Chapter Text
During one of Izuku’s worst breakdowns, he had trashed the entire house while Inko had been gone, before collapsing into a sobbing heap where she found him cold and weak hours later.
But when she touched him, tried to lift him, he came back to life as if his rage had only been momentarily paused.
“I don’t want to be trapped here anymore!” Izuku screamed at her, the words ripped from within his ribcage and thrown her way like daggers. “I hate this house!”
He locked himself in one of the largest of their kitchen cupboards. Didn’t come out for anything. After night had fallen, he finally emerged, and tiptoed to where Inko was still picking up broken porcelain by candlelight.
“I’m sorry,” Izuku whispered, lips trembling. “I didn’t mean to break everything.”
In the warmth of the flickering fire, Inko’s small, pale boy looked supernatural. A mere wisp of a creature; a ghost not meant to be on this plane of existence any longer. A spirit that wanted nothing more than to move on, and yet was confined to a single point on the earth that it could not stray from.
“I just want to get out,” Izuku’s breath hitched. “I want to leave this house so badly, mom.”
As she looks around her empty house now, Inko remembers Izuku’s words, and her stomach sinks. It goes straight down like a stone, dropping steadily and without mercy through the waters, to the dark and hopeless bottom of the ocean.
The house is clean, nothing is broken this time, but it doesn’t make Inko feel at all at ease.
“Izuku?” She calls out weakly, as she stumbles further in. Her basket and the things she’d bought at the market – all the treats she had brought back to try and put a smile on Izuku’s face again – stay behind, left at the door where she dropped them.
She knew, the instant she had opened the door, that he was gone. Knew in the odd stillness and quiet, in the stagnated air that no one has breathed for hours.
But he wasn’t lying out front in the grass as he usually is, and so her heart is pounding in her chest. She doesn’t think she’ll get a moment of rest between beats until she finds him. Be it behind the house, or underneath his bedroom window, or maybe even feet away if he’d tried to jump to get some distance before the curse could turn him.
He can’t be far.
The house is empty, but he can’t be far.
She could have gone to Sir Toshinori first. The man is dependable and Inko knows he’d stop at nothing to help her find her Izuku. Or Uraraka Ochako, a young witch herself, studying magic. She has spent hours sitting with Izuku, getting to know how his own unique magic feels against the other sensations woven through the universe, enough so to possibly track it. Or Iida Tenya and Tensei, the brothers who make it their business to help lost children in the marketplace, who would drop everything if Inko said her son was missing.
But she goes to the Bakugou house first.
If asked, Inko doesn’t think she would be able to say why.
Katsuki is just leaving when she arrives, out of breath and on sore feet. He has his lighter training gear on and his soot-forged sword strapped to his hip, but he pauses when he sees Inko stumbling her way down the cobblestone street towards him, her skirts hiked high in her clenched fists.
“Katsuki,” Inko gasps. “Do you– have you–?"
Her wide eyes desperately scan his hands and the pouch hooked to his travel belt. Both look empty.
Katsuki doesn’t say anything. He watches her, his lip curled and brow scrunched with a frustrated confusion. Inko is sure he has somewhere to get to – someplace to be other than being held up in front of his home by the woman who only a week ago basically said she never wanted to see him again.
His mother, Mitsuki, flies out of their house a moment later. “Inko? Are you alright?” she goes to Inko’s side, taking her by the shoulders. “Did you run the entire way here?”
“Do you have Izuku?” Inko bursts out, not meaning to ignore Mitsuki. “He’s not– he’s not at home. I checked everywhere but I couldn’t find him!”
When her knees give out, Katsuki shoulders past his mother to catch her and bear her weight against his chest.
“I can’t find him,” Inko sobs, all her strength crumbling down. “He’s not home. He’s gone.”
“What do you mean?” Mitsuki asks, rubbing a soothing hand up and down Inko’s back.
“Yeah, where the hell could he have gone?” Katsuki adds, though his tone is not as rough as usual. He sounds genuinely confused, genuinely concerned. “He can’t even leave the house.”
Inko shudders in his arms. “I don’t know, I don’t know.”
After ten years of knowing Izuku would always be in one place when she returned, Inko never thought to imagine places he might go if he ever broke his curse.
If the curse is even broken.
But the thought of Izuku lost out in the world, powerless and vulnerable in the form of a small child’s toy, is too painful for Inko’s heart to bear right now. What will she do if she gets him back, and his little painted on smile is worn away by the cruel treatment of careless hands?
No. She can’t think about that. She has to have some hope.
“Did he ever tell you about– about places he wanted to go? When he got out?” Inko asks Katsuki desperately.
Katsuki’s gaze softens from hard garnet to scarlet velvet, and he says after a pause too long, “The mountains. He always told me he wanted to go to the mountains first. Going straight to the town would be overwhelming with how many people are there. He wanted to work his way up to it.”
The mountains. The Yuuei Barrier that surrounds their kingdom. It’s a massive range. Covered in thick forests, wide as a sea and stretching as long as the sun-bathed horizon.
Inko will never find him if he went there.
“Are you sure he’s not with you?” Inko presses weakly.
“Inko, I’m sorry, he’s not in our home…” Mitsuki fills in, when all Katsuki does is shake his head.
She bows her own head, but at last picks herself back up and draws away from Katsuki. “Thank you… I’m going to…” her voice trails off. She doesn’t know what she’s going to do.
“I can help you look,” Katsuki says.
Inko blinks at him, stunned for a moment.
“I was about to patrol the town. It's part of my duties as a knight in training,” he continues, looking away from her. “I can see if I spot him, while you talk to his other nerdy friends.”
Inko can’t help but clasp her hands together over her heart, trying to hold the pieces of it together. “... Thank you, Katsuki.”
The boy shrugs, looking uncomfortable when faced with her gratitude. He adjusts his sword, and then, with a final nod in her direction, turns to march off down the street towards the center of town.
“That boy, I swear,” Mitsuki huffs.
"He's... He's a good boy, Mitsuki," Inko admits. Yet she can still hear in her mind, echoing back in Katsuki's voice, that dreaded nickname he uses for Izuku.
Why must Bakugou Katsuki be so confusing?
Mitsuki's hand is still a warm weight on Inko’s shoulder blades, and she uses it to urge Inko into moving. “C’mon Inko, lets get you off your feet for a bit before you keel over.”
Inko nods, as she feels the exhaustion that had been held at bay by adrenaline suddenly crash down upon her. She lets her friend lead her to the front door of the Bakugou house, where she is welcomed inside with a warm smile.
Inko can’t help but close her eyes to fight back the heartache; the unfair irony of her being welcome, when she thinks about her own words to Katsuki, is not lost on her.
“Alright,” Izuku says, with his hands on his hips. “It’s a new day, let’s explore and then see what we can do to make this house nicer!”
Eri, standing beside him in the same pose, her own little hands on her own little hips, nods with determination. “Yeah!”
Izuku lets himself laugh. His anxieties of the night before are all quiet now, dulled by the fresh morning sun and his renewed interest in exploring this house.
Sure it’s another place he can’t leave, but he can’t believe that he had almost let his dread swallow him whole, almost let it make him forget that he’s still somewhere new.
Light streams in beautifully through the stained glass window in a way it hadn’t at dusk. Izuku admires it for a moment, before his eyes catch on the curtains hanging on either side of it. They’re old and moth eaten at the edges, and although the color has faded somewhat, they’re still a lovely red, embroidered with a curling, elegant floral motif.
Izuku is easily able to tug them down. “Eri, if I find something to sew with, would you like it if I made you a new dress out of these curtains?” he asks, turning to the little girl with the fabric bundled up in his arms. He really hopes he can find something to sew with. The sight of her torn and dirty dress just makes his heart ache more and more the longer she is forced to wear it.
Eri gasps excitedly when she lays eyes on the fabric, but doesn’t make a single sound beyond that. She stays silent, clenching and unclenching her hands in obvious excitement.
Izuku smiles gently at her. “I’ll hold onto them.”
He folds the curtains and sets them down on one of the seats, and then in the next moment he and Eri are off to explore the house.
She’s hesitant at first to pull him by the hand, but only for a moment. Once Eri is sure that Izuku will follow her lead, she’s suddenly dragging him down the hallways on too-fast feet that Izuku can barely keep up with.
“Woah, woah, slow down,” Izuku says. “The house isn’t going anywhere!”
The more they explore, the more Izuku finds himself wishing that this really was his home. Of course there’s no ignoring how very abandoned it is, and it would need some recovery and rebuilding, but just the amount of rooms that there are…
The house he and his mother live in is homely and small. Izuku’s room is the attic, but then the base floor only has enough space for his mom’s room, the living room, and then Izuku’s cozy little kitchen. Those four rooms have been his entire life since he was six, and right now he can’t say he misses them. After a while, his world felt like it was shrinking. Every inch taller that he grew, and every material object he gained through the years, would eat away at his space a little bit more.
This house has almost double the amount of rooms. It’s the size of Izuku’s world and more.
He and Eri come across three other bedrooms on the same floor as the lounge they had slept in, all with broken, sagging, empty bed frames made of carved wood. They don’t stick around to investigate them too thoroughly. Onwards they go, making a game of tiptoeing down the crumbling stairs and hopping over broken floorboards when they reach the first floor. Eri makes Izuku cover his eyes when they pass the front door, a gesture so sweet in its childish naivety that Izuku almost tears up as he lets Eri continue to guide him.
Then, they end up in the kitchen.
Izuku hadn’t gotten a good look at it aside from his first scan when he’d woken up the day before. Now, he can take his time admiring the sun through the gaps in the walls as he runs his hand along the old table at the center of the room, inspecting the pots and pans left behind for if they’re usable or not, and prodding at the ancient coals and the ashen kindling left in the fireplace.
He hesitates when his hand comes to rest on the doorknob to the pantry, before he takes a breath and opens it.
Immediately, Izuku’s heart sinks at what he finds inside.
Which is nothing. Nothing but cobwebs and dust.
As his eyes adjust to the darkness within, he sees a few jars stacked messily at the back, but they don’t look promising.
Izuku had known, in the back of his mind, there probably wouldn’t be anything edible in this house. No ingredients, meat, or produce could survive being abandoned for so long. Animals or passing travelers probably got to them first.
But they need to eat something while they’re in this house. Eri is so thin already, and sooner or later with all of this activity, the both of them are going to start feeling hungry.
Izuku doesn't want to send Eri out on her own, but…
He can’t leave.
With a muttered curse for his curse, he sighs, and then turns around to find Eri. She’s across the kitchen, playing with some of the plants that have grown through the gaps in the walls from the outside. Izuku crouches low so they're eye to eye when he speaks. "Eri, I have a very big favor I need to ask of you."
Eri blinks her big red eyes at him. "What is it?"
Carefully, Izuku takes her little hands into his own. "I have some coins with me, so I need you to take them and go into whatever town is closest, and get some food for us." Eri goes pale, so Izuku rushes to add, "Please Eri, I know how brave you are, I know you can do this."
"I'm… brave?" Eri whispers.
"The bravest," Izuku confirms with a nod.
"But…" Eri shifts on her feet, and looks away sadly. "I d-don't think I am."
Izuku's heart pangs, like a string snapping on a harp.
He squeezes Eri’s hands, and gathers his own bravery before he says what he does next. "What if I went with you? I'd be a doll, so I wouldn't be able to talk to you, but you could carry me. I'd help you be even more brave," he taps her nose, to get her to look his way and giggle all at once – two birds with one stone.
"Would it really be okay?" Eri asks tentatively, with such fragile hope.
She’s looking at him like he has hung the moon and stars already.
For a child who had no toys in her short childhood, a beautifully crafted doll like Izuku is a treasure from another world. Izuku can barely stomach how painfully excited Eri so obviously is.
But he can't be bitter that she still doesn't truly understand his curse when she's looking at him like that. To Eri, he's not a human that becomes a doll, or even a doll that becomes human. He's just her friend, in any form.
“Yeah,” Izuku says. “Yeah, it’d be okay. Just be careful with me while in the marketplace, alright? Don't let me get broken.” A shiver of fear runs through him at the thought. He's already becoming more and more wooden every day, which is terrifying on its own, so he definitely doesn't want to discover anytime soon how him being broken might affect his curse.
“I won’t, I pinky promise,” Eri swears, holding her small pinky finger out.
Izuku smiles fondly at her, a bit of his anxiety melting away at the serious expression on her little face, then obligingly hooks her pinky with his own.