Chapter 4: The Lesson of Motionless Air

The room Batman led him to was unlike the sterile medical bay or the vast, echoing corridors. It was
small, circular, and utterly silent. The walls were a matte, non-reflective black that seemed to drink
the light from the single soft glow-panel in the center of the ceiling. The floor was cool, slightly
textured metal. There was nothing else. No screens, no ports, no furniture.

“Sit,” Batman said, his voice a low reverberation in the quiet space.

Izuku lowered himself to the floor, crossing his legs. The simple motion felt alarmingly powerful; he
had to consciously moderate the force of his movement to avoid cracking the deck.

Batman sat opposite him, a dark mirror. “The power within you is a storm. Your emotions are the
wind. Your body is the vessel. Currently, the slightest breeze capsizes you. Your first objective is not to
stop the storm, but to become a mountain within it. You will learn to be still.”

He produced a simple, white candle from a compartment in his belt, lit it with a flick of his wrist, and
placed it on the floor between them. The flame was a tiny, defiant point of light in the consuming
dark.

“Focus on the flame. Not with your eyes. With your intention. Your entire world is this single point of
combustion. Your breath is the only sound. Inhale for four seconds. Hold for seven. Exhale for eight.”

Izuku tried. He sucked in a breath, but it was too sharp, too loud in his own enhanced hearing. The
candle flame shuddered, not from a draft, but from the minute pressure wave of his inhalation. He
saw Batman’s eyes narrow behind the cowl.

“Again. Softer. You are not breathing air. You are moving the universe with infinite care. Feel the air
molecules part before your breath. Guide them.”

It was ludicrously difficult. His lungs wanted to pull in oceans of air. His body hummed with impatient
energy. A stray thought about his mother made his stomach clench, and a faint, golden corona
flickered around his fingertips for an instant.

“Your power is a truth-teller,” Batman stated. “It broadcasts your internal state. That flicker was
anxiety. Regret. Identify the emotion. Acknowledge it. Then let it pass. Do not fight it. Observe it, as
you observe the flame.”

Hours bled together in the silent room. Izuku lost track of time. His back ached, then the ache faded
as his enhanced physiology adjusted. The candle burned down, and Batman replaced it without a
word. The process was maddening. He was a capacitor charged to bursting, being told to simply exist.

During one long session, frustration bubbled over. The flame guttered wildly, and a sharp crack
sounded beneath him—a hairline fracture in the reinforced floor.

He flinched. “I’m sorry! I didn’t mean—”

“Stop apologizing,” Batman cut in, his voice a whiplash. “A weapon that apologizes is still a weapon.
You are not a weapon. You are a person. Your frustration is logical. This is the most difficult thing you
will ever do. Now, identify the source. Why were you frustrated?”

“Because… it’s too slow,” Izuku admitted, the words torn from him. “This… sitting. When there’s so
much I can do. So much I need to learn to control.”
“That is your error,” Batman said. “You are thinking of control as an external action—gripping, firing,
flying. True control is internal. It is the foundation. Without it, all the external power in the universe is
just chaos waiting for a direction. You wish to move a mountain? First, you must be able to hold a
grain of sand without pulverizing it. Again.”

The cycle repeated. Breathe. Focus. Observe the flicker of power that accompanied a stray thought.
Label it: Impatience. Loneliness. Fear. Let it go.

Then, a shift. A moment of perfect, empty calm between breaths. The flame burned straight and
steady. The humming in his bones settled into a deep, quiet drone, like a dormant engine. For three
full minutes, no gold light escaped his skin.

Batman gave a single, slow nod. “Good. Remember that state. That is your zero point. That is ‘off.’
Now… stand.”

Izuku rose, feeling strangely light, yet more solid than ever.

Batman led him to a different chamber—larger, with a high ceiling. In the center was a simple, dense-
looking block of dark grey material, about the size of a refrigerator.

“This is a dwarven steel alloy from the forge of Vulcan. It is, for all practical purposes, indestructible
to conventional force. Your goal is not to damage it. Your goal is to place your hand upon it and feel
its temperature, its texture, without leaving an impression.”

It was an impossibility. Izuku approached, the lesson of the candle room fresh in his mind. He
breathed, seeking the zero point. He extended his hand, moving with glacial slowness. An inch from
the surface, he felt the wild energy stir, eager to push, to dominate.

Observe it, he thought. That’s the urge to exert force. That’s not what I want. I want to feel.

He let the urge wash through him, and focused past it, on the intention of touch. His fingertips made
contact.

There was no crunch. No screech of deforming metal. He felt the cool, slightly porous texture of the
alloy, the almost imperceptible vibrations of the station running through it. He left no mark.

He let out a breath he didn’t realize he was holding.

“Progress,” Batman acknowledged. “Now, apply the slightest pressure. Imagine you are testing the
ripeness of fruit.”

Izuku increased the tension in his fingers by a fraction. His enhanced senses fed him data—the
precise yield point of the material, the molecular bonds straining. He stopped a microsecond before
they would have begun to distort.

For the next hour, they worked through impossible, delicate tasks: stacking ultrathin crystal slides
without cracking them, threading a filament through a maze using only the air current from his
exhale, catching a high-velocity training drone without denting its shell.

Each success was tiny, monumental. He wasn’t learning to use his strength; he was learning the
infinite gradations between zero and one.

Exhausted, he was taken to a Spartan quarters—a bed, a desk, a simple bathroom. On the desk was a
data pad. He activated it, expecting more lessons.
Instead, it was a live, secure feed. The screen showed his living room back in Musutafu. His mother
was there, talking to a woman in a sharp suit—a League liaison, he guessed. His mother was wiping
her eyes, but she was nodding, a brave, shaky smile on her face. The liaison was explaining the
“prestigious, confidential overseas student exchange program” that Izuku had been selected for,
showing documents on a tablet.

The guilt returned, a cold tidal wave. But with it came Batman’s voice in his memory: Identify the
emotion. Observe it.

This is guilt, he thought, letting the ache fill him. This is love. This is fear for her. He didn’t try to
suppress it. He watched it, and slowly, like a wave receding, it settled. The power in his chest
thrummed but did not flare.

A soft chime at his door. It was Clark, out of the med-bay, dressed in simple black trousers and a
white t-shirt that did little to hide his physique, though he still moved with a slight caution.

“May I come in?”

Izuku nodded, muting the feed.

Clark entered, holding two packets of what looked like space-appropriate ramen. “I thought you
might be hungry. The cafeteria’s… an experience. This is simpler.”

They ate in silence for a moment. The food was surprisingly good.

“How are you holding up?” Clark asked finally, his kind eyes seeing too much.

“It’s… a lot. Batman is… intense.”

“He’s the best there is,” Clark said with unwavering certainty. “And he’s right. What you’re learning in
that quiet room is more important than any heat vision drill. I had to learn control through isolation,
through focusing on a single sound across continents. You’re having to learn it in a crucible, with the
power already at boil. What you did today… it’s extraordinary.”

“It doesn’t feel extraordinary,” Izuku mumbled. “It feels like I’m holding back an ocean with a paper
towel.”

“But you are holding it,” Clark emphasized. “That’s the point. Every second you contain it is a victory.”
He set his food down. “I want you to understand something, Izuku. This power… what it did to me. It
didn’t just hurt my body. It clouded my mind. It made rage feel righteous. It made me see threats
where there were only scared people. You’ve taken that corruption into yourself, and I see no shadow
of it in your eyes. Only fear, and focus, and a startling amount of compassion. That’s not the paper
towel. That’s the seawall.”

Izuku looked down, his throat tight. “What if… what if the wall breaks?”

“Then we’ll help you rebuild it,” Clark said, his voice leaving no room for doubt. “You’re not alone.
You have the most resourceful man in the world teaching you control. And you have me.” He offered
a small smile. “For what it’s worth, watching you quote xenobiological theory to Batman was one of
the most surreal and encouraging things I’ve seen in a long time. You have a unique toolkit for this,
Izuku. Trust it.”

After Clark left, Izuku lay on his bunk, staring at the ceiling. The panic was still there, a cold knot in his
gut. But around it now were other things: the memory of the steady candle flame, the feel of the
dwarven steel without a scratch, the unwavering belief in Superman’s eyes.
He was in a prison of his own power. But perhaps, within these walls, he could also build a
foundation. Not just to control a god’s strength, but to someday, maybe, deserve it.

He closed his eyes, and began to count his breaths.

with superman back to full health, he teaches izuku flight