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***
“Whoa, dude. Did you seriously manage to bust up your hands even more?” Kaminari catches the newer scars littering Izuku’s wrist as he’s cutting up the brownies he just made, and he snatches Izuku away from his task to grab his right palm, fingers brushing over the uneven patches of skin far gentler than what’s needed. “Holy shit—when’d you even get these, man?”
Izuku hums, tilting his head a little to look at which ones Kaminari was referring to exactly and he grins.
“Oh! Kaminari, you were there when this happened,” his smile widens as Kaminari gets even closer to his wrist, pressing the pads of his finger into the scars, “remember I knocked you to the side from knock-off Magneto and those metal pipes? You know the ones,” he urged.
It takes a moment for Kaminari’s brows to raise and eyes to flash with familiarity.
“Ooh, right! Right, oh. Yeah, I remember,” his head falls to the side and his face twists, “nasty things, those scars. Sorry man, I really didn’t wanna be someone that added to your list of injuries. I was kinda out of it that day, there was so much going on. Sorry… Ugh, now I’m pissed at myself, your hands are already so beat up.”
“Huh, why? Don’t be, I don’t mind! I’m glad it was me and not you, actually,” Izuku smiles, picking up the plate of brownies and exiting the kitchen. Kaminari’s quick to follow right behind him and Izuku continues, “besides - scars are kind of my thing. They make my ugly clunky hands look better; you know? I wouldn’t want your pretty hands to get all ruined. Well. I mean your hands would be pretty regardless, but,”
“Your hands aren’t ugly and clunky!”
“Whose hands aren’t ugly and clunky?” Uraraka asks as Izuku and Kaminari are back in the common room.
Izuku sets down the large plate of a variety of sweets on the center table; the area’s been slightly adjusted for the movie night that’s getting ready to happen. They’re just waiting on a few more classmates.
Uraraka grabs a brownie, “wait lemme guess: Deku. He always says that about himself! His poor self-image is annoying.”
Kaminari scoffs. “Tell me about it.”
“I’m right here?”
Iida quickly sits up beside Uraraka, clearing his throat importantly. “While I disagree with Uraraka talking about you so unflatteringly: I agree with her, Midoriya. You should view yourself in a better light. Your hands aren’t ugly just because of the many scars they bear home! They’re very cool and heroic, I think.”
“Oh - no we weren’t talking about the scars making my hands ugly,” Izuku takes a seat on the floor, some space in between the couch and the table, and Kaminari sits next to him. He holds out his hand, “I’d never hate my scars! I love every single one of them, actually.”
“You love all of your scars? Are you sure?” Tsu questions, head resting in Uraraka’s lap. She presses the tip of her finger to her lip, “you have so many, I feel like there’s at least one you’re not very fond of. Statistically. Even a minor one.”
Izuku smiles and shakes his head. “Sorry, not one. Every scar I have holds a saved person behind it. They’re all very important to me and I’m happy with all of them!”
Kaminari makes a face.
“Okay—now you’re fooling us.” He rests an elbow on top of the table and it’s kind of awkward because of how low he is, sitting cross-legged on the floor, but he’s Kaminari so it works fine for him. “Like, I remember the origin of a lot of my scars—most of them actually, but I also have some, where I’ve got zero clue on its story.”
“Yeah, Kaminari’s right,” Sero’s sitting at one of the armchairs by himself. He doesn’t look up from the phone game he’s playing, but his expression is amused, “I don’t even have that many, but I can only remember how I got a handful of them. Sometimes things get muddy in between or the events kind of mush into one and you can’t help but not remember,”
Izuku frowns. “Muddy?”
“Yeah, silly,” Mina chimes in at this point, “muddy! Like, say it’s been a four-day mission and you don’t really take everything into account until all is settled. And by then you’re like,” Mina grips her pink curls, shuts her eyes, and waves her head around, “aaagh! Where did I get seven cuts from? The building that almost fell on top of me or the villain we were battling or when I fell six stories high?! Things like that. You don’t remember the zoom-in details, usually.”
“Zoom-in details. Huh. Well, that’s weird because I do. I was just telling Kaminari that these ones,” Izuku points to the half-healed gashes along his wrist, “were from that mission we had last week—we teamed up with the Lurkers and had to travel to Chofu and face off against Kane, the pipe villain, who had the ability to manipulate metal. Metal pipes this size were rushing right in Kaminari’s direction. I pushed him out of the way and my wrist ended up being the target,” Izuku taps at the large scars on his wrist, “clean cuts straight through the bone, shattered everything.”
“Eek!” Uraraka squirms with a wince, “I’d cry! That sounds so painful—what happened next?”
“What happened next is probably the reason for the scars,” Izuku grins. He holds his arm higher on display and bends his hand forward with a flick of his wrist, “grabbed all of the pipes in my wrist, bent them for a better grip, and on my cue, I had Kaminari use his Quirk on the pipes to take out Kane. I got burnt in the process because of the entire electricity-metal-very-hot thing, but the pipes were out in enough time for me to not be in too much pain,”
“Hell yes,” Kaminari slaps his hands against Izuku’s in accomplished high fives, and the rest clap excitedly at the small story.
“God damn, that’s so freakin’ manly, dude!” Kirishima suddenly says as he makes his way into the area. He’s grinning and stops near Izuku to check out the healed gashes for a brief moment before continuing his way to one of the couches. He shudders violently, teeth clattering, “get chills every time you tell that story—it’s so cool, man.”
“Oh, yea?” Mineta challenges Izuku. “Then how about the rest of your hand injuries! You have too many to count, bet you don’t know where all of those came from!”
“Are you stupid?” Jirou scoffs. “Everyone knows he broke his hands like ten million times just to make Todoroki feel better our first year. Those are his most famous scars.”
“It’s true.” Shouto also enters the common room at this time. He takes a cookie from the plate and leans against the front of the couch between Uraraka’s legs to let her willingly play with his hair while he rests his legs in Izuku’s lap. He takes a bite of his cookie. “He obliterated his hands because I looked sad.”
Izuku’s face burns. “There was more to it than that!”
“Why do you keep trying with that excuse?” Uraraka laughs. “Nobody believes you.”
Mineta falters and looks embarrassed as he stutters, “well—well then! What about your shoulder scar! You’ve got a big one on your shoulder! I’ve seen it!”
Izuku thinks about it for a moment and then he smiles, pulling his left arm out of his sleeve and yanking up the left side of his shirt to show the shoulder. There’s a welt-like scar going from his shoulder to his elbow. He opens his mouth, but—
“What the,” Mineta jumps, “where’d that one come from?”
“Wait, yeah, I only know about the one on your right shoulder with the no-skin?” Sero says, game paused to squint at Izuku’s left shoulder. “When’d you even get that one?”
“Ah, it was a two-day mission I was doing with Kirishima our second year,” Izuku says brightly as he turns to where his friend is sitting on the couch beside Sato, Mina, and Tokoyami. “Remember? We were tracking that dude with the—”
“—the blades all over himself. Big guy,” Kirishima grins, “of course, man. You saved me, how could I forget? It was another pre-huge-mission situation where my and Midoriya’s agencies kinda just gravitated in the center of the trouble? Anyways it was super dark and the lights around the city were out for a few minutes cause of one of the guy’s Quirk. I couldn’t move and I was freaking out, but Midoriya was there, and – it all turned out great! But yeah, that definitely looks like it was from that dude’s blades. Big things.”
“Yeah, it got pretty deep in there – see?” Izuku holds his arm out more and laughs at the hovering hands, “you can touch.”
“How come I’ve never noticed this one before?” Shouto asks with a deep frown, tracing over the thin, long bump from his shoulder to his elbow. “It looks painful.”
“It’s probably because he’s always wearing that brace,” Ojiro says. “Never really thought about why he suddenly started wearing two, but, yeah.”
Uraraka sits up, “oh yea! Two arm braces now, I didn’t even realize! Dekuuu, stop getting hurt!”
“Too late! Sorry. But anyways, the scar you guys are thinking about is this one—I got it all the way back in first year,” Izuku pulls his right arm out of his sleeve and lifts that side, too. His shirt hangs over the front of his chest and he turns to face the small crowd of his friends and classmates in the common room. “Training camp. I fought this huge villain and I saved Kota! Good times.”
“Holy cow!” There are cool palms pressed against his back and Izuku immediately knows it’s Hagakure with her high voice. “You have so many scars back here! What’s this one? The skin’s all rough and scratchy… And-and what about this one down here? Or! This one? Your spine looks all damaged… Is this all really okay? How are you still alive, Midoriya?!”
“That’s debatable, but all of my scars are fully healed, so it’s fine. Don’t worry,” Izuku smiles brightly and pulls his shirt completely off. He turns around so his back is facing everyone again—most of which have shifted from wherever they were sitting to get a closer look at his back. “The one near my left shoulder was when I saved Uraraka in our second year, nothing that serious.”
“I remember that! Whoops!” Uraraka squeaks. “It was pretty stupid, but I was nervous! It was my first time really working with Deku side by side on a super serious mission and there was this car and Deku had to push me out of the way! He fell and his back got scratched up pretty bad, I guess... I’m so sorry, Deku!”
“Don’t apologize! I’m really happy I could save you, it’s no worries at all. That spine injury was also for a really small thing, actually. Iida and I were on a shopping trip and had a run-in with a few not-so-great women. They were planning on robbing the store we were at.”
“Oh – I remember you guys talking about that. It was a long time ago, right?” Sero says.
“Right,” Iida smiles with something akin to pride. “I made a foolish error when we were in a bit of a tight situation,” he explained, swinging his arms stiffly through the air, “and Midoriya was the one who took the brunt of what was about to happen. He was – er – thrown into one of the shelves which happened to carry some heavyweight products, hence the bruising on his spine.”
“Uh-huh, it was kind of wild! And I’m all healed up now, I guess my skin just hates going back to the way it was before the injury?”
Kaminari laughs. “Yeah, no shit. What about these ones—the weird scratch-kinda ones down here?”
Izuku snorts. “You guys don’t remember? It was during Quirk training with Mina and Sero a few months ago? Last period.”
“Oh!” Mina giggles, slapping her forehead. “Right, the rocks! I remember that: Sero and I almost got trampled! We were messing with one of our combos and didn’t notice the tipping at the top of our target. They fell and—”
“Next thing we know, we’re on the floor screaming our heads off,” Sero says, “and Midoriya’s standing over us with his arms spread out like wings. He looked like an angel in the light, and I was convinced I died, to be honest. But yeah, he totally saved our asses.”
“I remember that,” Shoji says, sounding a little amused.
“I do, too,” Tokoyami folds his arms over his chest, and he sounds just as amused. “A series of unfortunate events, but an eternity of laughter for those who witnessed the misfortune.”
“Hey!” Mina whines. “We were scared, okay?”
“Wait, wait,” Jiro sits up. “Okay—so far Midoriya’s gotten a scar from saving Kaminari, Todoroki, Kirishima, Uraraka, Iida, Mina, and Sero… That’s 7 of us. Who else do you have scars from? Is that it?”
“Don’t think so,” Izuku hums, turning around. His abs are littered with just as many scars as his back. He presses his palm under the left side of his chest, “this one’s from saving Tokoyami and Dark Shadow! It was during a thing with Endeavor and Hawks where they kind of teamed up for a mission? Anyways: there was this woman with light beams coming from her pores! Dark Shadow can’t handle light very well, so I kept them both away. I guess the beams were hotter than I assumed and it left a burn-like mark.”
“I’ll spend the rest of my days making up for the evening, Midoriya.”
“Ah, no need, you’re fine! All healed up, remember? Speaking of burns, though,” Izuku lifts up his shorts a bit to show a burn on his right leg thigh, covering the majority of the underside of his thigh. “An actual burn. I pulled Jiro, Yaoyorozu, and Kendo out of a burning building one time and I kind of fell on a burning piece of wood as everything was crumbling around us. But we saved all of the kids inside!”
“I remember,” Yaoyorozu smiles, a little fond. “Terrifying, but Midoriya’s actions were... Well – very Midoriya.”
“Very Midoriya,” Jiro snorts, twirling her earpieces around her index finger.
Uraraka sighs. “You somehow always find a way to out-Deku yourself, Deku.”
"I’m not sure how I should feel about that sentence. But the rest of these are pretty minor cases. Even then, I love them all so much! Here,”
Izuku points to the different scars over himself, sometimes going back to small marks on his arms or thighs and legs to explain each mark.
And sure enough, he has a scar for every person in class 3A. He has more than a couple for a select few – like Shouto and Uraraka and Iida. And some were as small as a minor cut that never faded or went back to match the color of his skin, like for Koda, Shoji, and Tsu. But, like Izuku had told them, behind every scar and mark and bruise, there’s a saved life or a person saved from a fatal injury.
He smiles and chirps and laughs, squeezing his eyes and crinkling his nose so genuinely, that it’s hard not to believe him when he tells them again and again –
“I really adore all of them, you know? You guys mean so much to me, so it only makes sense that the scars I have from helping you guys in any way I can would make me feel the same, right?”
Four of them are crying: Aoyama, Kirishima, Kaminari, and Uraraka.
“I’ve said it a million times before and I’ll say it again, man,” Kirishima’s lips quiver as he babbles and dabs at his wet cheeks, “you’re so – so freakin’ man – manly, Midoriya!”
“Sometimes you’re too bright, I can’t even take it!” Uraraka presses her hands over her eyes, “I can’t look!”
“Uh – yeah, forget what I said earlier about not wanting to add to your list of scars,” Kaminari sniffles, rubbing tears from his cheeks. “I’m the latest addition, bitches! Yeah, that’s right! Suck – suck on that!”
“Yeah? Well, I’m the first,” Shouto says smugly, eyeing Izuku’s hands. “I’m on top. His first and most favorite scars are because he wanted to save me just that much. Nobody can beat me – nobody can touch me. Peasants.”
Izuku jumps with a nervous chuckle. “Wait – hold on, guys, it’s – it’s not that serious—”
“Hey, that’s discrimination!” Mina gets to her feet, pointing an accusing finger at Shouto. “Just because you were his first, doesn’t mean you’re the best!”
“I’m not sure,” Iida raises his glasses importantly. “I suppose we should take the cause of the scars into account...”
Izuku chokes. “The-the cause of the scars?”
“I still win, then.” Shouto shrugs. “I looked sad. Looked. My life wasn’t in danger, I wasn’t going to die – I just simply looked sad and he broke his fingers like fifty times each.”
“I feel like you aren’t playing fair, Todoroki,” Jiro frowns. “Can that even count?”
Shouto’s crossed arms tighten. “I’m not sure what you mean.”
“Well, I just feel like the situation is so bizarrely Midoriya that it shouldn’t count for anything. Who breaks their hands more than ten times for someone who declared war on them that morning because they looked sad? That’s insane – it shouldn’t even count. We have to compare a different incident.”
“I’m with Jiro!” Kirishima raises his hand. “I don’t think that’s playing fair!”
“Y-yeah!” Kaminari raises two hands. “Me neither!”
Ojiro raises his tail. “Neither do I.”
“I don’t, either,” Shoji raises five skin-made hands.
“I – I feel like you guys shouldn’t be playing whatever this is at all!” Izuku shouts, trembling fingers in his curls.
“What are you idiots yelling about?” Bakugou’s voice is heard, followed by his large stomps and low growl as he marches his way into the common room. “Aren’t we supposed to be watching a stupid movie or something? Made sure I was fifteen fucking minutes late just so I could avoid this shit.”
“We’re talking about Izuku’s scars!” Uraraka chirps. She points to Shouto, “Todoroki’s discriminating because he was the first one of us that Izuku saved and, as a result, was the first to leave a scar on him. We’re trying to overthrow him because the circumstance is so Deku, we don’t think it should count.”
“Hah? The first one to put a save-scar on Deku?”
“Save-scar!” Mina snaps her fingers. “That’s a good name for it!”
Bakugou stays silent for a moment.
And then his face screws.
“No, the fuck he wasn’t,” Bakugou says. “Impossible.”
“What.” Shouto frowns. He sits up seriously and narrows his eyes. “Yes, I was. The earliest save-scar was me, Sports Festival. I was the first one who—”
“No, you weren’t,” Bakugou scowls and stomps his way over to Izuku. He bends down and points at a small scar on Izuku’s knee. “Stupid nerd got that when we were four.”
“What?!” The rest of their classmates shout, Kaminari and Uraraka being the loudest.
“Yeah. I fell off a bridge and he climbed all the way down just to make sure I was okay. Like an idiot, he also fell on his way down the rocks. Probably didn’t realize it – in fact, I didn’t even realize it until two years ago, but he fucking saved me that day. So, suck on that, fuckers. I win.”
It’s quiet as Bakugou gets to his feet with his hands in his pockets, a smug smirk on his face the entire time he makes his way over to the couch. He grabs a handful of popcorn and kicks his legs up.
“So we gonna watch this damn movie or not?”
***
“Mr. Aizawa, did you know Midoriya has a scar for every one of us?” Mina says loudly as they walk into Hero Basic Training the next day. All Might’s standing beside Aizawa, which means this must be some strange collab thing. “Actually, how much do you wanna bet he has a save-scar for you, too!”
“Midoriya has a save-scar for me?” Aizawa drawls. “What exactly does that imply?”
“A save-scar! It means a scar he got from saving you,” Uraraka joins Mina’s side with a wide smile. “He was showing us last night. He has at least one scar from saving every person in our class, did you know?”
“They’re all over him, it’s crazy cool,” Kaminari says, walking onto the field with Kirishima and Sero on either of his sides. “You know – in a super Midoriya-freaky way,”
Aizawa frowns, arms over his chest as he studies his students. Fine, he’ll bite. “Alright, I’m curious.”
“Wait – I am, too,” All Might rushes in. He looks a little wary. “How – how many did you say, again?”
Mina laughs. “Well there’s nineteen of us, but he’s got more than that. We said he’s saved all of us at least once.”
It’s at that point that Izuku walks into the area, with Shouto. He goes to line up, but he’s stopped by Aizawa’s call.
“Midoriya, could you come over here for a brief moment?”
Izuku already knows where the conversation’s headed as he jogs over. He’s got a couple of crooked fingers buried in his mass of curls anxiously as he stops in front of his teacher, tugging. “Yes, Mr. Aizawa?”
Aizawa stares at him for a good, long moment, arms folded over his chest, eyes narrowed. And then he sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose.
“I hear,” he drawls, face morphing into something akin to regret for his life decisions, “you bear home a scar for every time you’ve saved a classmate of yours. Is—”
“We wanna know if you have a scar for Mr. Aizawa, too!” Mina chirps in evilly. “Show us, Midoriya! If you don’t, you lose and you’re officially out!”
Izuku raises his eyebrows – he looks slightly troubled. And then hesitant. And then sheepish. His fingers thread through his curls.
“Of course, I’ve got a scar for Mr. Aizawa…” he mutters, “ah – but it’s kind of small. I still adore it all the same, but I don't think I'd count it as a saving scar?”
“Seriously?!” Mina shouts at the same time as Uraraka, Kirishima, and Kaminari.
Izuku nods and makes quick work of adjusting his hero suit to show the left side of his body where four claw-like scars sit—they’re typically hidden under his arm, it looks like. Izuku twists his lip.
“Mr. Aizawa, Shinso, and I were on this very short, but important mission. It didn't last longer than a night, but we were ambushed. I saw the guys, but my body moved faster than my mouth could, so I just went for it. And there was a girl who could kind of manipulate her bones? Well, she had bone coming out of her knuckles for weapons! I got scratched when I pushed Mr. Aizawa and Shinso both. Though I think that may have resulted in scarring for both of them, too…”
Aizawa’s lips are pressed into a thin line, mouth twitching like he doesn’t quite know what to say.
“Wait, you have a save-scar for Shinso, Kendo, Eri, and Kota – people even outside of this class,” Kaminari practically whines, dragging his head back and forth by the ends of his hair which his fingers are gripping. He stomps, “no fair, Midoriya!”
“The ultimate test, though,” Uraraka says. She brings up her index finger and points all the way up to All Might – the teacher jumps as she shouts, “All Might! Do you or do you not have a save scar for him, Deku?”
“Um.” Izuku presses his lips. And then he sighs. “I don’t think I do.”
“Ah-ha!”
“My boy,” All Might says. He tilts his head curiously. “What are you talking about?”
Izuku lifts his head. “I – sorry. I don’t think I have a save-scar for you, All Might.” He pats around his body, brows furrowed.
“Well – it’s not very big in size, but in general, I think it’s quite large.” All Might steps forward and tugs gently at Izuku’s ear. He touches the tip of his finger to the scab on the top of Izuku's ear. “You got this—”
“The day I was attacked by the sludge villain. Yeah, it’s a scab that’s never gone away, I told you about that. I’m – not really sure what you’re saying though, All Might. I mean if anything, you saved me three entire times that day.”
All Might laughs that full, hearty laugh that always booms from his chest and he sets a heavy hand atop Izuku’s curls.
“Sure, sure. But don’t tell me you’ve forgotten what took place that evening. After all was said and done?”
Izuku – remembers.
In the afterglow of the sun, after All Might had told him – he told him he could be a hero and Izuku had cried so hard his head was throbbing and nose was clogged up by the end of it. He agreed to… Izuku gasps, slapping his palms over his mouth.
All Might smiles.
“You said, ‘I’ll do it.’ And that was the beginning of you saving me, my boy.” All Might pulls back and slaps the palm of his hand to his neck to rub sheepishly as he laughs loudly. “I’d like to think you began saving me since our very first encounter, but—”
“All – All Might!” Izuku’s tears are spilling over before he can stop them, waving his hands frantically as he sniffles and sobs. “You – you mean, you mean I – I – saved – I saved—?”
All Might is also looking frantic as he rushes to say, “but – but I mean – it’s nothing to cry about, Young Midoriya! It’s really – I just mean –”
“This is my favorite scar!” Izuku declares, tugging at the scab on his ear. “I’ll – I’ll cherish it for as long as — as long as I live! It’s my most precious, I promise!”
All Might stiffens as it goes silent around them and he audibly swallows.
“Young Midoriya,” All Might wheezes, skinny arms squeezed tightly over his stomach, face paler than usual. He looks like he’s going to be sick. He dares to look up and over Izuku’s head to the rest of the teen’s classmates and he slaps a palm over his mouth as he gasps.
“For – for my safety,” he croaks. “Do you mind rephrasing that?”