Chapter Text
The fight with All For One had ended like a fall. One long drop and then the ground, the aftermath. Silent, cold. Lonely.
There had been celebrations. Enough to last a lifetime. So many. Too many. Izuku hadn’t even wanted to go to the first.
He’d stood with his fist in the air, bloodied and bruised, heart hammering so fast he could taste it, and he hadn’t heard the cheers, hadn’t felt the relief. All he had felt was tired.
His knees buckled, and Kacchan caught him. He supposed, then, he should have taken it as a sign. Kacchan would be carrying him for the rest of his life. He wouldn’t tell him how desperately he had wanted to hit the ground, to dig a hole, to lie in it while the world moved.
There had been ambulances, hospitals, interviews, ceremonies. There had been gratitude and mourning and excitement and fear.
He began to sort people into categories, instead of connections, those who he had saved and those who wanted to save him. Some of them understood. He hated those most of all.
Mr Aizawa and All Might said the same thing; get some rest, let someone else take the weight, get your mind in order, we’ll take care of you until you’re ready to return. They’d meant it. They just hadn’t known how long they were signing up for, or how stubbornly he would refuse their support, how hard he would push them away.
Ten years. It had been ten years.
He was lucky. He was allowed to hide. He knew that was luck, but it might have been a curse.
He’d forgotten how to do anything but hide.
Izuku blinked blearily at the midday sun streaming through his blinds, for a brief moment of blissful ignorance, before he remembered what day it was.
Ten years today, an anniversary of sorts.
He pulled the covers back over his head, trying to stop his thoughts spiralling before they could get started. He just wanted to go back to sleep.
A kettle was boiling somewhere in his apartment. Right. That was what had woken him. Kacchan was here.
The door thudded open, and there he was, glaring down at him.
“Hey, nerd, get the fuck out of bed.”
Sometimes he regretted giving him a key.
He glared back. Kacchan rolled his eyes.
“Coffee’s fucking brewing. Not my fault if you have to drink it cold.”
Izuku groaned, covered his face with a pillow, mumbled into it.
“Please Kacchan, just- I don’t wanna be awake today.”
“I got the good coffee.”
“I don’t care.”
“I’m not letting you stay in bed again. Not after- no. Just. No. How many years have we been doing this?”
“Ten. It’s been ten years,” he practically whispered.
Ten years since he’d tried to be a hero. Ten since he’d left it all behind.
“We know what fucking works. I don’t know why you keep fighting. You know I’ll win.”
He did. He always won. Izuku didn’t know how to fight anymore.
Kacchan pulled the covers off him and Izuku curled in on himself.
“Fuck off.”
“I’m putting a wash on. Your sheets are fucking disgusting. Clean your goddamn teeth.”
He gave up. As usual.
He slouched to the bathroom, moved through his morning routine like a robot. Stared at the wall. Avoided looking in the mirror.
By the time he was done there was a wash in the machine, order where previously there had been chaos. Kacchan was still tidying. He shuffled to a chair, sat down, and reached for the mug that was pressed into his hands. He was so tired.
The washing machine was loud. He had a headache already. He groaned, pinched the skin between his eyebrows, listened as Kacchan moved about his apartment.
There had been dishes in his sink when he’d gone to sleep. They weren’t there anymore.
He sipped at the coffee. It was delicious. Of course it was. Kacchan had good taste. Izuku just couldn’t bring himself to care about how good it tasted. There was a reason he lived off instant. Kacchan bought him nice things anyway. Kacchan didn’t care that he didn’t care.
Maybe he was hoping that one day he’d change.
Izuku didn’t think he would.
He had accepted the life he was living. He had accepted that it didn’t feel like living at all.
Kacchan turned on the hoover, ran it across the floorboards. Izuku covered his ears.
“Can you not? Not today.”
“You always say that.”
“Please?”
“Ugh, Fine.”
He put it away, started wiping down his counters. It was quieter, at least. It was humiliating.
“Thanks Kacchan. You didn’t have to do all of that. You don’t have to. I can-”
“Whatever, nerd,” Kacchan scoffed. “Get dressed. We gotta get going soon if we wanna be there in time.”
He moved the wash to the dryer. Izuku buried his head in his hands.
“Do we really have to?”
“If I don’t get out of the fucking city soon I’m gonna blow up a building. I need to see a goddamn tree and touch some fucking grass before I lose my fucking mind.”
And they needed to escape the news. Needed not to hear the parties. Needed to be away from phone signal.
They both needed to escape. The time had taught them as much.
Still, the journey felt unbearable.
He accepted his fate, got dressed, silently followed Kacchan to the bus stop. He didn’t look at the signs. He boarded the bus. He let himself get lost in his mind.
Once, Izuku had lurked in the streets during the celebrations, hood up and hands stuffed in his pockets as he kept his head down, looking like the ghost of Tomura Shigaraki. He felt like it, sometimes, like the decay had spread to his soul, like anything he touched would corrode.
He watched from the shadows as people danced and laughed and cheered, singing songs of celebration as fictional as Izuku’s own legend, as everyone’s view of Shigaraki.
This day was the celebration of a death, no matter how you wanted to dress it up, and Izuku felt like he was the only one who truly mourned.
He wished Tomura had been simply evil. He wished he himself had been truly good. He knew neither of them had been either.
Children, fighting their mentors’ war. Angry and afraid and so desperately lonely.
Tomura had cried while he died, had held him with hands that could kill so easily, but he hadn’t put down that final finger. That was what haunted Izuku the most, these days. Tears and touch and the knowledge that he couldn’t stop, that no matter how terrified, how young, the villain may have looked he could still have killed them all.
There was no mercy, there couldn’t be, he was too dangerous and Izuku was too cruel.
It hadn’t been heroic. It hadn’t been good. It had been blood and brains and screams for him to stop.
The songs were wrong.
He hadn’t stayed out in the city for the anniversary again.
He hid in his home. He slept the day away. He got drunk enough to forget, or drunk enough to remember, depending on the year. He screamed at his face in the mirror. He punched a wall until he couldn’t remember whose blood was on his fists. He stood on a ledge, and longed for the fall.
After that one Kacchan stopped leaving him alone. Every year he came over, tried to find a way to distract him. Eventually they silently accepted that there was no distracting him. The fireworks were too bright, the parties too loud. His memories too insistent, too painful.
It had been a few years now, they’d taken this trip, out and away. There was no escape to be had, not truly, but maybe acknowledging it was better than simply hiding. Better than the inside of his head, the echoes that remained.
Kacchan wore headphones while they sat on the bus, as he always did, frown still set on his face while music filled his ears and blocked out the sound of other, uncontrollable, humans. He’d found his coping mechanisms over the years, ways to make himself less angry, more like the hero he had always wanted to become.
He was a good hero, a great one.
In a way this was how it was always supposed to be, how it would have been if Izuku had never been chosen for a fall: blood and death and so much responsibility.
He wished he had never been chosen. He wished he had never known what it was to fight, to win, to lose something so much bigger than a war.
What a selfish thought.
He was a terrible hero. He wasn’t a hero at all. Kacchan had found a way to cope, while he had simply given up
Izuku took the window seat, staring out at the city passing by. He shook minutely. The streets were full of decorations, the bustle of a holiday, businesses closing as their owners took to the street to celebrate.
Kacchan turned to look at him, moved his shoulder ever so slightly closer.
He could feel his warmth in the fractional space that stood between them, it would be so easy to close it, to play it off as an accident.
Neither one of them moved closer. They just looked at each other, a fire in Kacchan’s eyes that said ‘hey nerd, look at me, not that bullshit.’ Izuku’s breaths calmed as he watched him in return.
Kacchan was the one who broke the stare-off, looked out of the window then up at the roof with a huff.
They’d been travelling for a while.
Izuku had only seen his face, the concerned scowl that did nothing to stop him being beautiful, so beautiful it might have taken his breath, if he had any to spare. The day had taken it all away.
His chest was too tight but Kacchan was steady in the seat beside him. Maybe that would be enough, maybe he could remind him how to breathe.
Outside now was only open space, the city left behind for the lush greenery of the countryside, the mountains rising high in the distance.
The sun was setting over the trees, a sunset that burned the sky red as Kacchan’s eyes, red as the blood that had been spilt on either side in the war that was a decade old today. He was glad when it became a sliver of orange, gladder still when it slipped away.
Kacchan grumbled in complaint, drawing his attention as he made his way towards the door. They were in the foothills of the mountain range, trees growing tall and ancient between them and their destination.
Izuku closed his eyes, breathed deep, grateful for clean air. Grateful for silence.
Kacchan was watching him intently, something burning in his gaze before he swallowed and turned his head away, switching his focus to the route ahead as he lead the way up, up, on the path they had taken so many times before.