Work Text:
You have to shut the window—lock out the stench of smoke and burning rubber before it can seep into the carpeting, mute the wailing of sirens before their sharp pitch leaves a permanent ringing in your ears. Still, the apartment isn’t sweet-smelling or silent once the locks are fastened. No, the commotion buzzing on the television seems to pollute the air, thickening it, making it go rancid even though you know that’s physically impossible.
It was also physically impossible for All Might—the Symbol of Peace, the very pillar of society—to fall. Yet the possibility of that happening seemed more and more likely with every moment that passed.
The news stations weren’t even broadcasting commercials anymore. Every channel only ever showed the same live feed of the chaos overtaking Kamino, each from a slightly different angle. Channel 3 focused on the burning skyline—the plumes of blue-black ash rising from buildings like thunderclouds, dark and ominous. Channel 4 and 8 followed the efforts of paramedics searching for victims. It’s skillful really, the way they’d cut back to anchors in the studio whenever search-and-rescue stumbled upon a person that was too still, too silent. Channel 5 was the one you found yourself flipping back to, even though every time you did it, the regret was instantaneous. Because Channel 5 preferred to feature footage of the battle that was ravaging the ward.
You needed to know what was going on, needed to know how you were supposed to feel about everything. Terrified? You were already beyond terrified. Furious? It’s a given that you’d resent the hell out of the man beating your husband to a bloody pulp, but it’s...scary how much you want to blame him—All Might—too, just for doing what he always does. Would it be right to be optimistic about his chances of winning? Were you supposed to sit here, watching from a distance (like you always did) and have faith that this time would be like all the others? That somehow, things would work out, even if you didn’t know how?
Had Nana’s family done the same?
You drown out the thought by counting dots on the ceiling.
You’d done this before, you’d watched All Might fight against impossible odds. Hundreds of times, actually. Why were you doubting now? He’d come out victorious this time, just like all the other times before. Even though this was All for One he was facing now. Even though your husband had faced this very same villain before, and it’d nearly killed him. Everything was fine, though. Your compulsive urge to start emptying drawers now—to get a head start on the “removing-all-traces-of-Toshinori” phase of your life before the grief leaves you catatonic—is completely unfounded.
You place a trembling hand on your stomach, trying to ground yourself. You wish you had a drink, something alcoholic and strong enough to knock you out for the next few hours. The fact that you’re sober means that you watch every grueling second of the battle until it’s over. You watch until the hero All Might is no more and the man Toshinori Yagi stands victorious in his place. He’s hacking and missing more than a few patches of skin from his arms and face, but the important thing is he’s alive.
“I’m hard to kill,” he’d told you once, you can’t remember when exactly. At the time, you’d rolled your eyes and shoved him. Because that’s what you were supposed to do when someone you loved joked about death or danger or something heavy like that. Only now do you realize he was only half-kidding.
You’re relieved that it’s over. Well, you’re relieved up until the moment you see Tsukauchi and some paramedic loading a limping Yagi into an ambulance. Then, your imagination kicks it back into high gear. Still, despite every instinct, every impulse you have to grab your keys and run the whole way to Hosu General (you could only assume they’d take him to the nearest hospital with a trauma center), you stay put. What else could you do? It wasn’t like they’d actually let you in—spouse or not—so soon after a disaster of this scale. That much you’d learned from personal experience.
So you wait. While the heroes clean up the remnants of what used to be a bustling district, you sit on your couch and just pray that Toshinori doesn’t die en route to the hospital.
You’re patient for about an hour—until the very moment you just can’t be patient anymore. You scramble across your entire apartment, throwing cushions and lifting the rug in a mad dash to find your phone. Eventually, you find it shoved behind the coat rack. How it got there, you’re not quite composed enough to try and figure out.
Eyes glued to the television screen, still airing footage of recovery efforts, you tap through your contacts from your spot plopped down on the floor. You find the one person you have reserved for moments just like this. The line clicks to life after only one ring.
You can hear all sorts of noise in the background—chattering, more distant sirens, a low beeping sound you’re horrified to recognize as a heart monitor. Aizawa’s gruff “hello” is recognizable, nonetheless.
“What hospital is he at?”
On the other end, Aizawa breathes, long and heavy. Then he groans as he says your name, as though he’s been expecting a call from you. “Why are you—”
“Probably Hosu General, right? That’s where they’ve patched him up the last few times.” You mutter a curse under your breath as you shimmy across the hardwood, searching for your shoes. “Give them my name and tell them to let me in. I’m heading over right now.”
“Sit down and let me...” You think you hear him turn away from the receiver and say something authoritative to someone, somewhere amidst the mayhem.
“Eraser, please. I’m losing my mind over here and I need to talk to Toshinori now.”
“Can’t help you with that. He’s—”
“Then find me someone that can, dammit.” You don’t intend to lash out. You’ve just never been good at being useless, even after all this time. And right now? That’s definitely how you’re feeling.
“Interrupt me one more time and I hang up.” Aizawa’s voice is level, but there’s an intensity—a finality to it. Like he’s speaking to one of his students.
You bite your tongue, let your deliberate silence roar through the phone.
“He isn’t here.”
“What?” You choke, mind racing through only the very worst possibilities.
“You heard me. He let them stitch him up, then got up and left.”
“And they just let him leave?!” You’re not sure who you’re angrier with, your idiot-of-a-husband or the staff that’d failed to keep him in one place.
“He’s All Might. Were they supposed to tell him ‘no?’ Tie him to the bed and force him to stay?” Another bout of urgent chatter drowns out the end of Aizawa’s sentence. You take that as your cue to go.
“Thanks.” And you hang up before the hero has the opportunity to hear the deep, miserable sound that creeps up from the back of your throat.
Aizawa is right, though. When Toshinori makes up his mind about something, nothing can stop him. That doesn’t make it any easier to cope with the fact that he could very well be bleeding out in the middle of god-know-where, and you were powerless to do anything about it. Just like every other time before.
The front door clicks, but you’re so busy cursing it all—the villains, the hospital, the whole damn city—that you hardly notice. A cough from the hallways is the thing that does it for you, makes you spring up to your feet, frozen in place. There’s only one person it could possibly be, but still, your body goes rigid.
When he steps through the doorway, the bandages are the first thing your eyes drift to. You could’ve focused on the fact that Toshinori was here and alive now, but no, of course you had to fixate on the terrible things first. The rust-colored splotches scattered across the fresh, white bandages circling his forehead. His hero suit, tattered and stained and too-baggy for his thin frame. Then, there was the smile. The fact that it was still stretched across his face, even when you felt like you were going to completely lose it.
You bolt towards him, letting out the sobs that’ve been holed up deep in your chest for the past hour. Toshinori limps forwards, but only gets about a step in before you collide with him. He winces and has to stagger back to regain his balance, but he wraps his arms around you all the same.
“Shhh, I’m alright, see? We’re both alright.” He repeats over and over again, pressing kisses to the top of your head. Soft, reassuring words are the best he can offer, the only thing he can do try to soothe you.
“I was,” you inhale shakily, trying to form a coherent sentence through all your sniffling and wheezing, “I was watching and I thought...I thought you’d...”
“No, never. It’s over now, love. No more crying.” There’s a finality to his tone. It sounds convincing, for sure; even though you’ve heard it every other time reunions like this happened, you almost begin to believe that Toshinori is as invincible as he’d like you to think he is.
Almost.
“No more.” You cling to a remnant of his suit. The edge of it seems to disintegrate in your hand and you’re suddenly struck by the thought that that could’ve been his skin. Paper-thin, whittled down by scrapes and burns and cuts—
“I can’t do this again Yagi. My heart can’t take it. No more being a hero. No more rushing into danger and making me watch some asshole knock you around.”
You peer up into his eyes. Clear blue, like the blanket the two of you like to curl up under on your days off. Or like the sky on a sunny afternoon. Or like the paint you’d picked out for the walls of the nursery.
“Promise me you’re done being a hero.”
Toshinori smiles. Slowly. Gently, and even through the upward twist of his lip, you can see there’s a tinge of something sad in his expression.
“One for All is gone.”
It takes you more than a minute to process exactly what he’s saying. His quirk—never really his, but a part of him nonetheless—had finally flickered away. Whether it was because of the strain of battle or his injuries or just time, whatever remained of it had finally left him.
You open your mouth to mumble something, you’re not entirely sure what, but then Toshinori looks down at you. He steps back, leaving some space between the pair of you, and presses his hand to your belly. There’s no regret in his eyes. Exhaustion, yes, but none of the despair, the anger you’d expect from a man who’d just lost his quirk.
“It’s time for a new generation of heroes to take over. I paved the way, and now it’s up to them to follow it.”
Wise words. They should be comforting words as well, but you notice the way he strategically fails to make the promise. You’d be foolish to think that it was anything other than a deliberate decision on his part.
Deep down you’d expected as much, but the confirmation is enough to draw another mournful sob from you.
All Might might’ve been gone, but Toshinori Yagi still had to be a hero. Even if the last glimmer of One for All had left him. Even if society had already started its search for the new Symbol of Peace.
Even if it ended up costing him—and you—everything.