His fingers twitch tighter for a moment. No need to be ashamed. He's sorry he unsettled him--Paul, his dear friend, who, if he went for his throat, would be slammed across the room without hesitation.
He remembers--brief in the heat of training, longer in meditative contemplations--visualizing embarrassingly ordinary things like a door unlocking or an egg not exploding in a microwave. He knows the feeling--or lack thereof--of learning to use his Quirk automatically without thought.
It's not the same. His Quirk is will and passion accumulated and very carefully released. It's not a quartz movement coolly ticking away his own words and intonations back at him. It would be impressive, if Midoriya wasn't wishing those perfectly recalled words could instead be abandoned in the void. He gazes past Paul's hair at the ceiling. He keeps his hand to remind himself he's really there.
"Thank you," he murmurs when his friend's mind unflattens from its odd, mirror-like state and he can see his face again. He picks over the disjointed words and contextless emotions he let slip, from the view of an outsider. Snippets of one side of a conversation churn up what is still fresh in his mind: grief, burden, and a threat--not present, but known. He finds Paul's eyes. His own are soft with a gentle affection.
"If you don't want to die instantly... or even if you want to keep your limbs... you won't tell anyone about this." The words by themselves would be a threat in someone else's mouth, but they are only fact, accompanied by his usual incandescent kindness and the returning warmth of his hand.
no subject
He remembers--brief in the heat of training, longer in meditative contemplations--visualizing embarrassingly ordinary things like a door unlocking or an egg not exploding in a microwave. He knows the feeling--or lack thereof--of learning to use his Quirk automatically without thought.
It's not the same. His Quirk is will and passion accumulated and very carefully released. It's not a quartz movement coolly ticking away his own words and intonations back at him. It would be impressive, if Midoriya wasn't wishing those perfectly recalled words could instead be abandoned in the void. He gazes past Paul's hair at the ceiling. He keeps his hand to remind himself he's really there.
"Thank you," he murmurs when his friend's mind unflattens from its odd, mirror-like state and he can see his face again. He picks over the disjointed words and contextless emotions he let slip, from the view of an outsider. Snippets of one side of a conversation churn up what is still fresh in his mind: grief, burden, and a threat--not present, but known. He finds Paul's eyes. His own are soft with a gentle affection.
"If you don't want to die instantly... or even if you want to keep your limbs... you won't tell anyone about this." The words by themselves would be a threat in someone else's mouth, but they are only fact, accompanied by his usual incandescent kindness and the returning warmth of his hand.