They sat there for a while in silence.
Izuku found himself glancing over at Mina.
The girl… Did not look well.
...
Her normally energetic face was… Harried. The face that was normally crowned with a smile was distinctly devoid of mirth, and she had dark, dark rings under her eyes showing that she'd been crying, as well as several bruises across various parts of her face.
He also couldn't help but notice that her skin color was… Different than usual. A bit paler than the bubblegum pink he was used to.
She was wearing her normal street attire, rather than her costume or a hospital gown.
They sat there in silence for a time.
Until Izuku finally broke it.
"T-thank you…"
"Don't mention it. You… Looked like someone who really needed a hug."
Her voice was tired, and like her face, it was devoid of the usual energy Mina beamed, though, unlike Izuku, there was nothing weak about it.
"So… So do you..."
"Yeah…"
Silence again rose, as Izuku tried to think.
He… He'd calmed down now. He was…able to think clearer now.
That did not make everything fine though.
He had crossed a threshold. A line. One that he would never be able to step back across.
Eventually, though, one question did come to mind that wasn't really about any of that.
"Why… Why were you up here?"
"I needed some fresh air… And the entrance is swarming with reporters. So I can't really walk around the city."
-This is the second night since it all went down.- Venom helpfully informed him inside his skull.
"Reporters?"
It was a stupid thing to question, and he recognized it as such the moment it left his mouth, but Mina just nodded.
"We've… Really made an impact in the news with… With what we did." She winced. "With the… Zombies, and Stain I mean."
Izuku nodded weakly.
Then quickly shot a glance at Mina.
"Wait… Zombies? You know about that?"
Mina looked back, her expression just as incredulous as Izuku's.
"Wait, you knew? How!?"
They just glanced at each other for a moment, just as baffled, until Izuku finally answered.
"Well… Venom can sense souls you see… And… He… Theorized that we were fighting undead… As in, corpses brought back to "life"... By a quirk."
Mina nodded slowly.
"Yeah… Uraraka did mention something about that…"
"But… How… How did you know?"
Mina sighed.
"Everyone knows. You know that…" She winced and looked at him with a sympathetic look. "The one with the beams?"
Izuku nearly threw up… But he nodded, not trusting himself to speak.
"Well… As it turned out, that woman turned out to be a member of the Caribbean royal family… That's been very, very dead for years now… The media is… Really a ball with that bit of leaked information… And mom… Well, there was a whole host of stuff she said… About All For One, and… Well it's complicated… Basically, she says they probably provided him with that woman's body.
Brown skin, and long black hair.
Izuku shivered.
"Anyway… It's pretty common knowledge what the Nomu are now…"
She looked away from Izuku, instead looking up at the night sky.
"That… That doesn't make it better though… Does it?"
Silence. Then…
"No… No, it doesn't. At all."
It really, really did not.
"I… When… Back in the day when my brother was still training to be a Hero? I… I remember overhearing him asking mom about the first time she killed someone…"
Izuku was about to open his mouth and almost replied, as he actually knew the answer, but forced it shut.
This… This was NOT the time to ramble on about Hero trivia.
"I remember… It really took me aback. Like… Why would he even WANT to know that? Like… What kind of teenager asks his mom about killing people?"
She almost sobbed as she said it.
"Mom… Well, mom just got this far off look at her face, and just said she'd tell him when he was older…"
Her eyes in turn got a far-off look as well.
"I… I think I understand her way, way more now…"
Izuku put his arm around her.
He didn't plan to. She just… She looked so off. So miserable. Sad. He wanted to help her.
Mina did not mind though. Instead, she leaned into, leaning her head against his shoulder.
"It… It's so different when it's you…"
"Yeah… It… It is… Like… When you see it on TV… It doesn't really register… Nobody who sees a Hero or Policeman kill someone… Well, no one wants to think what it's like… You just… Well… What you think is… What is justified?"
Mina gave an affirmative sound.
"We… We always focus so much on the morals of it… Not how people have to deal with it after it happens."
He nodded.
He knew exactly how she felt.
There was… A part of him… The inquisitive part of him, that wanted to ask exactly what had happened. He… Recalled there had been three monsters left with her when he had taken off with… The beam woman.
But he didn't ask.
Just like she didn't ask him about the specifics.
They both knew what they needed to know… And that was enough.
"Like… It all just turns into a statistic after the fact, right? No one… No one wants to hear about when a hero ricocheted a hail of bullets back at some gunmen. The… The only thing people watching asks is… Whether it was right or wrong."
"This wasn't though... This… It was… Right… wasn't it?"
Mina's voice was… Pleading.
But he… He could not lie to her. He didn't want to lie to her.
He considered the question. Truthfully.
He supposed he should have wrecked his mind over the question for a long, long time. But he didn't. He saw the answer in his heart right away.
"Yes… I… I suppose it was… I… I mean…"
He scratched his head, feeling… He didn't know… But… Talking about it… Like this… With Mina…
It… It lightened the darkness somehow.
It… She… She made it feel better. She reminded him he wasn't alone in the world.
"It's… I mean… Ignoring the fact that they… Well, they were zombies… This… This is what Heroes would do right? Stopping evil… Protecting people… Making sure more innocent people aren't hurt."
"I… Guess." Mina admitted. "It… Doesn't make you feel better though… Does it?"
"No."
"I… Didn't know I could kill… Not before… Well… I didn't know he was a zombie. At all. I've thought about it. But… You know what the worst part is?"
Mina finally untangled herself both from Izuku's shoulder as well as his one-armed hug, instead getting to her feet, and leaning against the railing, looking out over the city.
"I… I've thought about it… Well… Okay, it's… It's all I've been able to think about really… But… The worst part of it all? I… I came to realize… If push came to shove?"
Izuku heard it as the metal part of the rail crumpled in her grip.
"If… If I had to go through this all again… I would kill him again."
She did not turn to look at him, but as she spoke again, Izuku could tell that all her attention was directed at him.
"Tell me… Midori… Does… that make me… A… A bad person?"
As she talked, tears began to flow, falling down on her hand as she squeezed her eyes shut.
Mina did not cry the way Izuku did, just letting it all out, instead, she sniffled and forced it down, trying to keep the tears from falling.
Another hand closed around her own balled-up fist, much more gently.
Mina opened her eyes and turned as Izuku had gotten up to his feet, and was now standing behind her.
"No."
It was a simple answer.
But it was truthful. From the heart. It was his honest answer.
Izuku still was nowhere close to coming to grips with it all… But there was one thing of which he was sure. Mina was a good person. She had saved a lot of people by stopping the foes she had. Foes that were in the awful situation where there was no hope for any of them.
"You… Are one of the best people I know Mina. Don't… Don't believe otherwise. You're a good person."
Mina blinked. Then, a faint blush tinting her cheeks, she dried her eyes with the hand that was not connected to Izuku's, sniffling all the way.
"Thanks… I… I needed that… I… Really did Midori…"
She paused for a moment, before awkwardly saying.
"Can… Can we hug again?"
...
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