~ * ~ song used is "Guilt Trip" by puptheband ~ * ~
...
He hadn't been thinking clearly.
There was a Villain. They had been robbing a store...maybe a fast food joint, he wasn't really sure. In the heat of the moment, he had just acted on impulse. It was like that feeling all over again when that Sludge Villain had attacked Kacchan, but more muted; smaller, and not so extreme. But his body was moving before he could even tell it to, like someone else was controlling him. Someone with the need to do good...and cause chaos. It felt like Kacchan.
...All Might wouldn't have been happy, he knew, for him to just rush into a fight like that without first checking for a nearby Pro Hero or having backup. He had just moved, using One For All without really meaning to. It was as easy as breathing in that moment, and maybe that's another contributing factor. No- my fault; always my fault.
It was just a minor Villain...it hadn't even hurt anyone too seriously… God, he was such an idiot. Why couldn't he have just waited?.. Just not done anything?.. Why did he have to play hero?
All my fault all my fault all my fault-
He hadn't been doing anything his whole life, and now he was here: standing on a rooftop, looking down at the alley below… Feeling the wind comb through his hair and hearing the rustle of his clothes as the scene played out again over and over in his head, tormenting him… The Villain laughing, the crowd screaming, the screeching of the car as it found his fist...and the squelch of the body as the car crushed her. Blood tainting the heavy air as people stared in horror at the scene before them, and Izuku standing there with a broken fist.
...what had he done?
He hadn't meant to...he lost control… All Might would be furious; everyone was horrified, knowing a student of U.A. had just killed someone—a simple bystander. The school would face the backlash and he would go to jail, or maybe Detective Tsukauchi would find a way out for him, but he didn't care about those particular details. He killed someone. What else could he do...but jump?..
This Quirk, this Hero's Quirk, was entrusted to him, and he had gotten someone, an innocent person, killed with it. He didn't deserve the title of Hero, didn't deserve to go to U.A. after what he'd done, didn't deserve this Quirk, didn't deserve didn't deserve didn't deserve-
He deserved to jump.
In the adrenaline and rush of it, kinda like a slow-moving car crash, ironic given how the lady died - he almost started giggling hysterically at the thought - it hadn't occurred to him what would happen to One For All. Maybe All Might could just give what he had left to someone else, the dark corner of his mind supplied, someone who deserves it more than you... The voice was his own. Not Kacchan like it usually was or his old teachers or his father or All Might—his voice.
He wanted this. No, he didn't have the right to want anything anymore. He should just turn back and face the consequences of his actions and tough out his jail time. But...it wouldn't be fair to her. God, he didn't even know her name and yet she was dead because of him.
A life for a life, right?
Maybe...maybe it would be repaid if he just-
"Deku! What the fuck're you doin'- Why are you up here? What are you doing, Deku?"
Kacchan. Kacchan was right in the end, wasn't he?
"..-take a swan dive off the roof of the building-..."
He had felt disgusted and betrayed when Kacchan said it all those months ago, that same ugly feeling the first time the older boy ever turned on him, and his mind was reeling that someone who wanted to be a Hero just told him that...but now he couldn't agree more.
Didn't deserve didn't deserve didn't deserve didn't deserve-
"Get the hell away from there, you damn nerd!" Bakugo yelled, the thud of his footfalls chasing after the echo of his explosive voice.
He clenched his fists tightly as the steps got closer. Dull pain throbbed through his broken hand, but he ignored it.
Izuku didn't even get the chance to retort as a scalding hand was placed on his shoulder and forcibly turned him around so hard it felt like his shoulder was being wrenched from his socket. His wide, tearful eyes met with raging red ones.
"What're you doing up here, shitty Deku?!" Kacchan practically screeched in his face, breathing raged like he had just run ten marathons - Izuku knew it would take more than a few to wind his childhood friend.
He could only stare helplessly at him, lower lip quivering as a new wave of tears crashed over him.
Izuku felt his knees begin to give below him as an unbearable pressure was placed on his chest—and it wasn't Kacchan's fist that came from his shoulder to grab at his shirt collar, lifting him up so that his sneakers just barely grazed the rooftop. He felt like his legs wouldn't be able to support him much longer anyways; they were trembling too bad.
"You think ending your pathetic lonely life is gonna make up for this shit? Huh?!" Kacchan asked harshly, mini-explosions going off in the fist clenching Izuku's shirt, the smoke wafting up to sting his nose and eyes.
It was familiar and nostalgic almost, he thought, back to the days where Kacchan actively bullied him, pushing him around, calling him weak and helpless. Well, nothing has really changed since then, but Izuku could tell something was different ever since Kacchan saw him in the Entrance Exam.
He hadn't wanted to believe it when he was younger...that Kacchan was bullying him, that he was just screwing around and trying to toughen his skin for the real world.
Heh...turns out nothing can prepare you for the real world. You just have to fucking deal with it when it comes knocking.
Not even when his fists connected to his flesh, or the taunting started to sink into his skull and make him start doubting himself, or when Kacchan launched explosion after explosion at him, burning his clothes and tossing him to the floor. He still believed that this person; this strong, arrogant, confident asshole was his friend and just trying to encourage him in his own twisted way.
But he wasn't. He was his bully, ever since that day he slipped and fell off that log and into the river. He didn't want to believe it because- because Kacchan had been his only friend.
No one wants to hang around a Quirkless loser, Deku.
The only one besides his mom to put up with his ramblings and constant streams of muttering, the way he was always so happy and timid, how he would apologize for every little thing to the point even the teachers had to refrain from snapping at him to shut up. Kacchan had become his biggest bully since the day the rumors spread about Izuku being Quirkless.
Worthless, weak, useless, pathetic, waste of space, freak, loser, not even a person, stupid-
Quirkless.
That single, infuriating word had unraveled Izuku's life the moment the doctor had impassively told him, as if he couldn't care less that he had just destroyed his dreams of becoming just like All Might. As if he didn't just burn down a little boy's whole world.
And now that he had a Quirk - All Might's fucking Quirk - he was lead back up to the rooftop, back with-
"Snap outta it, you damn nerd!"
Kacchan. Always Kacchan.
Sometimes he thought he would never escape his shadow; that he would forever be inferior, even with a Quirk to call his own - he had to remind himself that it was only his because All Might saw potential in him when he himself didn't and believed he would never amount to anything.
Sometimes he just wanted to succumb to what Kacchan said—just give in and believe everything everyone had told him his whole life, but he couldn't do that to his mom.
Oh god—Mom.
"What're you thinking, you fucking moron?! Could you really do it—just jump and it'll erase all your stupid problems?" Kacchan hissed lowly, face inches from his own, successfully breaking him from his thoughts. Kacchan was so close he could feel his warm breath billow across his face.
Sometimes he couldn't take it.
"It won't solve anything, Deku!" His voice cracked. Desperate, almost pleading as his grip tightened. Izuku had never seen him like this. "You can't just fuckin'- fuckin' jump and think that there won't be people missing your sorry ass. You've never given up before… Why now, huh?!
"It wasn't your shitty fault, you dumb fuck!"
Tears slipped down Kacchan's face, nearly invisible in the dark lighting of the night. Izuku's own eyes had already been leaking tears for the past minute and blurred his sight, preventing him from seeing the way Kacchan's eyes were wide with fear, the grayish tint to his skin, and how he looked close to collapsing under his own weight. Even if Izuku could see it, he wouldn't believe that this was real. Because Bakugo Katsuki was strong—he was everything Izuku wasn't.
But here he was, trying to convince Izuku not to jump.
He knew that Kacchan was more than capable to drag him forcibly from the edge if he wanted; that he could haul him back down the steps and to solid ground in one piece just to keep Izuku from doing something so stupid. But it didn't. He isn't. He's letting him choose.
Kacchan…
In the next moment, Bakugo's arms trembled and seemed to give out on him, lowering Izuku back to the rooftop enough for him to plant his feet firmly enough to stand on his own. Limbs weak and resolve gone, Izuku collapsed to his knees with an involuntary gasp, head hanging low as he breathed heavily. Not a second later and Kacchan was on the ground with him, head tipped back up to the sky as his chest heaved.
They stayed like that for a few tense, silent moments as they processed what happened and regained their breath.
It finally sunk in. He really would have jumped if Kacchan wasn't there.
Breath hitching and eyes stinging, Izuku whimpered quietly as he curled farther into himself. How could I have done that? How could I do that to Mom? I'm so stupid stupid stupid-
Shaky, callused hands gripped his shoulders tight enough to get a pained gasp from him, and he instinctively tried to pull away to hide - to do anything to avoid a blast to the face and fierce red eyes set on him - but he wasn't prepared to be pulled into a crushing hug.
Eyes wide and mouth gaping open, Izuku looked down to see a spiky head of blond hair burrowed into his shoulder and Kacchan's shaking form.
"You can't die, Deku—I won't let you, you stupid fucking… Never again, you hear me?" Izuku could only nod mutely as his childhood friend and bully cried into his chest.
They sat there like that for God knows how long; Kacchan threatening to kill him if he ever killed himself and Izuku looking over all his life choices to see where it all went wrong.
Eventually, Kacchan pulled away to stare Izuku in the eye. Moist red clashed with shimmering green.
"I'm sorry." But Izuku heard what he wasn't saying.
You didn't deserve that.