Chapter 7

(Don't) Hide the Cracks (From Me)

"I'm not an angel Izuku," Ochako says, and it's something he realizes but frowns at all the same.

"Uh." He freezes, fork halfway to his mouth as he stares at her across the white tablecloth. "I don't…" He frowns, blinks at her in confusion because she is beautiful.

All dressed up in a pretty green dress with her hair pulled back in a ponytail. He feels he's been shoved in a sleeping bag three sizes too small and been forcibly zipped into it. Was this what Twice felt like in his own skin? God, he hated wearing button up shirts. Everything was too tight- too starched and too fitted for him to be comfortable.

"I don't think I understand?" He suggests when her eyebrows knit together, and her lips press thin.

"I'm not perfect."

But…

She…

Kinda is…

"I'm still human. I make mistakes," Ochako furthers, setting her fork down and easing her half-eaten plate away from her.

He copies her movement but refuses to put down his fork. Instead he rolls it between his fingers, feeling the soft give of the metal in his hand as he gently bends it one way and then back.

"I know that," he finally says.

She frowns at him, and her expression is not angry or hard. It's soft and full of worry and fear as she examines him, her lips pulling down into a pout. "But do you?"

He thinks he does.

He wants to think he does.

He twirls his fork until Ochako reaches across the table, stilling his anxious hands and coaxing him into setting the utensil down. He looks up and finally meets her gaze, unsure of what to even say or do or respond to that kind of statement.

On a fundamental level he understands.

Humans are creatures of habit, of immediate thought and action, and there will be times that she falls prey to those tendencies. She will show up late for a date that has been scheduled for months or be forced to work on a holiday he'd rather spend with her than fighting in the streets by her side. She will have days where she gets snippy with him- already has- and it's because it's been a long day at work, and he has made the mistake of saying or doing the wrong thing.

He understands that Ochako Uraraka is not perfect.

He thinks he does at least.

But like all things he thinks he understands- at some point the gap in his knowledge shows. Somehow it trickles through the cracks and spills over into reality and even if he doesn't always understand it, it hurts.

And some days it just shatters.

Though 'shatters' implies that something breaks.

It implies that there is a moment of time when life fractals and time jerks and jolts around and all the little emotions that Izuku feels rush to the front and he explodes.

That's not the case.

It's not the case when two months after they started tentatively dating, she stumbles into his apartment- bleeding and hurt and drops onto his carpet.

He does not explode.

Izuku doesn't care that the dinner he cooked for them was cold three hours ago. He doesn't care that he shouts her name and rushes to her side. He doesn't care that his plans for the evening are ruined or that the hurt in his heart- because she was late saving someone else when he needed her- had to be tucked away.

What matters is the ooze of blood spilling through his hands and down the dark material of her costume onto his apartment carpet.

What matters is that he can't form a thought, and only screams for help instead of trying to figure out what to do when the woman his entire life revolves around is bleeding and fading in and out of consciousness on the floor.

The Heroes in the apartments around him rush into the room. They are more prepared for this than he is, surprisingly. They bring gauze and clotting agents and bandages and calm words and gentle but firm hands, where all Izuku feels that he can bring is confusion and flailing.

"She'll be alright," one of them says- one he remembers seeing on Tuesdays because they both get groceries on the same day. "The cut isn't bad, and it looks like she has a concussion. We'll get her to a doctor."

"I-" he hesitates, unsure what to say- to do, to be- other than there for her.

"We'll text you the room she's in. Don't worry- we got her," another says, the one Izuku sees at the gym on Thursdays. "We can get her there faster than you can."

He's utterly useless.

All over again he is useless to save the woman he is in love with. And there is not a Quirk or an ability that can resolve that insufficiency. Izuku Midoriya is utterly useless to Ochako Uraraka.

Regardless of the fact that he tries so hard to make her proud working as a trial-Hero around her agency, he still doesn't have the values that would make someone like him worthy of someone like her.

He sits on the floor for longer than he is certain, staring at the blood soaking into the carpet and mulling over the facts.

He glances at the clock.

12:31 AM.

He rises on shaky feet, dusting off his jeans and making an effort to ignore the sticky red on his knees. His movements are mechanical as he moves from the floor to the door, shoving his feet numbly into a pair of running shoes.

The button-up shirt he'd worn for the occasion is stripped off a moment later, tossed behind him as he suddenly can't stand still a moment longer.

The door slams behind him, and he's sprinting down the hall to the stairs without a care of locking it. There is a Hero agency across the street and there are more important things to worry about than someone getting into his apartment.

He shoulders the stairwell door open and the hinges groan and pop as the door slams back into the wall and slumps to the floor. He vaults the railing, letting gravity take him as he falls down the shaft, fingers dangerously close to the steel railing.

He grabs the last one, the steel bending and threatening to break as his grip holds firm. He lets go before it can, dropping to the ground and throwing open the door.

He's running again.

Air puffs out of his chest in uneven bursts as he moves from the concrete sidewalk to the asphalt street. He doesn't even realize how fast he's moving until he has to jump, heels sliding, over the roof of an SUV. He lands in front of it, the driver slamming on the breaks even as he takes the next step- peeling away from the vehicle.

He stumbles only when he slows down, nearly tripping over the curb as he goes from asphalt back to concrete and then he has to slow in order to not rip the glass door off its hinges. It swings open all the same, rocking back on its hinges even as he rushes across the bottom floor.

It's a route he knows by heart.

It's a route that he's gone to once a week for a little over a year now. It's a route that he's run to and from and walked out of crying and walked into screaming.

He doesn't remember the stairwell, or the door at the top, or even the hallway with the glass bowl with apples. But consciousness jumps back to him as he bangs his hand as softly as he can into Corvan's office door.

The door still shutters and shakes and splinters underneath his fist. The wood flexes and quakes underneath each blow just before it's jerked open and Izuku's fist is caught by a gray hand and his frantic gaze is met with scarlet eyes.

"Sup fucker," Freed greets him flatly, cocking an eyebrow at him.

"Uh." Izuku blinks, unsure where or even what to do before Freed pulls him forward and palms his face.

Izuku stumbles, and Freed bears him to the ground. The shift from reality to the Shadowrealm is felt not by the rush of senses but the sudden dulling of all of them. Like dropping into water without the temperature.

It's brief; however, and when they suddenly burst out of a shadow and back into reality Izuku swats Freed away. The shadow creature lets him go, and Izuku falls- not onto concrete or anything industrial- but coarse grass and damp mud. Izuku jerks, looking back and forth to discover that Freed has taken him to the edges of a lake, the dark blue water reflecting the starlight overhead and the trees rustling calmly in the breeze.

"Wh-wh-"

"Still in Japan," Freed replies with a huff, and Izuku turns back to him for answers but instead finds the man-creature leaning against one of the trees, his eyes peering up through the branches. "So cool it, string bean."

"Where's Corvan?" He demands.

"Sleeping next to the goddess he calls his wife." Freed grumbles, and then suddenly lips his lips. "Then again… she is fucking delicious…"

Izuku blinks at that, face turning red before he shakes it off. "Get him." He marches forward, hand reaching for the creature. "I need to talk to-"

Freed dodges to the side, swatting the man's hand away with a strength that Izuku knows Corvan doesn't have. "What you need to do is talk with me. A Corvan-approved session with a monster." He winks, chuckles as he walks away to sit on a rock by the shore.

Izuku just stares at him though, unsure where this is going or what this is about. But it's Corvan and Freed, and even if the two were technically the same they were fundamentally different.

But that doesn't seem to bother Freed because he starts talking again immediately.

"Did you know that Corvan's quirk ties me to him?" Freed scoffs, reaching out and digging into the mud beside him. "You'd assume that's fucking normal, but you need to realize the Shadows and here are two different spaces, and that just because a human exists doesn't mean their counterpart Shadow does. So Corvan tying us together- that's…" He trails off as he pulls out a rock, washing it off in the water by his feet.

Once cleaned, Freed rolls it in between his hands, looking across the water. "It means I feel what he feels, I get what he gets, I know what he knows, and that's something no one there has."
"He told me you tried to kill him," Izuku mutters.

"Damn right I did," Freed replies, throwing the rock into the water.

It lands with a splash, sending a ripple across the peaceful pond. Freed stills, and it's achingly obvious the man has no idea what to do when there is no tension in his body. His limbs hang slack at his side, knuckles scraping the dirt.

"What else do you do when someone has everything you want and you're just a fucking nobody in a world that has shit-all to give you? There's a reason everything in the darkness tries too hard to kill things that fall into it. Because they want this." Freed gestures to the stars. "They want to feel the wind that doesn't exist there, the water that doesn't move, the feel of the grass." He leans down again, fingers trailing through the mud in front of him- searching for another stone.

"Why are you telling me this?"

"Because I realized something about you before Corvan did and if we wait for him to tell you then it'll take for-fucking-ever," Freed grumbles back, pulling up another rock- smoother and thinner this time. "And if you haven't figured it out, a lot of emotion that dumbass suppresses ends up boiling into me."

Izuku blinks, running through the connotations of that. Any suppressed emotion… boiled over into Freed. Which meant… which meant… "You've started to embody Corvan's suppressed emotions."

"Bing-fuckin'-o, bean sprout," Freed growls back, "Fear, hate, anger, love, lust," he stops suddenly, clenching the stone in his hand. "Do you know how long that dumbass pinned over that chick?" He throws his hands up and shakes his head. "Oh my god, I thought I was going to lose my mind every time he looked at her. By Endeavor's flaming titties, if he didn't confess and start kissing the girl, I might have taken him over to do it for him."

Izuku blinks, running back through all the connotations of that particular confession. But it doesn't help him now.

"Wh-why are you…?" Izuku asks, still unsure where this conversation is going.

Instead of answering, Freed slings the stone across the pond, the smoothness causing it to skip once-twice-three-four times across the surface before it splashes down and sinks into the watery depths.

"Because the more I look at you the more I realize you and Corvan felt the fucking same about their women," Freed grumbles back. "You both think they're perfect and amazing and great and think you are worthless and pitiful and it's by grace and grace alone that they have decided to pity you with their affection."

"But-"

"If you say 'But she is' I will find a Shadowwolf and let it digest you twice- before I pull you out of it's stomach," Freed interrupts, leveling a finger at him.

Again, he's caught not knowing what to say. He wasn't even aware of what a 'Shadowwolf' was. He assumed it was dangerous. But less dangerous than Freed?

Maybe?

"I…" Izuku hesitates, unsure how to respond but when Freed doesn't interrupt this time, he continues, "I guess I don't- I mean- I do- but…" He purses his lips and fumbles for his words.

"She might not be perfect, but she might as well be compared to all the sins in your book?" Freed guesses, his rough snarl suddenly gentle and soft. Izuku looks up at him in surprise and the man shrugs a shoulder. "Yeah. I know the feeling."

There is silence for a moment, and Izuku takes the time to check his phone. He stares at the blinking numbers on it before a text blips onto the screen.

A room number at the hospital.

Another comes shortly after. 'She's fine, resting now. She'll be back on her feet tomorrow, but-' his screen cuts off the rest of the text.

Izuku already knew that she'd be fine. There wasn't a doubt in his mind. Uravity was stronger than that, a little cut and a concussion shouldn't have put her out of commission.

It definitely shouldn't have if he hadn't been useless. If he'd actually been able to bandage the wound like a competent person instead of standing around like an-

"Ow!" Izuku yelps as Freed's fist cracks into his jaw.

He stumbles, putting a hand to his jaw to look at the man. Freed examines his knuckles, clicking his tongue softly before looking back at Izuku.

"What was that for?"

Freed flexes his fingers, and then looks at him like it was obvious. "Thinking something stupid."

"Thinking something-" Izuku has to repeat it before he frowns, glaring at Freed until the shadow-man shrugs his shoulders and stuffs his hands into his pockets. "The hell does that mean?"

Again Freed shrugs, but the grin that accompanies it seems to stretch abnormally long across the replica of Corvan's face, too many teeth in the smile perhaps. "Means you're thinking too damn hard. You're probably worryin' over the chick, wonderin' if she's okay or alright, or if you deserve her or if she's too perfect or if she even loves you back or if you're just some pup she's grabbed out of the gutter."

Freed huffs, kicking at the dirt before stalking off back to his rock at the pond.

"So… what do you… think I should… do?" Izuku creeps from his spot to stand beside Freed.

"Own it, ya bitch," Freed growls back, but the intensity in his voice is gone. "You need to understand that love is a two-way street. She loves you, so she accepts your shortcomings. And you're supposed to love her for hers."

Izuku purses his lips, shaking his head. "How can she love me? I've hurt people. I've ruined Heroes' lives, I've broken bones, smashed careers. I am this abomina-" another fist smashes into Izuku's face, and the cartilage in his nose crunches just before warmth spills out of it and coats his lips.

"Fuck!"

Freed laughs, shaking the blood off his fist as Izuku backpedals and tries to staunch the blood gushing out of his nose.

"Tilt your head back, broccoli boy," Freed instructs, taking the step forward and pushing Izuku's chin up and his head back.

There's a moment of pause, and then a piece of cloth is produced from some patch of darkness and Freed presses it into his hands. Izuku takes it, unapologetically shoving the ends up his nose.

"The hell was that for?!" Izuku demands.

Freed shrugs, again looking unphased by the entire interaction. "You were saying stupid shit. So I hit you." A pause and another shrug. "Again."

"But I-" Izuku starts and stops when Freed's finger's coil into a fist. He points a finger at it. "Stop that."

"Quit saying the same shit Corvan did," Freed replies, "you keep being self-deprecating, I'll keep punching you in the face."

Izuku glares, and there's a moment of tension before he opens his mouth again. "My past is not clean, and I do not feel like what I am trying to become can justify what I was."

Freed huffs, pursing his lips like he's disappointed he doesn't get to hit him again. "Past is the past," he says instead. "It defines you- part of it at least- but you don't have to let it control you."

"Easier said than done when you have a ledger like mine," Izuku snarls back, grimacing as he activates the minor healing factor he has.

Cartledge snaps back into place and Izuku grits his teeth and ignores the pain of it. He pulls the cloth out of his nose, wiping the rest of the blood off his lip.

"If you've got a ledger then wipe it clean," Freed replies.

"Like that'll ever work."

"You've got a license, don't you?" And Freed's casual response stops the rebuke Izuku has on the tip of his tongue. "You hurt people, so now save them. Make your wrongs right. If you can- find the people you hurt and fix it. If you can't, make amends to the family and ask forgiveness. If you can't do either," and Freed stills suddenly, his expression sad. "Bear the sin."

Bear the sin?

"What sins do you have that measure up to mine?" Izuku replies quietly.

And there is silence- as there should be. Because no matter what differences Corvan and Freed might have- there is a tentative agreement between the two of them- and that shows in how Corvan is not tearing through the darkness right now to shove Freed back into his shadow. It shows in how Corvan at least trusts Freed to speak here.

And no matter what- Freed has not committed murder. Corvan has not broken bones. Neither of them know the weight of breaking someone to pieces and having to keep the memory of their bloodied bone in the back of your mind for days and days. To wake up more nights than not in a cold sweat with the image of a broken Hero on shattered concrete imprinted on the back of his eyelids.

"You don't get to weigh my sins," Izuku growls.

Freed's eyes spark in the darkness, the red pupil shuffling in the irises before it bisects. "Oh?"

"I've hurt people. I've hurt her. I've k-killed people!" Izuku says that horrible truth. He had to. He was forced- commanded with no way out and no way to disobey that order from Dabi. "You might war with Corvan, you might fight and beat and abuse him, but I have broken the bones of people I never knew and I have-"

"I eat people."

Izuku freezes, blinking a handful of times before he looks back at Freed.

Freed shrugs again, yawning- and as if to demonstrate his jaw unhinges and instead of a pink interior there is an impenetrable darkness past his teeth. A red eye cracks open in the depths of Freed's mouth, just before the man-creature-eldritch-horror snaps his mouth closed.

"You… you eat people?"

Freed shrugs and smiles that smile that is too long and too wide to be human. "Used to. When Corvan couldn't control me, I would get restless and angry. And I'd sneak away from him, suck people into the Shadows with me and tear them limb from limb and feed them to a wolf…" He shrugs suddenly, "Now I just bake."

Izuku shakes his head, "I. You… Who did you…?"

"Doesn't matter. This isn't a story about me, this story is about you and your choices. It's about 'Izuku Midoriya, aka Page, aka the boy held captive by the League of Villains and tortured by damn near all of them-' it is about him and his choices." Freed steps closer, and Izuku can see the multitude of scarlet eyes dancing around in the man's socket.

"I. I do-" Izuku starts, stops, hesitates because he is wholly unsure what to even say to a creature like Freed- much less when one is offering him advice.

"You worry about your sins but you do not have the strength to face them," Freed says slowly, closing the distance between them with one final step. "If you love this woman like Corvan loves Snow, then you must realize that both of you poor miserable mortals are bound in sin and filth and flesh and that there will be times you fail. That is what it means to be human."

And that's… depressing.

"But it also means you get back up," Freed adds suddenly. "You face your fears, you bear your crosses, you weigh and carry your own sins and you make something of yourself. You are not perfect, Izuku Midoriya. Neither is Ochako Uraraka, the woman you praise as an angel. If you love her then it doesn't matter. You will be useless one day. You will be a sack of bone in a bag of flesh but if you love her then it will not matter because she will love you in kind."

"Love is a choice."

Both of them jerk, taking a step away as Freed suddenly hisses- a flashlight beam shining on him as Corvan steps out from behind a tree.

"You're being a bit too eldritch horror and post-apocalyptic monster tonight, Freed. We both know you're not immortal," Corvan jokes easily, his smile even and calm.

"Fuck- why'd you have to ruin the joke?" Freed hisses back, stepping out of the path of the beam. "I almost had him going that your dumb fucking Quirk connected you to some eldritch monster of old."

"My Quirk has connected me to an idiot that- yes, ate people- though mostly cats and small dogs- and who suddenly turned to baking as a stress relieving activity instead of murder," Corvan says. "You've had your fun. I'm wrapping up."

"Fiiiiinnneee," Freed grumbles.

"Go warm up the bed. Snow's pissed that we're out," Corvan adds suddenly.

"Hell fucking yeah," Freed growls, and a shiver goes up Izuku's spine as a blush rushes to his checks. He doesn't bother asking, and as Freed disappears, Corvan leans back against the closest tree.

"Love is a choice?" Izuku prompts slowly.

Corvan nods, glancing over to the pond like his replica had. "It is. But do you know why?"

Izuku shrugs, once again subject to the musings of a man that jumps between metaphors and reality with a single sentence or step. "I guess because it's…"

Love was a chemical reaction. A combination of signals and hormonal responses wired into the brain and distributed to the body. But if it was a choice…

A choice meant there was also the choice not to love. A choice to fall out of love with the same person that you fell into it with.

"You have to choose to love them every day," Izuku finally reasons.

"Through all the flaws and mistakes, yours and theirs. You have to make a choice to fall in love with them over and over again- even if you're frustrated with them or in pain or enraged. Even if they hurt you in some ways you have to love them. That has to be a choice." Corvan crosses his arms and leans back. "And they have to do the same."

Izuku is the one to take a seat now, stopping onto the rock that Freed had occupied during the majority of their talk. He stares out at the lake, musing on the advice before asking, "Even if I don't love myself?"

"Even then," Corvan replies. "Especially then."

Izuku shifts his feet. "What if it scares me? Loving someone with all the broken pieces and knowing that… that they're supposed to be broken, too?"

"Then you're in the same boat as the rest of us," Corvan replies gently. "Because perhaps the hardest thing about life is realizing that everyone else's life is just as complicated and riddled with cracks and broken dreams and shattered hearts as yours is. And at the end of the day, all you're trying to do is cobble it together enough so you can give it to that special someone and go, 'please love me. This is all I am and all I'll ever be. I'm sorry. Please love me.'"

Izuku nods, letting the words soak into it as he stares out into the lake water.

There is a silence that follows Corvan's little declaration because- what else can you say once something like that is spoken? It is broken by a grunt and Corvan stretching, the man stepping forward to stand in front of him.

"So, Izuku," Corvan says, clapping him on the shoulders. "Do you think you're ready to talk with that lovely girl you keep thinking about? For real this time? Talk with feelings and your heart on your sleeve and the understanding that you are two broken people in a broken world trying to make all those broken pieces of fragile sharp glass fit together?"

Izuku hums, finding that he's copying Freed's actions of digging through the mud in search of a stone. His hand dips slightly, fingers pushing into the dirt and then something at it not dirt. A stone slides into his hands.

"I think I can try," he finally says, taking a look at the stone.

Perfectly smooth and just a little wet- it could have been one found on the bottom of a river. He glances up at Corvan, who shrugs and refuses to answer.

"Think or know?"

Izuku weighs the rock, flipping it in his hands a few times.

"I'm scared," he says, taking it in both hands and running his thumbs over it.

"I'm terrified actually, but I think that's… normal." Izuku looks up to Corvan for confirmation. Once the man nods he continues, a blue flame sparking to life on one of his fingertips as he carefully dries the stone. "I'm terrified that I'll mess up, or hurt her feelings, or lose her, but I think that's normal too. And that's… that's why it's a choice." He hums suddenly, two pieces of thought clicking together like a puzzle. "It's a choice for both of us, it's me consenting to love her even if she's not the angel I make her out to be. And it's her consenting to love me despite my record, and my past, and pushing me to be better."

"And it's her loving you because you are becoming better," Corvan adds in that little detail. "You're not just sucking up her time and wasting her efforts saying you will. Izuku, you've come a long way since we first started talking. She knows it. I know it. Quite a few others do as well."

Izuku nods and hums, feeling the soft warmth of the freshly dried stone. He presses it into his palm, absorbing some of that leftover warmth. "She deserves better," but before Corvan can rebuke that he continues, "and I am better- but that doesn't mean I can stop getting better."

Corvan chuckles and smiles. "I think you're getting it kid. You ready to see her?"

He holds out his hand, and Izuku takes one last look at the rock in his hand before hurling it towards the water.

It skips, a backsplash of water marking the first, second, third and fourth spots where it hits, before it thuds into the bank on the other side of the water. Izuku dusts his fingers off, taking Corvan's hand and rising.

"I'll have to be," Izuku says, "It's not just my heart on the line anymore. It's hers too."

It is not the first time, nor will it likely be the last time, she has woken to the soft beep of a heartrate monitor and felt the heavy weight of plastic finger-sheaths on her pinkies. All the same the feeling is not one that she enjoys, and she vocalizes that with a groan.

The IV in her arm is awkward and irritating, most of all because it means there's a needle in her arm.

She groans again, peeling her other hand off the thin sheets and pressing the palm of her hand to her head.

She knows there should be a headache- what with the blood she lost and the brick wall she hit chasing after the villain, but instead there is a pleasant buzz that dulls the assorted aches and bruises she's grown so used to working through. Her knee doesn't hurt from botching a landing last Wednesday, nor does her left index feel stiff from jamming it this morning.

Ah.

She blinks, putting the information together.

Drugs.

Nice.

She sinks into the mattress and soaks into the idle warmth of her existence. If only for a moment she lets it all go and just soaks into the artificial calm that likely is spawned by the marvel that is an IV drip.

She is tired.

Ochako Uraraka is tired.

And there are only so many words and ways to try and explain it, but the majority of her exhaustion comes back to working and working and trying to make her newfound relationship with Izuku work.

Not that it isn't worth it. And not that it isn't good.

It's just tiring.

Izuku is so strong but so fragile. She has seen him catch pillars of concrete and interpose him between spears and blades and the heaviest of blows. She has seen him move from one fight onto the next, and from the most exhausting rescue operation immediately into the next available slot.

She has seen him crumble and shatter at the end of each day- not every day- but enough. She has seen that a snarled comment about how he was a murderer and a villain can pierce through him more effectively than any physical attack.

She has seen him flinch and hesitate when confronted by knives and fire. She has seen him shiver and shake in the middle of the night, whimpering quietly to himself. She has seen him regretful and scared to use the Quirks he took from the League- so fearful of the power that once harmed him.

She has held his hand through the worst of his nightmares. When he screams and wakes himself up in the dead of night- dialing her number and blubbering into the line until she laughs and sighs and drags herself out of her bed to console him.

It's not that she doesn't love him.

She's just tired.

None of that is to say that it isn't worth it.

Izuku Midoriya is a wonderful significant other. Genuinely he is. He is always considerate, and surprisingly mindful of her moods and energy levels when coming off a shift.

He rubs her feet. He makes her coffee (she wonders if that's something the League made him do- because he fell into the naturally and without needing to ask her how she took it). He changes plans to fit when she gets off patrol, rearranging dinner plans from something he's cooked to take out without complaint despite it being her who is late and exhausted.

She has likely had to cancel on him dozens of times and shown up late due to delays in processing or walking into a last-minute robbery, mugging, or getting a last minute distress call, more times that she is willing to count. Izuku doesn't seem to mind.

He smiles and laughs and gives her this smile that is a little forced and assures her that she will always have someone to save because she is an angel after all.

It's infuriating.

Because she knows he's bothered by it and he just won't say it. He won't own the feeling and tell her. He won't confront it and talk about it, instead he just lets it slide.

That's what makes her tired.

Knowing that there are dozens of things in their relationship that are skewed so heavily in her favorite- and forcing so many burdens on Izuku that he does not deserve- and he just won't ever voice them. He won't talk about it or discuss it; he simply bears it without word or discussion or complaint.

He is everything she could have asked for and more and yet he refuses to see that.

To realize that it is her that is struggling in their relationship and not him.

To realize that she is struggling to come to him and collapse into his arms because she feels like she has to be strong for him.

But there are some days when she just…

Can't.

Be.

There are days when she needs to collapse and break and shatter all to pieces. When Heroing is too hard and she needs to breathe and remember that she is failable and human.

The doors to the hospital room hiss open and the sound pulls her out of her own thoughts because it means her silent coping has ended and she must return to reality.

"Ochako?"

She huffs, cracking an eye open to consider the man that just walked in, then frowning as she realizes he's not alone.

Izuku hesitates, fingers curled into fists and his eyes on the floor as he stands just a step out of the threshold. Corvan leans against the door frame, his back to them and his head tilted back against the metal.

"Hey," she murmurs back, groaning when her voice comes out hoarse and rough.

He smiles at her nonetheless, wrinkles at his eyes crinkling slightly as he steps a little further in.

"How are you feeling?" He recovers his courage, and this time when he steps forward, he makes it to the bed, curling his fingers into her hand, mindful of her pinky despite the guard on it.

She grunts, reclining back in the bed carefully to stare up at the ceiling. "Tired."

Which is true.

In more ways that one.

He's silent for a moment, and even if she closes her eyes and just enjoys the warmth of his hand and the steadfastness of his presence she can tell there's something else. He would always come to her side, but something about this is different.

It could be Corvan at the door, pointedly not looking at them but supervising all the same.

It could be how he didn't arrive immediately, and instead had to walk in as opposed to how she normally wakes up with him in the chair beside her.

"I think I need to apologize." He says softly.

"Hmmm?" She hums back.

"You… I…" He hesitates and stutters to a stop. She blinks her eyes back open, forcing the tiredness to abate-if only for a moment- so she can give her full attention to him.

"Izuku, you can tell me anything."

He wrings out his hands, fingers curling over themselves for a moment before he knits them together and squeezes them. As if he's trying to remind himself that it'll be okay.

"I… I think you deserve better." He starts and already she's frowning and a rebuttal on her lips, but he throws up his hands and interrupts. "But- just- please, hear me out."

And so she presses her lips together and resigns to a having a headache in the aftermath of this.

"You deserve better." Izuku repeats, "and I want to make sure that I'm being better… I know I'm not the… the best person, with my history and… and everything. I know that there are some things that I'll mess up and I'll get wrong. And I… I know that. I know that I'll get stuff wrong. And I'll… I might… I might hurt you."

His hands fall lightly to the railing, squeezing it gently before looking her in the eyes.

"And I need you to know that I am sorry and that I'm trying to be a better man for you, but there will be days that I fail to be anything more than a monster."

Her free hand curls around his, squeezing it as her thumb rubs a circle over the back of it. "Izuku…" She mutters.

His heart is bleeding out all over his sleeve and she's stuck in a hospital bed, pinned down by an IV and a throbbing in the back of her mind numbed by drugs sloshing through her veins.

"I love you. I know you'll mess up. And that's okay." She murmurs back.

He nods, but there's still that look in his eyes like he has something more to say.

She squeezes his hand again, "I'm here. I'm not going anywhere."

"I know…" he trails off, "I think I know that you're not perfect."

She smiles at him, because it's a phrase she's had to repeat to him day after day in an effort to remind him that she is only human.

"And I know that sometimes things fall to me," he adds. "That there are some days when you get back and you are tired and exhausted and the last thing you want to do is let me fall apart because I've had a hard day. And that there are somedays when it's unfair to do so… But I want you to know that I-I love you. And that I'm going to make the choice to love you regardless of what happens."

It's not voiced prettily. It's not a romantic confession like that night so many days ago where they shared their first kiss. It's a bit more than that.

It's a promise.

"I snore." She admits suddenly.

A smile cracks through the serious look on Izuku's face. "I have nightmares."

She hums, "Do you put the toilet seat down?"

He blinks and frowns. "Should I?" And she scowls and he backpedals with, "I'll start getting into the habit."

Corvan laughs by the door, a low and amused one that trickles into the room. It's accompanied by a second laugh, nearly the same tone but a hair rougher.

"Don't start planning the honeymoon yet." Corvan says, "We still have a lot to talk about beansprout."

Izuku hums, squeezing Ochako's hand again. "I think I'll make it," he replies, "I have someone there for me after all. And I have someone I have to be there for to."