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“Shit!”
That was the only warning Izuku got before Kacchan suddenly jerked to the side, firing explosions wildly to try to avoid the sudden hail of needle-thin metal blades that shot after him. Thankfully Kacchan was quick and nimble enough to avoid the majority of them, darting around telephone poles and bus shelters, keeping tight to the walls so that the blades would get caught by the obstacles rather than hit their target, but a few still managed to catch him on the arms and legs, leaving long thin scratches that began to bleed sluggishly.
“Careful, Kacchan!” Izuku cried out after him, trying to smack a few of the blades out of the air before they could give Kacchan any trouble, but they were tiny and quick and hard to hit. He managed to stop a few of them, but more still kept pace with Kacchan’s frantic dodging.
Eventually between the two of them, there was only one blade left following Kacchan, but Izuku could see that Kacchan was running out of room to maneuver, and the last blade was headed straight for Kacchan’s back. Thinking fast, Izuku shot forward, sweeping up a manhole cover in his wake with Blackwhip. As soon as he got close enough, he slingshot the manhole cover forward, bouncing it off of a nearby brick wall so that it flew right into the blade’s path a second before it would have buried itself between Kacchan’s shoulders.
The threat neutralized for now, Kacchan skidded to a stop, Izuku landing heavily on the cracked pavement next to him, and the two took a second to catch their breath.
“Man, fuck this guy!” Kacchan roared. “What the hell kind of fucked up quirk is this, anyways?!”
Izuku would have told him exactly what kind of quirk it was - the villain could shoot metal blades from his fingertips that would seek out whomever the villain had made eye contact with like they were tiny heat-seeking missiles - but frankly he was too out of breath at the moment. He’d been the target of those blades just minutes before, and he’d had to perform his own crazy gymnastics to try to avoid getting skewered.
Besides, Kacchan knew all that already. They’d seen the guy in action enough now as they chased him halfway across the city to figure out more or less how his quirk worked. He was fast, too, given that his quirk did nothing to enhance his speed. He’d slipped through their hands a few times already, and Izuku was honestly getting kind of sick of it. It was a miracle that no one had gotten hurt yet.
“Kacchan,” Izuku puffed. “We need to come up with a new strategy. Just chasing this guy is getting us nowhere.”
“No shit,” Kacchan grumbled, but Izuku could tell that he agreed. “Alright, you have something in mind?”
And it was silly, but Izuku couldn’t help the burst of warmth that spread through his whole body, making him feel like his stomach was full of bubbles. Kacchan was actually asking him for his ideas? Such a thing would have been unthinkable to his middle school self - even as recently as only a few years ago he would have seriously questioned if Kacchan was feeling alright - but things were so different now. After everything they had been through together, the fights and the wars and the life-and-death situations and the sacrifices they’d made for each other, he and Kacchan were in a much better place now. In fact, if asked, Izuku was pretty sure one could actually consider them to be friends .
And if a secret part of Izuku wished for more than that? Well, that was between him and his extra secret notebooks.
Shaking his head to clear his wandering thoughts, Izuku began to pace. “If he sees us coming, he attacks, which has been our problem so far. If he manages to target us with his quirk, we spend too much time trying to neutralize it, and he uses that time to slip away. We have to find a way to catch him unawares, so that he doesn’t get the chance to use his quirk.” Izuku tapped his finger against his lip absently, mind whirling with potential plans. “The trouble is our quirks aren’t exactly suited to stealth.”
“Fine, so we sneak up on him without using our quirks,” Kacchan pointed out. When Izuku shot him a surprised look, he just shrugged. “What, you think I can’t take down some second rate villain wannabe without my quirk? The guy has arms like noodles and looks like he weighs a hundred pounds soaking wet. One good punch and he’s down.”
Kacchan wasn’t wrong. If not for the villain’s quirk making it so difficult for them to get close, they would have taken him down in a heartbeat.
“Alright. So we’ll try to sneak up on him without using our quirks. Easier said than done. And of course, we have to find him again.”
“Dynamight and Deku, do you copy?”
Izuku jumped when his comm went off, almost as if on cue. He scrambled to pick up the signal, taping his earpiece to make sure it was active.
“Deku here, what’s going on?”
“I’ve got eyes on your needle fingers guy,” Hagakure’s voice came through the comm. Izuku blinked in surprise; he hadn’t even realized she was back in town, let alone involved in this particular villain incident. “He’s on top of one of the buildings just down the street from me, I can see him pacing. I'm sorry, I don't think I can get over there fast enough to help, I've got my own villain to deal with over here, but I’ll send you his coordinates.”
“Thanks, Invisalign,” Kacchan cut in, holding up his comm so he could see the moment Hagakure sent over the coordinates. “We’re on our way.”
He and Kacchan shared a look, and then they were off, loping down the street. It felt a bit weird to be running alongside Kacchan rather than soaring through the city using their quirks, but it wasn’t a bad feeling. It was actually kind of nice. It brought back faint memories of racing each other through the woods, bug nets in one hand, lunch bags in the other. He took a moment to glance over at Kacchan only to see Kacchan looking back. He startled, but then shook off his surprise and sent Kacchan a blinding grin. The grin only widened when Kacchan smirked back at him, clearly enjoying this as much as Izuku was.
A few minutes later found them pressed up against the walls of a tight alleyway, brick catching on the backs of their hero uniforms. Somewhere on the roof above them, their villain lurked. Unfortunately Hagakure had lost sight of him behind the roof’s air conditioning unit, so she wasn’t able to tell them if he was facing towards the alley or not. They’d have no way of knowing if he was ready for them until they reached the top.
“We need to get up there quietly, just in case his back is turned and we can successfully sneak up on him. So no quirks.”
“I fucking know , dumbass,” Kacchan hissed at him, eyes trained on the sliver of sky above them. The sun was starting to set, bathing the alleyway with golden highlights, and the way it caught in Kacchan’s hair and eyes made Izuku’s breath stutter in his chest for a moment. God, but Kacchan was so painfully beautiful sometimes.
But then those glowing eyes turned towards him and Izuku squeaked as he realized he had been caught staring. “What, nerd?” Kacchan snapped.
“I, uh. Was just trying to think of a plan for if he is facing this way.”
“Isn’t it fucking obvious?” Kacchan grunted, looking back up at the sky. He’d pushed his mask up when they’d first arrived to get some of the sweat out of his face, but he pulled it back down now, making sure it rested snugly over his cheekbones. “Your quirk will make it easier to grab him. I go up first. If he’s looking, I’ll play distraction, and you nab him with Blackwhip. If he’s not, I sneak up on him and punch him in the head.”
And there was that warm fuzzy feeling, back again. Kacchan was actually including Izuku in his plans, and wasn’t just trying to rush ahead and steal all the glory? Sometimes he wished he could go back in time and tell his younger self that yes, one day Kacchan will look at you and see you as an equal, as a friend, again.
“Now how the fuck do we climb up there without making too much noise?” Kacchan glared at the featureless brick walls surrounding them as if willing a fire escape or ladder to materialize.
Shaking off his moment of bliss, Izuku considered the alley as well. The walls were plain brick with no windows, wires, or pipes to be seen. There really wasn’t anything for them to climb up, and they couldn’t use their quirks because then the villain would hear them coming. But it was very narrow, not even wide enough for Izuku to stretch out his arms completely. Maybe…
“What if we braced our backs against the wall and climbed up that way?” he suggested.
Kacchan eyed the walls consideringly, catching on to Izuku’s plan right away. “Yeah, that’ll work. Let’s do it. I’ll go first.”
And that’s exactly what they did, shimmying their way up the walls with their feet braced against the opposite side. It was slow going, but quiet, and Izuku was sure their plan would work.
But then suddenly, they heard a noise right above their heads, and they both froze. Izuku looked up towards the dying sunlight, and caught sight of a shadow moving above them on the wall of the opposite building. His eyes went wide, and he shakily pointed upwards.
“He’s right there,” Izuku mouthed, hardly daring to breathe.
Kacchan looked up and swore silently, nodding his head. He saw it too. The villain hadn’t looked down into the alley yet, so chances were that he didn’t know they were there, but the second they tried to climb up onto the roof, he’d see them, and those needle blades would be flying again.
Kacchan was a few feet higher than Izuku, but he suddenly started crawling back down until he was practically sitting in Izuku’s lap. Izuku felt his face bloom in a blush so bright it must have rivaled the setting sun, and it only got worse when Kacchan leaned in until their foreheads were practically touching. Izuku knew it was so that they could hear each other speak without alerting the villain, but he still couldn’t help the way his heartbeat raced, or the way his eyes kept darting towards Kacchan’s mouth.
“Okay, shit,” Kacchan breathed, his breath puffing against Izuku’s lips, which was not helping. “New plan. There’s no way we can sneak up on him now. So you’re going to launch me into the air and I’ll lay down some cover fire so you can get up on the roof and get behind him.”
“I. Uh.”
Kacchan glared at him. “Focus, nerd! We’re only going to get the one shot at this! Are you with me or not?”
And Izuku was trying, honestly he was. He was acutely aware of the threat the villain presented, and how important it was to get this right on the first try. He was a professional, damnit, and good at his job!
But at that moment the dying sunlight hit Kacchan’s face just right, lighting up his golden hair like a halo around his head and making his eyes burn like fire, and his lips were right there. Izuku was only human, okay?
So really it should have come to no surprise that instead of answering, Izuku just tipped forward those final few centimeters between them, eyes sliding shut, and kissed Kacchan the way he’d been dreaming about since he was old enough to know what kissing even was.
There was a moment when the world seemed to still. Izuku felt like he was frozen in place, eyes squeezed shut, still kissing Kacchan who was all but sitting in his lap. What the heck was he doing? Was he crazy? Kacchan was going to kill him, why the heck had he done something so stupid? Even if Kacchan didn’t kick his ass, they were finally on good terms again, and now Izuku went and ruined it by just kissing Kacchan out of nowhere? What the hell was wrong with him?!
But as the kiss stretched impossibly on and on, Izuku started to notice something. Kacchan wasn’t kissing him back, no.
But he wasn’t pulling away either.
He also hadn’t decked Izuku in the face, which Izuku was kind of half-expecting. Instead Kacchan seemed to be just as frozen as Izuku felt, unmoving above him. Izuku decided to break the kiss so that he could look at Kacchan and try to gauge his reaction so Izuku could decide on how badly he wanted to panic and how deeply he needed to grovel.
The sight that greeted him was almost comical. Kacchan was stuck in place, eyes wide, lips faintly flushed from the force of Izuku’s spontaneous kiss. He seemed to be in the middle of rebooting, completely stunned by what had just happened. But Kacchan had never been one to let things get the best of him for long, and sure enough, Izuku could see the dumbfounded expression slowly shifting into anger.
“K-Kacchan, I - “ Izuku started to stutter, but Kacchan cut him off by slapping a hand over his mouth. Izuku let out a little squeak of surprise, and could only shrink back a bit, waiting for the blast to the face that was sure to come.
But instead, Kacchan leaned in close again, giving Izuku the darkest glare he’d ever seen Kacchan make, and hissed, “ Now?! We’re in the middle of a fucking takedown, and you’re choosing now to do this?!”
Izuku could only stare at Kacchan for a second, Kacchan’s hand over his mouth making it impossible for him to actually say anything, and then give a small helpless shrug and a nod. I guess? his gesture implied.
Okay, now Izuku was sure Kacchan was going to punch him. He looked ready to kill something, anyways. Izuku saw Kacchan’s free hand come up out of the corner of his eye, the hand over Izuku’s mouth slipping away to brace against the alley wall, and Izuku prepared himself for the hit.
But to his shock, Kacchan didn’t punch him. Instead his fingers slipped under Izuku’s chin, tilting his face up, and this time it was Kacchan who closed the gap, pressing a kiss so gentle to Izuku’s lips that he almost couldn’t believe it was Kacchan kissing him. All Izuku could do was let his eyes slip closed and hang on for the ride, because while his first kiss with Kacchan had felt amazing, kissing Kacchan while Kacchan was actually kissing back was a whole other story.
All too soon, Kacchan pulled away, and Izuku had to bite back the little whine that built up in his chest from the loss of contact.
“When this is over,” Kacchan whispered harshly. “We are going to talk.”
Izuku could only nod frantically, too scared to reply.
“Good.” Kacchan gave him one final glare. “Now throw me.”
And hey, never let it be said that Izuku Midoriya wasn’t capable of following clear directions.
A few hours later found Izuku getting dressed in his civvies, his paperwork done for the day and his shift at an end. He threw his hero costume into the agency’s laundry chute, tossing his messenger bag over his shoulder and stretching out his neck to work out the kinks.
The takedown had gone about as smoothly as they could have hoped. Kacchan’s distraction allowed Izuku to get up onto the roof while the villain was trying to catch Kacchan’s eye through the flash of his explosions, and Izuku had managed to wrap him up in Blackwhip before the man could even blink. It had been a matter of seconds to fully secure the villain in proper restraints, and then the two of them had brought him down to street level to hand him over to the police. After that, they’d had to head back to the agency to file their report, get checked out by the medical team, and get cleaned up just in time to clock out for the day. The last Izuku had seen of Kacchan, the other hero had been heading towards a separate medical room to be checked over for any lasting injuries, and Izuku was seriously debating about making a run for it now before Kacchan caught him and they had to talk about what had happened.
Because there was no way that Kacchan had actually kissed him back, right? Izuku had clearly lost his mind. Maybe Kacchan had hit him and Izuku’s concussion had made him imagine the whole kissing-back thing. Oh wait, except that the medical team had given him a clean bill of health, hadn’t they? Well then maybe he’d had some sort of sleep deprivation induced hallucination; he’d been pulling some late nights recently, hadn’t he? Only, they were nothing compared to the all nighters he used to pull back at UA, and he’d never hallucinated back then. Well then maybe -
His train of thought was cut off by a hand slamming down on his shoulder, and Izuku jumped with a yelp.
“There you are,” Kacchan ground out, stepping out onto the sidewalk next to him, the staff door of the agency closing behind him with a soft click. “For a second I thought you’d run off, nerd.”
“N-nah,” Izuku stuttered out, ignoring the fact that he’d been debating about doing just that. Too late now, anyways. “Sorry, I just didn’t want to wait in the locker rooms anymore.”
“Can’t blame you, they stunk today,” Kacchan agreed with a wrinkled nose. And then, just when Izuku thought Kacchan couldn’t surprise him anymore, the hand on his shoulder slipped down along his arm until Kacchan was holding his hand, and Izuku was pretty sure his soul had just ascended into space.
They both stood there for a moment, tucked away behind their hero agency where no one would see them, Izuku too stunned to do anything but just stand there and try to absorb the fact that Kacchan was actually holding his hand. Like, he probably should have expected this, shouldn’t he? After all, Kacchan had kissed him back, right? At this point Izuku couldn’t really deny that the kiss had happened, or rather kiss es . And if Kacchan kissed him back, that must mean that he liked Izuku too, right? Unless Izuku was somehow misreading things? No, there was no way he could be reading this wrong, two kisses and hand holding had to mean Kacchan liked him back. Which meant holy shit , Kacchan actually liked him back!
Kacchan’s hand was warm in his, and Izuku instinctively gave it a little squeeze when he felt Kacchan shift uncomfortably next to him. Suddenly he realized how long they’d been standing there without saying a word, and that Kacchan had probably been waiting for Izuku to mention something about the hand-holding thing. God, was Kacchan nervous? Was he, Izuku, actually making Kacchan nervous?
“Is this okay?” Kacchan broke the silence, sounding more tentative than Izuku had ever heard in his life. Oh god, he was nervous. Izuku didn’t know if he could take many more surprises like this. “I mean. I figured you’d be okay with it, with the whole, uh. Fuck. The kissing thing. But I don’t want to assume.”
“Yeah, no, it’s. I’m. I mean. I’m super okay with it!” Izuku quickly assured him. “Yeah! Absolutely. Absolutely good with it.”
“Okay. Uh. Good.”
They fell silent again, still just standing in the doorway, holding hands, neither of them seemingly willing to move. Izuku could feel the blush slowly overtaking his entire body as the awkward silence continued to stretch on and on. Why was this so hard? He liked Kacchan, and at this point it was pretty obvious that Kacchan liked him back, so why the heck couldn’t he just say something?
But then Izuku dared to glance at Kacchan out of the corner of his eye, only to catch Kacchan doing the same. The moment their eyes met, Izuku couldn’t help it. He could feel the grin start to spread across his face, stretching his cheeks so wide they hurt. Kacchan started smiling as well, and then all of the sudden they were laughing, awkward tension breaking as they both seemed to realize at the same time how stupid they were being.
“So, um. Wanna go get dinner?” Kacchan asked when they finally managed to calm themselves down.
“Sure,” Izuku agreed, wiping his face off with the sleeve of his jacket. He had always been an easy crier, and tears of laughter were just as common for him as any other kind. “And then maybe we can head to the movies? Or something? There’s a couple of new ones I’ve been meaning to check out, but it’s kind of lame to go to the movies by myself.”
Kacchan snorted in agreement. “As long as we’re not watching that robot one. It looked so stupid.”
“Nah, I’m kind of sick of the series. The first one was great, but five sequels is a bit much.”
“Cool. Noodle shop across from the theater?” Kacchan suggested.
“Sounds like a date,” Izuku gave him a cheeky smile, resisting the urge to throw in a cute wink as well.
Kacchan blinked, and then slowly smiled. “Yeah, I guess it is. C’mon then. Let’s head out.”
And then together they stepped out into the street, hand in hand, the moonlight above shining softly down on them as they headed out into the night.