The second that Midoriya boarded the bus, with the help of Shinsou and Koda, the green haired boy had fallen asleep almost instantly, slumping against the side of the bus, his forehead pressed lightly against the window. Shinsou took his usual aisle seat next to the tired boy, as Iida admonished Uraraka for... something. Shinsou wasn't actually sure what she did, something about a picture or something. Shinsou was honestly too tired to care.
He sank into his chair, sighing as he took out his phone. There weren't any messages, other than Yamada sending them messages about having heard about the League attack and whether they were okay. Aizawa had already responded with a curt "we're fine" and "we're on our way back", and Shinsou just shot them a quick message that they were alright, and that they were just tired.
Shinsou pocketed his phone, as the bus started heading back to UA. Reiko and Ryuto were settled on Midoriya's lap at the moment, slumped back into his seat, and closed his eyes. He would just take a small nap on the bus, go back to UA, get to his room, sleep until dinner, then shower, and then sleep some more.
The bus suddenly braked, and a loud screeching sound filled the air as Shinsou lurched forward, nearly hitting his head against the chair in front of him had he not used his hands to soften the blow in time. There was a small, almost unnoticeable whine, Shinsou sat up, looking around, trying to discern the source of the sound, before realising that the sound was coming from right beside him.
Midoriya was literally trembling in his seat, clenching his fists as he curled in on himself. Shinsou hastily picked Reiko and Ryuto up before Midoriya hurt them by accident; he knew that if anything happened to them, Midoriya would most likely blame himself for it, even if it wasn't really his fault.
The greenette's breathing became heavier, and he started shaking more violently, attempting to wrap his arms around himself.
Shinsou carefully reached out to try and comfort the trembling boy.
Midoriya unconsciously let out a small whimper as he was abruptly thrown back into consciousness, unconsciously clenching his fists tightly as he attempted to curl in on himself for protection. Memories, both distant and recent, were swimming around in his head, mingling together to create a cacophony of discordant screams and noises, illusions of his past flashing past his vision. He clutched his head, and closed his eyes, hoping for the sudden surge of memories to just die down, but they just kept coming, faster and faster.
He felt like he was drowning. He could breath, but the air was so thick and heavy that the very action of doing so was getting harder and harder.
Midoriya wanted to escape.
He reached out, trying to find something to grab onto, something that would give him leverage to pull himself upwards.
There was nothing. He could feel himself sinking, his limbs feeling like concrete, getting heavier and heavier and constantly dragging him downwards, into the never-ending abyss, the air around him tightening, threatening to suffocate him.
Suddenly, he felt some pressure on his arm, snapping him out of his internal panic. He instinctively lashed out, only for his wrists to be grabbed in a firm yet gentle grip.
"Izuku?" A familiar voice whispered worriedly, "Are you okay?"
Midoriya tried his best to inhale as much air as he could, and slowly opened his eyes.
He found Shinsou looking back at him, worry etched onto his face. His eyes trailed down to Reiko and Ryuto, who were sitting obediently on Shinsou's lap. He could sense that both he and Shinsou were sitting right at the back of the bus, while pretty much everyone else was crowded at the front of the bus.
"You doing okay there?" Shinsou asked, and Midoriya slowly nodded, forcefully pushing his memories away. He'd deal with them later, in the safety and the privacy of his room. Shinsou gently released Midoriya's hands, and turned his attention to the commotion in the front of the bus.
"Hitoshi, is Izuku alright?" Iida asked, and after noticing how Midoriya tensed up slightly, Shinsou replied, "He's fine. He woke up, just a little startled, that's it. What's going on?"
Iida and Uraraka walked back to their seats, which were just across the aisle, and Aizawa sighed, "There were several villain attacks around this area and traffic is all screwed up. We're going to be stuck here for a while. Don't worry about it too much, I think Mic or Midnight or someone's getting pizza for both hero courses for everyone passing."
"Everyone in 1-B passed too? Awesome!" Kaminari cheered, "And pizza!? Alright!"
Midoriya curled up in his seat, turning towards the window and spotting the bright, blaring lights of car lights, the jarring sounds of several people using the car honk at the same time. He tried to control his breathing, as the exhaustion set in once more, but he couldn't afford to fall asleep again. He didn't want to hurt anyone, he didn't want anyone to know what he was thinking, what he was feeling, because all they would do is hurt him.
"It's okay." Shinsou muttered, gently patting the smaller boy on the back. Midoriya's face was stiff, almost like a mask, but it had taken him a few seconds to calm down enough to throw his facade back up. Even though he, and several others, had seen the greenette in hospital beds, or asleep, Midoriya always had a tight guard on his facial expressions, refusing to show more emotions than was necessary.
But in that one moment, Shinsou had seen through that brief moment of weakness; Midoriya was truly scared, terrified. Of what, Shinsou wasn't too sure, but he knew for sure that it was something that Midoriya wasn't going to be willing to share.
Reiko crawled back into Midoriya's lap, rubbing herself against his arm comfortingly, as Ryuto hopped over to Midoriya's arm, chirping as he nuzzled the boy's neck. Shinsou carefully reached out, gently wrapping an arm around the smaller boy and pulling him closer. Midoriya just looked upset and distressed as he clenched his fists even tighter, forcing himself to not make a sound as he shoved all his memories to the back of his mind.
He forced himself to focus on the warmth of the body of the person next to him, one of the only people that he really trusted enough among all his classmates. It wasn't too surprising, he had saved him when he was nine; just like Kota, Shinsou, at least, had been through some of the same pain that he had gone through. Midoriya had kept tabs on Shinsou for a while, since Aizawa had saved him from his former household. He just wanted to make sure that he really did save Shinsou, and didn't accidentally throw him into an even worse life. It wasn't that he didn't trust Aizawa, or Yamada; he just needed the confirmation that he really did do something right.
Out of most of the heroes that Midoriya had interacted with, the greenette had to admit that after Nezu, he did like Aizawa and Yamada. The Erasure Hero didn't care for media fame, and while Yamada did have a radio show, he did talk about realy problems like quirk discrimination, and whenever people called the radio show to talk, Yamada would always do his best to help everyone. Sure, seeing Yamada in school, and not out on patrols, had been rather jarring; the Voice Hero didn't have a damned inside voice. Plus, the prospect of learning that he did have a quirk, that possibly prevented him from dying, and by extension, meaning that Aizawa could quite literally kill him, had been too much for the boy to handle at the time.
Midoriya unconsciously leaned against Shinsou's shoulder, and closed his eyes, not even reacting as the taller boy gently pat him on the head, running his fingers through his fluffy green curls. He didn't deserve to live, he should have died, he wanted to die, to escape from himself. But he didn't want to die, he wanted to live, he wanted to be himself.
He did like head pats, though. His parents used to pat him on the head whenever he -
Midoriya mentally shook his head, driving the thoughts away. He didn't really know what he wanted anymore. He didn't want to think anymore.
Shinsou just let the smaller boy lean against him, as he gazed out of the window, watching as the police officers and other heroes outside tried to sort out the massive traffic problem due to road closures. It took them quite a bit of time to finally get on the highway, and by that time, most of his classmates had also quietened down, either staring at their phones or fast asleep.
The lavender haired boy gave a small yawn, as he closed his eyes. He was pretty tired too, running all over the place, and the fact that he didn't sleep well due to his insomnia probably didn't help either.
"Hagakure, Mina... that's enough." Iida quietly admonished, chopping his forearms about with his elbows pinned to his side, not quite sure how to stop Hagakure and Ashido from taking pictures, "You shouldn't take pictures of people without their permission!"
"Oh shush." Ashido giggled, snapping another picture, "They're cute."
"Revelry in the dark..." Tokoyami muttered, "I don't think Midoriya would be too happy about that."
"It's not like we're going to post them on Instagram or anything; we're just going to show it to them when they wake up, and embarrass them." Hagakure reasoned.
"Fucking extras... noisy pieces of shit." Bakugou growled, shoving his hand in his pockets and walking off the bus, with Kirishima following after him, chattering away about something he had seen on the news. Kaminari and Sero had also been taking pictures, but they had pocketed their phones the second Iida had spoken up.
"Get out of the bus. Now. The bus needs to be parked, and you guys need to clean up. Ashido, Hagakure, please stop taking pictures of Shinsou and Midoriya." Aizawa sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. His class was so damned noisy. They were lucky that they had just finished an exam and had been unfortunately involved in a villain attack, or he'd be much more harsh on them.
His words finally managed to get the duo to stop filling their phone memories with images, and it didn't take too long for Iida to finally manage to usher everyone else off the bus. Todoroki was waiting as he stared at his phone, as Uraraka shoved Shinsou's arm gently, "Hey, wake up. We're back at UA."
Shinsou opened his eyes, slightly dazed from having just woken up, and attempted to rub his eyes, only to realise that his arm was being pinned down by something. He turned to the side, only to find that Midoriya was still leaning on him, sleeping. Shinsou could feel his face heat up, and Uraraka just snickered. Reiko looked amused at his expense, while Ryuto was still perched on Midoriya's arm, snoozing away.
"Don't laugh." Shinsou muttered, gently using his other hand to shake Midoriya awake. The smaller boy woke up, and almost immediately looked up, rubbed his eyes, careful not to wake the smaller bird up in the process. He tried to stifle a yawn, but failed, opening his mouth and revealing his teeth in the process.
Uraraka and Iida froze, blinking at how cute the smaller boy was being, as their brains tried to put this image of Midoriya together with the information that Aizawa had told them. This was an infamous vigilante who was able to take down villains twice his size in the blink of an eye? Of course, they had seen Midroiya's abilities first hand, but still, Midoriya was more like an adorable little kitten.
Midoriya realised that he had fallen asleep on Shinsou, again, and immediately sat up straight, hastily using his remaining hand to apologise to Shinsou in JSL.
"Don't worry about it." Shinsou muttered, trying to will the redness of his face away, as Iida spoke up, "Come on, we're back in UA, let's get off the bus before Aizawa-sensei yells at us."
Iida marched off the bus, with Shinsou right behind him. Midoriya was cradelling the sleeping bird with one arm as Reiko hitched a ride on his shoulder, and Uraraka and Todoroki were the last ones off the bus.
"I got it on video." Todoroki said, and Uraraka nearly squealed, "Give it to me. I told you Izuku's yawn was adorable."
Midoriya entered the common room, and promptly made a beeline for the black bean bag. He sat down, and promptly curled up protectively around Ryuto, as Reiko hopped to the ground and stared at the computer game that Ashido and Kaminari had set up. Yaoyorozu and Ojiro had already gone to 1-B's side of the building to check up on them, and Sato had gone back to his room to take a quick shower, and bake a cake to celebrate their passing of the licence exam.
"Well... I guess it's better than him falling asleep in the shower... am I right?" Sero laughed, as he reached for the remote, only for Iida to frown, "No. You should all shower before coming to play! We've been fighting."
"There's pizza later, though." Kaminari pointed out, "The smell's going to get in our hair and then we'll have to shower again. After dinner, we promise, we'll shower before coming back to continue the game."
"For once... he's smart." Jiro rolled her eyes, originally wanting to head up to her room to shower, but had changed her mind after Kaminari's statement, realising that he was actually correct.
"You wound me!" Kaminari whined, and Jiro just sighed.
Iida didn't really have any arguments to counter Kaminari, and he just sighed as the Bakuquad, minus Bakugou, practically threw themselves on the couch to start playing. It didn't really help that 1-B had decided to pop over, with Awase dragging Kaibara and Kamakiri over to the couch to join in the game.
Monoma's insults about 1-A were going unheard as Iida looked at Shinsou and Todoroki, "So... what are we going to do now?"
"We'll just... watch... I guess?" Shinsou replied, "Not much else we can do."
"There's pizza! Everyone passed, and you guys did awesome in the licence exams, congratulations!" Yamada grinned, bursting into the common room, with Kayama and Kan helping with the pizza, "I heard from Vlad King that everyone's hanging out in the 1-A dorms, so we're just bringing everything here! Have fun!"
"Food!" Kaminari lit up, immediately rushing for the table as the teachers placed the food down. Yaoyorozu, Kendo, Shishida and Iida were doing their best to control the hungry, rowdy students. They managed to help serve the pizza to everyone else without anyone getting hurt, and everyone was content with munching on their dinner as Iida counted the slices of pizza left. There were quite a few that remained, hopefully enough for everyone that needed seconds, or possibly thirds, but there was a lone plate remaining on the table. They had taken out exactly forty one plates, so there should be no reason for there to be one left. Maybe one of the students had decided to just grab the pizza without a plate, but that would leave crumbs all over the place.
Iida was about to count how many students were holding plates when Shinsou spoke up, "Uh... Izuku's gone."
"He's gone?" Awase scratched his head, "I swore I saw him sleeping in that bean bag in the corner."
"Yeah... he was?" Sero replied, "But he just disappeared."
"I'll go check his room." Shinsou muttered, putting his plate down on the common room table before walking down the hallway, and climbed up the stairs.
"But even if he's in his room, how did he just... up and leave? There's forty of us, how did none of us see him?" Kamakiri asked, "He would have to get up from the beanbag, go behind the couch, before taking the hallway down to the stairs. That's not a short distance, especially since so many of us, and no one saw him?"
Uraraka shrugged, "It happens sometimes. None of us know how he does it, but it's pretty amazing."
"I'm telling you, there's some sort of secret passage in the walls." Todoroki muttered.
Shinsou gently knocked on Midoriya's door, and pushed it open. Midoriya was sitting on the balcony, staring at the trees below, and Shinsou closed the door behind him.
"Izuku? There's food downstairs. I know you just woke up from a nap but... you hungry?" Shinsou asked, and after a minute or two, Midoriya shook his head. Shinsou walked over to the balcony, and sat down beside the boy. Reiko was grooming herself as Ryuto drank some water out of the small bowl that Midoriya had set out for him.
Midoriya just looked away, before admitting, "I... I don't... really... like pizza."
"You don't like pizza?" Shinsou asked, confused.
He didn't know why he was telling this to Shinsou. He was revealing one big weakness that could be used against him. Maybe the teachers would find him too troublesome to keep around if he didn't like the food that all the others liked, and they would kick him out. Or maybe -
"I mean...sure... people don't like certain types of food. I don't like those spicy drumsticks. Burns my tongue." Shinsou continued, "Any reason why you don't like it?"
"... It... makes me sick..."
Midoriya couldn't really give a reason why it made him sick. It was too personal, but luckily for him, Shinsou didn't pry and just shrugged, "That's valid. I'm sure we can grab something else for you to eat."
Midoriya shook his head, "I'm... fine. I'll just...eat instant noodles... later."
Shinsou frowned slightly, "That can't be very healthy, especially after what happened today."
Midoriya just turned away from him. He's had enough of talking, and just signed, "It's fine."
"If you say so." Shinsou muttered, sensing that Midoriya was tired and stressed and the interaction was just stressing him out more, "But if you ever want anything other than instant noodles, I'm sure Dad or Pops would be willing to just order something else."
Midoriya let out a small grunt of acknowledgement, and Shinsou stood up, "Well... take care of yourself... okay?"
The green haired boy watched out of the corner of his eye as Shinsou left the room, leaving him alone with his own thoughts. He used to like katsudon and pizza; katsudon because his mother always cooked it whenever he used to be upset, and it would always cheer him up, and pizza because his father was convinced that he could cook pizza with his fire breathing quirk instead of an oven. Midoriya couldn't even remember how many times his dad had burnt the pizza beyond recognition, or just outright disintegrated it. There was even an entire afternoon where Hisashi had bought a huge stack of frozen pizza, and attempted to defrost and cook them instantly.
The mere memory of that afternoon just made Midoriya sick, just like the smell of freshly cooked pizza that had wafted in through the open windows, alerting Midoriya to the teacher's presence and giving him a chance to escape to the safety of his room before anyone forced him to eat it.
Midoriya took a deep breath, before heading back into his room, plopping himself down on his bed.
He really didn't want to think anymore.
