Bakudeku Book of Stories

Broken Dreams

🚨🚨Hey just a heads up fam squad, this one is pretty heavy. It deals a lot with feelings of numbness due to tragedy so if numbness is a trigger for you I would recommend skipping this one. Much love to you all.🚨🚨

Izuku filled the bathtub with scalding hot water, hopefully the heat would finally make him feel something. Izuku is normally an emotional person, but it feels like his brain decided the pain was too much to handle so it turned his feelings off to try to cope with the situation.

Izuku undresses, his clothes falling into an ungraceful heap on the white tile floor. He steps into the tub and the heat burns his skin red. He sits there silently, his knees pulled up to his chest.

Izuku stares at the faucet that they have yet to fix as it drips water into the tub at a steady pace.

Plink. Plink. Plink.

Katsuki cried. He hid his tears, but he cried while Izuku just stood there in the hospital room frozen. He felt the gut wrenching pain for a few moments before his head shut it down.

He tries to bring the pain back because he should feel it. He should be in agonising pain for her. His baby girl. His child who he'll never get to hold. He won't ever hear her voice. He won't get the life he's imagined.

Izuku sits there, numb, waiting for the onslaught of pain to hit him but it doesn't. He listens to Katsuki slam around the house. He can hear his sobs and Izuku knows he should be out there comforting him, but what good would an emotionless robot do? Izuku plays the surrogate's words over and over in his head.

"H-He was suffocating me. I-I was o-out of oxygen for too long. I-I tried to g-get a-away but-"

"No one is blaming you for the villain attack." Katsuki had cut in.

Izuku first thought he was trying to spare their surrogate, but one look on his husband's face told him he couldn't bear to hear anymore. They already knew what happened anyways.

Izuku tries to process the numbness when a thought hits him. It's selfish but.... what if he didn't try to feel again? He wouldn't feel the pain or the other emotions that went with grieving. He might be able to find some sort of normalcy in the numbness eventually.

The bathroom door swings open and Katsuki steps in. He strips in silence before stepping into the bath. He winces at the temperature and eases down behind Izuku, pulling him to his chest.

Izuku feels droplets of water fall and roll down his back. He lets Katsuki cry in the quiet space he's created.

"Why the hell am I the only one of us that's in pain?" Katsuki asks, the last word of his sentence cracking.

Izuku turns to face him for the first time since they got to the hospital. He watches his husband's face shift into a look of unease and concern as he stares back at the blank expression he wears.

"I can't feel any of it, Kacchan." His voice sounds lifeless even to his own ears.

"My brain decided the pain was too much and closed down shop."

Katsuki doesn't pretend to understand. He can't fathom to just stop feeling the hurt of losing their child.

"I was thinking," Izuku swallows thickly.

"Maybe it would be best if I didn't try to get my emotions back."

Ruby red eyes bore into Izuku's dull, emerald green ones.

"What about happiness?" Katsuki asks.

"What about the pain?" Izuku counters.

"What about our friends?" Katsuki tries.

"What about the fear?" Izuku replies.

"What about me!?" Katsuki snaps and Izuku watches tears brim his eyes.

It's that, Katsuki staring at him in desperation because he can't do this alone, that makes Izuku feel his first emotion again.

Izuku is scared. He's scared to feel. Tears slide down his cheeks. He tries searching for the numbness inside himself because he doesn't want to feel this.

"I can't, Kacchan. I can't." Izuku begs.

He knows he's being selfish. He knows, but he can't help but crave the numbness.

"Deku you might think that being empty inside is a good thing, but it's not." Katsuki takes a deep breath.

"We're going to talk about it and hopefully you'll feel something."

Izuku shakes his head frantically. Katsuki holds him closer to his body.

"At eight a.m, Hana Saitō was attacked by a villain with a strong telekinetic quirk."

Izuku attempts to cover his ears but Katsuki grabs his wrist, preventing him from blocking out his voice. Katsuki's voice starts to shake slightly.

"In an attempt to get away with murder, he used his quirk to choke her so it wouldn't leave any dna evidence linking him to the crime."

Izuku can feel the numbness chipping away. He wants to make Katsuki stop talking. He wants Katsuki to spare him.

"Luckily, Uraraka was in the area and was able to save Hana."

No, no, no, no! He doesn't want to hear this!

Izuku feels emotions start to dribble through the cracks in his numbness, but luckily he doesn't feel the pain yet.

"She brought Hana Saitō unconscious to the hospital. They ran tests to make sure there was no permanent damage to her system." Katsuki goes quiet for a moment and Izuku foolishly thinks he's stopped there. He isn't that lucky.

"The baby girl..." Katsuki struggles to continue.

"That she was carrying didn't survive."

And there it is. The agony breaks through the numb wall like a torrent of water smashing through a dam. Izuku muffles a scream in Katsuki's chest as the pain of it all wrecks through his body. He's sobbing because all he can do is let it happen. The sounds coming out of his body shouldn't qualify as human.

Katsuki drops his wrists and wraps his arms in a vice grip around Izuku. Izuku sobs, loud and ugly, and for the first time he understands why Iida took on Stain back when they were in UA. Izuku understands that thirst for revenge now and he's not sure what to do about it.

"It's not fair!" His words come out barely discernible.

"I know." Katsuki says, tears quietly running down his cheeks.

"That was our baby, Kacchan! That was our child!" He stares up at his husband, both their faces twisted in pain for the other and their child that passed.

"What did we do wrong!?" Katsuki wipes away Izuku's tears only for them to be replaced with fresh ones.

"I don't know." He whispers back to Izuku, hurt emanating from his tone.

Izuku feels himself inwardly collapse. He wants to disappear. He wants to scream at the top of his lungs until his throat bleeds. He wants to dissolve into nothing. He wants and wants all these things, but most of all, he wishes he could go back in time and stop the villain from ever attacking Hana.

No, that's not quite right. Izuku wishes to break every bone in the villain's body and give him a slow and painful death before he could ever get to his baby. Yes, that's what Izuku wants. Izuku doesn't know how long they sit in the tub. He just keeps crying and wondering why the dream of a beautiful family had to be crushed so ruthlessly.