warnings: manga spoilers (and me just bullshitting what happens after), violence, death, gun use, allusions to war and depression, disillusionment with hero society, all hurt not comfort
word count: 1.9k
summary: carrying a large burden with others is tiring, but when they fall away? so will the one left standing.
a/n: this isn't a reader insert fic its just something that @bokutodotgov and i were discussing while reading the manga and how he seems to be getting more morally gray and disillusioned and it came down to what we really thing would break him and this this whump was born.
masterlist | ao3
Weeks later. Or maybe it's been months, Izuku isn’t sure how long it’s been since he left a copy of his heart on everyone's door. A copy of a letter that unknowingly left a piece of his hope for humanity with each of classmates. He isn’t sure how many leads he followed, how many lives he saved and even worse, how many he lost. Even if he wanted to have kept count, the number would be too high. The world didn’t give him the chance to save everyone, it wasn’t near impossible, it was impossible.
Not to mention the fact if he tried to keep count that would be the only thing his mind would be able to do. Run the numbers. Tens, no hundreds? Of thousands. Every person lost in the war with the Paranormal Liberation Front. The teachers and mentors, the amassed pro heros, their classmates-no they deserve to be called heroes too.
Izuku shakes his head, trying to rid him of the thoughts that have plagued him for what feels like an eternity. Fall into a rhythm. The step breath step of getting through the day. Making it to the next mark, but there is no mark. Everything is done. All for One is dead. Shigar-Shimura is dead. Touya is dead. Toga is in a coma, unlikely to wake up.
It’s all his fault that they are gone.
He knows this is the only way it could have ended but that doesn’t make taking a life any easier. Seeing the acceptance in their eyes, the fear and muffled cries for those they love. Being a murderer doesn’t mean you aren’t a human with feelings and those you love. Izuku would know first hand.
The thoughts of the last fight with Tenko and Touya laying at his feet with their bloodied hands clasped together follow him as he makes his way through back allies towards his childhood home.
When was the last time he was in Musutafu? When had he actually heard his mom's voice, when had he seen her? Notes couriered by All Might ended six months ago when Izuku went off the grid. Not hearing from his mom was the hardest part. At least he could check the news for updates on UA and his other hero friends.
The names he saw pass over the screen from time to time were lauded for their efforts of bringing peace and safety to civilians. But civilians? The death count was much too high to even attempt naming. The thought of coming home to his mother’s arms was his best friend and worst enemy. A way to get through the day but also a bone deep fear it would never happen.
But today is the day. The near silent trek through what used to be bustling streets is only made bleaker by the sound of sirens coming from every which direction and the cries of people searching for survivors in whatever tragedy they just experienced. It really could be anything, petty crime, a full villain attack, buildings collapsing from previous damage. The police and nation haven’t been able to address most of the problems while dealing with the fall of the Hero Public Safety Commision and the threats to the world they created. What is the cost of one apartment building collapsing versus S rank villains running rampant and tearing the world apart.
Izuku doesn’t have it in him anymore, he doesn’t have the drive, the ability to go help with the situation. He can’t take another loss, not today, no. Today he is Izuku Midoriya, a high school student visiting his mother. Not hero Deku, not vigilante Deku, not the successor to All Might, and he’s not the one people are celebrating unknowingly across the nation, hell the whole world.
It’s too much. It’s been too much for too long.
Every step strains his bruised and exhausted body. But he can rest when he sees Inko again. When he sees his mother safe at home and they are reunited. That’s when he can rest for longer than four hours at a time, to really clean and treat his wounds. She’ll baby him. A smile crosses his face knowing she’s probably waiting there right now with the makings for katsudon in the fridge and a first aid kid on the coffee table. He told her he would come back to him and he fought his damndest to make it back.
Seeing his neighborhood knocks the wind out of them. There are some houses completely demolished and most have taken some sort of damage. But despite that, he sees homes full of people, of life. People trying to retain a sense of normalcy. Mrs Yamamoto’s garden is smaller due to a boulder covering half of the yard, but the rest is well treated. He can see the Daichi family playing some board game on the table through the collapsed wall on the side of their house. He sees human resilience.The thought that maybe everything isn't a lie, that there is for in the world if you look for it.
He sees home. Where he grew up wanting to be like All Might. Where he and his mother watched kdramas every saturday night until he moved out.
He’s running.
He’s running across the street littered with debris because his end goal is just a breath away, he can almost touch it. He can already feel the warmth of his mother’s hug relaxing his tensed form. Well, until he opens the door.
The world stops. His world came to a halt and he doesn’t think he can move. Not when someone is pointing a gun at his mother who’s cowering against the wall.
The man looks at him and raises a hand, electricity threatening him to stay still while he takes in the scene. The intruder might as well have a paralysis quirk because even though Izuku longs to move, to save, to win, his body weighs a thousand pounds. He can see his mother talking to him but he can’t hear her. She’s probably telling him I'm ok honey everything's gonna be alright. I'm just giving this man what he wants and then it’ll be fine. don’t worry izuku don’t do anything to reassure him with the soft voice that represents everything good in the world. He wants to hear it. He wants his mom, so he complies.
The man leads the two of them to where Inko has cash kept in the house. His eyes consistently glance at Izuku searching for something— familiarity? Maybe threat assessment. Regardless, the man's body is more tense than it was when Izuku originally entered the house. Izuku feels his hero senses being pulled at by the thrum of fear in the air, but how can he save his mom when the one most afraid is him?
His mother is so close, the heat from her breath catches against his cheek as they are forced to take a seat in the kitchen. It’s scalding, knowing she's mere centimeters away from him and that even still he can’t keep her safe. The warmth of her breath stings like a slap and he registers the phantom pain as his cause for tears.
He didn’t realize he was moving to wipe away the tears until the robber screams at him to stop and shifts the aim of his gun to Izuku. Hand frozen midway to his face he attempts to explain, apologize, deescalate, dosomething! Do something Izuku! You took down AFO you can get this petty criminal restrained with one eye closed.
He nods at whatever words the man was yelling and every so slowly puts his hand back down in plain sight on the ground.
“Do not follow me when I leave. If you do, I will kill you both with no hesitation.”
Izuku doesn’t move, not even when the man turns around with fatal recognition in his eyes. But it’s not at him like he expected, it's at his mother. “You, you didn’t save my mother when she came to the hospital. You let her die, you killed her you..yo-“
Inko looks so defeated, “I'm sorry about your mother dear. I work very hard to make sure myself or another nurse can get to everyone who needs help. But I’ve- in the past three months I’ve lost more people than I have in my whole career. I tried. I’m tryi-“
B A N G
Izuku’s face feels warm again. He thinks he's crying again, the wet tracks on his face from his teary eyed nature. The man runs out of the house, leaving the door wide open and after a moment, a weight hits his side.
“..m-mom?”
“MOM?”
What remains of the world is heavy and oppressive. Every sound sets his nerves alight but his hero tendencies haven’t been indulged in months. He doesn’t remember the last time he even used OFA. Why should he? What's the point? What does he really have left? He left his friends to find All for One, he left himself on the battlefield when he took his victory over the villains who haunted his future.
And, his mom is gone. She was the only thing left in the world that he cared about, that he could protec-- no he couldn- he didn’t do that. He didn’t stop the guy, he could have pulled his mom out of the way with black whip, he could have taken the guy down right when he got there. But he was so tired. He was so tired, his limits had been broken and reforged again and again in the months he was away with no recuperation. He doesn’t know how he even made it all the way back to his house.
He finds that he doesn’t even blame himself as much as he thought he would for a tragedy that is so obviously his fault. If the Hero Public Safety Commission didn’t make heroics a popularity contest more than a civil service, if the populace thought about each other with kindness rather than self importance, if All Might didn’t take everything on his own shoulders as the Symbol of Peace. Tch.
If All Might would have tried to prepare Izuku for AFO. None of this would have happened if the world was different. And he gave the world everything he had, and in return, its greedy hands took more than he gave. That was his final limit. He couldn’t find it in himself to get up off of his bed, much less respond to his classmates' messages or put on his hero costume again. He couldn’t because if he put it back on, he wouldn’t ever take it off again. He knows Inko would want him to be safe and that dark green suit would just encourage him to jump into every altercation, every rescue, every natural disaster until he doesn’t come back.
He might save a hundred, or even a couple thousand, but it wouldn't compare to the lives he already has weighing him down, to the loss of his mother. It’s his fault she's gone. It’s his fault everyone, everything he cares about is gone. And the only thing he can do to atone for the weight of his sins is to let Deku fade away to history like the rest of their names.
