It happened in an instant, with a single cold and clammy hand brushed against his forehead, sending shivers through Tenya Iida's entire body before it took.
Tenya Iida was born with engines in his legs and blood that adapted well to the metal in his body. Most mutation babies like his miscarried older siblings ended horribly, with too many or not enough parts to make a whole. His former classmate Shouji was an example of too many limbs but just enough organs to live. He wasn't supposed to know, but he knew his older siblings has engines too, but covering their faces, intertwined with their insides and squeezed them to the point of suffocating in his mother's belly. That's why him and Tensei were lucky, to be born with just enough pieces and the right amount of blood and organs and formed just the right way.
Mutant babies had the most premature deaths. It was a simple, yet cruel fact about the Quirked World. Mutants were the last ones to gain equality and always had the most deaths, even when they first appeared. They were the first killed in protests, by unsatisfied mothers and fathers, by strangers on the street. The Iida's were lucky to have such small mutations that caused early deaths, rather then late ones or worse, deaths after a child was born.
His engines grew with him, but unlike Tensei's arms they were never heavy or displaced. Tensei had an extra gear in his left arm that his right didn't had, and reduced fine motor control in that hand when he grew older. Tenya remembered once, his brother home early from school, dropping the spoon into the orange curry he was making and stared at his arm like it betrayed him.
(In a way, it did. Tenya had an understanding of limbs not doing what you wanted now.)
They were perfectly balanced to his body and he was able to get a hold of his quirk at a younger age, to the delight of his brother and parents.
Since he was born, his engines purred softly, a working organ made just for him. They soothed him at night when it was just a bit too quiet in his bedroom, warmed him from the core to fingers. It was a pleasant warmth, always there like a second skin. A soft blanket. A reassurance when the kids in elementary school got a bit too mean with their teasing.
The smell of metallic rust and the man's rotting flesh burned his nostrils, and he tried to take a step back to loosen himself from the man's grasp. His hands flew up, caught the thick and sinewy wrist and clawed at it with his blunt nails, the thin skin giving way but the hand not moving.
It took.
And it took .
And Tenya Iida fell to his knees, the shifting cement tasting of sweat and blood under his skin.
His eyes opened to green, air thick with humidity and smelled of chemicals despite the almost natural outlook.
He's awake. Heartbeat normal.
The voices were gurgly and warped, like a scratched record playing backwards. Tensei had a record player, and forcefully spinning the disk backwards made the needle jump and make horrible warbling sounds.
(Who was Tensei..?)
Something bright was flashed in front of him, like a star imploding. Tenya blinked, then screwed his eyes shut before two warm, dusty fingers pried them open again.
The ground was soft underneath, like the underbelly of a shallow creek. He dug his fingers into it, mud catching on his nails and pillowing up into his face, not really looking at his surroundings despite all the tactical training UA has beaten into him.
(Pupils aren't dilating, but he did react to the light. Heavy concussion, most likely-)
(Wake up, Tenya.)
He didn't want to wake up. Looking upwards he could see the sunlight streaming through the top of the lake, ripples of lakeweed and blurs of fish swimming past him. He was warm, the sunlight was pleasant, and he could reach out his hands to touch the rippling plants next to him. They were slimy with dirt, catching on the rough of his skin.
He would stay down here a little longer.
Waking up was a process, but little by little he came through, a familiar numbness settling in the calves of his legs and crook of his elbows.
The hospital bed was far from the bottom of the lake he had rested on, but the sheets were light enough to not bother him. The pillow was crunchy, and it wrinkled under his head like paper when he turned his head, neck protesting by cracking and stars blooming behind his closed eyes.
His legs. His body was resting above the sheets so he had a good look at them no matter where his eyes lingered. Blotchy red around the exhaust pipes, almost like an allergic reaction or a burn. It itched, like the time he was young and a wasp had stung him in a park by his house, but nearly ten times worse, in two centered spots like sores. Trying to lift his legs to get a closer look at them revealed that he couldn't .
Which should be impossible. He could feel the coolness of the air and tell the difference between the seam of the paper-like sheets and the edge of the metal bed, could twist his toes and feel the satisfying pop like cracking his joints, could feel his hand touching his thigh.
He wasn't paralyzed.
He couldn't move.
The purr was gone. The spark that kept his engines going since the minute he was born had gone out, taken by the man with rotting flesh and stolen quirks.
Iida had always worn shorts in the winter, to expose his engines to the cold to prevent overheating, and had never known the harsh wind of winter around his legs. His engines kept him warm, his engines protected him like a blanket.
In the tiny hospital room shared with another victim (whose eyes were pale and jaw slack and unlike Iida- didn't wake up from the peaceful trinity of a small coma), the AC on full blast due to the summer heat, his legs shivered. This time not with the power of speed, but with the unexpected coldness his nerves had never felt before.
The nurse had cold hands that gripped Iida's shoulders a bit too strongly.
He shuffled along the wall, his legs almost as heavy as his heart, shaking off the nurse's hold and stumbling, bare toes stretched uncomfortably against the tile.
To have the literal dead weight of your quirk strapped to you like a brick in a river, and you can't swim.
His eyes fill with burning tears and he waves the nurse away, the cool tile pressed against his skin. He brings an arm to his face and bites down hard on two fingers, trying to hold back tears that gushed in his heart.
His room was untouched. It showed signs of living despite his long absence, folded clothing on the dresser and the portable fan unplugged for the season. The window was cracked open to let in the sounds of the street, but mostly to just get fresh scent of rain into the stale room. Its air tasted of salt, of nothingness and dead space. The humidity did not hide it well.
His mother said something, warbled and slurred to Iida's ears. Thick raindrops pelted the window and the faint smell of his citrus air spray hit his nose, recently sprayed from his oddly silent mother. His mom spoke again, tone pitiful and almost angry. At what, Iida could not tell. Not at him, or directly so.
I'm sorry, Iida tries to say, his mouth forming the words and tongue rolling them over until they became solid, but not a sound escaped his throat. The words stuck, like an oversized bite that he could not swallow, but certainly wouldn't choke either.
His mother left, the door clicking softly behind her. Iida's tongue curled over the sounds anyway, and spoke silent words to unlistening ears.
"Good morning, Tenya." his brother smiled as he eventually shuffled his way downstairs, drawn by the smell of non hospital food. "I made curry, even though it is not summer."
Iida's legs ached. He almost asked his brother if his own legs ached as well. Two brothers, locked in place without movement and restricted by their bodies, by their quirks, by their failed destinies. Iida opened his mouth to ask, and then closed it without much of a thought otherwise.
A glass of orange juice sat inconspicuously just next to the fridge, condensation welling up on the sides due to the humidity. It had already formed a ring onto the wooden countertop.
He mumbled out a half hearted greeting as he poured a second glass of milk for Tensei, grabbing both glasses as he slowly stumbled to the table. His hands were heavy with lack of use, but not quite aching, not yet.
"Thank you Tenya, that is very kind of you." His brother thanked him with a smile, before bringing the glass to his lips.
The nurse told the family to use gentle words, encouraging words. Tenya knew setting glasses on the table was not helpful, just expected. Tensei's smile was hard to look at.
He lifted his own glass, the color of the plastic making the orange juice look discolored. The pulp swirled in the bottom, triggering an old memory of satisfaction and warmth.
Good morning.
The glass was cool to his dry lips, and Tenya took a big sip of it without thinking too hard, the taste almost not registering until his mouth was full of the stuff. His eyes widened, and he spat it back into the glass, manners be damned. He heard Tensei's gasp of surprise and he coughed, saliva and pulp getting over his chin and the collar of his. of his. pajama shirt.
Is there anything worse than shoes inside the house, Iida-kun?
The taste was powdery and gritty, like he had stuck his tongue into a sandpit mixed with that awful protein powder he had to guzzle in his youth, sweat rolling down his back, a clammy hand-
Iida's eyes opened. He could feel Tensei's eyes on him, gaze laced with shock. He didn't say a word. The powder-like residue stuck to his teeth and tongue.
"I think I'll go back upstairs." he whispered.
He never realized how heavy his legs were until they couldn't be used.
He tired to run, and tripped over his own feet, his own weight, inhaling the soft smell of grass and probably getting dirt stains all over his freshly washed clothing. He didn't move, but closed his eyes and buried his face even farther into the sweet smelling earth. He remembered the other victim, with her glassy eyes and how she didn't react when her family came to visit. He had watched as her children spoke to her like she was listening, press hands into her own limp ones, as her husband pressed a soft kiss into her hairline. A part of him, a selfish desire, which he could have remained under that lake, with the soft mud and the ribbon like plants. He wanted to stay in his own peaceful mind, with no outside interference.
He had something he always had taken from him, ripped from him. It was destroyed and useless and the worst part was that it was still there. Like twin growths of metal grinding on bare bone, no purr to soothe the pain.
His ears have been ringing since he woke up. Tintinuts, on top of everything else he lost. He never had to turn off his engine, never had them off other then the few moments his homeroom teacher had erased his quirk, always had them idle for training and convenience.
And now.
Now someone strapped lead bricks to his feet and told him to swim.
The Iida brothers will never run again.
Since the incident, every realization had gone cold in his mouth, making his eyes wet and lungs tighten. This one made him roll over the words "I'm sorry," again and again, and yet never quite pushed them out.
He was leaning against Tensei when he realized it. Snuggling into his brothers arms was something from his childhood, when the kids at school got a bit too mean in their teasing or his over sensitivity got the best of him.
He heard it. A purr. A whisper. The faint smell of exhaust.
Iida Tensei's engines were idling.
His legs, stretched uselessly onto the coffee table, were dead and unmoving and dead so why was he idling. Why was-
The Iida brothers would never run again.
The hand took.
And it took.
And it took.
His brother had his legs taken from him, but not his quirk.
Iida Tenya had to lose both.
He had to struggle with the dead weight of his engines, his exhaust pipes sticking out and unretractable.
But in Tensei's arms the oh-so familiar hum of their quirks, his own engines, and Iida could not crush the building jealousy building in his chest no matter how hard he tried to quash it.
His mother's embrace is painful too. She long retired but she sounds the same, the powerful roar of an engine that you never realized was there until it left.
"There's no more orange juice in the fridge." His mother comments one day.
Iida had thrown the cartons out, poured in the sink and hidden in the bottom of the trash can. He could still smell the faint scent of oranges if he had stuck his face in the sink.
He did not answer his mother's unasked question.
Midoriya was on TV, the sounds of the battle muted but the subtitles of the running commentary only a few seconds behind. He swung a hard kick to the thug's face, and the video feed caught the sight of the criminal spitting two white objects onto the ground before getting up for more, his nose oddly squished. Broken.
Then Deku, because he was Deku now in his hero costume and fabricated grin, broke into a run after an off screen thug, his face glowing.
He flew.
Probably faster then Iida with his engines. Probably faster then the cold hand that took.
Iida turned the TV off.
Iida-kun, it is sunny today.
It was not a statement but an order, so out of the house he went.
The Iida family car was a barely used yet ancient car, one of the first electric type models. It was an old clunky thing, a loud air conditioner unit and an even louder engine. Iida had found the keys in the bottom of his mother's stationery drawer when he was looking for a pen. If Tensei or his mother had noticed he took the keys for himself despite the lack of a license, they did not say anything.
They didn't say much to him nowadays, and Iida did not mind a bit. It was better to just ignore the elephant in the room, let him wander around the house like a ghost. There was nothing they could do anyway.
Iida didn't even pull the car out of its parking space. He just sat there, windows down and the hum of the engine under his fingertips. The sun warmed his face, his eyes closed and the damp sensation of sweat condendencing under his shirt.
The engine was just a touch higher then his own, but the faint vibration was the comforting nevertheless. If he didn't think too hard enough, he could almost feel his own throbbing legs under the heavy air of the car. He could feel mud under his fingertips and cool water against his face, almost welcoming him.
His phone vibrated from where he left it on the dash, and he made no move to retrieve it.