Chapter Text
The screaming always stopped the moment he woke up.
It was a mercy, he supposed. The dream itself was a chaotic storm of sensation—the sharp, metallic scent of blood mixed with the cloying sweetness of burnt sugar; the sound of cracking ice that was too loud, too final; a fleeting image of acid-pink against grey rubble—but the silence that followed was absolute. It was a silence that had weight, pressing down on him in the pre-dawn gloom from the window.
Izuku Midoriya didn’t move. He lay on his back, staring at the high, unadorned ceiling, and practiced the breathing exercises that had become as instinctual as using One For All—Inhale for four counts. Hold for seven. Exhale for eight. His heart, a frantic drum against his ribs, slowly beat a retreat, receding into the tired, hollow space in his chest. The cold sweat on his skin felt clammy and foreign. He was used to it.
After a full minute of practiced stillness, he swung his legs over the side of the king-sized bed, the motion stiff and weary. The plush, grey carpet felt like nothing beneath his feet. The room was vast, an architect’s dream of minimalist luxury, with a floor-to-ceiling window that overlooked the sprawling, waking city of Musutafu. It was a beautiful view. He never looked at it.
He walked past the en-suite bathroom, a marble and chrome cavern he only used for necessities, and into the walk-in closet that was bigger than his entire childhood bedroom. His hero costume, the Black suit, hung repaired and ready on its automated rack. Beside it, rows of identical black shirts and grey sweatpants. Simple. Easy. No decisions required.
Dressed, he padded out into the main living area. The Yaoyorozu company had insisted, calling the mansion a "token of the world's gratitude." To Izuku, it was a mausoleum. Its open-plan design, polished concrete floors, and vast empty spaces only amplified the silence. It was a home built for laughter, for parties, for a family. In his hands, it had become a tomb, a gilded cage to house one ghost and the memories of eighteen others.
His path from the bedroom to the kitchen was a precise, unvarying line. He passed a hallway on his left, where one door remained permanently shut. He never looked at it, but he was always aware of it. Behind that door, he had carefully packed away everything that had been recovered. A half-finished manga from Kaminari’s desk. Jiro’s favorite guitar pick. A single red gauntlet. He had put them there on the first day, closed the door, and had not found the strength to open it since.
In the state-of-the-art kitchen, he pressed a button on a coffee machine that probably cost more than his mother’s old apartment. The machine whirred to life, its sounds unnaturally loud in the quiet. He took the mug of black coffee, ignoring the pang of memory—Uraraka trying to teach him how to use the complicated machine in the 1-A dorms, her laughter bright as she accidentally sprayed foam all over Iida’s glasses.
He swallowed the memory down with the bitter liquid. He ate two protein bars, not tasting them, his eyes fixed on a single, meaningless spot on the polished marble island. The fuel was a necessity. The joy was not.
An alert, a sharp digital chime distinct from a normal phone call, cut through the quiet. A high-level villain threat. Multiple armed perpetrators, quirk-enhanced, robbing an armored transport downtown.
Izuku placed his mug in the sink. The exhaustion was a physical cloak on his shoulders, but his body moved with grim purpose. Back in the closet, he suited up. The armor settled over him, a familiar weight. He strapped on the red iron soles and checked the tension on his Air Force gloves. He looked in the full-length mirror for a fraction of a second. The hero costume, once a symbol of boundless hope, now felt like a uniform for a soldier in a war that never ended. The cowl, which he used to wear with a beaming grin, was now almost always down, his face set in a stony half mask.
He didn’t need the front door. A reinforced panel in the living room window slid open, leading to a small balcony. Without a word, without a running start, green lightning crackled around him—a silent, contained storm. He was gone.
The chaos on the street below was predictable. Three villains, one with some kind of short-range teleportation quirk, another who could manifest crude obsidian weaponry, were locked in a standoff with the police. They were amateurs, high on their own power, dangerous because they were desperate.
Deku didn’t land with a triumphant Smash. He didn’t announce his presence. One moment, the space above the street was empty; the next, he was there, descending like an allmighty being. He landed on the roof of the armored truck, the impact a dull thud that barely made the vehicle shudder.
The teleporting villain, a kid with wild eyes and a nervous twitch, blinked. "It's—"
He didn't get to finish the sentence.
A flicker of green light. Izuku used a pinpoint burst of Fa Jin to cross the distance in an instant. A precise chop to the back of the villain's neck. He was unconscious before he hit the pavement.
The second villain roared, swinging a jagged obsidian club. Izuku didn't even bother to dodge. A dozen tendrils of Blackwhip erupted from his back and arms, not as a wild, lashing attack, but as a perfect, silent net. The tendrils enveloped the villain, seizing his limbs and prying the club from his grasp before cocooning him in a tight, inescapable prison of dark energy.
The third, a woman with glowing red eyes who seemed to be the leader, tried to use a hostage as a shield. "Stay back! I'll—"
Smokescreen.
A thick, grey fog instantly filled the street. The police tensed, their vision obscured. Izuku’s other senses, honed by a thousand battles, were more than enough. He heard the hostage’s sharp intake of breath. He felt the shift in the air as the villainess moved.
When the smoke cleared a few seconds later, the hostage was standing safely behind the police line, wide-eyed and unharmed. The villainess was dangling upside down from a lamppost, thoroughly wrapped in Blackwhip.
The entire engagement had lasted less than ten seconds.
Izuku stood in the middle of the street, the silent green lightning dissipating around him. He gave the police cordon a single, sweeping glance, confirming there were no other threats. He saw the looks on the civilians' faces—awe, gratitude, but also a sliver of fear. They called him Silent Deku. The Green Ghost. A hero who did the job with the terrifying efficiency of a natural disaster and then vanished. No interviews, no interactions. Just a machine doing its task.
He ignored the news vans that were just arriving, their cameras swiveling towards him. He ignored the police chief shouting a thank you. He crouched, the lightning gathered again, and he was gone, a green streak disappearing between the skyscrapers, leaving only the silence and the aftermath behind.
Kids looking up to him, but too scared to ask for a signature or even a callout, parents hastily distract them from the emerald hero.
The adrenaline faded the moment he stepped back into his mausoleum, leaving the bone-deep weariness in its place. He stripped off his costume, placing it back on the rack for the auto-cleaner to handle. The silence he had left was waiting for him, unchanged.
He was halfway to the shower when the gate chime rang through the house.
He froze. No one came here. He had made that clear. He walked to the wall-mounted monitor, his expression hardening into a defensive mask. The screen showed a familiar face, purple hair artfully messy, eyes heavy with a lack of sleep that mirrored his own.
Hitoshi Shinso. He was holding a small paper bag from the city's best coffee shop.
Izuku’s first instinct was to ignore it. To just stand there until Shinso gave up and left. But Shinso was stubborn. He'd just stand at the gate for an hour, a silent, purple-haired monument to friendly persistence. With a sigh that felt like it came from the center of the earth, Izuku pressed the button to open the gate.
A minute later, Shinso let himself in, the soft click of the front door echoing in the cavernous room.
"Brought you a real coffee," Shinso said, his voice a low, dry rasp. He placed the bag on the marble island. "Figured you were getting tired of that synthetic sludge your robot makes."
Izuku just grunted in response, leaning against the counter.
Shinso didn't seem to mind. He was one of the few who didn't try to fill the silence with meaningless chatter. He just unpacked two coffees and a pastry, pushing one of the cups towards Izuku.
"Rough one this morning?" Shinso asked, taking a sip of his own.
Izuku shrugged, his eyes distant. "It's over."
"Yeah. Saw it on the Hero Network feed. Fast. Efficient. Stiff," Shinso said, his tone neutral. He looked around the vast, sterile room. "You get any more furniture, or are you still committed to the 'haunted billionaire' aesthetic?"
No response. Izuku took a slow sip of the coffee. It was good. He hated that it was good. It was a crack in his perfectly curated wall of numbness.
They stood in silence for a few minutes. It was a comfortable silence for Shinso, but a tense one for Izuku. He felt the weight of his friend's concerned gaze, the unspoken questions hanging in the air. Are you okay? Are you sleeping? Are you still drowning?
"You know," Shinso finally said, breaking the quiet. "The rest of us are still out here. 1-B. Me. Hatsume. You don't have to do this alone."
"I work better alone," Izuku said, his voice rough from disuse.
"No, you work quieter alone," Shinso countered gently. "There's a difference."
Izuku's jaw tightened. He finished his coffee and placed the cup in the sink with a definitive clink. A signal. Visit's over.
Shinso got the message. He let out a soft, weary sigh. "Alright. I get it." He drained his own cup and headed for the door. He paused with his hand on the handle, looking back at Izuku's rigid back.
"Kendo and Monoma want to talk to you," he said, his voice losing its casual tone and taking on a new seriousness. "It's not about patrols or team-ups. They say something big is starting up. Something that needs... well, it needs you."
Izuku didn't turn. He didn't move. He just stared at the blank wall in front of him, his reflection a faint, ghostlike image in the polished granite.
"Don't shut them out, Izuku," Shinso pleaded softly. "Not on this one."
He waited a moment longer. When no reply came, he opened the door and left, the quiet click of the lock sealing Izuku back inside his silent world. Alone once more, Izuku closed his eyes, the stillness of the house pressing in on him from all sides. But it was no longer a peaceful silence. It was the silence of a coming storm.