cw: mentioned past suicidal intentions/thoughts, minor character death (not someone involved w/ the actual story plot dw), a panic attack, implied past abuse at school (i think — idk how else to describe it), and i think that's it!

please tell me if there's more,,,,

(should i keep putting these cws here? maybe at the first chap? the dsmp is a huge warning already,,,)

also!

1. this chapter is a mess im so sorry

there's a part where i have a fake hero use them.i personally don't use neo-pronouns, but i thought "hey if i gave neo pronouns to this funky hero i just made up i think that'd be poggers" and here i am, reading articles and scrolling through images and asking myself if i used xe/xem/xyr right

i would've used star/stars/starself or cele/celes/celeself or something star-related but i decided to go for somethin safer so that i didn't mess up hshdhd

ok ok please enjoy this chap!!

===

Despite it being dark out, Tommy can make out the faint forms of branches and leaves. He's sure that the branch he's crouching on can support his weight long enough, but there's still a lingering fear that claws at him. Regardless, he pulls on a particularly thick, long branch until it breaks off the actual tree with a snap. He flinches but puts the three logs he's received from the branch into his inventory. Then he moves on to the next branch he can reach, plucking them off the trunk one by one.

In his inventory he's got a stack of logs from several trees in the area. It would be more than enough for a set of wooden tools, but it's always good to have extra. This would be the last tree anyways.

When he finally takes the trunk of the tree block by block, Tommy turns and is unsurprised to see Izuku gaping at him. How long did it take for him to get here? Tommy hadn't heard him walk towards him while he was plucking logs like apples. Or was he in The Zone?

Izuku seems to be under a trance, eyes dazed, before blinking. "You — I'm?" Izuku stutters, rubbing his eyes, "Oh my g-god, Tommy, that was so f-freaking cool! How did y-you do that? Wasn't your q-quirk just an inventory thing? Can you do that to everything? Does the amount of time it takes to do that differentiate depending on what you're breaking? Or is it the same amount of time as a log? Is there a limit as to how long you can do that? How does it even work? How do you get perfectly but blocks of wood using your hands -- "

Tommy preens as Izuku bounces in his place, fingers twitching, probably for his notebook. "It's another aspect of my quirk, Big Man," he answers, and is it a lie if it comes from his blood? "My quirk isn't necessarily just an inventory, but more like a game? Besides the inventory and the whole block thing and shit, there's a multitude of things that I can do, like see my status in terms of health or if I'm under an effect, and I think I'm semi-immune to poison — ?"

"You're WHAT — "

"Oh my Prime don't fucking scream right now it's three in the fucking morning -- "

Tommy hurriedly shushes him anyways by slamming his cupped palm over the other's mouth. Just to stop him from mumbling until Tommy went deaf. And Izuku, like the fucking heathen and wrongun' and absolute bitch he is, licks it.

"EUGH!" Tommy shrieks, shaking his hand. Distantly, a few birds fly off, startled. "WHAT THE FUCK, MAN?!" Izuku just fucking giggles as if he hadn't committed the worst crime ever. Giggles! The fucking audacity.

The blond huffs, dragging his palm over the legs of his shorts repeatedly. "You are a heathen and wrongun' and bitch, you know that?" Tommy states his thoughts with a glare. If he didn't know how to get back to the apartment complex, he'd start a spar right now.

"Yeah, but I'm a loveable one."

"Fuck you!"

"Didn't even d-deny it!"

Tommy huffs once more, ignoring that fucking angel-turned-hellion, and busies himself with the original crafting table he made from the apartment. He quickly turns the logs into planks, some planks into sticks, and forms an entire set of wooden tools minus the hoe. Then, with experience, he equips the shovel in his hotbar and digs the spade into the ground, using his foot to uplift a square mound of dirt and grass. The blond repeats this again and again until the spade hits stone.

"You know the way here, right?" Tommy absentmindedly says, swiftly switching to a pickaxe. "Memorized it an' shit with your nerdy brain?"

"Yeah?" Izuku says after a pause, enraptured as he leans over the hole Tommy dug.

"Good," the older teen grunts, slamming the tip of his pickaxe into the stone and watching cracks form, "because this will be my mineshaft."

===

It's four in the morning on a school day and Tommy has found thirty-five blocks of raw iron and more than a stack of coal, including the ones in the furnaces he's built, which shouldn't be possible. There's never this much ore in one small area — Mojang made sure of it. Was it because this place was far off? Does this world have some cracked fucking ore distribution?

Nevertheless, Tommy isn't unsatisfied! No, no, he's fucking delighted, the massive ear-to-ear grin on his face indicating that.

He's dug a bit so that he can have a small cavern with the barest essentials for a main base, of course connected to the fresh mine he made. The blond teen is now perched on two chests he set down upon each other, swinging his legs idly as he watches the furnaces he's built smelt the raw iron he's collected. His pickaxe leans nearby, as well as the crafting table he first made. Torches burn in the small area, one for each corner, illuminating every crevasse and filling the small cavern with warmth. Izuku's settled himself on the stone ground, watching the flames flicker and the iron smelt with fascination.

"...Does it really just turn into iron ingots automatically?" Izuku asks after a small gulp. The teen had made his throat sore from all the questions he was asking Tommy beforehand.

"Yeah," Tommy excitedly hums, haltingly hopping down the chests. He taps the tops of the furnaces, buzzing with animated energy, and takes whatever ingots are there for now -- a nice fifteen total from both furnaces -- before smoothly transitioning to the crafting table. His calloused hands hover over the hologram that pops up, turning to the green haired teen. "You want a sword? A pickaxe? An axe?"

"Um..." Izuku tilts his head. "You said you could do a water bucket thing, right? Can you... show me?"

Almost like whiplash, the green haired teen waves his hands around frantically. "Y-You don't have to! I-I-I know y-you're afraid of heights and, I mean, I-I was just curious and all and I just — "

"Alright," Tommy says, thinking about an open plain near a shore, looking down on ruins and reaching out to touch the clouds on a pillar. Before he knows it, an empty bucket is in his hands. Izuku freezes; Tommy breathes. "Alright, I'll show you."

It's about time that he at least can push through his trauma, this tidbit specifically.

Gradually going up the stairs of his personal mineshaft, Tommy steps out of the mine through the camouflaged trapdoors, and glances around. Izuku had said there was a stream down here and... There — a river, glistening under the moon and flowing with water. A log settles just over it, the perfect spot to fill the bucket. Without looking back, Tommy walks over to it — Izuku will follow regardless.

Crouching over the stream on the log, the teen dips the bucket and scoops an average amount of water inside. He straightens, closing trembling fists (what if he can't make it what if he doesn't pull it off in time Tommy doesn't off before asking, "Where's the highest point of this place?"

"Ah," Izuku purses his lips, "I'm... not sure. Me and K— Bakugo didn't really go this far out. Well, maybe he did — I wasn't a part of his explorations after he found out I was..." Then, "What does height have to do with anything?"

Tommy nods, ignoring the question. "Then I'll build one myself."

"... Huh — "

Feeling the rough texture of bark in his hands, Tommy jumps and places block after block underneath him. Izuku rapidly blinks, staring up and up as the blond builds higher and higher. His eyes glance down, glimpsing at the branches and leaves sticking out of the logs and oh Prime. It's as long as the amount of logs he has — a high count of fifty-six, him using eight of the other logs to make planks and sticks.

Taking a steadying breath, Tommy flicks his wrist and does not look down. He selects the water bucket in his inventory and clutches its handle like a life line and does not look down. Because he's fine with heights as a vigilante — as Dusk — but as Tommy? As Tommy, when there's no danger around to prioritize, no calculations and where-are-their-weak-points-chest-open-heavily-leaning-on-left-right-open-clearly-unexperienced to think about, no hazardous thoughts in his head, he can't focus on anything else but the distance between him and the world, even if it's small.

Twenty-three blocks above can kill him. Fifty-six blocks is worse. He does not look down.

...Falling from heights used to be fun. Feeling the wind in his hair, the rush in his veins, the feeling of falling and feeling weightless and being alive for once — that was fun. And then, the sensation of the wings of an elytra on his back flaring out with a flourish, sensing the sudden glide of wings helping him soar further, leaning just right to go higher... Using the combined momentum of garnered speed and rockets to launch himself upwards, and think of himself as someone truly high and mighty instead of a waste of space in a legendary family -- thinking of himself as Tommy Innit Craft, sovereign of the skies, screaming that silly title while his fingertips brush the outside of a cloud, droplets forming on the soft pads...

Tommy misses those times.

He could get those back. He wants to have those back, just like an anchor in this world from his old one.

Another breath. His shaking hands grip the handle tight until white bleeds through his knuckles. Tommy closes his eyes, grabs his unstable resolve by the throat,

and falls.

Tommy distantly hears the scream Izuku lets out. Its so unbelievably quiet, so minuscule compared to the wind that howls in his ears, the adrenaline that rushes through his veins, and the pounding of his heart. His hair whips through the wind and he can't open his eyes due to the terror whose talons bury into his skin like a parasite, but that's fine. He's MLG'd so many times with a water bucket that it's practically muscle memory.

(But it's too much like standing over a pillar of a mishmash of blocks, looking overhead, feeling the wind caress his face. Like wondering how Death would be the most merciful because she always is, even before then; how he is useless and unwanted and unneeded and unloved and horrible and selfish and greedy and wrong and needs to be fixed. Like wondering what it would be like to be free if he just let go. Of a world where Tommy Innit "Theseus" Craft doesn't exist, and the world isn't affected.)

If Izuku wasn't shrieking and if Tommy himself wasn't fucking terrified, then he would've laughed with glee. Because there's that phantom sensation of artificial wings bursting out with dramatic flare, stars glittering in the interior, constellations shimmering in the dawning light. Yet now, Tommy doesn't know how many lives he has left, but what he does know is that people only have one life here, and that may just fucking apply to him too. And the way to Death, not Death herself, is not as merciful as its incarnate.

At the right moment, Tommy flips the bucket he's clutching and pushes, feeling something ancient within him follow suit. There's nothing, and he almost starts to despair as the ground gets closer and closer, before water starts flowing out of the metal container like a rising whirlpool. It spreads out and swirls upwards, elegant and graceful and stunning around Tommy, glistening with moonlight, cradling without touching him like a loose cocoon. Not a drop gets on him, and he can feel his shoes dip into the lowermost part of the rising waves but they stay dry. And for a second, he feels pure exhilaration. *

When Tommy has both feet touch the ground, the water is still whirling, its tendrils still curving above and spreading out, out, out like a blossoming flower, before it starts to collapse. Tommy laps up the largest source near the middle with his bucket, that timeworn feeling coming back as the liquid is quickly pulled back into the iron container. Droplets cling to the little blades of grass and the leaves up above around him, but most of the liquid is quickly tugged back into its confines.

The blond breathes, shaky and hesitant, but he is alive.

Oh fuck, he's alive.

He smiles, seeing his reflection in the rippling water that settles back into the bucket. That turns into giggles, then into laughter, then to cackles of delight. He sets the bucket down with trembling hands, almost knocking it over in the process as he doubles over himself, his back hitting the pole he'd built. As much as he wants his hysterics to stop, he can't find it in him to even pause for air.

Because. Because holy shit, that worked. And it was so fucking poggers. He's not even terrified, which makes sense because Big Man Tommy Innit is never fucking (allowed to be -- no. Tommy Innit is never) scared, but Prime... He's alive. He's alive, and he has something to live for, and he is okay.

Feet pound against the terrain and Tommy can barely react before Izuku rams himself into the blond with a cry of, "Tommy!" And oh, there's arms squeezing his torso and a face burying into him like no tomorrow. (If Tommy flicked his inventory open, fingers hovering just over Clara's icon, eyes sharpened and ready to fight, well. No one else can see his inventory anyways.) "Tommy you're alive, you're alive, you're alive," Izuku mumbles like a mantra. Tommy can accept this breach of personal space for now.

The blond teen laughs, something relieved and light, gently patting Izuku on his side — dickhead was squeezing his arms, too, so he couldn't do much beside that. The only response he gets is a tighter squeeze. "Of course I am, Big Man. A simple fall wouldn't kill me! ...Also, can you let go a bit? Crushin' my insides 'n' shit."

Izuku looks up just to glare, lightly smacking his fist onto Tommy's mid torso. He does loosen his grip though, which Tommy thinks is a score. "I didn't know that you'd live!" The shorter teen exclaims, emphasizing this with another hit, "What — I'm — how do you expect me to react when you just, fall off a tower of logs that high with just a water bucket?!"

"Right, right," Tommy sighs, worming an arm out of the vice-like grip and around Izuku. "You didn't know, and I was reckless. I'm sorry."

Izuku loosens his grip, almost enough for Tommy to slip out.

"...but it was pretty poggers, innit?"

Tommy squawks as he's promptly dragged and thrown into the nearby stream he'd filled his bucket from.

===

Patrols get easier after that. He's made some specific adjustments to the new iron chestplate, leggings, and boots he now wears underneath his armor, as well as a pair of vambraces and greaves. They're designed specifically to be as durable as possible while allowing him his agility, because Tommy is nothing if not swift. Adding to that, the logs and materials he got let him make several tools and items that he keeps in his hotbar, a good way to at least lessen the drawbacks of the weight of his inventory.

Tommy brings a full water bucket in his inventory wherever he goes during his patrols. He can look down a building and not snap his head up and busy himself with something to ignore the sweat on his palms and how endearing the fall looked. He can look down a building, watch the cars pass by, the people chattering their way to work, see dogs and cats trot about, and move on without much fanfare. Yes, he still has a lot to heal — the feeling of freedom feels so real still, when he looks down for too long. It's just within his grasp, brushing the welcoming exterior and —

And it's easier to shove those kinds of thoughts away.

He's healing. Bit by bit, he's healing. That's all that matters.

It's how Eraserhead finds Tommy, sitting on the rooftop of a building as the stars shine down on him. Clara lays by his side, one of his calloused fingers tracing the nicks and dents in her form on the top. Tommy can feel the man's presence despite him not making a sound, so he leaps to his feet using Clara as a boost and moves to a different spot, just as a scarf shoots out right where he sat.

That was fucking rude. Not a "hello" or a "how are you doing?" Tommy silently sighs. What a wrongun'.

Nevertheless, he spins, narrowly missing another long-range attack near his torso. One towards his right arm, the second towards his calves, the third barely grazing his fingers. Eraserhead doesn't say a word, sending a barrage of precise, calculated hits with his scarf that Tommy pivots around. His hood would've fallen long ago had he not sewn the base of a cap with no brim inside the hood, thank Prime he cleaned that at Takoda before Izuku.

This goes on for ages. Tommy holds Clara out in front of him in a balanced stance, breathing through his mouth lightly as he moves from another attack. Eraserhead's moves had slowed just a tad, though, probably contemplating something — at least, that's what Tommy thinks he's doing. The man's goggles are constantly peering directly at him. What else is he supposed to infer?

Tommy doesn't dare go in for close-combat, even if he wanted to. Izuku had ranted about him, once — about the man practically fighting quirkless, and how he's his second favorite hero, and how the underground hero was "so cool! He looks so cool with his ribbon-like scarf when he uses it to go all fwoosh! And he'd drag the villains over to him, and wrap the villains up within seconds! The scarf's probably a steel-wire alloy, because most of the villains I've seen him take down haven't been able to tear the scarf at all, and I'm sure there's something that lets him control the scarf however he pleases — maybe specialized nano-fibers? Nanomachines? Whatever it is, they'd have to be small to be interwoven in the scarf... Oh, maybe his hair, because it floats and stuff... wouldn't that mean he's able to control his hair, though? Hm..."