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It should be an easy mission: some scrub suspected of pushing dangerous quirk-enhancing drugs has escaped custody and is making a last-ditch escape attempt downtown. The guy has a slime quirk that’s giving the cops and land-bound heroes some trouble, so the powers-that-be finally used their brains and called in the big guns.
Dynamite is on the scene. The slime makes an obvious path down the sidewalk, clear and shining even on this cloudy, overcast day, so he follows the trail, flying a safe distance above the crowd.
Ahead, a police car skids to a stop, tires screeching on a big puddle of ooze, and an officer slip-slides like he’s in a fuckin’ cartoon, arms windmilling, legs coming out from under him, sending him back on his ass with a crack!
Damn amateurs.
“Just ahead, Dynamight,” the cop yells as Katsuki flies by, like he hasn’t been following their stupid pursuit for the past two blocks. “He lost me around the corner!”
Katsuki propels himself to the corner, leans into the turn, and stretches his opposite hand behind him. His next blast blows him halfway down an old service road. There’s not much maneuverability here: a hotel stretches high to his right, its loading bay and a line of trucks taking up most of the room on the road, and on the other side, a row of restaurants, their dumpsters lining the back wall.
Ahead, he sees the back of the villain. He’s wearing all black, with a big puffer coat and a hat, and he’s moving fast. A satchel bumps against his side. Every few paces he thrusts an arm out, covering the ground in front of him with more slime, which he so effortlessly runs across.
Not a problem.
Katsuki moves faster. He’s on the villain before he can reach the exit of the service road. A controlled tackle brings them to the ground, and then it’s a quick slide across the slime until they hit the nearby brick wall.
“Let me go,” the villain demands, struggling to get free. He pulls, hard, as Katsuki pulls his hands behind his back, and then goes limp when the cuffs click closed around his wrists. “Let me go! You don’t understand! Let me explain, a-and you’ll get it! I know you'll understand! Give me a chance!”
Getting carefully to his feet, cringing at the amount of slime glooping off of his costume and wondering what the burn point of it might be, Katsuki sighs and calls the capture in to the police. They’re en route.
It is an easy mission, wrapped up nice and tidy, right up until he smells that familiar cold-sharp tang of ozone and something hits the side of his face with the force of a freight train.
There’s no time or sense left in his rattling brain to counterbalance–he goes flying down the service road and skids several feet on the asphalt. Three seconds is all he gives himself; three seconds to lie there, catch his breath, and make sure his fuckin’ jaw is still attached. Three seconds, and then he staggers to his feet and immediately looks for his villain.
Did he somehow call for reinforcements? Did he have cronies around somewhere, watching the pursuit, ready for the possibility that he might get captured?
Katsuki blinks. What he sees is somehow better and so, so much worse.
A figure is crouched over the villain, who is thankfully where Katsuki left him, lying prone in a puddle of his own ooze with his hands cuffed behind his back. With a slow, iron grip, the figure grabs the villain’s hands and pulls, stretching his bound arms further and further up, straining his shoulders, until he cries out with pain.
The figure’s ragged yellow cape shines like a beacon. His teal armor is patched and worn and the ears of his stupid hood are ripped to hell, and he’s going to dislocate the villain’s arms if he doesn’t knock it off.
“Oi, Deku!” Katsuki shouts, cracking his knuckles and shaking his palms out. “Lucky fuckin’ hit. You wanna try that again now that you’ve got my attention?”
No response.
Not to Katsuki, anyway. Deku leans closer to the villain, whispering behind his metal mask. His words are too quiet to make out, but Katsuki can hear the harsh hiss of his consonants, the low, implied threat in his voice that sets the villain to whimpering.
Angry at the audacity of this asshole to show up here, now, and fuck around with his villain, and then sock him in the jaw before flat-out ignoring him , Katsuki takes a running start before leaping. Two twin blasts throw him directly into Deku’s path.
He used to know the idiot's body better than his own–he can see the moment Danger Sense kicks in, a subtle twitch of Deku's fingers, the tiniest turn of his head, the shift of his weight–
Evasion. Predictable.
Deku pushes himself backwards, but Katsuki aimed to the side for a reason. He draws close enough to snag Deku around the waist and fling him down the service road, away from the villain, who yelps in shock. Blackwhip shoots out to catch around a barred window, and Deku swings to his feet instead of smashing directly into a delivery truck.
Katsuki flicks the switches on his gauntlets for extra fuel. The moment he does, they’re moving again: Blackwhip wrapping tight around Katsuki’s ankle and yanking, Katsuki catching himself with a blast, turning mid-air, aiming an explosion directly at Deku’s dumb head. They dance around one another, angry, violent, and yet pulling their punches just enough not to kill each other.
A kick aimed at his shoulder goes astray when Katsuki sweeps Deku’s leg out from beneath him. Float helps him catch his balance, and the most miniscule push of Delaware Smash drops between them, sending them skidding back on the wet ground.
Beneath his own pulse, so loud in his ears, and his short, anticipatory breathing, Katsuki hears Deku grunt with pain even as he gracefully regains his feet. Everything Deku is right now is a study in contrast: favoring his left foot but standing tall, shoulders hunched but eyes fierce behind his hood, trying to look unaffected even though he’s breathing hard.
It’s a standoff.
A light, steady rain begins to fall.
They stand only thirty feet apart, yet two difficult years hang in the heavy silence between them.
They’d been partners, once, in every sense of the word. A hero duo. Best friends. Lovers. It had taken years–after their graduation from U.A., after taking down the League of Villains, after pushing One for All to greater and greater heights– to establish a solid foundation of trust and communication and acceptance, which is why it hurt so much when things started to fall apart.
Missed calls. Missed dates. Missed missions. Suspicious cuts and bruises when Izuku would slip into Katsuki’s bed at night with no straight explanations regarding their origins. Unanswered stares into space. Shouted arguments over the stupidest shit–a dish left on the counter, a wet towel forgotten on the bathroom floor–but also fights that left Katsuki wondering how the hell they were going to survive this, fights about broken trust and past words, ugly and mean, and failed missions that required fault.
They’d been partners, once. It ended quietly, with a simple, hand-written note found folded on the nightstand, one Katsuki read with teary eyes and shaking hands, one he’d burned in incandescent, heart-broken fury.
It’s been a year since Deku fucked off to follow his bullshit one-man crusade.
It’s been two months since they last saw one another.
Not that Katsuki’s been keeping track; not that he gives a single fuck. He’d been tapped to handle a reported abduction by a mysterious vigilante, so of course he’d taken the case, all too keen to find out if it was his stupid ex, find him, and give him a piece of his mind.
Of course, he’d run into Deku with his arms around two battered children and learned that it hadn’t been an abduction but a rescue. With tears in his eyes, he’d pleaded with Katsuki to help him get the kids to safety.
His lingering anger had melted–not completely, but enough. Enough to pull Izuku and the kids into his arms, to take them to shelter, to try and figure out what the hell he was supposed to do with a wanted vigilante and two kidnapped? rescued? children.
Katsuki didn’t know who else to call but All Might. He’d been pretty sure the old man and Captain Tsukauchi had been sending Deku resources and information over the entire past year, so it hadn’t been a surprise that All Might knew exactly where to find them. It hadn’t been a surprise, either, that Tsukauchi had made no mention in his report about Katsuki aiding a vigilante and failing to report his whereabouts.
Like he would. Like he could.
Even now, Deku stands there in the rain, posture loose, open, vulnerable , and echoes Katsuki’s thoughts: “I don’t want to hurt you.”
“Then don’t,” Katsuki says, shifting his weight, blocking Deku’s sight-line to the villain.
Deku huffs. “I need him for information, Dynamight!”
“Then we can give him to the police and let them take care of it,” Katsuki says slowly. “You know how this works.”
“And do you know what he’s doing?” Deku’s voice deepens, quiet beneath the rain. He stalks forward. “He’s not just some guy peddling drugs–the group he works for experiments on children, just like Chisaki. I’m not gonna allow them to take any more kids. Not one more.”
“I don’t know who that is,” the villain cries. He’s been wriggling like a worm through the rain-diluted ooze on the ground, but hasn’t gotten too far; his wrists, too, are shiny and rubbed-raw, but the cuffs are secure enough that he can’t pull free. “I’m innocent–I just deliver packages, I swear–”
“Shut up,” Deku and Katsuki shout at once.
There’s movement on the hotel loading bay. Someone gasps, obnoxiously loud, and a back door to one of the restaurants slams shut. Police sirens draw closer. The villain begs for them to let him go.
No matter the noise, Katsuki refuses to take his eyes off his current rival.
“I can’t let you take him,” Deku says, quietly.
Tires squeal on wet asphalt. A door clicks open, slams closed.
“And I can’t let them take you,” Katsuki says. Heart in his throat, he gets a fist-full of Deku’s cape and swings him towards the other end of the service road, then shoves him forward. “Go. Deku, go. ”
He looks like he’s going to refuse. He looks like he’s ready to fight the police, to make himself even more of a target for the sake of capturing a single man–but logic must win out. He goes. Right down the service road and around the corner, out of sight.
The cop who fell on his ass earlier rushes right over. “Dynamight! Good job, man. We’ll take it from here.”
Katsuki supervises–it’s an easy cover, making sure the police actually haul the villain into the van, but he also wants to make sure Deku gets a clean escape. The villain drags his feet, sandwiched by two police officers on either side and protesting about his apprehension, insisting on his innocence with every step.
Once they close the door on his pleas, the senior police officer brushes his hands off: all in a day’s work. “Dynamight?”
Right. He’d usually follow to make his report. “Need to check the perimeter. I’ll meet you at the station when I’m done.”
“You need backup?”
“Do I look like I need backup?”
“N-no, sir.”
As soon as the police are out of sight, Katsuki turns and runs. It doesn’t take long to find Deku, looking like a fuckin’ kicked puppy in the rain. He’s sticking to the shadows and back alleys, his feet dragging in his heavy steel-toed boots. Wordlessly, Katsuki catches up and forcibly pulls Deku’s arm up over his shoulders to support his weight.
Their trip to Deku’s most recent hideout is made in silence. It’s a severely underkept part of the ward, the buildings old and derelict. The apartment building has certainly seen better days. Katsuki would believe it condemned were it not for the lights in some of the cracked, yellowed windows.
Up the stairs to the fifth floor. A single lightbulb flickers on the ceiling, lighting the dingy wallpaper, the worn carpet. Deku leads them to the second door on the left and holds it open for Katsuki, who enters without a fuss.
The door shuts behind them.
It’s silent in the cold dark of the apartment.
Together, they stand in the tiny genkan and shed their armor–gloves and gauntlets, capes and masks and chestpieces–each item hitting the floor with heavy solemnity. Piece by piece, Katsuki watches as Deku falls away, revealing Izuku, pale and silent as a ghost, gaze empty.
He shivers.
Katsuki sidles past him. He flicks a light on–another bare lightbulb.
The studio apartment Izuku has been squatting in is bare, furnished only with a splayed-open futon against the wall, his stupid yellow backpack sitting in the corner, clothes spilling out of it, and a laptop plugged into an exposed electrical outlet. The tiniest kitchenette takes up about five feet of space next to the hallway, and, Katsuki is thankful to see, there’s a bathroom with a tub next to that. Lights, faucet, tub: everything works. He cranks the hot water spigot.
“Come on,” he says, snagging Izuku’s wrist and tugging him into the bathroom. It says something about Izuku’s exhaustion that he doesn’t have a single word to say about Katsuki telling him what to do, pulling him around, tugging off his pants and boxers. He reaches for Izuku’s sweat-damp compression shirt; there’s an old slash in the fabric revealing a new cut in his pale skin.
“You don’t have to do this,” Izuku mumbles, resisting only a second when Katsuki starts to pull the hem of the shirt up and over his head.
It’s a quick job–the faster Katsuki moves, the less time he has to study the bruises littering Izuku’s skin, the shallow cuts and burns, a slash near his hip that looks like he stitched it himself with a shaky hand. Beneath his armor, beneath all of his ferocious strength and bravery, he’s just a man: young, pale, a little too skinny for the bulk of his muscle.
A little too selfless for the power of his quirk.
“Yeah, well,” Katsuki says. As he helps Izuku step over the lip of the tub, Katsuki realizes that his fingers fit between the visible ridges of his ribs, and he has to clear his throat of the ache that settles there. “Someone needs to take care of you. You’re clearly doing a shit job of it.”
The exhale that escapes Izuku could be a laugh, or a breath of pain, or surprise from sinking into a tub full of steaming water. Once he’s settled, he lets go of Katsuki’s arms and drops his hands into his lap. Bruised knuckles, fingernails bitten short and jagged.
No response to Katsuki’s jab.
No response to much of anything, really. He sits and allows Katsuki to run a bar of soap across his chest, shoulders, back. He doesn’t fuss when that same bar is used in lieu of shampoo for the lack of anything else in sight, and when Katsuki lathers it into his scalp harder than necessary.
He’s tried to smother his anger, but the longer he looks, the hotter his chest burns. “You gotta knock this shit off,” he grumbles, sudsy fingers immediately knotting up in the overgrown mop of Izuku's hair. He starts working the first of the knots free. “Just come back.”
Izuku knocks his bruised knuckles together. “They’re not focusing on the right things. It’s all red tape and bureaucracy, anymore. You know what they did to Hawks? Lady Nagant? The Commission is corrupt.”
“And how is what you’re doing helping? You’re not going to solve anything by being a damn vigilante, Izuku.”
“I’m not going to work within their broken system,” Izuku says, hushed. He closes his eyes, arms hugged around his knees, and sits patiently as Katsuki works through the knots in his hair. It takes a few minutes, during which Katsuki would’ve guessed Izuku to have fallen asleep, but then he says, “You could join me. We could be partners.”
Katsuki smooths his hand through Izuku’s soapy, untangled hair, down the curve of his neck, the ridge of his spine. Little scars and bruises litter the freckled skin of his back. It feels like he’s forcing the words free. “You know I can’t.”
“Can’t or won’t,” Izuku mumbles into his knees.
Neither. Both. “I’m not having this argument with you. Tilt your head back.”
Sitting up straight with a wince, Izuku tilts his head back and waits for Katsuki to rinse his hair. The water has gone a murky, reddish-brown. Katsuki drains the tub and turns the spigot back on, making sure to run clean water over the open wounds and angry scabs.
Once he’s finally clean, Katsuki helps Izuku stand, throws a towel at his face, and stomps out of the bathroom and to the little kitchenette. As he’d hoped, there’s a dinged-up first aid kit in the cabinet beneath the sink. He lugs it to the bathroom.
Izuku is sitting on the edge of the tub, skin dry, hair a fluffy, clean mess. He doesn’t look good, but he looks better .
Katsuki gets to work rubbing ointment into the cuts and bandaging some of the more concerning wounds.
“I needed that informant,” Izuku says to the floor.
“I know,” Katsuki says, ripping off a length of elastic bandage with his teeth. He won’t apologize–he was doing his job and got that slimy shithead off the streets–but he can acknowledge what Izuku is saying, how he feels. “I know.”
And that’s the extent that they speak about what happened today.
That’s the extent to which they ever speak about running into one another in the field.
Katsuki bundles a shivering Izuku into another towel–this one covered in old bloodstains that never came out in the wash, which Katsuki pointedly neither asks nor thinks about–and pushes him out of the bathroom. Izuku shuffles immediately to his futon and drops into his blankets, then turns his sleepy face up to Katsuki. “Will you stay?”
And what else can he do but agree? Damn him.
“Yeah, Izuku,” Katsuki sighs, sitting on the side of the futon. “For a while. Until you sleep.”
Izuku takes Katsuki’s wrist. “Need to take care of you.”
“Don’t worry about me,” Katsuki says, shaking his hand free and pulling the blanket up over Izuku’s arms.
“‘M always worried about you, Kacchan.”
It’s the first time in months that he’s heard that damn nickname, and it chokes him up again. It’s so fucking stupid, but he surrenders to the warm, weak tenderness that he’s kept buried so deep within his chest ever since Izuku left and began this ridiculous one-man crusade. He brushes the damp hair from Izuku’s forehead, runs his fingers gently across his brow. Izuku’s eyes glint in the dim light coming in through the dark-curtained window, a pretty flash of green beneath heavy eyelids.
As he promised, Katsuki stays until Izuku falls asleep. He tries to snoop on the laptop, but the nerd probably changes the password as often as possible and none of his guesses are successful. He tidies up–rinses the bathtub, folds a few of Izuku’s discarded clothes, puts an empty glass and plate in the tiny kitchenette’s sink–and then recognizes that he’s stalling. Ridiculous.
He puts his wet costume back on and shuts the door firmly behind him. Too stubborn, the both of them–Izuku, refusing to come back, and Katsuki, refusing to leave him behind. Going in circles until one of them gives in: around and around and around and around.