Chapter Text
Izuku surfaces thickly, like swimming to consciousness through syrup. The first thing he registers is warmth, the next is lack of pain. Something was hurting, right? Something was wrong… he’s just too tired to remember. It’s feels like he’s on a cloud where reality can’t touch him.
He returns to sleep again before he can get his eyes fully open.
The next time he wakes, sunlight is hitting his face. He groans and turns his head, blinking sluggishly.
He’s in a room he doesn’t recognize, a fireplace crackling cheerfully in the corner. When he goes to reach up and rub his eyes, he finds himself swaddled in thick, fluffy blankets that take a moment to disentangle from. They smell unfamiliar, like pine and smoke; the clothes he’s wearing are unfamiliar too.
With great effort he scoots himself up to his elbows and takes stock of himself. His leg is in a cast from the knee down, elevated on a pillow and distantly aching. He tries to remember this particular injury, and is slammed with an unpleasant memory.
Pain lancing up his leg like a hot poker stabbing it through— thoughts fragmenting, struggling to recombine and find the reason, the way to make it stop. A presence he trusted orchestrating the pain in a way he couldn’t understand.
The same person carrying him through icy winds and chill that ate into Izuku until he was a shell of himself. Something was wrong with him before that, he knew; a confusion that only got worse as his faculties scattered.
Where was he? How did he get here?
Things got a little clearer with the sudden strike of lightning up his leg. He was still freezing, and the pain was another heartbeat pulsing energy from him, but the comforting presence was there throughout in words yelled in his ear and in the warm call of a fire returning his soul to his body.
There was an internship. There was—
“Kacchan!” he gasps, trying to swing his legs off the bed. The casted one catches on the covers and he ends up halfway off.
Izuku remembers now, evacuating people from the burning buildings with as much of One for All as he could reach. It felt distant for some reason in the moment that he called upon it. It didn’t stop him from finding everyone, just something he noted.
Things got blurry even though his respirator would’ve been protecting him from the smoke— he was just double the building Crystal Gale sent him to cover, then there was an explosion, and then… Then he was in the snow with Kacchan. Feeling weird. “Are you drugged?” he recalls.
He bites his lip, eyes darting back and forth in thought.
Perhaps a villain responsible for the fires was able to separate them somehow. Which meant it was targeted at them rather than the other heroes of Frostwatch agency. Someone who would’ve known they would be there, the day they arrived.
Multiple theories are springing to life in his mind but one thing is for sure— he needs to talk to Kacchan.
The door opens.
“Hi!” a cheerful woman says, stepping in and standing a few feet away. She has on plain brown scrubs and looks to be in her mid-20s. “It’s good to see you up! The doctor is busy but I’m his student, Kanazawa Chieko.” She bows.
Izuku smiles instinctually. “Um, hi. Sorry, Kanazawa, um… could you tell me where I am? My friend and I took shelter here after being stuck in the snow, but I must’ve passed out pretty soon after that…”
“Of course, Midoriya-kun,” she says, startling him with her familiarity. “You’re at a Humanist compound in Shirogane Ridge. What brings you to this region?”
Izuku blinks, wondering at the term. It reminds him unpleasantly of Humarise. “As I said, my friend and I were lost. We’re interns with Crystal Gale. Can you tell me where my friend is?”
She tilts her head. “Who is Crystal Gale?”
“The— the head of the local agency,” Izuku says. “The permafrost hero?”
Kanazawa shrugs, breaking eye contact as she steps forward and pulls a stethoscope off the wall. “Oh, never heard of her. But you can tell me more later, because right now I’ve got orders to check your vitals and get you some breakfast!”
Izuku narrows his eyes and glances around the room again. It does, at first glance, resemble a sort of cabin nurse’s office, but up in the corner is a small camera blinking back at him.
“So Kacchan will be at breakfast, too,” he states.
Kanazawa puts the stethoscope in her ears and attempts to set the round part to his chest, but Izuku gently blocks this action with his hand. They stay in stalemate for a moment before she raises her head and meets his eyes with a smile.
“The meta human is being taken care of,” she says. “You don’t need to worry about that anymore, Midoriya-kun. You’re safe here.”
Izuku has a sudden memory of his middle school history class, when they learned about pre-quirk era transitioning to the dawn of quirks. There was only a sentence or two about it in their textbook between the appearance of the glowing baby and the accepted theory of human evolution (corroborated by a pinky toe joint which Izuku knew very well)— when meta abilities were theorized to be spreading via contagious disease. They were othered, quarantined against. Perhaps through isolation in the middle of nowhere.
It was a ridiculous notion; fear of quirks didn’t register to Izuku at all, then. Maybe he can understand it now, since he’s met Eri and Shigaraki. But their needs weren’t met properly. Uraraka is interning with a quirk counseling office for that reason.
It’s then that the phrase Kanazawa used registers: “being taken care of.” In the context of dehumanization.
Izuku swings his cast off the bed and grabs the nightstand for support, forcing Kanazawa to move back.
“You can’t keep me from him,” he promises.
“I don’t know why you want that,” Kanazawa says, nose wrinkling and arms folding. She leans her hip against the wall, seemingly giving up on the physical exam.
Izuku frowns. “Why? Just because he has— Everyone has different traits, that doesn’t make one better than another!”
“It’s not natural. Meta humans cause hurt whenever they go, whether they mean to or not. They’ll be the end of humanity.”
He shakes his head. “That’s a very slippery slope. And Kacchan wouldn’t— I trust him.”
“Midoriya-kun, you came to us with burn marks,” she says sadly, like he’s the crazy one. It’s unsettling, how someone can sound so sure and be so obviously wrong. “The metahuman makes fire.”
The need to teach her is almost strong enough to overrule his need to find Kacchan. Almost. He could explain the fire, but instead sums up, “You don’t understand.”
She sighs again, disappointed. “This conversation didn’t go very well, did it,” she laughs, looking at the door. “If you can’t be persuaded to cooperate, Nishimura will want to talk to you.”
“Nishimura is— the man who found us?” Izuku recalls from foggy memories. When she nods, he stands fully, taking a limping step that almost sends him careening. Ignoring her protest, he grabs the wall. “Okay, let’s go.”
“Woah, woah—“ she says, throwing her hands up and stepping back. Before she can come out with a strategy to stop him, the door opens.
“Good morning,” a man greets. He’s not familiar, but Izuku immediately knows this is Nishimura. His timing confirms what Izuku suspected about the surveillance. He clenches his fists, saying nothing. They already know what he wants.
The man sighs and nods to the nurse girl. “Thank you for trying,” he says and she leaves. To Izuku, he says, “Let’s take a walk.”
He’s given a crutch (which is nice, because Izuku wouldn’t be able to go very fast on the walls alone) and led down a long corridor. They pass many doors similar to the one he came from, and see nobody else. The building is blank, nondescript.
The man stops outside a door and pauses with his hand on the knob. Without turning he says coldly, “I want you to know that this is the third room we’ve used. Your ‘friend’ destroyed the other two.”
Izuku’s heart hits his chest with force, an extra pump sending shards of ice through his veins. “What did you— what are you—“
The door opens and he’s hit with a wave of cold. He hardly feels it, shoving numbly past the man as soon as he gets inside.
It’s a small rectangular room, set up almost like a recording studio— chairs face a glass wall, panels of buttons presented to viewers of the other side. On the other side—
“Kacchan,” Izuku gasps.
The scene doesn’t register in his brain as real; why would it be happening, and nobody but him reacting appropriately? Everyone here has seemed reasonable so far— wrong but not inhumane. Part of him isn’t sure any of this is real.
Because nobody should be there under a bright lights like a butterfly pinned in a case. The table shouldn’t be tilted at 45 degrees facing them, chain bindings at each corner keeping its occupant in place. There shouldn’t be jumper cables clipped to either side of the metal frame snaking their way to a control panel in the wall.
Most of all, it shouldn’t be that when Kacchan lifts his head off his chest and squints through the glass, he zeroes in on Izuku— his voice or his silhouette, because he surely cant see much— and a grin breaks out across his face.
Without thought, Izuku raises his arm and flicks glowing fingers at the glass.
The air pressure isn’t as strong as it used to be. The wall should be gone; instead it’s cracked. Izuku wastes no time smashing his fist into the center of the spiderweb to solve that problem.
Voices cry out and noises clash around him. Izuku climbs through the window he’s created, cast giving him a frustrating extra few seconds of struggle.
“There’s a door right there,” Kacchan greets as he stumbles over the edge, fresh cuts stinging him as little as bee stings.
Izuku looks to the side. There is a glass door next to the hole he created.
Kacchan laughs. Izuku looks at him sees other details: his shirt is gone and he’s dripping like someone dumped water over him recently. That and the cold room is preventing him from building sweat.
“Hey!” Kacchan yells, suddenly angry. “Don’t—“
Something sharp hits the back of Izuku’s uninjured thigh and then electricity crackles up and down his leg. He cries out and drops to one knee, grabbing onto the arm of Kacchan’s table for support as his muscles seize.
The wave of electricity passes. He hears more movement behind him but focuses on Kacchan, digging his fingers under the binding and tearing it off with a burst of his quirk.
There’s another pop and a second spike of pain lodges itself into the back of his shoulder. Once again electricity zaps through him, this time down his back and into his chest. Izuku jerks violently; this time the current doesn’t stop and after a few seconds too long, he loses his battle and drops into a quaking heap at Kacchan’s feet.
Kacchan is yelling. Other voices are yelling.
Izuku sees the taser wires leading from his shoulder to the gun in one of the men’s hands and he tries to reach for them in the hopes of yanking them out.
Then he hears above the other shouts, a vicious, “Stop moving or he dies!”
Izuku stops, spasming still as he looks up, eyes searching. Kacchan’s jaw is clenched, scowling at whoever stands behind Izuku. His own free hand is frozen too, hovering over the chain on his other wrist.
“Put your hand back down,” someone says, and Izuku realizes the weapon is back in the room he broke through. Kacchan replaces his hand. Someone hurries through the door to reattach it.
The electrical current finally stops and Izuku goes limp, face down, breathing hard. He dizzily makes out shoes walking into his line of vision.
“I thought that one was human,” someone whispers.
“He registered as such,” Nishimura says, close.
Izuku looks up. The man is frowning, hand rubbing his chin in thought.
“He’s not like me,” Kacchan says quickly. “You—“
A sharp crack. Kacchan’s voice cuts, swallowed up by buzzing. Izuku shoves his palms against the floor in panic. “Stop— his heart—!”
“Oh, we can restart it if needed,” Nishimura says, signaling someone behind the panels. The buzz stops, and Kacchan slumps, coughing. Deku can only imagine the palpitations he must be having, based on what his own healthy heart just went through.
“Please refrain from speaking unless spoken to,” one of the voices says. Someone clinical, back in the room. It’s hard to tell how many people are here… Izuku wishes he’d looked around before charging in.
“Let’s get you a proper seat and start over, Midoriya-San,” Nishimura says, putting a hand on Izuku’s back. It doesn’t sound like a choice, nor feel like one as he’s maneuvered upright. He hops, almost falling over again before a cold metal chair is slid behind him.
Kacchan watches this interaction neutrally, eyes flicking between Izuku, Nishimura and something beyond the glass. When Izuku turns, he finally sees the gun trained on the back of his head by one of two people in the control room. The other is manning the switchboard.
A red light blinks in the corner, same as the other room.
“How many people do you have trapped here?” Izuku asks.
“We don’t make it a habit,” Nishimura says, settling into his metal folding chair— he must have some confidence that Kacchan is restrained enough, to do that. “But we’re concerned about the spread, so we take every opportunity we can to study.”
“Spread of what?” Izuku can’t help but exclaim, looking around at them with honest confusion. “Quirks aren’t transmissible? They’re proven to be genetic. And are you telling me everyone here is quirkless?”
“You keep using that word, ‘quirk’,” the clinical man at the panels states. “Can you elaborate?”
Izuku is lost. He looks at Kacchan. Kacchan rolls his eyes then raises an eyebrow at Nishimura.
“You may answer,” Nishimura says.
“Cool,” Kacchan says, “Awesome. Hey, Deku, we’re in the past. The term is ‘meta human’ with ‘meta abilities’, now.”
Izuku gapes. “When did that happen?”
“In the fires, some villain in reflective armor knocked you out and used their quirk— sorry, meta-ability— on us. By the way, what happened before—“
A jolt cracks through the breaker. Kacchan’s eyes slam shut, body shaking. Izuku’s heart jumps to his throat, strangling the yell caught there. But it’s over in an instant.
“Please stay on topic.”
They cannot be serious.
So we’re here by coincidence, Izuku concludes, trying not to give voice to his thoughts. These people don’t even know what quirks are; they probably aren’t working with someone who sent them here with one. So why send them here? Or rather, now?
The silence stretches and he looks up, remembering the question. After a moment of internal debate, he directs his answer to Nishimura.
“Quirks are what we call… what he said,” he says. “The term for meta abilities. They’re— 80% of people have them, at least.”
Nishimura hums, probably displeased with this based on his ideology. “How can we be sure you’re not lying, feeding us a false narrative?” he asks.
Kacchan laughs, “You want us to prove what, that we’re from the future? How do you suggest we do that?”
Izuku eyes him. “I don’t know if we have the answers you want. This all seems like a misunderstanding.”
There’s a pause as their captors seem to convene through eye contract. “Let’s change topics,” Nishimura suggests. He gestures to the man at the panel. “Did you have a different scanner with you, Doctor?”
The man at the panel hands something to the gunman, who passes it to Nishimura solemnly. It’s a device like a thermometer which he holds up to his own forehead. It beeps and flashes green.
Izuku tenses as he holds it to Kacchan’s forehead and it again beeps, but this time flashes red. “Functional,” Nishimura murmurs.
“A device that detects the quirk factor,” Izuku says in wonder. “How did you—“
He startles as the device is swing in his direction. It beeps and flashes green. Nishimuras frown deepens. The doctor scratches something in his notes.
“How are you doing that?” Nishimura demands. “Tell us now.”
Izuku feels an odd sense of dejavú and it takes a moment to place: a different doctor, a different chair, a very flipped version of this conversation.
“He’s not that special, okay?” Kacchan says, tone unexpectedly as uncaring and bored as possible. “Just eats his veggies, and all that.”
Nishimura looks to the doctor and nods. The switch flips and Izuku screams.
As Kacchan convulses, Nishimura sets the quirk detector down and strides to the other room. It’s forever and ever until the current stops, by which time Izuku’s voice has gone hoarse.
“How about a game,” Nishimura’s voice says over Kacchan gasping and Izuku sobbing. “You can decide who goes first.”
The doctor trades him places, serious eyes cold and unbothered at them over a masked face. He has some kind of kit in hand and begins laying out elements of it in the spare chair.
Izuku can’t look away from the neat line of scar tissue on Kacchan’s sternum, feeling like the world is closing in and being useless to stop it.
“Me,” he begs, not caring what it is he’s signing up for. “Me first.”
Kacchan’s eyes flash like he’d like to retort, but can’t fit it between uneven panting
breaths. Briefly his gasps stutter and a far-off panicked look crosses his face before he clamps down on it and forces a deep breath. Izuku mirrors it subconsciously, fingernails cutting crescents in his palms.
“Hold out your arms,” the doctor instructs. Izuku does so, and the man appraises with a surprised noise— a normal reaction to the state of Izuku’s arms— before grabbing the left one and pulling it forward. He wipes the crook down with an alcohol pad and applies a tourniquet.
“Don’t move,” he says in the same impersonal tone. Izuku’s skin prickles in goosebumps as a needle is inserted and his blood begins filling the attached vial.
He takes three and sets them on the tray before removing the needle from Izuku and considering Kacchan wearily. Kacchan glares back.
They must all be thinking the same thing: if the doctor makes contact with Kacchan and Kacchan tries anything, the electricity will hurt them both. And it took them this long to find a way to hold Kacchan still. Izuku being threatened is a good motivator.
“Uzawa, get in here,” the doctor says, and the man with the gun edges closer, appearing more anxious to be near them than either their leader or the doctor. He’s bulkier than then and has the lower part of his face covered in his shirt, despite already being masked.
“It’s not contagious,” Izuku says again. “Quirks don’t develop later in life.”
Kacchan coughs. Izuku adds in his head, ‘most of the time’.
“Shut up,” Uzawa growls, setting his gun to Izuku’s shoulder after some consideration. Killing off the more cooperative captive wouldn’t be smart of them.
The same procedure follows with Kacchan, and the samples are taken away. In the interim, as Izuku calculates the odds of kicking out the cables connecting the electrical grid to the wall before being incapacitated, Nishimura comes back, this time with a bucket in hand.
“So, Midoriya,” he says conversationally, hefting the bucket up and tipping a few gallons’ worth of water over Kacchan’s head, as casual as watering the plants. Droplets splash and hit Izuku and he feels how icy they are— Kacchan writhes under the onslaught, hair sticking over his face as he coughs it out of his nose and mouth.
“What?” Izuku says, realizing he’s missed something asked to him. His eyes are streaming again.
Nishimura smiles indulgently. “I said, demonstrate your metahuman ability again. I only got a glimpse.”
“Oh,” Izuku says. He almost says, ‘I’d rather not,’ assessing what’s left of the stockpile, but it takes less than a second of evaluation. He allows the green lightning to arc up his arms.
“Stop,” Kacchan wheezes, rapidly blinking eyes fixed, but Izuku has already cut it off. Nishimura glances between them.
“Oh?” he asks. “Why hold back?”
Izuku bites his lip then says, “It’s— only for emergencies.”
He raises his eyebrows. When neither of them volunteer an explanation immediately he nods and retreats with the bucket and leans around the door frame. They hear him say, “Did you get the tests ready, Dr. Fujimoto?”
Murmured conversation passes between them, and then Nishimura raises a hand to Izuku, beckoning. “You wanted to go first?”
…
The exam that proceed in a different room almost doesn’t happen, when Izuku realizes they want to separate them. But Kacchan meets his eye with a dark look that says ‘wait for a better chance, this time, idiot’, and he decides to pick his battle.
It could be a routine physical at first. Eyes, ears, mouth, reflexes. The doctor’s assistant girl even comes in to help, but this time she doesn’t make eye contact with Izuku and looks at him with disgust in the moments she has to touch him. She helps put the stickers on him for an EEG.
Then there’s the spinal tap, and Izuku struggles with that.
“Your DNA makes no sense,” the doctor growls, pushing open the door to his exam room as Izuku is still laying there, breathing measured inhales and exhales.
“Please,” he says, “Don’t make Kacchan do this.”
The doctor waves a paper in his face emphatically, tapping it with his index finger. “Maybe, if you make this make sense.”
The gibberish computer readout blurs in Izuku’s vision from where he’s curled on his side from the procedure. He takes too big of an inhale and a sharp sting goes up his spine. He slams his eyes shut against nausea.
“Okay,” he says, “okay... I don’t have my own quirk factor. The power I have now was given to me by someone. Not because it is transmissible—“ he emphasizes— “Just inherently made to be given.”
The doctor is looking at him with open skepticism when he opens his eyes.
“The little toe has three joints in it, commonly in this era,” Izuku says. “Right? Mine does too. But quirked people have developed more streamlined genetics, so they only have two.“
“The other meta human has a different bone structure?” he asks. “What about, say, wisdom teeth? An appendix?”
Izuku shrugs. “I only know what I have. Kacchan’s blood test reads the way you expected, though, right? That’s why. Because he has a quirk naturally. Whatever else you need to know about quirkless people in the future, you can find out from me. It could be a— a baseline comparison of changes in non-powered humans.”
The doctor turns from him, lost in thoughts that he begins typing out on the computer in the corner. The white noise grates on the headache beginning to pound in Izuku’s temples. He closes his eyes.
He’s asked a few more sharp questions from time to time, and tries to find a balance in his answers between informational and concise — a balance he’s never been good at finding. The doctor isn’t conversational in return; he pulls up information, presumably from his bloodwork and samples, and makes more notes.
Izuku is starting to hope his plan is working, by the time the doctor stands and leaves without explanation. He experimentally stretches his limps out nerves tingle up and down his back. Yeah, he could probably walk.
Kanazawa brings him a cup of water and plate of food. Izuku asks her about Kacchan. Predictably, she ignores him and locks the door on her way out.
…
When Izuku blinks awake, his first frustrated thought is, “I feel asleep?”
It’s not like before, when he had to struggle to wake up slowly and remember every detail of what happened. This time he’s unconscious and then he’s awake and his heart is racing, scanning the darkness.
Because the bed he’s on is the same, the room the same, the water gone but the food untouched— he remembers now what they did to his first meal— but the light is gone aside from the computer monitor’s lock Screen. And Izuku knows immediately he somehow lost at protecting Kacchan.
He sits up, angrily ignoring the aches and pains that doing so causes, and hobbles in the direction of the door. Before smashing it, he takes the time to turn the handle, find it locked, then break it off with a flash of OFA.
There’s nobody outside the room. They left him alone. Why would they leave him alone? He thinks he knows but he can’t, he can’t think about it.
Hands on the wall, teeth gritted, he makes his way down the hall. It’s all as plain and nondescript as before, but he remembers the way here from the last room, and follows that path. The door that Kacchan should be behind squeals like a dying creature when he opens, but its insides are empty and dark, glass hole now gaping on nothing.
Izuku’s breath catches. He turns and begins jogging, stumbles and nearly face plants on linoleum. Tries again.
Long shadows reach from every corner and snowflakes pound the building like hammers outside. It’s not that big a place, realistically, so why does it feel like a maze all of a sudden?
Only one room is lit, and that’s how Izuku ends up walking into a nightmare.
He knows distantly that he… lost it a little, when he arrived at the floating fortress during the war. Mostly he remembers the drain opening up in his chest and spiraling coherent thought into oblivion until he sound of Lemillion’s reasoning and the memory of Fifth’s advice turned the world the right way again and put his feet back where they belonged. He was able to put a pin in the thought that Kacchan was maybe not alive, and save it for later.
Then later came, and he WAS alive, so Izuku didn’t need to think about it anymore.
(That’s a lie, but nobody can call him on it.)
Right now, under sterile lights, he thrown back to that place where he doesn’t know again. Whether or not Kacchan is alive.
The doctor turns, eyes made large and alien by the light off his glasses. His face is covered and his hands are gloved and the thing in his hand— the thing in his hand is sharp and bloody. He exclaims something at the sight of Izuku that makes other shapes in the room shift toward him too. For the millionth time today, Izuku doesn’t know how to fix anything, how to save anyone.
Someone is laying there, someone is splayed out with their face covered and their insides are like the diagrams used in middle school textbooks to teach about anatomy but the things aren’t pictures.
Izuku falls to his knees and vomits.
He thinks he screams.
He thinks he feels a prick somewhere it’s outside him, with the horrible things. And right now he’s spiraling down the drain.
…
He comes to himself again, lying flat on his back on the ground. He reaches his hands out, searching, somehow knowing, and touches something warm a few feet away.
They’re in a dark concrete room— small, no windows except one that wouldn’t fit more than an arm out of he tried, up in the corner. It filters in grimy daylight. Some supply shelves line the walls. Probably for brooms and spray bottles; now they’re emptied.
Izuku officially lost them their status as guests.
The blood in his veins feels too slow, too weak as he fights to his hands and knees and crawls closer. Kacchan is the same as he was: laid on his back on the cold floor, no chains or anything. But he’s still asleep, and there’s a meager sheet thrown over his midsection. Izuku peels it back, and a noise of despair is wrenched from him.
A Y-shaped line of stitches spans Kacchan’s rib cage to his abdomen. The nightmare images flash through Izuku’s head and he sobs, quickly covering Kacchan back up and looking at his face.
He’s pale, eyes closed.
“Quirked people have developed more streamlined genetics.”
“Meta humans have a different bone structure?”
Izuku does something heroes aren’t supposed to do, something Aizawa Sensei would criticize, if he ever saw such a weakness, but Izuku can’t configure another answer to what a good hero would do in this situation. Maybe they covered something relevant in class and he didn’t pay attention enough or maybe he’s just not
as good of a hero as everyone thought.
Izuku panics.
“Hey,” he says, distantly aware of tears dripping down his face again; being a leaky faucet is all he’s ever consistently good for. “Hey, Kacchan, wake up. Please. Please wake up.”
It’s not fair of him to demand his friend return to consciousness right now, when he’ll probably be in so much pain. It’s entirely selfish and Izuku’s crying is stilted and broken over the guilt but he can’t stop.
He brushes his hands over Kacchan’s forehead, his shoulders, shaking him as lightly as he can. His own hands are trembling, weak. He just needs Kacchan to look and act like Kacchan right now, instead of looking and acting like—
“Kacchan,” Izuku begs, jostling perhaps too hard.
Kacchan grunts a noise and Izuku freezes. He waits and doesn’t breathe until Kacchan’s eyes twitch open to slits. They don’t open more than that, but do sway from side to side foggily before spotting Izuku.
“De…ku,” he says, voice hardly more louder than a whisper. He’s quiet for a minute before asking, “Why’re… cryin?”
Izuku tries to catch his breath and can’t find it. It feels like when he went running with All Might back in the beginning of his ten month training to receive One For All, when his cardiovascular system wasn’t in shape yet. His lungs felt too small to get enough oxygen, and he’d have a wheeze in his breath for the rest of the day anytime they ran. It went away as he built resilience through consistency and he hasn’t felt it since… til now.
He puts both hands over his mouth and tries to stifle the feeling. His fingers are tingling worse than they have ever since they came to this place. It’s his fault they came here at all.
“I’m so sorry,” he cries, wiping his face desperately. “Kacchan, I’m sorry, I wish I could fix this. I don’t know how. They hurt you and I don’t know how to fix it.”
The world tilts and Izuku collapses, catches himself on his elbow. Lowers his face to the floor. With one hand he holds tight to Kacchan’s wrist, trying to sync up with the steady pulse there. He sucks in air like a drowning man.
“Hah?” Kacchan says, still hardly louder than a breath.
Izuku doesn’t mean to but he laughs at the sound. Kacchan is good at everything, even making this better. He holds a breath in his lungs until it burns then, drawing on the control he used to stand against All for One, lets it out slowly. He’s rewarded with a slightly clearer head as he sits back up.
Kacchan’s eyes are still slotted open, looking at him suspiciously. Izuku gathers himself.
“How do you—feel?” he asks.
“Hmmm,” Kacchan muses, voice a little stronger. “Like road kill.” He sees Izuku wince and says, “We’re still with the mad scientists, huh.”
Izuku nods. “I had some tests, and they did some kind of surgery on you,” he debriefs, it’s just a debrief.
“Just look’d round,” Kacchan says, waving his free hand a few inches off the ground like swatting away a fly. Izuku still holds the other wrist selfishly. “I got the evil spiel. N’ big deal.”
“Kacchan,” Izuku says, all his disbelief and protest in one word. Kacchan grins.
“So how’re we breaking out of here?” Kacchan says.
Izuku rubs his fist over his eyes again and shifts to sitting cross-legged, casted leg outstretched parallel to Kacchan. Looking around, he assesses the room they’re in again. Truly they found the closest thing to a prison cell to put them in; if it’s not a room for that actual purpose, it might be a type of shed. Izuku could possibly use OFA to break down the door, and if Kacchan can walk, they can… but it would be them versus the elements again, and Izuku only survived that the first time because of Kacchan. This time Kacchan might not be up to using his quirk to keep them warm.
“Wh’d you say bout me?” Kacchan gripes.
Izuku presses his lips together. “Sorry,” he says.
“So loud,” Kacchan says, closing his eyes.
“Hey, Kacchan, how did we end up here again?” Izuku wonders. “You said there was a villain in the fire?”
“Mm, someone was standing over you all villain-like,” he confirms. “They the one who drugged you?”
“Drugged?” Izuku releases Kacchan and taps his fingers together under his chin. “Oh, I don’t know. What— what did they look like?”
It’s quiet for a moment. Izuku looks down and nudges Kacchan gently. He opens his eyes again and finds Izuku staring at him expectantly.
“What?” he says, seeming honestly confused.
“The villain in the fire,” Izuku repeats, wondering if he fell asleep for a second. “What did they look like?”
“Oh,” Kacchan says. “Uh, reflective armor, like glass or something. Fire didn’t hurt them.”
“But that can’t be their quirk, since they used the time-travel quirk on us,” Deku thinks. “So there must be someone else helping them, someone who could make…” A thought strikes him and he swallows, considering carefully. “Armor that withstands fire— could be a permafrost quirk.”
“Crystal Gale?” Kacchan catches on, eyes going wide. His brow darkens. “She tried to stop me from going in after you.”
Izuku hates to think it of a hero who showed them so much hospitality, but the clues add up. “Right before you started the fireworks, she brought me a hot drink,” he says. “And, I think… if the fires were her idea, she was going to blame them on you.”
“Seemed like that rumor was going around already,” Kacchan says, clenching his fist. He curses.
“So now it’s a matter of why send us back— or rather me, since it seemed like you were part of the cover,” Izuku says. “It’s a good setup to fake my death, you have to admit. But what does she stand to gain? And the parameters of the time travel quirk— In the best case scenario, it has a time limit and we just have to wait it out, but at worst it’s something like Kurogiri’s Warp Gate where we went through time instead of space and the task of getting back DOES rely on a new door being opened…”
He trails off and looks to Kacchan for input. Kacchan is staring at the ceiling, neutral except for a twinge between his brows. Thirty long seconds pass before he notices Izuku looking and starts.
“What?” he says.
“What do you mean, what?” Izuku says.
Kacchan’s forehead crease deepens. He opens his mouth. Makes an aborted noise. Tries again. “What… were we talking about?”
Izuku is holding onto his hard-earned calm as best he can. “I was trying to consider why Crystal Gale might’ve sent us here,” he says.
Kacchan’s expression goes severe. “Crystal Gale did this??”
“Kacchan, we just talked about it,” Izuku says, trying not to plead. Then something occurs to him.
Sometimes, especially on days after he’s gone all out, Kaminari experiences side effects from his quirk. He told them he used to have seizures before medication got them under control, but he still gets aura migraines from time to time, as well as tics, and other consequences with his body being highly conductive. Once on a stormy weekend he accidentally attracted a lightning bolt from the sky and seemed to laugh it off despite everyone’s immediate alarm, until he kept forgetting things they said over and over for the rest of the day. Recovery Girl found nothing wrong with him to heal; his brain just needed time to sort through the massive interference in electrical signals.
Izuku’s been so worried about Kacchan’s heart that he hadn’t considered other side effects of electrocution.
He pulls in a breath, counts, and pushes it out. “Okay,” he says. “This is fine. You’re just having a hard time remembering, because they shocked you so much. Do you remember that?”
“Sure,” Kacchan says, like that’s obvious. If not for this development, Izuku would think that’d be hard to forget… Izuku certainly won’t be forgetting. Then Kacchan processes what Izuku is saying and looks suddenly afraid. “Please don’t tell me I’ve been making Dunce Face face.”
Izuku waves his hands. “You’re doing great! Um. If you can’t remember, I’ll just remind you. It’s probably temporary…”
“I did the face, didn’t I?” Kacchan sounds haunted. “Don’t lie to me, Deku.”
“You’re not,” Deku assures, privately comparing. Kaminari’s vacant look is signature to him— Izuku has a feeling he exaggerates, to help people not worry about him— but there’s something reminiscent in Kacchan’s expression every time he loses the thread.
It pulls a laugh from him, fresh tears lining his eyes— this isn’t good, sure, but the memory of their friend back home strengthens him, gives a light to the darkness of the situation.
Kacchan forgets every so often, losing about a minute or so of the conversation at a time. Izuku doesn’t get tired of repeating himself just happy to hear him talking.
As they talk— Izuku repeating his theories, recounting to Kacchan his amnesia, etc— he slides to the wall and uses it to push to his feet, wobbly with the head rush that follows. As soon as he gets up, his stomach makes its emptiness known with a loud squirming and he winces.
“Wish they’d left us a blanket or something,” Kacchan says, huddled in his meager sheet and still only in the lower half of his hero costume. Izuku’s is still missing, only a thing cotton T-shirt and sweats to protect himself from the chill.
“I think we might be underground,” Izuku mutters, standing under the lone window, trying to see out. He wishes he had Float still.
“Hey,” he says, turning suddenly. “Crystal Gale said that the frozen lake was made by an ancient quirk user,” Izuku says. “Do you remember seeing the lake when we got transported here?”
He asks out of curiosity (because a quirk is involved) but then his mind jumps a couple steps and an idea pops into his head and he immediately switches tracks.
“Kacchan!” he says, before Kacchan can answer. His friend glares mutely, arms crossed under his sheet, and raises an eyebrow. “If we leave some kind of message for our friends in the future somewhere— I don’t know, a recording, a letter, maybe multiple things so something will definitely last— maybe we can get tell them how to rescue us across time! We’re in the past, maybe we can affect the future!”
Kacchan thinks about it. “When I forget I said it in a minute, tell me I told you that that’s not a bad idea. We probably need to get to their computers somehow if that’s the plan we’re going with.”
“Yes, yes, the Internet!” Izuku says, running his hands through his hair. “We can reach out to— someone. Do we know anyone’s ancestors?”
Kacchan lifts a shoulder. “YOU might.”
Izuku blinks, “I do?”
He gets a look like he’s an idiot. “Hm, if only there was a long line of people spanning the age of quirks and linking directly to you.”
Izuku slaps his hand over his mouth, a swell of excitement building in his chest. He spins to the wall, unable to stand still, and slowly lowers his hand. “You think,” he whispers. “The vestiges?”
He didn’t lie when he told Kacchan he doesn’t mind being quirkless again in the near future, but he would be lying to say he didn’t miss the figures who had become, for the time he left UA and up through the battle for Shigaraki’s heart, his closest allies. Going by this age, he’d say OFA is in its earlier half— definitely before En or Banjo. Even if they don’t know him yet, never knew him at all as they were alive— he’d trust them with his life, and knows they’re good and strong enough people to help them out of this.
“Kacchan, you’re a genius,” he says reverently.
Kacchan looks at him funny. “…Yep,” he agrees. Izuku tilts his head. Kacchan gives a thumbs up. “I am.”
Izuku realizes his mistake: he’s been quietly staring into space on his own, while Kacchan has tended to hold onto the conversation best when he’s actively engaged. He’s fully pretending to know what they just said and won’t admit such, now that he’s holding onto the fact that he’s forgetting. Probably out of pride, but also selflessness. He has been saving Izuku since the fire and before.
“You are,” Izuku says again. And then (with some key reminders), they come up with a plan.
…
“Deku, you’ve got about five minutes,” Kacchan hisses under his breath.
Izuku looks over his shoulder, heart pounding a vivace tempo against his breastbone. Kacchan is leaned heavily against the door, the metal mechanisms of which have been rendered useless through melding. Sweat coats his forehead despite the packed snow under his stolen puffer jacket providing makeshift pain management against his front.
Outside the room, he hears the voices of alarm that Kacchan is referencing and swallows dryly. His fingers curl in the keyboard as he whips back around.
The fact they got this far is miraculous, and yet easier than Izuku could’ve hoped. As soon as their prison door opened for the two men went to bring them food, Kacchan— the better actor— had cried out for help as Izuku lay motionless. As soon as they approached, Izuku swung his cast leg into their feet and Kacchan knocked them out when they fell. From there it was simple pilfering their keys and clothes as disguises.
These Humanists may be used to imprisoning “meta-humans”, but they aren’t prepared for third year hero students.
Izuku has spent the last hour fighting with the computer while Kacchan kept watch. He has a better chance, given Kacchan is still suffering random bouts of amnesia, but he isn’t a tech expert. Not to mention their captors’ technology is slightly old-fashioned compared to what he’s used to.
His goal is to contact Bruce.
From the date on the computer and what he knows of the past users, they have to be at least within Bruce’s lifespan. That and the fact Bruce Lee was a researcher in his time who might’ve spent time studying shared knowledge on the internet gives Izuku hope of making contact.
There is no official hero network yet, obviously, but Izuku located and posted their coordinates along with every SOS message he knew to just about every outlet that looked promising.
“It’s almost done,” he tells Kacchan, eyeing the progress bar in the corner. Because, in spite of everything they have going on, he’s following a gut urge to download these guys’ research into the memory stick he came across in’s drawer. And then he is going to wipe their system.
“What’s the plan after this?” Kacchan bites out, holding his midriff.
Izuku points at the window, currently breathing frigid air into the room. “Find another empty cell. Hide out in it,” he repeats. Because he hopes they don’t expect their escaped captives to rejail themselves elsewhere. It’s the world’s worst game of hide and seek.
Voices draw nearer and Kacchan’s hands spark a little bit, more light than heat, probably anxious. Izuku shushes him (which Kacchan snaps back at), hope rising as the download ticks over the completion bar.
“Okay, okay, okay…” he mutters under his breath, rapidly selecting every file that looks important. He hits the delete button. It asks him if he’s sure. He hits affirmative.
The computer begins a new progress bar; that’s probably good enough. Izuku spins around and stands up so fast he forgets about his leg and almost trips— thankfully Kacchan darts a hand out and grabs his sleeve. He stabilizes and meets Kacchan’s gaze, thumbing the memory stick in his pocket.
He grins. “Let’s go.”
They were being kept in a basement portion of the same building where the bad things happened to them; probably it’s the designated bad things building.
Izuku keeps a grip on Kacchan’s arm as they make their way around to another window, for both of their benefits. They wait stooped in the bushes only long enough for the noise to indicate that search for them has become an an encampment-wide effort, then duck back in and search for an unmonitored room; as he’d hoped, people seem more concerned with rushing around than keeping an eye on the bad things building.
As soon as they settle down in the corner of their room farthest from the windows and doors, Izuku releases a breath he’s been holding. All they can do now is wait.
Then Kacchan slams his head back against the wall, making Izuku jump as the wall rattles a little. Izuku turns to look at him, alarmed.
Kacchan’s expression is pinched, mouth twisted in a scowl. He sees Izuku looking and grunts. “Sorry.”
“We’re good, nobody saw us—“
“I know!” Kacchan interrupts, then winces. “I mean, I can figure out that much. No, I meant. Sorry that I’m here.” He gestures, indicating the location as a whole.
Izuku scoots closer, uncurling a bit. “Kacchan…?” he probes tentatively.
Kacchan’s hands find his hair. “I should’ve trusted you, to be on your own—“ he makes a face. “But what am I talking about, no I can’t! Look where we are.”
“Are you talking about the internship?” Izuku asks.
A curt nod. He turns his head away. Very quietly he admits, “I’m gonna miss you.”
Izuku’s shoulders lower and he takes a deep breath, trying not to immediately say the same things he’s already said on this subject. Kacchan won’t be comforted. Because even though their friendship can be the same, some things will change. Their parallel paths will branch apart for the first time in so long.
“I’m glad you came,” he says softly. His fingers twitch against his thighs, unsure what to do with themselves. “It’s a lot better than being here alone, even if I wish you didn’t get hurt.”
Kacchan huffs. Probably thinking something like, ‘I died and came back once, so this is nothing.’
Izuku disagrees silently, chewing his lip. “For the other thing… I guess. Yeah. I’m gonna miss you too.”
It doesn’t help to pretend otherwise; he’s gonna see all his friends from the ground from now on. He’ll be their biggest fans, and catch up with them whenever they come down, and always cherish the times they flew side by side.
Kacchan exhales. “I shouldn’t have been a jerk back at the festival,” he adds thickly. He’s still turned away.
Izuku blinks, taking a moment to recall. That was so long ago. “Oh, I don’t care.”
“Of course you don’t.”
“You’re allowed to be sad, Kacchan.”
Kacchan faces him. Izuku is reminded of the moment years earlier when he admitted how he felt about All Might retiring and the guilt he was plagued by— It was the first time Izuku could remember seeing his childhood friend crack through the proud exterior since they were little. And it happened again, when he cried at the hospital after the war— though there was shock and pain medication involved then.
He looks at Izuku and takes a sharp, shaky breath. Closes his eyes and knocks his head back again.
“Cut that out,” Izuku demands, putting his hand flat against the wall behind Kacchan’s head.
“Shut up,” Kacchan says, wobbly. “I hate you.”
Izuku cracks a smile. He rolls his eyes showily. “Okay, Kacchan.”
They sit in comfortable silence, as comfortable as they can be, for so long a time that Izuku starts to feel his eyelids get heavy. He pinches the sensitive underside of his upper arm and shakes his head, trying to listen out. Then Kacchan shifts and groans like he pulled something sensitive, and Izuku’s eyes snap open.
His friend’s head lolls toward him, eyes watery. He probably needs better pain management.
What he says makes Izuku realizes their mistake of having this heart-to-heart right now.
Sometime Kacchan’s third apology, Izuku goes to peek out the window. The blinds are pulled shut but he can squint and make out a pretty clear image of the area outside the building. It’s quiet. The families in the commune have been confined to their houses until their dangerous captives are found or assumed gone for good.
He hopes that the evil doctor has found his research destroyed.
“Hey, Izuku,” Kacchan says. “I—“
“It’s okay,” Izuku says automatically.
Kacchan’s brows furrow. His face has been pinched in pain for awhile, sweaty and pale still, but the risk of going in search of pain management drugs outweighed the risk of getting caught right now. In summary, Izuku hates this.
“I was gonna say, did you hear that?” Kacchan says.
Izuku automatically freezes, listening out. After a moment he pauses and shakes his head. “Hear what?” he whispers.
“Thought I heard something through the wall. Not an animal or something.”
Izuku’s skin prickles, mind already racing. “Do you think it could be someone trapped like us?”
Kacchan shrugs.
Izuku creeps up to the wall and considers. He lifts his fist and raps a common pattern on it, a five-note tap that invites an answer. After a long pause, they hear the responding two taps.
“I’ll be right back,” Izuku says. Kacchan’s protest goes unheard as he pulls the door open, poking his head out to check the coast is clear.
The door next to theirs is locked and Izuku knocks again gently. There’s a quiet scuttle sound, like someone backing away, hiding. He breaks the lock and opens it slowly, prepared to defend himself if whoever is on the other side is easily scared.
“Hello?” he whispers into the dark room. Immediately he spies the blinking red of a recording device in the corner and mentally curses, raising his fingers to flick Air Force at it. The camera cracks with a static sound, and a quiet whimper accompanies the sound.
Izuku looks down.
Huddled under a bed in the corner is a small figure, definitely too small to be an adult. Their eyes glow like a cat’s, yellow and reflective in the low hallway lights. Izuku crouches down where he stands.
“Hey,” he says softly, smiling. “I’m Deku. I’m not here to hurt you. What’s your name?”
The person’s eyes flick over him, posture still stiff. After maybe two minutes, Izuku hears a whispered, “Taneki.”
“Hi, Taneki.” He smiles bigger and gestures over his shoulder with his head. “Do you wanna get out of here?”
Cautiously the boy nods his head, but stops himself and looks down. “I’m not s’posed to get my germs on anyone,” he admits, breaking Izuku’s heart.
He wants to say ‘They’re wrong,’ but catches his tongue and says instead, “It’s okay. I already have the germ too.”
Taneki’s eyes widen. “You do? What’s wrong with you?”
Izuku laughs. “It’s a long story.” He holds out his hand. “I’d love to hear about you, though!”
Joy blooms in his chest as Taneki uncurls, slowly crawling his way out of his hiding spot. He stalls himself before taking Izuku’s hand, though, eyes downcast. “Momma said I couldn’t live in our house anymore.”
It dawns on Izuku that this child, no older than 7, was a resident of the commune before his quirk developed. That because of fear and hatred, he now hides under a bed without anyone to save him. Izuku knows this story from back when he was 16. He breathes through the indignation and despair and keeps his smile in place.
“It’ll be okay,” he promises, and Taneki takes his hand.
…
Kacchan is laying out on the floor like a starfish, an upset look on his face when Izuku leads Taneki back into their hiding spot.
“That’s my friend,” Izuku says. Kacchan shoots up and cries out, grabbing his torso.
“Kacchan, be careful!” Deku says at the same time as Kacchan says, “Where have you been??”
Deku grins sheepishly. “This is Taneki,” he says, but realizes Taneki is hiding behind him, yellow eyes big. “Oh, Taneki… my friend Dynamight is also okay with you being around him. He can make explosions from his hands with his power! Isn’t that cool?”
“Where did you find that?” Kacchan demands, panting a little as he lays back down.
“Hey,” Izuku says, letting go of Taneki’s hand to hobble closer. “Hey, let me see your stitches.”
Kacchan grimaces but doesn’t fight Izuku’s hands pushing the flaps of his stolen puffer coat. Izuku’s stomach sinks at what he sees: the snow has turned to muddy slush against the sheet over his front, the dark color staining in that awful Y shape. The skin underneath is angry red with cold.
“Gonna be… kind of a pain walking out of here…” he grunts.
“Is that blood?” the boy behind them asks, too loud, and Izuku quickly covers the wound again. He spins around.
“It’s okay, Taneki-san,” he says, aiming to sound reassuring. “Please, keep your voice down. We don’t want anyone to—“
“Why is he bleeding?” Taneki asks, already beginning to cry. Izuku makes an alarmed noise in the back of his throat, clears it and starts again.
“He’s gonna be okay,” he says for all their sakes. “He just— he has—“
“Can I see?”
Taneki’s question leaves them speechless until Kacchan eventually says, “No, you little weirdo.”
“Kacchan,” Izuku chastises.
Taneki tiptoes closer despite them and circles to Kacchan’s other side before Izuku can decide what else to do about it. His eyes are still leaking tears but he doesn’t look upset— actually he looks intrigued, trying to see past the covering.
“What happened?” he asks, and then moves on (thankfully), “I could try something with my meta-ability, if you want…”
“Oh,” Izuku says, curiosity warring with caution. “I’m, um— what is it?”
In answer, Taneki leans forward and blinks rapidly. With his face downturned, water from his overflowing eyes pit-pats a couple drops against Kacchan’s middle and sparkle the same ethereal gold as his irises themselves. Instinctively Izuku peels the covering back, exposing the cut marks.
As he watches, the lines of red release steam and fade to light pink marks, stitches dissolving away. Izuku gapes, hands covering his mouth a moment later as Taneki looks for his approval anxiously.
“WOW, that’s really sad,” Kacchan states point blank, eyes half-lidded. “I think I prefer the way our old lady activates her quirk— and I never thought I’d say that.”
“Oh, that is wonderful, Taneki!” Izuku breathes.
Taneki sits back on his haunches, wiping his eyes and hiding his face shyly under thick, dark bangs.
“‘Gonna pass out,” Kacchan says.
“I’m sorry,” Takeni says, ashamed immediately. “That happened to my sister too…”
“No, no, that’s normal with healing quirks,” Izuku assures, watching the little boy’s eyes grow wide. He looks like a plant soaking up every word out of Izuku’s mouth, and Izuku is delighted to provide. “You sped up his healing but his body is tired because healing takes energy. What an amazing gift— we really owe you one!”
Taneki smiles.