Work Text:
Izuku Midoriya doesn't have much experience with grief. He could even say that it was a relatively foreign concept throughout his life. Before U.A., Izuku had experienced grief for the first time when he was diagnosed as quirkless. His mom said he cried nearly every day for a month after that stupid doctor's appointment. He grieved for a future that, at the time, was impossible.
Now, two weeks after the raid, he thinks he is truly experiencing grief in all of its ugly fashion.
No one expected Nighteye to die. That wasn’t the plan. The plan was for everyone to make it out alive, even if some would’ve been heavily injured. Sir would at least have been alive, and Izuku wouldn’t be sitting in this desolate room with nothing but the whirring of his thoughts keeping him company.
This is what no one told him about grief. No one told him that it would be delayed. No one told him that it would consume his every thought, no matter when or where he was.
Grief will never cease to be all-consuming.
So here he sits, tears streaming down his face, waiting for the hurt to end. But the hurt just continues to grow.
Izuku didn’t know that grief could transcend the metaphysical. He didn’t know that it would possess a corporeal form—a serrated blade with no handle. He didn’t know it would plunge past the hilt into the center of his chest, where young children think their heart is before learning any better.
Ever since he was a little kid, the adults in his life told him that he wore his heart on his sleeve. They told him he was so in tune with his emotions that he could heal people with how big his heart was.
Now though… He feels as if he wears his heart on his entire body. His heart is in his hands, and it is bleeding and it is breaking and there’s no anatomical chart to show him the correct placement for it.
Maybe if he had gone to a different hero for his work-study, Nighteye would still be alive. He had no way of knowing what could have happened, but it would surely have been better if he hadn’t been involved. Maybe the heroes would have gotten Eri out faster. Maybe they would have captured the league along with Overhaul.
Izuku doesn’t know if any of that would have happened, but he wishes he knew. Maybe if he had known, he wouldn’t be sitting in the dark at an ungodly hour crying over the fact that he killed his mentor's former sidekick.
Logically he knew it wasn’t his fault, but every bad thing that has happened in his life seemed to be blamed on him, even if he didn’t do anything. It would always be his fault, so he has to deal with the emotional consequences of said faults.
For once though, he didn’t want to.
He just wanted this all-consuming feeling to come to an end. When would it end? Why won’t it end?
Could his wish be granted for once in his life? He would face off against One For All right now if it meant the end of this serrated grief.
The world was laughing at him for making such a silly request.
No one can live life without pain, yet pain is something that cannot die.
If pain cannot die then why must it inflict itself upon those who deserve it the least?
Some could say that Izuku Midoriya deserved the be inflicted with pain. All he did was drown those around him while trying to stay afloat himself. They claim he is a disease, wanting to spread his sickness to those more fortunate.
But that’s not true. The truth is that Izuku Midoriya is trying to wade his way through life without causing pain to others. All he wanted to do was to be a hero. To Eri, he was a hero. To himself, he was nothing but a murderer who deserves to drown in silence.
If he had been quick enough, maybe Mirio wouldn’t have lost his quirk. Maybe Kirishima and FatGum wouldn’t have gotten as hurt. Maybe the group wouldn’t have gotten separated if he had been more aware of his surroundings. It should’ve been him to die instead of Nighteye. For society to lose such a valuable hero all because he wasn’t fast enough.
Yagi would kill him if he knew that Izuku was having these thoughts. That’s just how he is. All Might may not be the best teacher, but no one can deny that he was the symbol of peace for his pure strength and bleeding heart.
Maybe he should try to be more like All Might again. The truth of the matter is that things only started to go wrong after he decided to become his own hero and not a copy of All Might. He should’ve just stayed in his lane as he did at Aldera.
Izuku’s thoughts go quiet.
This is what grief was all along. The downward spiral of his thoughts, starting with his diagnosis to his, probably soon, death bed. Nighteye’s death was just the trigger.
Maybe he should talk to Aizawa about finally setting up an appointment with Hound Dog, even though the counselor did scare him a bit. It’d be better than sleepless nights riddled with traumatic memories tormenting his brain.
Anything would be better than this. Izuku doesn’t know how much more he can take before the others start to worry again. He doesn’t think he could handle another loss right now. Maybe in a few months, but for now, he would like just one day where he can relax and not have to worry about if he’s dragging others down. He doesn’t want to worry about how he can’t seem to catch a break. He doesn’t want to deal with the once again all-consuming grief that seemed to have followed him throughout his life.
He should get some sleep.