Izuku Midoriya was having a bad day.
Again.
It started when he woke up that morning tired, with an ache in his back that just wouldn't go away no matter how much he twisted and bent and stretched himself. Whenever he tried to close his eyes, the pain just came back like a needle prick. Looking to his right at his All Might branded alarm clock, he read the flat red digits with hazy eyes.
3:00 AM
After trying (and failing) to get back to sleep, he decided to just get up early and brew some tea to help him wake up.
Then, he fell flat on his face, tripping on his bed sheets.
As he opened his door, reaching up to wipe away the small stream of crimson that had started flowing from his left nostril, he realized that small red dots had made their way onto his favorite plain white t-shirt. Groaning, he returned to his room to change into some less 'bloody' clothes.
When he finally made it downstairs to his dorm's common area, having tried his best to make as little noise as possible on his way down the stairs, he opened the tea cabinet to find... an empty cardboard box. When he threw the old box out, reaching towards the back of the cabinet to grab a new one, his hand twitched violently, nearly crushing the box in its entirety. Gingerly tugging the hand out of the cabinet (along with the mangled tea box), he placed the tea on the counter and carefully rubbed his fingers against the roughly scarred skin of his right hand.
Ever since the injuries he had received at the training camp during his fight with Muscular, he had put up with small twitched and occasional numbness due to the nerve damage his hand had suffered. Usually they were small enough for him to brush off, but sometimes it felt like his entire hand was stuffed with hot and cold pins and needles. After clenching his hands a few times and wincing at the sensation spreading up his arm, he decided to use his left hand to make his tea. Reaching up to one of the top cabinets, the ache in his back resurfaced yet again, causing him to flinch while grabbing at his favorite All Might branded cup. After the cup hit the ground with a loud crack, definitely waking up some light sleepers on the first floor, Izuku sighed and put his face in his hands before immediately pulling his right hand back after a shock of pain surged up his arm from the extremity.
'I can already tell this is gonna be a great day.' He thought, once again cradling his hand.
Ochako Uraraka was worried.
Everyone had noticed that something was up with her best friend the past few weeks, her being one of the most suspicious.
It started with noises in the middle of the night. Since most of the class was usually asleep by then, the only people who really noticed at first were he other boys living on his floor: Mineta, Aoyama, and Tokoyami. They had started talking to the other students about the noises, constant shuffling and what sounded like papers rustling and being moved around. Mineta complained that it interrupted his late-night browsing, Aoyama complained about his beauty sleep, and Tokoyami said it interrupted his brooding sessions. After enough gossiping about what could be going on in his room, Jiro finally relented to the boys' requests (without voicing her own curiosity about the subject), and stayed up one night to listen in on Midoriya's room. She told the boys exactly what she'd heard: Shuffling of papers, the movement of books being piled and unpiled, desk drawers being opened and closed and reopened, and tons of half-coherent muttering. Nothing unexpected.
The real interest came from what she didn't hear.
Sometimes his muttering streams just cut off mid-sentence, and his room became silent. About ten or fifteen minutes later, the intense shuffling and reorganizing began, and a short time later another bout of silence would rear its head. And sometimes, Jiro said, she swore she could hear what sounded like teardrops on the ground during the silence.
Uraraka was worried.
His hand just wouldn't stop acting up.
Random twitches and flashes of pain would make him wince in his seat, biting the inside of his mouth just to keep from whimpering in the middle of one of Ectoplasm's math lessons. During history, he even had to switch hands while writing after accidentally snapping one of his favorite mechanical pencils during one of Midnight's history lectures, causing more than a few eyes to turn towards him.
"Everything okay, Midoriya?" Midnight asked, concern clear in her voice and eyes.
"O-oh, y-yeah, everything's, uh, fine! Totally g-good, sorry about that."
Covering his crimson face with his left hand, the moment Midnight started speaking about history again he ran it through the green curls on the back of his head before pulling out another pencil and trying to continue his notes.
Afyer yhe sudsepuent colIapse of yhe gIodal eoonmonic syustim
Pulling his hand back, he crossed out the messy handwriting of his non-dominant hand and tried again.
Aften tke subsepent coIlaqse of tke globaI eCononic systum
He crossed it out and tried again.
Htfer tke sudsecuent
Aften khe
Afto
At
When his attention returned to the class, he realized that Midnight was already talking about a section of their textbook five pages past where his notes focused.
He nearly broke his second pencil.
It wasn't just how he acted at night that worried her.
During the day, when before he would always be full of smiles and shy (yet comforting) small talk, he was now more withheld and drawn back. Ochako would sometimes catch him staring out of nearby windows in class, at the floor when he walked in the hallways, and even at crowds of other people while she, Iida, and Todoroki made conversation around him during lunch. More often than not when she tried to rope him back into discussions about superheroes and quirks, stuff he usually couldn't help but be interested in, he would flinch at the sudden interaction and ask what they were talking about.
Whenever he smiled too, she noticed, it seemed somehow less... full. His eyes didn't shine as brightly, and he didn't stand as tall as he used to. She saw less movement in the freckles that dotted his cheeks, and something about the way his voice sounded seemed somewhat off, like it lacked its typically shy but nonetheless determined qualities she loved hearing whenever they talked.
She missed that smile.
His day was still going terribly.
He had spaced out during homeroom again, nearly missing the bell, he had tripped on his own shoelaces while walking to lunch, infront of Uraraka no less, and had even broken a finger during combat training, something he hadn't done for months now, because of both how aggressively Bakugo was attacking him (due to having been woken up by Izuku falling out of bed that morning, which had caused a louder thump than he had initially realized) and a particularly bad hand twitch that had occurred in the middle of one of his desperate finger flicks.
After being completely pummeled by Bakugo until Aizawa ended the training, he was scolded by Recovery Girl for breaking yet another bone. When he got back to outside the the classroom to pick up his stuff for the end of the day, holding some ice on his still twitching hand, he heard some loud voices from within the room.
"Man, do you think he's got some pervy stuff in those notebooks of his? I mean, why else would he be rummaging through them in the middle of the night?"
"Mineta, is that literally all you can come up with? Get your mind out of the gutter."
"Wait, Jiro, he might actually be onto something there. I mean, it is kinda weird for him to be organizing his shelves at two in the morning."
"Kaminari, you literally sleep with a charger cable plugged up your nose. I don't think you get a say in what's weird or not for a person to do during the night-time."
'Are they... Are they talking about me?'
"Guys, I don't think it's very nice to talk about Deku like that while he's not here. Why not just ask him about it?"
"Precisely! Such gossip is not a befitting habit to partake in for future pros!"
"Uraraka, Iida, I don't really think you guys understand. He'd just deny it outright and change the subject if we asked him. Besides, I can't really blame him. I mean, don't you think it's kinda weird that he stays up until early morning just moving stuff around in his room?"
The silence after Kaminari's question only made Izuku's heart sink deeper. Suddenly, a familiarly rough and crass voice cut through the silence.
"Why the hell are you guys talking about that damn nerd anyways? He's weird 24/7 anyways. Weird and weak. Like, with what happened earlier during training. Dumb ass couldn't even fight me properly, he was twitching like a fucking spazz or some shit and wound up braking another finger. It was a fucking embarrassment."
"Bakugo," Kirishima spoke up. "don't you think you're being a little harsh on him for that? I mean, he's improved a lot. He hasn't broken a finger like that in a while now."
"And? He still broke one today, and that just proves how little he's come. I mean, would any of you say he did well today during combat training?"
Izuku didn't even have to see his classmates to feel their shoulders shrug. His head hung even lower than it had before, tears welling up in the corners of his eyes.
'He's right.'
"Anyways, get the hell out of my way. I wanna get back to my room and away from you shit heads."
Izuku realized far to late what that meant, only able to look up and raise his good hand to his wet cheek as the door flung open and he was face to face with Bakugo.
He froze, a deer in headlights, as Bakugo's eyes widened in surprise before returning to their usual squint.
"Get out of my way, fucking useless Deku."
Izuku moved aside, letting Bakugo through the doorway, before walking as fast as he physically could without running to his desk. Packing his things as quickly and efficiently as he could with the tears in his eyes, he felt a soft hand on his forearm as he reached for his backpack's strap. The small bumps on the tips of her fingers rubbed gently against his skin, and he could smell her perfume next to him.
"Deku... how much of that did you... are you okay?"
He could feel the soft brown eyes on the back of his head as he tried his best to hide his tears and calm the quivering in his throat.
"I-I... What are you talking about? I j-just walked here, and B-ba-k-kacchan opened the door, and i-it-t kinda shocked me, you know? And I didn't mean to just, like, b-barge in here, no! I'm fine. Why ask?"
"Deku... look at me."
Izuku looked down, knowing the moment he raised his eyes she'd see how weak he was. How much Bakugo was right about. She'd... she'd see.
"I said I'm fine, Uraraka. Really. I'm all good. Gotta go now, the ice is melting." He gestured to his right hand, still twitching beneath the ice, as he hurriedly made his way to the door, not once looking her or any of his classmates in the eyes. "See you guys back at the dorms."
Now Ochako was seriously worried.
He had definitely heard them and, as the teardrops on his desk told her, hadn't taken it well. Worse, he lied to her about how he was feeling. She wondered what else he was holding back, what else he felt he couldn't tell her, or Iida, or Todoroki, or her.
She had knocked on his door five times in the last few hours back at the dorms.
He had seemingly barricaded himself in his room, unwilling to see any of his classmates, all of whom felt guilty about spying on him. Except... well, except Bakugo.
God, that name just made her want to punch something. Specifically, something with blonde and spiky hair and a despicable void hidden in his chest cavity where most people housed a heart. Iida basically had to hold her back when he said all those... things about Deku. She hated the way he spoke so dismissively about him, how he diminished him to a speck of what he was. Deku wasn't weak, he was strong! So strong, not just physically, but mentally and spiritually. He gave her hope, confidence, strength, so much. He wasn't useless, he put all of his use towards serving the people around him! Something that dickhead wouldn't understand.
"Deku, it's time for dinner if you want any! Sato's cooking, and I heard through Momo that he's gonna be cooking Katsudon, so..." She put on a cheerful voice, hoping to maybe pass on some of that cheer through the door.
"I-I'm fine, I'm not really that hungry. Just... just go one without me! Maybe I-I'll have some later, okay?" A distinctly tired voice resonated through the thick door, the vibrations traveling through Ochako's forehead as she leaned against the cold surface.
"Okay, Deku. Just know I-" She paused. "I'm here if you need to talk. Iida and Todoroki too," She quickly tacked on. "but if you just need someone to talk to... just don't be scared to talk to me, okay?"
It was silent in the room for a few seconds, during which Ochako held her breath.
"O-okay, Uraraka." She let out the breath.
As she slowly started making her way towards the stairs, his voice rung out again. She stopped, and turned back to the still closed door.
"Thanks, Uraraka."
She smiled, stifling the growing blush in her cheeks as she made her way down the stairs.
He was having a panic attack.
He knew this because he had looked up 'signs of a panic attack' on his phone a few minutes ago, before he started dry heaving into the trash can under his desk.
The cold but somehow still hot static that coursed through his arms and legs reminded him of using full cowl, the only difference being that using his quirk didn't make him this scared. He could control full cowl, monitoring the percentage and cutting the breaks whenever he felt like it.
Ha, cutting.
The bloody box cutter hidden beneath piles of paper and his old hero notebooks shone, the moonlight gleaming through his window reflecting off what metal was visible. He held similar papers on his exposed thighs, covering the growing red patches with yet more scratch paper.
'Fuck, could I be any more pathetic?' He asked himself internally. 'Hiding away up here like some sort of bat while they all laugh and think I'm- no, I am going crazy. I must be, a fucking crazed lunatic carving himself for kicks. God, 'Thank you, Uraraka'? How stupid.' He reached back out to the box cutter, gripping it's orange handle. 'Good thing Momo let me keep this after the festival... God, she didn't even answer back when I thanked her. She probably already left. Probably sat down next to Iida and Todoroki and fucking Kacchan and forgot I was gone. Pathetic.' With his last thought, he cut through the layers of crumpled paper over his pale thighs and marked another thin line of red on his leg. He felt the static calm slightly, but it wasn't as much as when he first started, several weeks ago. It just didn't do enough anymore. It didn't help.
He sighed as much as he could with what little breath he had in his lungs, putting the box cutter back on his desk, and stood up from his desk chair. He started pacing around his dorm, hands falling to his side and squeezing and crumpling the papers they held.
'What if they found out? What if they knew?'
'They know. They know Kacchan's right, they know I'm falling behind, I'm useless, worthless, Deku.'
The papers crumpled beneath his grip as he swung out his right hand, knocking an All Might figurine off of it's shelf. Flinching at the sudden sensation that erupted a series of tender waves of pain in his still twitching hand, he unconsciously found himself squatting down to pick up the bobble-head out of reflex. He picked it up, turning it so the plastic imitation faced him.
'All Might knows...'
Ochako couldn't sleep, not now.
Even though he had said 'Thank you' to her, he hadn't come out of his room, spoken through the door, or even sent a text to Iida, Todoroki, or her.
She was worried beyond belief when Jiro texted her saying that Deku was rustling in his room again, and just couldn't go back to sleep. It didn't matter anyways, she reasoned, as it was a Fri- no, now it was Saturday. She lazily pulled her phone out of the blanked that smothered her, looking at the time.
3:00 AM
'Ugh, why can't I just stop thinking about it?' She thought, before immediately silencing that thought with another. 'My friend is obviously not doing well and I can't help but think about myself? What a 'best friend' I am. If I'm like this as a friend, then how... how could I ever be more...?'
She pulled her pillow out from under her head, shoving over her face and whisper-screaming into it.
'Stop it, that isn't going to help me or him right now... maybe... Maybe I should go check on him! Even if he's asleep, at least I'll know he's okay!'
She unfurled herself from her blanket cocoon, slipping on her fuzzy pink slippers before pulling a dark green over-sized hoodie (one she had gotten because it reminded her of his hair) over her head and walking towards the door.
In minutes she was outside his door, and could hear papers being shifted around frantically from within, along with the faint tapping of a pen against a desk.
'Well, at least I know he's in there.'
She reached out her hand, knuckles first, rapping the door lightly but firmly.
"Deku? It's me, Uraraka." She began, hearing the sounds of writing suddenly stop. "Can I come in?"
The voice that answered her was higher than normal, and strained- it sounded... worried.
"O-oh, h-h-hey! Ur-urarak-ka!" His stuttering was bad, sure, but never like this. Was he crying? "I-I'm not d-dressed yet, just- just gimme a s-s-sec and I'll- Argh!" The previous sounds coming from the room, of papers being picked up rapidly and crunched into balls, were cut out by a loud thump.
"Deku?" Uraraka called out, unworried about waking up any of her classmates now.
"Y-yeah, I'm fine, it's- ow, ow,"
"Deku, I'm coming in there now." Her hand reached down to the doorknob quickly, tugging it around. She was surprised to find it unlocked.
"NO! N-no, Ura-"
She walked into the room to find a mess of papers, Deku on the floor, having slipped on one of the numerous sheets laying on the ground around the small room, and... oh God...
"Deku... is that... is that blood?"
He looked broken, like he had just seen someone or something die. His eyes lacked their usual vibrant green as tears began forming and falling down his cheeks, his face frozen in an unreadable expression.
Her eyes trailed from the bloody papers crumpled around on the floor, to the notes being written on his desk, to the box cutter in his hand, to the red lines on his thighs.
She first thought of kissing him and dragging her fingers through his messy hair and telling him that she's loved him for months. She then thought of slapping him in the face, punching him and yelling at him for doing this, for hurting himself when so many people, when she, loved him and cared for him so much.
She settled on pulling him into a hug, her tears mixing with his as they huddled together on the cold floor.
"Please, Deku... I- why?"
His only responses were sobs of either pain, fear, or happiness.
She supposed it didn't matter which.
"...wow."
After they had cleaned his room together, and she had secretly floated the orange boxcutter into the stratosphere behind his back through his balcony window, he had sat with her on his bed, holding tissues to the cuts on his legs, and told her... everything. How he met All Might, how he inherited One for All, how he had wanted to be a hero for his entire life..., how he was tormented as a kid for being different, how Bakugo went from his friend to his bully to his rival, all... all the abuse.
"I... I understand if you don't want to be my friend anymore, it's- it's a lot to-"
"DEKU!" She nearly screamed, slapping him hard in the face and sending him floating upwards.
"If you think," She managed to contain herself, keeping her voice as low as she could. "for one second," She pulled him out of the air and into a tight hug, her voice becoming even softer as she held him close. "that I'm ever gonna leave you, you're completely wrong."
Neither of them fully comprehending the full implications of those words due to both of their tears, Izuku hugged her back just as tightly, taking in a deep breath of lavender and roses from her messy morning hair.
"I-I'm so sorry Uraraka..."
"Izuku?" She asked slowly, still crying into his chest.
"Y-yeah?" He responded, shocked by her usage of his first name.
"Call me Ochako."
"O-okay..." A blush made it's way across his face as he held her tighter.
"And Deku...
You'll be okay.
I promise."
"Hi, I'm Izuku Midoriya. But you might know me better as the number one hero, Deku."
He looked into the camera, a small grin on his face that shifted his freckles underneath his bright green eyes.
"I've been in the hero game for a long time now, eight years in a few months now, and I've gained a... lot of scars over that time." His bright smile faltered slightly. "But I may never have had the chance to be the hero I am today due to a few."
His hands reached down to the legs of his shorts, gripping their hemming slightly before raising them upwards.
"These scars aren't from a super villain, or from a collapsing building. No, these scars are from... a box cutter." His fingers gently traced the faint white lines as he spoke, feeling the raised spots- constant reminders. "People tend to forget that people are more than their jobs. When I go home and hang up my cape, I'm just a regular guy with regular struggles just like each of you." He let go of one of his pant legs to wipe a tear away from the corner of one of his eyes. "I gave myself these scars. I was in a bad place, even if I didn't fully realize it at the time, and I hurt myself constantly. Not only physically, but also mentally." He raised his free hand, tapping his temple. "I pushed away my friends, my loved ones..., even the woman who is now my wife, and the mother of my child."
"Eventually, that road of self destruction led me to my darkest moment. One night I just lost it, and went further than I had the previous times I self-harmed. I started writing out notes to my teachers and peers; my mentors and friends... I was prepared to die that night, to be honest with you all."
His solemn expression brightened, his eyes looking up from the floor to face the camera.
"Then..., someone close to me helped me realize that people cared." The corners of his mouth tugged themselves upwards. "That my life had worth, and that I would be hurting more people than just myself. They helped me realize that I needed to get professional help."
"I'm not going to lie to you and tell you it was an easy road to travel. I had many moments along the way where I thought I would go back, where I felt like it would be easier to just give up...but.." He raised both his hands to his face, wiping away the streaks on his cheeks. "I let my friends and loved ones in, and they... it helped to have them with me along the way."
"Any of you out there, who feel like the world is against them, like life is punishing you for trying, like there's nothing you can do to save yourself. Please, just know this:
You are not alone.
You have people who care for you, people who can help you. You don't need to save yourself- sometimes, you need to have the strength to let yourself be saved by others. And if you're saying to yourself that you have no one, that there's no one out there to help you, that you're alone, I'm here for you. Doctors, professionals, therapists, they're here for you.
You'll be okay.
I promise."