Mending Old Wounds

You Know Better

Wednesday July 7th

Todoroki's POV:

Izuku swiftly took the stairs up to his room and I followed closely behind him. He calmly unlocked his door and entered his room, leaving the door open for me. His movements were fluid and meticulous, as he opened one of his dresser drawers and started sliding compression sleeves over his elbows. I sat on the edge of his bed and watched while he pulled off the cotton tee he was wearing and replaced it with short sleeve Under Armour. When Izuku turned around, he was pulling on a pair of padded, fingerless gloves, and I was finally able to see his face. His expression was completely blank, and his eyes were dull.

"Do you want company?"

"No, thank you," his voice held no emotion. "I just want to wail on a bag for a while." I nodded my head. "It was my turn to clean up after dinner, so if anyone brings up the mess in the kitchen, will you please let them know I will clean it all up before I go to bed tonight?"

The urge to ask about what happened in the kitchen was driving me crazy, but I decided to trust that Izuku would talk to me about it when he was ready. "Sure."

Izuku had his hand on the door knob when something else occurred to me, "Hey." He paused and turned slightly. "I noticed you didn't finish answering Eijiro when he asked you a question earlier. Are you..." I just barely caught myself. "That must have caused you pain."

He turned all the way around to face me then, "I think the quirk is starting to wear off. I'll tell you more about it later, okay?"

It wasn't hard to tell that Izuku was impatient to get to the weight room. He was doing everything in his power to keep his emotions in check, and I could certainly relate.

"Of course," I tried to smile around my worry. "Just text me when you're ready."

He nodded, "I will."

We left his room together and he locked the door behind us before fleeing to the stairs without another word. I stood in the hallway near the elevator, considering my options. I had a few assignments, but nothing that was due the following day. Ultimately, I decided to go clean the kitchen in Izuku's stead. It'd be one less thing he would have to worry about, and more than anything, I just really wanted to do something for him. I took a quick trip to my room to change into some loungewear, before taking the elevator down to the main floor. The common room and dining area were completely empty, unusual for this time of night. Rounding the corner to the kitchen, I discovered why. Bakugou was flitting around the kitchen, aggressively spraying cleaner and scrubbing down the counters. Anger immediately welled inside me at the sheer audacity of the display.

"Why are you here?" I tried very hard to keep a neutral tone.

"Think that's pretty fucking obvious, Icyhot," his voice barely had any bite to it, and he never looked up from scrubbing the stove.

I crossed my arms and leaned my hip against the counter, "You know what I mean."

"Look," Bakugou slammed the spray bottle down on the counter and threw the rag he was using into the sink. "I don't need to hear this from you, too. I already know. I'm an asshole. I get it. Can you," he sighed heavily through his nose, "just let me fucking clean?"

"While it's generally true that you are an asshole, Izuku didn't tell me what your fight was about, so I didn't want to assume anything until he was ready to talk to me about it."

Bakugou actually looked a little surprised, "He hasn't talked to you?"

"He barely spoke five sentences to me."

"Where is he?"

"The weight room."

Bakugou turned as if he was going to head in that direction. I quickly grabbed his elbow and he wrenched it from my grasp, "Don't fuc-"