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IIDA TENYA
Midoriya’s hand felt wide and strong in Tenya’s grip, squeezing him back tightly as they hurtled through the air. Midoriya still wouldn’t meet his eyes but Tenya could see the grief and conflict in his downturned expression. He was clearly pushed to his limit, both physically and mentally, and Tenya could only see it as his duty to give his friend as soft a landing as possible; a place to rest and feel safe.
With their hands clasped together and their friends shouting their support from the ground below, Tenya couldn’t help but feel grounded in what Midoriya meant to him—and in the importance of this moment. He could only hope that Midoriya felt the same.
They collided with Kirishima roughly, Tenya maneuvering at the last moment so that Midoriya fell directly into Kirishima’s grasp while Tenya himself barely prevented himself from losing half his skin to road rash. By the time he recovered, engines whining and shifting uncomfortably beneath the muscles of his calves as they began to cool, Midoriya was limp in Kirishima’s arms and Tenya was convinced his classmate had finally passed out from exhaustion.
However, like so many other moments he’d observed from the last year, Bakugo managed to stir one last burst of energy from Midoriya to stand and face him directly in the rain, surrounded by all of class 1-A.
Tenya could not look away, despite the clearly personal nature of their confrontation. Perhaps others in the class knew more about what Bakugo and Midoriya were to each other, but Tenya did not abide by gossip or rumors. He knew from what Midoriya himself had said that the two had known each other in middle school, when Midoriya had still been Quirkless, but the words shuddering out from Bakugo now were heavy, overflowing with a depth of emotion and weight of history that made his own heart throb with pain.
For all his faults and unreasonable brashness, it had eventually dawned on Tenya through the course of the year that Bakugo was a highly intelligent individual who saw lying as beneath him. Whatever Bakugo was saying now in hopes of convincing Midoriya to stay with them, it was all too true and he must be willing to let all of their classmates bear witness to his vulnerability.
The rain continued to drizzle in a persistent curtain. By the time Midoriya stumbled forward and Bakugo leapt to catch him in his arms, Tenya couldn’t be sure if the liquid coursing down his face was rain or tears. Midoriya was clearly unconscious at last, his body moving like a rag doll as Bakugo hefted him into a bridal carry.
Tenya approached quickly, calling out for the group to secure the area and report any damage that may have been incurred in their mad dash to bring Midoriya in. For Midoriya’s safety and their own, they should return to UA as quickly as possible.
He ignored Bakugo’s half-hearted scowls as he briskly checked Midoriya over for injuries. His hero costume was torn and ragged, clearly stained with blood over large areas—although whether it was his own blood or another’s was not immediately obvious. Tenya carefully felt down his classmate’s arms and legs looking for broken bones or gushing wounds. He found none, although the red peeking through the rips in Midoriya’s costume nearly gave him a heart attack before he realized it was some kind of support device. He gently palpated Midoriya’s chest and torso, and checked his breathing, heart rate, and pupil responses.
Normal, from what he could tell for now. Nothing as immediately obvious as needing urgent care, although it was clear that Midoriya would need to be evaluated by a professional for the effects of exhaustion and quirk overuse at the very least.
“Well, four eyes?” Bakugo grunted, though his aggression seemed like an afterthought at best. Midoriya had put up a spectacular fight and they were all tired. The way his power and control had grown even in the last two months was astounding.
”No broken bones that I can tell. No heavily bleeding wounds either. However, he has a support device under his clothing that may be providing some additional stability and compression on any wounds. He should see a doctor as soon as we’re back in UA.”
”Damn nerd, where did you get that from?” Bakugo muttered under his breath, already starting to walk away from Tenya towards UA.
As one of their heaviest hitters in a potential fight, Bakugo was eventually convinced to give Midoriya over to Shouji until they reached UA. Tenya was proud of how the class instinctively spread out as they traveled, settling into a group around Shouji according to their combat strength or defensive ability.
He made a point of briefly touching base with each of his classmates to check on them while they walked. Some minor injuries, all of them incidental to capturing Midoriya and not directly caused by him, and most of the class seemed in good spirits, excited to have their friend back. Of the group, only Bakugo, Tokoyami, Todoroki, Tenya, and—he did a double take—Aoyama seemed solemn and grim. Perhaps they, like Tenya, suspected what would be waiting for them when they actually arrived at the school. Getting Midoriya back was only half the battle, after all.
Midoriya was out for less than an hour, regaining consciousness just outside of UA’s security gates and still seeming distant and subdued. He seemed to withdraw even further as they were met with an angry mob blocking their way to the 1-A dorms.
Once Uraraka began to speak, it took everything Tenya had not to stand by his friend and classmate against the public outcry, but Principal Nezu had mentioned this possibility before they left on their retrieval mission. They could not force the public to listen, or ask them to put themselves at risk the way heroes chose to. Any acceptance of the situation needed to come from themselves alone.
When it came, it came in the form of a small boy and an oversized heteromorph woman. It spread to others in the crowd, causing a surge towards Midoriya that Tenya tried to head off by finally taking his friend’s hand once more so he wasn’t swept away. Midoriya was crying again, sobbing like a child in the arms of a woman with matching hair that Tenya could only assume to be his mother. He was clearly overwhelmed with emotion, still exhausted and barely able to keep his feet.
He made a pitiful sight; no wonder the crowd couldn’t help but acknowledge that their cause was justified in giving Midoriya a place to land.
“Please make way!” Tenya shouted, pushing his arm out in front of himself as he pressed towards the dorm with Midoriya in hand. “We appreciate your support more than we can say, but we must allow Midoriya-kun to rest and receive medical care! Please make way!”
The other 1-A students managed to wedge themselves into the crowd, creating a tiny bubble of space where only the child Kota and Midoriya’s mother remained when they approached the doors to the Heights Alliance. Midoriya was gently convincing the two to let him go, repeating that he needed rest and would be able to visit once he had had plenty of time to sleep.
Eventually Tenya managed to hold the door open and lead Midoriya inside, barely catching Momo, Asui, and Sero reassuring Kota and Midoriya’s mother that he was in good hands as the doors to the dorms closed, suddenly muffling the sound and rain outside.
——————
BAKUGO KATSUKI
Shitty Hair intercepted Four Eyes on his way to guide Izuku to the couch.
“Hey Midoriya, you’re feeling pretty okay, right? You haven’t shattered your arms again?”
Izuku blinked owlishly at him, eye bags dark and face pale under smudges of dirt and blood. He had a cut on his left cheek, maybe a few days or even a week old. He still looked barely conscious, much less up for cryptic fucking questions.
“I-I’m… okay, I guess. Why?”
”Well, here’s what I’m thinking. The minute you sit down, you’re going to pass out and we won’t be able to move you until morning. How about we take a nice bath first?”
“Bath!” Pikachu yelped from somewhere near the door. “No offense, Midoriya, but you could use one!”
”Imagine how good you’ll feel afterwards! The teachers are definitely going to be sending Recovery Girl to you anyway, so you might as well stay awake long enough to get clean before she gets here, right?” Shitty Hair continued.
Izuku made some uncertain noises, quickly drowned out by the other boys chanting “Bath, bath, bath!”
Obviously the nerd wasn’t going to speak up for himself if the whole group was pressuring him to do something. Katsuki started making his way to the kitchen cupboard where the first aid kit was stored, already knowing where this was going. Sure enough, by the time he grabbed the first aid kit and two spare sets of clothes from his room, the boys had all piled into the men’s communal bathing area. Inside, the changing room was strewn with rain-soaked, filthy hero costumes and half of the guys were already rushing through a shower while the others clustered naked around Izuku, seemingly struggling to get him undressed when he didn’t seem with it enough to help.
They’d at least gotten off his raggedy ass yellow cape, gloves, and jumpsuit, leaving him in a tight black undershirt and black compression shorts. Shitty Hair seemed to be trying to unravel the crimson red strips of fabric covering every inch of Izuku’s skin and snaking up under his clothes while Pikachu was shoving Izuku’s shirt up, causing Izuku to wince in pain. Rage, as quick to appear as a flame in a pool of gasoline, ignited in Katsuki’s blood. He threw the first aid kit into the nearest cubby with a bang and tossed the spare clothes in as an afterthought.
“Out of the way, shitty extras!” He barked, making Pikachu jump out of the way with a screech. “If you don’t do it properly then the bath water is going to get disgusting. If you’re not going to take it seriously then get out of my face!”
By the time he grabbed a towel and tossed it on the nearby changing bench, only Kirishima was left, helping hold Izuku steady on his feet.
It only took a matter of seconds to strip the compression shorts off of Izuku’s skinny hips and over his bubble butt despite his weak protests. Ignoring him, Katsuki jerked his head, indicating Kirishima should sit Izuku down while he got the first aid kit set up on the bench. It being a hero school, the first aid kits were more like expandable, multi-compartmental toolboxes and there was a whole section for waterproof bandages.
Kirishima helped to peel the undershirt over Izuku’s head, although not without grunts of pain and sharp inhales marking the presence of wounds under the support device. With the rest of the costume off, Izuku wordlessly activated whatever trigger was needed to unravel the support fabric, causing it to slough off his limbs like some kind of weird exoskeleton before it spun itself into a compact roll.
“Creepy fucking thing,” Katsuki muttered, picking it up to examine it before tossing it on the pile of discarded clothes.
Izuku was left in just his underwear, body finally exposed. He subconsciously leaned into Kirishima’s side, looking more alert and half like he was second-guessing letting them bring him here.
“Fuck, Midoriya,” Kirishima hissed in sympathy. “No one can doubt your manliness but this is…”
Yeah. It was a lot. Too much, and they probably should’ve waited for Recovery Girl after all, but Katsuki wasn’t one to back down from a challenge now that they’d gotten this far.
He put on the chem-rated nitrile gloves from the kit to prevent his sweat from transferring to any wounds and started lining up alcohol wipes, creams, and bandages for Kirishima to grab too. It was no surprise to him to see Izuku covered in bruises from his extremities to his torso, some huge and black while others layered in purples and greens. Evidence of previously-patched injuries littered his body, some stitched and bandaged while others were barely closed, oozing bloody plasma.
He seemed thinner as well. Self-sacrificing idiot probably hadn’t slept a full night in weeks, much less stopped long enough to eat three meals a day, even though Katsuki knew there was no way Izuku “Yes sensei” Midoriya would have missed the number of times Aizawa had lectured them on the importance of heroes taking care of their body whenever they had downtime.
Not to mention—
“You fucking stink, moron,” Katsuki snarled, ripping off the rest of an old, stained bandage with a jerk after making sure the injury underneath wouldn’t be damaged. Izuku yelped, jerking away from him.
“Ouch! Sorry, Kacchan.”
”Stay still, dammit! And if you know then take a shower once in a while!”
“There probably weren’t many chances to relax that much, huh?” Kirishima mused, sticking a large waterproof bandage over something he had cleaned on Izuku’s back. “Did you even have a place to stay?”
“Nah, not really,” Izuku said with a half-hearted laugh. “I kinda moved around a lot. There was so much to do, I was chasing down any lead I heard about. But hey, once I fought a villain in an irrigation river, so at least I got clean that day.”
What. The fuck.
“Clean?! You fucking idiot, no wonder half of these look infected, you probably got a parasite from that damn river! I’m gonna call child protective services on All Might’s ass, what the hell was he doing for the last month?!”
Izuku blinked at him in surprise before smiling that same stupid little smile he gets whenever he thinks Katsuki is being nice. “Thanks, Kacchan, but it was all my choice. In fact, I was horrible to All Might the last time I saw him.” His face fell into a frown and he flexed his fist absently, eyes downcast. He whispered, “I really need to apologize.”
Katsuki snorted. “He’s almost sixty fucking years old, I think he can handle one moody brat being snotty to him. The real question is why he let you play bait while him and the other pros hung back. Even when you got shot.” His gloved hands lingered on Izuku’s right side, where he had just dressed a long, thin slice of cauterized flesh indicative of a gunshot wound. It matched three or four others scattered around his body.
”Lady Nagant,” Izuku sighed, sounding half out of it again. “She was hired to capture me but ended up helping me in the end. She wouldn’t have come for me if more heroes were around. Her quirk is so cool…”
Katsuki snorted. This fucking nerd.
”Bakugo.”
Kirishima held up his package of bandages, indicating he was done. Katsuki was done with his side too, finally sitting back to shuck his gloves into the biohazard trash and pull off his own clothes. Silently, they got Izuku off the bench and out of his underwear before marching him into the bathing area. Katsuki snagged a modesty towel from a cubby by the door and shoved it into his hands, knowing how shy he normally was.
“Midoriya!” The guys in the bath cheered with excitement, Koda starting a round of clapping before the steam cleared enough for them to see how wrecked Izuku’s body was. The clapping faltered and trailed off abruptly.
”Woah,” someone said.
”Bro, are you okay??” Sero’s eyebrows furrowed in concern, making his way to the side of the large communal bath so he could see better.
”Yeah, I know we said you needed a bath, but—“ Pikachu laughed nervously. “Is it really okay for you to be here? What if you’re, like, bleeding internally?”
Izuku gave them a thumbs up and was about to spout some fake ass bullshit when Katsuki cut him off.
”Oh so now you care, huh? Too fuckin’ late, assholes! Might as well finish the job before Recovery Girl gets here.” Katsuki steered them to the nearest shower station, sat Izuku on a stool and proceeded to cover him in suds despite his spluttered protests of “I can wash myself!”
To be fair, they let him wash his front, face, and privates once they were done. And yeah, maybe Katsuki could have been gentler while he sluiced water over Izuku’s head over and over again, but it took three passes with shampoo before the water ran clear and the strands of his hair—nearly black instead of green when waterlogged like this—didn’t feel oily. Kirishima was the gentle one, chatting lightly over the sound of the shower and the other boys’ talking while he carefully washed Izuku’s back with a washcloth.
Sero got out when they were done and helped Izuku into the bath while Kirishima and Katsuki took their turn showering. Katsuki couldn’t help but keep an eye on him, seeing his blissful expression when he sank up to his chin in the hot water. He talked with the others and answered their questions with a half-smile, but still seemed withdrawn. He didn’t mutter or volunteer information. He kept his limbs to himself and drifted to the edge of the pool where he’d have the wall at his back. He kept well away from any of the areas with jets.
Katsuki scowled, scrubbing harder at his hair. It wasn’t right. It would be idiotic to expect that Izuku could act normally after everything that had happened, but he was used to him bouncing back to his cheery, optimistic personality no matter what happened. It was fucked up, seeing him so uncertain and serious.
The image of Izuku’s appearance as Katsuki had dropped down on Dictator from the sky—hair wild and hands curled into claws, eyes burning coals in the depths of his mask, strands of Blackwhip hanging off of his back like discount spider legs—it had been so foreign to him that his heart had skipped a beat, wondering if the intel had been wrong; they had dropped into a skirmish between villains, not a rescue for his oldest—for Deku. Izuku.
If it hadn’t been for the fact that Katsuki could recognize him from virtually any angle and circumstance, he would’ve doubted what he’d seen today. Who knew the nerd had it in him. That being said, Pro Hero Deku wouldn’t break into the top hundred in the rankings list if he kept looking like something that crawled out of the sewers, much less the top ten. Which meant—
“Oi, D-Izuku, you’d better get a new costume ASAP! There’s no way in hell you’re going to get to the number two spot behind me if you still look like a busted ass bitch!”
”Hey, go around—“ Big Lips protested as Katsuki did a run up and jumped directly into the bath, splashing everyone with the resulting wave. Everyone shouted, wiping their eyes while Katsuki raked back his wet hair with a feral grin.
”Dude!” Kirishima shook his head, stepping into the bath more normally and sitting just to his waist. To the left of him, Tokoyami shook his head in a very bird-like movement, feathers fluffing out once before slicking back to his skull.
“Even though he apologized for his mistakes, he hasn’t changed,” he said darkly.
“Me going for the number one spot is never gonna change,” Katsuki said disdainfully. “The fact that everyone is my rival hasn’t changed either. Including him!”
He pointed at Izuku, accidentally splashing him in the process. Izuku wiped his hand over his eyes, not even a spark of fight or challenge in him. It made Katsuki grind his teeth in frustration.
”You don’t have to do it if it’s impossible, Kacchan. You can still call me ‘Deku,’ it’s my hero name after all.” Izuku’s voice was soft, making Katsuki look like a jerk that steals ice cream from babies for fun.
“The hell?! Nothing’s impossible for me, I can call you whatever the fuck I want, Izuku!”
”Well, having ambition’s a good thing…” Kirishima said, trying to smooth over Katsuki’s rough edges, as always.
”It is, right?” Pikachu said doubtfully.
”Let’s take this chance to dunk Bakugo under the water,” Ballsack said.
”What chance? Try it and you’ll be finding out what it feels like to go bald with prejudice, fuckface!”
The other guys jumped in, seemingly all deciding that they should try to drown him, and it took several minutes to fight them off and for things to settle again. Not long after that, Four Eyes opened the door to the bathing area and announced that dinner was served, causing a mass exodus from the baths.
Izuku and Katsuki stayed behind, Izuku claiming he wanted a few more minutes to soak in the water in peace and Katsuki staying because he was on self-proclaimed lifeguard duty. Kirishima promised to save them both plates. After the herd of guys left the room and the door swung shut, there was only the sound of muffled chatter and laughter and the drip of water echoing in the room. He and Izuku sat against the same wall a meter apart, facing out towards the door.
“Um, you don’t need to stay, Kacchan,” Izuku said tentatively.
“Fat chance. I’m not gonna let you fall asleep and drown in here by yourself,” Katsuki snorted before realizing that there was a good chance that Izuku had actually wanted to be alone after all that.
After a long moment, he added stiffly, “If you wanna be alone, you’re going to have to wait. Everyone’s—I mean, you’ve been alone long enough, is all.”
The room fell into silence again. After a few seconds with his eyes closed, Katsuki couldn’t help but glance over. Huge tears rolled over Izuku’s cheeks in a silent wave, his expression still and drawn as he stared straight ahead. Katsuki sighed, shoulders slumping. He’d really asked for this, hadn’t he?
He used his hands to float over until he nearly touched shoulders with Izuku, but didn’t say anything. He was awful at this shit, he didn’t know if there was anything to say in a situation as fucked as this.
”Kacchan, I shouldn’t be here.” Izuku whispered into the silence. There was a small splash of water as he rubbed at his eyes. “All For One… he’s coming for me. It’s not safe. People are dying, this isn’t just training anymore.”
“Such a crybaby,” Katsuki sighed. “Look, we aren’t stupid. Shigaraki and All For One aren’t going to stop just because we’re young or tired or scared. And if they ever get you, they’re coming for us next. No decision is going to be the safe one, you get that? The fight is coming no matter what, so we might as well be strategic about it. Having you on the outside running around aimlessly is a waste, and you’re not thinking with your head out there anyway.”
”But my mom is here at UA. Your parents are, too, not to mention hundreds of civilians! What if the battle comes here?”
”Let the pros think about that, you moron. Your only job is to rest and trust our shitty teachers to protect us for once in their damned lives. We’ll have a chance to go on the offensive soon enough. And if the fight comes here, we’ll fight. Or are you saying we should give up the second Shigaraki shows his skinny ass at the front door?”
A weird blubbery sound burst from Izuku as if he’d suddenly lost control of his breath, echoing off the tile. It took Katsuki a second to recognize it as a laugh.
”S-skinny,” Izuku gasped. “He does have a skinny ass, doesn’t he?”
“Flat as a pancake. Long back from neck to knees. His ass turns into a right angle when he squats. If he farts standing up you can feel the breeze.”
Izuku was crying again, and Katsuki couldn’t tell if the sounds he made were laughter or sobs. When he calmed down a little, he stared at the door in front of them with a hard expression. Suddenly, he brought his hands up and slapped his cheeks hard with his palms. Water splashed everywhere and Katsuki cursed. Izuku turned to him, face still solemn and cheeks pink with his own handprints. There was the dimmest spark of life back in his bruised, red-rimmed eyes, the fire of determination that Katsuki hadn’t seen for weeks now.
“Kacchan, we’re going to fight.”
Katsuki grinned, feeling the challenge surge inside him in response just like it always did when Izuku was like this. “Yeah, Izuku, you bet your ass we’re gonna fight.”
Izuku stood up, seemingly uncaring of his nudity this time—and damn, but he didn’t have to worry about a flat ass—and started making his way to the edge of the bath. “But first, I’m going to eat food and get some damn sleep.”
”About fuckin’ time!” Katsuki shouted, jumping out of the bath and hauling ass to the changing room to grab towels for them both. It looked like the other guys had cleaned up and taken the first aid kit with them. He ran a towel over his body and hair roughly and had his clean clothes on before Izuku had finished drying his legs.
Katsuki dumped the spare set of clothes on the bench next to him and grabbed the nearest hair dryer, ignoring Izuku’s protests as he began drying his hair.
“Shut up,” he said over the whir of the dryer. “Recovery Girl is going to tear me a new asshole if she sees me let you walk out of here with wet hair. She’s gonna have her work cut out for her as it is without you catching a cold.”
Izuku couldn’t seem to come up with a response for that. He slowly finished drying himself and pulled on the loose shirt and sweats, relaxing back into Katsuki’s hands when he was done. Only a couple minutes more and his hair was dry enough to spring back up into its normal messy curls. Katsuki turned the dryer off.
“Thanks Kacchan,” Izuku said quietly, turning gingerly to meet his eyes. “For everything just now and… before. It means a lot. It’s nice to—well, it’s just nice.” He finishes awkwardly.
It’s nice when you’re not being such an asshole, Katsuki assumes he means.
“Yeah, well. I’m working on it. I’m not an idiot who can’t learn from his mistakes.”
”I know,” Izuku said with a smile. “I never thought that.”
Which was obvious bullshit. Katsuki’s confidence in himself had always been a knife that cuts both ways. It drove him further and faster than anyone ever expected from him, but he never saw Izuku for who he really was, has been misinterpreting and assuming the worst for years, has been hiding his true feelings and frustrations from himself since he was a child. There’s no way in hell Izuku could have seen anything in Katsuki that Katsuki hadn’t known about himself.
He had never been that obvious, or else how could he have missed something so earth-shattering as this? The traits that he admired and craved in competition had always been inside Izuku, since long before he’d gained a Quirk.
But Katsuki’s five year old self could never have seen anyone Quirkless on the same level as himself, much less possessing the same fire and drive he had for heroism. He had put Izuku in a box, a box that was impossible to climb out of until Izuku himself had fucking shattered it over and over and over again since starting at UA. Yeah, Katsuki wasn’t a genius, but he wasn’t an idiot either. He could see where he had gotten it wrong, even if he still wasn’t sure of the why. It would hurt his pride, but he wasn’t so precious that he couldn’t change, couldn’t try harder. The stakes were through the fucking roof at this point, and none of them had time to fuck around with petty bullshit anymore.
He wasn’t good at saying it, but Izuku had always been observant. Katsuki would try. He would show he meant it through action and not pretty words. If Izuku was pleasantly surprised now, well, he should just wait and see what Katsuki would do next.
—————
TODOROKI SHOTO
Shoto re-joined the rest of the group just at the end of dinner. Endeavor had wanted to talk to him after Midoriya had been taken to the dorms and by the time he’d gotten through that he hadn’t been in the mood for socializing.
He’d gone up to his room’s floor for a private shower and stayed there until he’d been able to breathe through the tightness squeezing his ribs. Now, most of the class was seated in the living room with empty plates and a picked-over buffet table when he entered the room with a towel around his neck.
Midoriya was there, dressed in a shirt and sweats that looked too big for him. He looked much better now that he was clean, although he still drooped with exhaustion and his eyes were red-rimmed from crying. A fabric elbow brace—or possibly the compression sleeve he had taken to wearing after the training camp—peeked out from his right sleeve and the fresh bandage over his cheek with a huge lipstick print on it indicated Recovery Girl had already come and gone. Considering how bad of shape he assumed Midoriya had been in, he was surprised that Midoriya was still awake after treatment.
The group was talking about One For All, of course, seeing as Midoriya was a captive audience. Annoyance streaked through Shoto even as he blotted his hair on his towel.
“Midoriya is probably the sleepiest out of everyone,” he said, probably interrupting someone. He didn’t care. “Let him sleep—why’d we bring him back otherwise?”
Mineta cracked some kind of joke at his appearance but Shoto was well-versed at ignoring anything that came out of the kid’s mouth. He sat down in the empty spot next to Midoriya.
”You alright? It’s been a long day.”
”Yeah…” Midoriya said. “I can’t sleep yet, though.”
”Why not?”
”Earlier… I acted terribly towards All Might, and I haven’t apologized yet. I feel like I should, but I can’t get a hold of him.”
Halfway through Midoriya talking, Shoto spotted movement in the darkness beyond the window. All Might was standing there, hands pressed to the glass like a Halloween prop, the deep shadows making his features appear even more skeletal than usual. Shoto pointed, and Midoriya followed his finger.
”All Might?!”
All Might only stayed for a handful of minutes, leaving the group with a renewed sense of dread for the battle ahead. Things were moving fast, so fast, and the villains wouldn’t wait until they got used to it all. They would have to be ready to fight. To die, if needed.
Shoto escaped the gloomy atmosphere temporarily to grab a thick blanket from one of the cupboards lining the common room. Midoriya had gotten to say his piece, so he was probably ready to pass out. Sure enough, when he got back to the couch he saw Midoriya tucked into the corner between the armrest and the back of the couch, asleep even while being surrounded by their classmates who weren’t trying particularly hard to be quiet. Shoto draped the blanket around Midoriya, tucking it around his shoulders so that it wouldn’t fall.
The nervous energy in the room, so similar to the tension when they entered UA to an angry mob, set Shoto’s teeth on edge. It didn’t take long for Iida to stand from the couch and call for everyone’s attention.
“Curfew is in just a few minutes, I believe it’s time for us all to go back to our rooms. Thank you all for helping today. As class president I must say that I’m proud of us for coming together to bring Midoriya home.”
Asui cocked her head at Midoriya’s sleeping form, setting a finger to her chin. “Midoriya-chan is asleep, kero, should we leave him here? He looked so bad earlier, I don’t wanna wake him now that he’s sleeping.”
“I can carry him up to his room,” Shouji suggested.
“I’m staying down here with the nerd,” Bakugo cut in gruffly. “He can make it up to his damn room on his own when he wakes up.”
“Aww, are you worried about him, Bakugo? Gonna keep vigil at his bedside?” Ashido snickered.
“That’s fucking dark, Racoon Eyes,” Bakugo grumbled. “Mind your damn business.”
“I’ll stay down here too,” Shoto said. He should be tired and ready for the silence of his room, but he had a feeling that he wouldn’t be getting much sleep tonight regardless of where he ended up. It’s not like they had classes in the morning to worry about anyway.
Iida eventually convinced the group to go to bed and everyone reluctantly dispersed in clumps of twos and threes until just he and Bakugo were left. They didn’t look at each other. Shoto sat on the other end of the couch from Midoriya and Bakugo sprawled full-length on the couch across from them, headphones in and watching his phone. Shoto idly browsed the hero news forums, mostly out of habit from the weeks before when everyone in 1-A was trying to look for evidence of Midoriya being seen around the city. It had helped, too, although they’d needed Endeavor’s help in the end. But the class sort of knew what to expect when they’d find him.
“—costume ripped and bloody, a terrifying presence—“
“I couldn’t see his face, just his eyes in that creepy mask. He sounded so young—“
“—he helped us, but barely said anything to anyone. He didn’t even wait for the police to show up.”
Shoto didn’t have many friends. He had always been too quiet, too literal, too related to Endeavor for normal relationships to come easily to him. Once he had manifested his quirk, he had been isolated from his siblings. Once he had been scarred, he had been isolated from much of society. It wasn’t until he had been trained enough to satisfy Endeavor’s exacting standards—barely—that he’d been allowed to attend hero-related events where his father could show him off and explain away Shoto’s refusal to use his fire side as some sort of trauma caused by the “quirk accident” that scarred him.
By then, other teenagers and their experiences were foreign to him. The children of other heroes were competition, the children of civilians wholly unrelatable.
UA had changed that, slowly and painfully. He often felt awkward and misunderstood. Being alone had been easy at first, but the way class 1-A had been thrown into villain fight after villain fight had quickly broken down any walls between him and his classmates—and Midoriya had smashed down the rest.
Shoto didn’t know how to be a good friend, but he had the impression that the way Midoriya was a friend was not a normal marker to follow. Still, he knew how Midoriya’s friendship made him feel, and he wanted to give that feeling back as much as he could. He wanted to meet others where they were and together reach greater heights than they could alone. That was the kind of feeling Midoriya inspired in people. Going after Midoriya today and sitting with him now were the easiest decisions he’d made all year.
Only two hours into their vigil, Midoriya stirred. He didn’t open his eyes, but he pawed at the blanket until it fell to the floor before he shuffled his hips down the couch so he could tip over and lay his head on the couch arm. He swung his legs up into the seat, stretching out until his toes touched Shoto’s leg. He immediately stuffed his toes under Shoto’s thigh and hummed before falling still. Amused, Shoto nearly startled when Bakugo stood from the couch across from them.
Bakugo approached their couch and crouched by Midoriya’s head. For one wild moment Shoto thought he was going to lovingly tuck the blanket back around Midoriya, but instead he pressed his wrist to the sleeping boy’s forehead. Now that he looked closely, he could see high spots of color on Midoriya’s cheeks.
“Fever?” He asked quietly when Bakugo didn’t say anything.
“Yeah.”
Bakugo got up and went to the first aid cabinet in the kitchen, pulling out the heavy duty box and starting to rummage around inside. Shoto got up and grabbed the blanket from the floor, spreading it out over Midoriya’s body.
“I thought Recovery Girl came to see him?”
Bakugo came back with a thermometer and cooling pad in his hand, the package already ripped open.
“She did,” he muttered. “He has a couple of infected cuts, and she can’t do anything with infections or stress. She made him take a fever reducer just in case but said his body might still freak out now that he’s somewhere safe or some shit.”
Shoto watched while Bakugo pushed back Midoriya’s hair and aimed the thermometer at it. No wonder no one said anything about them breaking curfew to stay down here with Midoriya. “Should we call her? Or the teachers?”
“Not unless it gets above 38.5 degrees.”
After a moment the thermometer beeped and Bakugo wordlessly showed him the screen: 38 degrees. Bakugo set the thermometer on the coffee table and placed the cooling pad on Midoriya’s forehead.
Shoto had been trained in many aspects of hero work by Endeavor, many of which he would happily forget if it weren’t for how damn useful most of it had turned out to be. Which is why, when Midoriya startled at the touch, leaping to his feet with his hands balled into fists and Blackwhip already manifesting, stretching towards Bakugo poised to grab, Shoto was already raising a razor-thin sheet of ice between the two. His heart pounded and his mind raced, Ah, of course he’s on a hair trigger, I should’ve—
His ice barely missed Bakugo’s hands. Lucky that Bakugo always seemed ready for battle; he had jumped back nearly as quick as Midoriya had reacted—but despite how the ice managed to slice off a chunk of Blackwhip, it did nothing. The chunk dissolved harmlessly into air while the main trunk instantly wrapped around his ice sheet and flung it to the side. Midoriya’s eyes were open but stared blankly forward at something only he could see, green lightning racing up and down his body. Shoto’s blood pressure ratcheted up even further at the sight. The raw power of Midoriya’s quirk, when used against anyone he perceived as a threat, didn’t seem to have any limits beyond what his own body could handle without breaking.
But Shoto had bought them enough time.
He put the other couch between him and Midoriya when Blackwhip came after him next. Bakugo was clear, hands popping in his surprise and anger, growling curses under his breath. In close quarters like these, neither of their quirks were much use unless they wanted to bring the ceiling down on their heads.
“Bakugo!” Shoto shouted, not sure himself whether it was in warning or command while shooting ice across the floor to freeze Midoriya’s feet in place. Bakugo reflexively threw the contactless thermometer still in his hand directly at Midoriya’s head, catching him across the side of his head. This seemed to be the thing that finally woke him up fully.
Midoriya blinked, ducking his head away from Bakugo and stumbling when his feet didn’t move with the rest of his body. He stilled with his head cocked and finally registered his surroundings. The green lightning sputtered and died out completely, swiftly followed by Blackwhip.
”…Kacchan?”
His voice was tiny. Midoriya was already shrinking into himself, eyes pooling with tears.
“Fucking finally,” Bakugo said gruffly, shoulders dropping as he rolled his eyes. “Nearly gave us a heart attack, shitty Deku.”
”Midoriya, you’re okay.” Shoto added.
He knelt on the floor and held his hand to his ice, warming it enough to melt into the carpet. Steam drifted lazily up, smelling faintly like carpet cleaners and fabric. Midoriya dropped down onto the couch, blinking back tears and trying for a smile. It was too wobbly to be convincing.
”I-I’m sorry, I must have been dreaming. I thought…” He trailed off, rubbing at his left arm reflexively. “Sorry if I scared you! I really didn’t mean it.”
Bakugo scoffed, stomping to the first aid kit for another cooling patch. ”As if we’d be scared of you. Between me and IcyHot you don’t stand a chance even when you’re awake.”
Shoto pondered whether that counted as a genuine compliment while he brought over a fresh blanket, since the one Midoriya had been using was now a soggy mess on the floor. He tucked it close around Midoriya’s shoulders again.
”Don’t apologize. You didn’t hurt us, you were just having a nightmare. We’ve had plenty of those without going through what you’ve gone through,” he said, trying for gentle but feeling like he landed on blunt instead. Midoriya’s eyes filling with tears again seemed to confirm it. Before he could apologize, Bakugo was back and applying the fresh cooling patch to Midoriya’s forehead with surprising gentleness. Midoriya blinked up at him in dazed wonder, eyes nearly crossed considering how close Bakugo was. His cheeks were ruddy and his eyes fever-bright, it was unreasonably cute.
”You have a fever. I’m sure that doesn’t help with nightmares,” Shoto tried again. “You should try to sleep again, you’ll be able to sleep through the worst of it and wake up feeling much better.”
Midoriya’s eyes shifted to him. ”Are you guys taking care of me?”
“Yes,” Shoto said at the same time Bakugo declared,
”Ugh, I was gonna stay down here anyway to kill time, don’t get cocky!” It had less of an impact considering he was shoving more fever reducer pills and water at Midoriya.
“That means yes,” Shoto interpreted. He had finally gotten the hang of translating Bakugo-speech, although Midoriya probably didn’t need the help. Or… maybe he did, considering their conversation in the rain earlier. They seemed to have been crossing wires for years.
Midoriya gulped the pills down and set the empty glass on the side table. He looked down at his lap, pulling the blanket fretfully over his shoulders again. “…I don’t really want to sleep yet. Can we watch a movie?”
It seems that even Bakugo couldn’t resist the request because only minutes later saw them on the couch in front of the TV with some quiet foreign film with low stakes and sweeping landscapes. Midoriya sat in the middle, Shoto on his right and Bakugo on the floor to his left, back leaning against the base of the couch next to his socked feet. Shoto didn’t protest when Midoriya laid the blanket across both of their laps, even scooting a little closer until he could nearly feel their shoulders brushing. With the lights dimmed and their body heat warming the space under the blanket, it wasn’t long before Shoto felt himself losing track of the movie’s plot as he kept closing his eyes for longer and longer moments in time.
”Oi.”
Something nudged his knee on his opposite side and he tensed, startled awake. He relaxed when he saw it was Bakugo, somehow standing to his right with a pillow in his hands. The credits were rolling on the silent screen in front of them and Midoriya was warm and heavy against his shoulder. Cozy. His curly green hair was soft and clean beneath Shoto’s cheek and with a surge of feeling in his chest he remembered again that Midoriya was back with them, safe and protected as he should have been all along. How close had they come to not having this again?
Bakugo nudged his knee again, making Shoto look back at him blankly.
“Hm? What?”
Bakugo held out the pillow to him. ”He’s asleep, get him to lay down so he can sleep properly. I need you to come with me.”
Shoto frowned. “I don’t want to leave him alone.”
Surprisingly, Bakugo didn’t sneer or roll his eyes. Having Midoriya disappear for weeks, acting as a vigilante to draw out One For All really had taken its toll on everyone—and maybe no one more than Bakugo, despite how he’d acted towards Midoriya for the last year. He might be feeling clingier than Shoto, actually.
”We’ll only be gone for a couple of minutes. Vlad-sensei is at the front door.”
Ah.
With Aizawa still recovering and many staff members assisting with the war efforts, Vlad was acting as homeroom teacher to both 1-A and 1-B. The second- and third-years were down to one homeroom teacher each, too. It was easier now that classes weren’t being held and so many of the student’s parents had evacuated to UA; clearly the school felt that only minimal oversight from teachers was needed for day-to-day activities.
Shoto carefully slipped out from under Midoriya, guiding him down to lay flat and rearranging the blanket over him with minimal issue. Midoriya curled into the warm spot he left behind, hugging the folds of the blanket to his chest, but didn’t wake. Checking his phone, he saw that it was three in the morning.
“Why is he here so late?” He whispered while they made their way to the front door.
“Recovery Girl’s orders. She wants someone to check on him every six hours after her treatment for the next 24 hours, and we weren’t supposed to be down here with him.”
Vlad’s arms were crossed when they reached him, but he didn’t look angry with them. If anything, he might have been a little relieved as he looked them both over with a gimlet eye.
”Todoroki,” he acknowledged with a nod.
“Vlad-sensei.”
”I asked Bakugo to bring you over so I could talk to you both. Bakugo tells me Midoriya attacked you in his sleep. How are you?”
Damn. Shoto gave Bakugo a sharp look but he looked unfazed. Shoto looked back at Vlad, trying to inject some reassurance into his voice.
“We’re fine, sensei. We touched him in his sleep, I’m sure it was a natural reaction after how he’s spent the last few weeks. He was being hunted.”
”He was also doing the hunting,” Vlad pointed out firmly. “Did he use his quirk?”
”Yeah, just Blackwhip,” Bakugo responded, hands shoved casually into the pockets of his sweatpants. “Tried to grab us, but we jumped out of the way. He woke up after a few seconds. No one was hurt.”
Vlad was silent for a long moment. “I need you both to be honest with me. No one blames him or distrusts him, but work like what he just came back from has caused mental trauma to heroes older and more experienced than him. Not to mention that we’re at war; sometimes we aren’t in control of how our brain or bodies react. Given what you saw tonight, do you feel that Midoriya might be a danger to himself or others while he recovers?”
Despite the protests that immediately jumped to his lips, Shoto forced himself to stay quiet and think about the question seriously.
He had grown up in a home where his mother and father slept in separate rooms. Even before he’d gotten his quirk he’d known that it was more than personal preference. Everyone in the house knew not to bother Endeavor when he was asleep, not to sneak up behind him or make loud noises, and to pretend that they couldn’t hear any shouts that came from his bedroom or the training room in the middle of the night. No one acknowledged it. Even when one of Endeavor’s sidekicks retired from hero work after being captured and held by villains for two days. Shoto had heard later that she had moved away and quietly divorced less than a year later, but no one had dared talk about the why as bluntly as Vlad had just now.
Shoto was silent long enough that Bakugo was the first to respond.
“We were fast enough to avoid him, even when he surprised us. And I can take him any day of the week; he wasn’t even trying to hurt us, just get us out of his space. Not sure how the extras would handle it, though,” he tacked on, seemingly as an afterthought.
”His first instinct wasn’t to kill, even when he was having a nightmare,” Shoto added slowly, feeling out his words. “I don’t feel unsafe around him. I think if the others know not to wake him up suddenly or surprise him then it should be fine. And I think even that will get better when he’s not feverish and he has time to adjust. I moved him in his sleep just now and he didn’t even notice.”
“I see.” Vlad said when neither one of them spoke again. “Of course, I’m gonna insist he meets with Hound Dog today anyway to evaluate his mental state, but your perspective is helpful as well.”
He relaxed slightly, dropping his arms and smiling broadly. “I have to admit, I’m glad that you boys stayed with him tonight. You’re good friends, and you’ve got solid heads on your shoulders. I can rest easy knowing he’s in good hands. What’s his temperature?”
”37.8 degrees when I checked half an hour ago,” Bakugo grumbled, the tiniest of blushes tinting his cheeks. He wasn’t denying that they were friends this time. Fascinating.
Shoto spoke up. ”It was 38 degrees when he woke up the first time. Bakugo made him take more medicine before we watched a movie and he fell back asleep.”
Vlad wanted to see Midoriya before he left, seeming satisfied when he saw him sleeping peacefully in front of the TV. Neither Shoto nor Bakugo spoke after the door closed behind him. Bakugo returned to the common room to turn off the TV while Shoto drank some water from the kitchen and used the bathroom inside the men’s bathing area. He splashed water on his face after washing his hands. He glanced at himself in the mirror after drying his face roughly. His eyes were a little bloodshot and dark from worry and interrupted sleep, but he wasn’t much paler than normal and he felt mostly fine. Sleeping in his own bed would be heavenly later tonight, but he knew he’d only be doing that if Midoriya was feeling well enough to insist on sleeping alone.
Bakugo was already on another couch scrolling on his phone when Shoto returned to the common room. Shoto quietly pulled another blanket from the cupboard and stretched out on the rug in front of the coffee table with a couch pillow stuffed under his head, already feeling the pull of sleep again. From his angle on the floor he could just barely see both of his friend’s faces in the dim light. Bakugo had a blanket thrown over his legs but didn’t seem like he planned on sleeping.
…Wait.
“Bakugo, have you slept at all tonight?” Shoto whispered.
“None of your business, Candy Cane.” Bakugo didn’t even look at him.
“You were up late with all of us last night working on the plan to catch Midoriya, and you were the first one up in the morning. I fell asleep during the movie but you were awake when Vlad came. When do you plan on sleeping again?”
”’m not tired, shut up.”
“I’m just-“ He was interrupted by Bakugo groaning dramatically and glaring at him over his phone.
”Look, I’ll sleep when he’s in the clear, okay? Now shut your stupid face and go to sleep.”
The room fell quiet again while Shoto processed that. Hm. A suspicion was starting to bloom in his mind but he needed more information to have it confirmed. He also needed Midoriya to be awake. Hm, something to think about another day, then.
”Good night, Bakugo.”
A grunt was all he got in return, but Shoto fell asleep with a smile knowing that his friend was watching over them.
—————
MIDORIYA IZUKU
Izuku startled awake, nearly activating his quirk when he felt movement and heard whispers nearby. But there was a soft couch beneath him, and a blanket over him, and the TV was off and he was warm. He was back at UA, and Kacchan and Todoroki had been taking care of him all night.
He slowly sat up, seeing Uraraka grinning widely at him from the couch next to his and hearing some of the others shout when they saw he was awake. Todoroki was sitting up from where he’d apparently slept on the floor, his hair a wild mess and prints from his pillow stamped on his slightly swollen face. He was blinking sleepily and Izuku couldn’t help but smile.
“Good morning, Deku!” Uraraka said cheerfully.
”Good morning,” he smiled back at her.
“Midoriya, you’re awake!” Mina crowed, lunging over the back of the couch to give him a tight hug. He braced for pain but only felt mild soreness from where his injuries had been the day before.
“See, you woke him up with your braying, you ass!” Came Kacchan’s voice from the kitchens over the sound of something sizzling in a pan and Kaminari whining. The smell of fish and cooked rice made Izuku’s stomach rumble loudly. He felt so much better than he had the night before, nearly fully refreshed. He looked over at Todoroki when he heard a beep coming from the device in his hand.
“Your temperature is back to normal,” he said with a small smile and Izuku felt his heart jump. Todoroki was too powerful, if he could look like that even right after waking up.
”It’s thanks to you and Kacchan,” he assured him. “Oh, and Recovery Girl, of course! And Kirishima-kun for helping me bathe last night, and you all for bringing me back—“
Uraraka laughed, coming over to sit by him and give him a tight side hug. “Deku, we’re so happy to have you back. Nothing was right without you here,” she said earnestly. Her honesty and the memory of her words in front of the crowd yesterday had his eyes stinging.
”Uraraka-san very right! We were all very worried for you!” Iida added. There was a chorus of agreement that made his tears drip down his cheeks.
”You guys…” was all he could say with a teary smile.
”Now you got the waterworks going, you idiots. Here, Izuku—eat some damn food before you start blubbering.” Kacchan approached with a tray and slid it carefully onto his lap, despite his harsh words. The meal was simple, just miso soup with cubes of tofu, a small roasted fish, and extra soft and fragrant rice. There was even a cup of tea and a side of pickled ginger to help boost his immune system and settle his stomach.
”Kacchan! It looks delicious!” He took a sip of soup and hummed when the warm savory broth warmed him from the inside. It tasted like home. “Oh, and it tastes so good, thank you!”
He nearly started crying again when he remembered their conversations from the day before. There was something new growing in his relationship with Kacchan, something small and tender that tasted like warm rice and felt like a hand brushing over his cheek. It didn’t feel familiar or comfortable yet, but with Kacchan’s apology out in the open—with him trying in a way he never had before—it felt so much like possibility that it made Izuku’s heart hurt. Before starting UA he’d never imagined he could have something like this with Kacchan, with Todoroki, with his friends.
“Now look who’s making him cry!”
”I mean, it does look good…”
”Where’s my serving?”
”Who the fuck do you think you are, IcyHot?! You can serve your fucking self!”
”Oh…”
”Does that mean you made enough for us? Bakugo, your cooking skills are so manly! I want you to teach me sometime, maybe I can make breakfast next weekend!”
“Get off of me, Shitty Hair! Do you wanna die?!”
He was so lucky, he realized as rubbed his arm across his eyes and ate his meal and watched his friends interact with each other. He was so lucky, and he said so much to protect. Shigaraki was coming, and with him Izuku’s final showdown with All For One. No, not just his. It was everyone’s fight, for their freedom and for their families, and they would be right beside him. Together, he had to believe that they could win against All For One. Together, they would all be able to come back home.