Crying, Laughing, Blushing, Giggling, Throwing Up, So Many Emotions 😩

Crying, laughing, blushing, giggling, throwing up, so many emotions 😩

Unstoppable Force meets immovable Object - Tenya Iida x Reader

misunderstanding, friends to lovers - for @shoulmate for the Milestone Event Week 1

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Tenya is big, even at five years old.

He’s very respectful, always, though not always as careful with his hands.

“Ouch!” You hold your head, wondering about the size of the bump that’s going to come out where he hit you while waving, chopping through the air.

“I’m so sorry!” Tenya has a lisp too, barely there but only for those who know. You think it makes him sound extra sweet when he apologizes, when he repeats the word sorry over and over until he’s forgiven.

-

Your favorite Hero is the Space Hero: Thirteen, Tenya’s favorite Hero is his big brother.

“Turbo Hero: Ingenium!” He tells you to write it on every possible occasion because your handwriting is prettier and you can do the flashy letters that you often see on merch.

Childhood is easy with Tenya around, with his big hand around yours when you have to cross the street and his shoulder to cry on when you don’t get the best mark on your test, his earnestness when it comes to studying and his stupidly cute guilty smile when you manage to convince him to go play instead, knees muddy and faces stained with dirt.

Even when you have to part for the school year, for all three years of middle school, it’s nothing but a pebble in your path, just a few hours spent apart that make the time spent together all the more worthwhile.

“He said what?” You will ask, sitting crisscross applesauce on his bed as he retells his day at school and he will humm and haw as you practice makeup on him, figure out that mascara can also be used as a weapon and glittery eyeshadow really suits him.

-

And then summer will come and you will run out to play until evening, do your best to convince him to come to the beach with you, to just laze around instead of trying to break his record of how long he can swim without a break.

You will buy him an ice cream cone knowing he has more pocket money than you and sometimes, when the heat is going straight to your head, you will ask to have a taste of it and put your lips where his had been, thinking what it would be like to kiss him.

Tenya is home. 

He is home in a way that hurts sometimes, when you want to be free, want to explore, and yet always come back.

When you take a step outside and look back only to find him waiting, yet never dare to open the doors you desperately want to peek behind.

- - -

“I’m going to U.A.,” Tenya tells you over the phone, quietly, because he should be in bed and you should be too.

“Oh,” you hesitate, looking down at your letter. You haven’t opened it yet.

You’re not sure if you want to go to U.A. too. You know what you want to do, work in Search and Rescue like Thirteen, but you don’t know if you can endure another three years with Tenya this close and yet so far away. 

Though, what other choices do you have? You think about going away, to America, or just across the border. Tenya would still be here, only a phone call away, even closer in your mind.

So you open the letter with a jackhammer heart, find the sentence that matters in the jumble of words and don’t know if you’re supposed to be relieved or overcome with sadness.

“I’m going to U.A. too. Support Class.”

-

Tenya is fast and you are sturdy and yet you want to go, always go, further and farther than you have before, while he could care less if the earth stopped moving today, if he never got past the step he took this morning.

To him, growth is not about distance. To you, it’s nothing but.

-

Tenya’s Class is the one that gets attacked.

And though you’re surely not the last one informed, it feels that way.

Training sure is hard, even more so when you need to beat the Hero Class to get a shot at switching over, so you pretend you’re not disappointed when you see him less and less.

But then the Sports Festival Happens.

You’re not sure what feels worse.

Watching Mei Hatsume and Tenya fight, the sheer absurdity of it all, and the rumours already going around… or realizing that even after all this training, you’re still not good enough.

Your Quirk might not allow you to move mountains, but keeping them upright should not be met with this lack of interest.

You wonder, not without self-loathing, if the world forgot too that Atlas was carrying it still.

-

Tenya is home, but the doors are closed and your key lies inside.

You hear about Tensei from your parents, not him.

Your calls go to voicemail, your messages are left on read.

Maybe, if you could fly or throw a stone real good, you could make at least one last impression on him before he forgets you for real, but all you can do, will do, is make sure that his house will keep standing.

Tenya might have been your home, but you will survive not being his.

- - -

- One year later -

“Hey,” you look up from the newspaper in your hands, the morning dew cold under your feet. 

For a hilariously awkward moment, you think it’s Tensei down by the gate, his broad shoulders blocking out the sun.

But Tensei’s still firmly tied to a wheelchair and this guy is standing upright.

“Hi?” You ask back, digging your toes into the ground.

“Can I- come in?”

“Sure,” you shrug your shoulders. “Mom and Dad are in the kitchen.”

You turn your back on him, which is a big no-no for every soon-to-be Hero so you turn around again, pinprick showers going up and down your back. “I’ll follow you in.”

“I’m here for you,” he announces, not one step closer to the front door.

“Oh.” Time freezes to a halt. 

It’s been ages since you’ve last seen him in person. In the hallways after the Sports Festival in your first year, maybe? 

Or that awkward last visit to his house when he pretended to be sleeping so his mom would send you back down to the living room? You heard that mumbling from the inside of his room, you’re not deaf.

He’s grown taller, yes, but there’s a roughness to him now, like one dragged sandpaper all over his features.

You’ve seen him on TV, fighting for his life, read articles about it too.

Your best friend, your very own personal Hero, Turbo Hero: Ingenium.

You always leave out the ex, thinking about him. It hurts too much, even on good days.

“Can I still come in?” Tenya asks.

“Why?”

He hesitates. “W-why?”

“Yeah, why?”

“I-” He swallows. You wish he would step out of the sunlight. You long to see his eyes again, despite hating yourself for it. Are they still as blue as the deep blue sea?

“You’re not in school anymore.”

“I switched.” You swallow the pettiness that wants to make him ask. “I’m at Shiketsu now. Hero Class.”

“Why?”

You shrug. “There was nothing keeping me at U.A.”

It’s a lie and you wonder if he knows it. That you gave up, in more ways than one.

“I heard you fought in the war,” he adds now, still standing at the gate, still blocking out the sun. He’s stubborn, that one.

You snort against your own will. “That’s not fighting.”

“It is to me.”

You shrug. “Well,” you hesitate. Screw your heart for being too soft. “Do you wanna come in now or what?”

-

“I like your Hero Name,” Tenya adds in the privacy of your room, his voice too quiet for a boy this tall. “Atlas. Like the Titan, right?”

“Hmm,” you make, trying not to notice how his knee just knocked into yours, or how warm it is, skin pressed against skin.

“I-” Tenya hesitates again. “I need to tell you something…. about myself.”

So you sit there, listening, as he tells you about a man named Stain and the revelation that there’s more darkness hiding in a kind man’s soul than the two of you could ever have imagined.

“But I’m…” Tenya closes his hand into a fist. “I’m good now, I think. Better, at least. Worthy to be called a Hero, maybe. If you… if you can forgive me. For how I treated you. I pushed you away because I didn’t want to…” Helpless he moves his hands around, narrowly avoiding your head.

“Sorry,” he says, but without the lisp you haven’t craved hearing as much as you do today.

You sit there, with your hurt and your longing, looking at him. Knowing that he’s not the only one with a secret, though his had been darker than yours.

“I want to forgive you,” you admit. “And I wonder if that makes me a pushover. Because I always forgive you, you know. Even when you eat the last of my fries or make me do extra laps.” You only realize you’re talking in present tense when he smiles, shyly, back at you.

“But I cannot go back to just being friends, you know? I have… feelings for you, Tenya. Have had them for quite a while. And I can’t just be just friends again.”

He nods, turns his eyes up to the ceiling as if the answer to all questions is written there to see.

“I talked about this, a lot, with… uh… Shouto and Izuku, my friends. Ochako too. I’m not an expert on this, by far, but I… never questioned, that we’d be together, you know?”

You sigh. “At one point-”

“No,” he interrupts you softly, “not like that, I…” His hand reaches out, rests warm and heavy on your knee, like a hiker putting his hand on the first boulder of a mountain. “Like forever. Together, forever, the two of us. I just… didn’t know I had to tell you.”

And it’s there, his confession, in the faint red on his cheeks and the softness in his eyes, how he can’t fully look you in the eyes, but can’t look away either.

And unbidden, a question comes into your mind.

What happens if an unstoppable force meets an immovable object?

There’s only one way to find out.

- - -

Turbo Hero: Ingenium. That is Tenya, tall, handsome, yours.

He smiles when he sees you at work, always respectful and always a little bit too much of a fanboy.

“It’s Pro Hero Atlas!” He whispers in awe when he watches, useless, as you carry buildings on your shoulders, put them back where they belong.

Sometimes, when he’s feeling petty, he helps you start arguments with Pro Hero Dynamight, just to watch you win - you’ve got the public opinion in your bag after all.

He’s very respectful, always, carries your bags up from the car and pretends not to notice when you eat ice cream before dinner.

But he’s very human too, forgetting his phone at home and his wallet at work, tends to try and shoulder his worries alone when he’s got you to share the load.

-

Life isn’t easy but it’s easier with Tenya around.

With his big hand around yours when you cross the street and his shoulder to cry on when you don’t get to save everyone. His earnestness when it comes to safety and his stupidly cute guilty smile when you convince him to take a cheat day, laze around and eat cake for breakfast, mix the flavors with a well-meaning kiss.

Even when you have to part for work it’s nothing but a pebble in your path, just a few hours spent apart that make the time spent together all the more worthwhile.

“Shouto did what?” You will ask, sitting crisscross applesauce on his lap as he retells his day at work and he will humm and haw as you try Cosplay on him, figure out that he can totally pull off a bold red lip with the Shouto-Costume you bought. 

-

Tenya is home. 

He is home in a way that hurts sometimes, when you worry if it will hold out against every storm, when you figure out another thing that needs renovating, replacing, not just decorating. 

He’s willing to work on it, leaves the doors open for the sun to come in, knowing you’ll be here for the rain too.