Archive of Our Own

“Melting in the incredible speed of the passing scenery

Everything fades

The young flower vendor standing on the street corner

Reminds me of you”

—Flowers

~*~

Rody had barely turned off the truck before Roro and Lala threw the passenger-side door open, giggling as they spilled themselves right out of it. Under any other circumstances, Rody would have anxiously yelled for them to stop and wait for him, but all the way out here in the countryside, he wasn’t so worried about them. They could run and run until they were touching the horizon and Rody would still be able to see them. Not a single building or another human being for miles and miles. Just tall grass, flowers, and the empty space of nature untouched by society. 

Rody had made a list of priorities when it came to what he would spend the money from his new, honest job on. School supplies were at the very top of the list since he and his siblings were finally going back, and above all else, Rody wanted to make sure that his siblings thrived in their new academic environment. The second item on the list was a cellphone as well as the data plan to be able to utilize it, since Izuku was pretty much his only friend in the whole world and he wanted a way to keep in contact with the other boy. But the third item was a car—any type of car, it didn’t matter what it was as long as it could drive as far as the other side of the country and then back again. 

The truck had fallen into his lap much the same way a mangy stray dog falls into the lap of the poor soul who first sees it on the street and decides to take it home. It was old, ugly, a completely different color than whatever it had been when it was brand new, and had been sitting in a neighbor’s shed for years on end gathering dust, only seeing the sun in the brief hours of the day when its rays slanted into the shed’s barely open doors. Rody felt bad for it, but he tried to convince himself there was nothing he could do about it. And yet, every time he passed his neighbor’s house or went over there to do an odd job, he couldn’t stop looking at the damn thing and wondering what it would look like if it just got a little TLC. So the neighbor said, if he could get it to run again, he could keep it, and Rody made that into a challenge. 

To say that it was a fixer-upper was an understatement. The body of the car was essentially the only thing that was intact, and even saying that was a stretch given how banged up and weathered down it was. But Rody had gotten a lot of things from his father before he died, and a knack for solving puzzles coupled with an uncanny ability to pick anything apart and be able to figure out how to put it back together were among the most important. He asked more neighbors and dug through junkyards and car graveyards trying to find his missing pieces, and he spent every moment of free time for about three months rebuilding that crappy little two-door pickup truck. And when it had been all but finished, the neighbor who gave the truck to him also gifted him with new tires, and he piled himself and his siblings into the truck and took it out for its first drive that very same day. 

There were a lot of memories that came with such an endeavor. Memories of his father teaching him how to build circuit kits or showing him blueprints for new projects, explaining what it takes to get everything to work the way it should. Memories of his trip to Klayd with Izuku, obviously, because Rody couldn’t deny that the reason he wanted this truck so desperately was just because he wanted a chance at feeling the same fleeting peace he’d felt in those few days with his hero. But there were other memories that Rody just couldn’t put a finger on no matter how hard he tried. Things that popped into his head that he couldn’t remember if he’d said or done, or if he’d just seen them in a movie or read them in a book somewhere. Moments of deja vu that he couldn’t trace back to things he had done with his father. 

He hadn’t been able to make the connection at first. And really, that was just the nature of the world to begin with. The memories were always vague in the beginning, and they didn’t always start right away. It was by design some funny trick the gods must be playing to keep the poor humans on their toes. Where would the fun— the romance— be if everyone could just figure it out right away? There would be no mystery. No spending sleepless nights wondering which of the people you’d met in the last week or month was the person you had already spent countless lifetimes with before and who you would inevitably spend this one with. 

But it had been two months since Rody had finished repairing the truck and five months since his memories had first started coming to him. The visions were getting clearer, little by little. There was still no indication of what his supposed soulmate looked like or even sounded like, but Rody couldn’t say that he wasn’t happy they had started turning into decipherable remembrances instead of phantom feelings. At least now he knew that he really did have a soulmate out there somewhere, which was something he had just assumed would be taken away from him like everything else had been up to this point. 

And now, as he stood in front of the truck and leaned against the hood, watching his siblings run through the field, he suddenly found himself seeing another memory in the form of a daydream. 

Roro and Lala’s giggling faded away and was replaced by the laughter of two not dissimilar-sounding children. They couldn’t have been more than six or seven years old. They were holding hands as they ran through the field of wild flowers. A young Rody—yet at the same time, very clearly not the same Rody who was alive in this life, in this universe—was being pulled along relentlessly by his companion. And his companion…was still featureless, only having the vague shape of a child’s small body and a hand that was clearly holding Rody’s. It was almost like trying to remember his mother’s face. Comforting, familiar, but locked away in the deepest recesses of his mind with no way to call it back in its entirety.

Suddenly, Rody’s companion let go of his hand and then fell forward into the tall flowers. Rody, with all the object permanence of a child his age, gasped and looked around him in a panic, his eyes widening while his brow narrowed. He opened his mouth, desperately called out a name, but the name was just as void as the figure of his companion was. It was a jumble of syllables that disappeared from Rody’s thoughts as quickly as it had left the mouth of his memory. And no sooner had the name been called than Rody’s companion suddenly latched onto him again and pulled him down into the flowers, squealing with laughter.

Rody grunted as he hit the ground and saw his companion lying on their back, smiling at him. He wasn’t entirely sure how he knew they were smiling. He could just feel it. But he was in absolutely no mood to smile back. 

“___! Quit it! You really scared me that time!” Rody shouted, glaring. Again, he was sure he had said the name of his companion just then, but he still couldn’t wrap his head around what that name was. 

“Oh, don’t be like that, ___. You know I would never leave you for real. I was just playing.” 

When Rody’s companion spoke, their voice was nondescript. Again, in the same way that Rody could remember his mother telling him that she loved him but couldn’t remember what her voice sounded like. And when his companion said his name, it wasn’t Rody. It was still his name, to be sure, but it was whatever name he’d had in whatever life this was, and it was lost to him now. 

“I-I know,” Rody said, his face turning hot with embarrassment. He folded his arms and rolled onto his side so that he was no longer facing his companion. “I wasn’t worried about that. I just—I don’t like falling, okay??”

“You weren’t falling, silly, I was just trying to get you closer to me,” the companion said softly.

Rody huffed, but slowly, he turned onto his back and shuffled over until he was shoulder-to-shoulder with his companion. He found his companion’s hand and interlaced their fingers together. He didn’t look at them.

“Is this close enough?” he murmured. 

The companion laughed. It was disembodied but somehow warm and comfortable. They turned slightly towards Rody and leaned their head against Rody’s shoulder. “Now it is,” they said, and Rody noticed something that wasn’t usually present in these types of memories: in the nothingness of his companion’s face, somehow there was a light dusting of freckles.

Rody stared up at the sky, blue and white space clouded by dustings of the pink and yellow flowers they were lying in together, his heartbeat quickening.

That was the most information he’d ever gotten out of one of those visions, but he was still no closer to figuring out who his soulmate could be. There were lots of people at his new school who had freckles. It could even be somebody a little older—there were lots of 18 and 19-year-olds who came to Stan’s bar, too. It could really be anybody. 

Rody knew who he wanted it to be, but…

“Roro, Lala, come back here!” Rody shouted, not because they were getting too far away from him, but because he wanted to be closer to them.

“Coming, Rody!” Lala shouted back. She started running back towards Rody, but when she noticed that Roro wasn’t following her, she glared at him and stomped her feet. “Roro! Come on! ” 

Roro sighed and started walking over to her. She grabbed his hand and pulled him towards Rody. Rody met them in the middle of the field and unceremoniously flopped down into the flowers. Lala laughed in utter delight and followed her oldest brother, falling on top of him. Roro even snickered a little as he sat down next to his siblings. 

“How about we do some cloud watching?” Rody suggested. 

He pointed towards the sky and his siblings followed his gaze.

~*~

In all honesty, Izuku hadn’t noticed the memories in the beginning. Any sense of deja vu he passed off as something he had gotten from the Vestiges, and any memories or apparitions he just assumed the same. It was exceptionally hard to try and parse through what might be memories of your past lives with your soulmate when your Quirk had technically come with 8 past lives of its own. 

But when the war had started to come to a close, or at least when All For One had been killed once and for all, Izuku had been able to return to some semblance of a normal life. He’d gone back to school, was still training on how to utilize all of his newfound Quirks in perfect tandem with one another, and he had a real hope of becoming the world’s greatest hero after all. Once his mind had been cleared of the insecurity of not knowing what the future held, there was room for the visions to start settling in.

For some reason, the biggest trigger for the visions was the little flower cart across the street from his mother’s apartment. There was nothing particularly special about it. As far as Izuku could tell, it was run by a local family. He saw a rotation of the same few people watching over it every time he visited his mother, which had been a lot more frequently since she’d moved out of UA’s protection. They sold single flowers or very small bouquets for a couple hundred yen. It was very clearly not the family’s main source of income, just something they did on the side for a little extra spending money. But every time he walked past it or looked at it from his mother’s balcony, it always brought something flooding back to him.

Izuku’s eyes began to focus in on a very large projector screen several yards ahead of him. He was looking at it through the front windshield of a car, and there were many other cars around the one that he was in. The projector screen was playing what must have been a movie, the scene at hand featuring what must have been the protagonist and his love interest lying together in a field of flowers—a rather soft scene for what Izuku somehow remembered was an action thriller movie. And this was a drive-in theater.

Izuku’s companion, whoever they were, let out a loud yawn, stretching their arms as far above their head as they could until they reached the car’s ceiling. Then, they stretched out to the side and slyly draped their arm around his shoulder, shimmying as close as to Izuku as they could in spite of the console between the driver and passenger seats. Izuku’s face turned warm.

“I dunno about you, but this movie is putting me to sleep,” the companion said. Izuku felt like the recognition was just on the tip of his tongue, like he knew who was talking to him but was drawing a total blank for some reason. 

Izuku glanced at his companion from the corner of his eye.“Oh, come on, it’s one romance scene, ___. You can’t be that bored by it, can you?” 

“Why would I wanna watch some randos making out with each other when I could get the real experience right here anyways?” the companion asked. Izuku knew they were raising an eyebrow at him, though he couldn’t see their face. 

Izuku’s face got hotter. “Not in front of all these people, you can’t,” he stuttered. 

“Aww, ___, what d’you think drive-ins are for?” his companion whined. They said Izuku’s name, but it wasn’t a name that Izuku was familiar with, nor one that he could necessarily comprehend. “Nobody’s gonna see us. They’re all busy doing the same thing, anyways.”

Izuku was not going to look around at the other cars to see if his companion was right, though, he still had a feeling they were. Where else would a bunch of horny teenagers go to fool around with each other where there was absolutely no chance of any adults catching them and getting them in trouble for it? Izuku would have liked to state for the record, however, that he was most definitely not a horny teenager, and he would at least like to think that his companion wasn’t, either. But… kissing was a lot of fun, especially when it was with his companion. 

“Well, yeah, but—I dunno, won’t it be awkward with everything in the way up here?” Izuku asked, gesturing at the console between their seats as well as the dashboard, the steering wheel, and every other constricting aspect of the front seat of a car. 

“Then let’s move to the back,” the companion said, pointing with their thumb towards the backseat.

It was just then that Izuku realized for the first time he could see the body of his companion, which was a first even for vivid memories such as this one. It was no longer just an apparition without substance. They were clearly taller than him by a few inches and just a little skinnier as well. As far as Izuku could tell, their chest was flat, though that wasn’t necessarily an indication one way or another about the companion’s gender. Their clothes were baggy and worn out but somehow fashionable. An oversized jean jacket with decorative iron-on patches, some of them sewn on for extra security. A tank-top with some band logo on it, but Izuku didn’t recognize the logo at all. One leg of their jeans was ripped open from the knee to just above the ankle, and the other leg had several smaller tears in it, thick white thread still strung across and barely holding the holes together. Izuku guessed he could rule out everyone he knew who was shorter than him, but that didn’t narrow it down a whole lot. 

“I’m not gonna get out of the car and move to the back seat just for this, ___,” Izuku said, curling his lips into a very faint frown. 

“Who said anything about getting out of the car?” his companion asked. Then, they lowered the back of their seat until there was enough room for them to crawl into the back. Afterward, they pushed the front seat back up. “Your turn,” they said. They were grinning, but Izuku still couldn’t see their face. 

With a sigh, Izuku reached for the lever to lower the back of his seat and pulled it up, letting the back of his seat fall down as far as it could go. He lept to the back seat, briefly sitting in the lap of his companion while he pushed the seat back up and then moving to the seat next to his companion. He turned around to look at his companion and came face-to-face with them. They were on their hands and knees, leaning over Izuku, nearly on top of him. Their face was just as red as Izuku’s was. 

They didn’t make out so much as they sat close to each other but still so awkwardly far apart, giving each other soft, repeated kisses in varying lengths. Most of them were short and nervous, but as they got a little bit more comfortable with each other, their kisses lasted for longer. It was kind of funny—somehow, Izuku thought that being so shy and anxious was not a usual character trait for whoever his companion was, but when it came to making a move on Izuku, they were a nervous wreck. Izuku liked that, though. It meant that they were figuring out this whole romance thing together. 

“Izuku! Dinner’s ready!”

Izuku was suddenly snapped back into the present when his mother called him for dinner. He was sure that wasn’t the first time he had been called, as a moment later, his mother appeared beside him on the balcony. Izuku jumped, startled, and hoped that his mother didn’t notice his entire face and neck were a deep shade of pink.

But of course, mothers always notice that sort of thing.

“Oh, Izuku, are you feeling okay? You look a little warm,” she said, trying to move the back of her hand to feel Izuku’s forehead.

Izuku put his hands up and backed away, slightly defensively. “I-I’m okay mom, promise! It’s just a little chilly out here tonight, that’s all!”

He knew he was going to have to tell her about his soulmate soon. She would figure it out even if he didn’t come to her. He just hoped he could wait until he at least had a better idea of who it was.

~*~

Rody could only imagine going on vacation about five times in his life. All of them had been before Lala was born. His father had spent damn near all of his free time with his three children, but he was a very busy man. Besides, vacationing was hard when you were a single father with three young children. Their family just spent quality time together and took breaks from work and school in other ways.

After their dad left, the hope of ever going on another vacation had completely vanished. Rody would never make enough money to take his siblings somewhere nice, and even if he could, kids his age couldn’t book hotel rooms. He wasn’t even technically allowed to drive, and certainly not with his young siblings in the car. He didn’t have car insurance or a driver’s license. The only reason he got away with it was because they lived in the poorest part of the city and he only drove out to the middle of nowhere. He was just hoping he wouldn’t get caught before he turned 17, and maybe he would have the money to apply for a license and get insurance for his car by then.

Camping, for some reason, hadn’t been an option that had ever crossed Rody’s mind. Not until he’d basically been forced to do it with Izuku while they were on the run together. It was so strange, but… Just like the road trips he now took with his siblings that were inspired by his time on the road with Izuku, the thought of camping with them was something that brought him joy and peace. Trying to stay safe while huddled together in barns and caves in the middle of nowhere had been stressful in its own ways, but it had also been fun. And if Rody could do something like that on his own terms, it would obviously be safer and stress-free. 

So, after school one Friday, Rody surprised the little ones with another trip out into the countryside and told them that this time, they were staying away from home overnight. Rody had never seen the two of them more excited before. Rody had saved up enough to get a huge tent that all three of them could sleep in together, and he bought all of the bells and whistles to make it an absolutely perfect little camping trip. They cooked hot dogs and smores over the fire, Rody told spooky stories (and then a fairytale to make sure the little ones didn’t go to sleep scared), and they lied on the ground together and stargazed, making up their own constellations and stories to go with them. 

Despite how much fun he was having, it was a restless night for Rody. He tried his best to fall asleep after Roro and Lala had already passed out, but his attempts proved fruitless. Finally, he accepted that he wouldn’t be getting a good night’s sleep and crawled out of the tent to get some space.

He sat outside the tent with his knees pulled up to his chest and his chin resting on top of them. The fire he’d made earlier had long burned out, but even so, Rody stared at the fire pit. It was easier than craning his neck up to look at the stars. 

As he envisioned the slowly dying embers he would have liked to be seeing in the fire pit, Rody was overcome with another vision.

The fire in the pit was alive again, but just barely. The light of its embers were fading in and out. Rody prodded at them with the stick he had been using to stoke the fire, but it didn’t help much. That was fine. For some reason, he knew that he was stalling—or maybe it was his companion stalling. He got the feeling that his companion should have been asleep by now, though, suddenly he knew why they might not be so keen on leaving him alone.

“Look… I know your options are limited since it’s just the two of us and you don’t know any magic, but… I mean, you could tie me to that tree during my shift, or something. If I see anything weird, I can just scream for you. I don’t have to move around,” Rody offered.

His companion rolled his eyes with a faint smirk. “Oh, please, like a little rope could hold you down.”

Rody frowned, averting his gaze, just staring straight on at the dying fire. “Yeah,” he murmured. “I just… don’t want you to be awake all night, yanno? You deserve some sleep after all the shit I’ve put you through these past few days.”

He felt a firm yet gentle hand on his shoulder. “Me not going to sleep has nothing to do with whether I trust you or not, ___,” his companion said, tilting their head with a soft smile. “Believe it or not, I actually don’t think for even a second that you would kill me in my sleep or something like that.”

Rody still didn’t meet his companion’s eyes. “Yeah, like I’d ever have the guts for that,” he mumbled. “But I could still take off with all your shit in the middle of the night and leave you stranded here. I mean what’s worse, getting murdered in the middle of the woods by the thief you picked up, or getting pantsed and then left in the middle of the woods by the thief you picked up?”

His companion snorted with laughter. “Please, sir, not my pants! Anything but my pants! They’re made of imported silk! I sold my children just to afford them!” 

Rody playfully shoved them, the faintest hint of a smile tugging at his lips. “Gods, shut up .”

“I really am being serious, though,” his companion said, their tone much softer now than it was before. “I know you’re not gonna hurt me.”

Rody pursed his lips. “How do you know that?”

“Because if you wanted to, you would have done it already,” his companion answered, as if telling him it was plain and simple. “I know you act all tough and strong, like you’re this big bad criminal who isn’t afraid to spill blood, but that’s not who you really are, is it?”

“Tch,” Rody hissed, glaring, though he still wasn’t looking at his companion. “You’ve known me for all of two days. How would you know anything about who I ‘really’ am?”

“Well, I know you’ve got a family you’re taking care of and trying to get back to. And I know that you came back for me when I was in trouble even though you didn’t have to. So to me, it seems like… maybe you’re not as bad as you say you are. Maybe you just got stuck in a bad situation. And I think that makes us more alike than you realize,” his companion said.

Rody was silent for a long time. Finally, he turned to look at his companion and noticed, for the first time, that his companion’s eyes were a deep shade of green, just like the leaves in the trees around them. All of what he was about to say fled from his mind in that moment, and then, suddenly…

Rody came back to the present, his heart pounding in his chest. He knew who those eyes belonged to. There wasn’t any doubt in his mind about it, he’d recognized them instantly, but…

No, there was no way in this life or any other that he could ever be that lucky. 

But he could dream, couldn’t he…?

Heart beating wildly, his cheeks redder than they’d ever been before, Rody crawled back into the tent hoping that his sleep would beget him more visions. 

~*~

Finally, finally, finally, after months of communicating only by mailing letters back and forth and then getting lucky enough that texting and phone calls became an option too, Izuku was finally going to see Rody again. Japan’s borders were back open and Izuku and his mother were taking a much needed vacation together—the first one they had gone on since Izuku had entered middle school. And where better to get away from absolutely everything than to take a trip to Otheon? 

Still, a twelve-hour flight even with a travel buddy such as his mom wasn’t exactly the most appealing thing in the world. There were only so many in-flight movies one could watch, and only so long one could stay awake before the stiffness of everything really started to get painful. So Izuku spent most of the flight asleep, and while he was asleep, he had more dreams of the soulmate variety.

Izuku stood alone in a sea of people milling about the university dining hall. Who knew three o’clock on Fridays would be the hour that the entire student body decided they needed to eat lunch, or maybe an early dinner. The problem was, Izuku was a Freshman and a foreign exchange student, and all of the tables were full. With no friends he could sit down next to and no courage to ask somebody if he could borrow an empty chair, Izuku was stuck facing the fact that he might just have to sit on the ground outside with his food. That was, if the dining hall attendants would even let him take his tray out there. 

But just as he was about to turn and try his luck with the concrete outside, he managed to spot a somewhat familiar face sitting alone at a table that was big enough for at least three people. He didn’t know how he could possibly think their face was familiar, considering that their face was still just a blob to him, but he did know that they sat in front of him in his Environmental Science I lecture and they were coincidentally taking the same lab as well. And even though they had spoken to each other all of one and a half times, Izuku would much rather take his chances with this person than with publicly humiliating himself in front of student staff members. 

He held his breath and started to make his way through the crowd. He only let it out just as he was about to approach his companion’s table. He cleared his throat a little, and when his companion looked up at him, he tilted his head towards one of the empty chairs at the table. “Um, is this seat taken?”

His companion looked up at him and blinked. “Wh—hah??”

Izuku cleared his throat again. “I was just wondering if maybe I could sit with you today… um…”

“I—I mean, isn’t there—don’t you have somewhere else—” His companion glanced around the room, but upon seeing that there really weren’t any open tables anywhere, they looked back at Izuku. It almost seemed like they were frowning. “Oh. I guess it’s pretty packed today, huh?”

“I-I don’t have to sit here!!” Izuku said quickly. “I just thought I would ask you since we kinda know each other from class, but…”

“Th-that came out wrong!” his companion interrupted. They cleared their throat and glanced towards the empty chair. “It’s not that I wouldn’t want you to sit here, I just thought there might be other people waiting for you already…?”

Izuku laughed wryly. “Who, me? Yeah, right.” He set his tray on the table and sat down. 

His companion looked at him quizically. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I haven’t exactly made any friends here yet,” Izuku admitted. “I’m an exchange student. I’ve been doing my best to try and settle in, but… it hasn’t been easy. I don’t know anyone here, so… guess I just gravitated towards the first person I recognized.”

“Oh,” his companion said. They seemed flustered. “Well, we do have two classes together, technically. Sooo, as far as I’m concerned… that’s a pretty good foundation for a friendship, isn’t it?” 

Izuku smiled broadly. “Yeah, that sounds pretty good to me, too.”

“You think we could trick Professor Brannon into pairing us up for labs for the semester?” his companion asked with a sly grin.

“If you do the talking? I’m sure of it,” Izuku responded. 

His companion gave him a wide, toothy grin and laughed again.

The funniest thing was, Izuku knew exactly who that smile belonged to now.

Izuku didn’t wake up immediately after his dream was over. In fact, he didn’t wake up until his plane was about to land. He thought he would be nervous and driven mad with anxiety when he finally realized who his soulmate was, but… Honestly, he had never felt calmer. Never more sure of the path his life was about to take. And the chance to take it was about to be right in front of him.

All he could think about was how happy his mom was going to be when she got to meet her son’s soulmate. 

~*~

Izuku was coming to visit.

Izuku was coming to visit today.

Izuku was coming to visit today and it had been so long since they’d seen each other, and so many things had changed, and yes Rody was in a much better place now but still barely scraping by and he and Izuku had been talking nonstop since Izuku left Otheon the first time but they’ve never actually hanged out before. Sure, their roadtrip together had been fun in the moment, but Rody didn’t exactly count going on the run from a terrorist organization and their corrupt police buddies and almost dying several times as “hanging out.” 

And then there was that other thing to worry about, too.

When Rody had started getting the visions of his past lives, he’d done what he’d always wished he’d had the power to do, and he kept his thoughts secret. There was no one in his life besides his siblings who would care to know about something like that, but Roro and Lala had already been teasing him about Izuku ever since he’d gotten out of the hospital, anyways. And with Izuku living an ocean away, Rody didn’t have to worry about Pino giving him away when he talked to Izuku. Pino manifested in the real world—she couldn’t reveal his true intentions over letters and text messages.

But now that Izuku was coming to visit him, he knew there was no way they would make it through the day without Pino giving something away. This wasn’t just a stupid crush that he could pass off anymore. Before, he could always lie to himself and say that his feelings would obviously go away once he met his soulmate. Now, he didn’t have that excuse anymore. His soulmate was literally flying six thousand miles away from home just to come see him. And gods, he was in love. 

For anyone else, this would have been something good. He knew who his soulmate was, it was someone he had already been slowly falling in love with even before he realized who it was, they were about to be reunited after a long time away from one another, everything should have been perfect. The parameters were impeccable for a heartfelt confession and a date. But Rody was never that lucky, so what reason did he have to believe that his luck would suddenly change now? 

What if he was wrong about Izuku being his soulmate? Sure, the freckles, the eyes, the warmth and familiarity that came over him whenever he thought about Izuku, but what if… what if he was sending himself false signals? What if he wanted it to be Izuku and he was convincing himself it was Izuku when that wasn’t the case at all?

Or what if… what if Izuku was his soulmate, but he wasn’t Izuku’s? Was that even possible? Was it possible for your soulmate’s soulmate to be someone else? Knowing Rody’s odds, he would be the one person whose soulmate was destined to be with someone completely different. They had looked so happy together in all of the visions Rody had, but… what if Izuku’s soul had moved on in this life and Rody’s hadn’t caught up yet? What if he was going to be alone in this life, and the next one, and the next one, until however long it took for his soul to realize that he and Izuku weren’t supposed to be together anymore? Somehow, Rody didn’t think it would be something that his soul was ever ready to do.

No matter what lifetime they were in, it seemed that Izuku was always the one guiding Rody. Lighting his path. Showing him that he could be more than he’d always been before. Izuku always saw the good in him, even when he didn’t believe there was any to see. Rody protected his siblings, his family, but Izuku always protected him. Being with Izuku always felt like being home. Like being safe. Like being free. Without Izuku, it seemed like Rody would be destined to go down paths he could never come back from. Rody didn’t think that his Hero would be someone he’d be willing to give up so easily, even if Izuku was tired of guiding him. 

He was going to try not to think about it for now. There were other ways people could be soulmates anyways, right? There had to be people who were always destined to be friends no matter the lifetime they were in. He didn’t want to even think about a lifetime where he wasn’t the older brother of Roro and Lala, they always had to be with him, right? There had to be things that were constant in every life even if the meaning changed a little bit each time. Even if Izuku didn’t love him, they were meant to be together somehow, right? There had to be a silver lining here, if Rody just waited for it long enough. 

And anyways, he didn’t have time to be moody about it, because Izuku would be meeting up with him outside of this cafe that was definitely out of Rody’s price range any minute now, and Rody had picked it out because he wanted to show Izuku that he was doing better now. Izuku was coming to hang out with Rody just the two of them while his mom spent some time recovering from jetlag in the hotel room, and he had assured Rody beforehand that they could just take a walk if Rody didn’t want to eat. Izuku was forgoing the jetlag rest just so they could have some time alone together, and he was being courteous without making Rody feel embarrassed, and gods, Pino was really going to fuck this up, wasn’t she?

“Rody!” 

Rody whipped around, startled, and saw Izuku waving at him from the other side of the street.

Rody’s mouth went dry. 

His feet moved on their own before he realized what he was doing. Suddenly, he and Izuku were running at each other with full speed. When they collided in a hug, it was a miracle they both remained on their feet instead of tumbling to the ground in an absolute mess of teenage boy limbs. Izuku was laughing, absolutely bursting with joy. Rody was still too shocked to do anything but stare. Pino sat dazed on Rody’s shoulder, looking at Izuku with more love and admiration in her gaze than could be put into words, and Izuku felt it.

“Rody, I missed you so much,” Izuku whispered once he had managed to stop laughing. He looked at Rody—though, he kept an eye on Pino from the corner of his vision—and smiled warmly at him. Softly. Fondly. 

Rody blushed hard, looked away, and shoved Izuku off of him. “Yeah, yeah, I missed you too, Hero,” he grumbled. He rubbed the back of his neck and turned back to Izuku, still averting his gaze. Pino, however, flitted off of Rody’s shoulder and landed on Izuku’s. Rody cleared his throat. “So, uh, how was your flight?”

Izuku chuckled and used the knuckle on his forefinger to pet Pino under her chin. He was well aware of how Rody was acting around him, but instead of finding it awkward or upsetting, it just solidified what he had been thinking about on his way here. Pino’s signals to him only gave him a further confidence boost. “Not too bad. I slept through most of it. Maybe that’s why the jetlag hasn’t hit me yet,” he said. 

“Oh, well that’s good,” Rody said. “Have you eaten anything recently, or…?”

“Actually, no, I haven’t, but I wanted to ask if we could do something else first,” Izuku replied. Pino shuffled closer to Izuku’s face and started nuzzling his cheek. Rody resisted the urge to groan, but Izuku simply nuzzled right back into her. 

“O-oh?” Rody asked, trying to choke back any eagerness or excitement that might be present in his voice. Unfortunately, it just came out as nervousness. 

“I was thinking maybe you could let me chase you up to your favorite rooftop around here. You know, for old time’s sake?” Izuku suggested, giving Rody a perfect shit-eating smirk, eyebrow raised as if challenging Rody. 

Rody’s mouth dropped open. Was Izuku seriously trying to flirt with him, or was Rody just misinterpreting everything that was coming out of Izuku’s mouth right now? And when the Hell did this goody-two-shoes hero get so bold?

“What? Come on, are you serious? I thought you wanted me to quit playing villain around you,” Rody said, rolling his eyes, trying desperately to hide that his face was getting redder. 

“Who said that heroes can’t have some fun, too?” Izuku asked, raising an eyebrow at Rody.

“N-nobody, I just… didn’t think that was your type of fun, Hero,” Rody stuttered. 

Izuku shrugged. “Just have to catch me in the right mood,” he said. He grinned at Rody and tilted his head in a gesture for Rody to follow him. Then, he took off running, Pino still sitting on his shoulder.

“Whoa, whoa, hey, wait—!!” Rody called out, his eyes widening. But Izuku was already gone, so Rody quickly chased after him.

By the time Rody caught up with Izuku, they were both on the roof of the building right next to the cafe. The morning sun was high in the sky and there were people milling about the streets below, though none of them were paying any mind to the two teen boys who had just raced their way to the top of the building. Izuku sat near the back of the building, sitting on the wall with his legs dangling over the edge. Pino was trilling excitedly in his ear. Rody came and sat down next to him, albeit a bit reluctantly.

“Is that all you wanted? A race?” Rody asked him. He glared at Pino, but Pino chose to ignore it.

“Not really,” Izuku said with a soft laugh. “I actually just wanted to talk to you.”

Rody raised an eyebrow. “We couldn’t do that in the cafe?”

“No, not about this,” Izuku said, a faint pink tint dusting his cheeks. “I thought you might want to talk about it somewhere more secluded.” 

“ Me? ” Rody asked incredulously. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I know you don’t like talking about your feelings a lot, so I figured you would be more comfortable if it was just the two of us,” Izuku said.

“Okay, hold on a second, who said anything about talking about my feelings?” Rody asked. 

Logically, he knew that he and Izuku were thinking on the same wavelength. What other reason would Izuku have for bringing up Rody’s feelings out of the blue like this? But his anxiety was still getting the better of him. What if Izuku was just going to tell him that Pino made him uncomfortable and that she needed to back off, or tell Rody that he knew Rody had a crush on him and that it wasn’t reciprocated. What if Izuku had come all the way here just to let Rody down gently?

Izuku, on the other hand, had no such fears. Although some time ago he might not have had the self-esteem to believe that someone like him could find his soulmate, he had grown a lot more confident in himself over the last two years. There wasn’t a doubt in his mind that if Rody was his soulmate, then he must also be Rody’s soulmate. The way that Pino was acting around him just assured him as much. 

When he’d figured out that his soulmate was Rody, everything clicked into place. He realized all at once why he had felt such a strong connection to Rody since the first time they had met. Why he’d felt the desperate need to protect this petty jewel thief, to pick him up and run away with him, leaving no room for question. Why he’d felt like he could trust Rody even though they hadn’t known each other for more than a few hours, why he knew that even with how conflicted Rody felt, ultimately Rody wouldn’t betray him. Why he’d promised to keep in touch and why he’d promised to come back and visit, and why he’d truly meant what he’d said with his entire heart. 

He was meant to protect Rody. Meant to save him. Meant to take care of him. Meant to always bring him back no matter how far he strayed. Meant to love him. Meant to show him that just because there were unlucky things that had happened in his life, it didn’t mean that there wasn’t happiness waiting for him somewhere else. 

“C’mon, Rody. Pino’s been chirping around like she has something she wants to tell me ever since she saw me,” Izuku coaxed.

“And it’s been, what, five minutes? Maybe ten? Of course she’s excited to see you. We haven’t seen each other since they let me out of the hospital just to say goodbye to you,” Rody protested.

“I know. And a lot of things have happened since then,” Izuku said softly. “And during all of them… I couldn’t stop thinking about you, you know. It was awful trying to wait until my mom and I could go on vacation together. I wanted to see you sooner than that. I hated waiting.” 

Rody rolled his eyes, though he pulled his knees up to his chest and buried his face in them to hide his blushing. “Yeah, well, I’m studying real hard to get into flight school, okay? So don’t worry about it.”

“Right,” Izuku said with a smile. “And… you’ve been thinking about me too, haven’t you, Rody?” 

“Eww,” Rody said with a groan. He didn’t like the way Izuku was making him feel—or rather, he hated that he did like it. He hated that he was getting his hopes up. “What’s gotten into you, Hero?”

“Rody, I know you’ve seen the visions. And maybe they aren’t exactly the same as the ones I’ve been getting, but I’m pretty sure they mean the same thing,” Izuku said. He subtly held his hand out for Rody to take, if he wanted it.

Finally, Rody turned his head to look at Izuku, his eyes widening. It would have been easy enough to guess that Rody had been having visions of his soulmate, and easy to tell Rody that his feelings just weren’t meant to be reciprocated. But for Izuku to admit that he’d been having those visions, too…

“Visions about… me…?” he asked, just to clarify. 

“About us, Rody,” Izuku said. He offered his hand again, more forwardly this time.

Hesitantly, Rody took his hand. Pino seemed to melt on Izuku’s shoulder, collapsing herself, ruffling her feathers, and chirping calmly. Izuku squeezed Rody’s hand gently, giggling at Pino’s antics.

“Yeah, I… I’ve had those visions, too…” Rody said. “I… um… so what does that mean for us, Hero…?”

“Wellll, if I had to take a guess,” Izuku began teasingly, “I’d say that it probably means we’re soulmates.” His expression softened slightly. “But I know we’re also both still kids. We’ve got a lot of stuff we’re still figuring out. So… we don’t have to do anything about it right now, if you don’t want to. It’s just good to know, isn’t it?”

Izuku knew that he felt confident enough in himself and in his place in life to try out a relationship with Rody, but he thought that maybe Rody’s reluctantness to talk about this meant that he wasn’t ready yet. That was okay. Izuku wasn’t upset about it. If Rody had other things he needed to figure out first, Izuku didn’t mind waiting for him at all.

“B-but what if I do want to do something about it right now!?” Rody asked. He didn’t know where Izuku was getting the idea that Rody would even take a chance of letting Izuku slip through his fingers, but he was going to kill it right away. 

Izuku grinned from ear to ear. “Then we have a whole week while I’m here to do it!”

“Well—can we start by… I don’t know, can I… can I call you my boyfriend, or something??” Rody asked. 

“Sure, but only if I can call you mine, too,” Izuku said, beaming.

Rody groaned. “Nope. Nevermind. Don’t like that. You ruined it,” he said, shaking his head.

Pino said otherwise. She practically fainted at Izuku’s words. Rody swiveled around, shuffled off of the wall, and took off running across the roof. “I’m gone!” he called out.

Izuku laughed and hopped off the wall to chase after him. “Come on, Rody! Let’s go to the cafe now! Can’t I take my new boyfriend out on a date!?”

“Hate it!!” Rody shouted back, but he was laughing.