been unblocked in her, one that she never knew existed. Shouta wants to bury his head in the sand and pretend like he hates the energy they bring, but he can't bring himself to do that. He can't stop thinking about the way he found Sakura, and the way he found Izuku, and the way both of them have found purpose and energy again.

"I think it's because of your quirk, Sakura-san," Izuku replies, with almost the same level of energy. "I theorised that your quirk involves you actually putting a bit of your own energy into other people, which is why if we try hard enough, we can still pull on the residual binding element you have, and we can control our own flows. And it worked! I can actually make the wall weaker!"

Shouta blinks. "Kid, I now owe Sakura dinner for a month. You just - you just cracked her quirk."

He doesn't mind, of course. He's just overwhelmed and also incredibly proud of this traumatised kid who crashed into his life and managed to carve out a spot of his own.

Izuku grins at him, his eyes almost turning into crescents over his cheeks - which have really filled out, he notices with satisfaction. "It's fun!" he chirps. "I've been thinking about her quirk this entire time, and I just knew it when it made my meditation easier and I could feel the energy waning."

"So, walk me through it again," Shouta says, joining the two of them on the mats. Sakura looks inordinately pleased, even though someone just figured out the minutiae of her quirk, which she always held very close to her heart. "What happened with this new quirk of yours?"

Izuku shuffles closer, his fingers twitching like he needs something to fiddle with. Sakura immediately hands him a string of interlocked rings, and the gentle clinking of the metal fills the air as Izuku starts twisting them round and round.

"So."

I'm a captive audience, Shouta thinks, but he doesn't really mind.

"I told you how being around other people and listening to them talk made the wall crack, right? And I basically felt much better when I was…not necessarily contributing, but being present. So I thought about it a bit more. What makes the quirk more powerful? And where does it get that energy from? And that's when I realised that if my theory was right, the Sakura-san's energy from the time she tested my quirks should have remained, making my energy way more malleable than I ever thought. That meant I could control the flow of energy and figure out where it's coming from, and how it's keeping the quirk powered on. Because how is a quirk supposed to know that I'm isolating myself or what matters to me?"

Izuku takes a break to suck in a deep breath, and Shouta takes a moment to run through everything once more in his own head. He knows he got through to Izuku and convinced him that the quirk was not sentient and controlling him through some weird telepath connection with All For One, so it's not coming as a surprise that Izuku has finally managed to see the quirk as just what it is - a biological process that needs energy and control.

He's actually quite impressed that he combined his knowledge with Sakura's quirk and came up with a working theory.

"So I tracked my own energy channels, and I realised, I feed the quirk myself! Anything it has been hiding from me, it's because at that point of time, I chose to think about it - maybe it was a source of comfort, maybe it made me feel less alone. The point is, I've been making my own bed and then forcing myself to lie in it. And it wasn't a good bed.

"So now, all I had to do was find out exactly how I'm powering the quirk. And with Sakura-san's energy in me, it was almost laughably easy. I've been spending the last few days slowly shutting off that valve, like a gushing hosepipe, and I've noticed that the more time I spend with others, reaffirming myself as a person outside of…all this stuff, the weaker the wall gets. I'm pretty sure I'm going to be able to bring it down completely pretty soon."

The door to the gym slides open at that moment, and Izuku's face lights up with even more joy at the sight of his parents. Shouta is honestly surprised that he hasn't started glowing or vibrating just yet. Although if that happened, that would be a whole new quirk and he does not think they are ready to handle that just yet. It's taken them long enough to get a handle on the ones he already has.

Hisashi looks like he has grown younger in the time since Shouta saw him first. He has a brighter smile on his face when he limps forward, and Izuku easily lets him ruffle his hair before he sinks into the stool that Sakura pushes towards him. Inko looks like she has a few good nights of sleep, and the lines that pulled her lips downward, and the stress lines around her eyes have all grown fainter. Her smile comes easier.

"Hello, Aizawa-san," she says softly, as Izuku starts talking nineteen to the dozen at his father, who simply listens fondly. "Izuku is looking very good today."

Aizawa inclines his head towards her. "He said he had a breakthrough with the memory quirk. He's very excited about it."

"I know," she replies, and Shouta can make out the undercurrent of anticipation in her tone. He knows just how painful this entire situation could be for them - they who thought their son was dead only to find out that he was alive, but didn't remember them at all. "He couldn't stop talking about it since his dinner with your class."

"Hmm, the hell class does that," he says. "They can be very loud and overwhelming, so I'm glad he actually managed to last an entire dinner."

"And your husband carried him back home since his feet were hurting," Inko adds.

"And my husband had to carry him back home," Shouta admits. "I thought he would be a little better about it, but apparently telling Izuku not to do something means he will inevitably do it."

Inko laughs. "You have no idea," she says. "When he was little, he got into so many scrapes by trying to get into the storage closet. He got it into his head that I kept the cookies in there, and tried to climb the spare futons to get behind them."

"Let me guess, he didn't believe you when you told him they weren't there?" Shouta asks drily, and Inko nods, her eyes still dancing with mirth.

"I had to pull him out of a pile of blankets and bandage a couple of scrapes in his favourite All Might bandages before he let either of us carry him while he cried in disappointment."

"What a Problem Child," Shouta says, and there's only fondness behind his tone. Inko seems to pick up on it, and she smiles at him, reaching out a hesitant hand to touch his elbow.

"Thank you," she says, and there is a weight to her words. "Thank you for taking such good care of my boy."

"It's what anyone would have done," he says, ducking his chin into the loops of his capture weapon. He really does not want to face the gratitude that overflows from the Midoriyas whenever they talk, not without Hizashi to do some emotional regulation for them all.

"So many people failed him earlier," she says quietly, turning to look at where Izuku is now back to meditating and Sakura is talking to Hisashi. "I won't deny that Hisashi and I failed him too. There must have been something we could have done to find him, but we gave him up as dead. There's no forgiveness for that."

"You only thought I was dead because there was no other option to explain how Dad was found. That much blood - if I hadn't died, I would have been in excruciating pain."

Inko freezes. Shouta freezes too, because that voice is not Hisashi's, in the soft cadence of his comforting words. It's not the tone that Inko and Hisashi often fall into when talking to him and Hizashi, where they trade responsibility and guilt.

It's the voice of a young boy who is in tears, but whose eyes finally look clear when he looks at his gobsmacked parents.

"I thought I was dead too, Mama," Izuku whispers, his tears coursing unchecked down his cheeks. He's staring at her, tracing her entire figure, before turning to his father, who has a white-knuckled hold on his cane, and he reaches out to hold his shaking hand. "I thought we were both going to die, Dad."

"Izuku?" Hisashi's voice shakes, and he grabs a hold of Izuku's hand with desperate strength. "What - what are you saying?"

Inko all but flies from Shouta's side, like her quirk is not Attraction of Small Objects but teleportation. Izuku looks up from them and meets Shouta's eyes.

"I figured it out, Aizawa-san," he murmurs. "I think - I think it's gone now. I won't forget anything unless I want to. Nothing will get stuck behind the wall again."

Shouta wants to tattoo that expression into his memory. He never wants to forget the moment that Midoriya Izuku fought against the shitty hand dealt to him and came out on top. He hears the frantic questions from Inko and Hisashi - they're asking him about his childhood, about people from their past, about the things he did - and he hears Izuku's confident answers. With each and every correct recollection, Inko and Hisashi sink lower and lower to the ground, until the Midoriyas are one giant puddle on the floor, crying into each other.

Sakura makes her way to Shouta's side, and flashes him a quick smile. "I know we never expected this to be his timeframe, but he always seems ready to surprise us all, doesn't he?"

Shouta thinks back to the first time he saw Izuku, to the dogged determination in his eyes as he staggered towards Shouta, uncaring of the blood he left in his wake, and shrugs.

"I think I knew from the start that the Problem Child was going to surprise us all."

There really couldn't be a truer statement he ever made.

Chapter Text

Izuku spends a lot more time outside his room after he manages to control the mental quirk. Now that he has the confidence that he will not lose himself, lose his memories, he finds that he really enjoys sitting in the 1-A dorms with Hitoshi and Kacchan. The two of them have a dynamic that fascinates him; now that he has his memories back, he remembers how it used to be with Kacchan, and this is entirely not the way he is with Hitoshi. It's not even the same way he is with the others, who he calls solely by nickname. Izuku has even started keeping track of new people by Kacchan's nicknames, before he can corner them and apologise before finding out who they really are.

It's on one rainy evening that he realizes that he just made a couple of new friends.

Izuku finds himself sitting on a small corner of the couch in the dorms, and he has a blanket around his shoulders, his feet in their usual compression socks. Although he doesn't get that cold anymore, it's still a comforting feeling, to run his fingers over the lumpy surface of the blanket and remind himself that it is real, he is out of there.

Uraraka bounces over, and Iida follows her, in the way that he always seems to gravitate towards his girlfriend.

"Izuku-kun!" Uraraka calls, and Izuku smiles, scooting over to give her some space. She forgoes the couch, though, and throws herself to the ground, sitting with her legs crossed. Iida joins Izuku on the couch, and companionably accepts a corner of the blanket that Izuku offers him.

"Hi, Uraraka-san," he says. "What's the matter?"

"I've told you to call me Ochako," she pouts, but then bounces back almost immediately. "I didn't really have any specific reason to come over. I just wanted to spend some time with you. It's kind of rare that you don't have Hitoshi-kun or Bakugo-kun around you, you know."

Izuku immediately waves his hands, flustered. "I don't mean to hide away from you!" he yelps. "I'm just - not really used to this and I really don't know what I'm doing and how to be a friend and it's just that Kacchan and Hitoshi know a lot about me and my history and it's just so easy to let them take the lead!"

"And that is a perfectly reasonable response to the situations you have found yourself in, Izuku-kun!" Iida says, his hands moving in stiff chops. "We are not faulting you for what is undoubtedly your coping mechanism."

"We just want to be friends, you know?" Uraraka says, smiling at him kindly. "Hitoshi told us that you didn't have a great time, and we know just how much it meant to him to have friends who didn't care about his past. We just want to be able to help you in that way."

"We are training to be heroes, and a hero saves more than just a person's body," Iida says, nodding seriously. "They must save even people's souls."

Izuku finds himself in tears again, and he has to wave away their concerns and let them know that this is normal for him, that it is simply an expression of his overwhelmed feelings of appreciation for the way they have tried to make him feel like an ordinary teen, living an uncomplicated life. And then Kacchan throws a pillow at his head and yells at him to "stop fucking bawling, you stupid nerd, you're scaring the idiots!" while Kirishima insists that they are not scared and Izuku deserves to express his emotions in any way he wants to.

It's a culmination of all of these realisations and feelings that makes Izuku pay less attention to his surroundings as he walks back to the teacher apartments in the falling dusk, the evening light making his surroundings feel like a fuzzy, half out of focus painting. The UA campus looks beautiful, the tall trees dusted with golden shimmering in the aftermath of the rain. The gently fog blankets him, turning his world indistinct.

A shadow looms out of the fog and Izuku nearly slams right into the tall, slender man who seems equally lost in thought.

"I'm so sorry!" he yelps, stumbling to a halt after slipping in the mud to avoid crashing into the man. "I wasn't really paying attention to where I was going, are you alright?"

The tall man smiles at him, and it tickles somethiing in his mind. There is something strangely familiar about the man - his long blond bangs, his sunken eyes, and the strange aura of his smile.

"I'm fine, young man," he rumbles, and that voice nudges another block loose from Izuku's memory. "Are you hurt?"

Izuku just shakes his head, thinking furiously. He knows this man, and not from his life after being rescued. There is something entangled with him, something Izuku has been trying to forget. His therapist has told him that it is normal for him to not remember all of his time in captivity. That his brain would have chosen to block out parts that he was not ready to face, and that they would resurface, slowly, when he felt he was safe enough. It feels like this blond man is tied to one of those moments that Izuku has been running from.

"Do I -" he starts, just as the man begins to walk away. He pauses, hearing Izuku's wavering voice break through the chorus of crickets.

"Yes?"

"Do I - know you?" Izuku manages to ask, and he despairs at the way he feels his throat close up. It had stopped for so long, once he got used to his new life, but something about this conversation is bringing back that cowering little boy who had been too scared to speak a word in case it brought more pain down on him.

The blond man frowns, and then shakes his head ruefully. "I'm sorry, my boy," he says, and Izuku can hear actual regret in his voice. "If I have met you, I have no memory of it. But there is every possibility that you have seen me before."

"How?" Izuku asks.

The man sucks in a deep breath, and then coughs violently. Even in the evening gloom, Izuku can see the blood that stains the handkerchief he had pulled into his hand like a magic trick. The harsh coughs wrack his body, and his frail shoulders shake with the force of his fit.

"Are you sure you're alright?" Izuku yelps, his hands hovering somewhere around the man's elbows. "Let me help you get to Recovery Girl!"

The man manages to control his coughs, and flashes Izuku a bloodstained smile. "I will be f-fine," he coughs, wiping his mouth with his handkerchief. "I promise."

"You should sit down regardless," Izuku says, and almost forcefully drags the man into one of the benches that line the path. His heart is still hammering in his chest, because the sight of the man choking into his handkerchief had terrified him.

Izuku had thought, for a solid moment, that he was about to see another person die in front of him.

His mind races - he can almost remember the image of his father, coughing and choking in a similar fit, and all of a sudden, Hisashi's dry coughs and this stranger's wet coughs merge together and Izuku doesn't know when he is.

Is he back in that train, watching the villains crash into the tracks and knocking the train down from the bridge?

Is he watching his father choke on his own blood as he reaches out to Izuku with red fingers?

Is he staring at his own wan face reflected in the blood he just spat out, his ribs throbbing from the noumu's fist?

Is he watching this stranger take a spike to the chest and cough out a glob of blood, even as he fights to -

Fights to what?

The thought startles Izuku out of his spiral, and he realised almost embarassingly, that the man he had been so intent on helping is actually helping him now.

"Take a deep breath, young man," he is saying in that same, deep voice that is so achingly familiar.

"I - I am," Izuku whispers, but he knows it's a lie, because he is staring down at his red shoes and his vision is spotty.

"Is there someone I can call for you?" the man asks, already pulling a phone out of his pocket. He seems to have gotten over his coughing fit quite quickly, already moving with the steady efficiency of someone who is used to this happening.

"A-Aizawa-san," he stutters out through chattering teeth. He is suddenly so cold, and this man is infuriatingly familiar and Izuku just can't place him.

"I'm going to call him right away, alright? Don't worry, it'll all be alright," he says, as he stands up to place the call, and in that moment, it all clicks.

"All Might," Izuku breathes. "You're All Might."

And he remembers just when he last saw All Might.

Chapter Text

Izuku is so cold.

The room is so cold. The laboratory is always cold, the air conditioning set to the right temperature to maintain the noumu in the tanks. And their green gel makes their glass canisters cool to the touch, and that just makes Izuku feel colder when all he is wearing is a thin shirt that will be torn away from him at any point of time.

The floor is cold.

He curls his feet up as much as he can, with how they are frozen from the low temperature and lack of movement. The thin, threadbare pillow under his head barely presents him any cushioning from the hard floor, and Izuku can only hug his arms around himself.

He thinks he might remember what the warmth felt like - maybe a little bit of light, maybe a little bit of a voice, maybe a little bit of smoke. But it all feels like he is grasping for beads in oil, slipping away from his fingers at the slightest pressure. Maybe he knew it, maybe he didn't.

His head hurts if he tries to think about it.

So all he thinks about is that it's cold.

The walls are shaking. Dust floats down from cracks that spiderweb through the ceiling, and Izuku stares at them in detached fascination. Is this going to be the end? Is this going to be the moment that sets him free?

He barely remembers the last time he tried to run away. The last time he got that single opportunity, when the bar was left alone, Tomura complaining about Stain, he had taken it. He had stared at the door swinging open and he had run.

He knows he suffered for it, he knows Sensei put a new quirk in him with a laugh that chilled his heart, but he doesn't remember anything about the quirk.

And now, the shaking building means that the warehouse is under attack.

The cracks mean that he can actually push through the bars, which have fallen apart crookedly.

The dust means he will die if he stays here, unmoving under the chunks of concrete that are falling with loud thuds.

Izuku knows he has only one choice he can make - keep moving forward. Don't give up.

All Might is staring at Izuku like he has grown two heads.

"Yes?" he says, a little uncertainly. The phone in his hand is still ringing, and Izuku can make out Aizawa's name on the caller ID. "I'm All Might. I - I thought you would have known?"

Izuku only manages a choked out laugh. "How would I know?" he asks, and his eyes slip down to focus on his fingers again. The neat, even fingernails that don't feel like his. The fingernails that had been cracked and caked in blood and dust barely a few months ago.

"I didn't even know my own name until this year."

Izuku is stumbling. His hands sting from where he'd scraped them against the rough concrete, pushing the blocks out of his way. He keeps tripping, his feet numb and unused to so much movement.

But Izuku does not stop. He keeps pushing forward, running down the corridors with the sterile, fluorescent tube-lights that throw everything into sharp relief, down corridors that used to be pristine but are now littered with fallen concrete and messed up papers.

His feet slow down automatically when he crosses the lab that the Doctor and Sensei always see him in. Or rather, the space in which he always sees them. It is empty, all the machinery and tools gone, as if they never existed in the first place.

The Doctor has run, and Sensei is…somewhere.

But Izuku knows, deep in his heart, that neither of them intend to come back to this space. Have they forgotten Izuku? Or is this another one of Sensei's "tests", to see if he will simply wait for them, an obedient puppet till the last?

Izuku doesn't care if he fails that test. He forces himself to move, towards a door that is helpfully marked with the exit sign, and does not look back.

"I'm…sorry," All Might says, looking stricken. "What happened to you?"

Izuku's hand rises, moves without his conscious effort, and his fingers skate along the ridged edges of the scar that cuts across his head, over his ear.

"I was there," Izuku whispers. "At Kamino."

All Might freezes, even as Aizawa picks up the call. Izuku can hear his tinny voice fill with dry annoyance, and then morph to concern as no one answers.

"At Kamino?" All Might asks, his voice shaking. "Were you - Did I -"

It's like he can't even finish his sentences, finish asking Izuku the questions that will undoubtedly bring pain to them both.

And Izuku doesn't blame him.

All Might used to be his favourite hero, once. He'd hoped and prayed and wished for All Might to come and rescue him, once.

It seems almost tragic that it was so close, yet so far away for them both.

Izuku steps forward into desolation. All the buildings around them have been flattened, and there are - bodies. Fallen heroes, Izuku thinks, because he sees the colours of their costumes against the brown-grey smoke and dust that layers everything. Why are there heroes?

A gust of wind nearly knocks him off his feet, and he clings to the doorway with fingers that are more blood and bone than skin, squinting his eyes against the grit that flies his way.

Sensei is fighting.

All Might is fighting.

Two titans are fighting, and Izuku is watching.

Somewhere in the distance, the sound of explosions echoes, and there are familiar voices that shout. Tomura, maybe. Kurogiri, maybe.

Izuku thinks he should know more than these two voices. It feels like there is an empty void in his heart, one that is straining to find its contents, like it knows what is supposed to fit into it. He clenches a hand over his chest, thumping it once, twice, as if the external pressure will make it stop.

It doesn't stop.

Izuku gives up, and he stumbles forward, away from the destroyed doorway, towards the lights he can see in the distance. Maybe if he tries harder, if he moves faster, he can get away.

He can go back to feeling warm.

"Oh no," Sensei says, and he sounds amused. The tone strikes terror into Izuku, but he forces his legs to keep moving. "I see the rats have escaped the building."

All Might yells, and a giant, powerful punch sends wind swirling around them all, but Sensei barely moves. When Izuku looks up, that eyeless face is looking right at him.

"No," he whispers. There is no way that Sensei heard him from so far away, but he still smiles, his cheeks pushing his breathing apparatus up his face. "I'm not staying."

"Oh?" Sensei says, cocking his head to a side. "I never thought I would see this day come, when disobedience wins."

All Might has been blown away, and when the smoke and dust clear, Izuku thinks he has…shrunk, slightly.

His bangs have fallen over his face, and he is panting harshly, but he doesn't stop moving. Izuku wants -

Does he want All Might to win?

Does he want this all to end?

His head is hurting.

It's really really cold.

For lack of a better word, All Might shrinks, and a lanky, tall man is left in his spot. But the arm he swings towards Sensei is large and muscled, more powerful than anything Izuku has seen before. Maybe if Sensei had eyes, they would be widened in shock, because Sensei fumbles before calling together his strength booster quirks.

Two giant, muscled arms meet at the centre in a punch that blows them all away. Izuku flies, knocking into the half-standing walls and tumbling head over heels before coming to rest in a relatively clear space. His skin stings from the multitude of cuts and scratches he acquires on this path. He pants, blinking to clear the vision that is still a little blurry and spotty as he rises to his knees. There is blood streaming down his face, he realises, when his fingers come away red.

But he turns back to look at the fight - "Izu-kun, you should really stop letting hero fights distract you!" who said that whose voice is that his head hurts - and he sees Sensei on the ground. All Might is still standing, but maybe it is the spikes that Sensei has sent through him that are holding him up.

He pulls himself off them with a grunt, and sways slightly, but catches himself before he can fall to a knee.

For a moment, one glorious, painful, exhilarating moment, Izuku thinks he can be free. He rises from his knees, and takes a step forward, closer to his hero, closer to the person who could make this nightmare end.

"I'm -" he starts to call out, choking on the dust and blood in his throat.

And then Kurogiri's portal opens beneath him, and beneath Sensei's body, and Izuku is ripped away from the freedom he had almost been able to touch.

All Might is reaching out to him, his hands open and held right in front of his eyes.

"May I - What do you need, young man?" he asks. Izuku notices that his phone screen has gone black, so maybe in the time that he feels like he was slipping, he finished speaking to Aizawa.

"Is - Is Aizawa-san c-coming?" he asks, not letting himself reach out. He curls into himself, tucking his arms into his armpits even as he forces himself into a steady breathing pattern. He does feel comforted that All Might is right here, but he can't bring himself to reach out and take more.

After all, he simply stood at watched while Sensei forced All Might into retirement. He could have done something. He should have done something. But Izuku had been weak, and All Might had almost died.

(Izuku had almost died too, but he had lived. Lived, and continued to languish in the warehouse until a spark of light illuminated a stealthy, cautious Underground hero who had followed Izuku's bloody footprints into another dusty, empty room, and refused to let him stay there any longer. Had someone told All Might he didn't have to live in that nightmare any longer? Had someone told him he had done his best, and that he had done it well, since he survived this long and kept the world running this long? Or was Izuku simply reminding All Might that he was fallible, his presence a marker of All Might's failure to save him once before?)

"Aizawa-kun is on his way," All Might says reassuringly. "You'll be alright." He frowns. "You're shivering."

Izuku realises that he really is shivering. His hands are shaking in front of him, and he can feel the spasm running through his aching feet. He is so cold, and tired, and hurting.

A warmth surrounds him, and he blinks in confusion for a moment before realising that All Might draped his coat around him. The soft fabric is a little heavy, but it is a comforting weight that anchors Izuku in the present, not letting him slip back into old memories and fears.

"Th-thank you," he manages, twisting his fingers into the downy lining. "It's warm."

All Might smiles at him, and it's not the wide, reassuring smiles he remembers from the videos he used to watch in his childhood. There is something softer, more real about this smile. It's the smile of a person, not a symbol.

"You're welcome," he replies, before taking a seat beside Izuku. "For my own sake," he clarifies, when Izuku throws him a questioning glance. "I believe you were leading me over for quite the same reason. I need a break, or my breath will get a little harder to catch."

"Were you very hurt at Kamino?" Izuku asks in a small voice. "I only - I only saw the ending of the fight, before Kurogiri took me away."

All Might hums. "I was not hurt more than I expected," he says solemnly. "The fact that I lived and came back is a win for me."

"But did it hurt?" Izuku can't get his father's words out of his head. Did it hurt? he had asked, when Izuku spoke about the Doctor and Sensei. Has anyone asked All Might this? Izuku knows more than anyone else how close they both came to death that day.

All Might sighs, and it almost seems like the tall man sags, shrinking even more. "Yes," he admits, his voice rough. "It hurt like hell." He lets out a laugh, one that barely has any humour in it. "I guess I can only admit this because I am no longer the symbol that everyone sees me as. I am as good as retired now, and there is no one to look at me and think, ah, there is the Symbol of Peace."

"I still see that," Izuku says. "You are still a symbol of hope to me."

All Might looks shocked. "My boy, how -?"

"When I nearly escaped, at Kamino, I saw you." Izuku keeps his gaze fixed on his fingers. "I was - I was held there for so many years, and I tried so many times to run, to escape, but I never really managed. I never really thought I would be able to escape. It was just - just for show, I think. But at Kamino, I saw you, and - and I thought I could really do it. I really thought I would escape.

"I really thought you would save me."

All Might clasps his hands and lowers his head to rest on them. "I failed you, my boy. I'm sorry I never saw you, and that I couldn't save you."

Izuku is already shaking his head. "I already told Aizawa-san," he says. "You can't help not being in all the places all the time." He reaches out tentatively, and lays a hand on All Might's thigh. He is proud of the fact that both his voice and his hand only shake a little it.

"You still saved me now, didn't you?"

All Might looks shocked, and it is at that moment that Aizawa-san descends on them, Yamada-san running behind him. They are both in their pajamas, probably getting ready for bed. But they both are running to him. For him.

Aizawa-san skids to his knees and reaches out to Izuku, his hands open. He is already going to him, and when he grips those hands, it's like the world finally steadies. He feels Yamada-san's soft fingers combing through his hair, and he leans backward, onto Yamada-san's knees, exhaustion suddenly weighing him down.

"Are you alright, Little Listener?" Yamada-san asks gently. "What do you need?"

"I remembered All Might," he says softly. "And I remembered Kamino."

A flash of pain flies across Aizawa-san's face before his schools his expression once more. "You were there, Izuku?"

Izuku nods. "I was so close to them. I thought we were all going to die." He looks up at All Might, who looks so small and lost. "Especially All Might." He forces a smile onto his face - and it's the All Might Smile he had trained as a child. It's the smile that always made him feel better, feel safe. And it seems to have the same effect on the man himself, because a soft, genuine smile spreads across his own face.

"I'm glad you didn't die, All Might," he says. "I'm glad I got to meet you."

"Not in the best of circumstances both times, Izuku-kun," All Might says. "But I hope it will be in better situations from here on."

Izuku nods and smiles, and lets Yamada-san and Aizawa-san help him up, both of them bracketing him within their arms. He feels so safe there, and warmth fills his heart.

All Might waves to him as he leaves, and Izuku swears he can see the hint of another smile on his face. And then it properly sinks in.

"I really just met All Might!" he yelps, and Yamada-san laughs so loudly, Aizawa-san smacks him from behind with a hissed "Shut it!"

When they reach the apartment, it is warm, and cozy, and both his parents are waiting for them. He goes to them easily, and they welcome him into their arms with equal ease. They are still working through all of his memories, and there are still times when Izuku finds himself confused and lost, wondering what really happened, and what he imagined.

But his parents are patient, and he is finding himself all over again.

This time, when Izuku wonders who he is, he does not have an empty cell repeating his own questions back at him.

He has Aizawa-san, who saw him when no one else thought they could, who thinks carefully before telling Izuku he is strong and brave.

He has Yamada-san, who saw him as a fragile, timid young boy, still recovering from his ordeal, who grins and tells him he's the most resilient person he knows.

He has his mom, who lost him and found him when he didn't really know her, who stayed and waited until he came back, who tells him he is her son, her brave, smart son.

He has his dad, who lost him before he was even gone, who is trying so hard to mend that rift between who they were and who they could be, who tells him he is his beloved son who is determined.

And he has Eri and Hitoshi and Kacchan and 1-A who all insist he is more than broken puppet, who believe in him and his life more than he does himself.

Izuku's past is not a chapter that has been closed. There are still forces that hide in the shadows, waiting for him, searching for him. There are still things that need to be done.

But right now, Izuku sinks into the warmth of the people around him, and lets himself revel in having been found despite being lost for so long.

Izuku has never felt so seen, and he has truly never felt so loved.