Chapter Text
Katsuki's wallet had been destroyed during the fight.
Carrying it with him had been a mistake, no matter how much of a rush he had been in. But it’s past three in the morning and he is too tired from the fight to beat himself up about it.
Not that anybody needs to know, but after spending the last couple of weeks hunting down the very same villain that had been terrorizing Katsuki’s patrol area at night for the past month, getting to his apartment is all he can think about.
Catching the fucker feels good, but even Katsuki can admit it was a hassle. His muscles are sore, there is an insistent buzz in his left ear that has given him the vertigo of a lifetime, and, fuck. Couldn’t the bastard have aimed anywhere else but the part of his stomach that housed his biggest scar?
As for the wallet... Katsuki squints at the poor excuse of cash he had saved in his emergency pocket.
He stares at the two snacks he thought of buying. One for him and one for Izuku. They are, as usual, overpriced, so he makes one quick choice.
Katsuki always sticks to his word - even when that means getting Izuku his crappy, overpriced snack.
After paying, he heads out to find his friends devouring their fast food on a nearby bench. It’s kind of disgusting, but Katsuki walks to them anyway.
Denki snaps his head up from his plastic cup noodles to look at him and his purchase. “Ouch, dude, I forgot your wallet got fried. I could’ve-”
“Save it,” Katsuki cuts him off right away. Accepting money for something as trivial as buying snacks from a convenience store is out of the question.
“What did you get?” Eijirou asks. Mina and him are splitting their triangular sandwiches. He seems to consider passing one of those to Katsuki, but by looking at him, realizes it’s a bad idea. “I thought you were going to get those fancy spicy chocolates you like so much.”
Eijirou is right and that irritates him.
“Apple pie?” Denki squints closer before Katsuki can push his face away from him, eyebrows raised. “You like those?”
“Fuck no,” Katsuki grunts. The sole sight of them is nausea-inducing. “They are too damn sweet and sticky. Disgusting.”
“Then why did you buy one?”
“It’s not for me, dumbass.”
Mina hums and a flash of recognition passes through her eyes before she points to the small package. “Aren’t those the ones that Midoriya likes so much?”
“Oh, they are.” Eijirou nods, but then his face twists in confusion, with an expression pretty similar to Mina’s. They are spending too much time together, Katsuki thinks, it’s not doing either of them any good.
Denki doesn’t look any better. “Dude, you spent all your cash on a snack for Midoriya?” There is a hint of a nervous smile that gets wider and wider before he has one of those annoying looks on him - all teeth and sparkly eyes. Katsuki wants to punch him in the face on reflex alone. “Aw, Kacchan! Aren’t you just the sweetest?”
The reflex was right. The wave of annoyance that hits Katsuki is immediate.
“Getting something for Midoriya before yourself,” Denki continues and when Katsuki is about to grab him by his shirt, he scrambles quickly to stand up out of his reach. “You are so domestic it hurts.”
“What the fuck did you just call me?”
“I’m pretty sure that’s not an insult.” Eijirou sighs. He stands up between them with his back to Denki, raising both hands to try and appease the situation. It doesn’t work - Katsuki feels his blood starting to boil under his skin.
“Come on, Kacchan. Can’t be mad at the truth!”
“Leave him alone, Denki.” Eijirou manages to catch Katsuki’s blow, quirk activated and all.
“The fuck are you talking about?” Katsuki grits his teeth. Whatever cheap brand of noodles Denki was having must have been past their due date if it’s giving him the nerve to talk about him like that.
“You know what I mean.” Denki’s chuckle paired up with Eijirou’s apologetic smile doesn’t sit well with Katsuki. “The domestic things you and Midoriya do all the time, like how you live together and–”
“We don’t fucking live together,” Katsuki snaps. “We share an apartment out of convenience.”
“It’s the same thing.”
“Enough,” Eijirou says, casually shutting down Denki with a hand over his mouth and keeping Katsuki in place with the other on his chest. “Both of you.” His eyes remain on Katsuki, though, probably to give him a piece of his mind. This routine is nothing new. “What Denki here is trying to say is that we’re happy that you and Midoriya have become close friends.”
Close friends, Katsuki can’t stop from cringing at that.
It doesn’t matter if it’s somewhat true. He won’t be saying that out loud any time soon.
As if that hasn’t been enough, Eijirou smiles wholeheartedly, with that stupidly honest expression he has and Katsuki has a weird feeling about it. It’s as if he knows something Katsuki doesn’t know yet and that pisses him off.
“What you and Midoriya have right now is good,” he adds and that makes something sink into Katsuki’s stomach.
“It’s kinda cute,” Mina adds, bringing their full attention to her, she is still sitting on the bench and seems to be finishing Denki’s food.
Perhaps it’s the accumulated exhaustion of restless days tracking down a freak that only operates at night, but this whole exchange is taking a toll on Katsuki’s remaining stamina. He suddenly feels too tired to keep doing this.
“You are out of your mind,” Katsuki says, so whatever this is turning into can stop. No matter what they mean by disgusting domestic shit, he couldn’t care less. “I don’t have time for this shit. Let me know when you are done so I can fuck off.”
That seems to do the trick. Everyone shuts up about his relationship with Izuku - something that shouldn’t be discussed ever - and soon enough, they are parting ways.
Domestic.
Katsuki scoffs.
Katsuki has been called many things in his life - way worse things - but that one is just plainly ridiculous.
It sounds phony. He hopes he’ll never hear it again.
When he steps inside his apartment, he almost wants to explode again. It’s already four in the morning and yet both the lights and the TV in the living room are on.
If the light bill is above their average two months in a row, Izuku can be counting the end of his days.
Katsuki finds him on the living room couch - exactly like he’d pictured him - Izuku is knocked out and laying on his side, with his dumb pajamas that say ‘sleep’ at the back. He is about to drool all over the cushion.
Hell no.
Pulling the cushion from below him is easy. Izuku is in such a deep sleep, he doesn’t seem to mind the thud his head does against the couch.
Katsuki considers kicking him off of the couch as well, but decides it’s not worth the effort and only turns the TV off. Not before noticing that Izuku was watching the live hero news channel again, because he is insane and if there is someone even more of a workaholic than Katsuki himself, it’s him.
It occurs to Katsuki then to check his messages - and there it is.
Of course.
Of fucking course he has a congratulations message from the nerd for today’s victory. Izuku must have been watching the whole thing too. There is no other message, but if he dares to ask about Katsuki’s injuries in the morning, it’s on sight.
What has Katsuki’s life come to? All he can say is that it has taken a bunch of unexpected turns.
For a long time, this civil relationship with Izuku had been impossible. It had always been complicated between them, and Katsuki knows it’s one of the outcomes of knowing each other for most of their lives.
If not all of them, he thinks. The memories he has before Izuku are so scattered and blurry, he may as well have known him his whole life. Not that it matters - those couple of years wouldn’t have made a difference.
Dealing with Izuku has never been easy for him and Katsuki knows he has fucked up way more times than he is comfortable talking about. Most of it may be in the distant past now - they were kids, young and stupid, and in Katsuki’s case, really fucking angry. But if he were to put what they had into words, calling it an outright shitshow probably wouldn’t do it justice.
Many of the things that Katsuki felt between his pride, envy, resentment, and fear, remain inexplicable. This whole teen angst deal was embarrassing - no point in thinking further about it after he had made up his mind about changing.
Atoning was one thing.
Friendship was a whole other deal.
Katsuki blames the proximity UA forced on them and Izuku’s hard-to-kill stubbornness for waking up one day and realizing that, despite it all, they had been slowly drifting towards each other once again.
Izuku never tried to distance himself, and when Katsuki gave the very first conscious step into that unknown territory of being close with Izuku once more, he couldn’t stop the nerd from skyrocketing towards it.
That’s how Izuku works. Give him an inch and he’ll take the goddamn mile.
Katsuki isn’t complaining, though.
Building back some kind of normal relationship, improving it, and in the meantime, becoming proper rivals that challenge and push each other forward hasn’t been easy, but they’ve never half-assed anything before.
The fact that now they share an apartment and are a provisional duo from time to time must be enough proof of how far they’ve come. Katsuki swallowing his pride and getting him his disgusting apple pie from the store is the cherry on top. He should get a medal for that.
But there is a long way to go before he would have whatever Denki was suggesting earlier with Izuku.
A long way he had never considered.
Katsuki grunts, dismissing that thought immediately.
Instead of focusing on that, he should be getting something to eat. It has been about eight hours since his last proper meal. Because he doesn’t have to patrol for the whole day, he may as well prepare himself something for a quick breakfast before taking a nap.
When Katsuki opens the fridge, he finds one plastic container with a small note attached to it.
'Kacchan’s Dinner :)'
Katsuki rolls his eyes before taking the container out, placing the pie he got from the store in its place. There won’t be any cheesy dumb note, Izuku will know it’s for him right away.
It’s his favorite, after all.