Chapter Text
When Izuku was separated from his friends, he decided to wander around aimlessly. He had nothing to do there, only coming along because of his friends. But they had all quickly split up, with Uraraka rushing off when he tried to talk with her. Maybe he was being annoying again. Tokoyami had said he was scaring other people with his muttering. He couldn’t believe he still did that. He thought he had kicked that habit after the Sports Festival.
As he continued to wander around, looking at the shops and the items they had on sale, he felt an arm wrap around his shoulders. He froze. Even though they were well past middle school, he still felt the instinct to lock up and curl into a ball whenever someone initiated physical contact with him, the inevitability of the onslaught of kicks and punches and jeering taunts flooding his mind, making him forget where he was and oh god the stranger was getting closer oh my god WAIT IS THAT SHIGARAKI-
“Though, from your perspective, we haven’t met since the attack on U.A., huh?”
Dread pooling in his gut, Izuku looked up to see the looming face of Shigaraki, red eyes peering into his very soul, a hand wrapped around his throat with a pinkie finger lifted. His face was barren of the hand that usually covered it, allowing Izuku to fully see his face. He had scars on his lip and left eye, and a birthmark beneath his mouth. He was also undeniably flaky, with dead skin clinging onto healthy.
“Why don’t we have tea or something, Izuku Midoriya?”
Shit.
Strangers passed by them, ignoring the two and not noticing the hostage situation or the infamous villain.
“Act natural.” Shigaraki snapped, sensing his ongoing panic. “I’m just an old friend you met at the mall, okay? I just wanna talk.”
TALK?!?! Izuku wanted to scream. But with the dangerous hand wrapped around his throat - one pinkie raised, daring him to do something funny - he knew he couldn’t. So he ignored his overwhelming panic, and put on one of his brightest smiles.
“Tea? That sounds great! Let’s go!” He could practically sense Shigaraki’s confusion at his sudden cheerfulness, but he ignored it and walked towards the food court. Shigaraki moved his hand from Izuku’s throat to his wrist to look inconspicuous, one pinkie still raised.
As the older male trailed behind him, Izuku let himself internally panic. What was he thinking? Shigaraki could end his life in a second! He was being a complete MORON!
Bet that’s nothing new, huh, Deku ?
No, no, shut up Kacchan. He was no longer the useless, weak Deku. He was the Deku who could do it, the Deku who saved people with a smile.
Dekiru a part of his mind whispered.
He stopped in front of a fast-food place, patiently waiting in line. The mall didn’t have any places where they could drink tea on the spot - as ridiculous as that was - so Izuku made do.
He heard a quiet “What are you doing ?” from Shigaraki, but he just whispered back; “Acting like a friend!”
“And what would you two like?” The lady who was taking orders smiled at them politely.
“We would both like Teriyaki, please!” He responded, smiling brightly.
“Alright, would you like anything to drink?”
“No thank you!”
“Alright,” she handed them some sort of device. “This’ll buzz when your food is ready so you can come get it, have a nice day!” She waved at them.
“Thank you!” He waved back, finding a spot that wasn’t too crowded and sitting down at one of the booths.
“What the hell was that?” Shigaraki finally spoke, giving him a confused and outraged look. Though, the latter might just be there by default.
“Like I said before, I was acting like a friend. Although, I'm guessing you don’t exactly have any of those, do you?” As soon as those words left his mouth, he slapped a hand over his mouth and sputtered out a quick ‘sorry!’
Shigaraki just let out a raspy laugh. “So you do have a spine. That’s interesting.”
Seeing as the villain wasn’t decaying him on the spot, he let his nerves calm down as much as they could, because there was still a supervillain in front of him, still holding onto his wrist with one finger raised under the booth.
“So,” Izuku began shakily, “what is it you wanted to talk about?”
Shigaraki’s amusement dropped dead in an instant as annoyance and rage quickly took its place. “The Hero Killer.” He hissed.
Izuku raised an eyebrow. “Oh?”
“Yeah.” He grunted. “I hate pretty much everything, but the Hero Killer pisses me off the most right now.”
“Wasn’t he working with you?”
“That’s what everyone else thinks, but no. And that’s my damn problem. Everyone’s paying attention to him. I attacked the U.S.J., I released the Nomu’s on Hosu, so why is everyone so obsessed with him now? No one’s looking at me.” He grumbled.
“I’m looking at you.” Izuku replied earnestly.
“I hate you.” Shigaraki said bluntly. He then continued to go on his rant. “What is the difference between us?”
Izuku looked down at his lap and thought about it for a moment. “Well,” he began, “while I don’t condone what he’s done, I can understand his motives. He made it clear what he wanted, and why he did what he did.” He looked at Shigaraki. “You… You just attacked the USJ and screamed about how much you wanted to kill All Might. You never really said why you wanted to kill All Might. You didn’t seem to have an overarching plan. Let’s say you kill All Might, then what?” He shrugged. “No one likes a killer, but they can understand him because they can understand his convictions.”
Shigaraki seemed to mull over these words before the device buzzed. “Oh! That’s our food!” He quickly stood up, and despite his self-preservation skills screaming at him not to, he wriggled his hand out of Shigaraki's grasp and walked to the food place. He quickly picked up his order and paid the yen, returning happily to the booth and handing Shigaraki his food.
“You.. You stayed.” Shigaraki sounded dazed before snapping out of it, before thinking over Izuku’s words again.
“Well, why does it matter so much why I want to kill All Might? I destroy things I don’t like, simple as that.” He snapped.
Izuku gave him an unimpressed look. “That’s my point. You destroy because you can. Because you want to. Stain wasn’t a good person by any means, but he had a reason why he wanted to destroy Heroes. He was looking for a change in society. Granted, making ‘fake’ heroes martyrs isn’t going to make perfect ones pop out of thin air, but you can understand what he wanted and why he wanted it.”
When he didn’t seem to be quite getting through to the pale-haired man, he changed up his tactics.
“You like video games, right?” He asked, which got Shigaraki’s attention in an instant.
“...Yeah. I do. So what?”
“In most games, there’s always a main antagonist.” Antagonist. Not Villain. “They’re trying to do something to stop the player and their allies from achieving a goal, one that normally opposes theirs.” He paused, looking for a certain example. “Do you know what Undertale is?” A nod. “Okay. So, Asgore wanted to kill any human child who fell into the underground to collect their souls. Why is that?”
“...To free the monsters.”
“Right. What he’s trying to do is bad, but we can understand and empathize with why he’s doing it. We can also understand what pushed him to that mindset of murder. So we can understand him. So, my question is, what do YOU want Shigaraki? Why do you want to destroy things? Why do you want to kill All Might?”
A pause. Then Shigaraki grinned.
“I think.” He looked Izuku in the eyes with those sharp, piercing red eyes. “That I like you, Izuku Midoriya.”
He froze. What did that mean?
He noticed neither of them had touched their Teriyaki.
Shigaraki stood up. “This talk has been… enlightening. Thanks.” He sent Izuku one last grin before walking off, disappearing into the crowd.
Izuku shakily stood up too, breathing in deeply. He exhaled. He walked out of the food court, and was greeted with the sight of Uraraka looking around. Perhaps she was looking for him? But that wouldn’t make sense, didn’t she want to be alone?
“Deku!” He repressed a flinch. He wasn't a useless Deku. He was the Deku who could do it. “Where were you?!”
He blinked owlishly. “Oh! Sorry!” He glanced back at the food court. “I ran into an.. Old friend. They wanted to talk to me.”
“Okay… But don’t scare me like that next time!”
He let out a small laugh and rubbed the back of his head awkwardly. “Sorry! I won't!”