Chapter Text
Izuku does not recover quickly or easily. He, frankly, barely recovers at all. Barely even survives.
("Be good for me, little experiment."
Blood spattering over him, something that he can barely even process over his own numb agony and the seeping heat over his splayed-open chest.
There is darkness. Ice and fire and shadows and all of exactly nothing.)
Yet he does. He survives, fights through the recovery surgery, fights through the fever and infection that follows, fights through the medically-induced coma, and wakes up to his entire family waiting at his bedside.
He is in absolute agony, still, despite the pain medications and just how long he has been recovering for already. (It's been nearly a month of sleeping, of fever-forced delirium, of sleeping all over again-) His entire chest was cut open, nearly half of one of his ribs is gone, cut away with something that is too clean to be anything but a Quirk, leaving an odd divot in the planes of his chest, two-thirds of the way down his ribcage. It looks unnatural.
It doesn't match the broad cross across his chest, but it's an odd sort of cousin to it all the same. They belong together. They mar his skin, break apart the constellations of his freckles, and they hurt, physically and mentally and beyond.
Izuku still doesn't quite understood how he was cut open, how five Quirks were torn from him, and he survived.
He has no idea how or even necessarily why, frankly, because it feels like he should have completely fallen apart, because those Quirks being given or taken from him, settling into his bones or leaving abyssal valleys in their wake, had always ruined him. How he got through the sheer shock and agony of it all is beyond him. (To be fair, he keeps forgetting things, losing time and coherence. Apparently it's normal after a coma, particularly one as long as his was even with Quirks' support, but still. It's awful and disconcerting to keep on waking up and not knowing where he is, how much time has passed, who these people are, why he is alone or with a stranger or with his entire family-
So, no, he didn't exactly get out unscathed. Not in any sense, realistically.)
But he still keeps on waking up. He sometimes has to be reminded that the man is dead, that he is safe and in hospital, that his family are all okay, along with far simpler things such as the date. He goes through motor test after motor test, trying to set him up for physical rehabilitation, both due to muscle atrophy and the odd pull of his skin from the rather large scar now sunk bone-deep into his chest. Soon, he is promised, he will be able to go home. Soon.
It's... a day, when his Mum walks in and there's another man in tow. One that Izuku thinks he might have met once or twice before, but not truly someone he remembers. He doesn't like it.
But, equally, he knows better than to be rude (he knows that he doesn't really have choices, that he just has to obey, to nod and duck his head and go along-), so he simply shifts a hand in the beginnings of a little wave,
"Uhm, hello."
"Hello, Izuku-kun. Do you remember me?" Oh no. Izuku doesn't much like this, ivy already curling tight around his heart,
"N-no. I'm sorry."
(He doesn't know it, but his tremble that has sprung up since the man came in is a just-visible thing, and even more alarming than how he has seemingly been taught that he has to look whoever is addressing him in the eye, but appears so very terrified to do so. No matter how often his family or medical staff remind him that he does not have to, no matter how coherent he is or isn't at that time, because he remembers that they have said it yet he clearly worries too much either way. It is just one of many things that Inko had never really had chance to actively and consistently observe in her son before, and which worries her a lot now.
Inko thinks that she spends a lot of time worrying about her baby boy. And she will never begrudge that, never wish him to change, but she does wish him to be better. To not have so many scars and fears and shadows in his eyes.
Most of all, Inko wishes that she had been quicker. That she had noticed every single little thing that screamed of her son's pain, and that she had found a faster way to deal with it all, had waited even just half an hour less on that final day if perhaps it might have stopped her son going through that final, awful thing.)
The man- The person who his Mum has brought with her just tilts his head a little, nothing obviously cruel to his face, his hands open at his side,
"Quite alright. I met you only a few days after you woke up, but you were still pretty out of it, so we decided I would come back later." Izuku glances briefly over to his Mum, just long enough to see her nod in agreement, starting to speak,
"Baby, this is Detective Tsukauchi. He was the one we took our evidence to, and who got together the team of heroes who rescued you."
"O-oh. Uhm, nice to meet you. Thank you for helping my family."
"I was very glad to. And I was also very glad to help you." Izuku... Izuku doesn't know how to respond to that, not really (he will eventually; one day, he will understand just how valued he is, just how loved-), so for now he just nods, going to shrug a little before the movement tugs in all the wrong ways at everything on his chest that hurts.
The two adults settle on chairs at his bedside, then, his Mum right by his side, close enough to put her hand on his bed, just beside his, and Detective Tsukauchi sitting further back, facing Izuku properly.
"I understand that you may not wish to go into full detail now, however, we had hoped that you have recovered enough, both physically and in yourself, that you might be happy to talk me through some of your interactions with All For One."
Izuku does not want to talk about the man. He doesn't want to admit his own weakness, his vulnerability, because he was already a weak, Quirkless burden, but now the fact that he was just an experiment, a repository and a curiosity, for the man... It makes everything far, far worse, to him.
But he shouldn't say no, he knows. So he sucks in a slow, deep breath, the type that he has learnt doesn't strain his chest too much, before ducking his head briefly in a nod. He does not complain when Detective Tsukauchi sets up a voice recorder, explaining what he's doing the whole time. And even through his nerves, Izuku notes that the m- that Tsukuachi is kind. He doesn't talk slowly, but rather steadily, and his eyes are dark but warm.
(All the same, Izuku finds himself reaching out for his Mum. He grasps at the hand that was settled beside his own, wrapping around her palm with less strength than he should have but needing that comfort, that grounding-)
Not only does the Detective seem kind but, once Izuku begins speaking, starting from the first time that the man walked up to him, he never shows shock or horror or disgust as Izuku tells his tale. He doesn't wince when Izuku describes as briefly as possible just how awful it is for something foreign to invade right down to his very marrow, and how it's always a relief but also an agony to have them taken away again. He speaks of being held up by the chin alone, of how the man wanted his intelligence, how his family were threatened and he didn't want any of this, really, he hated it all, was terrified and hurt and oh-so sure that he and his loved ones would be literally killed if he disobeyed, and Kacchan would be the only survivor but his Quirk would be taken from him and he would be left as physically vulnerable as Izuku except his dreams would have been snatched from him too and Izuku couldn't let that happen even if it meant just being the man's little experiment-
He doesn't realise that he isn't breathing until his Mum is squeezing his hand, and one of the monitors is making too much noise, and Detective Tsukauchi has leant forwards, counting out loud, tapping a rhythm against the edge of Izuku's bed. It- it matches the pace that his Mum is squeezing his hand with.
It's a combination of all of this and his own ability to force his emotions down that he is able to pull himself together, hyper-focusing on the dragging air in his throat and how it has to match the rhythm being provided to him. It's doable. Manageable. That being said, it's beyond uncomfortable too, a long-winded, aching thing, one that has his scars and lungs and heart burning, full of embers to match the smoke burning upon his tongue. It takes time. Time and agony and wishing that he wasn't so, so weak.
By the time he has calmed down, Izuku is absolutely shattered. He doesn't- He's never spiralled that badly before, has never had that much of a problem trying to breathe, and it's beyond overwhelming.
"Is that your first panic attack, Midoriya-kun?"
"N-no. Never been that bad before," he manages, forcing his words not to slur because the man would smile but strike him for it-
The man is dead. All For One is dead. Izuku wishes that he could be just as non-existent in his own mind and memories as he is in life, now.
He misses the looks exchanged between the detective and his mother. The concern, the fear, the sorrow. He does not know how much Inko has confided in the man, how she has told Detective Tsukauchi about every detail she could scrape together of Izuku's odd behaviours, and her worries since he was rescued of his health and safety and his sheer trauma. And Tsukauchi had been able to help, albeit not as much as he himself wanted to. He had pulled together lists of therapists, had ensured that none of the heroes who helped to rescue the child would ever speak of Izuku, has told her in the vaguest of details about other children who have been victims of abuse or trafficking in somewhat similar senses, and of how they have been able to recover. Izuku will too, he assures her.
The kid is obviously pretty damn strong. Determined. Heroic, even, with how he so fiercely tried to protect those around him, but now certainly doesn't seem the time to be mentioning such things.
No, for now, today seems to be better off concluded, as the kid has clearly been pushed pretty far already, far more so than Tsukauchi had been willing to go to, given any choice, but the panic had descended thick and fast and heavy. Sure, Midoriya-kun has calmed down relatively well, but that isn't really the point.
"If neither of you have any questions for me, I think it might be best to leave this here for now. Apologies for the fact that this needs to be done at all, Midoriya-kun, Inko-san." The woman offers him a rather mournful smile, one with an edge of understanding. It's far less concerning than the way that Izuku curls into himself yet also seems to force himself to look Tsukauchi in the eye, those green eyes so very full of darkness. Fear.
It hurts to see someone so young, so brilliant, so blatantly left halfway-shattered by a monster like All For One.
The first day that he leaves the hospital, he looks up at the bright blue sky, and he cringes away. He withers, wilts, shoves himself impossibly further into Kacchan's side, breaths hitching.
He is terrified.
Because Izuku knows, oh, he knows damn well that All For One is dead, because he felt that man's blood spatter upon him with All Might's first blow; he has found the video online because he couldn't not know, and he saw All Might stand, bloody and weary and victorious, over the crumpled body of the man. Of Izuku's monster. But he sees that blue above him now, so big and bright and ready to swallow him whole, and he absolutely fears this world that he has been left in. Because it might lack the man, but there are so many other villains in this world, so many people who hate him for his Quirklessness or who would fear or be disgusted by his scars, or who will pity him for so many things and-
"Izuku, baby, please look at me." Izuku is scared, doesn't really know what to do, but this is his Mum, his Mama, and she's been so worried, so upset for him, so he has to, even if it means he has to look at the blue again, so he holds even tighter to Kacchan and dares to peek out, away from the safe, black hoodie, to try and meet his Mum's eyes.
Oh. She's crouching in front of him, gaze serious yet soft, green, and there's no hint of sky at all with how his Auntie and Uncle and Kacchan are huddled over and around them both, leaving them in shade.
Izuku really is loved, isn't he? He knew it, logically, and he knew it in practice too because his family have been unfailing, unflinching, in how they have helped him, supported him, just been there. Every single time he wakes up, or after he comes back from yet another scan or session, somebody is there waiting for him. Kacchan will grumble through school work with Izuku, or watch cartoons with him. (For now, the All Might cartoons have to wait, because Izuku is ever so glad that the hero helped with saving him, but he also really doesn't need or want the reminder that he had to be saved in the first place-) His Auntie and Uncle will report on what they've been doing to help out his Mum, bringing blankets and snacks and books for him; Uncle Masaru will help Izuku with his physio exercises sometimes.
And, perhaps best of all, neither of them make a big deal out of anything. If Izuku stumbles, if he forgets everything or the last week or two or three, if it takes him too long to even recognise them sometimes, they are patient. They will wait out his ramble, nodding along, and will correct or steady him with simple, calm steadiness, no fanfare at all. Sometimes, it's a refreshing change that he desperately needs, particularly with some of the medical staff in comparison.
But the absolute best of all, has been his Mum. Her hugs and her food and her honesty.
There's a lot of honesty between them during Izuku's hospital stay, on both of their parts. It isn't a perfect system of course, in fact it's one that has ended in tears several times, but said tears are always soothed with hugs, and they manage. Make do. (It feels a lot like fixing their relationship. Or maybe that they're filling in the fraying-edged gaps in their heart and faith and bond. There's an absolute joy to the fact, no matter that it can ache fiercely to have to do it in the first place.
They're doing better, Izuku hopes. Knows.)
Right now, they are once again proving just how amazing they are, protecting Izuku from the too-familiar sky above. (It's stupid, Izuku thinks, because he could see the stupid, awful, stunning sky from his bedroom window, but he always put off going out into the hospital courtyard, and now he is terrified-) Fortunately, it gives them enough time to breathe deeply, to remind himself that it's fine, the man is dead-
"The man's eyes are- were blue. Bright blue." Izuku can feel the abrupt understanding that sweeps through his family, and how his Mum's hold upon him tightens, albeit still very much careful. Considerate.
"Oh, baby. You've been so strong." There's some shifting around, then. His Mum says something to his Uncle, before the murmurs near his ear are directed at him, a soft offer of Masaru carrying him, one that Izuku barely has to think about before he presses a nod against a shoulder that smells like home.
He's oh-so glad to even be heading home.
His Uncle holds him in close, pulls him up, and then he's propped up on the man's hip so that he can bury his face in yet another warm shoulder.
"Thank you," he murmurs against the soft fabric. His Uncle Masaru simply rubs a gentle hand along the length of his spine, firm and kind and warm. (Izuku feels... Izuku feels really rather treasured, like this. Safe. like his family can and will protect him from anything and everything, no matter what. Almost as though nothing bad ever happened to him at all. And he knows that isn't true, knows that he has scars that will never fully fade, not in ten years' time and not when he's an adult either, but that doesn't mean that he can't be okay.)
"Do- do I have to?" The question is hesitant, but the reluctance is obvious. His mother grimaces slightly in sympathy.
"Izuku, baby, I don't want to force you to do anything, but this is important. It could help. Should help." It gives Izuku some room to say no, and they both know it. Equally, however, they also know that Izuku wants to make her happy, and that he wants to feel better. (He hates his own weakness, as the thinks of it, because he doesn't like the way that he loses his sleep to nightmares, that he cannot step outside without nearly falling apart, or that a hand near his face has him going stock-still, frozen in place and waiting to have claws sunk deep into his bones-)
His Mum reaches out, palms-up and open, giving Izuku enough room to back away or reach out in return. Despite the spiders crawling over his skin, the discomfort pooled in his guts, Izuku does indeed reach out, settling his hand upon hers and letting his Mum slowly pull him close until she's wrapped around him and he can sink into the affection shamelessly.
He doesn't think about therapy again until, several days later, his Mum presents him with a list of therapists for them to go through together. Izuku still doesn't love the idea of it, admittedly. But, well, maybe it really will help, and it it makes his Mum happy, or at least happier, then Izuku is willing to try. To consider it, give it a go, and see what happens.
So they go through the list together, and narrow it down to only three options that they want to try and meet, to see if Izuku feels able to talk to any of them.
The first one Izuku meets is an almost-instant no. They seem nice, with a soft voice, but their eyes are a fierce, pretty sort of blue, glowing slightly with what must be their Quirk. But Izuku can barely concentrate past their gaze, no matter how kind they seem as a person. Luckily things are better with the second one, a woman whose walls are painted green and whose eyes are dark and warm. She introduces herself as Doctor Furumi but insists, plainly and calmly, that there really is no need to call her 'Sensei' or the like, and she looks at Izuku without much of a smile. That feels nice. Less like the man. And the third one they meet is a lady as well. (Izuku and his Mum hadn't even really had to think before deciding to discount almost all of the male possibilities, not when the man is a big reason for him needing to even talk to someone in the first place.)
She is nice too, the third therapist, but she was sort of too nice? Izuku isn't sure, but she smiles a lot and is cheery and soft, and offers for him to call her whatever he wants and... It was just too much, maybe? (Her smiles, toothy and sweet, just feel like staring up at the man, even with the beauty mark and pale orange lip tint. Izuku doesn't like it.)
When his Mum gives the option, sitting opposite each other over dinner a few days later (despite how delicious it is, he can barely stomach it, between the hollow feeling thick in his bones and the way that his body is still adjusting to proper meals-), Izuku finds that he doesn't actually have to think about is too much.
"I- I think maybe Furumi-san? I liked her." From the way that his Mum's jaw tightens slightly, hand pausing slightly where it comes up take a bite of rice, he thinks that maybe she is a bit surprised by his choice, or maybe as much as upset, but she nods not even a full breath later, before Izuku can try and change his mind.
"Then we'll try with her, darling." He manages to smile a little, and takes another bite of his dinner. Maybe if therapy is with Furumi-san, it won't be too bad.
Furumi-san doesn't make him talk about the man, and Izuku is very much relieved. She talks to him about his family, and what to do when he feels numb or panicked, and his favourite things, and how catching up with school is going. She never seems upset or pitying when he's forgotten things, and that still happens far more than any of them would like, but it helps to stop Izuku from feeling dumb when it happens. Furumi-san also works with Izuku on ways to cope with exactly that. She recommends writing important things for the day or things he's just been told on his arm or into a notebook, and finds some brands of pen that are meant for use on skin because, yes, he can use most normal pens but the traces left behind aren't ideal. She helps him figure out what upsets him most, his triggers as she calls them, and sometimes, through that, they end up talking about things related to the man.
Sometimes, and increasingly so, Izuku is even okay with that.
(Furumi-san is good. Good in a way that the man definitely wasn't and how Izuku doesn't feel, but Furumi-san and his family are trying to teach him that he is.
She will smile at him rarely, but it is nothing but honest every single time. She is always patient, and waits for him when he panics or forgets or gets confused, will offer quiet words that are just soft enough to feel safe. Furumi-san tells his family things for him, sometimes, when Izuku really can't do it but they really need to know. She just helps, time and again. Izuku is very glad for her.)
Izuku is very, very glad that Kacchan has forgiven him for lying. He isn't sure how well he would have coped without him. (The slow, reluctant grumbling words of "sometimes heroes have to keep secrets to protect other people, like civilians and shit; I'll just have to work hard enough that you can never forget or even fucking doubt that I'm your hero partner, got it nerd?" echo in his head sometimes. They make Izuku smile, just a little, every single time.)
They're having their first proper sleepover since- since Izuku came back from the hospital. Uncle Masaru makes his best curry recipe, and even though he only has a small portion with miso and rice on the side to avoid upsetting his stomach, Izuku still finds himself mostly enjoying the meal. Particularly because Kacchan and Auntie Mitsuki are bickering over their favourite chopsticks and Uncle Masaru is reminding them both to eat occasionally, and it's all so very, very warm.
Even better, that feeling carries through the whole night. He feels warm when he's brushing his teeth with Kacchan grumbling in the next room, and when his usual futon is set out on the floor beside Kacchan's bed, the two thin pillows piled up just right, and when they talk for maybe an hour past the bedroom light getting turned off before they're both falling asleep, safe and content.
Shivers are racking him when Izuku claws his way back out of sleep, gasping for breath and writhing with the remembered weight and agony and shock of something that is both halfway foreign and halfway his being torn from him and he doesn't know what to do, how to cope, if he will even survive through this tearing of his being, except for the fact that he needs to get away from the hands, the Quirk, the man, that he will never be safe like this but he needs to move, surely, why isn't he-
"Zu!" The nickname is what does it. (Not little experiment, not the man's repository, not a useless burden of a Quirkless Lace, a Deku-)
Izuku, still gasping, reaches out, hands scrabbling for some sort of warmth and safety that he can cling to. He finds Kacchan. He finds warm, sweet-bitter hands that are just that bit damp where they settle against his skin, and there are more words that he hardly registers but that help regardless, and he curls into his best friend and brother without hesitation. Kacchan holds him through his shiver-shuddering, keeping Izuku close and warm and safe in a way that he beyond needs right now. There are such awful things in his mind, reaching hands and blue eyes and laughter oh-so cruel that it hurts just to hear it, no matter if it's a memory or here right now.
Eventually Izuku is breathing a bit more steadily again, for all that he's very much still clinging to his Kacchan. The blond just ends up tugging at him, at some point, until Izuku stumbles to his feet after him, getting pulled to his best friend's bed and shoved under the covers, right up next to the wall, protected by Kacchan, tucked under his friend's arm.
It's warm, like this. Hot, even. But Izuku is okay with that, because it isn't a cold table or a grating floor, no, it's Kacchan, and he's keeping Izuku safe, knowing that he's protected right now, pressed lightly to his friend's side.
They both fall back asleep like that, side by side and a little bit propped up in Kacchan's bed, knowing that like this they have each other, and the other won't be leaving. They're as good as brothers, after all.
(One day, Izuku will even be a hero. He will not have a Quirk, and he will not need one, nor certainly want one, although he was actually given a choice, once, by someone far kinder than his monster but still something that he could not stand the thought of, but he will be a hero anyway. He will stand by the side of his brother and he will fight for people who cannot protect themselves, who were taught that they cannot say no, the people who were like him to varying degrees.
Izuku helps people. He saves them from their own monsters, from the villains in their lives, whether said villains have been there for a minute or since they were born, and he doesn't always do it with a smile but his hands never fail to be kind.
A smile can be a lie. Genuine protection, however, is far, far harder to fake, and Izuku will offer quiet words and gentle hands and a shoulder to hide in. Izuku is a hero. He has scars, and he knows what it is to be on both sides of the tracks in a certain sense, and he knows how Quirks hurt, but he also knows how they can help. Izuku knows what it is to be hurt.
So he helps, and he helps, and he helps some more; he will be presented with children genuinely smiling as a result. He will have family and friends that he loves and who love him. Izuku will be okay.)