Archive of Our Own ^beta

With a rag pressed to his lips, Izuku trudges to his house with bones like lead. It was late, 6:48 pm and his mum would be home soon. Izuku is bruised and bleeding, like every other day. They held him down and hit and hit and hit, like every other day. 

They hit so fucking hard. 

Today they were mean; they were mean and vindictive and angry. Izuku is 13 and only a 2nd year, small and underweight and so very tired. The boys who hurt him were 3rd years, big, brooding, and way-too-fucking-tall, the king of 3rd years you thought were high school seniors. They were mean because Izuku was weak. Mean because Izuku is a pathetic, quirkless deku, and he was bothering them because he had enough audacity to be there. They saw him, his head of green curls and his vacant eyes, and they hated that he existed, like his every breath was a dare he took. 

He’s late, his mum will be home soon, his lip is bleeding and his eye is swollen and bruised. He can’t hide it and she’ll bombard him with questions because she loves him and she cares. So. Much.

But will she do anything? Will she care enough to help? Can you help someone so twisted and broken and ugly? Does she really love you?

Or does she have to?

Resigning himself to his fate, Izuku trudges up to the gate, overwhelmed and lonely and tired. The house is quiet when he walks through, toeing off his ruined shoes. 

Hisashi must not be home then. 

There’s food at the table, Izuku notices, plain chicken and steamed rice. Except it’s cold now, and the chicken looks dry. It's Hisashi’s breakfast, left untouched from when Izuku made it that morning. Izuku swallows the bitter feeling in his throat, like acrid poison, and trudges over to his room, out of his uniform and into an oversized, thin hoodie and short sweatpants, the bloody rag thrown onto his bed.

His lip stings.

He pulls his hood over his head, a fruitless attempt at hiding his injuries. The fridge is empty, and so he takes his father’s plate, taking another seat at the table. 

It tastes like nothing—tastes grey—but he chews because his stomach is caved in and the taste of nothing still keeps away the clawing pain of hunger. It's dry and it's cold but he eats it, gaze focused on a single grain of rice, mind wandering, tasteless bite after tasteless bite.

When the door to the apartment clicks open, Izuku’s still eating, staring at the single grain of rice. Not for the first time, he feels like he’s underwater; like there’s cotton in his ears and something is sitting on his chest, like he can’t breathe but there’s too much oxygen. 

He hates it. (He fucking hates it.)

Subconsciously, Izuku takes the fork to his knee and stabs it softly—a pinch. Just to feel it. To remember he can. Feel, that is. 

He looks away from the grain of rice and takes another bite. 

“Oh, Izuku!” his mother greets warmly. It feels inexplicably cold. “Are you eating dinner? Such a self-sufficient boy,” she coos proudly, walking over to him. 

Izuku doesn’t look up when he replies with a quiet, “Hi, mum.”

“Izuku? Why is your hood up? Are you cold?” she asks, taking the seat across from him. “I rarely see you enough as it is, let me see my beautiful boy’s face.” She leans forward, dismissive to the way Izuku flinches, and pulls the hood off his head, carding her fingers through his head of hair. Izuku keeps his head tilted down. 

“Izuku look up, I came to see you,” she says again, sternly. 

Biting back a sigh, Izuku looks up to meet his mother’s eyes, viridian like his own. She smiles, her lips twitching before the expression falls into that of horror.

“Baby,” she gasps, cupping his cheeks and turning Izuku’s face side to side. “What happened?”

“Nothing, mum.” Izuku gently pulls off her fingers, taking another bite of his food. “I just fell.”

His mum frowns. “Now I know you don’t think I’m that daft.” She folds her arms across her chest. "You have to tell me what they did to you, Izu.”

Izuku shrugs, taking his final bite and standing up, his chair scraping against the wooden floor as he heads over to the kitchen. 

“Izuku." His mum's tone is severe. She walks over to him, arms still crossed stubbornly, placing herself in between him and the sink.

Like a good mother. 

Except is she?

She's waiting to hear the answer she wants to hear, an answer she already expects. It's in the jut of her hip, the curve of her brow. She's waiting to scold him. 

“I told you it was nothing.”

Inko doesn’t relent. 

“Did you get in another fight?” she demands.

'Ah, there it is.'

“I thought you grew out of those, darling. Your school hasn’t called for the better part of a month.”

Izuku sidesteps her. “Please, leave it.”

“Izuku you’re black and blue, your lip is split and your eye is swollen. You are to tell me this instant what happened!”

“Fine.” He gently cleans his plate, not facing his mother when he says. “It was another fight. I’m sorry.”

Inko His mum gasps, as if offended (as if she wasn't waiting for it), her eyebrows furrowed in mute anger. 

“You really need to get a hold of that temper of yours, Izuku. I understand I’m rarely home, but you still have your father, and you know we need the money. These calls for attention are getting a little ridiculous.”

Izuku dries his plate, going through the motions without thought. 

“Yes, mum.”

“You know I love you, right?” His mum places a hand on his shoulder, and Izuku nearly drops the plate as he startles. “I hate seeing you hurt.”

Do you?

“I know, mum.”

Except this isn't 'another' fight. Izuku doesn't know why his mum can't tell. She's a nurse for fuck's sake. She works day and night, at odd hours and into the morning. She's never home because she works so hard. She knows Izuku's knuckles are one of the few parts of him that is clean of injury. She knows his teeth are clean from blood and that there are rope burns on his wrist and tape residue on his ankles. Inko knows. 

But she likes to pretend she doesn't.

* * *

Izuku doesn’t remember when it started. 

One day, he wakes up, and it feels like he’s drowning; like he’s floating too high up; like he’s screaming; like he’s silent. It feels like everything and nothing, like too much and too little. The world isn’t black or white or grey, it isn’t red and blue and yellow—it’s nothing. It’s endless and shapeless and worthless. 

He wakes up crying—fat tears rolling down the apples of his cheeks, iridescent and glittering as sunlight filters through his blinds. 

He feels vacant, dead in a way that he couldn’t describe. Empty. He’s a void, a black hole, a burning star too far away. He’s there but he isn’t. He’s breathing but his lungs are made of coal.

He wasn’t there, and then he was, and his leg was screaming in pain, twisted at an odd angle. He could smell the familiar stench of burnt gas and smoking fabric and flesh; it hurt. It hurt so bad. He was at school. Katsuki was there, looming over him.

But he was there. 

He wasn’t drowning and floating, flying and falling, nothing and everything and too much and too little. He was there, and he was crying because he was in pain, but he was there.

That's all that mattered. More than his twisted leg. More than his burning flesh. More than his pain.

He. Was. There. 

And he spirals.

The descent is thick blood spilling from your wounds, slow and ugly and mesmerizing. You can’t look away.

The next time Izuku wakes up a different morning, carried away by a tsunami of paradoxes that threaten to take away the very meaning of his existence, the first thing he seeks out is pain.

He spirals.

* * *

“What the fuck is wrong with you?!” Katsuki all but shouts, as Deku—useless piece-of-shit Deku—gives him a blank, bored stare. 

He’s asking for it; Katsuki swears he’s fucking asking for it. Because he isn’t running or hiding; he isn't cowering away as he should be for the useless Deku that he is.

(Katsuki knows there's something wrong because isn't. Somewhere, nestled in the hot anger that spills out of his burning palms, there's a voice screaming at him that something is terribly wrong and has been for a while. But Katsuki's palms are so covered in callouses it feels like an itch that he can't scratch, one he thinks will burn off eventually.) 

“Nothing,” Deku replies.

Katsuki gets angrier. 'How dare he fucking talk back?!' He’s less than Katsuki, he knows he’s less than Katsuki. Katsuki raises a fist, smouldering, biceps flexing as he aims for a punch, smirking when it lands and Deku falls backwards. 

“After school, meet me the fuck outside, go it shit-face?”

Deku doesn’t quiver or tremble. He cries but his eyes are vacant and outside of his heavy, laboured breathing, he is silent. (SOMETHING IS WRONG, KATSUKI. SOMETHING IS WRONG.)

“Okay.”

Deku doesn’t whimper. He isn’t scared.

SOMETHING IS WRONG.

Katsuki's anger is so loud it turns the screaming voice in his head to white noise. 

“You’re below me.”

Katsuki won’t stop, won't do anything. Because Katsuki is a winner, and Deku is nothing. That urge, that hunger, that desperation, it's louder and more painful and more damning than any itch underneath the calluses of his palms. 

Deku is nothing; he will always be nothing.

Who gives a shit if he's starting to look it, too? 

(You do.)

* * *

The air nips Izuku’s skin. It’s cold, frigid and almost painful. Katsuki is in front of him, all wide smiles, narrowed eyes and sparking palms. 

Izuku's drowning again. The throb of a bruise and the sting of a cut isn’t enough. He’s floating, and nothing is tying him down. Izuku needs more, needs something.

“You ready for a beat down, nerd?”

Katsuki throws the first punch and Izuku dodges by a hair’s width reflexively. He’s feeling it again, the rapid ‘thud’ of his heartbeat, the feeling of something pressing against his ribs so hard it's like they're wailing. Everything buzzes, quick and loud and moving too fast and Izuku waits. Hands up and stance open, he waits for the pain. 

“Is that all you got?” he sneers. He's a live wire, sparking and fraying and jolting—out of his head, out of his mind, sanity sand between his fingers and through the empty vessel of himself, the ghost he becomes whenever he drowns—and he loves it. He loves it like he loves the taste of iron in his mouth; like he loves the feeling of a burn; like he loves pressing on a throbbing bruise and digging the lid of a pen through an open cut. Loves with infatuation, with addiction.  

Because he knows, as he bleeds and hurts and cries and screams, that he isn’t drowning. He knows he isn't floating, falling, flying, on fire, screaming, silent, suffocating, too little and too much and too, too, too...

That he isn’t dying over and over and over again. 

Because it feels like dying. It feels like falling off a roof and never hitting the pavement, feels like slitting your wrists always a little too shallow or tying the noose always a little too loose. It feels like dying with no end, like crawling to a waiting grave that's always a millimetre out of reach. 

(He doesn't really love it, but he hates it a little less than he hates being edged on death's fingers, and that's enough to call it love.) 

“Shitty fucking freak!” Katsuki rages, snarling, anger burning white. 

The fight bleeds like a rhythm, like a beat going one-two-one-three. 

Izuku squares, elbows bent and chest exposed. He doesn’t want to punch anyone. Katsuki shoots forward with his fist aimed at Izuku's shoulder.

Izuku is weak, he doesn't know how to fight. 

The pain of breaking his thumb is grossly familiar, but the way that Katsuki shouts in surprise is not. 

Katsui flinches backwards, staring at his shoulder with personal offence. Izuku uncurls his fist and shakes his hand, watching his loose finger go purple. 

Katsuki his eyes meet Izuku’s, crimson red and enraged. 

Izuku knows he’s lost; Katsuki's gone rabid. Izuku knows he’ll go home broken and defeated, once again, but he doesn't care. 

He wants it.  

Katsuki throws a familiar punch—his favourite right hook—aimed straight for Izuku’s face. Izuku steps back but he doesn’t dodge.

He’s a weak, pathetic, quirkless deku, after all.

He tastes the iron; can see where the blood from his nose drips onto the concrete below him, staining his clothes. 

It hurts. His head is spinning—splitting—and it hurts. 

“See that, Deku?!” Katsuki steps back and tilts his head forward—a king to his peasants. “I didn’t even use my fucking quirk and you’re already down!” 

Izuku smiles. He doesn’t know it, but he looks frightening, with bloody teeth and shadowed eyes, too-long hair framed around his face like a misshapen halo. He looks frightening. He looks broken.

As the crowd cheers and screams and as Katsuki snarls, both in fury and pride, Izuku feels afloat. With the ache in his bones and the blood on his lips, he feels like everything and only everything. 

He’s there. He's present.

He's alive. 

He's untouchable in a way that makes everything seem so much brighter. 

And so, having lost it, in a second of impulsivity, Izuku tilts his head and drops his fists. 

“You've gotten weak.”

* * *

Izuku knows Hisashi is home before he walks into the house. The blood on his face is cakey and dry, and there are bruises on his knuckles because today he fought back.

Today he fought back hard. Katsuki broke his finger and bled like he'd made Izuku bleed for years.

That doesn't make Izuku a winner. He still lost. He's still bearing more bruises. He was still who they left in a foetal position on the floor as they laughed. 

Izuku doesn't care. He's back, again. Alive, again. More alive than he's felt in years. 

His mother’s car isn’t there. (He doesn't think it'd matter if it were.) As he takes off his shoes, the repugnant smell of alcohol hits him like a freight train. Izuku already knew Hisashi was home because the door wasn’t locked, and the door handle was broken again because Hisashi never had his keys, and Hisashi hates doors he can’t open.

When he steps into the living room, his father is on the sofa, drinking a glass of whiskey, surrounded by empty beer cans and broken bottles of this and that. His eyes are bloodshot and his skin is flushed. He’s drunk.

'Of course, he’s drunk. He’s always drunk.'

Hisashi never smiles, but when he sees Izuku he scowls. Izuku finds himself frozen as Hisashi stumbles over to him. 

“The fuck happened to your face?” Hisashi grabs his chin harshly. “Don’t tell me you got your ass beat again, boy?!”

There it is again. The feeling of blood rushing to Izuku's ears, the pounding of his heart as it hammers against his ribs, and it hurts but he likes it. He loves it. He never wants to let it go. His muscles are twitching. He wants to punch something, anything, anyone.

Hisashi.

Izuku’s hands go for the glass, yanking it out of Hisashi’s grasp. He throws himself backwards. 

Everyone is angry. Always mean and angry and cruel. Katsuki is bad, and his bullies are bad, but they are nothing, they are shit, compared to Hisashi Midoriya.

There are monsters and there are cretins and there are bad, bad people. 

And then there are villains, and Hisashi Midoriya is a fucking villain.

“What are you doing?!” Hisashi thunders, steps disoriented as he aims a poor grab for Izuku’s shoulder. There’s smoke curling around his mouth, and his eyes are glowing, black and beady and mean. 

Izuku doesn’t answer. He knows he's finally gone, that he's finally succumbed, finally drowned. He's too far away to tell. He no longer hates it, but he loves it. He loves it and he never wants to let go. Let him be immortal, stay in this limbo forever. He'll embrace it, take it by the horns, and treat life like he has all the time in the world and none!

He swings the glass, as high as he can, and smashes it into Hisashi’s face, not bothering to hide the way he bares his teeth gleefully as Hisashi screams. It breaks against his skin, slicing and cutting and drawing blood that runs down his face.

Izuku’s told he looks like his mother, his green hair, wide, viridian eyes and kind smile. But now, as he stands by his father and as his father stands before him, both hot with a feeling of vengeance and expressions wild, he knows they couldn't be more wrong. Izuku is his father, through and through.

“You fucking brat!” Hisashi yanks his belt off swiftly, and the sound of it crackling against the air sets Izuku’s hair on edge. “You think you can get away with that?! Huh?!”

When the belt comes down it stings, not like burns or bruises, but a laceration. It comes down on his face. The blood is thick and unforgiving as it spills down his nose, again. It comes down on his back, and Izuku cries out, tears streaming down his cheeks. It comes down again and again and again. Like earlier, Izuku is no winner. But he is alive. Still, alive. Still, on a high. Still, trying to embrace what was once the most numbing feeling in the world and is now the world. 

The doorbell rings and Hisashi stops. Izuku falls onto the floor, twitching. The pain is overbearing. 

Izuku can’t drown, float or die quite right when it hurts like this. Like this, he can hold onto the feelings and keep his feet on the ground. But God does it hurt. 

“Get the fucking door!” Hisashi kicks into his side, hard. Izuku spits out blood and bile. Shakily, he stands up, his body aching with every slight movement.

He thinks it’s his mother, but the knob is broken, and she would let herself through.

Would she stop it? Could she?

Except it isn’t his mother. 

...it’s the police.

* * *

Shota’s stomach cringes in horror as two people are brought into the station. They’re bruising and bleeding fresh, smelling like alcohol and smoke and sweat and everything wrong.

He wasn't supposed to be here. The villain he apprehended was taken in, and he wanted to go home. 

But Tsukauchi asked for a favour, and so Shota waited for him to pick up a kid, Izuku Midoriya, and his guardian. 

The people who called them in, the Bakugos, startle when they see them. The man is fighting, angry, hands cuffed behind his back, and the kid follows, twitching and antsy. 

“Did you do that, Katsuki?” He hears the mother beside him ask the son, who’s sporting a bruised eye, a finger cast and a split lip. 

Katsuki raises a disbelieving eyebrow. “I told you not to involve the police, you damn hag! I told you I fucking won!”

“He broke your finger, you brat!”

“I still won!”

“And what about Hisashi?! You did that to him too?!”

They’re loud and brash and it’s giving Shota a goddamn headache. Hisashi must be the man then, the father. 

“Of course, I fucking didn’t! I didn't do all that to Deku either!”

“Ha!” a different voice cuts them off. Shota looks and sees it’s the kid, who’s staring at his father with narrowed eyes. “I told you I didn’t call them you fucking shit-stain!”

His father tries to lunge for him, but the police officer at his side keeps his grip strong.

“You better watch yourself!” the father warns.

“Or what? You’re going to beat me again?! You can't do any fucking worse!”

"Wanna bet?!" 

Shota doesn’t like this, and he can tell that the Bakugos don’t either. 

The Bakuguos called the kid—this kid—to the station to file a report after their son came home with a few bruises and a broken finger. The son protested the whole time, saying how ‘Deku looked way worse’. And he did, but Shota thinks it’s more than just the fight that happened at their school’s parking lot. 

With his father there, Shota is looking at an entirely new case. 

“Where’s Inko?” Is the first thing the blonde woman asks when Tsukauchi comes over to them, worse for wear and three times more exhausted than when he left. 

“On her way." Tsukauchi glances over at the father and son and the police officers restraining them with blood on the sleeves of their uniforms. “I’m going to take Izuku and Hisashi into questioning, I hope you understand that your report will have to be delayed for the time being.”

Bakugo—the mother—nods. In a quiet voice, she asks, “What happened to them?”

Tsukauchi doesn’t answer, he doesn’t have to. 

It’s painted in red and black and white, a clear-cut picture. 

No father looks at their child like that.

* * *

Katsuki doesn’t know what to think when Auntie Inko steps into the station. His old hag wanted to file the report because Deku—fucking useless, stupid, pathetic, Deku—finally fought back. She’s stubborn and angry and demands they take it to the station. 

Because he broke Katsuki’s finger, and goddamn it hurt like bitch. 

Then he sees Deku, and he sees Deku’s dad. Deku’s dad, who’s seldom home. Deku's dad, who always looks mean in photos. Deku's dad, whom Katsuki remembers in broken snippets from a childhood where Deku was Izuku, and Izuku was at his side. A childhood where Izuku wore bruises on his arms like permanent bracelets, sported an occasional black eye and was always hurt. 

Deku's dad is cuffed and glaring at Deku.

For a split second, Katsuki thinks that it’s deserved. That, obviously, even Deku's own father hates him, because he’s pathetic. Because he'll never be the best, will never beat Katsuki.  

And then they’re yelling, and Katsuki’s ears may ring but they're so loud he can make out the words: their threats. 

Suddenly, his world tilts on its access. 

His old hag demanded they wait for Inko, to find out exactly what the fuck is going on.

Katsuki thought that today, in the parking lot, as Deku snapped his finger and punched his eye, he thought it was him, the school, and the weight of the world that broke the boy. He thought, for a split second, of finally offering help, and that Deku could be there, again. Could be Izuku, again. But then Deku smiled, and Katsuki felt like he was being choked. Deku was broken and hurt but he seemed to be so far ahead. Too far ahead.

Now...now Katsuki thinks it’s more than the world. He thinks it's more than his ego or the petty way he sneers. More than him.

He knows it is.

“My baby,” Auntie Inko cries as she steps through the station. “What happened with my baby?” Her eyes find the old hag, and her frown deepens. “Did he get into another fight? I’m so sorry Mitsuki-san, I thought he’d stop after he came home a few weeks ago with new bruises.” She looks at Katsuki and gasps. “Did he do that to you, Katsuki-kun? My god, if that boy wasn’t troubled enough—”

“Ma’am,” the voice of a police officer cuts her off, “you’re not here for that.”

Auntie Inko’s wide eyes turn to him, confused. “What do you mean?”

“If you’d please come with me to the interrogation room.” He gestures to where Deku and Deku’s dad went, individual sound-proof rooms with one-way mirrors. 

The old hag straightens, and leans forward as Auntie Inko asks, “What is this about?”

It’s then that one of the interrogation room doors creaks open. Deku, still bleeding and twitchy and off—always off—steps out.

“Izuku!” Inko gasps, moving to hold her child. 

The second she gets close, Deku flinches backwards, nearly crashing into the homeless-looking man behind him. 

Off. 

* * *

Izuku’s tired. He’s tired.

He’s so goddamn tired. 

The adrenaline and the feeling of floating and drowning and nothing is gone. The feeling of emptiness is gone. 

It’s all gone. 

And he’s so tired. 

He just wants to go home. Hisashi is gone now, he has to be. They’re keeping him in cuffs, and Izuku knows it’s not over, but today he’s tired. He sees his mum, and thinks, 'Just a few more questions and we can go.' 

He thinks, as his mother’s eyes well in tears when the detective breaks down what happened, that she loves him. For a split second, he thinks all is okay. The Bakugos wait outside, sure, but he doesn’t care. 

Tomorrow can deal with that. Now, he’s just tired.

He’s just so goddamn tired.

And then something happens. 

“Final question.” The detective smiles, more out of relief than genuine joy. Izuku understands. A boy comes in with a villain at his tail and they’re both screaming to the heavens about living in hell. They’re both monsters in their own right. The detective just wanted to report for juvenile misconduct...not this.

“Midoriya-san, were you aware of the abuse Izuku went through?”

Inko shakes her head. “I’m aware of the fights he frequently gets into at school, you know how boys tend to be rough.” Her eyes droop in pity. “But I never thought it was this bad.”

Izuku is so tired, that he doesn’t hear it. He doesn't see it—not yet.

The detective frowns. He does. 

“Inko-san, I am talking about the abuse at home. According to what we’ve understood, and explained to you, the abuse has been ongoing since Izuku was four. Were you ever aware that your husband was hurting your son?”

Izuku’s so fucking tired. 

'Just say yes no and let's go.'

“What are you accusing me of?”

Does she really love you? Does she really care?

“Inko-san we need a direct answer.” The man to his side narrows his eyes, black with red pupils. He nods to the detective, and the detective asks again, smile lost. 

“Are you aware of the abuse your son went through at the hands of your husband?”

Are you? Are you? Are you?

Can you be?

You can’t be.

Right?

“No,” Inko finally grits. “No, I wasn’t.”

Izuku’s tired, but the detective nods to the dishevelled man, and there are handcuffs around his mother’s wrist. 

Izuku’s tired, but the tears start to spill. Real tears, tears that drip heavy with sadness and well from his eyes that start to glisten. No longer just empty, endless voids but wells and wells of pure, unfiltered, unadulterated sadness.

Izuku’s tired, but he shoves open the door to the interrogation room as the officer recites Inko’s assumed charges and pushes through. 

Izuku’s tired. He's so. Very. Fucking. Tired. And today was long and draining and painful.

But sad? Did it have to be so sad too?

His knuckles are bruised. His father’s blood is on his hands. A villain is behind bars. He just wants to go home. His mother cared. His mother asked about his bruises and cuts when she was home. Sometimes she made dinner. Sometimes she smiled. 

God, she was supposed to care.

She's his fucking mother.

He knew, quietly, that she knew. He knew that’s why her voice was never soft, why her touch was always cold. 

Finally, he's tired. Too tired to deny it. Too tired to feel empty, and too tired to feel angry. Too tired to feel, really, but still welling with sadness. 

“You knew?” His voice is gentle, fraying; is fragile. 

“Izuku,” Inko stutters, but Izuku doesn’t want to hear it. Can't.

“Of course, you knew." It's said with resignation, not anger or heat, but the kind of pain he hadn't felt in so very long. His tears are silent. 

Maybe this will finally keep him from feeling nothing and everything, keep away the cotton in his ears. Keep it all away permanently. This overwhelming, overbearing hurt that's etched into his ribs. Maybe it was this, this beyond unbearable internal despair, that the feeling of drowning was pulling away from. That the feeling of floating—breathing, suffocating, sinking, flying—was pulling him away from. 

Because he could always be brought back, then. Ground himself with physical pain. And bruises heal, cuts mend, and blood can be washed off. The cycle can feel invigorating, the pain can feel liberating, and sometimes, he could step away from it all and temporarily feel okay as he healed but still ached. He'd do it a hundred times over, all of it temporary.

But this?

This isn't a cycle he's forcing with his own hand. This isn't something a few slits to his wrist can heal. This isn't something the smell of charred flesh could bring him back from. This isn't something he can take and mend and temporarily turn to insanity and impulsivity in the wretched form of violence and anger. 

He doesn't know what to do with this. 

“I’m tired,” he whispers.

“I’m...I’m tired.”

* * *

Izuku never asked to live. Never asked to be thrust into a misguided, unbalanced, power-hungry world where everyone hated anyone. He never asked for trouble.  

Izuku Midoriya only ever wanted to breathe.

He never asked to be broken.