I wrote this as a throwaway idea in a Discord server like five years ago but AO3 is still in a medically-induced coma so I'm digging it out of storage and sending it as a care package. A Tumblr exclusive, if you will.
Bakugou Katsuki & Midoriya Izuku friendship (guess it could be slash if you squint hard enough)
Tags: MHA, 4th wall breaking, whump, crack treated seriously, temporary character death, non-graphic violence, mentions of blood
~~~
The clatter of a body hitting the pavement rang over the pattering of rain.
For a single moment, Midoriya stopped struggling, the weight pressing against his back forcing him down without resistance. His hands trembled in the bitter cold, soaked to the bone and breath coming out in short, pained puffs. The frigid air burned his lungs, and blood mixed with the rainwater pooling in the streets.
The impact echoed through the barren cityscape, and Midoriya found himself frozen, a chill running down his spine that had nothing to do with the cold. Despite the icy droplets of water falling from his hair and cascading down his face, he craned his neck to face the road ahead.
In front of him, Kacchan lay motionless, blood mingling with rain and swirling down the drains along the sidewalk. Murky red matted his hair, and from here, it almost seemed as if Midoriya could see every cut and bruise along his exposed skin.
Something in the air changed, goosebumps running along Midoriya's arms as the wind picked up, almost like a gentle whirlwind carding through his wet hair. Her figure was barely a silhouette, slowly sinking from the sky and to the broken asphalt with the grace of a ballet dancer. Her very presence exuded something otherworldly, like an eldritch being.
And she were hovering over Kacchan. She stood over Kacchan's prone form with an aura of malice.
Midoriya screamed.
His arms were black and purple, shattered and weak and pushed to the brink of oblivion, but he struggled anyway. He shoved at the rubble holding his battered body down, fighting fatigue with the same ferocity as he once did Overhaul or Shigaraki, and his fingers bled as they scraped against the cracked pavement. She turned to watch, soulless eyes staring in fascination.
With a warcry, Midoriya broke free, stumbling forward and nearly falling flat on his face before charging blindly at the villain, at her. She barely stepped back to avoid his sloppy kick, and with nothing but a flick, the freckled teen was sent careening down the street, every scrape with the ground shredding his costume and raking skin off of his bones. The plumb of dust that rose from the trail he left behind did nothing for his battered lungs.
“Eager as always.” she said, and Midoriya couldn't tell if they sounded exasperated or amused. “But you should know better than to charge into battle so blindly. I know you do.”
Her figure was clear in the distance, still standing over the still ash blonde, and Midoriya felt his heart stutter. With shaky, fractured legs, he stumbled his way to his feet and moved forward, tripping over every crack and pebble on the way. Buildings had been leveled around them, glass and rebar scattered across the street. Concrete and overturned cars littered the landscape, all coated with a consistent sheen of blood.
She stepped back as Midoriya approached, collapsing to his knees next to his childhood friend. Staring at his peaceful face, dusted with crusty red mixed with dirt and scratches with skin could be seen, he felt like he didn't even need to check if he was even alive.
He felt numb.
With a sob, he rolled Kacchan onto his back, gently brushing the bangs from his face. The lack of creases in his face still tore a hole in his heart, tears mixing with the rain and washing his face of dust.
A part of him was glad that it still hurt every time. He just wished it would have been him for once.
With a heave, Midoriya stood, his eyes glassy as he faced her with the coldest stare he could muster. His hands shook, lungs heaving with familiar grief, but he didn't dare waver, stepping forward with razor focus and murderous intent.
“You're both so tenacious.” she said. “I've always admired that about you.”
“If you admire us so much,” Midoriya snarled, the blood running down his face making his glare almost feral. “Then why?!”
He swung wildly. She easily dodged, casually ducking her head to the side as a pressure wave destroyed the empty city behind her.
“Why are you doing this?!” he cried, his voice cracking in desperation. She practically danced around his St. Louis Smash. “All we want is for this cycle to end! So Why?!”
Another strike hit nothing but air.
“Why?!”
She smiled.
“WHY?!”
Midoriya tipped forward in exhaustion, only for his fall to be stopped by her finger against his forehead. Her touch was gentle, but to Midoriya, it felt like molten rock was cooking him from the inside out. Frustration blurred his thoughts with a feeling of helplessness that he hadn't truly known since he'd been a quirkless middle school student facing down a villain made of sludge.
It burned.
“The cycle won't stop,” She said. “Until I decide it does.”
Midoriya clenched his teeth so hard that he was sure he cracked them. “Not if I have something to say about it-!”
It happened so fast that he almost didn't even realize it.
A blinding hot pain shot through his head, fire passing through his skull and out the back, and Midoriya only had a second to realize that he was dying before everything went dark.
There was silence, an inky blackness where shadows danced and the abyss laughed at him. There was nothing and everything all at once, a weightlessness and a pressure so constricting that he thought he might burst.
He was everywhere and nowhere.
Sweltering and freezing.
Right side up and upside down and every which way in between.
He was here, but he was there, and then he was nowhere.
And then he was back.
It was yesterday again, out in the bustling city of Musutafu. The sky was cloudless, a vibrant blue that only made the hero-in-training sick to his stomach. Off to his left, he could see his classmates window shopping, laughing about silly inside jokes and memes they found online. They were happy, full of life, here, and Midoriya couldn't help the coldness that washed over him.
Among them, Kacchan was glaring at him, almost right through him, and with a nod of his head, Midoriya knew where he was actually looking.
Fighting down the sense of resignation he'd been swallowing down for so long now, he looked to his right.
And there she was, staring back at him with the same admiration that Midoriya once saw in the mirror whenever he spoke of All Might.
“Overcome me.” she said, the same thing she said every time a new cycle started, and Midoriya's heart broke all over again.
Because what always followed was pain. He and his loved ones, maimed, taken, killed, every gruesome end that one could ever think of.
And Kacchan had taken so much of it. She, no, this thing, seemed to fixate on him, and Midoriya was coming to his wit's end, because there was only so much agony that one person's heart could possibly take.
Overcome me.
“Why?” he whispered, every ounce of pain and sorrow sinking into his voice, morphing into a sound of pure, unadulterated anguish. She seemed to pause at the sound, looking over the teen for the first time. A human, rather than some kind of specimen or experiment.
And then, a manic grin, one of elation and sadism. Not an ounce of remorse to be seen within soulless eyes.
“Because it brings joy,” I said. “Far beyond your own comprehension.”
