It was That day again. The anniversary. Midoriya walked the three hundred feet from the convenience store back to his apartment, white plastic bag swinging in his hand. Kacchan had made a sponsorship deal with a cereal brand, and he'd bought a box of it, Katsuki's scowling face plastered on the front. They would probably taste horrible, but it was a way of supporting his friend. If only a little. What else could an office worker do?

He'd always managed to avoid being alone before. Each one of the twelve times it had come round, he'd been with his mother, or his friends, or his wife. Fumiko had left in the spring, but there was still a pair of her shoes in the rack by the door. Midoriya had thought about sending them to her in the mail, but something in him was reluctant to- it felt too much like giving in on the relationship. Ironic, seeing as it had been his refusal to just give up that had driven them apart in the first place.

Once he was inside the black screen of the TV stared at him like an accusatory eye. Midoriya dropped his bag of meat buns and Dynam-O's by the side of the couch and sat down. The service would be starting soon, and much as he dreaded it, he felt compelled to watch. He watched everything All Might. To do otherwise would be a sort of betrayal.

This year, Lemillion was leading the memorial service. He looked older than he did on the posters, the skin around his cheerful eyes lined despite the best efforts of the TV makeup department. Midoriya could make out the backs of two prominent sidekicks in the front row- Dave Shields and Sir Nighteye. Gran Torino wasn't there this year, but he'd been in and out of hospital, so that was hardly surprising. Kacchan never turned up to this sort of thing, but Kacchan's partner Red Riot was there in the third row, along with Endeavour's son, Permafrost.

Lemillion took to the podium, overshadowed by the statue of All Might behind him. He cleared his throat, looking at the camera. "He would have wanted us to be hopeful."

Hopeful? Midoriya scoffed, finger hovering over the power button on the remote. It had been twenty six years since the doctor had declared him quirkless. Sixteen years since he'd talked to All Might. Sixteen years since he'd flunked the UA entrance exam, the only quirkless applicant. And thirteen years since All Might had been murdered, live on television. He felt something, that was true- something urging him on through the pain and the darkness- but hope was not the word Midoriya would have chosen for it.

Desperation was closer to it.

With a sigh, Midoriya put down the remote, letting Lemillion's speech wash over him. The buns from the store smelled too oily suddenly, and he didn't feel like eating.

With Fumiko gone, Midoriya had a little more room for his own things. He'd taken the stuff from his childhood bedroom out of storage, put a few of the posters up. And a few of the action figurines, too.

"Here you go." Midoriya put the meat buns in front of the All Might figure on the side.

The doll grinned at him fearlessly, and on a whim, Midoriya pulled the string on the back.

"Never fear," the doll ground out. "For I am here!"

"You're not, though," said Midoriya, shaking his head. "You're dead."

"I am here," the doll repeated, the speaker tinny. The battery inside must have been running low.

Midoriya sighed, and pulled off his shirt, taking a stance in front of the heavy bag that hung from the ceiling behind the couch. If Fumiko was still living here, he'd have put it away until he wanted it, but now that he was living by himself he didn't see the point. He circled it, jabbing at it as Lemillion kept talking. Talking about justice, about how he wanted happiness for every citizen. To Midoriya, it grated. He hit the bag a little harder. It felt like Lemillion was skirting around the topic. He wasn't talking about the fear that people felt, the fear they still felt, even now. All Might had died gruesomely on live television, and then Endeavour a year and a half after that. Lemillion had held the number one spot for a while, but people were waiting for him to die, too. Midoriya clenched his jaw, hitting the bag full power. The Symbol of Peace was gone. Why woudn't they say it? Now Dave Shields was up on the stage, telling a story about All Might, his mouth smiling but his eyes creased at the corners. Midoriya screamed as he punched the bag.

Can even someone without a quirk be like you?

It wasn't just the anniversary. The anniversary was when he felt it most keenly, but he felt All Might's absence every day. He saw it in people's faces in the streets, where they hurried home rather than enjoy the evenings. He punched. Again, and again, until his arms were like lead. Until the TV program cut to the presenters in the studio, the woman presenter wiping her eyes with a handkerchief. Until he slumped forward, knuckles bleeding, chest heaving, hugging the bag to keep himself upright. It wasn't enough. Nothing he had ever done had been enough.

His failure to get into UA had been the first strike. Then he'd failed to get into any hero course at all. He'd cried for weeks, and then resolved himself to working harder. He'd trained his body and tried for late admission, all three years. He'd failed. And All Might had died. It was stupid, but his brain had sort of tied those things together, as if somehow as a hero course student he could have saved him. Saved everyone. He'd wanted to shut the door to his room and never leave, stay staring at a picture of All Might forever, as if the Nomu had never happened. But his mother had nudged open his door, and stroked his hair as he cried.

She had convinced him to go to university, and he'd done it, even though the same old dream was burning in his chest. He'd taken a job in a hero agency as a clerk, as if proximity to the heroes would somehow rub off on him, make him good enough. It hadn't. He was an office worker, the best a quirkless man could aspire to be.

Fumiko had wanted a family with him, she'd wanted him to take his day job more seriously, to pursue promotions like the rest of the people in his office. But that would have meant giving up on his dream. The dream.

It's not bad to dream. But you must also consider what is realistic, young man.

Midoriya grabbed a towel from the bathroom, wiping down his face. His one meeting with All Might had nearly broken him, but he had come out of it with his resolve intact. He'd never stopped training, never stopped dreaming.

He ran a finger over the long scar on his chest. Last year, he'd stepped in to stop a mugging. He'd ended up in hospital with severe blood loss and concussion. Before that it had been a drug dealer, before that a home intruder. Every time he stepped in he got hurt, got reprimanded, made Fumiko upset. His ribs had been broken several times, and his arms, but it did nothing to deter him. He didn't have a choice. His drab office job filled the hours, and he was pretty sure he'd loved Fumiko, but it was like all of his life was in black and white, the only technicolor moments the ones where he could believe he was a hero, if only for a moment.

Midoriya stepped back into the main room of his apartment, towelling his green hair. The TV was still on, illuminating the room.

"And in these dark times," the woman presenter was saying. "We would do well to remember the words of our Symbol of Peace."

To Midoriya's surprise, All Might's face appeared on the screen, smiling into the camera. His throat felt tight, and he reminded himself it was archive footage.

"Remember why you clench your fists," said All Might, and Midoriya felt as if All Might was alive behind the screen, talking to him, and not a man who had been dead thirteen years. "Remember why you started down this path, and let that memory carry you beyond your limit."