Archive of Our Own

“...and this is Taniguchi-san, he’s the Senior Vice President of Tele-Tech Agency.”

“Pleasure.” The smile on Bakugou Katsuki’s face was starting to make his jaw ache, but he forced it back into place, taking and shaking the man’s hand.

“Impressive grip, I can tell you’re definitely not letting anyone out of your grasp.”

“What can I say? Comes with the territory.” He couldn’t help but to admire how the Vice President’s fake, forced laughter was more real that Katsuki had sounded the entire night. Granted, the Vice President likely hadn’t been paraded in front of two billion Somebodies the way that Katsuki had been that night--in fact, the way that Katsuki had been every goddamn Friday night for the past three months.

Being the face of an Agency was most everything he’d ever wanted: it was the kind of recognition that made you a hero people remembered and gave you the kind of assignments that no one else was allowed to touch. Just… no one told him it was also dinner parties and smiling and pretending to be interested in the most mundane shit. He was in part starting to understand Aizawa-sensei’s bitterness.

“Ah, Exploom, come.” Katsuki looked up to see his personal handler, Diana Tekkapau weaving her way through to him. “There’s someone I’d like you to meet.”

Great. What was this going to be? Another Vice President? Maybe he’d be lucky and it’d be a CFO or CEO or something, though those were rare. He’d started this gig with the intent to be a hero for all and yet it felt like Katsuki was nothing more than some Think Tank’s big experiment, like they were more concerned with the capital that Katsuki could save rather than the people.

Yeah, heroes saved people, but damn if they were quick to remind Katsuki that an agency was a business.

So he let Diana weave him through the crowd, turning a plastic (very pained) smile to those who called out to him. He was following her out of the corner of eye rather than giving her his full attention, as such when she stopped suddenly, Katsuki almost knocked her over.

“Oh! Deku!” Diana put a hand over her chest, smile the widest that Katsuki had ever seen it, but he hardly registered that she was there as the name sunk in.

“Wow, it’s such a pleasure to run into you here! My name is Diana Tekkapau and I represent Outlands Agency. I didn’t realize that you were here.”

Katsuki struggled to do anything more than gape ahead of himself as the man turned around and something shifted in his stomach. The muzzle (because what other word could Katsuki really give it) did shit to cover Deku’s stupid face, that mop of green hair impossible to miss as Deku fixed Diana with a smile that was visible even with just his eyes on display.

“My agency is a tremendous supporter of this project and we really wouldn’t miss it for anything!”

“Well, we’re so happy that you’re here,” she gushed and Katsuki had to resist the urge to roll his eyes. “May I introduce you to the leading hero of our agency, Deku, this is--”

“Kacchan!”

The idiot’s face lit up like Christmas morning, blue eyes shining from above the metal muzzle with their sole attention on Katsuki. He considered it a miracle that the asshole didn’t try to reach forward and hug him.

“Exploom,” Katsuki corrected, feeling his upper lip twitch as he turned a glare to Deku fully.

“Oh.” There was a pause. ”That’s… That’s really… Wow.”

“You two--?”

“Went to school together.” Better to cut either of them off before they could start gabbing. His arms fell comfortably across his chest as he cocked an eyebrow at Deku who was still smiling at him like a loon.

“You look great!”

“Yeah. I do.” Katsuki watched Diana’s expression snap back to Katsuki and turn sinister. He huffed. “You look good, too.”

“Thanks. It’s, uh, it’s been awhile!”

Katsuki grunted.

“You’ve been good?”

“Fine.”

Diana’s glower somehow deepened.

“You?” No one could have missed how strained his own voice sounded. No one except Deku, apparently.

“Good! Really good!” Oh, god, the idiot was practically bouncing. “I’ve been doing work for my agency and coming to all of these banquets. It’s been a rush.”

“I’m sure.”

“I haven’t… seen you around at a bunch of these.”

“Guess we don’t travel in the same circles.” Picking up a hand, Katsuku brushed it over his hair, looking around the room. “As much as I’d love to stay and chat, I--”

“Just the two men that I wanted to see!”

Katsuki’s entire body tensed.

Mr. Wright was a portly, good-natured American man and acted like every room that he entered was a delight to be in. Katsuki snorted softly as he watched his boss throw his arms around Deku’s middle, hugging and lifting the hero off of the ground.

“I really can’t thank you or your agency enough for appearing tonight--”

“Really a pleasure,” Deku gasped out, face red behind the muzzle with his feet still several inches off of the ground. When Mr. Wright put him down, he was gasping, struggling to regain his balance. “W-We really have a soft spot for Greenpeace. Thank you so much for inviting us.”

“I think it’s a good way to kick all of this off, don’t you?” said Mr. Wright.

“Oh, definitely. Ekara-san is very excited about the merger. You’ve really brought the agency such a long way in such a short time.”

“What merger?” asked Katsuki.

“I really couldn’t have done it without Exploom here. And I’m sure you’re excited about getting to work more closely with him.”

“I am!”

Katsuki frowned. “More closely?”

“And your boss has been nothing but helpful with the transition,” Mr. Wright continued. “I’m still navigating my way around your, excuse my pun, quirks in the business.”

And as Deku burst into laughter, Katsuki’s nose wrinkled as his lips started to pull away from his teeth in a canine snarl.

“What transition?”

“Is this very different from American agencies?” asked Deku.

“Oh! Incredibly! But I’ve always had a soft spot for Japan and especially her superhero network.”

“Well, we’re glad to welcome you into the network,” said Deku.

“You’re far too kind.”

“Mr. Wright?” Katsuki’s attention jerked to see Diana looking down at her watch, then back up to him. Oh thank god, she was probably coming to whisk them off away from Deku to some other meeting and Katsuki had never been happier to have to go smile at an accountant. “Ekara-san wants your presence on the stage.”

“Is it that time already?” Mr. Wright glanced down at his own watch before grinning at both Deku and Katsuki. “We should get this going, shouldn’t we?”

“We?!” And yet no one was answering a damn question that he was asking. He was marched like a badly behaved child across the room, not even bothering to prostrate a smile as Mr. Wright took him and Deku and Diana up the stage to meet Ekara-san.

She was a handsome woman dressed in the same obnoxious teal that matched Deku’s usual costume, though it was crafted into a no-fuss dress for the event. Though her expression was severe, her mouth cracked into a smile when the brigade stepped onto the stage. She bowed to them all before gesturing Mr. Wright towards the microphone.

It took a couple moments of throat clearing, short apologies, and someone signaling the band to stop, but finally everyone was looking at them.

“Good evening, everyone! If I could have your quick attention. As you know, my name is Mr. Alexander Wright and I am the head of Outland Agency. I have a very brief, but very important announcement I’d like to share with you all this evening…”

“What the hell is going on?” Katsuki hissed at Diana from the corner of his mouth. At first, it seemed that the woman didn’t hear him, but he could see that cheshire smile spreading across her lips. She pushed onto the tips of her toes to lean towards Katsuki.

“The next time that you tell me that my weekly update emails aren’t important, I want you to remember this moment.”

He felt his face blanche, hand a hard fist at his side before forcing himself to relax as Diana gestured ahead of them to the crowd that was very, very intently watching them.

“...so it is my distinct pleasure and honor to announce that Outland and Glen Agencies will be merging into a singular agency at the end of the month.”

Katsuki felt his stomach drop.

“I’m sorry, what ?!”

~

“You think someone would have told me in more than just a fucking email! Who the hell even reads emails anymore?!”

Katsuki ratted up his tie and threw it onto the ground before stepping out of his bedroom to lean against the archway in the kitchen.

“Diana was so damn smug about it and-- What the hell are you laughing at?”

“I just… I just don’t know how you didn’t know!” Eijirou was sitting at the counter in the kitchen, a cup of tea in one hand and a slice of pizza in the other. “Dude, you’ve been getting physical mail about it for a month, too.”

“How do you know that?!”

And Eijirou paused for a moment, gaze shifting to the pile of opened mail that was just sitting on the edge of the counter. “...you know, I kept thinking there was something I needed to tell you. Hey, Suki, you got mail.”

“Get fucked!”

The last thing that Katsuki saw of his roommate was the man ducking out of sight as Katsuki lobbed his blazer at him. Stupid Wright. Stupid Diana. Stupid Deku .

He’d made a mad dash out of the building once the event was over and Deku kept following behind him like a fucking shadow. “I’m so excited to get to work together! Do you think we’ll be on same assignment? I’ve been looking over your fighting style and it’s changed so much since UA! I think we should swap contact information, we can talk about training and--” About there, Katsuki had tuned him out in favor of trying to get the hell away from him.

Working together. Christ. Even if they had merged the businesses, it was in Katsuki’s contract that he didn’t do sidekicks . They never were able to keep up and were often sent away crying by the first week that they worked together.

A lot of the villains that Katsuki dealt with were dangerous and he fought just as dangerously; it was why he’d been moved out of the business district and towards the outer edges of town. Or, at the very least, had restricted Quirk Usage (a clause they’d put in after that Fried Ice Cream Shoppe Incident) within the business district until Katsuki got them further out. Some people knew that and loved to try and use it against him.

Unfortunately for them, he’d gotten very, very good at fighting without using his Quirks all of the time; Deku wasn’t the only one who had paid attention in class.

“Look, I don’t think it’s that big of a deal,” came Eijirou’s voice from the door of Katsuki’s bedroom. “I think it’s going to be good for the agency as a whole. You’ve now got a faction that is focused on the business district where a lot of larger crimes happen, a faction focused outside of it, and you both can cover the middle. It’s smart, financially. Covering more ground.”

“How would you feel if your agency merged with another.”

Katsuki watched as Eijirou picked his words carefully, lips twisted into an almost wry grin. “Depends, do I also get to work side-by-side with my high school crush, too?”

Eijirou was at least smart enough to duck when Katsuki threw a book at him.

~

When Katsuki woke up the next morning, it wasn’t to his usual alarm, but to an intermittent buzzing of his phone on the bedside table. They were all a series of texts from an unknown number, but--

Katsuki let out a cry of disgust.

[Unknown Number] Hey, Kacchan! It’s Deku, your boss gave me this number to get into contact with you. Hope I’m not waking you up.

[Unknown Number] It was really great to see you last night, I’m looking forward to working with you!

[Unknown Number] I was wondering if you’d like to get together to talk since we’re going to be working together. We can talk strategy or something.

[Unknown Number] But if you don’t want to, that’s fine.

[Unknown Number] I hope I’m not bothering you.

By the time that he’d flipped through the rest of the messages, a few other from his boss letting him know that he’d given Deku Katsuki’s number and that there was going to be a meeting later in the week with everyone to talk about the final logistics of the  merger and another from Diana saying that she had just sent out the weekly newsletter (“Happy Monday, everyone!”), he had another two texts from Deku.

[Shitty Deku] You know, this is really going to be great. It’ll be nice to work with someone from UA. We have a lot of rookies and they just don’t stack up, you know?

[Shitty Deku] Besides, I’ve never had a partner before.

Wright wouldn’t… Katsuki bolted upright in bed, scrambling to find Wright’s number in his contact list.

“Hey, Wright, what the fuck?!” Katsuki shouted into the phone.

“Good morning to you, Exploom, what can I do for you?”

Katsuki groaned as he threw his shirt on over his head, glaring at the wall as if it were Wright’s face. “You can tell me why the fuck I woke up from a novel from Deku in addition to finding out we’re going to be partners ? It’s in my contract that I work alone.”

“Ah, yes, Midoriya-san was very, very eager to get into contact with you. He came by the office to look at what’s going to be our southern business campus. Exciting, really, and he’s such a genial person in real life--”

“Yeah, he’s a fucking peach. Not what I asked. I’m not working with him.”

There was a pause on the other line as he could practically see Mr. Wright trying to pick through his words oh-so-carefully. “...in your contract, we’ve agreed that we will not assign you anymore sidekicks. And I believe that that is a right course of action. But Deku is not your sidekick, he’s--”

“I’m not being anyone’s sidekick, either! You can’t do this to me!”

“Katsuki, Katsuki,” he tried though Katsuki’s temper was rapidly building. “You’re not his sidekick. You’re just that. Partners. It’s… It’s temporary. I assure you, things will go back to normal before long since you two work different districts. I-- Well, Ekara-san and I figured that it would be very good for the agencies’ merger if you two worked together for a little while. You’re the face of our agency the same way that Deku is the face of theirs and to see both of you cooperating together would… well, I think it’d work quite nicely.”

“And I think you’re full of shit, Wright.” For Wright’s part, all he did was laugh.

“I am sure that it’ll only be a month. Maybe two. Once we have the rest of the work finished, you only have to be seen fighting side-by-side a little, then you can go back to the outer limits and Deku can continue his work in the business district. No harm, no foul.”

It wasn’t a bad idea and, okay, yeah, Katsuki saw the merit of it. That didn’t mean that he had to like it.

“No fucking reason that you had to give him my personal number.”

“I’d have loved to give you your work number, Katsuki, but you never answer that.”

“Yeah. Exactly.”

~

Another million texts from Deku (alright, maybe ten) and Katsuki yielded enough to call him. He sounded just as bubbly and over-excited as he did when they were kids. When Katsuki even mentioned getting together at the Outland agency to train together, he swore that he could feel Deku vibrating.

“That sound really great, Kacchan, I can’t wait to see you!” He’d hung up on Deku in the middle of his excited titter, barely holding onto his patience.

Just a month.

An hour and a half later, he showed up to the campus in his civilian clothes, biting a slight smile out to the two women at the front desk who wished him a good morning. But just as soon as he got out of earshot, the pair of them started going on about Deku, the real Deku showing up at their agency! Can you believe it?

Maybe it stung just a little how damn excited it seemed that everyone was to have the idiot in their agency. It wasn’t that big of a deal. He wasn’t that good.

When Katsuki got out of the locker room and into the training facility, it looked mostly empty at first glance. However, it was just that the rest of the agency was backed into a wall, eyes wide and jaws dropped with their attention solely devoted to the centre of the room.

It wasn’t an unfamiliar sight, considering the fact that they’d been in the same class, but time had done Deku well. Without the pomp and circumstance of the tuxedo from last night and the covering of the mask, Katsuki could see how he’d changed. Deku had filled out, definitely, with more definition in his shoulders and his back. He’d gotten taller, the softness of his face had thinned out, his jaw was stronger, and both the scars and even the wildness of his hair seemed to suit him rather than alienate him.

As annoying as Katsuki found Deku to be in personality, he’d always found him attractive. Before it was cute, like the way you looked at a stray dog that wouldn’t leave you alone, but he’d never considered that Deku could be, well, hot. And pouring with sweat, taking on everything that the digital training session threw at him, Deku was very hot.

“Kacchan!”

Katsuki’s upper lip curled, throwing daggers at the rookie next to him whose face lit up as she weakly tried to smother her laughter.

“Katsuki,” he corrected, putting the duffle down on the ground. It wasn’t until he was looking up at Deku that he realized he’d even walked over to him. “It’s Katsuki.”

“Right, right, right. Uh, you came!”

“No shit.”

“I just…” Deku shrugged his shoulders, face flushed and smile downright stupid. “I just didn’t expect you to actually show up. Miss Diana said that today was your day off.”

“I come in to train on my days off sometimes.”

“Do you still want to train together? I can reset the level back to--”

“No, this fine.” Katsuki started to stretch out his arms, throwing a look over his shoulder at the laughter he heard. Immediately, he turned around to the group that was still gaping at them. “You lot gonna stand there looking like fucking idiots or are you actually going to train?!”

They dispersed readily enough and Katsuki sighed, pushing a hand through his hair.

“You, uh… You look like you’re doing fine training.”

“Yeah! You’ve got a great system. It’s not as great as Glen’s, but--”

“Sorry we can’t all have a multi-million system.”

“No! No!” And Katsuki saw Deku wince. “I just meant… Well, this simulates larger, slower opponents better than Glen’s does. Mine is more for close-space combat, you know? It’s good for your agency since you mostly deal with larger spaces, right?”

That twitch of annoyance didn’t disappear as Katsuki held up his mouthguard, rolling his eyes.

“You gonna get your foot out of your mouth and train or just gonna stand there bumbling?”

And the asshole just had to laugh as Katsuki put his mouthguard in.

“Train. Definitely.”

~

“You managing alright there?” Katsuki smirked at Deku as he took a swig from his water bottle before dumping the rest on his towel and mopping up. “Figured the Incredible Deku could handle a few rounds against me.”

Deku actually glared at Katsuki and he wished he could have taken a fucking picture.

“I was in here a solid thirty minutes before you were.” As Deku took a drink of water, the glare dissipated. “Besides, you… your entire fighting style changed. You’re a lot more… calculated than when we were kids.”

Katsuki shrugged, putting the towel around his shoulders. “I spent the first month here destroying the Business District when my fights got too out of hand. I either had to shape up or risk getting in trouble.” And considering that Outland was the only agency that would take him at the time, Katsuki really hadn’t had a choice.

“It’s amazing, is what it is!” There was a strange heat that built up in Katsuki’s face hearing how fucking genuine Deku sounded.

“Thanks,” he grunted in the end. Looking back at Deku was a mistake considering the fact that the asshole was fucking grinning at him. “You’re okay. I guess.”

Deku laughed. “You guess?”

“What? Are you expecting a fucking parade?” Katsuki rolled his eyes, tossing the used towel into the bucket beside the door. “For spending our entire childhood watching superheroes, you’d think you’d come up with a few things on your own.”

Katsuki saw Deku’s back stiffen. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Oh god. “You’re predictable is all. Look.” Katsuki put everything down and walked towards Deku. The man immediately dropped into a fighting stance and Katsuki rolled his eyes. “I’m not gonna fight you, idiot. I already kicked your ass once today, I don’t want to do it again.”

“You did not!” The indignation in Deku’s voice actually made Katsuki laugh. “I misstepped.”

“And I stepped correctly. Your ass ended up on the mat.”

“That’s only because I’m not familiar with this place.” Then Deku’s mouth tugged into a smile and he took a step closer to Katsuki. At that distance, Katsuki could count the freckles across Deku’s nose and cheeks.

“Are you saying that you’d do better if we were in your facility?”

“Definitely.”

“Well, that sounds like a challenge.”

“It is.” Deku smirked and something in Katsuki’s chest jolted. “Tomorrow morning? Same time?”

“Mhm. And I’m gonna kick your predictable ass.”

“Wanna wager on that?”

Katsuki licked his lips, forcing himself to finally drag his eyes away from Deku’s before nodding. “Yeah. Uh, loser buys lunch.”

“Loser buys lunch,” Deku agreed, holding his hand out to Katsuki. “Shake on it.”

~

[to: Awful Roommate] Hey, so, question?

[Awful Roommate] Hey, so, answer?

[to: Awful Roommate] I just spent the entire morning and early afternoon fighting with Deku.

[Awful Roommate] I’m not helping you hide a body, my guy.

[to: Awful Roommate] First of all, I’m insulted by the fact you wouldn’t help me with that.

Second of all, I meant like, training together.

[Awful Roommate] Oh! How was that? Are you still in one piece?

[to: Awful Roommate] Yeah. Uh, we’re doing it again tomorrow before work.

[Awful Roommate] Well, that’s great! You two are getting on perfectly. This is good for the merger.

[to: Awful Roommate] And we’re getting lunch together after.

[Awful Roommate] Oh. Wow.

[to: Awful Roommate] Loser buys.

[Awful Roommate] So you’re going on a date.

[to: Awful Roommate] It’s not a date!

I’d have to like him for it to be a date.

[Awful Roommate] Like I said: you’re going on a date.

[to: Awful Roommate] I hate you.

Let me try that again.

He’d have to like me for it to be a date.

[Awful Roommate] Fair point.

But we’re not denying that you like him.

[to: Awful Roommate] We’re not denying the fact that he actually is good at his job and decently attractive and those are base tenets for a surface level attraction.

[Awful Roommate] But we’re denying the fact that you were in love with him when you were kids?

[to: Awful Roommate] I was not.

[Awful Roommate] You picked on him because you liked him and didn’t know how to tell him. This is rich, I want you to know that. You two fought like cats and dogs when we were kids.

[to: Awful Roommate] Alright, no shit.

It’s just because I haven’t spent any real time with him. I guarantee you that tomorrow after training and after lunch that things will be back to normal and he’s going to get so far on my nerves that I’m never going to be able to look at him.

~

When Katsuki arrived on the Glen Campus that next morning, he didn’t really know what he expected. It was expensive. It was very neat. And, goddamn, if Deku’s face wasn’t everywhere. They really had run with the All Might successor thing, hadn’t they?

“Morning.” The woman at the front desk was clean-cut with a smile etched across her face.

“Good morning, welcome to Glen Agency’s north campus, what can I do for you?”

“Uh, my name’s Bakugou Katsuki, I… I’m from Outland Agency and--”

“Oh, are you here to look the agency over? Are you moving from their campus to here?”

“Uh, well, no, not exactly.”

“Which office division do you work in? I can have your counterpart called up on the line.”

“Look, I don’t work in an office.”

“Oh, are you one of the on-the field inspectors? We’ve got something similar to that, hold on.”

A vein began to throb in his forehead as she reached for her phone. Katsuki also reached forward, clicking the disconnect button.

“I’m part of the heroes division,” said Katsuki, pronouncing the words slowly.

And she gave a plastic laugh. “Well, we all are, aren’t we?” she winked. “But which section specifically?”

“I--” Katsuki finally put his wallet down onto the counter and pulled out his ID. Exploom glared from a picture on the ID in the same fashion that Katsuki did. “I’m here to train in your facility before I have to report back to work at my agency. Where I work. As a Pro Hero. I’m Exploom.”

At the very least, she had enough decency to look a little embarrassed. He didn’t even give her another look as she was quick to prep him a visitor pass (“Once the merger goes through, we’ll be able to give you your own ID for this campus.”) before he took it and stalked up to the elevator.

According to the legend beside the floor buttons, the hero training facility was on the sixth floor, but the initial push let out a squawk and a mechanical voice asked for authorization.

“Fucking shitty facility.” Whipping out the ID card, he scanned it over the reader and the voice informed him access was denied.

“Are you shitting me?” Katsuki scrubbed a hand through his hair, stepping out of the elevator. He could wait for someone else to come up to the sixth floor, but with how dead that the place looked that early in the morning, he’d likely be waiting for awhile.

Searching around for a staircase for a little while only revealed that every route save for the elevator had a push-pad access code. In an angry defeat, he flopped down in the waiting room, refusing to look at the woman at the desk just as much as she was refusing to look at him.

[to: Shitty Deku] Was your plan to win this wager not letting me even compete at all?

Immediately, he regretted sending the text, hoping Deku wouldn’t see it, but almost immediately, there was a notification that Deku was typing.

[Shitty Deku] Are they not letting you up to the floor? You should have clearance since you’re a Outland Agency Pro Hero.

[to: Shitty Deku] No shit, thanks for that.

Nope. It still hasn’t gone through the system and so I can’t get anywhere.

[Shitty Deku] Kacchan, I’m so sorry. I’m almost there, just wait a second? ｡ﾟ(ﾟ´Д｀ﾟ)ﾟ｡

He snorted at the little emoticon before giving a roll of his eyes. Waited he did, then, drumming his fingers against the arm of the chair, ignoring the way that his palms were starting to smoke. Not even ten minutes later, Deku came rushing in, face flushed and gathered before it lit up seeing Katsuki.

His stomach most certainly did not toss seeing how reliving that Deku was to see him.

“I’m so sorry about that,” Deku gushed, eyes wide and, god, he looked like he was fifteen again. “I really didn’t realize that that was going to happen and I really should have seen that it was going to happen because of course they haven’t transferred everything over yet and--”

“ Deku . You’re mumbling.”

“Sorry.” Deku winced. Getting to his feet, Katsuki waved it off, starting to feel his anger dissipate.

“Look. We’ve just got less time for me to kick your ass. I’ve got to work after we do lunch.”

“We could do it another day?” Deku was quick to offer, immediately following back on Katsuki’s heels. “I mean, if you don’t want to do it today, that’s fine, we don’t have to do it today, I just figured that--”

“Do you not want to do it today?”

“I didn’t say that, I just--”

“Do you?” barked Katsuki, letting Deku call the elevator.

“I…” Deku weathered his lower lip between his teeth. “Yeah. I do.”

“Then we’ll do it today.” Even from the corner of his eyes, he saw the way that Deku’s shoulders sagged in… was that relief?

“You’re right. We’ll just be a little quicker with training today,”said Deku as he stood straighter, steeling himself. “Just don’t get too confident with thinking you’re going to kick my ass or I might end up kicking yours.”

Katsuki laughed and Deku seemed to relax, at least enough to smile. “Is that so?”

“Oh, totally.” Deku pushed a hand through his hair, stepping into the elevator before throwing Katsuki a look. “If I’m half as good as people think I am, I might even put up a fight against you.”

“Eh, maybe. You almost held your own yesterday,” he offered, watching Deku click the sixth floor button and scan his ID.

“And I only did as bad as I did because I was in foreign territory.”

“That excuse is only going to get you so far,” Katsuki teased, putting his hip against the wall when the doors shut. “Do you use that excuse against villains, too?”

Deku burst into laughter and Katsuki felt his heart all but stop.

“I bet they take to it as well as I do,” he muttered, smiling along.

“Well, excuse me, I know the business district like the back of my hand,” managed Deku when he finally could speak. “Your facility is nothing like that, though.”

“It can’t be that different than yours.”

Unfortunately, it was. On the way to the locker room, Katsuki stopped to see half of the room turn around to greet Deku (“Good morning, Deku-san! Do you have time to train with me today?” “Did you get the email that I sent you?” “Hey, are you still on to visit my niece this weekend?”), but was mostly focused on the room itself. It was massive, for one, and looked unassuming. But Katsuki could see that people were up in a small room with a window to the training room, adjusting the settings. The squares that were laid across the floor didn’t seem to be just tile, but could rise and create structures at will. And the automated robot opponents were far more articulated and stylized than Katsuki had ever personally dealt with.

“Did that just shoot ice and rock?”

Deku grinned almost manically, nodding his head. “Our R&D team is really, really out of this world. They created this entire state-of-the-art facility.” He turned to open the locker room door and Katsuki followed. “Ekara-san talked about the fact that Mr. Wright is looking to add some of these improvements to your facility.”

Of course he was. Katsuki shook his head, pulling his hoodie and t-shirt off.

“Well, most of us just believe that you can’t learn nearly as well from robots as you can from real people. Robots are programmed and don’t reason the way that people do. People get desperate and unpredictable, doing the strangest things at the strangest times. That’s something  you can’t program into a robot.”

When he looked up, Deku was very pointedly staring at him, but not at his face. Katsuki snorted as he watched the way that Deku’s eyes travelled along his now exposed chest and legs.

Katsuki snapped his fingers. “Earth to Deku.”

“Huh?” Oh. Immediately, colour built in Deku’s face as he shook his head and started to undress as well. “I… Uh…”

“See something you like?” Katsuki cackled when Deku threw his shirt at him. “It’s okay, Deku, lesser people than you have stared. I’m not bashful.”

He threw another towel at Katsuki. By the time that they had finished changing, Deku’s face was back to its normal hue, though Katsuki did like how that blush looked on him.

“Well, I do agree with your can’t-beat-humans training. It’s why I tend to do a lot of one-on-one training with rookies and other pros. It’s a good way to keep on your toes. And,” Deku smiled knocked their shoulders together, “sometimes you can get free lunch out of them.”

“Don’t get too cocky yet,” Katsuki chided, leading out of the locker room. “There’s no guarantee that you’re going to win.”

~

“Pinned! Six-four, Deku!”

Katsuki let out a growl as he glared up at Deku who merely grinned back at him. “Come on! One more match!”

“We said, first to make a two-point margin.”

Katsuki got to his feet, feeling the stares of the room on them, but he only was focused on the way that Deku was grinning at him. Deku had gone shirtless ages ago and now was just parading around, sweaty as hell and smiling like a smug bastard. The latter was certainly the only reason that Katsuki’s blood was boiling, not the fact that Deku had literally been fighting hand-to-hand with Katsuki, keeping up with Katsuki, and shirtless while doing it.

Not even remotely.

“I want a rematch!”

“Kacchan,” Deku whined before taking a drink. “Come on, don’t be a sore loser. You lost, you’re buying lunch.”

No. It couldn’t end like this. Katsuki looked down to his smoking hands and, suddenly, grinned.

“Double-or-nothing. Loser buys lunch and dinner--”

“Katsuki, we’re not doing this--”

“--with Quirks.”

That one little word sent the entire room into silence, the mouths of Deku’s darling fanbase gaping open as they looked between Deku and Katsuki. Even Deku looked intrigued, cocking an eyebrow. His eyes travelled to Katsuki’s palms that were sizzling, humming.

Up until that point, they both had agreed that using Quirks in such a small space was a bad idea, especially with other people around. Call it desperate, but Katsuki needed to show Deku that he could hold his own against him.

Well, Deku and everyone else.

“It’ll be just like we’re kids,” Katsuki offered, walking over to Deku until he could feel the heat of Deku’s body against his own. He was close enough again to see that little line of freckles, again, but also the way that the pulse at the jut of Deku’s jaw beat erratically. “We’ll have everyone clear out, put it into optimal conditions and we’ll put the Amazing Deku up against Exploom.”

Deku’s tongue darted across his lips and Katsuki’s attention snapped to it in an instant.

Then Deku turned to him and he almost expected Deku to tell him off. Instead, he held up a finger to him.

“Pinning. No lethal damage. We’re not doing it like the Quirk test, you got it?”

Katsuki laughed, loudly. “I don’t even have the grenades.”

“But knowing how clever you are, you’d figure something out.” Deku turned about to clear the room and for a moment, Katsuki was let reeling at that little throw-away. Clever.

A lot of the rookies and other pros cleared out at Deku’s orders, but a few complained with insistences that they’d be fine, they could take care of themselves, but both Katsuki and Deku remembered the damage of what happened the first time that they went head-to-head against one another.

“It’s just for your own safety,” Deku promised, shutting the door. Katsuki snorted a little as he leant into the wall at one end of the room and gestured for Deku to do the same.

“Do we want to put a time limit on this or call it total mayhem?” Deku waved off Katsuki’s question, grinning at him.

“Oh, I think this’ll be quick.”

That stupid smile of Deku’s made Katsuki’s heart start to beat a little faster. He watched the man signal up to the room above and a man announced that the round would commence in

Five…

Four…

Three…

Two…

One.

In an instant, Katsuki lost sight of Deku. The tiles on the floor rose up in undiscernible patterns like towering buildings and walls. On top of it came the dull roar of the city--idle chatter, cars thrumming, and sirens wailing. Alright. So Deku definitely had advantage.

That was fine by Katsuki.

Moving low against the ground, Katsuki dove into the maze, eyes wide and ears pricked. He kept the noises to a minimum, breathing short and soft. With his feet bare against the pavement, he focused on what heat signatures he could register. Unlike the real city, there weren’t a million other people just out of sight, so he could just barely register the vague direction in which Deku was prowling. Immediately, Katsuki began to move across the ground, light on the balls of his feet, following the sensation until he lost it.

Deku wasn’t on the ground anymore. Katsuki’s head snapped up. Either he was now scaling the pillars or One For All had a flying trait that Katsuki had never heard of.

His eyes went wide, trying to locate Deku when he heard a shout at his left. The pillar there immediately went down and Katsuki spread his hands in front of him. With a grunt, Katsuki went  flying back out of the way just as the pillar knocked down right where he’d been.

“What the ever-loving Christ, Deku?!”

“I thought we were using our Quirks.”

Through the dust of the fallen structure, he could briefly see Deku’s shadow. But then it was gone again. Katsuki growled, feeling steam pour past his lips.

I’ll show you using a Quirk.

Putting both palms against the ground, Katsuki shut his eyes. From the outside looking in, there wasn’t much of a change, but as the moments went by, the ground around Katsuki’s palms started to burn orange as the entire floor around him started to heat up rapidly.

Then one crack was heard.

And another. Katsuki opened his eyes to see one of the pillars waver and collapse and a shout went out from across the room. There you are .

Shifting his weight to his palms, Katsuki lunged off of the floor with a rush of heat beneath his hands. It took two blasts before he was high enough to see where Deku was struggling to regain himself from falling off of the pillar. Katsuki’s feet hit the top of one as it too started to waver, leaping off of the edge.

“You can’t hide from me!” Katsuki put one hand down so his palm was parallel with the ground while the other was pointed at Deku. Two streams of fire spread from the tips of his fingers before blasting from his palms. And by the curse of good timing, it barely missed Deku who dove behind another pillar.

When Katstuki touched down on the ground, he immediately started in pursuit, cutting around the pillar to try and catch Deku. But one moment, he was flat-footed against the ground in a sprint and, the next, there was a shout and the entire floor lurched.

“New England Smash!”

Katsuki was knocked off of his feet and onto his back as the floor cracked. Almost just as quickly, he caught the sight of Deku. The man was taking advantage of Katsuki’s position on the floor, but, hell, that was fine by him.
Like a freight train, Deku came down towards Katsuki. But then Katsuki sucked in a deep breath through his nose and let loose a shout. Fire poured from his lips and he watched Deku twist his entire body to escape the attack. Katsuki immediately kicked his feet out and flipped onto his feet, but Deku was already out of sight.

“What the hell was that?!”

Katsuki laughed. “‘East Dragon Blast’. That was a move I came up with right after an incident in the downtown shopping district.”

There was a pause before a winded laugh came in response. “It’s nice.”

“You think?” Katsuki began to crawl through the damage, most of the pillars now knocked over by that New England Smash of Deku’s. “I don’t remember New England.”

“That’s more recent. I don’t use it in close-quarters since it does… well, you can see…”

“Yeah, yeah, I can.” Katsuki squeezed through a hole created by two of the fake buildings leaning into one another. “You, uh, got anything else you wanna show me?”

“Why? You got something you want to see?” Katsuki turned his body to follow the call of Deku’s voice.

“From you? I’ve got a lot of things I want to see.”

“Is that so?”

He could hear the way that Deku was restraining his own laughter. “Since when?”

“I’ve been very intrigued by you for awhile. Meanwhile, you were downright obsessed with me when we were kids.” Beside him, Katsuki held out his hand, beginning to warm it up.

“Oh, completely. You were incredible. You still are.”

“Flattery’ll get you everywhere, Deku.”

“Promise?”

The smile on Katsuki’s face was starting to ache, but he couldn’t have gotten rid of it if he tried. “Where are you trying to get to?”

“Eh, where are you going after this?” Katsuki’s eyes snapped the exact place that Deku was, grinning.

“Oh, I’ve got a date after this. Someone’s buying my lunch and my dinner tonight.”

“You sound awfully confident for someone who’s about to have an empty wallet.”

Katsuki realized in a split second his miscalculation when he caught Deku’s voice just over his shoulder.

It felt like slow-motion almost. He spun around to see Deku raising a fist, that golden light pouring into it as Deku shouted. Katsuki used one hand to spin himself out about as his raised fist ignited, turning to meet Deku with a shout of his own.

“Detroit Smash!”

“Inferno Fist!”

The resounding blast was catastrophic, Katsuki sent flying one way and Deku the other. What bits of debris that were around them were blasted into opposite walls with a crater in the very center of the training room. What felt like hours pass before Katsuki struggled to come back to himself, body aching. His right arm was black as charcoal, mostly useless, but it’d be back to one-hundred percent in an hour. Across the room, he could see Deku struggling to get to his own feet.

“Does that count as lethal damage?”

And Deku paused, trying to move his arm.

“Not entirely. Are you admitting defeat?”

“You wish, Deku! You wanna win, you gotta pin me!”

The man’s face scrunched up with a huff, muttering something.

“What the hell did you just say?”

“If you want me to pin you down that badly, Kacchan, all you gotta ask!” And for Katuki’s part, he managed to keep the strangled noise in even as his face turned red. They just regarded each other in various states of pain. So Katsuki struggled to his feet as Deku started to move towards him. Alright. One hand left, but that was really all that he needed.

He started to ignite his left hand up as Deku moved forward with purpose. But as Katsuki raised his hand to strike, Deku put a hand around the back of Katsuki’s neck, dragged him forward and… and… kissed him?

It wasn’t anything to write home about, he tried to tell himself. Mostly, it just tasted like sweat and maybe a little like blood, but damn did it cross almost every wire in his brain. He was left just dazed as his hand cooled back down, staring helplessly at Deku. Then Deku pushed Katsuki hard in the centre of his chest and he went down like a ton of bricks. He didn’t have the time to even ask what the hell Deku thought he was doing before he offered a crooked smile before gripping his arm and wincing.

For a few moments, only the sound of harsh breathing was tangible before a crackled came from the loudspeakers.

“...uh, Deku wins?” Then a pause. “Ekara-san is going to absolutely murder both of you.”

“What?!” Katsuki shook his head. “You didn’t pin me!”

“Kacchan, we ruined the facility.”

“Eh,” Katsuki looked up and blanched. “Oh.”

When Deku offered his hand, Katsuki took it, brushing himself off before shoving Deku away from him.

“What the hell was that?”

“Human unpredictability,” Deku muttered, at least having the decency to look sheepish. “Too far?”

“You think?” Katsuki hissed, feeling his face hot with more than just exertion. “You do that with every person you face off against?”

And Deku huffed, rolling his eyes. “Only the really pretty angry ones I went to school with.”

Katsuki stopped short to glare at Deku. “Huh. To be fair, that describes almost most of our class.”

When Deku laughed that time, Katsuki laughed along.

“Come on, walk to me to the clinic. You fucked up my arm.” He threw the good one around Katsuki’s shoulders and Katsuki wrapped his own good arm around Deku’s waist.

“You fucked up mine. Mind you, you tried to ‘Detroit Smash’ me. I remember that move vividly.”

“Consider it payback for when we were kids.”

“How is that payback for…?” He shook his head. “You kissed me to distract me to win. That’s cheating.” Deku smiled like an idiot at Katsuki and nodded.

“Yeah, yeah, it was. That was a great move, I think.”

“That one got a name?” As they limped out together, Deku frowned before his face lit up and he lead them down the hall towards the clinic.

“A lifetime of trying to get your attention paying off?”

Katsuki snorted. “Deku, you’ve always had my attention.”

~

In the end, Katsuki was easily looked after (“You’re lucky that you’re as fire resistant as you are. Some people,” the nurse threw Deku a positively dirty look that made Deku retreat several inches, “aren’t as lucky.”), so he decided to just wait outside the clinic for Deku to finish up. He flipped through his phone--a few messages from Eijirou asking how it was all going, a co-worker confirming that he could cover Katsuki’s hours for the day, and a very long message from Mr. Wright detailing what information he’d just gotten from Ekara-san about the destruction of the training facility.

Really, if it couldn’t stand a pair of heroes using their Quirks at full capacity, it wasn’t that good of a facility. Hell, even Outland’s facility could handle that and had on many occasions.

“Hey, I didn’t expect you to still be here.” He glanced up when Deku walked out with his arm in a sling. “I thought you’d head out.”

“We have a date, don’t we?”

“Still?”

Katsuki rolled his eyes, throwing his arm around Deku’s shoulders and not-so-secretly pleased when Deku wrapped his arm around Katsuki’s waist.

“Unless you don’t want to. Hell, if you’d rather I didn’t pay for your lunch, then that saves me my money and my manners.”

Deku looked downright offended, mouth opening and closing uselessly like a fish, Katsuki breaking out into laughter before tugging Deku towards the exit of the building.

“I didn’t say that, I just…” Deku gave a weak laugh. “I don’t know. Sitting with the nurse prodding me with things for an extended period of time gave me a lot of time to overthink and I was worried that might have just been a heat-of-the-moment thing. No pun intended.”

“Too bad. Pun taken as intended.” Katsuki offered a slight smile of his own. “To be fair, it was a heat-of-the-moment thing, but my life is a heat-of-the-moment thing. And… I… I’ve kind of liked you for awhile, so… Not that big of a deal.”

“You what now?!” Deku stopped dead in his tracks and Katsuki almost tripped when he was yanked back. “Very much a big deal!”

“It’s… I…” Katsuki pulled his arms back to cross them over his chest as Deku put his hands on his waist. “I kind of liked you when we were kids and… I don’t know, I was just really, really bad about showing it. I panicked and making fun of you got you to pay attention to me, so that’s what I did. And when we were at UA you were just a lot better than me and I got jealous. Whatever. Not a big deal.”

There was a pause before Deku’s lips split into a grin. “Kacchan!” he cooed.

“I swear to god, if you make it a big deal, I’ll punch you in the gut--” Deku leant forward to kiss Katsuki’s cheek and like a released balloon, the annoyance rushed out of Katsuki and he deflated.

“To be fair, I… like you since we were kids, too. I always admired you and I spent a lot of time trying to prove myself to you. I thought if you ever saw me as your equal, we could be friends and all. By the end of UA, it kind of felt like we were friends.”

That last semester was nice. They talked, they joked, but then Deku was drowned out by everyone wanting to having All Might’s Successor at their Agency and Katsuki couldn’t even get anyone to be interested in him. They graduated, time separated them, but time seemed to also bring them back together again.

“So, we were both idiot kids who had crushes on each other. Cool.”

“Cool.” Deku started smiling and Katsuki returned the smile in kind, even if it was smaller.

“Come on, I’m starving. I don’t know how you always managed getting completely wrecked by your Quirk.”

“Not the worst kind of wrecked you can get.”

“That so? Wanna show me?”

“I thought you had work.”

“Eh,” Katsuki pushed the door open and shrugged, “For you? I’ve got time."