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Katsuki held his pencil awkwardly in his left hand, scowling at the way his shaky strokes didn’t quite meet up in the middle. Each symbol looked childish and harsh, like he was still a snot-nosed brat who couldn’t manage to color inside the lines.
Hidden within his childhood bedroom, bandaged but still breathing, Katsuki frowned at the page like he could frighten the letters into neatness.
“Katsuki, you’re going to be late!” his mother called.
Sighing, Katsuki let his pencil clatter into the Red Riot mug on his desk and grabbed his schoolbag from his bed. Then he hesitated in the open doorway, glancing at his reflection in the mirror hung to his door just long enough to debate his appearance, and backtracked a few steps.
His school tie was soft in his hand.
Katsuki quickly looped it around his neck before his sweat could leak through to the fabric.
“Hey, old hag?” he called.
“Car’s running,” she shot back, voice and footsteps growing clearer as she stalked towards his room. “What’s taking- oh,” she breathed, one hand grasping the wooden door frame, two inches away from the Edgeshot poster he’d hung up, while the other hovered close to her neck. Her eyes flitted between Katsuki’s face and his unbuttoned collar. “May I?”
Katsuki scoffed lightly and turned his face to the side, left arm crossed awkwardly behind his sling.
“The fuck else would I call you in here for?”
His mother rolled her eyes, a little of the soft surprise leaving her system as she ruffled his hair and reached for the tie, adjusting the length that draped on each side of his chest.
“‘Sides,” Katsuki added, still not meeting her gaze, “it’s not like you to ask permission.”
Through the corner of his eye, Katsuki watched his mother purse her lips.
“You have heart problems,” she said simply.
“Heart-in-recovery,” Katsuki corrected.
“Heart that should be on bed rest.”
“Heart that was cleared,” Katsuki pointed out stubbornly, leaning closer to sneer in her face, resisting the urge to flinch when his tie shifted and brushed the bare skin on the back of his neck. “And you’re not a fuckin’ doctor, what would you know?” he snapped.
Mitsuki huffed and readjusted his collar. “I’m your mother. I know everything.”
“Really? I thought you were an old hag.”
“And I thought all your bitching this week was because you wanted to go to school on the first day like everyone else but with all this fucking complaining I’d say you want to be late,” she replied, leveling Katsuki with an even stare that he stuck his tongue out in the face of. “Or you want me to strangle you,” she added, darting out a hand to try and pinch his tongue but not before Katsuki slid it back into his mouth with a smug smile. “I should use this to tie you to the bed,” she muttered. “How about that?”
“Don’t rope me into your weird kinks.”
Katsuki’s mother spluttered out a startled laugh, hands halting on the knot above his still-beating, in-recovery heart, and Katsuki allowed his lips to twitch upward.
It felt…weird, not having to suppress that feeling. Weird to have the feeling at all.
“Where’d you learn that kind of language, huh?” she prodded. “Am I paying that little rat-bear you call a principal to corrupt your pure, angelic mind?”
Katsuki scoffed. “Says the she-devil that made me.”
Mitsuki pulled Katsuki’s tie one last time, settling the knot close to his collar but not close enough to feel suffocating, and smiled.
“She-devil says it’s time to get going, honey.”
Katsuki swallowed over a sudden lump in his throat.
His heart thumped painfully against his ribcage.
One more time, he thought.
“The fuck’d you say?”
Mitsuki smiled and it was all teeth, lips curling up with devilish mirth, but Katsuki knew that her sharp eyes were seeing right through him. Right through to his still-beating, in-recovery, second-chance heart, and she cooed at him mockingly.
“My sweet baby boy,” she teased. “Apple of my eye. Joy of my life.”
Katsuki groaned and shoved lightly past her, rolling his eyes to hide the rapid pace of his blinking.
Soft hands roped him back in by the shoulders and draped across his chest in a hug that they both pretended was a stranglehold. “Not so fast, my little stormcloud,” she cackled, shoving their cheeks together.
Katsuki half-heartedly tried to escape her hold and she responded by squeezing him tighter.
“This is cheating,” he growled. “I’m on heart rest, fucker!”
“This is just like your first day of kindergarten,” she continued, ignoring him and pulling him back into her embrace every time he tried to wriggle out of it.
Katsuki turned his head around to snap at her nose in time to see her wipe a fake tear from her eye.
“Honey? Where’s…?” Katsuki’s father called out, stepping into the hallway and pausing at the sight of them. He blinked. “What are you doing?”
Katsuki and his mother shared a glance.
“Fighting,” they answered in unison.
Masaru’s expression softened. “You can fight later,” he promised. “Katuski’s going to be late for his first day.”
Something that felt suspiciously like a kiss landed on top of Katsuki’s head and he decided to let the transgression go unpunished and unacknowledged except for the slight tightening of his grip on his mother’s arm before he let her go.
Mitsuki clicked her tongue as she ushered him towards the waiting car. “You trying to scratch me? What are you, a cat?”
Katsuki climbed into the backseat, his parents taking up positions at his right and left, and he pulled the seatbelt across himself with his non-dominant hand. “I’m your fucking kid,” he corrected, meeting their gazes in the mirror with only the ghost of a taunt in his expression. “Deal with it.”
His father’s hand reached back to squeeze Katsuki’s knee, the man himself all quiet and sniffly.
His mother sighed dramatically and reached over to caress her husband’s face before putting the car into reverse. As they pulled out of the driveway, she turned to look out the back windshield with a wide grin.
“I guess it’s too late to return you now.”
*
Being in class was strange, too.
For one thing, Katsuki wanted to be there. Not as a means to an end and not just to crush a sea of extras beneath his metaphorical, academic foot but to see his friends. His teachers.
Izuku.
It felt right for them to all be together, today, and Katsuki might be a bastard but he wasn’t the kind of guy to leave everyone hanging.
When it came time to actually start the first lesson- on healthy stress management, no less- Katsuki didn’t touch his pencils. He pulled a fresh notebook out of his bag and slowly surveyed the people around him.
Hagakure was still seated in front of him, though she shimmered into visibility every once in a while, which was new, and Shoji was hunched down beside her, making himself as short as possible so Jirou could still see the board over his head.
When he turned to her next, Jirou caught Katsuki looking and curled her unburnt ear jack into a question mark, polished nails tapping out a familiar rhythm onto an empty page. Something from the school festival, maybe?
You good? she mouthed.
Katsuki nodded and let his gaze slip over to Sero, who had his tongue sticking out of his mouth in concentration as he scribbled down a very long title for today’s notes.
Katsuki tilted his head to read it and snorted.
‘Aizawa-sensei’s Guide to Coping With Stress That Are (Probably) Not Coffee, Sleeping Bags, Or Choosing Teaching As A Career’
Finally, Katsuki swallowed down the uneasy fluttering in his gut and turned to meet the curious stare Izuku had been sending his way for the past minute or so.
“Kacchan?” he murmured.
“Izuku,” Katsuki said, the name heavy on his tongue. Katsuki’s eyes dipped to Izuku’s blue, unopened notebook- all crisp lines and intact edges. Not a burn mark in sight.
“Izuku,” Katsuki said again, shoving down the remnants of guilt that bubbled up in his throat like sludge, summoning the strength to force his thoughts from his tongue. “I…”
I need you to take notes for me because my left hand’s still a weak-ass bitch.
I need you to take notes for me because I know you’ll do it right.
I need you to take notes for me because if my notes aren’t right then how will I compete with you?
I need you to take notes for me because I can’t bear to be left behind in this, too.
I need you to take notes for me because I need something to tie us together again.
Katsuki cleared his throat.
“You still ambidextrous?” he said.
Izuku blinked and looked down at his hands. “I should be,” he said. “I haven’t practiced in a while but I don’t think I would’ve lost that ability so soon.”
Katsuki clenched his jaw, shoving away the memory of Izuku in his hospital bed, smiling over a shattered dream like the shards weren’t still caught in his teeth and bleeding him dry. “Right,” he said stiffly. “Well, how about I trade you?”
Izuku’s eyebrows furrowed, the line of his mouth turning wobbly and awkward with uncertainty. “Trade…ambidexterity?”
It was the most expression Katsuki had seen on the bastard’s face all day, and even then it wasn't much.
Katsuki huffed, his stiff muscles untensing in increments. “No, dumbass. You take notes for me and I give you something you want in return.”
“Oh,” Izuku said. “Because your arm…that makes sense, Kacchan definitely wasn’t asking for my arms, though I guess he kind of was? In a way? And Kacchan will probably be ambidextrous himself in no time, but since he was barely released from the hospital last week he might not get there as quick as before. I wonder how long-?”
“How do you know when I was released from the hospital?”
Izuku jolted in surprise, the hand that had crept to his chin during his mutter-fest now clenching and unclenching over open air.
Katsuki frowned at the gesture.
The hand stilled under his observation.
“Um, Kacchan?”
“Hm?” Katsuki said, raising his gaze and frowning reflexively when he found Izuku’s gaze trained on him expectantly. “What?”
Izuku’s mouth twitched in an aborted smile. “I need your notebook please, Kacchan.”
“Oh, right,” Katsuki said, lightly tossing it over to Izuku’s desk. He dimly registered that their notebooks matched. “I’m gonna memorize the whole lecture so-”
“I’ll do it right, Kacchan,” Izuku interrupted, a poor facsimile of his familiar determination sparking behind his dull eyes that sent Katsuki back to the river, except this time he was the one reaching out and Izuku was the one shutting him down.
Katsuki opened his mouth, closed it, and then very deliberately said, “...So write ‘em the same as yours.”
Izuku blinked rapidly in the face of the correction, silent for once in his godforsaken life.
Katsuki’s hands felt sweaty.
“Put words in my mouth again and I’ll kill you.”
Izuku slowly flipped both notebooks open and smoothed down the covers in perfect synchronicity, nodding. “Okay, Kacchan,” he said simply. “I won’t.”
Katsuki turned around in his seat and focused his efforts into memorizing every word coming out of Aizawa-sensi’s mouth for the next hour, soothed by the familiar drag of pencil lead behind him even as Izuku’s odd placidity unnerved him.
By the time the bell rang, the margins of Katsuki’s mental notes were crammed full of the fact that Izuku hadn’t smiled once since All Might thanked them in that dingy hospital room ages ago. Katsuki wondered, then, if Izuku put words in All Might’s mouth, too.
He wondered if they sounded like, Thank you, you were a great hero while it lasted.
*
Katsuki rifled through his medicine cabinet sluggishly, feeling the strain in his right arm every time he moved even as it sat uselessly in its sling. His left was starting to ache, too, forced to pick up the slack.
The reminder that he was still unhealed and barely cleared for school was an unwelcome one and Katsuki couldn’t find the fucking pain meds to turn the reminder off.
“Goddammit,” he hissed, picking up the case of bandaids one more time just in case the meds he needed had magically appeared behind there while Katsuki wasn’t looking.
His arm twinged uncomfortably.
“Dad!” Katsuki hollered.
There was a muffled clatter from the kitchen and a moment later, Katsuki’s father appeared in the bathroom’s open doorway looking frazzled and sickeningly attentive. “Yes?”
Katsuki narrowed his eyes. “The fuck did you run here for?”
Masaru ran a hand through his hair, shifting his stance to lean more casually against the doorframe. “Run?” he asked guiltily. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Katsuki sneered. “I’m not five.”
His father’s body stilled, then became more certain, and Katsuki tracked the change curiously.
“No, you’re not,” his father agreed slowly, reaching out to lay a hand on Katsuki’s shoulder. “You’re fifteen and you fought in a war and you’re my son and you have heart problems.”
Katsuki’s eyes darted away from the man’s sincerity with a muttered, “Heart-in-recovery.”
His father’s hand squeezed. “Heart-in-recovery,” he corrected softly, shifting his hand until it rested firmly over Katsuki’s chest. “So forgive me if I’m afraid to find you collapsed on the ground over something you can’t control, Katsuki.”
Katsuki chewed the inside of his lip to stop himself from lashing out, allowing his father to track the even rise and fall of his chest until the lines around his eyes disappeared. A thousand angry retorts lay on the tip of Katsuki’s tongue, ready to let loose, but Katsuki had been collapsed and dead on the ground only a few months ago.
The doctor had wanted to keep him in the hospital longer, too, and their compromise had been a promise for Katsuki to take it easy. So Katsuki sighed, counting backwards from ten in his mind.
His father didn’t rush him.
“Where are the meds?” Katsuki finally asked.
Masaru hummed and turned towards the bottles now scattered haphazardly over the bathroom counter, pointing towards an orange one in the center. “These?”
“Those are the drowsy ones,” Katsuki complained.
His father’s mouth twisted sympathetically. “I’m afraid that’s all we have, remember? You can refill the other script after rehab tomorrow.”
“Fuck,” Katsuki hissed.
Masaru plucked the bottle off the counter and guided Katsuki out of the bathroom with a careful arm around his shoulders. “C’mon, Kats,” he murmured, stepping into Katsuki’s room and pouring out two tablets on the nightstand, then fluffing Katsuki’s pillows for good measure. “They still take some time to kick in, so how about I make you a cup of tea? It’s gotten pretty late anyways.”
Katsuki frowned heavily at the pills, then at the 6:36 on his alarm clock, then at his father. “None of that sleepytime bear bullshit.”
Masaru raised his arms in surrender, the gentle smile on his face ruining the image of deference. “Decaf chai for the prince.”
Katsuki rolled his eyes but raised no complaint, which his father took as his cue to start the kettle.
Finally left to his own devices, Katsuki quickly downed the pills and pulled out his notebook from his schoolbag, wiggling under the covers to get comfortable.
The first few pages were pretty standard, an occasional star penned next to notable things, and the more he read, the more Katuki wondered if Izuku had starred the things he thought Katsuki would find notable.
Katsuki flicked boredly towards the middle, stopping when he saw a longer annotation.
‘Kacchan, look!’ it said, next to a scribbled doodle of the mitochondria decked out in Katsuki’s flared mask, eyes furrowed and body shaped more like a grenade than a jellybean, ‘It’s you!’
In the safety of his childhood bedroom, Katsuki smiled, then he slowly backtracked through the pages until he reached the beginning of Izuku’s annotations again.
Most of them were stars or exclamation points, and then written comments began to appear like the drizzle before a storm. Like it had taken the first half hour of the day for Izuku to gather the courage to use his words.
‘I think Aizawa-sensei just fell asleep with his eyes open,’ Izuku wrote.
Katsuki snorted.
In the middle of first hour, the man had randomly trailed off mid-sentence, staring unblinkingly out into the class (or staring directly at Sero with the threat of fiery detention in his eyes, depending on who told the story) and then right as Uraraka had decided to float an eraser towards him to poke his cheek, Aizawa-sensei had jolted and picked up right where he left off, startling the whole class.
Everyone had pretended like nothing happened.
Katsuki flipped to the notes from second hour.
‘Kaminari seems a lot more confident in math’
“He fuckin’ better be,” Katsuki muttered. Bastard had come by his hospital room every other week looking for help with summer homework, nevermind that those assignments were optional.
It wasn’t lost on Katsuki, either, that Electrohead had always come by right after Katsuki’s first few, fucking disastrous rehab sessions. The tutoring was good for them both, though, so Katsuki had let the obvious ulterior motive slide.
Had Izuku known about that?
Katsuki pushed the thought from his mind. Kaminari had probably just stopped by Izuku’s hospital room, too.
‘That’s kind of funny, right Kacchan?’
Third hour. Ectoplasm had accidentally opened his email while the screen was still projected for the whole class to see, and right at the top was an unopened email from Todoroki with a subject line that read: 'Proof that Tokoyami and Hawks are cousins, part 5'
The fucking Half’n’Half bastard had been cagey about what he was doing on his laptop for weeks, and most of the class had decided he was reading really cringe shoujo manga online but that was so much more on brand.
“So you have been getting my emails,” Todoroki had said. “I wasn’t sure they were going through.”
Ectoplasm, having realized his fatal mistake, merely sighed and clicked into the day’s powerpoint. “Yes, Todoroki. I have.”
Katsuki’s smirk was broken by a yawn.
Katsuki leafed to the notes from fourth hour and found that the nature of them had…changed. Rather than perfectly penned shapes in the margins, there were half-moons and gesture drawings, scribbles of an eye that was probably supposed to be Katsuki’s, and pointless geometric patterns done in practically every corner. The quality of the note-taking had also lessened, just slightly.
Just enough to indicate that Izuku’s heart wasn’t in it.
Katsuki barely blinked at his father when he returned with the promised mug of tea and smoothed Katsuki’s hair off of his forehead, too focused on the puzzle unraveling before him in absentminded lines.
There were a lot of pictures of Izuku’s quirk, all of them accompanied by what Katsuki assumed were the faces of the past users. Except for the one that might have been Katsuki? But with an X-shaped scar over his face.
Katsuki’s eyelids drooped and he shook his head to focus.
He downed the tea.
He flicked the page.
And right there at the bottom, scrawled within a clumsy heart, were the words Izuku Bakugou.
Warmth blossomed in Katsuki’s stomach.
He blamed it on the tea.
Izuku…Bakugou, Katsuki thought, testing out the shape of the words in his mind.
Katsuki…Midoriya, he tried next, trying to frown away the smile that rose unbidden to his face. It still didn’t sound quite right though, like there were still a few inches of dead space between Izuku’s reaching fingertips and Katsuki’s sweaty palm.
Midoriya-Bakugou, Katsuki decided. It had a better ring.
Katsuki blinked slowly, honey-warm and hopeful, and he returned his sleepy gaze to the notebook.
‘Would it be okay? Even if I’m not a hero anymore?’ Izuku wrote next.
The satisfaction of having read Izuku correctly was tampered by the way his feeble heart clenched. Izuku had told Katsuki he still had the embers. All Might had told Izuku he was a great hero. Katsuki had told Izuku that he wanted to chase him forever.
So what the fuck was up with this quitter talk?
‘Can I still catch up to him?’
Katsuki practically growled at the page.
Izuku would “catch up” with him even if Katsuki had to grab the damn red string of fate himself and strangle him with it.
Stupid Izuku Midoriya-Bakugou.
That night, Katsuki fell asleep sitting up with a strangled grip on his notebook. His father was the one to gently pry it from his hand and tuck him more securely beneath his blanket, retreating back into the kitchen with an empty mug of tea and the warm smile of a man whose son had survived death and beaten a second chance out of the reaper.
*
Katsuki’s muscles flexed uncomfortably, still only a shadow of their former strength, but his grip was sturdy.
“C’mon, little bunny,” Miruko goaded from across the table, her hand clasped in his own. “I know you’ve got more power than that!”
Katsuki grit his teeth and pressed harder into her palm. “Fuck you, bitch.”
Miruko cackled, even as the back of her palm wavered closer towards the folding table they’d commandeered for their arm wrestling match. “Sweaty bastard,” she said, pushing against the progress Katsuki had made until they were close to even again. “Fight for it!”
“You fight for it, you one-armed, furry-faced-”
Katsuki’s physical therapist gasped as she reentered the room. “You two!” Her clipboard clattered to the ground in her haste to reach them. “You know you’re not supposed to be exerting yourself this much, Mr. Bakugou!”
Katsuki frowned and gave one last surge of strength into his battle of weak-ass arms with Miruko. “I’m not exerting shit,” he ground out.
Miruko snickered and pinned his hand to the table.
“Fuck,” Katsuki hissed.
“And you, Ms. Usagiyama,” the physical therapist continued, huffing with the force of her ire as she finally reached them and put her arm down on the table like a referee holding a red card. “You should know better. You’re an adult for heaven’s sake and nowhere near completely healed!”
Miruko grimaced and shot Katsuki a commiserating eye roll. “Guess that’s my cue to go, Cottontail.”
Katsuki frowned. “You’re the fuckin’ rabbit, Carrots. You get brain damage, too?”
“Hah!” Mirko laughed, pausing in her tactical retreat. “You wish, brat. Bet you’d try to convince me you’ve got a point on me.”
“I do have a point on you!” Katsuki insisted.
“A point?” Katsuki’s physical therapist repeated, aghast. “How many times have you…? Oh, I can’t believe you two!”
“Later shrimp!” Miruko called with a wide grin before ducking out of the building’s front door.
Katsuki didn’t wave.
He also refused to acknowledge that it was because his arm hurt like a bitch.
“Alright you,” his physical therapist said with a stern, exasperated frown. “Let me see that arm of yours.”
Katsuki reluctantly held it out to her and tried not to fidget as she firmly massaged his aching muscles. Today, there were only a few elderly patients hanging around the facility but Katsuki knew Best Jeanist and Hawks also came here. Izuku, too, though he seemed to be coming less and less.
“Scale from one to ten.”
Katsuki’s mouth twisted. “Zero,” he said.
His physical therapist hummed and pressed down on a particularly sensitive spot and Katsuki fought to keep his expression neutral. “Nice try,” she said dryly. “Scale from one to ten.”
“Fuck you.” Katsuki weakly flexed his arm in her grip. “Four.”
The woman hummed again. “Four’s not too bad,” she observed. “You’ve been doing your exercises at home?”
Katsuki nodded.
“And you’ve been exercising only as much as the guide tells you to?” she prompted next.
Katsuki didn’t say anything and his physical therapist moved on to rotating Katsuki’s wrist and smoothing the tension out of his finger joints.
“That’s what I thought,” she muttered. “Stubborn boy. Maybe if you’d let your body heal instead of arm wrestling you’d be at a three.”
“Maybe if you’d give me better exercises, I wouldn’t have to arm wrestle,” Katsuki shot back. “I’ve been out of the hospital for weeks, old lady.”
The physical therapist rolled her eyes. “You’ve been out for two weeks, Mr. Bakugou and, might I remind you, against the advice of your doctor.”
“Doc gave the all clear.”
Pursing her lips, she said, “I suspect he might have been strong-armed into it.” Then she released his arm and pulled a sheet of paper from her apron pocket and began scribbling on it.
“You know, you’re real fuckin’ cynical,” Katsuki observed.
His physical therapist tore off the sheet and handed it to him. “Try having you as a patient,” she replied blithely, “and exchange your old workout for these exercises. Do not combine them. Do you understand me?”
Katsuki waved her off, glad to find that the ache in his arm had lessened to something nearly ignorable. “Yeah, yeah, whatever. Can I go get my drugs, now?”
She sighed and tucked her notebook away. “Have at it, Mr. Bakugou. I’ll see you next week.”
Katsuki stood from his chair with a quiet agreement and started making his way towards the attached pharmacy.
“And I better see some evidence of rest next time!”
Smiling, Katsuki raised his arm and made a loose fist with his left hand before slowly lifting his middle finger. He hadn’t been able to do that a few weeks ago and the gesture was gratifying, to say the least.
*
The pharmacy attached to the physical therapy building was practically a store in its own right, the connecting door spitting Katsuki awkwardly out into the skincare aisle.
“K-A-M,” Katsuki heard Kaminari start to spell.
Katsuki frowned and continued maneuvering towards the front desk, catching sight of Kaminari boredly tapping the countertop he was leaning against while the pharmacist shuffled around in the backroom, visible through the thin pane of glass separating them.
“The fuck are you doin’ here?” Katsuki asked. “I thought you were cleared.”
A wide grin spread across Kaminari’s face. “Blasty!” he cheered. “Hey man.”
Katsuki scoffed. “Don’t ‘hey man’ me. What’s fucking wrong with you?”
“Hm?” Kaminari said. “Oh! Nothing, really.”
Katsuki raised a judgmental eyebrow, channeling his best inner-Aizawa-sensei, and was rewarded with the appearance of a bead of sweat on Kaminari’s brow.
“Geez man, cool it!” Kaminari said, laughing nervously. “I hate it when you do that face.”
“What face?”
“You know what face,” Kaminari complained, his nervousness slipping back into an easy smile. “And I mean it, I’m all good. Just refilling my ADHD meds.”
The pharmacist emerged from the back room and handed Kaminari a white paper bag. “You’re all set,” he said, before turning to Katsuki and asking, “Bakugou, right?”
Katsuki nodded.
“I’ll just be a minute. Back shelves were messed up this morning and they’ve been a bitch to sort through.”
Katsuki nodded again, grateful, at least, that the man wouldn’t overhear the conversation he wanted to have with Kaminari.
With a goofy smirk, Kaminari held up his bag of medication like a trophy. “Look out world, Denki Kaminari is back in business!”
Katsuki scoffed. “The business of singing Floppy Ears’ praises, maybe.”
Kaminari gasped and brought his hand to his chest. “You mean the lovely Ms. Floppy Ears who is perfect in every way?”
Katsuki’s lips turned down in disgust, then shifted into a grimace. “Actually…I wanted to ask you about that shit.”
Kaminari laughed awkwardly. “Please tell me you’re not referring to Jirou as ‘that shit' ‘cause I think I might have to duel you for her honor. It’s in the boyfriend rules.”
Katsuki reached out to shove Kaminari’s head to the side. “Dunce Face-”
“I’m joking, I’m joking!” he laughed, ducking away from Katsuki’s grip. “I could never duel my bro.”
“Idiot,” Katsuki huffed tersely.
“Soo what’s up? You seem really tense, man.”
“You’re tense,” Katsuki shot back petulantly.
Kaminari raised a hand to his chin in mock thoughtfulness. “Super tense, then. My bad. I know the signs of a Bakugou-in-crisis when I see them, so spill dude.”
“I-” Katsuki started, before growling and pulling lightly at the hair on the back of his head.
Calm, Katsuki reminded himself. Be calm.
“What’s…different, about you and Ears now compared to you and Ears before.”
Kaminari cocked his head to the side. “Before…we started dating?”
“Yeah.”
Kaminari hummed and plopped down onto the floor, cross-legged. “Well, I mean we’re not that much different, right?” he said. “Like, I really cared about her before, only I didn’t know she felt the same way about me, so I guess now it’s…easier. To show her that I care.”
Katsuki spared a brief glance at the pharmacist, still shuffling around in the boxes that littered the back room, and he reluctantly slid to the floor as well.
“How is that any fucking different than being friends?”
Kaminari smiled, a slight blush rising to his cheeks. He pulled his knees up to his chest and started picking at the fishnets visible through the rips in his jeans. “Well, I guess it’s how we show it. ‘Cause, um-” Kaminari flushed an even deeper shade of red. “Before, we might study together and talk and that was cool and all but now if we study together, we sit closer and- and kiss, sometimes, but even if we don’t I know that she thinks of me the way I think of her and when she smiles, she…um…well, it’s-”
“Gross,” Katsuki deduced. “She makes you feel gross. Like you wanna hurl?”
A soft laugh bubbled out of Kaminari. “Um, I guess that’s one way to put it.” Then he scooted closer to Katsuki on the ground, probably picking up all sorts of dust and dirt on his pants just so his knee would bump into Katsuki’s and he could lower his voice conspiratorially. “Why? Does someone make you wanna hurl, Blasty? In the good way, I mean.”
Katsuki bit the inside of his cheek, flicking a piece of lint off of his own pants and not quite meeting his friend’s excited, searching stare.
“How do you know if it’s the good way?”
“Well,” Kaminari started, drawing out the syllable. “Do you wanna hurl because you hate them?”
Katsuki’s throat tightened.
“Wait!” Kaminari cried, throwing out his hands. “Let me rephrase! That’s a loaded word for you. What I meant was…do you care about them? Pay attention to them?”
Katsuki shuffled his feet on the floor, cringing at the accidental, high pitched squeak of rubber on linoleum. “Yeah,” Katsuki conceded, troubled by the implications. “But it’s not just…I mean, I don’t just care about-”
Kaminari’s hand landed softly on Katsuki’s left arm. “I know, man,” he offered quietly, patting him twice. “You care about your friends, too.” Then Kaminari released his grip and waffled his hands around in the air. “It’s not a matter of only caring about one person, it’s more…is that care romantic? Do you wanna show that person you care in a way that’s…that’s committed to them, specifically? So that they hold a special kind of care that’s different from your friends?”
Katsuki clenched his fist. He thought of the name Midoriya-Bakugou and wondered if the desire to tie the two of them together for life was the same as the desire to draw their names in a heart.
“But different how? None of this shit makes any fucking sense.”
Kaminari made a sympathetic noise. “Yeah it’s…it can be different for people. And that’s totally okay! But…um…oh! How about we do this?” Kaminari shifted onto his knees in front of Katsuki, an excited gleam in his eye. “I’m gonna describe some stuff and you try to figure out which category fits your feelings best, yeah?”
Katsuki sighed.
“Great! So if I was hanging out with Tokoyami, then I’d feel comfortable throwing my arm around him, having some friendly conversation, studying, that kinda stuff.”
Katsuki eyed him warily.
“But,” Kaminari continued, raising a finger in the air, “I wouldn’t wanna be cuddled up to him, because that’s not something I desire from that relationship. We’re friends and all but we’re not that good of friends. I’d feel kind of indifferent about it, and it’d probably get really awkward and uncomfortable, too. But with Kirishima? Totally fine. That’s my bro and cuddling would be a way to show my affection for him through physical touch. You followin’?”
Bakugou crossed his arm. “‘Course I’m fucking following,” he said. “This is child’s shit. Touch Bird Brain but don’t hug, but hugging Shitty Hair’s fine ‘cause you like him better and you’re a touchy motherfucker.”
Kaminari shot him a thumbs up. “Great!”
“This isn’t fucking helping,” Katsuki complained.
“I’m getting there!” Kaminari defended. “So it’s like, being close with Kiri is chill but I wouldn’t wanna kiss him. Would I do it on a dare? Sure, ‘cause there’s no feelings involved except for friendship and I’m comfortable enough with him to not wimp out, like I would if I was dared to kiss…say, Mineta. Jirou, though? I want to kiss her. And I think about it all the time.”
“I did not need to know that.”
“So as you can see,” Kaminari continued, ignoring Katsuki’s interruption, “the level of comfort I feel with touching people changes depending on how close I am with a person and the desire to touch them is specific to how I feel, too. Kissing? Romantic. Hugging?” Kaminari shrugged. “Could be both. But if I’m feeling really upset or vulnerable, I’d probably go to Jirou first.”
Katsuki’s brow furrowed. “Why? Don’t you talk to Shark Face more?”
Kaminari paused, biting at his lip. “If you counted the minutes? Probably yeah, since we’ve been closer for longer. It’s more about…seeking comfort, I think.”
Katsuki clenched his fist. “Like…like getting rid of emotional shit by beating shit up?”
A look of understanding dawned on Kaminari’s face. “That…makes so much sense for you, oh my god.”
“Spark Plug-”
“I feel like I just unlocked a whole new level of Baku-knowledge.”
“Dunce.”
“Okay, okay,” Kaminari relented. “Yeah, it’s kinda like that except you’re looking for comfort from another person, which is a lot more vulnerable and that’s why you try to pick the right person. So if I’m upset about something that I’ve talked to Kirishima about before or I know he also struggles with then I might pick him first. You definitely don’t always have to pick your romantic partner as your first go-to, comfort person.”
“You’re fucking contradicting yourself, then!”
“It’s complicated!” Kaminari sucked on his teeth, thinking. “It’s more like…when I feel like that, I want Jirou to know me, y’know? And I trust that she wants to know me, too, and that she’ll handle me with care.”
Katsuki let his head thunk back on the wall behind him. What Kaminari was talking about sounded a little like how Katsuki had been seeking out his parents, recently. But he didn’t wanna spill his guts to them, he just wanted…
He wanted…
Comfort, was the word that sprung to mind but Katsuki didn’t want to be handled with care like a fucking baby, he wanted…
He wanted to hear his mom use the nicknames he’d grown out of at four years old and he wanted to allow his dad to fuss over him the tiniest bit. Wanted to feel loved and safe and have proof of it. Not handled, but cared for.
Cared about, while still leaving Katsuki room to breathe.
And maybe that was the difference between Kaminari and Katsuki. Katsuki didn’t want to drone on about Izuku’s face or call him lovely or go to him with every tiny hurt feeling he ever had but…but Katsuki had gone to him, when his feelings were too big and chaotic for Katsuki to deal with alone and Izuku had let Katsuki drag him to Ground Beta after curfew.
Yes, they fought, but it also felt a little like resolution. Katsuki understood Izuku a little better after that fight and he didn’t cringe at the fact that he’d given away parts of himself to Izuku, either.
It was a trade that Katsuki had wanted to make and he didn’t fucking regret it.
Katsuki pictured having Izuku at his back, wrapping his arms around Katsuki and smooshing their faces together, and Katsuki found that he didn’t mind the idea. He thought about kissing Izuku and thought that he might like the part where he held Izuku close, even if heat wasn’t rushing to his face at the thought. Something bubbly was rising in Katsuki’s chest, though, and maybe those were the butterflies everyone was always talking about.
Katsuki thought it felt a lot more like using his quirk to shoot off into the sky and then letting himself plummet toward the ground- exhilarating and nerve wracking in equal turns, even if he knew his quirk was there to catch him.
Katsuki thought about the name Izuku Bakugou, scribbled in a heart, and wondered if Izuku was there to catch him.
'Can I still catch up?' He’d written.
Can I still catch up? Katsuki had thought.
And maybe, for that to happen, someone had to finally stop running.
“Thanks for this, Fuck Face,” Katsuki said, voice gruff and scratchy.
“Aw,” Kaminari said. “Anytime, Grumpy Pants!”
*
Izuku had never specified what he wanted when Katsuki had offered the note-taking trade and the more days that passed without any comment from Izuku, the more uneasy Katsuki became.
Before Izuku had lost his quirk, he would have leapt at the offer and probably asked for something stupid like training time or something sappy, like going to the arcade or having an All Might movie night.
Now, Katsuki could see the reasoning behind those requests a little more clearly. He could watch the way Kaminari and Jirou playfully nudged each other while she taught him new songs on the guitar after band practice and he could feel a mirrored desire for that closeness with Izuku. Though, close for them was usually bloody and brutal.
Close for them was falling apart without Izuku on his heels and the fact that Izuku hadn’t even realized he’d given himself away was pissing Katsuki off because either the nerd had mixed up the notebooks on purpose or he hadn’t and either way he was barely acknowledging Katsuki. He barely smiled.
Even Izuku’s nerd friends were starting to notice but Katsuki heard the way Izuku brushed off their tentative concern with the same, unwavering voice he’d used when he told Katsuki he was quirkless again.
They all seemed glad to know Izuku wasn’t hurting too badly.
Katsuki felt incensed every time he heard that deceitful, too-steady tone.
Fine my ass, Katsuki thought, seething. What the fuck happened to catching me?
“Izuku!” Katsuki hollered.
Izuku paused in the hallway and turned back towards Katsuki, face blank. “Yeah, Kacchan?”
Katsuki licked his lips and steeled his nerves. “Go home with me today?” he asked, doing his damndest to tilt what he would normally demand into a question, instead.
Izuku stared at him, nothing but the slightest widening of his eyes giving away his thoughts.
He’s surprised, Katsuki noted.
But surprised to be asked instead of told or surprised to be wanted?
Either fucking way, he shouldn’t be. Fucking bastard.
“Um, sure Kacchan,” Izuku acquiesced. “Are you ready to go?”
“Yeah,” Katsuki said, striding forward and lightly pinching Izuku’s shirtsleeve in his hand as he passed. “Let’s go.”
The small gesture wasn’t lost on Izuku, not with the way he kept staring at the point of contact between them, and it wasn’t lost on Katsuki that the hold was completely unnecessary. He didn’t need to drag somebody who was keeping pace with him. He didn’t need to tether himself to someone who had already agreed to stay, at least for the distance from UA to their neighborhood.
Katsuki wanted to secure a better promise than that.
Katsuki counted to ten in his head and when he reached the final number, he let his fingers slip down and bump the scarred skin on the back of Izuku’s palm. At the feeling, Izuku jerked back and Katsuki had to swallow a shout as he chased the idiot’s palm to grip tightly in his own.
“Kacchan…?” Izuku said uncertainly.
As if Katsuki could fucking hold his hand by mistake.
Fucking as if.
“What,” Katsuki said shortly, the syllable a few shades meaner than he’d intended.
“…Nothing. Nevermind,” Izuku murmured, expression soft and sad in turns while he shot Katsuki that same almost-smile from the day Katsuki had asked Izuku to take notes for him.
If Katsuki’s other hand was working, he would have reached over in a heartbeat to pry the other boy’s lips upward. As it stood, however, Katsuki was unwilling to relinquish his prize.
He settled for an irritated scoff.
“Fucking smile like you mean it or don’t do it at all. You know I can’t stand that fake shit.”
Izuku slowed to a sudden stop, their joined hands prompting Katsuki to do the same and glance back at him.
“What?” Izuku asked tightly, breathless confusion spilling out of his unsmiling mouth.
“What, nothing,” Katsuki bit back, and something that felt like a horde of butterflies bubbled beneath his skin. Something that felt like falling from an unfathomable height pressed against the tender seams of his chest. “You’ve been pissing me off all week.”
Katsuki tugged at their hands but Izuku refused to budge, expression clouding over.
“If I’ve been pissing you off so much then why bother asking me to go home with you today?” he challenged, his tone two shades sharper than Katsuki was expecting.
“Huh?” he said. “Why the fuck do you think?”
Izuku exhaled harshly through his nose and Katsuki realized with a start that it was the first real emotion he’d seen Izuku express at all.
“I’m not going to fight you, Kacchan,” he snapped.
Understanding washed over Katsuki like a gentle breeze, pulling at the clues in his mind until they were carefully assembled right in front of Katsuki’s eyes. He slowly stepped closer to Izuku, feeling for the first time in his life like he was the one doing the analyzing. “Oh yeah?” he goaded quietly. “Then what do you call this, right now?”
Izuku’s brow furrowed, his mouth nearly pulled in a sneer. “What?”
“What nothing,” Katsuki said again. “You know damn well what, Izuku. Why are you fighting me?”
Frustration and defensiveness overtook Izuku’s face. “I’m not,” he insisted. “You’re the one who- you’re the one that…”
Katsuki huffed, unamused. “Yeah, you finish that sentence, nerd. I’m the one who what?” he sneered. “Asked you to spend time with me? Grabbed your hand? What did I do now? Kacchan the bully back to his old ways, is that it?”
“That is not what I said,” Izuku snapped harshly, a barely-there tremor in his voice.
“But it’s what you’re fucking thinking.”
Izuku turned his head away from Katsuki, staring angrily at a point in the distance. “I’m not doing this with you.”
Katsuki moved even closer, taking a deep, steadying breath before he carefully lowered his chin to perch on Izuku’s shoulder, staring back towards the school and swallowing down the taste of submission that rose in his throat like bile. He felt Izuku’s sharp intake of breath. Felt him turn to gape at Katsuki in what was probably shock.
“Kacchan,” Izuku said, “What are you-”
“I’m not the one fighting,” Katsuki murmured, squeezing his eyes shut in a desperate attempt to quell the desire to bare his fangs. To fight.
He suppressed it because Katsuki wanted to win and the only way to do that was to save.
Izuku’s chest continued to heave, rising quicker and quicker with every pass.
“Kacchan,” he started, voice wavering. Then it firmed, admonishing. “Kacchan.” Katsuki opened his eyes, gaze flicking low, and caught sight of Izuku’s empty hand clenching and unclenching over open air. “I’m not doing this with you. There’s not anything to-”
Katsuki pressed his forehead into Izuku’s shoulder, the back of his neck bared to the open air and his eyes glued to Izuku’s stupid red sneakers, heart trembling in waves of fierceness and uncertainty.
Katsuki stood there, quiet and hopeful and balancing on a wire.
Izuku drew in a sharp breath. “I’m not-”
“Izuku,” Katsuki breathed. “Why are you fighting?”
He sensed the tremble in Izuku’s lips before he felt the tears land on his neck and before he saw Izuku’s free hand reach up to scrub at his eyes. Before he heard the mournful tremor in his voice.
“I don’t know,” Izuku cried. “‘Cause…’cause you can’t-” he hiccuped. “You can’t…”
Katsuki pressed his face closer to Izuku’s throat, not daring to raise his head. “Can’t what?” he prompted.
“Can’t do this!” Izuku exploded. “It’s- it’s out of nowhere and you’re still recovering so it probably doesn’t even count and-”
“Izuku,” Katsuki shouted back. “It’s not out of nowhere. You’re the one who shut down and plastered on that fake ass smile and I…” Katsuki sighed harshly and tightened his grip on Izuku’s hand. “I’ve been waiting for you to wake the fuck back up already.”
Izuku shuffled his feet. He didn’t squeeze Katsuki’s hand back.
It felt like the sliver of doubt that crept in ten feet from the ground when Katsuki wondered if he’d waited too long to set off his quirk. Wondered if he was about to splatter all over the pavement.
“I’m quirkless again,” Izuku said, trying and failing to put on that unbothered, it-was-nice-while-it-lasted voice.
Katsuki wanted to fucking strangle him.
Instead, he counted to ten.
Izuku stayed rooted to the spot, hardly breathing all the while.
Finally, Katsuki let out a tight, “And?”
Katsuki felt Izuku’s shoulder slump. “And I c-can’t be a hero anymore,” he whispered brokenly.
Katsuki grit his teeth, expression pained and still hidden in Izuku’s shoulder. “That’s the wrong and,” he insisted. Then he took another breath and raised his watery gaze to meet Izuku’s head-on. Kacchan versus Deku. “You’re s’posed to say ‘and I’m gonna be the number one hero’.”
Izuku’s mouth twitched into a wobbling, involuntary frown. “Why are you doing this?”
Katsuki glanced up to the sky in frustration before leveling his gaze with Izuku’s once more. “Why am I chasing you?” he asked tightly. “Fuck if that’s not all I’ve been doing for the past year! For the past ten years, fuck!”
Izuku wouldn’t quite meet his eyes. “But Kacchan doesn’t…that’s not…” he cried haltingly, the tears swimming in his eyes finally beginning to spill over in earnest. “How could I ever catch up to you now?”
“Jesus Christ, Deku,” Katsuki cried. “That’s the name of a hero, right? You’re not…you can’t come this far just to fucking give up on me!”
Izuku’s eyes widened in confusion.
“Yeah,” Katsuki continued. “Me. This hero shit is an us thing, Deku. It always fuckin’ has been so don’t you dare leave me behind! Don’t you even consider it!”
Izuku didn’t squeeze his hand.
“Kacchan.”
“Fuck you,” Katsuki bawled, unable to even wipe the tears from his face for fear that Izuku wouldn’t ever offer his hand out again if Katsuki let go of it now. “I died and came back to you.”
Izuku’s other hand reached up to rub beneath his eyes. “I know, Kacchan,” he sobbed. “I know.”
“So you can’t just quit,” Katsuki insisted wetly.
“I’m not-” Izuku stuttered. “I’m not quitting, I just-”
Katsuki shoved his forehead into Izuku’s and closed his eyes for a moment, sniffling. “It just sounds like you are. It just looks like you are, walking around this place like a zombie. Did you even fucking realize which notebook you gave me?”
“Wha-?” Izuku asked, blinking rapidly in the face of his grief and confusion. “What are you-”
“Midoriya-Bakugou,” Katsuki said firmly. “I like Midoriya-Bakugou best.”
Izuku’s mouth fell open in shock. “But- but I don’t have a-”
“I don’t care!” Katsuki shouted, bringing their joined hands up to his chest to quell the semi-painful, rapidfire pace of his heart.
“Kacchan,” Izuku said seriously, eyes wide as saucers. “You- you have to calm down. Your heart-”
“I don’t care that you’re quirkless, Izuku!”
“Kacchan!”
“Have Aizawa teach you to use his scarf!”
“Kacchan, you have to control your heart!”
“Have Goggles make you new gear!”
“Kacchan,” Izuku cried, panicked and clenching the material of Katsuki’s shirt. “Please-”
“Have Tails teach you fucking martial arts,” Katsuki shouted, tears slipping down his blotched-red face, “I don’t care, Izuku!”
Thump. Thump. Thump.
Familiar determination sparked behind Izuku’s eyes and he suddenly reached out to squeeze Katsuki’s throat, the pressure light but full of warning around his windpipe. “Don’t think I won’t make you pass out to keep you alive, Katsuki. Your heart.”
“You-”
Katsuki’s chest continued to heave as he desperately tried to wrangle his breathing under control, Izuku’s palm warm and grounding against his skin.
Calm, Katsuki thought, be calm.
“Kacchan,” Izuku murmured mournfully.
“You wouldn’t…hurt me,” Katsuki managed in between slowly simmering breaths.
Izuku’s expression tightened and something sour settled along the line of his mouth. “You wouldn’t chase me like this,” he whispered. “It’s…this isn’t how it works. It’s all backwards.”
“Fuck you,” Katsuki said.
Izuku frowned. “Ka–”
“No, fuck you,” he repeated, sniffing pathetic lines of snot back into his nose. “Look at me.”
Izuku pursed his lips into a tight frown, gaze darting all over Katsuki’s face but his eyes were distant and weepy and cold and-
And Katsuki didn’t know what to do if this didn’t work.
“You’re my hero, Izuku,” Katsuki declared, slowly and evenly and with all the feeling his still-beating, in-recovery, second-chance heart could muster. He sniffed and tried to put the pieces of himself back together with nothing but one useless hand.
Izuku’s fingers were still held between his own. Limp.
Katsuki squeezed.
Choked out, “I don’t want to be your villain.”
Izuku’s face crumpled into something like despair. Something like relief. Something like love. He squeezed back so tightly Katsuki thought his bones in his hand might snap.
“You’re not a villain,” Izuku cried, shoving his face into Katsuki’s neck. “You’re not. You’re my hero, too. I- I- you know that, Kacchan. You know. You…”
Katsuki let his weight slump forward, shoving his face into Izuku’s greasy hair. “I know,” he agreed. “It’s you and me, okay? No matter what.”
Izuku nodded fiercely against Katsuki’s collarbone. “It’s you and me.”
“Swear it,” Katsuki demanded.
Izuku sniffed and freed his face from Katsuki’s throat to look him in the eye again, the green of his irises like sea glass- shining brightly and threatening to buckle under the pressure in equal turns.
Beautiful, maybe.
Katsuki had never noticed beautiful things, before, and the word appeared in his mind’s eye like a stumbling, newborn fawn.
Maybe, in time, it would grow strong enough to leap from his lips.
Izuku smiled wetly.
“I swear on my limited edition 10th anniversary All Might poster.”
“Good.” Katsuki tugged at Izuku’s hand again. This time, Izuku allowed himself to be pulled and Katsuki turned his head to wipe his own tears on his shirtsleeve. “I’m fuckin’ holding you to that, nerd.”
Izuku squeezed Katsuki’s hand. “Good,” he repeated, and Katsuki didn’t have to turn his head to know that he was still smiling. “And…um…Kacchan, I’m sorry that I-”
“I’ll kill you, shut up,” Katsuki interrupted hastily. “Do you want to go to my place or yours?”
Izuku released a soft huff of air and shifted closer until his cheek was pillowed on top of Katsuki’s shoulder as they walked, their movements clunky and awkward.
“Yours,” he mumbled.
Katsuki grunted out an affirmative.
Distantly, he was aware that he hadn’t even considered shoving Izuku away.
Privately, he preferred their newfound stumbling gait.
Idly, Katsuki wondered if Izuku could discern that much from his white-knuckled grip, and suddenly it didn’t seem like such a horrible thing to be known by Izuku.
“I guess this means I finally caught-a-Kacchan, huh?” Izuku asked.
Katsuki scoffed out a bright laugh. “In your fucking dreams, nerd. I’m the one who caught-a-Deku. Wily bastard, too.”
Izuku’s bubbly laughter was overloud in Katsuki’s ear and his breath was uncomfortably hot on his neck and Katsuki was ten feet from the ground, setting off fireworks to save himself from certain death.
“Jerk,” Izuku laughed.
And it felt like victory.
*
Katsuki’s house was quiet when he pushed open the door, Izuku only releasing Katsuki’s hand to lean down and untie his red shoelaces.
“Excuse the intrusion,” Izuku called out.
Katsuki toed off his own shoes and shook them off haphazardly in the entranceway, switching clumsily into his house slippers with one hand braced against the wall.
“Folks are at work.”
Izuku reached out and adjusted Katsuki’s shoes, placing them neatly next to his own. A mirror image of the way his parents always left theirs.
To Katsuki’s horror, he felt his face go warm.
Satisfied with their shoe arrangement, Izuku stood with his hands on his hips- a habit he’d developed as a snot-nosed brat trying to emulate All Might’s signature pose- and said, “Kacchan, don’t you think you should take your heart medication now?”
“No,” Katsuki replied, quickly walking down the hall and towards his bedroom.
Izuku scrambled to catch up with him.
“Yes,” Izuku insisted. “Kacchan, you just-”
“Fuckin’-” Katsuki hissed, slamming to a halt and spinning to yank Izuku’s school bag off his shoulder without quite looking him in the eye. “Fine. They’re in the bathroom.”
Katsuki barely resisted the urge to slam his bedroom door behind himself. He settled for dropping their backpacks on the floor and collapsing onto the bed with his working arm tossed over his face.
Apparently, Katsuki could become flustered because of Deku.
And for damn shoes of all things…
Izuku tiptoed into the room a few minutes later, handing Katsuki two pills and a glass of water he must have filled in the kitchen.
Katsuki grumbled but swallowed them, tracking Izuku’s careful seat on the edge of the bed with the corner of his eye.
For lack of anything else to say, Katsuki proceeded to drain the glass.
Izuku tapped his slippers on the ground, waiting until Katsuki had dutifully swallowed both pills to offer a wobbly, embarrassed smile.
“I…I really switched the notebooks?” he asked.
Katsuki snorted. “Obviously.” Then he spared Izuku an analytical once-over, the heavy bags under his eyes even more obvious in the soft lighting. Gruffly, he said, “You never looked back over your notes?”
Izuku bit the inside of his cheek, eyes glued to his knees. A wry, almost-smile pulled at his lips.
“Obviously.”
“Little shit,” Katsuki murmured. Then he swung his legs on to the bed and kicked Izuku in the side. “Move.”
“Wha-”
“Move. C’mon,” Katsuki demanded, continuing to poke and prod Izuku away from the corner of the bed until he landed in the space beside Katsuki. “So damn difficult.”
Izuku let out an affronted noise. “You didn’t say-”
“You only mixed them after third period,” Katsuki interrupted. “And only on that first day.”
Izuku pulled at his lower lip, thinking, even as he settled against the pillow.
“You drew my eye,” Katsuki said.
Izuku paused, not turning to face Katsuki. “...Why do you think it was yours?”
Katsuki yawned. “The handsomeness, probably.”
That, at least, sparked a small laugh from Izuku. “Yeah, I guess that would be a dead giveaway, huh?”
Katsuki hummed. “Then you drew…” Katsuki’s hand made a vague shape in the air. “Almost me. With an X scar on my face.”
Katsuki heard Izuku sigh and shift onto his side, facing Katsuki. Katsuki only allowed his eyes to follow the action.
“That’s Kudo,” Izuku said. “He does look a lot like you.”
Katsuki made a face and Izuku pressed his lips together to suppress a grin. “But less cool,” Katsuki insisted.
The grin slipped free.
“But less cool,” Izuku agreed.
Katsuki blinked heavily, then turned to face Izuku completely, suspicion drawing his lips and eyebrows low. “You fucker. You gave me the drowsy meds, didn’t you?”
Izuku merely shrugged, his face soft but expression colored with the barest hint of mischief. “Kacchan needs to take it easy.”
Katsuki huffed. “Betrayed by my own…”
Izuku propped himself up on his elbow, eyes alight with interest.
Katsuki turned his head away.
“No, don’t be like that,” Izuku complained teasingly, fingers pressing gently against Katsuki’s cheek until their eyes met again. Izuku’s, wide and hopeful while Katsuki’s were simply wide. “Your own what?”
Katsuki pretended to bite the fingers keeping him in place.
Izuku laughed as he pulled his hand away, only for it to land delicately in Katsuki’s hair. “Your own…?”
After a long, charged moment Katsuki flicked his gaze towards the barely-there touch, expectant.
Izuku tilted his head, attempting to read Katsuki’s expression.
The ceiling fan hummed quietly above them, lightly shifting the corners of Katsuki’s hero posters, spokes whirring around and around and around until Izuku’s expression steeled and he started running his mangled, world-saving fingers through Katsuki’s hair like the boy made of explosions and hellfire was loved.
Katsuki smiled and it tasted like winning.
“My own Deku,” he finished, sleepwarm and soft in a way that would have him tensed to fight if not for the honey-like feeling spreading through his limbs and lulling his prideful, second-chance heart into earnestness.
Izuku blushed a deep, ruby red and Katsuki couldn’t help but laugh.
“S’not even that romantic, nerd.”
Izuku covered his face with the hand not still buried in Katsuki’s hair. “Does this mean you’ll take me to the amusement park one day?” he asked. “And we’ll hold hands and share a crepe?”
“Uh…sure?” Katsuki replied. “I’ll fuckin’ destroy you at ring toss.”
Izuku lowered his hand enough to peek between his fingers, one eyebrow raised. “With your left hand?”
Katsuki sneered. “With my fuckin’ teeth if I have to.”
Izuku hummed, his amusement palpable.
“The fuck are you laughin’ at, you-”
Izuku ducked his face until it was pressed against Katsuki’s shoulder, his own lightly shaking with laughter, or maybe nerves, as he dropped his hand from Katsuki’s hair to tightly wrap around Katsuki’s torso instead.
“...What is this?” Katsuki asked, slightly breathless.
Is he trying to strangle-?
“A hug, Kacchan.”
“Oh.” Katsuki blinked. Slowly. “I knew that.”
Izuku shifted closer, expression hidden near Katsuki’s heart.
“I miss them,” he whispered.
Katsuki’s only working arm was trapped in between their torsos, so rather than beat Izuku at his own hugging game like he wanted to, the best Katsuki could manage was a careful shift of his knuckles against Izuku’s stomach.
Izuku wriggled at the touch, which made Katsuki frown.
“Miss who?” he asked, redirecting away from his laughable attempt at reciprocation.
Izuku hummed and Katsuki hated that he couldn’t see his face at this angle. It made him harder to read.
“Kudo and the others,” he admitted slowly. “It’s just so…quiet. All the time.”
Katsuki let his chin crowd on top of Deku’s head before pitching his voice slightly higher than his own. “Deku,” he mimicked, “stop using my quirk to grab the remote control. It’s lazy.”
Izuku stirred beneath his chin and Katsuki pushed his head down more insistently to keep him in place.
“Who cares about the remote,” he continued in a slightly different voice. “What about the giant All Might shrine in his brain?”
“Kacchan,” Izuku’s muffled voice said, “the vestiges couldn’t see into-“
“Well I’ve got an entire brain corner dedicated to loser quirks over here.”
“Who's that speaking?”
“It’s Kudo,” Katsuki replied in his own voice. “The handsome one. Now shut up.”
Katsuki cleared his throat, body feeling lethargic and heavy where he was nestled against Deku.
His mind swam.
“Deku, why are you always crying so much?” Katsuki asked, then he switched voices. “That’s so insensitive! Let the little fucker cry!” Then he went back to the first voice. “If his stupid eyes are full of water then I can’t see through them, and I wanna know what that cool explosion kid’s up to.”
Deku snickered. “Kacchan, I…I’m pretty sure the vestiges didn’t look through my eyes.”
“You don’t sound too sure about that.”
“Well…I…hm.”
“Hey, first user!” Katsuki called in the voice he had decided to use for the blackwhip vestige.
“Yoichi,” Izuku supplied.
“Yoichi!” Katsuki continued. “How the fuck’d you figure out your quirk transfers with DNA, huh?”
Katsuki yawned, then put on an affectation similar to Izuku’s ‘the world is puppies and rainbows’ voice. “Well you see, it happened when I had my tongue in his-”
“Kacchan!” Izuku sputtered, embarrassed and more than a little shocked.
“-ear ‘cause he was annoyin’ the fuck outta me,” Katsuki finished. Then, in his own voice, “The fuck’d you think I was sayin’, nerd?”
“Nothing, Kacchan,” Izuku laughed sweetly.
Katsuki didn't even really know what he was talking about anymore, but he knew Deku was breathing evenly beside himself and that seemed more important than whatever words were currently leaking from his lips like a shitty, drug-addled faucet.
“What would Nana say?” Izuku prompted. “All Might’s teacher.”
“Floaty?” Kacchan asked.
Izuku hummed.
“She’d say…damn, I can’t believe my protege turned into a discount skeleton, what the fuck dude.”
Izuku’s shoulders shook. “A-and what would En say?”
“That he should’ve ended it all before he got trapped as a ghost with a bunch of other chucklefucks,” Katsuki said, snickering.
Izuku suddenly maneuvered out from underneath Katsuki’s chin, raising his upper body to look Katsuki in the eye. “Did Kacchan just make a pun?” he asked happily.
Pinned beneath Izuku’s gaze and caught with the remnants of a laugh still in his throat, Katsuki said, “No.”
Izuku’s face spasmed and then he collapsed into a fit of giggles on top of Katsuki’s chest, mindful of his sling.
“The fuck?” Katsuki complained. “Fuckin…floppy Deku fish. Move.”
Izuku rolled off of Katsuki easily, clutching his stomach as another fit of laughter overtook him. “Flo-floppy Deku fish,” he echoed, overjoyed for reasons Katsuki’s sluggish mind couldn’t be bothered to piece together. Katsuki’s eyelids hung low and heavy, but he held them open for a moment longer, cataloging the soft curve of Deku’s scarred and smiling face.
Maybe, when Katsuki woke up, he’d find a marker and put Izuku’s freckles back where they belonged.
“I fuckin’...hate you, bastard,” Katsuki slurred. “I’ll hug you better than you did.”
Izuku wiped tears from the corners of his eyes, rolling back towards Katsuki until their knees bumped together. “You will?”
Katsuki closed his eyes. “T’morrow.”
Izuku curled around Katsuki’s working arm, safe and solid. “Tomorrow,” he agreed, and Katsuki didn’t even mind the feeling of Izuku’s warm breath on his bicep.
*
“Katsuki, I’m home!” Masaru called out as he put on his house slippers and set his briefcase down beside the couch.
The house remained quiet.
“Katsuki?” he tried again.
A year ago, Masaru wouldn’t have expected Katsuki to call back, but now the silence prompted him to walk down the hall and anxiously push open the door to his son’s bedroom.
“Katsuki, are you- oh,” Masaru sighed, placing a soothing hand over his beating heart. A line of drool trickled down the side of Katsuki’s open mouth and his chest rose and fell in even increments, his body slightly curled around a snoring Izuku who was holding onto Katsuki with a grip tight enough to let Masaru know he was still dreaming of loss.
“Oh, my sweet boys,” Masaru murmured, reaching for a blanket from Katsuki’s closet to drape over the pair.
Izuku drew in a sharp breath at the movement, eyes snapping open. “Wha-”
“Shh,” Masaru soothed, making sure he had Izuku’s attention before running a hand through his hair and tucking them in. “It’s alright, son. Go back to sleep.”
Moisture pooled in Izuku’s eyes. “But-” He darted a glance towards Katsuki, lips twitching upward at the awkward picture even as his shoulders tensed. “I…”
If Masaru hadn’t known what they were to each other, the look on Izuku’s tired face would’ve said it all.
“I’ll let your mom know where you are,” Masaru promised. “Now, go back to sleep, Izuku. I’m sure you need it.”
Slowly, Izuku tore his attention from Katsuki. “Are you sure?” he asked, the slight tremble in his voice enough to let Masaru know he was still a child afraid of rejection.
Masaru squeezed Izuku’s shoulder.
“I’m sure.”
They had dealt with far too much fear these past few months to let it linger where it didn’t belong.
The weight dropped from Izuku’s shoulders.
“I’ll wake you both in time for dinner, okay?”
Izuku nodded and easily sank back into the space carved out for him beside Katsuki.