Tired ruby eyes cracked open in the darkness, Tomura's whole form hot and sweaty and exhausted.

He glanced towards the window irritably. Despite the blinds being drawn, no sunlight beat at them to get into the room.

He heaved a quiet sigh, eyes trailing back to stare at the ceiling blearily.

His dream continued to flash through his mind's eye, making his frown deepen - a beautiful woman with dark hair and matching eyes, a beaming chipper grin, bright yellow gloves and a white cape…

Rubbing a hand across his face, he groaned.

"You look so much like him," Izuku's voice still echoed through his mind, though the awed tone was not that of the teenager's.

My grandmother was a selfish fool, he told himself, bringing back his sensei's words. She died in vain for a foolish dream.

"Words cannot express how sorry I am, Tomura." The voice continued to whisper. "I didn't just fail my son, I failed you."

My grandmother was a horrible woman.

Tomura clenched his eyes shut and tried to block her image out of his mind. The photo of the woman smiling with her son, the soft, yet solemn frown on a face long-since passed, the hand reaching out to him in the darkness…

Finally, he rolled out of bed and sat up with a huff. I'm never going to get back to sleep.

Taking a moment to steady himself, he got up from the bed and fought off the dizziness before creeping silently out of his new room.

The hallway was dark and foreboding as he slipped out and towards the room right across from his.

That pipsqueak should be snoring away by now, he mused as he turned the knob and cracked the door open slowly.

As he peeked in, sure enough Izuku was curled up asleep in his new bed. The garish All Might covers he'd pulled out on the first day in the new house still irked him even now, but he ignored it and padded in.

Luckily despite the boxes his room was still relatively clear to the door. He came to a stop beside the boy's bed and stared at him silently for several long moments, hoping that it would somehow wake him up.

Several long moments passed.

Izuku shifted in his sleep, burying his head further under his arm.

From this vantage point, he almost looked cute. Izuku was a lot more innocent-looking when he was blissfully dead to the world, deep in his dreams. The constant apprehensive face he wore disappeared and it was like their ties were forgotten, if just for a moment. For a peaceful second, he found himself forgetting that he'd ever considered him an enemy.

Tomura shook his head with a glower aimed at the unaware boy.

"Deku," he rasped.

No response.

"Hey." He nudged the bed with his knee. "Deku."

"Mmmm." The younger boy's brow furrowed and he shifted.

"Get up." He nudged the bed again.

Izuku squirmed for a moment before he finally croaked drowsily, "What?"

"I want you to do something."

"What?" He repeated, finally cracking his eyes open and blinking up at him. "Shi…garaki…?"

"Get up," he repeated, a twinge of annoyance bleeding through.

Izuku took a few seconds to study him, eyes shifting back and forth. Finally, he sighed through his nose and grunted, pulling himself to sit up against the wall.

Gazing warily and rubbing the sleep from one eye, he asked, "Okay… now what?"

"I want…" Tomura hesitated for the briefest of moments, before he huffed a sigh. "I want to speak to her again."

This seemed to wake him more, and the boy paused mid-yawn to stare at him in disbelief.

"You do? Really?" He questioned quietly.

"I'm not gonna ask again," Tomura snapped, folding his arms across his chest (and wary of his shirt). "Is she in there, or not?"

"No, no she is," the teenager quickly reassured, raising his hands in surrender. "It's just… I didn't expect that of you."

I don't have to explain myself, he wanted to huff. Instead, he rolled his eyes.

"Okay," Izuku breathed, nodding to himself as if confirming something. "Okay."

Nana? He called out in his mind.

I heard him,her voice rang back, and he had to take pause for a moment at the sheer relief he registered. Let me speak to my grandson.

"She… she heard you," he explained with a soft smile. "Hang on."

It was almost surreal seeing it the second time in the darkness, but he could make out Izuku's eyes closing and his entire body language shifted. Gone was the wary sleepiness he'd exuded before, replaced with something almost familiar. Something… that he knew, deep inside.

When the boy's eyes opened, it wasn't Izuku he was seeing.

"Tomura," his voice breathed, though it wasn't Izuku he was hearing.

He tried to ignore the shades of Sensei that he saw in the small boy.

"I'm so glad you wanted to talk again," Nana continued with a soft smile. "How have you been?"

He shifted in his spot. "Thinking."

"I assume it's about us," she commented, gesturing with a sweeping hand motion. "I understand this is a lot to take in. I wish you hadn't had all of this piled onto you at once."

"Why did you leave?" The question burst from him almost of its own accord, and in the way she visibly took pause he almost wished he could have kept it in.

Izuku's face grew wearier, if possible. The sad smile tugged at the edges of his mouth yet seemed weighty still.

Nana heaved a sigh that sagged the tinier body she inhabited and quietly admitted, "I was too focused on my fear."

Tomura shifted from foot to foot, watching as she briefly covered her face with her shaking hands.

"Had I known that… giving up my son would have spawned this nightmare we're living in, I don't know if I could have done it, in the end." She peeked between her fingers, her gaze hollow and exhausted. "You have to understand, Tomura - I loved my son so much I couldn't bear to leave him… yet I felt I had no choice."

Slowly, she looked up at him - and the silent intensity in her eyes made his own gaze drop to the floor.

"Have you ever loved someone, Tomura?"

The sentence was quiet, yet he still had to stop to think.

Have you ever loved someone?

"Yes," he replied. "Sensei."

Her face grew solemn, almost pitying for a moment. "How much do you… love him?"

"I would do anything for him." Wasn't that obvious?

"Would you leave him if it would redirect the heroes away from him?" She countered.

Tomura stopped. Would I?

Nana's silent, desperate eyes seemed to burn into him as he thought.

Would I leave him?

No, his heart wanted to say. He never gave up on you. Why would you give up on him?

But if it would help him, his mind argued.

Sensei never left you.

Did he?

Memories resurfaced in his mind's eye, ones he'd wanted to push down.

Feeble coughing ripped through his tender throat, bleary red eyes searching the room as the unsettling cold of Dr. Garaki's hand pressed his forehead back down.

"Where's Sensei?" He croaked desperately. "I want Sensei!"

"Young master, Sensei has other matters to take care of right now." The deep dulcet murmur of Kurogiri's voice caught his attention in seconds, and as he turned to look at the tall man a shadowy wisp of a hand rested upon his shoulder.

"He said he wouldn't leave me," he whimpered. "Where is he? Why did he leave?"

"Sensei will be back shortly," Kurogiri attempted to soothe. "Rest and he'll be the first one you see in the morning."

He felt another hand join the other on his shoulder, and he jerked away with it, his eyes growing wide.

Nana pulled back at once, brow furrowed in concern.

"Sorry," she was quick to placate, settling instead for laying her hands in her lap. "Are you alright?"

Tomura didn't say a word.

He said he wouldn't leave me.

Would he?

No, Sensei loves me.

But, his brain whispered wickedly, did he ever say that to you?

Memories flashed by his eyes.

He has to love me.

Why?

He has to.

Have you ever given him a reason?

I would die for him.

"Tomura…?" Nana tentatively called.

"Sensei…" he heaved a ragged breath. "He loves me… doesn't he?"

Nana could only stare at him, eyes sad and tired.

"I would die for him…" He trailed off, unfocused gaze coming to a rest on where Izuku's hands were folded. "He has to love me…"

She shifted in her spot. "I'm… sorry, Tomura."

"For what?" He lifted his head.

Nana said nothing for several long seconds. "For waiting so long."

For a moment he was confused, until he realized what she was saying.

"You've... been here, this whole time?" Tomura asked slowly.

She nodded.

"And..." he swallowed. "You've been able to see me..."

"Through Izuku's eyes," she confirmed with a sad smile. "I've seen everything I've been allowed to."

What do you...? He wanted to question, but something about the tightness in her voice made it seem like a more sensitive matter than he wanted to discuss.

"Why...?"

"Hm?"

"Why didn't you... say anything?" He stared into (not) her face, not sure what answer he was seeking.

Nana heaved a sigh through her nose. "Had All For One known of my continued existence, you and I both know he would have spared no expense to trap Izuku to keep him for himself."

Tomura's thin brow furrowed.

"His is a bit of a... special case," she worded carefully, lacing Izuku's fingers together. "While he can see - and speak - to me, nobody else knows that I'm still here. I wouldn't call myself a 'ghost', per se - it's moreso that I'm... one could call me a spirit."

"So what you're saying..."

"Your sensei hated me intensely while I was alive," she continued, her eyes hardening for a moment. "So much so that he desecrated my body and stole one of my hands. Had he known of his son being able to talk to me, what do you think he would have done to that boy?"

Immediately the word that came to mind was kill - but he knew that Sensei wouldn't dare, not with how focused he was on wooing his wife again.

Inko's angry face flashed through his mind's eye, and he visibly winced - killing him was definitely not an option.

"Has he ever..." she trailed off with a grimace. "No, no, never mind. You aren't ready for that conversation yet."

"What?"

"I was wondering if he'd ever told you about his family before," she said instead with a tight-lipped smile.

"No," Tomura replied slowly. "I never even knew he married before last month."

"What a shame, he's still the same old bastard," she muttered under her breath in annoyance.

He studied her carefully. Though the face was not that of the woman he dreamt of, he could imagine that smiling woman making the same pinched expressions he was seeing before him. For some reason it made his heart clench, and he clasped at his chest in surprise at the pain shooting through his upper body in a split-second.

"Are you alright?" Of course she noticed.

"I'm... fine," he spoke through grit teeth. "It does that sometimes."

Nana's own brow furrowed in concern, and she pulled her hands apart before asking hesitantly, "Could I... may I touch you?"

Tomura paused in rubbing his chest with a suspicious frown.

"I've... well, I can't touch anything on my own," she explained. "I would very much like to... experience what it feels like to touch another person again-"

Ashes and dust filled his memory, blood and dust and debris and-

"-and, well, I've noticed things about you," she finished with a sigh. "Concerning things. May I satiate my curiosity?"

He watched her for several long, tense moments. The sympathetic concern in those green eyes made his stomach turn - though perhaps that was more due to the fact that it had been a while since he'd last ate.

He massaged his ribs slowly, gaze darting between her face and her hands, those tiny, scarred hands that she had taken as her own.

May I touch you?

Nobody wanted his touch - not if they knew what his Quirk was. Sensei could stand to take his hand, but only because of his regeneration Quirks - most normal people would just disintegrate painfully into debris. Even Inko still looked warily at his hands, however much she'd warmed up to him.

Not even in his own dreams was he safe.

He clenched his fingers over his fragile skin, his blunt nails digging into it almost painfully.

His mother's face breaking apart into blood and gore still made his guts churn nauseously.

Still she sat here, wholly unafraid of him.

Why was she not afraid of him?

Swallowing, he met her eyes once more and nodded.

Immediately warmth bloomed in her smile, sheer relief and care making his own cheeks flush as he turned away.

She carefully stood from the bed, briefly frowning at how short she actually was.

Slowly, carefully, she raised one hand - her left, he noted faintly - and reached out.

Small fingers splayed out across his cheek, and instinctively he closed his eyes at the touch.

Her voice was quiet, concerned, but surprisingly angry - though he figured it wasn't aimed at him. "You're so... damaged, Tomura."

"I know," he rasped back.

"Who... who did this to you?" She whispered, and her voice was tight, choked, as if she were on the verge of tears. "Who had to die to give you this Quirk?"

He could not answer. His throat suddenly felt like it was closing, and hot, irritating tears pricked at his eyes.

"Oh, Tomura," she breathed, and her thumb swiped across his bottom eyelid, flaking off more dead and dying skin in the process. "My boy. What kind of monster would give someone such a deadly power?"

"Why..." he could hardly force the words out as he opened his eyes to look her in the face. Her heartbroken expression almost made him look away. "Why do you care for me? You're dead."

"But I'm still here," she retorted, and her other hand reached out to clasp over the back of his, mindful to avoid his fingertips. "And I wish every single day that I could have a body again just so that I could protect you."

His voice failed him. "Why?"

"You're my grandson, that's why," she continued with a tearful smile as she swiped her thumb across his cheek again. "I may have failed my promise to Kotaro, but I won't fail you. Not again. I swear it."

Leaning in, she suddenly pressed her lips to his forehead - and he startled back an inch when she sat back down.

She chortled, cupping her hand over her mouth. "Any time you want to talk to me, all you have to do is ask. I love you, Tomura. No matter whose boy you are, and no matter whose name you take. I'll be watching over you."

"Wai..." he began, but she closed her eyes and lay her hands in her lap.

Seeing Izuku reclaim his body was almost as freaky as watching him lose it - his hands jerked for a second before clenching and unclenching into fists, and as he slowly opened his eyes he blinked and looked about, disoriented.

"Did..." his voice was rougher than before, "... did that help?"

Tomura pressed his fingertips to the spot Nana had pecked, his brow furrowed in thought and his cheeks still warm.

"... Yes," he replied after a moment.

Slowly, silently, he turned and walked out of the teenager's room, a warm smile and the feeling of a careful, loving hand on his cheek plaguing his mind.