Work Text:
It's moments like this, wind lashing like a belt across his face, body in freefall, and panic swooping through his gut even after he's hit solid ground, that Toshinori digs deep within. It's muscle memory: the way a subconscious part of him claws through flesh and ribs until he finds the place where power once sat. As if it can offer something more than dirt beneath his nails, a wheeze of air from his lungs, and shaky legs as he gets upright. As if such a place isn't an empty hole and he isn't a helpless old man arriving late to the aftermath of another battle.
A battle that his students were forced to endure alone.
A rough noise bursts from Toshinori's throat as the straps of his parachute pull him backwards. His bones creak as he fights them, practically breaking the buckles that have him locked in. He's teetering on the edge of a steep decline in the earth. It's thanks to these infernal tangled strings that he hasn't gone tumbling over. Gravity and his chute have done their part to get him on the ground now he just needs to get it off. To get his decrypted body to where he'd seen the catch of familiar orange and green within the rubble below.
He rips free of his harness and leaves it to drop forgotten on the ground, kicking off the remaining suspension lines that coil around his foot. He throws himself over the edge with as much grace as he can afford so he doesn't fall flat on his face. He slides straight down the rocky wall, open palm braced against it. His skin must nick against jagged bits of rock and stone.
None of which he feels.
He can't. Not when there's a rancid burn of blood and terror lodged in his throat, growing thicker and thicker, as the distance between teacher and students finally begins to close.
How terrified? How brave?
How pathetic. How u s e l e s s?
He hits the ground, more violently than he intends and something inhuman tears from him. The kind of noise civilians make as they scream for help. The kind All Might used to always answer with a smile full of hope. There's no smile now. Not as the morphed, desperate amalgam of two names rips from his mouth.
In hero work, the steps of saving are no different than those of any first responder.
He looks out upon this aftermath, the sky view vision of the island's raised landscape, the desperate SOS intercepted at sea, the report of the villains, their quirks, their brutality, the damn decision to let these children come to this island alone, vulnerable, without a single goddamn pro—all of it mixes, overflows, and bumps around inside his head like a swarm of panicked moths in the dark. It makes every thought almost indistinguishable from the next step…
If his mind and body had not done this dance a thousand times before—for strangers though not his-
He blindly reaches out, splatters those runaway thoughts and grabs for what he knows comes first.
Check the scene.
A flat wasteland.
Dust. Slabs of rock. Some even stabbing into the earth from the force of their impact.
Patches of grass, a few untouched. All of it forming an almost circle to lead his eyes right to its center.
Two bodies.
One strewn half atop the other.
Both bruised. Both bloody. Both small.
And both unmoving—his worst nightmare, it's his worst nightmare, he's living his worst-
He trips forward so hard that he's catching himself on his hands to keep his knees from only grazing the ground. It swirls his vision, forces him to scuttle forward, but jostles and rights his spiraling thoughts.
(Get to your feet All Might get to your feet and) Assess the victims.
Closing the gap with an almost mad dash, the damage becomes defined. No longer the vague assumption he'd made from a distance, Toshinori can now see every single shade of purple that smears across swollen, misshapen limbs. He can see where blood has run across Young Bakugou's brow, smeared from his parted lips, and how it's matted, clumped, and knotted into the back of Izuku's hair.
He can see everything in full, horrific detail.
Everything, except the rise and fall of their chests.
If there's one small mercy it's that they're close. Bodies—broken, bloody, unmoving, sickeningly still bodies—pressed so close together that Toshinori doesn't have to choose. How could he? The damage is equal, the terror asphyxiating, no matter where he looks, there's a pounding in his chest like a hammer to a wall as it wrecks through the plaster with every bang, bang, BANG-
(MOVE All Might, move and) Administer first aid.
He starts with the only thing he can—he grabs Izuku by the shoulder and rolls him off his childhood friend. It lets him see their chests, where each of their costumes have been shredded at the top, as well as—god—that familiar freckled face.
("I expect to hear every last detail once you're back," he'd said before he could stop himself. A strange sensation possessing him as the boy had turned and taken a step to follow his classmates onto the boat. It had earned him Izuku spinning around with a startled look—)
A slack face, stained with as much red as Young Bakugou's.
(—before a beaming smile overtook it, spreading across his face, as he replied with a simple, "Of course!")
A face that suddenly twitches with the slightest grimace as Toshinori jostles the boy onto his back.
A gasp of air punches from Toshinori's lung with a wrecked version of the boy's name, "Izuku!"
But Izuku doesn't reply. His head falls limply to the side, and Toshinori knows there's more to check, more his thoughts are now screaming as his fingers beg to stay clenched in the ruined green fabric of the boy's suit—but he can't. Because an expression means consciousness and consciousness means breathing and breathing means a heart that's still beating. It should mean that Toshinori's is too but that hammer pounds relentlessly at his chest. The walls of his reality are still under threat. The unthinkable just no longer lies to his left.
He's on his knees between the two, but it's to his right he leans, ripping his grip from Izuku. Toshinori's hands don't shake, they never do, they can't, not with the years of blood and loss that's been caked against them. Palm to a forehead, chin angled back, Toshinori keeps steady so he doesn't collapse. His entire existence pinpoints. There's only his ear hovering above Young Bakugou's mouth. His neurons firing within two fingers as they trace up the boy's throat until they can press just below the jaw.
He doesn't breathe. Doesn't think.
Just waits.
(Just prays.)
Until he feels it.
A puff.
A flutter.
A something within him—ripping apart.
He's a thousand little pieces, no lighter than paper, no different than shreddings of a burst balloon. They spiral down without any straight path until they meet the ground.
He'll have pick it all up. Piece it back together. Remember what it was.
But for right now, he doesn't care. He can only let himself remain in pieces as his head falls, slips, until it presses against Young Bakugou's shoulder for a few seconds of weakness. It's not quite long enough for him to breathe, but it is long enough for his head to clear. For a shudder to run across his body like an electric shock. Every swirling, nameless, ridiculous fear that had been trying so hard to eat him alive—fluttering with chaos and cruelty through his mind with the idea that the world would be so cruel as to take these two young souls and leave Toshinori behind—it all dissipates.
He adjusts his legs beneath him and sits up.
Somewhat halfheartedly.
His palm stays, soothing back the soft but jagged edges of hair that brush across the kid's forehead. His other presses against the ruined pieces of Young Bakugou's costume that remain across his chest. He can just barely feel a steady beat through the fabric and for now that's enough.
Enough that cognizant thought can begin again.
He's no longer a marionette depending on the controlling strings of muscle memory. His grip is back on the controls. Along with the awareness that they're not entirely out of the woods.
Looking between the two, he can't see any severe bleeding. No…impalement. The worst of it truly seems to be their swollen, likely broken limbs. The painful sight is familiar on his successor, less so for Young Bakguou. It's almost uncanny, the near mirror imagery of their injuries.
Even their expressions. Izuku has lost the tightness across his brow, falling into what could almost be called peaceful, not far from Young Bakugou's own, but a little softer, a little loose, a little like something more drastic has changed and oh—perhaps the panic hasn't completely left him yet. Because with one hand splayed atop Young Bakugou's beating heart he's lunging for his boy's ruined arm.
"Young Midoriya," he says, before being forced to try again when the sound of it catches. "My boy."
There's no response. Not even a twitch. Even when Toshinori slightly shakes him. Cruel pessimism crawls up his spine and into his head where it whispers such unspeakable things that he has no choice but to pull away from Young Bakugou and reach out to cup a freckled cheek. To find Izuku's heartbeat where it still thumps, strong and sure against his chest.
It reminds Toshinori to breathe again. He does, the sound shaky to his ears. No longer deaf with the roar of adrenaline. Oxygen to the brain, panic melting away, he realizes he can't survive another loop of this again.
He forces himself back onto his heels. He fumbles his phone from his pocket, nearly dropping the thing after it somehow, thankfully, remained intact despite his rough landing. He sends off his location as well as confirmation that he's found two of the eighteen.
As well as the more important fact that they're alive, breathing, and in need of serious medical attention.
The reply that's returned is curt yet transparent. Quintessential Aizawa.
Every suffocating emotion that Toshinori had felt on the helicopter ride reflects back at him between the lines of Aizawa's message, which promises to relay the information. Aizawa and the other pros are still about fifteen minutes out. If Toshinori were strapped into one of the commission's fighter jets, right now, forced to sit, forced to wait…well, that's exactly why he didn't.
Tsukauchi can chastise him for the recklessness of it all later.
With nothing more to do but to wait until help arrives, he slips off his suit jacket and folds it up into a neat little square. The most he can offer.
He doesn't exactly make a conscious decision, just starts straightening Young Bakugou's limbs and then lifts the boy's head, before slipping the makeshift pillow underneath.
Like this—exhaustion evident and pain inescapable as it brings the boy's brow down to the slightest crease, despite how gently Toshinori tries to move him—he looks so much his age. Perhaps even younger. A reality that twists in his gut. A reminder, that for all his show of teeth and snarls, he's still just a boy. A child. Undeserving of experiencing the terror that came when fighting for your life. Yours, and those you cared for.
Provisional license or not.
The back of Young Bakugou's head settles as comfortably as it can against the suit jacket and for Toshinori, that's enough. (Has to be.) Because he has no choice but to turn back to where his heart is bleeding on the ground.
Even if he had another jacket he's not quite sure he could fight the urge that grips him now to make things equal.
Actions so small, so minuscule—the way in which his hand slips so carefully beneath his successor's head, fingers weaving between locks of clumped, dirty hair, his grip loose and careful as he turns Izuku's head, just so Toshinori can see his face— so selfish, yet if he doesn't do them, it feels like he'll crumble in.
Or maybe he'll simply cease to exist beneath the nameless indescribable weight that's been sitting across his shoulders since the moment he heard Nabu Island was under attack.
Izuku in his arms. It's the only thing that can keep him together as they wait.
Toshinori pulls the boy up, practically in his lap. An attempt to get as much of the smaller body off the hard ground as he can because he can't quite bear it lying there a second longer.
Things had been going so well. Izuku's handle on One for All had improved so drastically. His injuries had been minimal. Toshinori had begun to release the breath he hadn't even known he was holding when, in spite of everything else, Izuku had returned from the Shie Hassaikai raid unharmed.
But now, as he maneuvers Izuku's limp arm, the one spared of rough, scarred up skin, across his torso, so he can bring him the smallest bit closer, he's holding it again.
In the distance he thinks he catches the rumble of a fighter jet's roar. The first sign of the cavalry finally arriving.
In the dirt, on his knees, wrapped securely around his successor, his forehead falls against the top of Izuku's own. Because really, it's the only thing he can do. Pathetic, useless, powerless man that he is now.
He can only adjust Izuku's limp body so that the boy's head can at least sit comfortably in the crook of his elbow. Can only keep half of his body off the cold, hard ground. Can only arrive late to a battle whose fires have already simmered.
A teacher, who couldn't even be there for his students.
A man who couldn't even be there for his—
He sighs, his body shaking with it, too much air for his remaining lung to handle.
The self pity doesn't help anyone. And as it doubles down it crosses into dangerous territory. Makes it feel as if he hadn't known, hadn't believed Izuku would be fine. Because he had and he does, as he believes right now, that the other students of Class A are fine.
There can be no world, no reality, where they're not.
Which is perhaps why his grip only tightens.
This close, he can smell the scent of blood, ash, and dirt.
Can feel the deep, long inhale and shiver across Izuku's body that has him immediately pulling back.
"Kid…?"
The smoothed over expression on the boy's face twitches, eyes pulling tight, until they flutter open, a flash of recognition in them and-
It hurts. Makes the tall glass of guilt overflow, when Toshinori catches the shine of surprise in the green of Izuku's eyes.
"A-All…M'ght…"
And just like that Toshinori's focus narrows. The panic, hurt, and even jets roaring overhead. All of it's gone. There's only the tiny, unsure, trembling voice that barely reaches his ears and the words slipping from his own mouth.
"Young Midoriya…I'm so sorry I was late..."
Izuku blinks, soft and slow, as if within a single second, he'll drift back under. But with some bit of stubbornness Izuku fights to keep them open so that stay locked to Toshinori's own.
Another shudders runs through Izuku's body, as he croaks out a question that has Toshinori not at all surprised. "Wha- 'bout K-Kacchan?"
He almost wants to huff out a laugh.
"You always worry about others first…" He chides, his smile tight, but undeniably fond. It stays across his lips, as he spares a second to look back to where Young Bakugou lies.
He hasn't moved, nor has the tension in his face left, but his chest clearly rises and falls. The security of such a sight, along with Izuku held steady in his arms, allows for certainty in his answer. "He's beat up, but he's fine." And then as if the words were for himself, he reassures again, "He's not in any danger."
Izuku's relief is as palpable as Toshinori's own, "Thank…goodness…" He gives the boy's shoulder a squeeze to second the sentiment. But then, breath shaking, Izuku goes on, "I…made him…do something… crazy…"
It's an admission that has Toshinori pausing, "Young Bakugou? You had him do something?"
And then right before his eyes, the fragile peace, the relief, it all splinters. That hammer that had nearly torn down the walls around him reels back once again.
The anguish, the guilt, it's so clear across his boy's face. It only worsens as Izuku trembles out Toshinori's hero name. "All Might," who can only hold the trembling boy and watch as his expression crumbles, the words heaved out of him.
Clear, concise, and without any room for confusion.
"I…transferred it…One for All…to Kacchan."
And yet, Toshinori's brain can't compute.
His mouth goes dry, a pained noise breaks from his throat. The name of their quirk bubbles up, echoing, as if to try and correct exactly what he'd heard. "O-One for All?"
And bless Izuku's soul, even with his lungs likely spasming beneath the layers of exhaustion, weariness, and, most of all, pain, he explains. Confesses to what was a last ditch effort. A final hysterical, borderline insane plan with One for All at the center. All so that he and Young Bakugou could win so that the people of the island would be saved. So that the villain would be defeated. So that him and his classmates would survive.
"I don't regret it…" Izuku tells him, and because Toshinori doesn't need to breathe, doesn't need to think, doesn't need to do anything except dig his nails into his thigh and pray the pinch of pain wakes him up from this current nightmare—Izuku decides to hit him with something so much worse.
"But…I'm sorry…"
Izuku's voice and shoulders quiver, warning of the tears that have already begun to form. They sit on the precipice, much like Toshinori, who has already begun to fall. "E-Even though…you chose me as your successor…Even…though, you said I could…be… a hero."
He's in freefall all over again, forced to watch in horror as heartbreak plays out before him. As Izuku goes on, unable to stop, and Toshinori, holding Izuku in his arms, frozen, responseless—completely unable to stop him.
He can only stare straight at the grief and guilt until it breaks away for a second as Izuku peers up at him with a fire burning just behind his eyes. Toshinori knows the source of it before Izuku even speaks it. It's the beating infallible heart that he'd seen, that he's known, from the very start.
He sees it now, along with the tears that grow heavier and heavier, as Izuku's voice rasps, its small stint of energy weakening. But not enough to take any power from his final, most powerful confession.
"I just…wanted to—protect everyone, no matter what…"
Whatever Toshinori's meant to say. Whatever he's meant to feel. Whatever he's meant to do—he can't.
"Young Midoriya…"
Those swirling tears on the edge begin to fall, each one cutting sharp and deep inside him. Yet they're simple surface wounds compared to the punched out apologies Izuku can barely even whisper. Such a thing obliterates him.
"I'm sorry, All Might… I'm sorry."
The strength the boy had found, that he had clutched onto for the last few minutes, finally fades. His eyes grow unfocused, their clarity and resolve replaced with a glossiness that is from far more than just their flood of tears. And yet still, with his last breath, he continues his defense. Whimpers out one final "But I—" that he can't even finish, his eyelids falling closed. Bits of dried blood around his lashes flake off, tears stream down, and Toshinori is once again alone in the aftermath.
Alone with nothing except the echoes of those broken, guilty, and accursed apologies.
He presses his hand against Izuku's own.
"Young Midoriya," he begins, knowing the boy's not awake to hear it, but needing to say it anyway. Needing to correct him and the clear unfounded fear that festered between the lines of the boy's confession. "I don't regret giving you One for All. Not one bit." The guilt. The fear. The way he'd pleaded at Toshinori with his watering eyes. It doesn't matter that he knows this child and his insecurities so well, it still hurts. Still burns. Like an eternal fire to his heart that even now, even after such a sacrifice—a sacrifice that he did not regret despite all it cost him, that he did for the sake of others, that could only ever make him all the more worthy—Izuku still fears his worth. Fears that—even after all he's accomplished, after how much he's grown, how many he's saved—Toshinori's decision was the wrong one.
He cups the boy's head, moves to cradle it close so that he can sear his shaky promise against soft curls in the hopes that somehow it will get through the heavy blanket of doubt and unconsciousness.
"You used it correctly..." That power. Izuku's power. One that Toshinori may have bestowed but that Izuku had earned. A power that even now this boy didn't feel he deserved despite being the very soul that embodied it.
"...The hearts of the brave that have been spun together..." His voice catches, his breathing stutters. "…the power that is the crystallization of that-" That you only strengthened. That you forever exist within. That you deserved—
To have and to hold for so much longer than you did.
There's so much. Too much. And he can't get any of it out. It all dies, before it even starts.
He can only press his trembling lips against Izuku's crown as all that's lost finally and truly washes over him.
His boy's dream, his hard work, his sacrifices, the daunting, unwritten future. He can't consider any of it.
There's nothing in his head.
Nothing.
Except one single certainty.
Toshinori is here and he isn't going anywhere.
And it's with that thought, that a warm sensation seems to reach out and graze that empty void inside him.
It startles him, stops the static that buzzes through his head, forces his eyes to travel down to where his hand rests atop his successor's. His brave, selfless, and perfectly picked successor.
Whose knuckles spark with a spiraling blaze of power.
Toshinori pulls back, fingers stiff, hesitant, and borderline suffocated as he checks only to nearly choke as he feels and sees the message loud and clear.
We are Still Here.
He watches in stupefied amazement as One for All spreads like wildfire across Izuku's hand. As it weaves down his legs, spins around his arms, and runs along his shoulder, collarbone, and face. Only stopping when Izuku's entire form is alight with heat and untold strength. It's a vision, and it's one that Toshinori cannot at all make sense of.
He whips around to where Young Bakugou—where the current holder of One for All—should be.
And then back to Izuku, who should be nothing more than a predecessor, who glows with the full cowling of his quirk and not a single hint that its source is fading away.
Pure luck it feels like and is his first immediate explanation. Luck that allowed Bakugou's unconsciousness to interrupt the transfer. But as he settles Izuku down, letting his hand leave the boy's head only when he's sure it's safely on the ground, another explanation forms. He watches as One for All's light sparks, pulses, almost dances across Izuku's skin, as if it were alive, as if it were satisfied—and suddenly a different explanation comes to mind. One that, as he shifts to to grasp the hands of both children, he knows as the truth.
"For the one who risked his life to protect and the one who risked his life to win…"
Because if he were to dig deep within himself at this very moment, to find the maw of an empty hole that remains, he thinks he might just see the fluttering ghost of power inside.
A power that claims Izuku as its own, even if it has to break the rules.
"...One for All gave them a miracle." Because it can only be a miracle, one so heavy that Toshinori can only raise his head to the sky and wonder if the sound of his prayers had somehow reached the heavens.
Master…and all those who came before…
His heart aches, as a hot wet streak drips down his face, and with a voice wrecked from an emotion too great to name, he weeps.
"Thank you. So very much."
Floating back to consciousness, awareness of wrappings around his limbs coming on first, followed by painfully itchy gauze that sticks and pokes into so much of his skin—it's moments like this where Izuku wonders if he were the right choice. He can't help it. Darkness and blurriness clear into a perfectly plain ceiling, the only thing different is that this time it's neither U.A.'s infirmary nor a hospital's. He recognizes it however and with recognition comes recollection. And with recollection comes the wet swirl of his vision as the battle, the villain, the loss—it all comes rushing back.
He hiccups out a sound he can't keep contained. Though it's a much better alternative to the sob that threatens to spill. He clutches at the bandages around his chest despite how the slightest movement causes an ache that runs from wrist to elbow, because it's the only way to keep it all from bursting.
It's why he doesn't hear the creak of a chair or feel the presence leaning over him until it's rumbling with a familiar baritone.
"...Young Midoriya?"
Izuku's eyes pop open, halting their leaking of fresh new tears just in time to see the dangling blonde bangs of his mentor as they sway into view.
All Might blinks at him, in surprise. "You're awake."
"All—" The name catches in his throat, the man's face such a relieving sight and yet overwhelming all the same, that it finishes in a pathetic whine, "Miiiiight…"
Warmth caresses him and stops anything else from working off his tongue, besides the shuddery sob that finally hiccups from his lung. A large gentle hand sweeps his hair back, working him through it. The touch is so distracting, so comforting that it holds every monstrous black thought at bay. All except the one he weakly tries to voice.
"You're here."
"Of course my boy…" All Might replies, so quiet it's almost a whisper, and All Might never whispers. "Of course I am."
But then, Izuku's off too. He doesn't even fight the need to crane his neck up and into All Might's touch, even when he knows he shouldn't. Not when it only makes it so much harder when it finally pulls away.
The warmth stays though, and then there's more, taking Izuku's trembling hand, rubbing the back of it oh so gently.
"Are you in pain?"
He lets his head roll, cheek squishing into his pillow, so he can meet All Might's gaze, which is so open with its concern that Izuku can't deny it.
Even if he were to shut his eyes—All Might's care is still there, soothing his tears, gripping his hand, petting his hair…despite everything.
And it only grows bigger, to an almost unbearable degree as the hand across his forehead shifts, tucking against the side of Izuku's head and into his hair. Izuku melts into it and finds himself drifting, the warmth even better than the plushness of his pillow.
"Midoriya?"
He blinks back to awareness at the seriousness in his mentor's tone.
"Not really," he answers, trying his best to ignore the throbbing of his arms. "Just aches."
All Might hums, and Izuku knows that tone. It's All Might hearing him but seeing right through him. Since when had he gotten even better at it than Mom?
"Well I'm sure even an ache is still unpleasant…" And All Might glances down to where Izuku's arms are wrapped in bandages. "The medic could only do so much…supplies being what they are." All Might smooths down a piece of gauze that's stuck against Izuku's temple, as if he could sense it had begun to itch. "The good news is that Recovery Girl should be here soon…"
Recovery Girl.
"W-Wait!" Izuku flails forward, knocking All Might's comfort away, which he immediately regrets, biting back a hiss with his jostling. He recovers rather quickly, straightening up on his screaming elbow. "The pros are here?! D-Did our SOS go through? Is that why you're here? A-And what about- everyone else?! The islanders? Katsuma and Mahoro? Uraraka?! Kacchan?! Are they—?!"
He's grabbed by both shoulders and stopped just as he's about to roll off the bed.
"Everyone's fine, my boy." All Might's eyes blaze sincerity, not that Izuku would ever doubt a single thing from his hero's mouth. "The pros, your teachers, they all arrived shortly after I did. Along with the army." Izuku blinks at that. "The villains were… apprehended. The island is clear and your classmates were all found safe. If not a little worse for wear." All Might gives a closed mouth smile. It's small but relieving all the same. "They're supposed to be arriving here soon with Aizawa, Recovery Girl, and the others."
"Here…" Izuku lets himself be pushed back against what he realizes is the infirmary cot. "The agency villa?"
All Might nods.
"A-And the islanders?"
"Are also safe."
The flare of fight fades. "Oh. That's—I'm glad." He blinks, and whatever he's been holding back oozes out like a wound reopened. His breath hitches, "I-I'm really, r-really glad." He devolves into shedding a few more tears at the knowledge that his friends are safe, the islanders protected, and that the nightmare is finally over.
That hand to his hair returns, helping to soothe the harder sobs that rip from him. "You all did wonderfully," All Might says. "You protected the island and its people like true heroes and I'm- we're so unbelievably proud of you all."
Izuku can't answer, he just shudders beneath those words, trying so hard to let them sink in. But even if he could reply, All Might goes on, the hand in his hair almost gentle as it slides to his cheek. Izuku blinks up and finds an almost shadow along the man's face.
"I heard from your friends that…you and Young Bakugou took on Nine by yourselves." Izuku goes cold. "I'm so sorry, my boy…You shouldn't have been forced to fight such a battle alone…"
A few arguments sit on his tongue, none that really come to fruition, not when All Might's expression grows even sadder. "N-No it wasn't really—I mean—we had to—I-"
And it's that thought that brings Izuku back down to the new reality he's in.
"Kacchan…" he starts, swallowing the lump. "Is he…awake yet?"
All Might blinks at the question and then does something Izuku doesn't at all expect. He shifts his chair just slightly to the side, a clear direction for Izuku to peer around him. The sight only increases the waterworks exponentially.
"K…Kacchan."
On the other side of the small room, Kacchan lies entirely dead to the world on his own fold out cot. His own ruined arms have not yet been bandaged, only sandwiched with ice packs. His face is slightly crinkled from what has to be pain, but any blood has been wiped away.
Seeing him whole and here—Izuku suddenly has the stupid desire to reach out his own broken and throbbing arm towards him.
It's All Might's unwavering grip that keeps the limb still.
"He doesn't have it."
For a moment, Izuku's too caught up in the relief of seeing his childhood friend, breathing and solid, that the words don't quite stick.
Izuku turns so slowly towards All Might who's watching him like he knows something Izuku doesn't.
Something that can't be—shouldn't be—but is as it has All Might offering such a bright full smile that it couldn't possibly be anything else.
"One for All is still within you, my boy."
Maybe he's supposed to feel something at such a revelation but he's completely and utterly numb.
"I wanted to be here when you woke up so you knew. So you didn't think-"
"No." Izuku wheezes, shaking his head. "That's—impossible."
"And yet heroes have a habit of making the impossible possible," All Might reasons, shifting to the chair's edge giving Izuku's hand a slight squeeze. "I suppose we can say this is simply one such example."
"But Kacchan had it. He used it," Izuku tries almost desperate. He can remember even now how it felt, the moment he'd grabbed Kacchan's hand, their blood mixing, the chain that All Might had extended to him linking to another, leaving Izuku as just another piece in the power's past.
"He did," All Might confirms and still his smile does not falter. Nor does his hand or touch or warmth. "Young Bakugou used One for All's power…but the quirk returned to you, Young Midoriya."
So badly does Izuku want to believe All Might's words. It's usually so easy. He always, always believes him and always should because All Might had believed in him first and Izuku would live the rest of his life repaying that debt.
Even now, as All Might takes Izuku's hand and flips it over, palm up towards the poorly lit ceiling, thumb rubbing and an encouraging pattern right below Izuku's fingers, all he owes only grows.
Somehow his mentor knows exactly how to break through the doubt and impossibility with such simple words. "Why don't you see for yourself, kid." Izuku looks up to the shining eyes of his mentor and sees nothing but trust.
He lets his gaze drop to his fingers that splay upward, limp and purple compared to All Might's normal hue. Such an ugly mess, he's made of them again.
But All Might gives them a squeeze and Izuku can do nothing but squeeze back.
"Go on…"
He takes the permission and a breath before he digs deep, finding that place where One for All's power once sat.
And like a firecracker it explodes from him.
He's upright in an instant, watching as his call is answered, One for All responding as it always does. It wraps around him, up and down, covering every bit of skin. Yet there's a definite change. Not quite the same. It's like a warm embrace this time, not just a rush of strength, and it's then that Izuku knows for sure.
He chokes out a gasp. Laughs. So hard that he doesn't even realize when he's begun to cry.
He folds almost immediately into the solid arms that pull him in and hold him, not unlike the power that curls around him.
"I-I," he heaves, "I thought that—"
"I know," All Might soothes, the rumble of his words making Izuku want to do nothing but to press against All Might's chest to feel them. "I know."
And to some extent he supposes All Might does know, forced to surrender the power he'd made so great in the first place.
If it were him it returned to…perhaps then Izuku could understand.
"I just can't—I don't- why?"
All Might doesn't pull back, and Izuku doesn't pull away, even though his face is wet, lungs are quaking, his nose is running and that knowing voice is saying he really should.
Or thinks he should, until he's pulled even tighter, nose pushed into All Might's shoulder as the man surrounds him in a full hug.
"Because you're a hero, my boy." All Might's voice is rough, almost wet in how it sounds. "One for All saw that as it always has just as I did, the first day we first met."
Izuku's hands ache so badly that he can't quite reach round to ball them into All Might's shirt. He can only tangle his pounding fingers in the very front as he weeps.
All Might goes on, his own voice wavering, as he whispers. "One for All is yours, my boy. And I'm-" Izuku hears the hitch in his mentor's breath, but he can't pull back to see. Can only feel how All Might holds him even tighter and shakes with his next words, "I'm so thankful it still is."
An embarrassing noise—perhaps of relief—slips from Izuku's lips. The idea that he'd squandered All Might's gift had felt so unbearable, it felt no less than a betrayal to all his hero had done. A smite to the faith All Might had placed in him, and revelation that his hero's choice was wrong.
"Please, kiddo," All Might breathes and Izuku jolts, "No more apologies, alright?"
He hadn't realized they'd begun slipping from his mouth. He nods, sniffling, "…sorry."
All Might pulls back perhaps to meet his eyes, but Izuku can't follow through, falling limply into his hero's arms. The bed is so much more cold and stiff now as he's laid back against it. He drips a few tears against the sheets. They're not the only ones. Izuku catches it, the slight shine that slips from All Might's chin.
And maybe if it were a few months ago he could have convinced himself that he'd imagined it, but…
The sunken shadows around All Might's eyes are darker than ever, the worry lines across his forehead are well pronounced, and there's an almost tremble to the man's mouth.
Izuku takes it all in as All Might rubs his shoulder soothingly, just like his mom would whenever he'd get sick.
"Do you think…Kacchan would have been a good successor?"
He says it with a tired curiosity but more so for a strange need to dig deeper. For some unknown question he selfishly wants answered. Even if he's not entirely sure what that question is.
He feels the smallest bit guilty when his mentor's hand stiffens and he rushes to add, "I was just… wondering…"
That guilt only worsens when All Might's face doesn't at all look disappointed. It just looks…sad.
"Somehow I think it's more than just that."
Izuku looks away.
Neither says anything, and Izuku tries to distract himself with the number of tear drops that have soaked through the sheet. They've all blurred into one big blob so he doesn't get very far.
But he doesn't have to.
All Might speaks.
"I'm… sure that Young Bakugou would have found a way to make One for All his own." The stilled hand against his arm returns to rubbing up and down. It feels nice, soothing to the pain that hasn't taken a break in his bones. Izuku's focus wobbles between the touch and All Might's words. "Just like you he's come a long way and will no doubt be a splendid hero. A power like One for All would only serve to make that path all the more certain. I'm sure…he would have made a fine successor."
He hears it clearly. Your choice was the right one.
And finally, the knot in Izuku's chest loosens, his eyes watering once again.
Izuku goes to nod, All Might's assessment of Kacchan being one he believes fully with his own heart, but he can't. He's stopped.
A hand slips against his head, angles it up from the pillow, and forces him to meet searing blue eyes. They shine, with a fine line of unshed tears.
Izuku all but mirrors them, though his fall almost immediately.
"But even if that were the case…" All Might breathes, almost like it's a secret. Meant for only Izuku to hear. "There's only one young man I can see as my successor."
That. That's it. That feels like part of the answer he was looking for.
"One for All or not. It-" And Izuku's own breath catches as All Might's does. "It can only be you, my boy.
"Please believe that."
"I do," Izuku whimpers. "I-I believe you."
"That's… all I can ask for…"
Izuku pushes his face into the palm of All Might's hand. Smearing the tears against his mentor's skin until he's gathered back against that solid and slightly boney chest.
This time, it feels a little more for All Might’s sake than just Izuku's. The man pressing him so close, he almost can't breathe.
He just barely works out the wet realization he has, "Kacchan's gonna be so mad at me."
A laugh startles from All Might to both of their surprise. And before long Izuku is joining in, shaking with the impossible of everything in his mentor's shaking arms.
They stay like until their laughter and tears calm and for so long that eventually the rumble of vehicles outside has them needing to let go. But as they do, as All Might helps him back against his pillow, everything feels a little bit lighter, a little less final, and little like—even if the impossible hadn't happened—things will be alright.
Because as All Might stands he offers Izuku a smile and a quiet promise.
"I'll be right back, kiddo."
And there, is Izuku's answer.
One single certainty he needed more than anything else:
All Might isn't going anywhere.