Chapter Text
Izuku wakes up, confused and groggy and aching, something indefinable and deep in his bones, like after a day-long Heroics exercise or when he argued with Tomura.
Reality sinks in too late, after he's already trying to push upright, which is unfortunate because it means that he has the attention of his class before he can even begin to process the fact that he's with other people, and that he passed out after the battle, after he ki- after he kissed Tomura in front of everyone.
After he might have gotten Tomura killed.
"Fuck," he groans, the ache to the word from a deep place, echoing up from the very base of his spine. Digging the heels of his hands against his eyes doesn't fix anything, much to his consternation. Izuku would love to have the last, what, day or so never have happened, for his world to be normal, all of the people he cares about safe and uninjured, but instead his class were attacked and probably hurt, and Tomura was-
It doesn't even really bear thinking about. Not when Izuku doesn't have a clue what's happened, and he can still feel several gazes upon him.
"Midoriya, do you feel okay?"
"Better than I could be," he grumbles, then forces himself to take his hands away from his face and actually pay attention to the world around him. To the people.
"Is everyone else okay?" he asks, instead of letting himself linger on everything awful and terrible and that is threatening to tear his heart into pieces, blinking at his friends instead, distantly registering how they're in the dorms and how twilight is descending outside of the windows. Nobody looks particularly badly hurt, which is very much encouraging.
"We're all fine, Midoriya. The worst of it was some burns and scrapes."
"Are- are you sure? Why isn't everyone here?" he adds on, having quickly realised that most of the Bakusquad aren't here, nor are a few of the others. Most of the class are, at least. But what if the others are hurt? Are they with Recovery Girl, or is it bad enough that they're in hospital?
Yaomomo is stepping forwards though, crouching at his side, dark eyes kind as always, even if she looks a little uncomfortable,
"Bakugou... Well, Bakugou needed to calm down, and Shouji and Tokoyami were very tired after the shopping trip itself, let alone- let alone everything else."
"Oh. Okay. That- that makes sense."
Silence falls over them all for a long few moments, stilted, straining.
It isn't really all that surprising that Todoroki is the one to speak up next, he's never been one to beat up around the bush after all.
"You said you wanted it. That he was yours."
The statements are immulately, agonisingly simple. Izuku's entire world falling apart, pared down to a few simple words, not unkind but simply neutral, exposing his entire heart and soul for so many of his friends to see. To judge.
But there is no way to mitigate it all now, so Izuku can only nod, to try and explain,
"I did. It- it's true. For a while now, Tomura and I have been meeting up, and we- we're together now, as much as we could be under the circumstances. He's not... There's more to him than you've seen." Shouto tilts his head,
"He has tried to kill us."
"He has," Izuku acknowledges, because he has never tried to deny that, has instead learnt to live with it, to accept it for what it is.
"His choices were limited, however, and there is a lot of good in him as well as the bad."
"Why couldn't he choose to just, you know, not? To go to the authorities-"
"It's not easy to escape what you were raised in!" Izuku is lurching forwards, ribs vibrating with something,
"It doesn't work like that! Not when it's- It's so, so fucking hard to grow past what you spend your entire childhood being taught, when everyone around you is reinforicing this one image and path for you, and fighting against that is almost impossible if you don't have someone who can-"
Izuku sags back, because he's too raw-edged, too pulled-sharp, for this.
Not to mention that a lot of this is Tomura's story to share, and what he's said so far is, hopefully, okay, but any more detail would be crossing boundaries that Izuku is absolutely not willing to betray. And, well, he is distraught enough right now to barely have any control over what he says or how he says it, or how he feels about it, or how to breathe through trying to say it, or really anything at all. Izuku doesn't want to mess things up even more.
(Everything about this is spiralling further and further from his control, things becoming rapidly less predictable, and Izuku can't protect anybody in this situation, not himself, not Tomura, not his classmates, instead stuck with the constant press of almost-hyperventilation and dread and the claw-digging, lingering thought that Tomura might be dead right now.)
"It's not as easy as that," he ends with. Perhaps it sounds a little lame to everyone else, but it's the most simple truth available, in his eyes, because it just isn't that simple. Tomura would never have been able to just up and leave, to choose a different path.
When not even All Might can defeat the one controlling you, what hope is there, really?
"Does, has, what is." Kaminari huffs, and Izuku waits patiently for him to be able to pull his question together,
"Does he, like, treat you well?
"He's wonderful," Izuku responds, no hesitation at all, letting the edges of a smile slip into the words, into his expression,
"We go on dates where we can. We've argued, sometimes, but he's more careful about not hurting me than I care about, honestly, and we play video games together, and he always insists on buying me snacks and drinks and refuses payment because he's a little shit, and we- we just talk about stuff. Games, things we like, our pasts, society." Izuku breathes, smile slipping away again as he grows more sombre,
"I don't talk about you guys, or hero stuff, or classwork or anything. And he doesn't talk about the League's plans either. We talk broadly about the Heroics industry, rather than our personal parts in it. I wouldn't ever betray you guys, I promise."
(Even the vaguest thought of never talking to Tomura again hurts, vicious and deep, rocking his entire being, no matter what the topic may or may not be.
For the last several months, so much of his life has revolved around Tomura, around their plans and their gaming and their growing affection, the idea of suddenly not having that anymore... Izuku isn't sure that he can survive that, really.
He just wants to curl up into Tomura's side, to feel his heartbeat, have his just-rough palms soothing against his back, a few fingertips always tucked away. Izuku wants to press a kiss to Tomura's cheek, and laugh when he finally beats Tomura at a racing game, and to watch as Tomura ambles around their little flat, carefully reorganising Izuku's copious papers and sticky notes in a way that preserves Izuku's structures but isn't strewn all over the place in sheer chaos.
Izuku doesn't want to lose the person he loves, nor does he want Tomura's potential to grow and help people and be happy to be cut short. It would be beyond cruel.)
Biting back a keen, Izuku reaches up to rub a hand over his face, forcing himself to just breathe through the pain of it all. To try and ignore how he wishes that it was Tomura's hand cupping his cheek instead.
"Did- How did he know to attack us today?" Izuku can only shrug, wincing a little at the movement,
"I don't know. It could've been the League, a Quirk, or maybe something else?"
"You hurt each other," Uraraka adds, eyes wide and molten, worried. Mournful, maybe, but it seems like it's more for Izuku's pain than anything else. Sympathy.
His friends are taking this impressively well, considering, you know, everything.
"We had to," Izuku starts, trying not to think how easy it had been to fight Tomura, yet how he had felt every blow as though dealing it to himself,
"We both know that it's a given; if we meet in public, in our roles as successors, then we fight, and we do whatever we can to not kill each other in the process. Injuries can be healed, we can apologise, but we can't- can't resurrect each other."
"He'd apologise?"
"Of course! He worries far more about hurting me, particularly with his Quirk, than I would ever be upset with him doing it. He-" Izuku chokes on the words that he was going to say, then, a deluge of grief and affection and oh how he loves his Arc overwhelming him.
Tomura would soothe Izuku's curls back from his forehead, would kiss his forehead, right on one of his freckles though Izuku has never quite figured out which specific one it is, and call him Quest. He would make sure that they're both as healed up as possible, and then they'd drape over each other on their little sofa bed, just so that they can feel their heartbeats as they slow down into something like synchronisation.
"You really- Does he care about you as-" Yaomomo pauses, fingers tangling as she bows her head and tries to figure out the wording, but her expression is clear and warm when she looks up again a few moments later,
"It sounds like you both care about each other a lot."
"We do. We really do."
Drawing in a deep, shuddering breath, Izuku lets his ribs spear his lungs in the shape of the words he can't help but say, pouring like blood over his lips,
"And now he might be- And now he might be dead. And it's all my fault."
Tomura is terrified. He feels like a four year old again, his entire family crumbling to pieces in front of him, his best friend dead at his hands, his home disappearing into ash and dust and nothing, like he doesn't understand why his world is falling apart but knowing that he can't fix it.
This can't be fixed either.
He kissed Izuku in public, mid-battle, when he was meant to be fucking attacking Izuku's class, his Quest's friends, and he'd warned Izuku just enough that Tomura probably wouldn't have to kill him immediately, that it gave him the chance to give Izuku a chance.
(They've never said it, not in as many words at least, but Tomura loves Izuku, right down to the very bones of him. He adores the golden-brown freckles, the bittersweet taste of matcha on his lips, the way that Izuku always considers him, listening to Tomura's opinions, remembering his favourite things, asking him questions just for the sake of knowing things about him.
Izuku adores him, and Tomura adores him right back. They understand each other.)
And now Tomura has condemned them both. Because they both leant in, were both utterly foolish, but this is almost certainly Tomura's fault because he was there in the first place, he couldn't think of an excuse to avoid the attack in the first place, and now he's falling into one of Kurogiri's warpgates, the rush of cool air disorienting rather than calming (Izuku had looked so terrified, so utterly scared for them both-), and he's still full of adrenaline, confusion, his own fear-
Sensei is in front of him. All For One is in front of him, the medical machine hissing, and Tomura can't think straight. Doesn't know how to process any of this.
If Kurogiri tells Se- All For One, then Tomura is dead. It's as simple as that.
Izuku will be heart-broken if Tomura dies.
That absolutely can't be allowed to happen, because Tomura can't stand the thought of being the reason for Izuku to suffer so much, not when he might be able to prevent it.
This thought makes him impossibly more panicked, somehow, and Tomura goes a little bit stupid when he's panicked. Or, well, instinctual. He doesn't think, doesn't even really try to breathe, just stares briefly at the eyeless-face, before the fear overtakes Tomura completely.
His Quirk is flaring, surging in that way it does when he wants to hurt, when he is scared or angry (when pulling someone apart at the seams feels like the only answer-), Tomura lunges forwards, a snarl-caught sob tearing from his throat.
Tubes and skin and skull disintegrate beneath his touch, and Tomura keens, low and aching in his throat. (All For One is his monster and his master and the closest thing that he really remembers to a father, and Tomura barely remembers life without his looming presence, without those too-big hands braced, weighted, upon his shoulders, holding him in place, forcing him to lock his knees lest he fall.
All For One would never pick him up if he did. Not after that first time.)
The world slows down again, and Tomura is breathing in air that feels like it should be choked with dust but it isn't. It's already fallen to the floor and- and on top of the body. Fuck. Okay- okay, well, Tomura's alive, he's not been torn apart, hasn't lost his Quirk or his mind, and-
Kurogiri is in the corner of the room, yellow eyes glowing bright, shadowy figure unmoving.
"Kurogiri?"
"Yes, Master?" Tomura shudders beneath the weight of that title, and more than a little with relief too. If- If Kurogiri is calling him Master, then he won't try to hurt Tomura, won't try to keep him away from Izuku.
Izuku. Shit, Izuku, Tomura needs to get to Izuku, back to his Quest, to the one person he knows will keep him safe-
But Tomura doesn't think he can walk more than three paces right now, to be honest, because he can barely even fucking breathe, can't look down near his feet (at the dead body of his master-), can only blink rapidly, fingers twitching. The feeling of dust clinging to them is irritating. It makes him feel sick.
It smells, too. Like blood and dust and something else (is it the cerebral fluid? or something about the air still hissing out of the ends of the remaining oxygen tubes-), and Tomura can barely breathe in the first place, but the smell is cloying, clinging, and now that he's thinking about it, it's all that he can process.
Lungs filling with concrete, heavy and clinging and damp, he staggers away, just needing- needing to be away, to not be able to look at or not-hear or smell the destruction he has wrought.
And sure, he makes it out of the room, but he's collapsing, caving in on himself, his very bones seeming to crumble inside of him, bile is creeping up his throat, as hot and slow as sun-warm concrete, his every limb weighted down. He throws up, he thinks, somewhere to the side, his throat and nose burning, his eyes stinging, but he still can't breathe, can't think, can only collapse further onto the ground, gasping.
Tomura doesn't even really realise when he blacks out.
He doesn't entirely notice the transition to waking back up either, to be honest, blinking at a dark room and noticing how sour his mouth is. His first conscious thought is a simple, awful thing: 'I killed my Sensei'.
The second, however, is the one that consumes him, that has his heart double-thumping and his fingers hand steadying, bracing against the floor as he pushes himself up onto his names: 'I need to get to Izuku'.
It's the easiest, truest realisation he could possibly have right now, the only thing that occurs to him, because it matters more than the traces of grief and blood clinging to him, and more than the injuries that he can suddenly feel again, faded-out adrenaline not enough to mask them by now.
But he can't leave, not yet. Not until he's checked-
His Se- All For One is still dead as it turns out, or so Tomura decides after crawling to the door and staring at the body for a little bit too long. He tries his best to ignore the smell.
(He doesn't want to look, doesn't want to think about, but if he isn't sure, isn't absolutely fucking certain, then he'll never feel safe again, will always be waiting for that looming shadow, that heavy hand upon his shoulder-
If All For One isn't dead, then Tomura isn't safe. Izuku wouldn't be safe, either, the heir to his rival's Quirk, forever-hunted. And that isn't the life he wants for them both.
...At this point, he really isn't sure what their life is going to look like, or if they'll even be able to share a life at all, after all of this, but if he does not hope for it, in this moment, then Tomura isn't sure that he would ever be able to hope for it again, and he refuses to let go of hope right now. Not when it's suffusing gentle warmth at the base of his spine, a feeling much like when Izuku braces a kind hand upon his back.
Tomura wants to be with his Quest. If all he can do is see Izuku once more, even from a distance, that would be enough it will never enough nothing will ever be enough unless they're together for the rest of their lives.
Tomura just wants- He just wants to feel Izuku's kind hands, and to be able to kiss that one more-golden freckle that he adores so much. )
All For One is dead. Kurogiri is... He's not coming after Tomura, and that's the most Tomura can bear to process right now. Maybe Tomura should try and be logical and calm about all of this, go and pack some of his things or go to their flat instead, or just something sensible. Something safe. But none of those get him the one thing that will really make Tomura feel even the tiniest bit okay.
There is only one place, really, that he feels safe going right now: he needs his Quest.
Izuku sips at the water that Iida brought him at some point, trying to ignore how his hands are still trembling.
His friends are being so kind, trying to understand, clearly struggling, caught off-guard, and he doesn't blame them for that. It's a lot. The whole situation is so much, none of it really makes sense, and for Izuku it's a thing of panic and disorientation and fear; it must be so much worse for his friends, in some ways, particularly with, what, the five levels of mountain-deep revelation that they're having to adjust to as well.
Izuku wasn't sure he would ever be able to tell them about- about any of this, really, but he still mourns that it came out like this.
(It isn't the impression of the person he loves that he wanted them to have. In the far-distant, hazy fantasies he has had once or twice of ever being able to introduce Tomura to his class, he would spend a while talking about his wonderful partner, getting them used to him having a boyfriend over time, and telling them little things about Tomura, so that they would be able to see why Izuku liked him so much.
Then, and only then, would he have chosen to actually have them meet Tomura properly, to know who he is and how he has changed. Because he doesn't want to confront them with their trauma without warning, but he also doesn't want them judging Tomura by that shared past.
It's not easy for anyone involved, and Izuku simply wishes it could have been different.)
"I'm sorry, guys, that this... I'm sorry you're having to deal with my mess." Several of his friends are just blinking at him, clearly processing, and he wants to speak again, wants to apologise more, to try and help them deal with this in some way, but he doesn't know what to say.
He drops his glass a moment later, because Nedzu's voice is blaring over the intercom, calm except for how loud it is, and his heart is tripping over itself,
"There is a villain attempting to gain entrance to campus; faculty members are attending to the situation, all students please remain in your dorms or, failing that, in a protected space. I repeat, there is a villain attempting to gain entrance-"
"Tomura," Izuku gasps, a shattering, hope-ridden thing, and he is on his feet, wobbling once, already brushing off the hands that reach to steady him as he starts walking, then running, no shoes on as he pelts out of the dorms, several of the class chasing after his green-sparking figure, shouts and cries echoing in the growing space between them.
Izuku pays no heed. He- He knows that Tomura is within reach, is probably hurt, and he needs to get to him. He needs to protect him.
Someone else is stood in front of him, all of a sudden, dark hair and pale skin, but that won't stop him, not even as part of him recognises the man, and the worry in his face,
"Kid!" There is no time for apologies, verbal or mental, as he ducks Aizawa-sensei's arm and pivots, sweeping out a blast of air pressure that keeps the coils of capture weapon from grasping at him.
"Arc!" It is a widow's grief and a wolf's howl, reverberating through every inch of Izuku's desperate bones as he runs on, diving around another teacher that he hardly registers, then a third, gasping for breath, his heart echoing like a spine-snapped war drum in his chest, and-
"Quest!"
Tomura is actually here.
Fucking hell, Tomura is here, and alive, maybe not okay, because Izuku can see him now and there's blood, and his voice is breaking, fracturing along the seams, but at least he responded at all. (Izuku's heart is straining fit to burst, fingertips numb, Tomura's name still tumbling over his tongue, ferrous-tanging, the sweetest thing he has ever tasted and the most hideous all at once.) He feels sick.
"I'm here, you're here, it's okay. Fuck, Arc, it's okay. We're here. Together, Arc, together." He's sobbing and falling and reaching and Tomura is here, is in his arms, blood a hot, slippery thing that he can somehow already taste at the back of his throat, but that's okay because Tomura is breathing and Izuku has him. There's a heart beating against his own, just as panic-quick, just as relentlessly alive. They're safe. Together again.
Oh. They really, finally, are actually safe.