DFO Week Day 5: "No, I am your father."
How on earth didn’t he see this coming? How could he have been so blind as to not see it? Or had he seen it and just wanted to ignore it?
His student, his pride and joy, sits crumpled over in the middle of the rubble. The villain, the one he could not defeat, left the city in ruins, but not before delivering a devastating blow.
The image of a man with white hair and red eyes burns in his vision. It overlaps with a set of familiar green strands and-
How didn’t he see it before?
He walks over and kneels next to the boy. His breathing is shallow and stuttered. Toshinori goes to put a tentative hand on his back.
“Don’t touch me!” Midoriya cries flinging his arm back at All Might.
“Don’t.” Izuku says. Toshinori can just barely make out his face from the shadows. He looks like he’s in pain.
So, Toshinori reaches out again. This time he places his hand on the boy’s shoulder. Midoriya stills under the contact but doesn’t try to push him away.
Around them, the rescue operation is just beginning. Toshinori watches for a moment as the other students begin to pull people out of the rubble around them.
“My boy-“ he starts again, and Midoriya shudders under his hand, “I- “ he starts strong, then falters as he searches for the right words to say.
A small, trembling voice interrupts him, “I’m sorry…”
“I’m his son.” Midoriya croaks out. “I’m sorry.”
“You didn’t know,” Toshinori says quietly, coming close to Midoriya’s face where he’s crouched down. “There’s nothing to apologize for.”
“He killed your master, and so- so many other people.” Young Midoriya’s voice hitches. “I- One for All, I don’t deserve it.”
Toshinori is taken aback by that, “No,” he says strongly. He pulls the boy up so he can see his face and holds him by the shoulder as he says, “You are the most deserving person I have ever known. You’ve proven that to me time and again.”
His brow furrows as he looks at his student seriously. Tear filled eyes look back at him through messed hair.
In this moment, Toshinori looks at his student and remembers it all. The first time he saw him, to the first time he saw him running in on instinct to save a friend, to watching him throw a punch and declare that he was “the Deku that always does his best!”
The great smile upon his face anytime he mastered a new technique. Izuku running into the arena at the sports festival first. His tenacity and readiness to do what’s right in every situation. Every time he’s been broken up on a hospital bed because of that same tenacity.
He remembers the pride in his chest watched he saw this student grow and laugh along with his peers. And, of course, that look on his face, that resolute stance that he would take on anything that the world could throw at him, as long as he was by his side.
“You- you little brat, you’re so selfless it makes me want to tear my hair out. You’ve never turned down a person in need, even when it’s someone who isn’t trying to be helped.” He laughs as tears start to fall from his eyes.
“So, no. It’s you who doesn’t deserve him.” He says sniffling.
Midoriya is looking up at him again now, a small smile fighting against his tears.
“In fact, no, from now on, I am your father, if you’ll have me.”
The boy launches himself around Toshinori and cries out his name.
Then, after some more tears, “Okay.”
