Chapter Text
Katsuki Bakugou’s earliest memory of that office is not the beige walls or the strategically uninteresting art meant to soothe rather than stimulate, but the suffocating awareness of his own teeth, clenched so tightly his jaw ached, the tension coiling in him like a live wire wrapped around bone, because the indignity of being observed, corrected, pathologized—felt worse than any punishment his parents could have devised.
A child psychiatrist, as if he were something malformed that needed explanation, something that could be diagrammed and neatly solved with the right terminology, and he went in breathing fire, already rehearsing the ways he would resist, already promising himself he would not give them the satisfaction of compliance.
The therapist, to Katsuki’s profound irritation, did not rise to the occasion.
In the dim, pre-dawn hush of his bedroom, where the only sound was the mechanical whir of the air conditioner struggling against the summer heat that clung to everything like an unwelcome guest, Katsuki Bakugou lay sprawled across his bed, eyes fixed on the ceiling as though it might yield answers if he stared long enough. The therapist’s words—those infuriatingly simple, deceptively innocuous words—had burrowed into his skull, impossible to dislodge no matter how violently he tried to shake them loose.
“You are a very smart kid, Katsuki. I just want you to do one thing, and you may even never have to come back here again.”
Katsuki had listened, grudgingly, had listened resentfully, because holy hell he hated this entire charade of being dissected like some lab specimen—but he had listened. The instruction had been almost laughably straightforward:
“I just want you to look inside yourself and think why? At every instance, every emotion you feel, look inside, and ask why?”
He had left the office determined to ignore it entirely. Yet the very act of refusing to think about the “why” had forced him to confront it relentlessly, a paradox so maddening it felt engineered to torment him. Every time he tried to shove the question away, it rebounded with greater force, ricocheting through his thoughts until sleep became impossible. He sighed a long, frustrated exhale that rattled in his chest and rolled onto his side, staring at the All Might poster tacked crookedly above his desk. Deku’s face flickered into his mind unbidden, that stupid, earnest expression he wore whenever he talked about heroes, about becoming one despite everything.
What about Deku did he hate so much? Why did the sight of him still make Katsuki’s palms spark with barely contained fury?
Because he’s quirkless, Katsuki thought immediately, the answer sharp and easy, honed by years of repetition. Because he’s useless. Because he’s irritating.
Why?
The thought snagged.
Because he’s quirkless and he still talks about being a hero, his mind supplied, slower now, less certain. Because he’s reaching for something he can’t have.
Why does that bother you?
Because—because it should be obvious. Because the world doesn’t work like that. Because dreams have rules.
Why does his dream unsettle you? Why did the absence of power in someone else feel like a personal affront?
The answer refused to come, dissolving under scrutiny like ash between his fingers, and Katsuki found himself pacing his room long after midnight, the city lights bleeding through his curtains, his mind unspooling thread by thread. Midoriya wants to be a hero. He won’t get to be. The thought left Katsuki restless, wired, his stomach tight.
Why?
Because they were supposed to be heroes together.
Why does that make you angry at him?
Because it shouldn’t have been taken. Because it wasn’t fair. Because the world had decided something irreversible about someone Katsuki had always counted as a constant. He was angry not because Deku was weak, but because the world had decided weakness disqualified him from the dream they had once shared. The anger was grief in disguise. Grief for the future that had been stolen. Grief for the boy who still looked at him like he believed they could both win.
When his parents forced him back into that office the next day, Katsuki went with less of a fight than last time, which startled all of them.
“Did you look inside, Katsuki?”
“Yes.”
“What is it that you found?”
“I’m mad that Deku can’t be a hero.”
The woman nodded once, as though the answer had been expected. She leaned back in his chair and posed the next question softly, almost conversationally.
“Think about a world where quirks don’t exist, Katsuki. Would you be this angry at Izuku then?”
No, Katsuki thinks.
“No.”
“Why should this world be any different?” the therapist asked. “Why does a power define your life instead of who you are within?”
Katsuki’s life changed on that ordinary day.
Katsuki's life changed again on another ordinary day.
The boys, newly infected with curiosity by puberty—had discovered porn, and with it came the crude bravado, the exaggerated laughter, the vulgar shorthand meant to impress rather than communicate, all of it ricocheting across the room in half-whispered boasts and poorly disguised shock.
It was in the middle of this ritualized performance of masculinity, this collective attempt to posture into adulthood, that Izuku's eyes caught his.
Katsuki had known about porn long before the rest of the idiots in their class stumbled upon it like it was some grand, forbidden discovery.
He had known it in the dark privacy of his own bedroom during those restless middle-of-the-night hours when sleep refused to come and his body, traitorous and insistent, demanded attention he hadn’t yet learned how to ignore. His hand had found his dick beneath the sheets more times than he cared to count, palm slick with spit and shame, movements rough and hurried as though speed might outrun the embarrassment that flooded his ears with heat every single time he finished, breath ragged against his pillow, wondering why something that felt so necessary could also feel so humiliating. He understood want, then —the raw, animal thing that coiled low in his belly and made his skin feel too tight; he understood it intimately, hated how it made him feel exposed even when no one else could see.
He had never imagined Deku understood it the same way.
All those years of casual, wrongly placed touches on playgrounds and in empty lots—Deku’s small hand grabbing his wrist to tug him toward some new discovery, shoulder bumping shoulder during tag, knees knocking together when they sat too close on the curb, had sent Katsuki jumping like he’d been shocked, pulse hammering in his throat while Deku remained utterly oblivious, green eyes bright and guileless, body giving no sign that proximity meant anything more than friendship.
Katsuki had, in moments of mortifying weakness he would never admit aloud, paid far too much attention to Deku’s pants and the lower half hidden beneath them; he had watched, covert and furious with himself, for any telltale sign of the same restless changes that had begun plaguing his own body, any hint of a bulge, any awkward adjustment, any evidence that puberty had finally caught up, and found, to his quiet, confused shock, that Deku still seemed somehow untouched by it all. Like most things in Deku’s life, growth spurts, voice cracks, the messy arrival of adolescent hunger—he was simply behind, still carrying the soft, unformed lines of a child while everyone else stumbled into something sharper and more demanding.
Katsuki hadn’t had to feel like the odd one out for long. The rest of their class caught up soon enough, voices dropping unevenly, faces breaking out in acne, hands suddenly too large for their bodies, and the whispers about girls (and sometimes boys) began circulating. But even then, Deku remained the exception, quiet, earnest, focused on hero notebooks and training regimes rather than the crude jokes that now filled every unoccupied corner of the classroom.
Until that supposedly ordinary day.
Deku's eyes had met his own and there was something strange in them.
He wasn’t oblivious anymore. Whatever delay puberty had imposed, whatever shield of childhood had kept Deku untouched, had finally cracked open, and the thing peering out through those eyes was no longer just the boy who’d followed him around since they were four. It was someone who saw the same restless hunger Katsuki had been wrestling alone in the dark, someone who— maybe for the first time, felt it too.
“Kacchan, look—I found this website during lunch,” Izuku said, voice bubbling with the kind of uncontainable excitement that usually preceded either a forty-minute monologue about quirk kinetics or something far more ridiculous, “it’s this thing where you can make a monitor All Might say anything you type, like text-to-speech but with his exact voice model from the old public-service announcements, and the mouth moves and everything!”
Katsuki raised one eyebrow, already sensing disaster, but let himself be pulled into the creaky desk chair beside Izuku’s because refusing would have meant admitting he wasn’t curious, and he was always curious when it came to whatever chaos Izuku dragged him into next. The screen loaded a simple interface: a looping video feed of All Might in his classic golden-age hero pose—chest puffed, trademark grin blinding—overlaid with a text box and a bright red “SPEAK!” button that looked suspiciously homemade. Izuku’s fingers flew across the keyboard; he hit enter, clicked the button, and suddenly the monitor All Might’s jaw unhinged in perfect sync with a booming, synthesized baritone that filled the tiny bedroom like thunder wrapped in sunshine.
“YEE-HAW!”
The delivery was absurd—pitch-perfect imitation of All Might’s heroic timbre twisted into a cartoon-cowboy drawl so exaggerated it sounded like the Symbol of Peace had just discovered rodeos and decided to commit fully. All Might’s digital mouth stretched into an even wider grin, eyebrows waggling independently, and a tiny animated tumbleweed rolled across the bottom of the screen for no reason whatsoever. Izuku dissolved into helpless giggles, clutching his stomach and rocking forward until his forehead nearly bumped the monitor, tears already gathering at the corners of his eyes.
“Kacchan—Kacchan, do you hear that? He sounds like he’s about to lasso a villain! I’m—I’m dying—”
Katsuki snorted despite himself.
He watched Izuku rewind the clip three times in a row, each “YEE-HAW!” somehow funnier than the last because Izuku kept adding tiny variations—making All Might say it faster, slower, with a dramatic pause before the “haw,” even layering in echo effects until the room sounded like a particularly unhinged saloon. The nerd was utterly obsessed; he spent the next ten minutes tweaking sliders for pitch and speed, muttering to himself.
Eventually Izuku spun the chair toward Katsuki, cheeks still flushed from laughing, eyes bright with invitation. “Your turn, Kacchan! Make him say something cool.”
Katsuki leaned forward, cracked his knuckles with theatrical menace, and typed without hesitation. He hit “SPEAK!” and the monitor All Might’s grin somehow managed to look both heroic and deeply betrayed at the same time.
“Eat shit, you worthless fucking extras, I’ll blast your asses.”
The voice was flawless—deep, commanding, unmistakably All Might—but the words were pure, unfiltered Katsuki.
Izuku gasped in mock horror.
Katsuki held him off with one elbow, smirking as he hit play again. This time monitor All Might boomed, “Fuck me harder mommy,” and Izuku let out a scandalized squeak that was half gasp, half strangled laugh.
“Kacchan, stop! That’s—that’s so gross! All Might would never—oh my god, delete it, delete it right now!”
Katsuki cackled—low and rough and genuinely delighted—as Izuku finally managed to pry his fingers off the keys and mash the backspace button like his life depended on it. “You’re such a prude, Deku. It’s just pixels.”
“It’s All Might!” Izuku admonished, cheeks flaming now with a mixture of embarrassment and lingering horror, though the corners of his mouth kept twitching like he was fighting a smile. “He’s our hero, Kacchan. You can’t make him say… say those things.”
“Fine, nerd. Your turn again. Make him say something pure and heroic before you pass out from moral panic.”
Izuku huffed, but his fingers were already moving, and soon All Might was proclaiming “Friendship is the greatest power of all!” in a voice so earnest it looped straight back around into parody. Katsuki groaned dramatically.
What a nerd.
They were walking back home. Ordinary afternoon.
Then Deku, walking beside him on the familiar cracked sidewalk toward home, shattered the fragile silence with a question so blunt and unexpected that it hit like a sucker punch to the solar plexus.
“Do you masturbate?”
Katsuki jumped.
“The fuck?”
Deku repeated it without hesitation and Katsuki's head snapped to him.
“No—fuck, I heard you the first time,” Katsuki snarled, face burning so hot he could feel the flush climbing into his ears and down the back of his neck, every nerve suddenly hyperaware of the empty street around them.
“Why the fuck are you asking me that?”
Deku shrugged and kept walking and Katsuki wondered if that just a front or if the nerd actually thought it was a normal question to ask. “I just wanna know.”
Katsuki glared at him.
“I’m not talking about that shit with you, Deku. Fuck off.”
“Please, Kacchan?” he said, voice dropping to something small and pleading. “I really just want to know.”
“Why?” Katsuki demanded.
“Cause… cause I need to know I’m not the only one?” The confession came out halting, and he sounded mortified. Good, thought Katsuki. That meant he didn't go saying this shit to other people. “My mum explained things—about bodies and… and feelings and stuff—but I’m not… I’m not sure what she meant exactly, and it feels too embarrassing to tell anyone else, and I keep thinking about it all the time now, and I don’t know if it’s normal or if I’m weird or if—” He broke off, cheeks flaming, fingers twisting nervously around the strap of his bag.
“So you chose me?”
“Well…” Deku’s voice was barely above a whisper now, eyes fixed on the sidewalk cracks as though they might offer him an escape route. “I tell Kacchan everything.”
Huh. Katsuki hadn’t known that. Hadn’t realized, not really, that even after all the years of pushing and yelling and pulling away, Deku still saw him as the one safe place to put the things too fragile or too frightening to carry alone.
He sighed a long, defeated exhale that rattled out of him and scrubbed a hand roughly through his hair, spiking it even more wildly than usual.
“Please, Kacchan?” Deku asked again, smaller this time, almost hopeful.
“Yes, okay? No—just go. Fuck.”
They had arrived at the low gate in front of Deku’s house without either of them noticing how close they’d come; the familiar white picket fence loomed suddenly, Inko’s kitchen light already glowing warm through the curtains.
Without another word, Deku slipped through the gate and disappeared inside, the front door clicking shut behind him.
Katsuki turned on his heel and stalked the rest of the way home, shoulders hunched, hands shoved deep into his pockets to hide the faint, restless sparking at his fingertips.
He slammed through his own front door, kicked off his shoes without bothering to line them up, hurled his school bag against the wall of his bedroom with enough force to make the All Might poster flutter, and collapsed backward onto his bed, arms flung wide, staring up at the familiar ceiling cracks that had mapped themselves into his memory over years of sleepless nights.
Izuku. Deku, Deku, Deku. Deku masturbating.
He pressed the heels of his hands against his eyes until spots danced in the darkness, muttered a string of curses under his breath. What the fuck was he thinking?
Deku was sprawled across the carpet in Katsuki’s room, legs crossed beneath him and controller still clutched triumphantly in both hands, the victory screen of the racing game flashing obnoxiously bright across the television while triumphant chiptune music looped in mocking celebration.
Katsuki, who had been so certain he would smoke the nerd this time—because he always smoked everyone at this stupid kart-racing bullshit—had crossed the finish line a humiliating three places behind, and in a surge of predictable frustration he hurled his controller down onto the futon with enough force to make it bounce once before settling, then slumped backward against the bedframe, arms folded tightly across his chest, scowling at the ceiling.
The nerd was annoyingly good at this game—had been for weeks now, ever since he’d figured out how to drift around those hairpin turns without spinning out.
Deku, still flushed from the adrenaline of the win, set his own controller down more carefully and turned those wide green eyes toward Katsuki, hesitating only a second before opening his mouth again.
“What do you think of when you masturbate?”
What. The. Fuck.
He sat up so fast the back of his head nearly cracked against the bedframe, palms sparking with tiny, involuntary pops that fizzled harmlessly against the air. “Get the fuck out of my room.”
Deku stared back at him helplessly, eyes enormous, freckles standing out starkly against skin that had gone pale with sudden anxiety, shoulders hunching inward as though he could make himself smaller and the sight of him looking so small and scared did something ugly and immediate to Katsuki’s chest, melting the sharp edge of his anger into something softer, more reluctant.
Katsuki sighed a long, defeated exhale that seemed to drag every ounce of fight out of him—and scrubbed both hands roughly down his face, trying to wipe away the heat still burning in his cheeks. “Seriously, Deku, what the fuck? I know you tell me all sorts of weird shit, but this—this is like… I don’t know, private, man.”
“I—I’m sorry, I just—”
“Hey. Hey.” Katsuki’s voice dropped lower, gentler despite himself, the irritation bleeding away entirely when he saw the way Deku’s lower lip trembled. “Why? Did someone say something to you?”
“No. No, just… Hitashi was…”
Katsuki’s jaw clenched so hard his teeth clicked together. Fuck, he hated that kid—smug, loud-mouthed, always trying to act like he knew everything about everything just because his older brother let him borrow his phone sometimes. “What the fuck did Hitashi do?”
“Oh no no, nothing, Kacchan, don’t worry—”
“No, I’m gonna beat the shit out of him, I swear to fucking god—”
“No, Kacchan!” Deku’s hands flew up in frantic placation, eyes wide with genuine alarm. “He was just… he was just showing me a video.”
Katsuki’s eyebrows shot up. “Porn?”
Deku nodded miserably, cheeks flaming scarlet now, gaze dropping to the carpet between them as though it might swallow him whole.
“And?”
“I don’t know, um… he was very… into it. It.”
Katsuki blinked. “What, you weren’t?”
Deku shook his head quickly, curls bouncing. “No.”
“Well, that’s alright, nerd. Some of the shit those people watch is genuinely just disgusting—half of it’s fake as hell anyway, and the other half’s just… weird.”
Deku peeked up at him through his lashes, hesitant. “What kind of um, videos, do you see?”
Katsuki groaned, long and theatrical, flopping backward again so he was staring at the ceiling cracks again. “Ugh. You can’t ask that Deku!”
“Why?” Deku yelled. “I just want to know, Kacchan!”
“But it’s—fuck, it’s like… personal, Deku.”
“Well, you lost this game,” Deku said, jutting his chin out in that stubborn way he sometimes did when he was trying to be brave, pout forming on his lips like a weapon. “So you have to tell me.”
Katsuki sat up again, incredulous. “Huh? Since when did we decide that rule?”
“Right now.”
Katsuki stared at him for a long moment and finally let out another groan, this one more resigned than angry. “Ugh. I don’t know. I’ve only seen like two, and then it got too weird, and I didn’t really pick, I just… I just clicked on the top one.”
Deku nodded slowly, absorbing that. “Did you like it?”
“How many free questions do you get, shitty nerd?”
Deku pouted harder, bottom lip jutting out.
Katsuki groaned. “I don’t know. It was… it was new enough for me to, uh… ugh.” He waved a hand vaguely, hoping the gesture would convey the rest without forcing him to say the actual words.
Deku nodded again, quieter now, processing. Then, after a long pause, he asked in a very small voice, “Do you… do you look at the guy or the girl, Kacchan?”
And oh. Oh. Katsuki understood.
Katsuki watched the way Deku’s shoulders hunched further, the way his fingers twisted tighter in his shirt, the quiet terror of not fitting into whatever script the rest of their classmates seemed to follow without question.
“It’s okay to look at whoever you want to, shitty Deku,” Katsuki said.
Deku’s eyes flicked up to his, wide and searching. “Yes but… the boys in class are talking about the… the girl's breasts—” He stumbled over the word, sounding mortified to even say it aloud, cheeks burning so red Katsuki could practically feel the heat from across the room. “—and I just… I don’t…”
“You don’t look at them?”
Deku shook his head frantically. “Do you?”
“No,” Katsuki offered simply, and watched the tension bleed out of Deku’s shoulders in visible waves, the way his whole body seemed to unclench at once.
Deku swallowed hard. “Okay. I’m sorry I made you uncomfortable, Kacchan.”
Katsuki rolled his eyes, but there was no real heat behind it anymore. “Ugh, it’s alright, nerd. Do you want to do homework now? You feel fine?”
Deku nodded quickly, relief flooding his expression as he scrambled to his feet and crossed the room to where their school bags sat abandoned by the door. “Yes,” he said, voice steadier now, already unzipping his bag to pull out notebooks and textbooks.
“Do you want to watch porn together Kacchan?”
“No.”
Deku, surprisingly, backed off this time.
“Here. Pick.”
The way Deku had backed off had unsettled him.
So Katsuki opened the browser without a word, typed the familiar URL into the address bar with fingers that felt oddly clumsy, and the site loaded in a blaze of thumbnails that suddenly seemed louder than any explosion he’d ever made. Deku’s eyes widened dramatically the instant the page appeared; the controller slipped from his slack fingers and clattered onto the carpet, forgotten, as he leaned forward slightly, breath catching in a soft, audible hitch.
The first question out of his mouth wasn’t about the videos, or the bodies, or anything Katsuki had braced himself to deflect. Instead, in a tone of genuine, horrified curiosity, Deku asked, “Do you open this on a normal window, Kacchan?”
Katsuki blinked. “Where the fuck else am I supposed to open it?”
“Incognito,” Deku said immediately, reaching over without asking permission and nudging Katsuki’s hand aside so he could take control of the trackpad. “No one sees what you do on there. Does your mom never find out?”
“I delete history, nerd,” Katsuki muttered, face burning despite himself, but he didn’t pull away when Deku’s fingers brushed his.
“Oh.” Deku pressed a quick combination and a new, darker window opened, pristine and anonymous. “Now you can just close this window instead of deleting history every time.”
Katsuki stared at the blank tab, then at Deku, who was already looking faintly smug beneath the flush still staining his cheeks. “Huh,” he thought, helplessly, how is Deku a nerd even when it comes to porn?
“I suppose you know a way to remove ads too?” Katsuki asked, half-sarcastic, half-genuinely curious.
“Yes,” Deku said without missing a beat, already navigating to the extensions menu with practiced ease. “There’s one that blocks pop-up ads and those annoying banners—”
“Oh Jesus Christ, Deku.” Katsuki groaned, dropping his forehead into his palm as laughter—half-exasperated, half-disbelieving—bubbled up in his chest. “Does nerdy shit turn you on?”
Deku froze mid-click, ears going scarlet. “Oh. Um. Um.”
Great. Now he chose to be shy again? He watched Deku's shoulders hunching inward, fingers hovering uncertainly over the keyboard.
He leaned forward to reclaim the laptop. “Just pick, nerd.”
They scrolled together in charged silence at first, shoulders brushing every time one of them pointed at a thumbnail, stifled giggles erupting whenever they landed on something particularly absurd, the exaggerated moans, the shitty angles, the strange titles.
They were trying desperately to keep quiet so Mitsuki wouldn’t come pounding up the stairs wondering what the hell was so funny.
The room filled with artificial sounds that felt simultaneously too loud and too intimate in the small space between them; they watched in near-silence after that, giggles dying away as breathing grew shallower, heavier. Katsuki pulled his legs up higher against his chest, trying to hide the obvious, insistent hardness pressing against the front of his sweatpants, but the movement only made it worse. Shit.
Deku’s face was red—red red—when he finally tore his gaze away from the screen and turned it toward Katsuki instead, eyes glassy and wide. “Um. So I better… I better get home, Kacchan. My mom, she—”
“Yes—yes, I’ll see you tomorrow, Deku,” Katsuki managed.
Deku bolted.
Later, in the bathroom with the shower running hot enough to fog the mirror, Katsuki braced one hand against the tile and washed the sticky evidence of his release from his fingers, pulse still thundering in his ears. He had come quicker than usual, spilling over his own fist with a choked groan barely muffled against his forearm the moment he’d let himself think about it: Deku sitting right beside him on the futon, close enough that their thighs pressed together, eyes fixed on the screen but flicking sideways every few seconds to steal glances at Katsuki’s face, at his hands.
The sleepover had started innocently enough—pillows flying in chaotic arcs across Katsuki’s bedroom floor, muffled laughter turning into grunts of effort as they wrestled for supremacy in a storm of feathers and cotton, the kind of roughhousing that had always been their language since they were small enough to fit under the same blanket fort without elbows jabbing ribs.
“Truce,” Katsuki muttered, already throwing an arm over his eyes like he could block the world out that way.
Then came the quick, startling wetness against his lips. A brief, almost imperceptible pressure, warm, wet, unmistakably mouth against his lips, gone so fast his brain lagged behind the sensation, leaving only a strange, hollow pull low in his stomach, something dropping out from under him like he’d missed a step on the stairs.
Katsuki’s eyes snapped open.
Izuku was frozen half a foot away, eyes enormous and horrified, hand clapped over his own mouth. For one endless second neither of them breathed; then Izuku dove forward, face-planting straight into the nearest pillow with enough force to make the mattress bounce, grabbed the second pillow, and yanked it down over his head like a shield, letting out a long, muffled groan that vibrated through the feathers.
Katsuki brought his hand up to his mouth without thinking, fingers brushing his lips like they might still be buzzing, and yeah, the feeling in his stomach was definitely still there, unsettling and electric and very much not going away.
“Hey,” he said. “Did you just kiss me?”
Izuku did not respond. He did, however, attempt to burrow deeper into the pillow like a distressed animal.
Katsuki reached over, hooked his fingers under the edge of the top pillow, and dragged it off. “Fucking hell, Deku, I need to sleep on this. Talk to me.”
Izuku stayed buried face-first in the remaining pillow, shoulders hunched up around his ears, but at least he wasn’t actively suffocating himself anymore. Katsuki stared at the back of his head—green curls spilling everywhere, neck flushed crimson and felt the same pit in his stomach.
With gentle hands, he slid his palms under Izuku’s shoulders and rolled him over until they were face to face again. Izuku resisted for half a second out of pure embarrassment, then gave in with a small, defeated exhale, letting Katsuki maneuver him until he was lying on his back, pillow still clutched to his chest like armor. His face was a mess, eyes glassy, cheeks blazing, lips parted on shallow breaths and when Katsuki leaned down, slow enough to give him every chance to turn away, Izuku didn’t.
The kiss was softer than the first one, deliberate, exploratory and Izuku melted beneath him instantly, pliant in a way that made Katsuki’s head spin. Lips parted on a shared inhale; Izuku’s hands came up to fist loosely in the front of Katsuki’s sleep shirt.
Katsuki was amazed.
This was strange. This was new. This was Izuku’s tongue sliding shyly against his own, tasting faintly of mint toothpaste and the strawberry ramune they’d shared earlier, and Katsuki’s eyes fluttered shut without his permission, the world narrowing to heat and pressure and the soft, wet sounds they were making together.
Izuku gasped for air first, pulling back just enough to breathe, and Katsuki blinked down at him—when had he closed his eyes?—meeting that wide, wondering green gaze that looked back at him with pure devotion.
Katsuki felt himself tilt forward again.
They didn’t really use tongue that time, just mouths learning each other, clumsy and careful all at once, until Izuku broke away with a quiet, breathless giggle, cheeks flushed pink. “Do you want to, um. Um. The—um. French thing?”
Katsuki scrunched his face. “Isn't that gross,” he asked.
Izuku nodded solemnly. “Yeah.”
Katsuki frowned. “Why’d you even ask if you think it’s gross?”
“I—do you want to?” Izuku asked, tentative. “I mean. I don’t know. I just want to know what the big deal is.”
Katsuki stared at him for a long moment, then nodded. “Let’s do it.”
It was so incredibly awkward and Deku kept fucking laughing that Katsuki actually had to get off him and sit up.
They stared at each other again after the gigles subsided, the air thick with anticipation and nerves now, until Izuku snorted. “Um. I don't think we know how to?”
Katsuki sighed, long-suffering, rolled off further away from him, and reached for the laptop on his nightstand. “How to French kiss,” he muttered into the incognito window he opened without thinking, fingers flying across the keys while Izuku propped himself up on his elbows, peering over his shoulder with wide-eyed fascination.
They watched the instructional video in charged silence, two actors demonstrating angles and tongue placement with clinical detachment—then mimicked it carefully at first: tilting heads, opening mouths, letting tongues brush in slow, experimental sweeps that started awkward and ended… less awkward. Soon the video was closed; they didn’t need it anymore.
Like everything else about him, Deku tasted sweet.
Katsuki pulled back after a particularly long slide of tongue against tongue, breathing hard. “Is it nice?”
“It’s strange,” Izuku answered honestly, lips shiny and swollen, eyes bright and Katsuki felt a little dissapointed. “But I kind of want to keep doing it.”
He felt better.
“Same,” he smiled.
They sat cross-legged, leaning toward each other, about to close the distance again when there was a noise at the door.
They sprang apart so fast Katsuki nearly toppled backward; Izuku yelped and yanked the blanket up to his chin like it could hide the flush on his face or the way his lips were redder than they’d been five minutes ago.
Mitsuki’s head popped through the cracked door, eyebrows raised in that knowing-mother way that made Katsuki want to explode something. “Boys? What are you doing not asleep yet?”
Katsuki grunted, scrubbing a hand through his hair to hide how wrecked he felt. “We were sleeping, Mom.”
“It’s a school night, you know. If Inko finds out you made sweet Izuku stay up late she’s not gonna send him over on school nights anymore, brat.”
“Ugh, I know, Mom. Go away.”
“I’m just saying. You insisted on a sleepover, so take care of him.”
Izuku snorted.
Katsuki glared at him.
When the door finally shut, they looked at each other for exactly half a second before scooting closer again, quiet now, careful, mouths meeting in the dark again.
Katsuki pushed Izuku gently backward until he was flat on the futon again; Izuku went willingly, arms looping around Katsuki’s neck, pulling him down until there was no space left between them at all. They kissed and kissed in the dark, until the strange feeling in Katsuki’s stomach had settled into something steady and warm.
When morning came Katsuki still tasted Deku on his tongue. So sweet.
Katsuki burst through the front door of his house with his school bag already half-slung over one shoulder, shouting over his shoulder in the general direction of the kitchen where Mitsuki was probably chopping vegetables or yelling at the television or both—“Mom, I’m going over to Deku’s for homework!”—before she could even draw breath to question the suspiciously early timing or the way his ears were already tinged pink. Mitsuki just sighed—a long, practiced exhale that carried years of resigned amusement and maternal exasperation—shaking her head as the front door slammed shut behind her explosive son, already knowing full well that “homework” was rapidly becoming code for something neither of them wanted to discuss in detail.
Katsuki raced down the familiar street, sneakers pounding against cracked pavement, heart hammering harder than it had any right to after a day of sitting through math lectures and trying not to stare at the back of Izuku’s head three rows ahead. He skidded to a stop in front of the Midoriya house and knocked once impatiently, then twice when no one answered fast enough, and froze mid-third knock when the door swung open to reveal Inko Midoriya in her nurse’s scrubs, smiling that soft, tired smile that always made Katsuki feel vaguely guilty for existing at full volume.
“Katsuki, dear?”
What the hell was she doing here? Izuku had specifically mentioned, whispered it during lunch with that nervous, excited edge, that his mom had a late shift today, that the house would be empty until at least nine. Katsuki’s stomach dropped for half a second before Inko continued, already shrugging into her coat.
“Hello, sweetheart. There’s snacks in the cupboards and milk in the fridge, okay? Help yourself whenever—I have to go out for a bit, emergency call at work. Izuku’s upstairs already. Be good, both of you.”
“Oh thank fuck,” Katsuki muttered under his breath the instant the door clicked shut behind her, relief flooding through him.
He didn’t bother taking off his shoes properly—just kicked them toward the genkan in a haphazard pile—and bolted up the stairs two at a time, flinging open the door to Izuku’s bedroom.
And then they were colliding, hands grabbing at sleeves and shoulders, mouths finding each other happily.
Katsuki sighed into the kiss, something deep and relieved loosening in his chest, because yeah, yeah, he had been waiting all day for this, through classes and notes and teachers droning on about futures that felt abstract compared to the very real pull of Izuku’s hands at his back.
“I waited all day for this,” Izuku admitted breathlessly when they broke apart just long enough to breathe.
Katsuki couldn’t stop the smile that spread across his face.
They kissed standing, stumbling, half-falling onto the bed, sideways and upside-down, Izuku laughing when Katsuki leaned over him too far and nearly lost his balance, Katsuki kissing the sound right out of his mouth like it offended him. Time blurred, their world shrinking to the quiet room, the rustle of sheets, the constant return to each other like they were orbiting something shared.
When hunger finally interrupted them, it did so grudgingly.
They ended up in the kitchen still touching, still leaning in between bites, kisses pressed into cheeks and corners of mouths, the taste of whatever snack they’d grabbed bleeding together until Katsuki could vaguely register sugar and salt and Izuku all at once.
They ate like that, kissing between bites, lips brushing crumbs from each other’s mouths, tasting chocolate chips and vanilla and the sweetness of milk on tongues that couldn’t seem to stay apart long enough to chew properly. Izuku got the ridiculous idea, eyes sparkling with mischief as he held up a cookie between two fingers— that they should try sharing one at the same time, like some absurd romance manga scene he’d probably read about once and never forgotten.
Katsuki rolled his eyes.
“You’re such a fucking dork”b he said, ut leaned in anyway, both of them biting down on opposite ends of the same cookie until their lips met in the middle around a mouthful of crumbling chocolate. The cookie disintegrated almost immediately; crumbs sprayed everywhere, they both inhaled wrong at the exact same moment, and suddenly they were coughing and choking and laughing so hard tears pricked at the corners of their eyes.
Crumbs clung to their lips, to their shirts, scattered across the bedspread like evidence of their crime, but neither of them cared; they just kept kissing, sloppy and breathless and delighted.
“Are we boyfriends Kacchan?”
“I don't know.”
“Oh.”
“Oi, nerd,” Katsuki said, attempting to sound casual as he stared at the other boy on the bed. “Come look at this. I made All Might say something new.”
Izuku squinted at him suspiciously from where he was sorting through schoolwork.
“What is it this time? Another swear? Don't tell me you found something even worse Kacchan.”
Katsuki hit “SPEAK!” before he could second-guess himself.
The monitor All Might’s grin stretched impossibly wide, digital eyes sparkling with that signature heroic gleam, jaw moving in perfect sync as the synthesized voice boomed through the tiny speakers with unshakable enthusiasm:
“Do you want to be my boyfriend?”
Izuku gasped.
He crashed into Katsuki with the force of a small meteor, arms wrapping around his neck so tightly it knocked the air out of both their lungs, knocking the desk chair backward on its wheels until it bumped the wall with a soft thud. Izuku buried his face in the crook of Katsuki’s neck first, muffling a sound that was half sob, half delighted laugh then pulled back just enough to pepper Katsuki’s face with frantic, fervent kisses: one on each cheek, one on the tip of his nose, one on his forehead, one on the corner of his mouth, then another and another until Katsuki lost count and could only sit there stunned while freckled lips rained affection across every inch of skin they could reach.
“Kacchan—Kacchan yes—yes yes yes—” Izuku was babbling between kisses.
It was strange, yeah—asking via a glitchy fan-made All Might text-to-speech instead of just saying the words himself like a normal person—but he knew the nerd. He knew Izuku would love it: the absurdity, the sincerity wrapped in childhood worship.
Little did he know, years later, they would have All Might in living flesh, asking him if he accepted Midoriya Izuku to be his lawfully wedded husband.