ONE
TUMBLE AND RUMBLE
OH DISTANT STORM
⎺⎺⎺⎺⎺⎺⎺⎺⎺⎺

Kacchan gets his quirk first, which is not that surprising to Izuku since he thinks Kacchanis the best at everything. And his quirk proves that; the perfect amalgamation of his parents' quirks, flashy and strong and perfect for someone as perfect as Kacchan.

The first time Izuku sees the explosions in Kacchan's hands he knows, he knows, that Kacchan will be the best hero just like he's always said.

And Izuku knows he will be right beside him.

::

A few weeks later and everyone has their quirks; everyone besides Izuku that is. But he holds onto his hope, watches that video of All Might and swears he'll be a hero just like him, blinding grin and all.

He has no doubts. His Mother does.

It's a Saturday when she pulls him away from his action figures and tells him they're going to the Doctor about his quirk.

In his excitement he almost forgets to grab his favourite All Might figure, almost. Izuku doesn't sit still the entire way, jumping and grinning and practically shaking with excitement — what will his quirk be? Telekinesis like his Mother? Fire-breath like his Father? A mixture of both? Maybe fireballs, maybe absorbing fire! Maybe—

The Doctor tells Izuku he's quirkless, and he feels his life fall away just as his action figure falls from his grasp; just as All Might falls from his grasp.

His Mother picks it up — with her quirk — but all he can do is stare at his feet. Feet that have always been tripping him up, feet that have always betrayed him.

Kacchan will still be a hero — of course he will — but Izuku will not be there beside him. The distance between them is so vast to Izuku now that Kacchan's back is only a small speck in the dark distance.

Kacchan is still bright and warm and effervescent.

And Izuku is just an insignificant pebble on his path.

::

Izuku Midoriya knew at the age of six that, without a doubt, the doctor was wrong.

Despite his diagnosis, despite his lack of symptoms, despite the presence of a pinky joint in his toe, Izuku knew he wasn't quirkless.

His assuredness rests on a few moments. Most of which, he had to admit, were quite flimsy; the few instances where objects would move towards him akin to how his Mother's quirk works, flames flickering with his breath like his Father's quirk. He would try to convince himself that the open window had nothing to do with those moments, that he had a quirk, but almost three years of being told otherwise had slowly deprived his dream of oxygen until it turned blue and died.

However, the summer of his seventh birthday revived that dream, yet set his life on an aching course he'd never considered.

::

What Izuku remembers first about that night was how warm it was. His skin clung to his All Might flannel pyjamas like spandex and his normally unmanageable tangle of hair stood out in all directions in what he could only describe as a poof.

But he didn't mind too much, the encompassing warmth and soaking sweat reminded him of Kacchan, with his sleepy giggles, heated beds, and whispered shushes. Izuku smiles at the pleasant memories that blanket his chest like warm tea. He hums in content.

Izuku remembers the storm second. The weathermen had harped on for weeks about how intense this storm would be, and Izuku hadn't been able to contain his excitement.

And Izuku hadn't been disappointed. The thunder set his home into a shutter and rattled his hazy bedroom window. Izuku watches with wide eyes as the lightning lights up the sky and his bedroom, and the boy swears he could feel the remnants of electricity tingling under his skin like his Mother's strokes. But even though Izuku wanted to stay up all night and watch the beauty before him that set his entire being aglow, the percussion of steady rain sings him to sleep.

The third thing Izuku remembers as he opens his eyes the next day was how cold he feels.

The biting cold pushes him out of his dreams and into a definitely cold and definitely wet bed. Izuku sighs as he steps out of his unpleasant sheets, still half asleep. He hadn't had an accident in years—

His All Might socks squelch and Izuku finally breaks away from the last lingering chains of his subconscious.

One quick sweep with fatigued eyes and Izuku knows something has soaked his entire room. His laundry lies drenched on the floor and his homework is soppy and ruined, identical to how he feels. The most peculiar thing were the scorch marks that bloomed on his floors like ashen flowers.

Izuku didn't know what had happened, but it looked almost as if...

As if someone had invited the storm inside his room.

::

Hisashi cleaned up the room quicker than a flickering flame and made a dismissive comment about a crack in the roof before hurrying off to work. The entire ordeal didn't outlast breakfast and both Inko and Izuku pushed it to the side in favour of school and chores and what they'd have for dinner.

Two weeks later and a handful of similar, but minor, moments and Izuku wakes in the study. A circle of ink surrounds him, smudged till it resembles the curls he shares with his Father, unintelligible.

Izuku didn't know what happened, or how he got into his Father's study, but a few hours later he realises one thing.

Hisashi Midoriya is gone.

::

Years pass and Inko and Izuku hear nothing from Hisashi. But life moves on just the same as when he graced their halls with his smokey presence and they learn to accept that with melancholic hearts.

Izuku starts middle school and discovers, unsurprisingly, that he's still the butt of everyone's jokes — quirkless, pathetic,useless Deku.

And he finally accepts that that's the truth. It's been so long since he's been able to do... whatever it was he could do. His Father abandoned him as did his quirk.

And so does Kacchan.

Kacchan's friendship progressively slips away, like summer gives way to winter and that's what Izuku feels in his friends absence, brittle and cold with no way to warm himself. Bright grins turn to avoidance and grimaces, but even so, Izuku still tries to hold on to whatever remains of their tattered friendship.

They still live near each other, and it's enough for them to still walk home from school together, even if it is in silence. Whether that silence is more nervous or irritated however, Izuku's never been able to tell.

Izuku tries — oh how he tries — to get the words out, any words! Are you okay? Are we okay? Why aren't we friends? What happened?

Is it because you think I'm useless too?

But in the absence of words silence reigns supreme, only pardoning the skittering of rocks Kacchan kicks with his scuffing feet. And Izuku tries to hold his heart from beating with the same tempo as those rocks, but with the fatigued sun scrutinising him and his mind filling the silence with too many thoughts, he fails at that too.

Izuku lets out a surrendering sigh. Why not one more abandonment?

::

Izuku learns not to fight.

He's in his final year now. Still no sign of that power, still no word from his Father, still no warmth from Kac — Katsuki. Without Katsuki, Izuku has no friends and no protection. The jeering becomes worse, and even though Katsuki doesn't join in, he also doesn't stop it. And Izuku doesn't know what's worse.

His Mother worries. The anxious ticks he shares with her are an everyday experience, most of the time from both parties. He tries to relieve her stresses; keeps up his grades, covers the bruises, plasters on a smile. But Inko looks at him with pitying green eyes and she can tell it's not his real smile.

He wonders if that abandoned him too.

::

It's on an already dreadful day that Izuku experiences, well...

One of the best and worst days of his life.

Katsuki's lackeys, his usual tormentors, find him scribbling in his notebook just as school lets out, and it starts a whole slew of insults. The same shoves, the same insults — was this monotony really what his life would entail?

He just wants to go home, smile through dinner and then retreat to the safety of his room, surrounded by the support of All Might.

All Might would believe in him.

Izuku lets himself into a daze, blocks out the words and the pain. He knew it'd hurt later when he finally comes back to reality, but he was used to it. His entire life was just lingering phantom pains.

He zones out, mostly anyway, but then Katsuki walks through the door with a question on his tongue and irritation in his eyes. He freezes when he looks down at Izuku — why was he looking down? Izuku finally registers his placement and figures the lackeys have shoved him to the ground somewhere along the line.

Izuku doesn't move, continues staring up at his former friend and the small part of him that was still naïve hopes and prays this is the moment that Katsuki stands up to the bullies, apologises for his behaviour, and they'd go back to normal.

But then cold red leave hopeful green. "Come on."

Izuku feels the throb of abandonment, a stronger pain than the grazes on his palms. He barely listens to the last jeers and laughs, nor the door closing on one of his last lifelines.

Izuku feels overwhelmed and underwhelmed at the same time and he doesn't know what to do. He was drowning in the deepest sea and free-falling through a stormy sky. He feels like crying.

But he hasn't cried in years.

::

He takes the long way home, shuffles through the disgusting and vandalised tunnel his Mother always hates him walking through but he can't find it within himself to care.

He glares down at his notebook, rereads the title 'Hero Analysis for the Future, No. 13' until it becomes a cursed mantra in his head. Izuku can't help but hate it, hate it and everything it represents — for the future? He'd be lucky if he was even alive—

Izuku stops, his eyes never straying from the offending book in his hands as if blaming it for his suicidal thoughts.

He doesn't know when he starts shaking, when his eyes start burning, or when the sloshing behind him starts, but all of a sudden a liquid mass entangles his limbs and forces itself down his throat. The distinct smell of urine and trash makes way to wet Earth, and it's too much. The thing speaks supposedly calming words laced in conflicting malice and danger. It burns, his legs from the tight hold, his throat from the foreign pushing, his eyes from the lack of tears.

His tears abandoned him too as did his will to fight for his life.

"Ha! That's it kid! It'll be all over soon!"

And he's right. As darkness seeps through Izuku's vision, a last ray of light blasts through it. It speaks with All Might's voice and fights with his strength and Izuku can finally breathe again but it's too late for his consciousness — just one look, please!

But when has his body ever listened to him? It didn't give him a quirk, and it doesn't give him an extra minute.

::

When Izuku wakes he doesn't expect to see All Might staring him right in the eyes.

He also never expected his dark blue eyes to look as dead as his own, with that sickeningly fake smile plastered on his face. We are the same... Izuku realises.

All Might tries to leave but Izuku knows if he just talks to him, if he just asks him, he'll know it'd all been worth it. The jeers, the pain, the abandonment, the dark emotion that claws at his heart and tugs at his guts; it was all worth it because he, Izuku, will be a hero. A hero like All Might!

So he latches onto his legs and holds on for the bumpy ride.

Izuku feels his expectations crash around him when All Might's reveals his true form to him, how the number one hero can only be that for three hours at a time, how he is slowly dying.

Izuku feels horrible, but he still has to ask.

"Can I become a hero?"

He thinks back to all the posters in his room, grinning and saying 'You can do it!' He thinks back to when Katsuki and he were kids, playing heroes and dreaming about their future together. He thinks back to his Mum, sorry and unbelieving.

All Might would believe in him.

But All Might's face doesn't change, still as serious and tense and dead.

Izuku already knows his answer, a large part of him always expected it.

"No, you can't become a hero."

And that's that. Izuku doesn't listen to his explanations or his reassurances, he doesn't want nor need them. He will not be a hero. His entire life's dream burns on a stake of six words and all he can do is stare numbly at the edge of the building where the pretty sky calls his name.

He hates clear skies.

::

All Might leaves, when, he's not so sure. All he knows is he's abandoned him too.

Izuku stays on that rooftop, stares back at the slowly sinking sun that's never stopped judging him. Izuku wants to question it, question how it thinks it's the only thing that can rise and set day by day until it's oblivion. His eyes burn, dry, always dry and never resting.

A chill blast of wind causes him to squint. He knows that wind, sharp and cold as the promise of a good storm faraway. Izuku sighs as the wind blows the tension out of him and fills him with a chilling and vital energy he didn't know he was missing.

It breathes life into his lungs, freezes the aching pain that's settled heavy in his heart and thaws it into something new, something alive.

It brings him back to the rooftop, away from the sky. Then he sees it; smoke billowing above the buildings, Mt. Lady fumbling for a space to stand, fire leaping from window to window.

The wind gives him a push and Izuku is running as he tries to ignore the sinking in his stomach that used to be all too familiar.

::

It's crowded and Izuku can't get through the swarm of people who've decided to stand and watch a villain attack like it's some after dinner soap. He's pushing past as many people as he can, becoming less and less polite as the pit in his stomach becomes heavier and begins to boil his nerves.

He barely pays any mind to what the people say around him though he hears a few people talking about All Might and Izuku has to consciously make an effort not to tune in — why should he care?

Izuku pushes to the front, grunts and complaints laying in his wake, and he finally sees the scene; heroes unable to fight the villain trying to protect civilians, crumbling buildings and debris falling into charcoal heaps, fire spreading like a contagion. And at the centre of it all, the sludge villain that Izuku recognises from before, the pungent smell of mouldy Earth fresh in his mind. He stands tall, contorting with all the grace of a demon of the deepest hell, explosions blowing up around him—

Explosions.

It only takes a single glance of blond hair and Izuku is off, the pit in his stomach blooming into a thought that's been dead for far longer than he has.

Fight. Fight. Fight.

Red eyes plead in fear, and that's all Izuku focuses on. Dismisses the gasps of surprise, shouts of concern. He's gotten good at ignoring the outside world, and here's the proof. The villain notices him sooner than he would've liked, but he underestimates him, just like everyone else. Underestimates him like his Mum, his classmates, the heroes. Like All Might.

Izuku grits his teeth, boiling anger rising within him and cold fear smothering it in in its icy claws as he reaches the villain. He grips onto sliding liquid, desperation clear in his frantic movements.

"Izuku..."

Green tries to connect with dimming red, and he feels dread latch onto his boiling veins. He's going to lose him, he's going to lose Katsuki. Strong, perfect, brave, smart, warm Kacchan.

He can't help but to imagine his warm Kacchan nothing but a cold corpse for this... this fucker to stroll around in.

A hybrid emotion of anger, fear and desperation rises in him. A strange feeling that should be as hot as an overflowing pot, but was colder and sharper than a winter storm's blast and it leaves him feeling breathless and dizzy and nauseous.

The world freezes for less than a moment, lets him breathe. He's brought back to the morning of that stormy summer, the electricity thrumming in his blood, the power that made him feel safe. A time where his Father hadn't left him, his Mother didn't stare with sad eyes, Kacchan filled him with warmth, All Might believed in him.

A time when he had power.

And he feels it, rising and wriggling inside him like a tempest aching for release. That breath from earlier that fills his lungs with a cold air and scratches his insides, sets his resolve with the strength of a thousand thunderstorms.

Izuku lets his hands sink into the mush that is the Villains body and feels that emotion that made him feel alive, feels the storm that is his emotions. He closes his eyes, lets the darkness of tumbling clouds be his only sight, and breathes. He feels the cold wind seep through his hands in harmony with this breath, feels it slowly slithering into the Villain's body and creating a pocket of area for Izuku to attack.

Sludge shudders around his fingers. "What the—!? The fuck are you doing!?" The voice above him snarls, and the motion of the wind warns him of an incoming attack.

Izuku sets himself, squints his already closed eyes and hunches his shoulders. He allows himself only a moment to think — bacteria in mud... don't hit Kacchan — and Izuku grapples the twisting electricity inside him, fights to keep it still and strikes it into the villains centre.

A gargled cry snaps Izuku's eyes open, he checks Kacchan first, finds him barely conscious with eyes only just visible slits, but fine. So Izuku hesitantly looks up and startles.

Wide green eyes take in the sight before him, a smoking mass, twitching, and groaning but immobile, regardless. Unseeing eyes gaze to the skies and Izuku's follow. Dark clouds stain the sky, circling and rolling hauntingly above the heads of whispering civilians and heroes.

Izuku stares. He's sure the sky was clear before.

::

A week passes, a sunny week with no rain and no wind and no clouds.

Nothing changes.

He's chastised by the heroes, doted over by his mum, ignored by the teachers, teased by his classmates, avoided by Katsuki. Izuku doesn't see All Might, and he doesn't feel that power again.

He's close to believing it was all a hallucination, but then he remembers the scratching bite of cold in his lungs and the striking electricity in his hands; smoke and mud and rain heavy in his nose and tumbling clouds in the sky. Thinking about it almost always sends him into an overwhelming panic.

He hasn't felt so alive in years and it's too much.

Years and years of being powerless and it chooses now to come out. Only when the person who hates Izuku the most needs help, and he's not even grateful!

Izuku peers through the curtain of his curls to the body sitting a few desks in front of him. Shoulders hunched and blond hair almost obscured by a popped collar. The entire ordeal hadn't affected Katsuki. The heroes praised him; praised his quirk and his bravery and Katsuki ate it all up like a starving man. Izuku couldn't help the tinge of jealousy at that — he'd been complimenting Katsuki for years, and all he received was abandonment.

Izuku tries to use the analytical mind the Gods have blessed him with to figure out this power in distraction of the tremulous emotions inside him, but he just can't.

He doesn't know how it works, why it only worked then, what it even is — not like it matters anyway, it's abandoned him again.

Gone quicker than a sun shower.

Izuku is sick of being abandoned.

::

Izuku finds himself on the roof after school that day, the pretty sky beckoning him to her warm embrace. And oh how he hates clear skies, but Gods does he miss that warmth.

His Father's warm and smokey breath, his Kacchan's warm and soft hands.

Katsuki, not Kacchan.

Izuku doesn't realise what he's doing until the rush of wind stops so suddenly he wonders if air can get whiplash. He's hefted back over the roof's railing and placed on unsteady feet, strong hands gripping on his shoulders.

There's talking, yelled questions he thinks. But he can't see around the copious amounts of liquid filling his eyes, can't hear over the voice in his mind that tells him what just happened:

You just tried to jump off the school's roof.

And Izuku is not surprised to find that he's more annoyed he failed than anything else.

Izuku finally realises it's Katsuki who saved him, Katsuki who's gripping onto his shoulders and shaking him slightly but erratically, his face pulled into an angry scowl that's been his default for years.

"Kac — Katsuki?" Izuku wheezes out, sad and pitiful and everything he hates about himself forced into one moment.

Katsuki's eyes widen, his shaking halting, his scowl melts into something else. Something that fuels an emotion into those red eyes before he shoves his gaze to their feet.

Not before Izuku notices those red eyes aren't cold anymore.

Katsuki's grip would be painful to most, but Izuku could only focus on the fact that Katsuki is actually touching him, his quick breaths fighting the cold to kiss his skin. Izuku could only see blond hair and a sharp nose, and the ends of eyelashes he swears are tinged with salty wetness.

"Katsu—?"

"I should've been the one... to help you..."

Izuku stiffens, a paralysing feeling of confusion and suffocated hope locking his joints together and shutting down his rampant mind for once.

"That day, at the river... I was always the stronger one, I was the one who should've looked after you! But you!" — Katsuki snaps his eyes to Izuku's, red no longer cold and definitely wet — "You were the one to run down and help me!"

The silence that holds tenant over their friendship rears its head again, only Katsuki's huffs and Izuku's heartbeat deny its wishes.

"I realised that day that I couldn't protect you, that I wasn't strong enough... So I..."

Katsuki steps away and Izuku feels like he can finally breathe again, but it's not what he wants, he's never wanted Katsuki to leave.

Katsuki plants his stare on the ground, adamant and piercing. "I couldn't fail. So I left you to deal with it all on your own. I couldn't have you being my only failure — I couldn't fail to protect you! So if I didn't try... If I didn't try, I couldn't fail..."

Izuku doesn't know what feeling is snaking around his gut like a python, all he knows is it chokes any words he may have said in response, makes him shake and stare at Katsuki's down-turned face. He wants — needs — Katsuki to look at him again. To make sure this isn't all some joke, to know this is real, that Katsuki is real and his emotions are real.

"Shit!" Roughened hands grip blond hair. "But I failed anyway!"

Katsuki had always left Izuku breathless and without words, and this instance wasn't any different. But Izuku found that just for once he wanted to talk, to be the centre light — this is supposed to be about him God dammit!

"You fucking came in and rescued me from that muddy fucker... How — What the fuck was that?"

Izuku flinches at the mention of his power, and Katsuki backs off, moves onto what they should be talking about.

The blond reaches out again, but stops short of touching Izuku. "Why would you... Izuku... Why would you try to jump?" He exhales, jagged, sharp. "You realise you would've died, right?"

Izuku can't help the pull of worry when he notices Katsuki's uneven breaths. He reaches out with a tentative hand and grabs onto Katsuki's outstretched one. Katsuki sucks in a breath, holds it, then lets it shutter out as he brings his gaze back up to hold Izuku's.

But he wishes he hadn't.

Izuku's eyes aren't the vibrant green he once knew, dull and dry and blank with heavy bags under them. A crooked smile takes refuge on his face, a smile that's unnatural and so so very wrong to Katsuki. His once stark constellation of freckles have faded to faint smudges on his pale skin, looking more like stains than their previous masterpiece.

Katsuki is now the one speechless, finally looking at what was once Izuku, but that's fine because Izuku has finally found his voice.

"I wanted to know..." Izuku breathes and his smile somehow becomes more pained. "I wanted to know how it feels to abandon... Rather than be abandoned."

::

Katsuki drags him home after that. They don't say anything after Izuku's confession, and neither know if they like it that way or not. Katsuki hardly puts any effort into dragging Izuku and Izuku finds no reason to fight him. The whole trip stays the same, both boys silent and stubborn. Izuku knows Katsuki doesn't trust him to go home on his own even if Izuku obviously has no more effort to try again. He wouldn't put it past Katsuki to watch him tonight just to make sure, anyway.

His Mother stares surprised at seeing her son's former friend at her door, gripping onto him with a frown so deep on his forehead she was sure it reaches his brain. They don't say anything to each other, and Kastuki leaves without a single glance. Red eyes once again cold, but with a determined and frazzled sheen to them that wasn't there before.

Izuku retreats to his room and Inko lets him, concerned eyes tracking her son for as long as she can. Izuku doesn't change out of his uniform, only wraps himself in a mountain of blankets and stares at the cloudy night sky through his window until the pull of exhaustion takes him.

::

That night a storm fills the sky and he can feel it call to him as it always has.

He lets the rumble of thunder and the tumbling clouds pull him from his dreams and his home to the rooftop All Might abandoned him on. The cold wind beats him here, but it's a welcome beating compared to the rest he receives. He isn't scared about being rained on, he knew the storm wouldn't reach where he stands, a knowing so deep in his bones he'd think he'd created the storm.

Izuku reaches out, hoping with all his might he could lasso the storm and let it run loose around him as he loses himself within it. Let his bottled up emotions out through the storm; his abandonment through the sharp wind, his sadness in the heavy rain, his depression in the dark clouds, his anger in the uncontrollable lightning.

He wishes and wishes and wants to scream and cry. So he finally does because the storm has never abandoned him and would never look at him with pitying green eyes or cold red eyes or jeering kaleidoscopes.

Izuku has felt it build for years, this torrential anguish. He is a green storm, a sight that promises extreme damage.

The wind tells him someone's there before the sound of movement does — he doesn't know how, but it does — and turns around.

The darkness pays him no favours and Izuku knows only a dark figure, ominous but peaceful and still a few metres from him. They say nothing, just stare and Izuku has no aid sound wise either. The wind finally helps Izuku by brushing a small breeze his way, and he recognises the smell.

Wasabi, peppermint gum, tobacco.

And smoke.

"Dad?"