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1
Midoriya Izuku, un garçon mystérieux . It was Yuuga’s current assignment from “Uncle” to gather information on him. How lucky for Yuuga, then, that they’d been placed on the same team for this battle trial, so that he could observe up close as they fought their own classmates. Or so he’d thought.
Yuuga fired off another laser before doubling over, gasping for breath.
He really wasn’t doing much observing after all, too focused on not getting his derrière kicked. His stomach was churning, but he managed to hold onto his lunch. Time was almost up, he could hold on for a few minutes more-
“Gotcha,” someone yelled, right next to him. He flinched back before green filled his vision.
“Ashido!”
Ah, there was Midoriya now- or his back, anyway. He was glowing with the dazzling green lights that had accompanied his quirk usage since the internships. The buzzer sounded somewhere behind them.
“Ashido, that was dangerous! You were aiming right for Aoyama’s face with that spray!”
Mon dieu , was she?! His own beautiful visage!
“Uh, yeah,” Ashido said, arms crossed in front of her, acid still dripping from her hand, “we’re fighting.”
“But he wasn’t paying attention! What if you got it in his eyes? Or burned him really bad!’
“Midori, he’s wearing his glasses thing. He’d have been fine! Besides, it wasn't as if I made it that… potent…” she trailed off.
Yuuga glanced at Midoriya’s arms, now lowered from their defensive position.
Merde , that looked terrible!
“Oh, I guess I put a little more oomph into it than I thought!”
Midoriya turned to him, face sweating, though whether that was from exertion or pain was unknown. “Aoyama, are you alright?”
“ Moi?! Mon ami, c’est toi who you should be concerned about! Your poor arms!”
Midoriya looked down. The acid had eaten right through his gloves, leaving nasty looking burns on the skin beneath.
“This? I’m fine. I’ve had worse.”
A robotic gurney pulled up beside them. It beeped at Midoriya to get on.
“Really? It’s my arms that are hurt, I can still walk.”
It beeped again, more insistently.
“Ugh, fine. Aoyama, you should come too.”
What?
“You look kinda sick- I mean- not that you don’t look good, you look fine- more than fine, I mean! It’s just that- you should see Recovery Girl too!”
Midoriya reddened and tried to wave his arms in front of his face, and winced before holding them closer to his body. It was almost cute.
Yuuga smiled and took a seat beside Midoriya on the gurney.
That was one thing he’d learned about him, at least. The boy had a kind soul. Unlike Yuuga, Midoriya was truly a hero.
- - -
2
Yuuga still couldn’t believe that he had friends, much less that they had invited him on an actual outing! He’d never had friends before. Even after his quirk “came in”, he had missed out on prime socializing experience that everyone else had. That plus the fact that he couldn’t use his quirk without hurting himself meant that no one had really wanted to be around him.
Yet there he was with Iida, Uraraka, Tsuyu, Todoroki, and of course, Midoriya. They’d had to stay within a certain distance of UA to go out without a hero chaperone, and Midoriya knew plenty of spots in the area since he’d grown up there. The group had just exited the frozen yogurt shop– they’d even had edible glitter as toppings! – when screams started down the street.
Because of course they must.
Yogurt regrettably abandoned, the six of them took off towards the commotion.
A villain, quelle surprise . He was spraying some sort of garish orange goo from his hands and onto the civilians, who collapsed upon being hit. Ah, not someone one wanted to go near, most likely. His navel laser would work perfectly for this situation! He’d left school grounds while wearing his support item exactly for an occasion such as this.
He fired off quite a few short bursts– his stamina had greatly increased from the beginning of the year– which the villain had to stop attacking to dodge.
A large shadow loomed behind him. He turned quickly, but-!
A flash of green, and Yuuga was hit with déjà vu , because here is Midoriya jumping in front of him. The second villain grabbed him, had the absolute gall to put his hands around Midoriya’s neck and lift him from the ground, and Yuuga- Yuuga was not the same scared little boy that he was mere months ago, frozen with fear in an attack that was his own fault. He cried out in rage and lunged for the villain, scratching at his arms with manicured nails and firing off a shot point blank- and Midoriya was finally, mercifully released, falling to the ground with a thud and grasping at his poor bruising throat with a cough…
The villain… the villain was down, that was what mattered.
Later, as the paramedics checked over them and the police took statements, Yuuga asked Midoriya why he did it, why he jumped in front of him like that and nearly got himself killed-
“Because,” Midoriya said, voice raspy and eyes shining with determination, “you’re my friend. I didn’t want you to get hurt. I could take it.”
Yuuga’s heart clenched with shame.
- - -
+1
It was the ultimate battle between good and evil, and Izuku wasn’t even there . He was on his way, sure, but he was absolutely surrounded by chaos and villains, villains and chaos. They were all two-bit thugs and didn’t take more than a few seconds each to defeat, but the sheer quantity of them stretched seconds into minutes that he couldn’t afford to lose.
He had just dispatched another handful when Danger Sense alerted him to an incoming projectile-
Something– someone? – slammed into him from behind, and Danger Sense hadn’t warned him about that.
He got to his knees from where he landed on the ground, and- he recognized that hair, that dark coat- but what he didn’t recognize was that expression of absolute terror on Aoyama’s face. Or the red blooming across his shirt. Or the large spike in his side…
Aoyama stumbled forward before collapsing to his knees.
No.
Izuku saw red, and everything went white.
When he became more aware, he realized that all the villains surrounding him were down. They were safe, for the moment. Except they weren’t.
Because Aoyama was on the ground.
Izuku rushed to his side, carefully taking his classmate into his lap. Should he remove the spike? No, that was keeping the blood in, stupid. He tore off a strip of his scarf to bind it in place until help could arrive.
“UA, I’m just outside of Gunga. Can’t Stop Twinkling has been seriously injured, we’re looking at potential blood loss, possible poison. We’re clear of villains for now. I’m staying with him until help arrives, so if you want me to fight Shigaraki, send help ASAP.”
Aoyama was breathing heavily, hands clutching at his side. Izuku grabbed one of his in his own. Aoyama tried to talk, but broke into a coughing fit, and he squeezed Izuku’s hand hard. Blood leaked from the corner of his mouth. Fuck! Where were they? They had Monoma, didn’t they?!
“It’s okay, Yuuga, I’m right here with you. I promise not to leave you until help arrives.”
Boots crunched on rubble, and a team of rescue heroes arrived. Izuku held Yuuga’s hand until the medics pried him away. He wanted to follow after them, but…
He was needed elsewhere. None of them would be safe until All for One and Shigaraki were gone.
- - -
It was over.
It was all over.
Izuku lay wide awake in his hospital bed, several days later. He was sore, sure, but he was fine enough, and he was on a minimal amount of pain medication in order to keep his head clear.
Well, it was supposed to be clear, but it was full of thoughts of a certain someone.
Izuku got up from his bed, ignoring the twinge in his side, and dragged his IV pole with him out into the hallway. He had finally managed to convince Mom and All Might to go get some rest, and nobody else tried to stop him.
There was a guard posted at the door, but he stepped aside once he realized who he was dealing with. Saving Japan had its perks.
Yuuga was in a hospital bed of his own, skin pale against the white sheets, usual sparkle long gone. He wasn’t asleep either, and glanced up from where he was fidgeting with the handcuff connecting his wrist to the bed railing.
It wasn’t fair that he was still being treated like a villain after everything.
“ Quelle surprise ,” he said, with what Izuku saw now to be his fake smile. “The hero of the hour has come to see me in my little cell.” He winked halfheartedly.
“Aoyama,” Izuku started, but he stopped. What could he even say?
“You called me Yuuga before, when- well, when . I liked that.”
“Yuuga. I came because I wanted to thank you, and see that you were alright.”
“Well, you’re the first. Probably the only, really,” Yuuga laughed bitterly.
Izuku drew closer, stepping up to Yuuga’s bedside. He took his hand– the uncuffed one– in his own.
“I really mean it. Thank you, for everything. But I also wanted to ask… why?”
“Why what? Why I became a villain? You already know the answer to that.”
“No, not that. And you’re not a villain. I want to know why you jumped in front of that spike for me. You have to have known I would have dodged it or- or deflected it. Just… why?”
Yuuga took a deep breath. “I did it because even if you don’t think of me as a friend anymore, mon chéri , you are important to me. And the world needs a hero like you much more than a villain like me.”
Izuku looks at Yuuga’s hand. It’s soft and smooth, such a stark difference from his own, scarred and callous as it is, although it’s less manicured than usual. Yuuga looked up at him, shocked.
“ Pardonnez-moi?! ”
“I said, that’s stupid. You’re not a villain just because you’ve done some bad things, Yuuga. Especially after everything you’ve been doing to make up for it.”
“ Mon chéri , I’m afraid everyone else won’t see it that way.”
“Then fuck everyone else. I care about you .”
Tears welled up in Yuuga’s eyes, the vibrant blue reflecting the moonlight through the window. Izuku felt his own tears form to match.
“Midoriya-”
“Izuku.”
“I-Izuku, I had just been thinking about what I’d said when we first encountered one another, during the entrance exam. I had said that we probably wouldn’t meet again. I have never been more glad to be wrong. Even though sometimes it hurts, I’m glad that I got to know you.”
“ Get to know me. I’m not going anywhere.”
He could stare into those blue eyes all night.
Fin~