Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Katsuki wakes to a ceiling that’s all too nostalgic. The sun filters in the crack between the curtains with a gentle heat. His body isn’t sore like it should be. He can’t feel the swelling on his face or the countless bruises he gathered in the course of the battle. He stares at the ceiling and tries to figure out why the harsh fluorescents of a hospital are absent, why there’s no smell of antiseptic, why he feels tears pricking at the corners of his eyes.

He wakes to a morning in simpler times. A morning that feels more like a dream than a day. 

First of all, what the fuck.

Second of all, what the fuck?

When he was younger, he used to enjoy the warmth of the sun on his face as his eyes blinked open. When he was younger, he had a family to take care of him and fewer worries about the villains he’d have to face. When he was younger, he didn’t carry guilt heavy upon is shoulders. When he was younger, he still knew how to dream.

He’s not so young anymore. Or, rather, he shouldn’t be.

Katsuki stares upward and lifts his hand to his face. As he reaches to rub the sleep from his eyes, his fingers touch wetness. He wipes the tears away before they fall. The heat of battle drains from his system, but the cries of desperation still echo in his ears. Loudest of all is Deku—his voice raw with pain, breaking with agony. Katsuki clutches the front of his T-shirt. There is no injury, but it hurts like an open wound.

Katsuki wakes to a morning that happened more than a decade ago. It is the morning ten days before he hits the halfway mark to turning four. It is the day he gets his quirk. It is the day he starts to look down on anyone who doesn’t have one. 

The first explosion he sets of with small hands that are his once again comes out as a spark and a puff of smoke. He knows how much more powerful it will become. But for now this is the extent of his abilities. Hardly enough to defend him from a mosquito, nevermind an actual villain.

He is nearly three and a half years old but with memories from when he was a UA student. He looks down at his hands. They are small and soft. They bear no callouses from hard training and no scars from battles fought or lost. At three and a half, his palms have never been dyed red with blood. At three and a half, he has hands that haven’t hurt anyone. At three and a half, these small hands are blameless.

Katsuki goes to preschool.

There is no imposing ID-checking wall surrounding the school, but the chain link fence is tall enough. At this height, he has to go through the gate properly, stubbornly refusing to hold the hand his mother holds out for him but sticking close to the hem of her skirt nonetheless.

He realizes that while he has memories, his mind is hardly that of someone older. The sunshine easily distracts him, but without any warning, someone mentions All Might and he has to listen. 

Katsuki goes to preschool and walks straight into Deku. They collide lightly and bounce off each other. Deku stumbles slightly, but steadies himself with a smile on his face. At three and a half, they’re still friends. At three and a half, he’s never given Deku a reason to hate him.

Katsuki looks at Deku and sees green eyes that haven’t lost any of their glow. He sees a smile he long-since realized he wanted to protect. Deku grins at him without hesitation, and Katsuki feels guilt stab his chest, because he may be three and a half, but he remembers all the reasons Deku should hate him.

And Deku should hate him. (Though he never has). And Katsuki thinks that maybe, just maybe, he can give Deku the childhood he always deserved.

Katsuki realizes that he’s been given a second chance. Through someone’s quirk or some random fold in the fabric of normal space-time, he ended up back before he labelled Deku quirkless. He looks at Deku and sees someone who can still be considered a friend. Deku doesn’t bear scars that Katsuki gave him. Deku is still the Deku who dreams of being a hero and hasn’t learned he doesn’t have a quirk. He still looks at the world with innocent eyes—hasn’t yet learned just how unfair the world can be.

At lunchtime, Deku sits by him without question. Katsuki has to look around to remind himself that Deku doesn’t have Uraraka and Iida to sit with. Katsuki shows off the small puff of an explosion, which is all he can currently muster, and tries not to let it show how annoyed he is at its lack of power. He’ll be stronger someday. He clenches his jaw when Deku compliments him and tries not to think about the number of times he tried to hit Deku with his explosions in his past life. Instead of boasting about his quirk for his own sake, he promises he’ll protect people. (He’ll protect Izuku).

Katsuki looks away from the sparkling smile he gets from Deku. He sees unadulterated admiration, and there’s a knot in his stomach that tightens because of it. He has done nothing to hurt this person in front of him. Not yet. And he doesn’t want to, but he has made Deku suffer too much. Left him in the dust and only doubled back to watch him cry. Katsuki can’t count the number of scars he left or the number of times Izuku saved him, including—

that.

He can’t think about it. The memories threaten to break the walls of his skull and the back of his eyes throb.

His hands are clean now, but he remembers when crimson dripped from his fingertips.

He has caused too much pain. 

Maybe this second chance is a way for him to make up for it.

Chapter Text

Katsuki rubs his eyes angrily to keep the tears at bay. He doesn’t need to cry. Plus it looks fucking stupid if he does. Deku sees it though, and of course he has to comment because he’s that’s just who he is.

Fuck.

“Kacchan, are you okay?” he asks, hand hovering somewhere close to Katsuki’s shoulder but not quite reaching.

“I’m fine. Shut up, shitnerd!”

Deku retracts his hand quickly and takes a step back. Oh, shit. What does he do now—say sorry? Katsuki bites his lip. He can feel the tears he just wiped away threatening to return, and why the fuck does that keep happening. He has never been an easy crier. He blames it on being a little kid. That has to be the reason. He opens his mouth to respond.

“Kacchan, that’s a bad word,” Izuku says in a hushed voice.

“Huh?” Is that what he’s worried about? His fucking vocabulary? “I can say whatever the fuck I want to say.”

Izuku tries to correct him again, but Katsuki waves him off, and they go back to eating and Izuku goes back to talking about some random hero-related nonsense.

Over the next few weeks, Katsuki becomes a little more aware of his quirk and a little more acclimated to his current situation. As time passes, it starts to feel normal living in the present and not like he’s living someone else’s life. He still spaces out or almost references events that haven’t happened too many times to count. He blames the moments where he gets distracted by images of the battles they had in high school on nightmares and ignores the overly-concerned look on Izuku’s face. He doesn’t deserve Izuku’s concern anyway.

Over the next few weeks Katsuki gets a little more used to being friends. It becomes natural to flick Izuku on the forehead when he says something stupid or jab him in the ribs when he gets the too-concerned look on his face after Katsuki spaces out. Izuku doesn’t flinch away from him. He complains but doesn’t flinch. This Katsuki has never really hurt him. Katsuki has never given him a lasting scar. And Katsuki’s not sure if he’ll ever get used to reaching towards Izuku and having him not instinctively pull away.

Over the next few weeks, more of their classmates manifest their quirks. Izuku stays hopeful. Katsuki tries not to watch too closely. He tries not to listen whenever Izuku comments on his quirk. You’re so strong, Kacchan. I hope my quirk is cool like yours. Katsuki turns away and gets a little better at keeping the tears away. He still has the emotional control of a three year old. And Izuku notices every time.

The first time Katsuki goes over to Izuku’s apartment, he feels like he’s so out of place it’s not even funny. It’s somewhere he vaguely remembers from another lifetime. It feels wrong to be welcomed into it. He blames seasonal allergies for the loud sniffle he gives as he steps over the threshold and kicks off his shoes. Izuku hands him the handkerchief that he carries around with him everywhere now. Katsuki snatches it away without a thank you, but he does express his gratitude to Izuku’s mom for letting him come over.

They settle in front of the TV in the living room and watch some documentary about the rise of heroes, and Katsuki finds himself a lot more interested than he would have expected. And while he is interested in the documentary, he finds his gaze wandering to Izuku’s sparkling face. Katsuki wonders how he can look so damn happy every time he hears something about heroes.

At some point, Inko brings them a plate of snacks. So they sit on the couch, sharing a bowl of popcorn like two friends, and Katsuki tries not to think about how nice it is or how easy it would still be for him to fuck up. He tries to just sit back and watch the shitty documentary and keep himself from thinking too hard, because if he thinks too hard, he’ll have to borrow Deku’s handkerchief again. And he doesn’t want that. 

The second time Katsuki goes over to Izuku’s apartment, he feels only marginally less out-of-place. This time, they spend their time battling each other in the world of a video game. Katsuki doesn’t mind going all out in the virtual world. Or rather, his pride wouldn’t let him do anything else—even if it would probably make Deku smile if he let him win. Katsuki knows there are other ways to make him smile that don’t involve losing. So he kicks Deku’s ass in the video game and thoroughly gloats about it even after they put the controllers away.

Katsuki spends his days going to preschool and trying not to be a total dick to Izuku. His success varies day to day. Deku still pisses him off by accident just by talking too much about heroes, but he’s still left with the faint admiration from their high school years when he looked at Deku and saw someone with a wealth of knowledge to back up his shitty control of his quirk. So, Katsuki tries not to yell or curse or talk about how cool his quirk is when Izuku doesn’t have one. Since those are the three things Katsuki usually did around Deku, he sometimes finds himself quiet.

Katsuki spends his nights trying to figure out what the fuck actually happened to him. But grasping onto memories of his last lifetime is like grasping onto memories of a dream. They’re slipping away from him. He’s left with a clearly-defined sense of guilt where Deku is concerned and nightmares that slip into blackness as he wakes in the morning.

When he sees Deku during the day, he tries to forget the nightmares and the images of his face bloodied and bruised. He tries to forget the way his voice sounds when he was older and screaming in pain. Katsuki has varying success with that too. He figures Deku gets used to the way he spaces out or flinches away from empty air. He figures it’s fine that way. Deku doesn’t have to know. Deku shouldn’t have to suffer that pain again.

Chapter Text

Things even out as Katsuki gets more used to being friends—yes, he can actually think of them as friends. It becomes second nature to walk home to Izuku’s apartment instead of his own. Things are easy while classmates are still exploring new quirks or just getting them. But Katsuki watches each day pass wondering when someone will label Izuku quirkless . 

Katsuki turns four. His explosions are hardly puffs of smoke, a cheap magic trick in comparison to what he will be capable of someday. Izuku still looks at him with nothing but admiration.

Whispers in the classroom about Izuku’s lack of quirk start three months after his fourth birthday. The teacher has talked about being quirkless, mentioned those rare cases that still exist. Katsuki’s gaze finds its way to Izuku every time. He still hasn’t given up hope. Not yet. The whispers in the classroom grow louder. A few people snicker when they see Izuku walk by. Katsuki glares each one down. 

Maybe that’s why no one drags Izuku out behind the school building just to laugh at him for being less than them. Maybe that’s why Izuku doesn’t have to suffer bullies. Because this time Katsuki isn’t the bully. He stands at Izuku’s side with a threat in his eyes that no one dares to test (even a puff of smoke is enough to make most preschoolers cry).

There comes a day when Izuku stops talking about when his quirk will manifest. His face is downcast, and the glow in his green eyes is a little less. Everything from the frown on his lips to the slope of his shoulders speaks of a sullen mood.

“I’m quirkless, Kacchan.”

Katsuki’s mouth opens. 

But what can he say? He knows that Izuku will someday match him in strength. For now, for now, almost makes it past his lips, but he can’t tell Izuku. He can’t talk to Izuku about a past he will never know. Izuku endured a quirkless childhood once, without ever giving up hope.

After all, even if he’s quirkless, he can—

“—still be a hero.” He registers Izuku’s look of open-eyed surprise before he realizes what he said. When the words make it to his own ears, he swallows uncomfortably, but doesn’t take back the statement.

There’s plenty you can do just being a nerd with a bunch of notes about heroes swimming in your head. There’s plenty you can do without a flashy quirk. He has seen Izuku struggle, and he has seen him fight. A quirkless middle-schooler dashing forward when even pro-heroes wouldn’t make a move.

Katsuki takes a breath. He’s never been good at encouragement. Support has always been someone else’s job, and for good reason, but he can manage this much. 

“You’ll never be a hero if you give up.”

He meets Izuku’s look of surprise. Katsuki is hardly one to give comforting words. He feels his face redden slightly. Fuck. Izuku looks at him for a moment, before his face relaxes into a smile that’s already lost some of it’s brightness. Being quirkless is hard. And it’s only been two years since he was labelled thus. He has another eight years to go.

The next time Izuku asks him to come over—because he hasn’t been able to get even a simple invitation to play video games or watch another damn hero documentary out in the two years he’s been trying to be Izuku’s friend—he says “let’s have a sleepover!” Izuku’s eyes light up with ideas of pillow forts and staying up past his usual bedtime. Katsuki says “yes” before he thinks about it—before he remembers he wakes up in cold sweat almost every night. He is in a nearly six year old body, and he carries memories of someone more than twice his current age. He says yes , and he can’t take it back, not when Izuku looks at him with such a pure happiness on his face.

So Katsuki grits his teeth and decides that he’ll try to stay up the whole night so he doesn’t have nightmares he has to recover from. When he comes over to Izuku’s apartment, it’s like the other times. They play outside. But Izuku scrapes his knee, and Katsuki laughs at him until he sees tears form in Izuku’s eyes and shit don’t cry . He drags Izuku back inside and makes sure he puts a bandaid on it, even though it’s barely bleeding. Then they play video games until Katsuki finally tires of kicking Izuku’s ass in a racing game and beating his character to a pulp in another. Then Izuku’s mother is there urging them to get some sleep.

They stand next to each other at the bathroom sink to brush their teeth. Katsuki accidentally elbows Izuku twice. The first time, all Izuku does is shift away slightly, but the second he steps away more dramatically.

“Kacchan, that tickles,” he complains, voice muffled because of the toothbrush in his mouth. 

There’s a dribble of toothpaste at the corner of his mouth that irks Katsuki slightly, but he’s more focused on something else. He spits into the sink and wipes his mouth on the nearest towel.

“You’re ticklish?”

Izuku steps back. “No.”

Katsuki eyes him for a moment before lunging. “You’re ticklish aren’t you, you fucking nerd? Deku, don’t lie to me!”

Izuku doesn’t react fast enough, and they end up on the tile floor. Izuku is most definitely ticklish, Katsuki learns. Very.

Inko pokes her head in to see what on earth all the squealing is about when all they were supposed to be doing is brushing their teeth. She opens the bathroom door to find Izuku curled up with tears of laughter in his eyes and Katsuki with a victorious smirk on his face. Her eyebrows raise in worry until Izuku sits up still holding back giggles.

“Don’t do that,” Izuku wheezes.

“No promises,” Katsuki answers.

Inko sends them to bed after that. Katsuki is slightly astounded but not really surprised to find that Izuku owns no less than three sets of All Might pajamas. Izuku’s room is also decked in various hero posters, most of which are also All Might.

They settle into Izuku’s bed, which is easily big enough for two six year olds. Izuku falls asleep quickly, but Katsuki keeps his eyes open and stares at the ceiling. If he stays awake, he won’t have nightmares.

Chapter Text

At six years old it’s difficult to stay awake for an entire night. At six years old, he finds his eyes heavy with fatigue before the clock on Izuku’s bedside table reads midnight. At six years old, it’s impossible to keep the nightmares away.

They come like they always do–shadows seeping into happier dreams. He dreams of simple things first. He dreams of beating up villains or standing on top of the world with a crowd cheering for him. Other times he dreams of a future in the other world–a future where he sits beside the Izuku he’d been so cruel to for so long. A future where they sit shoulder-to-shoulder. (A future where he had a chance to ask for forgiveness. A future where it was given). 

The nightmares roll in like black fog, obscuring whatever he was seeing before and engulfing his consciousness. They aren’t always clear. Aren’t always full memories. But there are always screams. It is always dark. He can see vague outlines and shadowy shapes. He can feel the blood dripping down his skin. 

In a mass of screaming voices, Izuku’s is the clearest, its tone piercing through the darkness like a knife. Katsuki never makes it in time. His steps are moment late, a little too slow, and his hand falls short, fingertips grasping for something out of reach.

Someone calls his name in a small voice. The nightmare releases him slowly, tendrils of darkness and fear still clinging to his thoughts. Katsuki rises through layers of consciousness, until he feels hands gripping his shoulders and shaking him. He hears Izuku’s voice–younger, not screaming in agony. 

“Kacchan, Kacchan!” Izuku’s voice is desperate (a little too reminiscent of those nightmares).

“I’m awake dammit,” Katsuki answers. His throat is dry, and Izuku, no doubt, hears the unsteadiness in his tone.

“Kacchan, are you okay?”

Izuku fixes him with a concerned look in the soft glow the night light provides. He wonders how many times Izuku has asked that question and how many times he brushed it off as a nuisance. 

Katsuki pushes himself into a sitting position with shaking hands. His body feels weak, and his heart feels like it’s beating out of time. Cold fear lingers in the back of his mind. He has to remind himself that Izuku is there with him. Right there. Close enough to touch.

“Yeah, I’m fine.” There is a tremor in his voice as he speaks, and he knows Izuku won’t believe him for a second. All he hopes is that Izuku won’t ask about the nightmares. 

Mercifully, Izuku stays silent. He does, however, hold out one hand, his fingers spread open. “Whenever I have a nightmare, mom does this,” he says. 

Katsuki sees the determined look in his eyes and stares at his hand. (It’s not scarred. Not even calloused). Katsuki remains frozen still.

“Take it.” Izuku wiggles his fingers.

Izuku looks at him expectantly. His eyes are bright green even in the low light of the room. Katsuki glares back petulantly. Holding hands is stupid, and his quirk–but Izuku looks at him without fear. It’s concern he sees reflected in Izuku’s eyes. And trust. Katsuki relents. Lets Izuku take his hand and intertwine their fingers. They lie back down facing each other. Izuku gives him a ridiculously happy smile.

“It’s ok,” Izuku tells him. “There’s nothing to worry about.”

“Shut up, shitnerd. Just go to sleep.”

Katsuki sleeps the rest of the night without nightmares. His dreams are peaceful for once. 

They wake with the sun in their faces from the window with a curtain that they forgot to close. Their eyes open at the same time, eyelids fluttering in an attempt to clear the sleep away. Katsuki lets go of Izuku’s hand like it burned him. But even after he pulls away, his palm remembers the shape of Izuku’s hand. 

Izuku asks him if he slept well, and asks about the nightmares too. Katsuki gives noncommittal answers to both questions.

It’s the conclusion to the first of many times Izuku asks him to sleepover. They stay up later as they get older, playing video games or talking about heroes or whatnot. Katsuki tries to stay awake to avoid the nightmares. Izuku grabs one of his hands every time. Then they wake in the morning at the same time. It’s a good routine. Comfortable. 

Katsuki tries not to take it for granted that Izuku will always reach for him. Izuku never asks him what the nightmares are about after the first time.

As he grows older, the nightmares stay the same. As he grows older, he starts reaching for Izuku’s hand first.

Chapter Text

At eight years old, Katsuki realizes how confident Izuku is. Deku– Izuku –is confident. When he walks through the halls of the school, he walks with his eyes forward instead of glancing around for danger. People still laugh at him for being quirkless, of course, but those people don’t include Katsuki. Izuku spends the first part of his life without being hounded by bullies. He isn’t a mess of low to non-existent self esteem who can only meet other people’s eyes half of the time. He still has an obsession with heroes, still spends half his day scribbling random things in those hero notebooks, still cries over little things, but he smiles more. He smiles stronger.

On a day when he goes home from school separately from Izuku, he gets punched for the first time. Izuku is probably off browsing the aisles of a hero merchandise store. Half of the time, Izuku drags Katsuki along with him, but there’s only so much hero obsessing that Katsuki can put up with. 

As Katsuki heads home, he does something to tick off someone in the class a couple years above theirs. It’s not even clear what he did. Maybe he ran into one of them or just made a face that pissed them off. It’s not the first time some older kid gets mad at him. With his attitude towards others, it would be more of a surprise if he hadn’t pissed off someone. Usually he gets away with a few threats or nasty looks and nothing more

The tallest of the group tells him to apologize. Katsuki glares up at him. Like hell is he going to apologize–especially not for something he didn’t do. He tells them he doesn’t give a fuck about them, and that makes them angrier. In retrospect, keeping his mouth shut would have been smart, but he’d rather have bruises than broken pride.

Katsuki feels a heavy hand settle on his shoulder as he turns to walk away. He has a badass quirk, but he’s smaller than them. He’s just eight years old. And there are three of them. Assholes. Katsuki fights back with the small fists he has now. He tries not to cry, but he’d forgotten how much simple punches can hurt. He has never been in a serious fight in this lifetime. He has never beaten anyone up in this lifetime. His mind vaguely remembers how it works. His body doesn’t.

Katsuki walks away with his face already darkening with bruises and his eyes stinging with tears that he swore not to shed. At least Izuku wasn’t there to see it. At least Izuku wasn’t in danger. He thinks it’s ironic that he’s the one getting bullied this time. Katsuki wipes his eyes angrily. He needs to be stronger. At this point he’s not strong enough to protect himself. How the hell can he expect himself to protect someone else?

He half-sprints the rest of the way home and wrenches the door open. He tries to duck inside their apartment without notice, because he doesn’t want to face his parents. He doesn’t want to talk about it. He doesn’t want to hear about how weak he is. He already knows that. There’s too much he’s lost because he wasn’t strong enough. If he had been stronger, they would have made it through the last time. If he had been stronger, he could’ve protected Izuku properly. If he had been stronger, he would’ve at least been able tear those villains apart himself before they even had a chance to reach Izuku.

He’s not lucky enough to slip through the door without notice. His mother blocks his path before he can get to his room.

“Leave me the fuck alone,” he says through gritted teeth. 

Dealing with his mother is one thing. It’s bad enough to listen to her nagging. Dealing with hearing the phone ring and having his mother yell down the hallway that Izuku is on the phone because they were supposed to meet at the park half an hour ago is another thing completely. Katsuki feels his already bad day getting worse. He knows he will be fine–physically at least, but he can’t tell Izuku about this. Deku would worry. And fuss over him or whatever, and that would be a pain in the ass.

“Tell him I forgot, dammit,” Katsuki yells back through the apartment walls.

His mother relays his answer word-for-word, including his explicative. Katsuki grits his teeth in annoyance.

“Tell him I’ll see him tomorrow.”

He’s in no way in a mood where he wants to be around Izuku. Not because he doesn’t want to see Izuku, but because he hates the idea that Izuku might think of him as weak. He’d have reason to. After all, he just got his ass kicked.

His mother kicks in his bedroom door a minute later and hands him an ice pack for his face.

“You made the other guy look worse, right?” She says.

Katsuki doesn’t bother correcting her.

By the next morning, the bruise on his cheek has darkened and his jaw hurts a little when he tries to eat breakfast. He braces himself before he walks down the stairs and meets Izuku at the gate. He turns away when he sees Izuku’s green eyes widen with concern. There’s a white patch over the worst bruise, but there’s a lighter one on his forehead that’s still visible, and a couple on his arms that stay hidden under the long sleeves of his school uniform.

He knocks away the hand Izuku extends toward him. “Let’s just walk to school.”

Izuku doesn’t press the issue, but Katsuki can feel the cloud of worry float along next to them as they walk. It weighs on him, heavier and heavier, as they walk, until he can’t stand it anymore.

“I’m fine you idiot, so stop that.” 

Izuku jerks out of his overly-concerned state of focus. “H-huh?”

“I’m fine you fucking idiot, so don’t worry about me.” Katsuki flicks Izuku squarely in the center of his forehead.

Izuku looks at him in surprise for a moment, before his expression changes.

“Mmhmm…you’re right. You’re really strong, Kacchan.”

He gives Katsuki a smile–the smile Katsuki promised himself he’d protect this time. It falters for a moment.

“You’ll be fine. Heroes always win, right?” Izuku asks without quite looking at him and with a smile that looks a little too much like it’s just painted on his face.

Katsuki doesn’t manage to form his worry into a question in time to ask, and Izuku starts rambling about the newest issue of Heroes Monthly in some semblance of normalcy.

Chapter Text

Over the next few days, the bruises start to fade. Katsuki has to suffer a few funny looks from classmates, but Izuku doesn’t try to talk about what happened again. He watches Izuku’s expression more closely, wondering if he just imagined his smile faltering. He hates the idea that he’s already fucked up–that he has already let something bad happen. He considers asking, but what could he say–“Hey, fuckmunch, you don’t look as happy as usual?” So instead of asking, he sticks a little closer than ordinarily does and agrees every time Izuku asks him to go look at hero things or whatever.

Of course it’s Izuku who brings up the slight changes in their dynamic–Izuku who is braver than him in ways he doesn’t want to admit. It’s Izuku who sets down the controller for the videogame first and faces him. 

“Kacchan, is something–did something change?” There’s genuine worry in his voice, almost like he thinks he did something wrong.

Katsuki goes through a hundred kinds of anxious in the next second and somehow manages to restrain his knee jerk reaction to swear that everything is perfect what the fuck . Instead he tries to formulate a real response. But he doesn’t know how he’s supposed to ask, or even what. In the end, he says–

 “Your smile.”

Izuku stares at him.

Katsuki fumbles. What kind of idiot– “It…it looks different.”

Izuku’s eyes widen with surprise, which just reminds him that even in this lifetime, Izuku doesn’t seem used to the idea that he genuinely cares. And fuck did Izuku ever know he actually gave a shit? No, of course not. He’d sworn things would be different, and they are. But as every second passes, he grows more and more sure that he has done something wrong.

Izuku picks at the hem of his sleeve. The weather is cool, since fall is setting in, and he’s wearing long sleeves, but the gesture somehow stands out. An idea hits Katsuki with the same impact as a brick to the head. Just because he wasn’t there to see it doesn’t mean it couldn’t happen. Just because he wasn’t the one responsible doesn’t mean someone else couldn’t be. He feels his gut twist. Fuck, he should have known. He grabs Izuku’s arm and yanks the sleeve up. Purple splotches stand out on pale freckled skin.

“Shitty Deku, why the hell didn’t you tell me?” He doesn’t realize that his fingernails are digging into Izuku’s skin until he feels Izuku try to pull away, until he sees the tears start to pool. When he does, Katsuki lets go like he would hot coals. He looks guiltily at the imprints of his nails. They darken quickly–angry, red.

 “Who did this? Fucking– I’ll kill them. All of them. Shitheads!” 

Katsuki’s hands curl into fists that tremble by his sides. He’s not sure how far he’d take his usual threat. All he knows is that he wants to make them pay. And why didn’t Izuku tell him? His nails dig into his own palms. 

“I’ll kill them now,” Katsuki says, getting up from his position on the couch, and not thinking at all about how he’ll find them.

Izuku stops him by grabbing his wrist, with hands that are a little clammy, but manage to hold a firm grip. As Izuku clings to him, he can’t tell who's shaking more.

 “Kacchan, you’re scaring me,” he says in a small voice.

The shaking stops. His breath hitches. If there was anything that would break Katsuki rage, it was that. His heart freezes. His arms go slack. Izuku slowly lets go, and his arm drops to his side. Katsuki sits back down heavily, farther away from Izuku than he was before, but only because he doesn’t think he deserves to be close.

 “You should have told me,” Katsuki says, still seething, still furious, but no longer yelling.

 “I knew you’d get mad,” Izuku murmurs.

Katsuki bites his lip. Of course he’d get mad. “What kind of shitty reason is that?” His voice doesn’t carry its usual bite.

The response isn’t immediate. Instead Izuku twists his hands in his lap. “I thought you’d think it was weak. It’s–I didn’t even try to fight.” His hands stop twisting. “Sorry.”

Katsuki sits with his thumbs pressed into his forehead. He would try to calm himself but he doesn’t know where to start. Fury bubbles to the surface, but guilt isn’t far behind. His mind spins with echoes of another life and all the scenarios he can imagine for this one. Izuku’s words don’t make it from his ears to his brain. His own thoughts are too loud. The two points of pressure on his forehead are a constant, a way to ground himself. 

In this lifetime, he’d thought Izuku would grow up happier. He feels the world around him breaking apart, pieces falling out of place. He thought he had been careful. He thought he was strong enough to take some of the blows meant for Izuku. But he thought that before, hadn’t he? He wonders if he has the power to change anything for the better. So far, all he’s done is mess things up.

“Kacchan? Are you alright?” Izuku’s voice is timid, like he’s handling something dangerous. Katsuki’s head snaps up in response. 

He’s faced with green eyes that are full of concern. Izuku has always worried about others more than he worries about himself. He looks at Katsuki, and Katsuki can’t find the strength to look away. Something painful settles in his chest. It isn’t as fiery as anger or as heavy as guilt, but he wants to get rid of it as soon as possible. Katsuki glances down to see that Izuku has already rolled down his sleeves to hide the bruises. His eyes return to Izuku’s face.

“I’ll be fine after I kick their asses. What about you?”

Chapter Text

Izuku quells the conversation with a smile (a smile that’s definitely not as bright as it should be).

“Thank you for worrying about me, Kacchan,” Izuku says softly.

Katsuki feels his eyes sting with tears he tried to train them not to shed. Izuku still carries the handkerchief and hasn’t asked–not yet, anyway. As he dabs his eyes as surreptitiously as he can, Katsuki bumps their shoulders to convey something like compassion, even if he can’t bring himself to say it aloud.

The rest of the afternoon passes in silence. Katsuki picks up the controller again and half-heartedly beats Deku no less than four times. The mood between them feels heavy, like it has been stained darker. Katsuki’s anger simmers just below the level where it bursts out and hurts someone, but he holds it down–shoves it deep inside where it won’t bother him just yet. Even if he’s failed at keeping Izuku safe, he hasn’t been the one to hurt him.

Katsuki sleeps over. That’s what they’d planned, but there was no way leaving would feel like the right thing to do anyway. They go through the normal routine of finding pajamas and brushing their teeth elbow-to-elbow at the bathroom sink, but they do it with a lot more silence than usual.

That night, Katsuki finds himself unable to sleep. His eyes are full of the bruises left on Izuku’s arms. Even with their hands connected like they always are, Izuku feels out of reach. Katsuki clenches his free hand. He needs to be stronger, stronger. He’ll sit on top of the world just so he can protect Izuku from it.

The nightmares come that night. They come in with more force than usual, maybe because of what happened that day. Katsuki feels his body, ragged from fighting, and nearly beaten. He sees the room around them. It’s dimly lit. He hears echoes of the voices of friend and foe alike, but there’s only one he hears clearly. 

“Kacchan.” Broken–not enough air in his lungs.

Kacchan. Katsu–

He wakes in cold sweat. There’s someone shaking his shoulders. They’re saying something, but he can’t hear, because his ears are still ringing with blood curdling screams. The moment he realizes who it is through his half-delirium, he lunges forward, clinging onto him to make sure it’s real. His name–his real name–not Deku, not useless –spills from Katsuki’s lips over and over. It echoes in his head, and he hears his voice–older. 

Izuku’s heartbeat is strong in his chest. It’s steady, like it should be. It’s there , like it should be. Katsuki listens to it and calms his breathing to its rhythm. He starts to peel himself off, glad that Izuku doesn’t question him. But this time–

“Kacchan, can we stay like this a little longer?”

Katsuki opens his mouth to refuse, but he shuts it before any sound comes out. He stops trying to separate and relinquishes his doubts for the moment. He lets himself stay pressed against his childhood friend. His own heartbeat is loud in his chest, it’s rhythm slowly syncing to Izuku’s. Somewhere in the early hours just before dawn, as the room is starting to turn a sort of grayish, they fall asleep again. 

Morning is different. They wake up close, the space between them almost zero. Katsuki realizes first and springs away, without realizing quite how close to the edge of the bed he is. Izuku wakes at the loud thud.

“Kacchan?”

“Shut the hell up.”

Izuku’s face relaxes as Katsuki rights himself, adjusting his limbs until he sits cross-legged on the floor. Then he laughs. He tries to stifle it at first, but it bursts out. Katsuki grinds his teeth in annoyance.

“Shut up you piece of shit.”

“Sorry.” Izuku apologizes through his laughter. “It’s just…everything feels normal. Even after yesterday.”

“Don’t talk about that,” Katsuki snaps.

He frowns at the look on Izuku’s face. It looks like he’s dwelling on too many different things. He’s pensive in a way that doesn’t suit someone his age. Katsuki picks himself up off the floor. He still needs to figure out how he will become stronger (and stronger, and stronger), but he can’t stand looking at that expression for a moment longer. Katsuki does the first thing that comes to mind: he tickles Izuku, drawing out shrieks of laughter.

When he stops, Izuku takes a few seconds to recover. “What was that for?”

Katsuki answers with a shrug. “Let’s go get breakfast.”

Chapter Text

Things settle over the next few days. Katsuki sticks by Izuku’s side a little more than usual, but he sees no sign of bullies. He watches over his best friend with uneasy attentiveness. In class, his attention wanders from the lesson, as he thinks he sees hints of something out of the corner of his eye. He acts like he’s on a battlefield again, like there’s a possibility of getting attacked at every turn, and adrenaline pumps through his veins in a way that makes it difficult to sit still.

Katsuki walks Izuku home after school. Their apartments are only a short distance away, but it gives him some peace of mind, and Izuku seems to enjoy the increase in time together. 

When Katsuki returns to his own home, he asks his mother to teach him how to fight. She wanted to be a pro hero once, after all. He’s wary about it at first, given that she’s quite likely to flatten him without a second thought. But at the moment, there’s no one better he can think of, so he petitions her. Carefully. And hopes he doesn’t die.

After the first training session, he has almost as many bruises from her as he does from the bullies. But he’s starting to get used to the pain and how to dodge. He doesn’t tell Izuku about it either. Maybe there’s a fear that Izuku will look at him differently. Maybe it’s something else. But whatever the reason, he can walk beside Izuku with more confidence. Just the thought that he is training his body makes him feel, not stronger–not yet, but more like he has a fighting chance.

Katsuki thinks it lucky that he has classes with Izuku every day. It’s also lucky that the rest of the class is pretty much resigned that they go everywhere together and is collectively at least a little terrified of Katsuki. The only problem is that he knows the bullies are around somewhere, but isn’t sure where. He spends his days on high alert, acting as Izuku’s bodyguard. 

After a month or so of training with his mother, he decides he’s strong enough to deal with the three assholes who beat him up earlier. He suspects that they have something to do with Izuku’s bruises, too. 

He was caught off guard, he reasons, and those kinds of idiots can’t be too strong. His next problem is to figure out how to track them down and starts by organizing what he knows. They are other students at their school, and they’re probably a couple years older, given their heights. Katsuki takes to peering into other classrooms when he walks past, but that doesn’t help much.

Luckily, the bullies make it easy for him. After school, Katsuki and Izuku walk to the arcade, and he spies them hogging all the best games like the assholes they are. The two taller ones sit next to each other, and their screens depict similar images of brightly colored cars racing down an obstacle course. The third sits in the chair of the next game over, but his eyes are glued on the race. Katsuki sees their backpacks and school uniform jackets strewn haphazardly down the entire row of games.

Katsuki spends a good 30 seconds glaring at the back of their heads, considering whether to turn around and drag Izuku home before he can get hurt or not. But the anger that has been simmering in his vein for six weeks is about to boil over. He can’t bring himself to leave.

“I’m going to beat those fuckers up,” he tells Izuku. 

Izuku looks alarmed, something that’s almost certainly a plea to stop shines in his eyes.

“Don’t stop me. I won’t listen,” Katsuki says.

Izuku’s mouth snaps shut. “Then I’m coming with you.”

Katsuki takes one look at Izuku’s face and decides it’s best to let him come along. He’s seen Izuku’s stubbornness in action, and he doesn’t want to argue now. 

He turns to the bullies and takes deliberately loud steps as he approaches. The one that’s just observing the race looks up, amusement spreading across his face as he realizes who it is. Katsuki smirks.

The bullies aren’t hard to bait, and ten minutes later, they stand facing each other in a park a couple blocks from the arcade. It’s long enough after the end of the school day that the park is empty except for someone walking a dog on the far side and a group of high schoolers hanging from one of the trees. None of them are paying attention the the imminent fight.

“Die you pieces of shit!” Katsuki yells, and the first sparks erupt from his fingertips.

His estimation of their strength turns out to be a little off and taking on three of them at once might have been too ambitious. One of them gets Izuku in a headlock, and Katsuki can feel his blood pressure rise. If Izuku gets injured, this is his fault. Fear is one of the things he hasn’t forgotten from the other universe. It rises ugly and powerful in his stomach. It spills down his throat like acid. His body goes into overdrive.

This is the battle mode he drops into when the situation feels desperate. His throat is ragged from heavy breathing and screaming, but his mind is focused. He goes for the bully that seems to have some power over the other two with explosions tearing from his hands. Behind him, one of the others shouts, and he sees Izuku drop to the ground. With that the fight is finished.

Izuku spits blood out of his mouth, and for one panicked second, he thinks it’s his own. In the next, Katsuki notices that the arm responsible for Izuku’s headlock has a bloody crescent of teeth marks. He grins at that. The pain from the blows he’s taken hasn’t registered yet, and his system is still full of adrenaline.

“Hey Deku, let’s go home.”

Chapter Text

Maybe it’s the blood still rushing through his veins. Or it’s just the happiness Katsuki has now that he’s beaten those assholes to a pulp. But, in any case, he’s feeling a lot more positive about life in general or maybe he’s just light-headed from taking a punch or two to the face. He examines Izuku. A line of someone else’s blood dribbles down his chin, and a bruise swells on his forehead. Izuku catches him staring.

“Is there–how bad?” He asks nervously, putting his hands up to his cheeks.

“You look as dumb as usual.” Katsuki answers, quickly looking away from Izuku’s startlingly green eyes. “Does it hurt?”

“Huh?” Izuku stops walking. 

Katsuki stops a few feet farther on. “Does it hurt?” He repeats. “Your face,” he clarifies.

Izuku gapes at him.

“Is it that weird for me to be worried?” Katsuki snaps, feeling the heat rising in his face.

“N-not really.”

“Good, ‘cause I do worry. You’re a dumb, stubborn piece of shit who never runs away when he should. What kind of friend would I be if I didn’t worry? And–” He cuts off abruptly. “Are you crying?”

Indeed, he is. Katsuki awkwardly falls silent, unsure of what he said to elicit that kind of reaction.

Izuku sniffles loudly his eyes streaming with tears. 

“Did I say something wrong?” Katsuki asks.

Izuku takes a minute to calm himself, and when he does answer, his words are muffled by his hands. Katsuki hears them clearly all the same:

“I’m just really glad we’re friends.”

After that, they continue to the apartment complex where they live. Without thinking about it, Katsuki’s feet lead him to the front of Izuku’s apartment. Midoriya Inko opens the door, and cries almost as much as Izuku when she sees their bruised faces. She fusses over them for nearly an entire hour before she’s convinced that they are, in fact, not dying and will be alright. Katsuki gratefully closes the door to Izuku’s room.

When he wakes in the morning, Katsuki stares at the ceiling of a room that’s not his own but is almost as familiar. It’s warm with the sun filtering through the window and his fingers tangled with Izuku’s. This comfort and peace is something Katsuki realizes he wants to hold onto and something he thinks he doesn’t quite deserve.

As autumn turns to winter, Katsuki continues to train with his mother. She works him hard but always makes sure to remind him not to strain his growing body and to let himself rest. He vaguely remembers how he trained at UA and how he can strengthen his quirk, so he tries that, too. As they graduate from elementary school and enter middle school, he gains several centimeters on Izuku in height and a lot more weight in muscle.

Izuku is quiet beside him and still shy, but more easily outspoken about his thoughts. He shares the notes he keeps on heroes, and Katsuki tries not to think of notebook number 13. 

In middle school, a few kids try to tease Izuku for being quirkless, but Katsuki silences them quickly. Their years seem to be passing by too quickly. Katsuki knows their high school years will be fraught with danger, but the more he tries to cling onto peaceful moments, the faster they seem to slip away. 

As he gets older, the nightmares start to worsen. He still dreams of the same day.  The same screams. The same agony. Most nights he wakes up alone in his dark room, cursing himself for being so dependent on Izuku to calm him. 

As he gets older,  there starts to be an uncomfortable flutter in his chest when Izuku reaches for his hand or smiles at him softly. He’s fourteen, and their male classmates start pulling the girls’ pigtails and whispering about the wonders of swimsuit magazines and other things. Izuku tends to go red when these topics appear in conversation, and there’s something about his expression at those times that Katsuki doesn’t like.

It’s only when he overhears a (very loud and giggly) conversation between a group of girls in their class that Katsuki puts together the butterflies in his stomach and the reason he gets uncomfortable when the other boys talk about girls. He overhears them talking about a flutter in their chests when so-and-so looks their way or don’t-his-eyes-look-just-beautiful. 

Katsuki walks away very quickly, but not fast enough to avoid the realization that he has a horrible, irrevocable crush on his best friend.

Chapter Text

The conversation about crushes is still ringing in his head when Izuku rejoins him. It’s then that Katsuki realizes there is hardly a moment during the school day when they’re not together, and that makes his situation, well, a little dire. Since his revelation, Katsuki feels like his heartbeats are magnified tenfold when Izuku is anywhere in his vicinity. By the end of the day, he feels like his brain is about to explode, and he has to do something to alleviate the pressure before any actual combustion occurs.

They usually walk home together after school, but Katsuki tells Izuku to go first, giving some crappy excuse about leaving a textbook in the classroom. Izuku knows he didn’t, and he gives Katsuki a look like he’s about to tell him so, but ultimately he decides to walk away. It hurts to watch him leave, but Katsuki thinks it’s for the best. He needs time to clear his head or come up with something before he makes a complete fool of himself. 

It’s just one day. Izuku will be fine by himself for one day. But one day turns into three and then three turns into a week. 

Katsuki tells himself he’s not avoiding Izuku–he’s giving his friend space, that’s all, and it’s just for a little while. Just until he figures out how to make eye contact without his face flushing. They still walk to school together, but Katsuki is quieter and he finds excuses to spend more time with the other people in their class. Every time Izuku turns a brilliant shade of desk when a girl greets him, Katsuki has to struggle not to blow up his desk, and it’s getting harder.

He sits through a nearly silent lunch with Izuku. It’s easier to deal with his stupid crush(ing feelings) in the absence of conversation. He can almost pretend Izuku isn’t there and just focus on his food. But of course, the peace is only temporary.

“Kacchan, did you hear about the new superhero movie? It’s about a kid vigilante who has a speed quirk and a sword. Would you go see it? With me, I mean.” Izuku looks down. “You seem kind of…busy lately, so it’s fine if you don’t…”

The way Izuku’s voice trails off makes Katsuki’s chest hurt. “Of course, dumbass, I’ll go with you,” he says, and it takes everything he has to keep his voice in a semi-neutral tone.

If he didn’t know better, he’d say Izuku just asked him out on a date. But that would be ridiculous. Nevermind the fact that they’d gone and seen movies together before. This is nothing different and should just be considered normal. Even after telling himself that, Katuski finds his chest swelling with warmth and his heart pounding faster than ever.

They decide to go on Sunday when they don’t have school. Or rather, Izuku suggests a time, and Katsuki is too busy trying to keep a lid on his combustion that he doesn’t have anything to say.

For the rest of the afternoon, Katsuki has to struggle to focus on his studies. If he gets bad grades his mom will kick his ass, but it’s still hard to find the willpower to look at the blackboard and actually understand what the teachers are writing.

One way or another, Katsuki makes it to the end of the week. He also managed to get a decent grade on the quiz in English even though his concentration was severely compromised. By Saturday night, he both wants it to be Sunday already and doesn’t. He is happy to have time to spend with Izuku because he has a crush goddammit, but he doesn’t want his friend to know. Ever. 

His goal is keeping Izuku alive and healthy through high school or until whenever they get rid of All for One for good. His goal has nothing to do with romance.

When Sunday morning dawns, Katsuki has hardly slept. Stress is a pain in the ass, he concludes, and so is having a crush. He meets Izuku at the bottom of the stairs in their apartment complex. They walk in silence, Katsuki constantly reminding himself that this is not a date. He and Izuku are just good friends, as they have been now for several years. It’s normal and not romantic. If his imagination gets too far down the romance path, he will actually blow something up. 

He concentrates so hard on how it’s not a date, that he misses walking up to the ticket counter and only notices when Izuku pokes him in the side with a ticket. It goes in his pocket for safekeeping. The lobby is crowded with people. There are a lot of families with small children and a few couples here and there. Izuku looks at the crowd apprehensively.

“Let’s get popcorn,” Katsuki says.

He can’t remember if it’s normal for him to grab Izuku’s wrist and drag him off or not, but being connected isn’t a bad thing when there’s a large crowd. Katsuki walks forward without looking back. If he did, he’d probably die of embarrassment or something. His face is already burning, because Izuku’s skin is warm against his. They arrive at the end of the popcorn line slightly out of breath, and Katsuki drops Izuku’s thin wrist. He doesn’t have a good excuse to keep hanging on, and he really shouldn’t anyway.

The line is slow, but they eventually make it out with a large bucket of popcorn and only a couple minutes before the movie starts. The movie is okay, Katsuki decides. It’s a lot of typical action movie stuff, but Izuku seems to like it so he keeps quiet and munches on the popcorn. Leaving the theater, Izuku gushes about one action sequence or another. Katsuki tunes out most of what Izuku says as they head for home. 

Izuku interrupts his train of thought, when he says: “Kacchan, I’m going to learn how to use a sword.”

Chapter Text

Katsuki takes a minute to process what Izuku said. A sword? As in, a sword?

“What the fuck?”

“Or a staff. Or nunchucks. Or something. I mean, I don’t have a quirk, but I still want to be a hero, which means I should have an actual method of fighting. I’m not that strong physically, but if I learned how to use a weapon–”

“You want to fight villains, who have powerful quirks, with a sword?”

“Yes.”

“You’re going to go up against shitty villains with powerful, evil quirks with a–a piece of metal? Are you fucking–”

“Yeah, that’s the idea.”

“Deku, no.” Katsuki tries to gather his thoughts. “You can’t. You’ll…” Katsuki finishes the sentence in his head. He doesn’t want to step on Izuku’s dreams, but it would be complete idiocy to let him try to fight with only a sword.

Izuku takes a deep breath, and fixes Katsuki with the kind of determined glare he has whenever someone tells him to give up. Katsuki swallows uncomfortably, he can feel the color of his face darkening by the second. He doesn’t want to discourage Izuku, but he’s morally obligated not to encourage this, too. With a jolt, he realizes that’s exactly what he had been trying to tell Izuku, even if that wasn’t what he meant to convey.

“What if you get a quirk someday?” Katsuki asks, before he can stop himself.

As expected, Izuku stares, determination replaced by a mixture of shock and confusion and something else–something that looks vaguely like betrayal, but that can’t be right. It was a stupid thing to say. People don’t get quirks at fourteen.

“Kacchan,” Izuku says, and there’s a kind of pain in his voice that Katsuki really hates. “If I want to be a hero, I have to do it with my own strength–the strength I was born with.”

There’s not a good response for that, so Katsuki doesn’t reply. But he silently promises that Izuku will never walk into a fight alone. If Katsuki is there, he’ll be able to do something no matter what happens. He has to. Katsuki ignores the small voice in his head that tells him: that’s not what happened last time.

After the movie, Katsuki sits in his room with the lights off and the door closed. He’s supposed to be sleeping, but, like many other nights where he can’t get his mind off of things, he lies staring up at the ceiling without really seeing it. And, just like other nights, he thinks about Izuku. He still can’t stand to be in close proximity to his friend without feeling like he’s going to have a heart attack. And really, when he’s supposed to be protecting Izuku, it would help if he were functional.

Katsuki rests his forearm over his eyes. It’s clear, by now, that his feelings will not be dulling anytime soon, which means he really has to figure out a way to deal with them. But when you’re fourteen years old, no one’s really told you how to deal with being in love. Nevermind how to deal with being in love with your best friend who happens to be the same gender and sort of ten years younger than you thanks to some fucked up time warp. Yeah, Katsuki knew that saving Izuku would not be easy, but he didn’t know it would be this difficult either.

Monday morning, Katsuki wakes to a loud banging on his door with only a couple of hours of sleep to get him through. Apparently, he slept through his alarm. When he arrives at school, he has to face Izuku’s concerned look as he slides into the classroom five minutes after the start of the school day. His grades and history of punctuality are good enough that the teacher only glares at him for a moment before gesturing to his seat.

The morning classes pass, and Katsuki can’t remember a word of what was taught. Izuku manages to catch him during lunch, when he was totally not going to escape to the roof and eat alone. Right, they’re friends. He can’t protect Izuku if he distances himself too much. They eat lunch together like they used to. How was Katsuki supposed to refuse when Izuku asked? So they sit across the table from each other in silence.

“About what you said yesterday,” Izuku says, breaking the silence. “What do you mean ‘if I get a quirk someday?’”

Katsuki swallows, chopsticks pausing halfway to his mouth. It was a stupid offhand comment, but he should have known Izuku would notice it.

“Hypothetically.” Katsuki puts his chopsticks down. “It doesn’t matter.”

No way for someone who’s quirkless to get a quirk, of course. No one knows One for All exists. No one needs to. Katsuki bites his lip. There’s a part of him that knows that All Might’s successor has to be Izuku, but he doesn’t know how to make that happen. Telling Izuku now doesn’t seem to be the best idea, either. Especially since he can’t guarantee anything.

“Have you picked a weapon?” Katsuki tries to divert the conversation to another topic.

It takes a second for izuku to realize what he’s asking.

“Yeah, I’m getting a bokken. I’ll be learning iaido and kendo, but I’ll also try to work on other types of physical training. Without that I’d be…” 

And so, Izuku talks, and Katsuki listens, trying not to look too starstruck.

At the end of school, Katsuki slips away. Izuku can walk home by himself. He’ll stop strategically avoiding him someday, but right now, he needs to get his breath back. He walks slowly down a route he usually doesn’t take to get back. He freezes in his tracks. There’s a rush of something–nostalgia, no–fear? He feels like he’s walked down this alley before. Katsuki feels the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. There’s something wrong, but if something happened before, he would remember it, right?

Chapter Text

Katsuki doesn’t have time to think about what he remembers or not, when he hears the voice behind him, the villain’s voice. It sounds familiar. And then he remembers the lack of air and the almost asphyxiation. Katsuki knows he was in danger and Izuku– Izuku what? His head spins, and Katsuki braces his hand against the wall of the alley. They both survived, he knows, but there’s a nagging guilt and anxiety in the pit of his stomach.

He feels cold sludge wrap around his wrists. It raises goosebumps on his skin, and he knows what will happen next, knows that he’ll struggle for his breath for what seems like hours as his consciousness slowly fades. Katsuki breaks out into a cold sweat and he struggles to get free. The sludge is too liquid to be vulnerable to his explosions and too solid to get away from. It crawls up his arms and around his neck. He’ll suffocate. He’ll lose himself. 

As long as Izuku is safe, it’ll be fine.

As long as Izuku is safe, it doesn’t matter what happens to him.

His vision starts to blur, and his lungs ache. His head feels fuzzy, and he knows there are mere seconds left before he loses consciousness. Then there’s a giant gust of wind and a loud voice. He feels his body collapse into strong arms. The next thing he knows, his eyelids flutter open and–All Might? This feels wrong. It’s not what happened last time. It’s different. Too different.

All Might holds up the soda bottles that now hold the sludge villain before sticking them in his pockets. Then he bids farewell.

“Wait!” Katsuki yells as he dives for one of All Might’s legs. 

He doesn’t know what he’s doing or why he’s doing it, but he knows that All Might has to give Izuku his quirk. Or, or does he? Katsuki knows Izuku will fight if he knows there’s something to fight for, but if he doesn’t have One for All, then the villains wouldn’t come after him. Katsuki closes his eyes, trying to figure out what he should do. He wants Izuku to be safe, but he also wants Izuku to be happy. And if all Izuku has ever wanted to be a hero, is it really his job to take that chance away?

All Might shakes his leg. “My boy, can you let go? I must deliver this villain to the police.”

Katsuki loosens his grip slightly. He could ask All Might for help. All Might is a hero, and he is therefore obligated to help, but–Katsuki feels like if he tells anyone he’s been reset, something very, very bad will happen. He swallows, throat tight. His lungs still ache from lack of air.

“If I have a friend who doesn’t have a quirk but wants to be a hero, what do I do?” He asks.

All Might stops trying to walk away and instead leans down to remove Katsuki from his leg.

“That’s a difficult one,” All Might says. “I’d recommend the police force or being a detective. There’s plenty of important work to be done that doesn’t need a quirk.”

Katsuki grits his teeth. That’s hardly the answer he wants–it’s not what Deku would want to hear. It’s not what he deserves to hear.

“I mean, is it possible for someone quirkless to be a hero?” Katsuki restrains himself from saying more. He knows Izuku got the quirk from All Might. He knows Izuku hadn’t been born with a quirk. Ergo, it is possible to receive a quirk from someone else, at least if the quirk is One for All.

“It’s happened before, hasn’t it? It can’t be impossible, he has to be a hero–”

“My boy, I know it’s a lot to handle.” A heavy hand is placed on Katsuki’s shoulder. “But sometimes things don’t work out the way we want them to.”

The pro hero pauses, and Katsuki looks up at him. That’s when a cloud of steam erupts, filling the air. It’s gone in a moment, leaving an emaciated All Might in its wake. 

Katsuki doesn’t even bat an eyelash. This he remembers–the thin, almost-skeletal man that guided them. This he remembers when he’s forgotten so much else. Katsuki bites his lip bitterly.

“All Might,” Katsuki says, “can you meet him? Just meeting you would…would mean a lot.”

All Might eyes him suspiciously, and Katsuki thinks maybe he should have faked surprise. But there’s not time to say anything. One of the bottles fell to the ground when All Might transformed, and now it’s rolling towards the end of the alley. Katsuki makes a move to dive for it, but it’s too far away. It rolls onto the sidewalk of a busy street, and Katsuki has to watch as an innocent person kicks it and the cap flies off. The sludge monster disappears into an empty sewer.

“Shit,” All Might says.

He couldn’t agree more.

Chapter Text

Katsuki gets to his feet. The anxiety that took root in his stomach is worse than ever. If the villain gets to Izuku–he doesn’t want to think about that. Izuku will someday be strong, but isn’t yet. Izuku will someday know how to defend himself, but hasn’t learned yet. Izuku is alone, and it’s Katsuki’s fault.

“We have to go!” He calls to All Might, who’s still staring at the spot where the villain disappeared.

Katsuki runs to the alley’s exit without looking back. As long as Izuku is safe, it doesn’t matter what else happens. He skids to a halt when he sees Izuku’s green hair and yellow backpack. Izuku is walking back from school like he would any other day. Izuku who hasn’t met All Might, who has no hope of getting a quirk. (It feels wrong, so wrong). He sticks to Izuku’s side like glue, and they head for home.

A lack of conversation stretches between them. Katsuki is thankful that Izuku doesn’t ask questions. Glancing down, he notices that the collar of his school uniform is off kilter. At least the sludge didn’t leave any residue behind. He tugs on the end of his sleeves and straightens out his jacket. His ears buzz with silence.

It’s an awkward silence, but the absence of sound becomes wrong. The hair raises on the back of his neck. The feeling lasts for a second. One second, and Katsuki knows what’s going to happen next. Feels it. Sees it. It’s not what happened last time, but the circumstances have changed. Sludge bubbles out of a nearby manhole. Muddy, sinister, but quick. Katsuki’s reactions are nowhere near as fast as they someday will be, but they are fast enough to push Izuku out of the way.

He hears Izuku scream his name as the cold sludge crawls over his body and entangles him again. He knows what’s coming. The cold. The lack of air. And that almost makes it worse. His eyes linger on Izuku’s face even as the villain carries him away. His heart pounds loud in his ear, louder as the oxygen drains from his blood and his lungs strain for the air they are deprived of. No amount of struggling can loose the hold the sludge has. Explosions rip from his palms, and his vision fills with orange flames and the blacks and grays of ash. His eyes sting with the effort of staying open, and the world goes in and out of focus.

Somewhere in front of him, he can see a face framed by green curls. His ears pick up the sound of Izuku yelling his name, but the syllables sound distant, like he’s shouting from far, far away. Izuku moves just close enough that Katsuki can see the blurry outlines of his features. With sludge suffocating him, he has no way to tell Izuku not to worry. But it’s too late. In a sea of explosions and swirling colors, Izuku’s face seems like the only thing that’s clear. His eyes flutter, and blackness invades his field of view from the periphery. But even as he loses consciousness, he knows he’ll never forget the look of torture in his best friend’s eyes. 

His last thought before his mind turns cold is that there must be pro heroes around somewhere and, at the very least, he pushed Izuku out of the way. The dark cloud of unconsciousness takes over, without him being aware of giving up control.

Izuku’s screams are something he never wanted to hear. Not with this much clarity. Not piercing his ears as much as it pierces his soul. Not like he’s there again. 

The agony of injuries from the other life aches in every cell of his body. His stomach clenches, and nausea begins to climb his throat. He hears the throbbing echoes of battle cries in his skull and flinches from the thrumming pain in his sides. His mouth is dry, but the taste of ash and blood coats his tongue. A cough forces its way from his throat, and he remembers the bitterness of spitting up blood from broken ribs tearing into his chest.

Scenes of the past swim across his vision. Soul-deep fatigue echoes through the years. How long has he been fighting for? Decades? Years? Days? Or has the fight even begun?

Izuku’s face flashes by in smiles that grow scarce. There are tears and shouting and too many disagreements about whether to save the civilians in front of them or send their forces to pursue villains. They’ll save more people in the long run. But no hero should be able to turn their back on a crying child, and their cries echo from every corner. There aren’t enough parents left. 

Not enough pro heroes either.

Students run themselves ragged trying to fill the gaps that the pros have left, but the villains are merciless. Cruel. But strongly principled in their own twisted ways. And people agreed with them. Not enough to forgive their violence, but enough to shut their doors and watch from their windows instead of try to fight.

Katsuki remembers running out. Of energy. Of patience. Of friends.

There’s something that sounds like Kacchan, I always– and blinding pain before his mind goes blank.

Resurfacing to the present is a shock. It feels like he’s been freefalling through memories, and he just hit the cement below. His mind takes a moment to orient. The sun on his face feels foreign, and he doesn’t know how to open his eyes and pretend he didn’t just remember a past life. Especially when all he can feel is brokenness. And all he can hear is a voice raw with pain.

Katsuki blinks his eyes open. The bright blue sky above and the pro heroes huddled around him belong to someone else. He feels disconnected. And there’s Izuku. Izuku who, he realizes, is kneeling over him, face closer than it has any right to be. Light freckles dot the bridge of Izuku’s nose and spread out over his cheeks. They pale in comparison to the darker ones, and Katsuki wonders why he never noticed them before.

Hi blinks again. His thoughts feel like their running in slow motion. The memories are still floating behind his eyes, but most of the pain ebbs out of his system–all ghosts of injuries from the other life. He notices that the sludge villain is gone and taken care of. Physically, Katsuki is fine, a sore throat and a couple of bruises are nothing, but mentally? Mentally, the weight of his memories has the same impact as being hit by a bus. Or several.

The team of medics fuss over him for a while, before he’s finally allowed to get up and walk home with an oddly quiet Izuku. No one tells him what happened. He sees the dirt smudged across Izuku’s face and the disheveled state of his uniform. His eyes fall on the extensive bandages around Izuku’s right arm, and, suddenly, he gets the feeling that he doesn’t want to know.

A year later finds Katsuki sitting in the auditorium for UA’s entrance exam, and Izuku nowhere in sight. Glancing around the packed seats, he sees people that he knows and doesn’t. The seat next to him is filled by some unknown idiot. (Izuku was supposed to sit there, he knows this now). Katsuki grits his teeth and aces the exam. He gets 77 villain points and 13 rescue points. It’s apparently some sort of record.

He tries to feel happy when his acceptance letter arrives in the mail. Izuku doesn’t talk about high school, and Katsuki doesn’t mention UA.

The first day of class comes and he slouches into the 1-A classroom and sticks his feet on the desk. Iida yelling at him for it is almost nostalgic. There are 20 kids in class 1-A, and Katsuki hates staring at the chair that should be Izuku’s.

Chapter Text

After school he finds himself in front of the Midoriyas’ apartment door. 

In the past year, he has stayed friends with Izuku, but an invisible wall has been driven between them. Katsuki wonders if it’s his fault (it probably is). Izuku has never spoken about the day when the sludge villain appeared, and so Katsuki silently watched the scars on his right arm heal, trying not to think too hard about what caused them. (He knows what burns look like. He knows what his explosions leave behind in their wake.) 

The door opens before Katsuki has a chance to knock.

It’s Izuku, standing in a very familiar gray and dark teal uniform. Katsuki takes about three seconds to register this information, before–

“Deku, you piece of shit! Why didn’t you tell me you were going to UA?”

Izuku has his hands up in defense, a nervous smile on his face. “I didn’t know how to tell you. I mean, I’m just in the general department, so…”

Katsuki has the sudden urge to slam his face into the wall, which he just barely resists. If Izuku is at UA, what does that mean? Does he have a quirk or is he only there for–for what? He tries to clear his head. It’s no use wondering. He needs to figure out whether Izuku has the quirk or not, for Izuku’s sake. For all their sakes. The fate of One for All is basically the fate of the world.

“You are a shitty friend,” he mutters.

“We can walk to school together tomorrow,” Izuku offers.

Katsuki pokes Izuku in the cheek. “Shitty friend.” He accentuates each syllable with a poke. 

They spend the rest of the evening together. Katsuki struggles more than usual to stay on task. He has too many questions floating through his mind. Maybe he needs to talk to All Might. But before he fully considers that possibility, Katsuki reminds himself that it’s too dangerous to speak about his circumstances. He retires early, exhausted by the first day of high school and finding out that Izuku is, in fact, attending UA. He leaves with a quick promise of meeting Izuku at the bottom of the stairs so they can walk together in the morning.

Katsuki lies in bed for hours. He is tired, that’s not the problem, but he has too many questions that he needs to answer. It’s clear that the story he’s a part of now is entirely different from what was happening before, and he doesn’t know how to protect Izuku from it. If his best friend does indeed have All Might’s quirk, the villains will be showing up soon. Even if Izuku is wholly quirkless, the villains pose a threat to everyone. Somewhere around 3 a.m., Katsuki falls into an uneasy sleep.

Izuku meets him 20 minutes before school starts. He looks way too happy to be going to school. Katsuki tries to steady his heartbeat after Izuku gives him a half smile and a “let’s go.” Walking to school is a quiet affair, and Katsuki almost forgets things aren’t like they were the first time around. That is, until Izuku waves goodbye at the bottom of the staircase, and heads in another direction. 

As he watches a head of green hair disappear into the masses, Katsuki realizes he’s never been to the other classrooms. What does the general department do? Without hero classes, their afternoons must be filled with other things. He makes a note to ask Izuku about it later.

In the afternoon, they have their first challenge. Their hero costumes present no excitement to Katsuki. The design of his hero costume has remained the same, save for a few minor changes. His mask extends over more of his face, ending just above his jaw. The bottom is painted white to suggest fangs. 

He’s assigned to a team with Iida and chosen to protect the bomb. They’re up against Uraraka and Asui. Katsuki doesn’t lose this time. It’s a lifetime away, but he remembers how it feels to fight for his life. A class exercise like this is nothing.

At the end of the day, he meets Izuku at the school gates. When they meet, he sees that Izuku has a noticeable bruise peeking out from under his left sleeve. Whether it’s on purpose or not, Izuku shifts his hand so the bruise disappears, and Katsuki can’t think of a good way to ask about it. Instead, he asks what the general department classes are like, and listens as Izuku starts detailing the quirks of everyone in 1-C.

Chapter Text

The trip to USJ comes too quickly for his liking. He remembers what happens on this day, that it’s the first time he’ll see the League of Villains face-to-face. Assuming things haven’t changed too much. The bus ride passes in a blur, and he stares through the glass without really seeing anything. A tiny part of his brain is thankful that Izuku will be safely at school during this time, but the rest of his attention goes into thinking of scenarios where Izuku still ends up injured. There’s also the worry that things have changed too much, and he still won’t be able to save Izuku in the end.

Katsuki tries to stuff the worry down into the deepest, darkest corner of his mind, but it feels like trying to hold onto one of his explosions. His fingers drum against the glass of the bus window, and he misses the moment when Asui makes a jibe about his personality, but he tunes into the bus conversation in time to hear Kirishima lamenting his lack of a flashy quirk. Since Izuku isn’t there to encourage him, Katsuki gives him a grudging “it’s not a bad defense though.” He quickly goes back to staring out the window when Kirishima gives him a shocked kind of smile and someone says “oooh, so he can be nice.”

As he leaves the bus, he brushes past the 20th student of class 1-A. It bothers him that he doesn’t remember her. He’s almost sure that he’s never seen her before, not even in class B all those years ago, so where would another hero-course-level student come from? With a shake of his head, he silences the questions. He senses no malice from her presence, so he shrugs it off. He knows what malice feels like. He would know if she was a threat. That much he’s certain of. 

And, anyway, he has more important things to worry about, like that shithead Shigaraki.

Katsuki feels the pit of his stomach tighten when he notices that there are only two teachers. All Might was supposed to be there with them. This he knows, but he cannot fathom why All Might wouldn’t be there. Unless the pro hero has passed his quirk to someone, he should be at full strength. He should be here. But he’s not. Katsuki bites back the bile that rises in his throat.

Whatever Thirteen is saying sounds far away. Katsuki can’t make himself listen. His ears are primed for the sound of something that shouldn’t be there. Every ounce of his being is dedicated to reacting the moment the villains arrive. If he can avoid being sucked away, maybe he can take down, or at least inhibit, someone important. If they caught Shigaraki here, the battle would be essentially over. Katsuki’s eyes dart around the room. Aizawa stares with an almost bored look on his face. 

No one else is tensed for battle.

Maybe he shouldn’t be either. Maybe it will be fine. Katsuki looks down and realizes that his hands are already open, fingers spread to let the explosions burst freely from his palms.

And then it happens.

He can hear a faint noise, something akin to a bathtub draining, and he spins to face it. There’s a clear warp in space and he can see the dark cloud of Kurogiri. Katsuki spreads his feet wider, muscles tensing to attack.

And then–

Chaos.

Katsuki manages to knock Thirteen out of the way of the first attack, but the cloud of black encircles them, tendrils of smoky nothingness reaching for every 1-A student. Katsuki makes an attempt to dive for Kurogiri’s physical body. The warp villain is one of the cornerstones of the group, because of his ability to transport people in an instant. His disappearance would have a huge impact on the villains’ strategy. Besides, isn’t it a classical military strategy to shut off enemy supply lines?

If he can stop Kurogiri, the heroes will have an advantage. It’s a desperate attempt, he knows, but taking Kurogiri out of the equation is too tempting a concept to ignore. 

He really should know better. He’s fought these villains before, and his quirk, despite whatever effort he has put into it, is nowhere near it’s full potential. 

The black gets thicker as he moves forward, until his limbs feel like their moving against the pressure of a hundred feet of water. He manages to keep himself on track with a couple of powerful blasts. In the darkness, he can’t see clearly, so he has to operate with the assumption that Kurogiri remains stationary when he moves people. Whether that’s accurate or not, Katsuki doesn’t know.

As quickly as it came, the blackness disappears, and any sign of Kurogiri disappears with it. Katsuki curses. If he had been a moment faster, maybe he could have gotten there in time. 

Katsuki spares a glance toward the exit where he sees a flash of Iida’s back and the door swinging shut. Good. They’ll have backup. Without another moment’s hesitation, Katsuki heads to backup Aizawa with Thirteen a few steps behind him. He ignores the teachers telling him that he should stay back. Everyone in USJ is fighting, and he’ll be damned if he sits it out just because someone told him to.

The highest density of villains is in the open space where Aizawa fights. The way he moves and captures villains is something Katsuki wishes he could watch, but he doesn’t have time. So he grits his teeth and goes for the ones closest to him. They’re weak. Exceedingly weak. Despite the villains’ initial advantage in numbers, the advantage in strength is with the heroes.

Katsuki lets himself catch his breath for a second. This fight is too easy, and he knows it. He knows there are more villains, who should be on their way, but where are they? And for that matter, where the hell is All Might? Katsuki wipes his forehead of sweat, and sends a large blast right into the face of the next villain that jumps at him.

A chill runs down his spine, and it’s enough to make him pause for a second. Then he sees Shigaraki. If he was stupider, he would dive right for the bastards head. As it is Katsuki instinctively freezes and almost gets hit in the head by some idiot villain. 

And then something he wasn’t expecting at all happens.

With a big gust of wind, three figures appear in the middle of the room. Three figures, and only one of them is a person he immediately recognizes: All Might.

Chapter Text

The two standing on either side are shorter. For some reason, Katsuki’s heart is pounding in his throat. There’s a familiarity to the newcomers that he can’t quite place. One with blond hair pushed back from his face and the other with his face covered by a mask and a cape. A mask with two spikes angled back over his head in an imitation of All Might’s unique hairstyle. Besides the masks (and cape in one case), both of them are in the UA school uniform.

Which means they’re both students. Students . The one with the spiky mask turns around, and Katsuki sees the back of his head. He has green hair. There are very few people Katsuki can think of with green hair. The knot in his stomach disappears, instead, he feels like his stomach is simply gone. Izuku . Despite everything, Izuku is standing in the center of USJ with determination and probably All Might’s quirk to back him up, and Katsuki has no clue how it happened.

“Izuku!” The yell rips from his throat before he has time to stop it.

The student with the spiky mask flinches, and Katsuki has zero doubt about left in his mind. Why Izuku didn’t tell him, he does not know. Of course there are probably reasons, but Katsuki feels betrayal settle in his mind; ugly, dark, and he doesn’t want it there. At the same time his heart pounds, because Izuku is there, and there’s a sense that maybe everything will go right (and he curses himself for putting the weight of saving the day on Izuku’s shoulders again).

With another large blast, the nomu makes an entrance. All Might has his hands full after that. And as much as Katsuki wants to run after Izuku and demand an explanation, he has his hands full with the other villains that are still in the area. He notes that Aizawa is already bleeding from a cut on his face and Thirteen definitely looks worse for the wear. But, all in all, they’re better off than last time. Hopefully, the rest of 1-A make it through with minimal injuries again.

The next time he has a second to glance at All Might, he notices that the other two are gone. 

When the less-important villains are dealt with. Katsuki is out of breath and nursing several small injuries, not least of which is a nasty cut above his eye. Feeling useless, Katsuki braces himself against a conveniently placed fence. From his place off to the side, he watches All Might’s fight. As he watches, he thinks he can see the distinct signs that All Might is weakening. Which means only one thing: Izuku has inherited One for All.

Katsuki grips the rail of the fence tighter, conflicting emotions swirling through his mind. Izuku is more capable of protecting himself, which is a good thing, but he has made himself a target for the villains, which is a very, very bad thing. 

All Katsuki can do is watch as All Might struggles against the nomu. He knows he can’t help in that fight, and he knows he can’t just dive for Shigaraki. By the time All Might wins, Izuku and the blond mystery boy are back, school uniforms worse for the wear and the students in 1-A trailing behind them. Katsuki feels something like worry when he sees that mystery boy is holding Asui in his arms. Something happened that didn’t last time. And while that could be a good thing, this time it got someone hurt. (At least it wasn’t Izuku).

All Might wins, and Katsuki can see the toll winning took. And his worry turns toward Shigaraki. With a weakened All Might and only two pro heroes who are not combat-focused to stand against them, they would hardly stand a chance. Luckily, it’s at that moment that the doors of USJ burst open and back-up arrives. Iida follows a few steps behind them. And something like relief breaks through Katsuki. 

The villains leave the same way the came, only leaving the now-useless nomu behind. All Might disappears in a cloud of steam, but the view is quickly blocked. Katsuki runs toward Izuku, protective instinct overruling common sense. Izuku, in turn, reacts in surprise. His mouth, which is visible since the mask covers mostly covers the upper half of his face, opens slightly.

“Kacchan?” He asks, and Katsuki can hear uncertainty and hesitation.

There are a lot of things Katsuki could say in response, but he’s never been good with words.

“You’re a fucking dumbass, Deku,” he says instead.

Izuku inclines his head in what Katsuki assumes to be remorse. “I’m sorry, Kacchan, I’m…” He drops his head to rest on Katsuki’s shoulder, and Katsuki is too surprised to move. “I’m sorry,” Izuku finishes, his voice hardly more than a breath against Katsuki’s skin.

“You damn well better explain later,” he mutters, and then pushes Izuku off his shoulder both because anyone in 1-A could see them and because Katsuki has not, in anyway, at all been cured of being in love with Izuku.

Katsuki turns away before Izuku notices, his cheeks burning, and heads back to the rest of the 1-A students. The bus ride back to school is quiet. A few other pro heroes have joined them on the bus to keep anything else from happening. Their teachers along with All Might, Izuku, and mystery boy have disappeared as well.

Katsuki sits glumly with his cheek pressed against the glass, trying not to notice Asui’s empty seat.

Chapter Text

Instead of returning to classes, the students of class 1-A are sent to the nurse’s office to be checked over. Katsuki sits numbly when it’s his turn. With no major injuries, Recovery Girl finishes with him in less than five minutes.  Asui lies in one of the beds behind a curtain, but she’s standing by the time all the examinations are done. 20th stays by the end of her bed until Recovery Girl announces that she’s fine and kicks the extra students out.

Katsuki waits at the gate of the school. He will talk to Izuku somehow or other, because there’s no way he can protect him unless he knows what’s going on. He can guess that All Might is involved, but there are too many unknowns. The foundations of whatever he thought was happening have been erased. Izuku is most definitely not quirkless , and the villains are on the move. 

Katsuki scuffs the bottom of his shoe on the pavement as he waits. And then he sees them: Izuku and mystery boy.

As they walk toward him, he gets a good look at the other blond’s face for the first time. At a glance, he looks like a young All Might, but the face is wrong. It’s nondescript and round, but almost remarkable in its plainness. He’s also missing the two locks of hair that stick up in a V-shape from his forehead. Katsuki narrows his eyes the two approaching figures.

“Shitty Izuku,” he calls when they’re within earshot.

Izuku flinches in surprise, and mystery boy looks mildly scandalized. 

Katsuki catches Izuku’s words as he leaves the taller boy behind. “Sorry, Togata-senpai, I have to talk to him.” Togata-senpai , Katsuki echoes. The name sounds vaguely familiar, but he brushes that thought aside. He has more important things to worry about now.

“Explain,” Katsuki demands the moment Izuku turns to him.

“Not here.” Izuku glances around furtively. “Let’s go home,” he suggests.

Katsuki trails a step behind until the reach the door of the Midoriyas’ apartment. He hesitates at the door. He hasn’t actually been inside the apartment for a year, and while it’s true that he’s never purposefully hurt Izuku this time, he hasn’t been the best friend either. Nonetheless, Inko ushers him in with a promise of snacks, and he follows Izuku to his room.

“This should be fine,” Izuku says. He takes a deep breath. “I’m not supposed to tell you anything, mom doesn’t even know, but…” he trails off. “I feel like you deserve an explanation.”

Izuku folds his hands together in his lap and stares at them. He fidgets slowly, locking and unlocking his fingers, presumably trying to order his thoughts.

For the first time, Katsuki finds himself staring at the scar on Izuku’s right arm. He doesn’t want to look, but something pulls his eyes toward it like a magnet. The skin is pink and rough. It stands out against pale skin. Katsuki tries to fight the rising anxiety.

“You’re not quirkless,” Katsuki prompts. And then, at the sight of Izuku’s shocked face, “it’s obvious.”

Izuku fumbles for a moment, his hands twisting in his lap. “That’s the important part.” His eyes are still directed downward, but they’re unfocused. “The rest isn’t important,” he mutters. He runs his hand over the burn scar, realizing what he’s doing halfway through and freezing.

“You said you’d explain,” Katsuki says, prodding Izuku with his foot. “Do it properly.”

Izuku looks up, green eyes wider than usual. At least he isn’t trying to avoid eye contact anymore. “The sludge villain, it starts there.” He adds that he went after the villain, with nothing more than a plan formed in three seconds and his backpack.

“You’re an idiot.” Katsuki resists the urge to say anything else, like why the fuck did you try to save me and of course you tried. Just like last time. “Continue,” he prompts.

Izuku continues. There’s apparently not much to say, just that he was saved by All Might and the other pro heroes told him it was a stupid thing to do (Katsuki thinks of a few things he’d like to say to them). Izuku doesn’t mention the injury to his arm, but Katsuki knows what burns look like. He knows what his explosions can do to people when he doesn’t limit their impact, and the Sludge Villain wouldn’t have abided by that limit. Katsuki pushes those thoughts aside and tunes in back to what Izuku’s saying.

“I talked to All Might after that, I’m not sure what I said, but a lot of things happened. And I started training with Togata-senpai after school. I didn’t have–I wasn’t strong enough by the entrance exam, so that’s why I’m in the general department.” He looks up at Katsuki. “I’m… I should’ve told you earlier, but I wasn’t sure how you’d take it.”

Katsuki flicks him in the forehead. “I’m your friend, I would’ve…” What would he have done? He shakes his head. “Also that is one shit explanation, what do you mean ‘a lot of things happened?’”

Izuku leans away. “It’s not important. I just talked to All Might a lot and...” he mutters something inaudible.

“What?”

“Uh, I cried… and showed him what I can do with a bokken.”

Katsuki still has a million questions he wants to ask, but he decides to leave the topic alone for the day. They both have homework to do, after all, and video games to play. They lie next to each other on the floor, textbooks scattered about, and Katsuki can’t help but be amazed by how natural it feels. It’s a good thing Izuku is so focused on his homework; he doesn’t catch Katsuki staring once.

Chapter Text

Even though he remembers more of what happened, the nightmares persist. He’s not sure if that makes what he sees at night better or worse. All it means is he’s a little better at distinguishing between the horrors that his subconscious creates and the things that actually happened, but both leave him drenched in cold sweat when he awakes. 

There has been a new nightmare, ever since he realized Izuku has a quirk. He sits in a room that’s almost pitch black, but he can make out the shape of Izuku’s features. Hands are placed into his, instinctively he knows they belong to Izuku. Something drips over his fingers and down his wrists. It’s warm. He flinches when he realizes that it’s blood. Izuku’s blood. Izuku’s face that was unblemished before is splotchy with bruises that grow by the second. Katsuki tries to grab Izuku’s hands tighter, but his fingers touch nothing but empty space. And the image of Izuku’s injured face dissolves into the blackness. Katsuki looks around desperately, but he’s the only one there, and he wants only one thing: bring Izuku back. 

There’s another new dream, too, but it’s less of a nightmare. It involves something about Izuku beating him over the head with a bokken.

As the days pass, Katsuki tries to find ways to interrogate Izuku on other points. Like, who the hell is Togata-senpai and what did you show All Might with a bokken that convinced him? The answer to the first question is easy enough. Togata Mirio is a promising 3rd-year student, who looks annoyingly like young All Might with a dumber face. Which is probably an unfair description. Izuku is less willing to answer the second. Eventually, he gives up.

“When I said ‘bokken’ I meant, ‘bokken and other things.’ It’s probably easiest if we just, uh, spar.” Izuku catches the look on his face. “Only if you want to.”

“Ok, try and hit me. If you can, that is.”

“We can’t just… start fighting at school. We’ll get in trouble. Also, I’ll go ask Togata-senpai to come watch just in case things get out of hand. Or maybe All Might, but he’s a teacher so that might be a…”

Katsuki tunes out the rest of Izuku’s ponderings about what the best way for them to do this without breaking school rules is or blowing up random parts of the city. He knows it’s probably best to plan ahead. Hopefully his dream about Izuku hitting over the head with a bokken doesn’t come true, particularly if he has an audience. Katsuki glances at his palms. He doesn’t doubt his own strength at all, but Izuku’s is currently completely unknown. He never used anything but his fists before.

It turns out that Togata thinks it’s a great idea, especially when he realizes that Katsuki is “ that childhood friend.” (Katsuki tries to ignore that, but it bothers him  anyway.)

Katsuki’s dream doesn’t quite come true, but Izuku lands several good hits without even using his quirk. Izuku has clearly been working on his combat skills. He’s always been observant and a decent strategist, but his quick-thinking and actual, physical strength have greatly improved. Katsuki guesses that he should thank All Might and Togata for that. In the end, Katsuki flattens him, but they’re more evenly matched than they once were. Katsuki moves off of him quickly once the fight has been decided. There are some things about sparring that are definitely not good for his sanity, his heart, or anything else. 

Once they recover their breath, Izuku leaves to put his bokken back in one of the storage sheds for sports equipment. It’s against UA policy to let students carry weapons of any sort. This leaves Katsuki with Togata. There’s the question of how much this guy actually knows about Izuku’s quirk situation, and there’s the fact that Katsuki knows next to nothing about him. It’s a little bit awkward.

“He’s gotten a lot stronger, hasn’t he?” Togata starts the conversation.

“Huh.” Katsuki looks up from inspecting the bruise forming on his forearm. “Yeah?” 

He gets a nod in return. “Midoriya works really hard. He admires you a lot, you know. I’m sure you’ll both turn into great superheroes.” Togata claps him on the shoulder. “I’m sure I’ll see you soon.”

The next second, the other blond is gone, seemingly having disappeared into thin air. Katsuki stares at the spot where he was sitting. Izuku returns a minute later to find Katsuki still staring at it.

“Where the hell’d he go? Does he teleport?” Katsuki mutters.

Izuku laughs a little. “Trust me, that’s not the worst thing he does.”  Katsuki narrows his eyes.

“He hasn’t done anything, has he?” He tries to keep the jealous edge out of his voice, but probably fails.

“No! He just...pops through walls when I’m walking to class. I think he’s traumatized at least half of my classmates, too.” 

Izuku sighs. “Anyway, that’s what I can do with a bokken,” He adds, switching the topic. “Want me to teach you?”

Katsuki looks at the gleam of humor in his friend’s eyes. “Oh, fuck off. What’re you going to do if you don’t have it in a fight?”

“What you do.” Izuku grins. “Punch ‘em.”

Chapter Text

Katsuki knows that a childhood friend is all he is. (And he tries not to let that hurt.) Anyway, he tells himself, he’s not sticking around to be friends, or anything else, he’s there to make things different from last time. But, damn, it still hurts. Fuck emotions.

The next day he learns that having friends in another class is starting to make him interesting, and no amount of angry cursing will keep them away. Especially Kirishima. The hard-headed idiot has, for whatever reason, decided that being Katsuki’s friend is cool. Katsuki doesn’t think he’s done anything particularly cool or manly recently, but he remembers that Kirishima always had a stubborn streak and never gave up on trying to be his friend. Something like an eager golden retriever that’s bright red and is a rock. So not a golden retriever at all. Anyway.  

After class ends and lunch begins, Katsuki feels a heavy arm drop around his shoulders. Katsuki twitches. He isn’t averse to physical contact, but it’s usually either his mom smacking him for being an ass, his dad trying to stop him from getting into a fight with his mom, or Izuku. Katsuki thinks about the pros and cons of shoving Kirishima into the wall, and settles on hunching his shoulders but not pulling away entirely.

“The fuck do you want?” 

Kirishima ignores the angry tone of voice. “Who’s the dude you keep hanging out with? He seems cool.”

Since when was Izuku cool. “He’s a nerd,” Katsuki says.

“He hangs out with the third-year most likely to be number one hero in three years. I’d say that’s pretty cool.”

Katsuki pretends he knew that. “Ok, hair-for-brains, time for you to fuck off.”

Somehow, he ends up eating lunch with Kirishima anyway. Apparently he has friends now. What the hell. 

Kaminari is sitting with them, too, even though he looks like he’s ready to run at the first sign of danger. Katsuki resigns himself to it, noticing out of the corner of his eye that the rest of 1-A seems to have settled into groups by now. The only ones sitting alone are half-and-half and 20th. When he tunes back in to the lunch table conversation, he notices that Sero has joined them and is describing an incident where he managed to tape himself onto the ceiling a little after his fifth birthday.

When school lets out, Katsuki waits for Izuku. He has to wait a full twenty minutes for Izuku and Togata to appear somewhat out of breath. On top of that, Izuku’s hair looks like more of a mess than usual. When the pair catch sight of him, Togata sends Izuku towards him with a clap on the back and words that Katsuki can’t quite make out.

“Training,” Izuku mutters, as he joins Katsuki. “You don’t have to wait for me. Why did you? Is there something you wanted to talk about?”

Katsuki shrugs like it’s no big deal. There’s no way he’s telling Izuku he just wanted to see him. “Nah, just don’t have anything else to do.”

Izuku falls into step beside him, as they head towards their apartment building. “Did you see? The sports festival is coming up. The general department’s allowed to participate, too.”

“Cool.”

“Kacchan, if we end up fighting, don’t go easy on me.”

Katsuki scoffs and reaches over to pinch his friend. “Why the hell would I go easy on you? If we end up fighting, you better run.”

“I’m not running. Remember, I know your weakness.”

“My what?”

“You’re ticklish.”

Izuku narrowly evades Katsuki’s attempt to seize him, and takes off running.

“So are you, dumbass!”

They arrive at the entrance to their apartment building dragging their school bags behind them and panting for air, but in good spirits. Izuku uses the wall to support himself as he clutches a stitch in his side. Once they catch their breath, they walk towards their respective apartments. As Izuku turns to walk to his own door, Katsuki almost stops him. It feels like too soon that they have to part.

Izuku catches his eye before walking through the door.

“I’ll see you tomorrow, Kacchan.”

After the door shuts, Katsuki makes his way to his own door, strangely aware of how empty the air feels when Izuku isn’t by his side.

Chapter Text

Before the sports festival, Katsuki declares war on all the other classes when they gather in front of 1-A’s door. He’s less overconfident than he used to be, but nonetheless wants to provoke them. He wants to fight. He wants to be number one this time without dispute. 

The hallway echoes with gasps and cries of indignation. Many UA students are proud of their strength, and rightly so, but Katsuki calls them all extras . Because that’s what they are. Looking around at the sea of faces around him, he doesn’t see a single one outside of 1-A who fought beside them. He looks at their outrage at nothing more than a petty insult, and his lip curls. None of them stand a chance.

They day of the sports festival dawns, and Katsuki is awake three hours earlier than usual. Maybe it’s nerves. It’s probably nerves. His memories from last time are clearest when they concern the villains, but he has a sort of uneasy feeling about today. It’s different from the uneasy feeling he had before USJ, but he’s still apprehensive. The sky is clear, and a light breeze ruffles his hair when he sticks his head out of his bedroom window to check the temperature.

He walks to school with Izuku, as per usual, before they part ways. The nervousness Katsuki has is bundled inside his chest in tight coils, and his limbs are jittery. The only danger to Izuku today is his own stubbornness, and Katsuki isn’t sure he can do much about that. He vaguely remembers the roar of the stadium and the shouts of classmates, but nothing of villains. Katsuki tells himself to focus. 

When he finds the rest of 1-A, the air is buzzing with excitement. He hears snatches of conversation–speculations about the events, quirks of students in other classes, and who will win. Katsuki tunes them out, hearing only the slight rustle as he pulls his gym uniform on. Once he’s dressed and his boots are laced up, he leaves the changing room behind, making his way through vacant hallways. Most of the students are still changing. It’s still early.

But then he hears something.

“...All Might has his eye on you, doesn’t he?” It’s half-and-half’s low voice. It echoes eerily off of the empty walls.

Katsuki pauses in the hallway, just around the corner from them. He’s eavesdropping again. There are two voices, and the other is unmistakably Izuku’s. He leans his back against the drywall. Even through the fabric of his gym uniform, he can feel the cold wall sapping away his body heat. Katsuki suppresses a shiver and tries to pretend he’s not worried.

“Are you All Might’s secret child?”

It takes a moment for Katsuki to process the question. What the fuck, Todoroki . But then he wonders why half-and-half even thought to ask. It’s true that Izuku’s quirk vaguely resembles All Might’s, but they couldn’t look more different. Katsuki bites his lip to keep himself from snorting aloud. 

Then again, it sounds like a reasonable theory, especially when the truth is what it is.

Katsuki thinks about whether or not half-and-half could have stumbled upon one of Izuku’s training sessions. If he’d been spotted with All Might, it would look suspicious, wouldn’t it? Izuku isn’t even in the hero course. He’s not in any class All Might teaches.

He also wonders why a connection to All Might would make half-and-half seek Izuku out. And then he tunes back into the conversation.

Oh right. Todoroki’s tragic backstory.

It really is fucked.

And Katsuki briefly thinks about punching Endeavor in the face. It’s not that he particularly likes half-and-half, but Katsuki is a hero at heart. And a story of a quirk marriage and pouring boiling water on a kid’s face should set any hero’s blood boiling.

Just around the corner, Izuku declare his intent to win, “I may not be in the hero course, but I have my own reasons for fighting. I won’t lose to you, Todoroki. My power is not All Might’s, and I will win.”

There’s a pause. Todoroki responds, and then two sets of footsteps start moving, and Katsuki has to escape before anyone realizes he just overheard the Flame Hero’s son swear he’d win everything with only ice. 

The next time he sees half-and-half is in the stadium. Katsuki acts like he didn’t hear the conversation, and tries to think of a way to tell Izuku not to break all the bones in his hand just to make half-and-half use his flames. He’s not supposed to know that, though, and Izuku will probably try no matter what he says. Maybe Izuku is strong enough to KO todoroki and no bones will be broken in the process.

As the festival starts, Katsuki gets called up to make an announcement on behalf of class A. He tells them he’ll be number one. His eyes catch Izuku’s for a moment, and he’s given a small smile. Katsuki nearly forgets what he’s doing, but then turns back to the rest of the crowd. It doesn’t matter if they boo him, they’ll see his power soon enough. He curls his hands into fists at his sides and walks off the podium.

Midnight details the first round of competition, an obstacle course, and then they’re off. 

There are too many bodies at the beginning. It seems like hundreds of UA first-years are crammed into a hallway that’s only wide enough to fit ten people shoulder-to-shoulder. Katsuki climbs onto some unlucky person’s head and blasts off. He lost sight of Izuku a while ago, and he attempts to stop himself for searching for a head of green, curly hair.

Half-and-half speeds ahead on his wave of ice. Katsuki avoids with a small explosion and takes off after him. As he runs, he sees that everyone in class A dodged along with a few others. One of those others being Izuku. Katsukireally should be looking ahead of him, but his gaze fixes on Izuku for a few seconds longer. Izuku looks stronger, more sure of himself, and though Katsuki can’t be sure, it looks like he’s using some extra power to run faster. In another second he’s beside Katsuki.

“Hey, Kacchan!” he calls brightly, and Katsuki has to try his hardest to focus on running and not tripping over his feet.

“Fuck off, this is a competition,” he snaps.

Izuku swerves away from Katsuki’s half-hearted attempt to shove him, and they continue down the track. Izuku stays even with him until they make it to the first obstacle. And then Katsuki really does manage to focus on the race.

It takes only a millisecond for Katsuki to recognize the robots from the entrance exam. He skids to a halt. It would be stupid just to try and run through them. Before he has time to act, another wave of ice rises high above their heads and arches over the line of robots. Half-and-half takes expands his lead. 

Katsuki grinds his teeth. Asshole.

He uses a few more explosions to vault himself over the tumbling pile of robots. Todoroki may be first for now, but his back is getting closer.

Chapter Text

Todoroki has an advantage with his ice. Katsuki will grudgingly admit that elemental quirks are usually strong, and half-and-half knows how to use at least half of his properly. The next obstacle is a pit with a few platforms to land on and a few ropes in between. Half-and-half fucking glides across like it’s no big deal, leaving a trail of ice crystals fluttering to the earth behind him. Katsuki propels himself across the pits. Screw the ropes, he doesn’t need them anyway. 

He glances back to see some of the others starting to make their way across as well. Froggy  gets across the first rope pretty fast and sparkle idiot just jumps across with his laser. Even with the large number of people, he can spot Izuku’s head off to the left. As his friend pushes his way to the front Katsuki faces forward again. Todoroki Shouto needs to be taken down a notch.

Once across the obstacle, Katsuki takes off running. He could use his explosions to propel him now, but he doesn’t want to waste energy. In second place, just using his legs will let him save his quirk for later. Todoroki may be athletic, but Katsuki is too. He’s also hellbent on passing half-and-half. Powerful strides decrease the gap between them. Todoroki speeds up slightly as he hears footsteps behind him, but by the time they’re at the next obstacle, Katsuki’s only a little bit behind.

Todoroki glances back to glare at him. His right hand twitches as if he wants to use his ice to do something, but he refrains. Instead, he steps carefully, looking at the ground in front of him and avoiding the mines. Katsuki takes a parallel path. He doesn’t want to use his explosions here unless he has to; it would be too easy to set off the mines. It’s harder to catch up when he has to watch where his feet go.

They’re halfway across when the students behind them start to cross the minefield. They’re three-quarters of the way across when there’s a gigantic explosion behind them. Katsuki freezes, balancing on one foot to look behind. That is not something he was expecting. And then there’s something soaring through the air. Something, or rather, someone.

“Deku, what the fuck!”

Izuku is crouched on a piece of metal, presumably taken from one of the robots earlier. He has his feet spread for balance and one hand on the front of the metal plate to steer. There’s a half-exhilarated half-terrified expression on his face. Actually, it’s more terrified than exhilarated, and at any other time, Katsuki would probably laugh. Izuku’s eyes shift to Katsuki’s for a moment. And then he takes the lead. Katsuki places his feet haphazardly, much less cautious of the mines now. If he has to, he can use his own explosions to counteract them. Then, deciding he needs to be faster, takes a leap and uses his quirk to thrust him forward. The ground explodes behind him, but that’s not his problem.

Out of the corner of his eye, he watches as Izuku tenses for landing, his legs compress like a spring, and then throw him forward. He shoots past Katsuki in a kind of long jump. When his feet hit the ground, he’s in first, but he stumbles on the landing.

The last few meters of the race is anybody’s game. They enter a narrow corridor with the finish line at the end. Katsuki can’t use his explosions in the restricted space, so he pushes his legs harder. His muscles are screaming. His breath comes quickly. His feet pound against the dusty ground. He’s neck-and-neck with Izuku and Todoroki.

Sweat drips down all of their faces, but their brows are furrowed in concentration. The corridor is small enough that their swinging arms nearly hit each other. Katsuki pushes himself relentlessly to close the gap between him and first place. But Izuku has an advantage, even if he fumbled the landing. His hair streams behind him, and the pure determination on his face has never been stronger.

Katsuki clenches his fists. He is mere centimeters behind.

There are five steps left.

The sweat starts to sting his eyes.

Then three.

He could reach his arm out and have his hand across the line.

Then one.

By a millimeter, Izuku’s foot crosses the line first.

Chapter Text

Katsuki takes eleven steps to slow to a halt. He stops a little ways from Izuku, face towards the ground, and breath coming in heavy gasps. His stamina is good, but running like that would take a toll on anyone. There’s a mixture of disappointment that he didn’t come in first and pride that Izuku did. 

Fuck. Fuck. He should have done better.

Katsuki raises his hands to his cheeks and slaps them. The sting is small but sharp. It’s only the first part of the day, Katsuki reminds himself. There’s more coming.

As he catches his breath, he chances a glance at half-and-half. Todoroki is staring down at his hands, looking pensive. Katuski narrows his eyes. He doesn’t particularly care about his classmate, but refusing to use half of your quirk to spite your father is pretty dramatic. His train of thought is interrupted when Kirishima slaps him on the back. Katsuki feels half of the air leave his lungs on impact.

“Hey, good job on second place!” Kirishima manages to shout even though he’s breathing heavily from the race.

He rests his hands on his knees as he catches his breath. Katsuki ignores him. A moment later, both Sero and Kaminari come stumbling across the finish line. Kaminari sprawls facedown on the ground.

“I hate running,” he complains, just barely lifting his head. He rolls over to his back when Kirishima prods him in the side with his foot. “I am dead,” Kaminari announces.

“Bro, c’mon.” Kirishima continues to poke at Kaminari’s unmoving form. 

“Tell my brother I’m sorry I fried his laptop before his high score saved, I’ll repent in the afterlife…”

Katsuki turns away from them, tuning out the rest of Kaminari’s dying wishes, and glances over to Izuku. Izuku isn’t alone. Katsuki assumes that the purple-haired student standing next to Izuku is a classmate. He clenches his teeth, wondering if he it would be acceptable to go over and bust into their conversation or not. Hair-for-brains makes the decision for him.

“Bakugou, is that the guy you’re always hanging around with?” He asks, but doesn’t wait for a response.

And before Katsuki can stop him, he walks over to where Izuku is. Katsuki trails behind him, scowling slightly.

“Hey, I’m Kirishima Eijirou, in class 1-A with Bakugou here. You’re his friend, right?” Kirishima extends a hand, and Izuku takes it.

“Yeah, I’ve been Kacchan’s friend from before I can remember.”

“Kacchan?” Kirishima echoes.

Katsuki wants to hit his head against a wall. The people in their old school were used to the nickname, but the people in 1-A have never heard it used. Until now. He hears a snort of laughter behind him, and turns to glare at Kaminari, who is obviously trying to stifle his reaction.

“That’s cute,” Kaminari giggles. Katsuki wants to strangle him.

Before he can actually do anything to Kaminari, however, Midnight calls their attention again to inform them of the next event. She silences them with a look, and Katsuki tries to focus all his attention on what’s coming next. It’s a cavalry battle, with teams of up to four. Each team gets a headband with a point value depending on how well the individual members did in the race. Katsuki has only begun to think of a strategy, when she announces the point values. They all sound reasonable, until they reach first place and a point value of 10 million.

Katsuki turns to watch Izuku’s expression morph into a combination of shock and terror. Priceless. Katsuki snapshots the moment in his head, and then starts to feel a little bit sorry for him. But only a little. That’s what you get for taking first place, dammit. 

He doesn’t have time to wish him good luck, because Midnight starts their team formation time a moment later. Katsuki finds himself surrounded by people. Apparently coming in second place makes you popular. He grabs the back of Kirishima’s gym uniform before he gets lost in the crowd. He needs at least one person to be a shield. Looking around at the rest of their faces, he has honestly no clue what most of their quirks are. He grabs the back of Sero’s gym uniform, too, and then picks a third person for good measure.

Ten minutes later, the teams are evenly spaced around the arena. Katsuki braces himself on Kirishima’s shoulders, with Sero to one side and Ashido to the other. Straight across from them, on the other side of the field, is Izuku’s team. He’s supported by a girl with pink hair and goggles on her head and the 20th student of 1-A. Katsuki feels a funny clench in the pit of his stomach. There’s something about this setup that he doesn’t like, and having no memories of 20th is starting to make him uneasy.

Izuku catches him looking and gives him a small nod. With that, the cavalry battle starts, and Katsuki tries to swallow the anxiety in his throat.

Chapter Text

Katsuki gives Izuku one more glance before he turns away. His first goal is Todoroki, as the 3rd-place contender in the race, and then Izuku, as the 1st. His plans, however, are foiled when a blond annoyance gets in his way. The other team blocks his path, and rips the headband from his head. He sends a furious explosion their way, only to have it returned.

Monoma Neito is a pain in the ass.

Screw Todoroki, there’s someone else they need to deal with first. 

“Kirishima, change of plans,” he yells, knocking his fists against the redhead’s spiky hair for good measure. He hears Ashido mutter something suspiciously like “what a surprise” with an audible eye roll, but he doesn’t have time to spare to bother retorting.

“Oi, Sero, you can get me back without touching the ground, right?” 

“What?”

Katsuki doesn’t give him time to actually respond, and instead heads for shitty copycat–shitty cat– Catshit. There. Nickname given.

“Hey, catshit, give me my goddamn headband back!”

Monoma at least has the grace to look surprised. Good . With the headband in hand, Katsuki kicks off of Monoma’s shoulders to get back into the air. Sero manages to bring him back to his team.

Back to Plan A: get Todoroki. There are 6 minutes left. That should be plenty of time. Team Todoroki is on the other side of the arena. Directly opposite them is Team Midoriya. Katsuki ignores the slight increase in his heart rate. Right now, he can excuse it away as adrenaline from the fight, when he knows perfectly well that it’s not.

“That way!” He yells pointing violently in their direction. Kirishima doesn’t need to be told twice.

As they approach a couple of other teams get in the way, or rather, try to. Their strength is surprisingly low, given that they managed to pass the first round, and Team Bakugou brushes past them without trouble. This means that Katsuki has a few seconds to observe the situation they’re heading into. He lets his teammates deal with the weaker teams, as he sets his eyes on their next targets.

Team Todoroki has Iida who has good mobility. Iida takes things literally and always plays by the rules. He only remembers that because it was fun to stick his feet up on the desks and see how long it took for Iida to start yelling at him. There’s also Kaminari with his electricity. Kaminari has a slightly glazed-over look in his eyes and probably has no idea what he’s actually doing. And there’s also rich girl, in on recommendations, but not much else Katsuki remembers. If she’s there because of recommendations, though, she has to be strong.

Team Midoriya, on the other hand, is unknown. Octopus-hair looks like she’s covered in gadgets. Or wait, the whole team looks like they’re covered. Izuku is strong with a strategic mind. Just how physically adept he is, Katsuki still doesn’t quite know, despite their sparring. And then there’s 20th. A chill runs down his spine when their eyes meet for a second as she surveys the field. Her eyes are dark, dark, like there’s something hiding in them. She is a complete unknown. Everything surrounding her feels like a black hole in his memories.

Katsuki keeps his gaze fixed forward, switching between Todoroki and Izuku. Their fight seems to be at a standstill. Izuku’s forehead is wrinkled in determination. Todoroki looks about the same as usual, but if he looked closer, maybe he’d see the spark of something in his eyes. Katsuki halts his team. Whichever one of the two they go after first will be at a disadvantage because the other team will most likely attack with them, too.

He turns his gaze towards Todoroki, with half a glance toward Izuku. You’re next .

Chapter Text

The standstill dissipates. Team Todoroki moves forward in a feint, ice curving in from one side giving Yaoyorozu a chance to make the protective blanket. The arena lights up thanks to the sparkling electricity which is about all Kaminari is good for. Izuku’s team manages to shield somewhat, though 20th looks like she’s about to burn out. She’s still standing though. Her skin looking burned and almost like it’s melting. That can only be described as unnatural. Maybe it’s part of her quirk. 

Todoroki dives for Izuku, ice forming on his right hand and his mouth set in a determined line. Izuku, in response, grits his teeth and puts his arms up to guard, but he’s a moment too slow. The headband is ripped from his head. Team Todoroki backs away. Iida is slowed from a previous exchange of blows, and Kaminari is clearly spent. They’re practically defenseless.

Katsuki signals his team after Team Todoroki. The way they are now, he should be able to take the headbands from Todoroki, including Izuku’s high-point value one. He braces himself on Kirishima’s shoulders. Just as they get to be within range, Todoroki throws up a wall of ice. Ice is easy to blow away. It shatters within a couple of explosions, but beneath it is a wall of something sturdier, probably thanks to rich girl’s quirk. Katsuki curses under his breath and redirects his team.

In the time that it’s taken for him to blast away Todoroki’s ice, Izuku’s team has recuperated and is after half-and-half from another direction. Still trying to move to a safe distance, Todoroki’s team isn’t ready for another attack, or, at least, is the most off-guard Katsuki has seen them all day. Izuku thrusts his right hand forward. There’s something different about his attack. It feels powerful . And though Katsuki can’t see their exchange properly from his current position, he feels like Izuku will land a hit. 

Todoroki raises his left arm to block, and Katsuki sees just a flicker of flame before it dies. Izuku grabs two headbands and retreats. Katsuki goes for another. Todoroki seems to regain his bearings just as Katsuki grabs the headband. He pulls hard on the top one yelling at his team to get them out of range. He meets Todoroki’s mismatched eyes for a moment. The usual cool, indifference is gone, replaced by burning–burning something. Katsuki isn’t quite sure what, but he looks away, vaguely unsettled.

The buzzer signalling the end of the match sounds.

To one side, he can hear Izuku’s whoop of victory. He glances at Izuku’s team. The pink-haired girl is shaking Izuku’s hand excitedly, but 20th is looking off to the side. The expression on her face puts any thought of Todoroki right out of his mind. She’s smiling, but he can feel all the hairs on the back of his neck stand. There’s something wrong with her smile, with the flush that tinges her cheeks pink. Then she turns towards him, and her dark eyes flash gold for a moment. When the moment is over, Katsuki thinks he must have imagined it. The smile on her face looks normal, and she pats Izuku on the shoulder in a congratulatory way. That makes his blood boil for a different reason.

Katsuki gets off of Kirishima’s shoulders and looks at the headbands he’s collected. The one he grabbed from Todoroki isn’t Izuku’s, but they should still be in the top few.

Midnight calls their attention a moment later to announce the winners. Team Midoriya, having taken back Izuku’s headband, is in first. Katsuki’s team comes in second. Then Shinsou’s. Then Todoroki’s. Todoroki clenches his left fist at his side.

Katsuki only has a moment to process the fact that he came in second (again), before his team tackles him with a hug. He freezes at the sudden contact. He blasts them, well, mostly just Kirishima because he doesn’t actually want to hurt them, in the face.

“Back off you shitheads,” he yells. 

Kirishima rubs his nose ruefully. “Rude.”

Midnight silences them once again to announce the third, and final event of the day: individual battles. They include one person from the 5th place team to make the number of contestants an even 16. There’s a short debate on that team, before Uraraka steps up. Katsuki narrows his eyes. She’s never particularly stood out to him, but he she was one of Izuku’s best friends last time. He fought her at one point to, didn’t he?

A couple of other changes are made in the lineup when two of the people on Shinsou’s team drop out. One is a boy that Katsuki recognizes from 1-A and the other is a complete stranger. He turns his gaze to Shinsou. He didn’t get the feeling that Shinsou was a threat earlier, but he has to reevaluate now. Izuku’s friend from the General Department doesn’t notice Katsuki glaring at him.

Chapter Text

When the announcements are done, Izuku walks up. He holds his hands at his side, and there’s hard-set determination in his eyes, but the smile he gives Katsuki is soft.

“What do you want?” Katsuki asks, probably more harshly than Izuku deserves. Izuku doesn’t even flinch.

“Congrats, Kacchan.”

“Fuck off, first place.” 

Izuku lets out an embarrassed huff. “I just got lucky,” he mutters. 

He looks up, and his green eyes are bright with something that Katsuki has always admired. Katsuki swallows, knowing that if Izuku asks him for anything at this moment, he’d probably give it.

“Don’t go easy on me,” Izuku says. 

“Who the hell do you think I am? Plus, I already kicked your ass when we sparred.”

“I only had a bokken that time,” Izuku says defensively.

Katsuki raises his eyebrows. “Only a bokken?”

“You may be my best friend, but I can’t tell you all of my secrets.”

Katsuki stifles a sort of choking noise. He knows Izuku is his best friend and is glad for it, but Izuku just saying things like that makes something in his chest twist in uncomfortable ways. Katsuki clears his throat to cover for the momentary lapse. 

Izuku ignores this reaction. “Let’s both make it to the finals, Kacchan.”

Katsuki has no doubts that he, Katsuki Bakugou, born and raised with a powerful quirk will make it to the finals. He doesn’t really have doubts that Izuku will make it either. He has always been strong and only seems stronger this time around. That being said, with the way the lineups are organized, Izuku will have to face first 20th and then Todoroki before he has a chance to face Katsuki.

Instead of voicing his concern, all he says is, “Yeah,” as he knocks his fist against his best friend’s. He doesn't need to burden Izuku with the doubts that hang heavy in his own mind. 

Izuku’s match against 20th is the first match of the 3rd round. Katsuki sits in the bleachers with the other students of 1-A. Kirishima and Kaminari are on his left with Sero a little farther down the row. Katsuki grips the edge of the bench that he’s sitting on as the two combatants walk into view. 

Izuku stands with his hands braced at his sides. 20th faces him, her face expressionless as it usually is, no trace of the creepy smile. Izuku walks toward her slowly. With no information on her, he has a reason to take the fight slowly. She dodges the first punch he sends her way, with an ease that makes something tighten in Katsuki’s stomach.

Katsuki swears he can feel his heart pounding in his throat. The strength that Izuku has now has been honed. His reflexes and reactions look like they have hours and hours of experience behind them–hours, that he no doubt spent with Togata or All Might. Katsuki bites down the jealousy as he tries to focus his attention on the way the fight is going. Izuku moves with confidence, but 20th dodges with ease. Her feet touch the ground for a moment before she dances out of reach.

The first true hit landed is Izuku’s. 20th takes a step back before launching her attack again. She skips out of the way of Izuku’s next blow and uses her hands to spring back. Her next kick finds its target in Izuku’s side. Both opponents skid backwards. Izuku rubs a spot on his cheek. His chest rises up and down rapidly with his breath. 

Katsuki’s knuckles turn white as he tightens the grip on the bench. Then he realizes: neither of them has shown their quirk. If Izuku is going easy on her for any reason, Katsuki will beat his ass later. But a part of him knows that can’t be the case, and that part makes him uneasy. Izuku is a strategist, and 20th is matching him hit for hit. The longer the fight draws on, the stronger the feeling of unease grows.

Another few punches are thrown. Another few are dodged. Then 20th lands a hit straight to Izuku’s nose. He blocks her next move and manages to flatten her against the cement floor of the arena. Blood drips down over his face and onto 20th’s. She raises her arms to push against Izuku’s shoulders, but in pure strength at least, it seems that he’s the clear winner. Her arms drop. Izuku stands up and pinches his nose with one hand, while offering the other to 20th to help her up as well. Katsuki has to repress the urge to blow up the bench he’s sitting on.

Izuku is announced as the winner, and he’s guided off the arena by someone from the support staff who hands him something to stop the blood flow. Katsuki watches him disappear from the arena and slowly releases his death-grip on the bench.

Chapter Text

Before Katsuki’s first match, the boy from Team Shinsou that dropped out comes up to Katsuki, his tail twitching nervously behind him.

“There’s something about Round 2 that I want to tell you.”

Katsuki narrows his eyes, but doesn’t interrupt. In the past he might have cut off tailboy for the sake of something like pride, but now he lets his classmate speak.

Ten minutes later, Katsuki stands at the edge of the arena. His jaw is set, and he’s armed with knowledge of Shinsou’s quirk. He walks up the steps to the raised platform in the middle of the arena. He knows Izuku is watching them from somewhere in the crowd and vaguely wonders who he’s rooting for.

He locks eyes with Shinsou who stands on the other side of the platform. The referee signals the start of the match. Before Shinsou can open his mouth, Katsuki lunges for him. If he doesn’t give his opponent time to talk, he shouldn’t be able to use his quirk. He sends his right fist towards Shinsou’s head, but he finds it blocked. There’s a hint of a smirk on Shinsou’s face, and Katsuki grits his teeth.

“I’ve heard a lot about you from Izuku ,” Shinsou says, grimacing from the effort of blocking Katsuki’s arm.

Katsuki presses harder, but neither is yielding. In terms of quirk, Katsuki knows his is more suited for battle. He can destroy things easily. Shinsou, on the other hand, has a more subtle quirk that’s powerful all the same, and Katsuki doesn’t know the extent of his physical abilities. Katsuki redoubles his efforts to push Shinsou down and bites his tongue to keep from yelling at him. They glare at each other for another few seconds, before Shinsou ducks away.

“It looks like you’ve heard about my quirk, but I have a feeling that if I keep talking about our mutual friend, you’ll crack.”

Like hell I will, Katsuki wants to shout. But he grits his teeth harder and goes for another attack. This time, his fist connects with Shinsou’s stomach. Shinsou takes a couple steps backward to regain his bearings.

“You’re strong, Bakugou, but that means that since you’ve been gifted from birth, you don’t know how painful it is to be disadvantaged because of something you’re born with. It means you don’t understand people like me or like Izuku who had to fight for recognition.”

Shinsou mostly dodges his next blow, Katsuki’s fist just grazing his cheek. Katsuki tries to block out the sound of Shinsou’s voice in his head. Don’t respond. Don’t respond.

“You think you’re friends with him? That you’re close?”

Katsuki’s next explosion catches Shinsou’s shoulder. His gym uniform smokes. Anger seethes in his stomach. He wants to retort, wants to yell.

“He probably just sticks around you, because he’s a nice person. There’s no way he could–”

“Shut the fuck up, you don’t know the first thing about us!”

The yell is halfway out of his mouth, when it feels like something switches in his mind. All his anger and frustration and adrenaline is still there, but it’s disconnected from his body. Fuck. He registers the smug smile on Shinsou’s face. Fuck it all. Shinsou orders him to walk out of the ring, to give up. His muscles listen to that order even though his mind is screaming at them to stop. Thoughts fly through his brain. There has to be an escape to this. There has to be a way out.

But it’s difficult to believe that when his body is dutifully taking step after step towards the edge of the platform. He can feel the weight of the audience’s stare on him. He’ll be laughed at for walking off in the first round of the tournament. Anger and resentment boil within him. And he is powerless, powerless. In the crowd, he knows Izuku is watching. And then–

“Kacchan, don’t give up!” 

It’s only one yell in a crowd, only one voice among what seems to be thousands, but it resonates loudly in his head. Izuku. The only person it could be. Something that feels almost like an electric shock goes through his body. He has just enough control to clench the fingers of his left and set off an explosion. In the aftermath, he can smell smoke and ash in the air. The skin on his hand feels like it’s still on fire, but the sudden shock of pain seems to have done the trick.

He turns around to face Shinsou again. Katsuki’s face is set in grim determination. He launches himself towards Shinsou, holding his left arm out of the way. It turns into a brawl. Shinsou’s reflexes are not at the level of Katsuki’s, but they’re not bad. And, of course, Katsuki is disadvantaged by the fact that he only has one arm to fight with. Little by little, he pushes Shinsou back. As he stands at the edge of the platform, Katsuki readies another explosion. There’s a moment when he has to break through the block that Shinsou throws up, before he can send him flying. In that moment, Shinsou says something, that he doesn’t have time to process until later.

“You must really love him, if his voice overpowered my quirk.”

The sound of another explosion rings through the arena. Katsuki wins the match. Shinsou holds a hand to his split lip as a member of the medical staff escorts him from the arena. In the cheers that explode from the audience, he thinks he can still hear Izuku’s voice. As Shinsou leaves, he sees Izuku’s General Department classmates leaning over the guardrail waving to him. Katsuki turns away.

Chapter Text

Other medical staffers hurry up to him as he approaches the exit. His hand is throbbing, so he submits to them without much complaint (he only tells them to fuck off twice). As they take him to Recovery Girl, he has time to think about what Shinsou said. You must really love him. It bothers him that Shinsou–someone barely knows, has barely seen him– knows . He clenches his fists. The day isn’t over, and he has a feeling that something important is still yet to happen.

Recovery Girl heals him enough to be functional, but it’s not complete. With his hand bandaged and a couple of painkillers to keep the pain reasonable, he makes his way back to the seats above the arena. He comes back in the middle of a match that results in Kaminari shorting out his brain and losing spectacularly. Then he watches Todoroki freeze half the stadium and Kirishima knock heads with someone scarily similar to him in both quirk and personality. Katsuki taps his foot impatiently, ready for them to announce the matchups for the second round. 

When the last match of the first round is done, the winners are called by name and their opponents are set. Katsuki’s next fight is against Uraraka, and Izuku’s is against Kirishima. At first glance, Katsuki thinks his next fight will be boring. Uraraka hasn’t stood out to him, but he knows–he remembers–she is stronger than she looks at first glance. He sends a look her way every so often as the other matches play out. In this lifetime, she has never met Izuku. He wonders if she’ll be weaker for it.

Kirishima makes his way over. It’s almost time for Izuku’s fight, and Katsuki knows he won’t be cheering for his classmate this time.

“How strong is he?” Kirishima asks.

“I’m not telling you,” Katsuki says, but he can’t keep the smile entirely off his face–he knows Izuku is strong.

Kirishima rolls his eyes, muttering something along the lines of “I don’t know why I asked.”

When Izuku next walks out into the arena, Katsuki is glad to see that any evidence of his previous match’s injuries are gone. Where Izuku mostly attacks, Kirishima defends. Katsuki’s grip on the bench tightens before the match even begins. They circle each other once. Izuku is unfamiliar with Kirishima’s quirk, so he has to analyze as he goes. He throws a punch first, and Kirishima is forced to step backward, but Izuku’s knuckles come away bloodied.

Fighting with only his bare hands puts him at a disadvantage. If he tries to attack, all Kirishima has to do is block properly, and Izuku will get injured. Izuku blocks an attack with his forearms, but he flinches. His arms are scratched now, too. He distances himself. Katsuki can almost see the gears in his mind working. Izuku knows that the way he’ll win this match is by knocking Kirishima out of the designated area, not by knocking him unconscious. Behind those bright green eyes, he knows some sort of strategy is forming. 

His thoughts are interrupted a few times, when Kirishima takes the offensive. Izuku returns the hits blow for blow, but if things continue at this rate, he won’t win. He backs away again. He wipes the sweat off his forehead, and his hand leaves behind a red smudge. Katsuki fully believes that Izuku will win. He just wants it to happen a little faster, and with a little less getting blood everywhere.

Izuku clenches his fists, and Katsuki tightens his jaw. Izuku attacks again and, ignoring the newly inflicted injuries, steps back toward the edge of the platform. Kirishima follows. They stand only a small distance away from the edge. Izuku has his back towards it, but doesn’t hesitate for a moment. Kirishima goes for another punch, but this time, Izuku dodges to the side and throws an attack of his own.

It’s now Kirishima with his back to the edge. All Izuku has to do is push him. Katsuki sees the evidence of his quirk light up. Even though Kirishima is strong and his defense is damn strong, anyone who takes a punch with that kind of power behind it will be sent backward. Izuku comes away the winner, but with bleeding knuckles and a couple fractures in his right hand–the one he used for his last punch.

Once again, Katsuki has to watch Izuku being guided off the arena by medical staff. If Izuku has any instinct for self preservation, he has yet to see it. Katsuki slowly loosens his hands. His nerves are going to be dead by the end of the day, and it’s all Izuku’s fault.

Katsuki closes his eyes and tries to clear his head. His own match is coming up, after all. He glances over to where Uraraka sits. She has her hands clenched in her lap. Asui, who sits next to her, looks like she’s trying to give her a pep talk. Last time, it probably would have been Izuku or Iida. Katsuki stuffs his hands in his pockets and makes his way to the waiting room. He has three more fights, and the day will be over.

Chapter Text

Katsuki walks into the arena. His hand barely hurts now. He supposes he has the painkillers and adrenaline to thank for that. But he doesn’t know how long it will last if he uses his quirk with already-fractured fingers. He spares one glance towards the audience. From this distance, he can’t tell if Izuku is back from getting his injuries treated or not. Katsuki roughly pushes the worry away.

Uraraka enters the arena from the other side, and she looks terrified. Her hands are clenched into fists at her side, but they’re shaking. If he remembers correctly, her quirk takes actual contact to activate. That’s the one thing he has to watch for.

Katsuki stares her down. “Oy, floaty, if you want to withdraw, you better do it now,” he warns. “But if you don’t, you better come at me with all you’ve got.”

She pauses for a moment, before her face goes from scared to resolved, her eyes narrowing slightly and her mouth settling into a firm line. “There’s no way I can withdraw here,” she says.

Katsuki watches for the moment her weight shifts and moves in response, sinking his weight into his knees and pushing off. He brings his right arm down in a large arc. If she was friends with Izuku, she would know this is a habit of his. This time she’s never met Izuku. Katsuki controls the explosion so it’s just enough to throw her back. He sees her stumble as she tries to regain her balance.

She tries to attack him again, this time from the left side. He uses his left hand to repel her, and he feels a small spasm of pain. At this level, it’s hardly something to notice, but he still hesitates for a moment. He needs to be in top form for the matches after this. For now, he’ll try to favor his right, and he’ll try to finish this match quickly.

The next explosion sends her to the ground. She gets to her feet again slowly. The look in her eyes has dulled from determination to something edging on panic. Instead of waiting for her to run at him again, he takes the offensive and throws her back. He lets go of some of the caution he’d had in the beginning of the match, when he was waiting to see how she would walk into battle. Instead of letting her breathe, he rages ahead. He fires explosions once. Twice. Three times. 

The smoke and ash left over from his explosions is heavy in the air. Katsuki stills; he knows he heard her stumble. When the smoke clears, he sees her lying on the ground. There are pieces of the arena floor around him. She considers them for a moment, before she reaches for them, sending them skyward. It’s the good idea, but they’re too far into the match. Uraraka claws her way to standing until she stands before him, legs trembling slightly. Her eyes have gained back some of their resolve.

Katsuki walks forward. She takes a couple steps back, raising her hands. When Katsuki passes under the rubble, she lets her fingertips touch. Without looking, he lifts his right hand and obliterates it with a single explosion. The particles of dust rain upon him, too small to cause any harm.

“Right idea, too slow,” he comments.

She makes a last-ditch attempt to make him float, her hand reaching toward him with her fingers outstretched. In her current state, injured and with no plans left to try, her movements are slow, and Katsuki sidesteps her easily.  He forces her down with a final explosion that she doesn’t have the strength left to evade.

Midnight announces him as the winner, and he watches someone from the medical staff help her to her feet and lead her out of the arena. Uraraka Ochako is not weak by any means of the word, but she is not strong yet either. He sees the makings of a someone with a sense for strategy and someone who will grow into her quirk until she is a force to be reckoned with. She already possesses some of the drive to become a hero, but the passion in her eyes is weak.

Katsuki leaves the arena slowly. He was never Uraraka’s friend, but she was Izuku’s. In their other lifetime, she could hone her own observational and strategic abilities alongside Izuku who’d spent his life watching and analyzing. In this lifetime, she hasn’t had the chance, because Izuku is in 1-C not 1-A. That’s probably Katsuki’s fault. Without Izuku, 1-A has no unified purpose, no one to gather them together and force them to get stronger in the same way, no one to inspire them with outstanding determination and an unwavering spirit.

He looks up, to where the others in class 1-A that aren’t the 1-A students they have the potential to be. They were stronger with Izuku in their midst, and without him they are a scattered class, collecting in twos and threes. If they are to face the battles that will no doubt be as difficult as they were last time, they need to be stronger–he, Katsuki, needs to be stronger. He stares at the place where Izuku’s class is sitting. It still feels wrong that they are in different classes.

Katsuki tries to clear his head. The next round is the semi-finals, and he has no time to be concerned with the future or what could have been–or what was last time. The four that are left are Katsuki, Izuku, Todoroki and Tokoyami. He waits for the announcement of the match-ups with anticipation beating in his chest. He will be up against Tokoyami, which leaves Izuku to fight Todoroki–All Might’s disciple against Endeavor’s son. It’s a fight that was fated in any version of events.

Katsuki makes his way to a seat with 1-A. Izuku will fight Todoroki, and Katsuki wonders who will win this time. Izuku is different for sure, but is half-and-half? Kirishima sits down beside him, interrupting his train of thought.

“Your Midoriya is a tough one,” he complains. 

“Fuck off,” Katsuki yells, shoving Kirishima away so he doesn’t see the red light up Katsuki’s face. Your Midoriya .

Kirishima recovers quickly. “And congrats, man!”

“You really went all out against a fragile girl. How could you?” Kaminari’s voice cuts in.

Katsuki has half a mind to blast him out of the stands. He thinks of the fight he just left, and while she wasn’t as strong as Uraraka Ochako can be– 

“Where the hell do you see fragile?” Katsuki asks. “Plus, didn’t you didn’t get your ass handed to you by a ‘fragile girl?’”

Kaminari’s shoulders slump as he mutters excuses, but Katsuki has already refocused his attention elsewhere. There are three matches left, and the day is over. Katsuki clasps in his hands in his lap. In all the storm of his emotions for Izuku, he wants to fight him, too.

Chapter Text

Katsuki waits with his heart racing with a combination of anxiety and anticipation. The next match will determine whether or not there’s a possibility of facing Izuku in the final round. That and–well, Izuku came out of the Sports Festival with more injuries than anyone else last time. He hopes that doesn’t happen again, but knowing Izuku, it probably will. Katsuki clenches and unclenches his fists. Next to him he hears Kirishima or Kaminari say something about him.

“The fuck do you want?” He asks, turning to glare at them.

Kirishima puts his hands up in defense–he has some common sense. Kaminari blunders on.

“You always seem kind of tense before–what was his name? Your friend. Green hair? That guy. You seem tense when it’s his turn to fight.”

Katsuki grinds his teeth. “It’s ‘cause he’s a piece of shit who gets injured a lot, and I have to drag his ass home whatever condition he’s in.”

“Oh, why’s that?” Kaminari really, really needs to shut up. “It almost sounds like you’re–”

Thank god Sero has the sense to clap a hand over Kaminari’s mouth. Otherwise, he might have a murder charge on his head by now. Katsuki glares at the three idiots sitting near him and hopes his face looks more angry than embarrassed. He can feel them assuming things, and knows that they, or rather Kaminari, will bring it up again.

“We’ve lived in the same apartment building forever. My mom would murder me if I just left him lying around somewhere.”

“Your mom?” Sero sounds innocently curious. Or he would, but there’s a glint in his eye that says otherwise.

“Yeah, now fuck off.”

Katsuki shoves them away. He can still remember training with his mom. She did not go easy on him. At all. Of course, he never got seriously injured, and she would always make sure he took care of the injuries he did get. But, there are probably more than a hundred times when he thought he was going to die. Katsuki shrugs off the uncomfortable feeling he gets when he remembers those times, then looks down at the arena again.

The next match is starting.

Izuku enters from one side, and Todoroki from the other. Only Izuku’s right hand is bandaged, but there are probably still bruises left other places. Katsuki shifts in his seat. Even in the other time, Izuku’s strength was enough to stand against Todoroki for a decent fight. This time, by some means–Katsuki doesn’t know exactly how–Izuku has a better control of his power.

The two stare each other down. The tension in the air is palpable. Across the stadium, Endeavor leans against the wall as he observes. Somewhere else, All Might is surely watching.

Todoroki lifts his right hand, and ice flies toward Izuku, creating a trail of bluish white in an instant. Izuku dodges, but the ice follows him. The moment he sets his foot down, he propels himself forward and sends his fist out to shatter the oncoming attack. 

Izuku is mainly a close-range fighter, but Todoroki’s ice can reach anywhere. If Izuku wants to win the fight, he’ll have to move in closer. Katsuki thinks of the conversation he overheard between the two combatants earlier in the day. Even Katsuki can tell that Todoroki’s situation isn’t exactly healthy, and he’s not exactly handling it well. And that means Izuku  is probably going to try and fix it. Scratch that, knowing Izuku, he is definitely going to try and fix it. Dumbass .

Todoroki has a wall of ice raised behind him, to prevent him from being easily blasted out of the designated area. Izuku stands at the opposite side, about as far away as he can get. Another rush of ice is sent toward him. This time, he doesn’t try to dodge, but leaps forward to meet it, punching forward with his right hand again. Again, the ice shatters. Izuku braces himself when he lands, his left hand going to his right wrist. With the bandages on his hand, it’s impossible to tell if there’s damage yet or not–or how much.

Todoroki uses his ice only again and again. His resolve to use only one side, one half of himself, is clear. Izuku shatters the ice each time, but Katsuki can see his movements changing. He’s not slowing down per se, but the way he holds his right arm is changing. The next time he shatters Todoroki’s attack, the bandage rips and falls away. Even far away in the audience, Katsuki can tell he’s taken a fair bit of damage. Idiot Izuku. His hand might not be completely wrecked, but it is definitely wounded.

This time, when Izuku lands, he doesn’t immediately have to block another attack. Todoroki stands, still on the opposite side of the arena almost exactly across, and his right hand is raised, but he doesn’t send his ice again.

“Todoroki, I can see you shivering,” Izuku calls out, loud enough for it to even reach the audience–or at least, Katsuki.

“Since quirks are just another physical function, they all have limits. If you use your ice that much, even you get affected by the cold, right? But that’s a problem that’s easily solved if you use your other half!”

Izuku clenches his right fist and raises it high in the air, showing the audience the state of his self-inflicted injuries–evidence of what he chose to do, not what Todoroki enacted upon him.

“You haven’t even managed to put a single scratch on me! Don’t you think you’re being arrogant to use only half when everyone else is giving everything they’ve got?”

He lets his fist come down and holds it level in front of him. A show of power. What he’s willing to do to win.

“Todoroki Shouto, this is my challenge–come over here and fight me properly!” 

Katsuki can’t see his face, but he knows how Izuku’s eyes light up when he’s serious, how his features settle into an expression that says he’ll bet all his resolve on something. He can feel a rush of something through his chest. Like wings. There’s a hint of jealousy, too, that Izuku is focused solely on prying into the consequences of Todoroki’s tragic past, but he swallows that down. There’s a hint of admiration, too. Izuku’s determination always amazes him.

Chapter Text

Todoroki barely has time to hear the challenge before he runs at Izuku, no longer relying on simply sending his ice where he can. Katsuki can see that the movements of his right side look stiff, probably as a result of overusing his ice. Izuku runs to meet Todoroki in the middle of the arena, ducking below his opponent's outstretched hand and landing a hit right in his stomach. He distances himself again, and he’s still saying something to Todoroki, but his voice is lost in the cheers and groans of the audience.

Todoroki’s natural abilities may be high, and he may have trained for years, but Izuku’s quirk makes him fast and strong. In terms of instinct for battle and strategy, it’s hard to tell who does it better. Izuku charges forward once more, this time he uses his left fist, and it swings in an arc into Todoroki’s right side, still slowed by cold. Todoroki is thrown halfway to the other side of the arena. Izuku watches him stand, hands curling into fists again as he waits.

Todoroki gets to his feet, and there’s a look in his eyes of intense pain. Half his face is cloaked in a thin layer of ice, and the other half bears a scar that he will always bear as a reminder of the pain his father caused. 

The fight pauses, and the stadium holds its breath. Todoroki says something too quiet for the cameras to pick up on, but Katsuki can guess it’s something like, there’s no way I can use my father’s quirk.

“It’s your power!” Izuku yells, and his voice rings loud enough that it reaches the audience. “No matter who your parents are, the power you wield is yours alone.”

Even though the words aren’t directed at him, Katsuki feels something ignite in his ribcage. Izuku has a horrible habit of sticking his nose in other people’s business, but he has a way with words that rips out people’s demons and lies them bare. And in the end, it’s always hard to find fault with what he does.

Todoroki hesitates for a moment, and his face changes as he lights up, quite literally. The flames that roar to life are answer enough to Izuku’s words. The smile on his face is the first in a very, very long time, and his lips tremble like he’s still afraid of what he’s doing. The ice on his right side melts off in an instant–two halves that have finally become a whole. Endeavor’s shout falls on deaf ears. No one in the audience even turns to glance at the number two hero.

In another breath, all that can be seen is bright, bright orange and a deafening sound of an explosion shakes the stadium down to its foundations. Katsuki braces himself against the impact, and opens his eyes despite the cloud of smoke. He has to see where Izuku is. Where is he? The dark smoke clears slowly, and Katsuki continues to search the scene in front of him.

His eyes finally land on Izuku, who is standing at the edge of the arena. His arms are placed in front of him to block the damage, and he was forced to one knee by the explosion, but he is still within the bounds. Katsuki lets go of a breath he wasn’t aware of holding. The fight isn’t over yet. Izuku can win. 

The teachers overseeing the match look tense, bodies tensed to be ready to jump in and stop the fight at any moment. But for now, all they do is watch.

The light of Izuku’s quirk is just visible around his legs. It takes him a moment to lower his arms and push himself onto two feet again, but as soon as his feet are planted, he pushes off the ground. The arena between them is in ruins–it’s a field of jagged pieces. Todoroki looks almost dazed. The explosion caused by cold air heating up again and expanding, might not have been expected. He barely blocks Izuku in time, raising ice by habit.

The ice is easily shattered, and Izuku’s fist crashes into Todoroki’s arm, who is thrown backward, dangerously close to the edge of the arena. He skids to a halt before he’s out of bounds, and he holds his right arm carefully at his side. Izuku stumbles on his landing, awkwardly having to find footing where there is only rubble left. Izuku prepares for his next attack, and Todoroki responds in kind. Fire burns bright again as he swings his left arm forward. But it’s brightness lasts only a moment, as Izuku uses the force of a punch to blow it away. 

Izuku distances himself, using his less injured hand to steady himself on the uneven surface. His right arm is held painfully at his side. The skin is red and raw, but it looks like he still has full control of his hand and his bones aren’t completely crushed. Still close to the boundary of the arena, Todoroki stands, chest heaving–not because of physical exertion, but because of the feelings that using his flames forces upon him. His eyes are still on Izuku, but his mind is racing.

Izuku takes advantage of his opponent's lack of focus, and runs forward once more, feet breaking through the pieces of the floor up every time he lands. His attack is directed at Todoroki’s left side. Todoroki raises his arm to block in time, but hesitates to call upon the power of his fire. There’s just a flicker of flame before Izuku’s fist connects.

Todoroki is thrown out of bounds. He lands on the ground, stumbling a couple steps backward until his back collides with the wall. Both of his arms are bruised and probably fractured, but in this moment, the smile that still lingers around his lips says he doesn’t regret the loss.

Katsuki watches as the medical staff rush to both combatants. Izuku nearly collapses, and they bring a stretcher to carry him off. Katsuki’s heart is still racing from watching the fight. When he wins his next match, he’ll be against Izuku in the finals. Katsuki is torn between exhilaration and worry as Izuku is escorted by the medical staff (again). In the end, worry weighs heavier in his heart. When Izuku’s head of green hair is out of sight, Katsuki looks toward the sky. 

Two more, and the day is over.

Chapter Text

Katsuki sits tapping his fingers against the bench as the teacher’s repair the arena. It’s impressive, really, the amount of damage they caused. Of course, Katsuki could (probably) do that much if he tried, but still. Impressive. Izuku’s movements were coordinated and controlled. There’s no doubt he’s managed to get pretty far along in mastering his quirk. At this level, though, Katsuki fully believes he’s capable of beating Izuku. For how long that will be true, he doesn’t know.

After a mind numbingly long period of time, the arena is fixed, and it’s Katsuki’s turn to fight. Tokoyami is someone who has never stood out to him, but making it to this round of the tournament has to be some some testament to his strength. He vaguely remembers Tokyoami’s quirk, and was it weak to bright light? The poor bird doesn't stand a chance.

When the match starts, Katsuki doesn’t hesitate to rush ahead and take a swing at his opponent. The dark shadowy thing that is Tokoyami’s quirk, rises to meet him, but flinches away from the explosion. Apparently, he is weak to light. Unfortunately for him, Katsuki’s explosions are bright, and he’s learned how to modulate the brightness to some extent. With only a few explosions, Tokoyami’s defense crumbles. Katsuki pins him to the arena floor, and the fight is over.

Katsuki heads to the waiting room. They have a few minutes for a break before the final fight of the tournament and the conclusion of the Sport Festival. Above him, he hears the vague echoes of Present Mic getting the crowd  hyped up for what’s coming. His voice reverberates in the walls followed by the cheers of the crowd. 

As Katsuki walks back to the arena, for the last time that day, he tries to clear his head. He pushes aside the worry and the nerves that have accumulated through the day. Both he and Izuku are here at the final round. They’re both in one piece, and there are no villains here to worry about. He can focus on the fight ahead of him. 

Izuku enters the arena at the same time. Katsuki sees one of the teachers pull him aside and tell him something, and he wonders what it is. But when Izuku mounts the steps to the arena’s platform and Katsuki can see the blaze of determination in his eyes, he forgets about it. Izuku offers a small nod of recognition and a smile. Katsuki feels a fire run through his veins that feels different than it has before all the other fights today. It is Izuku facing him after all. What did he expect? Katsuki’s gaze catches briefly on the bandages that wrap the better part of Izuku’s right arm and his left hand. He beats back the worry that threatens his focus. There’s no time for it now.

The match starts, and Izuku doesn’t spare a second. Katsuki meets him in the middle of the arena, and the wind from the impact ruffling his hair. They jump back at the same time and land on opposite sides of the field. Katsuki clenches both fists by his sides. The painkillers from earlier are starting to wear off, and he can already feel his left hand beginning to throb. Katsuki initiates the next bout, aiming an explosion for his head. Izuku ducks and deflects the blow by grabbing his wrist and using his own momentum against him. Katsuki is just off-balance enough that Izuku manages to throw him.

The breath is knocked out of him, but Katsuki stands up quickly. He has to block Izuku again the moment he’s on his feet, and then he goes on the offensive with explosions. Izuku gets in a rhythm deflecting or dodging until–he doesn’t time his evasion correctly. He jumps back and some of the bandages fall from his arm, revealing skin that is healing but not completely healed. Katsuki suppresses the stab of guilt and lands a hit at the same moment that Izuku breaks through his guard with a punch that bruises his cheek.

For a moment, the fight pauses. Katsuki sees the burns and bruises across Izuku’s skin and the tatters his gym uniform is becoming. Katsuki’s palms are starting to burn and the explosions he has fired feel like they’re settling in his bones. After Katsuki recovers for a moment, he rushes forwards again. Izuku ducks the attack and attempts to throw him again, but Katsuki resists. Izuku tries to use his strength to force Katsuki down, but the raw power he’s accumulated through years of training helps him stand his ground. They spring apart again.

Izuku takes the initiative, and Katsuki is forced to block and block again. Izuku’s movements are fast, and Katsuki has to rely more on his instincts than anything else to react in time. But as the fight progresses, he can tell that Izuku’s movements are starting to slow. There are more gaps in Izuku’s guard and more mistakes in the way he blocks and dodges, but the power in his attacks never fades. But Izuku isn’t the only one who is tired after a long day of fighting, and Katsuki has struggles to keep his concentration at a hundred percent.

When Katsuki falters, Izuku pins him to the arena floor. The concrete is hard against his back. It’s warm from the sunlight above, but unforgiving.  Izuku’s face is above his, and it’s close–too close. Katsuki can see the flecks of aqua and teal in his green eyes and count the freckles that scatter over the bridge of his nose. For a moment, his brain slows to a halt, and all he can think about is how little space is left between their faces.

Katsuki shoves those softer thoughts away violently and throws Izuku away from him with an explosion. His mind is still reeling, and he doesn’t control the force of the blast the way he usually does. The shock reverberates in his wrists and arms. The bones there have been fractured time and time again, growing stronger every time they heal, but he feels something in his left arm crack. It takes another second for him to blink away the smoke and ash and to realize the extent of the explosion. 

Izuku. He searches through the rapidly-clearing smoke until he sees a silhouette. Izuku is hunched over, his less-damaged hand braced on his knee. The top of his gym uniform is all but burned away, and Katsuki tries not to see the extent of the damage–the damage he caused. Izuku straightens up slowly, painfully, but he levels Katsuki with a glare that sends a clear message: the fight isn’t over. Izuku starts forward to attack again, and Katsuki reluctantly readies himself to fight. The muscles and bones in his arms are screaming, but if Izuku isn’t backing down, there’s no way he can either.

Before they reach each other, a wall of cement rises between them. Present Mic’s voice booms through the stadium announcing that the fight was halted to prevent any permanent damage from taking place. Katsuki feels relief and resentment rush through him in equal parts. He enjoys fighting and the thrill of battle, but he doesn’t enjoy beating up someone who’s already injured–especially when that someone is his best friend and the one he’s supposed to be protecting. The wall of cement disappears, and they’re both still standing.

Midnight calls their attention. Since they are both still standing and technically capable of continuing, the fight is a tie. They still have to determine a winner.

Chapter Text

Both Katsuki and Izuku are led to the edge of the stadium and given quick first aid. Katsuki’s arm is splinted provisionally, and he’s handed another round of painkillers. Even so, he can’t stop his hands from shaking slightly. As the medical staff fuss over him, he turns his attention to Izuku, who is sitting a short distance away. Izuku looks better for having had a few minutes to sit down. The worst of the damage is concealed by bandages. Katsuki has to bite back the guilty feeling that rises in his throat. He promised he would protect Izuku–what is he doing now?

As they sit in waiting, Izuku keeps his head down and his eyes somewhere on the ground. Katsuki watches him for a minute before he drags himself to his feet and walks over. Izuku looks up at the sound of footsteps. His eyes look tired, but he puts a small smile on his face anyway.

Katsuki glances away, and then begins to speak, “I–” He doesn’t know how he wants to finish his sentence. His nervous system is a mess from the tension of the day, and his head is always a little bit of a mess when Izuku is involved anyways. He isn’t sorry for going all out in their match, but he is sorry that he forgot to control his quirk–that Izuku is this injured. A small part of him just wants to drag Izuku to Recovery Girl without looking back and screw the tournament. A very small part of him.

“Kacchan,” Izuku says, interrupting his thoughts. “I’m glad you fought me seriously. Next time, it won’t be a tie.”

Katsuki forces a stiff-lipped smile. He can tell that Izuku is a lot more frustrated than he’s letting on but doesn’t push it. He doesn’t have time to dwell, because Midnight is calling their attention once again. Their tiebreaker is a race–just once across the length of the arena. It’s something that doesn’t really require the use of their arms, and that’s probably not a coincidence. Additionally, they aren’t allowed to use their quirks, and they aren’t allowed to make any sort of physical contact.

Katsuki turns to Izuku and extends a hand. After a moment’s hesitation, Izuku takes it.

“We’re still competing, you know,” he says.

“Of course I know that, dumbass.” 

Katsuki drops the connection of their hands as soon as Izuku is standing and pretends he doesn’t miss it. He positions himself on one side of the arena. Izuku starts on the same side, but with enough distance between them that they won’t run into each other. 

The signal to start is given, and they both take off. As Katsuki runs, he feels each step in his bones, and the splint hardly dulls the shock of each step. It feels like his bones are grating against each other, and he tries to hold his arm still without sacrificing speed. He grits his teeth against the pain until his jaw is almost numb from the effort. The distance isn’t far, but each step is a struggle. He resists the urge to check on Izuku, if he looks away from the goal ahead of him, he risks distraction. 

As he approaches the line that marks their goal, he’s reminded of the first event of the day. He can feel his muscles screaming for air, and the wind tearing through his throat. He pushes harder–putting every last bit of strength he has into moving forward. He feels each step in every bone in his body, and each step takes more effort than the last.

All he can hear is the sound of his blood rushing and the sound of his boots hitting the cement. Everything else sounds like it’s coming from far away. He crosses the finish line and skids to a halt before he looks around for Izuku. Izuku is barely half a step across the finish line, which means that he’s crossing second, and Katsuki won. The roar of the crowd almost drowns out the official announcement. Katsuki punches his fist into the air. He won. He takes first place again, but this time it feels like he earned it. 

When he turns his attention back to Izuku, his shoulders are hunched, and he stares at the ground. Izuku looks up a moment later, and he gives Katsuki a half smile. The disappointment is still evident in his eyes, and maybe that’s why Katsuki feels something else besides the joy of winning. 

Izuku’s legs give out a moment later, the injuries built up through the day finally catching up to him. Katsuki sees him start to fall in slow motion. He catches Izuku before he can hit the cement of the arena, and hardly feels the pain that shoots through his left side. Izuku blinks up at him.

“Kacchan…?” He asks, and then his eyes regain their focus. “You’re injured! Are you o–”

“Worry about yourself for a damn second,” Katsuki snaps.

He holds onto Izuku for a little while longer, until he remembers that they’re in the middle of a stadium, and there’s a camera focused on them projecting on a giant screen above. Katsuki pushes Izuku into a sitting position and stands up quickly, hoping the moment didn’t look half as intimate as it felt. 

Medical staff appear to escort them to Recovery Girl, and Katsuki is glad to have an excuse to get out from under the watchful gaze of the audience and the cameras. They’ll get their wounds properly treated while the match to determine 3rd and 4th place happens. Once they're in Recovery Girl’s care, Katsuki lets himself relax, if only a little bit. The most taxing part of the day is over.

Chapter Text

Once Recovery Girl is done with him, Katsuki feels like the energy has been sapped out of him. Izuku lies in the bed next to his, sleeping off a little bit of the fatigue. Katsuki has a couple of bruises and scrapes left, but his left arm no longer hurts. He has been instructed not to stress it for the next few days, though.

Katsuki looks back to Izuku. He looks peaceful, and he’s definitely earned his time to rest. As he watches Recovery Girl examine Izuku, she mutters something under her breath about how often he shows up in her office, and Katsuki tries not to think about that too much. The worst of Izuku’s injuries are healed, but he still has bandages wrapped around his chest and visible scratches on his face and arms.

Katsuki leans back in the bed he’s sitting on and relaxes. Recovery Girl doesn’t pay any attention to him or ask him why he hasn’t left yet, and he’s thankful for that. As the match between Todoroki and Tokoyami reaches its end, Recovery Girl wakes Izuku. She helps him sit up, mindful of his injuries. Once upright, the first thing he does is look over to Katsuki.

“Are you alright?” Izuku asks.

It’s that question again. And he’s ignoring his own injuries–again. This fucking idiot. Katsuki reaches over and pinches his cheek.

“I’m not the one who got two ribs broken and a fractured leg,” he says, trying to sound angry or annoyed and trying not to let his face relax with relief.

“It doesn’t hurt much.” Katsuki pinches harder. “Ouch, Kacchan!”

Katsuki lets go and puts his feet on the floor. The awards ceremony should be starting soon, and first and second place shouldn’t be missing. He extends his hand to Izuku, who is rubbing his cheek looking miffed. He takes it anyway and lets Katsuki pull him into a standing position. Recovery Girl reminds him that his leg is healing and asks him if he wants crutches to relieve some of the stress.

“No, I should be fine. If I really need help, I have Kacchan.”

They’re allowed to leave after that, and Katsuki follows Izuku out of the room. Does that little fucker have any clue how much he’s suffering right now? Katsuki stares out the windows of the hallway as they walk and desperately attempts to clear his head.

The award ceremony passes without event. Todoroki ends up in fourth place, since he, according to Kirishima anyway, reverted to not using flames. Izuku accepts his second place medal with a smile, and All Might nearly breaks his ribs again with a hug. And then the sports festival is over. All the students have to change out of their gym uniforms. As Katsuki is swept away by his 1-A classmates, he loses sight of Izuku. He’ll have to find him again later.

In the changing room, Katsuki finds himself near Kirishima and the others again, which is, in retrospect, not a good idea. He’s halfway through buttoning his shirt when Kaminari thinks it’s a good time to talk about what happened after the tiebreaker.

“I think you moved faster to catch him than you did during the race,” Kaminari comments.

Katsuki nearly pulls one of the buttons off his shirt. “Shut the fuck up, it’s just a reflex.”

“A reflex to keep him from getting hurt? That’s roma–”

Katsuki pulls sharply on the collar of Kaminari’s jacket. How the fuck is he supposed to win in this situation? Before he decides whether to push Kaminari into the wall or blast his face off, Kirishima steps in to separate them. Katsuki only lets go reluctantly, and Kaminari skids away from him.

“You’re going to get yourself killed if you keep teasing him about his–about that,” Sero mutters, in a tone that’s supposed to be too quiet for Katsuki to hear. Katsuki narrows his eyes. His what ?

He finishes getting changed quickly as possible and slings the first place medal around his neck. This time he’s proud to wear it. He weighs it in his hand as he leaves the three idiots behind and goes to search for Izuku. It doesn’t take long to locate him, but the problem is that he’s talking to Todoroki. That half-and-half piece of shit. Katsuki hangs back and finds himself eavesdropping on a conversation between Izuku and Todoroki for the second time in one day.

“Midoriya, I…wanted to thank you. You’ve given me a lot to think about.” As he speaks, he lifts his left hand and stares at it. “Also, if you want to know more about the hero course, I can give you my number so you can ask me about it.”

“You’re, uh, welcome.” Izuku sounds nervous. “And, yeah, I’m–I am interested in the hero course.”

Katsuki tries not to blow anything up. Maybe he should barge in and interrupt their conversation. No, he definitely should. He prepares to take a step into the hallway, when someone else passes in front of him–someone with purple hair who’s in Izuku’s class. Shinsou drops his arm over Izuku’s shoulders. Todoroki looks slightly taken aback and bids farewell quickly. Fucking hell , what is wrong with these people? Katsuki leans back against the wall. If he doesn’t calm down, he is actually going to blow someone up, and then all his plans for saving the world will go to shit.

Chapter Text

When Todoroki is gone, Shinsou removes his arm from Izuku’s shoulder and stands at a more reasonable distance. He’s still leaning a bit into Izuku’s space, and Katsuki grits his teeth.

“You’re pretty popular,” Shinsou comments with a grin.

Izuku lets out an embarrassed laugh. “I guess so.”

“That guy I fought during the tournament is the one who’s your childhood friend, right?”

“Yeah.”

The conversation goes oddly silent, and Katsuki peeks around the corner. He sees Izuku walking towards him with a sort of glassy look in his eye. He stops about halfway there. The sparks of his quirk activate around one of his hands.

“Okay, okay, I get it.” Shinsou sounds exasperated. “Don’t break your finger again.” This motherfucker , what does he mean by again?

“You know, you can just ask me to do things normally?” Izuku asks, glancing back at Shinsou.

“Where’s the fun in that? He’s over there, by the way.”

Izuku glances in Katsuki’s direction, and Katsuki knows he’s been found out, and, honestly, what the fuck is he doing. It’s not like him to try to sneak around and listen to other people’s conversations–not on purpose anyway.

“I’ll see you tomorrow, then, Shinsou,” Izuku says.

“Only if you don’t get kicked out of 1-C.” 

Katsuki steps out of the corridor he was using to conceal himself. Act normal, dammit, he tells himself. Shinsou looks up at the movement.

“See you around, Izuku,” he says with a kind of devious smile on his face.

Izuku lights up like a stoplight. “Shinsou!” he reprimands loudly.

“It’s funny how you get flustered when it’s anyone but him.”

“That’s–”

But before Izuku has time to respond properly, Shinsou gives him a push in Katsuki’s direction. Izuku stumbles forward, but manages to come to a halt without crashing into Katsuki. His cheeks are still pink.

“Let’s go home,” he says, quickly, and without quite making eye contact.

Katsuki tries not to think about everything that happened in the past fifteen minutes or so. If he just ignores or forcibly stuffs all these feelings away, he will be fine. Maybe. He tries to focus on walking instead of Izuku who’s at his side or Shinsou or Todoroki, both of whom he wants to properly punch in the face at least once. 

Izuku clears his throat, and Katsuki glances at him. It looks like he has something that he wants to say or ask, but isn’t sure how to do it. 

“Out with it,” Katsuki says.

“I–uh–” Izuku meets his eyes, but looks away again quickly. “I was just thinking about your matchup with Shinsou. Once he activates his quirk it’s virtually unbreakable, unless–” he trails off, and Katsuki feels his gut twist.

The words that Shinsou spoke to him once their fight was over echo in his head: “You must really love him, if his voice overpowered my quirk.” If Izuku knows how Shinsou’s quirk works, then–shit.

“Hah? Who the hell do you think I am?” Katsuki asks, trying to mask everything else he’s feeling with confidence. “Every quirk in existence has at least one or two weaknesses–” He stops talking when he realizes that Izuku is muttering something and not actually listening to him at all (and thank fuck for that.)

“…can be broken if someone you love calls out to you–though he didn’t specify–ah–” He looks up, and Katsuki doesn’t manage to look away in time. “I mean…so many people were yelling, it would be difficult to pick out any one person’s voice from the crowd, so I don’t think it applies–there are other ways to break his influence. When he did it to me, there wasn’t anyone to call out to me–I’m just curious about the limitations of Shinsou’s quirk–sorry.”

Izuku falls silent after that, and Katsuki couldn’t be more glad to let the topic go. Katsuki tries to steady the rhythm of his heartbeat. He’s both physically and mentally exhausted from the day. Before they make it home, Izuku’s tentatively-healed leg starts hurting more, so Katsuki carries him the rest of the way, and Izuku’s complaints of Kacchan, you’re not supposed to be stressing your arm are properly ignored.

When they arrive at the Midoriyas’ front door, they’re met with a very worried and appreciative Inko. She fusses over him almost as much as she fusses over Izuku, and he’s not allowed to decline the invitation to dinner. Katsuki resigns himself to his fate and follows Izuku to his room to spend the time before it’s ready. With the amount of energy he has left, it takes two seconds of sitting on the floor with his back rested against Izuku’s bed to fall asleep. He wakes to the sound of a phone ringing and Izuku scrambling to get it.

“A-All Might?” Izuku answers the call. 

The call is brief. Katsuki has a guess as to what it’s for, but he rests his chin on his hand and waits for Izuku to tell him. He doesn’t have to wait long. Izuku sets down his cell phone after a very enthusiastic “thank you” and turns to him. What he’s not prepared for is the way that Izuku flings himself into his arms.

“Kacchan, I finally made it to 1-A,” he murmurs, voice muffled by Katsuki’s shoulder.

Katsuki sits as still as a stone, and tries to memorize the weight of Izuku’s body against his own.

Chapter Text

On Monday morning, Katsuki walks into the classroom with Izuku a step behind him. Katsuki’s eyes scan over the room and stop on 20th. She leans back on a desk, talking to the other girls in the class, but a moment after they walk in, her gaze shifts to Izuku. Katsuki feels an uncomfortable tingling in his spine. She does not belong in this classroom. Her eyes shift to him, glinting gold again for a millisecond. Kirishima steps in front of him, obscuring his view of 20th.

“Looks like your friend made it,” he comments, then turns to Izuku. “Midoriya, right?”

“Yes, and, you’re Kirishima?” Kirishima nods. “I didn’t get a chance to tell you before, but your quirk is strong. Defense-type quirks are less common for pro heroes, but I think they’re underappreciated.”

Kirishima flushes slightly. “It’s nothing special–I wish it was flashier.”

“It may not be flashy in the same sense as Kacchan’s, but if someone hits you full force, and you come away without a scratch–I think that has its own kind of flashiness.”

Katsuki opens his mouth to say something to interrupt their conversation, not that he begrudges Kirishima any reassurance in his quirk’s strength–okay, he does if it’s Izuku’s reassurance–but before he can actually interrupt, Aizawa walks in, and everyone scrambles to their seats. Izuku remains by the door looking awkward and out of place.

Aizawa surveys them for a moment, looking bored, before he makes his announcement.

“Given the results of the Sports Festival, Midoriya here has been given the chance to move up to this class, but, if you’ve noticed, this room is a little cramped with 21 of you. Let’s see…whoever has the lowest scores over the course of this week will be kicked out–probably moved down to 1-B, but it depends. Don’t worry too much, it’s unlikely that I’ll decide to expel you.”

Izuku pales slightly, the sudden increase in his stress level evident on his face. Katsuki glares back at their homeroom teacher. Maybe he should have expected something like this. His position in the class isn’t in any danger, but it does mean that they’ll be ranked at the end of the week, and Katsuki is determined not to take anything less than the top rank.

After Izuku makes his formal introduction to the class, Katsuki watches him head toward the extra desk squished into the back corner of the room. As he passes, he slows for a step.

“Looks like we’re competing again,” he says.

“I’ll be taking first again.”

“We’ll see about that.”

“Not likely. Fuck off.” Izuku avoids his casual attempt to push him away and continues to the temporary desk. 

Morning classes pass without incident, but when lunchtime comes, everyone crowds around Izuku. He shrinks back, leaning into the wall behind him. While he has more confidence than he ever did before, nineteen people is a lot of people. Katsuki notes that Todoroki is near the front of the crowd on Izuku’s left and 20th is on the other. She has one placed on his desk, and none of the hair-raising smile he saw before is evident on her features now.

Katsuki holds back, watching Izuku struggle to answer the rapid-fire questions. Izuku’s eyes turn towards his for an instant, and Katsuki decides he has to intervene. He pushes his way through his classmates none too gently. He reaches the row of people closest to Izuku. Kirishima and Kaminari part easily when they see that it’s him, and he’s pushed to the front.

“C’mon, shithead, let’s get lunch,” he says, extending a hand.

Izuku takes his hand, and Katsuki tries not to think about the contact. He has to remind himself that it’s nothing more than friendly; it doesn’t mean anything. The other students disperse to let them through. As he turns to lead Izuku towards the door, he catches 20th staring at him again. Her eyes are narrowed in a look that can only be described as cold hatred. Katsuki ignores the chill that runs down his spine and bares his teeth at her. If she so much as touches Izuku again, he’ll make sure she regrets it.

The three idiots are the first to follow after them out of the classroom. Katsuki drops Izuku’s hand hastily as he hears footsteps behind them. He doesn’t need Kaminari making any comments about that. As they walk the rest of the way to the cafeteria, he can’t get the uncomfortable feeling out of his mind. He is one hundred percent sure that 20th is a threat to Izuku’s safety and probably the rest of UA as well. There isn’t much he can do without actual evidence against her, but he can start by confronting her.

Chapter Text

As the week goes on, Katsuki watches Izuku acclimate to the 1-A class and watches 20th to make sure she stays the fuck away from Izuku. He also looks for a chance to siphon her off of the other girls and corner her, but an opportunity fails to present itself. 

Izuku, on the other hand, seems hell bent on proving himself worthy of being in the hero course. With the level of comfort he has with his quirk, he quickly secures his place near the top of their class. By the end of Tuesday, he has thoroughly questioned almost all of the other 20 students about their quirks and taken notes. This is made easier by the fact that everyone wants to talk to him. It also means that Katsuki is forced to watch Izuku talk to everyone but him. At least Izuku doesn’t abandon him at lunchtime, until Thursday, that is.

“I’m eating lunch with Shinsou and a couple others from class C,” Izuku says halfway through their walk to school on Thursday morning.

“Why?” Katsuki asks before he can stop himself.

“They’re my friends, too, and I’m sure they want info on the hero course. Plus they probably want an apology for ditching them.” He hesitates for a second. “I’ll eat with you tomorrow,” he adds.

Katsuki turns away and tries to pretend that he doesn’t care, and Izuku goes back to babbling about the news which has something to do with a sudden increase in hero fatalities. Katsuki walks beside him only half-listening.

The morning classes seem to pass faster than usual, and when they’re done, Izuku is the first one out the door to head to the cafeteria. Before Izuku joined their class, he was used to not seeing him for most of the day, so not eating lunch together shouldn’t be a big deal. But since he’s grown accustomed to it, Katsuki can’t get rid of the unpleasant feeling that he’s getting ditched. 

Instead of following Kirishima and Kaminari and the others to the cafeteria, Katsuki makes a detour to the bathroom to clear his head. He tells himself that inside the walls of UA, Izuku should be safe. Katsuki turns on the faucet and splashes his face. The shock of the cold water does help clear his mind of stupid worries. When he straightens up, he pauses to look at his reflection. He was hardly older than this before he started over. Izuku was hardly older than this.

Katsuki dries his face and walks back into the hallway with every intention of heading to the cafeteria. But just as he pushes the door open, 20th passes by. She is alone, finally separated from the other girls. Katsuki cuts through a group of students to follow her. Her pace is brisk, and it takes some effort to catch up, especially in a hallway crowded with students. When he’s close enough, he reaches out and grabs her shoulder.

She whirls around to look at him, eyes flashing, but it hardly takes her a second to scan his face and relax her stance. Her mouth contorts into a smile.

“I thought you might come after me, Kacchan. ” The corner of her mouth twists in amusement.

He gets a sudden feeling of ice in his bones. Something about the way her eyes narrow makes him feel uncomfortably exposed. Before he can answer, she turns on her heel and takes off down the hall, weaving between students with an uncanny sort of grace. Katsuki follows a moment later. He’ll have time to worry later; he should focus now. She disappears into one of the empty classrooms that the students have vacated for lunch, and he shoves the door open a moment later.

20th rests the palms of her hands on one of the desks and hoists herself up. She’s tall enough that she can look down at him. He hates looking up at people, especially people like her. Katsuki grinds his teeth. He knows he can’t directly ask if she’s a traitor or a villain.

“What do you want from Izuku?” He demands.

“Izuku,” she echoes, and Katsuki hates the way his name sounds in her voice. “Anything. Everything–but you’re the same way, aren’t you?” She leans forward, too close to his face, but he stands his ground. “I understand. You don’t want other people too close to him, you want him all to yourself–we’re pretty similar, you and I.”

“Like hell we are.” Katsuki lets himself recoil. “I’m trying to protect him from people like you. You don’t know shit about him anyway.”

“That’s not true–I remember every moment I’ve spent with him perfectly, and if you add that up, it’s quite a bit. You might be the closest to him now, but I wonder if he’s starting to drift away from you. And Bakugou,” She launches herself off the desk. “If you keep sticking your nose into other people’s business, you might lose it.”

20th is past him and at the door in a moment. She gives him one last nasty look before leaving. Katsuki fights the reflex to chase after her. The rational part of his brain knows he won’t gain anything from pursuit, and he’ll probably get detention for harassing another student. Katsuki balls his hands into fists. Despite the discomfort he subjected himself to and the cold feeling that clings to him even when she’s out of sight, there is only one person that comes to mind who has that kind of irrational fixation on Izuku. 

Her face may be different, and he’ll worry about how that happened later, but there’s no mistaking Toga Himiko for anyone else. His problem now is how to prove it before she can make her move.

Chapter Text

Katsuki makes it to the cafeteria about halfway through lunch, which means that he has to awkwardly dodge the questions about where he was and what he was doing. Kaminari asks him if he was in the bathroom crying because Izuku ditched him. And while he wants to strangle Kaminari, it does bring an end to the interrogation. 

He spends the rest of the day sticking as close to Izuku as he can and glaring at 20th. She doesn’t do anything out of the ordinary. With his concentration split between watching Izuku and watching Toga, he hardly has anything left to devote to what he’s actually supposed to be doing. As a result, when Sero taps him on the shoulder to get his attention, Katsuki grabs his arm and throws him on reflex. Being in the hero course and all, Sero only ends up with a couple of bruises, but All Might scolds him for being distracted.

Izuku notices, too, of course. But he waits until they’re done with the exercises and in the changing rooms to say anything.

“Kacchan, did something happen?” he asks.

“No,” Katsuki answers quickly.

If Izuku is suspicious, he doesn’t say anything. Instead he turns his attention to getting out of his gym uniform. Katsuki tries to make himself relax, but his mind is still on high alert and the day isn’t quite over. He does such a bad job of putting himself into a normal mental state that he only has his shirt half-buttoned by the time Izuku is fully changed. Katsuki hurries to finish.

Once they’re away from the walls of UA and on the way home, Izuku tries to ask him again. 

“Kacchan, you’ve been really...distracted lately, is there something you’re worried about?” he tries.

“No,” he snaps. If Izuku wasn’t sure before, he certainly is now. Shit.

“If you don’t want to tell me just say so.” There’s an annoyed edge to Izuku’s voice.

Katsuki doesn’t respond immediately. He doubts that Izuku would understand his suspicion even if he wanted to try and explain it.

“It’s really nothing,” Katsuki says. He’s met with one of Izuku’s worried looks. “Stop that.”

He flicks Izuku in the forehead where the crease between his eyebrows is. That earns him a noise of complaint and an attempted jab in the ribs. Izuku looks entirely unconvinced but drops the subject all the same.

They part ways once they reach the apartment building. Katsuki shuts the door to his room so he can think properly, but he only has a few pieces of Toga’s story. It’s not enough. He doesn’t even know what her quirk is. Her disguise could be due to her quirk or someone else’s or maybe she’s just good with make up–he doesn’t remember her face well enough to be able to tell.

That night, his dreams are disturbing. 20th appears as she does at school. Then she morphs into Toga, her face blurry except for the manic grin on her lips. There’s blood, too. So much blood. Blood that he realizes is his. It runs down his neck and the palm he presses to it comes away red. When he looks up, the same crimson stains Toga’s smile. His head starts to spin and he falls to the ground. The scene changes. Rubble is scattered across the floor, and he finds himself in the place where so many of his nightmares occur–where his worst memories are. 

He’s pinned down by a weight on his back. He manages to twist his neck far enough to see Toga. Her face is already spattered with blood and the school uniform she usually wears is in tatters. Her fingers grip a short silver knife, its edge already stained with gore. Katsuki  has just enough time to see her smile widen before the blade flashes and he wakes up in cold sweat. It takes a minute to acclimate to the dark stillness of his room. He tries to analyze his dreams for clues, because his nightmares are mixed with memories, but nothing comes of it.

The week comes to a close, and he’s not any closer to proving her guilty. He comes in fifth in the class ranking, which he blames on being distracted. But still, it’s a shitty score, and he catches Izuku giving him concerned looks for the rest of the day.

Chapter Text

End-of-week Ranking Results

*Himiko Toga (Himura = ‘blood’ + ‘village’ and Usoko: ‘lie’ + ‘ko’–common female name suffix)

A

Aizawa puts up the rankings in the morning. The final ranks for the week were based on both the academics and their practical skills. To help get data, they’d been given several quizzes over the week, and Katsuki knows he fucked up at least half of those, which probably fucked up his overall score.

Since it’s Saturday, school is only a half-day, and seems to finish almost too quickly. Mineta is kicked out unceremoniously. He’s also told that it’s possible that he’ll be allowed to return to class A if he stops spending all his time reading magazines and spends more time working on practical skills. In some ways Katsuki wishes it was 20th getting kicked out, but in other ways he doesn’t. In another class, she’d be farther away from Izuku, but she’d also be harder to observe.

Over the weekend, Katsuki tries to research the girl that Toga is impersonating–he finally paid enough attention to learn what it was. A quick internet search doesn’t turn up anything suspicious. Her social media profiles are all private, but that’s hardly uncommon. He even finds some article about her winning some tournament in middle school, but there’s nothing that tells him much of anything about her or indicates that something happened.

He goes into school on Monday morning still frustrated over his fruitless research and his shitty rank. He’s determined to do better and still try to catch any slip-ups that 20th might make. But even before homeroom is over, he has another thing to worry about: internships. Determining who to kick out set the schedule back, which means that Aizawa gives them all of two days to submit their applications instead of a week. He also posts the number of internship offers all of them received. Todoroki leads by a solid 2.5k. 

From the seat behind him, he hears Izuku. “That’s amazing, Todoroki!” Katsuki grits his teeth. “Getting more than a thousand is amazing, too, Kacchan.”

“I should have gotten at least twice that,” Katsuki complains.

“It’s because they’re scared of you,” Sero says from the seat next to him.

“What kind of weakass heroes are they?”

Aizawa lets them chatter for a minute before he quiets them. Katsuki's eyes trace down the board to the line with Izuku’s name. He has just over 400 which puts him in third, but only slightly ahead of Tokoyami.

“You’ll also need to decide your hero names,” Aizawa informs them. “You’ll announce them tomorrow,” he adds with a yawn.

Katsuki spends most of the morning trying to bully his brain into paying attention to the lessons. Their new seating arrangement puts 20th right in front of him, but it still makes him nervous to have her in the same room as Izuku. It would be stupid of her to do anything in class with 19 students and a teacher as witnesses. He taps his pencil against his notebook in an absent minded effort to rid himself of some of the nervous energy. At lunch, Izuku tries to ask him if something happened again and then tries rewording when Katsuki tries to evade the question.

“Nothing’s going on,” he snaps.

Izuku stares at him for a full second. “Kacchan, clearly something is going on. You’re losing focus in class, and if this keeps going, your grades are going to drop.”

“What’re you, my mom?”

Izuku kicks him under the table. “I’m being serious.”

Katsuki kicks back (harder). “So am I.”

They exchange a few more kicks before Izuku stops returning them.

“Ow, ow–you’re going to re-break my leg.” Oh right. Shit.

“I thought it was healed.”

“It is–mostly.”

“What the fuck, if you’re lying, I am going to re-break it, and then you won’t have a choice.”

“I’ll tell you if you tell me what’s bothering you,” Izuku says.

“Nothing’s bothering me. What kind of shitty exchange is that anyway?”

Izuku shrugs and goes back to eating his lunch. His chopsticks are gripped steadily in his right hand which still bears no scars. While he definitely did significant damage to it during the one-one-one matches, it wasn’t enough to put his bones out of alignment. Katsuki turns his gaze elsewhere before Izuku catches him staring. He feels a bit guilty to keep his suspicions to himself, since Izuku is the one who is in the most danger. But just like the I love you that’s always hovering on his lips, it’s not something he needs to know about. So for the sake of Izuku’s peace of mind, and a few more-selfish reasons, Katsuki keeps his mouth shut.

“I’ll tell you later,” Katsuki says. “So quit asking.”

Izuku smiles, though Katsuki can tell it’s one of the ones he’s learned to fake. “Okay,” he says. “I’m sorry I pushed–I’m just worried is all.”

Katsuki brushes off the apology. He has to do a better job of acting not bothered-by-something. At least during the practical activities, it’s easier to track Toga’s actions without being obvious. By the end of the day, he’s more tired than usual. It’s difficult to split his attention so many ways.

It’s a relief to change back out of his gym uniform. He can go home and maybe get some sleep–and hope he doesn’t have any more nightmares. But as they reach the door of the school building, Izuku halts suddenly.

“Ah, I forgot–I was supposed to meet with Togata-senpai today.” He turns to Katsuki. “You don’t have to wait for me.”

Izuku is gone in a flash, and Katsuki stares after him. Well fuck. While he is tired, he goes to wait by the front gate anyway. He leans against the wall to the side of the actual gate. The air is cool for May, but at least it’s sunny. Five minutes pass. Then ten. Then twenty. He looks up at the sound of footsteps, but it’s not Izuku.

Togata comes to a halt in front of him. “He’s not with you?”

“No.” 

Katsuki stares at the third-year and sees a look of concern on his face. Then he thinks of 20th. Has she left yet? In the hundreds of UA students, he might not have noticed her, but if she really hasn’t left, then– “Fuck,” he says aloud.

Chapter Text

Togata looks pensive for a moment before the usual smile is back on his face. “I’m sure he’s fine. I haven’t looked much of anywhere yet, ‘cause I wanted to get you first. Let’s start with the usual meeting spots.”

Togata takes off towards the training grounds at a quick pace, and Katsuki has to half-jog to keep up. They check different training areas for any sign of Izuku, but each one is empty. Katsuki tries to fight the growing panic.

“It would be faster if we split up,” he says.

Togata glances back at him. “First-years aren’t supposed to run around unsupervised.” He hesitates for a moment. “It’ll be alright,” he says.

Katsuki returns the smile Togata gives him with a glare. There’s something about it that emanates the same kind of energy that All Might’s does, and Katsuki finds himself feeling somewhat reassured in spite of himself. But when the next three places they look turns up nothing, that reassurance soon disappears.

The noise of something crashing faintly reaches their ears. Togata halts, glancing around to pinpoint its location, before speeding off. Katsuki follows close on his heels. The building they stop at one of the equipment warehouses. Togata sticks an arm out to prevent Katsuki from just charging in.

“At least let me check first,” he says. “Don’t blow it up yet.”

He pushes against the door to see if it’s locked. It doesn’t budge. He proceeds to  stick his face through the door. It’s a weird sight. Like a ghost or something, passing through solid objects doesn’t seem to bother him in the slightest. There’s another crashing noise, and Togata pulls his head back quickly. His face has taken on a serious expression. Katsuki has a feeling that they’ve found Izuku, but they’ve found 20th, too. 

Togata puts his arm through the door, presumably trying to unlock it from the inside. The lock clicks after a couple of seconds, but the door still refuses to budge. After another quick check, Togata turns to face Katsuki.

“It’s barricaded, so it’s your turn, Bakugou.”

Katsuki barely waits until he’s done talking to turn half the door and whatever the barricade was into ashes. He dashes through the cloud of smoke straining his eyes to see what’s on the other side. He stops just clear of the smoke to take in the scene in front of him. His eyes skid from one corner of the room to the next. There’s a pile of boxes scattered to one side with their contents spilling across the floor. To the other side there’s a stack of weights that’s been overturned.

Then he sees them–Izuku pressed against the back wall and 20th just turning to look at him. Her lips drip with red, and though she still has the appearance of Himura Usoko, she looks too much like the Toga that tortured him in his dreams. Izuku takes her momentary distraction as an opportunity to shove her off of him. She stumbles a step, and Katsuki can see that whatever happened before they arrived didn’t leave her unscathed. 

She glares at the two newcomers. “Three against one is hardly fair, boys, and I don’t feel like getting captured today.”

She makes her escape through the back exit of the storage facility–a door that Katsuki didn’t even know existed. Katsuki takes a step forward, but stops. Izuku has both hands pressed to his neck, and there’s a visible trickle of blood running down his wrists. Before Katsuki can decide, Togata passes, clapping him on the shoulder.

“Stay with him,” he says, before going after 20th.

Katsuki hesitates for a moment longer. His blood is boiling, and he personally wants to beat the shit out of the stabby blonde,, but  also doesn’t want to leave Izuku. He glances in the direction that 20th and Togata disappeared in. He knows that Togata is strong and probably better-qualified than he is to go running around the school grounds after a villain, but it’s still not something he can let go of easily. In the end, he goes to Izuku. As he gets closer, he can see the flush of exertion on Izuku’s face and the rapid rise and fall of his chest.

“Kacchan,” he says. “Sorry, I let my guard down.”

He takes one step forward before wincing, and Katsuki is at his side in an instant. “What the fuck did she do to you?” He asks, and he can’t keep the anger out of his voice.

“She bit me,” Izuku says, pulling his hands away to reveal the two distinct points that the blood is coming from. “Like a vampire or something,” he adds. “I think I’ve lost a fair bit of blood.”

Katsuki presses Izuku’s hands back over the injury. Izuku’s skin is warm under his, and he lets himself linger for just a moment, before he reminds himself that this is really not the time. 

“We need to stop the bleeding,” he says, not quite meeting Izuku’s gaze before he turns to scan the warehouse for anything resembling first-aid supplies.

Chapter Text

With nothing else to use to stop the bleeding, Katsuki rips off his school uniform jacket and shirt. Izuku gives him a questioning look, and he feels his face heat up.

“Just take it,” he snaps, pushing his balled up shirt into Izuku’s hands.

Izuku’s fingers fumble to clasp it for a second. The crisp white of his shirt is quickly stained red. Izuku settles to the floor and crosses his legs. Katsuki mirrors him. Their knees are almost touching, but Katsuki is sure he’s the only one who notices just how close they are. 

Izuku lets one hand drop to his side, but keeps the other pressed to his neck. His breathing has relaxed somewhat, though it’s still quicker than normal. The collar of his shirt is opened and his tie is nowhere to be found. There’s a stray trickle of blood that traces over the curve of his collarbone. Katsuki follows its progress with his eyes for a moment.

“You need to put more pressure on it,” Katsuki says.

Izuku adjusts his hand. “I know.”

“You’re not pressing hard enough, dumbass.”

“You do it then,” he says, lifting his hand half out of the way.

Katsuki scowls but does as he’s told. He struggles to keep his hand steady as he replaces Izuku’s with his own. There’s a sharp intake of breath as he presses down, but Izuku doesn’t try to move away. Katsuki concentrates on his task as much as possible, because he knows that if he doesn’t, he’ll probably do something he’ll regret. As he they sit in silence, Katsuki can feel the exhaustion of the day coming back as the adrenaline rush ebbs away. After being caught red-handed, there’s no way that 20th can come back to UA, and that, by itself, is a huge weight off of his shoulders.

He checks the injury, lifting his crumpled shirt out of the way. The bleeding has visibly slowed. He goes back to putting pressure on the wound after trying to find a less-bloody patch of fabric.

“How does it look?” Izuku asks.

“Could be worse.”

Izuku nods in acknowledgement. “It doesn’t hurt that much.” He looks up at Katsuki. “You don’t usually act like it, but you’re really a kind person, Kacchan.”

Whatthefuck. “I–no, I’m–shut the fuck up,” he says loudly, but then he mutters, “I wouldn’t do this kind of thing for just anyone.”

“What?”

Oh, no, he is not going to repeat that. “What?”

Izuku sighs but doesn’t push the subject. They return to silence, and, a couple minutes later, Togata comes back with a couple of teachers in tow. 

Izuku sits up straight when the door opens, and Katsuki suddenly remembers he’s not wearing a shirt and scrambles to at least put his jacket back on. They walk back to the main building and the front gate. Izuku uses one hand to keep pressure on his neck, and Togata puts a supportive hand on his other shoulder. Katsuki walks a step behind them, and he can’t keep from glaring at the third-year.

The police meet them at the front gate. After Izuku is checked over briefly and given an actual bandage, the questioning begins, and Izuku tells his side of the story–

Izuku skids down the hallway. He does feel bad about leaving Kacchan so suddenly, but he did promise. Today is just for sparring. He makes his way to the storage warehouse to get his bokken before going to the meeting place, but as he’s walking away from the door, he gets the feeling that someone is watching him. Izuku stops walking. His senses have gotten sharper ever since he started training as a hero, so he doesn’t doubt that his gut feeling is correct.

“I know you’re there,” he calls out.

For a minute, all he’s met with is silence, and he almost thinks that he imagined the feeling. Then he hears something slide across the floor and the sound of quiet footsteps. Izuku whips around to see that the door has been blocked and one of his class-A classmates is standing in front of it–Himura. The uneasy feeling in the back of his mind that bothered him starting when he switched classes makes sense now.

“Aw, you found me,” she says.

Her tone of voice is different than it’s been in all their previous interactions. If he remembers correctly, which he’s sure he does, she only gave a vague answer when he had asked about her quirk. She said something about strength enhancement and then changed the subject. He wonders now if that was a lie. But if it was, then what is her real quirk? He doubts she’ll answer if he asks.

“What do you want?” He says instead.

Instead of answering, she launches herself forward at a rapid pace. Izuku blocks her with one arm. She pushes against it with equal force–he hasn’t activated One for All yet. Her mouth curves into a smile.

“Isn’t this closeness wonderful?” She jumps back, distancing herself. “But I guess I have to leave for now. Izuku, dear, I’ll see you again.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” he says. “But it’s clear you’ve been lying for a while.”

“Yes, yes, you’re right, but it’s a little late to notice now.”

They exchange blows a couple more times. He manages to push her into one of the stacks of boxes, and he hopes the loud noise will attract someone else’s attention. There should still be a teacher or two around in charge of watching security for a bit and locking up. As they continue to push back and forth, it becomes clear that she was holding back during the Sports Tournament. Her movements are refined and more flexible than even a UA student’s at 15 or 16. Izuku is reluctant to activate his quirk, since he doesn’t want to completely wreck the space.

She manages to push him against the back wall. “There’s one more thing I want before I go,” she says.

Before he can fully process what’s happening, she lunges for his neck. The pain blossoms from two distinct spots. If he tries to push her away from him now, he risks getting his neck ripped open. He tries to pry her off, but his fingers are soon slick with blood. She only releases her hold when the door is blasted open, and with an explosion like that, there’s only one person it can be. He’s finally able to throw Himura off of him. Even though he’s still breathless and his head spins from blood loss, the relief washes through him.

Kacchan. Izuku presses his hand to his neck. Kacchan’s here.

Chapter Text

Katsuki listens to Izuku as he recounts the events of the afternoon and clenches his fists. His shirt got taken for evidence, just in case Himura’s quirk had something that would be noticeable in Izuku’s blood, like venom or some element that could be used to trace her.

When he’s questioned, Katsuki doesn’t give them very much information. He wants this case resolved and wants Toga somewhere that she can’t cause trouble–like a jail cell. But he doesn’t know what to say that would make his information believable. His sanity will get questioned if he tries to explain who she really is and how the hell he figured it out. At this point, he doesn’t think many people even know who Toga Himiko is. So when they ask him, all he says is he thought something seemed off about her but hadn’t expected this to happen. That much, at least, is true.

Once it’s Togata’s turn, Katsuki lets go of a breath he wasn’t aware of holding. His duty as a witness is done. They must have assumed he didn’t know anything and didn’t even try to press for details. For that, Katsuki is grateful. 

He feels Izuku’s eyes on him and looks up. There’s a worried expression on his face, though what he’s worried about, Katsuki can’t quite be sure. He looks tired, too. After the events of the day, of course they’re both exhausted.

Katsuki’s own fatigue makes it hard to focus on whatever Togata is telling them, but he hears enough to know the gist of what happened. He lost her at the school gate and made the choice to come back instead of pursuing her by himself. One of the police officers commends Togata for being level-headed. Part of Katsuki wants to be angry with him for giving up, but part of him knows that he made the correct decision. (He wonders what he would have done in the same situation. He’s never been a rule-breaker like Izuku, but–)

By the time the police allow them to leave, the sky is already dark. Their parents have been called, of course, so the moment the police are done with them, he has to deal with his mother interrogating him about what the fuck happened and why the hell he’s not wearing a shirt. (He tells her to fuck off, which gets him a borderline murderous glare.) His father diplomatically places himself between the two of them and gently reminds everyone that shirts aren’t that difficult to replace.

Izuku gets fussed over for a good five minutes, before he manages to assure his mother that he’s fine. Katsuki, on the other hand, is not convinced. He eyes the bandage suspiciously. Even if the bleeding has stopped, Izuku lost a lot of blood. 

The train they take home is packed with commuters and other students who have clubs that keep them at school longer. They squish into a corner of the train car, and Katsuki stands next to Izuku. He finds their arms pressed together. Izuku leans against him with more weight than he would if he weren’t injured (probably), and Katsuki tries not to think about it too hard.

Once they reach the front of their apartment building, their parents usher them towards their respective front doors. Katsuki glances back to see Inko with her arm over her son’s shoulder. He feels a hand press between his own shoulder blades.

“You’ll see him in the morning,” his mother says.

Katsuki snaps his head forward. “I know,” he says shortly.

“Inko won’t let anything happen to him,” his father adds.

“Would you guys fuck off?”

His mother prods him across the threshold before he manages to get away. Once he gets to his room, all he wants to do is sleep. But, unfortunately, he has the threat of homework and internship applications hanging over him. He hasn’t even started sorting through the list of offers. Fuck. He has hardly gotten one word written in his homework notebook, when his phone pings. From the tone–a snippet of a song All Might popularized by declaring it his favorite–he knows it’s Izuku. Instead of texting back, he hits the call button.

Instead of hello , he says, “What the hell do you want?”

But by now, Izuku is used to this type of greeting.

“All Might called about internships–he’s a teacher so he can’t take interns, but his sidekick is an active hero. Any hero can take multiple students, but I don’t know–”

“Deku,” he interrupts before he gets an earful of muttering. “Get to the point.”

“Uh, well, Togata-senpai has been interning there since last fall, so he can introduce me and you, too, if you want.”

“What, why?”

“Togata-senpai  said you helped him a lot and that you seem reliable…and that he thinks we’d work well together.” 

The embarrassment is evident in Izuku’s voice, and Katsuki is just glad that they’re on the phone so no one can see his face. Izuku clears his throat before continuing. 

“You have so many agencies to choose from, so it would make sense if there’s somewhere else–”

“No, shut up, why wouldn’t–no, that sounds good.”

Once he hangs up, he turns back to his homework. His concentration that was already spotty due to tiredness is now downright awful. It doesn’t help that his mind keeps replaying their conversation. Why would Togata who hardly knows him think they’d pair up well? In the end he goes to bed with only one word written for his homework. At least the internship thing is figured out.

Chapter Text

Morning seems like it comes too quickly. Katsuki wakes up almost as tired as he was when he went to bed, and his eyes are reluctant to open. When he finally manages to pry his eyelids apart, his gaze falls on his homework notebook on his desk. Right, he didn’t do it. He has time to scribble answers for about 90% of the questions, and then he has to leave or he’ll be late on top of everything else.

Iida scolds him when he skids into the 1-A classroom about 3 seconds before Aizawa rolls through the door in his sleeping bag. Izuku gives him a questioning look. Katsuki shrugs him off, but his attention lingers on the white bandage around his neck. It’s just visible above Izuku’s shirt collar, but if he didn’t know it was there, Katsuki wonders if he’d notice it. Katsuki slips into his seat just as the morning chatter settles down. He can feel Izuku’s eyes on the back of his head and tries not to let the feeling bother him.

Aizawa makes a disgruntled face before he explains the absence of the 20th student. Everyone turns to look at Izuku once his name is mentioned. Katsuki scowls back at the concerned look Kirishima gives him.

“There are pro heroes and policemen searching for her now, so I don’t want any of you to go looking.” 

Aizawa’s eyes rest on Katsuki’s seat for a moment. When he faces the rest of the room again, he apologizes for the lapse in security. The staff will thoroughly check the system and examine Himura’s file for anything suspicious.  In the meantime, students are cautioned against walking around alone, even within the school’s campus.

Asui raises her hand. “Is someone else going to be added to this class?”

“Most likely. There are always students who want to get into the hero course.” Aizawa looks around the room. “If there are no other questions, it’s time for you guys to decide your hero names. A lot of you will go by these names off for the rest of your career, so choose carefully.”

The door opens and Midnight walks in. “I’m not good with this kind of thing, so I asked her to help,” Aizawa explains.

The moment she steps forward, he recedes into his sleeping bag. They’re each handed a board to write their names on. Aoyama hardly waits for her to ask for volunteers, but everyone else needs some time to think. The chatter increases in the room again as people start giving each other suggestions, both real ones and less real ones (“rockhead” for Kirishima or “shocker” for Kaminari or “sticky elbow man” for Sero). Izuku sighs heavily. Katsuki turns halfway around in his seat.

“Didn’t you come up with a list of ten or so possible hero names when we were little?” He asks.

Izuku makes a face. “They’re all childish. I can’t run around calling myself ‘Minimight’ anymore… or All Might 2.”

“Well ‘all’ is a little ambitious, so what about ‘Half Might?’”

Izuku tries to poke him, and he can only dodge partially without falling out of his chair.

“You are not being helpful, Kacchan.”

Katsuki shrugs. “I don’t know, what do you want to do as a hero?”

“Save people,” he answers quickly. “I want to do something that befits a student of All Might’s–so something big, I guess.”

“Then…you could be ‘the next big thing.’”

“No.” Izuku sighs. “Just let me think.”

Katsuki turns around. He watches Iida walk to the front of the room. Iida doesn’t have the burden of a legacy like Todoroki does because of Endeavor, but he does have to follow in the footsteps of an older brother who’s a relatively well-known and well-liked hero. Katsuki picks up his own board and waits for Iida to sit down. Unlike them, his biggest worry isn’t about legacy or even being a hero–not really. His biggest worry is that things will still go wrong, and he’ll never turn seventeen–that Izuku will never turn seventeen. He breathes in deeply. If he lives to see himself be a pro hero, maybe he’ll try to change his name. But right now, they’re entering a battlefield.

The room goes silent when he places the board on the podium. He sees Izuku raise his head and take in every letter he wrote. For a moment, he’s almost nervous. Midnight leans in front of him to see what he wrote, and his eye contact with Izuku is broken.

“Greek god of war?” She says as she straightens up. “That’s a big name to live up to.”

Chapter Text

Katsuki walks back to his seat. When he’s almost there, Izuku smiles at him, and he nearly trips. This is one of Izuku’s real smiles–undimmed and untainted by worry or doubt. It takes Katsuki a moment to find his focus again.

“I like it, it sounds powerful,” Izuku says.

“That’s the point, idiot.”

By the end of the day, Katsuki feels less stressed than he has for the past several days, but his system still feels worn out. The internship thing is sorted out and he doesn’t have to watch 20th, but the threat of the empty seat in the classroom still lingers in the back of his mind. Who will replace it? Are there still traitors in their midst? And how the hell did Toga make it into the school in the first place–and why? As they leave school, he notices Izuku muttering about 20th.

He forgets to part ways as they reach the stairs and doesn’t notice until he finds himself face-to-face with Inko. He hesitates in the doorway. Since he’s already there, he only pauses for a moment before removing his shoes. Izuku waits for him and then leads the way to his room. They study in silence until the next day’s homework is done. When he’s done, Izuku puts his homework notebooks into his backpack.

“Togata-senpai said that Nighteye wants to talk to us, is tomorrow afternoon okay?”

“What the hell else would I be doing?”

Izuku shrugs. He grabs a T-shirt out of his closet and shakes it out. After staring at it for a second he turns back to Katsuki.

“I think this is yours,” he says, tossing it in his direction.

Katsuki flings it back. “Don’t give me your shitty laundry.”

Izuku sighs and drapes it over his arm as he looks for a pair of shorts to sleep in. Katsuki flops backward on the bed. It is nice to be back to only his original worries: how the fuck he’s going to make sure Izuku beats Shigaraki and how the fuck he’s going to survive being in love with Izuku for long enough to be there. He only realizes he fell asleep when there is a dip in the mattress, and Izuku prods him.

“Kacchan, don’t sleep in your school uniform.”

He opens his eyes slowly. Izuku has already changed out of his. Without the collared shirt, Katsuki can see the full extent of the white bandages. He raises his fingertips to the side of Izuku’s neck and hears a sharp intake of breath as Izuku flinches. Katsuki freezes. What the fuck is he doing. He withdraws his hand quickly. 

“Do you want to see? I need to change the bandages anyway,” Izuku asks as he straightens up.

Katsuki nods with a sort of morbid curiosity. He sits up as Izuku untucks the end of the bandage and starts to unwrap it. As it falls away, he sees that the wound really does look like a vampire bite. There are two round scabs a little ways apart on the side of his neck, and the area around them looks slightly bruised. Just looking at it makes him want to hunt down Toga and tear her apart. 

“Why didn’t you get Recovery Girl to heal it?” Katsuki asks, since that seems like the logical thing to have done.

“It’ll heal in a few days by itself.”

Izuku reaches for a roll of bandages on his desk. It looks like most of it has already been used, and there are two unopened rolls behind it. Just how many training injuries does Izuku have? When he looks back at Izuku, he already has the new bandages tied neatly around his throat.

“I want to sleep soon,” Izuku says with a yawn. “Are you staying over?”

Katsuki considers for a minute. He is tired, and he doesn’t want to walk the short distance from the Midoriyas’ apartment to his own. Part of him wants to stay. It would be easy to. Part of him thinks staying is a bad idea. He stares at Izuku for a moment longer before he packs up his things and bids him goodnight.

In the morning, he walks out of the front door and nearly walks into Izuku.

“Have you seen the news?” he asks before Katsuki can ask what the hell he’s doing.

Chapter Text

Katsuki looks at the expression on Izuku’s face, and an uneasy feeling settles in his stomach. Unlike Izuku, he doesn’t get notifications from the news stations on his phone and he doesn’t usually bother checking until lunch or after school. Izuku usually tells him if something important has happened, anyway.

He shakes his head. “No, why?”

After fumbling for a moment, Izuku holds out his phone. At the top of the screen, he sees the headline, “Murder of a Young Girl.” Below is a picture of Himura that looks like it was taken from her middle school graduation. Katsuki only takes a moment to scan the article. The only person she lived with was her single mother who was constantly busy with work, and therefore not around much of the time. The murder was believed to have happened in the early morning–messy, bloody, but with no hints as to who it was.

Unlike the reporter, Katsuki thinks he knows exactly who did it. He straightens up when he’s done reading. The uneasy feeling is stronger than it was before, and he doesn’t have to look at Izuku’s face to be able to tell that he’s worried as well. Their commute to school is quieter than usual. In the absence of conversation, Katsuki doubts that Toga allowed herself to be killed, which means that the Himura in the newspaper is probably the real Himura. How that fits with Toga’s actions and disappearance, he isn’t sure.

“Is that what was bothering you?” Izuku asks, interrupting his train of thought. “Not the murder, I mean…the fact that someone in 1-A was pretending to be someone else.”

“I…thought she was suspicious, but I wanted proof before I said anything. If I had told you–”

“I still would have gotten barricaded in the warehouse.”

He returns Izuku’s determined gaze until its power makes him look down. The edge of the white bandages is still visible over the rim of his collar. He was supposed to protect Izuku. Dammit, dammit. How many injuries has Izuku already had to heal? How many should he have been able to prevent? 

“Kacchan?”

He places his hand on top of Izuku’s head. For a moment, he lets himself rest. Izuku is warm. Alive. When the moment is up, he pushes Izuku away, who draws back with a noise of complaint. 

The rest of the school day is thankfully uneventful–save for Kaminari somehow managing to short out his brain during lunch. When they leave the 1-A classroom, Togata waves at them from the end of the hall. As he follows Izuku, he hears a few of the other students about the third-year who is the closest to becoming number one. Sometimes it is easy to forget just how powerful Togata supposedly–Katsuki never witnessed him go all out in a fight either this time or last –is due to his ever-chipper personality.

“Are you two ready?” Togata asks once they’re within earshot.

Izuku starts to look somewhat apprehensive. “We’re just…going to see Sir Nighteye, right?”

“He always likes to test potential interns–well, he already knows what you’re like, but Bakugou,”–he pats Katsuki on the shoulder–“is more of an unknown quantity. Sir probably wants to see how strong you are together, too.”

Katsuki almost chokes. He knows the actual intended meaning of Togata’s words, of course, but there’s another way that together can be heard, too.

“We haven’t fought as a team that many times,” Izuku says. “But since it’s Kacchan, I’m sure it’ll be fine, we’ve known each other for a long time.”

“Like Tamaki and me, right? I think childhood friends always have a special kind of bond.”

Izuku nods, jerkily. His face is bright red, and he is pointedly not looking at Katsuki.

Togata changes the topic to hero work, and Katsuki is relieved to be able to breathe again. At this rate, he’s not sure how long his brain will last before it combusts. Maybe he should have taken an internship somewhere else. Though, in that case, he would have constantly worried since they would be separated. Fuck , why did he have to fall in love with Izuku in the first place? Sometimes he thinks it would be easier if he could just focus on keeping Izuku safe. But in the end, the axis his entire world rotates around is Izuku. Just like it always has been.

Chapter Text

They arrive at Nighteye’s agency with the setting sun at their backs. 

“I’ve mentioned this before, but Sir really values humor, so you should try to make him laugh at least once,” Togata says as he reaches out his hand to open the door.

When they walk in, they’re greeted by Sir Nighteye and one of his sidekicks, a girl with light-blue skin and darker-blue bobbed hair. Nighteye sits behind a desk at the back of the room. He wears a very typical-looking business suit. Aside from the two blonde streaks in his green hair, he looks remarkably ordinary. He watches their approach with a stern expression on their face. Togata puts one hand on Katsuki’s shoulder and the other on Izuku’s and pushes them a step ahead of him.

“These are the two I told you about yesterday,” he says.

Nighteye looks them over. “Midoriya I’ve heard enough about from both you and All Might. The other one, however…” His eyes settle on Katsuki.

“He helped me out–” Togata starts.

“I’m aware,” Nighteye says. “Why don’t you and Bubble Girl leave us for a minute?”

Togata hesitates briefly before he salutes enthusiastically and turns to the door. He gives them a quick call of “good luck!” before he goes. The blue girl follows him out. Once the door closes, there is silence.

“This internship would clearly be beneficial to you, but what benefit is it to me?” Nighteye turns to Izuku, pushing up his glasses with a well-practiced intensity. “I still haven’t acknowledged you.”

Izuku stands still under the weight of Nighteye’s gaze. Before he even starts to respond, Katsuki takes the form they need stamped from his backpack and slaps it down on the desk in front of him.

“What do you even know of our abilities? An internship is a perfect opportunity to see whether someone is worthy of acknowledgement.”

Izuku scrambles to grab his form from his backpack and places it (a little more gently) on the desk. 

“All Might didn’t make the wrong choice–please give me a chance to prove that.”

Nighteye picks up the stamp–the one they need–and tosses it up in the air a couple of times. Katsuki’s eyes follow it’s progress. He knows Nighteye is probably just messing with them at this point, but the fact that they need the stamp doesn’t change. After a couple of times, Nighteye grabs the stamp out of the air and slams it down halfway between their forms. The dull thud resounds through the room. Katsuki tenses slightly in shock. What the fuck.

“I’ll give you three minutes. If one of you is holding onto the stamp by that time, I’ll accept that person,” he says, his hand never leaving the stamp. “I won’t try to attack, and I don’t care what happens to this room.”

With one stamp and two of them, there’s a bit of a problem. Nighteye sets a timer and places it on the desk, where it’s clearly visible. He pushes his chair back, and it screeches over the floor. As he rises to his full height, Katsuki is suddenly reminded of how tall Nighteye is. As All Might’s sidekick, he was short in comparison, but compared to any normal-sized human being, he’s ridiculously tall. Katsuki drops his backpack to the floor and kicks it out of the way. 

After starting the timer, Nighteye steps out from behind his desk to stand more toward the center of the room. Aside from the desk, the floor is empty. There are a couple of bookshelves around the periphery of the room and several All Might posters tacked to the walls. Nighteye’s quirk is foresight , though beyond its name, Katsuki doesn’t know much, and not knowing puts him at a tactical disadvantage.

He charges forward with his palms sparking. Izuku attacks from the other side a moment later. Nighteye dodges both of them with an annoying sort of ease. Katsuki skids to a halt just before slamming into the wall and the limited edition All Might poster on it.

“You’re slow,” Nighteye says, dodging another attempt to take the stamp. 

The timer reads 2:00. 

Katsuki grits his teeth. As much as he hates to admit it, Nighteye is faster than him. With one minute gone out of three, it’s clear that they have to switch strategies. Other than blowing shit up, Katsuki doesn’t have a whole lot of ideas. Fighting to take something rather than just knockout his opponent isn’t something he’s given a lot of thought. 

The timer reads 1:26, but neither of them is anywhere near getting the stamp.

Katsuki’s eyes catch on the sprinkler in the middle of the ceiling. A memory of Iida mentioning the inconveniences of being a glasses-wearer on a rainy day comes to mind.

“Oi Deku, don’t lose focus.”

Izuku looks up from catching his breath, and they’re eyes meet for a moment,

Katsuki runs forward. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Izuku move as well. Before he reaches Nighteye, he uses an explosion to launch him into the air and sets off a second right below the sprinkler. Water sprays down from the ceiling. Izuku doesn’t waver from his course. His fingers are a millisecond away from closing around the stamp when Nighteye’s focus switches from the sprinkler to him. 

Izuku almost loses his balance as he puts his foot down on the wet floor. Katsuki is close enough to reach out a hand and steady him. 

“I almost had it,” Izuku says, and Katsuki curses.

They’re running out of time and out of options. Izuku straightens up as Nighteye turns to face them again, removing his glasses

“Not a bad idea,” he says, placing the frames on his desk. “But I could defeat people of your level with my eyes closed.”

Katsuki opens his mouth to retort, but Izuku distracts him with a hand on his shoulder.

“If it’s just for a second, I can draw out more power…I’ll get his attention somehow,” Izuku says.

The light of his quirk travels up his body, and before Katsuki can say anything, a green light flickers to life. As he dives toward Nighteye once more, Katsuki swears he can feel a breeze. Since Izuku has already moved, he has no choice but to follow. Katsuki clenches his jaw and blasts himself forward. Izuku’s increased speed is enough that for just an instant, Nighteye loses track of Katsuki. That instant is enough.

The timer reads 0:02, and Katsuki barely manages to snatch the stamp out of Nighteye’s grasp.

Chapter Text

Katsuki comes to a halt next to Izuku. In the next millisecond, he turns to look at him. In his expression, Katsuki can read the realization that they got the stamp and the victorious smile. He remembers, however, what Nighteye said, and he knows which of them needs this internship more. Katsuki makes a split second decision, and hurls it, feeling it leaves his fingertips before he truly registers the weight of his decision.

As the timer rings, Izuku just barely manages to catch it, hero reflexes serving him well. His eyes widen in shock. He doesn’t have to open his mouth for Katsuki to know the question he wants to ask–why would you do this for me? Katsuki feels his face flush and turns away. He doesn’t have a good answer–well, he does, but he’s not about to say it out loud. 

Nighteye deactivates the sprinkler and wipes off his glasses before turning to face them. He chuckles under his breath as he looks over their faces.

“Togata did warn me, but seeing you two in action really is something.” He opens a drawer in his desk and pulls out two sheets of paper. “Seeing as your original forms got wet, here are dry copies.” He holds them out.

“Tw-two? I thought you said–” Izuku begins to ask the obvious question.

“I never said I wouldn’t accept the one who wasn’t holding the stamp.”

Katsuki resists the urge to blow something else up. This reminds him a bit too much of Aizawa threatening to expel the lowest-scorer the day they measured their physical abilities, and then telling them he was never planning on expelling anyone. On the other hand, he is glad not to be forced apart from Izuku.

The door opens as Togata and Bubble Girl return. They hesitate on the threshold.

“Why is it wet?” Togata asks, glancing around.

Izuku looks up and remembers the All Might memorabilia all around the room at the same moment. “The posters–”

“Were waterproofed before being put up. It would be careless not to put some effort into protecting them.”

“That’s good.” Izuku breathes a sigh of relief. “I’d feel guilty if they’d been damaged at all.”

Once their forms are properly stamped, they’re allowed to go home. Togata accompanies them to the door, reminding them to bring their hero costumes in the morning. By the time they leave Nighteye’s agency, the sun has set. The sky is a deep blue and a glimmer of the moon is visible in the distance. Togata leaves them at the train station with a “you’ll do this anyway, but stick together.” Izuku stands, waving until he leaves the pool of light cast by the nearest streetlamp.

The commuter rush has thinned enough that they can actually find seats on the train. Katsuki sits next to Izuku, staring out of the window across from him as he counts down the stops to the one they need. When their stop is announced, he has to prod Izuku to get his attention. His eyes refocus on their environment, and Katsuki can practically see him trying to put his worries away as he gets to his feet.

“Kacchan, for some reason, I feel like I’m going to have nightmares for awhile.”

He says it just as the train doors slide shut, so Katsuki doesn’t quite catch all of his words. One sticks out, however–nightmare–and that’s not something he can ignore.

“What?” He asks. “Do you want me to stay over or something?” Katsuki can feel his cheeks color as he speaks, but, thankfully, it’s dark enough out that no one will notice.

“No, it’s fine, I–”

“Then why the hell’d you bring it up?”

Izuku glances away. “I was just making conversation.”

That is a shittyass excuse. Katsuki pushes Izuku through the apartment door and greets Inko. They change out of their slightly damp school uniforms, and Izuku doesn’t say anything else about potential nightmares or sleeping over until it gets late.

“You are…staying, right?” He asks.

Katsuki looks up. He can clearly see the bite mark on Izuku’s neck and the bruise, since it’s healed enough not to be bandaged. He thinks of the newspaper article from the morning and Himura’s murder. He thinks of the last time Izuku internshipped with Sir Nighteye, and the haunted look he came back with.

“I’m staying,” he answers.

Chapter Text

Sleeping in one bed is difficult, both because they’ve grown significantly since they were kids, but mostly because every part of him feels like he’s too close and too far from Izuku at the same time. It doesn’t take long to figure out that lying side-by-side doesn’t work. He gets an elbow in his stomach at least once as they try to settle in a way that isn’t painful or awkward. They come to a silent agreement that back-to-back is the best solution.

Katsuki wonders if Izuku can feel his heartbeat. To him, the beats are thunderous. He clutches one hand to his chest, pulling at the fabric of the shirt he’s wearing–his or Izuku’s, he isn't sure which (whatever Izuku threw at him). Every cell in his body is too aware of Izuku’s warmth. Katsuki lies awake with too many thoughts swimming around his head.

Before too long, Izuku’s breath slows, and the tense arch of his shoulder relaxes against the back of Katsuki’s ribcage. His own breath starts to slow to match. Even though his heartbeat feels faster than normal, he is tired from the day. His eyelids flutter shut and his racing thoughts slowly turn into dreams.

He opens his eyes to a dark room. With the pale moonlight shining in from the window, he knows it’s not morning yet. There is no obvious cause for his waking. The night seems peaceful, and his dreams were untroubled for once. He’s only left wondering for a moment. Izuku jerks in his sleep, hitting his shoulder. It happens again, harder this time. 

Katsuki pushes himself into a sitting position, legs swinging over the edge of the bed. He catches Izuku’s wrist before he gets hit again. 

Izuku’s distress grows with every passing moment, and he begins to thrash, a groan of pain escaping his lips. There isn’t much light in the room, but it’s enough to see the troubled expression on Izuku’s face and the beads of sweat forming on his forehead. Katsuki bites his lip, catching Izuku’s other wrist as it comes swinging toward him.

“Oi, wake up, shithead,” he says.

Izuku’s face twitches, but his eyes are still firmly closed. He’s no closer to waking than he was before. Katsuki notices that Izuku is muttering something indistinct. The individual words are jumbled, and Katsuki can’t decipher any actual meaning in them, but his voice is unmistakably agitated. Katsuki opens his mouth to try to speak Izuku into wakefulness, but before he can say anything, he catches one of the words spilling from Izuku’s mouth.

Eri-chan.

A shiver runs through him. He knows that name, but not from this lifetime. Gravity leaves him behind for a moment as memories ring in his ears. Katsuki clenches tighter around Izuku’s wrists.

Eri-chan.

Her name is clearer this time.

He remembers a young girl, timid in a way and with a look in her eyes that says she’s haunted by pain. Another person that Izuku saved. Another fight he came away with bearing more scars. A kind of panic settles in his stomach. If Izuku knows that name–consciously or subconsciously, then–

Izuku cries out in his sleep, and Katsuki’s brain refocuses.

“Wake up, hey–” Katsuki resists as he thrashes again. “Hey, Izuku–”

Green eyes snap open, and Izuku wakes with a start.

“Wha–Kacchan?” 

Sweat slides down his forehead, but his skin is cold to the touch. Katsuki lets go of Izuku’s wrists and puts his hands down. He feels the bed shift as Izuku sits up next to him.

“Was I having a nightmare?” Izuku asks quietly, sounding vaguely out of breath.

“You don’t know what you were dreaming about?”

He shakes his head. “No.”

He doesn’t know, then. Not consciously. Not yet. Or not at all. It could just be a coincidence, but that would be one hell of a coincidence.

“Sorry, I woke you up,” Izuku says.

“You had a nightmare. That’s why you wanted me here, isn’t it?”

Izuku punches his shoulder lightly, but doesn’t deny it. 

“We should go back to sleep,” he says, adjusting his pillow to a more comfortable position.

This time, he turns towards Katsuki when he lies down and closes his eyes almost instantly, which effectively cuts off the conversation. Katsuki stares down at him for a couple of seconds. He could face Izuku or turn away. He debates which is best for his sanity (moving to the floor, probably), before he settles for toward. He places one hand on the pillow between them to keep him from rolling forward, and he tries to close his eyes. 

A moment later he feels movement and opens one eye to see Izuku mirror him. The backs of their hands are pressed against each other. He remembers the nights when they were younger. The bed felt bigger then, and he didn’t have any qualms about grabbing Izuku’s hand then. As he feels Izuku’s hand shift slightly he wonders if it’s an accident or an invitation–if he wants reassurance or is just moving in his sleep. In the end, he decides not to risk it.

He wakes to Izuku shaking his shoulder and sunlight shining in through the gap between the curtain and the window. It takes him a moment to orient himself, to remember Eri-chan and to remember that their internship starts in less than two hours, according to the clock on Izuku’s desk. 

They don’t talk much as they get ready. And before Katsuki has much time to dwell on what Izuku does and doesn’t remember, they have to leave. On their way to Nighteye’s office, they take a detour to UA to take their hero costumes. By the time they reach Nighteye’s door, Togata is already standing in his hero costume waiting for them along with Nighteye and Bubble Girl. The gold “1 000 000 000” emblazoned across his chest glints as he moves to greet them.

“We’re on surveillance today,” he tells them.

“Surveillance…?”

Nighteye rests his elbows on his desk and steeples his fingers. “We at the Nighteye Agency are conducting a secret investigation of an organization called ‘The Eight Precepts of Death.’”

Chapter Text

Nighteye gives them a quick rundown of the information they need to know with some help from his sidekick. The Eight Precepts of Death are an organization that should be more of a remnant of a past era than a present threat, but Nighteye suspects them of being more active than they appear. He places a photograph of their leader on the desk in front of him. He has short black hair and what can be seen of his face appears to be unremarkable. However, he has one feature that would identify him from a mile away–the large, beak-like plague mask that covers the lower half of his face.

“We are currently looking for any evidence of criminal activities,” Nighteye informs them. “But you three are on patrol duty only.” He glances from Togata down to the two first-year students. “I shouldn’t need to remind you that you do not have combat clearance. If you run into trouble, your duty is to call reinforcements.”

The sun is at the apex of its arc through the sky by the time they leave Nighteye’s office. Katsuki and Izuku trail Togata as he walks down the city blocks. The cape of his hero costume flutters from his shoulders, the red shining crimson in the bright sunlight. 

The prospect of patrolling isn’t too exciting, but it is their first foray into doing real hero duties. That alone brings a certain sort of anxiety, but it’s not the only stress weighing on Katsuki’s mind as they head out.

Togata turns to them as they reach the first corner. “This is your first time on patrol, right?”

“Yeah,” Izuku replies, his gaze shifting to the side. “I’m a bit nervous.”

“That’s alright, but don’t worry too much, I’m here with you.” Togata gives him a thumbs up. “I’ve got a lot to teach you.”

Katsuki’s jaw tenses at that. He knows that Togata has a couple years of experience on them, but he still doesn’t want to acknowledge how much he still has to learn. He is there to learn, though, so he pushes the thought aside and turns his attention back to Togata.

“We don’t know each other’s hero names yet, so I think it’s time for some introductions,” he says. “I’m Lemillion, because I want to save a million people.”

Izuku and Katsuki give theirs– Diakto and Ares , in turn.

“Those names have a nice ring to them, and if you put them together, you get diaries –that’s pretty cool,” Togata says enthusiastically. After laughing for a moment, he urges them onward.

As Katsuki walks, he scans the streets around them. All of the other people on the sidewalk appear to be normal civilians going about their daily lives. Every couple of minutes, his gaze finds its way back to Izuku. His mind hasn’t let go of thoughts of Izuku’s nightmares, and the timing is unsettling to say the least. He only remembers Eri from after she had been saved and meeting her after hearing snatches of Izuku’s conversations with his friends. 

But he knows that she was saved in the fall. It’s hardly summer now. And he wonders if the timing is too different–if they’re too early to save her. So many things have changed this time around, and a part of him hopes that she has already been rescued. His gut feeling tells him otherwise.

It’s nearing late afternoon, and their patrol has been completely uneventful. Togata walks ahead of them, seeming as upbeat and unconcerned as always. It’s only the first day of their internship, after all. The upperclassman proposes that they turn around and head back to Nighteye’s office. He barely gets through his sentence when Izuku freezes. Katsuki feels it more than he sees it. The worry that has been sitting in the back of his mind since he heard Izuku talk in his sleep peaks.

They stand halted at the mouth of an alley for an instant. And for that instant, the sound of small footsteps running across the pavement is the only thing he can hear. Izuku takes a step back at the impact. For a moment, Katsuki can only watch. His eyes widen. There’s something that feels wrong about this situation, and it’s not the fact that he can see a man with a plague mask emerging from the shadows of the alley, though that worries him, too.

There are two children–two girls–both in similarly torn clothing. He recognizes Eri from her silver hair. She quickly glances up at Izuku, eyes wide with fright. The other girl hesitates, a step behind her, looking around frantically. Izuku kneels and gently puts Eri back on her feet, and his hand stays rested on her shoulder.

Plagueface stops, his form still half in shadow. Even with the mask covering most of his face, the expression in his eyes is enough to make Katsuki hesitate.

Chapter Text

“My apologies, young heroes,” he says, turning his gaze toward Izuku. “My daughter and her friends get carried away sometimes, the two of them are quite the pair of little troublemakers.” His eyes shift to the two girls. “It’s time to go back now.”

Eri clutches onto Izuku, refusing to go. Eri’s small hands grab the fabric of Izuku’s hero costume tighter, and she keeps her face deliberately turned away from the alley. Her arms are wrapped neatly in white bandages. Glancing down, Katsuki sees that her legs are similarly covered, from her ankles to the hem of her skirt. 

The other girl turns half around, the frame of her body visibly shaking. She takes one hesitant step toward him and then another, but looks back over her shoulder at Eri. 

Katsuki wants to stop her. In his head, he knows it’s dangerous, and making the wrong move could arouse suspicion. But without thinking, he starts to shift into a fighting stance. Togata drops a hand on his shoulder to stop him. He gives Katsuki an almost imperceptible shake of the head. Katsuki forces himself into a more casual posture.

“You three are new faces,” plagueface comments. “Which agency are you from?”

Katsuki opens his mouth to say something in response, but Togata cuts him off, which is probably for the better (he wouldn’t have been able to keep the anger out of his voice).

“Yeah, we’re pretty new–just a bunch of young grasshoppers.” He laughs, and it only sounds a little forced. “We should get back before we get in trouble,” he says.

Plagueface looks away from him, his attention turning to the girls once again.

“Come to me.” His voice is unsettlingly cold, and the fingers of his right hand twitch. His left settles on the other girl’s shoulder. It’s only then that Katsuki notices the heavy black gloves he’s wearing. 

Slowly, Eri turns to look at him. Her eyes widen in terror. She still clings onto Izuku, but her hands tremble. “No,” she says in a small voice. “You can’t. You wouldn’t–not Nao-chan–”

“But without you, I have no reason to keep the other children from their parents.”

It’s just barely noticeable, but he squeezes the girl’s shoulder. Katsuki knows Eri sees it, too. It’s such a small gesture, but Katsuki’s blood runs cold. He knows what a threat looks like, and he can only guess what the man is actually threatening to do.

Almost immediately, Eri lets go of Izuku. She hesitates for just a moment before joining the other girl by plagueface’s side.

Katsuki watches them disappear back into the darkness of the alley, hating himself for every moment he stands still but knowing that going after them now would do more harm than good. When they arrive back at Nighteye’s office, he barely remembers walking the last couple blocks to get there. His mind is desperately trying to put the pieces together–the two girls, the other children . How many are there? And what the fuck is plagueface doing to them? 

They report the incident to Nighteye. He releases Katsuki and Izuku without further questioning and tells them to be cautious on the way home. It’s probably his form of expressing sympathy. Togata stays behind. As the door closes behind them, Katsuki hears Nighteye begin to ask him something else.

The sky is still bright when they leave the office, but the warmth of the sun is gone. Izuku falls into step beside him, but he feels distant. The encounter took a toll on him as well, and he was the one that Eri clung to. He was the closest to saving her and still couldn’t do anything. Katsuki doesn’t envy the feeling.

They remain silent all the way home. The air feels heavy, and Katsuki doesn’t know any way to lighten it. Izuku heads for his own apartment automatically without saying a single word. No see you tomorrow . No glance over his shoulder and a wave. No acknowledgment that Katsuki even exists. He watches Izuku’s back recede. Even though he is preoccupied by the incident earlier, he feels jilted.

His gaze lingers on Izuku for a moment longer, before he turns toward his own apartment. He goes through the motions of unlocking the door and kicking off his shoes on autopilot. He barely hears his parents' voices as they greet him.

His mother smacks him on the side of the head as he walks by. “What the hell happened to you?” she asks.

It takes a moment to register that he’s being spoken to. He turns to look at her. “Nothing.”

“Bullshit,” she says, but lets him go to his room in peace.

When he leaves for school in the morning–even with the internship, there are days they have to go to class–his parents tell him to be safe instead of the usual don’t start too many fights.

Chapter Text

In the morning, Nighteye notifies them that there will be a planning meeting in a few days. Because of the potential danger, they’ll be collaborating with other hero agencies. 

“Additionally,” Nighteye says in a voice that sounds foreboding even over the phone. “Your involvement will be strictly limited if allowed at all.”

Although Izuku bites his lip in frustration, he gives Nighteye a polite “I understand.”

After the tone signaling the end of the call sounds, Katsuki curses loudly. It makes sense, but there’s still a part of him that feels like they deserve to fight alongside the pro heroes–that they have to. They still have a chance to be there, though Katsuki isn’t sure if he’d be able to stand being at the scene of the action and being prohibited from fighting. Judging by Izuku’s expression, he feels the same. In fact, knowing Izuku, he’ll probably jump into the fight whether he’s officially allowed to or not.

When they reach the classroom, it’s emptier than usual, because the students have scattered to their various internships and everyone is taking two or three days away from school a week. The lessons are somewhat disjointed, and the teachers assign them more self-study than usual. At least it gives Katsuki an excuse to ask Izuku to study together, not that he really needs one at this point.

That evening, Izuku is quieter than usual. His pencil scratches methodically across the page, but its rhythm is slow. Katsuki, having already completed the first page, takes the liberty of glancing over Izuku’s answers. As he leans over to get a better view of the page, his arm bumps Izuku’s, causing the line of the pencil to veer off course.

Izuku stares at it for a moment. “Kacchan, I’m trying to work,” he says, elbowing Katsuki out of the way.

“But you wrote ‘Nighteye’ instead of–”

“What? No, I didn’t.”

Katsuki points to where he, in fact, did . 

Izuku lets out a sigh and picks up his eraser. “It’s just...been on my mind,” he mutters. “I wish there was something we could have done.”

Katsuki nods silently. The air in the room feels heavier than it did a moment before. They both know that trying to fight plagueface right there would have been a bad idea. Not only would they have exposed their intentions, but also they would have made it more difficult to go save the other children. Katsuki reminds Izuku anyway, because he can’t think of anything else to say.

“I’m sure Nighteye will think of something. He wasn’t known as All Might’s strategist for nothing,” he adds, trying to make his voice sound more positive than he feels.

“I’m sure he will,” Izuku agrees. The smile he adds is somewhat forced, and it twists into a grimace. Izuku looks away from Katsuki’s worried gaze and turns back to his homework, signaling that the conversation is over.

By the time Saturday morning rolls around, Izuku seems somewhat reenergized, though his expression still looks haunted. He spaces out a couple of times during class, but Aizawa is the only teacher who reprimands him for it. And a few times, Katsuki catches Izuku muttering under his breath.

Togata comes to find them once the school day is over, pulling a reluctant-looking fellow UA student by the wrist. Katsuki has heard of the Big Three–the top three third-years who stand out even among UA students. From a distance, the student behind Togata looks intimidating–cold and aloof, maybe. He has messy dark hair and elf ears. His eyes remain downcast, and when Togata releases his grip, immediately sticks both hands into his pockets. 

“This is Amajiki Tamaki,” Togata says. “He’s a little shy, but he’s super strong.”

In response, Amajiki tries to cover his quickly-reddening face with his hands. “Mirio…” he says in a voice that makes him sound like he’d very much like to disappear into the floor.

“It’s true, though.” Turning back to the first-years, he adds “You’ll be seeing more of each other soon… and Nejire, too. I’d have brought her, but she’s internshipping today.”

Togata makes his exit with a still slightly pink Amajiki following on his heels.

Izuku and Katsuki turn to head home as well. The silence of the too-empty classroom follows them all the way. 

Since the meeting with Nighteye isn’t until Monday, there’s nothing left to do for the rest of the weekend aside from some homework. The worry about Eri and the other children sits in the back of his mind, gnawing at his consciousness, making him wish he could do something. At the same time, his stress level feels more manageable than it has in a while, because Izuku isn’t in immediate danger for now.

Chapter Text

The hours continue to pass uneventfully, but Katsuki can’t help the creeping feeling that something is going to happen. It’s easy to attribute the feeling to the dread of what will happen during the Nighteye internship, though things are so different now, there’s no telling how similar or different they’ll be. Katsuki hopes he’ll somehow be able to fix what happened. If the fight against the Eight Precepts had gone differently last time, they would have had more strength to stand against the villains at the end. And maybe they wouldn’t have– Maybe Izuku wouldn’t have–

Katsuki recoils from the inevitable end to that line of thought. Dwelling on the past will not help him. Just regretting his mistakes doesn’t make up for them. His knowledge of what happened before feels less and less helpful, and he doesn’t know the details of the Nighteye internship anyway. He only knows the aftermath.

On Monday morning, the tentative peace is broken. The train ride to Nighteye’s office is as crowded as usual, but there’s a sombre mood in the air. Each person from the salaryman in the corner to the junior high student huddled on one of the benches look tense. If anything big happens at UA, the citizens of the city, if not the entire country, react. 

And the disappearance of a teacher is nothing if not big. 

Izuku spends the hour-long commute searching for updates. His elbows are pinned to his sides by the mass of other people, but he manages to hold his phone up to his face. Katsuki peers over his shoulder, pretending that being packed in with too many other people is the only reason he’s leaning on Izuku.

For the first time since they ran into Eri, he isn’t thinking about the Eight Precepts or the children. Aizawa’s face stares at them from every headline. The police force and other pro heroes are quiet save for promising to do all they can. Katsuki can feel a kind of anxiety rising in his chest. Kidnapping a UA teacher is a bold move, but there are no clear suspects. If Toga is affiliated with other villains, it could be her group. But then again, it could be someone else. 

Halfway through the train ride, a new notification pops up. Some passerby leaked footage of a cordoned off area near Aizawa’s home. Despite the somewhat blurry quality of the picture, the evidence of a fight is clear. To take down someone like Aizawa, a reasonable amount of strength is needed. Whoever was responsible, must have impressive fighting power. And that thought is not reassuring.

Katsuki remains preoccupied even as they walk into the Nighteye Agency. Togata hurries over to them almost as soon as they pass through the door. At first glance, any sign of his usual smile is gone, but he manages a small one as he says his greetings. He leads them to a conference room where an assortment of pro heroes are already collected. A couple have interns with them.

The air in the room feels heavy, much like it did on the train. Everyone speaking is using hushed tones. A few break off as Katsuki and the others pass by, but most keep talking. When they reach Nighteye at the head of the table, he greets them with a strained smile. Not only is the news about Aizawa upsetting in a general sense, it also means the loss of a pro hero who would have helped them deal with the Eight Precepts.

A few minutes after they arrive, Nighteye calls the meeting to order. The pro heroes and others take seats around the large conference table. Across the way, he sees a familiar head of red hair next to elf ears – or rather, Amajiki. He glances around farther. He recognizes most of the pro heroes. While his knowledge of them might not be as encyclopedic as Izuku’s, he has a good memory for this type of thing and has spent a lot of time around Izuku. 

Next to Kirishima and Amajiki sits Fat Gum, a very round, tall man wearing a bright orange jacket. A bit to the left of their group, he sees Iida sitting next to someone who looks almost exactly the same except for the lack of glasses. Even their hero costumes are similar. Katsuki remembers he once heard Iida’s brother had been a hero, but not much more than that. Even farther around the table, he sees Uraraka and Tsuyu next to a woman he recognizes as the current 9th ranked hero.

Before he has time to dwell on the other heroes present in the room, including the current number 4 hero, Nighteye demands their attention. He announces that they’ve found evidence to suggest that The Eight Precepts of Death is dealing in illegal drugs. This serves as justification to find and search their hideout. 

As someone with experience with illegal quirk-affecting drugs, Fat Gum speaks up next. In the process of hunting down users of quirk-enhancing drugs, Amajiki was shot with a quirk-disabling bullet (Togata interrupts the conversation to ask if he’s ok). While the effects only lasted a short while, if it were developed to be more stable, a drug like that would be disastrous for the world of heroes. Pro heroes could lose their quirks, and the general public would lose their protection. Katsuki shudders at the prospect.

And if the threat of what such a drug could do if optimized and mass-produced wasn’t enough, the ingredients are another horror.

Chapter Text

“Human cells.”

No one says a word. The silence presses against his ears. Katsuki  doesn’t want to ask how. Or why. Or who the cells belong to, but his mind offers him an image of Eri’s bandaged arms, and he thinks he knows. Katsuki feels sick. Bile rises in the back of his throat. A kind of tension radiates from Izuku in the seat next to him, hands curled into fists under the table, knuckles are turning white. Katsuki’s fingers twitch, instinctively longing to reach out to offer comfort. Izuku has always been so compassionate, so willing to save others.

Nighteye clears his throat, and all eyes turn to him. His face is grim, but his voice is steady, and Katsuki can’t help the small feeling of admiration that bubbles up inside him. The pro hero tells them about the man named Chisaki Kai. He tells them about Overhaul , the name he goes by, and his quirk. It’s a powerful quirk–the ability to disassemble and reassemble things with a brush of his hand. It has a strong potential for either good or evil, and plagueface definitely isn’t using it for good.

Katsuki thinks of Eri with her small arms wrapped in bandages. He thinks of the other girl with her, too scared to stray for more than a couple minutes. He thinks of the other children . He thinks of the quirk that could destroy a human body and piece it back together.

Nighteye doesn’t quite finish his explanation, but he doesn’t need to. The horrible truth is one that can be felt before it can be put into words. Katsuki knows, feels , the disgust at what was done, even though his mind is still struggling to put it into words.

The drug must be a combination of cells from the children. Its power must come from the quirks of the children. But how exactly it works is anyone’s guess.

After Katsuki recovers from the initial shock, he looks up, scanning the faces of everyone around the room. The face of each and every one of the other students and pro heroes bears varying degrees of horror and shock. His eyes come to a stop when they reach Izuku. This knowledge hits him hard, but it hits Izuku harder. Izuku has always been more compassionate, and Katsuki can tell from the look on his face that he’s blaming himself. He watches silently for a second before trying to tune back into the conversation.

“Taking action then would have put the other children in danger,” Nighteye says in answer to someone’s complaint. “The way it is now…Overhaul needs these children alive so his…supplies don’t run out,” he adds distastefully. “Our mission is to save the children and confiscate the drug. If it has been dispersed, we need to trace it down before it causes further harm.”

The pro heroes begin to strategize, with Nighteye leading the discussion. Nighteye’s ability to look into the future is indispensable, although its range is limited to one person and a small area around them. Katsuki remains quiet along with the other first-years. At this point, they are little more than deadweight.

The meeting lasts for several hours. When it finally comes to a close, he feels like he can’t absorb another word of information. It has also been made clear that they aren’t allowed to fight. Whether he’s more frustrated that he can’t do anything or more glad that Izuku has to stay out of danger this time, he doesn’t know. Togata comes to find them as everyone gets out of their seats and steps away from the table. He walks them as far as the train station. As he turns to head home, even he has a grim look on his face.

The train ride is nearly silent. Izuku is back on his phone, checking for updates. There’s no real news, though, just needless speculation and some panicked interviews. Izuku puts his phone away about halfway through the ride.

“I want to save the children,” Izuku says. “But I want to fight, too. That Chisaki guy just really…needs to be punched in the face.” The vehemence in his words is surprising. Izuku gets a slightly abashed look on his face after a moment. “I mean…the priority is obviously–”

“Nah, I agree. That asshole deserves a lot more than just a punch to the face.”

Izuku catches his eye, and Katsuki sees the hint of a smile on his lips.

“You’re right, we can absolutely save the kids and give Chisaki his comeuppance,” he says. “We just need to figure out how to get permission to fight…”

Chapter Text

It takes another few days until the preparations are done and the stage is set. Katsuki spends each night watching over Izuku’s nightmares. The bed is still smaller than he wished it was, and he never quite works up the courage to grab onto Izuku’s hand like he used to. Instead they remain back-to-back, close but not quite there. Katsuki dwells on things he usually tries not to think about–how close Izuku is, how much he wants to grab on and never let go.

Nighteye calls them just after dinner time on Wednesday to tell them to be ready the next morning. It’s difficult to sleep after that. The anticipation and anxiety keep them awake.

After a while of restless not-quite-sleeping, Izuku breaks the silence. “Kacchan, are you still awake?” he asks.

Katsuki shifts slightly, murmuring a quiet “yeah.”

“Are you nervous about tomorrow?”

“Am I ?” Katsuki scoffs, “Hell no.”

Izuku is quiet for a minute, and Katsuki wonders if he picked up on the lie. He is nervous. Of course he is. He remembers the aftermath of what happened last time–how much was lost, how many wounds that needed to heal. They are up against difficult opponents and the lives of who-knows-how-many children are at stake.

“Overhaul may be strong, but there are a lot of amazing people on our side.” Like you, Katsuki thinks.

“Yeah,” he says aloud. “Heroes always win. Now go the fuck to sleep, Deku.”

Izuku laughs quietly and shifts into a more comfortable sleeping position. It doesn’t take much longer for his breathing to relax into a slow, steady rhythm.

Morning comes quickly, and they were told to arrive at 8 am sharp. They grab their gear and a quick bit of breakfast before they have to go. By the time they reach the appointed location at a police station, the other pro heroes and a number of police officers are already there.

After Togata greets them, they head toward the other first years. Nighteye reminds them that they’re allowed to fight in the event that they’re attacked–self-defense only. 

“Do not engage unless instructed to do so by a pro hero or forced to for your own safety,” he says, his voice firm and commanding. “You are here to learn by observing and aid in the evacuation of the children.

He also reminds them of their priorities. This operation is to save Eri and the other children, but it is also to stop Overhaul and, more importantly, stop the spread of the quirk-erasing drug.

Katsuki spares a glance at Izuku once Nighteye is done talking. His own nerves are tense, making his palms sweat (although that may prove advantageous later). Izuku looks up for a moment and catches him staring.  The mask covering the lower half of his face makes his expression unreadable, but he gives Katsuki a quick nod of reassurance.

When the clock switches from 8:29 to 8:30, the action begins.

One villain runs out to intercept them. Nejire’s group, which is made up of Uraraka, Tsuyu, Nejire, and the rank 9 hero, Ryukyu–the dragon hero–takes him on to let the rest of them forward. Izuku follows close on Togata’s heels, and Katsuki just a step behind. 

Nighteye slows as they enter the building. His quirk, which allows him to see the future of one person, showed him the route one of Overhaul’s underlings would take to get into the hideout. All they have to do now is copy it and hope the children haven’t been moved to a different facility or worse. 

They follow Nighteye through the first level of the building and down a flight of stairs to what would normally be the basement. Instead, they face an underground passageway. Just as the first few heroes make it down the stairs, the ground around them rumbles and a wall forms between them and the way forward. Even before the dust settles from the change, Togata darts forward. He uses his quirk to pass through the wall and chase after the Overhaul and his compatriots before they get any farther away. Amajiki calls after him, but Togata is already through the wall and out of earshot.

Katsuki makes short work of the wall, allowing the rest of them to move forward. As the smoke and dust from his explosions clear, a newly-twisted path is revealed. What was once a straight hallway is now contorted. The direction they need to take is no longer clear. And Togata is nowhere in sight.

Chapter Text

Nighteye motions them forward, scanning the environment for any sign of the villains. From the shifting of the ground around them, it’s clear that someone is interfering with the structure, but the attacker remains hidden. The heroes move cautiously but still with haste. No time to spare.

Footsteps resound dully on the rough floor, and their voices bounce eerily off the walls. With the reverberations, it’s difficult to tell which direction noise is coming from.

Only a short ways into the underground hallway, the first group of villains appears. There’s a nervousness in their eyes. They’re not used to head-on confrontation. They send half-glances over their shoulders. Fucking amateurs. Amajiki steps forward to block the three, telling the other heroes to keep going. They can’t afford to stop here. After the rest of the heroes run past, Katsuki hears Kirishima voice his concern for Amajiki’s well-being and hears Fat Gum give his reassurance. 

Izuku sends one worried glance over his shoulder. “Togata-senpai said he’s ‘super strong.’” The tone of his voice sounds like it was supposed to be reassuring, but a tremor in his words gives his anxiety away.

“That he is,” Fat Gum says with an approving smile. There is no tremor in the pro hero’s voice, and the confidence he has in his intern is inspiring.

They continue onward. 

Underneath their feet, the path is uneven and the light is dim, but they’re progress through the twists and turns of the hallways is quick. At the same time, it’s hard to tell how far in absolute distance they’ve gone from the starting point, since the configuration of the walls keeps changing. Once or twice, Katsuki swears he hears a giggle in the moment a promising door is sealed before they can make it through. It pisses him off.

The villain in charge of the labyrinth is screwing with them, and they don’t have a lead on who or where the culprit is. The walls continue to change, and the floor dips and rises unexpectedly in an attempt to trip them. The group of heroes is split apart and separated by thick walls rising in an instant to keep them apart. Katsuki sticks close to Izuku’s side. Even if he loses track of everyone else, he doesn’t want to lose track of Izuku.

The gap between changes is decreasing, probably because they’re getting closer to somewhere the villains don’t want them to go. The walls start to shake again. Katsuki dives out of the way as a solid obelisk of rock drops from the ceiling, making sure to dodge in the same direction as Izuku. When the rumbling of the earth around them stops and the dust settles, Katsuki glances around, glad to see that they’re still with Nighteye and the Iida brothers.

Two figures drop from the ceiling. With a thrill of fear, Katsuki realizes that he recognizes both of them–one blonde with her hair in two messy buns, one man covered from head-to-toe in a tight-fitting suit and a mask over his face. He knows these villains, and they were never part of the Eight Precepts. Gold eyes meet his, and her lips curl into a cruel smile. Toga Himiko . His blood boils. 

She runs toward them and before Katsuki makes the conscious decision to do so, he goes for her neck. He knows she’ll aim for Izuku whenever possible, and Izuku is oblivious to the threat she poses. Toga dodges the explosion from his right palm, but he manages to shove her against the wall with his other arm.

“Why did you stop me? I just wanted to greet Izuku,” she says in a voice low enough that the others aren’t able to hear.

“You reek of blood,” he spits back. “There’s no way I’ll let you get close to him.”

Her lips curl far enough that he can see the points of her fangs. “You’re awfully protective of him. Is that because you’re–”

Behind him, there’s another loud clash as someone engages the other villain. But Katsuki doesn’t have the time to look and see who it is, because Toga slips out of his grasp. She dances out of reach, agile in a way that takes years of practice and hard training. She taunts him easily. Within the confined space of the underground passage, he has to limit his strength. And although his explosions shake the earth around them, they barely graze her. 

“Kacchan!”

He hears the call but can’t turn away from the fight. 

“I’m going ahead, so…good luck!”

“You’re the one that needs luck,” he yells back, eyes straying to Izuku for a millisecond before he makes himself refocus. With the sound of running footsteps, Izuku is gone.

Toga’s smile widens. “I’m so glad we get to spend time together, my dear rival in love.”

She relies solely on her physical prowess and agility to fight, but makes a difficult opponent all the same. Katsuki may have fast reflexes and a powerful quirk, but in a small space against an experienced fighter, the fight is tough. His anger grows as adrenaline pumps through his system. Katsuki knows he should keep his mind clear, but his resentment towards her clouds his judgement. 

He swings toward her again, but as he does so he sees a flash of silver and just manages to catch her wrist before she stabs him. They stand, straining against each other. He is physically stronger, but with his hands tied, he can’t attack. They’re at an impasse, and the annoyed flash of her eyes, tells him she knows it too.

“He’s probably met Overhaul by now,” Toga says, teeth gritted from the effort of still trying to stab him.

“Shut up.”

“Izuku’s in danger, and you wish you could save him, you wish you could save like him, you wish you could be him, don’t you?” Her cheeks flush as she talks, eyes half-lidded as she utters the syllables of Izuku’s name. “I understand,” she proclaims. “You love him–love Izuku. ”

He lets out a roar of fury, blasting her away from him with both hands. Because even if her knife has barely grazed him, her words cut him like a butcher’s blade.

They stand facing each other. Both worse for the wear, but far from done with the fight. She discards her sweater, the arms now tattered and burnt.

She raises her eyes to his face. “If you really want to save him, you should be running after him.” Toga readjusts the blade in her hand, its point glinting. “My darling Izuku is no match for Overhaul.”

Chapter Text

He heaves a breath, trying to level his emotions and failing miserably. Anger courses through his blood. Toga has caused Izuku to bleed too many times, and Katsuki hates the way she unsettles him. Her words manage to find their targets in the weak points of his defences.

He bares his teeth. The fire of his explosions almost feels like it has spread from his palms to the rest of his body.

“Get out of my way,” he snarls.

Toga says nothing in reply, but continues to block his progress, that cruel smile playing at the corners of her lips. She continues to taunt him. Her movements are too quick to take any significant damage from the explosions he sends her way. She’s always a moment out of reach, an instant too fast for him, slipping through the tips of his fingers. He wonders just how many years she’s trained to be a villain.

A tremor that doesn’t belong to his explosions shakes the ground. Katsuki halts, breath coming heavily. Could that be a sign of Izuku’s fight? Has he made it to where Overhaul is? The children? He feels the panic rise in his chest. Izuku may have fought against Overhaul and survived last time, but that’s no guarantee. He has to get there. Quickly.

At the opposite wall, Toga lands delicately and adjusts her knife like most people would adjust a watch on their wrist. Katsuki turns his gaze back to her. She’s too strong to knock out quickly and leave behind (if he could have managed that, he would have by now). If he runs toward the direction that the tremor came from, she’ll just follow him, unless–he glances up.

Toga raises her knife to attack. She bounds toward him, and the blade makes a silver arc through the air. Katsuki attempts to dodge, but the tip of the knife manages to scratch his cheek. It stings, and warm blood drips from the injury, but Katsuki can’t hesitate. He jumps back, putting as much distance between the two of them as he can with a single movement. She follows almost instantaneously, and the glint of her knife flashes through the periphery of his vision. 

The space between them is closing, but this much is enough. She’s too focused on him to dodge in time. Instead of aiming his palm toward her, he aims it upward. The explosion that follows shakes the passageway from end to end. Clumps of dirt and rock rain from the ceiling, and a cloud of dust erupts into the air. 

Katsuki raises his arms to shield himself from the worst of it. As the dust clears, he scans for any sign of his opponent. Some of the rubble moves. A moment later, Toga’s face appears, covered in grime, and blood dripping from her hairline to her chin. The lower half of her body is trapped, but she struggles to raise herself on her forearms. She falls with a thud.

Toga heaves a sigh, managing to raise her head just high enough to glare at him. “Aren’t you going to finish me off?” She asks. She sounds annoyed–tired, even–and in no way scared for her life.

Katsuki hesitates. “I’m a hero.” Both arms drop to his sides.  “I won’t kill unless I have to.”

“Oh, that’s right–you won’t kill, but you’ll let someone sacrifice themselves for you. What a hero you are.”

He freezes. It feels like his heart forgets to beat and the floor tilts, and for a breath, it’s all he can do to stay standing. She can’t – And he didn’t–

“Shut the fuck up,” he roars, trying to drown out everything else with the sound of his anger.

Another explosion thunders as he slams his hand into the ground next to her head, close enough that she jerks her face away. She coughs through the cloud of smoke as it envelops her head, but as the last wisp disappears, she clenches her teeth and fixes him with a steady glare.

“I don’t want him to die yet either. If you want to save him you should go. But,” she snorts mirthlessly, “I probably shouldn’t get my hopes up, you’ve never managed to save him before, have you?”

In the silence that follows, he feels warm blood drip down his cheek from the cut Toga left. The anger within him changes. It was all directed toward her before, but now it threatens to turn inward. It’s a different sort of fury. Instead of raging through him, it is quiet. It bears the burden of guilt–the burden of knowing she has a point.

“Shut up,” he hisses. He spits the words with force, but without the usual volume. His throat is tight. He can’t muster the air to yell, and somehow he feels like he’s lost the right to. 

He turns his back to her. His mind is reeling, but his determination is still strong. As he walks away, Toga’s voice echoes in his ears.

Chapter Text

The ground shakes again, and Katsuki hastens forward, his heart beating too loud in his chest and thoughts he has avoided for years are ringing in his head. He presses forward. Despite the adrenaline coursing through his veins, his steps feel heavy.

Izuku. He tries to center himself. Izuku is in danger.

The hallway ends, and he stops himself before he spills out into the room ahead. His boots stop just over the threshold. He can hear the fight before he can see anything. A cold voice resounds through the underground walls. It must be plagueface. The individual words are hard to make out in the midst of sounds of fists hitting flesh and rubble crashing to the floor, but the taunt in his tone is unmistakable.

Katsuki inches closer. Even he’s not brash enough to burst onto the scene and punch Overhaul in the face without assessing the situation. Between the sounds of punches and falling rubble, he catches a few words, like “quirkless” and “they’ll die without me,” all in plagueface’s voice. Memories of twin bandages covering the two young girls’ arms flicker through his mind. Plagueface must be talking about the children. Eri, Nao, the other children.

His eyes find Izuku first, and he is, thankfully, only mildly injured. Nighteye stands a little to his left. In addition, Izuku has Eri securely in his arms, wrapped in what appears to be the tattered remains of Lemillion’s cloak. A glance surveying the ground tells him that Lemillion himself is out cold due to injuries but still breathing. On plagueface’s side, there’s one villain with arrows for hair face down and another in hardly better shape, but mask up.

Izuku is safe. For a moment, Katsuki lets himself bask in relief and lets out a deep breath. But the fight is still moving, and Izuku is at a disadvantage with both of his arms occupied with Eri. A shadow of Toga’s words pull at the back of his mind. Izuku is safe for now. For now. Apprehension builds in the pit of his stomach–maybe he’ll never be able to save Izuku. Maybe Toga was right (he never managed it before).

The battle pauses, letting the dust settle to the ground. The combatants pant for breath. Katsuki’s pleased to see that there’s blood dripping from plagueface’s short, black hair and a few bruises blooming across his face. He looks like he’s struggling to stand. Izuku’s forehead glistens with sweat. In the lull, he glances over his shoulder (not wanting to risk turning his back to the enemy) to affirm Katsuki’s presence. 

When he faces forward again, there’s a smile on his lips. “This is the end of the line for you,” he says to plagueface. Determination rings in his voice, and even without being able to see, Katsuki knows his eyes are blazing. “Tell us where the other children are.”

The demand makes plagueface’s expression sour. “Those children are worthless to anyone but me. They’re tragedies are already written, what can you do to save them, little heroes?”

Near to the ground, Katsuki glimpses something move. The arrow-haired villain is struggling to put himself into an upright position. There’s something on the ground a short distance from his right hand, and Katsuki spots a carrying case of some sort a few more pieces of rubble away. Thoughts of quirk-erasing bullets cross his mind. It would be bad, to say the least, if villains were to get a hand on those en masse. Or if the bullets were used against them now. 

Katsuki jumps after arrow-hair and doesn’t hear the rest of whatever plagueface has to say. He lands with a thud , and the villain has just enough time to glance behind him before his face meets an explosion. 

In the time it takes to properly knock out the villain, the two Iidas appear in their matching suits of armor, both similarly scratched up and missing helmets, but standing strong. Nighteye gives them a quick rundown of the situation and an order to go after the rest of the children. With their quirks, they’re the best choice for a quick rescue. The brothers zoom toward the exit on the other side of the room, and  while plagueface moves to stop them, he falls short.

With a howl of frustration, Chisaki turns his attention to his nearest associate, still lying motionless on the ground. “Nemoto,” he hisses. “You’d be glad to die for my sake, wouldn’t you?”

His bare hand reaches for the unconscious man. Katsuki watches with morbid fascination as flesh and blood erupt from the point of contact. With a sickening squelching noise, body parts separate and rejoin in a new configuration. Once the transformation is complete, there are no longer two villains, but one. The thing that stands before them now reminds him horribly of the nomu. It’s form has too many arms to be considered human, but the eyes that glare at them in rage are too discerning to be considered animal.

Chapter Text

Plagueface turns to Izuku first. Eri’s hands hold on a little tighter, but her face is set in determination.

With the fusion, plagueface’s injuries have also disappeared. He launches himself at Izuku and his form blurs. Katsuki dives toward them as soon as he registers the fact that Izuku is in danger again, but an explosion of rubble makes him skid to a halt. He shields his eyes and focuses his attention on the rest of his senses. 

Dust settles on his skin, and he resists the urge to cough. With the din of battle, it’s impossible to pinpoint Izuku by whatever he’s yelling at plagueface. He sets his reflexes on a hairpin trigger. His instincts haven’t failed him yet. There’s a shift in the air, and the hairs on his arms stand on end.

Katsuki directs an explosion through the cloud of dust. A heavy footfall makes the ground shudder. He manages to dodge most of plageuface and send a blast into his face, but one of the extra arms catches him in the side, and Katsuki flies backwards. 

Crashing into walls is never fun. His left shoulder throbs but nothing feels broken. Aside from a few minor cuts, he’s not even bleeding. Another explosion from his palms propels him back into the midst of the fight and lands near Izuku.

His feet barely find purchase on the uneven ground, when it splits open. Fault lines converge on a single point a short distance away where plagueface stands. As Katsuki prepares to launch himself again, a light catches his attention. It’s bright but warm, and Katsuki turns his head just enough to see Eri glowing. Some of the dirt and bruises fade from Izuku’s face. Just as Katsuki starts to wonder about it, another, more sinister something catches his eye.

Plagueface is on the move again. His dark form a growing shadow, encroaching on Eri’s light. All of his focus is on Eri, still glowing in Izuku’s arms.  Izuku tears his gaze away from her, but a moment slow. Katsuki has already closed half the distance between them, and his explosions can reach farther than his arms. 

He concentrates his power in one palm, smaller and smaller until he can’t force it to condense any more. He lets it fly. It shoots like a laser beam, hitting the mutated body of their opponent in the middle of his chest. The point of impact erupts into fire and smoke, and plagueface is hurled in away from Izuku. His form breaks apart in midair. Discarded limbs of his subordinate fall to the ground with a thud, but Overhaul looks annoyingly in one piece.

The villain isn’t entirely unharmed. His short hair is littered with bits of rubble and the sweat that drips down his face clears a path through the dust settled there. His feet come to a stop by the unconscious body of the arrow-haired man. The carrying case rests by his still-outstretched hand. Katsuki avoids glancing at it in the off chance that plagueface hasn’t seen it.

The light behind him brightens. “Stop trying to kill Deku!” Eri calls, her voice scared but determined.

The words sound wrong to his ears, but at first, he doesn’t know why. The realization makes him turn. His eyes meet Izuku’s for an instant, just an instant, and a million questions tumble through his mind. He silences them, because they’re in the middle of a fight, but even that split second of distraction gave plagueface enough time to reach the unconscious man and the case.

The sounds of flesh ripping open and binding together makes him flinch. Sinews wind and unwind. And joints form in places they shouldn’t be. Katsuki gathers another explosion in his palm, but when he aims it toward plagueface it ends up blocked. The new mutant that stands in front of them is more terrible than the last. It is all sharp edges and spikes, and Overhaul’s human face is nowhere to be seen.

Nighteye gets to his feet. Behind him, Katsuki catches a glimpse of a bit of Togata’s blond hair through the gaps in the rubble.

“You’re a nuisance, pro hero,” Overhaul says in a voice that echoes first within his own monstrous form and then within the walls of the underground room.

The words echo a moment long, and Katsuki swears he can see a spike of rock launch from the ground and pierce straight through Nighteye’s abdomen. He blinks. The spike drips blood, but Nighteye isn’t fully impaled by it, though it took a piece out of his side. His suit is slowly being dyed red, but he manages to stay standing.

Katsuki registers the sound of Izuku’s voice echoing as well. Screaming. Too similar to the screams he hears in his nightmares–his memories.

The ground rumbles. Pieces of rock start to fall from the ceiling, and with a mighty crack the structure gives out. 

“Get Lemillion!” Izuku yells, and Katsuki looks over in time to see him pulling Nighteye out of the way.

The noise of the ceiling caving in is tremendous. Even the ground beneath his feet is unsteady. He uses an explosion to clear the way. In the midst of all the ruckus, he doesn’t hear the sound of a gun being reloaded. He doesn’t see plagueface take aim. But he does hear the shot when it’s fired. He freezes in the middle of hefting Togata onto his shoulders.

All he can do is watch as Nighteye twists his battered body to shield Izuku. He seems to fall in slow motion. Izuku, arms already occupied with Eri, only manages to catch half of the pro hero’s weight.

Chapter Text

Something heavy–heavier than chunks of earth–falls. The writhing mass hits the ground with a mighty crash. Katsuki catches a glimpse of scaled skin and hears the cries of classmates. The light of the above-ground world makes him blink.

He recognizes floaty first. Then froggy. Then Nejire. Ryukyu is the last he catches sight of. As the dust settles, it becomes clear that they used one of Chisaki’s men to break through the cement. The villain lies motionless on the ground.

The last of the bits of ceiling to fall hit the ground and bounce out of sight. The mutated plagueface stands to the side of the large pile of rubble directly under the hole in the street above. Not so much as a muscle moves. It feels like the world has slowed down for a moment. It’s quiet.

Nighteye drops to the ground, and the spell is broken. Plagueface is the first to move. He propels himself upward, using his quirk to disassemble the ground below him and form it into a rising pillar. All eyes turn toward him. The pillar stops rising, and it holds together for a moment before it falls to pieces, showering the heroes with bits of rock and dirt again. When the dust clears, the sky is empty.

Katsuki curses under his breath. Since there are other people here, they can deal with the injured. He unceremoniously walks to the group of four and tries to hand Togata to Uraraka.

She, however, is busy staring at Izuku. “Diakto? But wait–weren’t you–why are you here?”

Izuku blinks in confusion. “Why wouldn’t I be here?”

Katsuki clears his throat, pushing Togata toward Uraraka once more. “Take him, I’m going after plagueface.”

“Plague–?” Uraraka begins to ask, sounding both shocked and vaguely amused.

Katsuki turns his back on her. To the side, he sees Izuku put Eri on her feet.

“Eri-chan, you’ll be safe here,” Izuku says.

Izuku takes a step forward, but Eri grabs the back of his sleeve, shaking her head. Izuku tries a little harder to pull away, but Eri is firm. She’s still glowing. Katsuki realizes that Izuku’s injuries have faded. She can heal, can’t she? 

He remembers this. Her quirk that burst from her on a few occasions when they hadn’t been quick enough to get her away from the battlefield. Healing–no, that’s not quite right–she can turn humans back–backwards in time. Rewind . Her quirk. But it can’t be–that would be ridiculous. One person could never have enough power to turn back the entire world, and he wouldn’t remember anything if he had been rewound, but–Katsuki shakes his head. He’s being stupid. There’s no time to stand around and philosophize. Plagueface is going to get away if they don’t move.

By the time he manages to focus again, Izuku and Eri are out of sight. Ryukyu’s group are just starting on first aid. Katsuki breathes a silent sigh of relief–he can’t have spaced out for more than a few seconds. He hears someone talking, but the words aren’t clear.

The voice, he realizes, belongs to Nighteye. The words don’t come easily, and it sounds like there isn’t enough breath in his lungs. Katsuki just manages to catch the end of what he’s saying.

“...I’m fated to die here.” Nighteye coughs. He catches Katsuki’s eye as he glances around. “He has a chance...since Eri is...with him. Tell him, tell him he’ll be a fine success–”

“Tell him yourself,” Katsuki snaps.

“I won’t...be able to. I’m… fated to...d–”

“We’ll fucking see about that.” 

Usually he’s polite to adults (other than his parents), but his nerves are frayed, and at the moment, he doesn’t give a shit if he’s rude. Turning to the others, he explains where the Iida’s went. Jerking his thumb toward the door he used earlier, he adds “Fat Gum’s group is all back that way.”

Katsuki turns his gaze upward. No more dawdling around. He’ll worry about everyone else later. And, besides, if they hadn’t won their fights, more villains would have come after them by now.

He needs to go after plagueface.

Chapter Text

Katsuki rises into the sunlight. For a moment, he hangs suspended before gravity takes control again, but the moment is long enough for his eyes to find Izuku. To see the green light that radiates from him. To see the crater he stands in, and the cracks in the cement that radiate from the soles of his red shoes. Eri clings to his back, the sunlight shining off her hair makes her glow even brighter.

As Katsuki begins to fall, his eyes search the broken surface of the street for any sign of the villain. He finds no trace of the mutated monster. All that’s left is the unconscious body of a man. With his mask gone and his eyes rolled up into his skull, Overhaul looks unremarkable.

Katsuki uses his explosions to propel him towards Izuku. The light of One for All fades from view, and Katsuki’s heart clenches in his chest. He doubles his explosions to move faster, and the wind whistles by his ears. His feet hit the pavement at the same time that Izuku’s knees give out. Izuku is heavy against his arm, but even as his body shakes from exhaustion, he manages to peel Eri off his back and present her to Katsuki.

“Hold her,” Izuku says.

I’d rather hold you, Katsuki’s brain unhelpfully comments. After shoving that thought back into the depths of his subconscious, Katsuki reaches for Eri. Her gaze turns to his face for a moment before her eyes flutter shut, and the light of her quirk fades.

Izuku frowns slightly. “She must be exhausted.”

“You are, too,” Katsuki mutters with a glance at Izuku’s drooping eyelids. With a sigh, he hooks one arm under Izuku’s knees and the other around his back, trying not to think about the fact that he’s carrying Izuku bridal style.

Izuku squawks in protest, but quiets when Katsuki shows no sign of putting him down.

Instead, Katsuki turns to look in the direction he came from. The gaping hole takes up the better part of a city block. He sees some of the other heroes gathered around the edges, bringing the injured up to the surface. A few of the policemen have made it to the scene, too, and a couple of squad cars pull up as he watches. A group of policemen carefully makes their way to the crater where Overhaul lies.

Katsuki feels Izuku shift in his arms, and his brain freezes for a moment. Any thoughts of the world around them disappear. Izuku tentatively puts one arm around the back of his neck, keeping Eri in place with his other arm. Katsuki stares ahead of him, trying to concentrate on walking. He wonders if he’s imagining the feeling of Izuku staring at him questioningly. He wonders if all he’ll ever be good for is making sure Izuku has someone to catch him before he hits the ground.

As he nears the group of heroes, he sees a glimpse of red hair. Kirishima looks to be unconscious, and there’s a line of blood nearly the same color as his hair running down his face. A not-so-fat Fat Gum kneels at his side, sporting a fair number of injuries himself. Amajiki stares at Togata’s unconscious form with bleary eyes. Katsuki’s gaze falls on Nighteye last. From a distance, all he can tell is that the bandages covering his abdomen are more red than white.

A shout from Uraraka gets his attention. She and Tsuyu are pinning someone to the ground. Someone that looks a lot like Izuku. Someone that turns to stare up at him as he approaches. The hairs on the back of his neck stand up. Katsuki comes to a halt. Not-Izuku looks up through his(?) lashes, and Katsuki bites the inside of his cheek in an effort to keep his expression neutral.

“Izuku, baby, I’m so glad you’re alive!”

It sets his teeth on edge to hear that sentence in Izuku’s voice. With a growl, he stomps on the imposter’s face. Both of the girls turn to look at him in a mix of shock and disapproval. Katsuki doesn’t return their gaze. Something feels off. He glares at not-Izuku’s face, but the familiar features are distorting. Melting.

Uraraka lets out a noise of disgust as a flesh-colored substance drips through her fingers. She and Tsuyu recoil, and Katsuki lifts his boot away from what’s left of not-Izuku’s head. In another moment, not-Izuku is gone.

The real Izuku in his arms shudders slightly. Katsuki takes this as his cue to (reluctantly) put Izuku back on his own two feet. A few people hurry over to check their injuries. 

Before long, they're in the back of an ambulance en route to the nearest hospital. Before they go, they watch the police bind Overhaul to a stretcher and load him into a truck for transport. There is also a transmission from the Iida brothers. The other kids are relatively unharmed, but they are all unconscious.

The hospital is almost too quiet after the chaos of the morning. The sunlight streaming in the window feels too bright. It feels like too much time has passed for it to be early afternoon. Katsuki stares up at the ceiling. In the bed next to him, Izuku lies sleeping. His injuries were hardly trivial, but he managed to avoid the surgeon’s scalpel again.

Chapter Text

After a quick scan, the doctors tell Katsuki he should take it easy for the next few days. The cut on his cheek should heal without complications, and everything else is just bruises and scrapes. His fingers brush over the bandage plastered to his face, wincing slightly. His mind flickers to Toga. Why was she there? He just hopes that the League of Villains don’t get their hands on quirk-erasing bullets.

Katsuki’s thoughts are interrupted when Izuku begins to stir, and he moves to stand next to Izuku’s bed. The strongest of the pain medications must be wearing off as well as the medically-induced sleep that allowed him to be examined and stitched and have his fractures set without undue discomfort. A faint rustle of hospital sheets alerts him to the movement. Izuku’s eyes open a few seconds later, lashes fluttering a couple of times before he realizes Katsuki is there. As his head turns, a few of his curls fall across his forehead.

“Kacchan?” His voice is rough, probably from yelling during the fight earlier and lack of water during his hours of unconsciousness.

The corner of Katsuki’s mouth pulls up into a hint of a relieved smile. There’s a cup of water on the bedside table, and he hands it to Izuku, who has to push himself into a proper sitting position before he carefully takes a sip. His hands shake and water splashes dangerously close to the rim of the class. With reflexes as fast as ever, Katsuki stabilizes it. Izuku flushes slightly. Then, a serious expression covers his smile, like a cloud cutting across the sun.

Katsuki replaces the water on the table.

“How is Eri?” Izuku asks.

“They only told me she was fine,” Katsuki says, scowling at the memory of the hospital staff stuttering excuses for not answering his questions and the tight-lipped guilty glances of the pro heroes. He understands the need for confidentiality, but, fuck, doesn’t he have a right to know a little more than “she’s fine?”

“Sir Nighteye?”

“Alive,” Katsuki answers. 

Izuku nods. He doesn’t question about Nighteye any further. Before he gets in a question about Togata, the door bursts open. 

The first thing Katsuki thinks is that’s a lot of yellow . An old man stands in the doorway, dressed in an old-style hero costume. It’s only two colors, and the dominant one is yellow. Katsuki stares at him. There’s something familiar about this old man, but he can’t place it yet. He isn’t aware of any current heroes that look like this. He thinks back to what he knows of heroes who were in their prime thirty or so years ago. Or earlier. Who might have worked with All Might before he became famous.

“Gran Torino!” Izuku exclaims.

Katsuki glances at him. That explains a few things. He recognizes the man as All Might’s teacher now, and thinks back to whether they had ever met before. Memories flicker past, none containing Gran Torino, until–it hits him like a bolt of lightning. Of course they met.

A good teacher never outlives his student.  

Gran Torino may have been old, but he was as determined as any of the rest of them. And he carried the guilt of letting All for One’s villainy continue to plague the next generation. How could he forget? Katsuki suppresses a flinch, clenching his fingers into fists at his sides.

“Who are you?”

The question puts his reminiscing on hold. Katsuki blinks down at the old pro hero. As he opens his mouth to reply, he hears Izuku mutter–

“That’s Kacchan.”

“Oho, ‘Kacchan’ ...I see.”

Katsuki sends a questioning glare in Izuku’s direction, but all he gets is a vaguely apologetic shrug. He feels something like wind blow through his hair and jumps out of the way as a blur of yellow zooms past him. 

Gran Torino lands a few steps behind him, letting out a hearty guffaw. “Your reflexes aren’t bad, boy,” he comments. Turning to Izuku, he adds, “It’s good to see your still alive. I’ve got to find…”

The door opens again, and All Might stands, head brushing the top of the doorframe and clothes hanging loosely.

“Ah, Toshinori,” Gran Torino says. “I was just about to go looking for you.”

All Might freezes. 

After a quick non-verbal exchange, Gran Torino leaves, saying something about checking on Nighteye. With that reminder hanging heavy in the air, Katsuki turns to look at All Might. The man greets him awkwardly, and Katsuki becomes aware of the fact that although he was once part of the small group that knew about One for All, he’s just one of All Might’s many students now. Katsuki takes a step toward the door, intending to leave Izuku alone with his mentor.

“You can stay, Bakugou, this will be quick.”

Katsuki halts and turns to stare at All Might.

“Don’t look so surprised,” All Might says with a slight chuckle. “Midoriya has quite a lot to say about you.”

Izuku turns scarlet.

It turns out that All Might’s visit really is quick. He apologizes for being busy with another mission, and looks to far too regretful when he admits Nighteye refused his help. With that, he rises to leave.

“Can you check on Eri?” Izuku asks.

All Might pauses. “That’s actually one of the reasons I’m here.” With that, he bids goodbye, and heads out the door.

Chapter Text

The doctors keep Izuku in the hospital for a night. “In case of complications,” they say. Katsuki wants to spit fuck complications in their faces, but doesn’t because there might actually be complications. 

At some point, he goes home. It’s a quiet train ride, and the seats on either side of him are empty. Katsuki tries not to dwell on memories. But with the silence heavy around him, it’s impossible to keep the thoughts from coming.

He returns to the hospital the next morning, since he has been excused from school for the internship. The first place he goes is Izuku’s room, but Izuku is still sleeping. Katsuki pauses for a moment, watching the slow rise and fall of his chest. He can hear a gentle snore. One of Izuku’s hands twitches, and his eyelashes flutter like he’s about to wake up, but all he does is turn his head to the side and continue snoring. Katsuki withdraws quietly, keeping his hand on the door until it shuts to minimize the noise.

Since the person he most wants to talk to is still asleep, he makes his way to Togata’s room instead. Last time he visited, Togata had still been unconscious, but he’s awake now. His face is dull, and even his hair looks droopy. Togata brightens slightly when Katsuki walks in, but it’s only a shadow of his normal vivacity.

“G’morning,” he says in a voice that sounds painfully cheery. 

Katsuki stares at him. From the looks of it, his injuries aren’t too severe (he has an IV drip in one arm, but he’s sitting up without support). They saved Eri and the other kids, but Nighteye was badly injured. Katsuki wonders if that’s why Togata looks so gloomy. He doesn’t have to wonder for long.

“I’m quirkless,” the older boy says. Togata turns to stare out the window, although all that’s visible is empty sky. “Do you know what happened to the kids?” His voice sounds almost conversational, but it’s hollow. 

Katsuki can’t tell if it’s a real question or a rhetorical one.

“They’re still alive, but we didn’t save them at all.” Togata pauses. “He was keeping them alive to use in his experiments.”

“What does that mean?” Katsuki asks.

Togata only shakes his head. “Eri is the healthiest of them, but her limbs show signs of repeatedly being subjected to Overhaul’s quirk.”

Katsuki feels his stomach tighten. He had a rough idea of what was going on, and here’s the confirmation. It’s nothing short of torture. When he stops at the door to the ward where the children are, he hesitates, and bile rises in his throat. The children are no longer under plagueface’s control, but they’ve survived things no child should have to experience. He grits his teeth and opens the door.

No one lets him actually see the kids. There are more excuses about confidentiality, but he finds out a little bit. The kids all have red eyes and a small bump on their foreheads where Eri has a horn. None of them have awoken on their own. None of them are free of bandages. None of them have truly been saved.

After checking on Nighteye and the others from their group, he returns to Izuku’s room. It’s only a little past noon, but his body feels leaden. Izuku greets him with a small smile, and Katsuki feels some of the weight lift. But Izuku, of course, asks for updates, and Katsuki gives them reluctantly. With each bit of news, Izuku’s smile grows fainter. In some technicality, the mission was a success, but it hardly feels that way now.

“Everyone’s alive?”

Katsuki nods.

Izuku breathes a sigh of relief. “It could have been worse.”

“It could have been a hell of a lot better, too.”

Inko arrives a little while later, and when the next shift of doctors comes through, Izuku is released from the hospital.

On the way home, they receive one more piece of bad news.

“The police van transporting Overhaul was attacked, suspected involvement of the League of Villains,” Izuku says, looking up from his phone screen.

“Fuck,” Katsuki replies.

Izuku pockets his phone silently. He looks like the optimism has been drained out of him, and part of Katsuki wants to comfort him. He could say that he’s sure the kids will be fine, or something like that, but those would just be empty words.

He stays with Izuku all the way home, through the entryway and down the hall until they’re in Izuku’s room. Katsuki sits on one side of the bed and Izuku on the other, backs resting against the wall. Silence stretches between them, but it’s not the usual comfortable silence. Instead it’s filled with worries and regrets left unspoken. This silence makes him restless. 

Katsuki changes the way he’s sitting once and then once again. It’s too early to sleep, and while they have homework they could be doing, it doesn’t feel like the right time. Katsuki rests his back against the wall and stares at the opposite wall. Unsurprisingly, there’s an All Might poster looking back at him. The bed shifts, and he feels Izuku settle next to him, shoulders almost touching.

“Kacchan, are you okay?” Izuku’s voice is hesitant.

Katsuki tilts his head back until it hits the wall. If he looks out of the corner of his eye, he can see Izuku’s face in profile. “Yeah, close enough,” he says. “You?”

Silence pervades the room once more. Izuku is slower to answer than he was. “I need to be stronger,” he says. “And now, I feel even weaker, like Eri’s quirk took me too far back. I need to train.”

Katsuki lets his eyes roam over the room, over the All Might memorabilia and the stack of unfinished homework on Izuku’s desk, over the bookshelf with a mix of hero magazines, old textbooks, and his own notebooks. “It’s not all on your shoulders,” he says.

Izuku shifts until they’re sitting face-to-face. His eyes show regret and worry and something else.

“What?” Katsuki snaps.

“I could have done more.” The eye contact breaks, and Izuku stares at his hands. “Togata was the closest to being number one, he could’ve risen through the hero rankings, like Hawks, but now he’s…”

“Quirkless,” Katsuki says.

“Quirkless,” Izuku repeats. “Maybe he can still be a hero,” he says glumly.

“It doesn’t mean he’s useless.” The words slip out before Katsuki can stop them, and then he realizes what he said and almost wants to laugh. He bites his lip in an effort to keep his face neutral.

Izuku is staring at him again, and his eyes are full of questions. He shouldn’t understand the bitter irony, but Katsuki can’t help but wonder. How many times did Katsuki call him useless for not having a quirk? His thoughts spiral. And then, before anything more can be said, Izuku’s phone rings.

Chapter Text

It’s Togata. Katsuki can tell from the split-second view he has of the caller ID before Izuku puts his cell phone to his ear. The call is brief, but Izuku’s expression looks lighter by the end of it. There’s even a hint of a smile when he turns to Katsuki.

“Nighteye’s awake.”

The hospital is closed and not accepting visitors, a fact which Katsuki has to remind Izuku of before he dashes out the door. Izuku slumps back on the bed. Katsuki can almost see the energy draining out of him.

“Sleep,” Izuku mumbles, voice partially muffled by the pillow.

“What?”

Izuku raises his head slightly. “Sleep,” he says more clearly. “We should sleep, then we can visit Nighteye in the morning.”

Katsuki prods him in the side. “Scoot over then.”

In the morning, Katsuki wakes to someone shaking his shoulders instead of the usual alarm. He wonders if something happened and sits up quickly, almost smashing his head into Izuku’s chin in his haste. The room is bathed in sunlight. Peaceful. 

Katsuki glares at Izuku.

“Visitors are admitted after eight,” Izuku says with a shrug.

Grumbling, Katsuki rolls out of bed. He takes one of Izuku’s All Might shirts in retaliation for the abrupt end to his sleep, and a couple of minutes later, they’re both dressed and ready to go. Inko, however, doesn’t let them leave without breakfast, which delays them by another fifteen minutes. By the time they reach the front doors of the hospital, it’s well after eight.

The staff lead them to Nighteye’s room. When they arrive, they find Togata coming from the other end of the hallway. His hair isn’t styled the way it normally is, and it looks almost odd hanging around his face. Togata’s steps are missing their usual spring, but he manages to hitch a smile up onto his face when he sees them. He comes to a halt behind the other two, and they all stand staring at the door. All they know is Nighteye was awake, but no one has bothered to tell them anything other than that.

Togata is the first to move. He stretches an arm out to push the door. “Let’s go,” he says. His fingertips reach the surface of the door, but instead of pushing it open, they pass straight through. Upon realizing, Togata freezes, staring at the point where his skin disappears into the panel. The surprise on his face slowly morphs into a more genuine smile, and he sticks his head into Nighteye’s room.

He greets Nighteye loudly, but through the door, it’s somewhat muted. After a quiet response that Katsuki can’t quite make out from the other side of the door, Togata pulls his head back and pushes the door open properly. Katsuki and Izuku follow him into the room. Nighteye shifts slightly as they walk in, a thin smile on his lips. He looks pale, and there’s a half-full IV drip hanging at one side of the bed.

Togata bounds forward, gesticulating happily as he announces that his quirk isn’t gone.

“I’m glad,” Nighteye says, his voice quiet. “Mine is.”

Togata’s face falls.

“But I’ve had my time as a hero. I wasn’t supposed to survive at all, so I’m thankful just to have my life.” He glances around the room until his eyes settle on Katsuki. “It looks like you were right.”

Katsuki feels Togata and Izuku turn to look at him as well. He wants to squirm under the weight of all three gazes, but he holds steady, keeping eye contact with Nighteye. “Don’t you have something to say to Izuku?”

The pro hero inclines his head. “Midoriya–” Izuku startles, quickly turning from Katsuki to Nighteye. “–I think you are a...fine successor to All Might.”

For a moment, Izuku is too shocked to respond. When he does, Katsuki can see tears forming in the corners of his eyes as he thanks Nighteye.

Togata brings a hand down on Izuku’s shoulder. “I told you he’d warm up to the idea eventually.”

When they leave Nighteye’s room, Togata stays behind to talk to his mentor for a while longer. Izuku’s eyes are dry again. They walk through the corridors, slowly making their way toward the exit. After turning a corner, they spot a very familiar tall blond man with his hair sticking up in a V-shape from his forehead.

“All Might!” Izuku calls.

The man spins around, looking oddly nervous. “Ah, young Midoriya, young Bakugou.”

Katsuki spots a small girl peeking out from somewhere around All Might’s kneecap. Izuku notices, too.

“Why is Eri with you?” He demands.

All Might clears his throat awkwardly. “I thought she might like to take a walk.” Leaning closer and clearing his throat again, he whispers– “With her quirk, it’s difficult to find an orphanage or a foster family to take her in, and UA has a lot of resources...what I mean is, well, there’s no one to claim the kid, and with the wide variety of student and teacher quirks we could help her manage her power.” After a moment of hesitation, he adds, “I’d like Aizawa’s input, too, but of course he’s… and he’d be a great help if she lost control of her quirk.”

Izuku looks apprehensive. “I have a friend who might be able to help if she loses control, he’s not in the hero course though.”

“1-B has someone with a copycat quirk, he could copy her quirk and maybe get some insight on how it works,” Katsuki says, grudgingly realizing how useful catshit’s quirk is.

All Might smiles, straightening up. “All good things to think about,” he says agreeably. “Now, we were on our way to see if there’s ice cream in the cafeteria, weren’t we?” He asks, turning to Eri.

She gives a very small nod in response.

And off they go.

Chapter Text

By Monday, they’re back in the 1-A classroom. Everyone has finished with their internships, and the seats in the classroom are accordingly filled. Izuku has been told to keep training light and has been flat-out banned from hero course exercises until Recovery Girl approves his participation. The worst of his injuries were healed, but the bone-deep fatigue isn’t as easily cured.

Kirishima still has a bandage around his head and has similarly been prohibited from joining in hero course activities (it’s apparently best to give head injuries some time to heal). Iida seems to be the best off of them with no visible bandages or lingering scrapes. There are still the shadows of a few scratches across Uraraka’s hands and Tsuyu has the echo of a bruise visible just above the top of her knee-socks. Those injuries are all too light to bother taking to Recovery Girl. 

Katsuki brushes a hand over his cheek. The knife wound was shallow enough to heal with only the faintest of scars, but the taunts Toga left him still ring in his head.

Their usual homeroom teacher is still missing. Aizawa’s disappearance is no small thing, but though the police and certain pro heroes have been searching for him, no further information has been made public. It makes Katsuki nervous. He doesn’t remember Aizawa getting kidnapped–or whatever the adult equivalent is. His ability to disable other peoples’ quirks is invaluable. And going into the summer–

But first, exams. 

Today, Midnight stands at the teacher’s desk, announcing that finals are rapidly approaching in a voice that exudes a twisted sort of enthusiasm. WIth the internship, Katsuki, and probably everyone else in class A, has had very little time to study. The reminder of finals is anxiety-inducing in a different way than villains are, but anxiety-inducing all the same.

And when Midnight announces the possibility of a summer camp for training to motivate them to study, while most of the class cheer with joy, Katsuki feels his stomach drop.

“You’ll only get to go if you pass your finals!”

Kaminari’s complaint is the loudest. “But I wanna go!” He moans dramatically.

“Then study!” Midnight says. “Or maybe we’ll let you tag along, but you’ll have remedial lessons. All of you have to be ready for your Provisional Licence Exam at the end of the summer!” She leaves them with that reminder, and the school day moves on.

When lunch comes, Izuku announces that he was planning on eating with a general department friend but upon seeing Katsuki’s face, he adds “You can come, too!”

Katsuki wants to tell him to fuck off , because he’s fully capable of spending one lunch break without Izuku. On the other hand, he’s reluctant to let Izuku go alone, because something might happen, which is probably stupid. But he can’t forget his encounter with Toga the last time he parted ways with Izuku for lunch. Katsuki bites his tongue and follows Izuku to the cafeteria.

In the mass of gray uniforms, it’s difficult to spot anyone in particular, but after a few minutes of texting on Izuku’s part, an unfortunately familiar head of purple hair comes into view. Shinsou doesn’t look surprised to see Katsuki there, too, and gives them both a lazy wave as he approaches.

“Heard you guys ran into some trouble. What is it with you?” He turns to Izuku. “You sure your quirk isn’t attracting villains?”

Izuku rolls his eyes, and they go to find a table. As they wade through the mass of students, Katsuki vaguely wonders if Shinsou has a point.

It takes a few more minutes to get their food and find an empty table. Shinsou gives them a look, sighs, and sits down opposite Katsuki and Izuku.

“I met Eri,” he says without preamble.

Izuku nearly drops his chopsticks. Katsuki forgets that he’s dumping hot sauce on his rice (it’s a good thing he likes spicy food).

“How is she?” Izuku asks.

Shinsou tilts his head. “You know, I’m not supposed to tell you. You’ve heard of confidentiality I’m sure.” He takes a breath, looking away from Izuku’s concerned expression. “She’s fine, though. Her quirk hasn’t activated since–well, since you guys saved her, but at least she knows who I am.”

“What about catshi–uh, I mean, the class B kid with a copy quirk? He might be able to figure something out,” Katsuki asks.

Shinsou shrugs. “Didn’t see any other students around.”

“The other kids?” Izuku interjects.

A shake of the head. “Haven’t seen them at all,” Shinsou says. “No one’s mentioned them either.”

Their prospects look dim. Katsuki is reluctant to take the word of a villain seriously, but he remembers plagueface saying that they couldn’t survive without him. He sets a half-full plate of food aside. At least Eri’s safe.

But is that enough? A voice asks in the back of his mind.

Katsuki doesn’t know. He never used to focus on saving people, always putting the priority on kicking ass and beating villains. But since his whole purpose is to save Izuku , his perspective has shifted.

He passes the rest of the afternoon trying not to think about Eri or the kids they aren’t allowed to know anything about. His body moves automatically through the exercises, dodging when he needs to, but his mind wanders. Izuku sits sullenly at the side of the gym. He found a spot high off the ground where he perches and watches the rest of his classmates, scribbling in a notebook in his lap.

Katsuki’s gaze drifts to him every few minutes. A few times, he catches Izuku’s eye and is given a small smile in response. But in the end, something is still wrong. Their win against plagueface doesn’t feel like a real victory.

It’s a shitty feeling.

Chapter Text

The rest of the term speeds by as the weather grows hotter. Katsuki appreciates the switch to the summer uniforms more and more each day as they walk to school. The UA facilities are all thankfully air-conditioned. It’s easier to concentrate on class when he doesn’t feel like he’s more sweat than human. During the hero exercises in the afternoons, which are frequently held outside, the heat is a pain in the ass. Katsuki feels the fabric of his gym uniform sticking to his back, and the excess of sweat makes it harder to control his quirk.

Todoroki, with his ice, becomes more popular than ever. For the most part, Katsuki ignores him. But when Izuku spends every last second of their downtime hovering by half-and-half’s icy side, Katsuki starts getting annoyed. The next time it happens, he stomps over after Izuku, despite Kirishima’s attempt to keep him back. Half-and-half looks surprised to see him glowering over Izuku’s shoulder. If he thinks back, Katsuki wonders if he’s ever had a proper conversation with Todoroki this time around. Standing near Todoroki’s ice, Katsuki grudgingly has to admit that his quirk is awfully convenient.

The time until final exams passes by, and with the lack of an immediate threat from the villains, Katsuki manages to focus on studying. (Unfortunately, his memories from before don’t encompass things like calculus formulas, so he has to look at the textbook now and then). He spends the evenings studying with Izuku, quizzing him on vocab and teasing him when he drops a minus sign somewhere and somehow ends up with three times the correct answer.

For students in the hero course, however, the academics are only a part of the curriculum. In preparation for their final exams, the exact details of which are being kept secret, the hero course exercises are ramping up. So they go home tired both in body and mind.

And then the exams start. Katsuki’s brain feels like an oversaturated sponge, but he manages to get through until there’s only one left.

The hero exam is the last one on the schedule. After so long spent hunched over his desk scribbling answers on little sheets of paper, a chance to move is welcome. In an unexpected stroke of luck, he’s assigned to be partners with Izuku. Perhaps the teachers wanted to see what they learned from their internship. Perhaps it was just chance. Either way, Katsuki finds himself in a better mood than he has been in a while as he changes into his her costume and heads for the test grounds.

All Might stands in front of them when they arrive at their assigned area. It’s an imitation of a city, complete with a variety of buildings and even street lights. All Might leads them to the center of the arena, and they fall in step behind him. They have a simple goal: get to the gate. But their opponent is formidable.

They get 90 seconds before All Might comes after them. 

Izuku ducks into the first alley he sees. “We can’t beat All Might head on,” he says.

Katuski doesn’t reply. Even without a quirk at full power, he is the number one hero for a reason.

“So one of us should hold him back while the other runs for the gate.”

It seems like a reasonable plan, but–

“I can probably only manage for thirty seconds by myself, so you should start for the gate now,” Izuku concludes.

Katsuki stares at him. “Who the fuck said I was running? I can blast myself short distances, but yours is more suited to something like this.”

“At Nighteye’s office, you gave me the stamp,” Izuku says. “It’s only fair.”

“That–Both of us got the internship you fucking moron! Now, go!”

Izuku stays planted. “Kacchan–”

A gust of wind interrupts them, and All Might appears. “I thought you two were getting along better, you have no time to be arguing,” he says. 

That’s all the warning they get before he attacks. They dodge to the side, and the wall they had been leaning against a moment earlier turns to dust. Katsuki avoids the next blow and blasts an explosion in return, but it’s easily dodged. The next one manages to hit his target. He sees a flicker of green and ducks while Izuku sends a kick at their teacher’s face. All Might lifts a hand to shield, and Katsuki sees an opportunity. He lets two explosions release from his palms, and makes a move for the street before the entire block gets disintegrated. (There was something about keeping damage to a minimum, wasn’t there?) 

Izuku lands on the pavement a moment after he does. Their eyes meet and Katsuki jerks his head in the direction of the gate. Now is a good chance to go. Green sparks spring over Izuku’s limbs, and he makes a grab for Katsuki, getting him in a fireman’s carry before he can complain.

“What the fuck?” Katsuki hisses.

“You said my quirk was better suited, plus, you can still use your quirk to attack, right?” Izuku asks, sounding smug, or as smug as Izuku ever sounds.

For lack of a better retort, Katsuki pinches Izuku’s arm.

Sooner than he would like, All Might reappears. He’s slightly dustier than he was at the beginning of the test, but otherwise no worse for the wear. He’s also really fucking fast. Katsuki aims over Izuku’s shoulder, trying to concentrate his explosions into shots that will travel and still hit with a decent impact. All Might evades most of them and the ones that do hit don’t seem to have much effect. On top of that, his speed hardly suffers.

“Put me down!” He yells at Izuku.

As he continues to fire at All Might, he thinks Izuku must be purposefully ignoring him. But then Izuku shifts. He has half a second to register the power surging through his arms and the green light flickering at the edges of his vision, before Izuku sends him flying. As the air rushes past his ears, he silently swears that he’ll get Izuku back for this and unlatches the gauntlet from his wrist. Whether Izuku catches the gauntlet or not, he doesn’t see, because he turns to face the ground where he’s landing.

  Damn Izuku . 

In front of him, he sees the gate.

He uses an explosion to prevent him from slamming into concrete and another to send him through the arched gateway. Behind him, he hears the boom of large explosion and the ground shudders underneath his feet. A moment later, Izuku stumbles out of the smoke a few bruises worse for the wear, but smiling in triumph.

Chapter Text

Katsuki tries to stay annoyed at Izuku even as All Might congratulates them for their performance on the test. But it’s difficult when his eyes glow with pride, and his stupid smile is contangious. All Might gives him a pat on the shoulder, too, congratulating him for quick thinking at the end. Katsuki feels his cheeks flush slightly and shrugs it off.

The next day is the last day of term. The ordeal of final exams is over, which means that despite the heat, the classroom is abuzz with energy. Summer break is whispered from every corner. Katsuki glances around in irritation. They’re all so goddamn carefree. Even Izuku is laughing along easily to something someone said. The only other person who looks truly disinterested is half-and-half. Even after facing Izuku during the Sport’s Festival, he remained aloof.

According to the clock on the wall, class should have started a minute ago, but there’s still no sign of a teacher. Katsuki drums his fingers against the surface of his desk. Ever since the worry about the exams left him, he’s felt antsy. The training camp is coming up, and he wants to believe that it will somehow go differently, but he has no reason to believe it will. Most of all, he wants it over with. Since there’s no way for him to stop it or stop Izuku from going, unless he does something drastic or borderline illegal.

Finally, at five past, the door shifts open. The chattering around the room slowly settles into silence as one by one the students turn to face the doorway. 

It’s Aizawa.

There are a couple of gasps of surprise, a shout or two, and a sudden resurgence of noise, which dies away again as Aizawa takes his position at the front of the classroom. With the floppy clothes he wears it’s hard to tell, but a few of the bandages stick out from under his sleeves and wrap around his wrists and hands. As he shifts, one of his sleeves catches on the corner of the teacher’s desk and pulls it up. The bandages extend past his wrists and over his forearms and maybe higher. As their teacher readjusts his sleeves, Katsuki is reminded of Eri’s bandaged arms and legs, but quickly brushes the thought aside.

Kirishima is the one brave enough to ask Aizawa where he was and why he’s back. For a moment, all he gets for an answer is a glare. But then Aizawa sighs and lets some of the tension in his shoulders relax.

“It’s nothing important,” he says in a bored voice. 

But in contrast to what he says, Katsuki gets the feeling that it was, indeed, important. However, that doesn’t help him guess what happened. Aizawa getting kidnapped is a new development, and there are no obvious causes. The only thing he can think of is his quirk that erases other quirks. Could it have anything to do with the anti-quirk business and Eri? It seems unlikely. Aizawa by himself is a UA teacher and a decent fighter. In his time as a hero, he must have made enemies, and as the homeroom teacher of 1-A, which certain villains have already shown some interest in, there are a myriad of reasons why someone may want to target him.

There’s a noise of indignation at Aizawa’s lackluster answer, but he silences any follow-ups.

“I heard Midnight promised you a training camp.”

Someone whoops enthusiastically.

Aizawa glares. “So, unfortunately, you’ll be getting one in a couple weeks. It’s technically summer break after today, but if you want to survive camp, don’t slack on your training. And for those of you who failed your finals–” he gives a stern look at a few students, “–you can go, but you’ll have supplementary lessons in the evening when everyone else gets to relax in the hot springs.”

“Hot springs?!” Several of the students ask at once.

Their teacher looks regretful. “The camp will be a joint exercise with Class 1-B.”

Katsuki wrinkles his nose. No doubt, catshit will be there along with the rest of the hooligans from the other hero class.

“And there will be one more student to even out the numbers,” Aizawa concludes.

The rest of the day passes easily. There’s now as much talk about where Aizawa could have been as there is about summer break. Katsuki nerves remain on edge. So much so that he almost doesn’t hear it when Aizawa announces the list of students who passed their exams and the list of people who need remedial lessons. He tunes in when he hears his name and then Izuku’s. Unsurprisingly, both of them passed.

Chapter Text

The days between the end of term and the beginning of camp should, in theory, be for rest. But even with the lack of impending homework deadlines and villain attacks, Katsuki can’t find it in himself to relax entirely. 

His eyes are always searching for warning signs, his ears always tuned for sounds of struggle, and then it occurs to him–he’s slipping back into a battlefield mindset. 

The world around them has yet to fall to chaos. Izuku has yet to cause irreparable damage to himself. And the death toll is still 0. Katsuki wants to believe it’ll last, but he doesn’t dare hope. 

His anxieties are worsened by the fact that Izuku disappears to go train or visit his mentors or something every day. Katsuki splits his time between keeping active and making a cursory effort to start on the summer homework. As he reads the same line in their math textbook for the fifth time in a row, he decides he’s had enough. The break is supposed to be relaxing, but Katsuki can’t seem to shake the tension from his system.

After another couple of days have passed, Izuku shows up at the front door. “Kacchan, come with me for a bit,” he says. 

It’s the first morning he hasn’t run off.

Katsuki raises his eyebrows, curiosity and apprehension rising in his chest. “Why?”

“Just–I want to show you something,” Izuku says.

When he leaves, Katsuki follows. 

They walk through the familiar streets of their neighborhood for a while, before turning down streets he doesn’t recognize. They pass by several groups of children and some students closer to their own age, all enjoying the summer freedom. The air feels peaceful, and a gentle breeze alleviates some of the heat, enough to make the walk pleasant. But at the same time, Katsuki wonders where they’re going, and his sense of curiosity (and impatience) grows.

They come to a park filled with bright green trees, the branches so laden with leaves that the sky isn’t visible. The path narrows from the sidewalk, and Izuku still continues forward. Katsuki is about to stop him and ask what the hell they’re doing when the trees open up to reveal a beach. The sand is dotted by brightly colored towels and an assortment of beach-goers. As they stand paused, another couple more people come from behind carrying a beach umbrella and a couple of pool noodles.

“Is this what you wanted to show me?” Katsuki asks apprehensively. It is a nice beach, but it is still just a beach.

“Um,” Izuku says. “Well, yeah, sort of.”

Katsuki glares at him.

“Before UA, while I was training, All Might made me clean this place up.”

Vaguely, he remembers a newspaper article about how the beach was one day discovered to be miraculously free of junk. “Okay, and?” 

“And I thought we could train.” He glances around at the crowds. “It’s busier than I thought it would be. There’s a place that should still be quieter though.”

They continue down the path and onto the sand winding between groups of people. The crowds thin out as they continue and, after circumventing an outcropping of rock, disappear entirely. The only sound comes from the waves hitting the shore. 

“Let’s spar, then,” Katsuki says.

“No quirks?”

“No quirks.” He affirms. They are outside of school, and training regular hand-to-hand is important too.

Katsuki sinks into position. The sand is soft under his feet which makes each step take double the effort it usually would. Within minutes, they’re both out of breath and covered in sweat. Izuku sits first, dropping to the sand with a huff. Katsuki joins him after a moment’s thought.

“If I used my quirk now, I wonder how big the explosion would be.”

Izuku eyes him warily. “Let’s not find out.”

It’s not like he was going to blow up the landscape just for the hell of it. There are regulations about quirk use especially where destruction of property is involved. Katsuki clicks his tongue in annoyance. “Maybe I’ll blow you up instead,” he says reaching a hand lazily in Izuku’s direction.

Izuku laughs as he leans out of the way. He’s not quite fast enough, though, and Katsuki reaches the ticklish spot on his side. Izuku squeals. And then they’re sparring again, but this time it’s less about fighting and more about tickling, which is almost as taxing. He ends up with a knee on Izuku’s chest to hold him down, but Izuku has both of his wrists, so they’re stuck at an impasse.

Izuku’s hair is spread over the sand and a bead of sweat sparkles on his forehead. His cheeks are pink from exertion. Katsuki fights the urge to do something stupid. 

Like tell him he looks beautiful. 

Or lean down and kiss him.

“Kacchan?” Izuku’s voice disrupts his thoughts, and he blinks. They both sit up, and Izuku’s brow is furrowed in confusion.

“Kacchan, I al–”

Katsuki freezes as the echo of a memory hits him. And a voice in his head starts screaming. And a phantom pain washes through his body. 

“Let’s go,” he says abruptly.

And Izuku doesn’t ask. Not out loud, anyway. Because Izuku can be pushy about some things, but not about–not about this. Sometimes Katsuki wonders why, but it’s not like he can ask without drawing attention to a million things he doesn’t want to draw attention to. 

Katsuki can feel the cloud of confusion next to him as they make their way back across the beach. Even with the sun at its highest point in the sky shining down with full force, Katsuki feels a chill in his bones. The memory of Izuku’s last words to him rings in his ears. I always– what? Does he even deserve to know the feelings of the Izuku he couldn’t save?

Katsuki is so caught up in his thoughts that he arrives at his front door and doesn’t remember anything about the walk home. Izuku leaves him with a soft goodbye .

In the morning, he has a text from Izuku that Shinsou will be the person joining their camp to fill out their numbers. Another text follows telling him to pack. Katsuki drops his phone on his bed glad that Izuku is choosing to ignore–whatever happened the day before.

Chapter Text

At 5:38 am on the day they’re scheduled to leave for summer camp, he gets a text from Izuku reminding him to pack, like he’s the type of person to forget or slack off until the last minute. At 5:41 am, Izuku gets a text to fuck off until the sun is at least vaguely visible.

They arrive at UA a couple of hours later, with the summer sun high in the sky and only a few clouds for relief. The only person who got there ahead of them is Iida, standing at the door of the bus, ready to direct his classmates. Since the bus doesn’t leave for another half an hour, after they stow their bags in the luggage compartment, they mill about aimlessly as they wait for everyone else to arrive.

Shinsou is among the earliest. He has a scarf around his neck despite the summer heat, and pulls it up as he approaches, giving Izuku a small nod as a greeting. Iida swoops in to make an introduction, and Izuku joins as an intermediary, which leaves Katsuki on the periphery. Which is fine , of course, but it does mean he’s standing by himself and has no defense when Kirishima charges him on arrival.

“It’s been so long!” Kirishima says, slapping him on the back.

Kaminari greets him from a more acceptable distance, and he shrugs the redhead off. 

“Oi, hair-for-brains, it’s been two weeks,” he snaps, accidentally glancing over to the Iida-Izuku-Shinsou conversation that’s still going on.

Someone pats him on the shoulder.

“That’s rough, buddy,” Kaminari says.

“You could go join them,” Kirishima says.

“Shut the hell up, go away,” Katsuki responds.

Eventually, the rest of 1-A shows up. They board the bus, and somehow he ends sandwiched between Kirishima and the wall with Sero and Kaminari in the row ahead.

Kaminari rests his elbows on the seatback. “Do you want to know what they’re doing?” He asks, glancing at the row behind Katsuki where Izuku sits with his General Department friend.

Katsuki fights the urge to look. It doesn’t matter. He can hear them talking, and Izuku can talk to his friends or whatever. “Shut the hell up,” he tells Kaminari.

The blond tilts his head, lightning bolt falling to one side. “You know, it’s cute how–”

Sero elbows him in the side. 

Kaminari ends up with his face pressed up against the glass. “Oh, Jirou!” He starts waving enthusiastically, and Katsuki breathes a sigh of relief as the focus switches away from Izuku.

The bus ride is mostly uneventful. No one gets motion sick, at least, and while he does half-pay attention to the weight-training videos Kirishima is trying to show him, his mind remains stuck on Izuku. Who is so close. But sitting with Shinsou. Which, he should emphasize, is fine and doesn’t bother him at all.

“Dude,” Kirishima says, interrupting his inner monologue. “You lowkey look like you want to blow something up, which is, like, not that unusual, but are you okay?”

“Fine.” Katsuki says. “How many push-ups can you do?” It’s a bullshit question, but it is also the only question he can think of to change the topic.

Kirishima, thankfully, plays along, mumbling as he tries to count.

Katsuki looks out the window, trying to let the scenery flashing past distract him. 

After too many hours cramped into vaguely uncomfortable seats, the bus arrives. The landscape appears devoid of civilization and that includes any sign of a training camp. Katsuki feels a sinking in his stomach, just as Aizawa stands up to make an announcement before they debark.

“Your destination is that way,” he says gesturing toward the edge of a cliff and a thick forest of trees. “Look out for the animals.” In a monotone, he adds “Good luck, have fun.”

“Oh actually, you should meet your camp counselors first.”

They get off the bus and are faced by a bunch of people that look vaguely like magical girls with cat ears on their heads. Izuku recognizes them immediately, of course. And mutters their name a moment before they strike a pose and announce it themselves.

“We’re the Wild, Wild Pussycats!”

Chapter Text

The Pussycats don’t elaborate on Aizawa’s explanation. Rather, one of them slaps her hands (paws?) on the ground, and the earth heaves. Rubble rises with the dirt sweeping the twenty students into the forest.

The daylight disappears as they fall under the canopy of leaves. The visibility isn’t the best, and the terrain is fucking terrible. Large tree roots break up the earth, so finding easy footing on the ground is nearly impossible. Some of the students choose to travel along the thick branches of the trees instead.

The forest alone would present enough of a challenge, but that’s not all they have to deal with. Aizawa mentioned animals. And just as Katsuki remembers that, a roar rumbles through the trees.

He curses. What a fucking pain. 

He has half a mind to dash ahead with Izuku and leave the rest of the class behind, but Izuku has no such intentions. He communicates this with a glare before Katsuki can even open his mouth to make the suggestion.

Well shit.

Katsuki takes position in the vanguard of the group. His quirk is one of the best for attacking.

Behind him, Izuku calls out, “Kacchan can you hold the–er–whatever it is away for a second? I have a strategy.”

He raises a hand in acknowledgement and waves him off. It’s not surprising that Izuku has a strategy, but he is a little surprised that the class listens. Or most of their class plus the purple boy. Todoroki separates from the rest of the group, and he lands next to Katsuki with a thud.

“Fire is bad for a forest,” half-and-half says.

It occurs to Katsuki that these are among the first words Todoroki has said to him. “Yeah, no shit,” he replies.

A beast comes into view, looking like it was roughly hewn from boulders, and that’s where their conversation stops. He isn’t that familiar with Todoroki’s attack style, but it’s different enough from his that at least they don’t run into each other. It takes less than a minute to put down the first attacker.

The rest of 1-A spring into action. Izuku lands a step behind them. “You two can just keep attacking, the rest of us will follow.”

Katsuki glances behind him, and sees the class organized to make better use of their quirks. Sero and Tsuyu are both high in the branches, as lookouts. Koda has some of the friendlier animals gathering around him. Izuku taps him on the shoulder.

“Don’t get too far ahead,” he says.

“Well, don’t fall behind,” Katsuki says. “This might take awhile,” he adds, remembering the grueling hours fighting golems before . “Tell the others to reserve stamina.”

Izuku leaves again with a nod.

The strategy isn’t perfect, and this is the first time they’ve even tried to work together as a group, but it goes fairly smoothly. Kaminari doesn’t short himself out until the destination is in sight (very far in the distance, but still). The rest of them have to take turns dragging him in the right direction. Once or twice he wheeee wheeee s his way into a tree, and Katsuki nearly takes an earthy fist to the face because he’s too busy trying not to laugh.

As they make their way through a seemingly endless forest. The afternoon drags on, and the light filtering through the leaves begins to dim. Katsuki’s arms are sore from the excessive use of his quirk, and his palms are dry. The skin feels like it’s about to crack. With the summer heat, at least, he has no shortage of fuel for his explosions. But it also means that he’s getting dehydrated.

They’re all panting and covered in sweat by the time they reach the clearing, but they make it in a little over seven hours. 

The Pussycats and their homeroom teacher are all waiting for them. Aizawa mutters something that sounds like, took you long enough , but he can’t be sure. The Pussycats make a proper introduction this time: Mandalay, Pixie-bob, Tiger, and Ragdoll. There’s a kid hanging around in the background, too. Izuku asks about the kid, and Mandalay explains that he’s her nephew.

Izuku turns to the boy, offering his hand. “Hello, Kouta, it’s nice to meet–”

Quick as a flash, the boy attempts to punch him. Izuku partially dodges and the blow catches him in the side.

“I don’t need a bunch of corny heroes,” Kouta says, and walks away.

Katsuki makes his way to Izuku’s side. As he goes, he tries to remember what happened to the Pussycats–if they made it to that last battle or not. They don’t appear in any of his memories from that day, and he doesn’t know if that’s good or bad. He doesn’t remember their deaths, but he doesn’t remember their survival either.

He pushes those thoughts from his head. What matters is that they’re still alive in this timeline. No villains have arrived to infiltrate the training camp. All Might is still the number one hero.

Chapter Text

After putting their bags in the sleeping quarters, it’s dinner time. Tonight, they’re treated to nothing short of a feast by the Pussycats and a pissed-off looking Kouta who sits in the corner and doesn’t really do anything. Kouta gives them a few dirty looks from across the room and Katsuki has to resist giving someone who’s probably about half his age the finger (he manages not to).

The rest of the meal is enjoyable enough. The chance to sit down after hours of fighting is welcome, but the chatter of the other 1-A students buzzes in his ears. Once they’re full of food, and all the adrenaline has left their systems, leaving them on the verge of sleepiness, the Pussycats announce the presence of the hot springs. The chance to rest their muscle aches and relax further, ironically, gets them jumping out of their seats and dashing off in the afore-mentioned direction.

The six girls in the class split off, and someone complains about how the numbers aren’t fair. Katsuki glances after them and vaguely wonders what they do when they’re separated from the boys before he remembers that he doesn’t care. 

Relaxing in the warm water does help ease the muscle aches, but the heat feels like it’s going to his head and filling his brain with steam. Most of them are too tired to do much other than sit and make idle conversation. Izuku talks to Shinsou, and Katsuki watches them with his eyes narrowed until someone splashes him. He turns to glare at the offender. To his annoyance, he finds that Kaminari and Kirishima are having a slowly-escalating splash fight. It’s bad manners, of course, but since when were any of them well-behaved?

Katsuki gets splashed a second time when Kirishima manages to dodge an attack. “Would you fucking stop it?!” He yells, sending water at both of them.

Kaminari jumps out of the way with a squeak and a slight spark.

Katsuki turns to get out of the water since he doesn’t want to be electrocuted, when he feels the temperature drop significantly. 

“Be quiet,” half-and-half says. Both of his eyes are closed, and he’s leaning back on one of the walls with his head tilted to rest on the edge. If he hadn’t just spoken, Katsuki would think he’d fallen asleep.

Ice laces its way across the surface of the hot spring, but it melts into small pieces. One floats into his side and Katsuki flicks it away, cursing half-and-half under his breath. In another minute or so, everyone settles down, and the water returns to a better temperature. Katsuki returns to watching Izuku, trying to rationalize it as a necessary precaution.

The feeling of the water lapping against his skin reminds him of the beach. Of Izuku staring up at him with flushed cheeks and wide eyes. Of a phrase echoed from another lifetime.

He only realizes that he has spaced out when he feels someone slide into place next to him. He catches sight of a freckled shoulder out of the corner of his eye, before turning to look at Izuku properly. It’s a conscious effort to keep his gaze directed at Izuku’s face.

“What do you want?” He asks shortly.

“I’ve been asking the others what to say to Kouta, so I wanted to ask you, too.”

“Why do you want to talk to him? Just kick his ass.”

“Kacchan,” Izuku says in a reprimanding tone.

He shrugs. “I don’t think talking will do much good. Maybe if a hero saves his sorry ass, he’ll get over it.”

Before too much longer, the fatigue accumulated from the day overtakes the brief surge of energy from dinner and time in the hot springs. With a slight feeling of regret, Katsuki leaves the water. By the time they reach the room where they’ll be sleeping, conversation has broken out between various groups of students, but Katsuki tunes most of them out. 

Katsuki picks a spot on the floor towards the middle of the room. A cool evening breeze filters in from the open window, and the murmurs of the other students are growing quiet. Something nudges his leg and he looks up to see Izuku settling into the spot next to his.

“What?” He says.

“Goodnight, Kacchan.”

“Goodnight,” he replies, lying back in an effort to go to sleep.

He closes his eyes, and despite the fatigue in his limbs, feels annoyingly wide awake. He wonders if he’s imagining the feeling of Izuku’s eyes lingering on him.

Chapter Text

Much to his chagrin, he wakes to the sound of a camera shutter, stifled giggles, and the feeling of being watched. That and—Izuku’s warmth against his right side (sticky because of the summer heat), the gentle rise and fall of his chest underneath his palm, and oh. Shit. That explains the giggling.

Katsuki blinks his eyes open. Kaminari skitters out of the range of his vision, and a blur of red retracts on the left.

“Good morning, Bakugou,” Kirishima says warily, despite the smile on his face.

Katsuki blinks again, flinching away from Izuku, and pushes himself into a sitting position. Glaring around, he sees Kaminari sheltering himself behind Kirishima’s shoulders, Sero with a blanket pulled over his head, a few others retreating and the rest either feigning unconsciousness or actually sleeping.

“Fuck,” Katsuki mutters eloquently. “What are you doing?”

“Er,” Kirishima says. “Immortalizing memories?” 

Katsuki remains indecisive for a moment longer, reluctant to disturb Izuku more than necessary and too annoyed with everyone else to sit still. He makes his move, and the peace turns into chaos. Aizawa appears less than 30 seconds later, apparently disturbed by the noise and extremely disgruntled. Even in the summer heat, he has his yellow sleeping bag.

“Since you have so much energy, why don’t you burn some of it off while breakfast is being prepared? 25 laps around the building.”

A chorus of groans. 

Their teacher looks nonplussed, and they start making their way toward the door. “Hurry up,” he prompts. “Or class B will eat everything before you make it back. No quirks!” He adds at their retreating backs.

That gets everyone moving. Iida speeds ahead. Katsuki follows a couple of paces behind and catches sight of green hair out of the corner of his eye. Izuku adjusts his speed until they’re running side by side.

“Kacchan—” He starts, but Katsuki’s gaze snaps forward with a slight shake of his head. He doesn’t know what Izuku’s goal is, but he does know that whatever it is, the rest of the class doesn’t need to hear it (the girls are watching from the front door, now).

They’re among the first to finish all the laps, ending just after Iida and just ahead of half-and-half who somehow managed to run with his eyes closed. Katsuki still isn’t sure if he’s actually awake yet, but doesn’t care enough to ask. In any case, the dining room is half full when they enter—class B and the six girls of class A are already sitting down. Katsuki takes a seat on the far end of the room where the tables are still mostly empty. Izuku takes the place directly opposite him, glancing up almost nervously.

“What?” Katsuki asks.

Izuku answers with a half-hearted shrug. “It’s just—nothing. Doesn’t matter.” He turns his attention to the bowl of rice in front of him.

Katsuki bites his tongue. He’d be a hypocrite if he tried to pry (he’s keeping so many secrets of his own.) It could be something frivolous—just everyday chitchat—or it could be more serious. They have several hours left before nightfall.  Could Izuku know? His gaze linger on Izuku’s face, grateful that Izuku is focused on breakfast for the moment. Green eyes meet his, and he realizes he’s been staring for too long.

Breakfast doesn’t last long, and earlier than he would like, Katsuki is forced to follow everyone else outside into the summer sun and commence training. It is a training camp, after all. The students are divided by the nature of their quirks and what they need to work on to get stronger, which means Izuku is led in another direction than he is, separating them for the day.

The heat takes its toll, especially in combination with the consistent use of his quirk. The hours drag on, filled with sweat and the increasing feeling that his arms are about to give up. At the same time, the impending sense of dread makes the minutes move faster. He’s caught in a paradox—a day that lasts too long and not long enough. Not able to warn anyone of what might be coming, not able to save his strength to fight. Only able to hope that enough has changed that the villains aren’t planning to attack.

Just as he feels his legs starting to shake, his head spin from exhaustion and lack of hydration, his palms ache from the repeated use of his quirk, the day ends. Evening sweeps in with a cool breeze, and a chill down his spine that reminds him what tragedy happened last time. 

Someone tells them that they’re in charge of making dinner for themselves tonight, but Katsuki is only half listening. His hands automatically chop the vegetables Izuku places in front of him, but his mind wanders. 

“Kacchan.”

He wonders if Izuku will run off to save Kouta this time. He wonders if he can go after him without being too conspicuous. Who was part of the villain force? He remembers a mention of Toga and seeing flames—blue flames, but the rest—

“Kacchan!” 

He snaps to, letting go of the knife that Izuku is trying to pull from his grasp. Izuku places it on the table, somewhere out of Katsuki’s reach, making any knife-related accidents less likely. There’s a crease in the middle of Izuku’s forehead.

“I’m fine,” Katsuki says, brushing off the question before Izuku manages to ask. “Just tired from training.”