My Hero Academia: Love Denied

Hello My Hero Academia fans. This will be my second MHA fanfic and one that I'm having fun working on. I will continue to work on my other MHA story, Dreams & Promises, at the same time, so hopefully I will be able to update both stories regularly. I hope you come to enjoy this story as much as I have enjoyed writing it. Again, I don't own any My Hero Academia characters.

Chapter One: Bad Decisions

Izuku Midoriya walked back to the dorms with his friends. They were done with classes for the day and now they were walking back together, talking and laughing. He looked at her while she laughed. The girl that had stolen his heart. She had been friendly towards him since the beginning. Always motivating him, helping him and more importantly, smiling at him. He had a feeling, and certainly hoped, the she felt the same way about him.

Izuku never experienced that before. He never had any friends and was always rejected by those who he attempted to befriend. Even the only person that he considered a friend when he was a child, Bakugo, had turned against him. Even worse, he became his worse tormentor. Bakugo constantly spoke towards him in the worst condescending way, made fun of his lack of quirk, physically assaulted him and even told him to jump off a roof and kill himself. The pain of such words went deep into his heart.

His teachers had witnessed all of it, and had done nothing. Izuku felt that he had nobody but his mother on his side. He still tried to make friends and even tried to speak with some girls that he liked. But he always got rejected, sometimes in a rather embarrassing way. The pain kept accumulating in his heart. All those painful words, the constant mocking and rejection always found a way into his heart that wanted nothing more than to love and be loved.

Many times he was on the brink of braking down, feeling like the pain in his heart would swallow him whole. But still, Izuku fought against the pain and tried to maintain a friendly demeanor, acting respectfully towards everyone, even as it took a bigger effort as time went by. After all, he wanted to be a hero, and that's how a hero was supposed to act. And after that faithful encounter with his idol, All Might, he finally felt he had a real chance to achieve his goal to attend hero school and become a professional hero. He was just now starting his second year at UA and things were looking good.

As he walked with his friends he kept up with the conversation, but always stealing glances at his crush. Looking into her beautiful brown eyes and her pretty round face. Sometimes he felt she didn't noticed the way he looked at her, but sometimes it seems she did. On those moments, she would get a small blush and quickly look away.

"Hey Deku. We should study together for the upcoming test." Uraraka said while both of them walked into the dorm's common room. "What do you think?" It was just them now as Iida and Asui continued towards their own rooms.

He smiled, "Sure, that sound like a good idea." He pressed the button to the elevators, "you want to meet back here in like an hour, maybe."

Uraraka nodded, "sounds good, Deku." They both got into the elevator. "Are you excited about what will get to do this year?"

He nodded, "yeah, I think this year will be a little more challenging, but in a good way."

After some more small talk, they eventually parted ways and made it to their respective rooms to change and relax for a bit.

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Uraraka was lying face up in bed, listening to some music after changing out of her uniform. She was thinking about Izuku and how he made her heart beat faster when he looked at her and smiled or when he spoke to her with some warm words of encouragement. But she wasn't thinking about how she wanted more or how to confess her feelings to him. No, she was thinking on how to push those feelings down and under control.

She had made herself a promise that she would become a hero no matter what. She wasn't about to let a high school crush jeopardize that goal. She couldn't. Did she liked him? Oh god yes she did. Maybe even loved him, but she wasn't sure it was at that level yet. She came to love his determination, his friendly demeanor and his smile. A smile that warmed her heart beyond words.

But as she struggled with those emotions, deciding what to do, she came to the conclusion that she need to reel them back. She had made it fairly obvious that she liked him. But when she made the decision not to seek a relationship until after becoming a hero, she knew she need to stop sending signals to Izuku. They were very good friends and because of that, they spent a good amount of time around each other.

She then thought about her invitation to study together. 'Crap, maybe I should text him and cancel.' She thought to herself. She needed to spend less time with him, not more. After a couple of minutes of deliberation, she decided that canceling now was a little too abrupt. She need to be subtle. They were still friends after all and she didn't want to end her friendship with Izuku. Getting up from her bed, she grabbed her stuff and headed downstairs.

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Izuku stretched his neck and arms from his chair in the common room. "Wow, we covered a lot of material, Uraraka."

The gravity girl was picking up her stuff, "I know. I didn't think we would be able to cover all of it." She gave him a small smile while taking short glances, trying to avoid any meaningful eye contact.

Izuku had noticed her somewhat evasive demeanor, but didn't say anything thinking she was probably tired. "Yeah, me neither. I feel a lot more comfortable with the material though. I'm sure we will do pretty well on the test."

"Yeah, me too." She took a quick glance around the common room. She saw Asui and Ashido sitting on one of the couches, talking.

"Hey, you want to spend some time together? Maybe take a walk?" Izuku gave her his signature smile.

Hearing that and seeing that smile made Uraraka warm all over her body, and her chest felt tight. She desperately fought the urge to say yes. Stomping her romantic thoughts with a giant mental boot she came up with an excuse. "Uh…I'm sorry, Deku." She swallowed hard, "I actually want to spend some time with my friends." She felt her eyes get moist after seeing his facial expression, his nice smile disappearing in an instant.

"Oh…umm, that's ok, Uraraka." He broke eye contact suddenly feeling embarrassed. That familiar painful feeling stabbing his heart once more. "Some other time, maybe?"

Uraraka nodded quickly and started walking away, "yeah, sure. Some other time, Deku." She turned and walked away, not wanting to see his disappointed expression anymore.

Izuku kept his gaze on her for a few seconds, then he sighed. 'Why was she acting so distant?' Not feeling like being social anymore, he headed to his room.

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"Did you guys argued about something?" Asui, blunt as always, asked as soon as Uraraka sat next to her.

"Why would you say that?" Uraraka sounded indifferent while running her fingers through her hair.

"Well first, Midoriya looked like crap when you walked away from him." Ashido enumerated with her fingers, "And second, you look even worse!"

"Come on, Ochaco. We know you like him. You been pretty obvious about it this last year." The frog girl added.

Uraraka shrugged, "Yeah, maybe I like him. But I decided I don't want a relationship right now."

"Why?" Ashido raised an eyebrow.

"Because my goal to become a hero is more important. I don't want the added distractions and responsibility of a relationship." Uraraka, took a quick glance at where Izuku was with her, but he wasn't there anymore. She turned the other way and saw him get into the elevator.

Asui and Ashido looked at each other. Uraraka sighed loudly, "Can we talk about something else?"

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The week went pretty much the same. Uraraka and Izuku walked together with their friends, talking about school, their future or something funny that had happened. Izuku observed how Uraraka would act in her normal friendly way towards him, then without warning she would act distant and uninterested. It wasn't too obvious when they walked between destinations, but during lunch, when they sat together with their group of friends, she'll turn off the charisma.

She gave him short answers, took only quick glances at him and sometimes even ignored some of his comments. Izuku felt a little more pain enter his heart with each act of indifference. But he figured he needed to keep at it. Smiling at her, laughing at her jokes, giving nice words of advice and even complement things he didn't before, like her hair.

On her part, Uraraka was getting desperate. On one side, she felt terrible treating someone like Izuku with indifference. On the other, she wanted to put her feelings to sleep, building her internal defenses against the constant acts of kindness coming from her crush. But Izuku's smile and nice words worked like a wrecking ball against those defenses. She started to feel frustrated at herself. She felt weak against the way Izuku acted towards her.

So once again both found themselves walking into the dorms, their other companions quickly making their way to their rooms. Izuku turned to her, and gave her a small smile.

"Hey, I have a bunch of movies. Want to watch a one or two down here later?"

Uraraka gave him a tight smile, while screaming internally, "No, sorry. I'm really tired. I'm just going to call my parents and talk with them for a bit. I'm pretty much done for the day." she looked away, not wanting to see what look he would give her this time.

"Ok." Was all he could say in a disappointed voice, the ugly pain of rejection making his way to his heart, just like so many times in the past.

Uraraka walked into the elevators, praying silently he wouldn't follow. He didn't. As the elevator started moving she let out a breath she didn't know she was holding. Putting a hand on her chest she looked up. 'Why is this so difficult?' she thought. If Izuku kept pushing, she would have to take more drastic actions, at least until she could put those feelings down as far as possible. Then it should be a lot easier to hang out with him as a friend, right?

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Almost another week had gone by and they were close to the weekend. Nothing had changed between Uraraka and Izuku. They would talk among their friends and things would be peachy. Izuku would get a couple of nice conversations with his crush, then nothing. At least today she had been fairly nice to him, so maybe it wasn't that bad. He thought about this at length. He could be pretty dense when came to relationships and romance, but even he knew something was up. He just didn't know what.

Was she waiting for him to actually asker out after a year of friendship? Or was she pushing him away. But why? Maybe she got tired of the way he acted towards her or she was going through some personal stuff. Yes, that sounded like a pretty logical explanation to him. Using his analytical skills he was so famous for he decided to go all or nothing.

It was early in the afternoon, so he decided that he would ask her out for just dinner. Something simple and innocent. He planned to use this opportunity to ask her what was bothering her. Maybe he could help her with whatever she was going through. Armed with that idea, he was pretty confident that she would say yes. After all, today she had acted a lot more friendly towards him and barely gave him the cold shoulder. Up in his room he took a shower, got dressed and taking his phone and some money he walked downstairs.

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To say that Uraraka was frustrated was an understatement. Izuku was still, well, Izuku. Always smiling, and generally being nice to her. She had being able to stomp her feeling for another week, but they were not going away. If anything they felt like bursting out at some points. This day, she had made the mistake to lower her internal defensed and had a nice time with him during lunch.

While this was going on, she screamed internally, trying to pull up a wall around her heart. But it was no use and she was now pissed at herself. She had made a promise to herself. How can she keep a promise to others, when she couldn't even keep one to herself? How can she hoped to become a professional hero if she was so weak? No, this will not do. She would need to step up her game and push Izuku out of her heart, one way or another.

Sighing heavily, already getting angry she stepped out of the elevator. She looked around the common room and saw that almost everyone was here. She had come down dressed to hang out. Nothing eye catching but nice enough to invite some of the girls out to get some food. She didn't made any plans with any of her friends but it was early and there was always someone ready to hang out.

"Hey, Uraraka! Going out?" Kaminari asked her while sitting next to Jiro.

"Uh, don't know, maybe." She took a look around. "You guys seen Ashido or Asui?"

"Nah, we're the only girls down here." Jiro said while looking at her phone.

"Hmm…" Uraraka thought about how long she should wait or just call one of her friends. Then she saw Asui and Ashido walking into the common room and she smiled. But out of the corner of her eye she could now see another figure approaching from her left. It was Izuku.

She turned to him and saw he was giving her a wide smile. It was that smile she loved so much and she felt the wall around her heart starting to crack. She growled internally, getting massively frustrated. 'Damn it!' She thought with a lot of frustration. Anger was swelling inside her. She need to do something, anything, to push this guy out. But the anger growing inside of her wasn't letting her come up with a rational plan.

"Hey Uraraka!" Izuku said with a smile, giving her a once over. "You look great!"

Uraraka gaze shifted from the approaching friends to him, "Thanks." She looked back at the approaching friends, intending to preventively cut his conversation short. But Izuku would not be denied.

"You want to go out on a date with me and have some dinner?" he said a little loud trying to make sure she heard.

Uraraka instantly felt her anger and frustration raise exponentially. She had tried to be subtle and failed. And now that irritation she was feeling for failing to get her emotions under control came out in force. She suddenly turned towards Izuku, her mind clouded with conflicting emotions and…

'SLAP'

Izuku felt the stinging pain of a well landed slap on his left cheek.

"NO! I don't want to go out with you, Deku!" Uraraka yelled, her face a mix of anger and dismay. Everybody in the room was in absolute surprise at Uraraka's violent outburst. Asui and Ashido stopped in their tracks, mouths wide open in total shock.

Izuku felt that the whole world had gone silent. The pain on his cheek radiating down to his heart and mixing with all the pain already residing there. Slowly but surely it all started to come out. All that pain accumulated after years and years of rejection and abuse leaked out of his wounded heart. More and more of it poured out, having a rapidly cascading effect on his body and mind. He started to breath hard, his face going from absolute shock to angry as his eyebrows frowned more and more.

He gritted his teeth hard as tears welled up in his eyes. In a short moment of clarity he decided he needed to leave. As he started moving, Kaminari extended a cautious hand at him.

"Hey Midoriya, you ok?"

"SHUT UP!" he yelled with a deep frown. Kaminari flinched, retrieving the offered hand.

Izuku started to quickly make his way out, trying desperately to escape the eyes of all his classmates. Years and years of pain, frustration and rejection coming out in an uncontrollable wave. The terrible feeling of such a harsh rejection from the woman he thought as his best friend, flooded his senses and clouded his judgment. As he quickly walked towards the elevators, Iida started to approach him from his right.

"Midoriya! You need to calm down –"he said as he put a hand on Izuku's shoulder.

Izuku violently slapped his hand away. "Get the fuck away from me!"

"Midoriya! This is not the way to be acting right now!" Iida yelled.

"Fuck off!" Izuku tried to walk past the class leader but Iida tried to block his path.

"You're not thinking clearly right now. You need to –"he was cut short as Izuku shoved him out of the way.

"I said FUCK OFF!" he finally made his way past Iida and instead of taking the elevator, went to the stairs, desperately trying to make to his room and away from everything and everyone.

After a couple of seconds, all eyes slowly shifted to Uraraka, which seem ready to have a nervous breakdown. She put her hands on her chest, trying to control her heavy breathing. Tears that had formed during her outburst were now streaming down her face.

"What the hell was that?!" Jiro angrily asked the gravity girl.

"Jiro, calm down." Kaminari said in a hush tone trying to keep everything under control.

Jiro gave him an angry stare, "Don't tell me to calm down!" she stood up, looking at the gravity girl. "Uraraka! What the fuck was that about?!" Her hands were balled into fists at this point.

"I don't know!" Uraraka breathed out. She was in shock at her violent actions and was now trying to swallow the sobs that were making her way up her throat. "I don't know…please…I don't know!" Ashido and Asui walked up to her, slowly putting their hand on her shoulders.

Jiro always had a tendency to defend her friends when someone disrespected them and she didn't feel any different about this situation. She wasn't best friends with Izuku, but she knew he was a nice guy that always treated everyone with respect. She looked around in disbelief, "This doesn't make any sense!" she finally said throwing her arms up in frustration.

"Jiro, please you're not helping!" Ashido said as she helped a crying Uraraka sit on one of the couches. Jiro finally sat down with a huff, crossing her arms and shaking her head.

"We need to go and talk with Midoriya and make sure he's ok." Kirishima stood up from his chair, "anybody wants to go with me?"

Iida, deep in thought since Izuku's outburst, turned to the red haired student. "I think we should give him some time to calm down."

"You sure that's ok?" Kirishima wasn't too sure what to do himself.

"Dude, you saw how angry he was." Kaminari said in a level tone, trying to bring the conversation down a notch.

"I do not believe Midoriya would like to talk to us at this moment." Iida was sure that was the best course of action for now. He then turned to Uraraka trying to make sense of this whole thing. But the gravity girl was in no condition to explain as she was now leaning on Ashido's shoulder crying loudly, not caring that everyone was looking at her. Asui held her hand gently trying to calm her friend, to no avail.

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After an hour, the atmosphere in the common room felt heavy. Nobody was having a lively conversation, a study session or watched a movie. People sat in small groups, talking about what happened in hushed tones. Jiro had decided it was better to head back to her room since it seemed everyone was in a bad mood, including herself. Kaminari and Kirishima sat together while Iida and the newly arrived Todoroki sat nearby.

Yaoyorozu had arrived as well and was now sitting next to Ashido and Asui. Uraraka was in the middle of the girls, and had calmed down but was not talking or explaining anything. Her mind a conflicting mess of emotions. She occasionally wiped fresh tears the kept streaming down her face, but otherwise kept her head down, not responding to the occasional prod for conversation from her friends.

"Ochaco." Ashido said in a low voice. "Can you tell us what happened?"

Uraraka finally lifted her head slightly towards the pink girl, her lower lip quivering, "I been trying so hard to get these feelings out of my heart." She slowly shook her head, "but I can't."

"You mean your feelings for Midoriya?" Yaoyorozu asked barely above a whisper. Uraraka nodded weakly, wiping more tears.

"But why did you hit him?" Ashido asked while grasping her friends shoulder.

Uraraka started to cry weakly, "I don't know." She sniffle, wiping more tears, "He asked me out and I…" she let out a sob, "I just lost it."

Yaoyorozu eyes went wide, "Midoriya asked you out?!" Uraraka just nodded. Yaoyorozu looked at Ashido expecting an explanation.

Ashido sighed, "Ok, I think I know what's going on." She looked at Uraraka, who had her head down again. "You tried to suppress your feelings really hard." Uraraka nodded, "but they just bottled up and when he asked you out…they all came out, and not in a good way." Uraraka nodded again, wiping more tears,

"But why?" Yaoyorozu asked still confused.

"She didn't want to start a relationship." Asui answered.

Yaoyorozu shook her head, "but why not just tell him?"

Asui shrugged, "maybe because she was scared of losing him as a friend."

This still didn't make sense to Yaoyorozu but she decided to not ask any more questions. Telling a friend that you didn't want a relationship, while difficult, was obviously better than slapping them in the face in such an angry manner. But then again they were young, inexperienced high school students in a highly demanding hero school. Sometimes, things just didn't go as planned.

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Iida and Kirishima walked up to Izuku's room, both dreading the conversation that was about to come or in what condition they were going to find their friend. They bounced ideas to each other as they rode the elevator up. Walking the small distance from the elevators to Izuku's room in silence they stopped in front of his room. Kirishima looked at Iida with a serious face and then knocked on the door.

"Midoriya! It's me Kirishima." No answer.

Kirishima gave it a couple of seconds, "Hey man! We just want to talk!" still silence.

Iida grabbed the door handle and jiggled it trying to open the door, but it was locked.

Kirishima knocked again, "Come on Midoriya, just let us in so we can talk." Nothing came from inside the room.

Iida looked at Kirishima, "He probably doesn't want to talk to anybody right now."

Kirishima thought about it for a moment and then knocked again. "Hey man! Can you at least let us know you're ok in there?!" Total silence.

They looked at each other trying to figure out what to do. Iida shrugged and shook his head. Kirishima gave it a moment, then he sighed. They headed back to the common room.

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Uraraka had a hard time paying attention to her friend's conversation. She was sitting on her seat waiting for class to start, glancing towards the door every time someone walked in. It was almost time for class to start and Izuku was still not there. Last night, after Kirishima and Iida had knocked on his door, they came back downstairs and told them he wasn't responding. After another 30 minutes, Todoroki and Kaminari had gone to his room and tried to get him to open the door. But Izuku still didn't answered his door.

The gravity girl, turned back to look at Izuku's empty chair and her eyes got moist. 'Deku, I'm so sorry' she thought, hoping things would go back to normal between her and Izuku. She felt someone's gaze on her and she looked around until she saw Jiro looking at her with a frown. As they made eye contact, the school bell rang and Aizawa walked in.

"Alright everyone, get in your seats." The stoic teacher said in his monotone voice. All the students quickly did as instructed. Aizawa was about to start talking when he saw Izuku's empty chair. He looked at the class leader.

"Iida, where's Midoriya?"

The class leader stood up, "Sir, we don't know. We haven't seen him since last night."

"What do you mean?"

Iida cleared his throat, "Sir, he went up to his room upset after a disagreement with another student. We tried to get him to answer his door, but he never did."

Aizawa looked around the room trying to figure who had a bad enough argument with Midoriya to make him miss class. His first choice was of course Bakugo, but the student looked as indifferent as he could be. He quickly looked around his students faces until he eyed Uraraka wiping away some tears. He sighed.

"Who was involved in this argument?" All students turned to Uraraka as she slowly stood up, looking down.

"Alright, I need to make sure he's ok and haven't done anything stupid." Aizawa started to walk to the doorway. "Class leader, keep everyone occupied while I take care of this" He looked at the gravity girl. "Uraraka, come with me."

"Yes sir" The gravity girl didn't look at any of her class mates as she followed her teacher out the classroom.