Chapter Text
Katsuki sees him on the subway.
Not during the morning stampede, not in that after-work shoulder-to-shoulder crawl where everyone’s breathing each other’s air and pretending not to exist — this is a dead-hour Tuesday, platform almost empty. The kind of quiet where every sound bounces off the tile too loud.
The fluorescent lights overhead are doing that shitty flicker again, uneven and headache-bright. Katsuki feels it in his jaw, that little ache that comes from grinding his teeth too long. His gloves are still half-on from patrol, fingers stiff with dried sweat. Phone’s buzzing in his pocket — probably a status update, probably nothing worth the glance — and he’s already thinking about dinner and how much he doesn’t want to cook it.
The train slows, doors sliding open with that dry, metallic hiss.
And there he is.
Green hair, darker at the roots under a black beanie, hood pulled low. Coffee balanced on one knee, like he’s daring it to spill. Head tilted toward the doors, gaze fixed on the tunnel ahead like something better than this city might come barreling out if he waits long enough.
Izuku Midoriya.
Deku.
Number One fucking Hero.
The reason Katsuki’s chest feels like it’s just been hit point-blank with his own explosions.
His feet stall in the doorway, body going still like his brain forgot what motion is. One hand locks around the nearest pole so tight his knuckles blanch. The rubber grip squeaks under his palm. Two other passengers sit between them, bodies just filling space, but the distance feels bigger — years big, a lifetime big.
Izuku doesn’t look up. Or maybe he does and just doesn’t see him.
The train jolts into motion, and Katsuki’s ribs feel like they’re pulling apart. His quirk is still humming faintly under his skin, the way it does when adrenaline won’t shut off, and it’s enough to make him restless, make him stupid.
He should stay. He could stand here the whole ride, pretend he’s not watching the way Izuku’s thumb traces lazy circles over the paper cup lid. Pretend he’s not memorizing the way that ridiculous freckled face looks in the half-light of a subway car.
The train lurches. His chest is too tight. His palms itch. He gets off two stops early and takes the long way home.
____________________________________________________________________________
Two weeks later, he’s coming back from patrol — still half in gear, hair damp from rain, the back of his neck prickling under the collar of his jacket. The agency lobby’s warm in a way that makes him feel sticky all over, glass doors closing behind him with that hydraulic hiss. He’s already thinking about the reports piled on his desk when someone walks past on their way out.
It hits him before he even registers the person — that smell.
Not just any cologne. Izuku’s cologne. The expensive bottle Katsuki bought him for his birthday two years ago. He’d shoved it across the table in the breakroom like it wasn’t a big deal, like he hadn’t gone out of his way to track it down after catching the faintest trace of it in a store once and thinking, without hesitation, this is him.
Sharp cedar. Bergamot. Something faintly sweet underneath, like the ghost of citrus.
It catches in his chest like shrapnel.
By the time he steps into the elevator, it’s in his head and his lungs, twisting low in his ribs. He keeps catching it on the edge of every inhale, phantom traces mixing with the humid lobby air. He doesn’t even get a look at the person — doesn’t matter. His brain has already supplied the image of Izuku brushing the bottle against his wrist, rubbing it in, leaning a fraction closer when they were still in that space where leaning closer meant something.
The elevator doors slide shut, cutting off the view of the lobby, and Katsuki leans back against the wall like it’ll help pin him in place. He chews the inside of his cheek hard enough to taste copper, jaw tight, like if he doesn’t move, the memory will burn itself out before it gets comfortable.
It doesn’t.
When the car slows for his floor, he steps out and turns straight for the stairwell instead. He needs the burn in his thighs, the clanging echo of his boots on the concrete, something loud enough to drown it out.
Jaw locked, eyes forward, he ignores every “Good evening, Dynamight” from passing staff.
He doesn’t trust himself to open his mouth right now.
____________________________________________________________________________
The thing about co-owning an agency with Deku is there’s no real escape.
Doesn’t matter if Katsuki’s in his office with the door shut or on the far end of the building — Deku’s there, in some way. Every hallway’s lined with framed photos of the two of them shaking hands with city officials, cutting ribbons, standing in front of busted buildings with PR smiles plastered on. There are headlines in glass, articles blown up for visitors to admire, their hero names printed side-by-side in bold.
Perfect PR. Perfect numbers. Perfect teamwork.
It’s all bullshit.
Every meeting, every press conference, every mission debrief means hearing his voice, catching him in his peripheral, watching him lean down to scribble notes that Katsuki will end up reading later. And it’s not like Katsuki’s the kind of idiot who can pretend he doesn’t notice. He notices everything. Always has.
There’s nowhere to put the parts of him that still want more than this — more than the polite nods in the hall and the occasional hand-off of a file. So he keeps them in his teeth, grits down on them until they’re dull enough to carry through the day.
He hasn’t been to Izuku’s apartment in almost half a year. Not since that night.
He’d shown up after patrol with some paperwork he didn’t trust to email, let himself in like always — only to stop dead in the doorway of the living room. Ochako was there. Barefoot. One of Izuku’s t-shirts hanging loose over her shoulders, hair pulled up in that messy knot people wear when they’re comfortable. She was curled into his couch like it was hers, remote in one hand, a blanket over her legs.
Izuku had looked up from the kitchen like nothing was out of place. Like it was the most normal thing in the world.
Katsuki had handed over the folder, muttered something about an early patrol, and left before the air got any tighter in his lungs.
People move on. People find people.
It’s the truth. Has been since they were kids. Izuku’s always been better at reaching out, letting people in, holding onto them.
Katsuki tells himself that every damn day. Some days it almost works. Most days it feels like chewing glass.
____________________________________________________________________________
The morning debrief is already a circus when he walks in.
Denki’s got his feet on the table, muddy bootprints smudging the glossy surface. Sero’s leaning back so far his chair creaks like it’s begging for mercy, arms folded behind his head like they’re in a damn beach cabana instead of the Number One agency in Japan. Eijirou’s halfway through an animated story about pulling a Shiba Inu out of a storm drain — complete with hand gestures, sound effects, and an enthusiastic reenactment of the dog shaking off the water.
“Feet down before I break them off,” Katsuki barks, tossing his folder onto the table and dropping into his seat.
“You wouldn’t,” Denki says without looking up from whatever game he’s playing on his phone, grin just crooked enough to be a dare.
“Test me,” Katsuki fires back.
He’s about to reach for the nearest folder to throw when the conference room door swings open.
Izuku and Ochako walk in together.
Not just walk in — they tumble through the doorway mid-laugh, the kind of laugh that’s unguarded, unpolished. Not the polite chuckle they wear for cameras or civilians. Real, from-the-gut laughter that shakes their shoulders and puts a crinkle at the corner of Izuku’s eyes.
“Sorry,” Izuku says once the noise dies down, still wearing the smile like it’s stitched to his face. He sets his coffee cup down, slides into the chair across from Katsuki like it’s just another Tuesday. “Traffic.”
“Traffic, my ass,” Katsuki mutters, flipping open his folder so he doesn’t have to look at the way Izuku’s still grinning.
Ochako puts a cup in front of him, hearts doodled in marker on the lid.
Katsuki looks away before anyone sees his face.
____________________________________________________________________________
Patrol’s quiet that week, the kind of quiet that makes the city feel like it’s holding its breath.
No big calls, no back-to-back rescue runs, no chaos to throw himself into until he forgets his own name. He takes more solo routes than usual, citing “coverage efficiency” to the scheduling team, but really it’s just easier. Easier not to share a patrol car. Easier not to watch them drift around each other in that unthinking, natural rhythm — side comments and private smiles, comfortable in a way Katsuki hasn’t been around him in months.
For a few days, it works.
Until the ghosts show up.
It’s late afternoon, the air still carrying the thin bite of winter. He cuts down a narrow side street, boots echoing on the damp pavement, his brain already halfway to the paperwork waiting on his desk.
Movement catches at the edge of his vision. Just a flicker — a familiar shade of green cutting across the intersection ahead.
Izuku.
Leaning against a fogged-over storefront window, hood down, hair a mess in the wind. His head’s tipped toward Ochako, close enough that their breath probably mingles in the cold. She’s grinning at something he said, wide and bright, her gloved hand resting on his arm like it belongs there.
They look… right. Like they’ve been standing there for years, like it’s the most natural thing in the world.
Katsuki doesn’t slow down. Doesn’t wait to see if Izuku notices him.
He takes the next corner without looking back, jaw tight enough to hurt, and tells himself it’s just another street, just another day.
____________________________________________________________________________
He’s halfway through a mission report when it starts — that low hum of voices from the lobby drifting up the hall, just enough to pull at the edge of his attention.
Katsuki’s got his office door propped halfway open. He tells himself it’s so he can hear if someone needs him, but really, he hates the boxed-in silence of a shut door. Usually, it’s background noise — receptionist phones ringing, boots on tile, Eijirou’s laugh carrying from the break room.
But this isn’t that.
It’s Izuku’s voice.
Steady. Warm. The kind of tone he saves for civilians and reporters, just the right mix of earnest and professional. The kind of voice that makes people want to believe him, even if they don’t know why.
“…always been an honor to work with them,” Izuku’s saying. The words are smooth, practiced without sounding like it. “We have a lot of trust in each other. That’s the most important thing in this job.”
There’s a shuffle of movement, the low murmur of a follow-up question he can’t catch. Katsuki leans back in his chair, tilting his head just enough to hear better without making it obvious — even though no one’s there to see.
The reporter’s voice rises on the next one, clearer this time:
“What’s it like working so closely with Uravity? You two seem to have such great chemistry in the field.”
Silence, but not the awkward kind. The kind where someone’s smiling before they speak.
Izuku laughs. Soft.
Softer than it should be.
It slides under Katsuki’s ribs before he can brace for it, lands in the same place every other ghost of him does. It’s not the laugh he hears in briefings or on patrol comms, sharp-edged and focused. This one’s warmer, smaller — a laugh meant for one person, even if half the damn lobby’s listening.
“She’s incredible,” Izuku says. “One of the best partners I’ve ever had. We understand each other without having to talk sometimes. That’s rare.”
Katsuki’s jaw tightens. His pen stops moving somewhere in the middle of a word, ink bleeding into the paper.
The conversation in the lobby rolls on, hitting all the expected beats — teamwork, safety, public trust — but his focus has already tunneled down to that one laugh, replaying in a loop that’s impossible to shut off. It echoes against the inside of his skull, tangling itself up with a hundred other sounds he never meant to keep track of: Izuku’s voice calling his name in the middle of a fight, laughing at something dumb in the break room, soft and breathless on nights that used to be theirs.
He sits there until the footsteps fade and the front doors hiss open. Only then does he drop his pen, press the heel of his hand against his eyes, and tell himself it’s just noise.
Just noise.
But the knot in his chest stays put.
____________________________________________________________________________
The next morning, Mina corners him in the break room while he’s mid-pour, the coffee steaming into his favorite chipped mug. She’s got that look — the one that means she’s already decided what the conversation is about, and nothing short of a villain attack is going to stop her.
“You’ve been extra grumpy,” she says, leaning one hip against the counter like she owns the place.
“Don’t start,” Katsuki warns, topping off the cup and not looking at her.
“I’m just saying, people notice—”
“Mina,” he cuts her off, tone flat, “if you value your life, get out of my kitchen.”
She grins like he’s given her exactly what she wanted. “You mean our kitchen,” she corrects, snatching a sugar packet from the jar and tearing it open just to make a mess. “And for the record, grumpy is different from broody . You’ve crossed into broody territory.”
“Mina.” He sets the pot back on the warmer with more force than necessary.
She lifts her hands in mock surrender, still smirking. “Fine, fine. But just so you know—love makes you meaner.”
The word hangs in the air, hot and unwelcome.
Katsuki takes a long swallow of coffee and doesn’t answer.
She leaves with a little snicker under her breath, and he keeps his eyes on the counter until her footsteps fade down the hall. Only then does he let his shoulders drop.
____________________________________________________________________________
Late one night, he takes the subway home. Patrol ran long, rain starting to needle through his costume by the time he locked up. The platform’s dead-quiet, train pulling in with a squeal of brakes, and the car he steps into is nearly empty.
Of course Izuku’s there.
Two seats from the window, hood down, hair a little damp and curling at the edges. Ochako’s beside him, her jacket unzipped, one knee drawn up on the seat so she can face him fully. Their knees are pressed together in that casual way that says they don’t even notice anymore. She says something Katsuki can’t hear over the clatter of the tracks, and Izuku smiles.
Soft.
Not the PR smile, not the press conference grin. Not even the one he gives when someone thanks him on the street. No, this one’s slower, warmer. Familiar in a way that makes Katsuki’s throat go tight, because for a long time he’d been stupid enough to think that smile belonged to him.
He takes the pole at the far end of the car, plants his boots wide, and stares at the floor like it’s suddenly the most interesting thing in the world. The train rocks, metal groaning, and the lights overhead flicker in and out. He catches himself wanting—just for a second—to look up again.
Stupid .
The car slows, shudders to a stop. The doors open.
Katsuki steps out without looking back, before he can do something humiliating, like hope.
____________________________________________________________________________
Back at his apartment, the quiet’s suffocating. Not the peaceful kind — the kind that sits on your chest. No stray files left on the counter from when Deku would swing by after hours to “just drop something off” and end up staying long enough for takeout. No post-it notes in that messy, slanted handwriting telling him to eat something green or for the love of god, hydrate .
The place smells faintly of the leftover coffee he forgot to dump out this morning. The fridge hums in the background, steady and low. Outside, traffic murmurs, muffled by rain and walls too thin for the price he pays.
He flips on the TV without caring what’s on. A rerun of some cooking show—overly chipper host, clatter of pans, the hiss of something hitting oil. He leaves it running until the noise feels like static crawling under his skin, then shuts it off.
The quiet rushes back in.
He showers. Brushes his teeth. Goes through every automatic motion like if he keeps moving, the stillness won’t catch him. But the second the lights are out, it’s there, waiting.
In bed, the city hum fades to a dull pulse against the window glass. He dreams of the subway—same flickering lights, same cold metal pole under his hand. Izuku’s on the platform, hair damp from rain, drops catching in his lashes. His eyes find Katsuki’s across the crowd like they still mean something.
Like they ever did.
When he wakes, the ache in his chest is already there. Heavy. Persistent. Like it’s been waiting all night for him to open his eyes.
____________________________________________________________________________
The agency’s charity gala is a wall-to-wall PR nightmare — too many fake smiles, too many hands on his shoulder, too many cameras popping in his face like flashbangs. The air’s heavy with perfume and champagne, with that over-polished scent of money that makes his teeth grind.
Katsuki makes it twenty minutes before he’s shoving through a side door onto the balcony, the noise dropping away in one clean cut. Out here, the air is cooler, sharper. His drink is mostly ice now, the condensation damp against his palm. He rolls it between his fingers just for something to do.
He’s halfway through counting the red taillights threading down the street when the door clicks open behind him. Izuku steps out without fanfare, smelling like that same cedar-bergamot cologne. The one Katsuki can’t forget no matter how much he wants to.
His suit jacket’s slung over one arm, tie loose and crooked in that way he’s never learned to fix. There’s a faint flush on his cheeks, probably from the heat of the ballroom. No Ochako trailing after him.
“You’re hiding,” Izuku says, a half-smile tugging at his mouth.
“You’re late,” Katsuki replies.
“Had to walk someone home.”
Not a lie. Not the truth he wants, either.
They stand there, side by side, the glass railing catching the reflection of the city in fractured streaks. Traffic hums far below. Somewhere, a siren wails and fades. Katsuki keeps his eyes forward, memorizing the skyline like it’s safer than looking at him.
When Izuku finally pushes the door open to go back inside, the warmth of him lingers in the space between them. Katsuki stays where he is, hands shoved deep in his pockets, breathing slow like it might loosen the knot wound tight in his chest.
He stays until the sound of the party swallows up the quiet again.
The next morning, there’s an article about Deku and Uravity leaving the gala together. He doesn’t read past the headline.
____________________________________________________________________________
Dispatch screws up.
It happens — not often, but enough that Katsuki doesn’t think twice when the ping hits his comms mid-patrol. Minor incident. Loose scaffolding on a mid-rise downtown, reported hazard to foot traffic. Two blocks out, so he takes it. Easy fix.
Except when he rounds the corner, he sees green lightning sparking faintly on the other side of the block.
Of course.
Deku’s already there, boots hitting pavement in a controlled sprint, looking up at the sagging section of steel like he’s calculating the load-bearing points in his head. His comm blinks red, same dispatch ID. A mistake. Great.
They meet in the middle of the cordon without planning it, the crowd pressing close enough that Katsuki can smell dust and coffee and that faint cedar-bergamot cologne under it all. Izuku’s eyes flick to him — quick, assessing, unreadable.
“Kacchan,” he says. Just the name. Nothing else.
“Deku,” Katsuki grunts back.
And that’s it. That’s all they need.
They fall into it without thinking — that rhythm they built years ago, sharp-edged efficiency sliding into muscle memory. Katsuki vaults the barrier, blasts upward to stabilize the highest section, feeling the vibration of stressed metal under his palms. Below, Izuku’s already moving the pedestrians back, hands firm on shoulders, voice steady over the noise. He times it perfectly — the moment Katsuki signals, he’s in the air, One For All flaring just enough to take the weight Katsuki drops, lowering it to the street without so much as a jolt.
They don’t have to talk about it. Don’t have to look at each other. Every step is instinct, every shift in weight answered without hesitation.
It’s too easy.
And that’s the worst part — how nothing about this feels strained or broken, not in the work. The gap between them doesn’t touch the rhythm. The scaffolding comes down in one clean piece, hazard cleared, crowd applauding before the last bolt hits the asphalt.
Katsuki’s breathing hard, not from the effort but from the way his chest won’t settle. He lands, dust streaking his gloves, and Izuku’s already at the perimeter tape, talking to the foreman. His expression is calm, professional, untouched by whatever the hell is sitting heavy in Katsuki’s ribs.
“Good work,” Izuku says when they pass each other on the way out, voice low enough that it’s probably meant as a simple courtesy.
Katsuki doesn’t answer.
He stalks off in the opposite direction, comm already halfway to his mouth to tell Dispatch they need to fix their routing.
Because the rhythm is still there.
But all the space around it — the jokes, the post-mission breathers, the little glances that used to mean more — is gone.
And that’s what makes it feel like a fight he’s already lost.
____________________________________________________________________________
The next debrief, Denki’s sprawled in his chair like he’s been poured there, hood up, chin tipped toward his chest. He’s either half-asleep or pretending to be. The room smells faintly of burnt coffee and the takeout someone left in the corner.
Sero elbows him. “Yo, Dynamight,” he says, grinning over the table, “think Deku’s gonna make it today?”
Katsuki doesn’t look up from his notes. “He’s in the building.”
“He’s in the stairwell,” Eijirou adds from across the room, flipping through a mission report. “Coffee run with Ochako.”
Denki’s grin sharpens. “Cute.”
The word lands in Katsuki’s chest like a nail.
He slams his folder shut, the sound sharp enough to snap both their heads up. “Shut the hell up.”
They laugh like it’s nothing — just more morning banter, a throwaway jab to pass the time before the meeting starts.
He doesn’t.
He keeps his eyes on the closed folder in front of him, fingers pressed hard into the cardboard, knuckles pale. The door opens a minute later, and he hears them before he sees them — the low murmur of Izuku’s voice, Ochako’s soft laugh, the sound of two coffee cups being set on the table.
Katsuki doesn’t look up.
____________________________________________________________________________
He rides the subway home that night, hood up, earbuds in without anything playing. The car rocks gently, overhead lights buzzing in that tired way that makes shadows jump along the walls.
Two stops in, a man gets on — suit jacket still damp from the rain, tie loose at his throat. As he moves past, the air shifts.
That cologne.
Cedar-bergamot, sharp and warm all at once, threading through the recycled train air like it owns the place.
He grips the pole until his knuckles ache, eyes squeezed shut against the memory. The click and rattle of the tracks fills his head, but it’s not enough to drown it out.
So he counts the stops. One. Two. Three.
When the doors open at his station, he’s already moving, stepping into the cold air like it might wash the scent off his skin.
____________________________________________________________________________
It’s late.
Not hero-late, not out-on-patrol-late — just the kind of late where the city outside his window has gone soft and hollow. No horns, no sirens, just the occasional hiss of a car passing on wet asphalt.
Katsuki’s sitting on the couch with his phone balanced in his palm, half-slouched like gravity’s been working on him for hours. The only light comes from the screen, bleaching his fingers pale.
The message thread with Izuku is still pinned at the top, not because he’s organized — although he is — but because it’s been there so long he doesn’t remember what the screen looks like without it.
The last thing between them is from over a week ago. Three words, about the mission report. Nothing personal. Nothing warm.
His thumb hovers over the text box, and before he can talk himself out of it, he types.
It’s stupid — just a one-liner, an old callback to a joke they made during their first year of patrol together. Some dumb night when the coffee machine exploded in the breakroom and they’d spent an hour sweeping grounds out of the floor tiles. He knows if Izuku saw it, he’d get it immediately. Maybe laugh. Maybe send something back.
The cursor blinks.
The words sit there, small and harmless, and his chest feels like it’s full of shrapnel anyway.
He imagines the read receipt. Imagines Izuku’s expression when it pops up on his phone — maybe confused, maybe amused, maybe nothing at all. Maybe Ochako glancing over his shoulder and asking who it’s from.
The thought makes his jaw clench.
He stares at it long enough for the screen to dim, reflection ghosting faintly over the black glass — his own tired face, eyes shadowed, mouth pressed flat. He taps it back awake, looks at the message again.
It’s nothing.
And it’s too much.
His thumb hits backspace. The words vanish in one long flicker until the box is empty again.
He doesn’t replace them. Doesn’t type anything at all.
When the screen goes dark this time, he lets it. Sets the phone face-down on the coffee table like it might stay quiet that way.
The apartment hums in the dark — fridge motor, distant plumbing, the low pulse of the city bleeding through the walls. Katsuki sits in it until the ache in his chest settles into something dull enough to stand up with.
He doesn’t look at the phone again before bed.
____________________________________________________________________________
One day, maybe he’ll stop looking for green hair in every crowd. Stop feeling that jolt when someone says “Deku.” Stop caring if Izuku and Ochako walk into the morning meeting together, still laughing about something he wasn’t there for.
One day, maybe the sight of him on the subway will mean nothing.
Not today.
Not yet.