Chapter Text
Katsuki let out a long exhale, flexing his achey fingers at his sides and glowering down at the unconscious figures of six villains lined up in the alleyway. He scoffed in frustration as Todoroki incased the last one in a binding cocoon of ice.
Damnit. They were supposed to have captured eight villains, not six. Two of the criminals had escaped; the weird bald blue lady that had some sort of inter-surface teleportation quirk, and the half conscious pink haired punk she’d dragged away with her once she realized how badly their side was losing to Katsuki and his classmates. She’d left the rest of their group to fend for themselves, the coward.
As much as it pissed him off, he felt a twinge of pride at the idea that any villain with a functioning brain knew to run at the sight of the up-and-coming hero Great Explosion Murder God Dynamite. They’d probably all pissed themselves stupid the second they caught a glimpse of his sneering face.
And, he supposed, the admittedly intimidating group of extras he had backing him up. Kirishima, Todoroki, Iida, and Ashido were nothing to sneeze at in a fight, he’d grown enough in the past few years to accept that.
Of course, the fact that Izuku was here had helped a lot too. Not that he planned on acknowledging that out loud or anything.
Katsuki and his classmates had been sent to apprehend the small group of League copycats, the leader of which had been spewing some nonsense about calling themselves the “ Treacherous Troop ” right before Katsuki had shouted how dumb that sounded and punched him in the face. That guy was unconscious now, and Katsuki was just glad he didn’t have to hear his whiny voice anymore.
It would have been a satisfying win, if two of them hadn’t gotten away.
Katsuki was about to shout orders over his shoulder to his classmates, already plotting out routes in his head that they could take through the city to cut the escaping villains off before they got too much of a head start.
But Kirishima broke the post-battle silence before he had the chance.
“Midoriya? You alright man?”
Katsuki swore, feeling his stomach plummet and his insides convulse in dread at the sound of least comforting four words he could think to hear right now. Of fucking course. He’d be an idiot to think this operation could go even relatively smoothly when Deku was around, the guy was like a damn magnet for injuries. He’d only taken his eyes off the nerd for a few seconds, how the hell was he already hurt? It hadn’t even been that rough of a fight!
Katsuki didn’t question why the thought of Izuku being injured affected him so much. He knew the nerd could handle just about anything, he’d seen it with his own eyes. But that didn’t keep it from scaring him shitless and he’d stopped questioning those particular feelings of fear after the war, after everything they’d been through. Izuku had rubbed elbows with death too many times for Katsuki’s reactions to be anything but visceral every time the nerd tossed himself heedlessly into harms way. They all had more than enough trauma to deal with, and Katsuki still hadn’t fully recovered from his own. He knew that.
His standing with Izuku was the best it had been in a long time, so if this constant stress was the price he had to pay to keep him around, he’d pay it. As far as he was concerned, it was a low price after everything he’d put Izuku through personally.
He just wished the idiot would take better care of his damn self so he didn’t have to do it for him.
Turning on his heel, eyes narrowed, Katsuki instantly started scanning Izuku for injuries. Or the tell-tale signs that he was hiding injuries, which he did frustratingly often enough that Katsuki had actually started getting good at spotting it. Self-sacrificial bastard.
He immediately understood why Kirishima had called attention to him.
The fight was over, all present villains restrained and unconscious, and their classmates were all standing at ease, but Izuku was still crouched low in a fighting position a few steps back from the group. His eyes were alert, darting to every person standing around him, and full cowling was still active. Little bolts of green lighting danced up and down his frame, seemingly without his awareness.
Iida took a half step towards him, pausing to remove his helmet to look at Izuku more closely, tilting his head. “Are you injured, Midoriya? The fight is over, I doubt those cowardly villains have the courage to come back to face us now. We should follow them, if you haven’t been wounded.”
“Yes, we still have time to go after them if we hurry,” Todoroki agreed, though his focus was lasered in on Izuku, concern driving his brows inward.
Izuku didn’t respond. The smile he usually plastered on to placate his friends into believing he was fine when he wasn’t was nowhere to be seen, and his body stayed tense as a spring. His eyes flicked to Ashido when she took a few steps towards him, and he took matching steps back.
She frowned. “You don’t look so good Deku, you okay?”
Izuku’s fists clenched and unclenched uncertainly in front of him, feet shifting lightly in a fighting stance, and it put Katsuki wildly on edge. He knew Izuku’s expressions practically as well as he knew his own, could read his body language down the last inch of his posture, and he knew that look. It meant Izuku was convinced he was currently in a hostile environment. He was looking for traps and sneak attacks, he was bracing for a fight. He was quickly but methodically scanning their friends, the restrained villains, and the alley around them, all with equal distrust.
Just the fact that he was doing it made Katsuki’s own hackles rise. He did have Danger Sense himself, but he trusted Izuku’s instincts intrinsically. If Izuku thought they weren’t safe right now, then something was wrong.
Katsuki tensed, immediately paying more attention to their surroundings to try and pick up on whatever was making Izuku this uneasy. It only made him more paranoid when he found nothing out of the ordinary.
He looked Izuku dead in the eye, trying to find that familiar ease of wordless communication that always formed between them on the field. It was more jarring than he cared to admit when he hit an unfamiliar wall in Izuku’s gaze instead. He was so used to Izuku immediately letting him in, the empty look he got in return felt like a heavy door being slammed in his face.
He hated having to admit that he wasn’t getting it, but this was too serious to ignore, and it was starting to freak him out. He forced the question through his teeth. “Damnit nerd, what the hell is it?”
Izuku didn’t straighten up or drop his firsts but, glancing around at the others all waiting for a response, he did finally decide to answer.
“I- I don’t know what’s going on, but… you guys are the good guys here, right?”
Stunned silence followed as they all stared. Even Katsuki couldn’t think of a response to that.
Izuku nodded his chin at the villains on the ground, never taking his eyes off his classmates.
“Those people all looked like they were trying to… to kill us.” He swallowed nervously, squeezing his hands into fists.“they were aiming for the our vitals, but you were all fighting to subdue. You didn’t consider hurting them any more than you had to once you caught them, and you were working like a team.”
Hi voice sounded hallow and wary, void of all the things that made Izuku… Izuku . All his usual warmth was replaced with cold calculation, and not the analytical kind that accompanied his usual rambles.
For a terrible moment, it reminded Katsuki of the state they’d found him in when he tried to run from All For One and be a vigilante all on his own.
“Also, none of you have attacked me.” Izuku added. Katsuki’s heart turned to a cold dead stone in his chest when those green eyes settled on him with a complete and utter lack of recognition. “…yet.”
Kirishima laughed uncomfortably, like he was hoping this was just a bad joke. “Wha- attack you? What are you talking about, you hit your head or something Midoriya?”
Izuku watched him suspiciously. “I… I’m sorry, but I don’t know who that is. Are you talking about me?”
Fuck
With firm determination, Katsuki grasped mentally at the panic clawing its way up his throat and shoved it down as far as it would go, forcing himself to focus. He played back the events of the recent fight in his head, trying to remember anything that stuck out as odd.
Now that he thought about it, Izuku’s fighting style had changed pretty drastically in the last few moments of the fight. He’d started to fight defensively and frantically, without hesitation, abandoning his training for pure instinct alone, and he’d stopped using blackwhip or float. Katsuki had noted it, but thought maybe the nerd was just trying some stupid new tactic. He should have known better- he would have known better if he hadn’t been distracted fighting battles of his own. Izuku was too calculating to resort to a fighting style as reckless as that.
Not unless something was seriously wrong.
“Shit!” Katsuki cursed, snapping himself into action and pointing at his four other classmates. “List off the villain’s quirks, all of you, everything you saw. Now!”
Kirishima gave him a dumbfounded look. “Wha-“
“He obviously got hit with a quirk dumbass, now what did everyone see?! My guy had concrete fists or some shit, and then there was that blue bitch with the teleportation crap, so it wasn’t either of them!”
“Ah, of course, a quirk may have altered his perception!” Iida nodded, catching on, his frown deepening as he eyed the criminals on the ground. “There’s the villain with the large horns, but I believe that is simply a mutation quirk. Then there’s the woman with the eye lasers, it’s also unlikely hers would cause any lasting effects.” He looked down at a shallow cut on his bicep. “If it did, I would be suffering the same fate, since I took a hit from her directly.”
Ashido wrung her hands together, looking worriedly between Izuku and Katsuki. “Do you think it’s mind control or something?”
“That’s what we need to fucking figure out, so what the hell did you see?!”
“I- the guy I took down just had frying pans for hands,” she said, “So unless he just hit Deku really really hard, I don’t see how…”
Katsuki tsked and turned to Todoroki, whose gaze had never left Izuku.
“My focus was the one with sawblades in his forearms and the bat-like woman,” Todoroki said seriously. “I believe she had some kind of echolocation aspect to her quirk, but if that had a residual effect then all of us would be experiencing it.”
Kirishima was the only one who hadn’t spoken, and he had started to sweat by the time Katsuki turned to him. “Uh, guys, I think I might know what this is about...”
“Spit it out Shitty Hair!”
“The guy with pink hair, I, uh, may have seen him hit Midoria in the chest with some kind of pink sparkly stuff? The guy pushed him and there were these sparks and he fell, I-I didn’t think-“
Katsuki bristled with a freircly strong emotion he didn’t dare try to name. “You saw him go down!?”
“He got right back up again, man! I thought maybe it just didn’t hurt too bad, I don’t know! I would have helped, of course I would have, but he just got up and kept fighting so I figured he was fine!”
Katsuki tilted his head back and groaned. He didn’t blame Kirishima, it was a natural assumption to make. They were almost pros, they all got knocked around sometimes, you couldn’t drop everything every time one of your allies took a hit. He’d noticed something off about Izuku too, and he hadn’t done anything about it. That didn’t make this situation any less of a shit-show now, however.
Now they had to deal with a mystery quirked-up Izuku on top of two villains on the loose. Of course the one that caused the effect was one of the two that got away, which meant they couldn’t even interrogate him as to what the quirk was.
Katsuki forcefully swallowed back the burn of something deep, something a little too much like dread. Unknown quirks could be volatile and dangerous, not just for the people hit by them but potentially everyone in the vacinity. They had no idea what Izuku had been hit with, Katsuki needed to get him the fuck out of this alley and somewhere safe. Now.
“We don’t fucking have time for this!” He barked, striding towards Izuku and reaching out with the intention of grabbing his wrist and dragging the idiot off to the nearest police station.
Izuku was twenty feet away in a single blink, before Katsuki had made it halfway across the alley towards him. He crouched defensively in the shadows, silhouetted and lit only by green eyes and sparks, bracing his body for another jump.
Everyone froze in a moment of awful clarity. Katsuki could tell that the rest of his classmates had all come to the same terrifying conclusion as him in the same instant.
Firstly, it was apparent that Izuku’s perception had been altered to the point where he didn’t even know his own name anymore. Secondly, they’d all heard Iida’s engines stall out earlier in the fight. He wouldn’t be able to reach high speeds again for at least a few minutes.
That meant Izuku was currently far faster than everyone else here.
The incredible agility he’d demonstrated just now had reminded them all exactly how powerful he was. Sometimes it was easy to forget, behind all the bright smiles and nerdy laughter, the force of nature that was Midoriya Izuku.
If he was being controlled or manipulated and decided to attack, the five of them probably stood a chance of holding him off until backup arrived, hopefully without needing to injure him too badly in the process. But if Izuku ran right now?
None of them would be able to stop him.
He would be alone, quirk-inhibited, confused, and on the defensive with an extremely powerful, bone-breaking ability at his fingertips that he may or may not be in control of anymore. From the brief glimpse Katsuki had seen of his fighting style, it looked like his quirk-use had become purely instinctual. With One For All being one of the most powerful quirks on the planet, that wasn’t necessarily a good thing.
Izuku had run from them once before, and he’d run himself into the ground. By the end of it he’d been beyond physically and mentally exhausted, and it had still been difficult to stop him then . Like hell if any of them were letting him do that shit again.
“Bakugou…” Todoroki warned, his voice low and deadly serious. Kirishima grabbed Katsuki’s shoulder to stop him from moving any closer, fingers squeezing tightly. Any other time he would have told them both off, but Katsuki couldn’t move.
Because Izuku’s eyes were fixed on him.
Izuku had looked frightened of him before, a few different points in their lives together. Admittedly not in a long time, as angry as that used to make Katsuki. Back when fear was still something he thought he needed out of Izuku, instead of the fierce competition and unending challenges he couldn’t help but cherish from him these days.
But never had Izuku looked at him like he was dangerous. He was one of the few people who never had, it was one of the things that used to drive Katsuki crazy. All the other kids took his explosive quirk seriously, but Deku was too damn enthralled to be properly scared of it. Even when Izuku had been frightened of him, it had been of his anger and what it could do to ruin their friendship, but never of his power. To a younger Katsuki, it had felt like the ultimate insult. Like his strength was being ignored.
He knew now that Izuku might have just been the only one treating him like a person . Like Katsuki; the same boy he’d always been, quirk or not.
But right now, for the first time in their lives, Izuku wasn’t looking at him like he was that boy. Izuku was looking at him like he was a threat.
Like he was a stranger.
A dangerous, violent stranger.
Like he was a villain.
Katsuki wouldn’t have moved even if Todoroki and Kirishima hadn’t stopped him. He couldn’t have moved if he tried.
Izuku’s eyes stayed trained on him, and he lowered his body even further. He looked equally ready to fight with everything he had, or launch himself into the sky.
“You,” he said, voice so completely neutral and void of history or connection it sent a shiver of chill down Katsuki’s spine. “I was watching you fight and… I don’t know what side you’re on.”
Kirishima’s hand squeezed his shoulder so hard it hurt, Iida stiffened, and Mina let out a small gasp. The only sound Katsuki could make was the tight, sharp exhale forced through his nose as his chest tightened.
He wasn’t sure what would have happened next had it just been him. Maybe he would have tried to grab Izuku and restrain him by force. Maybe he would have just stood there numbly and watched him leap away.
Luckily he wasn’t alone. Though, loathe him to ever call it lucky to be in the presence of -much less need assistance from- fucking Icy Hot.
Todoroki raised his hands, an immediate surrender, and the movement drew Izuku’s attention. Katsuki could tell it was purposeful, he was trying to cut the tension growing between them before it could build to a height nobody here could come back down from.
“Midoriya, it’s okay. We aren’t going to fight you, you don’t need to run. You were right, we are the good guys. Even him.” He tilted his head at a still-frozen Katsuki. “He’s just a little… louder about it. But he is a hero in training, and so are you.”
Katsuki wanted to scream, shout at Todoroki that Izuku didn’t need to be told Katsuki was a hero, because Izuku already knew. Even at their worst, even at their most confused and hurt and clashing, Izuku had still known that.
His brain felt sticky and knotted up and strangled at the notion that right now, Izuku just didn’t believe it. However Katsuki had acted in the time since Izuku had been hit by that quirk, it apparently hadn’t been heroic enough to prove he was on the side of good.
And that hit harder and hurt more than he would ever be able to accept.
Todoroki kept talking to Izuku, calm and reassuring, either oblivious to or pointedly ignoring Katsuki’s silent mental spiraling beside him.
“You were hit with a quirk,” Todoroki said carefully. “Do you understand what that means?”
Izuku shook his head. Katsuki heard Kirishima mutter a curse, and Iida didn’t bother reprimanding him. Katsuki understood the sentiment, if Izuku didn’t even know what a quirk was, that meant they were in deep shit.
Todoroki either wasn’t surprised, or hid it very well. His voice remained calm. “That’s fine. We can explain everything, but do you mind if we ask you a few questions first?”
The tension stretched thin over the group as they waited for Izuku to respond. Iida was practically shaking with the urge to approach and make sure Izuku was alright, but it was clear that one wrong move from anyone could still cause him to bolt.
No one breathed a word as Izuku carefully assessed Todoroki.
“Is there going to be any more fighting?” He asked after a long pause.
“I can’t guarantee it, but most likely no. Definitely not among the six of us.”
Katsuki didn’t miss the way he’d included Izuku in their group with his wording, emphasizing that they were not here to fight him. Making sure Izuku knew that this wasn’t five verse one, he was included in the “us”. It was a subtle but important detail, and Katsuki suddenly felt furious with himself for not being the one helping Izuku right now. He was so useless, leaving it all up to Icy Hot while he froze up on the sidelines like some goddamn extra.
Even so, he didn’t move.
Izuku seemed to come to a decision. His stance slowly dropped and he straightened up, arms coming down to his sides. He still looked stiff and wary, but he was no longer bracing for fight or flight.
“Okay. What do you need to know?”
A collective relief, not so much a sigh as a relaxing of tensed muscles, washed over the group as soon as Izuku unbraced his legs. For now, at least they’d convinced him stay.
“Thank you,” Todoroki said, offering a rare, small smile. He was probably hoping it would help calm Izuku down as much as possible. “Do you remember your name?”
“No,” Izuku said plainly, shaking his head. Then he frowned, his eyes slowly widening in alarm as the more he thought about it. “I…. I don’t know but- but I feel like I probably should.”
“That’s okay! There’s a reason for that, I promise. It’s fine,” Todoroki assured him, “We can help with that, but the more questions we get answered, the more we’ll be able to understand about what happened to you. Okay?”
Izuku’s jaw tightened, something Katsuki instantly recognized as the telltale sign of him steeling himself when he was nervous. It was the first thing he’d had done since the fight that had actually felt like this was still Izuku standing in front of them.
“Yeah, okay,” he agreed. “I can do that.”
Todoroki nodded back in thanks. “Do you recognize anyone here?”
“No.”
“Do you know how old you are?”
“I…” Izuku looked down at himself, then around at the rest of them. “I think I’m about the same age as you guys?”
“Do you know where you are?”
“An alleyway?”
“More specific.”
This time he took longer to answer, looking closely at the buildings around them. “I think it’s… Japan?”
“Do you know who the all time number one hero is?”
“No.”
That simple, unemotional “no” was like a knife through Katsuki chest, cold and sharp. Izuku adoring All Might was like two plus two equaling four. It didn’t make sense for that not to be the case.
The shock of it snapped Katsuki back into his body again, and he turned, glaring at Ashido. “Call Eraser, now . Tell him we’ve got a fucking situation.”
Izuku’s eyes widened in fear at the harsh voice and the word situation , but Iida saw the look stepped in. Apparently he’d had enough time to snap out of it too. Helmet tucked under his arm, big heroic Ingenium-style smile on his face, he bowed in greeting to Izuku.
“Hello! I am Iida Tenya, forgive me for not introducing myself sooner! You are Midoriya Izuku, I consider you a close friend.”
Izuku looked a little taken aback, but the fear receded as he eyed Iida’s very genuine, if a little abrupt, greeting. “O-oh, really? That’s… good. I’m sorry I don’t recognize you.”
“That’s quite alright! It isn’t your fault, it could have happened to any of us.”
“Right… what was it that happened to me, exactly?”
“You were hit with a quirk,” Kirishima said, pushing off of Bakugou’s shoulder and joining Iida and Todoroki in front of Izuku. “I’m Kirishima by the way, and I’m your friend too! All of us are. Well, all of us still standing anyway. The guys in the ice aren’t. Obviously.”
Katsuki didn’t miss the way Izuku’s eyes flashed to dubiously lock with his own. They only lingered a moment before cutting back to Kirishima. “What’s a quirk, and what did it do to me?”
“That’s what we’re trying to figure out right now. That’s why Todoroki here is asking you all those questions. Quirks are like special powers, they can do all sorts of cool stuff. Here, this is mine!”
He held out his arm, activating his hardening so Izuku could watch the transformation. Izuku’s face immediately lit with interest, so at least that much hadn’t changed. Even under a quirk’s influence, he was still a fuckin’ nerd.
Kirishima chuckled as Izuku poked at his arm, letting him do so without complaint.
“The one you got hit with seems to have messed with your memory or something. Don’t worry though bro, stuff like that is usually temporary.”
“Oh.” Izuku frowned, clearly worried about the use of the word usually . “Is there anything I can do to get it back?”
Ashido waved at him from further down the alley, pointing at her phone. “I’m calling our teacher right now, he’ll know exactly how to handle it!” She shot him a confident thumbs up. “Don’t worry Deku, we got you!”
The encouragement from their classmates seemed to be working, at least a little. Izuku was clearly still anxious and uncomfortable, but he no longer looked like an animal backed into a corner with its teeth bared.
“Are you injured? Does anything hurt?” asked Todoroki.
Izuku looked down, patting the front of his costume gingerly. “Yes. My arms and fingers ache, and somethings… wrong with my chest.”
The aching arms Katsuki knew was an everyday occurrence for Izuku, but he didn’t like the sound of the second complaint at all.
“ Wrong ?! The hell you mean wrong? ” he snapped, “be specific!”
Izuku instantly stiffened up again, and Iida and Todoroki both shot Katsuki warning glares. Kirishima turned to him, eyes wide.
“Hey man, take it easy,” he whispered, expression pleading for Katsuki to keep his cool. “He doesn’t know who you are right now, remember?”
As if Katsuki needed a fucking reminder.
Izuku, the one person on the planet who could see right through him so much so it drove him fucking insane sometimes, the one person who’d always looked him the eye, no matter how much higher he tried to climb… had no fucking idea who Katsuki was.
Counting on Kirishima to keep Katsuki in check, Todoroki turned his attention back to Izuku. “What kind of chest pain is it? Is it internal? Is it located on the left side?”
Izuku shook his head, but his eyes didn’t leave Katsuki’s for a few extra seconds. “No, no it’s not so bad. It’s just on the surface, almost like… a burn? But not quite.”
Todoroki and Iida kept talking to him, asking him more questions and giving quiet reassurances. Katsuki let Kirishima back him away a few steps by the elbow, and heard Ashido on the phone behind them. He glanced over his shoulder to watch her face as she spoke.
“-yeah, the fighting is over. Two of them got away but… Deku got hit with by a quirk.”
“…I mean, he looks pretty okay physically, but…”
“…Yeah, he’s awake.”
She shook her head, biting her lip as she glanced over at Izuku.
“Sorry but, I-I don’t know if that’s a good idea Sensei, he doesn’t know who any of us are. He doesn’t even know his name, I don’t think he’s going to recognize your voice over the phone.”
There was a pause.
“No, he doesn’t know who Bakugou is either.”
Katsuki scowled, and he could hear Aizawa’s groan of frustration through the phone speaker from all the way across the alley, along with Ashido’s answering whisper of, “I know , right?”
The hand around his elbow gave him a shake, and he just managed to keep from jerking like a startled rabbit.
Kirishima was peering at him worriedly. “You good bro?”
Katsuki sighed and reached up to shove the eye mask of his costume into the blonde spikes of his hair, keeping the sweat-soaked strands off of his forehead. “M’fine. Just… shit.”
Kirishima hummed in agreement and patted his back. “Yeah. We’ll sort it out though, right? This is Midoriya we’re talking about, he always bounces back fast. It’ll be fine, I promise.”