Chapter Text
When you are immortal, time is an illusion, as the teenagers say nowadays, but they aren't exactly wrong. In their life, time is no illusion, it's real and it's slowly ticking down, second by second, day by day, month by month, year by year, until the clock ticks no more. Some people's clocks tick long, while others tick for a short amount of time.
But not Izuku Midoriya's. His clock has been ticking for too long. So long he can't even remember his original name.
He's been living on this earth for a good amount of time, the most annoying thing was trying to hide the fact that he's over thousands of years old and still looks like a teenager. Through every era, he had to find an excuse to disappear from one part of the world and reappear in another, it became difficult when humans started marking down their birth records, sometimes he found them extremely annoying. But that all changed when 'quirks' came around. Izuku believed that quirks had been around for thousands of years before that, he had met people that could shapeshift and people who could disappear with the blink of an eye, but because of disease and the church, most of those people were wiped out before they could have kids and pass on their powers.
Of course, he had to hide his immortality for about sixty years then tell people his 'highly unlikely' theory that he was immortal. None of his friends believed him, I mean who would? In humans, being immortal seems like a dream come true, you have billions of years to do everything you want to do and the best part is that you don't have to worry about what happens when that stupid little clock stops ticking, because it never will. Izuku disagreed.
"Aw come on man, don't you think it'd be cool to live forever? I mean, imagine all the things you could do that could possibly kill you!"
"Like what?" Izuku rolled his eyes, his friend was drinking again, sloshing his drink over Izuku's newly bought clothes.
"Jump off a building...swim to the depths of the ocean...start a revolution...hey! You could go to space and find those funky moon martians that everyone's talkin' about without those fancy space hats!"
"Just because you're immortal doesn't mean you don't feel pain" Izuku tried to hide the frustration in his voice.
He had tried to kill himself, many times. He even went as far as to join the French Revolution and get beheaded but alas, the next morning he woke up with a new body on a pile of ashes made from burned bodies.
Being burned alive didn't help much either, half of America was scared of him after he got tried as a witch and refused to die. They stoned him, attempted to drown him, tossed him off cliffs, and even let their dogs try to eat him alive. But he was still alive. Eventually, after attempting to kill him seven times the villagers locked him in a basement and scattered, fearing they'd be cursed if they stuck around for much longer.
Even though he learned not to get attached to people, it saddened him to see one of the people he fell in love with, look at him with absolute fear in their eyes. They looked betrayed, confused, and angry. They looked like they regretted ever telling him that they loved him. Which hurt more than any pain he had ever felt.
"And what makes you say that?" His friend was slumped back in his stool, arms crossed and hat tipped down like he was ready to fall asleep
"It's called immortality, not pain immunity, ya simp"
"I'm not a simp! Just a little tipsy" His friend said with a yawn
Izuku scoffed "Tipsy? that's your seventh drink of the night, I'd say you're a little more than tipsy"
His friend grumbled, "yeah yeah, don't tell the wife about this alright?"
"Sure" His friend's wife hated the idea of alcohol, she said 'that's the devil's liquid, tears families apart and make men stray away from God by looking at those prostitutes when they get woozy'. Izuku couldn't help but agree with her, not about the family and prostitute thing, but that alcohol was the work of Satan himself. Though his friend had told him that'd he'd like it if he tried it, Izuku denied it every time. He was still traumatized from the first creations of alcohol, the amber liquid tearing burning holes in his throat as he chugged it down.
If he was being honest, at the time he thought that was going to be the thing that finally killed him.
He knew with the advancement of technology that alcohol would be much better than it was when it was first created way back then. But still, he refused to try a single drop.
"Man, I don't wanna die" His friend muttered
Izuku looked at him with a side glance and sipped his water "You've gotta long life ahead of you"
"But it'll end someday won't it?" His friend asked
"Not mine" Izuku muttered quietly, his friend didn't hear him, thank the stars.
"As much as I complain about my wife being a bitch, I still can't imagine leaving her alone with the little one, I mean, aren't you scared?"
"A little, yeah"
"Not that you'd know anything about a family" His friend snickered
In truth, Izuku had a family once, when he was younger. He had a wife and kids who he loved very dearly, they were his reason to like being immortal because he knew he could watch them grow and prosper and he could be proud of them day after day. When his wife died the reality hit him that not all people were immortal, he had led himself into a fantasy world where his wife and kids would be immortal alongside him.
His kids died 4 years later when disease swept through their village and claimed the lives of his closest friends and family. He remembered sitting over his daughter's haystack, holding her hand and kissing it gently. His whole body was shaking harder than hers. Every time she coughed up blood, Izuku cried a little harder until he barely had a voice.
What hurt him the most was hearing someone so sweet, so brave, so carefree, so young, utter the words:
I'll see you in heaven, papa.
How could he comfort her? If he said 'I'll see you there' he'd be lying to himself and his daughter, but if he stayed silent, it would make her last moments alive more painful than they had to be.
I'll see you there sweetheart.
But he never saw her again, he never saw anyone from that village again actually. Heartbroken, he made his way up to the mountains and built a cottage there, he built simple graves for his family out of rock and planted a variety of plants he knew could survive in the mountains by their graves. He found a skeleton of a traveler that had died long ago and placed it on a chair in the cottage, that way if anyone ever came looking for him, they would find his dead body. Then he could start a whole new life.
"No, but I still got people I love here" Izuku swirled his water in his cup, staring blankly into it
His friend stayed quiet for a moment "Would you care if I died"
"Pfft, no." Izuku snorted
"Bullshit" His friend laughed and shoved Izuku lightly. Their laughter died down as the heavy conversation weighed down on them "I think I'd cry if you died"
Izuku fought the urge to say something about his immortality, even though quirks had been a thing for thirty years, his friend still believed that his quirk was never aging outwardly. Which made Izuku sad, he didn't know if his friend did want to accept the fact that Izuku was immortal or he thought he was just trying to get a rise out of him.
"Don't go quiet on me" His friend mumbled
"I don't know what to say"
His friend sighed "Me either"
The two men sat in silence for a while, letting the chatter of the bar and whistling from men to women fill their heads. Izuku thought his friend had passed out and was ready to take him home to a very angry wife, but then he spoke up
"Let's make a pact yeah?" He said, raising his empty glass "Friends for life?"
Izuku smiled "Friends 'til the end of eternity"
Their glasses clinked and a quick tear escaped Izukus's eye, he wiped it away quickly.
He knew his friend was gonna die at some point. His clock was going to stop ticking while Izuku's kept running, and after hundreds of years passed, this pact would be forgotten. A few short words spoken in a lowly bar that nobody could hear. Izuku's memory would bring him pain as he tried to remember his friend's face, but it would be faded, like his memory of all the other people important to him.
As he looked at him, Izuku tried to take in as many facial features as he could. The kind eyes, the crooked smile that all the ladies loved, his lumpy nose that had been broken several times when the boys got into fights in their youth and they refused to see a doctor, the little bit of stubble that grew on his chin because his wife hated a man with a beard, the hat that sat loosely on his head and let his wavy hair fall out (it was supposed to be gelled but no amount of gel could fix that man's hair), and the hand that held the drink they made their pact with.
Whiskey may be the one reminder of this pact five hundred years later, when his friend was long gone.
"Alright, Mr. Immortal, I think it's time we go home" His friend smiled sadly and stood up from the barstool, he was barely able to walk in this state.
"You gonna be able to carry him home kid?" The bartender asked, she was using the rag she usually had thrown over her shoulder to wash out his friend's dirty cup.
It was odd enough seeing a woman in any workplace, but a female bartender blew everyone's minds. When Izuku first came here, he thought she was gonna get harassed by every man in here, he was surprised there were even men in here. He quickly learned why she was so respected here, his friend got a little too drunk one night and decided it would be a good idea to try and get her attention while she was playing pool.
Izuku remembered how the other guys they were drinking with leaned with their backs against the bar and arms crossed, an amused look on all of their faces as they watched his friend stumble over to the pool tables. He could hear what his friend was saying over the talking of everyone in the bar but when she slammed him down on the pool table it was loud enough for the whole country to hear.
The men laughed their asses off and even though Izuku never admitted it, he was laughing along with them. His friend came back holding his and holding back tears. He asked what hellhole she crawled out of and one of the men, who happened to be her cousin, responded with 'straight outta Texas'.
She had no quirk, but hell she was strong. The owner of the bar held an arm-wrestling competition one night and whoever won got free drinks for a week. To every alcoholic's dismay, she won, saying 'There ain't no way I'm lettin' my paycheck get cut cause some of y'all got a drinkin' problem'
Izuku liked her a lot, she was the only reason he kept coming to this bar. She was entertaining and was always happy to tell you stories from other bars or from when she lived down in Texas. Although she had a rough exterior, she was surprisingly kind, caring a lot about her customers and their families. Everyone loved her. Some part of Izuku envied her charisma but on the other hand, attracting too much attention never ended out well.
"Yeah, I'll be able to take him home, thanks ma'am"
She gave him a thumbs up "Alrighty, say howdy to his wife and kid for me"
Izuku smiled at her and wrapped his friend's arm around his shoulder "Will do"
Once they left the bar, his friend chuckled "You should ask her out"
Izuku was caught off-guard by his friend's statement "What?!"
"Don't act so surprised I see the way you look at her. With those lovey-dovey eyes that gross couples make" With his free arm his friend point at his mouth and fake gagged. Izuku was surprised he didn't actually vomit.
"Look I just admire her strength, that's all" Izuku huffed. He was never one to comment on someone's weight but his friend sure as hell wasn't a twig.
"Strength? Buddy, I think you're just using her muscles as an excuse to look at her boobs!" His friend wheezed
"I'm gonna dump you on the street soon" Izuku joked
His friend rolled his eyes "Nah, you're too scared of my wife"
That was true, out of all the women he could've married he picked the bat-shit crazy one. She was always finding something to yell about, making up excuses from out of the blue, the usual for a crazy woman. The whole neighbourhood thinks she should be in the looney bin, but not him. He loves her more than life itself, he saw something in her that no one else tried to see.
"She's gonna love me for bringing you home, she's gonna hate you for drinking" Izuku laughed
"Yeah yeah. Why'd you have to park so far away" His friend groaned "My feet hurt"
Izuku glared at him, they were five feet away from his car and ten feet away from the bar's entrance. This man's laziness was going to be the death of him. Not literally of course.
"Aw can the little boy not walk five feet to my car, boohoo" Izuku pouted at him
His friend waved him off and took his arm off of Izuku's shoulder "Back off will ya? I'll walk myself"
Izuku stopped walking and crossed his arms, watching his friend stumble towards his car. When he got to the door he smirked at Izuku, opened the door, and his face turned extremely pale.
"Face away from my-!" Izuku shouted but it was too late. He groaned in frustration, of all times he had to hurl it was right when he was facing Izuku's car
His friend chuckled and wiped his mouth "Sorry 'bout that, I'll clean it in the morning"
Izuku sighed "No, you'll be getting a beating from your wife in the morning, don't worry about it"
His friend shrugged at stumbled to the other side of the car, not wanting to sit in the pile of vomit that was on the driver's side.
Izuku got into his car and started the engine, thankfully, it was easy to pull straight out of his parking spot. Backing up was a challenge in this thing, he's lost count of how many times he accidentally hit a fire hydrant or somebody else's car while attempting to go in reverse. These cars were handy and by far one of the best inventions so far but still a pain in the ass.
When he pulled into the driveway, his friend's wife was there, tapping her foot and looking very pissed off
"M'lady" Izuku tipped his hat with a cheeky grin
"Cut the shit, where is he?" His wife asked
"Backseat, ready for a beatin'"
"QUIT!" His friend shouted from the backseat
His wife sighed "I don't know what he'd do without you"
"Hit on chicks, pass out drunk in an alleyway, y'know usual drunkard stuff" Izuku shrugged
"You're a good guy for not drinking that shit" She put a hand on his shoulder and patted it twice, Izuku smiled at her
"I do my best"
"Alright sweetheart let's go inside, I'm sure the kid is dying to see me" His friend laughed
"The kid is sleeping soundly and you aren't waking him up. You go to bed too" She pushed him into the house and slammed the door. Izuku flinched at the sound. She waved goodbye from the window and shut the lights off to the living room and kitchen.
Izuku left the car in their driveway, hoping his friend would clean it up for him but he doubted it. His wife would probably do it for him as thanks for bringing her husband home safely.
He stuck his hands in his pockets and whistled a jingle from a radio commercial he had heard earlier. It was a beautiful night, clear skies, bright moon, the stars were shining and there was just a slight breeze.
Izuku unlocked the door to his house and tossed his keys on the counter. He managed to buy a beautiful house, the attic was big enough for him to make it into a room for himself, plus a basement for storage. His friend made fun of him for preferring to sleep in the attic but from past experiences, Izuku liked to be hidden away, just in case a burglar came in.
Another reason he liked sleeping in the attic is that the window opened up to let him onto his roof. Since he had the body of a teenager, he could easily squeeze in and out the window when he wanted to look at the stars.
Ever since he was born, everyone was always obsessed with the stars, some said they tell stories of where we came from, others say it's our ancestors and gods looking down on us in our darkest times, and others think they're there to guide us along the journey of life. Either way, in all his years the stars have never gotten boring, they were always beautiful and it was a great memory jerker to name all the constellations he could find that one of his mothers taught him. He couldn't remember which one.
He liked this era, it was fun, everyone was doing well and there seemed to be nothing bad going on. For the first time in his life, he still hated being immortal but didn't regret every second of his existence.
Izuku opened his eyes when a harsh breeze blew in his face. He looked back up at the stars wondering if his friend was up there.
Hard to believe that was one hundred years ago.