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It’s pretty safe to say that Izuku is just your average kid.
Getting into UA was a huge achievement and everything has been running semi-smoothly apart from the occasional villain attack and complicated side-plots of his life, in general everything has been great. He finally got the nice friends he deserves, the power he always dreamed of, the dreams he had of his life at UA are finally coming true.
Except one tiny little hiccup.
Everyone seems to think of him as some 12 year old goodie too-shoes who has never even thought of doing anything wrong? Now don’t get him wrong overall he believes he’s a good kid, dedicated, smart and bubbly but sometimes even while risking his life to become a hero and training to insane lengths a lot of his classmates still treat him like a baby.
For example, last week in the dorms while making breakfast during his turn, the eggs being fried in the pan decided to spite him on this early morning as the boiling hot oil splattered onto his naked torso, now to be fair this is mostly his fault for forgoing a shirt but for fucks sake it’s like 7am so heaven forbid the lack of a shirt, anyways Izuku would say he’s pretty proud of his current physic anyways so why not be shirtless every once in a while.
During such a situation Izuku completely natural and human reaction would be-
“FUCK!”
Unfortunately after such he heard a sharp gasp from behind him, turning slowly Izuku faced Uraraka with a raised brow. “Heyyy Uraraka whatsup??” The shocked look on her face made Izuku do a double take, did he do something? Why is she so freaked out all of a sudden? Did he look really ripped and she was just so shocked that she-
“Deku! I didn’t know you swore! I thought you were just so sweet and pure that you never even thought about it! I mean when I met your mother and she was just sweet as pie so I have no idea where you learned it from!”
Her lighthearted teasing increased later that afternoon at lunch when she told the rest of his friends about what happened with a laugh, squeezing his cheeks playfully as he was trying to fit the last bite of katsu into his mouth.
“Midoriya! You shouldn’t be swearing on student grounds! It’s unprofessional for a learning environment for other students to hear!” Iida’s beratement stunned him as he thought back to all the times he did something slightly quote ‘un-midoriya like’ such as play fighting with Kacchan, swearing and getting angry for some reason. None of it seemed to make sense, they’d known each other for a while so he had no clue how they’d gotten it into their heads that Izuku was this sweet, do-no-wrong, cinnamon roll of a person who wouldn’t even hurt a fly. He’s training TO HURT PEOPLE for christ's sake, professionally of course, but he’s a sixteen year old teenager he can swear every once in a while for crying out loud.
Later in the day Izuku sat on the ground still airing out his grievances to Kacchan on their smoke break on the roof of the dorms building. Katsuki lazily sat beside him with their shoulders pressed together as Izuku rattled on about other things, about his day, about the new Allmight annual limited edition figurine drop. If only his friends could see him now, he thinks that Iida would genuinely have a heart attack, it doesn’t really matter anyways. Katsuki was the only person who really saw him like this, like himself.
It was an odd thing how this little ritual began but if he had to say it was back in middle school in his third year.
After the whole “dive off the rooftop and kill yourself” ordeal happened one afternoon, Katsuki found himself unusually anxious thinking about the possibility that Izuku actually would complete his request based on the absolute dead look in his eye.
and whether it was the guilt of telling him to off himself or the risk that he would get in trouble if Deku actually DID, Bakugo waited around the staircase to the roof after school.
Praying to all things mighty that Deku wouldn’t take him seriously. After half an hour waiting behind the wall bakugo started to feel really fucking stupid about his decision leading him to this moment, that was until he saw a bush of green hair slowly climbing the steps.
Katsuki felt his heart drop out of his ass as his slow creep towards the stairs transformed into a jog and finally a haul ass sprint up the stairs, with a monologue of “shit shit shit shit shit shit shit” running through his head.
When he finally busted open the door to the rooftop, expecting to see a crying Deku on the edge both physically and mentally with scuffed red shoes neatly lined up next to him.
Instead Bakugo sneakers screeched to a stop at what he saw.
Izuku fucking Midoriya
Leisurely leaning over the rails of the rooftop looking out towards the skyline with a fucking cigarette between his teeth.
“Deku what the actual FUCK am I looking at right now?”
Turning, Izuku’s eyebrows raised towards his hairline as he quickly snuffed the cigarette out on the railing.
“KACCH-*cough* holy fuck *cough cough* dude what the f-*cough*fuck are you doing here?!?”
Clearly startled Izuku’s coughing form was bent over trying to recover as he regained some sort of composure in a crouching position, looking up at his childhood bully, flabbergasted, clearly out of breathe and so so fucking confused.
“Deku what the fuck I thought I was going to have to attend your fucking funeral, when did you start smoking?!?”
The thought of explaining his depressive episodes and father’s influence seemed like irrelevant information to someone like Kacchan so izuku waved him off.
“Oh don’t worry about it, some time in second year, I-ts really not that interesting Kacchan trust me”
Still completely shell shocked, Katsuki finally remembered to pick his jaw up and took stock of the situation.
Deku’s not dead and he wouldn’t be suspended for the rest of time. Honestly who fucking cared if stupid Deku was a degenerate smoker, sure it was surprising, but as soon as his fight or flight response slowed down he finally collapsed onto the ground next to Deku, slowly putting his legs through the railing hanging over the edge of aldera as he began to catch his breath.
“Are..are you good?”
The question coming from his right lead him to look over at Iz-Deku, still crouched and clutching his lighter for dear life, wide eyes surveying his face in search of a malice or vengeance in his own-honestly- Katsuki was too tired to be angry right now, the thought that Izuku might have actually jumped and left Katsuki at fault for his death gave him the biggest heart attack of his lifetime and he just wants to go to bed.
“…yeah, just thought you were like gonna actually jump or something, I dunno”
Recognition flashed on Izuku’s face as he realised the implications and eventually he just sighed, plopping his ass next to Kacchan he rummaged in his pocket for a moment before pulling out a crumpled pack of cigarettes and leaning to his side to light it. as he took a deep inhale, he faced back towards the yellowing sunset as we slowly exhaled.
“No wonder you were scared shitless ahahah”
As the soft laugh breezed through the wind so did the gentle smoke rising in the air.
They sat like that for a while, in deep contemplative silence, for Katsuki the consequences of his actions and ferocious bullying and the possibility of Izukus death washed over him, realising the depths of his guilt.
“I never really thought you actually cared to be honest”
Those words had Katsuki neck snapping towards the other boy.
“ I thought- I mean I really did hope that the version I once knew of you wasn’t fully gone but, I dunno I kind of gave up on it to be honest.”
A strike of guilt bubbled in Katsuki gut as he thought about their childhood, the sunny skies and happy laughter through the bliss of childhood innocence. Sometimes when he really thought about it, he wondered why this all started in the first place, he knew his deep seated jealousy of Izukus ambition and hope was deep down the reason, but sometimes he wondered how it would be if he just stopped. That train of thought always dispersed because he believed it was too far to back down now, he couldn’t just change overnight.
But only sometimes did he wish he could just start over, back at that river, maybe if he had taken Izuku’s hand, maybe they would’ve been friends. The thought always got buried in his heart but now, with the possibility of his actions, maybe if he jus-
“I’m sorry”
“What?”
He turned to face Izuku’s slack-jawed face with the burning cigarette hanging loosely from between his fingers and mouth, eyebrows raised into his hairline, maybe this was a mistake. But he needs to do it.
A sigh
“Listen, I’m sorry for treating you like shit, ok? I hated how you always thought you were better than me even though I literally have a better quirk than you and I’m cooler and more skilled and I’m a hundred percent going to be a better hero than you ever wish you could be-”
“Kacchan what- what the fuck are you talking about right now?? Why would I think I’m better than you? I'm so confused, I looked up to you. I thought that you were the coolest person ever and listen, even though I love Allmight and he is arguably the best hero of all time you were the one actually in my life Kacchan. You were always my hero, I wanted to be equals with you man!”
And now it was Katsuki's turn to be shocked …
Fuuuuuuuucccckkk ok so maybe he’d taken some things out of context.
“Well I’m sorry, okay? So can we just put this behind us?”
A laugh bubbled out of Izuku, that soon turned into full blown hysterics before he finally settled down, taking another deep inhale of the dart in his hand.
“Yeah sure okay, you know I never held it against you Kacchan,
… I don’t know why but just I didn’t.”
Izuku looked into Katsuki's eyes smiling with a whole hearted admiration that he somehow hadn’t seen before.
Katsuki’s lips quirked as he turned to look out at the finally darkening sky as Silence stretched out once again but this time, more comfortably, at peace.
“We should do this again sometime… it’s nice”