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Sometimes Deku thinks about being a villain. He thinks about crushing his friends, his teachers, his mentor, under his heel like a budding dandelion. He feels guilty, when he weighs the pros and cons.
And don’t be worried he’d never actually do it.
He’s just… thinking, is all.
Sometimes Deku has nightmares. Gorey, disgusting, angry things that rip him from the inside out. He dreams of seeing his friends die, and he also dreams of killing them. He dreams of cutting off Uraraka’s fingers and slitting Kaachan’s wrists, he dreams of freezing Todoroki in his own ice, stalling Iida’s engines. He feels like the nightmares have to mean something, when they really don’t, but the longing.
The longing? That’s what he should be worried about.
It’s 6am on a Saturday, he’s getting ready for his morning run as the sun slowly rises. The dorms are quiet, Iida left at about 5:30 and Aizawa doesn’t get up till at least 8.
If he leaves now he can avoid running into Iida and make up some excuse for not returning to the dorms. He’s tired. He’s sure the run would lift his spirits, but it’s just making it out the door that’s hard.
Deku sits next to the door, the wall is cold on his back. The pressure of his tailbone against the harshness of the baseboard seems to fade in and out. He blinks. Aizawa is standing in front of him, Iida slightly further back. What was he doing again?
“Midoriya.” Aizawa’s hand is rubbing feeling into his fingers. It makes his hands ache.
“G-Good morning Sensei.”
“Why are you… sleeping, next to the front door?”
“I’m not.”
Aizawa raises an eyebrow, the slow massaging of his finger tips halts. Please don’t pull away. He pulls his hand away to rub a hand through his unbrushed hair. He relaxes out of his low squat to sit on the floor, he releases a heavy sigh, it sounds like the weight of the world.
Midoriya cringes, he feels the weight too.
“Iida, go finish getting ready for the day.”
“B-But sir what about-”
“Go.”
“Of course, Sensei.” Iida hesitates, “I will see you later, Midoriya.”
Midoriya just nods.
“I’m going to repeat my question. Why are you sleeping next to the front door?”
“I-I’m sorry, it was an a-accident.”
“That doesn’t answer my question.” Aizawa reaches out to grab his other hand. Midoriya tracks the movement, he doesn’t pull away.
His mind travels back to an earlier topic. What if he was a villain, would he have to fight Aizawa-sensei? The thought makes his eyes mist, he doesn’t want to see his teacher hurt again. He doesn’t want his teachers' injuries to be because of him again.
“Problem Child?”
Deku’s eyes flick up to Aizawa’s, but they don’t quite meet.
Would he still have One For All? He doesn’t think it’d be so weird to be quirkless again, it feels almost pleasant when his teacher erases his quirk in class. The soothing emptiness that comes when it disappears, the weight of Hero School and the League of Villains leaving with it, he feels almost normal again.
Does he truly wish for his quirklessness to come back?
No, he doesn’t. Does he? Would he truly take the scorn and ridicule of everyone around him, over a chance at the best hero school in the country? He tells himself no, he pretends he doesn’t lie.
He just hopes he still would’ve met his friends without going to UA.
Maybe he would meet Todoroki while he was walking to the store, and Todoroki would be going to visit his mom. They would hit it off immediately, they would be each other’s first friends. They wouldn’t talk on the phone a lot, but they would text all the time. Maybe he would meet Fuyumi and Natsuo the same way, and they would smile and tease Todoroki, Natsuo would somehow drag him into it. It’d be nice.
He’d meet Uraraka on a trip to get a new notebook, she’d smile at him and his heart would stutter. He would buy her a meal from a nearby place and she would insist they exchange numbers, flustering him. She’d meet his mom and Urararka would always send her home with extra food. She’d be kind and warm, and laugh at him when he cries over small things, nothing would change.
Except his quirk status.
“IZUKU!”
“S-Sorry, what are you saying?”
“How much sleep did you get last night?” Lie. “And don’t lie to me.”
“U-Uhm-” How is Midoriya supposed to lie when he’s being looked at like that. “Only about-about uh–3 hours, S-Sensei.”
“I thought as much.” He mumbles something about Todoroki under his breath. “Go back to bed, Problem Child.”
“B-But Sensei-”
“No. Good night.”
Midoriya stumbles to his feet, Aizawa follows and his knees pop in tandem.
His teacher walks him to his room and Midoriya sits on his bed. He watches and his teacher watches him back. The silence is heavy, but not awkward.
“Okay.” His teacher says, his pace leisurely and tired as he walks out and closes the door behind him.
He doesn’t want to be a villain. Deku wants freedom. Everything he does is scrutinized and picked at by everyone around him, which isn’t a new feeling at all, but it’s somehow worse now that he has a quirk. It felt like these issues would go away once he had a quirk of his own, but now they’ve just increased ten fold.
He longs for the same ease and freedoms villains have. Maybe if he would’ve just become a villain-
No. Stop. That’s enough.
Deku releases a breath.
He should’ve been a vigilante instead, that would’ve been easier. He doesn’t need a quirk to be a vigilante, and he definitely doesn’t need to hurt his classmates. If drops out he could-
Stop it. Stop. It.
Deku’s eyes flick up as his door swings open, smacking the door stopper.
Todoroki stumbles in blearly, he closes the door roughly behind himself and pushes Midoriya down onto his back.
“T-Todoroki, what are you-?”
He lays beside him. They haven’t had a sleepover in weeks.
“Ssh, shut up. Sleep.”
“What-” A hand covers Midoriya’s mouth.
“Good night.”
As Midoriya resigns himself to being stuck half tucked under his friend’s warm side, blankets are suddenly wrapped around the two and Todoroki is heating himself up.
He’s out in minutes, but the longing remains. The thought of vigilantism drifts in and out of his dreams.
Maybe, Izuku will consider it, just for a little while.