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Visiting hours were close to ending; Izuku assumed they had about thirty minutes left before Shouto would have to leave. Or, more than likely, be dragged out. Since the doctors had cleared him to be seen, to have visitors, Shouto had spent every waking moment, and then some, in the room with Izuku, barely containing spiteful flames and bitter frost at the idea of being forced to leave.
Izuku appreciated that. Unlike his mom, or All Might, who fussed at the head of his hospital bed, trying to hide tears and regret behind protective strides, causing a pricking sensation to press at the edges of the boy’s heart. He didn’t understand the constant fretting since the damage had already been done; unlike Tenya and Ochako who were timid around him, touches light as if his skin had become glass; unlike everyone else who had been kind enough, healed up enough , to see him, Shouto’s presence was soft, real, and grounding. It was a needed comfort, given all that Izuku had lost.
Fractured ribs, some internal bleeding, second-degree burns, heavy scarring, specifically across the left eye, damage to both legs… a transhumeral amputation of the right arm.
It had been… hard to hear, and even harder to process, when Izuku was within his right mind to do so. The weight, phantom and permanently absent, threw off his balance. Since coming into the hospital, Izuku spent more time feeling like he was floating outside of himself. Dangling above his body, away from his family, among the forces of good and evil.
But having Shouto there made it easier. When the air didn’t come at his beckoning, Shouto stayed beside him and took on some of the struggle to breathe. When Izuku couldn’t help how his eyes would glaze over, thinking of Bakugou in a hospital bed and Aizawa wobbling on the one leg he had left and Gran Torino in his last moments, placing a yellow cape over Izuku's shoulders, still stained red, Shouto’s face would be the first thing he’d see as things came back into focus. Even with all the floating he was doing, something, someone , kept him tethered.
Shouto was a fixture of the present. They were together right now.
So Izuku decided that he would take advantage of that fact, if only for the little bit of visitation time that he had left with the other. Reaching out with his left hand, his only hand, he let the back of his fingers slide across an icy cheek.
Heterochromatic eyes met forest green.
“Izuku?”
When the war had ended, after Death had given him a contemplative stare, but allowed him to live , Izuku decided he couldn’t walk away from the battlefield with Shouto continuing to call him “Midoriya.” They had passed a threshold of some sort, overcoming an obstacle that was monumental and terrifying but beautiful because it made the name “Shouto” fall so easily from his lips. The word was pleasant on his tongue; it tasted like safety, like a captivating promise of something .
It carried the aftertaste of love.
“Sho,” Izuku called, swallowing up that warm savor as his voice carried through the smell of antiseptic, through dulling lights and the short distance between them.
“Is something wrong, Izu?”
The other couldn’t help snorting at that. There were a lot of things that came to mind as an answer, too many things to even begin naming. Still, Izuku honed in on something specific; a thought that crawled out of his mind to lie beneath his skin, moving to tickle at the back of his throat every time he went to speak.
“Are we… going to be okay?”
Maybe Izuku had their injuries in mind. Not just himself and Shouto, but all the students and pro heroes who had touched ground on the warzone. Maybe he worried over something deeper, something haunting that medical attention or the prospect of Eri’s rewind would never be able to scab over. The recollection of blood-soaked soil and the sound of screams; Shigaraki’s voice ringing in his head: You think you’re the only one who wanted to be good, to be loved ? I just wanted someone to listen, to care, but they all just walked past me! Everyday, they watched me suffer, and you heroes… You’re no different...
Izuku had been the last person, and perhaps the first, to hold Shigaraki in their arms. By the time he had managed to, though, it had already been too late.
And that was consuming the crevices of his sanity, overriding all other thought until he found himself in a loop. Cyclical, never ending bouts of suffering.
But still…
Izuku figured he was asking about him and Sho, too. He was able to make room in his mind for that.
He could recall being in a medicated haze just after the final battle as if it were a dream. He could just make out the feeling of a hot hand surrounded by his own weak grasp, the limb held up to his chest, as he whispered, “I need to tell you, I’m sorry I didn’t before… My quirk, One for All…”
He barely remembered how uttering I was quirkless scraped at the roof of his mouth, rubbing the tissue raw and tender until Izuku wondered if blood painted the insides of his lips. He babbled on about All Might, about being worthy but still unworthy and sorry, so so sorry, Sho.
There had been silence after he shared his truth, or Izuku had fallen asleep without realizing, letting the sudden weightlessness from his confession, the reality that for right now, all the fighting was over, lull him into a blessed darkness. When he had woken up again, Shouto was still there, arm pressed into Izuku’s chest with a certain gleam in his eyes.
But he never spoke about the things Izuku told him.
That may be why Izuku finally forced himself to ask. They had talked about their teachers and families, their friends’ varying conditions. They even skated around the topic of the lost arm, poking and probing at how Izuku grappled with the loss while wondering why it wasn’t worse.
I could have done so much more, Sho. I don’t deserve… this, it could have been worse, should have been worse, if I had only fought harder.
Shouto had been quick to hush the soldier out of his voice, soothing the survivor's guilt that didn’t quite know its name yet with soft and precise words. He made no issue of the tears that Izuku had colored his shirt with, either.
And now, just like then, Shouto addressed him with such affection .
“I think that… we’ve been through a lot, haven’t we, Izu?”
A nod started, growing more frantic and grateful as Shouto grabbed Izuku’s hand in both his own.
“There’s still a lot to come in the future too, I’m sure. We have to worry about you healing up, about the others getting better, too… We don’t really know what our next step is, now that this is over.”
Izuku felt that breathlessness creeping in again. It trailed up from his spine to the back of his neck. He tried gasping around the sensation before it collapsed his lungs, before it forced him to forget how to breathe.
At the sign of his struggle, Shouto pushed his arm out towards him, reaching and reaching and reaching until cool fingers cradled Izuku’s nape.
They tickled at the tapered hair there, feeling at his scalp now that the curls were gone.
Just one more thing you weren’t good enough to save. Another notch on the list of failures —
Izuku forced his lungs to open, to welcome the swallow of air. If not for himself, then for Shouto.
“What I mean, Izuku, is that it’ll be hard. I know that we’re both aware of that. But this,” the other started, raising their linked hands for Izuku to see.
“This is something you never have to worry about. We are okay, I promise. As long as I’m here, while we’re both still breathing, that’ll never change. I’ve got you, okay?”
Voice choked and more silent than a whisper could ever hope to be, Izuku responded, “okay.”
The kiss Shouto pressed at the edge of the scar across his eye a second later was his undoing. But, just as he did with all other shows of Izuku’s pain, his unfiltered and ugly grief demanding to be known, Shouto held onto him tightly. He let the other settle against his chest, the thumpthumpthump of Shouto’s heart eventually ringing out in Izuku’s ear over the sound of broken sobs and a timid nurse reminding them that visiting hours were over.
If Shouto stayed a few minutes longer than allowed, Izuku made no issue of it.