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“Get your guard up or you’ll get hurt,” Kacchan warned in his typical, brash manner.
“I told you, I don’t want to fight,” Izuku replied wearily. He was tired. It was the middle of the night and his anxiety was nagging at him because they were breaking curfew and now Katsuki was bulldozing all over his wishes.
As always.
The boy dodged the first attack from the explosion user and then the second and the third.
“Kacchan, come on,” Izuku said, annoyance rising.
He was too exhausted for the pomeranian’s unique brand of bullshit.
“Fight back,” the blonde snapped. “Come on, Deku, show me why All Might chose you.”
“I said, I did not want to fight,” Izuku snapped back, voice not nearly as heated as Kacchan’s, but slowly getting there. He knew better than to turn his back on the other though, unwilling to add pain on top of his current feelings.
“I don’t care,” Katsuki yelled.
That was the crux of the thing, wasn’t it? He never, ever cared about what Izuku wanted. Clearly, he was getting frustrated by the greenette’s complete refusal to even lift a fist, but not even the former quirkless boy’s dull satisfaction could hide his rising anger.
He could be in bed right now, resting, but no. Katsuki had to go an be an overdramatic little shit.
“Fight, Deku,” his former bully turned… something not-a-friend-but-also-not-an-enemy-anymore screamed. “You owe me this.”
Just like that, Izuku’s usual saint-like patience snapped.
He was sure everyone heard that, the broken pieces of his last care shattering on the floor. Something in him shifted and turned and changed and then rage was filtering in, clear as day.
Years worth of it, years worth of shame and guilt and fear all turning neatly into the anger Katsuki was so fond of.
“I OWE YOU NOTHING,” Izuku yelled back. Green lightning crackled over his skin, as he abruptly shifted his stance and started to fight back.
The thing nobody knew was that Izuku held back in training with his classmates. Not out of a malicious intent or because he thought himself above them, but because he just genuinely knew that his current power would break their bones regularly and that was just not good for them. His hero instincts ran deep.
Besides, it was not limiting him, since he trained that percentage on his own.
Clearly, Kacchan had not expected the shift nor his sudden speed or the strength behind his punches.
“You have told me that I’m not good enough my whole life, Kacchan.” He spat the name, for the first time in his life giving it the same intonation that Katsuki used for Deku. “You have treated me worse than the shit under your shoes. I’m useless, aren’t I? You’re fighting me because it doesn’t fit into your world view that someone like me could have something like All Might’s regard.”
Katsuki wheezed as he barely dodged another hit and then groaned loudly as he got kicked in the stomach, lifting his arms to protect his face.
“You are a selfish brat.”
Another brutal kick and Katsuki folded to his knees.
Izuku stopped hitting him, standing in front of him instead. His hands were balled to fists and the green lightning made his eyes glow like toxic waste in the dark.
“I decided to forgive you time and time again, because you are a product from our environment much like I am,” Izuku said between little gasps. He was not getting enough air.
Everything was too much and he was so angry that he thought he might literally die if he didn’t get these words out.
Or punch the other again.
But Katsuki was looking up at him, looking vaguely sick and holding his stomach, one eye marred by a rapidly forming bruise. His nose looked a bit crooked.
So words it was.
“But at some point, it’s you refusing to grow. It’s you being an intolerable, arrogant piece of fucking trash and that’s your choice, Kacchan. You are going to be a bad hero if you continue like this, because you do it for the wrong reasons. Your own fucking ego is the problem you didn’t pass, not me, not All Might and sure as hell not the testers.”
The blonde looked stunned, likely by both the words, as well that Izuku ‘I think heck is a bad word’ Midoriya was swearing like a sailor.
Suddenly those words just felt very appropriate.
“You told me I’m useless. You gave me scars I still carry, you said I should kill myself. Yet here I am. And you know what? I am a better person than you will ever be and I am going to be the Number 1 hero.”
It didn’t feel like boasting, it suddenly simply very much felt like a fact.
“Deku-,” Katsuki started.
“Call me that again, Katsuki and I will break your nose fully,” Izuku threatened. He would regret that later, but now he couldn’t stand hearing that name, even if it was his hero name.
Then, like a puppet that had its strings cut, the grenette fell to his knees as well, heavy sobs shaking his muscular frame. “Fuck you,” he gasped. “Fuck you, Katsuki. You made me want to kill myself. You made me think it was the only thing I could do.”
He could hear something that sounded suspiciously like a sob coming from the blonde, but he had no energy left to check.
Aizawa was there a minute later and his worried silence said more than he ever could, especially since not a word of scolding left his lips.
Instead, he got Mic to bring Katsuki to Recovery girl and he put a heavy blanket around Izuku’s shoulders and led the greenette back inside.
“I think you should make an appointment with Hound Dog,” Aizawa eventually said, right before they reached the 1-A dorms.
“Yeah,” Izuku whispered.
Maybe that was a good idea. Maybe he was not as okay as he’d thought.
“Also, no more sneaking off to train that ridiculous powers of yours. We are doing after school private lessons or I’ll expel you,” the teacher snarked.
Izuku snorted wetly.
Tomorrow the guilt would hit. Tomorrow he’d talk to Katsuki and Katsuki would apologize and tomorrow marked the day where their relationship changed.
Today though, today, he was just tired.
“Yes, sensei.”