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He doesn’t know what number he’s on when he first notices.
He had tried to keep count, at first. But when he’d been forced to reset over and over he would quickly lose track. The tallies he’d made on his arm would erase themselves when he’d die and return to a time before he’d even made them
“Five?” He had asked himself aloud, the first time he’d lost count. Gripping his hair as if tugging at the strands would pull the memories from the depths of his mind, he’d tried to recall each horrific end he’d endured in the last hour. “Six? Seven?”
Resetting over and over like that leaves his brain muddled. Memories of blood and pain and the subsequent nothingness of death all blend together into a gruesome equivalent of a Rorschach painting. Abstract, confusing, and ultimately meaningless.
After that, he’d stopped trying.
Which is why he doesn’t know what number he’s on when he first notices. He regrets that, just a little bit. He can’t help but wonder how many times it took for it to begin.
He’s working on an english assignment in his room. The sight of his fingers in his peripheral catches his attention from where it had been focused on the page he was writing on.
What he sees makes him drop his pen.
Blue.
His fingers are blue.
It’s only the tips, not even reaching past the first knuckle, but it’s there.
Slowly, he turns his trembling hand this way and that, bends the joints of his fingers, stretches the skin of his fingertips and closely examines under his fingernails.
Unmistakably blue.
All but scrambling to the bathroom, he puts his hands under warm, and then hot, and then scorching water with the hope that the hue would fade under the faucet. But the blue remains even when the rest of his hand becomes red and splotchy under the steaming water.
He buys a pair of sturdy black gloves that night and pretends to ignore the freezing sensation he feels growing under his skin.
He is successful in hiding his condition until a couple months later. The blue is nearly to his third knuckle when it all comes to a head.
It happens like this:
He and Shinsou are sparring under Aizawa-sensei’s supervision. The smaller boy throws a punch to his opponent’s jugular, which is caught just barely in time to avoid contact. With Izuku’s fist in his grip, Shinsou pulls with the intention of catching him off guard and making him stumble forward. But instead, Izuku matches him by pulling his arm back, loosening his fingers and sliding his hand out of Shinsou’s own.
Izuku notices immediately what has happened. It’s hard to miss, between the sudden sensation of cool air on his hand, and the sight of his glove in Shinsou’s grip.
He watches Shinsou’s narrowed gaze shift to the offending hand, likely about to inwardly curse it for ruining his plan, but when his eyes land on it, they widen. It seems any retaliation he had been planning halts, as he simply stands there, staring dumbly at Izuku’s hand.
At his blue, blue, fingers
Izuku is hyperaware of his teacher scrambling to his feet behind him.
Fuck, the boy laments inwardly, I’m definitely going to have to reset after this.
Izuku reaches futilely for the glove still in Shinsou’s grip, but the taller boy snaps back to awareness just in time to yank it out of his reach. Shinsou’s eyes meet his own, pleading gaze.
Please, Izuku’s eyes say, leave it alone.
Shinsou responds not only with his eyes, but his head as he shakes it. No, he conveys. I can’t, not this.
And Izuku wants to be angry, wants to yell at Shinsou because it’s none of your business. But the memory of bruises marring the taller boy’s skin is all too fresh. The feeling of I have to do something all too familiar, and he understands. Izuku would do the same. He has done the same.
Shinsou breaks eye contact to look just behind Izuku, and a second later Aizawa-sensei enters his field of vision. Two hands surge forward, and it’s only the shock making his perception hazy and numb that keeps Izuku from flinching backwards and tearing his arms away from his teacher’s grip.
Methodically, Aizawa-sensei’s hands bring Izuku’s together and hold them there, in between his own.
“Midoriya,” Aizawa-sensei starts, sounding panicked and confused. “Are you- are you cold?”
The question is weak, uncertain, even to Izuku’s ears. The gym is by no means cold. In fact, both he and Shinsou are sporting a healthy sheen of sweat from the mix of the warm temperature and the exercise.
“N-no,” Izuku answers weakly, attempting to pull his hands away from his teacher. The man doesn’t budge.
Aizawa-sensei takes his eyes off of their joined hands to look at him with something close to incredulity. He lets go of Izuku’s bare right hand only to tug the glove off of his left one. His teacher hisses when the hue of his left fingers are revealed to match those of his right. The man pulls both of his student’s hands back and cups them between his own. He brings them to his lips and blows a hot breath into the cradle of their hands, futilely trying to bestow them warmth.
“Then what-“ The man shakes his head. He once again opens his hands to glance at Izuku’s fingers, before closing them again and blowing another puff of hot air. “What is wrong with your hands?”
“It’s fine!” Izuku blurts. He tugs his hands at the instinctual urge to wave them placatingly, but Aizawa-sensei’s grip remains firm.
“Fine!?” Shinsou says from behind him, voice incredulous. If Izuku weren’t already well aware that the taller boy hates him, he might have mistaken his tone for concerned.
“Midoriya,” Aizawa-sensei says, urgency hardening his tone. “This isn’t fine. There’s- you need to go to Recovery Girl.”
“No!” Izuku yelps, shaking his head rapidly. “Seriously, it’s okay! It’s just- it’s just a side effect!” He explains with a shaky smile that he prays comes across as reassuring enough that the two will decide to just let it go.
“A side effect?” Shinsou asks, sounding half-past hysterical. “A side effect of what, fucking hypothermia?”
“Shinsou,” Their teacher admonishes, albeit weakly. He turns back to Izuku, trying in vain to meet the boy’s eyes. “What do you mean, Midoriya?”
Izuku doesn’t like the tone he’s using. It’s concerned and it’s soft as if he’s something worth caring for. It makes him want to tease the man and burst into tears in equal measure.
“It’s- It’s just- my quirk. It’s a side effect of my quirk,” He explains, voice watery against his best efforts.
There’s a heavy silence, after that. Aizawa-sensei’s brows furrow. Narrowed eyes search Izuku’s own.
“A side effect of your quirk.” The man echoes disbelievingly.
Shinsou pipes up, voicing their teacher’s obvious thought aloud. “That doesn’t make any fucking sense.”
“Your quirk,” Aizawa-sensei says slowly. “Is Foresight. It shouldn’t- it doesn’t make any sense that it does…” He tilts his head to their conjoined hands, “this.”
God, Izuku wishes they were stupider. Maybe he’d be able to get away with this if they were.
“It’s... complicated?” He offers. His teacher does not look the slightest bit amused.
Nervously, Izuku’s eyes flick to the door of the gym. It’s far. Much too far for Izuku to reach before his teacher inevitably unravels his capture weapon and casts it out to restrain him. Trying to escape now would only result in Aizawa-sensei sharpening his gaze and tightening his hold on him. He has to wait. He can’t reset yet.
But he’s running out of time.
How much longer does he have until his next reset sends him back to a time after the reveal occurs? How much longer until this is permanent?
Fuck, he’s gotta get out of here.
When he looks back to Aizawa-sensei, the man’s gaze is directed behind him, probably at Shinsou. Izuku turns his head to look back as well, keeping his body angled forward so as to not disturb his teacher’s hold.
Shinsou has stepped closer, now within arm’s length. If Izuku is quick enough, he could probably rip his hand free from Aizawa-sensei’s hold and snatch his right glove back from the boy. But his left one is still in his teacher’s possession, and there’s no way he could retrieve it without the man reacting.
“Well then it’s a good thing we have plenty of time for you to explain.” Aizawa-sensei says, jolting Izuku out of his thoughts.
Perhaps to anyone else, the man’s tone would leave no room for argument. The thing is, Izuku is exceptionally stubborn.
“Ah,” He responds slowly. For good measure, he lets out a forced chuckle.
Aizawa-sensei’s eyes narrow further. Fuck. Shit. The chuckle didn’t help then.
“There’s- there’s really no need to- to…” Izuku trails off. He curses the current state of his hands, still held captive in his teacher’s grip. Now would be an ideal time to gesture vaguely. “I just- I mean, it’s not really like, a problem, or anything…”
And it’s really not. Sure, the sensation in his fingertips is fading and the feeling of ice overtaking his veins is growing stronger everyday but that’s fine. Everything is fine. He can live with this.
The question of how much longer remains steadfastly unentertained.
(How much longer until the blue reaches past his knuckles and seeps into his palms? How much longer until it crawls up his arms, leaving the joints of his wrists and elbows weak and sluggish in its wake? How much longer until he loses all sensation and movement entirely?
How much longer until it reaches his chest, his heart? How much longer until his quirk, the only thing keeping him alive, kills him?)
“Midoriya, this is a problem.” Aizawa-sensei retains firmly, squeezing his hands either for comfort or for emphasis. “And for us to fix the problem, we need to understand what’s causing it.”
Before he can help himself, Izuku’s face twists, portraying his disgust most prominently at the word “understand” because they can’t. Even if he were to explain (which he won’t), it’s not like that would make them understand. They won’t. They never will. No one ever will.
Aizawa-sensei’s expression cracks, just for a moment, at something he sees in Izuku’s expression.
“We just want to help you.” Shinsou says pleadingly.
It’s just so fake that Izuku can’t help but scoff aloud.
That is his mistake.
The oddly cool sensation of Shinsou’s quirk washes over him. The tension in his shoulders automatically dissolves and the trembling in his hands automatically steadies. Perhaps in any other situation, he would relish the feeling of his body actually fucking relaxing, for once.
Unfortunately though, he is not in any other situation. He is in this situation.
See, Shinsou’s quirk may prevent any physiological manifestations of panic, but it doesn’t keep his mind from going haywire.
Because what. the fuck.
That’s cheating! Shinsou’s cheating!
And yet, when Aizawa-sensei’s eyes slide briefly over to the boy behind Izuku they hold appraisal. The man nods.
There's a pang in his chest, quick and sharp, as he realizes that the two other people in the room have conspired against him.
See, Izuku knows betrayal. He knows it perhaps even more intimately than the back of his hand.
Between a father that left him at the tender age of four, a childhood friend that turned violently against him shortly after, a body that refused to show a single sign of a quirk until he literally fucking died, and a world of heroes that has looked resolutely away in nearly every instance wherein he has found himself in danger; betrayal has become a morbid sort of constant in the absolute shitstorm of his life.
So yes, Izuku knows betrayal, expects it, from most.
He certainly expected it from Shinsou.
But from Aizawa-sensei? The man who has shown him nothing but kindness and an almost fatherly sort of protectiveness even when everything he’d thought he’d known about Izuku had been a lie?
He thinks this betrayal is the worst of all. A cold feeling, not unlike that of his fingers, makes itself known in the center of his chest, clawing outward until it latches onto each of his ribs and pulls. If Shinsou’s quirk didn't naturally regulate his breathing, he’s sure the sensation would have taken the air from his lungs.
“Explain truthfully why your fingers are blue.” Shinsou says.
Izuku briefly wonders if he would have been able to lie had he not added ‘truthfully’. He’ll have to ask about that later. You know. When he’s not being fucking interrogated.
“It’s a side effect of my quirk.” The answer slips through his lips unbidden.
Aizawa-sensei frowns. He imagines Shinsou does the same.
“Explain how your quirk turns your fingers blue.” Shinsou amends, sounding annoyed either with Izuku or his own quirk. Actually, it’s probably both.
Everything in Izuku wills his body to clench his jaw or bite his tongue, anything to keep his damn mouth shut.
It doesn’t work.
“Repeated use of my quirk results in cell death through the increased release of calcium ions, triggering necrosis starting at the distal-most appendages.”
Aizawa-sensei stares. Izuku curses the hours and hours of research he had done the night he first saw the blue staining his fingers. If he had never done the research, had never figured out what was happening, he wouldn’t have even been able to explain it.
After several long seconds of silence, the man reiterates Shinsou’s earlier sentiment, “That doesn’t make sense.” The man ducks his head and pinches the bridge of his nose in apparent frustration. He looks back up at Shinsou.
“Ask him what his quirk is.” He says.
There’s a pause.
No. No, no, no, no, no. Please, no.
“I…” Shinsou seems confused. “Don’t we... know what his quirk is? It’s… some kind of foresight?”
The teacher’s eyes slide back to meet Izuku’s. If he were physically capable, Izuku would avert his gaze. He’d do a lot of things right now, if he were physically capable. Number one on that list might be to kick his teacher in the balls. Number two would probably be to kill himself.
“I don't think it is.” Aizawa-sensei says quietly, as if to himself. “Tell him to explain what his quirk is.” He reiterates, louder.
“...Midoriya,” Shinsou starts. His voice shakes.
Stop, Izuku wants to plead, you don't have to do this. I know you don’t want to.
Just let me go.
“Explain your quirk.”
Izuku feels his eyes well with tears. He watches Aizawa-sensei’s eyes track the first tear that slides down his cheek. He wonders if the brief expression of remorse he spots on the man’s face is really there, or if he’s just projecting.
“My quirk rewinds time.”
Aizawa-sensei sucks in a sharp breath.
“It is activated only by death.”
Like a rubber band stretched to its limits snapping painfully back into place, Shinsou’s quirk releases it’s hold on Izuku.
With a gasp, Izuku’s mind is thrown harshly back into his body. He stumbles backwards, his hands slipping out of his teacher’s grip and shooting up to his head. Two hands, probably Shinsou’s, take him by the shoulders in an attempt to steady him but Izuku is scared and all he knows is danger so he grabs one of the hands and pulls, throwing his upper body forward and digging his heels back.
He hears a pained “oof” followed by a loud groan but he doesn’t really have the time to think about the way he literally just judo-flipped Shinsou over his shoulder and onto Aizawa-sensei because he needs to get the fuck out of here.
Pivoting on his toes, he sets off towards the exit of the gym. He hears twin shouts of his name but he is able to make it out of the door and into the hallway before he begins to hear footsteps echoing behind him.
He has to kill himself now.
He can’t let this be permanent.
As he runs, he scrambles to recall where he’s hidden the closest knife. They’re in little nooks and crannies all over campus. In between ceiling panels and under floorboards he’s placed the things, small but sharp enough to get the job done quickly. If he remembers correctly, there’s one hidden in the paper towel dispenser in the boy’s bathroom just a few more doors down the hallway.
Hearing a shout from behind him, he looks back just in time to dodge a wide swipe of Eraserhead’s capture weapon.
He curses his decision of not bringing a knife with him to training. He’d stopped doing so ever since his instincts had gotten the better of him one time, causing him to brandish a knife against his opponent before he could think better of it. Ha, that had been awkward.
He reaches the bathroom, swinging the door open with enough force that it bounces loudly against the adjacent wall. He slams the paper towel dispenser with his fist and a small knife falls out and clatters to the floor.
He takes no time in grabbing the hilt and stabbing the blade into the flesh of his throat, dragging it across as blood spurts out and covers his hands and floor beneath him.
Even stronger than the pain is the relief.
A hand suddenly grabs his and tears the knife from his grip. He doesn’t fight it - not that he physically could - because he knows that he’s already done enough.
His vision is engulfed with a vague dark shape, but that’s alright. He recognizes this vague dark shape.
He feels a sudden pressure on his neck and hears the voice of his teacher in his ear.
“Midoriya, Midoriya. Look at me. No, don’t- open your eyes. Ace, open your eyes.” The man’s voice cracks at the end as he dissolves into heaving sobs.
Distantly, Izuku thinks he hears the sound of the door opening once again, followed by a soft, disbelieving, “Midoriya.”
Izuku can’t help but feel bad, making the two of them watch this. Especially Shinsou. He’s put the poor boy through so much already.
He feels two hands grasp his arm and shake him, beg him to wake up but his eyes are already closed and his mind is already fading into that familiar blissful nothingness.
Before his senses dissolve entirely, he hears Aizawa-sensei let out a screaming sob. Shinsou is eerily silent.
Then there is nothing.
And then, he is back.
Izuku has gotten pretty good at hiding the small jolt of returning to life. The readjustment to the sudden everything where there had just been nothing.
It seems that the two other people in the room are not as experienced.
In front of him, Aizawa appears to startle violently where he crouches in front of Izuku.
Where he holds both of Izuku’s ungloved hands.
He hears a gasp of breath from Shinsou behind him, solidifying the horrifying fact that Izuku had brought both of them back with him when he’d returned, memories and all.
Aizawa-sensei’s eyes meet Izuku’s
This is permanent.