He had had no idea that asking his roommate for physical training would end up with way. He was aware that Midoriya had to have had some type of physical training but he hadn’t expected him to be so damn vicious.
Hitoshi was no stranger to pain. It had been a constant companion ever since he was young. If it wasn’t from those deadbeats he called parents, then the kids at school made sure he knew exactly what they thought of him. He was unfamiliar however, with the overwhelming ache in his arms and legs from Midoriya drilling him over and over again. He was pretty sure he had more bruises now than he’d had when he’d broken his dad’s nose, and that was saying something.
That was nothing however, compared to how much his head was spinning.
Midoriya had asked him so many questions about his Quirk that he’d had no idea how to answer. It wasn’t like he got a lot of volunteers to be Brainwashed, so he had no idea if he could make people fall asleep, if laughter counted as a response, how long he could control someone, how many people he could, how complicated the tasks he could make them complete could be, or if he could make them do things outside of their regular capabilities. It made him incredibly frustrated. The only reason he didn’t want to go scream into the void was because he’d managed to answer a lot of those questions.
Turns out he could make someone fall asleep, laughter did count as a response and he could make people complete complicated tasks as long as they were normally capable of doing so.
“Your Quirk is soooo useful.” Midoriya had gushed. “The possibilities are almost endless. You can stop Villains without using violence, talk down suicidal people, and resolve hostage situations! Oh and don’t get me started on interrogations.”
Hitoshi had been overwhelmed. While the other teen had expressed that he had thought he should have been placed in the Hero Course, it was another thing entirely to have someone think of ways to improve his Quirk and actually volunteer to test those ideas.
“I’m taking your phone if you die.” Midoriya said without mercy.
He took a deep breath and immediately regretted it. “You’re heartless.” He wheezed.
Midoriya gave him one of his rare sincere smiles. “You did really well. For someone who’s a literal stick, you have good reflexes.”
Hitoshi clutched his heart dramatically. “You wound me.” He studied Midoriya. “And you have no legs to stand on. You’re not much better.”
Midoriya rolled his eyes. “Get off the ground, we still need to stretch or it’ll feel even worse in the morning.” He began explaining the stretches, going through each of them slowly so that Hitoshi could feel the burn in his muscles. He couldn’t help but notice that Midoriya was able to go a lot deeper in his stretches than he could, it wasn’t that surprising after today, but he really hadn’t expected him to be able to do the splits.
He let out a low whistle. “Damn, Green Bean. You really are flexible.” The movement was causing his shirt to ride up and display the pale freckled flesh of his abdomen and Hitoshi had to forced himself to look away.
Thankfully, Midoriya didn’t seem to notice. “My mom always made sure I stretched properly and kept up with it. I was really rubbery as a kid and I just went from there.” Midoriya smoothly got to his feet. “That should be good for now.”
Hitoshi stumbled upright gracelessly, his legs feeling about as stable as a newborn faun. “I’m pretty sure this shirt is ruined.” It was covered in dirt, and sweat was making it stick to his chest.
Midoriya tossed a wet rag along with a replacement t-shirt at him, already taking his own off. “I’m just glad we had rain a few days ago.” Hitoshi had to agree. Their washing water had grown pretty low as of late and he didn’t really want to be caught taking water from school. That would lead to a lot of unpleasant questions.
Prying the disgusting garment from his body, he began wiping down his chest, shivering as the cold water dripped down his torso. It wasn’t so distracting however, that it prevented him from noticing Midoriya watching him.
“Like what you see?” He teased.
A bright red flush overtook his features, spreading all the way to his collarbones as the Midoriya let out an embarrassed whine. There was still water on him and a warm feeling spread in Hitoshi’s gut.
He sauntered closer to the blushing boy, gently prying tMidoriya's hand away from his face. “Don’t hide from me.” Hitoshi murmured. “I want to see you.” His skin darkened and Hitoshi could hear his breathing become uneven. Midoriya was looking everywhere but at him and he nervously licked his lips, staying perfectly still.
Hitoshi leaned down towards him so that his mouth was level with the Midoriya's ear. Gently tapping a spot on his chest he whispered. “You missed a spot.”
The warehouse was silent enough that he could hear Midoriya gulp.
…
Shinsou was going to be the death of him.
It had been several days since he’d asked him to train him, and he still could barely look Shinsou in the eye. Izuku knew he was just joking around and probably practicing ways to get people to talk for his Quirk, but his poor bi heart didn’t realize that and if he continued he feared he was going to implode one of these days.
Even worse, the press had been crowding the front of the school. He’d taken one look at that and decided to go for another entrance. He was nearly late for class, but it would have been worth the detention.
Aizawa walked in with his usual lack of ceremony, the class silencing at his glare. He pulled out several packets of paper and began placing them on the students’ desks. “Each of these are detailed evaluations from your performances during the Battle Trials. Read them before tomorrow and work on the issues that were pointed out.” He paused at Izuku’s desk, dark eyes studying him a moment too long before abruptly turning away.
Well that didn’t raise my stress levels by 1000% or anything.
“Now onto some homeroom business. You need to choose a class president.”
Oh thank god it’s something normal. Even as the noise in the room increased exponentially, Izuku was just glad that it wasn’t going to be something insane.
“The position of class president is an important one! Just because you want it does not mean you are qualified!” Iida exclaimed loudly. “A class president has to have the trust of the class, so it should be decided democratically!” He paused, having just realized that he was being as loud as those he was chastising. “Is that alright, sensei?”
With the amount of care Izuku had come to expect from their teacher, Aizawa shrugged. “I don’t care as long as you do it before homeroom ends.”
“Thank you!”
Asui tapped her chin. “But won’t everyone just vote for themselves? It’s not like we know each other very well, kero.”
“That is true, but that is how we know that whoever gets the most votes is the most appropriate for the role!” Iida explained.
Izuku could understand that line of thinking, but it still might end up being a popularity contest and he wasn’t sure if they could remove the president in the case that they were unqualified. He decided not to voice his concerns, seeing as he didn’t really have a better option. Yaoyorozu seemed like the best option to chose, so he wrote her name out and handed the slip of paper back to be counted.
Iida began tallying the counts and-
Oh.
Well that wasn’t supposed to happen.
Yaoyorozu: III
Iida:II
Sero:I
Midoriya:IIII
Bakugou:I
Mina:I
Kaminari:I
Asui:I
“Midoriya will be class president!” Iida announced.
Yeah, fuck this.
…
Tenya was still reeling when lunch rolled around. How could Midoriya just resign his position? And why would he do so? He was clearly qualified and had shown to be quite adept at strategy and combat, so there was no reason for him to quit. Of course, he was glad that he had gained the position of vice president from the greenettes decision, but he felt that he didn’t deserve it. Uraraka was determined to chase the boy down for lunch, so he supposed he could ask him then.
“Midoriya! Shinsou!” Uraraka called out, making her way through the crowd. “Wait up!”
Neither turned around, and if Tenya didn’t know better he would have actually thought the pair to have sped up. Thankfully, Uraraka wasn’t going to budge in her mission and plopped her tray on the same table as them.
“Can we sit here?” she asked.
Shinsou rolled his eyes. “I don’t see why not seeing as you’ve already made yourself at home.”
Midoriya didn’t even look up from his food, choosing instead to continue munching his rice. He was hunched over and his dark hair fell over his eyes so Tenya couldn’t see them.
He decided to wait until Midoriya was done eating to bring up what had happened in homeroom. After all, it would be very rude to interrupt someone when they were in the process of acquiring their necessary nutrients.
Uraraka seemed content to banter with Shinsou, who occasionally making biting comments that Tenya would have scolded him for if not for the mirth glinting in his eyes.
“Are you planning on trying to get transferred to the Hero Course?” She asked. “Ooooh, what if you join our class!?”
Shinsou’s answering grin was unsettling. “That’s the plan.” He drawled. “General Studies kids can switch over if we do well enough in the Sports Festival, so you Hero kids should watch out.”
Uraraka’s eyes lit up. “Bring it.”
There was a lull in the conversation and just as Tenya was about to ask Midoriya about his decision, the other spoke first.
“Why do you guys want to be Heroes?”
Tenya straightened, eager to answer. “I am from the Iida family.” He announced. “My older brother is Ingenium and my parents are the Hero Duo of Iidaten Agency. I hope to continue my family name and do my family proud!”
“Oh so you’re a rich kid.” Shinsou said with a snort. “That makes a lot of sense.”
Midoriya’s eyes flashed with something unreadable.
“My reason’s nothing so noble.” Uraraka confessed. “My family is really poor, and if I become a Hero, I’ll have a lot of money and they’ll be able to live comfortably.”
“That is a perfectly acceptable reason!” Tenya exclaimed. “Wanting to help your family is very admirable.”
“I’m doing it out of spite.” Shinsou volunteered.
Both Uraraka and Midoriya snorted and Tenya was about to chastise them all when a blaring alarm went off.
Midoriya was on his feet in an instant, dragging Shinsou in front of the ensuing crowd as a speaker blared. “There has been a level three breach. Please evacuate promptly.”
…
There were too many people.
It was so loud but at the same time he could barely hear anything over the ringing in his ears.
“-oriya! Midoriya!”
Izuku felt someone grab his arm but everything was blurry so he couldn’t tell who. His legs felt like jelly and he couldn’t breathe.
He was vaguely aware of someone pulling him through the crush of the crowd and then tossing him into a room and closing the door. There were hands on his shoulders shaking him but nothing was making sense everything was too bright and loud and he couldn’t breathe.
“-ku! Izuku please talk to me, please say anything.”
There was something purple in front of him. What was purple? Oh yeah, he had a friend who was purple. He kind of wanted to grab the purple.
He couldn’t talk. Nothing felt right and his body was all wrong. Why couldn’t he breathe?
“Izuku, look at me.”
He didn’t want to move. Everything hurt, why did everything always hurt?
To warm hands grasped his face. “You can do it,” The purple soothed him. “Come on, just say something.”
“Mom-” No this wasn’t mom, mom was white, not purple. “It hurts.”
Purple let out a sigh. “I know, I know, just trust me okay?”
…
When Shota had been told by the all knowing rat known as Nedzu that he should go check the teachers lounge after kicking the reporters off U.A. property, he hadn’t been expecting one of his problematic students and one he didn’t recognise crouching on the floor.
As he opened the door, the purple-haired boy startled from his position next to Midoriya, body shifting to hide the other from view. Still, he could see the boy sitting with ramrod straight posture and the blank look in the boy’s eyes.
Shota slowed his approach, purposefully softening his features and making sure his hands were in visible. He didn’t know this student and from the tension in his body, startling him was a bad idea.
“Are you two alright?” he asked, leaving a large enough distance for the teen to feel comfortable.
The boy glanced at Midoriya. “We got caught in the evacuation crowd and he started acting weird.” He bit his lip. “I pulled him into here and he was freaking out. I don’t think he was breathing properly, and it was only getting worse.”
Shota gestured for him to continue.
“I didn’t know what to do, I couldn’t talk him down, so I put him under my Quirk.” He winced. “I tried to release it a few times, but it just started up again.”
Oh Christ, this was going to be a mess.
“What’s your Quirk?” he asked.
The boy flinched minutely and looked away. “Brainwashing.”
Ah, that explained things. “How does it activate?” Hopefully it was something he could reactivate if this went wrong.
“I just need a verbal response.” He explained. “He’s still aware right now, but everything is much more muted, and I ordered him to breathe.”
Shota came closer and dropped into a crouch. “So he can hear me?”
“Yes.”
He was going to have to handle this carefully. Panic attacks were something he’d had to deal with more than once, but it was never pleasant. “Can you release him?”
After a moment the boy let out a sharp sigh, and the change was immediate.
Midoriya began hyperventilating and his hands came up to tug on his hair. The blankness in his eyes was replaced by panic as he began shaking violently.
Fuck this was worse than he expected.
“Midoriya.” He attempted. The boy didn’t indicate he’d heard him in the slightest. Shota grasped his wrists and gently pulled them away from his head. “Midoriya.”
After several more shallow breaths, Midoriya looked up at him with wild eyes that held no recognition. “Do you know who I am?” he asked.
“Red.” Was the response. “Dark dark dark dark red. Slow red. Scary red.” He let out a whine. “White, I want white where’s white!?” his breathing sped up and Shota griped his wrists more tightly.
“Midoriya, I’m going to put your hand on my chest. Can you follow my breaths?” He waited until the boy calmed down slightly and gave a jerky nod. “Inhale……exhale……inhale……exhale……” he repeated it until Midoriya wasn’t gulping down air and some kind of awareness returned to his expression.
“What was that?” he asked when Midoriya mumbled something indistinguishable.
“I want purple.” He murmured. “Purple helps.”
Shota glanced at the other teen who had been watching anxiously from the side. He did look very purple. He gestured for the boy to sit down next to Midoriya. He immediately ripped his grip free from Shota and grabbed onto the other.
The boy relaxed further as he continued to hold onto the purple boy and after a few more stressful minutes, fell asleep.
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