Chapter Text
Midoriya Izuku and Shinsou Hitoshi met in the foster system when the world hated them most. They didn’t speak at first, both too afraid the other would be like Them. They made eye contact and left it at that, as they were dragged to different people to talk about the same thing. They saw each other for two years that way and only kept it at the eye contact. That was until they both stayed at the same ‘home.’
(Neither truly believed it to be a home. It was where they slept, did work, and sometimes got fed.)
Izuku had made the first move a good two weeks into their stay at the ‘home.’ It was one of the better days for Shinsou. He didn’t have to wear his muzzle while they cleaned. It was a “treat” for not speaking. Or ever using his quirk.
“H-hello! My- my names Mi-Mi-Midoriya Izu-Izuku!” He tried his best to smile at Shinsou. The situation they were in, however,- cleaning the kitchen and living room together while their guardians got it on nearby in their bedroom down the hall- was less than exemplary, but Midoriya still gave it his best shot.
Shinsou simply nodded at him. He didn’t even bother trying to smile. It’d hurt too much.
(Getting punched for it again, that is. The ‘homes’ didn’t like it when he seemed happy. A villain didn’t deserve any happiness after all.)
He didn’t even bother thinking about the idea of speaking to this green bean /brother /acquaintance? What exactly were they?
Best to keep it at strangers and not dwell too much on it.
At least that's what Shinsou had thought until Midoriya- that’s his name right?- started to sing softly while cleaning.
“Talking to the mirror like I’ve seen him somewhere before~” he sang quietly with a soft smile on his face.
“He said I look familiar, did I see him somewhere before?” He scrubbed the kitchen counter. Shinsou kept scrubbing the floor.
“Somebody once told me that there's two sides to life, what's yours? I might have accidentally let the darkness eat the light” he stopped and looked into Shinsous eyes when he caught them. His singing sped up.
“ I prayed I prayed god sent me right to voicemail. It’s like all day” Midoriya gestured and paused, letting the creaking of the bed and moans fill the room again, before he started to continue,” my vanity is for sale. Take it away, my head is in my own hell.” Midoriya looked at the floor for a moment and met Shinsou’s eyes again as if to say: I get it.
I get it.
He got it? How the fuck could he get it? He what? Sings a song about his problems and thinks he gets him? That pissed Shinsou off. He growled at Midoriya and stood up.
“The hell do you mean by that!?” His voice cracked horribly (It sorta hurt his throat. When did he last speak?). Midoriya blinked and backed up, his head smacked into the cabinet. “You understand?” He spat. “How could you possibly understand? You don’t get treated like a villain! You aren’t constantly told to tell everyone your quirk-“Midoriya winced at the word-“ like you have to come with a warning label! How the fuck could you understand!?” Shinsou didn’t scream. He knew the consequences, but this broccoli head was pushing his patience.
Midoriya looked helpless. It almost made him feel bad for “yelling.” Broccoli's hands were moving sporadically and his eyes were starting to get shiny. He opened his mouth and rather than a fucking explanation he just sang the same way he was earlier.
“Sing to me, I am not doing well. Getting tired of my own words” he gestured to himself as he sang this (Shinsou didn’t know at the time that Midoriya was mocked and laughed at in class when he was called on, so much so that he couldn’t even get the words out). “Sing to me ‘cause I can’t hear myself.” Broccoli took in a breath.
“Through the loudness of my own hurts,-“Shinsou raises his arm to punch him. How dare he- Broccoli lowered his voice as he sang the next part,” call me selfish when I say this, say this. I’m kinda helpless and I need you- “ Midoriya's eyes had closed so he didn’t see Shinsou’s eyes widen and the fist lower-“ sing to me ‘cause I’m not doing well.”
Broccoli Midoriya shut his eyes and turned his face to the side ready to get punched, hit, slapped. anything.
Shinsou stared at him. After a moment of tense silence Broc- Midoriya opened his eyes and, although wincing, turned his head back up from the side to face Shinsou.
A beat passed. The only sounds were the creaking of the bed and moans from their ‘guardians.’
“..Did.. did you really mean it when you said you need me?” He asked albeit awkwardly. Damn his throat hurt. He needed water, but that could wait for now. He was… bonding? Maybe making a friend? Damnit. Fuck the world, and his abusers and bullies and every adult he’s ever known really, for making me socially awkward.
Midoriya looked at him warily. Before he nodded.
“I.. I’ve never met anyone who um, who’s been treated like, like me before in a foster ‘home.’”He narrowed his eyes at the word home before he took a breath and continued to whisper. “I um, I know it sounded bad of um of um of me for just saying that I felt what you felt, it’s-it’s insensitive. I’m sor-sir-sorry! I just… didn’t know how else to-to try um to try and talk-talk to you about um about um this.”
Midoriya gestured once again to two children- because that’s what they really were at the end of the day wasn’t it?- cleaning up the house while their guardians fucked each other in another room. Not even bothering to muffle their voices or do it at a hotel. No, they did it with children nearby. Midoriya continued.
“I um. I thought-thought that we could be Uh we could be-be,” he huffed,” misery buddies?” He looked up at me when he said that. Shinsou snorted.
“You,” he laughed very softly,” You want to be misery buddies?”
“I uh well-well yeah? It um it seems-seems like the best uh best way to describe um, us.” Midoriya squeaked the us part.
He supposed they sort of had been misery buddies, as Midoriya so eloquently called it. These past two weeks both of them had dutifully stayed quiet. Besides the first day.
(Their guardians told them if they talked, complained, or whined they would be left locked outside for a day twenty four hours without food.)
(Midoriya was the first, and last of the two, to learn the truth of this statement when he had asked where the seasoning was when making the adults their food for the day-on their first day- and was thrown, and locked, outside after being smacked across the face.)
Although they had remained dutifully silent they would protect each other in soft ways. Like when-
Shinsou had a nightmare and Midoriya gave him his stuffed bunny plushie to hug.
Midoriya was beaten up at school and came back with horrible bruises and aching ribs. Shinsou would help treat them, and work a little more on both of their chores that day for his sake. (Midoriya never let him do all of his chores. No matter how much pain he was in he refused to let Shinsou do it all. Even if he only managed to do one chore by himself).
Shinsou came back bloodied and broken Midoriya would hug him and treat the wounds and do his chores for him while he showered. All before their “guardians” came ‘home,’ so he wouldn’t get in trouble for making Midoriya do all the work for him with his quirk.
(Again. He wasn’t allowed to take off the muzzle for three days. Midoriya had smuggled water into the room so he could drink something and had helped him take off the stupid muzzle so he could drink something.)
There were countless ways they had helped and looked out for one another. Maybe Shinsou was an idiot. He sure felt like one right now. For not realizing that both of them had been in the same boat more or less with the treatments they received.
Damnit. He really was an idiot. A stupid paranoid idiot for not even realizing that Midoriya was the closest he’d had to a friend since- since his whole life.
Shinsou offered him a small wobbly smile.
“I guess it does describe us best, doesn’t it?” He lifted up his hand, pretending Midoriya hadn't winced, and rubbed the back of his neck,” How about you call me Hitoshi from now on?” He looked away from Midoriya's teary eyes and bright smile.
“Ye-Yeah! Call-call-call me Izuku then!” Midoriya Izuku beamed up at him. Even when tears fell from his eyes and down his cheeks his smile felt bright and happy.
They both continued to work after that. Midori- Izuku continued to sing softly to himself while Hitoshi gently hummed along with him. He still didn’t like speaking, but maybe he’d make an exception for Izuku.
After all, Misery loves company.