Chapter Text
The end of All Might happens on a warm, breezy Tuesday.
It happens too quickly to do anything about, not that Izuku could've. Between one breath and the next, All Might is pinned by a piece of rebar, choking out a gasp thick with blood.
They were just out for ice cream. They were only there by chance.
Izuku had finished training faster than All Might expected, and All Might decided that he deserved a cheat day. (" Don't make it a habit, haha!" ) They went to another prefecture to prolong the moment a little longer, as Izuku wasn't expected back at home until dusk. They both hadn't really wanted the day to end.
And then a villain, unseen and unnoticed, attacked. There were screams, and the buildings around them rumbled and shook, and something shot through the one nearest to them and it all went crumbling down. All Might went with it.
All Might clutched at his chest, thin hands white and trembling. The rebar went through his side, the same side as his old injury. Izuku couldn't move.
It's only when his mentor falls to his knees, forehead pressed to the ground as he gasps, that Izuku can break through the cold fear icing his veins. He rushes to his side, face no doubt ashen with shock. His jaw wobbles violently as he collapses next to All Might, hands hovering over him but not touching due to the very real fear of making his injury worse.
"All Might?" Izuku says it too loud, he's sure, but it doesn't matter , not when All Might is coughing and sputtering and blood is pooling around his body like angel wings. "All Might, All Might get up, we've— we've gotta get out of here—"
All Might just wheezes. As he moves, the rebar poking out of his stomach shifts inside him and he hisses. Izuku hurries to lay him out on his side so he can't jostle it any more.
"All Might—" his voice shakes dangerously, but he can't cry, not now. He has to be the strong one here, strong enough to stay calm until he can get All Might help. "Help— help will be here soon, I promise."
He smiles. It's probably more of a pained grimace, but he smiles. That's the important part.
The blood pool grows wider. All Might takes in one shuddering breath and speaks.
"My boy," he rasps, "help won't arrive in time."
Izuku flinches. "Don't— don't say that! Of course it will. You know how fast EMT's are at getting to the scene of attacks—"
All Might raises a spindly hand and pulls Izuku's gesturing hand down to rest in his lap. It stays curled around his own.
"They won't check here until it's too late." He says. "I can feel it. I'll be gone before anybody arrives."
Izuku finally lets out a sob, tears streaming down his face and dripping onto All Might's shirt, but just as quickly he wipes them away. He needs to have full sight of All Might, needs to absorb his presence as if that will make up for all the time they're going to lose.
"You— you can't leave," he warbles. "Please. Please don't leave."
All Might's hand travels from his hand to his cheek, thumbing at it softly. He gently wipes away the tear tracks on his cheeks. "I'm sorry," his face crumples. "I wish we had more time. There's so much I needed to tell you."
With his unoccupied hand, he wipes at the blood on the concrete and lifts it to Izuku's mouth, pressing it to his lips. "I thought I'd be the one to pass one for all off while still alive, but it seems I was wrong." He laughs wetly. Izuku swallows. The taste of copper makes him want to throw up.
"You— you aren't dead , stop talking like you are!"
All Might just smiles at that. A cough wracks his body, and he cringes in pain. Then a thought occurs to him. He searches his pockets for something, pulling out his phone.
"Take it," he gasps out. "Call Gran Torino. He'll help you with One For All. He'll tell you everything."
"He doesn't need to tell me anything, because you're right here!" Izuku cries.
"Izuku." He says, and the boy stops.
"I can tell I'm dying." He says softly. "One For All is pulling at me. I don't want to leave either, but I don't believe I'm getting out of this."
Izuku just sobs. He's got a feeling, right in his bones, that says All Might isn't going to make it out of here alive, but he doesn't want to listen to it. He can't.
"Maybe I can— maybe I can call for help? Tell them there's someone really hurt."
"I've lost too much blood." He says. Grief clouds his expression. "I really am sorry. I wanted to stay and raise you right, like Nana never got to for me. But it seems like fate had other plans."
And then he smiles, wide and bloody, and says, "I'm so sorry, Izuku. I wish I got to watch you grow. I love you. Please, be the one to survive."
He coughs. The hand against Izuku's cheek grows weaker. "Please smile for me, my boy? Humor an old man."
And Izuku smiles through the shaking and the tears. He cannot save All Might, but he can give him this last comfort.
And between one breath and the next, All Might is gone.
Between one breath and the next, Izuku gains a quirk and loses the one person who believed in him.
He's still smiling. He's so cold.
Izuku stays there for hours, hunched over a dead body. Eventually he runs out of tears.
Several hours after everything goes wrong, EMT's finally spot him sitting alone in the deserted plaza, hurrying over only to gasp in shock at the sight of the man he's staring at with empty eyes.
They try to pull him away, and he kicks and fights, but he's weak from sitting for hours and weak from grief, and they manage to pull him away and load him into the truck. One of them wraps a blanket around him. He holds it with loose fingers.
They pry a name out of him and call his mom. Inko comes rushing in thirty minutes later, tears in her eyes, and wraps her arms around Izuku.
He feels… nothing. It's like someone took him, lifted him by his feet, and shook him around until all the emotions emptied out of him and got lost on the floor. He couldn't pick them up if he tried.
The drive home is blurry. His mother attempts to talk to him, he thinks, but he's too busy drowning in a hurricane of static to respond.
When he's finally in bed, he remembers All Might's phone.
He doesn't want to pull it out. He pulls it out.
When he clicks the on button, he finally cries. It's a photo of him and All Might in his thin form. All Might has an arm slung over his shoulders, and Izuku is sneakily putting up bunny ears behind his head. The photo blurs as the tears finally run, and he throws the phone down on the bed and curls up against the wall.
He crawls towards the bed and picks up the phone again, just to look at the photo. Maybe if he never looks away, All Might will still be alive, right here in this tiny snippet of time.
And then he sniffles, shaking his head, and taps to open the phone. He goes to the contact list and scrolls until he finds the name 'Gran Torino'.
He stares for a while, at the blurry photo of what looks like a very grumpy old man in a domino mask.
Izuku doesn't end up calling.