Chapter Text
Oh… Oh, fuck.
Shut your eyes, Katsuki, this is just a dream, a really, really bad dream.
Breathe in…two… three… four….
Out… six… seven… eight…
Open.
Shit.
He’s still right there.
It isn’t enough to say that the obsessive stalker standing across the room looking at him with those overly excited doe eyes is the bane of his existence.
It isn’t enough to say that the greenette is a stubborn speck of rancid dog shit wedged deep into the cracks in the bottom of his shoe that he desperately wants to wipe off and be rid of forever and always, once and for all.
It isn’t enough to say that Katsuki hates him.
Because it isn’t. Katsuki despises him. Detests. He has grown conditioned to twitch in barely constrained rage at the sound of a pencil scratching in notebooks, of frenzied mumbles uttered under breath. And he will never, will never ever, bite his tongue or hold back in his attempts to make the stalker back the fuck off once and for all.
Midoriya fucking Izuku is his personal nightmare plaguing every moment of his god damn existence, who decided at four years old to make himself, permanently, Katsuki’s fucking problem.
Calculating eyes watching him from every angle, too close even when from afar. The grating sound of pen scratching manically on paper from across the room, chasing him, tormenting him, wherever he went, wherever he hid. Hot breath breathing down his neck when the fucker stands too close and insists that he is allowed to, that it is his right to invade his personal space simply because they’ve known each other since they were kids and their parents once said that his clingy, overbearing nature was cute.
As if the years of forced proximity from the unfortunate coincidence of living in the same neighborhood and going to the same schools, and the play dates from years passed and forced hangouts and sleepovers throughout middle school set by too pushy parents were any excuse to act like he does to this day. As if the one sided friendship, that had been and always will be one sided, was any reason at all to constantly trail after him, to grab his arm, touch his hair, steal his things. Invade his privacy, his home, his room.
His life.
Izuku has his family under his little twisted grip, wrapped tight around his fucking pinky. He always gets his way. They’re right where he wants them to be, despite them thinking they have the upper hand.
‘Listen, Katsuki. Izuku isn’t as strong as you, you need to look out for him at school, just let him sit with you and stop complaining.’
‘Katsuki, stop complaining, Inko is working overnight tonight, Izuku is spending the night and wants to play with your shit with you, so just shut up and share. Stop acting like such a brat.’
‘Oh, c’mon, Katsuki, stop sulking, you'll ruin all the pictures, Little Zuzu just wanted to come to the shoot and see where you work. Look at him sitting there not bothering anybody, he’s smiling, he’s quiet. Why can’t you be more like him?’
They’re only close because he forces them to be.
They’re only close because he studies his every move and inserts himself into his life without regard to Katsuki’s feelings on the matter.
They’re only close because he won’t let him go, won't release his claws from his object of affection, his shiny and perfect toy to put on a pedestal and admire.
Breathe in…two… three… four….
Out.. six… seven… eight…
He was supposed to be rid of this nightmare.
Getting into U.A. was supposed to be his escape from the freak that decided to idolize Katsuki since they were four fucking years old and his twisted brain misconstrued their first interaction into believing that they were soulmates, and then, he just wouldn’t leave him alone. Wouldn’t drop the idea. No matter how mean Katsuki was to him, how much hate and vitriol he spat, no matter how many times he pushed or shoved.
No matter how many times Katsuki denied they said each other's words.
Because they fucking weren’t soulmates, no matter what the freak thought.
The hero school was supposed to be the place that Izuku, the kid so useless he couldn’t even bench press the bar or run a mile to save his life- was supposed to be the one place the green eyed freak couldn’t ever even dream of getting into. Couldn’t dream of ruining for him. Couldn’t dream of chasing him.
Seeing him at the entrance exams had shattered every fantasy of finally getting into a separate school after all these years and getting rid of the stalker once and for all. The freak following him into the written exam and forcing his way into the seat next to him had been the final straw on his back that day and destroying the robots in the physical portion of the exam had been an immense stress relief that Katsuki had desperately needed. Imagining green doe eyes and a whiny voice while deliberately blasting the lumbering bags of bolts and gears to bits?
Katsuki was in heaven, getting first place had come easily.
Seeing him had given Katsuki viscous nightmares that night. Of being forced to see a head of dark green hair around the halls before school, being forced to take the train home with him after school, and seeing him every day in the lunchroom and god forbid in the bathrooms if the other somehow managed to weasel his way into general education or support or one of the other classes.
The freak was smart, he was beyond analytical, he could worm his way into doing that just to be close to him. To remain a fixed point in Katsuki’s life.
He’d woke up sweating through his sheets that night with a choked off yell as he thought about the possibility of being stuck in even that distant proximity for three more years.
But there he was.
Frozen, bug eyed, gobsmacked, slacked jaw, and admiring. Standing there just watching Katsuki from inside the doorway of class 1-A, innocently walking in, just minutes before the bell to signal the start of their first day, as if he actually belonged here.
Katsuki was supposed to be safe here.
He was supposed to be free.
Katsuki sucked in a sharp breath through his nose as his muscles tensed and adrenaline coursed through his veins, eye twitching and nose scrunching in anger.
His leg stiffened in its position lazily draped across the desk in front of him and his stomach clenched. His arms tensed at his sides and he could feel sharp pinpricks of pain across his palms as he clenched his hands, nails digging into the skin tightly, trying to ward off the growing heat threatening pain and destruction.
Katsuki closed his eyes and took in a measured breath through his nose, willing himself to relax even just a bit. To lower his heart rate and control his ever rising blood pressure.
He must still be asleep. This must be another nightmare.
Breathe in…two… three… four….
Out… six… seven… eight…
“Hi, Kacchan,” he heard the bright and overly cheerful voice, airy and breathless, nails grating down a damn chalkboard, right beside him.
Just another fucking bad dream.
The sickly sweet scent of his milk and honey soap, too real, too repulsive to be a dream, filled the air, cloying in his nostrils.
His too warm body heat, too close, seeped through the arm of his uniform, through the fabric of his pants and warmed his leg, the ghost of a touch brushing along his arm, right above the ditch of his elbow.
Right where his soul words were.
The words that Katsuki constantly reminded him didn’t belong to him. The context of their first conversation didn’t even match his and Izuku’s words. But the freak refused to accept the truth. Refused to believe that his twisted memory of their first interaction wasn’t undisputed proof of them being fated for each other.
No matter how many times Katsuki told him otherwise.
No matter the fact that his forced handwriting didn’t quite match Katsuki’s soulmate's smooth and thick style, despite years of attempting to tame his chicken scratch into something closer, to mimic it, another one of his messed up arguments towards further indisputable proof. Never mind the fact that Deku’s words weren’t even in the same place! Never mind the fact that when the freak was around him he felt viciously red hot, angry and overwhelmed, and felt the sharp bitter taste of anxiety on the back of his tongue instead of the buzzing pleasantness his father had described.
The fucking freak wasn’t his soul mate, he couldn’t be.
Katsuki hasn’t even met his soul mate and yet he already cared for them deeply, couldn’t wait to meet them, relied on the universe's promise of a future with them. Stable, strong, loving, and all his. They would be sarcastic and they would be a smartass. Most importantly they would put up with Katsuki’s shit and dish it right back. They’d push him to be better and love him every step along the way.
He knew it.
He could tell from just the words. From the first words they would first say to him. From their relaxed and bold but still careful handwriting. He had spent hours and hours tracing over the words etched into his arm, finding strength and security from them.
They would be perfect.
His soulmate would be nothing like the freak that pushed his way into Katsuki’s life and wouldn’t take no for an answer.
And right now? That freak was too damn close.
Always, too damn close.
Katsuki’s breath stuttered in his chest as he snapped open his eyes, jerking his head to the side and crimson blood red eyes met dark and stormy forest green.
Wide and wild manic green, filled with adoration and hope and a million other emotions Katsuki didn’t want to put a name to as the freaks gaze fluttered around every inch of Katsuki’s scowling face.
This is not a dream.
“Get your hand off of me and back the fuck up, fuckin’ creep.” The blond snapped, leaning away as far as he could, deeper into his chair.
It wasn’t far enough.
His hand was still grazing along the fabric of his jacket. Too friendly. Still too close. Still fucking touching him, his unwanted warmth searing hot into his arm leaving Katsuki bristling with disgust and anger.
“Kacchan-”
“Stop fucking touching me! You damn freak!” Katsuki all but growled, sneering as heat coursed through his veins stemming from that point of contact, crawling all the way up his spine and he felt the familiar uncomfortable march of fire ants under his skin, of slime caressing every inch of his body, of Deku still fucking touching him.
The other students who had been steadily filling into the classroom before the creep showed up as the bell came closer and closer to starting their day, looked their way in confusion at the scene, at Katsuki’s sudden, seemingly unprompted anger.
He didn't care.
He didn’t care if he started off the school year making them think that he was this angry, vile, callous brute.
He didn’t care that this is what the green eyed monster made him out to be, at every school and in every class they had together, at every club and every activity he wormed his way into right beside him, everywhere, every time.
It was his fault.
He was too. Damn. Close.
He was touching him and he wouldn’t back the fuck up.
“But, Kacchan, I-”
“What the fuck are you even doing here, freak?” He ground out between his clenched teeth interrupting the other’s pleading. “Shouldn’t you be in fuckin’ general or something? How the hell did a quirkless psycho like you even get into the hero course? Huh? Useless Deku!” The legs of his chair hit the ground with a resounding thud causing even more heads to snap their direction as Katsuki quickly took his foot off the desk, sliding himself away from the wandering hand as quickly as possible.
Pushing his chair backward with more force than necessary and ending up shifting the entire desk with a loud, obnoxious squeal, attempting to gain even an inch of further distance from the greenette standing in his personal space.
It wasn’t. Far. Enough.
The tall student with the blue hair and glasses that had been reprimanding him for having his foot up on the desk just moments before the green eyed freak had walked in, full of self imposed and misplaced righteous fury suddenly turned his ire back to Katsuki, interjecting himself into their conversation with an air of confusion, “Quirkless? He took down the zero pointer in our arena with one hit!”
What the fuck.
The other student’s confusion suddenly fell to an overwhelming sense of superiority as the blue haired kid started waving his hands around in a tight and dramatic manner, once again attempting to impose his might onto Katsuki, “a student accepted into the prestigious hero course at U.A. ought to know better than to speak with such vile language towards another student and hero hopeful.” He looked Katsuki up and down with a glare, eyes widening at the fact that he had clearly missed a detail before in his earlier reprimanding, eyes laser focused on Katsuki’s undone tie.
The taller student bristled as his face contorted in barely constrained outrage. “Fix your uniform at once and consider yourself lucky that our homeroom teacher was not witness to your crude remarks.”
The blond pulled a face, flexing his hands discreetly under his desk in an attempt to ward off the burst of emotions threatening to take him over at the ridiculous turn this morning had come to and the subsequent rippling of sparks promising to dance unwanted across his heated palms.
Was he hiding a quirk this whole time? Were the x-rays faked? Was Inko in on it?
Breathe in…two… three… four….
Out… six… seven… eight…
Don’t even look at the freckled face of his nightmares. Don’t acknowledge him. Don’t give him that power.
Katsuki glared back at the bespeckled student, refusing to pay attention to the green puppy dog eyes and twitching hands standing still too close, just inches away from his desk. The blue haired student held his glare with unearned righteousnessness.
Katsuki snorted at him suddenly and smiled, viscous.
Put on a brave face. If they can't sense weakness they can't use it.
“Our teacher has been laying on the floor under the podium this whole time, dumbass.”
“Bakugo Katsuki,” the man who hadn’t even been properly hidden under the teacher’s desk rose with all the enthusiasm of a surly cat being woken from a nap.
An eyesore of a yellow sleeping bag peeled away to reveal the underground hero Katsuki had only ever read about deep on online forums, long dark hair, a face carved with exhaustion, and a hero costume built for practicality, not showmanship.
A man who survived by noticing everything no one else did, a man who put in work others took for granted in a world so dominated by strength only being shown through flashy physical quirks.
A man Katsuki had long admired since digging up his old sports festival footage while studying past U.A. graduates and then falling down a research rabbit hole.
Katsuki nodded his head in response as he sat up straighter, righting his desk to its original position as the classroom devolved into frantic scraping chairs and panicked shuffling as all of the other students took to their seats.
The freak sat directly behind him.
Of fucking course.
A shiver went down his spine. He truly was stuck with him again.
“It took eight seconds before you all got into your seats and shut up. That’s not going to work, rational students would know that. My name is Aizawa Shouta, I'm your teacher. Now, in all my years of teaching at U.A., no students have passed my initial tests.” Eraserhead began with an unimpressed droll as the kids around him gulped in shock, “I have been watching this room via cameras as you all have been entering and decided to chat amongst yourselves instead of completing your first assignment as hero students.”
Confused murmurs came from all across the room as the extras around him came to their own sudden conclusions about their new teacher.
“Bakugo,” Aizawa continued, bored tone steady, “you passed all three of my tests. Explain to your classmates how they failed to be heroes before classes even began.”
For a moment, Katsuki was stunned.
He wasn’t reprimanding him for his behavior or language, telling him to shut up and behave, he wasn’t automatically making presumptions about his students because of the strength of their quirks. He was ready to reprimand an entire class for failing to be observant, of all things, before classes had even begun. This teacher was different.
Maybe this teacher would finally be a good one, push him, help him to become the best. Maybe all the stories he found were true, maybe this man was truly a good hero.
Maybe… hopefully.
Katsuki took a breath and held his chin high, meeting the gaze of his teacher.
“When entering a room, look for exits and unknowns,” he started, voice confident as he listed off what had been drilled into him in heroics and combat lessons years and years ago, basics.
Survival.
Pointing around the room as he continued to speak, “Door. Six windows. Supply closet in the back. And, I dunno, maybe the suspicious adult-sized lump in a bright fucking yellow sleeping bag under the podium? If you idiots are really this un observant, then the future of the hero industry is truly fucked.”
Embarrassed murmurs swept the class. Several students looked genuinely shocked. Others shot daggers at him, cheeks bright red with humiliation and others still looked at him like he hung the stars himself. Someone on the other side of the room groaned into their hands.
He didn’t care what they thought. He’d already painted a pretty damning picture of himself snapping at the freak. Let them judge. Being a hero, being the best hero, was the reason he was here. He was here to learn, to train harder than he'd ever trained before. To become the number one hero no matter what.
Aizawa didn’t scold Katsuki for his crass language.
Didn’t flinch.
Didn’t even blink.
Affronted noises continued and some nervous giggles sounded from around him, Eraserhead flashed his quirk, eyes glowing red and hair rising momentarily as everyone shut up and some hung their heads in shame. In that moment Katsuki felt he knew why Aizawa was so feared in the underworld, the feeling of having his quirk taken away even for that brief moment was jarring. The absence of something he had within him for so long. To feel as his blood pressure dropped for just that split second, and the fire that resided in his soul was stamped out. It was truly an experience. Then he looked back at Katsuki, jet black eyes with piercing white pupils looking him over with a look, not of approval exactly, but almost of encouragement.
“Next?” He said with a small nod, face as blank and impressionable as before, but permission to continue.
A signal that hit harder than Katsuki expected.
“It’s badly erased,” Katsuki said in his cocky jeer, jerking a thumb towards the front of the room, “but it says ‘look under your seats’ on the fucking board. And instead of paying attention, you all decided this is some sort of shitty after school special.”
Half the class exploded in offended remarks, scrambling to defend themselves in overlapping excuses. The girl next to him blushed hard enough she actually turned red enough to match his explosions.
Aizawa shut them up instantly with a dead-eyed stare.
“If you think you’re here to make friends,” he said, “you can walk out that door right now. You are all here for a reason. To become the next generation of heroes. You have three years to prove your potential. The hero course is not fun and games, it is survival of the fittest. So shut up, and stop being idiots.”
Several sharp gasps sounded around the room at their teacher's harsh words and even more considering glares were pointed in Katsuki’s direction. Multiple students murmured in their disappointment about the teacher’s comment about making friends but another glare from Eraserhead had their mouths snapping shut.
One of the other students in the room was quick to reach under his chair and grab at the note taped underneath, sounding his confusion in a pathetic whine. He stared at the lines on it like they personally betrayed him, raising his hand and speaking at the same time, “Sensei, this is just a bunch of lines! It doesn't mean anything!”
Katsuki looked over at the kid, dumb face and yellow hair with a black bolt running through it. Electricity based quirk maybe? Speed? Definitely not enhanced brainpower, that's for certain.
“It’s morse code, dipshit.” Katsuki drooled, staring at the other student with a condescending gaze, and the kid slumped in his chair, cheeks reddening as he turned his face in embarrassment. Other students around the room were reaching under their chairs and examining the note with confused faces. The kid sitting behind dumb dunce face with the world's worst box dye job was looking at Katsuki with a strange gleam in his eye and half an impressed smile.
Continuing on, Katsuki shrugged, “says ‘break the rules don’t pass it on’ so I undid my tie and put my feet up.” He turned back to the kid with blue hair who was frozen, sitting so straight the stick up his ass must be made of barbed hot metal, “private school over here was too busy yelling at me for not following the rules, he didn’t realize I was the only one following the damn rules.”
Gasps again this time sharper, tinged with resentment. Some students glared harder. Others looked crushed, realizing they’d missed something so simple.
The blue haired kid looked as if he had genuinely swallowed a lemon, maybe even the whole tree at the revelation.
Eraserhead chimed in, interrupting the glare off. “Bakugo demonstrated exactly what these tests are designed to assess: situational awareness and common sense. Skills most of you, so far, appear to lack.” He sighed as several students shrank into their seats. “Now, I surely hope that this class has more potential than just one. I’d hate to expel another entire class on the first day, but then again, I get paid either way.”
Katsuki smirked as his teacher’s lips twitched at his own joke while watching the students squirm, his tired eyes barely crinkling around the edges as the students stiffened in their seats.
“You can’t just expel us on the first day! That’s not fair!” The invisible teen in a girls uniform sitting in front of Katsuki wined, the shoulders of her uniform tensing as she bristled.
“You think that heroics are about what's fair?” Aizawa addressed the student with a disapproving tone and a raised eyebrow, “You think natural disasters care about what's fair? You think a villain cares about what's fair? You think that catastrophic accidents that wipe out whole families, whole cities are fair? No. The world is unfair. It’s a hero's job to try to combat that unfairness using their strength and using their intelligence. For the next three years, U.A. will throw one terrible hardship after another at you, it is my job to weed out the weak among you all so that the unfairness of it all does not kill you on your first day on the job. If you think that is unfair, you need to stop being irrational and start thinking logically.”
The shoulders in front of him slumped dramatically more and more as their teacher spoke.
He might just be a good one after all.
Someone who actually cares about the potential of his students and not just the strength of their quirks. He didn’t automatically assume his students were strong just because they made it into the heroics class. Katsuki had seen and heard it over and over again, teachers who think just because someone has a strong or flashy quirk they are automatically skilled, people who thought that just because someone was physically larger meant that they were stronger or a better fighter than others. They never valued the true strength of strategy and planning and the work that comes in building that strength through skill.
This was a teacher who knows what it takes to become a real hero, not just someone chasing fame and fortune through showing off and cutting corners.
A teacher who valued sharp thinking. Awareness. Skill. True strength.
A teacher who might finally understand him.
Eraserhead reached into his sleeping bag and pulled out bundles of blue fabric and started throwing them at unexpecting students.
“Here at U.A. we aren’t tethered to traditions. That means I get to run my class how I see fit. We are heading outside, your next assessment begins now.”
Katsuki caught his easily, examining the soft fabric in his hands.
“But Sensei,” a girl with short brown hair and ridiculously pink cheeks who had walked in right after Deku and sat across the room piped up, “what about orientation?”
“If you really want to make the big leagues you can't waste time on pointless ceremonies. Like I said, I get to decide how this class is run, if you don't like it you can go home.”
Katsuki looked around at the other students as they caught their uniforms, half of them looked scared shitless gaping at their teacher while the other half had determined gazes and stars in their eyes, emboldened by his speech.
“Right, let's get to it. Gym uniforms,” Aizawa said, already walking toward the door. “Follow me, I’ll show you to the locker rooms.”
He paused, just briefly, jet black eyes flicking back to look over Katsuki once more, analyzing, calculating, but for once, Katsuki didn't feel uncomfortable under their analytic gaze.
“And welcome to U.A..”