Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The fight with All For One had ended like a fall. One long drop and then the ground, the aftermath. Silent, cold. Lonely.

There had been celebrations. Enough to last a lifetime. So many. Too many. Izuku hadn’t even wanted to go to the first.

He’d stood with his fist in the air, bloodied and bruised, heart hammering so fast he could taste it, and he hadn’t heard the cheers, hadn’t felt the relief. All he had felt was tired.

His knees buckled, and Kacchan caught him. He supposed, then, he should have taken it as a sign. Kacchan would be carrying him for the rest of his life. He wouldn’t tell him how desperately he had wanted to hit the ground, to dig a hole, to lie in it while the world moved.

There had been ambulances, hospitals, interviews, ceremonies. There had been gratitude and mourning and excitement and fear.

He began to sort people into categories, instead of connections, those who he had saved and those who wanted to save him. Some of them understood. He hated those most of all.

Mr Aizawa and All Might said the same thing; get some rest, let someone else take the weight, get your mind in order, we’ll take care of you until you’re ready to return. They’d meant it. They just hadn’t known how long they were signing up for, or how stubbornly he would refuse their support, how hard he would push them away.

Ten years. It had been ten years.

He was lucky. He was allowed to hide. He knew that was luck, but it might have been a curse.

He’d forgotten how to do anything but hide.

Izuku blinked blearily at the midday sun streaming through his blinds, for a brief moment of blissful ignorance, before he remembered what day it was.

Ten years today, an anniversary of sorts.

He pulled the covers back over his head, trying to stop his thoughts spiralling before they could get started. He just wanted to go back to sleep.

A kettle was boiling somewhere in his apartment. Right. That was what had woken him. Kacchan was here.

The door thudded open, and there he was, glaring down at him.

“Hey, nerd, get the fuck out of bed.”

Sometimes he regretted giving him a key.

He glared back. Kacchan rolled his eyes.

“Coffee’s fucking brewing. Not my fault if you have to drink it cold.”

Izuku groaned, covered his face with a pillow, mumbled into it.

“Please Kacchan, just- I don’t wanna be awake today.”

“I got the good coffee.”

“I don’t care.”

“I’m not letting you stay in bed again. Not after- no. Just. No. How many years have we been doing this?”

“Ten. It’s been ten years,” he practically whispered.

Ten years since he’d tried to be a hero. Ten since he’d left it all behind.

“We know what fucking works. I don’t know why you keep fighting. You know I’ll win.”

He did. He always won. Izuku didn’t know how to fight anymore.

Kacchan pulled the covers off him and Izuku curled in on himself.

“Fuck off.”

“I’m putting a wash on. Your sheets are fucking disgusting. Clean your goddamn teeth.”

He gave up. As usual.

He slouched to the bathroom, moved through his morning routine like a robot. Stared at the wall. Avoided looking in the mirror.

By the time he was done there was a wash in the machine, order where previously there had been chaos. Kacchan was still tidying. He shuffled to a chair, sat down, and reached for the mug that was pressed into his hands. He was so tired.

The washing machine was loud. He had a headache already. He groaned, pinched the skin between his eyebrows, listened as Kacchan moved about his apartment.

There had been dishes in his sink when he’d gone to sleep. They weren’t there anymore.

He sipped at the coffee. It was delicious. Of course it was. Kacchan had good taste. Izuku just couldn’t bring himself to care about how good it tasted. There was a reason he lived off instant. Kacchan bought him nice things anyway. Kacchan didn’t care that he didn’t care.

Maybe he was hoping that one day he’d change.

Izuku didn’t think he would.

He had accepted the life he was living. He had accepted that it didn’t feel like living at all.

Kacchan turned on the hoover, ran it across the floorboards. Izuku covered his ears.

“Can you not? Not today.”

“You always say that.”

“Please?”

“Ugh, Fine.”

He put it away, started wiping down his counters. It was quieter, at least. It was humiliating.

“Thanks Kacchan. You didn’t have to do all of that. You don’t have to. I can-”

“Whatever, nerd,” Kacchan scoffed. “Get dressed. We gotta get going soon if we wanna be there in time.”

He moved the wash to the dryer. Izuku buried his head in his hands.

“Do we really have to?”

“If I don’t get out of the fucking city soon I’m gonna blow up a building. I need to see a goddamn tree and touch some fucking grass before I lose my fucking mind.”

And they needed to escape the news. Needed not to hear the parties. Needed to be away from phone signal.

They both needed to escape. The time had taught them as much.

Still, the journey felt unbearable.

He accepted his fate, got dressed, silently followed Kacchan to the bus stop. He didn’t look at the signs. He boarded the bus. He let himself get lost in his mind.

Once, Izuku had lurked in the streets during the celebrations, hood up and hands stuffed in his pockets as he kept his head down, looking like the ghost of Tomura Shigaraki. He felt like it, sometimes, like the decay had spread to his soul, like anything he touched would corrode.

He watched from the shadows as people danced and laughed and cheered, singing songs of celebration as fictional as Izuku’s own legend, as everyone’s view of Shigaraki.

This day was the celebration of a death, no matter how you wanted to dress it up, and Izuku felt like he was the only one who truly mourned.

He wished Tomura had been simply evil. He wished he himself had been truly good. He knew neither of them had been either.

Children, fighting their mentors’ war. Angry and afraid and so desperately lonely.

Tomura had cried while he died, had held him with hands that could kill so easily, but he hadn’t put down that final finger. That was what haunted Izuku the most, these days. Tears and touch and the knowledge that he couldn’t stop, that no matter how terrified, how young, the villain may have looked he could still have killed them all.

There was no mercy, there couldn’t be, he was too dangerous and Izuku was too cruel.

It hadn’t been heroic. It hadn’t been good. It had been blood and brains and screams for him to stop.

The songs were wrong.

He hadn’t stayed out in the city for the anniversary again.

He hid in his home. He slept the day away. He got drunk enough to forget, or drunk enough to remember, depending on the year. He screamed at his face in the mirror. He punched a wall until he couldn’t remember whose blood was on his fists. He stood on a ledge, and longed for the fall.

After that one Kacchan stopped leaving him alone. Every year he came over, tried to find a way to distract him. Eventually they silently accepted that there was no distracting him. The fireworks were too bright, the parties too loud. His memories too insistent, too painful.

It had been a few years now, they’d taken this trip, out and away. There was no escape to be had, not truly, but maybe acknowledging it was better than simply hiding. Better than the inside of his head, the echoes that remained.

Kacchan wore headphones while they sat on the bus, as he always did, frown still set on his face while music filled his ears and blocked out the sound of other, uncontrollable, humans. He’d found his coping mechanisms over the years, ways to make himself less angry, more like the hero he had always wanted to become.

He was a good hero, a great one.

In a way this was how it was always supposed to be, how it would have been if Izuku had never been chosen for a fall: blood and death and so much responsibility.

He wished he had never been chosen. He wished he had never known what it was to fight, to win, to lose something so much bigger than a war.

What a selfish thought.

He was a terrible hero. He wasn’t a hero at all. Kacchan had found a way to cope, while he had simply given up

Izuku took the window seat, staring out at the city passing by. He shook minutely. The streets were full of decorations, the bustle of a holiday, businesses closing as their owners took to the street to celebrate.

Kacchan turned to look at him, moved his shoulder ever so slightly closer.

He could feel his warmth in the fractional space that stood between them, it would be so easy to close it, to play it off as an accident.

Neither one of them moved closer. They just looked at each other, a fire in Kacchan’s eyes that said ‘hey nerd, look at me, not that bullshit.’ Izuku’s breaths calmed as he watched him in return.

Kacchan was the one who broke the stare-off, looked out of the window then up at the roof with a huff.

They’d been travelling for a while.

Izuku had only seen his face, the concerned scowl that did nothing to stop him being beautiful, so beautiful it might have taken his breath, if he had any to spare. The day had taken it all away.

His chest was too tight but Kacchan was steady in the seat beside him. Maybe that would be enough, maybe he could remind him how to breathe.

Outside now was only open space, the city left behind for the lush greenery of the countryside, the mountains rising high in the distance.

The sun was setting over the trees, a sunset that burned the sky red as Kacchan’s eyes, red as the blood that had been spilt on either side in the war that was a decade old today. He was glad when it became a sliver of orange, gladder still when it slipped away.

Kacchan grumbled in complaint, drawing his attention as he made his way towards the door. They were in the foothills of the mountain range, trees growing tall and ancient between them and their destination.

Izuku closed his eyes, breathed deep, grateful for clean air. Grateful for silence.

Kacchan was watching him intently, something burning in his gaze before he swallowed and turned his head away, switching his focus to the route ahead as he lead the way up, up, on the path they had taken so many times before.

Chapter Text

The sun had disappeared over the horizon a while ago, but the sky was still light enough to guide the way, on familiar paths at least.

In times long gone Kacchan had lit the way with little explosions, sending frightened animals scurrying, that manic grin stretched wide across his face. Izuku had watched him instead of the path, eyes glowing with reflected light, with something else besides. He had tripped up the mountain, too distracted to notice roots he now stepped over instinctively. Kacchan had laughed in his face, and reached out a hand to help him up, a hand that was warm with quirk use, sending terrified excitement bursting through Izuku like another explosion.

Back then everything had been so intense, but they had been young, then. Now they knew how to walk in the dark.

That kind of noise held no place in these ancient woods. Here the wildlife was at home and they were unwelcome intruders. It would be breaking their hospitality to make even the slightest of sounds. They didn’t speak, barely even looked at each other as they climbed.

The perpetual half light of the forest was slipping quickly into night, but they knew they would be out before sight actually became a struggle.

It was summer, and beyond the tree cover it was never truly dark enough to need a source of light. Izuku was grateful for that. He had become like the rabbits that slunk away from them and hid in the darkest places; his eyes burned in the light, his head throbbed from too much sound.

Kacchan always used to mountain climb alone, this was a place where he too liked to find some peace. Maybe they were both just old.

He couldn’t see the details of Kacchan’s face until they broke from the cover of the trees. He looked peaceful in the encroaching dark, with his muscles burning from exertion, with no idiots asking him questions he’d rather not answer. Izuku may not have been able to give him much, but that he could provide.

They both knew what it was like to be hounded for answers, they both knew how tiring it was to deflect.

They knew what questions not to ask, they didn’t need the answers, they knew each other so well. Neither of them reached for more. There was no rest to be found in reaching. Rest was all they needed.

Rest, and the view.

The city spread out before them, distant and small amongst the fields and trees and all that green. The mountain still rose behind them, but tonight they were not here to climb.

Izuku sat down first, grass damp beneath him. He didn’t mind, the night was warm and his clothes were old. He didn’t want to be distanced from the ground. The grass was something real.

He was here. He was still alive.

Kacchan stood a little longer, posture the same as it had always been, belying the years of damage done, the scars that covered every inch of his body. He was beautiful, in the not quite light, face open in a way it had never been in their youths. Only Izuku got to see him like this, he knew as much, that was the only thing he was simply glad to have won.

He patted the ground beside him and Kacchan sat down with a huff. He knew his bones ached sometimes, when he got up and sat down, he felt it in his own. There was a hint of pain in his eyes. Izuku wasn’t the only one who would rather forget the day.

They turned back to watching, waiting for it to begin.

The first firework was a flash of colour across the darkening sky, loud and echoing as the birds took their moment to escape. He wished he was one of them, wished he could just fly away. He didn’t jump at the sound, he’d known Kacchan too long to be shocked by explosions, but he did tense at what they meant.

Kacchan reached into his bag and started unpacking. Covering the ground with food and drink he had no desire to consume, but knew he would, knew he wouldn’t be able to refuse. All Kacchan ever had to do was ask.

Izuku wrapped his arms about his legs, holding himself tightly and hating it when he shook.

The fireworks were beautiful. He wished they’d stop.

Kacchan pressed food into one of his hands, still warm despite the time it had spent in his bag, and a cold drink into the other. He didn’t try to fight, he had no fight left in him, and anyway, he was right. It soothed the shakes.

He took a long gulp of his beer, like that had ever done anything to drive away the memories, eyes closing and ears ringing as the explosions echoed across the land. The sounds came from all sides, every city and town and village in the country celebrating, but only the fireworks from their home were visible. The mountain shielded them from the rest.

Kacchan stared at him until he took a bite of the food. It was delicious. His cooking was always delicious, but maybe this had taken extra care, maybe he had tried all he could to chase away the shadows, to keep him safe and warm. Izuku’s heart clenched. He took another bite.

Kacchan didn’t smile, not today, but he didn’t frown either. Maybe that could be enough. Neither one of them would smile until the night was over. He just hoped that this year they wouldn’t have to cry.

They had learnt to avoid the parades, the speeches, the TV coverage and the articles in the papers. In the mountains it was just this, just bright lights and shooting stars. He almost relaxed, almost.

At home there was a bin full of unopened mail, of invitations, of requests, demands for his attendance at one event or another. They didn’t truly want him, not anymore, they wanted the child he had been, not the adult he had become.

Who wanted a saviour with unwashed hair, stubble several days old, despair filled eyes? He laughed a little despite himself, and Kacchan sent him a questioning look but didn’t ask. He understood now why Mr Aizawa had avoided the spotlight. It wasn’t made for people like them. He hoped his teacher was okay, he couldn’t bring himself to call. Mutual recognition was a pain he refused to bear.

How strange to be hailed as the greatest of heroes while reduced to nothing but a coward.

His chest felt tight.

Kacchan lit a sparkler and handed it to him with determination in his eyes.

He hadn’t registered finishing eating, drinking the last of his beer, but he supposed he must have.

He watched the sparkler burn, gently waving it through the air. For all that fireworks held no joy, the smell of sparklers was something childlike and safe, like the crackling in Kacchan’s palms when he didn’t want to harm. It smelt like home.

He stopped watching him the second Izuku noticed, lit a second sparkler and glared at it without any real anger. Another firework boomed across the valley and the rage that had previously been absent seeped into Kacchan’s expression.

Izuku reached for some more food, moaned loudly as he took a bite. Kacchan’s eyes snapped to him, watching him with that age old yearning as his sparkler died out and he focused on the pleasure of food. It really was delicious, but Izuku was rarely loud with his joys, and Kacchan had to know as much. He didn’t call him on it, just watching the show with enraptured gratitude, swallowing hard as Izuku let his eyes roll back in his head.

He knew how to become a distraction.

He ate with a single minded and filthy determination, pulling out every trick in the book to keep Kacchan staring. For all that they never touched, he still liked the attention.

They knew each other. They knew what they were to each other. There was no need to state what was known. They’d long passed the necessity of words.

He finished his meal and made eye contact as he licked his fingers slowly, deliberately.

Kacchan groaned and flopped to the floor, hand covering his eyes, blush invisible in the dark but Izuku could sense it.

He lay down next to him, stared up at the sky. The stars were visible up here, even as the fireworks tried their hardest to outshine them. Nothing truly outshone Kacchan, even now, even today. Izuku’s eyes went to him without meaning to, staring at the rise and fall of his breaths, the life that hadn’t been taken. Oh but how the world had tried.

His fingers itched in the space between them. It would have been a simple thing to reach out, to intertwine, but he wasn’t brave, not anymore.

Kacchan lowed his arm to his side, turned his head until his cheek rested against grass as damp as his eyes. He stared at him like a lost thing, something broken in his expression, imploring him for something he could not provide, begging to be fixed.

Izuku had never been able to look away from him, that at least hadn’t changed. The world around them seemed to still, the forest holding its breath and waiting for one of them to move. He held his breath too, he couldn’t, but if Kacchan did...

A firework went off far closer than the others, startling both of them to standing, battle ready even unwilling as Izuku was. Some instincts never seemed to die, the training had embedded it far too deep.

Somewhere nearby lights were weaving through the dark, accompanied by adolescent giggling and several more explosions.

They both slipped out of their fighting stances. It was just kids, celebrating somewhere free of adult supervision (or laws about underage drinking). They looked to each other, then sat back down, still and silent in the dark. They weren’t hiding, but to be seen was to be recognised, and that was bad enough on other, easier, days.

The tension was back in both of their shoulders. They watched the kids pass them by, invisible as ghosts in the night, unnoticed. The kids laughed loudly, joking and shoving each other with the simple joy of unburdened hearts. Izuku almost smiled.

“Remember when we were like that?”

Kacchan was glaring into some fixed point in the distance, though Izuku could see nothing worth glaring at. His palms were sweating, he could smell it in the air.

“The fireworks are almost done. We should go.”

He started packing everything back into his bag. Izuku frowned.

“We were like that,” for a brief and beautiful moment, after hopelessness and before despair. He hadn’t been a teenager for long, but at least he had been.

“You were,” Kacchan gritted through his teeth.

He wouldn’t look at him. Izuku wanted him to look at him.

“We had fun,” even when they fought, maybe especially when they fought. It had been play, hadn’t it? They’d all known what he really meant when he yelled.

Maybe Kacchan was the only one who hadn’t known.

“Stupid kids,” he couldn’t tell if he was talking about them or the teenagers currently setting the meadow on fire.

“Inexperience isn’t a bad thing.”

They had been so innocent, for the briefest of moments, before life had found them, before death had followed close behind.

“Shut up nerd.”

I love you. He didn’t say it. He never did.

They slipped back into silence on the long trek back down the hill. He didn’t want to go back, but the night was growing cold. They’d have to face it eventually.

The aftermath of a celebration like the wreckage of a battle, mess strewn around unconscious bodies and lights bright as flames, music shaking the buildings like the clash of war, screams of joy like those of fear, loud and awful and dark and bright and-

Kacchan was still alive.

Chapter Text

Izuku hadn’t asked Kacchan to cook. He’d just shown up on his doorstep with the ingredients in hand, barged in, and stormed straight to the kitchen. That tended to be how these things went. He usually knocked when he showed up without warning. Sometimes Izuku made it to the door before he’d opened it. Not that it mattered. He was there so often. He didn’t need an invitation.

Izuku wasn’t sure he’d ever actually asked him around. He just announced himself as a part of his life, a fixture in his home, and refused to leave when Izuku pushed everyone else away. He had always been stubborn. Thank fuck.

Somehow he’d known this would be one of the good days. One of the times when eating wasn’t a chore. Somehow he always knew.

His Katsudon was delicious, he’d got better at making it over the years, learnt how Izuku liked it best. He never asked. Izuku wouldn’t have known what to say if he had. Kacchan was better at noticing his desires than he was, fleeting as they were.

He curled up on the sofa and listened to him cook. Kacchan kept up a running commentary when he did things like this. Played music sometimes, on the days when Izuku could deal with noise. It was a bit of a sick joke that he often needed quiet and Kacchan lived off sound. They made do in the inbetween.

Today was a good day. Today he relaxed into words and music and the smell of his favourite food. His sofa was soft, his clothing comfortable, and he was enjoying getting to just be. Getting to be in Kacchan’s company.

“So then this reporter bitch has the absolute fucking gall to give me shit about how much makeup I’m wearing. On a fucking talkshow. What, like I’m supposed to have the skin of a fifteen year old forever? I blow shit up for a fucking living. Of course I need foundation. I’m not just gonna go on TV without the stuff. I’ve got a goddamn image to keep up, you know? Everyone fucking knows this shit, I don’t get how the fuck she doesn’t.”

Kacchan was careful about what he shared, but he did share. Izuku knew he avoided talking about his fights, about anything too close to what they had both experienced, knew he was missing a big part of his life. But the public didn’t get to see this. Maybe it was only fair, that everyone got their portion, that no one had it all.

“She acted like she wasn’t giving me shit for wanting to look good but she fucking was, shit’s fucking homophobic, you ask me. I thought we were fucking over that. People with ten arms and hammers for heads but men still aren’t allowed to dress however the fuck they want? What in the outdated bullshit? Course Shitty Hair elbows me with his fucking quirk activated and runs cover before I can blow her head off.”

Izuku made a little sound to show he was listening. Kacchan barely paused for breath.

“I was fucking trying. I was on my best fucking behaviour, have been for fucking years, but half of these chucklefucks are just trying to make me act like my teenage self again. And I fucking can’t, cause it’d be all over the gossip mags and my approval rating would plummet again, and the suits’d give me shit, and I’d set a bad example or whatever, but it just... fuck her.”

Kacchan deflated a little. Izuku gave him a moment, just to be sure he’d said everything he needed to, before leaning forward and grinning.

“You should wear more makeup next time. Passive aggression is a good alternative to actual aggression, don’t you think?”

“Gonna show up in a fucking dress. That’d show her. I look good as fuck in a dress.”

He looked good in everything. Izuku didn’t say that. He just hummed his agreement, studiously avoided thinking about the pictures that had circulated around the internet during Kacchan’s club kid days, and swiftly changed the topic.

“The food smells nice Kacchan.”

“Course it fucking does. I’m amazing. Icy Hot’d be fucking nowhere if it wasn’t for me. Swear that bitch was almost unteachable. Fucking hopeless. Why the fuck he decided that was the big career change, gotta be as mad as his brother.”

Shoto deciding to run a cat cafe had been… a shock, to everyone. It might even have been bigger news that Deku’s own disappearance.

“Anything to piss off his dad. That’s what he said in the interview, anyway.”

The reporters had swarmed the place, at first, now all he heard was reviews. Even a Todoroki dropping out of the hero path could only keep the attention of the public for so long. Life moved on.

“His food’s edible now, I guess, worth the trip or whatever. At least there are cats, makes up for dealing with the fuck. You could talk to him or some shit.”

The food was supposed to be really good. He only knew what he was told. He hadn’t tasted it.

“Never really our thing.”

Kacchan was silent for a moment, looking down at the stove.

“Dropping out of UA didn’t fuck up his life.”

Ah. Right.

“He had an ambition.”

“He had a middle finger and someone to point it at. If you’re not gonna talk to Toshinori, get mad instead. It’d be more fucking use.”

He shifted in his seat, looked away.

“I’m not mad.”

“You fucking should be. Don’t get why you’d ignore the guy otherwise. Looks sad as shit about it.”

Kacchan glared at the pot, watched it bubble and steam, hot enough to rend.

“I ignore everyone.”

He turned down the heat, leaned back against the counter. Watched him instead.

“You could just not.”

Izuku sighed.

“Can we not argue? I don’t want to be sad today.”

Kacchan breathed out through his nose, long and slow.

“Whatever. Wanna play Mario Kart?”

“Sure Kacchan. “

They sat on the sofa together. Kacchan won almost every round. He’d have let him win them all, if he wouldn’t have noticed and got mad about it. He liked the way he grinned when he won. Even liked listening as he shit talked him, but Kacchan had always hated to be handed a victory. He had to at least attempt to compete, so he did.

Not in life. Not in the hero rankings. There no one could compete. Maybe he could have, if he hadn’t left. Shoto definitely could have. But they had left, so Kacchan ruled. He was still mad about it, but he didn’t push, not about that. He understood giving up better now. He got why they had to run.

Sometimes he thought about the years he hadn’t spent at UA. Sometimes he grieved. What could have been, if he hadn’t burnt through his bravery like a rocket uses fuel, if he could bear to spill another drop of blood.

Not that it had been the same, after everything.

In those early days Kacchan had rarely smiled, when he visited after school. Maybe Izuku just made him sad, but he thought it was more than that. He knew it was.

There was no joy in being a hero. Not anymore. Not for them. It was a job. It was hard work. Kacchan was good at it, but there was still a disconnect in the way he smiled.

Izuku wished he had been strong enough to save someone.

In the end he hadn’t even been able to save himself.

They said he’d saved the world. It was hard to see that, when the way he’d done it wasn’t rescue. When all he’d done was killed.

There had been no grateful faces, no words of thanks, just a broken body and silence.

Silence.

Maybe Kacchan was right. Maybe it was better to fill the space with sound.

Kacchan beat him at another round. Izuku shook himself, reminded himself to smile.

This was one of the good days.

He grabbed the peace between his fingers, clung to his moment of happiness, felt it try to slip away.

Kacchan knew. Kacchan always knew.

“Food should be done. I’m fucking starving. You know that fucking reporter also made some snide fucking comment about my weight?”

Izuku laughed, shocked out of his thoughts.

“But you’re in perfect shape.”

That might have been a bit too instinctive.

“I fucking know. That’s what I goddamn said.”

“That’s not, exactly, what you said though was it?”

“You watched the interview huh? Why didn’t you just cut me the fuck off if you already knew all this shit?”

“I like hearing you tell it,” there was a silence. “But that doesn’t mean I’m just going to let you pretend you didn’t insult right back. You’re going to have to do another anti bullying campaign Kacchan.”

It was a dangerous mistake at this point in his career. The number one hero getting pissed off with a reporter and telling her that she ‘shouldn’t be commenting on anyone else’s fitness with her weak fucking TV body and should come back when she can lift more than him’ was, unsurprisingly, a major issue.

Kacchan had never really taken to media training, not that they made it easy for him.

“My rating woulda dropped like fuck if Shitty Hair wasn’t a goddamn genius. Stupid. Shouldn’t have let her get under my skin like that.”

Kirishima had run cover fast. The response of ‘bro I bet you’re not fitter than me’ and the ensuing workout challenge had swept the previous argument under the rug more or less instantly.

“At least you won.”

“Like he could ever beat me. Fucking idiot.”

“I don’t know, the shirtless pull-ups were a masterstroke. Have you seen the fan edits?”

Izuku had seen them. Izuku had seen all of them.

“I hate the internet.”

“Sure you do.”

“Shut up. You don’t have to look.”

Like he was going to look away.

“Once a fanboy always a fanboy. I wish All Might had social media.”

“I don’t wanna fucking see the old man post thirst traps. You need help.”

He wasn’t wrong.

“So you admit you know that what you’re posting? Finally.”

“Never said I didn’t. Just don’t like it when people ask me to steamroll them to death with my dick.”

“Yeah that’s... fair.”

Kacchan’s fanbase was absolutely rabid. Always had been. They seemed to think it was impossible to upset him. They were wrong.

“I’m not a crazy person. Why can’t they just ask me on a date or some shit? It’s always so violent. I just... I don’t fucking like it.”

“You have a reputation.”

It had helped his career, untrue as it was.

“Based on shit all.”

Izuku smiled at the bowl Kacchan placed in front of him, the careful way he’d arranged the food.

“I know.”

“Good. That’s... good.”

He actually looked worried. Izuku couldn’t have that.

“I know you Kacchan.”

“Fucking should.”

“I do.”

Better than anyone. Better than he knew himself, even.

“Eat your food.”

“Okay Kacchan.”

He smiled, slipped a bite into his mouth, closed his eyes. They were quiet while they ate. Kacchan was watching his expression, he could feel it. He didn’t look. If he looked at him he was in danger of remembering, blushing. He couldn’t afford to show that much.

The food was delicious. It deserved his attention.

Maybe that could be good enough.

Chapter Text

It was four in the afternoon and Izuku was still in bed. He wasn’t asleep, though he wished he was, he was just lying there staring at his hands and waiting for it to get dark again. He did that a lot, when Kacchan wasn’t there to pull him out of it.

He’d been starving for hours, but the idea of crawling out of the covers he had wrapped around himself, of sitting up, of standing and walking and looking through his cupboards and heating something up (because he never cooked anymore, he could do it, but he didn’t) was just too much to bear.

To think that he used to work out every day, do homework, write in those dumb journals. To think that he was the hero who had beaten the greatest villain the world had ever known, and here he was, defeated by the idea of getting out of bed, making some instant ramen and, god, having to eat it afterwards if all of that wasn’t enough.

He was pathetic.

Going hungry only made the depression worse, he knew it, but logic didn’t matter when his limbs were made of lead and his mind was raw and screaming flesh.

He hadn’t even had a bad dream, he didn’t think, he’d just woken up and things had been like this. If anything his dreams had been unusually happy. Maybe that was the problem, the return to his miserable reality, having been reminded what it was like to live a life unburdened. Happy stories always made him cry the worst, why should a dream be any different?

He didn’t keep ticking clocks in the house, so the passage of time was marked silently, the numbers on the digital display by his bed moving, freezing, moving, freezing. He’d have got rid of the thing, but that only led to him obsessively checking his phone, panicking about losing time, wasting away. Like he wasn’t doing that anyway.

Someone on the street outside was having an insufferably loud conversation, all shouted cheer and laughter that beat at his ears. As if it wasn’t bad enough being like this, he had to endure other people’s happiness as well? Even here?

He wanted to yell at the guy, scream to shut up, to stop acting like anything in this fucked up world could ever be worth laughing about, but he refused to spread the misery that ate at him, corroded him.

He kept himself hidden away, he contained the creeping disease.

Kacchan didn’t talk as he barged through the door. He didn’t cook, didn’t clean. He did drop an energy bar and a bottle of water on the bed, before flopping down on it beside him. He was still in his hero costume. The mask was biting into his nose, where he lay face down against the mattress. He threw it off with a growl, then buried himself further.

Izuku heard this, but didn’t see it. He didn’t even pull himself out from under the covers, didn’t reach for the food.

His arm was stuck to the bed, his body was rock and ash and if he moved he would dissolve to nothing, like the cities Tomura Shigaraki had touched, like the people he had wished away.

Kacchan’s breathing was uneven and heavy, like the huffing of a horse. He tossed in the bed, kicked off his boots and pulled his legs up to his chest. He turned to stare at the wall, slowly quieting.

The clock kept moving, freezing, moving, freezing. The man outside had gone away. There was silence in the room, filling the gap between them where the offer of food and water still waited, where it still went ignored.

He wondered if this was why Mr Aizawa had lived on jelly pouches, why he’d carried that sleeping bag with him, why he’d looked so tired. He could ask him, he thought, he’d probably give the answer.

He hadn’t asked him a thing in years. He just ignored the monthly check-ins, ignored the guilt, ignored with everyone else.

Mr Aizawa had been strong enough to get out of bed, smart enough to find a way to keep moving, keep fighting. Mr Aizawa was so much stronger than he had ever been.

Ridiculous that he was the one with his face on the posters, his name in the songs. Deku was a hero as worthless as the name implied, he just didn’t get why everyone else was too blind to see it.

He was fairly sure Kacchan was crying. He was quiet, but not quite silent, and Izuku knew the sound.

If he was a better friend he would have turned, would have said something. He didn’t.

He summoned all the energy he had, he shuffled slightly closer. Still not touching, food still uneaten, but close enough to reach for, to be some semblance of comfort.

Kacchan didn’t reach for him. He poked the energy bar through a gap in Izuku’s cover cocoon, still sniffling in the not yet dark, still staring at the wall.

Izuku ate, uncaring as crumbs found their way into his bed. He was so hungry. The food was like ash on his tongue, tasteless and choking. He ate it anyway.

Kacchan gave him the water bottle. He was grateful, he wouldn’t have been able to move enough to reach it, his life was too heavy, his shame too great.

He wasn’t crying, in a way he thought he envied Kacchan that. The screaming numbness stole the tears from him. Maybe without it he would have been able to heal.

A van hissed and groaned on the street outside. Some noisy process that dragged and stretched, beeping and shouting and too much fucking noise.

Izuku screwed his eyes shut.

His flesh was itching with the sound, he wanted to scratch at it but that would mean moving, mean reminding himself of the man he had killed and the way he had been so young, so damaged, the way he had been just like him.

Kacchan wasn’t crying anymore. He wasn’t staring at the wall. He had turned on his back, he had taken off a few more accessories from his suit. His eyes were on Izuku, or the pile of fabric that surrounded him. He turned again, still lying on top of the covers, still several inches between them, still not reaching out, but somehow curling in.

He didn’t reach for him. Izuku didn’t know how he would have reacted if he did.

He managed the impossible, he pulled the covers down until they were no longer covering his head. He continued to stare at his hands, scarred fists that had crushed Tomura Shigaraki to blood and bone and that sickening mess of death, so easy in those final moments when the endless fight had ended, in the whimper that had saved the world.

He hated his hands, hated them so much. He wished they would turn to dust.

Kacchan was watching him, and he was watching his hands, fists clenching and unclenching now he had remembered how to move.

He’d spilt some of the water on the pillow beneath his cheek, it was uncomfortable where it stuck to him, he couldn’t bring himself to care.

Hours had ticked (not ticked. Moved, frozen, moved, frozen) away. The summer sun refused to fade, shining bright and mocking where Izuku just wanted the dark to be.

Kacchan sat up, joints cracking and breaking the silence that had settled between them like a fog. He sucked in a breath, the usual pain of hero work no doubt catching up to him after so much time spent still.

“Right,” he shoved himself to his feet, voice all business like he hadn’t just cried in Izuku’s bed for the last however many hours. “I’m making dinner. Any requests? Gonna have to go shopping first, whatever I make, so you might as well choose something.”

Izuku closed his eyes, shook his head. Kacchan just stayed standing there.

“Whatever,” it was the first word he had spoken all day. He didn’t think he had cleaned his teeth this morning. He hadn’t noticed that before. “I’m not hungry,” he was so hungry, again, apparently enough time had passed that his stomach was right back to eating itself. He still couldn’t bear the thought of food.

“Doesn’t matter. You’re eating it. I’ll just fucking choose something I guess. Don’t blame me when there are fucking vegetables on your plate.”

Kacchan never made his favourite foods when he got like this. He knew that eating the things he liked the most when he was incapable of enjoying them only made him feel worse. He prioritised nutrition and ease of consumption. It was exactly what he needed.

He was a good friend. He was so much better than him.

Izuku couldn’t even comfort him while he cried. Izuku couldn’t even ask him what was wrong. Izuku was going to let him cook for him and care for him and he was going to give him nothing in return.

Some hero. Some fucking hero.

He got out of bed, he cleaned his teeth, he avoided looking at the ghost in the mirror. He closed his curtains before the dark could return.

He sat in a chair so Kacchan wouldn’t have to drag him out of bed when he got back. He watched him cook his food. He ate, and he didn’t say a thing.

Chapter Text

He wanted to ask what had happened. It was eating at him. The moment had been right there, the opportunity to give something in return for all that Kacchan had given him, and he had wasted it. He was selfish, so fucking selfish.

He wanted to ask, but the words still stuck in his throat. Maybe it was for the best, Kacchan seemed determined to ignore it.

He’d shown up bright and early (by which Izuku meant before noon) dressed in expensive and admittedly flattering jogging clothes. The brand was probably trying to bribe him into another ad campaign. It never worked. Much to Izuku and the world’s frustration, Kacchan had standards.

Izuku gave in a little easier than usual, and maybe Kacchan noticed, but he didn’t say anything.

It was a beautiful day, but Kacchan had still managed to find a relatively quiet park. The paparazzi didn’t harass them often, anymore, but the times they did had taught them both to be careful.

“Keep up nerd, you’re never gonna beat me like that.”

Izuku was panting where he ran behind him. They didn’t spar anymore, he couldn’t stand to fight, so all their competition had ended up in places like this.

He didn’t have the heart to let him down, more than he already had. He hadn’t lost all of his fitness, Kacchan hadn’t allowed him to, so this at least he could do. He pushed himself on faster, he shot him a grin, and he overtook.

“The big bad pro hero can’t even beat a high school drop out? Not gonna lie, that’s a little bit sad.”

Kacchan growled and sped up.

“I’d fucking destroy you at anything other than running and you fucking know it.”

Izuku shrugged, drove his muscles to work harder, flew across the ground. He still missed flying, but this was close enough, this was simple. Just the body working as it was designed to. His hands shook, but his legs were still young.

“What’s the word for someone who fails to a failure? Pretty sure that would make you just as much of a loser as me.”

Kacchan had been just about to overtake him when he skidded to a halt. Shit. He knew he’d taken it too far, but there was no going back now.

He slowed to a stop, turned to look at Kacchan, apprehension rising in him. His head was down, hands clenched. Izuku backed further away from him, heart beating in his throat.

“Kacchan, I-“

“Shut the fuck up Izuku,” full first names huh? He was a dead man. “If another word comes out of your dumb fucking mouth I’m gonna start blowing shit up, and I know how you get when you hear loud noises these days, so I really don’t wanna do that,” Kacchan took a deep breath, clenched his fists even tighter.

Izuku swallowed, nodded. Sat down on the ground.

“If you’re gonna kill me you may as well get it over with,” he’d meant it as a joke. He’d meant to lighten the mood. It, visibly and dramatically, had the opposite effect.

In a way he wished it was like the old days. Back then Kacchan would have just punched him. Now his hands let off a deafening pop before he reigned it back in, bit his lip, and started to shiver. He dropped to his knees in front of Izuku. Stared at him with pleading, terrified, eyes.

“Don’t say that, please don’t say that. Promise me, promise that if I get violent you’ll fight,” he reached out a hand towards Izuku’s cheek, pulled it back before it made contact, shook his head, frowned. “Don’t let me hurt you, you fucking asshole.”

“You wouldn’t, not really, not in a way that mattered.”

Kacchan looked like he had so much he wanted to say in response to that. He didn’t say any of it.

“Do you really see yourself that way?” His voice was quiet, small. “How can you just call yourself that shit? I know I said some crap when I was an idiot kid but I was wrong then and you’re wrong now. You saved the fucking world.”

Izuku lay down on the ground, stared up at the sky. He could still feel Kacchan’s eyes on him. He watched the clouds skitter across the blue, birds fluttering in the breeze.

“Why were you crying the other day?” It was the wrong time to ask, the wrong thing to say but he just… couldn’t keep talking about this, couldn’t give an answer that wouldn’t escalate things further. It was weak, cowardly, maybe even cruel. It was the only thing he could think to say.

“Asshole,” he grumbled, in lieu of an actual response.

The birds were struggling against the wind. It couldn’t reach them down here. The city shielded them, contained them. Izuku used to be able to leap above it. He used to be able to do so many things.

Kacchan leaned back on his forearms, watched a tree sway and rustle. His eyes looked haunted. Izuku’s looked the same.

“Sorry,” the word dissipated on the breeze. Always too little.

He had too much to be sorry for. Words wouldn’t cut it anymore. Words were all he had.

“Whatever,” he kept looking into the distance. Izuku kept watching him. “I get it, you know, why you left. Maybe you had it right. This job fucking sucks sometimes.”

He loved to use casual words to hide things too terrible to bear. Izuku knew him well enough to tell when that was what he was doing, he could see it in the clenching of his jaw, the horror in his eyes.

“Then quit,” simple and terrible, hanging over them like the branch of a tree, waiting to snap.

Kacchan swallowed, squeezed his eyes shut for a split second, forced a grin.

“Nah.”

They were silent. Izuku looked back to the sky. It was blue, so blue.

“Do you think All Might regrets becoming a hero?” He heard himself saying.

“Could just ask him,” Kacchan sounded a little angry, a little frustrated. He understood why.

“Not now.”

“Then when?”

He didn’t know. He didn’t answer. The wind blew harder. He could smell food cooking somewhere close by, something greasy, something sweet. His stomach turned.

He hoped All Might was okay. He hoped he had found a way to live, to cope in his absence. He hoped he didn’t resent him too much.

He got to his feet, started running again. Kacchan followed after. He didn’t look back. His limbs burnt, his chest ached, he pushed himself harder, he ran faster.

Kacchan overtook. He was so beautiful when he ran.

Chapter Text

He’d promised himself he wouldn’t end up back here. Not so soon, not when Kacchan was hurting, not when there was nothing he could do. He hoped he could have done that, at least.

He was on the floor. He’d thought he could get something done today. He hadn’t even made it to the kitchen before his feet turned to lead, before that ache spread across his shoulders and caught in his throat, before there was nothing to do but collapse to the ground and wait and wait and wait.

His thoughts were dark and bloody, his heart a parasite begging to be cut from his chest, and there was nothing to be done. No good. No good. Had anything ever been good at all? Had he?

He wanted to scream, but he didn’t have the energy.

He heard the door opening. He buried his face in the crook of his arm, shame settling on him like a blanket. There was no hiding this. He knew there was no hiding this.

“Whatcha doing there?”

Kacchan crouched down in front of him, peered at the sliver of face not hidden by grease damp hair.

“Don’t deserve the bed,” the words were choked with his reluctance to say them, but he didn’t have the energy to fight. It was easier to just give in. Easier to admit how bad things were. Like he hadn't already known.

Kacchan sighed, lowered himself to the ground, looked long and hard into the eyes that watched him.

He reached out, put a hand on Izuku’s shoulder, and pulled himself closer, let his arm slip around his back, fingers spread warm in the hollow between his shoulder blades.

“Kacchan... You shouldn’t be down here,” his shoulders were fucked from a lifetime of explosive recoil. The floor was solid wood.

Izuku didn’t want him to leave.

“If you don’t deserve it then neither do I,” the words were a quiet grumble. Kacchan lowered his head to rest against Izuku’s chest.

Izuku closed his eyes. Another argument he knew he wouldn’t win, and didn’t have the will to try. He didn’t try.

The ground was uncomfortable but Kacchan’s touch was warm, gentle in ways his teenage self would never have believed.

Izuku used the little energy he could find, an effort so great he wanted to pant from it, to raise his hand until he was clutching his arm. His grip was probably too tight, but he couldn’t seem to do anything but cling to him. Just like he’d been doing all these years, he supposed, but never quite so literally.

They’d never allowed themselves to touch. It wasn’t something they’d talked about, verbally agreed to, but it had gone unbroken for a decade.

He was breathing against Izuku’s chest, he could feel it on his skin, watch as it moved his hair a little with every exhale.

He didn’t know why Kacchan would want to touch him right now, he was disgusting, he disgusted himself, he didn’t even know the last time he had showered.

Kacchan burrowed himself a little bit closer.

Izuku could feel his pulse beneath his fingers, a little too fast. His own heart was in his throat, beating, beating, beating.

They only used to touch when they were beating each other half to death. Punches and kicks and grins and taunts and blood that neither one of them had minded back then. Even then, Kacchan’s touch had felt like coming home.

He hadn’t been home in so long.

He wondered if his skin was soft. He could find out, reach out with his free hand and run his broken fingers over scarred flesh. He could pull him even closer. He could hold him here and keep him like a secret, he could want something, he could find a way to get it. He wouldn’t. He wouldn’t.

They were lying on a hardwood floor, age old injuries aching and screaming for attention, and all Izuku wanted was to be swallowed by it. He was shaking slightly, either from the cold (he was only wearing his boxers and the shirt he tended to sleep in), or from the depression that was slowly killing him.

Kacchan was holding him, and he couldn’t even bring himself to be happy about it.

“You can’t keep doing this,” Kacchan stroked the hair out of his face (too long, when had it grown so long?) and kept his hand there, resting on his cheek.

Izuku sighed, leaned into the touch.

“I know.”

Kacchan pulled him fully into his arms, moving them until they were sitting up, well, more like he was kneeling on the floor and Izuku was lying on him, burying his face in Kacchan’s shoulder and allowing himself to be enveloped in his arms. He was all around him, cocooning him in his embrace and his smell and his heat. Izuku’s hands were fisted in the back of his shirt, keeping him close, so close.

He wanted to cry. He didn’t cry.

He didn’t know how long they sat like that. Not long enough. It would never be long enough. Eventually Kacchan pulled back a little, dragged him to his feet.

“Come on nerd. Get in the shower.”

“Ugh.”

“Doesn’t matter, it’s happening. And then you’re calling one of your shitty fucking friends.”

“I’ll... text someone.”

“Like fuck you will. They’d send one text back and then you’d never fucking respond. I know you Zuku, you’re not pulling that shit with me. You’re calling, and you’re arranging to see them, and then you’re fucking showing up if I gotta drag you there myself.”

“Fine.”

“Get going ass-wipe, you smell like shit.”

“You didn’t have to be here.”

“Course I fucking did.”

“I...”

“You’re not getting rid of me, Zuku. You’re just not, so save it.”

He didn’t believe him, not really. He had always been sure that, one day, Kacchan would finally see sense. He’d finally get bored. He’d leave like everyone else. That day hadn’t come yet. He was glad of that. He was glad of the extra time.

He showered, though it felt like wading through quicksand. He called Uraraka, though the words were glass in his throat, though the relief in her voice was yet another sin to bear, more weight to add to the rest. He arranged a date to meet, though he dreaded it with every fibre of his being.

He didn’t want to do any of it, but he did, because Kacchan was right.

He couldn’t keep living like this.

Something had to change.

Something already had.

Chapter Text

It was good to see Uraraka, but it was never easy, witnessing the ways she’d aged. She’d always been determined and fierce, but it had been hopeful, sweet. Now there was something of necessity, of rage, a shadow in her eyes. Kacchan still called her Pink Cheeks, but she hadn’t blushed in years.

The war had taken its toll on all of them, in one way or another. They all bore their scars. He just wished she hadn’t had to change.

She didn’t visit much, she was always working and he was always hiding, but she still fit simply into his apartment. She was still an old friend. Still knew the cupboard to open, felt comfortable making herself tea without being offered, collapsed into the same seat she always picked with a soul deep sigh and closed her eyes. He was glad of the sight.

He always forgot how easy things could be, blew the stress out of proportion in his own memory.

He sat down across from her and waited for her to look at him.

She hadn’t flirted with him in a long time. He missed it, sometimes, through the lens of a soul deep nostalgia. They’d never had their first, innocent, relationship. It would have been nice, he thought, even if it never would have lasted.

Who knows, maybe it would have broken both of their hearts deeper, maybe it was better like this. They could sit together, they could keep each other company. There was no need for resentment in the sharing of pain.

Still, he would have liked a hopeful holding of hands, a fluttering heart and nerves, free of true anxiety. He would have liked to be young and exploring, rather than broken and desperate, when he experienced all of his firsts. Not that he’d actually had a lot of them, there was no room in his heart for hope, and hope was necessary for so terribly much.

“You work too much,” Izuku spoke, tentatively. She was reactive these days, there was the chance that she would not take this well. He didn’t want to make her angry, he just... worried.

“We all knew what the life was going to be,” her lips were pressed tight together, a thin line, all tension and control. “My quirk is important. I can’t afford to rest.”

He remembered thinking like that. He knew what it had done to him. He didn’t know what was worse, responsibility or ambition, they were both capable of breaking a person. Even she could only handle so much weight.

“Everyone needs time off. You have money now. You don’t need to keep doing this.”

He remembered her face in the wake of the war. Remembered all his classmates, in those final days before he’d decided to leave. Maybe he’d rested too long, but so many of them had never rested at all.

“We both know it’s not about the money anymore. Do you talk like this to Bakugo? He works at least as much as me, and spends all his time off looking after people, for free. If you think I’m weaker than him you will not like my reaction.”

Kacchan scared him most of all.

“I keep telling him I don’t need as much... he can leave if he wants to.”

“It’s not like it’s only you. He looks after the lot of us,” she fixed him with an unyielding glare. “He also knows when you’re lying.”

“He should live his life,” and it tasted like bile in mouth, felt like punching a hole through his own chest.

He didn’t know what he’d do, if Kacchan ever left. He thought he should leave, even though he knew he wouldn’t survive the loss.

He supposed that was love.

“You are his life.”

“I wish I wasn’t,” Izuku swallowed hard. “He’s so... and I...” He flailed desperately for a way to express without expressing. He failed.

Uraraka narrowed her eyes, put her cup aside, took a slow breath and leaned forward.

Her arms were all muscle, like corded steel beneath her sleeves, he could see it now her body was tensing. She’d been fighting for so long.

She was readying for another.

“My job is exhausting, and I don’t get much thanks. So much of the time I’m just moving rubble, holding up bridges, while someone else is swooping in and actually saving the civilians. It’s not glamorous. People are so hurt, they have no room for gratitude, and it sucks seeing all that terror and pain day in and out. I hate it, but that doesn’t mean I don’t want to keep doing it. Those people still deserve saving. When I can’t sleep at night, when I am seeing the mess that can be made of a person, I remember that it’s still right. That’s what matters. I don’t want to stop, you see what I mean?”

He did. He wished he didn’t.

“I’m not a victim.”

Uraraka looked at him long and sad. He looked away. She put a hand on his shoulder and for a moment the weight was slightly lighter. Light enough to take it when she said:

“You’re wrong.”

Yeah, fuck.

He blinked up at the ceiling a few times, fingers clenching and unclenching, aching like they always did.

She hugged him, and it wasn’t like it used to be. She was larger than the space she took up somehow. Powerful. Confident. Her arms were so safe, so warm.

Maybe, if things had been different, he could have fallen for her. If he’d had time for a crush, if he hadn’t been broken, if he hadn’t been taken already.

Sometimes it felt like his heart had never been his own. It was almost restrictive, it was so simple.

Even so, he did love her. She was good, brave, steadfast. She had grown into something wonderful, and still it made him sad.

He could have been like that.

Should have been, maybe.

She was like Kacchan in a way. They both... bore it. They were both good at being angry.

“Don’t leave it so long next time. I do have some space, for you.”

He hated knowing that he would let her down. He hated knowing that she knew it too.

“I will. I always do,” barely a whisper, but at least it hadn’t been a lie.

Sometimes the absence of a lie was the best he could strive for. Sometimes it was so hard, and still it felt like nothing at all. What a measly thing, to give to people who did so much. Better than nothing, right? Surely it was better than nothing. Please let it be better than nothing.

“Yeah, I know. It doesn’t hurt to live in hope.”

He almost laughed. It probably looked more like a wince.

“Sorry,” he didn’t sink to his knees, he didn’t repeat it again and again until his throat hurt and his lungs bled. Another great effort, another nothing.

She sighed, squeezed his fist where it was clenched so tight.

“I wish...” a shake of her head. “No, none of that.” She hugged him again. “I want to help.”

“People keep saying that.”

“You’re allowed to... ugh. I’ll be here, okay?”

He nodded. She looked like she still wanted to say something. In the end she just left, looking frustrated. Everyone seemed to look like that after talking to him.

He sat down, put his head in his hands. He didn’t move until Kacchan showed up. He didn’t know how long had passed like that, just staring at his own skin and at nothing. It didn’t really matter. Time didn’t really matter, not to him, not anymore. It was a resource that kept on coming no matter how little you wanted it to, that built up if you didn’t find a way to dispose of it. He thought he might drown in it.

Kacchan had started cooking without a word, and Izuku wondered where he had been today, what he had done, just how tired he was, whether he would say if he needed to rest. He didn’t ask. He never asked.

One day he would ask.

He just wasn’t sure what he would do, if the answer was what he feared.

He wasn’t sure he could do anything at all.

Chapter Text

There was blood on Kacchan’s shirt.

Izuku had been dragged out of a dream by the sound of keys fumbling in the lock of his front door. Kacchan never fumbled. He was silent and efficient or loud and belligerent, but never lacking in precision.

His mind swept through scenarios with that oh so familiar rush of mumbling, on his feet in an instant, heart racing in his throat; he was being robbed, attacked by one of his age old enemies or Kacchan’s more recent ones, an old friend had decided to worry about him (and worry him, in the process, because god was he not in a state to see anyone, there were holes in his pyjamas and dishes piled high on every surface and he was one wrong word away from breaking again and he could not stand to be seen) or Kacchan-

Kacchan stumbled through the door. He wondered, at first, if he was drunk, then his eyes took in the hand pressed to his side, the bruises on his face and the split in his lip, the dirt that was caked into his hair.

He rushed to help him, but Kacchan waved him off, pride as always keeping him walking on his own two feet, no matter how freely available the help. Izuku hurried after him, turned on the light in the bathroom with a wince, and rummaged through the cabinet for whatever medical supplies he still had in stock.

Kacchan gingerly sat down on the edge of the bath, looking ever so slightly woozy, and now that Izuku had started looking he couldn’t see anything else.

There was so much blood on his shirt.

Izuku’s hands were trembling, more than they usually did from the years of repeated damage, and he couldn’t seem to make them stop.

Blood on Kacchan’s shirt, spikes that were meant for him, not his friend. Stupid self sacrificing guilt ridden bastard of a hero. Dead, he should have been dead. They were all covered in blood, all battered and broken and a second away from death and Kacchan’s shirt was covered in so much blood, blood that poured like a river, another stupid river that Izuku couldn’t pull him out of because he was still too damn stubborn to take his hand, because he always had to be the best even if it meant- even if it meant pain and loneliness and dea-

Kacchan’s hand was on his head, fingers threading through his hair and running paths between the strands, pulling too lightly to hurt but hard enough to ground him.

When had he ended up on the floor? The tiles were cold against his knees, Kacchan’s legs warm where they bracketed his arms.

He was making little shushing sounds, soothing him like a frightened animal and damn it but it worked.

“I was supposed to be looking after you,” he chuckled through the chatter of his teeth. How long had he been shaking violently enough for that?

“It’ll wait,” Kacchan said with a grin, that turned into a grimace which had Izuku right back on his feet. “Don’t need to worry about me Zuku, I’m the fucking bomb, no piece of shit villain’s gonna get the best of me, definitely not some street punk with a fucking knife quirk for the-“

“Shut up. Strip,” he glared him down, one eyebrow raised in a way that could have grown menacing with age but was probably just the same as it had always been, a little like a chipmunk hissing at you; best kept at a distance but still adorable.

“At least buy me dinner first, I’m not some cheap-“ he was leering, bleary eyed from blood loss as he was, Izuku rolled his eyes and cut him off.

“If you want me to let you bleed out I will fucking do it.”

Kacchan groaned and struggled with his shirt.

“It’s proper date etiquette to help me out of my clothes.”

“What happened to not being cheap?”

“We both know that shit was a lie.”

“I cannot believe I am watching the number one hero get defeated by a shirt.”

For all their joking, and it was reassuring that he was coherent enough to joke, it was alarming to see just how badly he was struggling to undress.

He reached out and slid it off for him, trying with all his might to ignore the heat of his skin, the intimacy, the goosebumps that were left in the wake of his touch.

Kacchan was probably just shivering from the cold. This was not the time to consider anything else.

Blood, blood on his torso. Old white scars from spikes that struck him deep, stabbing, ripping, tearing, bleeding.

His hands were still shaking, shaking against his skin, as he wiped away the blood. Kacchan’s hand came down to rest on his own, guiding it and holding it steady, as he tended to the wounds.

So far as hero work went, the damage wasn’t actually that bad. More blood than anything else. He’d seen worse, he’d had worse, they both had.

Kacchan was steadying as time passed, the wooziness probably just from shock and exhaustion. He was okay. He was okay he was okay he was okay.

Izuku wanted to sink back to the floor, to lean his cheek against his thigh and close his eyes, feel his heartbeat steady and alive, let it reassure him as he drifted back to sleep. Instead he finished cleaning and binding the injuries. Multiple stab wounds, the usual scrapes and punches and bruises, all hidden away behind fresh gauze and the smell of antiseptic.

He let Kacchan clean up his own face. There was a limit to what he could bear. That said, when had he ever been good at self preservation?

“Let me wash your hair.”

Kacchan stared at him.

“You can’t go to bed like that, and you can’t have a shower until tomorrow unless you want to redo all the work we just did, so logically speaking it’s best to wash your hair in the sink, but you can’t  even lift your arms over your head enough to take off a shirt so it just makes sense for me to-“

“Sure, whatever,” his voice was gruff, his eyes downcast, but Izuku didn’t particularly want to make eye contact right now either.

His heart was in his throat again, just the thought of what he was about to do ached in him. He should have kept his mouth shut, but the logic was as inescapable as death, even if it was a lie.

Kacchan was bleeding, unseen now but that didn’t change anything, and all Izuku wanted to do was touch him.

He fetched a chair from the kitchen and placed it in front of the sink, pressed on Kacchan’s bare shoulders, guided him to rest against the porcelain. He went where he was led without complaint, closing his eyes the second Izuku put his hands on him.

He looked so calm, so relaxed, it cut Izuku’s heart as sure as any knife. There was no aggression on his face, the anger swept away with the water.

When had things got so comfortable between them? When had Kacchan begun to trust? It was unbearable to think about, so he tried to focus on the simple, horrifyingly intimate, motions of washing someone’s hair.

For all that his hair was spiky it had always been surprisingly soft, less prone to tangles than Izuku’s own, holding the shape through some unspecified element of his quirk rather than the use of product. He’d touched it before, but not like this, never like this.

Izuku was barely breathing.

Maybe it was the fear for Kacchan’s life that had him reaching for things he knew better than to try to take. He didn’t want things, hadn’t wanted much of anything in a decade. It had always ached to be around Kacchan, that wasn’t wanting, that was just life. There was no action in it, no reaching. This was reaching. 

He rinsed off his hair and dried it carefully with a towel. He didn’t have a hairdryer. It would have to do.

There was a silence as Kacchan blinked back into the room, looking a little like he’d just had a massage, the tension slipping from his shoulders. He was almost smiling.

Izuku’s own tension was getting worse and worse.

“I should get going before-”

Izuku’s hand was out and grabbing him before he could stand. He stared at his own hand, the fingers pressing into Kacchan’s arm. He forced himself to let go. Kacchan didn’t move.

“Stay here tonight,” a rush of words. He swallowed, looked down at the trembling of his fingers, the blood beneath his nails.

“I need a proper bed. Not gonna kick you out of yours.”

It wasn’t a refusal.

“Then don’t,” he stared into Kacchan’s eyes. He didn’t even blink.

“You’re not allowed to get pissed if I get blood on your sheets.”

Better than bleeding somewhere else, somewhere it couldn’t be seen. He couldn’t stand the idea of Kacchan and blood and distance. He just couldn’t.

“I’ll buy new ones.”

“I’m fucking paying if I wreck your shit.”

He wasn’t saying no.

“I’m tired.”

He didn’t want to argue anymore. Not when they both knew the answer.

“Yeah, fine, whatever.”

They shared a bed. For all these years, they’d never slept in the same bed. Not that Izuku actually slept. He lay there in the dark. He watched as Kacchan breathed.

He barely blinked. He couldn’t miss it if he stopped. He wouldn’t let Kacchan slip away.

Not like that. Never like that.

The morning came, and Kacchan opened his eyes.

Chapter Text

He knew Kacchan wouldn’t tell him, and he just couldn’t bear that anymore.

There was blood under his fingernails. Kacchan’s blood. He’d been bleeding and he didn’t know why.

The whole apartment smelt of cleaning products.

His skin was raw from scrubbing.

He’d taken the bins out, couldn’t handle the sight of bandages and browning cotton wool, couldn’t handle the smell that surely couldn’t actually be reaching him over disinfectant and bleach. He could still smell it, still saw the phantom gore every time he went to the bathroom.

Kacchan would never tell him. He was protecting him, from his own suffering.

He couldn’t scrub that out.

Couldn’t help him with something he didn’t even know was happening.

He tried not to do it. He cleaned the whole place from top to bottom, again. He put the mop away. He turned his computer on.

He searched Kacchan’s name.

He was always so careful, when he virtually stalked him, to avoid the actual news.

He had to know, had to help, had to be strong enough for that.

He wasn’t.

Fuck. He wasn’t.

He couldn’t stop reading, article after article, watching the footage of the fights, the descriptions of the trafficking ring. Kacchan carrying back the body of the kid who had died before they could ever know how it felt to be free.

How recklessly he had thrown himself at the people responsible, standing between the villains and the rest of the kids, having finally tracked them down.

He couldn’t blame him. It was awful just to read about, and Kacchan had seen it, seen all of it.

Weeks of this. This had been happening for weeks.

And he’d been cooking Izuku’s meals for him when he got off work.

And Izuku couldn’t even bear to read about it.

His pulse was pounding in his ears, his hands shaking on the mouse as he read on.

The pictures...

The blood beneath his nails.

Buildings crumbling (not him not him), bodies of civilians that hadn’t been able to escape the blast radius, he didn’t even know if he was reading the articles anymore. He didn’t know if he was seeing.

Would this have happened if he hadn’t retired? If he had been there would that child still be alive?

Maybe.

But it wasn’t like he’d been able to do anything for all the people who had died in the war.

Hundreds of deaths. Thousands. All because a couple of dumb kids wanted to play hero and villain.

Shigaraki didn’t have to live with the consequences. He did.

So many casualties. So many children.

He wasn’t the only one making the comparison, because there was a link, distant but easy to blow out of proportion. The gap that had been left in the legal system by the chaos of the war. The space that these villains had taken.

Somehow, some reporter, had found a way to blame him.

And it wasn’t like he didn’t agree. So he read what they had to say, and when he finished that article he clicked on another, and then he searched his own name, and then he just kept reading.

A logical part of his brain was furious. It was ridiculous to put the failures of the system at the feet of a hero who had retired at sixteen. Any one person, really, but wasn’t that what he was doing to All Might?

Blaming him for not being able to stop any of this. Hating him for not being able to save everyone. Not willing to face him, because he hadn’t been able to do it himself.

He felt like screaming.

He just kept reading.

He really really wished he hadn’t given Kacchan a key.

He was wallowing so deep, scrolling through post after post and hating himself so much, and Kacchan walked in.

He took one look at him, scoffed, and disconnected his computer from the mains.

“Hey, I was reading that.”

“Fucking trolls don’t deserve your time.”

He didn’t argue. He knew the reaction he would get, if he told him he thought they were right. He just sighed, leaned back in his chair, spun it to face Kacchan.

“What’re you doing here?” He sounded tired, resigned. It was the best he was going to manage today. He couldn’t bring himself to care.

“Visiting my best friend. Fuck, I wanted to watch TV and eat junk food, fucking sue me.”

He tried to scrub the misery off his face. He didn’t succeed.

“I’m tired. Might just sleep.”

He wouldn’t bring up anything he had learnt. If Kacchan wanted to pretend none of this had ever happened it wasn’t his place to deny him his coping mechanisms. If it had been something else. If it had been something easier. It wasn’t.

“It’s only five. Don’t throw off your goddamn sleep pattern, nerd, that shit’s a bitch to fix. We’re hanging out. Stop arguing.”

“You used to hate it when people made you socialise,” he almost smiled.

“I grew up.”

“Don’t you have other friends?”

Kacchan should be spending time with someone who could help. Someone he could lean on. He wasn’t that person. He was just more weight.

“Course I do.”

“Why can’t you bother them for a change?”

His inability to help was making him mean.

“Why are you being like this today Deku?”

Kacchan’s arms were crossed tight across his chest. Izuku was making it worse.

He made an effort. Gave him an apologetic glance. Tried not to remember the picture of him holding a malnourished corpse, tried not to remember how small Kacchan had looked, how powerless.

“I told you. I’m tired.”

He looked worried. He had a right to be worried. He felt worrying.

“What did you want to watch?” He spoke before Kacchan could.

Kacchan frowned, clearly debating saying something.

Izuku knew that there was no avoiding the consequences this mood would bring. All he could do was delay them. If he was lucky, when Kacchan tried to save him, he would feel a little less tired. Maybe then he would be able to play along.

Maybe he could pretend to want to be saved.

Maybe he could try to save him in return.

Chapter Text

They hadn’t talked more. They’d just watched TV in silence and Izuku had taken in nothing and Kacchan had watched him like a bomb. He supposed he shouldn’t have been surprised when that night wasn’t the end of it.

Kacchan had clearly taken the time to think it through, come up with a strategy, ready himself to strike.

He stormed into his apartment far too early, with too much wind beneath his sails. Shoulders squared and expression hard. Like he was gearing up for a fight. Like Izuku was the enemy.

He yanked off his covers, glared down at him. Izuku blinked in confusion, brain fogged from sleep.

“Have a shower and get dressed. Aizawa’s coming over.”

That woke him up fast.

Kacchan looked determined, decided. Izuku felt a stubborn part of himself rise up and rebel.

He sat up, wrapped his arms around himself. He was cold.

He didn’t want to see him, he didn’t want to see him.

“What? No. Why? Kacchannnnn,” Izuku whined.

Dread was sickly in his stomach. Anger followed close behind.

He got to his feet, braced himself.

Kacchan pinched the skin between his eyebrows, sighed heavily, crossed his arms.

“I called him. This is for your own good you damn nerd. I get why you haven’t been seeing Toshinori, but Aizawa is different and you freaking know it. You’re not dumb enough for this shit, I won’t just sit back and watch you fucking self destruct.”

Izuku clenched his fists and glared, rage simmering to the surface, gaze sharpening, ready to cut. He didn’t know what to do with this emotion. He hadn’t felt it in years. He didn’t know how to remind himself to be kind.

“Then what have you been doing for the last decade Kacchan?”

He knew, when it came out of his mouth, that the words would hurt him badly. He didn’t mean to, not really. He just felt cornered. He just wasn’t good enough to stop it.

Kacchan’s jaw tensed. There was pain in his eyes. Pain that Izuku had put there.

“A heck of a lot more than you. That’s what. Put your fucking clothes on.”

Kacchan was almost in battle stance. Izuku couldn’t fault him for that, not when his words were all pointed edges, not when he was using them to rend.

He could see old lessons running through his mind, reminders to focus on the mission, on staying alive. Tend to the wounds later. There’s no time to be hurt while the fight is still happening. Win first. Survive.

Fuck. He wished he would just hurt him back.

“And what if I don’t?”

There was a ringing in his ears, something cold and numbing seeping through his limbs, into his heart.

“Hey, if you want to see the old man in your underwear that’s your own weird choice, but you’re fucking seeing him.”

Kacchan was going to win this. Kacchan always won.

Izuku slumped, the fight draining from him, shame showing up to replace it.

“I’m sorry Kacchan. Sorry I’m like this. You do so much for me and I-“

“Don’t start with that crap. Hurry up and wash. There’s no fucking time.”

He sighed, put his hands over his face. His skin was crawling, back itching in that way it did when things became too much to handle.

“Do I really have to see him?” His voice was small. Scared.

Kacchan’s arms fell to his sides. The fight was won and he just seemed… lost. Izuku knew that feeling, knew it all too well.

“I can’t-“ Kacchan shuddered in a breath. “You’re getting worse, and I’m not a fucking therapist, I’m not even getting passing grades at all this emotional crap. I’ve spent so long keeping your head above water, and I don’t think I can keep swimming for the both of us, but I’m not just gonna let you fucking drown, and Aizawa is- he’s good at this shit, and I fucking trust him, and you do too, and he knows what it’s like to be a goddamn mess, and I just want you to fucking talk to him about it before-“

“Kacchan...”

He looked so young.

“I can’t fucking swim anymore. I can’t.”

He was shaking. Izuku reached out, rubbed his back while he trembled.

“I’m sorry.”

“Stop fucking apologising.”

What else was he supposed to do? When his weight was so heavy. When he only made things worse.

“I hate doing this to you.”

“Then stop. Give a shit about yourself. You can’t just keep acting like this. I can’t-”

“I know.”

He didn’t offer platitudes. He didn’t say that he wanted that too. He just comforted him. After a while he offered a shaky smile.

“I’m gonna go have that shower.”

Kacchan wiped at his eyes with the heels of his hands, angrily removing the threat of tears.

“Better fucking move fast. He’s gonna be here any minute.”

His mind was still screaming at the concept, but he couldn’t hurt Kacchan any more than he already had. If this was what it took, he would endure it. He was good at that. Good at pain, good at keeping living. Suffering was his greatest skill.

That was something Kacchan didn’t need to know. He didn’t tell him. He kept smiling.

“Sure thing Kacchan. Why don’t you put on the kettle for us? I’m sure we could all do with some coffee,” and Kacchan looked like he needed something to keep him busy, otherwise he was liable to start setting off explosions, or maybe crying properly.

Izuku hated that he made him feel like this, hated that his misery was infectious. That was a guilt that he would have to bear alone. It settled heavy on his shoulders, drove him to smile wider, to pat Kacchan’s shoulder as he passed.

Kacchan still shook beneath his touch. He elected to ignore it. Now was not the time. He wasn’t sure they’d ever find the time.

Time was all he had, how was there still never enough?

Chapter Text

Izuku was still in the shower when the doorbell rang. He hurriedly dried off and threw on clothes, hair dripping down his neck, making his shirt stick uncomfortably to his skin. It itched.

All the while he could hear the sound of a conversation, muffled by the door, just a rumble of familiar voices but still enough to cause his shoulders to hunch, his fists to clench.

He didn’t want to go out there, but he couldn’t hide in the steam forever.

He leaned his forehead against the door, a damp spot spreading on the wood, took a deep breath in, then out as he opened the door.

Two pairs of eyes fixed on him the instant he emerged, equal intensity, equal concern.

He froze like a rabbit, like a stupid Deku, too scared to speak to the people who loved him. He didn’t run. He forced his limbs to move, his eyes to raise from the floor, his lips to move.

“Hi Mr Aizawa, sorry I- sorry.”

Mr Aizawa and Kacchan glanced to each other, shared a look. Mr Aizawa sighed, rubbed his eyes, tired as always. There was a little grey in his hair. He was the same as he had ever been.

Izuku put his hood up around his ears, hunched his hands into his pockets, scuffed his feet against the floor.

“Problem child,” Mr Aizawa exhaled. “You did nothing wrong.”

Izuku retreated to a seat at the table, tried his hardest to be swallowed by the ground. He heard rather than saw two sets of steps following him. He didn’t look up.

A mug was pushed across the surface, placed between his hands. He took it, warmed his shaking fingers, took a long gulp of steaming coffee, not caring when it burned. Anything to delay the conversation, to avoid seeing and being seen.

It was cowardly, he knew, but he had burnt through his bravery as fast as his bones.

“I can’t stay long, but I am always glad to see you. You know that, don’t you, problem child?”

His expression was so serious. Filled with such a depth of meaning. Like he was trying to convey an infinite supply of care, years of words unsaid, in a single sentence. Izuku hated it. Hated it so much.

“Yeah,” he murmured, “I know.”

Mr Aizawa leaned across, rested his hand on his shoulder. He shook beneath his touch.

“How’s the little brat?” Kacchan broke in brashly and Izuku silently thanked him.

Mr Aizawa leaned back, laughed, ran a hand through his tangled hair.

“Taking on more and more of Shinsou’s snark, nightmare children, the both of them. Eri’s training to become a doctor. As if exam season at UA wasn’t bad enough. I haven’t slept in a month,” he loved them, the both of them, the fondness was barely hidden beneath his annoyance.

Izuku wished, selfishly, he had been the one to get adopted. It was cruel, he knew, to wish his mother away, to take anything from kids who had grown up with so little. But still, they seemed so happy.

“She wouldn’t be there if it wasn’t for you Midoriya. We are all so grateful you brought her to us.”

Izuku smiled, a little sadly, but still.

“Someone would have saved her.”

There had been so many heroes trying to rescue her. He just moved faster. Who really needed him over the rest? He wasn’t better. He was just there.

“It was you who did.”

Mr Aizawa’s gaze cut as deep as ever.

“I’m glad she’s happy, and Shinsou too. They deserve it.”

They’d been through so much. So much more than him.

“She still thinks about you every time she smiles. She wants you to be able to smile again. We all do.”

“I smile.”

“You know that’s not what I meant. Don’t lie to me kid, you’re not good at it.”

Izuku swallowed, hid it behind his mug.

“It’s good to see you Mr Aizawa. I’m glad you’re still...” alive. “You.”

“I’m stubborn. No getting rid of me.”

He was glad. He was tired.

“I wish I could stick around, but my schedule is trying to run me into the ground. I reckon I’ve got about ten minutes to get back to school if I don’t want the whole building to go up in flames.”

Disappointment. Relief. They’d probably picked a time when he had somewhere to be so that they didn’t overwhelm Izuku with too much company. Everyone was working so hard to look after him. Everyone was so considerate, and for what?

“Hey, blowing up UA was my job,” Kacchan grumped, with all the familiarity of years spent knowing a person. Years of growing closer. Years Izuku had just hidden.

Kacchan knew even All Might better than he ever had, now. He’d lost his chance at that. He’d thrown it all away.

“Well you failed,” Mr Aizawa responded dryly. “Where, I fear, my current class may succeed. Do let me know if you ever feel like making an appearance; a few growled words from the number one hero might go a long way to scare the little hellions into shape,” he rubbed his eyes, then fixed Izuku with a look. “That offer also applies to you. The doors of UA are always open to my former students, in whatever capacity. I’m sure they would all benefit greatly from the wisdom you have to give.”

Izuku resisted the urge to snort. Wisdom? Him? He had nothing to give, to anyone.

He clearly didn’t manage to keep the thoughts off his face. Mr Aizawa walked around the table and pulled him, ever so tentatively, into a hug. Izuku practically melted into it, for a moment, two, before the tension returned to his shoulders, his jaw. Mr Aizawa sighed, squeezed him tighter, then released him with a shake of his head.

“I’m coming over again,” it was a promise. It was a threat.

“You’re a good teacher, Mr Aizawa.”

“Not good enough,” muttered under his breath, but he still heard it. “You don’t have to keep calling me that, you know. You’re not my student anymore.”

“Anything else would feel weird.”

“Yes, I suppose it would.”

Because they didn’t know each other as anything more than teacher and student. Because Izuku had refused to build a relationship, to become a friend, to gain anything close to a father. It was his own fault. It was his own fault.

He forced a wavering smile.

“See you around Mr Aizawa.”

“I will see you soon, Iz- problem child,” Mr Aizawa’s eyebrows pinched, like he was cursing the fact that they couldn’t change. He looked sad. Izuku had made him sad.

He left, and Izuku began to hyperventilate.

“Shit, Zuku, calm down,” Kacchan was in front of him, gripping his shaking fingers. “Just breathe, alright? Fuck, what’s wrong? Tell me what to do about this shit cause I don’t- fuck. Don’t stop breathing.”

He wasn’t sure he’d taken a full breath in a decade. He’d breathed in so much dust. It felt like his lungs were still full of it, even though he knew they weren’t, the doctors had assured him of that.

So many people had died like that, choking on the air, the destruction that drifted with the breeze. After the blastwaves of decay that Izuku hadn’t been good enough to stop. Bodies cracking and breaking and floating away. Clouds of corpses, settling and burying the rubble, the bodies that remained.

So many people had died, because he hadn’t been strong enough to save them. So many people had died protecting him. Stupid. So stupid.

“Why can’t I stop hurting people?” His voice was high pitched and strange. He couldn’t lower it. He couldn’t do anything. “All I do is make people worry about me. I’m so broken I just- I break everything- everyone. I’m breaking you. You’re so good Kacchan, so powerful, you shouldn’t be around me. I’ll ruin you. I’d ruin Mr Aizawa too. I already cost him a leg. Fuck, I can’t do this- I can’t-”

He had become a conduit for decay, that was what happened when Shigaraki got his hands on you, and he had sunk his claws so deep. Maybe if no one touched him. Maybe if no one tried to save him. Maybe then he wouldn’t have to watch anyone else crumble away. He couldn’t. He couldn’t.

“Shut the fuck up, stupid Deku, don’t talk like that. Please, you’re- you’re scaring me. You’re scaring me so much. This is my fault, my dumb fault. I shouldn’t have made you see him, fuck, I’m such an asshole. I should have known it’d fuck you up. I shoulda been better. I’m supposed to be the best, the number one hero, and I can’t even save my best friend from his own fucking asshole of a mind. Fuck, I hate myself. I’m sorry Zuku. Sorry you got stuck with me for a friend. You deserved better.”

No. No no no. That wasn’t it. Wasn’t right.

Kacchan was curling in on himself, angry in all the wrong ways, and Izuku wasn’t a hero anymore. He wasn’t good enough to save him.

“Kacchan...” he still couldn’t breathe, still couldn’t stop shaking, but still he reached for Kacchan. “Don’t- not when I can’t- do anything. I can’t think right now. I can’t fix this. You shouldn’t be apologising. It’s me, I-“

“No. Fuck you.”

At least Kacchan looked mad at him now.

“But-“

“I’ll kill you. Don’t fucking say this is your fault. You’re not some fucking disease on humanity or some shit. You’re my friend. I- I lo- care about you. You’re not gonna break me. I’m not fucking weak. I can take whatever a loser like you can give, don’t fucking worry about that shit. What, do you think I’m not amazing anymore Deku? Don’t you fucking dare give up on me now.”

He grinned an age old, taunting, grin. Izuku’s breathing began to steady. He was still Kacchan. Still here.

“I’m not- I just-“

“No.“

“Fine.” Izuku half smiled. “I guess I just... wish I wasn’t a problem child, or a Deku, or whatever anymore. I wish I actually... helped.”

He’d proven them all right. He wasn’t strong enough to be a hero. Quirkless, pathetic, cowardly. How could he hold any of that against Kacchan? He’d been right all along.

The one dream he’d ever had, and it had been so farfetched, so stupid. Delusion, nothing more. What an idiot. How had he ever thought he was smart?

“You did. You do.”

Kacchan looked like there was more he wanted to say. More he couldn’t say. He choked the words down, he looked away, he looked angry.

“Why can’t I see the people I care about without having a breakdown? Why am I so weak?”

It was so much easier with no one else there. Then, he could pretend that it was nothing but a murder. He had killed Shigaraki, and that was all that had broken him. He didn’t have to think about the corpses, the failures, the weakness that had always been there. He didn’t have to see it reflected in their eyes.

“Mental health, or some shit. I don’t know. See a fucking therapist.”

And say what? Where would he even begin.

He didn’t know what he’d do, if they blamed any of this on Kacchan. Better not to talk. Better not to have to argue.

“You know I can’t.”

Kacchan sighed.

“I know you won’t. It’d still help. It helped me.”

Izuku was shocked into meeting his gaze.

“I didn’t know you’d had therapy.”

Kacchan squirmed a little, eyes distant with memory, maybe with regret.

“There’s a lot you don’t know about me.”

Izuku snorted.

“No there isn’t. What was it-“

“I’m not answering your dumb questions. Shit’s private.”

Maybe it was better not to know. They shared so much trauma. Knowing might only make things worse. He didn’t know what he’d have said, anyway, if Kacchan had actually shared.

“Whatever you want Kacchan.”

“You feeling any better, or whatever?”

“A little, I guess, still hurts.”

He’d still failed his teachers, his mentors, his friends. He still hadn’t become a hero. He was still nothing and soaked in blood, but he had stopped shaking. There was that, at least.

“Do you wanna play videogames or something? I’ll beat your ass at Mario Kart again.”

“Oh yeah, really soothing.”

“That wasn’t a no.”

“You won’t win. I’m gonna defeat you.”

He did win. Maybe, just maybe, Izuku still let him. Kacchan always looked so happy when he won.

He needed him to look happy. He needed the dust to go away.

Chapter Text

Kacchan didn’t turn up today. He wasn’t working and he hadn’t shown up at his door.

Izuku got out of bed where he had expected to be dragged out, warmed up some rice and the leftovers from yesterdays curry, stared at the door while he ate, expecting it to open.

‘Why’re there no vegetables on your plate, nerd? Do I gotta do everything myself?’ That’s what he’d say, when he saw Izuku here.

The door didn’t open.

He ate some lettuce out of the fridge. He didn’t wash it first, but Kacchan wasn’t here to judge.

His phone was missing. He’d dropped it down the back of the couch last night, before he’d fallen asleep there. He hadn’t found the energy to fish it back out. He groaned, and searched for it. Completely flat, of course. He plugged it in and stared at a wall for a bit. Kacchan would give him hell for that as well.

He supposed he should make himself useful. He made his bed, cleared up the clothes he’d dumped on the floor, put on a wash when he saw how full his laundry was.

Kacchan couldn’t complain now, right? He’d be proud of him when he saw what he’d done. He wouldn’t have to do everything for him, not today.

Maybe he would actually get to rest. That would be good for him, he didn’t rest enough. He never complained about it, but Izuku knew exhaustion when he saw it, he felt it in his bones.

Kacchan needed more rest. Izuku really ought to do more things for him.

He ought to be less of a burden.

Guilt now sour in his throat, he went about tidying the rest of his apartment. He tried to ignore the panic that was rising in him.

Kacchan should have been here by now, he was always here on his days off, not all day but some of the day. It was so much later than normal.

Maybe he’d finally decided he wasn’t worth it, finally seen sense and given up on the lost cause, maybe he’d finally noticed how little he got for all that effort, all that work.

His job was demanding enough, he shouldn’t have to deal with Izuku and all his drama. Shouldn’t have to take care of him.

He felt a little bit like crying. He swallowed it down. No, he’d made Kacchan deal with enough of his emotions. If Kacchan left him he wouldn’t cry, that wouldn’t be fair, he already had enough guilt about their shared past, he wouldn’t make that any worse.

He was probably imagining things anyway. He’d be here. He was probably just unexpectedly busy. Maybe his shift last night had run late, maybe he’d been dragged into a major case or...

He got in the shower, scrubbed his body hard enough to drown out the fear.

This was stupid. He was stupid. He’d just got too damn used to seeing him every day, got too comfortable with his presence, come to rely on him too much.

Kacchan didn’t owe him anything. It was probably a good sign that he hadn’t shown up. It probably meant that he was finally prioritising himself.

He raced out of the shower and turned on his phone, drying himself manically while he waited for it to boot.

He was really truly freaking out now and, without Kacchan here, he didn’t know how to make it stop.

His stomach dropped.

Six missed messages from Kirishima.

Two words that stood out.

‘Bakugo’ and ‘hospital’.

He was dressed and out the door before he even registered moving.

Kacchan was in the hospital, Kacchan was injured, and he’d spent all this time panicking about him leaving when he could be dying.

He started to hyperventilate.

Kacchan could be dying and there was nothing he could do. He could have not even known. How long had it been? He could be dead already.

He was on the street and he was running.

He didn’t even register how long it had been since he had left his apartment alone. It was the first time he had gone outside without being forced to in god knows how long and he didn’t care, he didn’t care about the people staring at him or his muscles aching or the way his chest felt like it was going to cave in, all he cared about was closing the distance as fast as he could.

He had to be there, had to be there now.

He took a breath, and jumped.

Technically, it was illegal. The force required for him to leap across the city was strong enough to, theoretically, be counted as weapon usage. He hadn’t finished his training, and his provisional licence was long since expired. He wasn’t allowed to do this.

In that moment he would have fought anyone who tried to stop him. In that moment he was no different from a villain.

Not that anyone would try to stop him. The hypocrisy of the system wouldn’t allow anyone to arrest Deku, the hero who had saved the world, for anything less than murder. Even that, a cruel part of his brain provided, jabbing at his guilt even while his heart was racing with fear for Kacchan. He was untouchable, and he hated it, but right now he was glad for his privilege because he was there in a matter of minutes.

He landed in front of the hospital with a crash that shook the earth, cracked concrete, drawing the attention of the handful of people milling around outside. He didn’t pay them any mind. He was too busy staring at the building, looming above him, feet locked to the ground.

Hospitals were where people went to die. Kacchan was in there. Kacchan with his foul mouth and his abrasive personality and all that care, silent and bleeding and still. Wrong, so wrong.

He shook as he looked at the building in front of him. He hadn’t been to a hospital since... since. He had refused to go there again. Fortunately he hadn’t needed to.

His teeth were rattling in his head, he thought he might be sick.

He pushed himself to move. He walked through the double doors, quietly asked directions at the reception, then broke back into a run.

His pulse was pounding in his ears, the too bright lights and the horrifically sterile hallways made his skin itch.

He’d spent so long here, in the aftermath of the fight. He’d watched so many people die. He’d thought, for a brief and blissful moment, that he himself might drift away behind these walls. He’d hoped for it, and hated himself for it. He’d stayed for Kacchan and his mother, he’d put one foot in front of the other.

Breathing had been a struggle for those first terrible days, in a way that had never really changed.

He had wanted to die, the last time he had been here. Now... it didn’t matter. He wanted Kacchan to live. That was the only thing that mattered.

He was aware, distantly, that this was the first time he’d allowed himself to think the words ‘I wanted to die’. He’d been keeping it from himself like a secret, like if he didn’t acknowledge his deathwish it would just fade away, dissipating on the morning breeze like so much dust.

The dust hadn’t just blown away. It had been a disaster all on its own. Years of choking and coughing and weather warnings when high winds coincided with dry periods, when clouds of the stuff rose like the ghost of Shigaraki come to haunt the land, to seek vengeance on the people who had abandoned him, who had decided to let him die. The cleanup had taken longer than the rebuilding. Shigaraki’s dust was still caked into cracks in the pavement, piled in ditches, churned into the mud at the side of the road.

He was everywhere and nowhere. Izuku was nowhere and here.

He wouldn’t kill himself. It had never even been an option. But how long had he wanted it? How long had he been reckless? Hadn’t Kacchan always been mad at him for it? Hadn’t Kacchan always pulled him back when he let himself slip too close? When he let himself sneak a peek over the edge and yearn.

He had seen the truth of society, of existence, far too young. Sight had broken him. He’d looked away. He’d cut himself off from everything he had known. Too much blood. Too much death. The last time he had cried was between these walls. He’d sworn he’d never cry again. How could he? What could ever be worse?

It didn’t matter how terrified he was, how much he hadn’t managed to forget, how much it hurt to breathe. He stayed.

There was a reason he avoided hospitals, he thought somewhat manically as he ran. His thoughts always seemed to spiral here. Too much history to ignore, too much horror. If anywhere was haunted it was here.

He slid around a final corner, and stopped at the door to Kacchan’s room.

He forced himself to breathe. He opened the door.

Chapter Text

There had been a fear, nagging at the back of his mind but impossible to ignore, that he wouldn’t even be able to see Kacchan again. That he would just be gone, blown away with the breeze, that he would spend his whole life looking for him, even knowing that he was gone. That had felt like the worst case scenario, maybe it still was, but this (clear and visible, solid, real) felt so much worse to him now.

His heart was beating, he knew it, could hear it in the beep of a monitor, but where was he, really?

Izuku collapsed by his bed and shook.

He wasn’t dead. This shouldn’t feel like the world ending. He would wake up. Of course he would.

He reached out, ran shaking fingers over his skin. Warm. He was still warm.

His chest rose and fell and his flesh didn’t crumble. He didn’t even look that badly injured, when it came down to it. He wasn’t a mass of tubes, wasn’t gaping wounds, crushed bones.

He wasn’t waking up. Why wasn’t he waking up?

Kirishima had left a note, when he’d been called back out on patrol. Izuku somehow found the presence of mind to read it.

It hadn’t been that dramatic, a random villain, a routine patrol. Kacchan had done what he always did, charged in palms sparking, yelling insults at the villains with a crazed grin all over his face. He had saved everyone but himself.

The doctors didn’t know why he was still unconscious. They were running more tests.

He couldn’t stop staring at Kacchan’s lax expression, the absence of him in the body he resided in. He looked peaceful and relaxed and he hated it. It wasn’t right, seeing him like this, wasn’t Kacchan.

Maybe it was the eyes. The anger, the love. That was what was gone.

He wasn’t gone. He wasn’t gone. He…

He wasn’t here.

Unlikely to die wasn’t the same thing as wouldn’t die. Unlikely, but not impossible. And not dying didn’t inherently mean living, not properly. So many things could still go wrong, could already be wrong without anyone noticing, and Izuku couldn’t do anything but sit there, but wait for Kacchan like he always would.

He reached for his hand. He begged for Kacchan to move, to hold him, to bat his hand away. Anything. Anything at all.

He was so still.

Izuku clung to him, but it didn’t help. If anything, the unusual touch only made it worse, the difference unbearably clear. Kacchan wouldn’t do this. He wasn’t the type for hand holding, Izuku didn’t think so anyway, he didn’t know, he might never know.

He could feel the dread eating at him like a disease, creeping up his spine and dragging him away, he couldn’t fight it off alone.

He texted All Might the address.

I need you.

He waited, terror verging on numbness, staring at Kacchan lying there like he would never see him again, like it was possible to drink his fill now and keep himself sane for after. He knew it was impossible, knew the way the world would crumble, would crush him, if he never woke up.

He was so beautiful, so desperately necessary.

Izuku regretted and regretted and yearned.

All Might didn’t take long. He must have run, panting heavily with his one lung as he leaned with a hand on the doorway and looked at him in terror, in hope.

“Midoriya, my boy, I am here.”

Izuku felt his lips quirk into something like a smile. He had no space in his mind for the complicated nature of their relationship, the reason they did not see each other, not now. Now relief was all there was.

“All Might, Kacchan, he...” He trailed off, pulling in air as his head grew dizzy and the terror practically whited out his vision

All Might knelt before him, reached out and pulled him into his giant arms. He let himself tumble to the ground, crawl into his embrace, curl up like he was a kid again. The man was so tall that he made him feel like it. He could fit in his lap, beneath his chin. He could let himself be held.

He would be embarrassed about it later, but right now he was too afraid, there was no room for anything but this. All Might may have been skin and bone, but he was still as warm, still as skilled at providing comfort. Still just as much of a hero.

He’d missed him, missed him so badly. He wished they weren’t always meeting at hospitals and funerals. There had been so many funerals.

His eyes ached with the effort of not crying. It felt like the only thing left to do. He wouldn’t cry, not until... not unless... no, he wouldn’t cry. Everything was going to be fine. Did he even know how to cry anymore? He’d find out when... if... no. No no no-

A machine started beeping, doctors rushed in, and he and All Might were dragged from the room. Izuku kept looking at Kacchan, for as long as he could, felt the relief get snatched away and replaced with the ice cold knowledge that he might never see him again.

Kacchan could die. Kacchan could die.

The door closed between them, the sight of him was lost, and Izuku felt lost along with it.

All Might was here, but what the fuck could he actually do? Nothing, absolutely nothing. In that terror, that helplessness, his hero was human and he was blindingly, terribly, unimportant when compared to Kacchan.

Guilt rose in his throat at the knowledge that he would exchange them. His mentor didn’t deserve this but he knew, in his heart, that he would agree. What was All Might to Katsuki Bakugo? What was anyone? Nothing at all, not where Izuku was concerned.

And Kacchan could be about to lose, like he had never lost before.

Izuku sat down with a thump, All Might sat beside him. They stared at nothing, and waited for something to change.

Chapter Text

The waiting room was a sickly kind of sterile. He’d only been there a few hours and already he felt the need to scrub himself raw, to disinfect himself of the disinfectant, the shadow of disease.

The light above them hummed and stuttered, casting the too white walls in an almost green glow, indecisive as illness, as unsteady as Kacchan’s heart. Kacchan’s heart that was still beating but broken, measured with machines and in danger of slowing, of stopping, of leaving him in terrible shrieking unfixable silence.

Izuku couldn’t breathe right. The recycled air in this terrible death filled place felt like it wasn’t air at all, like it wouldn’t fill his lungs any more than Kacchan’s lungs would be able to fill, if- if.

His fingers were jittering on his knees, his eyes focusing and unfocusing on a poster that just happened to be on the wall in front of him. He still hadn’t read the words. He wouldn’t read the words. They didn’t matter, nothing mattered. Kacchan was the only thing that mattered and if he- nothing would ever matter again.

“Midoriya, my boy-“ All Might’s voice was tight, too loud in the seat beside him, booming off the constricting walls and the labyrinthine corridors and making Izuku wince. He lowered his voice, and Izuku could hear the guilt in his words, as loud as he had been before, and twice as painful. “I am so sorry- I- I wish... it doesn’t matter, too late now I suppose, but young Bakugo is strong, he will- I am sure he will pull through.“

He wasn’t sure, neither of them could be. They had both seen death, seen it so close and so many times. They weren’t the kind of people who could share that hopeful delusion.

No one was stubborn enough to stop the end when it came for them. If that was possible they would have seen each other at far less funerals.

Izuku didn’t force a smile, didn’t pretend to be heartened by the words, the platitudes. He may not have known how to be honest with his mentor, but that didn’t mean he was willing to lie.

“He’s the only thing I have left.”

The words were stark and horrifying, as terrible as the hospital, as the news that Kacchan could be found there. Izuku didn’t take them back. He couldn’t.

He was powerless. He was terrified.

“I’m sorry,” and this time it was for more, for so much more.

“I don’t know what to do with that. I don’t think it helps me.”

“I’m-“ he cut himself off before he could apologise again. “I should have been better.”

“There are a lot of things that should have happened,” Izuku sighed. “I’m so angry at you, sometimes. I’m angry at myself. It doesn’t change anything. We’ve done what we’ve done, we are what we are, and now we get to survive. Yay,” hopeless, desolate. “But if Kacchan dies...” broken, lost. He choked on any continuation that sentence could have had. He wouldn’t speak the words, even now.

“I just want you to be happy. I wish I could have given you that.”

Izuku inhaled, exhaled.

“Are you? Happy?”

All Might looked down at his hands, pressed one of them to his side, returned it to his lap, clenched his fists, released.

“I do not think I gave you a good example to follow.”

He didn’t respond to that.

“I don’t know how to deal with the blood on my hands, the lives I didn’t save, the hero I didn’t become. I failed you and I-“ Izuku’s throat closed up. “I’m sorry too. I’m so sorry. You should have chosen someone else, someone better.”

The light was still buzzing. There were voices somewhere down a corridor, machines beeping, a phone ringing.

He was too messy for this place, too unclean.

“You were a perfect successor, too perfect, too much like me. You fulfilled your mission. You didn’t need to graduate for me, you didn’t need to be number one, but I shouldn’t have given you that mission at all. It was... selfish, and short sighted. If I’d known All for One was still alive I would have passed my power on to an adult, not a child, you were too young.”

Izuku stared at the wall, the poster and its unknowable lines. He saw scratches in skin, heavily lined eyes, he saw blood and death and a wall.

“We were all too young. It doesn’t matter. They don’t ask your age when you die, or when you kill.”

“You had to.”

“I chose to.”

He glanced at the door that led to Kacchan’s room.

He tried not to believe this was earned.

“He’ll be okay.”

Izuku looked at the light, the flies fluttering about it, bashing themselves against the heated glass. It was the one dirty thing in this place, apart from people, apart from death.

“I’m not a kid anymore.”

“No. You lived.”

“I didn’t die,” it wasn’t agreement. He wouldn’t agree. He couldn’t.

“Please, let me help you, let me be there for you,” All Might sounded so desperate, it broke Izuku’s heart.

“I’m not sure you can. I don’t know if there is help. I do wish you could. I would love it if you could save me,” he swallowed, “one more time.”

“Then let me. Midoriya, my boy, please, I-” he looked like he was debating dropping to his knees and pressing his head to the floor. He might have done it too, for the second time, if a nurse hadn’t taken that moment to step out of the door and make eye contact with the both of them, one after the other.

“He’s awake.”

Just like that, the conversation was over, and for a blissful moment Midoriya could finally breathe, and if All Might looked disappointed, well, he had more important things to think about.

He wasn’t living for his mentor, not anymore, he was living for Kacchan, Kacchan who was alive and conscious and waiting for him.

He could have cried. He did not cry, not in front of All Might, he wouldn’t do that. He refused.

His heart pummelled in his chest, the adrenaline of what could have happened hitting him all at once, the painful numbness that had been gripping him snatched away for the sake of the loss of dread.

He breathed fast and sharp, eyes focusing and unfocusing on that awful poster and the god forsaken light with its doomed flies and all that unbearable buzzing. He gripped his hair tight and pulled at it, head dropping between his knees as he shook and shook and shook.

A big bony hand came to rest between his shoulder blades, patting tentatively, like he was breakable, like he was breaking and maybe he was. Maybe he was.

“He’s alive he’s alive he’s alive he’s alive he’s,” one panicked breath, muttering like he was fifteen again. “Kacchan’s awake and he’s going to survive and he’s not going to leave me and I can leave this place and so can he and we can keep on living and I am selfish I am so selfish because I wouldn’t have kept living if he hadn’t and he would have hated me for that but it’s true because he is the only thing that makes this bearable and I can’t tell him that and I can’t tell him so many things but he knows so many of them because he is so smart he’s always been so smart and he’s alive he’s alive he’s alive.”

He was distantly aware that his hair was breaking in his grip, and All Might was saying something, but he couldn’t hear it any more than he could see the words on the poster or the design that accompanied it.

He probably kept muttering, but he wasn’t registering it anymore, he wasn’t registering anything.

Kacchan almost died, Kacchan almost died. There was nothing he could do, he’d have sat in this buzzing sterile terrible hallway while the only person who mattered anymore ceased to exist.

All Might reached up and gently, oh so gently, pried his fingers out of his hair.

Izuku’s hands were shaking, flashes of One for All running through them, through his entire body. He wanted to punch a hole through the side of the building, just to dissipate this energy, just to feel like he wasn’t so god damn useless. He couldn’t. He couldn’t do anything. He couldn’t even calm himself down.

Distantly he saw how devastated All Might looked, how he hunched in on himself, how little idea he seemed to have of what he could do to fix this.

He couldn’t even feel shame over the truths he had shared, those terrible things that lurked in him, like a monster that ached to get out. He was just… feeling. He hadn’t felt properly in so long. It was cataclysmic, immense, like it had been waiting years to burst from him. Maybe it had. He was drowning in it, but still, this was the better alternative.

Later, in the bad times, he would miss this. He would yearn for it, when he was both numb and hurting. Pure feeling, like spring water and pain. Like a drug he craved, but could not obtain. That’s not to say that things would be worse than they had been, just that depression, simply, is. 

For now, Kacchan was waiting for him, so he stopped the moment of truth, he stood on shaky legs, and he walked into his hospital room, where he was waiting and conscious and alive.

Chapter Text

Izuku felt like he was shattering and mending over and over again, as he walked through that door, and then it was just… joy, maybe, that took a hold of him. So simple, so unfamiliar that it stole his breath away. He looked at Kacchan, and Kacchan was looking at him, and Izuku just stared.

“The hell happened? Why do you look like you’ve seen a ghost? Dumb Deku,” Kacchan grumbled.

Izuku’s heart stopped beating for a moment, then started up again at double time.

He was blinking at them in confusion, rubbing his eyes like he’d just been rudely awoken before his eight hours was up. He was so damn beautiful it was like staring into open flames.

Izuku threw himself onto the bed, wincing when he let out a pained “oof” and rubbed at the bandages on his ribs. Right. Bruised ribs.

“Sorry Kacchan, I just... you’re alive.”

“ ‘course I am shithead, no thanks to you. That fucking hurt, you bastard.”

He had never been so glad to be sworn at. He loved him he loved him he loved him.

“I am glad to see you are unharmed and back to your usual self, young Bakugo. I shall give the two of you some privacy,” All Might left fast, and maybe Izuku should have tried to make him stay, should have said something to him before he left, but there was no room in his head for anything but Kacchan. So he let him slip away.

“Fuck is All Might doing here?”

Kacchan was groggy and confused, gruff in the aftermath of waking. He was perfect, so perfect.

“Doesn’t matter now Kacchan, everything’s okay now,” Izuku smiled shakily, rubbing a hand over tired eyes. “You fucking asshole!” He hit him, hard, and Kacchan hissed.

“Get off me nerd.”

He didn’t push him away, and Izuku didn’t move.

“You almost died.”

“Yeah right, like that weak shit could kill me. Don’t act so serious, I’m fucking fine.”

“What am I supposed to do without you?”

“Make your own meals or whatever? Damn.”

Izuku’s heart broke a little. He’d been wrong. Kacchan didn’t know. How could he not know?

“Kacchan, I- that’s not why I need you, you should-“

“Mr Bakugo is it?” A doctor interrupted, walking into the room, and Izuku could have screamed.

Kacchan’s fist clenched and unclenched on the bed. Izuku took his hand in his, squeezing for all he was worth. Kacchan’s eyes gentled, watching him even as he responded to the doctor.

The questions went on so long, followed by more tests and then more questions and then Izuku unceremoniously being shoved out of the room again. Kacchan only had to stay there a night, but still it felt like torture.

He’d got so used to his presence, how was he ever supposed to survive without it again?

He wouldn’t. Not if he could help it.

It was surprisingly easy to talk Kacchan into staying at his apartment while he recovered.

“I mean it is closer to the hospital, and you really shouldn’t be alone until your mobility has returned, so it only makes sense to have someone around in case you need help, and you shouldn’t be doing much until you’re better anyway, and I know you’re better at cooking than me but if you-”

“Yeah, whatever, stop mumbling nerd it’s not that deep.”

“But Kacchan you really need to-”

“I was saying yes dumbass, you don’t need to argue when we fucking agree.”

“Oh. Oh. Right, of course, for some reason I just thought-”

“Are you gonna be like this the whole fucking time? Cause I can change my mind, I bet I could get Shitty Hair to-”

“No no no, don’t do that, I can calm down.”

Kacchan grinned, and there was something softer about it, the edges less pointy or his eyes a little warmer. Izuku couldn’t place the difference, he just knew there was one.

“Like fuck. You’ve never been calm in your life. I fucking know you.”

“Sorry.”

“Nah. Still here aren’t I?”

Izuku swallowed.

“You must like me.”

Kacchan snorted, looked away.

“Yeah right, ‘like’.”

“Fair point. Tolerate maybe.”

There was a silence. Kacchan was looking at him again.

“Izuku…”

“I’m sorry I’m sorry, don’t use my full name, it sounds so weird!”

Kacchan rubbed his eyes, huffed.

“Wheel me the fuck out of here, I can’t fucking do this here. If I have to spend one more fucking second in this place I’m gonna fucking explode, and you look like you’re five seconds from passing the hell out, when’s the last time you got some goddamn sleep?”

Izuku shrugged. Kacchan was right, the exhaustion was hitting him. He didn’t think it could have been that long, but the whole affair had been draining in ways he hadn’t experienced in years. His brain was lagging, barely even able to process a simple conversation. It didn’t matter. He didn’t want to stop looking at Kacchan, seeing him look back. How was anything supposed to matter more than that?

He could have lost him.

He was too tired to follow that spiral down. He pushed Kacchan out of the hospital instead, helped him into a taxi, stared and stared and stared.

Kacchan stared back, his eyes were a little wider than normal, maybe it was all the pain medications. It didn’t matter, his eyes were open, his skin was warm. He could touch him. Maybe he took advantage of the necessity, just a little, let his hands linger when he helped him manoeuvre. If Kacchan noticed he didn’t comment on it. Maybe he needed this, maybe they both did.

There was only one bed in his apartment, but it wasn’t like they hadn’t shared before, it would have been weird for Kacchan to complain about it now. He didn’t complain at all.

Izuku fussed over him until he snapped at him to stop babying him. It was strangely reassuring when he did. He knew he was going overboard. He couldn’t seem to stop.

He cooked for him, insisting that Kacchan not do anything strenuous for the next few days, and took his aggressive guidance (‘it’s like you’ve never cut an onion before, you damn idiot, you’ll cut your fucking fingers off and if you do it’ll be your own damn fault and I will watch as you bleed out and die’) with little more than an eye roll.

The food he presented him with was ‘edible, I guess’ and he supposed that would have to be good enough. He didn’t need Kacchan to feed him, he just liked it when he did. He liked this too. He liked being around him. He liked him. So much. He always had. He always would.

“I’m so glad you’re alive.”

“You fucking sap. Me too, I guess, whatever, I’m glad we’re all- fuck.”

“Oh Kacchan, you always did have such a way with words.”

“Fuck off. Dumb nerd.”

 “Awww, sweet. Don’t worry Kacchan, I know what you really mean.”

 “I’ll kill you.”

“No you won’t. You like me too much.”

Kacchan blushed, and Izuku’s heart ached in his chest, words teetering on his tongue. He swallowed them back down.

This was enough.

He was alive.

Chapter Text

It was... simple, when it happened, quiet.

Things had been different since the hospital, a gentle shift, but important none the less. Kacchan came over to his house, like he always had, and now he stayed.

It felt like Izuku should have been the one to cling, having seen how easily this could be taken away, how much it mattered. Instead, it had been Kacchan; Kacchan who seemed to be desperate for every moment they got to spend together, Kacchan who watched him with longing eyes, who closed the distance when they sat together until their arms were touching, who leaned into the heat of him.

It was... nice. It made him long again, like he hadn’t done since he was a hopeful teen with a heart of gold and a will of steel. It reminded him of who he used to be, like the yearning chant of ‘Kacchan, Kacchan, Kacchan’ that used to be ever present, that had been carved out and replaced with fear and horror and shame, held all the pieces of him he had long thought lost.

He was still changed, contorted, but he remembered how it felt to be brave.

It was late, so late. The day had faded, and with it the light. Neither of them had stood to close the blinds, to turn on the lights.

The TV was sending flickering shadows across Kacchan’s face, the latest movie finished and the next not yet chosen.

They should probably have gone to bed, but it was known, without needing to be spoken, that tonight was not for sleeping.

Izuku had been sad today. That wasn’t unusual, objectively, but it had felt different. Sad wasn’t what he had been all these years, had it? Sad was simple and sharp and immediate. Sad was something to cry about.

He was distantly aware it was an improvement, even if it didn’t feel like it, he was making progress.

He’d been caught in a web, suspended in gossamer, keeping him in the moment after the fight and before... before. Now he was moving. Now he was terrified, it was so long since his feet had touched the ground, he was scared he would break beneath the fall.

Kacchan, Kacchan saw it. He’d come home from his shift (home, this was his home) and he’d looked at Izuku and he’d just seemed to know. They hadn’t needed to talk, they never really did anymore.

Kacchan was so smart, always had been, that was a big part of why Izuku loved him.

He loved him so much, he felt like he might actually be able to cry about it now, now that he was reaching his arms out to catch him, now that the threads were finally starting to snap.

Kacchan got home and he ordered food instead of stopping to make it and he sat down on the couch beside him, warm and comforting and there, and put on the first movie.

Izuku didn’t really take in much of what they were watching. The first film was drowned out by memories, by his mind spiralling down familiar paths, all the things he had thrown away, all the ways he had been broken. It was... comfortable, in a way. Easier than the terror that crept into the second.

Kacchan was so patient with him. It would have been unbelievable, to his fifteen year old self. He’d grown up, mellowed. He was kind, unbearably kind.

Izuku was so proud of him. It filled his heart with warmth.

Their hands were touching ever so slightly, pinkie fingers brushing one another, and Kacchan hadn’t pulled away. That touch was world ending, all consuming. It was simple, so simple.

Kacchan was there, always there, brave and loving and, still, never the first to back away. He asked for nothing and gave everything and Izuku had spent so long being such a coward.

He knew that Kacchan would never demand anything. He knew he was waiting for him, he knew he was hoping, nurturing this thing between them and hoping that at least could survive, could grow from the rubble of catastrophe. Maybe it could, maybe it could, but Izuku was so desperately afraid.

What if he killed it by trying to hold it close? What if it slipped away?

Kacchan was all he had these days, the only person who had been strong enough to handle the weight of what he had become, and he had grown dependent on his presence.

He had become a parasite, he would die without his host, without Kacchan everything would be lost, but wasn’t he lost already?

He knew he had to become stronger, become better. He knew he didn’t give enough in return.

For the first time in a long time, he wanted to be better.

He made himself a promise: he wouldn’t let himself take without giving, he wouldn’t let this burden rest on Kacchan’s shoulders alone. He’d done so much and was suffering through it without a word. It wasn’t right.

They had both been there through the fight, through the end.

Izuku had been selfish far too long. He needed to get better. For Kacchan. To make up for what he was about to do.

The third film passed in staring at his friend, at his love. He was so beautiful, still, so strong and fierce. Izuku watched him and, after a while, Kacchan watched back. His eyes were vulnerable when he caught him looking, throat constricting on a swallow, hand tensing where it was still pressed to Izuku’s. He didn’t look away, neither of them did.

His face was panicked, but still Izuku saw the longing. He’d been seeing it a long time, he knew how to recognise it. He’d just spent too long afraid to reach for it, unable to feel the longing that burned in him in return.

He moved his hand to rest on top of Kacchan’s, felt it jolt slightly beneath his touch. Kacchan didn’t pull away, didn’t even breathe.

In this, at least, Izuku was the one who would have to be brave.

He reached out with his free hand, rested it against Kacchan’s cheek. He closed his eyes beneath the touch, lashes reflecting damp in the half light, and raised his own hand to hold Izuku there, squeezing his fingers like he thought they would slip away and disappear.

He had no intention of leaving him behind.

He leaned forward, heard Kacchan inhale, and pressed feather light lips to his.

Kacchan was trembling. Izuku tangled their fingers together where they rested on his knee, applied such gentle pressure.

They were silent for a moment, mouths so close, tingling from the lightest of touches, like a spark was running across their skin, leaping from one to the other and begging for the circuit to be completed.

Kacchan gasped, and like that it was as if they were unfrozen.

He threw himself into motion, pulling both of his hands out of Izuku’s and grabbing his head, fists yanking at his hair and dragging them back together.

It was half painful when their lips met again, clashing and pulling, a desperation that felt like terror, like despair, filling their motions as they took what they could before it could be snatched away.

Kacchan was clinging to him and Izuku was pawing at his back, at his arms and his chest and his legs.

He was fairly sure Kacchan was trying and failing to hold back tears, he kept making these little whimpering sounds, he was fairly sure this was hurting him. He couldn’t seem to stop. He wasn’t sure Kacchan would let him if he tried.

Izuku pressed him down onto the couch, clambered onto his lap without breaking the kiss. Kacchan wasn’t leading anything, wasn’t taking anything but what he was given. His body thrummed with power, with the thrill of control.

He was fairly sure his eyes flashed green, sparks of One For All dancing across his skin. Kacchan whined at the sight, staring and running his fingers down his arms, following the movement with something like awe, like hunger.

Izuku hadn’t wanted anything in a decade, not properly, not fully. Now he felt like he was drowning in it. Desire flooding back like it had been waiting for him all this time, want piling on want and all of it rushing out to meet him.

He couldn’t breathe, couldn’t process one urge before another had taken its place. It was devastating and electric and too damn much.

He collapsed on top of him, panting against his kiss swollen lips, hands probably ripping the back of his shirt for how tight he was gripping it.

He felt Kacchan smile.

And maybe he did the same.

Chapter Text

All Might called. He didn’t answer. He looked at his phone screen, half longing, but not enough. He watched what he got of his mentor, a name, flashing and insistent. He watched as his hands stayed motionless.

Kacchan frowned, hugged him tighter. He didn’t say anything. Izuku knew what he would say, could read his thoughts plain in the wrinkles that were beginning to linger on his forehead, brief moments after the thought. A whisper of what would be, what wasn’t quite yet.

They were still young. They had a few years before feelings began to etch themselves in skin. They could still go back.

He didn’t entirely believe they would, but there was time. They had time.

“I’ll talk to him.”

“Good.”

“I just... not now. I like now.”

What a waste it would be of this moment.

Today had only a dark chocolate kind of sadness. A bitter note to something good. He didn’t mind it. The sweetness felt deeper for knowing what else could be.

He didn’t want to lose this moment.

Kacchan’s hair was golden in the light of an absolutely gorgeous sunset. They watched it from the balcony he often forgot he had, keeping each other warm in the suggestion of a chill. It wasn’t autumn yet, but it was possible to imagine the cold, the changing of the leaves.

Kacchan’s body ran so hot, his arms were heat enough.

Izuku leaned against him. Kacchan buried his face in his hair.

He let the phone ring out. They were silent as the sun went down.

They couldn’t see the stars from here, the city shone too bright.

“I should get started on dinner.”

“In a minute.”

He turned in his arms, pressed him against the door, kissed him long and sweet. Kacchan didn’t seem to want to go inside any more than he did. He kissed back with matching intensity, pulled him closer.

It was funny, in a way, how gentle they had become. He knew what it would have been like if they’d crossed this line when they were young. He knew it would have been a clashing of lips, a battle for control, desperate and halfway to angry. They would have kissed like they fought. But they hadn’t done this then.

This was for now, for the them they had become, and they had, like all things must, changed.

Now they had different things to prove.

They were still here. They could still be kind.

The world hadn’t taken that away.

Izuku shivered. Kacchan laughed and pushed him away, reached for his hand before rejection could start to sting.

“Come on. Nothing left to be seen out here anyway.”

“I’m out here.”

Kacchan rolled his eyes, but he didn’t stop grinning.

“Yeah and you can be in there. Warm, helping me cook before we both starve to fucking death.”

“I don’t care about food.”

“Think I don’t fucking know that? Some of us have training regimens to keep up with. If I don’t eat enough I’ll pass the fuck out.”

“I’d catch you.”

“Real sweet. Get the fuck inside.”

He let himself be pulled back into his apartment.

“Whatever you say Kacchan. I’d hate to stand between you and another modelling gig.”

“You know I only accepted that for the- shut up.”

“You’re all red.”

“I said shut up!”

“Nah.”

“Fucking menace.”

“Your fault. I used to be sweet.”

He’d taken on so many of his habits, it was hard to say where one of them began and the other ended. Like they had ever been separate.

Kacchan was his, always; his friend, his bully, his rival, his whatever they were now.

They had been many things, but always in relation to the other.

“You used to be cute. You were never fucking sweet. The chipmunk cheeks just confused everyone.”

He wasn’t wrong. Doe eyes were a free pass for an awful lot.

“Aw, are you saying I’m not cute anymore?”

He pouted, as adorably as he could manage.

“You’re a pain in my ass.”

“But Kacchaaaaaan.”

“Fine, you’re still cute as all fuck, stop bothering me. I got a meal to figure out.”

Kacchan’s eyes were fond, watching Izuku while he watched him right back. It was warm beneath his gaze.

“I have pot noodle.”

“No.”

“Cooking takes too long.”

He didn’t want to have to share Kacchan’s attention. He was selfish like that.

“Don’t care. Not doing it.”

“Order in.”

“No.”

Like that was an argument he was ever going to win. Kacchan was just as particular as he had always been.

“Ugh, fine, but I’m going to talk about the ad campaign.”

“Can we not?”

“Pot noodle.”

It was a shockingly effective threat.

“Fucking fine.”

Kacchan leaned against the counter and glared at him expectantly.

“I think you should do another one.”

“No. Not happening.”

“But your fans are hungry. Do you want them to starve?”

“Yes. Get them off my fucking back. Bunch of freaks.”

“Oh come on, they love you.”

“I don’t care.”

“Also, you looked really good.”

Gorgeous in designer clothing, larger than life on billboards all over the city.

“Oh I see how it is.”

“Please?”

It was harder to miss him when he was always within sight.

“Maybe. Don’t know why you need that shit though. I’m right fucking here.”

“Yeah. I suppose you are.”

He kissed him again. Looked him up and down.

“I don’t know, I think I like the makeup and the photoshop.”

“Fuck off.”

“The real thing is nice and all, but you don’t know how to dress yourself like they do. They know what the people want.”

“I will leave.”

“You wouldn’t,” he knew it was a joke. He also knew that fear had crept into his eyes.

“I wouldn’t,” Kacchan’s voice was so sincere.

Izuku swallowed.

He wished he believed that he would if he actually wanted to. He wished he didn’t think he should.

“You should cook.”

“Izuku-“

“I’m fine. I’m good. Don’t worry. I’ll chop something if you want.”

His hands shook on the knife.

He managed to chop some vegetables, he didn’t manage to do it well. His hands were too damaged. There was no undoing that.

Kacchan insisted it didn’t matter. He knew it did.

Kacchan gave him so much.

He’d given him his life.

So he gave him what he could in return. He tried to trust it when Kacchan said that was enough.

He would give him more, if he could.

They ate together and Izuku watched Kacchan with all the love he could not speak. He was so beautiful.

“What?”

“Nothing,” no, he could do better than that. He was allowed to now. This was allowed. “You’re beautiful.”

Kacchan blushed, ducked his head and asked:

“How’s the food?”

He wasn’t letting him avoid the compliment. Not this time.

“I don’t care.”

It was just a distraction. He’d rather watch Kacchan blush. How could food ever compete?

“I’m making popcorn,” he was getting redder by the second.

Izuku laughed.

“What do you want to watch?”

“I don’t fucking care.”

Kacchan closed the distance. The food tasted better in the way it lingered on their lips. Izuku smiled into the kiss, Kacchan was such a good cook.

Chapter Text

Last night they had curled up together in his bed and Kacchan had run gentle fingers through his hair until he fell asleep in his arms, so warm, so safe that it ached. It was devastating and easy. Familiar, terrifying.

They had always been this, hadn’t they? Like a caterpillar is always a butterfly, like the living are always dead. Predetermined and waiting, not yet become.

He’d been gone when he woke up, and Izuku knew that it was work that had robbed him of a morning, of a half feral grin and caring hands. He knew he wanted him. He knew it, but that didn’t stop the pit in his stomach, the sense of loss in his absence.

Izuku had told him to spend time with his friends, to not accompany him in his self isolation, not go down with the sinking of his ship. He’d told him that.

Kacchan was with him. He was his. Wasn’t that enough? Wasn’t that a miracle worthy of sacrifice? Of devotion?

Like he had a choice. Devotion to Kacchan was like breathing. For all that he had lost he had never been torn from that. It had always been there and it always would be. He was air and light and life, he was everything, and oh did that hurt sometimes.

He watched him on the news, tried to fill the day when a piece was missing, the only one that mattered. Forced himself to breathe through the sight of him fighting, of him bleeding. He watched with guilt in his lungs and adoration on his tongue as he won without Izuku there to help him.

He told himself he could do this, when Kacchan texted to let him know he was staying at his own apartment for the night, he tried not to let it sting.

He felt like a shadow, but he didn’t want to be.

Kacchan had been so much for him, he would try to be better in return.

He kept telling himself that, but what was he actually doing? It didn’t matter without action. He had to do something. He had to. He couldn’t bear to be this anymore.

He couldn’t bear to let him down.

His hands shook when he pulled on his shoes, when he closed the door behind himself with a deafening click and stepped out into the terror of an empty street, of being outside without somewhere to be, without anyone to walk alongside.

He hadn’t felt it on his rush to the hospital, there hadn’t been space or time, but now the discomfort was all consuming.

Open air, visibility and loneliness.

He kept breathing, he forced himself to walk. He got on a bus and stuttered out words while his ears buzzed and his chest heaved. He took a seat, he didn’t meet anyone’s eye.

Did they recognise him? Did they know who he was and what he had done? Did they see what had become of him?

He was famous, so famous. Deku: the hero who saved the world. Deku: the disappeared.

He was a mess, and how could they not see that, when it was all he could see?

He wore failure like a second skin, tight and oppressive, constricting. He couldn’t take it off, didn’t know how to hide it. Like he could ever hide it, everyone knew.

The bus clattered over a manhole cover. He jumped. The rumble of the engine beneath his feet shook his bones, his clenching teeth. It felt like buildings crashing to the ground. Like a disaster he couldn’t avert.

So many people he wasn’t good enough to save.

Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck.

He pulled his hood up, hunched his shoulders.

He missed his walls. The comfortable isolation of home.

He hated being seen. He hated the fact that he couldn’t stop this, couldn’t turn off the way his brain didn’t work, couldn’t put on a brave face and pretend to be normal, couldn’t tidy away his mess for the length of a bus ride.

He hoped he was anonymous. He hoped he was unknown. He hoped no one remembered him for the hero he had almost been or the blood-

Blood blood blood.

How could they forgive him? How could they not notice the red that spread across him like disease, like dust in his lungs, choking and burying and-

People were watching him.

He staggered out of the bus. He didn’t really register the journey. They were looking at him. He was making a scene. His eyes weren’t working right, he was hyperventilating and dizzy and all he could see was carnage.

He sat down on a bench and took long steadying breaths.

The bus pulled away.

He buried his head between his knees, waited for the panic to dissipate.

His pulse slowed. The ringing in his ears died away.

He raised his head and actually looked at the world around him. No one was bleeding, there was no rubble, no one was screaming for help he could not provide. His hands were the only ones that were shaking.

It was over. It had been so many years. The buildings were rebuilt and ageing. The lives that remained had relearnt how to live. They’d buried the dead. They’d moved on.

He needed to do the same.

So what if he wasn’t a hero anymore? So what if they’d been right all along, and he was too weak to take the horror, and his entire being had crumbled with that loss? He was still here.

He could do this.

He could be better.

He could be good, for Kacchan. He could be brave.

He clenched his fists. He didn’t see blood, just scarred skin. Just him.

He squared his shoulders, got to his feet. He walked the short distance to Kacchan’s apartment building. He rang the bell.

At least, he was fairly sure it was the right building. For all these years, he had never been here before.

He could do this.

He could be the one who put in the effort, for once in his miserable life.

He could be strong.

Chapter Text

If it had been Kacchan who opened the door Izuku might have left the second he realised he had company, but Kirishima just looked so happy to see him. A big grin swept across his face, like his presence was a miracle and, well, maybe it was.

“Bro, you didn’t tell me Midoriya was coming over!” He called over his shoulder.

“Cause he’s not, Shitty Hair, fuck you talking about? The nerd never-“ Kacchan had crossed the space in great strides, and now he just stood in the doorway and stared. “Oh. Fuck, you okay Zuku? You coulda just called if-“ he looked so concerned and instantly Izuku was panicking.

Why had he not thought that Kacchan might be hanging out with other people? Of course that was something he did, of course he didn’t just spend his nights away alone. He had a life, he had friends, he should have called instead of assuming-

“No no it’s not that, I just- I. Sorry, I should go. I would hate to get in the way of-“ he didn’t belong here, didn’t belong with their friends and their laughter and all that noise. It was bright and loud and he was a nighttime creature. He was skittish. He was afraid.

“Nooooo, don’t go Dekubro, we haven’t seen you in years.”

“Hitoshi, make him-“ Kaminari piped up from the couch.

“No one’s making anyone do anything,” Kacchan broke in harshly. “If the nerd wants to leave he can fucking leave,” his tone gentled as he made eye contact with Izuku. “If you wanna stay, come in or whatever.” Izuku could see the moment he remembered he was being watched. “Do what you want. I don’t give a fuck.”

He wanted to leave, he always wanted to leave, but… he’d already made it this far, and they were all looking at him, all waiting for him to give up, to run.

He walked through to door and heard as it clicked shut behind him, final as the closing of a tomb.

“Just so we’re clear, I wouldn’t have forced him to stay either way,” Shinsou said with an utter absence of inflection. “I still don’t use my powers for evil, inconvenient as that might be for some people,” a pointed glare that did not bother Kaminari in the slightest.

“One of these days you’ll actually be on my side,” Kaminari grinned, inches from Shinsou’s face.

“No he won’t,” Kacchan chipped in, from where he was stirring something in the kitchen.

“No I won’t,” Shinsou agreed.

“Aww, not fair, and after I did that thing with my tongue as well. Surely I should get a free pass for the day at least.”

“You’d think, but no.”

“No sex talk while you’re under my roof, kids. Keep it in your goddamn pants,” Kacchan hit Kaminari on the head with a ladle. It wasn’t a hard hit. Years ago it would have been.

“Okay grandpa.”

“Feeling the urge to talk about sex a lot more all of a sudden,” Shinsou stared him down and, to Izuku’s amazement, Kacchan laughed, rolled his eyes, and backed off. A grin spread across Shinsou’s face, something victorious and smug and maybe even mocking, and Kacchan’s hackles didn’t even rise.

“I love it when you stand up for me,” Kaminari kissed Shinsou on the cheek.

Kirishima was the one who groaned this time.

“Cut it out bros. I watch you two flirt every single weekend, I haven’t seen Midoriya in years, at least give him a moment of attention before you dick down in Bakubro’s bed.”

“No one is doing shit in my bed if they ever wanna eat my awesome fucking food again.”

“I’m good actually guys, I don’t need attention. I’m already interrupting your-”

“You are more welcome than these fuckers. You didn’t interrupt shit. If they bother you just tell me and I’ll kick them to the curb without a goddamn thought.”

“But bro-”

“That’s very sweet of you Bakubro,” Shinsou deadpanned.

“Don’t call me that. Only Kirishima gets to call me that. Also I’m not fucking sweet. I’ll kill you.”

“Nah, you’ve gone soft. It didn’t even hurt when you hit me earlier.”

Kaminari, it seemed, was more than willing to step into a fight for the sake of his boyfriend. Or maybe he just really wanted to wind up Kacchan. It was working.

“I’ll show you hurt-”

“Nope. Don’t believe you.”

“Play nice, I refuse to miss out on curry night because of your bullshit.”

“Sit down bro, I wanna catch up.”

Izuku took the space beside Kirishima, who fixed him with another blinding grin. Kacchan’s couch was incredibly comfortable, it was almost enough to make him relax. Almost.

“So how’ve you been?”

“Ask a better question Shitty Hair, I swear to fuck,” Kacchan rolled his eyes.

“Quit micromanaging bro, it’s super manly that you wanna look out for Midobro and all but it’s also kinda…”

“Monumentally annoying?”

“Unnecessary?”

“Yeah we just wanna chat man, gotta start somewhere.”

“Let him settle first, fuck.”

“Is the curry done yet dude? Some of us had shifts today and are starving all the way dead.”

“I’ll show you all the way dead.”

“I’ll show you your face.”

Kacchan laughed, a good natured and simple laugh and Izuku just… stared.

He’d never heard him laugh like that, not once in all their years knowing each other. It was simple and easy and open and just… devastating.

He’d never heard him laugh like that. How had he never heard him laugh like that? He’d just assumed it was something he didn’t do, couldn’t do, but now… now he knew that free and easy were things he was capable of, and that meant they were things he just couldn’t get from him and, well, fuck.

He thought he made him, if not happy, then happier.

Why was he with him if he couldn’t even do that? Was it just the sense of responsibility, guilt for their shared past? He hoped not, that would be… terrible, irresponsible, unthinkable. It would be cruel to keep him, if that was the only reason he was there to begin with.

People were looking at him, there was a lull in the conversation, and he could feel that his fake, social, smile had fallen from his lips.

They were going to start asking questions and he couldn’t, wouldn’t, answer them.

He was starting to panic.

What was wrong? How had he been? What had he and Kacchan been doing in their time together? He didn’t know the answers, or he didn’t want to share them. It all worked out the same; discomfort, dishonesty, discovery. He couldn’t bear it. They would know.

“-eku. Deku. Izuku!” Kacchan was staring into his eyes, leaning over him and shaking him gently, carefully.

“Sorry, drifted off,” he forced a smile. “What were you saying?”

“Do you want food?”

He nodded and Kacchan kept looking at him for a long moment before straightening and announcing to the room at large: “Alright assholes, gather around the table if you wanna eat, I’m not fucking cleaning curry out of the soft furnishings a-fucking-gain, and wash your goddamn hands first, properly, with my expensive goddamn soap, even though it’s too fucking good for the lot of you messy bastards.”

“Yes mom.”

“Dad.”

“Daddy.”

Shinsou raised an unimpressed eyebrow and Kaminari shrugged unapologetically.

“Sorry babe, but messing with Blasty comes above our love. Just know that you’re the daddy of my heart, and also my dick.”

“I hated everything that you just said,” Kacchan gagged.

“Hate to agree with King Explosion Murder God Dynamight, but never call me that again.”

“Neither of you are any fun.”

“I made you food.”

“I fucked you until you screamed.”

“I really am going to kick the two of you out if you don’t shut the fuck up. You’ll wreck my goddamn appetite.”

“I agree with Kacchan,” Izuku chipped in.

“Of course you do.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Can we not fight over dinner? You’re gonna remind me of my actual parents,” Shinsou groaned.

“Aizawa and Present Mic fight?”

“Of course they do, honestly cannot imagine them getting on enough to be married in the first place.”

“Fuck no, they’re absolutely disgustingly in love. I meant my birth parents.”

“You have birth parents? I thought you just spontaneously existed, like god.”

“God to you maybe,” Shinsou leered. “Of course I had parents, shitty fucking parents. Who were both in jail the last I bothered to hear about them. You know this, I told you this.”

“I was probably busy thinking about your dick. Sorry babe, it’s just that good.”

Kacchan’s nostrils flared.

“Come on Kacchan, let them have their fun.”

Kacchan huffed, and handed out their food.

“Oh my god, Blasty actually fucking listened. Midoriya, you gotta come to family dinners more often, I might actually be able to persuade him to get a piercing if you back me up.”

“Yeah, cause he’s whipped. Has been since high school,” Shinsou spoke under his breath, and Izuku wondered if he had been supposed to hear, if he was trying to drop hints. Trying to help, maybe. He was struggling enough to comprehend the fact that they were hanging out, on purpose, with each other, but he had assumed he was more there as Kaminari’s plus one. Maybe they were actual friends.

And Izuku didn’t know what he was supposed to do because, as he was now realising, he had no idea if Kacchan had told any of their friends they were together but, based on the fact he hadn’t been immediately grilled on it when he stepped through the door, the answer was probably no.

Did he not want to tell them? Was he ashamed of their relationship? Did he not think it would last long enough to justify telling anyone?

Were they even properly together or had he just made an assumption because he was so needy, so desperate, that he just assumed he meant something when clearly Kacchan had so many other, better, relationships?

He was aware he was spiralling. That was, shockingly, an improvement.

It didn’t change the fact that he was, though.

What would he say if someone asked about them? Was he supposed to lie? Would Kacchan forgive him if he told the truth? Was he even out to anyone but him?

Shit, fuck, he didn’t even know that much.

He was a terrible friend, terrible boyfriend, terrible whatever the fuck they were. Terrible everything. He was going to destroy this before it even started. He was going to wreck everything. He-

He couldn’t breathe.

Shinsou had noticed.

“Izuku,” he fixed him with a look. Izuku swallowed, nodded.

“Yeah?”

And his mind was gone, and Shinsou was breathing for him.

It was brief, but not brief enough, because by the time he had calmed down Kacchan had seen, leapt across the table, and pinned Shinsou to the floor with one explosion ready hand dangerously close to his face.

Everyone was yelling, staring, trying to figure out what was going on, to get Kacchan to calm down while he yelled bloody murder in his face and Izuku just sat there with wide eyes, consciousness slowly filtering back to him.

Chapter Text

“Get off me you moron, I was trying to help!”

“Bakubro, what the fuck?”

“Don’t break my boyfriend, Blasty, I’ve got plans for him.”

“What in the actual shit gave you the goddamn right to brainwash my nerd? You can’t just take away someone’s free will in the middle of a fucking meal you piece of-”

“Kacchan,” Izuku breathed. “Don’t hurt him. Please, I can’t-” can’t bear to witness any more violence? Can’t find the words to explain? Can’t understand why someone like you would want to be with someone like me?

He wasn’t sure which he wanted to say, which he meant, but something in his tone clearly carried weight because Kacchan instantly froze, and the room went silent.

His hands were shaking in his lap and, to his horror, he realised he was about to start crying. Kacchan realised it too, he was at his side before the first tear fell, cupping his cheek and standing as a barrier between him and the rest of the room.

“Fuck, Izuku, don’t cry. What the goddamn hell did that purple bitch do to you?”

“I didn’t do anything. I was trying to calm him down.”

“What?” Kacchan practically roared, and Izuku flinched at the volume, the anger. “Shit, nerd, I’m so sorry. I shoulda kicked out our bastard friends the second you showed up. Shouldn’t’ve put you in this stupid fucking situation. Shoulda looked out for you better. Don’t cry, please don’t cry.”

“He was about to have a panic attack, I just helped him figure out how to breathe. Sorry Midoriya, I really didn’t mean it badly. I was trying to help.”

Izuku shook his head.

“You didn’t do anything wrong, any of you. It’s me. It’s always me.”

Tears were streaming down his face.

Kacchan seemed to be alternating between rage and terror, letting off those little crackling explosions he hadn’t seen since he’d learnt to control them in the second year of high school, and looking more and more guilt ridden every time they made Izuku jump.

“I’m sorry,” he mumbled wretchedly.

“Fuck, Zuku, you don’t gotta be sorry for shit. Not a goddamn thing. You fucking hear me?”

Kacchan pulled him into his arms, burying his face in his neck and shaking almost as much as Izuku was.

“Kacchan,” Izuku whispered into his ear, “they’ll see. They’ll know we-”

“Why would I give a fuck?” And the way he said it made it sound so simple. Was it really that simple? Was that how Kacchan saw it?

“You don’t?” He hated how disbelieving he sounded. Kacchan clearly hated it too. He pulled away with a scoff.

“Fuck no. I’ve never given a single shit what some goddamn extras think of me, why the fuck would I start now?”

“They’re your friends.”

“And? You really think I’d be embarrassed about this?” His hand was running through Izuku’s hair, clenching possessively, and the whole thing was getting harder and harder to dismiss as friendship. “Shit, Zuku, I’m not.”

He was sniffling on Kacchan’s shoulder, leaving a damp patch that spread like a stain across the fabric.

“You could do better.”

“Oh fuck off. I chose you. I don’t give a shit how you see yourself, I wanted you and now you’re mine, don’t feel fucking bad about it. I’m the one who gets to be confused about why you’re with me, me. Stop stealing my shit.”

“You’re amazing though, I’m just…”

“A bit of a mess. How is that more of an issue than our goddamn backstory? I literally told you to… to fucking kill yourself… you’re not gonna beat that shit.”

“Are you competing with me about who’s got the most red flags?”

“I am the king of red flags. I’m basically the worst boyfriend ever. Don’t get it fucking twisted, you cannot defeat me.”

Izuku chuckled wetly.

“Thanks for trying to cheer me up Kacchan, you’re the best.”

“Nah I’m the worst, but you decided to be with me so whatever.”

The thing was, it didn’t sound like enough of a joke.

“Kacchan…”

“If you need me to make him hit himself in the face for the suicide baiting I am actually willing to do that,” Shinsou grumbled.

Izuku sighed.

“Honestly I think he’s been beating himself up for far too long already. He was just a stupid kid.”

“You’re one to talk.”

“It’s different.”

“It’s really fucking not. If you had actually fucking done it I would have killed you. It would have been my fault, I’m just lucky that you weren’t damaged enough to fucking listen to me. Not like I hadn’t been trying to break you for our entire fucking childhoods, and yeah, in some sick way I was tryna protect you, but so what? Like motivations fucking matter? What you did… you’ve been feeling so shit for years, but that was self defence, you were looking out for fucking everyone and you did what had to be done and yeah it sucked but like, you were still just a kid, and you did so fucking good. The only way it’s different is what you did was actually for a good fucking reason, and I got luckier.”

“Bro…” Kirishima laid a hand on Kacchan’s shaking arm, squeezing gently.

“I don’t deserve to have you Zuku. It was enough of a fucking miracle that you let me be there all these fucking years, but this? You shouldn’t be with me.”

“Do you not want to be?”

“Of course I fucking do. It’s all I’ve wanted for fucking- I don’t know, years. But just cause I want it don’t mean I’ve fucking earned it. You should have someone who’s better than me.”

“Oh Kacchan,” he breathed out, and pulled him in for a kiss. He whimpered against his lips, like he was scared, like Izuku was capable of scaring him. “I don’t want anyone better than you.”

“I gotta say bro, I do think holding the actions of someone’s teenage self against them forever is kinda fucked. You’re, like, the best dude I know.”

“Yeah Blasty, you threaten me a lot but I’d have stopped hanging around you if you weren’t a cool dude.”

“I’m not saying anything nice about Bakugo on principle. Midoriya, on the other hand, is an idiot and I am telling my dads about this.”

“Please don’t.”

“You need support from people who are more stable than Bakugo. We all know he’s been doing a lot but he’s got too much tied up in your wellbeing.”

“I can fucking handle it.”

“No you can’t. Also you shouldn’t,” Shinsou seemed to have inherited Mr Aizawa’s glare.

“I hate to say it Kacchan, but I think he might have a point.”

“You had a full blown panic attack the last time you saw Aizawa, I don’t think it’s a good fucking-”

“I have a panic attack when I do anything,” he sighed. “I’m not well, Kacchan, and I think enough time has passed to be able to say pretty decisively that it isn’t just going to magically go away. If I keep avoiding everything that freaks me out I’m just going to stay like this.”

“I don’t want you to get hurt.”

He loved him so so much.

He kissed him sweetly, tenderly. He hoped it said enough.

Kaminari gagged behind them.

“We got through enough of the emotional stuff for me to get mad yet babe? I can’t believe you offered to use your quirk for Midoriya but not me. What did he do to earn it? I literally made you-”

“He saved the lives of pretty much all of Japan.”

“Aww but babe-”

“Nope. No amount of sex is enough to beat world saving. It is what it is.”

“Fine, maybe you have a point.”

“Just keep it in your goddamn pants,” Kacchan groaned.

“Nah, if Deku asks for my ass he gets it.”

Izuku was too busy blushing to stop Kacchan when he flung himself across the room but, he noticed fondly, he didn’t really need to. For all that several lampshades got broken, he didn’t actually seem intent on murdering anyone. In fact, everyone seemed to be laughing.

It was… nice.

He settled down beside Kaminari, and the two of them watched as their boyfriends tussled, and he laughed at their antics with shock, with something that almost felt like happiness. Like hope.

He’d been honest, allowed people to see who he actually was, and no one had died.

For the first time in years, he had cried.

It was a strange kind of miracle, but a miracle none the less.

Kirishima sat down on his other side, having given up on separating the two of them after it became apparent that no one was actually going to get too badly hurt. He nudged him in the side, and Izuku turned to look at him. His eyes were serious, but warm.

“I’m glad you two are finally together. You and Bakubro both… it’s good that you get to have some happiness, you know?”

“Oh word,” Kaminari nodded. “Blasty’s pleased with himself an awful lot, has that big pointy grin of his, but he’s been doing this soft little smile the last few weeks. I thought he was just plotting a murder or something, finally about to turn villain, it was freaking weird.”

“He’d never become a villain.”

“Well obviously, but it seemed more likely than him just being in a good mood!”

“Yeah he’s… he looks out for everyone, he’s been really lovely for years, honestly. I mean, I always loved the dude, but he used to be so angry. Not so much anymore. He grew up really well and I’m so freaking proud of him. Looking out for others is so manly, but I was still always a bit sad for my bro, cause he’d get this wistful far away look anytime anyone asked him what he wanted, and now… I guess that was you, and now he’s got it and I’m just- I’m so happy,” Kirishima was instantly bawling. Izuku patted him on his broad, super manly, back.

“I just wish I knew what I could do for him.”

Kaminari snorted.

“Dude, think about yourself for like five seconds. We’re all just psyched you actually showed up today.”

“Yeah man, the issue with heroes is we’re all like this. It’s kinda trained into us, you know? If you can crawl you should still be trying to save someone, that kind of shit. We’re all a total mess when it comes to relationships cause we’ve got, like, no self preservation instincts.”

“I’m not a hero anymore.”

“Fuck off,” Kacchan was glaring at him from the floor, where he had a totally unphased looking Shinsou pinned. “It’s called retirement. Get a grip,” he got to his feet, and went back to the kitchen to start putting the leftovers away.

“Yeah you’ve still got all the same bad habits as the rest of us, there is no escape,” Shinsou rose to his feet with all the grace of a cat, before sprawling over the opposing sofa.

Kaminari scrambled over to cling to his boyfriend like an overenthusiastic leech, gleefully singing a tune that was clearly a reference intended to annoy half of the room if the resounding sighs and “I knew I should never have let you play Hades,” coming from Shinsou were any sign.

Izuku had no idea what was going on, but he didn’t really mind. Kacchan was looking at him. Maybe looking wasn’t the right word; staring at him, yearning at him? Was that something people said? Either way, it was what was happening.

They locked eyes and everything else just ceased to exist. His heart fluttered in his chest. Had Kacchan always looked at him like that?

Not always, no, never that.

How long had Kacchan looked at him like that?

Years, he thought with a jolt, he’d been looking at him like that for years.

Like he was something to be worshipped. Like he thought he was beautiful. Like he loved him.

Fuck. Did Kacchan love him?

He stared right back. For once he didn’t try to hide the way he longed for him. He didn’t tell himself not to want. He wanted him so much. He loved him so much.

Kacchan’s eyes widened. He blinked, swallowed, crossed the space.

They sat beside each other, they talked to their friends and, when Kaminari’s hand wound up clasped in Shinsou’s, maybe Izuku’s reached for Kacchan and maybe, just maybe, he took it.

Chapter Text

Accepting the invitation felt a little like leaping to his doom. His heart had been hammering in his throat all week, stomach fluttering, dread sharp in his mind. He had to do this, he had to, but that didn’t mean he wanted to.

He’d messed up so much, for so many years. He’d rejected them so many times. It hadn’t been fair, they hadn’t deserved it, they only wanted to care.

The idea of care had terrified him so much. It still did, compounded by guilt, with the terror of the concept of having to find words when there were no words, when he still didn’t know how to explain.

He needn’t have worried.

They didn’t push for information or apologies, they just sat them down and treated them like family.

Homely wasn’t something he’d have expected from Mr- no, Aizawa’s space. He’d imagined utilitarian and dim. He’d imagined a lot of things.

Maybe once it would have been like that, but they’d all changed with the years. They’d all been changed by the people they let into their hearts. Whether through love, or guilt.

It wasn’t his house and his alone. His belongings and Yamada’s (Hizashi, he’d insisted on Hizashi) were so thoroughly intertwined that it was impossible to say who had brought what.

It clashed and contradicted and worked.

Just like its inhabitants.

They’d been together so long, they fit together; like second nature, like breath.

Izuku sat at the kitchen table, smiled a little, watched them move around the space.

It was a clutter of cooking, of craft projects, of homework still to grade. A calm kind of bustle as they worked their way through the pile.

Izuku’s hands were busily shelling peas. Crack the pod, empty out the insides, set the casing aside. Repeat. Kacchan was quiet beside him, darning a hole in some sheets. They were helping. It was nice to help. He suspected they had known as much.

It didn’t matter if this was a strategy they had concocted to keep him calm, stop him running, not when it worked.

Hizashi’s arm was around Aizawa’s waist, their eyes so loving as they looked at one another, stilled for a moment in time. Aizawa tucked a lock of hair behind Hizashi’s ear, went back to grading a paper. He grumbled, underlined something in red. Hizashi looked over his shoulder and laughed, rolled his eyes, wandered on.

Hizashi always seemed to be in motion.

He started singing something. Not with enough effort to be a performance, just something for himself. Like the way he moved. Sound was a part of him, so was motion. Aizawa’s lips quirked into a small smile. He didn’t look up from the paper, but Izuku could tell he was listening. Could tell he already knew the song.

How many evenings did they spend like this? How many times had Hizashi sung the same songs while Aizawa listened?

How many times had Izuku listened to Kacchan tell the same story? Watched him cook the same meals?

He looked over at Kacchan. His tongue was sticking out ever so slightly between his teeth, his hands moving steadily across the fabric. Was there a single skill he didn’t possess? Maybe it was just confidence. Maybe he just went through life acting like he knew what he was doing. Maybe he was just lucky, how often he was right.

He was deep in concentration, stitching so neatly, but still he leaned slightly closer when Izuku started watching, pressed his leg more soundly to Izuku’s own.

He hesitated for a moment, then leaned over, put his forehead to his shoulder, breathed in his warmth. Kacchan tilted his head, rested against him. Kept sewing.

He watched the movements out of the corner of his eye, the damage disappearing, being replaced with the visible kind of mending. The sheets would never be new again, they would always look like something that had once been broken, but that didn’t mean they had to be thrown away. Kacchan made them into something beautiful.

He sat back up, went back to his own portion of the work. Aizawa was watching him. His expression was complicated; a bit sad, a bit happy. Izuku didn’t know how to decode it. He didn’t ask what it meant. He smiled at him, watched Aizawa smile back, looked down at the peas.

Hizashi had switched to a different song. Izuku knew this one. He only realised he was humming along when he noticed Kacchan watching him, surprise in his eyes.

When he realised what he was doing he was surprised too. It was a silly little thing, but it had been so long since he’d done anything like it. He stopped, thought about it. He didn’t remember the last time he’d sung.

Kacchan picked up the tune, or tried to anyway. His voice cracked and shook and missed the notes so consistently it was almost a miracle. Izuku laughed in shock. It was awful. Izuku had done better.

There was something Kacchan couldn’t do.

Once he started laughing he couldn’t seem to stop. Aizawa only snorted once, but he kept grinning, looking down at his latest paper and shaking his head.

Kacchan huffed in outrage and shut his mouth with a click. Izuku elbowed him, pressed a kiss to his glowering lips, and started singing properly.

Hizashi looked thoroughly delighted as he threw himself into belting the song. Izuku sang with him. Quieter, more tentatively, but in tune.

He finished with the peas, passed them to Hizashi to cook. Moved on to the next task.

Kacchan was watching him, sneaking glances, between passes with the needle.

He tied off the thread, folded the sheets so carefully, put them aside.

Izuku wanted to kiss him again. He didn’t. He had a job to do.

Aizawa sat back and stretched, groaned a little, and let his head loll over the back of his seat. Hizashi ran hands through his hair, smiled as Aizawa preened under his touch, massaged the tension from his shoulders. Aizawa kissed his knuckles, leaned against his hand.

Izuku met Kacchan’s eyes. They’d both been watching their teachers, he could see it in his expression. They were both yearning, for the same thing. Something that, maybe, they could just reach out and take.

Their hands joined beneath the table, squeezed tight. They didn’t let go.

Hours passed by like that. Easy and peaceful and warm.

At the end of the day they walked back to Kacchan’s car, hands laden with containers full of leftovers, and Izuku smiled, leaned against the side of the car while Kacchan unlocked it and got everything stacked.

Maybe he could see people. Maybe it didn’t have to be so difficult. Maybe it would help.

He’d missed this.

He pulled out his phone.

He texted All Might.

Kacchan looked over his shoulder, put an arm around him, pressed a kiss to his cheek. He looked proud. Izuku had made him proud.

He knew not every meeting would be like this. He knew that conversations would have to happen. He knew he would have to apologise, so many times, to so many people. He knew that pain was inevitable. He knew it was the only way to heal.

He wanted to see his friends.

He missed them.

He didn’t have to keep missing them.

He sat in the passenger seat, lulled into a half sleep by the purr of the engine and the satisfaction of a day well spent, and sent another text.

Chapter Text

The cafe was clean and meticulously organised, but comfortable. It was funny really. This was nothing like he used to be. He never used to know how to make a space feel warm and comforting. He never used to be either of those things.

 “Katsuki laughs at me when he visits, he does still love to mock, he reminds me of the fact that this skill was not always one I possessed. He is, of course, correct. He taught me well.”

Izuku was absently watching while Shoto cooked, the motions comfortable and seemingly easy, chatting while he worked.

“I do not mind being reminded of the fact that skills are something that must be achieved through hard work and dedication. It is a reminder I commonly require, given how early I was trained to become what I once was. I believe that is why I am so fond of my profession. It is something I worked for as an adult. It is something I chose.”

Shoto had always been a calming presence, but he had never been calm. It was easier to see that, now that he was. Calm, and halfway to happy.

“It’s so crazy to me that he had the patience to teach you.”

Maybe not as crazy as the patience he had shown Izuku, but it surprised  him none the less

“He’s very helpful, in an admittedly harsh way, it is nothing I do not know how to handle. Compared to training with my father...”

“Sunshine and roses?”

Shoto frowned at him in confusion.

“There were no roses involved Izuku, I did not incorporate edible flowers into my food until after my tuition with Katsuki had long since ended... oh, I see, that was not intended literally was it?”

“Nope,” he laughed.

“I swear, on my honour, I will not always be defeated by figurative language.”

“On your honour?” Izuku giggled. 

“Well what else should I swear upon? My father’s grave? He is, unfortunately, not yet dead, and means far less to me than honour.”

“That’s not what I... nevermind. I gather nothing has changed there then?”

Shoto sighed, eyes focussed on his work.

“I hate my old man more with every day that passes. Perhaps when he is dead I shall simply cease to care but, while he walks this earth and still benefits from the destruction he has wrought, I shall continue to despise him.”

And he was, still benefiting. Heroes made a lot of money, far past retirement, even those who had fallen so aggressively out of favour. Izuku barely even qualified as a former hero and he was still unlikely to ever actually need a normal job, where as a number one? He might not have the love of his kids, but that was probably the only thing he couldn’t buy.

“Hey, remember that week when you thought you’d make good with him?”

“That was before I started talking to my eldest brother.”

Izuku hesitated. He was almost afraid to ask, but he had to know.

“How is Dabi doing?”

“Still crazy, but he hasn’t tried to kill me in a few years so I believe that is progress.”

Izuku had never visited him in the asylum. It didn’t feel like his place. He didn’t know what he’d do, if he saw the villain again.

“I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to... he kidnapped Kacchan.”

“He is less forgivable to you than Shigaraki?”

“Dabi’s still alive.”

It was so much easier to forgive the dead.

“For what it’s worth, he doesn’t expect forgiveness. He’s still surprised every time I show up, after all these years.”

“You’re a better person than me.”

“No Izuku, I am not.”

There was a silence. Neither of them tried to break it. Not awkward, exactly, more contemplative, weighted with their respective thoughts.

“Eat this.”

“It’s not a hair is it?”

“I am afraid I do not understand that reference.”

Izuku shook his head, smiled slightly.

“Don’t worry, you weren’t supposed to,” he took a bite. “It’s good, maybe better than Kacchan’s,” he paled. “Don’t tell him I said that, he’d kill me, slowly.”

“Figuratively?”

“God I hope so.”

“I would not tell him a thing if you did not directly request it. I know how to keep a secret, Izuku.”

He didn’t really need his secrets kept, not from Kacchan, but the promise warmed him none the less.

“You’re a good friend. It’s just weird to me that you’re a good friend to Kacchan of all people.”

“He’s less of a little bitch than he used to be.”

He nearly choked to death on his food. Shoto calmly patted him on the back, expression blank, hand a little chilled.

“That’s one way of putting it.”

“I am only being accurate. He was violent and dangerously reactive, running primarily on a toxic combination of low self worth and a superiority complex, not to mention his borderline obsessive relationship with you. He has grown with time. I can now call him a friend. It is as simple as that.”

Blunt as ever.

“You haven’t changed.”

“I am running a cat cafe and now use my quirks almost exclusively to make cooking easier and pet cats better. I would say I have changed a great deal.”

“Yeah, but... it’s bad to say, I think, but you seem less traumatised than a lot of us.”

He regretted the words the second they were out of his mouth, but Shoto didn’t seem to take them amiss, just hummed in thought, and responded.

“It is easier to see a grain of sand on a stone floor than it would be to see that same grain of sand on a beach.”

“... What?”

“I was more traumatised to begin with. The difference is less noticeable because you do not have a mentally stable example to compare me to.”

That made an awful kind of sense.

“Are you... okay? Is that stupid to say?”

He didn’t really know how to meet Shoto’s eyes, not while they were having this kind of conversation. Still, he stayed.

“It’s not stupid. I have not ever been okay nor, I believe, shall I ever be. Our upbringing alone was enough to turn my brother into a violent criminal, and that is before we even got to the trauma you and I share. It is highly unlikely the impact of such a life will ever truly leave us. As permanent as the scar on my face so, too, is the scar on my heart. But, to answer the question as I believe you truly intended it, I do believe I have found some peace, access to a consistent source of happiness. I like my job, my friends, my pets. I laugh more often than I cry. I have a good life. You’ll get that one day too, I believe it. I don’t think Katsuki will give you another choice.”

He looked up at him, breathing steadier than he had thought it would be. Shoto made it easy, to be steady. He hadn’t expected that. Maybe he should have, but it had been so long.

“You’re so good with words these days.”

“I talk to people for a living.”

“Nah, they’re all here for the cats and the food.”

Shoto shrugged his agreement.

“Rightly so.”

He stared at Shoto’s hands for a bit, followed the repetitive motions.

“I’m sorry I haven’t been a friend,” he blurted out.

“You will always be my friend.”

It was a nice sentiment, it was, but it still didn’t feel right.

“I should have been a part of your life.”

“Izuku,” Shoto wiped his hands on a dish towel and leaned forward a little, fixing him with his full attention. He shrunk beneath it. “You were the first friend I ever had, you expended an awful lot of energy trying to help me, to the point of giving yourself permanent injuries for the sake of my mental wellbeing,” Izuku tucked his own hands under his arms, self conscious at the reminder.

What a stupid thing to do. He had been so young.

“Relationships are not fixed, they are not steady, people come and go from one another’s lives for a multitude of reasons. That is normal. I would like to see you more, I miss your presence in my life, but it is not something that you owe to me. I will always value that which you have given to me, no matter whether or not you continue to be capable of providing it. I know why you are absent, I understand it, I do not resent your mental illness,” he paused, considered.

“I know you might perceive this harshly, so please know that I do not mean this to diminish your worth in any way, but I do not actually need you. I have other people to depend on. You are allowed to do what you need to do in order to recover, and when you are able once more I hope you shall return, and allow me to repay some of the good you did for me. Until then, don’t feel guilt on my behalf. You don’t need to. I am, truly, doing well.”

Izuku didn’t know how to respond, so he just didn’t. Shoto washed his hands, took off his apron, and hugged him tightly for a moment, two. He could hug back, if nothing else, so he did.

“Come on, I think it would do you some good to pet a cat or two. The cafe won’t be open for another hour. You have time while it’s quiet.”

He led the way and Izuku followed, wondering at the comfort that his friend had found, the ease. He was right, this was exactly what he needed. They drank tea and stroked cats and they smiled, in that empty cafe, at nothing and at everything. It was almost simple. Izuku was almost happy. It was... good.

When he said he’d come over again he actually, miraculously, believed it.

He wanted to go there again. He wanted to see Shoto. He wanted.

He wanted to go there with Kacchan.

He had a thought.

“Todoroki, can you help me with something?”

Chapter Text

Izuku felt silly. It was such a small thing and he was just blowing it out of proportion. Kacchan wouldn’t care. It wouldn’t matter. It was just food.

Kacchan cooked for him all the time, and that had mattered. A part of his life that was steady and reassuring and good, when nothing else had been. It just seemed like the thing to do. Care in the way he had cared. He could do that.

He would do more, he’d keep trying to think of new ways to make him happy, to be an active participant in their relationship. A start. It was a start.

That was what he had been waiting for, wasn’t it? A place to start, the strength to do it. It didn’t have to be perfect, it just had to be. He just had to remember how to move.

Maybe he should have made a curry. Something spicy and savoury. He knew that was what Kacchan liked the most, but... meals were necessary. It didn’t feel like enough of a gift.

He wasn’t a great cook, Shoto couldn’t make him one, not in an afternoon, and he refused to let him take over. This was something he had to have made himself, or the gesture became meaningless. Maybe it would be anyway. It was just cake. Messy looking, hopefully edible.

He took extra care wrapping it. Anyone but Shoto would have laughed at him, his messy attempts at presentation, placing the little cakes oh so carefully. Smoothing the ribbon, tying and untying the bow, never quite perfect.

Shoto was patient, calm. It was exactly what he had needed. He was a good friend. He was glad he had that. He was glad he was back in his life.

He carried the box like it was a newborn baby, so careful, so worried he would drop it.

Ridiculous.

He had carried living people out of burning buildings, flown through the air with Kacchan bleeding in his arms, felt the life draining from both of them and just kept moving, kept fighting.

He hadn’t dropped him then. He didn’t drop this now.

Kacchan was instantly on his feet when he walked through the door, fear in his eyes, fading to relief.

“Fuck, nerd, are you okay? You were gone a long fucking time, I was about to start searching. Thought you might’ve freaked out somewhere I couldn’t-“

He didn’t know how to remove that fear, how to soothe him when he knew it was justified. It would take time. He had to accept that it would take time.

“I’m fine Kacchan,” and he was. He was fine. His mind stuttered to a halt as he dealt with that realisation. “I-“ he felt his lips turn up into a smile, “I had a good time.”

Kacchan narrowed his eyes, looked him up and down, then groaned.

“Why’s it always gotta be Icy Hot?”

Izuku laughed, rolled his eyes.

“He’s nice. You know you like him too.”

He would never have taught him to cook if he didn’t. Kacchan didn’t spend his time with people he didn’t care about.

“I fucking don’t… Ugh, yeah, fine, whatever. He grew on me. Fuck off. Stop looking at me like that.”

Kacchan had to care about Izuku so much, to have spent so much time looking after him.

“I don’t know if it’s actually about him. I’m just... in a better mood, I guess?”

He could feel the way his eyes were shining.

“Put that box down so I can kiss you.”

“Oh, the box! Yes. For you. It’s for you. Kacchan. My boyfriend. Gift. Have it. Please, take it Kacchan, before I say any more-“

“Whatever nerd,” he laughed and took the box, flipping open the lid without pause. “You got me Icy Hot’s cinnamon cakes?”

“Oh, uh, well, um. I made them?” he whispered. “For you?”

“Oh... you... but you can’t cook.”

“Hey! I’m not that bad. Anyway, I got him to teach me.”

“You...” Kacchan swallowed. “Fuck, Zuku, I...” he shook his head, reached into the box, and shoved an entire cake into his mouth. Izuku was fairly sure his eyes were damp. He chewed like he was on a mission. Like it mattered.

“You’re gonna choke.”

“Shuddup,” Kacchan glared at him weakly, mouth still full of cake. “ ‘s fucking good. I can’t believe you made this for me.”

His heart hurt. Did it really take this little? He’d been letting him down so badly. He wouldn’t do that anymore. He refused.

“I’ll do more. I’ll find more ways to make you happy.”

He clenched his fist, released. Kacchan reached for his hand, put the box aside.

When they kissed it tasted of cinnamon and sugar. More cinnamon than sugar, he knew his boyfriend.

Knew him better than anyone.

“I’ll text you next time I’m going to be out late.”

Next time.

Kacchan smiled.

“You do that. Now eat some cake.”

“No, Kacchan, they’re for you.”

“Don’t care. You’re having some.”

They tussled while Kacchan tried to shove a cake into his mouth.

By the end of it they were both laughing and covered in sugar.

Izuku ate the cake. It wasn’t great, not as good as Shoto or Kacchan could have done, but he’d made it. He’d made something good. Something capable of making Kacchan smile.

In context, it was one of the best things he had ever tasted.

Not the best, that was still Kacchan’s Katsudon.

Maybe it wasn’t the way it tasted. Maybe it was just knowing how much he cared, having the proof of it put in front of him. Maybe the cakes he had made were just as good, just not for him. He hoped they were.

He would put in the work. He would do the things that Kacchan never did for himself, because Kacchan never did enough for himself, because that was what he had done for Izuku. He deserved to have that. Izuku would be that. It was the only thing that mattered. It was all he would aspire to be.

It was enough.

Chapter Text

Kacchan’s bedroom was... different to Izuku’s. It was deliberate, he supposed, in a way that spoke of money and attention to detail. Not trendy, exactly, but designed.

Not like Izuku’s space, where things had just landed as they fell, dragged in from the first place he found them whenever they became essential. Izuku didn’t have paintings, he didn’t have pretty things at all, the only factors he thought about were utility and comfort, for better or for worse.

Would they still serve their purpose when he was too down to move? Would his inability to care destroy them? Would he destroy them? It had created a comforting kind of gloom, like the inside of a burrow, dark and impossible to stain.

Kacchan’s bedroom was filled with colour, with light, with so many things that were so very him, or so much his friends. Things to tend to, things to love. It was joyful, it was fierce. It was alive.

Somehow he hadn’t imagined Kacchan having plants, or pets. He had both.

He didn’t know if they’d been missing when he visited before, or if he’d just been too out of it to notice. Maybe they ran from the noise, like he had been so desperate to do. Maybe Izuku’s quiet had tempted them into the light.

One of his cats was curled up on his stomach, Kacchan smiling down at her and stroking behind her ears, so gentle. The other was walking on the pillow, around Izuku’s head, tail tickling at his face as she meowed at him.

Kacchan laughed at him. He supposed that was fair enough. There was cat hair in his mouth, after all.

“She’ll keep doing that until you give her attention, you know,” the cat in his lap stretched out her paws, yawning deeply before resettling, claws kneading at his shirt while he stroked her.

Izuku relented, gingerly picking up the cat and moving it so he could clamber upright. She yowled at him, but didn’t leave, just huffed at him before digging her claws deep into his thigh and rubbing her face against his hands.

He only flinched a little. Her claws were sharp, but her fur was so soft.

His hands were shaking while he stroked her. They always shook, but she didn’t seem to care, just dug her nails in and released, over and over, purring beneath his attention.

“Don’t they get lonely while you’re away?”

He felt guilty. That would have been a surprise to no one. He was good at feeling guilty. Better at it than anything else, maybe.

He was taking up all of Kacchan’s attention, his time, taking him away from his cats and his thriving houseplants and all this colour, all this light.

It was a beautiful space. It was such a beautiful space, and yet he stayed with Izuku, he stayed with all his ugliness, all his dark.

“Pfft, yeah right. These little shits? They love it when I’m away.”

Izuku looked at him in question. It was hard to imagine a valid reason for describing the balls of fluff currently preening beneath their hands as anything but precious.

Didn’t they need his attention? They seemed so happy to be getting it. The idea of not receiving as much of it as one could hoard was devastating to Izuku, like losing sunlight, losing air.

“Kirishima, Shitty Hair I mean, fuck, don’t tell him I actually know his name, anyway, he has a key. Comes over whenever I’ve got other shit going on and spoils these little bastards rotten, and then I have to deal with them whining at me for not just fucking sitting on the floor and stroking them all day. They didn’t used to fucking gouge you like that one is doing, but he can fucking harden himself up so it doesn’t hurt him, like that wouldn’t train them into terrible fucking habits that the rest of us all have to pay for. Absolute asshole. I’d get Mind Freak to do it but I don’t trust him in my house when I’m here, let alone without me. He’d find a way to fuck with me, I fucking know it, and then I’d have to retaliate and we’d be at war from here until- what is it nerd? The fuck is that weird ass look on your face about?”

Izuku was staring at him. He knew it. He couldn’t seem to stop, he didn’t want to stop.

Kacchan was just so... he’d grown up so well. He was still rude and brash and loved a fight, but it was a thin layer now, that covered so much care. Even now, Izuku could see the fondness in his eyes, the way he talked about the people he knew, how deeply he had let them into his heart, into his life.

He looked so beautiful, smiling down at his cat and holding it with hands that had learnt how to be gentle. Izuku couldn’t help it, he just...

“I love you.”

Kacchan blinked, his hand stilling, cat complaining. He picked her up, moved her from his lap, shifted closer on the bed. The cat on Izuku’s lap yowled and leapt out of the way.

Kacchan leaned in, eyes wide and lips parted. Izuku couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think. He just watched him. Beautiful, so beautiful.

“I love you too Zuku.”

Simple as that, apparently.

Kacchan’s lips were on his, hungry but without haste, like there was no need to demand more or faster. Like he knew there would be more, would be later, would be always.

Izuku didn’t have that faith, he’d been starving for far too long, but he trusted Kacchan, and maybe that was enough.

He didn’t hurry him, didn’t push for more, he was just so grateful that this was something he had been given, something he didn’t have to go without.

“Damn,” Kacchan whispered against his lips. “I can’t believe you beat me to that too.”

Izuku laughed, and it was light and bright and easy.

He kissed him again, he kept kissing him. All gentle and lazy and so very warm.

“I can’t believe you said it back. Just like that.”

“Why wouldn’t I?” Kacchan shrugged. “I do.”

Izuku swallowed hard, eyes tearing up.

He was happy. He was so happy it ached. He didn’t know what to do with the emotion, didn’t know where to put it. He pressed it into Kacchan’s lips, and felt as he gave him his own.

“When we were young you’d have told me to piss off. Growled in my face. Set off a few explosions.”

“When we were young I was an idiot.”

“You were always beautiful. Always loved you.”

Kacchan’s breath hitched now. He nuzzled against Izuku’s face, breathed against his lips.

“I know. It freaked me out. Was scared you’d figure me out, scared you’d stop, or you’d put yourself in danger and I’d lose you and no one else would ever-“ Kacchan was working himself into a panic. Izuku touched his face, wiped away the tears that were running down his cheeks, watched as he noticed their presence when they were cleared by his touch.

Izuku smiled, big and wide and watery.

“I am here, Kacchan. I’m not leaving.”

“Yeah, ‘cause you can’t,” he grumbled, and Izuku frowned.

“Is that what you think? I’m only with you because I’m not, what, strong enough to survive without you? Kacchan, I don’t want to survive without you, but that doesn’t mean I couldn’t. You were the first hero on the scene, not the only one who would have answered the call. I’m just... so glad it was you.”

Kacchan sniffled, kissed his cheeks.

“Sorry Zuku, shouldn’t have said that. You’ve always been strong. Course you coulda... I just... I don’t get it. I don’t get why...” he looked down at his own hands, his chest, like he was looking at something deeper. “Me? Really?” It came out choked, painful. Izuku covered his hands with his own, pulled them to his chest.

“Yeah. You. For what it’s worth, I don’t get what you see in me either. I think we, uh, both probably ought to get some therapy. Or more therapy, for you, I suppose.”

Kacchan snorted, put his forehead to Izuku’s with a little bit more force than was strictly necessary, closed his eyes.

“You definitely do.”

Izuku sighed, kissed him with as much love as he could muster.

“I just want you to be happy Kacchan. You’ve been so kind to me, you’ve become so good. I see the way everyone looks at you, it’s not just me anymore. You care for everyone. In your own explosive way maybe, but... you’re not that angry little shit anymore. Fuck, even if you were... you know I loved him too. You’re so beautiful Kacchan, so beautiful. I look at you and I... I just wish you could accept how much I love you. Okay? Please try, even if you have to feel like you’re doing it for me. Let me give you something in return, for how much you have given me.”

“I woulda stayed angry if it wasn’t for you. I wouldn’t have got better, I’d have just... festered. I’d have ended up like fucking Endeavour, or become a villain like those assholes thought I would. You’re the only thing that ever... that ever made me good.”

“Oh, no Kacchan, my sweet Kacchan. That’s just not true.”

Kacchan whimpered, pressed closer to him like he was seeking warmth, like Izuku was his only source of heat. He let him, lay back down in the bed with him and pulled the covers up around them.

They traded kisses, they stroked each other’s hair, and held each other as the sun made its way across the sky.

They didn’t get up until their stomachs grumbled and the cats yelled to be fed and, for once, it wasn’t because Izuku felt he couldn’t. He just didn’t want to.

All he wanted was this.

And he allowed himself to have it.

Chapter Text

Kacchan squeezed his hand as they made their way through the darkening woods.

Earlier today they had watched the retrospective on the war, they had cried together as they saw the footage through for the first time, without changing the channel. They had got better at that, allowing themselves to cry, allowing themselves to remember.

Izuku’s eyes still stung from the tears, but the darkness out here made it feel better.

He didn’t let go of his hand as they picked their way around the familiar obstacles, even if it might have made the journey easier. He didn’t know who the contact was for, who needed it more. They both clung, these days, both refused to give up on touch.

The fireworks were starting soon. Maybe one day they would watch them from the city. Maybe he would accept an invitation, give a speech, let the public see him, thank him, try to give them something in return. Or maybe this day would always be one for hiding, but he didn’t have to do it alone.

The meadow was lit, this time, by a small bonfire that was crackling merrily away.

Izuku and Kacchan made eye contact, hesitating for a moment in the shadow of the trees, before stepping out, forward, still hand in hand.

Shoto smiled at them from his place beside the fire, a quiet thing, as he nodded them forward. Kirishima grinned wide, calling out an enthusiastic greeting, but not dragging them into a conversation.

He sat, pulled Kacchan down with him until they were bundled in each other’s arms.

Even Uraraka was quiet, her expression somewhat pained, lost perhaps in her own memories.

It was strange really, how easily he had forgotten.

This night wasn’t just about him. It was about all of them. They had just been kids, and they had dealt with so much, but they were here, they were together, and fireworks were filling the sky.

Next year he would bring more of them. This year he had wanted the people he trusted to understand what had been lost, what had been gained.

They weren’t kids anymore, weren’t innocent and hopeful, could never be good in the way of those who had no blood on their hands, no skin beneath their nails. They had all witnessed, endured, survived. They were older now, but maybe they weren’t lost.

Izuku thought he would always feel like shit today. He would always bear the guilt of the man he could not save, and the scars that he had been given in return. Memories didn’t go away, and some wounds were not able to be healed, but perhaps he could find a way to live with them. He could be happy, around the sadness.

He could sit with the people he loved, and he could watch something beautiful, and he could hope.

Hope for another year, for happiness that remained, for love that would not fade.

Or maybe he would just hope. Maybe hope itself could be enough.

Explosions crackled in the sky. Kirishima whooped and Shoto smiled, and Izuku leaned back in Kacchan’s arms, and allowed himself to close his eyes.