Chapter Text
── Midoriya Izuku had known hospitals his entire life.
He had been born in one. His first memories had been made in one. The smell of antiseptic and clean linen was as familiar to him as fresh air was to everyone else. The hospital was not simply where he lived. It was home.
"Izuku." He immediately froze. "Why are you standing on a chair?"
Very slowly, he looked up from where he had climbed onto a chair in one of the nurses' stations. Nurse Emi crossed her arms. Izuku smiled at her, but the smile did not save him.
"Get down."
"But—"
"Down."
"..."
"There are pudding cups in the break room."
Izuku was on the floor instantly. The nurses laughed, to which Izuku pouted.
The hospital staff spoiled him far too much. The nurses knew his favorite snacks and which storybooks he liked best. The doctors always greeted him by name whenever they passed him in the halls. Even the maintenance workers would stop to wave whenever they spotted him wandering around with a notebook clutched to his chest.
One afternoon, Izuku sat cross-legged beside a maintenance cart while Mr. Kenji replaced a broken light fixture.
"How'd you do that?"
"Magic."
Izuku narrowed his eyes. Mr. Kenji's fingers shifted, metal forming where skin had been moments before. A screwdriver extended from his index finger. Izuku gasped.
"Is that your quirk?"
"I've been discovered."
"That's so cool!"
"You think so?"
"Yeah! You think I'll have one too?" Mr. Kenji laughed at his antics. "'Course, kid. When the right time comes."
His mother worked there. That helped. Midoriya Inko had been the kind of nurse people remembered long after their hospital stay ended. Patients smiled when they saw her. Children stopped crying when she sat beside them. The older staff still spoke fondly of the day she'd first started working there years ago.
Sometimes, Izuku wondered if everyone only liked him because they liked his mother. He never asked, because he was afraid of the answer. Not that he spent much time worrying about it, because life in the hospital kept him busy.
His body had always been weak. The doctors never figured out exactly why. He caught illnesses easily. Recovering took longer than it should. Things that barely affected other children often left him bedridden for days.
"Hm."
Izuku looked up from his bed. Dr. Akiyama was studying a chart.
"Hm what? What does that mean?"
"It means I'm thinking."
Izuku considered this. "Is it a bad thinking hm?"
Dr. Akiyama sighed. "No."
"A medium hm?"
"A regular one."
"Oh."
Satisfied, Izuku returned to his coloring book. Dr. Akiyama watched him for a moment before quietly smiling to himself.
So he stayed. Days became weeks. Then those weeks turned into months. And the months became years. The hospital room assigned to him gradually stopped feeling temporary. It became his room.
His books sat on the shelves.
His drawings decorated the walls.
His favorite blanket lived folded neatly at the foot of his bed.
It was home. Not a normal one, but home all the same.
Every year, however, there were two exceptions. His mother's birthday—and his own.
On those days, his mom would sign him out for a few precious hours. Just one day, but it felt like an entire adventure. They would walk to a nearby park carrying sandwiches and drinks packed that morning. She always brought a large blanket despite insisting every year that it was unnecessary. Yet every year she brought it anyway. They would sit beneath the same tree, watch families pass by, listen to children laughing, and feel sunlight instead of fluorescent lights.
Izuku loved those days. Even when he couldn't run around with the other children. Even when his body became tired long before he wanted it to, he still loved them. Because they were theirs. Just him and his mom.
One year, while sitting beneath their tree, Izuku watched a group of children racing across the grass. For a while, he didn't say anything. His mom noticed anyway, she always did.
"You wanna join them?"
Izuku picked at the edge of the blanket. "A little."
"A little?"
"...maybe a lot."
Inko hummed. "I think you'd beat them all."
Izuku looked up immediately. "I wouldn't."
"You absolutely would."
"But mom—"
"You'd be unstoppable."
"I can't even run for five minutes."
"But if you could, you definitely would."
Izuku giggled. She reached over and ruffled his hair. The breeze carried their laughter through the park. For a moment, the ache in his chest faded and he didn't feel different from anyone else.
The memory always stayed with him. The blanket, the tree, his mother's laughter carried by the wind, and the feeling of her hand wrapped around his.
They were some of his favorite memories.
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── Izuku was four when his quirk first appeared.
At first, he thought everyone could see them. Why wouldn't they? The threads were obvious.
They stretched between people everywhere he looked, weaving through hospital corridors and waiting rooms and crowded elevators.
Some were bright. Some were faint. Some were so thin they nearly disappeared unless he looked closely. Others were thick enough to catch his attention from the other end of a hallway. They came in different colors, too. Blue, pink, red, orange, and dozens of other shades he didn't have names for yet.
The first thread he ever noticed connected a sleeping patient to a woman sitting beside his bed. Izuku had stared at it for nearly five minutes before finally asking a nurse why there was a pink string attached to them.
The nurse had blinked before asking what string, and immediately called one of the doctors. That had happened a lot after that. People kept asking questions whenever Izuku talked about the threads. Questions he didn't know how to answer.
What did they look like?
How many were there?
Did everyone have them?
What did they mean?
He didn't know. He only knew they were there. So eventually, the doctors stopped asking, and Izuku simply kept watching.
That became one of his favorite hobbies. There were threads between parents and children. Between siblings, between friends, between patients and visitors. Sometimes, entire groups were connected together in a tangled web of colors.
Some people only had one or two. Some threads shone brighter than others. Some seemed stronger. Some looked old, while others looked new. Izuku filled entire notebooks trying to understand them, though he never quite succeeded. That didn't stop him from trying anyway.
His favorite thread belonged to his mother. Or well, not exactly. His favorite thread was the one connecting them. It was green. Bright enough that it almost glowed.
One end tied connected to him, and the other to her. No matter where she went, it remained. Sometimes it stretched across entire floors of the hospital. Sometimes it disappeared around corners. But it was always there.
Even when he couldn't see her. Even when she was working. And even when he was alone in his room, the thread remained. It was proof that she was somewhere nearby. Proof that she would come back.
One afternoon, while sitting beside her during lunch, Izuku pointed at it.
"Mom."
"Hm?"
"The thread's brighter today."
Inko looked up from her food. "The thread?"
"Mhm! It's green!"
His mother smiled immediately. She always smiled whenever he started talking about his quirk. Most adults looked confused. Some looked concerned. A few politely changed the subject.
But mom listened every single time. "The green one, huh?" she asked.
Izuku nodded. "It's the one connecting us."
"Is it?"
"Mhm!"
"What does it mean?"
Izuku frowned, thinking. Then shrugged. "I dunno."
That earned a laugh. The kind he always tried to collect. The kind that made him feel warm all over.
"Very helpful analysis, sweetheart."
"I'm still figuring it out."
"Of course you are."
Izuku grinned, then spent the next ten minutes explaining every new observation he'd made since breakfast. The patient on the fifth floor whose thread had changed shade. The doctor who had six different threads attached to him. The visitor downstairs who somehow had more threads than anyone Izuku had ever seen before.
Mom listened to all of it. Sometimes, she asked questions, and sometimes she offered theories. She pretended to be just as fascinated as he was. Maybe she really was, and there was no pretending at all.
That became another one of his favorite memories, talking about threads while his mother listened. As if they were discussing something important. As if every strange observation mattered. As if he mattered.
At four years old, however, he thought they would last forever. He thought his mother would always be there, and that the green thread connecting them would always remain.
He thought many things, of course. He was four. He didn't know any better.
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── Izuku was also four when he lost the only thread connected to him.
It happened on an ordinary day.
Even at four years old, Izuku knew that things changed. What he'd eaten for breakfast, what storybook Nurse Emi had read to him every morning. Whether the weather outside had been sunny or cloudy.
None of it stayed. But the green thread did.
Izuku was sitting on the floor of his room, surrounded by notebooks. One of them was open in front of him, filled with messy observations about different threads he'd seen throughout the hospital. A blue one between a grandfather and his granddaughter. A yellow one connecting two nurses. A red one between a patient and a visitor who had cried the entire time they were there.
He was chewing on the end of a pencil when something caught his attention. The green thread. His thread that connected to Mom's thread. Izuku blinked. The thread had always been there. No matter where she was in the hospital, no matter how far away. No matter what, it had always been there. Now—
It wasn't. His pencil slipped from his fingers. For a moment, he simply stared. Maybe she'd gone somewhere. Maybe she'd left the hospital. Maybe—
The thread didn't come back. Izuku stood, then sat back down. Then stood again. He didn't know why his heart was beating so fast. He didn't know why his stomach suddenly hurt.
Minutes passed. Then more. But the thread still didn't come back. By the time Nurse Yui arrived to check on him, Izuku was still staring at the empty space where it should have been.
"Izuku?"
He looked up. "Nurse Yui."
Something in his voice must have made her pause. "What is it?"
"My thread is gone."
Nurse Yui smiled gently. "Your thread?"
"The green one." Izuku pointed. "The one connected to Mom."
Her smile wavered for only a second, but Izuku noticed. Adults always thought children didn't notice things. They were wrong.
Nurse Yui knelt in front of him. "Hey, sweetheart."
"My thread is gone." His voice sounded smaller than usual. "When's Mom coming back?"
Nurse Yui opened her mouth, then closed it again. The silence lasted for far too long. And for the first time that day—fear curled in Izuku's chest.
The thread never came back. Not that day, or the next one. Not ever.
Later, people would sit him down. Dr. Akiyama, Nurse Emi, and Nurse Yui. Mr. Kenji standing awkwardly near the door because nobody quite knew how to explain this to a child.
They would use words like accident, and then they'd apologize to him. They would use words like gone, but Izuku remembered very little of it. Only that the green thread never came back and that everyone was crying.
But his mother wasn't.
The hospital grieved in different ways. Nurse Emi cried in supply closets when she thought nobody was looking. Mr. Kenji started stopping by Izuku's room more often, usually carrying something that needed fixing. He never stayed very long, just enough to ask how Izuku was doing before finding an excuse to leave again.
Dr. Akiyama started working later than usual. Nurse Yui picked up extra night shifts. Nobody talked about it directly, because nobody knew how to.
And in the middle of it all sat a four-year-old boy who had suddenly become very, very quiet.
Nobody worried at first. Grief looked different for everyone, and children processed things differently. That's what people said.
So when Izuku stopped talking about threads, they gave him space. When his notebooks remained untouched on his bedside table, they didn't push. When he stopped wandering the halls as often, they told themselves he needed time.
Days passed. Then weeks. And still, Izuku remained quiet. One afternoon, Nurse Emi found him sitting in bed with a notebook open in his lap. Relief flooded through her immediately.
"Izuku?" The little boy looked up. "Whatcha working on?"
For a moment, she thought things might finally be returning to normal. Then she realized the notebook was empty.
Izuku looked down at it, then closed it. "...I don't know."
The relief vanished. Months earlier, that answer would have been impossible. Izuku always knew. He always had questions, always had theories. Always had something to say. But now, he didn't. And that frightened them more than any fever ever had.
The first time he got sick afterward, nobody was surprised. The second time, they started paying closer attention. The third time, Dr. Akiyama became concerned.
"He isn't recovering."
Nurse Emi looked up from the chart in her hands. The office felt unusually small. Outside, rain tapped softly against the window.
"What do you mean?"
Dr. Akiyama rubbed tiredly at his eyes. "His body should be responding by now."
"But it isn't?"
"No."
Silence settled between them. They both knew Izuku's health history better than anyone. Both knew he had always been fragile. But this felt different.
Days turned into weeks, and the fever still refused to break. Some mornings, Izuku barely had enough energy to sit up. Other days, he slept through entire afternoons. Food became difficult and conversation became rarer. The room that had once been filled with notebooks and endless questions now felt unbearably quiet.
One night, Nurse Yui sat beside his bed. Izuku appeared to be asleep. At least until—
"N-Nurse Yui?"
Her head immediately lifted. "I'm here."
A pause. Then: "D-Do you... think M-Mom can s-still see me...?"
The question was so soft she almost missed it. Nurse Yui swallowed. "Why do you ask?"
Izuku stared at the ceiling. For a long time, he didn't answer. Then, "...I d-don't w-want her t-to worry."
The room became very quiet. Nurse Yui reached over and carefully brushed a hand through his hair.
"You know," she said softly, "I think your mom would be very proud of you."
Izuku didn't respond. A few minutes later, his breathing evened out. Nurse Yui remained beside the bed long after that. When she finally stepped into the hallway, she found Dr. Akiyama standing there. Waiting.
"How is he?"
She looked back through the small window in the door. At the sleeping child. At the IV connected to him. At the room that had become far too familiar.
Then, she answered honestly. "I don't know."
And for the first time since Inko's death, that uncertainty terrified them. Because losing one Midoriya had already been unbearable. They weren't sure they could survive losing the second.
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To everyone's relief, however, the fever eventually broke. Not immediately or overnight. Just little by little.
One day, Izuku managed to finish half a meal. A few days later, he stayed awake long enough to listen to Nurse Yui reading one of his favorite storybooks. A week after that, Nurse Emi caught him sitting by the window instead of sleeping through the afternoon.
The recovery was painfully slow, but it happened. And everyone pretended not to notice how relieved they were. Nobody commented when he started wandering the halls again. Nobody pointed out that he was carrying his notebooks more often. Nobody mentioned that he was speaking a little more than before.
Some things still hadn't returned. His notebooks still remained the same, with no new content inside of it. The questions were fewer and the laughter was rarer. But he was there.
After a while, that became enough.
Life continued. The doctors and nurses still worked. Patients arrived, and others left. The hospital kept moving, just as it always had.
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── Izuku was five when he saw a thread so different for the first time.
That afternoon changed everything. Izuku had been walking beside Nurse Emi, clutching a notebook against his chest. Well, walking was a generous description. Shuffling was probably more accurate.
"Slow down."
"I'm trying."
Izuku frowned at her. Nurse Emi laughed. The sound of it echoed softly through the corridor. For a brief moment, things felt normal. Then the atmosphere changed.
Voices echoed through the hallway. Urgent and sharp. Staff members hurried past carrying equipment. Someone called for additional personnel. Another shouted instructions Izuku couldn't quite understand.
The emergency room doors burst open, and everything happened at once. Doctors, nurses, EMTs, and a stretcher rushed through the corridor.
For only a moment, Izuku caught sight of the patient. Pale blue hair stained with blood, half wrapped bandages that were already stained red, and far more injuries than anyone should have.
Beside him, Nurse Emi stiffened. Immediately, she stepped closer. One hand settled gently against his shoulder, turning him slightly away and shielding him from the worst of the scene.
"Don't look."
The words were soft. Instinctive and protective. The same way she would have spoken to any frightened child. But Izuku wasn't looking at the blood. He wasn't looking at the injuries. He barely saw the teenager at all.
Because he saw the thread.
The notebook slipped from his hands. It hit the floor with a soft thud, and Izuku stopped walking completely.
The thread was unlike anything he had ever seen before. For a moment, he couldn't understand what he was looking at. It was still there, but only barely. Frayed, torn, and thin in some places. Unnaturally stretched in others. Entire sections looked as though they had been shredded and clumsily forced back together.
It looked wrong, in a way that made his chest hurt. Wrong in a way he couldn't explain, and in a way he couldn't stop staring at.
"Izuku?"
Nurse Emi's voice sounded distant.
The thread trembled, a single strand separating from it, then another. The damaged pieces drifted away before fading completely.
Something cold settled in his stomach. Because suddenly—he knew. Not what had happened or who the patient was. But he knew what that thread meant. It was breaking.
The realization hit him with startling certainty. The thread was breaking, and if it broke completely—
Izuku didn't know what would happen, and he wasn't sure he wanted to.
"Izuku."
Nurse Emi crouched in front of him, concern softening her expression. She probably thought he was staring at the blood and the injuries. The chaos.
"What is it?"
Slowly, Izuku looked back toward her, then toward the stretcher disappearing around the corner. The patient was already gone, but the thread remained. Barely.
"…W-What happened to h-him?"
Nurse Emi looked in the direction he was pointing. For a moment, something sad flickered across her face.
"I don't know all the details."
The answer felt too small. Too simple. Because the thread looked important. It looked like the kind of thread that should never have looked like that. The kind that should not still exist, yet somehow it did. Still trembling, still holding on. Still refusing to disappear.
Long after the stretcher vanished from sight, Izuku continued staring at the empty hallway. Something twisted painfully in his chest. The feeling grew stronger the longer he stared. Wrong. Everything about it felt wrong. The thread should have broken. It looked like it was supposed to break. Just like—
Izuku's breath caught. The green thread. Mom's thread. Gone in an instant, gone forever. The memory surfaced so suddenly that the empty space where it should have been nearly hurt. Nurse Yui's face that day when he asked. The silence, the fear, and the realization that his mother wasn't coming back.
Something warm slid down his cheek. Izuku blinked. Another tear followed. Then another.
"Izuku?" Nurse Emi immediately straightened. The concern in her voice sharpened. "Hey."
Izuku tried to answer, but nothing came out. The thread trembled again. Another piece drifted away. And suddenly he couldn't stop crying.
"Hey, Izuku—" Nurse Emi was kneeling in front of him now. "Izuku, look at me."
But he couldn't. Because all he could think about was a green thread disappearing, and a broken thread desperately refusing to. The unfairness of it hurt.
He didn't know why. Only that it did.
Strong arms carefully lifted him from the floor, his notebook now forgotten. Pressed against Nurse Emi's shoulder, Izuku buried his face against her scrubs. The fabric quickly became damp. "It's okay." The lie was gentle. "It's okay..." Izuku cried harder, because it wasn't. His mom was still gone, the thread was still breaking. And he couldn't do anything about either of them.
By the time Nurse Emi carried him back to his room, half the ward knew something had happened. Dr. Akiyama stopped by. Nurse Yui came in right away once her shift started. Mr. Kenji appeared with a stuffed rabbit he claimed to have 'found.'
None of it helped very much. Izuku kept crying.
For the broken thread.
For the injured stranger.
For his mother.
For all the grief that had been sitting inside him for months with nowhere to go.
Eventually, exhaustion won. His crying quieted, then faded, before disappearing altogether. Curled beneath his blanket, Izuku finally fell asleep.
The adults remained awake long after he did, still watching and waiting. None of them realized that the boy's tears had very little to do with the blood he'd witnessed in the hallway, or that he was grieving something far older than that.
Or that, for the first time since his mother's death, he'd truly looked at a thread again.