Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

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Deku doesn’t even get a chance to avoid it. One moment, he’s heading to the agency gym, waving to Kacchan as he goes, and the next he’s experiencing vertigo so extreme he tilts hard to the left and falls to his knees in quick succession.

The first thing he notices is the change in lighting. Harsh fluorescents hang above him, and he squints his eyes hard as they struggle to adjust. He can hear them humming overhead, like someone tried to pump extra electricity through to get them just that little bit brighter. The floor he’s on is no longer the agency carpet or linoleum. It’s cool, hard concrete, with a gritty layer of dirt and pebbles digging into the palms of his hands and his knees.

The next thing he notices is the sound of a strangely familiar voice. “Wow! It worked!”

He realizes with a start that the voice is like his, but distorted, different. He pries his eyes open to seek out the source.

Whoever it is doesn’t just sound like him, he looks like him too. He’s wearing a different outfit than he personally normally would, though. A dark green button up, sleeves rolled up to the elbow, unbuttoned enough to expose the collarbone, sloppily tucked into a pair of black slacks held in place by wine red suspenders, not to mention the black dress shoes and well fitting gloves. He could never see himself wearing something like that outside of a formal event.

Looking at his clone creates a strange funhouse mirror effect, like looking at himself inverted, or without the distortion of a mirror, he supposes. His clone even seems taller. Or maybe that’s just the fact that Izuku is still on the ground.

He heaves himself up to his feet with great effort, still feeling a bit disoriented from his… whatever just happened.

His eyes warily rove the space, taking in the barren walls and concrete. It looks like some kind of abandoned commercial building that had been stripped bare, or maybe never completed construction. There’s another person in the room with him and… his clone? Whatever he is. They seem somewhat androgynous, a solidly average height, with straight black hair tied into a bun. There’s a mask covering their eyes, with swirling purple blue splotches, and purple swirls painted messily on their face. He wonders if they’re a hero, villain, or vigilante. He doubts they’re just an average civilian.

His clone speaks up, voice high and excited, the way his gets when he’s enthusiastic about something, though maybe a bit off. “Oh my god, is this me a little gym rat?”

“I don’t know.” The other person drawls boredly, examining their nails. “Are you gonna pay me or what?”

“Yeah, yeah,” this him confirms, “a hundred thousand yen for ten days, envelope in that desk.”

“Pleasure doin’ business.” The other person smirks, grabbing the envelope and checking its contents before heading out with a jaunty salute.

Izuku supposes that at least mostly rules out hero. Highest chance they’re a villain or vigilante. His mind whirls a mile a minute, trying to figure out why this version of him might have hired a mercenary.

“So! Alternate universe me,” other him says, rounding on him and approaching at a casual, but not at all cautious, pace. “What do you want to be called while you’re here? We can’t both go by Izuku, and I call first name privileges.”

His eyes widen, taken a bit aback by the lack of caution. This level of candor and enthusiasm is how he would personally approach making friends he knows are safe, not meeting unknown alternate universe versions of himself. Though he supposes the other hi—Izuku, is more comfortable approaching this than he is, knowing more than he does. “I—um. Deku. You can call me Deku.”

Izuku’s eyebrows shoot up. “Never thought any version of me would end up with a degradation kink. I prefer doing the degrading, but to each their own, I suppose.”

“What?” Deku splutters, finding himself thrown for a loop more and more, “no, I, no, I don’t have a degradation kink. My friend just… she told me it sounds like “you can do it”, and I guess I just preferred to think of it like that, if I was gonna hear it every day anyways.”

He would have expected Izuku to know this already, but he doesn’t want to reveal too many details about himself, just in case if this is some kind of trick or trap.

Izuku hums. “I like my version better. Yours is boring.”

“It’s the truth!” Deku insists.

“Yeah, sure, so Deku, you wanna blow this popsicle stand? It’s a little—“ he wrinkles his nose, making a dismissive little gesture “—dreary.”

Deku eyes him warily, leaning back a bit instinctively. “I don’t know if I’m comfortable letting you take me to a secondary location.”

Izuku grins, even as he rolls his eyes. “Okay, Mulaney. You know I’m you, right? Totally trustworthy.”

Deku narrows his eyes. “Just because you look like me doesn’t mean you are me. You could be lying about the alternate universe thing. A shapeshifter. Or a clone.”

Izuku sighs. “Fine, I understand why you don’t one hundred percent trust me, then, but you did already get transported to a secondary location. There’s really no point in worrying over a tertiary one.”

Deku purses his lips, considering for a long moment. Adrenaline is still rushing through his system, bringing the world into sharp focus and thrusting his thoughts into some semblance of order.

He sighs, finding no reason to disagree with Izuku. He isn’t really a fan of the current venue, himself. “Fine.”

“Awesome.” He drapes an arm over Deku’s shoulders, steering him out of the room. “I’m sure you’ll be much more comfortable when we’re out of here. I don’t like giving away my home address all willy-nilly, so I had to bring Swap elsewhere for the, you know, “you” retrieval, but I’m sure you can be trusted, since you're me.”

“Right,” Deku says dubiously, easily falling in line with Izuku. He is actually taller than Deku, by a considerable amount. “Why did you… bring me here, anyways?”

Izuku hums, dropping his arm from around Deku’s shoulders to press the button for the elevator they just stopped in front of. “Let’s get you settled in first, then we’ll talk about that.”

The doors ding open, and Izuku ushers him in. Deku plasters himself against the back wall, trying, (and he thinks succeeding) to do so in a casual manner. There are a lot of things about this him that are different. The biggest difference, though, is his confidence. Deku’s has grown a lot since he was 15, but he still has his moments, and he’s nowhere near this effortlessly… what? Nonchalant? Vaguely amused? Magnetic? There’s something about him that just seems… over it. Like he decided to start doing things more for fun than anything. It’s certainly compelling, but it makes him feel cautious as well. He wonders how far the differences extend.

The elevator doors open on G level, revealing a mostly empty parking garage, save for a sleek, expensive looking, dark green car. Izuku pushes himself off the railing and meanders towards the car, pulling a clicker out of his pockets to unlock it, if the brief blinking lights and chirps are any indication.

Deku doesn’t let his surprise show outwardly, but his eyes widen just a bit. He’s climbing the rankings, but there’s no way he’s saved enough for a car like that at this point. It’s so much more practical to just use his quirk to get around, take public transportation, or walk. Owning a car in Japan is too much of a headache.

Cautiously, he follows Izuku, not wanting to let his surprise show too much outwardly. This is getting stranger by the minute.

Izuku opens the passenger door with a grin, ushering him in. He shuts the door behind Deku as soon as he’s in, then slides over the hood of the car to the other side with a grin, opening the drivers side door and tossing himself in with a laugh. “Sorry, just got it waxed, I had to.” He pulls his seatbelt down, but pauses before he buckles, considering. “The car, not my ass,” he clarifies with a grin.

Deku barely contains the urge to grimace. “Right. I figured.”

Izuku’s seatbelt snaps in place, and he pushes the button to turn the car on, rolling down his window. “Jeeze, tough crowd.” He throws the car into reverse and slings an arm behind Deku’s seat to check over his shoulder as he backs out of the parking spot. The car reverses so quickly and suddenly that Deku has to grab the oh shit handle, body quickly wrapping itself up into a bundle of tension.

“Wow,” Izuku intones, shifting the car into drive, still swift, but a bit smoother now, a bit more slowly, “I think you need to loosen up a bit, Deku.”

Deku shrugs. “This is a tense situation.”

Izuku hums. “I disagree.” He glances at Deku assessingly from the corner of his eyes. “You aren’t in danger. I’m not going to kill or maim you. Just relax.”

Well, Deku’s danger sense isn’t going off, but it doesn’t account for anything beyond physical threats. He doesn’t want to relax, he feels it’s important to stay alert and aware in unknown and uncontrollable situations like the one he’s currently in.

Deku shrugs, leaning against the window, one hand still gripping the handle. “I’m relaxed.”

Izuku snorts a laugh, one arm hanging casually out the window, the other steering the car. “Sure.” His thumb hits a button on the steering wheel a few times, apparently turning the volume on the radio up. The lyrics are English, and it sounds like pop. Deku squints at the car display, using his slightly rusty English to read the title—Cool for the Summer.

It sounds vaguely familiar, in a way that could either be actual familiarity or a hazard of the genre.

Izuku, clearly unbothered, starts singing along in perfect, though not exactly melodious, English.

It doesn’t take long for them to pull up to another building. It looks like a high rise hotel building, but Izuku pulls up in the front, smooth as butter, like he owns the place. Deku unbuckles as Izuku does, letting himself out of the car in time to watch him pass and head towards the entrance, casually tossing his keys to a bored looking woman with her eyes on her phone.

The woman manifests a tentacle, grabbing the keys before they can hit her. “Better luck next time, Midoriya-sama.”

Izuku just chuckles amusedly, continuing his path inside. “I’ll catch you unawares one day, Kyoto-kun.”

Deku catches up, lowering his voice. He can’t resist asking, all of this catching up to him. “You live here?”

“Yup.” Izuku confirms, casually pushing through a door marked “employees only”. There’s a stairwell directly ahead, with two doors on either side. Izuku immediately heads for the right, lights flicking on overhead as he goes. “Top or bottom?” He asks, stopping in front of an elevator, waving a keycard in front of a scanner, then staring intently into some sort of eye level camera. Possibly a retinal scanner?

Deku furrows his brow, considering the question. What the hell does he mean, top or bottom? “What?”

Izuku blinks his eyes, leaning back from the scanner. He shoots Deku one of his amused smiles as the elevator doors slide open. “Top or bottom floor? I own both, so…”

“Uh… top, I guess.” Deku shrugs.

“Interesting.” Izuku smirks. “I could go either way, myself.”

“...yeah.” Deku says, confused. “I imagine you wouldn’t own both, otherwise.”

Izuku snorts, hitting the button for the top floor, and the elevator starts upwards.

“So,” Izuku begins, leaning casually against the elevator wall, “how old are you? You’re kinda”—he just waves his hand over Deku’s head—“tiny.”

Deku barely resists the urge to swat Izuku’s hand away, adrenaline mostly winding down by now, leaving him a bit worn down and irritable. “I’m twenty two.”

“Me too!” Izuku enthuses, walking backwards out of the now open elevator doors and into a wide open space. “So, gym rat, if we’re the same age, why are you approximately 5 inches from dwarfism while I’m perfectly average height? Start doping too early or something?”

“Are you kidding?” Deku asks incredulously, stopping just outside the elevator doors.

Izuku stops as well, cocking his head. “I mean yeah, but I am genuinely curious.”

Deku furrows his brow, crossing his arms over his chest. “If I had started testosterone earlier, I would be taller.”

Izuku’s eyebrows shoot up. “Okay, there’s a lot of differences, then.” He walks over to a small end table by a couch, pulling a notepad out of the drawer and a pen from his shirt pocket. “Differences: this me is a gym rat, has even more scars than me somehow, is way tenser, and is trans, I’m guessing.” He points his pen at Deku on the last one, tilting his head in question.

“You’re cis?” Deku asks. “How is that even possible?”

Izuku shrugs. “I guess cross universe Izukus don’t have to be completely genetically identical to be impacted by Swap’s quirk. There’s probably a hundredth of a percent margin of error, and it just so happened that you got the short end of the chromosomal stick.”

Deku’s head pounds trying to take all this information in. This must be how others feel trying to play catch up to his well informed rambling. He never thought he’d be getting a taste of his own medicine.

He doesn’t recognize the name Swap, either. Izuku must be referring to the villain/vigilante that had been there when he arrived. Maybe they’re unique to this universe. He wonders what other discrepancies there are.

“Do you think there are very many more universe wide discrepancies?”

Izuku grins. “A man after my own heart.” He sprawls casually across the arm of the couch, then taps his pen against his notebook. “Probably not too many. The fact that we exist in the first place is a miraculous feat, a one in a something something trillion chance. So the conditions had to be juuust right for our mom to meet our dad and the right sperm to meet the right egg and make us. If the world was too crazy different, it wouldn’t happen.”

Deku nods. “Butterfly effect.”

“Right.” Izuku confirms. “Fate is total bullshit.”

Deku shakes his head, his own thoughts catching up with Izuku’s logic more. “Wait, actually, counterpoint, we aren’t actually genetically identical. We’re only, what, 99 point something percent identical? So doesn’t that mean a ton of things could have changed?”

Izuku hums. “Fair point. When were you born?”

“July 15th.”

Izuku grins. “Same here. The chance of our parents being born, getting together, most likely conceiving on the same day, and having us on the same day lower considerably when you change things up. Do you subscribe to multiverse theory?”

Deku scratches his chin. “Like, the theory that every potential branch in choices or variable will lead to a new universe being created? I feel like the use of this quirk at least proves part of that.”

Izuku nods. “My theory is that our universes branched close to our conception. Probably something our parents did. If it was something someone else did prior to that, we would either be too far away to be impacted by it, or if it were a big event we wouldn’t even exist at all. Or—” He pulls his phone out, muttering to himself as his thumbs fly across the keyboard. “Ooh, we could be different halves of an identical twin pair. Twins that mutate after the zygote splits are rare, but possible. Maybe you ate me in my universe and I ate you in this one, that could be the point of divergence.” Izuku grins wolfishly.

Deku shudders at the thought. “I hope not. That’s creepy.”

“Hmm.” Izuku clicks his pen, writing a new note in his notebook. “This me is apparently also squeamish.”

Deku blushes a bit. “I’m not!” He defends. “I just think the idea of eating someone isn’t that appealing!”

Izuku rolls his eyes, snapping his notebook shut. “I don’t think it’s appealing either, I’m just not affected by it the way you obviously are.”

“Hey!” Deku exclaims, finally realizing that he should be questioning this version of himself on a very different track. “Why am I here?”

“Oh!” Izuku exclaims, clapping his hands together. “Right, I forgot! I was tracking Swap down, I swear I haven’t slept in like, thirty hours, not the worst but—oof!” He cuts himself off, smacking a palm against his forehead. “I haven’t taken my meds either, Jesus, no wonder I’m so scatterbrained.” He pats his pockets. “Gimme a minute.”

“Meds?” Deku asks, watching as Izuku grabs a water bottle from a corner of the room, pulling a loose pill from his pocket and taking it with a gulp of water.

“Yeah,” Izuku responds, “for my ADHD.”

“Oh. Guess that’s another difference between us, then.”

Izuku gives him a skeptical once over. “You ever get tested for ADHD? Because the way you were rambling and just as distracted as I was just then, I seriously doubt it.”

Deku’s mouth clicks shut, and his brow furrows as he thinks about it. From his peripherals, he can see Izuku drinking his water, eyes still intent on him.

“No. I’ve never been tested,” Deku settles on.

Izuku snorts a laugh. “Yeah, well, you might wanna get on that, bud.”

Deku nods mutely. “...how did you find out, anyways? If these universes are so similar.”

Izuku raises his hands placatingly. “Woah, who said anything about current similarities? Whatever changed the conditions of our genetic composition could have changed a whole lot more, too. Just probably directly before or any time after our births. And cocaine.”

Deku’s brow furrows in confusion. “Excuse me?”

“Cocaine,” Izuku enunciates clearly. “That’s how I found out I have ADHD.”

“I—what? How?”

The corner of Izuku’s mouth ticks up in amusement, clearly enjoying this. “Well, when a man decides to do a line of cocaine off another very nice young man’s genitals—”

Deku waves his hands in front of himself as if to clear the air, blushing furiously. “I’m sorry, you need to backtrack so many steps. There’s genitals now?”

Izuku barks out a guffawing huff of laughter, clicking his pen again to write in his notebook. “Oh my god, yeah, this me is such a prude.”

“I still don’t follow the logic of how you figured it out, and also, that’s just illegal in so many ways? It’s not prudish to be surprised that another me did that.”

Izuku raises his eyebrow. “Huh.” He writes something down in his notebook. “So… I take it you aren’t a villain then?”

“No I’m—" Deku processes the implication of that statement. “—Wait, are you?”

Izuku’s mouth drops into an incredulous line. “Yeah, dude. I did just pay a villain a hundred thousand yen to transport an alternate universe version of myself here so we could bang.”

“Well excuse me if I was—" Deku cuts himself off again, just processing the full sentence Izuku had said. “I’m sorry, you spent 30 hours tracking down a villain and then paid them a hundred thousand yen to bang an alternate universe version of yourself. To bang me?”

“Are you flattered?” Izuku wiggles his eyebrows. “Maybe a little horny?”

“No!” Deku exclaims. “I mean, why would you even want to do that? We’re so plain.”

Izuku blinks, raising his eyebrows and shaking his head a bit. “Normally, I’d say speak for yourself, but we look mostly the same. Which I am very happy about. We’re hot. Honestly, I’m going to say we’re tied in hotness, different appeals. I appreciate the extra muscles on you, and the scars are sick as hell, but I obviously have better fashion sense, and am probably better with knives, since you aren’t a villain.” He shrugs. “It evens out.”

Deku pales at the mention of weapons, wondering if Izuku has One For All, wondering if he’s using it as a villain. “Do you… have a quirk?”

Izuku gives him a strange look. “...no. I don’t. Do you?”

Deku nods reluctantly, figuring he won’t be able to hide it for a week, but mentally kicking himself for giving information to a villain. Even if the villain is technially him.

Izuku clicks his pen again, writing it down. “That’s two big genetic differences. I wonder how they both slipped through the cracks.” His pen halts on the paper. “Unless…”

For a moment, Deku stops breathing, wondering if Izuku somehow knows about All Might.

“You sneaky bastard.” Izuku grins. “How did you do it? How did you convince All for One to give you a quirk when you aren’t even a damn villain? Was it a recruiting incentive you somehow dodged? Were you a smarmy little vigilante he was trying to pick up for his little League?”

Deku shrugs, not wanting to lie or reveal too much. “I’m sworn to secrecy.”

Izuku blows a dismissive breath from between his lips. “Boring. I’ll find out eventually.”

Deku desperately wants to change the subject. Knowing his own relentless quirk analysis, he figures the chances of Izuku figuring something out if they stay on this track are far too high for comfort. So he just blurts out the first thing that comes to mind. “I wonder, is my marginalization as a trans person informing my moral compass? If I were born cis, would I be a villain?”

“Yoohoo dipshit, in case you forgot, I’m quirkless. I also experience marginalization.”

A corner of Deku’s mouth turns down in contemplation. “This is the only factor I can think of separating us, I was quirkless too, for a long time.”

Izuku hums. “I guess, now that you mention it, Hizashi would have been even worse to deal with if I were trans. I’m honestly surprised you managed to become a hero if you had to deal with that.”

Deku cocks his head to the side. “What? I never see dad, he’s been working in America since I was, like, three.”

A look of surprise flits over Izuku’s face, quickly overtaken by one of dark amusement. “When did you realize you were trans?”

Deku blinks. “I mean, I think I kind of always knew, but my mom realized when I was… three.”

There’s a heavy silence, the grin on Izuku’s face only growing wider and more dangerous as Deku processes.

“Oh.” Deku says, voice flat.

Izuku stands up, walking over to clap him on the shoulder, face a bit more serious now. “You’re better off without him, believe me. Hizashi was a raging drunk and a vicious misogynist. I’m not surprised he was cissexist, too.”

Deku’s mouth turns down in a frown, noting Izuku’s use of past tense. “Was? Did he... How’d he die?”

Izuku shrugs, stepping back to examine his nails casually, even though the gloves cover them. “Baseball bat to the head. Five hits, I think it was? Dented the hell out of the aluminum.” He wrinkles his nose in distaste.

Deku pales. “Wha—did you...?”

Izuku smiles a bit ruefully. “Like I said, you’re better off without him.”

A complex wave of emotions crash through his system, and he takes a step back. Before he can stop them, tears begin to well up in Deku’s eyes. His dad is a tough subject. He hasn’t seen the man since he was three, but he’d always wanted a father. Even though his mother had divorced him, apparently with no problem due to the constant separation, and began dating All Might, he couldn’t help but wish he had known his biological father.

Even though this is an alternate universe, he can’t help but mourn the father he never had, the one he knew, on some level, he never would. Not to mention, that means this version of himself killed his dad. With no regrets, apparently. It's a horrifying revelation.

Words fall from his mouth, raw and unbidden. “But he—he was your dad.”

Izuku’s eyes go steely, and he steps in closer, voice dark in a way that finally solidifies his villainy. “Look, Deku, I’m glad you’ve never had to watch your dad punch your mom in the stomach so hard she vomited, or had to extinguish her after he set her on fire with his quirk, or put ointment on the cigarette burns he gave her, but believe me: that bastard deserved a much slower death than the one I granted him.”

Deku's mind swirls. He swallows hard, somewhat regretting his outburst. He had never realized his dad was like that.

Honestly though, he can't say he has trouble believing it. His mom is constantly nervous, and she used to be very flinchy when he was younger, and… oh god. She doesn’t bare her midriff much, but he’s overtaken by a fuzzy memory now, something he hasn’t thought about in years, sitting next to his mom on the bed while she changed shirts, reaching tiny fingers out to feel the bumpy texture of the circular scars there. She had deflected when he had asked about them, but they could be cigarette burns, now that he thinks about it. He can feel his face paling with realization.

How would he act, in that situation?

“Oh.”

Izuku chuckles ruefully. “Yeah. Oh. I guess we found the point of divergence, though.” He backs off, walking to the couch, speaking with wide gestures as he goes. “No abusive dad, no disillusionment with quirks due to dad’s use of his quirk to hurt mom, no snapping and murdering dad, no mom taking the fall for his murder, no shitty lawyer getting her thrown in jail for decades, no becoming a villain to bust her out, etcetera etcetera, erasing half of my very interesting backstory.” He flops down onto the couch, punctuating his tirade. Izuku sighs, pushing a hand through his hair with a slight pout. “God, we were just supposed to be mutually fucked up and then fuck about it. I did not bargain for trauma show and tell.”

“I’m still processing,” Deku mutters, sitting heavily down in an armchair.

“Oh,” Izuku sits up, “and I didn’t even give you a tour. How rude of me.” Izuku eyes Deku skeptically. “I’ll give you a minute to process first, you clearly need it.”

Chapter Text

Deku doesn’t get the tour on the first day. He’s too frazzled by his conversation with Izuku, and can’t let it rest just as-is.

Izuku bounds off in the name of "letting him process", calling something over his shoulder about getting food. Deku watches him go, lips pursed, head bursting with activity.

He’s uneasy about the fact that Izuku is a villain. He knows that this version of himself was obviously exposed to even more trauma than he had been in his childhood, but it still rankles. Just how much about them is different? It’s hardly a question he can expect will be comprehensively answered in ten days, nor is it something that should really bother him, after all, it’s not really his universe, but the fact of the matter is… this could have been him. If they’re similar enough for Swap’s quirk… it could have been him.

The doorbell rings, knocking Deku out of his self-reflective stupor. His gaze flicks nervously to the door. Is he supposed to…

“I’ll get it!” Izuku calls, power walking into the room with an air of barely contained excitement.

He grins, opening the door to a bellhop with a cart full of food. “Mm!” he exclaims, “smells divine.” He steps back, allowing the bellhop to push the cart full of food into the room, then follows him in to open a door that evidently leads to a dining room.

Right, Deku somehow never even managed to make it past the first room of the floor.

Izuku thanks the bellhop, smiling as he closes the door behind him. “You hungry?” He turns to Deku. “I got some of my favorite foods, figured we’d have some common tastes.”

Deku follows him into the dining room and eyes the spread. It all looks and smells delicious. “Thank you.”

“Take whatever you want,” Izuku says.

Deku hovers over the selection. His eyes zoom in on one dish in particular. Katsudon. It’s always been a comfort food for him, and he could really use a little comfort right now. He grabs the bowl, carrying it over to the dining table.

Izuku hums, then grabs a dish of his own, joining him at the table. An awkward silence settles over them. Well, it's awkward on Deku’s part. Izuku seems unfazed, taking a silent first bite of his food.

“What do you do?” Deku asks. “What kind of villain are you?”

Izuku finishes slurping noodles into his mouth, then chews for a bit. “Nothing too bad,” he assures. “I design and distribute illegal support tech.”

Deku feels his eyebrows raise. “I thought you were ‘disillusioned with quirks?’”

Izuku grins, pointing at Deku with his chopsticks. “Yeah, most of what I make is for quirkless people, to level the playing field.”

“That’s—” cool, Deku had been about to say “cool”, before he remembered the fact that it’s also incredibly illegal, and probably being used almost exclusively by villains.

Izuku rolls his eyes, as though sensing Deku’s train of thought. “I call myself a villain because the shit I do is illegal. That doesn’t mean it’s all immoral, Deku. Haven’t you ever done anything illegal, because you knew it was the thing that needed to happen?”

Deku chews his lip, his mind flooded with thoughts of Stain in Hosu and Katsuki in Kamino ward and all the other stupid stunts he's pulled because he knew it was for the greater good.

Izuku gestures with his chopsticks again. “Now eat your food, darling. Your katsudon is getting cold.”

Deku rolls his eyes, but digs into his katsudon anyways, because Izuku does have a point about it getting cold. “So, where is mom?” He asks, through a mouthful of noodle.

“On a beach in a non-extradition country, drinking margaritas and being pampered, as she deserves.” Izuku grins.

Deku can’t help but answer with a small smile of his own. It’s good to know his mother is doing well. Though he doesn’t trust this version of himself much, he does trust that he’ll take care of his mom. If he’s anything like Deku, that has to be true.

A new, more comfortable silence settles over them now as they eat, and when they finish, Izuku seems more centered, a little less energetic than before.

“So the ADHD,” Deku begins, as Izuku takes his bowl to the sink, “what did you mean you found out with cocaine?” He wrinkles his nose in distaste, honestly unable to picture some variant of himself doing that.

Izuku snorts. “It’s a stimulant, supposed to hype you up. I thought I’d be bouncing off the walls, like everyone else. Instead, it centered me. Helped me find my focus. I should have been partying after taking it–would have, but I had this idea for a project halfway through dancing with the guy I snorted off—” he cuts himself off “—well, anyways, I shut myself in my room and sat my ass on the bed and started drawing up plans for a project that eventually made me millions—then I reflected on why the cocaine had that effect on me.” He makes a sweeping gesture at himself. “ADHD.”

Deku nods. “I guess that makes sense.”

Izuku nods. “Yeah, it does," he says. "Funny way to find out, though. Now!" He claps his hands together. "Do you wanna play some video games? I just got a new console the other day, I wanna break it in.”
_____
Izuku does eventually give him that tour of his place, just not until after breakfast the next morning. He hadn’t been exaggerating when he said he owned the entire floor. It’s as big as Todoroki’s place, and the hotel tapers into a point at the top, so his space on the bottom floor is likely much bigger than even this.

It’s fully furnished, with that entrance room they had stopped in, a kitchen, a library, four guest rooms, three and a half bathrooms, and his own main room—which apparently has a small armory in the closet, though Deku has no intention of touching it.

All of the outer rooms have floor to ceiling windows, offering up a glittering view of the surrounding city to the north, west, and east, and another taller building to the south, where two of the guest bedrooms are situated.

Deku watches curiously through the window of one of those guest bedrooms, just barely able to make out the figure of a man walking somewhere in the building across. Izuku slides up next to him, and Deku tilts a bit away, still somewhat wary.

“So… you an exhibitionist?”

Deku sighs. “No.”

“Because I would be perfectly willing to fuck in front of these windows.”

Deku feels himself begin to flush again. “Of course you would. I wouldn't. We look identical. If someone saw us, they’d think we were twins.”

“So?” Izuku shrugs. “What do you care? This isn’t your universe. You’re out in a week. No consequences to any actions here, other than immediate physical harm.”

That… actually gives Deku pause.

Izuku, the bastard, notices immediately. “Yesss,” he hisses, “lean into it. What’s something you’ve always wanted to do, but you were too scared of what people would say or think? We could do it, whatever it is. I don’t care, people can think whatever they want of me. Doesn’t change what I’m capable of. But you, you’re so anxious. You must have something you’ve been stopping yourself from doing to maintain appearances.”

The worst part is, something does come to mind. Right away. “Well..”

Izuku grins, leaning in, breath obviously catching in anticipation.

“I guess… I have always wanted to—”

-----

“Roller skate.” Izuku says flatly. “I offer you the world on a silver platter, and you ask to go roller skating.”

Deku shrugs, gliding on his skates with an ease that is both surprising and relieving. “Learning new things while other, better people judge you is embarrassing.”

“You know I could have emptied this place out and we could be fucking right here, right?”

Deku shrugs. “Sure, but that’s not what I wanted.”

Izuku rolls his eyes, tossing his hands up in a defeated gesture. “Ough, please tell me you have more embarrassing things you want to do, and at least one of those things involves fucking.”

“Wow, you’re really deadset on this, aren’t you?”

“Look,” Izuku waves dismissively, “I’m not going to force or coerce you into anything, but I went through a lot of trouble with Swap specifically so I could bang a me. It was incredibly difficult to find them. I am functionally being edged at the moment. I went through all the motions, put all the work in, and…” he makes a little poof motion with his hands, “no clonegasm.”

Deku wrinkles his nose.

Izuku ignores this, barreling on. “And, like. I could track Swap down again, and I can certainly afford to pay a hundred thousand yen again, but I’m kind of attached to the idea of wooing you, specifically.”

Deku squints at him. “Because I’m trans?”

Izuku furrows his brow. “No. Because you have huge muscles and sick scars, but you’re super short and act all cute. It’s a weirdly attractive combo.” He perks up. “Is that the issue, though? Are you worried I’m fetishizing your transness? Because I could fix that.”

“No, I’m not”—Deku cuts off, processing the last bit, which he seems to have to do a lot with Izuku—”What do you mean you can fix that?”

Izuku grins. “You ever heard of Invert?”

Deku shakes his head.

“She’s a… vigilante? I guess? Criminal? Person who sells use of her quirk on the black market to temporarily give people the primary sex characteristics of a desired sex, and some secondary ones too. She can’t change anything to do with bones, but fat, hair, organs, all that can be changed.”

“And let me guess.” Deku states flatly. “You’ll take me to her on the condition that we fuck.”

Izuku furrows his brow at Deku again. “Cool your jets. I said no coercion. That wouldn’t even be satisfying, just sad. If you want, I will take you to the magic genital fairy regardless of whether or not you will bang me after, I am just informing you that you would enjoy it if we did. Also, it would be a neat way to test your new equipment. Look,” Izuku places a hand on Deku’s shoulder, “I know you’re a hero, and I’m a villain, so that makes me suspicious to you, but I’ve been clear about my intentions. I’m not as bad as you think, promise.” He extends his pinky to Deku to shake.

Deku stares at it for a moment, then deflates. Izuku’s right. He’s being suspicious because this version of himself is a villain, but he’s been nothing but transparent from the very beginning. Really, there’s no reason not to trust him. Not about this, at least.

Deku extends his own pinky, accepting the shake.

“So, you want to live life on the cis side for a couple days?”

Deku chews his lip, contemplating. “Yeah, sure. Why not?”

Chapter Text

Deku raises an eyebrow skeptically at the sight before him, a plain white door set in a cement wall. There’s a sign hanging lopsided from a nail in the cheap plywood, the words “the doctor is in” clearly hand painted onto it. He turns his skeptical look back on Izuku.

“Hey, don’t look at me like that,” Izuku says, leaning around Deku to knock on the door, “this is an underground operation, Invert doesn’t run the kind of business that can blend in with bougie doctor’s offices downtown.”

Before Deku can come up with a retort, the door to the office swings open, revealing a woman with a wild rat's nest of grey hair and large, thick lensed glasses that make her eyes look disproportionately small on her face.

“Innie!” Izuku exclaims, letting himself into her office. “How are you? Excited to see your favorite customer again?”

Deku cautiously follows his counterpart inside, cringing a bit internally at his brash introduction.

Invert rolls her eyes, closing the door after them. “Yes,” she quips, “I was dying without your patronage.”

“Well, unfortunately you’ll have to go without it a bit longer. This visit isn’t for me, it’s for my lovely companion here. I’ll even pay for him,” Izuku says, digging his wallet out of his pocket, “even though I know you tend to take your trans patrons on pro-bono.” Izuku winks, removing a hefty handful of yen from his pocket.

Invert snatches the yen from his hand, licking her thumb and using it to flip through and count the stack. “I take the poor patients on pro-bono,” she mutters, not taking her eyes off the stack, “patients who can pay do.” She rolls the bills into a little bundle, sliding it into her pockets, seemingly satisfied with the amount. “You can clearly afford it.”

Izuku grins. “Yes, I can.” he gestures to Deku. “Now if you’ll please give my lovely companion here a dick, we’ll be out of your hair.”

She grunts, gesturing Deku forward.

He approaches tentatively, and she holds her arms out. He hesitates, unsure what exactly she's looking for, and she rolls her eyes, pulling him into a hug. It's the warmest hug he’s ever received—which is saying a lot, given who his mother is. The gesture, which would normally have him stiffening in surprise, instead has him melting in her grasp, sighing in contentment.

Invert makes a soft noise in the back of her throat, patting his back. Her voice comes out much gentler than it had before. “Oh, I’ll bet that was a relief.”

Deku’s brow furrows, and he makes a confused little noise.

Invert draws back from the hug. “You’re all swapped out. It feels different for different people. The ones who really want it, like you do, it’s a relief. The ones who are just doing it for fun—”

“—It sent a chill down my spine, very interesting feeling,” Izuku provides helpfully.

“Yes,” Invert says dryly, “that’s about the gist of it.”

Izuku hadn’t even noticed she was using her quirk, but now that he’s self assessing, things do feel a bit different than usual, genital wise. He flushes, tamping down on both the urge to cover himself, despite the fact that he isn’t exposed, and to shove his hands down his pants and feel for himself, since that would be wildly inappropriate.

“Alright,” Izuku says, clapping his hands together, “well clearly it worked, given—” he gestures at his face, and Deku’s hands instinctively come up to touch his own, feeling the hair there, encountering a short beard, thicker than it normally grows.

“Yeah,” Izuku says, “that. So we can head out now. Pleasure doing business with you, as always, Invert.”

Invert waves her hand dismissively, shooing them out the door and closing it behind them with finality.

They drive back to Izuku’s in his fancy car, and the whole way there, Deku sits with his hands motionless in his lap, despite how loudly they’re screaming to be shoved down his pants.

More than once, Izuku shoots him a knowing look, and Deku has to turn away, face flaming. The drive to and from Invert's is significantly longer than the drive to wherever Swap had been, and each passing second is torturous.

“Just do it,” Izuku says, voice half amused, half exasperated.

“Huh?”

“Just whip it out, touch it, whatever you so clearly and desperately want to do right now. It’s not like I’m going to care. I’m you, and you know I'm the most shameless version of you possible, too.”

For a moment, Deku considers not complying. There’s a long list of reasons why he shouldn’t. Logically, he knows all those reasons. Realistically, none of them mean much when faced with the chance to scratch this itch.

“Keep your eyes on the road.” He orders. “Don’t look at me until I’m done.”

“Aye aye,” Izuku confirms, eyes firmly glued to the road.

Deku watches him for a moment, but his gaze remains dutifully fixed, even as Deku’s hand begins to hover closer to his groin. Finally, he allows himself to give in, reaching his hands in his pants to confirm what he knows should be there.

His fingers feel their way through his typical thatch of pubic hair, working their way down to the area where he would typically encounter the seam that splits into his vulva. Instead, he hits a raised bit of skin. A penis. His penis.

He grins, mapping out the area with his fingers, trying to get a bit of an idea for how big he is, what it might look like.

After a moment, he’s parsed all the information he can without getting himself hard or taking his cock out of his pants, neither of which he’s willing to do given the presence in the car that he’s still so keenly aware of.

He retracts his hand, turning to face Izuku. “Okay, I’m done.”

Izuku shoots him a look out of the corner of his eye as he drives. “You can do more. You don’t have to hold back here.”

Deku hums. “I think I’m going to wait until I’m in a private place to look at it.”

Izuku shrugs. “Fair enough.”

The rest of the drive is spent in silence, though Deku feels much better now that he’s sated at least part of his curiosity.

By the time they get to the elevator and begin their slow ascent to the top floor, though, Deku is starting to get antsy again. He’s really curious to see what his dick looks like, so when the elevator stops at the top floor, he’s ready to bolt, only just barely managing to restrain his movement to a power walk.

He feels Izuku's gaze on the back of his neck the whole way to his room, but he thankfully doesn't make any advances or witty comments.

Deku shuts the door behind himself, then unbuttons his pants, turning to face the full length mirror on the back of the closet doors.

In the reflection, his pupils are blown wide. His face would probably be visibly flushed right now, if it weren't for the beard covering his cheeks.

He steps towards the mirror, thumbs teasing at the waistband of his boxers. He's almost nervous, now that there's nothing standing between him and actually getting to see his dick.

Taking a steadying breath, he pulls his pants down to mid-thigh, then looks. Instantly, a new grin splits across his face. He has a dick. An actual flesh and blood dick. It sits flaccid between his thighs, and seems to be a good size.

Well, anything's a good size, when your baseline is nonexistence.

He touches the head, surprised when it twitches a bit under his fingers. The little spark of arousal that prompts reminds him: he won't really know how big it is or what it looks like until he sees it hard, will he?

Suddenly even more curious, he wraps his hand around his cock, biting his lip at the excited little spark of arousal that sends through him.

He only gets one tentative stroke in when he hears a clatter, his head whipping up to the source of the noise.

It's coming from outside the room, in the direction of the kitchen. Izuku must be making something.

Deku hesitates, his hand stalling in place, eyes flicking from the window of his room to the door.

It's broad daylight, and Izuku is obviously awake and nearby. It feels weird now, touching himself when he knows Izuku is not only there, and could potentially overhear things, but is aware of what he's doing and probably has the desire to listen in.

With his prior sparks of excitement thoroughly extinguished, he pulls his pants up, resolving to do more experimentation at a respectably dark hour, when Izuku is asleep.

Chapter Text

When Deku emerges from his room, Izuku pokes his head out of the kitchen with a lascivious grin, wiggling his eyebrows. “That was fast.”

Deku’s face heats, but he tamps down on the embarrassment, pushing past Izuku and into the kitchen. “I didn’t masturbate.”

“Booo,” Izuku calls after him. “Why not?”

“Because,” Deku responds, grabbing a banana from the fruit bowl on the small kitchen table and peeling it, “It’s 3pm, and you’re one room away from me, potentially listening in.”

He bites into the banana, expecting the comment to be met with an immediate quip. Instead, Izuku is silent.

Confused, Deku turns around to face him again.

His expression is pinched, and he seems genuinely frustrated. He breathes out a slow sigh. “I don’t know how else to explain this to you, but I’m literally you. Our sense of morality isn’t as different as you seem to think. I didn’t bring you here to be a creep to you, I brought you here because I thought we would be more like-minded, and I would just have a fun time with my clone.”

Deku swallows his bite of banana, feeling a bit cowed.

“Besides!” Izuku adds, indignant, “how little pull do you think I have? I can get laid anytime I want, I’m not desperate enough for it that I have to resort to spying on you.”

Deku stares his counterpart down for a moment. There’s not a whole lot about this version of himself that he’s jealous of, but his confidence? It’s unthinkable to Deku. It’s not like he’s inexperienced, himself, or that he thinks he's ugly. Izuku just has this sort of nonchalant self-assurance in his own attractiveness that Deku can’t wrap his mind around.

“Yeah, see,” Izuku says, getting closer, eyes locked in on Deku’s face, “I remember you calling us plain. The funny thing is, I’d never been called plain before that. Not once.”

They lock eyes. Izuku’s gaze is intense, and Deku feels like a deer in the headlights, unsure how to react.

Ever since puberty, his relationship with his reflection has been strange. It’s been a matter of policing, not appreciating. He would look at himself to make sure his uniform lay perfectly to hide the bump his binders couldn’t, that his belt was tied at the right height to hide his hips, that his eyebrows were bushy and thick, his posture open and masculine. Even now, with top surgery and testosterone, and the ability to be happy about some of the things he sees, he still checks to correct little details like those.

Now he’s realizing there’s a few things he never noticed. His own eyes, for one. They’re easy to glance over in the mirror, but with Izuku staring him down like this, he’s struck by just how green they are.

Green has always been his favorite color. It’s plain, something you can easily blend in with, but not necessarily ugly.

Something about Izuku’s expression forces him to pay attention, and he realizes that there’s nothing plain about his eyes. It takes him aback. He never noticed how good they look. They’re not just one uniform shade, but different shades of green crashing together in sunburst patterns, ringed in a darker green, almost black. His eyelids are relaxed, hooded in a way that Deku’s only ever seen on people who are about to kiss him.

Instinctively, his eyes fall to Izuku’s lips. They’ve never seemed all that remarkable before, but on Izuku, he notices the way his freckles fade when they meet his lips, but don’t stop entirely. There’s a few there, just barely visible flecks of brown on the paler pink. They’re just barely glossy, like Izuku applied lip balm semi-recently. The sight makes Deku’s own lips feel dry, and he licks them on instinct.

The corners of Izuku’s lips pull up in a smile, and he retreats a bit, breaking whatever spell his gaze had cast.

“It’s in the eyes,” He says. “People love them, you just gotta know how to use ‘em.”

“Right,” Deku responds. He feels disoriented. If Izuku had kissed him just then, he would have let him.

Something in Izuku’s eyes softens. “Do you get it now?” He asks. “That’s not just me, that’s us. We’re hot.”

He places his hand on Deku’s bicep. “That’s why I want you. That’s why I brought you here. No ulterior motives. I just love myself, and there’s nothing wrong with a little self-love.” He grins, then drops the hand.

“RIght,” Deku responds. “Right. Okay.”

Izuku’s eyebrows raise. “Like, okay okay?”

“Yeah,” Deku says. “Okay. You convinced me.” He shrugs. “Besides, I am kind of curious to see if our dicks look the same, now that I have one.”

Izuku’s face takes on a considering look. “I didn’t even think of that.” He grins. “See, this is another reason why I wanted this. Sex science.”

Deku huffs a laugh. “Sex science?”

“Yeah!” Izuku says. “I want to know how much we have in common, in terms of erogenous zones and what we like in bed. Like,” he trails the back of his fingers gently up Deku’s arm, coming to a stop at his elbow. His thumb gently brushes a light path across the crook of Deku’s arm. It sends a shiver through Deku’s body, and the faintest beginnings of warm arousal begins to pool in his groin.

“I’ve always been weirdly sensitive there,” Izuku says, voice low and husky.

Deku hums, lifting his arm to touch the shell of Izuku’s ear. “I’ve always liked this more.” He trails a gentle path from the shell of Izuku’s ear down to his earlobe. Izuku tilts his head to the side at the movement, exposing his neck.

The pads of Deku’s fingers rest there when he finishes his path, but his hand is framing Izuku’s jaw, his thumb pressing against his lower lip. Izuku smiles, and his mouth opens, his tongue teasing against the pad of Deku’s thumb.

Deku withdraws his hand, grabbing Izuku by the hips and turning around to lift him up onto the little kitchen table. Izuku grins, easily spreading his legs so Deku can slot himself between them. “You’re strong.”

“Kind of,” Deku responds wryly.

“I like it,” Izuku says, pulling Deku in for a kiss with a hand on his jaw.

Deku steps closer, pressing into Izuku’s space so that their lips can slot together without him having to tilt his head too far upwards. Izuku’s thighs are warm and soft where they bracket him on either side, and their lips slide easily against each other. Izuku’s tongue flicks out to run along the seam of Deku’s lips, and Deku rests his hand on Izuku’s hip, his thumb teasing along his hipbone.

Izuku’s hand slides into his hair, and he tilts his head to the side, and his tongue presses into Deku’s mouth, and when Deku sucks on it, he feels Izuku’s hand bunch tighter in his hair. He presses closer, feeling sensitive all over and aching to be touched, and the crook of Izuku’s thigh makes contact with Deku’s cock at the same time as Izuku’s dick slides against Deku’s stomach.

Deku gasps at the sensation, and they both break apart, breathing more heavily than before. Izuku’s face is flushed, his lips wet and shiny with saliva, and he’s so, so attractive.

Deku bites his lip.

“Yeah,” Izuku says, voice strained with arousal, “I think now would be a good time to compare.”

He reaches down, unbuckling his belt and sliding it out from his belt loops. “C’mon.” he says, gesturing to Deku’s groin. “You too.”

Izuku isn’t bothering to undress, just pulling his cock out, so Deku responds in kind, pulling the fabric of his pants and boxers down just enough to expose his dick.

For a moment, they just scrutinize their penises, side by side.

“Huh,” Izuku says, “well, I’ll be damned.” He urges Deku closer, lining their dicks up against each other. “Yours is a little bigger.”

It’s not by much, but Izuku is right. Lined up like they are now, it’s clear that Deku’s dick is just the smallest bit longer.

Izuku grins, wrapping his hand around their dicks. “Congrats, big boy.”

Deku wants to laugh, but he’s distracted by the feeling of Izuku’s dick sliding against his, his hand holding them both in place as he slowly ruts upwards.

Deku’s hips make an aborted half movement into Izuku’s, and he presses closer, burying his face against Izuku’s neck. He’s not quite sure how to move with a dick, it doesn’t sit the same way his strap on does, but as he gives experimental thrusts, he slowly begins to get the hang of it. He makes up for his fumbles by kissing Izuku’s neck, sucking a hickey into the sensitive skin over his jugular.

Izuku hums, and Deku can feel the vibrations rumbling against his tongue. He pulls back, eyeing the livid bruise he left appreciatively.

“C’mon,” Izuku says, pushing Deku back a bit.

Deku makes a confused noise, but moves back.

“Grab the chair and sit in it,” Izuku says, gesturing as he hops off the table.

Deku complies.

As soon as he’s seated, Izuku slides to his knees between Deku’s legs, grinning up at him. “Don’t worry, I’m told I’m pretty good at this.”

Izuku grabs the base of Deku’s cock, guiding it to his mouth. He licks a broad stripe up, making eye contact as he swirls his tongue around the tip. Deku grabs the seat of the chair, hips straining not to buck up into Izuku’s mouth. It’s like he knows exactly what angle to glance up from to make himself look as sexy as possible. Deku's dick throbs so hard he's sure Izuku can feel it against his tongue.

Izuku grins around Deku’s dick, winking, then his gaze drops, and his head bobs down, taking his dick into his mouth.

A shuddery moan involuntarily falls from Deku's lips as Izuku sinks further down. It feels so good he barely knows what to do with himself, and when his cock hits the back of Izuku’s throat, Deku’s the one who chokes. Izuku slides back up, sucking all the way, and Deku can’t help it, his hips involuntarily follow the movement, grinding upwards.

Izuku hums around his cock, and Deku whines at the feeling of his tongue vibrating against his dick. Izuku slides off with a pop of released suction. He grabs Deku’s hand, bringing it up to his hair.

“Move me where you want me.” He says, before sliding his lips over Deku’s dick again.

Tentatively, Deku uses his grip on Izuku’s hair to slide him halfway down his cock, then pull him back up. He feels Izuku’s hand come to rest against his ankle, rubbing an encouraging little circle there.

Emboldened, Deku sets a more consistent pace, something slow and shallow. Izuku sucks every time Deku pulls up, and Deku bites his lip, watching Izuku’s head bob.

Pleasure begins to build slowly in his body. This isn’t enough to get him off fast, but it could get him off, if he's patient.

The next time he pulls Izuku’s head up, he locks eyes with Deku, raising an eyebrow, but doesn’t pull off. He allows Deku to press him back down on his cock–-then his hand comes up to cover Deku’s, pressing down and forcing him to push his head all the way down on his cock.

“Oh!” the little exclamation punches involuntarily out of Deku’s body, his nerves lighting up with surprised pleasure. His body suddenly feels warm all over.

Izuku releases his hand, but keeps his head where it is, throat working around Deku’s cock, tongue teasing against his balls. He moves his face, grinding his nose into Deku’s pubic hair. His hand grips Deku’s calf, and Deku pulls him up off his dick again. Fully, this time.

A string of saliva spans from Izuku’s mouth to Deku’s cock, and Izuku sticks his tongue out, showing it off as he grins and meets Deku’s eyes.

“What–-” Deku begins.

Izuku rolls his eyes. The string of saliva breaks, but he doesn’t bother to wipe his spit slick mouth or chin. “Just fuck me like you mean it, okay? I’ll tap your calf if I need to breathe.”

Then he’s dropping to take Deku’s dick back in his mouth, pulling the hand in his hair along with him.

He stops at the tip and waits patiently for Deku’s hand, his dick barely in his mouth.

So Deku presses him down further this time, all the way down, till his cock is buried to the hilt in Izuku’s throat. It’s all warm and wet and impossibly tight around him, and without thinking, he holds Izuku in place there a moment, grinding his hips into his mouth.

Izuku moans around his dick, tying the knot of arousal in Deku’s gut even tighter. He pulls Izuku off his dick again just to feel the counterpressure of him sucking, then buries himself right back down to the hilt as soon as he hits the halfway mark.

Izuku’s hand comes to grip his calf, but doesn’t tap, so Deku starts to fuck him like that, grinding his hips up as he pushes Izuku’s head down, trying to let him breathe, but losing the patience for it the more his pleasure builds. Izuku doesn’t protest, even as Deku starts to fuck him faster, just takes it, his grip getting tighter on Izuku’s calf.

Deku pulls Izuku up to the tip as he feels himself getting close, letting him take a deep, gasping breath, even as his tongue teases clumsily under the tip of Deku’s cock. Then Deku pushes him back down again, all the way to the base, then pulls Izuku up a bit and starts to fuck his throat, just holding him in place while his hips to the work. He can feel his orgasm building, and it’s different from how it's ever been before, more concentrated pleasure.

“I’m coming,” he warns, his warning more moan than words.

He drops his hips, preparing to pull Izuku off, but Izuku follows, taking him to the base and swallowing around him, and that’s it, Izuku’s coming. His hand tightens in Izuku’s hair, and he gasps as he comes down his throat. Izuku takes it, bobbing his head, swallowing and working him through his orgasm, and Deku moans, his eyes screwing shut tight as his orgasm crests, then slowly fades.

His fingers loosen as his orgasm recedes, and he releases his grip on Izuku’s hair. Izuku pulls up immediately, coughing.

“You okay?” Deku asks. He sounds a little less worried than he feels, but he can’t help it, all his muscles are relaxed and he’s a bit high on endorphins.

“Yeah,” Izuku says between gasping breaths, his voice hoarse. “Yeah, I’m fine, that was just a long one.” He grins, directing his dazed gaze up at Deku. “'m a little woozy.”

Deku makes a sympathetic noise, and Izuku laughs, resting his head on Deku’s thigh. “You’re so cute,” he says. “Such a considerate gentleman.”

Deku tries to think of something to say to that, but Izuku presses closer, and Deku feels his cock slide against his shin, still hard.

Izuku looks up at him, not moving his head from Deku’s thigh as he grinds his cock against his leg. He cocks an eyebrow. “Think you could go for another round in a bit?”

Deku nods, and Izuku grins, leaning back and lifting himself to his feet.

“C’mon,” he says, reaching a hand out. “The lube is in the bedroom. Let’s find out what your refractory period is like.”

Chapter Text

He wakes up to the sound of drawers opening and closing, blearily blinking himself to consciousness and levering himself up into a sitting position.

Izuku is placing folded clothes in a small suitcase, and he looks up for a moment to smile at Deku’s movement. “Morning, sleepyhead.”

“What’re you doing?” Deku asks, watching as Izuku tosses some socks on top of the rest of the clothes.

“Just packing an overnight bag,” Izuku responds, punctuating the sentence by zipping the suitcase up. “Something came up that needs taking care of.”

“Oh.” Deku says. “What is it?”

“Just a work thing. Nothing too big.” Izuku swoops in to give Deku a peck on the lips. “I know you only have a day left with the sex swap, and I wish I could stick around and let you test things out, but I really gotta go.”

He heads to the closet and grabs a suit jacket, still speaking as he throws it on. “You have free reign of the place while I'm gone, though. Go nuts. There’s a gym, a pool, a spa, all sorts of good stuff.” He grabs a keycard from his jacket pocket and tosses it to Deku, “that should get you access to everything in the building. Just maybe don’t use it anywhere but on my floor and in communal spaces.”

He grabs his suitcase, seemingly all ready to go. “You also have free reign of the sex toys while I’m gone, obviously. I’d recommend you at least give your prostate a try before switching back.”

Izuku grins, blowing Deku one last kiss before heading out the door. “See you in a day or two, Deku. Have fun while I’m gone.”

Deku yawns, flipping the keycard over in his hand and idly reading the text. On the front, it’s just a black card with a gold star on it. On the back, there’s a barcode and corresponding numbers. It's a pretty nondescript item.

He yawns again, setting it on the bedside table. He definitely wouldn’t be awake if not for Izuku’s movement. He might as well just take a nap.
_____

Several hours, a nap, some breakfast, a very pleasant first experience with his prostate, and a post-orgasmic snack later, and Deku’s ready to explore the building.

He’s already seen all of the top floor, so there’s not much else to do up here. There’s a placard on the wall detailing some key destinations in the building and their corresponding floors, so he takes a picture of it, visiting each as the urge strikes.

He goes to the spa, and a combination of the card in his possession and the fact that he looks very much like Izuku allows him to get a massage without even question of payment. Feeling loose-limbed and relaxed, he exits the spa sated, but hungry.

He heads to one of the three restaurants in the hotel for a very late lunch, and orders something off the menu at random, since it’s all written in a language he can’t read. It's a good thing, since he ends up with a fantastic lunch, something unidentifiable that he definitely wouldn't have ordered on purpose, but delicious all the same. Payment, again, is not an issue. They barely even look at the card before sending him on his way.

After, he meanders through the hotel, vaguely turning over the idea of getting some exercise, before deciding he’s too full and heading back up to the top floor.

He can feel the quirk wear off before he even makes it back to the room. He's mid step, and suddenly this feeling of melancholy washes over him. This, combined with the sensation of his weight shifting as his penis fades back into the ether, leaves him feeling unbalanced and odd.

He spends the rest of the day on the first floor, playing video games and feeling a bit mournful. Vague plans to get Izuku to take him back to Invert brew in his mind, but he knows they can't be put into action until at least tomorrow, so he orders room service and mopes until he falls asleep, only a few hours after sunset.
_____

The next day, Deku wakes up unreasonably early, but feeling more relaxed than he has in a very long time. He stretches, looking out at the morning sky, at the sunrise just barely beginning.

Maybe he needed this. It had been stressful at first, when the only thing on his mind was Izuku’s status as a villain, and everything had been so strange and uncertain, but now that he’s worked things out with his counterpart, this is shaping up to be a pretty restful vacation. Besides, even if Izuku can't take him back to Invert, he's grateful for the two days he had. It's more than he ever expected.

Since Izuku still hasn't returned, he decides to continue exploring. Since the swap, he hasn’t gotten much exercise, aside from the sex, masturbation, and walking, so he decides to check out the rooftop pool.

After some searching, he finds an acceptable swimsuit, and heads upstairs.

It’s early enough that no one else is around. The pool is supposed to be closed, but his card easily unlocks the gate, and he loses track of time, swimming laps until his stomach is growling in a debilitating protest.

He levers himself out of the pool, shaking his head to dispel the water soaking it through.

Afterwards, he grabs a quick breakfast, then spends some time in the sauna, letting the heat in the room drive out the cold of the frigid morning air and pool water until he’s sweating like a stuck pig.

He leaves the sauna, and stalls, realizing he’s running out of ideas for activities for the day.

Well—he grimaces down at his sweaty torso—he should probably shower before any other activities, anyways.

When he gets to the elevator and sees the options he has, he realizes he never got the chance to explore the basement floor.

Surely, if it's the inhabitable space Izuku implied it was, there must be a shower there somewhere. He decides to take the chance to snoop, hitting the down button.

The bottom floor has a very similar feel to the top one—modern decorations and furniture, relatively minimal. Deku finds it strange, given his own contrasting decoration habits—tacky merch and warm, cozy spaces.

It’s what he’s fixated on, what makes him happy, but he supposes Izuku just has different interests. Like sex toys. And crime. Though he’s trying not to think too hard about that second one.

He does manage to find a shower after a bit of searching, and it has the necessary supplies for showering already pre-stocked, which is nice. This bathroom obviously isn’t one Izuku uses often, though. The bottles are all full.

Deku cleans himself up, then redresses to explore the bottom floor further. He towels his hair off as he walks, creating a mental map of the space in his head as he lets himself in rooms and walks down hallways. It's mostly living spaces, bedrooms, bathrooms, a kitchen, an entertainment room, a dining room, the usual, but there's also a huge room set up like a library, and what looks like a workshop, full of odds and ends—probably the support items Izuku mentioned.

He makes it to what seems to be the last room, then frowns, cocking his head to the side. It’s odd, there seems to be less space down here than he thought there would. After all, the building tapers at the top. The bottom floor should be the biggest by a wide margin, but it doesn't feel all that much bigger than the top floor.

Deku frowns, turning in a little circle. Typically, he has a pretty good sense of spatial awareness, he doesn’t think he’s misjudging the size of the floor.

He does another sweep, paying closer attention to the size this time. It still seems pretty small.

Deku shrugs. Maybe Izuku just shares space with the parking garage or something on this floor.

There are some rooms that are much more obviously used than others, and Deku gravitates towards those ones, mentally discarding his mystery, since it isn’t even much of a mystery anyways, in favor of snooping more closely.

He's not quite ready to confront the workshop yet, so he heads to the mini-library. He walks the rows, reading book titles as he goes. His eyes catch on a colorful spine, and he makes a little noise of interest when he sees that the book in question is a limited edition All Might comic. He grins as he reads the title on the spine. He knew Izuku had to have at least some part of his old interests, even if he's lost faith in hero society.

He tugs the book, trying to take it off the shelf to read, but it’s lodged strangely in place, resisting the movement. Deku frowns and tugs it again, getting the top half about a third of the way out of the shelf when he hears the sound of mechanical movement.

Releasing the book, he takes a step back, watching in wide eyed confusion as the bookcase moves back into the wall, clearing a path, then swings back.

Well, that explains the size of the floor, then.

The room on the other side is pitch black. He'll have to step inside, if he wants to see what's in there.

Deku’s heart begins to beat erratically in his chest, and he’s suddenly keenly aware, once more, of the fact that his other self is a villain. There’s a large part of him that really doesn’t want to know what’s in this room.

He’s not the kind of person that can just walk away from something like this, though.

He steps into the room cautiously, flinching when lights automatically snap on overhead. He has to blink for a moment to adjust his eyes to his surroundings, and then some more to process the jarring reality of what he’s looking at.

It’s all… All Might merch. Practically every piece in existence, all neatly displayed in this room. He huffs a little laugh under his breath, stepping further inside to take a look at the colorful displays.

Each wall is lined with its own display methods and items, all carefully placed in the best position to be admired. There’s bookshelves of action figures and toys, some boxed, some not, all are either mint or near-mint. He walks through the room, a slow, reverent trek. There’s a large wooden bookshelf just full of miscellaneous All Might branded objects, the weirdest things imaginable with All Might’s face slapped on them, all official merch—Deku remembers when each item came out. There’s limited edition dumbbells, a calendar from ten years ago, a slow cooker, its cord carefully wrapped and hidden beneath it, and dozens of other kitschy little collectables.

Deku wouldn’t be surprised if the room actually contained every piece of official All Might merch that has ever been created—along with some unofficial, he notes, as he comes eye to eye with a glass case containing an exact replica of All Might’s Golden Era costume, in Izuku’s size.

He whistles lowly, spinning in a slow circle to take in the entire room. There’s a bookshelf of comics, a wall of posters, even a dakimakura in the corner, which he resolves not to inspect too closely.

He steps closer to the wall of posters. Almost the entire wall is covered with them, top to bottom.

He plays the part of an archetypal patron in an art museum, inspecting each spotless piece with reverence, careful not to touch. There are plenty here that he owns, some he doesn’t, and a few so rare he’s never even seen them in person.

His eyes land on a limited edition Golden Age All Might poster, and he can’t help the surprised breath that escapes him. “This one’s even rarer than the one from Nighteye’s office,” he mutters to himself, “how did he even get his hands on this?”

His admiring contemplation is broken by the sound of a thump, coming from the wall hosting the posters he’s currently observing. He stiffens, cocking his head to the side as he looks at the wall. “What was that?” He wonders aloud.

There’s another faint noise from the wall, and he forgets his caution with the posters, pressing his ear against the wall to hear better.

The sounds are faint, but it definitely seems like there’s movement on the other side of the wall.

It makes sense. Now that he thinks about it, even with the addition of the All Might room, the basement is still smaller than it should be. Maybe there really is a garage on the other side.

Or maybe there’s another hidden room. That would be convoluted, having a secret room within a secret room, but if he’s being entirely honest with himself, that’s exactly the kind of thing he would do if he were a villain.

The bookcase reveal provides a layer of security, making the intruder think they’ve found the worst secret Izuku has: a love of pro hero All Might, despite being both an adult man and a feared villain. It distracts from the possibility that there might be something more. Most people wouldn’t bother to inspect the All Might room. The embarrassing collection is plenty revealing in itself. The likelihood of anyone actually inspecting the room, and potentially doing so closely enough to find a second hidden room, is low.

What if there’s someone behind there?

Deku is reminded vividly of Eri, of situations like Eri’s, in which people were held against their will to be exploited in some way or another.

He needs to make sure that isn’t what this is.

Deku presses himself closer, calling a tentative “Hello?” through the wall.

There’s a beat of silence, then a muffled voice answers.

“Izuku?”

Deku reels back. He knows that voice. He'd recognize it anywhere, no matter the universe, or time, or whatever stands between them.

That’s Kacchan.

Chapter Text

“K-kacchan?” Deku asks. Immediately, he begins patting the walls, looking for some kind of hidden seam, an entrance. “What are you doing back there?”

He’s met with a long moment of silence, driving him to search faster, anxiety ramping up.

“Leave me alone.”

That halts Deku in his tracks. He’s never heard Katsuki sound like that before, so… defeated. Tears prick the corner of his eyes. What did his villain self do to Kacchan? How long has he been here?

“Shit,” Deku mumbles, wiping the corners of his eyes. “I can’t believe I… shit.” He’d trusted him. Had sex with him. Now it turns out he’d been hiding Deku’s best fucking friend in a basement.

Deku clenches his fist, counts to ten, and takes a deep breath. Then he steels himself, resuming his search for a seam. He’s on high alert, so he instantly feels the difference when he steps on a slightly looser floorboard. Hoping he’s on the right track, he steps down fully on the board, carefully lining one foot in front of the other so he's placing all his weight on it. He watches with equal measures of relief and nervosity as it sinks into the ground, and the section of wall in front of the special floorboard slides back and then to the side, into the wall.

On the other side, Katsuki stares back at him, his gaze cautious. Deku’s eyes roam over him, and as he takes in all the things that set him apart from his own Kacchan, his hand lifts uncontrollably upwards to clasp over his mouth. His face seems skinnier than the Katsuki he knows, cheeks sunken ever so slightly by stress or poor eating habits. His skin is ridiculously pale, like it hasn’t seen sun in years. He’s thinner, less muscular. He’s wearing sweatpants and a grey tee, and two chunky bracelets are cuffed around his wrists. Quirk canceling bracelets.

But the worst part, the most glaring divergence, is his attitude. He isn’t posturing, or glaring, and the way he stands makes him seem almost… small.

“Kacchan,” Deku says, voice hoarse, “what did he do to you?”

He reaches a hand out towards Katsuki, but the other man flinches back, clearly wary.

Deku retracts his hand like he’s been burned, gaping at Katsuki’s reaction. What did Izuku do to him?

Anger and sadness roll over Deku in waves. He glares out the door, then turns to Katsuki. “I’m getting you out of here. Come on.”

He motions with his hand, beginning to walk out the door, somehow expecting Katsuki will follow, but when Deku looks back he's just staring. Deku’s brow furrows in confusion. “Come on, Kacchan.”

Katsuki retracts even further at the words. “No. Just leave me alone. I’ve had enough of your fucking mind games.”

He looks terrified. It’s a level of defiance that would hardly register at all for Deku’s Katsuki, and this one looks like he’s expecting some kind of divine retribution in response.

Deku forces his features to soften, his voice to lose its edge. “No mind games,” he promises. “Please, just come with me.” he stretches his hand out, even slower this time, and Katsuki just watches warily. “Look, I’ll even remove the cuffs,” Izuku assures as his hand makes contact with the bracelet. He’s about to power up One for All, but before he can, Katsuki yanks his hand back again.

“Nice fucking try,” he snarls, “but I’m keeping my goddamn hands.”

Deku blanches. “What do you mean?” He looks down at the cuffs, ideas already forming in his mind, though none of them are fully certain.

Katsuki shakes his wrist, the cuff moving in place slightly. “Don’t act like you don’t know. You’re the one that fucking told me these things collect my sweat. You can’t fucking break them off or they’ll explode.”

Deku feels more blood draining from his face, but he tries to steel himself, to act in a way that he would if this wasn’t Kacchan, if this was just another person to be rescued. He needs to calm down, to be rational. He takes a deep breath, trying to center himself. “Okay then, is there a reason I can’t just take you out of here?” He looks out the door darkly. “I can get us past any guards, no problem.”

Katsuki looks a bit nauseous when Deku turns back to him.

He immediately drops the dark look, hoping he wasn’t scaring Katsuki. Fuck, it’s too easy to forget that this one has suffered ridiculous amounts of trauma—at the hands of someone who looks like him, no less. He can't just treat him like his universe's Katsuki, like his hero partner and best friend, someone who he has spent years building trust with.

“What kind of game are you playing, ‘see if the idiot remembers the traps’?” Katsuki asks, voice cautious, eyes sharp and locked on to Deku. “I’m microchipped, I can’t leave that door unless the chip is deactivated or my fucking head explodes.”

Deku pushes a hand through his hair. “Shit.”

Okay, this is fine, he can still figure out a way to get Katsuki out of here. He just needs to get the cuffs off of him, deactivate or remove the microchip, get him out of the building, and to… someone who will help him. If the chip can be read as he exits the room, it’s probably using RFID technology. In that case, covering it with tinfoil should stop the radio waves from being transmitted, but that’s a huge risk to take. For all he knows, there could be multiple chips, or it could be read some way other than RFID. He should have paid more attention to Hatsumei’s technological info dumps, then he’d know how to cover all his bases. He’ll probably have to come back later, after gettin—

“Hey,” Katsuki snaps his fingers, cutting off Deku’s train of thought. “You’re muttering.”

“I’m thinking.” Deku says. “Trying to figure out a way to get you out of here.” He gives Katsuki a scrutinizing look. “Are there any cameras in the room?”

Katsuki rolls his eyes. “Fucking duh. What, are you gonna hide new ones if I tell you where the ones I found are?”

“No, I need to make sure the other me doesn’t know I found you.”

“The other you,” Katsuki states skeptically.

“Yes,” Deku says, feeling like a complete idiot as he realizes he didn't even think to explain the fact that he's not Izuku. “I'm not the Izuku you know. I was pulled here from another universe, I had no clue you were down here, and I'm—" a helpless little noise escapes his throat "—I really do want to get you out of here.”

Katsuki gives him a long once over. “Sure," he says, seeming unconvinced. "Well, I don’t know where the cameras are, but if you’re looking for a blind spot, the doorway’s probably a safe bet. I obviously can’t fucking go in there.”

Deku nods. “Wiretaps?”

Katsuki rolls his eyes. “By the bed, fucking pervert.”

Deku flushes, resolutely moving on from that, since he can see through the door that the bed is too far away for any taps to pick up their conversation. “Where’s the microchip?”

Katsuki’s hand immediately comes up to the back of his neck, resting at the base of his skull.

Deku carefully stays in the doorway, but leans forward a bit. “Can you turn around and push your hair up so I can look?”

Seemingly reluctantly, Katsuki does, exposing smooth, seemingly unmarked skin on the back of his neck. Deku scrutinizes it, nerves fluttering in his stomach on Katsuki’s behalf. “Are you sure it’s back here?”

Katsuki’s hand retracts, hair dropping back to cover his neck. “That’s where it was fucking itching like a bitch for weeks, yeah.”

Deku nods, storing that information away. Must be a very small chip then. Deku’s still betting on RFID. He’d ask Katsuki to give him another look so he can get pictures of the area and maybe prod around and see if he can find where exactly the chip is and figure out just how big it is, but he doesn’t think that would go over well with him at the moment.

Katsuki turns back around to face him.

“Can I get pictures of the cuffs?” Deku asks, taking his phone out and gesturing Katsuki’s hands closer. That, at least, should be safe.

Tentatively, Katsuki extends his hands, and Deku carefully takes pictures of the top of the cuffs. He turns his finger. “Side.” Obediently, Katsuki turns his wrist.

This continues until Deku is satisfied with his pictures, documenting every visible inch of the cuffs. If he can find a way to get in contact with someone who’s familiar with this kind of tech, then he can potentially find someone who will know how to safely remove them.

“Thank you,” he says, placing his phone in his pocket.

“Something’s different about you,” Katsuki says, eyeing Izuku tentatively. “Not just the way you’re fucking acting or who you say you are, you look different too, shorter.”

Deku nods. “That’s because I’m not completely identical to your Izuku. Just enough that the universe swap quirk would register us as the same person. I’m shorter, and stronger, and I’m not a villain.”

Katsuki’s eyes narrow. “What are you then?”

Deku smiles softly, his shoulders straightening. He never can resist the urge to tease Katsuki over this, since he’s a spot above him in the rankings. “I’m Japan’s number three pro hero,” he says, “The other half of the wonder duo with number four pro hero Dynamight.” He nods his head towards Katsuki, then pauses for a moment. “That’s you, by the way. Well, at least the you from my universe.”

A crease forms between Katsuki’s brow. “What the fuck are you on?”

For a moment, Deku is just confused. It’s been so long since he’s thought about where they started, so long since he considered his origins as a quirkless kid, that he sometimes forgets how impossible this all would have seemed to his middle school self. That’s effectively where this Katsuki left off with him, isn’t it? His universe's Izuku is still quirkless, after all.

“Nothing,” Deku says, shoulders slumping back into a relaxed position. “I know this must seem like a lot to you, and I know you probably don’t believe me, given everything you’ve been through, but things are different in my universe. I have a quirk. We got on equal ground, and fought things out, then talked things out a few times.” He smiles ruefully. “I’m probably doing terrible at this, but you’re my best friend in my universe, so it’s kind of driving me crazy seeing you like this. You look—” he begins to reach out a hand, but stops it when he remembers himself “—you don’t look so good, Kacchan.”

Katsuki winces. “Don’t call me that,” he says, voice hoarse.

Deku frowns, not sure if he wants to know why Katsuki finds the nickname objectionable. “Okay, Katsuki.”

Red eyes lock on his, holding for a long moment. “You never told me what your hero name is.”

Deku feels his face burn a bit. This is kind of embarrassing, given all the time that's passed since he chose his hero name, and all the context surrounding his choice. “Well, I—it’s, uh—It’s Deku.”

He expects a roll of Katsuki’s eyes, maybe a scoff, a look of surprise, even. He doesn’t expect the blood to drain from Katsuki’s face, somehow leaving him even paler than before, his eyes widening as he steps back in horror.

All the air in the room seems to shift with Katsuki’s mood. “Get out,” he rasps.

For a moment, all Deku can do is blink in confusion, unsure why this is garnering such a strong reaction, rooted to the spot by his racing thoughts.

“Get out!” Katsuki exclaims. “Just leave me alone!”

Deku raises both hands in a defensive gesture. “Okay,” he says, “I’m going. But I’ll be back to help you, I promise.”

Then he turns on his heel and leaves the doorway.

He steps on the same floorboard, hoping that it’ll send the wall back to its original position. There’s the sound of mechanical movement again, proving his theory correct. He turns, watching over his shoulder as the wall clicks back into place, his eyes landing on Kacchan's unnervingly small frame, where it's curled on his bed further in the room.

The sight sends a wave of sadness crashing through him, and he has to screw his eyes shut tight and take a deep breath to hold the waterworks at bay, a skill long since perfected to keep himself focused in intense situations. It’s been a while since he needed that ability this badly, though.

His immediate instinct is action. Something big, and grand, with yelling and fists flying and some sort of catharsis to soothe the roiling disgust in his gut, the buzzing anxiety under his skin.

There's no way that would go well. Everything about Izuku has become a question mark again. There's no telling why he's holding on to Katsuki, or what he's willing to do to keep him under his thumb. Deku doesn't have a full understanding of the resources at his other self's disposal, nor does he know why he had decided to capture Katsuki, and therefore how disposable Katsuki might be to him.

There are just too many unknowns to just go barging into this situation blind. He'll have to gather more information first, he needs to think clearly about this.

He steps off the floorboard, giving himself a few more seconds to compose himself before he has to shift into hero mode. A deep breath in, out, he rinses and repeats until his limbs are loose and his mind is sharp.

First and foremost, he needs to make sure his counterpart isn’t going to realize that he knows Katsuki is here.

He carefully checks the room for surveillance cameras, combing every inch to ensure his discoveries weren’t being recorded.

He finds nothing. That’s a good sign, it significantly lowers the chance that there's proof of his excursion. If that's true, Izuku won’t have any reason to suspect that he knows about Katsuki, which should buy Deku some time to investigate and plan.

Still, he's not too sure about the cameras in Katsuki's room. His hand drops to his side, hovering over the pocket he'd stored Izuku's card in. Maybe, if he can find wherever the video feeds for the security cameras are stored, this card can get him in, and he can figure out what kind of views the camera give, how intensely they're being monitored, and whether or not the feeds are being recorded, all things that could potentially blow whatever semblance of a cover Deku might manage to form.

With that plan of action in mind, he strides out into the library room.

Chapter Text

If he had to guess, he’d say the monitor room is probably on the ground floor, so that’s where he heads.

He tries to project confidence as he walks, focusing only on the task ahead, on his goals. It isn’t difficult. It’s hard to think of anything other than the task at hand, when he's working to get Katsuki out of that basement.

When he reaches the lobby, he walks behind the counter like he belongs there, easily using the card to enter a room with a sign that reads “Staff Only”.

Past the door, there’s a hall, and as Deku walks down it, he sees a break room, several offices, and a door with the word “Security” printed across it.

He uses the card again, opening the door, the slightest bit of tension falling out of his shoulders as he sees the monitors.

There’s a man leaning back in a chair and watching the screens, who looks up at the sound of Deku’s entry. He straightens up as he resisters Deku’s appearance, his body language turning stiff and formal.

“Midoriya-sama,” he greets. “You’re back earlier than expected.”

That’s right, Izuku seems to know his staff pretty well. The likelihood that this guy knows Izuku has a lookalike running around is far higher than Deku’s comfortable with.

Well, he’ll just have to hope that even if this man does know Izuku has a doppelgänger, he doesn’t know too many details about why.

“No,” Deku responds, sitting in an empty chair, his focus on the monitors. “I’m not. I’m still out, and I won’t be back until later today.” He makes pointed eye contact, and the man nods.

Deku does his best not to visibly slump in relief at how easily the guard is playing along. Despite his success thus far, he needs to get this guy out of here, he can only hold up a facade for so long.

Deku reaches into his pocket, pulling out the card Izuku has given to him. “Why don’t you go get us some coffee? My treat.”

The man nods, scurrying out of the room.

As soon as he’s gone, Deku releases a long sigh, staring at the monitors. He checks each one carefully, frowning as he does.

None of the cameras even point to Izuku’s floors.

Deku exhales in frustration. He doesn’t know what he expected. Of course Izuku wouldn’t have the feed of Katsuki’s room in such an obvious place. That would be stupid. He'd be displaying his crimes to far too many people.

Still, he doesn't want to dismiss the possibility that the feed to the video camera in Katsuki's room might be hidden around here somewhere. He does a sweep of the room, checking for any potential hiding spots, any more secret rooms, but he's not expecting much. If it were him, he wouldn’t put the feed anywhere near the rest of the security monitors.

He sits back in the chair. Where would he put it? Izuku is basically him, after all. Their ideas can’t be all too different.

Just as it strikes him, the guard returns with coffee.

Deku's instantly up and breezing out of the room, accepting the coffee and card as he goes. It’s time to give the upstairs floor a closer inspection.
_____

Deku stands in Izuku’s room, at the back of his closet. He'd pushed past the sex toys, and all the other shit that's on display, working to catch the eye and distract any potential interlopers. There’s a safe there that opens to his mother’s birthday, with a laptop, a few flash drives, and an obscene amount of cash inside.

The laptop is harder to unlock than the safe had been. After the third attempt, he almost gives up, too worried he’ll be locked out.

Number four gets him in.

There’s not a whole lot on the laptop.

He chews his lip as he looks through the contents of the desktop, finding nothing incriminating. Now that he doesn’t have to fake confidence anymore, anxiety is buzzing beneath his skin, almost overwhelmingly intense. Izuku could come home any minute. There’s no time to waste.

He goes through the files, searching for some kind of application that could be linked to the cameras in Katsuki’s room. He scrolls as fast as he can read, almost faster. His eyes fly across the monitor, catching on something faster than his fingers can accommodate.

They freeze on the trackpad, then he quickly scrolls back up. There’s a file that just says “Kacchan.”

He clicks on it, and after a few tense moments of loading, a new window fills up the screen.

There, on the monitor, he sees Katsuki.

He’s doing push-ups.

Deku almost laughs, giddily relieved at the sight. It’s so Katsuki-like. He may not be able to do the same kind of training he did before he was captured, but he’s still doing something. That’s a good sign for his mental health, at least.

Feeling just a bit lighter, Deku checks the program, trying to figure out if it’s recording. There doesn’t seem to be anything indicating that a recording is currently in progress, nor a method of initiating one, and when Deku does another sweep of the laptop's files, there's no videos that could have come from Katsuki's feed.

It makes sense. He wouldn’t want to record the feed either, if it meant leaving evidence of such a huge crime behind. Knowing there's no record of his discovery is still a massive weight off his shoulders, though.

Deku sighs in relief, exiting out of the windows he had opened and stowing the laptop away. He puts everything back where it belongs, then stumbles back to sit down on the edge of the bed.

Now that his only clearly defined task is done, all his emotions come flooding back in, too many competing in his head to fully process.

He’s relieved that his initial bit of investigation went well, but that emotion is quickly overpowered by anxiety. There’s too much to do now, too many questions still left unanswered.

How long has Katsuki been there, trapped in the basement? What has his other self been doing to him? There were so many things that Katsuki had reacted so strongly to, so many landmines underground Deku couldn’t hope to avoid. He frowns. He had grown complacent, had allowed himself to think that just because Izuku was another version of himself that his morals must not be that far off from Izuku’s own. He certainly had cited an understandable reason for killing their dad—but this Izuku isn't him–he’s a whole other person. A villain—and clearly a dangerous one at that.

Deku can still smell the sex on the air, now that he's taking the time to rest and process. He squeezes his eyes shut tight, a wave of regret washing over him.

Then, forcibly, he shakes his head, shoving it all down. There's no time to wallow. Not when Katsuki's safety is on the line. He needs to plan. He needs to get out of this room.

Almost robotically, he rises to his feet and heads to the room Izuku had set him up in.

The rational next move would be to look into the Katsuki from this world, at least to find out how long he’s been missing.

He climbs into his bed, pulling out his phone and doing a quick google search of Katsuki’s name.

At the sight of the first link, he feels the blood drain from his face. Right there in blue underlined lettering are the words: “UA Students Speak out on Anniversary of Promising Young Classmate’s Disappearance”.

More than a year. Izuku kidnapped Katsuki over a year ago. Deku runs his hand through his hair, his eyes and throat aching with unshed tears. It’s so hard to imagine that any version of himself could do this—could take years from the life of someone that was once so important to him. Sure, Katsuki was a terror when they were kids, but… Well, he likes to think that even if he didn’t get his quirk, he would have found it in himself to be the better person and forgive Katsuki—that he would have found some way to reconcile with him no matter what.

He chews his lip, skimming the article, his heart aching as he reads testimonies from his classmates.

Apparently there’s controversy surrounding what happened to Katsuki. Nobody knows if he was kidnapped, or if he’s dead, or if he just up and left. When the journalist brings up the possibility that Katsuki cracked under the pressure and ran away, his classmates all seem pretty consistently and vehemently against that theory.

It’s a fair response. Nobody that actually knows Katsuki would believe that he would just run away like that, especially not in his last year of UA, when everything he worked so hard for was so close to his reach.

Deku chuckles to himself, a little hysterically. No, if Katsuki were going to run away, he would make a spectacle out of it, drop a mic after outlining all the reasons why he’s quitting. Something more than simply leaving.

Deku takes a deep breath through his nose, steeling himself. Okay, so he knows what happened, or at least as much as he’s going to find about it from the internet. All that's left to do is figure out how to save Katsuki.

He checks the date and winces. He has to keep in mind that he has a deadline to contest with, too. Only five days left before he’s returned to his original universe. Not to mention the fact that all of this will be happening while the culprit is in the same building as him, and interacting with him on a pretty regular basis.

This isn’t a helpful train of thought. He takes another deep breath, pulling up a new search tab and tapping his thumb against the side of his phone as he thinks.

He needs an ally, someone that can help him figure out who to get Katsuki out of this hotel without setting off any of the traps he's been forced to wear.

His best bet to get Katsuki out of here is to find the people he was closest to in high school. Ideally, he can find someone with a lot of resources. Someone who cares a lot about Katsuki, enough to be willing to use those resources on a seemingly long-shot rescue.

Time to look into his classmates.

It doesn't take long to get a pretty good idea of where they all are in life. Most of them are doing pretty similarly to how they are in his own universe, though they’re all lower in the rankings than his own versions are.

He supposes that makes sense, given the stress losing a classmate must pose. He tries to find information on who is—or was, he supposes—closest to Katsuki in this universe, but not much is readily available. He can make inferences from the article about Katsuki’s disappearance, and from his own knowledge of his classmates, but he can’t really be sure about any of it.

He watches archival videos of the sports festivals, hoping that will give him an idea of who Katsuki is closest to, but the results are similarly uncertain. The first two sports festivals are full of typical stand-offish Katsuki behavior, and typical reactions to that behavior. Izuku can’t seem to find any signs that Katsuki might be closer to one student than the other.

Then, at the end of the second year sports festival, it happens. Up until then, Shoto had only been using his ice. That is, until Katsuki does something amazing. It's similar to what Deku had done at his first year sports festival, just executed in a very Katsuki-like manner.

“Fuck your old man!” Katsuki roars, facing Shoto head-on with both palms out. “That’s your fucking power!”

A grin splits across Deku’s face as he watches Shoto’s fire light up. That’s it. Shoto is the one. It’s perfect. Shoto has plenty of resources, and if his reaction to Deku saying essentially the same thing in their first year is any indication, he’s sure to be doggedly loyal to Katsuki.

It doesn’t take long to confirm that Shoto and Katsuki were pretty close friends. He’s certain he would be the best person to reach out to, but he doesn’t dare try to reach out to him yet. This is more the kind of thing you go in person to talk about, and Deku isn't going to risk that until after Izuku comes back. He doesn't want to raise any red flags by leaving before that happens.

Besides, he needs to figure out just how infamous Izuku is in this universe before he can reach out to anyone. He figures he isn't too notorious, since he’s able to hide in plain sight like this, and since they were able to go roller skating without any trouble, but he doesn’t want to be recognized by Shoto and ruin his chances of freeing Katsuki, either.

He googles his own name, hoping to glean some insight. Immediately, he's met with a screen full of pictures of his mother. He scrolls through the search results, brow furrowing. All of the results are articles about his mother, her arrest, her escape. There’s nothing really about Izuku himself.

Whatever Izuku’s villain identity is, it seems it isn’t attached to his legal identity. Knowing that doesn’t help Deku at all, though. Even if people haven't figured out what his name is, there's no telling how well known his face is.

He falls down a frustrating rabbit hole, searching seemingly endless villain registries to try to find someone that might be Izuku. He gets so wrapped up that he doesn’t even notice the commotion in the halls, and knocking at his door nearly makes him jump out of his skin.

“Yeah?” He responds.

Izuku’s head pops in.

“Honey, I’m home!” he announces.

His casual grin makes Deku’s stomach turn, but he forces himself to smile back.

“I’m starved,” Izuku says, oblivious to Deku's roiling emotions. “How does Thai sound?”

“Sounds great."

“Awesome.” Izuku pulls his phone out, obviously doing something to order as he walks out of the doorway.

Deku follows, trying his best to be casual. It's far harder to force now than it had been before. He spends several long moments trying to decide what to do with his hands, before just letting them fall to his sides.

“So,” Izuku says, sliding his phone back in his pocket. “What did you get up to while I was gone?”

His ears perk up at the question. It's an opportunity to ask questions, to figure out more about Izuku's villain identity. If he can figure out a way to word this without raising suspicion, that is.

Deku shrugs. “I took your advice and explored. It’s really nice here." He cocks his head to the side curiously. "Do you own the whole thing?”

Izuku preens. “Yup. It’s all mine. I make a decent amount off this place, too. Not that I need it.”

“How long have you owned it?”

“Not too long,” Izuku says, "just a year and a half or so.”

Deku pushes past down the realization of how close that was to Katsuki’s disappearance. He refuses to think about it right now.

“That’s still pretty impressive," he says, "you must have done a lot of work to get to this point. Are you, like, a really well known villain or something?”

Izuku laughs. “You sound like a groupie. Did our encounter really have that much of an effect?" He wiggles his eyebrows.

Deku flounders, unsure how to respond. Luckily, he doesn't have to, as Izuku circles back around to answer his question.

"No, I tend to fly under the radar. Yet to be caught for my crimes.” He grins, and Deku can’t help but see something insidious in the playful glint of his eyes. “Nobody suspects the quirkless kid.”

“Right,” Deku says. “What sets you apart from a normal criminal, then? What makes you a villain?”

“You wound me!” Izuku gasps, all mock outrage. Yet, even as he continues to speak, his tone playful and light, the smile fades from his face just a bit.

He shrugs. “I did some more…public work. Earlier in my career. Price you pay, when you don’t have any money to pay the villain that helped you make equipment.”

Deku resolutely doesn’t ask what kind of "public" work Izuku did. “So how do you keep your private identity separate from your villain identity?”

Izuku chuckles. “I wore a mask and retired before I could be caught. I was never all too high priority, when I was Chatterbox. People were just glad he stopped popping up. Besides, even if I was high priority, like I said, nobody would suspect the quirkless kid.”

Deku wants to ask more about Izuku’s identity, like how he got the name Chatterbox, for one. Before he can, though, there’s a knock on the door, and Izuku is perking up. “Food’s here!”
_____

Deku sits on his bed, leg bouncing. He was able to beg off after dinner, claiming to be tired from his morning exercise, even though that feels like a lifetime ago.

Now that he knows he won’t be recognized, he needs to come up with a plan to get Shoto to believe him. Really, he needs to come up with a way to get Shoto to even talk to him at all.

He bites his thumbnail, thinking to himself. Sneaking in is an option, but not really one that inspires trust.

He could just walk in like any other citizen and ask to speak with Shoto, but he doubts that would go all too well. Besides, even if he can convince someone to let him speak to Shoto, there's still the matter of convincing Shoto he’s telling the truth.

He sighs. One of the easiest ways to convince Shoto would probably be to tell him something he’d only know from a personal friendship. Obviously, a big thing would be his home life. If Endeavor’s past as an abuser hasn’t been publicly revealed in this universe, that could potentially be a bit of knowledge that would get Shoto to believe him.

A quick google search yields disappointing results.

“Fuck,” Deku mutters. Apparently, the news about Endeavor had been broken pretty publicly in their second year of high school, when Shoto’s brother revealed it. Deku’s glad that’s something that got taken care of, but he’s not exactly thrilled to find that his only substantial bits of knowledge about Shoto are just common knowledge.

All he can think of other than that are things that are either conditional to their universe—memories they shared as friends—or things that could have easily been divulged in an interview, or that could have changed between universes.

He knows Shoto loves cold soba, what his favorite color is, who his siblings are, his favorite place to get lunch. None of that is strong enough to help Izuku feel like he can convince Shoto he knows him. That’s fair, because he doesn’t really know this Shoto. He knows his Shoto.

An idea sparks through his mind, and he sits up straight.

He doesn’t know this Shoto, but Katsuki does. Maybe he can tell him something only a friend would know.

Chapter Text

He waits until 4am before sneaking into the basement.

He feels like he's about to crawl out of his skin the entire time, but he doesn't want to chance Izuku being awake, or having an eye on the monitor. By the time he slips out of his room and into the hallway, the light under Izuku's door is off, and the sound of his bustling activity has long since stopped.

Still, Deku's heart races the entire trip down to the basement. It’s different now that Izuku is in the building too. Sure, he’s most likely asleep, but the fact still remains that he could wake up and figure out what Deku is up to at any time. He'll have to be quick about this, and cautious.

He goes through the same process as he had before, sneaking his way into the All Might display room and opening the door to Katsuki’s room.

Predictably, Katsuki looks just as apprehensive as he had the first time Deku had shown up. Though when he registers the height, clearly picking up on the fact that it’s Deku, not Izuku, a look of exasperation seems to flash across his face before his expression smooths out into a blank stare. Seems he’s recovered from his last breakdown.

“Hi,” Deku begins cautiously, “how are you?”

Katsuki's mouth parts just the tiniest bit, the corners of his lips turning down, his eyebrows drawing together. That’s the loudest non-verbal “are you fucking stupid?” Deku has ever received in his life.

He winces. “Fair enough, that was a stupid question.”

He glances behind himself nervously. “Look, I don’t know if we have much time. This is gonna sound weird, but were you and Shoto close, in high school?”

Katsuki’s expression instantly shutters. He crosses his arms over his chest, clutching his arms defensively. Deku clearly said something wrong.

He almost growls in exasperation. This is so frustrating, Deku has far too little information. He has no clue how he hit a nerve that time, or what Katsuki’s defensiveness means. He simply doesn’t know enough about the situation to confidently guess. He scrubs a hand over his face. He’s been on edge ever since he found Katsuki, but his anxiety has been mounting bit by bit with each new factor, the quirk wearing off, Izuku coming back, now this. It all has anxiety buzzing under his skin, a crawling sensation he can’t seem to shake.

He takes a deep breath, gathering his patience, trying to find a bit of calmness to speak with. “I’m going to see if I can get Shoto to help me rescue you,” he explains. “I don’t have the resources right now, and he’s the only person I could think of that both has those resources and might know you well enough to have a vested interest in helping you, specifically. I’m asking if you know him well because I figure if you do, you might know something I can tell him to convince him that I’m a friend.”

The tension seems to seep out of Katsuki ever so slightly as Deku speaks, but by the end he's scoffing. “If you know him in your universe, shouldn’t you be able to do that yourself?”

“I know plenty about him,” Deku defends. “But everything I know could either be found in an interview or could be different in this world. I don’t want to take any chances.”

Katsuki narrows his eyes. “What do you know, Deku?” The name falls from his lips haltingly, and his eyes flick to the side right after saying it. He’s testing it out, testing Deku to see if he’s telling the truth about who he is.

A wave of relief crashes through his body. Good. That’s a really good sign. Katsuki had started the day afraid at the mere mention of the nickname, so the fact that he’s willing to use it so soon later shows that he’s not quite broken yet.

Deku does his best not to react to it too much, focusing instead on answering Katsuki’s question.

He gives as comprehensive a list as he can while rushing, explaining some of Shoto’s favorite things, his behavior around his friends, and his value—just whatever comes to mind that has the highest likelihood of conveying the truth to his story.

He comes to the end of his list and racks his brain for more, but can’t find anything. “So that’s what I was thinking about telling him,” he concludes. “I just don’t think any of it is really enough of a secret or concrete enough information.”

Katsuki gives him a long, contemplative look. “You knew a lot.”

Deku huffs a laugh. “Yeah, I’ve known Shoto for five years now, he’s one of my best friends.”

“And I'm… your best friend.” Katsuki says, clearly testing something out.

“Yes.”

“Right,” Katsuki says, “and Icy Hot and I… are we dating in your world, too?”

Deku isn’t sure what face he makes at that, but he’s sure his reaction is visible. He’s so unprepared, so caught off guard, he knows there must at least be some kind of shock. Katsuki and Shoto? Dating? They aren't very close in Deku's universe, it's not something he thought of in the slightest. Besides, Katsuki is so busy, he hardly ever had time for dating. This Katsuki, though... well Deku saw the footage from the sports festival. He guesses it makes sense.

Underneath the onslaught of emotions this discovery brings, there’s something brewing—some complicated feeling he can’t identify, but which instantly rejects the idea of Shoto and Katsuki dating.

“Huh,” Katsuki says, “you really aren’t him.”

“What?”

“You’re way too surprised about that.” Katsuki says. “And too calm.”

What does that mean? That Izuku knows that Katsuki and Shoto are dating—or were dating, and... what? He wasn’t calm about it? Why would he care? What could—

A cold sort of realization suddenly washes over Deku. He identifies his own emotions about Katsuki’s reveal at the same time as he devises a valid theory about Izuku’s; because they’re the same emotion—jealousy.

Both realizations are equally surprising, but he can’t unpack this right now, can't think about the fact that he apparently has feelings for his best friend, he doesn’t have the time. There’s no telling if Izuku might decide to check the monitor, or realize Deku is missing and come after him.

Besides, Katsuki is talking again. “This is so fucking weird,” he mutters to himself. Then he sighs deeply, speaking directly to Deku again. “Fuck it, whatever…” he trails off, clearly deep in thought. “He’s allergic to cats in this universe, too. It shouldn’t be common knowledge here, ‘cause Pikachu convinced him they wouldn’t let him adopt one if they knew. I’ll bet no one’s set him right about that yet.”

Deku swallows down the lump of emotion in his throat. “Okay,” he nods. “Anything else, just in case?”

Katsuki huffs a breath through his nose. “I don’t know, it’s been a while. I have no clue what’s public knowledge anymore. I—fuck.”

He seems to contemplate his next words. “If he doesn’t believe you, or… even if he does. Tell him… tell him you saw me.” His eyes skitter to the side, not looking at Deku. “Tell him…” his face softens, as does his voice “tell him I said: I still think you’re fucking stupid. But I miss you.”

The knot of emotion in Deku's throat twists itself tighter, and tears prick at the corner of his eyes. Half of him is sad that this Katsuki is separated from someone he clearly loves. Half of him is being crushed under the weight of his own complex feelings for Katsuki.

He looks back up at Deku. “He’ll know what I’m talking about, but most people wouldn’t.”

Deku nods, clearing his throat. “Ok, thank you. I… is there anything you need? Can I do anything for you?”

For a long moment, Katsuki just stares at him.

“Yeah,” he says. “Get me the fuck out of here.”

Deku nods solemnly. He will. He doesn’t care what it takes, but he will.

With nothing left to be said, he turns on his heel, stepping on the pressure point to lock Katsuki back in his cell.

Chapter Text

His joints are so stiff they ache, his back ramrod straight, his eyes and chest burning.

Then, with painful effort, he inhales a deep breath, squeezes his eyes shut, and forces his muscles to relax. He should get some sleep. Really, he should know by now that if he wants to get things done he needs to take better care of his body.

But that’s never been a strong suit of his, and with the pre-dawn light beginning to filter in through his window, he doubts he’d be able to sleep even if he wanted to. How long has he been sitting here, staring at the wall and thinking?

He sighs, running shaky hands through his hair. It doesn’t matter. He’s done thinking, his thoughts have been doing nothing but going in circles anyways, cycling between half-cocked plans for how to get in contact with Shoto, self-deprecation for falling for Izuku’s act, and a highlight reel of all the times he should have realized he was in love with Katsuki before now. None of it’s useful, not when he’s four days away from being transported back to his own universe, with so much left to do before he goes. No, now’s the time for action.

He checks the time and winces; it’s almost six am. Izuku went to bed around three am, so if Deku is lucky, he’ll be aiming to get a full eight hours and won’t wake up until eleven or so. Still, that only gives him five hours.

He takes a deep breath, trying to quell the anxiety taking root. That’s fine. There should be no reason for Izuku to suspect him. He just needs to pretend everything is normal, and be careful, and he’ll be fine.

He throws on exercise clothes, scribbling a note about being out for a jog, and heads to the roof.

If Shoto’s schedule is at all similar to what it's like in Izuku’s universe, then he should be starting his shift soon. He has already confirmed that Shoto’s still at his dad’s agency in this universe, so that’s where he heads, using his quirk to propel himself from rooftop to rooftop until he’s made his way to the roof of the building across from the familiar agency.

The sun is steadily rising, painting the sky pink and orange, but the light still settles and throbs under his eyes. There’s a building tension in his temples, the slow rising pressure that always leads to tears.

He presses the palms of his hands over his eyes, digging into the tensing muscles under them, trying to stave the tears off. “Not now,” he whispers, his voice hoarse and cracking. He’d been doing so well holding it together, there’s no reason why he should be breaking down now.

Still, tears prick at his eyes, and his next breath is ragged and shuddery, and he has to take a minute to just sit here on this roof and sob. All of this has been too much, the universe swap, the sex swap and subsequent return, having sex with himself, realizing some version of himself is capable of terrible things, realizing he loves Katsuki, all of it has been building and building, and after shoving it down so long he has no control over it anymore. His overwhelming grief escapes in streams down his cheeks, drips from his chin, reverberates in his chest and crawls out of his throat. He weathers it all, finally letting it run its course.

He’s just beginning to get control over himself when the doors to the agency open, a familiar red and white head of hair exiting and joining the sparse beginnings of the morning crowd.

Deku wipes the back of his hands over his eyes, rising to unsteady feet. He hesitates on the edge of the roof, though, unable to bring himself to begin his descent to the ground below. It’s never hard to tell when he’s been crying. His eyes get red and puffy, his face blotchy, pale and pink in alternating, irregular patterns. He isn’t ready. He doesn’t want Shoto to see him like this.

Instead of heading down, he follows Shoto from the rooftops, waiting for the cool sting of the morning air to soothe his overwarm face.

A few blocks down, Shoto’s stopped by a small group of fans, and Deku takes the opportunity to check his reflection in his phone camera. The puffiness under his eyes has mostly abated, and the irregular pink blotches have migrated to his cheeks and ears, which isn’t unusual for a cool morning like this one. He takes a deep breath, steeling himself, and uses his quirk to lower himself down to the alley below.

Shoto seems to be done signing autographs when Deku steps out onto the sidewalk. Now he's looking mildly uncomfortable as he makes the obligatory wrap up small talk with the fans.

Deku checks both ways, then darts across the street, heading towards Shoto. The fans are dispersing, probably heading to school, if their uniforms are any indication.

He’s made it onto the same street as Shoto, not five feet away, just about to call out to him, when he suddenly stiffens, his hand coming up to his ear in a familiar gesture. It’s that little movement they have to make to activate their comms when responding to a call.

Shit. Deku’s almost there, he’s calling Shoto’s name, his hand outstretched—but it’s too late, Shoto’s already swinging his hand out, forming an ice ramp and speeding off.

Or, at least, it would be too late, if Deku hadn’t instinctively reached out with Black Whip, grabbing on to Shoto’s feet in a practiced move from their universe. He’s pulled along, his feet unsteady beneath him. He hadn’t realized how helpful it was for Shoto to be aware and participating when they use this move. He stumbles along the concrete, then nearly slips onto his ass as he suddenly finds ice beneath his feet, then, finally, he’s gliding steadily on the ice behind Shoto.

He looks up, and catches Shoto shooting an incredulous look down at his own feet, then over his shoulder.

Deku is reminded, deliriously, of how this had all started, all those years ago, with him clinging to All Might’s leg in a desperate bid to catch his attention. He gives Shoto a sheepish smile and a wave, which earns him some strongly raised eyebrows.

Shoto doesn’t stop gliding to his destination, though, seeming to realize that Deku is latched on tight, and at least harmless enough to consider a second priority.

All the while, Deku chastises himself internally for his thoughtlessness. This is not the time to draw too much attention to himself, and a random jogger clinging to a high ranking hero like a limpet while midair is pretty attention grabbing.

Luckily, Shoto seems to arrive at his destination soon. They touch down in front of a secluded alleyway, and Shoto turns to face him, expression stern. He opens his mouth as though to begin some kind of reprimand, but before he can, a few things happen all at once. First, Deku notices sounds coming from the alleyway, and instinctively steps forward to investigate. Then, a woman darts towards Shoto from the other side of the alley with a fear-stricken expression. “Oh thank god,” she begins, but Deku doesn’t hear the rest of her statement, too busy running towards the noises. He recognizes the sound of a person being hit when he hears it, and he’s not one to stand by while that happens.

His vision resolves as he goes, focusing in on the shapes of three figures at the end of the alley. Two are standing, one is crouched on the ground, curled up in a fetal position.

He kicks up off the ground towards the wall, sparks of green flying off his body and lighting up the alley as he goes, throwing the figures into sharper relief. Of the two standing, one is broad-shouldered and tall, the other lean and just a bit shorter. Deku has just enough time to remember that he doesn’t have a hero license, that he really shouldn’t be doing this, before the broad one’s hand is lifting and transforming, shifting into something big and fast and sharp. Deku’s feet hit the wall, and he uses the momentum to launch himself towards the two villains seconds before the broad one’s hand makes a harsh impact with the wall where Deku’s feet used to be. He reaches out with Black Whip, entangling both villains before landing in a practiced roll.

When he looks up, the villains are cased in ice over his quirk, and Shoto is sliding to a halt in front of him, a look of utter confusion plastered over his face. This is not what Deku came here to do, nothing is going to plan, and panic is beginning to build under his skin. He has to get Shoto on his side.

Shoto steps forwards. “Who are—”

“You’re allergic to cats!” Deku blurts, half out of his mind on adrenaline and sheer, animal panic. Then, he processes the beginning of Shoto’s statement “...I’m Deku,” he adds, rising from his crouch. Then, nonsensically, “you can adopt cats even if you’re allergic to them, you know. There’s no rule against it. Kaminari was just messing with you.”

Abruptly, he remembers there had been a third person in the alley, and he turns to check on him. The third person is short and thin, already rising unsteadily to a sitting position when Deku extends a hand to help him up. “You okay?”

“Yeah,” the guy says, allowing Deku to help him to his feet. “I’m fine.”

“How did you know all that?” Shoto asks, eyes intent on Deku.

He glances nervously at the man he had just helped up, then at Shoto. “It’s a ridiculously long story, and you kind of need to hear the whole thing.”

There's voices coming from outside the alley, no doubt people who saw Shoto’s path here and heard the commotion and are coming for a spectacle. Spectacles bring cameras. Shit.

Deku fumbles in his pocket for his phone. “Look, is this still your number?” He asks, showing Shoto his contact information.

Shoto’s eyebrows raise. “Yes.”

Deku sighs in relief. “Good, I’ll text you, then. We need to meet and talk, but now obviously isn’t a good time.” He spares the entrance to the alley another nervous glance, then turns back to Shoto with a nervous smile. “I’ll see you later.”

With that, he launches himself up to the roof of the building, leaving a very confused looking Shoto in his dust.
_____

By the time he returns to the hotel, his anxiety has calmed, and he's worked up a bit of a sweat, enough to lend some credibility to his jogging alibi. It’s still early, enough so that Deku is fairly willing to bet that Izuku isn’t awake.

He strides as confidently as he can to the front desk, smiling at the woman behind the counter.

“Midoriya-sama,” she greets, sounding surprised. “I didn’t see you leave.”

Deku digs in his pocket, pulling out his wallet. “And you didn’t see me come back,” he says, recycling his tactic from the monitor room, since it had worked so well. He winks at the tail end of the statement, since that seems like something Izuku would do, then pulls the card Izuku had given him from his wallet. “I need a copy of this,” he says, holding the card out to her.

She blinks, accepting the card “o-of course, right away.”

He watches, barely hiding his impatience as she works behind the counter, pulling a card from a drawer, then scanning it, then doing the same to the card Deku had handed her, then typing a few things into her computer. She scans the card again, then grabs both cards, handing them back to Deku. “That should do it. Is there anything else I can help you with?”

“No,” Deku says, “that’s all I needed. Thank you.” He smiles at her, already sliding the extra card away for safekeeping and heading to the elevator.

Izuku isn’t anywhere to be seen when Deku gets back to the top floor, so he throws his note out, heading further inside, grabbing some clothes and a towel from his room before heading to the bathroom to shower.

As soon as the warm water hits his back, tension is seeping out of his spine, and he exhales deeply, finally beginning to feel the physical effects of his own exhaustion. The skin under his eyes throbs, and his stomach growls, reminding him he hasn’t eaten since last night. He finishes his shower mechanically, wondering if he can get a few hours of sleep in before Izuku wakes up.

No such luck. The moment he opens the door to step out into the hallway, Izuku’s calling out something about breakfast. He sighs, trodding towards the sound, toweling his hair off as he goes.

Izuku steps into the hallway, his phone pressed to his ear, halfway through a yawn as he approaches Deku. “Yeah, just bring a bunch of those.” He says, as soon as he’s finished yawning. There’s a short pause, then “I dunno, five?” He rolls his eyes. “Yeah, see you soon. Thanks.”

He hangs up the phone, his full attention on Deku now. “Wow, you look like shit,” he comments.

“I—oh,” Deku says, pausing toweling off his hair, unsure of how else to respond.

Izuku shakes his head. “No, like, you’re still hot, you just look kinda like you pulled an all-nighter and/or witnessed a murder.”

Deku opens his mouth, then closes it, still not sure how to respond. “Neither of those things,” he settles on, though the all-nighter denial is a blatant lie.

Izuku raises an eyebrow. “Then what’s wrong?”

His eyes widen as though with realization, then flick down to Deku’s groin. “Is it…”

Deku latches onto the out, barely forcing himself to speak at a normal pace in his relief. “Yeah. I just…” he trails off with a shrug.

“We can go back to Invert,” Izuku offers.

Deku shakes his head. “No, no… I." He sighs. "I think it was a mistake, honestly. It’s kind of worse, knowing what it’s like, and knowing that I can’t always have that, y’know?”

It’s half a lie. It does kind of suck knowing that the change isn’t permanent, and he'd felt pretty shitty after swapping back, but he’s no worse off in this body than he was before. He just sees an opportunity here, a way to explain any odd behavior, and, if he needs it, an excuse not to have sex with Izuku.

Izuku nods sympathetically, placing a gentle hand on Deku’s back. It’s oddly conflicting, the touch is warm, and should be soothing, but it still sends a shiver of repulsion through Deku’s body just by virtue of who it's attached to.

Izuku doesn’t notice, guiding him forwards with a noise of sympathy. “C’mon, maybe some breakfast will help you feel better.”

Chapter Text

They set up a meeting early the next morning at Shoto’s agency. Deku waits thirty minutes after the light goes off in Izuku’s room, then he’s off like a rocket, overeager to get Katsuki help, and to finally share his horrible discovery with someone.

He texts Shoto when he arrives at the agency, a full ten minutes earlier than planned. Regardless, Shoto’s at the door moments later, his face wary. When Shoto ushers him inside, Deku is able to get a better look behind him, where he finds Kaminari curiously studying him.

“Nope,” Kaminari says, “I have no clue who this guy is.”

Shoto crosses his arms, lips pursed, gaze steady on Deku. “I would say he was able to find out the things he knew with his quirk, but if yesterday was any indication, his quirk is some kind of power-up type.”

“Yeah,” Kaminari says, “it sounded like it. Also, sounded like you did a pretty badass job, dude!” He gives Deku a thumbs up.

Deku huffs a little laugh. “Thanks, Kaminari.”

Shoto’s expression shifts slightly, becoming even more curious. “You speak awfully familiarly about us. Who are you?”

Deku sighs. “It’s kind of a long, crazy story.”

“I assumed as much,” Shoto says, turning on his heel. “Tea?”
_____

Deku sets his half-drunk mug on the table with an air of finality. “And that’s how I know you both.”

Kaminari whistles lowly. “That’s crazy. I wonder how you ended up becoming a villain here, even though you’re a hero in your home universe.”

Deku winces. “That’s a long, crazy, and personal story, so…”

Kaminari nods. “Got it, no need to share.”

Shoto cocks his head to the side. “So, if you’re going back to your home universe soon, why contact me?”

Deku chews his lip. “This is kind of the part I’m not sure how to tell you about. Uh…” he runs his hand through his hair. “So, Kacch—Katsuki is my childhood friend.”

Deku can’t bring himself to look directly at Shoto as he speaks, but he can still see the way his body stiffens at the mention of Katsuki’s name in his peripherals.

“He—uh, he’s also my childhood bully. It’s a long story.” Deku winces. “Basically, we reconciled in my home universe and we’re best friends now.” He sighs. “But it turns out that, since I didn’t go to U.A. in this universe, I guess we never reconciled. And this version of me is a villain, so…”

He trails off, unsure of how to phrase this. He’s hoping they’ll just piece things together for him so he won’t have to put to words the horror of what his other self has done.

Neither Shoto nor Kaminari speaks, and after several excruciating moments of dead air between them, Deku finally musters the courage to look up.

Shoto is stock still and dead eyed, to the point where Deku isn’t even sure he’s breathing. Beside him, Kaminari seems equally horrified, his hand inching its way up, as though to cover his mouth. “Is he…” Kaminari’s voice cracks, and he has to swallow to clear his throat. “Is he dead?”

“No!” Deku exclaims. “No, he’s alive. He’s just… he’s being held captive, and I want to make sure I can get him out without hurting him.”

Shoto lets out this pitiful little noise, and Deku’s anxiety levels ratchet up another notch. He’s doing such a shitty job at this.

“I’m sorry,” he says, the words compulsively punched out of him by that noise. “I would get him out myself, but he has tech that’s preventing him from leaving, and I don’t know how to safely remove any of it. Besides, I’m not a spy, I don’t really have a lot of training for covert operations, and I’m living with my villain self every day. It’s honestly a miracle he hasn’t figured me out yet, and there’s no telling how he’ll retaliate if he knows I’m trying to help Katsuki escape.”

As he speaks, Deku watches Shoto’s expression, and he can practically see the process of compartmentalization etching itself across his face. By the time he’s done speaking, Shoto seems to have regained most of his composure. “So what do you need from us?”

Deku pulls out his phone, a bit grateful for Shoto’s ability to push past his negative emotions, a bit heartbroken by it. After all, he has a very good idea of what it’s like to be in Shoto’s position. He pulls up the pictures he had taken of Katsuki’s cuffs, texting them to Shoto. “I need you to get someone from your tech department to take a look at these. See if they can tell you anything about how we might safely remove them.”

He pre-wrote a message with everything he knew about the cuffs and the chip a while ago, and he copies it now, sending it to Shoto as well.

Shoto immediately pulls out his phone and begins to type furiously, frowning in concentration. “I’m sending these to Hatsumei now. She probably hasn’t gone to bed yet, I wouldn’t be surprised if we get an answer within the—oh.” He blinks at his phone, going still for a moment, then looks up at Deku. “She’s working on it.”

Kaminari, who was reading over Shoto’s shoulder the entire time, whistles lowly. “That’s some pretty gnarly stuff.”

Deku winces. He can’t help but take that personally, given who orchestrated the “gnarly stuff”.

Shoto ignores Kaminari in favor of raising an eyebrow at Deku. “Is that all you needed from us?”

“No,” Deku says, feeling a bit cowed. It’s odd, being a stranger to Shoto again. He had forgotten how different that impassive gaze feels without the warmth of familiarity behind it. “I’m the only one that can get to the bottom floor without stirring up suspicion, but I don’t think there’s any way I can possibly remove him altogether without setting off any alarms, so if you could come as backup, that would probably be for the best.”

“Probably?” Kaminari asks.

“I could get him out on my own.” Deku shrugs. “It’s just that he’s being held in a hotel. I don’t want to accidentally put civilians in the line of fire.”

Kaminari barks a surprised laugh. “Dude, that’s so badass. That’s such a badass thing to say.”

Deku’s face heats a bit. “I’m not trying to be cool or anything,” he insists. “It’s just the truth.”

“Yeah,” Kaminari says, “I know.” He shakes his head. “I wish we had you on our side in this universe. Or—well, this badass hero version of you. Not the asshole villain version.”

Shoto is back to looking at his phone and typing, but he speaks as he goes, clearly addressing Deku. “We can do that.” He pauses. “Provide backup, that is.”

Kaminari nods, pumping his fist enthusiastically. “Hell yeah we can! In fact, I’m sure all of former class 1-A would be glad to offer support on this mission, just in case.”

Shoto sets his phone down. “I’m sure they would.”

Kaminari stands from his seat, seeming energized. “I can put that together.” He seems to catch himself halfway through a jerky movement. “—uh, that is if you don’t have any more intel for us?”

Deku shakes his head. “No, nothing Shoto can’t tell you about later.”

“Cool,” Kaminari grins, walking backwards out of the room and shooting finger guns at them. “Catch you later, then! I’ve got a text chain to start, and some technology adverse people to harass in person.”

As soon as the door closes behind Kaminari, the fond smile on Deku’s face slowly begins to fade. The air is silent between him and Shoto, almost an oppressive weight. Out of anyone in the world, they’re the most uniquely suited to understand exactly how the other feels about this, though Shoto doesn’t know just how true that is.

Deku takes a moment to stew on that, staring at the final note he had made: Katsuki’s words for Shoto. His heart pangs at the thought of playing messenger for what is essentially a love letter, given who it’s to and from, but he would never betray Katsuki’s trust by refusing to convey such an important message just because it made him uncomfortable, and now that Kaminari is gone he has no reason not to.

He can’t quite bring himself to say the words yet, not when he can think of so many ways to stall. There’s so much to talk about. “We should probably come up with a bit of an initial plan, just in case.”

Shoto nods. “Yes, that would be wise.”

Deku chews his lip. “Well, I think it would be best if the hotel guests were completely evacuated before I try to get Katsuki out. So maybe you could start a fire, or something?”

They talk over potential plans until they have something that feels solid and actionable fleshed out, along with a few contingencies, and Deku is nervously eyeing the time, unsure how much longer Izuku will be asleep.

“Come on,” Shoto says, rising from his chair. “I think we have enough of a plan. It looks like it’s time for you to go back.”

Deku nods, his body jittery with nerves as Shoto walks him to the door. The plan is good, with the amount of people they’re likely to have working on this, evacuating civilians and keeping them safe should any fighting occur shouldn’t be a problem. They have backup plans if evacuation doesn’t work out, and have a plan for Deku to try to get access to some information on Izuku’s employees and their quirks, so they’ll be prepared if they need to take them on. But Deku knows there are still loose ends he needs to take care of.

“There’s something else,” he says as they get to the lobby, his voice soft. “A few things, actually.” He pulls the extra key card from his wallet, handing it to Shoto. He'll start with this. It’s easier. Safer. “If, for any reason, I can’t get Katsuki out, I’ll need you to do it instead.”

Shoto accepts the card, his face grave. “And how will I know if you can’t get Katsuki?”

Deku opens his mouth, then closes it, turning over scenarios and solutions in his head, trying to suss out an efficient way to meet each possibility head on. In the end, he shakes his head. “Actually, it would be best if you just planned to come down to meet us, no matter what happens. I think… I think he’d want you to be one of the first people he sees when he gets out, anyways.”

Shoto’s expression gets complicated at that, a mix of emotions adding up to something not entirely readable.

This is as good a time as ever to say it, so Deku forces the words out. “He wanted me to tell you something, too.” He looks down at the note, more an excuse not to meet Shoto’s eyes than anything. “He says he still thinks you’re fucking stupid, but he misses you anyways.”

Shoto lets out a surprised sounding laugh, his hand coming up to cover his mouth. Deku tries not to notice the way his eyes start to get watery. “I miss him too.”

Deku does his best to smile normally when he looks up at Shoto. “Not for much longer now, you won't.”

Chapter Text

His phone buzzes in his pocket on his way back to the hotel, and he checks it when he lands on the roof, sighing in relief to see that it’s an update from Hatsumei about the cuffs and chip. He glances around him, but no one is on the roof right now. The pool just opened not too long ago, and the weather isn’t great for swimming, nor is the season right for there to be too many guests in the hotel, besides.

He sits down in a pool chair and reads the messages, his body relaxing as they infuse him with hope. Hatsumei recognizes the tech, she's familiar with Chatterbox’s work. He’s famous in the support gear world, and she’s apparently studied enough of his tech that’s been confiscated from villains to know the mark of his work.

Apparently, to remove the cuffs, he needs to hold his thumbprint to a hidden segment of the cuffs with a scanner for three seconds, and they should pop right off.

As for the chip, she says that unless they somehow managed to perform some really intense surgery on Katsuki without his knowledge, or unless the cuffs are activated by the chip in his neck, it’s likely a bluff. RFID can be implanted subdermally and not leave a noticeable scar, but explosives are a whole other matter. She says if he’s really worried about it, he can use aluminum or copper to block it while they pass by the scanners. Tinfoil should do the trick.

He sighs in relief. That’s good. So all he has to do is get some tinfoil and convince Katsuki to let him wrap it around his neck, then put his thumb on the cuff scanner, and Katsuki will be free. It’s all he can do to hold himself back from leaping into action right away. He knows he has to wait, that it will take time for Shoto to gather his team and prepare to clear them a path, knows that it’s important for the safety of the civilians in the hotel, but his entire body is screaming for him to do something big and impactful.

He exhales a deep breath through his nose, shooting off a text to inquire about how long it’ll take Shoto to pull his team together. They agreed that if they couldn’t manage something earlier, then three days from now would have to be the default, the last day that Deku will be able to help.

He knows that’s short notice for something like this, that it would usually take longer to pull something like this together, but that’s already cutting it close, and Deku has the benefit of being an insider, of having Izuku’s trust. That’s important. He wants to believe it’s important enough that they can make this work before the universe swap happens, at the very least. Preferably sooner.

Shoto's response is not encouraging. He’ll let Deku know if they end up being able to move things along faster, but for now, they’re operating on the assumption that things are going to go down three days from now.

Deku sighs, deleting the conversation thread and heading back into the hotel. Patience has never been his strong suit, but it’s something he can manage.

He stops mid-step on his way through the door to the top floor living area as he realizes something, looking down at his hand on the doorknob. Just because he and Izuku share very similar DNA doesn't mean they'll necessarily have the same fingerprints. He closes the door behind him mechanically, working his way through this problem. That's okay, he vaguely remembers seeing some stuff about this in spy movies. He'll just have to get something with Izuku's print on it and... transfer it, somehow. He thinks the person in the movie used tape and makeup, but he isn't quite sure.

He'll just have to look it up later. He's too paranoid to look it up now, when Izuku could wake up at any moment. It doesn't feel safe. He'll just have to wait until next time he leaves the hotel for a "jog".

He settles down in the sitting room, turns on the tv, and tries to relax. Everything is fine. He has a plan, and things are going well.

For a bit, that's true. His body relaxes, and he begins to believe it. That is, until Izuku wakes up.

He hears a creak as the door to Izuku’s room opens in the distance, and he doesn’t need his danger sense to know that something is off. He’s too quiet as he exits, his steps much more slow and deliberate than usual.

Deku does his best not to tense, tries to keep his body language casual so as not to show that he knows something is wrong, but it’s hard, when his back is turned to a potential threat approaching. His danger sense is silent, so he knows he’s at least not in any physical danger, but that could change at any moment, if Izuku’s as upset as Deku thinks he might be right now.

Casually, he grabs his phone, years of hero training kicking in and prompting him to shoot off a quick “NC” to Shoto. Just as quickly, he deletes the message from his history, setting his phone aside. Shoto will recognize the code. No contact. If this turns into a confrontation, the last thing he needs is a suspicious notification.

Izuku makes it to the couch, coming right up behind Deku, and Deku tries to greet him normally.

“Good mor—” he cuts off as Izuku reaches down, grabbing the remote off the cushions and turning the tv off.

“I read a really interesting article this morning,” Izuku says, his voice breezy and casual.

Deku readjusts in his seat, putting Izuku in his more direct line of sight so he’s not looking at him out of his peripherals anymore. “Yeah?” he asks. “What was it about?”

“Why don’t you read it for yourself?” Izuku pulls his phone out of his back pocket, handing it down to Deku.

His breath catches in his throat when he sees the screen. It’s a blurry image, clearly taken from a distance with a shaky hand. The features are barely distinguishable, but they’re familiar to him. He’s seen similar images plastered all over hero gossip mags and blogs in his home universe. It’s Shoto, using his ice to slide forward, with Izuku using his quirk to cling on desperately as he goes.

The photo on its own would be too vague to be incriminating, if not for the fact that someone has zoomed in on his face, enhancing the image enough to display some identifying features. His wild green hair, the cut of his jaw, the slope of his nose: just enough to be recognizable to someone that knows his face well enough.

In bold letters across the top of the screen, over the picture, the title of the article reads “New Vigilante or Underground Hero? Shoto’s Unexpected Team-Up.”

Izuku’s fingers drum over the top of the couch in faux pensiveness. “I didn’t realize you were taking up hero work in this universe, too. You’re a busy, busy bee, Deku.”

There’s something strange in the way he says the name, like a letter at the end hits a rough patch sliding its way out between his lips. It sets him on edge.

Deku’s heart picks up, his pulse pounding in his throat. He keeps his breathing even and steady, and puts his other hand on the phone as well, using the thumb to scroll down, as though that’s why he did it, rather than to steady and disguise the tremble there.

“Shoot,” he murmurs, trying his best for casual. “I was hoping nobody saw that.” He laughs a bit, still trying for casual, maybe a bit self-deprecating. One of the exhalations comes out a bit too strong for his liking, and he has to hold back a wince. He hands the phone back to Izuku. “I was kind of moving on muscle memory. I was on a jog when he took off, and I’m so used to doing that move when we’re out on the field in my world, I kind of latched on without thinking.”

Izuku gives him a long, assessing look as he accepts the phone. “And you didn’t feel the need to mention your little adventure to me?”

“It kind of slipped my mind,” Deku says. “Besides, you know my sleep schedule’s all weird right now, I haven’t really seen you a lot recently.”

Izuku hums. “I guess you’re right.” He slides his phone back in his pocket. “Are you two close in your universe?”

Deku panics for a beat, but doesn’t falter. He can’t risk lying on something so simple.

“Yeah.” He shrugs. “We’re friends. We were in the same class at UA together.”

An unreadable look flashes across Izuku’s face. “You went to UA?”

“Yup,” Deku admits. “Got my quirk when I was fourteen.”

Izuku whistles lowly. “Just in time.” His gaze is shrewd on Deku. “You know, you never did tell me how you got your quirk.”

Deku shrugs, trying to laugh the inquiry off. “It’s a secret.”

“In your universe, sure,” Izuku grins, a predatory sort of interest in his eyes, “but there’s no harm in saying anything here.”

“Maybe not,” Deku acquiesces, “but there’s no harm in keeping it secret, either.” He tries to mimic the way Izuku sounds when he's flirting, hoping that it will distract him, a reminder of what Deku is, or what Izuku had first thought he was: an object of desire, and a person with similar interests. “It’s not fun unless there’s a bit of mystery.”

Izuku’s eyes scan his face for a moment, then the corners of his mouth tic up, and he leans in, running his index finger up under Deku’s jaw, tilting his chin up.

“I guess not,” he murmurs, leaning in to press a lingering kiss against Deku’s mouth. He cups Deku’s jaw, and strokes his thumb against his chin. The kiss would almost be sweet, if Deku didn't know any better. He forces himself to kiss back, even as a shiver of disgust runs down his spine, and anxiety knots itself deep in his stomach.

Izuku’s tongue runs along the seam of Deku’s mouth, and his body reacts unexpectedly, a sharp zap of arousal hitting him low in his belly. He makes an involuntary, soft little noise at the sensation, and Izuku leans back, breaking the kiss.

Something seems to have settled a bit in his expression. A relief, to be sure, though Deku can’t really bring himself to be all too thankful for it right now.

“You’re right about the mystery,” Izuku remarks, his voice more genuinely cheerful now. “We should do something fun and interesting. A surprise.”

Deku isn’t sure what expression he has right now, can’t do much to regulate it with his head reeling the way it is, but it must be something like skepticism, because Izuku waves his hand dismissively. “Oh, you’ll love it, don’t worry," he promises, gesturing Deku forward. "Now get up, let’s get going.”

Deku does, apprehensive, but at least not completely on guard anymore. He follows Izuku to the door.

Izuku pulls his phone from his pocket, placing it on the little end table near the exit. “Oh, and let’s leave our phones behind.” He smiles sweetly back at Deku. “We won’t need them.”

Chapter Text

It turns out Izuku really did have a surprise for Deku. Despite the cold fear that had settled in his gut as he left his phone on the table, Izuku's intent wasn’t murderous.

Though, as Deku stares up at the large sign for the airport terminal incredulously, he wonders how much better this is.

He chuckles, a sound that comes out more nervous than he would have liked. “What about luggage?" He eyes Izuku, "and you know I’m going to need my phone eventually, right? It has some important work stuff on it, and was also kind of expensive. I’ll need it before I go back to my home universe.”

Izuku waves his hand dismissively. “I already have everything we need lined up where we’ll be going. Besides, we’ll be back by midday on day ten, with plenty of time to pick your phone up before you swap back.”

Deku shuts his mouth, uneasy, but unable to come up with an adequate protest. “Alright,” he says, “as long as you have me back by then.”

“Or,” Izuku taps his finger against his chin contemplatively, “I could just have it mailed back by the end of day ten.”

Deku makes a dubious noise, buying himself time to think of a protest, which thankfully comes relatively quickly. “I don’t know if I trust that the mail will be able to get to us by then. I have a lot of really important things on my phone. I took some pictures before the universe swap that I didn’t get the chance to transfer anywhere, and that could make or break a case I’ve been working on.”

“Alright,” Izuku says, rubbing a soothing hand on Deku’s back. “Like I said, we’ll be back by midday on day ten.”

Deku chews his lip, playing into the nervousness he really does feel—just for the case he's about to complete in this universe. “I don’t know, even that seems a bit late. What if our flight gets delayed?”

“Relax,” Izuku says, “calming breaths. Delays don’t mean anything for me. Hell, I've got enough money to charter a private plane, if need be. We’ll be back in time. This is just supposed to be a trip to keep things fun. I promise, nothing that’ll stress you out.”

Deku doubts that, but can’t think of an excuse strong enough to press his luck further, following Izuku into the crowded airport.
_____

When they step off the plane, he’s hit by a pleasant breeze, the air humid, but not over-warm, and the familiar smell of sea salt in the air. “Where are we?” Deku asks.

Izuku winks. “I don’t want to give away the game too early, but you’ll learn in a bit.”

Deku forces himself to smile, even as tension begins to build in his gut again. He’s ready for anything, and almost half hoping that Izuku will try something, just to give him the chance to take definitive action. He knows Shoto’s group won’t be ready for action by then, though, and after going no contact, with no access to any resources, including enough money to purchase a plane ticket back home or a phone to call Shoto with—even if he did have his phone number memorized—it wouldn’t be wise to do anything drastic until he’s certain this is some kind of trap.

At least now that he knows the plane trip is only five hours or so, he’s slightly less nervous about this whole thing.

He can already see the sun beginning to set on the horizon, and he sighs as they enter the glass confines of the airport. Just a little over two more days of pretending. Then, one way or another, he’ll make sure he’s back at the hotel, freeing Katsuki.

Deep down inside, he knows he doesn’t really need to be there. He already gave Shoto the key card, and the knowledge of how to get to Katsuki. It might even be better to have Izuku away from the hotel. At least that way, there would be less attention on it. The only real reason he can think of as to why he might be needed is that he has the closest access to Izuku, and is the most able to get a copy of his print. But if he’s being entirely honest with himself, he knows that Shoto started coming up with contingencies the moment Deku went no contact, and since he knows who Izuku is, he probably has access to his prints in a database somewhere. Not only that, but he’s far more likely to know how to use them, given the fact that he never got the chance to look that up, and no longer has access to his phone to do so.

Still, that isn’t going to change anything.

Deku knows it’s selfish, but he can’t help but want to be there. He needs to see Katsuki safe before he leaves.
_____

It turns out that the surprise is that they've flown to the non-extradition country Izuku had sent his mother to.

She beams at them both when they arrive, looking healthy and happy. He’s more than happy to see his mom—or at least this universe’s version of her. Honestly, it puts a fear to rest that he hadn’t even fully realized was there, but that had taken root once he found Katsuki: that Izuku had actually done something to her and lied about his whole backstory.

This is undeniable proof that she’s alive and well. Really, really well. She looks happier and more confident than he's ever seen her.

In his universe, his mother hardly ever shows any skin. Even when it’s unseasonably warm, or they’re at the beach, she always wears long sleeves. She’s never fully been able to play it off, a sort of nervous shame had always hovered over her as she waved a hand and insisted that she’d gotten too plump for that.

Deku had always frowned, and tried to talk her out of her shame, to no avail.

Which is why he hardly even recognizes this version of his mother: a grin on her face, unbothered by the people around her, in khaki shorts that come up to her mid-thigh, and a Hawaiian shirt that's unbuttoned to reveal a high neck bikini top underneath.

She seems about the same weight as she is in Izuku’s universe, though when she grabs them both in a tight hug he can see and feel that she’s put on muscle underneath her fat. He can also see fading scars lining the skin there, which he now realizes is likely part of the reason his mother is always wearing cardigans.

If both of the visual factors that keep Deku’s mom nervous and shrouded are still there, that must mean the real difference between the two is in their attitudes.

As Izuku and his mother chatter excitedly, dragging Deku along, he can’t help but dwell on it, trying to figure out what sets them apart. His father was apparently worse in this universe, or at least had terrorized her far longer, so what is it that makes this version of his mother so much more confident and relaxed?

It must, at least in part, have to do with the fact that she’s living in paradise, with all her expenses paid, retired early and able to pursue her hobbies at her leisure, but something tells Deku that’s not the only thing.

He hates to think it, but… maybe the fact that his dad is dead in this universe has something to do with it. In their universe, he could decide to return at any moment. In hers, there was no risk of that, no threat looming over her head that her abuser might decide to return one day.

And maybe the fact that her son has a much lower risk job is helpful in easing her nerves as well. He may be a villain, but at least he’s low profile. There’s much less of a target on the back of a nearly-nameless villain than Japan’s number one hero, regardless of legality.

They end up at a restaurant. Deku does his best to disguise his own conflicting feelings at dinner and react appropriately to the chatter Izuku and his mom produce, but it isn’t until he excuses himself to the bathroom to take slow, deep breaths and stare at himself in the mirror that he’s able to push it all down and lock it away. Now is not the time to worry about this. If he really does need to do something about his dad to help his own mom be just as happy as the one in this universe, then he’ll track him down and make sure he gets locked away. But he can only do that once he gets home. He needs to take this one thing at a time.

When he returns to the table, he’s able to portray a relaxed facade much more nicely, with at least the majority of his anxiety tucked away for a later date.

That doesn’t mean it’s all gone. He’s much less concerned about a trap now, but he’d be naive to think Izuku isn’t suspicious at all, not after taking such blatant measures to ensure he can’t contact Shoto anymore, or with the assessing looks he keeps shooting Deku’s way. He’ll just have to hope that his act is enough to keep Izuku fooled into thinking he really hasn’t spoken to Shoto much yet, or at least that he’s still ignorant of the fact that Katsuki is locked away.
______

The next two days pass in a blur of half anxiety, half genuine enjoyment. There are moments when he almost forgets, and allows himself to fall into the rhythm of laughter with his mom. Moments when he closes his eyes and feels the sand beneath him, or looks at the clear, beautiful water of the ocean, and almost fools himself into thinking this is a peaceful vacation. Inevitably, reality always comes crashing down around him, though.

One good thing about this is that he's at least able to grab a glass from one of the restaurants with Deku’s prints on it, and get enough alone time with some tape and powdered concealer to get a few of Izuku’s prints transferred and stored safely in his wallet. He just has to hope that he remembered how to do it correctly, or that the show he had watched had even accurately portrayed the method at all.

Throughout the trip, Izuku kisses him every now and again, and Deku goes along with it to keep up appearances, but it never goes any further than that, despite the guilt-riddled arousal that builds in his stomach whenever their kisses get just a bit too heated, or go on too long.

His hands never stray from Deku’s waist or jaw, his lips never go anywhere other than Deku’s, nor does he ever pull Deku in close enough to feel the erection Deku’s seen beginning to strain against his pants on more than one occasion. Izuku checks in one more time about sex on the first night, but that’s the last he speaks of it, telling Deku to let him know if he changes his mind and leaving it at that.

Deku tries not to think too much about it all, no matter how confusing the juxtaposition between these actions and the ones he knows Izuku to be capable of are. He can’t let himself waver, not with so much at stake.
_____

He wakes up nervous on day ten, but Izuku is true to his word, and they’re heading to the airport before long, with tearful goodbyes exchanged with his mother.

The plane ride seems to drag on forever, but despite the anxiety that mounts with every passing hour, the paranoid instinct screaming that Izuku isn’t actually going to bring them back to the hotel, that’s exactly where they eventually arrive.

As Izuku hands him his phone back, Deku concludes that this whole thing must actually have been to ensure that he didn’t have time to discover anything from or plan anything with Shoto, and possibly to keep an eye out for any obvious signs that Deku already knew or was planning something, while in a controlled environment.

It would have worked, too, if Shoto was really his first source of information, rather than his jaunt into the basement. And that was an accident. It’s horrifying to think that he was starting to trust Izuku, that he would have never realized where Katsuki was if he had never explored that basement, or noticed the All Might book and tried to read it, or looked through the All Might room. Who knows what might have happened to Katsuki, then?

He spends the afternoon with Izuku, getting lunch, and then a massage that does nothing to relax him. They end with dinner in the early evening, still accustomed to the time zone of Izuku’s mysterious non-extradition country. After that, Izuku seems fully satisfied, leaving Deku to get some work done, with the promise that he’ll pry himself away with enough time to see him off.

Finally left to his own devices, Deku is able to sneak tinfoil from the kitchen, folding it and putting it in his pocket. He doesn’t dare make any more obvious preparations, like reaching out to the hero group. It would be wiser to wait, just in case Izuku had some sort of monitoring set up while they were away. He’ll give them until about an hour before the universe swap, then he’ll head to the basement and reach out.

Ten minutes till the last hour finds him frowning down at the clock on his phone. In all honesty, he had hoped that there would be some sort of sign the rescue squad was here before it came to this, but no such luck.

He sighs, and knocks lightly on Izuku’s door, opening it to tell the distracted villain that he was heading to the cafe.

Izuku doesn’t even look up from his laptop, just giving an acknowledgement and distractedly requesting an iced coffee.

Deku promises he’ll grab it, then heads out, his blood rushing in his ears as his body prepares for action and more adrenaline kicks in. He waits until he’s in the elevator to text Shoto an “All clear. Status?”.

He gets a reply instantly. “Evacuation is just beginning. We’re going slow. No one has caught on yet. Need help downstairs?”

Deku declines, telling Shoto to stick to the plan and wait until the last minute, well aware that there’s a camera in Izuku’s personal elevator that would give away the game.

As he walks towards the library room, he’s so engrossed in his texts with Shoto that he almost doesn’t hear the sound of a door opening down the hall.

Luckily, he’s on guard enough to catch it, and to throw himself into a random room whose door is ajar. He slots himself between the door and the wall, watching the hall through the small gaps in the hinges.

Nothing about the footsteps suggests whoever it is is in all too much of a hurry, and as Izuku strains his ears, he’s able to discern that it’s just one person, pushing a cart with a squeaky wheel and humming a simple tune.

After several long moments of waiting, the cart comes into view, then a familiar face. It’s one of the people that had been bringing their food all throughout Deku’s stay, pushing a similar cart to the one he’s brought their food in. This must be how Katsuki is fed.

Deku is hit again by the stark reality of Katsuki's situation. A year in captivity, with only his captor and the people that bring him food for company. It’s pretty late in the day for dinner, though. Maybe that means he at least speaks with the people who bring him food.

Deku had never thought about what kept Katsuki sane until now, despite knowing from experience that a mere day in solitary confinement is enough to have a lasting impact on someone, psychologically. He grimaces. He’d just assumed that Katsuki had no contact whatsoever aside from speaking with Izuku on occasion, but now he realizes that there’s really no way he’d be sane anymore if that were the case. He’d probably had just a bit too much faith in Katsuki’s resilience, with that assumption.

That doesn't make Katsuki's situation much better, and he doubts Katsuki is really on all too friendly terms with the people he's spoken with, but some socialization at meal time is at least something to keep him from losing his mind completely. He makes a mental note to ask about it, if he has time. He knows he won't have much time with Katsuki after the rescue, so he'd like at least some assurance that Katsuki had something here that might have made things a little less terrible than Deku initially thought—some indication that Katsuki will be able to heal, even though Deku will never be able to personally witness said healing.

He hears the ding of elevator doors closing, but he still waits a few minutes before heading out into the hall, just in case.

When he steps out, the coast is clear, and he makes it to the All Might room without any unwanted encounters. He checks the time and forces his shoulders to relax. Still about forty five minutes before the universe swap. That’s plenty of time. He steps on the hidden mechanism.

The door to Katsuki’s room opens to reveal the man himself, sitting on his bed with a book in his hand and looking surprised. He sits up, silently setting the book aside and walking to the boundary line of the entryway, then crossing his arms over his chest. “You were gone a long time.”

“Yeah,” Deku says, pulling the tinfoil out of his pocket. “I was almost caught, so I couldn’t visit for a while. Here.” He holds the tinfoil out for Katsuki.

“What the hell is that for?” Katsuki asks, eyeing it skeptically.

“It’s to wrap around your neck, and extra for the cuffs, just in case. Hatsumei thinks the chip might be a bluff, but even if it isn’t, this should disrupt the RFID signal.”

Katsuki accepts the tinfoil, but seems no less wary as he unfolds it. “So what, I’m just supposed to make myself a tinfoil collar and hope my head doesn’t fucking explode?”

Deku winces. He doesn’t know why he expected Katsuki to go along with everything he said. Of course, anyone would be reluctant, with the experiences he’s had thus far. “Yes,” he assures, keeping his voice calm and steady despite his mounting fear at the time constraint. “It’s probably a bluff, there’s no way to implant explosives in your skull without major surgery, which you probably would have noticed. Even if he did manage to do that and hide the recovery from you, there would probably be some kind of scarring, and blocking the signal from the RFID chip would still prevent any detonations.”

Some of the skepticism subsides, but not much. Regardless, Katsuki begins to wrap the tinfoil around his neck, and then the cuffs. Deku waits patiently, and pretends not to notice the way Katsuki’s hands tremble.

Once everything is on, Katsuki does a full, slow turn, and Deku verifies that he's completley covered.

“Okay, you can come over to this side now,” Deku says, pulling the prints out of his wallet. “Then I can take the cuffs off.”

He looks up, his heart sinking to find Katsuki motionless and terrified.

They don’t have time for this. He squeezes his eyes shut tight, breathing deeply and ignoring his mounting nerves.

Then, he reaches his hand out. “Please, Katsuki, I need you to trust me.”

For a long moment, Katsuki stares at Deku’s hand. Then, slowly, he reaches out, wincing as his hand crosses the RFID barrier. A notch of tension seems to release when he doesn’t explode, but he still doesn’t step forward. That's fair. Losing his head would be far worse than losing a hand, and he doesn’t have many reasons to trust Deku with his life. Still, despite everything, after a long moment of standing there holding Deku’s hand, he does. He allows himself to be pulled from the room.

His head passes the RFID barrier, then the rest of his body, and Deku backs up, drawing Katsuki along out of the room. Katsuki’s breath catches in his throat when he crosses the boundary, and he looks behind himself, verifying that he’s really passed it. Then, with a ferocity that surprises Deku, he rips the tinfoil from his neck and tosses it aside, his entire body sagging in relief. Deku fumbles to support him, stepping forwards and drawing Katsuki into half an embrace to keep him upright.

“Fuck,” Katsuki says, his voice barely audible as he looks around, “this room is creepy.”

That startles a laugh out of Deku, even as urgency thrums under his skin. “Come on,” he says. “Let’s get those cuffs off.”

Deku peels the tinfoil off one cuff, and is halfway through freeing the other when a shrill alarm begins to blare, startling him so badly he drops two of the taped prints he had been holding. “Shit,” he swears, “someone must have noticed the evacuation.”

He tosses the tinfoil aside, not bothering to pick up the dropped prints yet, just working with the ones still in his hand.

Quickly, he turns the left cuff until he finds the scan point, laying the first print up against it at several different angles, before handing it off to Katsuki with a huff of frustration. The next one yields similar results, and Deku tries to be patient, to be careful, but after he hands the second print off to Katsuki, he knows he’s rushing. His hands are shaking with adrenaline as he tries the third print, his movement sloppy and uncoordinated.

He’s not even fully certain he’s got the right part of the cuff. Hatsumei had told him what to look for, but part of the draw of Izuku’s designs is in their subtlety. The scanner is designed to be hard to notice.

Deku hands the third print off to Katsuki, and squats to grab the fallen prints, having used all the ones in his hand. That’s another thing that’s bothering him. He hadn’t been able to retrieve all ten of Izuku’s prints. There’s no way to be sure that he actually has the right one at all.

He presses the fourth print against the cuff, desperately running through contingencies, his danger sense fully active and ready to anticipate a fight. He doesn’t hear the click, not with the alarm blaring, but he does see the seam of the bracelet split, and when he gingerly pries it open, it comes off without an issue. Deku sets it on a nearby shelf, relieved, but not quite ready to celebrate yet.

That is, until he presses the print to the second cuff and sees the seam split again. He grins wildly as he pulls the second cuff off, setting it alongside the first.

He clasps his hand in Katsuki’s, who’s marveling at his now bare wrist. “Come on,” he tugs gently. “We have to go now, there isn’t much time."

Katsuki’s eyes meet his, still uncertain, though he doesn’t say anything.

“I’ve got you,” he assures, activating his quirk enough for Katsuki to see the flare of green spark across his skin. “I told you, that quirk I got is powerful. We’re powerful. Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten all your training from U.A.?”

Katsuki shakes his head, meeting Deku’s gaze, a new blaze of determination there. “No, I haven’t.”

Still, neither of them move—for an entirely different reason, now. There’s something sparking in the air between them, and Deku belatedly realizes he’s still holding Katsuki’s hand, and they’re standing close together, close enough that all it would take to close the distance for a kiss would be a single step. If the way Katsuki’s eyes dart to his lips is any indication, he’s probably thinking the same thing.

The world seems to fade around him, and he almost does it, almost leans in.

Then Katsuki’s gaze settles on something over Deku’s shoulder, and his eyes widen. Deku turns to follow his gaze, his body tense, ready for a fight. As he does, Katsuki rushes past him, and Deku’s eyes settle on the new presence. Shoto.

His face is stark with relief, and he spreads his arms wide, catching Katsuki around the waist. Katsuki, for his part, lifts his arms, grabbing Shoto’s face in both hands and pulling him into a kiss.

Deku watches, wanting so desperately to feel happy for them. There’s so much emotion in the kiss: relief and passion that makes it clear they love each other, missed each other dearly. He should be happy that Katsuki is happy. Instead, he just feels numb. The hand Katsuki had just been holding is cold and empty. Deku can’t even muster a smile when the two part.

“Come on,” he says, trying to pretend he’s just focused, and not hollowed out.

He steps forward, only just barely registering the figure barreling through the library and towards the hidden room. Fast—it’s so fast. Deku drops into a ready stance, and Shoto and Katsuki turn and do the same, coming face to face with the figure—Izuku—as he crashes into the room, wearing some sort of support gear

His eyes are wild and panicked as he looks at Katsuki, free, and side-by-side with Shoto. Then his gaze swivels around to Deku.

Deku’s expecting his panic to transform to cold fury. He’s expecting Izuku to lunge forward and attack.

Instead, he stops short. Deku sees his chest rise with a sharp inhale, but doesn’t see him release the breath. In fact, it feels like everyone in the room is holding their breath, the air stagnant around them all. Izuku’s eyebrows draw inwards, his mouth parts slowly, and his eyes begin to reflect the light of the room more prominently, glassy with building tears. “Really, Deku?” he asks, his voice choked by emotion. “After how he treated us all those years? Really?”

Deku wishes he was angry. Anger was never an emotion he had trouble dealing with. This, though? Izuku’s stark betrayal cuts deeper than any furious lash could.

He did it, Katsuki is free, but it doesn’t feel like anything but a failure.

The realization crashes over him like a wave, and nausea rolls up in his gut. He shuts his eyes tight just so that he doesn’t have to look at Izuku anymore. Had he misjudged him? He had thought Izuku was unrepentant, that bringing him here was all some sick power play, just like capturing Katsuki had been, but if he's being honest, he's been losing faith in that theory ever since he saw how happy his mother is in this universe. If that really was what Izuku was like, he would have seen this as a loss. He would be furious, not sad. Deku’s head begins to spin, and he suddenly feels unmoored.

Capturing Katsuki wasn’t right, but did Deku do the right thing, either? What would he have done, in Izuku’s shoes? With no support system, an abusive home life, no quirk or power in the world, and an abusive ex-best friend that probably never even apologized, or changed much, but still got everything Izuku ever wanted, but could never have? And what would he have done, if someone with a different perspective had told him about the change that Katsuki was capable of?

Katsuki deserves to be free, but Izuku deserves a chance to learn, and grow, and be rehabilitated, not a trip to Tartarus.

Deku opens his eyes, stepping forward to say as much, but his dizziness hasn’t let up, and he stumbles, dropping to his knees on the ground. He just needs to say something, just needs a moment, just a little bit of time—but when he opens his eyes, the world finally beginning to settle around him, he realizes he has none.

He’s back in his universe.

_____

Chapter Text

His vision is blurred, a familiar, watery distortion, but he can still see that he’s right back where he had been taken from, that same spot in the same hallway of the agency. Only this time, no one else is there with him. He sits up shakily, taking more complete stock of his surroundings, still finding himself alone.

A tear finally escapes to roll down his cheek, and he slams his eyes shut again, a sob racking through his body.

Logically, he knows he did the right thing. He didn’t have enough time to go about things carefully, and the most important thing was making sure that Katsuki was able to get free.

Still, Izuku’s look of betrayal is fresh in his mind. He wishes there was some way to check on the universe—to make sure that Katsuki gets justice and Izuku gets some sort of chance to learn—but he knows there isn’t. Not realistically. Even if he was able to get in contact with Swap, he had been sent to Izuku’s universe randomly. He doesn’t think there’s a way to select which universe to send him to, and even if there was, he wouldn’t know how to identify that universe.

Hell, he doesn’t even have proof it exists outside his memories. He hadn’t thought to take any photos just for memory’s sake, and he’d wiped all the evidence from his phone as soon as he was done sharing it with Shoto. He had to make sure there was no trail for Izuku to follow.

Despite that knowledge, he opens his photos, hoping he might be able to find some piece of evidence he’d overlooked.

There’s nothing. Just photos dated before the swap, and some video dated during the swap that he’d clearly accidentally. The thumbnail preview is just a blurry shot of his hand close up. He sighs and clicks on it, about to erase it, when he sees the longer preview below.

Evidently, it’s not just a video of his hand.

Hesitantly, he clicks the play button, turning the volume up and watching as the hand from the preview adjusts the camera, then Izuku steps back into frame, a crooked grin on his face. He twiddles his fingers, all cheeky victory. “Hi Deku! You’re currently clipping your nails so that you can prep me, so I figured I’d set up a little surprise for you to find after we’re done.” He winks. “You can decide if you want to keep it or not, but when you find it, you should be a doll and send me a copy. I’m sure it’s gonna be hot.” Deku faintly hears the door to Izuku’s room click open, and Izuku turns his head to follow the sound, and Deku pauses the video before he can see himself enter the room, a lump rising in his throat.

Of course. Of all the things he could have possibly found a record of, it was that.

His thumb hovers over the trash button. He should delete it. That isn’t what he needs to remember. It isn’t the important takeaway. He should only remember what he’s capable of if he loses perspective—what some version of him was able to do to Katsuki.

Still, his thumb wavers. After a moment, he locks his phone, setting it aside, and lets his head thump back against the wall of the hall.

He can’t do it. It may not be proof of what he wants to remember, but at least it's proof the whole thing happened at all, and he can't get rid of that, not when he's going to be the only one holding this huge, significant memory for the rest of his life.

Everything feels so overwhelming right now, but he doesn’t think he can bear another minute alone, and he knows exactly who he wants to see—who he desperately needs to see, after the week he’s had.

He grabs his phone and heads up a flight of stairs to the next floor, making a beeline directly for the door to Katsuki’s office and hoping desperately that he’s there.

He doesn’t bother to knock, just tries the handle, and pushes the door open when it gives.

A head of spiky blond hair is facing him, somehow even more mussed than usual, but present. Katsuki seems upset, slumped over with his elbows on his desk and his head in his hands, but he’s fine. He’s just the same as Deku left him. Whole, and here and fine.

At the sound of Deku’s sigh of relief, Katsuki lifts his head, mouth falling open in an o of surprise. Then he launches himself to his feet with such force that his rolling desk chair flies back and hits the wall.

He steps around the desk, stalking towards Deku. He seems to be gearing up to get angry, his face scrunching into something indignant, his mouth opening, but Deku doesn’t care. He doesn’t care that Katsuki isn’t the hugging type, he doesn’t care that he’s already angry, doesn’t care that he’s probably just going to push him off. He’s just so glad to see him, and he needs this so badly.

He launches himself forward, sliding his arms around Katsuki in a tight embrace.

Katsuki’s arms lift, and he stumbles back, startled, but he doesn’t push Deku away. In fact, after a moment, he brings his own arms down and hugs Deku just as tightly.

“Where the fuck were you?” He asks, voice hoarse.

There are so many thoughts clamoring through his head that he can barely parse a coherent one in the din. He leans back from the embrace and opens his mouth, facing Katsuki, taking in the weary lines of exhaustion, the worry crinkling his brow, the light in his crimson eyes that Deku hadn’t even fully realized was missing from the Katsuki in the other universe. He tries to answer Katsuki’s question, but instead all that comes out is “I was—it was—” he squeezes his eyes shut, trying to force something coherent from his mouth “—god, and you were—just—I love you.”

It’s what was on his mind, sure, one of the many things that had been pushing up against his other thoughts—and the loudest, to boot—but it was not what he intended to say.

It hangs in the air between them, neither of them really understanding how to properly address it. In fact, it’s probably unfair of Deku to expect Katsuki to address it, when he sprung it on him after going missing for ten days, and Katsuki is so clearly tired, likely exhausted from whatever search efforts had happened in Deku’s absence.

He feels his face heat, and tries to follow it up. “I’m sorry, I just—it’s been a long ten days, and a lot of things happened while I was gone—I was in an alternate universe, and you were there, but you were captured, and I had to rescue you, and also I found out that you were seeing someone else, and I just got so jealous, and—”

Suddenly a hand is cupping his jaw, and chapped lips are pressing into his, and his mouth is half open, so the lips are hitting his teeth more than anything, and it’s a weird angle, but Deku just closes his mouth and tilts his head and suddenly they’re kissing.

His shoulders slump, the tension easing away, and he grabs Katsuki by the waist, pulling him closer just to feel the warmth radiating from his body.

After a moment, Katsuki breaks the kiss, exhaling shakily through his nose, his eyes intense and serious on Deku. “Fuck, I love you too.” His eyes squeeze shut for a moment, and his hands fall to Deku’s shoulders. “I missed you so much," he admits. "Don’t fucking do that shit again.”

Deku’s brain can’t even process the confession. Instead it latches on to the last thing Katsuki said, and his brow knits together. “I didn’t do it on purpose, I was—”

Katsuki cuts him off with another kiss, and somehow it’s more real the second time around, like the fact that Katsuki kissed him twice makes it clear that he actually meant it.

Katsuki pulls back to break the kiss, resting his forehead gently against Izuku’s. “You can explain later. Just—I—” he cuts off in a frustrated growl, pulling Deku into a third kiss.

His tongue slides against the seam of Deku’s lips this time, seeking entrance, and Deku obliges, sucking his tongue into his mouth, then letting Katsuki pull back and nip his lower lip, then pressing his own tongue forward, effortlessly falling into the rhythm of the kiss, the give and take. He presses himself forward, desperate to slot their bodies together, to feel Katsuki’s comforting presence all along the line of his body, and he feels the way Katsuki is beginning to get hard, the heat and weight of it pressing against his hip.

He remembers the last time he’d felt an erection press against him, and has to pull back as a wave of guilt crashes over him.

Katsuki looks concerned again, that furrow back between his brow, his grip tightening ever so slightly where he’s clutching Deku. “What?”

Deku swallows his trepidation. He wants everything he can get with Katsuki, but it doesn’t feel right to take it when he knows what happened in that universe. It feels like hiding, to let this go on and not tell Katsuki about the things he had seen, the things he knows he’ll be thinking about for years to come.

So he steels himself, steps out of Katsuki’s embrace, looks him head-on, and explains what his villain self had done.

Katsuki watches, his expression unreadable, as Deku works himself up explaining how he had found Katsuki in the basement, and what Izuku’s circumstances had been like, and how he had rescued Katsuki.

All the while, Katsuki sits back against his desk and listens intently. He doesn’t interrupt, waiting until Deku’s taken his last heaving breath to push out the tail end of the story, explaining how he’d just gotten back. “What he did to you—what I did to you, it’s unforgivable. You should have seen yourself, Kacchan, you were—” he cuts himself off, squeezing his eyes shut and choking on his words. “—it was bad,” he concludes, lamely.

For a long moment, the only sound in the room is that of his own heavy breathing, the rush of his blood in his ears. Then Katsuki sighs.

“Deku, I don’t really fucking blame you. The shit I did to you as a kid—” he huffs a derisive laugh “—I kinda fucking deserved it.”

“No,” Deku insists vehemently, “no you didn’t. You were a child.”

“Yeah,” Katsuki says, “but so were you when you kidnapped me—him—whatever.” His face screws up a bit in frustration. “Besides, it wasn’t even you. You didn’t kidnap me, some crazy villain version of yourself captured some asshole version of me that probably never apologized for being an dick to you. It sucks, that he went through that, yeah, but I really don’t give a fuck about the fact that some version of you did it. That it’s something you’re ‘capable of’, or whatever, and you shouldn’t either.”

Deku throws his hands up in exasperation. “It’s not even just that he’s like me, or that I could have been like him, it’s that—” he rubs his hand through his hair “—I had sex with him.”

Katsuki’s eyebrows practically disappear into his hair. “What?” he asks.

Deku flushes, avoiding eye contact now. “It’s why he brought me there in the first place. Before I knew about you in the basement, he—we—” he makes a noise of disgust “—and I liked it.”

Katsuki makes a strangled little noise, probably equally disgusted, and there’s a long moment of silence, during which Deku can’t bring himself to look at Katsuki, to see how he’s reacting.

Finally, Katsuki clears his throat. “So what if you fucking liked it?”

Deku’s eyes finally shoot up, only to see that Katsuki’s the one avoiding eye contact now, his face red. “Sex is supposed to feel good, and you didn’t have shit to feel all guilty about when it was happening. Of course you liked it. That's what was supposed to happen.”

Deku splutters, entirely caught off guard by this blasé reaction. “You don’t think that’s conceited? That I had sex with myself, and I liked it? That I thought it was hot?” He slaps his hands over his own mouth, regretting the words as soon as they leave.

Katsuki doesn’t miss a beat. He meets his eyes again, burning with intensity. “You are fucking hot, though! You're not conceited, you just get it now.” He inhales sharply, arguing with all the fervor he places behind his most passionate convictions, though this is by far the most bizarre of them all. “I don’t think you realize how many extras have been trying to get that through your thick head for years now. So even if this you was a villain, and he was shitty to the other version of me, and now that memory is tainted, or whatever, at least he managed to teach you the one lesson your nerd ass could never comprehend—that you’re fucking sexy!”

Deku gapes. After a long moment of silence, Katsuki’s words seem to catch up with him in much the same way that Deku’s had not moments before, and he screws his mouth shut tight, but doesn’t retract anything, just crossing his arms over his chest and glaring defiantly.

Katsuki kind of has a point, just not in the way he intended. It still feels weird thinking about himself as hot, but Deku had almost forgotten what had made sex with Izuku good in the first place. It wasn’t just that he had a penis at the time, or that Izuku knew his erogenous zones; it was that Izuku taught him to love parts of himself that he hadn’t even noticed to appreciate before. Even if most of the situation was shitty, even if Izuku himself was evil, that’s a good thing. It should be allowed to be a good thing, even if everything else was really bad.

Deku sighs. “You’re right." He crosses his arms. "Ever since I found out what he did, I’ve been kind of spiraling. I made it out to be all this horrible bad thing in my head, made it out so that he was this terrible person, but it wasn’t all bad, and he did horrible things, but he wasn’t just a horrible person." He frowns, considering. "I think… I only wanted to see the bad in it. I think I was punishing myself, even though it was Izuku that did that to you, not me. Even though I did my best with the circumstances I was in." He sighs. "Those last few days were stressful, and awful, but I saved the other you, and before I knew what was going on…” Deku shrugs. “It was good.”

Deku looks up to find that Katsuki is blushing, and he suddenly remembers the video on his phone, practically burning a hole through his pocket. Part of him wants to show Katsuki, like passing on a burden that he's now realizing Katsuki would probably only see as a gift, but he doesn't quite think he's ready for that.

"Thank you," he says instead.

Katsuki rolls his eyes at that, pushing himself up from his desk. "I didn't do anything but tell the truth," he insists, grabbing his bag from behind his desk and tossing it over his shoulder. "Now, come on. Let's go home."

He pulls Deku close, a quick hug from the side, and he sighs, feeling all the exhaustion he's been ignoring seeping in. There are still so many things he's worried about, still so much he wishes he knew, but this has helped. When Katsuki sweeps him from the room, flicking off the light and locking the door behind them, Deku doesn't feel that mounting dread anymore, or the crushing weight of regret. Besides, now Katsuki's here beside him, helping him along.

Really, that's more than he could have ever asked for.