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There have been several times in Katsuki’s life when he’s wished he could go back in time and show his younger self what he’s achieved.
The first was when he’d landed his first trick on a skateboard using his quirk, after just a few months prior, he’d been crying himself to sleep, curled up with his head in his mother’s lap, with burns from an uncontrollable quirk covering his body. His landing had been unsteady, and it had sent him into a rough tumble across the hard concrete, which left scrapes and bruises on his skin for days, but he hadn’t cared and had instead jumped up and run up the steps to his house, where his parents waited with proud smiles and open arms.
The second instance was when he’d won the award for ‘Most Likely To Become A Hero’ in third grade. His younger self had been so self-conscious that his explosion quirk would be labeled as villainous, that he’d spent a week trying to convince his class his quirk was nothing but a simple flame quirk. He’d given up lying by the third charred pencil case, deciding instead to invest in control rather than cowardice. When he’d been handed the award, he’d caught the glint of green eyes at the back of the class and the loudest applause from a pair of quirkless hands.
The third time was when he met All Might. He’d watched his hero appear through fire and smoke to save him from the sludge villain and bore witness to him ending the fight with a single, unshakable fist. Everything he ever achieved of being, everything goal he’d set before him was reflected in flesh and bone and arm’s reach away.
A hundred moments had followed after that, and he often fought to hide how excited he got being so close with his idol. From fighting All Might to sitting in a room sharing his big secret with the nerd, and having his idol push him to do better, to be better. . . He was the proudest he’d ever been.
And now here he was, attending a Pro Hero gala with his hero.
Life was full of surprises.
The tap-tap of his foot on the marble floor set his teeth on edge, but he couldn’t bring himself to stop the nervous tick as All Might finished getting them drinks from the champagne pyramid in the middle of the room. Katsuki had set him on the job, mumbling something about not wanting to be the one to clean up the mess once the whole thing inevitably came down. All Might had laughed and clapped him on the back without another word.
God, this place was obnoxious. The gala was being hosted in an expensive, gold-washed atrium with gilded chandeliers and multi-million yen art on the walls. It was owned by the hero organization and regarded with the thought that only esteemed guests ever got an invite. Katsuki had been forced to attend a couple of rich people's events when he was younger due to his parents’ success in the fashion industry, and he had hated it then. Now that he was considered one of the elite, having made it up into the top 10 of the hero charts, he felt even more out of place. Pretending. Place-holding. Acting.
Tap-tap. Tap-tap.
“Bakugo-shonen.” All Might slid into his vision, and he realized he’d been spacing out. “You look troubled.”
He shrugged his old teacher off and took the glass he was holding out with a glance around to see if anyone was watching. The only person who met his eye was a young server who blinked quickly and hurried away, face flushed. A fan, probably. The rest of the heroes were too preoccupied in their conversations, littered across the room in well-thought out groups. With everyone distracted, he reached for the glass in All Might’s hand and switched their drinks.
All Might shook his head but accepted the new glass. “You worry too much.”
“Better safe than sorry.”
“I don’t consider putting your life in danger in my stead a ‘better’ alternative.”
There was an edge to his mentor’s voice, which he acknowledged with a grunt and a sip from his drink. It tasted the same as every other regular champagne sold at a ridiculously high price. He let the taste linger in his mouth before allowing it to dribble down his throat.
They had had this conversation many times before. It had become a habit of theirs, dating back to one of Katsuki’s first hero events. He’d thought he’d seen someone slip something into All Might’s drink, and without thinking further, he’d marched over to the poor server, explosions popping from his palms. Several seared collars and hurried explanations later, it turned out the substance slipped into All Might’s drink had been an add-in of edible glitter that made the drink swirl blue, red, and golden. A tribute to All Might’s signature colors rather than a threat to his life. The disruption had ended with him on the front page of the Heroes Daily for a whole week until they found another poor soul to pick apart.
Despite being a false alarm, the realization of how truly vulnerable All Might was now never left Katsuki. So he started switching their drinks. ‘Just in case,’ he’d say. Because I’d rather it be me than you.
Soon, the polite discussion in perfectly unnatural groups evolved into a looser form of mingling. Ties loosened, shoulders relaxed, and soon the sound of laughter and clinking glasses filled the air. All Might moved further away to converse with some old acquaintances while Katsuki retreated closer to the wall, content with watching the bustling of the room from afar. He recognized most faces, though some of their names escaped him. He’d fought in a war with most of them and witnessed horrible things on patrol with several of those who were smiling the widest. He was reminded of the nerd, who hadn’t made it because of an urgent call to a mission. Izuku always seemed to find something to smile about, regardless of the horrible things he had seen. It was an attribute he and All Might shared and a skill Katsuki envied.
Another hour passed, and the champagne mountain was removed to allow space for the food. Katsuki moved away with a glass he’d managed to snatch off a servant just as they began to wheel in the main course. He knew himself to be a specific when it came to his food, but even he couldn’t help succumbing to the mouth watering scents as the menu was revealed. The atrium was filled with the aroma from the greasy platters of pork, simmering pots of wagyu beef, steaming rows of buttered vegetables, and stacks upon stacks of different varieties of sushi with ingredients he doubted he’d even heard of. There was more, much more, but his vision was blocked by a swarm of heroes as they crowded the table with their plates, fawning over the delicacies brought before them. Fighting the urge to join them, Katsuki found All Might at the opposite end of the room just as the retired hero was finishing his sentence with a hearty laugh and a sip of a new drink. The two heroes he was speaking to seemed to have missed the food coming in, completely enraptured by the old number one hero.
Before the glass could touch his mentor’s lips, Katsuki tapped him lightly on the shoulder. All Might glanced over with a broad smile and stepped back to welcome him into the conversation. With the practiced ease of having done it a thousand times before, their two glasses switched places once again. Katsuki lifted the drink to his lips as All Might introduced him to the two heroes, as if his face and hero name hadn’t been plastered across hero threads since he was a teenager. He supposed some decorum was necessary and nodded to them politely.
The drink washed down his throat with more ease than the first one. It had a fruity tinge when it hit his tongue, and he would have found himself fond of it, if not for the itching aftertaste that latched itself to the back of his throat. He swallowed thickly a few times to rid himself of it and returned his attention to the ongoing exchange. He remained by All Might’s side and maintained a respectful yet detached part in the conversation. A dreariness was starting to set over his mind. The gala had only been going on for a couple of hours, and he was already missing his bed. He couldn’t bring himself to feel too bad. These galas and unnaturally polite conversations weren’t why he’d become a hero. He was used to being out there, saving people, and making an effort to better himself every day. The dull and expensive falseness of the gala was clearly weighing on him. He couldn’t wait to go home and sleep. He was becoming more like Aizawa-sensei day by day.
The loud noise and endless chatter began to make his head ache. He finished the drink fast and longed to reach for another glass just to dull his senses and have some reprieve from the pounding in his temples. But he planned on leaving here on his own two feet, and the two drinks he’d downed already were affecting him more than he’d have expected. Every now and then, his vision would flicker out, and his ears would skip half a sentence, and he’d have to concentrate to understand where the conversation was going.
It wasn’t until All Might spoke up that he realized something was wrong.
“You’re bleeding.”
His eyes flicked to furrowed brows and concerned eyes. He blinked slowly, taking in the sunken cheeks, thin lips, and frown that dipped lower the longer he remained silent. Oh yeah. He should answer. His hand raised to his face and brushed his upper lip. His fingertips drew back red.
“Just a nose bleed,” he stated, stepping toward the nearest table for a napkin. He made it two steps before his knee buckled, and he caught himself on the edge of the table. His cheeks felt hot. How strong had the drinks been? He knew he wasn’t the best in the class when it came to holding his liquor, but even he wasn’t this—
His eyes flicked across the room to the table of food, where all traces of the drink fountain had been removed. Then to the tables lining the walls, most of which held trays of expensive glasses, rimmed with gold specks and decorated with delicate white swirls. Pristine, clear, and most notably, empty.
A beat. A drop in his gut as the panicky feeling in his chest raced down to connect the dots.
He twisted around, and the look on his face made All Might, who had followed him toward the tables, freeze in his tracks. “Where did you get it?”
All Might blinked, an unsteady hand still reached out toward Katsuki. “What?”
“Your drink. Where did you get it?”
“I— A server just before you joined us, why. . .“ His eyes flicked to the array of empty glasses and widened as he realized what Katsuki had.
Unfilled glasses on the tables. A server bringing a drink directly to All Might. Katsuki’s bloody nose after drinking it.
Someone had poisoned All Might’s drink.
And Katsuki had drunk it.
“Well, fuck,” he managed to say before his legs gave out.
He would have cracked his head open on the marble floor if All Might hadn’t thrown himself forward, taking Katsuki’s weight on his frail body and sending them both to the ground. There was more commotion now; the heroes they’d been talking to were rushing over, bombarding his ringing ears with questions he couldn’t understand, much less answer. The dull ache behind his eyes was sharper now, and rather than a fist slamming against the inside of his head, there were now hundreds of nails being hammered into his skull. He groaned. The noise that left his throat was completely unfamiliar to him.
“Oh, no, no. . .” All Might looked stricken, his skin a shade paler as he lay Katsuki on the ground and cupped his face. “I didn’t think— Why would anyone— “
A cold shock raced up Katsuki’s spine, and he jerked. The air chilled, and for a moment, he wondered if Icy Hot had accepted his invite, too, or if someone decided to bring out a frost machine and blast it up his ass crack. Then the shivering began. And it took him several seconds to realize that All Might, who was barely anything but skin and bones, wasn’t trembling at all. Just him, then. Yeah. Okay. That wasn’t good.
“Don’t close your eyes. Bakugo? Shonen?”
He fought to blink his eyes open. He hadn’t closed them. He swore he hadn’t. His throat tightened. When the feeling didn’t pass, and his lungs started to fight back against expanding for a breath, he started to get scared.
Whatever was in the drink was acting fast. He didn’t have a lot of time.
“All“ —he choked— “Might.”
Gentle fingers brushed through his hair. When he was younger, someone had said that it wasn’t just his personality that pushed people away, but that his exterior was so sharp and spiky that no one would want to get close to him anyway. He had cried in his father’s arms that night as soft fingers raked through his hair and a warm voice whispered promises that he was lovable and good and there was nothing wrong with him. He’d tried to believe that but still spent hours into the night using different products he’d bought with what little allowance he had to try and smooth down his hair and sort out the sharp edges so that maybe people at school would like him.
(Green eyes had liked him. They had seen past the sharpness, reached out to touch without fear of being burned. Even when everyone else had been proved right.)
Someone said something. He blinked his eyes open again. Everything past All Might looked blurry. He wanted to be held—the floor was so cold, and he wanted the warmth of his mentor’s embrace, the comfort of a childhood hero who could no longer save him but who, if he closed his eyes and believed enough, might be able to make everything okay again. He couldn’t get a word out. His tongue was heavy. The crystal chandeliers above swam in and out of focus to seem like they were falling down on him. Beautiful, shapeless gold spilled over the world. His body felt light, then the next moment it was like someone had anchored a thousand-ton lead block to his gut, and he was being pulled through the floor.
A hand tapped his cheek harshly.
A weak sound left his lips.
“I am here,” an echoing voice said, and the stark, burning touch on his cheek turned into a tender hold, and he longed to press into it, to draw strength from it. His body wouldn’t move. “I am here, shonen.”
“. . .Might. . .
“Yes. I’m here.”
There was something pressing on his mind; the lead in his gut was tilting to press a sharp corner under his ribs, building enough pressure to send his mind reeling off-axis. Something wrong. . . Something he had seen, something. . . No. Not something. Someone. . .
A flustered face flashed in his vision. A ghost in uniform, noticed only for a moment but long enough to make him hurry away; a movement Katsuki had mistaken as the act of an awe-struck fan but which now seemed to have had a far more sinister reasoning.
The young server, who had seen Katsuki switch the drinks. The server, who had personally handed All Might his glass.
The server who knew Katsuki would drink it.
And Katsuki wasn’t stupid. He knew people hated him. He had a thousand villains that wanted him dead and double that of civilians who didn’t think he was even fit to be a hero. But for all his planning and precaution of keeping All Might alive, Katsuki had never thought someone would try to poison him. Much less by using his own actions against him.
The server had made a gamble. If Katsuki hadn’t noticed All Might getting a new drink and joined him in the conversation, All Might would have drunk it first. Then it would be him wasting away on the floor and Katsuki leaning over him, useless to help. Would the server and whoever the fucker was working for have cared which one of them had died? Or would they have been happy to rid either hero from the world?
Whoever the intended victim had been, taking the glass from All Might had saved his hero’s life.
And forfeited his.
His chest twisted, and for a horrible moment, Katsuki thought he regretted saving his hero; that the heavy feeling in his chest was the shameful display of his true colors. Proof that he was truly a coward through and through, and he’d just been all that good at hiding it until now. But it wasn’t regret, no. It was grief. Grief for himself, for his parents, his friends, for his mentor, who had once been the greatest hero and now was forced to sit by uselessly and unable to save even him.
All Might had so little heroism left to hold onto. This would shatter him.
And the selfishness of his actions finally became clear.
“I’m sorry,” he choked, eyes misting.
And All Might looked so scared when he said it, like he was on the brink of losing everything. He grit his teeth and pressed his eyes closed as fresh tears fell onto his cheeks. Katsuki made his hero cry. And still a gentle hand patted his head, a motion that was grounding for both of them because as long as he could feel it, he was still there.
But he could feel so much more now. The poison was ruthless, corroding his body from the inside out. It was melting his organs, cracking his bones. Tearing apart his vocal cords until even his voice was taken from him. His lungs rattled and his heart, already weak, already emaciated, fought so hard, fluttering uselessly against his ribs. Because he wanted to live. Because he was too scared to die.
“Ten. . . years,” he whispered, trying to prove to All Might that he was grateful for the extra time he got and not knees deep, sinking into a pit of grief and anger and unfairness of wanting more.
He wanted to continue being a hero until his heart couldn’t take more. Settle down with a pair of green eyes and freckled skin and learn to love him differently every day. Wanted to learn to want more until little feet pattered the floor and his skin was painted with markers and glitter and wrinkles and his body was worn down by late nights and long days, and he could hold his world in his arms and be sure he had them all.
He never told those green eyes.
Never told them what he felt.
Knew they would love him back, fiercely, unapologetically. And maybe that’s what scared him. The realness, the vulnerability, the certainty. Not yet, he’d told himself. Another year. Another month. Until the suit is ready. Until we’re in the top ten. Until he reaches number one.
He probably would have spent the rest of his life chasing what he could have instead of laying himself bare and allowing himself to take it. To cherish it. He was wrong to keep running away, to keep that future from himself and from Izuku too. For all the heroism he was wroth, deep inside, he really was a villain.
He was roughly shaken awake. All Might was frantic now, and the world had turned an ashen color. No green. Just dull gray that stretched to the edges of his dwindling vision.
He wanted his green.
“M’ght?”
“Yes, shonen. I’m here.”
His lips weighed a ton. His finger twitched.
Speak up, he barked at himself. Say it.
For once in your life, don’t be a coward.
“Tell. . . ‘im. . .”
Noise, so much noise around. All Might leaned in to hear him, eyes wide, and his hair brushed Katsuki’s cheek, faint and light. Katsuki stared past him through the ceiling. “Yes, shonen?”
“Tell ‘im. . . lo— love him.”
That was all it took for All Might to break down. He clutched Katsuki’s shoulders, and his entire body heaved with sobs, and he curled over his body like he could protect Katsuki from all the mistakes he had ever made.
The lights above spun. His vision morphed into dots that stretched into lines, dimming until he could no longer see anything. Sounds echoed. Feeling dimmed.
He was fading. Dying.
Losing before he had the chance to love.
No.
He had his chance and wasted it. He had no one else to blame.
For anything really.
Something gripped his hand. He was aware of it faintly. He could see nothing. Everything was dark.
No green.
He missed his green.
His name was being called, but it wasn’t the one he wanted to hear. Not the one spoken brightly, like he could hold up his broken pieces and offer them and still be loved and cherished and wanted.
He wanted his meaning. His best friend.
His Izuku.
All Might couldn’t save him. But maybe he would save his heart.
Sounds vanished. Feeling withdrew. Darkness became nothing.
The only thing left of Katsuki Bakugo was his love and regret, left in bloody pieces for those he’d left behind to put back together.