Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Izuku was forty percent sure that this was a dream. It had to be, right?

Might Tower lived up to its name and his neck ached as he leaned back to peer up at the looming building. All his dreams built up into a thing of glass and steel that pierced the Tokyo skyline. The paper clutched in his hand was warping under the dampness of his fingers. He was nervous, yes, but that feeling didn’t even begin to touch his level of excitement. Regardless of the source of his emotions though, Izuku was filled to the brim with excess energy and was bouncing on the balls of his feet to expend a little of it.

He took a deep breath and then launched into a quick walk towards the glass doors that slid open easily at his approach. His entrance to this place felt like it should have been more dramatic. There should have been a spotlight, swelling music, and the rest of the world should have slid into slow motion as Izuku crossed the threshold. But alas, the world continued on as it usually did, even with his slight pause to gape at the space.

He had seen pictures of the building, obviously, it had been his dream to work here since he was in middle school, but his obsession with the building even predated that. When he was five, Izuku’s mother had taken him on a trip to Tokyo. He had been obsessed with All Might for as long as he remembered and when his mother walked by the building with him, it had felt like a sign.

By that point, he knew that he would never develop a quirk, and even though it wouldn’t be until years later until he actually gave up on his dream of becoming a hero after being rejected from UA High, he knew right then that one day, no matter what, he would work in that towering building. He wanted to walk the same halls as All Might. He wanted to be a part of the greatest hero’s narrative however he could.

So when he walked through the door of Might Tower, it felt a bit like fate to Izuku. Even without all the theatrics.

He was too mesmerized by the giant windows and soaring ceilings to notice the employee walking up to him. He jumped when they cleared their throat to catch his attention.

“O- oh, sorry! I didn’t see you!”

“Can I help you find someone?” She didn’t sound particularly enthused about the idea and her lips pursed slightly as she took Izuku in with a long look up and down. Oh, he thought, Of course she wouldn’t know who I am. Izuku fumbled the letter in his hands for a second before extending it to them.

She took it with a sigh, but her eyes widened as they scanned the page and her gaze kept flicking from the printed words to Izuku’s quickly reddening face.

“So you’re the new hire, then?” Her stony attitude melted away as they extended a hand with a cool smile.

“That’s me! Midoriya Izuku.” He shook their hand a bit too hard, but she just huffed a small laugh to herself.

“Nice to meet you, Izuku. I’m Kyoka Jirou.” Izuku yelped a little and she released his hand in alarm.

“Oh my god of course you are! I don’t know why I didn’t recognize you immediately, I’m so sorry! You’re Earphone Jack! The fight where you and Creati took down that spider villain in Shibuya was amazing! I was watching the whole thing live. I’ve never seen reconnaissance like yours. You assessed the situation so much faster than any other hero would have been able to and then on top of that you were able to calm down the panicking citizens with your amplified heartbeat! I’ve heard about you applying that in combat, but the idea of using it as civilian assistance never occurred to me. You’re amazing!”

Izuku hadn’t realized that he hadn’t taken a breath since he started speaking until he was almost wheezing out the last few sentences.

Jirou just stared at him for a few heartbeats before tossing her head back and clutching her stomach in laugher.

Izuku was mentally kicking himself as she laughed. He had a tendency to let his mouth run away to the point where it freaked people out and nothing had him talking more than heroes did. And to come face to face with one of his favorite current heroes… he could die of embarrassment right there, dream job be damned. But Jirou just clapped a hand on his shoulder and gestured towards the elevators at the far end of the entry hall, “You’re fun, Midoriya. I can see what all the hype was about. I’ll take you upstairs.”

The hype? Izuku didn’t know what they were talking about, but as the pair neared the elevator doors any questions he had evaporated. It was happening. It was really happening. He thought back to a week ago when the paper Jirou was now holding had first arrived at his door.

Midoriya Izuku, it had read,After reviewing your portfolio, Might Tower Hero Agency is excited to invite you to join our team of Support Item Engineers. Your senior thesis on thermochemical quirks and their relation to material selection caught the attention of several Might Tower heroes. We are very impressed with your potential and hope that you consider working for our company. Please reach out to us at your earliest convenience.

The rest of the letter had been filled with clerical information about the job along with a frankly obscene salary offer. The money hadn’t even mattered. They had seen his work! His dream agency had seen what he was capable of and, even more unbelievably, they had liked it. Izuku had spent years trying to convince himself that being quirkless didn’t make him less than anyone else, and this one little piece of paper had been the physical proof he needed.

He had been destroyed after his hero, All Might himself, had told Izuku to give up on his dream of being a hero. Looking back on it, All Might had probably just said whatever he could to protect some dumb kid from getting into a situation that would end up killing him. Still, to hear at 14 years old that all of your dreams would amount to nothing more than the pretty picture in your head was nothing short of devastating. And yet despite all of that, here he was, riding in an elevator with Earphone Jack up to the top floor of Might Tower.

Izuku thought he might pass out.

He must have swayed on his feet a little because a surprisingly strong hand gripped his shoulder and onyx eyes moved into view. “Are you alright?” Jirou’s brow was creased with concern and her face being this close wasn’t helping Izuku’s dizziness. This was all so much larger than life. He had spent the last week in a trance. He had half-convinced himself that the letter was fake, that he would show up to the agency and be laughed at. He had spent days trying to prepare himself to be turned away so he hadn’t really sat down and considered what he would do if it all ended up being real.

“I’m- I’m okay. It’s just a lot to take in.”

The concern didn’t completely leave their expression, but she did smile a bit. “I completely understand. My first day on the job I nearly passed out when I met Mirko.” Izuku didn’t miss how the surveillance hero’s cheeks reddened and her smile turned a little dopey at the memory. “She left Might Tower pretty soon after I started working here to start up her own agency, but she was amazing.”

The elevator dinged and Izuku was surprised to find himself capable of standing, though Jirou’s hand still gripped his shoulder for a few seconds after they started walking to ensure he stayed upright.

The hallway they had entered was long and narrow, the floors covered in light grey carpeting and one wall made entirely of glass as it looked out across the city. Might Tower was high enough that Izuku could see the tops of skyscrapers all around them. Clouds drifted just above Izuku’s head. The people walking down below looked like tiny dust motes, barely present shadows drifting along the ground. Izuku knew he was gaping, but he didn’t care enough to stop himself. Plus, Jirou seemed endeared by his odd behavior so far and they were smiling at his reaction to the view.

Jirou chuckled and said, “Come on, Midoriya. We’ve got to get your paperwork squared away so you can head down to the Labs.” He was bouncing on the balls of his feet again as they made their way down the hallway. He couldn’t keep his nervous chatter in check as the imposing oak doors at the hallway’s end came ever closer.

“You know, when All Might and Nighteye started this agency as hero and sidekick they were the highest-rated team that the world had ever seen. Some people think that Endeavor and Shouto have the ability to surpass them in popularity, but I’m not too sure. Endeavor wasn’t super popular before his son joined him. Also, it seems to me like there’s some bad blood there.”

“Why would you say that?” Jirou’s face was carefully blank, her tone even, as she asked the question.

“Have you seen the way that Shouto looks at his father when he’s injured after a battle? If it’s not a wound that could put his life in danger, Shouto almost seems happy about it.”

Jirou was pressing her lips together, trying to keep whatever opinion they had about that theory off their face and it was just then that Izuku remembered that Jirou had been classmates with Todoroki Shouto in high school.

Izuku waved his hands in front of him, trying to backpedal in case he had said something to offend her. “It’s all a guess though. He’s never done or said anything while they were actually fighting to indicate that. It was just some dumb gut feeling I had about it.”

By the time they had reached the doors Izuku’s ears were burning and Jirou had managed to school her features back into cool indifference. But as she pushed the doors open and excused herself back towards the elevators, they called back over their shoulder, “You have a good intuition, Midoriya. Don’t undersell yourself.”

Wait… did that mean- “Thank you!” He called before Jirou made it all the way back down the hall. They just waved to him over their shoulder without turning back. His cheeks hurt from grinning so wide. He had just gotten a compliment from who would likely be one of the top heros of his generation. “So cool!” He whispered under his breath as he turned to face the office Jirou had led him to.

While talking to Jirou, he had momentarily forgotten why he was there. His excitement returned in full force at the thought of meeting someone who, judging from the high floor number and the corporate decor, was likely a super high-ranking hero in the agency. There were heavy curtains drawn over the wall of windows so the room was plunged into a soft sort of darkness despite the warm yellow light from the fixture in the ceiling.

He saw the desk first. It was a huge piece of dark wood furniture that ate up the space at the back of the room. Then he saw a figure leaning against the front of it, legs and arms crossed like he had been waiting there for a while. It was hard to make out who it was in the dim lighting, but as Izuku’s eyes adjusted, a shock of blonde hair came into view.

The smile that had been near-constant on Izuku’s face since walking into the agency fell instantly.

He was here.

Of course he was here. Izuku had known he would be. It had actually been one of his first thoughts after receiving the agency’s invitation. Still, he had hoped to have at least one day of uninhibited excitement about this place before he inevitably showed up and ruined it.

His smile was deadly as those pointed teeth flashed in the dim light, “Hey Deku, how have you been?”

“Hello, Kacchan.”

“So you’re finally in the big leagues now, huh? What, did you finally get sick of the sidelines?”

Izuku stifled a frustrated sigh. It wouldn’t help for Bakugou to catch on to how annoyed he already was. How unnerved. “Only you would call people’s lives ‘sidelines’, Kacchan.”

Izuku’s eyes were finally adjusted enough to see all of the room. It wasn’t as dark as he had initially thought, the windows in the hall had just been bright. The room was covered in a pine green carpet and dark furniture adorned the space. The walls were practically bare aside from a poster of All Might from his Silver Age. Izuku scowled when he saw it hanging there. He had given it to Bakugou years ago. A lifetime ago. Why on earth did he still have it? He finally turned back to face Bakugou and god damn, even if he didn’t like the guy he had to admit that he looked great in that outfit.

He was wearing a collared black shirt tucked into some slacks with a blood-red tie to match those simmering eyes. The idea of business-professional Bakugou had never occurred to Izuku before, but it made sense that he would have to dress nice for the office work that came along with hero work. From what Izuku had heard, heroes spent almost as much time on paperwork as they did actually out in the streets. To top off the whole look though were black-rimmed glasses that Bakugou’s angry crimson eyes hid behind. Why was he pissed off? Izuku was the only one who had any reason to be upset right now, so why did Bakugou look like he was about to bite Izuku’s head off.

“So what have you been up to, Deku?”

The old nickname bit more than Izuku would admit, but he gritted out, “I feel like answering that would only lead to more insults from you. Where’s the hero I’m supposed to be meeting? I have paperwork to fill out.”

Bakugou looked around the room slowly and smirked when his gaze finally met Izuku’s again.

Well…shit. This was going to suck. It’s fine, Izuku silently assured himself, After today I’ll be down in the labs most of the time and I won’t have to see him often. If he was lucky, he might manage to avoid the man entirely from here on out.

But for today, he would just have to endure the face that he had hoped to never see again. Not after that day their first year of high school…

Izuku fought to keep the grimace off of his face at the memory and must have failed because Bakugou’s smirk somehow managed to deepen, “Oh, c’mon you damn nerd. I can’t be that bad to work with. You always did love the big heroes, right? Well, I’m the best around.”

“I’m sorry,” Izuku couldn’t keep the snipe from rolling off his tongue, “I thought Lemillion was the head of this agency? Or have the national rankings somehow slipped my mind?” Bakugou’s grin fell into something far more sharp and dangerous, but Izuku didn’t dare break his stare. He refused to back down this time. He hadn’t worked his ass off all through high school and college to be bullied into submission once he landed the job of his dreams. Bakugou had no right to trample on his life any more than he already had.

They held one another’s gazes for a few more seconds, the air between them practically crackling with violence. Bakugou huffed out a laugh that sounded anything but joyful and tore his eyes away from Izuku to walk around to the far side of the desk.

“Sit,” he said gruffly.

Izuku slid into the chair opposite Bakugou and leafed through the pages in front of him. Bakugou tapped a finger on the table to catch his attention and slid him a pen.

The two sat in silence as Izuku filled out line after line. It took ages, but if the past four years of working towards his degree in thermochemical engineering taught him nothing else, it taught him how to wade through meticulous work like a pro. This was nothing compared to a lab report for an advanced physics class.

Even so, Bakugou’s stare felt like a brand as he worked. It made his palms sweat, and he ended up focusing more on keeping his hands from shaking than the actual words he was writing down.

He turned the last page over and set his pen down, sighing in relief.

“Your handwriting still sucks.”

His momentary relief evaporated, “Can you tell me where the labs are?”

“Hell no.” Bakugou stood up and Izuku opened his mouth to argue but was cut off before he could get a word out. “I’ll take you there myself.”

Bakugou “taking him to the labs” ended up being a much less direct route than Izuku had expected. They wandered the floors of the agency, Bakugou stopping to introduce Izuku to most people that they came across. Izuku was bewildered, really. If he didn’t know any better he would have said Bakugou was making an effort to make Izuku feel welcomed. It was like he knew Izuku’s tendency to fade into the background and merely observe if given the chance. He wasn’t sure how to feel about it. The Bakugou he knew had never been deserving of the word thoughtful.

But it wasn’t just the fact that Bakugou had grown the ability to empathize that left Izuku reeling. Everywhere they went, heroes and clerical staff alike were stopping Bakugou to run a question by him, make a suggestion about an upcoming press conference, or just to say a quick hello. And to Izuku’s infinite surprise, Bakugou seemed to be enjoying it. He seemed pleased when these “extras,” as he liked to call them, would seek him out.

And every time, without fail, he introduced Izuku as the new engineer. Apparently, his reputation proceeded him, because every time people pieced together who he was, their smiles seemed to grow and they eagerly shook his hand and offered him help should he ever need it. Overall it was…surprisingly pleasant.

Aside from the introductions and occasionally pointing out where the cafeteria, lounge, offices, etc. were, Bakugou made no effort to make small talk with Izuku. Maybe their reunion had made Bakugou as uncomfortable as it had made Izuku himself. Maybe all of these introductions served another purpose altogether: to pawn Izuku off as a problem for other people to deal with.

Whatever the case, Izuku found that he didn’t mind his tour of Might Tower Hero Agency one bit. It was just as amazing as he had hoped, and everyone that he had met had been far kinder than he had expected.

Two levels below the ground floor, Izuku stepped off of the elevator and halted in his tracks. Bakugou bumped into him and grumbled something that Izuku didn’t hear. He was far too busy gawking at the space before him.

There were computers, 3-D printers, workbenches, and engineers all packed into a clean, wide space. Even though it was below ground, the room looked bigger than any Izuku had seen so far, save for the entry hall. Everywhere he looked, spare parts were spread across tables, design models were shoved into corners or suspended from the ceiling, and lab coats and goggles were strewn across every possible surface. There were massive computers, welding stations, and outlets everywhere.

It looked like absolute mayhem. It was perfect.

“You like it?”

Izuku spun to where Bakugou had been watching him. Had he said that last bit out loud? It didn’t matter. “It’s amazing! Is that a Quidi Tech printer?” He ran over to the black machine before Bakugou could answer, “This has the ability to print carbon fiber and nylon! I had a friend print a life-sized replica of Wash’s hero costume to scare his roommate Senior year. It was amazing! He only had to reprint one panel of the whole set. I’ve never seen anything else like it!”

A girl with pink hair and yellow eyes had skipped up to Izuku while he was talking about the printer, “You sure know your stuff. Are you Midoriya Izuku? I’m Hatsume Mei.”

She held a gloved hand out that Izuku warily accepted. “You know my name?”

“Oh, sure! Everyone here knows who you are! It’s not often that someone is scouted right out of college, and especially not-“

Bakugou cut her off with a rather loud clearing of his throat, “I think Deku- sorry, Midoriya, would like to be shown around the studio. Would you be able to handle that, Hatsume?”

“You can count on me!” The grin she flashed Izuku made him wonder if he should start fearing for his safety.

She wandered further into the lab, already rattling off information that Izuku wished he was able to write down (why had he forgotten his journal today of all days?). He turned to follow her, but remembered Bakugou’s presence and called out to his already retreating form. “Thank you for the tour!”

Bakugou just turned and stared after him for a second before letting out a hrumph and stepping into the waiting elevator. Izuku didn’t have time to mull over any of his odd behaviors during the tour. He had to run to catch up to Hatsume, who was in the middle of explaining the faults she had discovered in the ventilation of the labs when she had started working there.

She assured him that she had fixed it, however, and ‘that room was capable of handling just about any explosion at this point’. If he was being honest, Hatsume kind of terrified Izuku. He smiled and laughed at her retelling the story of how she had accidentally dissolved all of Lemillion’s clothes while trying to replicate his DNA and adhere it to various threads.

She may have scared him a bit, but Izuku had never once found an issue with a little danger.

Chapter Text

As Katsuki padded back to his office, he had to bite his lip to keep from yelling a string of curses. He had been careful not to act like a complete ass since joining the agency, and he couldn’t ruin that now with a few choice words. Some pathetic part of his brain begged him to ruin it. He deserved a shit reputation.

Katsuki was an idiot and he knew it. He just didn’t know if his own self-awareness made it better or worse.

Four weeks ago he had been scrolling through social media and seen the post from Deku’s mother about his graduation. He had known that Deku would be leaving college, but it hadn’t really struck him until that moment that his friend from childhood was finally about to enter into the field of hero work. The damned nerd had finally reached the dream he had to scrape together for himself.

Maybe it was sentimentality or nostalgia or any of that other bullshit that made him knock on Night Eye’s door the next day and slide a folder across his desk with his letter of recommendation and a copy of Deku’s thesis. But it was probably just pure idiocy that made him do it.

Because he really was an idiot. A fucking halfwit for being surprised at the anger in Deku’s pine green eyes when he had seen them for the first time in years. It all crashed down on him the moment Deku had walked into that office and stared at Katsuki like he was the fucking Tell-Tale Heart, bound and determined to drive him towards insanity with his mere presence.

He had forgotten. No. He had blocked it out. Blocked out that day when Deku had shown up at his door with tear-stained cheeks and asked for help. He had blocked it out because the words that had left Katsuki’s mouth that day might have been the one thing he could say he regretted. He knew that day had been the reason Deku had stopped showing up every week or so to pester him into conversation or a fight. That day had left them divided in a way Katsuki wasn’t sure he could mend.

Katsuki had overcome that divide between them years ago, when he was a third-year at UA and realized why he had snapped at Deku extending a hand to him as a child. I didn’t want his help, Katsuki had thought looking back on the memory, I only ever wanted to help him. It was a selfish way of thinking, but he had never claimed any level of godliness.

Katsuki had realized a few months later, panicked and shaking on Shouto’s floor, exactly why he had wanted to help Deku in the first place. It had taken an embarrassing amount of time for him to name the feelings he had been harboring for longer than he could remember. He had let that realization block out how Deku must feel. Like an idiot. Why could he never think outside of himself when it really fucking mattered?

Of course Deku was angry. Even a saint like him had limits. For all its holiness, heaven still barred out the devil.

“Fuck.” He was in his office now, pacing and muttering to the empty space like it might sympathize.

“Maybe I should just leave him alone.” It was what Deku wanted. It was what he deserved after all the bullshit Katsuki had put him through. He deserved that space.

No, Katsuki’s inner voice practically growled the words, He deserves a fucking apology you asshat.

But an apology would require more than a few half-assed words and Katsuki had never been great at getting his point across verbally.

“If he tells me to go,” God, he was muttering as much as the damned nerd now, “Then I’ll leave him alone.” He could picture the scene in his head, could feel the forest fire burn of Deku’s eyes as he rejected Katsuki, fully and irreversibly. He couldn’t fuck this up. Not this time. He would have to be so, so careful not to let his own insecurities run his mouth as they were prone to do.

“But I have to try.”

The empty room didn’t bother replying.

Izuku’s first week at work was amazing. He and Hatsume hit it off and the rest of the development team welcomed him with open arms once they realized that he had, not only passion for this work, but the ability to back it up with results. The idea that he had gotten here on nepotism alone was quickly abandoned by his peers.

By the end of the week, he had three prototyped support items in progress for various sidekicks at the agency and was mulling over about a dozen more.

But the best part of that week was that he hadn’t run into Bakugou once since that first day. He wasn’t sure what sick twist of fate had resulted in the guy being put in charge of handling his paperwork, but he was glad that fate wasn’t being too cruel to him by repeating the incident. He could almost forget that they were working in the same building now.

He had been on edge the first few days, practically falling out of his seat every time someone new walked into the labs and always expecting the worst. It was odd to think that for more than half of his life, Bakugou walking through the door would have been the farthest thing from ‘the worst’ for Izuku, but times and people changed, he guessed.

Izuku was still at a loss for how everyone seemed to know who he was upon his arrival. Sure, he had done some good work in college, but here among professionals, it was easy to see that he had a lot to learn. He had learned through Hatsume that there was almost no precedent for Might Tower scouting anyone aside from heroes. It made Izuku equal parts honored and nervous because now there was an overwhelming expectation for greatness that he needed to fill. Immediately. That particular nervousness wasn’t bad, though. Izuku tended to thrive under overwhelming expectations. Proving himself felt like one of those silly games he and Bakugou used to play as kids and Izuku was determined to come out on top this time.

Throughout the week he met more heroes from the agency. The people he had grown up watching on TV were now standing mere feet away from him and treating him like he was someone worth looking up to. Red Riot was particularly excited to meet him one day while Izuku was grabbing lunch from the massive cafeteria.

“You’re Deku, right?” That was another thing that had been happening all week. It seemed like about half of the staff at Might Tower had somehow become aware of Bakugou’s infernal nickname for him. Izuku had to stop himself from flinching every time someone said it.

“Just Midoriya is fine.” He offered his hand to Red Riot, who shook it with earnest.

“Midoriya, right? I’m Kirishima Eijirou, it’s nice to finally meet you. I’ve heard a lot about you!” Izuku felt like his head was spinning as the hero shot a shark-toothed grin his way. Kirishima, one of the heroes Izuku had followed since his debut in the UA Sports Festival, knew who he was?

“Oh wow that’s- Wow! It’s just so cool to meet you! Your time at Fat Gum’s agency was amazing! Stopping those bullets? I don’t know how the pros would have managed without you there. And you were only a first-year at UA! You always come across as so selfless and strong in your fights.”

A faint blush rose to his cheeks. “Ah, c’mon man, you’re makin’ me blush and that’s not manly at all.” Kirishima was grinning sheepishly and rubbing the back of his head. “How are you liking the agency so far? Do you like the labs?”

“Oh, it’s amazing and everyone here is so nice! I have a lot to learn but working alongside the engineers here has given me so much motivation, I can hardly believe it.” It was true. For as much of a myth as this place had seemed, the labs had immediately felt like home once Izuku had started working in them, and he had quickly found that the employees at the agency acted more like a family than coworkers. He had already seen Hatsume scolded by some of the chief engineers for staying too late on more than one occasion.

“Well, I’m really glad that you’re liking it!” Kirishima gave him a solid slap on the shoulder and Izuku had to hide the fact that it knocked the breath out of him. “I know a lot of people were excited for you to start here.”

“I’m still a little confused by all of it.” Izuku said honestly, “Do you know why the company scouted me, anyway? I didn’t even intern here.”

“Oh, uh- I’m not really sure. I heard that you had a pretty amazing senior thesis that aligned with a lot of our heroes' needs, so it was probably because of that.”

Izuku wasn’t sure why, but Kirishima was lying. The moment he had asked the question, the red-haired hero had stopped making eye contact with him and started fiddling with the belt on his hero costume. Izuku couldn’t think of any reason the man would lie, though, so he didn’t call him on his bluff. Maybe he was just getting worse at reading people.

It turned out that Red Riots patrol shifts ended right when Izuku tended to take a break for lunch, so they ate together most days. Izuku was relieved that Kirishima seemed as authentic in person as he had always come across in interviews. He also seemed genuinely interested in the work that Izuku was doing down in the labs.

“So wait,” he said one day, “You’re telling me that you could make clothes that would harden along with me?”

Izuku nodded emphatically, “I think so! It would take a while to get right, and we would need a DNA sample, but Hatsume did something similar for Lemillion’s hero outfit. Synthetic DNA is still fairly new for support items but there’s so much that we can do with it.”

There had been an incident with the Yakuza and a quirk-nullifying drug a few years ago that resulted in a lot of money being poured into genetic rehabilitation and cloning research. It was new enough that people weren’t sure what all the science could be applied to, but Izuku thought that creating a hardening fabric might be doable.

He started rubbing his chin in thought, “The only complicated part of this is trying to initiate the hardening of your clothes so that it synced with your actual quirk activation. I wonder what’s chemically occurring on the surface of your skin when it hardens. Is your skin changing elements, or is it just developing additional layers while simultaneously compacting? It’s brittle, which means if it’s changing elemental states then it’s most likely turning into some type of metal. Or I guess it could be a nonmetal like carbon. Or maybe it’s an alloy. If your skin was turning into metal, maybe your ultra-hardened state is just more devoid of hydrogen than normal, That would explain why it’s harder for you to move in that state, as well-”

He hadn’t realized that he was rambling until Kirishima started laughing, “Wow! You really do go all ultra-nerd!”

Izuku’s face heated. It was a bad habit that he has never been able to break, even with the incessant bullying it caused. “Ah, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to-“

“Are you kidding?” Kirishima shook his head, his smile so wide it pushed up at his eyes, “Bakugou told me that you were super smart but dude, who knew you were such a brain?” Now Izuku’s face was red for an entirely different reason. He said Bakugou had told him? He had forgotten that the two of them were allegedly friends. Kirishima seemed way too nice to be friends with him. “I don’t know about all that stuff you were talking about, I kind of skimmed my way through chemistry, but you can have whatever samples you want! I’d love to see what you’ll make.”

And that was how a few days later, Izuku ran into Bakugou for the second time.

“What the hell is going on here?” Izuku hated that his blood chilled at the voice from the doorway of Kirishima’s office. He hated that Bakugou still had that kind of sway over him even if it was involuntary. He craved indifference towards the man.

“Hey, Bakugou!” Kirishima’s voice was bright enough that it jolted Izuku from where he had frozen upon hearing the hero’s voice. “Midoriya is just getting some samples so he can try and create a…synthetic…cloth…or- or something!” It was endearing how he managed to sound equal parts confused and excited about the concept. He sat dutifully on his desk, never complaining once while Izuku poked and prodded him.

Izuku filled in the gaps for him. “I’m trying to make a fabric that will harden with Kirishima when he activates his quirk. So, yeah, you were close. I’m prototyping a synthetic cloth that will mimic your quirk.” He was focused solely on placing a few strands of Kirishima’s hair into a vial and very intentionally not looking towards Bakugou. This was fine. Even with Bakugou, it was easy to talk about work.

“If you let him off his leash entirely you’ll go bald, Kiri. I don’t think it’d be a good look for you.” Izuku just opted for rolling his eyes while Kirishima tutted his tongue.

“You’re crazy, man. Anything is a good look for me.” Thought he turned to Izuku and chuckled nervously, “But you won’t take all my hair, will you?”

“Don’t worry, this is all I should need.” Izuku closed the vial with a rubber stopper and slipped it into the pocket of his white lab coat. “For now, at least.” He added and giggled at Kirishima’s mildly concerned expression.

He wasn’t actually done collecting samples from Kirishima (he would have killed for a blood sample), but Bakugou’s presence made him want to evacuate the room as quickly as possible. He hadn’t looked at him since he entered the room, and Izuku was intent on keeping it that way as he gathered up his supplies and started shuffling out the door.

“Wait, Deku” Bakugou’s voice made him freeze once again, “How are you liking it here so far?” The tone he asked it in sounded more like a demand than a question.

Izuku’s mind switched into autopilot and he swiveled around before he could think better of it. Why did that question sound genuine? He wasn’t sure he had heard what genuine curiosity sounded like in the tenor of Bakugou’s voice until that moment. Izuku knew his face held nothing but apprehension as he looked at Bakugou for the first time since he had arrived.

He was still in his hero outfit, obviously just finishing up a patrol. The tops of his exposed shoulders were dusted pink from the sun and his the red in his eyes glowed all the brighter from behind his black mask. Izuku swallowed.

If Bakugou was actually curious about him, then the least Izuku could do was offer some honesty in return. They were colleagues now, he reasoned. There was no excuse for him to ignore the hero, especially with Kirishima standing witness. He told himself this, but it still felt wrong rolling off his tongue. “Um- it’s really good, actually. Everyone here is super nice.”

Idiot, he chided himself. Bakugou didn’t care about ‘everyone else’. Izuku braced himself for some snide comment about his naivety or meddling with the ‘extras’ as Bakugou was prone to call them.

“And that girl in the labs?” Izuku blinked.

“Hatsume?” He had remembered her? Bakugou wasn’t one to take note of anyone but himself and people he thought of as competition. “She’s great.” He couldn’t keep the hesitancy from his voice.

He didn’t trust this interest Bakugou was showing. Was he trying to find something to make fun of? For some odd reason, Izuku got the impression that he wasn’t. Bakugou must have taken his stunned silence as an indication to continue.

“Are you going to lunch now?”

“Uh- no. I have to take these back,” he said with a vague wave towards the pocket where Kirishima’s DNA samples now sat.

“What about after?”

“Are-“ he couldn’t quite believe this, “are you asking because you wanted to join?” He didn’t bother masking the disbelief in his voice.

Bakugou gave a grunt of affirmation and Izuku felt his head spin. What the hell was going on?

“Um… sure? I guess?” Why the hell was he agreeing to lunch with him? What happened to wanting to avoid him at all costs?

Despite the ping pong match of thoughts in his head, he heard himself ask, “Do you want to meet Kirishima and me in the cafeteria?”

“No!” Izuku jumped at the volume of Bakugou’s voice. He lowered it a bit as he said, “No. Let me take you out somewhere. The people here- I don’t want to deal with any extras.”

Take him out? What in the-

“Sure, I guess.” Izuku bristled at Bakugou’s dismissal of the rest of the staff here, but curiosity was winning out over his annoyance and trepidation at the moment. Curiosity and a propensity for self-destruction if he had to guess.

Izuku turned to Kirishima, who was still sitting atop the desk and watching Bakugou and Izuku like their conversation was a tennis match he couldn’t wait to see the outcome of. “Are you coming with us?”

Bakugou turned to face Kirishima so Izuku couldn’t see his expression, but whatever look he had made Kirishima laugh, “Nah, I think I’ll sit this one out. You two have fun, okay?”

His heart sank. There goes my buffer. He cringed at the thought. He couldn’t just use Kirishima like that, the guy was unbelievably nice and Izuku already considered him a friend. With thoughts like that being his gut reaction, maybe he deserved whatever disaster was about to unfold at lunch.

Still. He was going to lunch. Alone. With Bakugou. His hands trembled at the thought and he didn’t know if anger or something closer to fear was causing the reaction. He tucked them behind his back before either of the heroes took note.

Aside from the brief few minutes in the conference room last week, when was the last time they had spent any amount of time alone together? Izuku stared at the back of Bakugou’s head, trying to will an explanation into existence.

None came.

Izuku told himself he wasn’t running when he turned away from that explosion of blonde hair. Too bad he wasn’t great at lying.

Katsuki turned just as Deku fled out the doorway, seeing a flash of dark green hair and the billowing end of his lab coat before he completely disappeared from sight. He had left without saying goodbye. Katsuki scowled, though it was directed more at himself than the retreating figure.

A voice from behind had him spinning around again with a glare. “What the fuck was that, Bakugou?”

Katsuki wanted to punch that smile Kirishima was fighting, and failing, to keep off of his face. “That was physically painful to watch. Dude, where’s your game?”

“Shut it, Shittyhair,” Bakugou growled out.

“Why did little Midoriya look so shell-shocked when I passed him in the hall just now?” Kirishima turned his toothy grin towards where Jirou was leaning against the doorframe.

“Bakugou just asked him out.”

“Hey.” Katsuki barked out a warning. The last thing he needed was for the rumor mill around Midoriya to pick up. He thanked all the heavenly powers above that Kaminari wasn’t around.

“Oh, yeah?”

“It was a total train-wreck.”

“Nice.”

“You two are assholes,” Katsuki’s cheeks were burning with equal parts embarrassment and anger, and his desire to physically harm Kirishima was ever-growing.

“Horribly awkward interaction aside,” Katsuki growled, “Why does it seem like Midoriya is, like...scared of you, man?”

Shit. So even Kirishima had noticed it. Katsuki had really hoped that the years between them would have dulled Deku’s anger and hatred towards him, but it certainly hadn’t seemed that way. In fact, it was just like Kirishima had said. If Katsuki didn’t know better he would say that Deku was fearful of him. But that couldn’t be right. That damn nerd was the only one who was dense enough to not be afraid of him.

Well, that nerd and these two idiots, apparently.

Kirishima and Jirou were still waiting for an answer and Bakugou ground his teeth together. “I was an asshole to him back in high school. I mean, longer than that, but I said some really fucked up shit to him in high school.”

Jirou blinked a few times in thought, “It must’ve been a lot, if that’s coming from you.” Katsuki didn’t bother trying to argue. “But, wait, I’m confused. You told us that you’ve been in love with him since like, grade school. Why were you an ass to him back then?”

“You guys met me as a first-year.” Two heads nodded in tandem, understanding flashing across their features.

“Yeah, you were kind of a dick, man,” Kirishima said with a grin. “Even I had a hard time getting you to soften up.”

Jirou shrugged, “I mean, he knew you all through elementary and middle school, right? Maybe he’ll understand that it was you just lashing out.”

Memories of watery eyes and slamming doors flashed in Katsuki’s mind. There were some things that could never be taken back.

“Yeah. Maybe so.” His voice sounded unbelieving even to his own ears.

“Hey, man.” Kirishima hopped off the desk and clapped Katsuki on the back of his shoulder, “I’m sure it’ll be fine if you apologize and talk it out.”

“Though I’m not sure why you didn’t think about apologizing before talking to Sir Nighteye.”

“Helpful.” Katsuki deadpanned.

“But if you hurt Midoriya again,” Jirou’s eyes narrowed, “I may have to kick your ass, Bakugou. I don’t know what it is about him, but that kid makes me want to wrap him in a blanket and feed him soup.”

Kirishima laughed. “Seriously, man. He’s sweet. Don’t make him cry okay?”

“Fuck you guys.”

Fifteen minutes later, Izuku was chewing on the skin at the edge of his thumbnails by the entrance to Might Tower.

This was a bad idea.

The initial trepidation he had while in Kirishima’s office had only grown since he had stepped away. His heart did a funny thing when the elevator doors at the far end of the entry hall pinged open and a familiar silhouette strode out of them.

This was a really, really bad idea.

He had brief thoughts of bolting that were interrupted by a gruff, “Hurry up,” as Bakugou passed by him and headed for the door. Despite every warning bell in his mind going off, Izuku followed. He decided right then that his subconscious was untrustworthy, working without his say like that.

Bakugou was quiet as he walked ahead of him. He didn’t pay any mind to the people who whispered and pointed when he passed them by, so neither did Izuku. He did, however, take the chance to properly note all the changes that the years had brought to the blonde hero. He couldn’t help himself.

Even after everything, he still had to admire the hero Bakugou had turned into. Izuku may not like him, but he was damn good at his job. And it was easier this way, seeing him as a hero as opposed to the person. Looking at Bakugou objectively was a little dehumanizing, but the emotional distance felt like jumping into cool water for Izuku.

A list started forming in his mind, so similar to the notes he would have jotted down in those journals Bakugou had hated so much. Eight years of space between them left room for lots of bullet points.

In fact, he held them a little away from his body as they swung by his sides. It took a few seconds for Izuku to realize that this was probably due to the gauntlets that he wore with his costume. How had that affected his muscle formation, Izuku wondered. Were his muscles conditioned to the point where their natural state was held away from Bakugou’s body? Or was that habit a result of his training, more of a psychological preparation for quickly reacting to danger than anything else?

Izuku shook his head. Enough pondering about Bakugou’s muscle groups, for god’s sake.

It made a sort of practical sense, even if Izuku was caught a little off guard by it. Bakugou’s hair rivaled his own in terms of unruliness and having shorter hair was less of a hazard in this line of work. All that blonde tended to grow outward instead of down, like a bomb of blonde had detonated on his head. It was unnervingly fitting to his aesthetic. He wasn’t sure why it surprised him, really. Bakugou had never expressed any particular fondness for his thick hair, but Izuku had come to associate it with hero’s personality. Everything about Bakugou was larger than life, and the mass of pale hair atop his head had just been another piece of that picture.

He hadn’t said anything that made Izuku take note of this, and it wasn’t the lack of conversation that made him add it to his mental tally, either. Rather, there was a practiced air about him that Izuku had never seen before. It was a comfortable nervousness that sat on his shoulders, like he hadn’t bothered letting his guard down in years. The fact that Bakugou was on the lookout might have been comforting to Izuku if it hadn’t unnerved him first.

Every step he took was balanced so he could launch into a fight at a moment’s notice. Every subtle sweep of his head from side to side was calculating. There was no air of nonchalance around the man. None of the devil-may-care attitude that Izuku had grown to expect. Somehow this ever-present tension was worse.

It was such a small thing, but Izuku couldn’t help noticing it. When they had walked around town as kids, Bakugou would scowl and kick at anything that blocked his path, be it a water bottle, trash bag, or even on occasion, some unfortunate kid. Anything that stood in his way was regarded the same: worthless.

It made Izuku feel old. Eight years of harboring anger towards someone made one forget that they had the chance for change. Izuku certainly wasn’t the kid that had cried his heart out to Bakugou, but neither was Bakugou the boy who had thrown in back in his face. It didn’t necessarily mean that he had gotten better since then, just…different.

Izuku was annoyed at how much he noticed this. It was hard not to. Bakugou’s arms were obscenely large and he thought his middle school self might have passed out if he saw how capable Bakugou looked with them swinging by his sides. He never would have stood a chance against him.

Bakugou had changed into dark denim jeans that stretched and pulled against his thick thighs as he walked. Did the agency have casual Friday or did Bakugou just get special treatment? Izuku made a mental note to ask Hatsume about it later.

Izuku felt like it needed its own special spot on the list. Really, though, it was just more proof that his subconscious couldn’t be trusted.

When he saw the curve of Bakugou’s ass pressing against that denim, Izuku’s mind short-circuited. Just a bit. He was stuck somewhere between fuming at this fact and just looking.

It was just so big. He tried to find the rationale in this, too. Of course Bakugou had a big ass. He used those muscle groups when he jumped, and Izuku knew that Bakugou had almost unparalleled mobility in the air. Looking at the obscenely perfect roundness of his backside moving as he walked, that mobility made a lot more sense.

His face reddened and his jaw snapped shut when he caught himself staring literally open-mouthed. He hadn’t realized that he was ogling until he almost ran into Bakugou at a stop light.

It was unfair how attractive he was. Even Izuku, for all his anger towards the man, had to admit that Bakugou had always been blessed with good looks. It had been the bane of his existence in middle school. Now it just seemed cruel that the universe so obviously favored someone with a personality as shitty as Bakugou’s.

Izuku brushed off the thoughts with a shake of his head as he noted the last thing. Really, it was the first thing he had noticed, but it was also something he didn’t want to address at all.

Every sliver of skin, from the pale strip above his black t-shirt collar to the tops of his knuckles, was crisscrossed with silver. Remnants of battles, some of which Izuku knew he had never heard of. He tried to ignore how much they bothered him.

It wasn’t how they looked. If he was being honest, Izuku had always thought scars were kind of cool (not that he’d ever tell Bakugou that). No, it was more the fact that each one was a battle stamped across his skin. A line for every day that of this job. An infinite number of dangers he had encountered. Something low twisted in Izuku’s gut that he tried to brush off as nerves about whatever shit-show lunch was about to be.

Still, a nagging voice in the back of his mind whispered it to him over and over again, a needle caught in a record’s groove.

Any of those scars could have been so, so much worse.

There was one on the side of Bakugou’s neck that was the size of Izuku’s palm and a few shades lighter than the rest of his tanned skin. The first time Izuku had seen Bakugou he had been too preoccupied to notice it and in Kirishima’s office, Bakugou’s hero costume had covered the healed wound. Every time Izuku looked at it that thing in his gut twisted a little tighter.

This list was getting long. Izuku hadn’t realized how lost in thought he was until Bakugou abruptly turned around to face him and Izuku practically jumped a foot in the air. Bakugou scowled at him while he caught his breath again, but didn’t comment.

He just jerked his chin upwards towards a sign and let out a gruff, “We’re here.”

Izuku looked up at the neon buzzing overhead, eyes widening in excitement at the bowl of ramen that was glowing a faint red. His stomach rumbled at the thought of biting into an Ajitama. Even with the present company, there was a bounce in Izuku’s step as Bakugou pushed the door aside and he followed him in.

Izuku took a deep breath as they walked through the door and his head swam with the heavy scent of bone broth and noodles. Someone behind the counter called out a greeting when they spotted Bakugou and the hero raised a hand in return.

The blonde strode past the hostess with a glance her way (a glance, not a glare, Izuku noted) towards the back corner of the small restaurant. He moved through the space like he had done so a million times before.

Izuku hadn’t even fully sat down before a short, older man was placing small dishes on their table. Izuku was too distracted trying to figure out how he had managed to bring over the mountain of food while using his cane to catch the way the man waggled his eyebrows at Bakugou as he finished setting the dishes down.

Bakugou smiled, “Oh, c’mon Gran Torino. You didn’t have to do that.”

“Kid, what are you doing, telling what I should and shouldn’t do?” Bakugou shifted ever so slightly in his chair. Did he seemnervous at that? “I’ll bring you snacks if I damn please.” Izuku’s eyes widened when the man scuffed the top of Bakugou’s head with a fist and Bakugou let him.

The man turned to Izuku and he flinched at the assessment in those eyes, “And who did you bring with you, Katsuki?”

Izuku stuck his hand out, “I’m Midoriya Izuku. N- nice to meet you, sir.” He hoped that the man didn’t notice his palms sweating when he reached out and shook Izuku’s hand. If Bakugou was nervous about being around this man, well, it just made Izuku a little terrified in turn.

The man’s eyes slid to Bakugou before return to meet Izuku’s gaze. “The name’s Sorahiko Torino, but you can call me Gran Torino. Nice to meet you Izuku. You a friend of Katsuki’s?”

“O-oh, um-“ How was he supposed to answer that? Bakugou’s nervousness about this man aside, the interactions he had seen between the two of them made it obvious that Gran Torino cared about him. Saying that he hated the guy probably wouldn’t go over well. He settled on a neutral, “Kacchan and I grew up together.”

One of Torino’s eyebrows lifted, “‘Kacchan,’ eh?” Izuku saw Bakugou turn his head away from them both out of the corner of his eye like he was trying to hide his facial expression. “Well, it’s nice to meet you, Izuku. I’ll bring you something out.”

“Oi, old man! We haven’t ordered yet!”

When Gran Torino swiveled back around to Bakugou, the pro hero flinched, actually flinched, away. “Are you telling me I don’t know how to do my job, boy?” He lifted his cane and rapped Bakugou on the head. Izuku’s hands flew to cover his mouth. Either a laugh or a yelp was about to force its way out, and in both instances, letting the sound escape would result in disaster.

He bonked Bakugou on the head a few more times, enunciating each word with a whack of the yellow stick, “And who are you calling old? I could still beat you into the ground, boy.” Bakugou was grimacing and letting out a few grunts of pain, but aside from that, he seemed resigned to the goose egg that was bound to appear on his head.

Gran Torino stormed off, grumbling under his breath about ‘ungrateful youth’ and ‘ and Bakugou grimaced as he rubbed his head. “Old geezer.” Izuku pressed his lips together as he realized Bakugou had waited until the man had gotten out of earshot before whispering it under his breath.

Red eyes slid to Izuku and he startled. “W-what?”

“That old man is a fucking menace.”

“You seem to like him though.”

Bakugou’s expression wasn’t quite a scowl. There was a bit of humor there pushing up under his eyes as he considered Izuku’s words. “Still an asshole, though.”

“So,” Izuku’s curiosity got the better of him, “How do you know him?”

“I made a huge fucking mistake in high school, that’s how.”

“That’s not an answ-“

“All Might is a piece of shit and tricked me into an internship with him.” Izuku gaped. That was certainly a lot to unpack. In theory, he already knew that All Might had been Bakugou’s teacher, but hearing him say it was an entirely different matter altogether.

But that aside- “Wait, wait. An internship with him? But I thought UA students had to intern with pro heroes?”

Bakugou stared at him like he was an idiot, waiting for the dots Izuku had so succinctly verbalized to connect.

“What!? You mean he,” Izuku pointed back towards the kitchen counter near the front of the restaurant, “was a pro hero? How have I never heard of him?”

He didn’t wait for Bakugou to respond. His mind was running a million miles an hour, thoughts racing one another to the tip of his tongue. His mouth was playing catch-up with his mind. “Wait, you said All Might suggested him for an internship? Does that mean he knows All Might? And if he was a hero, what is he doing making ramen, now? He could probably spend time as an advisor to new heroes and make loads more money, so why bother with this place? And when did he-“

“Deku.” Bakugou cut him off with a glare, “If you want to know, just ask him yourself. But I will let you know one thing. That man,” Izuku followed Bakugou’s gaze to see the old man humming behind the counter and chopping away at some radishes with happy abandon, “trained All Might himself. So be careful what you say around him.”

“He- he WHAT?” Gran Torino paused his cooking to glance up as Izuku practically screamed it.

Bakugou kicked him under the table, “Shut it, you damned nerd!”

Izuku’s voice dropped into an excited whisper. “Okay, now I’m even more confused why I don’t know who he is. I thought All Might trained in America. But that’s not right, is it? He made his debut there, but he went to school here, first Does that mean he also interned with Gran Torino while he was at UA? Just how old is he?”

Bakugou let out another sharp, “Deku!” and Izuku jumped, wincing apologetically.

“Wait,” a thought crossed his mind that he couldn’t help but voice, “Did you bring me here so I could meet him, Kacchan?” He regretted the question instantly, already bracing himself for the onslaught of you think this is about you’s and die you damned nerd’s that were about to come his way. He braced himself, but after a few seconds, he realized that he hadn’t needed to.

He must be hallucinating. Because if he wasn’t, then Izuku could swear he could see Bakugou’s ears turn a frightening shade of red. He wouldn’t meet Izuku’s eyes either, those red irises carefully trained on a dark spot on the floor a few feet away.

“I thought you might find it cool,” Bakugou’s voice was low and rough and Izuku caught himself leaning in to hear it. “You know, since you’re a huge fucking nerd about all this hero crap.”

“You…” The thought trailed off into nothing and Izuku blinked. He was having trouble processing the fact that Bakugou had done something…nice. For him of all people.

He played back Bakugou’s words in his mind again, searching for an explanation and coming up short. But his mind snagged on the last part of that sentence and he couldn’t help it the snort that escaped as he actually processed the words, “You’re one to talk.” Bakugou was as much of a nerd about heroes as Izuku was, even if he was loathed to admit it.

Those red eyes flashed as they shot back to Izuku, “What was that, idiot?”

Izuku winced at the heat in those eyes. Right. Bakugou was no fan of Izuku, either, this strange lunch aside. “N- nothing.”

For a second there, he had almost forgotten all about their mutual hate. Just for a second, though.

It was quiet for a minute or two, the tension between the pair growing until Izuku thought his skin might crawl right off him.

He hadn’t even noticed that he had started biting at his thumbnail again until Bakugou scoffed, “You’re going to hur-“

“Here ya go, boys!” Whatever Bakugou was about to say was cut off by Gran Torino’s reappearance along with two giant bowls of ramen. Even as he jumped at the man’s sudden arrival, Izuku’s mouth watered at the smells curling off the steam.

“For Katsuki, the usual.” He waved a hand towards Bakugou without looking at him and the hero’s lips pulled down at the dismissive gesture. “And for you, Izuku,” he jumped as the small man swiveled towards him, “Sapporo ramen with pork, two Ajitama eggs, and extra nori.”

Izuku's eyes widened. That was his favorite way of making ramen. Like, exactly how he made it.“How-“

Gran Torino cut him off before the question could finish rolling off his tongue. “I’ve been doing this for a long, long time. Don’t make the same mistake this dimwit did and underestimate me.” He delivered another swift hit of his cane across the hero’s blonde head. Bakugou snarled a little as the ramen he had been lifting to his mouth slipped from his chopsticks.

Izuku wasn’t sure how guessing ramen orders transferred over into coaching some of the greatest heroes the world had ever seen… but who was he to doubt? He stared at his bowl in wonder. Had this somehow been a part of All Might and Bakugou’s training as well? Before his mind could wander away with the image of the heroes taking kitchen knives to fish, he glanced back up.

Gran Torino was obviously waiting for him to try the ramen. Izuku lifted one of the thick noodles to his mouth and hummed appreciatively as the warm salty flavor spread across his tongue.

It was absolutely delicious.

“Heh, why thank you.” Gran Torino looked pleased with Izuku’s response. Had he said that out loud? He gave Izuku a gentle pat on the back (much gentler than Izuku had been expecting after watching him wield that cane). “I’ll leave you two to it, then.”

“What’s with that dopey smile?”

Said smile dropped as Izuku lifted his eyes from his ramen to find Bakugou staring at him through narrowed eyes. He narrowed his in turn, “Can I just enjoy my ramen without the needling?”

“Needling?”

“Yes, needling, Kacchan. I don’t have to justify my actions to you every five seconds.” Anger was making his face hot. No one could ruin his mood as quickly as the man across the table from him, but that didn’t mean he wanted to ruin the meal. He stopped himself from saying anything more by slurping up a noodle and wrinkled his nose as a droplet of broth flicked onto the tip of it.

“-ute.”

He glanced back at Bakugou. “What was that?”

Bakugou blinked. Coughed. Blinked again. “What?”

“What?”

There was silence for a beat as they both stared at each other dumbly. Bakugou’s eyes narrowed, “Shut up and eat your meal you damned nerd,” but it lacked any real bite. He smirked, “I don’t have to justify my actions to you every five seconds.” Something warm twisted in Izuku’s stomach (it was the ramen, surely) at the words and the cocky grin on Bakugou’s face.

“Whatever.”

Bakugou snorted and turned back to his bowl.

Izuku stifled the urge to roll his eyes and started back on his ramen. He was just thankful that something was filling his stomach aside from whatever weird feeling he had carried around since Bakugou had walked into Kirishima’s office almost an hour before.

They ate their ramen in silence, but the tension that had laced the air earlier was gone. Every few seconds was punctuated with a happy sigh or hum from Izuku as he ate his fill. He was stuffed, but he just couldn’t. stop. eating.

At least he understood why Gran Torino was in a ramen shop now. It would be a crime to let a skill like this go to waste.

Bakugou lifted his bowl to his mouth and finished off the soup at the bottom, setting it back down on the table with a loud, “Ahhhh.”

Instead of hurrying him along, like Izuku expected him to do, Bakugou just leaned back in his chair and watched while Izuku polished his meal off. There was some expression on his face that Izuku had never seen there before and he couldn’t place it. It bothered him more than he would have liked to admit. He had gotten rather good at reading the guy when they were kids. It was just another thing to add to his list of changes.

Izuku finally set down his soup spoon and chopsticks with one last hearty sigh. That strange expression stayed on Bakugou’s face as he stared at Izuku and asked, “Good, huh?”

“Yeah, it was. Thank you. For, um-“ he stumbled over the words, shocked to discover he really meant it, “For the meal. And for, you know,” He dipped his head towards Gran Torino, who was stirring a soup pot rather aggressively and humming again, “that. You know, bringing me here to meet him.”

Bakugou was quiet for a second, his eyes never leaving Izuku’s face. It looked like he was trying to commit it to memory and Izuku squirmed under the scrutiny. Why? The question almost leaped from Izuku’s mouth, but he reigned it back in at the last second. His eyes slid off to the side and away from whatever was behind Bakugou’s own.

“I meant what I said earlier, you know?”

He slid wary green eyes back to crimson ones, “What?”

“You can ask him any questions you have. The old man’s a windbag. He’d love the chance to talk about the old days. Especially since most people don’t know enough about him to ask.”

“Why is that?” It seemed like Izuku’s curiosity was winning almost every battle today. He hadn’t gotten an answer the last time he had asked it.

Bakugou scratched his chin like he was debating how much to divulge. Eventually, he shrugged, obviously coming to some sort of conclusion.

“So, I’m sure you’re aware of All Might’s quirk by now?” Izuku felt his blood run a little cold. How could he not be aware of it? At the end of their first years of high school, the whole world had gone to shit and part of that included the revelation about All Might’s mysterious quirk. One For All. After Lemillion had been rendered quirkless in a villain battle, All Might had made him his successor, both metaphorically and physically. The symbol of peace had passed on the torch to the next generation.

Izuku just nodded, holding his breath as he waited for Bakugou to continue.

“Obviously, it was a pretty closely guarded secret for a long time, you know? And the hero who had One For All before All Might was a friend of Gran Torino.” Bakugou was looking past Izuku’s shoulder towards the man in question. “I think it ate him up, you know? To train her successor and then watch her die.” The image of an emaciated All Might raising his fist to the sky in defeated victory flashed through Izuku’s mind. This wasn’t the first time this power had been passed along. The pain was just far more public this last time around. Gran Torino wasn’t just a pro, he was a man who had lost a loved one in this struggle against villains. Izuku turned towards the kitchen as well, the old man’s goofy disposition so at odds with the words Bakugou spoke.

He turned back towards Bakugou with a nod. “It must have been such a constant reminder.” His voice was quiet enough that Bakugou leaned in a bit to hear. “Every time All Might succeeded, I mean. I wonder if it just reminded him that All Might’s sensei wasn’t there anymore.” His eyes dropped back down to his empty ramen bowl.

His mouth moved not entirely of his own volition over the next sentence. “Watching others and only seeing pieces of the person you’re missing,” Bakugou stilled, “It’s horrible.”

Silence. And then, “Sounds like you know the feeling.”

Izuku’s eyes were cold as they lifted to meet Bakugou’s once more. He didn’t care that Bakugou seemed almost pained at whatever he saw in Izuku’s gaze. He let out a laugh that sounded humorless even to his own ears, “I guess I do, Kacchan.”

Chapter Text

The sound of screws clattering to the floor was getting old.

Izuku normally loved the bustle of the workshop. The myriad of clinks, whirs, and clangs was somewhat of a comfort to him, even in this new space. If he closed his eyes and listened to his colleagues working, he could imagine he was right back in his college lab. The noise would have been overwhelming if it wasn’t laced with an air of focus and determination, but as it was, it just fueled Izuku’s passion for his own projects.

But right now the sound of metal plinking against the concrete floors and rolling across the ground made Izuku want to scream. In the past half hour he had dropped not one, not two or three, but six different screws.

What was wrong with him?

As soon as the question passed through Izuku’s mind, he knew his answer.

His mind had been circling around that lunch with Bakugou since they had gotten back to work. The hours he had spent in the lab had crawled by, as if moving his body away from that point in time required a deliberate rearranging of the cosmos. Seconds would slow until the stars had reordered everything.

Izuku was stuck on the fact that everything about that lunch had been surprisingly pleasant of all things. It didn’t sit right with him. Bakugou was many, many things, but pleasant had never been one of them.

And yet, he had taken Izuku to that place specifically so he might meet the man who trained All Might himself and had swiped away the check when the hostess had brought it over. Even the yelling that Izuku had come to know and expect long ago had been strangely absent. The snappy comments were there, sure, but they lacked the bite that Izuku had always known.

It didn’t sit right with him. His mind couldn’t help but spiral away on its new favorite train of thought: what elaborate prank was Bakugou trying to pull this time around? It was the only thing that made sense. This had to be a prank. Either that or Bakugou had actually changed in the last eight years. Had actually grown a conscience while Izuku hadn’t been around to watch.

He shook his head. That couldn’t be the case. It couldn’t, because if it was…

The sound of yet another screw plinking on the floor yanked Izuku back to the present and he cursed under his breath.

“Earth to Midoriya,” He blinked as Hatsume waved a wrench in his direction, “What gives, man? You’ve been dropping shit left and right since lunch.” Izuku knew Hatsume well enough by now to know that it was a rhetorical question, and sure enough, she had turned around and was facing her own project again before he had the chance to respond.

Izuku half suspected that Hatsume’s impulse to observe wasn’t something she had complete control of. She just tended to say what she thought about things as she encountered them before promptly moving on to whatever thing interested her next. At first, Izuku hadn’t been sure how to react, always stammering out a response to her back and getting nothing in return. Eventually, though, her outbursts of thoughts throughout the day had become somewhat of a comfort. Whether it was about her colleagues or her babies, as she liked to call them, Hatsume’s voice was a touchstone when Izuku had a tendency to lose time while working.

She hummed happily as she poured over her work and Izuku decided that figuring out what song she had stuck in her head was a much better use of his time than pouring over that lunch. Again.

He leaned over and picked up the stray screw with a sigh. Was it an Ashnikko song? No. No that wasn’t right. Something that reminded him of her though…

He picked up his tools and started fiddling with the project he had been working on since that morning. Ah. That’s what it was. She was humming that Lily Allen song. What was it called again? Hard Out Here. Right.

Without realizing it, time had started moving again and the next time Izuku dared a glance at his watch it was almost time for him to head home.

He closed his eyes as he reached up and stretched his hands behind his head, feeling his back pop in a few spots. He let out a pleased sigh at the release of tension between his shoulder blades and slowly opened his eyes to lean forward on his workbench.

One more hour of this and then I’ll go home. Izuku had been fixing the calibration on a harness for one of the sidekicks for the better part of the day. Normally, he would have had it finished an hour or two after lunch but with how slow his brain had been working, he doubted he would finish before leaving. At this point, he figured it would be better to come in early tomorrow rather than try and finish it tonight. He didn’t trust himself not to make mistakes now that he would just have to fix them later.

Eyes slightly hazy and unfocused while he was lost in thought, Izuku was dragged back to reality by something moving in front of him. Nothing but a thick pillar of black covering his field of vision. His eyes slowly came back into focus and he started when he realized who, exactly, was standing in front of the workbench.

"K-kacchan." It was like he had summoned that scowl from whatever corner of his mind had fixated on it these past few hours.

There was some unreadable expression on Bakugou’s face and after a few seconds he responded with a gruff, "Deku."

It was an effort to force his muscles to relax, the tension pooling out of them one limb at a time. "What are you doing down here?"

Bakugou didn't answer at first, just took a long look around the labs before returning those crimson eyes back to Izuku. He jerked a chin towards the tangle of gear in front of him.

"What's this?"

Well, that wasn't an answer.

"I'm fixing some maneuvering equipment for one of Earphone Jack's sidekicks." He let the sentence trail off into silence. Sure, he had made the choice to go eat lunch with Bakugou earlier in the day, but that didn't mean he was willing to subject himself to any more aggression from Bakugou than he had to. And that's what this would inevitably turn into if he let it. Conversation with Bakugou always resulted in aggression.

“Even after all this time, you're still such a fucking nerd, Deku.” Izuku felt phantom hackles raise at the words. He was doing his job for gods sake.

He opened his mouth to snap something back but Bakugou didn't give him the chance. “Looks like you're actually able to put those brains to good use here," he said with a gesture towards the harness.

Izuku's mouth slowly shut, that biting remark fizzling out.

Ever since he had started working at the agency, it was like Bakugou had gone out of his way to be kind to him. Was this his way of trying to apologize for all those years he had used Izuku as his personal punching bag? Was this Bakugou's attempt at professionalism?

If that were the case, then Izuku had to admit it was a decent attempt so far. For someone like him, anyway. Given their history, the bar was pretty low.

“I was thinking,” Bakugou continued when he realized Izuku wasn’t going to respond, “You might be able to even help me out a bit. You have those,” he snapped his fingers, trying to recall the memory through jolted touch, “Hero Journals? Is that what you used to call them?” Izuku nodded in affirmation, his eyes narrowing. Bakugou hated those things. He had told Izuku they were just ‘physical proof of how useless he actually was’. Proof that he was doomed to a life of sitting around and watching others do the actual saving. “Yeah, those journals. I’m sure you have something in there about me, right? You’d be an idiot not to have something about the number one hero.”

Now Izuku was scowling. He wasn’t wrong, of course. Aside from perhaps All Might himself, Izuku had more entries about Bakugou than anyone else. His thesis had been about chemical responses in quirks, after all, and Bakugou’s quirk fit the bill perfectly. He had pulled from a lot of first-hand observation for that project. Plus, as much as he might dislike the fact now, they had spent their childhoods practically joined at the hip. There was no way that he wouldn’t know the ins and outs of Bakugou’s quirk.

Izuku waited for Bakugou to get to the point of whatever this conversation was. Because right then, it almost seemed like Bakugou was going to ask for help (even if it was in that infuriatingly demeaning way he went about things). It seemed impossible though, even with all of the insults sprinkled in to the conversation. Bakugou didn’t just ask for help.

“So I was thinking that you might be able to help me come up with some more support items.”

Izuku lifted a hand to his temple, rubbing at the ache that had just cropped up there. What the hell was going on. Bakugou’s eyebrows crinkled (in concern? that couldn’t be right) when he noticed the motion.

"You," Bakugou didn't break Izuku's gaze, "want my help?" The question was dripping in disbelief.

Bakugou's ears turned bright red and his gaze slid off to one side as he grumbled, "Well, that's your job, right?"

"Y-yeah, it is. I just..." Izuku didn't have the vocabulary for this conversation. He pressed harder at his temple as the ache there flared up. God, he was tired.

He could do this. If Bakugou was coming to him for equipment, then of course he could help. If Bakugou was trying for professionalism, then there was no way Izuku would be the one to break it.

"Sorry, sorry," Izuku shook his head, ignoring the way it made his head pound, "Of course I can help."

Bakugou didn't say anything, just turned his head to meet Izuku's gaze with slightly wide eyes.

Izuku suppressed a sigh that was trying to work its way out of his nose. "So, what did you need done?"

Bakugou gestured towards the harness, “Something like that, I guess.” He guessed? When had Bakugou ever been unsure of anything in his life?

“Do you mean a maneuvering harness?”

“Yeah.” He raised a hand up and flexed it, staring at his palm in thought, “I mainly use my hands to maneuver but I end up paying the price later on in battle.”

“What do you mean?”

“My quirk is just like any other muscle. It gets tiring when I overuse it, especially if I concentrate it in one area. I’ve strained my arms and hands before and I’d like to minimize that in the future. I figured one of the best ways to help would be figuring out a different way to move around.”

Izuku was nodding, his finger tapping against his chin as he thought, “Normally, I would agree. But the way that you move tends to be too dynamic for a harness system.” Izuku had been watching Bakugou fight for over a decade, those spins and twirls would tangle him up in wires if he lost focus for even a second. Yeah. This, solving problems and hyper-analyzing issues, this was as easy as breathing to him, even if it did center around Bakugou.

“I think you would end up stunting your overall maneuverability. You’ve spent years mastering this one way of moving and I think changing that without any prep would act more as a hindrance right now. Plus, anytime you really needed to be saving your firepower, you’d probably be too focused on the fight to worry about engaging a wired system. You need a way to have a faster reaction time.” Izuku’s thoughts began running double-time. He wasn’t sure what he was verbalizing anymore, but it didn’t matter because oh. /Oh./

"Wait, Kacchan! I've got it!" Izuku's head snapped up.

He outlined his plan with Bakugou, watching as his scarlet eyes lit up as he considered what Izuku was suggesting. Izuku's stomach felt warm at that look. It was the same look Bakugou would get as a kid when he would talk about being the best, about being just like All Might.

"That's ingenious, Deku. I don't know how I didn't think about that sooner." Pleased surprise shocked through him at the words and Izuku didn't bother fighting off his grin. Worthless Deku no more, apparently.

It would take him a week or two to prototype and test, but with the resources he now had at his fingertips, he could have a finished product by the end of the month. His fingertips were already buzzing with excited energy. Somewhere in the back of his mind, a small part was cursing himself for offering to help Bakugou, but the protests were drowned out by the fact that he was going to be making gear of his own design for one of Japan's top heroes. Quite literally a dream come true.

He stilled as a thought crossed his mind, then turned to Bakugou, "Wait Kacchan, I'm not qualified enough for this." He hated the uncertainty in his own voice, "You should find someone who has more experience, like Hats-“

“Shut it, nerd. I asked you, didn’t I?”

Izuku nodded, opting to stay quiet as Bakugou continued, “You know my quirk better than any extra here,” there was a short, hysterical laugh at the title from where Hatsume was crouched over her own project, “Why do you think I waited until now to get any upgrades?”

“Because you’re stubborn?” The question felt like it came from the mouth of another Izuku. One that hadn’t heard those words Bakugou had yelled at him all those years ago. One that thought forgiveness might be in the cards spelling out their future.

Crimson eyes narrowed and Bakugou scoffed, “Because I only accept the best.” Izuku blinked. “And that’s what you are.” Bakugou’s ears were a little pink but he didn’t break Izuku’s stare. “The best.”

“Oh.” He didn’t really know what to say to that.

“I don’t really know what to say to that.”

“Then shut up. Just make me some killer gear.” Bakugou’s smile was wicked and Izuku returned it with an uncertain one that only wobbled a bit.

“I can do that.”

Katsuki groaned as he sunk onto the couch in his office, still decked out in all his gear. He hadn’t even bothered yanking off his boots. Too many buckles.

He peered at the clock on the wall and groaned again. It was already almost midnight and he had shown up to the agency at nine this morning. This new villain that had shown up was wearing him thinner than he would like to admit, but every time he thought about sleeping in or heading home without a late-night patrol images of his victims would flash behind his eyelids and push him to move, move, move.

Some new Stain-wannabe who called himself Uproot had started targeting hero interns and trainees a month or so back. He had this nasty quirk that allowed him to accelerate the rate of decomposition of living things that he held on to. He could have been the world’s best farmer, but no, he decided that he wanted to grab on to aspiring hero’s limbs instead.

Katsuki had picked up the case a few weeks back when he had stumbled upon a third year from UA in an alleyway after Uproot had gotten ahold of him. He had almost vomited at the sight and smell, but nothing was worse than the look in that kid’s eyes when he realized that his hero-ing days were finished before they had even begun.

Katsuki grit his teeth, fighting the mental image away. It wasn’t one that he liked to ponder over, even if it did serve as a gruesome sort of motivator. If only he had gotten there in time, that kid would have been able to save people some day.

He wouldn’t be late again, not if he could help it.

He hadn’t been lying to Deku when he had said that he was waiting for the best to improve his gear, but that didn’t mean there weren’t other reasons, as well. Pride and pickiness meant fuck-all when he was looking at the hopelessness in a victim’s face. He would do anything, anything, to never have to see that look on someone he was supposed to protect again.

His eyes shuttered shut and he resigned himself to a few minutes of rest on his office couch before he dragged himself home. It had been a long day, from the lunch with Deku to the fruitless late-night patrol, and he wanted nothing more than to take a steaming shower and crawl in to bed, but the idea of trekking across town seemed impossible at the moment. A couch nap would have to suffice for the moment.

He could hear the phantom voice of Kirishima chiding him as he dozed, ”You can’t keep burning the candle at both ends, dude. You’re going to wear yourself out too much, and then you’ll be no use to anyone.” After the third time his red-haired friend had found him conked out in his office come the morning, they had a little… what had he called it? Heart-to-heart.

Heart-to-heart Katsuki’s ass. It had been the most severe verbal beating he had gotten since he moved out of his mother’s house. And Jirou, Momo, and Kaminari joining in partway through certainly hadn’t eased the intensity. Momo had even ratted him out to fucking half-and-half, who had left him a voicemail later that day. Just a dry, ”You’ll never be the best if you die from sleep deprivation,” and nothing else.

His friends were assholes.

Katsuki had almost nodded off completely when his phone buzzed. He cursed when he pulled it out of his pocket and saw the name on the screen. It was like he had summoned the bastard.

IcyHot: I can see your office lights from my apartment, you know. Go home, Bakugou

Katsuki: mind your own business, freezer burn

Less than thirty seconds after he pressed sent his phone buzzed in response.

IcyHot: You’ve used that one before.

And it is my problem when I get texts from all of your friends worrying about you.

Katsuki: theyre your friends too asshat

IcyHot: You’re insults are lacking when you’re tired. Go home before I call Kirishima

Katsuki grumbled and hauled himself off the couch. Fine, fucker. He walked to the window and flipped off the city even though there was no way Todoroki would be able to see the gesture from so far off. Still, he felt better walking back to his desk and gathering his things than before he had gone out on patrol.

He walked to his office door and flicked the lights off, throwing another middle finger towards the window over his shoulder as he shut the door behind him.

Katsuki’s kitchen was filled with the scent of miso and the muted thunks of tofu being diced into thick cubes a few nights later.

“Bakugouuuuuu,” Katsuki rolled his eyes as he scraped the tofu into the pot and stirred, “When is the food going to be ready?”

“Wait five minutes, Pikachu.”

“Aw,” Kaminari cooed from the table, “That insult was almost cute.”

“You want me to be mean, spark plug?”

The electric hero tutted his tongue, “Your insults have gotten weak since high school, man.”

“Hey,” Kirishima shoved at Kaminari’s shoulder, “Don’t tease him about it. Bakubro turned over a new leaf. You’ll make him regress.”

Katsuki slammed the now-finished soup on the table harder than it necessarily called for. “Why the fuck am I friends with you guys?”

Kirishima’s shark-tooth smile gleamed, “Cause you love us.”

“That seems unlikely.”

Kaminari rubbed his hands together excitedly, “Oh, man, I’ve been looking forward to this.”

Kirishima nodded in agreement, his gaze fixated on the cloudy soup that Katsuki was ladling out into three bowls.

It had become a tradition since they had graduated UA. Every few weeks someone would send out a dinner request in the old Class A group chat and someone else (usually Katsuki, Momo, or Sato) would name a night they would cook for whoever could show up.

It was a much smaller dinner than normal, but with the recent upswing in crime these past few weeks with Uproot on the streets, it was only natural that fewer of their old classmates would make it out.

Plus, it certainly didn’t help that the flu had been passed around the last time the class had gotten together and they were practically all down for the count. Thankfully, Katsuki had been tied up with a crime report and had to cancel at the last minute. He couldn’t afford to miss any work right now.

Kaminari let out a whine and dropped his head to the table after the first spoonful of soup. “God, I wish Shinsou were here. He loves miso soup.”

Katsuki rolled his eyes and walked over to the kitchen to pull out a plastic container.

“Here,” he set it on the table, “Bring him some when you go home.” If he didn’t find a way to placate Kaminari about his boyfriend now, this dinner would be nothing but a mope-fest.

The electric blonde’s head shot up, “You mean it? You’re the man, Bakugou. You’re cooking is magic.”

“Seriously,” Kirishima added between loud slurps of soup and tofu, “I had this rash on my back that went away when you made Kitsune Udon.”

Kaminari snapped his fingers, “Oh yeah, and there was that one time Ashido had that huge-“

“Shut up,” Katsuki growled. “I’m eating over here, godammit.”

Dinner flew by with Kirishima and Kaminari chatting about anything and everything. Kaminari teased Kiri about his unending crush on Ashido (“Geez, man. Why do you have to kick a guy when he’s down?”), Kirishima teased Kaminari about Shinsou (“I’m not whipped, I’m just in love.”), and Katsuki interjected with the occasional snide comment.

When the conversation turned towards Deku starting at the agency, however, he shut up real quick.

“Oh, c’mon, man. You’ve got to tell us the deets,” Kaminari whined. Kirishima, who was at least semi-aware of their current situation, winced empathetically at his insistence.

“The fuck do you mean ‘deets’?”

“I mean, dude. You’ve been at the agency, for what, three years now? All that time you never once asked Nighteye for anything and then suddenly you’re begging for a favor, not for yourself, but for some random dude that you haven’t spoken to in almost a decade?”

“Hey, there was no begging involved.”

Kaminari ignored his interjection and plowed ahead. “I’m just saying that there’s definitely a story there, and if you don’t tell me then I’ll just go and ask that kid about it myself. What was his name again? Deru? Dimka?”

Katsuki’s leash on his rising annoyance snapped, “It’s Deku, you ass, and I’ll beat the shit out of you if you ask him anything.”

“Oh,” a grin spread across Kaminari’s face, “Is that so? Guess you’d better be the one to tell me, then.” Katsuki glowered, knowing that he’d lost. Kaminari wasn’t even remotely afraid of him anymore. In high school, that threat would have warranted a cringe, or a cower, or some sort of reaction aside from the eye roll thrown his way. He really had gone soft.

“Fine.” Kaminari practically beamed. Kirishima seemed excited too, despite his earlier empathy on Katsuki’s behalf. Traitor.

Katsuki sighed at the pair’s wide, expectant eyes. “We were friends growing up. Or, well, our moms were friends, so we were friends by proxy.”

“God you’re hot when you say things like proxy.”

Kirishima whacked the back of Kaminari’s head with a hushed, “Shut up.” And then a few seconds later, “Proxy isn’t even a big word, dude. Raise your standards, man.”

Katsuki rolled his eyes, “It was- I don’t know,” he rubbed the back of his head as memories began to surface, “We were kids. It was nice.” He and Deku running around the playground pretending to be All Might. Deku laughing at some joke Katsuki had said. Holding up a beetle for Deku take a closer look. Those days seemed so long ago. A lifetime stood between him and their childhood.

“I developed my quirk, and it was awesome, and Deku thought so too. And it fine until…” he had to swallow the dryness out of his throat as new memories popped up. Katsuki throwing Deku to the ground. Deku standing between him and another kid, cheeks streaked with salty lines. Katsuki popping explosions next to frightened emerald eyes.

He swallowed again, finding he couldn’t meet his friends eyes as he spoke, “It was fine until they diagnosed him as quirkless.” Kirishima, who knew this already, just nodded solemnly at Kaminari’s quiet, “Shit.” They all knew the statistics. They knew that life was hell for quirkless kids. More than that though, they had known Katsuki back then. Back when nothing mattered to him but accumulating power and proving that everyone around him was weaker.

“Yeah… Yeah, I was pretty shit to him back then.”

“But why is he here now?”

“Cause I fucked up real bad back in middle and high school but he’s still amazing despite that.” That was really the only word Katsuki had for it, thinking about how the guy’s face had lit up when they were talking about heroes together. He was far too earnest, but Katsuki decided that, from now on, he would do everything in his power to protect Deku from people like himself.

“So, what? You’re trying to make it up to him? It was you who recommended him for the job, right?”

“Yeah, I guess.”

“And you have a thing for him, right?” Christ, Kaminari’s questions were endless.

Katsuki felt his face flame, “I’m not responding to that.”

“Well, I mean, it wasn’t really a question anyway. You have a thing for him.”

He ignored Katsuki’s growl and tipped his head in thought, “Shit, man. This is a tough spot to be in. What are you going to do if he doesn’t want to forgive you?”

And that was just the question, wasn’t it? For all that Katsuki knew he didn’t deserve forgiveness, he hadn’t actually thought about what would happen when Deku didn’t offer it to him. His spine locked up at the thought and he had to force his breathing to stumble into a semi-normal pattern.

“Then I’ll fuck off and leave him alone. He deserves that at least,” he said. Because, really, what else could he do but leave him alone?

“Fuck, man,” Kaminari sighed and leaned back in his chair, “I’ll have Shinsou bake you something if it goes to shit.” Kaminari clapped him on the shoulder and turned back to his soup. Katsuki didn’t exactly keep his friends around for their eloquence.

Kirishima had stayed quiet throughout, for which Katsuki was gratefully. The redhead knew about all that, anyway. It didn’t suck any less to have to admit to his best friend again that he had been a total piece of shit once upon a time. He really didn’t deserve these guys after what he had put so many people, including them, through.

The conversation veered away from him, Kaminari complaining about some villain that had been plaguing his prefecture for the better part of the month. Apparently, he and Shinsou had been pulling extra shifts for a few weeks now and they were both near the end of their ropes. Katsuki could relate.

Now that the electric-blonde mentioned it, Katsuki could see the presses of purple under his eyes. Kaminari had to be beyond tired to actually admit it. The guy was a like the damn energizer bunny most days. He did seem a bit more subdued than normal, even if he could still outpace most of the human race in terms of energy.

Katsuki just spooned a few more helpings of miso into his friend’s bowl.

He rolled his eyes at the bewilderment on Kaminari’s face, “You’re the one who’s always calling me soft, Dunceface.”

“I know, but damn dude. Jirou was right, Deku really is making you act like a mother hen.”

Katsuki scowled at friends, both of which were trying to hide smiles behind their hands at the look on his face. What the fuck was that supposed to mean? All of those sentimental feelings about Katsuki not deserving them shriveled up. Fuck these guys. And fuck Jirou too.

A few minutes later, and thankfully no more pointed comments thrown Katsuki’s way, Kaminari stood up from his chair with a loud yawn.

“I hate to dip out early but,” Kaminari swiped the empty container that Katsuki had left on the counter, “my husband is in need of sustenance.”

Kirishima frowned. “You guys aren’t married, right?” He turned to Katsuki, “Did I miss that somehow?”

Kaminari shot finger guns across the room at them with a wink, “Not yet, my spiky-haired friend. Not yet.”

Katsuki snorted, “He’s gonna say no if you ask him again.”

Kaminari’s mouth gaped in offense, “Why do you never have faith in me, man?”

“Have I been wrong yet?”

When he was greeted with silence and a pair of grimaces, Katsuki barked out a laugh. “Point proven.”

Kaminari clutched the now-full container of soup to his chest and stuck his bottom lip out in a pout, “He’s gonna say yes soon and then you’ll have to eat your words, Bakugou.”

Kirishima clapped a hand on Kaminari’s shoulder, “I believe in you man.”

The latter turned to him, eyes misting a bit, “Bro.”

“Bro.”

“You guys are disgusting. Leave. Bring your boyfriend some soup so he feels better and you stop hanging out with me again.”

Kaminari just grinned and backed away towards the door. “You’re the best, Bakugou. I’ll tell Shinsou you said hello.”

“Whatever.”

Kirishima just laughed as their friend shot another pair of finger guns their way and walked backwards out the door. So dramatic.

Katsuki let out a sigh of relief at the quiet of his apartment, now only punctuated by he and Kirishima’s spoons clanking against their bowls. The redhead was much quieter when it was just the two of them and Katsuki felt whatever stress he had carried throughout dinner ease as the silence persisted. Kaminari was great and all, but damn, the guy was too energetic for the week Katsuki had just finished.

Katsuki had zoned out enough that when Kirishima started talking he almost flinched, “So. I hear you have Midoriya working on some new gear for you.”

“Yeah. I want to stop straining my arms so much when I fight so we figured out a new way to give me mobility. That shitty nerd had some good ideas.” It had been almost a week since Katsuki had stopped by the workshop and asked Deku for the new gear and he hadn’t heard any updates yet. He wasn’t sure whether it was because Deku was struggling with the build or if he just didn’t want to talk to Katsuki and was avoiding him. Katsuki shoved another mouthful of miso soup in his mouth. He was trying not to think about it too much.

Kirishima’s head bobbed up and down, “Yeah he mentioned that when I stopped by a few days ago.”

Katsuki swallowed and his eye twitched at how loud it had sounded, “You saw him?”

Kirishima was frowning at his soup now, “I was getting a little worried. I haven’t seen him all week and, you know, we normally get lunch together when we can.”

Katsuki set his spoon down. “Have your patrols picked up too much? I know it’s been crazy for everyone since that fucking root-whatever showed up.” He would stop by Nighteye’s at some point and ask to take some of Kiri’s patrols if he needed to. His friend had a tendency to neglect his mental health when shit like this happened.

“No- I mean, well yeah they’ve picked up a bit, but it’s nothing I can’t handle. That isn’t why I haven’t eaten with him though.” Kirishima scratched his head, “He’s pretty driven, isn’t he?”

Katsuki snorted, “You can fucking say that again.”

“Yeah, I figured. And like, I’ve heard you mention it before, but damn. It was sort of mind-blowing to see.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well like, he was just surrounded by like piles and piles of scrap pieces,” Kirishima was gesturing vaguely, “and had this crazy fire in his eyes. It took me like three minutes to get his attention even though I was standing right in front of him and yelling his name. I think the only other person I’ve seen be that focused about something is like you when you’re chasing after a villain or Jirou when she shuts herself up in her studio.”

Katsuki felt something heavy fall somewhere in his gut at the words. “Oh, shit.”

The bewildered smile that had grown on Kirishima’s face fell at that response. “W- what?”

Katsuki groaned. Fuck. How could he have forgotten? Deku’s enthusiasm was great, and completely infectious. Katsuki had watched it throughout their childhood. It had a bit of a drawback sometimes. He hadn’t seen it since middle school. Hadn’t heard about it since he was in high school. Deku would find some crazy passion project and hyper-fixate for days or weeks or however long it took him to finish it. It sounded great and productive, but Auntie Inko had come over one more than one occasion to their house crying and begging Katsuki to talk Deku into resting.

The worst had been when Deku had decided to cross-reference news channels reporting hero popularity with social media response to the same incident and see if there were any consistent biases among the reporters. It sounded brain-numbingly boring to middle-schooler Katsuki, who had just blasted the kid’s shoulder and stalked away when Deku first told him about it.

Four nights and one crying Auntie later, Katsuki had begrudgingly knocked on Deku’s bedroom door with the promise of spicy curry as recompense.

“Open up, shitty nerd.”

No response. He pounded on the door again, his anger and voice spiking, “I said OPEN UP SHIT HEAD.”

He heard a startled gasp and what sounded like a stack of papers fall a few seconds before the door cracked open.

Green eyes blinked up at him. Once, twice, three times, before they widened and Deku flinched away. “K-kacchan! What are you doing here?”

“You made your mom cry and apparently that’s my problem now,” he ground out. He had sworn to play nice or all promises of curry would be null and void. Much easier said than done.

“O-oh. I’m sorry I didn’t mean to.”

Katsuki clocked the deep-blue bags under Deku’s eyes and the oily hair that he had pulled back with a headband.

“You look like shit.”

Deku’s eyes flashed to the ground and stuck there but he didn’t say anything.

Bakugou sighed loudly and let a few tiny explosions pop off on his hands. He smirked as Deku winced further back into the darkened room behind him.

“Just fucking eat your dinner and sleep because I’m sick of your mom asking me to play babysitter. What are you, fucking four years old? You’re such a piece of shit. Can’t even take care of yourself. How the fuck are you supposed to be a hero you quirkless wannabe?”

Deku’s eyes were glassy, but they still didn’t lift to meet Katsuki’s. His hand that was gripping the door was trembling slightly as he said, “I just got really into this project and kind of lost track of everything, but-but I’ll be better.”

Katsuki huffed and turned on his heel, storming out of the Midoriya’s house.

He walked out into the living room where Auntie Inko and his mother, with her arms crossed, were waiting.

“I talked to him. Now buy me food, hag.”

His mom scowled before clocking him lightly on the head. “Language, Katsuki.”

“Thank you Katsuki.” Auntie’s eyes were just as glassy as her son’s. He groaned and stormed out of their house. God he couldn’t fucking deal with the Midoryia’s. A couple of weak-ass parents who gave birth to a weak-ass son and then applauded him for doing fuck-all.

“-akugou.”

Katsuki was pulled back into the present by Kirishima reaching out to touch his shoulder. “You good, bro?”

He shook his head, trying to dislodge the memory from his mind. “I’m fine. But fucking Deku isn’t.”

“What do you mean?”

“He gets all crazy and stops eating and sleeping when he’s super invested in projects.”

“Oh, man. Do you think he’s not eating at all? I thought he was just grabbing lunch at weird times cause he was in the zone or something.”

Katsuki stood and walked towards the kitchen, pulling out the ingredients he would need as he went. “I’d bet your ass on it.”

“Well, what should we- wait. Are you cooking right now?”

Katsuki cracked an egg into a bowl and started whisking it with chopsticks, “I’m fixing the fucking problem, that’s what I’m doing.”

Chapter Text

Izuku wasn’t sure what time it was anymore. His watch had died a few days ago and he kept forgetting to charge it when he got home long after the sun set. His other option would have been to look at the clock on the wall, but this morning his pile of discarded metal plating had risen to block his view and he couldn’t find it within him to stop work long enough to get up from his seat and check.

He could check his phone, but really, what was the point? He had a good flow going, and he wasn’t going to sabotage that by being pulled into whatever DMs his friends had sent him on Twitter. That was why his phone had lived three benches away from him for the last week. He couldn’t afford distraction. There were deadlines and expectations he was determined to meet.

His head bumped in time to the music blasting through his earbuds. It was some Korean boy band that his friend Uraraka had sent him on a playlist called ‘you’re uneducated but that’s about to change’ that was full of other K-Pop songs.

He was pressurizing a shock when he felt an explosion rock through the labs. He had learned very quickly which explosions were concerning and which were commonplace, and judging from the way the other engineers he could spot were rolling their eyes at the far corner, he figured that this was one of the common ones.

Still, he pulled his earbuds out and walked over to Hatume’s smoking workstation, where she was cursing and laughing manically from behind the puffs of smoke. He rolled his shoulders as he went, trying to loosen the muscles there.

“Are you alright, Hatsume?”

He was met with another maniacal laugh before she said, “I’m peachy-keen. Just added a touch too much accelerant to this, apparently.”

It was honestly concerning that the happiest Izuku ever saw Hatsume was right after she accidentally demolished part of the labs. (“Oi. Listen to Einstein. ‘Failure is the mother of invention,’” she had told Izuku, once.)

Izuku knew it was probably stepping on a proverbial landmine, but curiosity got the best of him and he asked, “What are you working on?”

“Great question, great question,” those yellow eyes turned towards him and Izuku had to force himself to keep eye contact under their intensity. “I’m building a portable, instant water particle accelerant.”

His brows furrowed, “A water particle accelerant? What hero asked for that?” Maybe someone needed that needed heat regulation for their quirk? But really, it just sounded like a machine for-

“Oh, no, no, no. No one asked me to make this, I just really wanted some tea and this is gonna boil water way faster than our electric kettle.”

Izuku refrained from pointing out that she could have boiled a dozen pots of water in the time it took her to create this. “Would you make me a cup of hot chocolate when you finish up with this?”

Hatsume beamed, “Sure thing, Deku.”

He startled at the nickname. It wasn’t the first time she had called him by that old nickname, nor the second, but after not hearing it for the better part of a decade it still shocked him every time he heard it.

“Hey Hatsume, why do you call me that?”

She already had her back turned to him, working on unfastening some mechanism on her water boiler. “What do you mean?”

“I mean ‘Deku’. Where have you heard that before?”

She barked out a laugh, “I mean your reputation proceeded you, kid.”

Izuku tried not to scowl at being called a kid (weren’t they the same age?), and asked, “My reputation?”

He knew that people had heard of him before he started, but he thought that was just because he was one of the few people to be scouted by the agency. What did that have to do with Bakugou’s cruel name for him from childhood?

“You know,” Hatsume waved a vague hand, still facing away from him, “That hero you’re making gear for. The one that sweats nitroglycerin.”

“Kacchan? What does he have to do with my reputation?”

Hatsume did turn around at that, one of her eyebrows lifted into a high arc, “What? You mean you don’t know?”

He shook his had, still at a total loss.

Hatsume’s disbelief tilted into a sly grin. “How interesting.”

“What is?”

She waved another hand, dismissing his question like the smoke tendrils still swirling around her, and turned back to her work. “Nothing, nothing. I just heard him talking to that red-haired hero and Jirou.”

How was that interesting? Izuku took Hatsume’s humming as a dismissal and wandered back to his own desk, more confused than ever.

He guessed it made sense that Bakugou would have talked about him with his friends, but what did Hatsume mean by ‘you don’t know’? Whatever it was, it couldn’t be all that important if Bakugou, or Kirishima for that matter, hadn’t bothered to bring it up to him.

He sat down at his bench, pushing his confusion aside in favor of grabbing the shock he had been working on earlier. He slid his earbuds back in and fell back into the familiar patterns of his work. At this bench, he could shut off the part of his brain that buzzed with anxiety and just focus on fixing problems. Nicknames, nitroglycerin, and nerves melted away under his tinkering fingers.

It wasn’t long before his earlier thoughts faded to white noise while he worked, distant and barely audible. He stretched his arms above his head and briefly wondered when the last time he ate was. The train of thought was lost to him as soon as he thought of it though, replaced by a sudden idea about how to fasten together two panels without adhesive.

“Of course, why didn’t I think about that sooner? I can’t have any sort of adhesive in this gear anyway. Nothing that could be sensitive to heat.” He shifted a little in his seat as he leaned back down over his bench, settling in to draw up schematics for a new panel that needed to be laser-cut.

The rest of his mind went blissfully quiet as he worked.

“What are you doing here, Problem Child?”

Kastuki spared a toothy grin for his old sensei when the man cracked open his apartment door and scowled at the blonde.

He lifted the two cups in his hands in offering and Aizawa’s scowl deepened before he sighed and snatched one from Katsuki’s hands. He took a long gulp of steaming coffee before stepping off the side and gesturing towards the inside of his apartment.

Katsuki glanced around the space, taking in the cat tower and potted plants that adorned every surface in the place. Even Aizawa’s kitchen counters were covered in draping greenery. Hell, didn’t either of the men who lived here cook?

Aizawa let out a groan as he sank onto the couch and drank from his coffee cup again. Deeply.

“So you brought me coffee, but you didn’t answer my question, Bakugou. You better have a good reason for waking me up before ten in the morning on my day off.”

He sat on a chair across from his teacher and braced his forearms on his knees.

“I need your advice.”

Aizawa had stopped teaching a year after Katsuki’s class had finished their time at UA and had devoted himself to underground hero work entirely. Apparently Katsuki’s class had killed what little energy the erasure hero had on reserve. He never quite stopped being a teacher though, especially when it came to Katsuki’s class. They had all been through hell and back those three years, and Aizawa had made a point to keep in touch with his class through the years.

Aizawa just nodded for Katsuki to elaborate. Might as well just get into it. “You’ve heard of the new villain that showed up, right?”

“Yeah. Uproot, right?”

Katsuki nodded. “My agency teamed up with Todoroki’s while we’re looking for him but it’s been fucking hell these past weeks. No one can get any kind of info on the guy. Even his victims can’t give us any solid info for how he looks and no one has been able to pick out patterns in his attacks. Have you heard anything that might help us out?”

Aizawa’s line of hero work led him to deal with a very different group of people than who Katsuki interacted with on a daily basis. Kaminari had actually been the one to give him the idea to visit Aizawa after last night’s dinner. He had sent a photo of Shinsou bundled up in a Chargebolt blanket and staring absent-mindedly at a TV with a bowl of miso soup in his lap.

Dunceface: thanks for the magic meal!

Kastuki had snorted, thinking that Kaminari’s boyfriend looked even more like Aizawa all bundled up like that. And that thought had led him… well, here.

Aizawa rubbed his chin, “I’ve heard about him, yeah. From what I can tell, he’s working solo. Practically everyone that I’ve caught has been scared out of their minds by the guy.” Aizawa grimaced. “Though, there was one perp, just some small-time thief, who said he was Stain’s legacy.”

Kastuki’s face mirrored his sensei’s at the words. “Fucking fantastic,” he commiserated, “That’s just what we need. Another Stain-wannabe.”

It wasn’t much information to work with, but it was more than any of the heroes at his agency had managed to scrounge up, so he would take it. At least the guy was working alone. It only focused Katsuki’s anger on the asshole that much more.

“Watch yourself around him Bakugou- no, don’t give me that look. I mean it. The victims even make my stomach turn, kid.”

Katsuki’s own stomach flipped a little as it produced the all too familiar image of the partially decomposed kid he found a few weeks back. “Yeah, fine.” He didn’t particular care for people worrying about him, but Aizawa wasn’t exactly the fretting type and he knew first-hand how warranted his teacher’s concern was in this case.

“Are you okay, kid?”

Katsuki released the lip he had been gnawing on with his teeth to answer with an intelligent, “Huh?”

“It seems like something else is bothering you.”

He shouldn’t have been surprised, really. Aizawa sensei was better than anyone (save perhaps Kirishima) at reading Kastsuki’s moods. He was the one who had acted as a therapist for a year and a half before Katsuki felt comfortable enough to talk to someone outside the school about his anger issues. The man had reading him down to an art.

He chewed on his lip again, debating the merits of actually talking to Aizawa about this. He really didn’t want to, but then again, the man in front of him knew the context of his current relationship with Deku better than anyone. Katsuki had come clean to him years ago. It had felt like a relief back then. Maybe it could feel like one now, too.

“Do you remember how I told you way back when about that kid I used to pick on back in middle school? The quirkless one?”

Aizawa nodded, setting his now-empty cup of coffee aside, “You two grew up together, right?”

“That’s the one.” He took a deep breath in. Out. He really didn’t like admitting to one of the few people he truly respected how much of an idiot he was, even if Aizawa had come to expect it by now.

“Well, he just graduated college and I sort of recommended him to join the agency as a support engineer.”

Aizawa hummed back in his throat, “So he’s working there now?”

Katsuki nodded, suppressing a groan as it hit him, yet again, what a stupid fucking idea that had been.

“He’s there and, fuck sensei, he looks at me like I’m a fucking nightmare walking. I can’t stand it.”

“Then why did you bother recommending him if you knew how he felt about you?”

“I don’t know- I just- Ugh!” He threw his hands up. “I felt bad. And like, the guy is a huge fucking nerd who loved All Might more than anyone so I wanted to give him the chance to work at the same agency.”

“So you’re trying to make up for your actions when you were younger?”

“Yeah, except that was apparently a shitty idea because it’s been weeks and he still looks fucking terrified every time I walk into a room.” He groaned again, resisting the knee-jerk urge to let a few explosions off around his palms. Aizawa probably wouldn’t take well to his upholstery being scorched.

“Wow,” he deadpanned, “You’re getting really worked up about this.”

“Of course I fucking am! This feels like shit and I just don’t know what to do.”

“Have you tried apologizing to him?”

Katsuki’s hand that had clenched into a tight fist fell limp against the chair. “What?”

“Have you tried apologizing?” He repeated, sounding infinitely patient. Those red-rimmed eyes didn’t miss anything as he watched some emotion play out over Katsuki’s face.

“I mean, I took him to meet Gran Torino and asked him to help me with some gear.”

“So, let me try and understand what you’re saying.” Katsuki swallowed. That wasn’t a good tone. “You asked someone who has a history of fearing you, with good reason I might add, to join you for lunch shortly after joining the agency that you’re one of the top heroes at. Can you at least understand that there was a power dynamic there?”

“I didn’t want to force him into-“

“Your intentions don’t matter in this instance, since he probably felt pressured nonetheless.”

Fuck, he didn’t mean-

“Then, after that, you only approach him again to ask him for help in a professional manner. And for a task that he most likely feels under-qualified for, given his very recent employment at your agency.”

Katsuki suddenly remembered with horrible clarity how Deku had tried to turn down his offer to make his gear at first. Fuck. Had he felt coerced into doing that? He had seemed excited about it by the end, but had Katsuki just read him wrong?

His head dropped into his hands. “Fuck.” His frustration melted into something cold and oily in his gut as he thought about the past few times he had seen the green-haired dork from his point of view. Shit. Even that nickname that he hadn’t been able to shake all these years was an insult. It was so habitual at this point that Katsuki barely thought about the fact that he was calling him an idiot to his face every time he saw him.

No wonder Deku seemed like he was debating between biting off Katsuki’s head and running every time they saw one another.

“Do you understand why he might still be cautious about you? You haven’t spoken to him since middle school, right? Right now he has no reason to believe you have changed at all. He’s going to doubt your intentions until you make it clear what they are, Bakugou.”

Well. Katsuki certainly hadn’t come to Aizawa hoping for sugar-coating, but damn, the man didn’t pull his punches. When Katsuki just sat there with his head in his hands, he reached over and plucked the blonde’s coffee off of the side table and took a long swig of it.

“So what do I do?” he eventually asked. It sounded so much weaker than he had been hoping.

“Apologize.” Katsuki’s eyes lifted to meet charcoal grey ones. “Use your words first, Problem Child, then back them up with your actions.”

“You think it’ll actually help?”

Aizawa took another long drink from Katsuki’s coffee cup and shrugged. “You won’t know until you try, right?”

Izuku jumped as a plastic container flopped onto the workbench in front of him.

“Eat.” From the tone, it wasn’t up for debate.

He scowled up at the blonde hero towering over his workspace as he tugged his earbuds out. “Kacchan, don’t put food on my desk. It’ll get on the gear.”

“When was the last time you ate?”

Bakugou crossed his arms, looking rather pleased with himself, when he couldn’t immediately produce an answer. Izuku’s scowl deepened.

“I’ll eat when I get home. I have a good pace going right now.”

Bakugou snorted. “Sure, Deku.” Izuku’s jaw tightened as he tried to reign in the words that threatened to snap off his tongue at that tone. “Kirishima said that you haven’t eaten lunch with him for three days.”

The spark of annoyance in Izuku flared into something far more heated and destructive. Was Bakugou keeping tabs on him? Could he not get a moment of peace from this man? He was fighting to keep his breathing under control. He was doing his job. He didn’t need micromanagement from high school bullies who thought that being a hero meant nothing more than winning. Christ, he wasn’t a child. Distantly, he realized that he was getting more worked up than he should. But then again, when had Bakugou Katsuki ever given a damn about him before now?

“Is Kirishima my keeper?” He asked, the words sharper than the nails that were digging into his palms as his fists clenched.

“No.” Bakugou’s ruby eyes held zero compromise as he stared down at Izuku. “He’s your friend.”

The annoyance and anger building in Izuku’s chest snuffed out immediately, a candle’s flame under the cold breath of Bakugou’s words. His hands unfurled from where they sat atop the bench and Bakugou’s eyes tracked the movement.

“Oh.” It sounded so flat when he spoke the syllable aloud. When was the last time a friend had checked in on him to make sure he was eating well? Certainly not in college or high school. Izuku shook off whatever feeling was wrapping around him and pulled the container close to him. Maybe… maybe he should eat. He really didn’t want to worry Kirishima, and the thought that he had been worried enough to go to Bakugou made something behind his sternum ache.

He peeled the lid off of the container. Was this…

“It’s Katsudon!” His mouth watered as the smell of battered pork and onion filled the workshop. Thankfully it was late enough in the evening that he was the only one here, so he didn’t feel guilty about pushing away from his bench and eating right there. Proper lab protocol be damned.

“But how did Kiri…” He trailed off when he glanced up to see Bakugou’s dusted in an alarming shade of pink.

“Kacchan-“ Did he-

“S’fine. I just had some leftovers from dinner last night and Kirishima had mentioned you weren’t eating lunch with him anymore so I just figured you could have it.”

Bakugou was making every effort to look anywhere but Izuku’s face.

“Just shut up and eat it. You’re worthless to me if you pass out, idiot. How the fuck are you supposed to be the best engineer if you can’t even take care of yourself, dumbass.”

Izuku didn’t know what to say, so he opted to lift a bite of the pork and rice to his mouth. His eyes widened as he chewed and he turned to Kacchan, a little open-mouthed, after he swallowed.

“Kacchan, this is- this is delicious! Did you cook this?”

There was something in Bakugou’s face as he finally turned to look at Izuku (Was it relief? No, that couldn’t be right.) “You like it?”

“Are you kidding?” Izuku asked through another mouthful of pork. Holy- this was so good. “Since when do you cook?”

“The fuck? Since forever. You think my mom was the one who cooked in the house? Or my dad? He can’t even be trusted with a spoon, let alone a chef’s knife.”

Izuku swallowed. True, the image of Auntie Mitsuki in the kitchen did seem a little ridiculous, but then again… He narrowed his eyes at the blonde who was now poking at the various piles scattered on and around Izuku’s desk. Nope. It was still weird that Kacchan cooked.

The words felt awkward coming off his tongue, but he said them anyway. “Thank you, Kacchan. It looks like I owe you two meals now.”

Something shuttered behind Kacchan’s eyes at the words and before Izuku could ask (wait…had he really been about to ask about it?), Kacchan shook his head. “You don’t owe me anything. Consider it…” he paused, like the words were just as difficult for him to work around as they were for Izuku to manage, “A thank you.”

Izuku’s head tipped to one side. “For what?”

He gestured at the piles of junk piled around Izuku. “For this. The gear, I mean. Thank you for working on it. I know that it was a lot to ask of you, since you just started working here, and all.”

Izuku blinked, the spoon he had lifted halfway to his mouth forgotten midair. That was the closest thing Izuku had heard to an apology from Kacchan since…forever. Holy-

Kacchan growled when he spied Izuku’s expression, “The fuck are you looking at me like that for? Eat your damn soup or shut your mouth.” Then, almost under his breath, “No damn manners.”

He did eat that spoonful of soup before pushing the bowl away. He ignored Kacchan’s glare at the amount left in the bowl and tapped his chin. “Yeah, it was a lot to ask,” he said, referring to the gear for the explosive hero, “but I think I can handle it.”

Kacchan still looked vaguely uncomfortable for some reason. He looked like he was debating something for a second before adding, “Well, if you need any help-“

“No, Kacchan,” he flashed a wide smile, “Let me rephrase that. I want to do this. I know I can handle it.”

Izuku couldn’t read that look on his face, but he added, “Thanks for the push. You’ve always given me that, at least.”

The words were a truce. For everything.

Maybe… maybe eight years really was enough time for someone to change. Maybe he could give Kacchan another chance. Just one more. Now, he just had to see if Kacchan would reach out and accept his olive branch. Or could it be that he was reaching out to what Kacchan had been holding onto this whole time?

Either way, the smile sharp-toothed smile the blonde shot back at him felt like answer enough.

“Why are you in such a shit mood, Bakugou? Well,” Jirou paused from where they were cleaning their speakers to look up at him, “more shit than usual, anyway.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Katsuki thought he accentuated his point pretty well with a few pops from his palms. See? He was his normal cheery self.

Jirou rolled her eyes and went back to her speakers. “Whatever it is, just don’t take it out on me, alright?”

“Like hell I would.”

“I’m just saying, it’s not me you’ve gotta worry about,” onyx eyes briefly slid up to meet his, “It’s Momo.”

Katsuki couldn’t stop the shiver that ran through him at the implication, but he tried to play it off with a scowl. “Whatever, I don’t have time for your possessive girlfriend’s bullshit.” Jirou just snorted.

Really though, she wasn’t wrong. He had been in a bad mood since leaving the labs earlier. That whole encounter had been a huge steaming pile of good and bad that Katsuki hadn’t sorted through just yet, but there was one part in particular that had left a rancid taste in his mouth.

”Consider it… a thank you.” Idiot.

He had been trying to apologize, but that damn tongue of his was refusing to work. A thank you, my ass. He needed to do better next time. He had to be better. He couldn’t half-ass this. When had he ever done shit halfway? And that’s what that had been, some pathetic attempt at an apology that looked more like he was licking his wounded pride than actual regret.

“Dude, you’re gonna set off a fire alarm.”

He clenched his fists to stop the tiny blasts popping in the air and turned to Jirou. “When did that dipshit say he was gonna call?”

She shrugged, “I don’t know. He just said some time after lunch.”

Katsuki rolled his eyes and punched in a string of digits on his desk phone. He was sick of waiting around. The phone rang half a second before it sent him to a curt voicemail.

”This is the voicemail of pro-hero Shouto. If this is an emergency, please hang up and dial 119. Leave me a message and your name and I will call you back at my earliest convenience.”

Katsuki mouthed along to the words mockingly. Insufferable asshat. His voicemail sounded as pompous and robotic as he was.

The line beeped and Katsuki spied Jirou hiding a laugh behind their hands at whatever look was on his face. “Hey Half-and-Half, answer the damn phone when I call you! I can’t waste all day sitting around waiting on you and whatever ‘very important hero business’ you have to tell me about. If it were that important, you’d think you would hurry the fuck up, wouldn’t you?! I’m gonna sit here for five more minutes before Jirou and I leave on patrol, and don’t expect me to answer while I’m out.”

He slammed the phone back on the receiver and let out a long breath. It felt good to let some steam out on Icyhot. The asshole deserved it, making him sit around like this for half an hour.

The laugh that Jirou had been suppressing bubbled out from behind her hand and it was all Katsuki could do to lower his head to his desk and flip her off. At least she couldn’t see the way his lips turned up a bit that way.

It was only a few seconds before the phone rang again and Katsuki answered, putting it on speaker.

“Hello, this is Shouto.”

“Why the fuck didn’t you answer when I called a few seconds ago?”

“I was finishing my soba. You wouldn’t have wanted to talk to me while my mouth was full, right? Sorry. Next time I’ll call you while I’m eating.”

Katsuki knew this asshole was only trying to rile him up, acting all clueless like that, but oh, was it working. “Did you listen to my voicemail?”

“No. I can hang up and listen if you-“

“DON’T FUCKING HANG UP ON ME YOU-“

“Woah, guys,” Jirou interjected cooly, “Chill out. We have actual business to talk about, right? I, for one, would like to leave for patrol at a reasonable time. I don’t want to leave our sidekicks hanging out there for too long on their own.”

Katsuki grumbled, but didn’t argue. He knew that he and Todoroki had a tendency to get carried away if someone didn’t step in. Old rivalries died hard. And Jirou was right, their sidekicks were patrolling alone right now, and with Uproot on the streets… well, Katsuki didn’t want to take any chances, capable as their sidekicks might be.

“I was calling to ask if you wanted to visit my agency for an informal strategy meeting later this week? I don’t want to deal with gathering our whole teams, but you and Jirou should stop by the agency and we can discuss strategies going forward with Yaomomo.”

Katsuki rolled his eyes as Jirou turned their pleading eyes towards him. Of course Todoroki had to rope Yaoyorozu into this. Now there was no way in hell Ears over there would drop it until he agreed.

“Fine. We can come by on Wednesday.” Jirou’s pleading expression turned into a frown at that but Katsuki waved them off. He could sacrifice his day off for a glorified social visit. She didn’t need to get her panties in a wad over it. They gave him a look that said she was going to tattle on Kirishima about it later, but he could deal with that pile of rocks. They needed to get this sorted. Now.

“Perfect. My patrol ends at 2:00 and Yaoyorozu is done before me.”

“We’ll be there,” Jirou chimed in.

Katsuki hung up the phone in the middle of whatever Todoroki was saying in reply and Jirou scowled at him as they made their way towards the elevators.

“I know you’re in a rush, but you didn’t have to hang up on the guy.”

“If he still got offended from that shit by this point then we wouldn’t be friends.”

He was met with silence and cursed when he saw Jirou’s shocked face and played the words back in his head, “Shit-“

“Oh my god, did you really just admit that you two are friends?”

“Shut-“

“I can’t believe I didn’t get that on video. Maybe I can see if one of the security guards will give me the elevator footage.”

“YOU BETTER FUCKING NOT OR-“

“No, no, you’re right. I still don’t think Denki would believe me then. He’d just say I dubbed it or something.”

She wasn’t listening to him. Fuck.

“You know,” she tapped her chin, “It was kind of a joke at first, but maybe it is Midoriya’s effect on you.” Were they even talking to him at this point?

She ignored the scowl he shot her way and bent down to adjust some dials on her boots.

And just like that Katsuki’s mind circled back around to the green-haired nightmare like the whipped piece of junk it was. It was the only thing he had been able to think about all fucking day after going down to the workshop late last night.

He had been right on the money. That familiar look had been in Deku’s eyes, like all the nerd could think about was the problem right in front of him. It looked like he had missed more than one night of sleep this past week. Even the goggle-eyed chick hadn’t been in the labs when he had finished up his patrol.

It was the whole ‘unstoppable force, immovable object’ deal with Deku when he got like this. Sure, his body might shut down a few days in, but that didn’t mean he was willing to give it the time of day to fix it.

One meal wasn’t going to be worth shit in the long run with that guy. He needed some kind of distraction. But what could actually manage to get his mind off of his literal dream job?

Katsuki was out of the building and walking down the street to meet up with their sidekicks before it hit him.

Oh. Shit. That might work.

He fished his phone out of his tactical belt, tugging his glove off with his teeth so he could type. He absently wondered if he should get Deku to make him some gloves that worked with technology when he had the time. He pressed send and waved off Jirou’s questioning look.

Katsuki: care if i bring a plus one?

His phone was tucked away and out of his mind by the time a reply buzzed through.

IcyHot: Is it the engineer everyone keeps talking about?

That’s fine by me. I’d love to meet him.

Chapter Text

If Katsuki hadn’t noticed that Deku’s shirt was a slightly different shade of blue, he would have sworn the idiot hadn’t moved an inch since the last time he had seen him. It was way too early for either of them to be at the agency but Katsuki had taken a bet that if anyone was haunting the halls at this hour, it would be the engineer in front of him.

Even from the door to the lab, he could see that the bags under Deku’s eyes were deeper than before and the piles of scrap loomed higher than ever. As he approached the workbench, he heard an indecipherable stream of quiet chatter flow from the man’s mouth. The only things aside from tools and random pieces of metal adorning the bench’s surface were a half-eaten croissant in a far corner and a cup of coffee that had cooled enough that steam no longer curled off its surface.

Unlike the last time Katsuki had seen him, Deku was free of his headphones, which only served to increase his mounting concern over the fact that Deku had yet to notice his presence. Granted, he was hunched over a notebook so his eyes were pointedly facing down, but he would have to look up at some point. Right?

The occasional silence between Deku’s mutterings was unnerving in the quiet of the labs. The space didn’t feel right with only the pair of them in it.

Having reached the bench, Katsuki waited for Deku to clock the fact that he was there by fiddling with various mechanisms that cluttered the surface. After a minute full of squeaking hinges and unending whispers, he reached his limit for patience.

“Oi, Deku.”

He had been expecting him to jump, so Katsuki was already moving to catch whatever Deku inevitably dropped as he called out to him. Even still, he had a hard time reaching across the various piles of shit and snagging the pen before it was lost among the discarded panels forever.

“Kacchan!” A sheepish look overtook Deku’s features when he realized who was standing there and Katsuki scowled as the expression confirmed his suspicions about the guy not sleeping or eating. He felt distinctly like a hall monitor catching a kid skipping class. Except this kid wouldn’t leave class. Katsuki had never been great with analogies.

He dropped the pen in Deku’s hand and backed up before he realized that their faces had been very, very close together there for a moment. At least the air in the lab was near freezing. It felt nice against his burning cheeks.

“Thanks,” Deku muttered, tucking the pen in his journal before closing the book.

“Have you slept at all since I last saw you?” When had that been? Only yesterday, right?

“You look like shit.”

Deku’s shoulders slumped forward slightly, “I slept a little.” He looked like a kid being scolded.

Shit. He hadn’t come here to lecture him. Deku was an adult and he had survived nearly a decade without him interfering.

“Well, a little sleep is better than none, I guess.”

Deku jolted as Katsuki dropped the paper bag he had been carrying onto the desk’s only free space.

“Eat that whenever you get a chance.” Curry buns may not have been the healthiest option, but he knew the guy had a weakness for them. He would count it as a win if was able to get any form of sustenance down the Deku’s throat this deep into a project.

Deku grabbed one with a chipper, “Thanks,” and hummed happily as he took a bite. Katsuki tried to hide the smugness threatening to overwhelm his face. He wasn’t sure he succeeded.

Silence settled between them as Deku ate. It wasn’t comfortable, per se, but it wasn’t uncomfortable either. It felt more like a truce than anything. Compared to the fear and anger that he had been met with mere days earlier, Katsuki would take it.

It took a minute or two before Katsuki worked up the courage to ask what he had come down here for.

He cleared his throat, “Are you doing anything after lunch?”

Deku just shot him an incredulous look before glancing pointedly at his disaster of a workspace. His mouth was still working around the curry bun with a frightening fervor.

“Well, aside from that, dumbass.”

“Well,” he swallowed, “Hatsume asked me to help test some new gloves she’s prototyping, but…” those pine-green eyes bounced back and forth between Katsuki’s own. Katsuki wondered if he found anything redeemable there. He hoped so, even if hoping was a little foolish.

“It can wait,” Deku finished after an impossibly long moment.

Katsuki only barely managed to stifle his sigh of relief as he said, “Do you want to go to Endeavor’s hero agency with me?”

At Deku’s widening eyes, he explained, “I have to meet up with Todoroki.” But that wasn’t enough, was it? Deku needed to know why and it was better to answer the question before Deku asked it himself.

“I thought you might enjoy going. I bet Icy-hot would even let you see their labs if you wanted.”

It was suddenly very difficult to keep holding Deku’s gaze, so Katsuki fixed his eyes on the curry bun still in Deku’s hand and he rubbed at the back of his neck.

Deku still wasn’t answering and Katsuki wasn’t sure he was making a conscious decision to keep speaking as he jumped to fill the silence.

“I just- you know. Since your thesis was about that guy. I thought, I dunno,” God, he was really fucking eloquent right now, wasn’t he? “I thought you might want to…talk to him?” Why did he make that last bit sound like a question?

Kirishima was right. He was a train wreck. He used to have game, but for some reason, in the face of those wide, wide eyes and unruly curls, said game evaporated. Should he even be trying for game right now? Christ, when had he ever thought about his own words this much? His brain hurt.

“You don’t have to come with me if you don’t want to. I just wanted to see-“

“Are you KIDDING ME?” Katsuki jumped at the volume when Deku finally spoke and interrupted him (saved him) from another disaster of a sentence.

Fucking idiot,, he chided himself. He’s going to feel pressured into going again. Why the fuck did I not just apologize and leave him be? Fuck, and now he’s pissed again-

“Of course I want to go!” Deku’s near shout cut Katsuki’s spiraling thoughts off.

“I applied there too, you know! Endeavor’s agency is one of the best in the country. Did you know,” he was practically bouncing in his seat now, “They have an entire lab dedicated to thermodynamics research. It’s not even strictly for quirk application, they just fund it since the research ties in so well to Endeavor and Shouto’s powers. An entire lab, Kacchan!”

Katsuki didn’t know much about thermodynamics, but he was glad Deku apparently wasn’t pissed.

“One time,” Deku jumped off his stool and was gesturing with his hands while he talked, “One of Shouto’s sidekicks- Sleeper-man, I think- came to my college to speak and gave this presentation to my school about how their agency works alongside support engineers. It was the first time I realized that some of the bigger agencies will give their engineers creative rights. You learn a lot in school, but it’s never about what it’s actually like in-“

Deku’s jaw shut with a click and he swiveled towards Katsuki with wide, unbelieving eyes as something the blonde had said earlier registered. It was a force of will for Katsuki to not to flinch under that gaze. Sometimes he just looked at you with this brutal fucking analysis that ached like it held a physical weight.

“How- Wait, you knew what my thesis was on? You read it?”

Katsuki blinked, “Uh, yeah. I did.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah.”

The silence was making Katsuki itch. Could silence make you itch? Maybe he needed to go to the doctor. Or a therapist. Either way, suffice to say that the silence sucked.

Deku’s freckles were starting to disappear behind the pink that was steadily rising on his cheeks.

“What-” he cleared his throat and it came out stronger the second time around, “What did you think?”

“It was good.”

Wow. Inspiring. Truly thought-provoking, Katsuki, really.

“O-oh.” Deku’s gaze slipped from Katsuki’s own like he didn’t want the hero spying the disappointment that flashed there.

“I mean, I’m not into all that nerdy science shit-“ Deku’s face fell and Katsuki backtracked. “Fuck, no, that’s not what I meant.”

Katsuki rubbed a hand on his face, fed up with his initial lame response and already mourning the shit-show this explanation was quickly turning into.

He took a deep breath.

Try again.

“I just meant that I don’t get all of the theory and whatnot behind it. I mean,” he held up his hand and popped a few minuscule explosions to demonstrate. “Obviously I know some thermochemistry because of my quirk,” he lowered his hand again. “But some of it was way over my head, so I was lost at times.”

Fuck, he needed to work on his eloquence. Deku was worrying at his bottom lip and picking at the edges of his nails with nervous fingers.

“Honestly,” Katsuki sighed, “I think you’re just a hell of a lot smarter than me. The parts where I knew all the theory were great. And even knowing fuck-all about science, I could follow your ideas about synthetic DNA really easily. That’s what you were taking samples from Kiri for, right?”

Deku nodded, his hands quieting their flutters as Katsuki continued.

“I thought it was great,” he ended. Somehow, it didn’t sound so pathetically lacking this time.

“You know I’ve had my heart set on Might Tower for a long time,” Katsuki nodded, but Deku’s eyes were focused on some memory Katsuki hadn’t been a part of. It hadn’t really been a question, anyway. “I wanted to work here, obviously, but I got into college and nothing with my degree path really lined up with these heroes’ needs. I had decided to try working for Endeavor’s agency until Mirio, actually. The research that the engineers put into his clothing is what kicked off my thesis. So when I got the scouting letter, it felt a little like fate.”

He shook his head. “Sorry, that was cheesy.”

“To be entirely honest,” he continued, the energy from earlier fading into something almost sad sounding, “I’m not sure if I made the right move or not, accepting the job here.” Something cold coiled in Katsuki’s stomach, but he couldn’t put a name to the feeling. Dread maybe? Fear? They weren’t emotions he was well antiquated with.

“If I hadn’t been offered this position and my application to Endeavor’s agency had been rejected, I probably would have ended up in research at the college for a few years.”

His expression turned a little rueful and he flicked a spare piece of metal on his bench absentmindedly, “But my thesis ruffled a few feathers since the research they started working on here overturned a lot of my professor’s standing publications. If I went into research I would have been sidelined in whatever lab I wound up in. No one wants an assistant that oversteps their boundaries, especially fresh out of-

“Deku, stop.” Green eyes snapped to Katsuki’s own. “None of that shit matters. You’ll kill yourself over what-ifs.” He knew that better than anyone.

“If your professors were too arrogant to see that your work was amazing, then they can go screw themselves. It’s their loss if they were too shitty to not realize what an asset you are to have around. Didn’t you win an award or some shit for that thesis?”

“Yeah, but-“

“No ‘but’s.’ You’re working at the best hero agency in Japan less than a year after graduating from the school they never left, so who’s the real winner? Those shitty ass professors that were intimidated by an undergrad student that was smarter than they were? Fuck no. Stop selling yourself short. You’re here, so none of that matters.”

Deku blinked at him. Disbelief, confusion, and something else Katsuki couldn’t name quick enough flashed through those eyes. There and gone in a heartbeat.

“O-okay.”

Katsuki let out a huff and crossed his arms, pleased that his point had been made. He shot a pointed look at the curry bun Deku had abandoned until the idiot had taken another bite.

Deku chewed, and the silence that fell between them wasn’t nearly as itchy as before.

He swallowed. “Thanks.”

Deku shouldn’t be thanking him for anything, let alone pointing out the obvious, but he knew arguing wasn’t going to help, so he nodded.

Maybe… maybe now he could-

“Hey, Midoriya.” The boy froze, at the tone, the name, curry bun raised halfway to his now-gaping mouth.

Katsuki took a shaky breath, Fuck, why was this so hard?

Cause he won’t forgive you.

Oh. Right. That was why.

It didn’t change the fact that he wanted, no, needed, to make amends. It didn’t change the fact that he was near desperate for forgiveness. Now or never. He had missed years of chances to make this right. He was sick of finding excuses for his own cowardice.

“Kacchan? Are you okay-“

“I’m sorry.”

Deku’s eyes widened, and his mouth closed over the words Katsuki hadn’t let him finish.

“I’m sorry for how I was when we were growing up. I know this is coming out of nowhere, but I’m sorry for all the shit I put you through. I didn’t even have a good reason for it. I was just all tangled up in my own insecurities, and I was a total dick for taking it out on the one person I knew couldn’t-“ No, that wasn’t right. “wouldn’t,” he amended, “dish it back out.”

Deku’s eyes were widening more and more with every word, and Katsuki found himself glancing away. He didn’t want to face whatever judgment those pools of green held as he continued.

“I used to think you were weak for not fighting back, but I was wrong. You were way more of a hero than I ever was back then. Hell, you probably still are.” He rubbed a hand on the back of his neck. “I mean, after all the shit I put you through, I don’t know how you can stand to be around me.

“It took a lot of people, a lot of good people, ones just like you, for me to unlearn all that shit I thought I knew. It doesn’t excuse any of it, I know, but I just wanted you to know that I regret the way I treated you after you were diagnosed as quirkless.

“You can hate me if you want. You have every right to, especially since I waited so long to grow some balls and say this to you. I just- I just wanted you to know that,” he forced his eyes to meet Deku’s again. “I’m going to try and make it up to you. If you’ll let me, that is.”

Thirteen seconds. Katsuki counted them in between the beats of his heart that pounded against his ribcage. Thirteen seconds passed, staring at one another in palpable silence, before Deku answered him. Those green eyes dropped from his own, but Katsuki couldn’t look away from the smattering of freckles across his nose or the riot of green curls atop his head.

Deku took a deep breath. “I don’t hate you,” he whispered. It sounded like an admission. But whether it was to the blonde or to himself, Katsuki had no idea.

“It would be easier if I did, but I don’t, Kacchan. Not anymore.” Katsuki winced, even knowing he deserved every ounce of hatred Deku had harbored towards him in the past.

“I wouldn’t believe you if I hadn’t seen,” Deku gestured vaguely, “everything, I guess. It’s not just the way you’ve acted towards me since I started working here, either. People respect you.” They don’t fear you.

The unspoken words echoed in Katsuki’s mind.

“And your friends,” Deku continued, “I can tell how much they care about you. I would be an idiot to think the way Kirishima talks about you is entirely undeserved.”

Deku was tearing at the edges of his thumb again and frowned when blood bloomed and spread into crescents beneath the nail.

“That said,” his voice was steadier than before. Katsuki hadn’t even noticed how much it had been wavering until it evened out. “I-I’m not sure if I forgive you yet.

It was so much better than Katsuki had been expecting, but Deku’s words still felt like a blow to the side of his head. His mind was spinning in the wake of them. He thought he had prepared for this, but fuck did it still hurt.

“But…” And didn’t that one word just sound like the promise of salvation? Like the possibility of hope persisting?

“I think I could.” He lifted his gaze to meet Katsuki’s own, and the hero swore right then that higher powers must exist for this to be his reality. Karma would never allow him this. A chance.

“I’m willing to try, at least,” Deku finished.

Katsuki’s shoulders dropped as some of the tension he had been carrying around for the last decade of his life ebbed.

“I know I don’t deserve it… but thank you, Midoriya.”

“Ugh,” Deku’s face twisted in distaste, the sight a shock after the quiet words he had just offered up. “Please don’t call me that. It sounds wrong coming from your mouth.”

The light in the labs bled back into Katsuki’s vision. He hadn’t realized how heavy he had felt until the weight was peeling itself of his shoulders in waves.

“But Deku is-“

“It was you being an asshole as a four-year-old. I got used to it.”

“You looked pissed when I said it before, up in my office.”

One eyebrow quirked. “Kacchan, I hadn’t heard anyone call me that in eight years. It was a little shocking,” he shrugged. “I was just pissed because thought that meant you were the same asshole as before.” Ouch. He deserved that. “But it was never about the nickname.”

Katsuki chuckled, and the last of the heaviness that had settled during their conversation vanished at the sound of it. “Deku it is, then.”

“Deku it is.” The man’s smile was blinding, his eyes near sparkling. Katsuki swore it left imprints on the back of his eyelids when he blinked.

“And just for the record, I’m still going to call you Kacchan.” Katsuki scowled. “So don’t bother arguing against that.”

“Yeah, whatever.” He would never admit to anyone that his words almost sounded affectionate.

He turned to leave with a wave, satisfied that the nerd wasn’t about to pass out from hunger and in desperate need of a dark room to recuperate from the emotions he had brought to light before seven in the morning. He almost made it to the exit when he remembered why he had originally come down to the labs in the first place.

“Wait, Deku,” he called.

The green-haired engineer looked up from where he was already hunched over a piece of paper, “Huh?”

“I’ll be back at one-thirty to grab you before we head over to Todoroki’s.” No way was he trusting the nerd to keep track of time on his own.

That thousand-watt smile was back again and Katsuki was tempted to cover his eyes and spare them the brightness.

“I can’t wait!”

Katsuki believed him.

Katsuki: thanks for the advice, sensei

Sleep-Deprived Old Fart: Anytime, Problem Child

Sleep-Deprived Old Fart: Now forget my number. It’s seven in the morning, you cretin.

It took all of five minutes from entering Endeavor Agency’s building for Izuku to determine that the rumors guessing Earphone Jack and Creati were dating were true. Either that, or he had entirely misinterpreted the way the Jirou had flung themselves into Yaoyorozu’s arms and promptly planted kisses wherever they could reach.

Izuku must have been gaping because Bakugou nudged him with his elbow and laughed breathily through his nose.

“You’ll get used to it, though you’d expect them to have some decency around people they barely know.” He pitched his voice louder at the end and Yaoyorozu shot him a sheepish smile. Jirou made no moves to stop the assault of affection on her girlfriend.

With more difficulty than it should have called for, Yaoyorozu detached herself from Jirou and held out a hand to Izuku.

“You must be Midoriya Izuku! It’s a pleasure to meet you!” Her eyes shone kindly as Izuku shook her hand.

“No, the pleasure’s mine! I’m a huge fan!”

He managed to keep himself from spiraling into a monologue of nonsense about her hero work in Kyoto a few years back, but it was more due to Jirou vying for Yaoyorozu’s attention than any control of his own.

“Momo, I haven’t seen you in three days.” If Izuku didn’t know any better, he would say the normally cool and collected hero was whining.

“We live together, Kyoka. I saw you this morning.”

Jirou stuck her bottom lip out. “I was asleep when you came home and before you left, so it doesn’t count.”

Yaoyorozu tucked stray hairs behind Jirou’s ear, her eyes full of nothing but soft affection. “I know, babe. I’m sorry I’ve been pulling such long hours. Once we get this whole Uproot thing figured out, why don’t we take a vacation? I think we could both use the break.”

Any lingering doubts about the nature of their relationship vanished like smoke.

Jirou perked up at the words, “Really? You’d take some time off?”

“I think it’d be good for us.”

“And good for me,” Bakugou mumbled under his breath. Izuku barely smothered his laugh.

Yaoyorozu turned back towards the pair that were lingering a safe distance away from the affectionate couple, like she had once again remembered they had an audience. “Come on, we were supposed to meet Shouto,” she glanced at her watch, “Two minutes ago.”

“We would have been early if you two could learn to keep it in your pants for all of five minutes.”

Jirou just blew Bakugou a kiss while Yaoyorozu blushed furiously and turned around, expecting them to follow as she strode off.

“We’re never gonna get anything done with those two around.”

Izuku glanced at Bakugou out of the corner of his eyes, “You’ve been friends with them since UA?”

Bakugou sighed, the sound one of long-suffering, “They weren’t always this bad, I swear. Everything was so much nicer when Pikachu and Earbud over there dated.”

Jirou shot Bakugou a scalding look over their shoulder, clutching tightly to their girlfriend’s arm all the while. “Seeing as you’re the one who set me up with Momo after I dumped Denki, I resent that.”

“Yeah, well, if I’d known how much of a pain you two would be, I’d have kept my observations to myself. Lesson learned. And hey,” he frowned, popping off a less-than-menacing explosion in the palm of his hand, “Keep your ears on your own conversation, Earwax.”

Jirou just flipped him off and rested her head on Momo’s shoulder while they walked.

Izuku laughed into the palm of his hand, “I think they’re sweet.”

Bakugou rolled his eyes, “You would.”

“Hey,” he said, a little indignantly, “What does that mean?”

“Ever the idealist, that’s all.”

“What?! Why do you say that like it’s a bad-“

“Hey, you two,” Izuku’s gaze snapped to where Jirou was pointing at a large oak door they had stopped in front of. “Not to stop whatever lovers-spat is going on right now, but we’re here.”

Izuku’s face flamed and Bakugou practically growled at the smirking hero. Jirou’s answering smirk only resulted in the man’s hand twitching at his side, like he was forcing himself to keep his explosions under control. Yaoyorozu only looked mildly horrified at the devolving situation in front of her.

Thankfully, the door Jirou had been pointing at was flung open just then and the group was saved from any potential casualties. Izuku and the rest of the gathered heroes jumped at the sudden movement.

When the door had opened completely, it revealed a stone-faced Todoroki. Like doors just did that here. Like world-class heroes that had been the inspiration for Izuku to choose which engineering degree he pursued just existed behind doors in this place. Izuku very, very pointedly did not swoon at the sight of the man, though he would admit to his face flaming for an entirely different reason than it had been mere seconds before.

Pictures (and Izuku had seen a lot) did not do this man justice. No one was that pretty in real life.

A pair of eyes, one startling blue and the other a stormy gray, slid to his own. Todoroki’s impassive face split with a smooth grin and Izuku was fairly certain he was five seconds from melting into the floor.

“You must be Bakugou’s plus-one. Midoriya, I presume?”

Holy shit no one’s voice should sound like that. It was downright illegal. He couldn’t be real, right? Izuku was just hallucinating? Right?

Izuku managed to respond with only minimal gaping, “That- ahem. Yep. Yeah, that’s me. H- hi.”

Todoroki didn’t seem bothered by his stammering, only smiled faintly before he turned to look at Bakugou. The pleasant expression dropping in an instant.

“You’re late.”

Bakugou opened his mouth to retort but Todoroki had already turned away and was making his way into his office, the open door an invitation for the rest to follow.

“OhmygodShoutoisrightthereI’mgonnapassout.” Izuku jammed it all into an exhale. Jirou laughed and Yaoyorozu just shot him a sympathetic look over her shoulder as they followed the man inside. Even the lesbian could sympathize with him. This was bad.

Bakugou scoffed, “Don’t let his face fool you. He’s an ass.”

Izuku doubted that but was currently too shell-shocked to do much aside from trail wordlessly behind Bakugou into the office. He stalled at the door as the four heroes settled into plush chairs around the room.

He struggled to put his thoughts into working order. They were here on business, not for Izuku to oogle the pretty man.

“Ah-I don’t think I should be a part of this conversation, should I?”

Todoroki cocked his head to one side. “You’re welcome to tour our labs while we meet, Midoriya.” He tapped a few buttons at the computer he was seated at before glancing back up, “I just gave your badge access to the whole building, so make yourself at home.”

Izuku was most definitely going to pass out. The whole building? Todoroki shot another smile towards Izuku that made him feel like combusting on the spot.

He was gaping again, but Yaoyarozu came to his rescue with a smile, “Why don’t we all plan on getting dinner together afterward? I’d love the chance to talk to you more.”

“As would I.” Bakugou crossed his arms and rolled his eyes so aggressively at Todotoki’s interjection that Izuku swore he could hear them move around the blonde’s skull from across the room.

“Why don’t we grab you after? I’ll text you when we’re out,” Jirou offered.

“T-thank you! That sounds great!” He managed to exit the room with only minimal tripping.

Todoroki fucking Shouto had just given him access to the entirety of Endeavor Agency. Izuku could officially die happy. After poking through all the labs, of course.

And dinner. Christ, he was going to have to get his act together if he wanted to get through an entire dinner with Todoroki. He had acted like an idiot in there. He was grateful that the hallway was empty. It gave him the chance to bang his head on the wall without judgment.

He stood up straight again, angling towards the elevator and rubbing his head slightly. Right, labs. He could figure out dinner with the hero of his high school and college dreams later.

He pushed the button on the elevator doors for a basement level that was entirely dedicated to support-gear manufacturing and swiped his visitor’s badge across the pad.

“Access Granted,” a chipper voice sounded around the elevator. The smile on his face felt distinctly Hatsume as the button flashed green and the elevator began its descent. He had work to do.

The door shut behind Izuku and Jirou snorted. Despite her quiet chiding, Katsuki was not even slightly shocked to see Yaoyarozu lifting a hand to cover her own mouth.

Katsuki didn’t like the smile on Todoroki’s face. Any emotion on the dude looked downright creepy.

“Why are you already scowling at me, Bakugou? What could I possibly have done to already get under your skin?”

Creepy and perceptive.

Before he had a chance to snap back, Jirou jumped in with, “He just doesn’t like you smiling at his man, Roki.”

“Oh?” Todoroki raised his eyebrows, “Are the rumors true then?”

“What fucking rumors you shitty-“

Katuski cut himself off as a distant thud echoed through the room from the hallway. All four heads swung in tandem towards the door.

“What was-“

“Right,” Yaoyorozu clapped her hands together and pulled files out from who-the-fuck knew where and passed them out to the gathered heroes. “We have a dinner to get to, so I’d rather we get this underway.”

Katsuki grumbled unintelligibly under his breath but didn’t argue as he flipped through the file.

It looked like Endeavor’s agency had information similar to Might Tower’s on the perp, though they had a different witness to corroborate the villain’s profile. They could finally cross-reference what this bastard looked like.

“Uproot,” Todoroki turned his laptop around to reveal a police sketch, not unlike the one Katsuki’s agency had been sent. “Estimated age is anywhere from thirty-five to fifty years old. The only definable features anyone has been able to report are his palms, which leak a red, jelly-like substance, much like the bleeding tooth fungus-“

“Well that’s an unfortunate mental image,” Jirou interjected.

“And his mask, which I’m sure you’re all familiar with at this point.” Unfortunately, Katsuki was. The mask covered the bottom half of the villain’s face and the entirety of his neck with twisting roots that leaked sticky sap all over the scenes of his attacks. Katsuki had been waking up for weeks now thinking the sweat on his palms was that cloying substance and had almost started more than one fire in his panic to wipe them clean.

“So far,” Yaoyorozu stood and started pacing while she read the file she had no doubt memorized before Katsuki and Jirou had even arrived, “he’s attacked six victims, four of which have been interns at various hero agencies, including Might Tower and Endeavor Agency.”

Katsuki could tell from the tightening of Todoroki’s jaw that the hero felt as responsible for the harm towards his interns as Katsuki did. They might butt heads near constantly, but priding themselves on keeping people safe was one thing they agreed on wholeheartedly. To have kids under their agency’s guidance irrevocably harmed was probably just as unbearable for Todoroki as it was for Katsuki.

“Uproot uses his quirk, Decompose, to increase the decomposition rate of localized areas on a person’s body via his palms. Basically, whatever he grabs, he controls the life force of. We have been lucky so far that there have not been more casualties, but that is all that’s been. Luck. And casualties aside, every single victim of Uproot has been permanently disabled from his attacks. He is not an issue we can let persist.

“Our agency is hoping that Might Tower would be willing to join forces and create a team with the sole intention of neutralizing this villain before he can cause any further harm to future heroes.” There was nothing but uncompromising will in Yaoyorozu’s eyes. Someone was hurting kids and it hit a little too close to home with this group. They had all been through hell in high school. This generation of brats deserved a break.

It was moments like these where Katuski had to sit back and marvel at how much his friends had grown since they were first years dicking around in Aizawa-sensei’s classroom. He met Jirou’s gaze and they nodded, their mouth set in a hard line.

“Let’s take this fucker out.”

“I was hoping that’s what you would say.” And in a rare moment of solidarity, Katsuki and Todoroki grinned at one another with matching fire in their eyes.

The next few hours or so consisted of working out patrol schedules and routes, figuring out what other heroes from their agencies would be an asset to the operation, and a million other details Katsuki’s brain was struggling to recall by the end.

“Thank God for Yaomomo’s note-taking,” Jirou said. They looked how Katsuki felt, with their head hanging off the back of their chair. He was inclined to agree with them.

It was nearly seven o’clock by the time they had figured out a plan of action that felt suitable for everyone to take on in the coming weeks. Late nights weren’t anything new to Katsuki, but he hated the idea that Jirou and other heroes at his agency would be pulled into this nonsense. At least they had all agreed Kirishima needed to sit this one out. His quirk relied almost entirely on hand-to-hand combat and it would be a disaster if he happened to face this guy alone.

They filed out of Todoroki’s office, Katsuki and Jirou with groans and large stretches, and Yaoyorozu and Todoroki with nothing but polished poise. Upper-crust pricks.

“Oh,” Jirou lowered her arms from over her head and fished her phone out, “I’ll text Midoriya and let him know we’re on our way.”

“Don’t bother,” Katsuki jabbed the floor number on the elevator that led down to the labs, “He won’t be looking at his phone.”

Jirou shrugged, sending the message anyway, “Yeah, you’re probably right.”

There wasn’t a lot of room to move around on the elevator with four grown heroes on board, so when Todoroki spoke up, Katsuki couldn’t turn around and glare at him. It was more than a little frustrating.

“Speaking of Midoriya,” Katuski settled for growling instead, but the idiot didn’t receive his warning message. “I heard that you pulled some strings to get him employed at Might Tower, Bakugou. Is that true?”

“Fuck no, it’s not true. All I did was give Nighteye his thesis. Nighteye hired him on his own accord.”

“His thesis and a pretty recommendation letter.” Katsuki jammed his elbow into Jirou’s side and they jabbed right back.

“Interesting,” Oh, boy. Katsuki did not like that tone. “I wonder if he would be interested in a job here, instead. His thesis was on thermochemistry, right? I’m sure the labs would be happy to-“

“Todoroki-” Katsuki wouldn’t even pretend it sounded like anything other than a threat.

“But that’s neither here nor there since I’m sure he signed a contract with Might Tower. Maybe after he’s done with his tenure he’ll give our agency a chance.”

Katsuki was trying very hard not to let off any explosions in his palm. The last thing he needed was for the fire alarm to go off and for him to be stuck in the elevator with this asshole while the Fire Department got onto him for improper quirk use.

“Dude,” Jirou smiled, one eyebrow raised. “You’re way too easy to get riled up. Chill out.”

The elevator dinged open and the crew was thankfully spared from Bakugou launching himself at half-and-half because the moment he was out of the small space and into the sprawling labs, his jaw dropped.

“What the fuck?” Jirou was tugging out their phone again, the recording button blinking red as the scene in front of them unfolded. And for the second time that day, Katsuki was inclined to agree.

Chapter Text

Izuku hasn’t meant to end up half-naked only a few hours after being given free reign to roam around Endeavor’s Hero Agency, but things rarely went according to plan. He blamed Hatsume. And the scientific method.

A few hours ago, Izuku had found himself wandering into the labs he had spent the entirety of his undergraduate career lusting after and, given the circumstances, had held it together better than expected. That wasn’t to say he didn’t squeal like a child or gasp at some of the equipment he saw upon exiting the elevator, but at least he didn’t pass out. He counted it as a win.

A few employees had given him suspicious glances, but after clearing up who had given him access, they left him alone. Initially, anyway. His doom was spelled out the moment someone asked where he worked. It went a little like this:

“You work at Might Tower?”

“Yep! I’m a support engineer over there. I just started a few weeks ago.”

“Support engineer, eh? You must know Hatsume, then.”

“O-oh, yeah, I do, actually! She’s great!”

He should have known. No one who associates with the likes of Hatsume could be completely sane. He should know better than most, seeing as he was one such ‘associate.’ But alas, he had a bad habit of ignoring what others might call ‘red flags.’ That was how within fifteen minutes of entering the labs and walking around gawking at the tech they had on hand, Izuku found himself with a gaggle of scientists who were more than happy to abandon their current projects in favor of showing “Hatsume’s friend” around the agency.

From what little he had gathered, the agency had commissioned Hatsume a few years back and she had left quite the impression on them.

“Oh no, we’re thrilled she got a job at Might Tower,” one scientist with pale blue eyebrows and lashes assured Izuku, “It was just never boring while she was around.”

Well. If Izuku understood nothing else, he understood that, at least.

He had initially thought the tour that the dozen or so scientists were leading him on would only take part in the labs, but that theory was quickly disproved. They led him through every place he could imagine the agency having and then some. From the cafeterias to the room where the agency ran a hotline to the loading and receiving docks, they left no stone unturned. It may have seemed mundane to most people, but Izuku was on cloud nine. Most surprising of all, though, was the way the scientists all treated him. He was doing a poor job of keeping his mumbling under control, but rather than complain about it, they asked him to field his theoreticals to the group.

It felt indulgent, but they were still asking him to speak up and Izuku was having the time of his life.

Then they stumbled across the gym, and that was where things went wrong. It was fascinating, and in the spirit of the rest of the tour, the group was more than happy to answer any questions Izuku had about the place or the machines in it. It was a gym full of equipment for training temperature-based quirks, after all. There was no way he wouldn’t be interested.

He had begun asking about their development and a few of the scientists who had played a hand in creating them were more than happy to indulge him. Apparently, they had built-in safety mechanisms that would allow people who didn’t have temperature-based quirks to use them safely. They wouldn’t help those people, necessarily (though Izuku did wonder if people ever used the freezing machines for pseudo-cryotherapy), but they also wouldn’t give anyone frostbite or third-degree burns.

“Shouto and Endeavor aside,” one scientist had pointed out, “A lot of temperature-based and elemental heroes work at the agency because of the resources we have. It was a liability we had to consider. If a cool-type hero started accidentally using a machine made for increasing heat resistance, we didn’t want them to be in danger of dying.”

The safety mechanisms measured the chemical and thermal changes of the machine’s user, and would stop whenever it noticed what the scientists called an ‘adverse reaction.’ All it really meant was that if someone’s temperature changed too rapidly or the chemical composition of the air surrounding them shifted outside of the expected parameters, it would shut itself off.

“What was your control for these?” Izuku asked.

“We used people with mutant-type quirks as controls,” a man with walrus-like teeth that stuck out from behind his lips answered.

“Mutant-type. I suppose that makes sense. Any emitter-types run the risk of chemical interference. It’s closer to a perfect control, but the slight variations in physiology would still make it hard to confirm whether or not their base readings were aligned with other people’s ‘base.’” Izuku was muttering again, one hand cupping his chin in thought, but several of the scientists around him were nodding along.

“That’s actually been an issue within the past few years,” someone said. “A few decades ago, we would use quirkless people as beta-testers. Since they don’t have any alterations to their physiology, it's the closest thing we can get to an unbiased baseline.” They grimaced, “But we can’t really do that anymore. The number of quirkless people has dropped so severely that even when we’ve put out requests for quirkless people to join experiments, we never get a response.”

Izuku blinked. He had never heard of scientists requesting quirkless aid, so he supposed it made sense that they didn’t get much of a response. And even then, the few quirkless people who were young enough to take part in experiments like this were wary of anyone seeking them out. It was common knowledge that people hated the quirkless. Even if Izuku had seen a request like that when he was younger, he wouldn’t have gone. It could have easily been someone trying to bait quirkless people into revealing themselves and exposing them to hate crimes.

“You…” he glanced up, pulled out of his thoughts to see a sea of wide-eyed scientists staring back at him. “You’re quirkless?”

He really needed to work on keeping his thoughts inside for once.

Shit.

“Um, yes?”

Disgust, pity, anger. Izuku had spent his entire life receiving sneers and scoffs and consoling pats when he admitted his quirkless status. He supposed there was a first for everything though because as soon as the word was out of his mouth, Izuku was swarmed, absolutely swarmed, by scientists that were downright thrilled to learn that particular fact about him.

“Would you let me take your temperature?”

“What blood type are you?”

“So you’re saying your hair color is genetic?”

“Did your parents both have quirks?”

“Do you have any underlying health issues that would skew any metrics we took?”

Izuku waved his hands in front of him, trying and failing to quell the barrage of questions.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa. Too many questions at once, guys.”

The questions were overwhelming, unbelievably rude, and positively invasive, but…. Izuku couldn’t help the feeling that swelled in his chest like a balloon. Maybe he should have been mad, but for the first time in his life people were looking at Izuku like being quirkless was a good thing. Maybe he was self-centered and egotistical for thinking it, but being needed, being praised for something he had never had control over… it felt great.

Maybe that was why he said, “Do you want to take some vitals? Just, you know, to use as a baseline for other projects?”

A dozen or so scientists practically beamed at Izuku, a gleam eerily like Hatsume’s in their eyes, and that feeling in his chest grew.

They were in the labs three and a half minutes later.

Izuku had never felt so useful in all his life.

Or so immediately regretful.

Izuku couldn’t help but be thankful that the staff at his own agency hadn’t realized they had the perfect control working down in the shop with them. He had spent the last several hours being shuffled from project to project where they had tested the limiters of various support items that were in the works. For the most part, the limits they had derived from people with mutant-type quirks worked with him as well, but there were a few outliers. One set of gauntlets that were meant to keep the pads of one hero’s fingers warm while she wasn’t using her ice quirk, for example, had been controlled by a scientist who had a horn for a nose, like a rhinoceros. He hadn’t accounted for the fact that the soles of his feet and his palms calloused more intensely than the average person, so Izuku left that particular series of tests with hands that were pink and raw from the just-barely-too-warm heaters in the gloves.

At least after all this, Izuku could now say with certainty that exposure to constant and intense temperature changes would induce a mild fever.

Thankfully, they had moved on from testing the support items in favor of getting some vitals recorded. Right now, he was twenty minutes into a body scan that had required him to strip down into his undergarments. Or, at least, it was required according to the bubbly girl who was sitting behind a monitor and tapping her feet on the ground as the scan fed her screen metrics. She had tried to persuade him to give up on the underwear, too, but damn it, even he had limits.

All for science, right?

Izuku was wondering how to go about telling a group of probably-most-definitely mad scientists that their test subject was reaching his limit when the elevator at the far end of the lab pinged and a new group of people joined the gathered observers.

Jirou pulled out their phone with a quiet, “What the fuck,” and immediately began taking videos and pictures of Izuku.

Jirou and Todoroki were smiling (Todoroki just seemed slightly amused but Jirou seemed downright delighted by the spectacle), Yaoyarozu looked more than mildly alarmed, and Bakugou…

Well. Shit.

Regret. Yeah. Izuku regretted getting himself in this situation a whole hell of a lot more.

“Bakugou, you’re getting drool on my floors.” Katsuki snapped his mouth shut and glared at Todoroki, willing the bastard to burst into flames on the spot. Or, well, maybe not flames since it took a long time for them to actually hurt him, but-

Something, alright? He wanted the asshole to burst into something.

He didn’t actually say anything though, because, well…

Katsuki decided his eyes were traitors and they should burst into flames too as they darted back over to where Deku was standing on the platform looking like… well, like that! He was at least mildly aware that his thoughts had stopped being entirely comprehensible. He wasn’t sure he really cared at the moment.

Izuku looked uncomfortable as hell up there with his arms raised out from his sides, his face blazing red, and dressed in nothing but his briefs. Katsuki wasn’t trying to gawk. He didn’t want to make it worse, but fuck.

He wasn’t the only one, either. Despite all his flirting and teasing, he knew Todoroki was immune, the man was as ace and they came, and Yaoyorozu looked like she was suffering from second-hand embarrassment more than anything else, but they were probably the only two in the room that weren’t gawking.

Katsuki knew that Deku worked out. He was a hero, so of course he noticed the way that Deku’s arms and shoulders were a little more filled out than when they were kids. Of course he noticed the way Deku’s pants clung to his thighs when he sat like they were holding on for dear life. His job was to be observant, so of course he noticed. Even still, with all of his definitely-professional-not-gay-at-all noticing, Katsuki hadn’t quite grasped the whole picture.

Deku wasn’t bulky by any means, but lean muscle covered every inch of the man Katsuki could see. His abs were straining slightly as he held his arms out and Katsuki had to wonder at how long he had been holding the position. Katsuki coughed, forcing his eyes away from Deku before his mind could latch onto that particular train of thought. Dear God, he wouldn’t even let himself consider the concept of thighs right now.

His gaze landed on the scientists that were surrounding Deku and peering up at him like he was some young Adonis. They definitely weren’t fooling anyone. Well, they might be fooling Deku- Katsuki couldn’t imagine him signing up for this knowing that they were probably wanting to take in the eye candy more than the data- but they weren’t fooling Katsuki, that was for sure. He saw more than one pair of slightly-glazed eyes staring up at the engineer.

“Um, guys?” Deku directed the question towards the ones in lab coats around his feet. He was looking anywhere and everywhere but at Katsuki and his crew. “How much longer is this going to take?”

A woman sitting on a workbench, resting her chin on folded hands said, “Just a little bit longer.”

There were muttered agreements around the room.

“We have to get to dinner pretty soon,” Deku said, cringing slightly. He looked like he was bracing himself against whatever reaction they would have. What the fuck kind of situation had the idiot gotten himself into?

The woman just sighed and unfolded her hands.

“Fine,” she said with a bit of a whine in her voice. “We can stop now if you really need to go.”

Katsuki thought he saw Deku’s mouth form around the words ‘thank god,’ but he was too far away to hear anything. The man jumped off the platform and grabbed his discarded clothes from a nearby bench.

He disappeared into a bathroom Katsuki hadn’t noticed earlier and reappeared a minute later with a still-flaming face and a purposely-bright smile.

“Thank you for the tour, guys!”

Jirou snorted.

“That didn’t look like a tour to me, but maybe I’m just missing something,” she said, low enough for only Katsuki to hear. He huffed his agreement.

“Of course, Midoriya,” one of the scientists was saying. “Come back anytime, alright?”

“Seriously!” Another piped up, “And thank you for being our control.”

Deku was picking at the edges of his nails, but he sounded at least partially genuine when he said, “I’m glad I could help.”

Todoroki must have pressed the elevator button because, by the time Deku reached Katsuki and the others, they were all piling into the cramped space.

“Bye, Midoriya!”

“Tell Hatsume we said hello!”

“Come back soon!”

Deku raised his hand in farewell as the door slid shut.

“The fuck was that, Deku?”

The smile fell from his face in an instant and he dropped his head into his hands with a loud groan, green curls spilling everywhere in the process.

“I really, really wish you hadn’t seen that.”

“I don’t think Bakugou minds- oof,” Katsuki cut Todoroki off from whatever he was about to say with a sharp elbow in the ribs.

“Are you alright? You seemed rather uncomfortable.” Yaoyarozu placed a hand on Deku’s shoulder. She was the only decent one of the bunch.

“Oh, I’m fine, really,” he assured her, head popping back up and hands waving frantically at her worry. “It was just embarrassing.”

“You really have nothing to be embarrassed about,” and oh, boy, did Katsuki not enjoy the way IcyHot said that, “But I think I may schedule a mandatory sexual harassment course for the staff.”

“Sex-“ Izuku’s eyes went wide, “What?! They weren’t harassing me! At least, not sexually! They just wanted to do a body scan of me since I’m quirk-“ his voice cut out as he realized what he was saying and Katsuki’s own eyes went wide at the implication. He had told them he was quirkless? It wasn’t exactly a fact that Katsuki remembered Deku being proud of growing up. In fact, Katsuki had made it his mission as a kid to ensure that the kid hated that particular aspect of himself.

“Regardless of your quirk status,” Todoroki continued, completely unfazed by Deku’s apparent lack of one, “They were definitely…leering.” He said the last word like it left a bad taste in his mouth.

Jirou hummed her agreement. “Midoriya, it was a little obvious. Did you really not realize?”

Deku’s face was somehow more flushed than before, “No, no, it wasn’t that, really!” He looked at Yaoyarozu, hoping for a lifeline. Katsuki couldn’t see her expression, but whatever it was made Deku’s brows scrunch together. “Right?”

Jirou sighed and the elevator pinged, letting them know they had reached the ground floor.

“You’re an idiot,” Katsuki said, rolling his eyes hard enough it hurt.

Todoroki smirked at Katsuki over Deku’s head and mouthed, ‘You’re one to talk.’

And didn’t Katsuki just know it.

Dinner had been… unexpected.

Izuku was still reeling from the fact that he had managed to spend almost an hour sitting across the table from Todoroki Shouto without foaming at the mouth, throwing up, passing out, or some attractive combination of all three. In fact, after about fifteen minutes, Izuku had managed to get his stuttering and fumbling under control enough to actually talk to the hero.

It had been unbelievingly unexpected and wonderful to discover that Todoroki was far more cynical and sarcastic than he had been expecting. He was still well-mannered and kind, but it made him seem much less like a prince from Izuku’s personal fairytale and something far closer to human.

And any suspicions he had over the man’s relationship with his father had been thoroughly, entirely, confirmed. And the best part was, he hadn’t even had to bring up the fiery hero himself. Despite how his mouth tended to run off on its own, Izuku liked to think he had tact. Some of the time, at least.

“Oi,” Bakugou’s interjection pulled Todoroki out of a conversation he had been having with Izuku about a showing a theater was having of an old film from All Might’s silver age (who knew the son of the current number one hero was such a fan of his father’s self-proclaimed rival?), “I didn’t see your old man around the agency.”

In the brief time Izuku had interacted with the man, Todoroki had never been anything but cool and collected. Sometimes his expression would dip into slight amusement or he would raise a sarcastic brow, but he had never strayed far from the air of mild contentment (indifference?) that his face defaulted to.

At Bakugou’s words though, Todoroki’s face morphed into something Izuku could only label as pure, undiluted disgust.

The dual-toned man set his fork down on his plate and pushed it away from himself on the table.

“Why must you bring him up at dinner? Endeavor kills my appetite.”

And wasn’t that just interesting. Izuku clamped his mouth shut before he could ask the questions that were trying to leap from his tongue.

Bakugou scoffed, “Oh, spare me the fucking dramatics,” he reached across the table and pushed Todoroki’s plate back towards him. “I was just wondering if he was on some mission. I haven’t seen him in the news this week. It’s weird how quiet he’s being.”

Todoroki picked up his fork again and started idly pushing his food around his plate. That look of disgust had faded somewhat and was now tinged with something Izuku would almost call smugness.

“He’s not on a mission, no,” Todoroki’s mouth pursed like he was trying to stifle a smirk. “He just has an image to maintain, that’s all.”

Izuku looked to Yaoyarozu, hoping she might give him a hint of what the hero was trying to imply. The dark-haired hero just raised a hand to cover her mouth and coughed slightly.

“The fuck did you do, Half-and-Half?”

“I don’t know what you mean, Bakugou.” Todoroki lifted the fork to his mouth and took a long time chewing his food. He didn’t break eye contact with Bakugou the whole time. The blonde was getting tenser at Izuku’s side with every passing second. Barely-concealed mirth glittered in Todoroki’s eyes as he swallowed, the movement of his throat slow and exaggerated.

His gaze slid away from Bakugou’s.

“Endeavor has found himself suddenly and inexplicably without hair. Not that I had anything to do with it, of course.”

Izuku sputtered and his hand flew to his mouth to try and smother the hysterical laughter fighting its way up his throat.

Bakugou showed no such restraint. He cackled, clutching his stomach and leaning back in his chair with the sound. Jirou snickered and despite the hand still covering her mouth, Yaoyarozu couldn’t hide the way her smile pushed up at her cheeks and crinkled her eyes.

“Oh my god, IcyHot,” Bakugou was wheezing, “I forget how much I like you sometimes.”

Todoroki hummed, taking a sip of his water like it might hide the slight smile on his own face.

Those dual-toned eyes slid to Izuku’s and he had to clamp down on his mouth twice as hard to keep his laugh under control.

“So as I was saying,” Todoroki’s voice was lacking inflection as much as before, “I wasn’t able to see the theatrical release of All Might’s movie so I think I might go to one of the showings next weekend.”

“Not on Saturday, though, right?” Yaoyarozu interjected. It gave Izuku the seconds he needed to actually get himself back under control.

“Oh. I forgot about that,” Todoroki said. “I suppose I’ll have to go on Sunday, then.” He didn’t look entirely pleased at the idea.

“What’s happening on Saturday?” Izuku asked, before realizing how improper of a question that was. Firstly, he was a civilian, not a hero, and secondly, he barely knew the heroes. They were under no means obligated to tell him their plans. His limited tact must have run out.

Before he could begin frantically backtracking, Yaoyarozu turned to him with bright, excited eyes, “We have the Hero’s Gala on Saturday. It’s in the evening, but our class always meets up every year before it starts.”

“It’s tradition,” Jirou piped in with a small smile.

“Shit, I totally forgot that was this weekend.” Izuku turned to Bakugou, surprised to see the man seemed genuinely distressed over the event.

“This seems like a recurring trend with you.”

“You’re one to talk, dipshit. If it wasn’t for Ponytail you’d forget how old you are.”

Todoroki tipped his head to the side in thought for a few beats before he said, “I’m twenty-three.”

“Wow, you really had to think about that, didn’t you?” Jirou shot Izuku an amused look, like she knew how ridiculous her friends seem to him.

“But really, Bakugou,” Yaoyarozu’s brows drew together in concern, “You do seem to forget about it every year. I should have sent you a reminder a few weeks ago, I’m sorry.”

“Not your fucking fault, Ponytail.” Bakugou raked a hand through his hair, cursing. “I just have to find something to wear.”

“Couldn’t Auntie Mitsuki make you something?” Izuku suggested.

Todoroki’s head tipped to the side, “Why would Bakugou’s mother make clothes for him?”

“Um,” Izuku’s hand’s fidgeted in his lap as three pairs of questioning eyes turned towards him. Did the heroes really not realize how unnerving that was?

“Because she’s a designer?” He wasn’t sure why it came out like a question.

Todoroki’s eyes widened slightly, Yaoyarozu looked like she had just been given a million dollars, and Jirou’s jaw dropped.

“Like hell I’d wear that old hag’s shit,” Bakugou said. He winced slightly, “But she’ll totally kick my ass if I show up looking bad.”

“Hold up,” Jirou waved their hands in front of them, “We aren’t just brushing past that, right?”

“Bakugou,” Yaoyarozu’s eyes were sparkling, “Your mother is a fashion designer?”

“You really shouldn’t call your mother a hag,” Todoroki frowned slightly.

Bakugou pointed at each hero in turn, addressing their remarks as he went. “Yes we are, yes she is, and yes I should. You’d call her one too if you spent more than five minutes around her.”

“I certainly would not.”

Izuku interjected before Bakugou and Todoroki’s argument spiraled, “Why won’t you wear Auntie’s things?”

Those crimson eyes flashed to Izuku, regarding him for a moment as if deciding whether to brush it off with a joke or answer truthfully. He must have decided on the latter because after a moment he said, “I’ll only wear Mom’s shit when I’m number one.”

“Oh,” Izuku said.

At the same time, Jirou huffed a laugh through her nose and said, “That tracks.”

“Well, what are you going to do, then? It’s not like designers can whip together something in less than a week,” Yaoyarozu said. Her mouth was tugging down at the corners like she was pouting over the fact that they weren’t going to linger on Bakugou’s mother any longer.

“I don’t fucking know,” Bakugou was rubbing above his eyebrows with his thumb and forefinger like he was staving off a headache.

“Actually,” Izuku piped up, an idea forming in his mind. “I might know someone who could help.”

“Unless you’re friends with a designer that miraculously has enough time on their hands to create a custom suit less than a week before one of the most televised events in Japan, I don’t think you can, Deku.”

Izuku tried not to let the implications land. Despite the disbelieving look Bakugou was giving him, Izuku wasn’t that useless kid anymore. He scowled, pulling his phone out and sending a quick text to a number he hadn’t messaged in nearly two years. Five seconds later, it pinged with a response.

The corner of his lips tilted up in victory at the words he read. He looked at all the heroes around the table who were waiting silently for whatever revelation he was about to reveal.

“Do any of you have Shinsou Hitoshi’s number?”

“Yeah, of course we do. Why?”

Izuku smiled, sending another quick text before tucking his phone in his pocket.

“If you can get him to come to the agency tomorrow I can get you a suit, no problem.”

“Um, sure, we can probably do that,” Jirou looked as confused as the rest of them. “But how is Shinsou going to get Bakugou a suit?”

“I’ll handle the details, don’t worry,” he said. Izuku had barely been able to speak in front of Todoroki a few minutes before, so he wasn’t sure where all this confidence was suddenly coming from. He wasn’t going to over-think it.

Izuku turned to Bakugou and smiled in a way that he knew was only slightly unnerving.

“I’m just calling in a favor, that’s all.”

The explosive hero had enough common-sense to look worried at that.

Chapter Text

Katsuki had his concerns. The least of which being that Shinsou was an insomniac and the likelihood of him agreeing to go to Might Tower at eight in the morning on a Wednesday was nonexistent. Katsuki wouldn’t even entertain the possibility. Emerald eyes that had been shining with mischief and laughter flashed through his mind. Katsuki let out a long sigh. Maybe he should still try.

After all, he reasoned, the gala was that weekend and his reputation as one of the best-dressed heroes was on the line. Katsuki would be damned if Raccoon Eyes or, god-forbid, Icy-Hot outdid him. That was why, despite the quickly dying hope in his chest, Katsuki shot Shinsou a text and begged the universe to pull some strings for him.

As he said, though, Shinsou was somehow the least of his concerns. The biggest one at the moment was a green-haired natural disaster named Midoriya Izuku. To be fair, Deku had been his personal nightmare, dream, headache, and heartache all rolled into one for the majority of his life. But even then, it was like Deku was determined to reach new heights. It was giving Katsuki a migraine.

The pair had left the restaurant soon after Deku mentioned he could get Katsuki a suit. Despite all of the group’s needling though, Deku had refused to give any more information, claiming that it would be better if people just waited until the gala to see what Katsuki showed up in.

He had hoped (perhaps foolishly) that walking back with Deku alone would get him some answers the others hadn’t been able to pry out of him.

The green-haired engineer’s cheeks were rosy from the beers Jirou and Todoroki had goaded him into drinking and he was humming quietly as they walked. Katsuki, a little tipsier than he was letting himself seem, had felt a pleasant contentedness spread through his chest at the site. Sue him, someone would have to be a maniac to not find the gentle bobbing of Deku’s green curls endearing.

“Hey,” Katsuki asked after a block or so of walking. “Who are you calling in this favor to?”

Deku had reached up and scratched the back of his head, chuckling a little nervously. Katsuki’s eyes narrowed.

“Oh, uh- it’s no one, really. Just a guy I knew in college.”

“The hell? Deku, I have to look good for this gala. Don’t dress me in some shitty college student’s sewing project.”

Hot temper flashed in Deku’s eyes, briefly washing away the nervousness that had started settling around him like dust.

“He’s a designer, good designer, and he’s not even in college anymore. You’re going to look great.” If Deku hadn’t said it like a challenge, Katsuki would have thought he heard a compliment somewhere in there. As it was though, he just huffed noncommittally.

Deku’s mouth pinched together, but he didn’t say anything else, just increased his pace slightly. Not enough to leave Katsuki behind, but a message to the blonde all the same. Shit, Katsuki really couldn’t get through a single conversation without putting his foot in his mouth and setting the guy off, could he?

And the way Deku was hunching his shoulders and looking defensive over this guy Katsuki had never met…Well, Katsuki had never claimed to be level-headed. That immediate protectiveness and the fact that Deku had been calling in a ‘favor’ to this mystery designer aligned in a way that made his stomach clench. He couldn’t stop the flash of jealousy (fuck, was he jealous of this extra he’d never even seen?) that made him lash out.

“So, what?” And yep, that was definitely jealousy cutting his tone, “You suck his dick or something?”

“K-Kacchan!” Deku sputtered as he tripped on the sidewalk. It was like Katsuki was watching in slow motion as Deku careened towards the ground. He swore and managed to grab onto Deku’s arm before he face-planted on the concrete, but it was a near thing. Katsuki tugged him back to his feet, keeping his hold on Deku’s arm so he could catch his balance. It took a second, but he managed to steady himself with onl minimal muttered curses. The engineer looked up and Katsuki sucked in a breath at how close their faces suddenly were.

His thoughts instantly muddled, like all the alcohol he had sipped that night was catching up to him in one breathless second. Katsuki couldn’t help the way his eyes flashed down to Deku’s lips for the briefest moment. Judging by the way Deku’s eyes widened when he met them again, it didn’t go unnoticed. Katsuki dropped Deku’s arm, suddenly afraid that he had crossed some boundary, but Deku had lingered in his space for a few heartbeats, almost like he was as fixed to this moment as Katsuki was. As if, just like Katsuki, he was utterly helpless to save himself from whatever orbit they had been spiraling into. There was nothing between them but their mingled breaths and Katsuki felt his pulse quicken when Deku’s eyes dropped down as inevitably as his own had.

It was only a moment though. And those prove easy to break. The bar a few doors down from where they stood burst open and a cackling group of people poured out onto the sidewalk, shattering the stasis they had been locked in.

Deku stumbled a step back. Katsuki took a few deep, measured breaths. Neither of them acknowledged whatever that was.

Their paces were slower than before when they started walking again. They passed the loud group with barely a sideways glance and Katsuki couldn’t tell whether he was glad the train station was around the corner or not.

Katsuki could make out the tense lines of Deku’s shoulders in his peripherals, but he didn’t dare look at him straight-on, afraid that would only worsen the engineer’s nerves. Deku was trembling and fuck if that didn’t just ache like a punch. Katsuki had almost kissed him. It had been less than a day since he had mustered up the courage to apologize, for fuck’s sake. He had made all those promises that he would do better, be better, and he had already fucked up. It had to be some new record.

He was trying to work out how to apologize for whatever lines he had just unwittingly crossed when Deku let out a choked laugh.

Katsuki whipped his head around only to see Deku slap a hand over his mouth. It didn’t do much to stifle the giggles that started slipping between his fingers. Something in Katsuki aggressively relaxed as he realized the trembling earlier had been from Deku trying to keep himself from laughing. The wariness didn’t fade entirely, though.

“The hell are you laughing at?”

The little control Deku had on himself vanished and he started laughing without restraint. He put his whole body into the act and, despite his confusion and the lingering fear that he had ruined everything, Katsuki was having to bite back a smile of his own.

“I’m sorry,” Deku finally managed to say, wiping a tear away. Even when he was happy, the dork was still a cry-baby. “It just caught me so off guard.”

“What did?”

“You- you asked-“ a wheeze of laughter cut him off and he started clutching his stomach. He was shaking his head with delighted disbelief.

“Spit it out, Deku.”

He managed to say, “You asked if I sucked his dick,” before losing all his composure. He had to stop walking to bend over while he laughed and the sound echoed in the dark streets around them.

“It was a joke-“

“No, no, I know,” Deku waved a hand at him, the other still clutching at his side. “That’s why it’s so funny. Cause you didn’t mean it but,” he wheezed again and nodded, “I have. I’ve definitely sucked his dick.”

His eyes were streaming tears now as he laughed and honestly, Katsuki was glad that he was too preoccupied to notice his own reaction (read: lack thereof) as Deku’s words registered.

Three seconds. A full three seconds passed after Deku spoke before Katsuki’s brain started semi-functioning again.

He- he had…? Oh.

The laugh that spilled out of Katsuki’s own mouth might have been tinged with a bit of hysteria, but Deku was too far gone to notice. Still, despite the initial shock, Katsuki couldn’t help but laugh at the irony of the situation. He had really backed himself into a corner with that one, huh? For some reason, seeing Deku laughing himself hoarse over the idea of sucking this stranger’s dick did wonders for the jealousy Katsuki had been holding onto. He couldn’t bring himself to feel ashamed about how much better he felt standing there on a sidewalk in the middle of the night, laughing his ass off with Deku at the expense of one of his exes.

“Oh, man,” Deku’s giggles had finally subsided, but he was gripping his stomach like it still ached. “I haven’t laughed that hard in a long time.”

“Here to please,” Katsuki joked. His head was spinning with relief, alcohol, and a surprising lack of oxygen from cackling like a madman.

“Seriously though,” Deku’s grin was bright as the train station came into view. Katsuki decided to focus on the fact that Deku wasn’t pissed at him anymore for the sake of his sanity. His brain really couldn’t handle the combination of dimples and freckles right now. “That was a long time ago. I haven’t talked to him in ages.”

“But you called him now?” You called him for me? Deku shrugged and almost managed to make the gesture seem casual.

“You needed a suit.”

Katsuki wasn’t sure how to respond to that or the emotions that rose up in him at those four simple words. He just stared at Deku, trying to put his mind in order. Distantly, he internally swore he was never going to drink again. It made it far too difficult to figure shit out.

“Thanks,” he eventually settled on. They were in front of the tracks now, just waiting for the train to arrive. “Even if the suit sucks,” Deku scowled, “Thank you for doing that.” For me.

Deku kicked Katsuki’s foot with his own.

“It’s not going to suck,” he said with a breath of laughter through his nose. “And you’re welcome.”

He didn’t expand any further than that, but as the roar of the train filled the station, Katsuki decided it was better that way. Some things were better left unsaid.

“This is me,” Deku said as the train slowed to a stop. He waved a hand over his shoulder and Katsuki lifted his own in farewell.

“See you in the morning!” The train doors slid shut, blocking Katsuki’s view from the blinding smile Deku had aimed at him. Freckles and dimples were burned like negatives on the back of his eyelids.

Katsuki turned on his heel and headed towards the street again, backtracking their walk. He and Deku had passed his apartment building a couple of blocks back. Not that the nerd had needed to know at the time.

Yeah, some things could go left unsaid. They just didn’t necessarily need to be left that way forever.

He had been in semi-good spirits when he had gotten home an hour ago, but after stumbling into the shower and sobering up, Katsuki had crawled into bed with a clear head and growing concern as he realized he was going to be dressed by one of Deku’s exes for an event that was internationally televised. So here he was. Concerned and scowling at his ceiling like it was personally responsible for the way his throat itched when he thought too hard about the next morning.

The phone he had dropped on his chest buzzed and he squinted at the bright screen in his dark apartment.

Eyebags: it goes against my morals to wake up with the sun

Eyebags: but you made me magic soup

Eyebags: so i guess i can make an exception this one time

Katsuki couldn’t believe his fucking luck. He thanked the universe for pulling those strings he had asked for as he typed out a quick text. Maybe tomorrow wouldn’t be a complete disaster. Maybe.

Katsuki: i fucking owe you, eyebags. say the word and i'm there

Eyebags: keep denks from proposing at the gala and i'll call us even

Katsuki: piece of fucking cake

Eyebags: you better have coffee waiting for me in the morning

Katsuki rolled his eyes but put in a coffee order to pick up on the way to the agency tomorrow. Better safe than sorry where Shinsou and his caffeine were concerned. He opened a new text thread.

Katsuki: eyebags is in for tomorrow

Nerd: !!!!

Nerd: THANK GOD

Nerd: You’re the best, Kacchan!!!

Nerd: Your suit is gonna look great and then you’ll have to eat your words (・`ω´・ ●)

Katsuki: i'll be the judge of that, nerd. get some sleep. see you in the morning.

Nerd: Night, Kacchan!

Katsuki: night, deku

Maybe Izuku was more nervous than he had let on the night before, but it was nothing a little time in the workshop couldn’t fix. He was getting so close to finishing Kacchan’s gear that he could practically taste it. For some reason though, the wiring in one of the pieces he was working on had decided to defy all the known laws of electricity. And beyond that, he was starting to doubt that the metal paneling would hold up against the heat of Kacchan’s quirk. Izuku banged his head on the table, not really caring about frightening anyone since it was five o’clock in the morning and no one else was crazy enough to be here this early.

Well, almost no one else.

“Trouble in paradise?”

Izuku didn’t bother lifting his head up from the table as he turned it to where Hatsume was hunched over her own bench. It was the first time she had stopped humming since he had walked into the lab that morning.

“If this is paradise, I think I’ll choose hell.”

Hatsume laughed, her cackle reaching him even as her eyes stayed trained on the project in front of her.

“Drama, drama! This is the best! The babies that give you trouble at first always end up better than you had ever imagined.”

“Why do you say that?” His eyes slid over to the mountain of discarded projects that Hatsume added to on a near-daily basis in the corner of the shop. Everyone else in the labs was too afraid to disturb it. Apparently, the pile tended to explode without warning and the lab had collectively called it quits after the third eyebrow had been scorched off.

“Because failure is the mother of invention, of course!”

“You’re quoting Einstein again. You’ve already used that one.”

“It’s a good quote! How about this one: ‘Failure is another stepping stone to greatness.’”

“Did you just quote Oprah at me?”

“It’s also a good quote!”

Izuku shrugged, not really having the energy for much else this early in the morning.

“But really though,” Hatsume said, her tone less joking than before. “Don’t let a little hiccup ruin your stride. You’ll find a way around it.”

“How do you always stay so positive?”

He had seen it time and time again. Everyone hit a rough spot and struggled with doubts about their abilities. Everyone but Hatsume, it seemed. She just floated above it all with a frightening gleam in her eye and unfailing optimism.

She glanced up from her work, just to meet Izuku’s eyes and say, “Because we’re engineers. It’s our job to figure it out. We didn’t choose to be heroes like Dynamight or Red Riot, but that doesn’t mean we aren’t saving people.”

She turned back to her work and her humming started up again without a thought, as if she hadn’t just split Izuku’s head and heart open with three little sentences.

In some ways, it was like he had been waiting for those words his whole life. What had he always said when he was little? That he wanted to be a hero whose smile made people hope, just like All Might. Well here Hatsume was, and maybe she was grinning in a way that produced more fear than hope, but she was telling him his dream hadn’t died in a doctor’s office when he was four years old.

And she was right. This was what he had come to Might Tower for. He couldn’t be a hero, not in the traditional sense, but he would be damned if he didn’t save lives any way he could with the tools he had been given.

His mess of wires didn’t seem like such impossible cases as he turned back to the bench. A smile stretched across his face, like hope persevering.

“Oh my goodness, this office is so fancy!”

It was seven minutes past eight in the morning and Katsuki knew that his headache from last night wasn’t going away anytime soon. He was leaning up against his desk and watching silently as the man that had followed Izuku into the office spun around with wide eyes. As he made vague exclamations about the space his silver hair shifted around his shoulders in glinting waves and, as his hands pointed to various objects around the room, Katsuki saw that his nails matched his metallic locks.

The man’s outfit was more understated and elegant than what Katsuki had become come to expect from people in the fashion industry. He wore a cream turtleneck tucked into perfectly-tailored black slacks that had been subtly patterned with whorls of dark-gray suede. His shoes were the same gray material that embellished the pants and Katsuki spied white socks that matched his top as the man excitedly wandered around the room.

Not overly flashy, but tasteful, unique, and obviously styled with care. The small piece of him that had been worrying he was going to end up in some gaudy, image-ruining outfit for the gala shriveled up and died. He should have known Deku wouldn’t screw him over, but it was nice to have some visual reassurance.

“Izu, this is where you work?”

Izu? What the hell was up with that nickname. The engineer in question was wearing his usual outfit: a dark-colored t-shirt tucked into slim-fitting jeans and those god-awful red shoes that he had apparently clung to since childhood. He had his lab coat on today and Katsuki wondered if it wasn’t just to show off in front of his ex a bit. The thought made his palms start sweating.

Deku smiled but shook his head. “No, this is Kacchan’s office. I work in the labs downstairs. It’s much less fancy.”

Katsuki snorted before he could think better of it (Like hell his office was fancier. Any one of those machines Deku and the other engineers had squirreled away down there could buy this place six times over.). The man with silver hair turned towards him with sudden interest, as if just noticing Katsuki’s presence.

“Oooh,” he drawled, “And who do we have here?”

He walked up with his hand extended. In an attempt to not be overtly antagonistic, Katsuki accepted it in a shake. Only, when he tried to pull away, the man didn’t let go and brought his other hand up to cradle Katsuki’s. He stepped closer and pitched his voice low like they were sharing a secret Deku wasn’t privy to.

“You must be Kac- sorry, Dynamight,” he amended. “I’ve heard so much about you from Izu!”

Had he almost called him Kacchan? Oh boy, Katsuki hated this more and more by the minute.

“Bakugou Katsuki. Nice to meet you…”

“Kato Haruto,” the designer beamed. He swiveled back to Deku, dropping Katsuki’s hand at last. The blonde flexed his palm and reminded himself that this man was here to help him and it would not be helpful if he exploded him right now.

“Izu! Did you not tell your hero about me? I’m a little hurt,” he pouted.

Katsuki didn’t miss the way Kato said ‘your hero,’ and from the way Deku’s face flamed, he hadn’t missed it either.

“It just hasn’t really come up!” Izuku floundered.

Kato shot a look at Katsuki over his shoulder that said ‘can you believe this guy?’ Katsuki just stared back blankly, still trying to figure out how the fuck he was supposed to react to this guy. His head hurt.

Kato clapped his hands together.

“Right! Well, moving right along. Izu said that you needed a suit for the gala, correct? Though,” he whirled back around to Deku, “I’m fairly certain you promised me that Mind Bender was going to be here.”

Katsuki’s eye twitched at the whine in Kato’s voice, but at the pleading look Deku shot him over Kato’s shoulder, he said, “He’ll be here soon. The guy needs like seven cups of coffee before he gets out of bed in the morning.”

The silver on Kato’s nails glinted as he clapped his hands excitedly. It was extremely distracting, and not in a good way, in Katsuki’s opinion.

“Good-ness, I am going to be as bad as Izu when he gets here!”

’Bad as Izu?’ The fuck was that supposed to mean?

Katsuki scowled, but Deku didn’t look bothered by the comment, so he held his tongue. If it could be avoided, it was probably better to not start an argument with the guy saving his ass. Especially since the aforementioned guy was now walking toward Katsuki with a needle in one hand, a tape measure in the other, and a wicked grin on his face. Where the fuck had he pulled those from? Katsuki had the feeling that asking might do more harm than good with this character.

“Stand up straight! Good, now give me a little spin. Arms raised!” Katsuki was fighting off a rising blush on his cheeks as the designer demanded he bend and lean and twirl for the-gods-only-knew how long. His scowl was quickly becoming a permanent fixture around Kato. He couldn’t bring himself to glance at Deku, who was hovering quietly off to Kato’s side.

Then it was time for measurements, and Kato rushed into Katsuki’s personal space with the tape measure drawn. He had to fight back the urge to flinch as the designer poked and prodded his arms and chest and legs with an appraising look.

“So Izu,” Kato’s voice was casual as he wrapped the tape measure around one of Katsuki’s thighs and jotted some numbers down in a notebook (When the hell had he pulled that out?!). “What have you been up to lately? I haven’t seen you since your graduation party.”

Katsuki’s eyes narrowed slightly and his gaze finally darted over to Deku. Hadn’t the nerd said they hadn’t talked in a long time? He had only graduated four months ago.

Izuku was sitting on top of a low wooden cabinet along the wall of Katsuki’s office, completely ignoring the sofa a few feet away from him and kicking his legs happily.

“I’ve just been working for the most part.”

“I can imagine! I can’t believe you were able to get a job here right out of college.” Katsuki felt his eye twitch.

“Is it really that fucking hard to believe?” Oops. Well… Katsuki had never said he was good at holding his tongue. Regret swelled up, but before he could stammer out an apology or backtrack, Kato just let out an appreciative whistle.

“Oh my, you’re quite the protective one, aren’t you?” The words were baiting and teasing, but Katsuki could see a genuine warmth behind Kato’s smile that made him reign in his retort.

Kato shook his head, smiling as he ducked behind Katsuki to measure the span of his shoulders. “I didn’t mean it like that though,” he clarified. “It’s just that Izu’s had his heart set on this place since before I met him. Seems like a dream come true.”

He turned towards Deku, “You always said that the engineers here typically need years of experience to even be considered for hiring, right? I’m just impressed.” He paused for a moment, and his voice was more sincere than Katsuki had heard it so far as he said, “And happy for you. You deserve it.”

Deku was blushing madly, but the smile on his face was genuine. “Thanks, Haru.”

Those nicknames. His eye twitched again. Katsuki wasn’t dense enough to think his reaction to hearing them casually shorten each other’s names was exactly rational.

In an effort to distract himself from whatever the fuck his brain was pissed about, Katsuki asked gruffly, “So what designer do you work with?” Kato was measuring Katsuki’s neck now and it was becoming increasingly difficult not to feel awkward at the proximity. Or maybe it was just the fact that Katsuki could feel Deku’s gaze latched onto both of them like a fucking brand.

Kato clicked his tongue, “Izu, you really didn’t tell him anything about me at all!” His words lacked any real bite and he turned towards Katsuki with a smug expression as Deku stuttered out an apology.

“I work with Q.” Katsuki raised an appreciative brow and Kato’s smile grew as he noted the recognition on Katsuki’s face.

“I wore them at my first gala after my debut.”

“Oh, that’s right! That red suit, right?” Katsuki nodded. “It was a little loud for my typical taste, but I think it was perfect for a debut. Honestly,” he tutted his tongue as he stretched the tape measure from Katsuki’s shoulder to the fold of his elbow. “It’s a cry in shame that All Might’s debut set the precedent for heroes wearing their costumes to galas for so long. I would have given anything to design a debut look for someone like Snipe or Edgeshot.” He sighed wistfully. That particular tradition had only just started going out the wayside a year before Katsuki’s own debut. It had actually sparked a fair bit of controversy when he had shown up in that lipstick-red suit, but it played well into his edgy hero persona, so his PR team had been more than on board with the idea.

“You know,” Deku piped in, his voice bright with barely-concealed excitement, “Kacchan’s mom is the one who designed Mirko’s look at the international conference in 20XX.”

A loud gasp that was far more genuine than Katsuki had been prepared for came from Kato. “Your mother is Bakugou Mitsuki?”

“Unfortunately,” Katsuki deadpanned.

“Oh my god, I went to one of your mother’s shows in Hong Kong two years ago and it was life-changing. That woman is a visionary. Her work…” He rambled on long enough that Katsuki’s head was spinning when Kato paused for a breath and shot an accusatory glare at Deku.

“Does that mean that your Auntie Mitsuki is actually Bakugou Mitsuki?”

“Why the hell do you keep saying the hag’s name like that. She’s really not that great.”

Neither acknowledged the comment. “Well, yeah. Auntie and my mom were college roommates and they’ve been best friends for years.”

“Izu! If you had told me that Bakugou Mitsuki was going to be at your Christmas party three years ago, I would have gone!”

“Wasn’t your grandmother in the hospital?”

Kato waved his hand dismissively, “Oh, she was fine.” At Deku’s look, he tacked on, “Eventually.”

“Ugh,” Kato whined, his shoulders dropping dramatically with the frustrated sigh. “I could have had her look over my senior project. Izu, it was really mean of you to hide that from me.”

“I don’t think I really hid it from you? I mean, I literally invited you to go to a party she was coming to. Plus, I’m not sure Auntie would have wanted to spend Christmas-“

“You had better have my coffee ready, Blasty.”

Deku was cut off as the office door swung open with a tad too much force and a scowling purple-haired hero strode in. Whatever rant Kato had been gearing up towards vanished with his entrance.

Katsuki just reached behind him, grabbed the cup that had long since cooled to room temperature, and offered it to Shinsou silently. He knew better than to pester the guy before he had a cup of coffee in hand. Katsuki still had nightmares about The Incident their third year of high school. He fought a shudder as Shinsou downed half of the cup in one go.

He lowered it from his face with a satisfied exhale, and it was only then that Katsuki realized the office was quieter than it had been all morning.

He turned to see Kato staring open-mouthed at the underground hero and looking more than a little star-struck. Fuck, he hadn’t been joking when he said he was going to be as bad as Deku when he got here.

All of his earlier suave and teasing confidence had dried up in the face of- Katsuki cast a cursory glance at Shinsou- eye-bags and bedhead, apparently. Well, to each their own. (Katsuki very pointedly did not look at a certain engineer’s mess of curls or sleep-bruised eyes)

Shinsou just raised an eyebrow at Kato, whose mouth snapped shut as he rushed forward with his hand extended. His face split into a blinding smile. The man didn’t stay down for long, huh?

“I’m Kato Haruto, but you can call me Haruto if you’d like. It’s so nice to meet you.”

Katsuki shot Deku an incredulous look, and the engineer just rolled his eyes, like the tone Kato was taking with Shinsou, all dripping in honey and silk, was to be completely expected.

Shinsou’s brow didn’t lower as he accepted Kato’s hand with a simple, “Shinsou. Pleasure.”

“You know,” Kato’s eyelids lowered just a bit and Katsuki had to bite back a laugh as he delicately fluttered his lashes, “I think that you could be a great model, Mr. Pro Hero Mind Bender.” Oh god, this guy was way in over his head. He briefly wondered if he should take a video for Kaminari. Dunceface would get a kick out of this.

“Yeah, that’s a hard no for me.” And with that, Shinsou took another swig of his coffee and all but collapsed onto one of Katsuki’s couches.

Kato seemed undeterred, however, and all but skipped over to the couch to perch on its arm. He was chatting up a one-way-storm and Katsuki had to bite the inside of his cheek to keep from howling with laughter as Shinsou’s eyes slid shut. The underground hero had a penchant for attracting extroverts like flies to honey, and the low sigh he let out was one of grudging acceptance toward his lot in life.

Katsuki was far too invested in watching Kato’s poor attempts at getting Shinsou to chat with him to notice Deku slipping up beside him.

“I kind of regret this now.”

Katsuki jumped when he turned to see the engineer almost shoulder-to-shoulder with him.

“Hm, why do you say that?”

Deku pursed his lips in an expression that was halfway between a scowl and the smile he was trying to hide underneath it. “I’ve never met Mind Bender before, but he’s going to hate me forever now.”

“Eh, he’ll be fine. His boyfriend is ten times more annoying than that guy.” Katsuki wondered if that was true as the stream of bubbly chatter continued.

“I didn’t think he’d try this hard,” Deku said. “But I really should have known. It’s nearly impossible to deny him when he gets like this. He’ll just go on and on until you crack.”

“Why? Cause you’ve been on the receiving end of him flirting like that?” Katsuki couldn’t quite tamp down the bitter note at the end of his question.

“Hah,” Deku let out a bark of laughter. “Oh, no. That’s not Haru flirting.”

The designer was sprawled sideways on the arm of the chair with one elbow resting on the back so he could prop his head up with his palm. It was a full-on ‘paint me like one of your French girls’ pose.

“Then what the hell would you call that?”

Deku’s mouth twitched, his eyes still trained on the ridiculous scene unfolding before him. “Oh, he’s completely serious. No double-ententes or anything.”

Katsuki tuned back into what Kato had been saying to Shinsou.

“-and given the right lighting, I think your whole ‘exhausted-but-capable’ thing could be a really great concept to work with.”

“He-“ Katsuki turned to Deku with a disbelieving look, “He actually wants him to model?”

“Yup.” Deku popped the ‘p’ at the end and damn if that wasn’t a little distracting to look at (the good way, this time). “He did his whole senior portfolio on elevated street fashion and had this entire mood board of underground heroes he used to drool over for inspiration. He said he was going for something ‘practical and dangerous.’” Deku used air quotations for the last part of the sentence.

Katsuki briefly wondered if Aizawa had been included on that board. He would pay money to see his old teacher’s reaction to hearing some design student was taking inspiration from his look.

“What, was it just a bunch of blurry pictures or something? How the hell did he even get good photos of the underground heroes? Anonymity is like, their whole thing.”

Katsuki had been half-joking about the blurry pictures thing, but the deadpan stare Deku gave him in response made him think he had been closer to the truth than he realized.

“Wait, wait,” Katsuki shook his head as Deku’s words from earlier registered in this new context. What had he said? ’It’s nearly impossible to deny him when he gets like this.’ “Does that mean you modeled for him?” Deku’s expression soured.

“It was after we dated, during my senior year in college. Never again,” was all he said. “But at least it let me call this favor in,” he said with a nod towards the couch.

He turned back to the pair, surprised to see that Shinsou had cracked open one eye and was regarding the designer warily.

“Okay,” Deku sighed, “I think that’s more than enough torture for one day. I had better stop Kato before he starts showing him shooting sights.”

Indeed, the silver-haired man had pulled out his phone and was pointing emphatically at whatever was on the screen. Shinsou still seemed less than enthusiastic, but he wasn’t actively glaring at Kato or walking out of the room so Katsuki knew he was at least tolerating the presence of Deku’s ex. Honestly, by Shinsou’s standards, it was almost the equivalent of planning to get matching pinkie rings with the man. He must really not want Kaminari to propose at the gala. Either that, or Katsuki had seriously underestimated the magical properties of his soup.

“Haru,” Deku called, and the man’s head snapped up with a smile. “Your five minutes are up. Leave Mind Bender alone.”

Kato stuck his bottom lip out in a pout. “But Izu-“

“Uh-uh. None of that.” Deku pointed a scolding finger at the man. “I was right and you were wrong. You lost, so fork over the hair.”

Wait. What? Where the fuck had that last bit come from?

“Huh?” Bakugou asked intelligently.

Even Shinsou sat up at that, obviously intrigued at where the conversation had just turned.

“You’re so mean, Izu!” But he stood as he said it, and Katsuki saw Shinsou’s shoulders slump in relief as Kato walked towards Deku, tugging out a few strands of hair as he went.

He held them out with a frown that was the opposite of Deku’s gleeful smile. He looked like a kid in a candy shop as he took the strands and placed them in a glass vial he had tugged out of his lab coat. Katsuki had so many questions.

“Thanks, Haru!” Kato rolled his eyes, but it was obvious that the majority of his attitude was posturing. Deku stoppered the vial and it disappeared back into one of the inner pockets of his coat.

He turned to Katsuki with a grin and said, “Haru’s hair is made out of an extremely strong metal alloy,” like it was all the explanation the hero might need.

“Izu only wants me for my body,” Kato sighed and draped himself over Deku’s back.

“So I’ve been told.” Katsuki must have muttered it louder than he thought because heard a choke from the direction of the couch.

“Now the rest of the deal, pretty please.” Deal? This was the first Katsuki was hearing about any deal. Was that what Deku had meant when he said Kato had lost?

Deku had to turn his face completely sideways to meet Kato’s eyes. He fluttered his lashes mockingly and Kato just let out a sigh of utter defeat. Katsuki felt a certain kinship with that particular noise, especially when it was made in regards to Deku.

Kato extracted himself from Deku’s back and Katsuki felt his hand unclench from where it had been fisted at his side. Huh. He hadn’t realized he had been doing that.

“I already finished up his measurements, so I actually have everything I need. I can have it ready for a fitting tomorrow night and, if I’m as good as I think I am,” he winked at Shinsou, who rolled his eyes in response, “I can have the final piece ready by Friday afternoon.”

Despite himself, Katsuki let out an impressed whistle. “You can really get something together by then?”

Kato grinned, his fake pout from earlier vanishing entirely as he plucked another hair from his head. It folded over, just like any strand of hair would, until Kato’s dark eyes began glowing the same silver as his hair and nails. The strand straightened, and when Kato let go of it, the metal continued floating in the air.

“My quirk helps.” He held his hand out, fingers spread, and as he spoke, the hair began weaving back and forth through the empty spaces between them. It was entrancing to watch, and even Katsuki had to admit that he had a crazy amount of control over the metal fiber’s movement.

“It’s called Metal Tamer. I naturally grow this alloy as hair and nails, and anything I grow, I can control.” His eyes faded back to their normal dark brown and the hair floated down, no longer under the designer’s control. No one commented when Deku dipped down to grab it before it hit the floor and slipped it in with the other strands he had gotten from Kato.

“That’s cool as fuck,” Katsuki admitted. “You could kick some major villain ass with that.” He was already imagining the onslaught of metal projectiles Kato could lob toward a villain. Honestly, the practical uses of a quirk like that were endless.

“I could,” Kato conceded. “But it also just makes a damn good needle.”

Katsuki barked out a laugh, caught off guard by the shit-eating grin Kato threw his way. The designer said his goodbyes much faster than Katsuki had anticipated. He left as quickly as he had arrived with Izuku trailing behind to escort him to the front. Katsuki could only be glad that he didn’t have to deal with that whirlwind of a personality on the regular. Kato’s moods had switched faster than Katsuki could manage. He could only imagine what it must have been like to date the guy.

“So Bill Nye the Science Guy was Deku?”

Katsuki shot a glare towards the couch, just now remembering that he still had an insomniac lurking in his office. Shinsou laid down with his arms folded under his head and had a smirk on his face that was most definitely at Katsuki’s expense.

“Denki talks a lot,” he said by way of explanation. “He’s gonna be so pissed I met him first.”

Katsuki rolled his eyes, “You didn’t even talk to him.”

Shinsou shrugged, his eyes sliding shut. “You think that matters to Denks?”

“You and Dunceface are weird.” Shinsou hummed but didn’t try and deny it.

Katsuki let his palm pop off a few explosions. It kind of became a problem when he didn’t use up the nitroglycerin on his skin regularly, and he had been trying to be on his best manners while Kato was around. Shinsou knew him well enough to know that the tic wasn’t a threat, not like it had been in middle school and high school.

“Those two dated right?” At Katsuki’s grunt of affirmation, Shinsou chuckled lowly.

“At least we know you’re still Bill Nye’s type.”

“The fuck makes you say that? What ‘type?’”

Shinsou cracked one eye open and frowned like the answer was obvious.

“Loud.”

“What the hell is that supposed to mean, Eye-bags? Are you sAYING I’M-“

“I can’t believe you won.” Haruto had dropped most of the pouting act as soon as they left Kacchan and Shinsou behind, but Izuku could tell he was fighting the urge to stick out his bottom lip.

“Haru, why on earth would an underground hero want to model? We’ve been over this way too many times.” Haruto let out a frustrated sigh.

“I know that it wouldn’t make any sense but he’s perfect, Izu! You know I’m a sucker for messy hair.”

Izuku just shook his head, a small smile on his lips. A thought that had been nagging him since the night before started picking at that spot in Izuku’s mind he couldn’t ignore. He turned to Haruto with a calculating look, like he proposed a question Izuku had been trying to puzzle out since texting him the night before.

“I know you didn’t actually think you would win that bet.” It wasn’t exactly a question, but Haruto shrugged all the same.

“I figured I owed you, anyway. I would have helped out with the suit, and with the hair, even if I didn’t get a chance to talk to Mind Bender.”

A comfortable silence settled between them as they walked while Izuku mulled over his words.

They were almost to the agency’s doors when Haruto turned to Izuku with more hesitation than the engineer was used to seeing on his face.

“I don’t want to make any assumptions,” well that wasn’t a comforting start to a sentence, “But you and Bakugou seem good for one another.”

Izuku’s steps faltered. “W- What?”

Haruto rolled his eyes, but there was no malice or annoyance in the gesture. “Oh, come on, Izu. You can’t really be that deep in denial, can you? I saw the way you were acting around him.”

“That’s not-“

“Listen,” Haruto cut him off before the denial had even fully formed in Izuku’s mind. “I know that you have some history there. Even when we dated you weren’t exactly open about what happened between you two, but I’m not an idiot. You used to talk about ‘Kacchan’ with this sad, wistful look all the time, like he was someone worth missing, despite whatever happened between you two. Whatever it was, it looks like you two have made amends.” Haruto’s dark eyes searched Izuku’s for a moment like he was weighing whether or not he should say something else and the answer was somewhere in Izuku’s emerald green.

He must have found whatever he was looking for.

“Don’t ruin your own chance at happiness just so you can spite the past.”

Izuku blinked, rearing back a bit as Haruto’s words reached him. His head felt strangely hollow. Haruto’s words echoed around, bouncing off the walls of his brain but not quite sticking. Denial, frustration, and something else he didn’t have a name for yet were fighting for control over his expression.

Did he mean- That meant Haruto thought- Was he saying that-

Izuku’s mind was tripping over the thoughts, until one stuck out, far clearer than the rest.

He thinks I can be happy?

But no, it was more than that, wasn’t it?

He thinks I can be happy with Kacchan.

Could he be? Could they be? Was Izuku sabotaging something he wasn’t even aware was within the realm of possibility?

He had been so sure, so certain that Kacchan was going to treat him like trash when he saw him again. But he hadn’t done that. He’d even apologized, and even more surprisingly, Izuku believed him. He had wanted to hear that apology, of course, but what had caught him completely off guard was that Izuku had found himself wanting to accept it. Wanting to forgive. He hadn’t thought it was possible. He also hadn’t thought the way Kacchan seemed to have changed was possible, and yet here he was, living impossibly.

But what Kato had said about them being good for one another, that was a different matter entirely, right? From the way Izuku’s heart rate had kicked into overtime, he wasn’t so sure. There was something like hope, something that whispered of trust and possibilities, that was getting harder and harder for Izuku to ignore.

It was terrifying.

His voice was far too strangled for his liking when he finally managed a lame, “What…“

During his internal floundering, Haruto had brightened again, that serious expression washing away and his smile sparkling like silver in the sun.

“Just think about it, ‘kay?” He bounded towards the door with a backward wave. The casual words and gesture tugged Izuku back into the present and out of his reeling thoughts.

“I’ll text you when his suit is ready for a fitting!”

Izuku raised his hand in farewell, but anyone who saw him waving goodbye to the man with silver hair could tell that his smile was forced.

Chapter Text

"Holy shit."

It was the most intelligent thing Katsuki had managed to say since Kato Haruto had shown up half an hour earlier with a suit in tow.

It was just…wow.

"Holy shit."

Kato grinned. "I'm going to take that as a compliment."

"You should." The suit was incredible. Katsuki hadn't known exactly what to expect, but what Kato had brought had blown any vague ideas of his own out of the water.

There was just one thing missing. It was something conditional, though. Several things needed to fall into place very quickly if that one thing was going to be possible. And Christ, Katsuki hoped beyond hope that it was possible.

He glanced at the designer, who had a half-dozen pins sticking out of his mouth as he pinched at the fabric by Katsuki's calf. This was as good of a place to start as any.

"Hey," Katsuki cleared his throat and the nerves he could feel there, "I have a favor to ask."

"Oh?"

"But, I’m going to be totally honest, it might be fucking impossible." Katsuki held his breath, waiting for the delicate plan he had started forming two nights ago to shatter completely. All it would take is a simple ‘no’ from the designer and Katsuki would have to rethink the whole way he was going to go about this.

But he needn’t worry, because Kato's dark eyes flashed at the challenge and he grinned. "Ah, those are the best kind."

And wasn’t that just the best fucking answer Katsuki could have hoped for?

For right now it seemed, those fragile plans held.

"Yo! Midobro!"

Izuku grinned as Kirishima's shock of red hair appeared across the labs. The hero had one hand raised in greeting and the other was clutching a pair of bento boxes that alerted Izuku to the hollow feeling in his stomach.

"Lunchtime already?"

"I brought leftovers!" He said as if the occurrence was rare enough to need explaining. In all honesty, Izuku had stopped bringing lunch to work three days after he started at the agency. Kirishima was usually shoving more food his way than he could reasonably eat, and on the few days he didn't eat with the redhead, Izuku was more than happy to explore the restaurants near the agency.

That was if he remembered to stop for lunch.

He was getting better about stepping away from work! Really, he was! It did make him wonder though if Kirishima shoved so much food his way because he knew his friend had a tendency to get too wrapped up in his projects to remember to set them aside.

Whatever the reasoning, Izuku wasn't complaining.

"Figure out that warping issue?" Kirishima asked once Izuku had met him over by the elevators.

The door dinged as they started moving up to the ground floor and Izuku held back a groan.

"Not yet, but I'm so close I can taste it."

"That's tough man," Kirishima patted him on the shoulder, knocking the breath out of Izuku. "I know you'll figure it out! You're way too manly to let some pieces of metal stop you."

It was the bro-y version of the pep-talk Hatsume had given Izuku the day before and he couldn't help the warm feeling that spread in his chest.

It was nice to have so much support. He had some in college, of course, but most of his friends were way too bogged down with their own studies to have been able to really pull someone else out of their doubts. The way Kirishima, Hatsume, Jirou, and even Kacchan treated his work made Izuku want to do better. It gave him the energy he needed to overcome the mental blocks he inevitably ran into and made him excited about his projects in a way he had never really allowed himself to be in the past.

That warm feeling only grew as Kirishima asked questions about his project and let Izuku ramble through his thought process, nodding and smiling as the engineer talked and they settled into the break room to eat.

Partway through lunch, Izuku realized that he had been speaking for almost ten minutes without a break. He cut himself off midway through an explanation of another scientist’s quirk in the lab that allowed him to duplicate inanimate objects and he gave Kirishima a sheepish smile.

"Sorry." He picked at the skin around his fingernails. "I tend to get worse when I'm close to finishing a project." It was like his mind stopped being able to differentiate between what he was working on and the rest of the world. He knew, from many, many experiences that people found it annoying, so he tried to keep himself under control. He had been slipping up a lot around Kirishima lately.

"Midobro! It's not a problem! Really, I like listening to you go all science-y, so don't worry!" He sounded genuine enough that Izuku let his hands relax from their tearing and twisting.

"How's patrol been, Kiri? I know everyone's been kind of busy with the whole Uproot thing."

Kirishima's smile faltered for the first time that day.

"Yeah, man,” he rubbed at the back of his head. “It's been rough, I'm not gonna lie. We sent our work study students and interns back to their schools, which was the right call, don't get me wrong, but it's left us with fewer heroes to help out than normal. And it's not like we can just call on another agency to help make up for the numbers we lost, since they're all in the same boat as us right now."

"That sounds exhausting."

"Eh," Kirishima shrugged, and his shark-toothed smile was back, even if it was more strained than before. "We do what we can. It's our job, right? And it's not like I would rather the streets stay unpatrolled or anything, so even though we're pulling long hours, no one is really that torn up about it."

"Just let me know if there's anything I can do to help."

"Hell yeah, man! That's what you guys are here for. You know, support engineers and all that." Izuku snorted.

The conversation shifted again onto easier topics and Izuku watched as Kirishima's smile slowly became more and more genuine as they went. It eased something in his chest. He couldn't do anything about a hellish villain or grueling hours, but he could be a distraction for a little while if that's what Kirishima needed.

"Wait, Kiri," the hero's brows raised, pausing as he lifted food to his mouth. "Are you going to the gala this weekend?"

"Course, dude! It's the only time of year I get to see all my UA friends in one place. All of us pull some strings so we don’t miss it. I think Bakubro bribes Nighteye every year so all of us from UA have that day off from patrols. Honestly, I’m a little shocked he was still able to swing that this year with everything going on."

Judging by the way Kacchan had been oblivious to the fact that the gala was this very weekend, Izuku seriously doubted Kirishima’s theory, but he didn't say otherwise. There was a small part of him that wished he could be a part of the gala. He knew it was a pointless thing to wish for, but it seemed like Kacchan had found some great people while being a hero. Izuku couldn’t help but wonder if he would have called these people friends if had been able to attend UA too.

As if he had summoned the blonde through thought alone, Kacchan's form appeared in the break room’s door, his gaze immediately locking onto where Izuku and Kirishima sat.

"Oi, Deku, you almost done with lunch?"

He jumped up like it was some knee-jerk reaction to the hero’s command and almost started walking towards where Kacchan waited with crossed arms. He caught himself though and turned back to Kirishima with a guilty look.

The redhead was just grinning and waving him away while stacking their empty bentos together.

"It's all good, man! I need to go file some paperwork, anyway." He glanced over at Izuku's shoulder at Kacchan and winked.

Izuku didn't know what that was about, but when he turned back around, Kacchan was scowling like the expression might distract from the faint blush on his cheeks. He was in a stripped-down version of his hero costume today, and without the gauntlets, harness, mask, and headpieces, Izuku was noticing how much that shirt clung to his form. Did the neckline on the tank really need to dip that low? Izuku swallowed dryly.

"Ready nerd?"

"Yep!" Izuku popped the 'p' and missed the way Kacchan's eyes flickered down to his lips when he did.

"What's up?"

"Huh?" Katsuki blinked like his thoughts had been somewhere else entirely. "Oh, I just had a question for you."

Izuku tilted his head to the side, brows drawing together. It was strangely concerning that Kacchan was stating he had a question to ask instead of just jumping to the point like he normally did.

His concern only grew when Kacchan nodded down the hallway and said, "Not here though."

Izuku blinked, eyes a little wide, and followed the hero through the winding hallways that made up the back half of the agency.

The ground floor wasn't one Izuku spent much time on, and even when he did, it was usually either to eat in the break room Kirishima had been in, or walking to and from the elevator and the agency's entrance. All that to say, he had no clue where Kacchan was leading him. Kacchan scanned his hero license beside a door Izuku hadn’t seen before and propped it open once the latch released with a click.

He glanced around the hallways, startled to see carpeted floors in this section of the building.

"Where are we?"

He had his answer as soon as they walked past a door that was ajar, but Kacchan answered anyway.

"These are dorms. They usually stay pretty empty, but everyone's been pulling long hours lately."

"Yeah, Kirishima mentioned that," Izuku wasn't looking at Kacchan when he replied, though. He was far too busy looking around the space and taking in all the little details he could as the hero continued forward with an obvious goal in mind.

A discarded towel here, an abandoned glass of water there. A cluster of couches and a stack of books on one of their end tables. Bare and quiet for the most part, but with obvious attempts at comfort strewn throughout.

"Do you ever stay down here?"

"Fuck no, not anymore. They all stay up way too late and the walls are thin as hell here. I was so fucking tired when I started at the agency. I just sleep in my office now."

"Do you live far from here? Why don't you just go home?"

Kacchan ignored the first question and just shrugged, "My patrols run late sometimes and it's not really worth it to go back home just to have to turn back around and head back to the agency the moment I get there."

His patrols had to have gone way past the point of 'late' if he barely had enough time to get to his place and back. Izuku didn't have a chance to voice his concerns though, because Kacchan had arrived at yet another door, this one made entirely of thick, frosted glass, and was holding it open. Izuku pushed his worries into the back of his mind and stepped through.

He couldn't help but gasp as his eyes adjusted to the sudden brightness and he found himself standing outside.

"Oh my god, Kacchan," he turned towards the hero, who seemed pleased by his reaction. "This is gorgeous! I had no idea there was a place like this at the agency."

"Oh, good," Kacchan made his way over to Izuku with his hands stuffed in his pockets. "I was hoping you hadn't seen it yet."

Kacchan had brought them to an impossible oasis in the middle of Tokyo. Despite knowing that the agency was on a busy street, there was no sound but the gentle rustling of leaves and the quiet gurgle of water. A glass dome stretched overhead, keeping the worst of the weather at bay, and everywhere Izuku looked, plants dominated the space.

There was green as far as his eyes could see, only broken up by a few bursts of color from flowering plants. The air was heavy and fresh and every inhale made Izuku's lungs feel like they were being scrubbed clean.

"Why is this here?" he couldn't help but ask. There had to be a reason behind this little sliver of paradise.

"The dorms are cramped." Kacchan shrugged. "The shit we do gets overwhelming at the best of times, but when you're not able to go home and ground yourself it gets to be too much, way too fucking fast. This place…" he trailed off, looking around with something close to reverence.

"Helps," Izuku finished, and Kacchan nodded his head from the edge of his vision. Izuku wondered how often his old friend had found himself in the garden. He could imagine him just standing and breathing in the fresh air in an attempt to purge his mind of whatever he had seen out in the field.

"I thought you might like to see it- you know, if you hadn't gotten to already."

"I would. I did," Izuku tore his gaze from the greenery and beamed at Kacchan. "You were absolutely right that it’s something I would enjoy. It's amazing. Thank you for showing me." Izuku tried to ignore just how happy he felt as he imagined Katsuki standing in this sanctuary and thinking about him.

Kacchan stared at him for a moment, and if Izuku didn't know any better, he would say the hero almost looked scared. But that couldn't be right. Kacchan wasn't scared of anything.

He was flexing his palms in the way that Izuku now knew was an anxious tic. He saw double for a second. He saw this Kacchan, with an abundance of greenery casting him in soft light, and he saw the Kacchan he had grown up with, who had flexed his palm like a threat he was all too happy to follow through on.

Izuku blinked and the only one who remained was the one who Izuku realized was now grimacing with nervousness.

He thought he heard the blonde mutter, “Fuck it,” under his breath before he took in a deep breath and stepped closer to Izuku.

“D- Izuku,” Izuku’s eyes widened at the name, but Kacchan blazed forward. “You can say no, of course, but I- I wanted to know if you’d go with me to the gala this weekend?”

Izuku was fairly certain his mouth was hanging open. He just also knew that he couldn’t really focus on fixing it right now.

Kacchan’s face was blazing red, but he still hadn’t dropped Izuku’s gaze and there was determination his crimson eyes alongside the fear. He would stare down Izuku’s answer, regardless of the outcome.

Oh, Izuku thought. This is what he is scared of. My answer.

“You want me to go with you? To- to the heroes gala?” Even as he said the words, his mind couldn’t fully process them.

“Yeah. Yeah, I do.”

“Oh.” And then, “Really?” This had to be a trick, right? That part of him that had begun whispering of hope and possibilities and impossible things was clawing at his throat, screaming that maybe it wasn’t a trick this time. Maybe he could trust this. Izuku was still having a hard time learning to believe that part of himself.

Kacchan let out a strained laugh, “Yes, you shitty nerd.” He winced. “Sorry, I’m not actually trying to insult you.”

Maybe he could, maybe he should, trust Kacchan. Even if doing so left him wide open and vulnerable. Any blow Kacchan threw would hit so much harder if Izuku allowed himself to answer honestly. But Kacchan was still not breaking Izuku’s gaze, and those ruby-red irises steeled his nerves in a way he hadn’t quite expected them to.

Izuku braced himself for the blows, even as he stammered out, “Y- Yes. I’d actually really like to go. With you.”

But the blow never came. Kacchan didn’t smile cruelly and ready his fists. He just blew out a relieved breath and grinned. He grinned as if that was the answer he had been hoping for.

“Thank fuck. God,” he let off a few explosions in his palm like he couldn’t quite help it. The sound wasn’t so terrifying anymore, not with an expression like that on the hero’s face. “That was nerve-wracking. I really thought you were gonna leave me out to dry there for a second.”

That made two of them, then.

Izuku wasn’t sure what expression he was making, still reeling from the fact that against all odds Kacchan seemed genuine about wanting Izuku to go with him, but he sucked in a breath as he realized something.

“Oh no, Kacchan,” he felt his eyes water and cursed his little cancer-sun heart for weeping so easily. “I- I can’t go.”

The grin on Kacchan’s face dropped immediately. “What? Why not?”

“I don’t have anything to wear! It’s in two days and I don’t even own a suit, let alone one that’s good enough to wear as your date.”

Izuku’s eyes widened a second after the last word left his mouth. Shit he hadn’t meant to let that slip. Even if he was going to think of the gala like a date, that didn’t mean Kacchan thought of it like that. After all, Izuku realized with growing horror, the hero hadn’t used the word once while asking Izuku to go with him. Maybe he just meant he wanted Izuku to go with him as a friend-

“First off,” Kacchan cut his spiraling thoughts off with a hand on Izuku’s shoulder, “I can see you freaking out. It’s not that big of a deal what you wear.” That’s what he thought Izuku was panicking about? I mean, given the context of what he had said out loud he supposed it made sense, but still. Did that mean he was like Izuku? Did he consider this to be a-

“You could wear that stupid-ass lab coat for all I care,” Kacchan continued. “I have to look good cause I won’t fucking stand for that half-and-half bastard outdoing me, but you would look hot wearing anything,” And damn if that didn’t just completely derail Izuku’s thought process.

“And second,” Kacchan grinned like a fucking maniac, “I’ve already got that covered, sweetheart, don’t you worry.”

Sweet-

Izuku was sure his face had never flushed quite so quickly before and he couldn’t help the way his hands raised to cover his face.

“Now that that’s settled,” Kacchan was striding off towards the door with his hands in his pockets again, “I have to get to a meeting that started,” he pulled his phone out of his pocket and glanced at the screen, “ten minutes ago. I’ll text you in a little bit, alright?”

“Wait, what?” Izuku’s brain finally registered that Kacchan had said something else along with the pet name. “What do you mean you’ve got it covered?” Izuku had to work a fashion miracle to make sure Kacchan had an outfit for the event. There was no way the blonde had done the same for him, was there? No. There was no way.

“Don’t worry about it,” he flashed a grin over his shoulder. “I’ll see you later, Deku.” The frosted glass door swung closed behind the hero and silence settled over the gardens once again.

“What the fuck?” No one heard him but the empty air. And if he had to walk a couple of laps around the gardens, muttering like a madman and pinching his arms a few times before he was ready to go back inside, well, no one really needed to know.

“The hell is up with him?” Jirou pointed to the explosion hero, who was currently lying face-down on a couch in his office and being entirely non-responsive.

“Oh, man, leave Bakubro alone,” Kirishima said. “He was really manly earlier and I think it kind of took it out of him.”

“Villain?”

Kirishima shook his head.

“Oh. It was Midoriya then, huh?”

“Shut the hell up, earlobes,” came Katsuki’s muffled reply.

“Thought so.” She smacked her gum. “So what did you say to him this time?”

It took far more effort than it should have for Katsuki to roll over until he was staring blankly at the ceiling. He folded his hands over his chest and tried to pretend he didn’t look like a fucking cadaver in that position.

“I asked him to go to the gala with me.”

“Dude!”

“And?” Jirou prompted, their tone much less impressed than Kirishima’s had been.

“And he said yes.”

“Hell yeah, I’m so proud of you dude! That’s so manly!”

“Nice,” was all Jirou offered before they turned to Kirishima. “Wait, why are you surprised? Didn’t you just say he did something manly and that’s why he was tired?”

“Yeah, but I just thought it was cause he walked Midobro back to the labs from lunch.”

Jirou let out a bark of laughter and Katsuki groaned, pulling his hands up to cover his face.

“Holy shit, Bakugou. Kiri has stupid low belief in your abilities, dude.”

“Hey! That’s-“

“But see, now my question is why aren’t you acting all cocky right now and punching villains in the face?” Jirou asked, ignoring Kirishima’s offended protests.

Katsuki just pointed a finger at them. “I’m not answering that.”

They looked downright delighted at that answer.

“Well, now you literally have no choice.” She walked over and sat on Katsuki’s stomach, making all the air whoosh out of his lungs. “I’m not moving til you tell me why you’re all pouty.”

“I’m not fucking pouting!” He said.

Jirou just gave him a look and Katsuki tched his tongue. He could just throw them off of him, it’s not like Jirou weighed more than he lifted on the regular, but-

“I called him a fucking pet name on accident.” His hands were covering his face again, and at Jirou’s (admittedly expected) howl of laughter, he groaned. Kirishima was just looking very pleased with how everything had turned out.

“Fuck off, you nightmare of a lesbian. This is why I didn’t want to tell you.”

“You did not. Oh my god I have to find the security footage.” She practically leaped off his stomach and raced to the computer on his desk.

“There’s no audio in the gardens,” he said, and Jirou stopped just short of reaching the mouse.

“You planned that.”

“Nope.”

Lie. Of course he fucking planned that. He had been friends with these fuckers for almost a decade now and had learned most of their tricks the hard way.

“How did he react?”

And see, this is really why he was…not pouting, but- Okay, fine. He was pouting, happy?

“I don’t know.”

“Please, dear Bakugou Katsuki, do explain what you mean when you say that ‘you don’t know’ how Midoriya reacted.” Jirou looked way too fucking happy about Katsuki’s misery.

“I ran away immediately.”

“Poor baby.”

He flipped her off.

“Hey, man,” Kirishima still seemed as happy-go-lucky as ever, but at least it didn’t seem like it was at Katsuki’s expense, unlike a certain purple-haired hero who had pulled her phone out and was texting like her life depended on it.

“I’m so excited for you, dude.” Katsuki’s mouth twitched upward at Kirishima’s earnestness.

“Thanks, Shitty Hair.”

“What, no thanks for me?”

“Shut it, Earwax. Your face is like a physical reminder of my shitty gay panic.”

“I don’t really know what that means, but I’m taking it as a compliment.”

“You shouldn’t.”

The bickering continued, and maybe Katsuki really should have thanked Jirou, because by the end of it, he was well and truly distracted from his embarrassment over calling Deku ‘sweetheart’ earlier. (Literally where the fuck had that come from? And why the fuck did his stupid gay brain want to say it again?)

Damn, they annoyed the hell out of him, but Katsuki couldn’t help the way his lips were twitching upward, even as he and Jirou poked and prodded at one another. He supposed there was a reason he had kept these extras around for so long, after all.

Chapter Text

“Hatsume!”

The heads of everyone in the lab swiveled towards Izuku as he screamed her name, but he couldn’t bring himself to care. Not when his prototype-

“Midoriya!” Hatsume called back with equal volume, but where Izuku’s yell had been met with looks of concern, Hatsume’s was met with a collective rolling of eyes.

Izuku ran over to her workbench and shoved the metal-plated device in his hands towards her without further explanation. Gold eyes sparkled behind the goggles Hatsume kept firmly planted over them while in the lab.

“You finished it?”

“It’s just the prototype, but yes!”

He had gotten the idea after texting Haruto about Kacchan’s suit. There had been an issue with the metal of his support gear warping under too-high pressure and heat, but Haruto’s hair wasn’t a normal type of alloy. Without going into the specific chemical makeup of it, Haruto’s hair was almost flexible in the way it reacted to the environment, which made it a potential answer to Izuku’s issue. It softened and hardened based on the environment, and though the catalyst for change was typically Haruto’s own will, Izuku had figured out how to harness the metal’s natural state artificially. The only problem had been that it wasn’t something you could replicate in a lab without it being slightly radioactive. Thankfully, the scientist that had a copying quirk in the lab had been more than happy to help Izuku out in exchange for a couple strands of the designer’s hair. It was an extremely useful metal, after all, and Izuku had been more than happy to give the extra strand he had to the man (with Haruto’s consent, of course).

But how he got there didn’t really matter. All that mattered was that for all his doubting and overcoming and doubting again, it had worked!

There was still an ungodly amount of testing that needed to be done before he would declare it safe for the explosion hero to use in public, but Izuku was over the moon right now. The past few weeks had been, in a word, exhausting, and for all the traits Izuku did possess, patience wasn’t one he could readily claim for himself.

But now he had a prototype in hand that theoretically wouldn’t warp under even the most brutal of Kacchan’s attacks. Welding it had been a colossal pain in Izuku’s ass, but the results were more than worth the hours he had spent laboring over it.

“Hell yeah, Midoriya! I knew you could do it!”

That was all the focus Hatsume spared him before returning back to her own projects, but Izuku glowed under the praise. Hatsume had been there for so many of the early mornings and later nights, and even if she hadn’t been the one to actually solve his problems with the device, he owed a hell of a lot of his mental stability to the engineer. Just having another body to bounce ideas off of kept him from feeling insane when he was wrapped up in work.

Izuku checked the time on his watch and nearly dropped the prototype.

Shit, looks like I finished just in time.

He ran back to his bench and hurriedly scraped the piles of metal and wire into a vague semblance of organization before ditching his lab coat and striding towards the elevator. He was supposed to meet Kacchan three minutes ago for… well, Izuku didn’t really know what he was meeting Kacchan for. The blonde had just sent him an ominous text this morning to meet him after his patrol was done along with vague threats to Izuku’s health if he didn’t show.

Yesterday still felt like a fever dream. Izuku had half-convinced himself that he had made the whole garden moment with Kacchan up, but as he slid his hand into his pocket and let his fingers brush against the quickly-drying leaf he had hidden there, his shoulders relaxed a bit. He had plucked it without much thought yesterday, but he had found his fingers trailing towards the leaf throughout the day. Even still, he couldn’t dispel all of his anxiety as the elevator carried him to the top of Might Tower. The quiet beeping as the floors sped past in flashes of numbers seemed to echo louder than normal in the enclosed space.

The doors dinged, sliding open, and Izuku jolted as he saw a figure leaning against the wall a little down the hallway. The blonde was typing something out on his phone but looked up when the elevator doors closed behind Izuku.

Kacchan’s crimson eyes lit up with excitement, even as he said, “You’re late.”

Despite the words, Kacchan’s tone was bordering on amused and Izuku’s anxiety evaporated. He tried not to think about that knee-jerk reaction to Kacchan’s presence too much.

He beamed. “I am!” he declared. “But trust me, it was so worth it this time.”

Kacchan’s brow lifted in question, but Izuku wasn’t quite ready to answer it yet, so he looped his arm through one of the blonde’s and tugged him towards the hero’s office.

“So tell me Kacchan, what are we late for?”

“You’ll see.” It was the same answer he had given Izuku last night over text. But that look Kacchan gave him, secrets and happiness dancing in those ruby eyes, made Izuku’s toes curl and he decided that he didn’t mind surprises once in a while.

After Deku had gotten over his initial shock at seeing Kato waiting in Katsuki’s office, he had been whisked away by the designer with a suit bag in tow.

Less than five minutes later, the door to Katsuki’s office was violently swung open by Kato, who announced with no small amount of drama, “I am delighted to present,” Katsuki craned his neck as a figure came into view, but Deku was a mere silhouette against the brightness of the hallway, “your date to the heroes gala.”

Deku took a step forward. Another. Katsuki noted the mess of curls made messier by the fingers tugging at their ends. He noted the flush on Deku’s face, deep enough that his freckles were disappearing against the onslaught of red. His eyes dipped lower. Lower. And-

“Holy-“

At some point, he must have stood up from his desk, at some point he must have started walking over towards Deku, because he blinked and he was right next to the man. But it didn’t really matter to Katsuki how he had gotten there because Holy All Might Above he was very, very gay.

And Deku looking fucking stunning in that suit.

“K-Kacchan!” It seemed impossible, but the nerd’s blush deepened further.

“Shit, did I say that last bit out loud?” He didn’t sound or feel remorseful in the slightest.

He didn’t even look at Deku’s face for an answer to his question because he was too damn busy devouring the details of the suit in front of him.

Half of the jacket was a pure, midnight black that shimmered faintly under the low lighting of Katsuki’s office. The other half was dominated by hundreds of gold beads that exploded in starbursts across Deku’s chest, shoulders, and torso. The edges of the starbursts were designed to look like they were losing drops of gold down the rest of the suit, so the pants held a much more understated version of the jacket’s beaded design. A black shirt was buttoned to the collar under the jacket, but as Kato beckoned Deku to unfasten the jacket’s front, Katsuki could spy the gold thread that had been used as stitching throughout. Black shoes matched the rest of the dark ensemble and made the golden design stand out that much more prominently.

Deku looked like the goddamn sun and it was all Katsuki could do to bask in his glow. He could only hope to fuck that he would be around to watch this man go supernova. In a suit like that, it seemed like an inevitability.

“So, what do you think?” Kato’s tone may have been teasing, but Katsuki couldn’t bear to put up a front. Not while Deku was looking like that.

“This is fucking amazing, Kato. How the hell did you put this together so fast?”

“Never doubt my skills, Mr. Pro Hero Dynamight.”

“There’s no way in hell I could. Not after this.”

Deku was quiet under the praise, but he didn’t seem too embarrassed by Katsuki’s gawking, so he was counting it as a win. It would be a real fucking problem if Deku couldn’t deal with Katsuki staring at him in that suit because literally what else could he do?

It was like Katsuki’s eyes had been born to follow the lines of that suit and the way the fabric shaped around Deku’s body like it had been formed out of stardust for that exact purpose. Damn. Never underestimate a good tailoring job.

“Hang on,” Katsuki said as he realized something, “You never took Deku’s measurements. How the hell…”

There was no fucking explanation for how that suit fit so perfectly. Call him dramatic, but Katsuki was becoming more convinced by the second that this suit was fated to be worn by the engineer.

“Oh,” Kato waved a hand, “I memorized Izu’s measurements years ago.”

Katsuki knew the comment would usually set him off in a jealous spiral, but holy fuck he was well and truly distracted at the moment.

He managed to lift his gaze to Deku’s. The embarrassment was there, of course, but Katsuki was surprised by the undercurrent of happiness and confidence in that gaze, too. And fuck, if that surety in himself didn’t just do something to Katsuki. Unexpectedly, Katsuki was having to fight off a blush of his own as he held the man’s gaze. One green eyebrow raised, a silent ‘You like what you see?’ echoing in the expression. He’d have to be one hell of a liar to even try and deny it.

Kato cleared his throat, the sound more laughing than annoyed, and clapped his hands together.

“All right, all right. That’s enough ogling. You’ll get to see him all dolled up tomorrow night. I just wanted to make sure you approved first.”

Approve?

“Hell yes, I approve.” He managed to tear his gaze away from Deku’s and look at the silver-haired designer. “I fucking owe you.”

Kato winked. “Just don’t forget to let them know who you’re wearing and we’ll call it even, alright? This was a piece I had set aside for my Winter showcase, anyway. It’ll just get an early run, that’s all.”

Ah. So that was how he had pulled it together so quickly. Not even quirk-enhanced speed could have produced that much beading overnight.

Katsuki decided fate might very well be a real fucking thing, because this whole situation, all of Katsuki’s fragile conditions, were lining up into a masterpiece far more magnificent than he could have imagined. His mind flashed to the suit hanging beside his door in a bag that Kato had delivered to him earlier that day, final adjustments made and ready for the carpet. He imagined how that suit would look next to Deku’s. How he would look standing beside Deku at the gala. For the first time since he had been reminded of the event, Katsuki couldn’t fucking wait for tomorrow to come.

Izuku had spent the last several days trying to prepare himself for what was sure to be, for lack of a better word, an overwhelming event. After all, he had spent his entire life on the other side of the camera lenses he knew were going to be there. He was one of millions who watched Japan’s best and brightest cross the red carpet each and every year.

It was called the heroes gala for a reason, of course, but the guest list didn’t end there. More often than not, heroes attended the event with other A-list celebrities on their arm. Anyone who would benefit from public exposure, and plenty who wouldn’t, would either attend the gala or gut themselves over their lack of an invite. Actors, singers, directors, you name it, all the darlings of Japan were bound to be in attendance this evening.

And Izuku, well, like he said, he had just done his best to prepare for it. Saying this was beyond his depth was among the most severe of understatements. He was pacing around his apartment, just as he had been for the last hour and a half. He glanced at the clock on the wall. He still had fifteen minutes before Kacchan came by to pick him up. Or… someone did. Izuku wasn’t exactly sure how this whole thing worked. Did people just drive themselves to these events? Surely they didn’t walk. And in any case, Izuku didn’t have his suit. The place he was going to end up in an hour was supposedly going to help him get ready for the gala.

He stopped short, catching his reflection in the mirror that hung along the wall behind his dining table, and frowned. The humidity had been killer all day and Izuku could only hope that whoever was holding his suit hostage would be able to help out with the nightmare his curls had devolved into since waking up that morning. He lifted an agitated hand to run through his hair but stopped just short of the locks of green, not wanting to make them any worse. He scowled at his hand as he lowered it like he could blame all of his pent-up anxiety on it.

Whatever the case, the big fat question mark that was this evening wasn’t doing anything to help calm Izuku down.

He glanced at the clock again. Thirteen minutes. He let out a long, pained sigh.

Izuku’s apartment wasn’t large by any stretch of the imagination, so it took him all of fifteen steps to leave the open space that was both his living room and dining room and end up in the center of his bedroom. He grabbed a few items strewn about the place, deciding that cleaning would do more to ease his nerves than aimless pacing right now. At the very least it would be productive.

He hadn’t spent much time in the apartment since moving here, choosing to spend long hours at work during the week and hopping from coffee shop to coffee shop over the weekends, and it showed. His walls were almost entirely bare save for a few photos (he and his mother at his high school graduation, a similar one, with both subjects a few years older, taken after his college graduation, and a faded picture of his father smiling softly) and there was a pile of flattened boxes in the corner that he hadn’t bothered to throw out yet. After he had graduated high school and left the vast majority of his hero merch in his childhood room, he had almost no decorations to speak of. He had thought about filling the space with plants, but he worried that he would forget about them, and honestly, he didn’t really want a plant death weighing on his conscience.

He supposed it might seem a little bleak to others, but he had the quilt his mother had sewed thrown over his bed, the scarf Uraraka’s girlfriend had knitted hanging off a hook on his door, and a stack of ever-growing notebooks stacked on his windowsill. His belongings were sparse, sure, but his apartment was everything he needed it to be.

Glancing at the stack of notebooks, his gaze snagged on one with water-warped pages. Even though he couldn’t see it, he knew that the same notebook was covered in scorch marks, its once-white cover now muddled and smelling faintly of ash.

So much had changed since then. The boy who had fished his notebook from the koi pond had died, quiet and unnoticed, years ago. There was no one left to mourn that kid except Izuku now, even if he had been the one to smother that part of himself with his own two hands.

He wasn’t the boy who looked to Kacchan with hope and adoration despite the cruelty he endured. He wasn’t the boy who had gone to his friend in desperate need of comfort only to wind up with second-degree burns and something he would later realize to be hatred blooming in his chest. And Kacchan, well, Izuku had done nothing but notice the changes in him, as well. Their past was like that old notebook- what was it again? Number thirteen?- buried beneath pages and pages of experiences between then and now. Izuku glanced at the red journal on his desk, a pen tucked halfway through the pages. The front cover read, ‘Analysis for Hero Support No. 30.’ The title may have changed throughout the years, but his counter never reset. It felt rude to those first ones, even if Izuku couldn’t quite explain why.

He shook his head, scattering the thoughts like water droplets bursting against a windshield. He needed to focus on tonight, not get himself lost in bittersweet memories. He shuffled around his room, straightening and picking up discarded clothes and shoes and very determinedly not looking at the notebooks.

A knock at the door made Izuku drop the sock he had picked up. He across his apartment, sparing a glance at the clock.

Right on time.

He flung the door open and Kacchan jumped a little at the sudden motion. He smirked as the hero tried (and failed) to cover his surprise by shoving his hands in his pockets.

“Hi, Kacchan! I’ll be ready in one second, I just need to grab my things.”

He wasn’t expecting the blonde to follow him, but he didn’t protest as he strode into the apartment on Izuku’s heels. He didn’t see his expression, too busy ducking into his room to grab his phone and wallet, but he heard Kacchan call out from the living room.

“You live alone?”

“Yep! It was kind of a last-minute decision to stay in the city, so by the time I was looking for a place, my friends had already signed leases.”

Kacchan grunted in affirmation, not making any more comments about the place, as Izuku walked back into his living room. He held his phone and wallet up.

“I’m ready now!”

Kacchan just nodded and swiveled on his heels, heading back to the door with a determined stride.

It wasn’t until Izuku locked up and they were heading down the stairs that he noticed the sleek black car waiting in front of his apartment complex. His steps faltered when he realized Kacchan was heading straight towards it, but he recovered quickly and hurried to catch up with the blonde’s long strides.

He tried to not act like he was internally flipping out when Kacchan held the back door to the car open for him and Izuku slid onto the soft leather seats.

“So, where exactly are we going now?”

Kacchan’s grin was anything but comforting, especially as he said, “Don’t you know you shouldn’t get into cars when you don’t know their destination?” He swung the door closed before Izuku had a chance to respond.

“That didn’t answer my question,” he grumbled to no one. The driver stifled a laugh under a cough but didn’t comment, not as the other back door opened and Kacchan slid into the car himself.

“So?” Izuku prompted, not quite yet to give his inquiry up.

“Don’t you worry your pretty little mind,” Kacchan pressed his pointer finger in between Izuku’s eyes, managing to make the crease that had formed there deepen in tandem with Izuku’s scowl. “You’ll find out soon enough. The surprise is half the fun.”

Izuku huffed out a laugh and had to resist the childish urge to cross his arms, but from the bark of laughter Kacchan let out and the wicked smile that curved his lips, he knew the blonde could tell he was putting up a front.

And if Kacchan told anyone later that Izuku’s lips quirked up, well, they would just have to take Kacchan’s word for it, because Izuku refused to admit to anything, least of all that he found Kacchan’s cocky teasing amusing.

“IZU?! IS THAT YOU?”

Katsuki was fairly certain his brain flat-lined as his brunette friend, who he was fairly certain had never met Deku before, flew past him and wrapped his date in a bone-crushing hug.

He blinked twice, slowly, before he had enough control over his mind to turn around with an offended, “Huh?”

Expecting Deku to be more baffled than he was, he reared back in shock as the engineer just let out a surprised (and, let’s be honest, strained, due to the bone-crushing), but not exactly confused laugh.

“Uraraka?! I didn’t know that you were going to be here! I thought you were still in Kyoto for another week?”

“Hey, Izuku.” Katsuki jumped as Asui appeared at his side and offered Deku a friendly smile and wave, not even bothering to try prying her girlfriend off the man.

“Hi Tsu,” he wheezed out. Deku sucked in a deep breath when Uraraka finally released him.

“I just got back last night,” she answered excitedly, pumping her fists up and down as she explained. “I was supposed to be there another three days but I just worked extra hard so I could come back in time for the gala. Wait!” Her fist pumping stopped abruptly and she was suddenly up in Deku’s face with wide eyes. “Why are you here?”

“You two know each other?” It felt like a pointless question at this point, but Katsuki just wanted some answers about what the fuck was happening right now.

Uraraka’s head swiveled to Katsuki and then back to Deku, bouncing back and forth between them a few times.

“You two know each other?”

“Kero.”

Deku was blushing like a madman and rubbing the back of his neck, “Yeah, Kacchan and I grew up together.”

“Wait. WAIT!” She pointed an accusatory finger at Katsuki, who had to resist flinching at the pink-lacquered nail. “You’re Kacchan?”

A flurry of emotions flickered across her expression at that, and Katsuki didn’t miss the glance she shared with Asui, but he couldn’t figure out what she was thinking before she let out another gasp and swung that finger back around to Izuku.

“Does that- WAIT. Does that mean that you’re Deku?”

He let out a weak laugh, almost sounding guilty she hadn’t realized sooner. Katsuki was still just waiting for his fucking explanation.

Uraraka let out a strained laugh, shooting a hysterical, somewhat pained smile at her girlfriend.

“What the fuck kind of situation is this?”

“Maybe it’s best to talk about this later, Ochaco.” Uraraka looked dazed, but Asui’s words snapped her out of her shock and she nodded like she was trying to shake her bafflement off with physical force.

“You’re right, you’re right. Oh my god, I can’t believe this!” She let out a squeal of laughter that made Katsuki’s ears ring. She grasped both of Izuku’s hands in her own and leaned towards him again, her eyes sparkling. “Does this mean that you’re coming to the gala?”

Her brown eyes narrowed as she looked back at Katsuki without waiting for Deku to answer. “You did invite him, right?” The way she asked it, Kastuki wasn’t sure he would have been forgiven if he had answered no.

Thankfully though, he could just roll his eyes and say, “Of course I did, Round Cheeks.”

Her expression immediately brightened, “Good!” She swiveled back to Deku, who was taking her energy in stride. He almost seemed resigned to it. Katsuki squinted. Just how long had they known each other? How the fuck did they know each other?

“I can’t believe you’re Deku,” she reiterated and Katsuki held himself back from cringing. “Tonight just got so much more fun.” Katsuki sure as hell didn’t like the sound of that, especially since Deku’s only response was a wide grin.

Fucking enabler.

Katsuki turned to Asui, who was just smiling fondly as her girlfriend spiraled off into an over-energetic retelling of some of the rescues she had overseen in Kyoto over the past month.

“Oi, control your girlfriend.”

“Kero,” she agreed. She raised her voice a little, “Ochaco, we should let Izuku get ready.”

Uraraka gasped again, dropping Deku’s hands like they had burned her, but her smile was still frighteningly cheerful as she said, “Oh my god, of course! Go, go.” She pointed over to a long counter already crowded with their classmates in various stages of getting their makeup, hair, and clothes sorted. Katsuki rolled his eyes at their not-so-subtle observation of the group’s interaction by the door.

“Mina!” Uraraka called out, and Ashido’s bright head popped out from the cluster by the counter. “Can you help Izu get ready?”

Katsuki felt something akin to dread twisting his stomach as Ashido’s face split into a shit-eating grin.

“Of course I can!” She ran over and grabbed Deku’s hands, half-dragging him over to the rest of Katsuki’s classmates. Deku shot Katsuki a mildly panicked look before he disappeared into the throng of young, up-and-coming heroes.

“Oi, Pinky! Play nice!”

“Awww,” Uraraka cooed as she slid up beside Katsuki. “You sound like a mother hen. Worried about your precious Deku?”

Katsuki rolled his eyes. “Shut it, Cheeks.”

Her goofy grin faded a little. “ I really can’t believe Izu and Deku are the same person.” She gave Katsuki an appraising look that reminded him that she was way too fucking smart for anyone’s good (and way too good at pretending as if she were nothing more than an airhead most of the time so that the people around her forgot about that fact).

After a moment of considering silence, she added, “And I can’t believe that you’re Kacchan.” It wasn’t a complimentary tone. Katsuki’s gut twisted.

“How do you know him?” He jerked his chin towards the curls he could see among the heroes swarming around him. Uraraka followed his gaze.

“I did a presentation at his college a few years ago and he came up to me afterward and started like, rapid-firing these questions about my quirk and my equipment at me, and we just kind of hit it off?” She sounded slightly baffled by the memory, like it was unbelievable and yet entirely unavoidable that the engineer had wormed his way into her life with his earnest questions and freckled grins.

Katsuki caught a glimpse of Deku’s face in between the gaps in his friend’s shoulders and his heart did a funny flip in his chest as the man threw his head back and laughed. Well, at least he didn’t seem like he was having a horrible time despite the swarming heroes. Katsuki hadn’t really thought through all of the ramifications of bringing him along to his friend’s annual get-ready-together party at Todoroki’s massive apartment, but seeing the way Deku was leaning into the conversations and laughing along with all of his family as if he had known them for years… he couldn’t really say he regretted it.

Not that Katsuki would admit that, of course.

“I know-” he started, hating how unsure he sounded. “I know that you’ve probably heard a lot of bad shit about me over the years.” It had taken him a second to figure out why Uraraka had looked so startled when realizing who he was, but once the pieces settled into place, it had made too much sense to not be true. Up until very recently, Kacchan had not been a popular character in the story of Deku’s life.

“I just don’t really know what to think,” she admitted. Katsuki glanced at her out of the corner of his eyes, but her gaze was fixed on their classmates.

“He didn’t tell me everything,” she continued after a beat, “But it wasn’t exactly hard to figure out why there were a lot of hard feelings there, and now that I know that he’s the Deku from all of your stories… I don’t know, Bakugou. It’s just sort of hard to wrap my head around right away.”

Katsuki let out a long sigh, bracing himself for the anger he had expected years and years ago the first time he had tried explaining his past with Deku to his friends. It seemed karma always caught up, even if it took years to haunt him properly. He couldn’t even put up a fight against it, even if he hated the idea of losing Uraraka as a friend. It wasn’t like he didn’t deserve it.

“I told you guys that I was shit to him.”

“Yeah, but hearing that from you and actually getting to know the guy you bullied… it’s different.” She turned towards Katsuki and he felt as useless and pinned as a fucking butterfly beneath that fierce gaze.

“But even if I’m looking through a lot of stories you’ve told through a different lens, it doesn’t change anything.” Her words left no room for argument, even as Katsuki’s mouth gaped around words he couldn’t grasp.

She was wrong. How the fuck did this not change anything? It changed everything. He had tried to explain what a fucking monster he had been, not just because of the bullying, but because it was Deku he bullied. He had chosen to shit on sunshine incarnate. Anyone who could look at the man, at the child Deku had been, and deem him worthless, deserved hell.

She must have seen the panic in his eyes because her expression softened as she continued, “We all love you, ya big idiot. You never tried to lie about it, so how could we hold it against you now? And anyway,” her lips quirked up into a conspiratorial smile, “I think it’s fair to say that Izu forgave you, and his opinion about your history trumps anyone else’s.”

“You need to start forgiving yourself for this, kero.” Asui had snuck up on the other side of Katsuki, effectively trapping him between the two women. It should have felt stifling, but for some reason, he found it extremely comforting.

“You’re the only one still holding this against yourself, Katsuki,” Asui finished with a tilt of her head. She said the words casually, as if they hadn’t just upended some internal axis that Katsuki had clung to for almost a decade.

“Alright,” Uraraka clapped her hands together, her voice suddenly cheerful, and Katsuki blinked rapidly as he realized his eyes had started watering at their words. “Enough of that heavy stuff for right now! We’ve got a party to get ready for!” She grabbed her girlfriend’s wrist and tugged her towards the cluster of people now loudly fawning over Deku, who seemed slightly baffled by all the attention despite his obvious enjoyment of the moment.

You’re the only one still holding this against yourself.

Was that true? There was no way in hell he could forget it, no part of him wanted to forget all that he had put Deku through, but could he really allow himself to stop holding himself hostage over his past? His sins had fueled his rise to the heroes charts these past few years, like some twisted public repentance. Could he really let go of the part of himself that he had dubbed ‘irredeemable’ years ago? Did he even want to? If he wanted any sort of future with Deku, he might have no choice but to give that part of himself up. Fuck, was that what he wanted? A future with the nerd? Despite his years of pining, it had all seemed so impossible. He was Lucifer and Deku was God in Katsuki’s mind. He had been cast out long ago, forced to wander and want for the rest of his pitiful existence. But somehow, by some fucking miracle, Deku had opened those gates again.

Could Katsuki really reject the forgiveness that Deku offered, even if he knew he didn’t deserve it? He didn’t have the right to deny Deku anything, right? So where the fuck did that leave him now?

His head was spinning, but even still, with his friends laughing and yelling a couple of feet away, he wasn’t losing himself to his thoughts. Their shrieks of laughter and deadpan joking grounded him far better than the deep breaths he had been forcing down his throat.

Deku’s eyes met his through the throng and his cheeks pushed up at his eyes as he smiled. He waved Katsuki over with a raised hand, forgiveness and salvation and mercy and all that holy, godly shit incarnate.

Katsuki didn’t have answers right now. Fuck, he didn’t know if those questions could be answered. But Deku was right there, giggling as Ashido tamed his curls with product-coated fingers and looking startled but absolutely starstruck as Iida’s arm chopped through the air while they talked. Life and friends and family were right there waiting for him to take a step forward.

He took a breath, letting the questions settle in the back of his mind for the moment, and he stepped.

Chapter Text

“-and we found him six hours later asleep on the boat in the water rescue zone.”

“You’re kidding.”

“I swear it on Hitoshi’s life!”

“Why on mine?”

“Cause you’re life is like, twenty times more precious than mine, of course.”

“Denks-“

“As I was saYING,” Kaminari cut his boyfriend off with a playful grin and Izuku was gripping his stomach from laughing so hard, “We found him there, like drooling all over himself-“

“I was not drooling-“

“And when we woke him up, cause, you know, we had class to get back to, he yelled at us!”

A deep, steady voice came from Izuku’s right and when he turned, he could see Tokoyami’s gaze fixed on some point in the distance as he said, “I believe his exact words were, ‘If you don’t leave me the fuck alone I’ll sink the boat and take a nap on the shore while you drown.’”

Kaminari, Ashido, and Kirishima started howling in laughter at Tokoyami’s deadpan impression and Todoroki had to turn his head to the side to keep the others from seeing his expression.

“Kacchan, you really need to work on your people skills.” Izuku was wiping tears from his eyes, and though Kacchan let out a string of curses, there was no malice in the words.

“Bro! You’ve gotta get that language under control before we get to the gala.”

“Can’t have another controversy after last year, kero.”

“Shut it, you fucking morons. I’m going to be on my best damn behavior, just you fucking wait.”

“Really inspiring a lot of confidence there, Bakugou.” Jirou returned the rude gesture Kacchan threw their way with a roll of their eyes.

“You wanna fucking go, Earwax?”

“Oh my god, can you get any more unoriginal with your threats?”

“The fuck did you say?”

“Hey guys,” Izuku felt his heart go out to Kirishima, who was standing between the two heroes with a strained smile, “Let’s bring it back down, yeah?”

“Come on, Kiri. You shouldn’t feel the need to step in on Bakugou’s behalf. He should know by now that Jirou can hand his ass to him.”

Sero’s eyes lit up in delight as that started another round of bickering between the gathered heroes and Kirishima let out a defeated sigh, walking over to where Ashido was brushing product through Izuku’s hair with her fingers.

“I give up,” he said, plopping down heavily next to Izuku and watching the scene devolve in front of him.

“Honestly, Kiri,” Ashido giggled, “I don’t know why you even try after all these years. You know Blasty’s friendship with like half the class is built on mutual insults.”

She wasn’t wrong. Even now, Izuku could hear Kacchan’s half-hearted insulting ringing out across the room. The space was massive, truly. About an hour ago, Hagakure had informed him that Todoroki had rented out the penthouse suite for the entire weekend. It took up the entire top floor of the building, and everywhere Izuku looked, cosmetics, alcohol, and finger foods he didn’t know the names of abounded.

“When Endeavor’s credit card comes out,” Hagakure had whispered conspiratorially, “’Roki goes all out.”

The yelling between Kacchan and Jirou subsided a bit as they relocated to arm wrestle and ‘settle this once and for all’ (Kacchan’s words, naturally). As Kirishima, Ashido, and Uraraka, who had made her way back over to him at some point, kept a running commentary on the rest of their class’ antics, Izuku found his mind wandering.

It was like the universe was intent on building a case for Kacchan. Izuku was rarely even given the chance to start doubting his intentions lately before a group of people, the family that Kacchan had carved out for himself, showed up to remind Izuku that change was indeed possible. But honestly… he was reaching a point where he wasn’t looking for the universe’s affirmation anymore. Somewhere along the way, between getting this impossible job and agreeing to be Kacchan’s date to the hero’s gala, he had begun to trust the man wholeheartedly. But more than that, he had learned to trust himself.

He had spent his entire life learning to live by his gut instincts, so he supposed it only made sense that he would eventually call that what it was- belief in himself. It was just a very odd thing for this realization to finally click in his mind as a result of the person who had instilled those fight-or-flight instincts within him in the first place. His mind was still struggling a bit to reconcile the past and the present, but now, instead of a deep, petty hatred for the blonde, Izuku just found that he desperately wished that he could have been there to see it for himself.

It was a stupid wish, entirely impossible of course…but dreams and wishes were meant for impossibilities. Maybe in another life, he could have been beside Kacchan through his metamorphosis. Maybe in another life, he could have been the catalyst for the change he is seeing in every person laughing alongside Kacchan now. Imagining another version of himself persevering, never once giving up on the blonde throughout the years… somehow, it brought him comfort. That version might have to have a bit more luck on his side than this Izuku did, but it was still a nice thought.

He was startled out of his own mind by a pink face nearing his own at an alarming rate.

“Personal space, Ashido, geez,” Sero chided. When had he gotten over here? Izuku realized that while he had been zoned out, the majority of the group had made their way back over to Ashido’s beauty station.

She ignored Sero, leaning a tad closer. “What are your thoughts on eyeliner?”

Izuku shrugged. “I’m not really opposed, I’m just not patient enough to put it on myself.”

That must have been the correct answer, because Ashido started squealing, and faster than Izuku could regret telling her the truth, she had convinced Yaoyarozu to create a tube of black liquid eyeliner. He tried not to flinch as the dipped brush neared his face.

“Just don’t overdo it, Pinky.”

“Hey, Blasty! Have a little faith, alright?” Kacchan appeared behind Ashido’s shoulder and gave Izuku’s face a scrutinizing look.

“He has a point you know,” Sero’s voice came from somewhere behind Izuku’s left shoulder. “Don’t you remember the last day of class in year 2?”

Ashido rolled her eyes and leveled the eyeliner menacingly at Sero. “Don’t you remember how I told you, ‘No, Sero. A smoky eye is too much for a Wednesday,’ and you told me, ‘Fuck off, Ashido, I’m not scared of cats or their eyes?’”

“Oh god,” Uraraka sighed a little dreamily, “I miss that era. All the boys wore so much eyeliner back then.”

“Excuse me! Not all of the boys did,” Iida interjected. “It was against dress code.”

Kaminari rolled his eyes, “Yeah, as if Aizawa gave a rat’s ass about those gendered rules.”

Shinsou chuckled lowly, leaning into Kaminari’s side a bit. “Oh man, do you guys remember when he and Mic-sensei showed up in drag that one time?”

“Nedzu changed the dress code right after that.” Yaoyarozu tapped her chin with a finger in thought. “Though honestly, I was a bit surprised that was all it took.”

“I heard that they threatened to show up dressed in Midnight’s costumes next, and that’s what pushed him over the edge,” Ojiro said. There was a pause as a collective shudder went through the group of their old teacher in the R-rated hero’s outfit.

Izuku was having a hard time keeping his laughter under control, but with the eyeliner brush so close to his lids again, he didn’t dare tempt Ashido’s wrath by making her mess up.

Kacchan, apparently, had no such qualms, and slapped a hand on Ashido’s shoulder, ignoring her squawk of outrage. “Damn, I never should have doubted you. It looks great.”

Still bristling a little, but obviously pleased with the comment, Ashido just grumbled a bit and shooed everyone away. Surprisingly, her demands to focus were granted, and she managed to whittle the crowd down to just a stubborn few of the UA alumni. Uraraka, Yaoyarozu, and Ashido, of course, were the last ones standing.

“So, Izu,” Uraraka leaned on his shoulder, ignoring Ashido’s death-glare as it made him pitch to the side. “You’ve got to fill us in! The last I heard from you, you were still pretending to hate your Kacchan’s guts.”

Izuku sputtered, “Pretending?”

“And obviously that’s not the case now,” Uraraka continued, ignoring his protests, “So what happened?”

Izuku looked to Ashido for an escape, but she looked even more excited than Uraraka to hear his explanation (“Pinky loves to gossip,” Kacchan had warned him in the car) and when he glanced at Yaoyarozu, she didn’t seem inclined to intercede on his behalf.

He cleared his throat, “Um, I guess… he’s changed?”

He asked it like a question, but all three of the girls nodded their heads in understanding. It might sound like a lame explanation to most people, but he supposed that if anyone knew how much change Kacchan had gone through since they were middle schoolers, it would be his classmates from UA.

And the realization that he wasn’t going to have to defend any of it, his past or present emotions about the man…it gave him the courage to keep talking. It was such a relief, he realized, to be around people who, even though they hadn’t been through what he had with Kacchan, got it in a way that none of his friends from Uni would ever understand if he tried to explain their history and all of its messes.

“I don’t know if Kacchan has told you much about us,” all three women shared a look that Izuku couldn’t decipher, “But we grew up together. Our moms were roommates in college, best friends, actually, and moved to the same neighborhood once they got married so that their kids could be best friends too.”

“That’s so adorable I’m gonna puke.” Uraraka punched Ashido in the shoulder for the interruption, but it didn’t stop her swooning.

“But yeah, um,” Izuku swallowed. Yep, here was the hard part. Even all these years later. Even when he was 99% sure everyone in this room knew the truth already, it was hard for him to force the words out of his throat. “I was diagnosed as quirkless, and Kacchan and I kind of… fell apart.” A nice description of it. From the three grimaces they wore, Izuku had the impression that they knew more of his past with Kacchan than he had originally accounted for. It was…interesting. Not a bad interesting, just a surprising interesting. The idea of Kacchan telling everyone about Izuku before they had even had the chance to meet him made his chest feel warm and pleasant.

“And even though I applied for the heroics course at UA I didn’t get in. I was accepted into the general studies, but at that point,” he rubbed the back of his head. “I don’t know. It felt like salt in the wound to go to the same school as Kacchan. Especially when he had received the top scores and their test just proved that I was every bit the worthless Deku he thought I was.”

Uraraka sucked in a sharp breath like she was gearing up to fight that statement, but Izuku didn’t give her the chance.

“It worked out for the best though. I ended up deciding to finish out high school and then get my masters in thermo-chemical engineering so that I could skip interning after high school and just jump straight into the professional field after I graduated.”

“Hold on, I thought you were in the same year as us,” Yaoyarozu interjected. When Izuku nodded, every bit as confused as she seemed to be, her brows knotted together. “But you just said you got your master’s degree. You- you did that in four years?!”

“Um, yes?”

She fanned herself as if this new knowledge was worth getting worked up over. Seeing how flustered she got honestly made Izuku feel a little bad for bringing it up in the first place. He just didn’t really think about it much.

“What, is that like, super impressive or something? Yaomomo looks like she’s about to cream her pants.” Ashido’s grin grew at the offended gasp from Yaoyarozu, but Uraraka interceded before it escalated in the way Izuku was quickly realizing all things with these people did.

“Yeah, Izu’s like, crazy smart! It normally takes like five or six years to get a master’s degree if you’re a full-time student.”

Ashido whistled before leaning back in to smear some powder over Izuku’s cheekbones. She had switched cosmetics a while ago, but Izuku wasn’t going to question it at this point. He just let her bat and beat at his face with various brushes to her heart’s content.

He let out a laugh that came out too strained to pass as casual. “I- uh, I guess. I dunno. But that wasn’t my point. Point was, I kind of put Kacchan behind me. Or, tried to, I guess. Kind of hard to when he ends up ranking in the top ten a year out from his debut, you know?” The look they gave him made Izuku think that they did in fact know.

“Especially since I wanted to work in heroics. It’s shooting yourself in the foot to not keep up with the current rankings. And in my case especially, he’s one of the most well-known heroes to work with a heat-related quirk, aside from Todoroki and Endeavor, so I kind of had to keep tabs on him.” He was on the verge of rambling again. He shook his head. “Anyway, that aside, Might Tower was my dream agency to work for, even before Kacchan started there, so I sent in my application. It’s kind of strange really,” he chewed on his bottom lip, earning him a scowl from Ashido. “If Kacchan wasn’t working there, I doubt I would have been hired. I can’t really think of any other heroes at the agency that use heat quirks since most of them flock to Endeavor’s agency.” The thought would have sat a lot more uncomfortably a few weeks ago. Now, it just felt a little like fate, as cheesy and ridiculous as the notion was.

His voice dropped, and Izuku wasn’t sure if he was talking more to the girls or himself at this point. “It sounds terrible, but I was so pissed at him when I started. He was just so nice. So different from the image of him that I had built up in my mind. All these years, I only ever imagined him getting worse, so I guess when I started, I was just waiting for the other shoe to drop. I didn’t trust it. Him.” He looked up, meeting each of the girl’s eyes. Yaoyarozu had a sad, contemplative look on her face, Ashido looked on the verge of tears, and Uraraka’s eyes showed far more warring emotion than any of her other features revealed. “It was you guys that really made it click for me,” he confessed.

All three blinked at that.

“Well, I guess not you three specifically, but, his friends, I mean.” Izuku’s gaze drifted back over Ashido’s shoulder, where the rest of the class was cheering as Sato tossed what looked to be jumbo marshmallows in Koda’s mouth across the room. Kacchan was yelling like a maniac and hanging off of Kirishima’s shoulder, but genuine joy and warmth were written on every inch of him. His eyes flashed to Izuku as if he had felt Izuku’s gaze land on him like a physical weight, and his face cracked into a smile that knocked the breath from Izuku’s lungs.

He rubbed a hand against his chest, turning back to the girls. “I can be a bit stubborn,” he admitted, “But it’s kind of hard to not accept what you all so obviously see in him. I can’t imagine that you all would have stuck around if he really hadn’t changed.”

He really hadn’t expected Ashido to burst into tears at his words, but he found himself with an armful of pink as she threw herself at him and wrapped him up in a hug. A moment later, Uraraka was crushing him as well, and a moment after that, Yaoyarozu’s arms found their way into the mix as well. He could hardly breathe under all of them, but when Ashido said, “I really wish I had gotten to meet you sooner. For what it’s worth, I think you would have been a great hero,” Izuku found himself struggling to breathe for an entirely different reason. And if he let out a little sob, if the three girls heard it and wrapped their arms tighter around him because of it, well, that was just for them to know.

“Oi, you three better not be suffocating my date.” When the girls released him, Izuku spied Kacchan standing just a few feet away with his hands on his hips, ready to jump in and rescue Izuku at the slightest hint. Crimson eyes met his. “You good?” Izuku nodded, sniffling a bit.

Ashido giggled. “Well, it’s a good thing Yaomomo made us some waterproof eyeliner, huh?” Izuku laughed, fully managing to get his tears under control now that he wasn’t in the overwhelming, affectionate embrace of the girls.

Kacchan rolled his eyes, “Yeah, well, I could have told you that it needed to be waterproof. Deku’s always been a crybaby.”

“Hey,” Izuku scowled, but there was no heat behind the expression, and anyway-

“Oh, yeah? You’re one to talk. How many times have you showed up at my house in the middle of the night crying over your sad little gay- mmph.” Uraraka’s vindictive rant was cut short by Kacchan launching himself at her and slapping a hand over her mouth.

They stared daggers at one another before Uraraka’s jaw moved and Kacchan ripped his hand away with a shouted, “FUCK! What are you, some kind of animal?!”

Uraraka’s grin wasn’t exactly comforting, especially when Izuku spied teeth marks on Kacchan’s palm. “Put your hand over my mouth again and you’ll find out.”

Uh oh. Izuku knew that gleam in her eyes. It was the exact one Kacchan had in his own eyes right now.

“You two are going to scare Izuku off, kero,” Asui, her timing as impeccable as ever, said as she slid an arm around her girlfriend’s waist.

“This isn’t over, Caramel Delight.” Uraraka made an ‘I’m watching you’ gesture with her fingers before Asui dragged her away.

“Caramel.. What the fuck,” Kacchan muttered before yelling, “Of course this ain’t over, Round Cheeks! I’ll kick your ass any day of the week!”

Uraraka just blew a kiss and a wink over her shoulder as Asui (wisely) continued to drag her away.

Gods, how much damage control had Kirishima and Asui done throughout the years with those two? Izuku shuddered at the thought.

“Pinky, are you done with him yet?”

“Yep!”

“Good,” Kacchan strode over and offered his elbow for Izuku. He tried to keep the internal swooning to a minimum as he linked his arm through Kacchan’s. “We have to get dressed. Iida said we’re rolling out in twenty, alright?”

As if on cue, Izuku heard the engine hero’s voice boom, “T-minus eighteen minutes until we need to depart!”

A chorus of “SHOTS!” rang out in response and Izuku laughed as Katsuki dragged him away from the rambunctious heroes.

Kacchan led them through a hallway that Izuku hadn’t noticed branching off from the main room earlier. He pushed open a door with his foot to reveal a bedroom absolutely filled with empty garment bags, duffles, purses, and every other type of luggage imaginable. The official dumping ground of the UA alum, Izuku guessed.

There was a rack in the corner with just a few garment bags still hanging on it and Kacchan let Izuku’s arm drop to pick his way (carefully and with a surprising amount of grace) across the disaster zone and grab two of them.

They made it back to the hallway in one piece with the bags in hand.

“I’m going to change in the half bath, but you can use the bathroom just down the hall. See you in a sec.” Kacchan winked and whirled away, striding down the hall opposite from where he had just pointed Izuku to. Izuku rubbed at his chest again.

Right. He needed to get dressed.

In the bathroom, the suit was just as gorgeous as it was the first time he had worn it. But with the rest of his ensemble, he glanced at himself in the mirror and had to do a double-take.

Despite Sero and Kacchan’s concerns, Ashido hadn’t gone overboard with the eyeliner. It hugged his lash line in a thin stripe and flared out from his outer corner in the faintest upturned wing. She had dabbed some shimmery gold on his eyelids that matched the beading of his suit too perfectly for it to have been coincidental. She had even managed to get his nightmare curls in order with some product despite the humidity, and though he didn’t usually bother to part the mess, the side part she had given him looked perfectly disheveled and stylish. The tops of his cheekbones, which had appeared sometime in the middle of his first year in college amidst his receding baby fat, had been dusted with a gold-toned highlighter that caught the light when he moved his head. Subtle improvements, but ones that came together to create an image of Izuku that he had never seen before.

He looked…good. He felt good. Not enough so that he was willing to give up his t-shirts and go through the process of putting himself together every day, but he could see himself putting in a little extra effort from time to time if it created a version of him that looked like this.

He pushed out of the bathroom, not wanting to miss hanging out with the heroes while he still had the chance, and tossed his clothes in the spare bedroom. The roaring laughter of the heroes echoed from down the hall and the sound drew him like a moth to flame. He hovered at the end of the hallway, content to exist as a shadow for a moment and just watch the antics unfold. From the voices that had somehow gotten louder in his brief absence, he gathered that the call for shots earlier hadn’t gone unanswered.

The majority of the group, save Kota, Todoroki, Tokoyami, and Shinsou, stood crowded around a seat by the massive counter he had been stationed at earlier. He couldn’t see who had fallen victim to Ashido’s makeup brushes this time, but after a moment, he heard a loud, “Don’t you fucking dare give me purple eyeliner. It’d look horrible with this suit AND it clashes with my eye color,” and had his answer. Everyone was throwing opinions around, and Izuku chuckled as they apparently landed on a navy eyeliner.

“Fucking fine. At least it’s not purple. God-damned psycho,” he heard Kacchan mumble before he yelped in pain at whatever revenge Ashido had taken at the comment. There was a long minute of fussing (and a lot more cursing) before the crowd parted enough for Izuku to catch a glimpse of Kacchan behind the sea of people.

Izuku couldn’t stop his breath from abandoning his lungs at the little sliver of Kacchan he saw.

His face was turned away from Izuku, yelling something at Jirou, but Izuku didn’t miss the faint blush coloring his cheeks or the way his anger fell flat against the smile curling at the edges of his mouth. He did indeed have navy blue eyeliner, the wings a little bolder than Izuku’s own.

They match my suit, was Izuku’s first thought, quickly followed by, No. They match his suit.

Where Izuku was a vision of navy and gold, Kacchan was his silver equivalent. Instead of Izuku’s beading, Kacchan’s suit was covered in shining embroidery that, even from a distance, was exquisite. Izuku could hardly imagine the details he would find in it up close. What he could see of the silver thread stretched from his right hip to his left shoulder, curving around the front of his jacket to form the ethereal image of a phoenix in flight. He couldn’t see it from here, but he would wager that the creature’s tail feathers curled around the back of his jacket and down the back of the matching navy pants.

Silver and gold, a matching set that would show up to an internationally televised event for all the world to see as an undeniable pair.

The thought was enough to startle Izuku into breathing again.

“Are you alright?” He startled at the voice, swiveling to find Todoroki at his shoulder, taking in the same scene. He glanced back towards Kacchan, but the swarm of heroes shifted again, and he was lost behind a wall of red and blonde and purple hair.

It took longer than Izuku would like to admit to form a thought coherent enough to answer Todoroki’s question.

“Y-yeah. I’m good.”

“Are you sure?” The hero raised a silver eyebrow, “Cause you looked a little out of breath there. I can find a chair for you if you would like.”

Izuku let out a breathy laugh. “That obvious, huh?”

Todoroki’s lip twitched up once before settling back into its normal flat line of indifference. “Neither of you are great at hiding your thoughts.”

“There are worse things, I guess.” It was as close to admitting anything as he would allow for now.

Todoroki turned to him then, letting a smile fully grow on his face for the first time that evening. “Yes. Yes, I suppose there are.” He paused a beat, his gaze skipping up and down Izuku’s outfit. “You look lovely.”

Izuku’s blush wasn’t forced. “Thanks.” He couldn’t even try to deny it. “You do too,” he said earnestly. Todoroki was resplendent in a sage gray suit that made his blue eye almost startling to behold. His fingers, which were resting atop his crossed arms, were each adorned in silver rings, some fingers even holding two or three pieces of jewelry. Like the majority of the other heroes, he had applied a bit of makeup, just a smudge of shadow on the outer edge of his eyes.

“I would never say this to his face,” Todoroki said, turning back to his old classmates, “But I see how happy he is when you are around. It’s encouraging.” Todoroki didn’t need to clarify who ‘he’ was.

Izuku was gaping, trying to come up with an adequate response to that, when the moment was shattered by an arm falling heavily over his shoulders. He rocked forward, only barely managing to catch himself, and saw that Sero had thrown his other arm over Todoroki’s shoulders as well. He leaned in between the two, casting devious grins at them both.

“Now what are two cuties like you doing lurking by the hall? Come on,” he released Izuku in favor of grabbing both of Todoroki’s hands and tugging him towards their other friends, “Everyone wants to do one last shot together before Iida pops a gasket about us running late.”

Despite the faint look of exasperation Todoroki shot Izuku, he let himself be tugged into the crowd of people. Izuku hesitated, unsure if this was a moment he should be treading on. He had already crashed their annual get-together, and he liked them all so much already that the idea of risking becoming an annoyance to them made his steps falter.

But then Shinsou’s eyes met his from across the room, and he gave a tired, beckoning wave. Izuku’s feet moved before he was making the conscious choice to walk towards the crowd.

Someone shoved a shot glass into his hand when he reached the group, and he was jostled until he was pressed shoulder-to-shoulder with Kacchan. There was a delicate moment where he had to concentrate very hard to not spill the clear liquid down the front of Kacchan’s suit. God, he would never hear the end of it if he ruined Kato’s masterpiece.

Someone let out a whistle. “Lookin’ good, you two!” And Izuku hoped his face wasn’t as flaming red as it felt.

He caught Kacchan’s eye from the corner of his own to find a matching blush spread across the hero’s cheeks. Kacchan leaned in, pressing his lips to Izuku’s ears so he could be heard over the riot of noise his friends were making. “You look great.” His voice, low and gravelly from the whisper, made Izuku’s skin erupt in goosebumps.

“You do, too.” He whispered back one he had managed to get his mouth to Kacchan’s ear. He felt more than saw the shudder that went through Kacchan as his breath ghosted over him.

“Kanpai!” Someone yelled, and Izuku and Kacchan tossed their heads back in tandem.

The vodka burned its way down his throat as he emptied the glass, but he raised it in victory with a whoop once he managed to swallow.

It was all joy and laughter and yelling and starlight. The heroes stumbled out of the suite and down to the ground floor, where expensive cars with tinted windows waited to deliver them to the main event, giggling and teasing all the way. Everyone looked gorgeous and godly under the city lights. Unlikely heroes, the whole drunken lot of them.

He walked side-by-side with Kacchan and Izuku didn’t fight the urge to press into his side as they walked. He was rewarded with the man slinging an arm around his waist and tugging him closer, his palm settling with an all-too-perfect warmth into the notch above Izuku’s hip. He was giddy with happiness, certain that if he could die from it, he would be passing into the next life at this very moment.

“I’m so fucking glad you came.”

Izuku couldn’t do anything but beam in response. “Me too.”

Kacchan tugged him closer and pressed a kiss to Izuku’s temple amidst the viridian curls. Izuku’s chest did that aching thing again, but he didn’t dare move to rub at it. He wouldn’t change a thing about this moment.

Kacchan’s grin when he pulled his face back promised nothing but mischief. “Let’s make it a night to remember.”

Chapter Text

Perhaps it was a cliche, but there was truly no other way to explain the cameras aside from blinding. Kacchan had warned him to try not to squint, but Izuku was deeply regretting not taking the eye drops Uraraka had offered him earlier. He had been worried about reacting to any questions thrown their way, but the clamor of the paparazzi was honestly too loud to hear anything clearly.

The occasional ’date,’ ‘mystery,’ and ’UA,’ was thrown his way, but it was nothing too drastic. Izuku had an easy time pretending he couldn’t figure out the rest of their questions, and the anxieties he couldn’t keep at bay on his own, Kacchan’s warm hand set securely in the dip of his waist scared away rather effectively.

A few feet ahead of them, Kaminari flashed a blinding grin (and his signature finger guns) to the reporters with a wink. Unsurprisingly, his purple-haired boyfriend was nowhere in sight.

Stationed a few feet behind them, Asui and Uraraka smiled and posed with linked arms. They were both visions in white, though that was where the similarities between their outfits ended. Where Asui’s dress fell in soft, gauzy billows around her hips and legs like the quiet unfurling of flower petals, Uraraka’s silk dress clung to her form like it had been painted onto her.

Izuku focused on these little details- Asui pushing a lock of hair behind Uraraka’s hair, Kirishima and Shouji with their arms thrown over one-another’s shoulders, Sero ruffling a scowling Todoroki’s hair as he sauntered past him- instead of the crushing mass of people held at bay by some carefully placed barricades and several fierce-looking bodyguards. It was grounding to see how these people he had only briefly known allowed themselves to act in front of the public.

“You alright?” The gruff whisper in his ear made Izuku jolt, though it wasn’t fear that raced through him in the surprise’s wake. He nodded, his curls rustling against the lips Kacchan had pressed to the side of Izuku’s head. Kacchan pulled back with a single, disbelieving brow raised, and Izuku laughed at the expression.

He leaned up onto his toes to move his mouth close to Kacchan’s own ear and relished the way his soft hair felt brushing across his nose. “Really,” he assured him in a happy whisper. “I think I should be more nervous than I am, but I’m just having a really good time right now. It’s fun seeing everyone in their element.” As lame as it sounded, it was true. It felt like the universe had reached perfect equilibrium in the air around them, and Izuku was content to exist in it for a bit.

When he pulled away from the side of Kacchan’s head and settled back on his heels, he was greeted with a soft smile. It wasn’t an expression he had known Kacchan to be capable of until rather recently, but he couldn’t say he was upset with the discovery. Kacchan reached up to brush a gentle knuckle against Izuku’s cheekbone. The touch set butterflies loose in his stomach and chest and Izuku felt his eyelids flutter a bit as he leaned into the sensation. He saw Kacchan’s mouth form around the words, “I am too.”

As if on queue, Izuku heard the frantic shuttering of dozens of camera lenses pointed their direction.

Right. Gala. Captive audience.

He tore his gaze from Kacchan, but didn’t bother moving any farther away as he gave a half-sheepish grin to the cameras. In fact, as Kacchan gave them cameras a little self-satisfied smirk, Izuku just pressed in closer. Their own little balanced universe.

“Get. Off.”

The group of hellions that had descended upon their old teacher paid his threatening tone no mind as they pressed further into the massive group hug. Turns out that watching someone throw themselves in front of villains to protect you time and time again made it hard to believe that same person would be willing to actually hurt you, terrifying tone of voice aside.

Aizawa’s grumbling continued even as his husband’s bright laugh rang out from beside him. Present Mic’s blonde hair was a beacon in the middle of the group, and his gloved hands rustled every head of hair he could manage to reach, much to the shrieking disappointment of the heroes who had spent the last few hours getting red-carpet ready.

Where Aizawa-sensei had stepped away from teaching to pursue more hero-work, his husband had done the opposite a few years later. After bringing down the League of Villains and AFO, a wave of heroes had stepped back, and Yamada-sensei had been one of them. He didn’t stop teaching though, and much to the joy of his many fans, had kept up with his radio show even after officially retiring from the hero scene.

Katsuki, Shinsou, Koda, and Tokoyami were the only rational ones, it seemed, seeing as they hadn’t joined in on crushing their mentor and risking his ire so early in the evening. There would be plenty of opportunities to give the man a gray hair later in the evening.

At his side, Deku craned his neck with wide eyes, trying to catch a peek at the man Katsuki’s friends had flung themselves onto, but it was to no avail. There was an odd moment where Katsuki considered hefting the engineer up onto his shoulders so he could get a better look.

No. That’s idiotic. There are people around. Also what the fuck kinda knee-jerk reactionwasthat?

Katsuki shook his head. Maybe his friends were right. He tended to be a bit irrational around this man.

Instead of hoisting Deku on his shoulders in front of the handful of paparazzi that had just been allowed to start filing into the gala’s main hall, Katsuki just brushed his thumb along the back of Deku’s hand where their fingers were clasped together. He had worried that Deku would be freaked out by how touchy Katsuki was being, but it seemed like the nerd found it as grounding as Katsuki did. The crowds got to him more than he would admit, so having someone to physically tether him to the space… it was nice. Really nice.

Not to mention that Katsuki wanted everyone to know what this man was to him. Whether it was to show off this bright-eyed nerd to the world, or to warn them to back off, he wasn’t sure.

Deku’s giggled brightly as Aizawa managed to push his way out of the throng of heroes only to find Shinsou waiting for him at the edge of the crowd with a glass of whiskey for the man. His old teacher took the glass, muttered a gruff, ‘good kid,’ and tipped the entire contents of the glass back into his mouth.

“Sho! You didn’t wait for me?” Aizawa rolled his eyes as his husband threw an arm around his shoulder.

“Zashi, if I waited for you, I wouldn’t be drinking until we got home.”

Present Mic let out a laugh that sounded closer to a shout. “I guess you’re right about that! No drinking for me tonight, huh?”

“Not if you don’t want to make a fool out of yourself on stage.”

Katsuki remembered a time when his teacher had kept his relationship with the voice hero completely secret. The war at what was meant to be the beginning of their second year of high school changed a lot of things, and Aizawa’s desire to keep his affections for the man hidden were one of them. Not that anyone in 1-A was surprised. They had lived in the dorms for nearly half a year at that point. It would take someone incredibly dense not to pick up on the lingering touches and longing stares those two idiots gave each other when they were in front of the kids. Not to mention the matching rings they wore on chains around their necks.

Iida was the only one in the dorm that was shocked that day in their second year when Aizawa had walked past Yamada one morning with a kiss to his cheek and a grumbled ‘good morning.’

“Oh my god, that’s Present Mic, Kacchan!” The idiot was tugging on his hand like this was very-important-very-new-information to Katsuki. “I wonder if he would let me ask him about how his quirk and support gear affects his hearing aids.”

“Go ask him.”

“What?” Wide green eyes turned to him.

“Go ask. Yamada-sensei loves chatting, trust me.”

Deku bounced on the balls of his feet like a goddamn child, but didn’t make any moves to go towards the retired voice-hero, looking more starstruck than Katsuki had seen him yet. He tried to ignore how endearing it was.

“C’mon,” he urged, tugging on Deku’s hand as he strode towards his old teachers. “I’ll introduce you.”

“Wait, Kacchan-“

His teacher’s heads swiveled towards them as they approached. Katsuki didn’t miss the way Aizawa’s gaze dipped to their interlocked hands. He also didn’t miss the small smirk his teacher hid behind the rim of his whiskey glass.

“Bakugou! How are you doing, kid?” Mic was as energetic as ever. Probably a good quality for an emcee to have.

Katsuki nodded in greeting. “Yamada-sensei, Aizawa-sensei, I’d like you to meet Midoriya Izuku. He’s an engineer at the agency.”

Aizawa raised one eyebrow. “That so?”

Present Mic’s grin was blinding as he reached out a hand. “Pleasure to meet you, Midoriya! You must know your stuff if you’re working at Might Tower so young.”

Deku took his hand with an awestruck expression on his face. “P-pleasure’s all mine.”

“Oi, Deku,” Katsuki bumped the other’s shoulder with his own, “You gonna ask him?”

“Oh! I- I don’t know if I should.” His voice pitched into a worried whisper. “I just met him, Kacchan. It feels a little rude to-“

“Hey, Little Listener, don’t worry about offending me,” Mic said with a wink. “Ask anything!”

“If you’re sure.”

“Believe me, kid,” Aizawa interjected with a roll of his eyes as Yamada slung an arm around his shoulders and pulled him into his side. “This idiot only says what he means.”

That was all the encouragement Deku needed before he pulled away from Katsuki’s side and dove into a conversation with the retired hero, his eyes sparkling as Mic met every question with equal excitement.

“So,” Katsuki didn’t move his eyes from Deku as his old teacher sidled up beside him. “I take it that apology went well.”

Katsuki snorted. “Understatement.”

“I should have known there was another reason you were getting so worked up over this guy.”

He slid his eyes over to his teacher’s, surprised to find Aizawa already regarding him with slightly narrowed eyes. “What do you mean?”

“I think you know what I mean,” he said with a pointed look over at where Deku and Mic were talking animatedly. “It’d take a blind man to not see how you look at him.”

Katsuki snorted, not missing the irony in that statement. The war had cost everyone so much, Aizawa included. A few years after the war, he had a fake eye replace the one he had lost to Shigaraki’s quirk all those years ago, but it had apparently never made up for the original. And it wasn’t like the new eye could compensate for the loss of Erasure, either. It spoke volumes that he was able to joke about it now.

“According to Kaminari,” Aizawa continued, “You’re… what did he call it? Whipped?”

“That so?” Katsuki shot a glare towards the aforementioned blonde, who was currently cackling at a table beside Mina and Kirishima.

Laugh it up, Sparky. Your days are numbered.

Kaminari’s laugh cut off as his back went ramrod straight and he slapped his hand to the back of his neck. He whispered a worried, “Holy shit, did you guys just feel that?” Mina and Kirishima shook their heads and Kaminari visibly shivered. He let out a shaky laugh. “Must’ve imagined it then, huh?” His back was to Katsuki, so he missed the smirk that spread across his face.

His attention was pulled back to Deku when the man let out a peal of laughter at something Mic had said.

Katsuki let out a hum. The closest thing to admittance that he would concede to Aizawa’s claim.

Aizawa snorted. “I’m happy for you, Problem Child. You deserve some good.”

Katsuki couldn’t bring himself to look at his teacher again, not as he had to swallow thickly against the emotions suddenly clouding his throat. Thankfully Aizawa, ever-adverse to emotions and just about any conversations involving them, let the moment pass.

Katsuki barely managed a nod as Deku skipped back over to him with a huge grin on his face. He grabbed Katsuki’s hand without a second thought, like it was the most natural thing in the world. He thanked years of brutal training under the teacher standing beside him that he was able to keep his breathing steady.

“Kacchan, I have so many ideas now!”

“Oh?”

“Mic gave me his designer’s number, so I can ask her about the tech she used for his hearing aids.”

Katsuki felt one corner of his lips tip up. “And who are you making hearing aids for?”

Deku tipped his head to one side, his brows drawing together in confusion even as the smile stayed spread across his face. Fucking hell, no one should be that adorable, let alone a grown man with three times the brain power of Katsuki. “You, of course.”

Katsuki blinked. “Me?”

“I’m not sure if it’s enough of a problem yet to really impair your hero work, but it’d be more preventative than anything. Your explosions are kinda like Present Mic’s quirk, don’t ya think? Aren’t they a little loud for you?”

How the hell… “Yeah, but how did you-“

Deku shrugged, answering Katsuki’s question before he had the chance to fully speak it into existence. “It’s loud for people around you, so why wouldn’t it be loud for you, too? And you’re around it all the time, so.”

Aizawa snorted, which was good, cause Katsuki wasn’t sure he was able to give any reaction aside from the open-mouthed expression he currently wore. “Looks like he really does know his stuff.” He stuck his hand out. “Nice to meet you, Midoriya. I know Problem Child introduced us earlier but my husband whisked you away before I could really get a word out. I’m Aizawa Shouta.”

“Eraserhead,” Deku breathed out in wonder as he shook the man’s offered hand.

Aizawa raised an eyebrow and shot a look at Katsuki, who raised his free hand in surrender. “Don’t look at me, old man. I wasn’t the one to tell him your hero name.”

Deku sputtered as Aizawa turned his dark eyes back to him. “No, Kacchan didn’t tell me about you. I’m actually just a huge fan! I mean, you practically fight quirkless! It’s amazing!”

Aizawa dropped his hand and shoved them back into his pockets. He ducked his head as if it would hide his smile, but he wasn’t wearing his capture weapon tonight, so the movement was a little pointless in the end. “Hm. Never thought of it like that.”

“Yo, Bakubro! Get over here or we’ll eat your meal for you!”

Katsuki and Deku excused themselves at Kirishima’s call, Katsuki all but having to drag Deku along with him. “It was so nice to meet you, Eraserhead!”

Aizawa let out a huff of agreement, which was practically a golden, glowing seal of approval by his standards as Katsuki hauled Deku away.

“That was Eraserhead, Kacchan.”

“That was a pain in my ass for three years.”

“Eraserhead,” he said again, somehow more emphatically than the first time.

Katsuki chuckled and tugged on Deku’s hand until the man was tucked against his side. He released his calloused hand just to sling an arm around his shoulders.

“You’re a dork, you know that?” He looked down at the man a few bare inches from his own face and grinned as Deku stuck out his tongue.

“You’re an ass.”

Katsuki shrugged. “Never said I wasn’t.”

Dinner was a spectacle that Izuku knew he wouldn’t be able to forget in this lifetime. The gala typically consisted of a couple of musical performances followed up by some donations from the gathered heroes to various causes, and this year was no different.

It was spectacular getting to watch Present Mic introduce the event up on stage. Even after years of watching the man host various events through a television screen Izuku wasn’t prepared for the energy he could visibly bring to a room. Izuku even spotted Shinsou smirking at the jokes Mic cracked while introducing the performers (much to his boyfriend’s apparent delight).

The venue was stuffed with circular tables whose chairs were angled towards the massive stage at the front. Glittering chandeliers descended from the ceiling and heavy cloth hung in great swaths from above as if draped their by heavenly hands. Gold and red and deep greens everywhere he could see. There were golden busts of famous heroes from Japan’s past, thick , embroidered tablecloths, and mirrors that hung along the walls and made the whole place shimmer against itself. Ornate bouquets of roses and baby’s breath covered every table and creeping vines had been painted along the outer walls. It was as if someone had seen The Phantom of the Opera and decided to take its aesthetic to the limit.

Utterly incredible.

Izuku couldn’t stop looking and staring and pointing at everything he saw. It made him stick out like a sore thumb amongst all these unaffected celebrities, but no one seemed to mind, so he didn’t, either. They had made the entire space a work of art you could step into. It would be tragic if no one gawked over its intricacies and he was all too happy to oblige.

Their table was thankfully full of people Izuku already knew, but that didn’t stop him from gawking at Hawks and Mirko (holy shit that was Mirko just right there) from a table over.

“You’re drooling.”

“Am not!” Izuku protested, but still snapped his jaw shut.

Bands that Izuku hadn’t ever dreamed of getting tickets to were mere feet away from him on the massive stage that had been set up. No screaming fans, crushing crowds, or lifted phones blocked the view of the stage. Just Japan’s top heroes and a smattering of other A-list celebrities casually nodding along to the beat and picking at plates that likely cost more than one of Izuku’s (admittedly, rather sizable) paychecks while the music in the hall swelled.

Somehow, it was more surreal than his brief stint on the red carpet had been.

Kacchan had been pulled aside by Best Jeanist at the end of dinner, and though Izuku was about two seconds from fainting at the sight of one of the coolest heroes in Japan’s history, he figured Kacchan might want some time alone with his old mentor. Judging from the way he kept fighting back a grin at Jeanist’s praises, Izuku figured he was right in giving them some space.

He spotted Todoroki standing at the edge of the crowd that had started milling about as everyone finished their meals and started weaving his way towards him. The man was, unsurprisingly, staring after a certain dark-haired hero with a soft expression.

“So,” dual-toned eyes slid his way as Izuku walked up with a smile, “how long have you and Sero been dating?”

Todoroki’s brows lifted slightly, “Oh, you noticed that?”

“Noticed? Were you guys trying to keep it a secret? I’m so sorry I asked, I just thought it was pretty obv-“

Kacchan snorted from Izuku’s side, having appeared without his notice. Guess that was a quick conversation. Izuku didn’t waste any time weaving his fingers through Kacchan’s own. “He’s pulling your leg, Deku. Freezer-burn here doesn’t deign to date anyone, let alone someone from UA.”

There was a beat of silence where Todoroki just stared at Kacchan.

“You don’t date,” he said again, though some of the confidence had bled out. The silence from Todoroki stretched thin. “You…you don’t date.”

As if summoned, Sero appeared and threw an arm over Todoroki’s shoulders, leaning in to whisper something in the stoic man’s ear, completely oblivious to the bewildered look on Kacchan’s face. Todoroki cracked the barest hint of a smile and Kacchan swore.

That got Sero’s attention. “Yo, Bakugou. What did we say about swearing at-“

“You’re dating pretty boy?” He asked with an accusing finger pointed at Todoroki.

“Uh…” Sero shot a wide-eyed look at Todoroki, who just shrugged.

“The cat is out of the bag, I suppose.”

“What the actual fuck!?”

Kacchan’s swearing drew the attention of some of their other friends, which in turn drew more people’s attention until all of the old UA students were watching the scene unfold. Izuku hoped that none of the camera lenses swinging their way would be able to pick up audio.

Ashido appeared with a grin, her cheeks flushed from the champagne clutched in her hand. “Woah, boys. No fighting tonight, remember?”

Kacchan was, for once, at a complete loss for words. He was just staring at Sero and Todoroki slack-jawed, like he had never seen them before.

“We didn’t really mean to keep it a secret,” Sero was explaining.

“Keep what a secret, kero?”

“Not from you all, anyway.” Sero nodded as Todoroki interjected. “My father is another story.”

“You guys were just… caught up in it?” Sero shrugged apologetically.

“Woah, woah, back it up. What are we even talking about here?”

“Um, that Shouto and I are engaged?”

The whole group devolved into various levels of disbelieving chaos.

“En- ENGAGED?” Izuku had to clamp a hand over his mouth as Kacchan startled back into the present with that shout. He tore Izuku’s hand away a moment later, but his voice was remarkably less loud as he whisper-yelled, “The fuck, you two?? How long have you been dating for? Isn’t it a little early to be engaged?”

“Sho,” Sero turned to his partner with drawn eyebrows. “You didn’t tell them we were getting married? How could you leave that part out?” he pouted.

“I didn’t mention any part. Midoriya just deduced that we were a couple, and Bakugou assumed we were still dating.”

“Babe…”

“Babe?” Mina looked like she was about to faint.

“I’m literally going to pass out.” Kaminari actually swooned before turning to his boyfriend. “I might need you to slap me, Toshi.”

“Why the hell would I do that?”

“No, no,” Jirou was gaping as Todoroki tried to fight off the smirk on his face, “Kami might be onto something with this. Momo, is this real life?”

Her girlfriend was standing with one hip cocked and her fingers raised to her chin in thought. “I’m sorry, everyone. I really thought you all knew about them. It’s been, what,” she turned to Sero for confirmation, “seven years now?” He nodded, a wide grin taking up all the space on his face as he squeezed his arm around his fiance’s shoulders tighter.

“SEVEN YEARS?!”

“Though, the engagement is fairly new.”

“How new?” Izuku had never heard Kacchan’s voice be that flat. He must’ve been in shock.

“About a week, now, huh?” Todoroki’s cheeks flushed delicately as he gave a small nod.

“Congratulations and jubilations abound.”

Sero shook Tokoyami’s outstretched hand, “Thanks, man!”

“Oh my god, does this mean that Todoroki is the first married in the class?”

“Fuck!” Izuku jolted as Kacchan yelled again, his voice sounding outraged. “You made me lose the bet, you fuckers!”

Mina let out a commiserating groan. “Oh gods, me too.”

“I mean, did anyone call that?” Ojirou asked hopefully. Maybe they wouldn’t be out however much money they had staked on this.

“I distinctly remember Sero placing a bet that Todoroki would be among the first two married in the class,” Iida said with a decisive chop of his arm.

“And who was the other one he bet on?”

“Himself,” Todoroki said with a small smile. He tilted his head until he met Sero’s gaze with a soft smile.

“The hell kinda foreplay is that?”

“Seriously, man,” Kirishima groaned. “We made those bets in high school!”

“That’s actually kinda cute,” Izuku said. Uraraka and Asui looked inclined to agree, even though steam was practically pouring from the former’s nostrils.

“Of course you would think that,” Kacchan snorted. “When’s the wedding? No, no-“ he said when Sero opened his mouth to respond, “Don’t answer that. When does Endeavor find out? I gotta know how long I have ‘til this is plastered on every fucking billboard I see.”

“Ah,” Sero glanced at Todoroki, who nodded for him to continue, “That’s actually part of the reason we haven’t told anyone up until now. You guys wouldn’t mind keeping this under wraps, would you?”

“The fuck do you think we are?”

“Of course, cuties!” Mina squealed.

“We would never stoop so low as to betray your trust like that.”

“Thanks guys,” Sero rubbed the back of his head. “It means a lot. We are planning to tell Endeavor, it’s just…”

“We are waiting until I buy the agency out from under him,” Todoroki said in a flat tone.

Well…Fuck.

The entire group seemed to agree, especially as several let out a quiet, “Fuck.”

Izuku turned to Kacchan as he started trembling beside him. It took him a second to realize that he was laughing, and not about to blow a gasket.

“About fucking time.” He dropped his hand from Izuku’s own to walk across to Todoroki and slap him on the back. His face was the definition of shit-eating. “Take that old man for all he’s worth.”

Todoroki’s face finally cracked into a small smile. “I’ll do my best.”

A couple other from the class let out whoops of victory and various other curses towards the flame hero.

“And to answer your other question,” Sero’s grin was wider than Izuku had seen yet, “The wedding is next summer. You’re all invited.” He winked at Izuku. “I’ll make sure Bakugou has a plus-one.”

“A-ah. Thank you.” Something light and airy filled Izuku’s chest at the words. At the idea that he would be around until next summer, at Kacchan’s side. That he would be wanted that far down the line by these wonderful people.

Kacchan’s hand found his own again, his fingers intertwining with Izuku’s. He leaned down to whisper in his ear, even as the rest of the heroes continued to swarm Sero and Todoroki with questions. “You’ve always been such a cry baby.”

“Shove off,” he whispered back, but there was no heat in his tone. Kacchan gave his hand a light squeeze, and somehow, it felt like a promise.

Katsuki should have known that bringing Deku to a gala that raised money by auctioning off old hero merch was a bad idea.

“Kacchan!”

“Deku.”

He ignored Katsuki’s mocking tone and tugged at his arm while he pointed at the nearest display. “Do you know what that is?”

Yes. “No.”

“That’s Ryuku’s visor!” Katsuki hummed appreciatively. “The last time anyone saw that visor out in the field was during the Shibuya Incident two years ago. She completely redid her costume after that fight because of the scar she got across that eye, remember?”

Katsuki nodded. Of course he did. Katsuki had been sleeping during that particular fight. Waking up to find out that several of his friends had been put in the hospital while he was snoozing…well, suffice to say there had been better days. But Izuku’s eyes… gods, they were fucking emeralds right now.

“I think it’s so cool that she embraced her injury like that.” Katsuki watched as his eyes dated toward Mirko, who was sporting several limbs created from support items. “It really started beating back the stigma that heroes are these untouchable gods.” All around them were remnants of the War and all the hell that broke loose because of it. Missing limbs, vicious scars. They would all be in sorry shape if the gods looked like this, huh?

Katsuki huffed. “We sure as hell appreciated it. The War didn’t do much good, but allowing us to be people, at least to some extent, was one good thing to come of it.”

Deku’s eyes lost some of their luster as he studied Katsuki for a drawn out moment. “I can’t even imagine what that was like for you guys. I saw it all happen, but it was at so much more of a distance. To be on the front lines like that…” He trailed off, his eyes dancing from hero to hero. “Everyone went through so much to be here right now. I knew it before, obviously, but it’s different, somehow, seeing you all like this.”

Katsuki flexed his shoulder, that familiar ache spreading through him at the memory. “Yeah. Yeah, we fought like hell to get here.”

There was a reflective article that Katsuki had read once, published for the one year anniversary of the end of ‘The War.’ ‘Japan’s Scarred Youths,’ it had been called. Looking around at his friends, the people he had faced the end of the world alongside, the moniker rang true.

“It was what needed to be done.”

“You were all so young though.”

“Yeah,” Katsuki nodded thoughtfully, “But so were you.” He met Deku’s eyes, his gaze steady and sure from years of knowing that he was doing the job he was always meant to. “This is what we signed up for.” He nodded towards the rest of the gathered heroes milling about. “No one here would take a second of it back.”

Understanding, deep and true, shone in Deku’s eyes. His grip on Katsuki’s hand tightened a little. “I haven’t really said it before, but thank you. For all the people you’ve saved.”

Katsuki blinked. “What are you-“

“You’ve always been my symbol of victory, you know. Ever since we were kids.”

“Oh.”

“I guess,” Deku continued, his gaze going a little distant, “Even with everything that happened, it was nice to know you were out there. Protecting people, I mean.”

Katsuki had to clear his throat, twice, before he was able to find words again. “Symbol of victory, huh? What does that make you?”

“An idiot’s engineer,” he said with a roll of his eyes at Katsuki’s teasing tone.

Katsuki smirked, “That too.”

Deku’s eyes widened as he spotted something just past Katsuki’s shoulder. “Look, Kacchan!” He tugged him forward at a frankly alarming speed and Katsuki almost tripped trying to keep up.

“Kacchan, it’s a signed poster from All Might’s 10th anniversary! There were so few of those made, and I didn’t know he signed any of them!”

“Ah, looks like Sir donated this.”

Deku turned wide eyes to him. “Sir Nighteye? I mean,” his free hand reached up to cup his chin in thought, “I suppose it makes sense. Since he was All Might’s sidekick, it makes sense that he would have an easier access to merchandise. But, he wasn’t a sidekick during the ten year-“

“Before you talk yourself into a stupor,” Katsuki interrupted, lips twitching upward at the way Deku’s face flushed a pretty pink, “Sir is just as big of an All Might nerd as you are, nerd.”

Deku’s mouth formed a little ‘o’ of surprise. “Oh.”

“Do you want it?”

“Are you kidding?” Deku let out a mournful sigh, his entire form deflating. “Of course I do, but look.” He pointed at a rather large number written by one Todoroki Shouto. “I couldn’t afford that even if I saved for a year.”

“Good thing you got me then.”

“Huh?”

Katsuki was mourning his budget for the month before he even realized he had moved to place his name on the silent auction list.

Deku started sputtering, “K- Kacchan, what-“

“Ah! I’ve got it,” he said, turning to Deku and cutting off his protests. “Hope.”

“I- Kacch- huh?”

“Hope,” he repeated. “That’s what you are.” He booped Deku on the nose, relishing in the flabbergasted expression on the engineer’s face. “You’re my Symbol of Hope.”

“I- You- huh?! Don’t derail-“

“I’m not derailing,” Katsuki said while dragging Deku away by the arm. No use letting the nerd see how much he had offered up for the poster and let him mourn Katsuki’s budget alongside him, was there?

“You’re literally dragging me away.”

“That’s beside the point.”

“I feel like it’s really not!”

“Well, I feel like you’re a fucking idiot.”

“Kacchan!”

“Deku!”

After the auction (Christ, had Kacchan really won that poster for him?? Izuku was still swooning), there was another performance. Due to a rather (un)fortunate mix of alcohol, a cleared space, and waning inhibitions, an impromptu dance started up in the middle of the gala’s main hall. Izuku could do nothing but shoot Katsuki a pleading look as Ashido dragged him towards the sparkling and twirling throngs of heroes she had already bullied into joining. The traitor only lifted a glass in farewell and chuckled.

But ‘dancing’ must have been code for ‘drinking,’ because the moment he stepped onto the floor, Uraraka was pressing a glass into his palm and a cheer went up around him as the crowd swigged from their drinks as one. Bright, sparkling liquid burst across Izuku’s tongue and the sweetness chased its way down his throat before settling warmly in his stomach. It was mere seconds before his flute of champagne was drained, and even less time than that before Hagakure, who was spinning across the room with a full bottle in hand, had topped him off again.

He floated between his new friends, warm hands finding his back and laughter reaching his ears at every turn and sway. By the end of the first song he had stopped silently cursing Ashido and let the music sweep him away. The band was playing songs he didn’t know, but it didn’t matter. He could only laugh and spin as Uraraka belted out the chorus.

He managed to slip away after his third glass in just as many songs and stumble back to the table he had been sitting at.

“Kacchan,” he sing-songed as he plopped down next to the man in question. “Won’t you come dance with me?”

Kacchan snorted into his glass. “I’ll take you dancing some other time, Deku. I don’t want to sweat in this suit.”

Izuku accepted the glass of water Kacchan pressed into his hands with a small smile, the words ’some other time,’ playing a prettier tune in his mind than any music he had been twirling to earlier.

It was a while before his head stopped spinning, but he took the opportunity as he sipped at his water to stare quietly at Kacchan, who was laughing with Shinsou at the expense of their intoxicated friends still out on the dance floor.

“Christ, they’re gonna regret this in the morning. It’s like they forget that there are cameras.”

“Honestly, I’m not sure how. You would think they’d learn after last year, and the year before that, and the year before that.”

Kacchan rolled his eyes, the motion so big Izuku could practically hear it. “And they give me shit about cussing in front of cameras.”

“Fuckers.”

Kacchan raised his glass to that.

The last hour of the gala was little more than a blur of colors and sparkling clothes in Katsuki’s mind. He had indulged in a glass more of whiskey than he should have, but the way Deku was smiling and pressing up against his side didn’t leave much room for regret.

He hadn’t stooped to dancing on live television, but it had been a close thing, especially after Kirishima had swept Deku into a waltz at one point and made the man practically swoon in his arms. Shitty hair wouldn’t ever make a move on the guy, he was was too fucking decent for that, but it still left Katsuki with a clenched jaw by the end.

To be honest though, Katsuki enjoyed himself just watching the dork messing around with his old classmates. They were all laughing and joking and sniping at one another like he always belonged beside them.

He did always belong. You just made sure he wasn’t wanted back then.

Kastuki took a long drink from his glass and the evening blurred a little more.

He had no clue how long it was before Deku stumbled over to him for a second time, much more uncoordinated than before, and plopped down in a chair next to him.

“Ah,” he let out a groan as he stretched his arms over his head, “Mina wore me out, Kacchan.”

“Yeah, she tends to do that.” His eyes slid over to the woman in question, who was still bounding around the dance floor with the absurd amount of energy she had arrived with. “You having fun?”

Katsuki had lost count of how many of those blinding smiles he had been gifted this evening and, by the gods, he wished they would never be numbered again. “Probably too much,” Deku answered in that slightly-too-loud volume drunk people tended to adopt. He suddenly groaned and dropped his head in his hands. “I can’t believe that I accidentally exposed Sero and Todoroki’s relationship, though. I feel so bad!”

Katsuki still hadn’t gotten around to processing that particular piece of knowledge, but he said, “Don’t feel bad, Deku. Those shit-heads were going to tell us soon anyway.” He felt a grin try and inch up his face. “I hope you ruined whatever dramatic reveal Half-and-Half had planned.”

“Don’t say that,” Deku whined. “I don’t wanna think about all the plans I destroyed.”

“I do.” Katsuki chuckled as Deku shoved his shoulder in response.

“Hey, cuties,” Katsuki scowled at Kaminari as the blonde skipped up to them with a wave. “Are you two about ready to go?”

Shinsou shot them both a pleading look from Kaminari’s side (right before Deku had gotten there, he had been bitching to Katsuki about how sick of the noise he was) and Katsuki watched Deku bite the inside of his cheek to keep from laughing as he nodded. He turned those pine eyes to Katsuki. “Are you ready, Kacchan?”

He tipped his drink back, the dredges of the liquid burning their way down his throat, before he heavily set the glass down and stood. “Beyond ready.” He turned and offered a hand to Deku. “Let’s go.”

Deku accepted it with no further urging and stood on slightly more stable legs than before. It was only after they had made their way out of the building and back into the swarm of reporters that Katsuki realized he had offered his hand (that Deku had accepted it without any sort of thought, like it was the most natural thing in the world.

Like it was something they should have been doing all along.

Chapter Text

Someone had started calling for shots at some point and it hadn’t fallen on deaf ears. From where he was standing, Izuku could count sixteen discarded shot glasses. How many of those did Todoroki own? Did he even own them, or was this rented penthouse just incredibly well-stocked?

The seventeenth shot glass stood out from the rest only in that it hadn’t been cast aside yet. Hagakure was screaming alongside Kaminari, Sero, and- Izuku blinked- Shinsou. They weren’t the only ones cheering, just the loudest of the group right then.

Everyone had wound up back at the penthouse Todoroki had rented out about an hour and a half earlier after leaving the gala. Fast food had been ordered and devoured and at no point had the drinks stopped flowing. As it was, everyone from Kacchan’s old class was crowded around two seated figures, urging them to do…something.

Honestly, Izuku didn’t have a clue what was going on. Kacchan’s hands were braced on either side of the table as he stared Todoroki down with a grim expression. Todoroki himself was smirking ever so slightly. It was the most vindictive expression Izuku had seen the man make to date, not that that was saying much. Between them sat the seventeenth shot glass- the last one standing- filled to the brim with some bright-red liquid that looked thick enough to be a sauce.

“The hell did you find this, Icyhot?”

A shrug. “I know a guy.”

“Of course you do.” Kacchan rolled his eyes, but Izuku thought he could detect a hint of nervousness in his voice.

“Do you know what that is, Kacchan?”

“Course I fucking do.”

“That’s from a Carolina Reaper,” he still said, because if Kacchan really knew, he wouldn’t be taking this bet. Right? Surely, even he wasn’t this idiotic.

“No temperature regulating, you got that Half-and-Half?”

“It has 1,400,000 Scoville heat units, Kacchan. One. Million. In case it’s not registering, that’s really, really fucking hot.”

“Deku, shut. Up,” Kacchan ground out, his eyes staying fixed on the sauce.

Izuku leaned back, his eyes watering from just being near the shot-from-hell. This was going to end so much worse than someone getting alcohol poisoning. Could doctors even pump stomachs full of hot sauce? He lifted his hands in defeat. “Fine. Your funeral.”

Kacchan’s ruby eyes slid his way. “Promise you’ll write me a nice eulogy?”

“Absolutely not.” Izuku crossed his arms. “I’ll tell everyone that your stubborn ass-ery got you killed.”

“Ass-ery is definitely not a word.” Kacchan smiled, teeth glinting wickedly. “And what do you mean? That sounds like a great eulogy to me.”

“Are you going to keep flirting, or are you actually going to take the shot?”

“Fuck off, I don’t see yours anywhere.”

It was like fucking magic when Todoroki lifted his hand to reveal an eighteenth shot glass, filled with the same atrocious liquid.

“Guys, I think Todoroki might be a magician.”

“You guys are idiots.”

“WOO! SO MANLY!”

“This is why we shouldn’t trust men to make decisions.”

“Hitoshi! Are you filming this?”

“Yeah, you couldn’t pay me to miss this.”

“God, I love you so much.”

“Get a ROOM!”

“SHOTS! SHOTS! SHOTS!”

Staring one another down, Kacchan and Todoroki lifted their glasses in perfect sync and threw the contents back down their throats. A roar went up from the gathered crowd as they slammed the glasses back on the table between them.

The cheer died out and silent anticipation settled across the group.

One second.

Two.

Then, Kacchan let out a small cough as Todoroki’s face flushed a deep red. Both men had sweat break out along their foreheads.

Another second passed and neither dropped their gaze from the other.

“Man, that’s it? Must not be that hot!” Izuku watched in mute horror as Kaminari reached down to where Todoroki had discarded the bottle he had used to fill the glasses, lifted it, and squirted some straight onto his tongue.

Shinsou’s phone camera swiveled to his boyfriend as Kaminari swallowed and Izuku heard Kota whisper a quiet, “Oh no.”

One second.

Two.

“Holy mOTHER OF GOD,” was all Kaminari got out before he bent in half and started violently coughing and gagging. Within seconds, his shirt was soaked through with sweat and his face turned the same color as the left side of Todoroki’s hair. He let out a pained whine and leaned over, bracing his hands on his knees to keep from toppling over.

Kacchan and Todoroki, too busy tamping down their own pain, were the only ones who didn’t start howling with laughter. No, both of them just continued staring one another down and taking deep, deep breaths to keep from joining Kaminari on the floor.

“Oh, babe. This is really a terrible look for you,” Shinsou didn’t bother hiding his grin as he brought his phone up closer to Kaminari’s face.

“Why,” Kaminari wheezed out between frantic pants, “are you still filming me?”

Shinsou just winked at him, phone not dropping in the slightest.

Kota, Uraraka, and Yaoyarozu all appeared with glasses of milk and Kaminari downed all three while tears streamed down his cheeks.

“Those were for all three of you,” Yaoyarozu protested.

“Nope. Nope. They’re fine. I’m dying,” Kaminari insisted. He had his tongue sticking out of his mouth and was fanning it frantically with a hand as he panted.

Izuku had procured a glass of milk himself, but he managed to skirt around Kaminari’s outstretched fingers and make his way to Kacchan’s side. Kacchan didn’t acknowledge his presence, still too busy staring down Todoroki, but when Izuku took a long, loud sip of the milk, his grip on the table tightened.

“Wow,” Izuku smacked his lips in satisfaction. “This sure tastes good. So cool. So refreshing.” To be honest, Izuku wasn’t much of a milk drinker. But Kacchan didn’t need to know that. He held the glass out to Todoroki, whose face had gone past red and was now turning an alarming shade of purple. “Want some?”

Todoroki’s eyes flicked to Izuku, wide and desperate, and Izuku barely restrained his laughter as Kacchan let out a shout of victory as Todoroki gave the tiniest of nods.

“Fuck yeah! Hey, Deku- what the hell, you’re supposed to give that to me! Losers don’t get milk!” Kacchan was glaring daggers at Izuku as he avoided the heroes’ grabby-hands and passed the glass to Todoroki, who downed its contents greedily.

Izuku grinned at Kacchan and shrugged. “He said he wanted it.”

“I hate you.”

Izuku stuck his bottom lip out in an exaggerated pout. “You don’t really mean that, do you?”

“Course I fucking-“

“Hey, you two!” Uraraka, goddess that she was, appeared with another glass of milk in her hand. “Tonight is too nice for you to go getting into a domestic.”

“Why does this place have so much milk?” Izuku mumbled as Kacchan flipped Uraraka off while downing the glass she had brought him.

Todoroki- who had stuck two of his right fingers in his mouth- popped them out long enough to say, “I wanted to be prepared.”

Kacchan turned his middle finger towards Todoroki before pushing to his feet and grumbling about finding another glass of milk. He stepped over Kaminari, who was curled up on the ground and moaning about ‘evil, cruel boyfriends and their devil phones.’

Izuku plopped down in the seat Kacchan had just vacated with a giggle as the blonde threatened his way to the fridge. He was quite sure the smile hadn’t left his face once since getting back to the penthouse.

A warm weight draped itself across his back and he felt lips press a quick kiss to his cheek. He laughed again, the sound bubbling out of his chest. “Doing okay, Uraraka?”

“I’m so good, Izu.” He could hear the smile in her voice, even if he couldn’t see it from this angle. “I still can’t believe that you’re here. Feels like fate, don’t you think?”

Todoroki gave Izuku a smile- cold fingers still in his mouth- before he stood and wandered away. Someone had put music on when they had gotten back to the penthouse and Izuku swayed to the beat, smiling as it made Uraraka’s weight shift back and forth behind him. She was telling him all about her own night and getting to parade around the gala on her girlfriend’s arm and Izuku’s chest felt light as a feather.

“Everyone was so jealous of me,” she sighed dreamily, her arms lifting to circle around Izuku’s front as she nuzzled her nose into the back of his neck.

“Oi! Hands off my Deku, Cheeks!”

“Tsu!” Uraraka cheered, ignoring Kacchan entirely. The warm weight on Izuku’s back disappeared as Uraraka spotted Asui and skipped over to her with a sing-songy call.

Someone- Deku’s money was on Sero or Jirou- let out a whistle. “Oh, he’s your Deku now, is he?”

Kacchan must have been further gone than Izuku realized because he barely retaliated at all. He just grumbled something about desk tape and shoved his head in between Izuku’s shoulder blades. The air went thick and sweet with the scent of caramel and Izuku breathed in deeply as Kacchan pushed against him and started rubbing the top of his head back and forth against Izuku’s spine. Izuku didn’t know what was so appealing about his back right now, but he didn’t really mind the fact that pro heroes were making a weird point of being all over it.

Izuku craned his neck, but couldn’t see past the riot of blonde hair. He shrugged his shoulders just to make Kacchan’s head bounce with the motion and chuckled at the weak curses he retaliated with.

“You feeling tired, Kacchan?”

“Stupid fucking peppers. Shitty Half-and-Half. Stupid sauce.”

“Kacchan, your insults are starting to sound a little repetitive.”

Izuku laughed as Kacchan muttered far more colorful curses somewhere behind his ear. “Ah, that’s more like it.”

As Kacchan grumbled and dug the top of his head into Izuku’s shoulder blades, Izuku let his eyes wander around the room. Everything had a fuzzy glaze to it from hours of drinking and dancing. He wasn’t exactly drunk anymore, but the lingering drinks in his system had left the world soft and gleaming.

Kaminari had recovered a bit, it seemed, and he was currently crawling up Shinsou like the man was a tree and weakly trying to grab at his phone. Todoroki was curled up in Sero’s lap on one of the couches, his face blessedly back to a normal color and his mouth gaping open ever so slightly as he dozed. Sero was absent-mindedly running his fingers through Todoroki’s hair while he chatted with Kota, Iida, and Kirishima, his free hand making sweeping gestures as he spoke.

Izuku spared Jirou and Yaoyarozu all of half a glance before he decided it was in his best interest to look anywhere else. Practically everyone else was winding down and tucking into the various couches and cushions thrown about the space. Izuku had always found it so strange, how nights like this would be so loud and bright and full of energy until the room took a long sigh as one and people started drifting off in their own worlds.

Kacchan’s hands had found their way to Izuku’s waist, his fingers digging into the soft spot above Izuku’s hips and finding purchase there so he could drive his head harder into Izuku’s spine.

“What are you doing?” He laughed, exasperated.

Kacchan just mumbled incoherently and released Izuku with a huff before stomping off.

“Wait, wait,” Izuku laughed and reached for Kacchan’s retreating back. His fingers snagged on the soft fabric of the black tank top Kacchan had changed into at some point. “Where are you going?”

Narrowed crimson eyes turned to him and Izuku did his best to school his face into a more serious expression, but it cracked when Kacchan swayed to one side. Izuku reached out an arm to steady him, something sun-bright and bubbling shooting through his chest at the warmth from Kacchan’s skin blooming under his palms and the way the blonde leaned into his touch.

“I need to shower.”

Izuku barked out a laugh. “Right now?”

Kacchan lifted a hand out to the side and let out a few explosions that were a bit bigger than normal, wincing away from the light. “Sweaty,” he said. Right. Kacchan sweating was a very real safety concern, wasn’t it? Especially with shot glasses and empty bottles of beer littering every surface in sight.

Izuku nodded, grabbing Kacchan’s wrist and pulling him towards one of the bathrooms. They were both stumbling a little too much to manage a shower, but Izuku could at least help clean him up a bit. Kacchan nearly collided with a wall and let out a curse.

“You’re a walking hazard,” Izuku said. “A disaster waiting to happen.”

“Your mom- no, wait. That’s Auntie Inko. I can’t say that.”

They managed to make it into the bathroom and shut the door. The party sounded as distant and muffled and lovely as everything looked to Izuku now. He let out a breath of laughter and shook his head. Maybe he was still a little drunk.

“Here.” Izuku extended a washcloth he dampened with cool water to Kacchan, but the hero just plopped down on top of the closed toilet seat and let his head slump against the back wall. Izuku clicked his tongue, the sound was fond even to his own ears. He moved forward until he was kneeling on the ground in front of Kacchan and nudged his knees apart so he could inch closer. “You’re a mess, Kacchan.”

Kacchan hummed, eyes drooping closed. “That makes two of us.”

Kacchan let out a low groan as Izuku raised the cloth to the back of his neck and swiped it across the exposed skin. Izuku very pointedly ignored any reactions his body made to the sound. “That hot sauce really did a number on you, huh?”

“Shitty pepper.” Less of an insult this time, since the words were softened with a small smile as Izuku kept swiping away at Kacchan’s skin. “Fuckin’ showed it.”

Izuku let out a small laugh. “You really did.” He wiped at Kacchan’s shoulders, trying not to be too obvious about the way he was lingering over the strong lines of muscle. Kacchan’s intermittent noises of relief and low encouragements weren’t exactly helping.

“Hey, Deku.” Izuku looked up to find Kacchan looking down at him with barely-open eyes. “That’s a good look for you.”

“Huh?” He asked, unintelligibly, too distracted by the way Kacchan was slowly running his tongue along his teeth. Fuck, he had way too much alcohol in his system to deal with Kacchan looking at him like that right now.

“That angle,” he clarified, and all of a sudden Izuku was hyper-aware of every inch of his body. Of the way he was kneeling before Kacchan with the blonde’s thighs bracketing him in and pulsing out a sweet, caramel-scented heat. Izuku shuddered faintly when Kacchan lifted his hand to run calloused knuckles ever so gently across Izuku’s cheekbone.

“Get your mind out of the gutter, Kacchan.” Izuku’s voice was far breathier than he would have liked to admit. Razor thin and all too ready to break apart entirely.

Kacchan’s turned his hand so his fingers trailed a path down the plane of Izuku’s cheek until it ran into the line of his jaw. With the slightest press of his fingers against his chin, he angled Izuku’s face up to him. He was some god of hedonistic debauchery- all drunken looseness and flushed lips- accepting the supplication of his all too willing devotee. Izuku’s head spun with it, the desire coursing through him far headier than any of the drinks he had been showered with all night.

“But you wouldn’t want that, would you?”

Izuku could feel the bass beating out its muted pattern from where his knees were pressed to the tile floor, but all the people and music on the other side of the bathroom door felt a million miles away. Suspended. Izuku was trapped in Kacchan’s stare, reduced to nothing more than all-too-willing prey for the predator with the crimson eyes. Distantly, he realized he was shaking his head in answer to Kacchan’s question.

There was some pull in his chest that had him leaning forward and up. He was close enough now to measure the change as Kacchan’s pupils blew out wide and obsidian. His lips parted, eager to taste everything Kacchan was tipping himself forward to offer up. And god how long had he wanted this? Longer than he had been admitting. Definitely longer than he should have.

Izuku had been twisted up with hate all these long years, but that knot in his throat and stomach had just been so much worse for all the desire tangled up within it, as well. Had he ever not wanted this?

Kacchan’s eyes slid shut and Izuku’s own fluttered- ever so eager to mimic the movement. He could feel the breath Kacchan let out spill across his bottom lip. It was like that night earlier this week when they had been leaving dinner and Izuku swore Kacchan was going to kiss him on the sidewalk. When he had been so sure he was going to give in to whatever this thing was that he was afraid to look at too closely.

Even all these days later, Izuku still wasn’t sure whether he was glad those people had interrupted them. Even now, after tonight and all the small admittances he had allowed himself, he wasn’t sure that giving in and closing those last millimeters between them wouldn’t be damning himself to the absolute calamity of this man.

And just like that, his mind flashed with a memory Izuku had done his best to lay to rest. Bridges were being built between them, Kacchan was a different person, but-

Kacchan in his high school uniform and his mess of a tie, blurred through tears. The bleating desperation in Izuku’s chest- poised and ready to shred what little of his insides he was managing to cling to. His pleas. Kacchan’s shouting. A slammed door. And the pain shooting through Izuku’s knees as he collapsed to the concrete outside Kacchan’s house and felt himself shatter.

Izuku blew out a sharp, shaky breath and jerked back. He yanked the washcloth that had stalled on Kacchan’s arm into his own chest and stumbled to his feet and then back a step, tripping over the soles of his own shoes.

Kacchan’s eyes flew open, wide and confused and Izuku had to look away at the concern drawing a line between his brows because if he thought about the fact that the man in front of him had changed enough for that little line to come from concern and not the anger that had been so vivid his memory, he would give in. He would crawl right back between his knees and kiss him and fuck, Izuku may be drunk and needy and dizzy with the happiness of the night, but he still couldn’t forget that Kacchan had been a calamity once. Yeah, that had been the right word. Because Izuku had needed him on the worst day of his life, and Kacchan had seen the chink in his armor for what it was and dealt that fatal fucking blow.

“Izuku?”

“I-“ he stumbled back another step, his back colliding with the wall, and it startled him enough that he dropped the washcloth he had been running over Kacchan’s skin mere seconds before.

Kacchan was blinking rapidly, like he was trying to clear the drunken, tired glaze from his eyes with sheer will, and stretched a hand out towards him. “Iz-“

Izuku whined at the starting sound of his name on Kacchan’s lips, shaking his head. His back pressed harder into the wall, willing it to let him put more space between them. “I- I can’t do this. I- Not again.”

“What? Wait. Izuku, wait! Where are you-“

“Kacchan, please,” Izuku was tripping over himself as he retreated. God, he needed to get out of there now. Because Kacchan was looking like the space between them was hurting him and Izuku was almost certain he was going to throw up. What had just happened? Tonight had been wonderful and everything he had been too scared to admit he wanted, but now the thought of spending another second here was making his breathing pick up and his heart beat fast enough to bruise the inside of his chest. Did one fucking memory still have such power over him? Apparently so, because the next words that came out of his mouth were a strangled, “I can’t.”

He couldn’t. He couldn’t and he wasn’t even sure what that meant, but it didn’t matter, because it was true. He needed to leave.

Kacchan’s hand dropped and he stalled from where he had stood and started following Izuku. Some choked sound loosed itself from Izuku’s throat as he turned and slipped out of the bathroom. The last thing he saw was Kacchan’s face breaking with hurt and confusion in equal measure, but it wasn’t until Izuku stumbled a few steps down the hall that the first tear slipped- fast and scalding- down his cheek.

“Midoriya?” Izuku’s head spun and his vision swam as he located the voice calling out his name. Wide red eyes met his from across the narrow hall and Izuku was glad that Kirishima was a hero- glad that he dealt with hysterics on the daily- because he caught Izuku as his knees gave out thinking about the other pair of red eyes he had left stunned and alone in the bathroom behind him.

“Woah, woah, Mido,” Kirishima’s voice was hushed with worry as he held onto Izuku’s arms long enough for Izuku to find his own feet again.

He clutched at the fabric of Kirishima’s sleeves. “I need to get out of here,” he pled.

Kirishima’s brow creased deeper than it already had been before. “What-“

There was a muffled curse and stumble from down the hall where Izuku had just fled from. “Izuku?”

He let out a painful, choked noise at the sound of Kacchan calling his name and felt his knees wobble beneath him again. Kirishima’s grip on Izuku’s shoulders tightened, even as he glanced behind him to where Kacchan stumbled down the hall in the opposite direction.

“Kirishima, please.” Izuku’s voice cracked on the word and Kirishima’s mouth flattened into a straight line.

“Alright,” he said with a tense nod. “Alright. I’ll get you out of here.”

Izuku didn’t let himself hear the calls of his name. Didn’t let himself think about anything at all as Kirishima snuck them out of the penthouse. He barely had enough mind to be grateful for the fact that no one spotted them leaving and stopped to ask questions. He couldn’t do it. He couldn’t face anyone right now, especially not these wonderful people- Kacchan’s friends.

Later- after Kirishima would manage to get him all the way back to his apartment- when Izuku would still be awake and shivering and staring at the ceiling of his darkened room, he would think of how the tears traced the same path across his face that Kacchan’s fingers had. He would think of reverence and hatred and how he had never stopped to consider how both consumed and felt like fire. And then he would curl on his side, clutch at his stomach, and think bitterly that he should have seen it coming. He should have seen that revered, hated touch for the foreshadowing it was.

Chapter Text

Then - 8 Years Ago

It was only Tuesday and Izuku was ready for the week to be over. It had become an art- the way he would jump between weekends as one jumped between stepping stones that pierced the surface of a great, rushing river. Weekends were safe. They were the flat stones beneath his feet and the moments Izuku could afford to catch his breath before he made the next leap. They were moss-slick, sure- he could never fully relax and trust them to hold his weight- but they were by far the steadiest thing in sight. The river was still there, rushing just beyond the safety of his shoes and the slippery rock they stood upon, but it wasn’t close enough to suck him under. There, on his little stones of weekends, Izuku could watch the rapids rush by his feet without feeling as if the droplets of water splashing onto his laces were a death sentence.

Weekdays, though… those were the airborne seconds between one stone and the next. Those were the breathless freefall where he wasn’t quite sure if he would land or drown. Call it a dance, a thing of faith, whatever you wanted, really. It didn’t matter to Izuku, because the title of the thing didn’t leave him any less exhausted each time he had to jump. He was just biding his time until his strength flagged and the weekends didn’t let him catch his breath for long enough that he landed just short of the next one and was pulled beneath the current.

It was only Tuesday, he had barely kicked off from the last stone of Sunday, but Izuku was already tired of the jump. Summer was approaching and the days were already warm enough that his back was slick with sweat under his backpack as he trudged up the sidewalk on his way home from school.

He was almost halfway through his first year of high school- not UA, like he had dreamed, but a small public school that was far enough from his family’s apartment that there wouldn’t be anyone from his old middle school in his classes- and he was counting down the days between him and the summer break. If weekends were stepping stones, then the break was like the far shore. He could lay on his back and catch his breath and take a quick nap before he had to turn around and cross the river all over again.

A piercing laugh sounded from across the street where a group of kids around his age were walking and Izuku flinched at the noise, then cursed himself for the knee-jerk reaction.

It wasn’t that high school was horrible. In fact, it was already far better than middle school had been. Kacchan was miles away, unable to torment Izuku every hour of the day, and his new classmates, though filled to the brim with bitterness that they hadn’t made it into any heroics course, didn’t know that he was filled with the same resentment. Call him a coward, but after receiving his rejection from UA, Izuku thought it was best to not bring up the fact that he had wanted to be a hero.

Being the resident quirkless kid was bad enough, but it was still leagues better than being the quirkless kid who thought he could actually do something with his life. Letting his dream of heroics die a quiet death was just the price he had to pay for that little bit of relative peace.

So yeah, high school wasn’t what he had been hoping, but Izuku was walking home on a Tuesday with just a broken phone courtesy of some of his less-tolerant classmates instead of walking home with a broken phone and a smattering of bruises to boot.

The kids on the other side of the street didn’t pay him any mind, but Izuku’s shoulders still unwound when they turned down a side-street and vanished from view. His fingers ached as he unclenched them from around his backpack straps, and it was only then that he realized how sweaty they had gotten. With a frown, he wiped his palms on his thighs.

“Gross,” he muttered under his breath. No matter how much he wished it didn’t come to mind, Izuku couldn’t help the old thought from surfacing of how his pants would now be flammable if he were Kacchan. His old friend was a disaster without effort, ready to combust like it was a side-effect of living. Izuku’s scowl deepened.

He hadn’t seen Kacchan in weeks. Not since the last time his mom had begged the teen to come distract him from whatever project Izuku had been wrapped up in. What had it been, again? Something about political alignments of heroes or something? It didn’t matter. Those kinds of fixations were crystal-clear in the moment, but always a bit of a blur to look back on.

Izuku walked by a corner-store and paused as cold air blew over his skin as someone walked out. He could hear the faint sounds of a TV playing behind the counter, like some muted, distant haven. He stared down the road, turned to the store, back to the road. He still had almost an hour left of his walk before he made it home and still had some lunch money from that morning, so it wasn’t much of a choice at all when he turned and pushed the door to the store open, already imagining which soda he would choose to cool off with.

Two and a half minutes later, Izuku was at the counter with a mango-flavored soda in hand.

“Thank you,” his head dipped in a bow as he accepted the receipt from the clerk, but they were barely paying him any attention because their gaze was fastened on the TV he had heard earlier from outside. Izuku’s gaze drifted to the screen, curious as to what had snagged their attention, and felt his heart stall out behind his ribs.

”-roup of villains was spotted fleeing the scene and are currently under suspicion for the attack that occurred an hour ago in downtown Musutafu.” The anchor was gesturing to the smoldering remains of buildings behind her. ”As you can see, the damages to the financial district were significant. As of right now, there have been at least two confirmed deaths and over twenty people have been rushed to the hospital for immediate medical attention. The local authorities are urging nearby residents to stay inside until the fires in the affected buildings have been neutralized.”

She droned on, but Izuku couldn’t hear her anymore beyond the rushing in his ears. He jolted as the bottle in his fingers slipped and shattered on the tile of the store.

“What the hell!” the clerk exclaimed at the crash, their attention snapping back to Izuku and the mess he had just made. Any other time, he would have cared, but-

“Do you have a phone?” His throat was alright tight with unshed tears, panic making his voice high and thin.

“What? No! You just made a mess-“

“Please, I- I need to call-“

“If you’re not gonna help me clean this up, then get outta here, kid. I don’t have time for this.”

Could they really not see the fear on his face? Izuku thought about arguing more, begging on his knees for the chance to use their phone, but the clerk was already turning away and grumbling under their breath and Izuku didn’t have time to wait around for them to take pity on him.

’- at least two confirmed deaths-‘

He didn’t even pause to apologize for the sticky mess he had left on the floor, just turned on his heel and bolted out of the store. He took off down the street towards his home.

Of all the days for them to break my phone-

The destroyed street on the news had looked so familiar, and the moment Izuku realized where he was looking, he could feel the hairline fractures start spider-webbing across his life. It couldn’t be. It couldn’t be. He needed to call his mom- he needed to call his dad- because if he was wrong, everything was about to change.

’- two confirmed deaths-‘

There was no way. There was no way, right? That building had hundreds of people working in it. What were the odds that-

Izuku choked and felt tears running cold, swift tracks down his cheeks as he ran. He was still so far from home. Even running like this, he wouldn’t get back soon enough. It would take him at least another half hour before he reached his apartment complex. He needed to call his parents and-

A street-sign caught his eye as he sprinted past it and Izuku pulled up short, his chest heaving, as a thought struck him. He passed the street every day, and every day, had the same thought.

Kacchan’s street.

He was well aware that Kacchan would have no interest in seeing him right now, but surely, surely he would let Izuku use his phone. He was just so much closer than Izuku’s own apartment was and this was an emergency. Any trepidation he had about seeing his ex-friend was insignificant to the panic now clawing at his chest and pounding in time with his pulse.

It was like between one blink and the next, he had reached Kacchan’s door. He pounded on it, not caring one bit about how labored his breathing was or how his hair was plastered to his forehead with sweat.

A few silent seconds passed, and he beat his fist on the door again. “Please!”

The door swung open and a head of blonde appeared from the darkened other side. “Who the fuck-“ a pause. “Deku?! What the hell are you- no, you know what? I can’t deal with this shit right now.”

The door started swinging closed again and Izuku threw out his hand, barely feeling it as the wood slammed into the back of it and split the delicate skin. He called out through the crack he had forced between the door and its frame, “Wait! Kacchan, please, I need to use your-“

“Hey!” The door swung open again to reveal crimson eyes blazing with fury. For once, the sight didn’t make Izuku balk, even as Kacchan screamed, “What the hell do you think you’re doing? Get your shitty hand out of my door and fuck off!”

“Kacchan, just-“

“Why the hell are you even here? Don’t you have a fucking life of your own, shitty nerd?” Kacchan was still in his high school uniform, his tie a loose, twisted mess of red fabric around his neck. With the tears blurring Izuku’s vision, it almost looked like a slash of blood against Kacchan’s throat.

“Please, I just need to use your phone-“

Kacchan sucked in a breath, anger flaring impossibly brighter and a hand reached out to shove at Izuku’s chest. He stumbled back, then again as the hand chased after him with starburst explosions popping off in warning. Izuku tripped, falling hard on his ass with tears still streaming steadily down his cheeks. Kacchan towered over him, palms raised in warning and eyes glimmering with hatred. But fuck, Izuku didn’t have time for this shit right now. His dad might be-

“You show up at my house in the middle of the fucking week, without any warning, bang on my door, and demand to use my shit? Who the hell do you think you are, Deku? Why the fuck would I let you use any of my shit? Do you think I fucking owe you for anything? Anything?”

Izuku stumbled back up to his feet, never dropping Kacchan’s gaze for a second. “What? That’s not even what this is about! I just need-“

Kacchan’s hand had been sparking for a while now, but Izuku had honestly forgotten to be afraid of it in his panic. He cried out more in surprise than in pain when Kacchan reached out and pressed his palm into Izuku’s chest, pushing and letting a blast off hot enough to leave smoke curling from the fabric as he yelled, “You need to get a fucking clue and get the hell out of my life, Deku. The hag takes fucking pity on you, but I swear if I see your shitty face one more time I’ll make sure there are not enough pieces of you left for the doctors to stitch back together.”

Izuku blinked and the door to Kacchan’s house slammed closed. He blinked and his knees were screaming in pain from where he fell to them on the concrete, blinking dumbly at the door and feeling something in his chest that had been festering and aching for years snap neatly, brutally in two.

Izuku blinked and he was running towards his own home again, barely noting the way his breath kept hitching from sobs or the way his shins were wet with all the blood dripping down from his shredded kneecaps. He blinked and his apartment complex was only a block away now.

Izuku blinked again and he was inside his kitchen and hearing the house phone clatter to the floor. Even the muted, hollow bangs of the phone’s plastic casing against the tile weren’t enough to drown out the sound of his mother’s sobs on the other end of the line or the echoes of the words she had choked out to him moments before.

This couldn’t be real. He blinked. He blinked. Izuku blinked. It did nothing to change what his mother had said.

”The building, Izuku- it- it was your father’s office building that the villains demolished.” But Izuku knew that already. He had known that since seeing that wretched newscasting in the corner-store. “Your father-,” Izuku could hear the faint shouts and distant murmurs of the emergency waiting room in the small silences where his mother tried to suck air into her lungs, ”-he didn’t make it, Izuku. He died before the ambulance even reached the hospital. The doctors- they couldn’t have done anything.”

From where the phone had clattered to the floor in the aftermath of those words, Izuku could still make out his mother’s broken apologies. Her voice faded away until it was nothing but white-noise-buzzing against what Kacchan- no, what Bakugou had shouted at him some impossible blink-minutes-moments before. Bakugou’s words roared in Izuku’s mind like the ocean roared in a storm and Izuku was nothing more than some foolish, prideful sailor who thought he could weather the anger of the gods just like every other foolish, prideful sailor that came before him that those gods had drowned with glee.

Not enough pieces of you left.

Not enough pieces of you left.

Not enough pieces of you left.

Izuku collapsed to the floor with his hands over his ears- like they could block out Bakugou’s snarled words in his head or his mother’s quiet gasps of pain from the hospital his father had never made it to- and he was certain that Bakugou had never been more right. One phone call, just one Tuesday afternoon, and Izuku knew that there would never be enough pieces of him left.

Not enough pieces of him or his father left for the doctors to stitch back together.

Izuku clutched at his head tighter, pulling at the sweat-soaked curls. It was only Tuesday, but the river rose up. Izuku had been worried about not making it to the next stepping stone and somehow missed the flood. There were no more stones. The freefall ended. The far shore vanished from view, and for once, Izuku thought drowning might be a mercy.

Present Day - 8 Years Later

Izuku’s eyes were dry and aching from keeping them open and staring for so long. It felt like he hadn’t slept in ages, but in reality, he had only managed to drag himself out of his bed an hour ago when his stomach had demanded that he fill it or risk vomiting all of last night’s mistakes across his floor.

Izuku’s head pounded as he poured himself a glass of water and rooted around in his fridge for something greasy to shove down his throat. He spied more than a handful of tupperware containers that didn’t belong to him and had to fight the rising nausea as he thought about who exactly had packed those meals for him.

He managed to find a takeaway box filled with starchy noodles in the back of the fridge that wasn’t offensive to smell and slouched over to the rickety thing that served as his dining room table to tuck in. Izuku had only managed to choke down a few mouthfuls of water and noodles before he spotted it.

His apartment was almost entirely bare of decor, the antithesis to the room Izuku from eight years ago had filled every spare inch of with reminders of what he loved most. That villain attack had changed a lot about Izuku. A shifting of what he cared about felt a little inevitable after that. So, when he finally graduated high school and left his home, Izuku had done away with all his childish things of hero worship and only kept what he truly loved as he stepped into the next chapter of his life.

He went to college with two pictures tucked into a worn journal. All three of his keepsakes were reminders he swore to always heed.

The first picture was of his mother at his high school graduation. It was the first picture following the villain attack where his mother was smiling like she actually felt the expression. The two years between the attack and Izuku’s graduation had been painfully absent of smiles, and that day- that moment the camera had captured- had always felt like a turning point for the two of them.

The notebook was charred and had the words ‘Hero Analysis for the Future No. 13’ scrawled across its water-warped front in messy black marker.

And that second picture he took with him to college was the same one he had spotted while he was eating. An hour had passed between him spotting it and now. An hour since he had taken off of the wall and gently eased from its frame. The edges of the photo were worn from the long hours and years he had spent thumbing at them while he stared and stared and tried to commit the face it held to memory.

Izuku had lost the sound of his father’s voice before he started his second year of high school. He couldn’t tell you what his father’s cologne smelled like by the time he had his undergraduate degree. He wouldn’t recognize the gait of his father’s walk from down the hall ever again. But it had been eight years since he had lost his father in the most permanent way he could have and Izuku still had this: his father’s smile captured between his hands and frozen in time.

Izuku let his eyelids fall shut, letting out a low sigh and felt the irritating burn of his eyes ease as he gave them a break from staring and staring and staring at that photograph.

Izuku opened his eyes again, set the photo down, and left the table just long enough to hunt down the phone he had shoved in the back of his closet after Kirishima had dropped him off last night. He ignored the dozens of missed calls and messages from Kacchan and Uraraka and Kirishima and Hatsume and dialed the very first number he had ever bothered to memorize.

The line only rang once before he heard a familiar voice pick up.

”Oh, I’m so glad you called, sweetie. I can’t believe my little boy got to go to the Hero’s Gala last night! You looked so handsome in that suit. Katsuki, too! Oh, Izuku, don’t worry, I recorded it so you could watch it all back the next time you visit. You’re coming home soon, right? It’s been ages since I’ve seen you and I know that you’re busy with work, but you have to remember to take care of yourself. You won’t be able to save people with your gear if you don’t take care of yourself first, so you need to promise to come home soon so I can feed you and make sure you’re all rested.”

Izuku smiled softly despite the tears welling up in his eyes that cracked the expression apart. “Hey, Mom.” He took a breath and hoped she couldn’t hear it catch. “Could I come home tonight?”

Chapter Text

It was Monday, just two days after the gala, and Deku had called out from work. Katsuki was doing his level best to not think about it, but he had been distracted all through patrol. His limbs were still buzzing with an anxious energy that had hounded him since Deku had all but run away on Saturday night, and even hitting the gym with Jirou for an hour and a half after getting back to the agency had barely taken the edge off. Sunday had been… well, Katsuki would just say that being at the agency today was better, and leave it at that.

“Dude,” Jirou popped their gum from where they lounged on their back on the couch in Katsuki’s office, “shut up.”

“I didn’t say anything.”

“I can hear you thinking from over here and, for once, that has nothing to do with my quirk.” She paused. “Well, actually, I can hear you grinding your molars, so maybe it does have something to do with that.”

Katsuki turned back to his work with a roll of his eyes and very pointedly unclenched his jaw. “Shouldn’t you be filling out paperwork? I heard you caught a villain this morning on your route.”

Jirou hummed. “Yeah, but I filed the paperwork at the station before I came back here cause the capture was at the end of my patrol.”

“And you decided to come bother me while I do my work because…?”

Another pop of their gum. “Because I’m a great friend who is helping distract you from a certain support engineer’s absence and,” she continued before Katsuki could interrupt, “because you were a total hardass during our workout and I’m owed a little downtime as compensation for putting up with your shitty attitude.”

Katsuki let out a huff, deciding it was probably better for both their sakes that he not address any part of that. He went back to the paperwork he had been staring at for almost half an hour and tried to get his mind focused on actually understanding the words he had been reading over and over again.

His phone buzzed and Katsuki ignored the way his heart leapt into his throat as he lunged for it.

Pro Hero Dynamight’s Secret Lover: True Love, or Misguided Hero Propaganda?

He scowled at the headline that blinked up at him from the news alert. He really should mute those notifications. Teasing Todoroki every few weeks for whatever new, dopey title the press thought up to call him wasn’t worth this shit.

“So that’s not Midoriya, then,” Jirou commented after seeing his face fall. “Bummer.”

Katsuki placed the phone face-down on his desk with more force than was strictly necessary. “Cut the colorful commentary, Earwax.”

They fluttered their eyelashes at him innocently. “But my comments make your day so much brighter.”

“Piss off. I thought I told you earlier that I didn’t want to talk about it.”

“Hey,” they hauled themself into a sitting position, brow furrowed and voice much softer than it had been moments before, “he’ll come around, Bakugou. I can see you eating yourself alive over there.”

Katsuki braced his elbows on his desk and put his head in his hands, trying to hide the burning in his eyes. “I don’t even know what I did.”

And that was the worst of all this, wasn’t it? That night had been… fuck, it had been everything. Everything Katsuki had been pining after and dreaming of for years now. Up until that damn bathroom, there wasn’t a single moment Katsuki would have changed. He and Deku had felt so in sync, like they were finally aligning for the first time since before quirks were a part of their reality. Katsuki had thought that they had done it. That they had reached their “full-circle” moment or whatever the hell you could call that. They had spent so long on opposite sides, hating and caring and lying to themselves and each other from afar. And Saturday night had finally felt like snapping back together. If the universe was true and reactions were all opposite and equal, then that night felt as inevitable as fucking physics. He and Deku were always bound to fit together as perfectly as they had broken apart, and last night had been proof of that.

But then, out of nowhere, Deku was running away from Katsuki, looking fucking terrified. And god, that fear was so much worse than the anger or feigned indifference he had treated Katsuki with when he started working at the agency.

“What the hell did I do, Jirou?” The question sounded desperate, even to his own ears. “Did I just read everything wrong? Fuck,” his blood ran cold, “I probably just read it wrong. He’s nice to fucking everyone, so why did I think it meant he was- that we-“ He groaned, rubbing at his temples. Of course he would get a fucking headache right now. A pounding brain was the cherry on top of this perfect fucking day.

“I could be wrong,” Jirou said with more hesitance in their voice than Katsuki was used to, “but I’m not sure that’s what this is about.”

Katsuki lifted his head. “Huh?”

“I mean, shit, we could all tell how crazy he is about you. Midoriya has been blushing and swooning over you for a while now- even Koda was making comments about it. I’m not sure this has anything to do with something you did or didn’t do,” she clarified. Her lips were pressed together, eyes fixed on some middle distance that Katsuki couldn’t see. “At least not anything you did last night.”

“So what, then? Why the hell else would he run away like that?” Frustration was coloring his voice and Katsuki could feel the way it was heating his cheeks, too. He rubbed harshly at his hair. “What the hell am I supposed to do? I can’t even ask him the reason why he left cause he won’t answer my calls or texts. He won’t answer anyone.” Dread pooled in Katsuki’s stomach as another thought occurred to him. “Fuck, what if he’s hurt? What if he ran off and got himself put in the hospital and we have no fucking clue and-“

“Woah, breathe, Bakugou. He called in to work, remember? That girl in his labs- Hatsumo or whatever her name is- said that one of the engineers talked to him this morning.”

Katsuki all but collapsed back into his chair. He hadn’t even realized he had jumped to his feet in the first place. What the hell had his plan been, exactly? Run to the nearest hospital and demand to see Deku? God, he was a fucking mess right now.

“Yeah, you are.” Katsuki shot a glare at Jirou, but she just tapped her ear with a small smile. “Mumbling doesn’t really dissuade me, remember?” She let out a sigh. “Listen, all I’m saying is that until he gives you a reason for why he ran off, it’s pointless killing yourself over it. You can’t fix fuck-all until there’s actually something to fix, you know?”

Katsuki took a deep breath. It wasn’t that Jirou was wrong. Logically, he knew that they were giving him the exact advice he would tell anyone else in his situation. It was just that hearing it and convincing himself to believe it were two very different things. “That’s annoying as hell.”

Jirou barked out a laugh. “Yeah. It really is, but there’s nothing to do about it right now, so just go easy on yourself, yeah? Who knows,” they shrugged, “maybe Midoriya will show up with the perfect reason as to why he ran off and it’ll have nothing at all to do with something you did.”

Katsuki snorted. “Yeah, fucking unlikely.”

“I’d like to call it optimistic.”

“Deluded, more like.”

“Bakugou.” Their tone sharpened, dropping the easy humor that had crept back between them and Katsuki’s brows rose. “Stop that.”

“What the hell did I do?” he asked, incredulous.

Her eyes were far more serious than Katsuki was used to. In all honesty, it was kind of unnerving to see them fix him with that expression, not that he would ever admit that to them.

It was a few tense seconds before they spoke again, but their voice was uncompromising as they said, “You have a really bad habit of painting yourself as the villain. And yeah, I’m well aware that you weren’t always the good guy in the past, but we all make mistakes, Katsuki.” Katsuki sucked in a breath. “Regardless of how Midoriya acted on Saturday, he already said he forgave you for whatever it was you did to him back then. We all have. So please do me and everyone else that loves you a favor and give yourself the benefit of the doubt for once. I’m sick of seeing you hate yourself for shit you’ve done everything in your power to make up for. It’s not fair and everyone but you can see that.”

Katsuki just blinked for a few seconds, sure his eyes were wide, cause what the fuck was he supposed to do with that? He opened his mouth, closed it, opened it again. A total loss for words.

Jirou held his gaze for a few moments with one eyebrow quirked in expectation, but when it was clear he wasn’t going to be coherent anytime soon, she rolled her eyes and flopped back on his couch. “God, you’re impossible. Just say thanks and finish your report so we can go eat.”

It was still a few seconds of silence before Katsuki managed a strangled thank you that sounded like a question to his ears. Jirou just waved him off, their attention once again fixed on their phone like they hadn’t just delivered a fucking gut punch to Katsuki in his own office.

He turned back to his computer and the same form he had been staring at all fucking day still blinked back at him. He blinked, then let out a strained, “Fucking hell,” before pushing out from his desk and standing up.

Jirou shot him a questioning look as he strode for the door and he beckoned her to follow. “I’ll finish it later, c’mon.”

Jirou popped up from the couch, falling into step with him. “Where are we going?”

“I’m buying you lunch.”

“Aw,” Jirou teased, nudging his shoulder with their own, “you do care.” And despite Katsuki’s grumbling and shoving them lightly, he could see the genuine warmth in her smile as they walked to the elevator.

Izuku wouldn’t normally describe himself as an impulsive person. In fact, he generally believed that he thought too much about things. There was some middle ground between impulsiveness and wariness that he had never quite managed to find balance on, though he was sure it was much healthier than either of the extremes.

Last night though, he had decided not to think too much about the consequences of his actions. After talking with his mom on the phone, Izuku packed up a bag, hopped on the last train out of Tokyo, and made it to Musutafu before his mom had finished dinner.

It really hadn’t been that long since he had visited, but Izuku still felt guilty at the teary welcome she gave him and her excitement over the phone when he had asked if he could come visit. They had spent all evening chatting about the neighbors and Izuku was now fully caught up on all the latest drama at the hospital his mother’s worked at. At one point while they were picking up the kitchen, Izuku’s mom had paused in her story about yet another patient that had made some inappropriate comment and turned to him with a frown.

“Honey,” she set down her rag and placed a warm hand on Izuku’s shoulder, “I can see that something is weighing on you. I could hear it earlier when we were on the phone. Can you tell me about it?”

The words lodged something in Izuku’s throat and Inko was kind enough to just coo and tuck him into a hug when tears started flowing down his cheeks. He was so much taller than her now, so much older and he liked to think so much stronger than he had once been, but Izuku was a child again as he stooped down to press his head under his mother’s chin and took comfort in the way she rubbed soothing circles on his back.

He shook his head and eventually managed a wet, “Can we talk about it tomorrow?”

Inko just pulled back enough to hold his face between her hands. She studied him with the type of loving concern only a mother could give, before tilting his head down and pressing a kiss to the top of his head. Like the saint she was, his mom hadn’t mentioned the way the gesture made another sob rip from him. She just pulled him back into a hug and told him that of course they could wait until tomorrow.

“Whenever you need, Izuku. I’ll be here whenever you need me, sweetie.” And Izuku had been privileged to a lifetime of her proving exactly that.

Maybe that was why it was so much easier for Izuku to bring it up now, after calling into work for the first time since he started and settling down at his mother’s table with a mug of tea warming his palms after they finished breakfast.

“Do you still miss Dad?”

His mother’s eyes widened in surprise at his question- likely because Izuku had spent the past eight years doing his best to avoid speaking or even thinking about his father- but nodded. “Every single day.” She set her own mug of tea down on the table between them. “Does this have anything to do with yesterday?”

Izuku nodded and absently played with the string on the teabag that hung over the edge of his mug. He couldn’t quite bring himself to look at his mom right then. If he pretended he was talking to his tea, the words were so much easier to say. “I think I forget to, most of the time,” he admitted. And this was why he had come. There were words that needed to be said, emotions he needed to dig his fingers into before he was able to pull them out of his chest. “I feel better if I don’t miss him, and at some point, I think that turned into me not letting myself remember him.”

He watched Inko nod out of the corner of his vision. “I can understand that, I suppose. After the accident, you started to throw yourself into school and projects even more than before.”

“I- I think it was a mistake.” Izuku’s mom stayed quiet, letting him find the words. “It always felt better in the short term, but it just kept me from dealing with all of it. And now I’m just worried-” he sucked in a breath, trying to breathe around the knot forming in his throat, “now I’m just worried that I won’t ever be able to process it. Like, part of me feels like I missed the chance to really deal with any of that grief. I keep thinking that it’s eight years later and if I don’t hold onto that pain, if I let it go, I’ll have to let go of every other part of me, too.”

“Oh, Izuku.” He lifted his eyes to his mom’s. They were just as glassy as his own. “You’ve always been so strong. You were before the accident took him away, and even more so after. That strength that got you through your father’s death? You had that long before it had to carry you through your grief.” She paused, searching for the right words. “Letting your pain go isn’t the same as losing yourself, Izuku, no matter how long that hurt has lingered. I have known you for your entire life, baby, and you are not made up of grief.”

Izuku made a little choked sound and dropped his gaze to his mug again. He couldn’t face the conviction in his mother’s eyes right now. “But what if that’s not true? How can you know?”

“You are so much more than that pain, sweetie. It’s your heart that made you feel your dad’s absence so keenly, and it’s your heart that still defines you. That piece of you has never gone away. Throughout everything, you have stayed such a kind, loving person,” Izuku’s head lifted again as his mom reached across the table and covered his hand with one of her own, “and I am more proud of your heart than anything else in the world, Izuku.”

And those words- they soothed some ragged, rotten part of Izuku’s heart that he had clung to for so long. They wrapped around his fears and reminded him that they were just that- fears, and not truths.

Izuku laid his head on the table and closed his eyes as he cried and cried. He hoped that every tear that left would make room for his mother’s words. Maybe- just maybe- he could make enough room in himself for those words that he would start believing them.

“I want that to be true,” he confessed with a sob. “I don’t want to be like this forever, but I’m just so scared, Mom.”

Inko pulled her hand away only long enough to walk to his side of the table and wrap him up in another hug. She pet her hand over his curls and Izuku let himself lean into the touch. “Oh, my sweet, sweet boy. You have nothing to be afraid of. The worst of it is already over, yeah?” She pressed another kiss to his curls and Izuku felt just as broken by the gesture as he had the night before. “If I know anything, it’s that you would never let this grief win. You’ve always been so strong, honey. After everything you’ve gone through, this won’t be the thing that you lose against. My little piece of victory.”

The words were enough to remind Izuku of the reason he had started thinking of his father and all the grief he had ignored for years in the first place.

’My little piece of victory.’

It was so reminiscent of what he had told Kacchan at the Hero’s Gala.

’You’ve always been my symbol of victory, you know. Ever since we were kids.’

Had it really only been a few days ago? Izuku had cried and thought and worried so much between then and now that he felt like weeks had passed. When Izuku was able to breathe steadier, he straightened and his mother’s grip around him loosened.

“Katsuki works at my agency.”

He didn’t talk much about his job with all the NDAs he had to sign when starting, but his mom nodded at this. “Mitsuki mentioned that. I wondered why you hadn’t said anything about it.”

Sensing he was ready to start talking again, his mom made her way to her seat on the other side of the table. “It’s complicated.” Understatement. How could he begin talking to his mom about Kacchan when he had spent all his time trying to sort out how to feel about the hero himself? “At first, I didn’t tell you because I was mad,” he admitted. “I haven’t spoken to him since the day Dad died, you know?”

Another knowing nod. “I always wondered what happened between you two that day. It- it wasn’t good before then, but something changed after that. Not even Mitsuki could get Katsuki to talk about it.”

Izuku shook his head. “It doesn’t matter. Well, not anymore, at least. We talked about it after I started at the agency and I forgave him for it.” And that was still true. Izuku had been too panicked at the party to parse through his panic and understand everything he was feeling, but after being home, he had settled down enough to realize that forgiveness wasn’t the issue anymore. It had taken him hours of sorting through his own mind to realize that he hadn’t run away from Kacchan because of their fight. No, he had run away because he hadn’t dealt with everything else. For eight years Izuku had grieved, and instead of facing it head-on and mourning his father, he had molded it into something else entirely within himself. He had taken that sorrow and demanded that it be fury instead, and then, happily, Izuku had turned that fury on Kacchan.

It didn’t make Kacchan blameless. His apology for how he treated Izuku had been more than warranted, but Izuku’s lingering resentment, his lingering fear, it wasn’t really Kacchan at all. It was this.

“I forgave him, but I was still having such a hard time seeing that Kacchan and this one as the same person. All these years, I let him stay the same cruel, bitter person he was in high school in my mind.” Izuku pulled on his fingers viscously as he spoke, but even once he was aware he was doing it, he couldn’t quite curb the nervous habit.

“I vilified him. If he stayed this terrible person in my mind, then I could keep ignoring my grief about Dad and hate him instead, you know?” His mom gave a small nod of understanding, but her eyes looked pained at the thought. “But he’s not that way anymore, Mom. He’s changed so much and it just took me this long to realize that part of the reason why I kept trying to hold onto that old version of him was because if I fully accepted that he’s changed, then I don’t have any place to put that grief. I can’t keep turning all my hurt about Dad into anger and blame how I feel on Kacchan.”

He chewed on the inside of his lip. “My hatred and anger at Kacchan- it was a distraction. You said it’s my heart that defines me, but…Mom, I’ve been so unfair to him.”

It was hard to say the words that had been swimming in his head since leaving the gala, but Izuku felt…light now that they were out in the open.

“I- I forgave him,” his voice was much quieter, “but I may have screwed up everything on Saturday.”

“Oh? Why would you say that?”

“Because I got scared. I got scared and I didn’t know why, but there was a moment where it all just felt so final. Like, after that moment, I would never be able to hold the past against him. I would never be able to trick myself into thinking everything I felt about that day was just anger at Kacchan instead of everything else.” Izuku knew he was rambling, but his mom didn’t seem to care much. She just kept nodding and waiting for him to speak all these thoughts into existence. To give them all some physical weight outside the confines of his own mind.

Izuku almost wanted to laugh at the relief that came flooding in as he spoke the words to his mother. Laugh and cry, if he was being honest, but those two things had always gone hand-in-hand with him, so it was really no surprise there.

“I got scared and I ran away from him, and even if I didn’t realize why at the time, I know it hurt him.” Izuku thought back to that last glimpse he had gotten of Kacchan- the confusion and worry etched across all his features. “And then, when I finally realized why I ran away I just-“ He put his head in his hands and groaned. “I don’t even know how to face him.”

Inko was quiet for a long time, but when Izuku lifted his head out of his hands, he could see that it was because she was thinking over everything he had said. One of the things he loved most about his mother was her uncanny ability to listen and hear. It was part of the reason he had fled here yesterday. Comfort and listening and understanding about his dad and Kacchan that no one else would be able to know as intimately as she did. His mother had been right there at Izuku’s side his whole life. If he couldn’t talk about this with her, who could he speak of this with?

“You said you and Katsuki talked about what happened in the past and that you forgave him for it,” his mother mused. “Does that mean he apologized?”

“That kind of feels like an understatement.”

Inko nodded, humming. “I bet that was nerve-wracking for him.”

Izuku blinked. “Yeah.” He thought back to those painfully awkward first few weeks between them. The way that Kacchan had looked like he was balancing a knife’s edge every time he so much as spoke to Izuku. He had realized at some point that Kacchan wasn’t acting that way out of hatred, but it was strange to think that Kacchan might have acted that way due to nerves. “Yeah, it must have been.”

“But he still did it. And you still forgave him.” They weren’t questions, but Izuku nodded anyway.

“You two have always been complicated,” she smiled a bit at the word he had used to describe them earlier, “but somehow, here you are. Izuku, I know you meant what you said about your anger at Katsuki and your grief about your father, but you still had every right to never patch things up with Katsuki for the way he treated you.” She held up a hand when Izuku opened his mouth to interrupt. “You had every right, but, you say you put in the work to forgive him and I know that means he must have put in the work to earn that forgiveness.”

Izuku thought about their lunches and “leftover” katsudon in the labs. He thought about being invited to Todoroki’s agency and Kacchan introducing him to his friends. He thought about the gala and the bright sunshine feeling of that night right up until the very end and the way the scent of caramel now brought a smile to Izuku’s face.

“Yeah, yeah we both did.”

Inko let out a long breath. “Whatever doubts you have, I meant it when I said your heart is what defines you, Izuku. You are far more forgiving of slights against you than I am. But if you say he earned it and that you forgave him for it, then I believe you. Can I ask you something, though?”

“Of course.”

“After all of that, why do you think a little running would scare him off?”

Izuku blinked, but his mom wasn’t done yet. “He apologized and you forgave him. If what you tell me is true, then I think you owe it to both of yourselves to offer him the same. You said you don’t know how to face him, but he already showed you how. Apologize for running away, explain to him why you got scared. I know it’s scary, but give him a little credit, baby. I don’t think he is going to hold any of it against you, but if you want to keep Katsuki in your life, you owe it to him to fight to keep him.”

Izuku sat with that for a few minutes. Let it simmer in his chest, right up alongside his anxiety. He hadn’t even worked up the courage to look at his phone after realizing where all of his panic on Saturday had come from, but it felt so much less impossible now.

He blew out a breath after a while. “You’re right.”

Inko smiled, soft and kind. Izuku was sure there had never been a kinder person. “I’m your mother, it’s my job to be right.”

Izuku laughed, wiping away at a few stray tears that snuck down his cheeks. They didn’t feel heavy, like all the ones before. They felt like hope.

’Hope. That’s what you are. You’re my Symbol of Hope.’

Izuku smiled at the memory and facing Kacchan felt all the less impossible for it. He could already hear the teasing words he would say at Izuku’s tears and the care that ran as an undercurrent through every curse and smirk. His chest ached, and it took Izuku a moment to realize what the feeling was.

Oh, I miss him.

Just like that, huh? Izuku wasn’t sure whether he should be annoyed or proud of himself for feeling like he was finally coming around. It had taken his mind so long to catch up with his heart and he found himself inexplicably sick of waiting.

“You said Katsuki is not how he used to be?” His mom’s voice pulled him back into the dining room.

“Not at all.”

Inko gave him a quiet smile. “Tell me.”

And so, Izuku did.

Chapter Text

Izuku wasn’t planning to miss work on Tuesday, but the earliest train leaving Musutafu on Tuesday morning wouldn’t reach Tokyo until almost ten, so he did still have to call the head engineer and beg for a late start.

“Midoriya, please. You told me yesterday that you might take today off as well, so we have your work covered. It’s great if you can come in at all today, but don’t worry yourself if you end up getting here later than planned. And anyway, I heard that you already finished up the prototype for Dynamight, so you’re already ahead of your deadline for that.”

Izuku heard a faint boom and an unmistakable cackle from the other end of the line. “Hatsume!” The voice on the line got distant for a minute and Izuku heard some indistinct, muted reprimands before the engineer’s voice came through clearly again with a weary sigh. “Sorry about that. As it turns out, no one will be able to work until three or four today because we have to call in a hazmat team to deal with Hatsume’s mess.” Another long sigh, but his voice was brighter when he continued. “So you’re totally off the hook. Like I said, come in if you really want to, but don’t worry if you don’t end up making it. We’ll see you tomorrow no matter what, right?”

“Right.” Izuku was incredibly grateful for Hatsume’s antics right then. This meant he would be able to make it to the labs when everybody else got the green-light to start work again. Despite the head engineer’s assurances, there was no way Izuku was going to miss work for the second day in a row. He was ahead of his deadlines, sure, but that had been very intentional on his part, and Izuku had no desire to see that gap dwindle into nothing while he sat at home all day.

He said his goodbyes, chuckling softly at the muttered curses his boss was slinging Hatsume’s way and settled back into his seat on the train. Maybe this was good. Going straight to work right now would probably be a bad idea, anyway. His nerves were still tangled from his conversation with his mother the night before, so operating machinery that could result in loss of limb was probably not the best course of action. Izuku was bouncing his knee up and down until the lady sitting next to him gave a very loud and pointed sigh while staring at it.

“Oh, sorry.” She rolled her eyes and turned so she was almost facing away from him. His leg apparently took that as permission to start bouncing again. Izuku checked his watch and stifled a sigh. He would get to Tokyo in about an hour, but he was wishing the train would go faster. With the lab being unavailable for a while, he started rearranging his mental schedule for the day. Talk to Kacchan after work could be moved up to- Izuku blinked, his heart kicking up in time- as soon as he got off the train. Well, shit. Why wait?

After talking with his mom the day before, Izuku had felt wrung out and clear-headed. Not a terrible combination, but one that left him way too tired to try making his way back to Tokyo last night.

Izuku couldn’t keep from drumming his fingers against his leg as the train sped on and on. He still hadn’t responded to the texts or calls on his phone and he wasn’t planning to, having decided there were some things that needed to be said in person. Still, the words he had glanced at were burning a hole in his pocket. Talking to Kacchan now…well, that would just be best for everyone, wouldn’t it? Anxious flutters filled his stomach, but that anxiety paled to his determination to set the record straight with Kacchan as soon as possible. They had done enough waiting. Izuku missed him and, impossibly, wonderfully, that was enough.

Yeah, Izuku really owed Hatsume lunch for ruining the lab. If he tried testing out Kacchan’s prototype while he was distracted like this, Izuku probably would have managed to blow the lab up on his own.

He felt a little ridiculous bouncing on the balls of his feet when the train eventually pulled up to his stop, but he didn’t waste any time striding out the doors the moment they opened. He was here. In Tokyo. And Kacchan was- he sucked in a breath, picking up his pace as he left the station- Kacchan was just waiting for him. Inko’s encouragement was echoing in his mind as he took a brisk pace to his apartment.

’-if you want to keep Katsuki in your life, you owe it to him to fight to keep him.’

The words had set something loose in his chest, and the nerves were still there, of course, but they were totally eclipsed by his faith in Kacchan. Izuku’s mother had urged him to give Kacchan a chance, and Izuku had very abruptly found himself impatient to see what would come next. He felt like he was waiting for the next chapter of his life to begin, and the moment he and Kacchan talked, he would be able to turn the final page. Work today had been the final barrier, but now? Now there was nothing to hold him back. No more conditions Izuku felt the need to meet before they could begin. It felt- well, he had said it before, hadn’t he? It felt like fate.

It was thrilling and terrifying and basically everything Kacchan already embodied. Maybe that’s why Izuku found himself, despite all odds and perhaps his better judgment, running towards it head-first.

Izuku felt as light as he had at the gala, his blood all sparkling champagne bubbles once more. It had his feet almost flying across the ground in his rush to his apartment. He was calling out apologies as he bumped into a few shoulders on his way, but he was too determined to drop off his things and then get to the agency- to Kacchan- as soon as possible. He didn’t even realize that he had started running until he was breathless and laughing at the sensation. Izuku wondered if this is how heroes felt while they dashed through the streets with something as important as the rest of their lives waiting at the other end of the rush.

He was on his way to Kacchan, and nothing was more important than that. His head was in the clouds, all tied up and dizzy with thoughts of fate and inevitable moments and victory. So, really, it wasn’t Izuku’s fault that he didn’t see the hand. It wasn’t his fault that he didn’t notice the strange red substance on its palm as it reached out towards him until it was too late.

But it was. Too late, that is.

A stranger Izuku hadn’t spotted in his dash to his apartment wrapped their hand around his arm, and just like that, fate dealt Her cards.

Katsuki’s breath was spiking in his lungs, but he barely registered the pain as he ran. There was no room for pain or the limits of his body when his prey was finally within reach.

His earpiece buzzed with Kirishima’s tinny voice. ”I have eyes on him. He’s on Fudo Street, heading west. Three blocks north of Shinjuku Garden. It looks like he crossed your patrol route earlier, Dynamight, but veered off into mine when you came within a few blocks of him.”

Katsuki raised a finger to the button that would patch his voice through. “Intercepting Fudo Street in under a minute. Keeping my channel open from here on.”

After all this time of hunting the fucker down, Uproot had been spotted. And Katsuki wasn’t letting him get away this time. Too many aspiring heroes had been killed or permanently injured by this villain to feel unbiased about this capture. No, going after this guy had felt personal for weeks now.

”We have a report of one citizen injury. No word on severity, yet, but some heroes from Shouto’s agency are providing support.” Katsuki ground his teeth at the words. First heroes and now citizens? It didn’t track with this guy’s usual MO, but it just made the fury already pounding in Katsuki’s chest spike higher. Not only was this guy going after young hopefuls in the hero community, but he was hurting innocents who couldn’t protect themselves now, too? Just what the hell was he after?

Fudo Street came into view and Katsuki shot around its corner without bothering to curb his speed, using a blast from his right hand to help him bank around the turn.

“Red Riot, I see you. I’m a block east of you, but I’ll catch up.” He was taking this fungus freak off the streets if it was the last thing he did.

Another voice buzzed through the earpiece and it took Katsuki a few seconds to place that it was the hero he had been patrolling with when they had gotten the call for backup from Kirishima. ”Dynamight and I lost contact a few blocks back, but I am rerouting and should be able to intercept Uproot shortly. He’s going to cut north again when he reaches the next block.” Fuck, what had this guy’s name been? Katsuki remembered something about his quirk being able to tell where a person was going, but he couldn’t recall any of the particulars as he pushed his legs faster.

Kirishima’s hair was a beacon in the crowd and Katsuki was right on his heels as both of them swung right onto a street corner, heeding the other hero’s warning about Uproot’s next move.

“Thanks, Quickstep.” Katsuki shot Kirishima a wild grin as he finally caught up to him. Thank god one of them remembered the hero’s name. “Dynamight and I are adjusting our course now.”

Katsuki could barely recall the guy’s face, but he could kiss Quickstep right now, because as he and Kirishima barreled forward, a familiar mess of twisted roots came into view. The hero’s prediction had been right on the money. The back of Uproot’s mask leaked sap was thick and cloying and filling the air even as he ran from the heroes. Katsuki had been choking on that scent in his nightmares for weeks now.

“Dynamight and I are engaging!” Katsuki heard double as Kirishima called out the update and it echoed in his earpiece. They shared a look, just the briefest glance at one another, then the heroes were launching themselves forward.

“Move!” Kirishima yelled out at the crowd of people who were practically diving to get out of their path.

“DIE!” Katsuki let out a few explosions that launched him forward into the back of Uproot and it was mere moments before his arms were wrapping around the guy’s waist, pinning his arms to his sides as they both crashed to the ground.

Kirishima was there in an instant, gripping the wrists of Uproots hands and twisting them away from Katsuki. Katsuki hadn’t been able to see them from this angle and god, if Kiri hadn’t been right there with him-

Uproot twisted out of Kirishima’s grip and managed to kick at Katsuki until his hold loosened. Katsuki saw flashes of Yaoyarozu’s tooth fungus power point as a seeping palm reached out toward his face. He swore and dove to one side as Kirishima landed a blow to the side of Uproot’s arm and knocked its path off course.

Time blurred. Katsuki’s head emptied and fuzzed over until he was nothing more than the heat of his palms and the springing force of his muscles as they punched and kicked and dodged. Kirishima was right there in the breaths between Katsuki’s own movements. Katsuki kicked, Kirishima punched. They both lunged to one side as Uproot reached out for them. Kirishima ducked and Katsuki swept in as Uproot’s balance was thrown off. It was a fucking dance. One that Katsuki had spent years practicing with every villain take-down he had managed since his first brutal year at UA. He had moved to this song since before he had been able to decipher the beat, and Kirishima had, too.

They were made for this. Brutal artists who painted the streets with their own blood and fists and shouts.

And this fucker was no match for some of the horrors either hero had faced in the past, so it was that the dance met its inevitable end before Katsuki had fully tired. He was still buzzing and sweating and swearing by the time he had Uproot face down on the ground again, with one knee driven into his spine.

Katsuki wrenched Uproot’s hands onto his back and bound them with a zip tie from his utility belt. The villain squirmed under him, howling insults and curses that Katsuki was still too deep in the battle haze to make out. Everything around him had gone distant aside from the ragged pulls of his own lungs as he kept Uproot pinned to the earth.

“It’s fucking over,” he ground out. Kirishima was reporting into their com network, even as he rushed around to make sure no citizens that had been nearby had gotten injured in the fight. Katsuki hadn’t even had to let loose with his quirk to bring this guy down and Uproot’s quirk kept him in close quarters with his combatants, so he was fairly sure the extras loitering around would be fine.

The villain’s mask was still leaking sap all over the ground and Katsuki was doing his best not to breathe in the reeking stench too deeply as he held Uproot there. The world was coming back now, and he realized he couldn’t hear Kirishima’s voice echoing double in his ear.

Oh, I must have lost my earpiece.

It was an absurd thing to find funny, but relief at catching this guy was washing over him in waves now that the fight and fuzziness in his head had ebbed. And so that one clear thought coming through brought a smile to his face, more for the wonderful mundanity of it than out of any real humor.

Uproot was still spitting curses, but Katsuki was well-versed in tuning out villain’s vitriol at this point. He turned to Kirishima, ready to tell him about his missing earpiece and ask how long they would have to wait for the police to haul this guy off, but Katsuki’s smile fell away at his friend’s expression. “What the hell is that look for?”

Kirishima swallowed, his face waxen and drawn. “The report. Did you hear it?”

Losing his earpiece wasn’t quite so funny anymore. “Tell me.”

“The citizen injury.” Katsuki had a vague memory of someone mentioning that while he had been chasing after Kirishima and Uproot. “They’ve taken him to the hospital. He- he’ll live, but…“

“Who?” Kirishima just shook his head, eyes wide and disbelieving. “Tell me who, dammit!”

And a younger Katsuki- one that hadn’t spent years in therapy learning to master his anger and keep it from affecting his work in the field- might have become a murderer at the name Kirishima uttered.

“Red Riot.” Katsuki’s voice was a foreign thing in the wake of that name. He wasn’t sure he had ever heard it so flat before, but there could be no anger here. None at all. If he allowed himself even a lick of the emotion, he would light up like fucking tinder and raze everything around him to the earth. “I need you to secure Uproot.”

“Bak- Dynamight,” Kirishima corrected. “The surgeons said he’ll live, but his arm-“

“Red Riot,” Katsuki repeated and his voice dropped into a growl despite the leash he was struggling to keep noose-tight around his temper, “take this fucker and secure him. Now.”

Katsuki wasn’t sure how the changeover happened, but he was glad for it. Glad for the fact that Kirishima- his friend and fellow hero- now stood between him and the fungus fuck Katsuki was ready to rip to shreds. Oh god. He had thought this was personal earlier, hadn’t he? Katsuki took a step back, placing more distance between himself and the urge to completely ruin his hero status with a carefully aimed AP shot.

“Creati was the one to find him,” Kirishima was saying. “She was on patrol in the area.”

Uproot didn’t pause in his blathering to hear Katsuki say to him in a low voice, “You are one lucky son of a dick.” Because if Katsuki had known which citizen had been injured by Uproot while he was still pursuing him? If he didn’t implicitly believe Kirishima wasn’t lying to him when he said he would live? Well…

If that had been the case, Katsuki knew he would have a hell of a lot more paperwork to deal with. Death was messy, even if it was a villain meeting their end.

Sirens sounded. The police arrived and Katsuki only waited long enough to see them place quirk-suppressing cuffs on the bastard before he was turning and sprinting towards the nearest hospital. Kirishima called out for him, but Katsuki was already too far away to make out the words.

No. Everything was drowned out right then by the name- it was always that fucking name- Kirishima had spoken. The name of the citizen Uproot had injured.

’Midoriya Izuku.

Chapter Text

Katsuki fucking hated hospitals.

His year-end review at the agency last year had stated his ‘Bedside Etiquette and Recovery Attitude’ needed improvement and Katsuki had thrown it out without bothering to read the rest of Sir Nighteye’s notes about it, so he hadn’t learned if was the way he acted while he was injured in the hospital, or the way he acted towards others who were injured that was the issue. Maybe both.

A nurse came into the room that was not Katsuki’s own to check his bandages and Katsuki had to bite his tongue to keep from screaming at her that he wasn’t the one who needed attention right now.

Yeah, he thought as the nurse paled at his glare and quickly departed the room, definitely both.

But hospitals were cold and smelt like too much antiseptic trying to cover up the smell of pain, and even though they were quiet, they were somehow far too loud, so Katsuki didn’t think it was all that strange on his part to have a burning hatred of the place.

A monitor against the far wall beeped and pulled Katsuki’s attention back to the body in the bed right next to it. Every time he looked at the labored rise and fall of their chest, he saw Kirishima shaking his head in disbelief and saying that name again.

Midoriya Izuku.

The doctors had tried keeping Katsuki in his own room while his injuries healed, but being a hero and a hard-headed jackass came with its own set of perks. They stopped arguing with Katsuki to leave about an hour after he had finally found Deku’s room.

The last time Katsuki had seen Deku kept playing on a loop in his head. The doctors had all said he would wake up. They said he would wake up, so that meant the last time they talked wouldn’t be Deku running away looking fucking terrified of Katsuki. The last time they had spoken wouldn’t be fuzzed and blurred by all the drinks Katsuki had that night. Right?

They said he would wake up.

Katsuki was clinging to those words. Because even if Deku woke up and decided he hated Katsuki, that anger would be better. Anything would be better than the way they left things. Anything would be better than this.

”I can’t.” Those had been the last words Deku had spoken to him.

Deku’s chest rose and fell and the monitor beeped and Katsuki did everything in his power to hold onto the promise that Deku would wake the fuck up again. His hair had faded to a dull green under the harsh florescence and Katsuki was sure he was sinking to a new level of pathetic because he had never known what it was to miss a color until now. Deku’s freckles were washed out and faded against his pain-pale skin and his cheeks were absent of the apples of pink Katsuki had taken a keen pleasure in making rise there. The body in the bed was Deku, but Katsuki couldn’t help seeing the ways it was a corpse compared to the real thing. His gaze snagged on the bandages peeking out from beneath the hospital blanket and winding around Deku’s chest and his heart stuttered out of its normal rhythm.

He would wake up. They said he would wake up.

Katsuki let out a shaky breath and put his head in his hands. The crappy plastic chair he was sitting in groaned and squeaked with every movement he made, but moving to the cushioned one that was closer to the foot of Deku’s bed felt wrong. Katsuki deserved the way the edges bit into his skin and the way the back of the chair made his spine ache. He could almost convince himself that whatever pain he was enduring was borrowed from Deku. As long as Katsuki ached, Deku would be spared.

He rubbed his head harshly, feeling his hair knot and break beneath his palms. Gods, he was a fucking wreck right now.

The monitor beside Deku’s bed started beeping again, but Katsuki had learned within the first few hours of being here that the flashing red light didn’t mean Deku was going to die. It was just annoying as hell and worrying, that was all. He took a few deep breaths, reasoning with his panic and getting it to settle back into the steady simmer it had been at for hours now.

Hours? How long had he been here? Katsuki didn’t know. He leaned back and tugged his phone out of his pocket. 7:36 PM. And the attack had happened at some point before lunch because his patrol normally wrapped up at 11:30 AM and he had gotten the call for backup before then. He was too tired to do the math, but yeah. He’d been here awhile. Long enough that the sun was starting to set outside. He walked across the room and flicked the lights off before crossing back to his chair.

Katsuki ignored the texts that had been steadily flooding in from the group chat with his old classmates and clicked on a string of personal messages.

Round Cheeks: you’re at the hospital, right?
I know you don’t check your phone when you’re stressed but just text me when you can
I just need to know that you’re both ok

Katsuki:sorry
wasnt looking at my phone
they said he’ll wake up

The response was instant.

Round Cheeks: yeah, kiri told me that
are you ok?

Katsuki:…

Round Cheeks: it’s not your fault, bakugou

Katsuki: if i had just gotten this fucker sooner then deku would be fine
and I know you heard uproot’s reason for targeting him
so yeah. it kind of is.

Round Cheeks: i know you’re upset so I’m just going to ignore how arrogant that first bit sounded
do you remember what aizawa sensei taught us our second semester?

Katsuki: wtf are you on about
no? that was ages ago
and it’s not arrogant it's just true

Round Cheeks: yeah I thought so
it was after all might’s fight with afo, remember?
the media was going crazy and placing blame on everyone they could and do you remember what he said?
he said only idiots keep looking to place guilt on someone after the criminal is behind bars

Katsuki: yeah, well he had a lot of quotes back then

Round Cheeks: and he was usually right
(I said usually so don't bring up the banana thing)
and that Absolutely Was arrogant af
half the heroes at you and roki’s agencies have been trying to get this guy for weeks now. this wasn’t solely your responsibility.
villain's make their own choices and uproot made his

Katsuki: i get what youre saying but
uraraka
he almost lost his fucking arm

And there it was. Katsuki growled and set his phone down as he paced around the room. The movement helped keep the nausea from overwhelming him. Deku had almost lost his fucking arm, he could have lost his life, and it was all Katsuki’s fault. If he had caught this guy- if he hadn’t painted a fucking target on Izuku’s back- none of this would have happened.

It was long minutes before he was able to sit back down and pick his phone up again.

Round Cheeks: like I said. not your fault.
blame uproot, cause izu definitely will.

Katsuki sighed and leaned back until his head was resting against the wall. His phone buzzed a few minutes later.

Round Cheeks: visiting hours are over, but we’re coming by in the morning

Katsuki groaned and rubbed a hand down his face. He really didn’t want to deal with all the idiots trying to shove their way into the room. How the hell would that be a good environment for Deku? Didn’t people need peace to recover?

Katsuki: dont

Round Cheeks: do you need me to bring anything?

Katsuki: dont. come.

Round Cheeks: do. you. need. anything.

Kastuki: youre an ass

Round Cheeks:love you too
get some rest. i'll bring you clothes tomorrow
he'll wake up soon, bakugou

Katsuki ground his teeth but didn’t bother responding. Uraraka was more of a pain in the ass to deal with than Kirishima when she decided to be difficult about something, and if the rest of their old class was on her side, well… Katsuki didn’t spend the past half-decade as a pro without learning when to pick his battles.

He tried answering a few other messages, but it was just more of the same. The only person who didn’t press about Katsuki’s anger towards himself was Todoroki, but that was probably because the idiot had always known better than the rest of the class when Katsuki actually needed to be pushed about things and when to let them lie. The lecture was coming, he was sure, but Half-and-Half would wait until Katsuki was caught completely off guard by it. The fucker.

It was almost 10:00 PM by the time Katsuki sent out a text to the group chat and told them all to stop texting him so he could sleep. He turned his phone off and slipped it back into his pocket before the responses could start flooding in. He wasn’t even planning on sleeping, he just needed some peace. Just for a fucking second.

But this was a hospital- so it was terrible and peace was nowhere to be found in this fucking room- because the moment he looked up from his phone, Katsuki’s gaze locked onto the dark lump on the bed that was Deku but Not and felt his throat and gaze burn with some emotion he was still too fucking overwhelmed with to put into coherent words.

It felt a lot like fear. And it was more than that, but Katsuki just-

”I can’t,” Deku choked out, stumbling away and darting out the bathroom door before Katsuki even had the chance to ask him what he couldn’t do.

Yeah. That.

He put his head back into his hands, closing his eyes to the too-still form of Deku.

They said he would wake up. He would wake up. He would.

The machine by Deku’s bed beeped again and Katsuki had been here before, but he still had to talk his panic back down to its simmer, simmer, simmer. He was going insane. It was all I can’t, I can’t, I can’t, playing on a loop in his head and Kirishima’s wide eyes and the stench of that fucking villain as Katsuki pinned him to the ground and if that fucking machine by Deku’s bed didn’t stop beeping-

He was too in his head to hear the rustling of the crisp sheets, but there was no universe in which he would have missed the ragged whisper call out in the darkened room.

“Kacchan?”

Izuku was fairly certain he was in a hospital. It smelled like his mother used to when she would work long shifts in the ER and come back smelling of the sharp tang of rubbing alcohol and that unmistakable human scent that held on to people through every stage of life.

It was the smell, paired with the chill of the room and the shrill beep of a machine somewhere off to his right, that made Izuku almost positive that he was in a hospital, even before he managed to open his eyes. And he could feel the floaty drag of thought that came with pain medication. He had undergone a few minor surgeries in the past for his teeth and tonsils, and he had felt just like this upon waking- like everything was too distant and too near and hard to grasp and harder to hold onto when he finally managed to wrangle a thought into coherency.

Oh, I’m going to throw up, was his first thought. Izuku pushed himself up in the bed, hating the way the sheets scratched at his skin and immediately forgetting to note the sensation as he opened his eyes and spotted a hunched figure sitting in a chair near the door to his room.

It was dark outside the window and the overhead lights had been flicked off, so the only source of light to see with came from the sliver of space between the door to the hall and the floor. Even still, it only took a beat for Izuku to recognize the messy head of hair. Its normal light yellow had turned pale and desaturated in the darkness, like it belonged to the ghost of a person rather than the real thing, and hands were fisted in it like they were trying to strangle the strands.

Izuku’s throat croaked from misuse as he called out, “Kacchan?”

The hero’s head shot up and even in the dim light, Izuku could see the whites circling his irises from how wide his eyes were. There was a beat, and then Kacchan was rushing towards the hospital bed.

“You’re awake- Oh, fuck, you’re actually awake.” His hands were hovering and darting around Izuku, like he couldn’t decide where he should touch him. If he should touch him.

Izuku blinked around the room, ignoring Kacchan’s worrying relief for a moment. “Where-“ he cleared his throat, trying to smooth the hoarseness out of his voice, “where am I?”

“You’re- fuck.” Izuku was alarmed to realize Kacchan was shaking, actually trembling as he took in a breath in an effort to calm himself down. “You’re in the hospital,” he managed.

“Right. Okay, I gathered that. But, why?”

Kacchan’s eyes shot to his, narrowing in concern. “You don’t remember what happened?”

Izuku closed his eyes. He had been on the train coming back from his mother’s place. He called the head engineer and hadn’t needed to come into the labs until later that day, so he decided to go talk to Kacchan sooner rather than later. A flutter of nerves went through Izuku at that, but he was too preoccupied trying to figure out how he had ended up here to address the rather large elephant in the room right now. What happened after that?

“I got off the train from Musutafu and was running back to my apartment before I- Oh!“ His eyes flew open again and he turned to Kacchan, whose jaw was clenched. “Oh, there was a stranger reaching out. I didn’t stop in time and they-“

Izuku sucked in a breath as the memory came back to him in flashes. A pain in his arm unlike anything he had ever experienced before, far worse than broken bones or burned skin, but also entirely incomparable to either sensation. It was terrible enough that he had fainted in moments. He was going in and out of consciousness enough to remember screams from the crowded sidewalk and then a voice he felt he should have been able to place talking nearby. After that, his memory was a blank slate, heavy and dark.

“Yaoyorozu- Creati- found you.” Kacchan’s hands had finally settled for tugging and twisting the blanket at the edge of Izuku’s bed and Izuku felt a pang of jealousy towards the fabric. He barely stopped himself from shaking his head at the thought. God, they must have given him some heady medication for him to be having thoughts like that right now. “She learned how to make adipocere a few weeks back, which was damn lucky.” Kacchan was staring at Izuku’s right arm, which was covered in bandages and aching, despite the IV that was no doubt dumping medication in his system to dull the pain. “So damn lucky,” he whispered.

“Adipocere… why does that sound familiar?”

Kacchan cleared his throat, eyes tight. “Ponytail could explain it better, but it basically just slows down decomposition. If she hadn’t been there you would have lost your arm. Maybe more.”

Izuku blew out a breath. Then another, as the words really registered. Decomposition. A word for what that pain had been.

Izuku was almost scared to try, but he couldn’t resist attempting to wiggle his fingers. Even with the jolt of pain, the relief was dizzying as he saw them twitch and move at his side. Izuku’s whole career centered around fine motor skills. If he had lost the ability to create…

“That would have been…” He shook his head and let out another breath. He wasn’t sure he would be able to stop doing that for a while. “Wait, decomposition?” Kacchan nodded, face grim. “The only person I’ve heard of with a quirk like that is-“

“Uproot,” Kacchan finished.

“Oh. Fuck.” Izuku had thought Uproot only attacked heroes or aspiring heroes.

“Yeah,” Kacchan agreed, and Izuku wondered if he had said the words aloud. “Not his normal MO, but he wasn’t exactly tight-lipped when they took him into custody.”

“Custody?” Izuku’s heart jumped. “So they caught him?”

Something unreadable flashed in Kacchan’s eyes, but he nodded before Izuku could ask after it. “That fungus freak is never seeing the light of day again.”

Izuku swallowed. “He’s not…dead, is he?”

Kacchan’s jaw clenched again. “Regrettably, no. But he has enough evidence against him to land him in Tartarus for the rest of his life.”

“Oh,” Izuku let out a little breath of relief at that, “good.”

“Him being alive, or locked up?”

“Both, I guess? I don’t think it would feel right finding out he died after attacking me.” Izuku was picking absently at the edge of the blanket on his lap. “I would feel, I don’t know,” he shook his head, at a loss for how to put his relief into words, “guilty, I guess?”

“Why the fuck would you feel guilty?”

Izuku shrugged. Shook his head again. “I’m not really sure.” His head was still too foggy with pain medication for this. If he was at all related to the loss of life, even if he wasn’t the direct cause, Izuku thought he would carry that guilt with him. He just wasn’t sure he would be able to articulate that thought even if his head had been crystal clear.

“You’re such a fucking… whatever. It doesn’t matter. He’s alive and going to prison so you’d better not feel guilty for any of that shit. He made his choice, Deku.” Kacchan shook his head, seeming genuinely agitated now instead of just worried, and pushed away from the bed so he could start pacing back and forth across the room.

“Kacchan?”

“What,” he bit out.

“You seem mad.”

That caused the hero to whirl back to Izuku, eyes wide and furious. Only, the expression didn’t make Izuku balk. That was the difference between Kacchan eight years ago and the one standing in front of him now. Back then, Kacchan had always been angry at Izuku for something, anything, everything. But now? Now, Izuku knew that anger was for him. The thought sent a thrill down his spine. What could they do with all that rage? Kacchan was one of the strongest heroes in Japan, and there he stood, a calamity on Izuku’s behalf.

“I am mad!” Kacchan didn’t shout, but Izuku thought that was mostly to do with the fact that it was the middle of the night and they were still in a hospital. He was running a hand through his hair in agitation and gesturing widely with the other. “You feel guilty? You? It’s my fucking fault that-“ he cut himself off with a sharp shake of his head and then stomped over to the chair he had been sitting in when Izuku had woken up and sat down with much groaning and squeaking protesting from the plastic.

“Woah, what?” Izuku tried to rise out of the hospital bed, but the IV in his right arm kept him tethered. He resisted the ridiculous urge to rip it out. He was quite grateful to have a damper on his pain, thank you very much. “Kacchan, that can’t be what you think. Your fault? How would Uproot attacking me be your fault?”

“Because it is!”

“I really doubt that.”

“He fucking admitted it, alright? It’s my fault that you almost- fuck.”

Izuku shook his head. “Admitted it? Kacchan, you’re not making any sense right now.”

Kacchan closed his eyes, braced his elbows on his knees, and put his head in his hands. His voice was lower, flatter, when he spoke again. “You weren’t his normal target. It didn’t make any sense why he would go after a citizen, but the bastard spilled everything the moment they got him in the interrogation room. He was some hero-wannabe that had been treated like a villain growing up cause of his quirk. Guess he took their words a little too seriously.” A tale that was heard of far too often these days. It was one of the great failings of society, Izuku had always thought. Right up there with the treatment of the quirkless.

Kacchan continued, “He saw footage of the gala. Saw me and you and-“ He blew out a sharp breath and stood again. He went back to pacing around the room again. “He said heroes were getting too comfortable. That we shouldn’t be allowed to have fame and success and lives outside of hero work. As if fame is the fucking reason we do this shit.”

He turned back towards Izuku and it was a fucking relief when he started back towards the bed, cause Izuku was halfway to saying screw logic and ripping out his IV and welcoming the pain just to reach out to Kacchan.

“Kacch-“

“Don’t you get it? I’m the reason you’re in here. I’m the reason you’re hurt. If you didn’t know me- if I hadn’t tried to-“ He groaned, pulling at his hair and pleading, “I’ve been going fucking insane. You could have lost your arm. You could have died, Deku. And that is only because I put a big fucking target on your back. One that,” he let out a hysterical noise that sounded like it almost wanted to be a laugh, “you didn’t even want in the first place.”

“Ka-“

“I mean, fuck, I almost kissed you that night 'cause I’m an idiot who reads everything wrong and now my stupid one-sided obsession with you almost got you killed. And now you’re in the hospital and-“

“Kacchan!” The hero froze, eyes wide and mouth gaping around the words Izuku had cut off. Izuku huffed. “You’re freaking out. Just breathe for a minute and listen to me, alright?” Kacchan nodded and started to back away from the bed but Izuku snapped his hand out and gently held onto Kacchan’s wrist before he could move too far again. That touch was enough to make him stall. Izuku wasn’t sure Kacchan was breathing as he looked to where Izuku’s hand met his own. He looked dazed. Awestruck. Wary.

“Just- give me a second. Don’t- don’t go.” Izuku didn’t move his hand until Kacchan nodded, and even then, he only moved it down, so his palm covered the back of Kacchan’s own. He had said so much and Izuku’s head was still spinning with the fear and relief and general everything-ness that had been bouncing around in his chest since he had woken up. He took a few long seconds to sort out his thoughts.

There was so much of what Kacchan had said that Izuku wanted to address, but first-

“You didn’t.”

“Huh?” Kacchan’s brow furrowed, not following Izuku’s line of thought.

“Read it wrong.” First, Izuku would start with what he had been rushing around Tokyo to say to Kacchan in the first place. He waited, watching every movement of Kacchan’s expression as he played their conversation back. “You didn’t read anything wrong.”

‘-cause I’m an idiot who reads everything wrong-’

Kacchan sucked in a breath, crimson eyes darting up to meet Izuku’s own, bright and disbelieving and hopeful. “I didn’t-“ his hand shifted under Izuku’s until their palms were pressed together, “I didn’t read that wrong?”

Izuku shook his head, twining their fingers together and squeezing slightly. “You didn’t.”

“Then why…” He trailed off, and that guarded hurt in his face felt like a pike to Izuku’s chest. He had put that there. He was the reason Kacchan had been drowning in anxiety these past few days. All because he hadn’t been able to sort out his feelings about his late father earlier than now. Hadn’t wanted to.

“I owe you an apology,” Izuku said. “And an explanation.”

Kacchan still looked lost, but he nodded, and when Izuku moved over and patted the space next to him on the hospital bed, he warily climbed in and settled down beside him. Their hands didn’t part for an instant. It felt a little ridiculous, Izuku thought, to be drawing comfort from the press of Kacchan’s shoulder against his own when Izuku only needed comfort in the first place for fear of what he was about to explain to the very same man.

He wasn’t worried about his reaction. No, he trusted the Kacchan he had come to know to be kind and understanding about it. This wound was just very old, and he wanted to quake at the vulnerability speaking of it would bring. The potential to break him again; that’s what Izuku would be offering up. Izuku trying to convince himself that his own judgment of a person was enough proof to lay himself bare to them was… terrifying, honestly. That was the source of his fear now, not the man settled beside him.

And for Kacchan-

Izuku took a steeling breath. “I went to my mom’s house after the gala.”

“You mentioned a train from Musutafu.”

Izuku hummed. “I had- a bit of a panic back at the party and I didn’t realize why until Sunday. Mom helped me sort my head out a bit.” He turned, looking carefully at Kacchan from the corner of his vision. “Kacchan- I’m sorry I ran away. I want to talk to you about why later, maybe when I’m a bit more clear-headed, but I won’t wait to tell you this.”

That hope in Kacchan’s eyes was burning brighter and brighter with every word. “It wasn’t your fault that I ran away at the party. I just hadn’t realized I still had some stuff to sort out about how I felt about my dad and I- I got so scared. It wasn’t fair to you. I’m sorry for leaving like that and I’m sorry if you’ve felt like it was something you did to drive me away.” Izuku tightened his grip on Kacchan’s hand, relishing in the warmth and balance the gesture gave him. “I got back to Tokyo and was running so I could talk to you about it, actually.” He chuckled lightly at himself and the insane energy that had overtaken him as he rushed through the streets in his desperation to patch things up with Kacchan. “I was out of my mind,” he admitted. “I was being a bit of an idiot, really. It was no wonder that I didn’t spot Uproot.” Kacchan’s hand clenched Izuku’s fingers tighter.

“I just needed to find you. I had to tell you that it wasn’t your fault and that it was just my own mess that made me run that night. I wanted to tell you that-” And here, Izuku pulled his hand away and sucked in a breath, anxiety fluttering through him as he willed himself to put his heart out on the bed between them. He turned, meeting Kacchan’s eyes fully, and took in that soft, impossible look of affection and confusion and wonder on the hero’s face. “I wanted to tell you that I care about you, Kacchan. I spent eight years of my life hating a version of you that stopped existing at some point between then and now, and I see that. I see you. I see everything you have become, the person you’ve grown into, and I was really doomed from that first day I started at the agency. It was inevitable, really, because I may have hated you back then, but I was hopeless to do anything but love who you are now.”

Izuku’s heart was pounding, his ears filling with the rush of blood in the quiet after his confession. Because he could try denying it for longer, but what was the point, really? What had he and Kacchan been all these years, if not violent in their feelings towards one another? It had just taken Izuku a long time to realize that love could be as violent of a force as hatred. The only difference was, Izuku was certain he would ruin himself with glee over and over again for this particular brand of violence. He would do anything for the look that was taking over Kacchan’s face.

“You-“ Kacchan’s eyes were darting back and forth between Izuku’s own. “You mean that? You love me?” He spoke the words soft, like they were something precious and fragile he needed to sound out gently into the world or run the risk of breaking.

“How could I not?” Izuku shrugged, even though the gesture felt far too casual for the feeling bubbling up in his chest. His head was still foggy, but Izuku didn’t have to think too hard about this. The words were the truth, and what was harder or easier than that? “I love you, Kacchan. I’m sorry it took me so long to fight for it. For you.”

There was a pause and Izuku’s whole world was the ruby of Kacchan’s eyes as he searched Izuku’s own. Something cracked in his gaze and Izuku’s heart kicked up as he realized that something was control.

He wasn’t sure which one of them surged forward first, maybe both, but it didn’t matter because the only thing that did was the fact that they were finally reaching across the space and meeting. Izuku’s lips collided with Kacchan’s, a touch two lifetimes in the making, and it was everything, everything, everything he had been falling for these long weeks. Kacchan’s teeth scraped along the bottom of Izuku’s lip. He let out a whining noise against Kacchan’s mouth that would have been embarrassing if he had enough of his mind about him to care about such things. He leaned forward until their chests were pressed together, two hearts pounding and desperate to touch against their sternums.

Kacchan’s mouth parted enough for Izuku to slip his tongue across the seam and he wasn’t sure which of them- maybe both of them- moaned at the soft press and slide of each other’s tongues as Izuku dove in. Izuku’s left hand clutched at Kacchan’s shirt, wanting him closer, closer, closer and Kacchan’s own hand found its way to Izuku’s curls.

They broke apart, panting for air. “Fuck, you’re just so-“ Kacchan let out a low groan before surging back in and Izuku was sure there was nothing better than this. Nothing better than the way Kacchan’s callouses felt brushing against his temples as his fingers carded through Izuku’s hair. Nothing better than the way Izuku couldn’t smell the hospital for all the caramel, caramel, caramel filling up the space between them.

Izuku’s hand traveled up the hero’s chest and then to the back of Kacchan’s neck, feeling the heat pulse beneath his palm and distantly some part of Izuku wanted to keen and cry at the inherent trust that was in every touch Kacchan allowed. Kacchan had hurt him and he had hurt Kacchan in turn, but god- this was all the proof he needed that a little pain would never be able to break what lay between them.

They broke apart again and Izuku watched a shutter run through Kacchan. His hand dropped to the bed and found Izuku’s own in the dim darkness of the room, like he had never needed sight to find his way back, and Izuku’s heart leapt at the contact. So much sweeter than their frantic kiss moments before, but somehow more vulnerable, too. What was it about the way that Kacchan rubbed his thumb across the back of Izuku’s knuckles that set his heart racing as quickly as the way the hot press of Kacchan’s lips against his own had? Izuku hardly knew.

As the adrenaline of the moment ebbed, Izuku’s energy faded with it.

Ah, right. Hospital. Somehow, he had managed to forget about the villain attack and the dull pain in his arm in the midst of his confession, but it made itself known to him now.

Sensing his sudden tiredness, Kacchan let them settle into the hospital bed and Izuku did his best to ignore the way he was practically clinging to Kacchan’s side as they laid down. Their legs tangled each other, even as Kacchan made sure Izuku’s bandaged right arm didn’t jostle with their movements. At this angle, Izuku could hear the steady thudding of Kacchan’s heart from where his ear was pressed to the hero’s chest.

Izuku’s head was light and dizzy, so he set it on Kacchan’s shoulder. “We still need to talk,” he mumbled. He wanted to talk to Kacchan about all the misplaced hate and grief. He wanted to talk about that day eight years ago and his conversation with his mom, but it was getting harder and harder to keep his eyes open.

Kacchan huffed. “Shut the hell up, Deku. Go to sleep, you need to rest.” Izuku smiled dopily as he felt a light flick to the side of his head. “And we have time.”

What a beautiful luxury, that.

“I need to buy Yaoyorozu some chocolate,” Izuku grumbled. The words were slurred and slippery with exhaustion.

“The fuck you do,” Kacchan grumbled. “Saving people is her job. You don’t need to buy her anything. You can tell her thanks, but leave the chocolate buying to me.”

“Why do you get to buy her chocolate but I don’t?” Izuku asked, a little indignant. “S’not fair.”

“Because it’s her job to save people,” Kacchan said, “but she didn’t save people, she saved you, and that’s-” Kacchan cleared his throat. “It’s different, that’s all.”

Izuku hummed and gave in to the insistent tug of his eyelids down, down, down. “If you say so, Kacchan.”

“I do.”

“You’ll still be here in the morning?”

There was a beat of silence, then a soft, “Of course I will, Deku.”

“Oh. Good.” Izuku snuggled in, letting his world fade away until it was nothing but warmth and caramel.

“Anything for you, Izuku.” He could have sworn he felt a chaste kiss press to the top of his head, but he was too tired to say for sure. And the next words would have been a dream, even if Izuku had been fully awake to hear them. “I love you, too, idiot. Just go to sleep.”

Izuku didn’t even have a snappy remark to respond with, because he was too busy doing exactly that.

Chapter Text

Two Months Later

“Holy shit.”

Deku pursed his lips at the curse, but Katsuki could tell that he was doing his best not to smile and break the chastising expression. “Surely you can give me a little more feedback than that, Kacchan.”

“Holy fucking shit, Deku.” The engineer rolled his eyes in exasperation, but Deku kept tapping his pen to the side of his clipboard and Katsuki saw the nervous motion for what it was and decided to take pity on the man. “Seriously,” he turned his hips and peered over his own shoulder at the metal mechanisms Deku had fashioned to his legs, “you’ve outdone yourself, you fucking nerd.”

Deku bit his lip. “Yeah?”

Katsuki knew his smile was deadly under the bright lights of Might Tower’s workshop. “Fuck yeah.”

The prototype Deku had been working on for Katsuki had finally finished up its testing phase. It was about a month after Deku’s original projected timeline- much to the engineer’s utter chagrin- but no one had expected him to keep to his ridiculous self-imposed deadlines while he was still recovering from Uproot’s attack. Deku had only been allowed back at work a little over a month ago after weeks of physical therapy for his hand, but Katsuki had been the better part of that time bullying his boyfriend into leaving the labs before the sun set.

Boyfriend.

Even now- almost two full months after they had talked through those eight years apart and made it official between them- that word sent a thrill through Katsuki. His friends had given him enough shit right after he and Deku went public that Katsuki would deny the fact that that word still made him feel all soppy inside until his dying breath.

“How does it feel?” Deku’s voice pulled Katsuki out of his head and back into the labs. “Does it pinch anywhere? Too heavy?”

Katsuki looked back down at the dark metal on his legs. Right now, he didn’t have his full costume on, but when he wore his metal kneepads, Deku’s support gear would be completely hidden from view. Deku had taken inspiration from Katsuki’s hand grenades, apparently. A few months back he had run a bunch of tests on Katsuki and figured out that the nitroglycerin-like sweat wasn’t localized to Katsuki’s palms like he had thought. Though it was diluted into actual sweat, apparently the same substance could be found all over Katsuki’s body. It was far less ignitable than what was on Katsuki’s palms and he couldn’t actually light the sweat on the rest of his body on command the way he did with his hands, but Deku had figured out a way to use all that extra sweat to Katsuki’s advantage regardless.

The support item Deku had designed would catch extra sweat from Katsuki’s chest, back, and legs, and store it in reservoirs in the soles of his combat boots. The reservoirs had been fashioned out of the same metal alloy that Kato, Deku’s designer friend from college, had in his hair. Deku knew all the technical science behind that shit, but apparently, it was strong enough to withstand the heat of multiple of Katsuki’s blasts without warping and would insulate the heat enough that Katsuki wouldn’t burn the soles of his feet by utilizing the reservoirs.

Since Katsuki couldn’t ignite the collected sweat with his quirk, Deku had built a system into his gloves that would activate an explosion with a specific hand movement. His right hand controlled his right boot and his left hand controlled the left boot, which would theoretically allow him to use the gear to maneuver and change directions in the air while sparing his arms the strain. It was fucking ingenious.

“No, it doesn’t pinch.” Katsuki moved around, jumping and jogging in place a bit to prove his point. It was unreal how light Deku had managed to make the gear. It barely added any weight at all.

Deku was biting his lip and circling Katsuki, giving the metal bracings another once over. “It might take you a while to get used to moving with it,” Deku said, “so I’m not sure how helpful it will be right at the start.”

“Yeah, the grenades had a bit of a learning curve, too.” Katsuki could still feel the phantom pains of dislocating his shoulders one too many times when he had first started using the gear. “That’s fine, Deku. Just another excuse to get some training in.” Really, it was more than fine. Katsuki’s boyfriend was a goddamn genius. If he was able to master this new gear, Katsuki would be able to increase his mobility tenfold. Being able to move around the battlefield and attack with his hands at the same time? He was a long way off from achieving that kind of mastery of the equipment, but it wasn’t an impossibility anymore.

And now that testing was done, it was just a matter of Katsuki living up to the gear’s full capabilities. He wasn’t about to be outdone by a few hunks of metal.

When he said as much, Deku scowled. “Please don’t describe the gear I worked on for months using the word ‘hunk.’ There’s a little more to it than that.”

“They’re great fucking hunks, though.”

“I don’t think that makes it better.”

“No?” Katsuki stopped his jumping jacks and closed the distance between them, sweeping Deku into his chest with a hand around the man’s waist. “How about now?” His voice was low and gravely in Deku’s ear and his heartbeat kicked up at the little snort Deku gave that set his pine-green eyes twinkling.

Deku smiled and pressed a quick peck to Katsuki’s lips before pulling out of his arms. “Good try, but I’m still a little offended.”

“Guess I’ll have to find some other way to make it up to you.” Katsuki fought off another grin as the tips of Deku’s ears went delightfully pink at the insinuation in his tone. The engineer spun and strode back to his workbench with a little cough. Katsuki was glad they were the only ones stupid enough to be in the labs this late, otherwise, Deku would have boxed him over the head for that comment. He thought Katsuki making come-ons at the agency was “unprofessional” and that he was “undercutting the important work they did”. Every time he made that argument though, Katsuki just brought up the way Jirou and Momo behaved until Deku was sputtering about how those two should not be the example to the rest of them.

Deku returned from his bench a few beats later with two familiar-looking black starbursts of metal in his hands.

“Are those my earpieces?”

Deku extended them to Katsuki with a barely suppressed smile. “New and improved. Try them on.”

“This wasn’t part of what I asked you to make,” Katsuki grumbled, thinking about how many extra hours Deku must have put in to get these made in time for the prototype’s testing to wrap up. Knowing Deku, the earpieces probably came with an infrared system that projected into Katsuki’s brain or some other type of ridiculously useful and complicated technology. Fuck, he was in love with this idiot. Just thinking about how smart Deku was made Katsuki’s palms break out in a sweat.

“It’s not anything special,” Deku was saying as Katsuki clipped the pieces into place behind his ears. There was a little rubber bit that slid into the canal of Katsuki’s ear the same way headphones or earplugs would. “I just integrated some existing tech that I thought would be useful.”

As the earpiece slid into place, Katsuki’s eyes widened. The slight buzz of the overhead lights vanished completely. In fact, all of the ambient sounds of the room faded into a distant, muted thing.

“Earplugs?” His own voice came through crystal-clear through the headpieces, so they didn’t even seem to be particularly effective earplugs, at that.

Katsuki didn’t notice the finger Deku stuck into his own ear until the engineer was pulling out an airhorn from only-god-knew-where and pressing down on the top. Katsuki jerked back, ready to cover his ears on instinct, but no sound came.

“What-“ he tugged off one earpiece and swore when Deku pressed on the airhorn again, only to have it blast painfully in Katsuki’s ears.

A small part of him wanted to curse Deku out for the pain he had just inflicted on Katsuki’s eardrums, but a much larger part of him was getting too wrapped up and excited about what it seemed like the earpieces could do. He slid them both back into place.

“I can hear myself talk.” He decided to ignore how downright awestruck he sounded at that fact.

Deku nodded, fully grinning now. “And you can hear me, too. You can still hear yells and most street noises and if you press that button on the left earpiece, you’ll be able to hear everything around you no matter what.”

“But?” Katsuki prompted.

“But, the noise-canceling features kick in at around ninety decibels, so you won’t have to hear the really loud sounds.”

Like the sounds of his own explosions.

Katsuki thought back to the gala and that conversation Deku had with Present Mic. He had mentioned wanting to create something like this to help prevent Katsuki’s hearing from getting worse back then, but hadn’t spoken a word about it since. Katsuki had honestly completely forgotten about the idea, but now-

“God, you’re so fucking attractive right now.”

Grease-smeared hands batted playfully at Katsuki as he swept Deku off his feet and spun him in a circle. “I could just kick your ass right now,” he said amidst Deku’s laughter. “It’s not fair that you’re this hot when you act all nerdy and science-y. This is really bad for my image, you know, getting all riled up by shit like this.”

“What the fuck, Kacchan?” Deku was still laughing as Katsuki set him back on the ground. “You want to kick my ass for that?”

Katsuki dipped in for a kiss that was clumsy for the smiles they were both still sporting. “Absolutely.”

“Your head is seriously messed up.”

Katsuki hummed, pressing another kiss to Deku’s mouth. Slower this time. Deeper. “So I’ve been told.”

They spent the next few minutes… a little distracted, to say the least, and Deku’s cheeks were flushed pink and happy when they pulled apart. He lifted his right hand to Katsuki’s face and ran his fingers along the hero’s cheekbone.

“You really like the gear that much?”

Katsuki caught his hand before it could drop and moved it so he could press a kiss to the back of Deku’s knuckles. The mangled scars that riddled his whole right arm had bothered Deku initially, but Katsuki was bound and determined to prove how much the aftermath of Uproot’s attack didn’t lessen how gorgeous he found the engineer. Covering Deku’s arm in peppering kisses was a common occurrence now- one that Katsuki had no intentions of curbing anytime soon.

He turned Deku’s hand over and pressed another kiss to the pulse-point on the inside of his wrist. “Do I need to prove it to you again?” he eventually muttered answered, his lips still brushing the soft skin. If he closed his eyes, he could almost swear he could feel Deku’s pulse dance under his lips.

Deku did bat at Katsuki’s head then. “We’re still in the office. Control yourself until we get home.”

That was a new thing- Deku calling Katsuki’s apartment “home”. Neither of them had acknowledged it just yet, but Katsuki was just waiting until the right time to bring up the idea of officially moving in together.

Katsuki glanced up and quirked one eyebrow at his boyfriend. “Only ‘til we get home? Promise?”

Deku pulled his hand away and flicked Katsuki between the brows. “You’re relentless.”

Katsuki just grunted his agreement and started peeling off his hero costume as Deku headed back over to his workstation. After he was back in a fitted tee and jeans, he moved over to help Deku organize the piles of materials that littered his bench’s surface.

Despite the prototype for Katsuki wrapping up, the space was still cluttered with wires and metal scraps and circuit boards for gear Katsuki could probably never dream up on his own. Deku may be done helping Dynamight for now, but Katsuki knew that he would go on to help dozens of other heroes at the agency with his gear. He had told Katsuki just two days ago that he was wrapping up work for the cloth Kirishima had requested that would harden along with his quirk, and apparently Jirou had visited him a few weeks back with a request for some enhancements to their sonic emitters.

“What’s that look for?” Deku’s question pulled Katsuki out of his thoughts again. He had been getting lost in them all day and Deku had always been able to pick up quicker than most when he was drifting somewhere else.

“It’s nothing, really.” He shook his head. “I was just thinking about how I asked for this gear when you first got to the agency so I would have the chance to spend time with you, even though you hated me.”

Izuku hummed. “That was a little manipulative, you know. Using work against me like that.” His voice was all teasing, though, and the way he was tugging playfully at Katsuki’s belt loop was ruining any chance for his words to come across as genuinely upset.

Katsuki huffed out a laugh, feeling strangely wistful about the fact that this chapter of their relationship was coming to an end.

“Well don’t look so morose about it,” Deku bumped Katsuki’s shoulder with his own and carried a handful of metal shavings to the industrial trash bin by the door. “You know I won’t stop making you gear until you ask, right? You have my permission to manipulate me as much as you’d like.” He shot a narrow-eyed look at Katsuki over his shoulder. “At least when it comes to making gear. Don’t abuse that power.”

Katsuki snorted but was distracted from retorting by his phone pinging with a text. He read it and let out a low swear.

“What is it?” Deku peered over his shoulder to read the message Todoroki had just sent their old class’ groupchat. “Oh.” He gasped. “Oh!” He whacked Katsuki’s shoulder and ignored his noise of indignation. “Kacchan! Do you know what this means?”

“That the media is going to be all up Icy-Hot’s ass for buying Endeavor’s agency out from under him?” Katsuki’s head was already pounding just imagining all the magazine spreads with the half-and-half bastard’s mug on them that he was going to have to endure for the foreseeable future.

“No, not that. Don’t you remember what Todoroki said at the gala?”

“Probably something idiotic and pretentious. I tend to tune him out for the sake of the general public’s safety. Can’t risk blowing up some extra just ‘cause he says something extra stupid.”

“Kacchan,” Deku chided, pulling at his arm like a child. “He said that he was going to announce his and Sero’s engagement after they bought the agency.”

“Oh, shit.” Yeah, Katsuki vaguely remembered that now. “Sero said it was going to be a Spring wedding, right?”

Deku ignored him, too busy fetching his own phone and typing out his congratulations in the groupchat with far too many emojis and exclamation points for Katsuki’s taste. It had only taken about a week after they started dating for Deku to be added to the chat and Katsuki was still a little bitter about it, seeing as his friends hadn’t let him join the chat until they were well into their second year of high school. Bunch of traitors, the lot of them.

Deku’s head popped up. “I know you were going to cook some tempura for us tonight, but would you want to make it for the rest of the group, too?”

And really, how could Katsuki say no to the excitement sparkling in Deku’s eyes or the way his bottom lip was almost jutting out in a pleading pout? He let out a groan, trying to sound far more put-out about the idea than he actually was, and dialed Todoroki’s number.

A smooth voice came through the other line after a few rings. “Hello?””

“I’m cooking tempura for you and Tape-Face since this means you two are about to announce your engagement.”

There was a beat of silence. “You remembered that?”

Katsuki didn’t notice Deku walking up to him until the engineer plucked the phone from his hand and switched it over to speaker. He must have heard Todoroki’s question, because he answered with a bright, “No, his better half did.”

“Ah, I see.” Katsuki rolled his eyes at the way he could hear the fucking smile in Todoroki’s voice, “Hello, Midoriya. So we are having dinner at your place then, Bakugou?”

He let out a sigh of long-suffering. “Apparently so. I have to run by the store on the way home to grab more supplies, but I’ll text everyone to meet back at mine in an hour.”

“Congrats, Todoroki. Kacchan won’t say it, but he’s excited for you and Sero, too.”

Katsuki huffed, then considered. “I guess I wouldn’t mind drinking to you pulling one over on your old man. You and Ponytail have been practically running that place since you graduated. It’s about damn time you didn’t have to wait around on his ass to sign papers to actually get shit done.”

There was a small puff of laughter from the other side of the line. “Thank you, both. Hanta and I will see you soon.”

They made quick work of finishing cleaning up Deku’s workstation after that, talking about what they were going to need to grab from the store on their way home. (Home.)

“- and, oh!” Deku said as he tugged Katsuki towards the door. “We can’t forget to buy some anti-acid for Iida. You remember what happened the last time we were at Tsu’s place?”

“Fuck,” he groaned, “don’t remind me.”

They hopped on to the elevator and Deku pressed the button for the ground floor. The entire building was quiet in the early hours of the evening, but Deku still waited until the doors closed to grab onto the front of Katsuki’s shirt and tug him down so their lips could meet. The kiss was soft. Familiar. Everything Katsuki had spent a lifetime pining after and so much more than all that. It still stole his breath away that they could do this now- that Katsuki could reach and Deku would be right there, all too willing to meet his outstretched arms. After all the times they had missed and hurt one another, every touch felt equal parts miraculous and inevitable.

Katsuki could live here for the rest of time, with his tongue teasing at Deku’s mouth and the faint scrape of Deku’s teeth against his bottom lip, but they pulled apart as the elevator dinged and the doors opened once more.

As they left the agency, Katsuki grasped Deku’s right hand- rubbing his thumb across the scar that spanned his knuckles on habit- and they stepped out into the street, side-by-side.

“Come on,” Deku tugged him forward to pick up Katsuki’s pace and gave him a cheeky grin over his shoulder. “Let’s go see our friends.”

Katsuki smiled despite himself, thinking of the way he and Deku had been doing this their entire lives- tugging each other forward or back, but never able to let go of the other’s hand for good, even through the worst of it.

Yeah, he thought, they have a lot to celebrate tonight.

He let Deku pull him forward- with only minimal grumbling on Katsuki’s part- into the warm night. One chapter over, and even if Katsuki would miss it for the fact that this chapter had finally brought the two of them together, he couldn’t wait for the next one to begin.

It eluded us then, but that’s no matter- tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther… and one fine morning-

So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.

- F. Scott Fitzgerald