Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

He was dimly aware of the fact that he was acting like a schoolgirl fawning over her crush, but at the moment Shigaraki couldn’t care less. His feet thrashed above jersey gray bed sheets, kicking wildly at the air as he hugged a pillow to his chest, two fingers raised uncomfortably though it was nothing he wasn’t accustomed to.

Blood pounded at his chest, pulse rushing as adrenaline infiltrated his veins.

How was this possible? A revival had been spotted amongst such a tiny party, the green-haired boy’s eyes shutting not a moment after he’s lifted out of the grave. A goddamn grave. He must have been dead for a while, had the funeral and planning stretched that far.

Shigaraki hadn’t expected anyone at the cemetery, not really. To be fair, it was only 9PM or so at the time, but it was still rather close to closing hours and people usually tended to visit in the daylight.

When he’d visit, there were really never other beings in the vast stretch of land and stone. (Shigaraki would like to say he visited a lot.)

Yet for such a thing to happen on a day like this—on his traditional, must-come trip to visit the literal line of Shimuras. (If only for his siblings, for Izuku. Hana stopped mattering as much as soon as he realized she wouldn’t have been dead if she wasn’t so damn persistent on Izuku’s stats.) Shigaraki doesn’t know how much time had passed since then—he had given up counting just a few years after Izuku’s “14th birthday.”

Shigaraki had rewound after that, back to the way things should have been. Time will stop only for that boy who he had made such a stupid, empty promise with—

“We’ll be the best heroes ever, Tecchan!” With such a dangerous destructive quirk, and with no quirk at all.

“Yeah, ‘Zuku,” a boy once called Shimura Tenko gave a toothy smile, sans the left front tooth. He held a tight thumbs up, eyes shut as his smile reached for the sky. “You can count on it!”

—and now every year on July 15th, it’s Izuku’s 7th birthday. Every year on constant repeat. Die at seven, stay at seven. Simple and easy and ingrained in the life of Shigaraki Tomura.

Such would have been the continuous cycle for forever and onward, but after all these years…

Just a possibility it currently was. Just a maybe, but almost desperately, giddily, he clung to that hope.

It seems player two has logged back in.

Same location, same date, same first name—different last, he had checked on the boy’s abandoned plague after sending Kurogiri after the group of sobbing scatterbrains, but that didn’t matter much. Last names could change.

Last names could change.

Looks could, too, but apparently the boy hadn’t changed much even after puberty hit—rather, if that child was who he thought he was for certain.

This boy who looked identical to Izuku, a clone perhaps, held the same features. Same freckles, same unruly green. Though respectably, he was much paler than what served in Shigaraki’s memories of a boy with cherry red highlights atop healthy skin.

It was to be expected. He had apparently been dead, afterall.

And that only brought Shigaraki back around the continuous cycle circling in his head. Death was something common in life, something natural if not a bit saddening depending on exactly who has hit the hay.

Oh, but crawling back from the depths of hell was just too OP.

With these two eyes, Shigaraki had witnessed it. Something so fascinating, incredible.

And normally, the proposal that that teenage boy was indeed his dead little brother from well over three decades would seem absurd even to someone as crazy himself. But who’s to say anything when this type of thing transpires in front of him on such a wondrously splendid occasion?

After so many years of boredom, of nagging and stubborn loneliness, hope claws at his chest.

At the end of the day, he had nothing to lose. He had nothing to lose, but why shouldn’t he take what he can?

If it turns out that the child wasn’t his Izuku, nothing would be lost. Shigaraki just wanted to check, is all.

If “Aizawa-Yamada” Izuku really was a Shimura, his dear sun-kissed brother, Shigaraki would plaster a shiny new surname to the child’s forehead and retrieve him, spoil him with the years they had lost.

And if it turns out he wasn’t who he was looking for—well, Shigaraki would be lying if he said he wasn’t a little bit curious on whether the boy could revive a second time.

(Death was but a small price to pay for stealing such prominent looks of his Izuku, and Shigaraki was feeling quite merciful for just this to be passed.)

A knock on his door eventually spurred him from his thoughts. Shigaraki groaned, turning in bed with half the mind to shoo the intruder away before he could only assume who it was. His feet propelled him forward, legs shooting up before bringing themselves back down the mattress to carry his weight. The pillow rested on his lap languishly.

“Come in.”

And so they did, the door loudly creaking with how slow the mist man turned its hinges, hand resting on the knob as he greeted the man.

Shigaraki waved his hand in the air dismissively, leaning forward ever so slightly. “Well?” He urged eagerly. His hands twitched at the possibility, the impossibility of the situation.

“The furthest I could follow them was to the entrance of Musutafu General Hospital.” Kurogiri reports, yellow eyes giving an odd look to his young master. “Therefore, I do not know exactly where the boy will end up in the building. Do you want to retrieve the child, young master?”

Shigaraki grinned at the new information, the question at the end making his heart stutter as he briefly considers. Still, “No.” He scratched at his neck lightly before picking his gaze back up. “Not yet, anyway. Find out where he is soon and don’t lose him. It should be pretty easy to find him again, now that I know his name, but that’s too much work. Just keep an eye on the kid.”

He paused for a moment before adding, “Find out what you can on him and his family, Kurogiri. Any means necessary,” Shigaraki casts a knowing eye over the man before reaching over for one of his games on the bedside counter.

Kurogiri nods at the obvious sign of dismissal, but he stays in his place. Shigaraki lifts a brow.

“Shall we inform the Master of your interest in the boy?” Kurogiri asked, and although Shigaraki is aware of the fact that the mist man doesn’t know exactly why he’s shown a sudden liking to another being (other than the fact that the boy has risen from the dead, he can only assume is what Kurogiri thinks), he still shudders. 

Shigaraki is not stupid—or rather, not completely stupid depending on the situation. In the end, it was Nana’s fault that she died, that Izuku died. That still doesn’t change the fact that his Sensei was the one who struck the nail and ended his brother’s life.

And some part of him really, really hates his Sensei for that. Hates to the point of dreaming that the man falls victim to his quirk. But then he remembers that the man was the only reason he was here rather than with those heroes, that blonde boy with “no quirk” and the other with a lie detecting quirk.

He cannot remember clearly for something so long ago, but Shigaraki thinks he had trusted them. With what, the man isn’t sure. A secret? A promise?

His brother?

That must have been it, he thinks, because there’s a sudden pang in that villainous heart of us and all he could do was push those two to the back of his mind.

Shigaraki knew he would have ended up crawling back into their clutches eventually, had he not met Sensei after—oh yeah, killing a man who was oh so kindly asking some ten year old kid for his wallet.

He hadn’t realized that he was scratching loudly, lost in thought, before Kurogiri cleared his throat and said a levelled, “Young master.”

The scratching ceased, his hands still at the side of his throat. A long pause hung in the silence of the air before, “Nah, don’t. Not yet, at least, I’ll tell Sensei myself when I feel like it.”

Then Kurogiri nodded and the door clicked shut.

Not that Shigaraki ever wanted to tell his savior of such a situation, anyway. He didn’t feel like having his maybe-brother turned into one of those mindless fuckers.

(Again, if that Izuku truly was his.)

____________________

When the doors to consciousness opened, Izuku is blindly pushed through as he’s met with the sudden transition of heavy lids. Stubbornly, he forces them open.

Not a moment later, Izuku allows gravity to take over and close his eyes shut once again, quickly, for all he saw was a throbbing white. And maybe he would have heard the beeping of a nearby machine, if it weren’t for his tense focus on the sounds of a distant choir.

(Later he would realize that it was simply a community volunteer service singing for the terminally ill.)

His immediate response was an inward chuckle, kept in his mind as he allows the sluggishness of his brain to input the laugh as somewhat humorous with a side of hysteria.

The space he’s in felt empty, much like before. Only now, it doesn’t feel like a fever dream. Only now, he doesn’t have the confidence to open his eyes once again, to look around in wonder at split colors, feel those severed limbs and hear the impending voices of those demons people call angels.

Maybe it felt different simply because he could only see dulled white, beneath these closed lids, not the split of pitch black in between. Maybe it was the presence in the air, cold now, but not unlike the side of the dark, like the cries of the dead and their pleas.

Still, with nothing more to base off of, Izuku stubbornly stuck to his sluggish analysis of the situation.

And maybe death a third time has made him more his age, more careless and lazy, because his first thought is a simple, Oh, I didn’t escape.

Oh always seemed to be his first reaction to everything that doesn’t go his way these days.

“Oh,” was all he said when he came back to an empty apartment, no Inko in sight. Izuku knew she was dead, even at that tender age of not actually knowing what age he was. (Four or seven? Even now, Izuku isn’t completely sure what to classify himself as.) But she had left him, disappeared like the ghost she was right after he was finally starting to appreciate her new presence. (Still, he’s happy that she had found peace someway or another.)

“Oh,” he’d said at age seven after curiously searching up Tsukauchi Naomasa and rushing to said workplace. Happy and carefree, blithely looking forward to being reunited with a part of him that had passed. Only till he saw the man smiling—and dumb, stupid, naive Izuku blindly turned and walked off because why disrupt a man who looked perfectly fine without you?

“Oh,” he says not a year after that as he accidentally meets that man in an errand out with his father. “Oh,” when that man--his older brother— doesn’t recognize him even though he looked exactly the same, if not a little taller. (He should’ve considered the possibility of disbelief, but he didn’t. And the years went by.)

“Oh,” when Shinsou told him why he’d ran away from the orphanage, as the boy spoke to Shichi. After that, he gains a new brother. ( Hopefully this time, he didn’t lose that, he had thought.)

And how sad it was that he’d have to think that, because apparently he was cursed to lose everything he loved, everyone he loved. This time, he’d lost himself. (And what a treat, to categorize himself in a section called love.)

Now he skips ahead, for if he targeted any more, he’d be recalling all those times for hours upon hours.

“Oh,” when Kacchan tells him to take that swan dive off of a roof.

And a word he would have said the moment he stepped off of that roof, if it weren’t for the wind in his ears and the constricting of his chest. Oh.

Izuku was starting to hate that word, just a bit.

Oh, because he doesn’t wish to cry. Oh, because he is truly stuck, because he doesn’t exactly know what to say to comfort someone when he can’t even comfort himself. Oh, because what else could he say to cover an awkward silence to a sudden revelation?

But still, he knows he would use it again if life continued on, because it was all he could say without tearing at the seams.

So yeah. He didn’t escape the chummy grasps of the inbetween afterall.

And stupidly, with whatever thoughts he had jumbled in his already fucked brain, he pretends to stay in his slumber, as if doing so would keep the voices at bay however far they may be. Stupidly, he controls his breathing, as if doing so would make bodiless hands that were no longer there cease from pulling him under once again, embedding him to the ever-consuming ground.

Inhale.

Hold.

Release.

Repeat.

(And the steady monitor of a nearby machine fades back into a steady stream of quiet beeps that go unheard by the boy who remains zeroed in on that faint choir as he lays in an empty room.)

And somehow, somewhere in between he must have fallen asleep, because he dreams of that black and white, dreams of those two shades on either side of him as he sits on that fine line in between. On his left, the dark side, severed arms clutch to his own. This time, they are gentle. (For some reason, he knows such would not be the case for those who oppose him, solely him.)

This time, to him, they are a comfort. 

On his right, the light side, the choir sings. Unlike before, there is no edge to their heavenly notes. Same tempo, same rhythm, same instruments, same volume —but to Izuku, the song fills him with warmth.

The wordless tune tells him that he isn’t alone.

This time, he is not afraid.

This time, the two colors don’t grapple at each other, don’t dance dangerous tangos at the heart. Instead, the line between them is straight.

He sits upon it, in that dream.

He is that line.

He is the divider.

He is the inbetween.

When he awakens a second time, Izuku can only remember bits and pieces. His mind is hazy and his eyes remain shut. He remembers, still, what being at the center had told him.

Even if the world went against him, life and death were his allies. 

Life and death were his friends.

They, at least, would never betray him.

____________________

Izuku heard the beeping of the monitor this time. His heart still beats calmly even as he can feel the rush of thoughts flood through his head, visualizing possible situations he might have gotten himself into this time.

The room felt different this time around. Less empty.

He doesn’t dare move.

Had he gotten himself sucked into some time fuckery again? Back to the past, to the family of faces he couldn’t recall? Or to an unknown future? 

Maybe All For One was looming over him right now, waiting in silence for the moment he opened his eyes, like a predator patiently waiting for the right time to pounce its prey.

Regardless, he doesn’t move.

The room is cold again, unlike the dull warmth he remembers from his second visit to that unknown inside that brief dream. It’s cold, like the old tell of Tohru—like the ghosts—standing idly to the side.

That was clue #1; Izuku was not where he thought he was.

Izuku paused, thinking, but the train in his head is a real bitch when it strays from the tracks.

So he lays stills, feeling the rise and fall of his chest as he carefully monitors the action. Act natural, like a person who is truly lost in the land of dreams. Act natural, like a person who lives, a person not tempted by the false calm death apparently brought.

A few moments pass like this as Izuku fights his nerves, yelling at his fingers and toes not to twitch as an itch blossoms on his pant leg.

Then a weight shifts at his feet, and the sound of fabric rubbing on fabric is quiet. But it’s there. And Izuku tenses just the tiniest bit.

The weight breathes quietly, even breaths hitting a surface, the rhythm identical to what Izuku himself was impersonating.

Sleep.

And only now does he feel the soft tell of fabric over his toes. Only now does he realize that the weight at his feet has warmth even through that thin fabric—warmth that was similar but entirely different from the sly heat of those shadowy hands engulfed in the black of the black. The hands held a mischievous aura to them. This weight held nothing.

Clue #2. The information sinks in this time, but in Izuku’s haze, there is no click.

Not yet.

And he continues to wait in silence, lay in his head as that weight at his feet shifts in its exhaustion, tiny limbs wrapped around Izuku’s covered leg grasping.

For a moment, his mind suggests that he’s back in that place as the fingers latch on just a little bit tighter. They release. He is brought back to the color beneath his lids. He continues to lay, lost in the pattern of a beeping machine.

And just as he caught himself about to fall asleep, just as he had finished tugging at that last strand of consciousness, a squeaky creak echoes from his far right.

That persistent weight at his feet shifts.

Lifts.

There’s a closing click, back over there at that far right.

Footsteps—the sound is familiar, as his body automatically relaxes. But the relaxation is smoothly forced, purposeful with a sense of reluctance. A second pair follows the louder steps, quieter but not any less memorable.

(Briefly his brain recalls the dozens and dozens of times a black-claud vigilante sneaks into an unlatched bedroom window, slinking into bed just in time to hear the heavy footsteps of varying tired men pass through the hallway outside of his closed door. The days before he had found himself yet another brother, days where he’d come back to an empty room with only one bed. His mind pushes it away a moment more.)

A nasally groan, there at his feet.

Izuku’s eye twitches, tempted to take a quick peek. Of course, he doesn’t.

Not yet.

The footsteps close to a stop before two new presences are by his side. He feels his heart hint at an upcoming race—quickly, Izuku pushes it down.

It obeyed naturally.

A voice towers above him then, quiet and weak-willed. “Has he…?

Hitoshi, his mind processes as his ears prick at the sound. It beckons for him, repeating the name as the words float in an empty space in his head.

But that couldn’t be right, Izuku fires back. Because he’s supposed to be dead right now. Because he threw himself off of a building. Because he was stupid and threw himself off a building.

Because he’s been caught up in some time trouble again and All For One was supposed to be above him right now, face twisted in a smug smirk, eyes glistening with a hidden message that said, You see this? He’d motion to the lifeless form of Nana. The world around them would be hidden in the suffocating mist of grinded debri. You’re next.

And just on time, the shadow of an outline looms right beyond his eyelids, darker in contrast to the grey of a dulled white surrounding it.

“Not yet, Tosh,” and this voice is thick with layered exhaustion, raspy and tired and so, so sad, so quiet that it only brushes the drum of Izuku’s ears before retreating.

And it is left unheard.

Dad, his brain quietly supplied—but it’s too quiet this time, too late because the only sound in the room is the quickening pace of the annoying beeps to his side as his heart thrums loudly in his ears.

Because in this child’s drunken thoughts beneath the dark of his eyes, All For One is in this room with him and somehow, Shinsou had been sucked into his death-travel back in time and now they were totallygoingtodieatthehandsofbigguy—

And in the next moment, his aching body nearly folds itself as Izuku snaps himself up, head colliding with fucking All For One, he’s telling you— though his sight is covered with spiralling dots as the pain in his head doubles at the sudden change in lighting, so this delirious child cannot be taken seriously.

And his screams are cracking like they were in that dark, cramped space, voice blocked as he chokes on dry spit. 

His hand jerkily goes up to press against the throbbing of his forehead, adjusting eyes searching wildly before he’s met with purple.

Just purple.

Just purple, before the color looks up and he’s met with lavender irises staring straight back at him, their own hand to their own forehead.

Izuku blinks once, battle-cries dying on his tongue.

Shinsou blinks, dull eyes widening before a glint gathers at the corners, tugging. 

Their palms sit still on their foreheads.

And they just stare for a hot minute, Izuku sitting on the hard mattress in a daze, mind running to catch up with the actual reality of the situation.

And the world around him changed, because in the next second all he truly can see is purple. No black or white, or green or red.

Just purple.

Just purple as Shinsou leaps at him, hand going askew as it leaves a reddening forehead, shooting out so it can wrap around Izuku in a tight embrace. Just purple as he’s tackled backwards, upper body slanted as his brother crashes above him.

—and Izuku’s muscles ache with the blunt force of it, but everything aches at this point, so it doesn’t really matter.

“Ah, a-ah,” Shinsou chokes out, throat closing as tears finally fall from dried eyes after days of nothing but pent up frustration. “You…!”

But the older can make nothing else out of the word as he holds Izuku closer, burying his face in his brother’s shoulder as snot smeared the boy’s hospital gown.

 Izuku can only run after a fleeting conscience.

And shakily, almost fearfully, Izuku lifts a hand, hovering it over his brother’s hair before hesitantly bringing it down, letting it rest on the head.

Shinsou cried harder.

“Me,” Izuku echoes, voice small in volume as he looks down at the shaking boy in his arms. 

“Real?” He questions, eyes scanning the room hesitantly, as if everything would crumble away if he looked too long.

Aizawa.

Yamada.

Dad, Papa.

Both stood, Aizawa’s hands slightly outstretched as they shook fragilely. His feet stumbled closer in stutters. Yamada’s hands covered his mouth, tears leaking freely as he rushed over.

A new pair of strong arms shook around him, engulfing both Shinsou and Izuku. The two sobbed against him for a long while, Izuku’s question going unanswered. His mind was blank, on pause as he took in his surroundings, the new textures that seemed to finally register in his brain.

The sweat in his limbs, the strands of purple hair in his palm, the throbbing at the back of his head.

The third person—Aizawa; Dad— falls into view in front of him now, behind Shinsou who still grasped on him like a lifeline.

Aizawa gives an attempt at a smile, though it looks more like a grimace. His hands hover over Izuku’s face, and the man looks so broken, so relieved at the same time.

And tears gather at the man’s eyes, a man who Izuku held on a pedestal, a man who Izuku knew was not one to show weakness or vulnerability.

“Oh,” Izuku croaks, voice cracking as he finally understands.

I did that, he thinks as he gazes upon his father’s face. I did that.

“Real,” Aizawa confirms before leaning in for a taste of that hug. (Izuku vaguely processes the shaking of his dad’s frame over his brother and Papa’s. He did that, he did this.) 

And the dam breaks.

And the world hits him full.

Alive.

Real.

Izuku hears the heart wrenching wail he lets out before he buries himself into the huddle of the family he could call his own.

Whispers. “I love you, I love you, so please don’t go.” 

He’s not sure who’d said that in the tight hug. Not sure, but he knows it’s mutual even if he won’t say it.

“I w-won’t, I’m so-sorry, I’m here. I’m here.”

(No one notices the small fingers of shadow rising from beneath the bed. Seconds later, it sinks back into the ground, leaving the group peacefully to themselves.)

____________________

Nana watched the reunion in a corner behind Izuku, hidden from those eyes she knew could see her, those ears she knew could hear her.

Not yet.

Even as her fingers twitched with want for contact with that long lost son, she bit down on frosted lips and stood her ground.

Soon, but not yet.

Nana slinked away, phasing through the thick walls in pursuit of visiting Toshinori once more.

Izuku could go a moment more without her, she knows. She turns her back on a family full of tears, sure. 

But now that she knows of her son’s whereabouts, damn her to hell if she ever let him go again.

(The boy with green twists around just in time to see the tip of her hair scurry off into the wall. He feels the overwhelming cold disperse into thin air, though with it the cold takes a breath of fresh air.)

(Izuku buries himself back into the warmth of the huddle.)

(After years of thinking she had already gone ahead, Izuku finds his mother.)

____________________

A day passes by fast enough. In that time, Izuku was never left alone. Shinsou stuck to his bedside like gum after the doctor came and went, Yamada on the other side sharing cat compilations with him. 

Izuku could tell they were trying to act normal, like they were all just at home doing what they always did.

But normally, they didn’t glance at his face every five seconds. Normally, they didn’t ‘subtly’ baby-proof every dangerous thing near him. Normally, Hitoshi was snarky and Papa was loud.

Now Shinsou acted annoyingly gentle, like he was a fragile lamb, and Yamada talked quieter, like he’d shatter like glass at the man’s expense.

It was frustrating, though Izuku didn’t show it.

It was frustrating and annoying and it made him feel weak—but he didn’t say anything because he knew he was the cause.

When the night came and the nurse slid in to tell them visiting hours were over, Shinsou and Yamada reluctantly slunk away. 

Aizawa stayed. The whole time he was much less talkative than he normally was. After the hug, he went back to one of the seats and sat there the whole time.

He’d said nothing, not unless called upon. He just stared, never going back to the edge of the bed where he had slung himself over when Izuku was playing pretending.

“Dad?” Izuku called to the dark air, laying still underneath an extra blanket on the hospital bed.

“Mm,” Aizawa replied after a beat or two, draped across a futon to the floor beside Izuku. A yellow sleeping bag curled around him.

He took a moment to gather his thoughts, uncertain as to what he wanted to say. The window to respond was closing fast as an uncomfortable air hung between the parent and child.

“Uh,” Izuku starts dumbly, hands fumbling with the fabric above. Even now, hours later, he was unsure of the situation he’d found himself in. A quirk of ghosts, he knew he had. Rising from death—only now was he actually contemplating the legitimacy of that factor.

Third time’s a charm, as they’d said.

“Do you feel guilty?” He blurted, surprising even himself though no one could see as his eyes widened out of his sockets. Below, Aizawa audibly chokes on air.

Panicking, Izuku shoots up and waves his arms in the dark of the room, bed creaking underneath his weight. “N-uuuh, I mean, that wasn’t- I didn’t mean that because, obviously, there’s nothing to feel guilty about and-“

“Izuku.”

He shut his mouth.

Aizawa sighed, and Izuku could hear the rustling of the bag as his eyes adjusted to the dark and saw the man sit up.

“Uh, yes?”

A short silence before, “To answer your question, yes. Of course, Izuku, how could I not?” Aizawa threw his hands in the air in exasperation.

“But you didn’t do anything!” Izuku protested, shoving the blanket further down as he moved his legs to his chest, arms crossing above his knees and chin resting on those arms.

“Yeah, well that’s the problem, isn’t it?” Aizawa turns his head to look up at his son, a frown on his face. 

“You- You just-“ Aizawa stumbled to find the right words, and seeing his dad like this just felt so off balanced. “...without hesitation, you just…”

Without hesitation, you just jumped. The word went unspoken.

And Izuku faltered, because for the first time that day this topic sprung up. He knew it would happen eventually, even waited for one of them to comment. Now that it’s happening, everything he had gathered just left his brain.

“I… I didn’t...” but Izuku pauses, because he knows he did.

Instead he fumbles with the sheets, another silence passing through.

“I regretted it the moment I was in the air, Dad, I swear!” He says instead, looking down at those eyes in the dark. “When I heard you, I-I… I wanted to go back.”

His voice cracks at the end, and he’s left swiping at his cheeks before the tears could actually fall.

The ruffle of his father’s sleeping bag invades the air once again, and soon enough tight arms wrap around Izuku’s body.

“I’m sorry it had to come this far. If I looked a little closer, you wouldn’t have had to suffer so silently.” Aizawa whispers, and his grip tightens a bit more as Izuku lets out a humorless laugh that comes out more of a sob.

“What can I say?” Izuku tilts his head up a bit to look at the man. “I’m a very convincing liar.” He gives a cheeky smile, however wobbly and clumsy it is.

And Aizawa just blinks down at his son before shaking his head and closing his eyes. “I’m not sure if that’s such a good thing, kid, not sure at all.”

And maybe he was talking about the fact that Izuku lied to them, or maybe it was the fact that Izuku felt the need to lie to them. Either way, Izuku wasn’t sure.

“Mmm.” Izuku hummed, burying his face back into his dad’s embrace.

Time passes like this, the only movement being small as Aizawa shifts to sit on the bed with Izuku rather than leaning down. The hug is warm.

“... You really have nothing to be guilty over.”

“I know.”

“Really, dad. It isn’t your fault.”

“... I know.”

“Please don’t blame yourself.” It comes out as a whisper.

This time, Aizawa doesn’t answer.

“... It’s really not your fault.”

“... Okay.”

A silence falls amongst them. When morning comes, they awaken to find themselves drawn across the hospital bed, Izuku wrapped in the promising embrace of his father.

____________________

Turns out they did know of his little illegal hobby, though they hadn’t hinted at it at all the day before.

Ah, he hadn’t taken that into consideration. When you’re opting for death, typically you don’t think of anything beyond the railing. 

The door bursts open, Shinsou coming through before turning around, arms spread wide over the entrance. Only do those hands allow Yamada to pass. Yamada doesn’t look nearly as mad as his oldest son does, though the small furrow of his brows clearly shows that he’s not entirely for whatever is behind the open door.

“It’s been a day !” Shinsou shouted, snarling at whoever stood in front of him. “You can’t!”

 The wall of the door frame blocked Izuku’s view, but still, curious, he sat up from his position on the bed and leered over. Shinsou’s Nintendo 3DS sat over his blanketed lap, blasting its only game--Super Mario 3D Land. (Shinsou was more into seeing how many coffee shots he could chug in a day rather than video games. In that sense, what Izuku could remember of his other brother differed from the new.)

Aizawa, who still laid beside Izuku on the (cramped, but not uncomfy) bed cocked his head up, groaning as he was so rudely awakened from his power nap.

Yamada set a hand on Shinsou’s shoulder, giving him a look before stepping back out and closing the door behind him. Shinsou huffed, arms crossed as he stalked towards Izuku, pulled out a chair and sat beside the bed.

“Whossat?” Izuku questioned, words rushed as he hurriedly picked up the game again and started tapping at the control panel. His gaze set back on the screen entirely once again, seeming uncaring to the hushed words outside the door. He was stuck on one of those annoying ghost houses, where evil mini Mario would chase at him as the clock ticked down.

Shinsou leaned forward, elbows on the bed as he watched the screen with a scowl. “A bug and a stick,” he bit, finger going to poke at Izuku’s side gently, touching to see “if he was real,” as the boy had said before. Every few minutes or so he probed at Izuku’s skin, and said boy quickly accepted that it would be a thing for a while.

It wasn’t everyday someone turned their grave.

Izuku looked up from his game for a second to shoot a look at his brother before looking back as a ghost jabbed at him.

At the same time, a ghost peeked her head through the door of the small hospital room.

Oh. The stick part made a bit more sense now. 

“Izuku?” Nana starts, a voice he remembers to be charismatic and loud hushed. 

He lifts his eyes to meet her frame now halfway through the closed door, looking at her with acknowledgement but no worded response. There are people around--Shinsou to his right and his dad to the left.

Aizawa shifts at the slight drop in temperature, moving the blanket up a bit to cover his shoulder. Izuku hums at the movement, though it was directly intended for Nana. 

He holds her gaze for a moment longer before motioning with his eyes toward his brother and father.

Not yet, he thinks, hoping she got the message. Not now. He drops his gaze back down to his game and begins to tap at the panels once again. Now his movement is more distracted. Shinsou doesn’t notice.

Obviously pleased by Izuku’s reaction, however short and subtle it may have been, Nana sifts through the door and makes her way to the foot of Izuku’s bed.

“Is it really you?” Nana says, her voice quiet as if the others in the room could hear her. “My Izukkun?”

Evil Mario strikes him once and the game resets to the flag checkpoint. Izuku hums his disappointment, but once again, it was an answer to the ghost.

He kicks his feet underneath the blanket, the fabric passing through Nana as Izuku’s foot makes contact with her leg. He’d hoped to find a private place to talk with the ghost he had longed to meet, but it seems like she couldn’t wait.

Not that he could, either. His body shifted as the situation kicked him in the head. After so many years, they meet. (Only just after his successfully failed swan dive attempt, his brain reminds him. A rush of humiliation and shame trickle down his veins, but he shoves it away).

And Nana smiles widely at the contact, at the answer. “Oh my god, Izukkun. H-How? You were so little and we both…” The word died goes unsaid, along with the vision of All For One crashing down upon them so long ago. Quickly the woman picks up the one-sided conversation once again.

“And now you’re- you’re here! Like, thirty years later and you’re still so young and you’re… alive! You’re alive and I just…” She had half the mind to leap over and hug him, test to see if she truly wouldn’t pass through. But the purple haired boy was already looking at her son weirdly as Izuku stared blindly down at the monsters killing his avatar.

“... and now you’re in a hospital bed.” Nana says.

“Uh oh, looks like I’m dead.” Izuku says in response, picking the 3DS back up, though in which situation—the conversation or the game—he’s not sure. Both, probably.

Shinsou snorts, poking at Izuku’s hand again, the stick and the bug forgotten outside with their Papa. “Got that right, smartass.”

“Don’t talk to your brother like that.” Aizawa chimes in, squishing himself against Izuku before letting his eyes droop in rest again.

“He doesn’t minddd,” the boy gives a tiny grin as he shoots a teasing look at Izuku. The boy rolled his eyes, throwing a quick one at Nana, eyes pleading for her to not speak of it before looking back down.

She doesn’t oblige.

She never did.

“Izuku, you literally yeeted yourself off a building-”

He splutters on the screen, wiping at it with the hospital blanket quickly before staring wide-eyed at his mother, not even trying to hide his gape. Shinsou shoots him a weird look. Aizawa groans and tugs at the blanket his son tugged away.

He also remembers now, that she was never one with words when needed.

“What’s wrong, bubs? Are they treating you right?” Nana shoots a look at the others, his family, and for a second the glare is withering.

Quickly he nods, not saying a peep even though he already looks like he’s crazy from an outside perspective.

“Izuku? You good?” Shinsou pats his brother on the shoulder, a questioning but concerned tilt to his brow. “Do I need to call the doctor again?” His hand raises for the button. Even Aizawa turns.

“Uh- no! I just remembered something embarrassing…?” It sounds unconvincing even to his own ears, but fortunately Shinsou drops it, turning to the door again as his feet bounce anxiously against the tile.

Shooting a side glance at Nana, who fortunately seemed to notice that the family was genuine in their care for her son, Izuku turned away and looked to Shinsou instead.

“Who’s the bug?” He questions, referring to the earlier comment.

“Hmm? Oh, just some annoying pest. Pops’ll get them handled, they’ll both be gone soon.”

In the next moment, the door opens and three men walk through. Papa looks resigned as he glances at his son with an apologetic look. The other two immediately scan the room for Izuku, eyes landing on him as he tenses.

All Might in his skinny form.

And then there’s Naomasa.

The bed shifts beside him. Aizawa sat up, eyes glaring at the blonde. “Yagi.”

All Might coughed, blood splattering into his hand. At this, no one looks troubled, and although Izuku had seen it once already, he can’t help the concerned look he throws the hero’s way. “A-Aizawa,” All Might greets, hand flying up to his neck self-consciously. He gave a quick look to Izuku, his eyes shining with unspoken apologies, though his attention snapped back to Aizawa a moment later.

“What are you doing here?” The question comes out quick and snappy, a bite to the edge.

“I’m really sorry, Aizawa,” Tsukauchi cuts in, stalking forward as his black work shoes clack against the floor with each step. “I updated the Shichi file a few days ago, and today the chief looked through it. He was wondering why the… deceased status changed, and now I’m here.”

Aizawa groaned, though now he sported a similar look to the one on his husband’s face. “You could have just kept the status the same.”

Tsukauchi shook his head, shooting a quick glance at Izuku, who had tensed at the appearance of his alter ego. So they knew. (All the while, Nana floats around the room, weaving through the people before finally settling in behind Izuku. Izuku does nothing as the ghost plays with the back of his hair, the side blind to the others of the room.)

“Your son’s identity was already written as Shimura Shichi. Ah, don’t worry though. No one else knows of the situation.”

“Shimura, huh?” Nana says, poking at the greenette’s head and forcing him forward a little bit. “Do that for any particular reason, sprout?” Her tone is teasing. Izuku pushes back on the ghost’s fingers, crushing them backwards a tad in response.

The detective turned to Izuku, finally, as Shinsou groaned his displeasentries, scooching closer to his brother.

“Aizawa-Yamada-kun-”

“Please, just call me Izuku or something,” Izuku cringes. Though he loved his parents and their inherited last name, it was too long and too uncomfortable to hold in an actual conversation.

Tsukauchi opts for the second best professional option.

“Midoriya-kun, though this really isn’t the ideal situation, or the appropriate time and place, I do need to ask you a few questions on your rather recent activities.”

The look on Izuku’s face turns sour at the implication. Oh, they definitely knew.

“Okay,” Izuku says after a while, smoothening his features as he took a breath. Then he glanced around the room, motioning to everyone in there. “Do they need to be in here or…?” He really didn’t want them there right now.

Tsukauchi blinks, looking down at his paper as if it had an answer before turning back up. “I suppose not, but-”

“I am not leaving my son alone during an interrogation, Tsukauchi.” Aizawa says, ignoring the way Izuku sags in disappointment.

“As I was going to say--I suppose not, but,” the words are bit out in an elegantly professional way, “I am required to have at least one guardian present during the questioning so long as they’re available.”

“Then can, uh, everyone else go? I don’t really… want that big of an audience…?”

The hesitance in his voice gives Yamada and Shinsou no room to complain, as well as Small Might. The three stalk towards the door, albeit Shinsou doing so while glancing back every step he took.

“Izuku, Toshi. I’d suggest letting Toshinori stay, he’ll probably need to stay in the loop for this.”

“Toshinori?” Izuku whispers under his breath, a pointed stare heading the blonde’s way.

Nana snorts, slapping the boy’s head and making him duck forward. The others say nothing. Seriously, decades pass and she’s finally talking to her son again and one of the first things she does is slap him upside the head.

“Don’t tell me you can’t recognize him!” Then she pauses before quickly adding in a mumble, “Though he does look quite different now.” She waves herself off, resting her forearm on Izuku’s shoulder as she points. “Anyway, that’s Yagi Toshinori.”

She smiled, ruffling Izuku’s hair (and if anyone asked, it was the AC unit). “Your brother.” She drops her head in front of Izuku, body hunched over him in an arch, and waggles her brows suggestively.

Another reunion, unbeknownst to him until then. 

“Actually,” Izuku cuts in, looking at Tsukauchi before turning his gaze to the trio. “Yagi can stay.”

The blonde raised his brows, pausing at the doorway as Shinsou gave a little glare before being dragged out by Yamada. The door shut behind them.

So All Might stalks back.

And the questioning begins.

“For the tape, this is Detective Tsukauchi Naomasa,” the man turns on a recorder attached to his outfit and checks his watch. “The time is 12:09PM on July 19, 20XX. Aizawa-Yamada Izuku; suspected of illegal vigilantous activity, begins the interrogation now.”

And the greenette lets Izuku slip away, pulling an indifferent Shichi mask from his mind and imagines slipping it on.

“Full name?”

“‘Midoriya’ Aizawa-Yamada Izuku.”

The sound of pen on paper.

“Date of birth?”

“July 15, 20XX.”

The click of a pen.

“Age?”

“Fifteen.”

“Quirk?”

“... Quirkless.”

The pleasantries pass soon enough. Without anything to lose, Shichi answers the questions as blankly and short as can be. Time slips. Aizawa’s hand on the boy’s back is a small touch, Nana’s fingers pinching at the back of his curls while making short witty comments here and there fill the room along with the scribbling of the detective’s writing.

When you’re a ghost for so long, you tend to forget when people can actually hear you--because, typically, they can’t. And to Izuku, it’s a bit distracting, having to stifle sudden giggles and breaks in character.

Yagi stood beside Tsukauchi the whole while, Aizawa shooting the occasional hair floating dagger and causing the man to splutter more red.

(Why was Izuku the only one concerned about that?)

Eventually Naomasa reached up to click the end button on the black tape recorder, clicking his pen a final time and slipping it into a pocket.

“Alright, that concludes the interrogation. Nearly all of them were truthful, though the only reason I stopped when I did without addressing them was because they were the simplest, more unimportant ones.”

Izuku blinks. “Uh.”

“You don’t technically need to answer these ones, as I have an idea as to why my quirk inputted them as a lie. Still, I’d like to hear something out of you, if you feel like it.”

He just shrugs a nod. Both Naomasa and Toshinori were finally here, if his Mama’s words could be trusted on the blonde. He was sure it was truthful, though—the closer he looked, the more he could compare against the two aged forms. 

Both were there, and it was about time he’d reconnect anyway. It was time to stop running.

That was what he realized he needed to do as soon as his body hit the asphalt below.

“Go ahead,” Izuku says instead. His fingers plucked at each other above the sheets. It was a tell tale that he was nervous, but he didn’t let his expression show it. “Oh, wait,” he looks up. “But first, can I ask something?”

“Go ahead,” Tsukauchi echoes. 

“Am I going to jail?”

He wouldn’t be surprised, really. As the interrogation had gotten, there were indeed times when he had initiated a fight first--a surprise attack; more often than not, it was in order to protect someone from getting robbed or worse, when the criminal looked like he could pack quite the punch. Typically Izuku let them hit him first, but he didn’t want to die. (Cough, how contradicting.)

He also initiated it first on the rare occasion of getting a small revenge of a sort, but that didn’t matter-

This time, Tsukauchi blinks. Aizawa breaks his stare from Yagi, the taller doing the same. After a pause, “No. You’re not going to jail, though you will still have a punishment of sorts.”

“Like what?” He tilts his head to the side just a tad. Mini juvie? House arrest? Probation? Ban from a hero license? (He’d totally just go back to the streets fighting secretly, but no one had to know that.)

Tsukauchi looks to Aizawa before turning back to the bedridden boy. “There’s two options, though I really don’t see much of a punishment on the higher road.”

Izuku scrunched his brows.

“Option one; house arrest. Both options will require you to have a tracker on you at all times, however long that may stay depends on the department and your behavior. You were seriously so hard to deal with.”

A little of the man’s exasperation slips out from the professional wall, showing the man that fell victim to Shichi just a bit. Izuku cracked a wide, goofy smile. “I try.” Trackers weren’t that big of a deal. If he’s lucky he could find a way out of it, depending on the model.

The detective sighed. “Option two is UA.”

The smile on Izuku’s face was effectively dropped into an open gape. “Huwha?”

“It’s not that surprising, in all honesty. From what I heard, you already caught the eye of Principal Nezu. When he found out about the situation after one of your father’s explanations for missing work, he arranged a whole new class section just for you.”

“UA as a punishment?” Izuku guffaws, looking at his dad as he shrugged. Ah, the fucker already knew.

Tsukauchi hummed his affirmative. “You’ve been a vigilante for, what, six years now? Nine years old with no apparent quirk, self taught and already giving the whole Hero Commission a run for its money. Granted, you only became more well known two years after your debut, but I can see why Nezu would want you. ”

Izuku would preen at the involuntary praise if it weren’t for the gears turning in his head. He shook it off and looked at the man. “What sort of classes are there gonna be in there? Does… Is everyone going to know?”

Tsukauchi shook his head, a small shrug on his shoulders. “I don’t have all the details; I’m sure Aizawa knows more on this option. Again, this choice will still act as a disciplinary act, and there will most likely be more restrictions other than the tracker. Nezu organized Class 1-V, if I recall, though you’ll be under Class 1-A’s watch under a special schedule.” Another shrug, “I’m just the detective. You’ll hear more on it afterwards.”

Izuku hummed, still lost in his thoughts. He shook out of it when Yagi’s voice cut in.

“Excuse me, I’ve been wondering this since I’ve been called back. Why am I here?” His question was directed at Izuku.

Nana chortled, cackling out a laugh as she flung herself to the other side of the room. Yagi shivered but thought nothing of it.

Izuku just shrugged, motioning back to Tsukauchi with his hands. His brain shook with the reminder of what was going to come.

It was time to stop running.

He’d prolonged the matter enough.

“I guess you’ll find out soon,” he says, though it comes out more questioning to himself than he’d like. When Shichi sank, Izuku rose.

“Alright, first.” Tsukauchi tapped at his clipboard.  “Your full name?”

Izuku cocked his head. “Aizawa-Yamada Izuku.”

A beat. The man’s left eye twitches. “Lie.” He didn’t truly believe what he’d said, though he knew it was his legal name. A part of him was stuck in the far away past.

“Midoriya Izuku?” A questioning lilt, curious to see if it would work.

“Lie.”

Tsukauchi looks up.

Izuku curls a fist into the blanket. “... Shimura Izuku.”

“True.” Tsukauchi looks up at him and stares, eyes scrunched the slightest bit, calculating. His eyes are searching, and for a second Izuku can see his thoughts behind the wall.

Are you him? They say. He doesn’t answer.

Yagi is in a similar state, though without much proof to go on, they remain silent. A name is just a name, after all.

(Aizawa sits beside his son, confused.)

“Age?” Tsukauchi asks next.

“Fifteen…?” He answers the same answer as before.

Still, there’s a few seconds span before the detective’s quirk goes off. “Lie.”

Ah.

“Then eighteen, I think.”

“You think?” Aizawa said, turning to look Izuku in the eye.

“I dunno.” He shrugs, and if he weren’t nervous—or perhaps this was giddiness—he would have laughed at the face his father was making.

“True. That doesn’t add up with your birth year, though, and you answered that one correctly…”

At this Izuku cracks a smile, and an armful of weight is lifted off his shoulders. Closer, closer, closer. 

The truth was coming out.

(Nana shoots him a fat thumbs up in the corner.)

“It’ll make sense eventually.”

Quirk, they’d ask next. He’d known he wasn’t quirkless. They think the outcome came out as false because his quirk would be reviving. (Izuku knows Tsukauchi let this question go unheard by the tape recorder, knows because the Hero Commission is ruthless when it comes to rare quirks and they’d do anything to get their hands on such a splendivity.) 

Instead, Tsukauchi breaks free from the track.

“Are you Shimura Izuku?” He asks instead, and Izuku looks up from his lap, where he’d looked to, lost in his web of thoughts.

Are you my Shimura Izuku? That one word goes unsaid.

Yagi gets the message his friend conveyed. Aizawa stays seated, face thoughtfully blank as he’s left out of the loop.

Izuku just blinks up at the man.

Tsukauchi waits in silence.

Izuku can tell; both men don’t expect him to be who he was.

The thought, if only by a little, makes him sad. He’d already known, the first time he met Tsukauchi when he was out with Aizawa.

He was seven then.

He was seven the last time he’d seen Tsukauchi, too, many years ago. He looked identical, if not more battered and scarred.

And yet the man couldn’t fit the click.

Then he meets Toshinori, if not more aged than he was back then—the two of them. He’d had his mask on, so he didn’t really blame the man.

But over the years, where had that faith in the quirkless society gone?

So yes, Izuku was sad.

A little mad, but more of the former over the fact that both of his brother figures didn’t expect him to be who he was.

Still, he gives a small smile. His arms come out from underneath the hospital blanket and he spreads them wide and welcome, like one of those villains in cartoon shows bragging on their advanced arsenal.

The situation is a bit different, as you can see, but you get the point.

Aizawa had been lucky he’d grabbed a seat instead and sat himself just beside Izuku instead, rather than right next to his son on the bed, because he wouldn’t’ve expected both men to dive at Izuku moments before.

“I told you I was a time traveler, didn’t I?”

Their faces fall carefully blank.

His smile falters. “Uh, but no one believed this seven year old asparagus ,” his voice turned nervously sarcastic from the subtle tension, “shouting cute, silly nonsense around the house.”

Even Nana’s excitement falters at Izuku’s closing tone.

But then Izuku laughs, hands dropping back and clasping together. He looks down at his lap again, dropping his gaze from the two men.

(Aizawa is utterly confused.)

“But I guess you two were too busy playing Mario Kart to listen to the wondrous adventures of lil’ old green bean.” A tiny lilt of his lips as he shakes small jazz hands, spreading them wide just a bit once again. He lifts his head, and two men stare back at him with open gapes.

“What-“

Tsukauchi’s clipboard drops to the floor, bouncing lightly as an edge hits the floor and brings the whole thing down. It rattles.

Yagi splurts blood wildly, hand going up to cover the red as he coughs and coughs and coughs again, but those strikingly familiar blue eyes never leave Izuku’s frame.

Izuku blinks again, hands pausing in the air. 

He blinks, but the split second was all the two needed in order to lunge at Izuku.

Yagi buffed into All Might in a puff of steam, scooping him up recklessly and tearing the sticky patch connecting to his arm off. 

And Izuku’s off the bed in the next second, high into the number one hero’s arms as the man curses in english wondrously, blood dribbling down his chin absently as he lightly squeezes the boy in his grasp. “You were- but you’re- I saw you-“ The rest is unintelligible as the man holding him breaks down in relieved tears.

Izuku would be lying if he said he wasn’t aching, but all sense was ridden the moment Tsukauchi smacked him in the head from a half foot below.

“Ow, what-!” Izuku twisted in Toshinori’s arms, hand flying to the back of his head (which still really fucking hurt from his tango with the cold, hard floor of the view below) as he met the eyes of the detective.

The watering eyes of the detective.

“All these years of contact with me and—“

Tsukauchi raised an arm and smacked at the boy’s arm with each word coming next, mindful of the boy’s injuries though not lacking any bite.

“ —you never came to tell me you were alive!?”

And the professional barrier, which had cracked so deep not moments ago, shattered into a million pieces right then and there.

Izuku’s face fell, mouth stuttering wordlessly as he tried to gather the right words. 

But he didn’t have enough time to jumble up the words, because regardless, Tsukauchi jumps at the two and wraps his arms around Izuku, arms pushed again Toshinori’s as he joins the group tackle.

For the second time in the last 48 hours he finds himself in the middle of a family reunion, if not more separated than the last.

“I never doubted you for a second, Izuku,” Toshinori mumbles into his hair, tears leaking from his eyes. All Might’s smile is no more, and Izuku is glad at this now, seeing the man’s brave facade surrender to the truth in this moment alone.

“Lie.” Tsukauchi inputs, face buried in Izuku’s hospital gown.

Yagi squawks but doesn’t defend himself. 

And Aizawa opens his mouth, watching this moment with no sense of help, opting to get his son out of whatever was going on, but—

Izuku breaks into a laugh, and it’s nasally and wet, unattractive as snot spills from his nose and tears gather and fall down his face.

—and Aizawa doesn’t have the heart to break this moment however confused he may be, with no context of the situation as the three across from him desperately clutch onto each other, like they’d decided they’d just melt together and never let go.

“I-I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” Izuku murmurs after his short laugh dies, and he wraps his arms around the two and turns his head to bury into All Might’s chest, snot and all. He didn’t feel like showing his face then. 

“I-I visited once, b-but I was eight.” Four years after his first—technically second—revival. “I saw you smiling, and- and I thought you looked h-happier. I- I thought the same would be for Auntie Chiyo, so I haven’t s-seen her at all. I guess my, uh, mindset just- just stayed like that all these years…”

“Your mindset is shit, Izuku,” Tsukauchi says, unintentionally opting to get rid of the heavy airand the boy chokes through his sea of tears.

Instead the boy barks out a weak laugh, smiling as he hiccups against buff boy. “I know that now, t-thanks.”

Then he pushes his hand against Toshinori’s back, arm wrapped around his shoulder. “And I couldn’t find a Yagi Toshinori anywhere on the internet, thought you flunked in life.”

Yagi chuckled, sucking a breath in as he smiled an authentic smile. “When you have as many enemies as me, I think it’s safer to keep personal info to yourself.”

“Sounds like you’re b-bragging,” Izuku hicced.

And Toshinori could only snort as the boy lifted his head to look up at the man, broadcasting his booger infested face. “Maybe I am, booger boy, maybe I am.”

The teen retaliates in an act of pressing his face against the man’s chest and swiping.

Yagi guffaws.

Tsukauchi barks out a laugh.

And even through the thick trail of tears and snot-filled reunions, the trio falls into a huddle of peace and warmth.

(Aizawa feels as though he is intruding on something private, forgotten in a corner beside Izuku’s hospital bed.)

(Beyond the doors, Shinsou and Yamada sit side by side on a nearby seat, heads pressed together as they finally relish in the knowledge that their family is back together. Exhausted even in their worry of the hour long investigation going on inside, they sleep.)

(Nana floats by.)

____________________

“Oh right, about your quirk,” Tsukauchi starts a long while after their tears die down and they’re left in a comfortable silence.

Now Izuku sits back on his bed, vital patch sloppily reattached. Tsukauchi and Yagi both sit on a chair in front of Izuku’s bed, Aizawa still beside Izuku to his left. He was still confused, though Izuku took the liberty to explain the situation in two short sentence;

“Oh, uh, they’re my brothers from like, thirty years ago. I dunno.”

Yeah, he’d shake an explanation from the boy later on.

Izuku clasps the 3DS in his hand, opening and closing, blindly and blithely taking joy in the way it clicked as it magnetically shut. Nana hovers rather than sits on Izuku’s right, lower body somewhat sinking into the cover. Her body is positioned the same way as Izuku, cold skin pressing against Izuku’s sleeve as she looks straight ahead at the two mirthful men.

“Oh yeah. I wasn’t really sure on the revival part, but now I know it’s definitely part of the quirk. Third time’s a charm, right?”

Aizawa widens his eyes, mouth buried in his capture gear. “Third-?”

Izuku hums before his father could go on a tangent, quickly adding, “You were there at my second revival, dad. Never really considered it a second, but I think I can separate the first and the second into two different categories. They were a bunch of years apart, I guess. Oh!”

Then Izuku reaches a hand to his bland white and patterned shirt piece, lifting it up a bit on the left to show the scar his dad had chalked up to have come from that day, where he had died and come back three hours—three years later.

He stays oblivious to the haunted looks on Naomasa and Toshinori’s faces, lost in his mumble of thoughts as he lets go of his shirt and raises a hand to the back of his head.

A new scar resides at the back covered by his hair, the place that took the most damage.

“My quirk might be a subtle healing type, too, but obviously it only works on me. And it only activated after death, and only to a certain extent. If I focus on healing an area more in the inbetween during the process, do you think it would work? Or maybe it’s just spontaneous, I dunno… It leaves scars, and it only heals enough for the user not to die again, but I don’t really have enough info. Recovery Girl’s quirk is definitely better in terms of… Ah, but I’ll have to test th—“

“There will be no testing!” And it’s Toshinori who cuts in this time, his tone scolding and his brows furrowed together. Vaguely Izuku compares the look to a faraway memory of Inko.

“But-“

“No buts.” Tsukauchi interrupts.

“Well yeah, I know I-“

“Then this conversation is done, Izuku.” And for the first time, Aizawa is lassoed into the loop.

Izuku juts his lip forward but says no more. He wasn’t actually going to actively test it. He was just saying—if he ever accidentally dies again, ever goes back to the inbetween with dormant injuries, maybe he’s give it a try.

Unless his quirk had a limit on the number of times he could revive.

That was a problem future Izuku could deal with.

But then Nana, beyond the grave, decided to scold him, too. “Izukkun, if you jump off a building again, God help me—I can see you lying to yourself in your head-“

He shoves her off the bed with his arm, subtle as she falls through the bed border. Nana squawks as a self-satisfied smirk makes its way onto Izuku’s lips.

Tsukauchi huffs out a relieved breath, waving a hand in the air dismissively. “Anyway, you seem to know a lot about your… quirk.”

Izuku grins at the man.

“But you said the whole… reviving was only a part of your quirk. Know more?”

Izuku spared a short side glance to Nana before placing his eyes back on the detective and said stick. He turns to Aizawa, too, unsure of whether they’d believe him or think weirdly of him.

There was a time during his long stay at the hospital, after his initial revive, where he’d grasp at the nurses and point at his mother, Inko, begging them to make her cold temperature go away, to make her go away.

They chalked it down to trauma and ignored the poor quirkless boy.

After that, he gave up, not spreading a peek of the matter to Aizawa and Yamada when they’d visit, back when they were just concerned heroes and not his family.

But then he remembers things are different now and that he’d already decided to trust. 

Plus they had a lie detector human in the room. Surely they would believe his nonsense after learning of his tango with time.

“You can’t tell anyone though, ‘kay? I’m not super comfortable with people knowing, no one actually knows except for the people involved.”

At this, they give a slow nod, if not a little confused. He trusts them.

So he tells them.

Simple as that, really.

“I can see ghosts. Think I’m stuck in the middle or something, so I can see both sides—alive and dead.”

Nana takes joy in the fall of Tsukauchi’s face, slapping Izuku on the back and pointing. “Haha!”

“True.”

Another splurt of blood from Toshinori.

Aizawa just blinks carefully at Izuku, not unbelieving but not fully set just yet. He was never one to believe in spirits, after all.

“Is- Is there a ghost in this room?” Tsukauchi questions, and something tells Izuku that the man is suddenly paranoid now as he swerves his head a little ways around the room.

“Yeah, actually,” and maybe Nana’s joy is contagious, because he grins wide up to his reddened eyes. He points. “There’s one behind you.”

The man’s left eye twitched. “Haha, very funny. Don’t lie to me, ‘Zuk.”

Izuku’s smile broadens again as Nana zips through and behind Tsukauchi, taking pleasure in the way both men in front of him shiver at the intrusion.

“Fine, fine,” he beckons, making patting motions in the air. “There is one now, though.”

And now Nana cackles along with Izuku, as Tsukauchi jumps out of his chair, Yagi turning around as the man had actually reacted this time around. Aizawa stands from his seat, too, alarmed at his coworker’s reaction.

“T-True,” the word naturally slips from the man’s mouth in his panic, eyes searching for something unseen.

Izuku’s laughs are loud in the room, body quaking with shaken laughs before it gradually dies down enough for him to speak.

“Relax, it’s just Mama.”

Silence. Even Nana blinks as Izuku realizes what he’d said. His mouth shuts before stuttering into a gape. “Oh.”

“...”

“...”

“...True.”