Chapter Text
Katsuki likes to think he’s more patient than people give him credit for. He doesn’t yell at the interns for fucking up his filing system (the first time), he’s nice to baristas when his coffee takes half an hour to make (it’s black. Why does he have to wait for the grown ass man in front of him to get a fucking milkshake at 6 in the morning first when all he ordered was a plain black coffee), he listens to Kirishima when he’s gushing about Ashido’s hair/eyes/horn/ass/whatever for the 3000th time. He worked on anger management with his therapist for years and sorted out his complexes and trauma and issues and whatnot. So all in all, Katsuki would say he’s as much of a patient guy as can be expected of the son of Bakugou Mitsuki.
So it was frankly impressive, honestly, how Izuku had managed to get on his last fucking nerve yet again, drive him to the very edge of that carefully developed patience. Deku should be proud.
“You want us to what.” Katsuki grit out, glaring at their agency manager. Next to him, Izuku squirmed, twisting his hands together and furthering Katsuki’s ire.
“It will be a good experience for you both as heroes,” the bastard explained patiently, as if Katsuki hadn’t already run through all the pros and cons in his head himself. “Going undercover is a great learning experience, and you won’t be able to once you’ve fully established yourselves as Pros and become more popular. Also, we’re short on staff right now, given the situation in Korea.”
A kid with a wave manipulation quirk had freaked out at sea (seriously, did parents never consider these things when planning trips?) and caused a minor tsunami to hit Geoje. The fallout had been disastrous, the Japanese Hero Association called in to provide aid. Unfortunately, there was little an explosion quirk could do to support the relief efforts, and although the same could not be said for Blackwhip, he and Deku were told to stay in Japan in an effort to maximize efficiency and let the homefront remain prepared in the event of an emergency, too.
Izuku glanced at him, still fidgeting with his hands, while Katsuki glowered at Issei, their manager at Miruko’s agency, who coincidentally took a special interest in their future as a duo. “It might even be fun,” they said, not smiling but with a poorly-concealed twinkle in their eyes.
Katsuki, finally snapping, reached out and stilled Izuku’s hands himself with one of his own in a harsh grip.
“You want us to pretend to be a couple. In some random ass town. For an undefined amount of time.” He snapped, still pissed as all hell that he would even be considered for such a mission. Why not send Shitty Hair! Cheeks! Glasses! Anyone less temperamental who got on fine with Deku!
Said useless hero had gone completely still next to him, as if a single movement could disrupt the space-time continuum. Issei glanced downward at somewhere around Deku’s torso as they went on about the importance of the mission, face carefully blank, and Katsuki followed his eyeline to… oh. He was still practically holding Deku’s hand.
Pulling away, Katsuki put his hands in his pockets, leaning back slightly in his chair with his legs stretched out and haughtily apart, chin tilted up in his typical fuck-with-me-and-die stance that always made shitty fangirls squeal (and Deku flush and look away, for some reason).
“Do we have a fucking choice,” Katsuki reasoned. He wasn’t an idiot.
“Not really,” Issei chirped. Bastard.
So that was that.
Katsuki groaned and made to stomp out like a child because even his extremely good natured patience had its limits, but he was stopped by Izuku’s soft tone.
“It’s a good learning experience, Kacchan,” he recited plaintively, “Please don’t be mad.”
Right. Because the moron thought Katsuki actually did blame him, and not Issei or the agency or the nation of South Korea.
“It’s not your fault, Zuku,” he griped, forcing himself to sound Pissed-At-the-World on his scale of Mildly-Frustrated to Going-to-Burn-Your-Grandmother’s-House-Down, and-Shove-Her-Dog’s-Ashes-Up-Your-Ass.
“Dynamight, can you stay back for a minute, please,” Issei said, and Katsuki nodded at Izuku to go on without him. Izuku glanced worriedly from their manager to Katsuki, and stepped out.
“What.” Katsuki griped when the door closed behind him. He stood in front of Issei’s desk, arms crossed.
Issei sighed. “I’m trusting you not to tell him about this, but… this mission is partially also to keep Hero Deku occupied during the Korea situation. He tends to go stir-crazy when something big is happening that he can’t help with, so the board decided to knock two birds with one stone assigning you both on this case.”
Motherfucker. It really was Deku’s fault.
…Wait. “You want me to babysit him?” Katsuki seethed, incredulous, feeling anger stirring deep within him like a welcoming old friend. “You don’t trust him to not lose his cool and do something reckless so you want me to, what? Keep him contained? Like some sort of fucking keeper? Do you lot have any respect for him at all?”
This was aimed more at the board, who were less familiar with them, than at Issei, who Katsuki begrudgingly trusted with his life. In the moment, though, Katsuki barely cared if they knew that.
Issei, for once, looked stern. “Bakugou. You should know by now I respect the both of you greatly and have only your best interests at heart.” They twirled a pen in their brown hands. “This is really more for his sake than ours. The board trusts him by now. I was the one to suggest it, based on my understanding of how his mental health is affected by situations like these.”
It was true. The year prior, Deku had been out of commission due to such severe injury that Recovery Girl demanded he take three weeks of leave to let his body and mind recover, healing him slowly so as to not shock his system and just enough to keep him out of immense pain.
Katsuki had never been so scared. It had been earth-shaking, to pull Izuku’s limp body out of the wreckage, eyes half-open but blank, so blank, empty like his eyes never should be, the colour leaking out of Katuski’s surroundings as he blinked at him, uncomprehending, because Izuku could never look like that, so hollow and quiet. Unnaturally quiet. Katsuki had never hated silence more. His ears were ringing with it. With the lack of a heartbeat or shallow breath or godforsaken mumbling, with those cold limp fingers and glassy hollow eyes. The blood had drained from Katsuki’s face, heart beating so fast it hurt, so fast Katsuki scorned it, hated it, hated how it would dare beat so vigorously when Izuku’s was silent. He couldn’t feel his fingers. He was so scared his teeth hurt. Izuku looked so broken, limbs bent and flattened unnaturally, body heavy and cooling as Katsuki cradled him close and tried to remember how to breathe.
Katsuki must have carried him to the paramedics because suddenly they were outside the building collapse and at an ambulance, but he hadn’t been able to feel his legs, and he couldn’t remember the trip.
He was scared to hand him over. What if he had spinal injuries, and he made them worse? What if he killed him? Because he wasn’t already dead. He couldn’t be; he wasn’t allowed. Katsuki repeated this to himself in his head, eyes unseeing, for the five minutes it took for the second responders to look Izuku over and pack him up in the bus. Someone draped a shock blanket over Katsuki – he didn’t notice until three hours later. When Recovery Girl let him into his hospital room, he didn’t hear her – just knelt by Izuku’s bed, laid his head by his leg, and wept.
When, one week into his forced bedrest, another crisis happened, Izuku was still very out of commission. Katsuki visited the disaster scene for just two days, left their apartment each morning with meals and medicine prepped, returned each night to Deku in bed. Izuku wasn’t suicidal enough to plead with Katsuki to let him go, but he was very clearly affected, glued to the news and social media to keep up with the story, troubled further by every article about injuries or casualties juxtaposed with his position in a comfortable bed with a begrudgingly doting roommate.
Katsuki didn’t know what to do, didn’t know how to tell Deku he was secretly glad he was stuck here, didn’t know how to confess that in his selfishness he wanted Deku here forever, didn’t know how to beg him to stay. He was already living with him, so Katsuki didn’t really know what he was talking about, either. All he knew was that he never wanted Deku out there without him again.
Katsuki squinted at Issei. They squinted back, well equipped to handle him after three years together, building up his hero image. Katsuki finally relented, appeased. If Issei said this was not borne of distrust and would be good for Deku, he would trust them. Especially since Katsuki could see why it was actually a good idea, giving Deku something to do that would benefit everyone involved.
If Katsuki was glad he was the one to be beside him for the mission, he kept that to himself.
Izuku was waiting for him outside Issei’s office, because of course he was. He actually looked worried, staring at the ground and fiddling with his sleeve, but his face lifted as Katsuki approached.
“Did they fire you?” The shithead asked, grinning.
“Wh— no, moron!” Katsuki said. He pulled Izuku into a headlock and rubbed his knuckles into his head, not letting go at Izuku’s whining, letting himself get all his cute aggression out. “They just wanted to remind me that I’m the best, but even they can’t get me out of murder charges if I kill you during this.”
Izuku scowled. “You couldn’t kill me if you tried.”
Oh? What’s this? “Feeling feisty, Deku?” Katsuki sneered, getting in his face, hands propped on the wall behind him. He could feel a familiar fire sparking in his gut, stirred up at Izuku’s stubbornness, at the flush on his face as he looked up at him with a steady stare.
Izuku smiled innocently. “Wanna spar?”
Asshole. He knew Katsuki wasn’t going to say no when he was riled up like this, even if he had been planning to go home after his shift. Katsuki snorted and yanked at Izuku’s hair, ignoring his whines, and stalked off towards the training room.
If he hid a smile at Izuku practically skipping next to him, no one had to know.
Later, while they had dinner at their little table, Izuku made a little noise, prompting Katsuki to look up from his bibimbap. Izuku was chewing his lip, brows furrowed, clearly trying to put his gazillion thoughts together in a coherent form. Katsuki had years of practice with this, so he waited patiently, chewing.
“Is this really okay?” Izuku finally asked the table, before lifting his head to meet Katsuki’s eyes. “Are we. Is it going to get weird?”
Weird. Katsuki wasn’t exactly sure what Izuku meant by that. If he was referring to the possibility of things getting awkward, there was no chance in hell on his part, considering how closeness to Izuku was probably at the top of his list of commodities he’d commit unspeakable things for. So in his books, no. But Katsuki looked at Izuku, who was going to bite straight through his lip at this rate, and ignored his violent urge to tug the poor thing out with his own teeth to instead ease his hero partner’s nerves.
“We already live together, nerd. How different could this be?”
Izuku blinked a couple times at that. He looked like something life-changing was occurring to him, face opening like a morning glory, but he just nodded, smiling and relaxing. They finished their dinner, discussing their recently completed cases and friends’ current lives, before cleaning up and heading to their respective beds.
Izuku lay in bed flat on his back, staring at the ceiling. Not so different. Kacchan thought life as a couple would be not so different from their current, actual lives. He couldn’t stop the unbidden, blushing smile that spread over his face at the thought, curling over and hugging his pillow like some stupid rom-com lead. He couldn’t help it. Even if Kacchan didn’t like him back, he still acknowledged how close they were, was okay with it.
That was more than enough for Izuku.
The next week, Heroes Deku and Dynamight reported in for their mission brief. They entered the conference room to find Issei, who theatrically handed them a stack of paper including pertinent information and fake legal documents. The very first page had details of their covers, which they skipped in favour of the middle sections, reading while Issei explained the mission goals. After Issei finished, Katsuki flipped back to that first page.
There it was, listed in nice official print:
TAKAHASHI KATSUHIKO
TAKAHASHI IZUKU
Their names for the upcoming months. They had spent the last week practicing recognising them, and studying their alleged life stories. Katsuki tilted his head. He kind of liked the look of Izuku’s name next to what he was being trained to recognize as his own, sharing a family name. He imagined, for a moment, what it would look like if the document had his actual kanji, listed next to Izuku’s, with Katsuki’s real family name sitting similarly innocently identical next to each. His heart actually skipped a beat, so he quickly looked up to think about something else.
Like how Izuku was finally asking the question that had been bugging him for days. “Why is Kacchan’s name different, but not mine?” He asked. He hadn’t seemed upset at the observation, just curious.
Issei nodded. “We honestly don’t trust you to not call him that adorable pet name you insist on, and if you were to ever say his full name to explain it, this is close enough in pronunciation that it would go unnoticed. The public knows you as Deku, so your real name is fine. Our sources say people tend to look into Dynamight’s first name, though, when they hear a grown man calling him ‘Kacchan.’”
Katsuki had barely heard the rest of the explanation. “Pet name?!” he demanded. Izuku was bright red next to him, stuttering.
Issei, the dick, was grinning. “Oh, sorry. The childhood nickname you still let him call you because of your long, close history together, that most definitely does not come from a place of affection, nor does your allowing of it. Not a pet name.”
If Izuku got any redder he would probably pass out. To save face and avoid carrying an unconscious partner of his to their apartment again, Katsuki let it go, rolling his eyes hard enough to hurt and scoffing. “Fuck off. Go curl your hair or something and leave us alone.”
Issei smiled even more at that statement, for some reason, even as he instinctively reached up to finger his head of soft pink curls. “Right-O, Hero Dynamight. Hero Deku,” he added, more respectfully, before taking his leave. Katsuki could kill that bastard. Curse him for being such a good manager.
After the mission brief, Izuku and Kacchan made their way to the common area to loiter until it was time to go home. They couldn’t pick up any new cases with their upcoming longmission, so they felt kind of useless with nothing to do. They could probably review the mission files, but… they had plenty of time for that. They weren’t due to leave for a couple of days. Izuku was kind of excited, if stressed.
“Oh look, it’s Ingenium and Uravity!” Izuku said, waving at his friends. Kacchan grunted from next to him, picking at the snack he had packed, but nodded at the pair as they waved back in their direction. Izuku had started blushing a bit, and when Kacchan glanced over and happened to notice, he laughed knowingly.
Iida was trying out switching from glasses to contacts. He looked very, very handsome. Izuku was only minorly ashamed at how he had gaped when he saw him, the first time he walked into the agency common area like that, since everyone had been in a similar state. Even Kacchan had raised his eyebrows.
Their high school friends reached their table, plopping down on the chairs across from them more gracefully than he and Kacchan had, their slumped forms in contrast with their friends’ enviable good posture.
“We heard you guys got assigned a new mission,” Ochako said gleefully. Oh, no.
Even Iida was hiding a wide smile. “It sounds fun. Kind of long, hmm?”
Izuku wished for better friends. He looked around wildly for an escape. Miraculously, he spotted Shouto squinting at the coffee maker vexedly, and leapt up. “Shouto’s calling me! I’ll be right back!” he yelped, shamelessly abandoning Kacchan to the wolves.
Kacchan didn’t seem to care, continuing to poke at his healthy chips, which he was eating with chopsticks to keep the dust off his fingers. As Izuku hurried away, he looked back to see Iida and Ochako turn to Kacchan as one, closing in like raptors. Kacchan raised an eyebrow at them.
“Oof!” Izuku had run right into Todoroki. “Sorry, Shouto.”
“It’s alright,” Shouto said in his typical soft tone, straightening his shirt offhandedly and glaring at the coffee maker. “Can you tell me what all these godforsaken buttons do.”
Laughing, Izuku helped his clueless friend out, glancing back to check on the partner he had deserted. Kacchan looked fully relaxed, lounging on the sturdy chair with his long legs spread cockily like he always did, waving a chopstick while he responded to their friends with seemingly little care. Izuku swooned inside a little. Kacchan was so handsome all the time.
“So. A close-counter long mission, huh.” Shouto said suddenly from next to him, catching Izuku off-guard.
“Wh–! Yes, Shouto,” Izuku said, petulantly. He should never have told him about his feelings for their best friend in their third year. “And nothing is going to happen, so stop speculating. We’re professionals. I can be professional.”
Shouto looked right at him, deadpan. “Izuku. You were just blatantly staring at your fellow professional in the middle of the professional workplace.”
Fuck. “Out of concern! Ochako and Tenya are vicious with a common prey, you know,” Izuku defended. He was definitely red. Izuku looked back at said prey, who happened to look up at the same moment, catching his eye. Kacchan stuck his tongue out at him, like a child. Izuku shook his head in exasperation and turned back to Shouto.
…Who was watching him, deadpan. “Midoriya. You’re still smiling.”
Dammit. “Okay, fine,” Izuku hissed, leaning in, “This is going to be so hard and I’m so nervous and he’s so hot, Shouto. What if I do something stupid. What if I ruin everything. What if–”
“Midoriya,” Shouto cut him off, which was good, because Izuku was about to start hyperventilating. “I was just teasing. You’re going to do an incredible job on this mission, and please believe me when I say there is pretty much nothing you could do to ruin what you have with Bakugou. Even if you don’t think so. Please trust me,” the last part said as close to pleadingly as Izuku had ever heard from Shouto. He was probably right. Kacchan and he had worked too hard for too long to let anything ruin what they had built. Including, hopefully, Izuku himself.
“Thanks, Sho,” Izuku let out on a breath, calmed down. He was being silly. They were the future Wonder Duo – there was no chance that a little mission could change their partnership in any way.
But Izuku’s anxiety lingered, despite him being the one to convince Kacchan of the mission in the first place. It was clear Kacchan could tell, by the way his eyes kept darting to him with barely concealed concern, on the way home and in the kitchen and while getting ready in the next couple mornings. Then Kacchan got mysteriously secretive, clearly planning something, not letting Izuku peek into a shopping bag he brought home one day and dragging Izuku to their favourite bridge the morning after.
It was the day before they were to leave for the mission, so they had arrived bright and early to their agency to be treated by one of the Undercover Op Specialists, a cheery woman who could make it so their appearances looked completely different to everyone who didn’t know who they were. So to Izuku, Kacchan still looked like Kacchan, and to Kacchan he still looked like Izuku, but Shouto had frowned suspiciously at them in the middle of their agency until Izuku had waved and offered their names, letting Shouto see their real faces.
Anyway, if this was a plan to lift Izuku’s spirits, it was half working. Half, because while the crisp air wafting around the scent of wood did wonders for his mental state, the fact that Kacchan knew this would work on him was doing horrible things to his heart, and furthering his anxiety that he’d slip up at some point during the next months and reveal his feelings.
The trees were pretty, though. Izuku leaned on the railing, watching leaves fall into the river below. It was almost autumn.
Kacchan cleared his throat from behind him. Izuku turned around, saw empty air, then on instinct shifted his gaze down.
Izuku’s heart plummeted straight out his ass.
Kacchan was on one knee, looking up at him with an unreadable expression, a velvet box held out to him. This is just a joke, Izuku desperately reminded himself, but his hopeless brain couldn’t help overlaying the scene before him with one he had imagined many (many, many) times in the dark of his room, in those early hours when life felt truly private. He felt dizzy. His hands shook slightly at his sides, heart racing, stomach erupting with butterflies, and he took a deep steadying breath to fight the oncoming misinformed swoon. Izuku clenched his jaw once, heart racing, about to reprimand Katsuki for playing with his feelings or something similarly ill-considered, until he noticed what was sitting in the black box in Kacchan’s hands.
“....Katsuki.” He deadpanned. “Is that a butt plug.”
Kacchan made a faux-innocent questioning sound at him, clearly doing his very best to keep a straight face, humour nevertheless wiggling through the creases around his mouth and the twinkle in his eyes.
Gods damn him. Izuku made a valiant effort to frown, but he couldn’t hold back from breaking down into giggles. Kacchan looked so serious, on one knee with a ring box that held silicone instead of diamonds. The sound of raspy laughter reached his ears, and Izuku looked up to find Kacchan fallen back on his haunches, cracking up. He was beautiful. It took Izuku’s breath away.
Katsuki finally calmed down, wiping a tear from his eye. He shuffled forward on his knees and grasped Izuku’s hands, eyes bright and humorous. Izuku’s breath still caught in his chest at the sight of Katsuki looking up at him, smiling.
“Takahashi Izuku,” Katsuki cleared his throat, “This mission will have undeniable physical and potentially fatal risks. The agency is not liable for any hazards that come unto our bodies nor minds. Will you do me the mandatory honour of playing the role of my lifelong significant other for the next 3-5 months?” He said, clearly reciting the mission blurb from memory. He grinned at Izuku, mock-earnest.
Fuck, but Izuku liked him so much. He rolled his eyes, giggling, and let out an over-the-top gasp. “Oh, Kacchan. I’m so surprised.”
“Sorry to spring a proposal out of the blue. Just thought it was about time, y’know?”
“Well, you haven’t given me any time to think about it. I didn’t even do my nails.”
Katsuki and Izuku looked down at their hands as one, appraising. Neither of them had very fancy nails, although they both kept them short to minimize injury. Katsuki drew one of Izuku’s hands close to his mouth, and for one heart-stopping second, Izuku thought he was going to kiss it.
Instead, Katsuki just pretended to, smooching the air just above Izuku’s hand. “I promise to stay by your side no matter how ugly your fingers are.”
That struck a little close to home, given the many scars littering the hand and arm Katsuki was holding, and Katsuki seemed to realize this, squeezing the hand close to his mouth lightly and continuing to look up at him softly, steadily. Izuku squeezed back and huffed. “Alright, fine. I’d love to, dearest partner of mine, with whom I already share a last name.”
Kacchan let out a breath, faux-relieved, his lopsided smile doing things to Izuku’s insides. Izuku pulled him up, still laughing.
Katsuki pulled out his phone. “Wanna grab lunch before we meet the grownups,” he asked. The two of them were taking the train to Mustafu to spend the evening with their parents before they disappeared more or less off the grid for multiple months. Izuku thought it was funny how he and Kacchan were now adults themselves, but their parents seemed more grown than them still, “real” adults compared to their grasping attempts at mimicry. He doubted that feeling would ever go away.
At least on his part. He’s pretty sure Kacchan only refrained from referring to them as old bastards because Izuku’s mother would have been included. Kacchan had a weird respect for his Auntie Inko. When Izuku asked his mother about it, she had cheerily corrected that a good part of it was actually fear, which Izuku found funny. Like Kacchan would be scared of anyone, let alone his sweet mom.
“I wanted to try that new yakitori place,” Izuku said, rocking on his heels. He really did love this bridge. And he had forgotten all about his anxieties in the rush of Katsuki’s ridiculousness. He waited for the acid to bubble back up like it usually did after moments of tranquility. Huh. He waited some more. Nothing. Kacchan’s plan really had worked. Izuku supposed the reminder that Kacchan was always there for him, not above acting out of character just to make him feel better, and in fact would go out of his way to do so, eased some of Izuku’s worries subconsciously. Or maybe he was just so overwhelmed with how much he liked Kacchan that those horrid feelings were being cheerfully and mercilessly repressed. Whatever the case, Izuku was endlessly grateful, which led him to feel even more affectionate towards Katsuki, which fed the loop of his worries being smothered. Wow.
“Sounds good to me,” Kacchan said, looking up the directions. He still had the buttplug-ring-box in his left hand. Izuku stared at it.
“Um. Kacchan.”
Katsuki grunted, thumb tapping on his screen.
“Er. So are you going to keep that, or…”
Kacchan looked up, then down at his left hand, then back up again. Mischief dawned on his face like a cloud had blown away and revealed the sun.
“Why. You want it?” He said, eyes bright with glee, waving the box as if temptingly.
Izuku blushed furiously. “Well. I mean. I wouldn’t want to waste your purchase….” His voice grew quieter as he spoke, the last word barely audible. He was a somewhat broke up-and-coming hero; he didn’t want to waste a perfectly good toy.
But Katsuki heard him just fine. He froze, box pausing in mid-air. “You— actually want it.”
Izuku thought, to hell with it, and committed. “Well… It’s for me, isn’t it?” He said, voice tight with embarrassment but stubbornly steady. His blush deepened.
Katsuki’s face went abruptly blank. He blinked, then again, wordlessly looking at the box in his hand before handing it to Izuku, who took it with a bright red face, shut it immediately, and shoved it in his pocket. Kacchan’s eyes followed it, staring intensely at his pants pocket without a word or facial twitch. Erm. Izuku didn’t know what to do about that.
“Kacchan? Hello?” He waved a hand in front of the taller’s face.
Katsuki blinked a good number of times before awareness returned to his eyes, his cheeks slightly pink. He cleared his throat. “Let’s go get your fucking yakitori, nerd,” he said gruffly as he turned on his heel, voice deeper than usual.
Izuku did not understand him sometimes. But, as always, he followed, speeding up a little to catch up to Kacchan’s side.