Chapter Text
Did he ever consider it?
The question had been on Katsuki’s mind for years now. Floating in the back of his head, niggling its way into the forefront every time he saw the nerd do something outstandingly reckless.
He knew, realistically, that it was not healthy for him fixate on. Deku was always beside him, behind him, around him. Ever present in Katsuki’s world. Which is why the guilt of his words continued to choke him, two years after he said them.
If you want a quirk so bad…
Even the extras hanging around him said he went too far that day. The ugly, useless fucking middle-school losers that egged on Bakugou’s every taunt, punch, attack at Deku, had said he went too far.
Did Deku ever consider it?
The question swam its way through his mind, making his stomach churn, the spicy noodles he made for dinner burning up his throat. He sat on the floor of his room, the carpet itching through his pants, his back aching from his slouched position. It was 9 pm. 30 minutes past his usual bedtime. He should be asleep. Instead, he stared at his blank walls surrounding him, the morning’s training session replaying in his mind.
It was a simple rescue exercise.
Class 1-A had gathered at Ground Beta, wearing their hero uniforms, ready for whatever hell Aizawa-Sensei had prepared. Bakugou tuned out Shitty Hair and Pikachu’s mindless chatter and instead focused on Deku, who was gushing over Frog Face’s new support gear. The nerd was mumbling up a storm over the capabilities of whatever the Frog added to support her damn long tongue.
“Alright enough,” Aizawa growled, his quirk activating.
The class fell into silence.
“Today we are doing a rescue exercise. In teams of two, you will be rescuing the civilian from the villains,” he paused, giving a long-suffering sigh. “Due to Mineta’s late night activities and injuries that followed, to make teams even, today Shinso Hitoshi from General Studies will be joining our class.”
Bakugou scoffed. Served the pervert right for trying to sneak into the girls’ rooms.
Standing to the left of Aizawa, the purple haired boy stood, adjusting the mask on his face to avoid the stares of class 1-A. Each twist of his mask let out a soft click.
“The aim of the training is to successfully rescue the civilian without getting them or yourselves injured by the villains. Once the civilian dummy is in the safe zone, or the villains are captured, the match is over.”
With that they were paired up. Katsuki got stuck with some no name extra whose invisibility quirk was next to useless. Meanwhile, Deku got paired with the purple hair mind freak.
“I’m excited to finally work with you, Shinso-kun. I can’t believe we have never gotten to team up before; it seems like every time we get paired its always against each other!” Deku continued blabbing to the quiet boy. “I actually have a strategy that I think would take your fighting to the next level…”
“Uh, Midoriya, that’s cool and all but maybe let’s just see who we get paired up with first, then we can strategize,” Shinso rubs his neck, avoiding looking at the excited boy in front of him.
“Oh,” Deku practically deflates. “Well, yeah definitely, but this was more about your quirk and how I think you could-”
“Everyone, look and see who you are against. We will run the training twice, so everyone will have a turn as a hero and then as a villain. First round, Bakugou and Hagakure verses Aoyama and Sero.”
Sweat was dripping uncomfortably down Katsuki’s back by the time the first round was finished. The sun’s heat was making him twice as deadly due to the sweat. It was an easy win on his part. Invisible girl did all the scouting and all he had to do was sweep in at the right time to attack the villains. No challenge whatsoever.
The rest of the class spent the morning going through the first round before changing over to either villains or heroes. Dunce face and Shitty hair managed a win over Bird face and Racoon eyes. He scoffed when Deku and the Mind Freak lost their round as villains against the Half and Half bastard and the frog. It was the Purple haired idiots’ fault if you asked Bakugou. Too busy second guessing himself to make a quick decision. He got caught early on and Deku had to act alone, which wouldn’t have been a problem if they weren’t paired against Half and Half, who took the fight to Deku while the other got the civilian out of the building.
“It’s ok Shinso-kun. We have a lot of information on how to do better as the heroes, so we definitely have the next round.”
“Whatever,” Shinso muttered dejectedly. He kept his head down, avoiding the sharp eye of Aizawa who was checking on his mentee with subtle glances and pursed lips.
Bakugou won the villain round. No surprise considering the pair he was against. After, he took the chance to remove his unused gauntlet. He scrubbed his wrist to ease the strain placed on his arms, the dull ach barely easing, and settled in to watch the remaining of the classes matches. Mostly he zoned out, waiting for the class to be over so he could get on with his homework for the next day. That was until Deku’s round.
Katsuki looks back on it and all he can remember is the heart-ripping, gut-churning fear he felt, watching Izuku fall from the apartment building. His face to the sky. His body in free fall position. The building wasn’t even that tall. Just high enough in size that it eerily resembled their middle school.
For a moment, Bakugou forgot where he was. He was up to his feet in a flash, arms falling to his side, heat building in his hands as he prepared to launch himself towards Deku. He knew. The hopelessness was mixing with the fear, and Katsuki knew he wouldn’t make it in time. Izuku would hit the ground before he even made it halfway to falling boy.
Then, with a twist and a flash of green, Deku propelled himself towards another building. He used the momentum to flash his way back to the roof where the hostage was located and escaped from Katsuki’s view.
He doesn’t remember what happened after that. He knows Deku and the Mind Freak won thanks to Deku’s quick attack after his fall. He vaguely remembers being teased by Kirishima for his weird reaction during the fight. He stands there, unhearing as Aizawa-Sensei give feedback. Then, Katsuki realised he is in the locker room, undressed from his hero costume and in regular uniform, surrounded by all the other male classmates, and the mind freak. His hands aren’t shaking, but they feel cold, like they should be trembling.
He blinks as the noise of chatter finally makes its way to his brain. It was like someone had turned up the headphones he hadn’t realised were covering his ears.
“Man, we could have had them that second round,” Kirishima groaned, struggling with his tie.
“We just needed more time,” Kaminari nodded. “Next time for sure.”
“Dark Shadow, you did remarkably well today,” Bird-Face patted the shadow protruding from his body.
“Sucks to be Mineta,” Another Extra commented.
Bakugou continued filtering through the voices until he found the noise he was looking for. The second he heard the cheerful mumbling of Deku, his hands began to sweat again, his shoulders lowering from around his ears.
“Next time we will know to use your quirk in the second half of the battle, instead of towards the start, especially if it is against someone like Todoroki. He definitely would have fallen for something like that with all the distractions,” Deku barely paused to take a breath. “In fact, I was thinking, how does the voice modulator work? Can you use multiple voices at once? Because I have this theory which could be really helpful when it comes to rescue and evacuation-”
“For god sakes, would you just shut up and leave me alone,” Shinso slammed the locker door shut. The noise startled the rest of the locker room into silence. “I fucked up. I get it.”
“What? No, that’s not-”
Shinso wouldn’t look at Deku. His jaw was clenched, his head hanging low.
“Forget it, Midoriya. Just go do something heroic like jump off another roof and leave me alone.”
Silence rang out for a beat. Then, the back of Shinso’s head was slammed into the locker behind him, Bakugou’s forearm shoving into this throat, his red eyes murderous.
‘What the fuck did you just say to him?”
The words were quiet, practically a whisper compared to Bakugou’s usual yelling. His voice gruff. Teeth grit.
Shinso eyes were blown, panicking as his air supply was cut off. He tried to push Bakugou away, but his strength was nothing compared to the others grip.
“Bakugou, not manly,” Kirishima shouted.
He and Kaminari moved towards the pair, but stopped when Bakugou gave a threatening growl, his arm pressing deeper into the others throat.
“How fucking dare you say that to him.”
Shinso chocked out some words which closely resembled fuck you, but his struggling was growing weaker, his face redder.
“Enough,” Deku wrenched Bakugou’s forearm away, squeezing until his handprint was sure to bruise.
Katsuki dropped his hold on the purple haired asshole, until he was free enough to rip himself from blonde’s grip. Once free, Shinso coughed and hacked, trying to breath in as much air as possible.
“What,” he wheezes. “The fuck.”
Bakugou growled.
“Kacchan, walk away.”
Midoriya’s gaze was fierce, his hand moving to rest against Bakugou’s chest, holding him back in case he moved to attack again.
“No. I ought to kill him for telling you that!”
“He didn’t mean it like that, and you know it.”
Bakugou felt a scream build in his chest. His whole body was shaking with rage, vision practically white as he zeroed in on the recovering extra.
“What if he did? What if he were using his fucking quirk, Deku?”
There was a cry of outrage from everyone still in the locker room, the loudest once again Kaminari and Kirishima.
“Not cool Bakugou.”
“What the fuck man?”
From the ground, Shinso let out a low, raspy chuckle. It was completely devoid of humour.
“Is that what this is about? You think because of my quirk I’m a fucking villain.”
“No, that isn’t it,” Midoriya tried to cut in, but his words were once again another sharp laugh from Shinso.
“No, I think it is. You think I am going to use my quirk against Midoriya, because it’s a villain quirk, right? Well, you know what Bakugou, you can go fuck yourself. My quirk is-”
“This isn’t about your fucking quirk!” Midoriya screamed.
The words themselves were enough to shock the room into silence once again. Not just because it was Midoriya, sunshine’s incarnate who screamed, but also because it was the first time anyone had heard him swear. Shinso’s jaw snapped shut. His eyes wide.
Midoriya breathed heavily, and he refused to look at anyone. His face was blank, his arm still pressed against Bakugou.
“This isn’t about his quirk. This isn’t even about Shinso. Is it, Kacchan?” He murmured.
For the first time in his life, Katsuki was struggling to draw on his anger. Looking into the blank, emotionless eyes of his childhood friend, once again the guilt washed over him in a suffocating wave. Instead of the teeth grounding, piercing fierceness he usually drew on, all he could feel was despair building in his chest. It was bubbling to get out. Katsuki tried to suppress it, but eventually he felt his bottom lip tremble, his eyes sting. He could tell the moment it happened, Deku saw. When had the nerd ever missed anything with Bakugou. So, before Deku could call him out on his moment of weakness, Katsuki stormed out of the room without looking back.
Katsuki spent the rest of the day holed up in his room, only going out for the leftovers from last night’s dinner. Thankfully, none of the extras approached him. Only given him concerned or dirty looks. Deku wasn’t in the common area, so he quickly made his way back upstairs before the boy appeared and shattered the thin mask of indifference Katsuki had managed to build.
After that, he stayed in his room, ignoring Shitty-Hair and his incessant knocking until he finally took the hint and went away.
By the time it was 10, he was still awake, his eyes itching from more than just tiredness. The day’s events wouldn’t stop replaying in his mind, and the churning in his stomach was from more than just day-old noodles.
After another half hour of no sleep and burning eyes, he finally decided enough was enough.
Did Deku ever consider it?
He didn’t want to ask, but he needed to know.
Standing on numb legs, Katsuki made his way out of his room, careful not to wake anyone on the same floor as him. Rather than take the elevator and risk the additional noise, he
took the stairs down two flights, the cold night air causing goosebumps to form on his arms.
He didn’t allow himself the chance to hesitate. As soon as he reached Deku’s door, Katsuki smashed his fist on it, three sharp BANGS.
From inside, there was a crash followed by stumbling, then a small ‘eep!’. There was a pause of silence on the other side of the door. Katsuki waited for the door to open, his hands clenching into fists. In an effort to calm himself, he took a deep, heavy breath through his nose. He gagged. There was stench filling the hallway that was indescribably horrible. Like the smell of sweat that had been built up for a month. Too fixated on the revolting smell, he didn’t notice the door had opened.
“Kacchan?” Deku peaked through the gap. His face was scrunched in confusion, his bottom lip sticking out, eyebrows quirked.
“What the fuck is that smell?” Katsuki grumbled. He brought his hand to his nose and looked around the hallway.
“Ugh, I know right,” Deku nodded, rolling his eyes. He opened his door wider so Katsuki could fully see him. He was wearing a white shirt and his All-Mighty Pyjama bottoms. “The hazard of living on the same floor as Mineta-kun.”
“That’s fucking disgusting.”
Deku hummed and nodded.
“Tell me about it,” He sighed. “Anyway, what’s wrong Kacchan? It’s late for you to be up.”
“What about you?” Katsuki redirected. “Don’t think I didn’t hear your nerd ass fall. What are you doing up so late?”
“Well, I don’t go to bed at 8 30 like you,” He cleared his throat. “Besides, I was just working on some… homework. Yeah, just homework.”
The faint blush dusting his freckled cheeks betrayed his lie. That, and he wouldn’t look at Katsuki.
“Fucking liar,” Katsuki’s glare cut through Deku. “What are you really doing in there?”
“Nothing! I mean, well, um, I was, uh,” Deku stuttered. He waved his hands frantically, like he was waving away Katsuki’s suspicion. When he realised Katsuki’s glare only grew deeper, his shoulders dropped.
“Fine, but you can’t tell anyone!” He opened the door so Katsuki could see into his room.
It took a while for him to spot, considering the assault to his vision that was the nerd’s room. Not much had changed on that front since they were kids, though the collection had grown.
Then he spotted it. There on the nerd’s desk was a blue and red box. It was familiar, in that Katsuki was able to remember seeing something similar recently. After a moment of staring, it clicked in his mind what he was looking at. The latest All-Might figurine set to hit the market. It’s release date set for two weeks’ time.
“WHERE THE FUCK DID YOU GET THAT?” He stormed into the room.
“Shhh!” Deku closed the door behind him. “Don’t wake the others! I can’t eat anymore cheese.”
Katsuki froze, frowning as he repeated the words in his head.
“What?”
“Don’t worry about it. Just be quite.”
Katsuki looked to Deku, before going back to the packaged figurine.
“You know what? Later. Now spill it nerd, where the hell did you get your hands on this? It’s not a knock-off. You wouldn’t have one of those in your collection.”
After wiping his hands roughly against his pants, Katsuki picked up the red and blue box with the tips of his fingers.
“It’s so cool right!” Deku gushed, coming up behind Katsuki to admire the package. “You wouldn’t believe it. I was talking to All-Might about the drop date for his new merch, and how upset I was my allowance wouldn’t come in time to get the new figurine. Anyway, apparently, he was able to pull some strings because he’s freaking All-Might! And he got me the figurine before the release!! But it’s meant to be a big secret, and I wasn’t meant to tell anyone. It’s so cool though, that I just want to tell everyone!”
The nerd continued gushing, his arms frantically waving around him, his body rocking back and forth. Katsuki tuned him out, instead focusing on the new figurine. It was from the Silver Age. Not Katsuki’s favourite, but the figurine was the first to come out from that stage of All-Might’s career in years. He had been looking into buying one himself the second the merch dropped. It had taken him months to save for it.
He didn’t realise the muttering had stopped until he felt the brush of Midoriya’s hand against his shoulder. He jumped slightly, his head snapping to the side.
Deku’s green eyes were serious, almost sad as they stared at Katsuki.
“Kacchan, I know you’re not here because I got a new All-Might figurine.”
Katsuki looked away.
“What happened today?” Deku asked softly.
Just like that, the short-lived moment of joy was snatched from Katsuki, and once again the suffocating guilt and horror that had plagued him all day rushed back. Before he could crush the box, he dropped it to the desk. Then he clenched his fist, willing away the building heat that threatened to explode in his palms.
“Fucking Deku,” He growled, his voice low, strained. “What the hell were you thinking idiot? Pulling such a reckless move.”
Deku stepped back until the back of his knees hit the bed. He sat down slowly, scrunching the bed covers in his hands.
“I had it under control.”
“Well, what if you didn’t!” Katsuki said. “What if you didn’t have your quirk? I couldn’t get to you in time! What then?!”
Deku looked down, his eyes studying his lap.
“Our classmates wouldn’t have let me fall, Kacchan.”
“You don’t know that,” His voice broke on the last word. “Fuck.”
He breath shuddered, his nose beginning to run. He sniffled, trying to hold back his emotions, but the torment of the day continued. Despite the pained expression he held,
Deku’s eyes remained uncharacteristically dry. He simply sat, watching Katsuki, waiting.
“What if you had done it? What if you’d consider it?” he whispered. “Fuck. Did you ever consider it?”
The faint wheeze of Deku’s air-conditioning was the only noise in the room as they waited for the answer. Katsuki’s desperation bled through his pained expression, his eyes searching for the truth.
“I wouldn’t have jumped,” Deku muttered.
Katsuki waited for more. Instead, Deku stayed quiet and picked at a thread on his pyjama bottoms.
“Did you ever consider it, Deku?” His voice was cracking.
Glaring at his lap, Deku’s jaw clenched.
“I just told you, I wouldn’t have jumped.”
“That doesn’t answer the fucking question, you fucking nerd,” Katsuki was shaking.
Deku sighed, before finally looking up to Katsuki. His eyes were the same, filled with a sadness that seemed almost empty.
“Doesn’t it?”
He should have been expecting it. He should have known. That doesn’t stop Katsuki from inhaling a deep pained breath or feeling like he had just been hit by a truck. He can’t stop the strangled noise that escapes him, can only hope to muffle it by bringing his hands up to scrub at his face.
“It’s not your fault,” Midoriya whispered.
It drew a whine of despair from Katsuki.
“How can you say that? What the fuck Zuku, I said it! I’m the one who said-”
“It wasn’t just you, Kacchan,” he scoffed. “Besides, if you hadn’t of said it… If you hadn’t been the one to say it that day… I might not have hesitated.”
Katsuki shook his head, trying to understand what he was being told. Nothing was making sense.
“What the fuck Deku? What the fuck does that mean?”
Midoriya groaned and scrubbed his hands through his unruly hair.
“I didn’t want you to get in trouble,” finally his eyes were filling with tears. “I didn’t want to be the reason you couldn’t become a hero. So, when All-Might left me on that roof, I had to decide, and I couldn’t do that to you.”
“What…”
Deku sniffled. Katsuki could feel his throat closing with emotion.
“No, what fucking roof Deku?” He walked over and grabbed Midoriya by the shoulders. “Fucking answer me!”
“Please don’t be mad.”
With quiet words and shaking breaths, Midoriya told Kacchan what happened the day he was told to jump, the day he met All-Might, had his dreams crushed by his idol, about his choice up on that roof he was left on. By the end, both could feel the cold night creeping against their skin, but made no move to get warm, merely sat with their arms touching, seeking each other’s warmth.
“I’m going to kill him.”
“Don’t. He didn’t know, Kacchan.”
“So fucking what. You could have died, Zuku.”
“I didn’t. I wouldn’t do that to you. Or my Mum.
“You could have though.”
“Stop it. I am here right now. Still alive. Please remember that.”
Katsuki looked at the boy in front of him, his wide eyes, chubby freckled cheeks. He looked so young, just like when they played together as four-year-old.
“Dammit Deku,” he sobbed.
He launched himself at the green-haired boy, who let out a squeak of terror, like he was expecting to be attacked. Instead, Katsuki wrapped himself around Deku, his arms clenching tight around his shoulders, pushing his face into Katsuki’s chest. He rested his chin atop the others green hair.
“Kacchan?” Deku squeaked.
“Don’t,” he said, voice muffled. “Just shut up.”
Against his chest Deku nodded, then cautiously wound his arms around Katsuki’s waist.
They stayed like that, until eventually the position became painful, Katsuki’s back aching from hunching over, Deku struggling to breath. With a not so gentle tug, Deku pulled them both onto the bed, and wrapped himself around his childhood friend completely, intertwining their legs, their arms still holding each other. The high emotions of the day were finally catching up to Katsuki, who struggled to keep his eyes open. On the verge of sleep, he squeezed Deku, holding on tight.
“Stupid nerd,” Katsuki sniffled. “Don’t fall again. Don’t do that to me.”
Deku nuzzled into his chest.
“It’s ok. I know Kacchan will catch me.”