Chapter Text
i.
Izuku climbs the stairs, footsteps silent in the dark. He pulls the blanket he’s draped over his shoulders and the crown of his head ever tighter, as though it will pull the broken pieces of him back into place. It doesn’t work. It never does. Some nights are just like this; something in his head screams and screams until he thinks he may go deaf from the noise echoing in his brain.
Sometimes he thinks he’s broken irreparably.
Sometimes he wants someone to see it.
But then he thinks of the way his mother would cry if she knew how empty Izuku was, if she knew how sometimes he just wanted to stop existing — she’d cry; she’d blame herself, if Izuku burdened her with that. Izuku already gave her so much to bare. He couldn’t put another burden on her shoulders. No, no one could know — the less people knew, the better. No one would have to carry that burden. His mother couldn’t find out if no one ever knew.
So Izuku only builds his walls higher, smiles wider to hide the cracks in his mask.
He opens the door to the roof. The breeze up here is always stronger, his blanket drifts behind him and Izuku thinks of all the times he pinned blankets to his shoulders as a child and pretended to be a hero. Now he was training to be one for real. Sometimes it felt like he didn’t deserve it. More often than not, it felt like a strange dream, or a prank. It didn’t feel real. Sometimes Izuku didn’t feel real.
He draws in a deep breath, and tilts his head up to the stars. Sometimes he wants to fly. Sometimes he wants to fall. He glances over to the railing — does he dare to look down? Does he dare tempt himself, to let himself imagine the feeling of the wind in his hair as he plummets down to freedom, to the bliss of nonexistence?
Unthinkingly, he steps forward, entranced. He hears the sound of the door opening — still, he continues forward until he can curl his free hand on the railing. He looks down at the ground, imagines it growing closer and closer and closer — he looks back up at the stars, imagines reaching out to hold that light in his hand. He wonders if that light could fill the hole in his chest.
“Problem child.” Aizawa’s voice cuts through Izuku’s thoughts abruptly. “What are you doing out here at three in the morning?”
Izuku turns back to look at his teacher with that fake smile plastered on his face. He’s such a liar. He always lies. “I couldn’t sleep. I wanted to look at the stars. It relaxes me.”
Aizawa squints at him, and Izuku wonders if his teacher has seen through his act, but then Aizawa speaks again. “You know you’re not supposed to be out here without supervision or after curfew. Go back to bed.”
Something his chest aches. Izuku feels invisible for some reason.
But he doesn’t protest.
He only apologizes, and lets Aizawa guide him back to his dorm. He doesn’t sleep that night. He simply stares at the wall, and waits for the screaming in his brain to stop.
Silence never comes.
———
ii.
It’s not going to be a good day. Some days are just like this, and Izuku’s learned to simply grin and bear it. Izuku’s hands and arms hurt, a deep ache — and yet, the pain is not the source of the way his hands shake. No, that can be attributed to the weight that’s settled in his chest, weighing his body down until he feels slow — it can be attributed to the buzzing in his head, threatening to sweep him away despite how heavy his body feels.
Izuku turns on the faucet in his bathroom, turning the hot water up until it’s nearly scalding. He places his hands under the stream of water. It soothes the ache in a way. It also burns. He did it to himself though. He shattered himself into pieces in the most literal way. He doesn’t know why it feels so soothing to pretend he’s melting his gnarled hands and washing them away, but in a way, it almost feels like penance.
He wouldn’t have had to resort to such measures if he’d simply learned how to use his quirk.
He draws in a shuddering breath, and tears start to fall. His chest hurts. It’s so hard to breathe. He’s so tired. He’s so tired. He thinks of the roof, the stars, the wind, and imagines a world where he’s allowed to just let go. It’s not hard to picture. If he hadn’t had a quirk now, no one would want to stop him. He knows he owes everything to All Might, to the quirk he was gifted.
It’s hard to draw in another breath. Izuku feels like he’s breaking down —
A knock sounds on his door.
“Hey, Deku-kun!” Uraraka’s voice is bright, cheery. Izuku still cringes at the name. Sometimes he wishes he hadn’t chosen it. “Breakfast is ready; are you coming down?”
Izuku’s stomach rolls at the thought of food. He doesn’t want it. Still, he plasters a shaky smile on his face, a not so convincing one, and calls through the door, voice shaky. He still feels like he can’t breathe. “I’ll be down in a few minutes! I’m not quite ready!”
“Okay, I’ll see you then!”
He thinks he’s breaking.
He doesn’t have time to break.
He turns the water to cold, and pats his face until the red blotchiness is gone. Then he readjusts his clothes until they’re all in place and brushes his hair, and goes down to breakfast. If anyone notices the way he picks at his food but only takes two bites, if anyone notices the way his hands shake or the way he moves like he’s swimming through molasses — well, no one says a thing.
Izuku feels invisible still.
But he says nothing.
———
iii.
Kacchan’s angry again, and Izuku? Izuku is tired despite the fact that the rage isn’t directed at him for once. It still feels just like middle school all over again. Kacchan yells and flashes his quirk around, and everyone says, ‘Well, that’s just Bakugou for you!’ as though Izuku can’t remember all the times that quirk was turned on him, burning, agonizing, a pain he can never forget — he wants it gone; he wants to forget.
That’s the biggest problem Izuku has in the dorms. There’s no way to find something, anything that can make him forget. Nothing that takes away the pain in his chest.
Izuku bites his tongue. He wants to say something. He wants to whisper to Todoroki in the dark that he knows a thing or two about being burned too; you’re not alone. He wants to cry on Uraraka’s shoulder as he tells her all the ways he was hurt. He wants to be held by Iida or Tsuyu and he wants someone to understand. But he doesn’t think anyone would believe him. No one ever believed him before, or even worse, they didn’t care. Izuku doesn’t think he could bare it if he said something, only to find out that no one cared — but even if he did say something, if they cared, they would only care because he had a quirk.
And then — well, then Izuku would look weak. Izuku doesn’t ever want to be seen as weak again. He can never forget the way they all thought him as fragile as glass — torn between smothering him, refusing to allow him to do the simplest of task, and trying to shatter him like the useless glass doll he was. Izuku feels like he could choke to death on these memories.
His mouth tastes like blood.
Uraraka smiles at him, and Izuku ignores the way he wants to scream, and smiles back.
“I need to grab something from my dorm. I’ll meet you back here?” Izuku says, smile wavering slightly.
Uraraka nods, and tells him she’ll save him a spot in the common room.
Izuku rushes upstairs to his dorm, and falls onto his bed, burying his face into his pillow. He imagines screaming into it, but he only cries until his head aches and his chest burns from the way his breath came out too fast. He lays there until the sky grows dark.
No one ever comes to get him.
Izuku feels alone.
He closes his eyes and hopes for sleep to come.
It never does.
Izuku misses the roof.