Work Text:
“I have feelings for you, Kacchan. Like, feelings, feelings,” Deku emphasised. Katsuki choked on his spit and felt something like panic clawing up his throat. “I just figured I might as well tell you, since I’m fairly certain you don’t feel the same way, and it’s our last week at UA and then we can just move on and pretend this never—
Katsuki’s emotions finally worked their way up his throat completely, and he reacted reflexively. Anger snarling out of him like it always had when he didn’t know how to handle something. “Deku, how the fuck could you think,” he started, feeling a slightly hysterical laugh bubble out of him as he spoke, “how the fuck could you even think I would?”
“Right. Fair enough, yeah. I’ll see you later, Bakugou.”
Katsuki wouldn’t realise until much, much later, that he’d been called Bakugou. If he had, maybe things wouldn’t have spiralled so far out of his control.
Ochako hummed to herself as she waited for Deku to come back. Their deal was that if he wasn’t back within thirty minutes of texting to say he’d met up with Bakugou, things had gone well, and she could go inside and get on with her night — a deal she had to borderline force since Deku was convinced it wouldn’t go well.
She got her answer when Deku came around the corner with dull, lifeless eyes. Still, he’d made it perfectly clear how he was going to handle his business if Bakugou reacted badly, and from how dead his expression looked it had been really damn bad.
“That bad?” she checked. She couldn’t help but check; Deku was her best friend in the world!
Deku didn’t even react to her deviating from the plan to pretend he had never admitted he loved Kacchan, and that made her wince internally. “Laughed and asked how I could think he’d ever feel the same.”
Gods, his voice sounded like a freaking automated phone message, it was so lacking in tone and feeling. She wanted to send Bakugou floating into the damn sun. Deku had even gone with the idea of just admitting to vague ‘feelings’ instead of outright being in love to avoid freaking him out! Even if Bakugou didn’t return his romantic sentiments, she knew Deku had chosen the time of his confession so that they could have some time apart and move on from it as friends; but he couldn’t even let Deku have that!
She’d thought Deku’s Worst Case Scenario Plan was going to be something they laughed about in the future, the futility of it, but… She was glad he’d come up with it, now. It was time to woman up and do her part for her best friend!
“Alright, Izuku,” she said, smoothly transitioning from his nickname to his given name as agreed. He had name-change plans signed and ready to be delivered to Aizawa-sensei, which was allowed until official graduation, to change his pro hero name to Sparx, in homage to his signature green quirk lightning, too. It was going to be odd adjusting, but as Izuku had said, if Bakugou proved that he hadn’t changed much from his pre-UA self, it was time for a clean break.
That included the nickname that he couldn’t help but associate with the blond.
“Come on, it’s time to get everything organised. Me and Shouto are set up to run interference for you for the whole week, and even though Tenya doesn’t know why since he’s terrible at keeping secrets, he understands that if anyone asks where you are, he doesn’t know. I mean, he doesn’t know, again, because he can’t keep secrets, but you know what I mean,” she rambled, feeling a lightness in her chest when it made just a little of Izuku’s familiar warmth come back into his eyes.
“Thanks, Chako. I just — I just knew that if his progress proved to be a lie when it came down to something this important, if he couldn’t keep himself from being cruel over it, that not working at Endeavour Agency together would be for the best. Besides, Hawks gave me an open offer that doesn’t expire until a month after graduation, and he’s a great hero, so I’m sure I’ll be just as happy there. It’s a good thing Endeavour’s kinda a fan of mine since Shouto’s so intent on blaming their reconciliation on me, huh?”
Ochako giggled softly. Saying Endeavour was grateful to Izuku for playing an instrumental part in Shouto giving his dad a chance again was an understatement; the man would probably offer to pay for Izuku’s moving costs even with him withdrawing his employment from the agency so last minute! He’d been warned it might happen, and had sworn he was fine with it when Shouto explained it was something very personal apparently, so Ochako wasn’t worried about that at all — Izuku’s frayed nerves were just on edge, understandably.
“Very much so, Izu,” she said quietly, not hugging him because he’d begged her not to if it went badly, knowing he would cry before he had to face their classmates. “Come on. Let’s go and get all your last-minute changes organised and then you can call Hawks to take you down to Fukuoka for the week to get acquainted with the agency before graduation, alright?”
Katsuki frowned as he looked around, realising it was one day before graduation and he hadn’t seen the nerd all week. Uraraka and Todoroki never directly answered questions from the other idiots about where he was, always mumbling vague guesses at places on campus, and fucking Iida couldn’t lie to save his damn life, so the likelihood of him knowing was out, too.
He knew his reaction to Deku’s confession hadn’t been perfect, but they’d be working together at Endeavour’s soon enough, so they could sort everything out then and get back to normal, just like the nerd suggested. He’d give Deku his space until then; it was the considerate thing to do, he guessed.
Katsuki had seen Deku at graduation, obviously, but the nerd looked… Different. Distracted, maybe. It wasn’t fucking socialising time anyway, so he hadn’t tried to grab his attention, knowing things would smooth themselves out once they were pushed back together by work. Things always smoothed themselves out between him and Deku, so there was no reason to think otherwise for this time, either.
Wrong. Katsuki was very wrong. He showed up for his first day at the Endeavour Agency, only to be greeted by a frosty-as-fuck Endeavour — what fucking irony — and to then be told Deku had chosen to work at a different pro agency last-minute. What the fuck, nerd, he thought to himself.
It took a full seven days of nagging Endeavour while running the very real risk of getting his hair burnt off for the bastard to finally admit where Deku had gone — fucking Birdbrain Hawks’ Agency off in Fukuoka. Why the hell would he want to work for that asshole badly enough to just turn down his spot with Endeavour, who they knew and trusted?
An insecure voice whispered in the back of Katsuki’s mind in answer. Higher rank than you, blond just like you, kind unlike you.
He shut it up with an irritated snarl and got the fuck on with his day.
Two weeks later, he turned on the TV and saw Deku in a villain fight with Hawks working alongside him — except, he wasn’t being listed as Deku by the agency. He was listed as Pro Hero Sparx. What the fuck was that about?!
He watched, agitation flowing freely through his veins, as Hawks and Deku — he wasn’t calling him fucking Sparx — worked together almost as well as Katsuki and Deku used to, back when they were UA students. The fight came to an end, police moving in to apprehend the incapacitated villain, and the newscaster gave a hungry smile, approaching the two heroes as they talked.
“Hawks, Sparx! I must say, we were all startled when the Hawks Agency sent out the message to news channels that Hero Deku was now Hero Sparx, but after watching in action, I can see why you made the change, Sparx! Not only do you have the look to match the name, but it suits you and Hero Hawks’ lively fighting styles! Care to comment on the fact a highly-ranked pro is out working with a newly minted pro, Hawks?”
“I mean we all know that Sparx has heroism in his veins, for starters, so his supposed newness is irrelevant,” Hawks said with a light laugh. “Besides, you saw the fight, you said! Why wouldn’t I want someone working at my side that can finally keep up with me, huh?”
Katsuki hit the off button on his remote a little harder than he needed to and picked up his phone. He was getting to the bottom of this shit with Deku, and he was doing it that fucking night.
When he’d been texting Deku for two months with no reply, even going so far as to do it when Deku was in the background on news reports after villain fights, once the commotion had died down — fucker had pulled his phone out, made a face at it, and then put it back in his utility belt — Katsuki admitted defeat and went to the one person who typically knew everything.
“Mina, what the fuck is going on with shitty Deku and why isn’t he answering my texts?” He demanded as the extras filed into his apartment for the stupid weekly game night they’d forced him to take part in post-graduation. As much as he complained, he was supposed to be working with Deku and seeing him constantly, so the company to fill that gap wasn’t the worst — not that he’d ever tell them that.
Even fucking Icyhot, who Katsuki didn’t even like as much as he tolerated the fucker, went and set up his own fledgling hero agency like a maniac. He was sure he’d heard something about polygraphs and questions centred around whether or not they were there because he was a Todoroki as part of the hiring process, and then promptly stopped listening. Psycho dead-eyed motherfucker.
“Uh, no idea, Blasty. Want me to text Midobabes and ask him what’s up?”
“Yes,” Katsuki snapped, standing behind her and staring at the screen as she typed. There wasn’t a single text he’d answered since graduation on her phone either, so maybe he was just busy? They were all really fucking inane, too — asking whether or not Deku could set her up with Hawks and bullshit like that.
>> Midooo, why aren’t you replying to Blasty?
Why?<<
Katsuki blinked in surprise as Mina hummed and typed out a reply. Deku was never that short with anyone.
>> Uhh because you haven’t been answering him??
>> Just tell me, Midobabes!
>>Did you two have a fight again?
Did I miss the part where this had anything to do with you, Ashido?<<
“Shit!” Katsuki and Mina yelped in response. When the rest of their damn squad of idiots gave them varying looks of concern and confusion, Mina wordlessly handed her phone over for them to read. They'd need to see it themselves to believe it; that uncharacteristic self-confidence and detachment from the nerd's words.
“Woah,” Eijirou said eloquently. Although, admittedly, it was basically the same thing that was running around Katsuki’s head like a stuck pre-quirk record. It was weird seeing Deku be so cold and stand-offish, even assertive, with anyone.
“Damn,” Denki breathed out. “Never thought I’d see the day Midori basically told someone to mind their own business instead of getting weepy over people caring about him.”
Katsuki fucking concurred, but he kept quiet about it, trying to process.
Hanta looked at the phone in intense concentration for a little longer before nodding approvingly. “Good for him, man. Seriously, everyone in our class except his group acts like he’s not worth taking seriously, so whatever’s got him taking himself seriously for once, good for Midoriya.”
“I’m calling Ochako,” Mina decided, moving to take the call outside. Katsuki grabbed her arm and reeled her back towards them all.
“Nah-ah, Racoon Eyes—”
“Oh shit, the nicknames are back, he’s serious,” Denki mumbled like a moron. Katsuki ignored him and continued.
“—call her right damn here, on speaker, so I hear this shit word for word. Something’s seriously going on with that damn nerd and I want to know what the fuck it fucking is.”
“Alright, chill, Blasty,” Mina shrugged, dialling the phone and tapping the speaker icon. It rang for a minute before a crackling sound was heard, followed by Uraraka’s light voice.
“Hey, Mina! What’s up, girl?”
“Hey, Ocha. Look, I need a favour. Well, information, I need information as a favour,” Mina elaborated. Uraraka made a concerned sound; she and Mina had become closer as the years went by in UA, and they were one of the closest cross-clique friendships the class had.
“Of course! If I can give it, you’ve got it.”
“Alright, well, the thing is, babes, that Kats doesn’t know why Midobabe isn’t talking to him, and I tried to ask him myself, but he kinda told me to mind my own business.”
A long pause, and then, “You should, on this one, Mina.”
“What the fuck does that mean?!” Katsuki exploded. Uraraka made a choking sound.
“Oh, you’re there, Bakugou? So, tell me yourself if you want to know why Izuku isn’t replying to you, hm?”
“Alright, why the fuck isn’t he talking to me, Cheeks?!”
Denki whispered something else about nicknames and Katsuki held his middle finger up behind him in the vague direction he remembered Denki being in without looking away from the phone, even though all it showed was a picture of Uraraka and Mina grinning for a photograph together.
“Well, when Izuku admitted to having feelings for you and you laughed in his face while asking why he’d even think you could return them, you made him decide to wake up and move on, of course,” she drawled, sounding both cold and smug. Every eye in the room turned to Katsuki and he felt a chill run down his spine at the bloodlust coming off Mina.
He’d never told them what Deku confessed, and as a result, never told them how he responded, either. He fucking knew they’d give him shit over it.
“He didn’t want the two of you to keep going through life with you pretending to care if you were really still your same, cruel, middle-school self, he said. So he took the standing offer he had from Hawks, distanced himself from the name you gave him, and that’s all there is to it, really.”
“Ocha, you have to believe me, I had no idea Midori had even confessed to Kats. He never told us, any of us,” Mina gritted out, eyes dangerous as she glared into Katsuki’s fucking soul. “I wouldn’t have bothered him asking about this if I knew. Midori doesn’t deserve that when he’s just trying to move on in peace.”
“It’s okay, Mina. As long as you leave it be now that you know, it’s no harm done. I think Izuku would prefer that you guys give it a few months before getting in touch, if you still want to, that is. The rest of you, not Bakugou. He’s blacklisted for life.”
“The fuck does that mean?!” Katsuki demanded. Uraraka laughed a little cruelly.
“Bakugou, he’ll work with you as a hero, but otherwise, he doesn’t want you in his life. Leave him alone so he can heal. Have a heart for once and just let it go. Mina, call me tomorrow and we can set up drinks with the rest of the girls, alright?”
“Yeah, yeah, I’ll call you tomorrow, Ochako. Bye,” Mina replied before hitting her screen so hard Katsuki was surprised it didn’t break from the force of it to end the call. “Alright Blasty, you wanna tell me that any of that was a lie, or should I go straight into asking why the fuck you would ever do that to someone?”
“I—”
“Yeah, man, especially when you’re in love with him,” Denki piped up, interrupting Katsuki. “Makes no sense.”
“What?!” Katsuki screeched. He wasn’t — he couldn’t be — Deku was just—
Fuck.
After that fateful phone call, Katsuki hadn’t immediately fallen into love or self-awareness. No, over the course of a month he’d come to realise that the feelings he could never understand or recognise that he only felt for Deku were, in fact, love. His problem with Deku signing with Hawks wasn’t just professional jealousy; it was insecurity over Deku working with someone who was objectively good-looking and successful in their field.
He’d always been so damn insecure when it came to Deku, whether it was to do with Deku’s abilities or the people who seemed to care about Deku so much, that feeling of inadequacy followed Katsuki wherever he went.
Maybe he was an idiot for not realising it sooner, for not being able to put a name to why he wanted the nerd’s eyes on him so badly, or why he knew exactly how many freckles were on his face, or why he’d viscerally hated Icyhot getting so close to Deku and being so fucking nice to him all the time, but he just hadn’t.
Katsuki didn’t deal with emotions well, least of all the positive ones, and he really didn’t deal with Deku well — never had — so combining the two? His biggest fucking weaknesses, rolled into one? Fuck, it was just asking for his dumb ass to unintentionally remain oblivious until he hated himself for it.
He didn’t know what to do with the realisation, but he did know that just spamming Deku with texts of his suddenly realised love was just a terrible fucking idea, so he waited. He bided his time over a few months, watching with seething eyes and smoking palms as Hawks and Sparx dominated news channels, trying desperately to focus on coming to terms with his emotions instead of the possessive need to get Deku back from that winged fucker.
Sure, he was climbing the hero ranks at a steady rate, as were a lot of their classmates and the class B heroes, but Sparx was coming out on top, already approaching the top twenty within less than six months of graduating and debuting as a pro hero.
Katsuki would have to deal with his jealousy over that little fact before getting in touch with Deku, too. He knew that, he could hardly claim to love Deku and then be a dick to him because he was working hard and getting his name out there, loved by fans all over the country. It wasn’t his fault that he was good at his job, or that he was likeable.
Once it had been a few months, he went to Eijirou and Mina, arguably the two people he’d disappointed the most with his behaviour. Hanta had doubled down on his stance that Deku was doing a good job standing up for himself and taking care of his own needs, and it had taken a lot of gritted-teeth apologies on Katsuki’s part to get Hanta to forgive him and start socialising regularly with their group again.
Denki was still a fucking moron and just shrugged it off, declaring Katsuki and Deku to be like fated mates in Omegaverse fanfiction! You’ll find your way back together! And considering that to be enough of a solution, because he was a fucking moron, but he was one of Katsuki’s morons, so there was that.
Eijirou and Mina were good friends. They supported him through his fucked-up self-realisation journey, they sympathised when he went on jealous rants about Hawks’ looks — fucker hadn’t aged a damn day since he was twenty, and it was black fucking magic if Katsuki had ever seen it — and they didn’t abandon him despite their clear displeasure with his handling of the situation.
Still, once Katsuki went to them for advice on how to talk to Deku, they shared a look, and he knew he wasn’t going to like what they said next.
He was right; he really fucking didn’t like the suggestion that Denki was partially correct, and that they should wait to see if ‘the universe’ forced them to cross paths again, because Deku hadn’t tried once since he confessed to talk to Katsuki, and Katsuki didn’t have the right to force his way back into Deku’s life out of the blue.
Though as much as he hated the advice, as much as it made his molars grind together painfully and his palms pop with reflexive sparks, he knew it was — fuck — it was the right approach to take. He had no right to barge back into Deku’s life when by all accounts, he was more confident and self-assured than he had ever been without Katsuki dragging him down, and if he was really fucking lucky, and he waited long enough, he’d have somehow karmically earned enough forgiveness for Deku to still love him when they did meet again.
Izuku snickered as he watched his sort-of, kind-of but not really boyfriend and his boss argue over petty shit — as usual. He wasn’t even sure what the argument was about anymore, but he knew it started out as a debate over whether or not Yo’s vibrate quirk would do funny things to Keigo’s feathers and had just continued evolving until they were basically just sniping at each other with big grins.
They were idiots, but they were, surprisingly, the two idiots that helped him recover from Bakugou’s nearly two-decade-long presence and resulting self-esteem problems, so he loved them all the same.
“I’m just saying if I vibrated at the right frequency and you had a feather touching your dick—”
“Why would I have a feather touching my dick, Shindo?!”
“Because you put it there, obviously. Don’t interrupt me, Taka, it’s rude. Now, if you had a feather touching your dick and I—”
“I don’t want my feathers touching my dick! They’re fucking sacred, Shin!”
Izuku snorted. The two kept bickering and he could only look on with fond amusement, after all they’d done to help him. Oh, Ochako and Shouto and Tenya had all been helpful, Ochako especially, but Keigo and Yo somehow managed to put him back together stronger than he’d been before.
Yo Shindo had seriously mellowed out since the provisional exams and had gone on to be a twilight pro since his final year at Ketsubutsu apparently taught him the value of hero work as opposed to the shine of being a hero as a title. He still loved to preen and was an asshole, but in a kind of endearing way.
It was his brand of confidence mixed with sincerity and bluntness that helped Izuku as he learned who he was without Bakugou there to define him as this or that, or tell him what he could and couldn’t be. Izuku picked up a somewhat snarky sense of humour from him, as well as a much more relaxed attitude to sex and relationships.
That had somewhat backfired since they meant to sleep together as a one-and-done kind of thing when Izuku first joined the Hawks Agency and found Yo working in the shadows there, but kept coming back to each other… And only each other. Neither of them really understood how it had happened, but they had a sort of exclusive friends-with-benefits thing going on that worked for them.
Izuku grasped that he was basically in a relationship without the official labels, but he refused to be someone’s boyfriend when it had been less than a year ago that one of the traits he internally defined himself by was loving Bakugou. It wasn’t fair to Yo to get into a relationship without knowing for fucking sure that he was over Bakugou, and Yo understood that.
Well, his exact words had been that he was too gorgeous to tie himself down with someone who wouldn’t fully appreciate his magnificence, but he had also followed it up with reassurance that he didn’t care what they called themselves as long as it was just the two of them, and they’d figure themselves out as they went, so again — preening asshole, but endearingly so.
Keigo — freaking Hawks — becoming one of his closest friends despite also being his boss was honestly more of a surprise than his thing with Yo. He never looked at Izuku as less than an equal, despite the power imbalance of one being the employer and the other the employee, and more often than not, he was dragging Izuku out of the office to force him to relax, not acting all that much like a boss.
He didn’t really think Izuku needed one, apparently, since he’d earned Keigo’s respect as a hero during the war and the years that followed it, and saw Izuku as more of an ‘independent agent that works from my high-rise’. Izuku didn’t get it, but Keigo wasn’t wrong, Izuku very rarely needed to be told what to do when it came to his job.
Because Keigo behaved as if they were on the same level, it had been so damn easy to do what Bakugou had struggled to, back in that damn river, and take the hand he offered to Izuku. Confess his heartbreak, his desire to hit restart on his self-respect and self-esteem and be Izuku instead of the person Bakugou defined with a nickname and exploding palms, and Keigo got it.
God, he got it way too damn much thanks to his history with the HPSC, if Izuku was honest, but once he knew what was going on, Keigo was basically as damn dedicated as a friend as Ochako! He made sure Izuku was distracted when he saw him starting to buckle under his emotions, he taught Izuku how to let criticism and cruelty wash over him and how to be introspective without hurting himself in the process, and he reminded Izuku of what it was to just let loose.
Specifically, by racing him all over the damn skies, Izuku using Float and OfA to propel himself while Keigo flew fast and hard. With Izuku operating One for All at one hundred percent, they were evenly matched for speed, and it was so fun and carefree that Izuku couldn’t help but grin a little wildly as the wind battered his face.
Ochako was a big fan of Keigo for everything he did to help Izuku and recently had finally relaxed enough to call him Takami instead of Hawks if the two crossed paths without press present, which Izuku considered a huge plus. She had taken slightly more time to come around to Yo’s place in Izuku’s life, which made sense since she hadn’t known the new and improved Yo when he told her, but after a while, she stopped looking at him like she wanted to float him up into the atmosphere just to give him a scare.
They were doing better at getting along now that she could see the effect he had on Izuku, which Izuku was glad of because he was really hoping he’d pass his self-imposed test of being basically fine when he saw Bakugou and be able to make his thing with Yo into less of a thing and more of a relationship.
Hopefully.
“Uhhhm, Izu,” Yo drawled as they walked into the bar to meet Uraraka. He was going to get that woman’s approval if it fucking killed him, which was a good thing since fucking Bakugou was in the bar with his friends and Yo might actually die in his pursuit of Izuku’s dick that very night.
Eh, he already had the dick on tap. Sue him, he wanted the heart as well… Honestly he kind of knew he already had that, mostly, but he wasn’t opposed to Izuku’s suggestion that they make sure Izuku could handle being around Bakugou and not feel embers between them before making anything official.
“Hm?” Izuku asked, peering around like a fucking adorable meerkat as he looked for Uraraka. Not finding her, he turned back to Yo, and Yo just did his best not to smile like a sap as he looked into those big green eyes.
When he met Izuku for the first time, he was impressed, and somewhat captivated by the passion and drive in his eyes. When he met him the second time, his heart did a weird fucking stutter in his chest at the dead, emotionless look they had, and something in him pushed hard for him to bring the light back to them.
As soon as it came back and he smiled at Yo, properly, he knew he was a fucking goner, regardless of whether the idiot was pining over someone else.
Someone else who hadn’t seen them yet, but definitely would if they didn’t get out of the damn bar entryway soon. “I don’t see Uraraka, but I do see him,” he hissed as quietly as he could. It was a high-end bar, which meant a lot of the clientele were heroes, but also people who were well off or famous in other ways, leading to a bustling crowd without screeching hero fans or media crowding the front doors.
Perfect, if not for the blond dick sitting at a table, laughing with his friends like he hadn’t spent most of his life trying to drag Izuku down. Oh yeah, Yo knew the whole fucking story and it was safe to say, he’d never hated someone more in his life.
He watched, curious and a little apprehensive, as Izuku stiffened slightly before rescanning the bar. His eyes landed on Bakugou and Izuku hummed, tilting his head as he seemed to seriously consider him, before shrugging. “We can go if you want to, but I’m fine to just head over to the other side of the bar and text Chako to meet us there?”
Fuck, Yo had never been more relieved in his life, he didn’t think. He’d been expecting a panic attack or to see some kind of lingering adoration on Izuku’s face, but he just looked mildly uncomfortable at the idea of a confrontation while comfortable in himself. Proud, that’s what he was, proud of Izuku for not running on instinct or going the other direction and forcing himself to be friendly and pretend he was fine when he wasn’t.
“Are you sure? We don’t have to stay, Uraraka will understand—”
“Yo,” Izuku said quietly, cutting him off and squeezing his hand. Yo snapped his mouth closed and let his eyes meet Izuku’s to weigh the sincerity of whatever he said next. “I won’t lie and say I feel entirely at home with the idea of talking to him, but I don’t feel… Whatever I thought I would. I don’t feel sad or angry or love rekindling or any of that shit, I just feel — like I don’t want to deal with his temper, but I can if I have to. Does that make sense?”
Seeing nothing but honesty in Izuku’s eyes, Yo hummed and nodded his head, deciding there was no need to get any more serious when they were in public, so he knocked his shoulder against Izuku’s teasingly. “Get your ass over there and find a table while I get drinks then, dollface.”
Izuku pulled a face at him. “Dollface? What the fuck, Yo? That’s worse than the time you called me ‘honey’, ew.”
“Fuck you, and get us a spot,” Yo snickered. Izuku smirked mischievously at him.
“Yes dear,” he called out in the blandest, most dead-inside-husband voice he could muster. Yo made an exaggerated gagging sound before slapping Izuku’s ridiculously perfect ass and dodging a kick to the shins as he made his way to the bar.
Yeah, he was kind of a sap for Izuku, but it was balanced out by their stupid banter and teasing, so he was happy.
Katsuki tipped his beer bottle back, laughing at something Eijirou had said to Hanta. He glanced around the bar, a ritual he had developed as a sort of internal test of his feelings as he waited to ‘cross paths’ with Deku again. He would skim the crowd of extras and see if any of them ignited even the most pathetic of fucking sparks inside him. It didn’t need to be anything sentimental, he’d settle for being turned on by a decent ass or nice shoulders, but every damn time, nothing, because they weren’t Deku.
He loved the nerd, even if he wasn’t sure he’d ever fucking run into him in person outside of hero work again. He’d managed to end up fighting alongside Hawks and Sparx once or twice, but every time he tried to talk to Deku once the fight was done, he found gold eyes glaring at him, or the winged moron immediately distracted Deku and pulled him away.
His jealousy of Hawks was no longer professional because Katsuki was fucking secure in his rising hero rank, but it was very much still fucking personal. Who did that dick think he was, keeping Katsuki away from Deku like he had the right?
“Oh my god, Ocha!” Mina shrieked in his ear. Katsuki winced and leaned away, swatting at her as he looked around for Cheeks. His relationship with her was frosty, as was his relationship with Icyhot, but they were professional with him, and he couldn’t really ask for more without seeming like a dick. Besides, a part of him felt like he didn’t deserve to be on good terms with the two people closest to Deku, anyway. Not until he repaired things with the nerd.
“Mina, hey!” Uraraka greeted as she bounced over to the table. Katsuki and Denki shared a glance, but neither of them seemed to know if Mina had invited her to their night out or not. “Have you seen Izuku?”
“No, girl! Haven’t seen him since we fought that villain with the RPG quirk together. Why, is there Sparx news I should be updated on?”
Uraraka shook her head. “I’m meeting him here! You haven’t seen him?”
Katsuki’s heart jolted. Deku. In person. Paths crossing.
He did his best not to look around like a distracted bird, though a part of him bitterly wondered if maybe Deku would like him more if he did, and watched as Mina stood up on the footrest of her barstool and peered over the crowd for her friend. Uraraka pointedly didn’t look at Katsuki and had a polite, distracted conversation with Eijirou as she glanced around herself.
“Oh, I think I— ohmygod!” Mina yelped, losing her footing and slamming back onto her stool.
“Did you find him, or just lose your balance?” Cheeks teased with a grin. Mina shook her head very emphatically, so naturally, the whole group stood up on their footrests to look in the direction she’d been looking, and oh, did Katsuki’s blood fucking boil.
Deku was leaning against a wall, drink in hand, with that useless fuck from their first-year provisional exam, Shindo something or other, grinning at him. He seemed to be shoving the guy's shoulder like he wanted him to fuck off, and Shindo was just laughing like it was funny. Katsuki only remembered him because of his incredibly deceptive, malicious eyes, and his good-for-nothing quirk, but he did remember how damn manipulative he’d been, trying to lull their class into a false sense of security, and he wasn’t gonna let the fucker manipulate Deku just because he was a rising pro and that guy was probably in the low fucking hundreds on the charts.
“Katsuki, get your ass back here, now!” Mina hissed venomously, but Katsuki was already moving, shoving his way through drunk idiots with his own tipsy idiots — and presumably Cheeks — following behind him, until he clapped a hand on the dickhead’s shoulder and snapped him away from Deku.
“What the fuck?!” Deku yelled, staring at the spot the guy had been before looking to the side a little and seeing Katsuki, who was simply trying not to gape at a swearing Deku. Evidently, he got too distracted looking at eyes and freckles and so many things he’d missed seeing in person more than he could possibly express because then the idiot he’d been holding onto wriggled out of his grip and moved away from him.
Katsuki waited for a thank you.
He didn’t get one.
What he got was Uraraka shouldering past him, hard, before hugging Deku and then Shindo. Why the fuck was she hugging Shindo? She was married to Iida, though Katsuki couldn’t fathom why anyone would marry someone that uptight, and Cheeks wasn’t the kind to step out, so maybe they were just unlikely friends?
“Sorry I’m late, you two,” Uraraka cooed, pinching Deku’s cheek like she was his mother. Deku slapped at her hand and she moved on to Shindo next, ruffling his hair just a tad too violently. Deku snickered at her.
“Stop laughing at me, dick,” Shindo snapped. Katsuki opened his mouth to tell him to fuck right the fuck off, but Deku just grinned at him.
“Nah, don’t think I will.”
“I swear to fucking God—”
“Don’t do that,” Deku deadpanned. “You’ll be smited and then I’ll get ash on my shirt.”
“Why the fuck would smiting not be done neatly? Do you really think a deity would be so selfish as to smite someone and make a mess in the process?”
“You are literally the worst,” Deku said, but he was laughing and he looked so fucking happy that Katsuki could only blink in stunned shock. Deku was actually friends with that useless fucker? Why?
“Boys!” Cheeks exclaimed, cuffing them both lightly on the side of the head. “Do not make me the referee of another pointless argument, or I’m using my quirk on the pair of you.”
“Izu would save me,” Shindo purred, leaning on Deku’s shoulder with a smirk. Katsuki choked as quietly as he could on his own spit while his friend group exchanged uneasy glances around him. Why the fuck did they look so comfortable, why did he call him Izu, why did Deku not complain, why why why why—
“Are you two dating?” Denki blurted out. Katsuki resisted the urge to slap his face, or Denki’s — he wasn’t feeling particularly picky about which — as Cheeks, Deku, and the Human Vibrator remembered there were other people standing near their group and looked at them with very different expressions. Uraraka seemed unreasonably smug, Deku looked resigned but not uncomfortable, and Shindo looked — Katsuki couldn’t quite tell. He didn’t know him well enough, but it seemed to be a mixture of angry, victorious, and protective.
Slowly, Shindo and Deku glanced at each other before shrugging. “Kind of,” Deku answered easily. Katsuki sputtered.
“What the fuck do you mean, kind of dating, nerd?”
Deku sighed heavily. “I mean, we’re kind of dating. Not in a relationship, not just friends.”
“How the fuck long for?” Katsuki demanded. He wasn’t liking where his night was going, not one bit. It felt like he was stuck inside some kind of nightmare and had no idea how to wake up.
“Do we have to do this?” Deku asked. He sounded tired, and Katsuki wanted to say no, they could leave it and catch up, but his anger and pride and pain were warring inside of him, and he needed fucking answers. Seeing he wasn’t going to give up, Uraraka hissed at Katsuki.
“Izuku, go and call someone outside,” she ordered, leaving no room for debate. Deku side-eyed her before accepting his fate and pecking Shindo’s cheek then walking away from the group. Once he was out of sight, Cheeks rounded on Katsuki. “You have however long he’s on the phone for to get your insanity out of your system, and then we’re either leaving if you can’t act like an adult, or you put it to fucking bed, Bakugou. Got it?”
Katsuki wanted to snap at her and tell her he’d take as long as he damn well pleased to interrogate the extra, but Eijirou gripped his shoulder fucking hard and shot him a glare that demanded Katsuki remember the promise he made to do better when it came to Deku and his temper overall, so he sighed and nodded aggressively instead.
“How long, fuckface?” he snapped at the extra. Fuck, even his wavy dark hair was irritating to Katsuki, styled into a damn undercut and looking — not good. He didn’t look good, and his shoulders fucking weren’t broader than Katsuki’s.
Shindo smirked at him. “Since what?”
“What do you mean ‘since what’, hah?”
“Uh, Kats, maybe just specify—” Hanta started, but Katsuki snarled and cut him off. He sighed defeatedly and didn’t open his mouth again, which was good, because cutting into Katsuki’s interrogation time would not help with his temper control.
“Well,” Shindo drawled, “I mean do you want to know how long since we first slept together, or how long since we started dating? The answer is different for each.”
Katsuki saw red, but he forced himself to close his eyes and count-to-fucking-ten, just like Eijirou had been making him do when he got irrationally angry. When he opened them, the bastard wasn’t dead, and Uraraka didn’t look shocked and was instead flicking him in the forehead like she was fond of him or some shit, so the situation could have been better from his perspective, but he persevered.
“Both,” he growled. Uraraka slapped a hand over Shindo’s mouth.
“I don’t think we need to get into details, let’s just say that I met Shindo about four months ago because that was when Izuku considered it long-term enough for us to meet, and leave it at that, hm?”
“Ocha, maybe you should just let them have it out? Get it out of their systems?” Mina suggested warily, likely sensing how close to blowing Katsuki was. Shindo reached up and pried Uraraka’s palm off his face.
“There’s nothing to have out. I don’t like Bakugou, but I also don’t care enough to get into a fight with him.”
Katsuki smirked triumphantly. “What, don’t like me because you know Deku’ll always come back to me?”
“No, dick, it’s because you fucking hurt him and me and Hawks have spent fucking months rebuilding his self-esteem, and I don’t want to see him torn down and hating himself again because of your insensitive ass,” Shindo snarled, looking vicious and feral.
“What, so he’s fucking you and the idiot bird?” Katsuki scoffed, on the defensive.
“I think I’d know if I was sleeping with Izuku, actually,” a familiar voice declared from behind him. Katsuki spun on his heel to find Hawks, with his stupid wings and his mess of blond hair, glaring at him. The fucker was shorter than Katsuki, so there was that, but Katsuki had the distinct sense his body would never be found if he pushed his luck based on the look he was being given.
Katsuki had never been good at keeping his head when it came to Deku, though.
“You want to, though, don’t you, huh? Otherwise why the fuck else are you meeting them at a bar?”
“Alright, Kats, I think that’s enough,” Eijirou interjected, pulling on Katsuki’s arm and mumbling apologies at Hawks, which only served to anger Katsuki further. He was Katsuki’s friend and he was taking that blond moron’s side? Shindo’s fucking side? Fuck him, then, Katsuki decided, yanking his arm free and sneering at Eijirou and Hawks both.
Hawks tilted his head in a bird-like manner that made Katsuki want to punch him in the face. “While Izuku is very attractive, he’s my friend, Bakugou. My very good friend, who called me to explain Uraraka had basically given him a time-out because you were here. I had a feeling it wasn’t going to end well, so I flew down to handle it for him so he wouldn’t get hurt trying to deal with you again.”
“Why the fuck does everyone keep acting like he always gets hurt around me?” Katsuki yelled angrily, sidestepping the rest of Hawks’ statement.
“Because I always did,” Deku answered flatly, striding into sight and stopping at Hawks’ side with an unimpressed look on his face.
Katsuki swallowed — hard.
Izuku took a deep breath, bolstered by the presence of his two closest friends and the man he could definitely call his boyfriend once the night was over — because there were no sparks whatsoever left inside him for the blond he had once adored more than anything in the world.
“Bakugou, all our lives, you hurt me to keep me down, and even once we became ‘friends’, it didn’t really stop. I was just kidding myself thinking you’d ever actually care about me, or treat me with respect even, and I just — I had enough. I don’t know why you’re acting like this, as if you have the right to question my choices or who I’m close to, but it needs to stop. I just wanted to have drinks with my best friend and the guy I’m dating and it’s turned into this because you are involved. Please just stop.”
He held out his hand for Yo to take, and without hesitation, he felt a warm, lightly calloused palm slide into his. “Learn to be better for the next person who cares about you, alright?” Izuku stated, addressing Bakugou with finality before turning to Uraraka, dismissing Bakugou and the past he carried around him like an invisible fog that wouldn’t be shaken.
“Do you want to go somewhere else, Izuku?” She asked understandingly.
“Nah,” Keigo answered on his behalf. “We’ll head back to Fukuoka, go to my place. Quiet night in sounds better, I think. I’ll fly Uraraka, Izuku can carry Shin. Yeah?”
“Sounds great,” Izuku answered, Uraraka and Yo nodding their agreement. Izuku smiled sadly at Bakugou’s friend group; they were a wonderful collection of people, and he really did miss them now that he had healed from his hurt and things that reminded him of Bakugou no longer stung his heart on sight, but it was hard to spend time with them without risking running into the man himself.
Not able to find the words to tell them all of that, and having no desire to hurt Bakugou by making it clear he was the reason the rest of them had basically lost Izuku as a close friend, he simply turned away, shoulders getting lighter with every step he took. Resolving — or confirming — his lack of affection for Bakugou felt like a weight lifted, the final remnants of the sad, insecure person he’d once been slipping away.
He turned to grin at Yo, whose dark eyes lit up with understanding, relief, and happiness. “Keigo, puff your wings up a bit, would you,” Izuku murmured, wanting to conceal what he was about to do from Bakugou to avoid another blow-up or argument. After a ten-second count in his head, he tugged on Yo’s hand, pulling him closer as Yo smiled at him brightly.
Yo’s body followed, stumbling into Izuku slightly with a quiet, breathless laugh just before their lips met. It wasn’t a kiss for the ages, nor was it overly romantic or sexual, it simply… Was.
It was Izuku, and it was Yo, and it was months of shared emotional growth and developing feelings and a relationship waiting to be born, and in the less than thirty seconds it lasted, Izuku felt an equal mixture of exhilarated and calmed.
“Come on, then, hero,” Yo muttered against his lips. “Fly away with me and rescue me, yeah?”
Izuku smiled, thinking about the provisional exam and saving Yo from Shouto’s out-of-control flames. “Sure,” he purred, “You do make a pretty damsel in distress, after all.”