A/N: Hi! Just a quick apology for the later than usual update. I've been both sick and busy recently, which is a great combination, so I haven't had much time for writing. That being said, the final chapter of 'Of Schadenfreude and Satire' will be finished soon.
As usual, I own nothing, and I hope you enjoy the chapter! :D
Izuku was quiet.
For the first few days after Tenko saved him, he was more like a ghost than a person. He hardly spoke, only when someone asked him something, would he whisper a response.
He clung to Tenko's side when he could, too. Tenko, for most of the part, didn't mind. Tenko remembered how he'd stuck near Sensei, because Sensei was the first person who'd been nice to Tenko in a long, long time, because Tenko was still convinced that it was all some wonderful dream.
So he couldn't really bring himself to be annoyed at Izuku for doing the exact same thing. Sensei and Kurogiri had become his entire world, and he wondered if Izuku felt like he had, at the start of it all. Overwhelmed and shocked and so, so grateful.
Probably.
Tenko had never really found anyone who had been through anything similar to his own experiences. He'd never really had anyone he'd understood before, not really.
Izuku wasn't another passerby who just didn't care. Izuku wasn't Kurogiri, who was nice and careful and distant, or like Sensei who had vanished and only spoke through a screen. Izuku was like him, hated and scared and not really sure why any of it had to happen.
Tenko knew the pain of being pushed away. He wasn't about to do that to Izuku, because he knew how much it hurt, and he may have hated heroes, he may have wanted all the heroes to be knocked of their shining pedestals, but he wasn't evil or heartless.
Besides, he only hated heroes. And Izuku wasn't a hero. Izuku was like him.
Eventually, though, Izuku started to open up, and talk more.
More specifically, he asked questions.
The first question was enough to surprise everyone. The child had talked without thinking when he was sitting with Tenko in the bar area.
"Is that not a normal TV?" He'd asked quietly, staring at the screen filled with static. "Does it have some special purpose?"
He seemed to shrink in on himself when he realised that both Tenko and Kurogiri were staring at him.
Sensei hadn't chosen to reveal himself to Izuku, and had instead decided to watch and wait out of curiousity, apparently.
"Why would you think it has some sort of purpose?" Kurogiri asked carefully.
"You hate waste." Izuku's voice was hardly more than a whisper, but in the silence it could be heard clearly. "S-so you wouldn't have a screen on for n-no reason."
Even as he spoke, Izuku shrunk in on himself more, looking scared, like he expected to be laughed at at any moment.
There was another moment of silence, and Tenko wondered who would be the one to break the silence. Then...
"Yes, this screen does have a specific purpose. It allows me to communicate, even from a long distance." Sensei's voice shattered the silence into a thousand tiny fragments.
Izuku made a muffled squeaking noise as he nearly fell off the stool he was perched on. Only Tenko grabbing hold of him managed to save him from falling.
"W-who?" The child looked terrified.
"That's Sensei." Tenko explained quietly. "He's really nice, he just can't stay here all the time, so he watches through the screen to make sure we're okay."
At that, Izuku relaxed, and Tenko wondered when the timid boy had begun to trust him so much.
And then the mumbling started. "If he's been watching all this time, then he must care... But then the reason he can't be at the bar, despite all the room, then something has to be really serious... Is it a medical condition? A quirk?"
At that, both Tenko and Kurogiri stared at Izuku in shock: that was the most he'd spoken since he'd arrived.
Izuku seemed to realise this too, because he flinched and stared at the floor. "S-sorry."
Kurogiri chuckled. "It's fine, Izuku. And you were spot on- Sensei cannot be here because he has a rather... severe injury."
Izuku perked up that, and smiled hesitantly. Tenko thought that he saw just a shred of light return to Izuku's eyes after that, and beamed.
He was glad Izuku seemed to be getting better. It reminded him too much of himself when he had just been found, when he had been bitter and hurting and broken. And Izuku had already wormed his way into Tenko's heart like Kurogiri and Sensei had, so thinking of Izuku being uncertain and scared and lonely hurt him, too.
And Kurogiri cared about Izuku, too. Tenko could tell, because Kurogiri's eyes would always crinckle in the way that meant he was smiling on the rare occasions when Izuku talked... Kurogiri was smiling more and more these days.
But in the end, it didn't matter so much, because that afternoon marked the beginning of several things.
It was when All for One decided that Izuku Midoriya was interesting after all.
And it was when Izuku started trusting the people who'd taken him in, and it was when he started seeing them as family.
Inko Midoriya was falling apart.
Or rather, she was falling apart at the same rate as her entire world, and she was left stamding in all the shattered pieces, wondering when it all started going wroing.
"M-mum? I can still be a h-hero, right?"
Even with weeks and weeks of waiting and wishing to think, she still couldn't figure out when it had all started.
She knew how it ended.
It ended with the arguments and the tears and the anger. And then the regret.
It ended with Hisashi yelling and Inko screaming and Izuku crying. It ended with Izuku hiding as his parents yelled and everything fell apart.
And Inko had been too broken herself to pick up the pieces.
Hisashi had been furious. With her. With Izuku. And she'd been furious, too. She'd hated Hisashi for how he'd treated Izuku. She'd hated Hisashi because he was always so distant, even before, and she knew that Izuku hated it. She knew that he'd thought it was his fault too, but she hadn't found a way to explain it all without hurting him.
And now she wished she had.
She remembered the morning she'd found Izuku missing with perfect, awful clarity. She'd been groggy, still rubbing her eyes when she went to wake him up for school.
The curtains were open. Sunlight streamed into the empty room. The bed was still neatly made, everything was tidied away. Nothing was out of place.
Almost in a daze, she'd checked all of the house, calling Izuku's name until her voice was hoarse. Hisashi came storming over to see what the problem was.
Everything else passed in a blur. One thing that stood out to her, though, was Hisashi's pale, horrified face, the way the understanding had dawned on his face and his eyes had widened almost comically. But everything else was hazy and she couldn't bring herself to care.
Izuku was gone. Izuku had run away, and it was all her fault.
She didn't let herself fall apart between all the looks of pity and sympathy and sometimes disgust. She didn't let herself fall apart when Mitsuki came rushing over to see how she was coping. She didn't let herself fall apart, because she could hope that Izuku would be found.
One week turned into two. Two weeks turned into three. The little flame of hope got smaller and smaller, but it didn't completely die. Not yet. So she had to stay strong.
Then the police arrived. They'd taken notes on the inital case, then sent a tracking specialist after Izuku.
Inko remembered the young woman with the tracking quirk. She'd smiled at Inko gravely, her brown eyes determined. "I'll do my best, Mrs Midoriya."
The woman with the tracking quirk had reappeared halfway through the fourth week.
Inko's heart sunk just from looking at her face. There were dark rings like bruises under her eyes, and she wasn't smiling. Her eyes were dull, and she hung her head, in either shame or regret.
"I'm so sorry, Mrs Midoriya... The rainfall made tracking difficult. This was all I could find. I'm sorry."
And then the woman had handed over a small object.
Inko stopped being strong after that.
She clutched the small All Might action figure to her chest. One arm had been torn off, and it was covered in grime. The paint had chipped in places, but the tiny writing announcing it as belonging to Izuku that Inko herself had written so long ago was still in place.
The smile was still there, too. She could see it, even through the filth on the toy. Blinding and bright and plastic.
"He's the greatest, mum!"
Inko stopped being strong after that. But she didn't quite give up on hope.
