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“If I catch any of you dumbbell brains giving the new kid a hard time,” Aizawa said at the end of class that day, “I’ll use your body for javelin practice.”
“That is so specific,” Denki said with a wary look as everyone collected their books and filed out the door.
It was Friday, but UA rarely rested, and tomorrow was another school day. And Saturday, Katsuki thought as he eyed the empty desk in front of him, would bring some shitty American transfer.
Who the hell had the renown to transfer into the third year of UA like they owned the goddamn place? Katsuki squared his shoulders and bumped into Kirishima on purpose, grabbing his attention so they could switch their shoes out and head back to the dorms.
“A new person!” Kirishima exclaimed, unreasonably excited about a whole-ass stranger. “I wonder if they’re a guy or a girl.”
“Don’t matter,” Katsuki replied, slouching down the busy corridor and glaring a healthy amount of fear into a couple of first years. “They’re not gonna fit in.”
“Not with that attitude they aren’t!” Kirishima laughed him off and spent the next ten minutes rambling about being inclusive and other things Katsuki didn’t care about.
“As long as they stay out of my way, I don’t give a flying fuck if they shit fire and shoot lasers from their eyes. Nobody is taking my number one spot.”
“I mean,” Kirishima said carefully, their arms companionably brushing as they stepped into the fresh spring air and made for the dorms. “Todoroki kind of already has that in the bag.”
“Like hell he does!” Katsuki screeched, and the whole thing devolved into a harried chase through campus, Katsuki throwing the equivalent of cherry bombs at Kirishima’s ass while his best friend screamed like a damsel in distress and booked it across the manicured grass.
Later that evening, after homework and dinner and a short, intense workout and shower, Katsuki passed by the empty room beside his own and frowned at the open door, the pristine, impersonal innards waiting for someone to make a home here in their final year.
Katsuki scowled and walked away. If this kid thought they’d make it in UA, he had another thing coming. Katsuki would show them their place, fast.
***
Katsuki was about to set the entire classroom aflame.
Midoriya Izuku, the apparent American, had introduced himself in nearly flawless, native-sounding Japanese, and proceeded to beam at his new classmates like this was a goddamn beauty pageant.
He was unequivocally gorgeous, the kind of pretty boy that Katsuki couldn’t stand. These guys depended on their smiles to get them through a scrape instead of any actual skill or Quirk.
But he was. Gorgeous. Despite it being the edge of spring and the new, final school year here, Midoriya was softly gold, his freckles standing out from obvious time spent in the sun. His hair was shaved close on the back and sides while the top was left a wild fray of forest curls. His eyes, some similar shade of deep lake green, were bright and watchful, squinty in the corners with his smile.
Katsuki wanted to fuck him up and absolutely not in the way he sometimes he had dreams about when certain male classmates sweat and glistened and asked him to thumb away the knots in their muscled backs.
“Wait,” Mina said, leaning forward on her desk, gold eyes gleaming. “So what school did you come from before?”
“Excellence High,” Midoriya replied with a smile. “We called it XL for short, though.”
“What, like the condom size?” Sero said, snickering.
Midoriya fucking Izuku had the gall to wink. He was unbearable.
“Maybe.”
“What really matters is how the hell you got into this class,” Katsuki drawled. He leaned back in his seat and propped his feet up on the desk chair before his, Midoriya’s chair. He grinned, slow and lazy. “You do know who we are, don’t you? How did you get here?”
“Why don’t we get on the field and find out,” Aizawa said. “I hate Saturday classes anyway. None of you ingrates ever listen. Let’s spar. I’ve already seen what the kid is made of or I wouldn’t have accepted him. Now he can try to impress you.”
“Oh!” Midoriya’s expression lit up, obnoxiously enthusiastic as he clapped his hands together once and blinded the room with a sunny smile. “Yes please!”
“Oh boy,” Shinsou muttered from the desk behind Katsuki. “Can’t wait to watch this crash and burn.”
“Shut the fuck up,” Katsuki stage whispered, chucking a pencil behind his head and hoping it hit Shinsou in the face. By the sharp, confused curse, it landed.
“I’ve been looking forward to meeting you the most,” Midoriya said, and Katsuki’s snickering smirk dropped when he realized the newbie was looking at him point blank, a straight arrow gaze that didn’t waver in the face of how intimidating Katsuki knew he looked.
“Is that right,” Katsuki enunciated slowly, purposely making it sound like he was speaking to a child who didn’t know the language. “And why is that?”
Midoriya’s eyes lit up.
“Because I think you’re amazing and I can’t wait to beat you into the ground.”
Aizawa made a short, distressed sound from behind the desk where he’d been pointedly scrolling his phone with feet atop his paperwork.
Shinsou’s laugh was low in Katsuki’s ear.
“Oh man,” Shinsou murmured, “I’m in love.”
Although Katsuki remained lounging in the desk, his body the languid picture of blasé, his guts were surging and he didn’t hold back a smile to match Midoriya’s.
How had he mistaken the hungry ambition in this guy’s eyes for brainless enthusiasm?
“I’d like to see you try,” Katsuki said, grinning. “Seriously. Just try. You’ll get to see the sights of my country real fast. Mainly, the hospital.”
Midoriya looked delighted, just edging on manic, and Katsuki already wanted to see him lose some teeth.
“Only if you join me there,” Midoriya said.
He sounded like he meant it.
***
The fucker could control fire. Not only breathe it like a goddamn dragon, but harness it. And not just his own fire, but any, and every time Katsuki detonated in Midoriya’s face, the spark and flame of the explosion was caught and thrown back at him.
The first time Midoriya breathed fire, the flames bursting forward and then abruptly curving to catch Katsuki’s side attack, the entire class gasped. There’d been a brief, halting moment where their eyes had caught, fire to earth, and Katsuki saw that Midoriya was having fun.
He was fast too, those stocky, muscled legs of his quicker than they looked. Those stupid red sneakers darted around the barren sand arena like a rabbit, bounding and jumping and back-flipping out of the way, a gymnast if Katsuki didn’t know better. When they went hand to hand, his style was dynamic, sharp and sweeping, unrelenting.
Their spar was exhausting, fast-paced without pause, and Midoriya ran literal circles around him, keeping him in the center, blowing firebomb attacks and rolling away from Katsuki’s increasingly harried explosions.
Midoriya wasn’t the most difficult opponent he’d ever gone up against, but he seemed content to not specifically injure Katsuki, just play.
Katsuki did not fucking play.
He hasn’t been blindly throwing attacks. He’d been testing for weaknesses.
There was a split second window in the moment where Midoriya took a great breath, an inhalation of his fire before he spat it out.
Midoriya was expecting a Quirk attack. He was braced for it. And in that brief, weak window, Katsuki slid to the ground, swept out a leg, and cut down Midoriya’s feet from where he stood.
With a yelp that released a great burp of fire, Midoriya dropped to his back and Katsuki rolled to pin him with a victorious, feral grin.
“When you fight fire with fire,” Katsuki managed, panting hard, his grip tight around Midoriya’s wrists and his leg wedged between those iron thighs, “it ends up coming down to skill. And I outrank you and everyone else here.”
Midoriya blinked up at him, his chest heaving as he caught his breath, the color high on his cheeks, his skin smelling of cinder and sweat and campfire warmth. A bolt of sunlight opened from between the gray clouds and cast down its light, brightening Midoriya’s eyes to a clear bottle green. Pink lips curved and showed off pretty, even white teeth, the little sharps of his incisors revealed in the breadth of his smile.
He didn’t look even a little beaten.
“And I’m so excited for you to teach me,” Midoriya said, breathless and honest and entirely without embarrassment.
Katsuki startled. Felt his face go up in flame before he jolted off of Midoriya’s body, burning from the touch, from what he felt and saw in this strange, bold person.
“As if I’d teach you,” Katsuki muttered, walking off the small arena to where Kirishima waited with an offering of bottled water. He took it and guzzled, half-turning and ignoring Kirishima’s nattering as he surreptitiously watched several of his classmates surround Midoriya, help him up, offer him water, gush over his talent.
“He nearly beat your ass,” Mina said, sitting on the rusted bleachers, kicking her feet.
“He didn’t get anywhere near my ass,” Katsuki replied mildly, far too used to her jabs. He found he annoyed her way more when he didn’t blast off over what she said, and he liked to win, even with petty shit.
“Sure you wouldn’t like him to?” Mina made a suggestive face and Katsuki made an ugly one in return.
“The fuck’re you talking about? Go read some BL and leave my ass out of your mind.”
“But it’s so tight and cute.”
“Stop!” Katsuki screeched, stomping away where Aizawa was trying to line up the idiots to get back inside.
“So,” Shinsou was asking as Katsuki approached. He was clearly already trying on the poor bastard for size, one slim arm slung over Midoriya’s fire-charred shoulder as Todoroki looked on with a quietly mutinous expression. “What’s your Hero name? So I can do a lengthy internet search on you, obviously.”
Midoriya laughed him off but didn’t shrug away the attention, instead walking along with Shinsou as Aizawa made plane-landing arm movements toward the main building.
“Dauntless,” he said. His gaze cut to Katsuki, who had thought he was keeping well to the edges of the conversation, undiscovered. “My name is Dauntless.”
“Ah. . .” Shinsou slid a glance to where Midoriya was looking. “Suits you.”
“But you can all call me Deku!” he said cheerfully, smiling now at the other idiots who’d gathered around them as they meandered at such a slow pace that Aizawa swept past them with a muttered, you’re all failing third year, grabbed a goofing off Sero and Denki by the scruffs of their jackets, and dragged them along.
“Deku?” Shinsou parroted, grinning curiously.
Deku just continued to smile, and it wasn’t charming or pretty, it was annoying.
“It’s an old nickname from before I moved to the US. Try getting any first grade American kids to say Midoriya Izuku. Deku just worked.”
“So you lived here first before you lived there?” Mina asked, skipping up to join in now that gossip was on the table. She linked her arm with Ochako, who’d been blushing so much that Katsuki was certain she’d soon spontaneously combust and Deku would have to blow her out.
Maybe that’s what she was aiming for.
“For a little while,” Deku said as they approached the building. He briefly glanced over his shoulder, clearly looking for Katsuki and finding him with an even wider smile. “A little while.”
Aizawa, who had finally had it with them dragging ass, said, “Last one to class gets an auto-fail on Monday’s test,” and conversation evaporated in a mad, laughing dash back inside the building.
Katsuki streaked past Deku and ignored the way someone yelling the guy’s nickname pinged something strange at the back of his mind.
***
“So why did you come back to Japan?” Kirishima asked as they all ate dinner at the dorms. Both Kirishima and Mina had seen fit to drag Deku out of the hands of the greedy girls’ table—and Shinsou—and force him directly across from Katsuki.
Deku paused, rice half-way to his mouth, holding his chopsticks properly and not like the foreigner he damn well should have been, and gave a tight, quick smile that didn’t seem as genuine as the ones from earlier. Not that Katsuki had been paying attention.
“My parents divorced when I was six and my dad moved to America to pursue new job opportunities. My dad got custody over my mother. But he recently remarried—new family, new house, all that. And I asked if I could move back to where I never wanted to leave in the first place. I could live in the dorms here and not cause my mom any trouble, and I’m going to be eighteen in a couple months, anyway.”
“But don’t school years work differently over here?” Sero asked. He was on his third bowl of rice and could easily shovel more. “Were you a third year there too?”
Deku shook his head. He was freshly showered before dinner and his damp curls glimmered, dark and sleek atop his head. Mina had asked him what curl cream he used, whatever the fuck that meant, and now Mina’s hair smelled like Deku, gently marshmallow and masculine.
“It works differently there. I’m a senior in America and we started senior year in August. You guys started third year a couple of weeks ago, right? The beginning of April. I’m technically going to school longer than I should by attending XL, but it’s worth it to be here. To learn here. UA is famous across the world, you know.”
“Well, that goes without saying,” Katsuki muttered into his food, looking down to talk. Deku kept making eye contact with him and he didn’t want to encourage it. Not because he was chicken, but because Deku was the kind of guy who obviously took a mile if you gave them an inch.
“And you’re here, Kacchan,” Deku said happily.
Katsuki looked up to scowl and found Deku looking happy as a fool, chewing away like he hadn’t said something so embarrassing.
“Kacchan?” Katsuki snapped, his cheeks hot. His childhood friends had only called him that, forever ago. “Gross. You obsessed with me or something?”
“I’m a longtime fan!” Deku replied, shameless. “I’ve always wanted to come back and attend UA. I’m on all the Japanese fan sites for local Hero news and UA events. You were amazing in last year’s tournaments, by the way. How did you manage—”
“Alright, this is creepy,” Katsuki said, standing with his meal tray. “I’m going to bed.”
“Oh no,” Katsuki heard Deku say as he stalked away. “Did I upset him? I really am a fan. I think Kacchan is amazing.”
“Kacchan?” Denki said, snickering. “I love this. I’m using it.”
“No one calls him that?” Deku said, sounding genuinely confused.
“It sounds like a child’s nickname,” Mina pointed out. “It’s not really something someone would use as an adult.”
“Oh.” Deku sounded genuinely deflated. “Okay.”
Katsuki had to wonder where he’d pulled the old nickname out of anyway. The guy was definitely a little unhinged.
That night, Katsuki passed by and paused at the open doorway beside his room. Deku was standing on his bed, pasting a huge All Might poster to the wall. The entire room was an ode to him, in fact; red, white, and blue abound. Katsuki’s heart tugged to bring up the merch on Deku’s shelves, but he didn’t want to encourage the guy either.
Arm’s length already seemed safest with this guy.
With a huff, Deku collapsed to sit on the bed. Scarred hands folded loosely on his lap, a soft, thoughtful pout to his lips, he quietly scanned the room, seeming to take it all in. He sighed.
“Already wanna run back home?” Katsuki said with a sneer, leaning in the doorway.
Deku blinked up at him, and Katsuki could almost see the way the fog cleared in favor of the all-encompassing intensity he aimed Katsuki’s way. He returned Katsuki’s grin, but kinder.
“No. I was thinking how I’d finally made it.”
Katsuki deflated a little, scowling.
“Well, whatever. You’re here now. Don’t disappoint 3A. We’re the best of the best.”
Deku’s smile didn’t flinch.
“I won’t let you down, Kacchan.”
Katsuki’s eyes narrowed.
“Where’d you get that shit from, anyway?”
Deku’s smile dropped now, but instead of speaking, he got up and walked to his desk. Plucking a very small picture frame from amongst the All Might merch, he wandered over and held it out with a silent, watchful look.
Katsuki stared.
“That’s us,” Katsuki said, stupid. Because it was. Them. Small and soft and smiling, even Katsuki, the both of them sharing a park bench, holding popsicles that dripped sticky and colorful down their hands. “What the fuck is this?”
Deku shrugged and turned, put the photo back on the desk.
“Like you said, it’s us.” When he returned to Katsuki, his cheeks were soft and pink, not unlike the high flush of exertion from the arena, but for an entirely different reason. Deku looked down, worrying at a bitten thumbnail. “I guess you don’t remember, but—well, you were the only thing I remembered about Japan after I moved away. And then when I saw your name pop up as a prospective newcomer at your year one sport’s tournament, I recognized you right away, and—”
Deku looked up, all big eyes and long, dark lashes, sun sprinkles across his cheeks and nose. He huffed a soft laugh and glanced away again.
“And I thought, well, this is where I’d always wanted to be anyway. Might as well come back now that my dad doesn’t feel so indebted to me. Back to where I think I was meant to be all along.”
Stunned, Katsuki could do nothing but stare. He reached back into his memory, but it was a blur of emotion, color, energy. He’d never been one to linger on the past, and that far back was even harder to recall.
“Right,” he said quietly, totally wrong-footed and unsure how to approach or back out of this conversation. “Well. Welcome back, I guess.”
Deku beamed, stumbling up into Katsuki’s space like he was about to hug him. Startled, Katsuki took a clumsy step back, but Deku didn’t seem to notice.
“Ahhh, thank you, Kacchan, thank you so much! I’m so excited to be here and to be recognized by you! Now that we’re friends again, you should show me around! And teach me how you did the thing with the—”
“For fuck’s sake,” Katsuki muttered, stumbling out of Deku’s radiance and trudging back to his room while Deku continued to talk in the growing distance. “Shut the fuck up already! We’re not friends!”
Katsuki grit his teeth at Deku’s carefree laugh and slammed his own door tightly shut.
He dropped to his bed, face first, and groaned into his blankets.
Dauntless had never suited a person so well.
***
Deku was fucking infuriating. He dressed like some west coast skater boy, all calf-high socks with two stripes at the top and clunky red sneakers, baggy shorts and checkered belts, t-shirts with rainbow stripes or sunsets streaked across the chest, and always some backward hat with vibrant curls spilling through the front snap and over his freckled brow.
He smiled too quickly and gave away his time to others with equal ease. He forgot the right words for things and people found it stupidly charming instead of just stupid. He ate fries whenever the opportunity arose, seemed unhealthily addicted to soda, but worked twice as hard as any guy other than Katsuki himself at the gym. He had a skateboard that looked like it had been through a house fire, it was so beat up, but he rode it around campus, waving and calling to people by first name like he didn’t know he wasn’t supposed to address people so casually so quickly.
Everyone loved him. Everyone.
Katsuki wanted to shove his fist so far down Deku’s fire-breathing throat that—
No. Wrong line of thought.
Midoriya Izuku was distracting. He’d already infatuated the school just by being the talented new kid. Katsuki wasn’t falling for that shit, but he understood how weak-minded bitches would go for it.
What no one else had to deal with was the knowledge that they’d been best friends with the annoying little shit way back when.
Katsuki had wracked his mind since the revelation, but he simply could not remember, and he wasn’t about to feel guilty over it. He wasn’t.
And he wasn’t being soft on Deku, letting him hang around and whatever, just because he felt guilty. They just happened to have the same friends now, and Katsuki wasn’t such an asshole that he’d send the new kid away every time he flounced into Katsuki’s room and sat right on his bed with that big, golden retriever grin and sunshine freckles lighting up the room.
Katsuki was literally crossing out the days on his calendar to graduation.
“You should let me control your fire,” Deku said one day, apropos of absolutely fucking nothing as they hung around the derelict buildings of training ground, listening to a group of first year Class 1As and 1Bs slaughter each other in the distance.
“Don’t touch my blasts,” Katsuki shot back. They were geared up and ready to intervene in case anything untoward occurred, but mainly they were there to look cool and inspire the kids into doing their best.
“Why not?” Deku winced at a particularly thunderous explosion and wordlessly gestured with a jerk of his head to one of the higher buildings for vantage point. Despite running his mouth near constantly, the two of them had found it oddly easy to slip into understanding each other’s expressions in a battle zone.
Once they had a high point to watch the mayhem, the wind whipping at their faces from their sky-high gargoyle crouch, Katsuki considered Deku’s peaceful, watchful gaze overlooking the students.
“We’re not a team,” Katsuki said. When Deku didn’t reply, only briefly moved a shoulder and kept his attention on the first years, Katsuki huffed a bull snort through his nose. “And what d’you need to control my fire for? Yours is fine or whatever.”
“Yours carries more velocity,” Deku said, his tone dropping into this oddly soothing, monotone mumble he carried when stating logic. “Your blasts have a very straight trajectory, though.”
The only straight thing about him, Katsuki thought with some amount of heavy acceptance.
“If you let me manipulate the path of your power and impact, we’d basically be in control of a multi-directional torpedo of force and fire. Or something like that. I’d need to play with you a little to figure out the logistics first.”
Katsuki made a face.
“We’re not five. We’re not playing anything.”
“We’re not?” Deku asked, and then the full force of his dark, unflinching gaze turned on Katsuki, followed by the impact of that disarming, simple smile. “I have been. I thought you were too.”
Katsuki felt his face flare hot but refused to relent to this kind of talk—certainly not now of all times. He’d fall to his damn death if Deku kept smiling at him like that.
“No,” Katsuki bit off, looking away and down to the first years. “I don’t play games.”
Instead of disappointment, Katsuki found himself assaulted by some cute little eke of happy noise from Deku.
“I know,” Deku said, outright adoring now, beaming like a deity, way too much for any one man to witness. “That’s what I love about you.”
“Shut the fuck up, Deku,” Katsuki muttered, and chose to leap off the side of the building and land in a crater of his own making at the bottom instead of remaining in that particular conversation.
Deku was fucking infuriating.
***
They should never have gone to the beach. Katsuki hated the beach. Why did schools always have beach trips? Why couldn’t they climb a damn mountain instead?
Fresh, cool night air swept across the midnight mellow sea, carding through Katsuki’s hair and flapping at his unbuttoned shirt, chilling his bare chest. He wiggled his bare toes in the soft sand and draped his arms over his bent knees, watching his friends run around the bench like lunatics, sparklers in both hands like manic fireflies.
Maybe it was alright. When most people had gone back to the inns for the night, anyway.
Two hands covered his eyes from behind, calloused fingers rough and gentle in turn.
“Guess who,” said a familiar voice in English.
“Fuck you,” Katsuki replied in the same language.
Deku laughed lightly and dropped down beside him, the overwhelming warmth of his body like a lit torch next to Katsuki’s skin. Deku was the kind of person who would sit beside him in total silence and stillness and a person would still feel his presence. Like the sun.
“How well do you speak English?” Deku asked, continuing in English. His voice was oddly deeper like this, less of the fresh lilt that carried his sometimes stunted but always cheerful and polite Japanese. The shift made Katsuki shiver against the wind.
“All Might taught me more than most of these idiots learned in school,” Katsuki said, gazing out at their frolicking friends. “He wanted me to be fluent.”
“Nice,” Deku said, nodding. He tilted, their shoulders bumping, Katsuki’s clothed and Deku’s bare in a baggy tank top. Still, his warmth suffused through Katsuki. “Maybe we can visit together one day. I can show you where I’m from.”
“You’re from here,” Katsuki said, switching to Japanese with emphasis.
Deku laughed out loud as he always did, unabashed, never hiding his joy as he leaned further into Katsuki, their weight nearly holding each other up. Both of their hands dropped into the sand to steady themselves and their fingertips brushed; secret, strange, electric.
“That’s nice of you to say,” Deku said quietly, his own Japanese for once sounding like a careful choice of words. Katsuki wondered what Deku could ever possibly avoid saying. “Hey, Kacchan?”
Frowning into the deep night only lit by the glinting eyes of sparklers, Katsuki turned his head.
They were closer. Too close. He could smell the cotton candy and beer on Deku’s breath. Could make out the sun spray of freckles across his nose. Deku wasn’t smiling.
“What?” Katsuki breathed out.
“Thank you for welcoming me home,” Deku whispered. “In your own way. You’re the only person who has ever stayed the same in all the ways that matter.”
“What does that mean?” Katsuki asked, equally hushed and drawn in by the reverent hush of Deku’s words.
Deku leaned in further and oh god, oh fuck, his big, hot hand rested heavily on Katsuki’s knee as their cheeks brushed together and Deku’s mouth found Katsuki’s ear.
“I don’t know how to say it,” Deku said in English. “Know how you remember the most amazing places from your childhood? Long weekends and road trips to fantastical destinations and larger than life monuments in the middle of nowhere? Like big, bright marks of amazing in a life well-lived?”
“I—” Katsuki fumbled for his English, scrambling for a proper reply when his body was screaming like a lit firework ready to blast off. “I guess?”
Another warm, intimate chuckle and a squeeze of Katsuki’s knee.
“And sometimes you go back when you’re older and nothing is the same as you remember. The colors are duller and the place stinks more than it your memory says it should. The monuments aren’t as big now that you’re tall and the magic doesn’t feel as unbelievable as it once did.”
Whirling in the wealth of Deku’s words Katsuki merely nodded, their cheeks still intimately pressed. The movement caused Deku’s soft mouth to skim the lobe of Katsuki’s ear and sparks shrieked down Katsuki’s spine and fizzled between his legs.
“You,” Deku whispered in English, “were always my most amazing destination. And I’m glad you’re still exactly how I first found you.”
“Uh,” Katsuki said. He was five seconds away from getting a goddamn boner and he wasn’t even certain Deku was intending the seduction. The bounce between languages was like a game of ping pong in his entirely emptied brain. “Deku—”
A firework screamed as it rocketed into the air from the shore. Deku jolted back with a bright, delighted laugh, both of his hands dropping into the sand to support his weight as he looked to the sky, his face lit in red and gold. By the time Deku aimed that smile Katsuki’s way, whatever moment Katsuki thought had been there was gone—if it had been there at all.
Katsuki hated the beach.
***
With a whoop of victory, Deku heaved himself at Katsuki’s battered and broken body, barely remaining on two feet after the battle they’d just been through. Katsuki let the increasingly familiar weight of Deku’s stocky frame collide with his own, followed by strong arms cajoling and embracing him tight.
Deku laughed once, hoarse and loud, exhausted and panting as he cradled the back of Katsuki’s head and knocked their sweaty brows together. Everything about Dauntless in battle matched Dynamight—their intensity, the drive to success, the all or nothing, death or victory, no in between.
And it was with that amplified emotion that Deku met Katsuki’s eyes, his pupils swollen to encompass his gaze, his skin stinking of scorch marks and blood.
“You’re incredible,” Deku rasped, his throat burnt out from overuse. “Amazing. You’re amazing!”
“We are,” Katsuki managed, lightheaded and leaning into Deku’s hold as the adrenaline began to hemorrhage and drain.
Oh. That smile would never get old, would it?
“We are,” Deku agreed, his gloved hand flexing in Katsuki’s hair. “Together.”
And then, despite Katsuki’s best effort up to this point, The Wonder Duo was born.
***
“You know,” Kirishima said as he flopped down in the crispy, yellow summer grass beside Katsuki, “you could just ask him out instead of glaring. You’d probably get further in your guys’ weird relationship that way.”
“No,” Katsuki bit off, choosing instead to quietly seethe as he watched Deku teach a few of the girls how to weave colorful string bracelets in the shade of a few campus trees.
“Wow,” Kirishima said. “You didn’t even deny it this time. Are you okay? Maybe don’t sit in the sun for so long—”
“He’s wearing a fucking anklet,” Katsuki snapped, waving with vague aggression in the general direction of Deku, Ochako, and Mina. “Are you seeing this? What grown-ass man wears an anklet? Is this an American thing? Gay—is this a gay thing? A gay American thing—”
“Bakugou.” Kirishima placed hands on Katsuki’s shoulders and gave him a shake, laughing even as his earnest eyes searched out Katsuki’s wide, manic ones. “Don’t kill me or anything, but you sound crazy right now and I’m pretty sure you’d want me to tell you so.”
“I’m not—” Katsuki choked on his own words, feeling the rampant burn of whatever this was flood through him and slowly drain as he stared down Kirishima’s patient expression. “I’m gonna puke.”
“No you’re not,” Kirishima said, patting Katsuki’s shoulder with a little more force as he settled directly in front of Katsuki’s view of Deku and the girls. “You’re fine. You’re just—intense. About most things. About everything. Including whatever this is, apparently.”
Katsuki made a move to glance past Kirishima’s body and, just as quick, Kirishima ducked in his way, then to the right, back to the left, and right—
“Oh-kay!” Kirishima said loudly as he got to his feet and yanked Katsuki along by the wrist. “You need a break.”
“I need to break your arm if you don’t let go of me—”
“Sure, okay,” Kirishima said, dragging Katsuki away. “Let’s go.”
“But—”
“Grown-ass man?” Kirishima asked with a dubious expression as he continued to use Katsuki’s arm as a leash to drag him along. “He’s barely eighteen, Bakugou. It’s an anklet. Since when do you care what anyone has ever worn?”
“Since he’s making them for—for them!” Katsuki yelled, whirling to flail in the general direction of the trees which they were escaping. Kirishima groaned and manhandled Katsuki back around, this time linking an arm in Katsuki’s as they made for the front gates.
“So you’re jealous,” Kirishima said without accusation in his voice, merely nodding to himself as his considerably bigger frame had no issue dragging along a struggling Katsuki. “That’s not new. You get jealous of all kinds of stuff. Other heroes, better grades—I guess this makes sense. I didn’t expect it to be Deku, though.”
“He was my friend first,” Katsuki muttered to himself. When Kirishima stopped, Katsuki’s words dawned on him.
Kirishima stared.
“What do you mean he was your friend first? Since when?”
Katsuki considered lying. He was a shit liar. He sighed.
“Come on. Let’s get a fuckin’ drink.”
***
Katsuki had barely shut his dorm room door and flopped face down on the bed before a knock sounded.
“I WILL PERSONALLY CASTRATE YOU,” Katsuki screamed into his pillows.
After a moment, a timid knock came again. Unlike the knock of most people Katsuki knew.
Scowling, he stood and stomped to the door, throwing it open.
“What the fuck are you selling because I don’t—”
“Hi,” Deku breathed out, his smile wobbly and brave. “Are you—”
“No—I—come in already, what the fuck.” Katsuki shut and locked the door as Deku scampered in, looking spooked and small in bare feet in gym shorts and a tee printed with some faded summer camp logo. “There a problem?”
“Areyoumadatme?” Deku asked, all big eyes and wild curls that looked twirled and pulled in every direction.
Katsuki blinked.
“Hah?”
“Well, it’s just that you looked angry today before you left with Kirishima—” Deku talked with the hangnail of his thumb in his mouth, chewing even as he looked everywhere but Katsuki, gesturing with his other hand, his Japanese surprisingly smooth when he got to rambling. “And you—well, you were yelling and then with Kirishima you were—you were together with him and I realized you’re together with him a lot and maybe I’ve been coming on too strong, or maybe I’ve been too subtle and confusing, and it’s made you angry because you and Kirishima—”
“First of all, gross,” Katsuki said, his heart lurching in his chest and stumbling back up into a dead run. Was he hearing this stream of consciousness correctly? “Second of all, Kirishima is dating Mina. You also know this.”
“Yeah, well, I mean, I know things, but sometimes I don’t know everything, and I don’t want to be nosy—”
“You’re literally the nosiest motherfucker I ever met and I’ve barely known you a few months—”
“Minus childhood—”
“I don’t fucking remembering being five, Deku, only traumatized little freaks remember shit like that—”
“Yes, well I’m obviously a freak because you were my best friend then and I never had a proper best friend again until now!” Deku shouted with such sudden passion that Katsuki muted and stilled. Deku looked a little crazed and a lot emotional, which wasn’t necessarily unusual for him, but under the circumstances— “And now I’m—I’m unexpectedly more than—well I don’t even know if I’m more than friends with you but if we are, could you please fucking tell me!”
“Of course we’re more than friends you fucking idiot!” Katsuki screamed, kicking at his desk chair for lack of better ability to express his exasperation and joy. It nearly hit Deku by accident and flung onto the bed in a heap. Deku dodged it with a gasp and whipped around to gape.
“You kicked a chair at me, you asshole!”
“I didn’t kick it at you, Deku,” Katsuki snapped, stomping forward. “You were in the way of the chair. “
“What kind of mixed signals—”
Katsuki bunched his hand in Deku’s mass of curls, cupping the back of his skull and hauling him in for a firm, clumsy kiss. Deku moaned instantly, a whiplash change from the argument as his plush lips parted and his tongue snuck out to instantly invade Katsuki’s mouth. Startled by the immediate enthusiasm but not about to back off first, Katsuki let Deku deepen the kiss and groaned with relief, his entire body seeming to sag at once against Deku’s smaller frame. Deku eked out an even more eager sound and threw arms around Katsuki’s neck, embracing him close, their bodies familiar against each other from months of battle and sparring.
Never like this, though. Impossibly perfect like this.
It was Deku who giggled and disengaged first, turning his face aside to gasp for breath as Katsuki darkly hummed his displeasure but sated himself in nuzzling at the warm, secret scent of Deku just beneath his ear, where soft curls gathered. Deku shivered, his exhale shaky, his fingers flexing and digging into Katsuki’s shoulders as Katsuki kissed an exploratory line along Deku’s throat.
“I didn’t—oh boy,” Deku murmured in English, his voice husky and tempting and giving Katsuki no reason to stop mouthing at his neck and beneath his sharp jaw. “That—Kacchan, I’m—you’re serious about this?”
Katsuki pulled back, his hold on Deku’s waist gripping tight as he met Deku’s wide, searching eyes.
“I’m serious about everything,” Katsuki said. “And you’re seriously fucking frustrating.”
Deku smiled. That smile which, yeah, Katsuki was never going to get tired of.
“You know,” Deku said, playing with the hair at the nape of Katsuki’s neck as he slid a knee between Katsuki’s thighs and leaned against the door with zero seductive subtlety. “I didn’t actually come home with the intention of this happening.”
“I should fuckin’ hope not,” Katsuki murmured, distracted by the look of his hands around Deku’s waist and the climb of his shirt up to reveal the subtle shadow of dark hair, “considering you didn’t even know me anymore.”
“Not true,” Deku said as he tucked his fingers in the collar of Katsuki’s shirt and eased him in until their noses bumped, lips an electric breath apart. “Remember what I told you when we met? I’ve been your fan for years. I’ve been following your career since I heard about your win at the first year Sports Festival.”
“You’re so damn creepy,” Katsuki mumbled as he leaned in for a kiss. Deku laughed into it, mostly teeth and the imprint of his body into Katsuki’s as they smashed clumsily against the door, all bruised hands and inexperienced mouths.
“And yours,” Deku breathed against Katsuki’s cheek, his swollen lips smearing along Katsuki’s cheekbone to scatter sparks at Katsuki’s sensitive ear.
Katsuki laughed, half in disbelief, half in delirium, all of it for Deku.
“And mine.”