Archive of Our Own

It is generally agreed upon within the hive that a bee’s life should follow a very specific pattern.

First, one is born. Then, one flies. After that, one becomes useful.

Izuku manages the first part without issue. The second part is where things begin to fall apart.

His wings are, at a glance, perfectly fine. Translucent, neatly veined, catching the warm amber light of the hive in a way that suggests promise, potential, and all the things bees like to see in other bees. There is no visible flaw. Not one tear, or a bend, really, no reason to suspect failure. Which, of course, makes the failure all the more inconvenient.

“I can do it,” Izuku insists under his breath, crouched low against the wax floor, wings trembling with effort as he pushes, pushes, pushes…

He flies! For a moment his feet leave the ground. The air catches under him and something bright sparks across his face as he rises a few precious centimeters higher. It feels right. It feels like something clicking into place—

His wings stutter, and gravity, patient as ever, reintroduces itself. He lands with a soft drop.

“Oh, okay,” he mutters, already straightening, already pretending that was part of the plan. “That was closer.”

It was not.

No one stops to comment, not like they need to. Bees are not unkind, but they are practical, and practicality leaves very little room for lingering on problems that have already been solved. And Izuku, unfortunately, is a problem that solves itself. There are tests, of course. A few measured attempts under watchful eyes that flick from his wings to his height to the time he manages to stay airborne, which is recorded, compared, and very quickly deemed insufficient. 

No one says it harshly. They simply say it certainly.

“Indoor duty.”

Izuku nods, because there is nothing else to do. His wings twitch once at his back, as if they might argue on his behalf, but they do not follow through on that either. And just like that, poof, his world becomes even smaller.

🐝⟡˚ ݁⋆˖₊.𓂃

Izuku notices how the light fades the deeper he works, how the warm gold near the hive entrance softens into something dimmer, thicker, until it becomes the steady, unchanging glow of stored honey. He notices how the air shifts too, losing that faint trace of outside he can never quite name, replaced by something sweeter and constant.

It clings. Everything clings.

“Sector B, row eight,” Izuku murmurs, leaning in close to inspect a cell, tapping the edge with a small wax marker before scribbling the measurement down. “Full… no, wait, not full. Almost full. Why would you leave it like that?”

Honey record duty is described as important, which is true in the same way breathing is important. Entirely unremarkable unless something goes wrong. Izuku counts. He measures. He corrects. He does it again. And again. And again.

Somewhere above him, beyond layers of carefully structured wax and the constant movement of other bees, there’s an opening, enough for light to spill through in thin, shifting lines whenever someone passes. Izuku tries not to stare. He fails at that almost as consistently as he fails at flying.

It starts small. A glance that lingers a second too long, then a pause between rows that stretches just enough for him to tilt his head, to track the way the brightness shifts, to imagine what it might look like without anything in the way. Then it becomes a habit. Then, a problem. 

Because Izuku, assigned to a life that does not include the outside, develops a very inconvenient fascination with it.

He collects information the way other bees collect pollen, with focus that borders on obsession. Scout reports, half-finished notes, stray comments overheard from returning foragers who speak in quick, vivid bursts before rushing off to their next task. He gathers all of it, tucks it away, turns it over in his mind while he works.

The outside world, according to these accounts, is vast. Bright in a way that hurts, and beautiful in a way that makes the pain worth it. The stories say there are flowers larger than entire sections of the hive. Colors that do not exist here. Air that moves unpredictably, carrying scents that change from moment to moment instead of settling into one constant sweetness.

And there are humans.

Humans, the reports say, are enormous.

Unreasonably so.

“They build things,” one forager said one day, “Gardens are what they call them! Entire fields of flowers that don’t belong to them.”

Izuku remembers it as above him, a shadow passes over the entrance, and for a brief moment, sunlight floods the corridor, spilling gold across the honey walls, catching in his eyes. Izuku looks up. Then the light is gone, swallowed by the steady, unchanging glow of the hive.

Izuku lowers his gaze back to the honey cell in front of him.

“…Sector B, row nine,” he says, pressing the marker down a little harder than before. “Half full.”

Somewhere far above, bees come and go, slipping in and out of a world he is not meant to see.

And Izuku, who cannot fly, keeps counting anyway.

🐝⟡˚ ݁⋆˖₊.𓂃

The thing about doing the same task over and over again is that the body learns it faster than the mind can tolerate it.

Izuku’s hands move without asking him first. Tap, check, mark. Tap, check, mark. He doesn’t even need to look sometimes, which feels like it should be impressive, except it isn’t, because all it really means is that he has more time to think. Which is widely considered a problem, his problem. 

He’s halfway through Sector C, which looks exactly like Sector B and will, unfortunately, look exactly like Sector D, when he hears something. Izuku pauses, marker hovering just above a half-filled cell, and tilts his head. 

The scout bees, they’re back and they’re talking. 

Izuku should keep working. Unfortunately, Izuku does not keep working.

“—and then he just stands there,” One of them, Ochacko, is saying, “He didn’t even look worried! The bad human’s huge, right? Way bigger than a human should be, I think, unless they’re all that size and we’ve just been lucky.”

“They’re not,” another voice, Shouto, cuts in. “We’ve seen plenty. That one was abnormal. Stay on topic.”

“I am on topic! The point is, he doesn’t even look scared! He smiles.”

Izuku leans just a little closer to the corridor, careful not to be obvious about it, which he fails at immediately.

“He smiles?” someone repeats.

“Yeah,” Ochako exclaims, “And then he says, ‘I am here,’ and saves everyone!”

Izuku forgets to breathe for a second. That doesn’t actually affect him, biologically speaking, but it feels important.

“I am here,” he echoes under his breath, “That’s… that’s really cool.”

“Izuku? Oh, huh, yeah, right?” Ochako continues after noticing him, gaining momentum again. “And he’s got all this stuff, too. Uh, shoe port gear, I think they called it. Things strapped to him, built to help him do things normal humans can’t. It’s like… like cheating, but in a good way.”

“Support gear,” Tenya corrects, “Humans build tools to compensate for their limitations.”

Ochacko shakes her head, “No, I distinctly remember they called it their shoe port gear.” 

Shouto mutters, “Why would they need a port for shoes?” 

“The same way they go inside those big metals instead of just walking from place to place. Humans are stupid!” 

Izuku’s fingers tighten slightly around his marker, not listening anymore. 

“Shoe port gear,” he murmurs, staring down at the honey cell without seeing it. Shoe ports must be what the humans call their tools. The surface reflects a warped version of his face, he looks very unfocused. “To do things you normally can’t…”

🐝⟡˚ ݁⋆˖₊.𓂃

Humans build things to overcome limits. 

“That’s stupid,” Izuku says a few minutes later, staring very hard at a completely full cell that he has already marked twice. “Bees don’t do that. We don’t need to.”

Above him, somewhere far out of reach, another group of bees passes through the entrance, flying away. 

Izuku looks up. “...But we could.”

🐝⟡˚ ݁⋆˖₊.𓂃

Izuku finishes his shift. Mostly. Sector C, row fourteen is marked as “probably fine,” which is not an official classification but feels accurate enough at the moment. He returns his tools, nods when spoken to. He does everything expected of him with a level of normalcy that would be convincing if anyone were actually paying attention.

No one is.

Which is how Izuku ends up somewhere he is definitely not assigned to be.

The storage edges of the hive are quieter. This is where things get kept when they are no longer immediately useful but not quite useless enough to discard, which, Izuku thinks, is a category he understands a little too well. 

“Okay,” he whispers, crouched low among bits of hardened wax, stray fibers, and things that might have once been important to someone. “Okay, this is… this is fine. This is just… thinking. Maybe, planning?” 

Planning implies he knows what he’s doing. He does not know what he’s doing.

What he does have is an idea that refuses to leave.

Izuku reaches for a strip of wax, bending it carefully between his fingers. It softens with warmth, willing to become something else if handled correctly. He studies it, then glances back at his wings, at the way they sit against his back, still, unhelpful.

“They just need help,” he murmurs. “Right? Just a little shoe port.”

The first version he creates is, generously speaking, not good. 

It’s a simple brace, curved wrong, too tight at one point and too loose at another. When he straps it on, it pulls unevenly, forcing his wings into a position that feels less like assistance and more like a polite suggestion to stop trying entirely. Izuku stares at it for a long moment.

“Hm,” he mumbles slowly, already reaching to adjust it. “Not that.”

The second version is worse. The third almost snaps one of his wings, which feels like a strong sign he should reconsider everything about this. He does not reconsider. Instead, he keeps going. Wax becomes structure, thin threads that bind pieces together. He scavenges small fragments left behind by scout bees, things carried in accidentally from the outside. A stiff, unfamiliar material that doesn’t bend the way wax does. 

It takes time. More time than he is supposed to spend not doing his assigned job.

At one point, he realizes he’s been talking to himself for several minutes straight.

“If the angle is wrong, then the lift won’t, no, wait, that’s not right, the lift is already bad, that’s the whole problem,” he grumbles to himself, adjusting a joint that immediately comes loose in his hands. “Okay, okay, don’t panic. This is normal. First drafts are always bad.”

There is no one to confirm this. 

Eventually, something begins to take shape.

A small frame that fits against his back, branching out along the base of his wings. Reinforced in places where it probably doesn’t need reinforcement, and very much not reinforced where it absolutely should be. There’s a compartment, of sorts, packed with concentrated pollen that he has no real plan for except that it feels important. Izuku turns slightly, trying to catch a glimpse of it from the corner of his eye.

His wings twitch inside the frame. The structure shifts with them, creaking softly, holding. Izuku swallows. This is, objectively, a terrible idea. He knows this. He knows this in the same way he knows which cells are full without looking, in the same way he knows he cannot fly, in the same way the hive knows exactly where he belongs.

“Maybe… just a little test,” he tells himself, already moving toward a slightly more open corridor, one with enough space that, if everything goes wrong, he might only hit one wall instead of three. “Just a small one. Only to see.”

Izuku crouches low. His wings tremble.

The device shifts with them, unstable, unproven, entirely his.

“Okay, let’s see what you can do.”

Then he pushes.

🐝⟡˚ ݁⋆˖₊.𓂃

It works.

This is, objectively, the first problem.

Izuku doesn’t realize it immediately, because the first attempt is less “flight” and more “briefly defying gravity in a way that feels suspiciously like an accident.” He pushes off, the device hums in a way that feels encouraging, his wings catch something that almost resembles air, and for a single, shining moment, he’s not falling.

Then he crashes into a wall.

Izuku peels himself off the wax with all the dignity of someone who has just discovered a new and exciting way to fail. He smiles to himself, glancing at his wings. “That definitely counts.”

The second attempt lasts longer. The third lasts long enough for him to panic midair, which feels like progress. By the fifth, he manages something that could reasonably be called hovering, if one’s generous and not currently watching him spin slightly to the left for no clear reason.

“I did it,” he whispers, “I’m doing it!”

He is. Badly. But undeniably. Which leads, quite naturally, to the next problem.

He does not stop.

By the end of the second day, he’s tested the device in three different corridors, one storage chamber, and a space that definitely isn’t meant to be occupied by anyone, let alone someone hovering badly at shoulder height. He clips a wall, startles a passing worker, nearly takes out a stack of fresh cells, and at one point spins in a slow, deeply concerning circle before correcting himself at the last second.

No one stops him. No one even really looks.

A bee brushes past him mid-hover, adjusts course slightly to avoid collision, and keeps going without so much as a pause. Another walks straight under him while he’s very obviously not supposed to be in the air at all, carrying on like this is a completely normal thing to be happening. Izuku lowers himself to the ground, landing a little harder than intended, and glances around.

“Huh.”

The hive hums on, steady and indifferent, filled with bees moving in neat, purposeful lines, each one slipping into place like part of a much larger pattern that doesn’t leave room for small irregularities. Izuku stands there for a second longer, then adjusts the strap on his device.

“Okay,” he decides, already turning back toward a more open stretch of corridor. “One more test.”

🐝⟡˚ ݁⋆˖₊.𓂃

Izuku stands near the hive entrance. 

Bees pass him in steady streams, Izuku watches them go. 

“Okay,” he says, adjusting the strap once, then again, then a third time. “Just a quick one. In and out. That’s it.”

He steps forward before he can argue with himself properly and pushes off.

The air catches him, real and open and nothing like the thick, shared warmth of the hive. It moves around him instead of with him, shifting in ways that feel alive. His wings follow, guided by his shoe port, and suddenly he’s not hovering or struggling or dropping after a second. He’s flying. Flying!

“I’m doing it,” Izuku says, a laugh slipping out before he can stop it. “I’m flying!” 

The hive falls away behind him. The sky stretches out above, wide and bright in a way that doesn’t feel real. 

It’s too big. Everything is too big. He doesn’t stop smiling.

Which is, unfortunately, when the device decides it’s had enough of being predictable.

He feels a small vibration that doesn’t match his movement, then a sharper rattle, something shifting out of place. The balance tilts, then more. Izuku’s grip tightens.

“Okay, hold on,” he says quickly, adjusting his wings, which only makes the tilt worse. “I can fix that.”

He cannot fix that. The device jerks forward.

“Oh.”

And then he’s not flying anymore. He’s being launched.

The air rushes past him too fast to follow, the world snapping into streaks of color and shape that don’t stay long enough to understand. Big walls rise up and vanish, specks of gray and big moving metals flash below. Something loud passes near him, a blur of metal and motion that makes the air shake.

“I don’t know where I’m going,” Izuku says, because that feels like an important thing to acknowledge. “I don’t know where I’m going!”

Then something ahead catches his attention, colors. 

Layered, overflowing colors, into the space in front of a small room tucked between taller walls. Buckets line the entrance, packed tight with flowers that look too large and too bright. Layered reds and pinks and something purple streaking past in uneven shapes, petals blurring into each other, tightly packed roses and camellias, lavenders, and bright yellow breaking between it all like sparks.

“That’s a lot of flowers-”

Izuku hits a window. 

🐝⟡˚ ݁⋆˖₊.𓂃

Izuku stares up at the ceiling, which is much higher than it has any right to be. 

He pushes himself up, legs a little unsteady, and looks around.

The air is different here. It carries scent in layers, not just one constant sweetness but dozens, overlapping and shifting. Sweet, then greener, a scent that pricks the back of Izuku’s throat in a way that makes him want more of it, not less. Fresh flowers, cut stems, something faintly green and sharp underneath it all. 

It’s overwhelming, it’s incredible. There's too much to look at and not enough time to do it. 

Big blooms the size of his whole world, soft clusters packed tight, long rows of flowers lined up in neat order that makes no sense because why would anyone organize nectar like this. Who does that? Why? Izuku turns, slowly, trying to catalogue everything at once, already failing, already wanting to start over again from the beginning, and then he sees him and the rest of it just… drops.

A human stands behind a wide table, half-turned, shoulders angled. One hand holds a bundle of stems, the other moves fast. Snip. Adjust. Snip again. There’s no hesitation in it, no wasted motion, efficient and practical, like a bee.

Light spills in from a glass behind him, all soft blue and dotted glass, catching in his hair. It sticks out in every direction, uneven and stubborn, pale at the tips where the sun hits it, darker underneath. It looks wrong. It looks right. It refuses to settle, and Izuku can’t stop staring at it, the way it catches and throws the light back instead of keeping it.

There are flowing cloths with tiny patterns that hang loose around the glass. Jars line the walls in careful rows, filled with lavender and tulips and roses. Greens and pinks and golds blend together and Izuku feels less like he's in some massive room and more like being inside a flower.

And right in the middle of it, the human doesn’t match at all. He’s wearing pink, covered in little flower prints. There's something around his throat, small beads and a star that shifts when he moves. There’s another string of beads at his wrist, clinking faintly when his hand swings.

Izuku stares. This is, from a purely observational standpoint, the most interesting thing he has ever seen.

The scouts had been very clear that humans are ugly. They kept telling stories about how humans are strange, off-putting in ways that didn’t translate well into words but were apparently obvious once seen. Izuku tilts his head slightly. This human was not ugly in the slightest. 

The human moves, crimson eyes landing on the floor, on Izuku.

“You’ve gotta be shitting me.” 

The human straightens, setting the stems aside without looking at them, attention fixed entirely on something much smaller and much less welcome. Izuku does not move. This feels like the correct choice. The human’s expression tightens, not surprised so much as annoyed, like this is an inconvenience added to a day that already had enough of them.

“Dang,” The human turns to look at the window, where a smudge was where Izuku must have hit. He then reaches for a bundled up paper resting on the counter. He grabs it, rolls it once in his hand, testing the weight like this is a familiar process. “Fucking sick of dead bugs, and I just cleaned this place.”

The human lifts the bundle of paper over his head and slams it down. Thankfully, Izuku’s no longer there. He doesn’t think about moving. His body just does it, jerking sideways in a way that feels suspiciously coordinated for someone who, until very recently, could not stay in the air for more than a second.

The magazine hits the floor with a flat smack. Izuku panics. 

“Stop! Please don’t do that,” he adds quickly, because that seems like a reasonable request. “Don’t kill me!”

The human doesn’t move. Slowly, very slowly, his head tilts.

“Nah,” he says, more to himself than anything else. “No, that didn’t happen.”

“I’m not a threat,” Izuku says, holding up his hands, which are very small and not convincing in any meaningful way. “I’m just-”

The magazine comes down again. Faster this time.

Izuku yelps and darts to the side, skidding slightly on the smooth floor before catching himself.

“Hey!”

Another slam. Closer.

“Stop trying to kill me!”

“I’m not-” the human cuts himself off, staring at the spot where Izuku had been a second ago, then at the magazine in his hand, then back at Izuku, who is now very much somewhere else. “You just talked.”

“Yes…?”

The human’s expression does something complicated.

“Yeah, no,” he says, shaking his head. “No, I’m not dealing with this today. I’ve been up since five, I haven’t eaten, and now I’m hallucinating a talking bug.”

“I’m not a hallucination.”

The magazine flies again. Izuku dodges.

“I’m not!”

The human steps back this time, one hand dragging down his face as he exhales sharply.

“Okay,” he mutters. “Okay. Fuck. Sure. Talking bee. That’s a thing that’s happening. Totally normal.”

“Hi,” Izuku says, because starting over feels like a solid strategy. “Sorry about the window. That wasn’t intentional.”

“A bug is apologizing to me.” 

“Yes,” Izuku replies. “I crashed into it.”

“I saw that.”

“Right, so… sorry.”

There’s another pause. The human’s grip tightens slightly around the magazine, but he doesn’t swing it. His eyes narrow instead, studying Izuku.

“…this is a dream,” The human decides. “I fell asleep. That’s what this is.”

Izuku tilts his head. “If it helps, I’m also confused.”

“That doesn’t help.”

“Okay.”

🐝⟡˚ ݁⋆˖₊.𓂃

“My name’s Izuku. I came from a far away hive. Well, not that far, but far enough that this is all new, so I’ve been trying to learn things and then I built a shoe port and it worked, except it didn’t really work because I crashed, which you saw, so-”

“Stop,” the human says, pressing his fingers to his temple. “Stop talking.”

Izuku pauses. That seems fair. He waits exactly two seconds.

“So what’s your name?”

“I’m not doing this.” 

The human turns away like that settles it, like if he just refuses to participate the situation will politely disappear. He sets the magazine down on the counter, though not very far from reach, and grabs a pair of scissors instead, picking up a bundle of stems like there isn’t a bee on his floor having a full conversation with him.

Izuku watches him. This is confusing.

Because he’s clearly being ignored. But also not really. The human’s shoulders are tight. His movements are sharper than before, cutting a little too fast, placing stems down with just enough force to suggest he’s thinking about something else.

“I’m trying to understand humans,” Izuku explains, tilting his head up. “You’re the first one I’ve talked to. So it’d really help if you told me your name.”

“No.”

“That seems uncooperative.”

“Good.”

Izuku considers that. “Okay, but I’m still going to ask questions.”

“Don’t.”

“Why do you keep flowers inside if they grow outside?”

“I said don’t.”

“Is it because you like them or because other humans like them or because you’re collecting them for later like we do with pollen or-”

The human exhales sharply through his nose, cutting him off without actually interrupting him. “They’re for customers.”

Izuku brightens.

“Oh, so you gather them and redistribute them,” he says, nodding like this makes perfect sense. “That’s efficient. Do you process them first or do humans prefer them raw?”

The scissors stop mid-cut. “…raw.”

“Interesting.”

The human resumes cutting, faster now. Izuku circles slightly, taking in more of the shop, the way each flower is arranged with intention, not random at all despite how it first looked. There’s a system here. Not hive-level efficient, but something close.

“So why do humans buy them?” Izuku asks. “They don’t eat them. I checked. Well, I didn’t check it personally, but I’ve never heard the scouts say that humans do. What’s the function?”

“There’s no function.”

“There’s always a function.”

The human clicks his tongue, annoyed. “They look nice. That’s it.”

Izuku pauses. That doesn’t feel like enough.

“They look nice,” he repeats, glancing around again, then back at the human. “But they already look nice outside. Why move them somewhere else?”

“Because humans buy them for things,” The human sets the scissors down harder than necessary. “Like parties, apologies, birthdays, or funerals. Whatever the fuck.” 

“…apologies?”

“Yeah.”

“With flowers.”

“Yes.”

Izuku processes that. Then tilts his head.

“What did the flowers do wrong?”

“…they didn’t do anything wrong.”

“Then why are they involved in the apology?”

“They’re not involved, they’re just-” The human cuts himself off, dragging a hand down his face again. “It’s symbolic.”

Izuku nods. He does not understand.

“I don’t understand,” Izuku says.

“I don’t care.” The human turns away again, grabbing something from the counter, a small rectangular object that lights up when he touches it. He presses it to his ear. “This is Katsuki Bakugou. Yeah, your order’s ready. Come get it.”

🐝⟡˚ ݁⋆˖₊.𓂃

“You don’t rotate them enough,” Izuku says, standing on the edge of a bucket, peering down at a cluster of flowers with intense focus. “The ones in the back aren’t getting equal light exposure.”

Katsuki doesn’t look up. “They’re fine.”

“They’re not optimized.”

“They’re flowers, not a machine.”

“They’re living things,” Izuku corrects, glancing over his shoulder. “That makes it worse.”

Izuku watches Katsuki reach for that same bundle of papers again. He shifts slightly to the side as a precaution. 

Katsuki stops halfway. “…tch.”

The bundle of papers goes back down. This happens often. More often than it probably should.

Their conversations, if they can be called that, don’t really follow a structure. They start in one place, usually with Izuku asking something that makes sense to him and less sense to anyone else, and then drift into something else entirely, circling back, doubling over, occasionally escalating into what Katsuki insists are arguments.

“I’m telling you, you’re wasting pollen,” Izuku says, pacing along the rim of a vase, “The way you cut them reduces potential transfer.”

“I’m not trying to transfer anything,” Katsuki snaps. “I’m trying to sell them.”

“That’s short-term thinking.”

“That’s business.”

Izuku pauses. “…that’s inefficient.”

Katsuki clicks his tongue and turns away, which Izuku takes as a partial victory. 

It’s around the third day that Katsuki notices the flying problem. Izuku moves enough that it’s easy to assume he can just… do that. Bees fly. That’s a known fact. It doesn’t require investigation. Until it does.

“Why do you keep climbing everything?” Katsuki asks, watching as Izuku very deliberately scales the side of a bucket instead of, for example, flying up to it like a normal bee. 

“I get tired easily.” 

“Do it,” Katsuki narrows his eyes. “Fly.” 

Izuku doesn’t.

Katsuki waits. Izuku waits.

Nothing happens.

“…well?” Katsuki prompts. “Just do it.”

Izuku shifts his wings slightly. Katsuki notices his device.

“What’s that?”

“Nothing.”

“That’s not nothing.”

“It’s a shoe port.”

Katsuki blinks. “A what.”

“A shoe port,” Izuku repeats, a little more confidently this time. “It helps.”

“…you mean support.”

Izuku frowns. “No, I distinctly remember our scouts call it shoe port.”

“That’s not a thing.”

“It is. I built it.”

“That doesn’t make it a real word,” Katsuki drags a hand down his face. “You know what, whatever. Your stupid shoe… port. Does it make you fly or not.”

Izuku hesitates. “…technically.”

“Technically.”

“It’s more of a forward-moving situation.”

“Show me.”

And when Katsuki discovered that Izuku can’t fly, he stopped being mean for a fraction. 

🐝⟡˚ ݁⋆˖₊.𓂃

The bell above the door rings.

Izuku looks up automatically, more out of habit than anything else, because the door means air shifts, and air shifts mean new scents, new information, new things to catalogue. Also, sometimes, new problems.

“Kacchan,” a voice calls, easy and familiar in a way that suggests it shows up often without permission. “Hello?”

That’s… not right.

Izuku turns slowly, antennae twitching as he tracks the source of the voice. Another human steps inside, taller than the doorway suggests he should be, with bright hair that doesn’t sit still, marks of black and different colors all over his skin, metals shining on his face and ears, and a grin that feels too wide to be entirely trustworthy. Izuku narrows his eyes. There is something about this one that feels… bad. What the scouts call… ugly.

Katsuki doesn’t look up from where he’s adjusting a bundle of stems.

“Get out.”

“Wow,” the new human replies, “That’s how you greet your favorite neighbor?”

“You’re not my favorite anything.”

Izuku watches them, shifting slightly on the edge of a sunflower, pressing his hands into the thick center where the pollen sits dense and golden. It’s warm here, soft in a structured way, and it has a very good design. The human leans against the counter, so close that he’s almost touching Katsuki. Izuku stills, staring at him. 

For some reason, he really doesn’t like this human. 

“I know I joke about you working too much, but this is new.”

Katsuki still doesn’t look up. “Whatever you think you’re seeing, you’re not.”

“This bee’s staring at me.”

Izuku glares at him. “I’m not.” 

The human freezes. “Why did this bee just talk to me?” 

Katsuki closes his eyes. “Get out, Dunceface.” 

“No, no, hold on,” the human says, pushing off the counter and leaning closer, eyes fixed entirely on Izuku now. “Man, that shit Sero got me is insane! You’ve got a… what, a shop mascot? A little worker?”

“I said get out.”

Izuku studies the new human carefully. Then looks at Katsuki, then back at the new human.  “I don’t like this human.” 

The human lights up. “Oh my god, you do talk.”

“I’ve been talking,” Izuku says flatly. “Why are you here?” 

Katsuki makes a sound that might be frustration or resignation. It’s hard to tell. The human leans on the counter again, chin resting in his hand, watching Izuku like this is the best thing that’s happened to him all week. 

“This is insane,” he says. “I’ve got a whole conversation going with a bee.”

Izuku turns back to the sunflower. This conversation will not be productive.

“You two spend a lot of time together, huh, Kacchan?”

Katsuki’s response is immediate. “No.”

“That didn’t sound convincing.”

“It’s not your business.”

“I’m just saying,” the human continues, completely ignoring him now, “You’re in here all the time, and now you’ve got a bee that knows your schedule, your flowers, your attitude-”

“He doesn’t know anything.”

“I know a lot,” Izuku says, without looking up. “Your arrangements are beautiful.” 

The human grins wider. “Oh, he’s honest too. That’s rough, man.”

Katsuki points toward the door. “Get out before I throw you out, Kaminari. I’m fucking serious.”

“You wouldn’t.”

“Try me.”

“Alright, alright,” he says, pushing off the counter but not moving toward the door just yet. “I’ll go. But I’m coming back. I need to see how this develops.”

“It’s not developing.”

“It’s definitely developing.”

Izuku glances between them. “What’s developing?”

“Nothing,” Katsuki says.

“Everything,” the other human says at the same time.

Izuku frowns. That’s not helpful. The human finally heads for the door, pausing just long enough to glance back one more time, eyes flicking between Katsuki and Izuku with open curiosity.

“Later, Kacchan,” he says, too casually.

The door closes behind him. Izuku watches him go, frowning. Thankfully, humans aren’t all that ugly. 

🐝⟡˚ ݁⋆˖₊.𓂃

Bees who do not leave the hive and therefore have no reason to question anything, know that the outside world is dangerous, confusing, and best avoided unless one is properly assigned to deal with it. Izuku has, at this point, ignored that agreement several times.

Exploration, as it turns out, does not require permission so much as persistence. Katsuki leaves the shop, Izuku follows, Katsuki complains, and then continues walking anyway, which Izuku takes as silent approval. This system is not discussed. It simply exists.

“Stay out of the way,” Katsuki mutters, pushing open a glass door with his shoulder. “I mean it, Izuku.”

Izuku slips in before it closes, hovering just enough to avoid being flattened, then landing quickly on the nearest stable surface, which happens to be a shelf lined with objects that do not resemble flowers in any meaningful way. 

The air is wrong here. The place they’re in is packed with smells that don’t belong together. Something sweet, something salty, something artificial in a way Izuku doesn’t have a word for yet. It shifts every second as people move past, voices blending into a low, endless murmur.

Katsuki grabs a small basket and starts moving through the aisles with purpose, not looking back. Izuku follows anyway, hopping from shelf to shelf, occasionally hovering when the distance requires it, the device on his back giving a faint, familiar rattle each time.

“This place is inefficient,” Izuku says, peering down at rows of neatly arranged packages. “Everything is separated.”

“That’s the point,” Katsuki replies. “So people can find things.”

“They’d find things faster if they were grouped by function.”

“They are grouped by function.”

“That doesn’t look like a function.”

“That’s because you don’t know what anything is.”

“That seems like a design flaw.”

Katsuki ignores him. Izuku was about to say more when suddenly they turned a corner, and it made Izuku freeze in place.

There’s a section, a whole section, rows and rows of glass containers, stacked neatly, labels facing forward, filled with something that catches the light in a way that feels immediately familiar. Gold and thick and slow-moving even when still. 

“That’s honey.” 

Katsuki doesn’t look up. “Yeah.”

The jars stretch across the shelf, then continue onto the next, and the next, different sizes, different shades, some lighter, some darker, all of it unmistakable. Izuku steps closer, placing a hand against the cool surface of one jar, staring at the way the honey inside shifts.

“Why are they here?” 

Katsuki shrugs, still focused on his basket. “People buy it.”

“From who?” 

“Producers. Farms. I don’t know, why does it matter?”

Izuku feels like crying all of a sudden. “It… matters. Why would you say that?” 

Something in Izuku’s tone makes Katsuki flinch. “It’s… It’s really just honey, Izuku.” 

“No,” Izuku shakes his head, stepping along the shelf, eyes tracking each jar like he’s counting them without meaning to. It almost feels like he’s back in the hive. “No, it’s not just honey. It’s everything! That’s… days. Weeks. That’s thousands of trips. That’s-”

Bees don’t think about honey as a product. It’s not something separate from them. It’s work, yes, but it’s also time, effort, instinct, something built slowly, carefully, piece by piece. It’s not supposed to end up like this.

“Humans are selling it?” 

Katsuki shifts his weight. “Yeah.”

“Why?” Izuku argues, frustrated. “They didn’t make it.”

Katsuki exhales. “They kind of did. Beekeepers-”

“No,” Izuku cuts in, “Bees made it!”

“Look, that’s just how it works,” Katsuki explains, he’s not really upset, or trying to be mean, he ends up sounding mean anyway, “Humans keep bees. They take some honey, leave some. It’s not-”

“They take it?” 

“Well,” Katsuki frowns. “They don’t take all of it.”

“That’s not the point. They didn’t ask!”

“I don’t make the rules. People use honey. It’s food. It’s been like that forever.”

🐝⟡˚ ݁⋆˖₊.𓂃

The hive’s built on clarity. Every role defined, every task assigned, every question answered before it has the chance to become a problem. Things fit here. They make sense here. Even Izuku, who has never quite fit the way he is supposed to, has always understood the rules well enough to follow them.

So when he slips back inside, keeping close to the walls and out of the main paths so no one stops him to ask why he smells like outside air and something unfamiliar, he expects something to settle. It does not. The hum’s the same, movement’s the same. Bees pass him without pause, carrying pollen, sealing cells, checking levels. 

Nothing looks different. Which, he realizes almost immediately, is the problem.

“Hey,” Izuku steps toward Tenya who’s carefully marking a row of honey cells, “Can I ask something?”

“You just did.” Tenya replies, not looking up.

Izuku waits a second, then continues anyway. “Do humans take our honey?”

“Yes.” 

Izuku flinches, “All of it?” 

“No. Only what’s collected for them.”

Collected for them? Izuku looks at the cells around him, at the neat rows carefully measured, every drop accounted for, every space used.

“Who decides that?”

“It’s part of the system,” Tenya tells him, “It’s always been that way.”

“And what, we just let them?!” 

“They maintain hives, Izuku. They provide structure, protection. In return, they take our surplus.”

🐝⟡˚ ݁⋆˖₊.𓂃

It is, perhaps, worth noting that Izuku does not return back to Katsuki’s place calmly.

He arrives the same way he tends to arrive everywhere lately, slightly off balance, a little too fast, wings working harder than they should. He makes it through the door just before it closes, lands on the counter with more force than intended, and stays there for a second longer than usual. Katsuki’s in the middle of trimming a set of stems, not even greeting him.

“The bees at the hive know humans take our honey.” 

Katsuki snips another stem by the counter. “Yeah, I figured.” 

“They don’t care.”

Katsuki shrugs. “Why would they?”

“Because it’s ours!” Izuku exclaims, frustrated again. “We made it, every part of it! Do you know how long it takes to fill one cell? Not even a full section, just one. You have to go out, find the right flowers, come back, process it, store it, seal it, and then do it again. And again. And then again!”

Katsuki keeps working, albeit slower.

“They said it’s surplus,” Izuku continues, the words coming quicker now, “As if it’s extra, something we don’t need. But it’s not extra! And then humans just… take it!!”

“That’s how it works, Izuku-”

“That doesn’t mean it’s right!” 

“Life’s not built on right,” Katsuki mutters. “It’s built on what people get away with.”

Izuku pauses. He looks around the shop, eyes tracing over the arrangements, the careful balance of color and space, the way nothing is left uneven if Katsuki can help it. 

“You don’t do that.” 

Katsuki frowns. “Do what?”

“Leave things wrong. You said so yourself, if something’s off, you fix it. Or you throw it out. You don’t just leave it because it’s always been like that.”

There’s a pause. 

Katsuki frowns, looking away as he clicks his tongue. “That’s… different.” 

“I don’t think it is… Kacchan.” 

If Katsuki notices the name change, he doesn’t mention it. That makes Izuku feel like floating.

 Izuku shifts slightly on the counter, wings twitching faintly as the thought that’s been circling in his head since the store finally settles into something clearer, something with shape. “Kacchan, humans… you have rules, don’t you?” 

“Yes?”

“Rules about who owns things, who can take things?”

Katsuki glances at him. “Yeah.”

Izuku tilts his head, thinking it through as he speaks, the idea forming in pieces that don’t quite line up yet but feel like they might if he keeps going. “So if something belongs to someone, and someone else takes it, there are consequences.”

“In theory.”

“And there are systems for that.”

“...What are you trying to say?”

“Could bees use those rules?”

Katsuki stares at him. “You’re asking if bees can… what, sue people.”

“I don’t know what sue means,” Izuku admits. “But yes. That.”

Katsuki lets out a short laugh. “You’re asking if a bunch of bees can take humans to court.”

Izuku nods. “Yes.”

Katsuki opens his mouth. He looks like he’s about to say something but he stops abruptly. He looks at Izuku, trying to figure out if this is a joke, if there’s something he’s missing, if maybe he’s more tired than he thought and this is where his brain has decided to go. Katsuki reaches for that same small rectangular object that lights up when he touches it.

“This is stupid,” he mutters, “This is the dumbest shit I’ve ever-”

🐝⟡˚ ݁⋆˖₊.𓂃

Katsuki says it’s temporary.

Izuku decides, very quickly, that this is a lie.

Katsuki doesn’t seem like the type to lie unless it’s useful, and this isn’t useful, because every available surface in the shop’s currently covered in something that’s not flowers. Papers stack in uneven piles across the counter, notes scribbled in sharp handwriting that leans too hard into the page, a big rectangle that hums constantly, and three different glowing rectangles that all ring at different times. The bell above the door barely gets a chance to rest between customers, reporters, and people who walk in, look around, and leave without buying anything.

Which, Izuku has learned, is rude.

“They’re not here for my flowers,” Katsuki says, not looking up as he flips a page and shoves another one toward the edge of the counter. “They’re here for you, dumbass.”

Izuku pauses mid-hover, wings buzzing unevenly as he processes that. He lands on the corner of the laptop instead, careful to avoid the keys this time because last time he pressed something and the screen changed and Katsuki had to fix it, which involved a lot of clicking and one very long, slow exhale through his nose.

“For me?” 

Katsuki grunts. “Yeah. Congratulations. You’re famous.”

Izuku considers that. He looks at the papers again, at the bold characters printed across the top of one page, at a small, blurry image of himself caught mid-flight next to a headline he can’t fully read but recognizes enough to know it’s about him. There are a lot of those now. Images, words, voices, all circling the same idea over and over again.

“I didn’t mean for it to be… this big,” Izuku says, mostly to himself.

Katsuki snorts. “Yeah? What’d you think was gonna happen? You go up there, start talking about humans stealing honey, and everyone just nods and moves on?”

“I thought they might listen,” Izuku says, and then pauses, because that sounds wrong even as he says it. “I mean, they are listening. That’s the problem.”

“Then stop complaining.”

“I’m not complaining,” Izuku says quickly. “I’m just… observing.”

“Observe quieter.”

Izuku presses his hands into the warm plastic of the laptop, watching the way Katsuki’s pen moves across the page. There’s something about that that feels familiar. A system that works because Katsuki makes it work. 

“You have an interview in twenty minutes,” Katsuki reminds him, “Don’t say anything stupid this time.”

Izuku straightens a little. “I didn’t say anything stupid last time.”

“You said humans harvest emotional pollen through gift giving rituals.”

“That’s accurate,” Izuku argues. “They exchange flowers during emotionally significant events, you told me so. That’s basically pollen distribution, just inefficient and symbolic.”

Katsuki drags a hand down his face. “Just… talk normal.”

“I am talking normal.”

“Not bee normal. Human normal.”

Izuku hesitates. That feels like two completely different systems that were not designed to overlap.

“Define normal?”

“Just answer the questions,” Katsuki says finally. “Don’t go off on a tangent, don’t start explaining shit nobody asked about, and don’t insult humans to their faces.”

“I don’t insult humans.”

“You told that reporter that he smelled like mold.”

“He did.” 

Katsuki makes a sound that might be a laugh, but he cuts it off halfway, like he didn’t mean to let it happen. He turns back to his papers, flipping to another page. “Just stick to the point, honey production, labor, don’t overcomplicate it.”

Izuku nods, even though Katsuki isn’t looking. He repeats it in his head, turning the words over, fitting them into place.

“Okay,” Izuku says. “I can do that.”

🐝⟡˚ ݁⋆˖₊.𓂃

Izuku watches him from inside a teacup.

He sinks a little lower into the cup, resting his arms against the curved edge, chin propped up as he watches. Katsuki’s leaning over the counter, sleeves pushed up, hands moving through a bunch of papers, cutting and rolling them as he wraps them around a bundle of flowers. As he watches, he taps his fingers lightly against the porcelain, thinking.

Bees, as a general rule, do not… do this. There are systems. Roles, functions, cycles that repeat in ways that make sense. Attraction is not complicated. It’s direct, purposeful. It doesn’t involve watching a human cut flowers for an extended period of time.

Izuku frowns slightly. This might be a problem.

“Kacchan.”

“What.” 

“If you were a flower, what kind would you be?”

Katsuki sets the scissors down. “What kind of dumb question is that?” 

Izuku shifts slightly in the teacup. “It’s not dumb.”

“It’s dumb.”

“It’s important,” Izuku insists. “Flowers have structure and meaning. If I understand what kind you’d be, I can better understand you.”

Katsuki stares at him, then clicks his tongue and looks away, reaching for another stem like this conversation is already over. “Whatever. Something that doesn’t die easy.”

Izuku brightens immediately. “Oh! That’s good. That narrows it down.”

“I didn’t ask you to narrow anything down and I don’t care. Just pick whatever. Rose or something.”

Roses are… soft, in a way. Even with thorns, they’re meant to be held, arranged, given away with meaning already decided for them. Humans expect things from roses. They come with rules. With interpretations that are already agreed on before anyone even looks at them. So no, that feels wrong. 

Izuku watches Katsuki move through the shop and tries to fit him into something that makes sense, something with petals and structure and a name he can hold onto, but every option falls apart the longer he looks, because Katsuki’s not soft like a sakura, and he’s not a rose no matter how easy that would be, and not a camellia either even if the shape is close, because camellias sit quietly and Katsuki doesn’t sit quietly at all.

The more Izuku thinks, the more he believes a camellia makes sense.

A camellia’s not soft in the way flowers are supposed to be, meant to stay instead of impress, blooming when it’s cold and quiet and everything else has already decided it’s not worth it, and Katsuki feels like that, something that exists anyway, without waiting for the right time or the right conditions, wouldn’t change even if the whole world told him to, and Izuku thinks, a little helplessly, that it’s a very good flower to keep looking at.

🐝⟡˚ ݁⋆˖₊.𓂃

Izuku learns very quickly that humans don’t like being told they are wrong.

This is confusing, because they are wrong a lot.

“They said what,” Katsuki’s voice cuts across the shop. He’s got one hand braced against the counter, his glowing rectangle pressed to his ear, shoulders tight in a way Izuku recognizes now as the beginning of something loud. “No, don’t repeat it, I heard you the first time. I’m asking why the hell you let him say it.”

“I said I handled it,” Izuku offers.

Katsuki doesn’t look at him. “You didn’t handle shit.”

“I explained-”

“You shouldn’t have had to,” Katsuki snaps, pulling the glowing rectangle away just long enough to glare in Izuku’s general direction before putting it back. “No, I’m not calming down. You try having someone tell you the only reason anyone listens to you is because you’re a talking bug and see how that goes.”

On the other end, someone is talking very fast. Katsuki talks over them. “No, don’t spin it like that! You’re fucking lucky I’m-”

“Kacchan.”

“Not now.”

“Okay.”

Izuku waits exactly three seconds. “…Kacchan.”

Katsuki exhales sharply through his nose and ends the call mid-sentence. “What.”

Izuku tilts his head. “You’re very loud today.”

“You think.”

“I think it’s because you’re upset.”

“I’m not upset,” Katsuki says immediately. “They shouldn’t have said those things to you.” 

Izuku nods. “Okay.”

The door swings open before anything else can be said. 

“Yo, Kacchan. I saw-” 

The ugly human from next door stops. Slowly, very slowly, his eyes move from Katsuki, to the counter, to the teacup.

Izuku lifts a hand. “Hi.”

“Hi?” The ugly human says, waving back. “Anyway, I just walked past three reporters outside arguing about your last interview. And now I walk in and you’re yelling at someone on the phone about it while your talking bee is sitting in your teacup.”

Katsuki snaps. “He put himself there.”

“I did,” Izuku confirms.

“Still, you can’t fight reporters, man.”

“Watch me.”

“You cannot fight reporters,” The ugly human repeats, more firmly. Then he glances at Izuku. “You good, though?”

“I think so,” Izuku says. “He was incorrect, but I corrected him.”

“That’s not the point,” Katsuki cuts in.

“It felt like the point,” Izuku replies.

“It wasn’t.”

“It might have been partially the point.”

Katsuki turns fully toward him now. “You’re not listening.”

“I am listening,” Izuku insists. “You’re just being louder than the information.”

The ugly human’s grin widens. He looks between them once, then again, slower this time.

“Wow,” he says. When neither of them responds, he continues. “You two fight like a married couple.”

Katsuki freezes. “Get out.”

“No, seriously, this is-”

“Out.”

“I’m just saying, you’re defending him like-”

“Get out before I throw you out.”

The ugly human raises his hands, backing toward the door, still smiling. “Alright, alright. I’m going. Good luck, man. You’re gonna need it.”

“For what,” Izuku asks.

The ugly human grins. “You’ll figure it out.”

The door closes behind him. Izuku slowly sinks down into the teacup until only his eyes are visible over the rim.

“…Kacchan.”

“What.”

“What’s married?”

Katsuki grabs the nearest paper and lightly flicks the edge of the cup.

🐝⟡˚ ݁⋆˖₊.𓂃

Winning, as it turns out, does not look like winning.

It looks like confusion.

A headline. Then another. Then too many to count, stacked on top of each other in ways that don’t quite line up, words like ban and shutdown and global repeating until they lose shape. Izuku watches it happen from the counter, perched near a stack of papers that Katsuki has not thrown away yet, even though the trial is over. That part still feels strange. 

No more honey production for humans. A few days have passed since then and there are fewer reporters now, fewer people asking the same questions in slightly different ways. The glowing rectangles still ring, but not constantly. 

And then the ugly human next door comes back. He doesn’t knock. He never knocks.

“Kacchan,” he calls as he steps inside, “Miss me?”

“No,” Katsuki says immediately.

Izuku glances up from where he’s hovering near a bundle of white flowers, watching Katsuki work. 

“Harsh,” the ugly human says, though he doesn’t sound bothered. His eyes flick to Izuku, lighting up in that same familiar way. “Hey, little guy. Still famous?”

“I think so.”

Katsuki clicks his tongue. “Don’t encourage him.”

“I’m not! I was just in the neighborhood and wanted to say to the little guy that you know, my tattoo place down the street gets bees sometimes too.”

Izuku pauses midair. That is a very specific sentence.

“Bees?” 

“Yeah,” The ugly human says, shrugging. “They hang around the back sometimes. Probably like the smell or something. Thought you might wanna check it out.”

Izuku ignores him. “Kacchan.”

Katsuki doesn’t look up. “What.”

Izuku hovers there, completely still except for his wings. “Do you have other bees that visit you?”

“What.” 

“Other bees,” he repeats. “Besides me.”

“Excuse me?” Katsuki frowns, looking up now. “What kind of question is that?”

The ugly human makes a sound, kinda like a laugh, but Izuku isn’t sure because he immediately covered his mouth.

“That’s not an answer, Kacchan!” 

“There aren't any other bees. Why would there be other bees?”

“Maybe there are,” The ugly human adds, “Maybe he’s not the only one you talk to.”

Izuku does not consider his next reaction excessive. He actually considers it proportionate. There are, after all, certain expectations when it comes to communication. A general understanding that statements presented as facts should, ideally, be facts. The ugly human fails at all three within the span of a single sentence.

This leads, quite naturally, to consequences. Izuku doesn’t think about moving. He simply does. One moment he’s just glaring, the next, his stinger’s very close to the ugly human’s face. The ugly human yelps.

“Why is he- why is he doing that-!”

Izuku doesn’t answer, he’s busy correcting the situation. The ugly human stumbles backward, nearly knocking into a vase before catching himself and immediately turning, heading for the back of the shop at a speed that suggests survival instincts have taken over.

“I was joking! It was a joke!” 

“It was not labeled as a joke,” Izuku snaps, circling his head in tight, efficient loops. “You presented it as information!”

The ugly human reaches blindly, knocking something over, then something else, until his hand lands on a bundle of papers. He grabs it, rolls it up with surprising speed, and holds it out. “Okay. We can talk about this.”

Izuku moves closer and the ugly human swings. He misses. 

“I made one joke!”

“It was not funny!” 

Katsuki moves to position himself between them, “Fucking stop!” 

“You are banned!” Izuku says, very clearly, from his position. “I am banning you!” 

“That’s not a thing,” The ugly human says, a little breathless, “You can’t ban me. You’re a bee.”

“You provided incorrect information and caused unnecessary disruption. Therefore, you’re banned.”

Katsuki stands between them for a moment longer than necessary, eyes moving. Then, Katsuki lifts his hand and points toward the door. “Get out.”

The ugly human stares at him. “You’re kidding.”

“You annoyed him,” Katsuki says, already turning away. “That’s on you.”

“That is not how bans work,” The ugly human argues, though there is less confidence in it now, “It was a joke! You can’t just let a bee-”

“Out!” 

🐝⟡˚ ݁⋆˖₊.𓂃

The air feels wrong outside now for some reason.

Izuku feels this as he hovers low over what used to be a good patch of flowers. He’s out with them today to look for pollen. One the scouts used to talk about how the colors of the flowers stacked on top of other flowers, with nectar so plentiful it almost felt inefficient, but now it’s mostly green. A few stubborn blooms spaced too far apart to be useful.

Izuku lands anyway, pressing his hands into a flower that feels smaller than it should be.

This is what they wanted, isn’t it? There’s no more humans taking honey, no more imbalance, no more unfair systems. Bees do bee things. Humans do human things. Behind him, a few other bees drift through the air, slower than they used to be, movements less direct, like they’re still following paths that don’t quite exist anymore.

“Did you find anything?”  Ochako asks.

Izuku glances back. “A little.”

“That’s what everyone keeps saying.”

“That’s because there’s only a little.”

“This is better, right?” Ochako mumbles, “We don’t have to give anything away anymore.”

Izuku looks back at the flower under his hands. He presses lightly against the center, watching the pollen shift.

“Yeah.” 

It doesn’t sound convincing.

🐝⟡˚ ݁⋆˖₊.𓂃

With the bees winning against the humans, Izuku’s got more time. He can now come and visit the hive and Katsuki whenever he pleases. During these visits, he notices how the hive changes slowly, he notices that work gets… uneven. Some areas are overfilled, others left half-done. The neat, perfect rhythm Izuku grew up with starts slipping in places that don’t quite connect.

“Sector F, row twenty,” Izuku murmurs, staring at a cell that should be full and isn’t. He taps the edge once with his marker, then again. “This should’ve been finished yesterday.”

Izuku shifts, glancing down the row. A few bees work steadily, one of them being Shouto, but there are gaps between them now, empty spaces where there shouldn’t be empty spaces. “Hey. Why’d you skip this section?”

“I didn’t skip it,” Shouto replies without looking up. “I’ll get to it.”

“When?”

A pause. “Later.”

Later is not a real time.

Izuku looks back at the unfinished cells, at the uneven lines, at the small, quiet ways things are starting to not fit.

“Okay. Later.” 

🐝⟡˚ ݁⋆˖₊.𓂃

Katsuki’s shop smells different.

It still smells like flowers, that part doesn’t change. But there’s something missing underneath it now, something Izuku can’t name at first, which is frustrating because he likes naming things. It makes them easier to understand. 

“Kacchan?”

Katsuki doesn’t look up right away. He’s sitting behind the counter, elbows resting on the surface, staring at a piece of paper. There are more of those now. Papers with numbers in red. 

“What, Izuku?”

Izuku tilts his head, watching him. “You’re not working.”

“No shit.” Katsuki says with a laugh. It’s weird, nothing’s funny. “Look, there’s nothing to work with. No flowers means no arrangements. No arrangements means no customers.”

Izuku glances around the shop. There are still some flowers. A few buckets near the back, spaced out, not nearly as full as they used to be. “I mean, they’re still here, Kacchan.” 

“Not for long. They’re dying,” Katsuki replies flatly. “And I can’t replace them.”

Izuku steps closer to the edge of the counter, peering down at the paper. The numbers don’t mean much to him, but the way Katsuki’s holding it does. 

“…What happens if you can’t replace them?”

Katsuki shrugs, “Then I close.”

“Oh.”

“It’s whatever. Shit happens.”

“I’m sorry, Kacchan.”

Katsuki snorts. “For what.”

“For… this,” Izuku gestures vaguely, which is not helpful, but it’s the best he has. “I didn’t think it would…”

Katsuki watches him for a second, “Hey, don’t start that.”

“I caused it.”

“You didn’t cause shit,” Katsuki replies, sitting up straighter. “You pointed something out. That’s it.”

Izuku looks at him. Katsuki looks back. Katsuki reaches out, tapping the counter lightly near where Izuku’s standing.

“It’s fine,” he says, smiling. “As long as you’re happy.”

“Yeah,” Izuku lies, “I am.”

🐝⟡˚ ݁⋆˖₊.𓂃

The first time someone asks, Izuku doesn’t think much of it.

“You’ve been going outside the hive a lot. Why?” 

“Well,” he starts, “There’s a lot to learn. Humans are very inefficient, but also interesting, and their systems don’t always make sense, but sometimes they do, and I think if we understand them better, we can improve things-”

“That’s not what I meant,” Tenya cuts in. “I mean… why do you keep going back to the same one?”

“The same one?”

“The human,” Shouto says. “The loud one. You keep talking about him.”

Izuku frowns slightly. That’s… a strange question. There are plenty of reasons.

“He has a flower shop,” Izuku explains. “So his work is directly related to pollination, which makes him a valuable point of study. And he understands systems, even if he doesn’t always explain them well, and he’s-”

Izuku pauses.

 “And?” Ochako prompts.

There’s something there. Something that doesn’t fit neatly into function or efficiency or systems that can be explained in a way that makes sense on paper. Izuku thinks about the way Katsuki moves through the shop, thinks about the way his voice changes when he’s arguing versus when he’s not. The way he still fixes things even when there’s no point. He thinks about sitting in the teacup, about watching the human, about wanting to keep watching him.

“Oh,” Izuku says, “Oh.”

The other bees tilt their heads.

“What.”

“I think,” Izuku says slowly, “I think I… like him.”

🐝⟡˚ ݁⋆˖₊.𓂃

Izuku watches a pair of scissors disappear into the box.

“Kacchan-”

“Enough, Izuku,” Katsuki replies, not looking up. “I’ve been waiting. This is me done waiting.”

“No, I mean wait,” Izuku insists, hovering closer to Katsuki’s face now, “I think I figured it out.”

Katsuki pauses. His hand stills for a second over the box, fingers curled loosely around a roll of paper. Then he exhales through his nose. “Go on, enlighten me.”

“I don’t think it’s about stopping,” Izuku says quickly, “That’s where we went wrong. We stopped everything, and now nothing connects. Bees aren’t working right, flowers aren’t growing right, humans don’t have what they need, and we don’t either. So instead of stopping, we need to… adjust.”

Katsuki glances at him. “Adjust how.”

“Bees go back to pollinating,” he says. “Naturally, like how it’s supposed to be. Moving between flowers, carrying pollen, keeping everything alive.”

“You mean what you were doing before?”

“Yes, but now it’s intentional,” Izuku corrects. “And humans don’t take everything. Just some. Like… like how we measure honey in the hive. And in return, humans protect the environment. More flowers, more spaces, less destruction, more balance. We both need each other, so the system should reflect that instead of pretending we don’t.”

“And where exactly is this supposed to happen?”

Izuku nods, “Here! You already work with flowers, so this can be a central point. Bees can come and go, pollinate, rest, exchange information. Humans can maintain the space, manage distribution, make sure nothing gets taken unfairly. It’s efficient.”

“This is a flower shop, not a bee headquarters.”

“It can be both.”

There’s a long moment where neither of them moves, the idea sitting there between them. 

“You want to turn my flower shop into a bug hangout?” 

“A pollination center,” Izuku corrects.

“You’re serious.”

“Yes.”

“You’re actually serious.”

“Yes.”

“Fuck it, fine.” Katsuki looks around the shop. “Don’t make me regret this.”

“I won’t.”

“You will.”

“I won’t.”

“You definitely will.”

🐝⟡˚ ݁⋆˖₊.𓂃

It starts small. Which is good, because small things are easier to fix when they go wrong, and things do go wrong.

And it actually settles into something that feels… right. Although not perfect, Izuku knows better than to expect perfect now. Perfect is what the hive aimed for, but this has gaps, overlaps, moments where things almost go wrong before correcting themselves. Which, as far as Izuku is concerned, is better.

He tracks it the way he tracks everything. 

“Three new blooms near the entrance,” he murmurs, scribbling something down in his notes, leaning a little too far over the edge of his desk before catching himself. “Petal integrity is better than yesterday. Color saturation improved. That’s good. That’s very good.”

Below him, Ochako lifts off from a cluster of flowers, drifting toward the open door where sunlight spills in. 

“Pollen transfer efficiency is increasing,” Izuku continues, mostly to himself, though Katsuki’s somewhere nearby and can probably hear him if he’s paying attention. “Not at previous hive levels, but close.” 

He pauses, glancing up. Katsuki’s at the counter, adjusting a bundle of flowers that don’t need adjusting. There are customers too. A woman near the entrance picks up a small arrangement, turning it slightly in her hands, something soft in her expression that Izuku doesn’t try to define this time. He just notes it.

“Human engagement restored,” he adds under his breath, writing it down like it’s a measurable thing. Maybe it is. It feels like one. “Good.” 

Izuku looks down at his notes again, scanning over everything he’s written in the past few days. Observations, adjustments, small corrections that built into something bigger.  Bees are working, not because they have to or because they’re assigned to a role. They move because there’s something to move for. Both flowers and humans. 

Honey production hasn’t stopped either.

Katsuki’s closer now. He must have moved without Izuku noticing, which is… rare. He’s holding a flower, turning it slightly, then placing it down near the edge of Izuku’s desk. It’s one of the better ones.

“Thank you, Izuku. I don’t regret it at all.” 

Very carefully, Izuku moves and lands against Katsuki’s hand and wraps his arms around his finger. 

Katsuki doesn’t pull away. Izuku’s gaze drifts to a flower sitting nearby, a camellia. Already distracted, Izuku lets go for a second, pushing off Katsuki’s finger and hovering in place. 

He flies the short distance, grabbing onto the camellia's stem with both hands, bracing himself before tugging. It’s heavier than it looks. With a small, determined buzz, Izuku lifts it, wobbling slightly as he turns back, wings working harder to keep him steady. The petals brush against him as he moves, carrying that deep, rich scent that clings to everything.

Izuku hovers in front of Katsuki again, lands on his palms, and holds the camellia out. “For you, Kacchan."

Katsuki stares at him. There’s a smile on his face. Izuku smiles too.

“You’re one strange bee,” Katsuki grumbles, and yet not once does his smile go away. 

🐝⟡˚ ݁⋆˖₊.𓂃

🐝⟡˚ ݁⋆˖₊.𓂃

It keeps getting better.

Izuku expected it to stabilize at some point. To reach a level where things worked and then just… stay there. But it doesn’t. It keeps improving in small ways that stack on top of each other until he has to keep updating his notes because the previous observations are already slightly outdated.

Bees moving farther, returning faster, sharing information in ways that feel alive instead of routine. Humans are adapting too. Katsuki starts setting aside certain flowers, not for customers, but for the bees. Small clusters near the entrance, positioned in a way that makes access easier. He doesn’t explain it. He just does it. A shift here, a placement there, things that don’t look important unless someone’s paying attention, which Izuku is, constantly, because that’s what he does. That’s what he’s always done.

The hive was built on knowing everything before it happened. 

This is… watching things happen and understanding them after. Izuku used to think everything needed a reason before it could happen. A structure, or maybe a defined purpose. Now things happen, and the purpose follows.

The only thing that was horrible was the ugly human coming back.  

Izuku only allows it, because banning him permanently would be inefficient and also because the shop functions better when things are… flexible. He still talks too much, still leans on surfaces he probably shouldn’t, still says things that don’t qualify as useful information, but he brings outside observations, and those are valuable. Izuku categorizes him as disruptive but beneficial, which feels accurate enough to keep him around.

He also keeps saying that thing. Bee boyfriend.

Izuku doesn’t know what that means exactly. The human explanations are inconsistent, and Katsuki refuses to define it properly, which makes it harder to analyze. But the word gets used repeatedly, always in the same context, always directed at Katsuki, always followed by a very specific reaction. 

Katsuki turns red. It starts at the ears, then spreads slightly across his face, uneven like color distribution in certain petals that haven’t fully opened yet. It’s noticeable. It’s also very consistent.

Izuku nods slightly to himself. He doesn’t know exactly what boyfriend means. But he likes the effect it has.

🐝⟡˚ ݁⋆˖₊.𓂃

Driven by curiosity, Izuku finally asks. “What’s a boyfriend?”

“Excuse me?” 

“The ugly human keeps saying it,” Izuku answers. “And you keep reacting.”

“I don’t react.”

“You do.”

“I don’t.”

“You turn red.”

Katsuki clicks his tongue, face filled with disbelief, “I don’t turn red.”

“You do,” Izuku repeats, very certain. “It starts at your ears.”

Katsuki exhales sharply through his nose, setting the flowers down harder than necessary. “It’s not important.”

“It is,” Izuku says. “It’s being used repeatedly in a consistent context. That makes it relevant.”

“That’s not how that works.”

“It is.”

“It’s not.”

Izuku waits.

“It’s just…” Katsuki groans, “Ugh when two people… things… creatures like each other. And they’re… together. That’s it.”

That’s… surprisingly simple. Izuku thinks about that. He thinks about the way Katsuki moves things closer to his desk without saying anything, about the way he didn’t close the shop, about the way he lets Izuku stay, lets him build things, lets him exist here without questioning it anymore. He thinks about the way he keeps choosing to stay too.

Izuku looks at him. At everything he’s already noticed, already cataloged, already understood without putting it into words yet. Then he nods, small and certain.

“Okay,” he says.

“Okay what.”

Izuku smiles. “…I think I might be your boyfriend.”

“What the fuck are you saying?!” Katsuki snaps, face going red immediately, exactly like before, as Izuku expected.

“Yes,” Izuku nods, more certain this time. “That makes sense.”

“It doesn’t make sense!”

“It does,” Izuku insists. “We like each other.”

“We do not-!”

“And we’re together,” Izuku continues, “Here, always.”

“That’s not what that means!” Katsuki argues, his face is still red, and Izuku watches him for a second longer.

Then nods, satisfied. Yes. That seems correct.

He really is Katsuki’s boyfriend.