Chapter Text
The first time Rody met his soulmate, he felt his heart threaten to beat right out of his chest. His hands were clammy and he felt his stomach twist into a knot. Jittery and nervous, he felt like he was about to enter cardiac arrest or get on a sugar-rush.
His soulmate. His other half, mistakenly born in another body. Here he was. The missing part of him.
Pino was aflutter next to him, chirping and twittering all about, flying in backflips and the like, but Rody didn’t think about that. Rody couldn’t see that. All Rody could see was the young man in front of him. From the way his eyes widened when their eyes met, he must have known, too.
“So, it’s you?” he asked, as casually as possible. He gave a big shrug, and wondered if his soulmate was disappointed, wondered how disappointed his soulmate would be, when he learned about Rody, about his family, about how desperate he was for money, about what he would do for some cash.
And still, he wanted to believe past all reasonable doubt and logic, and believe in his fluttering heart.
Green eyes, green like the rolling hills under sunny skies, stared at him, his expression briefly turning into hurt, and Rody almost punched himself in the mouth. Stupid. Idiot. Dumbass. Why did he say that? Why did he have to say it like that? His soulmate looked like a foreigner. It couldn’t have been easy to come all the way here to meet him so-
“Yes,” he said quietly, his accent slight and eyes downcast, “apparently so.”
He gave him a deep bow, and oh no, Rody thought it was bad enough that it was someone that wasn’t from this country, but it had to be one of those Eastern Countries with a lot of rules and societal expectations, huh? The young man reached into his pocket and pulled out a small card. He stepped forward and placed it on the bar.
“...If you ever need anything,” he said, “Please give this number a call.” He gave another bow and then turned away, his expression dark as he explained, “Excuse me then.”
And Rody frowned. Pino tweeted loudly, scolding him like he didn’t know, slapping him on the cheek several times, and reached over the counter to grab Midoriya’s hand.
“Hey, aren’t you going to introduce yourself?”
Or at least, that’s what Rody wanted to say. There was a flash of blue, and Rody yelped as he jumped backwards. Years on the street taught him a thing or two about dodging sudden and flashy quirks. Fuck, what the hell? Was this blue fire? The ground, and the fire barely touched it, was scorched. That could have been him.
“Dabi,” his green-eyed soulmate called out, and then said something that Rody had no idea about. What language was that? Chinese?
The fire died out just as fast, and next to the door where no one was just a second ago was a tall man with white hair and a frightening exterior made of deep scars and staples.
Well shit, Rody thought. Was his soulmate a villain? His eyes fell to the card on the bar.
“I am about that,” and Rody could hear the accent, and it took him a moment before he understood what he was saying. “My friend is energetic.” He took one last look at Rody and then nodded his head again, “Have a good day.” He gave another bow and then, left the bar.
With one last glare, the man at the door left, too. Leaving Rody behind with an innocent-looking card and his heart lodged in his throat.
-
The thing about Rody’s life was that things never went wrong one at a time. Things went wrong all at once, like spilling hot coffee on himself, and then steering a car over a cliff and into raging waters during a sudden storm while a volcano erupted in the background. Something like that. It was like getting struck by lightning, shot, and assaulted while listening to bad technomusic, all at once.
One day, a deal he ran for fell through, and they traced him back to the bar. It didn’t matter that he had nothing to do with it. It didn’t matter that he only did the delivery and had no idea why the deal fell through or who even came. He got his ass handed to him. But then Lala got sick. But then Roro didn’t come home. Did he take his sister to the hospital? Did he try to find his brother? He didn’t even waste time trying to think if he should take care of his bleeding nose or cracked ribs. Pino wouldn’t even come out of his pocket.
He scrawled a note for his brother and took his sister to the hospital. At the hospital, he found his brother, beaten half an inch into his life and unable to recognize him.
If his sibling died, what was left of Rody? What was the point of Rody? What could Rody do? With or without this? Why did this happen? Why did he do this? Where did he go wrong?
Empty, hollow, and alone, Rody’s mind spun as he tried to understand the universe.
That card fell out of his pocket and he understood something.
Even if he was going to be dragged to hell, he was going to drag the sons of bitches who did this to his family with him.
“Hello?” he said into the payphone when he heard the line pick up. “Uh… we didn’t introduce ourselves then, but you gave me this card. I need… I need help. Please, I’ll do whatever you want so please. My siblings. Please save my family.
Afterwards, he realized that he still didn’t even know what language that guy spoke. It was Chinese, right? What the hell did Chinese people say and do? He didn’t know. He didn’t even know who did this to his brother, what the hell would he care about people halfway around the world?
“...Understood.” It was that voice. Was he doing well? Did he go sight-seeing? Was he disappointed that Rody used this number?
Did he feel butterflies in his stomach, the same way Rody did when he heard his voice?
And the line cut.
Eight hours later, feeling as though the world was wrongfully spinning even though he felt sick to the bone, Rody felt like it was just a dream. The call was a terrible nightmare. Hope was a terrible nightmare. He could barely afford clothes for them, how could they pay for hospital bills and collection agents? Pino wrapped himself with his wings.
And a pair of feet came right in front of him. He picked his head up slowly, and a nurse stood there.
“Excuse me, are you the guardian for Roro and Lala Soul?”
He nodded, numb.
“They should be able to go home later today,” she said. “If you would follow me, we need you to sign a few things before we can let them-”
He shot up to his feet, startling the nurse.
“W-what? How… How are they okay?”
Her eyebrows creased, “...They’re fine. They stabilized last night. By any chance, do they have a healing quirk of some sort?”
“...What?”
-
His siblings were fine. They were filled with laughter, unharmed and unhurt. There was no memory of the previous night, and they peered up at him like he had never failed them.
Grateful didn’t even begin to describe the feeling he had.
Eventually, however, it subsided into dread. His eyes fell to the card. Was it better to wait for collections or to face it head-on? Concerning that it was someone that could sneak into a hospital and cure two children back to full health, as though nothing had happened at all, in less than eight hours, he figured that there was a better way to go about this.
-
Rody stared at the business card in his hand, and understood that he had made a deal with the devil. He made a wish, and now he had to pay the price, right? And at the very least, he needed to thank them. He needed to do something because he felt like he would explode with this feeling that was sitting and festering in his heart.
Or what, was this card something that would only grant his wish three times? And now he had two times left? After that, would they take his soul? Could they wait until his siblings are older and able to take care of themselves?
He tried his hardest, but all he remembered were those green eyes. He thought that the young man, his soulmate, was someone that barely came to his chest, but maybe that wasn’t the case at all. Was he actually huge? His presence was something else, wasn’t it?
His head throbbed. The last few days were so peaceful, so simple that it made him nauseous. He was constantly waiting for his life to blow back up in his face.
Please, he wanted to beg, come and collect your dues before Rody drowned himself in this useless feeling of debt.
Fingers trembling, he finally called again. His stomach twisted in his chest, feeling like a hardened stone.
“Thank you,” he said as soon as he heard someone pick up. “Thank you, thank you so much. I… I don’t know how to repay you. I-”
“Do you need help?”
“I… what?”
“Do you need help?”
“...No, I just wanted to-”
The line went dead, silent. Roy stared at the cell phone, astonished.
Was this how having a soulmate was supposed to be?
-
“I need help.”
The other side was quiet. Rody licked his lips. Gotcha.
“I want to meet my soulmate. Do… Can you do that for me?”
“...Yes. Are you free at 2pm?”
“Y-Yeah, I can do that. Uh… There’s a huge fountain near the city, so just… Maybe we can meet there?”
The second time Rody met his soulmate, he would do a proper meeting. He would introduce himself and listen to him, and maybe they could get ice cream. Rody scrounged for some extra bills, and his arm still throbbed from that job but he could buy his soulmate a snack. It was the least he could do, at least for the person that did all this for him.
“Rody, are you meeting someone?”
“Is it a girrrrl?!”
“Eek, a sister-in-law?!”
Rody worked hard to keep his smile on his face while Pino flew like a drunkard into the wall, instead of flying straight. “Of course not. I’m just going to meet,” my soulmate, “a friend.”
There was a pause, and both sibling stared at him in shock.
“You have friends?”
“Don’t be so rude!” he shouted back, and Pino started to cry.
“Can we be friends, too?” Lala asked, “I wanna meet them!”
“M-Me too!” Roro exclaimed, standing up and patting himself on the chest.
And Rody, who wanted to give them the world, grinned back.
“Yosh! I’ll see what I can do! But, you know, they're pretty shy.”
But he knew that he couldn’t bring his soulmate to a place like this. It wasn’t that he was ashamed of his lifestyle or his cute baby siblings, but he wasn’t exactly proud either. He wasn’t exactly a “come meet my parents” kind of person, after all.
“We’ll be nice!”
“Yeah!”
Rody held them tightly before he left.
“Alright. Well, I shouldn’t be late tonight, but if I am late-”
“We’ll start dinner without you!” Roro chirped back.
“Bye-bye!” Lala laughed, "I love you!"
And with a grin, Rody waved back before he headed to work for the day, heart swelling in his chest. He would do anything, he could do anything, for the two of them.
Two pm seemed so far away and so close, all at once.
-
Rody stood in his best clothes, smoothing everything out and hoping that he didn’t look too disappointing. It would be fine, right? He was fine, right?
Pino ran into two streetlamps, unable to fly straight like he was drunk, and Rody hoped that he looked like he was laughing and not like he was crying.
He got to the bar, thinking and believing that he could take a small job or something, but the look on the barkeep’s face had him stopping where he stood.
“A-Ah,” he said, and his face twisted into the worst grin that Rody had ever seen. It was filled with that forced energy, as though he was being held at gunpoint, and his voice trembled as he spoke. “W-Welcome, dear Rody-san!”
“...What?”
As it turned out, his go-to employer was keeping him at arms’ distance now. He didn’t want to just blame everything strange and phantastical on his new soulmate, but it surfaced into his head in an instant.
No way, right?
Needless to say, Rody didn’t have any jobs to do and two pm rolled around. Time was merciless.
-
He knew which one was his soulmate. He knew from the moment he was a street out, and he knew that his soulmate knew too, because as soon as he stepped into the area, those green eyes snapped up. Rody didn’t know about anyone else, but their eyes locked and that empty ache inside of him throbbed.
Eyes a spring green, as though to promise a world filled with life and gentle breezes, met his. Rody’s mouth parched. He opened his mouth, and then closed it.
Get it together, he thought to himself. He couldn’t just pretend to be some stumbling and bumbling idiot. Wasn’t it bad enough that he was some poor sap that couldn’t even take care of his two baby siblings?
He raised his hand, and waved. Watched the way green eyes shined underneath the sun, and it was easy for Rody to forget the world.
"Uh..." he cleared his throat, "N-Nihao?"
He took two steps closer, and maybe it was two steps too close, because there was suddenly a knife to his throat and he didn’t even realize that there was someone behind him-
“Spinner,” his soulmate called out, and then spoke some nonsense and Rody realized that he didn’t understand it because it wasn’t in a language he knew.
The cold edge of the blade disappeared and a lizardman stepped back.
But what scared Rody the most was that all of this, and no one in the square batted an eye. He’d like to think that, even if no one came to help, someone would still stop and stare, but that wasn’t the case. If he didn’t know any better, he would say that they were alone in the universe. He couldn't even find his voice.
The young man stepped closer to him, “...My name is Mido…” he sighed, and shook his head. He tried again. “My name is Izuku Midoriya. I'm from Japan,” he said as he closed the distance between them. The two at his side reluctantly took a step back (language barrier or not, there were some things that translated easily between people, and Rody’s been in enough beat-downs to know that no one here except maybe his soulmate, but even he didn’t look ecstatic to meet Rody). “Nice to meet you.”
Rody stared and then ducked his head. Rubbing the back of his neck, he moved from foot to foot. Shit, not China. Where was Japan anyways?
“Uh…” he had a script prepared, but now that they were facing each other like this, it was hard to remember what it was. His locket dragged across his chest, and he remembered himself, “Thanks for your help. My siblings…”
“Of course. If you’re ever having a hard time, just reach out to me using that number. I’ll do what I can.”
And now that Rody had seen it for himself, he understood how heavy those words were.
“So uh,” Rody hated how ungrateful he sounded, but he honestly didn’t care what kind of person he became if it meant that Lala and Roro could live easy lives, “my siblings. Could you… Help me take care of them? I just… want them to eat every day, have a safe place to sleep, get an education, live peacefully. But it’s-it’s hard, you know? I know that it’s asking for a lot but I-”
“Do you mind moving to Japan?” Izuku asked. “Then, I can provide everything for you and your siblings.”
Rody’s knee-jerk reaction was No. This country was still the country that he was born to. This country and this land were all the memories he had left of his mom and dad, but more importantly, his mom. Even if it was rough and he had some tough times, he could still point out the ice cream parlor where Roro had his first waffle cone and the playground where Lala got on the swing for the first time.
And this guy, this soulmate of his, thought that he would just roll over and accept it? He-
“...It’s okay to say no,” Izuku replied, his gentle expression hadn’t changed once. “Let me know by calling that number-”
Rody’s hand grabbed his wrist. Around them, he heard someone hiss, but he didn’t let it stop him.
“Let’s go!”
Because more important than the past was the future. And more important than his feelings and pride was the health and well-being for Roro and Lala.
“I’ll do whatever you want,” he said, “so my siblings. Please.”
And the whole “soulmate” thing was a lot less romantic than he thought it would be.