Archive of Our Own

Katsuki stands before the door of a small apartment building feeling as though he should be standing a few feet shorter than he does now, that the door should be looming over him rather than looking him right in the eye.

It almost feels wrong that he isn’t standing on tippy toes, grasping for a height that he hasn’t quite managed to reach yet, just to barely brush his fingertips against the doorbell. That’s how he remembers it going, at least, when he would come here all those years ago.

But that’s not how things are, anymore. He has come here, new again, no longer looking to bring a boy to the playground, but to look for answers.

And since things are different, thoughts of  “what the fuck am I doing here?” and “just let me the fuck in already” fight a losing battle in his brain. There’s no demanding and there’s no running, so when Katsuki rings the doorbell, the only victor that emerges is the finger that carries a singular, patient purpose in its movement. It carries a promise that he’s committed to keeping, so he stays right where he is, silently waiting for a certain someone to be the one that opens the door.

All Katsuki really needs is just one look at his face. One good look so that he can finally put to rest all the quiet worries that have been plaguing his-

Midoriya Inko opens the door to her home, entirely surprised to see Katsuki standing at her doorstep. She says nothing for a second, just blinks at him.

She looks a bit tired. It’s been a while since he last saw her, but somehow, behind her silent shock and slightly widened eyes, he can see a bit of exhaustion mixed into those features. There’s a cause, and Katsuki suspects he knows what it could be.

You know what, fuck patience, there’s no time to waste. “Hi,” is what Katsuki says. He’s not really sure what else he should say, how to get to the point to tell her, let me see your son, I’m worried about him.

She blinks rapidly again. “Katsuki-kun, w-what a surprise!” she chirps, trying to regain her composure. “It’s been so long since I found you last here on my doorstep, it feels like it’s been years.” 

He shoves his hands in his pockets just to have something to do with them, and says, “Yeah, it…probably has been.” 

This, however, he immediately regrets, because there’s weight behind that. He knows, she probably knows, they both know why. 

There’s a reason and it hangs heavy in the air, leaving them stuck in a few seconds of knowing silence - Katsuki has to remind himself that he doesn’t have time for that.

But before he can open his mouth, Inko beats him to it.

“Well, a few years…that’s all in the past, I suppose,” she says with a weak smile. “I know you and Izuku are good friends now - it’s practically half of what he talks about these days. So you’re welcome over any time.”

Katsuki blinks. God, he doesn’t know what the fuck to say to her. He doesn’t know what to say at all.

“Thanks,” he says slowly. She graces him with another smile and he decides to breathe out whatever the fuck he’s holding onto.

“I actually came here to see him,” he continues, “since he hasn’t been at school in a while.” He looks past her to see an absence of someone checking to see who is at the door. “Is Izuku in his room right now?”

Something flickers in Inko’s eyes and Katsuki’s heart decides that now it finally has plausible reason to drop to the fucking floor without feeling stupid. She purses her lips and it makes Katsuki all the more concerned, making his suspicions feel too entirely confirmed.

“I’m sorry, Katsuki-kun,” she says almost regretfully. “Izuku is…well I don’t know if now is the best time. He hasn’t been feeling well lately.”

Katsuki’s brows furrow. “Is he sick or something?” 

“No he…” but she trails off, eyes conflicted and hesitant.

She checks behind her as well, and when she turns back there is a frown etched onto her face. She stares at Katsuki, seeming like she is trying to weigh her options. Katsuki just watches with hardly a clue of what’s happening.

“Well…if I’m being honest,” she finally says in a quieter, more careful tone, “I don’t actually… know what’s wrong. It’s been a few days, but he just…” 

Her gaze gets lost in something full of worry, but after a few seconds it snaps right back up to Katsuki. “Did something happen at school? Has he told you anything?”

Katsuki curses himself for always being right. “No,” he answers concernedly. “I haven't heard from him since he was last in class, which was Monday.”

At this, she sighs, running her fingers through her hair. Her frown gets deeper, exhaustion pulls at the sides of her eyes.

She scrunches her brows in worried thought, but it looks like she’s been options for a while. It’s probably because of this that, after a moment, she says, “He won’t tell me, either. And no matter what I do, he…he won’t come out of his room. I was actually on my way out to buy ingredients for some katsudon, to maybe cheer him up.”

Something in Katsuki’s patchwork heart urges him forwards, to run down a hall and to open a door.

“Can I go see him?” Katsuki asks instead, trying his best to be patient.

She winces. “He hasn’t been in the mood to talk much, Katsuki-kun,” she warns, “I don’t know if that’s the best idea. Trust me, I’ve tried.”

His mouth opens to say something - probably extremely fucking stupid. Instead of risking it, though, he just bites the inside of his cheek in frustration. 

She frowns, looking all the more worried, and for some reason it makes Katsuki unwilling to meet her gaze anymore.

“Did you…have something you needed to tell him?” Inko says tentatively. “I can tell him for you if you want.”

A sigh. “No I just…” Katsuki tries, looking off to the side. Fuck, this is embarrasing. But maybe honesty will get him a ticket through.

“Just wanted to see him,” he grumbles. “Or whatever.”

Inko contemplates this in silence - hope blooms in Katsuki’s chest without his permission. She purses her lips and looks downwards, eyes lost in thought. 

She looks up again and Katsuki knows it means victory.

“Okay,” she says finally with a huff, “you can go see him.” She puts on a small smile. “If it’s you, then maybe it’ll make him feel better.”

Now, the point of all this has nothing to do with Katsuki’s ego - really, it doesn’t. But despite all that, he feels a determined, stubborn smile tug slightly at his lips. He can’t help but feel a bit proud at that, that maybe the mere sight of him will get Izuku out of whatever slump he’s in.

Even the presence of Izuku’s door feels like a rejection to that stupid ass idea. 

So many familiar places Katsuki has stood before today. The door looks a lot shorter than he remembers; there’s still an All Might themed sign hanging on the wood that says Izuku on it; the flooring somehow feels the same under his feet as it did when he was a kid. So many familiars, but for some reason, none of it feels like comfort or nostalgia to Katsuki. There’s one thing above all else that glares, that stares right at Katsuki and tells him that things won’t be as easy as he’d like them to be.

The darkness that seeps through the cracks of Izuku’s doorway names itself as an omen, a warning carved on sea-worn wood that says no light shall pass through these waters. It’s unwelcoming, and for a second - just a second - Katsuki hesitates to even touch the door knob. 

He can’t say exactly what he’s expecting to find. He really doesn’t know. He doesn’t even remember the exact details of what Izuku’s room looks like - maybe it’s entirely different from the fragmented, flickering version of it that he has in his mind. So what gives him any right to come over here? Does the word ‘childhood friend’ still hold any claims to…well…fucking anything? 

What if Izuku isn’t even in there right now? What if he is ?

If he is in there, and things are as wrong as they seem, then maybe it isn’t Katsuki’s place to try and meddle. Maybe he should just turn around and mind his own business, let Izuku handle things for himself. Whatever those things may be. 

No, that’s never how this was going to go. Katsuki knocks twice, waits two seconds and grabs the door knob to twist, letting the light from the hallway flood into the dark, seemingly empty room. 

The room is painted in a kind of darkness you can only find once the windows have been shut for days. He stands in the entrance with his hand still holding on to the door, trying to let his eyes adjust and straining to find Izuku in the shadows. Surprisingly, the layout looks exactly the same as 13 years ago - maybe with some more posters on the wall. But it’s so dark, the only thing he can really manage to make out is a pile of blankets on the bed.

The pile of blankets doesn’t stir at the sound of the door opening, but a voice, muffled and barely audible, murmurs quietly from beneath them:

“M’not hungry.” 

It’s just two and a half words. It’s barely a sentence, but somehow that’s all it takes for Katsuki’s chest to tighten. That’s all he needed to hear to know for sure that his initial gut instinct at seeing an empty seat behind him in class was right. He’s been thinking of that voice, hearing it in his head constantly even when the owner wasn’t around. But it’s never sounded like this.

It sounds too soft and tired, it feels too small. It has the shape of quiet, utter dejection, and it makes Katsuki want to run. Towards him, towards the door, he doesn’t know. But his body decides to move on its own - something becoming like muscle memory - and Katsuki lets his hand slip off the doorknob. He steps into the room anyway, trying his best to leave his uncertainty behind.

The room doesn’t care for his bravery - he is immediately met with a somber air. It’s a promise of entrapment, whatever has clogged the vents of the room. It’s like getting caught in quicksand: slow sinking and suffocation awaiting.

“Mom I already said I don’t want any-”

“It’s me,” Katsuki interrupts, abrupt and to the point because he knows no other way. “Your mom left to go get some groceries.”

The heap of blankets that is Izuku goes as silent and as still as a statue long dead.

He’s so silent that the idea that he’s not even there anymore feels real and plausible - but, no, he’s still there. Katsuki’s eyes have adjusted, and he can just make out a strand of green, curly hair hidden somewhere in that cocoon. So hesitantly, he steps closer with a concerned gaze glued to Izuku’s form. 

Proximity doesn’t seem to awaken Izuku, though - he says nothing and it is very fucking unnerving. He doesn’t even move, his head turned towards the wall and his back facing the door. It makes Katsuki swallow thickly, trying to ransack any word from his mind to fill the odd silence.

“Were you sleeping or some shit?” he asks.

And nothing. Just the quiet. Just Izuku laying on his bed, his head resting heavily on his pillow.

But that’s fine. It’s okay - it’s too early in the game for this to be a deterrence. Katsuki won’t let it.

“Well, it’s 5 pm right now,” he tells Izuku bluntly. “If you were sleeping in, then…it’s past time you got up already, nerd.” He looks around: it looks like a depression hurricane hit the room. “This what you been doing these past few days - just rotting in bed?” 

No response. Izuku just leaves them in the silence of a room that Katsuki can tell has been way too inhabited. 

“What happened, Izuku?” Katsuki tries again. “How come you haven’t been at school?”

A few seconds of silence. Then finally a noise comes from him: a soft, tired sigh. A sound like bleeding.

“Please leave, Kacchan,” Izuku says quietly. 

But Katsuki is always reaching, always grasping, and because of that, he’s never given up easily. “Why?” he asks.

And Izuku, with only the back of his head visible, says softly, “Because I don’t want to see you right now.”

Katsuki blinks, but that’s it. He doesn’t dare to let any muscle in his face move to any other form, any other feeling or shape. He just stands there stupidly for a second, trying not to let the words sting. 

If he’s being honest, he had been half anticipating this. Something in him expected a fight. He came here presuming the worst case scenario, and while he doesn’t know if they are already there, he does know that he didn’t come here to act like some lovesick idiot. He came here with a purpose to fulfill.

“You don’t wanna see me?” he echoes dryly. Izuku doesn’t respond, but Katsuki wasn’t really expecting him to.

Katsuki nods silently, working his jaw. The he says, “Fuck that,” placing himself at the edge of Izuku’s bed and leaning his hands on the mattress. “Come on, get up - we’re going out. We can go for a walk or some shit. Maybe get you something to eat since your mom told me your lazy ass hasn’t been outside in days.”

Izuku doesn’t answer. He doesn’t move. He’s just a quiet tuft of hair sinking under a sea of heavy blankets, hidden and hiding from the world. 

But whatever. It doesn’t matter to Katsuki if Izuku wants to sink or not. When desperation starts to wrap tightly around Katsuki’s chest he rips it off, breathing away that tight feeling.

“Get up,” he commands. 

No response. 

“Come on, nerd,” Katsuki urges a bit impatiently. “I don’t want to say it again.”

A long stretch of absolute quiet.

“I’m not gonna coddle you, Izuku. Get up.” 

Long, simmering silence. 

“What, you're just going to ignore me, now? That’s how this is gonna go?”

Nothing. In the darkness of his room, Izuku doesn’t speak. He gives no reply. If anything, he just wraps himself further in his blankets, like he wants to pretend that Katsuki isn’t there at all.

After a few seconds of waiting, Katsuki huffs and sits himself down on the bed, his heart pounding a bit more unsurely now. He lays a hand on what he presumes is Izuku’s shoulder to try and roll him over, but Izuku just shakes him off weakly.

He won’t lie: that stings a bit. It stings like brick wall on skin, it hurts like a collision with something indiscriminate, like it didn’t mean to hurt you but it really doesn’t care for your name, either. Katsuki frowns and is half glad that Izuku isn’t turned to face him so that he isn’t able to see his-

God fucking dammit, what the hell is he talking about?

Katsuki leans over to try and get a good look at his dumb face, purposefully laying his arm on Izuku like he’s an armrest. And for good measure, he puts half of his weight onto him to let this asshole know he’s not giving up so easily. It works - probably - because Izuku doesn’t shake him off this time.

From what he can see, Izuku’s eyes are open. He doesn’t glance up at Katsuki, he just stares at the wall with an empty gaze. Or maybe a pensive gaze, he’s not really sure. But that’s all, it’s too dark to make out anything more than the despondent shadows of his face. 

“Are you sick or some shit?” Katsuki asks quietly, his chin now resting upon his arm, his arm resting upon Izuku.

At first, nothing. But then after a second, Izuku shakes his head, the movement weak and barely visible.

Katsuki furrows his brows in thought. “Are you…did you get hurt during training or something?”

A shake of his head. 

“Did I do something wrong? ‘Cause if so, then…my bad and I’m sorry.”

Izuku shakes his head.

“Did someone else say something to you? Is that why you’re like this?”

Another small shake of his head.

Katsuki just sighs exasperatedly. “You gonna tell me what’s wrong, then?” he asks.

He can just barely make out Izuku’s frown deepening. But other than that, he doesn’t give a reply, looking as if he were sleeping with his sad eyes open.

Leaning back and looking off to the side, Katsuki works his jaw. “Look,” he says begrudgingly, “if you don’t wanna talk about it - fine. But can you at least get the fuck up already.”

No answer. A silence like sap, stubbornly filling Katsuki’s lungs until it’s all he can breathe. 

“Come on,” Katsuki prods, poking at his back. “It’s the end of the day and you’re still in bed. I thought you told me you hated sleeping in, huh?”

Silence.

“If you don’t get up, then you won’t be able to have any of the katsudon your mom is gonna make when she gets back. You told me it was better than mine, right? We’ll have to see if you were telling the truth or if you just have shitty taste.”

Melancholy, dejected, horrible silence. 

“What if…”

Fuck, he’s really doing this. “What if we go to the mall and check out that limited edition All Might merch you were telling me about the other day?” Katsuki tries. “You wouldn’t shut up about it, so let’s just go.”

Silence. Heavy like suffocation. Katsuki clenches his molars and watches Izuku’s form rise and fall slowly with sad, aching breaths.

“Oi, I said to get the fuck up,” Katsuki snaps as he rips the blankets off of Izuku.

Izuku is lying on his side, wearing a wrinkled pajama shirt and some old pajama pants. Instead of getting up, instead of turning towards Katsuki to give any sort of reaction, he just curls into himself a little more, wrapping his arms tighter around himself and tucking his face into his shoulder. His body lays like a mountain range: silent and solemn and unmoving. Unwilling.

Katsuki is unsure about what to do with his hands now. He’s unsure, so he opens his mouth and says, “You’re starting to piss me off, you know.” 

A beat.

“Then leave,” Izuku mumbles.

Maybe Katsuki would have laughed. Sometimes Izuku can be funny like that, but none of this feels fucking funny. 

Katsuki clenches his jaw, a tense feeling starting to be carved into the bone. “Someone woke up on the wrong side of the fucking bed today,” he mutters back.

The jesting doesn’t work, obviously. Katsuki should have learned his lesson by now, that poking the bear never works, not the way he wants it to. He wants a reaction, Izuku won’t give it to him, so they both just sit in the stubborn silence. Katsuki tries to rack his mind for an answer, a solution to this. He comes up empty handed.

It’s Izuku who brings a hand to the silence and parts it this time. It would have been a mercy, if Katsuki was one who looked for a way out of things and not through. 

“Go home, Kacchan,” he says quietly, “You don’t need to be here right now.” 

His voice is muted. His voice is dull. His voice is…not right but Katsuki doesn’t have a clue as to why. That’s the whole reason he came here, to get some fucking explanation for Izuku’s sudden disappearance from the face of the earth.

“Go home so, what?” Katsuki asks, a hint of exasperation in his tone. “So I can leave you in this fucking depression cave of a room?” He scoffs. “Yeah, no chance, nerd. I’m not leaving. Not until you get up.” 

Izuku doesn’t give him any more response in words. He is a wall, he’s an unmovable object. He just exhales tiredly through his nose.

“Izuku,” Katsuki says, feeling fucking desperate.

And silence. 

Silence.

Silence.

Silence.

Silence

And silence. Silence until the word loses all meaning; silence until it breaks the rules and becomes something else: a loud, deafening and all encompassing noise.

He can’t help it - Katsuki cracks like a man made of stone.

“You know what, fine,” he spits out. “If that’s how you want to be, you shitty, stubborn nerd, then fine.”

Katsuki stands up. Then he grabs his leg-

“Kacchan, what are yo-”

and pulls Izuku off the bed.

A thump and a tumble; Izuku lands on the floor. The impact is loud and the remorse burns Katsuki’s throat immediately.

Izuku fell on his side, but hasn’t made any move to bring himself up. He remains absolutely still for a few seconds, staring at the floor in some tense, shocked silence, his face shadowed over by his hair. He just stares and he stares, breathing slowly and silently. Yeah, Katsuki can admit it, that was a shitty move.

But then suddenly, Izuku is pushing himself up with his elbow and looking up to glare.

Katsuki can really see him now, with the dim yellow light that comes from the hallway. He has heavy bags under his eyes. He looks-

“What the hell is wrong with you, Kacchan?” Izuku asks sharply from the floor. 

He looks unlike himself. He looks…really angry now; the emptiness is gone and something else has replaced that dull, dejected cavern. And it surprises Katsuki - the sudden shift in atmosphere. The unfamiliar hardness in Izuku’s tone.

“Me? What’s wrong with you? ” Katsuki stresses anyway, his remorse not yet greater than his willingness to bite back. “You haven’t come to school for days, you aren’t answering anyone’s texts, and everyone keeps fucking asking me about you even though I have no clue either. So you know what I do? I come all the way over to your damn house, only to find you worrying your fucking mom by being all moody and glued to your damn bed like a shitty fucking hermit.”

“God, why do you always have to be so-”

but Izuku cuts himself off with a frustrated huff. 

He shakes his head like Katsuki has some sort of audacity, and he shifts backwards, leaning his back resolutely on the side of his bed. With his eyes glued to the wall in front of him, he says, “I didn’t ask you to come here. So please just… go. And close the door on your way out.”

Katsuki makes a fucking face at that. “Oi, you better watch your fuckin-” 

But after a millisecond of contemplation, he clenches his mouth shut, too. He won’t continue that sentence, that’s not what he came here to do. He takes a very deep, very loud breath, trying to exhale all of his bad fucking habits before he explodes this room.

He turns away sharply and stares daggers into one of the posters on the wall. All Might’s dumb face seems to work at calming him down though. 

In every conflict they have ever had, it has usually been Katsuki who has been the one more…full of bite. More angry, more easy to snap. But right now, as he looks back towards Izuku, he can see nothing but tension, nothing but strain. Izuku looks so frustrated and annoyed, everything he usually is better at holding back. It’s something rare from him and it makes Katsuki rethink his methods a bit.

So he sighs away the irritation, moving closer and crouching down in front of Izuku. 

Izuku turns his head away sharply. Katsuki just studies his hard set profile for a second. His heart aches with the absence of a solution, feeling like it’s just out of grasp.

“I knew something was up so I came, Izuku,” he ends up saying, voice firm. “You don’t have to ask me to do that for you - I’ll just do it.”

Impossibly, Izuku turns his head even further.

“Look I’m just…” Katsuki tries, but the words die in the back of his throat. He doesn’t know how much more rejection he can take before he explodes.

But his mother didn’t raise - excuse the language - a bitch. So try again. “I came here because I’m fucking worried about you. You…I mean this shit’s obvious, you haven’t really been okay since it all ended. But now this? What the hell did you expect me to do, Izuku? You just disappeared out of nowhere - exactly like last time. And look how that turned out for you, trying to carry all of that shit on your own.” 

It’s a worm on a hook when Izuku’s eyes soften by the smallest fraction. Katsuki will take anything that he can get from him. 

“So just tell me what’s wrong, nerd,” he urges, tone more soft and sincere this time. “Tell me so that we can fix it, whatever the hell it is that’s got you like this. ”

But somehow it was the wrong thing to say. Whatever emotion that had flickered in Izuku’s eyes died with those last few words that spilled out of Katsuki’s mouth. 

And suddenly he is armored. He is guarded, a stone soldier fighting in a war that he refuses to name. A war with no victors. Izuku’s lip wavers furiously, and his brow scrunches sharply. His head is locked north into fucking nothing and his muscles strain, screaming at Katsuki, no.

Katsuki doesn’t think that he has felt more desperation, more helpless and out of options. No moment in all of his almost 18 years of life can compare to this - not being on the brink of death, not falling from the sky. Nothing. 

Desperate. 

Desperate, so he grabs Izuku’s face in his palm and turns his head. “If you’re not gonna say anything, then can you at least fucking look at me,” Katsuki strains, patience stretched thin.

Izuku doesn’t take this kindly. He grips Katsuki’s forearm right back with a painful grip, his chest heaving angrily and his eyes burning even hotter than all of that. He holds Katsuki so tight that his bones almost creak from the force of it. 

He stares into Katsuki, his eyes like jagged jade. The shade of it is caught between a scream and a sob, and Katsuki succinctly realizes that he understands nothing. 

Then the grip loosens a bit and Izuku throws Katsuki’s hand off of him. 

What happens next is a whirlwind, an amalgamation of confusion and frenzy. Katsuki is left a mere observer, just watching helplessly as Izuku drags a hand down his face, huffing out humorously like everything has an audacity, before he is tucking his head into his knees, arms wrapped around himself. 

Then he’s lifting his head sharply and running his hands through his hair. And then he’s opening his mouth, visibility frustrated when nothing but a weak noise comes out. And he’s clenching his fists, closing his mouth and shutting his eyes. Open and closed, open and closed, hand through hair, turning away.

“They’re-”

A glitch of movement, desperate to soothe, desperate to say something. Izuku struggles and struggles and it hurts Katsuki to watch.

“Th-they’re almost gone,” he finally gets out with difficulty - furious, painful difficulty. He’s glaring at the floor.

“What’s almost gone?” Katsuki asks, lost and desperate for revelation. And then suddenly it clicks.

It fucking clicks.

God, why wasn’t this the first thing he thought of. This horrible inevitability. It’s what they’ve been waiting for this whole time, hasn’t it been?

Katsuki looks away for a second to run a hand over his own face, letting his fingertips drag down the skin beneath his eyes - because this is all too heavy. “The embers?” he asks, voice awfully sober.

Izuku works his jaw. “Yes, Kacchan,” he says shakily, “the embers. I use them one more time and that’s it. It’ll be over. Done.” 

His face gets pulled into something of a grimace, something desperate and on a verge. Something that toes the dangerous line between heartbreak and anger. “Now can you just...can you please just go,” he strains.

Katsuki doesn’t even think he’d be able to make himself leave, even if he wanted to. He doesn’t know if scared is the right word for it, but this is the omen, the darkness seeping out of the room, the warning of it all that Katsuki just couldn’t see. Because in all the conversations they’ve tried having about this, Izuku had never once expressed anger about losing his quirk. Never frustration, never spitefulness, never any bitter feelings. Katsuki was convinced that somehow, Izuku had already found his solace. 

Katsuki was wrong. 

He feels out of his depth. He’s not familiar with this angry shape that Izuku’s eyes have taken, but he knows that out of all the things he could do, running isn’t one of them.

“No I'm not…” he starts, lips downturned. “I'm not just going to leave Izuku.” 

At this, Izuku buries his head in his knees, squeezing crescents into his arms.

Katsuki swallows dry. “Look…whatever happens, we’ll…we’ll figure it out, yeah?”

Izuku squeezes harder. It looks painful.

“I…I get it, this shit is hard, we knew it was going to be hard. But…you don’t have to be alone. You shouldn’t be alone. I don’t get why you wanna hide so badl-”

“Because I don’t want to see you!” Izuku shrieks, removing his head from his arms. His expression is raw and anguished. “I don’t want to see you, Kacchan - how many times do I have to say it? Why is it so impossible for you to just listen to me for once and go?”

At the sight of Katsuki's wide, taken aback eyes, Izuku sighs wearily, rubbing at his eyes. His silence is anything but quiet as he just stares at the wall in front of him, with a hand in his hair like his head is too heavy for his neck to hold up on its own.

And then an exhale. 

“I have no idea when it’s going to happen,” Izuku says, tone raw and tired. “I have no idea. I’ve been waiting here for days, because I know it’s coming. I know it, I feel it - i-it feels awful. It feels like I’m- like a part of me is dissolving.”

Izuku shakes his head, like he can't believe the enormity and unfairness of it all, that the world can just keep on taking. “And it’s so long,” he says wearily, “that’s the worst part of it all. It’s not quick, it's not just gone in the blink of an eye - it’s been months. Months of this, months of just waiting and thinking about it, and trying to plan everything out and trying to prepare and more thinking and- it hurts. It hurts but- but I’m scared of what happens when that all stops.”

His mouth hardens into a sharp line and his brow furrows, the stream of grief threatened by his rounded eyes prevented. “I-I don’t know,” he says, tone harder than it was a second ago. “I don’t know, but when it happens, I don’t want you to be there. I don’t want you to be there to see me like…”

When he doesn’t continue, Katsuki asks desperately, “Like what?”

His throat works. Burning tears, hot, angry tears start to bite at his water line. He bites the inside of his lip and Katsuki worries that he might bleed from it.

Izuku grits out, voice breaking, “Like a quirkless loser.”

Maybe it was the familiarity of it. Maybe it's because he could hear his own voice in those words. But Katsuki’s face falls hard and fast. 

“Don’t say that,” Katsuki says sharply, tone low and harsh. “Don’t fucking say that. You may end up quirkless but you’re not gonna be a fucking- god, what the hell is wrong with you, huh? You really believe that shit after everything? You really don’t think that you’ve proven yourself enough times already? You don’t think you’ve given enough?”

A searing sound. A sound that burns. Nothing at all - an entirety of it.

“You have,” Katsuki strains desperately, his voice a burning sound of its own, “I’ll tell you if you need to hear it: you have. You’ve given too much of yourself to be anything other than a hero for the rest of your damn life, you hear me? You…Izuku, you gave too much.” 

At the end of it he is left breathless. And though an anger he wasn’t expecting had infected his voice, Katsuki thought that most of what he wanted to say was something else, words sent to make things better. He thought naively that maybe, despite the tone, they could still be the remedy.

But those words save no one: Izuku meets Katsuki’s gaze and he glares. Burning, boiling, bubbling pots - eyes melting and pouring like hot, seething oil. Like the promise of a life where he is a hero is one that hurts, like he knows that he gave too much and it wasn’t even enough. His chest shudders with the storm of it all. He looks lost in it. 

And suddenly there’s a cavern in between them, miles upon miles of free fall. Something that looks uncrossable.

“Get out, Kacchan,” Izuku says, voice shaking furiously. “Please.” Hot, angry tears spill over his cheeks, and his face pinches so hard it looks painful.

Katsuki’s hand reaches out. “Izuku, don’t-“

“I said get out!” Izuku cries, slapping his hand away.

It stings.

Katsuki’s skin stings a bit, but at this point, that doesn’t even matter. In that moment, his hand hanging uselessly in the air, Katsuki finally comes to accept a few things. Things set heavy into stone.

He accepts who he is: that he is not the person who knows yet how to fix things, who knows how to hold. He accepts how things are: that Izuku doesn't want to talk, and that Izuku is angry. He accepts that the shape of this anger is a hurricane, and that a hurricane is a just storm born from a rising sea of grief. 

Katsuki accepts all of that, yet he knows, like he knows his own skin and bones, that there's no chance in hell he’s leaving. 

Izuku looks like he is fighting against an urge to bite, like he has teeth and there’s a reason why they glint; like a glint is the better option in comparison to drowning in the sea that looms. Katsuki decides then and there what he’s going to do about all of this.

“You want me to leave?” he asks quietly.

Izuku’s face tries to remain stony and resistant, with hard, strong-willed lines being etched into him - but salt and water are the things that erode at marble skin. Katsuki won’t ignore his tears.

“Well, if that’s really what you want, then…you’re just gonna have to make me,” Katsuki says calmly, laying the tips of his fingers on Izuku’s shoulder and pushing lightly.

Izuku looks down at his shoulder, then back up at Katsuki, eyes still painfully burning. His face, still an angry grimace. 

He says a bit weaker this time, “Get out of my room.”

“I already told you my answer,” Katsuki says. “Now what are you gonna do about it?” He pushes Izuku a bit harder this time.

Something rises in Izuku. 

“I told you to get the hell out, Kacchan,” he rushes out desperately, shoving Katsuki with enough force so that he falls onto his back.

Izuku is standing up, looking down at Katsuki, and he is a war. Grief and frustration and remorse use his body as the battlefield, painting his face with floods and pained features. His shoulders are trembling and his breathing is staggered. Katsuki realizes that he’s crying for real now, but he has never seen him cry like this.

Izuku is a storm. He is a rage.

Chest heaving and stuttering, Izuku wipes his eyes roughly, he makes a frustrated noise. There’s some sort of regret, some sort of sorry that Katsuki holds in his heart for all of this, but he knows it won’t fix things. 

Then suddenly, Izuku is stepping closer. Somehow, despite everything, he still has it in him. And like he was always going to do it, he holds his hand out to Katsuki, hiccuping and just staring at him expectantly with burning tears in his eyes.

There is no hesitation. Katsuki takes his hand, and he rises too.

When they stand, Izuku is filled with uncertainty. He looks at his hands like he knows what Katsuki wants him to do with them, like he’s not sure if he should. When he puts his palm on Katsuki’s chest, he pushes with no strength to it. 

“Please just… go home Kacchan,” he urges, his voice tight.

And Katsuki says, “No.”

Izuku sniffles. His brow furrows angrily but the rest of his face is trembling.

“P-please,” he strains, pushing Katsuki weakly again.

“I told you I’m not leaving, Izuku.”

His lips are downturned and his jaw wavers. His eyes are begging and frustrated and burning. When Izuku pushes him again softly, it is a wordless, desperate plea. 

But Katsuki becomes the mountain. Silent and solemn; unmoving and unwilling. He refuses.

Then he brings his hands to Izuku’s shoulders and makes the first move for him. He shoves hard. 

Izuku stumbles back, looking down at the floor. His shoulders are shaking. Something like a silent cry escapes his mouth, long and bitter like a bow against string.

In the next moment a decision is made, and Izuku’s hands are on Katsuki’s collarbones, hot and burning and sudden. A mountain moving, a tsunami with a will.

He feels the frustration, the anger, the regret and the unfairness of it all bloom throughout his very bones, and he is shoved back, too. Maybe that’s all they both needed, maybe Katsuki should have let it end at that - but he didn’t. His decision was to write something out in skin and bone. He’s writing out his argument and his is next line goes like this:

Katsuki comes at Izuku, swiftly and overwhelming he moves into his space. It’s not quite an embrace, but still his arms wrap tightly around Izuku and say: I’ll take whatever you need to give me. I’ll give whatever you need to take in the only way I have left. In the only way I know how.

They both stumble back from the force of the collision, and for just a moment, they live in a world where Katsuki is hugging Izuku. Where he is speaking softly in his ear, able to tell him things that he feels to be true. A world in which Izuku’s ears are yet to be burdened by so much bullshit. A world where Izuku listens, where he is able to, where he is told ‘it’ll be okay’ and it is the cure. A world in which Izuku is not a geyser waking, like he isn’t hot air and pressure and steam, like there is no need for release.

A world where things are perfect, where Katsuki’s hand on Izuku’s back means that everything is right again. Where maybe nothing had ever gone wrong. 

But things aren’t right, yet. Things are not so perfect nor pristine. Nothing is easy and we still haven’t reached the conclusion of his thesis, because Izuku’s arms are trapped tightly at his sides and Katsuki is telling him to break free.

Page break, press enter, indent, and:

Izuku is only still for a fraction of a second, before something clicks in his mind and he is thrashing and turning. He breaks the cage that is Katsuki, grabbing his arms and pushing him towards the door. Katsuki resists with everything he has in him, planting a foot and giving him the same force back.

Katsuki doesn’t know if this could be considered sparring. It feels too charged for that, and it's more of pushing and grabbing than anything with proper form.

Izuku doesn’t cry anymore. His face is still wet from the tears he had shed, but now he just looks determined and a bit desperate. His hands grab at Katsuki like he’s fire, like they are both fire, like they are both burning. Izuku breathes as though he’s drowning, like maybe in a few breaths he’ll finally, finally, catch air.

They tussle. Katsuki doesn’t know how his hands move, maybe it’s a little rough. Maybe they are still a little pissed off at all the fucking rejection, or maybe they are basking in the feeling of having Izuku’s eyes on him again. So many maybes, but all Katsuki knows is that he has to finish his argument, and that he won’t lose. 

Izuku’s hands, though, are clawing and pushing, saying leave leave leave against Katsuki’s refusal. And they move, they are full of life and no longer held down by the weight of it all. They’re saying leave leave leave - until somehow the event horizon is reached, and suddenly they’re not. Until suddenly they are pulling Katsuki painfully closer and saying stay before I lose it. Before I combust.

So then it becomes a desperate dance of who can hold the other down first. Katsuki throws him onto the bed, managing to get an arm pinned down before Izuku is kicking and scrambling and has them flipped over.

Izuku is strong. He’s always been strong, but this time Izuku is strong and angry at something bigger than Katsuki. Something intangible, an unfair reality that has the audacity not to carry itself in a body.

He carries all of that, so Izuku is the one who ends up pinning him down, his knee digging into Katsuki’s thigh and a palm plastered onto the side of his face. He huffs and puffs, holding Katsuki down against his struggling with a hard, focused look.

Until he blinks, and suddenly that all melts away from his eyes. And like his face has abruptly realized that it's too tired to keep holding onto a glare, it all goes slack.

Izuku pushes down hard, some sort of last word, and then he lets go, falling away weakly from Katsuki. He lays flat on his stomach, his face hidden in the crook of his arm and his chest still rising and falling with the lingering traces of exertion. It’s over.

Katsuki lays on his back, sore and bruised to all hell, and hopes that whatever the fuck just happen was the right thing to happen. That he chose the right thing to do - even though it was pretty fucking stupid.

He hears Izuku sigh heavily from beside him. Katsuki really wants to reach out, maybe just lay a hand on his back or something - but he doesn’t. He holds onto patience and he waits.

After some time, Izuku softly rises, leaning on his forearms and looking over at Katsuki with tired, downturned, busted lips. His eyes are droopy and melting and no longer burning. Now they’re just entirely sad.

Izuku frowns, studying the traces of him he had left on Katuski’s face in concern. Hesitantly and so very gently, he reaches a hand out to Katsuki’s face, fingers placed lightly on his cheek and jaw, angling his head towards him so he can get a better look at something that caught his eye. Katsuki tries his best not to wince, but his fingers are pretty close to a sore spot.

“I think I scratched you,” Izuku says quietly and full of remorse. “It might leave a mark.”

Katsuki wraps his hand around Izuku’s arm, skin against skin, and tells him, “That’s okay. You should see yourself, I got you just as good.” 

Izuku’s frown deepens and his eyes are lost. His hand moves to the side of Katsuki’s neck, just holding it there. “Why did you do that Kacchan,” he asks in a small voice. “Why did you…” 

“You did it for me once,” Katsuki says simply. “You did it for me, and…it didn’t make things better, but for some reason I was able to think more clearly after that. More clearly than I had in a while. So…I don’t know. Thought you could use that, too. You looked really fucking repressed and it was pissing me off, so I just...I wanted you to get up.”

Izuku doesn’t say anything to this, so he adds, “Plus I’m strong enough. I can take a few hits.” 

Maybe that was another wrong thing to say, because all of a sudden Izuku’s lips start to waver dangerously.

“I’m sorry,” he says tightly, fingers curling around the back of Katsuki’s neck softly in apology. “I’m really sorry, Kacchan.”

Katsuki sighs. “Don’t be.”

“I shouldn’t have snapped at you, either.”

“I forgive you.”

“I-I wasn’t mad at you, I just didn’t want to be sad about it.”

“I know.”

“But…but I still ended up…”

“It’s okay Izuku,” Katsuki says firmly, finding it in himself to be able to soothe in mostly the right ways this time. It’s not the cure, but it’s something. “It’s okay, and it’s going to be okay.”

“Y-you don’t know that,” Izuku tries waveringly.

“I do. I do know it. I don’t doubt that whatever path you take after this will be the right thing. The best thing.”

Izuku just swipes at Katsuki’s skin instead of looking him in the eyes.

‘Look I’m…I’m not the best at…at the fucking… comforting shit,” Katsuki finds himself saying. “Maybe I’ll get better at it someday but…for now I’m sorry that I came into your room and pulled you off your bed like that. I was being an asshole.”

Izuku sighs. “I forgive you, Kacchan,” he says tiredly. “And I’m…I’m glad you didn’t leave.”

And with that Izuku pulls away, turning to lie on his side. His eyes are heavy, the shade of them now tired and pensive. Like a rusted copper coin who has seen too much for too long.

“Did you really mean it?” Katsuki asks him.

Izuku scrunches his brows slightly. “Mean what?”

The…quirkless…” but Katsuki finds that he can’t continue. He doesn’t want to say it. He doesn't think he has the right to.

Izuku goes silent, averting his gaze.

“I don’t know,” he says after a while. 

“Well you shouldn’t,” Katsuki says seriously. “That’s a fucked up thing to think about yourself. And I know - it’s fucked up coming from me, but someone has to pull you out of that rabbit hole.”

“I know, I just…” Izuku sighs, “I don’t know what I’m supposed to do now, Kacchan. I mean, what, do I just go to class and sit on the sidelines during quirk training? Are they just going to give me an A for doing nothing? What about internships? Who’s going to take me without a quirk? A-and what about after I graduate, I-I don’t know any agencies who- who-”

“Okay, stop,” Katsuki interjects. “You’re- you’re freaking yourself the fuck out, and that’s not going to help anyone.”

“But-”

“Stop. I mean it. If you keep going, I’m gonna shove you off the bed. I could go another round.”

Izuku just huffs.

“Let’s just…think about tomorrow,” Katsuki says resolutely. “What are we going to do tomorrow?”

A few seconds of thoughtful silence.

“We?” he asks hesitantly.

Katsuki clenches his jaw and curses his word choices. But fuck it, he decides to be brave.

“I mean…it’s a Saturday. I’m not busy. Are you busy?”

“N-no.”

“Then… tomorrow,” Katsuki says firmly, though his heart still pounds embarrassingly loud. “What do you want to do?”

Izuku takes a moment to think. “I…want to go see the limited edition All Might merch collection,” he says in a sheepish voice.

“That’s it?”

“And…maybe get something to eat after.”

“Okay then. It’s a date.”

“Okay,” Izuku breathes out, finally agreeing to take the weight off of his shoulders. But then-

“Wait, what?”

“What?” asks Katsuki confusedly.

“You just- you said…”

Izuku’s eyes are a bit wide, his face a bit red. “N-never mind,” he rushes out, “Nevermind. Saturday then.”

Katsuki’s eyes scrunch curiously at him - until he realizes. 

Oh shit. He just said it’s a date. He didn’t mean to say it like that, that’s not what he meant, he just-

Katsuki turns his head swiftly, staring at the ceiling with a ghastly face. There’s no coming back from this. There’s no coming back. There’s only one course of action he can take to repent for this slip up: Katsuki is going to have to fake his own death, steal someone’s identity and move across three different continents - and probably dye his hair red, too. Just for safe measure. 

After Saturday. 

For a while after that, they kind of just lay in a simple silence. It gives Katsuki the space to rethink things: he rethinks the first step he took into Izuku’s room, the way he held the doorknob, the words he used and the tone of it all. He thinks about Izuku laying beside him, whose future is more unsure than it was last week. 

Katsuki glances over at him. Izuku is looking up at the ceiling, his eyebrow slightly furrowed and lip pouted in a certain way that reveals everything. He knows what Izuku is thinking about. 

There’s a want that Katsuki secretly has: to take a thumb and smooth away those pensive lines. It’s a feeling he won’t indulge in.

But there’s also a something else, a beginning of a thought that pops up in Katsuki’s mind. It feels right and true, so he finds himself breaking the silence again.

“Izuku.” 

Izuku doesn’t turn to look at him, still staring at the ceiling with his arms crossed idly over his stomach. “Yeah?” he asks absentmindedly.

Katsuki doesn’t say anything else at first. He knows the feeling of these words, but he’s not quite sure he knows the shape. He opens his mouth anyways.

“I…I believe…in you.”

A long pause.

Izuku turns his head to look at Katsuki, utterly bewildered. “Wh-what?” 

Katsuki huffs frustratedly, feeling the need to look away rather than stare at Izuku’s big ass, confused eyes. “I just…don’t think it’s over for you yet, okay? You- I don’t want you to give up on being a hero, because that would be such a fucking waste. It might look different for you, without a quirk, but you’ll…if anyone can find a way it’ll be you. You want it more than anyone else I know - other than me - so I know that you’ll make it work. It’s not impossible, it’s not over and done. You still have a good chance. That’s what I believe in. I…I believe in you.”

At the end of it all, Izuku is quiet. Everything is quiet and Katsuki can’t gauge what it all means - which means that somehow he managed to fuck everything up.

So he turns, and his heart sinks at the sight of him.

Izuku, with a lost expression, frozen and soft like porcelain; Izuku, with his mouth slightly frowning and open like he doesn’t know what to do with the words Katsuki just gave him. (Neither did Katsuki, if he’s being honest.) Izuku, with his brows slightly furrowed in utter confusion, but also Izuku, with his eyes shining in the worst of ways.

He didn’t mean to do that. Those words were simply a truth, as simple as a fact found in a book. The sky is blue, the Earth is round, and Izuku will become a hero. But he curses himself for somehow always finding the wrong thing to say.

“Hey, don’t,” Katsuki says weakly, reaching a hand over to him before thinking better of it. “Don’t cry, Izuku, I-”

It all comes tumbling down. It surprises them both when his teeth start to clatter, when his face crumples and a sad noise escapes Izuku’s lips. And then a tear escapes him.

“Fuck, I’m- I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to…” 

Izuku, ever the runner, immediately and swiftly sits up, the weight of his head held heavy in his hands. The shake of his shoulders is suddenly overwhelmed and inconsolable, the soft sound of his crying like sinking in Katsuki’s ears.

Katsuki has no idea what to do, how to fix the mess that he had just made, that Izuku hadn’t asked for. He just watches him a bit panickedly, making a move to sit up with him, his mouth opening helplessly to spill out the words I’m sorry again.

He barely gets an I out before he is being pushed back down, the urgent force of Izuku turning to grab hold of his shirt sudden and unexpected.

There are tears still streaming down his face, but Izuku grasps at him like he needs to above all else. He holds Katsuki’s heart in his hand, and somehow it seems like it’s still not close enough for him. It leaves Katsuki bewildered.

“K-Kacchan,” Izuku chokes out, face stuck in a confusing, tearful grimace.

Katsuki doesn’t know what his face must look like - probably extremely stupid and lost. “Yeah?” he asks shakily.

“You-,” Izuku tries. His eyes are filled with words that Katsuki can’t read, frantic words that are asking to be understood. His eyes are reaching and reaching; Katsuki can’t seem to understand but he manages to feel the weight of it. It’s heavy.

So there’s only one thing left. “I’m sorry,” Katsuki whispers, hoping that it means something, that it is something that finally fixes things. 

“N-no, no,” Izuku hiccups, trying his best to collect himself despite the distress in his eyes. “No, don’t…”

He takes a deep breath, looking off to the side and then back again.

“P-people,” Izuku finally gets out. He swallows thickly, eyes wobbling. “People don’t usually… believe in me. Th-they never did that before, back when…when I was…” 

Understand understand understand, Izuku’s eyes beg. And Katsuki, the witness to it all, can do nothing but listen. He understands.

And suddenly his throat constricts on itself. Years and change and something like love piles down onto him, the force of it feeling debilitating. He is the testimony and he is the perpetrator. He is both and it makes the world turn up on its head. He doesn’t know why it hurts so much - but it does. This pain doesn’t belong to him, but he’ll hold it anyway so that Izuku can stand a little taller when it rains.

It’s the simple knowing. Understanding to the core that without a quirk, no one had reason to believe in Izuku. The simple knowing that now, Izuku - practically quirkless and singularly himself - is what Katsuki believes in. Despite all of that.

Why didn’t he say it before? He should have said it before.

“Yeah, I know,” Katsuki says tightly.

“B-but…but you believe in me?” Izuku asks a bit strainedly, gripping his shirt tighter.

Katsuki’s jaw wavers, so he clenches it as hard as possible. How can words have such an effect? Just four words. “I can’t help it,” is what he croaks out. “You make it impossible not to.”

Izuku’s lip quivers. His eyes are crinkling bittersweetly and he grabs Katsuki’s hand in both of his own, cradling it like he is holding Katsuki’s very belief.

“Thank you,” he says, voice thick with emotion. “Th-thank you, Kacchan , I- thank you .”

Katsuki frowns slightly, shaking his head. “Don’t thank me.”

“Y-you don’t know,” Izuku says wearily, those words being sighed out like they are too heavy, like he’s been carrying them for so long. “You don’t know what it feels like, when no one…i-it-”

Maybe they are too heavy, because Izuku folds over, bringing up Katsuki’s hand to the crown of his head. 

But when Katsuki feels his lips being pressed shakily against his knuckles, like words barely scratch the surface of enough for Izuku, he says nothing. It burns, he feels like he’s on the verge of a sweet death - he says nothing.

The words are pressed gently into his skin. “Thank you,” Izuku whispers again, voice as soft as linen dancing in a breeze. “Thank you.”

Katsuki swallows dry. “Thank yourself, nerd,” he manages to get out. “I didn’t do anything.”

Izuku breathes out a laugh at this. It’s sweet and soft, and Katsuki feels it against his hand. It feels like the cure, and it sounds like something better.

He is only there for a few seconds longer, before he is pulling away. It’s almost unfortunate when he does, but to Katsuki it’s worth it. It’s worth it, because when Izuku rises, he is new again. 

“Let’s go,” he says as he pushes himself off from the bed. The curve of his mouth is set in the shape of a soft determination. “We can go to the kitchen and get you something for your cheek.”

It’s sudden. Maybe it was always there, but now it is entirely awake. Inspiration, pride, a commitment like no other. Lifelong burning, an everlasting type of thing. This is what runs through Katsuki’s veins. This is what happens when you see conviction in another, and it sets you on fire, too.

Because there is a promise glinting in Izuku’s eyes, and like a sweet, infectious laugh, Katsuki can’t help but make one of his own, too. No matter how long it takes, if Izuku keeps the flame of his dreams alive, then Katsuki will give him the tinder. He’ll give until there’s no more giving to be done, until they are standing shoulder to shoulder and it means everything is right again. 

It becomes a tattoo on the skin of his soul - the promise of that life. They’ll make it real together.

“Okay,” Katsuki says. And he rises, too.