The first few weeks were painful.
It felt like when he was newly injured all over again. He couldn’t leave the apartment, because the light outside was too strong, he didn’t go to school. His mom was extremely overprotective of him. It was a nightmare scenario.
But there were a few upsides to it all, too. For example, they were packing up to leave back for the house which was nice. The only real reason they hadn’t left yet was so he could stay close by for the Bakugous.
Katsuki was newly injured, after all, and it was obvious he didn’t know how to handle it. He was constantly messing with his ear or looking around in confusion. He was much louder than he needed to be, most of the time, and people just sort of stopped trying to correct him after a while.
He did come by almost every day to hang out with Izuku, often to complain about his parents being a lot more worried about him because of his hearing, to which Izuku could only offer sympathies and video games to play.
It wasn’t like that was all they did, though. Izuku was fond of trying to figure out how his quirk worked, and Katuski wasn’t one to turn down a chance to practice his own, and generally they got along.
Towards the end of week two, things did get a little spotty.
Katsuki had taken his bandages off and was finally cleared to move around freely without fear of a worsening anything, so, like any good friend, he showed up at ten at night and asked Izuku to come outside to play.
His reasoning was solid. Nighttime meant less light, and less people, which also equated to less light but now in a different way. Plus, if they needed to see anything, he could just light something up with explosion.
The answer, amazingly, was no.
Izuku was down for it, of course, but the parents (after Mistuki and Masaru finally caught up with them) had put their foot down and said no night time escapades.
Which prompted Izuku to grab Katsuki’s hand and run, following the path that lead away from the colors of both mothers.
Izuku’s anger was clear on his face- not surprising, the kid was almost always vaguely angry at something, wasn’t he? But the thing that was surprising, to Katsuki at least, was the dexterity.
He ran along behind the boy, still half being pulled, and watched Izuku stare determinedly at the ground. His feet expertly moved him out of the way of obstacles, but while he still clipped his shoulder, smashed his hand into branches and trip over his own feet, it was all… less, now.
Bakugo eventually gathered his wits about him, digging his feet into the ground and stoping cold, pulling Izuku back a bit as he did so. Izuku stopped, looking at him with wide, angry eyes.
“Why are you stopping? They’ll catch up at this rate!”
Bakugou couldn’t say anything, wheezing slightly, popping off small explosions to try and get rid of the sweat that soaked him.
“Katsuki! Come on.” He was back to scouring the floor again, but it looked like they missed their window, the paths looped around him in confusing ways, and he couldn’t figure it out anymore. Throwing up his hands in anger he rounded on the blond. “We were almost free! An hour, that all I wanted was an hour!”
“No, Katsuki, you don’t get it. Wait a few months, see how annoying they get about your ear, you’ll see- never, they never stop-“
“Always coddling you, always on you about this or that, all the doctor appointments, every single day of your life, nothing but eyes and eyes on you like you can’t do anything on your own-!”
Izuku cut himself off, seeing the way that Katsuki was staring at him. Wide eyed, hands clutching at his shirt, shaking.
“You’re scaring me.” That, that stunned Izuku into silence.
All of a sudden the paths around them shifted, and they heard footsteps in the distance. Katsuki conveniently let out a string of curses, looking to Izuku but he couldn’t do much but watch his paths cycle in and out in loops before suddenly the roles were reversed. Katsuki pulled Izuku through the trees and over to the playground, tucking him under the slides with a finger to his mouth.
Izuku held his breath as he watched the paths interact. Katsuki’s strings started to gather around them, casting them in a comfortable reddish orange glow, while the green and yellow-orange strings of their mothers ran past their hiding place.
After a moment, Katsuki looked to him quizzically, and Izuku nodded, letting out his breath.
“Gone. They- They’re gone.”
Katsuki breathed out before reaching for Izuku’s hands, rubbing them between his own with a small growl. “You’re going to freeze- you’re not wearing good clothes for this.“
Izuku sighed, leaning his head back against the slides and closing his eyes. Everything was so messed up.
He ran his fingers over the comforting cords that surrounded them, peaking open his eyes to see Katsuki staring at him, face illuminated by the threads in a way that was just- just wrong. Like the light didn’t play on his features the right way.
“You know I don’t mean to coddle you, right?”
“And they just want you to be safe?”
“So then…” Katsuki trailed off, staring down at the ground with a frown.
Izuku didn’t do anything, didn’t move, just opened one eye to star at his friend before sighing.
“I don’t like being treated like I’m useless. Or weak. I don’t like being coddled.”
“You just want to be normal, right?” Katsuki asked, looking back to him with a frown. “Only, you aren’t normal. And we can’t pretend you are. You’re not.”
Izuku’s eyes flickered to the ground again as their parent’s paths came back into view. “We’re going to get in trouble, aren’t we?” He whispered, Katsuki snorting.
“Dude. We’re beyond trouble now.”
“Yeah.” He watched the paths race past them again, squeezing Katsuki’s hand when then they ran past as well, path’s fading away again.
“It’s nice out here, though,” he murmured, looing back to Katsuki, who was staring at him. There was a weird shadow that play across his friend’s cheeks, but he chose to ignore it- probably from the weird light his path gave off, right?
“Maybe we can sneak out again, sometimes?” He asked, watching Katsuki nodded a few times.
This was an scene from... I think it was supposed to be chapter seven, but then it was delayed to chapter eight before being deleted altogether.
I actually really liked the scene, it felt nice and seemed to work for the characters, but it was really just a rehashing of everything from chapter six, just in a softer feeling area. Ultimately, I cut it because I thought it didn’t add anything to the plot. But now that I’m rereading it, had I just refined it a little it could have worked for character development... Izuku was prime angryboi here, and I liked Kacchan’s interaction with him too.
Anyway, it’s too late for it now, isn’t it? And I didn’t see anything in the future I could recycle this for, even if I still kind of like it, so... here you go, then!
