Chapter Text
Summer, 1909
The Lake Michigan shoreline stretched like a silver ribbon under the morning sun, its waters lapping gently against the private beach of the Bakugo estate. At six years old, Katsuki Bakugo already carried himself with the rigid posture his father demanded, even when no one was watching. Almost no one.
"The rocks skip better if you hold them like this, Kacchan!"
Izuku Midoriya demonstrated with a flat stone, his small fingers positioned just so. The stone danced across the water's surface five times before sinking. His threadbare shorts and patched shirt marked him as decidedly out of place on this stretch of wealthy shoreline, but his smile outshone any fine clothing. That smile had been what first drew Katsuki to him three years ago, when Inko Midoriya first arrived at the estate, clutching her son's hand and a letter of recommendation from the parish priest.
Katsuki scowled, but his eyes tracked the movement carefully.
"I know how to skip rocks, Deku." He launched his own stone, watching it bounce seven times before disappearing beneath the waves. A smile tugged at his lips despite his best efforts.
They weren't supposed to be friends. The son of Chicago's most prominent banking family had no business spending his summer mornings with the gardener's boy. But Mitsuki Bakugo, Katsuki's mother, had always possessed a soft spot for the Midoriyas. When Inko Midoriya's husband died in a factory accident, leaving her with a three-year-old son and mounting debts, Mitsuki had insisted on hiring her as the estate's head housekeeper.
"Your mother made those butter cookies again," Izuku said, pulling a slightly squashed package from his pocket. "She snuck them to me in the kitchen this morning."
Katsuki's mother had a habit of that—seeing the hunger in Izuku's too-thin frame and finding excuses to feed him. She'd been the one to first introduce them, on a rainy afternoon when Katsuki had been sulking in the kitchen.
"This is Izuku," she'd said, pushing forward a shy boy with wild green curls. "He needs a friend, and you need someone to keep you humble."
"Your form's getting better," Katsuki admitted grudgingly, selecting another stone from the beach. He reached for a cookie, the sweetness mixing with the salt air.
"Really?" Izuku beamed, and something in Katsuki's chest tightened—a feeling he wouldn't understand for many years to come.
The morning sun climbed higher, painting the water in sheets of gold. Behind them, the Bakugo mansion loomed like a cathedral, its red brick walls and white columns a monument to old money and older expectations. But here on the beach, social boundaries blurred like watercolors in the rain.
"Mother says you're starting at the Latin school next week," Izuku said, his voice smaller now. He'd be attending the public school in fall, where the other children of servants and laborers went. His mother had taught him to read early, spending precious pennies on second-hand books, and he devoured knowledge like other boys devoured penny candies.
"Father says it's time I started preparing for my future." Katsuki mimicked his father's stern tone, then pulled a face that made Izuku laugh. "It's just school, Deku. I'll still see you here."
But they both knew things were changing. The carefree days of rock-skipping and secret adventures were numbered, marked for extinction by the relentless march of social propriety. Already, Masaru Bakugo had begun to frown when he caught sight of them together, his disapproval a gathering storm.
*
Fall came with crisp winds off the lake and new restrictions. Masaru Bakugo, upon discovering his son still spent mornings with "the help's boy," had been explicit: such associations were beneath their family's dignity. Katsuki was expected to forge connections with his peers at the Latin school—the sons and daughters of Chicago's elite who would one day run the city's banks, businesses, and social circles.
But Katsuki found ways. Notes passed through the kitchen staff, often delivered with his mother's knowing smile. Midnight meetings in the garden when his parents hosted their interminable dinner parties. Quick conversations in the stables where Izuku helped tend the horses on weekends.
"Tell me about your school," Izuku would say, eyes bright with curiosity as they huddled in the hayloft. He devoured Katsuki's descriptions of Latin declensions and geometry theorems, sometimes borrowing his textbooks to study in secret. His mind was like a sponge, absorbing everything from Shakespeare to advanced mathematics with equal fervor.
"It's boring," Katsuki would grunt, but he'd spend hours explaining complex equations, watching Izuku work through problems with determined focus. The boy had a mind like a steel trap, absorbing knowledge with an intensity that both impressed and frustrated Katsuki. What was the point of being so smart if you were born into the wrong social class?
Their world expanded and contracted. At thirteen, Katsuki joined the rowing team, his natural athleticism making him a star athlete. Izuku would watch the regattas from shore, cheering silently as Katsuki's shell cut through the water like an arrow. Sometimes, in the early morning fog, he'd help Katsuki practice, calling out timing from the dock while Katsuki perfected his stroke.
At fourteen, Izuku started working for the local newspaper after school, running errands and learning the printing trade. His hands were constantly stained with ink, but his pocket always held a penny dreadful novel or a discarded scientific journal. He'd read them aloud to Katsuki in their hidden spots, his voice bringing adventures and discoveries to life.
"You could do more than this," Katsuki said one evening, watching Izuku patch a hole in his work shirt. They were hidden in their favorite spot—a forgotten gazebo on the far edge of the estate, overlooking the lake. The structure had been their sanctuary since they'd discovered it at age twelve, half-hidden by overgrown roses and decades of neglect.
"You're smarter than half the idiots at my school."
"Maybe." Izuku's smile was gentle, tinged with a wisdom beyond his years. "But this is my life, Kacchan. And I'm happy with it."
His mother had taught him that contentment was its own form of wealth, but in moments like these, watching Katsuki's frustration on his behalf, that lesson was harder to remember.
The lie sat between them like a stone.
*
1920 arrived with prohibition and prosperity. Katsuki turned seventeen that spring, and Chicago seemed to pulse with possibility. Speakeasies sprouted like mushrooms after rain, jazz music spilled from hidden doorways, and the city's youth danced on the edge of a new era.
For Izuku, now working full-time at the Chicago Daily News as a junior pressman, the city's transformation meant more stories to print, more secrets to keep. For Katsuki, it meant increased pressure as his father groomed him to take over the family bank.
"The Henderson girl has grown into quite a beauty," Masaru mentioned over breakfast one morning. "Her father's shipping business would make an excellent partnership."
Katsuki stabbed his eggs with unnecessary force. "I'm not interested in partnerships."
"You're of an age to start thinking about these things, son. The right marriage can secure a family's future for generations."
Later that day, Katsuki found Izuku in their gazebo, reading a dog-eared copy of "The Great Gatsby" by lamplight. The sight of him—ink-stained fingers, curls wild from running his hands through them, completely absorbed in his book—made something in Katsuki's chest ache.
"Father's trying to marry me off," he announced, dropping onto the bench beside Izuku.
Izuku's hands tightened on his book. "To whom?"
"Margaret Henderson. Apparently, she's a 'beauty' now." Katsuki's laugh was bitter. "As if that matters."
"Doesn't it?" Izuku's voice was carefully neutral. "She comes from a good family. The merger would be beneficial for both sides."
"Stop talking like them." Katsuki turned, gripping Izuku's shoulder. "You sound like my father's board members."
Their eyes met in the lamplight, and seventeen years of friendship suddenly felt like something else entirely. Something dangerous and wonderful and impossible.
Izuku broke first, looking away.
"We're not children anymore, Kacchan. We can't pretend the world doesn't exist."
The childhood nickname fell from his lips like a prayer, a reminder of simpler times when Katsuki's explosive personality had earned him the moniker, and Izuku had been the only one brave enough to use it.
But that summer, they tried. They met in secret places—the gazebo, the abandoned boathouse, the hidden corners of Grant Park. They talked about books and dreams and the changing world. Sometimes they didn't talk at all, just sat in comfortable silence as the lake breeze carried the sound of distant jazz.
*
The truth revealed itself on a sticky August night in 1923, when the air hung heavy with jasmine from Mrs. Bakugo's garden and the distant rumble of thunder. Katsuki had escaped another suffocating dinner party, where Margaret Henderson had been seated strategically at his side, her perfectly manicured hands reaching for his arm too often.
He found Izuku in their gazebo, but something was different. The air felt charged, like the moment before lightning strikes.
"I saw you at dinner," Izuku said without preamble, his voice rough with something Katsuki had never heard before. "Through the window. You looked..."
"Miserable?" Katsuki supplied, loosening his bow tie with fingers that trembled slightly.
"Beautiful." The word hung between them like a confession, heavy with years of stolen glances and carefully maintained distance.
"You always look beautiful." Coming from Izuku, who'd seen him at his worst—crying over a dead bird at age six, raging against his father's expectations at thirteen, drunk on stolen whiskey at sixteen—it meant everything.
The world tilted on its axis. Katsuki moved without thinking, closing the distance between them. His hands found Izuku's face, thumbs brushing over freckles he'd memorized years ago, constellations that had guided him home more times than he could count.
"Kacchan," Izuku breathed, a warning and a prayer and a decade of longing wrapped into two syllables.
Their first kiss tasted like ink and summer rain and years of unspoken words. It was everything and nothing like Katsuki had imagined in his most secret thoughts, in the quiet moments before dawn when he could admit to himself what he really wanted. Izuku's hands clutched at his expensive dinner jacket, pulling him closer, closer, until there was no space left for doubt or fear or social convention.
When they finally broke apart, reality crashed back like a wave. What they'd done—what they felt—was more than forbidden. It was dangerous in a way that could destroy not just them, but their families, their futures, everything they'd ever known.
"We can't," Izuku started, his voice breaking on the words, but Katsuki silenced him with another kiss.
"We already have."