Chapter Text
Izuku was beginning to think that the villains had it out for him specifically because, quite frankly, this was getting ridiculous.
It all started when they were sent out to patrol. Aizawa-sensei had split class 2-A into pairs, arming each of them with communication devices which allowed them to get into contact with U.A. in the (statistically likely) event that things went south. Izuku had been paired with Kacchan Bakugou, because of course he had. The two of them were always pushed together one way or another, especially since their fight at Ground Beta which established them as true rivals.
At first everything was normal. They had a set route, as usual, but Bakugou had insisted that they go a different way.
“This street is fucking dead, Deku,” he declared out of nowhere, his voice loud and unapologetic as it filled the silence of the empty street. “There’s nobody here except that old hag over there.”
Bakugou gestured towards an elderly woman who was crossing the road at an incredibly slow pace. At first glance, it didn’t look like she was moving at all. It was lucky that there weren’t yet any cars driving down that road that could hit her.
Izuku kept an eye on her just in case.
“If you want to be a fucking hero, walking down this empty street isn’t going to make it happen,” Bakugou continued, undettered by Izuku’s lack of acknowledgement. “You’ll never surpass All Might if you keep this shit up. It’s just a waste of time.”
Izuku hummed in response, only half listening. A car had just turned the corner and started heading down the road, steadily approaching the woman. He was busy deciding whether it would be an overreaction to carry her the rest of the way even though she was barely a few steps from the pavement.
“Fuck this. We’re leaving.”
Out of the corner of his eye, Izuku caught Bakugou reaching to grab his arm and immediately moved away before he could touch him.
“What do you want?” Izuku asked flatly, watching as the old woman finally made it off the road before shifting his attention back to the blond.
Bakugou’s eye twitched in murderous rage. It was a testament to how far they’d come that he hadn’t automatically started yelling and cursing at him, although being mid-patrol may have had something to do with it.
“Don’t give me that bullshit, Deku. You know what I fucking said.”
Izuku did. He just liked pushing Bakugou’s buttons after years of being too scared to even talk back.
“Aizawa-sensei gave us a set route to follow,” he reminded him.
“Who gives a shit? He sent us out here to train us, but there’s no point in this if we don’t do anything.”
“It’s not just about fighting villains though,” Izuku pointed out. “It’s about learning how to patrol on our own and getting experience.”
Bakugou snorted. “Patrolling without any villains showing up is just walking. Don’t you know how to walk, Deku?” he taunted.
Izuku bristled. “You’re missing the point. Being a hero isn’t always about just fighting villains. Sometimes it’s—“
Apparently Bakugou’s patience had worn thin. He interrupted Izuku by making a grab for his arm, tugging him over to the next road while Izuku struggled in his grip to no avail.
“We’re fucking going, nerd,” he said firmly. “Stop wasting my time.”
Izuku attempted once more to yank his arm back, but Bakugou was holding him tightly. It made his nerves flare and he gritted his teeth.
“Fine!” he relented, trying not to let his panic leak out into his voice. “Fine, I’ll come with you. Just— just let go of my arm.”
Bakugou’s lip curled upwards, clearly pleased with himself. “Damn right you will,” he said, before finally releasing him.
Izuku sighed in relief, rubbing the area where Bakugou had touched him. He could still feel the phantom touch where his hand had gripped him, like his body hadn’t quite realised he’d let go yet.
After that, Izuku stopped complaining. Instead, he reluctantly followed Bakugou as he led them off the path Aizawa had given them and onto a busier road.
In hindsight, that was his first mistake.
It was only shortly after that things went wrong. While patrolling down one of the emptier roads that Bakugou had led them down, Izuku heard a noise. It was only a faint sound, so quiet that he almost missed it. He stopped in his tracks immediately, straining his ears to listen out for it again.
Bakugou spun around when he realised Izuku was no longer following him, mouth opening to call out to him before Izuku put a finger to his lips. Bakugou narrowed his eyes, most likely at being told what to do, but he stayed quiet. That’s when they heard it again.
This time, the sound was clear enough to make out what it was. A woman screaming.
In an instant, Izuku was running into the alleyway from which the sound came from, Bakugou hot on his heels. As they got closer, the woman’s cries for help became louder and louder, clearer and clearer, until the pair of them finally came face to face with the source of her fear.
At the end of the alleyway were two men, one of them holding the woman still while the other trailed a knife down her neck. The moment they noticed Izuku and Bakugou’s arrival, the villains abandoned the hostage in favour of leaping towards them, ready to fight.
Bakugou immediately pounced on the one with the strength enhancing quirk, explosions erupting from his hands with loud bangs that once would have made Izuku shake in apprehension and fear. As it was, that was an instinct which Izuku had long since buried (heroes don’t get scared of their childhood bullies when there are real villains out there).
Without hesitation, Izuku leapt towards the other villain, full cowl thrumming through his body like lightning as green sparks danced across his skin. The man hadn’t yet shown any signs of having a quirk, and there was no physical mutation that Izuku could see, so he made sure to keep an eye out. Not knowing the enemy’s quirk was a serious disadvantage during combat, and Izuku didn’t intend to lose.
________________
The fight ended quicker than Izuku expected. This was by no means an S-rated villain that he had been up against (C-rated at most), and Izuku could tell that he was obviously inexperienced in combat. It barely took five minutes to knock the villain down and start restraining him, granted he hadn’t used his quirk at all from what Izuku could see. Despite this, it would be unwise to let his guard down until the man was handcuffed and taken away by the police. There was always the chance that he was keeping it a secret to later use as a trump card for escape.
Bakugou hadn’t yet finished his own fight just yet, so Izuku hurried to restrain the villain quickly so that he could help out. It was just as he was handcuffing one of the man’s wrists that it happened.
Behind him there was a loud explosion that was a little too close for comfort, followed by Bakugou's voice screaming out something along the usual lines of “DIE!” This wasn’t anything out of the ordinary, because Bakugou always acted like that and Izuku was long used to it, but the explosion had sounded so close and a buried instinct, one which Izuku almost thought he’d got rid of, reared its ugly head and suddenly Izuku was overwhelmed with the urge to run, run, RUN.
It was like an old survival instinct had awoken inside of him, and the only thing which kept him from bolting was his hero training kicking in which told him he couldn’t leave until the danger was gone. So Izuku did not run. But he did flinch, and he flinched hard. Scarred hands automatically lurched up to cover his face, and suddenly he was in middle school again and he was preparing for one of Kacchan’s explosions (hide your face, don’t let him hurt your face, mum can’t see she can’t see she can’t know—)
And then, just like that, it was over. Bakugou’s triumphant shout of victory reminded Izuku of where he was and what he was doing, and suddenly he felt like an idiot. Of course Bakugou wasn’t going to hurt him. They weren’t in middle school anymore and Bakugou was training to be a hero. Izuku was training to be a hero.
Bakugou couldn’t hurt him like that anymore, even if he wanted to.
But before Izuku could lower his hands and maintain some dignity, he felt a sudden sharp pain in his arm as something pierced his flesh. In an instant, Izuku was yanking his arm away and activating One for All again, slamming the villain against the wall and checking the handcuffs which the villain should have been wearing.
Except Izuku had panicked and covered his face before he’d managed to finish restraining him. That was his second mistake.
Quickly, Izuku handcuffed the other hand, steadfastly ignoring the pain burning his arm from where the man had touched him. The villain cackled throughout the process, eyes gleaming with mirth.
Once Izuku was satisfied that the villain would not escape, he finally allowed himself to focus on his injury. His arm was throbbing, and when Izuku looked down to check it his eyes widened. A glaring flesh wound in the shape of a hand was imprinted on his upper arm, the skin burning an angry red. A dull, aching feeling was beginning to creep from the wound across to each corner of his body, as if there was poison spreading through his veins.
Izuku released a breath and smoothed out his features, erasing all traces of panic on his face. Meeting the eyes of the villain, he fixed him with a glare as the man looked back at him with a wicked grin.
“What did you do to me?” Izuku asked calmly.
The man raised an eyebrow at him, expression growing impossibly more pleased. “So you’re playing the fearless hero now, huh? That’s funny, you looked so scared a moment ago.”
“Answer the question.”
The villain hummed. “It’s interesting,” he said, continuing on as if he hadn’t heard him, “that out of everyone here, it was your partner that made you flinch like that.” He nodded towards where Bakugou was tying up the other villain, a thoughtful look on his face. “Isn’t he the one you should be the least afraid of?”
Izuku’s jaw clenched. “I’m not scared of him,” he said defensively, before biting his tongue. This was what the villain wanted. Izuku wasn’t going to play his game.
“Is that so?” the man asked, his cracked lips stretching wider as his grin grew further.
“Tell me what you did to me.”
The villain hummed again but said nothing, simply watching Izuku with an amused glint in his eyes.
Izuku gritted his teeth and examined his wound again. It didn’t look any worse than before, yet the pain which buzzed all over his body was increasing each second it was left unattended. Curiously, Izuku raised a hand and lightly touched the wound, instantly recoiling at the white hot pain which flared at the contact. He sucked in a sharp breath and resisted the urge to squeeze his eyes shut.
“Oi, what the fuck is the matter with you?”
Out of nowhere, a firm hand grabbed his shoulder, snapping Izuku out of it with a jolt, and suddenly everything stopped. The moment Bakugou touched him, the dull throbbing which seemed to pulsate endlessly under his skin ceased completely. It happened so quickly that it made Izuku’s head spin.
He felt fine. It was like it never even happened in the first place. What is this quirk doing to me?
Bakugou spun Izuku around to face him, pushing both hands down onto his shoulders to shake him forcefully. “Can you even fucking hear me over all that muttering, nerd?”
Izuku blinked at him, before quickly trying to conceal the raw panic that he was feeling at the contact. He didn’t want Bakugou to know what happened. When they got back to U.A. he’d take a quick trip to Recovery Girl, but until then he had no intention of letting Bakugou find out he was injured. He knew he would just use it against him, and there was really no way Izuku could defend himself without admitting that the reason it happened was because Bakugou had scared him. He was pretty sure that wouldn’t go down well.
Izuku forced an apologetic smile onto his face. “Oh, yeah, sorry about that! I got lost in my own thoughts for a second there.” He attempted a chuckle, but it came out awkward and stilted.
Bakugou just rolled his eyes. “Of course you did. Fucking nerd.”
He finally released Izuku of his grip, and usually this would have been a relief except that as soon as he let go, the aching sensation returned. This time it was a faint feeling, barely there at all. Izuku didn’t think he would have even noticed it if he wasn’t so hyper aware of everything his body was doing at that moment.
“Hold on,” Bakugou said, eyes narrowing as he grabbed at Izuku’s injured arm, tugging at it for closer inspection. Once again, the pain disappeared. Bakugou scowled. “What the fuck did you do to your arm?” he demanded.
“Uh,” Izuku replied intelligently. His mind was still reeling, and there wasn’t much thought going on up there beyond an endless loop of what the fuck, what the fuck, what the FUCK. “I got hurt.”
“Yeah, I can fucking see that, Deku. Why the hell does it look like a hand?”
“Um. Because he did it with his hand?”
Bakugou glared at him and dropped his arm, clearly done with caring about Izuku’s bullshit. The faint throbbing returned once again. Huh.
“Whatever, nerd,” Bakugou said finally, his voice filled with irritation. “I’ll go ask someone to call the police since we weren’t allowed to bring our phones with us. Keep an eye on these bastards while I’m gone.”
Izuku just nodded absently, not really listening to what Bakugou was saying. He was too busy trying to put things together to pay attention to anything else.
The pain started as soon as he was affected by the villain’s quirk, but went away as soon as Bakugou touched him. That had to be part of the quirk, because Bakugou’s touch had certainly never been a source of relief before (Kacchan’s touches always mean pain, pain, pain). The aching only stayed gone while Bakugou was still touching him, too, because the moment he let go it came back, albeit weaker than before. That alone could be chalked up to coincidence, except the same thing happened again. That had to be part of the quirk, but what did it mean?
That question was answered just a moment later when Bakugou began to walk away. Izuku barely noticed his exit at first, his attention more focused on that painful sensation growing. What was once a dull ache was beginning to feel like burning instead, as if there was a wildfire raging beneath his skin which grew stronger with every step that Bakugou took away from him.
Izuku’s vision began to blur, the world becoming a foggy haze as darkness crept into the corners of his eyes. He gasped, clutching at his stomach and doubling over as white hot pain clawed at him, wrapping around his lungs and squeezing until he couldn’t breathe. All he could hear was his blood rushing and heart pounding in his ears, drowning out everything else. It was like he was underwater, unable to gasp for breath as he was dragged deeper into its depths.
lzuku barely registered the feeling of his knees scraping against the ground as his legs gave out, dropping him onto the harsh concrete below. Blinding pain tore through him as he forced himself to lift his head and look for Kacchan. Black spots danced across his vision, almost entirely covering Kacchan’s blurry, retreating figure. He tried to call out for him, call for him to come back because please Kacchan it hurts, it hurts so much please come back you’re hurting me it hurts so bad it burns please—
But when he opened his mouth, all that came out of it was a pained gasp as Izuku’s body begged for air, and Izuku began to claw at his chest, nails tearing into the skin which covered his heart as if he wanted to rip it out and make it all stop. It won’t stop it won’t stop why won’t it stop please Kacchan it hurts so much make it stop—
Izuku’s vision was rapidly turning black as the pain became unbearable. All he could think was I’m going to die I don’t want to die I’m going to die, and mustering up all his strength, an agonised scream tore from his throat before his body began to go limp, the last of his energy used up.
Suddenly, the world was deadly quiet, only the hum of static crackling in his ears as his body finally gave in and he dropped like a rock.
The last thing he saw was a blurry figure running towards him before everything went black.