Archive of Our Own ^beta

Izuku loves earth for the way the sun falls on the grass at sunset.

It has been a short day, so far, when he realises this; when for the first time, he puts a name to the feelings inside of him. Love, yes.

Love, for the way the golden light spreads through the tall grass; the way the mountains glow in the far distance, and the clouds turn pink and purple and orange and all colours that clouds aren’t meant to turn, and love for the way that the day disappears into darkness, the sky turning itself into a blue void.

He loves it all.

The day had been nothing special in the long length of days that have been and are to come. The people, living just behind the hills, who had tended to the fields and animals for generations, had woken to the sun and worked all day, growing and harvesting, and there had been something joyous in the air that had seemed to wake the very sun above, but Izuku had only just begun to realise that that was hardly unusual.

And Izuku, for the first time since he had started watching, had gone down and helped.

It wasn’t proper, he had told himself. His home, far above all of this, kept to itself. The people who lived there, he who lived there, were not on the same level as these small, finite souls. They had power, immortal power, inherent and unleashed, and these people had none of that.

But then, some would say the same about him.

But these people had kindness, and a steady determination to survive, and so Izuku was curious.

He was curious, as to how they were able to love, with such short lives. How the power of creation could be harnessed with such innocent hands.

And so he had watched, for what had felt like an age but could have been anything, any infinite amount of time before eternity came a-calling, until he could no longer stand idle.

He made the choice to learn the names, the language, the ways. He learnt, under the guise of a traveller, what made them human, what made each individual capable of possessing something as incredible as freedom.

He learnt what the power a single soul wielded, in the steady changing of the land and the passing of the days and in the way a lonely human could save a lonely life.

They had purpose, he realised, eventually; a purpose so innocent that he could barely comprehend.

They loved, infinitely. Izuku, and so young he suddenly felt, wasn’t sure if anyone had ever done that before.

Back home, purpose was defining. You were created, with purpose, and you grew into it, filling the boots no one else could claim, and existing as a content idea, in your person and in your godhood.

Izuku didn’t have a purpose.

And he didn’t mean it in the sense that humans had purpose, the fragile things they called desire that they gained and flung away according to fancy. He meant the way that the atoms of the universe wrapped around you, how they changed according to the movement of your hand as you waved it through the presence of the unknown.

He didn’t have a purpose, and so he was lost. He was as powerless as the humans he watched, and that may have been why he helped.

His friends, few they may have been, were defined by their place. Ochako, god of space, and all things infinitesimal, thrived in her role. She was the space between spaces, and he could see it, everytime he looked at her and saw the stardust bridging her nose and the galaxies in her eyes and the way the stars parted for her unruly entrance.

And she was happy, with that existence. With the purpose that defined her. He didn’t fault her for that.

Tenya, god of versatility, was living up to shoes he was more than happy to see filled. His role was never a question, never really a decision except for every time Izuku couldn’t help but feel that it was. Izuku had wondered, sometimes, who he would have been without the weight on his shoulders. Tenya thrived under it. Izuku wondered quietly.

Katsuki, his old friend, was the god of chaos, and it fit him like rage is made to fit an unwitting master.

And Izuku loved them all, he realises suddenly, sitting on that cliff, staring out at the sunset. He, loves them, truly, he does. The word, the one that had been sitting in his chest, finally erupted into the confines of the universe, and Izuku didn’t care if anyone was around to know.

He loves, and he is proud of it.

Izuku had never had a true purpose. From the moment of his creation, he had been alone, without a role to fill or that warm feeling in his heart to tell him which way was his. Everyone had told him, over and over without fail, that something was wrong: that he was simply a cosmic mistake, early for his stop to the void.

And now here he is. On Earth. It’s no surprise he decided to run, really.

Here he is, loving for the first time, putting a human word to an inhuman emotion.

He feels himself for the first time, noticing properly hands, and arms, and hair, and the feeling of rough grass on his fingers and the cooling chill of night.

Life cannot hurt him, he knows, but life will try.

He smiles, and welcomes it.

For the first time, he feels like he has opened his eyes.

This is the moment that defines him. But this is not everything he is.

How could it be?

-

Yuuei is beautiful, and full of every single wonder of the cosmos.

Izuku hates it, just slightly, for the rejection it has so casually slid his way, but for the most part, he loves it.

Love. There it is again. How has he never noticed these feelings before?

It is his home, and it welcomes him back after his travels with a hug and a slap.

“Izuku!” Ochako cries, when he walks into her home, barely back and settled. “We’ve missed you.”

She is sitting, cross-legged, in front of a swirling hole in the universe. She wields the black hole with a careful hand, and Izuku takes her all in.

It feels like he is doing so for the first time, like being on earth has awoken him to the understanding that people are people. She is wearing a flowy black top, its fabric trailing down onto the floor, and her legs are covered in a thick silver-grey material. A bright pink shawl wraps around her shoulders, and Izuku wonders if she made the decision to wear that, if she even knows she is wearing it.

He looks down at himself, and realises he is wearing a plain white top, and plain white trousers. Boring, as he expected, but still, a part of him is disappointed that he is defined so heavily by a weight he is missing.

“Hey, Ochako.” he says. She doesn’t look at him, but is carefully staring into the hole she has created without moving a muscle.

A muscle, huh. He’s picking up things fast.

“Hey-” she glitches, her whole body blurring and shaking before solidifying again. “Sorry, I’m dealing with a problem near the Aradantium System again. Later?”

He shakes his head, and walks out again. He’s never heard of the Aradantium System.

Yuuei changes in so many ways, and yet it never really does.

He walks into the courtyard at the centre, the cliff overlooking everything and the pavilion stand right before it, and he sees the podium that has been there since the beginning.

The real beginning, he thinks, and then dismisses the thought with barely a glance.

The pavilion is bustling, people he knows by the way they move more than any innate detail he picks up. Large tents are being overhauled, tables being propped up, and it feels like noise, like a wave blasting into his face and sweeping him under with desperate hands. On the stage, as far back as they can go, stands the god of fire.

His spirit is burning in the ether, and Izuku can remember him for that, if not for the way the god’s eyes have never once not slid over his, if not for the scorn of his flames as he’s huddled for warmth, on the quiet nights down on Earth.

His hands ache from a phantom pain, and Enji is something ruthless. He is shouting orders, and people are following, and for just a moment, something seems wrong. Like the balance has been broken. The world falls out of wack, and everything disappears, but then he is back, like a cracked step on temple floors.

“I am here!”

The voice feels real in a way that little does, up here, and Izuku reacts, turning and staring with wide eyes.

All Might.

The King.

He is larger than life, so much larger, and Izuku hadn’t realised until now just what that could mean until he saw him standing across the pavilion, on the stage next to the shining statue, his presence a supernova on the brink of destruction.

Izuku notices the feelings in his chest, and wonders, half insane, if this is his heart, forming under his new understanding of life. He wonders, if perhaps, this place was never meant for him.

He’ll have to catch up with Tenya later, he thinks, a panic of emotion he’s never felt before, never realised he could feel before rushing over him and he runs.

He runs.

Izuku wonders if this is what he was made for.

-

He goes back to Earth, because where else does he have to go? He has no home, no domain. No life up in the stars.

He goes back to the village, and realises he recognises no one. They have all moved on, he realises, and he feels a mournful sadness etch its way into his spine.

He should have paid more attention, he thinks, as he puts himself to work again and falls in love over again. He should have known.

Next time, he thinks. There will always be a next time.

-

The village grows. He travels, sees other settlements rise and fall, but he never stays for more than a week before he moves on, and he always ends up back at that village where he first fell in love with life.

So he watches it grow, and wishes he could bless it with something other than the work of his hands. But he cannot, so there is little he can do except grow alongside it.

What a poor excuse for a god.

He feels incredibly lonely, he realises. He is not human, for as much as he loves like one, but he is cut off from his home through a painful, social divide. He could go back, but only to scorn, and the ugly feelings of worthlessness he is calmly running from.

He does not have a home, anymore.

And then he looks around him.

It is a moment, and everything is just bridging on still. The sun is burning his back, the wind toeing its way through the brambles of the fields, a still flutter of birds caught in a tree. His hands are bleeding raw.

Someone looks up at him, frowns, and walks over to him. They say something, but Izuku just shakes his head.

They put a hand on his shoulder, and the contact feels so good that it startles Izuku, shakes the world back into sound again and restores his beating heart.

“You okay?” they are asking. Their face is creased, a little in the forehead, slightly around the mouth.

Izuku-

“I’m fine.” he tries to crease his mouth in a similar way, a smile, an expression of happiness. Is he okay? What is okay?

Izuku-

They shake their head slightly. “Take a break,” they say, and they take Izuku’s hand and lead him over to a tree. “You’ve deserved it.”

Izuku can’t-

And he laughs. He laughs and he laughs, until this poor person is looking incredibly worried, and then he cries, tears streaming down his face, until all this feeling is out in watery streams down his cheeks.

Tears, he discovers, taste like salt. Funny how no one has ever mentioned that before.

And he is staring down at hands that are never supposed to change, that are covered in calluses and rubbed pink, and he thinks-

Izuku thinks-

“This is who I am.” He looks around him. “This is my home now.”

The human grins at him. “Well finally.” they say with a half-laugh. “We’ve been wondering when you were gonna put down some roots.”

He lets himself be pulled up to his feet, and he smiles his first real smile.

Then he goes, and builds himself a home.

-

He doesn’t go back to Yuuei often. It feels pale in comparison to the lights down on earth, and the people vapid compared to the confusing complexities humans can be.

So he stays away, and maybe Ochako and Tenya and Katsuki all wonder where he is, but maybe they don’t.

Maybe they’ve already forgotten him.

Maybe that’s for the best.

-

The world appears to be shrinking nowadays, is the thought running through Izuku’s head on the most important day of his life.

He’s walking through a street in Rome, and even in his very long life, it is almost more people than he has ever seen together all at once, all congregated in the largest city in the world.

At least, that’s what he’s heard. All roads lead to Rome.

He’s walking through, and he passes a tavern. Fresh Oysters, a sign advertises, and he is somewhat intrigued. There’s something about the tavern that seems to pull him forward, a tugging in his chest: like desire only more foreign. But it's new, and so it interests him.

He steps into the tavern, and takes in the open plan building, the wooden barstools and the smooth-worn tables, and the light chatter as noon breaks into afternoon.

He takes a seat, seeing nothing particularly out of the ordinary, and puts in an order; the waiter looks painfully collected as they note him down, and he takes the chance to look at the people.

There is a group, just over the other side, making conversation over a table of glasses and a large portion of something steaming. Most of the noise is coming from them: it's not a sound anywhere close to rowdy, but so much of the world seems silent from within the stone cold walls that their voices seem to echo and dance all through the room.

One of them leans back, and just as she does, a violin starts up outside.

The tune is slow; a ballad, of two lovers clearly, and Izuku has never heard even a whisper of it before. It feels like a tragedy, a victory, a bountiful loss and a mournful win. The story it tells is one of sorrow, one of great happiness. Izuku can feel himself losing his heart to the rhythm it tells, filling a little more space with love-

And then he sees two eyes from the other side of the room, and his heart just about leaps out of his chest.

It’s like fireworks are erupting, but a distance away. The eyes are a beautiful explosion, the colours that form galaxies forming brilliant supernovas, and Izuku is just close enough to feel the heat without being scorched.

They are the most beautiful eyes he’s ever seen.

They are the story of the tragic lovers, but there is no hope in them. One of them is a calming brown, a patterned depth of subtle ambition. The other is more angry, a pale blue almost fading away into the rest of the eye. The eyes seem almost glossy; a sheen of rainbow bubbles, reflections of a world of loneliness and quiet wars, a story that grips Izuku’s heart and claims it with a hand that doesn’t yet know how to be soft.

Izuku can feel a heart, beating brilliantly in time with the beating of the universe.

The eyes, he can see, belong to a face. The person is gorgeous, sharp cheekbones and a smooth jaw. Half his hair is a pure white, the other a ruby red, so similar to the vividness of blood that it sticks out against this green planet and startles Izuku, ever so slightly. His hair drops down to his waist, slightly covering the large scarring over one eye.

It doesn’t quite look like a burn, Izuku wonders, as his feet move before he can tell them to and he’s already making his way over in a daze. More like, the cost of a tragedy.

A sacrifice.

His movement seems to catch the eye of the person, and he looks up, his being no longer shrouded in shadow as the sun begins to stream in through the window.

Izuku stops. His heart is beating out of his chest, but he needs this, needs to know what this feeling is like he’s never needed anything before.

And then the person smiles, and Izuku’s entire state of being just about ends right there and then.

How had he never realised that a person smiling could look so amazing?

It's a tiny smile, almost a quirk of the mouth, if not for the way it causes his eyes to sparkle ever so slightly and his chin to tilt up in a cautious welcome.

Izuku wants to see it again. Izuku never wants to look away.

And all of a sudden, he knows who this is.

-

They’d never interacted much, never had much reason to, but there had never been animosity there.

There had been long, lingering glances, sometimes, but only ever from afar, and Izuku had kept them close in his small box of hope until a day in which the need would come through for them to be understood.

He’d only learned how to love later.

He thinks, in hindsight, that those early feelings may have been an important factor in that.

And now, they meet again. Two gods becoming human.

-

Shouto looks up at him, and Izuku can taste every potential of the universe sitting ready to burst on his tongue. He can see every colour of every beautiful soul, trapped inside his chest like a bird ready to flee. His very being is overcome with this-

“Hello.” Shouto says, almost shyly. His cheeks are shrouded in darkness, but there is a twitch to the corner of his mouth that feels welcoming, feels familiar.

It takes Izuku a few seconds to realise he needs a response, and in that time, Shouto’s small smile is starting to fade. Desperate to keep that from happening he sputters out-

“Good morning, ah, Shouto-” His mouth tightens around the name. It feels like it was made to be on his lips. It tastes like sugar.

Shouto’s forehead dips, and wow, Izuku had known he was pretty, but there’s a difference, between thinking someone is pretty because of the spirit they embody, and seeing it in person.

And oh is Shouto beautiful.

“Are you okay?” he asks, and Izuku is going to faint, either from the sheer embarrassment at how this is going, or due to the rush of blood that is heating up his face. Shouto seems to realise this, so he puts down his book on the table, and takes Izuku’s hand-

(He takes his hand, Izuku internally squeals. This might be too much for him.)

- and he leads Izuku to sit down in the seat across from him.

It's easier to focus while sitting down, surprisingly. And from this distance, Izuku can properly admire Shouto’s long lashes, and the way his hair tufts around his ears, and the small freckle just below his eye that crinkles when he smiled earlier: that small smile from across the room.

Izuku realises he’s staring, and as he becomes aware of it, he notices Shouto is staring too.

He can’t help it; he starts giggling.

He’s been on earth for a very long time, and in all that time he has never come across another god, and now by some strange coincidence, he finds out that Shouto (Shouto) has been sitting in Rome, reading books and eating oysters for gods knows how long.

Well, presumably he’s done other things as well. His fingernails are bitten down, Izuku notices, uneven and rough, and there’s a small scar embracing his jaw that Izuku knows can only fade so far, even after so many centuries.

His hand is soft, but it's the sort of soft that is smooth around the palm, with hardened skin taking its time to permeate itself in the hand. His clothes are clean, and more modern than Izuku’s own are. But his hands have been bitten down in a habit that seems so inherently human that even the otherness of his very being cannot escape from how present he is in this scene.

Shouto knows what it is like to live, and Izuku loves to see it.

That’s not the only thing you love, his mind supplies, and Izuku shushes it with all the strength he can muster. There will be a later time for such a panic.

Izuku tries to stifle his giggles, but to no avail, and to his relief, the smile on Shouto’s face comes back.

“I, - Izuku?” Shouto asks, that beautiful smile still tilting at the corners. “It’s been a while, hasn’t it?”

Izuku nods, his giggles smoothing into a wide grin, and there is a feeling in his chest that feels like bubbles, like an eruption of lava out of his throat. He’s happy. Happy just seeing Shouto after an eternity.

And from the look of it, Shouto is happy to see him too.

“Forever,” he says. “It’s been forever.”

Shouto puts his book down on the table and stands up. He holds out an arm.

“Shall we?” he asks Izuku, and Izuku is absolutely helpless to say anything other than “Of course.”

-

They find a shade of trees together, with the only other people around couples slowly trailing amongst the flowers, and they sit, shaded under an autumn tree.

“When was the last time you were…” Izuku asks, and he gestures upwards, though his guess is as good as any. “Home?”

Shouto scowls, slightly, his forehead creasing in a way that makes Izuku’s heart want to die. “It’s been a while. It, wasn’t good, last time I was there.”

Izuku frowns. “Is it…”

Shouto shrugs, which isn't great. “All Might has gone missing.”

Izuku’s body is thrust into panic mode against his will. Every sense seems to sharpen suddenly, and there is a touch of danger to the air. “What! Since when?! How!?”

Shouto places a hand on his shoulder, and Izuku calms slightly, his body responding to the touch, but Shouto’s eyes are off somewhere in the distance. “Nobody quite knows when, or how. But ever since he’s been gone…”

“There’s been a power void.” Izuku finishes for him. “Oh, Shouto.”

Shouto flinches. Only slightly, sure, but they are gods. These are learned things, reactions, built around bodies not meant to cater them. They are different, and their very existence is a mystery, and yet in this way they have fallen, not risen.

“It’s- it’s fine.” he says. His voice cracks slightly, and Izuku wants nothing more than to put an arm around him. “He’s just been pushing harder, lately. Made in his image and all that.”

His face is so blank, when he talks. There is an icy rage there, a million miles from the warmth of affection. Shouto is angry, and that anger has nowhere to go.

“Sho-”

“I don’t use my left side anymore.” Shouto interrupts. “It reminds me too much of him.”

And, well, no. That won’t do.

Izuku turns his head, and stares straight at Shouto. With a soft hand, he leans forward and grips his strong jawbone, and tilts it upwards. His hand is cradling Shouto’s cheek, and with his thumb, he strokes the deep scar that trails down from his eye.

“Shouto.” Izuku says, and conviction fills him, like the way love did that very first day. “You are the god of both creation and destruction.”

Shouto doesn’t say anything, but his lip twitches slightly. Izuku continues.

“The earth is so utterly full of life. Of stories. Of people. And every one of those people was put here without a purpose, without a destiny, without a goal. And I have seen so many of them succeed in creation.”

Izuku smoothes his thumb over the rough edge of the scar, and Shouto’s eyes flutter, a delicate dash of the eyes.

“But I have also seen failures, mistakes; civilisations and empires fall to ruin. And for every loss out of the ashes comes new innovation the likes of which I would have never dreamed. Humans create, because what they have, has been destroyed.”

Shouto’s eyes are wide open, and to Izuku, there is nothing else in the world as important as this moment here, this scene in the garden.

“Endeavour will never understand. For every garden razed there are still seeds that will find a way to grow. From every broken home there is still a flicker of hope. In every dying hearth there is still an ember to be lit.” The world could be splintering around him, and Izuku doesn’t think either of them would notice. “For every sunset there is another sunrise. The nights can only get so cold.”

Izuku can barely breathe for the all of it.

“These broken pieces are what make life worth living.” Shouto looks like he’s hanging on to every word, like it might as well be gospel to live by. “And Shouto…”

He leans in, his thumb still so soft against his face, Shouto’s hair tickling his nose. A flyaway hair strokes his cheek, red and white.

“Shouto…” Izuku mummers. He’s smiling, and he has no idea how this must look, and no reason to care. “It’s your power. No one else’s. Not his. Yours.”

Shouto’s lips open slightly, a pretty pink frame to a dark unknown. “I…”

He’s looking around, almost confused, Izuku thinks, but there is a strange sort of emotion in his eyes that wasn’t there before. His lips look dry, Izuku thinks, and his cheeks are a soft pink.

“I,” he tries again. “I think I should go.”

He doesn’t move. Izuku wonders how his lips can stand being so dry. “Only if you want to.”

Shouto nods shakily, and stands up, leaning on a tree for stability. He starts to move away, then turns, suddenly. “I’ll see you again?” he asks, a desperate kind of loss in his voice.

And Izuku is utterly helpless to say anything other than “of course.”

Shouto’s face lights up at that, and Izuku watches as he slowly makes his way down the path, stumbling slightly until he reaches the park gate.

He turns, one last time, and waves.

Izuku waves back, and then as Shouto disappears down the street, he flops backwards onto the blanket, puts his arms over his eyes, and sighs.

Emotions may have been a mistake.

-

The next time he sees Shouto, a while seems to have passed. A human lifetime or two, perhaps, not enough time for Izuku to have put their meeting out of his mind, but enough that he no longer spends every night thinking about it.

He’s a writer, now. He found a love for writing a few decades ago, and the knowledge that he can so easily share his creations to the world excites him. It’s a brave new world and he is making pieces of it.

So he’s living life, as you do. He’s moved East slightly, and is discovering new civilisations, when he runs into Shouto on the road.

He’s not doing much, just, sitting on the side of the road in a strong cloak, eating the last remains of a sandwich.

But Izuku hasn’t seen him since that last fateful meeting, so he stops his horse and walks over to greet him.

Shouto is just as pretty as Izuku remembers. His hair is long, and starting to mat at the ends, but the red is still just as vibrant, and the white just as pure. His cloak is a deep blue, with golden lettering streaking down the sides. There are crumbs dusting his cheeks.

He looks up as Izuku approaches, and Izuku can watch as his face transforms from solemness to contentment. His eyes alight, and a small smile lifts his lips.

Izuku feels like blushing at the knowledge that it was him that did that.

He gives a short wave. “Hi, Shouto.”

Shouto brushes himself down, and stands up. He’s taller, Izuku notices. But it doesn’t feel intimidating. It feels, safe.

“Good morning, Izuku.” he says. His voice tremors slightly when he says Izuku, and it sends a shiver up Izuku’s spine. “How have you been?”

Izuku smiles up at him. He’d forgotten how it felt to be in Shouto’s presence. It feels like his heart is bursting out of his chest. “I’ve been good. How are you?”

Shouto nods, and all Izuku wants is to be done with this. To take his hand and drag him away with him, like those heroes he’s been writing about in his novels.

“I’m good.” Shouto says. He pauses, and lets his eyes drift to the side. “Hey, I’ve been thinking, and-”

“Come away with me.” Izuku interrupts. “Come explore the world with me. You can tell me on the way.”

Shouto blinks, like a cat just opening its eyes. “That’s honestly what I was about to say.”

Izuku grabs his hand without even thinking about it, and he pulls Shouto as fast as he can to his horse. Shouto’s hand is still just as soft as ever, and Izuku remembers what it felt like to stroke his fingers over his face, that careful grasp of intimacy. “Does that mean you’ll come?” he asks.

Shouto is behind him, so Izuku can’t see his face, but he gets the impression he’s smiling.

“Of course.”

Izuku’s horse whinnies, and Izuku calms her with a stroke along the mane. She looks at Shouto for a moment, then goes back to kicking up dust.

He gets her going, and then they’re on the road.

This time, he isn’t so alone.

-

Shouto makes a good travel companion. He has stories aplenty, and once you get him talking, their conversations last deep into the night.

But sometimes he will stop in the middle of a sentence and look around, as if afraid he will be caught smiling and laughing and living life, and it hurts Izuku’s heart perhaps more than it should.

But together they find villages, thriving mostly, some suffering under cold winters, others packed with trade and wealth. Some they stay at for months, time disappearing into the wind as it tends to do, and some they stay at for only hours before deciding to keep moving.

And through it all, Izuku learns Shouto.

He learns how he wakes up slowly, but always at the crack of dawn; how he doesn’t like the bitterness of some foods but can eat anything with spice as long as it’s cooked well.

Izuku learns how he smiles, until the dimpled smile Shouto so loves to give has almost become his own. Their hands find each other more often than not on the road, and at this point Izuku feels his fingers gripping strangely when there is nothing there.

They don’t let go. There is something bigger than either of them that they have left behind, but here they are, laughing around a campfire under a night sky they personally saw created.

Izuku points out a constellation, and tells some inane story about it, and while a part of him wonders how Ochako is doing, the rest of him is just happy to be here, happy being with Shouto.

He’s happy, and what a feeling it is.

From the grass beside him, he picks out a small flower, a stubborn one. A weed, with broken petals, but still a bright, glorious, yellow.

He holds it up, and in the moonlight, it seems to glow.

He hands it to Shouto. Shouto smiles, and with a soft hand, puts it in Izuku’s messy green hair.

“Beautiful,” he whispers. “You’re so beautiful.”

Together, they watch the stars pass slowly across the sky, hands clasped tight.

Life is calm, peaceful, and utterly divine.

There’s nothing more than Izuku could want, other than this moment to last forever.

-

Over the next few millennia, they engage in a dance. They find each other, love each other, and then fall apart like waves breaking together on the ocean, or two immortal dancers parting hands only to run together into a final jump.

And oh, do they dance.

-

Izuku knows, right now, that what he’s doing might not be the best use of his time.

He’s going to do it anyway.

He is standing in front of a small building, tucked between two grand designs, in a city not made for small. Above it are apartments, he knows, and he also knows that this close to the center of the city will get him traffic no matter how poor of an idea this is.

And it is a poor idea.

He’s going to sell flowers.

Humans seem to have some strange fascination with them that goes beyond aesthetic beauty, Izuku thinks abstractly as he walks into the shop. They assign meanings, and give them as gifts as if when tied by a ribbon they suddenly gain a worth of more than just weeds.

It is brilliant. But it is also very confusing.

So Izuku is starting a flower shop; perhaps only to sate that confusion, and also possibly so he gets to see the smiles on people’s faces when he gives them the flowers to give to their loves.

The inside of the shop is incredibly empty. There are faded spaces on the walls where things used to be hung, and a bucket sits in the back corner, but there is nothing else. No tables, no furniture, not even a door to the small back room.

That just means he gets to start from scratch.

Izuku can’t wait to get to work.

-

By the time he’s set up, the place is completely unrecognisable. He’s painted the walls a lovely pure white, and found the most perfect mosaic to go above the door, shaped like a perfect globe amaranth. He’s bought books, prepared well for this, and when he looks it up, they say that the globe amaranth means unfading love, and immortality.

It fits, he thinks fondly. For both Shouto and himself.

Shouto, right now, is somewhere North, trudging through the cold snow as far up as he can go. That was around 20 years ago, though, when he’d declared his intentions to do so, so maybe he’s moved on by now.

Likely not, however. Shouto always has had a chilly side to him. And Izuku has been hearing word of a phenomenon called the Northern Lights, which are said to be such a great beauty that they are enough to steal men from their beds and set the sky on fire.

If Shouto has found such a phenomenon, Izuku hopes that he loves it in the way the humans seem to. With such awe and a great enough reverence that sometimes Izuku wonders if the stars are not such a limit as they might seem.

Izuku hopes he’ll come home soon, though.

He flips the sign on the door to open, and settles himself on the back counter, ready to wait.

-

It is a few months later, when Izuku finds himself tending to a small cactus just beginning to bloom, when a large group walks in.

His shop has become something of a commodity. Customers make their habits of coming in, sometimes for a chat, sometimes just to sit on one of his cozy chairs and lose themself in the flowers. They’ve started picking up meanings, Izuku has begun to notice. He can pick up a carnation, and if he spends just slightly too long staring into its petals, he gets called at from all angles with advice on all his troubles.

It’s not what Izuku had expected when he’d started up the shop. But it’s nice all the same. He’s just lucky that he doesn’t actually need the income to keep the place running, or he’d be a little more miffed.

But this new group are only mostly regulars. He recognises some from conversations over the counter as he’d made up their bouquet, but others are completely unfamiliar.

And one…

Standing in the middle of the bunch, his hair tied up at the back of his head, is Shouto, looking utterly calm and in his place.

Izuku notices the moment Shouto notices him. His eyes widen, and a small smile graces his lips, and he makes an aborted motion with his hands, as if he no longer knows their presence on his body. Like they should instead be gripping Izuku with all they have.

And then, instead, he picks up a stem lying on the side, and holds it forward.

It’s a Lily of the Valley, cut off at the stem. Return of happiness, it says, and Shouto is holding it out to Izuku with an unbelievable love in his eyes.

You’re here, he seems to say, incredulity more of a tale than words could be. I’m here.

And all of a sudden, his friends jeer, and Shouto’s face pinkens.

One of the regulars, someone Izuku knows only faintly but still can remember the face of, pushes him forward, and props a large cape jasmine into his arms. Shouto stumbles, and after looking down, blushes even more.

And then he speaks, and it’s like a burst of sunlight on a misty day.

“I’m too happy,” he says, that same smile on his lips that he had the day Izuku first saw him in that tavern. The same smile that stopped Izuku’s heart that he didn’t know he had.

“I’m too happy.” he repeats again, and it may only be the name of the flower, but the way he looks into Izuku’s eyes while he says it, shows something more there. Something lovely, and Izuku is so glad he’s home.

-

Izuku, it would seem, has been given a front row seat in the new age of adventure.

The room is a wonder to behold, Izuku marvels, as he takes his first steps into the large room that holds some of the best adventurers officially known by the board, Shouto sweeping gracefully on his arm.

Even in the late evening, the fading pinks of the sky still blossom through the large gilded windows with no difficulty, bathing the shining floor in a river of golden dust, and illuminating the sparkling blues and whites of the guests present in the ballroom.

Shouto himself is clothed in shimmering fabrics, a stretch of pale blue coating his shoulders and rushing down his back, and a flush of harsh red choking his throat as a red rose cradles his neck. His hair barely looks like two colours: the white has been swept over to cover the red, and so it stays, a half-hidden secret, long and untouchable.

Izuku feels blessed to be simply in his presence, to get to feel him by his side and feel the pleasure of being able to know him.

There is food laid out on a wooden table in lavish quantities, but it has been almost pushed aside in favour of the main attraction: the conversation.

People from every corner of the world stand here, their stories a rolling tide, crashing and colliding to create a picture of the world that everyone seems so desperate to understand. There are sailors, and travellers, and arctic explorers, and people who seem qualified not by the quality of their silks but by the deep lines in their faces and the weariness in their eyes.

And with the feeling of the beach awaiting the force of the wave, Izuku sees the crowd begin to part, and Izuku sees someone he never expected to see on Earth.

His grip on Shouto's arm tightens.

Katsuki, his hair a spiky mess and his eyes burning red, is stomping over to where Izuku has just walked in.

His fists are clenched, noticeably, and Izuku thinks he can smell ozone, or gasoline: the warning of the inevitable storm.

This is going to cause a scene.

"Deku!" he shouts, because of course he does. But it's quieter than Izuku had expected it to be, and only about half of the room turns around to look.

Deku. Useless. Kacchan used to find it funny.

Clearly, he still does.

Out of the corner of his eye, Izuku notices another figure pushing his way through the crowd. He's holding a plate of small sandwiches over his head, and is making slow progress in the crowd that Katsuki has quickly managed to find.

His hair is a brilliant, shocking, red; like the blood spilled before a battle, or the shepherd's warning of a red morning. It's pointed, too, and gravity defying, and against the calming blues of high society adventurers it sticks out like a blemish.

His face seems mildly concerned, a polite expression of annoyance as he dips his sandwiches under another arm, and finally makes it through. He walks over to Katsuki, and somehow, Izuku isn't all that surprised.

Katsuki is still fuming.

"Hey Deku! This is my place! My planet! What the hell do you think you're doing here!"

His rage is a beast, and it scares Izuku, just a little, in the same way that the rough friendship they had shared so long ago had been just a touch of too much reckless wilderness packed into two helpless souls.

Kacchan isn't as helpless anymore - he has power, and a way to fight back against the world - but Izuku still sees that child he once knew in his eyes. The one who wanted to be just as brilliant as All Might, and who had only his own valiant fury to push him.

Izuku knows that Katsuki would only think of that thought as pity, however, so he holds his tongue, and tries to meet Katsuki's eyes as an equal.

Katsuki scowls even harder, and his fists make to go flying, when a hand falls on his shoulder.

"Katsuki," he says, his voice warm and his hair just as vibrant as Katsuki’s eyes. "C'mon, we've talked about this. No starting fights during balls.”

And Katsuki, to Izuku’s surprise, actually calms. It’s almost unnoticeable compared to his usual fiery personality, but Izuku has known him long enough to be able to tell when his anger is real, and when it’s just for the sake of being angry.

And this red-haired unknown - friend? Surely it must be - has managed to bring him down with just a touch. Katsuki lets his palms unclench, and his shoulders fall back, settling out of his fighting stance with barely a protest.

His friend - for surely, anyone who is that able to understand Katsuki must be at least a friend - turns then to Izuku and Shouto, who have been standing there in bewilderment for the duration of the conversation, and he takes up a large smile on his face and bows in apology.

“I’m really so sorry about this!” he says, and his teeth are pointed slightly, sharp daggers that catch on his lip whenever he closes his mouth. “Katsuki has a tendency to start fights wherever he goes.”

Izuku nods sagely. “I know. He used to do it all the time when we were kids.”

Izuku can see the moment it clicks in his eyes, as he grins, wild and wide. “Oh, you’re that Deku! Katsuki has told me all about you!”

The man has an aura about him that Izuku recognises, even if he doesn’t know the pattern. They share a home, and a place in the stars, though the strength of their glows may differ.

Katsuki scowls, but makes no move to join in the conversation and add his view. The crowd begins to disperse, back to food-laden tables and death-defying adventures. Shouto’s hand on Izuku loosens, and they move further into the room, taking in the feat of wonder and the evening orchestra playing the crowd just as much as any potential investor.

Katsuki’s partner introduces himself as “Eijirou, nothing special. The god of constancy, but really, that isn’t important here.” Eijirou leads them across the ball, and finds them all a small corner, tucked away between the stage and one of the grand wooden doors that lead to some unknown maze of corridors. They sit, even Katsuki, but it is Shouto who is the first to speak.

“I remember you,” he says to Eijirou, his voice carefully controlled. “Endeavour always admired your resistance.” He pauses, and Izuku can hear the weight of the hesitation, even if it lasts no longer than a second. “He always thought you might have made a good target.”

Eijirou’s mouth twists, and he rakes a hand through his vivid hair. His hand is almost cracked, Izuku thinks, like a clay model that hasn’t been in the oven for long enough, and so spiderwebs had started to form. He puts it down under the table, and next to him Katsuki does the same with his own, his other still clenched into a fist. His other hand he places palm-down on the table.

“I’m, not really sure what to feel about that.” he says. Katsuki is looking at him intently, though Eijirou doesn’t appear to notice. “I knew him of course. Can’t say I really liked the guy.”

“Knew?”

Eijirou nods. “I’m not going back there unless I have to. It is,” he winces. “Not a society that respects people as much as it should.”

Izuku chuckles under his breath, and Eijirou shoots an apologetic look his way.

“Yeah,” Eijirou says. “I guess you’d know.”

There is something in his eyes, some desperate kind of sorrow, that Izuku simply nods. He knows the feeling of seeing inequality and being powerless to stop it.

It's practically his job description. The powerless god.

Eijirou sighs. He looks tired, Izuku notices, but there are laugh lines around his eyes, and he holds his shoulders with a learned confidence. He is no native to work, but no stranger either. “I only left around a millennia ago.” he continues. “You lose yourself so easily up there. It's just so easy to be consumed by a purpose. That’s no existence.”

Katsuki scoffs. “Yeah, and I had to practically drag you out of there. If it wasn’t for me you’d still be there, sitting in your house thinking about constancy or whatever, and not even realise I was gone.”

Eijirou’s lips pursue. “Well, it took Deku to get you out, so I don’t think you can talk.” There’s a small smile on his lips that makes Izuku think that they’ve had this argument before, many a time. However-

“What do you mean, it took me to get him out?” Izuku asks, and he hopes his confusion shows on his face as the three of them turn to look directly at him. Shouto raises an eyebrow, and tips his wine glass towards him.

“Do you really not know the impact you have on others?” he asks, his blue eye pale enough to be invisible in the light, but his other fiery and gripping. “Do you really have no idea?”

Katsuki groans. “Of course you don’t. You’re Deku. You’ve never had a clue.”

“But-”

Eijirou leans over the table. “Deku, you were the first to leave. The very first. Katsuki only left to look for you. I left because of him. Ochako, I know, also managed to leave at some point, but only because you hadn’t shown in centuries, and even for gods that time stretches on. Shouto-” he looks over, at Shouto’s blank expression, and shrugs. “I don’t know about you.”

“I was meant to find you, and bring you back.” he says, and his hand on Izuku’s arm tightens. “I ended up falling in love.”

Izuku can feel his face heating up, and turns away for a moment to look at the dancefloor. There are couples, swinging each other around to a jaunty tune, and businessmen standing around in bright colours adorned with gold. The wine is spilling, and evening is beginning.

He gets an idea.

He turns to Katsuki, and reaches out an olive branch.

“You guys are adventurers, right?”

Katsuki blinks, while Eijirou nods. “Well, we are at a conference for adventurers?” he says with a polite laugh and a slow growing grin.

Katsuki smiles, which for him is more like gritting his teeth, and he stands, and it's like nothing has ever changed between them. They are still those naive kids who just wanted to see the world, and needed the power to change it more than they needed to belong to it.

“Okay,” he says, and Izuku reaches out a hand. A branch.

Katsuki grips it, and bares his fangs.

“Let's go see the world,” he says, and it sounds more like a war cry than any scream he’s ever released. “And let's go save it.”

Izuku couldn’t agree more.

He lets himself be pulled up, and takes the fight to the dance floor.

-

Science, Izuku thinks often, is one of the most wonderful things humans have come up with.

See, he knows, in his head, that the universe is merely the cosmic answer to a society of beings all pulling for some form of power. The entire concept of chaos, he knows, only exists because Katsuki was created with just the right brand of destructive energy to be it. Ochako, his old friend, created all of space, just on a whim, because that was what she felt like became her.

Reality is nothing but the combination of a thousand or so constructs, and yet humans still have the audacity to think it actually means something bigger.

Maybe it does. Maybe this is Izuku’s shortcoming, not humanity’s.

But he still finds it somewhat ridiculous to see what rules to determine their reality they’ll come up with next.

He’s watched humans see stories in the stars for millennia, but now they are closer than they ever were before. Izuku has heard of the telescopes, letting humans gaze upon a majesty they had before only ever dared to reach for, and trying to learn how to cradle it in their hands.

Space has given humanity a mystery that they have no hope of solving, and Izuku has plans to watch as they do so anyway.

Which is why he’s here. Taking a class on astronomy while Shouto figures out what all the excitement about the Americas is about. He’s been gone nearly five years at this point, and it's taken Izuku almost as long to decide on astronomy as his next pursuit.

You’ve spent the last few years sitting in coffeehouses listening to others talk about the stars, Shouto had written, in his fancy script on a scrap piece of paper, still smelling of the sea. Isn’t it time you put your big brain to use and start talking too?

He’d had a point, Izuku had admitted. So he’d registered to do a degree in astronomy, and here he was.

Sitting at the back of a lecture hall while the person who created the entire galaxy told in clear terms that the sun did not rotate around the Earth.

Ochako. One of his oldest friends.

The last time he had seen her, she had looked… ethereal. She had been sitting right in the middle of creation, surrounded by fragments of the universe, and nothing but utterly focused. He had seen her like he had only just started to see people: as real, as human. A body, with clothes, and stardust draping down her neck.

In some ways, she hasn’t changed at all. She is still surrounded by fragments of the universe, and utterly focused, but her humanity seems to have grown in, creeping into the cracks in her very being.

She no longer looks like a pinnacle of human perfection.

She looks real.

Her brown hair hangs behind her neck in a loose ponytail, two large bangs swinging out to cover her face. She keeps using a hand to push them back behind her ears, but every time she leans over they swing back and fall into her eyes. In her other hand she holds a short stick of chalk, that she alternates between waving in front of her students and using to write long equations on the scarily clean blackboard. Her ears glimmer every time she swings her head, and Izuku notices a small piercing in her cartilage: a silver ball that keeps catching the dull anbaric lamps and throwing light across the room.

Her hands, Izuku can tell, are callused. They are workers' hands, tanned and strong.

She’d been here long enough to find her place, that’s for sure.

Izuku is suddenly very glad that he chose astronomy to pursue next.

He waits until the end of the lesson to talk to her. She gives a fascinating lecture that Izuku takes dutiful notes on, and takes her time packing up. Izuku hangs back until he’s the last one in the room, and walks over.

“It’s-” is all he gets out before Ochako envelops him in a tight hug.

“Izuku!” she squeals, and Izuku thinks he hears a kind of relief in her voice. Eijirou must have been right when he said she left to find him. “It’s been so long.”

“Forever.” he agrees, and hugs her back. It feels so good to be able to hug his friends. Ochako is warm, and when he hugs her there is none of the sharp edges he runs into whenever he tries to hug some of his other friends. Ochako has always felt like comfort to him, and now he can actually feel it for real.

They break apart after a few minutes, and Ochako sits herself on her desk, moving aside papers and a scatter of pencils. She pats the space next to her, and Izuku sits, his legs just short enough to dangle freely over the side.

“So,” Ochako begins, after another moment. “Where’ve you been?”

Izuku looks at her curiously. “Earth. Same as you, apparently.”

She frowns, and absentmindedly picks up a pencil and starts twirling it around her fingers. She does it with enough instinct that Izuku knows instantly that it's a well-developed habit. Just how long has he been missing her?

“See,” Ochako continues. “You just left, one day. No one knew where you went, and we had no way to find you. The last person to see you was-”

“You.” Izuku winces. “Ochako, I’m so sorry.”

She shrugs. “It's fine. But people talk. I never said anything about seeing you that day, but hearing what people were saying… Izuku, you really never meant anything to them. They thought you were dead. And they were better for it.”

Izuku softens. “I, kinda guessed that would happen. It wasn’t anything I wasn’t used to at that point.”

She turns and looks at him, with piercing brown eyes. “I could understand why you wanted to leave. You were never one of them, and just because of a lack of…”

She looks down at her hands. Hardened, worn hands. In a small voice, she asks “Did you ever, figure that out?”

Izuku places his own, worn hand on hers. She looks up at him, and he knows that in his smile she’ll see the truth.

He may still be nothing, but he has everything.

He thinks of a flash of red-and-white hair, and a small smile.

And that is all he cares about. He won’t wish for more.

The world he came from can have their victories. He has Shouto.

And when Ochako smiles in response, he knows she understands.

They are more than what they were made to be.

She nods, and with a smile, they leave their pasts where they belong.

“So,” Izuku starts. “Tell me what you’ve been up to.”

And with a grin, she does.

-

The world is changing faster than Izuku knows how to cope.

London is unrecognisable nowadays. A thick smog fills the air, and the sky stretches on in an everlasting night, darkness hiding every star. There is muck on every street, and grimy houses tucked in like sardines along the slowly narrowing roads, looming in the gloom over Izuku’s head.

Izuku’s lucky he has a home to get back to, and a destination in mind. He wouldn’t want to be stuck out in this cold for any longer than he has to.

The cold, tonight, is more chilling than usual. It hurts, like daggers to his bones, and he may be immortal but a lot of being human is working beyond the pain. And so, he carries on, only pulling his cloak a little tighter around him, and gripping his charge more tightly.

A large door, painted a faded green with pigments still fresh after centuries in storage, appears from around the corner. Izuku hurries forward, and knocks, peering side to side before darting in at the first crack of warmth.

“Izuku-” Shouto greets him, and Izuku bustles by, pushing his charge through the narrow entrance and towards the warm fire burning in the living room. “Ah, you found another one.”

Izuku takes a blanket off the sofa and wraps it around the boy he has just taken in from the cold, holding his small hands in his own and gripping them tight.

He smiles, and the small boy looks up at him. His eyes are brown, and his lips are a pale blue.

“Hey,” Izuku says. “Everything’s going to be okay. You know why?”

The boy’s face doesn’t change, but his lips twitch slightly, and Izuku can hear the chattering of his teeth, even with the fire roaring beside him. But still he says, in a shivering voice, “Because you’re here?”

Izuku smiles. “You got it.”

He sits down cross legged, and turns around, his hands still rubbing the boy’s in small circles. Shouto is standing in the door, and nearly twenty other kids are peeking over sofas, curious faces and wide eyes staring at him.

“Who’s that?” one of them asks, one of the older ones, whose face has already started to fill out and whose eyes are a little brighter than the rest.

Her name is Julie, which they know because it was written on a tag when they found her, curled up on their front step. She's a curious child, which Izuku knows can be a dangerous thing, but he can’t help but encourage her.

Izuku smiles at her. "I don't know. I haven't asked yet." He turns to the boy huddled up in his cloak, whose shivers have started to decline. "Hey kid. You got a name?"

Dark eyes slowly rise up Izuku's face. "Charles," he says, the speech sounding unfamiliar in his mouth.

"It's really nice to meet you Charles." Izuku says. "Feel free to stay for as long as you would like."

The boy nods, and turns back to the fire.

He sees Shouto in the corner of his eye, and Izuku cranes his head in the direction. Shouto gestures, and Izuku stands up, ruffling the head of one of the children still peeking over the sofa, and walks to the door.

"You kids be good now, ok?" he says to the room at large. The older ones don't even bother to respond, while some of the younger ones nod their heads excitedly and bare toothy grins.

Izuku grins back, and follows Shouto out into the hall.

"What did you need me for?" Izuku asks, as he pushes his hand into Shouto's while they make their way down the tight corridor, careful not to knock any of the bright paintings the kids had made off the walls. Shouto grips his hand back, and it sends a shiver down Izuku's spine. "Surely my company cannot be so desirable."

Shouto laughs at him, a musical sound. Izuku would give the whole world if only to hear it again. "We have a visitor!"

The corridor opens into the cold stone kitchen, and sitting at their large wooden table is Ochako, with a small human child in her lap.

"Hey guys," she says with a grin. "How's the domestic life treating you?"

Izuku walks forward and hugs her, careful not to jostle the child in her arms, who is eating a bowl of porridge utterly unconcerned. "More importantly," he says, pulling back from her with a smile. "How's the science going? Have the humans found the stars yet?"

Ochako waves her hands, and then stops as the child in her lap takes one of her arms in their chubby fists, and shakes their head disapprovingly. Izuku recognises the child as Scant, an old hat at the family thing, due to their previous family consisting of over five siblings, from what they’ve confessed.

"Awww, I'm sorry Scant." Ochako says. "I'll try and tone it down, kay?"

Scant nods, and goes back to their porridge.

Ochako looks back at Izuku, and Izuku notices just how strong the determination in her eyes has become. They are no longer merely galaxies. They are universes.

"Izuku," she begins. "They've done more than find them. They're reaching for them."

Shouto takes a seat at the table, and smiles, a childish giddiness on his face. "Ochako told me immediately." Shouto admits. "But I wanted you to hear it from her. Izuku, they're learning how to fly."

Izuku pulls out a chair, and falls into it. He lets out an incredulous laugh. "No!"

Ochako bites her lip, a grin threatening to take over her whole face. "Yes!"

"That's- that's incredible, I mean!" Izuku is filled with something, some wonderment he hasn't really felt since the skies started filling with smoke and the kids on street corners started dying by the thousands. "That's the impossible!"

Shouto takes his hand, and squeezes hard. "Well," he says, the smile on his face more than proving everything he says. "Humans have always been very good at the impossible."

And Izuku feels like he's the one who can fly.

-

The streets no longer get dark at night. These days, when Izuku and Shouto decide to take a nighttime walk through the city, they are illuminated in a yellow glow.

The storefronts are softly lit from within, and cars pass slowly, loud engines stirring up the night and disturbing the flocks of birds stupid enough to settle near the conjoining of the roads. It's a different kind of life than what Izuku is used to, but he loves it all the same. More mechanical, he thinks, but exciting in its infancy.

Every person is a new kind of personality, and they each flash with more colours than some of the gaudy signs lighting up the sky.

They’ve caught the city just before the start of the new year, so the place is bustling with attractions and stalls. Snow hasn’t yet begun to fall, but an earlier weather forecast promised it later in the week, and the chill in the air seemed to be gearing up for it with a frost that was turning Izuku’s fingers blue.

Izuku’s hands are covered in thick gloves, but he also has his right hand nestled within Shouto’s, who has always run unusually warm. They are packed closely together, to avoid getting separated in the crowds of people who have braved the cold to see the winter wonderland lighting up the night.

Izuku is taking great delight at pushing through said crowds to each stall, admiring every piece of handmade craft, and purchasing a few as gifts for a later date. He taste-tests every exotic spice, though so many he has already tasted, and has to be reluctantly dragged away by Shouto from a stall selling an armada of wooden ducks.

It is soon after that, however, that he sees the ultimate prize, on a confectionary stall sitting hidden on the corner of the winding maze of stalls.

It takes a moment for him to figure out what he is seeing.

It’s a, candy cane, he thinks. A somewhat more recent development in the long passage of sweet delicacies. Red and white strips twist up the sides into a round curve at the top, wrapped tightly with a paper label with a small paper tag saying the price in a curled script.

Izuku pulls off one of his gloves, and picks it out of a bunch, holding it up in the faded light of the stall. Shouto looks on, bemused, as Izuku reaches up and takes off Shouto’s hat, and replaces it with the candy cane. Then-

“It’s you!” Izuku cries, a smile on his face that reaches up beyond his eyes. The red-and-white tangle on Shouto’s head peeking out of his hat matches the exact colours of the twisted piece of confectionary Izuku is holding up.

And Shouto, bless him, laughs. Izuku keeps on grinning, and lets the musicality of Shouto’s laugh wash over him. He’s not quiet about it, but still Izuku feels that it is meant for him, and him only.

Still smiling, Izuku says “I’m absolutely buying this.”

And Shouto, looking as beautiful as Izuku has ever found him, smiling so widely, nods and just says, “Of course.”

He hands over the change, and tucks the candy cane into his bag for later. Maybe, if he plays his cards right, he’ll be able to hear Shouto’s wonderful laugh again.

Izuku is so lucky to have him.

But for now, he simply slips his hand back into Shouto’s, and they continue on into the night, still with smiles on their face, and the softest kind of love in their hearts.

-

"Hey Izuku!" Shouto calls, his voice echoing through their apartment at an ungodly hour. "I'm making pancakes? You want some?"

Izuku stumbles into the kitchen with weary eyes, and slumps down at the breakfast table, throwing a half-hearted glare at Shouto before nodding. "If you think you can make them without burning them," he says, the minimum amount of expression in his voice, "then sure."

Shouto blushes slightly, and oh, that wakes Izuku up a little. "Last time was an exception."

"Sure," Izuku says, as he fumbles backwards for his phone which should be charging, if he remembers from last night, on the counter behind him. "Just like the time before that. And the time before that. And the time-"

He trails off into giggles as Shouto glares playfully, and then can't quite stop when the smoke alarm chooses that moment to go off with a sharp wail.

Shouto jerks, and with a practiced motion, grabs the broom they use just for this and pokes up into the ceiling, turning the alarm off before it can wake their neighbours.

Izuku stifles his laughs before Shouto can turn back around, but there is still a wide enough grin on his face that Shouto can pretend to be disapproving.

"All this time, and I still haven't figured out pancakes." he says with a frown. "I honestly think I might be cursed or something."

"Nah, you'll get there eventually." Izuku reassures him, finally grasping his phone and pulling it free of the charger. "Say, have we decided on what to watch tonight? Tenya has," he looks down at his notifications, to see the familiar message from Tenya confirming his presence that had been sent at exactly 6 AM, just as it has been every month for the last six years. "said he'll come, as usual."

Shouto laughs. "One of these days, it's gonna be sent at 6:01, and that's when we'll know the apocalypse is here. What about Hitoshi?"

"No message, but that's usual as well. I'll send him a picture of Sunshine, and that'll probably convince him to make it."

With a small meow, their small tabby- named affectionately 'Sunshine' by Shouto by reasons Izuku doesn't quite understand - wanders into the kitchen and pokes her empty bowl with her head. She looks pleadingly up at Izuku, who takes the opportunity to take a picture and send it off to Hitoshi, who will likely not see it until he wakes up at midday.

Hitoshi had been an unknown at first. A god none of them had seen before, but who wouldn't stop running until Izuku had managed to win him over with the power of friendship and several cats.

The god of the mind. Such a title could be so easily abused in a place like Earth. But Izuku has never known Hitoshi to be anything other, than someone who wants to be better than what is expected of him.

Tenya, on the other hand, has always wanted to live up to the expectations of others. It's the reason why he left, and it's the reason why he stayed.

It's also the reason that him and Hitoshi only ever seem to get along when they have something in front of them to focus on.

Namely, TV. One of Izuku's favourite inventions of the modern era for the way it brings people together without them actually having to talk.

Several centuries is a long time to just be repeating the same conversations over and over.

So. Movie nights.

In the last few years, they’ve worked their way through several of the greatest works to ever grace the Earth, in both Shouto’s and Hitoshi’s experienced opinions. The full series of Avatar: The Last Airbender graces their wall (and hadn’t that been a long couple nights), as does Fullmetal Alchemist (both of them) and The Good Place. There are piles of DVD cases, some unopened, and some forced open to breaking, forming a collection of several decades that Izuku has been putting off sorting.

He is a very good procrastinator when he puts his mind to it.

But the time has come for them to choose a new show to begin, as their binge of The Office had ended after a few days of the last month, and Izuku is faced with too many possibilities to choose from.

Izuku glances, slightly more awake now, back at their sitting room. He doesn’t really know how they’ve ended up with so many shows; there are some that he or Shouto have picked up, usually from bargain bins or charity shops, but there are also many that to his knowledge, have never been made into DVDs, that they own as a part of their steadily growing collection. He figures it’s just one of those things, like him never getting pulled over for driving or Shouto’s hair always looking beautiful.

They are gods, still. Or maybe, it is now were. They love like something else.

Izuku turns back around, and looks at Shouto. There is a hiss of burning coming from the pan, and with a harried expression and a plate in one hand, Shouto dances around the cooker, trying to get the pancake on the plate.

He manages it, with debatable success, and presents it in front of Izuku as if giving it to a king.

“My darling,” he says with a smile. “Your breakfast is served.”

Izuku pokes a kiss on his cheek, and then begins to laden the pancake with every delicacy within his reach. Shouto turns around to examine the mess he’s made of their kitchen.

“To be fair,” he says, contemplatively. “This is a lot better than last time.”

Izuku, his mouth already full with a mouthful of sweetness, just nods and grins.

Shouto shakes his head, and goes back to the cooker to try again. “I had an idea for tonight’s series,” he says, tilting his head back to look at Izuku, before darting it back as he spills pancake mix.

There’s a mischievous look on his face, that makes Izuku want to kiss him silly, or at least see how he’d take to whipped cream on his face. But he just swallows his mouthful, and mimes for him to continue.

“It's about these two immortals, that fall in love over 6000 years,” Shouto says, and Izuku can’t help but roll his eyes, but the smile that reaches his lips is also uncontrollable. He’s such a sap sometimes. “They’re meant to be enemies, but they slowly become friends, all while hiding it from the people they work for. Maybe you’ve heard of it?”

A grin spreads over his face. “It’s familiar.”

Shouto leans around the table, and Izuku reaches up to meet him in a kiss, when the smoke alarm goes off again with a piercing wail.

Shouto sighs good-naturedly, and turns back to his pancakes, and allows Izuku to pretend he’s successful in hiding his blush behind his phone.

-

The 21st century, if Izuku must admit it to himself, feels more timeless than any other time in history.

There is a sort of endlessness about it. A desire for everything, and the brilliance to embrace it, no matter what. Izuku has never really felt the years before, but this is something different. Time no longer seems to mean anything.

He wonders if that is true.

The cafe is just to Izuku’s taste, tucked away in the smallest corner of the winding streets of the town, and already dressed up for christmas. A sweet aroma of cinnamon greets him as he opens the door, and a tinkling of bells sounds above his head.

He walks to the counter, paper snowflakes dangling along the edge, and orders a hazelnut latte. The cashier smiles at him as they hand him his cup, and Izuku notices a pretty holly clip in their hair.

“Thank you.” he says, taking his mug and cradling it in his cold hands. “I like your clip.”

They put a surprised hand up to their hair, fingering the fake holly, and laugh. “Thanks! Have a nice day!”

Izuku nods, tipping a few pennies into the charity donation box as he does. “You too.”

He makes his way over to the window, picking up a wad of napkins as he does, and takes a seat. The chair is wooden, with a handmade cushion made of a patchwork of fabrics, and the table covered in a lacy cloth. The sky outside is just turning dark, and the streetlamps are beginning to glow yellow through the window, the stained glass throwing patterns of colour onto the table.

Izuku turns to his companion, and brings his coffee up to his lips.

He blows, soft and steady, and takes his first sip.

“How have you been, my boy.” All Might asks from across the table, his hands folded and a mug of steaming tea cradled in his grasp. “It’s been so long.”

Izuku twitches a smile. “Forever.”

“Oh, my boy.” All Might says. “Forever does not even nearly begin to cover it.”

“So,” Izuku finally says, finally asks. Finally. “Tell me.”

The cafe seems achingly quiet, even despite the hum of noise Izuku can still hear. This is a moment that will change things, he thinks, a flyaway piece of poetry choosing now to find its way into his mind.

“Have you ever wondered why I am the king, Izuku?” All Might asks, first, his tea still steaming and his hands unbearably old. Izuku can see the age to them, the deep lines that go beyond wisdom and into weary.

“I haven’t.” Izuku admits. “It’s just always been that way.”

“Not always.” All Might shifts slightly in his chair, his golden halo of hair falling into his face. “There have been others.”

“But…” Izuku frowns. “But I don’t remember them. Everyone was created at the same time. How can that be?”

“They existed.” All Might nods. “And they were Kings in their time. As they were the time before that, and the time before that. And the time before that. We’ve all been here before, only, most never remember.”

“Here, as in, Earth?”

All Might pulls his face up into a smile, but it clenches his face so painfully that it looks more like a grimace.

“Here as in existing. Here as in, the same souls living and dying, trying so hard to see every inch of the cosmos that we have trapped ourselves to each other, repeating how it feels to live like some strange form of insanity."

A car drives past, its engine a roar.

Izuku studies him. "You sound very human." he settles on, after a long moment.

All Might chuckles. "Humans are wonderful in their ability to accept the world in its every reality. But eternity is hard for anyone to accept. My mentor explained this to me, just as I am doing for you know.”

Izuku looks down into his mug. “So you’re already decided.” he says, his voice oddly dull.

All Might sighs. Izuku notices his eyes, suddenly. They are dark, and hollow, but piercing blue, and they hurt Izuku something fierce. As a god, Izuku has had to learn to perceive reality as it is meant to be perceived. The fact that Izuku can now see something as important as All Might’s eyes causes the stone in his stomach to sink even further. Levity is lost on him.

“You doubt yourself.” All Might shakes his head. “You shouldn’t. I know perfectly well what you are capable of.”

“How?!” Izuku doesn’t shout, but he can only be thankful that the cafe is so empty, and that the cashier only looks over with concern and not worry when they hear him raise his voice. “I have lived a long life, entirely within your shadow. How is it that it is me you would choose? What makes me more special than any other god?” He shakes his head, and has to take another sip to calm himself down. “Knowing that, what makes me any more special than any human?”

All Might smiles, and the corner of his mouth dimples. “I’ve been watching.”

A car screeches on the corner of the road outside, the icy pavements proving dangerous this late in the year. Izuku lets his eyes wander, and follow the car as it passes around the corner and disappears from view, back into the night.

After a moment, he turns back to All Might.

“You’ve been, watching?” Izuku asks, in the face of All Might’s declaration. “For how long?”

All Might’s eyes turn downcast, and the darkness within them swirls. The blue in them grows dim. “I first noticed you after- after something happened to me. I had sudden reason to be looking for a successor, and I noticed you, a simple stablehand. You were barely even a member of my household, but you were kind to the animals, and you stood up for them, despite the efforts of others.”

Izuku frowns. “A, stablehand? I don’t-”

“We are infinite, Izuku.” All Might says. He looks sad as he says it, as if trying to tell a small child that a family member has died in the night. “And we are anything. That lifetime was spent as a royal court, somewhat similar to some of the olden societies here, but ultimately different. Magic could be freely harnessed, for one.”

Infinite... “Magic?” Izuku gives a half-smile, the tips of his mouth curling up. “Now that would be something to see.”

“It really was.”

“But that couldn’t have been the only time, right? You surely can’t have seen me as a stablehand and decided-”

He falls quiet. He lets his silence speak his doubts for him.

All Might sighs. “There were many others. Some I do not wish to tell you, and others I will not bore you with. A favourite of mine took place in an alternate future, similar to ours now, but with a population bestowed with the powers you are more likely to see in comic books here than anywhere in this reality. You were my successor in that one too, though of a different kind. That was the one where I knew that it had to be you.”

Izuku bites his lip. He cannot hold back on anything. “Please, you know how much this means to me. If I- If this happens, I want to know exactly why.”

“Because that was the one where you saved me.” All Might gives a small smile, and Izuku can feel, suddenly, the weight of the thousands and millions of people who have seen that smile and felt reassured. Felt safe, and loved.

Izuku wants, suddenly, fiercely, to be able to give his smile in the same way. To make people feel as loved as he feels right now, as he feels when faced with Shouto’s small grins and secret smiles, like they are finding a million ways to say I love you.

He wants what All Might has had.

He wants to love endlessly.

“What about Shouto?”

Perhaps it should not be his priority, but Shouto has been by his side for an eternity, even if it is only one. Izuku is not sure if he will still be able to love if half of his soul doesn’t know him.

All Might quietens. His long, bony fingers clench the handle of his mug until they whiten, and his hands tremble as he lifts his tea up to his mouth and takes a sip.

“You may be wondering why it is that I so suddenly decided I had need of a successor.”

Izuku nods. He had wondered, but had thought it best not to pry. The longer the conversation lasts and the more questions he finds, the less he wants to keep himself quiet.

“Well, it is because I lost someone dear to me. My companion, of so many lifetimes. When I ascended, I was allowed to take one person with me, to remember alongside me, and to discover the universe side by side. But I lost them along the way.” All Might shuts his eyes as he continues. “I still see them around. They are still living, but they have lost everything that we shared.”

Izuku asks “Is that what will happen to you? If I, take over.”

And All Might shakes his head. “No. When the next life comes around, you will be the only one to remember me. Just as with my mentor.”

Immediately, Izuku realises what he means.

“No more All Might.”

Izuku cannot imagine a world so dark.

All Might opens his eyes, and they are blue, like sapphires, or the sky in the mid-morning, or a calm ocean wave. They are piercing, and they dig into Izuku with the mournful sadness of an age well lived.

And All Might seems to disappear, fading away like paper, and in his place sits simply a man.

“Toshinori,” he says. “Please. I haven’t heard my own name in such a long time.”

Izuku blinks. “Toshinori.” he smiles, despite himself. “It's so nice to meet you.”

And Izuku becomes the first person in a very long time to see Toshinori smile.

Suddenly, he sees Toshinori for the first time properly.

The streetlights throw his face into light. Deep lines cut into his face, wrinkles around his mouth and eyes. They are laugh lines, but they are weary, Toshinori’s eyes downturned and sad. The blue seems less, now: more human. Natural. His cheekbones are harsh, framing hollowed cheeks and a short, pointy chin.

His smile is toothy, almost harsh. It still lights up the world, but in a different way. It is a smile born of pain; a smile born of a life well lived, and a trailing banner of memories forced into an unyielding shape. Izuku knows he will never be able to see Toshinori smile without being reminded of so much: the feeling of a sunset on a warm evening, the pain of a loss; the rapid change of a million different lives all passing through on the same road. Toshinori has lived a true eternity, and it hasn’t quite broken him yet.

But his crowning glory is his hair.

Like a sunflower, his hair spreads out around his head, two long bangs framing his face, and a small messy sun a circling halo behind it. It’s golden, and Izuku can’t help but be reminded of a crown. The weight of it on his back is clear, metaphorical may it be.

Long live the King.

The King has no intention of letting that happen.

“I’ll do it.”

Izuku feels the determination settle in his mind.

He had come to this meeting expecting the offer, not quite knowing what it would entail, but with the understanding that it would mean a responsibility beyond just one life. It would mean having the world in his care, and having to hold up the weight. It would mean saving people.

He would have taken it, if that was all it was. Izuku had been decided on that.

But he hadn’t realised that the first person he’d save by taking it would be the one sitting in front of him.

Something passes between them. A flash of understanding, perhaps, or the melding of a connection between two souls, creating a chain in order to unlock another.

Toshinori grimaces. “You are sure, then?”

Izuku nods. “Me and Shouto. We can do this.”

Toshinori doesn’t quite smile, but his eyes sparkle with the faint touch of nostalgia. “I know. I have complete faith in you both.”

Izuku is the one to smile, bringing his latte up to his lips and drinking down a warm mouthful.

“So,” he asks. “What’s next?”

Toshinori leans back in his chair. It is All Might again now, but Izuku cannot feel the image without seeing the man underneath. The man who is so much stronger than his image would suggest.

He takes a sip of his tea.

“You’re next.” he says. “But first, the End.”

-

The world is ending, and across a dark sky the constellations are changing.

Izuku can pick out the differences; a star, just off of the milky way, not quite as bright as it used to be. Orion bent out of shape, Ursa Major coming home to her bear. They are stories, written, immortalised, in the stars. A lifetime of human achievement all about to end.

This was always going to come, and Izuku is just thankful that the time he had was as lovely as eternity had promised.

The sensation of grass underneath him is starting to disappear, the wet dewdrops losing their chill and the faint smell of spring fading like it was never there. He can feel the light touches of nature begin its death, and he stands before it can take him too. He is on a hill, and the world is collapsing.

All Might had warned him, to be fair. Izuku has already had enough time to grieve.

He takes one last look at the world that taught him love; at the last beautiful sunset he will ever see. And then he lets go, and returns to his first home.

Yuuei is no different, despite thousands of years separating Izuku from the world he once belonged to. The grand pavilion still stands, white pillars stretching up high, framing the drop on to more. Houses, murky with their details, line brick-paved streets, and the sky is stuck somewhere between dawn and midday.

It would be lovelier, Izuku admits, if it were not marred by the swarms of people hurrying amongst it. He recognises very few: most of his real friends are already at the pavilion, standing, waiting in the wings.

And All Might, he knows, will be already long gone.

Izuku starts walking, calmly, towards the pavilion. There is shouting, a booming voice overlapping hundreds more, and Izuku catches a glimpse of red-and-white hair before the crowd moves forward again to hide his view.

Endeavour is strikingly powerful above the crowd, Izuku can admit. He wears flames like he was born from them, and they suit his rage like wind suits the trees in autumn.

He can already feel them all beginning to decay. He can understand, he supposes, why Endeavour might be so upset. All the god has spent the last eternity doing is accumulating power, and now he has to come face to face with the realisation that it is nothing in the face of pure entropy.

But still. Izuku knows that what Shouto has suffered was not worth the cost of one man’s ego.

The crowd is making waves, pushing and shoving, indignity taking over: the last reserve before the end of everything.

Izuku remembers All Might’s words.

You’re next.

He’s ready.

As if responding to his silent declaration, the crowd falls silent. The people fall apart, and turn towards him with something like respect.

Even Endeavour falls silent. Shouto, at his side, has his mouth open, a small gape of surprise that Izuku wants to take him away from all of this, and make their home in the inbetween, living out eternity.

And he will. But just not yet.

Izuku reaches the front of the pavilion, and climbs on top of the small stage. He turns to face his people.

Shouto’s mouth turns into a small smile, and he nods. A small quirk of the head, but it is enough to send a rush of heat down Izuku’s spine.

“All Might,” Izuku leads with. “isn’t coming.”

The crowd, if possible, falls even more still. More have joined, the stranglers in the street wanting one last speech before the end. Izuku cannot tell what they expect.

“Eternity is a long time.” Izuku says. His voice echoes across the pavilion. “And we may think we have lived it. We are gods, after all, and we have been alive a very long time.” He pauses, a careful deliberation. “Longer than we realise.”

He sees Ochako, standing off to the side, her hands tight. Her face is clenched, but she has accepted this. Izuku hopes that he will find her again.

“All Might isn’t here because he’s already lived this. I am here because we are going to, and I need you all to know-” Izuku looks over the crowd, of the people who represent the constructs he so fell in love with on earth, and he realises that he is about to leave it all behind.

He’s about to leave everything behind.

His eyes catch, and he’s back in Rome, a spark of life in two beautiful eyes: one the darkest black, the other azure. And within them, a galaxy, waiting to be discovered.

Shouto smiles at him from across a cafe, and Izuku has never been the same.

“I need you to know,” Izuku says, a tremor before he does, but his voice remains strong. “That I love you. That you mean everything to me. That no matter what comes next, I, will be by your side.”

He tries to tug his eyes away from Shouto, but a passing shower of stars catches him in their light, and he is radiant. His hair falls down his back like a river does to a mountain, and his face is a collection of things that Izuku loves. His burn is a valley, and his scars are silver threads, telling Izuku the story of them.

Shouto nods, and makes his way forward. The crowd parts for him in the same way it did for Izuku, and Izuku realises that Shouto glowing is not just in his mind. He is lined in white, a pale glow steadily growing stronger, with black tendrils enveloping his arms. Creation and destruction intertwine, and Izuku can hear the call of the next world, from somewhere within the void.

Izuku himself is glowing, he realises. Green, like grass in spring, or trees just before autumn. Green, like his hair, or the feeling of a warm sunset just before it ends.

Shouto reaches the stage, and Izuku takes his hands in his. Their connection sparks, and Izuku feels Shouto grip on, warmth flowing between them, their hands tightly clasped.

He has one last thing left to do.

Kacchan is standing on the edge of the crowd, Eijirou’s hand in his. He scowls, and raises an eyebrow, as if to say get on with it, we don’t have all day. But he nods, in some strange mangled respect, and Izuku steps forward.

“This is the end of one life,” Izuku says, and he can see now, in the distance, Yuuei starting to disintegrate. The falling of towers, and the broken city gates. “But it is not the end of all life. I assure you of that. My name is Deku, and I will assure you of that.”

He feels the name settle, and he feels the power of an infinite legacy settle into his bones. “I will see you all in a better tomorrow.”

He turns to Shouto, and smiles. There’s nothing left to do now but wait.

The destruction reaches the pavilion.

Shouto takes Izuku’s face in his hand, and strokes his thumb over Izuku’s cheekbone. Izuku can feel his face warm, and Shouto notices, if judging by his smile. Though, Izuku thinks, Shouto smiling could be for any reason.

“A better tomorrow,” Shouto mummers, his face achingly close, his lips an imperfect kiss. “How could it not be, when I have you?” Izuku grips his hand even tighter, and smiles, from the depths of his heart.

Shouto tips Izuku’s head up, and leans in.

They kiss, against a backdrop of infinite space; of the void; of destruction and creation forming something entirely new. They kiss against a sky of the end of the world.

They kiss, and for a moment, it is the only thing in the entire universe. This moment. This feeling.

This last precious moment.

And then it is all gone.

-

Izuku wakes up in bed.

Light is streaming through an open window, and birds are chirping outside. The covers of the bed only half cover him, and his legs had gotten cold in the night, a midnight chill having swept in through the crack in the defence. The culprit for this cover-stealing is obvious: on the other side of the bed, curled up in the bedsheets; his hair a tangled mess.

Shouto gives a slight snore, and turns, getting even more tangled in the covers, but stays fast asleep.

Izuku looks down. Their hands are still held tightly together, even after the depths of the night.

Smiling, Izuku rolls over towards Shouto, and falls back asleep, safe and loved in his warmth.

Eternity, he thinks, is moments like this.