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Denki Kaminari is used to being brushed aside. He’s more than used to the fact that he’s a side character in everyone else’s story, the one who jokes around to lighten up a mood, who never has their background delved into, their past forever unexplored.
Because Denki is the one with the Quirk that he can’t control. Denki is the one who fries his brain, who overloads himself whenever push comes to shove and he jumps over the limit. Denki is the idiot, the one who can’t process a thing when the receptors have fried and need a chance to cool down.
Denki is the background character, the punchline needed for a laugh.
And it’s not something he likes, particularly. Not at all, if Denki is allowed to be honest. Denki doesn’t want to be a side character, doesn’t want to be reduced to a joke and nothing more. Denki wants to be someone important, someone who matters. He wants to leave an impact on the world while he lives, so he can be remembered when he dies. Because heroics is dangerous and people die, and when Denki dies he wants to be more than just a statistic, just another number affecting the average mortality rates.
Denki wants to be someone, he wants to mean something. He wants someone to look at him and see that he’s more than a boy with a Quirk that dumbs him down, wants someone to look at him and feel like they’re the ones filled with electricity, not him. He wants to have meaning, wants a story of his own.
But Denki is used to being brushed aside.
So he doesn’t think that anyone can blame him, not one person, for the way that he sparks the first time that Izuku Midoriya tries to pull him into the spotlight, giving Denki all of his attention and making him front and center.
He won’t hear one protest about it, not one remark whatsoever.
It started with Quirks. Of course it started with Quirks, not that Denki is complaining. No, he is merely pointing out how the origin should have been predictable, really.
Because Izuku Midoriya likes Quirks. There’s so much more to the boy, of course, because Izuku Midoriya is a protagonist, is a main character who gets interesting arcs and friends and people who watch him with stars in their eyes all the while, the boy oblivious as he goes onwards, towards some higher destiny that Denki was never able to reach, but Quirks are a passion of the future hero. Midoriya likes Quirks, likes to study them and tear them apart, looking at the pieces and remaking them into something new.
And Denki isn’t the first, certainly. He would not have known the extent of Midoriya’s interest if he had been. No, Denki has heard Midoriya ask Uraraka about the complexities of her gravitational control, has watched him all but interrogate Iida on how quickly their class rep. can change gears, has sat back in awe as Midoriya all but recreated how Todoroki could use his Quirk. Midoriya is a force of nature, and his brain a work of art, and Denki supposes that it makes sense that he would be one of Midoriya’s Quirk interests, especially with a Quirk that allows him to generate electricity.
Still, he had underestimated just how quickly Midoriya would approach him, because he had never expected to be within the top ten.
Let alone the fourth that Midoriya came to.
“Kaminari!” Midoriya calls out one day, and it is so unexpected that Denki cannot help but wonder if he had, perhaps, left something behind in class, something that Midoriya had seen and is simply trying to bring to him.
But when Denki turns around, away from the path ahead, the path to the gates of Yuuei and the station and home, Midoriya’s hands are empty of anything but a notebook and a pen.
A familiar notebook, marked number thirteen, diagrams and drawings just barely noticeable on the inside, scribbled out handwriting surrounding each piece.
His analysis notebook.
And Denki should connect the dots right away, certainly, because he may act dumb but he’s not , he promises, but training was long and his brain turns back on in pieces, a computer starting up and taking its dear old sweet time to reboot all of the programs that had been shut down.
It does not load up faster than Midoriya.
“I-” Midoriya stumbles, both physically and verbally, and Denki can’t do anything about the second half but he does reach out for the first, hands coming up and clasping onto the greenet’s shoulders until he’s sure that his peer will stay standing. “Ah, thank you!”
“No problem,” Denki assures. “What’s up, Midoriya?”
Midoriya blushes, something faint and dusting, not like the cherry red that Denki has seen before but softer, a dash of color beneath the freckles that dust over his face. It’s more gentle, more serene.
It’s distracting, and Denki completely misses what Midoriya says.
“Huh?” Denki says, as eloquently as he ever could be, and Midoriya flusters all over again. It’s more embarrassed, however, and Denki feels bad so he shakes his head and forces himself to listen. “Sorry,” he apologizes. “I’m not all back yet, but what’s up?”
“Oh!” Midoriya gasps, red fading away and being replaced by nothing but pure concern. “Are you alright? I’m keeping you from resting, I’m so sorry. You must be-”
“I’m fine,” Denki cuts in, before his classmate can spiral into a never ending panic. “But thanks. I’m curious as to what you planned to ask me, though.”
And he is. It’s not a lie, even if his curiosity is being overpowered by the realization that Midoriya is the first of 1-A to ask if he’s alright after overloading.
The first to not just brush it off and laugh.
Midoriya seems skeptical, but eventually he nods, lifting up his notebook and admitting, “I wanted to ask you about your Quirk. If that’s alright, of course! It’s just...you’re so cool, and your Quirk is fascinating! I’ve never seen an electricity Quirk with such a high output, as most don’t rely on generation so much as control, but you seem to have some control, if not fine tuned. Not that I’m implying that you should be more precise! Quirks are dangerous and finicky and-”
“I’m not upset,” Denki assures, because he isn’t. “What did you want to ask?”
Midoriya glances at his notebook, and then back at Denki, and Denki notices the exact moment that determination fills the boy’s gaze.
It’s pretty, Denki thinks, and then he promptly shuts that part of his brain right back down.
“Are you heading to the station?” Midoriya asks, and when Denki nods, he says, “Great! I’ll walk you there. I- I can ask you on the way?”
And there’s something distinct, something tangible, about how seen Denki feels.
Like he’s no longer a part of the background noise.
“I’d like that,” Denki agrees, and off they go.
And things carry on. Midoriya keeps approaching Denki, and Denki never once pushes the boy away. Because there is no reason to, of course, and Denki will not deny that the wholehearted attention that Midoriya gives him makes his mind race, serotonin on high production.
It’s no wonder that Denki falls so fast.
“Our Quirks aren’t so different,” Midoriya muses one day, maybe the second or third time that he’s searched Denki out to analyze him (it’s the fifth, but Denki totally isn’t keeping track), and Denki lets out a laugh at the sheer awe in the boy’s tone.
“Yeah, we do have a lightning aesthetic going on,” Denki agrees, but Midoriya shakes his head.
“No. Well, yes, we do have the sparks, although yours is more like pure electricity and mine is more of a residual of my strength enhancement, where yours is the goal and mine is simply a byproduct, but that’s not what I mean!” Midoriya is red, now, but his eyes are shining with that determined glint that Denki swears he could stare into all day, stupefied or not.
“Yeah?” Denki asks, tilting his head. “How else are they the same?”
“Our Quirks are too much for our bodies,” Midoriya says, and Denki stills.
“Huh?”
“They’re too much,” Midoriya repeats. “It’s why your brain fries. The human body shouldn’t be able to withstand a fraction of what runs through you every day. Your body adapted to the Quirk, but the Quirk is stronger than your adaptations.” Lifting up his arm, the one littered with scars from stories that Denki has seen unfold, along with ones that he has only heard of in passing, Midoriya adds on, “I think it’s clear where mine is too much.”
“It really did a number on you, huh?” Denki asks, and Midoriya snorts.
“Yeah. I, uh...I actually didn’t have it until the Entrance Exam.”
“What?” Denki asks, because there’s really nothing else to be said, no other words to be asked. Midoriya looks away, shrugs.
“Yeah. The doctors think that if I had used it any earlier, I probably would have torn my limbs straight off. I spent ten months before the exam doing intense training, they think I gained just enough muscle mass to be a proper vessel for it to manifest.”
Denki blinks once. Twice.
“My brain isn’t fried right now, right?” Denki checks, and Midoriya shakes his head, which means… “Holy fuck. Midoriya, you’re incredible .”
“Huh?!”
Midoriya seems lost, but Denki can handle that. Already, the blond can feel himself leaning forwards, perhaps a bit too close to Midoriya but excited all the same as he says, “You took the exam thinking you were Quirkless . That takes guts, Midoriya! I was shaking in my shoes with a Quirk suited for the test , and you ran in with just your wits!” Gasping, Denki adds, “Midoriya, Aizawa would have loved you if your Quirk hadn’t manifested in time. I mean, granted you’re probably one of his favorites, but you definitely would have been if you came in without your Quirk.”
“I-” And here Denki realizes that Midoriya has been tearing up, eyes shining and watery as he rubs at them. “You think I would have gotten in Quirkless?”
“You literally got first in the obstacle course without using your Quirk once,” Denki says. “You would have crushed us.”
And there’s something breathtaking in the smile that Midoriya gives him, bright and precious and just for Denki, and Denki could swear that his brain has fizzled out.
But he hasn’t used his Quirk, not once.
“Thank you, Kaminari,” Midoriya says. “No one ever believed that I could be here, not Quirkless.”
“I do,” Kaminari says, and there’s something a bit too breathy about the way he says it, but Midoriya doesn’t seem to mind.
No, Midoriya just smiles, and their conversation continues, not much longer but enough that Kaminari’s heart is sparking, a rhythm out of control until finally Midoriya catches sight of the time and sighs.
“I need to get going,” Midoriya admits. “I promised Todoroki that we would review our essays together.”
“Of course!” Denki says. “The one from Midnight, yeah?”
“Yeah!” Midoriya agrees. “Todoroki is bright, but symbolism gets...lost on him.” Tilting his head, Midoriya murmurs, “I hope he doesn’t try turning the most recent piece into something about a secret father. I still haven’t gotten him to admit that Kirishima isn’t my secret cousin…”
Denki blinks at the additional information, but Midoriya is already turning, heading off and away. And Denki…
Denki still has one more thing to say.
“Hey, Midoriya,” Denki calls, and Midoriya turns.
“Yeah, Kaminari?”
Denki breathes in, breathes out, then smiles. “Want to go to the movies this weekend? I heard there’s a new hero film coming out.”
Midoriya beams. “I’d love to!” Midoriya says, and Denki smiles.
Yeah, Denki may be the side character in most stories...but for once, he’s beginning to feel like the protagonist of his own.
And isn’t that a start.