Work Text:
Waking up is different . Izuku is. He isn’t. And then he becomes.
In short, Midoriya Izuku dies. You live only once. The difference is, he wakes up.
He is only eleven.
He sees nothing at first, until the dark room filters into focus, the damp scent giving away how far underground he is. He’s not sure why he can smell at all. Midoriya Izuku is awake. Midoriya Izuku is still dead. He does not remember how, or where, or when.
It does not change that this is some place he has never been to before. A little girl, younger than even him, stares at him across the room with terrified purple eyes, glowing and unblinking.
“Hi,” is pulled from his mouth, word spilling out without his conscious input. “I’m here to help you.”
The girl grasps his outstretched hand, and Izuku leads the girl back above ground until the light shines through the worn down windows of an abandoned building. Until the light illuminates him for a moment–and there is no shadow. Leading the girl out the building, to the police and heroes, no one acknowledges him, eyes looking right through him as they rip the girl’s hand from his grasp. He lets go, feeling oddly content and detached as he finishes what he had set out to do, delivering her to safety.
At first, Izuku wanders aimlessly through the world, disconnected, unplugged. He watches the time pass around him through what feels like a TV screen. He is an observer, an outsider, which only becomes more obvious as hunger never returns and exhaustion never comes. His own awareness and existence might be called into question if not for the intensity of the emotions sitting in chest, clogging the arteries he no longer has.
Sometimes, he is pulled out of his detachment, and the world snaps back into focus, like black and white movie suddenly wrought into vivid color. A string yanks at his heart, pulling him in a particular direction unless the pressure gives him no choice but to follow. Made into an entity of almost pure emotion, he’s initially terrified. But the tugging leads him to a family of twelve, and he saves them from a villain attack. A sense of purpose begins to filter in. Clarity.
Izuku believes in helping people, in the hands of heroes. The power of belief is not to be underestimated. So even in death, it’s not so far off that he continues to reach out. That he continues to try. He has never been good at giving up, never been good at doing what the world expects or wants from him.
The water calls to him sometimes, gentle and rippling. Come home, my child. You have earned your rest. Won’t you lie with me? Izuku understands what the water means, the way exhaustion used to beckon him into the arms of darkness. But he has a purpose now. There are still more people to help. More people who need someone, and Izuku can be someone.
He watches the water below, dangling his legs above the lake. A man approaches–distinct because of the gear, the scarf piled on his shoulders, but Izuku doesn’t recognize him immediately.
“Hey, kid,” a voice calls out softly, and the man is careful and cautious as he crouches down. Izuku blinks up at him, a little intrigued. The detachment makes it hard to focus in, to be fully present, but the man sticks out. Painted in impressionist pastels instead of hyper-realistic color that signals emergency. “Can I sit here?”
Izuku nods, lost in the gentleness of his presence, there but unobtrusive. Drifting is not punishing, at this moment. Merely soft. The man speaks up again, “It’s really late; are you lost?”
A small smile makes its way onto his face. This man must be a hero; someone who would have been important to him, maybe. Izuku softens even further, body curled small because he is safe .
“Not in the way you think,” he says quietly. His eyes, pale green, pupils filled with white, meet the man’s eyes unflinchingly. Trusting in a way that this stranger does not understand yet.
The man asks, “Can I have a name?“
And Izuku chooses to trust again as he smiles brightly. “My friend calls me Deku! Do you want to be my friend, too?”
There is a pause–Izuku isn’t present enough to have the extra energy to wonder what it means before the man responds, “Sure, kid. My name is Aizawa Shouta, pro hero Eraserhead.”
Recognition strikes him like lightning, and Izuku is giddy at the realization. “ ERASERHEAD ?!” he squeaks. “Oh my gosh, oh my gosh, this is so cool.” He understands, perhaps, why this man might be shaded in soft colors. Izuku has faint memories of awe and gratefulness at discovering a hero who is known for more than his quirk if he is known at all. Little reminders of goodness, of how to be human without the superpowers.
“You know who I am?” The confusion is spelled out on Eraserhead’s face.
“Well, duh!” Izuku giggles, unable to stop himself from flapping his hands excitedly. “You’re- You’re Eraserhead!” Attention wandering, he mumbles to himself in joy, “Oh my gosh, Eraserhead is my friend.”
“Do you have a place you can go, kiddo?”
Izuku shakes his head no, as his legs swing back and forth, perking up with new energy. He looks down at his hands, relaxing again. His smile is lethargic as he tries to ground himself, but nonetheless, gentle and unbothered. “But it’s okay. I don’t need to go anywhere. I don’t need much of anything, anymore.” His focus is swept away again, and his fingers curl idly as he switches topics, eyes distant and smile absent. “Oh! Can I tell you something special, since you’re my friend?”
Eraserhead swallows before replying. “Of course.” His eyes are dark with some untold emotion. Creeping dread, perhaps. Something with weight.
Izuku giggles again, eyes crinkling this time as he successfully remembers the day. Time passes strangely, fluctuating between molasses slow and whip fast, so it’s a victory anytime he can remember when and where he is. “Today would have been my sixteenth birthday.”
Eraserhead takes on a careful tone as he asks, “Would have?”
His faith is being proven correctly. Eraserhead is every inch the hero that past Izuku wished was out there, the one he is glad is still out there. There’s a pang in his chest, when he thinks about how he had to die before meeting him. “Well.” Izuku’s voice is serious. “It’s not much of a birthday if I can’t celebrate it with someone.”
“That sounds difficult,” Eraserhead empathizes quietly. “I’m sorry you don’t have anyone with you today.”
Izuku is only more glad. Happy to have met him–smiling as birthdays still mean something, in a way. “But you’re here! This can be, hmm, like a two person party!” He kicks his feet excitedly, “I’m happy to have met you, Mr. Eraserhead Aizawa.” He lets himself indulge in this childish delight, crumpling the hem of his own shirt as he grasps it in his enthusiasm. He forgets sometimes, that his soul doesn’t truly age, can’t , even if he’s tricked himself into feeling older.
There’s a moment of silence, suspended in the air, as they both turn to watch the lake, still and peaceful. “Deku.” Eraserhead pauses, the silence suddenly heavy . “Are you… safe? Do you have somewhere to stay?”
Izuku blinks in surprise. “Oh! You don’t need to worry, I’m okay!” His attention starts being pulled elsewhere, already as scattered as it is. There is something yanking at his chest. “Sorry for keeping you, Mr. Eraserhead Aizawa, but I think I have to go now.”
“Here, if you ever need anything.” Eraserhead takes out a slip of paper, writing his phone number on it before holding it out to Izuku.
Izuku blinks in surprise again, trying to stay present, even as he is pulled away. He takes it carefully, with both hands.
“And happy birthday, kid.”
A wobbly smile makes its way onto his face as he clutches the paper to his chest before walking away. Izuku starts to follow the tug attached to his heart, wondering about the meaning of this meeting.
Eraserhead does not need Izuku’s help. But he still saw Izuku somehow. He sticks out, vividly, too. Not quite in the shades of urgency that the tug in his chest causes, but he is a hero, and Izuku still believes. Maybe it is his faith that generates these impressions.
Izuku is not blind to what he had looked like. At four thirty am in the morning, alone at the edge of a lake, Izuku had probably looked like the beginning of tragedy. Or perhaps, the tail end of it, all too young and too lonely.
Eraserhead becomes Aizawa somewhere along the way as Izuku watches U.A. in his spare time, remembering his dreams and watching how the students grow.
He gets used to hearing Aizawa-Sensei, the chatter of students, and further evidence on the goodness of people. In helpful students, but also patient teachers.
Yamada, and Kayama, and Yagi, and more. He’s not naive enough to believe in perfect people and perfect heroes and perfect pillars. Izuku has never asked for that.
He’s only ever put faith in good people. In enduring. In living because you must and choosing good out of all the options out there.
Maybe this is why he is looking at the slip of paper in his hand. The numbers scrawled across it ground him in the present, standing out in their urgency and demanding his attention.
The tug in his heart had brought him to a little girl, Eri. And it wasn’t as easy as leading her away from someone, or out of a building. He couldn’t get her out.
And between helping people and his own uncertainty, there is no question. No room for hesitance. Eyeing the setting sun, he wanders into a store already closed for the day to borrow the phone, passing through the door.
Wondering if it’ll even work, he reaches for the phone on the counter, surprised as his hand makes contact. Carefully, dialing the number on the slip of paper, he’s even more shocked as the call is picked up after the second ring.
A gruff voice says, “Aizawa speaking. Who is this?”
Izuku knows his request is going to be a tall order for such a cautious man, but Aizawa believes in his kids and Izuku would really, really like to be counted in their numbers. “Um…hi. It’s…it’s Deku!”
“I’m glad to hear your voice, kid. Is something wrong? Are you alright?”
Izuku smiles at the concern, before he remembers why he called, and his smile drops off his face. “I was wondering if we could meet tonight. At the lake, again.”
Continuously, Aizawa surprises him. “When? Are you safe right now?” is all he asks, voice determined and unwavering.
“In…45 minutes. As soon as it gets dark. I’m okay, Eraserhead.”
“Okay, kid. You stay that way.” Aizawa doesn’t push, just asks for him. Him! To be safe.
Izuku goes to hang up, but can’t help but add, “Aizawa?”
“Yes, Deku?”
“Thank you for believing me.”
Izuku wants to greet Aizawa properly, say his hello’s, but the pressure is building in his chest—not from the tug this time, but from his own grief.
For his dreams—caught in some kind of limbo as he tries his best to save people, doing more than he ever did alive. But still. Still he wishes, wishes he had had the time to try.
He didn’t even get to take the entrance exam for U.A.
Izuku blurts out quietly, “I used to want to be a hero. I wanted it more than anything else.”
“What kind of hero do you want to be?” Aizawa asks after a pause, processing his comment. The present tense is intentional, but Izuku cannot bring himself to invest fully in it. The question itself, though, is easy to answer.
Izuku has never been so sure. “I wanted to be someone my six year old self would have felt safe with.”
Izuku remembers heroics as magic. He remembers swallowing stories by the mouthful, until he started creating his own out of analysis. A loom strung between his fingers as he wove threads together into tapestry, drawing hero gear and writing strengths and weaknesses down as if they were puzzle pieces. He turns analysis into more than mere intelligence, writing about heroes as pure hope, as dreams.
He is waxing poetic, a little, about what heroes mean to him. About what it means to put your hope and faith in people.
So maybe—just maybe, he should.
Aizawa is gentle but firm as he asks, “Why did you want to talk to me?”
He cups a little girl’s life in his hands, staring up at Aizawa, and begins telling the story of a little red-eyed girl with a unicorn horn. With a quirk out of storybooks. With a lot of strength. A lot of bravery.
A girl who doesn’t need a perfect hero, or pillar of society, or perfection at all. Doesn’t need someone who has it all together or all figured out.
A girl who just needs someone to care. A girl who needs a little hope, and most of all, good people.
Not great.
Just good. That would be plenty.
“If you could be any animal, what would you be?”
“A firefly.”
Eri’s eyes are wide and curious. “Why? Aren’t they small?”
“You don’t need to be big enough to light up the entire night sky. Sometimes, you just need to show people a hint of hope in darkness.
Sometimes, you just have to believe that you can turn yourself into light.”