Chapter Text
Bakugou didn’t stop watching Deku.
Something about their confrontation hadn’t sat right with him. In the moment, Katsuki had been pissed about Deku’s admission. What kind of dumbass chases hero fights? It was a reasonable confession to blow up over. But now Katsuki was wondering if he had jumped the gun.
Before Katsuki’s direct question Deku had been deflecting. Deku was stubborn, and liked scheming. Why would he cave that easily? Deku wouldn’t cave that easily. As bad as chasing fights was, it was something Deku had been caught doing before. It wouldn’t account for how off Deku had been acting. Not for the running off. Not for his silence.
There was something else for Katsuki to be pissed about. The nerd was doing something else that had to be a million times worse than chasing hero fights. It was the only thing that made sense.
Deku was slippery. He disappeared after school, deflected Katsuki’s questions, and was stubborn enough to hold Katsuki in a stalemate. Deku wouldn’t spill this secret.
Katsuki could confront the nerd again. While there was a chance that the nerd would come clean, there was a bigger chance that Deku would wiggle out of an interrogation. He knew Katsuki’s tics too well. It wouldn’t get Katsuki what he wanted.
So that left plan C: a covert operation. If Deku was doing research, there was one place that had to house it. Deku’s bedroom.
He knew how Deku operated. He would lay low until Katsuki backed off and then go back to whatever bullshit he normally did. The nerd probably thought he had outsmarted him. But Katsuki was one step ahead, and he was going to figure this shit out.
At the end of the next school day, he watched as Eyes and Fingers headed off to the park. He shoved his hands in his pockets. It sucked that he was missing out on a good chunk of his social life for this, but it was important. Babysitting duty. The worst.
He respected Auntie too much to half-ass his operation. It wasn’t like he was a snitch, but if he were, he’d do it right and have concrete proof beyond his impeccable instincts. This whole investigation was entirely for Auntie’s benefit. She had already lost her shitty husband. Shitty Deku was the only family she had left. If Deku got hurt... Deku had nothing to do with it. He recited it in his head like a mantra. Hell, if he was lucky, the nerd might finally pull his head out of his ass and stop getting in his way. Heroics were for the strong, the capable, and most obviously- the quirked. Deku was smart enough to figure that out. It was common sense.
In any case, the investigation made good practice for future detective work he’d need to employ as a pro hero. Except he was hunting a quirkless deku and not a dangerous villain.
Which led him to where he was at the moment, on the Midoriyas’ doorstep on a Saturday. He knew Deku wasn’t home, thanks to social media GPS tracking. Auntie Inko on the other hand, totally was. She opened the door with a small smile. He shifted from foot to foot. How long had it been since he’d last seen her? A year? Two years?
“Katsuki! What a surprise. It's been too long. Are you here for Izuku?” She looked smaller than he remembered.
“Hey Auntie. I was going to do homework with him, can I come in?”
“Of course, you can! Izuku’s out right now, but he’s never gone too long. Did you want something to drink while you wait?”
He shook his head, “No, thank you. I figure I can wait in his room- if that’s okay. If he doesn’t show then I can head out and meet up another time.”
“Okay, well, I’m here if you need anything. And don’t forget to call me more, I’ve missed hearing from you.” She ruffled his hair.
He grunted an agreement and headed off to the dumbass’s bedroom. The nameplate on his door hadn’t changed, and wasn’t that a warning for what was beyond it. At least 50 All Mights stared him down. Where Deku found the money to fund his shrine was beyond him. Truely. It was like a weed that multiplied since the last time he had been over. The only thing that could be said was that Deku didn’t half-ass his fanboying. All the room was missing was the man himself. Bakugou wasn’t jealous of the limited edition bronze age figurine... or the special release Christmas pin. Fuck. The one he had spent hours at Hero Con hunting for but never found. With the little cutouts in the Santa hat for his hair tufts.
He was getting distracted.
This was serious. He carefully dropped his backpack by the door and opened Deku’s laptop. It was password protected. Katsuki stared at the All Might poster positioned above Deku’s desk. He snorted, taking a moment to type in different variations of ‘smallmight’, then ‘All Might’ and finally unlocked it with ‘plus ultra!’. Typical.
Katsuki was not prepared for what he found. Did Deku completely lose his mind? There were so many fucking tabs open. He wiped his palms on his pants. It was bad to leave evidence. Deku’s laptop was as unorganized as his mumbling. He also found a spreadsheet. It was titled “training” and only used abbreviations for headers. All of the numbers were useless without knowing what they represented. At the bottom there was a highlighted row of percentages. All recording percentages higher than 90. Was Deku taking practice exams or something? If that was true, why wasn’t he top of their class? Bakugou knew he held the top spot.
Surfing through Deku’s open tabs was more worrying. University level practice exams, exams in what might be German, three tabs on firearms, another 5 on gambling, a map of Musutafu, hero forums, what looked to be the HeroNet (which only pro heroes were supposed to have access to), and some Wiki page about the history of the printing press. What. the. fuck. What in the absolute fuck was Deku doing?
When did Deku learn German? HeroNet?
Was Deku a fucking criminal? Was being on HeroNet illegal? He made a note on his phone and recorded all of it. The open tabs, a picture of the spreadsheet, the password to his laptop, everything. Then he logged off.
He left their apartment feeling more confused than when he had entered.
When had he fallen so far behind?
--
At his desk, Izuku propped his head up on his palm.
School seemed to drag on the closer it got to the end of the year. The anticipation was quickly turning his class into a pressure cooker. Everyone’s attention was divided between vacations, exams, and the inevitable class shuffle. For reasons unknown to him, that made certain bullies bolder.
On the plus side, being chased down made for good exercise. Really good exercise considering that his luck never seemed to work against his bullies.
It could be that Izuku just wasn’t That lucky, but Izuku doubted that. His testing and spreadsheets showed otherwise. What was more likely; there were other factors in play. The ruling theory was that his bullies just knew Izuku too well for luck to work. The theory went that luck was fickle, and worked better when an adversary didn’t target Izuku specifically. His classmates actively intended to harm him, and so there was less wiggle room for his luck to make something extraordinary happen. And so Izuku’s luck ran dry. Most of the time. Sometimes he was still lucky. The intensity of his luck didn't always make sense. But then again, luck wasn’t a quirk. It didn’t need to make sense, or follow straightforward rules like quirks did.
The clock hands inched along. Ten minutes until the end of the school day.
There had to be a way to make luck work against direct attacks. Villains often got lucky when being chased down by a hero- who would definitely be targeting said villain for capture. It was possible for them, so it should be possible for Izuku.
Once the school year ended, he would have a week to train and test new strategies for his luck. It would be the perfect time to train. Eraser and Ms.Joke were nighttime heroes, after all. And with his luck, Izuku could easily find a private place where no one would bother a quirkless middle schooler.
Very slowly, Izuku started packing his bag. He inched his notebook closed, placing the cover shut so the shuffling of pages weren’t caught by his classmates. Or worse, the teacher.
Izuku wasn’t bad at geography, but it was hard to retain information at the end of the day. He would need to check the class averages once he got his report card. Missing the last 10 or 20 minutes of every lesson would tank anyone’s grade and understanding of the course material.
Less than one month and a handful of tests away. 14 more days.
--
Most nights, his mom was exhausted from her work. Izuku was fine carrying most of their conversation. He always made an effort to fill the space with stories and hero news. Stuff that would make his mom stop worrying for him. That also meant on the nights where Izuku didn’t talk, dinner became a quiet affair. And since discovering his luck, there had been a lot more quiet meals. They still talked. The conversation just wasn’t so enthusiastic, now that there simply wasn’t as much that Izuku wanted to share.
It was another stir fry night in a string of quiet dinners. Izuku used the time to brainstorm next steps in his training, and work out potential plans for his spring break. There was so much he could try, it was just a matter of deducing what would be the best use of his time. He wouldn’t be able to test any strategies for combating direct adversaries without school-
And then his mom cleared her throat.
“Did you end up meeting Katsuki?” She asked. “He stopped by the other day to see you.”
The piece of pepper slipped from his chopsticks. Izuku must’ve been hearing things. “Huh?”
“I’m glad to see that you boys are getting along again. He hasn’t been over here in so long,” his mom smiled to herself, reminiscing. “Though, I’m sure he would’ve enjoyed visiting more if he hadn’t missed you. You know, I think he’s working on his patience. He managed a whole twenty minutes of waiting before running off,” Inko remarked playfully. “That’s pretty good for someone with Mitsuki’s temper.”
“Yeah,” Izuku breathed, staring at his plate.
There was no way Kacchan had come to his house to hang out with him. His mom was right, in that Kacchan hadn’t visited his house in a long time. It had been years.
Kacchan hated wasting his time on things he didn’t want to do. He had no reason to be at Izuku’s house, or in his bedroom. Unless Kacchan had left a note or clue in Izuku’s room- which he didn’t- Izuku had no lead on what his old friend wanted from him.
“Thanks for letting me know. I’ll catch up with him tomorrow.” Izuku smiled for his mom, and prayed she couldn’t see how strained it was.
--
Cornering Bakugou wasn’t really an issue. Kacchan refused to run on principle, unless he was training or chasing someone else. Izuku knew Kacchan’s routine as well as his own, and he could tell that Kacchan was taking extra long to leave the class for lunch. Making space for Izuku to talk to him. He probably took a hint from the holes Izuku had been burning into Katsuki’s back throughout their morning classes.
Izuku swallowed his nerves and approached his desk. “Why?”
Katsuki crossed his arms and leaned back in his chair. “Why what, Nerd?”
“You were at my house, Kacchan. You should’ve asked, or… or talked to me if you wanted.”
“What, so you can lie to my fucking face again?” He scoffed. “Fat chance.”
“Lying-”
“You used chasing hero fights as your cover up. And that’s already gonna get you killed.”
“No. That was over a week ago! You started a shouting match with me. You asked if I was still chasing hero fights, Kacchan. So, what? You decided that I wasn’t being upfront with you and you just… Went to my house? Went through my things?”
God, there was so much in his room. His analysis, his diary, his luck analysis, the money he won, his limited edition All Might figurines! Kacchan wouldn’t mess with those, would he?
“What, you want me to apologize? I was right.”
The admission was like a slap to the face.
“Whatever you think you found doesn’t make what you did okay.”
“Privacy’s never been an issue for you before. You’ve been invading my privacy from day one with your stalker books! You can’t just change your mind now that I throw it back at you.”
“This isn’t about my hero analysis. You broke into my room.”
“Stop playing innocent. I was right to look.” Kacchan tilted his head back, making Izuku bristle. “There’s a lot of stuff that doesn’t add up. Like how you were on HeroNet. It’s borderline villainous.”
“It’s a resource for heroes. I’d call it the opposite of villainous.”
“You’re not a hero, Deku. It’s not for you. So fess up and tell me what you’ve really been doing.”
“I-”
Izuku glared at the wall. Bakugou was still yelling at him. They were supposed to be heroes together. Izuku winning the genetic anti-lottery didn’t mean he couldn’t try. Rage, and it must have been rage because the way it built in his chest, overtook him.
“Are you just gonna stand there gaping like a fish? I don’t have all day.”
Kacchan just kept pushing him. He was going to keep pushing until he got what he wanted. Would that be enough for Kacchan, make Izuku be enough?
“I’ll show you.” He dug through his bag to pull out a coin.
Kacchan squinted. He looked like he wasn’t done tearing into Izuku.
“Heads,” Izuku called, flipping the coin and catching it in his fist.
He opened his hand to show Kacchan, revealing the head facing up. He repeats the process four more times.
Heads. Tails. Heads. Heads.
“Half assed magic tricks aren’t an explanation.”
Izuku scratched at his nose. Was it his fault that 50/50 odds were kind of boring? It’s not like he had access to guns anymore. Izuku glanced at Kacchan again. The look on his face really pissed him off. He could always try something less likely. Izuku took a grounding breath.
Fine.
“Neither.” He tossed the coin, this time letting it drop to the ground. Only for it to fall perfectly into a crack in the tile floor- wedging it to stand on its side. Neither heads nor tails.
Kacchan struggled to restrain himself- thin streams of smoke escaping from his clenched fists.
“I don’t know what that is, but it doesn’t count,” Kacchan said. “It’s like you’re trying to piss me off or something.”
He pursed his lips.
It was a slap in the face. Kacchan wasn't listening to him. He wasn’t going to listen. Kacchan had an answer he was expecting, and he wanted Izuku to confirm it for him. But Izuku didn’t have a damned mind reading quirk, and this wasn’t an interrogation. What it was, was stupid.
He could forgive Katsuki for breaking into his bedroom and going through his things. But Kacchan lied to Izuku’s mother. He let her think he cared about Izuku’s friendship, and let her get her hopes up. That was a lie Izuku wasn’t sure he could keep up for her sake.
“And it still doesn’t explain what you’ve been up to.”
Izuku let himself deflate. Chasing Bakugou was more exhausting than escaping two pro-heroes at once.
“That’s the kind of thing I’d tell a friend, Kacchan.”
He didn’t look back when he left the classroom. Bakugou didn’t follow him.
It took the rest of the day, and half his walk home for Izuku to feel like himself again. And he couldn’t help but feel frustrated with himself. He shouldn’t’ve revealed anything to Kacchan. Bakugou had figured out enough on his own. Giving him anything to work with was like willingly giving up his luck.
What a mess.
He was going to have to go through all of his things to make sure nothing was missing when he got home. And change the password to his computer. It was times like this that made Izuku grieve the loss of Russian roulette.
At least gambling was productive. Damage control was nothing but a setback.
It was stupid to think anyone would see his luck the way he did. It wasn't a quirk, so what was there to believe?
A creepy, quirkless, middle schooler. Who wouldn’t take one look at Deku and assume he was delusional? The only reason Deku himself wasn’t having a perpetual breakdown was because he needed not to think about it.
And he also needed to stop thinking about Kacchan. It was over. They weren’t friends anymore, and so long as he left Kacchan alone, things would stay that way. Kacchan didn’t chase people, and he certainly would never chase after Izuku.