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Izuku truly, genuinely loves his friends. Most of the time.
Other times, he wants to Shoot Style them five stories off the building.
His predicament starts like so: he, Kacchan, and Todoroki-kun are exhausted after running around the city all day chasing Endeavor’s back, so naturally, after hours of unsuccessfully beating the number one hero at apprehending any villains, Izuku proposes a card game to lighten up his friends’ spirits.
“What is it with you and not wanting to rest after working all day, you nerd?” Kacchan snarls, kicking off his boots and hurling them into his borrowed locker— almost taking Todoroki-kun’s head off in the process.
Todoroki-kun straightens up and stares pointedly into the back of Kacchan’s head. He seems to contemplate performing an act of retaliation but decides to choose peace instead, turning to Izuku. “I honestly wouldn’t mind a simple game to spend the rest of the afternoon. I finished all my studying in the car, anyways,” he mutters, unstrapping his gauntlets.
Kacchan slams his locker and wheels on Todoroki-kun. “You big fucking liar, I didn’t see you open a single textbook while we were in that tiny overcrowded metal box on wheels.”
Todoroki-kun blinks. “Maybe you were too busy glaring out the window to notice I was using my English flashcards and not the whole textbook.”
“He’s right,” Izuku pipes up while packing away his faceguard. “Remember? Present Mic-sensei assigned us a new list of words, which Todoroki-kun was practicing with me.”
“We have mastered the art of multitasking and maintaining friendship,” Todoroki-kun hums. He glances at Izuku with an amused glint in his eye.
“You fucking Icyhot bastard—”
“A-anyways,” Izuku cuts in, folding his gloves into their compartment, “after we get back to the dorm, I have a deck of Uno cards we can play with. Just one round, and then we can have some alone time.”
“Fine by me,” Todoroki-kun shrugs, flipping his hero costume case closed.
“Tch,” Kacchan spits as he slams the locker room door open and stomps out. “Hurry up, you extras, before the sidekicks come in here and yell at us again for changing too slowly. Heroes should be able to change in and out of gear in three seconds flat,” he sings mockingly down the hall. “As if they do any better than we do!”
Izuku exchanges an exasperated smile with Todoroki-kun (well, more like an amused smirk on Todoroki-kun’s end) before following their explosive companion out the door.
Izuku realizes this was a bad idea about thirty seconds before he opens his school bag for the cards.
It is a generally well-known fact that heroes in training are competitive by nature: competing for top marks in the class, competing for high ranks as sidekicks, competing for a future spot as the number one hero, et cetera. Otherwise, how else would they become the heroes they dream to be?
Logically, Izuku should have realized that this competitive spirit also applied to card games… and unfortunately, with it often followed unnecessary violence, especially when Kacchan was involved.
Well. Izuku had already committed to the act already, so there was no choice but to follow through.
“So,” Izuku starts, dumping the box of cards out onto the floor. “I have a double pack that the class normally uses, but I feel like that’s too big for just the three of us. We could just only take out half the cards for this game, but that might make the distribution of cards uneven. Unless, we reorganize all the cards and split the deck perfectly in half, by which case we can start with—”
“We’ll take the whole lot,” Kacchan grunts, swiping the pile of cards out of Izuku’s reach and immediately begins to shuffle them.
A side note on how to begin playing Uno: rules state that the player to the left of the card dealer starts the game. Assuming Kacchan wishes to both shuffle and deal the cards, which would make sense based on Kacchan’s personality, this means Kacchan won’t have the first turn. In fact, he’ll have the last turn.
Izuku exchanges a look with Todoroki-kun. Izuku— and probably Todoroki-kun as well— suspects that Kacchan won’t like that.
Time to mitigate some future damage.
“Kacchan, the dealer—”
“Shut it nerd, I’m trying to concentrate.” Izuku snaps his mouth shut.
Kacchan furiously shuffles the cards, so fast to the point that Izuku is concerned that the cards might catch on fire. Todoroki-kun glances at Izuku again before opening his mouth. “Bakugou, the player to the left of the dealer starts the game. The dealer goes last.”
Kacchan freezes (haha, freezes. Todoroki-kun made Kacchan freeze.) in the middle of his task. “You do it then, Deku,” he snarls, shoving the cards at Izuku.
Izuku sighs, taking the stack. This is going to be a long game.
The Uno game starts off with a (literal) bang as Kacchan slams down his first card. Todoroki-kun smoothly follows up with a skip turn card. “Sorry, Midoriya.”
Izuku gives Todoroki-kun a tight smile before turning back to the center, where Kacchan has slammed down his second card. “That’s okay, Todoroki-kun. I’ll get you back soon enough.”
“Oi, pay attention here. The game won’t play itself, you extras.”
Todoroki-kun almost rolls his eyes at Kacchan before taking his turn.
Here’s a spoiler alert: Izuku does not get Todoroki-kun back soon enough.
Instead, Izuku embarks on a losing streak, sparked by the bad luck he had from the very beginning. Six out of his seven beginning cards had been blue, and after a few minutes, thirteen out of his thirteen cards are all blue (How. How is that even mathematically possible. Ectoplasm-sensei never prepared him for this.).
“Take that, you Icyhot bastard!” Kacchan cackles as he slams a plus four card in the middle of their circle.
Todoroki-kun wrinkles his nose before shuffling four additional cards into his deck. “Please, refrain from singeing the cards. Midoriya still needs them for class game night.”
“It’s fine, Todoroki-kun. We can always use your father’s credit card to buy a new deck if it comes down to it,” Izuku grins.
Todoroki-kun smiles grimly. “That’s true. But I’d rather not have to bother with that in the first place.”
Izuku flashes him an easy smile before turning back to his own deck and biting his lip, thumbing through the cards. “What color next, Kacchan?”
Please be blue please be blue please be blue please be blue please be blue please be blue—
Kacchan snorts. “Clearly it seems the only color you have is blue, so not blue. I say yellow.”
Izuku’s jaw slams shut with a squeak. He flips through the deck until he finally finds a yellow reverse card he can place down to end his misery. Izuku now has an additional six cards and is that much further from winning.
He and Kacchan go a few rounds back and forth with reverse cards until Izuku wins out (finally, some semblance of victory in this god awful game), turning the game to Todoroki-kun.
Todoroki-kun hums, running a finger along the tops of his cards. He’s the closest one to an Uno. “Plus two.”
Kacchan eyes Izuku suspiciously before putting down another plus two.
Izuku exhales in relief. He has three plus two cards he can put down, but he’ll use them one at a time.
Todoroki-kun puts another plus two down. He glances at Kacchan as Kacchan follows up with another plus two.
Izuku places his second to last plus two down.
Todoroki-kun.
Kacchan.
Izuku. He gulps.
Todoroki-kun.
The plus twos have stacked considerably and Izuku is praying Kacchan doesn’t have any more plus twos in his deck, otherwise—
“...you’re kidding me, right?” Izuku whines as the final plus two card stares mockingly back at him from the top of the deck.
By this point, Kacchan is howling with laughter. “TWENTY TWO FUCKING CARDS, DEKU. OH MY GOD.”
Even Todoroki-kun can’t keep a smirk off his lips. “Guess you’ll have to take some from the bottom of the discard deck.” He shuffles the cards and pushes them in front of Izuku.
“Come on, isn’t there a limit to how many plus twos you can put down in a row? This isn’t fair!” Izuku protests. “And is stacking in the actual rules of Uno, anyways?”
Todoroki-kun puts down his fifth to last card. “We’ve been playing with stacking all year in the dorms, Midoriya. You can’t fight it. Grab your cards.”
“SUCKS TO SUCK, SHITTY NERD!” Kacchan guffaws. “THIS WAS YOUR IDEA ANYWAYS!” He’s rolling on the floor in hysterics, pounding the floor with his fists.
Izuku contemplates defenestrating him. From their room, the drop is twelve stories.
No. That isn’t very Plus Ultra of Izuku.
“It’s your turn, Bakugou.”
“Oh fuck off, I knew that.” Kacchan crawls back to his spot in their triangle and places down two nines.
Izuku tries to maximize the number of cards he can eliminate at once. It’s fastest to organize his deck by color, but to maximize efficiency, Izuku should put them all in order of number. That way, he’ll be able to knock out duplicate numbers quickly and get a chance at winning the game. Well then, with that in mind, Izuku should collect all of his nines into one—
“We don’t have all day for you to make a move, shitty nerd. Just put a card down so we can get on with our lives.”
Maybe Izuku should have thrown Kacchan out the window after all.
He puts four nines down and sits back, cracking his neck. Slowly but surely, Izuku will be able to catch up.
Todoroki-kun immediately swoops in with a burn (Izuku is getting really good with these quirk puns). “Oh no, a plus four card. Whatever is the angry egoistic overlord going to do,” he deapans, staring directly at Kacchan.
Smoke starts rising from Kacchan’s palms. “You think this is funny? You think this is funny? Well then I’m about to be fucking hilarious, Half ‘n Half bastard.” He throws down another plus four card.
“Kacchan, that doesn’t actually affect Todoroki-kun directly—”
“Take a look at your damn cards, nerd. I can’t believe I have to explain this to an idiot like you.”
Oh. Izuku has a plus four card he can retaliate with.
“Sorry, Todoroki-kun,” Izuku shrugs. Finally, reparations for the beginning of the game.
Todoroki-kun isn’t fazed, putting down yet another plus four card. “Looks like we’re doing this again. Your move, Bakugou.”
Kacchan stiffens ever so slightly. He’s out of plus four cards and out of luck.
“...don’t think you’ve already started winning, Icyhot bastard.”
“I only have two cards left, Bakugou.”
“JUST SHUT UP ALREADY.”
Mildly, Izuku pipes up. “Kacchan, you have to grab sixteen cards. Now, what color, Todoroki-kun?”
"DON'T TELL ME WHAT TO DO!"
“Yellow.”
Izuku grits his teeth into a smile. Todoroki-kun is probably going to win soon. “Of course.”
With his next move, Todoroki-kun will have one card left. Izuku silently prays he or Kacchan are fast enough to interrupt Todoroki-kun before he can say—
“U—”
“Un—”
“UNO!” Kacchan cuts in, grinning triumphantly. “HAHA, GOTCHA HALF ‘N HALF BASTARD!”
Todoroki-kun’s left eye twitches. He’s back to five cards.
Such is the beauty of a game like Uno. One moment you’re teetering on the edge of victory, and in the next, a loudmouthed blonde with serious anger issues has buried you five cards under.
This is why the fire extinguisher is always nearby during class game nights.
Izuku wipes the sweat from his brow (when did he start sweating over a card game) as he puts down three ones. He watches Kacchan slam down yet another pair of cards. The game has swiftly gone in Kacchan’s favor.
At this point, Izuku is pretty sure he’s not going to win. The best route to take now is to reduce any possible fallout from this card game he and his internship mates have begun playing.
Todoroki-kun is trying his very hardest not to sulk as he looks for cards to put down after Kacchan. Izuku might laugh a little at his friend’s expense, if not for the impending threat of fire damage to the room.
Careful not to trigger any explosions or building fires, Izuku carefully puts down a red three.
Kacchan grins devilishly. “Thanks for that, nerd.” He flips down his second to last card, shouting, “UNO!”
Izuku winces at the volume. It’s a wonder no one has come up to the dorm to investigate the noise yet.
“Going to retaliate, Icyhot bastard? Or are you too busy counting your cards like some loser?” Kacchan smirks.
Izuku swears he hears Todoroki-kun biting back a curse under his breath. He tries to send telepathic brain waves to Todoroki-kun (Darn. If only One For All also came with a telepathy quirk.). It’s okay, Todoroki-kun. You can let out your frustration at Kacchan. I understand completely. Just don’t… cause any property damage.
Unfortunately, Todoroki-kun doesn’t seem to get the message. Steam is beginning to seep out of Todoroki-kun’s nose.
One beat. Two beats.
The temperature drops twenty degrees. With a crack, Kacchan is half frozen as Todoroki-kun stomps into their dorm bathroom, a trail of ash following behind him.
“This is bullshit,” Izuku catches Todoroki-kun hissing before slamming the door shut.
Oh no. That ash better not be the Uno cards.
Kacchan is making angry cat noises under the ice, which makes it hard for Izuku to figure out which problem to solve first.
“Todoroki-kun, did you burn the Uno ca—”
Kacchan screams again and lights up his palms.
“O-ok, never mind. Give me a second, Kacchan, I can get you out. Please don’t explo—”
BOOM.
“I DON’T NEED YOUR HELP TO GET OUT OF THIS WATER, YOU DAMN NERD. START MINDING YOUR OWN BUSINESS.”
“G-got it Kacchan—”
“NOW STOP TALKING TO ME!” Kacchan hisses and kicks his way out of the dorm room. “AND DON’T FOLLOW ME OUT, EITHER. DON’T BOTHER ME.”
Izuku flops on the floor with a groan. He turns his head to the bathroom. “Todoroki-kun?”
No answer.
Izuku sighs, taking in the burn marks on the rug, the rapidly growing puddle of water where Kacchan was sitting, and the haphazardly scattered cards on the floor.
He’s never playing Uno with his internship partners ever again.