Archive of Our Own ^beta

Izuku is unconscious. Or, he’s pretending to be. He can’t tell — his eyes are heavy, trying to open them is just about the last thing he wants to do, and the world around him is muffled in a way that’s almost pleasant. Like the sound of the tide on the beach rushing over the sound of beeping machines, rustling sheets, people pacing out in the hallway, his own breathing. 

This is all so familiar in a twisted way. He knows it’s twisted, this intimacy with being hospitalized, but Izuku doesn’t mind it. Who cares about the new scars he’ll find marring his own body once he wakes up and makes the trek into the attached bathroom so he can scrutinize every inch of himself? He’s got a million other scars, so what’s a few more? Who cares ? Surely not him, who will take this time to rest until he is inevitably overcome with self-hatred and guilt for throwing away precious training time. Plus, people are a whole hell of a lot more loose-lipped around his hospital bed when they think he’s hopped up on enough painkillers to knock him well and truly out. 

Yeah, well. With a high pain tolerance comes a high medication tolerance, too. It’s really for the best Recovery Girl doesn’t know that; he is not going to be the one to tell her (just the thought of opening his mouth and telling her something like that makes him want to snatch up the kidney-bean-shaped basin and throw up into it) and he’s never told anyone else about it. Yes, it’s better no one knows. His tolerance and talent for faking drug-induced sleep is the only reason he ever found out about why his father left — not a job offer in America but shame and embarrassment and isn’t he a damn coward , the only time he’s ever heard his mother swear — and that his mother knew Kacchan was behind his bruises and burns and how she was trying to sue Aldera, they just didn’t have the money for a good lawyer . 

He stopped letting himself get hospitalized after that, learned how to take care of himself, and he never heard his mother say anything else about his father or Kacchan or the lawsuit. So it’s for the best, really — really. 

Through his haze of ocean tides and pretending to still be asleep, Izuku tries to recall what, exactly, landed him here this time. Not a villain attack; he would hear other people breathing in the room, more machines, a vague and frantic sense of panic if there was another villain attack. More rushing around and hysteria, but the hallways seem quiet, even with how dulled everything is around him. 

It comes slowly as he sifts around in his own head. His train of thought is completely derailed, off the tracks, going wild. He can’t keep track of himself for long enough to figure out what’s happening or what hurts beyond a general tingliness. He thinks his leg might be aching, and — oh. 

Training accident. He’d gotten a little too excited about a new maneuver and let nine -percent of One For All leak out instead of just eight-percent. Stupid. He hopes he can get this Quirk figured out before he starts messing up his legs like he messed up his arms. If he can’t use his legs, then what? He’d have to start head-butting villains, and he’s pretty sure Aizawa-sensei wouldn’t like that very much. 

The door opens. Izuku is floating somewhere over his bed, moving with the tide, so he doesn’t stiffen, his breath doesn’t catch. He’s unconscious, or at the very least, he looks like he is. That’s what really matters. 

He recognizes the footsteps. They’re heavy, like whoever coming in is wearing shoes with hard soles, and every few steps, the person lets out a congested, huffing breath. There’s a second set of footsteps. Lighter, heeled shoes, shuffling with age.

“Young Midoriya,” All Might murmurs, and there’s a presence, tall and looming and hunched over, next to Izuku’s hand. He doesn’t so much as twitch. He waits for All Might to continue, but he doesn’t. 

“It was only a fracture this time,” Recovery Girl tells him. “Left femur. Minor strain on the left fibula and tibia but nothing seriously broken, thank heavens.” Izuku can almost see her clicking her tongue and shaking her head at him. Disappointment, oh, it aches. For the first time since he drifted back into himself and his not-quite-wakefulness, Izuku has to force himself to maintain the facade. 

“Young Midoriya ,” All Might says again. There’s swishing, the scrape of a chair, All Might letting out a long, exhausted sigh as he lowers himself into it. 

“You should be proud of him. He’s getting better with controlling it.” 

But All Might says nothing of pride. Instead, he says, “Chiyo…I should have let One For All die with me.” The ocean in Izuku’s head goes quiet. The world is so empty without it. 

“What?” 

“It would have been better than this.” Izuku hears the implication loud and clear: letting One For All die would have been better than having Izuku as a successor. When his mind puts it like that…you know, maybe All Might’s right. 

“ Toshinori ,” Recovery Girl says, her tone itself a harsh reprimand, and Izuku’s been on the receiving end of that tone more than once. More often than anyone else in his class. It isn’t fair for All Might to get that tone, not when he’s telling the truth. “I know you wanted to visit, but if you’re going to speak like that, I kindly ask that you get out. ” 

“Chiyo —”

“No. That boy is doing his best, and you do not get to talk like he would have been better off if you never gave him his Quirk.” She’s right, but that’s selfish. Izuku doesn’t want to be selfish, he wants All Might to be proud of him. 

Izuku forces himself to open his eyes and face All Might and Recovery Girl. His blinks three times before he uses most of his energy on turning his head to look All Might in the eye. Neither of the adults in the room seem to notice he’s awake until his hand snakes toward his head to grip his own hair. 

“Take it,” he tries to say, but his mouth isn’t working yet. The words come out jumbled and incoherent. Recovery Girl jumps and leans over his bed to check up on him. 

“Are you in pain?” she asks, and Izuku wonders if she secretly agrees with All Might, but it — it doesn’t matter. It only matters what All Might thinks, and All Might thinks Izuku should have never gotten One For All. 

Sir Nighteye thought that, too, and maybe All Might’s just…finally come to his senses. 

“No,” he slurs, and he tries to jerk away from her as her hands poke and prod at him. He shakes his head, and the movement makes him dizzy. 

“Hey, hey,” she demands. “Calm down, Midoriya. It’s okay, you’re —” 

“Take it,” he tries again, tugging at his hair. His grip is weak from both the damage he did to his arms and from the exhaustion weighing down on his bones. “You want it back, so take it .” Finally, a loose fistful of hair comes away from his scalp, and he holds the hair out to All Might, wishing desperately that he could have been better , could have been stronger, could have been something worthwhile. He wanted people to know his name, at least, or to be one person’s hero. Izuku cranes his neck to look at his mentor, ignoring how Recovery Girl is trying to push him back down onto the bed. 

“Young Midoriya, what are —”

 “I want to be a hero!” Izuku blurts out because subtlety has never quite been his strong suit, and he never can quite manage keeping his mouth shut. How else would Kacchan know about One For All? All Might looks taken aback, his eyes wide and jaw dropped in a half gape. Izuku screws his eyes shut and jerks his hand out in All Might’s direction. 

“My boy, you will be a hero. You’re going to be an amazing hero, I’m sure.” The look in his dark eyes is fond, his voice so much different than it had been not moments before. The change is so jarring it makes Izuku a little dizzy. 

“No, I — if you need to take One For All back, you — I-I understand.” He doesn’t understand but saying that will make taking the Quirk back easier on All Might, he’s sure. “And if your body can’t — can’t handle it, I’ll let it die with me.” 

All Might is full-on gaping, now, like he can’t believe what’s right in front of his eyes; a desperate teenager who is kicking at the bed with his right leg but not his left and holding out the hair that would render him Quirkless once again, a fate worse than death in modern Japan. He blinks, shakes his head, opens and closes his mouth a few times. 

“N-no? I…what are you talking about?” Maybe all of that had been the wrong thing to say. Shit. Izuku should’ve just acted like nothing was wrong, like he hadn’t heard a thing. Damn it. 

“I heard you, you said it should die with you,” Izuku tells him. He shakes the fist with the hair toward his mentor again, insisting. “I haven’t…I won’t keep it from you, so take it.” 

“You were awake?” 

“Of course I was awake,” Izuku yells, suddenly so desperate for All Might to take the hair, take the Quirk, just get all of this over with already. “I was awake, and I heard you, and I get it, okay? Just take it back.” 

“No, Young Midoriya, I’m not going to take One For All from you.” All Might shakes his head.

“You want it to die with me? Or — or, I’ll give it to Mirio-senpai, just tell me what to do, please. ” His vision goes wobbly and blurry with tears. His voice breaks. All Might, even through Izuku’s impaired vision, seems to wilt where he sits, his slouched, skinny shoulders curling in toward his torso like Izuku is jamming his fingers into the wound in his side. “Please, All Might, just tell me what you want from me, and I’ll do it.” 

“I want you to make it your own, my boy,” All Might murmurs. His voice is never quiet; it resonates, and it booms through Izuku as they stand at two ends of the hallway. 

“I don’t…I don’t understand.” 

“I want you to make it your own, and I want you to live ,” he continues. “I said…I said what I said because I worry about you — I’ve watched young heroes die time and time again, and I can’t watch you die, too, Young Midoriya. I can’t watch you make the same mistakes I made, and I can’t keep watching you tear yourself apart with the Quirk I gave you.” 

“I-I’m going to get better with it — I already am getting better,” Izuku tells him. Recovery Girl’s grip on his shoulders seems to slacken as Izuku settles back onto his pillow, his body so drained of energy he can hardly keep his head up any more. 

“I know you are. You’re going to be an amazing hero, my boy. Quite possibly better than I ever was.” 

“Impossible!” Izuku insists, shaking his head wildly with sudden and renewed (if only momentary) vigour. Recovery Girl glares at All Might over her shoulder as if to say good going. “You’re the best hero Japan’s ever seen — the best hero the world’s ever seen. No one can top The Symbol of Peace. You saved so many people, there’s no way I could be better than you, All Might.” 

“I don’t think you give yourself enough credit, Young Midoriya,” All Might tells him. Izuku is falling asleep again, for real this time, but before he surrenders to the ocean sounds again, he hears Recovery Girl say something about upping the dosages on his chart. 

Damn. It’s probably for the best, though.