Two Heroes and A Hustler

40

Deku is scared... but that's okay.

He's sad and that's okay too.

He's lonely and guilty and angry and selfish.

But... he's not upset. He's not inconsolable. He's actually rather calm.

Deku truly believes he's made the right choice.

He walks around the hospital with Bakugo and Todoroki glued to his side. Is it selfish to let them make plans with him for when he's released from the hospital? Yeah.

... but at least this time, the pain he'd cause others wouldn't be for his own selfish reasons.

He's not a child sprinting away from his newly found soulmate.

He knows he's still running away, he knows everyone will hate him, he knows they may never forgive him and he knows it will never be like this again.

But he knows everyone will recover. Because Todoroki has Bakugo, Yamada and Aizawa have each other, Shinsou has them, and Hatsume has PowerLoader. And Eri? Eri will have a childhood.

Deku's childhood was ripped away from him by cruel men. He was never loved, never comforted, never seen as anything more than his body or his brain. He never had a chance of connecting to anyone worthwhile. He became the men he'd learned to fear.

Eri didn't have to share his fate. She could be loved for everything that she is and taught to overcome the early years of her childhood through the safety of Yamada and Aizawa.

How would she feel when she learned the truth one day? If Deku stayed, if her family protected one of her abusers- how could she ever recover from that?

He is more than willing to be everyone's villain if it meant everyone could remain Eri's heroes.

Deku's sadness, his loneliness, his fear, his guilt... it would never go away if he stayed. So he had to go.

And his soulmates go first.

"Can we come visit tomorrow?" Todoroki asks once Deku's returned to his bed.

"Fuck that, we're coming back tonight," Only Deku and Shoto could differentiate Bakugos teasing tone from his douchebag tone, "Your dumbass can't sleep without us so we'll be back."

Deku smiles gently, his eyes landing on the thin sheets of his bed, "It's fine. You don't have to."

"I'm taking that as permission," Todoroki beams, walking towards the door, "We'll see you tonight!"

"Yeah," Deku says quietly, "I'll see you later."

Much later than either of them could have expected.

Minutes after they leave, Deku wishes he had told them that he loved them.

But he continues on with his day anyway. He'd have plenty of time for regret in the near future.

He's relieved when the catheter is removed, but not as much as he'd expected himself to be. It just brings him one step closer to disappearing.

Now that he knows what it's like to be seen... disappearing didn't sound quite as good as it used to.

When Aizawa arrives with Shinsou, he knows the two men are the next to go.

Hitoshi may be adopted, but he's got the exact same characteristics of his dads. Shinsou worried a lot, though he always pretended to be unbothered like his dad. He's the first one to check in on his friends and offers them words of comfort regardless of what they confided, just like his papa.

The boy was living proof that there was hope for Eri.

"It's not too late, y'know?" Shinsou asks as the two men catch each other up on the medical updates.