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It is only after Tenya asks him, “Are you going to be able to stand up in the shower?” that Izuku realizes that the answer to that question is, likely, no.
This is also when he starts crying, not that he notices right away, because it’s that “just waterworks” type of crying where he just kinda of stares into the middle distance and the tears creep their way down his face. He only notices when Ochako sighs an “Oh, Deku,” like he’s maybe breaking her heart, and that’s the point when his knees buckle, and then he has a friend on each arm stopping him from hitting the ground.
“Okay,” says Tenya, blissfully without judgement, “that answers that.”
“ I feel— “ Izuku tries, but words are difficult, and feelings are hard. “I feel disgusting,” is what he manages.
It isn’t quite right. What he feels is soul-deep and woven through with exhaustion. What he feels is heavy and constant, and makes him want to find a warm, dark corner and stay there until he’s cried all the tears he has to cry and disappears.
Ochako softens and takes his hands, and he knows he doesn’t have to say it.
Tenya places his own hands on Izuku’s shoulders from behind. “Is it okay if I pick you up?” he asks.
Izuku cranes his head back, and manages to meet Tenya’s eyes. They are soft. Edged with worry. Looking directly into his heart, so different from the surface-level judgement of that first day of the entrance exam.
Is this what growing up is? , Izuku wonders. Letting the world shred you up and then falling until someone catches you. Exiting the profound solitude of childhood, the entire world yourself and your mind, and realizing that every hand is connected to every other hand. Stumbling to your feet and finding one of those hands in yours.
“Yeah,” says Izuku. “That’s fine.”
Tenya swings him easily into his arms. Izuku lets his head rest in the center of his chest, listens to a heartbeat like a pounding runner’s pace.
Tenya and Ochako say something to each other he doesn’t quite catch. Then Tenya is moving, and Izuku lets his eyes fall shut for a few seconds, zones off to a place where he doesn’t need to constantly log and think about and fear everything around him.
There’s one bathtub in the Heights Alliance dorms. It’s behind its own privacy curtain and theoretically exists for soaking aching muscles, and the occasional ice bath. Tenya puts him down on the bench next to the tub, and Ochako appears at his elbow. She silently hands Tenya a laundry bag, and then starts to turn the taps and fiddle with the temperature.
The room fills with the comforting static of water onto porcelain, and floating steam. Tenya takes Izuku’s hand, drawing his attention back to him.
“Can we get you out of this?” he asks, pulling carefully on the sleeve of Izuku’s hero costume.
Izuku stares down and realizes that he doesn’t remember the last time he saw his hands without gloves.
“Yeah,” he rasps.
Tenya carefully peels off first one glove, then the other, placing both in the laundry bag as he does. Izuku’s hands are dirt-streaked and scarred. He thinks that he doesn't look human.
Tenya squeezes one between both of his hands, carefully. He rolls the muscles and applies careful pressure — basic physical therapy exercises for this kind of damage, and Tenya would know. Izuku stares at their joined hands. Skin on skin contact given in kindness makes the tears bud up again.
He listens to Ochako scoop Epsom salt and something that smells like flowers into the water as Tenya gently, systematically removes him from his costume. Sometimes, it catches scabs and healing cuts. In a few places, the costume has healed into the scab.
Tenya tosses a washcloth of Ochako, who wets it in the warm water and then tosses it back. Tenya holds it onto Izuku’s bicep, dissolving blood, easing cloth away from healing skin.
“Just yank it,” Izuku murmurs. “It’s fine. It’ll barely bleed.”
Tenya stops and stares up at him. His heart is pooling in his eyes. It looks like it hurts.
Izuku says, “Please don’t be sad.”
Tenya squeezes his eyes shut, and his mouth goes into a hard line. He carefully removes the wet cloth, and then pulls away the damp fabric of the costume. It doesn’t yank at all. Izuku doesn’t bleed.
Tenya then reaches up, and laces his fingers together behind Izuku’s neck. He tugs gently, and Izuku lets himself sway forward. Tenya presses their foreheads together.
“Sometimes,” Tenya says into the air they both breathe, “you are not very smart about certain things, my friend.”
Izuku feels a whimper build in the back of his throat. He says, “Yeah,” because he knows.
Then he gets swung into the bath water.
The warmth of it immediately begins to untangle his knotted muscles. Izuku stares at his stick-out knees, watches the grime on his body begin to stain the water dark. Ochako and Tenya switch places, and Ochako carefully cups the back of his head.
“Gunna wash your hair, Deku,” she says.
Izuku blinks heavily, turns his head so that she’s cupping his cheek instead. “But,” he says, “my hair’s dirty.”
“I know, silly. That’s why I’m going to wash it.”
He swallows around his words, struggles with them for a long second. “If you touch it, you’ll get dirty.”
Ochako reaches out. She turns Izuku’s face to fully stare at her, and then squishes his cheeks between both of her palms.
“Deku,” she says, “if that happens, I’ll just wash my hands. Okay?”
Tenya huffs out half a laugh, pausing from where he’s started to run a washcloth over Izuku’s battered knees to glance up at them both.
They both blink at him. Kind and good and present, like his favorite stuffed toy from childhood. Salty-warm broth when he’s getting over a cold. The silhouette of someone waiting for you at the bus stop, even though the bus is a half hour late.
‘Oh,’ thinks Izuku. Oh.
God, he’s so soft for these two. His two very first friends.
So he leans his cheek into Ochako’s hand, closes his eyes, and lets himself float for a bit.
He feels Ochako’s fingers rub their way through his curls coated in shampoo, easing away the knots and dirt. Tenya carefully scraping grit from his skin. It’s so warm, and so quiet, and so safe. Maybe he falls asleep.
He opens his eyes to Tenya’s face leaning over him, his glasses slightly fogged from the steam. He’s holding a towel.
“Come on,” he says, “Stand up.”
Izuku starts to shift to do just that, responding to the command on instinct, but then pauses. He's suddenly hit with a strange pang of body shyness.
“Ochako—”
“I’m staring at the door, Deku,” she says, a laugh in her voice. “Don’t worry about it.”
“Oh. Okay.”
He struggles and sways to his feet, the warm water causing his head to swim slightly. Tenya swoops down and swaddles him in the towel like he’s a toddler, and then picks him up in a bridal carry once again.
“I can—” Izuku yawns, and lets his wet head knock against Tenya’s chest. “I can walk.”
“Yes, yes,” says Tenya, not making a single move to put him down.
And then they’re all in — he thinks this is Ochako’s room, actually, because it has the bed pushed up against the wall. Between one blink and the next, he’s wrestled into some soft, sweet-smelling pajamas, large enough on him that the sleeves cover the palms of his hands.
Izuku clenches and unclenches his fingers a few times. It’s so weird to see them outside of his gloves. It’s weird to feel fabric against his skin that isn’t his hero costume.
It’s weird to feel like a person.
He doesn’t realize that he’s said it out loud, until he hears Tenya’s breath hitch and has an entire Ochako falling into his lap. She wraps her arms around his shoulders, and pulls his head into the crook of her neck.
“You’re our person,” she says, low and fierce. “And you’re never allowed to do that again.”
Izuku swallows. “Sorry,” he whispers into her sleep shirt (when had she changed?).
She pulls away so that their noses are touching. “You’re also not allowed to apologize.”
He almost smiles, and that feels weird, too. “What am I allowed to do, then?”
Ochako tilts herself over, arms still around Izuku so he’s pulled along with her. He ends up lying curled on his side, facing the wall, Ochako tucked into his chest. She’s small and compact and warm. She looks up at him.
“Sleep, Deku. Rest.”
Izuku sniffs, once, and clenches his eyes closed. The light clicks off. The bed dips as Tenya sits, tosses a throw blanket over all of them, and then also lies down. He moves his body so it creates a wall between Izuku and the door.
“Yes,” he echoes. “Rest, Midoriya. Go to sleep.”
Ochako makes a grumpy noise and reaches over Izuku to grab Tenya’s hand. She drags it so that it’s blanketing them both, which Tenya allows without comment.
Izuku feels — warm. Warm and held and the closest to safe he’s been in months. Which, of course, is when fear twists himself into his chest, and tears prick his eyes again.
“I can’t,” he starts, breathing turning ragged, “I can’t, I— What if—”
Tenya makes a soothing sound into his still-damp hair. It makes his chest rumble. “The teachers and pro-heroes are watching the gates of the school,” he says quietly. “Bakugou and Kirishima are guarding the doors to this dorm. And Shouto is patrolling the hallway.” The arm around Izuku and Ochako tightens. “You’re safe, Izuku. We have you.”
A single sob wrenches its way out of Izuku’s chest, rough and ugly and cleansing. It’s out of him, now. For the moment, it’s not inside. Ochako tucks her head under his chin and squeezes him.
“I missed you both so much,” Izuku chokes. “I really, really missed you.”
“We missed you, too,” says Ochako, with all the softness of perfect truth.
“And we’re going to be with you from now on,” says Tenya, like some old-time knight taking the most solemn of oaths, as if Izuku is worthy of that.
‘I love you both,’ Izuku thinks, ‘I love you so much. I love you for letting me lean on you and being there when I need you and not letting me be alone, I love you both for caring, I love you for letting me care about you, I love you both because I’ve never had anyone like this before I had you two,’ but he doesn’t think he needs to say it.
Tenya’s breathing is even and Ochako is soft and warm. Outside, the world is unknown and filled with danger, but here the world has shrunk into something significantly more kind. And so Izuku lets go.
In the space of one breath, together, they all fall asleep.