Izuku's night was long and sleepless. He tossed and turned in his apartment, paced helplessly, did everything he could to get his brain to settle.

But instead, all he saw when he closed his eyes was the same nightmare that had haunted him for six years, blood and blades and upturned flesh and laughter all in a jumbled mess, like a jigsaw puzzle torn apart.

The goddamn laughter was what got him most of all; it mocked his every effort, his defiance of what he was. It sneered, "You're nothing, and you will always be nothing."

Izuku turned over again, but accepted that sleep wasn't in the cards for tonight. Oh well. It wasn't like this was his first time pulling an all-nighter.

Instead, he pulled on the nearest clothes he could find-a T-shirt that said "T-shirt" on it, you couldn't knock the classics-hauled himself out of bed, and wandered through his dark apartment. Maybe he would have tripped on something, if he spent enough time in this apartment to accumulate junk that would end up on the floor. But no, he only came here to sleep and eat most of the time.

Izuku knew he was a workaholic, but honestly, he didn't really care. He loved his work, loved helping people. Why worry about other things? He may sleep here, but he was only really at home when he could help others.

Eventually, Izuku made his way onto the balcony, where the cold air hit his lungs with a shock. It was bracing, almost, the way the wind whipped at his hair and made him draw his limbs closer to himself for warmth.

Izuku laid a hand on the railing and stared out over the city, which shone with light and rang with sound that was almost jarring to Izuku. He was used to the efficient, subdued chaos of the hospital, where everyone knew what they were doing in a world that liked to remind them that they didn't, not really.

Izuku let his eyes close again as the sounds of horns and laughter and even some music wrapped tightly around his senses, only to open them with a jolt a second later when memories flashed through his vision like the screech of a knife on concrete.

God, had it really been six years? Six years since Izuku's life had changed. The jury was still out on whether it was for the better or not.

It was strange, how one decision, one chance roll of the dice, could take him down a path he'd never have expected.

What would have happened, if he hadn't gone where he did, and been given one chance to prove he deserved more than he'd gotten, and failed?

He wouldn't be a doctor, hiding the things he'd lost from people.

He wouldn't be at the top of his field, a dynamo at twenty-seven.

And...he wouldn't have met people like Rumi.

Izuku sighed, rubbing his face as the tanned, rabbit-eared woman cropped up in his mind again.

What was it about her that did this to him? Somehow, Rumi could get to him in a way nobody else really could. Maybe it was because she was observant, and blunt, and stubborn as a mule, or maybe it was something else entirely. Whatever the reason, Izuku found himself constantly fighting to keep his mouth shut around her, trying to keep from spilling every thought in his head.

That wasn't even mentioning the way Izuku felt drawn to her. At first, it had been because she was one of the heroes he most admired. Then, it was because he'd seen how much the woman underneath all that bravado and indomitable spirit was hurting, hurting in ways he knew all too well. But even that familiarity, that desire to help Rumi out of the sucking abyss of despair she'd found herself in, couldn't explain the way he felt the walls around his heart crumbling every time she spoke.

Izuku knew by now that he couldn't help that crumbling. Sooner or later, Rumi would tease out every last one of his secrets, because she was just that annoying and dogged...and because something in her eyes reminded Izuku of himself.

That left Izuku questioning whether he should bite the bullet and tell her himself, before it was dragged out of him. It might help her see that there was a path forwards, that someday she wouldn't be helpless.

But wasn't Rumi already charging forwards, determined to heal, her old fire returned to her eyes? Didn't the smile of a little girl push her forwards?

That wasn't quite enough, and Izuku knew it all too well; no one reason was going to be enough to free Rumi from her despair. No one person could pull her out, not when she'd buried herself so deep, lost so much. Besides, there was a difference between running away from a place you couldn't remain any longer, and running towards a goal you wanted with all your heart. Izuku had spent long enough doing the former that he understood doing the latter was the only way Rumi was ever going to be who she used to be.

This was another way Izuku could help her, but it would force him to expose a part of himself he had buried for six years. He didn't know if he could make that kind of self-sacrifice.

Izuku almost laughed out loud as the thought crossed his mind. Sacrifice. So many heroes he'd treated had believed that their injuries were worth what it had cost them, saying that as long as they "made it count," they didn't mind the pain or the end of their careers. Hero after hero said that as long as someone else wasn't hurting because of them, they'd grit their teeth and take it. Not all of them said it or believed it, of course, far from it, but Izuku had heard it so many times that he was sick of it.

So many of Izuku's colleagues said that the attitudes of their patients were inspiring; Izuku wished he disagreed, that he could voice the helpless frustration he felt every time a hero rose to the occasion, determined to not let anything keep them down.

But he couldn't. After all, he understood that desire, that need to tell yourself that there was meaning in the pain you suffered, in the life-altering losses you experienced. He understood it as only someone who'd lived it could.

At the end of the day, though, Izuku knew he had no right to compare what he'd felt to what the heroes he treated went through. After all, so often, they were telling the truth. They'd willingly given up their own safety and health and future to protect somebody else, to help someone, to stop those who threatened the innocent. For them, ending up in the hospital was so often not a loss, just a victory that was a little more bittersweet than usual, but a victory all the same.

Izuku, though? He hadn't made his loss count, had failed miserably even in the attempt. The random chances of life had given him one shot to prove that he could save people, and he'd only been punished for trying.

A particularly strong gust of wind raced up the side of the apartment building, and the cold cut right through Izuku's clothes and sank into his bones. He shivered, rubbing his shoulders and arms to try and keep warm.

Okay, that was enough bitching about his life on the balcony for now. Really, he wasn't that bothered about the path his life had taken. Izuku had rebuilt his life piece by piece, day by day, and he'd reached places he'd never even dreamed of.

Sometimes, Izuku remembered the old saying that what doesn't kill you makes you stronger. He supposed that it fit him pretty well.

He was still here, still breathing, still fighting. He knew how much of a blessing that was, and he knew better than to expect any more.

That was just fine with him, because a second chance was all he needed. Izuku could take care of the rest.

At last, Izuku turned to go back inside, unable to stand the cold any longer.

He still didn't know if he could ever tell Rumi about his past. He didn't even know if he should. For now, his pains would stay firmly locked up where nobody could see them, behind walls that had crystallized into being long ago.

Unfortunately, Rumi had mastered the art of shattering walls, whether Izuku's or otherwise.

Even after an hour of practice the next day, Rumi still couldn't take a couple goddamn steps without falling.

She could feel her determination wavering with every time Izuku had to catch her. Hitomi's smile and her words felt like a bandaid over a gaping wound, a temporary solution at best. Underneath it, the same familiar hollowness and self-doubt were lurking, waiting to pull her right back down.

Something inside her whispered, "Stop pretending you're the same Miruko Hitomi admires. You've failed too many times to even make the claim."

Rumi tamped down the voice with a fury as she rose again, her false leg wobbling underneath her. Cursing her own weakness, she hissed, "Again."

Izuku, standing across from her as he had for days now, looked at her with something that might have been sympathy. He told her, "Rumi, maybe we should try something else-"

"No," Rumi interrupted, her ears pricked defiantly, "we are doing this now."

Izuku sighed, and his expression faded further. Stepping forwards, he explained, "I think we should get you used to how walking feels before we actually make you do it."

Rumi snapped, "There isn't time! We've already wasted half of our time with nothing to show for it!"

Izuku replied, "And you'll waste the rest of it if you keep trying to do this alone."

"Why shouldn't I be doing this alone?" Rumi demanded. She'd have to walk up to that podium alone, speak alone, stand up in front of the whole world alone. Shouldn't she be ready for that?

"Because you can't do it alone," Izuku said firmly. Rumi would have argued, but Izuku had won exactly this argument before, and deep down, she knew he was right.

But it still stung, dammit. Rumi grumbled, "I can do this just fine, Izuku."

Izuku's only response was to close the distance between them and circle behind her, grabbing onto her hips. As he did so, he said, "We'll see about that."

Rumi fought back a blush as she felt Izuku's hands on her hips, seemingly making her skin heat up wherever they touched. "H-hey, what's the big idea?" she asked, her ears twitching.

Coolly, Izuku explained, "I'll keep you balanced and supported, while you focus on putting one foot in front of the other. Now, walk."

Taking a deep breath and fighting back a strange fascination with how close Izuku was, Rumi nodded sharply and did just that. Her false leg swung out first, raised up and pressed down in a drawn-out, wobbling step not unlike a toddler's first halting ones. When she felt it hit the ground, Rumi began to shift her weight forwards.

This had always been where she fell, unable to keep herself balanced when one leg lacked the natural shock absorption of her muscles. But this time, with Izuku providing an extra source of support, Rumi's prosthetic held her weight long enough to swing her other foot forwards and plant it on the cool tiled floor.

Rumi felt her eyes go wide, but before she could react any more than that, Izuku murmured, "Good, now keep going."

Shivering a little at the sound of Izuku's voice so close to hear ear, as well as the realization that she was walking, Rumi nodded, focused entirely on picking up her false foot with her straining muscles, which were already getting tired. She swung it forwards and set it down, and went to keep going.

Rumi continued going through the rhythmic motions of walking, in an exaggerated gait that felt like a child stomping through a puddle with rain boots on.

Step, shift, swing, step. Again, and then again.

"Good job, Rumi!" Izuku told her, approval and pride shining in his voice. Rumi's breath got louder and more disbelieving as she kept going, Izuku's steady hands guiding her hips in a slow, deliberate circuit of the room.

Eventually, though, Rumi got impatient. When they were barely halfway through the track, she demanded, "I've got it, Izuku. Let me go."

Izuku warned, "It's not going to work, Rumi. You're going to fall."

"I don't care what you think is going to happen," Rumi retorted, "let me go."

Izuku sighed, "Fine."

He let go, and Rumi swung her false leg forwards again, expecting it to go just as smoothly. She had it now, it would work perfectly.

Her prosthetic foot hit the ground, and Rumi shifted her weight. A moment later, she was falling forwards, windmilling her arms as her knee failed to bear her body weight.

Rumi wasn't sure if Izuku was too far away to catch her, or if he just wanted to teach her a lesson. Either way, he wasn't there to hold her up, not this time.

Rumi hit the ground hard enough to get the wind knocked out of her, her hand smacking into the tiles a moment after the rest of her. She groaned in pain, feeling the throbbing in her leg.

Izuku didn't say anything as he stood over her; he knew that nothing he could say would measure up to Rumi's own fury at herself.

Rumi felt something snap inside her, something she barely recognized. Maybe it was the natural reaction to the shame she felt, lying helplessly on the ground. Maybe it was weeks of frustration and agony, finally boiling over when she could take no more. Maybe it was the look in Izuku's eyes as he came to help her up for the hundredth time, understanding and kind, free of judgement and pity.

Rumi supplied all the judgement and pity herself, and the thought that this quirkless doctor could somehow understand her enraged her even as she knew she was being cruel and unfair.

As he gently held her by the waist, Izuku began, "Are you okay, Rumi? You did good, even if it doesn't feel like-"

With rage seething in her veins, Rumi hissed through clenched teeth, "Shut the fuck up."

Izuku fell silent for a moment as his mindset shifted in an instant, then tried, "Rumi, you know damn well that getting cranky doesn't help anything-"

Rumi cut him off again as she snapped, "I don't care! You don't know anything!"

This time, Izuku's silence wasn't surprised, it was cold, with a hint of steel in his glittering green eyes. In a low voice that had a thin facade of neutrality, Izuku asked, "Oh? What don't I know, Rumi?"

By now, Rumi knew Izuku's tones well enough to recognize the cliff when she saw it. Izuku's posture was closed and stoic, and he seemed to loom in her hospital room, his jaw set sturdily. Rumi didn't care, though; her anger burned like an inferno, chasing away her misgivings and her restraint, leaving only scorching anger and loathing, aimed inwards but pushed outwards.

Rumi shouted, "You don't know what it's like! You know nothing! You've never been this helpless, this fucking useless!"

So what if he was quirkless? Izuku has always been whole, was still at the top of his field, could still look to a future that would be like a better version of his present. But Rumi couldn't; all she had to look forward to was pain and humiliation and being more dead than alive. All she had to cling to were a few empty words about a light at the end of the tunnel-a light she couldn't see. She had to trust in others to believe it existed, had to rely on them to get her there-and Rumi had always been self-reliant, refusing to put her fate in the hands of anyone but herself.

Now, Izuku's eyes simmered with carefully controlled fury; Rumi didn't care. His voice was flat and dripping with danger as he warned her, "You don't know what you're talking about, Rumi."

It was moments like this when Rumi remembered just how many powerful heroes feared the man in front of her. His muscled arms were crossed over his chest, and his eyes seemed to fill the room with flame and a staticky, ozone feeling, the kind that set the hairs on the back of your neck to tingling, the kind that came right before a devastating storm. Deep in his eyes, though, something else was shimmering; a deep-seated, endless pain, something that came directly from the center of his being, a weak point exposed somehow by Rumi's rage.

Rumi, as always, barreled right through the obstacles that anyone else would have balked at, her spirit alive with determination to crush anyone who opposed her; she didn't care that Izuku wanted to help her, that she needed his help. She didn't want it. In a laughing, sarcastic voice that sounded like shattering glass, Rumi asked, "Oh, don't I? You're always on that side of this line, looking down at the people you get to save! You take walking for granted! But I can't! I can't fucking do anything, because of this!"

Rumi raised her stump yet again, drawing attention to the empty void where her hand had once been. Underneath her, her false leg gleamed, all shiny metal and plastic, a fake thing that could never replace the power of flesh and blood.

"Oh, so you think I don't know what it's like, being helpless?" Izuku asked back, in a tone that seemed to ring with unseen pain, dragged up from the depths for the first time in an eternity.

With blind fury still driving her forwards, Rumi snarled, "I don't! How could you understand?"

Suddenly, Izuku exploded. Out of nowhere, he yelled, "I KNOW EXACTLY WHAT IT'S LIKE, RUMI!"

Rumi was so shocked, her anger cleared for a moment, dissipating like fog under a sudden beam of light. Izuku never yelled, had never even raised his voice around her. He had been sarcastic, and snippy, and rude and irreverent, but he had never screamed. This was something deeper, some emotion that cracked the mask he'd built. Somehow, Rumi had gotten through to the man beneath the Hero Wrangler, and it scared her, how deep the hurt seemed to run in his voice, how she recognized that tone, because it was the same one she used at her lowest.

She stumbled backwards, barely managing to catch herself with her hand before she toppled over the bed, ears flattening against her head in shock.

Meanwhile, Izuku stormed forwards a few steps, his eyes burning with rage. For a moment, Rumi thought he was going to yell again, but instead, he took a deep breath and looked down at his hands.

Softer this time, Izuku repeated, "I know exactly what it's like, Rumi."

Rumi felt her irritation return, feeling deeper somehow, as though she was no longer responding to the shame she felt from falling, but to some inherent flaw she'd found in the connection she'd built with this stubborn, cranky, cryptic man.

When she spoke again, Rumi's voice was icily calm. "You know, I don't know whether I believe you or not," she said.

Izuku's eyes went wide, and he took another angry step forward. "You don't get to act like this," he warned, "I don't owe you a damn thing, and I don't care whether you believe me. There's nothing keeping me here."

Her voice slowly getting louder and more painful, Rumi snapped, "Well, too fucking bad, because I'm stuck with you! You can walk away whenever you want, but I can't! So I get to sit here, day after day, and you walk in and out as you please, telling me whatever you want and expecting me to take it as gospel! You don't know what it's like when you leave, how empty this room feels!"

Rumi might have expected a lot of things from Izuku's reaction, but hitting the wall wasn't one of them. But sure enough, he slammed his fist against the white plaster of the wall, hard enough for Rumi to hear the tremors for several seconds. She looked into his eyes, and she saw something give way, something that might have been the last of his restraint, or the last wall holding him back.

Izuku roared, "Why do you keep pushing, dammit? What makes you think you deserve my entire fucking life story? You already know more about me than I ever tell my patients, and you want more? Isn't what you have enough, for fuck's sake?"

Izuku fell silent, panting with exertion as he clenched his fists. For all of it, Rumi wasn't truly afraid of him; she knew all too well the kind of empty anger that you felt when someone was getting too close to the truth, cutting through all the layers of thorny brambles that grew around your heart.

As clarity slowly dawned over her about just what she needed from him, Rumi replied, "No, it isn't."

Izuku stared at her, eyebrows knit together as he seemingly prepared to yell again. Before he could, though, Rumi met his gaze, and something about the certainty there stopped him short. It was different from the stormy rage that she'd had before. Now, she looked like she'd finally found a reason for what she was doing.

"It isn't," Rumi repeated, more softly this time as something finally made sense, "not for what I need."

"Oh, and what's that? What do you need?" Izuku demanded, his voice blunt and harsh.

Rumi gripped the bed with her only hand as she stared down at the stump of her leg. She needed so many things; her future back, a little bit of hope, a second chance. But Izuku couldn't give her all of those.

Looking back up, Rumi began, "I need you to work with me. I can't do this by myself, Izuku...but if we're going to be partners, if you're going to help me come back after everything that's happened, I need to trust you."

Izuku's gaze was softening now, too, as he stared at Rumi. He must have seen something on her face, filled with hope and seriousness and an openness he'd never seen before, because he shook his head once and exhaled loudly, the rush of air seeming to take some of the tension from his limbs as it escaped him.

"Okay, fine," he sighed, "how can I get you to trust me?"

In that moment, he remembered another hospital bed, another directionless patient, and he wondered what might have been if this conversation had happened there.

"I don't need your whole life story," Rumi replied quickly, "I just...I don't know why I should listen to you when you say that everything will get better. Something in my mind...it says "he doesn't really know what you're going through," and I guess I believe it. So...please, can you at least explain why you know what it's like, what proof you have?"

"Give me hope," she didn't say, but thought all the same, "prove to me that there actually is a light at the end of the tunnel."

Izuku sighed again, running one hand through his hair as he craned his neck to look upwards, as though questioning why he'd ever agreed to work with her. When Izuku let his hand fall again, his eyes met Rumi's, and they were still hard, but no longer angry.

"Are you sure you want to know? It's not pretty," he warned her.

Rumi rolled her eyes and gestured at her missing limbs, saying, "I'm something of an expert on that topic, if you haven't noticed."

Izuku chuckled despite himself, and agreed, "Yeah, I guess you are."

He took a deep breath, looking down at his hands, which seemed to be trembling just a tiny bit.

"No more secrets," he mumbled as if to himself, "no more hiding."

Izuku looked up one last time, into Rumi's eyes. Rumi was shocked at the vulnerability she saw there; for the first time, she thought that she could see, really see, a side of Izuku that few people ever did.

In a voice that trembled even as it burned with determination, Izuku told her, "You wanna know why I know you have a future? Fine. It's because I'm the proof."

Then, he reached down, and placed his left thumb against a point on his right wrist, at the join between his hand and his arm. Rumi watched in disbelief as a green, flowing light suddenly crept up the center of Izuku's arm, branching through it in a manner that was too angular to be moving through his veins, too bright to be natural. Then, his lower forearm and hand split, the gaps in the thin, softer outer covering revealing articulated joints of oiled machinery. Strange panels and sections of the thing seemed to rise, peeling away from his elbow and from each other as Izuku's forearm lost its fleshy color and reverted to the smooth gray of plastic and metal in a wave that looked like pixels turning off. With his left hand, he turned something and pulled hard, and his arm came off.

Rumi stared wordlessly at the stump of Izuku's right arm, which ended just below his elbow in a jarring way that made her mind whisper that something was wrong. Her own stump ached in sympathy, in sudden, horrible understanding.

But Izuku just looked exhausted, as though he'd never intended to do this and was being drained with every second he pushed into uncertain territory. Still holding the high-tech prosthetic that had fooled Rumi so completely, Izuku looked up at Rumi, and his wavering face set into determination again.

It didn't matter how bare and raw and exposed he felt in that moment, because Rumi still needed his help.

"Here," Izuku said roughly, "still think I don't know how you feel?"

For the first time, Rumi had no reply.