A week had passed.
Midoriya had settled into Mutant Town the way you settle into a place that asks nothing of you, carefully at first, then more naturally. He'd helped tend the gardens, assisted a mutant engineer who was working on getting running water routed to a few of the outer buildings, and generally made himself useful wherever there was something to carry or fix or clean up. Mr. M had his reasons for not solving every problem himself. If he just conjured everything people needed, this wouldn't be a community; it'd be a resort. And a resort wasn't what anyone here needed. They needed somewhere to belong.
So Midoriya worked. And it was, quietly, good.
That morning, he arrived at the classroom early. Black t-shirt, jeans, nothing remarkable. He wrote his name on the board, turned around, and found a dozen pairs of young eyes staring at him with barely contained recognition.
"Are you Powerhouse?"
"Yeah." He blinked. "I am."
"You're the mutant from Genosha?"
"Yeah, I'm actually surprised so many of you know who I am."
That opened the floodgates.
A hand shot up. What happened to his arms? He explained, briefly, keeping it light: bad guy, worse situation, nothing he couldn't handle in the end. Another hand was he in New York during the invasion? He confirmed it. A third, did he fight the Hulk?
He exhaled through his nose.
"Okay. Yes. I was in New York. Yes, I fought the Hulk." He looked around the room. "Any more questions? Because we do have a lesson to get to."
A voice came from the doorway.
"There's one more."
He turned.
A girl stood at the threshold, blonde, around his age, with the slightly lost expression of someone who'd been told to report somewhere and wasn't entirely sure why. She had an easy confidence underneath it, though. The kind that didn't need to announce itself.
"Oh, hey." Midoriya straightened. "Who are you?"
"I'm new. Someone told me to come help." She glanced past him at the class. "What are you teaching?"
"Genoshan Sign Language."
"Hmm." She raised her hand, made a single fluid gesture in front of her face, almost casual, like brushing away smoke. Her eyes lit up, faintly. Every child in the room blinked in unison.
"Wait, is that "
"Telepathy, sort of." She lowered her hand. "Mine works a little differently. That should do it."
Midoriya turned back to the class. "Can everyone understand me?"
Several of the kids signed back immediately, perfectly, fluently, without hesitation. Clean responses. Natural phrasing.
"...Yeah." He looked at her. "That works."
"I'd hope so." She smiled. "I'm Irma. You can probably guess I knew who you were."
"You watched the footage?"
"Most of it." A pause. "You look less dead in person."
"I get that a lot." He studied her face for a moment. "You look familiar. Where are you from?"
"San Francisco."
He nodded slowly. "Your last name wouldn't happen to be Cuckoo?"
Something shifted in her expression, not quite surprise, but close. "You know my sisters."
"I met three of them. They're all sort of..." He searched for the diplomatic version.
"Weird?"
"I was going to say a lot."
She laughed, short and genuine. "Yeah. That tracks. We're usually a package deal, but we've had our differences. I don't really want to get into the details of why we split up."
"Fair. I won't pry."
"Good." She extended her hand. "Then we'll get along fine."
He shook it.
Mr. M appeared in the doorway shortly after, took one look at the situation, and raised an eyebrow.
"Done already?"
"She handled it," Midoriya said.
Irma gave a small wave. "Hi, Mr. M."
"Hello, kid." He stepped fully into the room, looking pleased in his unhurried way. "Good to know the next generation is in capable hands. Now I could use both of you elsewhere, if you're willing."
They were.
The rest of the day was maintenance work, and the town had plenty of it. The more people arrived, the more space was needed, and the more space existed, the more things needed fixing, painting, cleaning, and organizing. Midoriya ended up at the garage working on a bike, then up on a ladder clearing gutters, then rolling a fresh coat of paint over a wall someone had tagged overnight. Irma was two streets over, helping a woman reorganize a storage space. They crossed paths twice, exchanged brief updates, and kept moving.
By the time the sun dipped low and the outdoor space in the center of town began to fill with people, Midoriya's arms were tired,d and he felt genuinely, honestly good about it.
It had been set up like an outdoor restaurant, long tables, mismatched chairs, a small stage with instruments already on it. A mutant was at the grill, igniting charcoal with a snap of his fingers. Another arrived with a large cooler of marinated meat and got to work, moving with the efficiency of someone who'd done this many times. A third stood nearby, and once the first cuts came off the grill, he began duplicating them with a careful wave of his hands, then another plate appeared, then another. After ten or so, he had to sit down and rest, working at a slower pace after that. It costs something to use the ability that many times. But it was more efficient than buying in bulk and trying to explain where the food was going.
Midoriya found a seat. Irma materialized beside him a few minutes later and sat down like she'd been planning to the whole time.
"Busy day?"
"Garage, gutters, painted a wall." He stretched his neck. "You?"
"Storage, cleaning, and helped repaint a fence." She considered. "I would have just stayed in the classroom."
"Same." He glanced at the stage where a few mutants were setting up. "If I'd known this was the plan for tonight, I might have paced myself."
"He would have known you were taking it easy."
"Yeah." He half-smiled. "Yeah, he probably would have."
The music started with a guitar first, then voices, unpolished but genuine, carrying through the warm evening air. People started moving toward the open space between the tables, pulling each other up, laughing at the ones who resisted. Midoriya watched it all with the quiet expression of someone who hasn't let themselves enjoy something in a very long time and isn't entirely sure they're allowed to.
Irma looked at him.
"Come on."
"I don't really."
"I'm not asking." She stood and offered her hand.
He thought of Laura. Be loose. Have fun. Like it was a prescription. Like it was something he'd forgotten how to fill.
He took her hand and got up.
At some point during the night, he found himself actually laughing, not performing it, not doing it because the situation called for it, but just because something was funny and he was there for it. He danced badly and didn't care. Irma was a better dancer and very clearly did not let him forget it. The food was good. The music got better as people got more comfortable. Somebody got a kid to sing who clearly hadn't planned on singing, and that became the best part of the whole evening.
By the time the night wound down, Midoriya couldn't remember the last time a day had felt that simple.
The next morning, he woke up to a message on his phone.
Charles Xavier.
He stared at the name for a moment. Then he opened it.
The message was careful, measured, the kind of thing someone rewrites three times before sending. It asked if Izuku would be willing to come back to the mansion. Everyone was worried. And, almost as an aside, that his family had been told he was alive.
He read it twice.
Then he blocked the number.
He sat with that for a moment, making sure he meant it. He did.
He opened his mom's contact instead and typed: I'm okay. Please don't worry. I'm just dealing with some things. I'll come home when I'm ready. I promise.
He hit send. Set the phone down. Looked at the ceiling.
Across the city, Inko Midoriya read the message while getting her daughter ready for a day out.
She went very still.
This was the first contact. After everything after all of it her son reached out to say let me be. She started typing back before she'd finished deciding what to say, telling him he needed to come home, that they were sick with worry. His reply was short: I'll come home when I'm ready. I just need time. It wasn't easy.
Hisashi came back into the room to find her staring at the phone with an expression he recognized.
He didn't immediately take a side. He got it, actually more than he'd expected to. They'd had months to process Izuku being gone. Midoriya had had one week. One week to wake up from something that, by all rights, should have been permanent, and face everyone who'd watched it happen and clearly knew more about what came next than he did.
Logan had told them what happened when he was young and learned what he really was. The first thing Logan had done was run. Left destruction in his wake, put as much distance as he could between himself and everything familiar, and stayed gone for a long time. Not the same details. But the same instinct.
You couldn't be surprised that this kid did the same thing. You could only decide whether to give him the space to come back on his own.
Back at the mansion, the mood was quieter.
Laura was in the common room with a few of the New Mutants, Kurt, and Kitty, who was in the middle of explaining, with increasing frustration, that she was worried and that someone had clearly told him.
"How would he have found out?" Kitty said. "He couldn't have just "
"Someone probably told him," Laura said flatly. "I'm not saying I did. I'm saying it was going to happen eventually, and someone probably told him." She paused. "Also, he overheard a conversation. I'm almost certain of it."
"Laura "
"And can I just say " she turned to face the room "that when he came back, someone went back to sleep? Didn't check on him, didn't sit with him, didn't say hey, are you okay?"
"I was tired."
"We were all tired."
"Laura." Kurt's voice was gentle, cautious. "Calm down."
"I'm calm." She stood. "I'm just saying what needs to be said."
She walked out before anyone could respond.
The room was quiet for a moment after the door clicked shut.