Archive of Our Own ^beta

There’s something incredible about battling Kacchan with everything he’s got. It’s a wave that rushes through Izuku, lighting the grounds with the green lightning of One For All and cocooning the two of them. He forgets about curfew, and about school, and about how much trouble they’ll be in if any of the teachers find them. They’re alone here, and he can’t remember the last time he was so happy to be alone with Kacchan.

Kacchan isn’t happy, though. He had confessed his guilt and shame as explosively as he did everything else, and Izuku feels his words like fingers reaching past his ribs and squeezing his heart. Worse than Kacchan blaming himself for All Might’s retirement, worse than anything else he could have possibly said… he thinks that Izuku blames him. He believes that there’s any reality where Izuku could possibly have been looking down on him this entire time.

Izuku feels the edge of a cold knife slice through the hurt, and through the ragged sides pours burning anger. His long enduring patience evaporates in an instant, and he’s rushing at Kacchan, quirk flaring around him and snapping in time with his frustration. He has a second to take in the satisfied gleam in Kacchan’s eyes before Izuku sends him reeling with a kick to the face.

He’s satisfied too. It’s something small and tentative—familiar, because he had felt it the last time that they fought at Ground Beta; but still so, so new. He’d never been on Kacchan’s level before. Even a year ago if they’d tried to fight like this, Izuku would be dead. It hurts, but it also fills him with pride. This quirk got him here. Without it he’d be dead, dead, dead—

He can feel the smile cutting across his mouth.

It’s incredible, the way it feels like his heart is singing every time Kacchan looks his way—every time he acknowledges him. It’s incredible, and he hates it. Deep down, he knows that Kacchan isn’t looking at him. There’s a glowing core in Izuku now, with All Might written all over it, where once there had only been a gaping emptiness that Kacchan couldn’t see past. He isn’t looking at Izuku, so Izuku shouldn’t feel so proud of it.

He doesn’t know how he should feel.

“If I looked down on you, I wouldn’t want anything to do with you anymore,” he tries to explain. One more time. Maybe this time—maybe for once in his life—Kacchan will listen. “But I’m still here.”

He can’t read Kacchan’s expression. Not when he can barely see through his anger and hurt, his need for Kacchan to just understand. He hasn’t stuck around all these years through Kacchan’s abuse just so he could look down on him. Who the hell does that?

I’m here, he thinks as they meet in the middle, the heat from Kacchan’s explosions mingling with the sparks of One For All’s energy leaking out of Izuku’s skin.

I’m here! He thinks as he lands a punch to Kacchan’s face in midair, blood singing with adrenaline.

I’m still here!! He thinks desperately as Kacchan rockets them towards the ground, pinning Izuku down and winning the fight.

He doesn’t want to leave Kacchan behind. He’s never wanted that.

OOO

When all is said and done, Aizawa isn’t as hard on them as he could have been. All Might asked him to go easy on them, and it probably helped that they both look about as miserable as Katsuki feels right now. He’s always made sure to stay out of the kind of trouble that would get in the way of his goals, but for a moment out there, school and rules and the future hadn’t mattered. He hates how easy it is for Deku to rile him up. He hates that he went looking for it, this time. Deku probably couldn’t care less that Katsuki had failed to get his provisional license. Katsuki’s the only one throwing a tantrum.

Aizawa hands them a first aid kit before leaving in an exasperated huff, and All Might sends them a loaded, but compassionate look as he trails out after him. It normally would have irked Katsuki, but he’s feeling too wrung out to care. It’s like he overloaded his quota of emotions for the day and reached a point of apathy previously foreign to him. He’s been feeling that way a lot since he was… since camp.

He couldn’t even begin to process what All Might had told him tonight.

He sits there numbly for a while, only snapping back to the present when he hears Deku rifling through the first aid kit. Katsuki watches him disinfect his scrapes and slap band-aids over them. When he’s done, he pulls out a roll of gauze and glances up at Katsuki like he wants to ask something. Katsuki stares back unwaveringly, and watches him fidget, hesitation written in every line of his body.

“Do you…?” Deku’s question trails off into silence, his eyes cutting away from Katsuki’s like he can’t stand to look at him. Katsuki sighs harshly and starts bouncing his leg in frustration. Deku seems to recoil even more. Katsuki opens his mouth to tell him to spit it out, but Deku drops the gauze down in his lap instead and turns to leave before he can. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Kacchan,” he mumbles.

Katsuki wraps his bruised arms in deafening silence.

OOO

Their classmates tease them the next morning, but they don’t really get it. They all think it was a dumb fight, not the colossal tangled mess of emotions and confessions it had been. Izuku feels like he bared his soul to a force of nature and came out a wreck. He glances at Kacchan and wonders if he feels the same.

“So, did you make up after, or…?” Uraraka asks him. She knows more about his relationship with Kacchan than anyone else, even though he hasn’t really told her much about it. She has a knowing look on her face, though, and he thinks she can see something that the others can’t. Still, her question makes him anxious. Make up? That implies that there was ever a better state for their relationship to go back to. Izuku isn’t so sure there was, considering what Kacchan said to him.

Once all their classmates have all left the dorm, it finally hits Izuku that he and Kacchan would be basically alone in each other’s presence for the next three days. He’d spent the better part of his middle school days actively avoiding the other boy, and even before it got that bad, it had been quite a while since they had gone anywhere alone together.

He’d been happy to be alone with him while they were fighting last night, but now it’s suffocating. Izuku doesn’t do well with long silences like this, and they couldn’t really avoid each other while cleaning the common room.

“So…” he starts suddenly, latching on to the first thing he can think of that wouldn’t tear open any of the still-healing wounds they’d given each other, “What did you think of my shoot style?”

The sound of the vacuum cleaners is loud in the silence. Every second Kacchan doesn’t answer constricts Izuku’s ribs tighter, like he’s being throttled from the inside. But then,

“Your moves are too obvious,” Kacchan states as clear as day. Izuku freezes. “Even when you got faster, I could still predict your moves.”

“Oh,” Izuku breathes, because he doesn’t know what else to say. Was this… advice? Such a small thing, barely even a conversation, but Izuku holds on to it, cherishes it, wraps it up and locks it away in a part of his heart that he isn’t sure whether he hates because—Kacchan is helping him. That just doesn’t happen.

“And when you added in punches it really pissed me off,” Kacchan continues like he hasn’t just shattered Izuku’s worldview and shocked his heart back into beating all at once. Izuku doesn’t know how Kacchan manages to do it—he thought he was over this, but it seems Kacchan could still turn Izuku’s emotions upside down without batting an eye.

He doesn’t think he’s ever heard him so quiet, though.

OOO

The apathy from last night has finally worn off, but Katsuki isn’t all that grateful. He and Deku finished cleaning the rest of the common rooms in silence—a more comfortable silence after he offers Deku some pointers about his fighting style. He knows he didn’t imagine the pleased look in Deku’s eyes afterwards, either.

There isn’t anything to do. He can’t train in the dorms, there isn’t any homework when the semester has just started, and he doesn’t know where to even start with the apology letter Aizawa’s making him write. He knows it won’t sound sincere no matter what he writes. He isn’t sorry about missing curfew, or for starting a fight, or for using his quirk in such a dangerous way. Aizawa wouldn’t understand anyway.

Deku understood, though. He’d started the fight trying to talk him down, trying to run. But at the end there—

Katsuki flops back to lie on his bed, staring at the ceiling. He feels exposed, like someone tore open his skin and left his nerves raw and hanging. It’s too late to take any of it back now, and he… he knows Deku wouldn’t judge him for what he’d said last night. Nor would he hang it over Katsuki’s head. That just wasn’t who he was.

I’m still here, he’d said. He’d looked… Katsuki had never seen Deku look the way he did when he accused him of looking down on him—hurt, and betrayed, and devastated. He doesn’t know what to do with how that makes him feel. He remembers Deku dropping the gauze in his lap, avoiding his gaze.

Deku had known him longer than anyone else here. Somehow, that made it okay to tell him everything. Besides, he knows Deku’s secret now, too. Katsuki feels… relieved.

It pisses him off.

He wastes time in his room until dinner, and he and Deku don’t talk to each other as they wash the dishes. Katsuki only has to get through another three days of this.

OOO

And that’s how it goes.

The next day, they’re back to silently avoiding each other. Their classmates won’t tell Izuku anything about what they’re learning, so all he can do is clean and fret. He writes Aizawa’s apology letter faster then he’s ever finished any assignment before, and then he turns his room upside-down for the hell of it. He has so much All Might merchandise, but the dorm room is bigger than his room at home, so there’s a lot of empty space. He wonders if anyone will have this much merchandise of him in the future. The thought puts a smile on his face.

He bets that all his classmates will have a lot of great merchandise made of them. He would probably buy it all, if he was being honest with himself. He could have a whole shelf filled with figurines of Uraraka, and Iida; of Todoroki and Tsu; of Kirishima and—

Kacchan.

He’s always known that Kacchan would be a great hero someday. He used to picture little Kacchan figurines to go next to his All Might ones. He would get them. Even now that they’re rivals. Even if they’re—

Are they mad at each other?

He takes out one of his older Hero Analysis notebooks. He keeps all of them in a box tucked neatly under his bed. The one he takes out is charred, and some of the ink is smudged from where it got wet. This one is important. It’s the last one he wrote before meeting All Might. Kacchan burned this one and threw it away like it was nothing.

He flips through several of the pages, finding a couple of notes he knew by heart.

Kacchan’s been training early, before school. He already has amazing control of his explosions, but I think he wants to be able to direct his own momentum using them. For propulsion? Flight?

He had followed him a couple of times when he trained early in the morning. It was the only time Kacchan’s friends weren’t surrounding him. He took notes on the training and all the things Kacchan would be able to do with his quirk, if only Izuku were there to suggest it. He made sure not to get caught.

He flipped to the middle—the last page to be written on—where All Might’s autograph was, big and bold across the pages.

Izuku spent years of hard work compiling these notes. The first quirk he ever analyzed was Kacchan’s. It was his passion and pride, and he gave it everything he had. But Kacchan didn’t care about any of that. He remembers every word Kacchan said to him that day – each one ingrained in his mind just as much as All Might’s were. It was a day of ups and downs, pulling him lower than he’s ever gone, and then raising him up further than he thought he could go.

Izuku holds the fragile notebook, and suddenly he feels the urge to tear it to pieces.

He isn’t the person from that day anymore.

Ever since the start of the year at U.A. he has felt as if there was some unspoken agreement between him and Kacchan. The first few weeks were nerve-racking. He’d been kept awake at night hoping that Kacchan would keep his mouth shut, thinking to himself—just please, please don’t tell them, don’t tell anyone I was quirkless. He was sure he’d lose everything he’d worked so hard towards if anyone found out. When weeks passed with Kacchan having not said anything, Izuku was grateful.

It’s stupid. His friends don’t care about his quirk. Friends don’t care about that sort of thing, he now knows.

(He hopes.)

So, what does that say about him and Kacchan?

He puts the notebook away carefully when his vision starts to blur conspicuously.

OOO

On the evening of the third day, Izuku gets ambushed as he emerges from the staircase.

“Hey nerd, take these out,” Kacchan grumbles, and shoves a couple of trash bags into his arms.

“Wha—?” Izuku scrambles to hold them all up, exclaiming, “Kacchan, you can’t just—” but when he looks up, Kacchan is already gone.

Of course, he is.

Izuku takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly before making his way out the back door to throw out the trash. His feelings are a mess, and he isn’t in the mood for Kacchan’s abrasiveness.

(He’s not in the mood to be jump-scared by a friendly disembodied face in the wall either, but he decides it must be another student playing a prank on him and tries to forget about it, even though it only upsets him further.)

When he returns, Tsuyu is standing by the door and gives him an odd look. After a second, Izuku realizes that he’s frowning pretty uncharacteristically. He rubs his nose, glancing around awkwardly, and tries to smile at her.

“Ribbit,” she says, managing to pack a wealth of information into the sound. “Are you all right?”

“I’m fine,” Izuku says, smile a little more genuine as he approaches her. Her eyes are huge, and they see right through him.

“It can’t be easy spending all day cooped up in here with Bakugo.”

Tsu has never been one to mince words, and she cuts right to the chase as usual. The problem is she’s wrong. Izuku has barely seen Kacchan the past few days. He’s just been turning over thoughts and memories and feelings in his head for longer than he should have. He obsesses over little things sometimes. It’s a problem.

“It’s alright,” he says instead, because he doesn’t know how to express that—he doesn’t want to express that.

“If you say so,” she croaks, unconvinced.

They make their way towards the kitchen at the far end of the common area. Their classmates are all hanging around in scattered groups. Most are still in their uniforms, though more than a couple have lost or loosened their ties. Izuku waves to Uraraka, Iida, and Todoroki on the couches near the TV as they pass. Tsuyu breaks off to join them as Izuku goes to fix himself dinner. The kitchen is separated from the rest of the common area by a raised counter that acts as a bar. He can see Ashido, Jirou, Kaminari, and Sero in there looking for snacks before he crosses from the carpeted floor onto the even tiles. They seem to be absorbed in a deep conversation.

“Makes sense, I guess, that our quirk suppressors come from a time when quirks weren’t widely accepted,” Kaminari is saying. He has Izuku’s complete attention immediately.

“And there was all sorts of propaganda against quirks at the time, too, right?” Ashido shrugs, pulling some strawberry milk out of the fridge. The carton is less pink than she is, Izuku remarks absently.

They must be talking about something they learned in history class. Ever since All Might told him about the creation of One For All, the emergence of quirks has been of great interest to Izuku. He can’t find many details about it online from any reputable sources, but a couple of forward-thinking authors had published a few research papers that gathered some less available information about the time period. There was some research performed by a certain Makoto Tsukauchi on the heavy presence and influence of vigilantes in the early Quirk Era that Izuku wants to ask All Might about at some point, but he can’t seem to find the right way to bring it up.

“It’s kind of ironic that it’s the other way around these days,” Sero pipes up. His voice pulls Izuku back from his thoughts, and he realizes that he’s been mumbling. He notices Jirou giving him a little amused look. 

“What do you mean?” Kaminari asks, snapping open a can of soda. Izuku wonders if the metal would shock him with static electricity if he tries to touch it once Kaminari has put it down.

“Well, it’s like… quirkless people are the weird ones these days,” Sero explains, and the air in Izuku’s lungs must have frozen solid, because he can’t breathe anymore.

“Yeah, you’re right! I guess it’s like they’re getting a taste of their own medicine!” Kaminari grins like he’s made a great joke. Izuku doesn’t see the joke. Sero frowns.

Jirou smacks Kaminari in the arm immediately after he says that, and he jumps, spilling some of his drink over his fingers.

“Dude!” he exclaims.

“Not cool, man,” she says, and Sero nods, lips pursed.

“Come on! I mean, who’s even quirkless anymore?” Kaminari whines, backing away from her just a little. “It’s just a bunch of old people. They’re like, an endangered species, aren’t they?”

An endangered species, Izuku thinks, trying not to curl into himself. He can’t quite keep his shoulders relaxed, however.

(A worthless, quirkless wannabe! Kacchan’s voice sneers, his smile pointed and cruel in Izuku’s memory.)

“Well, sure, but it’s still not cool,” Jirou interjects coolly.

(You shouldn’t pick on Izuku, Katsuki, he overhears his second-grade teacher saying. He isn’t strong like the rest of you.) 

Sero hums in agreement.

“I don’t get it anyways,” Ashido remarks, “If people with awesome powers appeared, you’d think they’d be thrilled instead of scared.”

(A strong quirk for a future hero! Their teachers coo when Kacchan’s quirk comes in.)

It’s like he’s listening to a whole other conversation from the one his friends are having. He’s upset, but there’s something else, too. There’s a pit of rage in his stomach, an old one. He’s tried to ignore it for years, but it’s still burning from when his fight with Kacchan stoked it high and violent. He’s not the same person he was before. He can’t ignore it right now. These are his friends—they like him, they’ll listen to him. Besides, if they don’t listen to him, it won’t matter, because they still won’t know that he is quirkless. Was quirkless.

(Except, it will matter.)

Izuku pipes in, voice steady, but a little harsher than he intended—

“When a guy can blast you with fire and you don’t have any way to defend yourself, I think it’s understandable to be scared.”

The conversation stalls and his classmates turn their attention to him. They give him a look, and he thinks that maybe he shouldn’t have spoken up, after all. Over the counter, he sees that even Todoroki has raised his head from the couch to observe. He should take it back. He’s being too transparent. He doesn’t want them to think about him and Kacchan that way.

(Weren’t you two childhood friends? One of Kacchan’s lackeys asks in their first year of middle school. They aren’t Kacchan’s friends. They aren’t. Izuku is his friend, and he’s nothing like them.

Friends? Kacchan snarls. I can barely stand that loser.)

“Yeah, but,” Ashido is the first to recover from Izuku’s bold claim, trying to defend herself, “The heroes with quirks started taking down all the bad guys!”

Izuku’s ready for this. He’s had this argument in his head over and over.

“Back then, they were considered vigilantes, working outside the law. Heroes, maybe, but still criminals,” he counters. “And actually, when you read into it, you’ll realize there was a rise in crime when quirks appeared. Not everyone who got a quirk was a good person, after all.”

He shrugs, trying to look disinterested, when he really wants to reveal everything that he has learned about the subject to anyone who will listen. They’ll think he’s obsessed. They’ll think he’s creepy. Besides, the more he talks, the more he gets things wrong. Got a quirk, he said. A person and their quirk are inseparable—you can’t just get a quirk. Or at least, that’s what a normal person would think, and he’s trying his best to be normal. All Might says he needs to be careful with how he says these things.

“Are you saying that quirks are the reason we have villains?” Sero asks thoughtfully. It’s an honest question, not an attack, but Izuku has put himself on the defensive already. That’s bad form.

He thinks of Shigaraki, who hates All Might with everything he has. He thinks of The Hero Killer, Stain, who idolized All Might and held everyone else up to his warped standard.

“Well, yeah—and heroes—” he tries to explain.

“That’s enough!” Iida startles them all with his quick appearance and a downward slicing motion, like he means to cut the conversation off with willpower alone.

“Woah, chill Iida—” Jirou starts to say.

“I apologize, but I must put an end to this conversation,” Iida cuts her off. “Mr. Aizawa said we are not to discuss any classwork with Midoriya or Bakugo for the duration of their punishment.”

Kaminari and Sero look sheepish, while Jirou and Ashido roll their eyes and smirk knowingly at each other. Izuku feels singled out. There’s a familiar tightness in his throat.

(Thank god he’s not in our Quirk Control lessons with us. A classmate, he doesn’t remember who, or when. It doesn’t matter. Their voice is filled with contempt and laughter. It’s a wonder we get anywhere with him holding us back in the rest of our classes.)

“This isn’t about class Iida,” Izuku tries. “I just really like this subject—”

“If you wanted to discuss the intricacies of quirk history and population dynamics, then you should have thought of that before breaking the rules!”

He flinches back from Iida’s tone. He knows Iida’s just trying to uphold Aizawa’s punishment, but he looks up at his class president and all he can hear is: Be quiet. You’re not allowed to be a part of this. No one wants to hear your opinion.

In that moment, Izuku feels something he doesn’t often feel. It’s the same feeling he gets when he looks out at someone in trouble and realizes that no one is going to help. The feeling he felt when Compress took Kacchan and Tokoyami and gloated to their faces while his other classmates stood paralyzed; the feeling of looking up and up at the hulk of a man who was taunting Kouta, prepared to kill him; the feeling of watching all the heroes stay back while Kacchan choked and choked on sludge—

His eyes are filling with tears, and he can see the moment Iida realizes this because his strict expression starts to fall. It’s too late though. Izuku’s patience snaps, and he spits—

“Well if Kacchan didn’t blow up about every single thing then I wouldn’t be here right now!”

He gets two seconds of satisfaction, seeing the shock bloom across all of his classmates faces, before he realizes that the entire common room has gone unnaturally silent.

Then—

“HUH??” That’s Kacchan’s voice. “What the hell did you just say, you useless piece of trash?”

He turns quickly. Kacchan is stomping towards him like a man on a mission. This is familiar.

Iida steps in front of Izuku, no doubt anticipating another fight to break out between them. Kirishima, seemingly summoned by Kacchan’s voice, materializes to hold him back and try to talk him down. Izuku doesn’t care. He takes in Kacchan’s expression, furious as expected, but there’s something vulnerable in his eyes, something hurt. Izuku’s thoughts all hiss at him at once in a vindictive voice—good.

He holds Kacchan’s gaze steadily, sniffs once to stop his tears from falling, and says—

“See?”

Then he turns on his heel and marches back to his room.

OOO

That night, Izuku has nightmares.

He’s been having nightmares on and off for years now, but more recently they’ve been about Aizawa’s face smashed into the ground, Iida sliced down in an alleyway, Kouta killed by his parents’ killer, Kacchan gone, turned to dust, All Might crushed beneath a monster with a terrible grin and no eyes—

But that night, he dreams of something far older. He’s in his old classroom, head down as their homeroom teacher asks them all about their plans for high school. He curls into himself when his homeroom teacher outs him as wanting to go to U.A., a note of disbelief in his voice that he can’t quite hide, or maybe doesn’t bother to. He doesn’t turn to look when he hears the furious slam of Kacchan’s hands on his desk, or when his classmates start laughing and jeering. But when he finally does look up, it isn’t his old classmates there—he barely remembers their faces, they may as well be dolls in his old nightmares. No, this time, it’s his friends from U.A.

There’s Iida, sitting up straight as usual, with a disappointed look on his face. Kaminari and Ashido snicker to one another. Tsu presses a finger to her chin and tilts her head, looking him up and down as if to assess just how much of a fool he is. Uraraka smiles uncomfortably, like someone just told her a bad joke and she’s too polite not to.

Kacchan looms, bigger than anyone, hands lit up with fireworks that blind Izuku, just like he always has.

Izuku hasn’t felt this small in a long time.

OOO

That night, Katsuki paces the length of his room, mulling over the discussion he heard in the kitchen earlier. He popped firecrackers in his palms for ten minutes straight afterwards while Kirishima rambled at his side to cool him down, but he still can’t stop thinking about it even hours later.

It makes sense that Deku would be invested in quirkless people. It wasn’t too long ago that he was one of them. He had been useless, defenseless, and… and he thought it made sense to be scared of people with strong quirks. Sure, he made it sound like it was hypothetical, but it was pretty obvious to Katsuki who Deku was talking about. Not everyone who got a quirk was a good person, he said. It makes something uncomfortable burn deep down inside Katsuki.

He buries the feeling underneath his anger.

Katsuki’s first instinct was to call him on his bullshit—what did that arrogant nerd have to be scared of? A sweet little kid always being spoiled rotten by the teachers and his doting mom. Arrogant, and always looking down on him, despite how much stronger Katsuki was.

Except, that isn’t true. Their fight from a few nights ago laid bare all their feelings, so Katsuki knows it had never been true. Besides, after Deku had tried so hard to save him—twice now, once in that alleyway in middle school, and once at Kamino—he can’t deny it anymore. Deku cares about him. It’s not arrogance, or sarcasm, or one of those fake smiles people use to get on his good side. He had followed him around all those years because he looked up to him, the same way he looks up to All Might. Even though he thinks it’s “understandable to be scared”.

Katsuki sits down heavily on the edge of his bed and drops his head into his hands.

All Might was quirkless, too.

Was it like that for him? Did he know other kids who wanted to be heroes? Did he acknowledge their strength, all while silently waiting for the moment they would turn their quirks on him?

He was quirkless again, now. He would die the way he was born—powerless.

(Because of Katsuki.)

He stands with a frustrated huff. There was no use trying to sleep now, so he leaves his room and makes his way downstairs quietly. Each floor is still as he makes his way past them, everyone else already asleep, or tucked away in their rooms for the night.

When he reaches the ground floor, though, he sees that the lights are on in the kitchen. With his luck, there’s really only one person it could be—

It’s Deku.

Katsuki sees the moment Deku notices him, and the split second of indecision on his face before he turns on his heel and makes straight for the front door. It’s a sight he’s familiar with, from back in middle school, when Deku stopped being so openly friendly with everyone. At first, he curled up, stammering, shying away from their classmates. Then, Katsuki started to see him walking away when he or his friends were approaching, too quick for any of the others to notice. It was good then. It was what Katsuki had wanted—for Deku to finally get it through his thick skull that Katsuki didn’t want him around. That he was only getting in the way. By the time they reached their third year, Deku was avoiding them all like the plague. He would see them and turn in the other direction. No fuss. Like he wasn’t even supposed to be there.

It must feel like an old instinct resurfacing—so natural for him to turn and walk away from Katsuki.

“Oi,” he says, because there’s no way Deku isn’t aware that Katsuki already saw him.

Deku freezes.

“Oh, Kacchan!” he smiles like he just noticed him there.

Katsuki narrows his eyes dangerously. Always Kacchan. Like they’re still kids and Deku never got the memo that they weren’t friends anymore.

“Where the hell are you going?” Katsuki asks because he won’t voice any of his stupid thoughts out loud. Deku’s smile doesn’t budge.

“I’m just getting some air, don’t worry about me,” he answers. He turns away again before he is even finished speaking. Then the door is swinging shut after him, and Katsuki hasn’t moved from his spot at the bottom of the stairs yet.

It’s Deku’s last day of house arrest, and he’s sneaking out again.

(Because of Katsuki.)

Deku’s running from him.

The uncomfortable feeling from before resurfaces.

(It’s so different from how he reached out to him desperately at camp, while Katsuki was being pulled helplessly into the villains’ portal. Kirishima told him that Deku didn’t hesitate to go after him to Kamino Ward.)

Frustrated, he runs a rough hand through his hair, fluffing it up restlessly, and sighs.

…Deku pisses him off so much.

He follows him out and finds him sitting on the front steps. Deku has a faraway look on his face, and doesn’t react to Katsuki’s presence, so Katsuki looks up at the clear sky. The night is quiet, and the summer heat lingers even in the dark. It makes Katsuki feel clammy and restless.

“I thought you understood,” he says before he can think better of it.

Deku doesn’t answer. Instead, he pulls his legs up to his chest and wraps his arms around his knees.

Katsuki growls. He thought—he thought for sure Deku understood. He wasn’t blowing up about nothing. This was different, this was important. His eyes sting, and he wipes them angrily. He can’t—he won’t cry in front of him again. His stomach turns at the idea of Deku even mentioning this to any of the others. It’s bad enough he was vulnerable in front of him, he couldn’t stand it if anyone else knew.

“I said all that stuff to you because I thought you understood,” Kastuki tries again, unwilling to let this go. “All Might said neither of us are to blame, so why the hell are you going around making the others think that I’m—”

“Kacchan,” Deku cuts him off, voice low, eyes downturned, “This isn’t about All Might.”

“What—” Katsuki tries to interject.

“This isn’t about how you feel about All Might!” Deku rounds on him, unfolding from the little ball he’d made himself into. He glares up at Katsuki, looking just like he did when they fought.

(You’re the one who was actually in my life! Deku shouted as he ran towards him, eyes burning furiously.)

He swallows.

All Might doesn’t blame him… but maybe Deku does.

“Then what the hell is it about?” he asks tentatively, almost not wanting the answer.

Deku looks away again, clenching his fists and rocking his legs, unsure. He looks like he’s trying to get his thoughts in order. Katsuki is starting to reach that point he so often does ever since Kamino, where he runs through all his anger and finds that he has nothing left to take its spot. He lets himself collapse onto the steps next to Deku. Finally, after a long quiet, Deku speaks.

“…everything I’ve been doing here at U.A., it’s all thanks to All Might,” he says. “All the people I’ve saved, and every victory I’ve won, is because All Might gave me his power.”

Katsuki doesn’t know where he’s going with this, but he doesn’t interrupt.

Deku looks down at his hand—the right one, scarred and crooked ever since the Sports Festival. He clenches it shut.

“Sometimes I wonder why exactly he would choose to give it to me,” he continues. “Why not give it to someone else? Someone experienced and skilled. Someone who had something more to offer than just promises of being better in the future.”

He drops his hand and leans back, looking up at the sky.

“Someone else would already be better. They wouldn’t break their arms so badly every time that they couldn’t even reach out to their friend who was right in front of them.”

Katsuki flinches at the reminder, but for once he has nothing to say. So Deku pushes on without facing him, voice hushed.

“I’m not suited to this power. It’s a struggle to do anything with it at all. I’m useless.” He finally turns to look at Katsuki with a bitter smile, “But you’ve always known that, haven’t you, Kacchan?”

It’s a punch to the gut, a strike laid out so perfectly that he never saw it coming. All that time he had wanted Deku—the worthless, quirkless wannabee, he hears the insult in his own voice—out of his life. That is, right up until Deku had surpassed him. Then, he was furious. He thought he was being left behind and it—it terrified him. But, isn’t that what he’d done to Deku? Worse. He’d pushed him away, turned against him. He doesn’t feel the summer heat anymore, because the realization is like a cold wash of water over him—Deku hasn’t left him behind at all. ‘Kacchan’ has been clinging to him all along.

Deku eyes him for a minute as he flounders, and then turns away with a sigh. “Well, I guess I can’t help it, being quirkless and all.”

Katsuki opens his mouth and says what he feels—

“It wasn’t about your quirk, Deku.”

“Don’t you dare try to tell me that!” Deku growls, flipping tones in an instant. The calm bitterness is gone, replaced with fury again. He leans in towards Katsuki, every line of his body taut. Katsuki is captivated. “It wasn’t just you; it was everyone! Our classmates, our teachers. They treated me like I was garbage, like I’d be lucky to get anywhere in life when I was quirkless. You stopped wanting me around the second you got a quirk and I didn’t. I was too young to realize it then, so I thought I had done something wrong,” his voice cracks. “I kept trying to fix it, but—”

This is so far off the rails from what Katsuki thought they would be talking about that he’s a little lost trying to keep up with it all.

“My quirk isn’t what got me into U.A.—” he tries to counter.

“Well it certainly didn’t hurt—” Deku waves him off.

“I trained for years to make sure I had more control than anyone. I pushed myself and broke myself to make sure I would be the best. I know you know that because you said yourself you’ve been watching me this whole time.” His voice is rising, and they both need to remember that it’s the middle of the night and that everyone is asleep. He won’t let them be interrupted again.

“Kacchan—”

“And then you come out of nowhere saying you were gonna apply like it was nothing. You’d never trained a day in your fucking life!”

Deku is quiet.

“Like it was so easy you didn’t even need to train to get in. Maybe—” He pauses, despite himself, because he’s starting to see the picture Deku is painting of him. Deku may not be looking down on him, but Katsuki doesn’t exactly have his sympathy anymore. Katsuki doesn’t have much of anyone’s sympathy, really—he saw the news casts from when he was gone, and the things people said about him. “Maybe I gave you shit about you being quirkless, but that wasn’t about your quirk.”

“But I had been preparing! What do you think was in the notebook you burned and threw out the window?” Deku scoffs.

“I’ve seen what’s in your notebooks. Observations, strategy—useful things, fine. But strategy will only get you so far in a fight. Did those notebooks help you pass the entrance exam?” Deku doesn’t answer, and Kacchan feels his confidence rise. He’s making a point. “Did they help you when you fought me, the other day?”

“You’re saying the same thing you’ve always said,” Deku’s voice is sharp and dangerous, cutting in a way it never has been before. “You’re saying I’m useless. You’re saying nothing I did would have amounted to anything without All Might coming in here and making me better.”

They’ve circled back to the same thing. There’s a deep-seated issue there that he doesn’t know how to tackle, or whether he should even try. Deku glowers at him, but his chin is wobbling. For the first time in a long time, Katsuki’s hit with the sudden feeling that he doesn’t know what he’ll do if Deku starts crying. And then it comes to him—so obvious, and something he should have said ages ago. He takes a deep breath, knowing what will convince Deku, but not wanting to say it. He’d known for a long time, and All Might’s story a few nights ago had only cemented it in his mind. He squeezes his eyes shut, shame closing his throat. He doesn’t want to say it, but Katsuki doesn’t back down from anyone, least of all Deku.

“You think strategy made you run in to save me from the sludge monster?” he hisses, the night suddenly quiet without their raised voices. There aren’t even any crickets to break the tension.

Deku’s glare is wiped clean and replaced with shock.

“The smart thing to do would have been to stay back. A civilian, a kid with no quirk, with no training, would only get in the way of the actual heroes. But instinct told you to try.”

Now, Deku’s eyes really are starting to fill with tears, and Katsuki looks away.

“But I didn’t actually do anything—” Deku says. His voice is so small and bitter that is makes Katsuki anxious.

“If you hadn’t, those damn extras—hell, even All Might—they wouldn’t have done shit. I would’ve died and they’d still be waiting for someone with the right quirk to show up!”

When they told him the whole story the other night, he didn’t want to admit to himself that he was disappointed in All Might. He had been his hero for so long, and he’d sacrificed everything to save him in Kamino—Katsuki had no right to be disappointed just because he hesitated to step in back then. Deku looks like he’s about to come to his defense, but he told Katsuki that this wasn’t about All Might, so Katsuki won’t make it about him.

“It wasn’t about your quirk,” he repeats.

“Then what the hell was it about?” Deku demands. The tears finally spill over his eyelids, and he glares at Katsuki through them.

“Were you not listening?” He throws his arms up, exasperated and uncomfortable.

“You didn’t explain anything,” Deku pushes.

“I trained myself, I worked myself, and I got here by myself,” he asserts.

“But you weren’t by yourself,” Deku refutes. “Everyone was on your side. Your parents, our classmates, our teachers. The whole fucking world! I didn’t have anyone. My own mother didn’t think I would amount to anything.”

Auntie Inko? That throws him for a loop. Katsuki hasn’t seen Deku’s mom in a long time, but he remembers how supportive she was. He remembers being jealous of how openly she loved her son.

“It’s not like she did it on purpose,” Deku barrels on, waving his hands through the air with pent up energy, oblivious to the bombshells he’s dropping on Katsuki. “But I could tell she was worried. She was always worried—sometimes I’m glad I’m an only child, because I don’t want to know for sure if she would treat a quirked sibling the same way, or if it was just me—"

“Deku—”

But it seems he’s done letting Katsuki speak now.

“Do you remember what you said to me after you burned my notebook? Kacchan… do you know how many times I think about those words?”

His eyes are challenging now, as he catches Katsuki’s gaze with his own. The question obviously holds weight. Katsuki thinks back to that day. It was the day their homeroom teacher announced what high schools they would each be applying to—he vaguely remembers a confrontation between him and Deku after school.

The Sludge villain attack was awful—he doesn’t remember much from that day beyond suffocating, having his quirk hijacked, and the terrible fear it had implanted in him. He tries to think back further, but all he can remember is how angry he was about Deku applying to U.A. He doesn’t remember what he said to him, but he’s sure Deku hadn’t looked nearly as upset then as he did now. It couldn’t have been that important.

“That was ages ago,” he finally says. “How the hell am I supposed to remember?”

Deku narrows his eyes dangerously.

“Pray that you’ll have a quirk in your next life, then take a swan dive off the roof,” Deku says, with the inflection of someone repeating a well-worn phrase.

…It definitely sounds like something Katsuki would say. He grits his teeth.

“I say a lot of stupid crap, especially to you. It’s not a big—”

“No!” Izuku snaps. “You may not remember it, but it was a big deal. I’ve never been able to forget what you said—that I’d just—I could j-just be gone tomorrow, and y-y-you wouldn’t even care or remember that you suggested it!”

Katsuki’s ears ring in the silence after Deku’s exclamation. He’s properly crying now; sniffling, shoulders bouncing in time with his hiccups. When his head bows forward, Katsuki sees the tears glitter in the low light as they drop to his knees.

The things he said to Deku had mattered so little to him in the grand scheme of things. That’s just the way he talks. He tells at least three people to go die everyday. Hell, he talks to Kirishima like that now, and it doesn’t seem to phase him.

…but Kirishima isn’t Deku. Kirishima didn’t spend three years of middle school trying to hold on to his only friend while the rest of their class turned against him. Kirishima didn’t get tossed aside by everyone.

The silence lingers as he tries to re-orient himself. He had never thought about how Deku spent his middle school years—he’d only ever had an overwhelming need to get him out of his life—but it’s a bleak picture. He thinks back to his anger from that day, from before Deku risked his life trying to save him from the sludge villain. Would it have mattered to him back then, that his words had upset Deku? He doesn’t think it would have, but…

“It would matter to me now,” he says in a moment of clarity. “It would matter to me, if—if you were gone tomorrow.”

The words burn him from the inside out. He hates this, opening up. To Deku. Again. He hates feeling vulnerable.

But this is important.

Deku lifts his head from his hands to scowl at Katsuki through his tears. Katsuki frowns back harder, and spits out, “And, even if it didn’t, it would matter to a whole lot of other extras who aren’t me.” Deku pauses, face half-hidden behind his finger, grimace diminishing. Katsuki takes that as a sign to continue. He pushes through the awful feeling of shame clogging his throat. “I’m not—I’m not some measuring stick for your worth, Deku. I know we said we’d surpass each other, but…”

(It should matter to you, he should say. He wants to say it, even. But he can’t. Not today.)

Deku sniffles, looking thoughtful. Katsuki turns away to look down at the ground between his feet. Finally, after a few quiet minutes, Deku speaks up, with a steadier voice—

“You don’t get to say that to me now, after everything.”

“Maybe not, but I said it anyway,” Katsuki replies, stubborn. They’ve both laid their cards on the table, now, and all that’s left is to figure out where to go from here. “Besides, I’m sure you’ll get plenty of chances to punch me in the face during training. It’ll make you feel better, trust me.”

Deku looks up at him, and this—this is familiar. His eyes are so earnest, wide and shining, but no longer sunken in tears. The angry lines have smoothed out to be replaced with something else—still upset, but less aggressive.

“I don’t want to hurt you, Kacchan,” Deku says with absolute certainty.

…and that’s about all Katsuki can take in one night.

He lets Deku hold his gaze for a little longer, and then he gets up.

“Go to bed, nerd. You have class in the morning,” he throws over his shoulder, escaping back into the dorm building.

OOO

Surprisingly, Izuku sleeps like the dead afterwards. For the first time in months, he has trouble waking up to his alarm. He peels himself out of bed with only twenty minutes to get ready for class—no morning training for him, or any time for breakfast. He gets dressed, and sighs at the slightly greasy hair he’ll have to put up with for the rest of the school day.

When he finally goes to leave his room, he’s still half-asleep, and so he spends much too long staring slack jawed at Kacchan in his doorway.

“Here,” Kacchan says, roughly shoving a travel mug into his hands.

Izuku looks down at it uncertainly.

 “It’s coffee,” Kacchan clarifies when Izuku doesn’t say anything. “You’re an idiot who stayed up too late having a heart-to-heart, and we really don’t need Aizawa on our case anymore,” he fumes. His face is twitching like there’s a barely repressed explosion underneath it.

“Oh,” Izuku replies, wrapping his fingers around the mug. He’s not really awake yet. This must be a weird dream. “But Kacchan… I don’t like coffee.”

Kacchan’s face twists with anger.

“DRINK THE DAMN COFFEE SO YOU DON’T FALL ASLEEP IN CLASS, YOU IDIOT,” he yells. Izuku hears a yelp and glances down the hall to see Kirishima frantically waving his hand in a gesture to tone it down and Tokoyami frozen where he was just leaving his own bedroom. He looks back to see Kacchan is glaring at them. His face is a little red.

The warmth of coffee is pleasant against Izuku’s fingers.

The pieces fall together slowly as he wakes up bit by bit. He can tell Kacchan’s patience is waning the longer he stays quiet. But he hasn’t moved from his spot, and he even held back from any more outbursts.

Was Kacchan trying to apologize?

Their talk last night was… cathartic, he thinks is a good word for it. There are a lot of things Izuku has kept to himself over the years. And now, there were things entrusted to him that he couldn’t speak to anyone about. It was nice to have someone to talk to, someone to dump all his feelings on—and something young in him is childishly satisfied that Kacchan could be that someone, after all these years.

It would matter to me now, Kacchan’s words from last night ring in his ears, taking his breath away all over again.

…that’s right. He doesn’t want to lose Kacchan, either.

It doesn’t really matter that he doesn’t like coffee—it will keep him awake as intended. He can’t say that, though, because Kacchan needs to learn to stop pushing things on him that he doesn’t want. So, he thinks very carefully about what kind of answer he’ll give him. The two of them have never been able to communicate very well with words. To his credit, Kacchan is giving him space to think about it, although Izuku can tell it’s something of a Herculean effort for him. But—he’s trying. He’s listening. That’s more than he’s ever done.

He stares at the travel mug. It’s black, with little orange stars on the side. It’s Kacchan’s. Izuku’s eyes are watering a little.

“Don’t start crying,” Kacchan hisses, and there’s a little panic in his voice. Izuku laughs and wipes his eyes.

“Thanks, Kacchan,” he says with a small smile. “Next time bring me some tea.”

Then he pushes past him and makes his way to class with the mug held securely to his chest. Tokoyami raises a wry eyebrow, while Kirishima grins and gives him two thumbs up.

He hears Kacchan grouse, “I’m not your damn maid,” but he sounds relieved.

Izuku is relieved too.

THE END, LOSERS.