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The elusive dream of equality was one of the first stolen from Izuku’s still fresh, childish innocence.
Not all men are created equal.
He’s understood this for as long as he can remember because it was one of the first things he could understand. Sure, when you’re young you can see. You can know. But you do not understand why.
Izuku had known that the person he lived with was his mama, who fed him, who loved him, but he did not understand why. She was his mama and that was how it had always been and how it always would be. He just knew that mama was supposed to love him, and she did, so who was he to look further? He could see that the sky was blue and know that on some days the clouds stole that away too, but he did not know how to ask about why.
He learns quickly though, the concept of giving and taking. Of having and more importantly, lacking.
When he’s four, he understands what it is to have. And what it is to not. And what it means to lose what you used to have.
Everyone thought he had a quirk, but he didn’t, and apparently, that changed everything. Izuku couldn’t understand. His young mind couldn’t comprehend the drastic behavior shifts around him, the way that some parents started to usher their kids away from him with dirty looks and side-eyes.
Kids were quick learners, and picking up on their parents' cues, they started shunning Izuku too. No one says anything out loud, but he can feel their hostility. It’s a black, black miasma around them. A hanging cloud of turbulent, cold disapproval.
He doesn’t know what he’s done wrong. Izuku starts asking why questions when he is four.
Life lessons come quickly after that.
Izuku learns that there are some things you cannot control. That helplessness and confusion will always have some place in life, in growing and changing. Control is a delusion for people deep enough in denial that they can’t see their own faces in a mirror. All they see is a stranger staring back.
He learns that not all things have a rational explanation. Bias is crammed into every corner of human life, and his quirklessness will always mean deficiency to most people. He is the same as he was before he turned four and went to the doctor, but for most people, he is irrevocably changed. Different. And this difference means that they will hate him and find reasons that his existence is wrong. It is a story that history books know well.
He learns about loss too. About how his mama loves him just a little less, worries a little more. And when his mom loves him a little less, he finds himself yearning for a father he never had. He learns that you too can feel loss for something you've never quite had. When Kacchan starts looking down on him, he watches their friendship slip out his fingers distantly, quietly, and understands that this is grief.
He loses a lot to his quirklessness, and finally understands what it means to be lonely. Isolated. Abandoned. And so terribly, terribly hurt.
(He’s just a kid but that’s fine.)
The loss ruptures something intangible inside Izuku. It’s jarring to have so many important relationships in his life suddenly pull away.
But he’s young. He doesn’t know that you put pressure on a wound to staunch the bleeding. So he just bleeds and bleeds and bleeds. Sure, blood clots, and the bleeding stops eventually, but only long enough for infection to set in.
The last embers of his mother’s love are all that he has, and he grasps onto them tightly. He lets her convince herself that he’s okay, even when his smiles look fractured at the corners. He doesn’t hold onto her too tightly, doesn’t tell her when he’s hurting because he’s scared it will push her away.
Because he’s so afraid of losing what little he has left. And that tangled ball of hurt inside him has nowhere to go. It just festers inside his chest, black and writhing. The infection spreads, and Izuku, helpless, lets it happen.
Who is there to help him? Who is left?
Kids are quick learners. Young, impressionable. It is so easy for them to internalize the flaws that others point out.
Kids are adaptable. They learn to live with what they have. Make do with what they can.
Izuku deals with his new life. He finds sanctuary only when the silence is not so loud and alone is not lonely. When the peace and quiet is not oppressive, but instead content. These moments are rare, but what else is there?
Infection can result in gangrene, in which the only cure is amputation. But Izuku has always been a sentimental person. Maybe he should cut that darkness in him out, but he cannot bring himself to cut a part of himself out. Not when he is already so small.
People are less careful with him. More nonchalant when he gets hurt, and maybe that mindset carries over to him, because while he is clumsy, bruises hardly register. When he falls, he does not expect anyone to help him up. He learns to do this on his own.
He’s worth less. Not completely worthless, just inherently of lesser importance. Not right. The puzzle piece that does not fit. Always an outsider.
The nonchalance and neglect are another part of life he accepts quietly. The screaming thing inside of him grows. Izuku still thinks it deserves kindness.
At night, he curls in a ball underneath the covers, pretending that his small body is enough to protect the hurt inside his chest. He holds it close and shushes it, understanding that apathy has not killed all of him yet. The hurting thing inside him is young, scared, and angry.
Apathy is soft when it kills. It rolls in, a gray cloud, blurry and mild, and covers him in thick swathes. It builds a wall for him, and teaches him how to deflect pain and cope with loneliness. Like all good things, the price is high. Apathy takes joy with it. Izuku still thinks he got the better deal. The weight of his emotions are less, suppressed, roiling away behind a cloud. Joy has not been present in a long time. The hurt still does not completely leave. It’s just further away. He’s not sure if this is kindness or cruelty.
The teachers often condescend him, telling the other children in a sickly sweet voice that “it’s not Izuku’s fault that he’s defective,” and that they “must play gently because he is weak.”
When he does get injured, teachers simply laugh it off, saying that “boys play too rough” and blame the bruises on paper-thin skin spawned from his weak disposition. Izuku gazes at them with dispassionate, empty eyes.
The kids are rough with him because they don’t see him as an equal. They treat everyone else gentler but Izuku has never been everyone else. Most days, they treat him like a zoo exhibit, making comments like: “My mom said that quirkless people die early because they can’t carry their own weight. Does that mean you’re useless?” or “Did you know that quirkless people die earlier? That’s what my dad told me. He says it’s because they’re weak.”
On good days, they act like he doesn’t exist.
It’s not violence, not in the way that the word means traditionally. But it still kills.
Some shops turn him away once they realize he’s quirkless. His mom has to start leaving him outside to shop.
When accidents happen, it’s his fault. When other people shove by him, it’s his fault. He’s the one who apologizes.
He’s the scapegoat. It’s easy to blame him, even though he’s barely six.
He gets used to being treated as subhuman. People talk about his death as if he is not there. They pity his mother, and spit on his existence in the same breath, and in their eyes, it’s all justified. They sneer at him, scoff at him, and bathe in their own superiority.
He’s the burden. He’s the weak one.
Even when he has to grow up faster than all the other kids around him. It was the only way he would survive.
The tangle of hurt inside him is big enough that sometimes he imagines it might spill out his mouth, finally overflowing in a knot of darkness.
Maybe lonely is better than this.
No one ever strikes him outright, that would be looked down upon.
Some like to indulge their savior complex and treat him as if he is still a baby.
Some simply look away uncomfortably.
Some wish they could hit him and get away with it, so they instead settle for sneaky shoves and well-placed feet.
This lifetime of snide comments, of blatant neglect, of little things, builds a precipice.
Izuku decides that violence can be found in words. But the world does not change in the face of this realization. It keeps spinning, on and on, even though nothing is the same for him.
He learns to be gentle with himself, because no one else will be.
He learns to reconcile with his own mortality.
In the end, all he is, is a product of his environment.
A cocktail of suppressed emotions, extraordinary will, and a scared little boy trying to live just a little longer.
A few days after he turns eight, the world explodes.
Izuku becomes more. Someone had tried to grab him on the way home from school, and the fear had been so visceral that it’d pierced right through his carefully cultivated wall. The deep, deep black inside him had rushed through, splitting the crack in his walls wide open.
He’d become nebulous, dark, and monstrous. To Izuku, the dark was clean, warm, and mild. He wasn’t in control like this. He didn’t have to bear the weight of his pain, the darkness did it for him. It treated him gently.
Because Izuku is not in the business of denial, he figures out quickly that this darkness is the tangle of hurt that had always been persistent in his chest. It’s been given form, and it’s protective and gentle with him, the way he was with it. He understands that this is a reflection of himself, just warped enough to be different. He had nurtured it, shielded it, but fundamentally, it was constructed from his pain, so it still knows about how the rest of the world is cruel.
It’s violent, ripping through buildings and injuring the man who’d tried to grab him, carrying them away quickly. Angry, in the way he hasn’t been in so long. When the heroes arrive on the scene, Izuku is long gone.
His quirk is born from his pain, made powerful by his hurt, a suppression of all his fear and anger, of all the times he said it was fine but it wasn’t.
He can’t help but think that it is a lovely thing. (He’s not alone anymore.)
Growing up, Izuku had always admired heroes. He was obsessed with All Might as a kid, and determined to be a hero. After he’d gotten his diagnosis, he had still been determined. His naivety hadn't completely left him yet, believing that one day he might prove himself and people’s attitudes might change. Just enough optimistic hope for him to cling tightly too, scraps and slivers of a dream because he didn’t yet fully understand how tiring it would be to wake up and face a hostile world, again and again.
Relentless.
By the time he turns six, he thinks that heroes are still cool, but he is acutely aware that they are still people. He doesn’t look up to them anymore. When the apathy sets in, becoming a hero is a distant dream, especially when it’s hard enough just to wake up every day.
When his quirk finally manifests, and he accepts that his life is much more limited than he previously thought, the memory of his dreams to be a hero are hard to even recall. Sure, he supports what they do. And quirks are still interesting, but whatever he writes in his notebooks are more idle observations when he is bored, just a subconscious thought he jots down. They aren’t spreads spanning multiple pages, focused on a hero. They are just a means to pass the time. You get used to being observant after experiencing so much malicious kindness and ill-intentioned generosity.
Most days, when he is bored he focuses on his own quirk, sentient and responsive.
What grows when you only have the dark for company?
Izuku had never been afraid of the dark. When you give that which is deep and dark a chance to grow, it festers far inside of you. Roots itself in the hollows of your ribcage to grow alongside you.
Somewhere along the way, Izuku starts to associate that tangle of darkness with safety. With warmth, with kindness. He asks the dark to hold him close and seeks refuge in shadows.
Izuku grows a monster in his ribcage, but the monster is gentle with him, sweet.
He tells the dark to make a home inside him, and welcomes it with cupping hands, telling it to keep him safe and far away. It whispers to him sometimes, “ I will kill you one day,” and Izuku should be afraid but there is distress in those whispers, so he curls further into the dark and tells it, “It’s not your fault.” His quirk didn’t ask to be this way, and Izuku has learned so much about the things you cannot control, so he forgives , eyes knowing and so tired.
Growing a monster takes a lot out of you. It thins out Izuku’s face and makes him paler than ever. His bones start to jut out and his joints hurt but he does not regret it. It’s true, the dark will kill him one day. But it will be gentle and soft, and he will not be alone.
He finds that he doesn’t need apathy anymore, not with his quirk. His quirk is protective, and shields him from the worst of things. At night, it wisps out his body, dark and insubstantial, twining around his fingers. Izuku giggles quietly, deciding that this companionship is well worth his shortened lifespan.
It’s hard, keeping his quirk under wraps during the day. It pulls at his seams, and hollows his eyes, but it feels necessary. After being quirkless for so long, he doesn’t want to share his quirk with the world anymore. He’s sure they’d label him as villainous anyways. It doesn’t help that it’s nature is inherently destructive. He doesn’t blame his quirk though, it doesn’t know how to be anything but destructive, it doesn’t have a choice. It just makes it a little harder for Izuku to keep things quiet.
As he lays in bed that night, Izuku prods playfully at the dark cloud inside him. A smile plays at the end of his lips as it pokes back, gentle but prodding, teasing him.
Izuku knows why he’s dying. His quirk is destructive, and powerful, becoming this way out of necessity (and maybe mercy). He simply is not enough to hold or contain it, and when it becomes too much, he will die. It acts like a slow poison, too much to overcome for his small body.
There is a mournful pulsing that feels like I'm sorry and I don't want to do this to you in one word.
It’s okay, he whispers back, sinking into that black softness, usually so violent but instead gentle with him. He just feels— feels— bad. It's unfair and it's sad but he just isn't angry anymore. So he smiles, small and slow and tremulous. "It's alright. You and me til the end, then?" he whispers, asking but not asking that you will come with me after I am gone from this place, right? and begging please do not leave me alone.
It pulses as if to say yes. I can do this for you. Let me do this for you. You will never be alone again.
He has never feared death, though loneliness has haunted him for as long as he can remember, following his footsteps doggedly until his quirk had stepped in and become. There is something glassy and weepy in his eyes then, a terrible glint of understanding.
After the conversation, he curls soothingly into his quirk. For a moment, he feels like it might be okay. That he might be okay. It's enough to send him drifting off to sleep as the darkness calms. Laying there in wait, always seeking to protect and defend.
He meets Mirio one early morning when he’s eleven.
The bags underneath his eyes carve deep, purple rings under his eyes as he sits on the sand of the beach. There’s no view for him to look at because the beach is covered in trash, but the sound of the water is still calming when sleep escapes him. It’s unreasonably early in the morning, and the sun has barely started to rise, so it’s actually pretty understandable that someone on an early morning run might be concerned.
He knows what he looks like: pale, sickly, arms stick thin and face gaunt. Unwell, fragile, and delicate. In his neighborhood, no one gives him a second glance. It’s widely accepted that his quirklessness is to blame. It’s a little ironic that the situation is the exact opposite. However, since the beach is further away, no one really knows him here.
“Hey, are you okay?” a voice calls over to him. Izuku twists around, squinting his eyes to make out a figure with blond hair. As the figure makes his way over to him, he comes into focus. It’s a teeanger, probably just a few years older than Izuku is, with blond hair and blue eyes.
Blinking a few times, Izuku clears his eyes from the squinting before he startles, realizing that the teen is now much closer than before, looking down at him with concern. “Oh. Hi, yes, I’m fine,” he stutters out nervously.
The stranger smiles brightly before sticking out a hand, “My name is Togata Mirio, but you can just call me Mirio. Are you sure you’re okay?”
Izuku smiles wanly in reply, reaching out to shake the hand, “Yeah, I’m okay. My name is Midoriya Izuku, by the way.”
“What’re you doing out here all alone? I’m out for a morning run,” he smiles again, gesturing at his work out clothes and the sweat on his forehead.
“Just couldn’t sleep,” Izuku shrugs, “I decided to head down here.”
Mirio hesitates, asking, “Do you need company on your way home?”
Laughing, Izuku says, “You don’t need to dance around it. I know I don’t look great right now. I’m just sick.”
“Oh! You shouldn’t be out then! Do you have anyone I can call to pick you up? You probably shouldn’t be walking home,” Mirio exclaims.
Shaking his head, Izuku smiles a little at Mirio’s boundless enthusiasm. He says, “Not that kind of sick. I’m terminally ill. I don’t actually get better than this.'' He turns to look up at the sky, the sun still in the middle of rising. Terminal illness is as close as it gets to describing his situation without going into depth about his childhood and quirk. He experiences a lot of the symptoms of a weakening body anyways, with constant fatigue and recurring bouts of nausea. His appetite has recently started to shrink as well.
His body jerks when he feels a hand rest on his shoulder, “I’m sorry,” Mirio says, voice much more solemn and serious. Izuku’s quirk vibrates gently under his skin, not detecting a threat, but still agitated.
“What for? It’s not like it’s your fault. We all get dealt cards at the start of our lives. I just happened to get a bad hand,” Izuku replies, shrugging off his remark nonchalantly.
At the ensuing silence, Izuku looks up, only to see Mirio blinking down at him in wonder. “Wow, your attitude about your illness is amazing.”
Smiling wryly, Izuku replies, “No, I’ve just had time to come to terms with it.” Mirio is all the more impressed with the strength of his younger peer, deciding that he wanted to get to know him.
“Well, I don’t think you should sell yourself too short!”
Izuku laughs, “Sure, Mirio. Thanks for the vote of confidence. I’m going to head home now. It was nice chatting with you, maybe I’ll see you around.” He stands up, brushing the sand off his hands by rubbing them together.
Mirio watches him walk away, calling out a “bye!” hoping he’ll see Midoriya again soon.
It’s another month before they meet again. On another one of his insomnia-fueled trips, Izuku sits on the beach, cursing out the contradictory nature of never having enough energy but never being able to sleep either.
“Midoriya! Is that you?” A familiar voice shouts out.
Izuku cranes his head around to look behind him before recognizing the head of blond hair. “It is! You can call me Izuku, you know. Anyways, hi, Mirio.” He has a little bit more energy and is less wary than the last time they met, so he’s somewhat able to match Mirio’s level of enthusiasm. Izuku’s quirk pulses in acknowledgement of the familiar figure, but gives no other reaction.
“I can’t believe it’s been a month since I met you. You know, it would be cool to chat more,” he says as he approaches, ruffling Izuku’s hair.
Izuku beams up at him in response, unused to the casual affection. Mirio seems like a naturally bright and friendly guy, so he’s not too put off. “I guess. Do you have your phone on you?”
“I do!” Mirio grins widely, fishing out his phone from a pocket and handing it over. Izuku grabs it, adding his number before he goes to hand it back.
However, before Mirio can take it back, Izuku says, “Wait. I need to tell you something. I don’t know if anyone’s told you, but I’m quirkless.” He spits it out quickly, bracing himself for rejection. He wanted to be friends with Mirio badly, but he’d rather let his hopes die here, early on, rather than later on when he was already more attached. Cringing, waiting for the onslaught of disgust, he looks up.
Mirio actually looks...angry? “Do...do people get mad at you when you tell them you’re quirkless?” Mirio asks.
Izuku nods hesitantly, confused as to where this conversation is going.
Mirio takes the phone, and plops down next to him, slinging an arm around his shoulder. “That’s stupid. I still want to be your friend.”
Giggling slightly in disbelief, Izuku decides that he’ll enjoy this moment, even if Mirio is just pretending.
“What are you training for anyways?” Izuku asks after a moment of silence.
“I’m applying for U.A.’s hero course! I have a permeation quirk, but I’m not great with it. I’m still going to try though, because I want to help people.” Mirio adds on, with an optimistic tone.
Izuku thinks that U.A. would be stupid not to take Mirio.
Brushing off his analysis skills, Izuku decides to help Mirio train. Mirio and Izuku become fast friends, and more often than not, Mirio takes on a big brother role with Izuku.
He hands out affection easily, and Izuku soaks it up like a sponge, blooming under his warmth. Even his quirk has warmed up to Mirio, relaxing from its constant on-guard state around him.
Izuku’s notes help a surprising amount, but there still isn’t too much they can do as an eleven and fourteen year old with access to virtually no resources.
“Your exam is tomorrow!” Izuku frets endlessly, “Don’t forget to wear workout clothes for the physical exam! And the writing part--”
Mirio laughs the big, booming laugh that Izuku loves hearing, “Calm down! You’re more worried than I am!”
Izuku gesticulates wildly, before poking at Mirio’s chest, “You. Are. Becoming. A. Hero!”
Smiling sheepishly, Mirio finally shows the first hint of nerves before his smile brightens. “I know the solution! Ice cream!” He grabs Izuku, throwing his thin body over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes. Izuku cackles, hitting his back and protesting.
By the time they get close to the ice cream shop, Izuku is being carried on Mirio’s back, getting a piggyback ride instead of being hauled around over his shoulder. He is happy.
Between those moments of joy and happiness, Izuku turns twelve. Mirio takes him out to celebrate, not asking questions about why his mom is too busy to. By now, Mirio knows a lot about his childhood, how his dad was never around, and how his mom works two jobs during the school year and three during the summer to make ends meet.
He’s still treated cruelly by everyone else in his life outside of Mirio, but it just makes their time together all the sweeter, a much needed oasis amidst a desert.
Eventually, his weakening body is too much to hide from his mom, despite the fact that she works in the afternoon and at night, sleeping when he is in school. She drags him off to the hospital.
The doctor is professional, if not curt. She tells him that his body is in the process of slowly shutting down. It’ll eventually lead to organ failure, then death. No, they aren’t sure why. No, there isn’t a cure, just ways to manage symptoms. When he asks her how much time he has left, it’s the first hint of sympathy she shows. Probably four years , she says. Five if we’re being optimistic .
It gives Izuku more insight into what’s happening to his body. He’s not surprised that the doctors have no idea about the cause considering no one knows about his quirk.
His mom is distressed, but detached. She’s dealt with people telling her for the last ten years that her son would die early.
She’s not a terrible mother, no. Just a product of her environment.
Mirio’s known since the beginning that Izuku would die earlier than him. Terminal illness, he thinks. Such a diminutive name for the thing that would steal his little brother away from him.
Izuku sits him down, a week or so after the visit to the hospital. He spills everything, about how he's legally quirkless but in truth, has an extremely destructive and powerful quirk. How it’s killing him. How years of suppressed emotions manifest into self-destruction. The hospital visit, his weakening body. And then he gives him a number.
Four years, Izuku tells him, Five, if we’re lucky.
Mirio’s disillusioned. Angry at the world for tarnishing his brother’s smile.
A week later, putting the heavy conversation out of their minds, Mirio gets his acceptance letter from U.A. They go out for ice cream, and make a whole day out of it.
Izuku smiles so wide he thinks his face might break. It’s amazing, watching Mirio reach for the stars and actually make progress. Izuku’s content to watch him steal the moon on his way out.
Four years , Izuku thinks. That’s fine. That’s long enough to see Mirio graduate from U.A.
Long enough to say goodbye. To see him grow, just a little longer.
Then, he can rest easy, knowing the world is in good hands.
The world does not know how lucky it is to be able to watch Mirio flourish. He’s going to be something great.
The first day Togata Mirio shows up to U.A., Aizawa Shouta sees an incredible amount of potential in him. Sure, he’s got a long ways to go before he masters his quirk, but he has already shed the characteristic naivety that most of his students have.
Mirio knows that the world is unfair. No one needs to show him, he’s seen it, in the way people treat Izuku. The industry isn’t perfect, much like society. He also knows that he will never be able to save everyone. He can try, and he will, but he will never be able to, the same way he feels helpless, watching Izuku waste away in front of him, even if he still smiles brightly. Mirio dreads the day that that smile is no longer able to greet him.
Even, if somehow, miraculously, he became the number one hero, it wouldn’t be the same. Izuku wouldn’t be there to see it.
He can’t save everyone, but Mirio thinks that one million people is a rather reasonable goal.
Lemillion.
Izuku loves listening to Mirio talk about his new school. He tells him about his new friends, Tamaki and Nejire, about their differing personalities and bonding as people with difficult quirks to master.
It’s nice. It distracts Izuku from his own middle school experiences.
“My brother’s coming for the Sports Festival!” Mirio excitedly tells Tamaki and Neijire.
“I didn’t know you had a brother!” Nejire exclaims, “Why didn’t you tell us?”
“Oh, well, he’s not my biological brother, but I consider him my little brother all the same. He’s got fluffy green curls and freckles, it makes me want to squish his cheeks all the time,” Mirio tells them, completely unashamed.
Tamaki facepalms in the background, muttering to himself.
Izuku’s not going to lie. He cries when Mirio gives him tickets to the Sports Festival, since they had two left after giving two to his parents.
Izuku’s there when Mirio barely gets through the first round to the second round, and doesn’t make it to the third round.
(“Is that him?” Neijre squeals.
Mirio whips his head around before making his way frantically through the crowd.
Izuku is already out of breath making his way through the crowd with his frail body, but he wanted to see Mirio as soon as possible.
As he thinks about that, he suddenly spots Mirio rushing over, followed by an excited person who must be Neijre, and someone exasperated, who must be Tamaki.
“Izuku!” Mirio shouts, beaming at him.
Izuku beams back, with Tamaki muttering about their combined wattage in the background.
Just as quickly, Izuku laughs as he is hauled over Mirio’s shoulder and carried out the crowd.
Neijre and Tamaki are a little surprised. Izuku does have green hair and aforementioned freckles, but he looks...delicate. Sick.)
Izuku is there when people tell Mirio he can’t be a hero with such a difficult quirk, when he comes this close to quitting.
(“Mirio. You already are my hero. Okay?”)
Izuku is there when Sir Nighteye takes Mirio under his wing.
(“I just don’t know why Sir Nighteye would choose ME of all people!”
“Because he sees the same thing I do, Mirio.”)
He’s there when Mirio finally masters his quirk.
(“Check this out, Izuku!” Mirio shows off a video Tamaki takes of him and Neijre sparring.
“I’m so proud of you, Mirio. You’re the coolest big brother ever.”)
When he absolutely destroys at the next Sports Festival and joins the ranks of the Big Three, with Tamaki and Neijre.
(“I feel like this is a perfect ‘I told you so’ moment.”
“What happened to my wholesome little brother?” Mirio wails, slinging his arm around Izuku’s shoulder and pulling him in, reaching another hand up to scrub at his green curls.
Izuku tries to wiggle away, laughing, “He met you!”)
He’s there when Mirio graduates.
(“The stars are waiting, Mirio.”)
And he’s still there when Mirio emerges from the Shie Hassaikai raid, victorious.
He’s there for all of Mirio’s milestones. But for every feat Mirio accomplishes, Izuku’s body fails a little more. Time cares little for his heart.
It hurts to become, is what his quirk tells him.
I know, Izuku whispers back, joints aching and bones brittle.
Knowing someone is dying just means that grief starts when the body is still warm.
Izuku does not know what his quirk is, exactly. He knows that it is a product of his childhood, stepped on and so alone, but he isn’t sure what it was meant to be before that.
Maybe a star. A star in his chest.
And then he went supernova and killed the light. Brilliance that dies quickly. Don’t you know? The brightest stars make black holes. (He tore himself apart to become .)
Izuku can’t feel anger anymore. His quirk consumes it too quickly for him to actually feel it, rushing out to fill the gaps where it used to hurt.
His grief, though, stays with him. It’s not for himself, no, it’s for all of Mirio’s milestones that he will miss. All of the times that Mirio will make another rotation around the sun and Izuku won’t be there beside him. It’s the kind of grief that creeps up his fingers like frostbite, all consuming and crystallizing as it crawls its way into his body.
He forgets what it feels like to not carry this grief.
Izuku gets crutches. His muscles atrophy to alarming degrees, to the point that he needs support to help him walk.
He’s always so tired. So, so tired. In the way that is bone-deep. In the way that nothing will ever be able to fix.
Not when his own oblivion sits just outside his peripheral vision.
His weight starts dropping.
He has a hard time keeping food down.
Mirio just reaches greater heights, even if Izuku thinks that he’s much too concerned about Izuku’s own failing health.
On some days, getting out of bed is an impossible feat.
When will this be over? When can I tap out?
It’s hard for Izuku to stay focused these days.
For every sunrise, he fades just a little more.
Heartaches...heartaches...
My loving you meant only heartaches
Your love was such a sacred thing to me
I can't believe it's just a burning memory.
Izuku is slipping out of his fingers. Drifting far away, to a place that Mirio cannot follow him to. His eyes are distant and so, so tired.
He can barely hold a cup to drink his own water.
But when he is all there, when he has enough energy to smile, his eyes are bright, and warm, and so, so alive.
Sometimes, Mirio just wants them to see.
All the people who hurt Izuku.
Look at what you’ve done to him.
Izuku can’t bring himself to hate his quirk, even as the sand leaves his hourglass.
Even as he wastes away to nothing.
It hurts to be, Izuku thinks.
His quirk curls around him, desperately trying to shield him from his own pain, generated by said quirk pulling him apart.
It’s okay, Izuku reassures it, It’ll be over soon.
You’ll come with me when I go, right? Izuku asks.
His quirk answers, I’ll go wherever you go, now and until time itself unravels.
Eventually, it comes to a head. Mirio joins the ranks of the many, many heroes preparing to face down the League of Villains turned army.
There’s too many. Too many.
They fight, day in and day out. It means nothing. There are always more. People are dying.
The fighting spreads into the city. The fighting spreads into the city. Izuku is in the city.
“You were always my hero, Mirio, and you always will be. Just give me the chance to be your hero too,” Izuku says, smiling.
“No. No, you can’t,” Mirio denies, desperate, “Don’t you dare.”
Grabbing onto Mirio’s hands, he squeezes them, “I wasn’t meant to live long. You still have time. Don’t take this choice away from me, Mirio. You know damn well that I only have a few months left, if that.”
“You shouldn’t have to do this! What about me and your mom?”
“Then who will? Who else has to die, Mirio?” Izuku asks, “It’s going to be okay. I’m going to be okay. It will have been worth it to me, a million times over.”
Mirio grabs Izuku, pulling him into a hug, burying his face into Izuku’s curls, “It’s never going to be okay to me. But I can’t stop you.”
Izuku laughs quietly before saying, “No, you can’t. Let me do this for you. Let me give you this.”
“I love you, little brother.”
“I love you too.”
(Izuku walks to his death knowing he is loved. So, so loved . Approaching the battlefield, he finally lets go, feeling himself explode into the air, ethereal and dark. Then, rushing towards the villains, all of this might and fury trapped in a body too young, too small, razing them to the ground.
He kills those who meant to do harm, and takes himself with the dead too.
But in his shadow grows the light of hope. )
Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
“So, number one hero, eh? Not too bad, Lemillion.”
Mirio's breath catches. It’s been decades since he last heard that voice.
Turning around, he meets the eyes of Izuku, shining with mischief, same as all those years ago.
Izuku runs up to him, grabbing his hand, saying, “Come on! Let’s go! We’ve got places to be!” He pulls him into the light.
Mirio rests easy, knowing that Izuku is here with him.
Inexplicably, we all find our way home somehow.