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“Young Midoriya?”Izuku is in a car. From the way the sun peeks across lines of city buildings, beginning a slow descent, he can tell that it’s evening and that soon, lights will flicker on in the streets and the people passing by will become less of a mad rush to get home and more of a thrum of nightlife.The outline of people push past, the car still very much stationary. There’s a voice, urging him to attention with his name.He looks to the side, and in the driver’s seat is All Might, in his larger, more brash form that the world loves, knows and counts on. A form seen much more rarely these days, but there it is, and unlike the fair hint of strain that Midoriya is used to seeing in this form, somewhat masked by Toshinori’s ever present smile, it seems effortless. All Might seems younger. He seems happier, lighter.There’s a modicum of regret in his eyes, and Izuku couldn’t miss it even if he tried.“Young Midoriya, it feels as if I’ve got so much to say, and so little time to say it,” Toshinori hesitates as Izuku watches him. He heaves a small sigh, prompting Midoriya to look ahead to where the sun had already set and gone from view.Darkness surrounds the car. There are a few street lamps, flickering into existence and burning bright, and shadows of people move past the vehicle.Toshinori hums.“Are you ready?”“For what?” Izuku responds, voice small and tight in his chest for a reason he can’t quite remember.“The future,” He hears Toshi say, and his voice sounds pained. He starts up the engine as Izuku’s lips part to speak, and the roar of the car coming to life drowns out whatever he manages to say.The car jolts forward.A pause spans between them that seems like it lasts an eternity, and a steadily building panic is becoming increasingly evident in Izuku’s chest the longer it continues. Toshinori’s words echo in his head, louder and louder. One part lingers, and makes his stomach clench sickeningly: ‘So little time’.He glances to the side mirror, sees himself reflected back and there are tears on his cheeks; his hands are small, his face is babyish. He’s wearing his All Might suit back from when he was a kid. He’s about to ask why - he wants to know why he can’t remember where he was last, and more importantly, why he’s here now, but Toshinori speaks again and this time, when Izuku looks over to him, he’s thinner and weaker than before. His large form had shrunk back to what Izuku remembered seeing last.And where had he seen it last?“Izuku,” Toshinori sighs once more, and there’s an ache that laces his tone. “Thank you. For letting me be a part of your future, and for allowing me to witness the strong, patient and kind hero you’ve become.”The retired hero has a small chuckle to himself, interrupting Izuku as he goes to speak. “I remember when you were only fourteen. Even then, you showed so much promise and potential. You wanted to be a hero so desperately, and I wanted to see you become who you wanted to be.”Izuku frowns, wincing as the lights beside the car, that were once street lamps, got brighter, shining into his eyes. He lifts his hand to his head, and finds them gloved with his fourteen year old hero costume. In the reflection he sees past Toshinori of himself in the window of the driver’s side, he can see his younger self staring back.The frown deepens. “I only…I wanted to make you proud so badly. I want to make you proud,”“And you’ve succeeded ten times over. Now,” Toshinori pauses. “I think it’s time to rest. For me, at least.“What?” Izuku can feel fear, like bile, rise at the back of his throat. “What are you talking about?”His mind is starting to piece together droplets of memory. Though as he does, that previous panic from before is welling up like a monster that threatens to swallow him in its maw, teeth razor sharp with realisation. Midoriya feels it snap shut. No. No, no, no! This couldn’t be their last moment. There had to be something missing here, some way for them to have extra time.This wasn’t real.The outside of the car had become so bright that nothing but white spanned for miles and it shone into his eyes, becoming blinding. It hurt.A hot wetness spilled down his cheeks before he could stop them.Toshinori’s voice is soothing, he sounds as regretful as he did before. “You've fought so well. I’m so proud of you. The one thing I thought I could never have, you have given me. Did you know that, Young Midoriya? I never thought I could have a family. I never had time. I put the needs of others above my own, and in doing so, I thought I had lost the opportunity. For so long, I felt as if I were trying to prove to the living that I am still here, haunting my own existence. In so many ways, you’ve proved me wrong, and given me that reason to stay, longer than I ever thought possible.”Izuku is sobbing now, and his hand reaches out to grab All Might’s wrist, and Toshinori lets him. He places a hand over his, reassuringly.“Please! No, don’t go, I haven’t-....I haven’t had enough time,” Midoriya chokes, and Toshinori lets out a small huff of breath.“It’s selfish, I know,” He hums. “But I can’t stay any longer, and our time here is almost over. It is time to wake up, Izuku. I know you can do this.”He goes to protest that fact - he wants to say, ‘no, everything I’ve ever done was with your guidance and without it, I’m scared to be lost, I’m scared to be without you, I’m scared ’, but nothing comes out, as if his throat is closed.Midoriya can’t speak, and as he struggles to stop the tears, Toshinori looks forward out of the car’s front window. He looks old, tired, but almost peaceful this time - as if the very thing weighing him down were the things he’d been unable to say. The things he hadn’t said in time.Whiteness threatens to encompass him completely, completely hiding him to the fading away image of All Might’s last smile.“Are you ready?” He hears him ask one last time.That’s when he wakes up.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
His bed sheet is stuck to his front, and his body is heaving as he struggles to breathe through the tears that are still present even in the realm of the living, the realm of the awake. He knows what day it is already from the All Might calendar in the corner of his room that reads June 10th, almost a year since Toshinori Yagi’s death.There’s a stirring beside him - well, he says stirring, but Bakugou wakes like Athena from Zeus’ head, alert and ready to fight off whatever ails Midoriya. Though, he still seems somewhat groggy and he allows himself to seem grumpy when he realises that there’s nothing there for him to fight off.He grunts. “Another nightmare?”Midoriya nods quickly, trying to wipe away the remnants of his sorrow with the back of his hand to no avail.He and Kaachan had been sharing a bed for a long time now, starting towards the tail end of their second year. They’re well into their third year now and very little has changed, bar the trauma of All Might’s passing.It was hard on everyone.It was especially hard on Bakugou, who, despite his previous shortcomings when it came to expressing himself emotionally, had been right by Midoriya’s side from the beginning, even when he himself had spent many days in a dazed stupor and became verbally prickly to anyone who spoke to him. Izuku knew him well enough to know Bakugou speak, and knew well that ‘fuck off’ had a million different meanings depending on context.Izuku knew that Kaachan had needed him to lean on just as much as Izuku had desperately looked to him for comfort, and a lot of their interaction during that first year had been almost completely unspoken.When Izuku had felt the heavy burden of grief weighing him down to the floor, when he’d become almost sullen and quiet, Bakugou was right there to rub his shoulders and to bark out some kind of strangely re-assuring comment and though Izuku was more than comfortable with outright telling his boyfriend that he appreciated it, he hadn’t needed to. Bakugou knew.Though the nightmares were almost constant following Toshinori’s absence, he knew he wasn’t alone.He’d woken up to his fair share of a quiet Kaachan, sat on the edge of the bed, his shoulders trembling. Katsuki would very rarely say upfront that he needed support, and would still, even now, shake off whatever help was readily given in favour of keeping it bottled up, but sometimes, there were rare moments where both of them were in tandem with each other and nothing needed to be said. They were simply existing around each other, and Kaachan’s presence alone gave him some semblance of strength.That led them to this nightmare.It felt like the hundredth nightmare Izuku had had and they never seemed to get easier, always following the same line, always happening more frequently the closer it got to All Might’s birthday.Bakugou stayed still like that for a few moments, allowing Izuku to cry as his hand found the small of his back and remained there to ground him. God, Midoriya was so thankful to not wake up alone, to have him there.When he felt like Izuku had slowed in his sobbing, he spoke up and broke the quiet between them.“You can’t keep doing this, Deku,” He starts with, and his eyes narrow. “It’s making you worse. You’ve gotta get rid of his shit.”Izuku shakes his head, shorter green bangs twisting around his head wildly as he does. “I...I can’t,” He responds with a hitch in his voice. “They’re mine now, and I never-....I didn’t think he’d leave them to me. I-...I want to keep them,”They’ve had this conversation a million times over.In the corner is a box, All Might’s clothes wrapped in bags and sealed air tight to retain his smell. Izuku remembers the first week, where he’d laid them all out on the bed, and rather than sort through them as he’d promised everyone, he had ended up lying in them. He’d grabbed fistfuls of fabric and brought them up to his nose and thought of his last hug with All Might. He’d thought of his childhood, waiting at the door for a man that would never come home, and then of the void that that’d left, somewhat filled unexpectedly by the retired hero.Iida had found him like that, crying in the dark. His best friend had been more than sympathetic, a flurry of hand gestures and loud words that eventually made Izuku emit a watery laugh.This conversation between them had started only a few months ago, when Bakugou caught Izuku staring more than once at that box, as if he were scared of its contents, as if a huge part of his heart rested in that one small container, shattered irreparably.Even now, Izuku looked to that box and couldn’t help the hiccup of a sob that left his throat.Bakugou shakes his head, voice firm. “It’s making you feel bad. I’m not saying you should fucking burn it or something, I’m saying we should put it away somewhere. Sort it and put it away.”“You don’t get it,” Izuku shakes. “It’s all I have, it’s all I have left,”“You’ve got me,” Bakugou offers back, after a brisk pause, voice sounding somewhat gruff even if there’s no malice or hurt there. It’s an attempt at comfort.Midoriya stops, truly considering his boyfriend’s words, a weak laugh leaving him. “I know, Kaachan.” He breathes out, one long exhale. “I know,”His hand reaches down, finding Bakugou’s on the bed and squeezing it. Bakugou doesn’t remove his hand. He even squeezes back.It gives Izuku a small burst of strength. Enough so that he lies back down, on his back, and Bakugou follows, resting an arm over his chest, pressing his nose against his ear.They stay in a comfortable quiet for a little while, neither of them sleeping. His head is buzzing with thoughts, and after a while, he starts to hear Bakugou softly snoring and relaxes enough in his arms that he falls back to sleep.His dreams are empty, and he wakes to find Bakugou gone. ---- When Bakugou returns, it’s with Iida and Ochako in tow, both of them giving Izuku that deeply sympathetic expression, their eyes lined hard with worry.Izuku can tell immediately that Bakugou has let them know what he wants to do, and it looks as if Iida has protested already.Iida clears his throat. “I still don’t think we should be pushing Midoriya into something this difficult without his absolute consent first. Grieving isn’t easy, and this could potentially make everything worse,”Well, Iida is still protesting, Izuku corrects himself.He offers his friend a small smile, hoping it didn’t come across as weary and slightly scared as he was feeling right then. He feels small. “It’s ok, Iida. I’m ok.” He says, swinging his legs over the side of the bed. “I’ve been avoiding taking even baby steps, and I feel…I feel ready to try, at least,”Iida presses his lips into a thin line, unsure if he truly believes Izuku.Ochako moves herself to his side, placing a hand on his shoulder and, rubbing her thumb in small circles there, gives him a genuinely warm smile. “We’re going to do this with you. You’re not alone.”“Everyone keeps saying that,” Izuku laughs, a small sound that catches in his throat.Bakugou folds his arms across his chest. “It’s because it’s true, you dumbass.”A genuine laugh falls from his lips now as he considers Bakugou’s less than delicate way of approaching things.Maybe Iida and Ochako were sympathetic because they knew that Midoriya had lost a hero he’d looked up to, and a man who’d he’d worked closely with during his hero training. A mentor, gone. It must have looked so desperately sad to them.But Bakugou knew.He knew that it was far more than that; that the loss spanned further than most people were aware of and hurt Deku deeper than he’d let on. Maybe Bakugou couldn’t ever truly understand through his own pain the grief that losing someone closer to a father figure was whilst his was still alive, but he tried, and he himself had his own loss to deal with.Midoriya appreciated every second that his boyfriend tried, and wanted to repay him for the way Bakugou pushed aside his own emotions to let Midoriya air his own.Bakugou picks up the box from the corner, places it carefully on the desk, places his hand atop the things in there and Izuku winces.For a split second, he considers backing out, leaving All Might’s things to collect dust in the corner, a forever ghost in Izuku’s wardrobe. That felt comfortable to him now. The sadness felt akin to his hero costume, something he could wear like old clothes under new and couldn’t be removed or changed.Katsuki senses the hesitation and picks up a wrapped up item, tosses it to Izuku, who catches it easily.He looks down at his hands where he clutched, tightly, a clear bag containing a photo frame of their time in America, smiles wide and unmoving, frozen in time. There’s another photo inside of Izuku with his mother, and he imagined that All Might had kept this on his desk to remind himself of a family he’d worked hard to earn the love of.He can feel the tears welling up. Instead of stopping, however, he places it to the side and takes a deep breath, nodding to Bakugou, who had waited silently whilst Midoriya reminisced just to make sure he was still ok with this.Comfortable in the knowledge now that Izuku wasn’t another impossible task, they continue to go through All Might’s things.There’s more tearful moments in doing so - especially as Izuku retells stories of Toshinori’s abject bravery, moving smile and the way he inspired hundreds to be better than they were, especially when Izuku retells moments where he’d turned to All Might for help, which was always readily given - but by sun down, they’ve pretty much gone over everything at least twice.It hurts Midoriya, seeing that All Might had so little in the way of worldly possessions. It felt as if the man had hoarded only things that truly made him happy, and Izuku recognised that he was a big part of that. That ached, and he held the box as he stood as if it weighed ten times more than it actually did.But it was done. As Iida took the box from his hands, moving to place it at the back of Izuku’s dorm room’s wardrobe, he felt all the weight of the box shift with the weight on his chest.He felt lighter. A genuine smile touched his lips, and he flashed it right at Bakugou, who’s expression remained unreadable to most, but Izuku knew what pride and relief looked like when it appeared on his boyfriend’s features.Midoriya watched as Iida and Ochako pressed forward out of the room, gesturing for him to follow, the mention of Sato’s cooking being thrown out there. He hadn’t realised he was hungry, and the company had never felt more welcome than right now.Before he left, however, he sidled up right next to Bakugou and linked his fingers with his - a thankful gesture.“Hey,” He started.“Hey.” Bakugou responds, eyelashes lowering. “You did good.”“You too, Kaachan,” Midoriya says to a brisk snort from Bakugou. “I couldn’t have done it without you.”“Obviously,” The blond responds, though there’s a hint of a smile twitching in the corners of his lips. “Maybe now you’ll have less nightmares and you can stop waking me up at four in the morning.” Izuku laughs, and Katsuki’s lips are definitely smiling now.Bakugou goes to pull him out of the room. “You ready?” Are you ready?
Izuku considers those words once more. He grins.“Yeah,” He says one last time as they leave together.