Chapter Text
For all that Katsuki has hated and bullied Izuku over the years, there is very little in the world that can undo their childhood years and their ingrained connection.
Neither of them acknowledge it.
The phone is buzzing.
Groggily, Katsuki glances at his clock and groans, flipping his phone over to silence it. It’s 3am and it’s probably a prank caller, given that there’s no contact info. He turns back over in bed, half asleep already— when the phone buzzes once more. He reaches again to grab it, fumbling in the dark until his hand finds it on the nightstand.
Blearily he peers at his too bright phone screen and attempts to recognise the number, to no avail. He wants to go back to sleep.
His curiosity gets the better of him. Very few people know his number well enough to call it twice.
So he answers, and the sound of crying reaches his ears.
Familiar crying.
“P-please pick u-up..”
There’s muttering on the other end, hard to forget and impossible not to recognise— for all that he’s not heard it for six years.
“Deku?!”
There’s that hiccup he recognises in the dark and with no other hints, the one that means Izuku is going to cry more.
“K-Kacchan?”
Katsuki hasn’t heard this voice in years but he knows fear when he hears it, every day of his career. He’s heard this type of fear too often— the terror that says the person on the other end of the call is afraid to die.
He’s already pulling on pants, phone nestled between his shoulder and his ear. “Deku where are you? Tell me where the fuck you are.”
He’s crying again and there’s another hiccup that says more is coming, but the sound is increasingly muted.
“H-hosu. We’re in Hosu, n-near the train station I think..”
We?
“Deku what the fuck do you mean we ?”
There’s a clatter of the phone falling to the ground and something heavier that falls seconds later. Something that sounds suspiciously like a head hitting the concrete.
The call hangs a second later and Katsuki is left staring at the home screen in shock.
His former best friend (he always would be that, no matter how much time has passed) disappears for 6 years and the first call he gets is that shit?
Someone is obviously gonna end up with a headache here and Katsuki just knows it’s going to be him.
Pulling a shirt on with perhaps a tad too much force, he begins a message to Aizawa and stops abruptly. How is he supposed to word this?
“Hey sensei you remember that kid in our class who disappeared looking into a hyper dangerous gang and we all thought dead because we never found him and I had a mental breakdown with guilt ? Yeah he just called me and he’s at Hosu station, call a taxi.”
Yeah no.
He uses their code system instead, jotting out a well remembered system of words: missing person, injury, possible secondary victim, Hosu station. He adds at the end, in plain words, ‘it’s him.’
Shrugging on a coat and shivering in the December breeze as it whips through the doorway, he steps out into the night and heads for his car.
Somewhere in the city, the shadow that a late night pedestrian assumed to be an ugly house decoration shifts to check his phone and almost drops it in shock, paying no attention to the pedestrian below who has panicked and fled.
Katsuki has never been happier that he had moved closer to Tokyo after school. In addition to a wider range of agencies to choose from, it was just nice to get out from the familiarity and stale vibe of his home town. All the while being close enough to go home when his mother demanded it.
The rain hadn’t spread this far into the city it seemed, road dry beneath him and moon-edged clouds silvery above as he finally neared the station.
‘Near the station’
Somewhere here was Izuku.
He parked in front of the station proper, and assessed the situation. There were a few ways he could go about finding him, and all wet readily available. He could scan for local police alerts, for mentions on social media or contact Aizawa. Though the last option perhaps wasn’t as viable considering the other Pro was probably on his way here.
Police alerts it was.
He checked the live alert map that was accessible by all heroes on duty, with a feed of of both civilian reported incidents and police verified issues available in moments. He scrolled distractedly through it, combing for something that might fit, legs starting to jitter with pent up adrenaline.
‘Report Red: potential violent incident of quirk usage on Seike intersecting Mijya. Bright light from alleyway, possible quirk identification.”
Bingo.
He glanced at the map and slipped back into his car, tapping the destination into the nav as quickly as he could with shaky hands. He willed himself to calm down before he drove and didn’t touch the wheel for the long moment it took for the icy professionalism of his hero persona to slip over.
The trip was short, almost too short and he barely maintained his tenuous grip on his composure as he parked and stepped out onto the curb.
There was blood on the sidewalk.
It might’ve been dark but any hero worth his salt, and with any experience, knew what blood looked like in any light.
Suddenly, Katsuki wondered if he was finding a friend or finding work for the morgue. It chilled him quicker than the breeze.
There was a small tucked away alley entrance nearby, darker than the street and he could barely see into the gloom. But he could see a dark shape slumped against the ground and patch of white hair that shone even in the darkness.
Slowly, he approached the entrance of the alleyway and upon his eyes adjusting to the darkness, felt all the air leave his lungs so suddenly he felt like he was drowning.
The man on the ground was torn apart. A spiral of open wounds wound around his torso, skin deep in some spots and bone shone white in others. He grabbed for his phone and shared his location with Aizawa, hoping that the underground hero was close by tonight.
He leant forward and switched on the torch on his phone, the bright light revealing the young child who was crouched, seemingly unconscious, against Izuku’s side. A cursory check of Izuku’s vitals told him all he needed to know: help had to arrive fast.
But as Katsuki reached across to check the vitals on the girl, a strong bony hand clamped itself in his wrist with enough force to make his bones creak and grind in discomfort.
“What the fuck Deku?! Let go!”
The wildness eases from the man’s face and green eyes blinked slowly— too slowly. A concussion as well as blood loss, and if he wasn’t bleeding internally somewhere, he’d eat his licence.
“You can’t touch her, you can’t .” There was something frantic and terrified in his voice, beyond caution and warning. “She’ll erase your quirk and he could be anywhere- ”
There’s a lot— too much to process in the midst of all that and he tugs his hand back, thankful when bony fingers release after a moment before leaning forward to place pressure on the largest wound he can see in the grimy light of his phone.
“Deku what the fuck is happening? Where the fuck have you been?” Katsuki hasn’t lost his mind like this in years— he wonders if it was just Izuku that had done it to him all those years, but shoves the thought to the back of his head for later inspection.
The little consciousness Izuku seemed to have been holding on to is fading faster now and he doesn’t wanting to shake him but Katsuki needs him awake. The likelihood of the green haired man waking up after a concussion and that much blood loss was a slippery chance that was falling by the minute.
“Escaped- took her. She’s… key… keep her...safe..” the words seem to take every ounce of energy left in Izuku and he slumps bonelessly to the side, eyes barely open.
Oh fuck.
He stops the greenette’s head from hitting the ground as a reflex and eases his form to the ground into a recovery position, returning his hand to placing pressure on the wound, struggling to ignore the red warmth seeping into his hands and down his wrists.
He’s never forgotten that he’s had Izuku’s blood on his hands before, far too many times.
He hates it more now.
It takes 3 minutes for Aizawa to arrive. He’s not even sure how the underground hero arrives, only that there’s a touch in his shoulder than he instinctively tenses at and then feels his composure crack upon the support. “Sensei— I- I don’t— I can’t stop the bleeding -”
He’s mortified. He’s never lost his calm in an emergency before and he’s never wanted to break that record but he’s reeling, with the bare bones of his long time friend pressing against his palms and the slick slide of blood— he’s not sure what he’s meant to do in the face of this injury. He’s not sure Aizawa is either but the older hero is already on the phone— he doesn’t recognise the voice on the other end of the phone.
Or he’s in shock.
It’s freezing outside but he barely feels anything.
He’s probably in shock.
He’s not sure what else to do.
So he keeps his hands planted firmly either side of the gaping wound on Izuku's stomach, fingers clenched against the edges in an unconscious desire to force the flesh back to where it belongs through sheer strength.
His fingers are white knuckled but the skin below them is alabaster pale— he can see and count the ribs next to his left hand with ease. There are similar scar patterns— spirals and jutting corners where the skin has been torn apart, partially sealed and left to heal crooked. Some of the scars shine in a way Katsuki recognises— burns, left untreated. One of them is older, the pale shine of a starburst on freckled skin and Katsuki feels bile rise up in his throat.
There are lights in the street now. A circling shifting pattern of blue and red and stark white that light up the blood on his hands with an oily tint of colour. It does nothing to help the nausea rising steadily in his chest.
He mechanically relays Izuku’s warning about the child curled up next to him, watches as they wrap the child in a thick blanket and move her away.
Nausea that he quickly forgets as pure fury crashes like a cold wave over his head, as paramedics attempt to move him away, assuring him that they’ve got it under control.
Katsuki bares his teeth in a ragged snarl and tells them to kindly get fucked.
“He’ll die here.”
The voice is undoubtedly Aizawa’s. So is the particular brand of blunt honesty.
“He’ll bleed out on the pavement if you don’t let them take him. Everything he ever stood for will end here. His mother’s hope will end here. All Might’s hope will end here.”
Its the thought of Auntie Inko that shatters his resolve. He’s seen the fliers she still posts around town, frame worn thin from too little care and too much loneliness. Has seen how hope has worn her ragged.
He lets Aizawa pull him away from where Izuku is, skin far too pale for life.
He doesn’t want this to be the last he ever sees of the other man, a half-dead figure in the middle of the night with his blood covering Katsuki’s hands.
It feels far too much like how his nightmares end (or how they start).
His face itches and he wipes at it, only to stare at the wide streak of red stretching across his cheek like morbid face paint. His hands are shaking now.
He wonder what happens to heroes who have nervous breakdowns.
He thinks he knows a few who just retired. Phoenix-flower retired after her partner was killed on duty and she was missed, but nothing in the media was too disparaging. Katsuki, being the current number 6, was far more likely to face the media gauntlet the minute he was even hinted at leaving the career.
He knows a hero who went off the deep end too. A side kick who went bonkers after failing to stop a building collapse— a daycare full of children. He knows Jeanist still visits him in the hospital every week.
Katsuki couldn’t bring himself to go. He knows how close he is to being there himself.
He’s sitting, he dimly recognises. The vehicle below him is humming, the sound of an engine running somewhere in the background and the subtle jolt of the wheels on asphalt. He’s in a car.
He glances slowly to his right (time is sliding like oil on glass, too slow) to where Aizawa sits at the wheel, fingers tense and pale around the leather cover. It squeaks oddly when he readjusts his right grip every few moments, like he has to keep his fingers moving or risk more fidgeting.
“Where are we going?”
He can see the minute jerk of his former teachers hands on the wheel, the only visible sign that he had caught the other hero unaware. Aizawa’s fingers settle quickly back into their unconscious rhythm.
“We’re heading to the hospital. Recovery girl is doing a consultancy there this week— the only piece of luck in this whole godforsaken night.”
The other man is rattled and if he’s rattled enough to be showing it this clearly then it must be worse than it looks. He hopes Mic is meeting them at the hospital.
“He’s going to be there in a few hours. He’s gonna stop by home and grab clothes for me, and I’ve asked him to see if we have anything to fit you.”
He must’ve spoken out loud. He doesn’t connect why he needs clothes but brushes it off as unnecessary thinking at this point.
By the time they park at the emergency department and manage to get through the busy entry, there’s a familiar face in the waiting room. Aizawa fairly collapses into his husband’s side and Katsuki envies their easy companionship. Despite having both Hizashi and Aizawa as teachers, it’s a different thing to see this soft side of them.
It makes him think of being a child and laying in the grass with Izuku. It is bittersweet and Katuski doesn’t like to think about it.
Katsuki feels himself starting to sway as adrenaline fades and he fairly collapses into a nearby chair, head beginning to pound with the weight of the anxiety his adrenaline had been holding back.
The halogen lights above are blindingly bright and he wants to shield his eyes but the blood on his hands has dried to flaking and it’s rubbing off every time he moves his fingers at this point. There’s a clock ticking somewhere in the hallway anteroom and he wants to throw it against a wall, already so viciously aware of how badly time is against them. The sound feels mocking.
Mic is hovering nearby, face drawn and uncharacteristically unhappy. He’s talking to his husband in muted undertones, casting worried glances to where Katsuki is sitting every few minutes.
He’s numb to it.
He remains numb to it for a long time, or so he assumes. He has water forded into his hands at some point— he sips it and forgets it moments later. There’s a packet of chips next to his chair— untouched. The bottle of water is warmer; condensation no longer beading on the outside. He doesn’t enjoy the sensation of so much most time.
He glances around the room and stands, looking for Recovery Girl and wincing as his back cracks and pops multiple times. He begins pacing the short gap between the seats adjacent to Aizawa and his own across he corridor, counting the number of floor tiles beneath his shoes under his breath.
He’s only up to 40 when the doors at the end of the corridor open up with a clang— the opposite doors to the surgery rooms and the very last person he wants to see (someone he desperately wants to see) comes through the doors at a flying pace and halts feet away from him.
“Auntie-“
Her face is ashen white, almost green and she is looking at him in horror. He looks down and sees what she sees— the blood.
Oh gods he’s still covered in blood, still coated in it. He doesn’t know what to do, scrubs his hands together unconsciously in an attempt to get the flaking blood off. And Inko’s arms are suddenly around him, her head barely reaching his shoulder but he feels just like a child again in her arms.
“You found him Katsuki. You found my b-baby..” he knows that hitch, knows it because it’s the same one he heard on the phone just hours ago. She looks up at him tearfully as she lets go and smiles with watering eyes, smile crooked and wobbling. “Thank you sweetheart.”
She hurries off to where Aizawa and Hizashi are standing now, her greetings just as enthusiastic and he can tell they are slightly bemused, even with the circumstances.
Katsuki glances back at his chair and sees the clothes folded next to it— seemingly Aizawa’s and he shakes off the weird feeling attached to wearing his teachers clothing. With a nod to Mic, he ducks into the waiting room restroom and grimaces at his appearance in the mirror. He grabs a paper towel and begins to dab at his face, wincing as the water in the sink turns darker as he removes the blood from his skin. None of it is his and it’s not a situation he wants that to be true.
He shifts into the dark clothing and sighs as he realises how stiff his other shirt had been. No wonder people passing by had been giving him odd looks. With a sigh, he bundle the soiled clothing together and ducked out of the restroom, making a beeline for his chair and quickly scoffing the water. Turning around, he was surprised to see that there were a lot more people now in the waiting room, as well as a tired looking Toshinori who had arrived sometime after Inko most likely.
There was the chief of police of Tokyo, a man named Houshiro Takashi. Tsukauchi was there, as well another detective he couldn’t name. Midnight, pro heroes who specialised in undercover work. Hardly heroes Izuku would’ve interacted with enough to warrant them showing up here.
Something was going on.
He met Aizawa’s eyes from across the room and sent as much of his disbelief into it as he could. With a sigh he could practically hear from here, Aizawa waved him over.
“Look, Bakugou. I’m not going to lie to you. There’s far more to this entire thing than you or anyone else was ever told. Some of the things you’re going to find out are going to make you mad. But these people have a job to do— and Izuku has a debriefing that’s 6 years too late.”
Debriefing?
A block of icy emotion settled deep into his stomach as he processed those words. Izuku needed a debriefing. He had been on a mission. He had been a student hero and he been placed on a mission. He hadn’t disappeared— he had left with the support of the hero agency but Katsuki got the distinct impression it hadn’t meant to be for 6 years.
He was about to probe for more information when Recovery Girl stepped out from the surgery doors and pointed at Katsuki, Aizawa, Mic, Inko and Toshi.
“Get in here: he’s asking for you and everyone else has to wait.” Her voice softened for a moment. “We think he’s stable. But we can’t be sure: make it quick.”
Well that wasn’t foreboding.