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Shinsou wasn’t the type to hold grudges.
Alright, maybe that was a bit of a lie. He held grudges against his teachers who kept him after class for no reason at all, and classmates who gave him sideways looks, and people on the train who didn’t respect personal boundaries, and yeah, against the UA board for their dumb test that kept him out of the hero course.
But those were all people who deserved it. He almost never held a grudge for something stupid like getting beaten in a competition. He was no sore loser; hell, he was a great loser! He didn’t even drop out of UA after they snubbed him at the entrance exam, and that was the biggest loss he’d ever faced.
And yet somehow, every time he saw Midoriya Izuku’s face, he had the undeniable urge to spit at him.
It wasn’t his fault for doing whatever it took to win the sports festival. Shinsou watched his next match too, against Todoroki Shouto, and he couldn’t argue that Midoriya had a winning spirit - anyone who broke their own bones for a school competition must have really wanted it.
But damn it, anyone else would have walked right out of the ring! He’d never had anyone break out of his brainwashing using just their own will before. Midoriya’s hero course brain must’ve just been too powerful for his gen ed quirk to handle, and that was no one’s fault but Shinsou’s own.
Didn’t mean he had to like the guy, though.
So when he ran into him at the gym that Aizawa-sensei was letting him train in - a gym he had been assured would be empty, might he add - he might have been a little… snippy.
“Oh, Shinsou!” Midoriya said as soon as he spotted him, almost causing Shinsou to drop his dumbbell on his foot. “I didn’t expect to see you here.”
“That goes both ways,” Shinsou huffed, returning to his lateral raises. He wanted to get at least fifteen more in before he lost steam, and that meant that he couldn’t waste time talking to his least favorite person at UA besides for Principal Nezu.
“Are you training to join the hero course?” he asked, and Shinsou sighed. Guess I can’t avoid conversation that easily.
“Yeah,” he said shortly, not even looking over this time. He didn’t know how much of a secret it was, but Midoriya was in the hero course anyway. It wasn’t like he would be jealous or anything. “Sports festival was a bust, but I got another chance.” He dropped his hands to the side, winded. Talking and lifting at the same time was too much for him at the stage that he was at.
“Yeah, um, sorry about that,” Midoriya said, and when Shinsou looked over at him, he was hanging his head. “For what it’s worth, I think you’ll really make it this time! You definitely have what it takes to be a hero.”
Empty pity words. Shinsou neither needed them nor wanted them. “Sure,” he said, and racked the weights. “Thanks so much for your condolences.” He strode past Midoriya in the doorway, grabbing his water bottle and sweatshirt from the bench.
“Are you leaving already?”
“I’m done here,” Shinsou half-lied. He still had more training to do, but he would finish tomorrow morning. Undisturbed.
Shinsou turned on his heel to leave the gym. Before he could reach the door, the power went out, followed by a loud clunking sound of the door locking. Pulling on the handle to no avail confirmed this.
“What, the actual fuck?” Shinsou couldn’t help but curse the universe for putting him in such a trivializing situation. He yanked again hoping the door would give and this was just a cruel joke.
“What just happened?” Midoriya yelped. Shinsou rolled his eyes before turning in his direction. He could barely make out Midoriya’s frame as he strained in the dark training room.
“You think I know?”
Shoving his hand in his gym bag and grabbing his phone out so he could attempt to contact Aizawa, or any teacher for help. Out of the corner of his eye Shinsou could see Midoriya attempting to do the same.
“Hey, are you getting any service?” his peer asked.
After the second call dropped, and the fifth text wouldn’t send, Shinsou accepted defeat. Looking back at a worried Midoriya.
“Yeah…”
Pocketing his phone, Shinsou took a deep, steadying breath and tried not to panic. The doors were power operated, right? If the power went out there was likely an automatic fail safe that kept them from opening. All he had to do was wait for the power to come back on, and then he could hightail it out of there.
Hopefully.
“This is ridiculous,” Shinsou couldn’t help but say to no one in particular. “Shouldn’t U.A. have like… backup generators or something?”
“In theory, yes!” Midoriya began and Shinsou bit back a groan. That hadn’t been an invitation to start talking. “Though in the case of a villain attack or natural disaster it’s possible that the backup system has been damaged. I’ve experienced something like that in training before, actually, and we needed Kaminari to recharge the system to get the power back. If we assume that’s happening now, we’d–”
“Hey, Midoriya!”
“–need to wait for– oh! Yes, Shinsou?”
“Stop talking,” Shinsou ordered, though there was no power in the words. Midoriya had given him a perfect opening (rather naively), but Shinsou was training to be a hero. He wasn’t supposed to use his quirk for selfish reasons. Besides, he didn’t want to think about the look on Aizawa-sensei’s face if Midoriya decided to tattle on him.
Shinsou shivered at the image.
“R–right, sorry.” There was some shuffling in the dark, and Shinsou could just about make out the shape of Midoriya bowing in the moonlight. He raised an eyebrow and chose not to comment on it.
“It’s fine. Just don’t need you catastrophizing‘s all. I’m already paranoid enough as it is.”
“Sorry!” Midoriya said again. His voice sounded much smaller this time and Shinsou found himself almost feeling… guilty, for shutting him up.
Almost.
“Think any of the windows are unlocked?” Shinsou asked instead. Maybe he’d have a bit of luck after all, and a perfectly Shinsou-sized window would be left open for him to escape through. Given his track record, he wasn’t hopeful. But holy hell, did he want out of here.
“Maybe? Here, I’ll get my flashlight,” Midoriya answered as he pulled his phone out of his pocket. Shinsou did the same, wincing as the bright light hit his dilated eyes. Blinking, he waited for them to adjust.
Lit up against the dark as it was, the gym looked eerie. Harsh shadows fell across the equipment as he and Midoriya moved their phones around. The windows towered above them, much higher than Shinsou knew he could reach without his capture weapon. Still, he continued to hope he’d spot one of them left open. Surely Midoriya, Mr. Hero himself, could find a way to get them up there.
“Do you think we could make it out through the windows?” Midoriya said, as if he was the one with a psychic quirk. “I doubt anyone would be foolish enough to leave one open, but if I use even 5%, I could probably break through…”
“I can’t get up there on my own,” Shinsou admitted. It stung a little, but his pride was unimportant if there really was a dangerous situation waiting for them outside.
Something turned in his stomach at the thought of it. Midoriya said he had what it took to be a hero, but his heart pounding in his chest said otherwise.
“I could propel both of us up there, and you could hang on to the rafters with your capture weapon, and then follow when I break the window… Wait, no, it might be safer to leave you on the ground… But if there’s someone out there, they’ll definitely hear the window breaking, and we won’t have any time to lose… But if-”
“Just do the first thing you said,” he interrupted. “I can handle myself.”
Midoriya really did have a muttering problem, but Shinsou had to respect the speed at which his mind moves. While Shinsou worried about how to get up there in the first place, Midoriya was already planning three steps ahead.
“Alright, Shinsou, get ready,” Midoriya fell in next to him, and Shinsou gripeds the end of his capture weapon. He jumped as an arm wrapped around his waist, but didn’t have much time to think about it before they were hurtling upwards.
Thanks to his many, many hours of practice, he was able to latch on to the rafters without falling. He hung from his capture weapon, turning his face away as Midoriya geared a punch toward one of the windows. Glass blew back towards him, and a small shard nicked his cheek.
“All clear,” Midoriya shouted, waiting for Shinsou to swing forward before he jumped out the window, rolling onto the grass below.
He hesitated, staring down from the window frame. Midoriya beckoned him with one hand, and he jumped.
“I’m going to try my phone again,” he said, landing gracefully next to Midoriya. “If there’s still no signal, we should go straight to the dorms. They’re heavily fortified.”
“Aizawa-sensei is probably going to be with the rest of my class,” Midoriya said. The message was clear: we should stick together.
Shinsou nodded. “Right. Midoriya, I may not be in the hero course, but I’ve heard stories about you. Don’t you dare try to run into danger to protect me or anything.”
Deliberately, he stared down at his phone, away from those wide green eyes.
“Y-yeah, I’ll stick with you.”
“Good. I still don’t have any service. We should head to your dorms, then.”
It was hard to be sneaky with such a large, open campus. There was plenty of space between each gym building, and a long walk between the gyms and the dorms. Shinsou took the role of lookout while Midoriya charged ahead, prepared to fend off any potential villains.
Aside from them, though, everything was silent. It was early enough on a Saturday to excuse the lack of students about, but given the lockdown, Shinsou was expecting at least something. Somehow, the silence was more unnerving than any fight could possibly be.
“We’re nearly there,” Midoriya assured him. “1-A is the first building on the block.”
Shinsou tightened his grip on the capture weapon. A part of him was relieved that they’ve made it to safety without issue, and a part of him was terrified. What if the lockdown was a fluke? What if they damaged school property for no reason? Worse, what if there wa
s
a threat, and they were running away instead of helping take it down?
He wondered if being a hero was worth the guilt.
“Everything’s going to be alright,” Midoriya said, smiling widely at him. Shinsou gaped.
“First off, I’m not a civilian you need to comfort,” he said, walking a little faster so he was ahead of Midoriya. “And second, is it really? We have no idea what’s going on. For all we know, it’s another villain attack, and now that we’re out in the open, we’re just going to be picked off like scraps.”
He was being too harsh, he knew this, but it still grated at him that during all of this, Midoriya still had his sunshine “look at me, I’m a hero and nothing bad ever happens to heroes” look on his face.
When he dared to look back, he saw that the smile was still there, although it was more sheepish now.
“Sorry,” he said, curling his fingers together in front of him. “I didn’t mean to be condescending. But All Might says that it’s important to always stay positive, especially when you don’t know what’s going on. Because as soon as you start sinking into the negativity, you’re already losing.”
“Well sorry that my negativity is losing this battle for us,” Shinsou spat. “They don’t teach us about the heroic spirit in gen ed. Just how to be a good little citizen and wait for the real heroes to rescue us.” Just like Midoriya was doing now, he realized.
“I didn’t mean it like that,” Midoriya backtracked, and Shinsou sighed. “And it’s something you’re going to learn when you’re in the hero course too, so…”
“What makes you think I’m gonna make it there? As far as I can tell, I’ve already had two chances, and I blew them both.”
“That’s exactly why I think you will be!” He speeds up to Shinsou and grabs his arm, slowing them both down. “How many people at UA do you think get to personally test for the hero course?”
“I dunno,” Shinsou said, shrugging him off.
“Like, no one! And yet Nezu’s letting you train with Aizawa-sensei and use the gym and everything. He wants you here.”
“But…” But then why do I still feel like an outsider? He thought UA was different, that they would value him from the start, but they treated him like they treated every other sucker that thought they could be a hero and couldn’t cut it. And now that he was in the face of a real hero in training, he thought they might’ve been right to do that. “We’re not the same.”
Midoriya blinked at him. “What?”
“We’re not the same,” Shinsou repeated through gritted teeth. “So how can I stand at your side?”
A light of understanding went off in Midoriya’s eyes. “I don’t think we’re so different,” he said softly. “I have more training, yeah, but that’s just for now. You’ll catch up.”
“It’s not the training, it’s-” Shinsou tried to think of a way to phrase it. “It’s me.”
They reached the dorm building, and Izuku tried the door. Of course, it was locked tight.
“You shouldn’t talk about yourself like that,” Midoriya said, yanking on the door handle. “If you don’t-” yank “-believe in yourself-” yank “-then how should-” extra hard yank “-anyone else?”
“They shouldn’t, that’s what I’m saying. Also you should give up on that door.”
Midoriya sank to the ground, arms still glowing with those freaky veins. “We’ll just wait here until they open,” he said. “When the power comes on, I’ll be able to unlock it.”
“Fine,” Shinsou said, sitting down a few feet away. He now thought that it might’ve been safer to just stick it out in the gym, but he didn’t want to start another argument.
“I’m sorry for breaking out of your brainwashing,” Midoriya said after a pause.
“Don’t apologize. You were supposed to do that.” He wasn’t supposed to be able to do it, but since he was able, Shinsou wouldn’t expect anything else from him.
“But if I didn’t break out then you wouldn’t be doubting your abilities as a hero.” He faced him, wide eyes sparkling pitifully.
“So what? It could’ve been anyone, don’t feel guilty.” His emotions were making Shinsou uncomfortable.
“I know! What if you brainwash me now and I try my best and can’t break out of it? Will that make you feel better?”
“I already know that you can break out of it, so no. Why are you so adamant on this?”
“Because I want you to join my class,” Midoriya said firmly. “I want you to fight alongside me and be a hero and I know you can do it, so it’s so upsetting that you’re saying otherwise! You were in the gym training during your free time. You have what it takes.”
Shinsou hung his head back, staring at the sky.
“It’s hard,” he said finally. “Believing in myself all the time. I don’t know how you hero kids do it.”
“Fake it until you make it,” Midoriya said, and when he looked over at him, he was smiling again. Not his wide hero smile, but a softer grin.
Suddenly, the door emitted a loud shriek, and Midoriya jumped to his feet, reaching for the handle. He completed the retinal scan, fingerprint scan, and voice command, and tried the handle again. It opened.
“Well, since the power’s back on, I should probably head back to my class,” Shinsou mumbled, shuffling his feet. Midoriya didn’t budge, though.
“What are you waiting for?” he asked, holding the door open. “Come on in.”