"Starting off our next round we have Shoto Todoroki against Y/n L/n!"

You walked into the center of the stadium glaring harshly at your opponent.

"Let's have fun, Todoroki."

You were fully prepared to do what ever it took to win, especially if you got to get violent.

"AANNNND BEGIN!"

Immediately he used his ice to try and blow you out of the ring, but you dodged him easily.

"Oh come on! You can do better that that." you taunted him, side-stepping another blast of ice.

You moved forward, deciding to try something offensive and aimed to knock him off his balance with a low sweep. You braced yourself on the ground with your hand, but quickly had to pull back when you felt ice creeping up your arm.

Bitch, I won't let you get the chance.

Todoroki's gaze sharpened at your reflexes. "Why are you making this difficult?" he tried to freeze your legs to the ground but you jumped up.

" being difficult? That's funny."

You used Kirishima's quirk, which you had already taken, to punch through another attack.

"You're the problematic one!" You hissed, using his ice as a ramp and trying to land a hit, only for him to dodge.

"I'm not the one who constantly ends up in the hospital!" He tried to freeze you to the ground again, but you just punched through the ice.

"I said I was sorry!" you landed a kick on his torso using Kirishima's quirk and sent him flying, as much as you wanted to though, you couldn't hit him with all your strength. "But all you did was ignore me and push me away and pretend like I was invisible!"

Sorry Hagakure.

He stood up and sent you sliding away by freezing the ground under your feet.

You stopped yourself before you went out of bounds. "Stop pushing me away and fight me for real!"

You could tell he wasn't comfortable using his fire side again by the way he positioned his ice side towards you. You weren't going to let him hold back.

Fine, I'll just coax it out of him.

You dropped Kirishima's quirk, immediately replacing it with that of the boy in front of you.

If you could, you would take it all and if you knew how, you would try to use his fire, but you couldn't do either.

You shot your own ice attack at him which he narrowly dodged, a shard of ice grazing his cheek

"You said I make you weak?! Well how do you feel know?"

"You heard that?"

"Yes I did." you shivered slightly from the temperature of the air around you but the fire blazing behind your eyes wasn't close to going out.

"Y/n you don't understand."

"What don't I understand Todoroki Shoto?" you tried another blast of ice, but missed again.

The entire stadium was freezing because of the constant ice attacks you were throwing back and forth, and the ground you were fighting on was so slippery you could barely keep your footing.

Scratch that, you couldn't keep your footing.

You slipped and fell hard onto your side. Todoroki took your misstep, as an opportunity to freeze you to the ground.

He looked down at you, frustration lacing his features. "When I'm around you I'm unable to keep myself together. I can't control my emotions when I think you're in danger and I don't have the strength to try and be a hero if all I can think about is you. You make me weak and I hate it."

...

"ARE YOU FUCKING SERIOUS!" you broke out of your ice cage with such force you knocked him away from you.

"Do you know what you put me through just because you GET WORRIED ABOUT ME!"

You ran up to him landing another half power kick on his torso. "I've had to deal with so much emotional SHIT!" he stopped himself from going out of bounds with an ice barrier "I've had to find a new fucking COPEING MECANISM so I could process everything that has been going on when if you TALKED TO ME..."

You took a breath before screaming your lungs out.

"WE COULD HAVE WORKED IT OUT!"

Despite your explosion of anger and emotions Todoroki's glare stayed hardened as he stood up.

"You can't fathom the things you put me through."

He widened his stance and to your surprise his left side lit into a blaze of flames.

"I said I was sorry! What more do you want from me?!"

The flames grew bigger melting the ice on the ground, you realized what you said must have really triggered him.

"More then you can give."

A pillar of flames shot towards you and you realized that he was trying to finish the match quickly. You countered the flames with your own pillar of ice which was melted into steam. While you waited for the steam to clear you let yourself think.

What type on answer was that!?

Is he stupid!?

How am I supposed to have any idea what he means?

I can't do anything with that answer!

Why won't he let me help.

I just want my best friend back.

I'm not angry, I'm miserable.

You dropped your arms in defeat, the flames of aggression you felt only moments ago diminishing as you realized there was no use fighting anymore.

"Okay."

"What?" his flames faltered for a moment.

"I don't know what to say. I don't know what you want and you said I can't give it to you so...okay."

You stood up strait, no longer in a fighting stance. "If you are done with me, finish it. Win the match and show me you don't want me anymore."

You smiled softly, "Don't worry, I can take it."

His flames completely went out and his expression twisted into one of grief.

"No."

...

"Huh?"

You could tell by the look on his face that he was working through something in his head, but finally he seemed to come to a conclusion.

"I won't."

You were stunned for a moment, running through all the things he could be secretly trying to say.

"Are you sure?"

"Yes."

"Promise?"

He nodded.

You closed the gap between the two of you and, without a moment of hesitation, wrapped your arms around his neck. He finished the hug by wrapping his arms around your waist.

"I missed you, dumb fucker."

He squeezed you tightly in response.

You grasped onto the boy in front of you, relishing in the feeling of finally having him, your best friend, back. He smelt like sweat and soap and you could feel the difference in temperature between his left and right sides.

That's my Shoto.

"If you ever pull crap like that again I will lose every single one of my marbles."

"I know."

You could hold him forever, but you could feel everyone's eyes on the two of you and your face flushed slightly. You tried to pull away due to the fact that you were standing in the middle of a stadium full of people who were silently waiting for one of you to win the match, but Shoto held you firmly.

"Sho-"

"Just let me have this."

You could tell that your temporary separation had been hard on him as well, so you let him have his moment while trying to figure out what was going on in his head.

He said that I couldn't give him what he wanted from me and he pushed me away, but he was struggling just as much as I was over the past few weeks. This doesn't make any sense.

You sighed, deciding it was time that you ended the match and wiggled around in Shoto's arms trying to get him off you.

"We are going to talk about this later, but for now, I'm tired and kind of over this whole shabang so you have a tournament to win."

"What do you-"

Before he could finish you dropped his quirk and passed out. Shoto caught you before you hit the ground.

"Y/n has been rendered unconscious, Todoroki wins!" Midnight announced.

The two of you had been so caught up in your match, you hadn't even noticed the cheers and gasps from the audience. Despite what you thought, most of them had found your embrace endearing and had erupted into applause when you finally stopped fighting. They couldn't hear most of what you were saying other than the occasional scream, but everyone could tell your match was all emotions.

Todoroki exited the arena carrying you in his arms listening to the roar of applause.

***

"Katsuki! What happened!?"

You were shocked to find the blond thrashing around, tied to a block of cement, wearing a muzzle.

You had easily won your match against Fumikage for third place after you woke up, and were now waiting to receive your medal under the arena floor. For some reason you couldn't understand, Dark Shadow had refused to fight you, so Fumikage just withdrew, knowing he couldn't beat you without the help of his quirk.

"He wouldn't stop trying to attack Todoroki, so we had to restrain him." Cemontos responded.

You heard the fight between Shoto and Katsuki had been pretty insane, but Shoto refused to use his fire. You didn't get to watch because Recovery Girl insisted that you stay with her until she was sure you wouldn't fall over from exhaustion. It had been a long day.

"This is inhumane! It will ruin his reputation!" you gestured aggressively to the human muzzle on his face.

"It is the only option we have, sorry Y/n."

You felt awful that you couldn't do anything to calm him down and get him out of what would be a humiliating situation.

You grimaced and stood on your pedestal. "I know that wasn't the way you wanted to win but... you did good my man."

Katsuki stopped thrashing in his restraints for a moment but continued as the pedestals started moving upwards, displaying you to the audience as the first second and third place winners.

You smiled and waved to the applauding audience hoping that they wouldn't think to badly of Katsuki.

"Kat you need to calm the frick frack down." you muttered under your breath eyeing the press and their hundreds of cameras.

"Now!" Midnight exclaimed "There is only one person worthy of giving the awards... All Might!"

The number one hero jumped down from the top of the stadium, and the crowd went wild.

All Might grabbed the third place medal from Midnight and placed it over your head. "Young Y/n congratulations, your performance truly was remarkable."

"Why thank you!"

All Might leaned in to hug you and spoke quietly so just you could hear "I'm glad you worked things out with young Todoroki, having good friends you can rely on is crucial to becoming a hero."

You just smiled in response, you still had to work some things out, like what the fuck he meant by 'More than you can give' but you were really happy to have him back and to be over your angsty period.

While you waited for the other two boys to receive their medals you made eye contact with Izuku who was standing with the rest of your class. He looked worried, and rightfully so.

Tenya had to leave early because his brother, the pro hero Ingenium, was badly injured. By the sound of it, it wasn't good. You knew that Iida really looked up to his brother so you hoped that he would recover.

***

After the festival ended you went directly home not bothering to talk with anyone.

Today was the longest day of my life.

You had done so many things and worked through so many emotions you didn't even know how you were feeling anymore. Everyone had two days off to recover, so you planned to take one of them to sleep and the other to deal with all of the stuff you had been putting off.

You took a quick shower and fell into bed, knowing you wouldn't have to get up for a while.