Chapter Text
A distant beeping keeps worming its way into Katsuki’s thoughts.
He’s caught in that strange no-man’s-land between sleep and waking, drifting through an abstract fog that threatens to pull him under.
His entire body feels heavy and uncooperative, every limb weighed down, and his breathing sluggish. His neck burns in a dull, aggravating way, but it is the sort of pain he files into the ‘ignore it’ category. What matters more is the slow, tingling heat running down his spine, pooling at the base of his skull. It spreads like an anesthetic, warm enough to soothe, thick enough to smother the intense stab of panic starting to gather in his chest.
Where the hell am I?
His fingers twitch first. Nails drag against stiff fabric beneath them, scratchy and unforgiving. The texture registers as foreign, wrong, and his lip curls in irritation before his brain catches up.
His mouth is painfully dry, his tongue sticking to the roof of it, lips cracked and parting around shallow, rasping breaths. It’s humiliating, being reduced to such sluggish movements. He doesn’t know where he is, but instinct, honed from too many close calls, tells him it isn’t anywhere good.
Villains, maybe. It’s happened before when he wakes up half-drugged, restrained, while some self-important bastard monologued about saving the world or reshaping society or whatever other bullshit filled their fragile egos. Same speech, different idiot. Katsuki’s jaw tightens, unseen, as he wills his body to move faster, to shake off the lethargy so that if it is another villain, he can blast their smug ass into the floor before they finish their little sermon. Then he can go home and forget this ever happened.
But as consciousness closes in, so does a prickling awareness crawling along his skin. Hero work taught him that sixth sense, the uncanny ability to tell when eyes are on him. He feels it now, the way the hairs on his arms lift, the way unease worms deeper beneath the fog.
Someone is watching.
“Hey, can you hear me?” A whisper cuts through, followed by the squeak of rubber soles.
Hospital, then.
His lip drags dryly against his teeth as he tries to lick them, but his tongue is limp and useless. The effort to answer annoys him even more. What kind of asshole managed to get the drop on him this time?
Voices multiply, footsteps approach him. Someone calls for a nurse. The sounds are unmistakable.
He’s definitely in a hospital.
And, of course, if it’s a hospital, then that means someone must’ve dragged his sorry ass here. Tch, typical. Whatever sidekick got their first probably couldn’t stand seeing him hurt without spiraling into a fit of panic. Either that, or something really bad had gone down, and Katsuki just couldn’t piece it together yet. His thoughts snag uselessly on the edges of memory, trying to reach for what came before, but everything is blurred, broken, slipping through his grip. A low growl rattles in his chest at the thought.
At the very least, the others better have ganked whatever villain landed him here. Hell, while Katsuki was dreaming big, maybe the extras back at the agency would resist the urge to roast him alive for swearing that he didn’t need backup.
“You copy that, extras?”
“Yes, hero Dynamight. We heard you the first time. No backup.”
The echo of their amused tone slithers back into his mind, sharp enough to spark another pulse of irritation. He had rolled his eyes then. He still wants to now.
But beneath the annoyance, there’s a nagging itch under his skin, an unsettled edge to the silence between the beeps. He can’t place it, but it sits wrong. There are too many gaps in his memory and too many eyes on him. It isn’t until someone takes his hand that he finally forces his eyes open, tearing them wide with violent conviction, as if daring the world to prove him right.
As the blurred edges of reality sharpen and the room around him begins to take shape, it becomes readily apparent that the creep holding his hand is refusing to let go.
“Kacchan,” the person says, awed and a little shocked, “thank goodness.”
He recognizes the tone and the underlying mixture of fear and relief, but it’s off somehow; it’s not making sense. The voice is familiar, squeaky, and watery with worry, like they’ve been crying. That alone would clue him in, but it’s the stupid nickname that really does the trick. Katsuki almost has half a mind to pretend to fall back asleep so he won’t have to see Deku’s dumb face.
He blinks a couple of times, letting his field of vision sharpen and narrow on the figure beside him.
He takes in the person’s features in pieces, letting them fall into place, and sure enough, there’s the same green, ruffled hair and wide eyes.
“D’ku,” Katsuki croaks, annoyed with the sluggishness of his thoughts, then by the raspy sound of his own voice, “fuck’s goin’ on?”
A gaggle of people in hospital greens and blues poke and prod at him for a minute, asking him the usual mandatory questions, which he rebuffs with practiced ease, hoping they’ll buzz off and go bother someone else. One of the nurses smiles at him and assures him the doctor will be in to see him soon.
Katsuki doesn’t say much; the less he says to these people, the better.
“Thank goodness," Izuku repeats, his voice wavering a bit. He pulls his chair right up to the side of Katsuki’s bed and rests his arms on the guardrails, leaning over and getting right up in his business. Personal space, he wants to screech and hiss, because Deku never could seem to get it through his thick head that Katsuki never in the history of ever wants to be touched by him. But then Izuku’s fingers make their way to Katsuki’s hair, and it’s too much.
“What the hell are you doing?” Katsuki snarls, trying his damndest to sit up in bed and shake off the touch.
He needs to investigate himself, apparently, since he’s still not sure what the hell is going on, why Deku suddenly grew some balls overnight and thought he could just touch him, and he really wants to get out of the hospital, like, now. Izuku’s expression goes all sad-face and mopey, and Katsuki can’t fight the annoyed growl that makes its way up his throat. “The fuck is wrong with you, huh? Tell the others they'd better have caught the asshole villain who did this, or so help me.”
Izuku was giving him a really strange look; his skin went pale, his eyes went wide like a cartoon character blinking in the dark, and he retracted his hand.
“What?” Izuku asks, more of a breath than a whisper. “What did you say?”
Growing more and more irritated by the second, Katsuki narrows his eyes. “Why are you like this? No, before you start mumbling, tell me what the fuck I’m doing in a hospital. Where's Eijiro? Did he make it out?”
“He’s here,” Izuku says, tentatively, leaning back in his chair. “He should be here in a few minutes, I think.”
“Let’s fucking hope he’s not as cryptic as you are,” Katsuki snaps, feeling angrier than he probably should. He squeezes his eyes tight against the setting sun beaming through the unshaded window, wishing the steadily growing pain throbbing in his skull would stop. It’s kind of amazing that he didn’t notice it before, that he didn’t wake with the sharp pulse of pain drumming against the right side of his head.
He lifts a hand on instinct, feeling for the most painful spot on his head that he can palpate with weak, ungainly effort. His body is strangely uncooperative.
Izuku looks like someone slapped him across the face. He recoils at the bite of Katsuki’s words, folding in on himself and biting his lip. Stupid idiot should really know by now that nothing Katsuki says is personal anymore, but come on; Izuku is just sitting there like a useless rag doll and not exactly contributing in any meaningful way.
Then Eijiro walks in with heavy, thunderous steps. His eyes are a bit wild, and his hair is much shorter than Katsuki remembers it. Maybe he finally cut it so it looked less like troll’s hair when he spiked it up. Wait, how long has it been?
Katsuki glares at him. “If I hear you say ‘I told you so,’ I’m gonna blast your face clean off, got it?”
Eijiro pauses, but barely longer than a few seconds. He exchanges a wary glance with Izuku, then starts in with the same crap the nurses were trying to pull. He’s poking and prodding and checking Katsuki’s vitals like any of it really matters, like he’s actually playing doctor rather than trying to bust him out, worrying over him and some crap. He’s fine.
“How are you feeling?” Eijiro asks, pulling up a chair and sitting beside the bed. He’s staring intently at Katsuki’s head, right at the spot where it hurts the most, and it’s starting to make him feel self-conscious.
And angry. Mostly angry.
“How am I–? Oh, for fucksake! Can I just go? I’ve had a helluva day, my head is killing me, and it’s bad enough that Izuku is acting weirder than usual,” Katsuki says, gesturing in the nerd’s direction. The movement sends another jolt of pain through his skull. Katsuki hisses and clutches at the sides of his head, groaning at the sudden wave of nausea crawling up his throat. Fuck.
“You’re not going anywhere. You had a pretty nasty fall, and quite frankly, you’re lucky it wasn’t as bad as it could have been,” Eijiro insists, scooting closer and flashing a stupid light in eyes. Then his massive hands are all over Katsuki’s head, and that’s fucking it.
He shoves Eijiro away, protecting his weakened bubble. He’s alarmed at how clumsy he feels, how dizzy and violently ill he’s sure he’s about to be.
“Take it easy, okay?” Eijiro scolds, holding his hands up in defense. “You woke up, and that’s huge. Big victory today, but you’re kind of talking nonsense, and we gotta make sure you’re going to be alright in the long run. You need to stay calm so we can check you out, got it?”
Eijiro keeps his dumb, worried eyes trained on Katsuki’s, waiting for a reply or the chance to sniff out a lie. When he doesn’t get one, he repeats, “Got it?”
“Whatever,” Katsuki dismisses with a pout, falling back into his hospital bed. He opts for pretending he didn’t hear that waking up wasn’t something they thought he was going to do.
He’s probably injured a lot worse than he realized, especially if the lightning strikes bolting around in his brain and the annoying, wounded puppy dog eyes on Izuku’s face are anything to go by. Shit. Maybe that’s why they haven't done anything to help. Maybe Katsuki’s got something not even a healing quirk can fix.
That’s pretty fucking unsettling.
“Okay. What’s the last thing you remember?” Eijiro asks, pulling a clipboard into his lap and clicking the heel of the pen.
And this is where Katsuki feels like his brain is about to explode.
He blinked hard, once, then again, trying to clear the blur from his vision. How did he not notice the weird clothes Eijiro was wearing? The faint click of a pen registered in his ears, louder than it should have been, cutting straight through the cotton packed in his head. When his eyes finally focused, he found Eijiro still sitting there with a clipboard balanced on his knee. An actual clipboard. His thick fingers curled around it like he had done this a thousand times before, like it was practiced.
Something about that made Katsuki’s skin crawl.
“What the hell are you doing?” Katsuki rasps. He jabs a finger at Eijiro’s chest, sneering to cover the unease already creeping into his gut. “What’s with the costume? What are you, roleplaying? Gonna take my blood pressure and make me piss in a damn cup next, shitty hair?”
Eijiro didn’t so much as flinch. He didn’t laugh, roll his eyes, or crack one of his usual dumb grins that always softened Katsuki’s edges. He only sat there, calm and steady, pen still poised, gaze quietly assessing.
“Not a costume,” Eijiro says at last. “Just part of the job.”
The words didn’t make sense. They landed in Katsuki’s ears like static, and he let out a humorless laugh, more bark than amusement. “Job? Your job is taking down villains with me, protecting people, not…this.” His eyes darted over the scrubs, up to the close-cropped hair that looked wrong on him, then back to the clipboard.
Every detail screamed at Katsuki that something wasn’t right, but his brain refused to line up the pieces.
Eijiro didn’t argue. He didn’t even look thrown. Instead, he shifted, lifting a small plastic badge from his waistband, angling it toward the light. The glossy surface reflected in Katsuki’s eyes, the name printed in neat, black letters beneath the photo.
Dr. Eijiro Kirishima.
For a second, Katsuki legitimately forgot how to breathe.
The world seemed to tilt sideways, the fluorescent lights above him buzzing too loudly and brightly. He shook his head hard, instantly regretting it when pain shot through his skull and left him groaning.
“No. No, this is—this is bullshit.” He ground the words out through clenched teeth, glaring up at Eijiro like he could will him back into place, back into the role Katsuki knew he belonged in. “You’re a hero. You’re fucking Red Riot. Don’t screw with me, Ei.”
Izuku shifted closer at the edge of his vision, face pale, eyes heavy with worry. Katsuki felt it before he saw it, that unbearable weight of their concern pressing against him like a hand to the throat. He couldn’t stand it.
“Don’t you start, Deku,” he snaps, louder than he meant to be. “I don’t know what kind of fucking joke you two think this is, but I’m not laughing.”
Eijiro doesn’t move. His expression softened in a way Katsuki hated, that quiet brand of concern that didn’t lash back or give him the fight he needed to ground himself. “Katsuki,” he says carefully, like he was handling glass. “Listen. You hit your head harder than you realize, so things might feel confusing at first. That’s totally normal. But you need to work with us so we can help you.”
That tone. That fucking tone. It was professional in a way Eijiro’s voice has never been. Where was the booming encouragement, the rough laughter, the dumb declarations about manliness? Katsuki searches for it, desperate, but there’s nothing. There’s only the pen in his hand, the clipboard, and the ugly scrubs.
The steady monitor beside him picked up his quickening breaths, the beeps sharp and insistent. He hated the sound. Hated the way it betrayed him. And he hated their faces most of all. Izuku’s eyes were wide and wet, Eijiro’s steady and searching. Worrying about him like he was fragile, like he might break if they looked away. His hands clenched in the sheets, nails digging deep into the stiff fabric.
He swallowed down the bile crawling up his throat and forced his glare sharper, as if it could cut through the wrongness pressing in from all sides.
Something was off. Really off. He could feel it, simmering under his skin, gnawing at the edges of his mind.
Think, think! Play along. Maybe they’re trying to tell me something…
“Let’s try again,” Eijiro continues calmly after jotting a few things down. “Tell me what you remember.”
“Not much,” Katsuki admits begrudgingly, crossing his arms. “The villain came out of nowhere and got the drop on me while I was in the air. Everything went black, and then I woke up here in this shitty room. Happy?”
“Villain?” Izuku squeaks, eyes widening. “Were you thinking of a video game? I didn’t think you liked–”
Katsuki shook his head, pinching the bridge of his nose with a deep sigh. “No, you fucking idiot. Villain, as in the assholes with annoying quirks who we take down every damn day? Give me a break,” he groans, turning to Eijiro. He expects to find a knowing look on his best friend’s face, some kind of acknowledgement that yeah, Izuku is being a real pain in the ass, but that’s not what he gets.
Eijiro is staring at him just as dumbfounded as Izuku is, taking little notes on his board with that irritating chicken scratch sound that’s pissing Katsuki off.
When no one says anything, when the silence and awkward glances become too much, Katsuki scowls. “What?”
“You fell off the roof, babe,” Izuku tells him, cautious. “You don’t remember? I wasn’t…I wasn’t paying attention, and you slipped and fell. You hit your head so hard, and you wouldn’t wake up,” he explains in quiet detail, tearing up and wiping away the heavy drops that spill.
“What fucking roof?” Katsuki challenges, then, “Did you just call me babe?!”
Izuku’s chin trembles. There’s a long, uncomfortable pause while Izuku tries to keep himself from outright sobbing, but it doesn’t quite work. He rises from his chair, clumsily patting at his jacket as if looking for something, then heads toward the door. He trips a bit over his own shoes and hitched breath, whimpering and mewling like some kind of kicked kitten, then closes the door behind himself.
“What the fuck is going on, Ei?” Katsuki hates the way his voice breaks a little.
“Katsuki,” Eijiro snaps, and the mood of the room changes to something dark and sour.
There’s a quick flash of blue, a bright light that strips away everything for a bleak second before returning to normal. The room reanimates with a flash, and Eijiro is still sitting there staring with anger and concern on his face. Did his friend really not just notice the way the world literally blipped in and out of existence? Surely he’s not that dense.
“Did you see that?” Katsuki counts his fingers to make sure he’s real and not going crazy. “What the hell was that?”
“You have what’s known as a traumatic brain injury. You hit your head quite hard, and you’ve been unconscious for a couple of days. This is why I need you to stay calm. You’re saying some things that are really concerning, and we need to get your brain checked out. You’re confused, and that’s normal, but your memory seems to be…” he pauses, searching his brain for the right word while he rubs his chin, “…off.”
That turns out to be the understatement of the fucking year.
Katsuki spends the entire rest of the day undergoing a parade of pointless tests. Eyes tracking a finger, light blinding his pupils, questions repeated until his patience frayed. He mouths off when he can get away with it, and sometimes even when he can’t, because fuck all of them for thinking a knock on the head will make him roll over and play nice. If they want him docile, they’ll have to sedate him, and even then, he’ll find a way to claw his way out.
He’s lost count of how many times he’s been stuck in a hospital bed since his career began. Broken bones, burns, smoke inhalation, concussions, the list runs too long to tally.
Still, every time, the walls press in on him the same way. The fluorescent lights hum too loudly, the sterile air burns the back of his throat, the nauseating smell of antiseptic digs into old scars he keeps buried deep.
He hates hospitals. He’s always hated them.
After the war against All For One, the hatred rooted itself in something uglier and heavier. Lying half-dead in the ICU, fighting against a body that refused to stay alive, his parents stood stiff at the foot of his bed, refusing to weep while machines did the work of his lungs. They knew he was a fighter. Hell, he practically came out of the womb glaring and mad, but having his own heart stop was no walk in the park. He’ll never forget that helplessness, the awareness of how close he came to slipping out of the world entirely. The guilt was worse. It’s taken him this many years and then some to grapple with the fact that because of him, a pro hero had to sacrifice their life.
It was a bitter pill to swallow. Years down the road, he can’t say it’s gotten any better.
Now, sitting here alone, he has to remind himself that he’s fine. His heart is still beating. His lungs still pull in air, uneven but steady. His friends are alive, as far as he knows.
He repeats it like a mantra in the silence of his room.
I’m fine. They’re fine. Everything is fine.
Speaking of friends…
Izuku and Eijiro both slipped out after his last outburst. Maybe they finally got the message. Katsuki wants to be left alone, wants the weight of their pitying eyes off his chest, and he certainly didn’t want to see that worry on their faces again, not when he had no idea what was going on.
He waits, listening for footsteps outside the door, the squeak of rubber soles on polished linoleum, the click of a clipboard.
Nothing comes.
At last, with the silence stretching thin, Katsuki lets his attention settle inward.
His palms itch, his nerves buzz, and that familiar tension is coiled tight in his chest, waiting for release. He needs the reassurance, the solid truth of it, just a small pop, the faint crack of nitroglycerin against his skin, and he’ll know that he’s still himself. He curls his fingers into fists. Focuses on the heat pooling low in his gut, on the electric thrill that should shoot through his veins, on the weight of years spent honing the explosions into something as natural as breathing.
Katsuki waits until the silence stretches thin, until he was sure no one would come barging through the door.
Finally, he let himself focus on his quirk.
Nothing.
A sudden prickle of unease lances through his chest. He pushes harder, gritting his teeth until his jaw aches, summoning every memory of fire and recoil. He imagines the sting of sweat mixing with nitro, the flash of light, the roar of heat.
Nothing.
The air seems to thin, the sterile walls press in closer, suffocating. Cold sweat slides down the back of his neck. He tries again, frantic now, slamming his hands against the sheets, waiting for the bite of ignition, for the floor to tremble under him.
His chest rises and falls with each failure. His heartbeat thunders in his ears.
Still nothing.
The monitor beside his bed shrieks with his rising panic, the steady beeps climbing into a frantic rhythm. He rips the wires from his chest, clumsy in his desperation, the adhesive tearing at his skin. He throws his legs over the side of the bed, meaning to stand, to prove to himself that he wasn’t broken or helpless.
The world tilts violently. His knees buckle, his body folds in on itself. He crashes to the floor in a tangle of sheets and cords, his shoulder slamming hard against the tile. Pain flares white-hot, but he doesn’t care. He scrambles, palms flat on the cold floor, and forces himself to try again.
“Come on,” he hisses through his teeth. “Come on, damn you.”
But the silence in his hands is deafening. There’s no smoke, not even the hint of a spark.
His breath tore ragged through his throat, shallow and useless. He slams his fists against the tile, once, twice, again, each impact more frantic than the last. The dread swelled up and swallowed him whole. For the first time since he was four years old, there was nothing in him. Nothing.
“No,” Katsuki mutters, the word breaking apart in his mouth. “No, no, no.”
The door burst open. A rush of bodies flooded the room. Hands reached for him, voices overlapped, “He’s on the floor—”
“Sir, you need to calm down—”
“We need sedation!”
“Don’t touch me!” Katsuki roars, twisting away, but his limbs felt leaden, his body weak and uncoordinated. The nurses close in, their voices sharp and commanding, but all he hears is the steady shriek of panic roaring in his own head. He pushes at them, shoving, clawing, but his movements are sluggish, pathetic. His strength bleeds out of him, leaving only panic and fury.
He tries to call his quirk again, desperate for the crackle of power in his palms, but there’s nothing but smooth skin against tile. Nothing but the raw sound of his own breathing, fast and broken.
Hands pin his shoulders down, pressing against his wrists. He thrashes, but it’s useless. He’s always been unstoppable, untouchable, explosive, and now he’s nothing more than a patient being subdued on the floor of a hospital room.
Helpless.
His chest heaves. His vision blurs at the edges, black seeping into the corners. He catches the sound of Izuku’s voice distantly in the chaos, calling his name, and Eijiro’s too, low and steady, begging him to breathe, to stop fighting, to hold on. But Katsuki can’t hear the words anymore.
All he feels is the silence where his fire should have been.
::
Katsuki wakes to the slow drag of air in his lungs, a mechanical hum somewhere close by, and the soft ache that seems to live in every inch of his body. His head feels stuffed with cotton, but his eyes snap open all the same, darting around the dim room.
Still here. Still the hospital.
The ceiling lights burn against his vision, and for a moment, he just lays there, the sheets heavy on his legs and the dull throb behind his temples reminding him of every failed test, every humiliating second of panic on the floor. He forces himself upright and leans back against the headboard. The quiet presses in, but it wasn’t comforting. It was suffocating.
Nothing made sense.
His palms itch with a phantom pain. He flexes his fingers, testing, hoping, but all that answers him is silence. His quirk, the one thing that carried him through battles, through the war, through his entire damn life, was gone.
Katsuki shakes his head violently, trying to force the thought away before it can sink its teeth into him. Don’t spiral. Not now. Not when he needs his head clear, but the hole in his chest widens all the same.
…Is this what Izuku felt like?
The thought slipped in before he could shove it down. Izuku, who had spent half his life knowing what it meant to wake up powerless, to walk into every fight with nothing but his fists and his mind. Did he feel this broken, this lost? Did he wake up and wonder if he was even himself anymore, or if some cruel bastard had stripped him down to nothing but bones and breath?
He remembered seeing Izuku lying broken after the final battle, staring at his own trembling hands as if they had betrayed him. He remembered the look in his eyes, so hollow it had nearly gutted Katsuki on the spot, and now he understood.
It was indescribable. To reach for the thing that had defined him his whole life, to beg his body for power and feel nothing but a void. To realize something inside him had been taken, ripped away without warning or mercy. Katsuki hated it. He hated it so much his hands shook. He hated that he knew even a little fraction of what Izuku had felt. He hated that it made him want to curl in on himself and never move again.
For the first time in what felt like years, Katsuki was terrified.
He felt like a teen all over again, cornered by feelings he had no weapon against. That hollow, gnawing fear in his chest reminded him of standing beside Izuku after the war, watching his rival’s world collapse. He remembered the look on Izuku’s face when the doctors told him the truth. That his quirk was gone. Permanently.
Katsuki thought he knew what despair was back then, but he had only been a witness.
The sight of Izuku’s shaking hands, the way he tried to hide the tears in his eyes, the way he smiled at everyone else so they wouldn’t hurt like he did, was easily more painful than anything he’s ever experienced. Izuku was his greatest opponent, the one person he could never shake, the reason he pushed himself until his body broke. He was the fire under his feet, the rival who kept him from slowing down, from giving in. All those years of fighting, of chasing, of biting at each other’s heels for the top, that’s was what drove him. That’s what made him want to be number one.
Then it was stolen just like that.
Katsuki could still feel the rage that had surged through him the day it happened.
No matter how much he had bullied Izuku for being quirkiness when they were kids, no matter how cruel his words had been, he never wanted this. Not for Izuku. Not ever again. Izuku was supposed to be the best of them, the one who shined the brightest. He was supposed to be there, shoulder to shoulder, fighting Katsuki until the very end for the top spot. Without him, the victory felt hollow. Without him, there was no finish line to cross.
Now, lying here in a bed with his hands refusing to spark, Katsuki felt that same weight crushing down on him again.
It was a cruel fucking irony.
The realization cracked a vital part inside of him, leaving him reeling. The fire he built his entire life on sputtered and wilted.
What was he without it? What was he if he couldn’t fight, win, or prove himself against the only opponent who ever mattered?
Maybe this was the end. Maybe there was no fire left for him either. The thought sank into him like a knife. What if he was just…done? What if there was no fight left, no reason to keep moving forward? What if, after everything, he was nothing without the explosions, nothing without his dream?
Katsuki wanted to curl up and vanish into the white noise of the machines around him.
The thought terrified him.
But then, that old and stubborn side of him reared its head. That sharp, ugly thing that had carried him through a childhood of regret. Anger. His oldest companion.
It wrapped itself around his heart like armor, burning away the edges of despair before it could consume him whole. His hands still trembled, his eyes still stung, but the fear twisted into something he could wield. Rage was reliable. Rage didn’t leave him. Rage would never abandon him. He clung to it, let it spread through his veins until it burned hotter than the fear, hotter than the grief.
“Fuck this,” he mutters under his breath.
So his quirk isn’t working. So fucking what? He was still Katsuki Bakugo. Quirk or no quirk, broken or whole, he wasn’t not going to give up here. He wasn’t going to disappear. He was going to drag himself out of this pit even if it killed him, and he was going to find the bastard who did this. If that villain thought they could strip him of everything, they forgot who the hell he was.
If they thought Izuku losing his quirk was the end, if they thought taking his meant the same, they were all dead wrong.
Katsuki was not going to crumble. He refused.
But refusing didn’t mean he understood a damn thing. He didn’t know what Eijiro was getting at, didn’t know why everyone looked at him with that strange, measured caution, like they were waiting for him to slip. It felt like they were playing some game he never got told the rules to.
Fine. Let them. Katsuki’s been dropped into worse scenarios before and learned to claw his way out. He’s assumed roles faster than this, adapted under pressure, and if this was another battlefield, then he would treat it like one. He would follow suit, observe, and play along until he had the lay of the land. Because if he wanted to make it out of this hospital in one piece with his sanity still intact, he couldn’t afford to move blind.
He’s getting the sense, though, that this meant the villain who did this to him was still out there. There’s very little that Katsuki hates more than losing, but wearing a hospital gown while going through medical tests like a hamster on a wheel is one of them.
Whenever he’s allowed to finally leave, he’ll have to go back and finish this himself.
With…backup this time, though.
Katsuki got a complete diagnosis by the late evening. He had a mild brain injury, which they labeled as post-concussion syndrome. Memory loss, nausea, irritability, and confusion; the list of symptoms seemed endless, as much as it was pointless. He’s got a headache the size of Mount Everest, and he just wants to get back to his home and sleep it off. He doesn’t understand why something as simple as a brain bruise is too much to heal, and doesn’t get why Izuku was acting all weird and crying a few hours earlier. Maybe there’s still something they’re not telling him.
Except Eijiro and his “team” keep throwing around words like therapy and recovery and brain damage, treating him like some kind of invalid who’s going to need long-term care.
Izuku wisely stays out of the way, choosing to sit in the waiting room until Katsuki was given the green light to go home. That part was kind of confusing, too; he’s spent plenty of time in emergency rooms and had more damage to his head than he cares to admit, so he’s pretty sure it’s hospital protocol to keep patients under close watch after something like this.
None of it seems right, actually. The testing went by too quickly, everyone listened to Eijiro like he was an actual employee of the hospital, and now they’re letting him go home soon, even though he was apparently unconscious for more than 48 hours and only woke up earlier today.
Suspicious, but not enough to stop him from leaving when they hand him the discharge papers.
::
It’s not until they pass the first road sign that Katsuki starts to realize something is up.
Jaku is not the name of a city he’s familiar with. He’s heard of it, he thinks, but he can’t pinpoint where exactly it is, and he knows for sure it’s not where he remembers being last. The villain had been hiding in a row of dilapidated buildings on the outskirts of Hosu City. But they weren’t in the city where the attack had happened.
They’re not in Jaku either. That’s where the hospital was he had been in, and they’re heading west towards…somewhere else. They’re surrounded by nothing but vast fields of absolutely fucking nothing and spotted cows and horses that don’t mind traffic. Not a skyscraper or suburb in sight.
Eijiro was driving them all in a piece of shit silver car that made Katsuki’s skin crawl.
He doesn’t know where they’re going, but Eijiro assured him repeatedly that everything was okay back home. Another word that hasn’t made much sense since Katsuki woke up.
There was no need for code words anymore, no need for secrecy or convoluted conversations that leave him feeling like he’s missing a pretty damn big piece of the puzzle.
He thought all the weirdness and inconsistency were due to Eijiro’s poor acting skills, but every minute they spend in the car without clarification only seems to redouble the oddness of the situation. Katsuki remembers the last time they had to endure the folly of someone who liked to play make-believe, and Eijiro had been slapped in the face and whammied in the balls for his efforts. Eijiro can make anyone feel comfortable and open them up like a weathered book, a useful tool when they were dealing with civilians, but throw a trickster into the mix, and Eijiro can’t act to save his own life.
Even weirder, Izuku was crying like a war widow in the back seat.
It’s the single most annoying thing that he’s ever heard, which is fairly amazing considering the crazy number of times he’s had to get used to it. Honestly, he’d take the sound of some old lady yapping in his ear about her lost cat over the sound of Izuku crying any day.
He’s always hated the sound…
“Can you take it down a notch, Deku?” Katsuki finally snaps, scraping tired fingers over his eyes. “Enough already.”
“Dude!” Eijiro squawks, his eyes bugging out of his skull.
“What?” Katsuki shouts back, his heart picking up pace, “He’s being ridiculous, look at him! He’s been weird all day, hasn’t tried to talk about how we’re gonna catch this guy, and he’s just crying like an idiot.”
“Hasn’t—what?” Eijiro stammers, gripping the steering wheel tighter until his knuckles are blanched. “Catch this guy? What does that even mean?” Eijiro was practically screaming, clearly close to his breaking point as well. He steadies himself with a deep breath, stays silent until he’s turning left on the road, then says, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I know you’re recovering from the fall and things are still confusing for you, but you’ve been treating your husband like shit from the moment you woke up. This has been hard on him too, okay? Just give him a break and let him come back from the last few days of hell he’s been through. You don’t know how worried we’ve all been.”
Katsuki’s brain finally does something it hasn’t all day: work.
“Husband?!” He shouts, whipping his head around to look back at a red-faced Izuku before dropping his eyes to his own hands.
There’s a ring on his finger that sure as hell wasn’t there before.
Right then, Katsuki actually considers throwing himself out of the car. He could probably do it with minimal damage too, and then hike his ass far, far away from here.
His head throbs and aches with a sudden rush of understanding. Katsuki’s been through this before; he remembers the strangely panicky feeling he had the first time something like this happened. Getting hit by another quirk wasn’t always the worst thing, but of course, in their happy little world where there’s about a quirk for every occasion, some weird shit happens.
Katsuki tries to think back to his time in the hospital, but everything is blurred and only comes in fragmented bits and pieces.
They were just there, weren’t they? It’s like trying to recall a dream after waking up, but the details slip and slide between faulty neurons and drift into the void, unreachable and soaked up somewhere in the grey matter. He remembers little pieces of the tests, remembers Eijiro and his dumb scrubs, and the wounded look on Izuku’s face. He doesn’t remember the spaces in between and doesn't remember anything but the highlights.
“Fuck,” Katsuki mutters, holding his head in his hands.
Everything hurts. Each beat of his heart sends another round of raw, vibrating pain up his spine and through each one of his aching bones.
The villain must have hit him with whatever freakazoid quirk he had.
It’s so obvious now, so blatantly clear that Katsuki doesn’t know how the hell he missed it. Even his last memory was of being attacked and blinded with light, how did that particular tidbit escape his notice? Why didn’t he see the strange anomalies for what they were?
Except this time, it’s all wrong. Must be some kind of special nightmare quirk that sends people into their darkest infernos. Of course, this would be no match for all the shit he’s already had to live through, so naturally, it sends him into the second-worst thing he could think of.
Married to Deku, out in the middle of bumfuck nowhere, sitting in a stupid car.
With cows. Lots and lots of disgusting cows shitting all over themselves and just begging to be tipped.
This is hell. I’m in hell.
“Seriously, dude, he was at your bedside the entire time, worrying!” Eijiro says from the driver’s seat, his voice chipper as if they aren’t barreling into Katsuki’s worst-case scenario. “Go easy on him at least, will you? He loves you.”
“Loves me,” Katsuki repeats with a derisive scoff, dragging a hand over his face.
The words taste like battery acid.
Eijiro turns them down an isolated dirt road just beyond the sorry little town they passed through, bouncing them along every pothole. Katsuki winces as another wave of pain spears up his ribs. His whole body feels wrong, brittle, like glass about to splinter.
“Oh fuck,” he moans, leaning his head back against the seat. He can’t believe this shit is actually happening. He knows what it means. Knows his body is probably lying in some half-collapsed building back in the real world, while his agency is probably losing their collective minds because he’s not picking up comms.
Hosu City. That’s where he was. Charging in alone like an idiot. He remembers now.
Which only makes him feel even more deranged.
Because there is not a single universe, timeline, or freak quirk-induced fever dream where Katsuki Bakugo would willingly live in the countryside like some hillbilly farmer. He’d rather set himself on fire and roast marshmallows off the flames.
And cows? Cows. Out of all the twisted nightmare fuel this villain could have conjured, it picked cows.
Katsuki mocks himself using his best bitch-faced Eijiro impression, frustrated. “Are you sure you don’t need backup, bro? Bro, you remember what happened last time, bro? Blah blah frickety blah. Yeah, who’s laughing now? Fuck!”
He slams his hand against the window.
Eijiro and Izuku both go quiet, watching him warily like they’re not sure whether he’s about to spontaneously combust.
“Don’t worry,” Katsuki snipes, glaring at them both. “You’re just a figment of this quirk-induced imagination. Not like either of you have real feelings to hurt.”
Izuku continues to cry. Eijiro continues to glare.
In fact, neither of them has anything else to say for the final five minutes of their drive.
Katsuki does kind of feel like a dick, but he’s more furious and embarrassed than remorseful. He doesn’t know how he could have been so stupid to completely ignore the signs, especially since this isn’t his first time being bent over a table by a villain. He needs to figure out where he is, needs to drive back to the city, and kill the son of a bitch so he can wake up and return everything to normal.
No, wait. That’s not right, is it? How is he supposed to find the villain in this fake world?
Katsuki desperately searches his brain for the answer, does everything he can to delve into the forgotten parts of his memory to find the missing piece, but it’s not there. Don’t most quirks only last a few days? So he just has to wait this shit out, right? Not unless he dies here first—
A violent flash of blue, bright and blinding, then nothing. He forgets what he was thinking about, forgets about Hosu and the villain altogether.
After that, he doesn’t notice when other things begin to go missing, too.
Katsuki shakes his head and rattles it like an empty can, confused and feeling sick to his stomach. He knows there had been something on the tip of his tongue, something he was about to do or say or think, but it’s gone. His head throbs for the umpteenth time, and he just wants to sleep. Screw this day.
They pull up in front of a battered yellow house trimmed with dirty, dusty white siding.
It’s just outside the little town he didn’t catch the name of, alone and guarded by thick lines of leafy trees and a neglected fence he could scale in one easy leap. It’s two stories, has a large bay window jutting out from the right, and is plopped down on enough land that he could probably dig a pool in the yard.
Katsuki’s not really sure where those strange thoughts came from, so he ignores them for now.
Eijiro helps him out of the car, being slow, careful, and generous with his time. Katsuki wants to shove him away again, but something nags him in the back of his mind not to do so. He knows this Eijiro isn’t real, knows this is all some kind of dream or nightmare or hallucination, but it’s still his friend, and Katsuki’s never really had it in him to be cruel to the guy.
Izuku, on the other hand, was just a friend, a pretty reliable one at that. But not like this. Maybe if he’s mean enough to this one too, the real one will pop by for a visit and take them both back into reality. Deku’s determined. He could probably do it.
There’s an extended ladder leaned up against the side of the house and a toolbox left on the roof. Katsuki stops to analyze them, feeling angry about their existence, realizing how thorough and elaborate this made-up reality can be.
“See?” Izuku carefully edges closer to Katsuki than he dared to be in the last hour. “That’s where you fell.”
Katsuki just huffs and darts an annoyed glare in Izuku’s direction.
The inside of the house is much more beautiful and well-kept. He’s greeted with dark hardwood floors and light blue paint, stainless steel appliances and limestone countertops, and there’s even a flat screen television in the living room mounted on the wall in front of an enormous leather couch.
As much as Katsuki wants to seethe and rage over the details added to make this false world seem so realistic, he finds himself helplessly staring at all the pictures hung on the walls and perched perfectly along every surface.
They’re all of Katsuki and Izuku. Kissing. Holding hands. Getting married. Holding someone’s goddamn baby and smiling at the camera. On vacation. Kissing some more.
So many pictures, each different and yet all so much the same. Different times, different locations, but so much love and endearment in each one. The pictures tell an elaborate story of love and commitment and happiness, things Katsuki doesn’t know a damn thing about, doesn’t remember.
“You were so happy when Meika was born,” Izuku tries, letting a small smile creep over his face. “After Eijiro swaddled her up, he let you hold her first. I don’t think I’ve ever seen you so happy.”
What. The. Fuck.
Katsuki ignores him and reaches out to trail a finger over the frame, the one surrounding the picture of him holding a fresh little baby with Izuku looking down over Katsuki’s shoulder. It’s simple, sweet, and sends a strange pang of guilt, sadness, and heartache through his chest. It wraps around his heart and squeezes tight, and this time when the world flashes blue, he doesn’t notice.
“Meika,” Katsuki says, the name sitting heavy on his tongue. Something about it makes him feel a sense of loss. He knows without asking that the little girl in the picture is gone. “She’s dead?”
Behind him, Eijiro sighs. It’s heavy and long from practice, a well-worn reaction to the question he’s undoubtedly heard too many times. “Her heart failed.”
A rush of new memories swarms him and clouds his vision. Katsuki has to take a step back and rub at his eyes, blinking away the sudden fog creeping around his periphery. The single memory of Meika’s death triggers a rush of synapses that alight and flood his brain with more, a domino effect of people and places and things he knows must be false. They have to be.
Meika’s birth, death, and funeral. The flowers he placed by her headstone every year. Mina’s refusal to have more children. The year Eijiro took off work to recover.
Katsuki remembers them like they really happened, remembers the way each moment made him feel, the way things sounded and tasted and smelled. He had brushed away the tears on his husband’s face with the pad of his thumb when Izuku couldn’t decide between lilies or orchids on the first anniversary of Meika’s death. Katsuki had held his best friend for an eternity while Eijiro cried in the lobby of the hospital, blaming himself for not being able to save her.
Katsuki had cried too, so much more than he dared in front of his family or friends, curled up on the couch as he tried hard not to forget what it felt like to hold his friend's baby in his arms.
“I remember,” he says roughly, unable to refute the new memories blooming over the old ones. He knows this world is fake, knows that the sharp twinge in his heart is a mere symptom of the quirk messing with his head, but he can’t ignore how real it all feels either, how right.
“You do?” Izuku asks, hope trickling in over the weakness of his vocal cords. “Eijiro said being around familiar things would help.”
“Yeah, man,” Eijiro agrees, patting Katsuki on the back. “They let me take you home because I’m a doctor and all, but you still have a long way to go.”
Katsuki’s traitorous heart jackrabbits in his ribs. Something is scratching just beneath the surface, something relentless and nagging and so damn insistent that he can’t ignore it.
He needs to get out of here as quickly as he can. He’s got to leave and go back to…to…
Wherever he’s supposed to be, it’s sure as hell not here. He has to find a way out of this nightmare before he gets lost in it.
“No,” Katsuki argues, but there’s no conviction behind it.
He’s not even sure what he’s denying, not sure what it is he doesn’t want to happen, but the fear and panic are swelling so rapidly that he thinks he’s going to burst. He searches his mind for the third time and comes up empty-handed. Fuck, he doesn’t know what to do, doesn’t know where he’s supposed to go, can hardly distinguish between which memories are real and which ones are just in his head.
“Just think about it logically,” Eijiro says, guiding him toward the dining table to sit down. Izuku brings him a glass of water from the kitchen, and they sit on either side of him like bars around a cell. He’s trapped, caged like an animal between two imaginary people, and there’s nothing he can do about it. “You keep saying we’re not real, and a bunch of other stuff that hasn’t made any sense, but look, you remember Meika, right? Don’t you think it’s possible that if you try hard enough, you’ll remember other things too?”
Katsuki looks at his friend, really looks at him, and he gets the creepy sense that it’s not actually his own mind that’s coming up with this crazy shit.
It’s like the villain is speaking to him directly, telling him to accept his fate and give the fantasy world a try.
“You’re not real,” Katsuki insists, knocking back the glass of water in one swallow before slamming it on the table. His eyes narrow. “My real friend is gonna come kick your ass, and then I’ll be back to my old self. I’ve heard of quirks like this before, and there’s no fucking way I’m letting you trick me.”
Fake Eijiro’s eyes narrow in return, black pinpoints of focus burning into Katsuki’s flesh. “We’ll see.”
The air tightens between them, making his ears ring.
Before Katsuki can comment on how goddamn disturbing that is, Izuku’s hand slides across the table and closes over his.
Katsuki flinches.
The touch is too soft and careful.
It’s the kind Izuku would never risk offering unless he wanted his head blown clean off. At least, that’s what Katsuki tells himself. The Izuku he remembers would hesitate, second-guess, and wait until Katsuki allowed it first. But then again…maybe he could. Maybe Izuku could do this because Katsuki’s changed. He remembers that much, and he’s changed the most when it comes to Izuku.
The thought claws at his chest, dragging out faint, stubborn memories that refuse to stay buried.
He remembers finishing patrol most weeks and meeting Izuku for dinner once he was done teaching, slouching into a booth together at some cheap place because it was easier than cooking after a twelve-hour shift. Izuku would smile at him, that stupid, radiant smile, and talk his ear off about how many papers he has to grade, and when the meal was over, he would hug him goodbye. At first, Katsuki would stiffen, scowling, barking out some insult about public displays of affection, but he always let Izuku linger just a second longer than he should have.
Then he would eventually lean in. Subtly, grudgingly, he let himself press closer, burying his nose in Izuku’s hair just long enough to catch the faint sweetness of his shampoo.
He let his arms slide around him, holding on, because every time he did, a wave of relief washed through him. Relief that Izuku was still here, still whole, still…his.
The one with scars carved into his arms and hands because he was a reckless idiot who never seemed to know when to stop. They were testaments to the stubborn will of a hero who never backed down, even after fate ripped his quirk away. The one whose smile stayed brighter than the sun, no matter how much blood and ruin lay at their feet. His smile gave people hope. The one who knew Katsuki better than anyone alive, who could read every twitch of his expression, every edge of his voice.
In the same sense, Katsuki knew him just as deeply.
He could close his eyes and recall the exact shape of Izuku’s laugh, the rhythm of his awful handwriting, the weight of his head when he nodded off against Katsuki’s shoulder by accident.
Then a flood of different memories surges up inside him now, replacing the bright golden light the other ones left behind, clouding them over.
Memories of the first time he held Izuku’s hand. The way his perfectly nimble fingers feel soft and smooth as he rubs out the knots in Katsuki’s back, how they smell of citrus and mint after he makes lemonade, the tingle of warmth they leave on his skin when he traces the cupid’s bow of his lips.
The undeniable happiness Katsuki felt when he slipped the ring onto his husband’s finger.
He blinks, confused and overwhelmed.
No. No.
Those last memories weren’t real. This imposter sitting across from him, touching him like he had the goddamn right, looking at him with those soft, mournful eyes. This was not his Izuku. His Izuku would never trick him like this, never play into some sick illusion, and yet, Katsuki’s throat tightens anyway. His pulse hammers in his ears as confusion and longing twist together into something unbearable.
He jerks his hand back, glaring with all the venom he can muster, trying to smother the ache rising in his chest.
“This isn’t you,” he rasps. “You’re not him.”
But even as he spits the words, his mind betrays him, whispering that maybe, just maybe, this was the closest he would ever get again.
Katsuki can’t miss what he doesn’t know is missing, can’t tell that there are gaps where there used to be images of his real life. They flit away with the subtle silence of butterfly wings, one by one, so slowly that he doesn’t realize it’s happening. Then, just as quickly, he puts up no resistance when Izuku smiles and carefully pulls him along to tour the house.
By the time it’s over, when he’s seen and touched every piece of the faded yellow house, all memories of the life he had before are gone.
His entire world has been reduced to the small nowhere town, the man guiding him carefully to bed, and the heavy gold band wrapped tightly around his finger.
There’s nothing beyond that.
::
“Yeah, I don’t think so,” Katsuki rolls his eyes, trying to hide his amusement. “Just because I have brain damage doesn’t mean you can pull one over on me that easy, you conniving little shit.”
“I swear, Kacchan!” Izuku insists, giggling, wrapping his legs around Katsuki’s. “I’m on top, you’re on bottom, that’s just how it’s always been.”
It’s been about a week, give or take a few days, and most of the world Katsuki lives in has been constructed beautifully and without flaw. His life is charmingly simple, easy to navigate, and with Izuku by his side, helping him trudge through the bits of confusion and loss, he’s made incredible leaps of progress.
They live in a small town called Hokkaido. He’s married to his high school sweetheart, has been since the month they both turned eighteen, and hasn’t had any regrets since. They moved into this disgustingly cute yellow home just outside of town after the death of Izuku’s mother, fixed it up just how they like it, and spend most of their free time fucking like a couple of rabbits.
Not since Katsuki’s head injury, though.
Izuku has been cautious to guide him through the process carefully and slowly, reintegrating him at the pace Katsuki stubbornly sets for himself.
It’s only been a day since Katsuki touched the soft knit fabric of their sheets and remembered a multitude of nights he’d spent getting fucked raw into the mattress, from their very first time on their honeymoon to the morning Katsuki had somehow fallen off the roof, when he’d cuddled up to a still-sleepy Izuku and sweet-talked his way into his husband’s pants.
Katsuki thinks he’s ready, feels ready, but even armed with the rock-solid memories of his reluctance to top, he still gets the sense that something is off about this.
Every now and again, he feels the seed of doubt grow and attempt to bloom into more, but he pushes the nagging uncertainty aside and allows his husband to reassure him of the truth. This is the first time that the seed made its way past infancy and grew roots, clenching tightly to Katsuki’s spine and sending wave after wave of panic and unease to his brain.
That’s not him, it says, though the strength of the tendrils growing upwards makes it feel more like a scream.
You don’t love this Izuku, it shouts, over and over again. This isn’t real.
“It’s just because you’re scared,” Izuku says, gently kissing Katsuki’s forehead with soft lips. “This is a big step, and we don’t have to take it yet. Whenever you’re ready.”
“So, I’ve never topped? Not even once?” Katsuki asks because he knows there's no such event in his memories. He’s already searched them once, twice, and ten more times after that to be sure.
“What can I say?” Izuku laughs sweetly, trailing languid fingers over Katsuki’s thigh. “You’re a bottom, and an enthusiastic one at that.”
“I’ll believe it when I see it,” Katsuki challenges, nipping at Izuku’s ear. He has no specific memory of doing so before, but he can tell it’s a practiced move, one he’s done many times without hesitation.
Izuku doesn’t respond to that particular jest, not exactly. He sighs, pulling Katsuki a little closer despite the lack of space between them. Katsuki can tell that Izuku isn’t pushing for something he probably isn’t ready for, but there’s a steady hum of energy flowing around them.
“Oi, nerd. You okay?” Katsuki asks, his eyebrows knitting together with concern.
Izuku has taken on a weak, humbled expression, one that makes him feel a little wary.
Did he do something wrong? Did he say something mean?
Izuku sucks in a sharp breath, squeezing his eyes shut as his fingertips dig into the sensitive flesh of Katsuki’s shoulders. He knows from experience that this is Izuku’s way of trying not to cry. He remembers with sudden clarity all the years of his husband doing the exact same thing during moments of emotional turmoil or family crisis. Izuku is warm, sweet, and sensitive, and has never had much of a wall to protect himself from the cruelty of the world.
“You came back to me,” Izuku whispers, sniffling a bit in the silence. “When you woke up and had no idea who I was, I thought I had lost you forever. I thought you’d never look at me and see me again.”
Katsuki’s heart skips a beat, just as romantic and cliché as every stupid rom-com his husband begged him to watch in the late hours of the evening before bed. He looks at Izuku with longing, with love and fright, and with such a powerful empathy that it hurts. Katsuki only vaguely recalls those early days when he first came home, even though it was barely a week ago, but he does remember all the times he left Izuku in tears when he couldn’t remember something; when he thought the final fleeting memories of his brain damage were still real.
“Not gonna leave you,” Katsuki keeps his voice as merciful and calm as he can. “I’m nothing without you, you know that? Can’t get rid of me that easily.”
Izuku laughs, and Katsuki actually smiles.
There’s a beat of silence, a moment when there’s nothing but the two of them touching and exploring and caressing, then, “I know, Kacchan, I know. I’m never letting you go.”
It sends a chill down Katsuki’s spine, one that feels more like a warning than excitement, but he pushes the unease aside and presses his lips against the softness of his lover’s, sinking deeper into the beautifully crafted life that surrounds him.