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i. cheating
“I feel like I’m cheating” Izuku brings up one day, dead last in a retro car game she’s never heard of, but which Shigaraki apparently kicks ass at.
“It’s just a blue shell” the villain replies, clicking her tongue as a couple of NPCs ride past her exploding character. “Annoying as all hell, but it ain’t cheating.” The last time Spinner did this, she’d called him enough names to make him blush—which, for a reptilian allomorph, is probably a feat unheard of. Izuku wonders why the rules are different with her, but she decides not to question it. Not when, for once, it’s in her favor.
“I didn’t mean that” she says, tripping over a banana peel. “I meant this.”
For a long time, Shigaraki’s quiet. The only noises in the bar are the music from the game and the quick, rhythmic mashing of buttons. Izuku loses herself in it.
“What are the rules?” the villain finally asks, without tearing her gaze away from the screen. Her voice is quiet, but it’s unexpected enough that Izuku’s shoulders give a little jump. She thought she’d lost the habit after middle school had ended, but lately, it had started up again. Every little thing seemed to make her jump these days.
“What rules?” the girl asks, frowning at the villain. The light from the screen illuminates her face a ghostly blue.
“Your rules” Shigaraki replies, without missing a beat. “If you’re cheating, there’s gotta be a rule you’re breaking. So” she says, tilting her head in Izuku’s direction as soon as her character makes it through the finish line in first place, “what are your rules, Midoriya Izuku?”
For a long time, the girl doesn’t reply, and they keep playing.
“I…” Izuku finally blinks, after another round of getting obliterated. “I don’t know.” She twists the controller chord between her fingers, biting her lip as her gaze drops to her lap. “I definitely shouldn’t be here, for one.”
“That’s not really your rule, though, is it?” Shigaraki says, picking a different character for the next circuit. “Or else you wouldn’t have come.”
It’s sound logic, and it leaves Izuku pondering. She thought rules wouldn’t matter to Shigaraki, that they’d just be another set of chains to break—but that’s not really the case, is it? After all, without rules, there would be no games of any kind. None worth playing, anyway.
Up until now, Izuku never thought she could make her own rules. Maybe, this newfound freedom is exactly what’s been setting her adrift every day since she’s arrived. Keeping her from finding a port.
“I guess…” Izuku murmurs, letting the controller slide in the gap between her crossed legs on the floor. “I don’t want to hurt people. I… I don’t want to kill, no matter who it is. Even if I’m no longer a hero… it doesn’t feel right.”
Shigaraki hums noncommittally, resting her red gaze on her. Not with anger, like Izuku had been half-expecting; no, her eyes are as calm and absorbing as still-water. The surface of a lake, streaked bloody by the last rays of a dying sun.
“And what does?” the leader of the League of Villains asks, leaning over to steal her controller by wrapping the chord around her index. Izuku barely even notices.
It’s a long time, enough for Shigaraki to pick a character for her and place the controller back in her lap, before she answers: “Helping. That… still feels right.”
A beat. “You thinking of going back?” Shigaraki asks, voice dropping an octave lower and hardening around the edges.
Izuku gives a bitter laugh. “I think they made it abundantly clear that they don’t want my help at UA. Or… me, for that matter.” A pause. “You know, it’s funny. I spent my entire life chasing after this one dream. Even if the odds were against me; even if everyone around me kept saying I couldn’t, or shouldn’t.” The words hurt on their way out—but, oddly enough, Izuku isn’t tasting blood anymore. It’s a start. “And then I made it. I made it—and it still wasn’t enough. I still wasn’t enough.” A breath, wet and shaky. “I don’t want to feel that way anymore.”
Shigaraki nods, exhaling through her nose in what could almost pass for a sigh of relief. “Smart rule.”
“Thanks?” Izuku half-laughs. “Anyway, I just… I guess I’d still like to help. If I can.” Then, quieter: “If you still want me, that is.”
The question isn’t out of the world. This wasn’t a book club: this was the League of Villains. By definition, Izuku was nowhere near the kind of foot soldier they needed. And what army would take a soldier who refused to take up arms? What army would keep a roof over a useless head?
Tears gather in the girl’s eyes, caught just behind her eyelashes. Even if they took her in, in the end, she couldn’t be what they needed. She never seems to be what others need.
So she braces herself for rejection; braces herself for what she knows is coming, heart hammering a roaring song in her ears—
“I said I did, didn’t I?” Shigaraki shoots back, almost annoyed, and just like that, the hammering stops.
The checkered flag comes down, and they keep playing.
ii. locks
Halfway through middle school, Izuku started buying notebooks with locks. Like secret diaries, but for her analyses—a far worse secret to end up in the wrong hands than a diary could ever be.
Of course, a lock didn’t make a difference. Her notebooks always ended up torn or burned or drowned—regardless of the specific contents of each. The words Hero Analysis for the Future on the cover were reason enough.
So, over the years, even though she stopped buying notebooks with locks on them, she still kept her habit under a different kind of lock and key. She started doing it in secret, in the dead of night or under the covers, or in moments she knew no one would stumble upon her.
Of course, with Kurogiri acting as the League’s personal taxi, that couldn’t last long.
“What’s that?” Shigaraki asks one day, and her frown only grows deeper when Izuku snaps the notebook shut on reflex.
“Ah, sorry, um…” the girl mumbles. “It’s just a thing I used to do. It—I guess you could say it calms me. Helps me keep my mind a little less cluttered.”
The villain tilts her head in curiosity. “Can I see?”
It’s the first time anyone’s asked.
Shigaraki’s face is impassive as she flips through the pages, going over the profiles of Edgeshot, Kamui Woods, Mt. Lady.
And then, halfway through, she stops.
“Is this me?” she asks, lips curving in amusement.
And, well, fuck. Izuku had forgotten.
“Weaknesses: range” she starts reciting. “Temper” she keeps reading, and her smile falters a little. Then, turning into a frown: “Tendency to monologue?” She shoots her a sideways glance. “You’re lucky I like you, Freckles. I’ve dusted people for less.”
“Sorry!” she hurries, trying to snatch her notebook back. “Like I said, it’s just something I—”
“It’s good, though” Shigaraki says, and Izuku’s mouth clicks shut.
“…It is?” she asks, blinking in disbelief.
“Well, yeah” the villain replies. “It’s basically a hero cheat guide. How To Dust the Edgeshot Agency in Three Steps or Less kind of thing.”
“Oh” Izuku says. “I… actually hadn’t thought about that.” Her expression clouds over. She may be with the League now, but that doesn’t mean she wants to harm other heroes. It’s really not what her notebooks were ever for.
With a theatrical sigh, Shigaraki flops down on a barstool next to her. “Your stuff, your rules, I guess” she says, smacking her over the head with the notebook in a way that makes her give an undignified squeak. “Truly something, though. Those heroes have no idea what they missed out on.”
Remorse starts to claw at Izuku’s heart. On one hand, she doesn’t want to hurt anyone. On the other, maybe this was finally a way she could contribute, and instead…
“Don’t sweat it, Freckles” Shigaraki says, ruffling her hair with her pinky raised. “This ain’t corporate America. You don’t have to be useful to just be.”
She knows the villain means it as a gruff sort of comforting—which is more than she would’ve given her credit for, before she gradually got to know the woman behind the mask… or, well, the hands.
Still, it doesn’t sit right with her.
You don’t have to be useful.
“What if it was more like a… How to Not Get Squashed by Mt. Lady in Three Steps or Less kind of thing?”
Shigaraki raises an eyebrow. “I’m listening.”
Maybe she isn’t willing to help villains find ways to kill. Maybe she isn’t made for this at all.
But maybe, she can still find ways to protect them.
What feels right?
Helping.
“Okay, so…”
iii. guns
Izuku knows what a hidden gun looks like.
“Magne, wait—”
She’s learned to recognize the way they’re carried, the look in the eyes of a person with their finger on the trigger. It’s a deadly sort of calm; calmer than the sea in the darkest hours, water barely forming shallows around the exposed pulp of the ocean bed.
Right now, Overhaul’s eyes are a desert.
Her feet are moving before she knows it.
Magne ignores her. And although she moves first, fast and dangerous, somehow, Izuku’s faster. Her Recipro Replica is barely more than a prototype, but she forces the engines to work through a Burst they weren’t made to emulate, gritting her teeth through the flash of heat melting through clothes and skin.
It’s agony.
She pushes forward all the same.
“Stop!”
Magne’s swing halts inches from her head.
“Midoriya, what are you—”
The girl cracks her eyes open, facing her ally with a pleading expression that she hopes can convey her urgency quicker than her words would.
It wouldn’t be wise to speak, either; not with Overhaul hovering just behind her back, so close she can feel the beak of his bird mask grazing her hair. Wouldn’t be wise to reveal what she knows—even if it’s just a hunch; even if she has no proof—and risk the leader of the Shie Hassaikai deeming it too much.
If he hasn’t already.
“Smart girl.”
Chisaki’s voice is velvety ice against the back of her neck. Every nerve is screaming at her to run away, to put as much distance as she can between her and the man with a power so terrible he didn’t even flinch as Magne charged at him. Just barely started to remove his glove.
She locks eyes with Shigaraki over Magne’s shoulder, shaking her head as subtly as she can in a silent plea. She sees the twitch of her leader’s fingers, feels her heavy gaze and the urgency within it, but Izuku doesn’t want her to move. It would escalate an already precarious situation, and then there would be no guarantee that she’d be able to protect Magne.
No, Izuku needs her to stay away.
It’s costing her. It’s costing her every bit of self-restraint, every ounce of her immensely short supply, and Izuku can see the struggle unfolding like a movie in front of her eyes.
Please, she mouths, and Shigaraki’s hand stills.
“You should’ve listened to her.”
Izuku can feel Chisaki’s hand rising to a hover just behind her. And, as soon as his fingertips graze the back of her neck, Shigaraki’s alarmed eyes cloud over with murder.
“Always a pity…”
Murder, and something infinitely more heartbreaking.
“…to lose a smart one.”
Izuku wishes her last glimpse of her leader didn’t have to be fear.
Chisaki’s fingers brush against her, and the girl squeezes her eyes shut against the pain to come—
“We’ll do it.”
—Except it never does.
“I beg your pardon?”
Shigaraki shuffles forward. It looks casual, unhurried. As if nothing had been happening at all.
(Her hands are plunged so deep in her pockets Izuku fears they might tear.)
“I said we’ll do it. We can go over the specifics next time.”
“Wait, you’re serious?” Dabi balks, the ever-present mocking in his voice ringing clear as a bell.
“I am” Shigaraki snaps back. “Any grievances you have, you can take up with me later.” Izuku can’t see the look she’s piercing Dabi with, but it must be enough to make him back down, because he does just that.
The unease on everybody’s face is palpable, but no one else dares speak. Their eyes are glued to Izuku, Magne, and the man with the bird mask behind her back. Toga’s hands haven’t left her knives once.
“That’s good to hear” Chisaki says, appeased. “I welcome you as my subordinates.”
It’s like there’s a shift in the atmosphere. One second, each one of the League’s members was tense and taut, ready to snap at a moment’s notice. Now, Toga’s grip on her knives loosens, and Magne sighs imperceptibly in front of her. At least for now, the worst of the crisis has been averted. At least for now, they’ll live to fight another day. By all means, Izuku should be relaxing, too.
Except that there’s something strange in Overhaul’s voice. A discordant note that prevents Izuku’s shoulders from slumping with relief like she so badly wants to do.
It’s the way he says the word subordinates that tips her off in the end. It feels intentional; curated, somehow.
Subordinates are subservient. Subordinates don’t attack their boss.
Subordinates, she realizes with a flash of dread, get punished.
“Like I said. Smart girl” he whispers in her ear, just before his fingers make full contact with her neck.
No one else hears the words, and no one else feels the movement—no one but Izuku herself. Her gaze darts instinctively to her leader’s, and as their eyes meet, the girl could swear that the briefest hint of panic rises within them, a shadow of realization that lasts the one fraction of a second she can steal away before Chisaki’s Quirk activates—
She doesn’t even get to scream.
iv. glass
The pain is blinding. It’s worse than anything she’s ever felt—no burn, no broken bone, no ruthless beating can compare. She feels it in every cell at once, as if she was being torn apart from the inside, one molecule after another. Midoriya Izuku splits apart at the seams, glass-brittle and paper-thin, consumed by the agony unmaking her body, her soul—
And then, as suddenly as it started, the pain just stops. Shards piece back together, and the glass returns as smooth as if it had never been touched before.
“Huh. Wasn’t expecting that.”
Izuku blinks her eyes open just as Chisaki’s fingers unfurl into a palm, pushing her unceremoniously into Magne’s chest. Everyone is where they were before—as if no time had passed at all. A second, maybe. Nothing more.
No one seems to have noticed anything happened.
No one, except…
“You may be worth keeping after all.”
Overhaul glances at the rest of the League, tugging his glove back on without hurry. As if they were nothing more than flies. “I’ll be in touch.”
As soon as Chisaki turns to leave, strutting out of the warehouse with his allies fanned out behind him like a peacock’s tail, Izuku sees her leader’s face twist into a snarl. Her eyes flare, as red as burning coals, and suddenly she’s striding forward with her hands bared at her sides.
The girl extracts herself from Magne’s hold and stumbles upright, looking for a footing she cannot find. She opens her mouth to beg her leader not to go, but the words won’t come out. Her voice is a croaky, stuttering whisper, incapable of reaching anyone.
Please, please don’t go—
And then, spindly arms close around her, crushing her into a sigh of sheer relief.
v. jealousy
Izuku wonders, distantly, if she’s going to get scolded. Or worse, if Magne is going to get scolded because of her. Shigaraki is a good leader, but she isn’t above punishment either; just ask the Muscular-shaped stain on the basement floor.
But Shigaraki wouldn’t punish her for saving someone, not like the heroes did. She wouldn’t punish Magne for following her instincts, wrong as they may have been, because that’s not what the League is about. No, the League is about desire; about following it to the end, wherever it may lead. And Shigaraki Tomura would never begrudge anyone that—not Magne, not her.
So, instead, her leader’s arms wrap around Izuku’s head like twin halos, tucking her closer than skin.
The girl hadn’t realized how much she needed to chase Chisaki’s touch away until one of Shigaraki’s hands climbs around her shoulders and settles at the back of her neck.
It feels like a declaration; a claim, somehow, of the rawest brand of jealousy. Shigaraki’s hand is possessive and strong, holding her like a grudge, and it’s finally, finally enough that Izuku can let herself break down. She sobs into her leader’s chest and leans into the hold of her deadly fingers, burying herself into the cradle they make.
“I’m gonna kill him for this” Shigaraki murmurs into her hair, soft and warm and terrifying. Once again, she reminds Izuku of a white tiger, stalking the den and protecting what’s hers. The fact that what’s hers includes Izuku now doesn’t feel scary. It doesn’t feel unwanted.
It just feels right.
The girl nods weakly, Kurogiri’s darkness falling over them like the night, and Shigaraki holds her closer still.
vi. suicide
Tomura isn’t good at reining herself in. In fact, she prides herself on it—being untamable in the purest meaning of the word. It’s something her Sensei has always appreciated. Encouraged, even.
So, it’s safe to say that things like patience or restraint don’t sit well with her. Instead they make her chest clench uncomfortably, heart burning with an itch deeper than skin.
Which is why the fact that she hasn’t wrapped both hands around Overhaul’s prissy little neck yet is a victory beyond her rosiest expectations.
“Excuse me?”
And, apparently, a short-lived one.
“You heard me. I want the dark-haired girl too.”
Tomura grinds her heel into the table hard enough she feels it crack. “Toga and Twice not good enough for you?” she spits. She knows the hand over her face isn’t doing anything to mask her disdain; she knows, because the bird mask over Chisaki’s face isn’t enough to hide the faint, smug upward curve of his lips either. “Midoriya isn’t a combatant. She won’t be any use to you.”
A lie, and a bold-faced one. Midoriya Izuku has the mind of a strategist and the heart of a warrior: anyone would be lucky to have her on their side. When the heroes were stupid enough to shun her, they lost their trump card and didn’t even notice. Too blind, too arrogant to see what truly mattered.
Only Tomura had seen it.
“Besides, she’s Quirkless” Tomura adds, hoping that Overhaul will be just as arrogant and blind. Hoping that Izuku’s value will escape him as it had escaped so many others before.
But alas, hope is a cruel mistress. “Oh, I know” Chisaki drawls, flicking a piece of lint off his sleeve. “That’s the only reason I put her back together.”
Walking into this meeting, Tomura had already decided Chisaki Kai would die. She had already decided she would be the one to kill him, watching his smug face contort in horror as he turned into the dirt he so deeply despised. Ever since he laid a finger on Izuku—even if she hadn’t fully understood what had happened, or how, or why, because it was all too fast and because Izuku wouldn’t tell her—Tomura had decided.
But now?
Now is the moment she decides she’s going to make it hurt.
vii. candle
“You don’t have to do this” Tomura says, one last attempt to dissuade the girl in front of her from putting herself into the line of fire.
But this is Midoriya Izuku they’re talking about. And, predictably, all she does is turn back and smile. It’s faint and flickering, like a candle under a gust of wind—but it’s also startlingly sincere. It makes something inside Tomura’s chest clench painfully and, for once, it isn’t an itch. For once, she doesn’t want it to go away. “I want to. This way, I’ll get to keep an eye on Toga and Twice too.”
It's hard, to keep someone out of the line of fire when the flame within them burns brighter than any other. It’s impossible, but Tomura tries anyway. “They can handle themselves” the leader of the League of Villains scoffs, forcing her gaze literally anywhere else to hide the concern buried within. It’s unbecoming of a leader—to want to keep a valuable, capable soldier away from the heat.
But the members of the League aren’t just any soldier, and Izuku is even further from that. Izuku, Tomura has realized, is someone she wants to keep. Everyone else is dear to her, but Izuku is hers.
“So can I” the girl replies, a slight pout on her face as she adjusts her backpack on her shoulder. And, oh, doesn’t Tomura know that. In an arena full of Quirked-up kids and with two Pros, it was the Quirkless kid who delivered a defeat worse than any she’d ever suffered. The Quirkless, isolated, terrified kid.
The second Midoriya Izuku steps foot in Overhaul’s lair, the Shie Hassaikai will be done for. Toga and Twice are going to wreak the most chaotic havoc anyone is capable of, are going to make every single one of those masked clowns regrets they’d ever been born; but Midoriya Izuku will take them down. Tomura knows that down to the atoms.
She knows, but she can’t bring herself to let go.
The girl seems to sense her agitation—she always, always knows—because she catches the edge of her sleeve, stroking a feather-light, hesitant circle on the inside of Tomura’s wrist. Her fingers brush against Tomura’s, careful but unafraid, and the villain wonders when it happened; when, exactly, Izuku had stopped flinching at the sight of her hands.
“Do you trust me?” Izuku asks, as soft and meek as that night in the rain.
Do you still want me?
“Always” Tomura breathes, feeling as raw and defenseless as the day she’d been born, and the girl breaks in another smile.
But this time it’s strong, and true, and nothing like a candle in the wind.
viii. break me like a promise
But of course, Izuku wouldn’t stop at taking Overhaul down.
Tomura had made one gross miscalculation in all this: she’d failed to account for one little girl. She hadn’t known—no one but Chisaki’s closest henchmen had known—and thus, she’d sent Izuku straight into the one mission she would complete at the cost of her own life.
A rescue.
As soon as the news breaks on every channel, her heart starts racing: the heroes are raiding the Shie Hassaikai. It’s the perfect chance for Toga and Twice to carry out their sabotage—except that UA is there, too. And, once Tomura hears why, it takes all of her willpower not to call for Kurogiri at the top of her lungs and hurl herself through a portal.
Do you trust me?
It takes all of it, and then some.
But then she sees her. Glowing bright and enveloped in flames from her exploding gear, with a little girl latched to her back like a koala, and Chisaki-fucking-Kai throwing himself at her in a grotesque parody of a game boss’ final form.
Killing her, over and over again.
Except that Izuku keeps getting up. She keeps getting up, and she keeps getting torn to pieces—made and unmade, a phoenix bursting into flames only to rise from the ashes with a bloodier pair of wings. And a grin that could cut through steel, splitting her face in half like a crescent moon.
She’s beautiful.
“Kurogiri.”
She’s beautiful the way a supernova is.
“Take me there.”
Bright, and suicidal, and one step away from taking the rest of the universe with her.
Izuku takes Chisaki down, and Tomura isn’t surprised. She thought she’d do it through strategy, weaving a net of traps and misdirection he would end up falling prey to without even realizing what was happening—not in an all-out battle. Certainly not by punching him in the face.
But she takes him down, and Tomura’s heart would be brimming with pride—
“Izuku?!”
—except that Izuku is still glowing.
Because Overhaul isn’t destroying her anymore. He isn’t destroying her, so…
“Stop…”
A hand catches hers, inches away from the little girl’s bursting horn.
“She’s killing you” Tomura murmurs as four of Izuku’s fingers overlap with hers.
“It’s not her fault” Izuku murmurs back, smiling still.
And Tomura doesn’t know why those words hit as deep as they do. She doesn’t know why another face overlaps with the little girl’s, why her white hair turns darker through the filter of what could be a hallucination as well as it could be a memory. Why her eyes—red eyes—remind her so much of a mirror.
She just knows that Izuku’s supernova is turning into a black hole, and that, unless she does something about it, it will swallow her up for good.
No.
She’s mine.
“What do I do?” she asks, because she doesn’t know. She doesn’t know, but Izuku always does, she always, always knows—
“This” she replies, and her smile could kill her. It could turn her to dust where she kneels.
But then the girl fits their pinkies together, and it’s her who starts falling to pieces.
Tomura panics. She panics, and she almost yanks her hand away, sorry sorry sorry I didn’t mean I didn’t want to—
Except that, somehow, the Decay stops. The cracks reach Izuku’s eyes only to fill back up with golden light; a martyr’s kintsugi.
Suddenly, Tomura understands.
“Kill me” Izuku whispers, soft and pleading and so, so pained, and Tomura does.
She kills her.
She kills her over and over again.
She kills her, and as she does, the little girl’s power knits her flesh back together, filling the cracks in gold. Every time, Izuku kisses death by Tomura’s hand; every time, the little girl with white hair and red eyes brings her back to life.
It’s agony on all three of them. But, even as her Decay starts hitting its limit, turning Tomura’s own skin into cracked porcelain, Tomura doesn’t stop.
And, after a while, the light begins to fade.
ix. our secret
Izuku collapses in her arms like a ragdoll. Tomura is so afraid to touch her she almost lets her fall—almost.
“Kurogiri” she rasps, hating the way her voice trembles. “Where are the others?”
“…All safely back” the shadowy man responds, keeping a respectful distance.
“And Chisaki?”
The warp gate steps aside, revealing a mangled mess of flesh behind him.
A bloody, mangled, unbreathing mess.
“Is he dead…?”
The words come from Izuku’s direction, but it isn’t her voice that speaks them. Instead, Tomura slowly lets her eyes travel to the half-conscious little girl lying on the rooftop behind her. The horn on her head isn’t glowing anymore, shrunk to the size of a nub.
When Tomura reaches out to touch him, the Quirk exhaustion flares all the way up her shoulder. She’s pushed Decay past its limits enough today, but there’s one more thing she needs to do.
Tomura grits her teeth against the pain, and Chisaki Kai scatters to the winds.
“Now he is” she says, watching the little girl’s eyes go wide. Not with horror, though. Not with fear.
With relief.
She doesn’t hear Kurogiri open a portal beneath them. All she hears is the steady heartbeat against her chest, and the rustling of wind in the leaves, and the sound of the little girl’s body going limp with exhaustion.
“Take her, too” she breathes, almost as an afterthought.
Once they’re back at the bar, and the little girl has been safely tucked into a spare bed by Kurogiri, the warp gate turns to her.
“There was no need to injure yourself further, Shigaraki Tomura. Overhaul was already dead.”
Tomura looks down at the unconscious girl in her arms, taking in the rise and fall of her chest.
“Yeah, well” she says, brushing a stray lock of hair from Izuku’s forehead, “no one else needs to know that.”
Kurogiri doesn’t reply.
x. heart
She didn’t mean to fall asleep. Didn’t mean to let exhaustion get the best of her, not until she could make sure Izuku was okay. Not until the girl woke up.
But the thump thump thump against her chest was too tempting a lull, and soon, Tomura fell under.
She only wakes up once the rhythm breaks.
“What happened to your arm?” asks a soft, worried voice that makes her heart instantly flood with relief.
Tomura blinks to green eyes gazing at her, and the star-dotted expanse of Izuku’s freckled cheeks inches from her own face.
“Occupational hazard” she mumbles, mouth still heavy with sleep.
Izuku pulls a face at that. She bites her lower lip, and Tomura thinks she’s going to take the blame, or apologize, or look away in sadness in a way that always manages to break her heart just a little—
Instead, the girl looks her in the eye and says: “Thank you. For saving me.”
The words ring foreign to her ears. They aren’t words Tomura has ever heard before.
“Just following the rules” the villain replies, reaching out to cup her face before stopping her hand midair.
Izuku meets her halfway.
“I thought you didn’t follow the rules” she jokes, leaning into the touch in a way that’s careful to avoid her raised pinky. “Not mine, anyway.”
I could learn to, she almost says. I could learn if it’s you.
“Guess I cheated, then” she says instead, giving a half-smirk as she flips the girl on her back. Izuku stares up wide-eyed, cheeks dusting a delicious shade of pink.
Alive.
“Guess you did” she breathes back, reaching to card her fingers through Tomura’s hair at the back of her neck. It sends a spark down the villain’s back, making her heart skip a beat.
“And… the others?” Izuku asks, unable to keep herself from worrying. Unable to put everybody else before herself.
Instead of answering, Tomura kisses her.
There will be time to check up on the others. Time to compare wounds, to plan, to heal. Everyone else is close to her heart, but Midoriya Izuku is her heart.
And she’s hers to keep.