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Shouto had mostly figured out that what he was seeing wasn’t real by the time Touya showed up in front of him. He growled through his teeth as his long-dead brother taunted him in a voice that sounded more like Shouto’s own than anything he could remember, finally putting the pieces of reality back together in his mind.
He’d been in the middle of a fight, he remembered as not-Touya stared at him over the distinctive sound of his mother crying, the villain— Anguish, they said their name was— had sent out some greyish mist, and then when he’d blinked it was his father looming in front of him.
“You’re the reason for all of our family’s suffering,” not-Touya leered using Shouto’s voice, “you’re the reason he hurt us, you’re the reason I died!”
“You’re not real,” Shouto said through gritted teeth, swinging his fist full force at not-Touya’s face. His stomach turned as the apparition dissolved back into the mist, the world around him going silent.
Shouto squinted through the haze after regaining his bearings. Anguish, it appeared, had already fled, most likely having used their quirk as a last-ditch effort to escape the fight. But that wasn’t all he was looking for— he hadn’t been in the battle alone. After a few seconds, he was able to make out a familiar silhouette through the fog.
“Midoriya—“ Shouto called across as he started to walk over to him, but Midoriya didn’t move to acknowledge it. Shouto picked up his pace, closing the gap between them. “Hey— Midoriya,” he said again, but Midoriya didn’t seem to hear him.
Up close, Shouto could see that Midoriya’s eyes were glassy, his vacant expression somehow full of resignation. Shouto reached out a hand towards Midoriya’s shoulder, hoping that it might help him break the illusion, but the moment he made contact, the scene around him swirled and changed.
“—and take a swan dive off a roof!”
Midoriya was standing in the corner of a classroom, his eyes trained firmly on the ground as Bakugo towered over him. He was silent, a haunting passivity etched into his eyes as he stood unmoving, looking smaller than Shouto had ever seen him.
If Midoriya noticed Shouto appearing amidst the illusions, he didn’t show it. His gaze stayed locked on the floor as the room around them flickered into a different scene.
This time Midoriya was sitting at a desk, his expression carefully composed as if he were trying not to cry. Shouto tried to move towards him, to do something, but the air felt like it had solidified around him.
“—icide rates among the quirkless are climbing every year,” someone at the front of the classroom, a teacher by the looks of him, was speaking. “So what I want us to do next is have a class debate on whether you think there should be more legal protections for people without quirks in our society.”
Shouto stared, confused, as a kid from the back threw a balled-up piece of paper that hit Midoriya in the back of the head. The class burst out into ill-hidden laughter, and Midoriya sank lower into his chair.
“Midoriya?” the teacher hissed, turning his head sharply. “Is there something you’d like to say?”
“No, sir.”
The classroom flickered and faded.
Midoriya was on the ground, blood dripping from his nose as he stared straight ahead with an empty look in his eyes.
“Fucking Deku,” someone snickered, their face hidden by grey mist.
“Quirkless freak,” another person agreed, only their shoes visible as they swung a kick straight at Midoriya’s stomach.
The scene changed again right at the sound of a sneaker striking skin.
“Well, sweetie, don’t you think they’d stop picking on you of you didn’t give them a reason?” Another teacher hovered over Midoriya, a sickly sweet smile plastered on her face.
A much younger Midoriya stared back at her, sporting a deepening black eye. “What?’
“I know you want to be a hero, but at some point, we all have to stop dreaming and be realistic. I’m sure the other kids didn’t mean to hurt you, it’s just confusing for them when you pretend to be something you’re not. Do you understand?”
Midoriya hung his head. “Yes ma’am.”
Shouto couldn’t take it anymore. This time when the background faded he strained forwards against the illusion, doing his best to ignore the sudden appearance of a rooftop holding All-Might in his depowered form.
He called Midoriya’s name as he struggled towards him, but he still didn’t seem to hear him. Shouto didn’t stop, finally managing to plant himself in front of Midoriya and grabbing his hand.
“Midoriya— hey, it’s me, listen—“ Shouto rushed to say as Midoriya blinked at him in confusion. “Anguish hit us both with their quirk— you’re in an illusion.”
Midoriya stared at him for a disconcertingly long time before nodding and mouthing a silent “oh”.
“You have to fight it—“ Shouto started to say but was cut off by All-Might’s stern, cold voice.
“So can you be a hero? Not without a quirk.”
Midoriya’s face fell back into that resigned vacancy and Shouto’s heart dropped.
The illusion started to flicker again, and Shouto could feel his hand been wrenched away from Midoriya’s. His heart thudding painfully in his chest, he held on with all of his willpower, refusing to let go, and pulled as hard as he could.
They both tumbled to the ground, the gray mist slowly dissipating until the street was once again clear. Shouto pushed himself up, brushing off where the concrete sidewalk had scraped at his shoulder and offered a hand to Midoriya, who was still somewhere between sitting up and lying down.
He wanted to say something, but he couldn’t come up with the right words— he already knew the answer to “are you alright?” and “what was that?” didn’t quite cut it, especially when Midoriya looked like he wanted to throw up.
Midoriya stared at Shouto’s hand for a few seconds before taking it reluctantly, pulling himself up with a quick motion and then dropping it. He swayed for a second, and Shouto opened his mouth in alarm, trying to speak with no plan for what he could say, but Midoriya cut him off before he could start.
“I’m sorry you had to see that— see me like that.”
The apology caught Shouto off guard, completely disarming any possible reply he could think of. He shook his head, speechless, but Midoriya didn’t see anyway because he was too busy staring at his feet.
After a second of silence, Midoriya glanced back up, concern overwriting the vulnerability that had been in his expression. “You said Anguish hit us both with their quirk— are you okay? It didn’t make you see anything too, uh, you know—“
Shouto blinked, a frightening understanding starting to slide into place as he recognized the way Midoriya shifted gears, easily deflecting the focus away from himself. “Nothing I couldn’t handle,” he reassured in a low voice. “Are you okay?”
Midoriya smiled, but it wasn’t with his usual sunshine, his lips pressed tight to fight off the slight wobble, the crinkles around his eyes doing their best to hide the glassy tears behind them. “I’m fine— you don’t have to worry about me.”
Shouto didn’t believe him.
When they finally made it back to the dorms, Midoriya seemed to have slipped back into his usual disposition— for the most part.
Shouto didn’t miss the way his body language shifted, curling into himself ever so slightly, his arms crossed over his chest with a false casualness. Or the way his eyes darted around, searching for a threat, or the slight flinches he was trying to stifle.
Shouto wasn’t very good at comforting people, but he couldn’t just leave Midoriya alone when he was clearly hurting, so wordlessly he followed him up to his room, sitting down beside him at the edge of the bed when he didn’t give any signals of wanting Shouto gone.
They sat beside each other in silence for a while, and Shouto picked at his nails awkwardly as he tried to think of anything he could do to help.
“I know you said you’re fine,” he said eventually, searching for the right words as he spoke, “and I’m not— I know I’m not the best at this, but if you ever want to talk about anything, you know I’m always here.”
Midoriya didn’t make any acknowledgement that he’d heard Shouto, just kept staring at the wall like he was somewhere else entirely. He shut his eyes, taking a deep breath, and Shouto could see his heartbeat speed up through his shirt, the force of it rattling the bed.
“I’m quirkless,” Midoriya muttered, his voice raspy. “That doesn’t— I know that doesn’t make any sense, because I have— I have a quirk now, but, um—“ his voice broke and he stopped, his entire body tensing instinctually as if he expected violence. “Sorry.”
Shouto wasn’t sure what Midoriya was even apologizing for, and he didn’t bother trying to decipher the implications of Midoriya being quirkless while having a quirk. Instead, he reached out hesitantly, mindful of the way Midoriya’s entire being curled away from him. “Can I touch you?” he asked gently, echoing the way Midoriya would ask him on a particularly bad day.
Midoriya opened his eyes in surprise, blinking slowly at Shouto for a second before nodding. Shouto rested his hand gently on Midoriya’s shoulder, keeping the contact as light as he could when Midoriya stiffened slightly. He stared at Midoriya’s face for a long moment, taking in the pain and apprehension in his expression— but more importantly, the shame twisted deep in his eyes.
“Midoriya—“ he started, choosing his words carefully as he started to understand. “You know you are worth so much more than just a quirk, right?”
Midoriya didn’t answer and Shouto knew why, knew that resignation, that repression, those hissing voices of “your fault, your fault, you’re wrong.”
He pressed on, keeping his eyes locked on Midoriya’s as he spoke, “you’re the best person I’ve ever met— you’re so smart and perceptive, and brave, and you have a way of making everything around you shine so much brighter. You’re not worthless or wrong and you never have been— the people who hurt you were wrong, and you didn’t deserve any of their cruelty no matter if you had a quirk or not.”
Once the words had trickled to a stop, Shouto realized that Midoriya was trembling. For a split second, Shouto was afraid that he had said the wrong thing, but then Midoriya listed into him. He pressed his face into Shouto’s shoulder, quiet tears finally building into sobs.
“Th—thank you,” Midoriya choked out between hiccups, “I— no one’s ever—“
Shouto sighed, wrapping his arms tightly around Midoriya’s shaking shoulders. “They should’ve. You shouldn’t have had to go through that.”
They stayed that way until Midoriya cried himself out, and even then Shouto stayed, Midoriya telling him snippets of his story— how he was diagnosed quirkless at four, how everyone started to act differently around him, how no one seemed to care about what happened to the lonely, quirkless kid. He glossed over how his quirk eventually manifested hardly a year ago, and Shouto didn’t ask for more details— in the grand scheme of things, it didn’t really matter.
As Midoriya talked, Shouto couldn’t help but wonder at him even more, such a pure and good force of nature despite, or rather, in defiance of everything he’d gone through. He supposed it was a double-edged sword, though, as the realization sunk in that Midoriya had been hurting for so long, and everyone had missed it.
Shouto traced his eyes over the tear tracks down his best friend’s face and decided then and there that he would never miss it again.