Chapter 1: A New Semester
Chapter Text
“Nooooo,” Melissa grabbed Izuku’s arm and yanked on it a few times. “Tell me that’s not your plane.”
Izuku squinted at the sky out the window for a solid ten seconds, searching for the plane, before he realized the exercise was both pointless and counterproductive. “That’s not my plane? My plane shouldn’t be here for another hour, and I haven’t finished packing yet. I need, um… I need my arm back?”
Melissa was kind enough to release it so he could continue his attempts at stuffing a black hoodie into his already stuffed suitcase.
“Why do you always leave these things to the last second, Izuku?” Mom wailed, hurrying in to deposit an entire All Might blanket on his head. “Last year you were just as much a mess as this year.”
“I wasn’t a mess,” he said, shaking the blanket off so he could finally zip his suitcase closed.
“Izuku is never a mess,” Melissa agreed. “The UA Support Department would never have let him in if he was.”
Izuku’s mouth twitched in a smile. Last year, Mei (she insisted, first names only) had gotten into twice the messes Izuku had, and she didn’t even spend half the semester hiding from villains. “That is completely one hundred percent not true.”
“He’s messier than you, Melissa,” Mom said, glaring at him with a righteous fury. That crumpled in half a second when she burst into tears, throwing her arms around his neck. “Izukuuuuuuu,” she sobbed.
“It’s fine, Mom,” Izuku said, trying his best to fold the behemoth of the All Might blanket while still caged in her teary grip. “I’ll be back in a semester for break.”
“I’m going to miss you,” she cried.
Melissa patted his elbow from somewhere behind his mom. “I’ll miss you too, buddy. Make lots of cool equipment. Kick butt in the Sports Festival for me, okay? Show those hero types what you can do.”
“Yes,” Mom sniffled, finally releasing him. “Do that, Izuku.”
“But don’t do what Hatsume did last year,” Melissa added. “I say this lovingly, but you can’t pull off a major advertising show like that. You’ll melt into a puddle.”
Izuku laughed.
Last year, Izuku had hidden in a corner of the field for the entire Sports Festival, working on a design implement he was thinking about putting into Uraraka’s costume. She’d come to the Support Department almost on the second day of school, begging for a costume change. Izuku took one look over Power Loader's shoulder at the pink spandex, and that was that.
He’d been considering final touches to put in when the Sports Festival started, and because he was focusing on that, he completely ignored the entire event. He was pretty sure some blond kid won. He honestly wasn’t paying attention.
He managed to push the All Might blanket into his second suitcase. Melissa kindly sat on it for him so he could force it to zip closed.
“Do you have your toothbrush?” his mom asked as he got to his feet and started pulling up his suitcases beside him. “Snacks for the plane? Cash for emergencies?”
“Yes, Mom.”
She dove into another hug, another fountain of tears spurting from her eyes. “I’m just so worried,” she sobbed. Melissa gave Izuku a sympathetic look over her shoulder. “Last year all those villains attacked, and you could have died, and then there was that whole incident at the mall and you’re very lucky they didn’t shut down the entire school, Izuku! You’re very lucky!”
“Yes, Mom.”
Melissa kindly started pulling Izuku’s suitcases to the door for him. “You know, Auntie, UA put more security measures up this year, so there shouldn’t be any problems like that again.”
“But the villains are still out there!”
That was true, and it was also a little nerve wracking, if Izuku was being completely honest. They hadn’t specifically targeted him or anything, not like they’d done with the hero course, but he knew they didn’t like him or his work, which had been most of what kept UA safe last year.
On the other hand, Nedzu was extremely pleased with his support work. There had been talk of giving him an award, which made him super uncomfortable. That all faded away eventually, thank goodness.
But the villains were still out there, and they wanted blood. Or whatever it was villains wanted. Izuku wasn’t really sure.
“All ready to go, Izu?” his dad asked from the door.
Izuku nodded, disentangling himself from Mom. “Yep! Melissa I think was taking my suitcases out just now.”
“I saw her go by.” He ruffled a hand through Izuku’s hair on the way by. “Got everything packed?”
“Mmhmm!”
Dad was the entire reason they got to live on I-Island. Back in Japan, he’d done a lot of groundbreaking work with some crazy cool scientists, and when he’d gotten a job offer to work at I-Island when Izuku was five, they’d all agreed it would be best to move out here, where Izuku could be quirkless with significantly less hatred, and Dad could have the coolest job in the entire world.
That’s what got Izuku into support, actually. If he hadn’t moved to I-Island, he didn’t think he’d care half as much about cool things like plasma shields and quirk-accommodating fabrics. But he did live in I-Island, and he cared very much about stuff like that. One day, he wanted to be the best support tech in the world.
They went out front, where Melissa, rather than struggle with Izuku’s bags herself, had enlisted the help of a few robots, which precisely stacked Izuku’s suitcases and backpack into the trunk of Dad’s car.
“WAIT WAIT WAIT–” David hurried out behind them, gasping for air. Izuku turned to meet him, already smiling. “Oh good, I didn’t miss you. Hug for Uncle David, kiddo?”
Izuku flung his arms around David’s neck, laughing. “I’ll miss you!”
“We’ll miss you too, bud.”
“We need a family picture by the car,” Mom said, wiping her eyes. “You all go get ready. I’ll grab my camera.”
“You got everything packed?” Dad asked as Melissa shut the trunk of the car, waving off the robots.
Izuku nodded.
Melissa skipped back over, throwing her arms around Izuku. She was way taller than him, having had a growth spurt last year (“I sense this is the last one,” she’d sniffled. “Stuck at 5’10” forever. What a tragedy.”), but he stood on his tiptoes and returned the hug.
“Okay, I’m not going to cry,” she said, pulling away. “I’m not going to, but I am going to miss you, Izu. Don’t get in too much trouble. Don’t forget to eat three meals a day. Don’t date scary boys.”
“Would never.”
“Family picture!” Mom said, reemerging with the camera. She passed it off to a nearby robot and hurried over to join them. They all posed, the robot counted down from three in a high-pitched, artificial voice, the camera flashed, and that was it.
Mom turned immediately to hug Izuku one more time. Izuku couldn’t help the tears that started to spill out this time, and he held her tight until Dad gave them both a shoulder pat, and it was time to go.
“Have a great semester!” Melissa shouted as he got in the car.
“Bye, Izuku!” Mom sobbed, waving.
David gave him a double thumbs up and a huge grin. He used to be a support technician for All Might, a fact which never failed to make Izuku cry happy tears of hope and immense disbelief. Izuku waved and waved, Dad started up the car, and they were off.
Back to UA.
This year was going to be the best year ever.
–
Katsuki tried to be grateful for the nice things he had (he really did try), but sometimes it was really fucking impossible.
Don’t get him wrong, he liked going to UA. The classes were good enough, the extras weren’t too shitty, and the dorms were actually nice.
But he hated the first day back on campus. He hated it.
He sulked in the car while Mom pulled up to the gates.
Maybe it would be possible to sneak inside the dorms, so Shitty Hair and the rest of the stupid extras didn’t see him, and maybe then they wouldn’t bother him and do that weird excited happy talking where they just yelled about how great this semester was going to be and how much they’d missed him over break. Maybe he could just avoid them completely.
“Kats,” Mom said, glaring at him. “Are you going to get out of the car, or are we just going to sit here the rest of the semester?”
He unbuckled his seatbelt, flinging it to the side, and threw his door open.
“Be nice to the car, you brat!” Mom yelled.
He kicked the door closed again. Maybe he could think of some kind of disguise–
“Hey! Bakugou!”
Seriously. Not even two fucking seconds out of the car. That had to be a new record or some shit.
Someone ran straight into him from behind, enclosing him in bulky arms. Shitty Hair. Katsuki elbowed him off. “Go away.”
“Wow, your personality really didn’t improve at all over the break!” Kirishima said happily. “Look, I changed my hair!”
Katsuki looked.
It actually wasn’t a bad cut. He’d cropped it close to the scalp, while keeping its old spiky front. It made him look older.
“Not bad,” he said.
“Is that a compliment?” Kirishima grinned. “Maybe your personality did change over the–”
“Okay, move.” That was enough of that. “I need to get my shit out of the trunk.”
Kirishima followed him around to the back of the car. “I can help you carry some of your stuff! Do you have a lot?”
“I don’t need your shitty help.”
“Ooh, three suitcases. I can take two of them!”
“I don’t need…” He huffed an annoyed sigh, mostly because he actually could use some help, and he’d much prefer Kirishima’s help than the hag’s. “Fine, do whatever.”
“Sweet! Hey, Kami brought a new game console and he said we can play it in his room tonight if you want. I didn’t get a chance to look at what he has on it, but it looked pretty cool, and it has four controllers so Sero can play too, and maybe we can talk Aizawa into letting Ashido and Jirou over and we can take turns.”
“No.”
“It’ll be super fun. Also, I saw Satou go straight into the kitchen when he got here so guess who’ll be having cake for dinner tonight!”
“Not me.” Katsuki pulled the last bag out of the trunk and slammed it shut.
“Are you going to say goodbye, brat?” the old hag asked, standing by the driver’s seat.
“Bye.”
“You’re not getting away with that. Come give me a hug.”
Katsuki sighed heavily.
He walked around the car and let her wrap her arms around him. “Have a good semester, kid,” she murmured.
“Yeah, yeah.”
“Hey, if you see Inko’s little guy around, tell him I said hi.”
“No clue what he looks like, but sure if I see anyone with a big sign that says ‘Inko’s kid’ on it–”
“Oh come on.” She gave him the Look. “You used to play together all the time when you were younger. You haven’t forgotten him.”
Katsuki hadn’t forgotten him. A bush of green hair, freckles over round cheeks, and a smile so big it seemed almost impossible. He was the shittiest of all of them. No matter what, he was always smiling, like fucking All Might or something. And he made Katsuki feel completely worthless, because if anyone was going to be the Number One hero, it was going to be the kid with a heart bigger than his own tiny body could hold, the one who would literally stand between an explosion and someone helpless.
Katsuki never did that. Katsuki was the explosion. And explosions didn’t win any favors from anyone.
What made him even more angry was that even though they were both like five or something back then, and even though Katsuki hadn’t seen the guy in years or whatever, he still thought about him sometimes. He actually missed him sometimes.
And that dumbassery could not stand.
“What was his shitty name again?” Katsuki asked.
Mom gave him a strange look. “Midoriya,” she said. “Midoriya Izuku. Did you really not see him at all last year? He saved–”
“Well, well! If it isn’t Bakugou Katsuki!”
This fucking day kept getting worse.
Kaminari bounded up, smirking from ear to ear. “Look at you! All grown up!”
“Fuck off.”
He did not fuck off, but he did put on a slightly less annoying tone to say, “Hey, listen, I have a new gaming console! You have to come check it out. Like, now.”
Mom gave him one of those soft smiles she reserved for moments like this. “All right, kid. Have a good semester. Be nice to your friends.”
“What friends?” he grumbled as Kaminari latched onto his side like a fucking leech, clinging to his arm with both hands and shaking. No friends here.
“I missed you so much, dude!”
Katsuki pushed him off and grabbed his bags, starting for the dorms before anyone else could attack him with more hugs and excitement. Maybe he could hurry into the dorms and close and lock his door behind him, and then no one could bother him. Maybe they’d all forget they hadn’t seen each other in a few weeks and they’d start acting normal.
“Oh, Bakugou,” Kirishima said, easily carrying two of his suitcases. Not even dragging them on the ground, just carrying them by the handle. “I forgot to say. We heard there’s this crazy good support student in our year, the one who built the defense system for the school last semester? I was talking to Uraraka about costuming and she said he was the one who redesigned her suit last semester – remember the spandex? – and she couldn’t believe how great the upgrade was. Apparently when he’s not here, he lives on I– ”
“Could you get the the fucking point?” Katsuki snapped.
“Oh! Yeah, so we were going to go see if he could give us some upgrades too. Want to come?”
“My costume is fucking fine.”
“Your costume is hideous!” Kaminari piped up.
If Katsuki’s hands hadn’t been full of bags, he would have punched him. “No it’s not, dumbass!”
“Some upgrades could be nice, though, right?” Kirishima said, starting up the main steps to the dorms. “I mean, if he’s as good as Uraraka says, it might be good just to see what he suggests.”
“Apparently he’s cute, too,” Kaminari added, with a knowing smirk.
Katsuki kicked open the door to Heights Alliance. “I’m not coming.”
“All right, all right,” Kirishima said easily. “Suit yourself.”
Kaminari laughed maniacally. “Ha! Get it? Suit! Suit, like… like suit! And also suit! Get it?”
Katsuki hated the first day back after break.
And his shitty costume actually did need some upgrades.
Chapter Text
“IZUKU!” Mei dove straight at him the second he walked in the door of their dorm building. Instinct alone saved him from being tackled, and he ducked to the side before she could fully crash into him. She fell directly to the floor instead and he winced, but she was jumping back up in a second, seizing his elbow, and dragging him into the dorms.
“You will never guess what I made over break,” she said. “It’s the coolest thing ever, I call it Hatsume’s Invention 4,536. Well, I’m working on the name. But it’s the coolest thing ever! You’re going to love it.”
“Is it in your room…?” Izuku asked nervously. That was a horrible place to put any of Mei’s inventions. They’d been warned several times by Power Loader, Recovery Girl, and Nedzu himself not to light the dorms on fire. Mei had pointed out that the cement that the dorms were all made of wasn’t a flammable material, but Cementoss was worried about it anyway, so Izuku and Mei had privately agreed to keep all inventions out of the dorms, just in case.
Unfortunately, Mei lacked self control and had generally poor focus, especially when it came to rules.
“No, no, no, it’s in the shop, but you have to drop off your stuff first. Then we can look at the baby. Also, we have to pick up Hitoshi on the way, because I made the baby for him. Also, he moved into the 2-A dorms this year, remember? That’s going to be so weird. We’ll have to walk so far to see him.”
“I thought the 2-A dorms weren't any further away than the 1-C dorms?”
“Distance is relative, Izuku! Anyway, here’s your room!” She waited impatiently for Izuku to open the door before bolting in ahead of him. “Wow, it looks exactly the same as last year, except empty! Do you want to unpack first, or go see the baby? I can help! Just kidding, let’s go see the baby. Put down your stuff!”
Izuku obligingly put down his suitcases and his backpack in the center of the room before following Mei out.
She continued jabbering all the way down the sidewalk to the heroics dorms. “I feel bad for that guy that got kicked out last year, what’s his name, he was horrible but I liked how small he was. It made me feel powerful.”
“And there was that other one that dropped out in 1-B…” Izuku remembered. “I liked her. Did they fill her spot with someone else?”
“Nooo, no, no one is worthy except you, and you said you didn’t want to be a heroics student.”
That was true. They had asked Izuku if he’d wanted the extra spot in the heroics class at the end of last semester, but he didn’t want to be a hero, to almost everyone’s shock and surprise. He wanted to go into support. Still, he’d thought they would have filled the extra space with someone.
Mei was still talking. “Also, Izuku, I demand that you help me film a commercial for some new babies I have. These things don’t sell themselves, you know! Businesses take food, love, and comfort to grow from the ground up!”
“Sure, I can help! Maybe in workshop tomorrow?”
“Nooo no no no, I have things to do in workshop tomorrow. Babies to make. People to see. Drawings to draw. Plus when I saw Hitoshi he said a bunch of heroics students are planning on accosting you in class tomorrow, so I’m sure you’ll be busy.”
Izuku froze, hand slipping out of Mei’s as she marched onward. “They what?”
“They want babies!” Mei stomped back a few steps to seize his hand again and continued to drag him down the path as the 2-A dorms rose ahead of them. “We can film the commercial after class.”
“But why are they going to accost me?”
“They want babies,” she repeated, giving him a weird look. “Take this opportunity, Izuku! What have I taught you about businesses? Take every advantage you get! Every customer is an opportunity to get more customers! Hitoshi and that pretty brown-haired girl aren’t going to keep you alive. Only the mob! Only the heroes!” She kicked open the door of the 2-A dorms, shouting, “Where is Shinsou Hitoshi?”
They were met with a bunch of strange looks from a few passing heroics students before a muttered, “For fuck’s sake,” sounded from somewhere in the common room. It took a moment, but Shinsou slinked into view, eyebags as dark as ever, head ducked down as if he was embarrassed to be associated with the two of them.
Which he probably was. They (notably Mei) were a little crazy.
“Hi again, Mei,” Shinsou said, tired. He shifted his gaze to Izuku, expressionless. “Hey Midoriya.”
Izuku gave him a happy wave.
Mei gestured at Izuku. “He landed in one piece!”
“I see that.”
Mei cackled. “And so! Now it’s time to see the baby!”
Shinsou shoved his feet into a pair of shoes by the door and started back to the main building, hands stuffed deep in his pockets. Mei kept rambling on ahead of them about babies, so Izuku took the opportunity to look at Shinsou and silently ask him how he was by lifting both his eyebrows.
Shinsou shrugged, then jerked his head at Izuku to return the question.
Izuku smiled and nodded a few times. It was really nice being back on campus. The sun was shining. The school’s defense system was up and running. Mei was talking their ears off. Everything was normal.
He’d miss home soon enough, he knew, but for now it was nice being on a beautiful campus with enough equipment to make a mega robot (one of Mei’s projects last year) and a few close friends.
They’d adopted Shinsou on the second day of their first year of school. It had mostly been an accident. Mei had been excited to explore the dining hall, so she’d dragged Izuku in and stolen the only free table available, which happened to be not entirely free, but occupied by one extremely annoyed Shinsou Hitoshi.
They bonded over all the school’s alarms going off. Or Mei and Izuku bonded. Shinsou just got annoyed. After that, Shinsou tried to get rid of Mei and Izuku, insistent that he didn’t want any friends, and was content to be alone.
Izuku refused to allow that, and Mei neglected to understand it, and while Izuku had enough common sense to go for a long, steady friendship bonding experience, Mei continued to barge in on Shinsou’s personal space, going so far as to find him in 1-C’s classroom one day when he intentionally avoided the dining hall. She threw herself into Shinsou’s life like a bombshell, and Izuku tagged along behind her, waiting to catch Shinsou when he inevitably got overwhelmed.
Since that day, he’d resigned himself to Izuku and Mei’s presence and eventually their friendship, and now they usually all ate lunch together in the support classrooms. After the dorm system was implemented, they started hanging out after school too. Shinsou was kind enough to tolerate Mei and Izuku’s banging around the support classrooms while they talked, and Mei and Izuku in return tolerated his rants on heroics society (which Izuku mostly agreed with) and his long silences.
It was the three of them against the world. Or that’s what Mei said, anyway, and when Mei got something in her head, it was generally pointless to resist.
She banged open the door to the workshops so hard Power Loader actually jumped. He looked at the three of them, startled, and then groaned so heavily and for so long Izuku worried for his lungs. “Just don’t explode anything today,” he said resignedly as Mei hurried past. “Term hasn’t even started yet.”
“We would never!” Mei said over her shoulder, hunting through her shelves.
Izuku loved the support workshops. They always smelled like sawdust and solder, the ceilings were high and spacious, and the cabinets were full of useful materials. Power Loader always had useful input on Izuku’s inventions too, and his classmates were all really interesting people with cool quirks and amazing ideas.
He’d be lying if he said he didn’t love it here.
Mei turned around triumphantly after a minute, waving a clenched fist in the air.
Izuku pulled himself up onto their shared table so he was sitting on it with his legs swinging over the edge. “Let’s see it, then,” he said.
Shinsou edged closer as Mei held her hand out, palm up, and slowly uncurled her fingers.
“Behold the babies!” she shouted. Power Loader dropped something at the front of the classroom and cursed.
In her palm sat two small earpieces, black. Izuku gently picked one up between two fingers and examined it closely while Mei and Shinsou watched him expectantly. “Is this an amplifying earpiece?” he asked, frowning at it. It looked the opposite of noise canceling headphones – rather than blocking out the noise around, it was designed to pick up background noises. It would be really helpful for listening to conversations the normal human ear wouldn’t be able to pick up, which would be especially helpful for Shinsou, as an underground hero. It would go well with his voice changer too, making it easier for him to choose which voices to copy.
“Exactly!” Mei sang, jumping up and down in place. “Yes yes yes, Izuku! Completely correct!”
“How did you defend against loud noises?”
“It cancels out anything over a specific frequency,” she explained. “So it will only pick up the background noises, when activated. And it can be activated by–” She turned around and dug in her shelves again for a second, eventually producing the entirety of Shinsou’s costume.
“Hey!” he snapped. “How’d you get that?”
“I stole it,” she said happily. “But look!” She flipped one of his gloves over to reveal a small button, just behind the thumb. “Easy activation and deactivation, without the drawback of accidental button-pressing! Although I did make sure you’d be able to reach the button with both hands. TRY IT ON!”
She seized the second earpiece from Izuku and jammed both of them into Shinsou’s ears. “BEHOLD!” Pressing the button on the back of his glove, she waited.
Shinsou’s eyes widened. “Whoa.”
“EXACTLY!”
His eyebrows shot up. “I can’t even hear you anymore. What a useful thing.”
Mei stuck out her bottom lip, but both Shinsou and Izuku knew she wasn’t really hurt. Shinsou threw out barbs like Halloween candy, but there was always a softness underneath, waiting to be uncovered. Izuku liked that about him. His general nastiness, and the kindness buried underneath.
“Thanks, Mei,” Shinsou said. “It’ll be helpful.”
“Yes it will!” she agreed. “Try pressing the button a few times. I can make some adjustments now that you’re here.”
Izuku leaned back and watched them mess around with the earpieces, a smile pulling at his lips. He really had missed them. And he couldn’t wait for workshop tomorrow. Even if it meant getting “accosted” by heroics students.
And indeed, the next day, he was in fact accosted. Four whole heroics students came in. He recognized them all by quirk, but knew none of their names – not because he didn’t care, but because it hadn’t exactly been relevant last year. He probably should have been paying attention more to the heroics classes throughout the past semesters, but he’d been kind of busy doing a million other things, and had neglected them beyond the necessities and some minor quirk analysis.
“I was looking for something with more coverage,” Hardening Quirk was saying, swiping through pictures of his current costume on his phone so Izuku could see. “Maybe a self healing fabric? My quirk does fine on its own, but I think extra protection could help.”
Izuku opened his costume box and turned over some of the pieces in his hands. “Mm, it’ll probably help make it less bulky too,” he said, pulling out a sheet of paper and starting a sketch. “If I do something like this, it’ll increase your mobility. We can keep the original design elements while making the costume more workable.”
Hardening Quirk leaned over the drawing, sizing it up while Izuku finished it.
“It’s just a rough sketch,” Izuku said, pulling his hands back. He could already feel his cheeks heating up.
“It looks good. You’re pretty manly.”
An odd choice of words, but okay. “Do you have anything you feel really strongly about keeping?” Izuku asked, starting a new sketch showing the back.
“The colors! But the rest of it I don’t mind changing.” He pointed to some of the design elements Izuku had started sketching in. “Maybe try to keep some of what’s already there, like don’t change anything too much, but it’s fine.”
“Are you going into Daylight Heroics?”
“Yep!”
“Got it.” Izuku dropped his pencil and went back to looking at the actual suit itself. “No problem! It’ll take me a few days, probably, so if you let me take a few pictures and samples of the original suit, you can take it back and I’ll replace it as soon as I can. I just need your name, homeroom, and seat number.”
“Oh sure, bro! Kirishima Eijirou, 2-A, seat 8.”
“Great.” Izuku took some pictures, wrote down the information he needed, and turned to look at the next heroics student who’d come in for some help. Tape Quirk.
“Wait, wait, one more thing,” Kirishima said, dropping another costume case on the table. “This is for our friend. He didn’t want to come in today –”
“He values his alone time,” the pink girl giggled. Acid Quirk.
“Yeah, but he wrote a note and asked me to drop this off for you.”
“Oh.” Izuku took the costume case. “No problem.”
He turned to Tape Quirk again and moved down the line one at a time. When he’d gotten all the information he needed, the four of them left in a group, chattering about the upgrades and the support department and Izuku. His cheeks burned until they were gone. He worked his thumbs over his pencil, up and down its ridges and over the rubbery eraser.
“Electricity over there is going to fry himself,” Mei observed suddenly.
“Yeah,” Izuku agreed, putting his pencil down. “I’ll think of something.”
“Maybe some sort of conducting fabric,” she said, leaning over his drawings and notes. “So it’ll direct excess power into the ground.”
“Or an absorbing fabric,” he said.
“Ooh, yes. But how will you minimize drain on his quirk, then? Maybe if it had some sort of container, like if he could hold the electricity for later use…”
Izuku flipped open the extra costume case and Mei trailed off, peering over his shoulder. There was a note on top of the black and orange costume. He flicked it open.
To the support tech everyone’s fucking talking about,
My quirk is Explosion and the blowback has been affecting my suit. It needs upgrades. I’m in 2-A, and inside this box is my costume. Make it better and return it to number 17 before class tomorrow.
“That is easily the most unhelpful note I’ve ever seen,” Mei said, leaning over Izuku’s shoulder.
“At least he explained what was wrong with what he already had,” Izuku said, although he could list a few more things the costume needed just from looking at it.
“Yeah, but no name? That’s so weird! I bet it’s that asshole who won the Sports Festival last year, because his quirk used explosions too.”
Izuku shrugged, opening the box. He couldn’t remember a guy with an explosion quirk last year. Surely something like that would have stood out to him. Kacchan had had an explosion quirk too…
Well, anyway.
“I can’t do this before tomorrow,” he said, unfurling the costume. “There’s no… Oh, no. That’s unfortunate.”
“Ooh! Grenades,” Mei said, peering closer. “They’re attached to his wrists! Hmm! How much power can they handle? How did the designer minimize blowback? What’s the contingency in case of an accidental explosion?”
“I might have to go up to 3-H and demand they explain why they designed this costume like this,” Izuku agreed. “It’s a hazard waiting to happen.”
“You two are a hazard waiting to happen,” Power Loader muttered on the way by.
Mei cackled.
“Well, I guess I’ll do what I can before tomorrow and tell him I have more I can do if he gives me more time,” Izuku murmured, feeling the coarse fabric of the suit.
Something about this was familiar. The explosion quirk, the design of the costume, the grenades. Kacchan…
Izuku had been five when his dad got the job offer. He remembered that day distinctly , because it was the first day he’d started to worry Kacchan didn’t like him anymore because he didn’t have a quirk. Later, Mom told Izuku part of the reason they’d moved was because both his parents could already tell people were being quirkist towards him, even if he was too young to notice it. But he’d never really connected the dots that even Kacchan had been quirkist until he was much older.
They’d been coloring together when Kacchan decided to start to draw his own costume for when he was a hero. Izuku had seen these drawings a hundred times – they were all the same, with a huge orange X across the chest. Back then, both of them had always modeled their costumes after All Might’s, but Kacchan insisted on the X, no matter what.
Happy to follow along, Izuku had started to draw his own too. He was interrupted when Kacchan snatched the crayon away from him and told him he couldn’t be a hero, and he’d never be a hero the same way Kacchan would be a hero, and he’d never be Number One like Kacchan would be. Izuku remembered it because it hurt. Because Kacchan had said those very same things before – that was just how he was – but before, it was all just talk.
But after he’d gotten his diagnosis and his mother had sobbed apologies into his shoulders, he knew he couldn’t be a hero, not really, and he knew Kacchan saw it. Suddenly what Kacchan was saying had real meaning, and it stung.
Mom rescued him right away, telling Kacchan not to be mean, and not soon after that, they left. They packed up and moved to I-Island, and then it was just Mom, Dad, and Izuku.
That was the last time he’d seen Kacchan.
But now, staring at a big orange X across the black chest of a costume for an explosive quirk, he couldn’t ignore it. Kacchan was here at this school. He’d won the Sports Festival last year. He’d always been around, shouting down the hallways and exploding things right and left.
Part of Izuku had always known it, but refused to acknowledge it. Now, he had to.
“You could slim these down,” Mei said suddenly, breaking Izuku’s train of thought. She poked at the grenades. “They’re ugly and dysfunctional, but they could actually be really useful if they were re-done.”
“Yeah,” he said, pushing the costume back into the box. “Yeah. I’ll think about it.”
Well, whether or not Kacchan was at this school, Izuku wasn’t going to go looking for him. There was no way he remembered Izuku, anyway, and finding that out would probably be more painful than just not getting in contact at all. Izuku had liked Kacchan a lot before they left. So much that he still thought about him sometimes, randomly. That wasn’t really a normal thing to do, after ten years apart.
He wondered if Kacchan had changed, or if he was still the same. He wondered which he wanted.
It didn’t really matter.
Notes:
Okay. question. How on earth did they fit all those costuming pieces into such tiny boxes? Bakugou’s grenades seriously fit in that? Seriously??? Because it’s not like those things are collapsible or something… are they like mary poppins costume cases???
Chapter 3: A Charged Grenade
Notes:
I'm trying so hard to have patience when I'm posting these chapters and i'm trying to put at least a little gap of time between each one but I AM FAILING i am failing very very much.
So have the next chapter haha
umm but I need to go run some errands and get lunch and stuff so I'll be gone for a bit before I can come back and post the next one <3 but I will return!
Chapter Text
When Katsuki walked into class on the third day of school, he half-expected to see nothing at all, evidence the brilliant support technician in 2-H was actually far from it. Instead, he was met with his costume case and a neatly folded note, arranged perfectly in the center of his desk.
Annoying.
He flipped open the note, ignoring Ashido’s and Kaminari’s excited squawking.
Hey, Seat 17! I upgraded this to minimize blowback, and also slimmed down the grenades a bit. If you give me some more time with it, I have a few other ideas I can implement. Just let me know!
From the support tech everyone’s fucking talking about :)
Extra annoying.
Katsuki hunted through the box to check for the grenades. They were significantly slimmer, but actually…. He squinted at them. They looked less heavy, for sure, and it would be easier to get through tight spaces. This ‘brilliant’ support technician had made the grenades easier to maneuver in, while maintaining the original design.
“Tch.”
He started stuffing his costume back into the box.
“He’s good, right?” Ashido piped up, peering into Bakugou’s box. He shoved her off, glowering. “He hasn’t given mine back yet, but I can already tell it’s going to be good. He gives off smart energy. Like, he just seems smart.”
“Well, he must be,” Sero said. “I heard someone say he designed the entire security system for the school, the one we’re using now to keep villains out. Nedzu probably tweaked it a bit, but still.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Katsuki muttered, getting up to shove his costume case back where it was supposed to go in the wall. “He’s a fucking genius, whatever.”
Eyebags slouched by, weaving around Katsuki’s crowd to get to his seat in the back.
“Oh, Shinsou!” Ashidow said, surprised. “I forgot you were in our class this year! You’ve been so quiet the last couple days.”
While Katsuki busied himself with rolling his eyes, Kirishima clapped Eyebags on the back. “Glad to have you, dude!”
“Hey…” Sero said, grinning at Eyebags like he just had a spectacular idea. Knowing him and the rest of these idiots, it was probably actually a spectacularly bad idea, but that was just semantics. “You’re friends with the genius support tech, right? The green one?”
Eyebags gave him a glare that was the nonverbal equivalent of a giant fuck off. “Yeah. And?”
“You guys hang out, right?”
Recognizing the stupidity of that follow-up question, Eyebags just blinked at him slowly a few times. When Sero did nothing to amend his question, Eyebags answered slowly, “Obviously.”
Katsuki was starting to like this guy.
“Oh, what’s he like?” Ashido asked, leaning in. “He’s so mysterious.”
Eyebags looked like he had never met a group of people more stupid than this one. Katsuki could relate.
“Leave him alone,” Katsuki grumbled. “No one likes being pestered by you guys.”
“Oops!” Ashido backed off. “Sorry, dude.”
Eyebags rolled his eyes – again, relatable, and fortunately before conversation could resume, Snipe walked in and started taking roll call.
That had come as a bit of a shock to everyone – even Katsuki, though he hid it well. They’d all grown… not fond, but… close to Aizawa all last year. The realization that he wasn’t going to remain their homeroom teacher, after everything, hit them all deep in the gut. He still, Katsuki had pointed out to the sobbing class, would supervise heroics classes, but otherwise, he had a new group of puny and stupid first year heroics students to deal with. It shouldn’t have come as a surprise to any of them.
And yet, it did.
Today they had practical heroics class again, though, so it would all be fine. Katsuki was looking forward to Practical Heroics this year. He’d improved a lot last year, but there was always, he’d learned, room for growth.
He waited it out through homeroom, tolerated English, made a solid attempt at tuning out his friends through lunch, mostly failed, and then finally it was time for Practical Heroics. Now at last, Katsuki could try out the costume upgrades this so-called brilliant technician had put in, and he could show Aizawa what he’d been working on over the break.
He rushed through pulling on his costume in the locker rooms, only pausing when he found another note attached to his headgear.
I think we should adjust these – my friend made a new headphone design that I think we should try implementing, to prevent tinnitus from the explosion volume. Your quirk might have a built-in noise-suppressor, but it’s definitely something to check!
What a nerd.
Well, whatever. Maybe Katsuki would go see the guy after classes today. He definitely seemed full of boundless energy, from the tone of his notes, and it couldn’t hurt to talk to him anyway.
He walked out into the hallway where Ashido was already talking Aizawa’s ear off, and released an annoyed “tch” when he realized the other three shitty extras were following him, as usual.
The noise caught Aizawa’s attention. Dark eyes swept up and down his costume, lingering on the wrist grenades. He met Katsuki’s eyes. “You’ve been to support,” he said, bored.
Katsuki lifted a shoulder, staring the old man down. “And?”
Aizawa looked at the grenades again. “They did a good job,” he said simply, and then he returned his attention to Ashido’s jabbering.
Never mind, then, all bets were off, and Katsuki would be actively murdering the support technician after classes were over today. The damn nerd was just an attention-stealing shit. Katsuki hated many things, but he mostly hated people who were better than him, and this guy was just not allowed to be better at knowing what Katsuki’s costume should be like than Katsuki himself.
He stormed out toward Ground Alpha just behind Aizawa, gnashing his teeth together. So the stupid support technician thought he needed hearing aids, huh? Was that what this was? He was calling Katsuki’s ears weak? Katsuki would show him what weak ears felt like.
As Katsuki made an incoherent growling sound, imagining wringing the support student’s neck, Aizawa shot him a look bordering on fucking amusement. As if Katsuki’s frustration was somehow funny.
Well.
All right, so maybe he was being overdramatic. Some random support student wasn’t a threat to Katsuki’s position. Ordinarily, an extra like that wouldn’t make him even think twice…
Something about that fucking note must have set him off.
Whatever.
Aizawa stopped just before the gate to Ground Alpha, turning around to face the class. “Due to the continuing threat from the League of Villains,” he droned, “we’ll be focusing this semester on balancing defensive and offensive strategies. Your goal before exams is to recognize: one, what constitutes defensive and offensive action; two, where defensive or offensive action is appropriate; and three, how to accurately determine which members of your team will be best on defense or offense in different situations on the fly. Understood?”
As he liked best, Aizawa was met with complete silence.
“Excellent. For today’s exercise, you will be split into pairs of–”
All Might crashed down next to him, striking a heroic pose which was immediately ruined by a coughing fit and the emergence of his skeletal form.
“As I was saying,” Aizawa continued, unimpressed. “Today you will be split into pairs of – oh, what now?”
He rounded on All Might, who had just murmured something into his ear. They shared a quick, clipped conversation which Katsuki’s completely undamaged ears couldn’t pick up, and then Aizawa turned resignedly once more to face the class.
“It appears our new security system detected an anomaly. The principal is investigating it now, and so until further notice, we will proceed with class as normal.” He shot an extra glare at All Might. “Today, the class will be split into pairs. For the first half of the class, one half of you will be villains and one half will be heroes. We will switch at the hour mark. The objective of the heroes is to protect one of those dummies,” he pointed at a pile of them, “from the villains. The objective of the villains is to take the dummy from the heroes. Are there any–”
He froze, raising a hand to his ear. All Might too, went stricken into silence. Slowly, both of them turned to look at the main school building a full kilometer away.
A huge boom from the direction of the school rocked through the packed dirt under Katsuki’s feet. A plume of gray smoke started up over the main building, and just barely visible over that… a purple fog.
“The support labs,” All Might said, puffing up into his larger form.
“They’re going for the goddamn Problem Child,” Aizawa muttered, and took off at a dead sprint for the school.
“All right, class,” Snipe called over their heads. “We’re going to stay right here – please be on your guard for an attack.”
All Might bunched up his legs to jump and went out in a puff of smoke, shriveling into the skeleton again. Aizawa wasn’t moving fast enough. And Snipe wanted them to stay put and duck their heads like cowards? Not a fucking chance.
Before anyone could try to stop him, Katsuki launched himself into the air with a few well-timed explosions. Snipe shouted after him, but he didn’t look back and didn’t care to listen right now anyway. Villains were here. Katsuki would stop them.
He shot straight through the large windows of the support classrooms, glass raining down all around him. The room was absolute chaos, a huge purple portal hovering in the ceiling. Support students ran wild with equipment, shooting stuff into the purple portal, fighting off League grunts, screaming. Power Loader and a few other teachers who had shown up to fight were clearly torn between restoring order and fighting the bad guys.
Katsuki would take care of the issue for them.
He braced his arms to take off, palms crackling, and was suddenly tackled from the side.
“Stay down,” the person on top of him yelled. “Mei, go!”
A loud cackle rose over the clamor as Katsuki fought to free himself. His attacker was small, but clearly knew how to hold a person down.
Half a second later, an unpleasant thud vibrated through the cement floor. And then another.
The classroom went dead silent, except the regular metallic thuds. Katsuki pushed his attacker off so he could see.
His jaw dropped.
The pink-haired crazy from last year’s sport’s festival was riding a giant robot through the support classrooms. The stupid thing had a huge torso, which she was sitting in, manning the controls; two spindly arms with clawed metal hands at the bottom; and two long, thick legs, which were the originator of the thudding noises.
“Take this,” Katsuki’s attacker said, shoving something into his hands. Katsuki caught sight of a black sweatshirt, hood pulled up over the ears, before the guy disappeared.
He opened his hands.
In his palms laid a round vial of clear liquid, with a note tied around the cork. As the pink-haired crazy started firing stuff out of her giant robot, Katsuki unfolded the note. In newly-familiar, slanted handwriting, it read:
Stick it in your grenades and fire :)
Katsuki was never one to ask too many questions. He uncorked the bottle, poured it down the hatch in his grenades, and lifted his arm to aim. He pointed the grenade right at the portal, stuck a finger into the pin, and forced himself to breathe once, in and out. The blowback always ripped his shoulder.
“Mei, down!” someone screamed.
He pulled the pin.
An explosion roared through the air, shooting clear into the portal. Shockwaves rippled over the classrooms, blowing students right and left. The portal flickered, fading in and out in wisps.
Katsuki’s shoulder felt… completely fine.
Aizawa rolled in through the window behind Katsuki, eyes red and glaring. He grabbed the black hoodie guy by the scruff of his neck as he tried to run by.
“If you’re not going to listen to directions and stay out of the fighting,” Aizawa snarled at Katsuki, pushing the black hoodie guy straight into his chest, “then make yourself useful and get this one out of here. He’s their target. Get him to safety, or you can find yourself a new school.”
With that, Aizawa turned and lept into the fray.
Ugh. Fucking babysitting.
Katsuki took black hoodie guy by the elbow and dragged him back toward the window. The support classrooms were all on the ground floor where the building was most stable, thank fuck, so he was able to shove Hoodie Kid out and drop down after him with ease.
Hoodie Kid had the good sense, at least, to keep his head ducked down where villains wouldn’t be able to recognize him. His hood was deep, too, and much too big for him, casting all of his face in shadow except a single tuft of green hair.
“This way,” Katsuko ordered, heading toward his heroics class, where at least Snipe and the rest of his idiot classmates would be able to protect him.
Instead of following, though, Hoodie Kid turned around and headed in the exact opposite direction. “Inside will be safer,” he said by way of explanation. “Come on, I know a place.”
Katsuki wanted to argue but Hoodie Kid was already on a fucking journey around the school, and there was no stopping him. Growling in annoyance, Katsuki trudged along behind.
So this was the asshole that changed his grenades, stole all his glory, and interrupted his favorite class. He was scrawny and utterly lame, not even worth the energy of murdering. What a disappointment.
Hoodie Kid ducked under the low-hanging branches of a pine tree that had been planted way too close to the school building, needles brushing up against the wall. Katsuki wrinkled up his nose and started to head around the trunk instead.
“Under here,” Hoodie Kid hissed.
Wow, an idiot support technician. Fucking fantastic. “I am not hiding from villains under a fucking tree.”
“No, you vapid dandelion–” Hoodie Kid interrupted himself with a long sigh. “Just come here.”
Was this really what Katsuki’s dream of heroics had come to? He cast a glare at the heavens before walking back around the base of the tree to where Hoodie Kid had disappeared. When Katsuki could see inside well enough, Hoodie Kid pushed on a panel of the wall underneath the branches, and an entire section of wall behind the tree sunk down, revealing a long secret passage.
“Behold,” Hoodie Kid said, before disappearing into the tunnel.
Well, now Katsuki was just curious. Protecting his head with both forearms, he ducked under the tree. The needles scratched and tugged at his suit, but both it and he survived and he came into the tunnel almost unscathed.
Hoodie Kid waited for him in the darkness ahead, crouched down so his head didn’t hit the low ceilings. “All in?” he whispered.
Katsuki grunted an affirmative, and the door slid silently shut behind him, dropping the tunnels into pitch darkness.
“I think Nedzu designed these for rodent-sized beings, so you’ll have to crawl,” Hoodie Kid murmured. “Also, there are no lights.”
“Whatever.” Katsuki rolled his eyes. He wasn’t going to crawl through the tunnels like a fucking dog.
He took two steps forward and smacked his face directly into a cement wall.
“Did you not hear what I said?” Hoodie kid snapped. “ Crawl.”
Nope, Katsuki definitely wanted to kill this guy. But until he could get an opportunity, he would have to sacrifice his dignity to heroics yet again. Huffing in annoyance, he got down on his hands and knees and crawled after Hoodie Kid through the stifling darkness.
After a few minutes, the walls began to open up on either side. Not long after that, Katsuki heard a faint click, and a soft orange light filled the space around them.
The room they had entered into was much larger than Katsuki had thought it would be – big enough for him to lay down flat on his back in either direction and still have room below his feet and above his head, and tall enough to stand fully up in. Hoodie Guy was already sitting with his legs crossed under him on the other side of the space, head ducked down under his hood.
“Sorry about the crawl,” he said. “This was just the safest place I could think of. Also –” he popped one of the tiles on the floor open, pulling it up like a trapdoor, and retrieved a computer connected to a bunch of wires under the flooring – “we can access the security system.”
He hunched over the computer and started to click and type his way through it.
“Who are you?” Katsuki blurted out, glaring. Because, honestly, who was this fucker to incite a League of Villains attack, drag Katsuki down a musty tunnel, and mess with his grenades?
“Oh! Sorry.” Hoodie Kid reached up, pulling his over-large hood back down so it settled on his shoulders. Green hair, freckles, huge dark eyes. A grin that stretched his cheeks so far it looked almost uncomfortable. “I’m Midoriya Izuku!”
Katsuki froze. No way. No fucking way.
The last time he’d seen Deku, he’d…
No. No.
Well, obviously Deku wouldn’t remember him, though. They were only five back then, way too young for Deku to remember, probably, even if Katsuki remembered everything like it was yesterday. It would be best to move on, probably.
“Nice to fucking meet you, I guess,” Katsuki muttered. “I’m Bakugou Katsuki.
For a second, he could have sworn Deku’s expression faltered. But then the smile was back, full force, like nothing had happened at all. “Nice to meet you!”
Chapter 4: An Unknown Friend
Notes:
back from errands! I will try to finish this fic as soon as I can!! :D
Chapter Text
Of course Kacchan didn’t remember him. It had been years since they last saw each other, and Izuku was just a nobody back then. It was understandable.
But it still really, really hurt.
Shaking his head, Izuku went back to focusing on finding the error in his security system. He’d known immediately when the alarms went off, but it shouldn’t have been possible for the League to breach UA anyway, even with Kurogiri on their side. The security system was designed like a magnetic shield to keep all warping impossible. There must have been some sort of flaw in the shield.
“Midoriya Izuku,” Kacchan muttered, like he was trying the words out for the first time. Painful, painful. “You designed the fucking –” He pointed at the ceiling. “You did the new security system?”
Izuku shrugged, and then nodded. “Um, yeah! I came up with the idea, at least, but Nedzu and Power Loader helped with the actual… execution of it? I guess. Clearly there’s a problem with it, though, or the League wouldn’t have been able to get in.”
Kacchan stared at him like he was some kind of alien, and Izuku’s neck started to prickle with rising heat.
“And that’s why the League is trying to fucking kill you or whatever?”
“Or kidnap me?” Izuku guessed. “Yeah, probably… but I didn’t really get a chance to ask, you know… with all the craziness. But, I don’t know, they did seem pretty, um, determined…”
“Hmph.” Kacchan settled back against the wall, crossing his arms and glaring.
“A-anyway… um, I’m going to try to kick them out. The school might shake a little, sorry.”
Izuku searched his code for the error, starting up a few system checks while reading through it manually. After a few runs, he found a semicolon one character out of place. Triumphant, he switched them around. “Need to reboot the system,” he muttered.
Kacchan watched him silently.
“Okay, so that should keep them from coming back in, anyway, once they’re gone, so now I just need to…”
Kacchan did not need a full run through of Izuku’s plan. The muttering had to stop.
“Need to fucking what?” Kacchan demanded.
Or maybe he wanted one.
“Oh, u-um, I just need to… kick them out,” Izuku explained. He pulled up Nedzu’s immense system of traps throughout the school, all of them set and waiting. “Can you open the tile to your right?” Izuku asked. “I need a second computer.”
Kacchan wordlessly retrieved the spare. The connecting wires barely reached where Izuku was sitting, but he stretched and made it work. Logging on with the all-access credentials Nedzu had given him last year, he pulled up the security camera footage of the roof and support labs.
“Wow. Chaos descends.” The support lab was an absolute wreck. Half the cameras weren’t even working. Mei would have loved this birdseye view.
Kacchan scooched around so he could see what Izuku was looking at. Several more League grunts had dropped into the classroom, and one unlucky soul was attempting to go out the door and access the main building. Izuku zapped her with one of the door handle tasers and she fell immediately to the floor, unconscious. He sprang traps on the rest of them, one by one, and finally shot off another bomb into Kurogiri, forcing the gate to snap shut, and the League to withdraw.
Success!
“Do you ever wonder where Nedzu is when stuff like this happens?” Izuku said, shutting down the first laptop.
“He is right here, watching you work!” Nedzu chirped from the dark hallway just beyond the room. Izuku jumped, and Kacchan fully prepared for battle, palms crackling. “Excellent job, Midoriya!”
“Oh, u-uh, thank you, sir,” Izuku answered, pushing the laptop back where it was supposed to go and ducking his head in an awkward bow. “Um… I checked the security system and stuff….”
Nedzu strolled into the tiny space, arms clasped behind his back and a pleased smile across his furry cheeks. “That I saw! How that mistake escaped us in the first place is beyond anyone, hmm?” He turned to look at Kacchan. “Welcome, Bakugou Katsuki, to my tunnels! How have you liked your visit?”
“It’s fucking dusty in here,” Katsuki muttered.
Izuku bit on his tongue to stop himself from gasping, or chastising Kacchan for speaking to the principal that way. The genius principal who could murder either of them in a second and make it look like a birthday party gone wrong in even less time. Best not to get on his bad side.
“That it is!” the principal answered goodnaturedly. “But convenient, yes? I will say I was impressed when Midoriya here found the entrances all by himself. No student has managed it before!”
Kacchan scoffed, as if to say he would have managed it if given enough time.
Izuku didn’t know Kacchan very well any more, probably – ten years could change a lot about a person – but he could say with some confidence that Kacchan would not have been able to find the entrances to Nedzu’s tunnels by himself. That wasn’t a brag, it was just sheer fact. Izuku had only found the tunnels by accident, and after that first entrance, the rest of the passages had opened themselves up for him. It would take a great deal of luck to replicate that series of coincidences.
“Well, Midoriya?” Nedzu asked as Izuku finished putting away the second computer. “What did you learn today?”
This was a test, and Izuku hadn’t studied. “Um… I learned the League of Villains is trying to kidnap me?” he guessed.
“Correct!” Nedzu said, happily clasping his hands in front of his red tie. “Do you know what this means?”
Izuku felt his cheeks start to heat up. “I’m a liability.”
“No, you are an asset. ” Nedzu grinned, revealing far too many teeth for Izuku’s comfort. “Do you know why?”
He did not, but he did have half a guess. “I can be used as bait?”
Nedzu cackled, turned, and started down the tunnels from whence he came. Izuku scrambled to his hands and knees and started after him, Kacchan following at the back with a few muttered curses.
“Mr. Principal, I don’t think I want to be used as bait?” Izuku called ahead. “Respectfully.”
“Never fear, Midoriya! I have no intention of doing anything that might cause you distress.”
Well, that was reassuring, even if it was probably not true. “Also, my parents will need to sign permission slips if you intend to put me in danger,” he pointed out.
Nedzu actually paused midstep for a second, confirming Izuku’s suspicions. His foot hovered in midair, small brown boot hesitating before he continued strolling on as normal, almost as if nothing had happened. “My goals are never to put you in danger!” he promised.
It had taken some time for Izuku to be able to read Nedzu. Usually it wasn’t hard – just being in the same room as a person was enough to understand their feelings, mood, and even some of their thoughts. People were more transparent than they realized.
Kacchan, for example, was frustrated at the moment and entirely full of disbelief that Izuku himself had designed the security system. Well, yes. He had. He was a normal student, who happened to have gone to the best elementary and middle schools for support and technology in the entire world. So yes, creating a security system for all of UA, after growing up around I-Island’s behemoth of a security system, wasn’t actually that hard.
Unlike Kacchan and most other people, however, Nedzu was very difficult to get a read on. He placed careful masks over everything he did. But Izuku had learned, both from experience and from a lot of trial and error, that one thing Nedzu never did was lie.
Oh, he told falsehoods left and right. He walked meticulously around deception, but he never stepped over the line. His truths always had a double meaning. It made him a very stimulating being to talk to – every conversation with him had the potential to ascend to a higher level of intellect that Izuku found challenging and fresh – but it also made it painfully difficult to outmaneuver him.
In other words, “my goals are never to put you in danger,” was pretty much synonymous with, “indirectly, I will indeed be putting you in danger.”
Which was not comforting.
At all.
Nedzu stopped at the end of the hallway that led to his office, punched in the code (Izuku had been trying to break in here for months , so he paid close attention), and stepped into the room, holding the door for Izuku and Katsuki.
“Oh, would you look at that,” Shinsou’s voice said, somewhere above. “My idiot friend survived.”
“A true tragedy,” Izuku answered, pulling himself to his feet and beginning what was going to be a long process of dusting himself off. He’d need a shower later, for sure. “Thanks for forgetting your hoodie in the shop, by the way,” he said, pulling the bottom of it up and over his head. The hem of his shirt rode up and he fumbled to pull it back down, glancing at Kacchan.
He’d definitely seen.
Izuku felt his face start to heat up and he willed it to stop. He had a very obvious blush, and he did not need Katsuki, who, by the way, had grown into an extremely attractive teenager, to know he was feeling flustered. He wasn’t flustered, anyway. He was just… shy.
Nedzu’s office had more people in it than Izuku had expected. A good quarter of the teachers, Shinsou, some of the second year heroics students, and of course Izuku, Katsuki, and Nedzu. Someone must have called an emergency meeting.
“So!” Nedzu said, climbing into the chair behind his desk. “Forward action, yes? That is what we must discuss! Midoriya has kindly pointed out that we cannot use him as bait without express permission from his parents, which, as we have experienced, can be difficult to obtain.”
Izuku restrained a smirk. At times, Mom’s overprotectiveness could be annoying. Right now, it was awesome.
“Who was planning on using him as bait?” Eraserhead said from across the room.
“I was!” Nedzu said with a cheery grin. “But all is fine! We will simply make a new plan. Until then, Midoriya’s safety has been compromised. Luckily, he has a fine peer group of students to keep an eye on him. For example, Shinsou is in the heroics track and already is often in Midoriya’s presence. I suggest we upgrade his position as ‘friend’ to a position as ‘bodyguard.’”
“Upgrade,” Shinsou repeated, entire face twisted in disbelief.
“Indeed! I would like to enlist the help of several heroics students and teachers to make sure Midoriya is never vulnerable to attack.”
“This seems unnecessary–” Izuku tried to protest, but he was cut off by none other than All Might himself.
“Young man,” All Might said, and Izuku blinked very hard so he wouldn’t start crying at the direct address from All Might himself, “every step we take to ensure your safety will be a good one. We should spare no expense of time and effort to help you.”
First of all, wow. Izuku was going to write that down later. All Might had looked him straight in the eyes and said, “We should spare no expense of time and effort to help you.” Izuku was in serious danger of passing out.
Second of all.
“Just because I designed a half-good security system,” Izuku argued, and oh wow, he was arguing with All Might himself , “doesn’t mean you all have to jump over hoops and bounds for me. I was fine all last year. I don’t expect–”
“You weren’t a target all last year,” Eraserhead pointed out.
“Okay, fine, but–”
“I can help guard him,” Kacchan said.
Izuku rounded on him, mouth hanging open. He looked serious, jaw set in a sharp line, thin eyebrows furrowed down. Time really had been kind to Bakugou Katsuki. He was… pretty. Izuku’s flush came back in full force, spreading heat up through the tips of his ears and over his cheeks.
But why? Why would Kacchan agree to do that? Even if he hadn’t realized Izuku was the same stupid Deku from ten years ago, he’d made it infinitely clear he found Izuku annoying.
He had to have some ulterior motive, or he wouldn’t have offered. That must have been it.
“I don’t need your protection,” Izuku snapped. “Or, um, or anyone’s protection, I mean.” He turned back to the group. “I don’t want to bother everyone.”
Shinsou rolled his eyes. “It’s not a bother, dumbass. First of all, literally everyone in this room except you wants to do shit like this as a career. Second of all, it’s you. Brilliant, kind you. Obviously we want to help.”
Izuku’s lip wobbled and he plunged his burning face into both his hands before he started crying in front of Kacchan. Sometimes Shinsou’s sincerity came out of nowhere and hit him straight in the stomach like the ultimate gut punch. Shinsou was a horrible, horrible friend for exactly that reason, because sometimes, when his love spilled over, it felt like getting smacked by a tank. And there was no fighting against a tank.
“Okay,” Izuku mumbled into his hands. “Okay, fine. But can we stop calling it “guarding” me?”
“Think of it like gaining a bunch of new friends, all at once,” Shinsou offered. “You love making friends.”
Izuku elbowed him weakly without uncovering his face. “Shut up.”
–
When Deku looked at Katsuki as they left the office, he had a question in his big green eyes.
Why?
Katsuki wouldn’t tell him if he had the answer, but that was stupid anyway, because Katsuki didn’t know why the fuck he’d volunteered to guard Deku. Maybe to prove something. Usually shit had something to do with that.
But also.
He’d done it because he was curious.
Deku had changed, obviously, over the last ten years. He stood with his back straight and his head up. He talked like someone who not only held vast pools of intelligence just under the surface, but also knew how to dumb it down for everyone on a lower plane than him. Just listening to him talking to the rat had given Katsuki a headache.
But Deku also gave Katsuki the distinct impression that he didn’t realize how much he was worth. That he didn’t realize how much of an impact he’d clearly had on the school, if this security system was the only thing keeping everyone safe, and if Uraraka had recommended his costume designs enough to send entire flocks of people to see him, and if throughout the entire conversation in the office Aizawa had been sending him those looks of pure amazement that he only handed out every once in a while. Deku couldn’t understand why anyone would find him amazing. And that made Katsuki wonder.
And it also made him feel really fucking shitty about himself, because he’d been such an ass when they were kids, and somehow Deku had survived through it and grown up to be able to fight the League of Villains pretty much single handedly and win. Whatever drugs five-year-old Katsuki had been on, they had fucked up his perception of the world and Deku’s place in it, for sure.
Katsuki pulled his headgear off and chucked it at Deku, smirking when the nerd fumbled to catch it. “You said you can minimize damage to my ears,” he said.
“Oh!” Deku nodded. “I can.”
“I think you should start requesting payment for this kind of thing,” Shinsou muttered from a few steps behind them. He needed to fuck off. Katsuki had volunteered for the first shift.
Why had he done that? Who fucking knew.
Regardless, Shinsou’s presence was not needed at the moment. Katsuki sent him a scathing glare to get him to go away. It didn’t work.
At least Deku ignored Shinsou. “I figure your quirk has some sort of built-in block against hearing damage,” he said to Katsuki. “Like that ice quirk guy has against getting cold. Most quirks have encoded physical protection.”
“Right.” Katsuki sensed a ‘but’ coming.
“But,” Deku said and Katsuki smirked in triumph, “the problem is these…” He turned and grabbed one of Katsuki’s hands, pulling it toward him so he could examine the grenade on his wrist.
Oh.
Wow.
Katsuki had never really realized this before, but he was actually very gay. Very much. Extremely gay. Stupid Shitty Hair and company had been assuming this for months, and Katsuki had never really had the energy or care to correct them, but now he realized that they were, for once, right.
Fucking hell.
“They’re just louder than your normal explosions,” Deku was saying, “and so they might go over the threshold barrier for your quirk. My friend designed these really cool earpieces over the break for Shinsou that I think we can recreate and modify to block out noises at a certain frequency. They could probably double as comms, too, so it’ll integrate well with patrols. If you’re willing to devote some time to experimentation, we can try out a few things and see what you like best.”
He still had not let go of Katsuki’s hand.
“How did these work out today?” Deku asked, leaning closer so he could see the intricate grooves and mechanisms of the grenades. “That stuff I gave you was just an experiment I was playing with earlier. It was designed to integrate with the nitroglycerin sweat you produce to create a bigger explosion. I was worried it would inadvertently cause a bigger blowback, so I wanted to test it first, but when I designed these I tried to make them more absorbent, so even though they’re slimmer, they use folded materials to distribute the shock into a wider surface area. And I would have tested it first, of course, but then there was the attack, and you were there, and there wasn’t time. But the point is…”
Okay Deku really needed to back off. Immediately.
But his freckles were like fucking constellations, dotted over his nose and cheeks in a fascinating pattern. Katsuki wanted to pull back, but he couldn’t. A shiver ran up and down his arms, up and down again.
Fucking. Hell.
“... and they should have created a sort of buffer noise-wise to help everyone in the support labs also not get hearing damage. The shockwave was unfortunate but that can’t be prevented scientifically, so I’m not too wor– oh, sorry,” Deku said, abruptly cutting off his own muttering. “Sorry. I just wanted to know how these worked out today? How was the shock absorption?”
“Fine…”
“Okay, so that–” Shinsou slapped the crook of Katsuki’s elbow, forcing him to jerk his hand out of Deku’s grip, “is enough of that.”
Chapter 5: A Tactless Reassurance
Notes:
I think I can do one more chapter today and then I'm going to have to go to sleep hehe :)
Chapter Text
“I don’t like him,” Shinsou declared.
“I think he’s funny!” Mei said. “He has those angry rahhh eyebrows.”
“I don’t like him,” Shinsou repeated.
“Hold on, let me get this straight,” Melissa said, waving her arms around in the screen of the video call to get them to stop talking. “Izuku has fallen in love with a giant asshole with angry rahhh eyebrows.”
“That’s correct.”
“Huh.”
Izuku hated that this conversation was even happening. “I have not,” he said through gritted teeth, “fallen in love.”
Shinsou gave him an unimpressed look.
“I have maybe developed a crush,” Izuku admitted.
“On an asshole,” Melissa said, tone a direct echo of Shinsou’s continuingly flat expression.
“He’s not an asshole,” Izuku protested. “He just has layers.”
“Pass me the drill!” Mei shouted.
Izuku handed it over without looking up from the screen. They were sitting in the workshop way after hours, so late Power Loader had left after making them promise to A, not blow anything up, and B, lock the doors when they went back to the dorms. Izuku had given up on work about an hour ago when they’d called Melissa, and now he and Shinsou were sitting side by side on top of one of the tables, Melissa propped up in front of them, and Mei doing god-knows-what behind them.
Izuku shook his head, trying to form what he meant into actual words. “I’m just saying, underneath the… what are we calling them? Beneath the… angry rahhh eyebrows… he’s actually kind of nice. And thoughtful.”
“And you would know this because…”
“We actually grew up together!” Izuku said, delighted to share this information. “Before I came to I-Island.”
“Wait wait wait.” Melissa held up a finger for quiet. “Is this the same guy that bullied you relentlessly and told you you couldn’t be a hero because you’re quirkless?”
“Okay, that is a vast exaggeration of the word choice he used, but yes.”
“Ah, how nice and thoughtful he is,” Shinsou said dryly.
Izuku shot him a look. “We were five.”
“Listen, Midoriya,” Shinsou said. “I know you’re in this weird honeymoon phase of just reuniting with your old friend and realizing he’s kind of attractive or whatever. But I actually have to go to class with this asshole every single day. He is entitled, he is arrogant, he has a serious inferiority complex. I’m having trouble seeing even why his friends hang out with him. So the idea of being in love with him?” Shinsou made a very ugly face, all wrinkled nose and sour mouth.
“I don’t know, Izuku…” Melissa said slowly. “I’m torn because in general you kind of have really good… oh, what’s the word in Japanese… the one… like where you know things... One second.”
The sound of typing clacked over the line. Izuku waited patiently for her to translate – his English was solid from years on I-Island, but Shinsou’s was pretty bad and Mei’s was abysmal, so they almost always exclusively video-called in Japanese. Usually it wasn’t a problem because Melissa was fluent, but sometimes they ran into some blocks.
“Oh, this one’s it. You tend to have really good instincts, especially about people. Like you realize things about people before I notice them. So I feel like on the one hand, if you think this guy is secretly super nice, then I’m not going to doubt you. But on the other hand, I know that you also have kind of a bad habit of trusting people first and asking questions later, and so I’m worried.”
That was probably true, unfortunately. Izuku could be a little… over willing to give people the benefit of the doubt.
“Well, it’s a moot point anyway,” Izuku said miserably. “He doesn’t remember me and he probably doesn’t care about me now either.”
Mei tapped Izuku’s shoulder. “I need the eleven millimeter wrench!”
He handed it over.
She cackled.
“Maybe just start with trying to be friends,” Melissa suggested. “See where that gets you first.”
Izuku nodded. “Yeah. I’m not worried about it, exactly, it’s just kind of… hard. Like he’s very difficult to be around… casually. It takes serious determination.”
Shinsou snorted. “I’ll say.”
“Then maybe you’re not a great fit,” Melissa said gently. “That’s okay.”
“As I always say,” Mei said, pushing past Izuku to dig in the toolbox herself, “it never hurts to experiment!”
“You’re not even paying attention to the conversation,” Shinsou said, sounding truly awestruck as Mei retrieved another wrench and returned to her work.
“Nope!”
“Well, Hatsume does have–”
“Call me Mei!”
“Oh – Mei does have a point. You have two more years left at UA, and you’ll spend most of that in the workshop. And you always spend your breaks at I-Island. If you do try dating and it goes horribly… I mean, you don’t have long to suffer, is my point.”
“I love how all of you just fill me with brimming confidence,” Izuku muttered.
“No!” Melissa laughed. “ All I mean is if you managed to go an entire year without realizing your childhood best friend is in your school, it should be easy to avoid him for another two.”
Izuku groaned, burying his face in his greasy hands.
“It is a big school,” Shinsou said, giving him a pat on the back.
“I hate all of you.”
“So maybe you should try dating him, is what I’m saying, even if it might not work out,” Melissa said. “I mean, clearly you like him. So what’s the worst that could happen?”
Izuku considered for a moment. “Murder.”
Shinsou nodded in agreement, pursing his lips.
“I need the pliers!”
Izuku passed them over, and then realized he probably shouldn’t have let Mei’s project go unsupervised for so long, especially without Power Loader to check on her. “What are you even doing back there?” he asked, slipping off the table and coming around to see. She was hunched over a hand-sized contraption, poking around in its belly with the pliers.
“Ah! It’s a –”
BOOM.
And that was how Mei and Izuku got banned from the workshop after hours.
–
Katsuki was not creepy, and he was not a stalker, and he was not taking advantage of his position as a heroics student to watch Deku work.
He was actually exhibiting huge amounts of self control.
He sat on the sofa in the common room with his hands balled into fists and tried not to think about stupid Deku and his fucking smile. He didn’t want to think about Deku right now, because Deku was distracting and Deku was a big giant “NO” in red letters on the sidewalk. Deku was banned from Katsuki’s mind. No Deku.
And yet.
That perfect constellation of freckles over his cheeks. How his lips curled up before he smiled. His eyes, huge and deep and green.
The way that when he spoke, his entire body burst into motion, like he couldn’t get the words out fast enough and so he was manifesting it in the frantic waving of his hands instead. The way that when he worked, he leaned deep over the table, eyebrows furrowing into a perfect ‘v,’ concentrating so deeply he blocked out the entire outside world. The way that he was just… Deku.
Katsuki could not stop thinking about him.
But he was exercising restraint.
He waited for his shift of genius-sitting, as Class 2-A had taken to calling it, he walked there exactly on time, he spent the time in perfect silence, and then he left. He had done this two times now, and both times were supper fucking painful and awkward. But he was not letting his emotions get the better of him. He was in full control of himself. And there were some things a person had to trade for the sake of sanity.
Today was his third shift. He was fucking dreading it.
But also, being around Deku was like sitting in the sun. It was rejuvenating and exciting and a little bit terrifying because burns could fucking hurt, but mostly it was just warm.
So there was that.
He checked the time again. Technically, if he left now and walked really slowly, he could be there precisely at the moment he was supposed to be.
No. He would leave in two minutes.
Well. He could start putting his shoes on now at least. Just be very careful with it, untie them all the way and retie them, instead of just jamming his feet in and wriggling his toes around until the shoes straightened out. He could start getting ready, probably.
Shooting the silently studying Ojiro an angry look, Katsuki got out of his seat, picked up his bag, and headed for the door. No one had any right to judge him. He was doing his job which he had begrudgingly volunteered to do. This was not because he wanted to spend time with shitty Deku.
He sat down on the step in the entrance hall, pulled his right shoe into his lap, and carefully undid the ties, pulling them up all the way down to the bottom of the shoe for maximum looseness. He stuffed his foot in and yanked on the laces until they were perfectly tight again, tying them in a bow and double knotting it. He picked up his left shoe.
It wasn’t like he liked Deku anyway. The shitty nerd was annoying and way too smart for his own good and he muttered to himself all the time, which made Katsuki’s stomach feel all weird and warm for some reason, and he had horrible taste in friends.
He tied off his second shoe, checked the knot a few times, and glanced at the time.
He’d have to walk slowly, but fine.
Really, Katsuki was only doing this because he wanted to fight the League again if they came back. That would show all the extras that Katsuki really was going to be the Number One hero. He’d beat all the villains.
So it wasn’t about Deku at all.
The school rose above him and he trudged in, weaving down the hallways to get to the support classrooms. Sometimes it seemed like Deku never fucking left the workshop. He was always there with that crazy pink-haired girl, and sometimes Eyebags. His dedication to support tech was… cool.
Fuck! No more of that.
Katsuki kicked the door to the support workshops open and stormed inside. Shitty Deku was bent over a very small, black contraption, so focused he didn’t even look up as Katsuki stomped over. Kirishima grinned as Katsuki sat down at the next table over. He passed him a high five on his way by. “Have a good shift!” he said.
“Yeah yeah whatever,” Katsuki muttered.
Deku’s head shot up. He looked around as though he’d never seen this workshop before, blinking, and met eyes with Katsuki. “Oh! Hi. Ummm.” He waved at Kirishima. “Bye, then! Thanks.”
“No problem, bro! You’re chill.”
Deku ducked his head and Kirshima, thankfully, left.
The workshop was surprisingly empty. The pink-haired girl and Shinsou weren’t in here, and Power Loader was also suspiciously gone. Only a few students sat at the desks at the back of the classroom, murmuring quietly amongst themselves.
Technically it was after school, but there were usually more people around than this.
“Where are all the extras?” Katsuki asked, glowering.
Deku looked up, confused, before his eyebrows shot up in understanding and he returned his focus to the tiny contraption, poking at it with an equally tiny screwdriver head. “Oh, Mei and Shinsou went to one of the gyms to test a new ba – uh, support item Mei made for him. Power Loader was worried it would break either one of them or the gym, so he went along to supervise. And everyone else is just at home, probably? It is the last day before the weekend.”
Katsuki did not like Eyebags or the pink haired crazy, but he’d prefer they were here right now. He didn’t want to be alone with Deku – who knew what could happen?
No, Katsuki was a hero, the best of the best, and he could handle this.
Deku had fallen into silence, fully focused on his stupid invention. Katsuki crossed his arms and settled into a terse quiet.
His shift was three hours long.
He could sit here quietly for three hours.
When Deku was really focused, the tip of his tongue poked just out of the corner of his mouth, a light pink emergence on his lips. Katsuki experimented with poking his own tongue out and realized that it required biting to get it to stay there. He glowered at Deku. He should not be biting his tongue while working on things that had been proven liable to explode. That was a great way to bite a tongue off.
But it also made Deku look kind of…
Oh for fuck’s sake.
Katsuki seized his backpack and took out his laptop, just to keep himself from staring at fucking Deku. What a distraction. He flipped open the computer and clicked through to get to the essay assignment Snipe had given them all a few days ago. He needed to do research into one of those really stealthy villains, the ones most people didn’t realize were there until it was much too late, and write an essay on what the best method of catching said villain would be. Boring stuff.
Katsuki opened a new tab, typing in the name of the villain group.
A bunch of nothing popped up, which was just peachy. Snipe didn’t make his assignments any easier than Aizawa had.
By editing his search a few times, Katsuki did manage to get a few articles, which were all buried under firewalls, and what was clearly a sketchy link. He stared at the link for a moment. He looked up at Deku. He stared at the link again.
No, he was not going to open a sketchy ass link just to get Deku to talk to him. That was just stupid. What was getting into him?
“Okay, let’s try this,” Deku said, straightening up. He walked over to Katsuki, holding out his very tiny invention. “For your ears.”
Katsuki tried not to look surprised, setting his computer aside.
“They’re the high frequency blockers,” Deku explained.
So that’s what he’d been working on.
It didn’t mean anything special. Deku worked on stuff for people all the time. It seemed like he very rarely did anything for himself, which was just like him. But this, he had done for Katsuki , which for some reason felt different, even if it really fucking wasn’t.
Katsuki took the tiny black earpiece from Deku and stuck it in his right ear.
“How does the fit feel?” Deku asked, peering at it closely. He leaned forward until his face was right next to Katsuki’s so he could see, and Katsuki could have sworn his heart stopped beating. Even now, it wasn’t working anymore. He couldn’t remember how to breathe.
“Get off,” he mumbled, elbowing Deku weakly.
“Oh, sorry!” Deku backed away. “But how does it feel?”
“It fits fucking fine.”
“You’ll have to try exercising in it,” Deku said, eyebrows twisting up anxiously. “I’m not sure how well it’ll stay in during exertion. So just keep it for a bit and tell me how it feels and stuff, and I’ll take some notes and make a better one, as a full pair, as soon as you know.”
“Fine.”
“Okay, um…” Deku looked around the workshop. “That’s actually all I wanted to do today… But I guess I could find something else to work on. I still have, um… Acid Quirk’s suit to finish up, but I wanted to talk to her about it for a second, so she said she’d come in. But I guess I could mess with it…” He turned to Katsuki, looking very worried. “Do you have anything you wanted to do? I interrupted…” He gestured at Katsuki’s computer.
Katsuki glared at the stupid thing. “I was trying to write an essay on The Lighters, but the stupid internet has nothing good. Bunch of firewalls.”
“Oh, The Lighters.” Deku nodded a few times like he knew who they were, which was doubtful. “They’re the ones who run the money pilfering scheme, right? They have solid technique that lets them sneak into banks basically unnoticed… which I’m sure you already knew. Um… Well, I could try to get you past the firewalls,” he offered.
Whenever Deku opened his fucking mouth, it was just to prove how much of a goddamn genius he was. Annoying.
That said, Katsuki did actually need to get this essay done. He passed his computer over wordlessly.
Deku pulled himself up on top of the table Katsuki was sitting at, perching on the end of it with his legs swinging on the side. He set Katsuki’s laptop down on his lap and started typing and clicking and doing whatever fucking tech stuff he knew how to do.
“I’m going to need to use my flash drive,” he said after a minute.
He set the computer down again and hopped off the table, hurrying across the workshop to a series of shelves on the far wall. It took him half a second of hunting to find a small red flash drive, and he came back with it happily clenched in his fist. Climbing back onto the table, he picked up the computer and stuck the flash drive in the side.
He started clicking and typing again. Katsuki squinted to see what he was doing. A bunch of mumbo jumbo letters and words filled the screen in organized lines. Deku read the code like a book, eyes narrowed. After a second, the tip of his tongue emerged from the corner of his mouth.
Katsuki stared at it, entranced.
“Hmm….” Deku stopped typing for a second. “Okay, I think–”
He cut himself off, frowning at the computer screen. “Um. One more thing, actually.”
He clicked through a few things, corners of his mouth turned subtly down. His skin was smooth, curving perfectly over the bone of his jaw and tracing down his thin neck. Some freckles perched there too, dark flecks of sun.
“Oho,” Ashido said.
Katsuki jumped, whipping his head around to glare at her.
She was standing at the other end of the table, eyes flicking back and forth between him and Izuku, an expression on her face like she had just found a grand opportunity for a giant prank. Her mouth curved into a smirk, eyes dangerous and knowing.
“What are you doing here?” Katsuki growled.
Deku was still clicking, apparently oblivious.
“I came,” she said, lifting her chin primly, “because Midoriya had some questions for me about my suit, and I had time to kill.”
Deku’s head jerked up at the sound of his name and he twisted around to see. “Oh! Hi, um…”
“Ashido,” Katsuki muttered.
“Ashido! Yes. Hi! Um, I had some questions.”
He dropped off the end of the table, gently wiggling his flash drive out of Katsuki’s computer. “You should be able to access those files now!” he told him, smiling sheepishly. “Um, Ashido, over here…” He led her across the room to his shelves and started digging in them for a second.
Katsuki looked down at his computer.
Deku had opened up pathways to all the firewalled articles he’d found, and had pulled up quite a few more that Katsuki hadn’t been able to find before. Unbelievable. Fucking unbelievable.
He looked over at him, wondering how on earth he’d missed so much over these last years, wondering how the Deku he’d known had turned into this piece of shit, wondering why he cared so goddamn much. Movement from Ashido caught his attention and he locked eyes with her.
She gave him a mischievous grin.
A shiver ran down the back of Katsuki’s neck.
This was not good.
Chapter 6: A False Issue
Notes:
I fell asleep! :D
But now I am back <3
I do need to do some homework today hehe so no promises about how much I'll update. But we're very close to finish! (I think)
Chapter Text
“There’s a fucking virus on my computer,” Kacchan said without preamble, dropping the culprit in front of Izuku.
Izuku swallowed down his bite of food. It was the middle of lunch, which apparently was the perfect time to attack a perfectly innocent support student over a virus. Luckily, Izuku was eating in the workshop today while working upgrades for Copy Quirk’s costume, ignoring Power Loader’s grumbles about it being ‘unsanitary,’ and Mei was abusing Shinsou in one of the gyms again, so there was no one around to witness. “I see.”
“Can you get it off?”
“Well, how did it get on there?” Izuku asked, pushing his tray aside and opening Kacchan’s computer.
It was a question he knew the answer to, actually, because he’d put the virus on there. After he’d broken through all the firewalls, he’d paused for a moment, opened up a file in his flash drive, and gently pulled the virus across, tucking it where it wouldn’t be noticed until very annoying pop ups started pushing through the screen.
Was that unethical? Maybe. But it also gave Kacchan an excuse to come see Izuku in the support labs, and therefore gave Izuku a chance to see him and talk to him more.
“I don’t fucking know,” Kacchan snarled. “Maybe it got through when I was researching my fucking paper or something.”
Izuku pulled open his files, went directly to the place where he’d embedded the virus, and reset it. A few more days and it would go off again, and hopefully Kacchan would come back to him for help with it. “How are the noise blockers?”
Kacchan shrugged. “They work. My ears haven’t been ringing anymore.”
Izuku let a smile trail over his face. “Oh, that’s great. I think I’ll still need to make some adjustments and stuff, but if they’re working, that makes everything easier.”
“Yeah, they’re good. Fine.”
Izuku passed back his computer. “Do you want to stick around? I’m not doing anything.”
Kacchan hesitated visibly, eyes darting toward the door and then back to Izuku.
“If you want to go back to your friends, that’s fine,” Izuku said, taking another bite of rice.
The gamble paid off. At the mention of Kacchan’s friend group, his face turned hard and he pulled out the nearest chair and sat down. “Fucking whatever,” he grumbled.
Sometimes it was funny how similar Kacchan was to how he was when they were younger. The differences were more noticeable – he didn’t cry in frustration when people took his favorite All Might figurine, for example – but the similarities were strong too. He still hated admitting that he could possibly like any person, whether that be friends, teachers, his own parents. He was still very headstrong and stubborn. He still cared deeply about people and hid it under a bunch of swear words and assholery.
And Izuku really, really liked him.
It was making him question everything he thought he knew about himself. Was he secretly into people who were rude at every turn? What exactly did he see in Kacchan that made him seem so kissable? Why on earth did Izuku find Kacchan’s general surliness so… nice?
Izuku quietly passed the extra bowl of rice he’d stolen from the dining hall over to Kacchan. Mei sometimes forgot to eat, so Izuku always grabbed extra food from the dining hall when he went. Conveniently, Mei wasn’t here at the moment, so the rice was up for grabs. After a brief moment of hesitation, Kacchan took it.
Satisfied that Kacchan wasn’t going to spend this entire lunch break without eating anything, Izuku went back to analyzing the design sheets for Copy Quirk’s costume. Monoma’s. He’d come in because he heard 2-A was getting their costumes upgraded and that knowledge made him very upset. They couldn’t get ahead, apparently.
Izuku privately was glad Monoma had come in, because his costume was bordering atrocious. It just wasn’t very well-designed. The look of it was nice enough, but the actual execution of the thing was surely going to get him killed if no one fixed it. He was hoping to make it more maneuverable, without taking away from what was clearly a very specific design. It was proving difficult.
The lapels of the jacket, for example, were tricky. They could quickly become a hazard – someone could use them to trip Monoma, or, with enough dexterity, tie him down. The tie, similarly, could easily be worked around to choke him. The shoes were nice, but lacked the traction they needed.
“I guess you haven’t stopped muttering,” Kacchan said. It seemed like he mostly meant to say it to himself, but Izuku caught it.
“Oh, sorry. If it bothers you, I have tricks to stop it.” He slid open the drawer to his right, fishing around for a clean pencil. Sticking one sideways in his mouth helped him keep from talking to himself.
“Did I fucking say it bothered me?” Kacchan snapped. “It’s fine, nerd.” With a huff, he settled back in his chair, arms crossed, rice mostly untouched.
Izuku let the pencil in his hand slide back into the drawer. “You should probably eat,” he said quietly. “You have Practical Heroics this afternoon, right?”
Kacchan scowled dangerously. “How’d you know that?”
Like the obsessist he was, Izuku had memorized 2-A’s schedule so he’d best be able to calculate the chances of running into Kacchan in the halls. “I just… guessed, from context… stuff. Um. But anyway, my point is, you probably shouldn’t do that on an empty stomach?”
Kacchan’s eyes narrowed, but he picked up the rice again and started eating. Pleased, Izuku went back to his work.
The real problem with Monoma’s suit, beyond the obvious design flaws, was that it actually limited his quirk. Usually people had suits that complemented their quirks and fighting styles, like how Creation Quirk had a great deal of skin exposed in her costume to allow her to pull out large items. Monoma’s copy quirk required skin-to-skin contact, but his costume almost entirely prevented him from making that contact.
“You can fucking mutter if you want,” Kacchan said. He was glowering into his bowl of rice, poking at it with his chopsticks while resolutely refusing to look at Izuku. His cheeks glowed rosy pink, and he looked extremely irritated, eyebrows furrowing down.
He kind of did have angry rahhh eyebrows, whatever that meant.
“Sure,” Izuku said, biting back a smile. “Um… I’m just looking at Monoma’s costume. It has some design flaws… Most of it is fixable, but I’m struggling with how much coverage it has. I don’t think he’d like this suggestion, but I think he might actually need more skin exposed…”
“He’d fucking hate that,” Kacchan put in.
“Hmm, yeah, I thought so.” Izuku frowned at the designs. He’d already had a few false starts. “I’m just struggling with how to keep the art of the costume, which he’s clearly attached to, while also making it more… workable, I guess. Like this must be very uncomfortable to do hero stuff in. I thought maybe there would be a way to make it look like he’s wearing sleeves, when he’s not, but then there might be issues with cold. I thought maybe a thin fabric could help, like something with pores that people might be able to touch him through, but then there’s the problem of cold again, plus it’s not very good shielding…”
This stuff was probably boring Kacchan. It might be best to settle into easy silence again.
“Could you fucking… make the sleeves removable?” Kacchan asked.
Izuku paused.
Could he make the sleeves removable?
Awestruck, he looked at Kacchan, who was still frowning at the costume. Other than Mei and Melissa, it was pretty rare for Izuku to meet people who were willing to just listen to his ideas. And even rarer to meet people who were smart enough to reciprocate.
“Like velcro or some shit.”
Like velcro…
“Holy shit, Ka– Bakugou,” Izuku breathed. “I could just make the whole thing easily rip apart. I mean, not to the point of flashing or anything, but if each piece easily fell apart at the touch… It could be self-healing fabric, too… I need to – I need to talk to Mei… I mean, even the lapels! If someone tugged on them or they got caught on something, they could just rip off. The fabric itself is the problem, but that’s a completely solvable issue – you’re a genius, Bakugou! I could kiss you!”
It took him a second to catch up with what he just said. His cheeks burned and he immediately threw his hands up and around, backtracking. “I mean– I mean, not like seriously, I mean– not like that! I just. Thank you.”
Sometimes Izuku wanted to take his brain-to-mouth filter and kick it out the window for how seriously useless it was.
Kacchan’s cheeks flared bright red, and he scowled, turning away. “Whatever.”
–
“For our next class,” Aizawa drawled, “Nedzu has had the brilliant idea to send you all off campus to practice in a less structured environment. We’ll be using the labs at HiroTech to simulate real heroics scenarios. Some of the top students in class 2-H will be coming along as well.”
Oh.
That meant Deku would be there.
Not that Katsuki cared.
A bunch of hands shot up and Aizawa sighed the sigh of one who thought he’d escaped hell, only to realize he had to return twice a week to teach all the demons Practical Heroics.
There were a few people in this school Katsuki thought came pretty fucking close to being his kindred spirits, and Aizawa was one of them. The other one, weirdly, was Eyebags.
Katsuki glanced over at him.
He was, as usual, lurking at the back of the crowd of students, watching silently as everyone bombarded Aizawa with questions. His eyes flickered over and met Katsuki’s, at which point his expression soured considerably.
“I’ve already sent the permission forms out to your parents,” Aizawa said at the front of the crowd. “There should be no fear of attack from the League of Villains, due to the high secrecy of this assignment, and if there is, rest assured they will not get far. You will have a guard of the best heroes with you at all times.”
This only raised another million questions.
Katsuki wanted to talk to Deku . What did he think about this field trip? And what even was HiroTech, anyway?
He needed an excuse to see him.
He needed…
He frowned at where the fabric of his costume met his grenades. Slowly, unsure exactly of why he was even doing it, he reached a hand up and gently tugged the costume up. Hmm.
Deku was going to hate him. But at least he’d be able to talk with him, without Ashido’s knowing eyes fucking following him everywhere. Every time she saw him now, she gave him a knowing smile, occasionally accompanied by either an unwelcome pat on the back, or a bunch of eyebrow wiggling, depending on the circumstances. It was fucking annoying, that’s what it was.
But now he’d have an actual excuse to go talk to Deku.
Katsuki waited until class was over. When they went into the locker rooms, he turned his back to the rest of the shitty extras, took the fabric of his suit between his fingers, and tried to tear it up.
The material stretched but didn’t break. The support techs really knew what they were doing with their protective fabrics.
Katsuki lifted his arm up to his mouth, gripped the fabric of his arm sleeve between his teeth, and pulled. It ripped after a few seconds of tugging, and he dropped it from his mouth to lengthen the tear with his fingers.
When he had sufficiently ripped his costume, he grinned. He needed it to be back in top condition as soon as possible. He needed to see Deku.
He pulled off the rest of his costume, stuffed it back in the case, and left the locker rooms without saying a single word. No one said anything, and so no one had noticed. Just the way Katsuki liked it.
When the rest of his classes were done for the day, he grabbed his costume again and went straight down to the support labs. When he walked in, it took him a second to find Deku because the support classrooms were in chaos, people running around and talking very loudly and excitedly. But Deku was there, sitting quietly at his table and working on some sort of sketch. The pink haired crazy wasn’t there, probably somewhere in the mass of working students.
Katsuki stalked across the room and dropped his costume case on the table in front of Deku. “I need this fixed,” he said.
Deku looked up immediately. “Oh! Hi. What happened?”
He had a long streak of grease running from the bridge of his nose across his left cheek, like he’d absentmindedly rubbed there without realizing his hands were dirty. Katsuki got the strange urge to reach out and wipe it off, to slide his thumb over Deku’s cheek, and...
Katsuki balled his hands into fists, pressing his nails into his palms until he could feel a light sting. “The sleeve ripped,” he said through gritted teeth. “I need it fixed, because I have an internship thing tomorrow.”
Tipping his head to the side, Deku frowned. “Don’t you have a spare?”
Shit.
“It’s fucking dirty,” Katsuki muttered. “This one is in better shape.”
“Oh.” Deku pressed the buttons on the side of the costume case, popping the lid open. He dug into the case for a second, eyebrows furrowed. “Oh, I see,” he said. “This shouldn’t be hard. We actually have an automated system for costume repairs, so I’ll just run it through that, and it’ll be fine! It’ll take like ten minutes. This isn’t bad.”
Katsuki nodded. Ten minutes was fine. Longer probably would have been better.
Deku took the costume case across the room, sliding it into some contraption in the front of the room, just a big box with a slot for costume cases. Katsuki wondered who had invented that. Surely not Deku, but he wouldn’t have been surprised.
“So what’s so special about HiroTech?” he asked as Deku came back to his table, a happy lightness to his step. “Are you going?”
“Oh!” Deku grinned. “Yeah, I am. I’m actually super excited. They have some of the best support tech in the entire world , and they also recently invented a panic simulator which can be programmed to manufacture real situations. It’s made all sorts of scientific advances – I mean, with the simulator, you can actually see how people would react to different scenarios, so psychological studies on personality and anxiety have made all sorts of leaps. Some of the support students were invited to go so we could see the simulator in action while all the heroics students try it out. My dad’s super excited for me, and he even asked if I could take a secret camera in, which of course I said no to, and I think he was mostly joking anyway, but he definitely wishes he could come. It’s like the dream of every scientist and support tech ever.”
When he was younger, Katsuki had found Deku’s mumbling really fucking annoying. Now, he couldn't imagine what had been wrong with himself back then. The mumbling was almost soothing, and it was actually fascinating to see how Izuku integrated information.
“So how does the fuckin… simulator work?” Katsuki asked.
“Mm.” Deku tipped his head to the side. “Do you mean how does it work as in the science and tech behind it? Or how does it work as in… what it’ll feel like to be inside it?”
Katsuki shrugged.
“Well, I assume what’ll happen is when you go in,” Deku said, “you’ll go into a great big room, and they’ll program it to show you something you would be very afraid of seeing happen. The entire thing is built to shift around you, so no matter where you move, you’ll always be in the center of the room. And then the simulation will start, and according to the technology, it will feel very, very real. Like so real that you won’t actually realize you’re in a simulation. Which is cool because it means you’ll probably behave exactly how you would in a real world situation! So really it’s a test just as much as it is an exercise.”
“And you’ll be there,” Katsuki said.
Deku grinned. “And I’ll be there.”
The pink haired crazy suddenly dove across the desk, pushing Deku back in his chair so she could open one of his drawers across him. He waited patiently as she dug around, and she finally retrieved a bright yellow sponge with a triumphant “Aha!” before shoving off him and running back across the workshop.
“That’s Mei,” Deku said, closing the drawer again.
“NO RUNNING!” Power Loader screeched, storming across the classroom after her.
“That’s my teacher,” Deku said.
“What’s this asshole doing here?” Eyebags asked from behind Katsuki.
“Ugh, DIE!” Katsuki snapped, turning around to face him. How annoying can a person possibly get? This was Katsuki’s time with Deku. The purple prick could leave.
“That’s Shinsou,” Deku said happily.
Chapter 7: An Irrational Fear
Notes:
Sorry for the long turn around between this chapter and the last! I got really overwhelmed with school stuff and had to take a step back from fic. But I’m back!!! I’ll try to post the last chapter either today or tomorrow depending on how much time I have to write it. :)
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Izuku was going to cry or scream or maybe both.
HiroTech was everything he dreamed it would be and more. The tall, steel-framed building stretched far into the sky, towering over the students of classes 2A and 2H. Mei was jumping up and down next to him, pupils contracting and dilating as she took in each part of the building.
“Take notes, Izuku!” she shrieked, whacking him in the arm.
“Oh, right–” He whipped out his notebook and a pen. Mei finally went still and he pressed the back of his notebook in between her shoulder blades, using her as a very jittery writing surface.
The building was made of an intricate combination of steel and glass. A funny tint was painted over the windows, probably to keep from overheating the building. For design, the frame of the building twisted as it went upward, forming the double helix shape of DNA.
“Izuku,” Mei said suddenly, “do you have tissues? I might cry.”
Izuku poked his head around to see her expression. She actually did look near tears. “Oh, sure,” he said. He shoved his notebook into Shinsou, whose hands barely shot up to catch it in time, and flipped his backpack around to pull out his spare tissue pack.
“Nerd,” Kacchan said by way of ‘hello,’ approaching out of nowhere.
“Hi, Ka– Bakugou,” Izuku said, rifling past a stack of spare pencils, bound together by a rubber band. He must have accidentally buried the tissues deep down. Or he’d forgotten them at home. “Sorry, Mei… I know they’re in here somewhere.”
Something white flashed in the corner of his vision. A tissue, waving like a flag of surrender, clutched in Kacchan’s fingers.
Mei seized it immediately, dabbing at her eyes.
Izuku turned, openly staring at Kacchan. “Uh…”
“You cry a lot,” he said gruffly, turning away. “I had to come prepared.”
That was… actually really, really sweet. Izuku sniffled, eyes starting to burn. Kacchan whipped around at the sound, glaring hard, like he thought Izuku was making fun of him.
“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Kacchan muttered. Another tissue shot up in the air. Izuku took it, violently blowing his nose.
“That’s so nice of you,” he cried. “You brought tissues? For me?”
“They’re just tissues,” Shinsou grumbled.
Izuku punched him in the arm before taking his notebook and pencil back. “You have no appreciation for gifts,” he sniffled. “It’s called being thoughtful, Shinsou.”
“It’s not thoughtful,” Kacchan snapped. “I just fucking don’t want you crying on me. Fuck off.”
That was a bold-faced lie but Izuku forced the remnants of his tears back anyway, taking his notebook back from Shinsou. “I guess that makes sense,” he said, clearing out the remaining grogginess in his throat. “Anyway, are you excited Ka–Bakugou? This should be really cool, right?”
“Yeah, whatever.”
“Well, I’m excited,” Shinsou said. “I’ll get to see what King Explosion Murder Asshole looks like when he’s scared shitless.”
Izuku shot him a look, pursing his lips together. “That’s not very nice, Shinsou.”
Shinsou lifted an eyebrow and shrugged, the corner of his lip curling up as he responded, “Neither is he.”
“I can fucking hear you.” Katsuki grumbled, stuffing his hands into his pockets.
“All right,” Eraserhead said, pulling everyone’s attention to him at the steps leading up to HiroTech. “We’re going to go inside in a few minutes here. Please do your best to be respectful of the property–” he shot a look at Electricity Quirk–“and try to contain your excitement to a presentable level–” he glared openly at Mei–“while we enter the premises. Are there any questions before we get started?”
No one had any, so he turned and headed up the steps with Snipe, gesturing for the combined classes to join him.
Izuku followed Kacchan up after him, flipping the back cover of his notebook around and creasing it back so he could write while they walked. Shinsou kept pace right beside him, hands resting lazily in his pockets, and to his other side, bounding along with unceasing energy, was Mei.
They walked through the huge glass doors of HiroTech and started through the high-ceilinged lobby. The tile floors reflected the sounds of all their footsteps and the quiet chatter of incoming scientists. Izuku bit his lip to keep himself from muttering as they headed through because he got the sense that every sound would be picked up in here.
Mei pulled on his elbow. “One day these people will bow to my name,” she whispered.
Izuku’s lips twitched and he nudged Shinsou. “Mei says one day everyone here will bow to her.”
“She’ll have to commission statues of herself so we can have regularly scheduled Mei-worship hours,” Shinsou said without missing a beat. Izuku snorted, slapping a hand over his nose and mouth to cover up the noise.
Kacchan glanced back and a shiver ran over Izuku’s skin as his eyes flashed over the smooth curve of his cheekbones.
Okay, no. This gay crisis he was having seriously needed to stop. He and Kacchan could be friends, maybe, but being in a relationship with him was a bad idea. Izuku knew it. Kacchan probably knew it, if he’d even allowed himself to think of it, which was unlikely seeing how seriously emotionally constipated he seemed to be. Izuku knew it wouldn’t work out.
But he still felt guiltily interested in pursuing something. Not that he would ever get the courage up to ask Kacchan out or anything. No, if he wanted to make anything of it, it would have to be done through increasingly obvious hints to Kacchan until the other snapped and asked him out. Which probably wouldn’t happen anyway.
Izuku shook all that off. He was in HiroTech. This was not the time to be concerned over relationship drama or whatever. This was the time to stare openly at the architecture and the scientists and take copious notes for his dad and for his own future reference.
They met their tour guide, a stuffy looking man named Narita Tomoya. He dissolved into a long lecture about the history of HiroTech as they walked through the building to the labs. Izuku tried his best to pay attention to this lecture but Narita had a very soft voice and it was difficult to focus on anything he said. While they were walking, Izuku tried to pay close attention to everything around them instead, and not as much attention to Kacchan. He mostly failed at this, but the attempt he made was very solid.
At last they entered a support lab area, stopping before a looming grey metal door. Eraserhead eyed it blandly and Izuku bent over so he could use his own knee as a writing surface to take quick notes on the hallway. He felt the need to explain to people that he wasn’t taking notes for any purpose other than his own curiosity, in case anyone thought he was secretly casing the joint or something, but when he looked around no one was paying any attention.
“We will now be entering the labs. When we come into this space, please refrain from touching anything,” Narita said in his soft, uncertain voice. “We’ll be walking through to get to the simulators. No sudden noises please.”
He swiped open the door and they entered an open medical lab space. They passed through, Izuku taking copious notes on all the different devices and procedures he could see from their direct path through the labs, and muttering quietly to Mei about what he observed. She was clearly having trouble following the “no sudden noises” rule, occasionally pressing a hand over her mouth to keep from squealing in excitement or yelling about babies. She vibrated next to him from suppressed excitement.
They finally passed through the labs and into a small observation room. As soon as Narita shut the door behind them, he explained, “we will now begin using the simulator. We have two online today, so the hero students will each have a turn in one or the other.” He pointed at a few TV screens on the wall. “These monitors are where the others will watch the hero students go through the simulations. On average, they last ten minutes.”
“Will there be time to discuss between simulations?” Eraserhead asked.
“Oh, yes, that shouldn’t be a problem,” Narita said. “And no need to worry about destroying the room–these have Tartarus-level quirk protection barriers, so anything you do in there won’t have any effect on the room itself.”
Izuku peered into one of the monitors. The rooms seemed to be spherical with padded walls on all sides. They seemed reasonably large and it appeared they could rotate or roll around as needed to keep people inside them. He flipped the page of his notebook and started scribbling down notes. Technically there was a copyright on this stuff so he couldn’t replicate it, but it was still really cool.
“One day,” Mei whispered next to him, balling her hand up into a fist. “One day I will create something like this.”
“Your mega robot isn’t enough?” Izuku asked out of the corner of his mouth as Snipe and Eraserhead started putting the heroics class in order.
Mei sniffed. “Anyone can build one of those.”
Izuku shook his head, laughing at her.
–
Finally, they were getting to the good stuff. Katsuki was bored of wandering around HiroTech’s campus. Some action would be a nice change of pace.
“How does the simulation work?” Ashido asked the tour guide.
Katsuki mostly tuned his answer out, having already heard most of it from Deku. Apparently the space itself was wired to create images that would be scary to the person inside it, whatever. It was full of sensors to moderate heart rate and memories and shit so it could properly produce terrifying images and stuff. Katsuki wasn’t concerned. There wasn’t much he was scared of. And this would be a great way for him to destroy what little fear he did have.
“All right, Yaoyorozu and Iida, you two are top of the class so you’ll be going in first,” Aizawa said, sounding like he would love for this to be over already.
Ponytail Girl shifted uncomfortably nearby. “Um… Sensei, may I suggest…?”
He blinked at her tiredly. “What is it?”
“Since I’m class president and Iida is vice president, it might be better to have us go in one at a time, so one of us can be out here to fulfill our duties to the class? I could be wrong, but that seems to make more sense to me…”
She had fucking confidence issues, that’s what she had. That made plenty of sense.
“Thank you for that suggestion,” Aizawa said, nodding. “That is a good point. Bakugou, you’ll go first instead of Iida, since you’re ranked third.”
Katsuki rolled his eyes. Whatever.
The tour guide started listing basic rules, rules which Katsuki tuned out because he honestly didn’t care and he was getting tired of listening to the tour guide’s quiet, nervous voice. He looked at Deku, who also wasn’t paying attention, but was instead scribbling notes at a rapid fire pace, biting his bottom lip hard–probably to keep himself from muttering. His crazy pink friend was right next to him, looking at his notebook over his shoulder and nodding along to whatever indecipherable scribbles he was making. She pointed at something and whispered in his ear. He paused for a second, eyes squinting a little bit as he considered, and then nodded face clearing, and scribbled something out, before continuing to right.
Someone tapped Katsuki’s shoulder and he jerked back to attention, whirling around to chew out whoever had touched him. It was just Ponytail Girl, looking startled like she’d been the one tapped out of nowhere. Katsuki forced his expression to clear because she already fucking struggled enough with her goddamn confidence and didn’t need him making it worse.
“Sorry,” she said, glancing at Deku and Mei. “We’re going in now.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Katsuki said, walking to the door into the left simulator. He glanced back, as if to see if Deku was watching, but his eyes caught Ashido’s instead, and she was smirking so much it looked like she might actually injure her own cheeks, so he turned around, grinding his teeth together, and waited for the tour guide to open the door for him.
When it was opened, he walked into a big, white cubic room. A narrow metal bridge was suspended in front of him, leading into a big spherical room. Katsuki clenched and flexed his hands a few time before pushing the door open and walking into the padded white space. He felt his gravity shift almost immediately and wobbled for a second, before he grit his teeth together and regained his balance. He refused to look like an idiot in here.
The door slammed behind him and he waited for the simulation to start, releasing a few experimental explosions from his palms to make sure nothing was wrong with his quirk.
As he stood in the blank simulation room, he felt a tension growing in his gut. That had to be the simulation starting, right? Or maybe it was just the suspense of him waiting for the simulation starting. He didn’t know what he’d see in here. There were a number of things he didn’t particularly want to revisit, like that time he’d been kidnapped, which he’d never admit to anyone had been the most terrifying day of his life. Even thinking about the League of Villains sent his heart rate up a few notches. And they were after Deku now...
He shook off the thought. Thinking about that wasn’t helping anyone. And the truth was anything could show up in here, even things Katsuki hadn’t faced before.
And everyone would see it, so he’d have to be perfectly put together this entire time. No mistakes.
But there was nothing. The simulator stayed completely blank.
Somehow the fact that nothing was happening stressed Katsuki out more than he would have been if something had started already. This meant something was wrong. This meant… something wasn’t working correctly.
Well, standing here like an idiot wasn’t helping anything.
Katsuki went and pushed open the door to the blank room again, stepping back out into the cubic room.
He took one step onto the suspended metal bridge and immediately knew something was wrong. The entire room smelled like smoke. And smoke could mean a lot of things, but usually with Katsuki’s class’s record, it meant Dabi.
And if Dabi was here, that meant…
The pit in Katsuki’s stomach grew, his chest compressing down with panic. He shot into the air, using explosions to propel himself forward, heading straight for the door to the room. If Dabi was here, that meant the League of Villains were here.
And so was Deku.
Katsuki burst through the door to the observation room, explosions popping out of his palms as he propelled himself forward. He immediately nearly choked on the thick air, lungs clogging with smoke.
Someone stumbled into him and he twisted, one arm held up to blast whoever it was to hell and back, but it was just Kaminari, brain fried completely out. He held two thumbs up and Katsuki shoved him roughly to the side. “Sit down,” he growled, forcing him down to the floor. He grabbed the front of Kaminari’s shirt and pulled it up over his head, to make a makeshift mask against the smoke. “You’re a huge liability right now.”
“Wheyyy…”
“Yeah, yeah.”
Katsuki peered through the smoke, listening carefully for any other noises as he headed forward. He fished out the earpiece Deku had made for him and shoved it into his ear to help amplify background noise.
Immediately Deku’s voice came bursting through the earpiece.
“–is is Midoriya,” Deku said. “Come in, Bakugou. No, get off, Mei. Seriously. It’s the right frequency, I promise. Bakugou, this is Midoriya–”
“I fucking get it already,” Bakugou grumbled. “Damn it, I didn’t think you’d built in the comms already.”
“Oh, hi! I didn’t! I just gave it a radio frequency. Anyway! Hi! Mei and I are hiding. Can you go toward the labs?”
Katuski immediately steered his feet in that direction. The ordinarily bright lights of the observation room flickered in the thick smoke. He squinted through it, suddenly grateful that his quirk made him basically immune to the effects of smoke and he could breathe relatively normally. He tripped over something soft and heavy and looked down to see Round Face passed out on the ground.
Fuck, everyone in this class was just a giant pain in his ass. Where the fuck was his goddamn teacher? Aizawa?
He pulled Uraraka’s shirt up to cover her nose and mouth like he had with Kaminari and picked her up under the arms, dragging her off to the side of the room where the smoke wasn’t as thick. He needed to get the air to clear somehow.
With a sigh, he backtracked to prop open the door to the simulation room he’d just been in. Tendrils of smoke started pouring into that room instead, hopefully diminishing its effects elsewhere. When that was done, he hurried back through the observation room at a quicker pace, watching his feet for any other bodies.
He pushed open the door to the labs and his eyes were immediately assaulted by pitch darkness. Someone had turned the lights off completely, then. Maybe Deku, or maybe it was just an emergency protocol. As his eyes adjusted to the darkness, a fire alarm suddenly went off. It blared loudly in Katsuki’s unprotected ear and he pulled a hand up to cover it.
The noise itself was fine, as long as the sprinklers didn’t turn on.
“Where are you?” Katsuki asked.
“Under the left table,” Deku answered in his ear and Katsuki immediately started moving left. “The… left-est table? The… Mei, what’s the word?”
“The furthest left,” Mei’s voice piped up, a little muffled.
“That’s the one.”
Ordinarily, Katsuki might be annoyed by the mindless chatter, but as it was he was just worried. The League had already made it infinitely clear they wanted to get Deku out of the picture, and now, without the protection of UA’s security system, Deku was a lot more vulnerable.
And where was Aizawa? Ordinarily he’d be right there, protecting “the Problem Child” but now he wasn’t anywhere. Katsuki glanced over his shoulder, eyes straining against the darkness as if he expected Aizawa to be right behind him. He popped off a few explosions from his palms, timing it so they’d go off at the same time as the blaring sirens of the fire alarms, but even the dim light that came from that didn’t illuminate Aizawa anywhere.
Katsuki was on his own.
That was fine. He’d been on his own before. This was just the USJ all over again.
The sprinklers turned on. Cursing quietly under his breath, Katsuki sped up, water pouring down over his head. His quirk didn’t work as well in the rain.
The alarms cut off abruptly, sending the entire room into stifling silence, the splashing of falling water from the sprinklers and the squelching of Katuski’s footsteps echoing through the huge space.
His stomach churned. Something was wrong. Something was really fucking–
“Oh, shit,” Deku said, voice suddenly hoarse.
Mei screamed.
Katsuki doubled his pace, panicked by how fucking wide the lab was. Surely he was almost to the furthest left side now, right? Surely. He adjusted into a flat out sprint, slamming blindly into things as he shot across the room.
Blue light flared ahead of him.
Katsuki grit his teeth, using explosions to shoot through the air. But he was too far away.
Dabi picked Deku up by the front of his shirt. Deku was limp, for some reason, like a ragdoll, like someone had knocked him out. And Katsuki wasn’t going fast enough.
Compress appeared on Dabi’s other side and lightly tapped Deku’s forehead.
Deku disappeared into a tiny blue marble. Katsuki couldn’t see the marble, but he knew. He’d been in one of those before. The space was small and empty and it pressed down on all sides like being stuck in a too-small box. He knew, he knew, he knew.
A roar started up in the back of his throat and he shot forward, screaming bloody murder, eyes burning from the smoke or maybe from tears–it was always hard to tell. Dabi turned to look at him, one side of his mouth curling into half a grin.
He waved his fingers like a magician, flickering them through the air. On Katsuki’s next propelling explosion the water got to his hand and the flame spluttered out, sending him careening into a table. He scrambled back up, legs going weak under him, just in time to see Dabi, Compress, and a small blue marble disappear into one of Kurogiri’s portals.
“DEKU!” he screamed, and then–
Bright lights flared in his eyes. He shrank away from it, ducking his head down and squeezing his eyes shut, blinking a few times while he adjusted.
He was back inside the simulation chamber. The air was clean and fresh and bright. The padded walls had a few scorch marks over them, but were otherwise unblemished. He was completely dry.
The door to the observation room opened and Katsuki whirled around, palms braced to attack. But it was just the stupid tour guide, smiling at him nervously. Aizawa poked his head around the door behind him, looking as bored as ever.
Fuck.
That had all been completely fake.
And everyone had seen.
Notes:
A/N okay I will admit I feel really bad ssfdlkj bc you know Katsuki doesn’t do well with embarrassing himself… and yet…
Also, did I steal this idea from Divergent, which I do not own? Yes, yes I did.
Chapter 8: A Beaming Light
Chapter Text
“It was so cool,” Izuku said, slapping his notebook down in front of Shinsou, who probably couldn’t care less at this point. “The simulator works because people are already worried about what’s going to happen so they visualize their worst fear. That beginning part where it’s just blank is designed so that they think of whatever scares them. I’ve never seen technology like this before, but it’s pretty awesome.”
Shinsou grunted, slumping forward in Mei’s chair and putting his head down on her desk. Mei was in detention at the moment for exploding something she probably shouldn’t have this morning, so it was just the two of them, Shinsou in Mei’s seat, and Izuku with his own chair pulled up next to him.
“You should try it sometime,” Shinsou mumbled. “Then you might not think it’s so cool.”
“I mean, I think I’d still think it was cool,” Izuku said. “I might not like the technology anymore after that but I’d still think it was neat.”
It took Shinsou a second, but eventually he snorted and said, “Yeah. You would.” He lifted his head, lips curling into a smile as he met Izuku’s eyes. “And how does it feel to be part of Bakugou’s worst fear?”
Izuku rolled one corner of a notebook page between his index and thumb, pursing his lips. That itself hadn’t bothered him much, although Kacchan must have been irritated or embarrassed about it because he’d avoided Izuku for the entire rest of the field trip. To be fair, Izuku hadn’t made a real effort to go talk to him either, mostly because the shouted “Deku” at the end had him really worried. Because that implied that Kacchan really did remember him. Which was…something. It wasn’t necessarily a bad thing, but it was definitely a thing.
“Wasn’t he supposed to have a genius-sitting shift later today?” Shinsou smirked vindictively. “That’ll be interesting. Think he’ll show?”
“I don’t know,” Izuku said quietly, glancing at the clock. Kacchan’s shift was supposed to start in less than ten minutes, although Shinsou seemed to be blissfully unaware of how soon it was coming up.
“Bet he’s scared. Doesn’t like seeming weak. ” He laughed. “This is definitely a moment for the history books. We’ll have to write it down for his ‘Number One Hero’ biography. We’ll title the chapter ‘That One Time Bakugou Made a Huge Fool of Himself in Front of the Whole Class.’”
Izuku shut his notebook. “You can be really mean sometimes, you know.”
Shinsou went quiet. Izuku focused on putting his notebook in his backpack, zipping the bag closed over the top. He kept his eyes fixed on the coarse yellow fabric. His cheeks started to burn and he bit on his tongue to try to push the feeling down, well aware that his face was turning brighter and brighter red by the second.
But the tension got too high.
“Sorry,” Izuku whispered.
“No, I know,” Shinsou said, voice quiet. “You’re right. Sorry. I forgot you like him.”
Izuku pulled his backpack onto his lap and buried his face in it, cradling it in his arms. “I just… he’s just Kacchan. Like yeah he’s kind of an asshole sometimes but he’s also… Like he’s familiar. To me. I don’t know.”
“I hear you.”
“I mean, he’s so rude and stubborn, all the time,” Izuku mumbled. “But then, he has these times when he just… is completely, like, on my side, I guess. He’s just… he’s just Kacchan. ”
“Uh… Midoriya.”
Izuku pulled his head out of his bag, blinking blearily at the sudden light. “Hmm?”
Shinsou nodded at something behind him. A weight settled in Izuku’s chest as he realized what had happened and he turned, wincing, to find that Kacchan had walked in, possibly in the middle of that speech, and was now standing stock still behind him, shell shocked.
And then his face contorted into something truly nasty. “DEKU!” he snapped, marching the rest of the way across the room and fisting the front of Izuku’s shirt, pulling him forward. “You!”
“Kacchan,” Izuku squeaked, trying to escape. “Don’t freak out, I can ex–”
“You mean to tell me you knew? THE WHOLE FUCKING TIME?”
“Oi,” Shinsou said lazily. “‘Kacchan.’ What are you so pissed about?”
Kacchan whirled on him, eyes blazing. “Fucking stay out–”
His eyes glazed over.
“Let go,” Shinsou said, bored. Izuku shot him an annoyed look but let it happen, mostly because Kacchan really did need to calm down for just a second so they could talk everything out.
Kacchan released the front of Izuku’s shirt.
“Back up three steps.”
Kacchan backed up three steps.
“Sit the fuck down.”
Kacchan sat the fuck down.
Shinsou shot Izuku a mischievous look, smirking, and Izuku shook his head. “No, Shinsou. Don’t. He’ll actually kill you.”
“You are absolutely zero fun,” Shinsou said, but he teasingly scrunched his eyes, a sure sign he was joking. Kacchan made an angry screeching sound and shot back to his feet the second Shinsou released the brainwash.
“EYEBAGS!”
“Okay, I’m out of here.” Shinsou stood up, grabbing his bag. He expertly ducked out of the way of an attempted attack from Kacchan. “You’re on your own, Midoriya. Try not to die.”
“Okay,” Izuku said, smiling at him. Shinsou made a face on his way by before hurrying back through the classroom and whisking out the door with a final smirk at Izuku behind him.
“I hate him,” Kacchan snapped. “That’s it! I hate him.”
“No, you don’t,” Izuku said.
Kacchan paused, looking at him. His eyebrows contorted angrily for just a second before his expression cleared, shoulders slumping, and he said, “No, I don’t.” He wrinkled up his nose, looking away.
And now this was awkward. Izuku shifted uncomfortably in his seat, dropping his gaze to his lap. “So… I guess… you do remember me.”
“Of course I fucking do,” Kacchan said, kicking Mei’s chair out like he was considering sitting there but hadn’t made up his mind yet. “You were the most irritating fucker out of all of the shitty extras. Fucking smiling all the time. Damn annoying, that’s what you are.”
Izuku’s mouth twitched as it tried to smile. “Yep, that’s me.”
Kacchan side-eyed him, face souring considerably. “Why’d you say it was nice to meet me, then? If you remembered.”
“You said it first,” Izuku pointed out. “I didn’t want to complicate anything.”
“Yeah, well, you did,” Kacchan growled.
“Did I?” Izuku said, tipping his head to the side. “I feel like it was maybe a joint effort? I mean, I’m willing to take credit if you want, but–”
“No, stupid nerd. Fine. Joint effort. Whatever.” He dropped into Mei’s chair, crossing his arms. “I’m just fucking annoyed, that’s all.”
“Okay.” Izuku nodded.
“And I’m….” Kacchan hesitated. A wild range of emotions flitted across his face as he struggled with himself. Izuku waited patiently, clasping his hands together in his lap. Eventually, Kacchan forced out, “I’m fucking sorry for how much of an ass I was when we were kids.”
Izuku laughed, shaking his head. “We were literally five, Kacchan. I don’t care.”
“Well, I’m still fucking sorry about it!” he snapped. “I was rude, and more than that I was rude to you, someone who I actually kind of liked. It was my fault you had to move. That day in the park– fuck, I’m an asshole.”
“Kacchan,” Izuku said, keeping his voice slow and quiet. “It was one time. We were five. It didn’t ruin my life or whatever you think happened. There is no trauma. I think you can forgive yourself.”
Kacchan sulked in silence for a minute, glaring at the corner of Mei’s desk. “Whatever,” he grumbled, conceding the point.
“On another, completely unrelated note,” Izuku said brightly, “I’m gay.”
The speed at which Kacchan’s head whipped around to stare at him was honestly impressive. He blinked at Izuku a few times, face screwed up in confusion. “Is that you trying to ask me out?”
“Not necessarily.” Izuku grinned, heat flaring into his cheeks. He willed it away, hoping Kacchan wouldn’t see how much he actually liked him. Hoping if Kacchan didn’t want to try dating, he wouldn’t realize how much Izuku did want to.
“Fucking–” Kacchan scowled at the ground. “We can fucking go out if you want to, nerd.”
Relief flooded over Izuku’s shoulders, loosening the knot in his chest and he beamed. “Amazing!”
“I knew it!” someone screeched from behind Izuku. Both Izuku and Kacchan whirled around, Kacchan with explosions popping out of his palms.
Acid Quirk, Ashido, stood in the classroom with them, pointing between them with a triumphant grin over her face. “I! Knew! It!” she shouted. “You two have been making moon eyes at each other all semester.” She did her best impression of what that looked like and Izuku laughed.
“Fuck off!” Kacchan yelled. “Why are you even here? Stalker!”
Ashido smiled mysteriously. She walked away backwards, smirking at both of them as she left. “I knew it,” she whispered a final time before disappearing out the door.
“She’s a stalker, I swear to fucking–”
“Kacchan,” Izuku said, laughing. “Shhhh. It’s fine.”
Grumbling to himself, Kacchan settled back down into Mei’s chair and glared holes into the surface of her desk. Izuku let out another half of a laugh to himself before sitting down next to him, propping his head up on the table.
“So! What do you want to do?”
–
“Nerd.” Katsuki slammed his computer onto the table in front of Deku, dropping into the seat across from him. Deku paused with a piece of rice halfway up to his mouth, looking at the computer with a wide-eyed expression that Katsuki couldn’t quite decipher. “Want to explain why I’m still getting pop-up ads?”
Izuku’s mouth twitched the way it always did when he was trying not to laugh. “No…? That’s super weird,” he lied through his teeth, grinning at Katsuki. “I’ll just… remove the virus…”
“You’re full of shit,” Katsuki said as Deku flipped open his laptop and broke in with ease.
“Mayhaps,” Izuku agreed.
“Both of you are gross.” Eyebags said, glaring at the two of them from where he sat next to Deku. They were in the dining hall, and Katsuki had abandoned his friends in favor of getting Deku to fucking fix the problem he created. He could feel Racoon Eyes’s staring from all the way across the room.
“How is insulting each other gross?” Izuku asked absently, clicking through some stuff on the computer.
“It just is.”
“Okay.”
Something pink dove across Katsuki, clambering across him while brandishing a phone. “Melissa’s calling!” the pink-haired crazy shrieked, oblivious to the homicidal thoughts entering Katsuki’s mind as she finally got all the way across to sit next to him at the table.
“There’s an entire other side to the table that you could have sat down on,” he snarled.
“This was the most efficient path!” she answered, slamming an i-Pad down on the table and flipping it open. “Melissa’s on the phone!”
“Who the fuck–”
“Hi!” a distorted voice came across the call, breaking up as the connection wobbled. A blonde head became visible a second later, pixelated on the screen. “Can you hear me?”
“Connection issues,” the pink-haired crazy grumbled. “One second!”
She poked a few things on the computer screen. While she was working, Deku passed Katsuki’s computer back with a sheepish smile. “Okay, it’s actually off now.”
“I don’t fucking believe you,” Katsuki snapped, taking his computer back. “But thanks.”
“It really is off,” Deku laughed. “I promise I took it off for real. It’s gone.”
“Can you hear me now?” the voice said, significantly less distorted. Katsuki looked back over to find the screen much less pixelated. ‘Melissa’ was a blonde girl with bright blue eyes on the video call.
“Hi Melissa!” Deku said, waving.
“Hey! Oh my god!” She pointed straight out of the screen. “Is that Bakugou! The infamous Kacchan?”
“Don’t call me that,” he snapped.
“It is!” She beamed, waving both hands at him. “Hi! I’m Melissa Shield! I grew up with Izuku on I-Island. He mentioned you like way more often than he should have, probably. Like a weird amount.”
“I did not!”
“You can’t deny it.”
“You really can’t,” Eyebags agreed.
Katsuki grinned as Deku made a pouty face and settled back in his chair, avoiding eye contact with anyone. Under the hanging tufts of hair in front of his eyes, his face was turning bright red.
“Anyway, I’m in support of this dating escapade y’all are on,” Melissa poked her computer screen. “You guys are cute. You need a ship name or something.”
“We are not thinking of a ship name right now,” Eyebags groaned, burying his face in his arms. “Come on. I come here to this place to have a normal lunch, and everyone just has to ruin it.”
“We definitely are thinking of a ship name,” Melissa said.
Deku slid down in his seat until just his hair was visible over the table top, the rest of him hidden under the table. Katsuki kicked his shins under the table and received a kick in return.
“Hang on, I got this,” Melissa said. “I need a second.”
“You make it your life’s work to humiliate me,” Deku wailed, covering what was still visible of his head with both his forearms.
“Solar Ignition,” she said.
“That’s fucking terrible,” Katsuki said.
Eyebags sighed the sigh of one who is completely fucking done with the world. “You spent all this time thinking and all you could come up with is solar ignition? Come on.”
“No, no, no, it’s cool!” she insisted. “Solar Ignition is–”
“Solar ignition,” the pink-haired crazy interrupted excitedly, “is the effect that happens when you tilt a magnifying glass and the light gets all focused and comes to a point and it gets super hot and sometimes people kill ants with it. That’s solar ignition.”
Katsuki could not believe the amount of nerdiness at this table right now. Neither could Eyebags apparently, as he buried his face in both his hands.
As Deku sat up, emerging from under the table, he just looked confused. “And this is like me and Kacchan because…?”
“Because like! He makes explosions and stuff like the sun! And you make inventions like magnifying glasses! So when you put the two of you together–”
Deku shook his head, laughing at her. “No, just stop. No.”
“Okay, I give up,” Melissa said, throwing her hands in the air. She laughed. “You’re too difficult, I give up. I made my best attempt.”
“Your best attempt was solar ignition,” Shinsou mumbled from behind his hands. “How am I friends with you people?”
Deku met Katsuki’s eyes and grinned.
And even though the start of this semester had been pretty rough, even though he’d majorly fucked up more than once, it was pretty hard not be grateful for this.
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