Chapter Text
The students of UA each have their own special version of The Morning Ritual, a series of motions they undertake every morning to prepare themselves for the day. Some students keep their routines short and simple, while others have a complex list marked down to the very second till first period. It’s likely students like Class 1-A Reps Tenya Iida and Momo Yaoyorozu fall in the latter category.
Midoriya is fortunate enough to still have the training blueprint All Might created for him before he was accepted into UA. With a little tweaking –er, perhaps a lot- Midoriya condenses it into something he can do every morning.
Ok, definitely a lot of tweaking.
Sero opens his laptop and plays a song he knows off the internet, but afterwards he lets the autoplay function select new songs he’s never heard of as he does the basic necessities. He is simple in his preparations, only needing the lull of music to ease his mind. Anything will do, he isn’t picky and has even found some new songs he’s genuinely enjoyed by allowing it to play at random.
Everyone has their own routine, even if it’s simply playing a self-motivation tape while getting dressed.
Ashido keeps her door securely shut before checking the volume on her tiny speaker system, making sure it’s high enough for her to hear, but low enough not to creep through the walls for her classmates to overhear. Once satisfied, she hits play and dives into getting dressed. She focuses on the motions and tries to let the words on the tape sink into her without really listening too hard. If she thinks too much about the actual words, the tape ends up having the opposite effect than what was intended. Not the parts about “Good morning!” or “Today is a new day!” but rather the phrases like “You can do this!” and “Believe in yourself and you will reach your full potential.” Some days she considers throwing the tape away, but old habits are hard to break. Besides, someone might see it lying in the trash.
Kirishima and Bakugou lean more on the extensive workouts in their respective rooms before class, with Kirishima honing in on his quirk practice and Bakugou more focused on keeping his muscles in peak shape. They would head up to the roof together once in a while for a quick spar. Here Kirishima aims to get his quirk to last longer, forcing himself to go all out in order to reach his limit faster just to see if he can break said limit. Bakugou, of course, has no qualms with this, but when they spar he changes his focus from muscle to speed and agility. The first time they tried it out nearly the entire dorm had been swiftly awoken by the sounds of booming explosions, screaming, and loudest of all Bakugou swearing up a storm. In all the commotion someone actually managed to pull one of the several fire alarms set throughout the complex, presumably under the impression that the building was under attack. The entire dorm had been evacuated with most of the students half dressed and disorientated, barely awake. Interestingly enough, Mineta was the only one who seemed unbothered by the whole disturbance, practically drooling over seeing the girls in their sleep clothes. When an ambulance and two fire trucks arrived, the boys had to explain themselves, Kirishima a light shade of pink with embarrassment and shame, Bakugou red with boiling rage and an oath to himself to personally violently murder whatever idiot pulled the alarm. Somewhere at the back of the crowd of classmates a small and pathetic whimper could be heard. For the sake of everyone's sanity and sleep, the pair declared to only spar on Fridays.
It’s to be expected with such a diverse school there is a wide range of morning routines.
And yet somehow, Kaminari Denki's routine is… something else.
Once his alarm clocks go off -and there are several- he fumbles around for each individual off switch before snagging a pair of headphones off his nightstand. Sitting up, he pops them into his ears and hits play on a set playlist he’s heard at least a hundred times. He knows every word in every song on the list, the exact order of which the songs will play, even the length of each song. Once that’s going, he takes a deep breath and mentally prepares himself to follow through everything else on his other list.
Kaminari rests his hands on his knees, palms facing upward. He quickly brings his fingers to tap lightly against his thumbs, one at a time, up and down each digit over and over. He does this for one song playthrough, rapidly moving each finger as his own sort of way to test his dexterity. He hums while time ticks by, letting the lyrics of the chorus roll lethargically off his tongue. Once the first song ends, Denki brings his hands up to his cheeks, pinching and pulling them to the sides of his face. He bites his tongue softly now to hold it in place.
“My name is Kaminari Denki,” he says, though it comes out garbled with the way he’s holding his face. He lets go and relaxes a bit after that. Stretches his legs. Pops his neck.
There’s still more things to go over. More things to check.
Sighing, Kaminari pulls himself to the foot of his bed where an absurdly long phone charger sits on the floor. Gotta love the internet for all its convenience. You can find just about anything nowadays. Take the tape dispenser pinned to his wall for instance. At the convenience to a busy office who needs to share their supplies -or say a teen with a talent for misplacing things- the dispenser was actually designed to attach to the wall. Again, the internet? Fantastic job. Kaminari absently wonders who invented the internet and how much they got paid as he plugs the charger into a wall socket and tears off a fresh piece of tape. Mocking all the ER shows Jirou watches for some god awful reason, he tapes the other end of the charger to the inside of his left elbow like an IV drip.
Once he can feel a steady current start to flow into him, he hops off the bed and stands in front of his small mirror hanging over his dresser. He carefully drops a couple of eye drops into each eye, blinking back the liquid before focusing on his own reflection. He starts to count the freckles under his eyes as his hand moves on muscle memory, opening the top most drawer and reaching into the back to pull out a color wheel. Kaminari holds it up so he can see it in the mirror but doesn’t look at it until he’s finished counting. 36, 37, 38...39! His eyes dart over to the color wheel taking in all the shades and tints.
Shades are pure colors mixed with black, tints are pure colors mixed with white, he thinks idly as he fidgets with the wheel, spinning it around three times before putting it back in his drawer.
The next part requires a little more focus, so Kaminari takes another deep breath, his reflection becoming relaxed and still. He holds his palms out again and watches as cracks of lightning jolts between his fingers. This position he holds for five minutes. When the time is up he closes his hands, feeling the warmth they now bear. He digs his nails into his palms until they leave marks.
On his dresser sits one scented candle. Despite Ashido’s worry that Kaminari is a closet smoker, this is in fact the only reason he owns a lighter. That, and to smoothly offer a light to any cute boy or girl in need. Sadly, UA has a strict ‘No Smoking’ policy, so that opportunity has yet to present itself. Kaminari lights his candle and walks to the small bathroom in his dorm to brush his teeth. He takes two minutes here, letting the sweetness of the toothpaste settle on his tongue before hacking it all into the sink. Once he’s finished he heads back out into his room and takes a deep breath of the air around the scented candle, inhaling the sweet scent of honeysuckle. He blows it out and then breathes in the scent of the burnt wick and smoke.
Okay, he thinks, let’s see. Hearing. Motor skills. Touch. Speech. More motor skills. Refill the spark bank. Vision. Recognition of numbers and colors. Quirk test. More touch. Pain receptors. Taste. Smell.
That just about covers everything. Finally! Releasing one final exasperated huff, Kaminari plucks the charger off and quickly gets dressed before dashing down the stairs and out the door.
---
It wasn’t always like that. Not at first.
At first it was just the basics; a change of clothes, a quick charge, and even quicker wash up in the bathrooms. But that was all before Kaminari began to go over his limit on the regular, short circuiting his brain, causing all his body functions to go haywire. The first time he ever went over his limit was just before UA during his months of training for the exams.
He'd always been careful before, never releasing too much or any at all for that matter. He knew all too well what it could do.
---
“Teacher! Kami-san shocked me again!” A young girl of age six screamed with tears in the corners of her eyes.
There had been more desks in the class than students, so the children sat themselves in a formation where Denki sat alone, surrounded by a small ring of empty desks.
He didn't notice it at first, but when he heard the other children laugh and talk amongst each other he became curious. Scooting closer and closer, he eventually decided to get up and move seats all together so he could feel a part of the class. That's when the other children would cut their conversations short, their round jovial faces and voices turning sharp and cold in an instant.
“No, Kami-san!” a young boy shouted. “We don't want you here! Go sit in your correct seat!”
Denki never missed the way the other kids always called him 'san’ and never 'chan’. But even that didn't stop him from longing to be included. “But my seat is so far away from everyone,” he pouted, “I want to talk to you too.”
“Go away, Kami-san,” one little girl hissed. “Nobody likes you!”
That one made him pull back, edging away from the other children like they were made of fire.
“... But why?” His voice came out small and trembled. He blinked back the sting in his eyes and swallowed the sting in his throat. “What did I do?”
“It's your quirk, son,” the teacher finally stepped in, clasping a firm hand on Denki’s small shoulder. As he looked up to the only adult in the room his brain slowly began to register what they had said. The older man continued, “You need better control over it. You keep zapping the other students.”
Denki is reminded of the time he climbed the tree in his backyard for the first time, not knowing the branches yet. He climbed too fast and fell even faster, landing on his back, the wind swiftly knocked out of his lungs. He couldn't breathe no matter how hard he tried and he feared he would never breathe again. Just as he was starting to panic it all came whooshing back in, leaving him gasping over and over until his breathing eventually returned to normal.
That's how he feels now. Unable to breathe. Unsure if he'll ever be able to again.
He goes home to his mother crying, asking her what is wrong with him and why was he born with such a terrible quirk. But she doesn't answer. She smiles at him and pets his hair as she leans back in her chair. “How was your day dear?” she asks, her voice light and airy.
Frustrated with her, Denki flings himself onto the longer sofa and cries into the cushions there. Without the physical presence of her son in her arms, Mrs. Kaminari looks out the window with a yearning much deeper and broken than her son's. “Do come home soon, sweetie,” she says and it sounds more like a request than a command. “Our son will be born soon.”
Since that day he sat alone, away from everyone else so he couldn't hurt them. But even knowing that his isolation was for the better of everyone, it didn't make it any easier. In the moments where he gave into his yearning, it would always happen. He would get too excited and ZAP!
Now a little girl of age six is crying and pointing at him because it's his fault, because it's always his fault, and he should know better by now, and now the teacher is looking at him with that face he makes that looks not quite angry but not happy either. It's like how the other children look at him but to a lesser degree.
“Kaminari,” he would say, shaking his head in disappointment. That was all he needed to say. Denki stood, head bowed in shame and lips pulled into a small but deep frown, as he trudged back to his desk. The teacher continued anyway. “How many times are we going to go over this? You know better.”
Eventually, Denki stops trying all together.
---
To Kaminari, his quirk existed in him like a dormant disease.
But then again, things could be worse. They truly could have been worse. He knows this. He tells himself this over and over as he trains for UA.
He was alone when it first happened, but by now his isolation is his own choice. And by this point loneliness feels less like a negative feeling and more like a quiet constant he doesn't even notice anymore.
---
Electricity shoots outward from his body. He holds his hands out in front of him, watching as the lightning shoots higher and higher from his palms. He can feel his hair start to rise off the back of his neck. He's never released this much before. It feels like there is a thick wire running throughout his entire body, through every limb and every finger. It feels tight, like he is connected to the wire the way a puppet is connected to strings. It's hard to move, his muscles feel locked in place. There's a vibration he can feel and if he wasn't looking at his own two hands right in front of him he would swear that his whole body was convulsing.
He pushes out more. The wire inside feels like it's expanding, becoming thicker and thicker, getting closer to his skin.
He needs to know the range of his own power, needs to know exactly what he can do. He's been avoiding it for so long now, not wanting to hurt anyone, not believing he was capable of using it without hurting anyone. But the UA exams are only a couple of months away.
The wire feels like it's right underneath his skin now, filling up his entire body. It's hard to see with how much light is around him. It's hard to hear over the thousands of crackles of lightning.
Kaminari feels it brush against his skin for only a brief moment. And in that moment it feels… strangely calming. His body and his quirk have become one with each other and that feels so good. It's warm and heavy and light at the same time. He imagines this is what it might feel like to have another presence wrapped around you. Tranquility settles so deep inside him he thinks he may never feel anything else again. It really was only a few seconds, but those seconds were absolute bliss. The loneliness he thought he learned to live with suddenly felt gone completely, leaving him with true real content.
And then he blacks out.
When he wakes up, it's cold and dark out. There's a smell of burnt wood all around him. His ears are ringing. He gets up off the earth and reaches down to dust himself off, but tremors rack up his arms, making them shake. He can't make his hands do what he wants and he panics a little.
“Fuck!” Kaminari curses under his breath. He can make a fist and that's about all the control over his fingers he has. Curling both hands in, he wraps his arms around his torso, hugging himself. The tighter he makes it the less noticeable the shaking is. He walks home as fast as he can.
He doesn't tell anyone about it, not that there's anyone to tell. His mother is somewhere in the house, but she wouldn't know what to do so why risk worrying her. Instead he lays on his bed in his room promptly freaking the fuck out.
Shit. Shit. Fuck! I broke my fucking body. What the fuck? What the FUCK!?
He wishes he had been born with a different quirk. He wishes he had been born qurikless.
“Fuck!” he curses again, bitter tears building in his eyes as another tremor rakes up his arms. This is why he never uses it in the first place. All he can ever do is hurt people, and now he’s gone and hurt himself. Pulling his arms into his chest, he rolls on his side and quietly cries himself to sleep.
The next morning his function comes back and the tremors are gone. He rubs at his face and runs his hands through his hair and over his arms, making sure he has full control over his hands before he breaks out into a fit of laughter. He wants to cry again for an entirely different reason now. Instead he runs back to his secluded spot out in the woods and tries it again. And again. And again.
He spends the entire day pushing himself to his limit. Sometimes he doesn’t black out, just sits quietly for a long time until he feels normal again. The more he does it, the less and less he blacks out until the blackouts stop occurring completely. He would feel accomplished by this if he didn’t have to deal with himself in his downtime even more now. Now that the blackouts have stopped it becomes more clear what happens between the time he reaches his limit to the time he is back to himself.
It… isn’t pretty. At all. He can’t really think clearly and each time is different. His senses are either heightened to extreme levels or gone completely. But by the time his brain reaches the capacity to form proper thoughts, like the fear of never walking or seeing again, it all goes back to normal. It’s like once his mental functions return so do his physical ones. Not like the first time where everything worked except his hands. Kaminari wants to believe that was a one time thing because it was his first time hitting his limit. He hated being consciously aware of his body not working properly. He’s much happier coming to himself fully functional with only dream-like images of his downtime in his memory. Except he knows they aren’t dreams. He sees himself walking in circles, drooling all over himself, making occasional indistinguishable noises that aren’t even close to words, and he knows that that really happened.
Oh well, he thinks. It really isn’t like he could hate his quirk anymore than he already does. But he made some progress! Right? He’s not blacking out anymore so that’s gotta count for something!
Er, although, there is the whole temporarily-loses-control-over-the-body thing. Does that negate no more blackouts?
Kaminari decides he’s fried his brain enough in the literal sense. No need to fry it metaphorically too. He calls it a day and heads home. And when he wakes the next day half his face is numb and when he tries to eat food it falls out of his mouth.
He really, really, hates his quirk.
But this is also why he needs UA. The school is for the best and strongest. On his very best days, he imagines being surrounded by so many other amazing people with awesome quirks. Quirks that can handle his range of destruction. Maybe people with high endurance, or maybe he can find himself a team of other electric types. He doesn’t mind if he wouldn’t stand out or if that would make him less original. As long as he would be able to stand alongside others. He knows that UA is his chance for all of that and more.
Kaminari doesn't really think he can ever become a hero. How can he? In his wildest fantasies he never imagines being praised for saving someone’s life with a quirk like his. But one thing he knows in his heart to be true are the words his teacher told him all those years ago when he first started school. He needs to learn control. UA, if anything, will teach him control.
Won’t it?
---
He didn’t go over his limit in the entrance exam. He soon discovered that lingering after effects can occur even after his body seemingly returns to normal. They were never as serious as The First Time™, but still. It would be a pain if he passed and got in only to humiliate himself within the first week by not being able to control his facial expressions, or worse. And there’s certainly worse. No, there’s plenty he could do on his own to humiliate himself in other ways without everyone knowing his secret. And if he had to be completely honest with himself, his idiot shtick was often the perfect cover for whenever he lost control over his body. He can’t pinpoint exactly when it developed, but he embraces it nonetheless.
Kaminari dropped his pencil for the third time in class? Classic. Did you see him at lunch when he totally forgot to swallow and soup came pouring out of his mouth? There were actual tears in Jirou’s eyes.
Kaminari smiles it off sheepishly with a shrug and a laugh. It's not so bad laughing with other people. He’ll take it any day over the silence. At least these people wanted him around, even if it was at his expense. And it’s really not that high a price to pay for the company.
But just in case it gets too noticeable, he sets up what is now his morning routine. It's just a little something he does every morning to see if anything's off. He's managed to catch himself a number of times, it usually being his dexterity out of sorts or his sense of touch is off. Whenever he catches his body acting up he makes a mental note to avoid that function so as to not draw attention to it.
The other classmates can't know what little control he has. Students shouldn't be going to a school like UA with how much he can't control it. He shouldn't be here. But he needs to be here.
He still remembers those words that ring in his head everyday. They keep him grounded and push him forward through the fear of being found out. They push him through his lowest moments when all he wants to do is give up and tell Mr. Aizawa the truth and accept his fate, when he's too tired to hide everything all the time.
You need better control.