Lightning Serenade

Chapter 62: Villains Gonna Villain

If Denki thought he would get a pass after almost dying, he was sorely mistaken.

Emphasis on sore.

He winced as he gently lowered himself onto his bed, completely exhausted. He thought it was bad when Hawks was flying around, making him run around the city endlessly. He thought it couldn't get any more exhausting than that. But now it seemed like Hawks had taken an intense interest in his intern that was not there before.

"Higher!" Hawks would command.

Denki would inhale and drive up his voltage levels higher.

"Higher!" Hawks would repeat, with an annoyed kind of tone like Denki wasn't giving him exactly what he had already asked for.

It was never high enough, it seemed. Denki was starting to think that Hawks was trying to kill him, finish the job that Full Throttle started, but through authoritative command instead of an actual quirk.

The least Hawks could do was help Denki study for his history exam while he continuously pushed him past his limits.

Denki complied, pushing higher. Not for free, though.

"Keep going!" Denki sang with a shit-eating grin on his face.

Hawks huffed and rolled his eyes, but he did look down at the notecards Denki had forced into his hand and read off the next question.

"What year did Gran Torino make his debut?" Hawks asked.

Denki sighed. He had no idea and guessing incorrectly could be a huge insult to the hero if he implied that the man was older than he actually was.

Denki didn't know what he did to insult Midoriya, but that boy was avoiding him like the plague. He would have thought that maybe Midoriya had a theory that Full Throttle's quirk was contagious, and he didn't want to hulk out, but this avoidance has been going on since before he had the run-in with the villain. Either way, Denki was suffering in more ways than just missing his company. His history grades were getting worse and worse, and it figured that they were getting into more recent history that Midoriya absolutely excelled at around the time that Midoriya wouldn't even make eye contact with Denki.

"Either answer or work harder!" Hawks demanded.

Denki wondered if Hawks would relay an insulting answer to the retired hero. Not wanting to take the chance, Denki nodded, and forced his voltage up again.

As he lied in bed, his muscles continued to twitch from the residual effect of having high voltage electricity coursing through his body for hours on end. His mind was fuzzy, too. It was hard to concentrate, and he didn't really remember his journey back to UA from his internship. It had been so long since Denki had overdone it that he felt his anxiety rise at the thought of short-circuiting his brain, and how Hawks would see that he absolutely will not live up to whatever potential Hawks had seen in him.

His anxiety only increased when he thought about the history exam that was coming up at the beginning of the next week.

He guessed he could try to solve one problem, at least.

He hauled himself up out of bed with a groan befit someone as allegedly old as Gran Torino, not that Denki would even estimate, before making his way to the elevator. Steps be damned, he was taking the elevator for once.

He pushed the button to descend, and his heartrate increased at the impending confrontation. Once on the second floor, he walked down the hallway and felt like he was in a horror movie. All he needed was ominous flickering lights and creepy background music.

Denki reached up a shaky hand (if anyone asked, he would totally blame it on his training earlier that day with Hawks) and knocked on Midoriya's dorm door. After a minute with no answer, Denki tried again, knocking harder.