Archive of Our Own ^beta

Izuku was six years old, when his uncle tried to drown him.

Small, in the pictures he finds pasted in his mother's scrapbooks, more a curly, obtrusive, green puffball than a boy, all hair and no substance aside from a wide, world-spanning grin. He'd had more freckles then, he sometimes muses, and a pair of eyes like cavernous, gleaming mason jars.

His uncle had opened his door slowly. Cautiously. Glanced around twice, once left, once right. Plied Izuku’s compliance with a toy, if he remembers correctly, something gaudy, and colorful, and plastic: the kind of bait a child simply couldn't ignore.

It hadn't been difficult, the kidnapping. Not in the least. Izuku had always been a trusting child, and he'd absolutely adored his uncle. Who wouldn't have?

Kind eyes, a soft voice, tender and rational in equal measure; he'd watched Izuku, when his parents couldn't, sung him songs, tousled his hair, tucked him into bed. Always so gentle. Always so considerate.

He'd told Izuku that they were playing a game. They were spies on a mission to escape the house with their treasure–the toy–without alerting the bad guys–the house staff. Izuku hadn't known any better, of course. He'd played along. 

All the way from his bedroom on the third floor to the passenger seat of Dad's least favorite car. Then, his uncle had handed him the toy and told him the game was over. That they had won. As a reward, he was going to take Izuku camping.

The corners of his mouth had turned down when he'd said it, and his voice had wobbled strangely, like a record bumped mid-play. Izuku thought that was odd, but didn't think to look into it any more than he had. For months he'd asked to go camping with his dad, camping with his uncle had felt like the perfect consolation.

When he'd asked to go back inside to get his favorite blanket, his uncle had said no. They'd be getting sleeping bags at the camping grounds. Those were better. Then he'd muttered something indiscernible about heat retention, looking anywhere in the car but at Izuku.

To make him feel better, Izuku had affirmed he didn't need the blanket anyways. Heat detention sounded better.

He'd been so pleased when his assurance caused his uncle to laugh, even if the laugh had sounded oddly choked.

Uncle didn't normally go outside, this much Izuku knew from experience. He wasn't allowed to go to the movies with Izuku and Mom, or the big fancy ceremonies–the ones where Izuku had to sit still for hours– with dad, or even get in the pool, when the weather was nice.

He tried sometimes, to leave, when it was only Mom home and the guards weren't in the yard, but then the weird blocky thing on his ankle would start blaring and he'd be back before Izuku could run to the window.

Once when they brought him in, he'd kicked over one of Dad's favorite lamps, sending glass skidding out across the living room floor like the world's largest, most bitter horizontal mosaic. 

He'd yelled too, at the time. At Mom. Something about tacit culpability, and cowardice, and plenty more Izuku couldn't hear after a pair of hands covered his ears. It was the angriest Izuku had ever seen him. The angriest he'd ever seen Dad too, when he’d gotten home that night.

Mom had tried to hide it, Izuku thinks, by cleaning up the glass, but the house staff had seen it before she'd managed to shove it in the trash. “Your father is the one who pays them,” she always huffed when they made her mad, “that's the problem. We don't have the privilege of privacy.”

Mom only said things like that when she was really cross. Like when Dad had said Izuku couldn't have candy and Aoki–Izuku’s third favorite maid, nice, but not so nice–had caught Mom sneaking him some under the breakfast table. Or when Mom had tried to wear a dress Dad hadn't picked to a charity banquet, and the chauffeur had sent her back in to change. Izuku doesn't even want to think about the time Mom had taken him to Nikko without permission.

They'd been caught and returned before they'd even reached Tokyo city limits. Mom hadn't spoken to him for a week after that. That was the same month he'd bought her a new car, which, contrary to his evident intentions, had only made her angrier.

She'd gotten over it though. She always did.

“Hard not to be sorry,” Aoki had muttered in reference to his mother's eventual apology, “when your husband is the supreme fuckin’ dictator of Japan.” Her eyes had gone astonishingly wide when she'd seen Izuku at her feet. She'd given him a piece of gum for a promise never to repeat what he'd heard.

Izuku had complied. His Dad never let him have gum, and he hadn't really known most of the words Aoki had said anyways.

Mom always told Izuku they were lucky, after especially bad bouts with Dad. “Most people,” she’d hum, running an absentminded hand through Izuku's hair, “don't get the opportunity to apologize. Not to your father.”

Izuku had never believed it. Dad always let him say sorry. Said he had to say it, when he forgot to bow to foreign dignitaries, or when he made too much noise when Dad let him sit in on a meeting, or when he spilled juice on one of Mom's nice dresses.

“Dad is a good guy,” Izuku had responded quizzically, and Mom had nodded as if she'd just said the same.

“Yes, your father is a very, very good guy. You have to believe that–” She'd poked his nose with a playful, indulgent finger. “–and I do too.”

Uncle didn't believe it though, Izuku had begun to realize in the car that night, not one bit.

“Damned ankle bracelet,” he'd grunted under his breath when the chunky thing on his leg had started to beep, “of course it's still fucking active, why wouldn't it be?”

Izuku could guess why when he looked down at the car's gas pedal. The weird thing on Uncle's leg was showing quite a bit more circuitry than normal. Things tended to look like that when they were broken, Izuku had found.

“It doesn't matter,” he'd assured himself then, “it doesn't matter at all. Hisashi is in Kyoto with Inko and he'd never assume the staff take bribes. As far as he knows, I'm already back in my room. I just need an hour. One hour, that's it.”

He'd said it all quiet and whispery, like Izuku when he spoke to his friends during reading time at school. Then he'd looked at Izuku, eyes narrow, and pressed his foot down hard. Speeding, Mom called it.

That was when Izuku’s stomach had started to get restless, queasy butterflies. Like something was wrong. Which was weird, because he really did want to go camping.

Uncle seemed to be getting butterflies too, Izuku had noted. He could tell from the way his eyes had gone wet and glassy, the strange, sour twist of his mouth.

“It's okay,” Izuku had assured, patting his shoulder with a comforting hand, “camping isn't so scary. We can keep the light on in the tent, if you want.”

Uncle had looked at him like he'd grown a second head. “Jesus Christ.” All low and mumbly, that's how he'd said it. Like he wasn't really talking to Izuku. “You're six. You're six years old. Jesus Christ.”

“Mhm.” Izuku nodded, splaying out six fingers on his hands just like Sensei had taught him. He'd liked to use two thumbs, when he could, but he'd only been able to since last birthday. “Almost seven.”

Uncle's eyes had gone all big and wide, staring at Izuku's thumb. And then the car had jolted upwards–he’d hit a curb–and he had to look away. “Sorry,” he'd whispered, “I'm so, so sorry.”

“It's okay. It's fun when the car jumps. Like a rollercoaster.”

That hadn't helped the way Izuku wanted it to. In fact, it seemed to make things worse.

“What the Hell am I doing, I–” Uncle's voice was all gaspy, like he was having an Asthma attack. Izuku's friend Kojima had had one once, that's how he knew. “What am I saying? I know what I'm doing, I know, I just need… I need a reminder.”

He'd looked back at Izuku, expression gentle and even, the Uncle Izuku knew and loved, not the puzzling new one he suspected he was beginning to fear.

“Izuku.” A warm, encouraging smile, like morning sunlight. “What does your Dad say is going to happen when you turn twenty-one?”

“Oh!” Izuku knew this one. He could cheer his uncle up. “I'll be like Dad, and you, and Mom!”

“Mhm. And what does that mean, exactly?”

Izuku scrunched up his nose, confused. Uncle should've already known this, but he did say he needed a reminder. “No more scratches, or bruises, or cuts. If I get hurt it'll be gone, just like–” Izuku clapped his hands together. “–that!”

“And what else?”

“I'll still have birthdays after that, but I won't get any older. You and Dad are reaaaaalllllly old even though you don't look it, and I'll be that old someday too. So will Mom also, but she's only thirty-four right now without the not getting older thing, which she says is pretty young.”

Uncle had nodded approvingly in response to Izuku's answer, and his chest had filled up with little golden specks of warmth. He was very smart, Dad always said so.

“Good. Right. Yeah.” Uncle had sucked in a breath as he hit the gas, confidence evidently renewed. “Just like me and your Mom.”

It was true that Dad and Uncle were extremely old. Everyone knew it. But they looked like they were still just normal adults and not old people because of–Dad had told him when he'd taken him to tour the big, shiny labs in downtown Tokyo–the Doctor.

He'd given Dad a quirk that Dad had given to Uncle way before they met Mom. Then, when she and Dad had gotten married, she'd been given it too.

Dad had improved on it, he'd made a point to say. It hadn't always been as perfect as it was now, with no persistent scar tissue or net cell deterioration (whatever that meant). But with the resources he'd accumulated over the years, he'd been able to fix it. That was something he was teaching Izuku how to do, to combine and cobble quirks together to make them more useful.

Izuku liked practicing quirk theory with his dad. It was like doing a really tough puzzle, but with help. And then, if he did well, he'd get ice cream, which he wasn't even allowed to have otherwise. Dad was really good at making difficult things fun.

As much as he liked working with quirks and looking at the big, funny people in the tanks–nomu, Dad kept reminding him–he didn't really like the Doctor.

The Doctor treated Dad like everyone else did but more, like just Bowing to the floor when he walked by wasn't enough, he also had to heap on praises, and compliments, and offer to do one million different things for Dad before he finally stood up. He called Izuku “the young master,” which sounded way too fancy, and always bowed to him too, which made him uncomfortable even though most adults did it anyway.

That was another reason Izuku liked Uncle so much. Even though he was nice to Dad, he didn't treat him different. Like he couldn't get mad at him or tell him when he'd done something wrong. Like even Mom did, most of the time, except when she and Dad had the big fights she'd always end up apologizing for.

Sometimes, he'd make knowing, conspiratorial jokes about Dad to Izuku, and even though Izuku didn't want to participate–Dad wasn't good at taking jokes, so it'd be mean–he always did think they were funny. 

“Don’t listen to your uncle when he says rude things like that, he isn't half as clever as he thinks he is,” his mother would sometimes sigh, disapprovingly, when Izuku let a giggle escape in response to a witty retort. But she still smiled at his jokes too, when she heard them.

Izuku wished his uncle would've made one of those jokes then, in the front seat of that speeding car. Anything to have broken up the monotony of the shrill, persistent alarm of the ankle bracelet.

It sounded angry. Like the rat Aoki and Takahashi–another maid, Izuku’s second favorite–had trapped under a bowl in his room. They'd called the exterminators after that, which Izuku hadn't liked one bit. He still wished his Dad hadn't explained to him what they were there to do.

He was glad that no one in his family could die, even if he still didn't fully understand what death was. It was losing people, he'd been told, forever, and never getting them back. That sounded too bad to be true. Like a nightmare: horrible enough to wake you from your sleep shaking, but not real. Never real. And to Mom, Dad, and Uncle, it wasn’t.

They could never be hurt, not by anything, not even if they wanted to, Uncle had emphasized once with faraway eyes and a twisty, sour mouth. Izuku couldn't imagine a situation where anyone would want to be hurt, but he'd nodded all the same.

Izuku was different though, for the time being. Small, and fragile, and weak. Too young to even be given a lesser self-healing quirk. Dad was very aware of this, the fact that Izuku needed to be protected. He got a big guard detail–that’s what Dad called a lot of guys with guns and special quirks–at school, and at the movies, and when he went to the park. Everywhere, really, but home, and then the guards were outside in the yard.

Some people didn't like Dad, Izuku had been told, and by extension, they didn't like Izuku. Izuku wished people weren't so mean. Then he wouldn't have to think about death at all.

“When I'm that old, I'm gonna be working with Dad, too,” Izuku had said, because it was a happy thought. Happier than death, certainly. Happy enough to cheer up Uncle, he hoped. “With quirks and adult, suit-person meeting stuff. Like managing budgets, and declaring policy, and delegating task forces to deal with overseas threats.”

Izuku didn't know what any of that meant, but he'd sat in on enough of Dad's meetings to be able to repeat the words. He hadn't even tripped over most of them, just then.

“But I'll go to college first. Mom always says that. Education is very important. So maybe I'll be in college then instead. It's like adult-school, right? How old do you have to be to be in college?”

“Doesn't matter.” Uncle's voice had sounded so scratchy then, like he was going to cry. “You're a kid. You don't need to think about those sorts of things.”

“Not yet. But I will. Dad says it's good to get a head-start. Besides, six-almost-seven is pretty old.”

Uncle didn't respond to that aloud, but his knuckles turned white and strained around the steering wheel. “Let's not talk. For the rest of the drive let's just… let's just play the quiet game. Whoever speaks first loses.”

Izuku had nodded. He was really good at the quiet game, and he wanted to help Uncle feel better however he could. Games made him feel better too.

The car's digital clock read two when Izuku and his uncle pulled into one of Ueno Park’s parking lots. The grounds were deserted as far as Izuku could tell, and the full moon had looked downright hypnotic reflected in the calm waters of the lily-speckled lake. The scene it set was otherworldly. A dream made manifest.

Uncle had left the car wordlessly, urging Izuku to follow with the inclination of a hand. He'd instinctively hit the open trunk button in the passenger seat before following, circling around back of the car to help retrieve the tent.

“There's nothing in here,” Izuku had announced, having forgotten their game entirely in a sudden onslaught of perplexion. “Where is the camping stuff?”

“Down by the lake,” was Uncle's solemn, trudging reply.

So, without further question, Izuku had closed the trunk and started downhill.

There hadn't been a tent by the lake either, but at that point, Izuku had expected as much. Not on a conscious level, maybe, but a visceral one. Something in Uncle's voice, something sad, and hollow, and ancient, had informed Izuku that he'd been lying.

But Izuku trusted his uncle. Trusted him enough to step into the water, when he’d ordered it. To wade up to his calves, then knees, then thighs, all the short, shallow way up to his chest.

Another game, Izuku thought as Uncle followed him in. It made sense he'd want to swim, since Dad never let him at home. He'd been slow on his way over to Izuku, probably because of the clunky leg band, in retrospect. Even if it was waterproof, it still must've been so very heavy. The kind of weight that didn't let go.

They'd waded the rest of the way together, deep enough to reach Izuku’s chin and Uncle’s waist. The water smelled like musty bread and coins. Izuku didn't like it that he had to stand on his tip-toes to keep his nose above the lilypads.

“What game are we playing?” Izuku had finally asked, struggling against the saturated fabric of his pajamas.

“A new one. It'll be a little scary at first, but you have to trust me, okay?”

Izuku had bobbed his head in the water, soaking the tips of his hair and coating his lips in musty, foul-tasting water. “Mhm.”

Uncle had stared at Izuku for a very long moment then, studying his too-big eyes, and his half-drenched rat’s nest of hair, and his still-round, freckled cheeks. Izuku wasn't sure why he was doing it, but he'd guessed that it was part of the game. The scary part, maybe. So he'd stood stone still in the stagnant water, ankles aching from the strain of staying upright and nose twitching from the stench of the algae, until something changed.

Until Uncle suddenly and entirely unceremoniously, burst into tears.

“Hey,” Izuku had whispered, pressing the base of a dripping palm to his uncle's shoulder, “it's okay, I'm gonna play the game, promise. I know it's wet, and it smells, and I'm getting really, really tired because I didn't sleep super long before you woke me up, but it'll still be fun. Don't cry.”

A choked sob had escaped Uncle's throat at that, more bark than whimper. “Sometimes, I wonder if you're even really his son. I mean I know you are, logically speaking. You've got the same ridiculous babyface he had, same hair texture, same jawline, but you're such an unbelievably good kid. Where the Hell did that come from?”

Izuku blinked, perplexed. “Mom and Dad are good.”

“Your mom definitely has her moments, I just wish they weren't so few and far between. She really loves him, you know that? She's terrified of him, debilitatingly so, but she loves him all the same. I've never quite understood that, the good she sees in him. How willing she is to let it bring out the bad in her.”

Izuku wasn't quite sure what to say to that, so he didn't say anything. Just watched, silently, as Uncle reached out to brush a dripping strand of hair from his eyes.

“I thought she was a golddigger at first, or maybe an attention-seeker looking to claim a royal title and overnight fame. But she wasn't. She'd fallen hook, line, and sinker for a person who wasn't there, for some secret, sensitive core she'd fabricated when she'd dined with him following an upper crust art exhibit. When they'd told me she was pregnant, I was terrified. Even before then she'd been reduced to a doll, though I hardly believe she'd known it.”

His eyes fix pointedly on Izuku's pajamas, warped in appearance by a dark, twisting veil of lake water. His Dad had picked out those pajamas for him as part of his birthday gift a year ago. Colors that complimented Izuku's hair and skin tone perfectly, he'd noted, because it was important to look presentable even when in private.

“And then you were conceived, and you joined his collection. Even before you'd been born, just a slim, fetal blip on an ultrasound, he'd hovered over you, an albatross on the wings of a dark cloud. He'd controlled your mother's diet, the temperature of her womb, arranged every doctor's visit, handpicked every single nurse, every doctor, wouldn't let her leave the house past the third trimester, not until contractions started. You've been manipulated your whole life and you can't even think to be upset about it. It's all you've ever known.”

“It's good to let Dad make choices for me,” Izuku had said, brow knitting with confusion. Adults were supposed to agree on what was best for Izuku. They always had in the past. “He's smarter and older. He knows more.”

“You won't always think that.” Uncle had spit the words like Izuku had spit raw sushi into a cloth napkin the time he'd asked to try it off of Dad's plate. Like they tasted bitter and salty in his mouth. “Or an even more horrifying prospect: you will. God, Izuku, I've questioned this plan so many times tonight. No, not just tonight– last night, and the night before, and the night before that, this whole goddamned, torturous month, if I'm being honest. But no matter how much I linger, no matter how devotedly I poke, and prod, and reassess the issue, I always keep coming right back to the same horrendous fucking conclusion.”

Izuku's next words were tentative. Quiet. There was something strange about Uncle then, something dark, and foreign, and unpredictable, and Izuku had no idea how to approach it safely. No idea if, in the context of that starless, moon-bright night on the water, his nebulous ideal of safety had ever been attainable to begin with. 

“What do you end up thinking?”

“That you'll either grow up to be me or him, and that I can't for the life of me decide which is worse. That regardless of which path you tread, I can't live to see you reach its end. That I love you too much.”

“I love you too,” Izuku had said. It'd come out as a squeak, but he'd meant it all the same. Even if he didn't understand what Uncle was saying, even if the few parts that he did understand scared him, he'd meant every word.

Izuku hadn't even spoken the last word before the police sirens started. Stentorian and invasive, so much worse than the ankle bracelet. And as Uncle raised his head and cursed, glancing off at the blue and red flares stretching out across the lake’s glassy, still reflection, they got louder.

“We're going to start the game now, okay?” Rushed and frantic, manic and twitching with wild motion, Uncle had placed a heavy hand on each of Izuku's submerged shoulders. “I’m going to push you underwater and you're going to hold your breath for as long as you can. Very simple, right?”

Izuku nodded. Uncle had been kinda wrong, earlier. The game wasn't entirely new. He had played it before, with his friends, only when they played, they all held their breath at the same time and no one pushed anyone else under.

It should've been familiar. Should've been safe. But for some indiscernible reason–

“Uncle. I'm scared.”

“Yeah.” His uncle had shut his eyes tight, like he couldn't stand to look at Izuku. Like looking at Izuku would've hurt. “I'm scared too.”

And then, in a flurry of downward motion and spinning reeds, Izuku's world had gone quiet.

It was serene at first. Soothing. Enveloped by cool, murky water and surrounded on all sides by the gentle sway of lily stems and drifting algae, Izuku was calm. He had strong, big lungs. His swimming instructor had always said so.

It wasn't until his lungs had begun to ache, faint and distant, at first, that he'd thought to question the fact that Uncle hadn't told him the conditions under which he could win.

And for about a minute or so after, it hadn't mattered. The ache wasn't so bad, and maybe the matter of victory was all in the timing. He'd wait until he couldn't wait any longer, and then he'd surface. And then, Uncle would stop acting so scary and strange, and they'd finally go camping like he'd promised.

When the ache finally hit the point of unbearability, lungs crying out like sneakers on glossed hardwood, Izuku had attempted to rise. It was with a sharp, piercing panic that Izuku realized he couldn't. Uncle's hands were still on his shoulders, stalwart and unwavering, and he didn't seem to realize that Izuku needed to come up for air.

Izuku tried to alert him. Tried to flail, and fight, and wave, but nothing worked. Uncle must've thought it was all part of the game, a joke, or maybe a prank, but it wasn't. Izuku's lungs were gradually filling up with liquid fire, hot, and caustic, and urgent, and it wasn't part of the game, not at all.

He'd sputtered then, even though he was underwater, sputtered and welcomed in a torrent of brine, and algae, and suffocating, inky black. His brain knew he couldn't breathe but his body didn't, and it was fighting, kicking uncle, grabbing at his wrists, screaming, silently, as it gurgled and choked on an endless dark tide of lake.

And Uncle shifted to fight him back, to push him further under, to put distance between his nose, his mouth, his lungs, and the surface.

Izuku had known then, that he was going to die, suffocated on the shallow depths of the lake just as the rats in his room had been suffocated on airborne poison. He'd leave behind a little tiny, lonely corpse just like they had, cold, and slight, and twitching, like some small, inexorable part of them was still fighting to survive, to cling to life, and more importantly, to air.

As the last dregs of strength fled his body, he'd gone limp, head light and limbs heavy. And then, he'd decided to let go.

His head broke the surface all at once, sudden and jarring. Even as Uncle had embraced him he'd been coughing, hacking out water from his nose, his mouth, his chest. He'd struggled against Uncle's arms, terrified, for the first time, of a person he'd never thought to do anything but trust.

But he'd been held all the same, soaked to the bone and shaking madly as Uncle smoothed down his wild mat of dripping hair.

“I'm sorry,” he'd spoken into the crown of Izuku's head, sotto voce, “I'm sorry, but I just couldn't do it. Couldn't bring myself to. You're only six, and I'm more of a coward than I thought. I hope that someday, you'll be able to forgive me for this. I didn't mean to fail. I really didn't.”

The next part is a blur in Izuku's memories. The police surrounded the shoreline. Ordered Uncle to set Izuku down in the shallows and put his hands in the air. He'd complied with it all, and a nice officer with a big, wide smile had given Izuku a blanket and placed him in the back of a police car.

They were on the phone with Dad for a while outside the car, talking about Uncle, and Izuku, and what needed to be done next. Eventually, someone had opened the car door and passed Izuku the phone, and Dad had told Izuku that it was all going to be okay.

That Uncle would go home in a separate car, and that he'd be locked in his room for the rest of the night, and that even though Dad had to stay in Kyoto for work, Mom was already on a private jet flying home to be with him. Izuku couldn't say much back. He was too busy bawling.

The house staff were charged with watching Izuku when he'd gotten home, though they begged more than they babysat. It hadn't been their fault, they'd impressed on Izuku as he sat curled up on a towel, tired and tear-stricken. They'd had no idea that Uncle had been communicating with the guards. How could they have?

And even if they had, how were they ever to guess that he would try to hurt Izuku, when he'd always been so good with him in the past? Wouldn't it be so much more likely that he'd wanted to take him somewhere fun, somewhere safe? He hadn't seemed crazy. Who possibly could've guessed that he'd choose that night, of all nights, to go off the deep end?

Every sentence was punctuated with prostration, instance upon instance of “please, please, please, please tell your father we couldn't have prevented it, that there was no way we could've known. We were asleep. It was so late at night, why would we have been awake?”

By the end of it, plenty of them were crying, just like Izuku. After he'd finally come to his senses, he'd agreed, thinking back, once again, to the rat trapped in the bowl. Maybe it was better Dad didn't know he'd met eyes with Takahashi on the way out the door. That she'd given a sympathetic frown when she'd seen he was holding Uncle's hand.

They'd hugged him then, relieved, some saying what it meant for their families while others let a few more tears escape, like they somehow didn't buy that Izuku's testimony would matter. Then, they'd dried him off and helped him change, not even minding the lakewater silhouettes his hugs left printed on their clothes. Like they were far too distracted to even consider them.

Izuku had known Mom was home when the front door slammed downstairs, mostly because no one else was brave enough to slam the front door but Mom. He'd heard her ask for Uncle from all the way up in his room, using his serious, adult-person name alongside some words Izuku knew neither of them were supposed to say. Maybe she'd thought Izuku was already asleep. Or maybe, for once, she just hadn't cared if he'd heard them.

He'd tiptoed down the stairs, desperate for the company of his mother, to find her standing in the doorway to Uncle's room yelling.

“There is no justification imaginable for what you've done! If it were up to me and not Hisashi, you would never step foot in my house again, you'd be in prison! You don't even deserve a trial, you horrendous sack of shit!”

“You have to know by now what Hisashi is like, there's no future for Izuku, not a happy one, at least, and–”

“Don't you dare say his name!” Izuku had never heard Mom so angry before. Not even at Dad. “Don't you dare! It isn't for you to decide if he has a future or not! He's my son, mine, not yours, and once I'm done talking with Hisashi, you're never, ever going to see him again!”

“You're miserable, aren't you? I know you're as much a prisoner in this house as I am, no matter how much arbitrarily longer your leash is! Do you really want that kind of life for your son? Do you want him to exist as an immortal piece of property? Inko, we don't even have the right to die, at least he still has that!”

“It’ll be different for him!” Mom's voice sounded teary, like Uncle’s had in the car. “He has privileges we don't, Hisashi will respect him, he'll make sure he's happy!”

Uncle had scoffed at that, bitterly and with deep-rooted malice. “If you really believe that then you're more gullible than I thought, and that's saying something.”

That's when Mom had done something Izuku had never seen her do before, not to anyone, not even when she was red-hot angry and cursing. She'd reeled back and punched Uncle in the jaw.

“You know what? What you said earlier was true. I am miserable. My life is an endless gauntlet of superficial galas, and parades, and photo shoots, and stupid, demeaning interviews with all the depth of a kiddy pool under drought-mandate; I'm a walking propaganda piece and I don't even have the agency to choose what ink my falsehoods are penned in. But you know what makes it all worth it? You know why I'm not some bitter, sad, skeletal shadow of a person like you? Because I live for my son, and if you ever try to hurt him again, if you even so much as look in his direction, you're getting far, far worse than a sucker punch.”

Then, without any further fanfare, she'd slammed the door in his face, locking it for good measure.

“Mom?”

When she'd turned to face him, there'd been tears in her eyes. “Oh sweetie… my poor, poor baby, don't worry, it's all okay, Mom's here and it's all okay.” She’d run over so fast that Izuku hadn't even registered the moment she'd embraced him, but then he was hugging back and crying, just like she was. “You’re here. You're here, you're safe, you're alright. I'm holding you, and you're alright.”

She seemed to be assuring herself as much as she was Izuku, squeezing his thin, tiny frame with even more desperation than Uncle had, when he'd pulled him from the water. She'd held him close for a long, long time before she'd finally scooped him up and carried him upstairs.

“You're sleeping in Mom and Dad's room tonight,” she’d cooed in his ear, still holding him tight to her chest, “and you're going to have a very long weekend, okay? No school on Monday, and we'll spend it together. A safe, quiet day, and you're not leaving my sight. Not ever.”

Izuku had nestled further into his mother's shoulder as he hummed his response. “Mhm.”

It wasn't until she'd tucked him into bed, settling in front of the vanity to remove her jewelry, that Izuku had thought to ask.

“Mom, do you think I'm like Dad?”

She'd paused at that, dropping a string of black pearls onto the hardwood and sending them skidding across its varnish. “What did your uncle say to you?”

“That he thought I might end up like Dad. He thought that was bad, I think. Me being like Dad.”

His mom had thought on that for a long while. Mulled it over in her head as she retrieved her necklace from under the bed and released it, gently, into the gold dish lining the vanity mirror.

“You're like him in the good ways,” she’d finally decided, smoothing her hair in the mirror, “you're smart, and hardworking, and devoted. Stubborn, too, when it's over something you really care about. I see plenty of him in you.” She'd walked over to the bed, planting a light peck on Izuku's forehead. “All the qualities I love.”

“And what about the ones you don't?” Mom bit her lip. Fumbled with the wedding band on her finger. Looked away. “A lot of people seem to be scared of Dad. Good people. I think… I think Uncle is scared of him. Scared of me too, maybe. I’m pretty sure that's why he… why he hurt me. Would you be scared of me, if I was like Dad in the ways you don't like?”

“Doesn't matter,” Mom had whispered, expression suddenly dark, “Because you aren't.”

“But Uncle said–”

“Your uncle doesn't know anything, alright Izuku?” She'd snapped, far harsher than Izuku had ever heard her. “Forget everything he told you tonight, because he's wrong.”

And that had been the end of it.

It's been fifteen years since Izuku, now twenty-one, has seen his uncle. His father had moved him to the basement after the incident, installed a lock on the door, and forbade Izuku from even looking at the house’s downward leading set of stairs.

He's not quite sure if he's forgiven his uncle yet, for what he did all those years ago in the shallows of a moonlit lake. But now having lived in the shadow of his father for the entirety of his adolescence, he thinks he understands.

There are realities far worse than death, and Izuku has seen them. Always from a distance, of course, always observed and never experienced. But he knows they exist. He imagines that his uncle, confined to an underground, concrete block spanning a calculated maximum of five-thousand square feet, must be living in one of them.

Maybe Izuku, groomed from birth to inherit and manage a sizable chunk of his father's empire, inhabits another. Or maybe he doesn't. He is very fortunate, after all, so long as he does what he's told. And when he doesn't, well…

Most people don't have the privilege to apologize to Shigaraki Hisashi. Izuku does.

He isn't certain which brother he resembles more, his father or his uncle. Most days, he thinks he'd rather not know. Maybe the question terrifies him more than it should. Maybe it doesn't terrify him enough.

Izuku's been forced to make a number of tough calls in the months following his initial ascension to political elite in mid-July. Calls he isn't proud of. Calls he's certain his mother isn't proud of, either.

Just as Izuku's father is, in title, the Prime Minister of Japan (one incumbent indefinitely, without limits or division of power), Izuku is, in title, the head of the Public Security Intelligence Agency.

He's a figurehead, currently, more intern than official, but his father plans to increase his responsibilities, with time. The only choices he gets to make now are the tough ones, the fatal ones, the ones his father insists will build character. In truth, Izuku suspects they're designed to break him.

Izuku's father likes that he's stubborn. Maybe he thinks the process of tearing his son down bit by bit will make the structure he builds from what little pieces remain all the more sturdy. Izuku can't complain. Not in any way that matters.

Oftentimes, when he returns home in the dead quiet of night, dwelling on the fact that isn't weary because he can't be, the thought is more haunting than comforting. That he can't die. 

That even if he starved himself, or jumped off a building, or consumed poison, or drowned, he would keep on living, completely unaffected, as though nothing had ever occurred to harm him in the first place. He wouldn't even feel pain, not for more than a few seconds. 

It's these nights that he recalls the rat in the bowl. The reflection of the moon dancing across a silent lake. Hands on his shoulders. Reeds brushing his skin. The tender caress of inky, black water against the interior of his lungs.

He doesn't forgive his uncle for that night, he knows, as he lies awake in bed. 

But not for attempting to kill him. For failing to.

Izuku envies the rats.