Work Text:
There was laughter.
There always is when he gets like this.
“Pfft-! K-Kaminari! Are- are you good?!” Jirou- of course- asks. Though he’s not sure if she’s genuinely concerned or just asking to get nothing but a stupid response from him.
He replies anyways, “W-Wheyy...”, and she only laughs laughs and laughs, prompting the others to smile and chuckle.
Is being in this stupid state the only way to make others smile and laugh? he thinks, what’s the fun in seeing someone getting severe drawbacks from their Quirk?
He wants to cry, and Denki isn’t usually a crier -that’s more of Midoriya’s reign- but being made fun of from the moment he got his Quirk up to now…he’s bound to have a limit.
He supposes he reached it; shame he can’t break down in this state like he wants to.
So, he just watches as the others giggle at his vulnerable state, lets them do whatever they want him to do (they threw a ball wondering if he could catch it, the red spot on his forehead served them as an answer), they- mostly Jirou he assumes- record him too.
And he can’t even do anything. It’s been a year since he started at U.A., why can’t he do anything? He started practicing control of his Quirk for a long time to avoid this kind of drawback because it makes him feel weak - vulnerable- and yet. And yet-
“Hey guys! What are we laughing about?” Oh, is that Midoriya? He must’ve stayed back to get extra training. Good for him, Denki muses.
Jirou is the one to respond, snorting, “Hey Mido-pfft it’s just Kaminari being Kaminari. The guy fried his brain again-,” by the way she was wheezing Denki would think she was watching a comedy stand-up, “-nothing out of sorts here.” she finishes.
“Oh, is he alright?” and Denki thinks he sounds genuinely worried, “He has been doing well so far with his control lately! Has he been practicing on his own? That’s quite dangerous, he could’ve hurt himself on the way to the dorms...” he trails off. And Denki…Denki doesn’t know what to say. Granted he can’t say anything in this state, but he is genuinely so shocked that he lets out a quiet “whey” causing Jirou, the instigator of this whole situation, to snort. But he doesn’t care, because someone- Midoriya- is concerned about the consequences of him being in his stupid state.
Now he really wants to cry, but for completely different reasons.
The only people who have sounded this troubled whilst addressing his Quirk repercussions have been his grandma and his parents. Denki hasn’t used his Quirk in front of them after that, and if he did, he’d only activate it in small bursts to fix an electronic in his house. That didn’t mean he only used it at that point, he obviously went to a Quirk Counselor, and even then, the person assigned to help him control his power couldn’t do anything but tell him not to use his Quirk at his maximum power as it could lead to severe damage to his brain-cells and body circulation.
This, clearly, didn’t stop him from training his Quirk up until the entrance exam and go to one of the most prestigious hero schools of Japan (even if he did end up frying his brain in the process…quite a lot of times really). Consequently, he lost control along the way and was always powered up for a full 1.3million volts, or in high stress situations - there have been a lot of them since he started attending this school- 2million volts, which always leave him stupid and unresponsive.
A liability.
And he knows he can be dead-weight when he discharges all his electricity at once, hence his Sharpshooting gear, which helps him a ton shooting his electricity with a bit of fine-tuning in the direction he releases the electricity to. But he still lacks control, which holds him back often. Don’t get him wrong, after months of practice he has improved steadily, but sometimes he just loses control and well… short-circuits.
And these short-circuits worry him, because, what if he short-circuits so much, he gets permanent brain damage? What happens when he can’t use his Quirk when fighting a villain and he becomes vulnerable enough to be taken as hostage? Will Jirou continue to laugh? Will everyone just dismiss these side effects as “Kaminari being Kaminari”?
Why is no one aware of the dangers? Why is everyone laughing?
Well, it’s not as if Denki made them aware of the risks involving his quirk aside from the brain-frying, but it’s not as if he could anyway. He was the class clown, what was there to worry about? Nothing.
However, it seems as if Midoriya doesn’t see it that way, and that has Denki both grateful and stunned.
“Don’t worry dude, Kami’s not so stupid to get lost in U.A grounds, plus he’s not that defenseless in this state” Jirou argues. I beg to differ. Midoriya, bless the guy, looks at Jirou like she just told him the sky is red.
Midoriya keeps looking at her for a few more moments and deadpans “That’s the stupidest thing I’ve heard,” and if Denki wasn’t cognitively impaired right now, he would’ve laughed at the bewildered look on Jirou’s face, “You should know that his drawbacks are detrimental for his cognitive development. And sure, at first glance it’s a funny sight, but the more you look at it the more you notice how dangerous these drawbacks are- if he keeps frying his brain like this, it could worsen his short and possibly long-term memory and it could affect his hero work if not taken care of properly” he chastises and spares a look at the red bruise forming on Denki’s forehead and frowns.
Silence. Everyone seems to be looking away with some level of shame. Good, Denki huffs internally, they at least have the decency to know what they were doing.
Midoriya continues, “So I’ll ask again-” a pause as he looks over at the class, “-what are we laughing about?”
More ashamed silence. The whole class looks like they have been scolded by their parents.
Midoriya shakes his head and sighs - disappointedly? - and approaches Denki with a soft, reassuring smile on his face.
“Let’s take you to Recovery Girl just in case it’s something serious, yeah?” he says as he wraps an arm around Denki’s shoulders and guides them both to Recovery Girl’s office. Midoriya continues to smile gently and takes his time to lead them to the youthful heroine, in case Denki trips or stumbles, and Denki never felt so- so… warm? Safe? Protected?
Even as the side-effects of the quirk slowly wear off, Denki can’t seem to say anything. Not that he needs to, with Midoriya guiding and talking to him about this new Hero that debuted recently (“their quirk is so cool, and their rescue work so far is phenomenal!”), he’s filling the silence plenty on his own. It’s quite endearing if he’s being honest, he’s never been close to Midoriya as much as Uraraka, Iida or Todoroki have been, but he feels like he will be after this.
It’s known among the class that Midoriya would do anything for his friends if it meant keeping them close for as long as time will allow, but no one was aware of how close he holds their friendship in his stupidly big heart of his to the point where he’ll defend them until the very end. This soft-spoken boy is a force to be reckoned with in that regard.
He’s sweet like that. Stupidly selfless and self-sacrificial yes, but sweet.
Midoriya also has a very calming presence and doesn’t really demand much of you. He’ll probably just let you sit next to him in silence when you need to detox and then proceed to mutter things quietly, sort of like a calming lullaby. He just lets you exist.
And Denki wants to befriend someone like that. Of course he has his own set of friends – Sero, Kirishima, Mina and Bakugou (as much as he denies it)- and he loves them all and would not trade them for anything, but… they aren’t exactly the type to just sit and be quiet. They quite often expect him and Mina to cause a ruckus or even annoy them at any given chance all the time (with the exception of Bakugou, he may be an angry gremlin but he is not dumb)- which, fine, it’s admittedly funny on many fronts, but he can’t do that every day at any given moment. It’s like they expect him to take his unofficial class-clown role to heart.
He wishes he could, emotions are annoying.
It seems he spaced out for the whole walk to Recovery Girl’s because Midoriya suddenly stops and looks at him, concern etching on his face. But when he looks around, he realizes they’re in the middle of the hallway, it seems that this action relieves Midoriya, if the breath he lets out is of any indication.
“Good, you’re gaining some awareness” he congratulates softly, “Are you able to talk now? Coherently, that is” he chuckles and smiles at Denki encouragingly. Goddamnit, he can’t not answer now.
“Yeah” he tries, and it sounds a bit strange and weak to his ears, so he tries again, “Yes” he says, more confidently. And it seems to make Midoriya brighten up, so he counts it as a win.
Said boy looks at him once more, as if he’s trying figure something out, and he seems satisfied with what he sees because he gives Denki a winning smile and relief washes over him, “I’m so glad… you’re not too disoriented or dizzy or anything like that right?” Denki shakes his head, because really, he’s dealt with this so often that a little dizzy spell should be ridiculous. “That’s great! But we’re still going to recovery girl as a precaution in case this is worse than you think it is- I-I mean! That’s not to say I’m invalidating your thoughts and feelings on the matter because clearly this is your quirk, and you would obviously know more about the repercussions more than I would! and I’m obviously not as qualified as Recovery Girl to tell you what’s going on with your brain and-!”
Denki can’t help but laugh. The more Midoriya kept speaking and stammering the redder his face got. What happened to the levelheaded cool guy in the common room?
“Damn dude, that’s a lot of words for someone who just told half the class off” he teases. And Midoriya’s face got impossibly redder, at this point Denki’s worried if the guy might explode.
“I-I didn’t mean to! Well, I did, they were clearly making fun of something that’s obviously detrimental to your health! I couldn’t just stand there and let them continue, it’s not right!” he defends, “and besides, it wasn’t telling off, it was just… a w-warning?” it comes out more as a question than a statement. Denki snorts and lifts an eyebrow, entertained.
“Are you trying to pull an Aizawa on them? Because it worked man.”
Midoriya looks at him with this… indescribable look on his face. Which had no right to be as funny as it is. “…What.”
Denki grins, mischief apparent, “An Aizawa! You looked like a parent scolding their children for misbehaving.” And Midoriya gives him this what the fuck look and stays quiet for a few moments. And then-
“Is this your way of indirectly calling Aizawa-sensei a dad?” Midoriya asks wide-eyed, bewilderment and amusement barely kept out of his voice.
“He might as well be, for all that he acts like he hates our existence, the guy is soft as hell.”
A beat.
“…Does that make all of us siblings?”
Denki guffaws “Dude! You’ve been spending way too much time with Todoroki!”
“You’re the one making us out to be some sort of pseudo-family!” Midoriya counters with a soft laugh.
They keep bantering for a few more minutes, until they calm down their laughter to a few chuckles. Eventually, they end it and are left with a sort of tranquil silence in between them. It’s not awkward, surprisingly, and it leaves Denki feeling light and relaxed in a way he never has been before. They both had ended up sitting on the floor, with their backs against the wall, both lost in their own minds but not so much to make the mood somber. Just pensive, serene silence.
And Denki likes this silence, the sort where he can just let go for a while and not worry about expectations, mocking laughter and teasing. He can just be. And he appreciates this peace whilst he can, because as much as he craves this sort of ambiance every day, his days are almost always erratic and active as a hero-in-training in a school that demands a lot from them. It’s not easy, but it’s what he gets.
So, he’ll take this moment and cherish it for as long as he can.
In the end he decides to break the silence.
“Hey, Midoriya?” he asks quietly. And the guy must feel the same as Denki because he replies with a soft “yes?”.
“Are we?” Denki asks after a few seconds.
“Hm?”
“Family, I mean.”
Midoriya lets out a soft hum, followed by a small, comforting chuckle.
“Of course, Kaminari-kun. I wouldn’t have it any other way.”
And Denki…
Denki feels happy.
Not a full burst of bright happiness that lasts all of five minutes- no. It’s a sort of calm, slowly heart-warming contentment that has him releasing all the tension in his body that he didn’t even know he held in a matter of seconds.
He lets out a soft sigh, scooting closer to Midoriya and decides to rest his head on the greenette’s shoulder. Midoriya rests his cheek on his hair, “All right?” he checks.
Denki feels a soft smile tug at his lips as he huffs out a small laugh.
“All right.”
Midoriya hums contentedly and both bask in the quiet. The only sounds of the outside breeze and their soft breathing being heard.
After what seems like hours, but was probably twenty minutes, Midoriya speaks up again.
“We should probably go to recovery girl now, we only have so much time” he pauses, then mumbling he adds “and her patience is very… limited…” he seems to shudder at an unpleasant memory. Surely an old lady like Recovery Girl isn’t that terrifying?
(He’ll later retreat this statement).
Regardless, Denki nods and takes his head off his shoulder and gets up, stretching. He pops a few joints, and cracks his back and he winces a little, “Jesus Christ, I feel like an old man. Is my back meant to sound like that?” he asks, genuine bafflement all over his face.
Midoriya laughs at his dramatics and gets up, copying Denki’s example, except he doesn’t sound like two rocks hitting against each other. Repeatedly.
“You just need to exercise more, you sloth” he reprimands softly, with a teasing grin.
“Bah, you don’t know what you’re talking about” he dismisses, Midoriya gives him another look.
“Sure, old man”
“Who are you calling an old man, you-you zygote!”
Midoriya gives him a mock offended look. Denki gives him one right back.
They stare each other, and not even two seconds later they erupt in laughter. This is nice, he thinks, no expectations, no forced banter. Soon, Denki recovers, and he can’t help but let a soft smile whilst looking at a still-chuckling Midoriya.
“All right?” he asks, smile as radiant as the sun. His eyes kind and inviting as he looks at him.
Denki looks at him, content and satisfied,
“All right.”
Midoriya beams and guides them to Recovery Girl, Denki following closely behind.
And as he stares at the boy in front of him, at his relaxed posture and happiness that radiates from him, he decides that yes.
This is all he needs.