Before my heart gives out (My hero academia)

Ticking time bomb

"WHAT DO YOU MEAN HE'S DYING!?" Aizawa couldn't help the anger he felt as Tsukauchi told him about the newly acquired information.

"Aizawa, you need to calm down. You're still healing. The nurses glared at me enough when I asked to see you." The detective muttered softly, slowly helping the man back down into the hospital bed.

It has been two days since the incident. The doctors were baffled by Aizawa's survival. They informed him that if he'd been brought in just a few seconds later, he'd be dead. Sting's venom was known to be highly lethal. Shadow had saved his life.

"How can he be dying? A dying man wouldn't have the energy or power to do what he does every day." Aizawa asked again, his voice quieter now. Solemn. He just couldn't believe it. Didn't want to.

Yes, the vigilante was a pain in the ass. The boy was a problem child. Yet, that's all he was in the end. A child.

He didn't deserve this.

"The EMT that spoke to me has a quirk that allows her to see a person's health status. All the information she was able to provide was that the kid was dying. She explained it as though it would take a couple of years but he was indeed dying."

"Do you..." Aizawa paused, mulling the question in his mind a little bit. "Do you think that's why he's a vigilante?" That was the question, wasn't it? The fact that this kid, this dying kid put his life on the line, every day, to save others.

"I guess we will have to ask him ourselves." Aizawa nodded, the detective was right. This wasn't something they could guess. This kid seemed more of a mystery to them every day. Every time, he thinks he's starting to figure the kid out, something comes up and he finds himself digging deeper. Just, what the hell has this kid been through?

Whatever was going to happen next, Aizawa needed to find a way to thank the problem child. He wouldn't be here if it wasn't for him, after all.

________________________

Izuku thanked whatever genius created the speaking option on his phone as he scrolled through his news feed. He was oddly surprised at how many times his name had been mentioned in the past few months.

When he first started out as a vigilante, the public was in an uproar. People feared and mistrusted him. However, as time went by, the people had grown to rely on him.

He was surprised at the amount of support he got from the public. People put their faith in the vigilante, put their faith in him to be there when they needed him. To save them.

As time went by, cries of help, of random pleads were turning into shouts of his name. Shouts for him to come. Somehow, they knew that he would hear them and that he'd try his damn best to be there.

It warmed his heart, every time someone called him their hero. He knew he was far from a true hero. He was an outlaw, a criminal. The government saw him, nothing more than a mere villain. Yet, it was all worth it. The feeling he gets every time he saved someone.

His mother sacrificed herself for him that night. He was going to make damn sure that it wasn't for nothing.

He hoped, that wherever she was now, that she was looking over him, a proud smile on her face. Probably a worried one too, yet a proud one nonetheless.

It saddened him, the way the memories were close to fading away permanently. He couldn't remember his mother's voice. Yet he could remember her smile perfectly. It was one of the only things he remembered from the world. From the days before his world was completely plunged into darkness.