Chapter Text
“Shit,” Tomura whispers. Skilled, glove-clad fingers tap quickly against his controller. He leans to his left as his character runs as though that’ll do anything to help his imminent doom. Some green motherfucker is shooting at him. They haven’t hit him yet, but they’re getting close.
No one ever gets close to him.
Whoever this asshat is, they’re good.
Tomura’s character jumps over a destroyed shed, squatting behind the rubble. His finger sits on the trigger button. “Come on, come on,” he mutters. He looks around, focusing above him. The motherfucker chasing him had a paraglider attachment - which is something that Tomura had been trying to get for weeks. This person was really starting to piss him off.
Gunshots echo through his headset, and Tomura curses loudly. Where the hell is that fucker? He glances down at his hands for a moment, just one second, and suddenly his TV is blinking with the death screen.
“Motherfucker!”
Tomura rips off his headset, growling in frustration. How the hell did that little shit kill him? He’s angrily smashing buttons when a ‘good game’ appears in his chat.
He sends back an eloquent ‘fuck you.’
A few days later, when Tomura is finally calm enough to log back in, he anilates every motherfucker in his path. He’s feeling good, stealing ammunition as he goes. The motherfucker from a few days ago is nowhere to be seen. Tomura’s blood boils just thinking about them. What kind of asshate says good game to someone they just killed? This isn’t League of fucking Legends.
He shoots down someone on a ledge, grinning to himself. Hell yeah. He’s got his mojo back.
“Dude!” A loud voice rings through his headset. It’s Dabi. Tomura can hear his yelling through the wall. He pounds a fist against it, a bit of peeling paint sticking to his hand. “Come on, Grumpy, it adds to the effect,” Dabi says, quieter this time. His character runs up beside Tomura’s, brandishing a yellow sword. Dabi wasn’t much of a gunman, which surprised Tomura. He always seemed like a fan of flashy things.
“Just keep your screaming to a minimum, asshole.”
“That’s not what you said last night.” Tomura can feel his annoying, cheeky wink through the wall. He punches it again.
The pair of them play together for a while, not having anything better to do. Life is boring when you’re in hiding. Dabi stabs and slashes unsuspecting victims, slightly maniacal laughter echoing in Tomura’s headset. Tomura runs behind the man on a mission, collecting the ammunition and medicinal kits that they drop. Dabi doesn’t stop long enough to pick up anything other than experience points.
“Shit, Dabi, look above you!” Tomura yells, but it’s too late. A green-skinned character with a paraglider shoots him down before Dabi even has a chance to raise his sword. His character - a glorified, muscular fighter that is somehow more emo-looking than Dabi himself - shatters. His sword and months worth of stored up coins appear on Tomura’s screen.
“Fuck!” Tomura hears the yelling through his headset and through the wall. “Shiggy, get my sword!”
Tomura rolls his eyes, but he runs towards where the green person is landing. “Out of the way, fuckface!” he yells as though the other player can hear him. Maybe he should join the public lobby just to yell at them. That’s a normal, rational thought, right?
“Get him!” Dabi practically shreeks, and Tomura hears him running just before the man-child kicks open his door and falls onto the bed next to him, headset hanging around his neck. “Come on, Grumpy, kill his ass!”
“Shut up,” Tomura hisses. He makes sure his eyes stay focused on the screen this time. Now, he’s close enough to see the player’s gamertag - smallmight17. Tomura shoots them in the head before they even turn around.
Dabi cheers. “You avenged me!” he yells, loosely wrapping an arm around Tomura’s waist. “I knew you cared!”
Tomura shoves him away, muttering, “Get off me, smelly bastard.”
A chat notification appears. ‘Nice shot.’
‘Suck my dick,’ Tomura, ever the wordsmith, replies.
The next time they meet, Tomura is the one to die without catching sight of the enemy. He had just closed his inventory and was waiting on Dabi to get back from whatever he did in his time out of the hideout. The green motherfucker - aka smallmight17 - was just above him, and Tomura never looked up. Damn paraglider.
Another chat notification. ‘I keep running into you, what’s your discord?’
Because that’s a totally normal thing to do. Right?
It’s even more normal for Tomura to send the person his user. He’d probably ignore them anyway.
Almost immediately, his phone chimes. The death screen is still displayed on his television, so Tomura picks up the device. A discord notification, of course, from someone named mightysmall71.
mightysmall71: hi!
handyman: real creative with the names
mightysmall71: what does your user even mean?
handyman: bite me
mightysmall71: has anyone ever told you how pleasant you are?
Tomura turns off his phone.
The motherfucker keeps messaging him. They’re infuriating, annoying, all of the other synonyms Tomura can think of. They don’t leave him alone.
But Tomura’s the one who keeps answering.
January 15
mightysmall71: who’s your favorite hero?
handyman: what are you, twelve?
mightysmall71: this is important information !!
mightysmall71: it tells you a lot about a person
handyman: and if i say i don’t have a favorite hero
handyman: what does that tell you about me?
mightysmall71: that you’re a liar
mightysmall71: everyone has a favorite hero
mightysmall71: so tell me !
mightysmall71: (∩｀-´ )⊃━☆ﾟ.*･ ｡ﾟ
handyman: holy fuck
handyman: you’re actually twelve
January 19
mightysmall71: who’s that person you play with sometimes?
mightysmall71: the one with the sword
handyman: why?
mightysmall71: they just called me a ‘toe-licking cunt’ in chat
handyman: you probably deserved it
January 24
mightysmall71: hey
mightysmall71: you never told me your favorite hero (；￣Д￣)
handyman: i am a grown man, i don’t have a favorite hero
handyman: and what’s with the faces?
mightsmall71: they’re fun !!
mightysmall71: and i don’t like emojis
mightysmall71: wait wait wait w a i t
mightysmall71: you’re an adult ?????
handyman: yeah
handyman: i’m twenty one
mightysmall71: ╭( ๐_๐)╮oh
handyman: what?
January 25
handyman: don’t tell me you’re actually twelve
mightysmall71: (ﾟωﾟ；)
handyman: oh my god
handyman: i’m telling my roommate he got killed by a twelve year old
mightysmall71: i’m not twelve !!
mightysmall71: and i killed you too (∩`ω´)⊃))
handyman: how old are you then
mightysmall71: …
mightsmall71: sixteen
January 30
mightysmall71: how good are you at english?
mightysmall71: bc i have a test tomorrow that i might fail
handyman: the only english words i know are curse words
mightysmall71: (˚ ˃̣̣̥⌓˂̣̣̥ )
February 2
mightysmall71: do you wanna play together today?
mightysmall71: we can team up in a battle royale
handyman: my roommate broke my tv
handyman: so no
mightysmall71: what?????
mightysmall71: why?
handyman: there was an incident involving his quirk
handyman: i’m seventy percent sure that it was intentional
mightysmall71: ohhh
mightysmall71: quirk accidents happen a lot wear i live
handyman: emotionally unstable roommate?
mightysmall71: lots of them
mightysmall71: my school has dorms
February 4
mightysmall71: pssst
mightysmall71: what’s your quirk?
handyman: no.
mightysmall71: (っ´ω｀c)
mightysmall71: why not?
handyman: you’re just gonna look me up in the quirk index
handyman: i’m not stupid
mightysmall71: i wasn’t gonna do that !!
mightysmall71: i was just curious
handyman: i’m still not gonna tell you
mightysmall71: is it dangerous?
handyman: yeah
February 7
mightysmall71: okay i’m curious
mightysmall71: please please p l e a s e tell me your quirk
handyman: n o
mightysmall71: (∩`ω´)⊃)) come onnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn
handyman: has no one ever taught you the meaning of the word no, brat?
mightysmall71: （◞‸◟）
February 10
mightysmall71: okay, so no quirk talk
mightysmall71: what do you do with your life other than bully children on first person shooter games
handyman: idk
handyman: i also bully my roomates
mightysmall71: sword guy?
mightysmall71: what’s his name, btw
mightysmall71: it feels weird referring to someone as sword guy
mightysmall71: w a i t
mightysmall71: what’s your name???????
handyman: tenko
mightysmall71: mines izuku !
February 19
“Holy fuck,” Dabi says. He’s cackling, the sound ringing in Tomura’s ears. He really needs to start turning down his headset some when he plays with Dabi. “You’ve been smiling at your phone for the past month because of Deku?”
Tomura slaps his wall, open palmed with one finger carefully held up. “Shut up!”
He hears more stupid, loud laughter.
Telling Izuku his name - his name - was an impulse decision. He wasn’t thinking. That was one of many, many mistakes. The first mistake was probably answering the kids fucking message. Or maybe it was being born.
mightysmall71: pssst do you wanna play together
mightysmall71: i can see that you’re online ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
handyman: whatever, stalker
mightysmall71: Ｏ(≧▽≦)Ｏ
mightysmall71: oooooooooooo can we call too
mightysmall71: please (´д｀人)
handyman: gimme a minute
“Dabi!”
“Hi!” The brat’s voice is impossibly bright. Tomura feels like he should be squinting, but instead he clears his throat and answers.
“Hi, brat,” Tomura says. He stalls for a moment at the sound of his own voice. It’s still raspy and tired, but the timbre is far deeper than what he’s used to. The voice altering app he had installed minutes before was expensive, but he knew that Izuku would recognize him without it. Tomura himself confirmed that the brat was in fact Midoriya Izuku by the sound of his stupid, squeaky voice.
“I have a name, you know.” Tomura can practically hear his pout. He imagines it, for a moment. The way Izuku’s brow would crease, lips pulled downwards, a bit to the side. He’d probably chew on his bottom lip, too. The brat did that when they were in the mall, with Tomura’s hand around his neck, pinkie raised. He does it when he thinks, Tomura supposes. And he seems to think all the time.
“And I’m not gonna use it,” Tomura responds, eyes focused on the screen. “Battle royale?” he asks.
“Yeah!”
The match is filled with idle chatter, Izuku talking away as he effortlessly shoots down opponents. He and Tomura work well together. Tomura spots the enemy, Izuku kills most of them. Tomura gets in a few shots, but Izuku does most of the work. The brat doesn’t seem to mind, though, and he spends most of his time complaining about his English class.
Tomura is the first of them to die, shot from behind because he was too busy laughing at a god-awful pun that Izuku had said. He curses loudly, and hears Dabi snicker through the wall. He punches it.
“What was that?” Izuku asks. Tomura taps a few buttons and watches the boy’s character run around the arena. “That noise?”
“I punched the wall,” Tomura says. “On your left.”
Izuku shoots the opponent down. “Why?”
“Roomate being a bitch, our walls are thin.”
“Sword guy?” Izuku shoots another unsuspecting player.
“Yeah.”
“Tell him I said hi!”
Tomura huffs a quiet laugh. “No.”
“Why not?” He imagines Izuku is pouting. (As he murders another player, of course.)
“Because he’s almost as annoying as you.”
Tomura would love to say that he didn’t call Izuku much after the first time, but that would be a lie. A big, fat, colossal lie. Night after night, Tomura walks around the hideout carefully holding his phone, glaring when someone almost says his name. After the first week, Toga stops trying to talk into the phone, and no one yells obscenities or “boss” anymore. Dabi being the one exception to the profanities, of course.
The scarred man curses Izuku out the first chance he gets, calling the younger every insult in the book. Tomura promises to avenge Izuku’s honor by destroying all of Dabi’s underwear while he’s in the shower. He records Dabi’s yelling and sends it to Izuku.
He’s in deep. He knows it, and he knows it’s probably his worst idea since kidnapping the blond kid. But he threw all of his fucks to give out the window a long, long time ago. The consequences of his actions would catch up eventually, but that wasn’t his problem. At least not now.
March 15
mightysmall71: did you ever want to be a hero when you were a kid?
handyman: i think everyone did
handyman: but i grew out of that dream
mightysmall71: i never did
mightysmall71: i think i am now, but it’s too late
handyman: oh?
mightysmall71: do you know the kind of shit i’ve seen? i’m sixteen and i’ve watched dozens of people die. i’ve pulled screaming civilians out of buildings. i’ve been watching my mentor destroy himself. and for what? a spot on the rankings, more money?
mightysmall71: i don’t want to be one of them
handyman: you don’t wanna be a hero?
mightysmall71: not like them
Tomura presses the call button. “I need to tell you something, brat.”