A/N: This is a fic based off of TikTok series by creators sylvan.flower.cos and vivian_blair_cos featuring an MHA fight club AU: The Pit! Please enjoy!
Potential spoilers: A character's true identity and quirk details, another character's hero name (tbh, I don't know how far the anime is, and I only know about this stuff from other fics/spoilers I've seen because I don't read the manga myself, so it might not even be accurate, but just to be safe, I figured I'd put this here!)
CW/TW: Blood and gore (as to be expected, right?), injuries, PTSD, trauma responses, suicide baiting [more to be added as things come up in later chapters]
Izuku held an ice pack to his blackened eye, hissing and wincing at the contact, but powering through anyway, knowing that he would be better off for it. He turned his head awkwardly, duly noting the soreness in his neck that he would have to attend to later, angling the ice pack to press between his face and shoulder so he could use both of his hands to type.
They were so damn lucky that they had him, and they were about to know it, too. Well, know it again.
Who else would recognize an underground hero sniffing around where he doesn't belong if not Izuku?
Reviewing the security footage, it seemed that Eraserhead had been sneaking around for at least three days, and even talked to a few of the security staff directly a few times without raising any red flags to any of the stakeholders.
He wouldn't have even gotten this bad of a bruise on his face if he hadn't been distracted by a pro hero standing there, staring at him from the front row on the other side of the fence, watching his fight with calculating eyes.
"I almost had you, there," his opponent grumbled as he entered the room.
"Almost only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades," Izuku quipped automatically, like he always did, tapping the little horseshoe tattoo behind his left ear. It couldn't currently be seen behind the messy, tangled mop of green, but everyone knew it was there all the same.
The fighter with the stage name of "Phoenix" huffed in annoyance, like he always did, and slid into the seat next to Izuku.
"Whatch'ya working on there, Viper?" he asked, leaning in close to squint at the screens through his own swelling eyes.
Izuku looked at the other fighter from the corner of his eye so as to not move his face from the relieving cold of the ice pack still positioned between his face and shoulder. Izuku truly did a number on him, but the scarring all over his face and body probably didn't help. A few of the staples were misaligned or missing completely and blood dripped from the separated skin. This wasn't a new sight to see, nothing out of the ordinary, really, so Izuku turned his attention back to the screen, navigating around to different camera angles during different nights and times to try to see if he could spot the underground hero anywhere else.
"Even if I explained it to you in simple words that you would understand," Izuku said with a teasing lilt lacing his voice, "you would forget by tomorrow because of your multiple concussions."
"Fuck you," Touya spat. "I have nine lives!"
"Cats have nine lives," Izuku corrected without pausing in his typing. Touya opened his mouth to argue, but Izuku wasn't finished. "A phoenix isn't so limited."
Touya barked out a laugh through his sore throat which quickly turned into a groan as he slumped over and held his ribs tenderly, breathing slowly through the pain.
"That almost sounded like a compliment," he rasped when he could breathe again without wincing.
"I give you plenty of compliments, Phoenix," Izuku dismissed.
YOU ARE READING
What Happens in the Pit
FanfictionBakuDeku - Midoriya Izuku found himself quirkless and quickly at the non-existent mercy of his classmates as he entered middle school. Every day he survived, he was beating the odds, even as the bruises teased at his nerves through his skin, tauntin...
