Chapter Text
His pair of beat up red sneakers, slightly wide at the top to account for an extra toe joint, mark his place. It’s not an uncommon pair of shoes to see high up on a roof, or in this case a bridge, with a note tucked under.
For the officers, the note was unnecessary, the red hightops told them enough.
They didn’t bother sweeping the river, it would have been too much time and effort for one quirkless boy. “Surely you understand Mrs. Midoriya?”
But she didn’t understand. She didn’t understand much of the conversation at all, too focused on He’s gone. My little boy is gone.
And he was.
The funeral was a quaint affair. Comprised only of the Bakugou’s, Inko, and some of the neighbors Izuku liked to help from time to time.
“He was always such a darling boy,” Mrs. Harada said. “Always willing to keep an old lady company.”
Izuku didn’t bother showing up. He didn’t want to see the funeral, see how few people came, how few people cared about him. Besides, he knew that if he saw his mother, he wouldn’t be able to stay away.
So, he decided to set up a camera.
His tombstone was at the end of a row, a relatively empty area but surrounded by trees and benches. After a few weeks, he gathered enough money for a camera and now it lay nestled in a leafy tree, inconspicuous and ready to record.
Bakugou Katsuki had fucked up a lot in life. With praise surrounding him since birth, a steadily growing wave of ‘you can do no wrong’ both at home and at school, following him everywhere he went, it was no big surprise he managed to be such an asshole.
'And now a killer’
Bakugo Katsuki knew he had a lot to make up for. And since the damn nerd wasn’t able to go anywhere, Katsuki had a place to start. He walked down the rows of graves, some distinct and some oddly beautiful. Angels, crosses, and some with a crescent and star or a Magen David. Until he reached the end.
One lonely gravestone, covered with the dancing shadows of leaves from the large tree.
Here lies Midoriya Izuku
July 15, 2XXX - March 3, 2XXX
Loving son
Katsuki sat before the headstone, flowers gripped tightly in his hand.
“Hey nerd. I’m sorry and I miss you. You’re such a goddamn idiot you know. I didn’t mean it. Why would you start listening to me now?" he choked, "I didn’t mean it. I didn’t mean it. I DIDN'T MEAN IT IZUKU.”
The first time Katsuki visits Izuku’s grave he spends most of the time crying, latched onto the tombstone, unaware of a camera settled in the tree.
The second time Katsuki visits Izuku is the very next day.
This time, his hand is filled not with flowers, but a book. Or rather, Hero Analysis for the Future #13 .
He sits before Izuku.
“Hey nerd. I’m sorry and I miss you. This shit is really amazing, you know that?” Katsuki shakes the book, “I was wrong. You would have been the best hero. Not the number 1 hero, that’s still reserved for me. But you’re smarter than half the heroes out here. Like this analysis on Mount Lady….
Katsuki visits Izuku every day for a month.
“You woulda flipped your shit with this new hero debut. Her name is…”
“I saw this old pre-Quirk comic book at a yard sale. I snatched it up, the main hero is Quirkless. Well..I mean, no shit, there weren’t any quirks back then. But get this, he just uses guns. He has a pair of .45’s and…”
“Some dumb cat was stuck in a tree on my way here. The old hag I returned it to mentioned some green haired kid used to help her out. It seems you were always a hero, huh?
For ten months Katsuki visits every day. The only visitor of the small, empty grave.
“Hey Izuku. I’m sorry and I miss you.”
Katsuki kicks at his feet. “Tomorrow’s the UA exam. I’m gonna do my best just for you,” his voice strains, “I might not visit tomorrow. Just thought I’d let you know in case you miss me.”
“See you nerd”
And with that Katsuki heads home for an early night. His shortest visit so far.
Izuku, however, is frozen at his desk. The computer screens illuminating his face with the graveyard feed pulled up. Slowly and mechanically, he moves one foot and then the other away from the desk and towards his bed. He knew it was soon. Like the UA hopefuls, he’s been training since he “left” home. But he won’t be at the exam tomorrow.
Maybe if he was, he would save a bubbly young girl and get into the hero course.
Maybe if he was, he would receive an overdue apology and an offer from the number one hero.
Maybe if he was, he would be able to become a hero and turn back from the path he’s headed towards.
A road to hell.
Paved with good intentions.
Katsuki returns to Izuku’s grave the next day. But for the first time in ten months. Izuku isn’t there.
As Katsuki recounts the entrance exam and how “biased the whole thing was. Some purple extra had a mindfuck quirk that didn’t do shit against the robots. I had to tell the dumbass to pick up a pipe. Heh, I can’t believe he just forgot he had two fucking hands. You woulda loved his quirk. Apparently it only activates…”
"And some elite with a yard stick shoved up his ass questions Present Mic, THE Present Mic, as if it wasn't obviously intentional."
"There wasn't even a countdown, I just ran for it."
“And then the whole street was rumbling...”
His arms and shoulders were throbbing in pain, almost like mini heartbeats. The three pointer was in pieces on the other side of the street.
‘It’s not enough. I need more. I need to get first place.’
He’d already pulled some extras with their heads up their arses away from falling rubble.
He didn’t have much time and he didn’t want to waste it on saving others when he could be earning points, but ‘I’ll be a hero you would be proud. I’ll be the hero the world needed but was cheated out of.’
Katsuki was regretting his life's decisions.
'The nerd would be so much better at this.’
One boy, clearly ill-fitted for hero work, was crying and hyperventilating from the shock of almost being crushed. Gettings his tears and snot all over Katsuki's clothes.
"You're alright," he patted the kid's back slowly. Once, twice, then a third time. "NOW STOP SLOBBERING EVERYWHERE AND GET YOUR SHIT TOGETHER!"
Apart from saving others, he had gotten a fair share of robots. Certainly more than anyone else. But the need, the want, to be better, be the best, was suffocating.
When the street started rumbling, he was about to turn tail like everyone else.
“There was a girl, Izuku. And she was…”
Trapped under the rubble, calling out, panicked and in pain, for someone, anyone to help her.
“So I grabbed Engines and we ran to the girl…”
Arriving just in time. They shoved the debris off the girl and turned to escape before the robot trampled them. But the robot wasn’t slowing down, or even steadily creeping up.
“The damn thing was getting faster! So I...”
Engines caught the girl, none too gracefully, while Katsuki turned back, preparing to demolish the zero pointer. He was drenched in sweat, so fuel was the least of his worries. But he was in pain and it would only be exacerbated by the upcoming force he needed to use.
"We saved her. She threw up everywhere it was disgusting," Katsuki huffed, "but it was awesome."
A pause. Katsuki breathes in and the minuscule smile disappears.
As Katsuki sits by Izuku's grave, he doesn’t know how to describe the empty feeling growing inside. A pit of something.
He knows the nerd’s dead. He knows that when he comes to talk to Izuku, no one’s really there. But he can’t understand why this time, he actually feels alone.
And as the feeling continues for the remainder of that week's visits, Katsuki begins to suspect something isn’t right. He’s almost right.
When Izuku comes back a week later, he pulls up the graveyard feed and is greeted by not one tombstone, but two.
Katuski is already there.
“Hey Izuku, hey Auntie.”