Chapter Text
The sun is setting. It turns the sky orange and a burnt red, the dark blue of night sliding in from the east. Clouds are running a brilliant and royal purple, and birds flutter in the distance over a wide and glimmering city.
Izuku just can't muster up any sort of feeling, everything numb and dull, a washed out grey. His foot hovers over open air, and he sways, just a little, with the breeze. Mom’ll be fine without him. The world will be fine without him. He's useless and quirkless, and this. This is a way to atone for, for being a burden. For being worthless.
He sets his foot down, and stifles a sob. It hurts, but he can't figure out why. Izuku looks down, and, really, it's high enough he… he won't feel a thing.
His foot hovers over air, and Izuku closes his eyes, leans—
A door slams, and Izuku whirls, startled.
“W-Wait! Just, just wait—”
His foot slips.
Someone yells, and Izuku maybe thought it would have gone in slow motion, taken forever to fall, to… to stop, to reach the end. It all goes so fast, he thinks his heart stops, and fear swallows him whole.
I don't want to die.
A bruising grip snaps ahold of his ankle, and Izuku slams into the side of the building, a scream bundled too tight in his throat. His vision blackens with pain, and he chokes on another sob, eyes screwing shut.
The hold jerks, and slowly, slowly, he can feel himself go up, feel his backpack straps slipping off his shoulders, down his arms. “I'm, I'm so, so s-sorry, oh my god… Please, please, I'm s-so sorry,” whimpers a voice above him, half strung with hiccups and a stutter.
Something warm slips up his uniform’s leg, the limb going pins and needles. Izuku’s tears and bookbag struggle free, fall away. It feels… it feels...
I don't want to die. I just… I just—
He's pulled flat, over the edge of the roof and the raised barrier. Rough concrete scraps his hands and arms, is unforgiving to his head or back. Someone gives a loud but shaky breath, and Izuku opens his eyes.
It's… Izuku knows him. It's a niggling feeling, but in a… vague way. That brief spark is swept away when the—the older boy? The older boy scrambles tentacles over giant and half blood covered talons to him. Flyaway black hair frames an anguished but masked face, streaked with tears and snot, pointed ears folded back. Not a very pretty image for, for a… hero?
A mirthless laugh escapes Izuku, and the hero flinches.
“Are, are you okay?” he stammers, tentacles melting back to hands and flying to a bag strapped to his side. “I'm, I'm so sorry, about… about your leg, about... This is all my, my fault, if I'd only been a bit quicker—”
I don't want to die but.
Izuku clamps a hand over his mouth, and curls up and into himself. Everything hurts, likes it's all coming back at once, amplified and then compounded with the knot surely forming at the back of his head and the bruise along his back. It hurts so, so much.
“— know, I just, just happened to be —”
No. No, no, no, no.
Izuku jerks, uncurls, and everything wobbles dangerously as he grabs blindly for the hero. “No! No, please, you can't, can't tell anyone!” he pleads, hands catching in the hero’s cloak, and everything throbs. “P-Please, please… I won't, I won't try again… please.”
The older boy hunches his shoulders, eyes wide, and his pouch spills open as he fretfully tries to pry Izuku’s hands free one handed. “I'm, I'm sorry, you need… help I can't g-give. My supervisor is coming, and he'll sort everything out, he'll do a good job…” He pauses, and then a truly tortured look crosses his face. “The doors… they're, they're not… how am I—”
But Izuku can't hear anymore, not over the rush of blood in his ears, not over the thunder beat of his heart. Not over Kacchan’s and all his classmates’ jeers ringing in his ears. He, He has to leave. Mom can't… Mom can't know about this. No one can know about this.
Everything hurts, but Izuku musters a last bit of strength and shoves the older boy back. The hero flails backwards with a yelp, and Izuku is up, legs unsteady, and his left ankle nearly gives on that first step. A brief look shows him a bloody sock and shoe, his ankle pulsing with heat and broken skin. The talons, the hero had gripped too hard. Izuku swallows, thick and gummy, and stumbles over the hero toward the still open door.
If he can just, just get to a bus stop, he can ride almost all the way home. It'll take longer, but… but.
“H-Hey—!”
His body gives out just in the doorway where concrete turns to linoleum, and fresh tears blur his starburst vision as his jaw clicks shut with a rattling crack.
Blood fills his mouth.
It's the last thing he knows.