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At five years old, Midoriya Izuku is awed by heroes just as much as any other kid out there.
So when he sees that blinding, sunny grin amidst the destruction and rubble, he thinks to himself, I’m going to be a hero. Morning comes, the desire is less spontaneous and more resolute with a night of great planning, and All Might is standing in his room.
Except it's not.
He knows this because the real All Might doesn't go into the rooms of kids he doesn't know. The real All Might doesn't know that he wants to be a hero and spent all night planning it out. The real All Might doesn't go through his notes with him and point out the things that need to be fixed and the things that need to be rethought. The real All Might doesn't know he even exists.
But this one does and that's what matters to him.
Because while his All Might, the All Might that does doodle rabbits on his notes and stays up with him helping him on his math homework, isn't the real All Might that doesn't mean he's any less real.
He breathes air and his heart pumps blood and on especially cold nights he radiates enough heat to steam up the window. His favorite food used to be steak but now it's chicken porridge because he can't stomach anything more than that. He can't go to sleep unless Izuku goes on a run with him and he rises early in the morning to greet the sun when it wakes.
What convinces him the most that his All Might is real, out of everything else that he sees, are his eyes.
Sometimes he’ll be finishing up his newest notebook when All Might rests his hand on his hair with the saddest-happiest eyes. They'd crinkle at the corners and soften at the core and it'd be like he's just this close to crying. Some days he forgets to smile and he looks at Izuku all day with tired eyes and no hope in sight. Others he's overly cheerfully as if to compensate for something, but he's scared, and he never takes his eyes off him for even a second, as if he thinks Izuku will disappear the moment he does.
He doesn't ask. It never feels like he has to because, it just is.
When Izuku meets Kacchan, he also meets his Kacchan. Except he's older, which is strange, but he doesn't think much of it because the sight of older Kacchan beating up Kacchan is funny and really ridiculous.
Kacchan doesn't bully him anymore after that, but he stares at All Might and Kacchan like he can't see them.
He's seeing them, seeing something at least, but it's like he can't quite register what he's seeing because he doesn't look twice at Kacchan’s face despite the fact they're identical.
Kacchan and All Might fight a lot.
More like Kacchan fights with the rage and fury of somebody who has lost everything and taunted with the little remains and reminders of what once was while All Might takes the beating like he's used to it.
When he peeks his head into the room after one of their fights, which strangely his mom never hears, Kacchan is in tears and All Might is uncharacteristically mad. At himself that is.
The floor creaks under his weight and Kacchan spins around to glare at him before dropping into a crouch so they're face to face.
This close, Izuku can see the red around his eyes and they way his lips are torn and bruised from constant worrying.
“Deku,” he bites out and his voice cracks, just a bit. “From now on don't call me ‘Kacchan.’”
“But-” Izuku says, more than a little broken up at that because Kacchan has always been Kacchan and anything else is just wrong.
Kacchan shuts him up with a single pinned look. “Let me finish. It's Baku-nii from now on, got it?”
It doesn't fit and something in him squirms at the notion of referring to Bakugou Katsuki as something so simple as ‘Baku-nii’. He goes along with it anyway because he has a feeling that it matters a lot more to Kacchan what he calls him than it does to Izuku.
Not wanting to be outdone, All Might insists that he calls him ‘Toshinori’ or even just ‘Toshi’.
He spends the rest of that day making number puns with their names after realizing that if he butchers his own name enough it can mean ‘Nine Springs,’ following the motif of Toshi’s own ‘Eight Trees.’
(“Eight, nine, five!” Izuku exclaims in childish wonder, Bakugo’s name written crudely with numbers in his notebook. ‘Eight-nine-five’ scoffs from where he's sitting on Izuku’s desk, one leg drawn up close to his chest while the other hangs free.
Both of them are watching Izuku, warm and content in ways that they haven't been for a long time.
“I'm still surprised. Every night, waking up to this - to whatever this is,” Toshinori says softly, his form gangly and gaunt, appearing just as starved as he felt. “It doesn't feel real.”
“It doesn't have to be,” Bakugou’s response is loud despite the whisper. “Enjoy it before we wake up.”)
Everything is different when Izuku walks onto Yuuei grounds with Toshi-san and Baku-nii at his back.