Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

All Might hunched over the guardrail of Izuku’s cot at the hospital as they discussed what the predecessors of One for All had told him in his visions. He tried his best to hide it with weak smiles, but he was alarmed. “If you need to kill Shigaraki to stop All for One, but you can’t, how will you proceed?” He averted his gaze and tried to forgive himself for saying such words so dispassionately about his sensei’s grandchild.

“I think I’ll tell everyone what One for All is, so that All for One can’t hold it against me anymore as a secret.” Izuku had thought about it for over a week. He didn’t think there was another path.

“And then? What comes next? People will know. Won’t your power as a symbol fade?”

That was the million dollar question. Could he trust the people he loved to keep him safe if they knew his biggest secret? “I leave. I hide until I get strong enough to be the symbol Japan needs. UA hopefully keeps the people I love safe while I grow, and they won’t tell people about my power. And when I come back, I’ll be strong enough to save Shigaraki too, because he’s still worth saving.”

It would take awhile for his plan to work, and he’d have to heal first, but good things came with time. He was willing to do whatever it took to make that plan a reality.

When he got OFA from All Might, Izuku could finally be the hero he’d always wanted to be, but with a catch: his ultimate goal had to be to defeat All for One.

All for One wasn’t a power-boosted villain tossing a school bus over a bridge like a toy car, a syndicate giving orders for locals to bow down and kill everyone who got in their way, or a person like Stain, meaning to do right by killing their definition of false idols. Those could all be handled by other heroes. It was a power that demanded complicity in chaos over modern society with no end in sight, and OFA was the only power great enough to end it. 

To have the best chance at defeating the ultimate villain, Izuku had to master each of the quirks passed down through OFA. And when he left UA at the end of his first year, that fateful day in April, he thought he was keeping people close to him as safe as possible from any moves All for One made on their lives to find him before he did that. It made going into hiding the least painful choice. 

It led him to New York City. He honed his skills working under contacts of All Might’s contacts, none of whom were to report back to his mentor on his progress or daily goings on. He fought small crime, never glowing with green electrical pulses of OFA to avoid being discovered. He used his float in small spurts and black whip around whatever housing he could find, but spent his time in the field really honing danger sense and physical skills without his quirks the most. He wanted to be able to tell when danger was coming and fight as well as he could before ever needing to call upon his powers, to eventually house those abilities in a stronger vessel. He got concussions and broken legs. He made wrong moves and had horrible days. It was shocking that his close calls didn’t end his life too soon.

Over months, he required costume adjustments over and over to accommodate how his muscles filled out his frame. Danger sense became less of an all-encompassing sharp stab in his mind for when he himself was in trouble, and more like shapes of how big any incoming peril was, a pull in its direction and even the degree of agony that would come about. Sometimes, he could hear the screams of the people who would suffer as he ran toward potential oncoming tragedy, hoping he could stop it in time.

In early September, he sensed that something large was going to crush a group of people. He had still been hiding and honing his abilities, but in small agencies in less populated parts of Japan. That day, he could almost see the outlines of that group of people on the inside of his eyelids as he heard the screams of the hopeless. And when he caught Shindou You in his arms, protecting the last survivors of an otherwise abandoned town over a hundred kilometers away from his base at the time, he'd felt as though he’d done some good.

But people had recognized him. And that meant All for One would find him again.

So he called All Might and told him he was coming back to UA, where he hoped security had gotten better, and where his mother, All Might, everyone was who had helped him grow. But the strongest pull he felt toward UA, beyond the security, the support, even getting to live with his own mother again, was to see Kacchan. Kacchan, the person who’d seen Izuku want to be a hero, have his dreams dashed at the age of four, be alienated and bullied (often by his own hand), and then, grow, largely because of him, through training, discussing strategy, simply having him know about OFA and hold that secret. Kacchan, the only person he hadn’t said goodbye to.

He hadn’t written a letter to Kacchan when he left because he hadn’t known what to say, which words to use to sever that bond. But he needed to at least say something to him after all that time.

He came back to balloons, Satou’s handmade green matcha tea kasutera cake and chrysanthemum-shaped namagashi, Imperial Golden Tips tea, his mother’s tears of relief and startlingly strong embrace, and everyone screaming with joy...except Kacchan, standing by his delighted parents while he looked dead inside.

Izuku gave hug after hug and told people he was safe over and over until he found Kacchan again, his back to the door to the stairwell, saying goodbye to Izuku’s mother with a slight bow. He walked up to him and caught the barely restrained rage in Katsuki’s scowl when he asked if they could catch up.

Kacchan led him to his room and closed the door behind him, staring him down at a distance. “What do you want, Deku?” His voice was level, but the words venomous, like they needed to be spit out before they infected his mouth.

“I wanted to apologize.”

Kacchan snorted, and then started chuckling humourlessly. “Why? For disappearing? Or for not giving a shit who you left behind?”

“For everything, Kacchan. I’m sorry.”

The laughter got louder and louder, less and less controlled. Izuku had never seen Kacchan laugh like that before. “Deku!” He wiped tears out of the corners of his eyes, clutching his sides. “Deku, get the hell out of my room!”

The old Izuku couldn’t sleep knowing Eri was still out there somewhere, hurting and scared. The new Izuku couldn’t afford to do that anymore. 

By the end of his second year at UA, Izuku had seen everyone he loved be threatened by All for One somehow. He’d seen his mother held hostage, All Might’s bony frame thrown from the top of a building, Uraraka chained as Toga took to her throat with a knife. He’d grown numb to the feeling that nothing he loved was safe anymore, or that he should feel responsible for it all because this came with having OFA. He was trying to balance the world so that better things could emerge, and he probably wouldn’t see the fruits of his labour but he’d be damned if he wasn’t part of what brought it about. So he rested when he could and he fought off every threat like clockwork.

The only person who didn’t need saving since he got back from New York was Kacchan. Kacchan was his constant.

When his mother was held hostage, he was hidden, waiting for the signal to AP shot the villain’s arm of retractable knives before Izuku could sweep in and save her. When All Might was falling, Kacchan was flying to catch him in case Izuku couldn’t make it fast enough. When Uraraka was toyed with and tortured, Kacchan was pulling the lynch pin on one of his smaller grenades and rolling it to Toga’s feet, smoke giving Izuku cover to jump in and haul her out to safety. Kacchan slept with one eye open, ready no matter how many times or ways someone came at them. Izuku never had to worry about him. 

But they never talked about the time Izuku left.

He brought it up before rehearsal for class 2-A’s encore dance party at the school festival. “Kacchan, we should talk about it.”

Kacchan went from looking passive, a smaller scowl than he used to wear, to eyebrows arched and fists clenched. “Not now, Deku.”

“But Kacchan, if we neve--”

“Not. Now.”

The next time he asked was before Christmas. Their families were making a mess in the kitchen together as they stumbled through wagashi recipes, and Izuku took a moment during the chaos to pull him aside. “Kacchan, please, just let me explain.”

Kacchan looked tired, from the new often anti-hero society they lived in, from forcing himself to help shape the petal patterns on agar jelly-laden surfaces, from not blowing his mom up every time she shared another story about something arrogant or silly he’d said when they were kids. “Deku, let me not have to go through this right now.”

Izuku looked down and played with the grooves in his scarred hands. He didn’t know how to beg for forgiveness someone didn’t want. “Can we do it soon, though? You deserve an explanation.” 

Kacchan let out a low groan. “Yeah, Deku. Soon.”

The last time Izuku tried was before they took their last second year exam, in quirk physics. It was mid-March, almost a year since he’d left. He had to ask one more time. Kacchan had to know he cared enough to offer him an explanation: that he hadn’t known what to say, that he’d been a child making the hardest decision he’d ever had to make, and that there was no way he could’ve said goodbye to Kacchan of all people, not after everything they’d gone through.

They were studying together as they often did then, just like they fought together against each villain that came their way: in perfect unity, knowing what the other needed and not having to say anything to get the job done. Their parents were so happy they spent so much time together, but no one knew it was quiet moments like these, not having to explain who they were or how they’d always been to anyone else.

Izuku put his pen down and waited, the absence of his hand stabbing notebook paper leaving the room more quiet than usual. He watched Kacchan’s face morph from his peaceful reading expression into that soft scowl. When he looked at Izuku and saw defeat, he already knew what he was thinking about.

“Deku, I didn’t need a letter to know you were coming home.” There was no venom in those words.

He hadn’t needed a letter. He’d known Izuku would come home. And wherever Izuku came back to, Kacchan assumed he’d be there.

That had to be enough, Izuku decided.

All for One was persistent, and by the middle of third year, Izuku had become far more skilled, bulk and height supporting the power his body could hold. His body had become a tool, a weapon for good, with his mind always calculating the quickest ways to save someone. And he didn’t know how he felt about it, because he didn’t have the time to really feel anymore. Every moment had the potential to turn tragic, and every town in Japan had had an emergency evacuation at least once. 

The last time he cried watching a civilian die, get crushed under rubble he couldn’t move, Kacchan put his hand on his shoulder. When Izuku wiped away the last of his tears, Kacchan shared the hard truth with him: “If you keep crying afterwards, you might have too little energy for when the next hit comes.”

He was right. The uprisings and “quirk incidents” were becoming the new norm. So a switch flipped inside of him and he stopped crying. He woke up shrieking sometimes, wishing he was crying to get the energy out from tragedy after tragedy, but the tears never came. He just kept fighting and moving on, with Kacchan by his side.

Yet Izuku had still only unlocked the quirks he had at battle with Shigaraki after Deika fell. While he’d gotten the ability to use 80% of full cowling consistently, black whip, float and danger sense were his only other quirks. Black whip could perform eight different tasks while he floated midair and dodged three attacks behind him. Danger sense had continued to morph, allowing him to feel the level of the threat, estimate the number of lives at risk, and even feel which type of threat was coming. He could make objects and other people float thanks to guidance from Uraraka, even things the size of trucks that he could then manage with black whip. His quirks had become extensions of himself.

But he had not developed his other three quirks, particularly the one he had known about since first year: fire.

He knew the basics. Kacchan had helped him work out what to expect with All Might one day.

“It sounds like this cagey asshole couldn’t turn it off.”

All Might spit out his green tea that meeting. “Bakugou-kun!”

Kacchan huffed and threw the notebook with all of OFA’s details All Might could compile on the couch beside him. “Look, we still don’t know squat about the quirk, except that the guy’s always on . He might be able to weaponize it like an explosion or just spread it to everything he touches, but don’t we have to assume that Deku will get it at some point and it’ll be most important to figure out how to turn it on and off?”

All Might looked down and pondered at that.

“I think Kacchan’s right.” Kacchan looked at Izuku with one eyebrow raised. “We should assume that I’ll be able to light my entire body on fire, and spread it to other things.” He paused and scribbled in his own notebook a bit. “I’ll probably be able to light things I float, and maybe even black whip. But I shouldn’t assume I’ll be able to control it more than that. And we can at least guess that when it comes, the big goal will be figuring out how to turn it off. Because he’s never had it off, not once.”

All Might smiled. “So then, Midoriya, it sounds like continuing to try to trigger the quirk on purpose is the plan, to give you as much time as possible to practice such a large addition to your skill set.”

Izuku looked down at his notes and circled the only thing he knew would be an issue for sure: damage control. “It feels like it should’ve come already, though. So much has happened that I honestly don’t know what would trigger it.”

Izuku didn’t tell either of them that he didn’t want to know what would trigger the quirk if he still hadn’t gone through it yet, because he didn’t have a choice. He had to become a better tool to defeat All for One, come hell or high water.

“Deku, get ready for this one!” Uraraka joined OFA trainings from time to time, releasing things as large as small buildings on him, watching how he moved and suggesting how to float more efficiently against the challenge.

He dodged a huge metal pipe by floating left and extending four black whip prongs, throwing it to the side in their largest training space Cementoss had created yet. “I was born ready! Keep hitting me with everything you’ve got!”

Kacchan used the element of surprise more whenever Uraraka was there. With his danger sense preventing it from ever being fatal, Kacchan would go all out in the hopes that it’d at least make Izuku stumble onto a new way of thinking, if not release a new quirk within him. He aimed a relatively quiet, steady stream of explosions for the back of his head as he ran, giving him different angles to dodge from.

Izuku got a searing stabbing sensation through the centerline of his head and bending backwards, supporting his weight with float and turning to face Kacchan with a smile. “Trying to kill me, huh? New tactic?”

Kacchan gave him a rare smirk back. Izuku only got to see them during training and exceptionally nerdy observations he made when they worked together. He loved being the cause of them. “Yeah, new tactic.”

Still, no flame quirk manifested itself. He tried every day for weeks, but no matter how big, secretive or intense the attack was, no flames came out of his body. 

So he took the opportunity, to both keep everyone at UA a little safer again and hopefully encounter whatever would awaken the quirk, to do his third year internship somewhere far away once more. He didn’t tell anyone before he left, no letters, nothing. He figured it was better that way, ripping off the bandaid and avoiding anyone accidentally leaking the information to the tenth mole he came across in the process.

Izuku did a two-month internship in the Kamagasaki slum in Osaka, a city far southwest from Tokyo. It was a concentrated area where people struggled to meet their daily needs, living off of low-paying day labour and what little welfare the government could still provide after the past two years. Airin-chiku Hero Agency gave him the opportunity to protect the slum’s often-targeted residents. The Paranormal Liberation Front preyed on places like Kamagasaki, where most people had quirks but no say in how they might survive as basic structures for assistance crumbled. Villains showed them the thrill that could accompany making their own rules, and whole districts could fall to chaos within days. 

Izuku learned how to better negotiate with distrustful civilians. He learned how to use his analytical skills and body differently, to not cause damage to rows of the cheap rooms for rent and tents during scuffles. He learned (the hard way) how to differentiate between those who had been overcome with evil and those who could still be saved in the close-knit community. 

He was invited to the Japanese Hero Association Conference in Tokyo at the end of his internship to be honoured for his work. He’d increased his agency’s capacity by 94% in an area that struggled to get anyone to come to their aid. And while he was grateful for the honour, it felt like a distraction from what was happening around the country: more chaos, more destruction, and breakdowns in service provision to the most unfortunate members of society. The conference didn’t attempt to solve the problems happening on a wide scale, let alone grieve the many lives that had been lost since Deika fell.

And on top of that, Izuku still didn’t have his flame quirk. 

As he walked up to the stage to accept his award, donning a sharp, forest green suit and tie, his danger sense went off.

His danger sense went berserk.

He could feel the rough outlines of over a hundred people in Kamagasaki, over 500 kilometers away. There was fire, screaming, tarps melting into flesh, people suffocating. He started panting and sweating, so overwhelmed that as he ran from that stage, ripping off his coat and tie to allow himself to move easier in the air, he thought it must’ve been a trap. 

Floating above the scene an hour later, he could see no clear villain: only scorched heaps of ash, the screams still echoing in his mind. He had made it from that stupid conference just in time to see the Osaka district he’d grown to love and care for get wrecked by tragedy, and he wasn’t sad. He was livid .

His supervisor, Chinen-sensei, called him on his emergency comms from the outskirts of the destruction and used her imaging quirk on him, worried and desperate. She was able to project an image onto herself of the person that someone felt safest around, by what she described as “the feel of certain parts of their mind,” and speak from that face, using reason and support to break through to them easier. She’d used her quirk (with permission, unlike now) to forge relationships with people in the slum who felt completely alienated from society, and built up so much respect among them, not as a hero, but as a person. And in that moment, she looked at Izuku and turned into Kacchan. She spoke to him looking just like Kacchan had two months ago, the day before he’d left. And seeing his face made Izuku even angrier at himself for leaving UA without saying a word to him twice now. “You saved who you could, when you could. This is devastating, but it isn’t your fault.”

He was so angry he couldn’t save those people. He thought about how she couldn’t understand because she didn’t have the world riding on her shoulders, how she wasn’t powerful enough to know what loss felt like when she actually could have prevented it, how these people needed more than a hero to think they’d done their best before moving on. 

She looked like Kacchan, but pained, sad for him, a look he’d never given him before. “If you don’t let this go, let this leave you, it will consume you. You know that.” 

He couldn’t accept that. He couldn’t let it go. All he could do was howl into the night, consumed with the rage of a war he couldn’t win.

“At least look at your hands, Izuku. Look at yourself. You developed your quirk.”

He was briefly surprised, looking at the flames billowing off his body. They waned a bit as he watched them, before coming back full force. 

Like Kamagasaki, he had ignited.

It hadn’t been his fault. Kamagasaki’s residents had access to limited resources and reaction time from government-based response services were limited in an already emergent period in the history of Japan. He hadn’t gone to the conference to avoid his responsibilities. He also knew that “you can’t save everyone.” Class 3-A had heard that phrase so many times that it’d become a sing-song anthem of sorts that they chanted when people professed guilt after casualties or had seen something terrible in the field. 

Izuku knew this, in theory.

But he was angry: at the agency for sending him to the conference, at the nearest fire department for not attending to the fire fast enough, at the world for letting its most vulnerable people live in such dire conditions. And he was angry he got an award for attempting to solve something he could never truly fix, problems Kamagasaki residents were embroiled in every day.

All for One was evil, but Izuku had never known an evil like what happened that day, so systemic that no one person could keep it in check. The combination of factors that led to the disaster in Kamagasaki had been manmade, longcoming, by people who weren’t villains but didn’t care as much about their fellow man, and he couldn’t stop an evil like that. More importantly, he didn’t think he should have to stop it. It shouldn’t have been a problem in the first place. Humans should be better than that, he thought, quirk suppressant bracelets he’d requested on his wrists as he took the three hour trip back to UA. 

The conference was supposed to have been a celebration of what he’d accomplished. It was almost Christmas. He came back still wearing black, the bullet train leaving hours after the mass funeral. He swore he could still smell the smoke from the scene. 

Home didn’t feel right anymore. Nothing did.

Chapter Text

All Might, slightly trembling cup of green tea in hand, shifted uncomfortably on the couch across from a very disgruntled Katsuki and uncharacteristically scowling Deku. They’d met to discuss Deku’s progress on developing his OFA quirks during their third-year internships and how to turn off his flame quirk, just like Katsuki had predicted they’d have to do. 

Katsuki knew his place in these meetings: listen to the nerd’s progress and figure out how to get him to better use OFA. Everyone in their class knew that Deku had OFA, but no one knew how Katsuki helped him hone black whip, float, or full cowl to higher percentages, how often they sparred without their quirks and Deku could use nothing but danger sense (since the shithead couldn’t turn it off yet) to keep building his strength. This time, Katsuki requested they do a quirkless match with Deku’s quirk-suppressant bracelets on. The ones the asshole had on days after coming back from Osaka of all places because he couldn’t control his fucking flames after tragedy hit. You know, the tragedy that hit while he was getting awarded for shit he’d done at an agency he hadn’t told anybody he was going to before leaving, not even Katsuki, not even after New York and all his half-assed apologies.

“Maybe a quirkless sparring match with his bracelets still on will help Deku see how it feels without the quirk and work backwards, feel his way out of it on his own.”

All Might let out a sigh of relief, despite how much Katsuki grit his teeth while he offered the suggestion. “That sounds like an excellent idea, Bakugou-kun. Shall we try that, Midoriya?”

Deku’s scowl looked so strange on his face. “Yes, that sounds fine.”

The thing was, Katsuki didn’t have quirk-suppressant bracelets. And Katsuki had a lot of moves in his arsenal at this point, but for sentimentality, he was going to AP shot Deku in the goddamn arm.

He hadn’t wanted to really hurt Deku in a long time. 

Months before Deku had just up and fucking left for New York, Aizawa’d told the class he wouldn’t be joining them for some time as he healed. It’d been a couple of days since their parents had all moved into a dorm on campus, making Katsuki’s life a living hell filled with seeing his parents whenever he wasn’t in class, working on assignments for class, or sleeping because he was still healing himself. But Katsuki didn’t care as long as he could just make sure that dumbass was still safe. 

He’d needed to follow Deku through battle with Shigaraki. He needed to keep the nerd within arm’s reach when shit got real, because he knew that Deku would always do what he felt was right, not what made sense. Katsuki respected that he won big battles in order to save people, never complaining about the pressure of having to ultimately defeat All for One on top of it. It made Deku more of a hero than anyone else he knew. But Deku was also a dumb fucking asshole who needed someone to keep him in check, tell him when to have boundaries, and have his back while he learned how to carry the burden of his destiny on his shoulders. Katsuki hadn’t always protected him, of course. But he was making up for it now. He’d follow him until the ends of the fucking earth to make sure he was safe. So he went to the hospital every weekend to check on him, only to be turned away every time. He asked All Might and Auntie Inko how he was doing every couple of days, only to be told he was “still recovering.” 

Until he’d been told that Deku was leaving.

Through his friends.

Who all got letters from him, telling them that he had OFA, how he’d gotten it, and why he had to go.

“Shitty Hair, what the fuck did your letter say?”

“Oh, he was thanking me, saying that he had something to explain--”

Drooly said the same thing. “--Explain to everybody in class how All Might--”

Soy Sauce Face said the same thing. “--All Might gave him his quirk, and Shigaraki AND All for One, they’re both--”

Racoon Eyes was the only one who questioned him about it. “--He’s getting hunted down, so he can’t stay here anymore. Dude, you got it in your letter. Why’re you asking?”

“Fuck off, I just wanted to make sure that mine had the same shit as yours.”

They probably thought he was being arrogant, making sure he’d gotten the most information of anyone else. But he lied. He hadn’t gotten one at all.

After each time he’d helped the nerd train, after each meeting with All Might discussing the predecessors, after each late night run they spent talking about classes, how the country might be headed, or stupid shit like how insane the latest tiktok trend was to distract them from the insanity that was their lives, the nerd hadn’t thought once to tell him, “Hey, I’m leaving for a couple of months.” As if knowing about OFA seemed like the only thing he needed to tell people, so there was nothing else to say to Katsuki about the matter.

And Katsuki had known he would want to keep everybody safe after what went down. That was just how Deku was, caring for everybody but himself. He’d just assumed he’d at least get a fucking post-it note about it. 

Every day Deku didn’t come home, Katsuki would meet with his parents at some fucking point, and Auntie Inko would be there, crying about her son. And every day, Katsuki would comfort her, awkwardly letting her hold him as if he were some connection to Deku, some sort of substitute if she closed her eyes and wished hard enough. And every day, Katsuki felt like a lie she grasped onto, a painful lie that Deku wouldn’t even know about.

“Oh, Katsuki-kun, do you think he’s afraid?”

He’d lie. “Of course not, Auntie.”

“Oh, Katsuki-kun, do you think he’s safe?”

He’d lie. “I’m sure, Auntie.”

“Oh, Katsuki-kun, do you think he'll be home soon?”

He’d lie. “I’m sure, Auntie.”

He’d treated Deku like shit in the past, so he didn’t let himself cry over the lies, or feel betrayed. He lost five kilos, passing up meals to sit on the school roof and watch a sun that rose and fell when it should, never changing schedules and letting him wonder where it’d gone. He faltered in training after losing so much muscle. And he kept the thought that he was worthless garbage who didn’t deserve to feel guilty or betrayed to himself.

When Deku finally came home, it felt like the nerd had gotten jacked and ready for future battles after using Katsuki as a warmup, getting to higher places in the hero world while leaving Katsuki behind, destroyed over it and second-rate at best. Sure, Katsuki could continue being Deku’s local competition for now . But once Deku got enough quirks under control and lived to be the prophecy OFA essentially promised he would become, Katsuki would be old news with one flashy quirk, a means to his glorious end. And that shit wasn’t ok. But again, because nothing would change if he didn’t, he kept it to himself. 

When the nerd first apologized, as if that was enough, Katsuki thought it had to be a prank. 

Deku wanted to catch up, apologize, talk about leaving without saying a word, explain because Katsuki "deserved" an explanation, as if there was one for this shit. Katsuki thought he wouldn’t stop bringing it up, making him more and more aware that Deku truly didn’t understand, didn’t get how much he couldn’t eat, couldn’t sleep, couldn’t fucking function without knowing how and where he was all that time and why he was there and not safe at UA with him. So he said the least regrettable thing he could think of: that he didn’t need a letter to know Deku was coming home, hoping Deku would understand that Katsuki wanted to be home for him. 

And look, if Katsuki did need to know Deku was coming home, he’d be disappointed one day.

And if he didn’t, he wouldn’t be.

So he made himself not need to know, by telling himself not to over and over again each time he felt sick to his stomach thinking about it. He just needed to be by Deku’s side while he still could, so that he didn’t die as soon, as powerful as he’d get with the types of villains he’d cross paths with. Katsuki needed him to at least see the man he’d become.

When Deku sparred with him for the first time since coming home from New York, he’d gotten so much stronger and developed so many new moves, it was like taking on a completely different opponent. But Katsuki no longer shouted “Die!” when he landed a hook, no longer taunted him when he got the upper hand. He’d gotten better in his own ways, despite losing so much weight. It took three matches to pin Deku down, but he was proud he could still keep up. 

Deku had looked at him like he was the most important thing in the world. “Kacchan,” he’d said in awe, “you’ve grown.” 

Katsuki needed him to live a little longer. Deku knew more than anyone else how much of a piece of shit he'd been who wanted to prove himself before, and when he'd started doing what he did because it was the right thing to do. So it meant the most that he seemed like he’d changed, coming from Deku, and he needed that. He needed him.

When Deku left for the second time, Katsuki had thought he’d proven himself to be someone to confide in. He’d kept himself and his family safe throughout every single villain encounter. He’d woken up more than once to a gun to his head or a knife over his throat, and fought his way out of it without any casualties, any complaints, nothing Recovery Girl couldn’t fix. He’d thought Deku would feel like he was solid enough, good enough to talk to before leaving again.

But Deku went radio silent when Katsuki asked him where he was going for his internship and left again a day later , a week before everyone else’s internships started.

And Katsuki went fucking berserk.

“WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU MEAN, ‘HE LEFT?!’” He shouted at All Might in the teacher’s lounge after throwing his tea cup on the floor.

All Might looked worried. “Bakugou-kun, calm down. Please.”

“I NEED A FUCKING EXPLANATION! HOW COULD HE DO THIS TO ME AGAIN? DOESN’T HE GET IT? DOESN’T HE GET WHAT THIS DOES TO ME?!” Katsuki cried for the first time since their fight at ground beta. He couldn’t hold it in anymore. 

“Bakugou-kun,” All Might said in a hushed tone, walking over to him slowly. “He doesn’t understand what this does to you.”

All the fight left him as he started sobbing, and he let All Might hold him while he felt thrown away, purposeless once more, powerless to stop it all.

Katsuki went through two months of texts from Auntie Inko between patrols, asking how he was, if he could come back for some tea one day and keep her company, if she could bother him for a minute to talk about the latest movie that came out via satellite to the dorms some time. The longer it went on, the more he thought about Deku’s stupid fucking face, and the stupid fucking promises he’d made to surpass Katsuki, and how he kept calling him by his stupid fucking childhood nickname. He thought about his stupid fucking eyes, and his stupid fucking smile when kids looked at him after an attack and thought everything was going to be ok, despite how hollow those looks got over time and how deep the bags under them became.

Oh, Katsuki had noticed.

He’d seen how the nerd stopped blushing at Round Face’s giggles and not-so-subtle pushing of her chest in his face. How he’d stopped gazing at All Might with reverence. How he’d stopped giggling when Half-n-Half made a terrible joke.

He’d talked to him about it once in his room while they studied for a calculus test. “Oi, nerd. You don’t smile like you used to.”

Deku’d snorted, a pale comparison to how he used to giggle, arms shaking and shoulders moving up and down like a wild marionette. “You miss my smile, huh, Kacchan?”

“Fuck you, I’m serious. You don’t smile, and you don’t giggle and shit, not even when Round Face gets her tits all up against you while you ‘hug.’ What’s wrong with you?”

Deku had blushed a little, and Katsuki had felt so relieved to see a little bit of that innocence and sincerity back. “I-I still smile sometimes, I guess…”

“Not as much though.”

“No, not as much.”

“Why?”

Deku’s face had morphed into something cold and wistful at the same time. “There’s not really much to smile about anymore.”

He was becoming jaded.

And Katsuki was allowed to be jaded, because he wasn’t a fucking beam of sunshine that wanted to help everybody like a goddamn puppy on steroids. But Deku wasn’t. He was supposed to be the symbol of peace, and for Deku, that meant really practicing what he preached, not just smiling because he had to. 

He thought about it every day for two months, and he hated that he missed that stupid fucking smile more than anything. He knew Deku couldn’t lose that smile he used to have. He knew it like he knew winter was harder on his quirk, like he knew that Auntie Inko cried hardest at night when she thought his mom couldn’t hear her anymore, like he knew the exact shade of pine green Deku’s eyes were.

Some people call noticing small changes like that in someone else “fixation,” “obsession,” or even fucking “love.” 

Katsuki didn’t know what it was, but he knew that Deku didn’t have it back for him.

When Deku came back the second time, his exact words to Katsuki, after knocking on his door for five minutes straight when he wouldn’t come out to the fucking common room to welcome him back with Auntie Inko in tears again and his parents so happy for her again and everyone holding balloons and so excited, were almost the same as after New York: “Kacchan, I’m sorry.”

Katsuki knew what worrying about Deku until he stopped eating felt like, how not hearing his muttering behind him in class made things look greyer, how much attention it took to memorize the bruises on Deku’s face after an attack and track their progress to make sure they didn’t become more swollen because Deku didn’t give a fuck about himself. He didn’t know if that shit was obsession, or what love really was. He just knew what caring about Deku was like. 

Katsuki had always thought “danger sense” was hilarious. He loved that some OFA user generations ago made the idiot finally feel too bad when he didn’t stop his own suffering from happening, so bad that he finally stopped hurting himself so damn much. 

So this fine winter evening, after last two months away without so much as a text, he was going to break the no-quirks rule during a truly quirkless fight where the asshole couldn’t use his fucking sixth sense. Deku was going to pay for those two months by learning to care about things the old-fashioned way, getting to feel a little less immortal for once. He was going to pay for making Katsuki worry about losing him too soon, for losing his smile, for making Katsuki deal with his mother missing a son who wouldn’t come home one day. 

Deku had used his core strength to run up a cement wall a few feet and kick Katsuki’s ribs. They’d been sparring for about half an hour and Deku had been doing well. He was taller and stronger than Katsuki now, but that also meant that he was less agile. Katsuki had gotten hits in that Deku couldn’t dodge because he couldn’t move as fast, and he took that kick on purpose, rolling with it to take as little impact as possible and give himself an opening while Deku checked for injuries like clockwork, a learned habit at this point before he’d follow through with his next attack.

Katsuki hid his right thumb and pointer fingers in a small “o” behind the rest of the back of his hand facing Deku, so he couldn’t see the AP shot ring and the left pointer finger forming behind it. He’d gotten good enough at regulating explosion size and precision without gloves that he didn’t need them since this last time around at his internship with Endeavor Agency.

He purposefully fired right at Deku’s right shoulder. The asshole couldn’t take hits to his arms because of his self sacrificial bullshit first year. It was the part of his body that bore the brunt of his shitty fucking decision-making. So Katsuki was going to make him think fast and dodge, or hit him where it hurt, literally. It might’ve sounded crazy, but Katsuki was beyond the point of no return. He was going to make Deku take care of himself by hurting him, if that’s what it took. He could be the villain in it all. He didn’t fucking care anymore.

Not for someone who didn’t care back.

He saw Deku panic for a split second before glowering at him. A lock of his hair burnt as he yanked his right arm backwards and fell to the ground in a tumble. And then he broke the bracelets.

And boy, was he on fire. What a quirk.

“WHAT THE FUCK, KACCHAN?! ARE YOU TRYING TO KILL ME?”

It wasn’t the first time he’d cursed, but it was the most angry he’d been at Katsuki while he’d done it. All Might was already running to insert himself in between them when Katsuki held out his right hand to stop him, explosions popping off in warning.

“STAY OUT OF THIS, ALL MIGHT. LET HIM LEARN!”

“LEARN WHAT?! HOW TO DIE, YOU INSUFFERABLE ASSHOLE?!”

“LEARN HOW TO WATCH WHAT THE FUCK’S AROUND YOU, INSTEAD OF PERPETUALLY HAVING YOUR HEAD UP YOUR OWN ASS!” Katsuki was almost chest to chest with Deku, feeling his flames warm his winter uniform, fireproof but allowing the stark change in temperature to seep through. The blazes licked at the tips of Deku’s eyelashes without burning them. It was terrifying, beautiful, and awful all at once. It was Deku leaving Katsuki behind.

“WHAT DOES THAT EVEN MEAN ?! I COULD’VE LOST AN ARM , YOU MORON!” Izuku turned, pushed All Might to the side for the first time ever , and broke down the wall instead of using the door, green sparks adding to the fire surrounding him as he stormed off in the darkness.

All Might looked completely flabbergasted as he quickly patted down his clothes, smothering where the flames had caught on linen. He stared out of the wall where Deku had left, speechless. 

Katsuki said what he’d practiced. “I shouldn’t have done that. I should apologize.”

All Might exhaled so deeply, Katsuki worried he needed to sit down from the shock of it all. “You’re right, Bakugou-kun.”

Katsuki bowed when he left. He flew using near-silent propelling of small explosions from the newly built ground beta training site, trailing Deku on foot once he was close, using all of his stealth training he could even though he knew Deku could probably sense him there. He let off an explosion at Deku’s back, just big enough to make him stumble forward behind their dorms and get his attention but not to hurt him this time. 

“Kacchan,” Deku said low in warning without turning around, a voice Katsuki had never heard him use before. “I’m giving you to the count of three to apologize.”

Katsuki looked around with nervous excitement at the prospect of getting to see Deku unhinged. “Like fuck I’d apologize.” 

They were alone, south of the dorms and away from the path most frequented between the cafeteria, classrooms, study rooms, small, padded gym space and common rooms on campus. Katsuki had thought about that beforehand.

The next thing he knew, he was pinned against a pine tree in a chokehold, his uniform turtleneck the only thing stopping his neck from burning while his chin started to get painfully hot above the flames. 

“Apologize,” Deku said in that low voice again, “or I’ll hurt you.”

“No.” He wheezed. He was even more excited, maybe from seeing him act real for once in almost two years. “Deku, look at me--”

“I’m fucking looking , Kacchan.” He was speaking louder, and combined with the curse, it almost made Katsuki feel giddy.

“Look at me when I say, ‘Fuck off.’”

Deku full cowled him around and shoved him by the shoulders against the back concrete wall of the dorms, pushing his knee in between Katsuki’s legs and locking him in place. “I am going to make you treat me like an equal and give me some goddamn respect. I’ve been through too much, for too long, to deal with your shit right now. And if you still can’t see what I have to do just to stay on solid fucking ground, I’ll make you see it.”

Katsuki shuddered involuntarily. He was terrified for Deku to have been two shots away from this , but also so exhilarated by it. “I’m waiting for the lesson.” Katsuki took off his gloves in the small space still between them as he started to see spots in his vision, the chokehold not letting up and the skin on his chin starting to burn. He gasped in pain as the second glove fell to the ground. “You wanna hurt me, Deku? You got all your quirks. Here I am, and this time, I won’t even fight back. Fucking. Hurt. Me.”

Chapter Text

Izuku’s danger sense had been going off for a minute and he couldn’t figure out what Katsuki’s deal was. Their relationship was so confusing, he was still mad at himself for what happened in Osaka and how he’d treated Katsuki, and he was infuriated that Katsuki seemed to think he was some sort of game to be played. “You’re about to faint. Are you fucking liking this, Katsuki?” 

The change to using Katsuki’s real first name in that dark voice while he didn’t know whether Izuku would choke him out until he blacked out or burn him until he screamed, was making Katsuki hard, much to his own embarrassment. And it was becoming difficult to hide the half-chub Izuku’s knee was inching up on.

“Maybe I am, Izuku.” He spat as he started going limp.

Izuku lessened up on his throat, feeling the loss of consciousness like a fog covering his brain while Katsuki coughed, gasped for breath. His forearm shifted to prop his weight against Katsuki’s right shoulder, other hand pushing against his left. Danger sense made this upsetting, confusing situation...odd. Like it was all in his hands. “Why didn’t you tell me you were passing out?” Izuku was seething at how stupid Katsuki was being.

He was still coughing. “Maybe I wanted to see, see what you would f-fucking do.”

Izuku leaned harder into his shoulder and watched Katsuki wince in pain. He moved his knee up out of curiosity and felt Katsuki’s dick, heavy between his legs. 

It made him feel powerful in a way he hadn’t before. Not sexually, certainly. 

He’d had sex before, with Uraraka a handful of times, when missions had been dark, adrenaline was high and they couldn’t sleep. It was about warm bodies, wrapping their arms around each other and grasping for something they couldn’t fill within themselves. They knew they were attracted to each other, so it made sense to try. It felt good, and he loved her body, the way her nipples perked up when he ran his teeth along her neck and told her not to moan so loud, the way she tasted after he’d fingered her, lingering on his tongue well through slow kisses as he thrust in and out of her, alive. They were never together, though. They were friends who’d had sex a couple of times after he came back from New York when they didn’t know what else to do. They still talked to each other like human beings and had a strong friendship. 

This felt different.

First off, he’d never felt like power was apart of sex. Secondly, he’d figured he’d have sex with women. He loved their bodies, how they curved in all the right places, where he could see himself grabbing them (if he didn’t feel too embarrassed by the fantasy, too much like he was objectifying them in his head). He liked thicker bits, dimples on thighs and softness. There was something about it all that felt sensual to him.

But in that moment, he felt power over Katsuki, not only a man but the person he trusted most in the world, who could never say how he really felt and was getting hard from almost getting choked out by him. And it made Izuku hard too. Katsuki couldn’t feel it because of their positions, his dick off to the side as he pushed harder and harder into Katsuki’s right shoulder, pinning him in place. But he was, all from seeing Katsuki in pain and knowing that he liked it. His danger sense wasn’t going off anymore, and he could watch Katsuki stay rock hard while so much of his weight pushed down on him, making him grimace and squirm. It made Izuku salivate a little bit, feel like he wanted to mark Katsuki, punish him, teach him a lesson by brutalizing him. If he was offering his body up like that and wanted to get hurt, Izuku wanted to hurt him.

Izuku leaned into Katsuki’s right ear to murmur as he winced some more, inhaling sharply. “You’re an embarrassment, you know that?” Katsuki moaned softly enough that Izuku almost didn’t hear it. “You want me to hurt you until you cum, don’t you? You could get off just from this,” he muttered as he took his left hand and grasped Katsuki’s balls through the thick black material of his uniform, fingers slipping and pinching at the edges, “couldn’t you?”

Katsuki didn’t try to swallow the moan this time. He turned to face Izuku as much as he could. “If that’s what you want, I’ll take what I can get.”

Izuku spat in his face. “You disgust me.” Katsuki whimpered, still trying to squirm out of his hold but not moving to wipe the spit off, slowly falling down his cheek. “You followed me, messed with me, almost destroyed my arm, to what, get off? Get me to humiliate you so you could moan like a bitch in heat outside of the dorms, where anybody could see?”

Katsuki shuddered again, and it sparked that feeling in Izuku, that feeling of power in Katsuki’s submission to the pain. “I only,” he took another deep breath in, his voice up an octave. He was so turned on, he didn’t know what to do with himself. It was hard to think straight. “I only wanted to fight, I didn’t think it’d end up like this.”

“So if I’d just beaten you up, what would you have gotten out of it?”

“I wanted you to...fucking give a shit.” 

That made Izuku pause. “If I fight you, you think that means I give a shit about you?”

Katsuki was still squirming. He couldn’t stop. A spark kept growing inside him with all the anticipation, knowing Izuku knew he was into this and how fucked up it all was. “Hell yes. Fuck yes.”

“So you think, after all this time, I didn’t give a shit about you?” Izuku’s voice was quiet now, and only embers were left on his skin as he looked a little...sad.

Katsuki tried to move forward instinctively and get his head closer to Izuku’s, to comfort him or egg him on, he wasn’t sure. But Izuku kept him pinned against that wall. He could only move one leg, thick thighs bracketing his other one. So he wrapped that free leg around him, making them a little closer, pissed off he wanted to comfort him after being treated like shit for so long. He growled weakly, still recovering from the chokehold. “Deku, I’m just someone to try your quirks on when you’re home, to test out whether you’re good enough for the real world.” Izuku’s flames reignited, smaller than they’d been, but hot through fabric, warming his dick in a way he’d never thought he’d want before. “So hurt me. Out here, like you don’t care. It’ll be easier than pretending you won’t fucking leave again.”

Izuku looked at him for a long time. He was really, really angry. He’d been angry since Kamagasaki days ago, but this felt different. This was anger for something he couldn’t change that was personal. “You can’t take that back once you say it, Katsuki.” He moved his knee up swiftly, watching Katsuki struggle in the hold to lift onto the tips of his toes and avoid getting kneed in the balls. Then he backed off and watched as he stayed there, waiting. He wanted to make sure they were really going to do this. “Are you gonna run?”

Katsuki trembled faintly before he set his jaw, like he always did before they sparred together. “No.”

Izuku grabbed ahold of Katsuki’s hips with blazing hands, appreciating the curve of his ass, how soft parts of it were closer to his thighs despite how hard his muscles were, fighting his palms instead of giving in to the squeeze. His hands were hot on Katsuki’s hips and asscheeks, flames licking his ungloved hands as they dangled uselessly at his sides, slowly warming his callouses. He jumped at the feeling, so unused to being sensitive there, grabbing around Izuku’s neck instinctively. Izuku smiled and the flames waned again, but the smile was sinister, deadly, something Katsuki had never seen before, not even against Shigaraki. 

“The world doesn’t revolve around you, Kacchan.” He placed a hand around his neck, only embers on his hands again heating the beating skin on Katsuki’s chin. But he didn’t sense any threat at all. Izuku was also faintly aware past the thrill of the moment that his new quirk waxed and waned with his mood. That now, he was feeling anger, but it was eclipsed by that hunger to mark him and taste that type of power. “I’ve been having a really fucking hard couple of days, and I’m going to punish you, hurt you for being a selfish brat.”

The more raw spots on Katsuki’s body from the flames were making him feel more awake than he had for so long, after fighting on and staying quiet about all of this for so long. He tried to swallow but his throat was almost dry, fight or flight mixed with panting and desperation. “Good.” His voice cracked, from a mix of wanting to cry and wanting to scream, wanting to be taken and wanting to take. “Act like I don’t know about what happened, don’t know about losing people, don’t care about it at all. Ruin me and leave again.”

Izuku stared him down and the smile dropped as black whip came out of his back, flames finally extinguished. He moved his hand on Katsuki’s hip to squarely on his ass, squeezing until Katsuki could feel the telltale signs of a grip that would bruise as a whip wrapped around each of his thighs. He slipped the hand around Katsuki’s throat up, grabbing his chin. “Keep looking at me. I want to see how you look when I fuck you.”

Katsuki whimpered. He grit his teeth to try and hide his desperation. “With pleasure.”

His thighs were dragged up the wall a bit, and one more whip came out to strip him down as he started to float forward and press into Izuku. The whip yanked his zipper down his back and pulled his costume off of one shoulder, then the next, exposing his skin to the now night air as Izuku finished tugging it off completely, holding his gaze as he yanked his feet up and free of the bottom half. Katsuki looked down in shame as his dick sprung free, but a hand found its way back under his chin and pulled his gaze back up to meet his. “Nuh uh, you look at me. When I tell you what to do, you fucking do it.”

He felt a blush spread across his cheeks and hated it. “Ok.”

“Are you embarrassed because I can see how hard I’m making you? Or because you’re outside? Or both?” Izuku sounded so confident. It was so unlike him.

“Both, ok?!” Katsuki hissed.

“But you still like this over no attention at all, hm?”

Katsuki felt so small. “Yes.”

“Perfect.” Izuku took the hand that’d yanked his costume off and slid his fingers along Katsuki’s lips. “Open your fucking mouth.” Katsuki gave him a hard glare, fighting it for a second before opening his mouth, and suddenly Izuku’s fingers were all the way back in his throat and he was gargling around it. He could feel precum on the tip of his cock cold in the night air as Izuku mercilessly finger-fucked his throat, no ground underneath him to support him with his thighs spread wide and Izuku pressed up against him. Katsuki breathed through his nose as tears streamed down his face, Izuku’s hand shoving in and out of Katsuki’s mouth like that was all it was good for. When he finally relented, took his hand out and saw it shine in the moonlight, coated in thick spit, they both stared at it, spellbound. “Spit on it,” Izuku ordered, and Katsuki did, hawking up what had coated his throat, entranced. 

Izuku looked at him again as he took his hand and rubbed it between his asscheeks, over his hole, the slick from his throat coating his ass in a way Katsuki had never experienced before. Well, he’d never experienced anything like that before. He’d never had sex. It just hadn’t been something he’d needed. But this was not what he’d expected. 

And then, there was no weight against him, and something hollow-feeling pushing inside his asshole. Izuku lit up again and touched burning hands to his bare thighs, branding him. “FUCK!” Katsuki shouted hoarsely from his abused throat.

Izuku still didn’t sense any danger. He’d wanted Katsuki to fear him, bow to him, stop feeling so goddamn irrational and see how hopeless he made everything they could have, but he still seemed to want the pain. So he stood back to admire his work. “It’s been awhile since you really got burned, huh, Kacchan? Almost like I never burned you until now.” Izuku wanted to touch the marks so badly, and anger was overcome by want and a need to punish him with that want again as the blaze dissipated into nothing but a low heat across his body, his hot fingers reaching out and stroking the marks, burnt handprints Katsuki would feel for days unless he wanted to show Recovery Girl the damage. It made him smile with a sick sort of pride that he’d been responsible for them. “You look good like this, marked up wherever I want you.” He dragged his nails lightly down the marks, and Katsuki whimpered as the sensation of nails on fresh burns mixed with the changeable whip inching into his ass. 

“How will you know when to st-t-op?!” Katsuki whispered, feeling full in a way he’d never felt before. He was completely trusting Izuku with his body and it turned him on so fucking much for some reason that he wanted to be good, to take whatever he gave him, even if he had a feeling it’d never happen again. But his hole was stretched so wide that it felt like it couldn’t go any wider, and the whip was going so deep, past the thick spit from his throat that it could drag into him, that it was starting to get painful.

“When I feel it. I’m listening for you, Kacchan.” Izuku’s skin got cool as protectiveness washed over him, taking his fingers up to his nipples and rubbing them softly as he lessened the whip’s length in Katsuki’s ass, crooking the widest part forward and watching him keen and moan as he fell apart. “You’re not in danger. You’re about to cum, you dumb slut.” Talking like that was freeing. Izuku liked it.

Crimson had lost to lust in Katsuki’s dilated pupils, so much so that Izuku told himself it had to be the dark playing tricks with his mind. Katsuki started to gyrate on the whip, moaning louder and louder, and Izuku waited until he sounded like he was a second away from cumming before he removed it, letting it disappear. “But you don’t get to cum.”

Losing the sensation and getting told he couldn’t have it at the last second made his dick feel like it was compressing, a small spurt of cum trickling out in a sharp pain, a tightening that wouldn’t unravel. He shouted with a cracked voice, desperately, unable to contain it this time with pleading eyes. “OH GOD, PLEASE, PLEASE FUCK ME THEN! MARK ME, HURT ME, JUST DON’T STOP!” He hated how much that pain made him want to please Izuku, but he also wanted it more than he’d wanted anything in so long. He was present, feeling those cool fingers flick and tug lightly on his nipples, the bite of the cold in the air giving him goosebumps, and he had never been more fucking aroused in his life. He wanted anything Izuku would give him. 

“But you won’t get to come, you deku. You want me to use your stretched out ass, cum and leave you out here like the mess that you are?” Izuku started squeezing tightly on Katsuki’s nipples, pulling them out a centimeter or so and watching his mouth gape in a silent scream. He looked wrecked, and Izuku was going to enjoy this more because of it. Anger had faded to the back of his mind and he was present, almost feral, watching Katsuki and thinking of all the ways he could make him stay on edge while he took what he wanted from him.

Izuku reveled in the tear streaks on Katsuki’s face and pathetic moaning as he moved one hand down from his chest to the cum that had trickled out of his dick during his ruined orgasm, collecting it with his fingers and promptly shoving it into his mouth. “Suck. Clean your cum off my hand.” 

Katsuki kept looking at him, wincing a bit at his own taste as he swallowed and his tongue continued to lathe around Izuku’s hand, into the webbing between his fingers, well past the job being done. He was challenging him, showing him he could take more. 

Izuku pushed deeper into his throat again. After that little display, he wanted his throat to feel thoroughly used after this. To keep pushing and not have his danger sense go off at all was one thing, and for everything to be ok for once in their lives, back together and safe, was another. But when he choked Katsuki on the dregs of his own cum after he begged to be impaled on his cock and nothing tingled in Izuku’s mind, giving him the slightest inkling that Katsuki needed a break, it made precum finally bead at the tip of his dick, making him want to finally take off his own uniform, at least enough of it to fuck him. He unzipped enough of it to free his cock while Katsuki gargled around his hand again, making him giggle a little. Izuku hadn’t giggled for a long time.

He took his hand out and Katsuki kept his mouth open, eyes still locked on his. He slid the saliva up and down his dick. “Good job, Kacchan. Tell me about how much you want to bounce on my cock, get split open some more. Tell me as loud as you can.”

Katsuki looked mesmerized and half-croaked, half-whispered. “I wanna, I wanna feel you inside of me, I want it to feel rough, I want you to dig into where you burned me while you, you drive into me, I want to feel you cum inside m-”

Izuku interrupted him. “Good.” He moved the whips on his thighs to wrap his legs around his waist, letting his nipples rest finally as he pulled him into his arms with one hand and angled his dick with the other, another two whips emerging and spreading his cheeks apart. As he circled Katsuki’s rim with his cock, Katsuki thrust his hands out weakly around his shoulders, pulling him closer. Izuku liked how he wasn’t talking back, slumping into his arms, head resting against his neck, surrendering. He was finally listening. Izuku held him back around his small waist, so feminine in a way, and with him so close, he could hear the little sigh, the genuine relief when Katsuki felt Izuku’s cock enter him.

Izuku could live off that feeling alone. This wasn’t just sex. This was territorial fucking. He was going to make Katsuki know how much he thought about him. He’d feel it when he sat down for the next few days, when he washed his thighs in the shower. There’d be no misunderstandings, no need to talk later. This could finally cut the tension between the two of them. 

He slowly sunk into Katsuki until he bottomed out, resisting the urge to move to enjoy that all-encompassing heat. He felt tighter than Izuku had imagined he would after how he’d skewered him. Tighter than pussy. He decided he liked it more. “You really think this is all there is, that I’ll be gone soon, don’t you?”

Katsuki’s head was still tucked into the crook of Izuku’s neck, sweating in the brisk air, panting as he tried to leverage his weight against Izuku’s waist and the whips holding his thighs open to rock back and forth, up and down as much as possible on his cock. He whispered, voice gone, “I think you don’t know how to care about me if you’re not fucking using me. So use me, please.”

It hurt so much to hear, and it was so infuriating at the same time. “But where’s the limit, Kacchan? You say I hurt you, but I’m spearing you open, fucking your throat raw with my goddamn hand, burning you, and I’m not sensing anything.” He almost pulled out entirely and heard a quiet whine in protest before slamming back into his ass, knocking the wind out of him. It made him angry that Katsuki could be so trusting with him if he didn’t actually trust him. Everything was a paradox with him. They could keep each other company in silence, or they could dismantle a villain hostage situation with explosions. They could shout at each other, or they could have tea with All Might. Nothing with him was ever simple or easy, but Izuku counted the days he spent away from him. He wanted it, needed the dysfunction, and hated it, hated it more than anything.

His hands heated up. He saw fire start to kindle on his skin and thought quickly: he pushed Katsuki away with a hand on either side of his chest, making hand prints over each nipple while Katsuki hissed and he pulled out, letting him float once more. “You’re wrong.” He growled. “I care about you more than anything, Kacchan. I just hate you. I hate how you are, how you won’t tell me how you feel like a normal person, how you’ve never been able to. How you wouldn’t let me tell you how I felt all this time, how you trust me but you don’t want to, all of it.” He hissed, “I hate you, Katsuki.”

Katsuki cried for the second time since their fight at ground beta. It was pitiful, sobbing, suspended in air, exposed, burnt, wanting to move but also wanting to be kept there, to stay in that moment with him. 

The flames went out. Izuku used a still-warm hand to move Katsuki’s sweaty hair off his face, came up close to him again and wrapped his arms around him once more, letting his lips hover right over his, letting Katsuki feel his arms around him and the warmth of his breath on his lips until he quieted. He ran his nose along his cheek and moved over to his neck, let his teeth sink deep into the skin and suck until he was sure it would bruise, another silent I’m here, I was here, I’ll try to be here again. He said into his neck, low but firm, “I’m marking you because you’re mine. You’ll see how I feel about you.”

Katsuki panted again as Izuku rubbed his dick back and forth between his cheeks, lips locked on that spot on his neck, sucking until he shivered, then licking over the mark before burying himself back inside him. Izuku took up a harsh pace, driving into Katsuki’s ass over and over again as his nails clutched onto burnt thighs, a whip moving between them and pinching Katsuki’s nipples hard while he gasped over and over. He felt how Katsuki would clench around him, how easily he could bring him that much closer to cumming, how Katsuki didn’t know that he was his constant.

And if what they were doing didn’t mean they were in love, if it was too messed up to be love, he didn’t want to be in love.

He just wanted to be with Katsuki.

Izuku whispered, “I’m gonna cum.”

“Please,” was all Katsuki could breathe, leaning on him, always.

Izuku kept thrusting into him as he came, feeling his cum make Katsuki even warmer around him, how his insides had shifted to fit him perfectly. He wondered how long it’d take until Katsuki couldn’t feel the space he’d carved out inside him anymore. 

He kept one hand around him as he pulled out quickly, sticking two of his fingers on his other one into his hole, truly loose now, gathering his cum without a second thought as he moved his face from Katsuki’s neck to look at him again. “Look at me, Katsuki.”

Katsuki opened his eyes after forcing them shut to feel every inch of Izuku, every moment he’d miss afterwards. And he really saw Izuku for what felt like the first time. Not his eyes or his smile, not the growing muscles or jaded undertones, but all of him, all at once. It was overwhelming.

Izuku probed his cum-covered fingers into his mouth, fresh from Katsuki’s ass. “Taste what I did to you.” Katsuki moaned, licking his filthy fingers, still hard. “Do you still want to cum?”

Katsuki lolled his head and murmured something that sounded like a “yes.” 

“You’re crazy. Disgusting, and so, so crazy.” Izuku wiped the rest of his cum off his dick and fed him that too, watching him lick around each finger in a fucked out haze as he loosened the whip on his nipples, letting them disappear. He put those fingers in his stretched out hole once more and crooked them until he found his prostate, listening for the moan, the tension in his breath, and then pressing into that spot again and again. Katsuki let out a broken yelp while Izuku tightened Katsuki’s grasp on his shoulders and wrapped his other hand around his dick finally, jerking him off slowly, thumbing the slit occasionally, going back to his ear to whisper. “I’ve never cared more about anybody in my entire goddamn life than you.”

Katsuki sniffled. He was lost, to pleasure, to pain, to overstimulation, to hearing words he’d never thought he’d hear, all of it. “I want to feel this tomorrow,” he whispered back.

“I know you do.” Izuku moved his hand faster, nudging Katsuki’s head up so that their foreheads could meet. “Look at me while you cum.”

And he did. He came, and he looked beautiful. Vulnerable. Grimacing. Tender. Scared. All the things he hadn’t said.

And Izuku kissed him. 

He kissed Katsuki as deeply as he could, dirty hands holding him tight as he released float and let his tongue explore his mouth, tasting some of himself there still. He dragged his teeth on his lips, licking the places he was harshest against. He kissed him like he wouldn’t come back tomorrow, because he might not. And he hated that Katsuki knew that, and that Katsuki knew he couldn’t ever bring himself to say goodbye anyway.

Katsuki let himself be kissed. He imagined that was love, and thought to himself that every mission he went on, each day Izuku was gone, he’d have had this, the smell of pine and sweat and being explored by the only person who still wanted him despite who he’d always been, maybe even for who he’d always been.

Izuku sat on the grass below them with Katsuki straddling his lap, and they kept kissing like that, filthy, keeping each other warm as best they could, hidden in the darkness but out in plainview for hours, wiping occasional tears from each others’ faces, Izuku nudging Katsuki’s cheeks with his nose. Katsuki broke the silence. He whispered, “Don’t say you’ll be here for me tomorrow.”

And Izuku whispered back, “I won’t.”

“If you could, though,” Katsuki sniffled again, terrified, “would you?”

“Forever,” Izuku answered with everything he’d ever had, every emotion he thought he couldn’t have anymore, that their lives as heroes had stolen from them.

“I’ll keep finding you, you know.” The tears were coming more frequently, and Izuku kissed where each one glimmered in the moonlight.

“I know.” Izuku’s throat bobbed, and the feeling was so foreign to him that it relieved him, to think that he could still get choked up. It made sense that it’d be because of Katsuki.

Katsuki scowled, pouting. “And I’ll always hate you too. You’re so many things for so many people and I, I can’t keep you safe.” The tears were flowing too quickly now to catch them all. He’d never been this open with anybody. Izuku had known him for so long, and it felt like he was watching Katsuki really crack. Not cry at ground beta, not try and hurt him under of the weight of his suppressed emotions, but break, completely.

So Izuku said all he could say. “I know.”

And they kissed again, drinking each other up until their lips stung and burnt in the cold of the night. Being loved, and being broken, together.