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Tenya sneezes.
Izuku looks up from where he’s double-knotting his shoes, just in time to see Tenya fish a tissue out of his bag and wipe at his nose. He’s got the bottom part of his armor already on, his helmet on the bench next to him.
His nose is a little bit red.
“Tenya,” says Izuku, “are you sick?” Now that he’s looking, his friend does look a little bit pallid— a touch flushed at the highs of his cheekbones, a little washed out everywhere else. Now, with his back to Izuku and under the impression that no one is looking at him, he even looks a little wilted and low-energy.
That changes as soon as Izuku speaks. He straightens up like he’s been hit with a taser, spins to face him, and smiles.
“Not at all, Izuku!” he says, falling easily into his customary hand flourishes. “I think Kouda let one of his pigeon friends take a nap near my hero gear, and I simply inhaled a feather!”
Izuku tilts his head. Somehow, now that Tenya is looking at him head-on, he looks pretty normal again.
He still feels the need to needle at it, though. “Are you sure, Tenya?” Izuku asks. “You know there was that weird cold that went through all of the second-years a few weeks ago. It might still be hanging around the dorms.”
“Nonsense!” Tenya beams, already turning back to the rest of his armor. “I’m just fine. We should focus on this afternoon — it’s a big test.”
And it is a big test. Today is something very important and very Third-Year and very About-To-Graduate — the first day of a week-long patrol route they planned, coordinated, and organized themselves, with other local pro-heroes and a group of second-years on internships.
It’s the first of two capstone projects all of them have to do, one with a partner and one alone. Izuku and Tenya have been working on it together for weeks.
Just the mention of it is nearly enough to send Izuku’s mind skipping down twenty different tangents, what-if, worst case scenarios.
From the fond look Tenya is sending him, he can tell.
“Everything’s going to go perfectly, Izuku. We’ll make sure of it!” Tenya walks over to him and hip checks him lightly, grinning all the way. Izuku dodges him, laughing.
He feels a swell of affection for his friend, thinks about how rare and wonderful it is to see him loosen up and laugh and have fun. He flips his own cowl over his head, right as Tenya slides his helmet on.
“We got this!” says Izuku, reaching out his fist. Tenya bumps it gently.
“We most certainly do!”
.
It’s swelteringly hot out, and Izuku is blaming that for how insane everyone in the city seems to be acting today.
“I’m on the trail of another mugging, suspect is armed,” he says into his commlink, vaulting some stairs for a few more feet of leverage as the man he’s chasing sprints down an alley. Behind him, someone curses him out.
“Gosh, no one’s taking a god-damn breath today, huh?” This is Coldsnap, one of the second-year interns. “Copy you, Deku, I’ll double back and make sure your patrol is canvassed while you deal with him.”
“Copy that! Thanks!” The good news is that his and Tenya’s system is working perfectly, exactly the way they drew it up, and Izuku is practically buzzing with excitment.
Izuku catches up with the mugger and sweeps his feet out from under him, already reaching for his restraints. As he’s finishing up, he hears Tenya hiss out through his teeth.
“Damn it. I’m pursuing to the roof, I should be able to corner him there.”
Izuku notes, with a little ping of anxiety, that Tenya sounds winded. Tenya never sounds winded. And, according to their schedule, Izuku is the closest to him.
He heads in that direction without thinking.
“Ingenium, status report?”
“I broke up a domestic dispute involving a knife and an Emitter quirk. As I said, suspect fleeing to the roof — I’ll apprehend him there, Deku, not to worry. He seems like a danger to others, and I don’t want him making it back down to the street.” But Tenya’s voice sounds more gravely than before and, again, he sounds out of breath.
Izuku’s run an entire marathon with Tenya, and even then he was rarely out of breath.
His gut screams at him that something isn’t right and, if there’s one thing he’s learned since entering UA, it’s that ignoring gut feelings gets people killed.
Izuku makes an executive decision and wraps himself in Full Cowl, pulling on One for All as he does. He flings himself on to the roof of the nearest building, and heads towards Tenya above the heads of the civilians on the streets.
“Tenya, are you sure you’re alright?” he says, but from the sounds he’s picking up on now, Tenya’s engaged the criminal.
About a minute later, Izuku lands on a roof close to Tenya’s location. He skids to a stop, looks around.
“There was no need to come all the way over here, Izuku,” he hears in his ear. Izuku turns, and can see Tenya looking at him from the top of a building across the street and several down. He’s standing on the edge of the building with his hands on his hips, every inch the annoyed class rep. “I told you I had it handled.”
“I know you did! I didn’t doubt you!” Izuku rests one of his legs on the parapet wall, pushes his cowl down, mops the sweat out of his hair. His costume is nearly soaked through. Damn, it is hot. “You just sounded a little bit out of it, and you were a little pale earlier, and I thought I heard — um. Ingenium? Hey, Ingenium?”
On his own rooftop, Tenya has gone oddly still. His eyes seem to be trained, rather than on Izuku, to some point in the middle distance.
“Huh. Is there,” he says, faint, nearly tremoring, “Is there something wrong with me?”
Izuku, despite the brutal sun, goes cold. He can tell what’s going to happen a split second before it does.
“ Tenya—”
Tenya sways on his feet in one direction, than another, and then crumples like a puppet with its strings cut, forward and off the building.
Izuku summons Black Whip, puts all of his power into his legs, and moves.
(Later, they will sit down and do the calculations to figure out just how fast Izuku managed to go, and they will stare at the number on the calculator in silent shock until Uraraka reaches out and hits clear and they all agree to never speak about it ever again.)
Izuku hits Tenya hard enough that his armor rips a hole in his costume, long and thin. Izuku gets his arm hooked under Tenya’s arms just as Black Whip goes taught.
Their momentum stops sharply, and Izuku bites a hole in his lip as his other arm is twisted up, takes the pressure, and is yanked out of its socket. He barely manages not to cry out.
“Holy shit, Tenya, you were kidding about how much your armor weighs,” he hisses.
Limp in his arms, Tenya says nothing.
They clatter, graceless and uncoordinated, to the ground, to the mutters and exclamations of civilians. Izuku gathers his arm close and resists the urge to just pop it back in himself, right here. Recovery Girl might actually kill him.
Tenya stirs. Izuku almost unbalances himself as he attempts to help remove his helmet one-handed.
Tenya is ghostly pale, dark circles carved deep under his eye, hair matted with sweat the same sweat that clung to his upper lip and cheeks. His cheeks are flushed with a fever that Izuku can feel without taking his gloves off. He blinks at the sudden change in light, disoriented, and unsure.
Tenya focuses on Izuku’s face. His dry lips slowly part, and he murmurs, “Hello, Izuku. I think I might have…mislead you, before.”
“Oh yeah, Tenya?” Izuku helps his friend sit up, lean against the building behind him, and hits his emergency button to call a medic. “About what?”
“I think,” says Tenya, “I have the flu. Sorry.”
Behind them, one of the civilians calls out something Izuku doesn’t make out. The sun is heating up both of their hero costumes.
Izuku ducks his head to press it to Tenya’s armored shoulder. His heart is still pounding so hard that it’s a miracle he can hear anything over it. He keeps seeing Tenya’s falling body playing behind his eyelids.
He finds himself laughing, even though it hurts his arm.
“Yeah, Tenya,” says Izuku, “I think you do.”