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~A misunderstanding to a dream to a nightmare to an understanding~
Izuku wasn’t quite sure how he kept getting himself into these situations. Faintly, he wondered if he just had a radar for crying children— he’d known instantly where Kouta was, and what Eri-chan needed.
(Well. He hadn’t quite been able to help Eri-chan the way he’d wanted to, and Sir had... had died. Close enough though, right?)
Anyways. He was just at the shopping mall, picking up extra wrist and ankle weights, like he did any given day.
(It was a month to the day to the hour that Nighteye had died. Izuku had needed a distraction.)
And then a little girl had started crying in the crowd, and immediately Izuku’d tried to find her— and here she was, all violently orange curls and freckles and purple eyes filled over with tears.
She was so small, goodness gracious— reminded him of when he was a toddler, running after Kacchan and dreaming of getting his mom’s Quirk.
He kneels down, shaking himself out of daydreams, and gives the poor dear a reassuring smile. He’s not on-duty right now, but he can stop and help her anyway, right?
“What’s wrong?” He asks her, and she stares at him with wide eyes before crying louder. “Oh, no no no, dear, don’t worry! What’s your name?” He asks kindly, and she rubs at her nose, lip quivering.
“K-Kanade,” she eventually gets out, and then another sob rips out of her.
“And what’s wrong, Kana-chan?” Izuku asks, hoping to pacify her enough with the nickname to figure out what kind of help she needs.
“`M lost,” she sniffles miserably, and at that Izuku breathes a sigh of relief he didn’t even know he’d been holding.
“Okay, Kana-chan. Who were you with? Can I pick you up?”
She sniffs. “Was here with Mama,” she mutters, and then makes grabby-hands at Izuku, so he lifts her up onto his hip. “Mama says you shouldn’t trust strangers,” she says petulantly, and Izuku chuckles.
“Your mama is right, Kana-chan, but I’m also training to be a hero, so you can trust me. I promise.”
She gives his face an appraising look that is definitely full of suspicion, but at least she’s stopped crying. “Pinky promise?”
Izuku extends a pinky, and she nods seriously, linking hers with his.
He doesn’t notice her eyes glow.
(He’ll kick himself for it later.)
What follows is what seems like an earthquake of vibrations hitting Izuku square in the chest, coming from the little girl and inordinately laced with fear.
“Urgh,” is all he manages to get out before falling to one knee, cradling Kana-chan protectively.
Kana-chan stares at him, stunned, before bursting into newly-renewed tears. “Fuck,” he says once it’s over, and then her eyes widen.
“Mister, you said a bad word,” she says tentatively, and Izuku laughs breathlessly. Besides feeling like he’d momentarily gotten hit by a truck, he was fine, actually. And it didn’t look like anything else had been affected, which meant... Kana-chan’s Quirk was damn powerful.
“I did. Don’t say it to anyone, yeah?”
“Are you ok?” She asks tearily, and he shoots her a mostly-okay smile.
“Was that your Quirk, Kana-chan?” He asks, hoisting her up once more, and she stares at him for a second before smiling wildly.
“I guess it was!” She says, giggling, staring down at her hand, still held in Izuku’s. Tears completely forgotten.
Izuku blinks down at her.
“Er... Kana-chan, have you never used your Quirk before?”
She shakes her head cheerily, tears gone. Izuku tries to keep himself from stumbling at the admittance, lest he drop her, but that was big.
He’d just been subject to a Quirk manifestation.
Maybe he should feel awed, but honestly he just wanted to get back to the dorms.
“Alright then, Kana-chan! Let’s find your Mama, yeah?”
“Yeah!”
~~~
Seven minutes of searching, Kana-chan attempting to remember what her Mama was wearing and cooing over being up on Izuku’s shoulders later, they end up at the help desk with a near-hysterical woman.
“Kanade! Thank god!” She says, eyes red-rimmed, as she goes to grab and spin Kana-chan around. Well, Izuku sees where she gets her waterworks from.
(Not like he wasn’t the same.)
“Thank you for finding her!” Yoko Kira-san, as her name turns out to be, is very happy.
“Yoko-san, how old is Kana-chan?” Izuku asks, feeling slightly tired.
“Er, nearly three. Why?”
Izuku smiles at her. “Her Quirk activated today, actually.”
“What?”
“At me.”
“What?!”
“It was a sonar pulse, I think.”
“WHAT?!” Yoko sputters, staring down at innocent little Kana-chan. “But both my husband and I have empathic quirks! I mean, my husband’s Quirk causes a minor shock to go through the body— could you— what did she look like? Was it transformative? It didn’t hurt her, did it?”
After a few minutes of Yoko-san rapid-fire asking questions, she calms down enough to ask Izuku if he’s alright, rather embarrassedly. Izuku gets it— it only happened once, a Quirk manifestation, and it was important for the whole family.
(Or it never happened, and the family wasn’t whole ever again.)
She tells him she’ll take Kana-chan to the Quirk Doctor immediately, and tells Izuku that he might as well come along.
Had it been any other day then exactly a month from when Nighteye had died, or he wasn’t out shopping, or he was with his mom, Izuku might have agreed. But damn it all, he was tired. So he thanked Yoko-san, assured her that he’d call if there were any adverse effects, and went on into the dorms.
It had been a rather fulfilling trip, all things considered, and he had gone through the rest of the day relatively easily.
~~~
Kacchan asks him to spar as nighttime approaches and Izuku’s excited that he decided to reach out to him, give him a choice, even if it’s more of a barked command then anything.
Izuku doesn’t mind— it’s just another step to making up— plus, sparring Kacchan is fun.
They head to a gym, Kacchan not making a sound, even when Izuku walks next to him, rather then behind him. He’s probably just as eager as Izuku to get to the training center.
Seconds transition to minutes to hours like nothing ever before— it’s just combat, light-hearted and bantering. Izuku loves teasing Kacchan almost as much as Kacchan loves to curse.
It’s going pretty evenly, all things considered, until a sudden wave of exhaustion hits Izuku all at once and his knees buckle, giving him an entire face full of explosion. Kacchan moves backwards at the same time Izuku does so, blinking the light out of his eyes and hissing his breaths through his teeth as the uncomfortable feeling of burning overtakes his cheeks and forehead.
“Fucking— what’s you do that for?!” Kacchan barks. Perhaps if Izuku had opened his eyes and could see properly, he’d have seen the concern in his eyes. “Dumbass Deku, are you trying to get me to melt your face off?!”
“Sorry, Kacchan,” Izuku groans, patting at his cheeks lightly. They certainly sting, but it’s not as bad as it could have been. “Good reflexes,” he says sunnily, since he’s caught the fact that Kacchan had managed to dilute the explosion at the last second.
“Tch. Weakass nerd,” Kacchan mutters, but it’s almost absent. Izuku opens his eyes and blinks more to get everything into focus.
“I’m alright! It’s like sunburn,” he says, the grin on his face making the lightly burned skin on his cheeks stretch uncomfortably.
“You calling me fucking weak, Deku? Your head fucked already? They’re loud, and I can’t have you not fighting at your best. You’re already weak as hell,” Kacchan snorts, and Izuku feels a warm kernel of happiness bead in the middle of his chest. It’s taken a long time for them to get to this point, but Kacchan, he knows, is asking Izuku if he’s alright, in his own twisted way.
“I’m okay!” Izuku says, and a fierce grin and two peppered pops are all the warning he gets before he’s being attacked again by Kacchan. Izuku calls up his Quirk again, effortless, as he tries to propel him backwards with a puff of air. It’s not enough— Kacchan spirals and Izuku grins, despite the tough spot he’s suddenly in. Guess that just means he’ll have to get close, even if it does risk being burned.
“You’re going to get what you deserve,” someone foreign hisses in Izuku’s ear, just as he readies himself to kick out with another smash. Izuku flinches, his momentum dropping with him, down like a stone. He catches Kacchan’s confused look right before he connects with the ground— and then he does so, painfully hard and twisted in an awkward direction.
Kacchan flies down a second later, landing deceptively light.
“The hell was that, you stupid nerd?!”
Izuku groans, pushing himself up and checking for broken parts. He’s mostly fine— both his pride and his tailbone will probably be severely bruised for a while, but he’s alright otherwise.
“I’m such a klutz,” Izuku mutters, rubbing a hand over his doubly-stinging face. Kacchan snorts. “Did you hear the voice though, Kacchan? So close to my ear, it was scary!” Izuku says, shivering and standing up slowly. When he turns to look towards Kacchan, expectantly, he finds the boy staring back at him with a measure of confusion.
“Deku, what voice?” He growls, and Izuku blinks.
“The—the—“ Izuku looks about, expecting to see someone else in there with them. “Huh?” He says dumbly, looking back to Kacchan, sincere confusion in his eyes. There’s a long silence before Izuku chuckles, a hand reaching up to rub at the rapidly-forming lump on the back of his head. “Maybe I concussed myself,” he says with a smile. Kacchan snorts.
“I hope so, nerd. We don’t need you going fucking crazy in the middle of a spar. You should go see the old hag if your head hurts.” Izuku makes a wordless noise of agreement, too tired to argue that Recovery Girl was not an old hag, and they look at each other before unanimously deciding to end the spar.
Kacchan grabs two towels and tosses one at Izuku carelessly, so that it smacks him in the face. Izuku pouts, and startles when he takes it off his face. At that, Kacchan scoffs, though it isn’t derisive.
“What, did you get scared by how cold it was? I don’t want a half-assed towel, Deku.” Normally, Izuku would deign to be amused by the fact that Kacchan believed even towels could half-ass their jobs, but he could have sworn he’d seen a silhouette in the back of his eye, someone with hair like his, in darkened mist.
“Are you making dinner today, Kacchan?” Izuku chirps, trying his best to forget about the shadow he’d just seen and shivering lightly, rubbing at his reddened face carefully. Kacchan takes the conversation change and snorts.
“If I’m signed up for dinner duty with those dumbasses again, I’m doing it by myself. Last time they almost blew up the kitchen. We were trying to cook pasta. Fucking idiots.” Izuku giggles at Kacchan’s obvious irritation, and the other boy scowls at him. “You better fucking help, Deku. I didn’t spend all that time teaching you how to chop vegetables and not your fingers for it to go to waste.” It had been an interesting experience to learn to readjust with Izuku’s crooked fingers.
Izuku pouts at him, and their conversation devolves into nonsense as they reach the dorms and get pulled into another of Kaminari’s harebrained schemes.
Izuku eventually forgets about all of his issues, the Quirk manifestation that he’d promised Yoko-san he’d tell his teachers about, the voice in sparring, the exhaustion, the silhouette.
Izuku forgets it all, and has a productive night, working hard and discussing the week’s homework. He collapses into bed at the end, exhausted from a good day of hard work, and falls into a bottomless sleep.
(Then Kana-chan’s Quirk takes its real effect.)
~~~
Izuku opens his eyes to a familiar dark dreamscape, and nearly gasps with excitement, until confusion dims it. This was the dream he had when he was meeting with the echoes, so... where were they? He couldn’t see anyone around, none of the holders—
Which meant that this was one of his dreams, and that was infinitely worse. He typically didn’t have dreams or nightmares in this setting, though, which only served to confuse him further.
Then Izuku sees the head of pale hair and his blood runs cold, because this wasn’t like his usual dreams, and he thought he might know who that was.
Like it always is in his One For All dreams, Izuku can’t speak, no matter how he tries. He can’t scream, either, even if when he wakes up his throat is sore. He’s so tired of it.
He’s so tired.
The silhouette transforms into an unnaturally pale Kacchan as he’d feared, red eyes dulled and staring up at nothing. There’s a trail of slime from his throat and nose, and his body is grotesque, stretched out from the Slime Villain from all those months ago.
Izuku knows where this dream is going to go, he thinks. With numb realization, Yoko’s voice echoes through the back of his head.
”A sonar pulse? But both my husband and I are empaths...”
“You killed me, Deku,” the voice around him says, and Izuku shivers, suddenly feeling like this is all too real.
He knows he nearly killed Kacchan— All Might wouldn’t have been short on time if it wasn’t for his selfish desire; Kacchan had to suffer because Izuku wanted an autograph. “You’re too selfish, and All Might wasn’t fast enough because you slowed him down, and now I’m dead.”
Izuku wants to tell Kacchan that he’s alive, but suddenly he’s wondering if that’s true, because the corpse in front of him looks so real he almost can’t stand to see it and what if Kacchan really had died, it was all his fault—
“Someone help!” A weak voice calls, and Izuku looks up in horror to see Uraraka-san, trapped under rubble and in real danger of being crushed. Izuku wants to stay by Kacchan, but he also can’t let Uraraka get hurt.
He tries to tell her he’ll save her, or he’ll do his best to do so, but the words won’t leave his throat, and to his horror he feels himself turning away, like the rest of the applicants.
“No— please don’t leave me, I—” Izuku tears himself away, throws himself at the robot, relief coursing through his veins at finally being able to control the nightmare. His fist connects with the robot, but instead of imploding it careens to the side, forwards, right by—
There’s a horrific crunch, the distant sounds of screams, and Izuku feels his eyes widen, because he can’t see he can’t see where is she where did Uraraka-san go—
“You killed me.” Her voice is hurt and quiet, accusing. “What were you thinking, punching a robot like that? It put shrapnel everywhere, you know. You almost stabbed Iida-kun through the back, you know. Hey, hey, I’m dead, you know.”
Izuku closes his eyes, the only solace he has from her bloodied and mangled face, shredded by metal and reddened with thick, congealing blood. What is this? What has he done to deserve this? What has he done?
“Midoriya-chan?” A throaty voice pipes up, and Izuku looks up in horror, tears already spilling freely down his face. There is Tsuyu, eyes wide and fearful. “Where are we? What happened, I— oh no, Aizawa-sensei! We have to save him, kero—!” Izuku stares as she freezes, eyes tracking an imaginary target, and then a large hand lands on her face and it’s Izuku’s hand because he nearly killed her because he couldn’t get to her in time and now she was just going to crumble away into ashes once and for all—
Her ashes mix with an imagined wind, and Izuku gags.
There’s no rest for the wicked, because something brushes against where his foot should be and Izuku turns to see the utterly broken body of Aizawa-sensei, looking up without the familiar glow in his eyes.
There’s blood running down his face and his arms are crushed, just like Izuku remembered at the USJ, except the Noumu had gotten to him too fast and Eraserhead could have been saved but Izuku had been scared and he couldn’t move, he was such a coward—
“You shouldn’t have run,” Aizawa-sensei’s voice echoes, strange and hoarse and not like him at all, like someone had robbed him of his vocal chords and ground them into dust.
Izuku tries to convey with his eyes that he didn’t want to, that it was Aizawa-sensei who told him to anyway. Somehow, the message gets through, but the corpse stays silent and still, his voice echoing again instead around the two of them.
“I only told you to run because it was the thing people expected me to say. You should have stayed. You should have become part of the fodder to slow them down, you filth.”
Logically, Izuku knows he’s dreaming, and that Aizawa-sensei would never say something like that to him.
Emotionally? He can’t think straight, and the dream won’t let him release the scream in his throat, and there’s utter panic in his veins, beating to his fluttering heart.
“You should have been faster,” rasps Iida, and Izuku gasps in horror as he sees a slitted throat, hot, too-fast blood spilling out of his friend uncontrollably, just out of his reach. “You saw I was hurting and you came and you were too slow and look where we are now. You condemned us all, Midoriya,” Iida spits his name like venom and finally the tears splat on the ground by Izuku’s not-legs, the seizing fear in his heart becoming a sharp pain as he catches sight of another silhouette, once split hair now completely reddened, sitting in a pool of his own violently bright and sticky blood, lacerations and punctures covering his body.
Todoroki had tried his best to survive, but Izuku had brought him into a danger that was far too great, too horrible and overwhelming and he couldn’t help them, any of them—
“You’re the reason I’m dead,” Ragdoll hisses, features stretching and warping.
Kouta’s small body picks itself up next, haplessly broken and scratched and drenched in water, like he’s tried his best but he had just followed in his parent’s footsteps.
“I was just a child,” he whispers, and his hand holds another one’s, the girl with silvery hair who had to be pulled from the jaws of a monster so great Izuku nearly killed himself doing it—
“You didn’t do anything. I died there, because Chisaki hurt me and you and didn’t bring me back,” she says, so much accusation and betrayal in her shaking voice Izuku nearly doubles over, anguish making his vision blur. One by one they all latch onto him— yellow hair, cracked glasses—
“Sam shot me, Izuku, he shot me—”
“Why couldn’t you protect us, Midoriya-kun?”
“Izuku nii-san?”
Sero, elbows cracked open and and bleeding on the ground.
Shinsou, strangled in a training exercise.
Kouda and Aoyama, impaled on the blue dragon Quirk of that monster. Ashido, Hagakure, blood soaking her face into distinguishable features, Jiro, Yaomomo, Kirishima.
Mirio, blown into a shower of blood in front of a pair of shocked crimson eyes.
Nighteye, spikes protruding into his stomach as he regrets ever taking Izuku on as an intern.
Kaminari, shocked past his limit and bleeding through his eyes, the fear still evident in his corpse’s face.
Tokoyami, Dark Shadow dying right next to him. Countless faces reach at him, everyone he’s saved and nearly killed, just by being there or not moving fast enough or just not being good enough—
“My boy,” All Might breathes, and Izuku’s heart aches when he turns to see the man coughing blood as he always does. He is actually alive, dangerously realistic— the first one to speak like he normally did, and Izuku can’t help but wonder why, watching his mouth form the words. He feels himself shutting down— something cold and numbing sweeping across him, everything that was too loud and fast and close and bright and iron-smelling fading away.
All Might— Toshinori— turns to him, and Izuku finds he can finally move, and be in control of his actions. He springs forward, drops to his knees, suddenly having a solid body despite still not being able to talk.
Toshinori smiles at him, but it’s weak and there’s fear in his eyes and Izuku knows he never wanted to go out this way. He cradles his mentor’s head— the man who gave him everything, dying because Izuku was too weak, he couldn’t stop it and now he was sitting here and—
A horrible prickling feeling hits the back of his neck, the kind when someone is watching you, and Izuku turns more subconsciously then not, an absent sort of horror rooting in his gut only to turn into a pit of abysmal terror as he realizes why the floor is crimson.
Behind him is a trail of bodies, countless faces in agony, his classmates his teachers his mother all attacked and hurt burned killed—
“My boy,” Toshinori rasps, unable to see the many, many bodies behind him, the warm blood lapping at Izuku’s legs. Izuku cradles his head close, staring desperately into his mentor’s (father’s) eyes as the light bleeds out of them.
Izuku tries to hold a hand over his wound, but his hand is only half-there, shadowed and useless and making him feel that much worse.
“It’s alright.”
Traitorously, Izuku feels a pang of relief shoot through him, that All Might will at least have some kind parting words from him, rather then sharp and betrayed accusations. Then he feels disgusted that he ever thought that, and more hot tears spill down his cheeks, to his throat.
Toshinori is looking for a way to comfort him, Izuku realizes distantly— he can see it in his eyes. Isn’t it funny, how he knows that from a single expression? How does the man bleeding out in his arms still look for ways to comfort Izuku instead?
He tries his best to hide the pile of bodies from Toshinori’s view. Toshinori, not knowing, looks up and smiles once more, weak and pallid in a way that makes cold fear mingle with icy resignation deep in his gut.
The man looks up at him, blue eyes meeting his.
“It’ll be alright, my boy,” he says, lips quirking up despite the obvious agony he’s in. “After all, look at...” He coughs once, and then smiles toothily, achingly innocent.
“Look at what you’ve already done.”
In any other circumstance, Izuku would be touched.
But here, as Toshinori bares his bloodied teeth at him, perfectly unaware that what he’s just said clicks perfectly with the pile of corpses behind him, something snaps.
Yes, look at what Izuku’s already done, what he’s ruined.
Look at them all.
Cold hands touch Izuku, wrap around his throat and leave wet smears as he sits there, frozen, as the light dims from All Night’s eyes and his perfectly innocent words twist and warp into the corpse’s smiles behind him.
Look at what you’ve done.
Izuku’s heart breaks.
~~~
All of Class 1-A are light sleepers, nowadays. It comes with the attacks.
Which means that when all of them jolt awake, something alarming them simultaneously, they spring into action, quiet feet padding across floorboards and rugs, grabbing slippers and opening doors carefully, to see what’s wrong.
One blonde-haired boy looks up and curses in a growl, because he’d heard the sound of glass breaking before and he knew whose damn dorm that was.
Then there’s a single scream— short, and cut off, as if someone’s coming to awareness. As one, the class looks at one another, fear spearing them through their hearts at the sudden burst of agony, so swiftly muffled.
That was Midoriya’s voice, and they headed to his dorm, numb and sick with fear. What might have happened? Was he sick? Did he get stabbed? Was he attacked? Why did he scream?
As one, they run up the stairs.
~~~
Katsuki had known there was something off about the nerd ever since he’d gotten back from wherever the hell he was— the mall, was it? He’d had to get in the middle of a little girl’s Quirk manifesting at him, and Katsuki had been forced to listen to the damn nerd ramble for seven minutes about the potential used of a Sonar Pulse Quirk, and how mutations to this degree were uncanny, since both of the girl’s parents had Empathic Quirks, until he’d finally let loose an explosion and asked him to be quiet. You know, more or less.
There were curses, obviously, because Katsuki wasn’t a fucking coward.
Honestly, Katsuki had no idea where the two of them stood, relationship-wise. They knew each other better then anyone else, and Deku had chosen to share his and Skeletor’s— All Might’s, right, who would have fucking thought— secret with him, specifically. Katsuki was beginning to see everything he’d fucked up between them even if he did sort of still hate Deku's fucking guts, and then they’d had that screaming match.
There were hundreds of things broken between them, and Katsuki wasn’t going to apologize for what he’d done in the past (yet), even if Deku had told him he still saw him as his— his symbol of victory. But now they were... equals, more or less.
If anything, Deku made a good training dummy, at least, so of course Katsuki had taken to telling him when they were going to spar. The nerd was always eager to comply, after all.
They’d had a good few matches, and Katsuki was just beginning to think things were fine as per usual and he was just being paranoid when the nerd’s knees had buckled.
He’d barely managed to weaken his explosion that was headed for the dumbass's face when the nerd had suddenly stumbled and fallen forward, and it was only because he’d already taken note of the strangely exhausted look in Deku’s eyes. What was this nerd on about?! Had he stayed up all night training again?
Regardless, the shit had brushed it off with a smile and a pout at his now-reddened cheeks. Katsuki readied himself again, and then the nerd had fallen in the middle of their fight.
Katsuki knew he had to call it off then, when Deku had started rambling about hearing fucking voices, so he did, and then the nerd almost seemed to be acting like normal.
Until now.
Katsuki stalks across the hallway, as extras stuck their heads out in alarm and looked at him, visibly worried. He sighs in irritation, reviewing through his head what might have set Deku off— the last time this had happened, it was because the holders of that weirdass Quirk had decided they wanted to fucking chat with him.
There’s a group gathered by his door, the fucking Dekusquad and a few others he barely spares a glance at.
“Did anyone get Aizawa-sensei yet?” Round Cheeks asks, tremulously, and Katsuki wonders why they haven’t walked inside yet. He shoulders through the crowd of worried faces and raps on the door, to some scandalized gasps. What? If Deku’s dying, he won’t answer the door, or maybe he’ll scream or something. No harm done.
Katsuki ignores the niggling worry in the back of his head when there’s no immediate answer, no dumb nerd beaming at him and doing his absolute best at pissing him off.
“Deku?” He demands, thinking back through the day. What could have set him off? There hadn’t been any training today, so he doubted Deku would have randomly manifested another Quirk. He’d been at the mall— he’d helped that little girl when she’d—
“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Katsuki grumbles, a little horrified at the fact that he didn’t realize what could have happened sooner. What’d the nerd said? He’d been hit by a sonar pulse, despite the fact that both of the girl’s parents had been Empaths?
That wasn’t right. Two emotional Quirks didn’t make a fucking earthquake one.
Katsuki steps back and kicks in the door with one easy motion, a pathetic crunch coming from the direction of the lock and gasps from his classmates extras behind him, wide-eyed. He stalks in, looking around carefully, hoping he wasn’t completely wrong.
And then he wishes he was, a little bit.
There's Deku alright, sitting in the middle of his floor, collapsed in a half-upright position like a doll with its strings cut. A few of the extras behind him gasp again, but Katsuki stares at Deku critically as tears continue to run down his face. He kneels down.
“Oy.” Izuku’s eyes snap to his, and he almost shudders at how blank they look. Dead, like. Katsuki shouldn't know this look so intimately. Katsuki shouldn't know what fucking guilt and shame looked like, but he'd--
(He’d seen dead bodies at Kamino, looked down at his hands that were covered with their blood, choked on the slippery feeling of worthlessness. He knows what the nerd's thinking about.)
He scoffs and takes a leap of mostly-assured faith because he's not a damn coward, and shoots his shot. “I’m not dead, nerd. Or... whatever you saw. You’re back in the real world.” He waves his hand at the walls, and Izuku’s eyes follow, robotically.
Then a horrible, cracked smile finds its way into Deku’s face.
“Are you going to make me watch Kacchan actually die this time?” He asks no one in particular, and Katsuki nearly blanches. The fucking— what? The nerd had a nightmare where he was so damn weak he died? “I mean, I saw his corpse, heard his voice. But I didn’t see him choke and die. Is that next?”
He was looking down on him again, wasn’t he?
“I said I’m not fucking dead, you dumbass,” Katsuki hears himself snarl, and then the look in Deku’s eyes changes to something of fury.
Katsuki has half a second to think maybe aggravating Deku while he’s convinced Katsuki is a threat isn’t the best idea, and then Black Whip is wrapping around him and slamming him into Deku’s shelf full of (very, very rare and dare he say precious) All Might memorabilia, and what the fuck?
“Are you going to make me watch them all die again? Do you find it funny, making me watch Tsuyu crumble away or Kouta fall off a cliff? Cradle my dying mentor’s head again just so he can smile at me and tell me I’ve done good, when there’s a mountain of bodies behind me?!”
Katsuki fights through the whips, throwing himself towards Deku even when he manages to nail him damn well in the jaw. He spits blood from a bitten tongue, distantly wondering where this ferocity was during their spar, before noticing Deku’s frozen, staring at the blood running from his mouth.
Katsuki doesn’t think, he just moves— he backhands Izuku once, making sure not to ignite any of his sweat around him, and then pulls him back by the scruff of his tee-shirt.
“Do you really think I’d die that fucking easy, Deku?” He demands, hoping the nerd will finally snap out of it. “Do I look dead to you?! Haaah?!” He feels a bit ridiculous, trying to convince someone he’s not dead and he’s as healthy as he’ll ever-fucking-be, because usually everyone expects him to bounce back from everything because that’s Bakugo for you!
All of a sudden, all of the fight goes out of Deku and he nearly falls onto his face again.
Katsuki curses, grabbing his shoulders and holding him up warily, prepared for another bruising attack.
Then Deku looks up at him properly, with his normal fucking nerd eyes, and there are already tears streaming down his face.
“I watched him die,” Deku whispers, and Katsuki knows immediately who he’s talking about. Both of them straighten shakily and Katsuki examines the haunted look in Deku’s eyes. “I saw you dead,” he rasps, and that makes Katsuki pause. “You all died... because of me,” he gasps, and then there’s a torrent of tears spilling from his face and Katsuki realizes whatever he’s seen has destroyed the nerd. “I’m so s-sorry,” he chokes out, and then a horribly loud sob rips through the air and Deku claps his hands over his mouth, looking more then a little nauseated.
The extras clamor in the background, more comical gasps of shock going through them, like Katsuki’s the one who made him fucking cry or some shit. They were worse then a fucking studio audience, goddamn.
And this was fucking bad. Katsuki knows the way the damn nerd cries— it isn’t silent, sure, but it isn’t like this, utterly ruined and gasped out.
“There was so much blood...” Izuku’s eyes meet his, and Katsuki sees the sheer horror in them, and (he remembers how he’d felt, watching All Might fight and knowing each bloodied drop that flew from him was his fault, all his fault he was the one who ended All Might—) so then when Izuku collapses against him, his sobs making his shoulders flinch and his crooked fingers trying simultaneously to push himself away because he knows Katsuki hates physical contact, Katsuki doesn’t pull away.
When Izuku falls to the ground, Katsuki’s knees buckle with him, and he sits there as Izuku’s arms go around him, pulling at the back of Katsuki’s shirt, and his sobs get so ragged they almost sound like screams, grief and utter, horrible, terror scratching his throat raw.
Katsuki grits his teeth at the sudden burning in his own throat and sits and bears the weight of Izuku’s grief, even if his arms don’t go up all the way to hug him back.
The extras by the door stare at him, wide-eyed and slack-jawed, but he can’t bring himself to glare back, even though he knows this bullshit will be spread around the school faster then that rumor about Grapebitch and his track record.
“Get All Might,” is all Katsuki says through the sounds of Izuku’s sadness, and he’s not sure how long they sit there, his wails turning to hiccups to shuddering, ruined breaths.
It feels like an eternity when Izuku finally loosens his hold and sits back, staring up at Katsuki with a vaguely shocked expression, seemingly coming back to himself. Katsuki raises a single challenging eyebrow, and Izuku sniffs again, the sound itself miserable. He opens his mouth to say something, wiping the last remnants of tears out of his red-rimmed eyes, and—
“Young Midoriya!” All Might himself says, practically sliding through the doorway and walking towards the two of them with a panicked sort of urgency.
Izuku immediately tries for a half-decent smile, but his eyes are watering again. Course the damn nerd can’t make his damn nerdier mentor worry. What was Katsuki going to do with all these dumbasses?
“What happened?” All Might asks, hushed, and Izuku winces and keeps his mouth shut.
Like a dumbass.
Honestly.
“Izuku had a nightmare or some shit, and it was because of what happened to him earlier today,” Katsuki grumbles, and both of them turn to him with utter shock on their faces.
He stares back, a little confused. “What? Dumbass said he helped a little girl who developed a seismic Quirk, except her parents were Empaths... how much do you wanna bet that’s why this happened? I saw you freaking out earlier, Izuku, don’t—“ Katsuki pauses. Oh.
When had he stopped calling him Deku?
“K-Kacchan?” Izuku sputters. “You... uh...”
Katsuki groans, pinching the bridge of his nose in exasperation. “This is seriously the fucking thing you two focus on? After Izuku’s been likely traumatized and nearly choked me to death and the Quirk that did that is still out and about and unregistered? His first name is what freaks you out?”
All Might blinks. “Well, Bakugo-shounen, this is the first time I’ve heard it happen, and—”
Izuku continues to stare at him, mouth open. “You just did it again...” This is why he couldn’t deal with fucking nerds.
“Listen, that hook was pretty fucking perfect, nerd,” Katsuki says, feeling a smirk stretch the skin on his busted lip again. “Do it in sparring more often. You earned my fucking respect with it— can’t back out now. Next time I’m beating the shit out of you.”
All Might grimaces, but Izuku does exactly what Katsuki had expected him to do— he brightens up and beams, because he’s a dumbass nerd who also happens to know what Katsuki actually means.
Tch.
“Okay, Kacchan!” He says, grinning. Katsuki stands up as Aizawa-sensei walks in, quickly surveying the situation.
“Teach, sign this one up for therapy too,” he says with a sharp jerk of his head. Izuku begins to protest and Katsuki sighs, the noise escaping him and sounding about a million years old, which was disgusting. He didn’t go to bed at eight o’ clock to sound like a wrinkled old man anyway, damn it.
...Shit. Did old men go to bed early?
“Listen, Izuku,” he swears he sees Aizawa-sensei’s eyes nearly bug out of his head and oh, this might be fun— “If I go to therapy after only going through three life-threatening situations, I don’t even know what you’re expecting with your— what, eight?” He says with a scoff. “You’re gonna fucking need it anyway, trust me.” He flaps his hand once, dismissively, and squints up at the clock. He needed sleep badly.
“It’s way past your bedtime, isn’t it?” Izuku says, and Katsuki can hear his shit-eating grin, even though his voice still wobbles with leftover fear. The teasing lilt to his tone drains the last of the tension out of Katsuki’s shoulders, and he merely flips him off as he pulls the door open again.
“For the record, dumbass,” he says, pausing, and the quiet discussion between All Might and the nerd stops again, to listen. “We would’ve died if you weren’t there. So you saved whoever the hell you dreamed about. Don’t fucking take it any other way.”
Then he closes the door behind him, flicking on the light switch so they’re not in complete darkness, and saunters away, hands in his pockets.
Honestly, he didn’t know how he kept getting into these situations.
~~~
Two days later Izuku tracks down Yoko-san and set up an appointment at Kacchan’s exasperated insistence. All Might comes with them, and they draw attention all the way to Yoko’s home, even if Kacchan’s sneering most definitely steers a few of the curious passerby away.
Izuku had spent the first day recuperating, having been given the next three days off, and explaining in halting words to Hound Dog and then later, All Might, what had happened, and discussing Quirk schematics with Kacchan later.
(It almost reminds him of the time before they had Quirks, when it was Izuku and Kacchan against the world.)
The second day was of in-depth analysis and dodging questions, smiling sheepishly when Uraraka-san asked him tearily if he was alright, or taking the silently-offered soba from Todoroki-kun. He’d sit on the couch with Kacchan and bounce ideas off of him, as the rest of his classmates watched with shock and awe.
Kacchan had glowered at more then a few of them, but never in Izuku’s direction.
When they’d eaten breakfast on the third day, ready to go on their excursion to Yoko-san, Kacchan had slipped up.
They’d all been pitching in to cook breakfast, and Izuku wasn’t paying attention because Kaminari was relaying the dangerously funny story about how he once sneezed in a swimming pool. Kacchan had turned to look at the pan and honest-to-god squawked, smacking the back of Izuku’s head from across the counter.
“Izuku, the eggs are fucking burning. Why did I let you do this part?” He grumbled, and Izuku snorted.
“Because you were too busy micromanaging what everyone else was doing?” Izuku quips back, and grabs the pan with his bad hand— he nearly drops it, the eggs tilting dangerously close to the flame. Kacchan’s eyes widened comically.
“If you fucking— Izuku, don’t you dare—” Izuku pulls away from the fire at the last second, putting the eggs on a plate and shutting off the flame. He turns and sticks his tongue out, and Kacchan is legitimately steaming—
“I’m going to fucking KICK YOUR ASS, IZU—” he chokes off the rest of the sentence as Izuku squeaks at the sudden silence.
“...Izuku?” Ashido chokes out, eyes impossibly wide. “You just called him— he—”
Izuku turns and looks around at everyone else in the silence, their mouths wide open, and then he looks at the still-murderous face of a man whose just had his pride as a cook endangered by yours truly.
Izuku does the sensible thing.
He runs.
“GET BACK HERE, YOU NERD—” The rest of the morning ends out being similarly unproductive, unsurprisingly enough.
Now it was the noon of the third day, and they’d finally reached Yoko’s home. She welcomes them with a smile and a worried look, sitting them down and offering all sorts of lovely pastries with the tea. Kana-chan walks in and gasps at the sight of Izuku, running over and beaming up at him. He smiles back, sunnily, but he knows Yoko-san’s eyes are tracking worriedly down his face at his unusual pallor and deep eyebags. The nightmare had only happened once, but he still felt exhausted.
“I take it her Quirk is more then just a seismic shock?” Yoko-san asks dryly when Izuku hands her the thick packet he’d typed out about Kana-chan’s Quirk.
“It’s some kind of a dream or emotional manipulation Quirk,” Kacchan says bluntly when Izuku begins to ramble, putting a hand over his mouth dismissively. “But the thing is, it doesn’t depend on the person’s affected emotional state—” Izuku pouts and then childishly licks Kacchan’s hand in the middle of his explanation, and Kacchan stops to screw his face up and look at Izuku in disgust.
“You just ingested nitroglycerin, you dumbass,” he says while wiping his highly explosive hand on Izuku’s shirt.
Izuku protests this vocally, and Kacchan pauses to sigh. “You’re the one who licked me, dipshit.” He turns back to Yoko-san, whose mouth is twitching, and opens his mouth, but Izuku beats him to the punch.
“It doesn’t depend on the person being affected’s emotional state, it depends on Kana-chan’s!” He says sunnily, looking down at her. “If she’s happy, they’ll get happy dreams and happy hallucinations. If she’s jealous, it’ll be something that portrays things the person envies. Same with sadness, and with fear.”
Yoko-san nods, and then pales. “She was lost, and she used it on you... while she was scared?”
Izuku keeps his smile up, despite the weight of that question, and nods.
Yoko-san sucks in a breath and smoothes Kana-chan’s curls out, nodding slowly. “It was bad, wasn’t it,” she says. It isn’t a question. Izuku merely shrugs.
“It was just a little nightmare!” Kacchan scoffs next to him. “It just depends on who it is, I think. It’ll be remarkably good for her if she wants to become a Pro, or even a psychologist or something. It’s a very powerful Quirk!” Izuku says, as kindly as he possibly can. The last thing he wants is Yoko-san thinking Kana-chan’s Quirk is a bad thing, or worse, Kana-chan thinking that herself.
Yoko-san nods. “We’re taking her to a Quirk Specialist tonight, actually. Thank you for telling me this— it’s very valuable.” Izuku beams, grateful he had helped them. Then Yoko-san stands and bows, much lower then she needs to, right in front of Izuku. He sputters for a second, waving his hands and not saying anything.
“I’m sorry for the trouble we caused you. As a hero in training, that must have been very frightening, and I’m truly sorry.”
Izuku wants to stutter it away with a “no, it’s okay!”, but he doesn’t. Instead, he casts a look at Katsuki.
“Don’t apologize,” he says instead, impossibly warm. “It was actually a really good thing!”
All Might looks between the two boys as Yoko-san straightens up, a bit confused.
“How?”
Izuku smirks at Kacchan. “I got my best friend back!” Without missing a beat, Kacchan makes a face of utter disgust.
“Izuku, if you say that again I will ask Round Face to punt you into the sun.”
“You didn’t deny it though!”
“Fuck you!”
Kana-chan blinks. “Mister, you said a bad word!” And then at Yoko-san’s expression of irritation and the wide-eyed fear on the children’s, All Might laughs, loud and boisterous.
Things would be okay, now. Every hero needed someone to watch their back— and these two would always have each other, in their own twisted kind of way.
Omake:
“I THOUGHT YOU COULD FUCKING CHOP VEGETABLES, YOU HEATHEN!”
“KACCHAN, YOU SHOULD HAVE KNOWN BETTER!”
“WHAT IS THIS BULLSHIT? HOW ARE YOU EXPECTING ME TO PUT IT IN THE CURRY?!”
“I HAVE NERVE DAMAGE! FIGHT ME!”
“I’M GOING TO PUNT YOUR ASS INTO NEXT WEDNESDAY, YOU SHIT!”
Class 1-A stared down at what would later be known as the Midoriya vs. Bakugo Food Showdown Number Seven with a measure of horror.
(After the twenty-eighth one, they will all learn to take it in stride, avoiding the plaster dust raining into their tea from the ceiling as the two rolled around on the floor.
“I don’t know if this is better or worse,” Tsuyu will remark that day, and there will be nods abound.
And then they’ll get to training, and everyone will wish Midoriya had never met Bakugo, if only for the madly powerful duo they made.)
Alas, they are still only on fight number seven, still dumbfounded and unable to avoid the plaster dust. But there’s time. They have a while to learn, and that's perhaps the most reassuring thing of all.
~THE END~