Chapter Text
Musutafu was alive with the sound of sirens.
Even from the farthest tower from the center of the city, the wailing of police cars could be heard over the idle buzz of drifting vehicles and the humming night life of clubbers and gamblers. They cried and echoed against the brick walls of alleyways, reverberating into the apartments of wide awake citizens as they peered out their windows and into the great unknown.
Just south of it all, high enough where they could not be spotted amongst the chaos of the streets down below, a lone figure stood at the edge of an office building high rise.
He peered over the ledge, hands shoved into his pockets in a manner which could have been seen as casual, if not for the tense line of his shoulders and the hard, calculating look in his toxic green eyes. He crouched down slowly, one hand freeing itself to rest on the smooth concrete of the roof whilst the other reached up to tap the earpiece tucked beneath his hood.
After a moment's pause, it crackled to life with far more white noise than usual—an unfortunate side effect of the spontaneous deep-sea dive he had made just a few days prior chasing after a troubled civilian. He had yet to have made the time to repair it, not with how busy the last forty-eight hours had been.
"Wind," a gruff voice cut through the static, and from the other end of the line he could hear the sounds of police chatter and screaming citizens who had the misfortune of being caught up in the center of the crisis. "What is your position?"
He hummed into the communication device, and leaned forward over the ledge further to get a closer look at the streets below. “I have a few potential robberies just off the southern residential district,” He scoffed, “Looks like a few lowlifes taking advantage of the chaos. What’s the next move?”
"You have permission to engage. Clear out all immediate threats and assist in evacuating citizens still in the square directly after."
“Got it,” He replied, and rose to his full height. He rolled his shoulders back, stretched them high up over his head, and took one final step towards the edge of the roof.
Another crackle came through the earpiece as the man on the other end added, "I only gave you permission to engage with immediate threats in your area. Do not get involved with the main conflict, you hear me?"
A soft laugh, hardly audible over the cacophony of sirens and screams, rang out across the rooftop. “I hear you, Eraser. You can count on me.”
The figure leaned over the ledge and, with his hands tucked neatly into the pockets of his hoodie, fell forward into the open air.
—
One year earlier
—
Midoriya Izuku always thought that there was something very beautiful about the sky.
On summer days, he liked to lay out in the grass of the park closest to his home, feel the dirt beneath his fingertips and the wind as it coursed through his hair, and stare up at the bright blue sea of clouds just above.
The sun beat down against his bruised and battered skin, and for once Izuku did not pause to take in the sight of the endless sky above him. The grass irritated the scrapes on his elbows, and his hair fell in sweaty knots against his forehead. Although the wind attempted to soothe his worries, all it truly managed to accomplish was drying the tears—traitorous things he hadn’t wanted to let fall—that had slipped from his eyes and dampened his cheeks.
“You think you’re so much better than the rest of us, hah? Just because you dig your nose in places you don’t belong like some sort of hero ?” The boy above him sneered, and he spat nastily onto the ground just beside Izuku’s head. A kindness, really, because at least it hadn’t landed on his face.
“Look at me, you freak,” He scoffed, and he used the toe of his shoe to turn Izuku’s head so that he had no choice but to maintain eye contact with him. He grinned devilishly, “What’s that look for, huh? You gonna get back up and fight me? You seemed pretty damn eager when you hopped in to defend that other Quirkless nobody, but look at you now .”
Izuku wanted so badly to open his mouth, to warn him that he better get out of there while he still had the chance, because he could practically feel the approaching storm, even from where he was sprawled out on the ground. It was only a matter of time, really, but the boy—previously an upperclassman who had been held back before he could move on to high school called Masaki —seemed to be blissfully unaware of the fact.
“Nothing to say?” Masaki cocked his head to the side. “That’s what I thought. Maybe next time a Deku like you will think twice before getting involved.”
A heavy pause, much like the rising static of electricity just before lightning strikes, and then—“The fuck did you just call him?”
If he had the energy left for it, Izuku might have let out a pitying sigh at the new addition to the school yard. The storm clouds had finally passed over their heads, and the raging, uncontrollable hurricane that was his best friend had arrived in a torrent of rain and hail.
He mustered up the strength to turn his head to the left, where he could see the approaching figure of one seething Bakugou Katsuki, one hand gripping onto the strap of his backpack whilst the other was held palm up in front of him, crackling with menacing sparks.
"I called him a fucking Deku," Masaki challenged, rather foolishly Izuku thought privately, and the scowl that took over Katsuki's face might have sent Izuku running if it were being worn by anyone else. "You gonna do something about it with those little firecrackers of yours?"
Katsuki sent Masaki running in only a couple of seconds, once the first explosion came into contact with his shoulder and he was forced to realize that Katsuki's Quirk was far more destructive than just a couple of little firecrackers . He watched the cowardly boy sprint away like he was being chased, and let out a bark of a laugh at his retreating form.
"His tail's between his legs with just one explosion," Katsuki scoffed, and he walked back into Izuku's line of sight, hand held out to help him up.
Izuku took the offered hand gratefully, wincing once he was completely back on his feet, and Katsuki braced him up with his shoulder without needing any prompting. His ribs ached horribly and he knew that his face was covered with bruises and cuts, but the pain was not accompanied by any sharp stabs or nausea, so he knew that he would be okay. Masaki hadn't hit his head too hard, and he'd favored kicking, so it was more so Izuku's abdomen that had taken the brunt of the beating.
"You could've taken him," Katsuki scolded, pausing to scoop up Izuku's backpack from where it was discarded miserably on the sidewalk. "Why make yourself seem weak in front of dumbass extras like him?"
Izuku huffed, then grimaced when the sharp exhale of air smarted his ribs even more. "I didn't wanna stoop to his level."
Scoffing, Katsuki smoothed back Izuku's damp hair with his free hand, keeping mindful of the damage done to his face. "One punch is all it would take, 'Zuku. Why'd he get on your case, anyway?"
He gave the taller boy a look that practically screamed, What do you think? , and Katsuki stared back with a glare that held very little malice.
It always seemed to be the same thing. People no longer sought out Izuku to use as a punching bag, not since Katsuki decided that he didn't mind getting his hands dirty when it came down to the people who came after his friend, but it was free rein as soon as he stepped into fights that he wasn't originally involved in. Izuku knew that—he knew that as soon as he got involved it would only end up poorly for him, and that playing the hero did more harm than good, more often than not, but he couldn't help the way that he felt undeniably satisfied once the perpetrators let their victims go. Perhaps it was a sense of comradery that came over him when the person being picked on was being attacked for having a weak Quirk—or no Quirk at all.
"Damn self sacrificial idiot. One day I'm just gonna let you get fucked up," Katsuki promised, but Izuku knew him well enough by that point to translate his words into what they really meant.
'I worry about you, so stop throwing yourself into dangerous situations for other people at the expense of yourself.'
Though the streets were packed with people bustling about, excited to enjoy their weekends now that school was out for the day and summer break was approaching, hardly anyone spared the two boys a second glance. It was almost sad, how many of them took one look at the injured middle school boy being propped up by his friend and ultimately decided "It's not my business" . But Izuku was aware that he was plain looking, and that Katsuki gave off the worst first impression once people took in his rumpled gakuran and permanently frowning face, so it did not bother him as much as it used to. Either way, it meant that they at least made it back to their apartment building without much hassle, and he wouldn't complain about an easy trip.
Of course, one or two pro heroes on patrol voiced their concerns, but Izuku was far too exhausted to fawn over their Quirks—as he almost always was after being insulted for his lack of one, and Katsuki knew how to death stare like it was nobody's business, so they backed off eventually as well.
"Come on nerd, use your legs," Katsuki grumbled, practically dragging him up the stairs of their building by that point. "I'm not your fucking babysitter."
"Could've fooled me," Izuku shot back with a smile, but he tried his best to not put all of his weight onto him nonetheless.
Salvation came into sight only moments later in the form of the Midoriya apartment, a mere three doors down from the Bakugou's, when the pair fell unceremoniously through the door and right into the genkan. Katsuki toed off his own shoes with little grace, before he tore Izuku's bright red sneakers off like he was attempting to rip off his limbs along with them, and he was hauling him through the living room within a couple of minutes.
"Auntie's not home?" He asked, stomping through the hallway and into the bathroom. The light flickered on a moment later, and Izuku squinted against the harsh glow with a groan.
"Work," Izuku shook his head, simply allowing the elder of the two to manhandle his body onto the edge of the tub without any protests.
It was routine by that point, although Izuku had been making efforts recently towards lessening the amount of fights he got into after school, and both boys had long since grown used to the tedious task of patching one another up in one of their bathrooms. Bandaids and pain relievers had already become commonplace within their backpacks. He let out a soft hiss as rubbing alcohol was wiped over his cuts, but otherwise stared down at his socks in shame.
Izuku would have liked to say that he wouldn't have gotten into that fight if the victim hadn't been Quirkless, but they both knew that simply wasn't true. Meddling where he wasn't needed had become second nature for him ever since he was very young, when he'd begun stepping between Katsuki and the kids he was picking on like a barrier. Katsuki's mean streak hadn't lasted very long (though the scars left behind from it still stung every once and a while whenever one of them felt brave enough to talk about it), thanks to his Quirk counselor making the connection between his Quirk and his mood swings, but Izuku's little martyr act had followed him from childhood into the present day.
It just happened to work out that Katsuki had extra cleaning duty that day because he'd missed handing in an assignment on time, and Izuku wanted to appreciate the nice weather while he waited for him to get done with his tasks.
"Fucking dumbasses," Katsuki muttered under his breath as he worked on bandaging a particularly nasty cut just across Izuku's eyebrow. "I'm gonna kill 'em."
"Please no," Izuku looked up, and he wrinkled his nose as the bandaid was smacked on. "Is that gonna rip my hair out?"
Katsuki shrugged, already preparing to move on to the next. "Probably, hell if I care."
He tested the bandaid nonetheless, lifting it ever so slightly to test the tug on Izuku's brow, before smoothing it back down again with a satisfied nod.
Neither spoke up for the rest of the time that it took to patch up his injuries, but Izuku didn't mind the silence. It was hardly ever awkward with Katsuki, and despite the deep frown on Katsuki's face it was not tense, either. He let his eyes fall shut, and allowed himself to focus on the present sensations of bandages and medicine being applied to his scrapes rather than on the low buzz of embarrassment and fear of unacceptance that lingered beneath his skin.
He was here, he'd made it, and Katsuki was not mad at him.
"Alright, up we go," The blonde huffed, and he pulled Izuku to his feet from the edge of the tub.
“Can you stand straight now or does your head need another bashing?"
Izuku waved him away, "I'm fine, I'm fine."
Katsuki squinted his eyes at him, clearly very suspicious, but turned towards the door nonetheless. "I'm making us food. Go nerd out in your room or whatever."
Nerding out in his room or whatever sounded like just the thing to help make his day a little less shitty, and so Izuku nodded in agreement and stumbled his way down the hall and into his bedroom—if it could even be called that anymore, really.
He flicked his light on, grimacing from the sudden brightness, and threw himself into his desk chair with a small 'oof' .
Izuku loved his room. Where it was not decked out in All Might memorabilia alongside of other pro heroes who he admired, it was covered in blueprints and diagrams, and sheets of unused metal leaned against every wall or piece of furniture that Izuku had. It was his workspace, and his “lair” as named by Katsuki. Of course, he slept there as well, but most of the time it was hunched over his desk and not under the sheets of his bed.
His bed which, as of right then, was covered in journals and various tools. If Izuku had plans of sleeping any time soon, they would require him clearing it off—something that he procrastinated like his life depended on it.
He turned his attention towards the hunk of metal and wires on his desk, cracking his knuckles loudly, before he grabbed ahold of his wrench and screwdriver and got to work.
His current project was far from his most complicated—a title held by a particular pair of shoes that he’d made to flare out into hoverboards, but it was his favorite that he’d done that year.
The headset was bulky, but it was not without purpose, and Izuku had high hopes that it would turn out just the way he’d envisioned it. He referenced back and forth between his blueprints and a trusty long-complete hero journal—one which was dedicated entirely to one Bakugou Katsuki and support gear that may help with his Quirk.
Izuku held his pencil between his teeth as he connected wires and screwed in pieces, removing it every once and a while to add to his already incomprehensible notes. Katsuki liked to say he worked like a mad scientist, and that his mutter storms always made him feel like he was witnessing a man gone insane, but he was always willing to help him with whatever he needed if it came down to it.
Like right now, for example.
Izuku practically skipped into the kitchen, stomach growling noisily at the smell of Katsuki’s curry, but food could wait. He needed him to act as a tester for his new toy.
“Kacchan,” Izuku hummed, coming to a stop just beside the cooking boy. He leaned his chin against his shoulder to peer at his face, and he grinned impishly at the irritated look that Katsuki already wore.
“Whatever, shitty nerd, let’s just do it away from the stove.”
Izuku cheered, and to the best of his abilities ran over to the balcony door of his apartment. He threw the door to the side with little fanfare, and held up his creation to Katsuki’s face as the blonde followed after him.
“What is it?” Katsuki frowned, poking at the metal contraption.
“I’ll tell you if it survives this test!” Izuku insisted, and placed it down gently onto the ground. “Make sure not to scorch the ground too badly, mom was really mad at me last time.”
Katsuki rolled his eyes, but Izuku could tell that he was holding back the strength of his explosions as he sent one at the project.
It was sent flying a couple of feet from the blast, thankfully just narrowly missing being thrown over the balcony railing, and Izuku hurried to pick it up in order to inspect the damage.
Other than a few streaks of soot that was easily wiped away with his thumb, it seemed as if his creation was unscathed.
“Careful, idiot,” Katsuki warned. “The metal’s probably gonna be hot.”
Izuku waved him off, “It absorbs the heat, I’ll be fine.” He stood back up and, with a hopeful smile, held it up towards Katsuki’s face. “Put it on.”
Katsuki spluttered, “What?”
He put one hand on his hip, waving around the other still holding the project with an impatient sigh. “Come on, trust me. It’s for your future costume, Kacchan.”
Naturally, Katsuki was not one to deny him when it came to his future as a hero. Although it had taken years of mutual trust and reassurances that receiving help didn’t make him weak, Izuku was proud to say that his friend almost always went to him whenever he had any sort of questions.
Katsuki placed the bulky headphones over his head carefully, like one might handle a fragile plate of fine china and the device hadn’t just passed a blast test, and looked at Izuku for more instructions. “Now what?”
Izuku beamed, “Try adjusting the dials on the back.”
There were a couple of moments of silence as Katsuki fiddled with the scroll switch just behind the backs of each cuff, before he gasped so loudly that Izuku almost went flying backwards off of the balcony in surprise.
“It adjusts my hearing aids?” Katsuki looked awestruck, an expression that very few had the privilege of seeing him wear, and already Izuku’s day was ten times better.
He’d fallen in love with support items from a young age, when his father had taken notice of his fascination with Quirks as well as his analytical abilities and decided to polish them himself. The eldest Midoriya had practically raised Izuku holding wrenches and locating screws, and Izuku spent more time as a kid standing beside his father had he welded metals than he did playing with other kids his age.
Other than Katsuki, of course, but the blonde boy tagged along to watch Izuku’s father build more often than not as well.
When Midoriya Hisashi had been called to America indefinitely for business, Izuku had cried for days and days before he picked back up a screwdriver and realized that there were still ways for him to get close to his father without them being together.
One day, when he returned, Izuku hoped to impress him with all of his creations.
“They work, then?” Izuku inquired, signing along just in case he had them lowered all the way.
He was already bouncing on the balls of his feet as he held back the urge to fuss over every little detail on his newest design. Were they too tight? Too loose? Did both sides maintain the same levels of volume without any delay? But Izuku knew there would be time later on for him to interrogate Katsuki on the details, so he managed to hold his tongue.
“Fuck, you really are a mad scientist,” Katsuki shook his head, adjusting the switches once more, and that was all the confirmation that Izuku needed.
“Of course, I’m gonna mess around with the design a bit more to make it match your hero costume,” Izuku began, “But there’s still one more test I have to try out! If they’re gonna protect your hearing aids while you wear them and you’re gonna use them during combat, they have to be able to withstand immense pressure!”
“Immense—“
Before Katsuki could finish his sentence, Izuku had already chucked the headset down into the street below.
Izuku rushed to peer over the edge and, with a gleeful laugh, proclaimed, “I think they survived!”
—
Once upon a time Izuku might have liked school. He was intelligent and he worked hard, and he took in new information like a greedy child took handfuls of chocolate at a candy store. When he was younger and his Quirklessness was still seen as a pitiful sickness by administrators rather than a defective and disgusting mutation, Izuku still enjoyed attending classes. Especially with Katsuki by his side, someone who was his academic equal and friendly rival on the best of days.
"Ah, and Midoriya is going for UA as well, isn't that correct?"
Izuku, decidedly, did not like Aldera.
Although elementary school had not exactly been an easy feat, he had been hoping against hope that middle school would be a far better endeavor. Within the first week his desk became a victim of spider lilies and cruel remarks, and Izuku learned that hoping for unrealistic things was not for him.
Even now, in his third year, the teachers did nothing to help him with the mistreatment from his peers.
”Midoriya? No way,” One kid, a boy who could extend his eyeballs from his head, cackled madly from across the room.
”Do they even let in Quirkless people?”
Izuku wished that he had the backbone to speak up for himself. To say that they did allow Quirkless people, and that the boy with extendable eyeballs had as much of a chance at becoming a hero as Izuku did, but he held his tongue. Besides, he knew that was not entirely true—he could likely fill a journal page with notes on how someone with a Quirk like that could utilize it in hero work, but he was approaching the time for a new notebook already and was not exactly fond of filling it with information on a bully.
“I’m not going for the hero course,” Izuku attempted to explain. “I want to go into support.”
But his words fell upon deaf ears as per usual, and his supposed dreams of entering UA’s hero course was suddenly all that the class wanted to talk about.
And maybe at one point it had been his dream, but Izuku liked to think he’d outgrown childish dreams by then (He hadn’t, and he knew it. His desire to become a hero burned so brightly within his chest that it burned and charred away at his ribs and lungs until he was suffocating on it).
A loud bang sounded out throughout the room, the tell tale sign of Katsuki’s temper finally reaching its limit, and his palms sparked madly as he defended Izuku from the rest of their class—all the while the teacher did nothing to step in.
Izuku hunched further into himself, like his shoulders could act as shields against the taunts and jeers of his classmates that only grew worse. They couldn’t understand how Katsuki was friends with someone like him, how Izuku was the only person that he allowed to get close to him, how anyone could ever want to spend time with the Quirkless kid.
Sometimes Izuku still didn’t get it, either.
‘Drop it,’ He signed miserably over his desk.
Katsuki’s sparks came to an abrupt halt, albeit Izuku could still see the tense line of his shoulders and the way that his scowl was deepening with every passing second.
Izuku let out a quiet sigh, and leaned his head against the wood of his desk.
The words Deku and Freak stared up at him from where they were carved into the surface. He stared back, squinting, but no matter how hard he tried, begging the universe for a Quirk that would allow him to send the desk bursting into flames, the words remained unwavered.
At some point Izuku must have zoned out, because the next thing he knew Katsuki’s hand was falling onto his shoulder, and he was being shaken back into reality by a gentle shove.
“Oi, nerd,” Katsuki said. “We’ve got places to be, c'mon. We can go check out all the heroes in the square, how about that?”
Izuku perked up at the suggestion, slowly rising to his feet and hauling his journals and school supplies from the desk.
The sweet, burnt scent of nitroglycerin met him first, before he heard the familiar sound of tiny explosions, the smallest that Katsuki could create that still produced heat.
He glanced up from his things to watch Katsuki scorch over the words engraved into his desk, which he did with an almost focused expression on his face. He met his eyes and barked out, “Hurry up, ‘Zuku, we don’t have all day.”
Heart feeling just a bit lighter, Izuku zipped his backpack shut and swung it over his shoulders.
—
In hindsight, the current situation could have easily been avoided had Izuku not been in such a terrible mood.
It was not exactly a common occurrence, despite how horribly most of his days tended to go. Katsuki liked to say that Izuku was a sun so bright that it was annoying, like when a beam of sunlight cuts through your curtains in the morning and wakes you up long before your alarm. Years of torment gave Izuku thick skin, and so it took quite a lot for storm clouds to truly get through to him and block him out from the rest of the world.
Izuku should have realized something was wrong as soon as they turned to walk beneath the overpass. It was his fault they’d diverged from their usual path, because Katsuki always showed his affections in little ways and taking the shortest route to the center for Izuku’s sake that day was one of them. He should have heard the approaching gurgle of slime beneath their feet, should have moved quicker, should have screamed louder—
Should have, should have, should have.
It was all that Izuku could manage to think of as his mouth and throat filled with thick, foul smelling sludge, as he attempted to claw at the liquid constricting his body with helpless, limp fingers. The sensation of it was indescribable—like the feeling of raking nails over a numb, asleep limb, or dunking his hands into burning hot water when he knew that it was supposed to be cold.
Izuku was hot, so hot , and his body convulsed violently in rejection of the sludge as the villain attempted to force it down into his lungs and chest.
“Bastard, let him go!”
Somewhere very far away, or maybe right there next to him, or perhaps he wasn’t even truly there at all, Izuku thought he could make out the sounds of Katsuki’s screams and the deafening blows of his explosions.
Izuku lifted his hand, wondered if he was truly moving it at all or if it were even visible amongst the brown sludge engulfing his entire body, and signed a weak, ‘Run, Kacchan. Get help.’
He didn’t have the time to question whether or not that would be the one command of his that Katsuki could not follow. Izuku knew how long the human body could go without oxygen, and that despite Katsuki’s efforts it had been far beyond that amount of time for Izuku.
It was the funniest thing—as his vision began to become spotted with black flashes and his chest began to tear itself apart from the inside out, Izuku could have sworn he heard All Might…
He awoke with a shuddering gasp.
The very first coherent thought that Izuku managed to muster up was, very eloquently, Holy shit.
Except he must have said it out loud, because rather suddenly he was being swarmed by people wearing red crossed paramedic uniforms, and he was being sat up on what he realized was a stretcher.
“Can you take in a couple of deep breaths for me?” One paramedic, a man with a closely shaved head and misty eyebrows that Izuku would have loved to analyze and interrogate him on if it weren’t for the dull pang of pain within his chest as he followed his instructions.
Izuku moved on autopilot, carrying out certain orders such as look into this light or cough into this for me . All the while his brain caught up to his body and he began to come up with smarter, much more important thoughts, such as, “What happened to Kacchan?”
“Your blond friend?” The man frowned. At Izuku’s distressed look, he pointed across the street towards what appeared to be a horde of pro heroes, all surrounding one fixed point. “You can see him after, but we need to complete your mandatory health check ups and you may need to go to the hospital—”
It took Izuku only one brief moment to completely disregard the paramedics words and hop off of the stretcher, and he ran despite his shaking legs and painfully twisting chest towards the gathering of heroes. Either they were questioning him on what had happened (the usual post villain attack protocol), or something was terribly wrong with his friend. As he pushed through the crowd of police officers attempting to keep civilians away from the scene, Izuku could only hope that it was the former.
“..incredibly foolish, what were you thinking ?”
As he grew nearer, he was beginning to realize the horrible reality that it truly was.
Katsuki was hunched in on himself, an action so unlike him that Izuku might have not believed it was his best friend if it weren’t for the familiar scowl on his face and unruly mess that was his spiky blond hair. To his left, Kamui Woods and the fire-fighting hero, Backdraft, were berating him noisily, all the while a newer pro called Mountain Lady stood off to his other side, a disapproving frown on her young face. Cameras belonging to the media were positioned all over, no doubt zooming in on Katsuki’s face despite him being a minor, whilst nosy news anchors narrated their version of the scene from off to the side.
What was even stranger was that Katsuki was not defending himself, simply retreating further back as his shoulders rose to his ears in an action that was almost Izuku-like in nature, and his eyes were darting back and forth rapidly like he was searching for a way out.
“Kacchan!” Izuku called out, willing his legs to move faster, and he came to a screeching halt just before the group as Kamui started up on his chastising once more.
“We called for you to retreat several times so that All Might could get a clear shot without risking your safety, and yet you completely disregarded us!” He seethed, “Not to mention the public Quirk usage without a license.”
Katsuki finally caught Izuku’s eye and, with a relieved sigh, began to sign. ‘My fucking hearing aids went flying when the villain attacked. These assholes won’t let me get a word in and neither of them exactly have visible lips for me to read.’
Izuku hardly ever felt fury. He got angry, yes, often over little things—tests, spilling a drink over his desk while he was working on a project, when someone chose the worst time to hit him with an insult that stung deep on an already bad day.
But this was far different.
This was a raw, unadulterated anger that began deep within his gut and made a home for itself within his body, rising like smoke until it eventually reached his chest and his brain and he was shaking with rage.
“Are you guys stupid?” Izuku asked, sounding far calmer than he truly felt, and he pushed his way past them to stand in front of Katsuki like a wall from the cameras. He could hear his friend beginning to protest from behind him, arguing about how he didn’t need protection, but he shut him down with a single shake of his head.
“ Excuse me?” Kamui Woods inquired, bewildered. “Aren’t you the boy who got caught up in this whole mess? You should be with the paramedics, let us deal with this—”
“ Deal with this ?” Izuku parroted, cocking his head to the side. “You mean yelling at a minor for trying to protect his friend? You mean not letting him explain himself?”
When the hero spluttered, attempting to come up with no doubt another foolish statement, Izuku pressed on.
“If you let him explain himself you would know that Kacchan is deaf,” Izuku stated coldly. “And maybe then you could have a civil conversation about how he risked his life protecting me when it seemed like no one else was going to. Do you know how terrifying that must have been for him? He’s a child, and you are the adult in this situation.”
“Your friend should not have stepped in to begin with,” Backdraft cut in, “He is not a hero, and it wasn’t in self defense. If you had used your Quirk, it would be much different.”
Izuku stared, “Kacchan is going to be an amazing hero one day. He jumped in to save me when no one else did, and kept fighting even though he couldn’t hear the villain. It’s not his fault that he couldn’t hear you from the sidelines.”
Not to mention that they could have sent in someone far less destructive than All Might if he was unable to grab him without hitting Katsuki. Izuku was still reeling from the fact that the number one hero of all people had apparently been the one to save him, but he would save the freak out for later in the day. Preferably, when his best friend was not currently to his back trying to navigate a conversation that he could neither hear nor read.
“And what will he do when he’s a pro?” Kamui proposed. “If he loses his hearing aids then, and rushes into a situation that ends up hurting innocent people, what will he do then? He would only be a hindrance on the field.”
The searing, flickering flames of fury turned ice cold.
“If you’d excuse me,” Izuku spoke, so quiet that even he could hardly tell that the words were coming from his own mouth. “My friend and I have hearing aids to go find, and then we are both going to go get checked out at the hospital. I hope you can sleep well tonight, knowing you just insinuated that a deaf person—one with an extremely powerful Quirk, at that—would only be a hindrance on live television.”
He grabbed a hold of Katsuki’s wrist and, with one final glare towards the three pro heroes, began to drag him back under the overpass to search for his hearing aids.
‘I’ll tell you when we are home,’ Izuku signed, and they both dropped all mentions of it as they began to search the asphalt for the black devices.
Izuku could deal with the world turning its back on him. He could deal with the taunts, the death threats, and the weekly beatings. It had been what he was destined for the very moment he was diagnosed as Quirkless all those years ago.
But Katsuki stood on a pillar of greatness so tall, so grand, that Izuku couldn’t even reach it if he jumped. He hadn’t let his deafness hold him back, not once since he’d come home from his doctor's appointment one night in elementary school and shared the news with Izuku and his mother through watery eyes and hot chocolate. His Quirk was damaging to his hearing, and he would likely be completely deaf by the time he reached middle school if he continued to actively use it.
Izuku used to wish that he’d learned how to make support items sooner—that maybe then, he could have created something to protect his ears before he lost his hearing entirely. Or that his father hadn’t left for America before the news had broken, and that he could have done something for him too.
But then, after seeing the determined look in Katsuki’s eyes, burning with the flames of a thousand fires—after witnessing first hand how he took his disability and flaunted his hearing aids (they were bright orange, his very first pair) to the world whilst he proclaimed “I will be number one!”—Izuku realized that Katsuki’s deafness was not something that needed repairing.
And all the while, Katsuki had stood by him as the rest of the world shut him out—his Quirkless, scrawny best friend who only ever started putting on muscle once they began self defense classes together their very first year in middle school—and he had told him that he could be a hero, too.
That Quirkless did not mean worthless, and that deaf did not mean impossible.
And when the world decided to shut out Bakugou Katsuki, Izuku wanted nothing more than to see his his best friend take it by storm, just as he’d entered his life and made a place for himself there without taking no for an answer.
If Izuku managed not to throttle everyone else who doubted him, first.