Archive of Our Own ^beta

This is the way the world works: the sun rises in the east. The strong come out on top. Bakugou Katsuki rockets through life like a comet and Midoriya Izuku stumbles after.

If he believed in such things Katsuki would say it was written in the stars. That some god of war had looked at him and said this one. That he’d been passed along a line to get his blessings – genius, willpower, fearless ambition – and dropped off on earth to grow up and lead the hapless masses to the best possible future. One where he’s on top. A beacon of protection, victory and punishing justice, magnetic without needing to try. He accepts this as inevitable. The weak are drawn to him even when he actively tries to turn them away. Over time he learns this is just human nature; they need him to do what they can’t so he alone carries the burden of perfection.

Then, of course, there is the question of Deku. The spitfire runt. Decently smart but useless in all other respects, and still somehow bull-headed enough to think he’ll someday be Katsuki’s equal. It’d be funny if it weren’t infuriating. It’s wrong and frankly insulting so Katsuki takes it upon himself to squash that dream. To save Deku from a lifetime of embarrassment by proving every day that Katsuki’s better, smarter, stronger. Deku doesn’t take the hint. It seems no matter what Katsuki does Deku’s determined to keep going. For as long as he breathes he’ll never give up on the miracle chance that one day he’ll be a hero.

Bakugou Katsuki wins. And Deku, no matter what the world does to him, never stops hoping.

Until, of course, he eventually does.

It’s not the sludge villain.

Deku’s been in trouble before; he’s stupid and gets way too close to hero fights just to look at the action. The sludge guy didn’t hurt him that badly, anyway. Katsuki heard secondhand that some hero had stepped in before things could get hairy. It’s not UA either. Deku’d bombed the entrance exam just like Katsuki said he would. He broke both arms trying to take down a robot but Katsuki saw him go home with grudging  acceptance. He knew he’d fail. Tried anyway, because he’s Deku, but wasn’t surprised at the outcome.

It must, then, be Katsuki. Katsuki, still drunk off hearing All Might congratulate his performance, still furious that Deku had dared disobey a clear warning to stay away. The name-calling gets worse. Deku’s notebooks get ripped up and thrown away. He gets a note saying quirkless stuck on the back of his gakuran and it takes him half a school day to notice. Slowly he gets quieter. Starts melting into the background so his outside matches his unremarkable inside, something in him snuffed out so Katsuki sometimes forgets they’re even in the same school. He keeps his eyes downcast. Doesn’t talk unless called upon in class and even then he’s barely audible from his seat near the back.

By the end of the school year he’s faded away. Katsuki takes no notice. This is just the way it’s supposed to be and anyway Deku will get over it once he’s done mourning the idea of never being a hero. Katsuki graduates top in their year, of course. Deku doesn’t come to the ceremony.

They see each other one last time before Katsuki starts UA. It’s an accident. He’s on his usual 5am run that goes by Deku’s apartment building. Deku, for some reason, is sitting on the sidewalk. He doesn’t look up as Katsuki approaches, not even to stutter a squeaky good morning because he’s chronically polite. It rubs Katsuki the wrong way. He slows, sweat cooling on the back of his neck, and kicks Deku’s ankle with his foot.

Deku lifts his head. He looks like he’s not completely awake, only vaguely recognising someone in front of him as he mumbles hello. His hair’s a mess. It always is, to be fair, but now Katsuki can clearly see it’s tangled. “Hi, Kacchan. What are you doing out so late?”

Katsuki scoffs. “It’s five in the morning, stupid. Does your mother know you’ve been out here all night?”

“Dunno.”

“You’re a space case. Why didn’t you come to graduation?”

“Dunno.”

“Ashamed of yourself, were you? Couldn’t stand to see me be valedictorian since you fucked up your finals?”

“Guess so.”

“I said you wouldn’t get into UA. You should have put more effort into studying. You should probably try being good at something before you end up an unemployed deadweight.”

Deku just shrugs. His lack of expression is infuriating. Katsuki kicks him again, just because, but all Deku does is shuffle his foot away. “What the fuck is the matter with you?” Katsuki demands. “Weirdo. Sitting in the street at ass o’clock by yourself for no reason. I should call the cops.”

Slowly, Deku blinks. He’s not really focused on Katsuki, more looking past him than at him. “Say, Kacchan. Did you mean it?”

“What?”

“That my best chance at being a hero would be in another life with a quirk?”

He doesn’t sound particularly upset. More mildly curious, but Katsuki has to take a deep breath to calm the sudden flare of anger that tries to climb up his throat for some reason. “Yes, you delusional moron. How many quirkless heroes have you heard of, or even cops? You’d get killed the second you faced a villain. The only reason UA let you do the test was because they didn’t want you to feel left out.”

Deku nods. The words don’t seem to surprise him, let alone get him the least bit upset. “Hmm. I thought so. Okay. That’s fine.”

His voice is steady and soft. Katsuki wants to throttle him but that would take time out of his workout so he steps away with as much contempt as he can pack into one sneer. “Glad you finally figured it out even if it did take fifteen years.”

“Yeah,” Deku says, half to himself. “I understand. See you around.”

A cat yowls. Deku hugs his knees, drowning in a hoodie three sizes too big while the rest of the neighbourhood wakes up. Katsuki starts walking. Breaks into a run halfway down the street, blood pumping and lungs ready for the sweet burn of exertion. His hair sticks to his forehead. The only sounds now are his shoes on the pavement and the birds singing to cheer him on.

The sun rises. Katsuki keeps going and leaves Deku alone on the sidewalk, still silent and staring at nothing much.

UA is harder than Katsuki expects. His performance is still near perfect, of course. He throws himself into school because that’s just what he does but having actual equals is… concerning. The girl with the ponytail is smarter than anyone has a right to be. The half-and-half kid is some kind of legend but can’t be bothered with Katsuki’s attempts to spark up a rivalry. People actually tease him. To his face, with no fear of retribution, and Aizawa sees Katsuki’s overwhelming talent and just shrugs.

If he were anyone else he’d be disheartened. As it is he puts his nose to the grindstone and keeps going. He won’t get lackeys and praise here. That’s fine. He’ll still be the best once he finds his footing. Aizawa and the others will see.

The first step is winning the sports festival. He does, obviously, even if it feels hollow because Todoroki’s hiding some power and won’t give a hundred percent. Everyone knows Katsuki’s name now, at least. He goes home expecting a few thousand internship offers and a celebration from his parents. A fancy dinner, maybe. Hot pot so spicy it makes his nose run and milkshakes after on the front porch. What he gets is a half-empty house and his father sheepishly offering a cupcake. It’s not even home-made. Katsuki takes it, trying not to look put-out, and tosses his jersey on the back of the couch. “Where’s mom?”

“She said there was an emergency,” says Masaru. “Nothing dangerous, I think, but she seemed a little upset.”

“Why?”

“I’m not sure. You did fantastically at the sports festival, though, buddy. I watched the whole thing on TV. Do you want to out to celebrate? We can try that fancy Italian place you saw at the mall.”

The night is subdued. Dad goes to bed and Katsuki lounges on the couch, flipping through TV channels and eating ice cream out of a tub. He pauses on his own face on the news. He looks good in the sports uniform even if it’s nowhere as cool as his hero outfit’s going to be.

Mom gets home at half-past ten. She looks rumpled, like she’s been running her hands through her hair. “Oh, hi, Katsuki. Dad says you won your thing at school.”

Katsuki deliberately does not take his feet off the coffee table. “Where were you?” he asks, still looking at the TV. “You promised you’d stop pulling all-nighters at work.”

“I wasn’t at work.” She drops her purse on the floor and collapses next to him on the sofa. “Get your dirty feet off the table, were you raised in a barn? I went to Inko’s place. Izuku-kun’s not feeling well, poor thing. Have you checked in on him lately?”

Why in the actual fuck would I do that, Katsuki manages not to say. “No.”

“He’s been down for a while. Inko’s been trying to help him through it but nothing seems to be working. Oh, she’s heartbroken. I feel terrible. I should have caught up with her sooner but since spring started I’ve just been so busy at work.”

“Uh-huh.”

“I can’t imagine what could have happened to make Izuku-kun so sad. Inko has to beg him to eat and he won’t go to school to see his friends.”

“I highly doubt he has any.”

She turns to frown at him. Katsuki briefly wonders if he’s about to get yelled at but she just takes his ice cream and helps herself. “He’s always had trouble making friends, hasn’t he?”

“I was eating that.”

“Why don’t you go see him? He must be having trouble adjusting. I bet seeing a familiar face will cheer him up.”

Katsuki looks at her like she’s lost her mind. She seems entirely serious, though, chewing the inside of her cheek like she’s actually concerned. “We aren’t friends, Mom. He’s just a – he’s just Deku.”

“But you used to be so close,” she insists. “And he’s known you all his life. Come on, Katsuki, you can’t leave the poor boy all alone like that. He needs company. Go visit them and ask how he’s doing. Take him out to lunch sometimes, introduce him to your classmates. You can spare an afternoon every once in a while, can’t you?”

“I’m busy. I’m not wasting time babysitting him just because he-”

“Katsuki.” She’s scowling now. Jaw set, voice flat and low. Katsuki snaps his mouth shut. The quieter she gets the angrier she’s about to be – it’s like watching the sea draw back before it swells into a raging tsunami. “He needs someone. Why in god’s name do you want to be a hero if you won’t even help an old friend?”

He glares at the coffee table. The first flicker of shame tries to creep up his face but he keeps his expression resolutely still and aloof. “This isn’t fucking fair. You don’t give a shit I won the sports festival, do you? We were supposed to celebrate and you went to go visit Deku.”

The newscaster on TV says something about stocks. Mitsuki sighs and puts a manicured hand in Katsuki’s hair. “I’m sorry, baby. You did good. I knew you’d blow them all out of the water and I’m sorry I wasn’t here to congratulate you. But Inko called me crying and I had to go help. When someone needs you, you can’t just blow them off. You know what that’s like, right?”

He doesn’t. It’s not like anyone ever comes to him in tears. “Whatever.”

“I’ll make it up to you. We can go look at those Switch things you keep talking about. But you have to promise me,” she says and turns his head so he’s forced look at her, “that you’ll try your best with Izuku-kun, okay? It won’t take much to make him happy. You know he’s always looked up for you.”

Katsuki grimaces. He supposes he had nothing important planned for tomorrow. “Jesus Christ, fine.”

“Thank you,” she says and kisses his forehead. Katsuki makes a face but doesn’t pull away. “That’s my hero. I know being nice isn’t your strong suit but you’ll make everything better. I know you will.”

Inko’s smaller than he remembers.

So’s the apartment, come to think of it. Katsuki stands in the living room while Inko fusses over tea, looking tired and somehow older than Mitsuki despite being around the same age. She smiles as she pushes a warm mug into his hands. “How’s UA, Katsuki? Izuku told me last year that you placed first in the entrance exam.”

“It’s fine,” Katsuki says flatly. Inko’s face is genuine. She’s actually glad to see him, which must mean Deku had the good sense to keep his mouth shut about their fucked relationship. “Where’s Deku? Mom told me to – that he might want company.”

“Oh, he’s in his room.” Her gaze drifts slowly downward, mouth going pinched. “He’s, uh. Always in his room. He’s probably asleep but I don’t think he’ll mind you waking him. I told him you’d be coming but I’m not sure he heard.”

He glances at the clock. Asleep at three p.m. Typical. “It’s fine. I won’t be long, anyway.”

“Okay. Have, uhm. Have fun.”

He turns to go. She catches his sleeve before he can make it down the hall, other hand nervously tangled in the hem of her sweater. “He’s just,” she says haltingly. “He might be… off. I’m not sure how much your mother told you but he – he’s not doing so well lately.”

Katsuki shakes himself free, albeit gently. “I got it. He’ll probably be fine soon.”

The door creaks as he opens it. Katsuki shuts it behind him, sipping his sweet tea as he flicks on the lights. He pauses with his finger on the switch. Deku’s room is white, sterile and empty.

“What the fuck?” This isn’t right. Katsuki hasn’t come here in ages but he’s pretty sure Deku’s always been a merchandise hoarder. There’s nothing on the walls. Nothing on the desk either save some school books and a laptop. There’s no novelty stationery, no stupid hero figurines. Even the ratty black pencil case is wrong – Katsuki’s certain he remembers a gaudy red, yellow and blue thing with All Might hair on the front.

Nonplussed, he puts his tea on the desk. There are tape marks on the walls so Katsuki knows he was right about the place being a mess of posters once upon a time. There’s nothing in the big bookshelf either. Even the laptop has paper residue on it like Deku ripped off a patchwork of stickers. There’s junk on the floor despite Inko’s best efforts and the air is eerily still, sunlight streaming through the gap in the curtains to highlight motes of dust floating like lazy insects. “You alive in there, Deku? Where’s all your stupid hero shit?”

There’s no answer. The lump under the comforter curls further in on itself as Katsuki goes through some empty drawers. What he can see of the mattress from here doesn’t even have sheets on it. “Seriously, Deku, where is everything? I thought you’d have a mountain of those dumbass notebooks you scribble in.”

Deku mumbles something incomprehensible. Katsuki strides over to poke around in the wardrobe. There’s supposed to be a Miruko hoodie in here. Katsuki remembers the idiot bunny ears sticking out of the hood but everything in here is bland. It’s fucking bizarre. Like he’s come in just as Deku was moving out, personality neatly packed up in a box to be shipped off somewhere else.

He spins on his heel and snatches the comforter off Deku’s head. Deku barely reacts. He’s a mess, hair too long and skin pale from hiding out indoors. “What the hell is all this?” Katsuki demands. “No wonder your mom’s worried about you. When was the last time you showered and went outside?”

Slowly, Deku turns to look at him. His eyes are unfocused like he’s either slept too much or too little. “Kacchan?”

“Yes, idiot. What’s going on with you? Where’s your stuff?”

Deku frowns ever so slightly. He’s squinting in the harsh fluorescent light that makes his empty room look like a soulless hospital ward. “Garbage.”

“You threw it out? Why?”

“Useless,” he mutters and presses his face back into the pillow. “’M quirkless. Not a hero. There’s no point.”

Katsuki stands there, leaning over him with Deku’s bedding in one hand and his drink forgotten on the table. Deku looks… crumpled. That’s the only way Katsuki can think to describe it. Like a used tissue tossed out of a moving car to roll into a gutter. His hair’s greasy and obviously unwashed. His eyes are open but he’s just staring at the wall, not even ignoring Katsuki so much as drifting out of reality. Like his mind’s fighting to be anywhere but here, leaving his body to waste away into a teenaged corpse.

It makes Katsuki’s blood boil. He rips the comforter all the way off, throwing it on the floor and stalking off to yank open the curtains. It’s a nice day outside. Bright and sunny, full of happy people, and Deku’s in here missing it. “Enough moping, Deku, you’re scaring your mom.”

Deku doesn’t react. Deku, the kid who lied to his mother’s face for years about not being bullied just so she wouldn’t worry, doesn’t care she’s upset. Katsuki wants to hit him. “Are you throwing a tantrum? Is that it? UA didn’t work out for you so you’ve sworn off heroes forever? This is pathetic. You already knew you wouldn’t get in so move on already. Go back to school and keep up your weird fanboy shit on the side. You act like your life is over, you’re being stupid.”

Still no answer. Katsuki actually shakes him. Deku stays ragdoll-limp as Katsuki grabs him by the front of the shirt and lifts. He smells like old clothes. Katsuki does the only thing he can think of- he tosses Deku over his shoulder and physically hauls him to the bathroom.

He weighs absolutely nothing. He puts up only the weakest resistance as Katsuki kneels him by the tub and forcibly washes his hair for him. “You’re like a baby,” Katsuki says, scrubbing shampoo on him. “That the best you got, Deku? If you want me to stop you’ll have to wake up and fight me.”

The door opens fully. Katsuki freezes, caught red-handed spraying the shower head in Deku’s face. Inko gasps. “Oh, boys, what are you doing?”

Katsuki turns off the water. “Got him out of bed.”

Deku drips pathetically onto the floor. He’s like a sad, stupid, wet puppy. Inko grabs a towel and runs to bundle him up. “I think you’d better go, Katsuki.”

“I wasn’t –”

“Please,” Inko says, trying in vain to dry off Deku’s soaked t-shirt. “Go wait in the living room. I’ll come talk to you in a minute.”

Katsuki goes. His stomach is in knots. Not from Inko, he just – this is all wrong. Deku got moody towards the end of middle school, sure, but for as long as Katsuki remembers he’s had one constant and that’s his stupid, suicidal need to be around heroes. He can’t have just thrown all his things away. This must be a trick. Something to get back at Katsuki, to get back at the world for seeing his quirklessness and telling him no. He’ll bounce back. He always does, no matter how many times he gets shoved into lockers or pushed into puddles or screamed at for daring to try.

Inko comes back near tears. Katsuki barely looks at her. His mind’s racing, sifting through and discarding ideas about what could have happened. Maybe Deku’s got a weird hormone thing making him sad. Maybe it was a quirk. Maybe he’s been replaced with a villain and the real Deku’s locked up in some basement. “Katsuki?”

Katsuki tears his eyes off the carpet. “Huh?”

Inko gives him a pained smile. She hovers by the arm of the loveseat, one hand absently stroking the fabric like she doesn’t know what to do with herself. “He’s… been like that for a while.”

“How long?”

“I don’t know. Middle school, maybe. I don’t know why for sure. After that thing with the sludge villain, I think it – it must have terrified him, my poor baby. He got so quiet. He wouldn’t tell me what happened. He just got sadder and sadder and a few months ago he stopped getting out of bed entirely. He doesn’t talk anymore. He doesn’t want to watch his hero shows. All he does lately is sleep.”

She frowns at her lap. She looks exhausted, confused and trying not to cry. Katsuki casts around for something vaguely comforting to say. None of this makes sense. There’s no reason Deku should be acting like this unless something terrible happened, which it clearly hasn’t. “Is he sick?”

“Not physically, no.”

The clock on the wall ticks. A cloud passes the sun and casts the living room briefly in soft shadow. Katsuki itches for something to do with his hands and wishes he hadn’t left his cup in Deku’s room. He doesn’t ask what Inko means, sensing it’s a landmine better suited for Mitsuki to deal with. “Does he want to come see UA or something?”

“I don’t know. He threw away all those things he was collecting. I don’t think he cares much about heroes anymore. Or anything, really.”

“Oh.”

She fiddles with a loose thread on her skirt. She opens her mouth as if to say something but changes her mind halfway. “Will you come back?”

“Huh?”

“I was hoping he’d perk up a little for you,” she says hesitantly. “He didn’t, but, well. He doesn’t see anyone but me nowadays. Kids your age need to socialise.”

Katsuki chooses his words carefully. “I dunno if I helped much.”

She titters nervously. “Well. Maybe don’t try to dunk him in the bathtub again but it’s worth a shot, right? Maybe he’ll be more willing to talk to someone his age, I don’t know. I mean, I understand if you don’t have time, what with UA and training and all that, but if you get the chance maybe – you’re welcome back here any time.”

Katsuki chews his lip. She’s begging him wordlessly, fixing him with those big doe eyes Deku clearly got from her. He should refuse. He has places to be and records to break without needing to worry about a stupid sad loser.

“Yeah,” he says instead. He’s a hero, after all. He’ll help even if Deku doesn’t deserve it. “I’ll figure something out.”

She sags with relief. Sighing, she rests her head on the loveseat and offers him an attempt at a smile. “Thank you, Katsuki. Please just- try your best. My son could use a friend.”

He keeps thinking about it.

“Don’t just intern with whoever has the highest hero ranking,” Aizawa says and hands out placement forms. “Try to actually think about whose style would suit you the best. Take your weaknesses into account. Remember you’re supposed to learn from these people.”

Katsuki makes a note in his planner. 3,556 offers. Not the most in class, unfortunately, but he’ll fix that next time around. “When’s the deadline?”

“Raise your hand before talking. It’s in a week.”

Deku would have loved to be in the audience. He used to watch the sports festival every year on TV. He liked predicting which UA students would make it big - some odd choices, if Katsuki remembers correctly, but Deku’d usually be right. Something Katsuki could never get the hang of since he’d always just end up picking whoever won.

This year Deku missed it, though. He didn’t watch Katsuki win because he was too busy moping in bed. It’s insanity. The old Deku, the real one, would have been glued to the screen squealing look at Kacchan go! He would have saved up his allowance for a ticket. Anything to be near the action, to stand in the background and bask in Katsuki’s glory second-hand. Him not being interested is as disorienting as it is insulting. Like he’s saying you won’t let me play in your sandbox? Fine. Then I don’t care about the game anymore. If it were anyone else Katsuki would think this was petty revenge. But it’s Deku. Obsessive, single-track Deku who’d sooner break all his bones than give up his pipe dreams. Stupidly, painfully sincere. Who’d rip his own heart out and hand it over if you asked.

On Saturday Katsuki goes back to Deku’s apartment without needing to be told. It’s been picking at him. He steps through the door expecting Deku to be right as rain, to have snapped back into reality and ready to worship the ground Katsuki walks on just as he should. But Deku’s in bed again. His merch hasn’t rematerialized and he barely looks up when Katsuki announces himself. Katsuki even shows him a sneak picture he took of All Might in class. He’s got a gallery full of heroes in action but Deku just looks away.

The pit in Katsuki’s stomach gets bigger. He comes back the next week and the next. He even drops by on weekdays unannounced, half-hoping to catch Deku setting up his sad act, but nothing really changes no matter what he says or does. Deku’s broken. A doll of a boy without stuffing. A shorted-out, mundane appliance that won’t do the one thing it’s supposed to.

Inko is no help. She looks like she’s barely managing to keep the house up and running. “I saved some of his things,” she tells Katsuki once. It’s a nice day out. Chilly but sunny. “He got rid of so much without me noticing but I saw a whole box of his toys in the trash and I just, well. He loved those things. I hung onto them.”

Katsuki nods. He can’t even bristle at high-end action figures being referred to as toys – those things must have cost a fortune and Deku didn’t even try to sell them like a normal person. He’d just thrown them away. “He’ll want them back eventually.”

“I hope so.” She takes a sip of her tea. She’s been holding it so long it must be tepid but she doesn’t seem to notice. “Which reminds me, I wanted to ask if you could maybe do something for me.”

She leaves him in the living room to poke around in her bedroom. When she gets back she’s struggling with a cardboard box – Katsuki’s on his feet to take it from her before she can get out of the hallway. It’s not huge but it’s heavy. He sets it on the coffee table and dusts off his hands. “This Deku’s stuff?”

“Some of it.” She unfolds the flaps. Inside are stacks of those cheap Campos notebooks Deku likes to hoard. “These are his notes. I didn’t understand much, to be honest, but he put so much time into them I thought it’d be a shame to get rid of them. But this is a small apartment and there are only so many places I can hide things without him finding them, and I really don’t want to upset him. He gets,” she hesitates. “Unhappy. When we watched TV together he’d change the channel whenever a hero came on. Even All Might.”

Katsuki opens the book she hands to him. Deku’s smudged chicken scrawl starts on the first page. “Izuku’s hero analysis volume fifteen: the Endeavour agency.”

“Do you think you could take them?” Inko asks, eyebrows turned up sadly. “I don’t want to recycle them in case – I just hope maybe he’ll want them again.”

Katsuki flips through pages. “Uh. Yeah, I guess so. I’ve got space.”

“Thank you,” she says and squeezes his hands. “Look through them if you like. Maybe they’ll be useful.”

Reluctantly he hauls the box home. Drops it by his desk until he can find a better spot out of sight. Comes back to it after dinner and picks a book up out of nosiness, cross-legged in bed with iced decaf in one hand and wondering what Deku spends all his time writing. He ends up staying awake way past midnight. Oversleeps the next day and has to rush to get to school, head full of diagrams and superpowered physics Katsuki’s sure they haven’t even been taught yet.

He gets through them all in two weeks. A lot of it’s conjecture but all of it’s fascinating and shockingly accurate for being second-hand. Katsuki watches Aizawa scale a Ground Beta building with his capture weapon. Comes home and makes an addendum to Deku’s Eraserhead notes without thinking, only realising much later that he probably should have asked Inko first. He fills in gaps where he can. Highlights the parts he likes, making notes of his own in much neater writing to experiment with later. His mother asks what he does every night when he disappears after dinner. “Got a girlfriend?” she calls up the stairs cackling. Katsuki flips her off and runs off to his room.

There are, of course, notes on Katsuki. Whole books of them, in fact. One of them has a singed cover but Katsuki decides not to think about that, vain curiosity making him line them up in chronological order to see his own growth through Deku’s eyes. He’s been watching since they were tiny children. Kacchan leads with a right uppercut but rarely bothers with legs – he uses them to stabilise himself against his quirk’s recoil and forgets to change posture in non-quirk combat. Possible reason for such wide stance even while sitting or standing?

“Fucker,” Katsuki says but jots this down. He tries Deku’s advice when he gets the chance. Kicks Kirishima square in the chest, taking him by surprise, and wins their spar. Kirishima laughs and congratulates him. Katsuki briefly thinks of Deku but forces the image to the back of his mind.

One weekend he manages to get Deku to speak in full sentences. This time last year he wouldn’t have believed it – Deku’s constant talking has been buzzing in Katsuki’s periphery since kindergarten. All Deku manages are some tired questions about Katsuki’s family but it’s more annoying than anything. It’s like on some level Deku thinks he has to be a good host despite constantly being only half-awake. Katsuki almost tell him to shut it. Almost, because hearing Deku talk nonsense is better than nothing at all.

Inko’s pottering around the living room again when he comes out. She’s snacking on something. Stress-eating, probably, but Katsuki’s smart enough not to comment. “How is he?”

Katsuki shrugs. “Same as always. Dazed.”

“You, uhm, tried talking to him about school?”

“He wasn’t interested.” He’d heard ‘hero’ and gone glazed over. It was like talking to a zombie. “I asked why he wouldn’t go back to his own school but he wouldn’t say.”

She offers him a seat. Katsuki doesn’t take it, feeling out-of-place and tired and just wanting to go home. She fiddles with her hair. Something Deku got from her; always nervous, always needing to do something with his hands. “May I ask you a question, Katsuki? I’d like you to be honest.”

“Okay?”

“Was Izuku bullied in middle school?”

Katsuki blinks. She’s not accusatory, more soft and resigned. “I… yeah. A little.”

“And you protected him.”

What the fuck. Katsuki doesn’t answer, wondering if this is a trap. Inko sees his expression and gives him a pained smile. She sits on the loveseat, knees politely together as she smooths out her mauve skirt. “I know you’re not close anymore,” she says quietly. “You don’t come over like you used to. But nobody ever used to hurt Izuku when you were around, did they?”

“Uh,” says Katsuki. He’s never hit Deku or let anyone else get too rough with him. Just on the off chance Deku one day told on them – no bruises meant no proof. “I guess not.”

“I think it got worse without you around. Izuku tried to make sure he ended up in a high school with people he didn’t know, I think, but they must have found out he didn’t have a quirk. Or someone from his middle school ended up there too, I don’t know. Either way he’s not having a good time.”

“Oh.” It’s like his ribs are constricting. Not because Deku’s getting his ass kicked; he’d sort of expected that would just be Deku’s lot in life, being who he was, but that Inko’s looking at him with sad gratitude. “I… didn’t actually do much.”

“Nonsense. He speaks highly of you,” she says wistfully. “He respects you, you know. Not just because you’re talented. He always tells me what a hard worker you are.”

“Yeah.”

“Thank you, though. For being there for him. I know you can’t protect him forever since you’re in different schools and all but I’m glad he had you. And that he has you now. It’s sweet of you to try to help him. You’re a good boy.”

Katsuki feels sick. Someone’s taken his stomach and dropped it into ice water, poked it with a sharp stick to watch him squirm under her tired smile. The others took his example and ran with it. Without Katsuki being there they took it too far, and now Deku’s trapped in his head in an empty room with the curtains drawn and lights turned down low.

“Sure,” he mutters. Inko pats his cheek. She sends him home with a pack of sweets that Katsuki tosses to his dad and never looks at again. The stairs creak as he runs up to his room. Falls face-down on his pillow and sighs, surrounded by Deku’s notebooks he still hasn’t put away. She’d thanked him. Katsuki snapped Deku like a twig and his mother had thanked him.

He stays sitting there for an hour. Mitsuki calls Katsuki down for dinner but he doesn’t answer. Masaru comes to check on him. Pokes his head in the door and looks doubtful when Katsuki grunts that he’s fine.

It was him. Katsuki the protector. Come back from his exciting, action-packed life to pretend to save Deku from the fate Katsuki gave him.

The sun sets. Time passes and Katsuki draws his knees up to his chest, still in his day clothes. The world keeps turning. He curls up in bed, feeling things he can’t name, and does not go to sleep.

Deku doesn’t get better. Katsuki gets up and goes to school and does his best because he has to, and by the time his internship starts he’s used to the lump in his chest that throbs whenever someone says hero. It’s a good gig. Annoying, sometimes, but he’ll put up with the haircut in exchange for being part of an actual agency. Deku would have loved this. If Jeanist would let him Katsuki would show Deku around, maybe bring him on an arrest to see some action up close.

He ends up, somehow, stealing a case file.

It’s an old case gone cold. A string of minor art thefts around the city that the police gave up on and the heroes never bothered with in the first place. Someone had left it on a desk and forgotten about it when they left the office for patrol. Katsuki stuffs it in his backpack without thinking. Delivers it to Deku hoping it’ll interest him, a real life piece of hero work brought right to his doorstep. Deku just stares at it. Blinks long and slow like a cat, barely listening as Katsuki tells him all about his first day.

Katsuki stops by every day of his internship, powers through being trapped in Deku's horrible, sterile room. On day three Deku tells him flatly that he solved the case.

Katsuki stares at him, holding the file in one hand and perched on Deku’s desk chair. It’s covered in post it notes. Deku was smart enough not to put his findings directly on the report. “What?”

“It was the art dealer,” Deku shrugs. “That’s what all the victims have in common, right? Same source. Art dealer has a lost and found quirk. I’m pretty sure he tracked all his stuff down and stole it back.”

He says it with no real interest. Katsuki flips through the file, frowning. “The DNA found at one scene didn’t match the dealer.”

“He hired someone else to do it. He just told them where to find the stuff.”

“Motive?”

“Reselling, maybe.”

“Huh.” Katsuki considers this, flipping through pages and piecing together Deku’s blasé thoughts into a coherent thread. “So people bought art from this one dealer, who used his quirk to keep track of those pieces and hired someone to break into their houses and take ‘em back. Several someones, since the DNA’s all different at each crime scene. And then – what? If those same pieces showed up at another auction surely someone would have noticed.”

Deku doesn’t move from where he’s leaning against the headboard. He probably hasn’t left bed all day, not even to shower. “It’s not like Da Vinci made them or whatever. The artists aren’t anyone special. Nobody cares.”

“Guess not,” Katsuki says, frowning at a witness statement. “You know I just gave you this to look through, not try to solve.”

“I know,” Deku says and rolls over so he’s facing the wall. “The answer was just obvious. I know you don’t need me to help.”

He brings the file back to Jeanist. He doesn’t mention stealing it, obviously, or Deku’s involvement, but Jeanist nods along as he listens. “Interesting theory,” he says, tapping his pen against his paperwork. “I’ll pass the information along to the police department. I have to warn you they might not open it up again since it’s an old case but that’s impressive initiative on your part.”

Patrol is unremarkable. Katsuki passes an art dealership and pauses when he notices the signboard.

He shouldn’t be here. There’s no reason for him to stare at it and even less reason to come back after his shift. It’s pure nosiness. He hangs around on the curb still in his school uniform, watching what must be the owner flip the sign over the door to closed. There’s a lorry just packing up after a delivery. Continental Solutions, it says on its side, and it chugs off down the street back as the lights in the shop go out one by one.

The street lamps come on. Katsuki goes home, ignoring questions from his mother asking why he got back so late. He eats dinner, takes a shower, does his homework and goes to sleep.

At midnight he sits up in bed, throws on some clothes and sneaks out the front door.

“Deku!” he hisses at 12.15.

There’s no answer. Katsuki rattles the window. He had to climb up the fire escape and hop across some balconies to get here. Now he’s perched precariously on the windowsill, shivering in the early spring breeze and hoping he doesn’t fall to his death. He’s clinging to a drainpipe for balance. “Deku, I swear to god, I know you stay up way later than this. Hurry up and let me in before someone sees me and calls the cops.”

There’s shuffling and a slow creak of hinges. Katsuki pushes past Deku’s face in the window to scramble for solid ground. “Kacchan? What… did we have plans?”

“We do now,” Katsuki says and grimaces at his grimy hands. “I might know where that shitty art dealer guy is keeping his stash. We can poke around the warehouse and if we fine the stolen shit then we can call the cops and have him arrested. Get me a tissue, will you?”

Deku hands him a pack of baby wipes, bewildered. He’s in boxers and a ratty t-shirt so big it looks like an off-shoulder dress. “I – what?”

“We can look for the stolen goods,” Katsuki says impatiently.  “I saw a truck loading some stuff from his shop and I have an idea where it went. My parents use the same logistics company for their designs. They keep all there shit in this big network of warehouses in West Mustafu, we can go check them out.”

“I,” Deku says, sounding dazed. “It’s the middle of the night.”

“So? It’s not like you go to school in the morning. Come on, we’ll call a taxi and have it drop us off somewhere nearby.”

“I don’t,” Deku says and sits heavily in bed. “This is hero stuff. Police stuff. We shouldn’t get involved.”

Katsuki rolls his eyes. “I’m a hero, Deku. Heroes are supposed to solve cases.”

“I’m not a hero. I’m just some kid.”

“It’s not like I’m sending you out there alone,” Katsuki says and throws open the wardrobe doors. “You’re just tagging along to watch me solve the case. I won’t let anything happen to you, and anyway it’s not like we’re strolling into some yakuza den. It’s just some buildings, we’ll be fine. They don’t even have that much security.”

“But I –”

“Stop fucking complaining,” Katsuki says and tosses him a dark pair of sweatpants. “Hurry up and get dressed, I’ll get an Uber.”

The driver seems wary about transporting two teens so late at night but Katsuki tells him with a straight face they’re going to a friend’s party. “We need a place to make out,” he says flatly. Deku chokes. “My parents won’t let me see him because he’s poor but I’ve already decided he’s gonna be my boyfriend.”

“Well, I can’t say I never snuck out so see my wife when we were kids,” the driver says hesitantly. “Just stay safe and remember to use protection. And always say no to drugs and alcohol.”

He drops them off a short walk away from Mustafu’s industrial area. It’s a sprawling complex of squat grey buildings perched on hilly, barren land, full of factories and shipping containers that Katsuki ignores in favour of the warehouses. They’re like neighbourhood of ugly, empty houses that all look the same. “There should be these envelope things stuck to the front of each one,” Katsuki says, voice hushed. The lights are all on and some people are still working but nobody’s at the security kiosk. “With info on whatever’s in every warehouse. We’ll just look through ‘em until we find the one from the art store.”

Deku follows him, arms crossed like he’s trying to hug himself better. He’s jittery, which isn’t really new. “If someone sees us we’ll get arrested for trespassing.”

“Nobody’ll see us,” Katsuki says, dragging Deku away from the street to circle around to the wire fence. Adrenaline builds. His heart thumps in his chest but he forces himself to stay calm and focused. “The security guys mostly spend their time goofing off and chatting with the workers so I bet nobody’s watching the camera. Keep your hood up. Give me your foot, I’ll give you a boost.”

Deku clambers awkwardly over the fence and almost breaks his ankle landing on the other side. Katsuki scales it after him with no trouble. Nobody stops them from darting between cavernous warehouses, Deku on lookout while Katsuki flips through information sheets looking for their suspect. He finds it after a half hour of searching. “Nanase’s Art Emporium,” he points out on the form. “Here, climb in through the window and try not to make too much noise.”

There’s nobody inside. Deku peels away from Katsuki’s side to poke around flat packages sealed with paper and tape. It’s cool and dry in here, dehumidifiers humming as Katsuki scrolls through his phone looking for photos of the stolen goods. “Are they labelled?” he asks, remembering at the last second to keep his voice to a whisper. “One’s enough. Jesus, this place is big.”

They wander for a good hour. The warehouse is huge and the paintings and sculptures aren’t arranged in any sensible order. “Could’ve done them alphabetically,” Katsuki grumbles and climbs a metal rack to check out what’s stacked on top. He’s sore and sleepy and has to keep his phone in one hand for light. “Could’ve done em by date. In order of size. Literally anything would make more sense than this god awful mess.”

“Found one.” Deku’s covered in dust, hands and knees with his sleeves pulled over his hands so he doesn’t leave messy fingerprints. “Should I unwrap it to make sure?”

Katsuki hops off the shelving rack and lands gracefully. “Yeah, let me take photos for evidence.”

“I think this is another,” Deku says, gingerly peeling back brown wrapping. “Are you going to tell Best Jeanist?”

“Are you nuts? He can’t know I broke in to this place. Vigilante shit is illegal.”

Deku squints at him. “You said it was fine because you’re a hero.”

“I am, I just don’t have a license.” The flash goes off. Bright spots dance in Katsuki’s vision as he nudges Deku out of the way to get another shot. “We’ll give the police an anonymous tip-off.”

“You said they closed the case. Even if they believed us why would they care?”

Katsuki pauses. The stolen paintings sit in front of Deku, all lined up in a row and bigger than his hunched-over figure. Best Jeanist had said they might not do anything even if a hero agency gave them the solution on a silver platter. “We’ll,” he says haltingly. “Well, we can’t very well drag the guy to the police station ourselves. What do you suggest, genius?”

He prods Deku with his foot. Deku doesn’t react, as usual, but this time he seems almost thoughtful. Like the gears in his mind are grinding to a start and breaking off cobwebs and bits of rust. “We could always just lie to them.”

“That’s illegal.”

“Us being here is illegal. Help me arrange these, would you? And see if you can find a marker or something. I’ll put the evidence where they can’t miss it.”

Katsuki does as he’s told. It goes against every fibre of his being to take orders from Deku, but Deku’s moving around and doing things instead of lying in bed staring at the ceiling. He’ll humour him just this once, Katsuki decides magnanimously. He promised he’d snap him out of his funk. If this is the only way that works he’ll just have to live with it for a while.

Deku gathers all the contraband he can find in a neat line near the entrance while Katsuki rummages through some worker’s junk for a Sharpie. Deku writes stolen goods in messy kanji on the floor. Katsuki crosses his arms and frowns. “This is vandalism,” he says disapprovingly. “It’s also fucking creepy.”

Deku caps his marker. “Breaking into houses to steal back things you sold is creepier. Should we go find a payphone?”

They escape out the window again. Katsuki has to yank Deku over the fence and they both land in a heap on the other side, grunting. “You’re in terrible shape,” Katsuki snaps, nursing his side. They landed on solid concrete. “God, you stabbed me with your bony-ass elbow.”

Deku wheezes an apology. They hobble off in search of a payphone and find one of those emergency ones near the highway. Deku makes up some story about finding bags and bags of white powder, pretending to be some nervous junior employee afraid to stand up to his boss.

Katsuki watches in disbelief. It’s surreal trying to match Deku’s fake-scared voice with his lack of expression. “You’re a huge phony.”

“If I can lie to my mother about us being friends I can lie to anyone,” Deku says mildly and hangs up. “They said they’d come check it out. Should we wait?”

Katsuki ignores the barbs around the words and starts up the hill behind them to sit in the grass. The night’s settled in proper; the sky’s an inky grey, stars drowned out by the city lights but quiet and chilly. Deku sits next to him. He’s curled in on himself like he always is, awake but faraway so Katsuki can’t help but wonder what he’s thinking about. Maybe nothing at all. Time crawls by in the dark as they watch the road. They don’t talk. Their knees don’t touch.

A car cruises towards them in the distance. Katsuki scrambles higher up the slope to get a good view, following the lone police car as it turns into the warehouse complex with its lights flashing. The red and blue reflects off the dull concrete. Two officers step out and into the building. One returns after five minutes talking into his phone.

Katsuki lets out a rush of breath. Deku’s tiptoeing next to him, eyes wide and hands clutching the hem of his hoodie. “Did it work?” he asks, voice hushed and nervous. “Do you think he’s calling for back-up or is he does he think it’s a prank?”

“The other one’s still in there,” Katsuki says, chewing the inside of his cheek. He’s too distracted to even shake Deku’s hand off his bicep. “They must be looking around, least. We’ll know if more cop cars show up.”

They wait a little longer. Katsuki’s hands sweat and Deku paces back and forth, nearly tripping on grass in the dark. There’s a crowd around the police car now. One of them shoos away workers and the other’s arguing with what looks like a manager.

More lights come down the highway. Katsuki jumps to his feet, heart swelling into his throat so he has to fight back the urge to shout. “Holy fuck. Holy fuck, I think we did it. They came to investigate. They’ll open an investigation and figure it out and arrest the fucker.”

Deku says nothing. He’s completely still, more alert and awake than Katsuki’s seen him in months. He’s here. Not tucked into a corner in his own head, eyes focused and following the little figures in the distance.

They slip away unnoticed in the commotion. Katsuki calls another taxi and drops Deku off at his apartment. Deku’s drifted off again but this time he looks more thoughtful than empty, fingers tracing words on his thigh like he’s miming writing all of this down. The driver doesn’t ask any questions. Katsuki sneaks back in with the sunrise, just in time to get ready for school and go on with his day like nothing happened.

He takes a shower, dust sloughing off him to whirl lazily around the drain hole. He did it. Fifteen years old and he solved a case and put a criminal behind bars. Got in and out without an ounce of suspicion and sparked some life into Deku while he was at it. He’s unstoppable. A prodigy, already hurtling towards his prime. Ready to do what the police can’t and what heroes let slip through the cracks.

Somewhere down the hall his parents’ alarm clock rings. The sky brightens. Sleepless and buzzing, Katsuki grabs the shampoo and grins.

“So how do you pick which cases to work on?”

Jeanist marks something off his stack of paperwork. He’s going through pages so fast Katsuki half-doubts he’s reading any of it. “Emergency services send out a call and whoever’s in the area responds.”

“No, I know.” Katsuki glances at the radio plugged into the wall. It crackles with static and the occasional status update from heroes out on patrol. “I meant the types you have to investigate. Murder cases and thefts and whatever.”

“Those get uploaded onto a shared hero-police database.” He gestures vaguely at one of the computers. “I usually have one of the sidekicks browse for new cases to take on. We leave most of the slower-paced stuff to the police, though, unless they explicitly request backup. You can take a look at them if you like. Just don’t go signing us up for anything without asking first.”

Katsuki eyeballs the closest monitor. A sidekick’s fiddling with the CPU and grumbling under her breath. “What about the ones in the filing cabinets?”

“Cabinets 1-3 are reports from solved cases. Try reading through some of them. They’ll be good to study from.”

“I wanna look at the unsolved ones.”

Jeanist shrugs. “There might be a few I printed out a while ago and never got around to taking care of. Don’t spread any of their contents, though, or you’ll compromise all those investigations.”

“Yeah, okay.”

It’s a lie. The very first thing he does when he has a moment alone is to take pictures of everything he can find. Goes through the online database, while he’s at it, clicking on anything marked ongoing with his phone surreptitiously in his hand to document it. A sidekick scolds him for texting on the job. “I’m talking to my boyfriend,” he says shamelessly. “He’s madly in love with me and can’t go ten minutes without making sure I’m okay. He’s writing me a sonnet. Wanna hear it?”

She wrinkles her nose and walks off. By the end of the internship Katsuki has every ongoing case from the past five years in a disorganised mess in his gallery. There are so many images his phone barely runs. He takes them to Deku when he gets the chance, giving Inko a perfunctory greeting and barrelling through Deku’s door without bothering to knock.

“Gimme your laptop,” he says by way of greeting. The tea Inko forced on him sloshes as he slams the mug on the empty desk. “And put some pants on, for god’s sake, I don’t want to look at your pasty legs all day.”

Deku peers over the edge of his comforter. He doesn’t protest when Katsuki helps himself to his laptop, sitting up slowly like he’s eighty years older than he is. “What’s going on?”

“You know heroes have access to case files and police investigations and stuff?” Katsuki says, digging a USB cable out of his pocket. “There’s this big fucking website only open to law enforcement. I looked at it and they reopened the case on that guy we caught.”

The bedsprings creak. Deku keeps the bedding wrapped around him like an overgrown caterpillar. “Oh. So did we win?”

“I dunno but we did something.” The file manager pops up. It takes a minute to load but Katsuki flips through blurry images gleefully. “Anyway, look what I have.”

“Documents?”

“Case files, Deku. All unsolved. We can arrest every fucking one of ‘em if we figure this shit out.”

The ceiling fan whirs slowly. Deku rubs his eyes as Katsuki zooms closer on the desk chair, laptop held aloft with the charger cable trailing dangerously behind him. “You stole some case files?”

“God, Deku, will you focus? There are so many mysteries that never got put to bed, criminals roaming around free to do more bad shit and hurt people and we can fix that.”

“Why me?”

“You literally did it three days ago.”

“I’m – I’m useless. I’d get myself killed.”

Katsuki pinches the bridge of his nose. “Okay, look. You never shut up about wanting to be a hero and now you have the chance to do something. I saw you when the cops showed up. You came alive for a second. It was a rush, right? I’m telling you, you can feel that way all the time if you just get your ass out of bed and work for it.”

“You don’t need me to help you, though. Wouldn’t I drag you down?”

Katsuki grits his teeth. Deku’s not even being mopey – he’s just confused now, tired and wilting, barely interested in what’s on the screen. “Jesus Christ, Deku. You can help me. Is that what you want to hear?”

“Huh?”

“I gave you an old case the police couldn’t solve and you figured it out without trying,” Katsuki forces himself to say. “I know there’s a brain rattling around in there somewhere. I read through your stupid hero analysis library and frankly it’s shocking how much you got right.”

Deku frowns. “I threw all that out.”

“Yeah, well, it found its way to me and I’m not giving it back until you listen to me. I’m busy, Deku. I have school and training and a million other things on my plate. If I tried to do this alone I’d barely make a dent in it but you have a brain for sorting through info. You connect the dots and I do the heavy lifting and strategy. Come on, Deku. Everything’s right here.”

There’s a long pause. The comforter slips a little off Deku’s shoulders and drowns him. He blinks, eyes drifting from Katsuki to the screen, knobbly knees poking through the bedding. “You mean like a team?”

In that split second, Katsuki makes a decision he’s never even considered. He swallows his pride. Takes a deep breath and hands Deku his laptop as a peace offering. “Yeah, Deku. We’d be a team.”

His heart thumps. Very slowly Deku reaches out from under the covers and takes his computer. “Okay,” he says quietly. “We’ll do it together. If that’s what you want.”

“I organised all the information you gave me.”

Katsuki drops his bag on Deku’s floor. He’s exhausted – he’d come straight from having his ass kicked by that Uraraka chick at martial arts training. “What did you do?”

“Split them into different locations and subsequently by how much information is in each case.” He’s at his desk today instead of languishing in bed. Still in his pyjamas, of course, but Katsuki chalks that up to a win. “I think we should start with Mustafu. You probably don’t want to get involved with, like, murder, but there’s a surprising amount of petty theft and burglary that never gets dealt with.”

The mattress makes a poomf noise as Katsuki flops onto it. He tugs off his blazer, hair still damp from his hasty locker-room shower. “Let’s start with the easiest.”

“Armed burglary that keeps happening in one area. They keep stationing plain-clothes officers there but the burglar always avoids them. The frequency of the stakeouts is decreasing. I think they’re giving up.”

“How does he keep finding them?”

Deku shrugs. “Could be a quirk, but honestly the easier answer is that someone keeps tipping him off.”

They investigate over the course of a week. Deku wanders around the shopping district with Katsuki trailing far behind, both making sure to stick to sparsely populated areas. “You’re weedy and vulnerable,” Katsuki tells him matter-of-factly. “If I had to mug someone you’d be my first choice.”

Their target corners Deku in a dark alley on a Thursday night. He has a knife hidden in his back pocket. Katsuki sneaks up behind them scarcely daring to breathe. The mugger’s demanding everything Deku has on him, wearing a black ski mask over his head and a coat so thick it obscures his figure. Deku keeps his mouth shut. Gives nothing away as Katsuki creeps closer with his middle school baseball bat.

The guy goes down with a horrible wet-sounding thwack. Deku grimaces and takes a step back. Katsuki peels the ski mask off as Deku takes his phone out of his breast pocket, camera peeking over it to record the whole thing. The burglar’s just some middle-aged guy with a bald spot. Deku shrugs and gets a close-up of his face anyway.

The man doesn’t stir. Katsuki takes off the stupid white serial-killer mask they got from the dollar store, adrenaline rushing in his ears and sweat sticking his bangs to his forehead. “Did you get everything?”

“Pretty clearly,” Deku says, replaying the video and nodding to himself. “Any idea who this person is?”

“Obviously not.” A car passes in the distance. Katsuki stuff his bat back under his clothes so it looks like he has a weird tubular growth on his side. And his mother said baggy pants were useless. “Not bad, Deku. I expected you to start crying when he pulled that knife on you.”

Deku shrugs. He’s pulled his laptop out of his bag and is transferring the footage onto a USB. “Eh, whatever. I figured he’d be nasty. If I die, I die, no biggie.”

Katsuki smacks him upside the head. “Don’t joke like that, dumbass. Now come on, let’s get out of here and drop that video off at the station.”

Two days later Katsuki brings a newspaper over. “Police officer charged with repeated armed burglary against civilians,” he says smugly. “I beat up a bad cop.”

“That does explain how he always knew about the other officers,” Deku says thoughtfully. “Huh. I guess we uncovered a scandal.”

Katsuki snorts. “Yeah, but it’s only page twelve. We’re not stopping until we make some headlines.”

The next case is a missing pet that licks Deku and bites Katsuki’s fingers. After that they find some pervert who keeps putting cameras in a shopping mall bathroom. The fifth case isn’t even planned – they’re out looking for walkie-talkies when they hear screaming and some snatch thief running through a crowd. Katsuki’s sprinting after him without a word. He slides over a parked car and tackles the guy to the pavement, tossing the stolen purse back to the bruised girl chasing them both.

“Thank you!” she shouts. A crowd fusses over her, asking if she’s okay. Katsuki takes off down the street to find Deku, darting into a quiet alleyway, flustered and sweaty but laughing between shaky breaths. Deku’s eyes are bright. He returns the backpack Katsuki’d thrown to him before, checking over his shoulder to make sure no one can see them.

“Good job,” he says, offering Katsuki a sip of his iced coffee. “Why’d you wear the mask?”

Katsuki pauses. He is wearing the mask. He’d put it on without thinking and jumped into the fray. “I – that’s how secret identities work.”

Deku raises an amused eyebrow. “You’re a hero student. You could have just taken the credit for it, nobody would bat an eye.”

“Shut up.”

“Why’d you even bring the mask?”

“It was already in my bag from last time,” Katsuki says and chugs all Deku’s coffee spitefully. It gives him brain freeze but he has no regrets. “This thing’s fucking hot. Running around with plastic on your face sucks, I’m all clammy.”

“Take off your hoodie, someone might recognise it. And buy me another coffee.”

“No. Get a move on, we’d better bail before the cops show up and start taking reports and whatever.”

That incident makes it to the local papers. It’s a little spread with a blurry photo someone took before Katsuki managed to escape. He grimaces at it while they put their walkie-talkies together the next day on Deku’s floor. “God, the mask’s dumb as hell in person. I look like one of those reddit creeps obsessed with that movie. V for Vasectomy or whatever.”

Deku fiddles with a screwdriver. He’s sitting like he has no bones but Katsuki doesn’t tell him off – it’s getting more common to see Deku out of bed than not so he’ll put up with it for the moment. “That’s not what it’s called. Get another mask if it’s bothering you.”

“You get one too.”

“Do I need one? You’re the one who does all the action stuff.”

“Can’t hurt. Your dumb green head kind of sticks out. I can’t be fucked going shopping again, though. And if I went to a costume store I bet they’d be able to trace me.”

Deku considers this. He fixes the plastic panel back on, pressing the red button and wincing at the crackle of static. “Yeah, okay. Give me a week, I’ll see what I can do.”

No one’s talking about them yet.

It rubs Katsuki the wrong way. He keeps his ears perked for any mention of a masked saviour but a petty rescue doesn’t even register in a school full of heroes. His teachers do death-defying stunts every day. Present Mic even shows up late to class once because he stopped to handle a bank heist on the way.

“We need to go bigger,” Katsuki announces when he gets to Deku’s. He’s here every other day now; Inko beams whenever she sees him and keeps plying them both with sweets. “We’re being overshadowed by every Tom, Dick, and Harry with a hero license. Let’s go solve a murder.”

“I’m not looking for murderers,” Deku says without looking up from his laptop. He’s got a new Campos notebook that’s already half-full of chicken scratch. “If you asked Best Jeanist for another internship do you think he’d let you work on high-profile cases?”

Katsuki flops into bed and starts pulling out his homework. “Ugh, no. They coddle the interns and it sucks. What’s in the book? You doing your hero analysis stuff again?”

“These are case notes.”

“Oh.” He tries not to look too disappointed at that. Deku at 50% is better than 0. “So? Whose ass are we kicking next?”

“I’ve been looking through this thing about a potential gang of dealers,” Deku muses. “I mean, I was organising the reports into smaller categories, right, and over the years there have been a surprising number of people pedalling drugs in Mustafu. But twelve of them were also employed at different branches of Ramenorama, whatever that is.”

Katsuki pauses, maths textbook still open and balanced on his knee. “A front, evidently. It’s this cheap, shitty ramen joint. There’s a stall on the third floor of the mall, they sell the worst fucking tori paitan I’ve ever had. I always wondered how they stayed in business.”

Deku hums. “I mean, I guess the police didn’t think it was interesting enough to take note of, or maybe they just didn’t notice since these arrests were all spaced out over a few years. But still, it’s a weird coincidence, right?”

“It’s worth checking out.”

“We could get part time jobs and go undercover.”

“Fuck no. Let’s break into one of their restaurants and snoop around.”

“I think you make that sound easier than it is.”

Katsuki holds up a hand. “I’ll blast the doors open.”

“Then everyone will know it was you. How many people have an explosion quirk?”

“Fuck.” He solves an equation but his heart’s not really in it as he writes the answer in his exercise book. “Okay. Different angle. Do we know anything about the place?”

Deku types something on his laptop. “The CEO is some guy called Suzuki Kazuhiro. There are three branches, all in Mustafu, established six years ago, bla bla bla… oh, someone mentioned them in r/shittyfood porn.”

“What?”

“Reddit for bad food,” Deku says, clicking a link. “Pretty sure these guys just gave me instant ramen. Lol, at least they gave you some giant fucking spring onions to go with it. Or are they freakishly small leeks? Then, the one in the bank district is near my job but it’s always full of thugs so I never went. Wouldn’t be surprised if it was a yakuza hangout spot, lol.”

“Who puts leeks in instant ramen?”

Deku spins around in his chair. “I could get a part time job for a month or so to see what it’s like in that outlet. Maybe I can get a look at these yakuza-types.”

“Don’t be an idiot. You wouldn’t be able to defend yourself if things went to shit and I don’t have the time to keep an eye on you.”

He shrugs. “I doubt they’ll pay attention to me. It’s not like I stand out. I’ll just tell my mom I’m hanging out with you every day, it’ll be fine.”

He gets the job despite Katsuki’s misgivings. He barely texts at all the first week. Katsuki’s mildly concerned he might have immediately died but it turns out Deku’s just exhausted from customer service. “You should have seen this coming,” Katsuki tells him as he delivers energy drinks and protein bars. “You can’t go from lying in bed all day to running around a restaurant and expect your body not to freak out.”

Deku grumbles but keeps trying. There aren’t that many customers even at lunch hour, he says. Most of the people who come here are regulars, either tired salarymen or pompadoured punks fresh out of high school. “But honestly I don’t think they’re the ones we want,” Deku says thoughtfully. “I’m more interested in this one group who comes by every week or so. It’s not always the same ones but they have this look about them.”

“What look?”

“Insulated, I guess. They’re polite and they wear these dark suits but they don’t eat anything they order, they just sit with their heads low and talk. I thought they were business meetings or something but they’re here all the time and they clam up every time I get close to eavesdrop. And they’re all men. “

They decide on a stakeout. Deku texts Katsuki whenever those men show up and Katsuki follows them when they leave. Most of the time he reaches a dead end. He loses them in the crowd or they just go back to their apartments and he goes home empty handed. A couple of times, though, they lead him to a factory. It doesn’t look operational. Not abandoned, by any means, but not really being put to work.

He brings Deku on a weeknight. It’s early in the morning, just a few hours til sunrise, before they’re sure it’s safe to go in. Deku hands him a new mask. It’s a red oni with cloth lining on the inside. Katsuki can’t help but like it as he tries it on. “Not the worst choice,” he says grudgingly, wishing he had a mirror. “We look – why the fuck are you a rabbit?”

Deku adjusts his white bunny face. “I liked it. Stop judging me and let’s go inside.”

It’s not hard to break in. Katsuki pulls the big padlock off with the crowbar Deku bought, Deku catching it before it can clatter to the ground. “Woulda done this in a second if I could use my quirk.”

“Sure, then I’d visit you in jail. Anyone in there?”

Katsuki peeks through the crack in the metal doors. “Don’t see anyone but the lights are all on. Take the crowbar and stay close.”

They sneak in, darting between heavy, dusty equipment and staying low to the concrete floor. There’s a flight of metal steps built into the wall leading to a kind of observation room. The lights are on and it’s full of laughing men’s voices – a game, maybe, and probably booze. Deku points to a door at the far end the lower floor. It’s huge and barred to an almost comical degree, covered in padlocks and next to an old keypad jutting out of the wall. The numbers on three buttons are worn out. Deku tries every combination in order as Katsuki pries the locks off one by one.

It swings open in horrible creak. The laughing voices upstairs immediately fall silent. “Uh oh,” says Deku. “We’d better start running.”

They sprint into the little corridor and down rusty stairs. Katsuki feels the adrenaline come to a head in his chest, heart pounding and legs pumping as he grabs Deku’s hand and runs into the dark. There’s movement from the floor above them. This is it. They’ll find the drugs and think up some genius way out, slip past the guards and go straight to the police and bust this case wide open.

He skids to a stop. There are no drugs here. Just a basement full of scared, chained-up young women.

His blood abruptly runs cold. Deku makes a strangled noise – these girls can’t be much older than them, all huddled together and trembling at Katsuki’s all-black figure illuminated by the light from upstairs. Kidnappers. They’re fucking kidnappers. They’re not dealing drugs, they’re selling innocent people.

Someone shouts in the distance when they discover the doors broken open. A girl dares to look up; she has a bruise over her temple like she’s been hit with something blunt and heavy.

The footsteps come closer. Katsuki holds out a hand, voice tight with rage. “Deku. Give me the fucking crowbar.”

He leaves them alive.

He’s not a murderer, even if he does burn with the white-hot fury of a vengeful god. It’s so much easier than it should be. Five grown men with not a lick of training between them, bloodied but still breathing, undeserving of Katsuki’s mercy. He’s glad his clothes are too dark to stain. White-knuckling his weapon, he trudges downstairs feeling like his insides have been set on fire.

Deku’s freeing the last captive. They shrink back when they see Katsuki’s red footsteps, terrified eyes wide and darting from him to the stairs. A few cling to Deku, crying silent tears. Deku hugs them, brief but tight, and helps the first to her feet. “We won’t hurt you,” he says, voice soothing and quiet. “And neither will they. Come with me, we’ll call the police and get you all home, okay? Don’t be afraid. You’re safe.”

One by one they help the girls up the stairs, giving their prone captors a wide berth. One of the men on the floor starts to stir. There’s panic, a collective gasp. Katsuki steps forward to plant himself between them. Stillness, for a minute. The man sits up. “What the fuck,” he spits through broken teeth.

A girl looks at Katsuki and holds out a hand. He grins and tosses her the crowbar.

Free and screaming for vengeance, the women descend.

They stay until they hear the first sirens. The ex-captives cling to Deku for comfort, one clutching a phone she lifted off the human trafficking assholes. She’d made sure to pick all their pockets, too. Wallets and watches handed out between them as hard-won trophies. “Thank you,” she says and kisses Deku on both cheeks, right over his mask. “You saved us. For as long as I live I’ll never forget you.”

The rest mob him. Deku, sputtering and no doubt red-faced, gets covered in tearful, grateful kisses. A few even hug Katsuki, which he suffers through with good grace. The two disappear before the first ambulance has turned the corner. The earliest rays of sun light the sky, chasing deep blue away with a clean, strong red.

They hide out in the woods. Katsuki grimaces at the rusty stench of his clothes and wishes he’d kept the crowbar. “Well, this turned out better than drugs. Good thing the only guards they had were weak scrubs.”

Deku bursts into tears. Katsuki watches him, bewildered, as he takes off his mask and sobs into his sleeve. His face is splotchy and clammy with sweat, and his shoulders shake as he cries. “Those poor girls. Those poor, poor girls.”

Katsuki stands there awkwardly. “They’re okay now. They’ll need therapy but they’re gonna be fine.”

“They could have died,” Deku hiccups. “We saved them. We really – we helped someone. We did something good. We helped.”

A bird chirps. Katsuki pats Deku on the shoulder haltingly – this is the most emotion he’s seen from Deku in a while, he realises abruptly. Deku’s always been an open book but months have gone by with the same blank expression dulled by emptiness. This is part of what’s been missing. Crybaby Deku who thinks nothing of jumping to a stranger’s defense, always shedding tears for someone else because he feels too much and too hard. These aren’t bad tears. This is just the first crack in a dam Katsuki’s been trying to break for months.

“We saved them,” Deku chokes, looking tiny in his rumpled hoodie. “They’ll be okay. We’re heroes.”

Katsuki squeezes Deku’s shoulder, just once. “Yeah, Deku. We are.”

Teen vigilantes, the media calls them.

Katsuki keeps a cut-out locked in his desk drawer. There are no photos but someone’s done an artistic rendition; a red oni warrior and a kind white rabbit reaching through the darkness to take someone’s hand. Class 1A is buzzing. Katsuki soaks up the second-hand praise, ignores Aizawa’s monotone lecture about the dangers of unlicensed hero activities.

"A real hero doesn't brutalise their captives," Aizawa says with no expression. "As much as those captives may deserve it."

Jirou snorts. "The lady they interviewed said they did it. The women. Honestly, good for them."

"Still, I’m not sure if it’s morally sound," says Iida. "To beat someone when they're already unconscious. It would perhaps have been better to focus on calling for help than on revenge. Civilian punishment was unnecessary. We have prisons for a reason."

"Satisfying, though," says Ashido. "Besides, they probably had a few minutes to wait before the cops showed up, plenty of time for ass - uh, butt-kicking. I'd call it multitasking." 

"What would you have done, sir?" asks Yaoyorozu.

"As a hero I couldn't justify needless violence. But if I weren't bound by the law," Aizawa gives them a horrible grin. "I imagine I could be persuaded to turn a blind eye." 

They lay low for a month. Deku goes back to school, severely behind on the syllabus but looking less washed-out and grey. Inko greets Katsuki crying. Hugs him so hard he could burst as she tells him Deku’ll be late coming home because he’s talking to his homeroom teacher for new lesson plans.

“What did you tell them?” Katsuki asks when he gets home for dinner. “Did they ask why you skipped for so long?”

“My mom told them I was sickly. They didn’t ask much, it’s fine.”

Katsuki stops fiddling with his plans for a grappling hook. “Are you?”

“Sickly?”

“Fine. In school.”

Deku shrugs. “It’s kind of a pain but it’s a change of pace. They asked me to join a club.”

“What did you say?”

“I said no. I’d much rather be solving cases.”

They can’t agree on a name, which is annoying. They do agree to pick the pockets of whatever criminals they run into. “To pay for our equipment,” Katsuki says like this is self-explanatory. “There’s this Hatsume chick I’ve been meaning to talk to. She’s out of her fucking mind but she makes good gear. We can get noise-silencing shoes or armour and all sorts of cool shit.”

“Won’t she ask why?”

“I’ll tell her it’s for me. I’ve been practicing no-quirk combat. Speaking of which,” he slams his drink on the table. “We’re gonna need to fucking train you.”

Deku tries not to look guilty. “Uh, well, I’m mostly the plans guy –”

“And I took on five thugs by myself. What are you going to do if there are more? Or if you get captured? You’re starting training next week and that’s that.”

Deku pouts but acquiesces. Katsuki teaches him the basics of tae kwon do and makes him join a gym. In autumn they start searching for more cases, Deku stringing together clues with mental gymnastics that make Katsuki's head spin. It's impressive, he's loath to admit. Katsuki's brilliant but his brain wants to follow a systematic, logical track. Deku thinks laterally. He's creative, jumping from idea to idea with no pattern Katsuki can discern. They find a missing person who changed his name and ran off to be with his lover. Then weed out some corrupt business people, then stop a yakuza turf war before it can happen. 

The media goes crazy. Quirkless teen vigilantes solve another case splashes across the headlines. They read the article while Inko's out shopping, Katsuki grinning wide and Deku half-paying attention to something on his laptop. "They're calling me Yokai," Katsuki says smugly. "Fucking rad. Way better than 'the White Rabbit'". 

Deku ignores him. "How do they know we're teenagers?" 

"Must be cause you spoke to those kidnapped women with your squeaky Mickey Mouse voice." 

"Do you think that's gonna be a problem for us?" 

"Not as long as I don't use my quirk.”  Katsuki makes a face. "Not that they think I have one. Just ‘cause I don’t use my quirk in public doesn’t mean they have to start that quirkless bullshit.”

Deku glances up from his work to skim-read the article himself. “They’re being pretty nice about it, though. Despite apparently not having a quirk, the two have proved to be capable crime-fighters and skilled combatants. Huh. They think we’re capable.”

“Not using my quirk doesn’t equate to not having one,” he snorts. “Obviously I don’t wanna be identified by it. They could have thought of that before slandering me.”

The rapid typing pauses. Deku’s tone is mild but he doesn’t meet Katsuki’s eye. “Slandering, huh?”

Katsuki opens his mouth and then shuts it. “They’re being presumptive. Assuming I’m quirkless when I’m not.”

“Right.”

“Plus it’s patronizing as shit. Despite not having quirks? I don’t need to use my quirk to do dope shit.”

“I know.”

“Well, it’s annoying as hell,” Katsuki says, feeling his hackles rise for no real reason. “You don’t get it. You’re used to it.”

Deku goes back to his work, still not looking up. “Yeah. I suppose I am.”

They try to do something new every month. Deku puts a pin in what he can’t solve immediately as they work through the massive pile of paperwork Katsuki stole. Slowly the cases get more current. Riskier, too. Now Katsuki’s had a taste of fame he refuses to go back to stopping petty theft; Deku goes along with it for the thrill of the chase and the chance to save some people on the way. Katsuki helpfully tells him he’s crazy. “For a civilian you’re turning into kind of a daredevil.”

“Is that good?”

“It’s fucking nuts.”

“You’re risking your career and it was your idea.”

“So?”

Deku grins. “So obviously you’re your own type of crazy.”

It’s exhausting work. Katsuki has to sacrifice precious sleep and he has no social life or hobbies. People stop asking him to hang out after school because he keeps turning them down. It doesn’t bother him, really, but he does feel vaguely guilty about not spending time with his parents. “I’m going to Deku’s to study later,” he says during dinner one night. “Sorry. His mom says hi.”

Masaru pats his hand, looking wistful but not unhappy. “Don’t worry about us. Have fun, buddy. It’s nice seeing you be friends with Izuku-kun again.”

“More than friends, maybe,” Mitsuki says. “He’s a cute kid. You’ll make a good house husband someday.”

“What the fuck,” Katsuki says and kicks her leg under the table. “I’m not dating Deku, gross. And who said anything about being a house husband? Did you forget I’m a hero?”

Mitsuki waggles her eyebrows ridiculously. “You think I don’t know about you sneaking out in the middle of the night?”

“That – I’m not –”

“And you’re always covered in hickeys.”

“They’re bruises, you crazy person. From training. Which I do regularly because I’m a hero, not some teenaged stay-at-home mom.”

“Hey, love makes us do crazy things. You think I wanted a minivan when we got hitched? No. Your dad convinced me because he was hoping we’d have lots of kids. And I convinced him to stop having kids after you because you turned out to be a little blond banshee.”

Katsuki makes a noise like he’s dying. Masaru pats him on the hand kindly, doing a bad job of trying not to laugh. “We’re happy for you, son. Just remember your first priority is still school.”

He doesn’t bring this up to Deku, obviously, even if the way Inko smiles at them sometimes must mean she thinks the same. Katsuki considers Deku over the mess of paper on the floor. Plain, he decides. But some nice enough features. Pretty eyes and the freckles are kind of cute.

Deku catches his eye. “What?”

“Nothing.” Katsuki tosses a crumpled wad of paper at him. “Don’t get distracted. Finish your work.”

By February the work’s almost routine. Deku solves cases and they break in and out of crime scenes before the cops ever catch wind of them, exhausted but proud as they cut out articles about themselves and hide them in innocuous corners. Katsuki rides a high on constant adrenaline and pride. This is what he was born to do. Making headlines and beating up bad guys with his faithful sidekick. In an already good life this is the best chapter so far.

It does not, of course, last. They’re children playing an adult’s game; when the heroes finally sit up and take notice, Katsuki alone doesn’t stand a chance.

Aizawa’s deadly scarf wraps around his ribs and squeezes.

It wasn’t even a setup, is the thing. Some gang was smuggling… something. They hadn’t actually figured that part out – Deku’d suggested they go check it out but hadn’t considered law enforcement would be there too. It’s not his fault. So far all their cases have been ancient history, cold clues nobody else cared enough to pursue. This time they were unlucky. Really unlucky, Katsuki thinks bitterly, to come face-to-face with Eraserhead.

He’s going easy. The capture weapon can break bones but this is just a warning. Aizawa’s hair floats around his face and half-obscures his yellow goggles. “Well. I hope you understand you’ve ruined our stakeout.”

Katsuki glances around. He’d volunteered to go in first and immediately gotten himself caught. Deku’s still safe. Police cars are circling their abandoned warehouse but Deku’s kept hidden.

Aizawa pulls Katsuki further up towards the ceiling like a spider reeling in a fly. He’d been hiding in the rafters. Stupid, stupid. Katsuki knows to check there first. Anyone could be lurking in the shadows and still see everything. “Your arrival tipped off the yakuza we’ve been tracking,” Aizawa continues. “Which is aggravating. They’re going to be more cautious now and I have to start this all over again. Where’s your partner?”

Katsuki keeps his mouth shut. Partly not to give himself away, partly because all the breath is being squeezed out of his lungs. His legs dangle uselessly. He could blast himself out of this but Aizawa would recognise him immediately. He’s trapped. Helpless and alone. He’ll get kicked out of school and locked up in jail and his career will be over before it can start.

Quietly, Aizawa sighs. “Look. I understand you’re trying to help but what you’re doing is stupid and dangerous. I can’t let you keep going. You’re a kid, aren’t you? You’re not trained for this. If you come quietly I’ll do my best to make sure you get off lightly.”

The lights come on, all at once. Aizawa’s eyes clamp shut on reflex; Katsuki almost detonates him but remembers at the last second not to break his disguise. Something whistles past and embeds itself into the rafters. The grappling hook Katsuki got from Hatsume – Deku’s shot it into some stupid corner and missed his target completely. Katsuki wants to scream. But Deku wasn’t aiming at anyone; he’s now got forty metres of cable between him and the ceiling. Enough to swing it into Aizawa like a steel skipping rope and knock him off-balance.

Aizawa topples. He catches himself before he can fall but lets go of Katsuki in the process. Katsuki plummets and lands hard on his back, managing to roll so he’s uninjured but winded. Deku’s on him immediately. Unwrapping him and pulling him upright with a pained grunt and dragging him out the door while the world spins.

They were only here fifteen minutes. Barely any time at all for things to go so hair-raisingly wrong. The rain covers their footsteps, their one mercy as they flee in whatever direction takes them away from here. People shout after them. Katsuki gasps for breath, aching and terrified with Deku’s hand in his leading him forward.

He slips on mud and slides into a ditch. Katsuki tumbles after. They land in a heap and crawl into a cement tunnel under a small road. He has no idea where they are. His life almost ended. He almost lost everything and here Deku is asking him if he’s hurt.

Katsuki does what he always does. He explodes and takes everyone with him¸ terror and shock slamming together into a comforting swell of rage. He pulls off his mask. Grabs Deku by his skinny shoulders, fingers squeezing hard enough to bruise. “I had that,” he hisses full of venom. “What the fuck were you thinking, you god damned idiot? Aizawa’s a trained hero. He could have wiped the floor with you and you would have gone straight to juvie.”

“Excuse me?” Deku splutters back. He drops the grappling hook. It makes a hollow thunk noise on the concrete. “In case you forgot this god damned idiot saved you.”

Katsuki shakes him. “You put yourself in danger like a suicidal moron. You should have let me handle it.”

“You think I didn’t see you choke? You got caught and if I hadn’t stepped in to save your ass-”

“Save me? I’m the one with the training! Who the fuck do you think you are?”

“I don’t think I’m anyone.” Deku shoves him. Actually shoves him, hard enough to take him by surprise and make him stumble backward. “Because I’m worthless. Because I don’t have a quirk, I don’t have money, I’m ugly, I’m boring, I’m weird, it’s my fault my dad walked out on us, right? I haven’t forgotten, Kacchan. You spent a lot of time making sure I’d remember.”

Katsuki grits his teeth. His chest is hot, lit up with leftover adrenaline and fear and shame and rage all at once. “Did I fucking say any of that? I’m telling you not to be a reckless idiot. I wouldn’t have brought you here if I thought you couldn’t handle being my backup-”

“Bullshit! You still call me Deku! You still call me useless, you fucking asshole!”

He whirls around and rips off his mask. His voice echoes in their damp, ugly tunnel, making Katsuki’s heart leap, but nobody comes to investigate the source of the yelling. Deku’s crying. Of course he is, but for the first time Katsuki takes a step closer. “Look, I wasn’t –”

“Don’t you fucking touch me,” Deku hisses and slaps Katsuki’s hand away from his shoulder. “Do you think I don’t know why I’m here? It was pity, right? You were trying to find some way to make me feel better so you let me come along on your hero jaunts. You didn’t even want to. You visit me because my mom asked you to and because you finally decided to fix what you broke. I hate you. I thought maybe you finally wanted to be friends but you’re the same, you don’t even want me here and you treat me like garbage and I – I’m sick of it. Go solve cases on your own.”

“I can’t. I can’t do this without you, okay, Deku? Is that what you want to hear?”

“I don’t know.” He slumps on the ground, arms wrapped around his torso in a self-soothing gesture that makes him look like a kid. He’s sniffling and furious. “I don’t know. I hate you. I want to go home.”

“Well, you can’t. Not until the cops leave and if you keep yelling they’re going to hear.”

Deku curls in on himself further. Katsuki sighs and sits across from him, two metres of filthy space between them that feels somehow further. Sirens wail in the distance. Every so often a flash of police lights reflects off the grass above them but the cars keep driving by.

Nobody comes for them. The only noise now is the rain and Deku’s aborted, angry sniffles. Katsuki stares at the sky, feeling loose and empty inside and just wanting to sleep. “I don’t like to lose.”

“So?”

“So.” Katsuki peels off a glove. He’s got a scratch on his hand, right across the pad of his thumb where it’s the most sensitive. “I’m supposed to be the one doing the saving. I don’t like being saved.”

Deku scrubs his face, smearing tear tracks, and stares at his knees. “Of course. Much less by someone like me.”

“But you did.” For once he chooses his words with some care, smoothing out his own rough edges before they can hurt. “I would have gotten out of that myself eventually. But when I wasn’t looking you – fuck. I dunno. You got better. You’re sloppy and reckless and you’re terrible at tae kwon do but you’re good at this. The crime-solving thing. The helping people thing.”

“No thanks to you.”

“Despite me. I’m kind of an ass.”

“No kidding.”

Katsuki lets out a breath. Deku’s not hiccupping anymore, just sullenly sitting huddled by the wall and not making eye contact. His face is hard to make out in the darkness but Katsuki imagines it all red and pouty. “I shouldn’t have been.”

Another siren. This one cruises just a few metres away, making them shrink further into the gloom. “I never hurt you,” Deku says quietly. “I never understood what I did to make you hate me so much.”

“You didn’t do anything,” Katsuki says haltingly. “I’m starting to realise I had my head up my ass and someone should have put me in my place.”

“Yeah.”

“There’s this guy in my class. Todoroki. Has two fucking rad quirks and won’t even use one of them but he still almost beats me every time we have training. Sometimes he does.”

“Oh?”

“And this chick. Some kind of freak genius biochemist. Universities keep sending her letters asking her to leave UA and do a PhD with them.”

“Wow.”

“Gravity girl dropped a few tonnes of concrete on me. There’s a bird guy with an honest-to-god pet monster. And another one. Dumb as a rock but basically invulnerable. I shoot him in the face as hard as I can and he just laughs.”

Slowly the corner of Deku’s mouth lifts into a tired, crooked smile. “What’s this? Is Explosion Murder God being humble?”

“I was a big fish in a puddle. I had no business acting as big as I did.”

“You didn’t.”

“I didn’t even have basic training. When I’m number one I can go back to being an asshole but by then I’ll deserve it.”

“Of course.”

“But until that happens,” Katsuki says and swallows. Tamps down the wobbling of his stomach because he’s never run away from a fight and he’s not about to start now. “I, uh. I’m… sorry. For all that. You can hit me if you want.”

“I’m not going to hit you,” Deku huffs. “But thank you. It doesn’t make everything better but it helps.”

The rain starts to slow. The sheets of water sluicing around then thin out somewhat. Katsuki puts a hand out to feel it course around his scuffed fingers. “It wasn’t because of your mom.”

“Huh?”

“Me visiting you,” Katsuki says, studiously looking outside. “I mean, yeah, I only came by at first because I was told, but that’s not why stayed. Or why I stole that case file. I panicked, I guess. You got weird. No matter what we did – what I did to you you never backed down. You kept wanting to be a hero so I guess I thought you’d be fine. Seeing you not fine was… worrying. I thought you were dying or something, it sucked.”

Deku says nothing. Katsuki keeps his tone deliberately casual even though his insides squirm with discomfort. “Your mom said that thing with that villain must have spooked you. The sludge guy. Made you get all empty like that.”

“No,” Deku says with some difficulty. “I mean, it was bad, but it wasn’t the worst thing that’s ever happened to me.”

“Was it me?”

“Partly.” Deku rests his chin on his knees. Whatever fledgling amusement he had has evaporated, leaving him soft and wistful as he fiddles with the straps on his shoes. “When I got attacked by the sludge villain a hero came to save me. Did I tell you?”

“I heard.”

“I asked him. If he thought I could be a hero without a quirk. He said no. That was the last straw, I guess. That’s what made me give up.” He laughs, soft and humourless. “He gave me his autograph without me needing to ask. I threw it away.”

The rain lightens to a drizzle. It’s almost pretty, drops caressing the ground and making tiny splashes in the grass. Katsuki lowers his hand. Turns to look at Deku properly, unsure what to say. “You’ve been hearing that all your life. Why did you let it get to you now?”

Deku breathes out. The air is still, saturated with damp and the soft smell of petrichor. “Because this time it was my hero. This time it was All Might.”

Now here’s a funny thing: the loss of something you love. Not in terms of death – the thing is still there in the world but something about it has been lost to you. Like coming back to a childhood playground and realising you’ve outgrown the swings. Like taking a bite of that wonderful snack you bought on holiday once and realising, with a start, that it wasn’t really all that good.

Katsuki watches All Might. Imagines this giant of a man leaning over a scared boy in a lonely street, telling him gravely that you can’t be a hero. Something Katsuki’s said so often it’s lost meaning but something about this rubs him the wrong way. He can’t say why. Doesn’t know where to begin addressing this hypocrisy so he seethes in his corner and says nothing.

All Might notices, though. He’s smart, despite his clumsy friendliness, and he sidles up to Katsuki once after training. “Are you feeling alright?” he asks in a poor approximation of a whisper. “You seem, uhm. Unhappy. Unhappier than usual, anyway. You know as your teacher it’s my duty to make sure that you’re enjoying your time here at UA, and, uh, if you have any issues you can always speak to – do we even have a counsellor? I feel like we should have a counsellor. You’re all under extreme stress so – uh. What I’m saying is, are you okay?”

Katsuki frowns at him. Sees past the muscles and smile to the nervous man who clearly has no real idea what he’s doing. “You know you’re a celebrity?”

“Ah, well, yes. I suppose I’ve gained some notoriety over the years.”

“People look up to you.”

“People look up to heroes in general. We try to be good examples, I think.”

“But you’re wrong sometimes. You know that.”

All Might blinks. Slowly the smile fades as he straightens up, no longer bent over to put himself on eye level with the rest of humanity. He looks thoughtful. “Why, yes. Of course I am. I’m tougher than most but I’m still just a person.”

The rest of the class makes their way out of the training ground. Kirishima waits for a minute but wanders off when he sees Katsuki has no plans to move. Katsuki crosses his arms, gauntlets off and slung over his shoulder, frowning at nothing and unsure to do with his hands. “I – a lot of people call you the perfect hero.”

All Might laughs. It’s not the bellowing, borderline shouting he puts on in public, just an amused little huff and a bashful smile. “What an odd thing to think. There’s no such thing as the perfect hero, young Bakugou, any more than there is a perfect human being. Some heroes are actively terrible people, in fact. And I try my best but that’s about all I can manage. There are far better heroes, and people, than I.”

Katsuki makes a face. “Like who?”

“Eraserhead, for example.”

“Aizawa?”

A custodian waves at them. All Might waves back and starts walking, leading Katsuki out of ground beta so they can get on with closing up. “You know there are many reasons people become heroes. For fame. For money. Some just because they have a powerful quirk and it would be a waste not to.”

And some to chase a nebulous idea of success, aiming to surpass a lifelong image of victory and virtue. “Yeah.”

“All very good reasons, I’m sure. And those heroes help society.”

“Uh-huh.”

“But there are some heroes you’ve never heard of,” he continues. “I never set out to be famous. It just happened. But there are some who avoid fame and glory. Some people who gain nothing but injuries and heartache but do their jobs anyway because people need help. That’s the closest thing I can think of to a perfect hero. I think maybe that’s what heroes were always meant to be.”

“Underground.”

“Not just that. Shall I tell you a secret?”

“What?”

“Heroes are everywhere.” The late afternoon sun softens the shadows on his face so he looks less like he’s made of marble. “Not all have training. Some are ordinary people, some with no quirks, some with what society would label a disability. Unassuming until they’re in a crisis. Then you see them leap bodily into the fray purely because they know someone has to help. And you know the best part? It happens every single time. You show up to an emergency thinking you’re going to save the day and find civilians already saving themselves. Retired firefighters controlling disaster areas. Off-duty doctors resuscitating whoever they can reach. Strangers digging each other out of rubble, grown-ups collectively shielding children they’ve never met. This is just what humanity does. Some of us are twisted and evil but I really believe every person is just waiting for the moment someone else needs them.”

They leave ground beta. Katsuki watches his friends in the distance, shoving each other and laughing about something he can’t hear. “Then why do they need us?”

“To do the heavy lifting. Civilians may be willing to take on hard jobs but few can come out unscathed. We’re a service, young Bakugou, not a higher class. Ah, but listen to me ramble. I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine.”

“The point is people can be wonderful,” All Might laughs, sounding soft but genuinely pleased. “So if you’re looking for someone to look up to, you can do a lot better than me.”

Aizawa corners him a couple of days after their failed mission. He’s got a bruise on one cheek that’s blossoming into an ugly purple. “Bakugou.”

Katsuki keeps his face still despite the horrible wobble of his heart. “Yeah?”

Aizawa stares him down. Searches him for something Katsuki can’t see and doesn’t want to, mouth pursed in a thin line as they stand in the hallway between busy students going to class. “I hope you’re staying safe,” he says finally. “I saw something in the news. Two quirkless kid, apparently, getting involved in vigilante stuff.”

Katsuki’s heart tries to climb out of his throat. “Well. Good thing I’m not quirkless.”

“I suppose so.” The bell rings. Aizawa’s expression doesn’t lighten but he does take a step back, books stacked under his arm as he trudges off to the staff room. “Still. Just remember you’re going to be a hero. I’m sure those two have their hearts in the right place but it’s not an example you should follow.”

Aizawa. Eraserhead. The closest thing to an ideal hero, according to All Might. Deku would have liked him. Katsuki watches him go, wondering if he’ll ever get the chance to introduce them. “Sir?”

He pauses. “What?”

“Does it, uh. Ever bother you you’re not famous?”

Aizawa raises an eyebrow. Katsuki shuffles, trying not to look visibly embarrassed. “Honestly, Bakugou? I’d get nothing done if I had to fend off fans all day. Fame sounds like a nightmare.”

The next case they do is a minor one. Something low-key with no chance of them being spotted, more a chance to test the waters now the police are actively looking at them. They do escape drills in some abandoned building down town. Katsuki comes home tired and filthy every day but a little more confident they won’t be caught unawares again.

Life goes on, albeit with a little more discretion. They finish first year and spend spring break investigating a disappearance in the suburbs of Mustafu. Turns out the girl ran away from a bad home and found a job in Tokyo. She’s happy enough so they leave her alone and clean up some tracks so her family can’t find her. In May they expose some money-laundering gambling ring. Then chase a minor arms dealer through a park in Tokyo, throwing up clouds of dandelion fluff and taunting the lackeys that follow. They lead them straight to a police station. The guys freeze, weapons in their jackets as the police surround them, and Katsuki and Deku run through the night hyped-up and laughing.

They collapse into a heap high on a hill to watch the drama from afar. Cherry blossom season’s in full swing and the ground is soft and pink. Katsuki groans and rubs a newly-formed bruise on his shin. “This motherfucker threw a rock at me. I should have hit him.”

“You did hit him,” Deku points out. He’s got a gash on his arm but he doesn’t seem to have noticed. “You threw the rock back and nailed him in the forehead.”

“Hard to miss. His whole face was forehead. If my hairline ever recedes like that I’m just gonna shave my head.”

Deku snorts and flops backwards, arms stretched out above him. “I don’t think that would look good with your mask. All the artists have already settled on your character design.”

“Huh?”

“On social media. I think they’ve finally reached a consensus.  Most people draw you with black hair and an undercut. And lots of earrings. They made me blond.”

Katsuki briefly considers Deku with dyed hair and decides he doesn’t like it. “Maybe I should pierce my ears. Are the earrings cool or the dumb pearl ones my mom wears?”

Deku rolls over to face him. They’re alone out here in the chilly spring air so he pushes his mask up off his face. “You haven’t seen any of them?”

“I don’t have Twitter.”

“But you used to check out our hashtags. Have you at least kept up with the news?”

Katsuki opens his mouth and then shuts it. “Huh. Guess I forgot.”

“Hmm. I do notice you haven’t bragged at me in a while.”

“What are you paying attention to the news for now? You never used to care.”

Deku shrugs. “I like seeing what they write about you.”

“Not yourself?”

“Eh. I’m not all that interesting.”

On impulse, Katsuki reaches over to pick a petal out of Deku’s hair. “I dunno. If they’re not looking at you then I’d say those guys are missing out.”

“I don’t like this, Deku. There are lights on in some rooms and I hear movement. I’m gonna give it a once-over.”

“A once what? Over.”

“Don’t get smart with me, you cheeky bastard. What’s the situation outside?”

“…”

“Deku.”

“You didn’t say over.”

“I’m over this fucking conversation. I’m going in.”

“Wait, I wanna come. It’s boring out here and there are bugs.”

Katsuki sighs and pockets the walkie-talkie. Deku comes rustling through the bushes to join him outside the abandoned construction site they’re staking out. The meeting spot of some small-time villain gang, they think, although this is a recon mission rather than an arrest. Deku wants to know if they’re planning something bad. Katsuki suspects it may just be a group of losers who want to feel like they’re in a secret club.

They creep closer, Katsuki in the lead and Deku not far behind. He’s getting better at this stealth thing. They’ve worked together so often they don’t need to talk as they scale the metal fence, weaving through the concrete skeleton of a building someone gave up on. Voices echo in the dark. The start of an argument, it sounds like, although they can’t make out what’s being said.

Katsuki pokes his head around a pillar, Deku clinging to his back. Two men are shouting at each other while a girl faints dramatically in the background. They’re all in flouncy dollar-store outfits. Costumes, Katsuki realises with dull shock. They’re holding scripts. It’s not a gang, it’s just a gaggle of dumb theatre nerds having secret practice in the middle of nowhere.

Deku, the idiot, snorts. Three heads whip around in shock; Katsuki’s running before the yelling even starts, pulling Deku behind him because stupid Deku’s laughing too hard to see where he’s going. The shitty drama club chases them screaming for justice. Katsuki jumps the fence and drags Deku up after, taking off down the street to hide out in the woods until it’s safe to get away. Deku trips on his shoelaces and takes Katsuki down with him. They tumble into a ditch, a screaming tangle of limbs covered in mud and splashing into a dirty stream.

“Again with your elbow,” Katsuki wheezes. “How do you always get me in the ribs? And how are you so fucking heavy despite having a noodle body?”

“You’re the one lying on me,” Deku gasps. He’s all wet. They both are, Katsuki’s hoodie already sticking to his back uncomfortably. “Oh my god. Oh my god, did you hear their script? It was so bad.”

Katsuki rolls off him. “Told you they weren’t important. Get up, I’m not lying in a river all night, it smells like pond water.”

Deku takes off his mask. He’s laughing so hard he’s shaking, face creased up like a happy walnut and eyes scrunched into slits. His voice rings loud over the trickle of water. Creaky, like a door hinge, but bright and unguarded. His hair splays around him. Sopping wet, looking like seaweed, floating every which way like petals on a flower. Katsuki stares. Watches Deku give in to joy, filthy and squashed under someone else but not caring in the least.

This is new. He’s never seen Deku light up from the inside, even before he started wilting away and Katsuki had to scramble to bring him back. His mouth looks soft and warm and still open in a smile. His laugh sounds nice. Idly, Katsuki thinks he wouldn’t mind hearing it more often.

And then he’s not thinking at all. Body moving purely on instinct, he leans down and kisses him.

They don’t talk much after that.

Katsuki wordlessly helps Deku out of the mud and they go home. Deku seems shell-shocked but not upset, eyes wide and face redder than his stupid Air Jordans. Katsuki goes to school and does his homework and gets his training in as usual. He eats dinner and brushes his teeth and goes to bed and stares at the ceiling, wondering what in god’s name is going through his own stupid blond head.

On Thursday morning he decides to bite the bullet. On Thursday evening he drops his bag off at home, runs down the street, says hi to Aunty inko and barges into Deku’s room without knocking.

Deku squeaks and drops his pen. He’s surrounded in a mountain of notebooks and wearing a hoodie, socks and patterned boxers. “Kacchan? What are you doing here, you didn’t say you were –”

“I’m sorry I kissed you except not really unless you didn’t like it in which case we can forget all this happened,” Katsuki says all in a rush. “What the fuck are you wearing? Are those burgers on your underpants?”

“I would’ve put on clothes if you’d said you were coming,” Deku whines and pulls the comforter over himself. “Also what? Are you sorry or aren’t you?”

“Are you mad at me?”

“For not knocking?”

“You know what I mean,” Katsuki says and shuts the door behind him. “Look, I should have asked first, I know. I get you and I have, like, history so I won’t do it again but I just need to hear you say you don’t want me to.”

“If I say I don’t want you to will you stop hanging out with me?”

“No. We still have shit to do, after all.”

Deku twiddles his thumbs. Katsuki goes to join him on the bed but pivots at the last second and sits on the desk chair instead. “Sorry, Deku,” he says sheepishly. “Forget about it. It never happened.”

“I don’t want to, though,” Deku says so quietly Katsuki almost doesn’t hear it. He’s going all red again. Katsuki’s helplessly endeared. “Forget. You surprised me but I – I didn’t not like it. I kept thinking about it. After you left. I thought it would be nice if – I’ve never been in a relationship so I don’t know how it works but we spend so much time together solving cases maybe those could also be dates?”

He hides his face in his hands. Katsuki, somewhat nonsensically, wants to ask Deku to smile for him again. “So are we gonna be some kinda battle couple?”

“I don’t know. Do people do that?”

“Our lives are already fucking weird, who cares what other people do.”

Deku gives him a nervous giggle. He’s looking anywhere but Katsuki, mouth turned up in a wobbly smile and feet kicking with childish excitement. “Okay. So what now?”

“Now,” Katsuki says, scooting the chair close enough for their knees to touch. “Now I kiss you again. And after that we’ll get back to work and see whose ass needs saving next.”

They sit on the roof of skyscraper, high above the streets of Osaka overlooking speeding cars and flashing headlights. It’s the familiar lull in the wee hours of a stakeout. A summer trip with his boyfriend, Katsuki’d told his parents, to celebrate a year without ripping each other’s throats out. They’re older now. A little closer to adulthood, a lot more battle-hardened and patient. Urban legends spoken of with equal parts excitement and disapproval. Did you hear about those vigilantes last week? They’re quirkless, you know. Just goes to show you don’t need much to do big things. People are capable of anything when they try.

 A light rain settles around them. Stays in Deku’s hair, fine droplets shining in the moonlight like little translucent pearls. Their pinkies touch. A constant background reminder that despite everything they’re both still there. Katsuki thinks idly about school. He still has paperwork to submit. An official statement of what his hero name will be that Katsuki’s so far left blank. “I wanted to ask you something.”

Deku swings his feet over the precipice. A year ago he would have been afraid to look down. “We’re too young to get married.”

“Stop being an idiot. I was just thinking. I heard something in UA. It’s supposed to be a secret so you have to keep it to yourself.”

“I’m good at keeping secrets.”

“I know you are. It’s about All Might. It turns out he’s thinking of retiring. He wants a successor.”

“Are you going to be his successor?”

“Not me.” That little light that’s supposed to alert planes of tall buildings flashes steadily behind them. Katsuki stretches his legs. “You know if anyone on earth is a hero, it’s you.”

Deku’s mouth does something complex. A smile, half endeared, half self-deprecating. “I already know what he thinks of me.”

“He doesn’t know you. If he ever met you, if he saw you as you are now, he’d change his mind.”

“He’s superhuman. I’m quirkless.”

“Has that stopped you before?”

“I suppose not,” Deku hums. “Well. It’s a nice thought.”

“Someday we could go pro together. Make an agency. Whether or not All Might approves of you, you should keep working with me. You have some training now. You could get a hero license. Or just apply to work in my office and we can sneak out on missions.”

“I wouldn’t mind being your secret sidekick.”

“Or,” Katsuki says haltingly. “I was thinking about that.”

“What?”

“You know how everything we do is technically illegal.”

“Yeah?”

“But it helps. We don’t have to worry about red tape. We can break into places and investigate wherever we want and beat up assholes if we need to.”

Deku hums. “The lack of bureaucracy does speed things up.”

“So I was wondering, if, you know. If being a hero would just get in the way of real stuff.”

A car honks somewhere in the distance. Deku looks up, eyes luminous under the mask he’s pushed up, and freckles pronounced somehow even in the dark. “Are you saying you want to stay like this? As vigilantes?”

“Dunno.”

“But you’re already so close to becoming a hero. It’s what you’ve always wanted, Kacchan. Do you really want to give it up just like that?”

Katsuki sighs. “I don’t know,” he says honestly. “I don’t know what I want. I don’t know what people need. All I know is a lot of the stuff I thought was important is just… stuff. Ideas. Stupid things I decided were true as a kid and now I don’t know if that’s the best I can do.”

Stars shine overhead. There are few, in the bright city lights, and a lot of them are likely just satellites masquerading as some cosmic beauty. Still, they’re nice to look at. Katsuki watches them, feeling small under the midnight sky. It’s not a bad feeling. It just means there’s room to grow. An infinite space to explore until he finds a spot made for him.

For now he sits with Deku, two tiny figures in a city too big to see them. “Whatever you decide,” Deku says softly. “You know I’ll be with you. I follow where you lead.”

Katsuki laces their fingers together. “Don’t be stupid. I’m not leading you anywhere. We’ll figure it out together. You and me.”

This is the way the world works: the sun rises in the east. Strength comes when it’s needed. Bakugou Katsuki rockets through life like a comet with Midoriya Izuku right beside him.

He does not believe in fate. Or plans, anymore, really, because it turns out the world is a big place and he’s still figuring out where he belongs in it. He does have one clue – wherever he ends up he suspects it’ll be with Deku. It’s just how things are. Both of them finding each other again and again for better or worse. Not two halves of a whole, exactly, but two gears running opposite each other in a confusing, wonderful machine. Moving in tandem. Powering something bigger. Unsure who’s pushing who.

It will not be without friction. They’re both strong personalities and Katsuki’s well aware he can be difficult to work around. They’re just different. Fundamentally opposite in every way, one made of sharp glass edges and the other soft cotton wrapped around steel. A steady crackle of fire and a dancing spark of electricity. They shouldn’t work as well as they do. But Deku’s never given up. Deku will not let them fail. He’ll nudge them, in his unassuming way, right where they need to be. Running full-tilt to whoever needs help, and Katsuki will be content to follow.

Bakugou Katsuki wins. And Deku, no matter what the world tells him, will be the greatest hero Katsuki knows.

An odd combination. Two people on different paths, supposedly never to meet.

Until, of course, they eventually do.