Chapter Text
Friday dawned with Izuku already very awake, much to his dismay. He had been lying in bed with his mind flitting between the upcoming dinner and his newly recovered friendship with Katsuki when the question of whether Katsuki would show up to walk with him to school had popped into his head and sent him over the edge and he’d been pacing his small attic room ever since.
Aizawa had been insistent and almost nagging about taking Izuku to and from school every day since the paparazzi mess the other day but traffic around the school being what it was, driving was only a minute or two faster than walking. Eventually, he came to the conclusion that it was up to Katsuki and there was absolutely nothing Izuku could do to warn the blonde that they’d get a ride if he did show up.
That didn’t stop the pacing.
Would Katsuki keep the distance that had opened between them? It would be easier for him now that Izuku’s secret was out and the blonde hated any extra hassle. Not to mention all the attention. Katsuki would hate being poked and prodded by strangers, most of whom only wanted to say they spoke to a prince once. Katsuki had a short fuse on a good day, being in Izuku’s circle would probably put him on a hair trigger at all times simply due to the amount of random people they’d be surrounded by at any given time.
It was like once he’d started he couldn’t stop. Katsuki, the dinner, his decision. Small things kept coming up like meerkats popping their head up just long enough for Izuku to notice before scampering away again.
Don’t actually hold your pinky out, that’s just in movies. Keep your shoulders over your hips as much as possible to keep your posture straight. Don’t touch your hair, if you need to fix something do it quickly and try to make the motion look natural. Some people may be wearing sashes depending on what country they are from and their status but Toshinori promised Yamada would be standing nearby to whisper any important information to him.
Knowing all of this only helped in a very distant way. Izuku knew the real problem was him; he was too anxious and too clumsy. There was only so much you could teach a person before their performance became about practice or confidence and Izuku had a dismally low pool of confidence and very little time to practice.
He threw himself into the shower when his alarm went off and tried to turn his mind to just the things in front of him. He followed his hair and skin care instructions to the letter and indulged in a light touch of blush to try and hide his slightly sunken eyes from his sleepless night.
There was a knock at the door just as he was pulling his tie through its messy knot and he felt his pulse skyrocket. It was a little odd for Katsuki to knock but it had to be him, Aizawa had gotten a key before Izuku had even met him and no one else would be knocking at the door this early.
Cautiously, Izuku slipped down to the landing and moved to the top of stairs where the view to the front door was unobscured. Sure enough, Aizawa was at the door having a hushed conversation with Katsuki, long thick hair up in a messy bun and feet firmly planted in the blonde’s way.
Izuku rushed down, socked feet sending him sliding into Aizawa’s side as he tried to push the older man out of the way as politely as possible.
“Kacchan!” Izuku said and couldn’t even be ashamed of how happy he was that the other boy was here at all. The two obviously grumpy people eyed him calculatingly, both apparently looking for the lie in Izuku’s joy.
Izuku met Aizawa’s eye and held it for a long second before the older man finally relaxed and shot the remainder of his coffee back like Izuku had seen others do with alcohol on TV.
“Just eat your breakfast, we leave in five and I will make sure that bowl is clean before then,” Aizawa grouched as he wandered back to the coffee press.
“C’mon,” Izuku left the door open on an obviously hesitant Katsuki. He wanted to drag him inside but Izuku knew Katsuki was like one of those stray cats that you really needed to let make its own decisions.
“We’re not walking then,” it was a statement but Izuku could see the question Katsuki wanted to ask.
“Uh, no. Well, I’m not,” Izuku started in on his oats to appease the watchful eyes of his bodyguard. “Not since the news leaked but you’re welcome to ride with me,” he was weirdly grateful oats needed a lot of chewing. Izuku stuffed a large spoonful into his mouth to keep from rambling.
“Great, I get to be stuck in that action movie prop with coffee breath,” Katsuki was still eyeing Aizawa like the man was a threat and Izuku was suddenly dying to know what the older man had said to him at the door.
“Then walk,” Aizawa’s whole being was unmoved by Katsuki’s snark but his eyes were deadly in their uncaring stare over the top of his mug.
“Where’s your mom, anyway?” Katsuki asked, forcefully breaking eye contact with Aizawa as he joined Izuku at the dining table.
“Oh, Aizawa knows my meal plan so he offered to make breakfast so she can sleep in before work now,” Izuku was thankful for the change in subject. “He says I need a firmer hand when it comes to my eating habits,” he whispered but of course Aizawa heard him.
“Because you do. I put more protein snacks in your bag and I will know if you're not the one who eats them,” Aizawa was oddly menacing in his care. Izuku didn’t doubt he would find out even if he gave the extra food to the pigeons.
“I said that shit like a year ago,” Katsuki sat forward in his chair as if to make sure Izuku heard him. “The only way you won’t be fucking twig your whole life is if you eat more and stay away from that garbage I know you and Half and Half eat all the fucking time.”
“Todoroki? Is he going to be a bad influence?” Aizawa asked before Izuku could respond.
“He’s always a fucking a problem! The bastard is practically a bottomless pit but it’s not like he’s eating carrots,” Katsuki was all too happy to talk bad about Shoto. Izuku opened his mouth to protest, half chewed oats be damned, but Aizawa didn’t give him the chance.
“Izuku has a rather lenient diet right now but he still needs to eat more, maybe “not carrots” isn’t such a bad thing,” there was a staring contest happening, again, and Izuku wasn’t even sure if he should keep trying to talk.
“But he shouldn’t get used to that garbage, having a stable foundation now is how anything succeeds, including diets. The Candy Cane bastard has no standards. The fucker would eat a fishcake out of the trash if it was near top.”
Ok, that seemed a little rude but also a little accurate. Shoto had grabbed Izuku’s half eaten curry bun off the floor one time.
“One thing at a time, at least his friend would get Izuku to eat more. We can work on health later once his weight is up.”
This was a really strange argument to have over breakfast. And over him, literally and figuratively.
“Or he can start with the healthy shit he already likes and just increase the amounts he has everyday before trying new things!”
Um.
“That ‘healthy shit’ would need to be more readily accessible which so far it hasn’t been,” Aizawa’s tone changed a little on that one, becoming harder and almost threatening.
“Time to go!” Izuku half shouted around the last mouthful of his breakfast and made a big show of standing up and taking his bowl to the sink. Honestly, it was like they’d forgotten he was sitting right there. He made a beeline around the room to grab the lunch Aizawa had brought for him, his blazer, and his backpack before finally facing the room again with a neutral kind of smile on his face.
Aizawa was already halfway to the door, keys in hand and sunglasses at the ready. Katsuki on the other hand was facing away from him with his hands clenched, just for another few seconds, before he jerkily turned and went back to his shoes and bag.
Whatever all that was actually about, Izuku couldn’t help but think it hadn’t really been about his diet…
The car ride was quiet but much less tense after Izuku asked about the practice show Katsuki was playing tomorrow. The subject of the band usually could get Katsuki to calm down at least a little.
Ochako was waiting for him at the gates like she had been all week but her eyes bugged a little when Katsuki got out with him. She shot Izuku the most suggestive look she could and it was all he could do not to run over and cover her waggling eyebrows with both hands.
His anxiety had settled somewhat with Katsuki’s arrival that morning. He expected Katsuki to leave him at the gates like he used to do, save himself the pain of needing to be around their friends, but today he simply stepped closer to Izuku like Ochako might try to make him leave.
Izuku was more flustered than anything but he didn’t have much time to consider what this action might mean before Kirishima and Shoto were both making their way to them. This was worth his attention over Katsuki in that moment because Shoto was currently hanging off of one of Kirishima’s large biceps while they each had one end of a fruit by the foot in their mouths Lady and The Tramp style.
“What is happening right now?” Ochako asked before Katsuki could burst out with the expletives.
“The vending machine is out of fruity snacks,” Todoroki said with a cheek bulging and blue tinged drool starting to drip down his chin.
“You’re fucking embarrassing,” Katsuki sneered at both of them and for once, Izuku had to agree with him about this.
“Shoto!” Izuku whisper-shouted as he grabbed Shoto bodily and tried to pry him off the other boy. “You are supposed to be my support for the dinner tomorrow! How is this a good start?”
“I need fruit for a well rounded breakfast,” Shoto replied deadpan and only a little slurred by the fruit snack.
“He can be an example of what not to do,” Ochako hissed before reaching into the boy pile and ripping the fruit by the foot in half.
“Come on, I need you, Shoto!” Izuku resorted to light shaking before the boy finally let go and put most of his weight on Izuku instead.
“That is very nice to hear, say it again,” Shoto was looking over his shoulder apparently having a staring contest with Katsuki and Izuku was suddenly afraid this might be too much for the blonde on his first day of not ignoring Izuku.
“I’ll say it again after I don’t embarrass myself or my King Dad at the event tomorrow,” Izuku huffed.
“Like hell, this bastard doesn’t deserve it,” Katsuki grumbled, grabbing Izuku by the backpack strap and dragging him along to the lockers, Shoto slouched to one side as his perch moved out from under him.
“I really don’t know what’s come over everyone today, think Aizawa will be mad if I give Shoto some of my diet appropriate snacks?”
“Yes,” Katsuki didn’t even hesitate. “But do it anyway, maybe they’ll both focus on each other and leave me alone.” That was worrying, Katsuki couldn’t be feeling alienated already, it had only been like an hour.
“They’re just protective, Kacchan, one of them is my bodyguard and the other one is one of my closest friends. Honestly, I feel really loved but I’m sorry it’s coming at your expense,” Izuku grimaced a little as he started dialing the code to his own locker.
Katsuki slammed his locker closed, shoulders up to his ears and chest huffing, “I’m so glad they make you feel loved.” Katsuki spat the words before visibly stopping himself in his tracks. Izuku watched from behind his locker door as his mouth thinned, he took a deep breath in through his nose, and let it out along with whatever tension had built in his shoulders.
“Look,” Katsuki said to his locker as he started to reopen it, “I am glad you feel fucking whatever… And I kind of deserve whatever shitty treatment I get after being such a dick but I still don’t fucking like it.”
Izuku was honestly speechless, this was something he rarely got to see in his favorite person, the pure trust he put in Izuku to make sure he understood what he was feeling. More than that, he walked himself back from that hair trigger Izuku was so worried about this morning. It was the most open Katsuki can be and Izuku was weak so he left his locker open in favor of half jumping the three feet between them and latching onto Katsuki’s side like the koala he had been in a past life. Katsuki, for his part, seemed too stunned to move.
“Things like that make me feel loved, too, for what it’s worth,” Izuku said into Katsuki's shoulder. He could feel his face getting hotter every second that passed. He gave it a solid three seconds before giving into being a coward and running back to his locker, grabbing a notebook that he hoped was the right one, and all but sprinting away, shouting over his shoulder, “See you at lunch, Kacchan!”
He was getting nervous over Aizawa and Todoroki making Katsuki feel weird and here he was doing the absolute most to be as awkward as possible because he just can’t help his dumb, mind numbing crush.
His panic over Katsuki at least distracted him from his nerves over the dinner tomorrow. He tried to focus on classes but it turned out to be a test and a book report before lunch and neither of those things were soothing. He couldn’t even get lost in the book they were reading for literature because George Orwell just had to fill him with conspiracies which wasn’t something he wanted to consider yet as a possible future leader.
Lunch came around and they were already behind the others because Monoma kept stopping Izuku, stepping into his path repeatedly just to tell him how snooty and undeserving he must be. Ochako actually ended up grabbing Izuku by the wrist and shoulder bumping the rude boy out of the way, forcing Izuku to ignore the slander that followed after him. He did look over his shoulder when the shouting cut off only to find Kendo with Monoma’s ear twisted at a bad angle waving at him with sympathy.
“We are disguising him from now,” Ochako all but shouted as they finally made it to what had become their lunch room, “Mina, we need wigs and concealer or else I am not liable for whatever crimes I commit.”
Izuku slumped on the couch and let his head fall back with a thud, embracing the ache when he hit the wood instead of the cushion. Weirdly enough, he felt calmer almost immediately, sitting here while his friends shouted and came up with ever more ridiculous plans for his well being.
He only picked his head up when someone kicked his foot. Katsuki sat in what had become his usual chair, a little between the table and the couch, looking at Izuku with his impressively neutral face. Izuku needed to practice that.
“Eat, Nerd,” was all he said but it was somehow the exact two words Izuku needed to hear. He didn’t tell him to forget whatever might have happened, didn’t even ask for an explanation, just wanted Izuku to eat.
He could do that.
The rest of the day went by in a blink. Before he knew it they were back at their lockers, tired but already looking forward to whatever new place Iida had wanted to check out this week. It was going to be a quick trip today because Izuku wanted to go over dinner again with Aizawa tonight before there was no turning back. The upside to that was it was pretty easy to convince all of his friends to pile into the large black SUV for a quick snack to kick off the weekend.
“I’m saying out loud right now that I am against this and if you accept your roll as Prince, this many people will never be in the same vehicle as you ever again,” Aizawa said to him as his friends clamored around them, trying to figure out the best way to situate everyone for a twelve minute car ride up town. Izuku only smiled, a little sheepish in the face of his friend's antics but unwilling to be embarrassed by them any more today.
“Smartest thing I’ve heard out of your mouth, Scarecrow,” Katsuki grumbled as he pushed Izuku into the middle seat. He found himself wedged between the blonde and Shoto, Ochako forced up against the opposite door chose to pull her legs up and place them neatly over Shoto’s lap. Izuku thought that was a brilliant idea considering something was digging into his left butt cheek but he couldn’t bring himself to just throw his legs into Katsuki’s lap. Maybe he could have a month ago but now it felt… different.
It didn’t end up mattering considering two minutes into the drive Shoto brought up what he was going to wear to the event tomorrow night and ended up with Ochako and Katsuki leaning over both of them to shout at each other what colors and styles would work better with Shoto’s hair. Izuku did his absolute best to sink into the seat behind him but he could feel his eyes flutter as Katsuki’s musky body spray and natural sweet scent seemed to embrace him.
Aizawa was right, this was a terrible idea.
Some commotion was happening behind him and all the voices and movement inside the car seemed to become a beast all its own.
Izuku wasn’t really able to follow what anyone was actually saying but Katsuki was getting too riled up considering there were four people on a three seat bench with three others in the back sitting on two jump seats. Katsuki brought his whole body over Izuku’s right side to bring his other arm up to point a vicious finger between Ochako’s face and Shoto’s, something about face shapes, but the motion all but plasters his front to Izuku’s and it’s more than his poor, stressed out, hormonal body can handle.
Kacchan is just so warm and firm and passionate and he smells so good. Izuku’s body was bound to react. His pants tighten in a very specific way and Izuku’s breath stutters, trying not to panic. He must be showing some signs of growth, pun not intended, because instead of flailing like he might have done before, Izuku takes the bump in the road as a chance to kick the back of Aizawa’s seat.
They make the briefest eye contact in the rear view mirror but it’s enough for his bodyguard to see the dred in Izuku’s eyes.
Without a word and very much against the instructions of Iida in the front seat, Aizawa jerked the wheel to the left startling shouts from everyone in the car and the handful of people on the sidewalk nearest the curb they bounced off of.
“Everyone who isn’t royalty should get out now or be removed,” Aizawa deadpanned, his monotone sending shivers across Izuku’s arms. Everyone was too stunned to breathe for a second, looking towards the front to see if the man was serious. Aizawa cut daggers over the rim of his sunglasses through the rearview mirror, his black eyes full of steel. “I won’t ask twice.”
Ochako was the first out but it might have had something to do with Mina frantically shaking her seat with her eyes bugging out like a frightened hare, Izuku could sympathize. Iida was next out, thanking Aizawa for the brief ride up the street while Kirishima and Kaminari fought each other to be the next out. Shoto was all but crushed against Izuku who was crushed against Katsuki and, while he would definitely be revisiting this scene later, he was still trying to remember how to breathe properly and Katsuki’s scent being mainlined into his lungs wasn’t helping!
Repressing the urge to hide his face in his hands, Izuku threw himself forward between the two front seats, pretty much laying on the center console, “Thank you,” he said in a pained whisper. At least he wasn’t being crushed any more but he was sure if it was better than he was all but sticking his ass in the air.
“Is this better?” Aizawa gave him the hardest side eye he might have ever been on the receiving end of.
“Are you psychic?” Izuku asked incredulously. He would never get an answer because two seconds later a hand fisted in his blazer and yanked. Shoto and Katsuki were the only two left in the car while all the others piled onto the sidewalk.
“The fuck are you doing?” Katsuki shouted, red faced right in Izuku’s ear but apparently directing it at the boy on Izuku’s other side, “The fuck are you doing?” Katsuki shouted again, really emphasizing the ‘you’ as he turned his shouting toward AIzawa.
“My dad thinks we are royalty so can I stay?” Shoto adjusted his shirt as he made himself comfortable in his new leg room.
“I just got a message from Yamada that his majesty needs to see his son, you both have thirty seconds.” Who knew a part of body guarding was lying for your clients?
The car went very silent, like maybe Katsuki or Shoto were waiting for Izuku to say something but even if he could think of something that might cut the tension, he didn’t really want to announce Aizawa’s lie. Izuku finally took a breath.
“Good luck with your practice show tomorrow, Kacchan,” Izuku couldn’t quite make it to Katsuki’s eye, the situation in his khaki’s gaining more life with Katuski’s warm hand brushing the back of his neck, he gave his new princely smile to Katsuki's perfect cheek bone. “I really wish I could be there.”
Katsuki didn’t speak, Izuku could feel him scanning his face, his burning gaze almost like a touch. Izuku’s smile slipped as he gave in and finally met the blond’s red gaze. He watched as the crease between Katsuki’s brows smooth.
“I’ll come by on Sunday,” Katsuki didn’t wait for a reply and was slamming the car door shut before Aizawa could so much as draw air to protest.
“See you tomorrow, Midoriya,” Shoto left without any more fuss.
The SUV felt too big without his too loud friends but the relief of finally having his own quiet space for the next few minutes didn’t quite allow him to ignore his guilt at what had just happened. He watched his friends gather around each other, probably wondering what just happened and what to do now.
They’d be fine without him. Better even, without the stares and attention his new life seemed garner. But it still felt like he was losing a part of himself as they drove away.
“Thank you, Aizawa, I don’t know…” the shameful moment of panic and arousal made his face heat instantly, his blush the one reaction he had no hope of controlling. He wanted to curl up and hide for a while. He wanted to lock himself in his bedroom and lay on his superhero rug and lose himself in the latest copy of whatever comic was in season right now.
“Your friends will understand,” Aizawa’s monotone sounded more wise and less threatening now, a subtle shift Izuku probably wouldn’t have noticed if he didn’t know the man so well. “The dinner tomorrow is a big deal for you and important to your father. He wants you to feel confident, he wants you to feel how much potential we see in you.”
Just as it was starting to slow, Izuku’s heart rate spiked again. His responsibilities looming over him, he tried to picture himself as someone who could handle things like Aizawa, or Yamada, or Toshinori did every day.
He placed himself in the seat Katsuki had been in, leather still warm under him. He kept his chin up, his back straight, and his eyes on the blur of people and cars outside while he counted his breaths.