He hadn't told anyone.

It had been small things, at first; chapped lips, more hair than usual in the drain after a shower, an extra ache or two after a workout. He'd written it off then – it was autumn, the air was drying; it wasn't like he kept track of the hair he lost or anything; how do you quantize aches? It wasn't until he broke one of his fingers using One For All at 50% – something he could handle – that it occurred to him that anything was wrong.

They found it in his blood: someone else's Quirk factor, not dissimilar to what had happened to Togata Mirio two years prior. Somehow, some way, someone besides Chisaki Kai had found out how to "extract" and weaponize a Quirk, and they'd delivered it in the same payload – a standard 10mm round, right into Izuku's shoulder.

The Quirk in question wasn't a particularly complex one and belonged to a man who'd been missing since the previous summer – Withering. Relief was the first thing he felt; if it's not complex, then there should be an easy solution, right? – but this wasn't so, and when the doctor explained the Quirk by its registry description, he felt that contaminated, tainted blood of his drain from his face, and his head spun.

"The Withering Quirk affects an object much like the passage of time," came that grim, final diagnosis. "Anything under its influence" - and here the doctor swallowed, hard – "will, um, wither away."

A beat.

"…And that means?" Izuku murmured.

"I can't say for certain how long you have left." There it was, that weary, reluctant sigh. "I'm…sorry, Midoriya-san. We'll try our best to find some way to reverse this, but I can't make any promises."

The young man sitting on the examination table took a deep breath and closed his eyes for a moment.

Opened them.

Let his lips curve upward, even a little.

Because, even when it hurts the most, a hero always smiles.

"Don't apologize," Izuku told him. "It's nothing you did, doctor."

Maybe his smile was a little too watery, a little too thin, but he gave it his best shot anyway, even as his head spun and his heart raced.

"It'll be okay."

How would everyone he knew react to the fact eighteen-year-old Midoriya Izuku was going to die of old age?

It was a little hard to believe that something so simple would be his downfall, the end of all things; he'd never anticipated that his journey to number one would end before it had even began, cut short by something so unnaturally natural.

The walk he took after leaving the hospital was supposed to clear his head, but all it did was make his eyes sting, and he didn't know whether the tears that sprang so readily forth were from the wind or from just how unfair his prognosis was.

Damnit! he wanted to scream. God – FUCKING – damnit! After everything – after all this – after what All Might gave me – this is how it ends!?

He would have sent a One For All-empowered jet of wind pressure into the sky out of sheer frustration, had he been certain it wouldn't break his bones again.

Jamming his hands into his jacket pockets, Izuku passed by the park's pond, where a few ducks – late to the migratory party, he supposed – still dabbled in the stagnant water, filtering out whatever it was they ate with a rapid clattering of their bills. As he approached, they stopped, eyeing him suspiciously, and when he drew near enough, they began to move slowly away, towards the far end of the pond.

He wondered if his friends would respond the same way when they found out what was going to happen to him.

Would he turn into an old man? Would his body just shrivel up and dry out, a husk that had once contained Midoriya Izuku? Would his flesh rot off his bones like something straight out of a horror film? He didn't know.

Running his fingers through his hair yielded a few thick tufts of it, dense and green and curly. He opened his palm, watching the strands scatter on the breeze, caught up and borne aloft with the leaves fluttering down around him; if he closed his eyes, he could imagine them turning deep red before fading into brilliant orange and crisp, dead yellow, crunching under someone's boot in the near future.

"Hey, Deku-kun!"

…And there was the last voice he wanted to hear right now.

"Uraraka-san?" Izuku turned to face her, his best friend since their first week at Yuuei, and blinked, not quite able to believe his eyes. But no, there she was, bundled against the chilly autumn day in a turtleneck and knit cap, wearing a smile as radiant as the sun.

With how he was feeling just then, he very much could have gone blind just looking at her, so Izuku averted his eyes, choosing to watch the ducks to his left instead.

"Whatcha doin' all the way out here?" she asked, half-jogging up to him with a bounce in her step. "And you can call me Ochako, y'know!"

"I know, I just – what are you doing here?" Izuku mirrored, trying to avoid answering the question and look pleased to see her at the same time. To his relief, she bought it, responding with a grand, sweeping gesture that covered everything around them.

"I take walks here all the time. It's so peaceful that I can hardly believe just past those trees there everyone's still bustlin' around and makin' a racket. You uh, mind if I walk with ya, Deku-kun?"

The look she gave him wasn't one he could say no to, and a few minutes later, they stopped to rest on a bench. He was definitely worse off than he'd been just a few days ago; a walk wouldn't have winded him then, but here he was, having to catch his breath, gripping the biting cold of the wrought-iron armrest next to him with all the strength he could muster.

"Ya think it's gonna rain?" Ochako asked him, staring up at the clouds. Leaning over his knees, Izuku turned his head to the right to look at her and nearly ran out of breath twice over; her silhouette was striking against the steely sky, the loose strands of chocolate-brown hair that framed her face lit up like a halo by the iron sun behind her, a thousand shades of red and gold cascading down from the trees like dying embers.

"Maybe."

He didn't want her to see that he was crying again.

"You sure? Your face is kinda wet."

Nevermind. She'd seen.

"I…oh." – and she'd caught on. "Deku-kun, why…?"

"Why what?" he tried to respond, only to hiccup and choke on the wh sound and very suddenly he was actually crying, trying his damndest not to sob as Ochako scooted closer on the bench and placed one warm, soft hand on his back.

He wouldn't tell her. He couldn't tell her.

She didn't pry, but when she gently-but-firmly pulled him into her arms, he didn't resist, burying his face in the safety of her shoulder; she smelled like strawberries, and something about that struck him as profoundly beautiful.

Strawberries, something wonderful but ephemeral…

"Shh, Deku-kun. It's okay," she soothed. "I'm here now, if that means anythin'. You don' have to talk, but I'll listen if you wanna, 'kay?" One hand rubbed at his back, while the other combed through his green curls.

Suddenly, her tone changed. "You um, you might wanna look at this, though."

He pulled back only to see that, in the hand she'd just been running through his hair, she held still more discarded follicles, far more than was normal (and they both knew it).

"Sorry," he whispered, hoarsely. "It's…I'm…Ochako-chan, I don't know anymore."

"Are you sick?" she murmured back. "Please, Deku-kun. I wanna help."

When he finally met her eyes, they were brimming with tears, and that was what broke him. Ochako, who did nothing but hide her pain and push forward to make everyone else happy, was crying, and he told her everything: the shooting, the way he'd become out of shape in a surprisingly short period of time, the hair loss, breaking his finger with his own Quirk. The hospital visit – had he really only left that sterile hell an hour ago? - and what would come next.

When he finished talking (only a minute later, for it wasn't a particularly lengthy story), he thought she'd shut down and immediately rushed to apologize, only to have his muttered "sorry" swept away by a very sudden, very tight hug.

"I'm sorry, Deku-kun."

"It's just like I told the doctor," he tried to console her. "There's nothing to be sorry for. You didn't do anything."

"No," she corrected him, her breath tickling his ear. "I'm sorry I've been takin' you for granted, Deku-kun."

"What – what are you talking about?" he stammered out, confusion joining pain in the tangled jumble of emotions welling up in his chest. "You haven't been taking me for granted…"

"I have!" Her response was unexpectedly violent, and she must have realized this, because she pulled back, expression soft but otherwise unreadable. "I have. I'm always thinkin' you'll be there whenever I need ya…and now…I never really treated ya like whatcha really mean to me."

"What do you mean?"

She swallowed, hard, and his heart dropped into the pit of his stomach.

"I'm sorry, Deku-kun."

The kiss was short, salty, and he barely registered it; her lips were soft and warm, too pure to meet his dry ones, tainted by withering, and when she pulled away, there was fear in her eyes, like a trapped animal. Only his reflexes, carefully honed by the past couple of years, were able to stop her from bolting – the moment she moved, he caught her, pulling into another hug, and they melted into one another, the wet spots on each other's shoulders only growing.

"Please, Ochako-chan," he said. "Don't…don't do this to yourself. I'm gonna die."

Saying it out loud wasn't as painful as he thought it would be.

"I'm gonna die," he repeated, "and you're just gonna get hurt even worse…"

"You think I'm gonna let you die without lettin' you know how I feel?" she breathed back. "Come on, Deku-kun…you're smarter'n that."

He – almost – chuckled. "Yeah. Yeah, I…I guess so."

What was he feeling? He couldn't tell – an untapped well of emotion he'd never felt before bubbled up inside of him, and he was no fool; it was pretty obvious that what she'd just done had been the catalyst for its sudden upheaval. At the same time, there was still that horrible, hollow dread in the center of his chest:

I'm going to die, and this is going to end as soon as it began.

But, almost as if she'd read his mind, Ochako pressed another kiss to his cheek, lips grazing his cheekbone (which stuck out more than she remembered it doing just a couple of weeks ago). "Even if it's only a lil' while…stay with me, 'kay? An' I'll stay with you, no matter what happens." When he opened his mouth to respond, she added one more thing: "An' don't go pullin' any of that hero crap on me, Deku-kun. I think, jus' this once…you don' have to smile for everyone."

And that broke him.

"Promise me," he whispered, and stopped.

"Promise ya what?" she prodded.

"Promise me you'll stay here until the end, okay?"

"…Okay."

They held one another on that bench for a very, very long time.

It was another day, and Dagobah Municipal Beach glittered in fall sunlight.

"This is where it all started," Izuku told Ochako. "It's where I trained with All Might just so my body could handle my Quirk in time for the entrance exam."

"Wasn't this place full of trash a couple years ago?" she said, scrunching up her face.

"Um, yeah. My training was cleaning the beach up." Sheepish admission over with, Izuku scratched at the back of his head, self-consciously; more hair fell out.

"Wait, what!?" Ochako shrilled. "That was you, Deku-kun!?"

"Haha…I didn't think it was that big of a deal back then." He smiled, a little more naturally now. "I was just happy to be ready for the exam…I stood on top of that last garbage pile and screamed until I passed out and All Might caught me."

"That reminds me…how the heck did you get All Might for a personal trainer?" she asked.

"Ah, that's a bit of a long story. And…a personal one. You'd have to ask All Might if it's okay with him, one day."

"…Is it okay with you?"

He considered it a moment. "Yeah. I'm fine with it."

She reached over and twined her fingers with his; his skin felt more papery somehow, looser, thinner. It wasn't the steadfast, sturdy Izuku she knew, and her heart sank at such a tangible manifestation of his condition.

But Ochako held on tight, squeezing his hand right back. He'd been there for her through everything – through their first sports festival, through every single villain attack, through all her pain, all her doubt – and as far as she was concerned, it was time for her to be there for him.

It was another day, and another cross on the calendar.

"Where are we going, Ochako-chan?"

He was definitely paler now than he'd been on the beach, but she tried her hardest to ignore it, tugging him along by the hand, almost wincing at the way the skin on his fingers moved –

"Ouch!"

There was blood, then. That same skin had torn a little, and blood – dark, deoxygenated – bubbled up from the fresh tear, so starkly there against his white-paper hand.

"Ah – Deku-kun! I'm sorry! I'm so sorry!" she gushed, reaching into her pocket for a bandage; she'd been carrying them for a few days now, ever since he'd gotten a scrape from a chain-link fence. He was still and silent as she gingerly, tenderly, wrapped the adhesive strip around the side of his palm, making sure the sterile pad lay flush with the wound, and when she'd finished, he tried to smile.

"Th-thanks."

"Deku-kun, I – "

"It's funny, isn't it?" he went on, his voice a little higher. "That this would happen in fall, I mean…"

"It's not funny at all!" she wanted to scream, but she kept it inside, waiting for him to finish.

"It's just…." Izuku paused, taking a couple of steps forward to draw level with her, to stand beside her one more time, hands in his jacket pockets again. "Fall's when everything ends. All the leaves turn, then they fall off and die. The grass shrivels up and crunches under your shoes. All the warmth leaves the air…and it gets dark earlier and earlier every day." A light laugh. "So…me, withering away…it's just like the season. It almost feels natural. I've never empathized more with a tree in my life."

"Deku-kun…"

"And – " and here he choked " – and winter…everything's so still, and cold, and silent…O-Ochako-chan, promise me something else?"

She bit her lip. "Um, let's get to where I was takin' ya first, okay? It's not too much further."

"Sure."

By the time they got to the hilltop, Izuku was nearly out of breath, but if he'd had much left, it would have been taken away anyway: a single bench, planted atop the hill, faced a brilliant tangerine sunset, a flaming ball bleeding its life into the earth. When he took a seat a respectful distance from Ochako, however, she scooted to close the gap, pressing her side against his.

"Ah, Ochako-chan…?"

"Go on, Deku-kun," she murmured. "Promise you what?"

"I…even if winter seems like it'll last forever…promise me spring will come, okay?"

She didn't think he meant the seasons, and as the full implications of what he was saying dawned on her, something burned at the corners of her eyes.

"I don't know if I can promise that," Ochako whispered.

Fat, sparkling teardrops rolled down her rosy cheeks.

"Please." – and then he was crying too; neither of them knew how it happened, but their lips crashed together for the second time in a week, sweet and bitter and beautiful and horrible all at once; even though his lips were dry, it was almost as if he was pouring his very life into her, or at least what remained of it, and she choked back a sob with just how very Izuku it was.

When they finally broke apart, he didn't let go, meeting her gaze. Those green eyes of his glowed, actually glowed, and with a start, she recognized it as the same glow of his Quirk – something only someone who'd spent a lot of time with Midoriya Izuku would have noticed. "Something to remember me by," he told her.

She let the sob out, but it was nothing compared to what happened when they decided it was time to head home.

"Ochako-chan?" he called, a note of panic in his voice. "I, um, I can't…move my legs."

"What!?"

"Could you, ah, could you…carry me?" His face burned, and she knew how humiliating it must have been for him to ask something like that. "I'm sorry."

"Don't be sorry, Deku-kun!" she half-shouted. "Please! I'll do it. Hold out your arm, 'kay?"

He did. A moment later, he was weightless, and she hoisted him easily onto her back, even as he buried his face in her strawberry-scented hair and screamed into the back of her sweater.

It was there, on that hilltop, with her broken best friend – the person she loved – letting out his raw, wordless grief, that Uraraka Ochako learned something that would stay with her for the rest of her days.

Zero Gravity couldn't take away the weight of the world.

"Heya, Deku-kun."

A small, watery smile.

"Hey, Ochako-chan." He tried to return it, but when he moved to sit up, he winced, and Ochako hurried to shift his pillow for him. "Ah – don't worry about it, really. I'm fine."

"Are you?" she countered, sounding a little more aggressive than she'd intended. "Oh – no, I'm sorry, I didn't – "

"It's okay," Izuku chuckled, and even now, hearing him laugh made her feel a little better. "I've had a lot of time to think, and I think I'm coming to terms with all this, you know?" He raised a hand to his face, the nailbeds dark, the skin a little saggy, veins backlit by the cold daylight from the hospital window. "I'm glad I ran into you at the park, Ochako-chan. I'm glad I got to share so much with you."

"I wish we coulda shared more," she blurted out before she could stop herself. Izuku just smiled, hair definitely greying now.

"Me too. But I'm gonna hold onto what we have."

"Izuku…"

He paused. She never used his first name.

"Ochako?"

Without warning, she threw herself at him, catching herself in time to avoid hurting him; for a long few minutes, he held her, until she turned her head and murmured three words.

"I love you."

A long ten seconds passed, and it was only when she moved to pull away that he squeezed her tighter and whispered back.

"I love you."

There was a wet spot on the pillow, and her face was red, but for the first time since that day at the park, Ochako beamed.

"Are we interrupting anything?" came a voice from the doorway. Ochako turned, startled, and Izuku tilted his head to get a better view of the newcomers.

There, leaning against the doorframe, was Aizawa Shouta, with Togata Mirio and –

"Eri-chan?" Izuku asked, totally confused. "What're you doing here…?"

"Um, um, otosan told me about what was wrong," the girl got out, and Izuku had to admire how far she'd come from the shaking little kid who'd been tortured by the villain Overhaul – she even called Aizawa by the term for father now. "How you got hurt by a Quirk like Mirio-nii…"

"So you wanted to come see me, huh?" Izuku gave Eri a warm smile, and Ochako felt a little warm inside, seeing him like this; he and Mirio both treated her like a little sister, and it never failed to put a smile on her face when she saw how happy it made Eri, even now.

"Yeah, but – I, um, I thought I might…be able to…" What exactly she thought she could do, she didn't say, choosing instead to stare at her shoes, and Aizawa stepped in to explain.

"I spoke with Recovery Girl about this," he explained. "It's been a long week, but we eventually decided that it's worth trying, assuming you want to do it. As Eri's legal guardian, I will allow her."

"What are you talking about, Aizawa-sensei?" Izuku asked, scrunching up the left side of his face in confusion.

"Pretty simple stuff," Mirio cut in, flashing Izuku one of his trademark smiles; even Quirkless, he'd never given in to despair, and Izuku had no idea how he managed it. "We still don't know how it'll work with me, since it's Eri-chan's own Quirk, but it's just a matter of reversing time for you, right? And that's exactly what Eri-chan can do!"

"It's not quite that simple, Togata," Aizawa sighed, rubbing his eyes. "But it wouldn't be rational to go on and on about it right now. The point is, her Quirk is capable of restoring your body to its prior state, as we found out during the raid on the Precepts two years ago. I am capable of using my Quirk to stop her, should things get out of hand. But there's still a chance it could fail, and if Eri-chan becomes overly stressed or emotional, you might be rewound a little further back than you'd like…or out of existence entirely."

The room was silent for a long moment, then Eri spoke up.

"I wanna help Izu-nii."

"You sure, Eri-chan?" Izuku asked. "I don't want you getting hurt for me…"

"That's just like you, Deku-kun," Ochako murmured, to herself more than anyone.

"Sure, I'm sure!" the girl shot back, little fists clenched at her sides. "I've been tryin' real hard to control my Quirk, even if it's super scary…'cause I wanna be Izu-nii's hero, too."

He blinked. Across the room, Mirio grinned, and though Aizawa gazed out into the hallway, Izuku had a feeling that even their stoic, expressionless teacher might have been hiding a smile.

"Look!" Eri piped up, reaching into her pocket; to Izuku's surprise, she pulled out what looked like... "I turned a flower back into a seed, Izu-nii! I did it all by myself, too!"

"Wow," Izuku replied, genuinely impressed that the girl had taken it upon herself to overcome her fear of her Quirk – and more than a little touched that she'd done it for him, of all things… "That's great, Eri-chan!"

"We'll let you think it over first," Aizawa drawled, staring at the doorframe now. "I'll come back in a couple of hours."

And he left the room.

Mirio, lips twitching, strolled over to Izuku's bedside and leaned down, whispering conspiratorially: "He acts like he doesn't care, but you should have seen him when he read the note from your doctor. Don't think I've ever seen Aizawa-sensei make a face like that before, and I don't think his eyes were red from using his Quirk, either."

Izuku swallowed. He was going to cry again, but for a very different reason this time.

"Thanks, Togata-san," he whispered.

"Hey, what's with the formality?" Mirio joked. "I thought we were friends!"

"We are!" Izuku stammered out. "I just – I – "

"Take it easy," the other laughed. "I'm kidding around. You're so serious sometimes, Midoriya-kun."

Izuku sank back into his pillow with a sigh, pinching the bridge of his nose.

"For real, though," Mirio went on. "We'll come back in a little bit. Think it out, alright? I'm sure Uraraka-san here would be happy to talk about it, too."

He shot Izuku a wink before leading Eri out of the hospital room with a last wave from the both of them, leaving Izuku and Ochako alone again.

Ochako sat with Iida Tenya, Bakugou Katsuki and Todoroki Shouto in the waiting room.

It had been a surprisingly difficult decision. He hadn't wanted to stress Eri, but at the same time, she'd seemed so eager to help, to the point of practicing with the Quirk she was so afraid of; he'd already started to come to terms with everything, and having a new lease on life come out of absolutely nowhere had sent him into a fit of tears, which she'd joined him in; finally, he'd been afraid that she, Ochako, would just forget about everything they'd shared the past couple of weeks…

She'd called him "a big dummy", and he'd laughed.

So here they were, two days later, waiting. The Izuku that had been wheeled into the operating room – why exactly they needed an operating room to let Eri use her Quirk was beyond Ochako's comprehension – was little more than a breathing corpse by that point, cheeks hollow, eyes dark and sunken, skin fragile and bones poking out all over his emaciated body (those collarbones she'd spent so long admiring were incredibly pronounced in the worst possible way).

The Izuku they wheeled out – what would he be?

Who would he be, if he survived?

She knew this was a flighty situation for Eri and Aizawa, too; if Eri lost control and did something to Izuku, she'd be broken, and Aizawa would never forgive himself for letting her (and Izuku) get hurt.

But, as it stood, all they could do was wait.

"Dumbass," Bakugou muttered, but Ochako had a feeling he could have blown the entire city sky-high with the sweat he was producing right just then.

Todoroki, as usual, said nothing, eyes fixed on the waiting room door.

Iida tried to fill in the silence, but after a few minutes of small talk with Ochako, the conversation petered out, and they resigned themselves to this wordless torment. Somewhere, in another room, right now, Izuku was hooked up to a dozen instruments, all beeping and lighting up, and Eri was probably hooked up to another dozen, and Aizawa would be scowling to hide what he felt again, and Eri would be shaking, and Izuku was probably crying, and just thinking about it was enough for Ochako to bow her head and watch her own tears fall onto her clenched hands, resting pointlessly in her lap.

"Promise me one more thing?"

She paused, framed in the doorway. "Yeah?"

He held out a hand, and she traced the scars along his arm, faded by forced age.

"Don't forget."

Two hours passed.

"Do you think something's gone wrong?" Todoroki said, suddenly.

"How the hell are we supposed to know?" Bakugou snarled back. "Fuckin' Deku, makin' us wait like this!"

"Bakugou-kun! This is a waiting room!" Iida lectured, as hushed as he could manage. "Please, keep your voice down!"

Bakugou opened his mouth to respond, but Ochako cut him off. "Hey – here comes a doctor!" she hissed, and all four of them sat up, eyeing the woman as she approached, white coat swaying a little with each step.

"Are you all here for Midoriya-san?" she asked them, expression unreadable. Ochako nodded fiercely, while Bakugou grunted and looked away as Iida gave a single, sharp salute. Todoroki remained still and silent. "The procedure is finished."

"And?" Ochako pressed. "Is he okay? What happened?"

"Would you like to see him?"

"Of course!" Iida declared; Ochako hushed him, and he blinked awkwardly for a moment before bowing in apology. "Please. Take us to Midoriya-kun, doctor-san!"

And she did.

When they reached his room, seven people cried.