Hey... So... Yeah. It's been forever since I updated this (and all) of my stories. I'm so sorry! I got a nice punch to my figurative balls and fell over pretty hard, but, I'm back! Thank you to everyone who returned despite the stupidly long wait.
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A Day In Your Life
Chapter 11
"Will you stop staring at me like that, already? I said I'm sorry…" Bakugo grunted rather pitifully, his head low with shame while he and Midoriya walked through the hospital. He received an even darker glare in response, however, the scowl making him want to hunch over and hide.
"I still can't believe you did something so stupid, Kacchan!" Midoriya finally hissed. "How could you go behind my back to talk to Eri like that? Didn't you realize there must have been a reason I never asked her to help me with my injuries?"
Bakugo shrugged noncommittally. In any normal situation, he would have noticed something so obvious immediately, but his rationality always took a hit when Midoriya was involved, especially with what was going on now.
"You make me so angry sometimes, Kacchan." Midoriya continued in a huff, though his tone wasn't as harsh as it had been. "Don't think that I'm going to let this go just because you and I are friends again."
Midoriya was indeed upset and frustrated about the whole situation, but he knew in the depths of his heart that Bakugo wouldn't have done something so reckless for just anyone—it really meant something that he was willing to go that far for him.
"Yeah, yeah…" Bakugo responded, hiding the relief he felt as best he could. "Whatever you say Deku. Just remember that right now I have your quirks so I can totally kick your ass."
He bumped his shoulder into Midoriya lightly as he spoke, taking comfort in being able to force a smile out of his friend despite the still present irritation. Given their destination, Bakugo knew it was even more important to lighten the mood between them since he had little doubt seeing Todoroki's broken body again would be difficult; the dual user hadn't gotten any better over the past week.
"K-Kacchan…" Midoriya called when they reached the end of the hall. "Will you… um…"
"I'm not leaving your side, nerd," Bakugo responded, easily able to read the discomfort on his friend's face. "I know you'll stay with me when we visit Eijiro next."
The blonde took a calming breath as he spoke, taking the risk and reaching out to slide his hand into Midoriya's comfortingly. He could hear Todoroki's voice ringing in his head as he moved, telling him that Midoriya was in love with someone already. Bakugo somewhat expected to have those calloused, burn-scar sprinkled fingers yanked from his grip. Love and affection were the only things that didn't naturally come easy for him, and he knew he'd deserve the loss if Midoriya really had fallen for someone who treated him well from the start, but…
To Bakugo's surprise, however, there was only a momentarily shocked tug before the grip was returned. He felt warmth rush through his veins from the contact, relaxing him even as he pushed the door to Todoroki's room open and led Midoriya in.
He kept his eyes on Midoriya's face, watching it turn scarlet before draining of all healthy glow. It somehow looked even more pitiful on his previously tan skin; he wasn't sure he'd ever seen such a sickly hue on his own face before.
Bakugo squeezed the clammy palm he held more tightly, determined to be Midoriya's rock now that Todoroki currently couldn't fulfill that role. "Hey…" he called, swallowing nervously to give himself time to think of the right words. "It's, uh… It's going to be okay…"
Bakugo wanted to wince from the pathetic attempt, but Midoriya seemed to appreciate the effort even if he didn't believe it.
"Thanks, Kacchan but… Fuyumi—Shoto's sister—called and told me that the doctors finished running their tests…" Midoriya explained quietly, staring solemnly at his best friends' comatose body as he went to pull over a visitor chair. The weight of the news was heavy on his broad shoulders, making him sink low as he sat. "It doesn't look good…"
The blonde had never been able to stand Todoroki, but he didn't truly hate the guy and he'd never wish this kind of suffering on any hero. The last time he was here, he'd been so focused on trying to talk some sense into Midoriya that he hadn't really taken a good look at his ex-classmate.
There were the usual cuts and bruises from a typical fight of course, but his more serious injuries were from the final lightning strike. Todoroki was laid out on his stomach, his back a mess of third-degree burns and mesh. He had broken several bones as well; when the lightning had struck his ice cocoon, it had caused an explosion that rained the thick blocks of ice down on top of them with incredible force.
Truth be told, it was astounding that Todoroki had survived at all given the extent of his trauma. On top of using his own body to cover Kirishima from the final attack, the dual user rushed into a rapidly collapsing building and dragged Kirishima out; Red Riot would have been crushed alive within minutes otherwise. Bakugo swore to himself that if he got the chance, he'd swallow all his pride to thank Todoroki and shake his hand for how determinedly he'd protected the redhead.
"Tsk… Icy-Hot isn't some pushover, Deku." He offered, giving Midoriya's shoulder a comforting squeeze.
Midoriya couldn't help but chuckle through the tearful sadness choking his throat; he'd never have expected Bakugo to admit something like that. "Yeah, I guess that's true…" he sniffled, turning to run his eyes over his old body; he could see Bakugo was doing his best to make him feel better. "Have you heard anything more about Kirishima?"
"Yeah," Bakugo responded, his optimism sinking no matter how hard he tried to keep it from doing so. "Ei's mom told me about the same thing Fuyumi told you. Those bastard villains really did a number on them."
As it stood, neither Kirishima nor Todoroki was expected to wake up, and even if by some miracle they did, they'd never do hero work again. Bakugo couldn't help but wonder what they must have been thinking in their last moments of true consciousness. He'd had experience as a captive, but he'd never been literal moments from death, knowing that he wasn't going to make it.
"Kacchan…" Midoriya spoke after a time. "Once we're switched back… or if we do, I guess… I need you to promise me you won't let this happen again. Please, you've got to take my quirks and—"
"That's enough, Deku." Bakugo interrupted, knowing exactly where this was going. "I'm not going to stop looking for a way to fix this bullshit situation or your body and once I do, you're going to be the Number 2 hero."
Midoriya frowned slightly, turning to Bakugo in confusion. "Number 2?" he thought, soon realizing Bakugo was challenging him. A large, almost overwhelming part of him wanted to keep collapsing beneath his suffocating depression, but the one defiant glimmer that had always kept him moving was still there. He let a small smile grace his lips as he shook his head, deciding not to answer just yet.
Bakugo took the reaction to his friendly taunt as a good sign though. Midoriya wasn't accepting the challenge just yet, but he wasn't outright refusing to return to heroism anymore either.
Swap listened to the conversations going on around her, everyone watching the television as yet another broadcast alerted citizens to the rising crime rates. Though there were quite a few dangerous criminals in prison with her, the vast majority of them weren't violent offenders.
"Wow… With the new rules on how they rank heroes, Deku was just now able to get into the Top 10 but look at how much of a difference he was actually making. If he'd been a pro before the reforms, he'd have been Number 1 by now, no question."
"Yeah, Ground Zero too; he'd have to compete with Duality, but they'd be neck and neck for 2nd place. He's got a different style than Deku, but I always made sure to pull my schemes in different cities than the one he was in—wouldn't want to get caught by that hot head, am I right?"
"Speaking of Duality and how much of a difference he'd been making, did you hear the news about him and Red Riot? Those poor kids… Rumor has it they aren't going to wake up at all."
"Such a shame that some of the good ones were taken out like that. It's not like I have a soft spot for heroes or anything since they're the ones that put me in here, but they were so young, you know? They weren't like those old bags that only put on a show for fame and fortune…I think they really did care."
Swap shifted in her chair slightly, uncomfortable with what she was hearing. She still received a lot of support for her hand in Deku/Ground Zero's current predicament, but many of the people in prison weren't bad at heart—a lot of them had just made mistakes.
Then there was that meeting she'd had with Bakugo a few days earlier. The poor kid was devastated by his previous behavior and attitude; he wasn't the same prideful jerk that had been so threatening during her arrest.
Even if she ignored Bakugo's personal growth, however, Swap was well aware that Deku didn't deserve the trouble she'd caused him. Her sentencing was still ongoing though… If she gave in now, it wouldn't help her any.
As far as she could tell, Deku being a few more bad fights away from permanent retirement was a well-kept secret. If she held out just a little while longer, she'd be offered a deal to swap them back since no one knew how close he was to being useless as a hero anyway.
That was wrong though, wasn't it? Even if his body was deteriorating quickly, he could still do a lot of good until it gave out completely— switching them back could save a bunch of people even if it was only going to be a temporary fix. She could help save people.
"Guard!" she shouted, an unknown force driving her out of her chair. "I need to set up a meeting, please. Immediately."
"We've run the simulations and it isn't looking viable. Emotional reactions are too unpredictable to be quantified reliably and the odds are already stacked against success." Aizawa reiterated for the umpteenth time; it really seemed like no one listened to him at all.
"Low, but not zero…" Recovery Girl hummed optimistically.
Aizawa cringed at the absurdity. Even without adding in how much Eri cared for Midoriya, the probability of a mistake was over ninety percent—well above an acceptable room for error.
"Why don't we go over SOME of the downsides again since it seems like I'm the only one who wants to admit they're there," Aizawa growled lowly. "Eri could heal Midoriya's wounds while simultaneously reversing his training to before he could control his quirks which would just restart his cycle of injuries. Eri could accidentally only reverse his training without healing any of his wounds. Maybe she even rewinds him straight out of existence and kills him—And all of these unwanted scenarios along with multiple others are far more likely than what we want to happen."
"We are well aware of the risk for complications, Eraserhead." Nezu hummed while reading through the data they'd compiled. "We'd be asking a child with minimal training to use her quirk on damaged cells individually, reverting each one back to the most recent state of health possible without undoing Midoriya's efforts."
"So why are we even still considering this?" the scruffy Pro barked, finally losing patience with this ridiculous idea. "The world has seen heroes come and go before; if Deku has to retire then it will be difficult but we will survive just as we always have. A new generation always comes to relieve the old. We don't need to risk Eri's emotional and possibly physical health on a bet that we all know isn't favorable."
The communal sigh in the room was impactful and even Aizawa had to admit he would do almost anything to prevent another whirlwind of evil getting stirred up because the world lost four of its top heroes in a matter of months. Had it just been Bakugo and Midoriya, it would have been bad but not nearly as much as with Todoroki and Kirishima out of commission too. Still, Eri was his responsibility, and as selfish as it was when comparing one life to that of thousands, he wouldn't willingly let her be hurt no matter the cost.
"As Eri's guardian, I won't allow her to attempt something of this magnitude without preparation—something we currently can't do to this extreme." He finally asserted, believing that to be the end of the conversation.
Nezu, however, hummed in thought, moving to look out at the UA campus. "There is another alternative we've yet to consider."
Aizawa and Recovery Girl both looked up from their respective thoughts, confusion rampant on their faces. Whatever it was Nezu wanted to propose couldn't be entirely safe as Aizawa had already made abundantly clear, and the rat understood that judging by his expression.
"We'd need permission of course, but it's my understanding that without some minor miracle, young Todoroki and young Kirishima don't have much hope of surviving their injuries." He explained tentatively.
Aizawa's mouth couldn't have dropped farther from the suggestion. Have Eri train on those two?
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Again, so very sorry! Thank you for reading!