"What if I can't? What if those people are right?"

But even as he protests, he collapses into Midoriya's arms, wrapping his skinny arms around muscular shoulders and nestling under his chin. Midoriya smells like sweat, he always does, and tears but there familiar fierceness in his embraces centers him.

"What if the beast is real? The humans that raised me in the lab... they always feared me. And the things I was capable of."