Inhale.
"It wasn't your fault, you know. The accident."
Bakugou had this far off look, jaw clenched, as if battling the urge to scream.
Midoriya sat in the stiff infirmary chairs, rocking his body back and forth slightly. Bakugou was pacing.
Midoriya didn't speak, couldn't, just gnawed his thumb with teary eyes.
Exhale.
Quirk training. Midoriya's team had taken on a team from Class 1B, plus Shinsou. He'd allowed Monoma to touch him, a foolish mistake. Monoma was ambitious, cunning, Midoriya knew what he'd try to do.
Monoma had smirked at him, spat an extravagant monologue, before his limbs lit up green. Midoriya panicked.
Eraserhead, Mr Aizawa, must have seen the look of pure horror on Deku's face, must have noticed the way Toshinori took off running towards the arena, because he swung in, erased One For All before it could kill him. Before an immense, devastating power could tear through him like a knife through butter. Monoma collapsed, both nostrils bleeding and limbs crumpling sickeningly. He would have hit the ground had Shinsou's scarf not caught him.
And Midoriya stood, motionless.
Inhale.
It was strange, weird, because, if anything, Midoriya was known for acting when no one did. But seeing the look in Monomas eyes, that split second of horror when he realised he'd make a mistake, took Midoriya back to the months before school started. It seemed like forever ago now. Midoriya remembered, in almost frightening detail, his bones shattering, over and over. His freakishly high pain tolerance had been fought for. It was as if seeing himself, in that moment, and he'd watched, he'd watched, he'd stood there and-
Exhale.
Monomas ribs had shattered on impact. He was struggling to breathe on his own.
Recovery Girl couldn't do much in the face of this much damage. So she'd bandaged his arms and legs in casts Midoriya knew too well, and left him to rest in The Infirmary, a machine taking breaths for him while his body recovered.
And now they sat there, the only two students aware of the true cause of this accident, watching his chest rise and fall robotically while they tried not to crumble like bone.
Inhale.
Midoriya couldn't take it anymore.
"It is my fault! I felt him touch me, saw him activate it. I just stood there and watched, Katsuki, I knew what would happen and I stood there and fucking watched!"
He held his head in his hands, tugged on his hair. The room was suddenly too tight, too small. He'd hurt someone, someone he knew, someone he could have saved if he'd spoken up. What type of hero allowed that to happen?
Villain.
Bakugou grabbed him by the shoulders, gruff as ever, never one to tolerate these kinds of emotional outbursts. "Stop being stupid! There's nothing you could have Done, Deku! Ya hear me? Nothing !"
Midoriya let out a shaky exhale before nodding, not meeting Bakugou's eyes.
He pulled his knees up close to his chest, wrapped his arms around them, before turning to face Monoma. Bakugou placed a hand on his shoulder, awkward but there, Izuku didn't want to think about it.
Exhale.
They waited.