Chapter 3
Tell Me (What Haunts You)
Feeling the sun on his skin, the breeze in his hair, and the warmth of a cup of coffee in his hands was something he never thought he'd feel again.
Much less seated across the table from the Hero that saved him.
"Do you not like coffee?" She asks, blinking eyes that he's only recently learned have little stars and glimmers of cosmic dust in the sclera.
It takes him a moment to realize that the question is directed at him. Which is ridiculous given that he is the only other person seated at the expanded metal table. He curls his fingers into the gaps in the metal, pinching in as an emotion worms its way through his mind.
"I do." He answers finally, looking down to the cup in front of him.
He doesn't know how to interact in situations like this.
Father had more important things to do than teach him how to talk to a girl. Supposedly. Right now Izuku would argue.
Uravity stares at him, and a smile peeks at her lips when she says, "You haven't touched it."
That has less to do with him not liking coffee and the idle thought that Mr. Compress always drank coffee or tea at this time. And for some reason that thought and that thought alone makes him not want to drink it.
"I just… can't drink it right now." He replies, unwilling and perhaps unable to explain why he is unwilling to adopt or consider a habit that reflects back to one of the League.
She doesn't give him grief about it- despite the fact that she's paid for it- and it's her break. So instead she thankfully changes the subject.
"How are you liking being a free man?" She asks.
It's decidedly a topic he is both relieved to move to and terrified to expand on. Mostly because it's a topic he feels like he can talk about. And talking was always something that no one in the League allowed him to do.
He was too annoying.
Too much of a know it all.
"Lucky, I suppose. I thought there was only a 34% chance of not being convicted." He replies.
His fingers squish the metal frame, flexings slightly before the metal creaks and bend. He's careful with it, intently considering how the bend has disrupted the pattern on the table top.
"34%?" She asks, cocking an eyebrow at him. "How'd you figure that?"
He shrugs, ready to move on from the estimated value. She keeps staring at him, knitting her fingers together carefully to place her chin on top. Leaning in to consider him.
Like she is interested.
So, he indulges just a little bit in it. "Well… I backtracked through prior similar cases and weighed my own crimes against those in similar cases."
"Like?"
He hesitates, knowing that what he's dug through is hordes of civil and villain cases that were reduced down to the barebones of crimes and rulings.
She waves a hand as if asking for more.
He sighs, then shrugs. "So in the past eight years there have been roughly 112 acts of coerced villainy. 57 cases were ruled not-guilty, 65 of which were ruled guilty with varying sentences. I focused on the 57 cases, of which, 17 of which had a parental figure manipulating their child to use their Quirk."
"Doesn't that mean your percentage should be higher?" She interrupts, brows furrowed.
Izuku shakes his head. "Most of these cases were singular acts of villainy. One break in. One robbery. One count of manslaughter. My track record compounds. So on the 112 cases, only two would have had comparable charges to what I've done. A case in Osaka where a woman was kidnaped by her ex-boyfriend and held hostage, and another in the countryside concerning a man with split personalities."
"Both guilty?" She is smart and Izuku can't help but smile at that.
"Both guilty." He agrees. "So I averaged the circumstances and my crimes with past cases and general public feel and estimated there was a 34% chance of me being found not guilty. There was a 66% chance of being found guilty, and I didn't do enough research to conclude what breakdown of punishments might have been."
"Well- you do have mandated therapy sessions." Uravity offers. "Did you consider that?"
"Mental health improvements?" He asks, and at her nods, he shakes his head. "Not in the slightest. Didn't think it weighed in."
He would have to expand his parameters for calculations. How many of his prior estimates had been wrong because he hadn't fully considered psychology?
Uravity hums and smiles. "Well- it's a department that a lot of Heroes have been pushing recently. Shoto and Creati are actually at the forefront of that." She pauses. "Shoto's recovered well from his fight with Dabi."
"Touya." Izuku corrects with half a thought. Dabi was a villain's name. Touya made him a man. A concept that Izuku could handle and deal with and ascribe a past and flaws to. Dabi is still the creature that hid in the shadows and scorched handprints onto Izuku's shoulders and through his clothing.
Uravity shifts and shrugs. "Y-Yeah."
It occurs to him that name means something to other people and not just him. It's why she calls him 'Izuku' and not 'Page' and why he appreciates that. She might be more comfortable calling Touya 'Dabi' if it allows her to distance the villain and killer from her friend Shoto.
"How is Shoto?" Izuku redirects, peering down into his now-lukewarm coffee.
Mr. Compress drank tea in the afternoon. Coffee was safe. Right?
He dips a finger in, activating his Quirk, watching the dark liquid shrink into a tiny little marble. Dark brown in color, he picks it out of the mug and rolls it around in his palm.
"He's doing well. I think it helps that his fiancée can produce any medical equipment he needs. Though most of it right now is burn cream." Uravity laughs, flashing him another smile he doesn't deserve.
Never will.
She saved him mom.
He broke Ryuku's jaw. He shattered another Hero's sternum. There was a whole list of atrocities he committed in the last battle alone- much less across his entire career.
Her attention shifts, and she hums, reaching across the table and plucking the marble of coffee out of his hand. He jolts, grasping for it on instinct before jerking back and grasping the empty coffee mug instead.
"This is… Mr. Compress's ability?" She asks.
He nods. "Y-yes." He swallows, wondering why that of all questions makes him nervous.
Mr. Compress's Quirk is perhaps the most agreeable Quirk out of all of the League's.
Dabi's itches. Like his skin is too hot and there's a flame burning underneath his skin all the time.
Twice's doesn't affect him nearly as much as it did Bubaigawara. That could be because he has a better grasp on who he is (what a monster he is) than Bubaigawara ever did.
Toga's is irritating. He can smell people's blood types, and he's not sure if that's a side effect of it mixing with the rest of All for One, or if that's what she's always experienced.
Compress was a Quirk he'd probably even keep. Some of the others…
The coffee marble hits him in the forehead, and he cancels it in surprise- dousing the green sweater and dark brown khakis he's wearing in lukewarm coffee. He blinks, then looks up at Uravity in surprise.
She's open mouthed and wide-eyed, staring at him as if she can't believe it. Her lips pinch together, teasing upwards as she smothers the start of a laugh. "Oh my gosh." Her next bout of giggles takes the other words out of her mouth and forces Izuku to wave a waitress over and get napkins himself.
Izuku huffs, wiping what coffee he could before standing. "It's bleeding through." He grumbles, giving the Pro Hero a look.
"I'm so sorry!" She squeals, standing to join him in the futile effort of salvaging his sweater and pants.
"It's fine," he replies. Coffee will wash out and it's leagues (some pun intended) easier than washing blood out of his sleeves. "I'll just go home and change."
"Let me walk you home then!" Uravity offers it with a smile, digging through her utility belt to leave a pair of bills on the table to pay for their drinks.
"There's no need."
"I'd like to." She counters, falling into step behind him as he heads back to his government-supplied safehouse.
Not that he is complaining. It was free. He has groceries and time to figure out his options. And his mother is being taken care of. Her own separate house, groceries, and a protective detail of Heroes watching out for her to make sure no other villains try to kidnap her.
He stares at her, and she stares back at him.
She matches his gaze, unphased by his look of uncomfortability as she steps off in the direction of his living space. As if he doesn't hold a copy of All for One, Cremation, Overhaul, and a nearly superhuman level of strength, speed and durability.
She winks at him. "What- you scared I'll watch you change?"
Heat rushes to his cheeks and he storms off in front of her because, no. He's not. He's not embarrassed about that thought. She's probably seen a lot of guys shirtless. Hell- Red Riot practically was shirtless all the time.
"No," he denies. But his thoughts get away from him as he's walking.
No one has ever seen him shirtless before.
It's not really something he's been conscious of protecting, but there was just a… a tentativeness about being without any article of clothing around the being the primary reason, always eager to leave a new cut on any untainted flesh. But there was also just a reluctance to give up anything he could keep to himself.
Even if it is scarred and tattered and torn to shreds he kept it all to himself. Because nothing else was, so he might as well keep what he could.
The door of his house- apartment really- appears far too soon but that is by design and not choice. He's right across from a Hero agency, Ryukyu's in fact, and several of his roommates he's identified as either undercover, or blatant Heroes. He's being watched and contained, and he's okay with that.
But it makes for a short walk and little chance to make an excuse as to why Uravity can't walk him to the door or follow him in when he gets there.
"You didn't really decorate did you?" She asks, a sheepish smile on her lips as he heads over to a plastic box on the floor.
He pauses, glancing around the room.
Stark crème walls stare back at him, the only disruption is a floor-to-ceiling window. The floor was barren as well, a box of clothing he asked for and had nowhere else to put. Furniture seemed like too much to ask for and he had no reason to ask for more than he already had.
Not moving the box of clothing into the separate smaller room that was supposed to be his bedroom left him with no excuse and no escape from the Pro Hero at his door now. She closes the door behind her, leaning back against the wall and giving him a curious look.
"Do you uhhh want me to step out?" She asks after a moment.
"No," he answers before he can chicken out, "it's just a shirt." That might have been more for himself than it was for her.
Still, his fingers feel heavy as they tug at the hem of his sweater, peeling the soggy fabric and the undershirt beneath if away from his skin.
He'll need a towel too. He can feel it's finally soaked the rest of the way through and started sticking to his skin.
"You sure?" She asks, the tone in her voice shifting. Soft and careful, like she's dealing with a victim instead of a grown man.
Perhaps she is. Izuku doesn't know where he fits in quite yet.
He nods, swallows the saliva choking him, and peels his sweater up and off.
His next breath feels like he's trying to suck it out of a vacuum. It's harder to breathe than it should be, his back to Uravity and his skin exposed to the first person in years.
He knows what's on his back. He knows the different handprints there, burned into his flesh- some on top of the other. He knows how it looks and feels. He's even Overhauled a few. Dealt with a few seconds of excruciating pain to replace the tissue there with fresh clean skin.
He had to be careful doing that, reconfiguring the tissue on his back- where he couldn't see and measure and check- was infinitely more difficult than changing something on the surface of his skin. He knew after all. Sometimes it was easier just to cut the nerves on his arms and let Toga slice into the flesh than it was to argue with her and fight.
"Izuku." Uravity's voice is barely above a whisper.
He stands.
It's all he can do.
Stand stock still and frozen as he listens to her soft footsteps creep across the laminate flooring. He doesn't move when they stop.
If he does, he isn't sure if he'll run or not. And this moment. This moment alone he wants to do what he feels and not run from what he's scared of.
"D…Dabi," he manages to say, because Dabi is the monster that did this and this alone, "had specific requirements for all of my m-missions. Sometimes I had to… change them… to keep H-h-Heroes alive."
He shouldn't be stuttering. People don't like stuttering. It was weakness and cowardly. It is frowned upon. A man didn't stutter. A Hero didn't stutter.
Then again, he had no right being called either.
Her fingers are tentative and cold when they brush one of the scarred handprints. He flinches. His Quirks war within him, his fingers bursting to life with flickering blue sparks, knuckles bristling with Rivet Stabs that slide out and retreat into the bone.
The fingers jerk back, and then return, one finger ghosting around the edges of a handprint.
"They did this to you?" She asks softly.
The moment passes- his fear and anxiety dampened by the calmness of her voice. He cracks the lid on the container, flicking it off and digging through them for a long-sleeved shirt.
"Dabi liked burning me through my clothes." He says it with the specific feeling of detachment- a skill he's honed out of necessity as opposed to want. "Something about the smell of charred fabric and sizzling skin always made him happy."
Uravity's finger flinches, pulls away before four fingers return, her pinky lifts as her hand wraps around his shoulder- halting his mechanical motions of putting a shirt back on.
"They can't hurt you anymore."
That doesn't exactly give him comfort. They've already hurt him. And he's paid them back for it. He's ripped away their Quirks and stolen them for himself. No, it's not a question of if they'll hurt him. It's a question of if he'll hurt someone else with the Quirks that have already caused so much pain.
"I know," He says, unwilling to voice those thoughts. It was too soon, too raw, too unorganized a thought to even begin to approach.
"Do you though?"
And that line gives him thought. It makes him stop and stare, eyebrows furrowing as she pulls away.
He pulls his shirt on, smoothing out the sleeves of the long-sleeved Henley. "What do you mean?"
She shrugs and smiles, dismissing the question she herself has asked. "I guess… it's just…" And she laughs and shrugs and smiles at him. "It's something we always say- 'I'm fine, it's okay, I'm okay.' But we never really are. And I guess I wanted to give you that opportunity to…" She gestures, unsure of where she's going.
"Speak without pretenses," he fills in the rest of her sentence and she nods.
He shrugs, unsure of how to even respond to that, so instead he puts the lid back on the container and shoves it to the wall so the floor is clear. He procrastinates and wrestles with the words in his mouth before taking a spot on the other side of the wall.
The entire living room of the apartment can't be more than ten feet across, yet it's still too close for Izuku. Too intimate for the words that he's about to say to her.
But he told himself he'd walk a better path and it seems that it wants to start here.
"I don't think anyone can ever really be fine after…" he gestures at himself. "But I suppose I'm doing alright." He hesitates and looks at his hands before speaking again, "Nightmares would be normal. I have those often. Sometimes the other Quirks flare up- especially the new ones. Some of the side effects are new and difficult to deal with. But I… I'm alive." He isn't sure what else there is past that.
Hadn't planned on anything more.
Uravity nods, "Do you know when your first therapy session is?"
"Tomorrow." He gestures to the kitchenette, more specifically the fridge; where a calendar is pinned and marked with a dozen different dates concerning court-mandated meetings and therapy sessions.
"Are you ready for it?"
Not in the slightest. What even is therapy? He understands the concept. The idea behind talking through trauma and sorting through all the issues that were created from it but how did you counsel someone like him?
"Not really."
She smiles. "I could go with you if you like." She offers it casually, like he isn't the one that broke her boss's jaw and knocked out a tooth and chipped two others.
It's an offer that is too good to be true. And because he is a special breed of paranoia and fear, he questions it.
"Why?"
She shrugs and smiles. "I think it's important to go and talk to someone, even if it's scary the first time." He gives her a confused look and so she shrugs and furthers it. "I didn't grow up with a lot, and when I became a Hero that dynamic changed in a way I didn't know how to deal with. It wasn't that I wasn't taking care of myself, but it was that I didn't know how to now that I could. So my friends convinced me to see a therapist, just to talk about a few things and try and straighten some things out."
That's.
Odd.
"Just over something like that?" He asks, frowning.
"Therapy isn't just for the people who have skeletons in their closets and damaged hearts and wounded souls." She says, "it's also for the people that just need to talk and figure out their emotions. And a therapist is supposed to be there for them and listen and help guide those emotions to something productive and beneficial."
"Even me?" The question is out of his mouth before he can consider it.
He has plenty of skeletons in his closet.
Plenty of ghosts holding onto his shoulders and pulling him this way and that. Least of all was the lingering emotions in his copy of All for One, or even the newly acquired tendencies that linger with ripping out the League's Quirks.
He really needs to give Toga's away. The last thing he needed was a craving for blood.
Uravity laughs. And the sound is sunshine on a rainy day. It is something that pulls him from his thoughts and makes her stare as she giggles at him. Her hand smothers it but he soaks it in all the same, focusing on her as he considers her.
"Everyone needs a bit of therapy. I think you've just been deprived of it." She reasons.
And that makes sense.
It makes it less scary.
It makes it feel like something he can actually do. Even if it's begrudgingly. It feels like something that he can struggle through.
He survived living under the League for years. How bad could one session of therapy be?