Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

His ears were ringing.

Why were they ringing? He didn’t know.

All he knew was pain- white-hot, all-consuming pain that tore through every nerve. Breathing felt like dragging razors into his lungs. Something in his chest shifted with a wet crack.

Where… where was he?

He couldn’t see. Why couldn’t he see?

Darkness clung to him- thick and suffocating- pressing against his mind. The overwhelming taste of copper filled his mouth, dripping down the back of his throat until he choked on it. Blood. More blood than even he could ignore.

He… had been fighting. Right. All Might- that blonde wretch- had confronted him, yelling something about avenging his teacher.

So that meant… He was in this state because… 

Oh.

Somewhere far away, All Might was standing- shouting. Victorious. Triumphant. The sound distorted, as if the world had been submerged underwater.

His thoughts tried to form, sluggish and wrong.

‘Inko… Izuku…’

Shigaraki Zen- Midoriya Hisashi- tried to lift his arm. His fingers twitched- once- before the limb collapsed back to the ground, unresponsive. He couldn’t feel anything except fire and numbness fighting for dominance. He couldn’t tell which was winning.

The ringing grew louder. His heartbeat grew quieter. His healing quirks failed him. 

He had loose ends. He had so many loose ends.

He hadn’t meant to leave them like this. He hadn’t meant to leave at all.

But the darkness surged again, swallowing the edges of his fading awareness. The last thing he felt was regret sinking heavily into his ribs, heavier than the debris pinning him down.

Then everything went still.

-o-O-o-

Izuku still remembered it clearly.

The memory was a worn photograph in his mind, colors faded but the feeling still painfully bright. 

His father, tall and smiling, ruffling his curly hair at their front door. “Be good for your mother, my little emerald. I’ll be back before you know it, with the best presents America has to offer!”

Three-year-old Izuku had believed him completely.

But years passed, and Hisashi never came back. There were no letters, no messages, no calls- not even the faintest echo of someone who had once filled their small apartment with supportive warmth and quiet laughter.

Just dead silence.

His mother tried- God, she tried- to reach his workplace, to talk to colleagues, to send emails and fill out forms and ask questions no one could answer, her voice growing thinner each time hope cracked beneath her ribs. It didn’t matter how many times she called, how often she stayed up at the kitchen table staring at her phone as if willing it to ring. 

Nothing ever came of it.

And eventually, Izuku began to wonder if it was because of him.

Because Hisashi had heard he was quirkless, that his son was defective, useless, a disappointment. Maybe he’d decided it wasn’t worth coming home to a broken family. Maybe he’d chosen a new life overseas- one where Izuku didn’t exist at all.

He didn’t know.

And not knowing hurt in a way he couldn’t explain.

He hated it- hated watching the radiant curve of his mother’s smile dim into something thin and tired, hated seeing her come home from her shifts with her shoulders trembling from exhaustion, hated how she forced herself to stay strong for him even as the shadows under her jade-colored eyes deepened. She was giving everything she had to raise him alone.

So when he enrolled in Aldera Middle School and the bullying began in earnest, Izuku swallowed the truth whole and locked it behind a smile. His mother was already carrying too much. He couldn’t add more. He wouldn’t make her worry. He refused to become another weight dragging her down.

He hid everything.

The bruises beneath his sleeves. The scorched notebooks. The torn uniforms, the broken pens, the homework that never survived the day. Every shove- every insult- every threat whispered into his ear by kids who decided he wasn’t worth the air he breathed.

And yet, he smiled for his mother every evening, and the longer his torment continued, the easier that false smile became- smooth, practiced, convincing. Even when things worsened and the injuries left faint, pale scars, he kept silent. He washed the blood away, soaked the burns, and smiled.

Deep down, Izuku knew that bottling everything up would eventually destroy him. Emotions didn’t vanish just because he refused to speak them aloud; they twisted beneath his ribs- hot, chaotic and relentless- 

He was terrified that one day they would burst out in a way he couldn’t control. They would worry his mother. They would burden her. They would make her look at him with that soft, helpless sorrow he hated more than anything.

So he did the only thing that ever seemed to help- he wrote.

Writing his thoughts down had always soothed him, even when he was too young to understand why- it was something he had picked up from his father. He wanted to hate the habit, but it helped. It quieted the frantic pace of his mind, gave shape to the chaos, turned fear into ink and despair into bullet points. 

His notebooks became his confessionals, his therapy, his only safe place. Anything he couldn’t say, he scribbled into margins. Anything he couldn’t cry about, he hid between diagrams of quirks and analysis of heroes a quirkless Deku like him would never be.

Izuku knew he couldn’t be a child anymore and cling to those delusions- not when his mother was barely holding herself together- so instead, he forced himself to learn, to grow up, to swallow his fear and put on the role of her bright, well-behaved son. 

Just like that, writing and hero analysis became his sole outlets. And for a time, it worked. For a time, he managed. For a time, as long as his mother was smiling, Izuku could pretend he was smiling too.

Then the second year arrived.

And everything got worse.

Izuku was tired.

So he wrote and wrote- filled notebook after notebook, expanded his collection until it no longer fit into his shelves, kept his head down and his voice soft while his classmates jeered and shoved and laughed. Kacchan sneered at him daily, a constant, blistering presence, and the teachers- those meant to protect him- did nothing but reinforce the same message: he was worthless, quirkless, a flaw in society’s design.

He had foolishly hoped that staying invisible would help- that if he sat small enough, quiet enough, still enough, they would simply lose interest.

But the opposite happened. 

His silence offended them. His meekness angered them. His existence- apparently- inconvenienced them.

And Kacchan… Kacchan saw his retreat not as surrender, but as a challenge.

“What, you think you’re too good for us, Deku?” Kacchan had snarled one afternoon, palms slamming onto the already battered surface of Izuku’s desk, the wood vibrating beneath the impact, the faint fizz of pre-explosion heat prickling along Izuku’s arms.

Around them, their classmates snickered, cruel little laughs slipping between teeth like they were sharing some private joke at his expense, and all Izuku could do was duck away from the popping sparks, stuttering a broken apology he had rehearsed a thousand times. “N-no, Kacchan, I don’t-! Y-You’re amazing! Your quirk is amazing! I’m s-sorry! I would n-never think that-!”

But it didn’t matter.

It never mattered.

A sharp crack-pop! filled the air, and the smell of burned paper and caramelized sugar followed Izuku all the way home, clinging to the charred, blackened edges of his latest hero notebook.

And it hurt- God, it hurt- seeing the boy- his best friend- who once held his hand grow into someone so sharp, so cruel, so certain that Izuku had no right to stand anywhere near him. Kacchan was supposed to be a hero, supposed to be brave and bright and everything Izuku admired, everything Izuku wished he could be, and yet…

Drip.

…yet he wasn’t.

Drip.

A soft patter against the page made Izuku blink, dazed, and he watched numbly as a clear tear slid down onto the ink, blooming into a dark, spreading bruise on the paper’s surface.

‘Oh.’

The smudge broke the clean lines of his notes, turning tidy writing into a ruined shadow of itself. 

The freckled boy quickly swiped at his eyes, but the tears kept slipping, falling, pooling on the page until some letters were entirely washed away. And in their place rose questions he had pushed down for years.

…Did all heroes think like that?

Surely not. Heroes saved everyone! That was the promise. That was the dream.

But did that everyone include him? A quirkless, useless, crying boy who took up space and made his mother sad and whose own father couldn’t bear to stay?

Were quirkless people not worthy of being saved?

Were quirkless… people?

The pen in his hand trembled violently, then clattered onto the wooden desk. Ink smeared across his palm. The page was ruined.

And deep inside, buried beneath years of hope and excuses and self-blame, something cracked- a small, splitting sound he felt rather than heard, like a hairline fracture chasing through porcelain.

He was so, so tired.

-o-O-o-

Time moved on. The bullying didn’t.

It was nearing the end of his second year at Aldera when it happened.

Izuku walked to school with his head down, letting the morning wind ruffle his uniform as he ignored the familiar chorus of whispers that trailed behind him. He slipped through the gate, down the hall, and into his classroom- hands clenched tight around the straps of his mustard-colored backpack.

He stopped dead at his desk.

There, lying perfectly centered on the scarred wood, was a single, vibrant flower. Its petals were a stark, crimson red, curved and elegant like a cruel smile. Plucked in full, unnatural bloom.

A spider lily.

Higanbana. The flower of the other shore. In the language of flowers, it meant finality. Abandonment. A last goodbye. It was the flower placed on graves, a symbol to guide the dead. A path you walk alone, with no return.

But the most important meaning of all- at least in the way kids whispered it around Aldera- it was a common, cruel message aimed at unwanted students.

“The world would be better if you were gone.”

Izuku’s fingers spasmed around his backpack straps, knuckles whitening. 

He’d never- never- let himself entertain thoughts like that. He couldn’t. What would his mother do? She’d already lost so much. If he disappeared too, if he left her completely alone, she’d break. He knew she would.

But this…?

This was different. This was someone else holding that idea up to his face- Someone else deciding what his worth was. Deciding what his life was worth.

His lungs burned.

Behind him, giggles bubbled up- sharp, delighted, eager. The kind of laughter that made his skin crawl. His classmates whispered behind their hands, pointing at him like he was the punchline of a joke they were all in on.

‘How?’ Izuku wondered numbly. ‘How could someone become happy over this?’ 

How could cruelty feel so casual to them? So easy?

He didn’t know.

Tears stung his eyes, gathering before he could stop them. He knew they’d only make it worse- knew the moment they fell, the laughter would spike, thrilled at the sight of “the quirkless Deku” breaking.

And still, he couldn’t stop them.

Not even their homeroom teacher looked up from his desk. Of course he didn’t. He never did. He never interfered- never even acknowledged what was happening.

So all Izuku could do was reach out, pick up the flower with trembling fingers, and slip it into his backpack.

It became a common occurrence after that.

Every day, he found a new spider lily waiting for him.

On his desk. In his locker. Falling out of his shoes. Or, on worse days, thrown directly at him with snickers trailing after. A daily, floral death threat.

And Izuku, dutifully, numbly, collected every single one. He brought them home- pressed them carefully between sheets of parchment in his new notebook until each one flattened into a fragile red imprint, preserved like a memory he shouldn’t want.

He didn’t know why he kept them. It felt like documenting a crime where he was both the victim and the only witness. 

Then he locked the notebook away in his lower drawer.

Where he wouldn’t have to see it. But couldn’t bring himself to throw it out either.

-o-O-o-

Before he knew it, his third and final year at Aldera Middle School began.

And the drawer was nearly full.

Somehow, Kacchan became even crueler.

Everyone around him encouraged it, after all. They praised him for everything- his quirk, his strength, his test scores, the “hero potential” that wrapped around him like a crown he’d never earned but fully believed he deserved. And when Kacchan lashed out at Izuku, no one stopped him. Why would they? It was easier to laugh. Easier to treat it like justice. Like nature.

His classmates tripped him in the halls. Shoved him into lockers. Knocked books from his hands just to watch him scramble for them like something pathetic. Even the teachers, who saw it all, perfected the art of looking away. Worse, they manipulated his test scores, subtly docking points whenever Izuku dared to do “too well,” ensuring the narrative of his worthlessness was reflected in official records.

Izuku tried- honestly tried- to bear it. Tried to smile through it. Tried to be resilient like All Might, unshakeable like All Might, someone who could withstand anything like All Might-...

Who was he kidding?

He wasn’t All Might. He could never be All Might. 

After all, All Might was the sun. And he was a speck of dust, a useless, bothersome Deku, drowning in shadow.

That evening, after forcing down dinner and thanking his mother with a smile that felt like it might crack his face, he retreated to his room. He didn’t turn on the main light, just the small lamp on his desk. Its glow pooled over the worn wood, illuminating the plain cover of his notebook- one of several now- filled with pressed spider lilies and scribbled thoughts he could never voice aloud.

For a moment he just sat there and stared at it. His pen- the red one- hovered in the air above the most recent page, which was already a battlefield of frantic, angry script. His hand jerked, paused, then dropped.

Red ink scratched violently across the once-clean page, each stroke more frantic than the last as something inside him cracked wide open.

Tears spilled before he could stop them, streaking hot down his face and splattering onto the paper. The ink bled, smudging into warped shapes, but he didn’t care. He couldn’t care.

He was tired.

He was exhausted.

He was useless.

He was worthless.

'I am-'

The pen halted, the tip digging a small, dark hole into the paper.

'I...'

Izuku sucked in a shuddering breath that scraped painfully through lungs too tight, too small, too crushed to keep holding everything in.

And then the thought surfaced. Quiet. Terrifying. Heavy enough to hollow him out in an instant.

‘I want to die.’

The horror was immediate, a cold, sickening wave that washed over the heat of his tears. The idea- his idea- felt like a betrayal.

Shame churned in his stomach, turning the warm meal he’d shared with his mother into a nauseating lump. He saw her face- her tired, kind, loving face- and the guilt was a physical punch.

A fresh, silent sob wracked his frame. He dropped the pen as if it had burned him. It rolled across the page, leaving a faint, smeared trail of red.

‘I’m sorry, Mama.’

Izuku bowed over the notebook and sobbed. Small, weak, choked sounds that no one but the walls would ever hear.

‘I’m sorry… I’m so sorry.’

At some point, he must have tried to stand and crawl into bed.

At some point, he must have failed.

Because Izuku’s tear-swollen eyes slipped shut right there at his desk, cheek pressed against the still-damp paper, his breath hitching in uneven intervals until sleep finally dragged him under. His body simply… gave out. Too wrung out. Too tired to cry anymore. Too tired to even move.

The room remained quiet as dawn crept in, pale gold seeping through the curtains and brushing over the disaster he’d left behind.

The red notebook lay open beneath his arm, pages mottled and warped, covered in frantic ink strokes that had dried into dark, jagged stains. Beside it, his red pen had rolled onto its side, a slow bead of ink blooming outward- spilling across the wood, painting the paper in a spreading, blood-like smear.

It dried that way. A silent record of the moment he finally broke.

Morning came too soon.

The alarm blared.

And Izuku jolted awake with a gasp, neck stiff, eyes gritty, heart pounding with the echo of dreams he couldn’t quite remember.

Panic spiked- he was going to be late. His teachers would gleefully use this as a way to dock more of his grades.

In a frantic, bleary-eyed scramble to wash his face, change his uniform, and grab his bag, he left the red notebook lying open on his desk. The uncapped pen had rolled into its crease, bleeding a small, dark pool of ink onto the stark, damning words below.

Izuku didn’t even realize he’d left it open.

He didn’t realize he’d left all of himself sitting there on the page.

He just ran.

-o-O-o-

For a long while, he existed only in pieces.

Not awake, not aware- just drifting through a dark, formless space where pain pulsed like a heartbeat and memories flickered like dying lights.

He remembered fire. He remembered the symbol of peace standing over him. He remembered the sound of his spine fracturing, the sharp, blinding pop of nerves snapping like frayed wires, his face being clawed off. And after that…

Nothing.

Or almost nothing.

Because even in the depths of that coma, where thought was sluggish and broken, there had been shadows, silhouettes pressed into the tatters of his mind: a woman with soft jade eyes and trembling hands; a small boy with a laugh like bells and curls the color of early spring leaves. 

Their faces slipped away whenever he reached for them, submerged in the static of ruined neurons- yet they lingered. Persistent. Haunting.

Shigaraki Zen could recall every quirk he had stolen over a century. Every empire he had built and razed. Every strategy, every betrayal, every corpse he had stepped over.

But not theirs? 

It was unacceptable. Unforgivable. Insulting.

…Why did the absence of those two blurry faces hollow him out in a way nothing else ever had?

When consciousness finally clawed its way back into him- slow, aching, disorienting- Zen woke to sterile light, the sharp sting of disinfectant, and the mechanical hiss of a ventilator forcing air into lungs that felt foreign in his own chest. 

Every muscle screamed. His quirk-supported vision swam. His mind, for a moment, was nothing but a prison filled with echoes of a life he couldn’t place.

Garaki hovered beside him like a nervous vulture, rattling off words he barely absorbed- “Severe trauma, neural degradation, quirks cannibalizing each other to keep you alive. Years lost. Memory destabilization.”

It was background noise. Meaningless. Unanchored.

Until something else caught his attention.

On the bedside table- propped carelessly between a stack of medical files and a half-empty IV bag- was a photograph. Faded. Creased. Clearly handled many times.

A woman sat on a park bench, summer sunlight caught in her dark-green hair, her smile soft and unmistakably familiar. In her lap, a small boy with unruly green curls clutched a hero figure, beaming brightly at whoever had taken the picture. 

Zen stared.

The world tilted.

The air in his lungs turned electric. His pulse spiked- not from pain- but from recognition that hammered through his skull hard enough to hurt.

Those weren’t just dream-ghosts. Not hallucinations clung to out of desperation.

They were real.

And with a violent snap, the frayed threads in his head pulled taut- names, faces, routines, mornings together, whispered promises, the weight of a toddler curled against him- every memory slamming back with such force he almost ripped the ventilator out himself.

He had a family.

He had been gone for years.

And they had waited with no explanation, no message, nothing but silence.

A cold, sickening dread, an emotion so foreign it felt like a new quirk, twisted in his gut. It was immediately consumed by a hotter, more familiar fire: possessive, furious purpose.

Shigaraki Zen- no, Midoriya Hisashi would not waste another second.

With Garaki’s help, and a stabilized copy of a young orphan’s quirk- Chisaki, terrified and barely old enough to speak clearly when his ability was duplicated- Hisashi painstakingly rebuilt the face All Might had destroyed. Bone by bone. Nerve by nerve. Layer by agonizing layer.

Days blurred into each other, marked only by the hiss of machines, the sterile sting of antiseptic, and the pulsing, single-minded mantra hammering through him:

‘They’re waiting. They’re waiting. They’re waiting.’

It was obsession. It was devotion. It was the only thing that kept him from snapping Garaki’s neck every time the doctor insisted on “one more test.”

And finally- finally- when the swelling subsided and the grafted structures set, the reflection staring back at him was no longer the monstrous ruin All Might left behind, but the unremarkable, kindly face of Midoriya Hisashi. A face his wife would weep to see. A face his son might still remember.

Once he could stand without the room spinning, once his lungs no longer stuttered with every breath, and once Garaki grudgingly admitted he was “stable enough for short-distance warping,” Hisashi finally began to prepare. 

He spent the morning gathering information the way he always had- quietly, thoroughly. 

It was Friday, late morning, just past eleven. Izuku would be in school for several more hours. Inko, however, had already finished her early shift. She had taken on two jobs over the years- different hours, different locations. He went through her schedules, her workplace records, and the small trail of digital footprints she left behind. 

She had worked herself thin to support their child alone. How many nights had she stayed awake? How many mornings had she dragged herself out of bed while carrying the weight he’d abandoned her with?

The thought twisted painfully somewhere behind his ribs, an unpleasant and unfamiliar emotion that felt a lot like shame.

Still, he knew appearing before Izuku first- half-healed and with years of silence between them- would only damage things further. Explaining everything to Inko was the only sensible place to start.

With that resolve, he summoned the black, viscous warp-quirk around him. Darkness folded in, then peeled back, and he stepped out into the narrow alley, the familiar, slightly shabby facade of the five-story apartment complex coming into view.

Hisashi stood still for a long moment, just looking. It was smaller than he remembered. More worn. A wave of something dangerously close to vertigo washed over him- unrelated to his injuries.

‘Focus, Hisashi. Now is not the time for this.’

He tugged absently at the hem of his coat, straightened the collar of the shirt Garaki had insisted he wear, and tried without much success to smooth the faint exhaustion from his features. He looked rumpled, hollowed out, still not fully recovered- But he was here. That was what mattered.

The white-haired man drew in a long, steadying breath and finally approached the building.

Japan’s most feared supervillain walked the last hundred meters as a tired salaryman might- quietly, shoulders tight, every step weighted with nerves he refused to acknowledge. He climbed the stairs, each step feeling like a small reclamation of territory he’d abandoned. 

Hisashi’s pulse subtly quickened as he reached the second floor before slowing to a stop in front of a familiar, worn front door. 

The very door leading to his old life, where he had bid Inko and Izuku goodbye.

His hand hovered over the door for a heartbeat- then another- before he finally forced himself to knock.

His knuckles had barely left the wood when his sense-enhancing quirks picked up a faint shuffle from somewhere deep inside the apartment- fabric brushing, something set down, the light patter of socks on laminate flooring. Footsteps approached the door, unhurried, familiar in their rhythm even after all these years.

The lock clicked. The knob turned.

“Yes? Who is it-?”

Jade-green eyes appeared first- level with his sternum, widening as they traveled upward. Slowly, hesitantly, they traced the lines of the face he had painstakingly rebuilt: the unscarred jaw, the tired creases at the corners of his eyes, the familiar features she had once greeted every morning with a kiss.

Her breath caught.

Inko stood frozen in the doorway, a small book dangling loosely from her fingers. Stress-worn lines framed her eyes- years he had not been there to witness etched plainly into her face. Those jade irises locked onto his pale white ones, wide and disbelieving.

“Hello, my love.”

The book slipped from Inko’s fingers and hit the floor with a soft thud. 

For a moment, neither of them moved.

Hisashi forced himself to remain still, shoulders rigid, jaw tight. Something hot and unfamiliar burned in his chest- emotion, unwelcome and overwhelming- tightening his throat as he looked at her.

Oh, how he wanted to reach for her. To cradle her face. To pull her into his arms. His dear Inko. His lovely Jade. 

But human emotion had never been his strength, and the possessive hunger curling through him was far from helpful. So he stayed where he was. Perfectly still. Letting her choose. (And he was, in a deeply unsettling way, fucking terrified.)

Inko blinked- once, twice- her lashes trembling. Then she took a small step forward. Another. Her hand lifted, hesitant, shaking.

“…Hisashi?”

The fragile hope in her voice nearly undid him.

He caught her reaching hand gently, bowing over it as if it were something sacred- and a shudder he couldn’t suppress ran through him at the tangible, living warmth of her skin.

“I’m so sorry, my love,” he murmured against her knuckles- words he never used, not for anyone but her. “For everything. For being gone so long. For making you worry.”

A breath hitched in her throat. Then the disbelief cracked- splintered- and tears flooded her eyes, falling fast and silent. Her legs buckled, but Hisashi moved instantly, gathering her against his chest before she could fall.

Inko clutched at him desperately, sobs muffled against his shirt. “I t-thought- I thought you were dead,” she whispered.

Hisashi held her tighter, one hand cradling the back of her head, his own eyes squeezing shut against a storm of emotions he had no name for. “I’m so sorry, I’m here now,” he repeated, a mantra into her hair.

They stayed like that for a long time- long enough that the world outside seemed to vanish.

Eventually, Inko drew a shaking breath and stepped back, wiping at her face. “Come inside, please. We- we need to talk. I need to- I need to understand what happened.”

Once inside the apartment, the door shut softly behind them.

What followed was a long, quiet conversation- hours of half-truths and careful explanations. A work-related incident unknown to his coworkers. A villain attack that had left him in a coma and impossible to contact. A medical facility overseas, vague and conveniently remote, that had only recently cleared him for travel.

He apologized again and again, his voice laced with a gravelly remorse that was, in its own way, utterly sincere.

As much as it pained him to lie to her- his sharp, lovely Inko, who deserved only truth- he could not risk burdening her with the monstrous reality of who he had been. But now, with All Might believing him dead, that old life was a closed book. He could finally leave the supervillain mastermind “All For One” behind in that crater. 

This fiction, this careful story, was for the best. It was the price of staying. It was his gift to them.

This way, he could stay with his family.

And Inko- exhausted, relieved, stripped raw by the sudden return of the man she had mourned- listened. Believed. Forgave. She held his hand through every faltering explanation, squeezing every time his voice caught.

When everything had been explained and Inko’s tears had finally dried, leaving her green eyes soft and weary, she exhaled a long, shaky breath and glanced at the small clock on the kitchen wall. A flicker of something brighter crossed her face.

“Oh- Izuku! He’ll be home in about an hour.” She wiped at her cheeks, smoothing her hair quickly, habitually. “Hisashi, he… he’s going to be so happy. He talked about you all the time. He- I don’t think he ever stopped waiting for you.”

Hisashi swallowed. Something warm and sharp lodged in his chest- guilt, maybe, or something older. The thought of his son- his little emerald- waiting in faithful silence for years made the phantom pain of his healed injuries rear its ugly head, itching at his skin.

The short woman pushed herself up from the couch with a soft exhale. “I should cook something. Something nice. He’ll probably faint if he sees you standing in the kitchen.” A shaky laugh escaped her. “Maybe katsudon? That’s still his favorite.”

She paused, glancing toward the hallway.

“Why don’t you… take a moment? You can go see his room, if you want.” Her smile turned small but fond. “You’d be surprised how much his hero merch collection has grown. It kind of… took over.” She huffed a breath that was half-laugh, half-sigh. “He’d be thrilled if you saw it.”

It was an innocent suggestion- a motherly one. A natural thing for a parent reunited with their child.

But to Hisashi, it landed heavier. His son’s room. A space he had no right to know anymore, yet desperately wanted to. A place built in his absence, shaped only by Izuku and the life Hisashi had abandoned.

“...Yeah,” he murmured. “I’d like to see it.”

The white-haired man stood, legs stiff, nerves buzzing under his skin like a live current. He made his way down the narrow hallway, toward the familiar wooden door. Tacked to the center was a single, cheap plastic nameplate. It was shaped like All Might’s crest, ‘IZUKU’ printed across it in cheerful, blocky letters.

‘Of course that god-awful thing is still here…’, he thought, the old, familiar paternal irritation a bizarre comfort. His hand hovered over the handle for a second, then he turned it and pushed the door open.

The room was a punch of nostalgia and alien development. The blue carpet was the same. The bed was in the same place. But the walls… the walls were a riot of color, plastered with posters of smiling, spandex-clad heroes. All Might dominated, of course. A garish figurine of the blonde hero stood sentinel on the cluttered desk.

Annoyance flared hot behind his ribs. That blonde oaf’s horrid grin plastered all over his son’s sanctuary? It was enough to make his eyelid twitch.

But the irritation died the moment his gaze shifted- sliding from the grotesquely cheerful figurine to take in the desk itself.

Something was wrong.

The chair had been pushed back at an odd angle, as though Izuku had left in a hurry. Papers were scattered, notebooks stacked unevenly, pens left uncapped. But one notebook lay open, its pages splayed wide, the paper warped where red ink had soaked deep into the material.

Hisashi moved toward it almost without realizing, his pulse beginning to drum in his ears. He reached the desk, slid the rolling chair aside, and lowered his gaze to the page.

The writing was frantic- lines carved into the paper with enough pressure to nearly tear through. Red ink bled across the pages in jagged strokes, pooling where the pen must have hovered and trembled.

And right there, in the center of the chaos:

'I want to die.'

The world tilted. 

The cheerful hero posters on the walls seemed to warp and mock him. The air was sucked from the room. All thoughts- about All Might, about being home, about finally staying with his family again- evaporated. There was only the red ink and the white page and the terrifying, absolute meaning of those words in his son’s hand.

His breath stalled, a cold weight dropping into his stomach. He flipped the page, more urgently this time, and the next was no better- more desperate spirals, more self-directed venom, more red ink where it had gathered and dried in dark, uneven blotches.

Pressed between two pages, delicate despite the violence around them, lay a few carefully dried spider lilies- red as blood, funereal and final.

His fingers tightened on the notebook’s edge.

Page after page, the same. Misery. Loathing. Despair. A child dragging himself through something no child should ever have to face.

His child- his son- his everything- was being bullied to the brink of suicide because he was quirkless. Because the world had deemed him lesser. Because society had looked at a harmless, bright little boy and decided he deserved nothing.

A soundless, consuming wave of something- horror, fury, a possessive terror so profound it felt like his bones were turning to ice- washed over him. It wasn't the sharp, calculated rage of “All For One”. It was the raw, blind panic of a father who has just realized his child has been standing on a ledge for years, and he wasn't there to pull him back.

Did Inko know?

No- no, if she had known, she would’ve torn the world apart with her bare hands to protect Izuku. She would’ve transferred him. Moved. Fought. She would never have let their son walk back into that hell every morning, smiling for her sake while his soul bled out onto notebook paper.

Of course she didn’t know. 

The realization didn’t calm him. It made the terror sharper.

Because if she had walked in here- if she had come to wake Izuku, or tidy his room, or simply check on him- her eyes would have landed on that page. On that sentence. On her baby’s quiet, desperate plea to disappear.

Hisashi’s hand hovered over the notebook, trembling- not with fear, but with a rage so absolute it bordered on something unhinged.

The image seared itself behind his eyes: Izuku, small and freckled, pressing a spider lily into a page; Izuku writing ‘I want to die.’ with a shaky hand; Izuku leaving this notebook- this raw, unfiltered cry for help- open on his desk as if he had stopped caring who saw it.

He hadn’t even hidden it today.

The implication struck Hisashi with the force of one of All Might’s punches. 

Izuku could have done it. He could have done it today. He could have left for school with the intention of never coming back. Hisashi could have clawed his way back from the brink of death only to find a grave waiting for him.

And his world would shatter- just like it did when he lost Yoichi. 

The old wound ripped open, deep and violent. His little brother, stolen from him again and again- by thieves disguised as heroes, by naïve ideals, by a fragile body too weak to keep him here. He had spent a century trying to hold onto him, and still Yoichi had slipped through his fingers.

And now Izuku- his bright, clever, smiling boy- was trying to leave him too. Not by force, but by despair. A quiet, festering kind that had taken root while Hisashi was gone.

Cold terror surged through his veins, quickly igniting into a white-hot, all-consuming fire. It wasn’t sane. It wasn’t rational. It was older than that, deeper than that- the brutal, instinctive truth at the core of who he was.

What was his would not be taken.

Not by heroes. Not by society. Not by the hopelessness that had wormed its way into his son’s heart.

Not even by death itself.

Midoriya Hisashi drew in a slow breath and straightened, his dull-white gaze locked on the bleeding pages before his hand closed over the cover. A storage quirk- one specifically designed for books and documents- activated with a thought, and the notebook vanished into a secure, intangible pocket of space only he could access.

Once it was safely tucked away, the white-haired man turned on his heel and left the room in quick, silent strides, his long legs carrying him back down the hall which seemed narrower than before- suffocatingly so.

Izuku could not be left alone for another hour. He couldn’t risk it- wouldn’t risk it.

The notebook made it far too clear how close his son was. Far too clear what poisonous “advice” those classmates had been feeding him. If Izuku had reached his limit today… if he’d decided to follow those taunts, to slip quietly out of this world-

No. That couldn’t happen.

Not now. Not ever.

Hisashi stepped into the small kitchen where Inko was slicing vegetables with trembling determination, trying so hard to act like this was a normal day. The rhythmic tap-tap of the knife on the wooden board was too loud in the quiet.

She glanced up at him, jade-green eyes still faintly red-rimmed. “Everything alright?” she asked softly. “Does it still look the same?”

He nodded, schooling his expression. “It does,” he replied, voice turning gentle. “Very… Izuku.” A pause, carefully chosen. “He’s accumulated quite a bit more hero merchandise, but I should’ve expected this from our son.”

That earned a small, breathy laugh from her, more air than sound. “Oh, you have no idea,” Inko said, turning back to the cutting board. “Izuku never stopped adoring heroes. Watching, analyzing… writing things down whenever he can. He gets it from you, you know.”

The knife slowed as jade-colored eyes turned reminiscent. Hisashi felt something twist in his chest.

‘Izuku picked up my writing habits…?’

“Inko,” he said after a moment, “I was thinking… maybe I could pick him up today.”

His wife paused.

“…Pick him up?” Inko echoed, blinking up at him over her shoulder. 

He kept his posture relaxed, hands loose at his sides, expression soft- layers and layers of careful composure stacked neatly over the bubbling anger and fear coiling tight beneath his ribs.

“If that’s alright,” he added quietly. “I know it’s sudden. I just-... I’d like to see my precious emerald sooner.”  

Inko’s lips curved faintly at the familiar endearment.

“But,” Hisashi continued, his voice lowering, threaded with uncertainty, “it hit me just now how long it’s been. What if he doesn’t recognize me right away? Or if the shock is too much?”

The knife stilled in Inko’s hand. Her brows knit together, concern flickering across her face. “Oh… but Izuku has such a good memory,” she murmured gently. “I doubt he’s forgotten. And you still look so much like you did when you left-”

She faltered, eyes drifting toward the hallway. Toward Izuku’s room. “It has been a long time,” she admitted. “And he’s… sensitive. I don’t want to overwhelm him.”

“I understand,” Hisashi said- too quickly- but he caught himself. Slowed his breath. Softened his tone.

“That’s exactly why I don’t want to ruin it for him,” he explained carefully. “I don’t want his first sight of me in years to be in our kitchen, with no warning. What if Izuku thinks he’s seeing a ghost?” A faint, rueful huff escaped him. “What if he panics and runs?”

The thought clearly unsettled her. She hugged her arms closer to herself.

“Let me go meet him,” he tilted his head, a reassuring smile on his lips. “I’ll walk him home. Give him time to process- just the two of us.” A brief pause. “It’ll be… gentler.”

Hisashi watched the logic wrestle with her excitement. Inko wanted a perfect reunion. He was offering a safer one. “…You really think so?”

“I do.” He stepped closer and rested a hand on her shoulder, warm and steady, thumb giving a light squeeze. “A father and son walking home together. Nothing overwhelming. I promise.”

The small woman’s shoulders finally relaxed. She nodded once, then again. 

“Alright,” Inko murmured. “If you think that’s best… I trust you.” After a moment, she added, almost shyly, “Izuku usually takes Takoba Municipal Street. He cuts under the pedestrian overpass by the river.”

Hisashi’s expression softened. “Thank you, my lovely jade.”

He leaned down and pressed a brief, careful kiss to her forehead- gentle, grounding, a quiet promise that this was real- before turning away. He retrieved the spare key from its hook, shrugged into the jacket he’d brought with him, and left the apartment without hesitation.

The moment the door clicked shut behind him, the warmth of Midoriya Hisashi fell away, replaced by something much darker- the identity he swore to lay down for his family. 

The villain mastermind descended the stairs with a predator's quiet glide and slipped onto the street without drawing a single glance. At the first narrow, shadow-choked alley, he turned and stepped into the dark.

It answered him.

Blackness bloomed at his feet, thick and viscous, swallowing sound and light alike as space folded inward. The world compressed into nothing- then snapped violently back into place as the warp released him.

He stood in the deep shadow of a storage shed, breath steady, senses already unfurling, and looked across the street at the uninspiring brick façade of Aldera Middle School.

Home for monsters, and hell for his son.

Leaning back against the brick wall of the shed, swallowed by shadow and the subtle bend of an invisibility quirk layered over his form, Hisashi crossed his arms and closed his eyes.

He reached outward.

With the sheer abundance of quirks at his disposal, prying into Aldera’s outdated surveillance system was almost insulting in its simplicity. 

His perception stretched and thinned, slipping through dusty wiring and neglected feeds, piggybacking on old security quirks and half-dead cameras that buzzed and flickered like dying insects. The footage was grainy, washed in sickly fluorescent light, some angles frozen or looping uselessly- but he sifted through them with ruthless efficiency, discarding failures until-

There.

A familiar mess of viridian curls filled the corner of one screen.

His breath caught despite himself.

Izuku sat at a desk in the middle row, shoulders hunched inward as though trying to fold into himself, one arm lifted instinctively to shield his face while his eyes stayed glued to the surface of the desk. 

The boy looked smaller than he should have, all elbows and tension, yet undeniably older- longer limbs, sharper lines to his face, a quiet exhaustion etched into him that made something in Hisashi’s chest tighten painfully.

‘Oh, how much have you suffered and grown while I was gone?’

He didn’t look away. He couldn’t. He burned the image into himself, memorizing the curve of Izuku’s posture, the way his fingers twitched at every sound, the defensive set of his shoulders that spoke of reflex rather than choice.

The bell rang, shrill and grating, and the classroom dissolved into motion.

Chairs scraped. Bags were slung over shoulders. Students surged past Izuku’s desk in careless waves- and then it happened.

One of them slowed just long enough to flick something red onto Izuku’s desk.

A spider lily.

The flower landed softly, petals splayed obscenely bright against the battered wood.

Izuku froze.

The teacher- a bored-looking middle aged man- didn’t even pause. The man just gathered his things with practiced indifference and walked out without a glance, leaving the room- and Hisashi’s son- behind.

Something deep and ancient inside Hisashi finally snapped.

The fury he had kept chained since opening that notebook surged up in a violent, breathless rush, cold and consuming, the endlessly hungry core of All For One rearing awake as his quirks shuddered in response. Power pressed against his skin, restless and eager, a chorus of instincts screaming for correction- for punishment- for ownership reclaimed-

-and he forced it down.

Not gone. Never gone. Just leashed.

Because his son’s torment hadn’t ended yet- No, it only got worse from there.

Another student slammed deliberately into Izuku’s desk as they passed, the impact sharp enough to send his notebook and pencil skittering across the floor. Laughter followed immediately, shrill and careless, as one of their friends stepped down hard on the scattered pages, grinding the paper beneath their heel before kicking the pencil away like trash.

Hisashi’s jaw clenched so hard it ached.

How dared these underdeveloped children treat his son like waste? Like he was nothing but dirt under their shoes? Simply because he wasn’t born with a quirk factor? 

On the edge of the frame, an ash-blonde boy paused just long enough to sneer at the scene before turning on his heel and walking away as if it were nothing. Recognition struck a heartbeat later, bitter and unwelcome.

Mitsuki’s brat. The one Izuku had always looked up to and called his best friend. ‘Kacchan.’

Copper flooded Hisashi’s mouth. He realized distantly that he had bitten through the inside of his cheek, but he didn’t stop watching. He couldn’t. Not while his son was still there, not while the room continued to empty around him, students filing out without a glance as if Izuku were part of the furniture- something damaged and ignorable.

Not until Izuku was shoved hard enough to send him sprawling.

Not until he hit the floor and stayed there.

The classroom emptied completely- the door being drawn shut with a sharp rattle- leaving Izuku alone in the sterile, humming quiet.

Hisashi watched as his son curled inward instinctively, one hand clutching at his singed shoulder while the other fisted into the fabric of his uniform, messy green curls falling forward to hide his face. His breathing went sharp and fast, chest hitching unevenly as his whole body began to tremble.

Too fast- Too shallow.

Hisashi recognized it instantly.

A panic attack.

The surveillance feed became a real-time window into hell. The red notebook had been an autopsy report- clinical, horrific in hindsight- but this… this was the injury happening in real time, breath by breath, nerve by nerve.

Behind him, the brick wall of the alley cracked- a sharp, percussive sound. His fingers had subconsciously driven into the mortar, crushing it to powder. He didn’t feel the strain in his hand. He only felt the white-hot wire of fury tightening around his spine as he watched Izuku claw at his uniform like it was strangling him- nails digging into fabric and then skin, desperate for air that wouldn’t come, for relief that refused to exist.

Enough.

Hisashi severed the surveillance quirk mid-feed- the connection snapping like a wire pulled too tight- and his mind seemed to tilt with the speed of his decision. There was no more waiting. No more watching. Not when his son was breaking apart on a classroom floor- not when every second stretched thinner than the one before it.

With a single flick of his wrist, a short-range warp gate tore open in front of him- space collapsing and reforming in the span of a heartbeat as the shadows swallowed him whole.

The world snapped back into place.

He stood in the empty third-floor hallway of Aldera Middle School, directly before the closed classroom door. The sterile stink of chalk dust, cleaning solution, and too many bodies pressed into too little space hit him all at once- wrong, invasive, hateful.

There was no hesitation. No breath taken to steady himself.

Hisashi shoved the door open.

Izuku was still on the floor.

A trembling, gasping heap in the middle of the classroom, knees drawn tight to his chest, fingers clenched white in the fabric of his uniform like it was the only thing tethering him to reality.

The freckled boy didn’t react to the sound of the door slamming open. Didn’t flinch at the approaching footsteps. He only curled in tighter, breath hitching and stuttering, shoulders shaking as if he were trying to fold himself small enough to disappear entirely.

White-hot fury roared through Hisashi, burning away restraint, calculation- everything but the singular, overwhelming need to be there- to hold and protect his son from all those that dared to cause him harm.

Hisashi crossed the distance in three long strides and dropped to his knees in front of his son, the impact sharp and uncaring against the wooden tile.

There he was.

His emerald. His baby.

Broken on a classroom floor.

Hisashi reached out- then stopped himself. Forced his hands to still in midair, fingers trembling despite the iron grip he usually kept on himself. He couldn’t overwhelm him. Couldn’t frighten him further. Not like this. Not when Izuku was already so far gone.

His teeth ground together.

This was painfully familiar. Too close to the memory of Yoichi’s shaking hands, his shallow breaths, the way panic hollowed him out from the inside. Hisashi had learned then- had had to learn- how to approach without breaking, how to anchor without trapping- how to reel himself in so Yoichi wouldn’t feel scared anymore.

Shigaraki Zen had failed Yoichi in so many ways.

Midoriya Hisashi would not fail Izuku.

Swallowing the coppery taste of his own rage, he forced his voice into the lowest, softest register he could manage- a strained imitation of calm.

“Izuku?”

No reaction. The boy only curled tighter into himself, a choked, broken sound tearing free from his chest.

Hisashi’s heart clenched. He tried again, this time leaning just slightly closer- enough to be felt without being overwhelming.

“Izuku.”

That did it.

The smallest twitch rippled through the boy’s frame. His lashes fluttered, unfocused emerald peeking out from behind damp curls, eyes glassy and distant- searching, but not quite seeing.

“It’s… it’s alright,” Hisashi said quietly, keeping his voice low and steady. “Look at me. I know it’s hard, but I need you to breathe.”

He waited. Let the words settle.

Slowly, deliberately, he lifted one hand and held it where Izuku could see it. “May I?” he asked, gently. “Can I touch you?”

Another second stretched- then a tiny, almost imperceptible nod.

That was all the permission he needed.

Hisashi drew Izuku in carefully, guiding him against his chest with measured restraint. He felt the flinch immediately- the way Izuku’s body went rigid, bracing for something that never came- and it took everything he had not to let his fury leak through. He tightened his hold just enough to be solid. Warm. Unmoving.

“I’ve got you,” he murmured. “Nothing’s going to hurt you, I promise.”

The tall man shifted slightly, angling Izuku’s head beneath his chin, one hand steady between his shoulder blades. “Alright,” he hummed softly. “We’re going to breathe together. Just follow me.”

He exaggerated the motion, letting Izuku feel it. “In… slowly… and out.”

At first, Izuku’s breaths stayed sharp and uneven, chest hitching against his own. Hisashi didn’t rush him. Didn’t correct. Just kept breathing- deep and steady- again and again.

“There you go,” he encouraged quietly. “That’s it. You’re doing good. In… and out.”

Minutes stretched. Gradually, almost imperceptibly, Izuku’s breathing began to match his. The gasps evened out into exhausted, deep breaths and the shaking eased. Izuku’s full weight settled against him, his head resting in the hollow of Hisashi’s shoulder, utterly spent. He was pliant, quiet, but his emerald eyes were distant, seeing nothing.

Hisashi held him, one hand rubbing slow, soothing circles on his son’s back. He knew, with a certainty that ached, that Izuku didn’t truly see him. Not yet. He was a warm, safe presence in a waking nightmare, nothing more.

Then, so faint it was almost a thought, a whisper brushed against the fabric of his shirt, caught only by his enhanced hearing.

“This… is a nice dream…”

Hisashi froze.

His gaze dropped to the crown of viridian curls tucked beneath his chin. “A dream?” he echoed softly, careful not to shift.

“Mhm…” Izuku murmured, voice thick with sleep and lingering distress. “You’re here… and it doesn’t hurt anymore.” A pause, then, quieter still, “You still sound the same, Papa.”

Something twisted painfully in Hisashi’s chest.

He swallowed. “Do I?”

Izuku nodded faintly, cheek pressing closer as if chasing warmth. “Yeah… even after all this time.”

The words were a punch to the gut, sweet and agonizing in equal measure. His son remembered his voice. In the deepest, most wounded part of his mind, this safety could only be a dream.

Hisashi tightened his hold, just a fraction, a silent vow etched in the pressure of his arms.

“I’m here,” he whispered back, the promise raw and true. “I’m not leaving again.”

Izuku stiffened.

His shoulders drew up, breath hitching as he pressed his face deeper into Hisashi’s shoulder, as if trying to hide inside him. “I can’t take it anymore, Papa,” he choked. “I can’t.”

Something inside Hisashi splintered.

“Don’t say that, my little emerald.” He shushed him softly- almost desperately, as the sudden, phantom weight of the red notebook burned in his mind. “You don’t have to carry it all alone anymore-”

“You don’t understand!” Izuku’s words tumbled out in a rush, jagged and panicked. “I-I tried, I really did, but ever since- since they found out I was quirkless-!” He sucked in a sharp breath. “If I wasn’t a dumb, useless Deku- if I’d been born right- maybe you would’ve come back! Maybe everyone would be nicer! Maybe Mama wouldn’t look so tired all the time- maybe then I could have a chance to be a hero!”

Hisashi pulled him closer, arms firm and unyielding as sobs wracked the small body in his grasp. Warm tears soaked through his shirt. He didn’t care. He wanted them there. Proof that Izuku was still breathing.

“Listen to me,” he said softly but fiercely. “You can still be a hero. Don’t ever believe otherwise. It was never your fault that you were born quirkless- and anyone who’s ever called you useless has no understanding of what you truly are.” His thumb brushed small, grounding circles against Izuku’s spine. “That clever mind of yours is extraordinary.”

“They hate it,” Izuku cried breathlessly. “They say it’s creepy when I mumble- when I write things down- when I think too much. They laugh at me.” His voice cracked. “I’m so tired, Papa. I can’t keep doing this. I don’t want to… but I don’t want to burden Mama either. I don’t know what to do anymore.”

His breathing turned ragged again, wheezing as he shook his head, curling inward. “I wish you were here,” he whispered brokenly. “I wish you’d come back. Or at least told us why you left. Mama was so heartbroken… and I didn’t know what to do without you-!”

In his agitation, Izuku reeled back, pulling away from the embrace. Hisashi’s hands shot out, catching him by the shoulders before he could lose his balance and tumble.

For the first time in years, teary, unfocused emerald eyes lifted- searching blindly for the source of comfort he’d assumed belonged to a dream.

They met intense, crystalline white.

Izuku’s breath stuttered.

‘…Huh?’

His vision swam as he blinked, once, then again. 

His gaze flicked uncertainly from one eye to the other, then around the classroom- the overturned chair, the open door, the spider lily resting on his desk. Down, to the large hands gripping his shoulders with unmistakable solidity. Warm, grounding, real- 

Back up again.

The freckled boy swallowed hard. His eyes widened by slow, disbelieving degrees as they locked once more onto that face- etched so deeply into his memory it had never truly faded. A face he remembered from photographs and half-formed dreams. A face unchanged from the last morning he’d seen it.

The man kneeling before him was his father.

His father, who had left when Izuku was three. Who had gone overseas for work. Who had never come home.

A hysterical, logical part of his mind rebelled. He bit down, hard, on the inside of his cheek. The sharp, coppery tang of pain bloomed. He curled his fingers into his palms until his nails dug half-moons into his skin.

The pain was bright, vivid.

But the man in front of him did not waver. He did not fade.

Real, real, real-! 

Izuku’s lungs tightened, breath turning shallow as his mind scrambled for an explanation that wouldn’t shatter him outright. This had to be a hallucination. A twisted stress dream. Something his broken brain had conjured to cope-

“…Papa?” he whispered, the word barely making it past his throat.

Hisashi watched the realization dawn on his son’s face- a small, breakable, fragile thing, like the first ice of winter on a pond, beautiful and terrifyingly thin.

The whispered word tipped him off balance all the same.

He tightened his hold instinctively, just enough to ground them both, to remind Izuku that this was real- that arms could hold him, that warmth could answer fear. 

Then, gently but insistently, he took both of Izuku’s trembling hands and carefully, one finger at a time, pried them open, freeing the boy’s own flesh from the bite of his nails.

“I’m sorry,” Hisashi murmured, voice rough despite his effort to keep it steady. “I’m so sorry for making you wait, my little emerald.”

Izuku stared up at him, wide-eyed and disbelieving, tears spilling freely now, carving tracks down flushed cheeks. In that tear-streaked face, Hisashi saw the ghost of his three-year-old son, waiting at the door. And behind that, like a phantom double-exposure, he saw another set of green eyes, younger, brighter, but just as full of a pain he couldn’t fix.

Yoichi.

‘I promise I won’t fail this time’, he vowed silently, the words sinking deep into the marrow of him. ‘I’ll do this right. I swear it.’

Whatever fragile restraint Izuku had been clinging to finally gave way. He broke with a sound that tore straight through Hisashi’s chest- reaching out, shaking, overwhelmed, words dissolving into sobs he couldn’t shape anymore.

Hisashi caught him easily, folding around his son without hesitation, long limbs curving protectively as he drew Izuku in close. He tucked the boy’s head back under his chin, one hand cradling the back of his skull, fingers carding slowly through the soft, viridian curls. With the other, he traced steady, grounding circles against Izuku’s back, anchoring him where panic had tried to pull him apart.

“Shh… I’m here,” he murmured, the words coming low and instinctive, unfamiliar in their gentleness. “You don’t have to hold it in anymore. I’ve got you.”

Izuku clung to him and cried- raw, broken sobs pouring out years of loneliness, of cruelty, of waiting for a father who never came home. Hisashi held him through all of it, unmoving, unyielding, murmuring soft assurances into his hair as if repetition alone could stitch something back together.

“Everything will be alright now,” he whispered, voice rough with conviction. 

“I am here.”

They stayed like that for a long while. Long enough for the tremors to ease, for Izuku’s breathing to slow, for exhaustion to settle heavy and bone-deep. Hisashi didn’t rush it. He simply stayed, memorizing the weight of his son in his arms, the warmth, the proof that he was real- that Izuku was alive.

Eventually, when Izuku’s tears had run dry and his eyes were swollen and unfocused, Hisashi produced a tissue from his pocket and carefully dabbed at his son’s face, wiping away the remnants of grief with a patience he hadn’t known he possessed.

“There,” he murmured. “Easy now.”

Once Hisashi loosened his hold, Izuku tried to push himself upright on unsteady legs. He made it halfway before his knees buckled, the strength simply draining out of him. Hisashi caught him without effort, steady hands settling at his arms and back to keep him upright.

“Hey,” he said gently. “Slowly, Izuku. You’ve been through a lot.”

Emerald eyes, still glazed with exhaustion and shock, flitted up to his face, struggling to focus. “Y-you… I… You’re… you’re really back? This… this isn’t a lucid dream, right? Or a q-quirk? You…” The freckled boy stuttered, his words slurring with fatigue as he clung to his father’s sleeve like a lifeline.

Hisashi’s expression softened, something rueful and aching pulling at the corners of his mouth. He lifted one hand and pressed it over Izuku’s- firm and warm.

“It’s real,” he said quietly. “I’m not going anywhere. Not again.”

That seemed to steady him, just a little.

Now standing, Izuku glanced around the empty classroom as if seeing it for the first time. The overturned chair. The scuffed floor. The desk where everything had happened. Hisashi stayed silent, close but not crowding him, letting his son take the moment at his own pace.

“I-” Izuku huffed out a shaky breath. “This is… a lot. You’re- you’re really here, huh?” A weak, disbelieving laugh slipped out. “S-sorry, I just… They l-let you on campus to pick me up? And-”

Suddenly, Hisashi felt his son tense violently under his hands. 

Wide, horrified emerald eyes locked onto the surface of his desk. Hisashi followed his gaze- and felt something cold coil in his chest.

‘Ah... Right.'

The spider lily.

Quiet, gut-wrenching horror flooded Izuku’s face. His head whipped around, his eyes- now sharp with panic- meeting Hisashi’s unreadable white ones.

“T-This- uhm- This isn’t what it looks l-like? It’s… uhm…”

The words collapsed in on themselves. Shame rushed in to replace the panic, hot and suffocating, as Izuku stepped in front of the desk, shoulders hunched, body angled instinctively to shield the red flower from view. His hands wrung together uselessly, fingers digging into his sleeves as if he could physically erase it from existence.

And Hisashi watched.

Watched the way his son made himself smaller. Watched the way he blocked, deflected, hid- like this was just another thing he was expected to endure in silence. Watched as his son tried to protect him from the truth-

A quiet breath left Hisashi’s chest.

When he straightened to his full height, the movement was unhurried- deliberate. The air seemed to shift with him, pressure settling into the room as his expression smoothed into something calm. Not angry- never angry-  but serious.

“Izuku,” he called softly. “My emerald. Look at me, please.” It was not a command. It was a request- patient, steady, waiting.

Izuku hesitated, eyes flicking once toward the door, then back to the desk, heart racing. Slowly, reluctantly, he lifted his gaze. Hisashi waited until he had it.

“The flower,” Hisashi said, his voice still soft but unwavering. “The notebook. I already know.”

The words landed gently- and utterly obliterated his son’s composure.

Izuku froze, face draining of color.

“…H-Huh?”

Hisashi didn’t reach out. He simply held his son’s gaze, his white eyes unwavering. “When I got home today,” he began, each word measured and carefully soft, “after I spoke with your mother… I went to your room. I wanted to see you- to see the space you’d grown up in without me.”

Izuku’s breath hitched sharply.

“On your desk,” Hisashi continued, his tone devoid of accusation- simply stating a fact, “you had left a notebook open. Your red pen was uncapped- and ink spilled across the page.”

The remaining color drained from Izuku’s face so completely he looked like he might pass out. All the blood that had rushed to his cheeks in shame vanished, leaving him ashen.

“I-” Izuku’s fingers curled into fists. “You- you weren’t- you didn’t-”

“I didn’t read it to judge you,” Hisashi said immediately, stepping closer- but stopping just short of crowding him. “I read it because I am your father. And because I was afraid.”

That did it.

Izuku’s knees wobbled, his balance faltering as the weight of it crashed down all at once- seen. Completely, devastatingly seen.

“You… you weren’t supposed to know,” he whispered, voice breaking. “I tried- I tried to hide it, I swear-! Mama doesn’t know, I didn’t want her to-”

“I know,” Hisashi interrupted gently. “She doesn’t. I didn’t tell her.”

Relief flashed across Izuku’s face- brief, fragile- before collapsing into something worse.

“I’m s-sorry,” he blurted, tears spilling over. “I d-didn’t mean to be like- l-like this, I just- I didn’t k-know what else to do-”

Finally, Hisashi allowed himself to close the distance. He knelt slowly- careful not to startle him- and brought himself eye-to-eye with his trembling son. One large, warm hand came to rest over Izuku’s clenched fists, stilling them without force, a silent promise that he wouldn't let him hurt himself again.

“You don’t need to apologize for surviving, Izuku,” he murmured, his voice a low, steady rumble. “Or for hurting. Or for wanting the pain to stop.”

His son stared at him, shaking, lips trembling, red-rimmed eyes shedding a fresh torrent of silent tears.

“I was supposed to protect you,” Hisashi went on, something dark and aching threading through his calm. “And I wasn’t there. That is on me.” His grip tightened just a fraction. “And I am so, so sorry.”

A gut-wrenching sob tore free as the small boy folded forward, clutching at Hisashi’s coat like it was the only solid thing left in the world.

“I thought-” Izuku gasped out between heaves, the words soaked in years of despair. “I thought if I j-just stayed quiet, if I didn’t c-cause trouble, they’d l-leave me alone. That it’d g-get better-” His voice broke completely. “But n-nothing ever worked. Dumb, q-quirkless Deku was always at fault for e-everything.”

Hisashi gathered him in without hesitation, folding around him once more, arms closing tight as he bowed his head over the boy’s messy curls.

Inside, something vast and furious stirred- old, impatient, and lethal. It pressed against its confines with every broken word his son spoke, every wound laid bare. He forced it down, buried it deep. This moment was not for that.

Not yet.

“You were never the problem,” he murmured into his son’s hair, the words a fierce, quiet vow. “Not once. Not ever.”

‘And they will learn that’, the monster within him whispered, a promise written in blood and fire. His vast array of quirks stirred restlessly beneath his skin, eager, hungry. ‘Every last one of them. Later.’

For now, he held his son. He rocked him gently, whispering that it was over, that he was safe, that he was loved. The reckoning for Aldera, for the spider lilies, for every cruel word and scorching touch- that could wait. The most important thing was here, in his arms, finally letting the poison out.

He would be gentle for as long as his son needed him to be.

Izuku was too exhausted to walk by the time they finally left the school.

Hisashi didn’t hesitate. He turned, crouched slightly, and Izuku clambered onto his back with a soft, sleepy sound, arms instinctively curling around his father’s neck. His mustard-yellow backpack hung from Hisashi’s hand, its weight negligible- its contents less so. The spider lily inside remained unseen, hidden away, for now.

They walked home like that.

A few passersby slowed, casting curious glances at the towering man with the sleeping child on his back- but whatever questions flickered behind their eyes died quickly. Something about the way Hisashi carried himself discouraged scrutiny. They moved on. So did he.

Halfway there, Izuku’s grip loosened, breath evening out as sleep claimed him fully. Hisashi adjusted his hold, careful, reverent, and continued on.

Home came into view sooner than he expected.

The front door flew open before he could reach it.

Inko was waiting there, her face a canvas of anxious hope. When she saw them- her husband, tall and solid, with their son safe and asleep on his back- her hands flew to her mouth. Tears welled in her jade-colored eyes, but this time they were pure, uncomplicated joy. She didn’t ask questions. She just ushered them inside, her smile radiant.

Later, she would quietly snap a photo of the two of them: Hisashi carefully lowering Izuku onto the couch, the boy still dead to the world, his face finally peaceful.

Her boys. Home.

For the rest of the evening, and throughout the quiet, happy weekend that followed, Hisashi said nothing about the red notebook or the spider lilies. That was Izuku’s truth to share when he was ready. 

Hisashi was content to simply be- to eat lunch, to listen to his wife’s stories of the years he’d missed, to watch over his sleeping son.

And if Aldera Middle School was tragically, completely destroyed by a sudden, catastrophic gas leak explosion the following Saturday morning, during a mandatory staff conference…

Well.

Unfortunate accidents happened every day. Nothing could be done about that.

As for the individual students whose names were carefully noted in a certain red notebook… their reckonings would be quieter. More personal. Far more precise. Hisashi was nothing if not thorough.

For now, in the warm light of his own kitchen, with the scent of katsudon in the air and the soft sound of his son’s breathing from the couch-

Midoriya Hisashi was perfectly, terrifyingly content.