BNHA ONESHOTS - [Request Open]

TODODEKU [Panic Attack! Todoroki x Izuku]

“I am sorry.” Todoroki said as soon as the framed photo he was holding  hit the floor.
The glass frame broke and shards of glass spreaded on the carpet. 

“I am sorry.” Todoroki said, cursing.
It was a folded picture Izuku decided to frame a while ago: it was a photo of his mother and him. When Inko was on her deathbed, she gave him a photo she always hold in her wallet: her smiling son sitting on her knees. He must have been ten years old or so. 

Izuku cried that day, when he took the photo from the dying mother’s hands and neatly folded it back again. He promised her he would have framed it. 

Todoroki hold his hand during the whole time. When Inko died, Izuku hold on tight to the photo. 

Todoroki’s hands shook so much that they gave out: the frame fell and it broke, the glass tore apart the center of the photo, ruining Inko’s smiling face. 
I should have known, Todoroki said in the back of his mind. He felt the hand trembling and that was the moment in which he should have let the photo go. 
Izuku was talking so happily about the glass frame he finally found, it was simply perfect, what his mother would have loved to have.
Therefore, the moment it hit the ground, Todoroki felt bile rising up from his stomach and he suddenly needed to apologise. 

“I am sorry,” he said. 
Izuku took fright, the sudden noise swept him away from his gibberish. He saw Todoroki’s hands trembling before but he paid no attention to it, might have been the coldness of the room they were in or a spasm of some muscles moving underneath the skin. 

“Oh, don’t worry. Let me help you.” 
Izuku raised from the position he was in and crouched next to Todoroki’s knees. The latter stood up, following Izuku’s motion, however his body kept shaking and Todoroki knew that he should have said something. 
“I am sorry, Midoriya,” he said. 

Izuku’s curly green hair shifted in his vision and green eyes stared at him with a kindness Todoroki was not used to. 
“Oh, don’t worry, Shoucchan!,” he said using the nickname of many years ago, when they used to be schoolmates. 
“I said there is no problem! It could have happened to anybody!,” he said with a smile. 
What a happy face he held, what a happy man he was. 

“I am sorry, it- it meant a lot for you…” Todoroki said fidgeting with his fingers, a hold habit of his, developed among years of hidden anxiety and insecurities. 

What a strange man he was, what a hollow man he was. 

“Don’t,” Izuku said while reaching for Todoroki’s hands. “No need to be anxious, it’s just me,” he added as he held his hand till he let them fall along his body. 

It is because it’s you!, Todoroki would have said; the voice in his mind kept telling him to apologise, he did wrong to the only person he loved, might love… sort of. 

“I am sorry, I should have been… It should…” Todoroki felt nauseated. 
Izuku shook his head and let the piece of glass he gathered on the table right in front of them. Getting up, his figure almost reached Todoroki’s chin. He stared into those mismatched eyes and hoped to convey what he could not, was not able to, with words.

“It’s okay, Shouto. It really is,” Izuku said.
“It’s not… It’s broken and I ruined your photo… I…” Again he reached for his fingers, this time he tried to bite his fingernails. His fingers already suffered months of nail-biting; the soft skin around it now scarred. 
Izuku smiled: it did not reach his eyes. 
What a sad smile he wore.  

“Why don’t you stop this?” Izuku said and it might have sound harsher than intended because he immediately reached for Todoroki’s hand clutching his jeans and caressed the back of it.