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Caramel and Pine

Summary:

Just a vampire trying to go through school all while trying to keep this a secret (but fails to from his bully turned friend turned crush, duh) until a mission gone wrong sets everything off the rails ;)

featuring complicated feelings, loads of yearning, relationship building (outside of the main couple), and so so *so* much edging (just kiss already!!!!)

Notes:

please listen to my yap for a quick second please ᴓᴈᴓ

I literally started this fic when I was walking my daily 3 miles to school in my notes app, the start of this is a little scuffed so please bear with me(´⌣`ʃƪ)

this was originally supposed to be like a quick 5k words but then quickly spiraled and suddenly there was over 200 pages of writing....so. I wanted to completely finish the fic before posting it so i actually have it all done (also so i dont get the ao3 curse), ill just be posting a chapter a day!! this is just so i can go through everything and read again, bc lowk as i was writing over the months and my writing and style lowk improved so.

But this is filled with so much fluff and a bunch of little head cannons of mine so I hope it's enjoyable! this is my first time ever writing something this long and I tried my best, in the story it goes over the span of a whole year, so yeah:)

The very last chapter will be...yk ಠ‿↼ a little spicy. but its super super soft and fluffy. Also my friend made some art so it'll be included here as well, and I'll link my instagram during later chapters where I posted some of my art for this fic in case some people want extra visuals!!

I hope whoever reads enjoys(๑´ㅂ`๑)

(See the end of the work for more notes.)

Chapter 1: A new start?

Chapter Text

Caramel Caramel Caramel. 

It smelled sweet. Since he was 4 years old all he could smell was the sweet scent coming from his best friend's neck. Food left him sick no matter how fresh it was or how good it tasted. Water was the only thing keeping his stomach from growling. He couldn't take it anymore. 

"M-momma." He sputtered through blubbering tears.

Inko knew something was wrong, she'd catch the boy throwing up his food, refusing to go outside, becoming paler and paler. 

"I-I can't take it anymore. It smells sweet. Your neck smells sweet. Whenever there are people around me all I can think about is how sweet the air smells." He cries holding his head in his hands. 

Something clicked in her head. 

 

Oh. 

 

She rushes to the fridge and pulls out a thick piece of beef that she had been planning to roast for that weekend. 

Izuku's eyes snap up, his breathing getting heavy, the small veins in his eyes becoming more prominent. 

She slowly unwraps the meat and places it on the dining room table, on a large white plate, and slides it forward. She steps back clasping her arms in front of her. 

All Izuku can smell is blood. All he can see…is food . He stumbles forward, gripping the raw meat in his fingers. Coming into contact with the flesh, his canines double in size becoming longer and sharper. He sinks them into the deep red meat of the cow, slowly turning it a sickly pale pink as he gulps down as much of the old sour blood down his throat. The veins in his eyes retract and the color flushes back to his face. He gasps with heavy breathing, finally rejuvenated, a drop of drool falling out of the corner of his lips.

 

That was the day he figured out what he was. 

 

-



The more he spent around other children the more he got drawn to the sweet scent emitting from their necks. He could tell what type of person someone was based on the smell. Some smelled sour, some smelled sweet like tulips, and others more mellow like a soft daisy. Once he had confided this information to his mother, her eyes widened in horror, especially at the fact that he thought Kacchan smelled the best, his teeth unconsciously sharpening when he was too close to him while playing together. Inko immediately shut down the ideas. She explained to him how much trouble he would be in if he would hurt another person and drink their blood. And young Izuku understood, he knew it would be bad to hurt someone just for his selfish reasons, even though to him it might mean life or death. 

So instead he ate blood from other animals, often eating at night, sipping from his red stained water bottle while he laid in bed. He came to have a preference for pig blood, it had a sour taste but was still sweeter than other animal blood, and not as heavy on his stomach. He occasionally drank cow's blood if he needed something heavier to quench his thirst. Plus, pig blood was much easier to come by rather than cow's blood. His mom regularly went to the butchers shop on the outskirts of town every Sunday to stock up on food for Izuku for the week. The man that owned the store was a little suspicious at first but she managed to convince him that she used the blood to make different types of soups and sauces for her “large family gatherings.”, even making friends with other butchers as well. Plus, he got some value out of it considering the man would usually throw out the blood. 

And Inko loved her son, she really did. More than life itself. But how would he be treated if people learned what he really craved for?

So, Izuku was told to hide, not to tell anyone what he was. How would people react learning that he was a vampire? That he naturally yearned to taste other people’s blood on his tongue? Yes, he had substituted that with animal blood, but would that be enough to convince others that he wouldn’t lose his mind one random weekend like a rabid dog and attack someone? People were cruel and untrusting. Inko told him to hide, so he did. He kept it a secret and lived as someone that was quirkless. 

And how he regretted it sometimes. How he regretted it when the boy with his favorite scent started to lash out at him. How he regretted it when he would be ruthlessly beaten down day in and day out for not being able to stand up for himself or have some cool power like the rest of them.  

He was strong, he knew he was strong, that’s why he never fought back. Izuku hated hated hated hated it. He knew if he really wanted to, he could make everyone regret the way they treated him. 

But he could never do that, that would only prove their point, wouldn’t it? That he was dangerous. That he wasn’t allowed to act like a normal person. Or, as much as he could be treated normally considering he was quirkless. 

Izuku needed less sleep than the average person, only about 4 hours to feel perfectly fine, though, the only downside is that when he was out, he was out. Not even a train crash could wake him up. So, in the deep hours of the night that he didn't need to spend studying, he practiced. He worked out in silence, took long runs next to the trashed beach shore, and practiced turning into a bat.

He’d say that this was his favorite part of his quirk. He spent countless hours turning into human form up high in the air, letting himself free fall before twisting and spreading out his wings as a bat once again. 

Many nights were spent in the forest not too far from his home as well, using his speed to run up trees and chase deers through the wooden groves. He never hunted animals though, he often practiced concentrating and using his senses to track down animals big and small, catching them wherever they were, but he never killed or drank their blood. He already had that back at home from the butcher's shop so there was no reason to kill another animal for his sake. Plus, he liked having the critters around to chase. 

He felt like a little kid with his own private playground.

It was his one way to forget about the hellscape at school. Beatings weren’t very frequent, and the kids doing it never touched his face either, in fear of being caught. Even so, all the small scrapes and bruises along his skin were light enough that they would heal within the few minutes that they were placed there. That didn't mean that it didn't hurt though. But either way, he spent his time gritting his way through the frustration at not being able to do anything in self defence. 

Despite not being able to show his quirk, or ever being able to truly train it, he still wanted to try and apply to his dream high school. UA. Other than taking obsessive notes over heroes, his true passion was actually being out there. Helping people, making them feel safe and worthy of being saved. It wasn’t something he’d ever advertised out, not that he even had anyone to tell aside from his mom, so when the teacher had announced that he would be trying to apply to the notorious hero school, Izuku dropped his head in his arms on the desk, anticipating the embarrassment and future ridiculing session that would be coming.

God the people in this school had something against him, even the teachers!  

As the bell rang and signaled the end of the school day, everyone slowly filtered out of the classroom. Izuku quickly took a second to stay behind and scribble the date at the top of his paper, March 8th, before packing up his notebook that he often ended up doodling and jotting down random observations into. Small insights about his classmates' quirks, or other more childish things. 

His hearing let him pick up on even the quietest muttering in the classroom, so it was easy to piece together on who had drama with who. Unluckily for him, Bakugou and his two lackies were also lagging behind, eyes trained on him. Izuku heard Bakugou approach him from behind, and he made no moves to dodge the sudden arm that was jerked out over his shoulder to aggressively yank his notebook from his hand. 

"Kaachan! Give that back!!" He yelled out. He loved writing down everything he saw. It was in those quiet moments that he could get lost inside himself and forget about the world around him. He could just focus on the steady beating in his chest and the sound of pencil against paper, with nothing but the words acknowledging him back. He poured everything into them. That’s why he was always a little protective of his notebooks, sue him! 

Bakugou flipped through it with an uninterested expression on his face. 

"Hah? What the hell is all this stuff, you stalkin' people?" 

"What? No! I'm just writing down stuff I see in class!" Izuku tried to defend with a frown. 

"Tch. What a creep." 

He smacked the notebook shut and put it between his palms. With a muffled pop, a bit of flames and smoke erupted from the notebook. Izuku's eyes widened in disbelief and Bakugou simply tossed it over his shoulder out the window. 

"Now listen here you idiot." He leaned in and Izuku gulped, taking a step back and bumping into the table. 

Not now not now not now not now.  

 

He was hungry

 

"Don't you even think about trying to apply to UA. You got that?" With one last intimidating glare he backed up and turned on his heel.

"If you really wanna be a hero that bad, pray you get a quirk in your next life and take a swan dive off the roof!" 

He yelled out over his shoulder at the same time that Izuku let go of the breath he was holding, his nose suddenly enveloped with Bakugou's scent. He spun his head around, immediately drawn to the smell, canines sharpening and digging down slightly into his lower gums. Izuku clenched his jaw tight, making eye contact with Bakugou. 

"What!? You got somethin' to say?!" He spat out menacingly. 

Izuku stood there shaking slightly from the overpowering smell that was easily misidentified as fear. Bakugou let out a grating laugh and left the classroom, leaving Izuku to gasp heavily out the window, inhaling the fresh clean air. 

 

That was too close… He thought to himself. 

 

After taking a few minutes to collect himself, he went down and took his now wet and burned notebook out of the fish pond with a scowl before shaking as much water off and putting it in his backpack. 

“Dummy…” He mumbled out quietly as he hiked the straps on his shoulders higher, beginning his journey home. 

Izuku walked humming idly to himself not really giving his full attention to his surroundings until he walked through a short underpass, the sudden shade bringing a cool sensation to his face. 

That’s when he smelled it, the overwhelming scent of something bitter and acidic. Being more hungry than usual, his sense of smell was just a little stronger. He smacked a palm up against his mouth to keep himself from hurling everywhere. Turning around, he made eye contact with a large sickly green liquid— thing coming out of a manhole in the ground, the smell getting stronger as it got closer to Izuku.  

“Finally-! You’ll make a perfect skin suit for me to hide in, kid!” He drawled out before suddenly lunging forward.

“YOUNG BOY! WATCH OUT!” 

Izuku heard a deep voice boom behind him a second too late. The air was thick with an acid scent and before he could think twice, he thrusted out his left fist, the knuckles colliding with the side of the green sludge. 

Not being able to control his strength in the moment, the liquid splattered against the right side of the overpass wall. 

The smell dissipated a little bit and he was able to take his palm off of his mouth, breathing heavily and stumbling a little as a large calloused hand came to rest on his shoulder. He flinched slightly and brought his gaze up, only to be met with–ALL MIGHT?!

“A-A-ALL MIGHT?! WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE??” 

He stammered out nervously, shaking his hands in front of him. He had to be hallucinating or something right now. 

“Tracking down this villain, my boy, but it looks like the job was done for me.” He gave a fond chuckle that made Izuku’s heart wobble dangerously in his chest as he walked over and scooped most of what was left of the sludge off the walls and into a bottle. “You’ve got a powerful quirk there, you could become a wonderful hero if you practiced and got it under control. But, for now I give you my thanks for helping me catch this villain.” He gestured to the now green liquid filled bottle in his hands. “It was getting a bit difficult to track him down. Goodbye, young man!” He gave a gleaming smile and moved to jump away. 

Now, there was no way Izuku was going to let the number one hero, his favorite hero, just go off like that without saying something other than a shrill, stuttered out ‘what are you doing here! 

The muscles in All Might’s thighs rippled as he pressed down into a squat, before shooting up and sending himself flying into the air. 

But…there was an unfamiliar extra weight on his right leg, and definitely not from the liquified villain. Looking down he saw the same small curly haired boy hanging on for dear life, (Not really but he didn’t know that), tears streaming and mouth agape from the wind pressure. 

“YOUNG MAN WHAT ARE YOU DOING?! PLEASE LET GO OF ME!” He boomed in a panicked voice. Sure he had some crazy die hard fans, but not this die hard!!

And in the chaos of it all, Izuku had completely forgotten that he could literally just fly . But the thought of missing out on his maybe once in a lifetime opportunity was just way more important to him. He couldn’t possibly let their first, and probably last, meeting end like this!

“I-I CAN’T! I’LL DIE IF I LET GO NOW!!” He screamed out, praying that a bug wouldn’t fly into his mouth while they were this high up in the air, it’s happened before and it definitely wasn’t pleasant. 

During the aerial struggle of trying to keep the boy from falling down to his “death” and maneuvering himself through the air, neither of them noticed the green sludge slipping out from the grip of the hero, sending it plummeting down somewhere unknown to them in the city below. 

Safely reaching a rooftop where Izuku could now safely land on his feet, All Might coughed, leaving a splat of blood in the palm of his hand. 

Izuku could smell the bittersweet scent in the cold air. “A-are you ok…?” He questioned with a wince, suddenly very aware of the situation and feeling a surge of embarrassment at his actions. 

Before All Might could even try and reassure that he was alright, his body evidently had other plans, and with a poof of white, he transformed into the sickly thin man that was the complete opposite of the idol Izuku was used to seeing while he was growing up. 

Izuku stilled and his jaw dropped, watching the hero let out a deep sigh before sinking to the ground, back leaning against the railing of the edge of the building. 

“This…wasn’t something anyone was supposed to know about. At least for a while.” He lifted his shirt and Izuku grimaced, it looked like something made with special effects in a movie. A nasty depression was made in the left side of his torso, with rippling scars in the flesh around it expanding like the ground had cracked open from a single impact point. “In my fight against All for One, even though I beat him, it came with a cost, that being my own health. I can only stay in my muscular form for a few hours a day, and the time limit is slowly decreasing, until I won’t be able to use my quirk at all.” 

Izuku could feel the world physically going dark around him, despite being on an open rooftop on a lovely sunny day. The one hero he looked up to his whole life, the one person who was able to smile and keep happy even through the darkest times…was going to be quirkless? He looked up to him his whole life, he wanted to be a hero just like him, regardless of his potentially unethical quirk. But now the hero was going to turn into someone that he pretended to be every single day? 

“All Might. I—I really want to be a hero.” his voice cracked. “I’m– my quirk is, it’s not the most appealing to others.” He gave out a shaky breath. If his childhood idol was willing to confide in him such important information, it was only correct to do the same, right? Plus, it wasn’t every day you got to talk to the one person you have dreamed of being face to face since you were 3 years old. 

“You don’t have to force yourself to tell me wha–”

 

“I'm a vampire. I drink blood.”

All Might's breath hitched in his throat. The silence stretched out in between them, the breeze in the air tousling Izuku's green curls as he locked a hard gaze onto the thin man sitting on the floor. 

After a few moments he finally spoke up, in a quiet tone. “Do you drink from…other people?”

Izuku looked taken aback for a second. “No! I– I drink animal blood instead! I have to drink in larger quantities to get the same sort of “relief”, I guess you could say, but no I've never drank from another person before!” He explained, shaking his hands in front of him.

All Might rubbed his fingers against the lower half of his face. 

“Young man, I understand this must be very hard for you to share, and for that I am very thankful.” He placed his hands on his knees to stand up and started to make his way past Izuku. “To be honest, from what I saw under that bridge I think you have a lot of potential. But you must think about how people would react learning about your quirk. There are also a multitude of other factors to consider. Once you begin hero work, you will undergo a tremendous amount of physical strain. When you say that you need to consume animal blood in order to make up for the lack of human blood, how much more will you need then? How long will that last? Do you know if you can control yourself in instances where you are hungry? There are so many factors to consider. And I’m sorry for saying this, but I’m not sure if I’m able to make the decision on whether or not you are able to be a hero in the future. Depending on your resolve and all of these factors, it is something only you can decide.”

Izuku tightened his jaw and hung his head low. He didn’t know what he was expecting, but it wasn’t this. Maybe something like, “ Yes I believe in you! What a wonderful quirk, you could be an amazing hero with this!” Maybe he just wanted someone to finally appreciate who he and his quirk was without only looking at it as something that was “immoral”. After years of being told to hide who he was, and only now finally breaking his seal of secrecy, he just wanted someone to tell him he was ok, and that there was nothing to hide. 

He was wrong. 

The rest of the interaction was a blur, with the hero cursing under his breath as he searched the rooftop for the bottle he regrettably seemed to have "misplaced" until he jumped off to go looking.

Izuku didn’t know how long he stood there, up on the rooftop, only coming to when a sudden sweep of wind sent a chill down his spine. He looked up to see the sky had turned a radiant orange, sending a glow among all the buildings in the city, his curls lighting up with a fire and enhancing every single freckle on his face. 

He trudged his way down the stairway from the rooftop and once again started making his way back home. And just like before, he smelled that burning acidic smell in the air, accompanied by…the sweet smell of caramel?

He blinked as the smells jolted the memories of a few hours ago. 

 

Damn. I can’t find the bottle…I’m sorry young man, it seems I have made a mistake and need to go fix it. Be careful on your way down!” All Might had said before leaving. 

 

Izuku’s stomach churned.

 

Oh no. 

 

Without a second thought, Izuku sprinted in the way his nose was leading him, curls flying and practically being able to see an orange scent trail in the air. Izuku rounded the corner and he could see a huge group of people formed into a large circle, dozens of different scents consuming Izuku in his hungry state. Forcing himself to gulp away his slight dizziness and his desires, he pushed forward in the crowd, until he got to the edge and all he could see was Kacchan.

Kacchan was in trouble. His body wrapped up in this disgusting thick goo, hands futilely trying to pry away the slime from his body as he struggled to breathe. 

Izuku huffed into the thick air. Kacchan’s in trouble. Kacchan’s in trouble. Kacchan’s in trouble—and it’s my fault. It's my fault. Because of me All Might dropped the bottle and the villain got away. Oh my god. Oh my god why isn’t anyone DOING anything?! He’s—

Bakugou’s frantic bloodshot eyes connected with Izuku’s hazy green ones. 

 

He’s going to die.



The realization echoed inside Izuku's head, resonating across every inch of his skull. He bit the inside of his cheek. Hard . Willing his stupid desire for blood to go away, he lunged forward. Normal civilians and heroes alike in the circle tried to grab him but were too late. Izuku pulled his backpack off of his shoulders and grabbed it by the strap, hurling it in the direction of the green sludge. The half opened backpack opened all the way at the action and his notebooks and pens went flying in every direction. 

The same notebook that Bakugou had previously burned soared towards the villain at match fuck, hitting him in the eye with the very corner of the book. 

The sludge let out a piercing scream at which Izuku winced but kept pushing forward. He couldn't punch him again like he did before, not with Bakugou inside, that would obliterate him along with the villain. Izuku gripped at the slime uselessly, trying to pry off whatever he could off of his Kacchan. Tears welled in his eyes as the acidic smell burned the inside of his nose and the sweet caramel scent radiating off of the distressed boy clawed at the inside of Izuku’s stomach. 

With the villain being distracted by the sharp pain in his eye, slime released off of Bakugou’s mouth, letting him gasp deeply for the oxygen he terribly needed. 

“D-Deku…What the fuck are you doing here?!” He croaked out while also finding the strength to start and try working the slime away from him. 

Izuku gave a tight jawed smile. “You looked like you needed saving, Kacchan.” 

Before either boy could react, a sudden strong hand grabbed the back of Izuku’s collar and threw him backwards, making the green haired boy twist gracefully in the air and land on his feet. The now muscular form took hold of Bakugou’s hand and yanked him harshly out of the thick green sludge, his shoulder almost popping out from its socket. Within the split second that the blonde was out, he delivered a finishing blow to the slime. The villains' decimated body scattered across the pavement into a bunch of green droplets. 

The crowd that had stood there unmoving beforehand erupted into applause and cheers. 

Izuku gave a wistful huff as he made his way to collect his school supplies that were dispersed across the ground. Once everything was in its rightful place in his backpack and the adrenaline had worn off, he could feel his canines sharpening ever so slightly. He shook his head and gulped down the hunger before moving past the ecstatic crowd that no longer paid any mind to him to make his way home again. 

What he wasn’t aware of, was the piercing blue eyes that had been watching him the whole time. 







Trudging slowly through his neighborhood streets, he replayed the scenes from earlier over and over in his head. The overwhelming sense of the acid, the way he wasn’t able to control his strength in that moment. His idol’s words, and how even he didn’t truly believe he could be a hero. How he tried to save his Kacchan and ultimately wasn’t even acknowledged by the end of the whole ordeal.

And it was his fault that Kacchan had ended up there in the first place. If only he hadn’t completely lost any logical train of thought when seeing All Might… 

Suddenly, he heard harsh footsteps from behind him, accompanied by that same sweet smell, so much more intoxicating in his hungry state. He swiveled around on his heel to look at the ash blonde that was stomping in his direction, stopping from a couple dozen feet away. 

“Oi Deku! I didn’t need your help. You didn’t save me, you hear me?!”

Izuku blinked a few times. That was…so unnecessary. Had he walked all this way just to say that? It was obvious Izuku wasn’t the one that saved him, he’d been the reason Bakugou was there in the first place.

Bakugou clicked his tongue at the silence of the other boy and turned around, coming back from the way he just came. 

 

…What just happened. He thought to himself.

Blinking a few more times, Izuku made his way to turn back around in the direction of his house only to have the looming shadow of a tall thin man over him. He jolted slightly but very quickly realized who it was. 

“All Might?! What are you doing here?” Disbelief coated his words as he stared at the man with wide eyes. 

“Young man.” The figure pointed out a crooked finger at him, the dying light from the sun highlighting his yellow hair. “You can become a hero. I was wrong. I saw the way you held yourself back during that disastrous situation back there. The fact is, out of everyone there, including me, you were the only one that moved. Even knowing you couldn’t fully control your power, and judging by the way your stomach growled multiple times during our time on the roof,” Izuku in fact, could not remember that and he could feel his face burn from the embarrassment. “You probably went through all of that hungry. But even so! You were able to rise up against those urges, because there was someone that needed to be saved. You were willing to risk everything to rescue someone. That is a true hero.” 

Izuku couldn’t even remember crumpling to the floor, tears flooding out of his eyes. Something that he had wanted to hear his whole life, had just been handed to him on a silver platter. All Might smiled and kept going.

“Young man. I want you to train with me! I know you can become one of the best heroes out there, you just need a little bit of extra guidance.” 

Of course, it didn’t take much convincing at all to get Izuku to agree to work with All Might. 

It did, however, take a lot more time to convince Inko Midoriya. Imagine her shock when her middle school son brought in a 7 foot tall thin man claiming to be the hero All Might, saying he wanted to train the small boy. Absolutely not? It took almost a whole week, showing her all the future possibilities of him being a hero. All Might would also drop by every other day to give a small speech on why this would be a good thing for Izuku. Inko wasn’t as trusting as the smaller boy, of course. 

She had her worries. She knew how people would react finding out he had to drink blood, potentially human blood to keep him alive and powerful. Even if he was a good kid, and would never go out of his way to hurt even a fly, other people didn’t know that. All they would see is this absurdly strong boy that went crazy over blood. Only after Izuku finally got fed up and spilled to her about the bullying and how sick and tired he was of acting like he was weak and worthless, did she finally give in. She never knew about the bullying behind the scenes, and it broke her heart that he had never told her. If he thought this was something that would help him gain back the control he had lost throughout his childhood, she would try her best to support him, even if it stressed her out and it wasn’t something she entirely agreed with. Izuku made an agreement with his mother that he would try and keep the foundation of his quirk a secret as long as he possibly could in order to avoid any potential issues.

 

Once she had finally agreed, All Might immediately got to work, setting up a training regiment that worked with Izuku. He would spend his early mornings working out and training his strength and endurance with the older man, often spending his time cleaning the same trashed beach he liked to run along, while spending late hours into the night studying for the written portion of the UA entrance exam, along with other things for his regular middle school classes. 

He noticed that the bullying from the other students had mostly dissipated as well, mainly from Bakugou. Where he would once shove him in the hallway, he didn’t even look in his direction now. It was almost…peaceful. Of course there were always a couple of guys here and there that would try to insult him or lay their hands on him, but oddly enough it was immediately shut down by a glare from Bakugou. Izuku didn’t mind at all. He didn’t have much time to concentrate on his social life and what was going on anyways, spending all of his mental and physical capacity on preparations for the upcoming exams. 

 

One day while looking in the mirror, he noticed the changes in his body. He had been working out every day regularly for a month now, and he could see the muscle gain in his arms and legs. Especially his legs. 

He was proud of himself. He’s gotten really far throughout the latter half of this year. Slipping on a simple white t-shirt, he made his way back to his table, the only light coming from the moon through the window and the red electric clock reading 1:36 am. Izuku hummed to himself quietly before plopping down on his bed and scanning through his notebook one last time. 

Tomorrow will be the written portion of the exam. And the next day would be the practical portion. He was very confident in his test taking abilities, his fighting skills…not so much. He wasn’t sure how much strength he could use on others or how to fully control it in instances where he was extremely hungry. He was working on it, ok?! After spending a whole day sparring with All Might, he had told him that he had practically mastered his strength, but he wasn’t entirely sure how true that was. Even though All Might was weaker now, he was still more powerful than your average person. But, Izuku would trust him. It was the only thing he could do right now, aside from also believing in himself. 

 

 

As expected, the written exam was a breeze for Izuku, and he had the time to go through his answers 3 times over before he finally decided to turn in the test. Bakugou was the first to turn in his exam, no surprise there. What was surprising was the grimaced expression he made in Izuku’s direction after a solid month of failing to acknowledge his presence. Izuku simply brushed it off, he had other things to worry about, like the practical exam tomorrow. 

He wanted to do some extra training that night but All Might advised against it, telling him to get the rest he deserved and to take some time to calm his nerves. Sitting still would only make him more nervous though. So that night he went on a long flight, swooping up and down in the air, making loops through the clouds. Feeling drowsiness start to hit him, Izuku decided to make one pit stop before finally heading home. He briskly flew over and perched himself up on a branch not too far away, slightly surprised to see a light shining out from the window of the blonde. The boy was hunched over at his desk, scribbling something messily into an orange notebook before huffing and dropping the pencil, leaning back in his chair.  

Look at him, working so diligently. Izuku giggled to himself internally before flying away, making his way back into his room through his open window, and flopping down on the bed, finally exhausted enough to sleep. 

 

 

The practical exam started off much better than he thought it would. Being put inside a makeshift city, each student was to go around getting rid of “villains” that were actually huge robots. Izuku got most of his points through rescuing others, carrying them away from danger, not wanting to draw too much attention with his superhuman strength. Unfortunately, the universe had other plans for him, as it always did apparently 

Izuku heard the scream of a girl from a few blocks away, and he hastily sprinted in that direction. When he got to the source of the sound, he immediately recognized who it was, mainly because of the way she smelled. 

It was the same girl that saved him from smacking face down onto the pavement earlier! She had placed her fingertips on his back in order to make him float, rescuing him from his own nerves when he’d clumsily tripped over air, somehow. 

She smelled like cotton candy to him. She was very cute, with a short bob cut and big brown eyes. Izuku stammered out a nervous “thank you”, feeling his face burn hotter and hotter. She introduced herself as Ochaco Uraraka and Izuku did the same. They spent the rest of the time making small talk before they had to go their separate ways into the changing rooms. 

 

And now she was the one in danger. One of the largest robots in the area, worth the most amount of points, had sent some buildings collapsing, and some of the rubble had trapped the cotton candy scented girl under. She cried out in pain again as she tried to move away from the impending doom of the large robot getting closer, step by step.

Without a second thought, Izuku used the muscles he had been building in his legs to propel himself diagonally from the ground, straight into the face of the robot. Bringing his arm back like stretching a rubber band, he released the force building up in his body, arching forward with his fist outstretched and collided with the flat surface of the robot's face. The impact sent rippling shock waves throughout the metal, rendering the machine useless as it fell backward into the empty street. Izuku plummeted towards the ground and just as he was about to perform his signature twist and wing spread move on impulse…

 

SMACK!

 

Uraraka’s hand slapped into Izuku's cheek. Instead of him now flying, he floated a few feet above the air, before she let go of her hold on him and he smacked down onto the concrete floor. 

He groaned for a second before quickly standing up and rushing over to where Uraraka was. 

“Are you ok?! Let me help you!” He called out, lifting some rubble before wrapping a strong arm around her waist and bringing her arm around his shoulders so he could help hold her up. 

“Th-thank you so much! You were so cool just now! That was such a powerful punch!!” She exclaimed, complimenting the boy and sending him into another embarrassed fit as he wasn’t used to being complimented at all. Then, a loud buzzer went through the air that made them both snap out of their little moment. The exam had ended. Izuku pursed his lips and chewed the inside of his cheek nervously.

Did he get enough points just from performing rescues? Would it be enough to let him into the school? These thoughts circled through Izuku’s brain as he brought Uraraka to the area where they first entered, and handed her off to one of the mini nurse robots. Everyone from the exam was already there, including the teachers who went by the names “Aizawa-sensei” and “Present Mic”. When Izuku slipped his hand off of Uraraka’s waist he caught a pair of harsh red eyes staring at him. Turning his head to meet Bakugou’s gaze, he simply scowled and gave a weak scoff as he turned his head away. 

Izuku returned the gesture with his own confused expression before turning back his attention to the teachers that were now speaking to the group of exam takers.

 

What was going on in Kacchan's head?