Chapter Text
Izuku blinks up at the cold white sky. The chill in the air stings at his face—but it’s summer, isn’t it? It’s summer, and Izuku was just at home, and now he's lying here and…the ground he's lying on is moving.
A screech of metal echoes in Izuku’s ears and the ground beneath him lurches. He tries to scramble upright and gets caught on the folds of material hanging off him, heavy gloves dropping from his hands. He looks down at himself and sees a strange teal outfit that’s much too big. As he pushes himself backwards, oversized red shoes slip off his feet.
He’s on a rooftop—high, high in the sky. Izuku pulls up the legs of the costume so they’ll stop tripping him and manages to stand up, the cold metal roof stinging the soles of his feet. He can see other buildings now, towering skyscrapers, and off in the distance smoke and movement.
“Creati, how’s the evac going?”
Izuku jumps, hand going to his ear where the voice came from: there’s an earpiece jammed there with a little microphone extending towards his mouth.
“The warning hasn’t sounded yet, but I don’t think that building’s gonna stand for much longer,” the voice continues.
“We’re going as fast as we can,” another voice answers, “but there’s still civilians in the impact zone. Deku, do you think you could use Blackwhip to buy us a little more time?”
A silence follows as Izuku wonders if he’s hearing things, if that was really his classmates’ cruel nickname spoken over this inexplicable comm. He doesn’t—none of this—
A siren cuts through the air, followed by a tinny, robotic voice that seems to come from everywhere at once: “One minute collapse warning. All students prepare to evacuate impact zone.”
Izuku almost misses the last few words as a strange resinous whine fills the air and the roof beneath him sways more violently. He crouches back down and puts his hands on the ground, but that can only steady him so much when it’s the floor itself that’s moving. He…he needs help.
“Deku?” Another voice says.
“Deku, report. Are you still up there?”
Izuku winces, but there’s no mistaking it now at least. “H-hello?” he tries.
A small silence, just the wind and faint creaking, then: “Earphone Jack, is he still on the roof?”
“I can’t tell—there’s too much other noise happening,” yet another voice says. “Maybe his comm’s busted?”
Izuku doesn’t know who these people are or how he can be here, but Earphone Jack sounds like a hero name. Izuku is alone, and afraid, and he needs a hero. He reaches for the comm again and feels a little button on the outside. He holds it down. “H-hello?”
There’s another silence and another stab of fear, but then: “Uhh, who was that?”
Izuku jumps and stumbles as the siren sounds again. “Thirty second collapse warning. All students abandon rescue efforts and evacuate impact zone.”
The second the voice stops, Izuku holds the button down again. “H-help me, please.”
“What the fuck,” another voice responds. “Is that a kid?”
“Is this part of the test?”
The creaks get slower but louder, echoing clank-clank-clanks. Izuku can feel each one resonating under his feet.
“Shit, that building’s about to go—do we know if Deku’s clear?”
Izuku brings his shaking hand back to his ear. “Do…do you mean me? I don’t know where I am.”
“Who’s—”
“It’s okay,” a new, warm voice interrupts. “Can you tell us what you can see?”
“A rooftop,” Izuku answers, his voice shaking. “It’s…moving a lot.”
“Oh my god.”
A new voice comes through the comm—deeper, older: “This isn’t part of the test. Nobody go back into the impact zone. I’m almost—”
Another metallic shriek drowns out the rest. Other voices respond, louder and more panicked now, but to Izuku it’s all just noise. The sky is so white, so close.
The ground beneath him tilts, more and more of the skyscraper across the way coming into view, and Izuku watches with a strange kind of calm as his discarded shoes begin to tumble and roll. Then the calm snaps, and he tries to scramble over to grab onto something but loses his footing, and then he’s falling over and over himself like when Kacchan tripped him down the big hill in the park, sky-ground-sky-ground—and then there’s no more ground anymore.
Izuku fumbles once more for the comm in his ear, but it slips through his fingers and tumbles down, down, through the rushing air. Wind howls in his ears, the strange clothes that don’t fit flapping violently as the ground gets closer and closer. Tears form in his eyes and are wicked away before they can fall. He’s going to die, freezing and scared and all alone.
Something slams into him from the side. Izuku tries to cry out, but he has no more breath left. He struggles in blind panic for a moment, until he registers that the rushing wind on his face is different now, sideways instead of up. There’s an arm wrapped around him, holding him steady. Izuku blinks away more frightened tears and takes in the blurry impression of the person holding him, the other arm holding a strange white cord lashed out in front of them.
The ground isn’t getting closer anymore. Izuku isn’t falling. This man—this hero—has caught him, and now they’re flying.
“It’s alright,” the hero says. “Just hold on, I’ve got you.”
Izuku obediently grabs a fistful of black jumpsuit. There’s a jolt as the arm holding the cord pulls back then throws it out again, all the while keeping tight hold of Izuku with the other arm. Even through his terror, some part of Izuku can’t help but marvel.
Their descent slows, slows, and then stops. The hero gently sets Izuku on the ground, then catches him by the shoulders when his shaking legs give out. He puts a hand to his ear. “I got the kid. Is everyone clear?”
Izuku catches a tinny echo as someone must respond, but he can’t make out the words. The hero’s face relaxes a little and he bends down to Izuku’s level. Izuku can see the cord better now, looped around the hero’s neck like a scarf, and nestled beneath the loops he spies a pair of bright yellow goggles.
Izuku finds his voice again, managing a reverent whisper: “Eraserhead.”
The hero stares at him with dark bloodshot eyes, an unreadable expression crossing his face. “Midoriya Izuku.”
Izuku slaps a hand over his mouth as his eyes widen. “You know my name,” he murmurs through his fingers.
“Uh-huh.” Eraserhead gives him another unreadable look. “You have no idea what’s going on, do you?”
“No,” Izuku says, voice still as shaky as his legs. “Sorry.”
“It’s alright,” Eraserhead says, low and even. “We’re going to figure it out together, okay?”
Even through the fear, the echo of all that terrible wind still rushing in his ears, Izuku manages a watery smile.
Eraserhead frowns, his hand going back to his ear. “Stop yelling. I don’t know what’s going on yet, but the exercise is over. Gather back at the safe zone and—”
He’s interrupted as a pink-skinned girl in a bright costume skids up to them. “Oh my god.”
A redheaded boy in an even stranger costume runs up behind her. “Mr Aizawa, why is there a kid here? Wait, is that—”
“No way. He’s so tiny!”
More and more of them run or leap or swing in close, a dozen at least, all tall and colourful and with their eyes fixed on Izuku. Eraserhead straightens up to face them and Izuku instinctively ducks behind him, peering out from behind his legs the way he’s trying to stop doing with his mom—oh god, his mom. She’d been in the apartment with him, just minutes ago. Their warm, familiar apartment on a summer’s day.
“Everyone be quiet!” a boy in armour shouts. “We are obviously causing this young man some distress!”
“You’re shouting louder than any of us, dude.”
“Enough.” Eraserhead’s hair flies up, his eyes flashing red, and they all fall silent. Izuku gasps because he hadn’t known his eyes went red like that! He’d always been wearing goggles in the few videos Izuku managed to find online, and that night—“I don’t know what’s going on, but I expect you all to handle yourselves while I deal with it. And every one of you should know better than to crowd a frightened civilian like this.”
The unfamiliar heroes seem various levels of cowed. They’re young, Izuku realises, even if they seem terrifyingly tall from his position half-hidden behind Eraserhead. Their hero costumes seem so real, but he isn’t sure if they’re old enough to be real heroes yet—which would also explain why he doesn’t recognise any of them.
“So he doesn’t remember us at all?” A girl in a pink-and-white suit asks quietly.
Everyone looks to Izuku again. Confusion and delayed terror and all those strange eyes fixed on him mass together inside his chest, a burn rising in his throat that threatens tears—but a hero asked Izuku a question, so he has to answer. He shakes his head, lip wobbling.
Eraserhead’s hand lands on his shoulder. “Come on. I’ll take you back to the main campus and we’ll get this figured out.”
Izuku wants to grip that hand right back, or go back to holding onto the jumpsuit again. At least Eraserhead isn’t leaving him alone—Izuku doesn’t know what he’d do if he had to leave behind the one hero here he recognises, the one who caught him and saved him. Saved him again.
Eraserhead turns his attention back to the group of heroes. “Go get changed and head back to the dorms.”
Eraserhead’s hand slides off Izuku’s shoulder as he begins striding away, and Izuku immediately misses its weight. He scrambles along after, grabbing onto the legs of the costume again so it won’t trip him up.
“Do you think this means we won’t be graded on that exercise?” one of the heroes asks. “Because that was not my best work, for sure.”
“I mean, Mido probs won’t be graded since apparently he’s baby now? But you’re probably screwed.”
The loud boy begins scolding them again, and Izuku loses the specifics as they get further away. The street around him is even stranger than it had seemed from up in the air; they’re surrounded on all sides by skyscrapers, but all of them are in various levels of disarray—windows broken, some missing chunks or half-crumbled away. Aside from the gaggle of heroes behind them, there’s not a single soul in sight.
“How old are you, Izuku?” Eraserhead asks without turning around. His pace isn’t too fast, but Izuku is slowed down by trying to pick his way through debris and avoid stepping on anything that will hurt his bare feet.
“S-seven, sir.”
“What’s the last thing you remember, before being up on the roof?”
“Um, it’s a little fuzzy but…” Izuku pauses, hopping over a collapsed metal beam and wincing as he lands on sharp little rocks. “I was just at home, I think. Watching TV?”
The memories feel a little farther away than they should, like he just woke up from a long nap. There’s no way this is a dream, though: Izuku’s dreams always skip and jump around wildly, so dizzying and fast he sometimes feels tired when he wakes up, until some new thing fills him up with energy again.
Izuku looks up from the ground and finds Eraserhead has stopped, frowning at him. “You don’t have shoes, do you?”
Izuku feels a strange rush of shame as he shakes his head. “They fell off on the roof…sorry.”
Eraserhead sighs and reaches a hand back up to his ear. “Yaoyorozu? Catch up to us when you can, please.”
He crosses the distance between them and bends down to Izuku’s level again. “Did you cut your feet?”
“No,” Izuku says, even though he’s not totally sure if that’s true.
Eraserhead frowns at him, not as stern as he’d been with the group of heroes but clearly not happy. Izuku looks down at the floor, at the strange teal fabric pooling around his feet. He shouldn’t be here, slowing down heroes, giving the wrong answers. He should be home with his mom, safe and warm.
“It’s okay to be scared,” Eraserhead says. “I’d be scared too, if I didn’t know where I was or how I got there.”
The tears Izuku managed to hold back earlier fill his eyes again, and he bites hard at his lip. He’s seven now; he has to be brave. “I’m okay,” he says softly. “Th-thank you for saving me.”
Those strange, dark eyes soften a little. “It’s my job,” he says simply.
Still. Izuku never got to thank him, the first time.
A girl in a red costume jogs up to them. “Mr Aizawa?”
“Could you please make Izuku some shoes?” Eraserhead asks. “I know you don’t like to use your quirk frivolously, but—”
“Of course, that’s fine.” She looks Izuku up and down, an assessing look in her eyes, then a light glows from her arm as she pulls out a pair of bright red sneakers, like a miniature version of the ones he’d been wearing up on the roof. After another moment’s thought, she pulls out a pair of yellow socks too.
She holds them out to Izuku and smiles gently. “Let me know if they fit alright? I can always make some more if they don’t.”
“Y-your quirk is so cool!” Izuku stammers. “Can—can you make anything, like food and things too? Can you make alive things? Can you make lots of stuff all at once?”
He realises belatedly that he’s started talking too fast again in that way people don’t like, but the girl—Eraserhead said Yaoyorozu?—is still smiling gently at him. She glances at Eraserhead, who’s ducked his face down into his scarf, expression invisible. “I’m sorry, I don’t think we have time for me to answer all your questions right now.”
“R-right, sorry. Thank you for the shoes!” Izuku sits down and starts to pull them on. He hasn’t cut his feet, he realises—they’re just dirty and a bit sore. It feels strange pulling socks onto dirty feet.
The shoes are a little bigger than his shoes at home, but way better than trying to walk without any. “They’re great, thank you!”
Yaoyorozu smiles at him. “I don’t normally like to disrupt the economy like this, but for expediency’s sake…” One by one, she pulls out a full outfit out of her arm. “So you can change when Mr Aizawa takes you back to school.”
Izuku takes the clothes and turns them over in his hands reverently. They feel just like normal clothes, but she made them in an instant. Is it a fabric quirk, like that new hero Best Jeanist? She seemed to make them out of nothing, but quirks like that usually have some kind of limiter on them. So cool and versatile, especially if she can make rescue and first aid equipment too—
“Thank you, Yaoyorozu,” Eraserhead says.
Izuku realises he's been mumbling out loud without meaning to, but Yaoyorozu is still smiling softly at him and Eraserhead is giving her a look that seems appreciative. Maybe he’s thinking about how cool her quirk is too.
“Um, what’s your hero name?” Izuku asks.
“I’m Creati, the Everything Hero.”
“So cool,” Izuku murmurs. He’ll have to look her up once he gets home. The thought sends another jolt through him, realising he has no idea how far he is from home right now or when he’ll be able to get back there.
Creati gives Izuku another smile before heading back through the otherworldly streets. Eraserhead leads him on, and eventually the destroyed, empty landscape ends abruptly, giving way to an open grassy area, like someone’s spliced two worlds together. Neat, new buildings are dotted around, nothing like the dilapidated skyscrapers they left behind.
None of this makes any sense, but Izuku’s voice feels as far away as it did when he was falling through the air. Eraserhead leads him silently into the largest building of all. Inside it looks like a school, just on a grander scale than anything Izuku has ever seen before, doors five times his height. Izuku isn’t tall enough to see through any of the windows, though he can hear low murmurs of voices inside.
Eraserhead leads him past it all until they arrive at a door marked Faculty Only. He swipes a card and pushes the door open; inside is a single-stall bathroom. “You can get changed in here.”
Izuku hurries obediently inside and shuts the door behind him. Thankfully, he doesn’t have to undo many fastenings from the strange outfit he’s wearing before it slips off of him to pool on the ground below. He pulls on the clothes Creati made for him; the T-shirt is in his favourite bright primary colours, and on closer inspection Izuku realises the design mirrors All Might’s Silver Age costume. So cool! He’s wearing one-of-a-kind merch, made right in front of him.
Izuku bounces up and down on his feet imagining having that quirk for himself, making whatever merch he wants and having such a cool way to help people too. He touches the soft fleece lining on the hoodie Creati made for him. He can so clearly imagine her making a soft blanket to tuck around the shoulders of a frightened civilian she’d rescued, smiling that bright smile.
Once he’s dressed, Izuku picks the costume up off the floor and examines it. The material is strong, much stronger than it looks, and there are heavy reinforced areas over the legs, part of what had been making it so difficult to walk. The colour is nice, like one of Izuku’s favourite crayons.
His hands trace over the material, folding it up in his arms—then he reaches the hood and freezes, staring at the shape the fabric forms. It’s so like the drawings he’d made—hadn’t been able to get himself to stop making, even after…after. Izuku’s hands long for his notebook, for his crayons, for anything familiar—the dip in the couch where he sits and scribbles, listening to his mom humming in the kitchen. There are tears welling in his eyes again and he scrubs them away, the costume an awkward weight in his arms.
There’s a quiet knock on the door. “Izuku?”
Izuku swipes once more at his face, then heads back out. “Eraserhead?”
Eraserhead crouches down to his level again. “What is it?”
Izuku hesitates. This is a grown-up and a stranger, one who could yell or scold him or just decide Izuku isn’t worth the trouble and walk away if he’s too much of a bother. But it’s also Eraserhead, who grabbed Izuku out of the air and brought him safe down to the ground. A hero. Izuku’s hero, twice-over now.
“Why…why was I wearing this?” Izuku asks. “And…and why did those heroes know—they were calling for Deku? And you knew my name already, my real name. What’s…”
Eraserhead nods, seeming to understand the gist of Izuku’s half-finished questions. “I wasn’t going to explain until I had more information,” he says, “but I’ll tell you what I do know. I think you’ve been affected by a quirk that’s temporarily reverted you physically and mentally to a younger age. I know your name because normally you’re one of my students—the same age as the other kids you met back there. You were wearing that outfit because it’s your hero costume.”
Izuku blinks, too many thoughts racing through his head to know which to grab onto. “Hero costume,” he repeats slowly. “Like—like for pretending?”
“No,” Eraserhead answers. “You weren’t in a real fight back there—it was an exercise so you could all practise how you’d respond. But your hero costume is real. You’re a first year hero student.”
Izuku puts a hand over his mouth again and the costume starts to unfold in his arms, falling to the floor. Eraserhead takes it from him and Izuku crosses his arms across his middle, like he can hold himself together.
“Come on,” Eraserhead says, his voice a little softer now. “Let’s go get you some answers.”
Eraserhead leads Izuku to an infirmary, even though he isn’t sick. The woman inside exchanges a look with Eraserhead that Izuku doesn’t understand, and then he notices the syringe cane leaning against the desk and realises she must be Recovery Girl, the Youthful Hero! The excitement is almost enough to distract him from the little sting of fear when Eraserhead leaves, saying he’ll be back once he’s made some calls.
Recovery Girl sits Izuku on a bed and asks him if he’s hurt at all or feeling anything strange, and doesn’t entirely seem to believe Izuku when he says he’s fine. But she gives Izuku a lollipop and doesn’t seem to mind Izuku quizzing her about her quirk until Eraserhead comes back.
“You’re not the first person this has happened to,” Eraserhead says, sounding even more tired than before. “The police have been getting calls all week. It’s apparently temporary, with people reverting back after a few days. The targets have been so random that they think it’s probably an accident, some kid who isn’t yet aware of their quirk or that they’re activating it. And the delayed activation is making it more complicated to unravel.”
Eraserhead sighs, then focuses his attention back on Izuku. “The point is, you’ll only be like this for a few days—no one’s gone longer than three so far.”
Izuku nods slowly. Normally he’d love learning about such a strong, strange quirk like this, but the details of this one are just making his head hurt. The way Eraserhead talks about it…for Izuku, it’s like he’s been brought into the future, or some parallel world. But for everyone else it’s Izuku that’s the odd one out, like he’s sick and just needs to wait until he gets better. The thought of being sick makes him long for his mom again, for her to tuck him up in bed and press a cool damp cloth to his forehead.
“Can I see my mom?” Izuku asks.
“I called her,” Eraserhead says. “She’s out of the country for work right now. She’s looking at getting flights back, but it’s probably going to be a while before she can get here.”
“Oh.” Izuku fidgets with the soft lining of the hoodie again. He can be brave about this, like a hero. He’s seven now. He’s going to be brave.
Eraserhead holds out a phone. “But she’s waiting for your call.”
Izuku presses the video call button, and Eraserhead steps back and pulls the curtain around the bed. A soft murmur of voices begins behind the curtain, but Izuku only has eyes for the phone.
His mom picks up and is speaking before the picture loads in. “Izuku, baby?”
“Mom!”
Her familiar face appears, a little rounder but somehow still exactly right. “Gosh, I haven’t seen that little face in so long! Mr Aizawa said you’re seven?”
“Uh-huh,” Izuku says, basking in his mom’s warm’s familiar voice. “He’s Eraserhead,” he whispers.
His mom laughs gently. “I know, sweetie. You know all these heroes now!”
Izuku smiles, but it’s wobblier this time. Now. Now for his mom meaning when Izuku is as old as the teenagers who’d crowded around him. He’s out of sync with everyone else, like he’s fallen between the floorboards of his real life.
“This must be so strange for you,” his mom says, like she can hear Izuku’s thoughts even if she’s an ocean away. “I’m so sorry I’m not there with you, baby.”
“It’s okay,” Izuku says, telling himself it’s not a real lie. “I’ve been fine.”
“My brave boy,” she says, and Izuku sits a little taller even as he clutches at the phone like a lifeline. “The weather’s bad here, so it’s looking like I’m going to have to drive a little ways before I can get a flight back, and then there’ll be a connecting flight, so it might be a little while before I’m there with you.”
“Y-you don’t have to come back if you’re working,” Izuku says, even as his chest aches to be swept into her arms. “I know it’s important.”
“Izuku, sweetie,” his mom says, her voice serious and warm all at once. “There is nothing in this world that will keep me from coming to hug you right now, okay?”
Izuku feels a grin spread across his face. “Okay.”
“It just might take me a while to get there, so you’ll have to stay there at UA with the heroes and be good for them, alright? Do what they tell you to do and don’t go wandering off.”
Izuku almost drops the phone. “UA? The—the hero school, UA?”
The voices outside the curtain pause.
“Oh, Izuku.” His mom’s smile gets softer and sadder all at once. “Yes. You go to the best hero school there is. Do you know why?”
“Why?” Izuku whispers.
“Because you’re going to be an amazing hero someday. Just like you always wanted.”
In the minutes that follow, Izuku cries so much that eventually Eraserhead takes the phone back and steps outside to talk to his mom some more, while Recovery Girl pats him on the back and gives him a whole pack of gummies. Once Izuku has calmed down a little, he eats his way through the bag of gummies while slowly sipping water, interrupted by occasional miniature floods of tears when he remembers his mom’s words, the absolute faith in her voice.
“But,” Izuku says once Eraserhead has slipped back into the room and he’s capable of making words again. “I can’t go to UA.”
“You definitely do, dearie,” Recovery Girl says.
“But they…they don’t let people without quirks in.”
Kacchan had run right up to him in the playground one day, and Izuku had been so excited because Kacchan never seems excited to talk to him anymore—but it was just because he’d found out that UA had an official rule preventing quirkless people from even applying to the hero course. Izuku had lost a full weekend after despite his mom making his favourite meal, and putting the All Might debut video on repeat even though she finds it scary, and hugging him for over an hour while he sat on the floor and sobbed.
Eraserhead’s frown deepens, and Izuku starts welling up again when he realises he just told two heroes who were being so nice to him that he’s quirkless. “That isn’t a rule anymore,” Recovery Girl says gently. “And besides—Izuku, have you ever heard of late bloomers?”
Izuku feels his eyes go wide. He nods slowly.
“They’re rare—”
“—Extremely rare,” Eraserhead interrupts, an edge to his voice.
“But it does happen,” she continues, unphased. “It happened to you.”
“I…the grown up me has a quirk?”
“Not so grown up yet,” she says, a little sadness to her smile. “But yes, you do.”
Izuku looks from her to Eraserhead, then down at his own hands. A little lurch of strange, painful joy shoots through his chest, but somehow quieter than it should be. The doctor was wrong, just like Izuku always desperately hoped. It’s like a miracle. Like a story.
It feels more like a story than anything real. Only in a story would two pro heroes tell Izuku he has a quirk and goes to hero school— All Might’s old hero school. In real life Izuku is seven, Izuku lives at apartment number twelve, and Izuku is quirkless. In the world he’s found himself in now, maybe none of those things are true anymore.
Izuku chews his gummy and kicks his legs, too full of thoughts to even cry anymore.
“Now, now,” Recovery Girl says. “You don’t need to worry about quirks or anything else at the moment. For the next few days, you’re a guest here at UA and we’re going to take very good care of you. Aren’t we, Eraserhead?”
Eraserhead looks just as full of thoughts as Izuku feels. “Yes, we are,” he says slowly, mechanically.
Izuku watches him anxiously. Is…is Eraserhead mad at Izuku for being quirkless? But Izuku isn’t quirkless, somehow. In this world, Izuku is a teenager with a quirk, one of Eraserhead’s students, and even through the strangeness that thought gives Izuku a little thrill. But maybe he still counts as quirkless in Eraserhead’s eyes, since he doesn’t have his quirk yet?
“Don’t mind him,” Recovery Girl says, her voice quiet and conspiratorial. “He makes those silly, angry faces, but he’s a softie deep down.”
Eraserhead glares at her, then looks back to Izuku and his expression softens. Then he does an exaggerated glare at him too, one that doesn’t touch the gentleness in his eyes, and Izuku smiles in spite of himself.
“My mom said I should stay here until she gets back?” Izuku asks hesitantly.
“Yes,” Eraserhead answers. “Normally you live in a dorm with the rest of your class, but that’s not going to work when you’re this young.”
“I’d be okay,” Izuku insists, even though he barely knows what it means to live in a dorm.
“Sure,” Eraserhead says flatly. “But instead I think you should come and stay with me.”
Izuku’s eyes widen again. “But you’re a hero. Aren’t you too busy to look after me?”
“I’m also your homeroom teacher, so you’re my responsibility. Plus there’s another kid I take care of who’s the same age as you are now, so it makes sense.”
Eraserhead has a child! Izuku never thinks about heroes having regular families. But…a kid his age. Izuku fidgets anxiously with his sleeves. Kids his age don’t like Izuku.
“Will…will they mind?” Izuku asks. “Having me there too?”
Eraserhead’s expression softens again. “She already likes you, kid. She knows the older you. It’ll take some explaining, but it’ll be fine.”
Izuku nods, head swimming. The older you…
“We can try to figure something else out if there’s someone else you’d be more comfortable with,” Eraserhead continues. “Like a relative or family friend. We'd have to clear it with your mom first, but—”
“I want to stay with you,” Izuku blurts out.
“You heard the boy,” Recovery Girl says, slipping one more gummy into Izuku’s hand and chuckling at Eraserhead’s expression.