There are many worlds where Midoriya Izuku finds himself standing on the edge of this rooftop, or one much like it. This Midoriya Izuku is standing on the edge for much the same reason as those Midoriya Izuku's.

"It's just not gonna happen."

"I'm so sorry, Izuku."

"-take a swan dive-"

"-can't say that you can be a hero."

This is not the same rooftop All Might left him on all those hours ago. Izuku had stayed up there for a while, trying to process, trying to recontextualize. Trying to imagine a way to rebuild the pillars of his life on a broken dream. Trying to imagine what that life would look like. And then he had been walking, walking amongst the streets and the people, an ordinary middle schooler amongst an extraordinary population. A quiet hurt growing inside him.

And then it was night time, the sun long set, miles from home, on this rooftop. Far off the beaten path of most hero patrols. Unlikely to be "saved". Unlikely to have to watch a hero roll their eyes and scold him for seeking attention. Izuku didn't want to saved-no, that was a lie. Izuku craved to be saved. But he needed his heart to be saved as well as his body; his heart, which couldn't take one single blow of disappointment more.

Izuku had spent what felt like hours, sitting broken on his knees on this new rooftop, staring at that edge, trapped in his head. He felt everything. Everything he had ever felt in his life, all at once, going on and on, until he couldn't feel a single thing anymore. Now he very calmly placed his red shoes neatly next to-no, he didn't have his bag anymore, or his ruined notebook, did he? He had left them on that other rooftop, wandered off in a daze without them. Izuku placed his red shoes next to nothing, (because Izuku placed his red shoes next to himself, and Izuku was nothing.), and then he gently rolled the hems of his pants up. He stood, and looked down at the smooth concrete of that rooftop as he slowly unbuttoned the black jacket of his gakuran. He flexed his toes, feeling grounded for the first time in hours. He tossed the jacket to the side and walked more confidently towards that edge than he had moved in a long time. No flinching, no stuttering, no trying to find the room to live in the cracks nobody else wanted to occupy. Not hurting himself trying to grow in places and ways that no one wanted him to be-that he wasn't meant to be.

He was meant to be this.

Izuku didn't bother to look down. He only looked up. There was nothing to see. Too far into the city to see stars, too far from the city center for skyscraper lights to take their place. Izuku noted with some disbelief that his heart managed to squeeze out yet another empty throb of disappointment.

He took a step, foot hovering over nothing, weight already shifted forward in a way he couldn't come back from.

"Wait...!"

A shout, from behind him. Izuku has just enough time to look back over his shoulder and lock gazes with a man with glowing red eyes. Izuku only has time for a brief impression of dark clothes and frantic movement before his momentum carries him over the edge and the lip of the roof cuts off his view of the man. Izuku doesn't know why, but the sight of the man, the horror in his eyes as he lunges, prompts the sudden, incongruous thought- "Oh. I forgot about my mom."

The fall is short. Too short. It becomes immediately obvious to Izuku, as soon as his vision is done whiting out and his ears done ringing, that he underestimated how high the building would have to be to kill on impact. Izuku is lying on his back somehow, even though he fell facing the ground.

"I can't believe..." He breathes out, "...that I forgot about my mom."

Izuku is mostly seeing nothing but white, but black dots prickle across the expanse every time he breathes in. His skull is too hot. His fingers are too cold. His head pounds with his frantic heartbeat, a drumbeat against the side of his skull that struck the concrete. Or is that footsteps? The frantic pounding of boots on sidewalk? Izuku's thoughts skip a few beats, and when he tunes back in, his body is telling him that someones is kneeling at his side, their knees brushing against his arm, their hands on his wrist, his neck, pulling his eyelids up, a finger hovering under his nose, catching signs of his breathing.

Still unseeing, Izuku stretched his hand out above himself and his fingertips brushed a wet and stubbled cheek. The man was crying. His jaw was working. He had a phone propped between his ear and his shoulder. "O-oh..." Izuku choked out, eyes blank.. "Y-y-you're upset..." Izuku is somehow surprised, even though he did this at night precisely because he knew anyone would be upset to watch this.

The stranger might have snapped something back at him, or else at whoever he was on the phone with, but Izuku was beyond hearing.

"S-sorry you ha-had to s-s-see this." Izuku's voice hissed out a whisper, choppy with failing vocal cords, wet with blood. Never the less, he tried to muster up a smile, a quirked grin, but the taste of blood on his teeth told him his efforts probably didn't come off as very reassuring.

"Not...very pretty...is it?" Izuku tried to lick his teeth, but couldn't feel if he succeeded. "Sorry." He exhaled out. Izuku couldn't feel his face anymore, couldn't feel if his words even made it passed his cracked teeth. He could hear...a little bit, he could hear, or perhaps feel the stranger talking to him, moving his body around; pressure here, elevation there...first aid. Izuku didn't know if he wanted the man to succeed or fail. He still can't believe he forgot about his mom. All those hours of contemplation, trying to find one thing...just one thing...why had his mind shed away from even considering his mom? Izuku had found himself at this point so many times before, and so many times before, he brought himself back from the edge with the thought that he could save his mom from experiencing this pain, the pain of losing him. First, with some relief, at having a reason to come home, then with a sort of solemn duty, and finally, the last time or two, with some resentment. And finally now, when his mind hadn't allowed itself to think on her at all.

Izuku's pinky slipped off the man's phone and landed on his cheek.

For a brief instant, all five of his fingers were resting on the man's face.

And then that instant was over as Izuku's hand slipped back by his side, still and cooling rapidly.

...

It had been a long night for the pro hero Eraserhead. He was looking forward to falling into bed with his husband, as soon as he washed the blood off of himself.

It was one of those nights where Eraserhead could only wish the blood was his own.

Shouta, shift over and now ensconced in the bathroom, ducked his head down to splash some cold water on his face from the sink, and when he came up for air, his eyes met the mirror, and a green haired teenager looked back at him, body mirroring Shouta's half hunched position over the sink, and expression mirroring twice the surprise Shouta felt but didn't show.

Shouta blinked blurrily, waiting for the hallucination to disappear.

The hallucination gaped back at him, mouth opening and closing, as if lost for words.

Shouta blinked again, and then let his hands drop from where they were pulling the skin of his face down to grip the edge of the sink, tilting his head forward so his hair fell to further shadow his eyes while he peered through his fringe at the apparation. Without even seeming to notice, the teenager in the mirror-twice as bloody as Shouta, as well-coppied his movements with unnerving accuracy. For a long moment, there was a stare off, one tired, blurry, expressionless, pro hero, shoulders slack with exhaustion, staring down one bloody, stunned teanage boy, whose shoulders were slack with shock-the medical condition of shock, rather than the emotion, Shouta noted, eyeing the boy's white face, pinpoint pupils, shaking hands.

Shouta finnally let out a long sigh, broke eye contact with the mirror, shoulders sinking with further exhaustion, eyes closing as his head drooped, completely hidden by his long hair. Without looking, he reached a hand out and pressed his palm against the cool glass. Shouta breifly entertained the thought that he could feel warmth pressing back, fingers so much smaller than his own. He pushed the thought aside.

"I'm sorry I couldn't save you." He finally stated bluntly, eyes still closed, head still bowed, fingers still pressed against cold glass. He imagined he could feel those adolescent fingers flex against his own, imagined he could hear a dry throat swallow. Shouta let the dam crack open just a bit, let the feelings come rushing out at him, let himself just experience everything-the irrational guilt and the completely rational horror and the shock and sadness. Let the feelings fill him up, breathed them in deeply, down to the deepest parts of himself. Inhaled them like the first breath of air he's had in years...

...that kid's freckled face turning white, expression twisting in pain as his small body took a too deep breath through splintered, broken ribs, the pavement streaked with blood...

...and then Shouta let it all drain out of him on the exhale.

Still avoiding the bathroom mirror, Shouta turned away and began stripping down, white tile turning tacky with the drying blood from his discarded clothes. He stepped into the shower and willed his mind to turn blank with static under the hot water. The exercise wasn't working as well as usual. He felt like there was still a part of himself that was ten years younger and ten times smaller and a million times more fragile curled up on the floor of the shower and shaking. Shouta forced himself to ignore the feeling as he left the shower and went to curl up against his husband's back in their bed. His nose buried in blond hair, his arm curled around a muscled back, his legs tangled with another's. Hizashi gave a soft, appreciative murmur as their bodies locked together, but didn't stir from sleep. Shouta pressed his face into warm skin and felt himself shake like he hadn't in a long time. Something welled up from within Shouta-embarrassment? The man couldn't fathom why. He had long sense grown inured to feeling embarrassed for sleeping naked with Hizashi, and longer still sense he had felt embarrassment for muffling watering eyes in the crook of his husband's neck.

Aizawa Shouta eventually fell asleep like that, shaking apart against his husband's side, the comfort of another human being feeling more foreign than it had in fifteen years, and not having any idea why.