I started with only the summary as a snip. Two days later, my hand slipped and now it's a whole entire oneshot. Might continue later, might not. We'll see.

Note: Izuku DOES have One For All, but he still THINKS like the smol, hurt, Quirkless child he's always been.

"The final exam is going to consist of teams of two against—"

He knows what's going to happen next and he already knows there's nothing he can do to stop it. Well, nothing that won't end up with him being the one expelled. So.

They're going to be paired up, Izuku and Kacchan. (Because the teachers of U.A. never fail to pair them up, someway. Not that any other teacher ever had, either). And Kacchan's going to win because he always wins and Deku—Izuku is going to burn and bleed because he always burns and bleeds. (Because of Kacchan.)

He knows what's going to be said to him afterward, too. ('So sorry—' 'Midoriya, my boy—' 'Confrontational—' 'If you only could have tried HARDER—' 'Fucking extra, I didn't need your help! You did nothing! You hear me? You did NOTHI—')

He knows, and Izuku is just—

He's so tired.

He's so tired of people telling him over and over again why Kacchan is allowed to mock him, bully him, use his Quirk on him. Why Izuku isn't allowed to fight back, talk back, leave.

Kami, he just wants to leave.

(But. Expulsion. And a Bad Day isn't something he's willing to give up being a hero for. Never.)

The worst part, he thinks, about all the reasons Kacchan is allowed to get away with everything and Izuku gets punished for breathing… The worst part is that he even actually agrees with them, really.

Kacchan is (has been, will always be) powerful. He'll be a great hero.

And if all it takes to achieve that is one weedy, annoying little Quirkless boy, who could protest, honestly? He knows his maths, knows statistics, that's a bargain.

No need to take time away from other kids who might need it more to teach self-control and Quirk-control to Kacchan (and Tsubasa, and—). Look! Midoriya is right there, buy one get one free, even! (Or three, or four, or five, come on, shitty Deku, stand up again, dammit.)

My life, he realizes, all at once, is a trolley problem.

And he's always been the single person (the lesser part of the equation) on the wrong side of the tracks.

And somehow (muttering, mumbling, stuttering, always, because he really never does learn, Sensei, no, sorry, Sensei—) it comes out of his mouth, too.

"My life is a trolley problem."

And Todoroki, next to him, makes a sound in his throat that has no words but conveys perfect, painful understanding. It should make him feel better, to know he's not alone in this feeling.

('Do you what a Quirk marriage is?' 'She poured boiling water on my face.')

It really, really doesn't.

Trolley problems. And both of them just on the wrong side.

(Sacrificed in the name of heroism, but what is one boy—two boys, a face, an arm, some fingers—to that? A bargain, that's what.) Because Kacchan will be a hero and Endeavor is a hero.

And.

Izuku and Todoroki will be heroes, too, and heroes sacrifice. They'd literally signed up for this.

What good would complaining do them now?

And like the sunrise, like the end times, come it does. "Midoriya, you're paired with Bakugou."

Izuku wonders what it says about his life that he would literally stand a better chance of getting through this intact and uninjured if he was paired with Shigaraki (four fingers around his throat and the smell of dust and death but no burnt sugar sweetness, no flare of heat\pain and isn't that new and refreshing?) rather than with Kacchan.

He wonders what it says about him that he'd prefer that matchup, too.

He knows what's going to happen.

There's a rushing sound in his ears, like 'soothing waterfall sounds, ten hours' has been left on accidentally directly in his brain. (It's the sound of his blood rushing in his veins, the same kind of phenomenon as holding a conch shell up to the ear and hearing not really the ocean, but your own blood echoing back at you from—)

He knows what's going to happen because ten years and three schools and Kacchan still hasn't changed.

There's rushing in his ears and sweat slicking his palms in his gloves (caramel and burnt-sugar, nitroglycerin, Kacchan) and concrete filling up his boots, holding his feet to the ground (he doesn't want to move. Kami, he doesn't want to move, wants to lay down right here and— 'Take a swan dive off the roof—') and he takes a deep breath. (It claws inside his chest, digs out a space for itself and settles, burning, in his lungs.)

Unfortunately, neither has Izuku.

Izuku steps forward.