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It started with Iida.
They were at the mall. The same mall that they had gone to before the training camp where Izuku had ended up getting introduced to Shigaraki one-on-one against his will. He could still feel the ghost of fingertips against his skin as they stepped through the doors. He pushed the memory away and tried desperately to stay in the moment rather than revisit a moment in the past that could not hurt him now.
They were not alone this time. Mr. Aizawa was hovering off to the side even with Izuku's place in the center of the group. He wasn't even trying to be subtle that his sole purpose for being there was to keep an eye on him. He was not the only one. They had three teachers with them. Even with a full class of twenty teenagers with a bad habit of getting into trouble at the drop of a hat this definitely seemed like overkill. Somewhere at the back of the group was Present Mic and upfront leading them through the mall was All Might. He was already starting to draw attention to himself and he hadn't even done anything yet. But Izuku supposed it's probably really hard to hide your identity when you’re the seven-foot-tall, former Number One Hero for three decades Symbol of Peace and are surrounded by kids wearing the uniforms from the school you’re known to teach at.
He'd feel bad for his mentor but he thought All Might getting lavished with attention while in his current form would do him some good. He suspected that Mr. Aizawa must feel the same or at least had no qualms about using the attention All Might would draw to himself to keep it off of the rest of the class. Because if he wanted things to be subtle he was smart enough to know that leaving All Might behind would be the better choice.
Once they got into the mall's atrium. The class began to split into groups. Some going off with Present Mic deeper into the mall and some circling around All Might as a crowd began to gather around him ready for a front-row seat in a master class in how to deal with the public. The group around Izuku was the smallest of the three. Just his close friends from class, including Shinsou who had finally transferred into 1-A recently, and Mr. Aizawa still not even trying to be subtle about it. Izuku wondered how much pre-planning the group had done before this excursion and where they had done it since the group chat had been full of chatter of the field trip throughout the week but nothing like planning of this sort had been discussed. Izuku tried not to feel upset that they were apparently talking to each other about stuff that concerned him when he wasn't involved with it.
He knows logically that they were probably trying not to stress him out about the trip before it happened. He was grateful that they were thinking of him like that but at the same time, he couldn't shake the spike of fear and anxiety that came from the thought of his classmates talking about him behind his back. He'd spent a decade dealing with that and in elementary and middle school those sorts of secretive conversations about him never ended well. This is not the same as that though and he knows it. He really and truly does. These are not those kids. These are his hero classmates and his friends. They'd been through so much together. They were a team.
There's sudden movement beside him and Izuku finds himself jostled into Iida as Kaminari and Kirishima tussled over something on his left. He wants to laugh but Bakugou is right there with them yelling at them and clutching his hands as if trying to not start sparking up over their idiocy. Izuku stiffened. He knows that Bakugou's anger, and it's not even really anger just irritation, is not directed at him this time but he's still brought back to every other class field trip he'd gone on over the years. Ones that never ever went very well for him. He shuddered and stepped away from the boys even as Mr. Aizawa steps over to intervene with threats of sending them home if they didn't behave.
The noise and the pounding of the heart in his chest threatened to overtake Izuku. He shouldn't have come. He'd known it was a bad idea from the moment he'd discovered where the class was planning to go. But this was the first time they'd been allowed off-campus in a while and it had been raining for weeks making the ability to spend any time outside of the dorms or classrooms pretty much impossible. He had a tendency to be more of a homebody than the majority of his class (years spent with no friends to go out and do things with had honed that into him) but even he had been starting to feel a little stir crazy.
The others had really been looking forward to it and their excitement had seeped into him and dulled his nerves about going to the mall again. It was more the thought of getting to spend time with them getting food maybe talking Mr. Aizawa into letting him go see a movie together that had pushed him along. They'd made him forget just how anxious the thought of coming back here had been when the idea had first been broached. But now it was back full forth and he didn't know if he was going to be okay with being here. He knows he can just ask one of the teachers to take him back to campus. All three of them had mentioned that to all of them during the lead up to the outing and Mr. Aizawa had reminded him of that fact directly before they'd boarded the bus to leave campus. So it had helped that he knows there's an out the very moment it gets to be too much but he hadn't expected to reach that moment the mere seconds after they'd arrived. His need for safety wared with his other need to make his friends, the first friends he'd ever had, happy.
The whole thing just made his anxiety spike even more as he fought to stay calm as the crowd slid around him. He clutched at his chest with his hand to try and calm the heart racing underneath his skin.
For a moment he was standing there surrounded by people but completely alone with his churning thoughts. The next moment a hand slid into the one still held limply at his side and there was silence.
He enjoyed the sudden silence of his thoughts for a split second then everything in his brain started up again in a spike of anxiety. He jerked in surprise and confusion, a grunt of pain from the owner of the hand attached to his working to center him into remembering his surroundings. He lifted his eyes to meet Iida's wide eyes as green lighting crackled between them. He let out a panicked breath of air thanking his lucky stars and his quick reflexes for being able to stop himself just the time from reacting like he was being attacked and potentially ripping Iida's arm off.
"So...sorry," Izuku stuttered in embarrassment.
"No," Iida said with a tight, slightly terrified sounding chuckle. "I should definitely know better than to startle you like that when you're already on edge!"
Izuku swallowed and took a deep breath to calm himself as he tried to pull his hand away, more gently this time, but Iida's hand squeezed him tightly and held him in place. His brows crinkled in confusion and he glanced down at their joined hands. Iida's hand was thick and a little dry. The solid weight worked to anchor Izuku in this space where he wasn't panicking for the moment. At least until his brain caught up to the fact that it potentially had a whole new thing to freak out about.
"What...uh what are you doing?"
"Oh ah...you looked nervous and I know you have a history with this place so.." Iida said looking suddenly very much like a deer caught in headlights as he used his free hand to adjusted his glasses. "Sometimes when I'm feeling uncomfortable in a situation my mom or Tensei will hold my hand. I’m sure mostly so that I don't end up hitting a bunch of random strangers with them... but it helps and I just thought...I thought maybe you could use the same sort of support."
"Oh..."
This seemed to be the wrong sort of reaction. Iida's expression turned to a worried frown. "I am very sorry if I overstepped and have made you uncomfortable..."
He took a slight step backward and attempted to slide his hand out of Izuku's grip. This time it was Izuku who tightened his hand in order to stop the movement. It wasn't supposed to be tight enough that it should hurt but Iida stuttered to a stop and grimaced slightly as he flexed his hand in Izuku's grip.
"No!" Izuku hurried to try and reassure his friend. "You haven't I just...was surprised that's all! I'm not...I haven't...it's just been a while," he finally managed to force the words out cringing at how tight and uncomfortable they sounded. "It's fine!"
"If you're sure..."
Izuku wasn't really sure and from the expression on Iida's face he seemed to know it. He searched Iida's downturned face searching for something he might be missing in his exchange. All he found was his friend, his face open, sure and trustworthy as it always was. There wasn't some hidden meaning behind this that he wasn't being told about. Iida wasn't secretly trying to hurt him. He wasn't going to use this moment of weakness and trust to make fun of him later about it. He also wouldn't expect more from it than what he was putting it forward as, a simple, honest gesture of comfort and friendship. Izuku shook his head at his own silliness and shifted his hand so that their fingers were more comfortably slotted together. Then he grinned up at Iida, watching as the tense unsureness slipped out of the other's posture.
"Yeah, I'm sure."
Iida's face broke into a wide grin as he squeezed Izuku's hand and pulled him gently forward so that they were standing closer together. "Good, I'm glad."
Izuku leaned and for a brief moment rested his head against Iida's shoulder, murmuring a soft, "Thank you," before taking a step forward and pulling them towards where Uraraka, Todoroki, and Shinsou were waiting for them.
Iida coughed slightly and for a brief moment, Izuku thought there was a tinge of red on his friend's cheeks but it was gone so quickly he thought it must be a trick of the horrible mall lighting. "It's the least I can do, considering everything you've done for me since the start of the year. "
Izuku expected things to be incredibly awkward when they reached the rest of the group considering that their hands remained join but as he settled in next to Iida as they stopped walking his anxiety didn't spike nearly as much as he thought it would. They were his friends and he knew even if they thought it was strange they would understand and support him. All three eyed their joined hands curiously and he knew he would probably have to address it if only to stop Uraraka from dying of curiosity given the way her eyes narrowed in on it like a shark scenting blood in the water.
"We are holding hands platonically as friends!"
Izuku let out a snort of surprised laughter as Iida announced what was going on loudly to the group before he had a chance to consider how to broach the subject. Uraraka bit her bottom lip a clear sign that she was trying not to start giggling in Iida's face. Todoroki blinked owlishly at them and Izuku could practically hear all the trollish thoughts rolling through his head that thankfully he was far too polite to say out loud but he knew would fill up their group chat the second he had an excuse to bring his phone out.
Shinsou didn't have as much of a filter as the other two. "Thanks for sharing that fact with the entire mall, I guess?" he drawled sleepily.
Iida pinned him with an unimpressed glare and opened his mouth like he was going to scold which would intern just set Shinsou's trollish behavior off even more which would intern send Iida even further into frustration. As entertaining as that could be on occasion now was not the time or place for it. Izuku squeezed Iida's hand to try and calm him. Iida's mouth snapped shut and he huffed softly, distracting himself by fiddling with his glasses again. Shinsou looked far too smug for his own good and Izuku glared at him. Shinsou just shrugged his shoulders but his smirk grew wider.
"I was feeling a bit...anxious..." Izuku admitted after a moment. "Iida thought this might help and it is."
"Are you sure you're okay being here?" Uraraka asked stepping closer to squeeze his shoulder. "I know we kind of pushed you into this because we thought it might help you to face it but...if you want to go back to the dorms we all understand."
Izuku considered her words for a moment and shook his head. "I think this is good, I think I need to challenge myself to do this while I'm safe and surrounded by you guys. If I let every place that something potentially bad happens to affect me then I'm probably going to have a hard time as a hero."
"That's not how it works and you know it," Iida says in a stern voice squeezing his hand as he does so. "You're allowed to be afraid of things and be affected by the things that have happened to you. You may be a hero but you're still human."
"I'm sure even All Might has things he's afraid of."
Izuku hummed and nodded at Uraraka’s words. He knows his friend means well. He even knows that Uraraka is right, All Might does have things that he's afraid of. He knows that better than she does because he's seen the kind of things he has to be afraid of. And those were only the ones he'd happened on by accident or been allowed to see by the man. He's sure that there are far more than even All Might has strived to forget over the years. It's the sort of thing that happens when you have thirty-plus years of a hero career to look back on.
He also knows personally just how hard All Might fought against those fears. He has to. The things he's seen and been forced to do for the good of helping people have given him no choice. He fights through because he needs to and while Izuku hopes that it won't come to that for him he knows that as a holder of One for All he has to prepare for the fact that it more than likely will be.
He has to prepare to fight through it too.
He knows it won't be easy. He knows his journey to being a top hero is going to be filled with scary things that are going to take one small step after another to get through. He also knows that he has something that All Might didn't allow himself to have. He had his friends.
All Might's fear drove him to isolate himself. He kept himself separate because he felt it was necessary to keep others safe. Izuku could understand where he was coming from but he hoped that things could be different for him. Accidentally telling Kacchan about One for All had probably been a mistake in the long run. But he couldn’t deny that having someone else who knew about it to bounce things off of was helpful and he could see the benefit of telling others about it as well eventually. He'd have to be more careful about it in the future of course. He couldn't just blurt it out to everyone in his life. But he could definitely see himself telling at least a few of them the truth about it at some point. Definitely not now, not when he didn't really even have a handle on it himself but someday down the line when he was ready and he felt they were ready too.
"Thank you."
The words came out softly and everyone grew silent and turned to look at him. In the past, that would have made him embarrassed and would cause his anxiety to spike. But this time that spike never came. With them, he felt safe and protected and comfortable enough to say whatever was on his mind without fear of being treated badly because of it. Oh, they would definitely laugh at him if what he said was completely ridiculous and deserved it but it was never mean-spirited.
"For what?" Uraraka asked. It was clear from her quiet tone that she understood the moment for what it was.
"For...being here," he blurted honestly before he could change his mind. "For being my friends. I...I haven't had many, any really, before this and...and just...thank you..."
Iida squeezed his hand firmly and Izuku butted his head against his shoulder as a way to hide the blush tinging his cheeks for such a personal admission. Uraraka was frowning slightly and he had a feeling they would be talking about this later but thankfully for now she pushed whatever was on her mind away and grinned widely at him.
"You're stuck with us now, whether you like it or not!"
He laughed and peered out at the others through the fringe of his hair. They were all smiling, even Shinsou's lips had a slight crook to them though he immediately tried to deny it when he opened his mouth to speak.
"If you all start hugging, I'm leaving."
Izuku snorted. And Iida used the break in the conversation to remind them that they, unfortunately, had a time limit and if they wanted to see the movie like they’d planned that they better get going now or they were going to run out of time.
The reminder that their time was limited did have the desired result and pushed them into gear to decide what they wanted to do. It only took a minimal amount of tag-team work between Shinsou and Izuku to convince Aizawa that they would probably be far safer in a theater than wandering around the mall all day. They all still had a few places that they each wanted to check out while they were there of course and there was a rather heated debate about whether they should hit up the stationery store that Uraraka wanted to make sure to get to while they were there first or the movie. Todoroki wanted to visit some high-end clothing shop, Iida wanted to check out the sporting goods store because he had a not-so-secret obsession with sneakers and Shinsou kept glancing longingly in the direction of the pet shop.
Izuku quietly offered up his own desire to check out the Hero Shop if they had time when the question about where he wanted to go was brought up. He didn't actually need anything there just liked to window shop the newest hero merch and would have happily skipped it in favor of the stationary shop because he always had a use for more notebooks and pens and he thought that there should be some new series hero stickers that had come out recently. He only realized he had been mumbling his thoughts out loud when Uraraka promised they'd try to do both. He'd glanced up expecting annoyance and censure but only found amusement, understanding, and comfort on their faces.
He's settled in easily next to Iida as they'd headed towards the theater. The taller, normally faster walking boy seemed content to match his pace to Izuku's as he pointed out things in the stores that they passed by. Iida and Shinsou were up ahead heads bent together in a heated conversation about movie snacks and Uraraka had fallen behind to walk with Aizawa who was shaking his head at whatever she was saying to him.
As they walked it hit him that it had been a long time since he'd felt this comfortable and safe. True he didn't know what might happen over the rest of the day and disaster did have a tendency to follow him, to follow them all, but he knows that whatever they will get through it...together.
And in that moment all the fear and anxiety he'd been holding deep inside him disappeared into happiness.