Posting the prologue to a fic I'm working on in hopes it'll kick my ass into gear. Thoughts are appreciated. Classic king of devastation and yearning with a dash more of F* bombs, because let Katsuki fucking curse. Here is an ode to an idiot broccoli with a side of plausible deniability. *insert Katsuki* "I just can't get it out of my head!" -KoY💥
Which was stupid. Objectively.
Katsuki had spent his entire life moving toward this exact point. Hero school graduation, reaching the big leagues to become a Pro.
Running every extra on the playground ragged to follow him around, staying top of his class in middle school and avoiding an actual criminal record—if you can disregard some teasing and jabs and maybe some wayfare explosives towards Deku’s way— despite what some people might argue. Won in all aspects of his pre-hero career.
Grades. Combat. Rescue. Quirk control. First Aid. Fucking media training (although he’s been told he could use some work). His god damn physique. Which wasn’t vanity—he worked hard—for all of it.
He’d gotten into U.A. and survived it. Survived a fucking war. Graduated at the top of his class. Had an apartment waiting for him. A job lined up for him. A career expecting him to more than succeed. A life of hero work, for as long as he could do it.
Everything was lined up exactly the way it was supposed to be.
So why the fuck did it feel like he was standing at the edge of a cliff?
His dorm room looked like somebody had already moved out. Which, fine. They had.
Most of his stuff had already been moved into his new place. The shelves were bare. Dresser empty. The stupid extra crap he’d somehow accumulated over the three years waiting for him in stacked boxes.
Only the essentials were left.
The school issued single bed. The desk. The alarm clock.
A duffel bag sat on top of his desk with enough shit to get through tomorrow. Old desk. Not his for much longer.
Tomorrow’s uniform was ironed and hanging on a nail in the wall. The apartment keys hanging on the same nail.
His hero uniform already shipped ahead to the Jeanist agency—he didn’t think about how insecure he used to feel without it by his side, life and his quirk were different now.
That should’ve made the whole thing feel more real. Everything was exactly where it was supposed to be.
If anything, it just made the room feel emptier.
He should’ve been sleeping.
Instead, he was lying awake staring at the ceiling with his arms crossed over his chest, thumb dragging over the same tendons in his bicep for the millionth time. Not because he was nervous, it just beat punching a hole in the wall.
Tomorrow everyone would leave.
The realization hit differently every time it circled back. They weren’t just leaving U.A., leaving behind being shoved together into the only thing they’d known since the war.
They were leaving each other. The dorms would empty, the common room would go dark until the next class filed in and replaced them.
No more bumping into his classmates in the kitchen at midnight and grunting tiredly at them. No more pettily calling out for Four Eyes to keep the rest of the idiots in line. No more hearing Kaminari scream from three floors away because Jirou had threatened him with bodily harm. No more Kirishima appearing in his doorway uninvited toeing the line between door and room until Katsuki eventually gave in.
Katsuki rolled onto his side, annoyed. At himself. At the ceiling. At time. At everything.
The problem was it was fucking normal. People graduated from high school every year. People moved on, drifted apart, became people of their own.
He wasn’t a child. He didn’t need his parents holding his hand through adulthood. His old hag had already cried after handing him over the apartment keys. His father had hugged him so hard he’d nearly cracked a rib, rubbed his knuckles into the nape of his neck in a show of pride he’d quickly shrugged out of.
The apartment was nice. Small. His parents helped him get it, even paid the first, last, and deposit as a graduation gift. He had refused any more help than that. It was close enough to the agency. A one bed and bath for one person. One person.
Katsuki frowned, the words sat wrong in his chest. He’d lived around people for years now. The dorms, agency housing during his work studies, even through the hospital and recovery.
Even when he’d been alone, he hadn’t ever really been alone. There had always been someone nearby. Someone awake, someone he could yell at, someone who could listen, someone existing.
Tomorrow that would change. Tomorrow he’d come home to an empty apartment. No obnoxious yelling, no running down the halls, no lights left on by idiots. No one sitting in the common room at three in the morning. No one—
Annoyingly, his thoughts snagged. On Izuku. Predictably.
Katsuki groaned and threw an arm over his face, before dragging his hand across his eyes and rubbing pressure into the sides of the bridge of his nose. Of course.
Of fucking course. Because apparently his brain couldn’t go ten minutes without making everything about him, hadn’t for longer than he’d like to admit.
Izuku had his own life, his own plans, his own future to look forward to. University, training to be a teacher, degrees on top of degrees that he’d stubbornly bury himself in. Enough shit to keep him busy for the next decade and make any normal person cry. He’d probably meet new people, too. People like him. Weak quirked people still trying to do good in the world.
Katsuki didn’t fit into any of it. Not really. The thought made something unpleasant twist low in his stomach, a feeling he wanted to Howitzer Impact into smithereens and further obliterate into tiny atoms.
Because when did that happen? When had Izuku become part of the equation?
Not the dramatic childhood version, or the annoying rivalry.Just… Izuku, the person—the god damn idiot if he’s being honest—the constant.
Somewhere between first year and now, he’d become part of Katsuki’s routine like gravity and the sun rising at dawn every day.
Easy to ignore until the possibility of losing it appeared and he became incapable of actively shoving it away anymore.
It started out with training together, every week, sometimes every day if they could match up their schedules well enough. What with hero rankings fucked and effectively out of commission until Hawks took over, and Katsuki stopped giving a shit who was ranked number one to do a work study with.
And Izuku fucking off under Lemillion’s belt at the Night Eye agency and helping where he saw fit, lucky bastard just got all his forms signed and no version of micromanagement.
Izuku would show up with notebooks and coffee and questions, always too many questions. A too wide grin and even more of a mess of curls on top of his head, always trying to cover the scars and the uneven half shave.
He would kick the same, punch the same, attempt to black whip Katsuki into a capture. And the best part was, they would fight to be better than the other every session without fail.
Then there were lunches, which were somehow worse. Nobody had ever discussed those out loud, but they’d just started happening.
One day Izuku had shoved into the seat next to him, asking about an assignment he’d definitely already figured out himself. Didn’t even bat an eye at the clattering of a spoon to the side of them by Shitty Hair or the absolute silence around them that Katsuki had almost blown up his tray at.
The next day he’d done it again. And Pink Cheeks had seamlessly plopped across from Izuku next to Racoon Eyes and promptly devolved into incomprehensible talk of all things sparkly and girl. And the Class Prez joined them chopping his arms about manners and whatnot. And Frog quietly settled into the space beside the four eyed patriarch. And somehow nobody questioned any of it.
To which came Icy Hot sliding into the seat next to Izuku, where Katsuki quickly bared his teeth at his smug grin. And all hell broke loose, as did Katsuki’s loud insistence that they were not even remotely friendly. But no one moved.
Somehow months had passed. Months of loud uproar about favorite heroes, and arguments about the best spots to get decent gyoza nearby. And, annoyingly, bets on who would couple up next that Katsuki would loudly call a waste of time but inevitably mutter two names to Izuku about. Who would then always claim his winnings at the end of the month and split them with Katsuki later that night.
Now there was usually an empty seat beside Katsuki unless Izuku filled it. Neither of them acknowledged that. Because that would’ve been weird.
Then came the rides home together, where apparently neither of them knew how to shut up. Which just devolved into stupid conversations about Silver Age All Might versus Golden Age—Golden Age, fucking obviously—and even dumber arguments about who would end up on top at the next Sports Festival.
Except it didn’t stop there.
And when Katsuki found himself at the local convenience store scrounging for a distasteful bag of spicy chips after a particularly grueling day of dealing with the old hag.
Izuku was there. The idiot looked half a second from climbing the aisle shelf like a damn racoon. Hair bouncing in excitement as he hopped up—the flare of green sparks around him was idiotic— to snag a bag at the top shelf.
Katsuki had clutched his own bag in surprise and mild annoyance at the squeak of protest it made.
The second Izuku spotted him, all that excitement from before was redirected straight at him. And somehow the next thing out of Katsuki’s mouth was about the new Heroes Warfare that had just come out.
If a green shadow followed him home that night to play video games, it was inconsequential to the absolute disaster Izuku was at playing said games.
Katsuki had only got up for five seconds to find his water bottle when Izuku snagged his unlocked phone to punch in his number under “Izuku Midoriya”.
And Katsuki was blameless for changing the contact name to something less fucking stupid—“Nerd”— the next day.
If Katsuki missed a train home one day, it was just a coincidence that Izuku had missed the same one after running into the station sweaty and harried with absent assignments.
Then came the texts, which just enhanced the fucking fact that Izuku never shuts up. Katsuki would take the fact that he had Izuku’s number to the grave.
The idiot himself had put it there. Which meant technically he could text him. Not that he was going to.
And if the buzz of his phone the next morning nearly made his coffee slip out from under his palm, his damn quirk was probably just acting up. And if he checked the message with bleary barely awake eyes immediately, there was no one around to confirm it anyway.
It started with complete nonsense:
do you think AM ever had to do taxes?
And Katsuki promptly crumpled the plastic coffee cup in his hand because who the fuck asks that and fucking obviously.
Then the texts just became excuses:
do you have the notes on p mic’s lecture
did aizawa do chores check
is it true that kiri’s quirk hardens EVERY part of his body
That last one Katsuki might have barged into Kirishima’s room for. Only in an effort to tell him to never allow Izuku to do further research on the subject. Then yell at him some more for never clearing out the empty bowls of food in his room.
Eventually the texts just became overshare:
Katsuki discovered at least three new figures that he must’ve pre-ordered months ago and was quickly up in flames about. If he berated Izuku because they both agreed to cut back on the merch, even though said merch was about as invisible as in Katsuki’s trunk underneath his bed.
And eventually, Izuku seemed to just assume that Katsuki was the perfect audience for shit that didn’t fucking matter:
No question. No purpose. Just a picture of a hairless cat being cradled into the crook of his arm. If Katsuki used emoji’s, this would’ve earned a thousand angry cursing ones. But instead he’d just smashed his thumbs into the keyboard and harassed—asked— him why the fuck would he send that.
If Izuku’s response was simply because he knew it would annoy him. Katsuki had no qualms about beating Izuku’s ass into concrete that day during training. A wild feral grin had his cheeks hurting by the end of it.
And when Katsuki was finishing up his patrol one day and looked up at the sky and noticed how nicely the colors bled into orange and pink. If he idiotically took a photo of it and frowned at it, before putting his phone away, that was no one’s business but his.
Except the problem was, ten minutes later his phone buzzed, because Izuku could apparently read fucking minds. And managed to capture the same sky in a text. The problem became worse with:
If Katsuki was more of a menace than usual hounding the right people to sign off on his patrol paperwork, and then banged a shoulder into his locker hopping with a single leg in his after work sweats. It could only be accounted that he was freezing after his post patrol shower.
And if he leaned the opposite actively bruising shoulder against the wall outside of Izuku’s agency, after said post patrol shower and absolutely not looking like a damn tool waiting for a broccoli. It didn’t mean anything. Plenty of idiots waited for broccoli.
Then it just kept happening. Izuku’s agency was closer to the school grounds anyway. It just made sense to angrily toe his shoe at the ground outside of the Night Eye agency.
The idiot had become obsessed with doing normal shit. Apparently getting blown up, mind-fucked, and fighting in a war hadn’t killed Izuku’s desire to do stupid teenage things. So it was only logical that Izuku kept finding reasons to drag him to places with more food and games and dumb no-good shit.
If Katsuki checked his phone a little more frequently than he ever had in his life, he was a fucking hero alright, the news were wired into his notifications. He couldn’t be the best without staying up to date.
He wouldn’t admit that meeting up with Izuku after patrol beat eating alone. And he definitely wouldn’t admit that patrol ended faster when a rat’s nest of green was waiting afterward.
Mostly because he could nudge his shoulder into Izuku’s until he inevitably toppled over and it was funny to see the look on his face when he’d float up from the ground in a sideways lean.
They weren’t hanging out. It was just mutually beneficial high school experiences.
So when Izuku dragged him kicking and screaming into jeans when he was already laying down for bed to go to one of Class B’s outrageous dorm parties. He could only complain the whole walk there and then some while there.
If Izuku quickly distracted him with some ultra rumble game that was loaded up for the extras to play, it was only logical that he’d spend fifteen minutes screaming at Izuku’s horrendous game play. He only competed against the best alright.
And when Izuku beat the high score that night, it was just fucking rationale that they would both show up to the next party so he could beat Izuku into the ground once again.
And when the idiot had somehow convinced him that grocery shopping counted as a normal social activity, Katsuki just needed to stock up on toothpaste again because Sparky kept stealing his. If Katsuki spent the time there criticizing Izuku’s food choices, it only made sense because the idiot had the nutritional instincts of vermin.
Izuku had run into a bookstore after, and he wouldn’t let the little minx outrun him. He had slouched quietly beside Izuku as he stocked up on notebooks and pens and just existed in the same space. It was only reasonable that somebody made sure the nerd didn’t walk into a shelf while muttering to himself.
And when Katsuki went to ramen after patrol alone one day and ordered enough gyoza for two before realizing the idiot wasn’t there— it wasn’t his fault that he angrily packed it into a to-go container and left it in the kitchen dorm fridge with a post-it note. The post-it was a doodled zombie broccoli with its eye drooping from the socket for fucks sake.
Then the nerd started getting way too fucking comfortable. Izuku had always been way too damn handsy with people.
It happened one day after patrol, when he leaned against the usual wall, and apparently Izuku was way too damn excited to try out a new ice cream spot nearby. Katsuki felt the normal bitching bubble up his throat before Izuku latched onto the bottom of his sleeve and started tugging.
Apparently Katsuki had overdone it during patrol because his quirk must have cooked something important in his brain when he just stumbled after him.
Somewhere along the way Izuku forgot entirely that personal space existed.
The nerd would lean over his shoulder whenever he wanted to look through a shop window on their walk back to campus. Would lean too heavily with a hand on Katsuki's forearm when he thought something was fucking hilarious. Would slump into the spot beside Katsuki during another stupid movie night and if Katsuki leaned back into him, being a hero was fucking exhausting as shit.
Izuku would snatch a piece of food from the chopped up vegetables that Katsuki was prepping, which Katsuki would snap his jaws at before turning back to his task with a smug grin.
If Shitty Hair threw an arm around him a minute after, it wasn’t his problem that the smug bastard had to harden up his body to avoid the full blast explosion his way. Actions and consequences.
Somewhere down the line, Izuku stopped knocking before entering his room. Would jump onto his bed and start hounding Katsuki to give him attention of some sort during his regular hours of relaxing on a day off. If Katsuki got up to accommodate him, it was just rationale to get the nerd to shut the fuck up.
And when one night they took being regular teenagers too far and were out way past curfew, it was within reason that he shrugged out of his own hoodie to shove it over Izuku’s ridiculous curls to keep him from dying from frost bite. Katsuki had a long sleeve under like a normal human who checks the weather.
And when they heard distant barking and hounding coming their way, it just made sense to clutch onto the idiot's hand as they made a break to cut across the field back to the dorms. The nerd was effectively useless and clumsy when not powered up with a quirk, and he wouldn’t be dragged into another house arrest during his third year.
If Katsuki’s knees trembled the next morning at the sight of a too large hoodie swallowing the hands of a green blob, he had just awaken from a deep sleep; it didn't take a doctor to piece the two circumstances together.
The fucking problem was that Katsuki suddenly couldn’t remember the last time he told Izuku to fuck off.
And then there were the nightmares.
The war had left its smudged fingerprints on all of them. Some more than others.
Some nights he’d wake up unable to breathe, a phantom hand holding his throat hostage in a too tight grip. He’d be left unable to think, unable to remember where he was. Left clawing at his own throat to finally pull up for air.
Some nights he’d wander quietly into the common room, the dimmed lights of the hallways leading him like a lighthouse. He’d sit in the dark and wait out the feeling of doom and death and hope for revival.
The first time he’d found Izuku there was almost two years ago. A couple weeks after they were released from the hospital. Izuku had turned his gaze to him with shadows behind his eyes.
Neither of them had said anything. Katsuki just moved onto the same couch like instinct. Tilted his head against the back of the couch and cursed away the tightness in his throat.
They just sat. Silent, exhausted, existing.
After that it happened more often than either of them would ever admit in the light of day.
Sometimes Katsuki would already be there. Sometimes Izuku would be. Sometimes there was coffee. Sometimes neither of them spoke for hours.
The first time they did, Katsuki knew it should be him to start.
A gruff, “You too?” as he settled into his usual spot at Izuku’s side.
A silent, “Yeah,” was the only response he got that night. It felt like another hurdle was passed. They never talked about the nightmares, not out loud. They happened, whatever.
But eventually, words came easier in the cover of night. Classes, movies they’d seen, food they’d missed from home, people they'd lost. Half the time they weren’t even talking about anything worth remembering.
There had been one night—
One particularly bad night. One particularly awful dream that felt more like a memory than something that just lived in his brain for the time he was asleep.
The kind that left his skin feeling wrong. The kind that dragged old guilt from places he’d spent months burying.
He’d glanced at the clock at his bedside table: 3:14am. He felt the usual pull of wakefulness and new habit to pick up his phone and check his notifications:
Sent two minutes ago. He had bolted out of bed and tugged a t-shirt over his head before making his way down to the common room. Adrenaline coursing through his veins and the sense of fretfulness under his skin.
Izuku was there. He’d simply looked up and Katsuki’s knees buckled at the lopsided smile that greeted him. He had pulled in a deep breath into his lungs and felt the boneless desire to give in and sit.
Only Izuku had been talking, rambling really. Something about an old All Might special edition he’d found online to which Katsuki just grunted in acknowledgment. He didn’t have the energy to argue, those nights were never really for that.
Katsuki hadn’t really been listening. Only half conscious. Only half human.
But at some point Izuku’s voice had stopped, the room going quiet like a breath held. Katsuki looked over, a head was tipped onto his shoulder, Izuku fast asleep and breathing slow. Safe. Trusting.
Katsuki should’ve shoved him off, told him to wake up and get his ass up to bed where he belonged. He hadn’t.
And somehow that felt significant.
He couldn’t explain why, not even to himself. He’d just stayed awake until sunrise. Unmoving. Not because he didn’t want to wake him. That would’ve been stupid.
The point was, no matter how many times it happened again after that.
Tomorrow all of that ended.
People moved on and grew up and found new lives. New friends, new schedules, new priorities. Katsuki knew that.
He had his own shit waiting for him, the apartment, the agency, the future. Exactly like it was supposed to. But it was still only built for one person.
So why did it feel like grief?
He sat upright abruptly, irritated and head spinning, turning his frown onto the alarm clock still glowing on the night stand: 2:43am. His frown deepened at the sight.
His gaze drifted toward the sliding door that he’d left the curtain open on, toward the courtyard below. It was dark, quiet, everyone asleep in preparation for tomorrow.
Tomorrow everyone would leave. Tomorrow everything would change. Tomorrow they would become adults. Tomorrow they would move into separate lives.
And maybe that was normal. Maybe that was inevitable. Maybe it was exactly what was supposed to happen.
Katsuki found, for the first time, that he wasn’t sure he wanted it to.
A light glowed faintly from the common room, like someone had turned on an extra lamp.
Katsuki stared, squinted harder. Then swore as he hauled himself out of bed, already moving before his body fully agreed to it. Because of course.
Of course. Only one other idiot in the entire building would be awake. And Katsuki already knew who it was.
The certainty settled in his chest before he even shoved his feet into slippers. Before he opened his door and walked out of it. Before he took long strides down the hallway to take the stairs by two downstairs.
Izuku looked up when he approached. Something immediately tightened low in his stomach.
Because the nerd looked wrong. Not injured or crying. Just.. wrong.
“Hey,” his own voice sounded rough.
Izuku smiled. Not a real one, the kind that never quite reached his eyes. The kind that made something cold settle beneath Katsuki’s ribs.
“Kacchan,” the nickname landed strangely. Izuku glanced down at the coffee cupped between his hands.
For a second neither of them spoke.
Then Izuku exhaled. Katsuki’s nails dug into his palms.
“Can I tell you something?”
