Chapter Text
Recovery Girl finally cleared him to leave U.A.’s medical wing the day after he woke up.
“You’re lucky your arm healed this well,” she informed him sternly while reviewing his charts. “Young people keep treating self-destruction like a personality trait these days.”
“…Sorry.”
“You will be if you keep doing it.”
Izuku bowed automatically anyway while carefully gathering his things afterward. The acceptance letter sat tucked safely inside his bag now. Part of him still couldn’t believe it was real. He got into U.A.
He should’ve been happier. Instead, unease lingered stubbornly beneath his ribs the entire walk home.
The city had already darkened by the time he reached the edge of the abandoned district near the coast. Most people avoided this area entirely. Too many condemned buildings. Too much flood damage left unrepaired over the years.
Izuku slipped quietly through narrow side streets before stopping in front of what looked like a half-collapsed traditional house swallowed slowly by rust and overgrown vines.
From the outside, it looked dead. But inside, it wasn’t.
One downstairs window glowed faintly warm against the dark. Izuku stepped carefully through the broken entrance gate before sliding the door open quietly. The house smelled faintly like smoke and burnt wood underneath old dust.
And there, sprawled sideways across the couch beneath a threadbare blanket while an old television played static quietly in the background—
sat Dabi. Or Touya, depending on the day.
Piercing blue eyes lifted immediately toward the doorway. “…You look like shit,” he greeted.
Izuku stared at him silently for half a second. Patchwork skin. Burn scars. Dyed black hair falling messily across tired eyes.
Home.
The realization landed so suddenly it almost hurt, something warm loosening painfully in Izuku’s chest before he could stop it.
Dabi noticed immediately. “What?”
Izuku blinked quickly. “…Nothing.” A pause. Then quietly, “…I got in.”
The man stared at him for exactly two seconds before snorting softly under his breath like he’d expected nothing else. “Told you.”
And for reasons Izuku still didn’t understand—his chest ached all over again.
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The rooftop wind bit colder than it should have.
Izuku stood balanced against the railing, shoes slipping slightly against damp metal while the city stretched endlessly below him in streaks of light and movement.
Nobody noticed him.
His fingers tightened harder around the rail. Somewhere below, traffic lights shifted lazily from red to green. Cars moved. People laughed somewhere far away. The world continued with unbearable normalcy while his chest felt like it was collapsing inward.
“Just pray that you'll be born with a quirk in your next life, and take a swan dive off the roof of a building.”
Kacch—Bakugo probably hadn’t meant it seriously.
Izuku swallowed hard against the burning in his throat. God, he was tired. Tired of wanting something impossible. Tired of trying so hard just to stand in the same room as everyone else.
Heroes save people. That was the first thing he could ever remember loving. Not fame. Not glory.
Just someone reaching out and saying: You get to live.
His eyes burned painfully. “I really tried,” he whispered.
The wind swallowed the words immediately.
Then he stepped forward—
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—and something slammed into him hard enough to stop his breath.
Not physically. A feeling.
Warmth, laughter. Bright, loud, familiar laughter echoing somewhere behind his ribs like a memory trying desperately to claw its way back to the surface.
Izuku froze.
Rain. A rooftop. Music muffled through apartment walls. A voice laughing. “Kid, you look like a drowned cat.” Another one, lower and rough around the edges, “…come inside before you get sick.”
His breath caught sharply. The city blurred.
Suddenly, he could almost feel warmth wrapped around his shoulders.
A blanket. Steam curling upward from a cup pressed carefully into cold hands.
“You don’t have to earn staying with us, y’know.”
The words hit him like grief. Izuku staggered backward off the railing hard enough that his knees slammed painfully against the rooftop concrete. His pulse thundered violently.
What—What was that?
More flashes came broken and uneven.
A couch. Gold morning light. Someone laughing so hard they nearly fell onto the floor. Hands carding gently through his hair.
Warmth. Safety. Belonging.
Home.
Izuku pressed both hands hard against his head like he could physically hold the fragments together before they disappeared again. But they were already fading, leaving only aching emptiness behind.
His breathing came uneven now. The tears burning behind his eyes no longer felt connected to the rooftop at all. They felt older somehow. Deeper. Like he’d lost something precious without even realizing it.
The city continued moving below him.
But now, impossibly—he wanted to go home. Even if he didn’t understand where that was anymore.
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In the distance, shouting suddenly erupted from the street below. Izuku blinked hard against the lingering ache in his chest.
At first he almost ignored it. Just more city noise, more people. More life continuing around him while he stood frozen on a rooftop trying to understand memories that didn’t belong to him.
Then came the all too familiar explosions. Izuku looked up sharply.
Smoke curled upward several blocks away. His body moved before his thoughts caught up.
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He encountered the sludge villain for the second time that day. And somehow, despite everything, his instinct to help out still won over everything that had happened.
The other Pros that were just standing around doing nothing had the decency to scold him for his actions afterward. While Bakugo, just as usual, received all the praises.
Izuku couldn't even find it in himself to care anymore.
Afterward came All Might. Then One For All. Everything moved too fast after that. Izuku barely had time to think between inheriting the strongest Quirk in the world and nearly destroying his entire body during the entrance exam trying to save someone he didn’t even know.
And yet—through all of it—the strange grief never fully left him.
Sometimes, it surfaced suddenly for no reason at all.
Rain against windows. The smell of tea. Laughter overheard from another room. Warm hands brushing briefly through his hair.
Every time, his chest ached with impossible familiarity. Like his body remembered something his mind couldn’t reach.