Midoriya Izuku

Comforting self-harming best friend

A/N: A request for Deku and reader as best friends and some self-harm angst to comfort

Warnings: Blood and self-harm by cutting

Midoriya had been incredibly busy for the past week, but now that things had calmed down at least somewhat, he noticed something. It wasn't exactly odd that he hadn't heard from you, but it was still worrying, especially now that you hadn't answered him all day. You always answered his messages, even if you didn't initiate the conversation yourself. Midoriya decided to stop by your place when he was on his way home from work to check on you.

It's not like this hadn't happened before. You'd cut yourself quite badly before, but this time you had apparently hit a bigger vein. You didn't really mean to, but you just sort of kept going, it was like you were in a trance. You didn't even register the pain when you did it, or at least not all of it. You just looked at the blood pouring out of your arm and kept going anyway.

"Well this is a damn mess" you muttered as you looked at the floor after a while.

You'd been sitting on the edge of the tub and there was a small pool of blood forming between your feet as the blood dripped from your wrist at a steady pace. You just stared at the small pool of blood as it spread slowly towards your feet. Suddenly, you could hear your doorbell ringing, but you didn't care. If you just ignored whoever it was, they would go away, right?

Midoriya was ringing your doorbell, he knew you were home since the lights were on in your apartment. He texted you, asking if you were okay, but you didn't answer. He didn't want to intrude, but you had given him a spare key and he was getting increasingly worried. He stood behind your door for probably ten minutes, ringing the doorbell intermittently, hoping you would just come to the door. You didn't, so he used the spare key and came in, calling your name.

You heard the door open, and you just sighed. It had to be Izuku, since he had the other key to your place.

"Here" you answered as he called out to you.

"Thank god, I thought you were-" Izuku was cut off as you came into view.

"Hi" you said, raising your bloody hand in a small wave.

You had stopped bleeding, but it was still quite a gory sight.

Midoriya wasn't exactly surprised, but this was still quite a shock. The two of you had been here before, but this was the most blood there had ever been. He didn't panic, he just calmly took off his jacket and threw it on the hallway floor.

"Are you okay?" he asked as he knelt down in front of you, avoiding the pool of blood.

"Yeah, I'm okay. I just need to do something about this" you said with an eerily calm voice, raising your arm.

"We need to clean it up. Where do you keep your bandages and disinfectant and stuff?" Midoriya asked.

"They're all in the medicine cabinet" you motioned with your nonbloody hand.

You just sat there, feeling a little light-headed as Izuku took some supplies out of the cabinet. You gave him your arm and let him clean it up. The disinfectant stung, but you didn't make a sound, you just let him clean off the blood with cotton pads as you got increasingly more lightheaded. When he was done cleaning your arm, Izuku closed the wound with butterfly sutures and wrapped a bandage around your wrist.

"I feel bad that you're so good at this. You've been patching me up for one reason or another ever since we were kids" you finally said.

"It's okay, I'd rather patch you up than visit you in the hospital or worse..." he trailed off.

"Yeah, I know. I just hate that you're always having to take care of me. I'm such a mess"

"You're my best friend, and yeah you might be a mess sometimes, but it doesn't matter, you're still important to me" Midoriya assured, squeezing your hand.

"Thanks" you sniffled and squeezed him back.

Izuku didn't need to know how crappy you felt right at that moment. You felt like if you tried to get up, you would probably faint, so you just sat there. Izuku was still kneeling in front of you, as you two shared a quiet moment.

You'd been dealing with this for years, and Izuku had been there for most of it. All the late night phone calls, crying to him about whatever was upsetting you at the time, all the times he had patched you up or taken you to the ER. Sure, it was difficult on him too sometimes, but you had it worse in terms of mental health issues. He hated this, he hated that you did this to yourself. It was an ugly thing to do to one's self, the marks you left on yourself would never go away. They would always be there to remind you of the darkest moments in your life. He just hoped that one day, you could be happy, that one day they would really be just a distant reminder.