Archive of Our Own ^beta

Izuku slipped off his shoes at the door. The building was quiet, but it was far too late at night to expect anyone to be out. The day shift was fast asleep and the night shift was already gone. 

Only the sounds of the city remained. A siren wailed in the distance, almost too faint to hear, but Izuku was attuned to that sound.

Izuku felt dirty. Grimey, like he’d played in mud and taken a dive in someone else’s sweat. Vomit caked his socks, the bits at the tops that weren’t protected by his worn-out shoes. 

“Hi, Mom,” Izuku said tiredly. “How are you?”

Inko didn’t reply. She stared out the window, unblinking, exactly where Izuku had left her sixteen hours before.

The living room reeked of piss. And shit.

Slowly, Izuku raised the back of recliner off the floor and turned it.

Mom’s eyes, once bright, were glassy and dull. Eye drops, he made a mental note. Eye drops, eye drops…

“I’m good,” Izuku continued. He hooked one arm under her knees and the other around her shoulders. “One,” he counted under his breath. “Two, three.”

Lift. He lifted his mom upward with a grunt, the dead weight of her body almost pulling him to the floor. Slowly, carefully, he carried her to the bathroom. 

“Sorry, Mom,” he said, setting her gently on the toilet lid and trapping her with his feet. Not exactly protocol, but he can’t afford a shower chair. “It’s shower night,” Izuku continued, fake cheer in his voice. “No bed bath for you.”

Inko didn’t reply. Hugging her to his chest, he pulled her house dress down, past her shoulders and— one, two, three, Izuku grit his teeth— lift, under her hips.

He’d long gotten used to the idea of his mother as just another patient. It was more sad than anything else. Izuku didn’t really feel sad about it anymore. He didn’t feel much of anything, these days.

Mom didn’t move. She didn’t even make a sound. Izuku checked that her nose was above his shoulder, because the very last thing he needed was to suffocate her because he was tired. 

Inko’s breaths came in short bursts.

“It was a long shift,” Izuku said, pulling his mother’s brief apart. The smell of piss and shit strengthened, hitting him in the face like a brick, bitter, sour, acid, and ripe. “There was a mass casualty event downtown,” he continued. “So med surge got flooded.”

Izuku tossed the diaper into the trash with one hand, the other keeping his mother’s body upright.

He peeked over her shoulder and sucked in a sharp breath.

A large, red welt covered her ass and tailbone. The skin around it was discolored, bruised, and so thin he could count the veins in it. And her entire ass and back was striped with dried shit.

Barrier cream, he made a mental note. 900 yen. That’s two hours of keeping the lights off, four fewer showers, about 100 yen less on the monthly grocery haul…

Damn it.

Deep breath. “I’m sorry about that, Mom. I’m sure it’s painful. I’ll turn you all day tomorrow. Promise.”

Inko began to shiver. She shook without a sound, vibrating in Izuku’s grasp like something battery-operated. Robotic.

“Let’s get you under the warm water,” he said tiredly. “One, two, three.” Lift.

Izuku slowly, carefully, sit his mother down in the bath tub. Holding her frail shoulder with one hand, he stretched up— winced at the pain in his ribs— and turned on the shower head.

Inko slumped forward.

“Work was alright, though,” Izuku continued, even though there was no way his mom could hear him over the sound of the water. “Mostly a lot of vital signs and turning over beds. I don’t mean to upset you.”

It was upsetting. Four codes and a rapid, and Izuku ended up with a patient ratio of 1:36 because the hospital hadn’t prepared staffing for an emergency like that. On-call techs couldn’t even make it in because all the roads were blocked. He ended up staying an extra four hours before relief came in.

It was a shit show.

Izuku’s arms and chest ached from compressions, deep, muscular aches that screamed— begged— for rest.

Inko’s eyes instinctively closed against the onslaught from the shower head.

Izuku knew he had thirty seconds before his mom started shaking and agonal breathing. Quickly, without thinking about it, he lathered her shorn head in shampoo, then wiped her down with a cheap, unscented soap from neck to toe. It took ten passes with the wash cloth to get her peri clean, the liquid shit from her pureed diet causing a diarrhea blowout up her back, through the folds of her vulva, up into the hood of her clitoris and inside her belly button.

“I’m sorry, Mom,” Izuku mumbled. He doubted she understood him. The doctors didn’t know how much cognitive function she retained, and he’d been forced to take her home before he could ask. He couldn’t afford the rehab stay she needed, or the physical therapy, or the oxygen. 

He’d scoured his mom’s ledger, her checking account, her mail, hoping against hope that his father was sending them money.

He’d given up after two days. The truth was there in black and white: there were no payments coming in. Either Dad was dead, or he never existed at all.

He couldn’t ask Mom about it.

Twenty-nine, thirty…

Right on cue, Inko began to shake. She curled in on herself, pathetic and small, and Izuku was quick to turn off the water.

“Sorry,” he mumbled, wrapping her in a towel. “Sorry, sorry…”

She winced when he tried to dry the pressure sore on her back. Her shaking became violent, her lips and the tips of her fingers turning red, then purple, then a sickly blue.

“Let’s get you dressed,” Izuku said, holding her tight to his chest so she wouldn’t fall. “Would you like the green nightgown or the blue one? The blue one comes with a robe.”

Inko shook against her son’s shoulder, mute and unblinking.

“You’re right, Mom. Blue nightgown, it is.”

Izuku carefully wrapped a new adult diaper around his mother, struggling to get it between her legs with only one hand while the other held her upright. The shaking didn’t help. His poor mother shook like she was caught in an earthquake, her frail, failing body desperate to generate some kind of warmth.

Not for the first time, Izuku felt unbearably guilty that he couldn’t afford more wood for the stove, or even a cheap space heater. 11,000 yen for the space heater plus 3,000 yen a month for electricity, or 45,000 yen for one season of firewood…

Izuku could work overtime shifts until he died, and he still wouldn’t be able to afford to keep his sick mom warm.

Inko didn’t stop shaking until after Izuku got her socks over her feet. The temperature issue got much better after Izuku cut off all his mother’s hair. He felt guilty about it then, and still felt guilty about it now, but that curtain of thick, green hair was torture when it was wet and sticking everywhere.

Midoriya Inko had been a very vain, very proud woman. For her own sake, Izuku hoped his mother was too far gone to register her buzzed head when he held her in front of the mirror.

“I saw Bakugo Katsuki today,” Izuku said, carefully brushing his mother’s teeth. “Do you remember him?”

Inko was limp in his hold, exhausted by the shower and the shivering. She gurgled, toothpaste bubbling between her lips.

Carefully, Izuku rinsed his mother’s mouth out.

“Yeah, maybe not,” he replied. “That was a long time ago. He was the son of Bakugo Mitsuki.”

One, two, three. Lift. Izuku grunted, carrying his mother to her bed, stacking pillows behind her back and head like a wall.

“I saw him on TV,” Izuku said, one hand on his mother while the other dragged trash bags full of old sweaters and dish rags right up against her bed. It was a poor imitation of fall mats, he knew, but it’s not like he could get the real thing. All he could afford was the hope that his mother wouldn’t roll out of bed and break her hip, or that he would at least hear her if she did.

“He’s a pro hero now. Isn’t that neat?”

Inko didn’t reply. Of course she didn’t. Izuku was long used to the silence.

Quickly, Izuku ducked out of her bedroom, straight to kitchen, and threw some things out of the fridge and onto a plate. Applesauce, leftover… is that pureed toast? Izuku squinted at his own handwriting on the bowl. Corn pureed with pork sausage— the peppery kind, because Mom likes it— red bean paste, and… two-day old steamed bok choy.

Not bad for an end-of-the-month meal. Not good, either, but Izuku’s limited to a very strict diet called I-have-no-money. 

Twenty-eight, twenty-nine, thirty…

When Izuku returned, Inko was exactly where he left her. One, two, three. Lift. He sat her up, wincing at the dull pain that radiated through his whole torso as he’d been forced to stand oddly to get around the stuffed trash bags.

“I have your dinner,” Izuku said, tying a napkin around his mom’s neck like a bib. “What should we start with?“

Inko didn’t reply.

“Dessert first?” Fake cheer, happy smile. “You’re right, that is the best way.”

Slowly, Izuku scooped the applesauce into his mother’s mouth.

“It was strange seeing him on TV.” Strange wasn’t the word. Izuku didn’t know what the word was— longing? Pride? Melancholy, nostalgia? God, jealousy?

Mostly, Izuku just felt tired.

“We’ve both met a pro hero now. How cool is that?”

Inko eventually swallowed, more of a reflex than a choice.

“I have to pick up an extra 12 this week. I hate leaving you so long. But the rent hike is—“ Izuku cut himself off. He was going to say killing me, but he can’t say that to his sick mom. “I have to work a little longer,” he said instead. “That’s all.”

Izuku scooped some of the pureed sausage into his mom’s mouth. Her jaw barely moved, tongue gliding across teeth like it almost remembered how to eat.

“We might have to downsize,” Izuku remarked. “I’m sorry, Mom. I know you loved this apartment.”

Love, damn it. No past tense, Izuku chided himself. She’s not dead yet.

Izuku was being optimistic, he knew. No landlord in the city would offer a lease to a quirkless man. They’d be stuck in this apartment until they died.

Inko closed her mouth.

“No more?” Izuku asked, withdrawing the spoon. “All done?”

Inko blinked slowly.

That’s less than usual. Izuku knows what it means when a patient stops eating and starts refusing food. “Alright,” he said simply, unwilling to think about it. “I’ll be back to put you to bed in a minute.”

In the kitchen, Izuku scooped her uneaten food back into the containers, thoroughly scraping it out so as to not waste even a drop.

Looking at the barren fridge— with only his mother’s pureed foods in it, plus a bottle of hot mustard, Izuku didn’t even want to bother feeding himself.

Half-bent over from exhaustion, he just squirted some hot mustard onto his tongue and rinsed his mouth out at the kitchen sink. Good enough.

It would have to be good enough.

Twenty-eight, twenty-nine, thirty…

Izuku stripped out of his scrubs and threw them in the bathtub, scrubbing them until his hands were raw and then hanging them over the shower rod. It’s his only pair, so he’s careful to note where they might need darned or patched.

God, does he even have thread? A needle?

Inko was asleep when Izuku returned. Quietly, Izuku set his mother down, forming a wall between her and the free edge of the bed with her pillows and a couple rolled blankets.

Inko wasn’t a peaceful sleeper. She never was, even before, but now her face was slack, the fat of it stretched and pulled down by gravity until she was almost unrecognizable. Her breathing was short, shallow, her blankets jerking upward with every quick gasp.

“I love you, Mom,” Izuku whispered. “Goodnight.”

The apartment was quiet. Izuku slipped over to the window and pushed it open, hand slipping into his pocket for his lighter.

It’s his fourth cigarette of the day. Two before he even got to work and one at lunch before his break was cut short by the sudden, rapid influx of patients. It’s a disgusting habit, but Izuku is—

— stressed. That’s all.

Everyone needs a routine, and this— his nighttime cigarette, smoked slowly by the singular window in his mom’s living room— it’s the first chance he gets to breathe in a day.

The burn is familiar. Comforting, even. It puts him to sleep.

Ah, well. At least he gets the day off tomorrow.

Izuku made a mental list. Buy barrier cream, borrow needle and thread, soup kitchen. Barrier cream, needle and thread, soup kitchen. Barrier cream, needle and thread, soup kitchen…

In the dead of night, with a cigarette dying between his lips, Izuku’s exhaustion gets overcome with something else.

Being gay in Japan is—

Well, it’s lonely. It’s isolating. And Mom hadn’t reacted well when Izuku first told her years ago, and that put a sour taste in his mouth.

But Izuku didn’t need a relationship. He was fine. He had his mom and his job. That was enough. More than enough, truly, he should be grateful. And he was grateful, truly. Most quirkless had no family and no job. At 25, Izuku had already lived beyond his expiration date, the life expectancy for quirkless people still solidly at 17-and-a-half. It’s a miracle he’s still breathing.

Izuku didn’t need a relationship. But it would be nice to have a friend. Just one, just one friend to confide in about how fucking tired he is.

Ah, well, Izuku thought, putting out the cigarette once it had burned down so far it couldn’t even reach from his mouth to his lips anymore. Maybe he’ll get to sleep tonight.

Doubtful, but Izuku can hope.

—

Soup day comes with bright sun and cold wind. It’s the best day of the week, even though it’s a Tuesday, because Izuku gets to eat something warm that he doesn’t have to pay for.

It took him years to work up the nerve to even get in line, so convinced that other people had it worse than him and he’d be stealing food out of the mouths of the less fortunate if he joined the line. It took him passing out from hunger on his bathroom floor— three times— for Izuku to realize that he, himself, is the less fortunate.

Mom needs him at his best. His patients need him at his best. He quite literally can’t afford to lose his job, because no one else would ever hire him. Being constantly on the verge of eviction is close enough to homeless, right?

Still, Izuku only ever takes half a bowl of soup. No more. He won’t be selfish.

The line moved slowly, but it always did. Oden, Izuku can smell it, the comforting warmth reaching his nose even from meters away. It’s rare that the soup has any substance to it. Someone must have donated a bag of radishes or something.

Izuku looked up.

And the face that greeted him was… familiar.

“Kacchan,” Izuku said aloud, eyes wide, too shocked to process that he definitely should not be calling a grown man that, least of all a pro hero.

Izuku doesn’t even know Bakugo Katsuki, not really. But—

“Deku?”

Katsuki looked… uncharacteristically off-kilter, in an apron and hair net. “What are you—?”

He cut himself off. Apparently, he remembered where he was. He’s serving at a soup kitchen for the homeless, and Izuku is…

…standing in line for soup for the homeless.

Izuku feels his face burn. He’s sure it’s red-hot, best case scenario it’s clammy and rose-pink, and there’s no word for how he feels right now, because—

Because he’s standing in line for soup for the homeless. And Kacchan, his childhood… friend… is serving him soup, at a soup kitchen for the homeless.

God.

Izuku can taste the morning’s cigarette in the back of his mouth, bitter and burning like his clothes used to be when Kacchan got a hold of him when they were kids.

Kacchan is the number fifteen pro hero, and Deku is standing in line for soup for the homeless.

“How are you?” Izuku asked, because he’s proud of his old friend— he is, complicated feelings aside, he’s proud that Katsuki achieved their— his— dream.

“…Good,” Katsuki replied, gruff as ever. He’s taller than Izuku remembered, and built like a tank, barely an ounce of him wasted on fat stores. He looks healthy.

Izuku…

Izuku knows what he looks like. He’s short like a woman, scrawny to the point of skeletal, with deep, dark eye bags and exhaustion literally rolling off of him in waves. He looks strung out. Gaunt. Like a—

Well, others would say Izuku looks like a failure. Most would finish that sentence with As expected.

Yeah, awkward isn’t the word.

“Good,” Izuku replied, forcing himself to remember how to talk to someone who talks back. Be normal. Be normal. “I haven’t seen you here before.”

God, what a stupid line. It’s fine, Izuku told himself, setting down his bowl. You’re making conversation. That’s a normal thing to say.

“…Image rehab,” Katsuki grumbled. “Agency says I got an attitude problem.”

“Oh.” Izuku didn’t know what to say to that. He was holding up the line, he knew, but the lady behind him was mumbling something about a divine flame and her son resurrecting from the dead with a new face, so Izuku figured he had time.

He was being nice. That’s it.

Izuku tried for a smile, and hoped he didn’t look deranged. “I saw you on TV yesterday. That was an amazing rescue. We got a lot of those people in at the hospital. Made for a busy shift, but glad we could help them, too.”

“You work in a hospital?” Katsuki looks surprised by that, but maybe a little hopeful, too. Maybe Izuku is reading too far into it, but Katsuki almost sounds relieved.

Izuku nodded. “Tokyo General,” he replied. “Not the ED, so you wouldn’t see me.”

“…Right.”

Izuku was suddenly aware of how rude he was being, holding up the line like this. It’s not like—

Well, Kacchan was his friend. Deku wasn’t Kacchan’s friend.

Slowly, Katsuki ladled soup into Izuku’s bowl. He handed it back, his gloved hands— the same hands that are permanently scarred into Izuku’s skin— hesitating before setting it down on the counter.

Something burned in the pit of Izuku’s stomach.

Izuku turned to leave.

Stop. You’re not a coward. Slowly, he turned back. “Hey,” Izuku said. “Do you want to get tea sometime?”

Kacchan paused. A million emotions flickered in his eyes and Izuku could read every one. Katsuki hesitated, turning a fraction of a degree away.

God, he’s going to say no.

“Let’s get tea sometime,” Izuku asserted instead.

“Tch,” Kacchan scoffed instinctively, immediately going on the defensive. “Sure, whatever. If you insist.”

Izuku smiled. He still looked gaunt, and old, but Katsuki recognized something of Deku in that smile. “Great,” Izuku said tiredly. “It’s a date.“