They say that time heals all wounds.

Katsuki says that's a load of bullshit. How can time heal the wounds if everyone around you reminds you of them every goddamn second? With every pitying look his classmates gave him, every worried text his parents sent, Katsuki's anger rose to a dangerous degree. The only thing keeping him sane was Deku, of all people.

He knew exactly what Katsuki was going through, and seemed to even share his sentiment. He wasn't annoyed by his parents' incessant texts; Katsuki was slowly beginning to realize that Deku had probably never been shown the kindness and love of a true parent- but he did seem rather annoyed at Class 2-A's handling of them with kid gloves. As if they hadn't already spent thirteen years of experience dealing with what had happened to them. To Katsuki's utter shock, it was Deku who snapped during class training.

He was all set to spar with Round Face, with the rest of the class standing to watch their techniques to give critiques when they were done. Katsuki knew that Deku hadn't gotten a lot of sleep the night before, if the circles under his eyes were any indication. He also knew that Deku didn't like to be coddled, as he'd spent the first fifteen years of his life being treated like he was glass for being quirkless.

"Deku-kun," Uraraka said gently right before Aizawa-sensei was about to signal that they could begin. "Are you sure that you want to do this? You seem a little tired..."

Katsuki could see the exact moment that all of Deku's restraint left him. His shoulders bunched up around his ears, his face beginning to turn pink from the strain of his anger. Katsuki felt his own body tense up, knowing that an angry Deku was never a good thing. The last time Katsuki had seen a freakout like this, Deku had been quirkless. He loathed to think about the kind of damage

that Deku could do with One for All.

"Stop treating me like I'm a kid !" Deku lunged for his best friend without waiting for Aizawa's signal. Uraraka's eyes widened comically before she dodged to the side, waving her hands frantically.

"Deku, stop! You shouldn't be-"

"She's screwed," Katsuki muttered to himself, gaining strange looks from the extras around him.

Deku lurched forward again, a snarl on his face as the green lightning of his quirk activated around his limbs. Uraraka yelped and then suddenly, they were sparring. However, instead of Izuku holding back the way he usually would during class, he was going all out against his friend, using not only the brute strength of One for All, but also Black Whip and Float. He'd only ever gone this hard during training with Katsuki , and although he would never admit it, Katsuki knew how hard it was to beat Deku when he went all out. Uraraka didn't have a chance in hell.

Aizawa didn't seem to share this sentiment however, as he was studying Deku kicking Uraraka's ass with interest. Katsuki could feel the rest of the class fidgeting and ansty, no doubt in shock over how much power Deku was using and how furious he was. Deku didn't often get angry, case in point that he'd been fourteen the last time Katsuki had seen it. Clearly, they were terrified of angering him even more.

' Shit, I'm going to have to be the one to stop this,' Katsuki thought, groaning to himself. He stepped forwards, letting his palms spark before he used his explosions to launch himself directly in between Deku and Round Face, who was bruised, bloody and panting from the effort of trying to fight off Deku. She may have been absurdly powerful, just like the rest of Class 2-A but there were very few people who could manage to beat the top four students in class- Bakugou, Deku, Ponytail and IcyHot. The four of them tended to spar against each other for the more intense classes.

"Deku! Back the fuck off, would you?" Katsuki yelled, holding out his palms in warning in Deku's direction. Behind his back, Uraraka was beginning to whimper like she was on the verge of bursting into tears.

"I'm sick of being treated like a fucking baby ," Deku snarled ferally. Cuss words never sounded right coming out of Izuku's mouth, and this time was no exception. He was acting like Bakugou . It was very strange to see.

"I know, I am too," Katsuki said. "But Round Face is your best friend. She's just looking out for you. If you keep beating her up, then you're no better than him ."

That seemed to finally break Izuku out of it. His eyes slowly began to clear, the black, shadowy whips and green lightening of his quirk fading away into nothingness. By the time he had calmed all the way down, he looked so exhausted that he collapsed onto his knees. Katsuki went forward and tried to catch the boy, lowering him gently onto the ground.

"I'm just so tired," Izuku muttered into Katsuki's chest. "I wish none of this had ever happened."

Katsuki debated his answer for a moment. Instinctually, he wanted to say that he agreed. If none of this had ever happened, everything would be normal and no one in the class would be treating them differently. He'd be able to yell at them without getting pitying looks, would be able to spar with them without having them hold back on him. And yet...

"I don't," he told Deku. The boy looked surprised, looking up into Katsuki's crimson eyes like

he was searching for an answer there. "If none of this had ever happened, you would still be under Aun- under your mom's clutches. We never would have found out what she allowed because of her cowardice and greed. That's just unacceptable."

"What she allowed?" Uraraka spoke up, sniffling a bit and wiping her eyes. "Deku-kun... did your mom let your dad do that to you?"

Deku looked up at her, before sweeping his eyes over the rest of their waiting classmates. "Yes, she did." Aizawa bowed his head with his eyes closed, no doubt remembering the day that Inko had been arrested. Katsuki remembered that day every night in his dreams, sometimes bordering on nightmares. "But you all need to understand something." He used Katsuki's body as leverage to stand, his legs only trembling a little bit from the strain. "Just because you have all only recently found out about what happened to me and Kacchan doesn't mean that you can treat us differently. Don't forget that we've been dealing with it for thirteen years. Literally nothing has changed between this week and last week, before you knew, because it already happened . There's nothing any of you can do or say to make that disappear. You need to stop treating us like we're going to break, because we've always been this way. All you're doing is making us want to push you away more."

"We're sorry," Kirishima said gently. "We didn't mean to make you feel anything bad. We just... we didn't know how you would react to us knowing now. We were trying to be considerate."

"Since when does Kacchan like consideration," Deku joked. Just like that, the tension broke. Almost the entire class was grinning now, and Kaminari even had the audacity to come over to Katsuki to sling an arm around his shoulder. Sero wasn't far behind, slinging an arm around the opposite shoulder.

"We sure do love our blasty," Kaminari joked. Katsuki's irritation spiked, although it was overwhelmed almost immediately by begrudging affection for his dumbass friends. Not that he would ever let them know he cared about them.

"Get the fuck off of me, you goddamn extras," he yelled, shoving them away from him. Turning to Aizawa, he growled. "Can we get back to the fucking class already?"

"Yes," Aizawa said, narrowing his eyes. "Jirou and Hagakure, you two are next. While you spar, I'm going to need Midoriya to come with me."

"Me?" Midoriya squeaked.

"You," Aizawa confirmed. He beckoned Midoriya to follow him before turning around, calling to Iida over his shoulder. "Iida, you're in charge!"

Deku exchanged a worried look with Kacchan, but still followed Aizawa out of the room. Katsuki turned away from the two's retreating backs, pretending that anxiety wasn't pooling in the pit of his stomach.

(x)

Izuku twisted his crooked fingers together as Aizawa-sensei led them to his office, gesturing for Izuku to sit down on one of the couches. The man took the seat opposite the coffee table from him,

leaning his elbows on his thighs so he could lean towards Izuku. For a few moments they only stared at each other, Midoriya's nervousness increasing with every passing second. Finally, after what felt like an eternity, Aizawa spoke.

"You've been holding back in class."

It wasn't a question, but Izuku answered it like one anyway. "...Yes. I didn't want to hurt anyone."

"You are supposed to let me handle decisions like that," Eraserhead scowled. "You're selling your classmates too short. If I didn't know better than that, I would think you were being arrogant."

"I- I'm not!" Deku waved his hands in the air. "Of course that's not- well, today kind of proved me right, didn't it? I hurt Uraraka by going all-out."

Aizawa quirked an eyebrow at Izuku. "I suppose that's true, but I stand by my previous statement. You're supposed to leave those decisions to me."

"So... you want me to hurt my classmates?"

"Of course not." Aizawa let his eyes slip closed, like he was praying to the gods for strength to

deal with Izuku. "I want you to respect them enough to try your best." Izuku ducked his head with a nod. "Yes, sensei."

"Good." Aizawa leaned back in his chair. "Now that that's out of the way. How have you been doing, Problem Child? You've been separated from your mother within the past week, and it's likely that she will go to jail facing child pornography distribution charges that will put her in jail for a long, long time."

Izuku winced, looking down at his lap. "...I know. I did some research."

Aizawa nodded. "Would you be willing to testify against her?" Izuku looked up sharply, but Aizawa wasn't finished. "Bakugou Mitsuki and Bakugou Masaru have already agreed to testify what they have known to be true. Is it true that your mother was pretty overprotective?"

Midoriya glanced around surreptitiously. "Are there detectives hiding in here or something?"

"This is off the record," Aizawa coaxed. "I'm a licensed psychologist, and although this isn't a professional setting, I really do just have your best interests in mind." The man took a deep breath before gritting out, "I... care about you."

Izuku's heart squeezed at the declaration. "Wow. Did that crush your soul a little bit, Eraserhead- sensei?"

"Just answer the questions and I'll let you go back to class," the man scolded. Izuku's humor felt as he remembered the way his mother used to treat him.

"Yes," he finally said. "She was pretty overprotective. When I was younger, I wasn't allowed to leave the house unless it was for school or to go over to Kacchan's house. Auntie and Uncle thought it was strange, so they often let me and Kacchan go to the park when they told my mom that we were still at home. She finally let me leave the house alone when I was around eleven-"

"Eleven?" Aizawa sounded shocked. "She forced you to stay inside for that long?"

"Well I mean, I was allowed to go to school," he said, like that was any better. "But yeah. It was... pretty bad. When I got to middle school it was better, and I started taking longer ways home so I could stay out longer, and then I started studying villain attacks instead of just focusing on online videos... I didn't have any friends, so after Kacchan and I stopped hanging out, I didn't get out much."

"You didn't have any friends? Surely that's an exaggeration."

' Gods, this is so embarrassing,' Izuku thought to himself. "No. Uraraka-chan was my first friend

since Kacchan and I stopped playing together when we were seven."

Aizawa looked absolutely floored . "That's a bit hard to believe. You seem to make friends with anyone you so much as breathe at these days."

Izuku brightened. "I know! Isn't it amazing? I'm so lucky so many people think I'm good enough to be their friend!"

Izuku could practically see something crossover Aizawa's face; some sort of look of understanding, like he had finally put together the last piece of a puzzle he'd been working on for years.

"Midoriya," he said calculatingly. "I think the way that your mother has treated you all of these years has caused you to develop serious self-esteem issues. What with your self-sacrificial streak a mile long, and the way you don't seem to care about yourself at all, it makes sense. Tell me, did your mother ever implant any ideas about your worth into you?"

Izuku thought about it for a moment, a lot of things about his life beginning to make sense as it all sank in. "I mean... I developed my quirk really, really late, at the entrance exam. Before that, everyone thought I was quirkless. She just... she worried about her quirkless son, that's all. She warded me off of dangerous things and dangerous professions because she was worried for my safety."

"So she treated you similarly to how your peers have been treating you recently," Aizawa asked.

"Yes," Izuku whispered. "Oh god, that's why I freaked out... because they reminded me of my mother?"

"I don't know," Aizawa said honestly. "But I do know that you deserve better than that, Midoriya. I hope you trust me enough to let me help you." The man extended one of his hands towards Izuku, waiting for him to shake it. Izuku eyed the hand, his mind a whirlwind of different events of his life. His mother never believing in him, Katsuki bullying him and pushing him away because of what Izuku's father had done to them. Katsuki's various breakdowns over the years that he only let Izuku see, because only Izuku could truly understand what was wrong. All of his classmates caring so much for him, his teachers' concern over what he and Katsuki had gone through... the Bakugou matriarch and patriarch welcoming Izuku into their arms like he was their own son.

It occurred to Izuku that, no matter what he and Kacchan kept bolstering about, the two of them really weren't okay. It may have been thirteen years since Hisashi had been around, but that didn't mean that they had been dealing with the aftermath of what he'd done. In fact, they'd done pretty much the opposite; pushing everything and everyone away, just trying to forget rather than deal with it themselves. Izuku wanted to heal. He wanted to be able to look back at days like today and realize that he was better.

So he reached forward and took Aizawa's hand.