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Izuku doesn’t think he has ever spent so much money on one thing before, and for something so small too.
Wrapped in brown tea-leaf paper and stamped with nearly a dozen stamps, both yokai and human alike, the package fits easily between his hands, and he doesn’t have to strain at all to lift it and hurry to his room with it.
Izuku tries not to shake or jostle it, but he can’t quite contain the nervous trembling of his hands as he sets the package down on his desk. The green string wound around it is easily cut, and the paper torn away eagerly, until all Izuku has is a delicate wooden box sitting before him. Though really, it’s rather plain, for what he hopes it has inside.
Slowly, Izuku takes a deep breath, then lets it out in another single, measured breath, before he goes about beginning the process of opening the box itself.
The box is charmed tightly shut, of course. Izuku rotates the box in his hands, until he spots a familiar logo seared into the bottom. It’s that of a local security company, that pride themselves on the creative combinations of spells they sell to keep people’s property safe, unlike other security companies who deal in monsters and curses when people want to outfit their security detail.
Though Izuku will say he does like this company. He’s used some of their spells to seal his notebooks before, on bad days when he would worry that someone would steal them from him.
And because he’s used their spells before, he knows they always come with instructions for unlocking them.
Izuku sets the box down and searches through the packaging that had been wrapped around the box. Sure enough, he spots a small corner of white, which reveals itself as a little slip of paper when he plucks it from the mess. It’s completely blank, until he reaches into his desk, grabs a lighter his father gifted him when he’d been younger that dissipates glamor enchantments, and waves the flame lightly over the paper. The instructions for breaking the lock on the box appear easily after that, and Izuku gets right back to work.
Izuku’s heart pounds a heavy drumbeat in his ears as he breaks the charm, but it stutters when the box’s seam cracks open.
The object in this box… Izuku has been looking for it for so long.
If it’s real, it would be the end of all his studying and searching.
It would be the end of his teacher’s pain.
Izuku tightens his grip on the sides of the box, and works his pointer fingers under the lid’s edge.
He desperately hopes it's real.
The lid comes up easily and Izuku is embarrassed to say he slams his eyes shut as it does. Slowly slowly he peeks one eye open a crack.
Nestled on a bed of velvet is a corked vial, wrapped in a small cloth that Izuku knows is heavily charmed with a preservation spell that affects anything inside it.
Part of him is already thinking of all the things he can do with it once it’s no longer needed for this but the other part is already reaching for his scrying tools. He’s not about to remove it from said preservation spell till he’s ready to use it, but then he’s also not going to get started on the curse breaking potion without first ascertaining that the vial contains what it's supposed to.
He slowly unwraps his eye glass and purifies it in the rainwater he’s allowed to collect over the course of the week. He takes a deep breath, cracks his knuckles and then brings the glass up to his eye.
Bright magic surrounds the wrapped vial and Izuku carefully studies it, falling into a trance as he slowly weaves through the aura, isolating the preservation charm and slipping past it to look deeper at the vial itself and its contents.
The wave of blessed energy almost throws his concentration but Izuku tightens his hold and continues to study. He’s kept his search for a cure to himself but he’s not stupid enough to think there aren’t any seers out there that could have sold the story of his efforts to someone who’d want All Might harmed. Tampering of any kind with a ritual this temperamental could be detrimental to his attempt. It wouldn’t just kill All Might. It would ratchet up the curse to max and ruin any chance of ever breaking it.
Izuku is taking no chances, not with this.
He sinks deeper into the white, blessings and purity washing over him till he’s almost drunk with it. He reaches out all of his senses, searching for anything dark, anything tainted, anything that feels out of place.
But there’s nothing. He lets out a sigh of relief, this is it, this is really it. He is going to be able to cure his beloved teacher. He carefully sets the vial back into the box, once it's secured. He allows himself just a few minutes to let the tears of joy he was holding back to fall.
He sets to work, pulling out his potion books, there is no room for error. He checks five different sources and they all have the same or nearly the same recipe. He had been studying this potion daily for well over a year, and had already known that.
However he doesn't want to make any mistakes in his excitement. It’s the exact same one he has written in his notebook, which includes a few notes on subtle differences from alternate versions. He grabs his yellow satchel and puts his notebook and a few key ingredients into it, All Might will have the other supplies.
Just before he rushes out the door to go to his teacher's place, he wonders if All Might could use some food. He has been bad at making sure to eat left to his own devices lately. So Izuku often brings him a snack when he goes to visit. He grabs a wrapped loaf of bread and jars with nut butter and berry jam as well.
His bag is full of all the supplies and snacks he needs. The one exception is that his most prized ingredient in its special box is clutched tightly in his hand, as walks with renewed hope to visit and work with his mentor. All Might is much more skilled at potion making, and also has a much larger space dedicated to the craft.
He raps on the door with his free hand, waits a moment and tries again. He wonders if All Might isn't home. And then he starts to worry, what if All Might is home but can't answer because the curse is affecting him. Things like that have been happening more and more frequently, Izuku's stomach clenches in fear, what should he do? He knocks on the door and yells “All Might…. All Might!” and nothing!
He is starting to panic, what if he had gone to all this effort only to be too late? He considers attempting to break down the door, to go inside and check on him. But it's like his body is moving on its own, he never actually finishes the consideration.
He just naturally gets ready, and while turning the door handle he pushes into the door with all his body weight. Only the door is not even locked and the momentum from his movement causes him to fall awkwardly into All Might’s entryway.
As he tumbles, the contents of his bag spills everywhere. When he gets up and starts to collect everything he quickly notices that during the commotion he must have dropped the box. The vial must have rolled out, because he can't see it anywhere.
Panic lodges in his throat halfway up as Izuku spins in a tight circle, his eyes darting every which way as he tries to spot his vial. But there is nothing there. It is like it vanished into thin air, nothing but smoke.
Convinced he must have missed it the first time around, Izuku makes another circle, then he drops to his knees so that he can look under every conceivable piece of furniture, frantically hoping that it must have just rolled under something. But he still comes up empty handed.
The vial is just gone .
Frustration and anger and fear well up inside him, mixing with the desperation and the bone aching sadness that he has carried with him so long until all the emotions are a sludge inside him. He wants to scream at a world so unfair that it gives him hope only to snatch it from his fingertips. He wants to sit on the floor and cry with the knowledge that he might have just doomed All Might when he had been trying to save him.
“Young Midoriya?” All Might asks and Izuku’s gaze whips up from where he is performing a second, fruitless search under the furniture.
All Might is looking at him, confusion coloring his eyes as he leans against the wall. And Izuku cannot take it, he cannot face his teacher and explain how close he came to a cure and how he let it slip through his fingers.
Izuku scrambles to his feet and bolts, barely even remembering to slam the door shut behind him as he does.
“Young Midoriya!” All Might calls from behind the wood, but Izuku is already running, and as much as he would have loved to be able to stop for his mentor, this time he cannot.
Izuku is not sure where he’s running to, exactly. The only thought running through his mind right now is away, away. Shame burns his cheeks and tears well in his eyes. He’s not proud enough to blink them away and so he lets them fall.
The tears blur his vision, but Izuku refuses to be slowed. He runs blind, the sound of his feet slapping against the ground mingling with the noise of his sniffling. He can’t do this— He—
“Young Midoriya!”
Izuku screams. All Might stands right in front of him, arms outstretched to catch him as he fails to skid to a safe stop. He crashes into All Might’s arms with gusto, knocking them both over and onto the ground, the air around them still crackling from the teleportation spell his mentor just used.
“I—Huh?!”
“Young Midoriya, it’s alright!” All Might reassures as he pulls Izuku further into his arms. “It’s alright, my boy. I’m here now.”
“All Might…” Izuku wheezes, burying his face in the man’s chest to smother his tears. “I’m so sorry!”
All Might brings a hand up to his hair and combs through it soothingly. “Whatever for, my boy?”
“The ingredient,” Izuku feels All Might stiffen against him at the mention of the vial, “f–for your potion! I had it but I lost it! I d–don’t know where it went!”
When All Might doesn’t say anything, Izuku lifts his face from his chest to look at his mentor. His eyebrows are furrowed and his mouth a drawn line but he doesn’t… he doesn’t look angry.
He should be angry.
Angry at Izuku, for blowing their chance. All Might should be furious with him for his carelessness.
And yet he isn’t.
Why?
“Why aren’t you upset?” he blurts, feeling another sob building in his throat. “Why aren’t you angry at me? That ingredient is already so rare and I–!"
A soft, warm chuckle interrupts him, and Izuku stares at his mentor in shock.
“My boy,” All Might says, as he takes one arm away from Izuku’s back to reach into his pocket, and pulls out the vial Izuku had been agonizing over. “You were looking under the furniture, but when it fell it rolled under the door. I found it when you slammed the door shut.”
Izuku stares at the vial, then looks at his mentor’s face. All Might is clearly trying and failing to fight back a smile. “O-Oh,” Izuku stammers, going red.
He’d panicked so much… and for nothing. The vial had just rolled under the door.
With a small groan, he buries his face in All Might’s chest, feeling it rumble beneath him as All Might gives in to his laughter and pulls Izuku closer at the same time.
“How about we make this potion together, hm?” All Might says.
“You’d let me?” Izuku can’t help but blurt. “You don’t think I’d– that I’d mess it up? I already dropped the vial once…”
He grew up without natural magic, unable to perform spells that other children like him were able to pick up oh so easily. While they were shooting beams of bubbles and letting sparks fly at each other on the playground, Izuku was sitting on the sidelines with his magic theory and potion books. Now, potions are really all that he’s good at, and yet he still finds himself doubting his skills, especially when the potion is a cure so important and life changing as this one will be.
Getting the final, most precious ingredient is where he thought his involvement would end, really.
In the face of Izuku’s nervousness, All Might only smiles at him. It’s the same smile Izuku grew up seeing at a distance on posters and billboards, advertising the incredible feats one could do with magic, but now, this smile is just for him. “There’s no way you could mess it up, in fact my boy, I think you’re just what this potion will need to be successful.”