Chapter Text
Kacchan is pretty.
It's something Izuku thinks often. About how Kacchan looks, or if he's in the mood for Izuku to be around, or how he feels about their friendship. But, it was never something he'd ever say out loud— not unless he wanted to survive to become the Number One Hero.
Everyone had begun filing out of the dorms for homeroom, and Izuku had caught just a glimpse of platinum hair as Kacchan turned down the sidewalk.
Izuku mumbles under his breath, "Kacchan is beautiful today."
"Hm? Did you say something, Deku?"
Izuku startles as Uraraka taps him on the shoulder, a bright smile on her face as Iida continues to wave his hands around just one step ahead of them both.
"Ah, nothing! I was just thinking about, uh, you know! Ahaha…" Izuku laughs it off quickly, face bright red.
-----
Fire and blood. It's something Katsuki had gotten all too familiar with at UA. Even before UA.
Sweat stings its way through a cut on his cheek as he stands, and he angrily smears it further into the wound with the back of his hand. His gauntlet was gone, torn off by the quirk of the villain in front of them.
Their quirk was something like glass shattering. Whatever they touched, the item became brittle and broke upon any impact.
Katsuki knew, though, that it only worked on inanimate objects. Not that he had known when Deku got grabbed, right on his dumbass face, by the shitty villain. When he got flung down onto the train tracks they were battling on, Katsuki was pretty sure he popped all the blood vessels in his brain from the stress.
But he hadn't shattered on impact— rather bounced like a little ball until he rolled himself onto his front.
"Fucking idiot— DEKU. GET YOUR SHIT TOGETHER."
Katsuki shoots himself over to Deku's curled form, wrist aching without the stabilization from his gear. "Get the fuck up."
Deku's already on his knees, though, watching the villain as he scrubs at where the fingers had clutched him. "I'm okay. Let's finish this quickly."
Behind them laid half a shattered train. The people inside were trapped— nowhere to go unless they jumped off the bridge.
"Don't tell me what to do," Katsuki growls, yanking Deku up the rest of the way.
Despite the fact that the villain couldn't shatter them directly, they had full control over the things they could. The little shards of metal shot towards them in waves, and Deku shot a blast of air to blow most of it to the side.
"I'll keep him distracted, Kacchan." Deku takes a step back, forming a strong, protective barrier in front of the civilians behind them. "If you get him from the back, or to turn around away from the train, I can— "
Katsuki socks him on the shoulder, just in time for them to dodge another shot of projectiles. "What the fuck did I just say, fucking asshole!"
Still, Katsuki uses the plumes of smoke between them and the villain to blast his way underneath the bridge.
Something explodes above him— not fire but more glass, and it cuts across his arms as he flies high above the villain.
Deku rushes forward, keeping the villain's eyes on him with a swift kick to the chest and a blast of air to make them stumble backwards.
Before the villain goes down, those glass pieces reunite in a group behind Deku's back. Katsuki isn't fast enough to stop it— but is in the perfect position to aim a full blast right in the villain's back.
So he does.
-----
Izuku has multiple lacerations across his back from the glass and mild burns on his arms from Kacchan. There were only two injured civilians and Kacchan got off with a broken wrist and a cut on his face that would heal without scarring.
"Good job, Midoriya!" Iida congratulates him, on a personal mission to bring notes for the classes Izuku had missed.
Although the burns were mild, the cuts needed to be watched closely by Recovery Girl before she could repair them. He didn't want to have glass stuck beneath fully healed skin, after all.
Laying on his stomach, Izuku can only nod helplessly and grin. "Thanks, Iida. I'll study right away."
"Maybe next time you can defeat a villain without getting injured, dumbass."
Kacchan appears behind Iida, startling the latter something fierce, but Izuku only grins wider.
"You got hurt, too, Kacchan."
"Shut the fuck up." A water bottle, metal and shiny, is shoved against his cheek and Izuku hisses at the sudden chill. As he juggles it and the notebook Iida had brought, Kacchan watches him critically. Then, once Izuku reaches to place the bottle on his side table, Kacchan snatches the book from his bed.
"Bakugo—!" Iida starts, but Kacchan has exploded it before he'd finished the first syllable. "My notes!"
Izuku chokes on air as Kacchan stabs a finger in the back of his neck, still warm from his Quirk. "You're getting outta here at lunch, yeah? You'd better be at my room once I'm back from classes, shithole."
Then, he shoves past Iida and skirts around Recovery Girl before he leaves just as quickly as he appeared.
Izuku half-heartedly comforts Iida as he mourns the loss of his carefully crafted notes, but he can't stop the way his mouth curls at the corners. Reading between the lines, it was obvious that Kacchan wanted them to study together.
When Iida has gone, speedwalking (not running!) so that he isn't late for the next class, Izuku buries his head in his pillow and lets his smile grow wider.
'ill be there!! ヽ(o＾▽＾o)ノ' He texts to Kacchan.
'Fucking better, nerd.' He gets in response.
-----
All Might visits him, just before lunch.
Recovery Girl had just finished healing him, though his back only partially so because of his low energy, and he and All Might almost bumped into each other when he opened the door to leave.
Which is how they found themselves walking along the forest line, shielding their eyes from the sun.
"And you're sure you're feeling alright, Young Midoriya?"
"Feeling great! I could probably use 100% right now!" As if to prove it, Izuku begins to bounce from one foot to the other.
When All Might begins to stutter and wave his hands frantically to stop him, Izuku grins wide. "Just kidding."
The two find a bench near the middle of the forest, overlooking the rest of the city. A pond gently flows in front of them, and a few ducks peck at his red shoes before they move on to swim away.
Izuku's back still burns, if he's being honest. Not as much as it did, but there was a faint ache where each piece of glass had dug in and dragged down.
"If it still hurts in the morning," she had began, glancing down at her notes. "Come back and I should be able to heal you fully."
Now, All Might places a gentle hand across the nape of his neck, as if sensing the pain lingering there. It grows silent between them until All Might pulls away to show off his lunchbag.
"Hungry, Young Midoriya?"
Their lunch consisted of a sandwich and juice boxes— and candies from Present Mic. Each bite was quickly scarfed down as the ducks wandered between their legs, pecking at the crumbs. Izuku feels bad not sharing any fuller bites with them— but he also clearly remembers the time Aizawa-sensei had scolded him about their diets so…
He shoos them away with the back of his hand and a promise, to himself, to bring lettuce or peas next time.
When they finish, All Might pats around his pockets before producing a handful of wrapped treats, each one a pale pink or bright red. The candies nearly overflow All Might's palms and Izuku is quick to catch them before the ducks get there first.
"I never really liked strawberry flavored things," All Might confesses, as if it were the greatest sin. "But Hizashi— ah… Present Mic, I mean. He loves to share them."
Izuku pockets two of the little lollipops and promises not to tell anyone the secret.
-----
They part ways well after lunch had concluded for the rest of the UA students.
"I think… I'm gonna go for a run in town," Izuku says as they start circling back through the forest. "I probably should buy Iida a thank-you gift for his notes." Not that he'd be able to use them but…
All Might sends him a thumbs-up. "Be careful, young man. You'll send me to an early heart attack if you get attacked again so soon."
"I'll try my best!" Izuku says, and runs off with a teasing laugh before he can specify what, exactly, he'd be trying his best to do (or not do).
Although the sun had just reached its peak in the sky, the air was a bit cold as Izuku jogged down the mountain. It reminded him of the water bottle Kacchan had given him, and Izuku tried to remind himself to bring it to their study session, to return.
The town is quiet as he jogs through, pausing at an intersection to wipe sweat from his brow. Makes sense, being early afternoon on a weekday.
He and Kacchan had gotten attacked the day prior (on their way back to UA from what had basically been a mini-field trip), but already the rhythm of their town had gone back to relaxed.
Izuku waves hello to some resting construction workers, watching as they go about fixing the cracks in the bridge of the train.
On his way back to UA, he begins to eat one of the lollipops All Might had given him. It's super sweet, covered in a fine powder from where it had been smushed in his pocket. Completely and artificially strawberry, but it satisfied a craving somewhere in his stomach anyway.
As he crunches down on the hardened sugar, he doesn't hear the snap of branches as footsteps dart behind him. Not until pain explodes on his already aching back.
He goes down, silent. Minutes later, if one were to pass, all that would be left of him was the cute, pink wrapper of his candy.
-----
Izuku wakes up to a broken wrist, a black eye, and a cloth gag being unwrapped from around his head.
Voices circle around his head, and a hand keeps his shoulder pressed to the ground— not painfully but firm.
All Might's sad smile comes into view as Izuku groans and tries to roll over onto his stomach. The hands touching him move away and are replaced by All Might helping him sit up.
"Young Midoriya," He begins, but Izuku misses the rest when police sirens go off behind him, sending his head into a spiral of pain and bright lights.
He's pretty sure he faints because when he wakes up next, his wrist is healed and blood rests on his tongue, replacing the taste of old cotton.
-----
He isn't allowed to leave the infirmary until two days later. Not even allowed visitors the entire time. Not that he'd been awake if there were any visitors.
When he did wake up, though, it'd been maddeningly silent. Recovery Girl doesn't even lecture him for being hurt, but All Might does come to assure him that he hadn't died of a heart attack as he'd predicted.
"From now on, you'll have to be accompanied by an escort, young man."
Izuku readily agreed with a soft, hoarse, "Please."
-----
It isn't until the next day that he remembers the study session he'd missed with Kacchan.
-----
"You were hit with a quirk," Aizawa-sensei tells him. "We don't have all the details yet, but... by making a person ingest a piece of themself, the villain makes it so that their victim can't control what they say."
When Izuku's brows quirk and he turns green around the edges, Aizawa pats him on the head. "I'll spare you the details, but you aren't a cannibal, if that's what you're worried about."
Izuku scribbles down on the whiteboard placed in his lap and holds it up to be read.
'Is that why I'm wearing a gag?' He asks. A knotted cloth rests just behind his teeth, heavily soaked with his saliva. Gross.
Aizawa nods. "Mm, we aren't sure how long it'll take to get out of your system. Even while you were unconscious, the quirk made you speak. For the sake of your own secrets— and my own sanity—" and boy does Aizawa put stress on the word, "— we found it better to muffle it rather than find a way to stop it."
Izuku hums, but he does feel words forming on his lips around the gag even as he tries to stop it.
"If you're able to stop yourself by tomorrow morning, we'll see about classes. For now, Recovery Girl suggests letting you sleep in your own room for the night."
Aizawa-sensei is surprisingly gentle when Izuku flinches away from his hands as they reach to untie the gag.
His teacher moves to instead pat him on the head, moving sweaty hair from his eyes. "Just change it out when you get to your room," Aizawa concedes.
-----
When he stumbles back to the dorms, half dragged by the arm across Aizawa-sensei's shoulder, his classmates understandably freak.
"Is he…"
"Deku, we missed you!"
"What's with the…" Kaminari motions to the almost soaked through gag. Even without Aizawa-sensei talking directly to him, Izuku spoke everything that came to mind on the short walk from UA to the dorms.
"He's still recovering," is all Aizawa-sensei says. "Do not take it off of him. Even if he's sleeping."
At the serious tone, the class quickly parts to let them head towards Izuku's room.
"If he's still sick, why not leave him to rot in the damn granny's office?" Kacchan grumbles from the kitchen as they pass, locking eyes with him.
Izuku grins as best he can around the gag. Aizawa only grunts, but Izuku is pretty sure Kacchan gets the gist of the motion by the way he rolls his eyes and angrily downs an overfilled glass of water.
It isn't until he's been tucked in bed and given a plethora of cloths to use as a gag for the next few days that he notices the time: thirty minutes past midnight.
He sends a quick text off to Kacchan.
'sorry for worrying u! Get some rest (－ω－) zzZ'
Kacchan responds almost immediately with a quick, 'Fuck off.'
Just before Izuku turns over to place his phone back on the charger, he gets another text which reads a simple, 'You too.'
-----
Izuku is, in fact, allowed to go to classes the next day.
Aizawa-sensei walks him to Recovery Girl early in the morning.
"Given that you've missed half the week, we decided it was best to let you come back instead of make-up classes."
Izuku nods, words coming forward before he can stop them. "I'd rather not do those. They're harder than actual classes."
Aizawa rolls his eyes, but it's half-hearted at best. "When I came to wake you, you weren't mumbling in your sleep. As long as you bring your gag, you should be fine."
Then, half under his breath, "Maybe I should gag the rest of the class. Finally get some peace and quiet."
Izuku laughs, tugging an embroidered cloth out of his pocket. It was designed with a stitched thumbs up on one side and a messy side profile of Golden Age All Might, and Izuku has a feeling a certain mentor of his is the one who made it.
He and Aizawa-sensei make it to class much earlier than the rest of the class— almost 45 minutes earlier.
"What about the person who used their quirk on me?" Izuku had asked on the way to UA.
His teacher stayed troublingly silent for a long while, after that. Izuku's nervous, constant stream of thought filled the spaces in between them.
"It's being handled," Aizawa had said, finally. "The campus is under lockdown, and no one is allowed off-site."
And Izuku had left it at that.
-----
His back still hurts. He'd forgotten to bring it up with Recovery Girl, which is surprising to him considering the nature of the quirk that hit him. With as many times as he'd interrupted Aizawa-sensei with segways that had nothing to do with their conversation both walking to and from the infirmary, he's sure his teacher would be surprised to hear it, too.
He'd go before lunch break, then.
Izuku sighs softly, muttering to himself as he goes over the texts Uraraka had sent him the few days he'd been absent. Just major notes about what they'd gone over in classes she knew he had trouble with. She'd mentioned something about Iida wanting to give him another notebook, but (to none of their surprise) decided to hold off giving it to him until Kacchan wasn't around.
The gag sits soundly in his lap as he half-studies, half looks out the window.
As his class begins to shuffle in, keeping their distance but still sending happy greetings his way, he fingers the frayed edges of it.
When his friends come in, Uraraka two steps behind Iida, Izuku shouts out a sharp, excited, "Hey!"
Everyone startles at the sudden, loud sound of his voice, and he sheepishly waves them over. Aizawa-sensei narrows his eyes at him as he leaves to get notes before the beginning of homeroom, and Izuku sends him a quick, apologetic shrug.
"Dekuuu, we missed you!" Uraraka throws a quick hug across his shoulders. "We weren't even allowed to visit!"
"Ahaha, well— " Izuku begins, quickly parsing through his thoughts. "I guess I just had to be observed for a while longer."
"Oh?"
"Mm. The quirk I got hit with, uh…" Izuku flinches. Maybe he shouldn't have said that part? Ah, well. "Well, Recovery Girl still had to monitor me— plus I was still injured from the train incident— and maybe it could've been contagious, so— !"
"Ah, that makes sense. It would be inefficient to have half the class out of commission, after all." Iida nods to himself.
"Mm," Izuku smiles, kicking his legs out to turn towards the two of them. So far, it seemed the quirk was fading faster and faster with time. Even as the back of his mind panicked to talk about the classes he missed, he was able to ignore it in favor of small talk before class started. It helped when his friends smiled at him, especially helped when the worried squint of their eyes faded to something more relaxed.
Maybe he wouldn't even have to use the gag. Seeing as it was hand-stitched by All Might himself, it already earned a place on the highest shelf of his hero collection.
But then, Kacchan comes in.
Well, Ashido and Kaminari do, first. She has her arm around his neck and seems to be trying to hop on his back so he can carry her to his desk and he, rightly, is struggling.
Kirishima comes in third, knocking shoulders with Sero as they play rock-paper-scissors. Kirishima loses when he plays rock, and lets out a loud yelp when Sero pinches his side as part of the punishment.
Kacchan is right behind them, laughing meanly as Kirishima rubs his gut. His bag has slipped from his shoulder to his forearm, caught there with his hand in his pocket. Although it was morning and the air outside was chilly, he had a faint line of sweat dripping from his brow.
Kacchan had always been quick to sweating— probably because of his Quirk. His palms had always been sweaty when they were younger, always warm, too. He wonders if they still are after all these years— rough and soft at the same time.
Izuku melts as Kacchan swipes at his hairline with a handkerchief. When he moves to yell at Kirishima and Sero for trying to pounce on him to join their game, his eyes sparkle and shine happily even if his tone doesn't match.
As he closes the door behind them all, sunlight filters through the window and illuminates the shine of his teeth and the glimpse of bare midriff as Sero dodges between Kacchan's legs to crawls to his seat before Kacchan can retaliate.
Iida and Uraraka have turned to him, waiting for a response to the conversation he hadn't been paying attention to.
Instead of the apology he was expecting to spew, he instead says,
"Kacchan is beautiful, today."
His friends freeze, and even Todoroki glances up from his half-asleep staring contest with a bird in a nearby tree.
"Eh?"
"I mean— what I meant to say, Kacchan is always beautiful, and— " The words spill out easily even when his horrified fingers cling to his lips and desperately try to force them closed. It was as if the carefully crafted dam that had been being repaired all morning had gotten slammed through and demolished like glass under a hammer.
His muffled voice— "Kacchan is…. Kacchan is…" slip out of his grasp, literally slip between his fingers, and all eyes turn to the startled blond boy still standing at the classroom door.
By the way his eyebrows shoot down, a scowl on his lips replacing the carefree smirk he had just moments prior, Kacchan is livid.