Apologies for the longer-than-promised wait for the update. Returned home, ready to fall into a new schedule of days and an order of objectives, and got myself a new position for where I've been working, and immediately lost the will to write like this.

I'm trying right now to get out of the job I have and see if I can fall back on the one I had, one that taxed me more physically but left more energy in my head to think about my writing and get me hyped at night to still stay up and work on this for you all. Sorry if this reads weaker than you would like it to, because some of it was made in that time frame just to fight against that part of me, and I'll try my best so it doesn't happen again.

If I'm lucky, I can get the next chapter out before the middle of June, and if not, then sometime later in the month, given I'll have a few days right in the middle holding me back from working on this longer. Apologies in advance for my schedule there.

Other than that, I don't have much to say. I do hope you all enjoy the final product of this chapter in place of the half completed one from before, and thank you all for your continued support and feedback since it was first posted.

January

When the news feed ended, Izuku replayed the clip. It was grainy, still in black and white, and had microwave scratches instead of audio that the media dialed down for an audience to view interrupted, and watched himself get shot. Despite the low quality, no doubt due to the tremors the mall went through during the attack, he could point out the trail of bursts of smoke and stone where the villain shot his bullets towards him and the little girl. Halfway through the trail, he could point out the second a plume of smoke popped from the back of his shoulder before disappearing the rest out of the frame. Izuku still could not believe he had not felt the bullet dig into his shoulder.

He considered himself lucky to be in fine condition, pace the fact. The bullet had dug into the bone; not in his arm, but in his torso. Had the bullet strayed further, it probably could have made his right arm completely inoperative. Keeping an open wound would not have fared him any better. Lucky for him, one of Japan's top renowned surgeons were on the case of his wound, and Izuku felt bad he had not thanked Dr. Koresh more. The doctor's quirk was capable of stitching almost anything back together, inanimate and organic. He decided to put his powers to use in the operating room, and had spent a good hour piecing the bone and muscle and other tissue back together until Izuku was left with only a soft patch of skin; the mark of a scar only slightly wider than the bullet that pierced him.

Izuku replayed the footage again. If anything, he felt he gave too little thanks to Yaoyorozu and her family for helping as well. Not even a minute after he had collapsed on the side of the road had her ride appeared, and instead of taking her home or trying to call one of the ambulances already leaving the mall in the opposite direction, they drove him to the mall instead. Yaoyorozu had done her best to cover the wound and keep him from bleeding out any further than he already was, and it was enough to get him to the hospital and in more trained hands to go from there.

Izuku felt more in debt than he already was, given she had acted once to help him and twice - maybe thrice - to save his life. He didn't think he even did one of those yet. Most of the thanks to her and her family came from his own mom having met them while he was still bed-ridden after the surgery. He agreed with his mother that they had to do something in return for saving his life, but the adults seemed more than fine with the notion that Izuku had already saved their daughter while they were still inside the mall, and his help in apprehending the four criminals that they encountered.

(Izuku thought his actions were more indirect than direct in saving her life, but he wasn't exactly given room to argue and instead had to settle with being praised as a promising future hero. He'd live.)

Izuku played the footage again. He'd been watching it since he found it, time and time again whenever he and his attention weren't needed elsewhere; which, over the winter break, was almost all the time. Given his injury and the time he was recommended to spend recovering, his mother hadn't given any leeway to try and go back to training any time soon, and since he didn't want to test her and knew the necklace wasn't enough of an apology, he agreed to keep his head down and spend a week or two just with her and school until her worried died down enough to allow him freedom again. She wasn't restricting everything though, and Izuku had yet to know if that was a good thing or not. It felt more like a bad thing, as Hatsume and Iida and Ojiro texted him about the story on the news and all he had replied with was to not talk about it; for Mei, that went a lot more aggressively to make her move on, but she seemed to get the message after the third day.

Izuku ignored the whispers of his classmates as they entered homeroom and played the clip again. Probably the only benefit of having been hospitalized was getting to meet Gang Orca in person. He had arrived with detective Naomasa on the day of his release and Izuku was grateful his joy overshadowed his worry. Gang Orca had all but reiterated the detective's words from the meeting outside the mall, with a thanks or lightening the load on his shoulders tacked on at the end. He had also given the same treatment to the Yaoyorozu daughter, and after learning of her future, had offered to give Izuku a late recommendation into Yuei, just in time for him to test for the chance. Gang Orca had noted Izuku's actions and quick willing to act instead of letting criminals get away with their work, and how he had thrown himself in the line of fire to save the life of a child. Sloppy in a few place, the pro had noted, but he'd be going to a school that would help to buff those kinks out and help him become a proper hero. The pro was more than willing to help Izuku get into Japan's most prestigious school for heroics.

Izuku turned down the offer.

He did give it some thought, of course, but in the end he had declined. He wanted to prove himself to the school that he could be accepted, and Izuku didn't believe rushing the test early was going to do his performance any good, especially while he had to recover and rest from his "reckless actions" as his mother put it. He kept to himself that the entrance exam as it was served enough stress for him to feed off of until it was over and he knew of the results; no use piling more stress on top of that. He'd rather wait the extra two months for his test along with the thousands of other students trying out for admittance into the hero school. That was less stressful to think about.

Izuku played the video again, watching the three minute clip as he worked to calm down the young girl he saved and then his small standoff with the gunman. Most of his class had arrived, and he ignored the stares he saw out of the corner of his eyes. It was over a week since the news surfaced of the attack on the mall, and everyone was bound to have recognized him on the news as the boy who saved a kid's life and then was rushed to the hospital for a bullet wound and small concussion on the back of his head. Izuku didn't think the hit he took was that bad, but he wasn't going to argue with the news or his mother. No need for that.

"Deku…" Izuku bristled at the growl a ways behind him, letting the video come to a full stop before he closed his phone. His eyes rolled to the side, looking over his shoulder to the blonde teen standing in the doorway of the class, beady red eyes glaring his way over the other students. He didn't ignore the hushed voices of his classmates having dropped lower in volume as Katsuki made his entrance to the room. Then the teacher entered from his side of the room.

"Alright, everyone. In your seats." He sounded as bored as usual; Izuku was at least semi-pleased to hear him act like nothing was out of place. "That includes you, Bakugou." Izuku turned back forward in his desk, soaking in the look of Katsuki scoffing his way as he stomped around the back of the class to his own desk by the window. Izuku didn't turn to acknowledge the glare he felt on the back of his neck.

"Now I know you're all excited to get your last semester over and done with," the teacher drawled on, rolling his hand in the air with just as little enthusiasm, "graduate and go on to high school. So I expect you all to try your…best…" Izuku blinked as the teacher's eyes finally landed on him, and said man's expression dropped from tired to wide-eyed with surprise. "Midoriya, I…didn't expect to see you back so soon."

Izuku blinked as several more eyes turned to look at him, his fingers fidgeting with one another as he kept his own stare forward to the teacher's. He didn't say a thing in response to being acknowledged. He would have preferred the teacher not have said anything at all. Luckily for him, the teacher somehow got the memo, and cleared his throat before looking over the rest of his class. "Alright, everyone. Let's get ready for the first of your last lessons."

Izuku sighed and sagged his shoulders as, one by one, pairs of eyes turned away from him and back to the front of the class, or were at least looking back at him over the shoulder. Better than their faces fully turned to his. A quick glance to the side confirmed Katsuki's eyes were the only eyes still straight on him, but he wasn't going to grace the other boy with any real acknowledgement. He hoped class would go by faster, sooner.

God those classes felt like forever.

Izuku groaned as he swayed in his steps. Somehow sitting around the house all day for a week was less taxing on his mental health than sitting in that classroom again. He was taxed out for the day by the time second period started and was more than sure he fell asleep during fourth. That or the information the teacher was relaying was something he already knew that he tuned out the conversation willingly. Izuku couldn't exactly remember, but he was willing to bet what money he had left that it was just a class of rehashing information. Wasn't the most uncommon for so late in the semester.

The light of the afternoon wasn't helping to collect his bearings, burning his retina any time he looked up even slightly higher than the cars he passed. A piece of him wished the subway wasn't so out of the way that he could take it to school and back to the apartment. Guess life was looking down on him in more ways than one. At least he was close to home, and his day could finally end—

"Oi! Deku!"

That wasn't a challenge, universe, Izuku groaned in his head.

He paused in his walk and turned on his heels to find the blonde boy he knew oh-so-well stalking up to him, with an expression conveying something less than pleased. Whatever could it be, Izuku pondered dryly.

Izuku made the first audible sound to the other teen, a visible sigh that sagged his shoulders and dropped his head with it. "Yeah, Katsuki?"

Izuku could see the other boy's feet stop feet away from him, and his eyes rolled up the teen's body to find him stiff in posture and shocked in expression. He spent a couple seconds looking at the blonde in confusion until the lax and dismissive acknowledgement he gave him finally registered in his own ears. The next sound he heard was the explosion that went off in his face.

He stood in place and took the blow, too slow to react fast enough. Surprising him, however, was that the blast didn't knock him over, nor did he trip and fall on his step back in recoil. He wasn't given a long enough time to think about how Katsuki was using less strength in his blasts given the street they were on wasn't exactly the most isolated, as said explosive teen had grabbed him by the collar of his uniform when the smoke between them was clear enough.

Katsuki snarled in his face, leaving Izuku to recoil his neck slightly as the blonde spoke again. "The hell did you think you were doing, Deku?" he hissed and let another pop of sparks sound off from his other hand.

Izuku's body shook and he thanked above that he was still flat on his feet. "W-What do you mean, Kats—Kacchan?" Trying to hide his name behind the nickname didn't seem to calm the blonde any.

"The mall, dumbass! You got yourself shot and hospitalized! The fuck is wrong with you?"

The shaking Izuku felt slowed down as his gaze turned baffled towards Katsuki. "Wait, what?"

"The old hag was worrying over your sorry ass over the break since auntie wasn't letting her come over to see you. Do you know how goddamn annoying that was?!"

Izuku stared at the red eyes and the barring teeth with a blank expression. He…why was Katsuki talking about this? Izuku knew Mitsuki was worried about him, and had even gotten to talk over the phone one day when he had the chance to let her know he was going to be fine, given his mother wasn't able to stay as flat faced as he was about the whole "getting shot" thing. He understood well enough why she was worried, why both women were worried, but Izuku liked to think he was recovering well from it. The only saving grace of getting to tell Mitsuki was that she was alone on the phone call and Izuku didn't have to listen to Katsuki yelling in the background or taking the phone to yell at him directly.

Was…was Katsuki trying to say he was worried about him too? Could be a bit more direct about it, if that was the case, Izuku noted to himself, and decided to actually contribute to the conversation.

"I'm-I'm doing fine, I promise." Izuku smiled and chuckled nervously, waving his hands between them. "It doesn't hurt to do anything with my arm anymore. They closed the wound quickly and I've been recovering—"

"I don't give a shit about your wound!" Katsuki interrupted him with a shout. "Why the fuck were you still trying to play hero?!"

Simultaneously did Izuku's hands, smile and attempt at playful demeanor dropped, albeit slowly within the vocal silence that followed between the two boys. Izuku didn't talk again until his hands were hanging by his sides. "…What?"

"You know what I fucking mean! I saw the news too, dipshit! The hell was a liability like you doing trying to fight people and be a hero?!"

Izuku didn't give him a response, maintaining the same lost look after each sentence he shouted. So the blonde continued.

"I thought I told you to stay out of my way! Not get on the news trying to convince the world you can be something you're not! The hell's a quirkless hero gonna be to the world if all he does is get himself hospitalized?! Do you even get that through the thick-fucking-skull of yours?!" Katsuki didn't actually wait for an answer as he shoved Izuku back by the collar and sneered again. "You're never gonna be a fucking hero, Deku. Don't let this little shit try to convince you otherwise. No one's gonna want to work with a quirkless hero, and fighting real villains all by yourself is only gonna get you killed. So do as you're fucking told and give up. I don't wanna hear any more shit about you trying to get yourself killed playing as a hero." With a final look with his glare, Katsuki turned back around and stomped away from the green teen, staring frozen at him.

That…that was…Katsuki came to him to tell him that. To tell him to give up, again. To tell him he couldn't be a hero, again. To tell him to stand back and stop being in his way, again. To mock Izuku for getting shot and hurt putting his life on the line to save the life of a child. To use his quirkless status as reason enough that he still wasn't good enough—

"Fuck you."

Izuku could hear the stomp Katsuki used as his last step, and the sound of his teeth clenching together was akin to metal scraping against metal as he turned. "What was that?"

"It was a 'Fuck you,'" Izuku repeated, furrowing his eyebrows to the other teen and almost pulling off a glare. "Was that literally all you came to tell me? That it's my fault for getting shot and I can't be a hero? Really?"

"Of course it fucking is, Deku," Katsuki growled back. "You threw yourself in front of the goddamn bullet."

"It was gonna hit a fucking kid!" Izuku shouted back in retaliation. "What, was I supposed to allow a kid to be shot? Would you consider me a hero then?"

"Of course not—"

"No, of course you wouldn't. Then you'd just blame me for letting the kid get shot, even if I took the guy down without getting harmed, wouldn't you? So what, you're blaming me for the gunman being there at all? Something I didn't have a lick of control or decision over? Really?"

"If you hadn't decided to step up and try to be a fucking hero, then he wouldn't have shot anyone at all!"

"He would have shot her anyways! They weren't taking witnesses to begin with!"

"How the hell would you know that? Because they left your worthless body on the ground?!"

"Because I heard them say it in front of me!"

Izuku took a long inhale in his standoff with Katsuki, the other blonde boy holding his ground and crouching further and further on his own two feet, ready to pounce at a moment's notice. Izuku was feeling up to that challenge. He coughed through his teeth. God, when was the last time he shouted like this?

Katsuki shook his head violently, eyes scrunched in what Izuku could have mistaken for pain, like a thought he wasn't proud of had passed through his head. "God, what the hell were you even thinking standing up to those fucking goons?! What, were you hoping they'd kill you?!"

A quiet growl bubbled up in Izuku's throat and he gulped it right back down. "Oh, and you would have stayed down and let them go about their day?! I thought you wanted to be a fucking hero!"

"At least with my quirk I can be a hero!"

"With an explosion quirk like yours, you'll be just as good a villain as the two in prison!"

Izuku was aware that Katsuki launched himself forward the instant he heard the word villain, an explosion from one hand propelling him forward and the other outstretched and shining with light. And Izuku was prepared to take him head on, fist clenched and chambered by his side, teeth barred to mirror Katsuki. But the blonde was faster, and before Izuku could throw a punch an explosion stronger than those before hit him in the face and sent him backwards into the pavement, cracking the back of his head on the earth.

He cried out and cradled his head, the feeling of blood tricking through his fingers felt through the pain of the impact. Through the corner of his clenched eyes he could see Katsuki snarling down at him, another pop of an explosion sounding off from his palm. "Stay down, Deku. Or else you'll end up like your old man." And suddenly the pain in his head meant nothing.

Izuku spent no time hesitating to let go and push off the street with his bleeding hands, surging to his feet without struggle and catching the corner of Katsuki's eyes as the blonde made to turn and leave him bleeding on the ground. He moved a palm back out towards Izuku but the latter was more than ready for it, swinging an arm across to grab and shove it away from him, and send his other fist clocking in Katsuki's nose.

The explosive teen stumbled back with a surprised and pained shout, clutching his now bleeding nose in his hands. But Izuku didn't give him time to rest like Katsuki did, surging forward with a punch aimed at his chest, and only nicked the blonde on the side as he sent one hand with a backswing and an explosion against Izuku's cheek. The blast sent him stumbling to the side, and before he could gather his bearings a second explosion connected with his stomach and sent him flying into a brick wall lining the sidewalk.

Pain erupted on either side of him, in the ribs that took the brunt of the explosion and the ribs that smacked against the wall that stopped his momentum. The crushing they performed on his insides sent him curling to his knees and gasping to breathe. Fuck. Every sharp inhale he took was followed by a rough and cough-filled exhale, and each press of his fingers was but a searing jab of the bruises he probably had under his shirt. And with each of the explosions he had taken, his hearing had gone fuzzy, the only sound making it to his ears being the scraping of his hands against his uniform and the ground.

But Izuku had to push through, because Katsuki was still standing and there was little chance in hell that he would just back off after a comment like that was made his way. He looked over to the taller teen, still standing tall while blood dripped from his nose, but to Izuku's surprise the boy's gaze wasn't upon him, and the side profile he had of it, Katsuki looked petrified where he stood. So he followed the blonde's gaze, and there, standing at the end of the street, looking as terrified as Katsuki did and probably as empty-gutted as Izuku felt, was his mother.

Izuku shot to his feet and nearly feel right back down from the pounding in his ears and the pressure of his ribs, but he stayed standing in spite. Only problem was that he didn't know who exactly to look at, wanting to look at his mother to reassure her but wanting to stare down Katsuki unknowing if the blonde would still launch himself back into attacking him. He settled for the latter, forcing his eyes wide and zeroing his gaze to the other boy's eyes, waiting for him to turn over and notice. And Katsuki did, ripping his gaze away from the Midoriya mother to look at the Midoriya son. Izuku found a snarl sent his way, and in response he hardened his glare and rose his shoulders to challenge Katsuki's attempts to be intimidating. And it seemed to do the trick enough, as Katsuki not only turned away from the family of two but took off down the street. Izuku could see his mouth move as he left, but the ringing in his ears didn't subside enough for him to make it out at all, though the shouting of the blonde's name from his mother was loud enough to be faint in his ears.

Even as his mother rushed over to his side and hovered over the wounds she could see, Izuku kept his eyes watching Katsuki all but run with his tail between his legs. It was a mock victory, in Izuku's favor. Just seeing the explosive teen run away was enough to make him feel like he had actually won something over the other boy.

And Izuku loved that feeling as much as he wanted to throw it up.

"Izuku, we need to take you to the hospital!"

"Mom, I promise I'll be fine—"

"There's blood all over your back!"

"Then I'll patch it up with the first aid kit. I'm fine."

"A patch isn't going to clean that all up!"

"It'll cover the wound."

Izuku didn't mean to sound as exasperated to his mother as he did, but his body felt too sluggish to support any other tone of voice without dipping into a slurred and incoherent mess. What little energy Izuku did have left, he managed to use sparingly; opening the bathroom door, swinging open the overhead cabinet to the sink, and easing out the first aid kit onto said sink. All while his mother hovered behind him and watched from the bathroom door.

"Izuku, baby." His mother's tone had dropped audibly enough for Izuku to notice she was holding herself back from shouting again. "You've lost a lot of blood. That wound is probably really big. We should have a doctor seal it closed for you."

"It can heal on its own, too. I'm fine with that." He didn't even open the kit before he grabbed a towel and dowsed it in cold water. "We don't need to take me to the hospital."

"But what if you broke something?" Izuku did his best not to react to her wording of that. If he broke something. Not if Katsuki was the one to do it. "Izuku, please, we should take you to a hospital—"

The hell's a quirkless hero gonna be to the world if all he does is get himself hospitalized?!

"I'll be fine." Izuku watched as the sternness to his voice forced his mother a step back, and the pain in his sides moved deeper into his chest. He dropped his head back down and turned off the running water. "I don't want to go back so soon. I'll be alright with this." He winced as quietly as he could – to say barely at all – as he rose the towel and pulled on the definite bruise on his side to tap against where the blood was probably leaking from. His heavy breathing alone carried the vocal silence between mother and son following, and did so for a minute until his mom stepped forward and eased a hand over his holding the towel.

"At least let me do it for you," she calmly demanded more than she asked, prying the towel from his fingers and placing a hand on his back. "You shouldn't be hurting yourself more." Holding back another hiss of stressing the bruise on his side, Izuku obliged and moved when the hand pushed him to sit down on the toilet for his mother's reach. He could feel her brush aside his hair to clear a path to the cut and dabbing it with the towel. "…I've never seen you throw a punch like that, Izuku."

He heavily flinched at her words, boring his eyes down to the tile between his feet and clutching his hands together. "You…saw that?"

"And everything following…" She sounded as uncomfortable to talk about it as he was. He listened as she went silent and eased on the pressure she was applying to the wound as the kit on the sink shuffled around her hand. With the pressure returned, it wasn't as cold as the cloth was. "And I heard what he said right before that." Izuku sighed, bringing up the hand on his other side that wasn't pulling on a bruise like the other and scratched a finger along the edge of the bandage patch on his head. "Izuku, are…you and Katsuki…"

"Still friends?" Izuku filled in where his mother stuttered for something better. "…No. We're not." Haven't been for a long time. The hands that fell on his shoulders landed gently, and Izuku was happy his mother stayed behind him instead of looking him in the eyes.

"How long has this been going on?"

"How long has what been going on?"

"Izuku, I know you and Katsuki wouldn't be fighting like this if it's your first fight. And he wouldn't say those things about your father either." Wouldn't be the first time he had, just the first in a long while. "How long?"

Izuku bristled at the soft tone of her voice. Ten years, give or take. "It's recent," he told her instead. "Past couple months." Since I saved him from the sludge villain and told me to jump from the roof.

"A couple months? Izuku why didn't you tell me?"

"It's not like anything has actually been happening." Izuku responded quickly to the worry in his mother's voice, waving a hand towards her. "This is the first time in a while he's even talked to me." Wish it could've stayed that way.

"You two did a lot more than talking. I heard you both shouting before I turned the corner. What did Katsuki want?"

For the briefest of moments, Izuku felt like telling her the truth. The whole truth. He decided against it. "Just something stupid. It doesn't matter."

"Izuku, 'something stupid' doesn't end up with you two hurting each other."

He openly scoffed at that. "You'd be surprised how low Katsuki's standards are." It was the deafening silence that followed his words that informed him where he fucked up.

"You're hiding something from me, Izuku." The green teen lowered his head into his hand as naturally as he could, tensing as the hands on his shoulders did too. "You and Katsuki are fighting; you're calling him by his name now; you keep coming home sore whenever you go out training; you're not as talkative anymore; you barely even talk about the mall or the hospital…Izuku." He turned his head just enough to look at his mother's hand, but not enough to see her face. "What aren't you telling me?"

"…What do you think I'm not telling you?"

"Baby, please, I'm not doing this with you." He was amazed at the lack of jab and anger in her voice, and equally displeased to hear it replaced with exhaustion. "You can tell me anything, you know that, right?"

Guilt ate away at his stomach. "Yeah. I know, mom." He sighed and turned his head back to forward. "I don't wanna talk about it."

"Izuku, please. You don't have to keep doing this. If your friends are forcing you to be a hero and pushing you to hurt yourself to be one, you could have told me and I would—"

"'Forcing me to'—What? No!" Izuku shot to his feet and spun towards his mother, though he leaned back from her with a hardened stare. She looked as surprised as he felt, but that was probably the only emotion that overlapped. "No! No one is forcing me to be a hero! This is all my choice!"

She sputtered a moment. "I-Izuku, you keep getting hurt! What—"

"It's not like I asked to be hurt! What, you think I asked Katsuki to bash my head into the ground? You think I asked his to practice his quirk on me all the time? Do you think I asked to be shot?!" Izuku spun on his heels again, whining against the hand that dragged down his face. "Why is everything my fault? How is it every bad thing is because of me and anything good is because of literally anything else?!"

"Izuku…"

"Oh, you weren't born with a quirk? Shame you drew the short straw in life! Guess you don't get anything, but it's not like it's a loss to watch you suffer! Oh, you risk your life to help fucking Katsuki of all people from losing his? Well let's just praise him for doing absolutely nothing and tell you off for it!"

"I-Izuku!..."

"Saved a couple people and stopped a few criminals in the act? How about we give all the credit to the quirk you don't have but we'll act like you do so we can't thank you as a person any?"

"…Izuku."

"What's that? You took a bullet for a kid? How pathetic, but what were we to expect from someone who can't do anything? Maybe if the bullet had killed you then and there, then maybe something good would have finally come from you!"

"Izuku!"

"What?!" Izuku twisted, and shouted from his gut, coming again face-to-face with his mother. His body shook from the heat inside him, and his shoulders bounced and his nose flared with each heavy breath he took. Only when he fully register the look of fright and terror on his mother's face did every feeling within him die out and turn cold. "M-mom, I—"

"I-I had no idea you felt that way, Izuku." Her voice stayed true to her expression; just as soft and small as she looked in the moment. "I'll-I'll give you some space. I'm sorry…" Whatever else she had to say was lost and jumbled together, and she left the bathroom before Izuku could get out another word.

"I—Wait, mom—" Izuku reached out for her already-gone form and before he could get even a step did his side explode with pain. He jolted forward and bit back a scream, dropping one hand to catch him on the counter top and the other clawing around the bruise still untreated on his side. "…Fuck."

He collapsed onto the toilet again, hissing as he slid in his seat and faced the ceiling. Everything he had let out, both in emotion and in words – the complaints he vocalized and the yell he directed at his mother – played back in his mind. His breath hitched from the growing tightness in his chest. Fuck.

Izuku did his best to wipe the water building in his eyes onto his sleeve and move his attention to the bruise he was sporting. And it was a big one, he noted after removing his no-longer-useable uniform jacket and somewhat-torn-but-could-survive-another-day-or-two undershirt. He applied a cool patch –because the last thing he wanted to feel was more heat – to the colorful skin and wrapped it against himself messily. Better than nothing, he decided.

Even when all was said and done, he didn't move. He sank further towards the floor, nearly lying on the lid of the toilet as he stared dead at the ceiling. His body ached like all hell, his breath was wavering with each inhale, and the only other sounds in his ears were the soft buzzing of the fan in the drywall above him and his mother down the hall, held up in her own room and not fairing any better, by the sound of it.

Izuku stood with a wince a minute later, bundled his torn shirt and jacket, and held himself back from tossing the pair into the hamper before limping them along to his bedroom. He ignored the small crack of light coming from his mother's bedroom door as he crept into his own room, tossing the jacket and shirt into the chair of his desk. With a sharp exhale he stumbled to his bed, and threw himself down on the mattress, rolling onto his non-bruised back and tried to rest.

Emphasis on tried, as his eyes found it impossible to shut with the poster tacked to the ceiling above him. It was an older poster of All-Might, fitted in his Silver Age uniform, drawn and posed in action, his signature look plastered on his face, his fist cocked back and clenched tight as he rushed towards Izuku, the faint blue glow of his iris shining from one eye, recognizing the boy in front of him, sobering his expression and tightening the lips of his smile, curling down the arcs at the edges of his lips, his fist turning and straightening at his side, knowing the boy in front of him wouldn't give up his dream without a fight, and if that was the case then why couldn't he give him one—

Izuku shot into the wall against his bed, throwing his limbs out to grab on and stabilize him. No punch ever came his way. All-Might never left the frame; never dipped his smile; never moved his fist. Ready he stood, posed to fight he stayed, strong his smile kept. He wasn't attacking. He wasn't there. Izuku moved to sit and look away, taking big breaths to even his chest and think about anything else but found All-Might's gaze boring down on him from every angle in his room. Every poster of his, every figurine Izuku could collect, every personal drawing the green teen made of the hero covered the rest of his room; a presence that overshadowed him and backed the rest of his collections of heroes. Of the other top ranking, good looking, recent and present heroes that caught his eye decorated the rest of his room, all weighing down on his shoulders with physical and mental stress, holding him in place as his friends decorated his shelves; as Iida lived to his family name; as Ojiro made a household name for himself teaching martial arts; as Mei headed the heroic's support industry; and as Katsuki rose to become the number one hero, smirking all the way as the rest of the world held the quirkless kid back from feeling that same sense of accomplishment because who were they to let a kid with nothing finally have anything—

A pillow flew into his desk, smashing across the shelves of hero and heroine figurines, sending the lot of them toppling onto the desk and floor below. Izuku but stared at the mess, easing his swung hand over the bruise he stretched in the process. He looked away again, away from the heroes he'd let down to the hero at the foot of his bed. Of the poster he loved to look at in the morning to motivate him into the next day. Of All-Might standing tall with his signature slogan lining the bottom of the poster. But the hero no longer stood high with might, nor bulky with power; but gaunt and thin and skeletal, filled with two visible blue eyes dim and a toothy frown stretching along his face, no longer telling Izuku he was here, but to Give up. Think realistically.

Izuku didn't want to think at all.

He jumped from his bed, walked over to his desk and around the fallen heroes scattered about the carpet, and swiped his torn and dirty clothes, shuffling into his uniform without such as a second thought of the holes or the smell. He bristled as they reconnected with his skin, but brushed it aside as he swiped his bat from beside his bed and rushed out of his room. He stopped a moment, noticing his mother's door wide open but the room dark, and his ears registered the clacking of metal and utensils down the other end of the hall. Light steps carried him down the hall, the bat twiddling and twisting between his hands.

Izuku peeked around the corner to find his mother at the kitchen counter, food floating after her hands and to the cutting board in front of her. She chopped away in silence, and he kept mute as he watched her cook, weighing the bat between his thoughts; weighing his thoughts between his ears. The bat ended grasped in his left hand, and stepped forward to make noise before he spoke. "Hey, I'm just…gonna go out…for a walk, yeah, ya know, get some fresh air."

His mother jolted when he spoke, despite her best efforts to brush the sudden actions afterwards. That included not turning around to face him when she talked. "O-Oh, okay. I was, just, starting to make dinner, though. It…should be ready in half an hour."

Izuku blinked and shifted weight from one foot to the other. "Oh, you are? But it—" He looked over to the clock over the door that read 4:13. "That's sounds great," he gulped out. "I'll, uh—I'll make sure to be home before then. I'll…keep my eye on the time."

"A-are you sure—"

"Yes." Izuku winced in the back of his throat as his intrusion made his mother jolt again. "I'll be back. I promise."

She still did not turn to look at him as she responded with an "Alright" and a slow nod of her head before she returned to cooking. Even with her 'approval,' Izuku didn't make for the door immediately. He stayed in place as he watched her cook, breathing silently as the bat came to rest between both his hands. The lack of any door opening must have been what turned his mother's head to the side, the action jolting Izuku into his own and pace walk to the door and swing it open. Once more he hesitated in his step, stopping his momentum completely as he swung the door open and held it by his side. His fingers drummed on the door and the hilt of his bat, and his grip settled on the bat over the door. He turned his head quick over his shoulder – not caring to see if his mother had even looked to him at last or not – and muttered out a quick, "I'm sorry," before he paced out the door and swung it shut behind him.

He huffed a breath as he sauntered down the street and wiped down his knuckles absentmindedly. The setting sun heated his back and warmed him as his mind wandered from his physical place. Another day, another hunt, he mused as his fingers ticked as he wrote without pen or paper. Another to add to the list. His ears tuned to the atmosphere around him; to the birds chirping and flapping past him and the houses; to the cars and the city limits far behind him echoing off the walls of the neighborhood he strolled through; to the clashing of metal on metal ringing out and shaking the leaves on the trees—

He paused in his step and honed his senses on the banging that rang through the air. He recognized the sound of a fight, and how to differ the sound of a hero from a working man; this was, with no debate, the work of the former. The clangs that echoed in the distance brought a smile to his face, one that tugged sharp at the corners of his lips. A fight taking place out in the open, and with what could only be such ferocity, meant without a doubt that a brawl between a hero and a villain was taking place. And that meant another hunt was on the horizon.

The stride towards the sounds of the fight offered him the time to roll his shoulders and stretch his muscles ready for combat. A few people passed him on his way, all heading opposite the loud noises that grew louder as he approached. He could feel his teeth bare wide in his smile, the energy in his veins roll his fingers into fist, his posture straighten and stiffen for the added effect of intimidation.

By the time he reached the source, however, all hope he had for another fight dwindled by the second. The sight of the beach before him was bleak to put lightly, the possible hot-spot of a tourist attraction fairly covered in trash with one large pile sitting in front of him, and little pieces of metal and rubble sprawled about the sand only adding to his distaste of the place. The sounds that had drawn him in continued to sound off from out of his sight, and he tip-toed around the large garbage pile to find the source of it all: the green haired kid with the baseball bat.

The kid was in the middle of some sort of training, throwing his body after each swing but working hard enough to keep himself from ever losing his balance. With some swings did he grunt and exhale loudly, and with others did he let out a shout of power. He noted the fridge close to the boy, who had decided to use it as his main target for his training, colliding his weapon of choice into the side of the appliance every now and again, but not with enough power to topple it over. It stayed standing, despite some obvious signs of blunt force making contact with its sides.

The kid was putting in quite the work to his training, he noted, but it seemed he upped his game in that department. His attacks were more vicious, his steps more like stomps, his teeth barred in a growl and a grimace. The kid was almost nothing like he was a month ago, training at the beach as though trying to emulate the elegance of a dancer. Wouldn't do him much good in a fight. But now…now he seemed hyper-prepared to take on anyone who stood in front of him.

He vaulted over the railing and landed on the sand below with ease, and the boy didn't seem to notice him as he continued to train on. It wasn't until he called out to him with a, "Hey brat," did the young teen nearly trip in his step and take notice of him. "Can't say I was expecting to run into you here again."

The teen lowered his guard and allowed the bat to hang freely by his side, though he winced and pressed his arm close to his body. "H-Hey Hunter. I…I can't say I was either. What are-uh-why are you out this late?"

"Late?" He looked back over his shoulder to the sun still fairly about the city skyline. "It's barely even in the evening, kid. I'm pretty sure most everyone else who isn't old and rotting is still up and about."

"Oh." The kid looked genuinely surprised to hear that and blinked several times as he looked down at the ground between them. "Right. I-I keep forgetting it's still not that late. Sorry, I'm…kinda just outta it right now."

Hunter rose an eyebrow in his own surprise, swaying in his steps as he approached the green teen. "The kid who takes notes on his notes, and who I've seen write with air when taking more notes because his bag is too far away for him to reach after a fight? Something rare has to be going on for that head of yours to be anywhere else but here."

The kid blushed and coughed into his shoulder. He wiped his mouth and his blush on the sleeve of his jacket – Hunter took note of the whole singed into the side of it. "It…It's been a long day." The boy's tone shifted with his weight, and with the turn of his head to look out towards the sea. "I'm just trying not to think about it."

Hunter gave the refrigerator a look over with crossed arms. "How well is that working for you?"

"It's not."

He spared another look down at the kid and took note of the glare he gave to the ocean's horizon. The younger teen didn't elaborate any more on the subject than that, and after several beats of silence did he return the gaze to the gold eyes upon him. He sighed as he rolled his shoulders and unwrapped his arms, dropping his hands by his sides as he turned to face his body towards the shorter teen. The kid was something else this time around, just as closed off verbally as the first day they met but even more so physically unlike every other meeting. Something had to be done, and he had just the plan.

"How about you fight me then?" Hunter offered the teen, earing himself a more calmed look of surprise from the shorter boy. "A little…match usually helps clear my mind. What'cha say?"

Izuku swayed where he stood, both gaze and body uneasy. "I've already been in one today," he replied weakly. "Can't say I'm keen on getting into another."

"Oh-ho? You already got into a fight by yourself?" Hunter gave a swat to the boy's shoulder, nearly toppling the younger teen. "I saw your fight on the news, or at least what they would let me see. I can't say I was expecting you to go out and be a hero again so soon."

To Hunter's surprise, the green teen scoffed a chuckle and hobbled distance between them. "Yeah, no. 'S not one of those fights." When he was a good few feet away from the taller boy, Izuku straightened his back and dug his heels into the sand and rose his bat into both his hands, wincing until he settled into the stance. "Wasn't heroic at all." Without another word, the kid went back into his training, stomping the balls of his shoes into the sand, throwing his bat in rough swings only broken up by a few blocks and jabs, and grunting each time with little as much as a loud huff to break his streak.

Hunter hummed to himself, eyes following the kid's movements; the sweeping of his feet from stance to stance; the swinging of his arms that then would lock and chamber for the next; the speed of his bat and himself overall as he went on, each chamber lessening in length, and the bat blurring into a grey smudge as it flew around his body. The kid was aggressive, but his actions were still clean and sharp enough. Vicious, even. Struck a chord. "Someone else fight you, then?" A deeper growl was all he got in response, with another swing making contact with the fridge and denting it enough to force the doors open.

Hunter's fingers drummed on the side of his leg. The game he found was different from the one he was expecting to find, but it was one he still knew how to play. If he couldn't hunt down someone, then he could hunt for something, especially if it was what he thought it was. "I'm guessing it was one of those other brats you know?" Another grunt, another powerful swing that cut through the sand and send a cloud of it towards the shoreline. Check. He could see Izuku mutter something to himself, but it wasn't something he could pick up. Not yet. "And I'm guessing they weren't too keen seeing you, the kid they belittle, make his 'heroic debut' the headline of the news?" Izuku swung his bat down in front of him, parting the sand where his bat would have hit slightly, just from the swing alone. Check. Hunter let some time pass without another question, waiting for the younger teen to build himself back into his training from the pause he took with his downward strike. The boy's breathing picked up again, his grunts and seethes turning into growls and huffs. Then he spoke again. "And…I'm guessing, for trying to steal the limelight, they wanted to paint you as the villain?"

Hunter had to sidestep as the fridge barreled his way, crashing along the sand and tumbling to a stop several yards from him. The ringing in his ears eased by the second, but the sensation in his chest burned brighter in its place. Slowly, his head turned back around, rolling his eyes along the path the fridge took until they landed on the boy posed where it last stood. Izuku stood hunched over, his breath rigid and his shoulders slouched when they didn't rise with his deep breaths. The rabid nature of his throat had reached his eyes, both glaring in the taller boy's direction and even landing on him. A dead silence stood between them, one that drew longer than it probably was until Izuku struggled himself upright and swiped his sleeve across his jaw again.

"No, he didn't think I should be a villain…he doesn't think I can become anything…" In opposite of his words, Izuku let out a flat laugh. "Suchīrubōn probably still thinks I can become a villain. Least he actually thinks I can become something at all." His laugh was followed by airless chuckles as he stumbled about on both feet. "Probably the first person at school who thinks anything about my future. God, what a fucking asshole."

He continued to mutter other insults as his breath paced out even, but Hunter tuned him out over time. His eyes continued to dart between the boy, the fridge and the dents he made in it and the sand. The kid – the quirkless kid – had nearly clotheslined him with a fridge. He sent something a foot taller than him flying over a dozen or two yards with his own strength alone. His lips curled into a hungry grin and his body lowered to the ground, his feet digging into the sand and his fingers flexing away from one another.

"Oi, kid." The call to Izuku turned his attention back over, and Hunter watched as the smile on his face dropped when he took notice of the taller boy's pose. "Let's fight."

Hunter launched himself forward, drawing a hand back into a knife hand and jabbing towards the kid's head. Instead of making contact with flesh, however, his fingers connected with the bat Izuku rose up at the last second, sending the younger teen's body leaning back with shock, both in his arms and on his face. Hunter landed quickly as the younger boy stumbled back, and Izuku acted quickly to swing his bat out to block another swing at his face, only for another jab to dig into his stomach and send him back again.

But Hunter didn't stop there, sending a flurry of other punches and strikes at the boy, and for each one Izuku was able to block, another two made contact with his body. His sides seemed the most vulnerable, given every hit he took to either had him seething harder than any his chest and stomach took, so Hunter kept the pressure there most so. And in return, the kid would block and try to dodge the attacks, not go on the offensive.

With a grunt, Hunter was able to shoot both his arms at Izuku, one grabbing his shoulder and the other his side, and before the younger teen could react to knock him off Hunter spun his arms and flipped the kid. He spun once in the air before he collapsed on his back, gasping for air as it shot out his lungs. Hunter just bore down on him with disappointment. "You were more aggressive with the villains on the news than this. Heroes do have to fight, you know."

"I-I know that," Izuku gasped as he shuffled onto his elbows, only to force himself out of the way of a strike that sunk into the sand. "H-Hunter, wait—"

"Is this how you were fighting your bully earlier? Running away and letting him hit you?" The taller boy yanked his hand out the ground, flexing his fingers and turning to face Izuku. "The kid's just another prick; some other dumb kid who could probably do having sense physically beaten into him. Did you even hitting him back?"

"Y-yes, I did." Despite stumbling on his feet, the green teen had hardened his face. His body faltered where his expression challenged. "He-He hit me, so I hit him back. But I-I can't just—"

"Hurt him? Yeah you can. Watch." Hunter lunged at Izuku again with the jab of his fingers, only for the boy to parry his strike and slide out of the way. Hunter's hands followed, jabbing and swinging out to strike, but Izuku moved fast enough to respond and shove his hands out of the way until they got close to one another and he tried jabbing the butt of his bat into the taller boy's side. And he did make contact; with Hunter's hand, that is. The silver haired teen threw the boy off his balance with a shove in the right direction and let his elbow make contact across Izuku's face and send him down again.

"You can't half ass it against real villains," Hunter spoke down on Izuku as he struggled to push himself up. Hunter walked past his body and down the beach. "Against criminals like those, you barely made it out alive. You have to fight your fullest against real villains, against the people who stand in your way and try to tear you down. If not, then I guess you really are a quirkless kid with no strength and no promise to be anyone at all. You're probably better off giving up now before someone really tries to kill you." The verbal jab was a low blow, but if all went according to plan then they were the perfect words to say. Without looking over his shoulder could he hear the younger teen breathe heavy and shove himself off the sand. Hunter's smile merged back into a twisted grin, and he spun back around ready for the kid to fight—

It was the split second his vision was covered by nothing but grey that had him lean back almost parallel to the ground, just to dodge the boy's swing of his bat. Almost as quickly did Izuku push again, swinging his bat back around, and Hunter leaped just in time to dodge it. He twisted his body in the air and connected a hook kick across the younger boy's cheek, but said boy only followed the strike and spun around to deliver another swing that missed the taller boy and kicked up an explosion of dust between them. Full sight of the boy was lost in the cloud but his rough outline was still clear enough to make out. And out of the cloud did the kid dash, bellowing out his lungs as he threw his body into another swing.

Hunter kept himself on the defensive, sidestepping and dodging the boy's strikes that sped by the second. Between each strike was he fast enough to respond with another quick jab or two, but the boy just pushed past the hits and kept swinging. When the boy finally took a longer pause in his swing, Hunter leaped back with a flip, dodging by a hair another strike that blew a plume of sand towards the sea, while he landed atop the fallen and battered fridge. The setting sun to their side accented the younger boy's emerald eyes with a dim shine before he shot forward, throwing the bat over his head to strike. Waiting again for the strike to close in, Hunter leaped right past it, vaulting over the boy and his bat and looked back in his flip just in time to catch sight of the sand that shot in the sky back where he was.

He rolled across the sand and stopped in a low crouched stance, watching as the sand settled back down from being a dozen feet in the air. Slowly did the boy's figure become clearer to see where he last was, and more directly in his last spot was the fridge, now bent down the middle and folded into a V-shaped mess of broken metal. The green hair kid yanked his bat from where it was stuck against the destroyed appliance and turned slowly on his heels until he found the taller teen waiting for him.

Hunter let out a laugh that matched his crazed smile, one that stuttered Izuku from following up with another attack. The taller teen threw his arms out to the side as his gesture. "Just like that kid! That's some strength you got on you! You're a quirkless kid, and look at where you are now! Put that into a fight and you'll kick their ass! Prove to them you're not the weakling they think you are and bash their heads down for them to remember!"

Then Izuku dropped into the sand.

God, he was tired.

He wasn't unconscious; he hadn't passed out. But hell, lying on the sand felt better than standing back up. Maybe he could just spend a night at the beach. Yeah, that sounded nice. It was a long day, and taking a nap with the sun on his back sounded really relaxing. That sounded really nice.

When a black shoe entered his line of sight, Izuku groaned and did his best to follow up the leg connected, rubbing his face against the sand until his neck had turned enough to see the beady golden eyes of the taller teen staring down at him. Izuku was tempted to push himself up, to take another swing at the guy who had so aggressively challenged him to a fight and spewed insults he knew so well, but Hunter acted first, backing away slowly towards the shore before plopping down to sit in the sand several feet away from him. The distance between them didn't settle Izuku's stomach any, recalling the times he'd just had launching himself across long spaces, so he still tried all the same to push himself up.

He succeed in rolling himself over.

A more-than-likely insulting chuckle came from the man seated away from him, and Izuku glared out of the corner of his eye at the man. "You still have some fight in you, kid. Guess my assumptions about you were true."

"Fuck you," Izuku muttered towards him.

Hunter only shrugged in response. "Seeing you fight on the news got me excited. You took out a few villains by yourself, that chick with you barely stepping in at all. I wasn't aware you were holding out on me so much when I was sparing with you last month."

Izuku spat sand and saliva to his side. "Last month…I thought you were…helping to improve my self-defense."

"Yeah, well, if you told me you were that strong with the bat, I would have actually sparred with you." The tall guy pointed to the metal object in Izuku's hand. "Had I put my guard down you could have actually hit me with that thing. If you fought like that more, you could easily deck those little shits from your school and get them off your ass—"

"No." Izuku had no qualms interrupting Hunter, and the silver-haired man seemed shocked by his sudden statement.

"No? Kid," – Hunter jumped back up to his feet and stalked back over to Izuku – "are you really going to let those other brats just keep pushing you around? It's been what, three months since I saw them deck you across the face, and you really aren't going to fight them back? I thought you were in training to be a hero."

"I am training to be a hero," Izuku growled as he pushed his elbows into the ground to start pushing himself up.

"The last hero I came across wasn't someone who let others push him around," the taller man snapped at him. "A villain got in his way, and he'd at least try to fight them and bring them down."

"They aren't villains."

"They might as well be. Pathetic bottom-of-the-barrel villains." Hunter's insults to the boys he had met, and probably to Katsuki too if he even knew about him, only made Izuku scoff as he was able to sit himself up. The tall man beside him had leaned down his face probably a foot away from the green teen. "But since you don't see them that way, you're not going to fight them?"

"No." Izuku moved the bat in his hand to press down into the sand and let him lean against it for support. His legs still felt like jelly, so they weren't holding him up any time soon.

"So you're just going to let them keep beating you up?"

"No." Having to repeat himself was equally as tiring as the rest of his body felt, but with that said, it wasn't like he was able to walk away any more than he was able to crawl.

Hunter looked just as done with the back and forth, his fingers dancing in a nervous tick Izuku had noticed him doing before and during their little fight. It was a light way of stretching, but it was a signal enough that he was raring to go. The sneer on his face looked like a struggle to keep up, though, so Izuku wondered if Hunter was trying to hold himself back from punching the green-haired kid again. Izuku almost wished he would. "Look, kid, I'm trying to help you stand up to those shits—"

"By being like them?" Izuku snapped with his counter, jolting his body towards Hunter's before rocking back to how he sat. "Beating the shit out of people I don't like? Telling people to kill themselves and give up their dreams and to just fuck off? Having fun watching the people I hit bleed out on the ground?" He turned himself where he sat, struggling his legs over to better face the taller man. "I had the chance today to beat the shit out of Katsuki, with my bare-fucking-hands. I was ready to go at him and punch his teeth out of his goddamn mouth and enjoy it. I wanted that to happen. I wanted to beat him up and watch him bleed and cry because I was the one who did it to him." The sting in his voice died as he paused to breathe, though hiccups were breaking through his throat. "And if I had done that, I would have been exactly like him. I would have acted as he would, not any better. And-and thank you for trying to help me, but that just isn't it. I-I-I can't do that. Not like that."

"So you came here to scream and beat the shit out of some trash to let off some steam?" The bite to Hunter's tongue sounded gone. "Sounds like something I'd do, but on something different." His eyes darted to the sides for a second before piercing on Izuku again. "Not like being aggressive is completely frowned upon, though, so I guess you're making some ground work."

"Yeah, good shit it's doing me," Izuku responded with sarcasm. "All I've heard from my friends over the phone is how 'improper my attitude is,' and how 'scary I looked.' And all I've done is told them to shut up about it. I…god, I yelled at my mom's face for it. It-it wasn't even about her. What the fuck is wrong with me?" His head shook into his hand and his thumb pressed into his cheek to push out a sigh he was building up. Hunter had at least made some reason out of being quiet to that and standing up straight again as his eyes kept locked with Izuku's. It was harder to tell the taller man's expression through the water building in his eyes, but Izuku wiped those away before they could start breaking through and falling. He could hear Hunter hum to himself as he crouched down to be more evenly leveled with Izuku's head and better look him in the eyes, but the man's eyes darted away to the side. Izuku followed them, and stared with Hunter at the fridge bent and wedged into the sand.

"You almost hit me with that bat of yours," Hunter told him, gaze kept on the broken appliance. "Got a tough swing on ya, kid." Izuku blinked at the sight of the wreckage and then looked over to the bat under his hand. He'd done that? Huh, guess his training was doing something right. "I didn't mean what I said when I called you weak. Show that strength of yours to any hero school and they'll probably let you in automatically. I just needed something to get you to actually fight."

Izuku gulped, lowered his head, and all but breezed over his final comment. "Just because I hit hard doesn't mean my actions are anything they can let slide."

Hunter sighed and shook his head. "Kid, take one look at the heroes out there and you can see no one really gives a shit about how any of them act, so long as they save lives doing it." He rose back to stand up tall and looked down at the green teen. "You gotta problem with the way you do things? Fine, work it out somehow. Probably got somebody you can talk to about it other than me. I ain't exactly that good at this. But next time you stand your ground to prove a point, a shove back at the start would only help reinforce it." He waved a hand at the kid. "You think you can stand? I tried going easy on ya; didn't want to break any of your bones, just get ya heated enough to fight."

The boy in question shot Hunter a short look, somewhat off put by his choice of words. But he was trying something to help him. Izuku wondered if it was his first time trying to help something like this. He looked down at his legs as he bent them and push them and the bat into the ground to struggle lifting himself up. "Y-yeah, I think I can. Just…kinda tired. And, please, don't ever do that again." He meant both Hunter's actions and the argument he was trying to make, but hopefully the tall guy understood that. Izuku was also slow in getting the sentence out, so any snap and power to his words were minimal, but Hunter nodded nonetheless. He also had to catch Izuku when he nearly slipped back down again.

"Next time I kick your ass so you can get better, you can start the fight," he told Izuku as he helped him find his footing. "Least when you get home to show your new bruises, you can say you won the fight and I won't be there to prove you wrong."

Izuku nodded with a small scoff and the action alone almost took his whole breath away. "Don't expect it any time soon. And yeah, this probably won't fly when I get home. Mom's probably gonna…freak. Oh shit!" He nearly tripped over his own two feet in his panic, only he shot his bat back into the sand and had that prop himself up – and some thanks was to be given to the Hunter holding onto the back of his jacket – as he fished through his pocket and yanked out his phone. The unease in his stomach didn't settle as he scrolled past the missed call notifications and text messages left over by the same person. Least now he was trudging forward on adrenaline alone, stumbling into a fast walking speed even up the stairs with little as a goodbye wave to Hunter, who stayed back on the beach and waved once.

"Fuck. Fuck. Fuck." Izuku became a broken record as he hobbled down the road and punched the buttons on his phone to call his mother. The bat rose in front of him, blocking out the light of the sun in front of him. He put it up to his ear as it rang and waited for her to pick up. And she did. Loudly.

"IZUKU!" The named teen jolted at her shout, shooting the phone away from his ear and knocking it out of his hand. He fumbled a moment to catch it before yanking it back to his head.

"Mom! It's me! Hey!"

"I have been trying to call you for the past hour! Are you alright?! Where are you?!"

"I'm" – Izuku read the street sign as he sped across the road and groaned in his throat – "uh, kinda far."

"You fa…d-define far."

"I'm, uh, leaving the Takoba Municipal Beach Park right now."

"Tako—Izuku, that's a whole two kilometers from home! You said you'd be gone for thirty minutes; that would have been your whole walk!"

He winced out the corner of his mouth. "Yeah, well I kinda sorta maybe ran most of the way over, so it felt shorter, really, and I might have lost track of time trying to train and clear my mind, and I wasn't really paying attention to my phone so I didn't see any of your messages until just now – I'm really sorry about that – but I'm heading over to the rails right now so I'll be home in a couple of minutes, I promise. I'm sorry I've been out for so long and missed dinner and didn't respond to you sooner or pay attention to my phone—"

"No, Izuku, I" – the sigh she let out sounded static through the microphone – "what street are you on? I'll come and pick you up myself."

"What? No! Mom, you don't have to do that. I'll be fine taking the subway home—"

"Izuku, you don't sound like you can keep walking," his mother countered, and slowed Izuku in his rush down the road. Was he breathing that hard? "Just stay where you are and I'll come and get you."

"Mom, really, you don't have to do that—"

"But I will, and that's final." The sharp statement stopped Izuku at the next crosswalk. "Just tell me where you are and I'll be there as soon as I can. Okay?"

Izuku leaned against the street sign, rolling his eyes to the city limits and the closest railway stop he could get to. Still well out of reach. He sighed and leaned his head back. "Fine. I'll wait right here." He blinked up at the signs above him. "I'm at the corner of Jedaih and Veers. I'll stay where I am."

"Alright," his mother responded over the sound of slams and clicks. "I'm heading to the car right now. I'll be there soon. Stay where I can see you. And be safe."

He slid down the pole, collapsed onto the sidewalk and let out a breath of fresh air. He felt warmer hearing that. "Alright. See you soon." His thumb hovered over the end button a second after, and found itself flicked away as he brought the phone against his ear again. "Love you."

A short repetition of beeps sounded from the other line before his mother responded warmly, "I love you too, Izuku," and she hung up from there.

Izuku smiled softly as the sun continued to set.

Izuku hissed at the bag of ice his mother pressed against his cheek, but he took it from her grasp and held onto it himself as she cleaned off the sink.

To say his mother had freaked finding her son in a worse condition from when he left would be about accurate, given she veered onto the sidewalk to park. With a quick explanation that it was just one of his friends he met on the beach who had given him that – a little "spar" that got out of hand, he called it – and not someone trying to mug him, he was able to ease his mother back into the car and drove home with her in near silence, par the thanks he gave and the apology he repeated from their call earlier. Her accepting his apology was but off-handed on the drive, but she proved caring enough by helping him out of his dirty uniform and into some new bandages to cover the small bruises Hunter had left on his torso and arms. How many he made and how many Izuku said he made were interchangeable.

"We'll get you checked out by the doctors tomorrow, but it will be after school, so I want you to stay out of any straining activities for the day, okay?" His mother looked at him through the mirror as she packed up the first aid. "I don't want you pulling on any of those and making them worse. Sit out of P.E. if they're making you do anything more than running, and sit out of that too if you feel like you aren't breathing properly."

Izuku sighed and scrunched up his nose as the hospital was mentioned, but he nodded when she finished. "Alright. I'll do my best." His words were somewhat jumbled by the ice over his lips but his mother seemed to understand his answer when she nodded. "Should I come home after classes or will you pick me up at school?"

"Home. I won't be off work until an hour after you're out, so I'll take you then." The mirror swung out with a wave of her hand, giving her an ample place to hide the kit. "Hopefully they'll have someone on the clock who can heal those right up. You've been resting enough over the break; you can't afford to lose more time training for Yuei."

He blinked at his mother, who in turn kept her eyes on the laundry and his torn school uniform. The furrow of her eyebrows were still clear in the reflective glass. "Y-yeah, I hope so too. That'd be nice." His fingers drummed mindlessly against his leg as he watched his mother sort through the dirty clothing, piling what was still salvageable into the washing machine opposite the sink. It was a better time than ever to get to it, Izuku thought. "Hey, mom, about what I said earlier, I'm sorry about that. I didn't mean to snap at you like that; I was—I was just angry and it's just been building up in me today for things and it-it was all meant for someone else, not you. I shouldn't have brought that out on you. You shouldn't have had to hear that."

His mother sighed. "I think I should have figured it out myself first," she responded, turning slowly to face her son. "I'm your mother. I should have known what was wrong before you did."

"I shouldn't have been hiding it from you all this time," he admitted back. "I should have just been honest with you from the start. Better than troubling you all the time with excuses."

"Izuku, I'm your mother. It's my job to be troubled and worried about you." She crouched down in front of him, easing a hand around his new bruise and pressing down on the skin around it. Izuku didn't hiss at that contact, and his mother looked content hearing only his breathing in response. "I should have pressed you about it sooner and got this conversation out of the way years ago. It…sounded like you've been holding in a lot."

Izuku's hands fumbled with each other in his lap. "We don't have to talk about it if you don't want."

"I do want to talk about it. Izuku" – she cupped the other side of his face and eased him to look down at her crouched form – "you're my son. I'll listen to everything you have to say, okay? Just because you didn't tell me then doesn't mean I'll turn down the chance to hear it now. And I really should have asked you to tell me then. I'm sorry I didn't try harder. So please, let's talk about it."

With his head kilted down, the room around him felt darker. The tile beneath his feet reflected the light ahead and illuminated his face and his mother's. The light was warm but her touch was warmer, and her apology ringing in his ears was the final reminder of the last.

It was better this time.

"Alright," Izuku nodded and sighed, easing his chin into his mother's hands. "Where should we start?"

"With Katsuki." His mother's first choice isn't exactly where he would have liked to go, but he sighed only to agree. "I called Mitsuki a little while after you went out for your…'walk,' and I know she's already questioned him about this, and she should be doing something about it already, but I want to hear about it from you. Why were you and Katsuki fighting?"

His thumbs rolled, one over the other, and blew out a plume of air as he nodded slowly. "He, uh—he wasn't happy with what happened at the mall. With what I did at the mall?"

His mother smiled, but Izuku saw no real humor behind it stretching her face. "I'm going to guess he wasn't talking about you being hurt and masking his worry well enough?"

"He explicitly told me he didn't care about that." Her smile became even more strained. "I mean, yeah, it was kinda about me putting my life on the line, but he thinks I'm more of a liability than someone who could actually do something out there. Honestly, I" – a cracked chuckle broke past his lips – "I don't really know what he was trying to get at. He just still doesn't think I can become a hero. He still thinks I'm worthless."

"Oh, Izuku." The green teen found himself pulled into a hug, one he didn't return but that he did lean into and accept. "You're not worthless, honey. That couldn't be further from the truth. You don't believe him, do you?"

Izuku felt his phone buzz in his pocket, and a finger itched against the fabric. "No…no. I don't. I promise. He—"

"Has he said something like that to you before?"

"Yeah, but I don't listen to what he says. None of it has really hurt me—"

"But that doesn't make it okay." She broke the hug but kept the contact, he hands cupping either side of his head yet again to keep him looking at her. "Izuku, you can tell me anything and everything. You don't have to shy around it anymore. You are not in trouble, and what Katsuki and any other bully told you is not your fault, okay? Tell me and I promise you I will listen and do what I can to help you with whatever is troubling you still. Okay?"

His breath hitched to keep his composure between her hands, fighting against the struggle to break down. To be honest about everything he had been told by his classmates and his peers, that which became more and more abundant as his dreams continued to shine through near every day? And his mother wouldn't get mad at him? "So-so you're not mad at me for-for not telling you any of this sooner?"

"For that? Yes, I am," she told him honestly, though followed it with a heave of a sigh. "But I know I can't be. You wouldn't tell me what was going on, and I was too oblivious to try and push any further about it. I shut down your dream so soon and almost shut you out completely. Of course you weren't going to tell me any of that—"

"But mom, that's on me!" Izuku shot to his feet, breaking apart the hold his mother had on him and replacing it with his own hands easing around her shoulders. She was thinking of that day too? "I shouldn't have been so cold to you after that. I was four; you were just worried about me getting hurt and I should have realized that sooner than I did and I should have been honest with you about…all of that stuff. And I will be. I promise." He licked his lips and caught his breath as he paused, and flinched as he continued. "Can I…can I ask you to be honest about something with me, first?" His mother tilted her head back to look up at him, a small amount of surprise gracing her features, and she nodded wordlessly for him to ask. "After…everything that's happened, after everything you've seen me do" – his knuckles ached at the thought of his fight outside their home earlier in the day – "do you think I can be a hero?"

The surprise on her face broke away into one of silent worry as she kept her face on his and darted her eyes between both of his. Whatever she was looking for, she didn't find, as her body and expression eased away the fear and fell into something more somber. "A-after watching you on the news, rushing past people and heroes to save Katsuki all those months ago, and-and then seeing you come home with a baseball bat in your hands and one of the biggest smiles I've ever seen on your face, I thought the adrenaline was getting to you. That your mind wasn't taking into account the danger you would be putting yourself in, and that you would be rushing in to fight villains without thinking." She struggled to get through her words, her head having lowered as she went on, and all Izuku could do was hold in his breath as he waited for the moment of truth. "But then you asked to learn self-defense, not how to throw a punch. And you asked for the time and a wagon so you could go and clean up that beach on your free time, not go out hunting down bounties of villains when you still had school and other things to do. You weren't being aggressive and you weren't looking for a fight, you were just looking to do something good, and I was so proud of you.

"And then…then I saw you on the news almost a week, now." With her words did her head shoot back up, her expression wider and her eyes shining wet under the light, and Izuku struggled more to keep him expression from doing the same. "I heard about what you did in the mall, what other people said you had done, standing up to those criminals and taking them down even when they weren't looking for a fight. And you chose to fight them, not because you wanted a fight but because you didn't want them to get away with their actions – you told me that. And I saw you throw yourself to save a child's life, and you did, and you escaped and you got hurt and you were rushed to the hospital and I-I was so worried about you, but here you are; still standing up to someone acting out of line and telling them off for the bad things they say and do, even if not always with your words." Her fingers grazed over the bruise on his side, the one that ached with his muscles at the memory, but with them died down in pain as his mother continued to spill out her words to him.

And she smiled a smile that wavered with her tears.

"And I watched the video of you carrying that little girl in your arms to safety…I wouldn't be surprised if it gets as many views that All-Might video you love so much has, and I'd be a fool to look at you now and not see you as anything but a hero."

And in return did Izuku smile the same smile and break into tears with her as they clashed into a hug. Izuku sobbed and laughed into his mother's hair, a soft echo of her voice from a memory long ago fading out and dying, leaving in its place the space for the moment now to cement itself. She wasn't hugging him as tightly as he was her, but the soothing rubbing of her hands on his back was more than enough contact and comfort in return. "T-thank you," he choked out, keeping his arms locked around her. "Thank you."

"Anything for you, Izuku," she responded softly, her own voice cracking slightly as she spoke. "And…about what Katsuki had said…your father would be just as proud to see you now, too."

"I-I know, mom." Izuku sniffled and nodded as he moved his head down to her shoulder to continue the embrace. And quietly did the two fall into the silence and the comfort of one another's arms. "I know."

"I love you, Izuku."

"I love you too, mom."