Chapter Text
Stomach clenching and bile rising high in his throat, Izuku keeps his eyes on the screen even as he fidgets. His hands twist themselves together and apart over and over again, nails digging into scar tissue to keep himself from picking at his nail beds until they bleed.
He used to do that constantly growing up. His fingertips had been one massive, throbbing ache for years on end, raw and hurting from ragged, bitten down nails and ruthlessly peeled back cuticles. The pain had been grounding though, had helped to keep him aware and together through everything.
That had been one of the things most people in school had known about him when he was younger. He was quirkless first before anything else, he was a creepy mumbler who always scribbled in his notebooks second, and he was the gross kid whose fingers were almost always either actively bleeding or wrapped up in bandages.
It’s a habit he’d only managed to break the year before when having open wounds on his hands would have been equal to basically begging for an infection since he’d spent most of his free time elbow deep in trash at Dagobah Beach.
It’s a habit he’s honestly considering taking back up right now despite how much he knows any new kind of damage to his hands and arms, no matter how superficial, would be an overall bad idea.
It’s hard to bring himself to really care at the moment though because Izuku knows that he’s going to fail his final exam.
Because, once again, he’s been paired with Kacchan. Only this time, instead of fighting one another, they’re supposed to be working as a team against a larger threat.
And the larger threat they’re going up against is going to be All Might.
There is, Izuku knows with a ragged sort of certainty, no way they’ll be passing this exercise.
And, if the sympathetic glances from Iida and Uraraka as well as the displeased light in Todoroki’s expression is anything to go by, then he’s not the only one who’s already realized that.
~~~
Izuku had learned a long time ago not to ask his teachers for anything.
Tamakawa-sensei had taught him that in elementary school with long hours spent standing in the hall outside of the classroom. With days where he’d been forced to balance dictionaries on his hands or to hold up a pail of water no matter how much his arms ached from the stress.
All because he’d asked a question that Tamakawa-sensei had considered unnecessary. And any and every question Izuku had ever asked had always been deemed unnecessary.
Izuku had learned real fast how to handle his own issues in class, how to research and teach himself anything he didn’t understand.
Every teacher he’s had since then has only ever reinforced that lesson with sneers or extra cleaning duties that quickly became him taking over all cleaning duties, or whatever other punishment they could think of to ‘teach him the realities of life for someone like him'.
Aizawa-sensei, for all of his occasional harshness, has been the fairest teacher Izuku’s ever had. Being in the man’s homeroom has been a pleasant sort of change for Izuku for the most part, as has most of his classes with the heroes teaching at UA if he’s being honest.
But that doesn’t mean Izuku trusts the man, that doesn’t mean he really trusts any of them except for All Might.
He knows they would protect him from villains, just like they’d protect the rest of his classmates. Aizawa and Thirteen both had almost died for his class at the USJ, Aizawa-sensei especially given the damage that had been dealt to him from both Shigaraki and the Nomu.
Izuku has no doubts that any of the other teachers would have done the same in their positions.
The teachers at UA are heroes. It’s who and what they are. So of course they’d stand between villains and their students, heroes in training or not.
Of course they would. Of course Izuku trusts them with that.
But on a personal level? When things like class work and homework assignments and punishments are concerned?
Izuku knows better than to expect much in any of those departments, knows better than to expect much of anything if he’s being honest.
But, in this moment and against all of these well known and long learned odds, Izuku’s also desperate.
He doesn’t want to fail. Not again, not here, not against All Might who is counting on him for so much and has already given him more than anyone else in his entire life.
So, despite the way everything inside of him rebels at the very idea, despite the way he’s already sure this won’t work, Izuku still has to try.
“Sensei,” Izuku murmurs quietly as he slides up to Aizawa’s side, arms crossed over his chest and hands twisting in the fabric of his costume to try and still the urge to bite.
“Problem Child,” Aizawa stares down at him, one brow arched in question but face otherwise blank.
“I-I know it’s really late and really selfish and that there’s a point to these m-matchups and for you putting me and ...” Izuku swallows roughly, words coming out in a mix of stuttering and half finished sentences as he tries not to shake, “I know ... t-teamwork is important ... b-b-but can you, can we, c-could …”
Izuku trails off, his mouth and throat working but his voice gets trapped somewhere he can’t quite reach it.
“Kid,” Aizawa sighs just a bit, obviously exasperated and Izuku has to bite back his instinctive flinch, “what’s this about?”
Izuku pauses, swallows again, and gathers as much determination and grit as he can get his mental hands on.
“Can you please give Kacchan a different partner?” Izuku finally manages to get the question out. “H-We can’t work together. Not for this exam.”
There’s a long moment of silence and when Izuku finally manages to look up again he can’t help but blanch just a bit at the disappointment that’s so blatantly plain in Aizawa-sensei’s expression then.
“I’ve got a half mind to fail you right here,” Aizawa tells him, voice that dangerous sort of soft it gets when someone makes a mistake he absolutely can’t abide by.
Izuku hates being on the receiving end of it.
“You said you know teamwork is important, right Midoriya?” Aizawa keeps going, something almost frustrated lurking in the corners of his mouth. “You’re going to have to work with all kinds of heroes if you make it pro, no matter what your personal relationship is with them. So this rivalry between you and Bakugou? You need to learn to work with or around it because if you don’t and you fail this exam … I might have to reevaluate your potential. And it might not be just the summer camp you end up missing.”
Izuku doesn’t say anything else.
Instead he just turns his face to the side as he folds down in on himself a bit more, bobs his head in a shallow nodding bow, and slinks away back towards where Todoroki has been watching him.
His friend doesn’t say anything to him, just brushes their shoulders together in a move so subtle Izuku almost doesn’t feel it given how deep into his own head he’s managed to sink.
He should have kept his mouth shut.
Asking a teacher for help had, once again, done nothing but make things worse.
Just like it always has for him.
~~~
Izuku chases after Kacchan, stays right on his heels as they both sprint through the gate and into the mock city.
“K-Kacchan,” Izuku calls out to his teammate. “W-We need to make a plan or something. It’s All Might so maybe we should just run ‘cause th-there’s no way we can fight him. It’s All Might.”
The hit to the face isn’t a surprise really.
A part of Izuku was even expecting it.
Was waiting to feel that familiar burning crackle against his skin, the long familiar scent of burnt caramel flooding his senses as pain ripples out across his face like spider web fractures in a foundation.
What is a surprise is the way that something in his mind just …
Shatters.
Izuku greys out around the edges.
Something inside of him takes a step back and to the left until he’s almost standing outside of his own body and watching the world pass by around him.
It’s a feeling Izuku hasn’t had in a long time now.
But it’s still one he knows.
~~~
Izuku doesn’t really remember the rest of the exam.
Is only aware of it in a vague sort of way as his body moves and fights and runs and hurts all without his real consent or input.
Izuku gets up.
He runs.
There’s wind and fire, there’s fists and feet and screaming.
The pop crackle pop of explosions.
He gets back up, pushes himself up and away from metal and concrete and shattered glass.
He keeps running.
That’s something he’s always known how to do.
~~~
Pop.
Coward. Coward.
Crackle.
Useless fucking coward. All you ever do is run.
Pop.
Stand still and take it.
~~~
They win.
Somehow, despite everything and against all odds, they win.
They win but Kacchan is still so angry.
Is still so pissed and vicious about something Izuku’s done or not done or, maybe, just at Izuku existing in his general vicinity.
Izuku isn’t really sure which it is.
All of the above more than likely.
Izuku just lets him scream, lets him threaten and curse at him, lets him pop off his quirk in his face like he’s been doing since they were four and Izuku stopped being a real person in Kacchan’s eyes.
Izuku just stands there and takes it even after they’re back in the viewing room with the others and Kacchan still hasn’t calmed all the way down.
Aizawa gives him a shallow nod, All Might says something that, for once, Izuku doesn’t actually pay attention to.
Uraraka and Iida smile and talk.
Todoroki stands at his side, a silent but steady presence.
Izuku just …
Drifts.
~~~
Later, once they’ve all filed back onto the bus and ridden back to the main campus, Izuku still finds himself covered in that familiar grey haze.
Still finds himself standing just beside his own body and watching everything pass him by.
In the end Izuku sits there on the bus, cheek, back, head, and heart all aching, for the longest time.
He stays there long after everyone else has already cleared out except for him and Todoroki who’d waved Iida and Uraraka away and then stayed sitting silently in the seat beside him.
Izuku sits and exists and doesn’t do much else but those two things.
Todoroki drifts out of the bus somewhere around the two hour mark with one last, lingering look at Izuku.
But still, Izuku just stays.
Sunset comes, the bus is awash in fiery reds and oranges that make Izuku uncomfortable for some reason he can’t exactly place.
Body aching in a way he almost registers, head stuffed full of cotton and vision grey around the edges, Izuku finally gets up.
He leaves.
Not all of him walks away.
~~~
Izuku’s been a patchwork person for as long as he can remember.
Fractures and scars sewed together with tears and apologies, held together by a thin thread of hope and built on a shaky base of please I just want to be a hero I just want to help let me help please.
But ...
All threads fray eventually.
All bases under heavy stress break down.
Fatigue fractures spreading outwards like spider webs.
~~~
Recovery Girl scolds him again, tells him she’s only going to heal him up after his normal ridiculous recklessness because the burn and the fractures in his cheek and jaw would make it difficult for him to eat. Because the dislocated shoulder can’t be left alone.
The bruises will have to heal naturally because she swears, yet again, that she won’t keep doing this, won’t enable him and his reckless, self destructive tendencies.
Izuku just nods, shrugs, and walks away.
School nurses have never liked Izuku much, have always gotten exasperated with his injuries and tired of seeing him after a few weeks into each new school year. To her credit Recovery Girl has lasted longer than most.
It doesn’t matter either way.
Izuku got used to patching himself up a long time ago. The few months he’s had in UA haven’t erased all of his hardwon and long perfected first aid skills.
He can save Recovery Girl’s remaining scraps of goodwill for anything too extensive to handle on his own.
Either way he’ll get by.
Like he always has.
~~~
Life becomes a collection of actions for Izuku in the days after the exam. Becomes a series of tasks instead of experiences.
It goes from the routine he’d slowly, cautiously, hopefully, settled into back to the almost rhythmic sort of flow that used to be all that got him through his day to day life growing up.
It becomes:
Wake up. Train. Eat. Go to class. Smile. Nod. Train. Hurt. Sit. Stand. Smile. Train. Sleep. Wake up gasping alone in his room, chest heaving and throat sore from nightmares memories he can’t won’t remember.
Repeat. Repeat. Repeat.
Izuku exists.
He doesn't do much else.
~~~
Sometimes, in his clearer, more present moments, Izuku thinks about his last year of elementary school.
Or, to be more accurate, he thinks about the fact that he doesn't really remember most of it.
He’s got the scars to prove that it had happened but ...
He'd existed then too, instead of living.
Izuku had hoped, had dreamed, that UA would be different. That this school full of heroes and hero hopefuls and the best and brightest Japan had to offer would be better.
And for a while it had been.
And in some ways it still is.
But …
Izuku should have known better than to get his hopes up too high.
Good things rarely last.
And some things never change.
~~~
A thought that Izuku would have never dreamed he’d have begins to take shape in the back of his mind.
And, despite the way it feels almost like blasphemy, Izuku can’t shake it completely off.
~~~
Todoroki stops him one day in the locker room after training, keeps him behind as the others get dressed and head off towards the dorms and dinner.
“I don’t know how to help you,” Todoroki’s voice is calm and even but Izuku sees what looks a lot like worry in his mismatched eyes. “Not like how you helped me.”
“I’m fine,” Izuku tells him absently, the same reassurance he’s been saying since he was four, five, eight, thirteen years old.
The same thing he’s always told his mom, the same thing he’d told Uraraka and Iida only the day before.
“You’re not,” Todoroki disagrees. “The others might not see it but I can. That look in your eyes …”
There’s an understanding in Todoroki’s voice, in the line of his shoulders, a knowing in the set of his mouth.
“The world’s really … grey, isn’t it Todoroki-kun?” Izuku asks almost absently as he reaches down to pick up his uniform shirt.
A cool hand stops him as fingertips trace over the collection of starbursts that litter the slope of his shoulder, spilling down and over his collarbone.
“Mine used to be,” Todoroki murmurs after a long, quiet moment.
“How’d you fix it?” Izuku asks the question softly, aware but not, mind still half way floating somewhere static and dull.
“I didn’t,” Todoroki tells him just as softly.
~~~
Izuku’s been running for so long now.
He doesn’t want to run anymore.
Doesn’t want to leave some of the things he’s finally found behind.
And yet ...
~~~
No one’s expecting the way Todoroki lashes out that evening.
The class is gathered in the dorm’s common room, dinner cooking in the kitchen and laughter heavy in the air.
Izuku sits curled up in the corner where Todoroki had put him earlier, notebook in hand and eyes trained out the window, with Todoroki himself a warm line of solidarity at his side. Iida and Uraraka are settled on the love seat close to them, Tsuyu at Uraraka’s feet while she braids her hair and Iida watches with his special brand of intensity.
Everything is quiet and calm for the most part. But then Kaminari’s bray of laughter rings out across the room and a familiar pop crackle pop cuts through the air.
Izuku flinches.
Todoroki’s moving in the next moment.
He flows up and off of the couch from beside Izuku and there’s barely enough time to blink before spikes of ice are surging across the common room.
The attack sends Kacchan tumbling backwards from where he’d been hovering over Kaminari with a shout. He hits the ground and rolls back up and onto his feet with a snarl even as he surges forwards to attack.
Todoroki, unphased, meets him halfway.
And this time, unlike at the Sports Festival, he does it with both his ice and his fire in hand.
The window behind Kacchan shatters and Izuku can only watch as he goes flying.
Someone screams.
Outside the dorm Kacchan roars.
~~~
Aizawa-sensei comes moments later, hair raised, eyes burning, and utterly furious.
Kacchan has to be full body restrained.
Todoroki just stands there passively with a loop of Aizawa’s capture scarf settled firmly around his waist.
Everyone else is confused and upset and a few even sound scared.
Izuku just looks back at Todoroki who’s been staring at him the entire time with something that feels almost like awe brewing to life inside of him, filtering in through the static and the haze he’s been living in.
Right before he’s dragged out of the dorm by Aizawa, Izuku’s sure he sees Todoroki smile.
~~~
Todoroki gets an entire week of house arrest, a month of detention, and an official warning. He’ll also be stuck with the remedial classes during the training camp.
Whenever anyone, even the teachers, asks him why he just shrugs and turns away.
Izuku seems to be the only one who notices the way Todoroki always turns to look at him.
It makes him feel just a bit more awake and aware.
Makes him feel just a bit more real.
~~~
Sometimes, when the dorm is quiet and dark and his body feels real again for at least a little while, Izuku heads outside.
He'll slip out of his dorm window, feet bare so he can feel the coolness of night dew on the grass, and he'll just walk the small courtyard garden behind the dorm.
Back and forth, around and around, through the flowers and the small class vegetable plot Iida and Yaomomo had gotten permission for them to make.
Izuku waits, sort of absently and without really caring, to get in trouble for his night time activities, but no one ever calls him on it. He never gets reprimanded for breaking curfew or anything of the like.
No one says anything.
So either Nezu, who Izuku is sure probably knows, is content to leave him be or he’s been wrong about the level of surveillance the dorms are actually under all of the time and no one actually knows about his walks.
Both options are worthy of deeper thought but, either way, Izuku doesn't stop sneaking out.
Sometimes Todoroki even comes out onto his balcony despite how late it is. Even when he’s on house arrest he’ll still come out to sit on the railing of his balcony like a silent sort of reassurance.
Sometimes Izuku will hop up to sit on the railing beside him, their shoulders pressed together and hands just brushing.
~~~
“If I didn’t go to UA anymore,” Izuku asks one night when the stars and his mind are both clear and bright and everyone but the two of them have all long since gone to sleep, “if I went to a different school, would you still be my friend?”
“I’d probably just transfer with you,” Todoroki tells him simply with a small, unconcerned shrug.
Izuku goes still.
“What?” Izuku whispers the question out through a throat gone tight with emotion.
“Shiketsu is a good school," Todoroki offers blandly. "It's prestigious in its own right, and they’d take you in on scholarship after your showing in the Sports Festival if All Might doesn’t want to pay for your transfer."
Izuku stares up at him, eyes wide and heart pounding.
“We’re going to be heroes no matter what, Izuku,” Todoroki tells him like it’s obvious, like it’s a universal law, like the sound of his first name isn’t enough to make something inside of Izuku shake. “UA isn’t the only place to do that and if you change schools then I’d rather be there with you than here without you. Besides, even if Endeavor won’t pay for tuition if I transfer then I’ll apply for their scholarship too. They’d probably jump at the chance to steal the son of the Number 2 hero from UA.”
Izuku absorbs that, swallows as best he can through the tightness in his throat. The sigh he gives out is shaky at best.
“Yeah,” Izuku murmurs, just a bit dazed as tears gather at the corners of his eyes. “I-I’d rather be with you too, S-Shouto.”
His hand shakes as he slides it across the railing and tentatively touches his fingertips to the back of Shouto’s.
Shouto just shifts his hand until their fingers are tangled together.
His warmth feels soothing against Izuku's scars.
And, for the first time in what feels like forever, Izuku breathes.