Of Leather Wings : A Man-Bat Izuku Story

Chapter 5: Secrets

Windows were covered in a delicate film of moisture layered with fog, as droplets of water made their way down the windows allowing soft beams of sunlight to seep into the lab bringing momentary respites of warmth to the icy room. A glacial ambience sealed the air as Izuku wrapped in a small brown blanket trembled before the Langstroms, he gripped onto the blanket firmly trying to find the long side of the blanket to cover his pale grey skin that seemed to glisten in the light as though he was covered in metal.

An inescapable ominous sensation haunted Izuku's mind, it began to gnaw from his head and make its way to his heart, feeling his heartache in his chest. The thumping of his heart could be felt by everyone in the room, each beat was reminiscent of the sound of a ball bouncing from wall to wall in a tiny room. Breathing heavily, Izuku looked up to the Langstroms, their faces filled with a worrisome apprehension on their features. They looked at each other and then back to Izuku, their mouths opening, putting together sounds, but no words left their lips, they floundered to explain what was happening to Izuku having no clue where to begin.

For only a single minute the silence permeated the air around them as they looked at each other with worrying glances, each look worth a million words yet they all meant nothing simultaneously. Each word was written in an ever-changing lead, every word was being rubbed out from the paper leaving nothing but rubber shavings. Their faces told Izuku a lot yet conveyed so little, each time he looked at them or tried to gauge their reactions they swiftly changed expressions much to his dismay.

Izuku furrowed his brow in a state of confusion mixed with despair, watching his trusted peers labour gruesomely, attempting to tell Izuku the horrific truth but failing to find the words to inform him about this critical revelation. Each gruelling second felt like hours as Kirk scratched the back of his head confusedly, looking at Francine with alarming desperation, his lips curling into a disconcerting frown filled with confusion.

A gaze bottling up a dark ocean of anxiety and grief in Franine's eyes looked back onto Kirk, her eyes were glassy as they seemed to crack up as though the ocean in her eyes was about to break forth and spill litres of tears. Her lip jerked frightfully up and down trying to keep a smile on her face but she was losing her composure rapidly, turning her head towards Izuku. She let out a single tear as she attempted to thrust a smile on her face but it was all in vain, she fell to her knees balling her eyes out crying loudly as if she just witnessed a loved one shot down in front of her.

Kirk brought himself down to her level as he made an effort to console her, as he peered at Izuku he saw nothing but a dreadful horror on Izuku's face as he began to lose himself in the madness around him. Kirk realised he had to man up and explain to the painfully lost Izuku. He stood up, grabbed Francine and gathered all his will with an apprehensive yet determined expression on his face, taking a deep breath before speaking he said with a trembling voice. "I-I-We don't know how to tell you this Izuku, but we think you're the Man-Bat."

Izuku's heart sank in his chest beneath an ocean depths worth of darkness sinking into the ocean floor tied to an anchor of denial and disbelief, "No, no, no! It can't be true! Please tell me it isn't true!" Izuku roared from the top of his lungs, as he vehemently detested Kirk's claims, his bloodshot eyes plagued by thousands of red rivers snaking their way to his irises as a never-ending waterfall of tears ran down his cheeks, "I'm afraid it's true Izuku, you are the Man-Bat." Kirk struggled to tell Izuku, he knew he'd be confused and upset but had no other way to tell him and let him down easily.

Thousands of questions raced through Izuku's head at that moment, he hoped and prayed that everything he was experiencing was just a vivid nightmare. Just when Izuku thought he had cried as much as he could, his eyes seemed to unleash a never-ending torrent of tears shattering through his eyes. He refused to accept reality as nothing but an accursed nightmare but no matter how hard he prayed or wished that this was all a dream that would be over soon it never came, his thoughts swirled in his mind like a tornado picking up loose thoughts and ideas and spinning them around in a cacophony of madness.