Chapter Text
Izuku got these dreams, sometimes. Occasionally. During bad days, ever since he’d entered UA. He never told anyone about them, and usually managed to shake them off over the course of the day after.
One came again tonight, unexpected.
Sometimes, it was Iida or Uraraka. They stood with their backs to him, in their hero costumes, torn and specked with blood. The area smelt heavily of smoke, and something rotting, and all-around people were slumped on the ground, unmoving.
Before he could react, they always turned back to look at him, with blank eyes, tired eyes, and gave their heads a slow shake.
“You’re too late, Deku. It’s over.”
“Midoriya… I’m sorry. But you’ve failed.”
Sometimes it was All Might. Collapsed on the ground, coughing blood, too far gone. No hope, no chance. He couldn’t even speak. Izuku tried to reach for him, desperately pleaded that there was something, anything he could do, but for some reason he was always too far away, and his feet never carried him any closer.
There were others. Classmates, teachers. His mother. All making their appearances in these dark dreams.
And there was… Kacchan.
Kacchan injured, in trouble, in need of help, his face twisted in pain, arm clamped over where it hurt. The moment Izuku laid eyes on him he moved without even thinking, because Kacchan, Kacchan was in danger, Kacchan needed him.
And then Kacchan lifted his head, looking him dead in the eye, his gaze piercing, cold and burning at once. His lips formed the words that slipped out slow and harsh.
“Stay away.”
“I don’t want you.”
“I don’t need your help.”
“You’re useless.”
“I hate you.”
Those words twisted in his gut, filled him with a sickness he couldn’t put a name to. He usually jolted awake after that, staring at the wall in the darkness of his room, waiting for the feeling to subside, and spending the rest of the night sleepless.
Kacchan was back tonight.
He wasn’t hurt this time, but his eyes still carried that same look as all the times before, flames smouldering within. Izuku swallowed; he didn’t need to rush forward this time. Kacchan was in no imminent danger.
They were standing a familiar distance apart, the same distance they’d stood just two nights before, when Kacchan had called him out to Ground Beta.
When so much had changed.
Izuku took a step forward.
Kacchan’s eyes narrowed on him, and he practically growled. “Stay away, Deku.”
Another step.
“Fuck off. I don’t want you. I don’t need you.”
A few more steps, his pace increasing, and Kacchan glowering, but not moving.
“You’re useless to me.”
Last step.
“I hate you.”
Izuku reached up as his mind flashed back to another scene in a similar area, of Kacchan clutching his chest, spilling his feelings. What he assumed Izuku thought of him for all these years, something Izuku had never even realised. Those times he reached for him, those times he wanted to help him, those times he viewed him with awe: all of them, mocking in Kacchan’s mind.
His hands touched Kacchan’s face, cradling it. “No,” he told him gently. “You don’t.”
For a second, everything was still.
Then his palms became wet as tears began to fall. Not sad tears, not the kind that had fallen that night. These were tears of happiness, made obvious by the smile that suddenly emerged on Kacchan’s face.
Izuku hadn’t seen him smile like that since they were kids.
He returned the expression, smiled back at the Kacchan inside his head, the Kacchan that had become twisted by all his misconceptions, now sobbing out the relief inside him.
He wiped the tears with his thumbs, leaning into Kacchan, pressing their foreheads together. “You never did,” he murmured. “I’m so stupid. You never did.”
He slept the full night, and when morning came, no sickness was present. The dark dreams didn’t disappear completely; the dreams of failure were still there, the dreams of letting his loved ones die were still there.
But that was one dream that never returned, and instead was replaced, by a night spent comforting, spent holding Kacchan close.