Chapter Text
Katsuki was awake. It was really, really cold, and he was not falling asleep easy.
He felt restless.
Throwing open the blinds, Katsuki peered out the window.
Amber lights shone in the dark, illuminating the thin layer of snow on the ground. The sky was indigo-black, and he saw a single star twinkling, the only one visible through the light pollution.
He groaned, running his hands down his face. Midnight said there would be a quiz tomorrow, which was not the reason he was worried, because of course he would do fine! He was obviously the best at math in the class.
The problem was that Kirishima had only studied when Katsuki managed to drag him away from whatever he and the other idiots were doing, and Katsuki knew that if Kirishima failed, he would whine for weeks about it- something he was not looking forward to.
He rolled his eyes, muttered a curse, and tugged a sweater over his head.
God, he was so tired of this. Sleep did not come easy to Katsuki; there was always that looming fear, which he despised, because he shouldn’t feel like that, ever. It felt like suffocating, like something disgusting holding him hostage, a million chains cutting deep around his arms, sludge in his lungs. He was supposed to be immovable, unchanging. Lately there had been a lot changing, guilt creeping around the corners of his mind, killing him in a way deeper than the fear, a twisting knife, someone sinister in his head rubbing salt deeper into the wound.
But he, the immovable object, could only wince in place, frozen.
Katsuki scowled, shaking his head. It was the thoughts that kept him up. His own brain. How much longer could he pretend it was the chill of the air?
He slipped on his waterproof winter boots and began the lonely walk down the empty hall. A light flickered, to the left, over a storage closet. Probably idiot Pikachu’s fault.
The empty halls reminded him of when he was a kid, creeping through the kitchen at night in an act of angry, quiet retaliation. He was always angry and loud in the day, and his mom would be angry and loud back, but at night Katsuki could pretend he was some assassin, or a spy on a mission, or the rakish guy the main character teamed up with in a movie, always right, always winning.
He could pretend the bruises on his arms and cheek were from a calculated, meaningful mission.
And his mission now was to see if any classmates were lurking nearby (unlikely, as it was 3:25 AM, but you could never know).
Ducking back inside his room, he wrenched the window open and leapt out. The smallest explosion cushioned his landing, and he winced briefly at the loud noise it made, and the cold, cold air biting at his face.
Whatever.
Tiny flakes of snow landed in his hair. He strode across the grounds, looking for something- anything- to do. The cold reminded him of that day, the sports festival, Icy Hot’s stupid, impassive face only barely holding back emotion. Or maybe the bastard just didn’t know how to feel, after his craphole father did what he did.
A lesser man than Katsuki might have compared him and Half and Half- both powerful, young, abused.
The difference, he thought grimly, was that Todoroki was innocent.
The bastard had never done anything wrong in his life.
Right now, Katsuki couldn’t close his eyes without thinking of All Might’s skeletal frame, or eleven-year-old Deku’s wobbling eyes after Katsuki shoved him into the garbage, or Kirishima’s hurt expression as Katsuki brushed him off again and swore in his face.
And god, why should he change now?
Nobody expected him to change. Nobody liked him.
That’s not true, whispered a part of Katsuki’s brain that sounded suspiciously like Kirishima, people like you.
You just don’t deserve it, came back his own.
He must not be a good person if he didn’t even want to change. How the hell could he be?
Katsuki fell face-first into the snow, the shock running through his body like a match being struck. He rolled over, numb.
He stared up, street lamps blinding him from the corner of the sky. He squinted in the air. His eyes were dry, and he felt like he couldn’t cry, even though the horrible, creeping feeling was growing more.
There was the solo star again, twinkling, alone like him.
But as he lay there, freezing, his eyes slowly grew more used to the sky, and he noticed another, and another, and another, glittering in the corners of the horizons, in between tree leaves, barely visible. Sometimes he would think it was a trick of the light, when he saw them, because they were so small.
As stupid as it was, he felt a loss. He couldn’t even relate to the star, now.
************************************
Izuku awoke at 3:41 AM.
He groaned, rubbing his eyes, blinking at the alarm clock in hope that it would say something different. Seriously, maybe he should take melatonin or something.
What had woken him up? He remembered a dream. Something about fireworks?
He closed his eyes again. And lay there. And continued to do so.
Nothing happened.
Izuku sat up, defeated. He was kind of thirsty. Might as well get water, seeing as his insomnia was keeping him up.
He pulled himself out of bed. His green hair sat in a ridiculous mess over his forehead. He walked into the hall, sucking in a breath when the cold tile floor hit his bare feet.
He headed to the kitchen, slightly disoriented and slightly annoyed. His arms hurt from yesterday’s training, and sleep was, you know, when muscles healed. Wonderful.
The light was on. Izuku frowned. Of course someone was up; it was class 1-A. Probably Ashido making ramen or Mineta doing god knows what.
He padded into the kitchen to see...
“Kacchan?” Izuku gaped. Bakugo‘s head whipped up. His hair was wet, and he was swaddled in a blanket. He was also cooking beef. At 3:40 in the morning.
“Why are you up?!” he asked, the smell of the meat just then registering in his brain. “Are you wet?”
Kacchan’s face turned slack. He looked back to his pan, pulling the blanket around himself tighter.
“Why are you up?” he grumbled, grabbing a cutting board with onions and scraping them into the pan with a knife.
“I just woke up. I’m getting water.”
Bakugo grunted in response and stirred his dish.
Izuku frowned. He peered at the boy, his face set with annoyance, eyes sleepy. But there was something else there.
“Are you okay?” he tested, shifting on his feet.
Kacchan scowled deeper. He didn’t respond.
Izuku was uneasy. He got his water, and paused before leaving, glancing at Bakugo. He was pointedly pretending that Izuku didn’t exist.
“Hey, do you want to talk about... anything?” he offered, carefully, bracing for impact.
Kacchan turned to glower at Izuku. “No. Go to sleep, Deku.”
There was a waver in his voice.
Holy cow, Kacchan was crying.
He whipped his head back, desperately dragging a hand down his eyes.
Izuku walked forward, feeling like he was treading on eggshells. “Kacchan.” he whispered, hovering a hand over his shoulder.
Bakugo’s hands were shaking. “Why?”
Izuku pulled his hand back. “Why... what?”
Kacchan turned to look at him, red eyes flaming. “Oh, I don’t know. Why are you nice to me? Why the HELL do you care about me? Why do you,” -he punctuated every word with a tiny explosion- “Never. Get. Mad?!”
Bakugo’s chest heaved, and upon seeing Izuku’s watery expression, slumped. His head fell, and he ran his hands through his hair, yanking at his scalp.
“Shit- Answer.” he hissed.
“I... I don’t-“ Izuku stumbled, hands again hovering, a breath away from comforting him. “Kacchan, you’re amazing.” He finished, terrified of saying the wrong thing.
Bakugo looked up, seething. “No, I'm not! Crap, Deku, I bullied you for years! Why don’t you HATE me?”
And he was crying again, tears running down his face, fists gripping his blanket.
Izuku blinked, shocked. “Kacchan, I can’t hate you! You’re passionate, and- uh, determined, and competitive, and you’re-"
He searched for the right word.
“Growing.”
Bakugo looked up, eyebrows raised. “How can you say that? I’m not. I haven’t changed, idiot!”
He threw the blanket violently on the ground and collapsed, wrapping his arms over his head.
“I don’t get it! I don’t get why you still talk to me like I’m your friend! I don’t get why Round Face spars with me and why Tsu gives me her cookies at lunch and-“ he hiccuped, wiping his face quickly and shakily, “And why Kaminari follows me around between classes, and why- why Sero fucking tries to make me laugh with his stupid knock knock jokes, and why Raccoon Eyes gives me fashion advice-“ He cut himself off, voice tapering off into despair.
“And why Eijirou is always trying to act like we’re some sort of team-“
At that one he dug his nails into his neck, hysterical.
“I’m still just a terrible fucking person. How did I ever think I could be a hero?” the last part he said almost indistinctly, as if he'd given up on communicating to Izuku his words; as if he needed to say them aloud because they'd been tumbling around in his head for eons.
Izuku balked. “Katsuki!” he shrieked.
Bakugo’s eyes snapped open.
“You are not the same person you were. Back when you bullied me you acted like you were the king of the world. Look at you! You hate yourself! You don’t like being a bully- you haven’t been really mean to me in months, and you don’t like being mean to your friends- yes, Kacchan, they are your friends! You care about them, despite how you try to hide it behind nicknames and- and insults.“
Kacchan was staring at him, pale eyelashes sticking to each other, wet with tears.
Izuku squatted down to where he sat on the floor “You,” he whispered, poking Bakugo’s chest, “Are not a bad person.”
Kacchan relaxed, and slumped down against the oven, shaking. Izuku couldn’t tell if it was because he was cold, or if it was because he was shocked.
Izuku hesitated, and Bakugo looked up at him, eyes wide. Izuku threw his caution to the wind and pulled him into a hug.
And, against all odds, Kacchan hugged him back.
That was new.
And he was crying, still, and Izuku realized he was too, but that was normal- he had always been a crybaby, and all of Kacchan’s crying set him off.
Bakugo smelled like caramel, which he supposed was a side effect of the whole nitroglycerin sweat thing. When Kacchan was little, bugs would crawl on him, ants and bees and butterflies.
Bakugo clung to him, gripping him a bit too tight. Izuku laughed wetly.
They pulled apart. “I don’t want to call you Deku anymore.” Kacchan said. Izuku blinked in surprise.
“Kacchan, it’s okay. Uraraka-chan calls me Deku too, and it’s my hero name. I don’t mind.” he said gently, hands still on Bakugo’s shoulders.
Kacchan sat up straighter. “Can I call you Izuku?” he said, voice rasping. As if it was hard to choke out. His expression was somewhere between absolutely relieved and absolutely mortified.
Izuku blinked, fully surprised. “Yeah! I mean- if you want.” he grinned. “I’m still calling you Kacchan though.”
Bakugo groaned, but he smiled after. Smiled! Genuinely, at Izuku, for perhaps the first time. And it was three something in the morning. On brand, he thought.
Kacchan got up and opened to the spice cabinet (the spices which he bought himself). He set a fake scowl on his face, probably to negate the earnestness of their conversation. Izuku rolled his eyes and chuckled to himself.
He grabbed his water, feeling light. He was halfway out of the kitchen, when-
“Izuku,” Kacchan croaked. “Wait.”
He stumbled, dashing back into the kitchen. “Yeah?”
Bakugo paused for a second. “You’re not useless. You never have been. I’m-“ he looked absolutely resolute, determined. “Sorry. I’m sorry, Izuku. You’re... cool.”
Izuku almost laughed. What dimension was he living in? Cool.
“Right back at you, Kacchan. I forgive you.”
(and he knew it would take time. There was something in the years of constant fear and hurt that could not go away in a single "I'm sorry" and "I forgive you."
...but it was a start.)
Kacchan’s face did a thing, where it scrunched up all ugly to attempt to hide all the relief.
Izuku took mercy on him and bounced the way back to his room, grinning from ear to ear.