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it occurs to izuku that he could just… lay there. the thought comes unbidden, a sudden sharp sort of clarity that slides through him as shocking and painful as the smack that had preceded it.
with the crack of kacchan’s gauntlet against the fragile bones of his face, as stumbled to the ground, instinctively bringing his arms up to protect his head, and curling so his knees are covering his mushy insides, tasting blood and dirt, he thinks
i could just lay here.
every single part of him is screaming at him to get up, to jump back into action, wave his hands at kacchan and try to talk him into some semblance of a plan, his whole being strains towards at least attemping to cooperate, to get up, and fight so they can pass the exam, but all that makes its way past his bloodied lips is a pitiful groan of pain.
kacchan had not held back. kacchan never held back – not against him, at least. izuku knows if he were to do the same – to go against kacchan and not hold back, to hit him with all he’s got – even if it destroys his arm in the process – kacchan would end up as a vaguely human-shaped splatter of blood against the concrete. and then auntie mitsuki would cry, and uncle masaru would be upset, and his own mom would be completely devastated, so no, best not to do that. but he could. he could, if he wanted to. and sure, it would wreck his arm – and recovery girl had said she wouldn’t heal stuff like that anymore, but he could. if he wanted to. he doesn’t want to.
he doesn’t even want to get up. he should, really. what’s a possibly dislocated jaw when his exam mark hangs in the balance? he has to show that he wants to cooperate, that he wants to pass –
or i could just lay here.
the choice is taken from him with a gust of all might’s power which levels a straight path towards them, and that aura of strength which had always been so reassuring – except, no, not always, not for izuku, who remembers a rooftop, and a gust of wind that –
i could just lay here, he thinks dully, and makes no effort at all to get up.
he watches the flashes of kacchan’s hopeless attempts to fight all might through his lashes, and keeps his breathing even, plays dead the way he learned at kacchan’s feet all these times in middle school.
he will fail the exam. so what? he will take some supplementary classes? that’s not so bad – it’s not so bad at all, to sit in a classroom and learn from actual real pro-heroes who look at him as they would any other students, to take notes in notebooks that don’t get ripped apart, it might be relaxing, even. knowing their luck, the training camp is just waiting for a villain attack.
and so what if he is doomed to always lag behind his peers, to stumble his way in the dark, waiting for a sliver of direction – from all might, or from aizawa-sensei, or from anyone willing to give him the time of day, so what if he all he knows to do is follow a down-trodden forest-path illuminated by the glow of kacchan’s untamed brilliance –
i could just lay here.
so he does.
here, a chance for kacchan to prove himself once again, with izuku – with deku – as a stepping stone for his development as a hero and as a person. can you collaborate with others? can you work together? izuku knows he’s proven himself more than capable of it, much as he knows this is a test of kacchan’s abilities. so he will sit this one out, and still kacchan has a chance to shine. he can shine against all might. he can choose to save his clearly injured and unresponsive teammate.
if rubble falls on me, izuku thinks, i’ll have to move, and the gig will be up.
but, another part of him, a part of him that is angry and vicious, the same part that keeps him even now, anchored to the ground, what if i don’t? then kacchan will have killed me, like he always wanted.
at the very least, he’ll have some broken bones. he always has some broken bones, and recovery girl might even deign to heal them, since they wouldn’t be caused by his own quirk.
somewhere out of his limited field of vision kacchan rages, and the flashes of his explosions imprint themselves on the insides of izuku’s lids, brilliant afterimages that make him wonder if he might have gotten concussed after all. the side of his face feels numb, and he can feel dirt between his gritted teeth, and as all might calls out to him, taunting, izuku thinks with sudden, startling clarity,
i don’t want to do this anymore.
he’s not sure what this is referring to, exactly. does he want to move, stop laying on the ground and finally make himself useful? but that’s not really it. though his left arm is bent at an uncomfortable angle beneath his body, he’s actually pretty comfortable, all in all, sprawled at he is on the ground in a sad parody of the recovery position.
does he want to stop hearing kacchan’s rough voice, and rhythm of his strength puncturing every silence, every minute of his days painted in the brilliance of his anger, izuku’s own safety, comfort, learning opportunities laid at a pyre to be lit with the brush of an uncaring palm the moment something sets him off?
or does he want to stop, in general, stop everything, all the time, stop being here, stop –
trying to be a fucking hero.
he could respond to all might’s taunts. he could get up and show he is able to cooperate. and he could fight. sure.
but he knows that they know that he is cooperative. he’s never not cooperated, when the situation called for it. he works with uraraka, and he’s worked with iida and todoroki. he’s even worked with people he’s isn’t that close to in class. he and mineta did a great presentation for present mic’s class, and he and shoji put a decent project together for midnight. it’s not izuku that doesn’t know how to work with others. it’s not izuku that should have something to prove.
but here he is, on the ground, where kacchan knocked him down before the exam had even had a chance to properly begin, moved only by the strength of all might’s initial offensive against them. and izuku could help kacchan, and get up and fight.
or i could just lay here.
izuku got into ua on rescue points alone, simply for seeing someone who needed help, and reaching out to them. if kacchan notices, now, or later, the conspicuous absence of izuku in his periphery, and finds him, and saves him, he could still prove he has learned whatever lesson aizawa-sensei meant for them to learn. but izuku isn’t going to help him. he’s going to lay on the ground, and feel the pain in his jaw and cheek, and count the minutes.
surely, they can’t penalize him that hard simply for passing out. if they don’t find out he’s faking, that is. aizawa-sensei had wanted to expel him, but that had been at the very start of term. things were different now… right?
all might seems to realize that his taunts won’t bring izuku out. he seems to believe there is a plan in motion, because he doesn’t sound alarmed just yet. izuku wonders what kacchan will do, if anything. but kacchan just sounds. well. loud.
the noises of their fight move farther away. and farther still. kacchan is probably trying to force his way to the gate. izuku doesn’t move. he just lays there, and breathes, as it gets quieter and quieter around him.
he doesn’t try to open his eyes. instead, he lets them close completely. his cheek hurts.
when he comes into awareness again, it’s to all might’s deep baritone echoing with concern, “-doriya? young midoriya?”
he blinks awake slowly, and the light hurts his eyes so much he has to squeeze them shut immediately, his face screwing in pain. he feels like he might throw up, which isn’t going to be great at all.
his tongue feels heavy in his mouth.
“it will be well, young midoriya,” says all might, and his voice is muffled, “why? because i –“
“am here,” izuku echoes, and goes under again.
when he wakes up for the second time, he’s in the tent with recovery girl, and the moment she notices his eyes are open, she’s at his side, pushing a bottle of water between his fingers.
“bakugou failed his exam,” says aizawa-sensei from somewhere on the left.
it occurs to izuku that he’s losing time between one blink and the next. he nods numbly. he’d thought as much.
“did i?”
aizawa-sensei sighs. “yes.”
izuku swallows past the lump in his throat. just as he expected. kacchan knocked him out, refused to even attempt to cooperate, didn’t even try to sae him, or even be aware of him in an exercise meant to be joint training, and all izuku did was attempt to work together, and get beat for it, and they’re being punished the same.
“summer school?” he asks vaguely, while recovery girl’s small hands feel around his jaw. it’s not dislocated, which is good. or it might have been and she fixed it. he wonders if that affects the limited amount of visits he has left with her, before she decides not to heal him altogether.
“yes,” aizawa-sensei says tightly.
“with kacchan?”
aizawa-sensei nods.
izuku imagines spending his summer in the sweltering heat, in a classroom with kacchan, who’d doubtless blame him for them both failing, with weather that’s perfect for his quirkto make izuku’s life hell for as long as it lasts.
i don’t want to do this anymore.
“i’m not going,” he says. the words tumble out of his mouth before he can stop them. he wonders if there’s something in the water that has made him say things that should stay locked inside his head.
“it’s not optional midoriya,” says aizawa-sensei sternly.
“i know,” izuku says. “but i’m not going.”
the correct words – the words that will make aizawa-sensei understand – are just out of his reach. he worries at the label of his water bottle with heavy fingers.
he’d thought about it, right after the attack on usj, when his mother had looked so devastated – nearly as broken as she had the day he got his diagnosis – sick with worry for him. he understands now, that it’s not pity that makes her eyes so heavy. it’s fear for him.
his mother loves him. his mother has never burned him, or said a single unkind word to him. she had stood at his back, steadfast, strong in her softness, and offered a wordless unfathomable kind of love izuku knows he is lucky to be on the receiving end of. and after the usj, when she’d seen him come home, and looked nearly as green as her hair, she’d sat him down, and shown him the transfer forms for shiketsu, ketsubutsu and isami.
she’d begged him to at least think about it.
he’s not sure how much time passes as he fiddles with the label on the water bottle, which has a pretty imprint of team water hose on it. he likes water hose, they’re a great hero duo. he and kacchan had wanted to be a hero duo.
“i’m not going to summer school,” he repeats, and his voice sounds hollow even to his own ears. “i’m transferring out of ua.”
he realizes that aizawa-sensei had already left the tent, so it’s just him and recovery girl.
“can i go?” he asks, but she doesn’t seem to hear him. she’s going over notes. he wonders if his voice is quieter than he thinks. he slides off the bed, and she doesn’t stop him, so maybe it’s okay.
he doesn’t say anything to anyone. on the bus back, he rides in a window seat, resting his undamaged cheek against the glass, and letting the landscape blur. he fiddles with his phone absent-mindedly. beside him mineta is playing ten billion wives on his phone.
mineta passed his exam. mineta’s partner was sero, who pointedly didn’t try to knock him out while they were trying to cooperate.
izuku’s fingers are heavy when he unlocks his phone. he’s not sure if the weight is all in his head, or if he needs to do some of the exercises he found on the internet again to relieve the pressure in his damaged hands.
he texts his mom that he’s okay. that he thought about it and wants to go to shiketsu. he doesn’t tell her he failed his exam. he doesn’t tell her about kacchan. as usual.