Archive of Our Own

Blood was seeping through the bandages again.

Little buds of crimson bloomed across the once-white strips, growing larger and more vibrant with each passing wheeze that trembled between bruised or broken ribs. Or maybe they were just cracked, just a little spider web of fractures that weaved around the bone. 

That wouldn’t be so bad. Bones could be mended, cracks repaired.

But the fabric was adhered to the wound, ripping it away now would just split apart the jagged edges of skin. 

He’d bleed out.

Eventually, inevitably.

Izuku couldn’t lose any more blood. 

Darkness crowded his vision like dusty charcoal smeared around the edges. He was almost glad for the thick shadows that cast over his hiding spot; it made it harder to see just how far his vision had deteriorated and hid the way his body seemed to vibrate like a million ants were dancing just beneath his skin.

That was harder to ignore, the buzzing, the restless hum.

Numbness was creeping up from his fingers, the icy claws scratching up towards his heart, but he could still feel the way his frame shook. 

He wouldn’t get far, not in this state.

Time was running out.

Izuku wiped the sweat collecting on his upper lip, spitting a silent curse and haphazardly smearing more crimson across his face. The gouge slashed across his side pulsed as another gush of blood spurted from beneath the soiled bandages, but the pain was fading, too quickly, too suddenly. 

Izuku’s teeth tore into his lip as his hand clamped more firmly onto his side.

“This area’s clear!”

Footsteps tumbled over loose stone, not frantic but rushed and loud and too close.

Izuku nestled closer to the pile of debris that blocked him from view, the shadows shielding his body from what little light broke through the gaps in what used to be the ceiling. The sharp concrete stabbed into his back, aggravating his bruised-broken-fractured ribs. Flickers from moving bodies disrupted the dim stream of light occasionally, but no one had found him yet.

If everything went according to plan, they would never find him.

They probably wouldn’t find him.

Izuku was so rarely wrong.

He was probably wrong this time.

Time was running out.

“Deku still hasn’t been apprehended!”

Izuku swallowed down what might’ve been a whimper as something flared in his chest. He couldn’t show weakness; Sensei had trained him better than that. He’d be so disappointed if he could see what mess Izuku had turned into, how broken he was now despite the series of calculations and plans and manipulations Izuku had created.

No amount of good could ever make up for this if Izuku failed.

Izuku didn’t fail.

“Keep searching!”

Blood had seeped through his bandages again.

Izuku tore off a piece of fabric from his shirt to shove between his teeth as he tightly wound another loop of bandages around his torso, around the jagged skin and blood-soaked strips. He grit his teeth against the pain, the pulsing, ugly pain that dotted his vision with bolts of electricity and thunderclouds.

His eyes burned, but Izuku didn’t cry.

No matter what, he wouldn’t cry.

Sensei would punish him more if he cried.

The voices and footsteps faded until Izuku couldn’t hear them anymore.

Time was running out, and Izuku still had so much work to do. The play was over, the curtains drawn, but the stage still needed to be cleared.

Izuku waited one more wheezing breath before shoving himself to unsteady feet, hoping to whatever being was listening that he didn’t rip open his wound. 

He needed to leave.

Before the heroes came back, before he bled out, before some idiot villain straggler sold him out, unintentionally or not.

Before it was too late.

There was so much work left to do and so little time.

Blood was already seeping through his bandages again.

The building had collapsed.

Keigo had no idea which explosion, which misplaced hit, which side, had caused it, but one moment the warehouse was standing tall and strong, and the next it was tumbling in a heap of splintered concrete and glass dust. 

The heroes had been scouring through the rubble for hours now, searching for villains that were trapped beneath the wreckage. Dozens had been caught already and arrested, but there were still more to be found. 

Small-fries from the Paranormal Liberation Front mostly, maybe a few others from other organizations that had yet to be identified.

Regardless, they were all villains.

But this wasn’t a rescue mission.

This wasn’t some effort to save them from choking on the glass that infiltrated their lungs or from being crushed by fallen debris.

No, this was a manhunt, and the villains were the prey.

Keigo knew the difference.

The Hero Commission did too. 

They were the ones to order this raid, this annihilation, of one of the Paranormal Liberation Front’s warehouses. Brute force, cruel tactics, whatever it took to bring the threat down. It didn’t matter as long as they were apprehended or eliminated altogether.

The Commission wasn’t taking any chances this time around.

The heroes had been given the kill order, and Keigo knew that many, too many, would follow through. They wouldn’t hesitate to cut the villains down like insignificant weeds. But there were a few, a handful of kinder ones, ones who recognized the person beneath the bitterness, that would only kill if completely necessary.

Even still, there were more corpses than filled vehicles.

It wasn’t a rescue.

It was a manhunt, a bloodbath, an execution.

A lot of people were going to die.

And Deku was still in there.

The confirmation had been sent out to their comms before the building collapsed. The boy had been somewhere on the third floor, running or fighting or observing. He’d been alone amongst the chaos as everything, his plans, his carefully sculpted, detailed contingencies, fell apart. Keigo didn’t know much more than that; the hero who gave the confirmation had gone silent shortly after spotting the kid.

And then the building tumbled down.

No one had seen Deku since.

Not as they dug through the wreckage, pulling bodies and unconscious villains from concrete coffins. Not as they hunted through seemingly endless piles of stone and rebar rusted with fresh blood. Not as they brought in heroes that were skilled trackers to shift through the area, searching for any trace of the kid.

(The hero who called it in had been found. His throat was slit.)

The Hero Commission would prefer to bring Deku in alive, purely for the information he possessed, but it wasn’t a necessity. His death would be a loss, no matter how great, for the Paranormal Liberation Front. Besides, there was no guarantee that Deku would even talk if he was captured anyway; wasn’t it better for everyone involved if he was just taken out of the game entirely, one way or another?

Keigo tried to imagine it, the sight of the kid, bloodied and broken and so very still. He had already been sickly pale, a lack of sunlight bleaching his skin into monotone shades and dark circles. There wasn’t much more color death could take from him. His green eyes had already lost their shine, their vibrancy and life from some unspeakable experience that Keigo knew nothing about.

Deku already had one foot in the grave.

It was too easy to imagine him lying in it.

But first, they had to find the body.

(If there was one, if Deku was dead.)

The trackers had found a pool of blood in a small cavern created by concrete, tacky from age, but still relatively fresh. It was tucked away in the shadows–a perfect hiding place for someone as small and cautious as Deku, but there was just so much of it. 

He couldn’t have gone very far.

Deku had lost a lot of blood, probably too much.

Keigo had to wonder if the next time he saw the kid would be in a body bag. 

A part of him hoped the answer was no, but another, perhaps kinder part wished it would be yes. Bleeding out, despite how slow and drawn out it was, was a kinder death than he’d get if the heroes caught him. It would be like sleeping, like fading away into the darkness and never waking up. Relatively painless if he bled out fast enough, if numbness swept in and lulled him to sleep, if his body shut down before the fear could settle into his bones.

Keigo hoped that was the sort of end Deku would receive. Despite the villainy and the manipulations and the cruelty, Deku was just a kid with no choice in the hand he was drawn.

A groomed child who built his own sort of defenses and barbed wires even as he ended up exactly as he was made to be.

He didn’t deserve what the heroes or the Commission would do to him.

Even if he had stabbed Keigo in the back in the most literal sense, he couldn’t really blame him.

He’d seen the look on Deku’s face back as he stood over Twice’s body. Most of it had been a game to him, a way to blur the line between victim and threat, a play on his child-like nature that made him seem so young and scared that Keigo had no other choice but to buy into it, even for just the slightest moment . He knew it was just another manipulation in Deku’s grand plan, had known it from the very beginning, but that didn’t erase the initial emotions poking through the boy’s carefully crafted facade. It didn’t erase the fact that Deku’s mask had cracked, revealing the soft tissue and pulsing blood vessels that might’ve been the only remaining remnants of Izuku Midoriya.

He’d seen the flat wide-eyed stare and the way his head had tilted the barest inch as though he was contemplating a particularly complex problem, as though he couldn’t muddle through why Twice was so still, why there was so much blood pooling on the ground. He’d seen the way Deku’s hand had been ever so gentle as he brushed the hair from the dead man’s face, and he’d watched as shards of something irreparably broken glinted in those green eyes of his.

A part of it must’ve been shock, not quite a miscalculation, but a finely printed footnote at the bottom of the page that was easily glanced over. The boy clearly hadn’t expected Twice to be the one to die that night, too caught up in branching paragraphs and weaving transitions to pay much attention to the seemingly inconsequential footnote. And maybe that was arrogance, maybe it was the genuine belief that Deku had accounted for every little mishap and tragic ending that could’ve occurred. 

Or maybe it was that little childish part of his mind that had faith that nothing bad could happen to people he cared for.

Or maybe Deku had considered the course of events for if Twice died, just in case, just in case , but hadn’t reconciled with the fact that it would be a path he’d have to walk. Maybe it was a plan in one of the final paragraphs, just right before the conclusion, one that seemed so improbable it was barely worth mentioning. A mere sentence in the grand scheme of things.

No matter the case, something had broken further in the boy, something Keigo wasn’t aware existed until it shattered in front of him.

It was those same shards that caused Deku to lash out, to strike out at whatever weakness he could find because at least then he wouldn’t be alone in feeling like everything was falling apart. 

It was why he provoked Dabi to the point of being burned, why he seemed so restless and itching for a battle he might not win.

Such a childish concept, snapping back at others just to make them feel the same pain you felt. To cause such misery in the vain hope that it would make you feel the slightest bit better so you were ‘even’.

Deku had a score to keep.

But that wasn’t why Deku had stabbed him.

Not entirely, at least.

See, Deku hated being wrong more than anything; he hated surprises and miscalculations and anything else that screwed up his meticulous plans. Change made him unstable. In no way was Deku inflexible; he could adapt to alterations, think quickly on his feet, but the moment a factor he didn’t consider jumped into the game, he grew agitated. Once someone ripped the wrong seam and all his hard work began to unravel, once someone proved that Deku didn’t, couldn’t , know everything, that’s when he began to splinter.

A trauma response, most likely, and one Keigo had seen first hand when Deku joined the fight with that U.A. kid. He was vicious and fraying at the edges and so very dangerous.

That’s why Keigo was stabbed.

Because the moment he suggested that Dabi could be something else, do something else, it was as good as tearing Deku’s plans into a thousand wispy threads right in front of him.

Because Deku was more sentimental than he seemed and change had never before been a good thing.

The kid had built this family around him, had schemed with them at the forefront of his mind: their survival, their future, their lives. They were the constants in his little experiments.

He’d planned for people—heroes, villains, civilians—to die that night, but Deku hadn’t truly considered Twice’s death might come to pass. A passing thought, perhaps, a little tickle in the back of his brain, but it wasn’t an option he had much belief in. It wasn’t the most likely scenario.

Deku hadn’t planned for Twice’s death.

He hadn’t planned for Dabi to step off his vengeful path either.

Keigo had already taken Twice away; Deku probably couldn’t have handled losing Dabi too.

It wasn’t a part of the plan; it wasn’t something that Deku had thought would be a possibility at all. He had these strict ideas about the people around him, and the moment they strayed from the expected, Deku panicked. He panicked because he wasn’t supposed to be wrong; he was supposed to know everything, be this perfect analyst, be useful.

So the moment Keigo tried to convince Dabi to lay his weapons down, push his revenge aside, Dabi had considered. He considered, which allowed such a possibility to grow, to fester and infect everything.

Deku would have been wrong.

Deku would have failed.

So Keigo became a threat, and Deku reacted.

It had nothing to do with getting ‘even’. It wasn’t even about the fact that Keigo had been a double agent, a traitor in their midst. Deku had already known.

The kid couldn’t handle losing Dabi too. Not like that, not to something he was so certain was impossible.

Dabi meant something to Deku.

He was important to him.

The opposite wasn’t true.

And somewhere along the line, Deku had learned that.

(Keigo had noticed the subtle shift, the way the quiet excitement in the boy’s eyes had dwindled to a dull gleam at the sight of Dabi. The instant attention, the shared glances that whispered of some silent communication, the joking manner that eased some of the tension from their shoulders, it had faded over time, for some unknown reason. Deku almost used to be able to smile, a small ghostly something, but it was leagues ahead of what he had now.)

(Looking back on it, something must’ve broken back then too. Once again, Keigo had no idea what it could’ve been.)

Keigo grit his teeth, silently shaking off the thoughts.

Beside him, Eraserhead gazed onward, something heavy settling in his eye as he listened to something through his comms.

Keigo could already guess.

“Deku’s still missing.” Eraserhead sighed heavily, his shoulders sagging an inch or two. “This has turned into such a mess.”

He didn’t think Eraserhead was just talking about the debris.

Keigo nodded absentmindedly, his thoughts still entangled in the phenomena that was Deku.

“All because of a sixteen-year-old kid, huh.”

“It has nothing to do with that.”

Blinking, Keigo swiveled his head to stare up at the underground hero. Shigaraki had injured him pretty severely in their last fight. The eyepatch covering his right eye was proof enough of that.

He’d never had much of an opportunity to work with 1-A’s teacher, but Tokoyami had told him stories. He’d heard through the grapevine of what sort of person Shouta Aizawa was.

“The Hero Commission just can’t believe that a quirkless kid managed to cause this much destruction. It ruins their idea of hero society and their hierarchy that puts people like Deku at the bottom. That’s the only reason they’re so adamant about getting rid of him.”

Eraserhead was one of the kinder heroes.

Maybe the kind that Deku, that Izuku Midoriya, needed.

Hawks had tried, subtly, without pushing too far, but his mission got in the way. He had a cover to keep back then. He couldn’t save Deku so easily.

It was too late for Hawks to be the one to save him.

But maybe Eraserhead had a chance.

They just needed to find the kid first.

There was blood painted on the hardwood.

Keigo gazed down at the smear from the doorway of his apartment. It wasn’t his; it was far too fresh to be a remnant of one of his injuries. There was a crimson handprint on the wall above it, too small and vibrant for Keigo’s comfort. All in all, it wasn’t a lot, not enough on its own to be concerning, but the implications left a pit of dread in his stomach.

Someone was in his apartment.

Someone small and bleeding and able to break into the number two hero’s place.

Not many people fit all those requirements.

Keigo didn’t like the list that popped into his head of possible candidates.

He had a feeling tonight wasn’t going to end well.

“You know,” a familiar voice rasped from around the corner, tiny and breathless, “your security kinda sucks.”

Keigo locked the door behind him before he stepped further into the apartment. The dread coiled tighter.

Tonight was going to be a shitshow. 

“It’s kept unwanted visitors out well enough over the years.”

Deku huffed a wheezing breath from where he sat at the dining room table; it could’ve been a laugh if it didn’t sound so painful. “It’s subpar really.”

Keigo took a cautious step towards the kid, eyes skittering across the makeshift bandages that were mostly crimson-dyed and the sickly paleness of his face and the rushed stitches marring his torso. He thought back to the blood left behind at the warehouse, the smears in his entryway.

It wasn’t looking good.

It was a miracle the kid had made it this far with a wound like that.

“You’re leaving evidence everywhere,” he murmured, not really sure what else to say. Deku couldn’t run, not easily in his state, and Keigo was the fastest hero still in business. Deku had to have known that, so why was he here? Why was he bleeding half to death in Keigo’s apartment?

After everything, why Keigo?

Something in Deku’s expression shuttered, and whatever amusement, even though it was faint and practically nonexistent, vanished beneath dull eyes and a pinched frown.

“I don’t see why that matters now.”

It felt like defeat, like throwing the gauntlet down in surrender when faced with a difficult enemy. Something he hadn’t known Deku was capable of.

Maybe it was an act. Deku was good at those.

He thought back to the last time he’d seen the kid, the tired eyes and outstretched arms right before the fall, before the finale he’d always planned for.

Or maybe this wasn’t an act at all.

This epilogue Deku was creating now didn’t make much sense, but maybe that was because the story ended wrong. Maybe Keigo was missing pieces of the puzzle, a few key lines of the story Deku had formulated.

Maybe Deku hadn’t planned for an epilogue at all.

Maybe the story had already ended.

Keigo’s fingers twitched at his sides, silently calculating.

“I could arrest you.”

Deku just nodded. “You could.”

He didn’t look scared. Instead, something contemplative swirled in his dark eyes.

“But you won’t.”

Deku said it with such certainty, like it was a stated fact, an observation. But was it a correct one? What made him think that? He’d thought he’d made it especially clear with Twice that he’d do whatever it took to complete his mission.

But Deku wasn’t his mission anymore. He never really was.

Keigo sighed.

“Why are you here, Kid?”

Deku shrugged, picking up a spool of gauze that he probably stole from Keigo’s med kit and began wrapping it carefully around his torso. Splashes of dark purple and black splattered against his ribs; they were probably broken or fractured, but Keigo wasn’t a medical professional. They were quickly covered beneath white bandages, the biggest visible wounds hidden away like nothing was wrong.

“I’m rarely outright wrong,” he said, bloodied fingers gripping the gauze a little tighter in his grasp. “That’s not me bragging, it’s a statistical fact. I’m rarely wrong.”

A flash sparked in his eyes, too much like that feral desperation from that last fight. It wasn’t quite anger or annoyance, but it was a close approximation of the two. 

It set Keigo’s bones on edge.

“I don’t get it. Dabi was supposed to kill you. He was angry, and you were standing in his way, so why aren’t you dead? All he cares about is revenge. You were capable of preventing that. Why wouldn’t he kill you? I really don’t get it. I don’t get it at all.”

What feathers had grown back from Dabi’s flames twitched apprehensively at the reminder.

He wasn’t sure why Dabi had done what he did back then, whether it was some misplaced, disfigured form of pity or a demented version of sentimentality; he didn’t know. He thought he knew the inside confines of Dabi’s mind, but he’d never been more wrong in his life.

Dabi had played him, yet let him live in the end.

Keigo didn’t understand it either.

He was just as lost as Deku.

“You know, I don’t wanna play the nice host to someone who wants me dead,” Keigo grumbled, crossing his arms over his chest. Deku tied off the gauze before gingerly pulling his ripped, dirtied shirt back over his head. Dust coated his curls in a thin layer of gray, smears of it stained his clothes. He was obviously caught up in the collapse, but that stitched up wound . . . it was too clean to be from debris.

Maybe that dead hero had got a good hit in before the kid took him out.

Deku stared off into the distance beyond Keigo’s shoulder, breath coming out in thin pants. “If I actually wanted you dead, I would’ve killed you myself.”

“Would you have?” Keigo countered, searching through the vague confusion creeping into Deku’s furrowed brows. 

“Was the knife in your back not enough of a clue?”

“But you didn’t kill me.”

Because Deku hadn’t wanted to kill Keigo. Because Deku had the bigger picture in mind, he wanted Dabi to be the one to end things, to let go of whatever was holding him back. He wanted Dabi to remain in the box Deku had created for him. A vengeful spirit who destroyed whatever was unfortunate enough to get in his way.

Deku wanted Dabi to choose revenge.

Deku wanted to be right.

Killing Keigo himself would have accomplished something, but it wasn’t what the desired end-goal.

“It wasn’t essential to the plan. What mattered was that you were put out of commission and Dabi focused on what was really important,” Deku explained, trying to nonchalantly wave his hand except it was flaking with dried crimson and trembling like a thousand bolts of electricity was thrumming beneath his skin. 

Defensiveness was seeping into his words despite the effort to remain calm, unbothered. There was nothing obvious about the boy sitting before Keigo that resembled the villain from back at the PLF base. The coldness had thawed, the shock dripping down his skin in icy streams. He seemed more like the kid Keigo had met all those months ago sitting alone in some bar amongst what would soon become Japan’s most dangerous villains, but every once in a while, something dark and angry and miserable would soak into his expression. 

Deku was trying to act calm, but he wasn’t doing a very good job.

Maybe it was the blood loss, or maybe Deku was just so incredibly tired.

Keigo hadn’t seen him in weeks. Who knew what had happened during that time? Who knew what Deku had to do?

But still, something about the kid was making his skin itch. Something about that defensive gleam in his tired eyes, the way he worded that last part.

Keigo was missing some part of the puzzle, a part of the story no one had bothered to listen to yet.

“What’s your deal with him anyway?” Keigo hummed, not missing the way Deku froze at the curious tone. “You clearly weren’t expecting Twice to die; I ruined your precious plan, but you didn’t act then. You only got aggressive when Dabi was involved, when I tried to convince him to stand down. Why? What’s up with that?”

Keigo could guess, he had an idea, but only Deku could confirm it. He couldn’t just assume. Deku was good at going against every expectation.

“The Hero Commission just can’t believe that a quirkless kid managed to cause this much destruction.”

His hand slowly fell back down to his lap. For someone who must’ve been in a lot of pain, he was oddly still, oddly silent in that moment. Keigo had to wonder if he had misstepped, if he had pushed too far, but Deku . . . 

Deku just stared with unblinking, faraway eyes.

Oh.

It was the same look as back then when the three a.m. darkness crowded around the bar, silent and teeming with nightmares from the past. Sitting at the bar, notebooks splayed around him, Deku had faded a bit all those months ago. A few too many layers had been peeled back, and perhaps that moment, those few seconds of silence, had been the most honest Deku had ever dared to be.

“It’s not like he’d remember it,” the kid muttered as though if he spoke quietly, Keigo wouldn’t hear them. “He wasn’t Dabi yet.”

“Sensei doesn’t tolerate disobedience.”

Keigo took another few steps forward, pulling out the chair across from the boy who seemed so lost in his little world. Pieces were falling into place but no assumptions, no guesswork, no ideas. He had to see the picture for what it really was, not what he wanted it to be, not what he thought it was.

“What happened?”

Deku scowled, glowering down at his lap. The bags beneath his eyes seemed to grow even darker as he sat in an enemy’s dining room, no support or allies nearby.

It looked like defeat again.

“I tried to be a hero,” he confessed. “It didn’t turn out very well.”

The hero sat down, the metallic scent of blood filling his nose, making his eyes water with its intensity. 

He couldn’t imagine it, and maybe that was the worst part. He couldn’t imagine Deku trying to save anyone out of the goodness of his heart, not unless it fulfilled some prerequisite for one of his plans. Not unless there was some benefit, some ulterior motive. Deku didn’t do anything without reason; even the simplest actions had some greater purpose.

So heroism? One small act of goodness?

Keigo couldn’t see it.

But if it was years ago, when Deku was a little less jaded, a little less broken down by time, maybe it was possible. 

Keigo had never met the boy he was before he’d become Deku.

That boy could’ve been capable of it, perhaps.

“Heroes make it look so easy, saving people. Like all it takes is just determination and good intentions, but it’s not that simple,” Deku continued after a moment, bitterness sharpening his words despite the exhausted slur tangling his consonants. “It’s never just that simple.”

Keigo swallowed around the lump forming in his throat, pieces coming together to form a picture he really didn’t want to look at. “You tried to save Touya, didn’t you?”

Deku gripped his injured side, sinking down in his chair as if to hide from Keigo’s questions or response. “Sensei put him back together again after the fire. I just got him out of the labs.” He clenched his eyes shut, a grimace flashing across his pallid complexion. “Not that I did any good in the end.”

Because, in the end, Touya became Dabi and ended back in the League’s hands. The circumstances were different, the time had changed, but the end result remained the same.

Keigo looked at Deku, at the person he’d become. The kid was sixteen now, too-skinny and skin too pale. Bleeding out in some hero’s apartment while the outside world was hunting him down for information or power or some abstract version of peace. Past scars glinting in the fluorescent lighting beneath thick layers of blood, both imagined and real. No friends. No allies. Just him.

He wouldn’t have even been in the double digits when Touya had the accident.

And yet . . .

“I’m like you.”

“But you tried.”

Deku’s brow furrowed. “Huh?”

“You got Touya out of there,” Keigo said, frowning in thought, trying to envision a small child, perhaps eight or nine years old in such a dangerous and precarious situation. “You helped Touya escape All for One, and I bet you prevented a lot of terrible things from happening to him. You saved him.”

The kid scoffed, shaking his head. “It didn’t ma-”

“Of course it matters,” he cut in sharply, watching as the words suffocated in Deku’s throat. Maybe another time he would’ve been overjoyed that he managed to render the kid speechless, to see the blank confusion splattered across his face like more freckles, but now, it just made him sad. 

If someone had encouraged those actions instead of reprimanding them, or whatever vile act All for One had done in retaliation, maybe things would’ve turned out differently. 

“You saved him, Deku. You did a good thing; don’t ever regret that.”

“But he still became a villain,” he countered, turning away from the hero.

“And that was his choice. It had nothing to do with you.” 

Deku still didn’t seem to believe him, eyes incredulous like he thought Keigo was an idiot. 

For someone so smart, the kid wasn’t very good at not letting himself take the blame for every little mishap that occurred, but that wasn’t his fault either.

One could only do as they were taught after all, so of course Deku would blame himself for things going wrong. His role had been to ensure perfection; anything less than would be a defect in the system, something that needed to be remedied.

It was all too familiar of a situation.

Keigo, after a moment of silent debate, reached across the table, his hand hovering over messy green curls. Deku stared at the offending limb for a handful of tense moments before cautiously leaning into the touch. His hair was scratchy from debris and a lack of care, and Deku looked like he had no idea what was happening like a lost, little kid, but some tension drained out of his wired muscles.

“Midoriya.” His green eyes shot up, dazed and maybe a little glassy. It must’ve been a long time since someone last called him by his actual name. “You are not at fault for the decisions of others, and it is not your job or responsibility to change their minds. You did what you could. You did good, and Touya made his own choices. He chose revenge, chose to walk down his own path, and that is not your fault. You’re just a kid; you don’t have to carry the weight of the world.”

He ruffled Deku’s hair gently, a small smile stretching across his face. Deku allowed it without a word, mind lost within its own labyrinth of twists and turns. Maybe there were too many words, too many responses trying to claw their way to the surface, or maybe, for once, there was nothing.

Keigo didn’t know which was better.

“Aren’t you supposed to arrest villains, not have little heart-to-hearts with them?” Deku breathed, words nearly lost to the quiet. There was a little uptick at one corner of his mouth, an almost smile that was a little soft, a little weak, but it was there. It existed. And that gave Keigo the faintest whisper of hope that maybe this could go somewhere. Maybe Deku would put his armor down and allow Keigo to help him.

‘Cuz, god, did Deku need it now more than ever.

Keigo didn’t want to see Deku in a body bag. He’d seen enough violence in the last few months to last him for a lifetime; he didn’t want to add the kid to the long list of tragedies, not like that.

“I know how to pick my battles, Kid.”

Maybe he wouldn’t have to.

Silence drifted between them comfortably, almost lazily, both of them stewing in the little wisps of calm. It was nice, peaceful even. 

It lasted just long enough to encourage hope.

But then something dark dimmed Deku’s expression and that hope shriveled to ashes. The kid pulled back away from Keigo, collecting himself with a short, pained laugh, and the moment was abolished like the warehouse earlier that day.

Keigo was almost sad to see the vulnerability go.

It was probably the closest approximation he’d ever see of Izuku Midoriya.

He let his hand drop between them, still there, still reaching towards Deku but never quite making it across the ravine.

But he’d be damned if he didn’t try.

The hand would still be there even if Deku never took it again.

The imitation of a smile had broken apart into a thin line carved across Deku’s face. “Saving people is a good thing,” he stated, little more than a whisper cowering beneath a trembling exhale.

It wasn’t a question so Keigo didn’t answer, but the coil of dread from earlier made its hasty return.

Deku cocked his head to the side contemplatively, already coming to some sort of conclusion that Keigo couldn’t know. 

“I couldn’t save Jin.”

Keigo’s face fell, guilt and something bitter stabbing through his chest. A speck of coldness had returned to Deku, a slight hardness in his eyes, some tired tension infiltrating his muscles. He distantly recalled the way Deku had offered a short prayer standing over Jin’s body, the way Deku’s persona had cracked the tiniest bit.

“I know,” he whispered. “And I am so sorry. I didn’t want to.”

Deku’s chest shook with silent laughter or tearless sobs. It was too difficult to tell the difference. “But it was your choice, wasn’t it? You chose to kill him,” Deku hissed, but it was missing a majority of its malice. All that was left now was just this unexplainable exhaustion that no amount of sleep would ever cure. The kid tore into the peeling skin of his bottom lip, shaking his head as if to clear his thoughts. “If it was that simple though, you’d be dead too.”

Keigo swallowed down the accusation, bearing the words that burrowed beneath his skin like needles. It wasn’t anything that wasn’t true, and perhaps that was the worst part of it. The kid was just throwing Keigo’s own words back at him.

But Keigo had his orders, he had to stop Twice no matter what form it took. He hadn’t wanted to kill him, truly, honestly. Twice had been a good person, and Keigo had hoped that he could’ve ended things peacefully, but then Dabi appeared. 

Things only spiraled from there.

It wasn’t the conclusion Keigo had wanted.

“I guess you’re still stuck in your cage, huh, Hawks?” Deku mused aloud, not really speaking to him but letting the words dance in the air, letting them exist in the space between. “After all this time, haven’t you ever thought about getting out of it?”

Keigo froze in his seat.

The words were dryly delivered, not a hint of malicious intention hanging off any syllable, but appearances were so often deceiving. It may have seemed like a rhetorical question, so simple, just a little food for thought, but that wasn’t the point. Everything Deku did had a purpose, some ulterior motive.

He couldn’t believe he had forgotten who he was sitting across from.

No matter what, no matter how young or hurt he was, Deku was a manipulator.

He planted seeds of doubt in people’s minds and played with them until he grew bored or they outlived their usefulness. Then he cut them down like strings on a puppet.

He should’ve known better than to believe that Deku was here for any other reason than to mess with his head.

“What are you really doing here, Deku?”

The kid raised a brow, still clinging to the pretty, opaque veil of innocence, of ignorance, but it vanished with a discontent sigh. “So mean,” he mumbled, reaching his hand into one of the pockets in his cargo pants. He pulled out a maroon box: small, discreet, unconcerning to the naked eye. “I have an offer, if you’re interested.”

Something about the box prickled at the back of Keigo’s mind—screeching that it should be familiar, that it was dangerous and Keigo should avoid it at all costs.

“I betrayed you and you want to propose an offer?”

Deku’s fingers ran along the seam of the box, disinterest, boredom, plastered on his skin, his half-broken body. If Keigo hadn’t known better, he’d believe that the kid didn’t care at all. “Not really,” he mumbled. “You betrayed the League, not me. I won’t hold that against you.”

Alarms bells echoed in his head, but Keigo leaned forward anyway, curiosity drawn across his expression.

“What you got in there, Kid?”

Deku hummed, eyes sharp as he popped open the lid. A single red bullet perched in the center, unassuming and simple, but Keigo knew what it was. He’d read the reports about them.

There was no way Shigaraki would’ve given him one, not when there were so few left anyway.

“A way out, I suppose.”

Keigo shook his head in disbelief, sitting back in his chair. He sucked in a quiet breath, hoping it wasn’t obvious how something was buzzing beneath his skin. He’d seen what those bullets could do; he didn’t really want to test them out himself.

“And how is a quirk-erasing bullet ‘a way out’?” he demanded, some of the anger bleeding into his tone, but Deku either didn’t notice or didn’t care. The boy merely tapped his still-shaking fingers against the material of the box, a nervous tic or just something to do with his hands. He looked strangely calm for someone trying to hand his enemy a career or life ending weapon that his boss was trying to covet for himself.

But then again, it wasn’t like those bullets would work on Deku.

Couldn’t erase what you didn’t have after all.

“You were locked in a cage because you had a quirk that the Commission wanted to exploit,” Deku stated, holding the bullet a little closer to his chest like it was a precious jewel or heirloom. One he wasn’t supposed to have. “They molded you into the ‘perfect’ hero, but if you had a different quirk, if you never had one at all . . . would they have wanted you then? Would you still hold the same value? Would you be worth anything at all?”

Keigo shot up, his chair clattering to the ground behind him. He barely registered the minute flinch that racked through Deku’s body before he was slamming his hands down on the table. Some of the bandages that had been lying haphazardly close to the edge tumbled off the side, pooling in a bloodied mess on the floor.

Deku stared at them as if he wasn’t sure how they got there.

“Are you trying to turn me against the heroes?” he seethed, irrational fire boiling just beneath his skin.

“No!” Deku protested, voice cracking violently as the almost-shout pushed past his lips. A wheezing cough spluttered from his chest, wet and ugly-sounding, but it was choked down enough for him to speak. “I was just analyzing the situation-”

“Not everything needs to be analyzed! Not everything has deeper meaning or some hidden agenda that you need to find out!” Keigo didn’t know why he was so angry all of a sudden, but there was a rage sparking inside him and Deku was the target, the source. “Some things are better left alone!”

If he lost his quirk, that would disrupt the power balance of hero society. It was already in a rocky situation; it couldn’t handle another heavy blow like this.

It’d make any attack from villains that much more devastating.

The kid clenched his jaw, his knuckles white with the tight grip he had around the box. He looked a moment away from either fleeing or shoving the bullet down Keigo’s throat. Neither would be a very viable option, not with the state he was in. Keigo would be surprised if he could actually stand without bleeding out.

Deku was smart. He saw too much at times.

He knew too much.

And that was why he was so dangerous. That was why the Hero Commission wanted to erase him.

No one would ever believe a child could cause so much damage, that they’d even want to.

Deku looked down at his lap, at the bullet in his possession. Keigo couldn’t read whatever was there, couldn’t see beyond the silence because Deku was good at that too. Good at hiding what he was doing or thinking when he wanted to. It was probably a useful skill to have when living with villains.

But as the silence dragged on, patches of the anger fizzled out, smoke rising from the warm ashes. 

“Look, Kid-”

“I just thought that we were alike.”

He spoke so softly that if Keigo hadn’t had enhanced hearing, he would’ve missed it entirely. The rest of the rage died down until only the impression of heat and the ashes that might suffocate him later remained.

“I’m only alive because I did everything Sensei wanted. I followed every order he gave, every rule he set, everything he ever asked of me, I did without question. I didn’t ask; I didn’t want to know. I just wanted, needed, to be useful.” Deku snapped the lid shut with a loud click , still not looking at the hero. “Do you know what ‘deku’ means, Hawks?”

He did.

He always thought that ‘useless’ was a strange name to call a child.

“It’s a reminder of what I’d be if Sensei hadn’t taken me under his wing. I’d be just some quirkless nobody in a world full of people with these amazing powers. Without him, I probably would’ve died some pitiful, meaningless death at fourteen.” Deku curled his lips up, but it wasn’t a smile. It wasn’t even an attempt at some imitation, but Keigo hated it all the same. “He saved me, you know. So why wouldn’t I do everything I could to pay him back for that? Why wouldn’t I find ways to be useful so he’d keep me around? To prove that I could be of use and more than just another quirkless kid nobody wants around? It made a lot of sense back then. It was justified. 

“And I just thought, maybe, we were alike in that aspect. Wanting to please the people who ‘saved’ us so they wouldn’t throw us away like everyone else did. That we’d do anything to be wanted for the right reasons whether we were useful or not.”

Deku finally looked back up at him, that not-smile still plastered across his face.

“But maybe I was wrong.”

Keigo sucked in a tight breath. He couldn’t tell what that swirling emotion the kid clung to was, it resembled a version of acceptance, but the last time Deku thought he was wrong, he went on a rampage against pro heroes and students. He’d been unstable, unpredictable, erratic . Not this perfect picture of calm.

It went against everything Keigo thought he knew about the kid.

“What does this have to do with erasing my quirk?”

Deku fiddled with the box, flipping it this way and that like it wasn’t something that could ruin society as they knew it. “Maybe if you didn’t have the quirk they bought you for, they’d let you go. Cut ties, open the door,” he murmured, shoulders shivering from what might’ve been the cold, might’ve been blood loss. 

“And why would you want to help me?” he asked, fingers curling into fists on top the cool wood of the table.  

Deku didn’t do anything without a reason, and he certainly didn’t do things out of the goodness of his heart.

But Deku just shrugged, the motion small to keep from tugging at his stitches. 

“I’m going to die in my cage, but maybe you don’t have to.”

Deku set the box on the table, a final offer, a final chance.

Keigo could only sit amongst the silence and blood stains and wonder what the hell was going on. 

It felt too much like an ending, a final hurrah before the end credits rolled.

Keigo tried to force a smile, but he wasn’t All Might. He was the fastest hero, not some symbol that inspired hope and encouraged others to strive further beyond what seemed possible. If Deku was right and they were more alike than Keigo thought, then they were both realists. They saw the world as it was and knew their places within it.

He didn’t think any amount of hope could fix them.

What would happen if Deku met All Might, if their paths crossed now or back then before it was too late?

Maybe things would’ve turned out differently.

Maybe ‘too late’ wouldn’t have been now.

“Didn’t you say you could breathe just fine?”

“There’s more ways to die than just suffocating,” Deku croaked, coughing a little weak, pathetic noise that was too sharp to be healthy. “Sometimes, they’ll just put you down themselves when you’re no longer useful.”

Keigo watched the kid’s chest flutter, the only thing to disrupt the illusion of calm. He’d been growing paler than time went on, the shakiness of his hands becoming more noticeable. It would be a miracle if he could make it out of Keigo’s apartment. It’d be a miracle if the kid could even make it through the night without . . . 

“But the League wouldn’t do that to you . . . you’re . . .”

Valuable.

Keigo thought back to the warehouse, the way the walls had crumbled, glass shattering into a million sharp edges from the force of the explosion. Just a few mere seconds and everything fell apart. Preorganized. The heroes wouldn’t have done something like that. It wasn’t a part of the Commission’s plan; there had been no warning, no explanation in the aftermath. 

“The League did that? They blew up the warehouse?”

Something wasn’t adding up though.

There had been no other confirmed sightings of any of the League members in that warehouse. The heroes had searched for hours, and Keigo hadn’t heard a single mention of any other big shot besides Deku. Even the key players of the PLF were missing from the scene. Only small-fry villains and associates had been apprehended. So either the League had been there and made an unbelievably quick escape or . . . 

They knew the Commission was coming the entire time.

They knew that the warehouse would be under siege and set up the explosion to kill the heroes.

But . . . but that didn’t make sense either.

The League wouldn’t have left Deku behind if they had been there in the first place. He wasn’t like the rest of the villains at the scene. He was the brains behind the operations, the planner, not just some pawn for Shigaraki or All for One to throw away. There’s no planning how much damage an explosion could do or where Deku would have been when it detonated; Deku could’ve just as easily died alongside the heroes.

If the explosion had really been meant to cause casualties . . . Deku shouldn’t have been there at all.

Unless he was bait.

But the League saw Deku as an asset . . . he was valuable to them. They wouldn’t have risked him like that.

So that could only mean . . . 

“It was you.” 

Sensei doesn’t tolerate disobedience.

Sometimes, they’ll just put you down themselves when you’re no longer useful.

“And the League has no idea.”

Deku tore off a loose string from his shirt in lieu of an answer.

“You do realize that you could’ve died, right? I don’t have to spell that out for you?” Keigo snapped, trying to catch the kid’s shifty gaze. “Not only did you go rogue on the League, but you set off an explosion while you were inside the building. Kid, what were you thinking?”

Deku shot him a glare. “I was just testing something,” he grumbled, playing the part of some grumpy teenager.

“‘Testing something’?” Keigo repeated, running an anxious hand through his hair. “Well whatever the hell you were doing, you’ll have the entire PLF after you when they figure it out and every hero under the Commission’s belt. God, Kid, I can’t believe you betrayed the League.”

“I didn’t–”

“Will they see it that way?”

Deku went silent, clenching his jaw shut.

The Commission, the PLF, the League, Shigaraki . . . trapped on all sides. Injured with no allies. What the hell was Deku thinking? All for some stupid test? Was he trying to get himself killed?

There was no getting out of this.

It would only be a matter of time . . .

“Let me help you.”

Deku’s head snapped up, lips parting. “What?”

“I can convince the Commission to let you off easy, tell them you turned yourself in,” Keigo rambled, thoughts racing through all the steps. It wouldn’t take long; the Commission could be discreet when they needed too, especially when it came to taking care of villains. This shouldn’t be much different. “You’d have to give them information in return, but they’d protect you. Especially if I vouched for you. You’d just have to prove you wanted to cut ties with the villains–”

“Hawks.”

“–but they’d keep you safe.”

“Hawks, no.”

“Shigaraki will kill you.”

Deku raised a bloodied hand to silence him, looking more put upon and tired than he had moments ago. Resignation bled into his expression, beginning with that dull haze in his green eyes and ending with that loose-lipped, wobbling half-smile.

“I’m not running away from one cage just to be trapped in another.”

“But they could help–”

“Or they could kill me,” Deku interrupted, shoulders shrugging as if saying ‘what could you do?’ “I’m a villain, Hawks. Heroes don’t save villains.”

Keigo grit his teeth. “But you were a victim first. All for One kidnapped you.”

“He did the same to Shigaraki, but I don’t see anyone trying to save him,” Deku said, but his voice didn’t contain any of the bitterness or poison Keigo thought it should. It was presented more like an observation rather than an accusation, and for some reason, that only made it so much worse. “It’s too late for Shigaraki, but it isn’t for me? What kind of logic is that?”

The chuckle that left Deku’s throat was ragged, crackling like fire. Keigo could feel him slipping away, feel the walls rising in their places, cutting him off. He realized that it was probably too late for it, that the offer should’ve been made years ago when the kid actually needed a hero. Or maybe if he’d proposed the same thing just a few months ago inside that bar, Deku would’ve considered it.

Maybe Deku would’ve thought it possible.

Maybe he would’ve believed it could work.

But Deku was smarter than that.

“Please, Kid, let me try,” he begged, even though he knew it wasn’t that easy.

Deku just pushed the box closer to the hero, nose scrunching in pain as the motion pulled at his stitches. Keigo gazed down at the box, the metaphorical key to a cage he’d grown comfortable in even if he was ever so aware of the bars surrounding him. It might give him a way out, might open a few doors, but just as many, if not more, would slam shut behind him. 

The Commission wouldn’t let him continue as a hero if he couldn’t save people with his quirk. They’d wash their hands of him. Whether that meant throwing him out or silencing him . . . he really didn’t know. Madam President was so unpredictable sometimes, but he knew that it wouldn’t have a happy end. 

Hero society was already crumbling since All Might’s retirement and Touya Todoroki’s claims against Endeavor were made public. What would happen if the Number Two Hero fell too?

What was the true cost of Keigo’s freedom from Hawks?

It would’ve been fine if it was only him who was affected, if he bore all the pain and consequences. Maybe he would’ve said yes then. 

But nothing was that simple.

Hawks was never meant to leave his cage, and Keigo couldn’t afford the fallout that would inevitably follow. 

Maybe it was the same for Deku.

Maybe they both couldn’t afford to be anything other than what they were made to be.

Deku’s eyes darted across Keigo’s expression, searching for the sake of surety because he already knew what response he would receive. The kid was smart like that. He probably knew how this night would end when he first arrived, but regardless, he still made the offer, still proposed a way out.

It was more than some people had ever thought to do for Keigo.

“I can’t, Deku,” he whispered like it was some secret or moment of weakness he couldn’t bear if anyone else heard. “I’d rather die in my cage too than let someone else get hurt because I wanted something I couldn’t have.”

Deku waited a beat or two more as though Keigo would take the words back, as if his mind wasn’t completely certain, before pulling his hands away.

Keigo’s brow furrowed, but then Deku was already speaking.

“Keep it,” he said, hands folding gently in his lap, “just in case.”

But we could use this on Shigaraki? Keigo thought but never said. Deku knew. He had to have known.

“You’re really not gonna let me help you, are you?"

Deku shook his head. “Sorry, I know you heroes want to fix every little broken thing you come across,” he teased, eyes crinkling in what might’ve been amusement if it weren’t for the tightness hindering the curl of his lips. “I’ll just have to be a mark on your record, Hawks.”

“Maybe the next time we meet–”

Deku snorted, hand resting across his abdomen.

“There’s not going to be a next time, Number Two.”

Silence stretched between the hero and the villain for a long moment, basking in could’ve-would’ve-should’ve beens. Keigo didn’t want to think about the implications of those words, but he wasn’t an idiot either.

The next time he saw Deku, he’d either be in handcuffs or a body bag. 

And maybe it would be a part of some diluted plan he concocted, maybe it was just another manipulation to further his own goals, but there wouldn’t be a happy ending to Deku’s story either.

Villains didn’t get happy endings, and Deku’s epilogue, whether he wrote it himself or someone else penned in the final lines, would be a tragedy disguised as a miracle.

It was all a matter of perspective when it came to heroes and villains.

While Keigo had been lost in thought, Deku had pushed himself out of the chair, breath hissing between clenched teeth. Keigo launched out of his seat to help him, but Deku shot him a sharp glare that made him freeze in his spot. The kid’s legs were shaking, barely able to stand without him having to lean against the table for support, but he was up. He was standing, bleeding, but standing.

“Deku–”

“I should go,” the boy murmured, seeming so much smaller than the last time Keigo had seen him. Maybe it was the slump of his shoulders or the way his spine seemed to curl in on itself, but that victorious aura that had once wrapped around the kid was absent. 

When had Deku lost it?

Was it before or after fighting that Bakugo kid?

“You’re injured. Are you sure you can even make it out of my apartment?”

Deku stumbled his way to a window in the living room that led to the fire escape, waving a dismissive hand behind him. “Don’t worry so much; it’s bad for your health,” he chastised, voice taking on a light edge that did nothing to reassure Keigo. It would’ve been more believable if Deku’s didn’t sound so breathless from such a simple motion. “Besides, harboring a wanted criminal? Pretty sure that’s a crime and we can’t have Hawks shamed in the public eye. That wouldn’t be good, would it?”

Keigo hesitantly followed him, footsteps much more steady in comparison. Deku was right, of course. If the Commission found out that Deku had been in his apartment and Keigo had done nothing to stop him or capture him, the repercussions would be severe. It would be better if Keigo just called it in now before it was too late, apprehend the kid before he could hurt himself worse trying to escape.

But something was stopping him from following through.

It could’ve been that pit of dread that had been sitting with him since the Commission first sent out that kill order. Or perhaps it was the way Deku had come to him even as everything was falling apart around him, a morsel of trust or something similar enough.

Whatever it was, Keigo knew it would only make matters worse if he alerted the Commission of Deku’s presence here.

Deku finally made it to the window, his weak arms pushing it open, letting a cool, night-time breeze flutter through the apartment. The boy paused halfway through his exit, resting on the windowsill for a heartbeat or two.

For the first time since Keigo had met the little villain, confliction warred across his expression. A silent debate of some sort.

Keigo could only wait until Deku turned back towards him, green eyes glued to the floor as if he couldn’t handle whatever Keigo’s reaction would be.

“Hey, Hawks?” he asked, voice small, half-hoping that Keigo wouldn’t hear them.

“Yeah?”

Deku’s teeth gnawed at his bottom lip, worried lines carving themselves across his pallid complexion. 

“Do you think if things were different, if I was . . . better . . . do you think I could’ve been a hero?”

Keigo blinked, forcing his expression into stillness.

He had a feeling his answer would be a catalyst for whatever Deku had planned next, but there was no simple ‘yes’ or ‘no’.

If Deku had never been kidnapped, if All for One had never molded him into a villain whose sole purpose was to gather information to hurt others, if he had been just a normal kid who grew up in some happy neighborhood, maybe there could’ve been a chance of a better ending. Maybe he could’ve accomplished what others thought impossible.

But even then, Deku was quirkless. He never would’ve had a ‘normal’ childhood, regardless of All for One’s influence. He would’ve been ostracized and bullied and pushed down more times than he could count. Things like that create bitterness and resentment, and Keigo had never known a Deku who had never drowned within negativity and spite. He could only say that that Deku he knew now would’ve given back as good as he got, maybe even worse. 

Keigo had only ever caught glimpses of Izuku Midoriya.

He had no idea what that kid would’ve done.

If things had been different, Deku wouldn’t exist, at least, not in the same way he did now. It would be Izuku Midoriya that faced whatever hardships were thrown his way, that would stumble and fall and get back up again with determination in his eyes. And perhaps that kid would push past all the limitations others tried to force upon him. Perhaps he’d prove that he could be a hero despite the doubt crawling in his shadow, the harsh words and ugly derision buzzing around in his head.

But Keigo didn’t know Izuku Midoriya like he knew Deku.

He couldn’t say for certain what Izuku would do differently.

He knew that if Deku, as he was now, was a hero, he’d be . . . unstoppable. Not as a fighter or on the front lines of some war, but playing behind the scenes, analyzing and watching, he’d be invaluable. He had a smart head on his shoulders; so many heroes would be scrambling over themselves for his help. It wouldn’t matter if he didn’t have a quirk, though he’d undoubtedly face criticism for it, because he’d proven that he had use, that he had value.

But was his analysis a trained skill? Did All for One nurture it? If Deku had never lived through those experiences with those villains, if he had been raised differently, taught other things, would he still be as skilled as he was now?

Keigo didn’t know.

Without it though, Deku wouldn’t have something the heroes, the Commission, wanted.

He’d never be a hero unless he could prove he had something worth encouraging. Something good. 

The Commission didn’t want useless things.

Keigo tried to smile even though Deku wasn’t looking.

He didn’t think Deku would like his answer very much. 

“I don’t know, Kid.”

Deku’s expression didn’t change, but Keigo felt like it was the wrong answer anyway.

Maybe the kid wasn’t looking for the truth at all. Maybe he just needed a pretty lie to get through whatever would come next.

Keigo wished he could’ve given it to him, but Keigo had never been a good liar when it came to hopeful questions.

Deku tore his gaze away from the floor, a bright smile adorning his face.

It was fake.

So unbelievably, utterly fake.

But it made him seem more like a kid than a weapon and maybe that’s why he wore it.

No one ever thought a kid could be capable of the things Deku had done.

“It’s okay,” he reassured as though Keigo was the one who had been dealt some harsh blow. “That’s what I thought too.”

Keigo didn’t know what conclusion he had just confirmed for the kid or what Deku was really asking, but it didn’t really matter in the end.

Because Deku slipped out the window, still wearing that smiling mask, and he disappeared into the night like he never existed in the first place.

Keigo was left alone with only bloodied bandages and a maroon box to keep him company.

He really should’ve just lied.

Maybe then Izuku Midoriya would’ve held on a little longer.