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It’s loud, loud, loud.
The room is rattling with the sounds of crashing and yelling in the floors above him. He curls further into himself and trembles, unable to do anything more but gnaw on the knuckle of one hand anxiously and wish he could melt into the dirty gray floor.
Eventually the unmistakable sounds of fighting find their way to just outside his door and he jumps, clapping his other hand over his mouth as the door bursts off its hinges.
A broad, powerful figure fills the frame and their eyes instantly lock with his, wide and peering through the dark. They bring a hand to their ear without breaking eye contact and say in a deep, booming voice, “I found him!”
The boy trembles harder.
This figure is quickly swarmed by a few others, all loud, all bright and colorful and strange. Behind them in the hallway lay the strewn bodies of his captors. The newcomers are talking to each other and maybe to him, too, but their words make no sense.
“Midoriya,” they call. “Deku,” they say. “We came to get you out. We have medical on standby. Are you okay? Can you walk? Talk to us.”
If he is either Midoryia or Deku, he can’t say. He simply shakes his head, then flinches when someone drops to their knees in front of the cage door.
“We’re getting you out of there, kid,” this man says. He is quieter than the others, lanky and dressed in black, but with an intensity in one dark eye that instantly offers an anchor in the storm. “Sugarman,” he calls over his shoulder. “Everyone. Stand back. Creati, the key?”
The newcomers listen to this man. They quietly fall back to the edges of the room. One in particular seems averse to the order, hovering closer than the rest and shifting on his feet as though unable to be still. His fiery eyes are drawn in a scowl and locked on the boy in the cage, who sees sparks come out of his clenching and unclenching fists, lighting up the walls in flickers.
A creak from the iron door draws his attention back to the man in black.
For the first time in all the time he remembers, the boy’s cage door swings open to someone other than his captors.
A hand starts to reach in.
His rational brain is overcome with the threat that hand cuts through the dark and something in the boy snaps . Before it can touch him, he pushes off the wall and darts forward, shoving as hard as he can into the body before him. The man in black makes a noise of surprise as he’s shoved aside, opening the way to freedom.
The room bursts alive again as the boy spills into the center of the room in a pile of limbs. Someone steps close to him and he skitters away, but bumps into another and tries to scramble to his feet. Their voices call in tones of confusion, then alarm as he makes a break for the still-open door.
He trips.
Nobody tackles him; he’s simply felled by one foot hooking under another. He hasn’t run (or walked or stood) in an unknown amount of time and he hasn’t eaten in just as long.
But he doesn’t know what will happen, he doesn’t know who these strangers are, he doesn’t know who he is to them, who he is at all–
–and as his desperation reaches a fever pitch, something bursts out of him.
It’s a tornado of flickering green tendrils. They flare around him like the protective quills of a porcupine, forcefully pushing the strangers back into the walls, wrapping around their limbs before they can touch him. Green lightning arcs around the room. The boy covers his head with his arms, confused and terrified. He bites his lip so hard that he tastes blood.
Then just as fast as they appeared, the tendrils dissipate like smoke. The lightning cuts out.
Something wraps around him, pinning his arms to his sides.
He gasps for air, looking about, and finds the man in black staring at him with his one eye glowing red and hair billowing in invisible wind. In his hand is the other end of the capture weapon.
“It’s us, idiot!” yells the gravelly voice of the sparking boy, who stomps closer. He’s stopped by the man in black throwing out an arm, the one not holding the capture weapon.
“Midoriya Izuku,” says the man. “Do you know who I am?”
Why do they keep expecting him to answer?
The boy– Midoriya?– can’t focus. His vision dances with spots as he tries to draw air faster than his lungs can hold it. His world tilts.
“Midoriya, breathe!” a feminine voice says in alarm behind him. “Eraser, he’s going to–”
“Problem child–”
All the loud finally fades to static as the ground reaches up for him. The last thing he knows is the thud of his skull finding concrete.
Thud
Twenty-seven days.
Thud
Deku was missing for twenty-seven days.
Thud
Mastered six quirks, fought in a war, made it to his second year of UA, only for twenty-seven days of captivity to turn him into that.
Hair dirty and matted, face sunken, eyes practically rolling in their skull as they flit between their figures like they’re boogie-men closing in rather than rescuers coming twenty-six days too late.
Katsuki hits the punching bag so hard it ruptures and sand begins pouring out. His hands are smoking, shoulders heaving with heavy breaths. He spins and stomps away from the mess
“He’s going to be fine, though, right?” Ururaka asked, biting at her fingernails endlessly. She and other classmates are gathered anxiously in the dim light of the common room at midnight, pestering their recently returned friends for every detail they had on the rescue operation.
“Totally! Well, I mean. It’s probably not as bad as it looks, but um… ” Kaminari trailed off, looking for someone else from the rescue to finish. Katsuki refused to speak, Satou already went up to his room, and Yaoyorozu had her face buried in her hands, Jirou rubbing her back; so it was Tokoyami who finished solemnly,
“It looked bad.”
That was when Iida made them disperse. That was yesterday.
Now, Katsuki can see the sun beginning to light the sky visible from the windows in the UA gym, which gives him an idea of how long he’s been letting off steam.
He chugs a long drink of water, nearly emptying the whole thing before pulling away and wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. He tosses the warped plastic bottle on the bench and stands there for a long moment, staring at the room and heaving out breaths. He’s no closer to sanity than he had when he first burst in here.
They wouldn’t let him see Deku, when he’d tried shoving his way into the infirmary.
“He’s only been awake off and on, and he’s very confused,” Aizawa explained. “The doctors found a type of memory-blocking drug in his system.”
The tense look eched on his face for at least twenty-seven days had finally relaxed into a look of exhaustion, and he rubbed his forehead tiredly, looking seconds from passing out.
Katsuki said, “Let me talk to him.”
“He isn’t talking,” the teacher said, exasperation emphasizing his words. “We’ve tried, kid.”
The image of Izuku writhing right before he’d passed out in Eraserhead’s capture weapon comes to Katsuki’s mind unbidden. Even then, he hadn’t made a single sound other than harsh gasping, like the sound of his own voice scared him.
Katsuki shook the thought away, scowling.
“So he needs a reminder,” he tried again, taking a step toward the door. He was quickly intercepted.
“It will wear off on its own within 24 hours, but until then, family only. Please, Bakugo, for his sake and yours: get some rest.”
And because he was mature enough not to make a scene, Katsuki had no choice but to leave. Not to rest, though. Screw that.
There’s no way this is what takes Deku out of the playing field.
He, they all, have been through way too much for that; this is just another pitfall on his hero journey. He’ll be saving people with a smile and yapping to everyone and worrying about missed classes in no time. He’ll bounce back like he always does.
(But, Katsuki had also been kidnapped, once upon a time. He wouldn’t exactly say he bounced back.)
A metallic thud knocks him out of his thoughts.
Katsuki looks at the corner of the ceiling where the sound emanated from.
It sounds like something heavy making its way through the vent, stopping just outside the door to the men’s changing room, where a grate in the wall sits. He hears breathing besides his own. Something barely visible shifts behind the grate bars, likely noticing him. Katsuki waits but nothing else happens.
He pulls out his phone. He taps on Aizawa’s contact and sends off a text.
Me, 5:45AM
did you guys lose something
Katsuki slides his phone back in his pocket and takes a moment to consider getting someone more gentle. Pink cheeks, or Icy hot. Icy hot would probably fare really well in this situation.
Instead he sits down.
Maybe it’s because he already wore himself out on the punching bag, maybe the lack of rest, maybe the combination of everything culminating after twenty-seven days; but it’s actually really easy for Katsuki’s vision to glaze over.
Having seen Deku burst into tears loads of times, he almost envies now what he used to see as a sign of weakness. Deku could cry for anyone and everyone, his heart fuller than the world was full of people. Katsuki’s only been able to do that once.
He props his forehead in his hand, closing his eyes.
There’s shifting in the duct and eventually the creak of the vent cracking open.
Katsuki peers up and sees the figure he expected to see dropping silently down to the gym floor, eyes like a deer in headlights as he sees Katsuki looking back at him. Deku crouches, ten feet away and tense, but his expression is worriedly fixed on Katsuki’s face and the wetness there.
Even after being beaten and drugged and locked in a quirk-suppressing cage for weeks, Deku is still Deku.
“Hi,” Katsuki croaks, his voice loud in the sudden stillness. He clears his throat. “You remember who I am yet?”
Deku regards him silently. Katsuki regards him back.
He notices that Deku has something pressed to his chest. Deku shifts so he’s sitting forward, knees crossed, and it’s only when he snags a marker from behind his ear and begins scribbling that Katsuki realizes it’s a notebook. He’s writing something down in said notebook he got from who-knows-where.
Before long, Deku flips the page around and holds it spread open in Katsuki’s direction.
A large What is this place? is written across both pages, big enough for Katsuki to read.
“We’re at UA,” Katsuki says. Deku looks at him blankly. “‘S a school for heroes.”
Deku turns the book around and flips a page, scribbling some more. When he turns it around again, it says, Are we safe here?
The use of we is not a surprise.
He nods. “Safest place in Japan. It’s only ‘cuz you were off-campus a month ago that you were snatched up by some loser villains, who I guess were ungrateful about you saving the literal world. But we got you out and now they’re doing time.”
By the end of this explanation Deku’s brows are furrowed, and this time when he starts writing, it takes a few minutes.
Katsuki risks lowering himself to the floor across from him and scooting a bit closer. Deku pauses, flicking his eyes up, but when Katsuki does nothing but lean back on his hands, he carries on.
Katsuki is tapping the floor rhythmically, starting to get bored when the notebook is slid across the floor to him and he looks down. He barks out a laugh.
It’s like one of Deku’s mumblings has been captured in a speech bubble and slapped across the pages.
“Okay, okay,” Katsuki says when he looks up and sees Deku waiting, one knuckle pressed to his chin and eyes focused on Katsuki expectantly. “Lemme see here.” He picks up the book and narrows his eyes.
“Yes, you’re a student here. Class 2A. The extras, the others who got you out, they’re– we’re– your classmates. You’re in the hero course under Aizawa Sensei.”
Deku motions to his eye.
“That’s the one,” Katsuki says. “Hero name is Eraserhead ‘cuz he erases quirks. You remember quirks at least? Heroes?”
Deku frowns, gaze going distant. After a moment he nods slowly. But then he points to his chest and looks at Katsuki meaningfully. Katsuki stares. Deku points to his chest harder. Katsuki stares.
Deku blows a breath, gesturing for the notebook.
“You know,” Katsuki suggests, not giving it up just yet. “This would be a lot easier if you just said whatever you wanted to say out loud.”
He almost regrets it when Deku flinches a little, pulling his hand to his chest. He tries not to let it show, purposefully remaining casual as he tosses the book back and puts a hand in his chin.
“I’m just saying, nobody is going to hurt you here,” he says. “The bad guys are locked up, they can’t hear you.”
More than being tired of the charades, it just sets Katsuki’s nerves on edge. If there were something wrong with Deku’s throat, Recovery Girl’s quirk would’ve healed it. So the reason he isn’t talking can only be psychological.
Not even years of being thrown into the dirt and spit on ever got Deku to shut up.
As Katsuki watches, Deku– whose eyes haven't left the notebook now lying between them, though he hasn’t made a move to grab it– works his mouth for a moment. His lips part and his jaw works.
“I…”
The sound of his voice is a meager croak, clearly rusty from lack of use. More alarming than that is what follows.
Deku chokes, hands flying to his throat like the skin there has suddenly tightened into a collar. Katsuki rolls forward into a crouch.
“Hey–” Katsuki says, reaching a hand out. Deku’s wide eyes latch onto it with something like fear and he lowers his hands, mouthing something but only managing a horribly airy whimper. “Hey, Izuku–”
Then he turns to the side and vomits.
Katsuki curses and jumps to his feet, taking three big strides toward a bucket of towels in the corner of the room. He swiftly dumps its contents and returns to Deku’s side, not caring for the careful approach anymore as he shoves the bucket in his face.
Deku coughs up the remainder of his sick, either not minding or too busy to care that Katsuki kneels next to him. He shudders miserably under the hand that rubs his back, and accepts help with standing and wobbling over to the locker room sink.
For a few minutes there’s only the sound of running water and spitting as Deku cleans his mouth and wipes his face.
Eventually looks up and meets Katsuki’s eyes in the mirror, his expression more confused than scared. Katsuki doesn’t need a notebook to know his question.
“No,” he says. “That’s definitely new.”
The quirk is called Conditioning.
“Can’t you erase it?” Auntie Inko asks, weeping a little as she squeezes Deku’s hands in hers. He’s back in his hospital bed, looking lost at the conversation in general but leaning subconsciously into his mom’s comfort from where she’s tucked close to his side.
Aizawa lets out a measured breath, and Katsuki knows what he’s going to say before he says it. “That’s not how my quirk works. Even if I erase the ability, the damage has been done. It’s similar to how erasing a knife quirk would not undo a stab wound after the fact.”
After the locker room, Deku came easily with him back to the infirmary. Katsuki checked his phone and found several missed calls and texts from Aizawa who must’ve realized the implication of Katsuki’s text.
Sure enough, the man looked at his wits’ end when he came strolling down the hallway, the escape artist himself padding behind.
Now Katsuki, leaned against the wall, surveys the room’s occupants sitting posed like models for an artist painting “a portrait of distress”: Auntie and Deku on the bed; All Might in the chair closest with his hand on Inko’s arm and his deep eyes glued to Deku like they have been since he got back; Aizawa looking more tired than ever in the chair across from them, hands upturned in his lap like he has nothing else to give; and Recovery Girl frowning over a clipboard to the side, no doubt digesting the very same information the teacher is relaying verbally to Deku’s mom.
She came in with Aizawa to scold and fret over her missing patient. Katsuki watched their faces set into similar looks of horror as he explained what happened.
While Aizawa breezed out of the room to make a call to the police station, the nurse examined Deku once again and found nothing physically wrong with his vocal chords.
When asked if he could try speaking again, he’d shaken his head vehemently at the same time as Katsuki said, “No.”
“Were detectives able to find out from the… individual, who possesses this quirk,” All Might says, clearly moderating his speech, “if there is any way to undo it?”
Recovery Girl steps forward before Aizawa can answer. “It’s just the same as undoing any other conditioned response,” she explains, looking sorry as her friend finally looks away from Deku to meet her gaze. She holds up her index fingers on each hand. “The quirk can pair a stimulus with a response.” She indicates this by bringing both fingers together. “In the same way a hungry dog hears a bell and thinks, ‘food’. In this case, it seems to have been aversively conditioned that talking means… harm.”
“Pair speaking with safety again, and he’ll be able to talk,” All Might deducts in a murmur. “Desensitization.”
“But it’s safe!” Inko sobs, reaching to rub her thumb along Deku’s cheek. “You are safe to talk, baby!” Deku jumps a bit in surprise, but settles under her touch, reaching up to place one scarred hand over hers. He smiles sadly, eyes searching hers.
“He knows,” Katsuki says. Everyone looks at him. “He knows it’s safe.”
The notebook Deku had is sitting on the side table– Katsuki made sure to grab it before they left. He steps forward and deposits it back in Deku’s hands.
Deku grips it like a lifeline.
He begins to write, spilling answers and awful details of what he can recall, painting a picture of what the next who-knows-how-long of a recovery period will look. Katsuki sees Daku’s loved ones hanging off his words and gets a sinking feeling in his gut.
Nausea crawls up his throat, almost like he’s going to throw up next.
He slips out of the room unnoticed.
Kacchan leaves.
The others call him Bakugo. But back when they talked in the gym, he felt the name Kacchan click into place like a missing puzzle piece. It feels matter-of-fact: Oh, it’s Kacchan. I trust Kacchan.
It’s the same way he recognizes the woman with the green hair (Mom) as home and safe and love, and the man with the lion’s mane and worn eyes (All Might) as his hero, the gentle protector who stepped out of his childhood hopes and dreams and into a very solid and real place in his life.
The little flashes of memory shoot through his mind feel like tremors in an earthquake. The dejavú is making his head spin.
He answers every question he can with the little doctor (a stern yet kind smile, a kiss on the cheek, a wrapped candy slipped into his hand) and Aizawa Sensei (an unyielding figure cut against a sea of enemies, a supportive hand on his shoulder, quiet care), as well as his mom and All Might and eventually the police officers who show up to get his statement. His hand never stops writing.
By the time the sun is cutting brightly across his bed sheets, his temples are pounding and he can’t bring himself to hold a polite posture anymore. He slumps into the crook of his mom’s neck, blinking slowly. His stomach growls.
A plate of warm food is brought before him and the detectives are shewed out as he wakes back up enough to devour it with gusto. It tastes so good that tears sting his eyes. All Might’s deep laugh is like a warm blanket as the man pats his back and tells him to slow down.
He’s tucked in. His mom brushes his hair back as he dozes off.
...
In his dreams, he’s behind bars.
“It’s not going to work,” Izuku is saying calmly. “Whatever you’re planning, you should stop now. Please, before it’s too late.”
A foot kicks the cage in front of his face and one of the faces leers closer.
“We’re not the ones in the dog crate,” they sneer. “And I suggest you shut up, hero. Yapping will only get you a punishment.”
He appraises the group. They’re traffickers of some kind, that much is obvious from the setup.
There’s the one with the illusion quirk, which varied from Camie’s in that it relates to auditory illusions solely. He’d created the sound of someone crying for help that drew Izuku into the alley in the first place. It would probably be beneficial for remotely alerting groups of people of dangerous situations. Then there was the guy whose quirk seemed to be chemistry related, able to change the properties of liquids into drugs of his own design– he probably supplies chloroform, and whatever that is he’s putting into a syringe right now. It’s a power with no end to the possibilities of–
A groan erupts, cutting Izuku’s musings off. “Just shut him up already!”
“I’m begging you, Shizuuchi,” the third agrees.
The one in front of him– the one whose quirk Izuku has yet to deduct– grins cruelly. “You don’t think it would damage the merchandise?” he asks, clearly egging on his associates.
“Didn’t you ever hear ‘children are better seen than heard?’.”
“It’ll save us from the whole” – the chemistry guy pitches his voice into a whine— ‘where am I? what’s going on?’”
Noises of agreement. Shizuuchi turns back to Izuku.
“Well, if you insist,” he says, as though he’s not eager to proceed. Izuku’s fists clench, teeth gritting as the man reaches in, hand closing over his vision–
Izuku shoots up with a strangled cry.
As the sound leaves his throat, a suffocating fear grips him. The shadows in the corners of the room seem to rush up to him like ghouls with mouths carved in malicious smiles like the man from his dream. He scrambles to escape, falling out of bed in the process. His mind goes blank.
He comes back to himself pressed against the wall under the bed, breathing fast and labored. Uncovering his face, he sees a face looking at him, their figure framed in golden light.
I am here.
Silver-blue eyes crease with smile-lines when they see him looking back. “Young Midoriya,” All Might says, mock-stern. He shifts, leaning an elbow on the floor to be more eye-level and grunting. “How could you pit an old man’s knees against linoleum like this?”
You’re not old, Izuku wants to say. Instead he reaches his hands out, childlike.
All Might responds immediately, worn hands clasping his firmly. Izuku shifts closer, sniffing.
“There, my boy, you see? It’s all right,” All Might hushes, bringing their joined hands up to swipe the corners of Izuku’s eyes. Izuku blinks rapidly. His head pounds.
Possible withdrawal symptoms as it flushes out of his system, Recovery Girl warned his mom when Izuku first woke up in the infirmary, disoriented and voiceless. Depending on how often the drug was administered, he could be in for a tough few days.
“Do you need some more painkillers?” All Might asks, like he is remembering this too. Izuku nods.
He shuffles out from under the bed, feeling a little numb as he’s settled back down. He swallows the little white pills he’s offered, then empties the rest of the glass. All Might waits patiently, still holding his hand tightly like he might float off without a tether.
Izuku takes a deep breath, looking around the room.
“Your mother is at work, but she’ll be back tonight,” All Might murmurs, rubbing a thumb along Izuku’s scars. Izuku nods, looking over at his notebook in consideration.
He closes his eyes.
He focuses inward, reaching for the place where the embers of One For All burn, the sanctuary he drifted to so often during his time alone with no company but the vestiges. It pulses like a second heartbeat, lending him strength.
With another deep breath, before he can back out, he whispers, “All Might.”
There’s a swoop in his stomach, a lurch like when he tips over the edge of a building prior to activating Float. His whole frame goes tense as a bow string.
Nothing happens.
Despite his body screaming otherwise, Izuku’s world doesn’t end.
Instead, a hand, soft as a butterfly, lands on top of his head. He opens his eyes.
“My boy,” All Might says, with the warmth of a thousand suns in his loving gaze. Izuku’s fears melt away beneath that light. “Oh, my sweet prince of nonsense.”
Deku’s recovery gets easier after that first day.
Not easy, but easier.
He is allowed to see all his friends. They’re disappointed, of course, that he doesn’t talk much, but they welcome him with enthusiastically open arms all the same. He carries a notebook with him at all times.
On occasion, he even speaks a few words here and there. Softly, never above a low indoor volume, but more and more as the days go by.
It’s like he’s an infant, with the way people react.
Everyone in 2A gets their coveted one-on-one time with their returned teammate as the days go by. Deku is invited to video games with Kaminari, Kirishima, Mina and Sero; makes mochi from scratch with Uraraka, Asui and Iida; and spends hours doing a puzzle with Todoroki while Jirou plays soft guitar in the corner. Kouda shyly gives him a lesson on rudimentary sign language and fingerspelling, which Hagakure and Shinsou sit in for. Yaoyarozu makes him an All Might color-themed blanket that nobody misses an opportunity to wrap around his shoulders.
Those are just the instances Katsuki is there to witness.
Eraserhead does one-on-one training with Deku to make sure he’s still got full control of his quirk(s) after the one freakout at his rescue, and gets ice cream together with Eri afterwards. All Might, too, takes him on walks every day that he comes back from laden with sweets.
Any time Deku speaks they all smile and do their best to respond with messages of safety. Too much attention, they find, makes him retreat into his shell.
The first time they hear him burst out laughing at one of Icy Hot’s dry, out-of-pocket remarks, it’s met with gasps and delight, everyone gathering around to give him high fives. He cuts himself off at their reaction, looking shell-shocked, and doesn’t say anything else the rest of the day.
When classes resume, Katsuki sits in front of a desk where the only sound of life is the scratching of a pencil.
He hates it.
When few people are gathered in the common area to watch a documentary about quirks in identical twins, Katsuki sees Deku’s mouth forming the shapes of rapid-fire muttering, but not a sound passes his lips.
It fills him with loathing.
The next night, he tosses and turns in the throes of a nightmare. In it, he is dressed in black and flanked by people whose names he never bothered to remember even when they were classmates. They sit at a panel in front of a two-way mirror.
On the other side sits Deku, strapped down. Every time he calls out for someone or asks what’s going on, one of the extras presses a button that sends an electric current through Deku’s chair, eliciting cut-off yelps. They laugh cruelly as his bids for attention cone fewer and farther between.
“Let’s see him blather on about being a hero after this,” someone says
Eventually he devolves into silent tears, big shiny eyes boring right into Katsuki’s soul.
He wakes in a cold sweat.
...
In the morning he’s irritable from the disruption of sleep and nearly bites someone’s head off for bumping into him. Everyone gives him a wide berth as he sits and eats his breakfast like it killed his mother.
Everyone, that is, until a cheerful presence settles into the chair right next to him.
“Morning, Kacchan!” Deku chirps.
Katsuki pauses, spoon partway to his mouth. After a beat he brings it the rest of the way and chews and swallows slowly before looking up into the nerd’s dumb earnest face.
“What,” he says.
Deku’s leaning with both elbows on the table, looking content and comfortable in a way that pisses Katsuki off more. It must show in Katsuki’s growing scowl, as Deku carries on in his telegraph style conversation.
“Heart?” he asks.
Katsuki rolls his eyes. “My crappy heart is doing fine.”
At Deku’s suspicious look, he lets out a long-suffering sigh. He takes the nerd’s hand and puts it over his chest. “There. Still beating. Are you happy?”
Infuriatingly, Deku does look serious as he listens and then looks happy at what he hears. After a moment he withdraws, allowing Katsuki to keep eating. “Guess what?” he says, bright again.
Katsuki raises an eyebrow.
Deku says, “Shinsou,” and he makes the hand sign for ‘help me’, which Katsuki caught enough of Rock Face’s lesson to recognize. Katsuki swallows both cereal and the discomfort in his throat at seeing Deku begin to lose steam with verbalizing already.
“What, like he’s gonna use his quirk?” he asks. Deku nods. “Like hypno… therapy?” Deku nods again, more enthusiastic.
Katsuki sits back, hunger abating. “Hmm,” he says. “Whatever works, I guess.”
He’d think if someone had their mind screwed around already they’d want to avoid further poking around up there but if anyone wants to push quirks to their potential while offering themself up as a Guinea pig, it’s Deku.
If anybody can push past limits imposed on him by others, it’s Deku.
Deku tilts his head. “Kacchan,” he says.
Lacing his fingers together, Katsuki says nothing for a long time. The others have left the kitchen by now, and they should get going soon too if they don’t want to be late.
Neither of them move.
“Those guys….” Katsuki says slowly, quietly, not looking up for fear of seeing the clear understanding unfurling across Deku’s face.
He’s adept at interpreting what the nerd thinks before he says it (has been correcting people all week before lines in a notebook can get there first), but Katsuki hates hates the bareness of being read back. It’s not fair; he doesn’t wear his heart anywhere close to as openly as Deku does.
He shrugs, feeling like the scum that you find when you pull a stick out of muck.
“It just sucks,” he says. “Anyone who thinks you can’t, or shouldn’t… they suck.”
It’s silent for a beat.
Deku says, with more intensity than he's had in days, “Shut up, nerd.”
Katsuki laughs.
...
...
...