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“I thought I might find you here,” Izuku says as he slips into the room that Shouto has hidden himself in. He does not even really know what room he is in or why Izuku thought he might be here of all places. But he feels like knowing the answers to the vague, half formed questions in his head even less.
He does not even feel like opening his mouth, forcing words up his throat and out into the world. Not when silence is so much easier, so much simpler.
Izuku does not expand on why he was searching for Shouto either, instead he makes his way over to where Shouto is sitting, his back pressed up against one of the walls in the room so that no one can sneak up behind him and he can watch the door at the same time, and he slides down until he is sitting next to Shouto. Not close enough to touch him, which Shouto appreciates in some distant part of his brain that is registering the fact that he does not want to be touched right now, but close enough that Shouto can feel his support. Can feel the way warmth radiates off Izuku, the same way it always has.
There is a comfort in that, he muses, in knowing that whenever he needs him most, somehow Izuku seems to know, and will make sure he is right there for Shouto, reaching out his hand and offering to help pick him back up or to lighten the load. Except this time, Shouto is not sure what he wants from Izuku.
And even if he did know what he wants, he does not think he knows the words he would use to ask for it.
Not when all of his words are swirling somewhere deep in the pit of him, the one that opened up and has not stopped growing wider and wider with each passing second, a black hole that has its own gravity inside him and sucking up everything that used to be Shouto Todoroki and leaving nothing but a black void in its place, masquerading poorly as the person he used to be.
“I didn’t think you’d want to be alone,” Izuku says after a few extended moments of silence that seem both too short and far too long.
Shouto shrugs his shoulders rather than answer and they lapse into another extended moment of silence. It feels tense now though, like Shouto was supposed to answer one way and he did not, like there was a dialogue cue he missed somewhere and now he is wrong footed.
He should have answered Izuku. He should have found some way to fish some words, any words, out of the sinkhole in his chest. He should have at least thanked Izuku for caring enough about him to go looking, for finding Shouto when no one else has.
Shouto is just trying to scrounge up some energy to speak, when Izuku breaks the tension surrounding Shouto for him, wordlessly flipping his palm up between them. A peace offering, reaching out his hand to Shouto once more.
He does not take the offered hand.
Instead, Shouto slumps fully into Izuku’s side, leaning all his weight onto his friend.
And Izuku does not hesitate to retract the hand so he can wrap both arms around Shouto’s body, gently tucking Shouto’s head into the crook of his own neck and scooting ever so slightly closer so they’re pressed against each other, so Shouto can fully soak up the physical warmth and comfort as if it is all that fuels him and keeps him upright.
“Shhh,” Izuku whispers quietly, the tail of the drawn-out syllable dispersing in the air as quickly and easily as Shouto wishes the weight in his chest would go. “I’m here. I’ve got you.”
Shouto’s not alone, and he appreciates Izuku’s presence. He also appreciates that Izuku doesn’t try to say it’s okay, or don’t worry, or everything will be all right.
As much as Shouto doesn’t want to think about or acknowledge it, as much as he wishes he could just hide himself away in this room and shut the reality out, he and Izuku both know full well that the situation is by no means okay, that those who are gone can never return and that some things can never be the same again.
He draws in a single unsteady breath. And then another. And another, until he’s suddenly gasping for air as silent tears escape and fall to the white tiled floor.
“Why?” he chokes out brokenly. The void of his heart hurts so much that it inexplicably makes his hands hurt too, his fingers aching in the tight fists that they’re curled into. Izuku says nothing, only gripping him back so tightly it’s as if Shouto is his lifeline and not the other way around. “Why did it have to be like this? It’s not fair.”
Fairness, one of the first things that Aizawa-sensei taught them wasn’t real, not in this cruel world they live in. He’s well aware of that truth. It doesn’t make this any better.
Shouto wants to scream and kick and cry and curse and rail against the universe. He does none of these, partially because his energy has been sapped out of him and he has none left to do so, partially because he knows it’s no use at all.
One of Izuku’s hands drops into Shouto’s lap. He slowly wraps his fingers around Shouto’s right hand, carefully working to unfurl the white-knuckle fist he had pulled it into.
For a few minutes, they sit in the tear filled silence as Izuku works his hand open, before eventually threading his fingers in between Shouto’s. He stares down at his hand, he can feel Izuku’s warm skin against his own icy fingers. It's a small, miniscule action that does more than Izuku could ever know. It grounds him slightly, bringing him back into his body just enough to breathe again. It creates a doorway for the grief to return.
Shouto takes a slow, shuddering breath.
“Why couldn’t I save him?”
The words hang in the air, and for a moment, Shouto can see a pained expression wash over Izuku’s face.
Izuku looks like he desperately wants to say something, but he remains silent for a moment longer. He sighs softly and tightens his grip around Shouto’s hand, “I don’t think he wanted to be saved.”
Shouto’s breath hitches again and he curls into himself a little more, “but we wanted to- I wanted to save him.”
“I know,” Izuku whispers as he tightens the arm still laying around Shouto’s shoulders, “I know you did. And you tried. You tried so hard to save him. But it’s not your fault.”
Shouto slowly looks up at Izuku, tear filled mismatched eyes meet green ones, “but what if it is?” He whispers softly, his voice breaking, “what if I’m the reason he ran to Sekoto Peak, what if I was the reason our father didn’t make it up there in time?”
“You weren’t ,” Izuku says softly, his voice full of care and thick with emotion, “I promise you, you weren’t.”
“But if I had just never been born-“
“Stop,” Izuku cuts Shouto off before he can finish, his own voice cracking now, “you can’t do that to yourself.”
“But if I had never been born… if Father had never gotten his ‘perfect creation’,” Shouto spits out the last few words as though they were something dirty, “maybe Father would have continued to train him, and maybe Touya would be alive right now.”
“Shouto,” Izuku says, his voice softly chiding even as he holds Shouto closer, squeezing him just a bit more. Shouto curls closer into Izuku, into his warmth, because despite the fact that a part of him is telling himself that he does not deserve it, will never deserve it, most of him wants to spend the rest of his life being warm like this, the comfort that it offers him.
This warmth that feels like home in a way that is so difficult to describe but that is distinctly Izuku.
“I feel so guilty,” Shouto says, his voice barely a whisper as he says it, admitting to maybe his greatest shame. Because there is a very distinct thread he can follow from his birth to Touya’s death. It may not be a completely straight line, but the path does exist. And there is a part of him that whispers that if he was as honorable as Iida, as bright as Uraraka, as true as Tsu, as good as Izuku, he would have found some way to divert the fate that had unfolded out around him as the main player.
The weapon that dealt the killing blow.
He feels like if he was the Hero he wanted to be, he would have been able to save Touya. And if that is true, it means that deep down, a part of him had wanted Touya gone.
“You couldn’t have stopped it, Shouto. Your brother made his own choices,” Izuku tells him.
And Shouto knows that Izuku is trying to help him, is offering up an extended hand once more. He has no doubt that if they were out on the battle field again, he would be watching Izuku break himself to try and reach Shouto with his words. To make him understand just what he is trying to convey. He knows that.
But there is a bitter part of him that is swirling in the pit of his stomach, a part borne partially from the black hole that has made itself a home in his chest that rises up and says, “You would have been able to save him. You’d have found a way.”
Shouto feels himself even as he says them that he does not mean the words. But even as he tries to convince himself that the bitter words that ring true in his mind and his chest where his heart used to be, are false, he knows better. And he wants, needs, Izuku to acknowledge that. To finally confirm for him that Shouto is never going to be even half the person, much less half the Hero, Izuku is.
He wants to look right at the final nail as it is driven into the coffin. Because at least then he can tell himself that he faced reality.
At least then he can be offered the cold comfort of knowing that his true self was known, by at least one person. The one person who he is confident will not push him away despite the ways in which he has failed. As a Hero, as a friend, as a person.
As a brother.
Yet of course, Izuku is too kind to take the bait that Shouto is practically begging him to latch onto and dig his claws into and tear him open with.
Izuku is far too kind to rub the cruel truth in Shouto’s face, and that is the reason why, if anybody, Shouto needs it to be Izuku who does this.
Izuku is the Hero that Shouto wishes he could be, the kind of Hero that he wishes Touya had, instead of a useless one who couldn’t even save his family in the end.
“I told you at our first Sports Festival that your quirk is your power, and you are your own person, and in the same way so is Touya,” Izuku insists. “You didn’t choose to be born into a quirk marriage. You didn’t choose to be trained into the weapon that Endeavor forced you to be, just like Touya didn’t either. His death was a tragedy, yes, but there were many points along the way where he could have turned back, just like how you could’ve turned to villainy too.”
“And so what?” Shouto spits back with vitriol, even though he knows full well that Izuku does not deserve the icy coldness that is in reality not aimed at him but at Shouto himself.
“So nothing,” Izuku finishes sadly. “In the end he’s still dead, and beating yourself up about it won’t change a thing, just like me beating myself up about Shigaraki won’t change a thing, and yet we do it anyways because we’re human.” And it makes Shouto think, and reconsider, about how he and Midoriya are the same in that they both caused the downfall of their rival counterpart, and maybe that weary undertone to Midoriya’s voice means that all this time he has understood more than Shouto realized.
“We’ll always mourn them and remember them,” Izuku continues, squeezing Shouto’s hand comfortingly, although Shouto feels almost numb now and only registers the motion mainly from the sight of it. “We push ahead and honor their memory and do our utmost best to ensure that something like this won’t happen again. But that is, in the end, all we can do for them.”
Shouto’s response isn’t immediate. His brain still working on unraveling Izuku’s words. He glances down at their intertwined hands. He should be able to feel Izuku’s warm hand against his cold one, but the sensation barely registers.
Still, Shouto tightens his grip on Izuku’s hand. The movement is barely perceptible, but it’s there.
Shouto inhales deeply, his breath shaky and shuttering as his body betrays his attempts to not fall apart in Izuku’s arms for the second time today, within the hour even.
Shouto decides he should say something, but can’t quite find the words.
Finally, after another shaky breath, Shouto looks up at Izuku, he still feels like he’s staring right through him but at least he’s aware of him.
“Thank you,” Shouto spoke, his voice came out as a crackly half whisper, tight and filled with grief and pain, “for all of this. For staying with me.”
Izuku shifts his body so the pair are pressed together, “of course.”
A few moments of silence pass, the only sound in the room is Shouto’s shaky breathing.
But soon even that changes.
The cadence to Shouto’s breaths slowly becomes more erratic, more unpredictable, and within a few seconds Shouto can feel hot tears running down his cheeks.
He lifts up the hand that isn’t connected to Izuku’s, and wipes away the tears.
Izuku simply sits in silence, his arm still wrapped around Shouto’s shoulders. A constant, comforting presence, and maybe the only thing keeping Shouto in his body.
It doesn’t take long for Izuku to shift again, this time gently tugging his hand free of Shouto’s and using the arm to fully wrap Shouto in a tight hug. He pulls Shouto’s head into the crook of his neck while tracing soothing patterns on his back.
Shouto brings his own arms around Izuku, hugging him back tightly and fisting the loose fabric of his shirt.
“I’m sorry,” Shouto whispers between shuttering breaths.
Izuku shushes him softly, one hand coming up to thread through his mismatched hair, “it’s okay. You’re human, you’re allowed to grieve.”
Shouto nods against Izuku’s neck. His grip tightens, pulling Izuku impossibly closer.
“Thank you, so much,” Shouto says softly, his breaths slowly becoming more even.
“You don’t have to thank me for anything,” Izuku whispers, his hands still carding through Shouto’s hair, “I’m always going to be here for you.”
Shouto is not sure that he believes Izuku, is not sure that he can believe Izuku. Even still, a part of him knows that Izuku is so good, is the kind of Hero that Shouto has looked up to all his life. When he was a kid, he thought those kinds of Heroes were made naturally, born innately good, and maybe some of them are, but after spending so much time with his classmates, with All Might, with Izuku, he also knows that the best Heroes work to be good. They put in the effort to try.
He might not believe Izuku completely, but surrounded as he is by Izuku’s warmth, he is willing to try. And right now, that feels like an accomplishment in and of itself.
It feels like the first step forward.