Chapter Text
Remember! Why did you come here?
The air burns the back of his throat and tastes like soot when Izuku sucks in a deep breath—sort of like how the air feels and tastes after a long training session next to Kacchan. Not with Kacchan because he doesn’t let Izuku that close to him yet, but one day. He hopes, one day.
Izuku curls his hands into fists tight enough to break the skin on his palms, both of them, if only to keep himself from bashing them into the sides of his head or from tearing at his hair until it comes out in clumps or something else equally unproductive.
It’s because your body wouldn’t move back then, so you couldn’t save him, right? To say you can’t move because you’re scared…
He thinks of that moment in the woods, his arms giving a phantom twinge at the memory. Thinks about the burned guy’s hand resting over Kacchan’s neck with his dirty fingernails and little grin nudging at the staples in his face, Kacchan disoriented from the marble but hiding it behind a wide-eyed scowl which Izuku, of course, saw right through. And the gate sinking in around Kacchan’s face and don’t come, Deku—well, he came, and he’s here and—
He’s right in front of you, you know.
He closes his eyes to rid himself of the memory and clenches his teeth hard enough that his temples pulse with the force of it, but he forces himself to look over the ragged edge of the crumbling wall the five of them ducked behind, and he makes out the top of Kacchan’s head through the dark clouds of smoke—and the villains in the middle of it all, surrounding him, two of them face-down on the ground and maybe dead but Izuku doesn’t want to think about that.
In the middle of it all, All For One, too powerful on his own, more powerful than his classmates can understand. But, Izuku knows not to underestimate them as a group, either—especially without Aizawa here to help them out like he did at the training camp in the woods.
He shouldn’t have noticed us yet. If he had, he wouldn’t have spoken so freely. There are six or seven meters between us and Kacchan, huh? With Full Cowl, I can get there in less than a second.
Kacchan’s posture is primed for a fight, his hands twitching at his sides, his shoulders squared off and tense, feet placed wide enough that he can lunge or keep himself upright in a battle. Despite bearing the stance of a hero facing a villain, Kacchan doesn’t look like much more than a teenager in his black t-shirt and rumpled pants—still the image of victory to Izuku, but to tell the truth, he’s still scared for Kacchan. Not for himself, but for Kacchan—and the others, secondly.
After that, can I get away? Where would I go? Everyone else will be in danger. How can I…I need a plan…so everyone…
It starts as a whisper in the back of his mind, like all his plans always do. But there’s no time, surely everything will go sideways if Izuku waits here and does nothing, and then maybe they can’t get Kacchan away. It has to be this moment, this one, or else Kacchan might—
But that’s a reality too unthinkable for Izuku to let himself consider.
Anyway, I need to move! If I can’t move here, then it’s all—
Izuku takes one step forward, but Iida’s hand grips the front of his shirt hard enough the fabric rips a little around the tips of his fingers. When Izuku looks over, breath frozen in his burning lungs, he finds Iida’s other hand occupied with holding Todoroki back, too, and Yaoyorozu has one hand wrapped around Kirishima’s shoulder with her perfectly-manicured nails digging into the fabric of his jacket, the other cupping the bottom half of her face like she might throw up any second now. He’s seen the same expression on Uraraka’s face about a million times now, but never with so much terror in her eyes.
Iida forces him and Todoroki back until their backs are flat against the wall. A sharp edge digs into the small of Izuku’s back, and he hears the man in the creepy metal mask say something, but the words ring in his ears like a swarm of bees around his head, and then there is All Might.
There’s the All Might from when Izuku and Kacchan were KacchanandDeku , before Deku meant all the things it meant when they wore those little, black middle school uniforms. Smiling and unbeatable—just like he was on the pixelated screen of the computer his mom used for work.
But the man in the mask holds out a hand, and the burst of air from him and All Might together almost blows the wall over and Izuku down with it. When he manages to wipe the dust out of his eyes, he can’t find All Might’s muscled figure in the mess of the battlefield, so he looks for Kacchan instead and finds him frozen, wide-eyed, coughing because of all the dust, crouching in front of All For One and Shigaraki.
“All Might!” he yells, and his voice cracks, looking off somewhere over his shoulder, where Izuku can’t see, so he doesn’t bother looking. He watches Kacchan get his footing back and rise with his fists clenched again.
“Even without your worry,”All For One tells him, “he won’t die from something like that. So run away from here, Tomura, and take that child with you.”
All For One’s fingers glow red enough that Izuku can make them out from behind the wall, through the dust, as they shoot toward one of his downed cronies, the one who made the portal that took Kacchan away.
If not for Iida’s hand tightening on his collar, Izuku might have made a break for Kacchan, getaway plan be damned. But Iida seems to know this, and he holds him against the wall, straining with the force it takes.
“Kurogiri, get everyone away from here,” All For One says, pushing the tips of his glowing fingers into the portal-man’s chest.
“His Quirk,” Kirishima mutters, a few paces down the wall. “It was absorption—he knocked…All Might, with his hands…”
“But now,” Yaoyorozu continues, shaking her head. “Maybe we just—didn’t see it right.”
Izuku shakes his head and cranes his neck to get a better look over the top of the wall again without bothering to try explaining All For One to them. The others can keep an eye on All For One, the villains, and All Might, but Izuku’s job, everyone knew it without having to say it, was to keep an eye on Kacchan.
A portal opens over Kurogiri, still laid out and unconscious but somehow activating his Quirk, and Izuku’s never seen anything like it. His fingers twitch for a pen.
“Now, go!” All For One demands.
“What about you?” Shigaraki starts, demure and smaller than Izuku’s seen him in any of the attacks he’s put out on their class. He’s unsure, and that’s an opening, Izuku thinks, but it’s only for a second before the battle starts again, and it’s gone.
All For One and All Might collide in the air, and All For One’s response is lost to Izuku between the wind, his creepy mask, and Izuku’s single-minded determination to get Kacchan out of here, tripled now that there’s another stupid portal.
Each of the villains turns toward Kacchan, who scowls at each of them in turn. Sweat beads on his cheeks, and he wipes at it with his palm—
“He’s going to try to fight them off,” Izuku mutters under his breath, turning to stare at the ground in front of them numbly, and only Todoroki seems to hear him if the way he tenses against Izuku’s shoulder is anything to go by. “He’s gathering his sweat for something—big.”
“What a pain!” Kacchan growls, and Izuku almost breaks his neck trying to turn back around fast enough to see. Kacchan’s brows are furrowed, and his arms twitch like they do before a sparring session against any of their more formidable classmates.
“Young Bakugou!” All Might shouts, and it sounds almost like a warning as he backs off from hitting All For One, and Izuku understands, very suddenly, everything that’s happening in front of his eyes.
All Might! All For One’s in the way, so he can’t save Kacchan. The League is trying to escape in that opening with Kacchan. Kacchan’s also surrounded and can’t run himself.
But Kacchan fights, throwing explosions into the ground to explode rocks up toward the villains, but he’s desperate. Izuku can see it in the way he jumps from side to side, his eyes darting around and his explosions not nearly as measured as they normally would be. All defensive, not the offensive position Kacchan almost always takes up in sparring.
He’ll wear himself out at this rate, six desperate villains willing to take him by force against one barely hero-in-training—and besides, All Might’s not doing so hot in the fight against All For One himself.
All Might and Kacchan are in such trouble, but… We are not allowed to fight! At least, where is there an opening?
There was that one moment, when Shigaraki hesitated. That was one, and it would’ve been enough—with the right plan.
Just a second is enough. Is there any way we can save Kacchan? If we save Kacchan, then All Might can use his power to the fullest! Where? Where is that route? Where?
Izuku scans the battlefield, eyes working over every inch of the ground and the frayed edges of the clearing. It starts to piece itself together in his head—Kacchan, the glowing center of it. Unstoppable, but surrounded.
No. This won’t work. There has to be one…
His eyes wander up, over the leaning, crumbling buildings, as Kacchan blasts himself toward the night sky, over the heads of each villain, and there it is—
An opening!
Izuku’s breath catches in his throat, and he knows the plan, the whispers in the back of his mind now fully realized without his realizing it until this moment. He swallows hard.
“Iida, everyone!” he whisper-shouts, tugging at Iida’s hold, but his fingers only tighten again on his collar.
“You can’t, Midoriya!” Iida bites, sweating and stiffer than usual.
“No, there’s a way! A way that won’t involve us fighting that will let us leave this place, but still save Kacchan!” Izuku wishes, briefly, that anyone other than Iida decided to tag along—he doesn’t need the class president right now, he needs someone who will put their all into saving Kacchan, like he’s going to.
Todoroki grips Iida’s wrist, something frantic behind his eyes. “Let’s hear it.”
Finally, Iida releases his hold on Izuku’s shirt and Todoroki’s arm, and Izuku feels brief shame over his wish for anyone else—but there’s not enough time for it to take hold. Later, he promises. He’ll apologize later.
“But this plan also depends on Kacchan,” Izuku admits, knowing it’s the weakest point of it all. He stares down at his own hand and thinks of a creek in the woods, a log, and the stinging on his palm from a harsh slap. “I don’t think my plan will succeed if I do it. That’s why, Kirishima, you’re the key to increasing the success rate!”
It aches to admit. Like pressing his tongue into a tooth rotted with cavity or the worst brain freeze of his life, the feeling of it spreading from his chest to his entire body.
When he looks up, Kirishima looks more surprised than Izuku thought he would—he figured Kirishima would just know, the way Izuku knows it can’t be him reaching for Kacchan. It’s innate. A given. He pauses at Kirishima’s surprise.
“Give us more details, Midoriya,” Todoroki urges, and Izuku will thank him later, after he apologizes to Iida.
Izuku shakes off the aching feeling and Kirishima’s surprise. “Right. This is my plan. First, we’ll propel ourselves with my Quirk and Iida’s Recipro. Then, with Kirishima’s Hardening, we’ll break through the wall.” He brushes his palm over the rough surface of it, the gravel stinging in the cuts from his nails. “The second it opens up, I want Todoroki to make a path of ice for us—one that’ll go as high as possible.”
Izuku points toward the top of the skyline behind the battle between All Might and All For One.
“The villains haven’t noticed us yet. The villains have outmaneuvered us until now, but now we’re in a position to outmaneuver them. And we’ll cross the battlefield at a height they can’t reach. All For One is holding All Might back. That means the reverse is also true! So then, it’s up to you, Kirishima.” And the ache returns, full force. This isn’t the time—this is about Kacchan, not about Izuku’s ideas about Kirishima and Kacchan and KacchanandKirishima . “It’s no good if I do it.” But, to make himself feel better, he adds, “Or Todoroki, or Iida, or Yaoyorozu…ever since school started, you built an equal relationship with Kacchan. If you, his friend, called him, then I’m sure!”
Izuku’s voice cracks minutely over his friend , but no one points it out.
“That’s your plan?” Iida says. He seems…shocked. Izuku doesn’t blame him—he’s spent his whole life as a useless Deku, so he figured it might take some convincing for them to believe in his plan.
“Kacchan should also realize the situation All Might is in,” he tells them.
“Yeah,” Todoroki trails off, blinking.
“Kacchan’s on guard against the enemy, fighting from a distance,” Izuku adds, starting to verge on desperation for them to believe him about the plan working. He wants to start it soon, or the opening might disappear—and Kacchan might disappear with it. “We need to do this at a time when Kacchan is a certain distance away from the enemy.”
“Iida…” Yaoyorozu starts, looking to Iida’s moonlit profile for guidance. Izuku shuffles where he stands, shifting his weight between his feet. He’s done all the convincing he can do, so he starts to formulate a second plan for if they don’t believe in this one.
“It’s a gamble, but considering the situation, there isn’t much risk to us. More importantly, if we succeed, it’ll change the tide of the fight for the better.” Izuku holds his breath. Iida mulls over the situation. Then, with a nod: “Let’s do it.”
Iida’s eyes meet Izuku’s, and Izuku nods again, then again, feeling unmoored that they went with the plan so easily. He figured it would take a little more than that, but…
He forces himself to move on from the thought as the others scramble to get in position to let all of it play out the way he told them it would—and it will, it will play out like that, he’s sure of it. There’s really no other option.
So, Izuku clutches at Kirishima with Iida on his other side as Kirishima crosses his arms over his face. Iida and Kirishima both wear determined expressions even as Izuku’s hands shake a little over where he holds his classmate.
It’s only from the breaks—he’s shaking because he broke his arms, that’s all. Recovery Girl and all her nurses warned him it might happen like this.
He lets Full Cowl rush through him and tries to ignore the way Kirishima’s Quirk makes him heavier. Izuku blinks at the extra weight, adjusts his stance and tries to ignore the sinking feeling, too, at this unforeseen added weight.
He tries to do the calculations over again, opens his mouth to say something about maybe altering the plan, but before he can—Iida’s Recipro forces him to jump off, and they’re through the wall, and the plan is in motion.
The ice cuts from Todoroki’s fingertips into the night air like it had in his fight against Sero during the Sports Festival. Izuku’s red shoes slide across the jagged surface of it until they’re airborne more suddenly and sooner than he thought they’d be when he formulated all of this, and Kirishima’s heavy, Hardened elbow digs into his sternum enough that he can’t quite catch his breath.
The path crumbles behind them, falling away in chunks. The lightning of his Quirk sparks around them, stark against the dust of the battle below them, and finally, as Izuku’s feet windmill over thin air and he can see Kacchan’s wide eyes staring up at them, Kirishima drops his Hardening. Much later than Izuku expected it to happen, but he can’t blame Kirishima—it’s all moving so fast around them, and Izuku really should have taken all of this into account, so it’s on him more than anyone else.
Kirishima wrenches one hand out from Izuku and Iida’s hold, and it ends up somewhere over Izuku’s ear. He knows what it means and closes his eyes against it.
“Come!” Kirishima yells, and it echoes over the battlefield. Izuku can almost imagine the expression on Kacchan’s face: a victorious snarl, the look he gets after a good fight. Flush high on his cheeks, eyes as close to sparkling as they ever get with Kacchan. Izuku cracks his eye open, trying to catch a glimpse of it, but he only sees the top of Kacchan’s head as Shigaraki reaches for him, and then—the greatest explosion Izuku’s ever seen.
And Kacchan in the middle of it all, flying through the air, his shirt whipping loosely around him, and there’s a sharp clap next to Izuku’s head as his hand meets Kirishima’s. Exactly how it played out in Izuku’s head. He smiles to himself, hiding it in the fabric of Kirishima’s shirt.
“You stupid or something?” Kacchan barks, but Izuku hears the smile in his voice, especially with him hanging so close to him. Izuku’s arms strain from holding onto three of his more muscular classmates, and sweat chills his skin in the wind enough that he shivers harshly.
“Bakugo, on my mark, create a blast,” Iida tells him, something unidentifiable in his voice, and that wasn’t part of the plan—Izuku opens his eyes wide and notices that they’re very close to the nearest building, too close and getting closer.
The four of them are sinking under the weight. They hadn’t managed enough momentum for the jump, and they were sinking quickly, even with Full Cowl and Recipro.
Izuku had been worried something like this might happen. It was a small possibility, but he’d planned for all possibilities.
“You match my mark!” Kacchan yells. His voice is gruff and lacks its normal bite. Kacchan must be tired after everything he’s been through.
“Don’t fight at a time like this!” Kirishima pleads. His forearm flexes next to Izuku’s head as he tightens his hand around Kacchan’s wide, explosive palm.
Izuku draws in a deep breath. The air is fresh—cooler, less sooty so far from the fight. He wonders if this is what it’s like to fly, if this is the type of air Hawks gets to breathe all the time. If it is, he’s sort of envious.
They’re sinking, falling through the air instead of flying.
But Izuku planned for this.
“Deku,” Kacchan says—he doesn’t bark, yell, or shout it. Izuku almost doesn’t hear it over the rushing wind around them. Suddenly, everything is very, very quiet other than the wind. Deku cranes his neck and makes eye contact over Kirishima’s hip.
Kacchan clutches at Kirishima’s hand like it’s a lifeline, and he blinks lightly as if he can’t believe the sight of Izuku staring back at him. Izuku lets himself break out a small, guilty smile—Kacchan always knew him just as well, if not better, as Izuku knew Kacchan.
“Don’t,” Kacchan warns, shaking his head minutely.
He shrugs his shoulders as best he can with his arms wrapped around Kirishima, sucks in another deep breath to steel himself, and unravels his arms.
They’ll get farther away from the fight, from the villains who want Kacchan so bad, if he isn’t weighing them down, and it’s better him than any of the other three. Kacchan’s been through enough already, Iida will need to be around to keep everyone tethered, and Kirishima needs to be there to help Kacchan heal from…all of this, as an equal. So, Izuku enters total, lonely freefall.
His wrist knocks against something hard enough to send a shooting pain up his arm on his way down, and when he opens his eyes mid-fall, he thinks he might see Kacchan reaching for him. At the very least, looking back and watching Izuku fall. Maybe shouting something, too, but the wind whips in his ears louder, now, so he can’t tell.
Izuku can only see the sky, the stars, the moon, but then at the edges, there are buildings, abandoned, dark buildings that lean in on him as if checking to see if he’s okay, if he survived the fall, and then he hits the ground.
It hurts. It hurts real bad. Izuku watches the trail of smoke move farther away, tries to see where it goes, if his friends land far enough away, but his eyes close without his permission.
—
He thinks he must miss the landing between one blink and the next because the next time he opens his eyes, a man with a lizard-type mutation is leaning over him, blinking like he can’t believe it. Izuku thinks he might recognize the man looming over him, can’t think of where he’d know him from. Can’t think of anything except for how much everything hurts.
“H-help,” Izuku murmurs, his vision blurry and his voice broken and weak. “Help me?”
The lizard man brings a walkie talkie to his mouth. “Guys. I think—I think I found one of the little bastards." He drops his hand away from his mouth like it's too heavy to hold up. "Oh, holy shit. I thought you were Compress, but—but you’re one of those stupid hero kids.”
Izuku closes his eyes again. Knows that if Kacchan got away, he’s smart enough that he won’t try to come after Izuku. There’s a smile on his face when everything stops hurting.
—