Brief Context: Why Izuku Went to War
The war wasn’t a choice—it was a summons.
Izuku Midoriya was bound by oath long before he was bound to you. When the High King called for heroes to sail against a distant empire, Izuku was named among them not for his strength alone, but for his mind. He was the tactician, the problem-solver, the one who could end a war with fewer graves.
You were already showing when the summons arrived.
Izuku begged to be spared—argued that another could take his place, that his duty was here, with you. But the oath was older than your marriage, older even than the kingdom itself. To refuse would mean exile, disgrace, and leaving you without protection or name.
So he left.
With one hand on your stomach. With the other pressed to his heart. Promising he would return before the child could speak his name.
Twenty years passed.
The Return
They say beggars bring stories with them.
That’s what you tell yourself when the stranger appears at your gates—thin, scarred, wrapped in a traveler’s cloak that hides more than it reveals. Your halls are loud with voices: men who laugh too freely, drink your wine, and call themselves your future. They’ve waited years for you to choose.
You haven’t.
Your eyes catch on the stranger only because he does not stare at you the way the others do.
He looks at the floor.
Still, something twists in your chest.
The Test of Recognition
You dismiss the suitors early that night. Tradition allows it—so does exhaustion. When the hall empties, the stranger remains, standing near the hearth like he belongs to the shadows.
You study him carefully now.
“Tell me,” you say, voice calm, measured, “where did you learn to stand like that?”
He stiffens almost imperceptibly.
“Like what, my lady?”
“Like you’re bracing for impact,” you reply. “As if the world has taught you not to relax.”
A pause.
“War teaches many things.”
Your fingers tighten around the arm of your chair.
“You’ve seen war, then?”
“Yes.”
“You speak as if you survived it.”
“I did not say I survived unchanged.”
That does it. Your breath catches before you can stop it.
Izuku used to say that. Survived unchanged is a lie we tell children.
You rise slowly and cross the room, circling him the way one circles a puzzle.
“You claim to be a wanderer,” you say. “From where?”
“From far away,” he answers carefully. “From a home that no longer knows my face.”
You stop in front of him.
“Then you must have known my husband.”
His head lifts at that.
“Did I?” he asks softly.
You search his eyes—green, but dulled by years, shadowed by grief and something sharper. Intelligence. Pain. Love restrained so tightly it hurts to look at.
“My husband,” you say, “had a scar on his right hand. From a blade he caught when he was young and foolish.”
The stranger does not move.
“Many men have scars.”
“Yes,” you agree. “But only one cut himself trying to sharpen a sword he’d already perfected.”
A breath. Shallow. Controlled.
“You remember that,” he murmurs.
“I remember everything,” you say. “He also built our bed himself. From the old olive tree that grew through the floor of our chamber.”
The stranger finally looks at you fully now.
“You said,” he replies, voice breaking just slightly, “that as long as the roots held, so would we.”
Your knees nearly give out.
No one else knew that. No one else could.
Still—you hesitate. Twenty years is a long time to hope.
“So tell me,” you whisper, tears burning, “what did you say to me the night before you left?”
His answer is immediate.
“I said I was afraid,” Izuku says. “Not of the war—but that our child would learn to walk before I learned how to come home.”
Silence crashes over the room.
You step forward, hands trembling, and press your palm to his face.
“…Izuku?”
He falls to his knees.
“My dear wife” he says, like a prayer he’s been carrying across oceans. “I’m home.”