Chapter Text
Izuku lost his first love in the war.
Shouto couldn’t make sense of what he saw, what had happened to their friend, even seeing with his own eyes. For so long, he still couldn’t. It had now been five years and it still seemed impossible. Incomprehensible.
Katsuki, dead.
Kacchan, Izuku cried, don’t do this to me, you can’t, I can’t do this… yet there was nothing anyone could do.
It had to be the worst thing that would ever happen to Izuku. The boy he loved, the other piece of his beating heart, lay lifeless in his arms because someone wanted Izuku to hurt. Wanted him to break.
He didn’t break, at least not in the way their opponent wanted. He did what he had to do to end this war, to protect everyone. Everyone except…
Izuku already lost it all. He couldn’t go through that again. No one was that unlucky.
Right?
“He’s coding!”
Who?
“Get him moving, now! Come on, there’s no time!”
Where’s Izuku?
“Shit.” Detective Tsukauchi frowned as he jogged alongside the first responders. “What about Midoriya?”
Where is he?
“Head injury,” the EMT called over her shoulder. “He’ll pull through.”
Tsukauchi sagged in relief. Shouto felt sick with it. Izuku was hurt— and why the hell hadn’t he stopped it? He’d felt something, but he couldn’t see anything. How had Shouto failed to protect him? He second-guessed a moment too long. All it took was a moment—
But Izuku would pull through. That’s what they said. Shouto took a deep breath, though it didn't help much.
“We’re transporting them together.”
I’m going.
Not that anyone tried to stop him.
Katsuki had died a hero.
He was that, no doubt. He was also just a boy, a brave kid born with power and purpose, and an Izuku-shaped notch in his heart. They had been each others’ inspiration, each others’ greatest source of strength… and weakness, too. Two sides of the same coin, one that landed face-down on that day.
Shouto knew what that loss did to Izuku. He knew that it closed, scarred over, and never fully healed.
How could it?
Izuku couldn’t imagine a world without Katsuki in it. He still couldn’t, not in all truth, even if the world still turned and he managed to turn along with it.
Shouto knew what it took for Izuku to move forward from that day. Years of mourning, of therapy, and tireless work with his own two hands to mend the world, change society for the better.
Izuku was a hero. He was Shouto’s hero, too.
“Don’t lose that airway!”
“Got it! How’s the fluid challenge?”
“Still not good. If he remains systolic, we can’t transport him.”
They were not talking about Izuku, and that was the only thing keeping Shouto from panicking. He could see him now, his lover’s green curls matted and damp with sweat. On oxygen and a drip, Izuku’s mask fogged slightly as he breathed. Shouto refused to take his eyes off of him, just to be sure.
Stay alive.
All the fuss was about the other patient, the one in cardiac arrest. But who else was even…
Shouto’s vision spun when he tried to glance at the other injured man. He probably needed medical attention himself, his head throbbing, but he would manage for now. The EMTs had their work cut out for them, and Shouto couldn’t argue with their priorities.
Izuku, hang on.
“We have a weak pulse!”
“Alright, let’s go!”
As the paramedics hoisted two stretchers into the ambulance, the chief of police called over to Detective Tsukauchi who lingered by Shouto’s side.
“We need someone on the press! They’re ravenous.”
Tsukauchi waved the chief off, eyes trained on the medevac patients as if looking for clues. Shouto expected to be bombarded with questions at any moment, but the detective let him be.
“I’m serious,” the chief griped. “Japan’s top two heroes— it’s bad!”
Deku and Shouto were the top two. They had been for years. But that was why it didn’t make sense: Izuku was stable— the EMT said so— and Shouto was more than a little foggy, sure, but he was fine? He was literally on his feet.
What exactly had the press heard?
“Get Tanuma on it!” Tsukauchi answered. “I’ve got my hands full with this case. This isn’t just some two-bit villain, chief, not anymore.”
The man grunted. “I was afraid you’d say that.”
Grief wasn’t linear. It wove its way forward, winding in and out of the light, over time changing size and shape without ever going away.
Some days it felt small, remote. Others, it roared like a hurricane, left things shattered in its wake. Still other days, the ache sat quietly but heavily on his chest— Izuku’s, of course. But Shouto’s, too.
Shouto had come to call Katsuki a friend. Whether or not the other boy felt the same, Shouto said what felt true and never questioned it much.
He never called it ‘love’ before, not until Katsuki was already gone.
Shouto cared for him. He craved Katsuki’s presence, his attention, and often longed to close whatever distance still remained between them. He would always remember the last night they sat together at UA, how Katsuki sat in his room and joked with him, encouraged him.
Shouto knew the stakes of those fights as well as anyone, but still he dared to believe that they would have more time.
What if I loved him, too?
It seemed too cruel to ask Izuku that question, and yet who else could he ever tell? No one would understand those feelings like Izuku would.
They cried about it together, just once, taking comfort in each others’ arms. Then they tucked it away like a secret.
The ambulance pulled away from the scene just moments after Shouto packed himself inside. He wasn’t about to stay behind when Izuku was hurt.
He did his best to stay out of the way, but no one in the cramped vehicle paid him any mind and that suited him just fine. He only had eyes for Izuku.
Oxygen. Drip. There was blood, mostly smeared on his strong, scarred hands, but his vitals were strong.
The other patient wasn’t so lucky. They couldn’t resuscitate the man, but they kept trying anyway, the EMTs working up a sweat.
Shouto still couldn’t remember what had happened, who else had been near them, who might have attacked them. He should be able to remember! Had he taken a blow to the head?
Shouto wracked his brain for the memory. Could it have been a face-off of some kind, with a villain strong enough to steamroll the top two heroes and still get away? Or maybe someone cunning enough to lay out a trap, one that even Izuku hadn’t figured it out in time? Try as he might, Shouto couldn’t piece it together.
Just a regular patrol, wasn’t it? Just the two of them.
Just a quiet street in an unassuming part of town. Just a nagging feeling of something being off, a sort of crackling under his skin, like a guttering flame.
Izuku calling his name. Shouto!
Then pain, more pain than he could coherently describe, and darkness.
Izuku got up every day with a Kacchan-shaped hole in his heart, and yet he was still standing. He just… brought Katsuki with him, didn’t he? Even if he couldn’t say that part out loud. Shouto knew it when he looked at his most trusted and most treasured friend, that Kacchan was just a fact of their lives.
He couldn’t begrudge him that. It was a comfort, in a way. When the world moved too fast, Izuku’s broken heart was one of the few things Shouto really did understand.
When others moved on, they didn’t. They just helped each other learn how to live with it.
Soon they graduated. They became hero partners, and Shouto inherited his dad’s agency after Endeavor retired from hero work. It was another chance to rebuild, with Izuku by his side, so they took it.
They grew up and grew closer. They visited Kacchan’s grave on special days, hard days, and didn’t need to put it into words.
They built lives surrounded by friends, and together they mended everything that was within their power to mend. Izuku turned to them all one night, at some gala Shouto has long forgotten the occasion for. All he remembers is an homage to Hero Dynamight, and a pair of green eyes welling with tears— grateful ones, this time. Izuku thanked his friends for saving him, for holding back the despair, and facing the unimaginable by his side.
He raised a toast, to friends, to love, to Kacchan, and there wasn’t a dry eye in the house.
Maybe it wasn’t that surprising that Izuku and Shouto eventually fell in love with each other. They helped each other make sense of the world. They made each other happy. They brought each other hope, sheltered the places that still hurt.
Shouto can’t remember when it grew from friendship into something more, but he remembers how Izuku’s hands trembled against his chest the first time they kissed. He remembers Izuku’s breathless laugh, and the strength of his grip.
Stay.
Love wasn’t exactly linear, either.
“This is 1-5-3, two patients inbound.”
It was the ambulance driver, speaking into his headset.
“One adult male, currently in a low flow state, in traumatic cardiac arrest. Please have massive hemorrhage protocol activated on arrival.”
Shouto couldn’t hear the other side of the conversation, only the chirp of the radio as the ambulance rumbled down the freeway.
“Second adult male, isolated head trauma, moderate-to-severe. Patient is stable.”
Almost there, Izuku.
“Fluids backup! He’s crashing.” The paramedic scrambled for some equipment to aid their more unfortunate patient. Shouto wasn’t sure what the EMT was holding, too distracted by a glimpse of the patient— white hair mussed with a few stray strands of deep red.
Not soaked-in-blood red, though there was some of that, too. Shouto veered closer, moving without thinking. The nausea hit so suddenly that it wasn’t until it passed that he realized he was right on top of someone, or that he was for a brief moment. The EMT— she passed right through him somehow.
Shouto was going to be sick.
He didn’t understand. He simply could not understand how, when the ambulance turned a sharp corner approaching the hospital, Shouto wasn’t able to catch himself against the side of the gurney. Instead he stumbled right through it. Maybe he was lucky he hadn’t fallen right out of the vehicle.
That’s when he finally saw his face.
His own face.
The ambulance doors flew open as soon as the vehicle lurched to a stop. They were on the move again— stretcher, mobile IV, and a team of healthcare workers apparently fighting to save his life.
I’m… dying?
Shouto stumbled against the curb. He fell to his knees on the asphalt, and it didn’t even sting like it should. Because this wasn’t… he wasn’t…
“Jeez. Hell of a way to find out.”
The voice came from somewhere above him, a familiar sneer and click of the tongue that Shouto was pretty sure he would recognize anywhere, no matter how long it had been. He blinked up in shock— not at the EMTs, unaware of him as they moved quickly to wheel Izuku past. No, he looked higher.
Up to the face of a young man perched on the roof of the ambulance, legs dangling over the back, peering down on Shouto with piercing red eyes and a bored expression— as though the events of this evening were a mild curiosity, an inconvenience, nothing more.
Bakugou Katsuki.
“Or have you still not worked it out?” Katsuki arched an eyebrow at him.
“Worked what out?”
“Tch.” He rolled his eyes. “Figures.”
“H-how are you here?”
Katsuki jumped down to the road before the ambulance started driving away, landing light on his feet in an unfamiliar version of his old Dynamight uniform. That was a weirdly-specific hallucination.
Besides, if this was all a projection of Shouto’s mind, wouldn’t he picture that same sixteen year-old boy, just like the day he died? This Katsuki was a little older, a little taller, his expression a little wilder as he peered through his trademark mask.
“Why— but you are— you’re—”
“Dead? Yeah, no shit. Now, are you coming or not?” Katsuki didn’t wait for an answer, hurrying off after the stretcher. After Izuku.
“Wait up!” Shouto didn’t remember coming to his feet, but he closed the distance fast. “What’s going on?”
Katsuki tilted his head, considering Shouto as they walked.
“Gee, genius. I’m a dead guy. And you’re an about-to-be-dead guy. Noodle that one for a damn minute!”
Shouto stopped in his tracks. “We’re… ghosts?”
“Ghosts, spirits, souls,” he shrugged. “Pick your flavor. Now keep the fuck up!”
Right after he said it, Shouto felt a sharp tug— like a rope, knotted fast around his heart, if he even still had one of those. His… center? He stumbled forward, struggling for balance as the tug came again, practically dragging him down the corridor.
Katsuki frowned at the sight. “Yeah, just like I thought.”
“Stop it! Are you doing that somehow?” Shouto tried to resist it and instantly felt like he was going to be torn in two. The pain was unbearable.
“No, moron. I’m not.” Katsuki grabbed him roughly by the collar, pulling him along faster than whatever force had managed to yank on him before. “If I want to knock you around, you’re gonna fucking know that it’s me. Got it?”
“Wait, you can touch me?”
Katsuki clicked his tongue. “Afraid so. But if you make me carry your ass, I swear I will—”
“Alright, I’m going!”
They soon reached a room where the nursing staff were busy hooking Izuku up to machines and examining his injuries. His status hadn’t changed. He’s going to make it, Shouto reminded himself. That didn’t seem to be in question.
But what if I don’t?
His own body was just across the hall in another triage room, an even busier one. While Shouto peered in on Izuku, Katsuki had turned the other way, tracking the staff’s increasingly tragic attempts.
“Should I try to go back to my body?”
Katsuki clenched his jaw. “Doesn’t work like that.” He didn’t meet Shouto’s eyes.
The room fell quiet. Someone sighed. Brain death, the doctor called it, and noted the date and time.
It was too surreal. The charge nurse spoke in an even voice to the staff present, dismissing some, instructing others— something about continuing life support until the family arrived to make the call, and. No. No, no.
Shouto felt Katsuki’s hand settle on his shoulder. He didn’t mean to flinch, he just— no, this can’t be happening.
“I can’t die.”
“Actually, Halfie, you can. You just did.”
“But,” Shouto swallowed. “But I can’t do that to him.”
The silence stretched painfully. When Katsuki did answer, the words came out quiet and more bitter than even Shouto could expect.
“You think I don’t realize that?”