Chapter Text
Chapter 24
When the Lights Are Off
Izuku leaves the hospital just after seven in the evening, when the sky is still undecided about becoming night and the city hasn’t yet committed to darkness, when the air feels thin and ordinary enough that dread almost feels unreasonable. Almost.
Katsuki stays behind for one more night, stubborn even while exhausted, insisting he’s fine, insisting he doesn’t need the extra monitoring, insisting in the way that means please don’t make this worse.
Mitsuki and Masaru remain with him, hovering in a way that is loud with concern even when they’re quiet, their attention tethered to the slow rise and fall of his chest, the machines that click and hum softly beside the bed, the chart clipped to the foot of it like an accusation.
Izuku doesn’t argue. He never does.
He stands there for a moment before leaving, hands folded carefully in front of him, posture straight, polite, unobtrusive, as if he’s a guest who has overstayed rather than someone who has spent four nights sleeping upright in a chair that wasn’t meant for bodies, let alone worry.
Katsuki looks tired but more present than he has been in days, eyes sharp even under the bruised shadows beneath them, mouth set in that familiar scowl that means don’t make this a thing.
“Text me,” Katsuki says, voice rough but steady.
“I will,” Izuku answers immediately.
Masaru presses a folded set of clothes into Izuku’s hands before he can protest. Simple, soft, and clean. A shirt, pants, too large in the shoulders, too long in the sleeves. Izuku bows his head in thanks, the motion automatic, ingrained, grateful in a way that feels undeserved and yet painfully necessary.
When he walks out, he is wearing Masaru’s clothes.
The fabric smells faintly of expensive detergent and something warmer underneath. Coffee, paper, the quiet safety of a household that notices when someone doesn’t come home. The sleeves fall past Izuku’s wrists. He rolls them once, then again, stopping only when the cloth no longer brushes his fingers, as if that alone might anchor him to the fact that this kindness was real, that it happened, that it isn’t already gone.
The doors slide shut behind him with a sound that is too final for something so ordinary.
The ride home is short, it always is and that’s the worst part.
The Midoriya house sits in its usual place, clean and orderly and correct, a structure designed to look unremarkable from the outside, respectable, quiet, forgettable. The lights are off, not dimmed, off.
Izuku stands at the gate for half a second longer than necessary, fingers curling around the strap of his bag, the same bag Katsuki packed for him in the hospital, efficient, thoughtful, full of things Izuku didn’t realize he’d forgotten to ask for.
The security at the front gate gave him a brief nod, their expressions tense. That alone was enough to tell him something was wrong inside the house, the danger Izuku had long known was waiting for him. Even so, he kept walking. The gate opens automatically, it always does.
The house greets him with silence so complete it feels intentional, like a held breath. No voices, no television, no footsteps from the staff quarters. No soft ambient noise meant to disguise absence as peace. Izuku understands immediately, the staff have been sent away to their wings. His parents are home, the lights remain off. He closes the door behind him, and steps inside.
Darkness has always meant punishment in this house. Not because it hides what happens but because it signals that what happens is already decided. Izuku removes his shoes neatly, aligns them with the others, steps inside without hesitation. Fear doesn’t spike. There is no adrenaline, no resistance, only the dull acceptance of something long anticipated finally arriving.
What follows does not unfold in a way his mind is willing to arrange into a sequence.
There are fragments… shadows crossing the edge of his vision, the sound of his name spoken sharply and then not at all, the scrape of wood, and something… new like a leather against skin that should register as pain and does not. His body moves when it is directed to move, stops when it is told to stop.
His thoughts float somewhere just above the scene, detached, observational, as if he is watching a poorly edited film where the important moments have been cut out. Time loses its shape, at some point, it ends. Izuku finds himself alone in the main living room, kneeling on the floor. The house still dark, the silence heavier now, layered with aftermath. He does not remember walking there. He does not remember being dismissed. He only knows that whatever was required has been completed, and that is enough.
*****
He moves to the bathroom on autopilot.
The mirror shows him someone pale, eyes too bright, expression carefully neutral. He lifts the hem of Masaru’s shirt and examines his back with the same detached efficiency he uses to check Katsuki’s medication schedule.
The marks are there, new. Not as severe as before, not dramatic, clean, linear, measured. The kind of injuries that speak less of rage and more of correction, of discipline, of a lesson being reinforced rather than taught.
Almost like routine.
His body flinches before his mind does, shoulders tightening, breath hitching for half a second before smoothing out again. The reaction surprises him more than the wounds. He turns on the shower. Hot water pours down, steam filling the small room, curling around the mirror, blurring his reflection until it dissolves entirely.
The water should sting, it always has. Heat used to bring everything back, pain, sensation, proof that he was still inside himself, but now it doesn’t. The water hits his skin and feels like nothing. Izuku stands there, hands braced against the tile, letting it run over him, over the places that should hurt, over the places that used to. He waits for sensation to arrive.
It doesn’t. A sound escapes him before he realizes what it is. A Laughter. Soft, breathless, almost incredulous.
It echoes faintly in the bathroom, too loud in the quiet house, and Izuku clamps a hand over his mouth, shoulders shaking not with emotion, not with hysteria, but with something hollow and strange and wrong, like a reaction that has lost its referent.
What kind of person gets hurt and feels nothing?
The question drifts through his mind without urgency, without judgment. It does not scare him. He finishes showering quickly, efficiently, drying off, dressing again in clothes that are not his. Masaru’s shirt clings slightly to damp skin. Izuku does not change it. He doesn’t want to even there was some blood on it.
He goes to his room. It is untouched, neat, perfectly arranged. The bed made, the desk cleared, the space preserved like a museum exhibit dedicated to a version of him that is expected to continue performing indefinitely.He lies down without turning on the light. Sleep comes immediately, deep and blank, the kind that does not restore so much as erase.
*****
Morning arrives whether he is ready for it or not. Katsuki is being discharged today.
Izuku knows this because he memorized the schedule, because he listened carefully when the doctor explained it, because he nodded in all the right places and said thank you and yes and of course. He also knows that if he goes to the hospital, Katsuki will look at him.
Really look.
He will notice the stiffness in Izuku’s movements, the way his shoulders don’t quite settle, the subtle hesitation before touch. Katsuki notices things, he always has. Izuku sends a message instead.
Coach meeting. I’ll see you later.
It is a lie. Not a complicated one, not even a creative one, just sufficient. He tells himself it’s practical. That Katsuki doesn’t need to see this, that worrying him now would be cruel. That there will be time later, when things are calmer, when Katsuki is stronger, when Izuku can be more careful.
School feels safer. At school, no one looks close enough.
The halls of Musutafu Imperial Academy hum with their usual restrained energy, polished floors reflecting light, students moving in controlled patterns, status and hierarchy woven invisibly into every interaction. Izuku slips into this environment seamlessly, posture straight, expression composed, answers ready.
No one notices the way he avoids sitting back fully in his chair.
No one notices the way he angles his body when he leans against a wall.
No one notices because they are not looking for it.
And Izuku has learned, over years, how to exist in the spaces between attention. Classes pass, notes are taken, answers are given. Teachers praise him distractedly, peers glance his way and then look elsewhere, satisfied by the version of him that functions.
At lunch, he eats alone. Not because he is excluded, but because he chooses to be since it is easier. He scrolls through his phone, rereading Katsuki’s message from the night before, the one that simply says “home tomorrow”, followed by a single emoji that Katsuki only ever uses with him. Izuku presses his thumb against the screen until it warms.
Distance, he tells himself, is kindness.
Distance is protection.
He will see Katsuki later, he always does.
For now, routine is enough.
He walks home at the end of the day with the same careful steps, carrying the same worn-out bag, moving through the world like someone who has learned how to make himself small without disappearing entirely.
The house is quiet again when he returns. Lights on this time, staffs present, normalcy restored like a switch flipped back into place. Izuku greets them politely, retreats to his room, closes the door. He sits on the edge of the bed and exhales.
Four days of safety, one evening of darkness, a lifetime of practice. He pulls out his phone and types a message he doesn’t send.
Deletes it.
Types another.
Deletes that too.
Instead, he places the phone face down on the bedside table and lies back, staring at the ceiling, counting breaths, counting time, counting the hours until he can see Katsuki again and pretend just for a little while… that distance really is kindness, that silence really is mercy, that carrying everything alone is still a choice.
Outside, the lights remain on.
Inside, Izuku closes his eyes.
And waits.