'She's visibly limping, favoring her right side. Face tense and unrelaxed, repressed grimace, signs of slight to moderate pain. Nearly shoulder-to-shoulder with Ashido-san for physical support, likely trouble standing and walking. Is she still bruised? Of course she's still bruised, why wouldn't she be? They're holding clothes and toiletries, about to shower. Ashido-san will see the bruises. Anyone else in the showers and dressing room at the time will see the bruises. They'll know she's hurt, they'll ask her about it. They know she and I were together last night. They'll deduce that I did it to her, that I hurt her. Ashido-san probably already suspects, that's why she didn't greet us immediately and looked right at Uraraka-san. They'll all know eventually. They won't look at me the same, won't trust me. They'll be hesitant to work with me, fearing I'll lose control and hurt them, too. And who's to say I won't? Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.'

Midoriya's overanalytical mind could not stop racing, no matter how badly he wanted it to. Even after looking away from Uraraka and tried not to analyze all the ways she was clearly injured, his wild thoughts refused to quiet, a deafening, hateful roar in his skull amidst the yawning silence that stilled the air when they reentered the dorms. The more he let his thoughts scream at him, the worse he felt, and the stronger his self-loathing became. A single word from Uraraka might've immediately snapped the young hero's attention onto her and calmed him, but while it was crushing regret that had its hold on Midoriya, it was enfeebling hesitation that gripped Uraraka.

'He was supposed to be training, still… I wasn't expecting to see him until later, when I had time to think! I should say something, I have to say something! But I'm still a wreck, and he can see that! I couldn't get it through to him last night that I didn't blame him, and that I'd be alright, and in my state, I doubt it'd get through to him now, either. He'd just think I'm lying to try to make him feel better. But I have to say something! What do I say? Hi? Just hi, like everything's alright? That's stupid! There has to be something meaningful that I can say to him right now. Think, stupid, THINK!'

But as hard as she ground the gears in her head, they refused to turn. Uraraka silently cursed her mind for not being as quick as her body when it came to making snap decisions on what to say under this kind of pressure. This wasn't a melee where she could just turn her brain off and counter a knife or swinging fist on instinct and muscle memory. But cursing herself is what gave her an epiphany.

'My body… That's it!'

Uraraka bit her lip and turned to face Midoriya, determined to fight through the soreness and discomfort she was feeling so she could close the distance between them.

'Hug him!'

He was four steps away from her, and when she took the first step, he noticed, looking up and letting his furrowed brows rise. At her second step, she was close enough that he could see her intent, the fragile smile on her face, her arms starting to stretch toward him. For a moment, the thorny shackles on Midoriya's heart loosened, his blush became less shameful, more bashful. He started to look a little more like his normal self, all aflutter at the idea of Uraraka showing him this kind of affection in front of their classmates.

Uraraka could not make the third step. She got a little too spirited with her stride too soon, and as soon as she put her foot down, her unstable foundations buckled, a nasty, needling pain wormed quickly up her legs, and her smile shattered into a full grimace. She crumpled and collapsed like a house of cards, flat onto her face in a painful, pathetic display.

'This is what I did to her.'

The shameful shackles had loosened briefly from Midoriya's heart, only to cruelly pull taut and crush him harder as he watched Uraraka collapse. But like her, his body tended to want to move first and force his mind to keep pace.

"Uraraka-chan!" "Uraraka-san!" "Uraraka-kun!"

All three of the others gasped at once as she collapsed, and Midoriya and Mina moved at the same time. Despite his sprained ankle, he took the pain and made that fourth step to meet her, crouching to try to help her up. But as he reached out to touch her, something in him refused. Fear and chagrin, the very same that kept him from touching her when he first woke up, returned to grip at his wrist, to coldly remind him that he wasn't worthy.

Uraraka sat up slightly, enough to look up at Midoriya's trembling hand, inches away from her and unable to move closer, and at his face, fearful, ashamed, and tearfully frustrated.

'He's… scared to even touch me.' With this realization came the painful sting of tears in her eyes as well.

It was Mina that helped Uraraka to her feet, and Iida stepped forward to stand Midoriya up as well.

"Ocha-clumsy," Mina teased to try to lighten the air as she stuck her tongue out at Uraraka. She didn't react. "H-Hey, Midoriya, Iida…! We thought you were out training."

"Er… yes! That is, we were! But Midoriya-kun sprained his ankle, so I brought him back for him to rest for a little while."

"Ouch, bummer… Don't push yourself too hard, alright, Midoriya? I know you probably tell yourself that all the time, but still! None of us wanna see you smash yourself to bits anymore, y'know?"

"Y-Yeah…" he mumbled quietly.

Mina distracted herself with slowly picking up Uraraka's clean clothes and toiletries, and Iida made no move to get Midoriya moving again. Both he and Uraraka were right where they wanted to be. Something had been about to happen, and they were both stalling for their friends in order to let it happen, if it could. And it did.

Uraraka leaned into Midoriya, her cheek on his shoulder, and wrapped her arms around him, squeezing firmly in a close hug, suffused with emotion that she just couldn't put into words, silently hoping that her falling before she reached him didn't fuck it up in some way. But it did.

Seeing her fall made Midoriya's heart inaccessible. Though he didn't want to shut her out and desperately yearned to return her hug and share a close moment like they did last night and many times before, after witnessing firsthand what kind of damage and debilitation his Full-Cowl fuckup caused, his heart was just too scared to come out of hiding. In all his years of being a hero in training, Midoriya was absolutely determined that there was no pain that he couldn't tough out and endure so he could be there for the ones he loved and the ones he needed to protect. But he'd never felt pain like this. He'd met his match, and it was himself.

"Can we talk, Deku-kun? Like… after I shower and change clothes and stuff?" Uraraka murmured into his shoulder.

"…Yeah," he promised her just as quietly, and without moving to return her hug, he let her pull away and take a step back to Mina's side.

"Sorry to have stopped you on the way in! Take care of yourself, you two, alright?" Mina grinned at the two boys as she handed Uraraka her things, and Iida stood straight, holding his arm out to chop the air once in his usual gung-ho pose.

"Of course! You do the same!"

With that, Mina and Uraraka turned and continued across the main room toward the showers and Iida propped Midoriya up fully again to help him toward one of the couches in the sitting room. Their backs were to each other, so neither saw, but both Uraraka and Midoriya raised their arms to wipe the tears from their eyes at the same time.

Uh... Hey there.

I know it's been only a little over 24 hours, but inspiration struck me again, dammit. And gaaaaaah, I'm so self-conscious about it.

So, clearly this is supposed to be a dramatic little scene, but it's hard to measure if I turned up the drama in the right way or if it comes across well. Surely, you guys will tell me in a review, and like I mentioned at the beginning of the story, this entire thing is one big practice session so I get better at writing this kind of stuff, so I shouldn't really be as worried as I am. If I flubbed, I'll just learn from it and get better. But still, I'm always hoping my writing comes across well, whether it's an experiment in style and tone or not.

I couldn't find a way to safely break the perspective back to either Midoriya or Uraraka without making it seem like a clumsy end after the drama settled down, so I didn't get to 2000 words this time, but eh. From here, I'll probably go back to shifting between Midoriya and Uraraka's perspectives and try to move the pace of the story a little bit faster. Emphasis on 'try', since I don't really know what I'm doing; I never do with this kind of stuff.

Like I said in chapter 3, don't get used to snappy uploads like this. Daily and every-other-day updates will never be a consistent thing with me. I always just post when I'm done writing, then do a little bit of cleanup later when I read the posted chapter myself. Is that the best way to go about writing? Probably not. But at this point, it's my style, and I probably won't be able to change it.

As always, I hope you enjoyed, and let me know what you thought. :)