Chapter Text
The sky is so big, and he is so free—he is free, for the first time in a decade—and Izuku’s heart soars with his body, higher and higher.
☼
Izuku does not remember much about his life before the Labyrinth. He can recall wide fields of green grass, the thundering waterfall near his house, the clackety-clack of the loom. He remembers blinding sunlight all day long, and he remembers his mother’s face, however faintly. Of all the things Izuku remembers—which, admittedly, is not many—the sunlight is the only thing still remaining in his life today.
It has been almost a decade since the king of the land, All For One, finally captured All Might, legendary hero of the gods—or, as Izuku knows him, Yagi Toshinori. His mentor. The closest he has ever had to a father. No mortal still on the earth save Izuku and his mother know All Might’s true name, or why he ceased his heroic exploits and disappeared from the public eye years prior. No mortal save Izuku, his mother, and All For One—though, Izuku often doubts that the king is a mortal himself. The few times he has seen him during their imprisonment, All For One seemed something other. Not mortal, but not immortal either. Something, for lack of a better word, wrong.
And even though Yagi’s appearance in his life led to this imprisonment, even though his mentorship means Izuku hasn’t seen his mother since he was nine, Izuku can’t bring himself to regret one moment of it.
(If anything, sometimes, in the dead of night, he lies awake and regrets that Yagi chose him, that he stopped his ceaseless journeying for Izuku of all people, which made him vulnerable to All For One. Izuku does not regret Yagi Toshinori’s mentorship, but sometimes, he thinks that Yagi should regret him.)
☼
“You’re my little sun,” his mother had told him so, so long ago. So long ago that the memory is fuzzed and blurred, almost like a long-forgotten dream. “You shine just as brightly.”
But Izuku has met the sun, now, and he shines much brighter than Izuku ever could.
☼
The first time Izuku meets him, he thinks he is dreaming. The workshop in the center of the maze is quiet and still in the early morning chill and Izuku treads softly to avoid waking Yagi. As much as he enjoys his mentor’s company, sometimes Izuku needs to get away, especially when the guilt starts to creep up the walls of his heart. So into the workshop he goes.
Calling it a workshop is a mockery, in more ways than one. When they were first imprisoned, the prince told them that if they could build a way to escape, they were free to go. His tone was sneering and his cracked lips were curled behind his curtain of ash-white hair, and Izuku knows that even with all his tinkering back home, neither he nor his mentor are capable of inventing anything that could get them out of the cursed Labyrinth.
It’s also All For One’s personal jab at All Might; both of the only lovers he ever had were brilliant—brilliant enough that they could have escaped long before now. One, Izuku thinks, was an inventor himself. Yagi hasn’t told Izuku much about them, but he knows at least one has passed. Just thinking about them makes Izuku’s blood boil and tears prick his eyes, makes his breaths come shorter and his fingers curl until, inevitably, the regret washes over him, choking him, and he has to be alone in the silence.
This morning is one of those times.
Except he is not alone in the workshop. Except there is a boy, breathtaking and beautiful and almost too brilliant to look at, standing in the corner.
Izuku freezes, mind trying to take in the sight of what is clearly a god standing in their cluttered, dusty workshop, shining brighter than the last stars in the sky above. He can’t stop the squeak of confusion that escapes him, and the god turns abruptly, eyes narrowed. His hair is white on one side and jewel-red on the other, split perfectly down the middle.
He’s beautiful, and Izuku is painfully aware of his own untamed curls and wrinkled tunic.
“Um,” he manages eloquently, but the combination of raw power and sheer beauty radiating from the boy is too distracting for him to formulate a coherent sentence.
The boy tilts his head, locks of two-toned hair falling into his eyes, brushing the large scar on the left side of his face. “So you are Midoriya Izuku, then? All Might’s apprentice?”
Izuku’s eyes widen. “I am.” Even to himself, his voice sounds hesitant and rough with unshed tears, so he squares his shoulders and straightens his spine, attempting to appear as confident as possible. Belatedly, he realizes no one else should know that.
“How—you—I mean, who—”
The boy’s face softens, and it’s almost enough to knock Izuku off his feet. His eyes are less narrowed, and Izuku notices with fascination that they are two different colors. Just like his hair. He’s like two halves of two people put together, and Izuku really needs to stop gawking and focus on the situation.
“Did All For One send you?” he asks, voice hard. “Because if he did, you can tell him we haven’t gone anywhere, and he can stuff his crown up his—”
“He didn’t send me,” the boy says quickly, holding up his hands. The gesture of surrender contrasts starkly, bizarrely with his aura of power, which only disorients Izuku more. “I’m…well, I’m a god, but you know that already.”
At Izuku’s quizzical expression, he offers a crooked sort of not-quite-smile (breathtaking, Izuku’s mind supplies unhelpfully). “You were muttering.”
A flush rises to Izuku’s face. He’s been alone or with Yagi for so many years that he’s all but forgotten about his tendency to talk under his breath when his mind kicks into overdrive. It’s never been embarrassing before, but then, Izuku has never been in front of a god before, either. A very pretty god.
He inhales deeply, trying to will the blush heating his cheeks away. “Why are you here? Who are you? Just saying god doesn’t tell me anything. There are plenty of gods flying around in the sky or doing—well, whatever it is that they do. I suppose I’d never thought about that before, honestly; it’s interesting and I’m muttering again, aren’t I?”
The god blinks at him for a moment, glow seeming to grow slowly brighter with each passing minute.
Finally, when Izuku thinks he won’t respond at all, he says, “I’m the sun god. I’m here because I’ve been looking for you.”
Ah. Sun god. That explains the aura.
“Why are you looking for us?” Izuku asks suspiciously. If the gods really cared about All Might, wouldn’t they have come much sooner? Why wait ten years? Why let the Labyrinth’s curse sap Yagi’s strength and steal the smile from his face? Sometimes, thoughts like these make Izuku angrier at the gods than is wise.
The sun god hesitates, looking torn, and Izuku’s suspicion grows. “My father sent me.”
“Your…father?”
He nods. "Enji."
“The Titan?” Izuku squawks, horrified. A Titan sent his son looking for us—for All Might—and he found us and we’re stuck and can’t escape—
“It—It wasn’t the only reason I had,” the sun god says, sounding almost desperate. “I just used him as an excuse, really. Many of the gods don’t care about the mortal world, but my mother…well. I have personal reasons for wanting to find All Might.”
“And your father’s reasons aren’t personal?”
He flinches at that, just barely, and Izuku feels a little guilty.
“His reasons are fed by jealousy and a perceived rivalry,” the boy says, colder than a winter spirit. “Mine are…different.”
Izuku squints at him, because his glow has begun to grow so fierce that he’s hard to look at directly. He holds up a hand to shield his face and the god seems to realize just how brilliant his aura is.
He glances at the sky and curses softly. “I have to go. I’ll come back. I’ll—I’m going to get you both out of here.”
A flash, and he is gone, leaving nothing but a circle of soot dusting the stone where he stood. Behind the Labyrinth walls, Izuku knows, the sun is rising.
I’m going to get you both out of here.
Izuku isn’t holding his breath.
☼
He was warned, of course. They both were. They know the dangers, the consequences. But what mortal can resist the thrill of freedom? What can dizzy the mind and banish fears like flying? Is there ever a more exhilarating feeling than breaking the chains that have shackled you for years?
Izuku climbs higher.
☼
The second time Izuku meets the sun god, he thinks he must be dreaming again. It has been two weeks of Izuku very pointedly not holding his breath (not that anyone was around to notice) and most certainly not being disappointed that a certain glowing boy didn’t hold to his word and return. If there was any shred of hope within Izuku that the sun god might come back after their first encounter, it died within a week.
And yet here he is again, standing on the cracked stone floor and illuminating each and every dusty niche in the workshop.
It’s a very dusty place, Izuku is realizing. He hasn’t cleaned it for ten years, after all. If they weren’t using it, what was the point? But now, with a warm glow flooding through the grime and the literal sun standing in the center of it all, Izuku feels a hot flush creeping up his neck and warming his cheeks.
“Hello,” he squeaks, painfully aware that the same dirt coating the room is also smudging his old tunic and striping his limbs in the oddest of spots.
“Hello,” the god says softly. He seems more cautious than last time, but perhaps that is due to Izuku’s previously less-than-warm reaction.
“You came back,” Izuku observes, then wants to kick himself for it. Obviously he came back. Otherwise you wouldn’t be talking to him. And just saying that makes it sound like you didn’t trust his word, which is an offensive thing to say under and circumstance, and—
“I’m not offended.” The god sounds distinctly amused as Izuku yelps and startles back in surprise. “Did you…not expect me to come back?” He’s almost hesitant, which again throws Izuku off-balance. Why in the world would a god care what he thought?
“Um,” Izuku blinks. He realizes he’s twisting the fabric of his tunic in his nervous grip. “I suppose…I suppose I’m just not used to people coming back for me.”
And there it is. There is the quiet insecurity that has eaten at Izuku, gnawed at him for years as he watches Yagi-sensei withering away with each passing day, with each hero who comes to slay what lies within the Labyrinth. He has always been angry—bitter, even—that none of the gods or even the other mortal kings and heroes came searching for All Might. But when his other doubts bubble up within him, Izuku can never silence the soft, malicious whisper in the darkest corner of his mind that says even if someone came for All Might, no one would ever come for him. It’s something Izuku has never voiced to Yagi, or even out loud to himself, and yet he just admitted it to someone he doesn’t even know. The child of a Titan, at that.
It’s wholly unexpected, just slipping out before he can realize it, but what’s even more unexpected is the god’s response.
“I know the feeling,” he says quietly, bracing a hand on the wall and using it to steady himself as he slides down to sit on the floor.
(The very dirty floor, which Izuku really wishes he had thought to sweep at least once at any point in the last decade.)
“Y-You…do?” Almost without thinking, Izuku drops to a cross-legged position across from the sun god. If it had been anyone else, he would have stayed on his feet, stayed in the position that lent the advantage of height and momentum, as Yagi taught him. But something about this boy is calming and disarming. Izuku thinks he ought to be worried about that.
But he isn’t.
And maybe that’s the scariest part.
(They talk until the dawn creeps up on them and the sun god must leave again, and this time, when he says he’ll come back, Izuku can’t help but believe him.)
☼
Izuku feels the full heat of the sun on his face, the light unfiltered by magic or clouds or those towering stone walls, and he is alive, alive, alive.
☼
“What’s the sky like?” Izuku asks him, one day in the predawn chill, and the sun hums thoughtfully. They are seated side by side, close enough that Izuku can feel the warmth that radiates from him like a touchless embrace.
“It’s very big,” the god says, so seriously that Izuku can’t even laugh at him. “Big, and lonely, and very quiet.”
There is a wistfulness to his tone, but with something older and sadder curling beneath it, like a bittersweet dream.
“Oh,” is all Izuku can say. Then, “I must be a nuisance, then, with all my muttering, and you being so used to—”
“No,” the other says, shaking his head firmly. “No, I like it. You have a nice voice.”
Oh, goes Izuku’s heart.
☼
He never wanted to go back to the ground again, to set foot on the earth and let gravity take hold of him again. Perhaps the sea senses this, and that is why she jealously curls upwards to claim him as he falls.
☼
Gods have names, Izuku knows, but he’s never been brave enough to ask Yagi if he knows any. It makes sense that he would, of course, being as he is personal hero for them. He was offered godhood once and turned it down. Before the Fates brought him to Izuku, there were whispers that it would be offered once more.
Despite all this, Izuku has never found the courage to ask for the sun’s name. It was never offered, after all, so why should he ask for something that is not necessary? It is startling how little you need someone’s name to speak to them.
He has never asked, but it is given anyway.
The sun came later than normal today, and while gods cannot be wounded, per se, there is a stiffness to his movements that suggests discomfort, even pain. His glow is much dimmer despite the nearing dawn, and his eyes are dull. He’s sat in silence the entire time, letting Izuku’s rambling fill in the gaps.
After a while, even Izuku’s muttering dies away, and the sun speaks his first words in at least an hour.
“Shouto.”
“What?” Izuku asks, confused.
“My name. It’s Shouto.”
The silence swells as Izuku digests this, tries to find the courage to look at the sun—at Shouto. When he finally does, he finds those mismatched eyes observing him quietly, patiently, and he lets a smile, tentative and tender as a new sprout, slip across his lips.
“I’m glad I met you, Shouto,” Izuku whispers. “I’m glad you came back.”
The dawn feels a million years away.
☼
He was a fool to think he could touch the sky like Shouto could. He was a fool, but he wouldn’t take anything back for the world.
Not even now, as he pays the price for daring to touch the sky and reach for the sun.
☼
Shouto’s story is not a happy one—but then, neither is Izuku’s. Their jagged edges slot together like it was meant to be, and Izuku feels the first twinges of happiness he’s experienced in years. Everything before Shouto was so dark that even a little light is enough to make Izuku feel as though he’s walking on air.
Even as they struggle to find a way out of the Labyrinth that will not attract any more of Enji’s unwanted attention, Izuku doesn’t feel any of the hopelessness he did before. Frustration at their trials is a constant companion, but even that is almost welcome, because it means they are doing something. They aren’t making any progress, but they are trying, which is enough for Izuku.
It’s more than enough, really, because he gets to try with Shouto. He has hope because of Shouto. He has a friend for the first time in he doesn’t know how long, and it’s Shouto.
(He wonders, sometimes, what he could have done to deserve someone so kind and determined and caring. What could Izuku have possibly done for Shouto to enter his life when he has spent so long despairing in the dark?)
“So if you build something that works, you’re free to leave?” Shouto asks curiously one day, sounding thoughtful, and Izuku nods.
“That’s what they said.” He hesitates. “I’m not entirely sure I believe them, either way. And even if they would let us, there’s nothing useful here.”
“Nothing?”
Izuku shrugs, laying his head back against the stone and staring up at the still-starry sky. “We tried for the first few years. I’ve got sketchbooks upon sketchbooks full of ideas and designs. They all failed, and we haven’t even got the materials we would need for anything viable.”
Shouto readjusts his position, and Izuku is keenly aware of the fact that Shouto’s hand is right next to his head, not quite brushing his hair.
“It’s all an elaborate way to taunt Yagi-sensei,” he goes on, a sigh escaping his lips. “Every damn part of it is just here to cause him pain.”
And I’m a part of that taunt, Izuku thinks sadly.
“We’ll think of something,” Shouto says, warm hand sliding over to take Izuku’s. When Izuku meets his eyes, he sees the words I’m sorry hovering there.
A vulture circles overhead, no doubt eyeing one of the Labyrinth’s victims, and the words leave Izuku’s mouth before he can stop himself.
“I wish we had wings. Then we could fly out of here and be free.”
“Maybe,” is all Shouto whispers, but something seems to stir within him.
When he leaves that dawn, he brings Izuku’s hand to his mouth and brushes his lips across the scarred knuckles there. It feels like a promise.
(It feels like a beginning.)
☼
“What are they?” Izuku breathes wonderingly, running his fingers over their smooth surfaces.
Shouto watches him, a not-quite smile crinkling the corners of his eyes. “They’re made from a wish,” he explains. “As long as you hold onto the wish, as long as that’s what you want more than anything in the world, they’ll work.”
But that’s the danger of wishes, isn’t it? That they are so fickle, so easily swayed by a single heart’s desire.
☼
When Shouto arrives for the final time, his arms are full of a gleaming bundle and his eyes are brighter than Izuku has ever seen them.
“Mei owed me a favor!” he proclaims, almost blinding Izuku with his excitement.
“Mei?”
Shouto sets his burden down on one of the cluttered workbenches and catches Izuku’s hands in his own. “The goddess of craftmanship and patron of inventors! She owed me a favor because I helped her bottle sunlight once, and because of that time I let her poke around the sun chariot. She made a way to get you and All Might out!”
Before Izuku realizes what is happening, Shouto has grabbed him at the waist and spun him around, letting out a breathless laugh as he does. The sound of his laughter is enough to take Izuku’s own breath away. Forget escaping—if the long months they spent plotting and scheming and talking were good for nothing else, at least they meant Shouto smiled, Shouto talked, Shouto laughed like that.
They’re both flushed and hiding smiles when Shouto sets him down, the warmth of his fingers lingering at Izuku’s hips.
“Come and see,” the sun says, grasping Izuku’s hand and pulling him to the gleaming, tantalizing package on the dusty old worktable.
Two pairs of beautifully crafted wings lay there, shining and soft and full of hopes and dreams, and Izuku’s breath is gone, gone, gone.
☼
Everyone dreams of flying. Izuku just never thought it would end like this.
☼
Izuku’s voice had trembled as he explained everything to Yagi-sensei. His hands had trembled as he helped fasten the straps over his mentor’s torso. Every part of him from his legs to his soul had quaked and quivered as they raised their arms for the first time and focused on that one wish.
Izuku is not shaking anymore.
He is flying.
The Labyrinth walls fall away below him, like a dirty, bruised skin peeling away from his body. The sky is so big, and he is so free—he is free, for the first time in a decade—and Izuku’s heart soars with his body, higher and higher. It has been so long since he felt any sort of freedom that he thinks the sheer joy of this moment might simply kill him.
The Kamino peninsula is behind them now as they are borne aloft by hope alone, by a wish tucked between feathers. The wind pulls tear from Izuku’s eyes, but he thinks he might be crying even without its help.
We made it. We’re free.
He swoops closer to All Might, calling out, “Where do we go, Yagi-sensei?”
His mentor looks thin and fragile against the endless blue of the sky, but there is a faint smile on his face—the first real smile Izuku has seen from him in years. It makes him look more like himself, somehow. Less like the withered shell of a person and more like the bright, cheerful man he used to be, before the Labyrinth and its darkness stole the joy from him.
“Wherever you want, my boy,” Yagi says.
Izuku gazes upwards, feels the full heat of the sun on his face, the light unfiltered by magic or clouds or those towering stone walls, and he is alive, alive, alive.
He climbs higher into the sky, a wild sort of grin curling across his face. After so many years, they escaped the Labyrinth with nothing but Shouto’s help and a wish. Izuku’s wish. The reality of his newfound freedom is a revelation and he basks in it. It warms him like the sunlight.
The sunlight…
Izuku tips his head back as he soars, squinting into the painful brilliance of the sun above, and his thoughts—surely, inevitably, wonderfully—curve back to Shouto. The only being to come searching—and not just for All Might, but for his apprentice as well. For Izuku. The one who listened to him mumble and plotted ways to free them. The one who used his own resources to get them out of the Labyrinth, unsolicited. Flying may have been Izuku’s wish, but the reality of this situation is all thanks to Shouto.
It makes his toes curl and his breath shorten and his heart stumble and stutter behind his ribs, this realization. Izuku can’t say when Shouto became one of the most important people in his life, but somehow, quietly, the sun god had slipped into his heart and made a home there, brightening the dark corners and banishing some of the darkest thoughts lurking inside Izuku’s frenetic mind.
Is this love? Izuku wonders. He doesn’t know much about love. He’s spent most of his life locked away like some sort of fairytale character. He hasn’t even had a friend since he was nine.
But he thinks, maybe, this is love.
At the very least, it could be. Someday.
Soaring there in the sky, Izuku feels the warmth of the sunlight, of Shouto’s light, and he wants nothing more in that moment than to be with Shouto, to talk to him, to try to work out these feelings that are tangling in his gut.
And that’s the thing about wishes, isn’t it? They’re as fickle as the hearts they spring from, and the wish binding Izuku’s wings knows immediately when his greatest desire changes. It feels the tug when he loosens his grip on thoughts of flying and begins to long for something else. It hears the call, and it answers.
And Izuku falls.