Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Katsuki was taking a nap when the agency phone began to ring. 

He and the nerd had worked an early shift at the car wash that day, and then parted ways after lunch. Katuski had run patrols and been busy with hero shit all afternoon, and now it was the early evening. In another half hour, he would have woken up, made dinner, and then left for a late evening patrol. 

With any luck, Deku would have been back from his double at the grocer around the time he was done, and then they could reheat and eat dinner together. 

Sometimes things worked out that way, and sometimes one of them got caught up on something or other, and returned home to find their partner already sleeping. Katsuki missed Deku when that happened. 

Strange, but it was that anticipatory and lonely feeling that Katsuki woke up thinking about. He blinked for a few moments in the low evening light, the agency ring-tone filling their apartment with sound. Then he moved, unplugging the phone from the wall and answering it with a smooth swipe of his thumb. 

“Dynamight Agency,” he mumbled, “what’s up?” 

Silence on the other line, just for a moment. Then-

“Brat.” 

Oh. Katsuki woke up fully when an unpleasant shot of adrenaline hit his stomach. His mom never called. Unless someone needed something, then they saw each other once a year, on New Years, and that was enough. 

“...Hag. What do you want?” 

“I just got off the phone” she said, her tone was flat, a little abnormal. “With Haiba-san. Do you remember him?” (Katsuki didn’t.) “He called to congratulate me. On your new agency, and on your marriage.” She sounded… a little pissed, Katsuki supposed. But perhaps more like she was working herself up to be pissed.

Huh. Interesting. 

“Tell him I said thanks,” Katsuki said. He abandoned his comfortable spot on the couch to sit up, running a hand down his face. 

“You…” His mother began, “You… don’t…” and she trailed off into silence.

Katsuki tilted his head, but didn’t say anything. 

What was there to say? Was she expecting him to justify himself? For excuses or denial? Well those weren’t happening.

There was… nothing to say, anyway. There was nothing he wanted to say to her. Apparently, there wasn’t much she wanted to say to him, either. The silence stretched on. 

Finally, Katsuki sighed. “I’ll see you for the New Year, mom,” he said. He hung up the phone. He stared at it afterwards, expecting every second for it to start ringing in his hand, and for the hag to start screaming once he picked up. How dare you hang up on me, you conceited brat! How dare you marry Izuku! How dare you not call more often! How dare you keep your agency from us!

The phone did not ring. 

He stared at it until his vision blurred, and then wondered whether he was hoping that she would call back. He genuinely didn’t know. 

He stood up, and began putting together a simple meal of rice and fish together on autopilot. When he was done, he stared at the prepped bowls for longer than necessary before sticking them in the fridge. He was a little hungry now, but he’d prefer to eat with Deku later. For now, it was time to patrol. 

Patrolling was good; it didn’t quite get his mind off of his mother’s call like he’d wanted, but it did help him think a little more clearly. Shooting himself up to a neighboring apartment building, Katsuki paused, and then waved at a little girl who was staring at him. She was a few units below, playing on the balcony. A doll house was strewn across the deck, and Katsuki saw that bricks lined the edges of the balcony under the railing. Her toys weren’t at risk of falling. The little girl waved back excitedly and then started yelling at the people inside her apartment - presumably her parents. 

The corners of Katsuki’s lips lifted in a small smile. In a few more weeks, it would be too cold to just hang around outside, but for now, the air was crisp and nice, and a normal jacket was more than enough to ward away the chill. 

A few other people were taking advantage of the balmy autumn air too, and Katsuki swung an apartment over to tell one man to put out his cigarette. He did, saluting Katsuki sheepishly. That apartment had a no-smoking rule, and there were a lot of kids and elderly people living in it. That said, enforcement had been pretty lax. At least until Katsuki had shown up. 

“Hey there!” Someone called at one point, and Katsuki turned, expecting that they were addressing him. They weren’t though. The person who had called - an old woman with dark, wrinkled skin and hair like rose petals - was calling down to someone in the community garden. 

“Hansha!” She called, “Are those sugar-snap peas ready yet?” 

Katsuki followed her gaze down to Disco-Balls. The ex-con spent a lot of time tending to the community garden, actually. Sure enough, he was down there, head tilted up to the old woman and a smile on his face. It was visible even from this high up. 

“Not yet, Ms. Yamamoto!” He said. “Soon though!” 

“Oh dang! Well, have you eaten yet? You’ve been down there all day!” 

“No, Ms. Yamamoto!”

“Well come on up, then! I made your favorite!” 

“Okay! Thank you!” 

Katsuki smiled, and moved on. 

He threw himself across more rooftops, occasionally venturing down to ground level for one thing or another. He chased a few of the local high school delinquents home, confiscating their cigarettes, and then responded to a call to help out with a rowdy drunk at one of the local bars. The guy stopped acting out once Katsuki walked in the bar, but he still ended up spending the night in holding for property damage. 

A little while later, Katsuki hung out on his favorite billboard and idly watched some kid graffiti the next building over. He’d gone to stop her, but… eh, the thing she was drawing was pretty cool. Much better than half the graffiti already up there, anyway. It was a mural, he thought. Or it could be, given some time. Katsuki could kind of make out fish, but also flowers. 

It wasn’t like mom was all bad, Katsuki thought. He didn’t fight the thoughts that came up from the pit. They were unpleasant, maybe, but… Katsuki was getting a little tired of his pit, to be honest. 

He was tired of shunting things off to the side. He was tired of finding his own reactions to things unpredictable. It was exhausting, the way he didn’t know when something relatively innocuous would have him suddenly fighting off the instinct to get mean. 

Katsuki remembered the community garden. He’d spotted red in the tomato plants last week, and now he knew that there would soon be sugar snap peas. The garden had been nothing but trash and rotting debris a few months ago. Katsuki personally hadn’t expected the garden to produce anything this season, since it had only been planted so recently. And it wasn’t like the soil it had begun in had been so good… but it was actually thriving. 

Katsuki wondered if he could do the same thing to his pit. Maybe he could pull up all of those nasty, festering, unpredictable emotions he’d shoved down over the years, and maybe he could clean them up. 

It had to be worth it, he thought. With All Might, Katsuki wanted to be able to listen to Deku ramble without feeling shitty afterward. With his mother, he wanted to know if Deku was right, and if the way she treated him had been wrong, after all. 

Then there were the domestic dispute issues that occasionally cropped up around the neighborhood. So far children hadn’t been involved… but what would happen when one was? Katsuki had received surface training at UA on how to recognize abuse, but he wasn’t sure he trusted himself to put that knowledge into practice. 

What if Katsuki had a warped perspective because of his own fucked-up relationship with his parents, and what if a child got hurt because of that? He wouldn’t be able to forgive himself if a child got hurt when he could have prevented it. Forget the pit being uncomfortable, Katsuki suddenly realized that it was a fucking necessity that he get rid of the thing. 

It was slowing him down, and it was making him a worse hero. Fuck. 

Katsuki huffed, his eyes following the grand gestures of the teenage artist painting on the wall below him. 

He reached down, yanking on the next thought lurking just below the surface. What came up was a tangled ball of ugly emotions and thoughts. Katsuki couldn’t hope to parse through the entire thing in one go. Instead, he tried to just hold it, and to just let himself think for a minute. 

Mitsuki hadn’t been horrible, he thought. She might have smacked him around a little when he was younger, but a lot of parents did that. It wasn’t like she was like Endeavor or anything. 

Jeez… he was being dramatic, wasn’t he? Or… no. Katsuki closed his eyes. 

Todoroki had told him what Endeavor was really like, before their first sports festival. Katsuki had been shocked, but he’d also been a little… blind, maybe. Too self-centered to really understand what Todoroki had been saying, or perhaps too much in denial. He’d never liked Endeavor the way he liked All Might, but fuck, the man had been the number two hero. He’d been a huge part of Katsuki’s childhood, and Katsuki supposed that he had been just as guilty of denial as the rest of the fucking world. 

Once Katsuki had gotten it though, like really gotten it, he’d been horrified. Next to what Half’n’Half had gone through, Katsuki felt bad for even trying to compare their situations. 

He wondered though… what if they were just two different points on a sliding scale of shittiness? Todoroki’s shit fucking sucked, but did that mean that Katsuki’s own shit didn’t? No. Of course it didn’t. 

Deku’s shit with his own mom had been emotional pain, and betrayal. It hadn’t been physical, but that didn’t mean that it hadn’t been awful.

Deku had said something intelligent to Katsuki about this, once. He didn’t remember the context, but the words had stuck with him. 

Kacchan. In a contest of pain, no one is the winner. 

Katsuki snorted. The nerd could be wise sometimes, he supposed. He figured that if he were to sit down with good ol’ Halfie right now, the guy wouldn’t appreciate being crowned ‘King of Suffering’ anyway.

He wondered how Todoroki was doing. He’d left the country, Katsuki was pretty sure. Yeah, he remembered now. 

He was down in Australia, bumming it up with all the kangaroos and fighting wildfires and talking about climate change. Which was pretty badass, actually. His quirk was perfect for that shit. 

Still though. Leaving the country was a good indication of how badly the whole media shit-storm had hit him. If Katsuki had gotten bad press just for having shit timing and an attitude, then he couldn’t imagine how nasty it must have gotten for Todoroki.

Katsuki sighed. Damn. He hoped that fucking weirdo was doing alright. 

Down below, the young artist cast an arc of stunning green, and then began branching with yellow. She was making a sunflower. 

He recalled the scar on Todoroki’s face, and he recalled the occasions when he’d bore a similar mark. Several times, Katsuki had left for school with a visible handprint across one cheek. Once, a black eye when his mother’s wedding ring had hit him wrong. He recalled slipping into public bathrooms, and slapping his own cheeks until her prints were overlaid by his own. 

Katsuki was never gonna have to do that again, though.

Wait. 

Fuck.

He… was never going to go through that again.

Wasn’t that a fucking thought. Of course, it’d been years since he’d felt the sting of a slap across his face, but still, the realization that it would never happen again… it shook something loose inside him.

He was… so fucking relieved. So relieved he wanted to fucking cry. 

The relief brought with it some clarity. If he felt this way after almost a decade since she’d last slapped him, then it must have been wrong. 

It was wrong. Deku was right. It was wrong, and no matter how much of a brat I was she still shouldn’t have treated me that way.  

Maybe Mitsuki hadn’t been the worst mom ever, but that didn’t mean she was a good mom. Katsuki could be upset at that, he thought. He could wish that she had been softer. He could wish for a gentler childhood.

Katsuki put a hand to his face. “Fuck,” he said. 

Down below, pink and silver fish began swimming through tall, yellow sunflowers. The art was nonsensical, and amateur. Katsuki was really looking forward to seeing what it looked like in the sun, though. He bet that the colors would light up when the sun rose, and he bet that people walking by would stop to admire it. 

The resentment Katsuki felt towards his mother for putting him through all that, and for his father for letting it happen, fell from the tangled ball of emotions. His own guilt for being a shitty son felt silly and small in comparison. Maybe he'd been a shitty brat and hard to deal with. But that had been her fucking job. It wasn’t his fault that she had failed. 

A bit of him - the part that loathed who he’d been as a child viciously - still rebelled at the thought of putting the blame on his mother though. In defiance of it, he held the thought firmly in his mind, until the rebelling self-disgust began to drip, drip, drip away…

He stayed in place for awhile, keeping an ear and eye out for crime, but also watching as the girl finished up her artwork. His thoughts drifted, and he settled into a sort of easy-melancholy. It was a good melancholy though. Or at least, it was better than before. 

Around the time Izuku would be getting off his shift, Katsuki finished up his last lap of the neighborhood. By then, most everyone was off the streets, tucked away inside their own homes. He was a little surprised, then, to see a small figure crouching by the entrance to his own apartment building. 

Hm. Changing his direction, he jumped down to go check it out. 

“Quill,” he said, once he was close. He was surprised to see the kid. It was one of his and Deku’s late nights, so he hadn’t expected to see the middle schooler. Still though, if he was hungry, then they had food to spare. 

“Hey, Kacchan,” Quill said. Unlike Katsuki, he didn’t look surprised. He must have been waiting for him to get home. 

“You hungry?” Katsuki asked. “I can make something. You’re just gonna have to wait a few minutes.” 

“No…” Quill said. He sounded a little… shy? Katsuki raised an eyebrow. Quill was a lot of things, but he sure as fuck wasn’t shy. “I already ate. I wanted to ask you something.” 

“...Alright. Shoot, kid.” 

“Um.” Quill looked around. “Not here,” he said, “follow me.” 

Katsuki wondered if he should be concerned. Was something going on at school? Had Quill gotten into trouble? (Real trouble, anyway. He was always getting into normal trouble.) Quill led him over to one of the metal benches in the community garden, and sat down. Katsuki followed after him, sitting down. 

“Um…” Quill began to fiddle with the sleeve of his hoodie. 

Katsuki arched an eyebrow. “Yeah, kid? Spit it out,” he said. 

“Will you…” he took a breath. “Will you teach me how to be a hero?” 

Katsuki’s face did something weird, probably. He wasn’t sure what it looked like, but it definitely felt weird. 

“It’s just-” Quill began, “it’s… I never thought it was possible… but they asked us about high schools the other day, and I was just thinking… why not give it a try? I mean, my quirk is kinda cool, right?”

Katsuki tilted his head. He was genuinely surprised. Quill had never, not once, shown interest in being a hero. In fact, Katsuki recalled several instances where the kid had scoffed at heroes. (Mostly he made fun of Katsuki, specifically, but still.)

Katsuki was a little suspicious. 

He narrowed his eyes. Was this a prank? The kid’s stumbling words and general aura of embarrassment seemed to indicate ‘no.’ Katsuki had watched this same kid keep a straight face while three pounds of ice cream melted into his pants though. It was best not to underestimate him. 

Quill continued talking. “Maybe my quirk isn’t the coolest, but it’s versatile, right? Kind of like Red Riot’s! Or something…” 

He slowed down, taking a peek at Katsuki to gauge his reaction. Katsuki let his face smooth out into neutrality. Quill probably wasn’t joking. Even if he was, Katsuki would rather the kid pull a fast one on him than accidentally hurt his feelings or something. 

“...Sure, Quill,” he said. “Your quirk would be great for heroics. Why the fuck would you want to, though? You see the work I do, kid. You know it ain’t all that glamorous.” 

Quill’s eyes had lit up when Katsuki had agreed about his quirk, but he turned a little shifty after that. He looked embarrassed. Katsuki cast his mind back. 

“Does this have anything to do with helping Kohaku learn to walk?” He asked. 

“No,” Quill denied, but the embarrassed look on his face only deepened. “I mean… not… really. I was already thinking about it, but I guess helping her learn was… nice.” 

“Yeah?” 

“Yeah. I liked helping her. An’ Aiko too. An’ I started helping Kenko with her groceries… An’... yeah. I dunno. You’n’Deku are always helping people so… I thought it would be cool to… be like… you.” 

“…What the hell.” Katsuki said, before he could stop himself. Quill looked mildly alarmed. “Uh, I mean-” Katsuki scrambled for something to say. Shit, he’d kind of been aware that he was an authority-figure in Quill’s life, but he hadn’t realized that he was… an actual role model. That was a lot of pressure. That wasn’t even touching the fact that Quill apparently looked up to him. What the hell, what the hell, what the hell? 

Quill was still looking at him though, looking more and more crushed the longer Katsuki took to answer.

Well, in the end, it wasn’t like Katsuki actually had an option. 

“Yeah, okay kid,” he choked out. “If that’s what you want, then I’ll help.” 

“You don’t understand.” The woman said to Izuku. “Th-this ruined my life. I-I had a fiance, and he broke up with me when I didn’t get into school. I’ve been working as a waitress since then, and I don’t even make ends meet, my sister has to support me, and-” 

She began to cry. Izuku was ready with an offered box of tissues, already dabbing at his own face when his sympathy tears began acting up. 

“I do understand,” he assured her. “When I didn’t get into school, I became estranged from my mother, and I ended up going into debt. It took me years to pay off.” 

If anything, the woman began crying harder. 

Meanwhile, Tsukauchi continued jotting down notes. Next to him, an attorney from Kazuki Law firm, Aoi, was typing away at top speed.

“So would you say that you have been negatively affected financially by not getting into school?” Aoi asked, never once looking up from the computer. 

“Of course I have!” the woman burst out. 

“You were attempting to get into medical school, correct? So if you had gotten in, then you would be in residency by now, which means you should be making around…” 

The conversation was yanked back into the realm of sterile numbers, and all of the tears in the room slowly dried up. For her part, the other student seemed to grow angrier and angrier the more the paralegal and Tsukauchi helped her breakdown just how much she had lost from the university scam. 

It was a lot, and while all the numbers were important, Izuku found his mind wandering as he started to think about the bigger picture.

Once Izuku had been looped into the investigation, things had started to move quickly. Even more so once Tsukauchi had gotten lawyers involved. They’d majorly lucked out, and the law firm had taken their case on pro bono. Apparently they’d been looking for a public interest case for awhile now, and the university scandal had all the makings of not only a winner, but of something that could be high profile. If things went well, then Izuku figured that the law firm could get a lot of business out of it.

They were on a strict deadline though. Not only were the next round of tests approaching, but the law firm had begun to reach out and find other people affected by the universities’ fraud, such as this woman. More and more people were being drawn into the loop, and everyone involved knew that it wouldn’t be long until the secret was out. They just had to keep things under wraps until Izuku could take the exams again. After that, they’d be safe. 

Currently, he was slated to take four exams during the first two weeks of January. Most potential students only took one exam, or sometimes two. Izuku had been pushing it when he’d taken three, and now he felt practically crazy trying to take four. Especially because two of them required some travel to get to. To make matters worse, the exams were spread across only two weekends, and of course he would have to work in between them. 

It was important though. He would retake the three exams he’d ‘failed’ and then he would take a fourth exam - the one for the university he hoped to actually get into, now.

After looking around a little online, Izuku had selected Doshisha university, which had a satellite campus in Tokyo. Their quirk studies program was small, but they had a huge chemistry and biology building, and did a lot of work in the social sciences. Since quirk science often acted as an intersection between those things, Izuku was hopeful that he could do some good things there. 

Even better though, Izuku had done some digging, and the school seemed to take their diversity pledges pretty seriously. They catered to a large population of international students, and about ten percent of the students had mutation quirks - which matched actual population statistics almost perfectly.

Izuku and Kacchan had looked, and most colleges didn’t even come close to that. He didn’t see much about students with disadvantageous quirks or no quirks at all, but it was a pretty new form of discrimination that had come about only within the last few generations, so it made some sense. Izuku was hopeful, anyway. 

The conversation continued on, and Izuku felt a bit of his weariness give way under the woman’s anger. The past few months had been tough, and the next few would be tougher, but it would be worth it. For himself, but for this woman and everyone else who had been cheated as well. 

All the same, Izuku kept his eyes on the clock, grateful for once that his schedule was so jam-packed. There was only so much sympathy crying he could handle in an afternoon. He was starting to get dehydrated.

He had something nice on the docket today too. He and Kacchan had saved up a tiny bit of cash recently, and they had decided to spend it on a pair of curtains. It was ridiculous how excited Izuku was about it.

It was going to be a big purchase, though! The curtains they wanted had not only a blackout feature, but also helped retain heat. This winter, he and Kacchan wouldn’t need to plaster their windows with newspapers to stay warm. Instead, they could just close the curtains. 

It was going to be so lovely. 

Izuku began picking up his things as the interview with the woman wound down. He nodded to Tsukauchi and Aoi, murmuring something about seeing them tomorrow. They hummed in acknowledgment, but at this point the three of them were spending so much time together that hellos and goodbyes seemed almost silly. 

Izuku even had a key to Tsukauchi’s office.

So he let himself out, and then began the walk to the station. He and Kacchan were going to meet each other at a big mall near central Tokyo. It was a little bougie, but it had a home goods store that they'd managed to track down some good coupons at. He and Kacchan had even turned the coupon-hunting into a little competition! Izuku was confident that his coupons were gonna be the best.

As he walked, taking in the cooling autumn air, his phone dinged with an alert. Izuku opened it immediately, mentally preparing himself. Recently, he'd set up an alert system for whenever his husband or their agency was mentioned online.

Most mentions of Dynamight or Dynamight Agency were in reference to the recent article about his defeat of the Red Dogs. The response had been pretty mixed. Some people genuinely praised Kacchan on his accomplishment, and a few people had even seemed to show some regret. Others were at least re-appraising how they had previously viewed him. 

One blogger in particular had written a very emotional piece over the media’s poor treatment of all of UA’s ‘cursed class,’ including Kacchan.

Unfortunately, a fair number of people had also doubled down. A few news outlets in particular had released small pieces that, while acknowledging Kacchan’s recent take-down, had also been sure to bring up the fact that he’d recently been on probation. One had even gone to Kacchan’s old agency to try to interview Astra, but thankfully she’d declined to comment. (Whatever she had to say about his husband, Izuku didn’t want to hear it.) 

Kacchan had taken the reactions pretty well… all things considered. He’d been a bit quieter lately. Or maybe not quieter, since his husband was anything but, but more contemplative. Though how much of that was from his fifteen minutes of fame and how much was from his recent ‘discussion’ with his mother, that was hard to tell. Kacchan had told him that she called, and he’d also told Izuku that he’d decided Izuku was right about some things, but that he still needed some time to think about it. Izuku had made it clear that he was available to help him talk things through, but so far it seemed like it was something that Kacchan wanted to take care of himself. Izuku respected that, but he’d also become a bit worried with how long things were taking. 

In any case, he’d set up all of the news alerts on his phone, so he could preemptively parse through them before they reached his husband. 

This notification though, wasn’t about Dynamight. It was about “Kacchan.” Izuku was smiling before he even swiped it open. Almost every alert that was about “Kacchan” came from the neighborhood app that the people in their district like to use. Ever since Kenko had used it to organize people to build the community garden, it had been getting more and more traffic. 

Our friendly neighborhood hero is working triple-time these days! The caption read. Underneath was a video, where Izuku could see a blurry thumbnail of his husband with his back turned. 

Smile growing, he hit play. 

The first thing he noticed was the quiet giggling coming through his headphones, from whoever was holding the camera. Next, Kacchan’s voice came through the speakers, loud and clear despite the distance between him and the camera.

“Don’t think I don’t see you slacking off, Quill!” He shouted. “Pick up your fucking feet!” The video was blurry for another few seconds, but Izuku didn’t really need it to know what was going on. For two hours after school every afternoon, Kacchan had been training Quill for herowork. 

They’d both been really giving it their all, and even after only six weeks of work, Quill’s progress was evident. The kid was stronger, faster, and he had a better control and understanding of his own quirk than ever. (Izuku had helped a bit with the quirk control, but everything else had been Kacchan.) They hadn’t settled on a school to aim for yet, but Izuku privately thought that they would land on UA. Whatever sins the school had committed, they were the closest option, and they offered decent scholarships, which Quill would have to rely on. 

The video image finally smoothed out and focused, and Izuku had to stop walking in order to laugh. As expected, Quill was training, and appeared to be running lines. The video was focused on Kacchan though, who was attempting to look stern and coach-like in his hero gear… despite the fact that he was also helping swing a jump rope for a whole different gaggle of kids. 

Izuku lifted one hand to his mouth, his eyes tearing up from the cuteness overload. 

A group of about half a dozen kids were standing around the long jump rope, with the oldest of them holding the rope opposite of Kacchan. As he watched, the girl in the middle missed a jump, the rope hitting her ankle. Immediately, another child jumped in to take her place, and Kacchan and the older girl began swinging again. 

The girl who had missed the jump went up to Kacchan, and then jumped on his back. Without missing a beat, Kacchan boosted her up higher, until she was hanging over one shoulder, giggling happily. All the while, Kacchan continued to yell threats and vague encouragement at his young pupil, whose running had become more and more comically exhausted in the background. 

The next child who missed a jump did the same, and then the next one after that, until eventually, Kacchan was swinging an empty jump rope with half of the neighborhood children hanging off of him in some way or another. 

One child had come to sit proudly on his shoulders, and another two were slung across his shoulders. Another was wrapped around his torso, and two more had claimed his legs. A final child swung from his husband’s free arm. He held it up for her as if he were the monkey bars in a jungle gym. 

“Alright!” Kacchan finally said. “Good work Quill, get some water! No! Don’t sit down, dummy! Stretch and catch your breath. You still have a set to go!” 

Kacchan looked behind him, at the jump rope he was swinging for no one. 

“Huh? Where the hell did you all - HEY. Everyone get off me! I’m not a fucking playground!” 

The person holding the camera erupted into howling laughter, and Izuku finally recognized his voice as belonging to Spike. The camera grew shaky again, but not before Izuku could watch the entire group of children jump off of Kacchan, scattering to the four winds while giggling uproariously.

“Come back here!” Kacchan yelled, abandoning the (still swinging) jump rope to give chase. Izuku caught a glimpse of him grabbing one boy around the middle, and then another glimpse of the same boy positively shrieking in laughter as Kacchan tickled him. 

The camera evened out again, just in time to catch Kacchan look up, and spot the camera. 

“Oy! Spike, you better not be-!”

The video cut off. 

Heart in his throat and his smile stretching so wide that it hurt, Izuku quickly downloaded the video. He made a mental note to thank Spike, somehow. The kid was pretty studious… maybe a new set of cram school books? He and Kacchan could probably swing that.

Izuku rewatched the video on the train, smiling when their neighbors and friends began liking and commenting on the video. Another watch through made it evident that Kacchan really hadn’t realized that the kids were jumping on him. He boosted them up or helped them completely on autopilot - his focus was entirely on Quill and his training. 

Oh gosh I love him… Izuku thought, one hand cradling his face as he watched the video a fourth time. 

By the time the train came to a stop at his destination, Izuku had already taken the video and edited it a bit, muffling Kacchan’s cursing. Then he posted a link to the official Dynamight Agency Twitter page (newly established as of two weeks ago). He’d done a quick mental pros and cons list, but in the end Izuku decided that the cuteness of the video had to beat out any potential naysayers. Plus, it wasn’t like the agency had many followers yet, so the risk was minimal. 

Bouncing off the train, Izuku made it to the shopping mall in record time. Kacchan was already there, waiting just beside the entrance. 

Izuku saw Kacchan before his husband saw him. He was leaning up against the wall, dressed casually in a pair of jeans that had seen better days, a black shirt, and his green tracksuit sweater.

To Izuku, he looked like the most handsome man in the world. 

Izuku broke into a sprint, the affection bubbling up inside him too much to contain. Kacchan spotted him at the last second, only having a moment to bend his knees and open his arms. It was enough, and he caught Izuku when he reached him, cushioning their collision so that it turned into a hug. 

“Fuck Deku,” he huffed, when he’d steadied them. “Warn a fucking guy, will ya?” 

I love you, Izuku thought, pressing his face into the base of Kacchan’s hairline and squeezing him tightly. I love you, I love you, I love you!  

“Alright, alright, I get it, yeesh. Now get off. You’re so embarrassing.” 

Izuku did, but not before he sprung up to place a quick kiss to Kacchan’s cheek. That earned him a half-hearted glare, but it was still well worth it. 

“I love you!” Izuku whispered, clasping their hands together. The pink on Kacchan’s face darkened, and his eyes darted around to see if anyone else had witnessed Izuku’s impromptu display of affection. Fortunately the autumn afternoon was pretty cold, and even though the mall might typically be busy, most people were inside.

“I fucking heard you the first five times,” Kacchan whispered back. His eyes darted to the side again. “But I fucking… love you too. Or whatever.”

Izuku beamed. “I know,” he said, cheekily. 

“Agh, shut up,” Kacchan said, but then his eyes slid back to Izuku suspiciously. “What the hell has got you so clingy?” He asked. 

“Nothing!” Izuku lied, shifting back until he had only one of Kacchan’s hands in his grasp. Kacchan didn’t really check the neighborhood app, and the fact that Spike had been able to post the video meant that Kacchan was probably convinced that it had been deleted. Izuku wasn’t going to be the one to break the news to him.

Kacchan still looked suspicious though, so Izuku tugged on his hand to get them moving into the mall. “Come on,” he said, “are we gonna buy some curtains or what? You were talking a big coupon game, Kacchan, but I’m not sure you can back it up!” 

“Hah?! What the fuck did you just say to me, you stupid nerd?! My coupons are gonna kick your coupons’ ass!” 

Combined, their coupon game was enough to not only buy them a set of temperature-retaining curtains, but also a kotatsu. Izuku was so excited he could scream. 

Actually, he did. The moment they left the store, Izuku began jumping up and down, muffling his happy yell between his gloved fingers. Not even the store manager’s disgruntled glare when the two shabby, crass-talking men had managed to get a total of 75% off on their purchase had managed to dampen his mood. 

Izuku had loved their old table, but it was small and hard to study at. As it got colder, he’d had to start wrapping himself in his comforter just to stay focused. Now that they had a kotatsu, he’d be able to stay toasty and warm all winter long, and they have a better surface to eat on too!

Kacchan tried to look grumpy while he carried the huge box out of the store, but he gave up pretty quickly, a smile cracking the edges of his face until he was beaming back at Izuku’s excitement. 

“C’mon, nerd,” he said finally. “Let’s get the hell out of here before they come to their senses and call the cops on us for abusing their coupon system.”

“Alright, alright!” Izuku said, giggling. He had the curtains and rod in his own arms. “We’re gonna kick this winter’s ass, huh Kacchan?” 

Kacchan snorted. “Hell yeah we are, nerd.” He said. 

Actually, Izuku had some thoughts about that. They’d each thrown around the idea of purchasing their own generator and emergency supplies over the past year, but now that they could actually feel the oncoming creep of winter, it was time to get serious. 

Fortunately, the weather had already been milder this year, but that didn’t mean it would stay that way. Izuku didn’t trust their electric grid as far as he could throw it, and he’d spent two extra winters in the apartment before Kacchan had moved in, so he knew what he was talking about. 

Even strong rains were enough to turn off the power, sometimes. 

Izuku looked over at Kacchan, and immediately knew that they were thinking the same thing. 

“Generators are expensive,” Izuku said. 

“But our coupon game is strong,” Kacchan countered, his face solemn. He held the stoic expression for another second, but then his lip twitched, and Izuku began to giggle. 

“C’mon nerd,” Kacchan laughed, leading the way onto the train that would take them home. “Let’s plan our winter domination.” 

The late-November wind blew cold and fierce over the rooftops of Katsuki’s usual routes, and he was feeling a little smug about it. Two weeks ago, he and Deku had finally finished their negotiations with a local support company, and the fuckers had finally come through the other day.

He had a new winter costume. 

He and Deku had poked and prodded over the whole thing, but the fuckers had delivered in the end. Good thing too, ‘cause it had been fucking expensive. They’d blown an entire month of their agency budget on the whole set. The shirt and pants were well-insulated, though. Soft but still moisture-wicking, and it got his sweat into his gauntlets like it needed to. His gauntlets had been revamped too, with new professional sound-muffling equipment installed. Katsuki had only had them for two days, but already he’d received half a dozen complaints that his explosions weren’t waking people up anymore. 

That’s right. 

Complaints. 

Apparently people didn’t sleep right without them, or something. His neighborhood was full of crazies. Well, the crazies were just gonna have to deal, because his new gauntlets were expensive, and also non-refundable. 

Aside from that though, his costume had only changed cosmetically. Specifically, his explosion decals had gotten a little smaller. He’d also gone ahead and gotten them done in a softer material, since so many kids liked to pull on them. (They were now easier to detach for that very reason. He was tired of gettin’ his hair and mask yanked on.)

Despite the cold wind, it was still early in the afternoon. After another lap of his patrol, he’d meet up with Quill, run the kid into the ground for a few hours, and then he was planning on making curry for dinner. 

Extra extra spicy curry. Katsuki had finally found that stupid video Spike posted a week ago, and he knew that Deku had fucking hid it from him. 

And Deku had posted it to their official Twitter! Katsuki had deleted it immediately, but then Deku had just reposted it again this morning. Even worse, fuckin’ Ears had apparently started following him, and she retweeted the damn thing. 

Katsuki would be bringing a batch of the curry he made tonight to their next jam session. Ears wasn’t super popular on Twitter or anything, but he was still avoiding social media for now. 

It was bad enough that half of Japan had seen him when he was a snot-nosed brat, but now they had to see a bunch of other snotty kids all piling on top of him? It was embarrassing as hell. 

Whatever. Katsuki was just going to make some intolerably spicy food tonight, and then as long as too many people didn’t see it, he’d get over it. 

He was getting good at that shit. ‘Getting over’ things. Ever since he’d begun taking the time to dig up shit from his pit, he’d come to better understand the sources of his anger and how to overcome them. 

Occasionally he still surprised himself by snapping or getting irritated over something stupid, but it was happening less and less. 

Internalizing (or whatever stupid shit word Deku liked to use) the fact that his childhood hadn’t been all sunshine and roses was helping too. Both when he thought about his parents, but also when he thought about all the fuckery that went down at UA. 

Yep. Fuckin’ progress. 

If there was one thing that Katsuki actually liked about himself, then it was the fact that he was tenacious. When the going got tough, he kept going. Katsuki felt a bit like he was starting to see the fruit of all that tenacity. 

A growing agency, a kickass husband, and improving mental health. Fuck yeah. 

“Hey!”

Katsuki had made it to where his patrol intersected the middle school, and he looked down at the familiar voice to see Quill. Ah, the little fucker hadn’t left school yet. Since he still needed to go home and change, that meant he’d be late for training today. What a punk…

Katsuki’s thoughts drifted to a standstill. 

The scene developing on the street below him didn't make any sense. There was Quill, his gakuran tied off at his waist, and two of those other troublemakers he sometimes hung out with flanking him on either side. Across from him, another student shuffled their feet nervously, their shoulders hunched. 

“Do you seriously think you can be a hero?” Quill asked. Little spikes on his arms and hands had popped up in the tension.  

Katsuki began to feel sick. 

“I work hard everyday!” Quill continued, “I’ve been working my butt off to become a hero, but you think you can do it? When all you ever do is whine with that stupid, no-good quirk of yours? Seriously?!” Katsuki watched Quill reach out, and grab onto the other student’s collar. He reared one arm back. 

Katsuki moved so fast that the world blurred. One thought rose above everything else: Stop him!

He thudded beside Quill and the other student a heartbeat later. A small explosion broke his fall, and sent the kids stumbling backwards and away from one another. 

Quill looked up at him with startled eyes. The expression on his face morphed into fear when he got a better look at Katsuki’s face. 

“You,” Katsuki said, and somewhere he was aware that he was shaking. His whole body was alight in an anger he hadn’t felt in a long time. But he was also scared. He lifted a hand to point at Quill. “Do not,” he said, voice quivering and low, “move.” 

He turned around, to the student, who was also shaking. He’d fallen to the ground. Katsuki vaguely recognized him. A student he watched over while he went to and from school, that’s all this kid was. The bat-like ears on his head swiveled back and forth before turning to lay flat, back against his skull. 

Katsuki allowed himself two breaths. Two. Just two. 

He offered his hand. Ears twitching forward, the child let himself be picked up. 

“You okay?” Katsuki asked, his voice gruff. He dusted road grit off of the back of the kid’s uniform. 

“Um, y-yeah. Th-thanks Mr. Kacchan…” The child’s voice was soft, his eyes wide and expressive on his face. Katsuki felt his heart clench, and he fought the urge to bite through his tongue. 

“Okay.” Katsuki said. “Do your parents have my number?”

Most of the parents in the neighborhood seemed to have gotten a hold of the agency line at some point or another. The kid nodded. 

“Have them call me,” Katsuki said. “And kid.” Katsuki rested a soft hand on the boy’s shoulder, crouching just a bit to get to his eye-level. “Of course you can be a hero. Work hard. Play to your strengths. You can do it.” 

The child’s eyes widened, both of his ears now swiveled onto Katsuki. He lunged forward, wrapping his arms around Katsuki’s middle in a quick squeeze. Then he darted away, his face red, and sprinted down the street. 

Katsuki felt something inside him settle. He took another breath, and then turned back around. 

Quill had listened, and had moved hardly a muscle. The other two kids were still there too, though they’d backed up a few feet, apparently ready to flee. 

“You two!” Katsuki barked at them, “scram!” 

They did, one of them almost stumbling to his knees in his haste to get away. “I’ll be calling your parents!” Katsuki yelled after them. 

Finally, his gaze settled on Quill. 

Katsuki’s shadow. His student. 

...His little brother. 

Katsuki knelt down onto one knee, until he was the one who needed to look up, but only by a little. He was still shaking. 

He’s not you, Katsuki reminded himself, looking into Quill’s wide and confused eyes. The terror in them was gone, he saw, replaced by a tentative trust. The trust solidified Katsuki further. He wasn’t going to let Quill down. 

“I’m disappointed in you, Quill.” Katsuki said. 

Tears sprang to Quill’s eyes immediately. His lips began to tremble. 

“You’re better than this,” Katsuki continued, his own eyes burning. He wouldn’t let them spill over. “I know you are. You have a good heart. You’re going to be a hero.” Katsuki reached, smoothing Quill’s hair back under the padding of his glove. He trusted himself to do that, now. “But heroes don’t hurt people when they’re frustrated, okay? We don’t lash out at others. Especially when they’re weaker than us. Do you understand?” 

Fat tears began sliding down Quill’s face, and his face squeezed shut around a whimper. 

“I-I’m sorry…” he said. “I’m sorry Kacchan…” 

Katsuki tugged him forward, until Quill was folded in his arms. The kid clung to him tightly, sobbing out his apologies against Katsuki’s neck. Katsuki let him cry. When the sobbing began to quiet, he spoke again.

“I know you’re sorry,” He whispered. His shoulders had settled, but the shaking was still leaking out of his hands and joints. “But I’m not the one you need to apologize to. You know that, right bud?” 

“Yeah,” Quill said, voice quiet. “I just-! I just got so frustrated when he said he was going to be a hero too. I work so hard everyday and -!” 

“I know,” Katsuki interrupted. He did know. “But that doesn’t mean you can be a bully, Quill. Your emotions don’t give you permission to hurt others.” 

“...O-okay. Okay… I’m-I’m r-really sorry, Kacchan.” 

Katsuki pulled back, and Quill took a step away, using the distance to wipe hastily at his face. “Apologize to your classmate,” Katsuki said. “And...” 

The kid looked up, meeting his eyes with reluctance, and no small amount of shame. 

“You’ll do better next time. I know you will.”  

It was only after the food was eaten, the leftovers were packed, and the dishes were washed that Katsuki realized he’d forgotten to make the curry spicy.

Ah. Well. 

He didn’t really feel like messing with Deku anymore, anyway. The man in question was sitting at their brand new kotatsu while Katsuki laid across their couch. Deku was rambling about something or other. Whatever it was, he seemed happy about it, looking snug and content as he idly jotted things down in a notebook while the table’s heater warmed his legs. 

Katsuki had been on autopilot all afternoon. 

He’d told Quill to take the afternoon off of training to write an apology letter to his classmate, but he and the kid had ended up talking all through their normal training time anyway. 

Eventually Katsuki had even gone and bought him dinner, and they’d kept talking while the kid worked his way through a bowl of noodles at a ramen stand. (The same one he’d dined and dashed at a year ago, actually. The owner was less of a jerk these days.) 

Katsuki ended up confessing quite a few of his own past transgressions to the kid, because he thought it might help Quill see the bigger picture. He was pretty sure it had, but he also worried that he’d projected a little too much too.

Everything had just hit so close to home… it had been hard for Katsuki to keep perspective. It was probably okay though. 

In the end, Katsuki hadn’t yelled. He hadn’t called the kid a ‘brat’ or any other mean names. Hadn’t cuffed him upside the head. Hadn’t smacked him. Hadn’t gagged him or tied him up to force him to listen to a lecture. It had been a conversation, and when they’d finally parted ways, Katsuki had known that he’d gotten through to him. 

Katsuki sighed, and the volume of it made him realize that the room was silent, and that it had been that way for a few minutes. 

He sat up, twisting his head over to where Deku sat. He’d been telling Katsuki something, but Katsuki guiltily realized that he hadn’t been paying any attention. He hadn’t even noticed when Deku stopped. 

Deku looked up from where he was working in a notebook, and looked at Katsuki. He smiled, briefly, and then went back to what he was doing. Apparently content with the silence. 

Fuck. Katsuki accidentally ignored him and Deku responds by just going back to work, and then smiling at him? After everything that had happened, the tiny gesture of kindness from his husband was beyond Katsuki’s comprehension. Why was Deku so fucking understanding? How did he forgive so easily?

Katsuki’s heart squeezed in affection and guilt, and he shifted a little further up on the couch, so he could sit up. 

Deku looked… really pretty, he thought, while he was sitting in the autumn afternoon light like this. In the fall, the sun hit their window at just the right angle to illuminate their home for a few hours every afternoon. 

Deku sat in that brief patch of sun now, half-basking and half working. The yellow light added a shine to his green curls, and illuminated the splash of freckles across his cheeks and nose. He had his sleeves rolled up to his elbows, allowing the sun to warm his skin there. Every few minutes, Deku would pause whatever he was writing, and look up to study the ceiling while he thought. When he did so, the sun shone through his eyelashes. 

I don’t deserve to have him in my life, Katsuki thought, but it sounded a little ridiculous -  even to him, even as he thought it. 

His thoughts dragged their way back to Quill.

And what about him? Katsuki asked himself. That little kid had fucked up today - had been fucking up for quite some time, maybe. Quill was still just a kid, though.

He was a good kid, too. He deserved a second chance. And a third, and a fourth, and just however many he needed. Because Quill would get there. Katsuki saw the good, strong, and resilient person Quill would become. He was making mistakes, but… he was growing. He was just a kid.  

Katsuki sniffed, and leaned back to look up at their ceiling. 

I was just a kid back then too, he thought. The thought rose, expected, and Katsuki shoved at it, like he always did. Doesn’t matter, he told it. You don’t count. You don’t deserve forgiveness like he does.

This time though, something pushed back. 

Why not?  

Why… why not. Why not? Katsuki had been a kid too. He’d been rude, and arrogant, and had said words just to see how they felt in his mouth. But he’d still been a child.

All kids got mean, sometimes. All kids made mistakes.

He imagined himself at 14 years old - the same age Quill was now. 

His own younger self had been deplorable, and Katsuki hated him. He… he had hated him. Now, when Katsuki found himself facing that familiar loathing towards his past-self, it felt wrong. It felt cruel. It felt like he was hating Quill. 

And he didn’t hate Quill. Katsuki loved that little menace. Quill was annoying sometimes, but he worked hard and wanted to help people for all the right reasons. He’d helped Kohaku take her first steps. He helped Aiko carry her groceries, and Hansha with his weeding, and when Deku inevitably began mumbling about something or the other, Quill always paid attention. 

Quill was sorry for what had happened, too. He’d cried when Katsuki had said he was disappointed in him. Katsuki could never, ever hate him. 

Not when Katsuki knew what it was like. To be a kid - and to just be learning how big and how complicated the world was, and how small if made you feel. Katsuki had been that kid. He knew exactly what Quill was feeling and thinking when he’d cocked his fist back. 

What would Katsuki say, he wondered, if the little kid who’d pushed Deku around was in front of him right now?

You’re better than this. I know you are. You have a good heart. You’ll do better next time.

Fuck. What would that have done to him? What would it have been like, to have an adult tell him what he had told Quill today?

He didn’t know. He didn’t know, but he wished that he did. 

“Hey Deku,” Katsuki’s voice broke the silence of the apartment, his voice voice tight and rasping.

Deku stopped what he was doing, looking up to share his full attention with Katsuki. He looked content like this, Katsuki thought. He shared his life with Katsuki as easily as he breathed.

“Would you…” Katsuki swallowed. “I mean, I was just thinking, would it be fucking weird if, ah…” 

Deku tilted his head, his face remaining carefully blank in that way it did when he was trying to encourage Katsuki to continue.

So Katsuki continued. “Would you forgive me, if I… forgave myself…? For, fuck. I dunno if I deserve to, but what if I tried? For everything - when we were kids, and for being a little shit, and just-just all of it?”

Izuku’s mouth parted, and his head tilted downward. He suddenly looked a lot less neutral. Instead, he looked a little pissed. But also amused? Katsuki blinked.

“You bitch,” Deku said, the words rushing out in an almost-gasp. 

“I - what?” Katsuki asked. That was not the response he was expecting. 

Kacchan!” Deku said. He began to stand, placing his hands flat against the table. “You - this is what's been bothering you? This?!”

“What the fu-” 

“Yes, Kacchan!” Deku interrupted. “Of-fucking-course I would?! Actually, what the hell kind of a question, is that, huh?” Fully standing, Deku took the few strides over to the couch, unceremoniously shoving Katsuki’s legs out of the way to make room for himself. He kneeled once he was there, balancing upon the couch cushions to face Katsuki, placing his hands on his shoulders. “Will I fucking forgive you for forgiving - that’s so stupid! Fucking do it, Katsuki!” He ordered. 

“Do… do what?” Katsuki asked, his brain still caught on to the word ‘bitch’ a bit. 

“Forgive yourself! Forgive yourself, Kacchan! Right now!”

“Right now?!”

“Right fucking now!” 

“But I - I mean! Izuku?!”  

“Katsuki?!” Deku said his name in the same way Katsuki said his, mocking him. “You were a kid, you butthead! You were a kid, and now you’re my husband, and if you continue to let this hang over our heads then I’m gonna kick your ass! You got that? I forgave you years ago, Kacchan.” Deku leaned forward, staring hard into Katsuki’s eyes. He stared back, helpless against the forest green determination. 

Katsuki felt one of Deku’s hands reach up to smooth back his hair. Just like he’d done for Quill, earlier that day. 

“Has this really been weighing on you this whole time?” Deku asked, his voice a whisper.

“Yes,” Katsuki admitted.

Deku inhaled, his eyes never once leaving Katsuki’s. Then he leaned forward to place a kiss to his forehead. Katsuki closed his eyes. 

“It’s time to let this go, Kacchan,” Deku said, even softer. “We’ve got our whole lives ahead of us, yeah? It’s time to really forgive yourself. You… you are the stupid, wonderful, broke-as-fuck bitch that I adore more than life itself, okay? Forgive yourself, Katsuki. You and I are so much more than that piece of our past.”

Slowly, Katsuki began to nod. They were, he knew that. He and Deku were a partnership. They were dancers in a fuckin' laundromat, and proposals next to a garden. They were cheap meals and budgeting, and being happy as fuck anyway.

Katsuki wondered if he had been holding them back, in a way, by refusing to be kind to himself. He wasn’t sure, but he wanted to find out.

Anyway, what more could Katsuki say? If Izuku loved and forgave the child that Katsuki had been, and if Katsuki loved and forgave the child in front of him now, then what right did Katsuki have to keep hating himself? 

“Okay,” he said, his voice small. He wasn’t sure when he began crying, but his cheeks were wet with tears. Deku was crying too, smiling through it, and Katsuki saw every ounce of love and adoration he felt reflected in Deku’s face. 

“Say it,” Deku said, moving forward to wrap his arms around Katsuki’s neck to pull him into a hug. “Say that you forgive yourself, Kacchan.” 

Katsuki brought his hands up to grasp the back of Deku’s sweater, clinging to him tightly. He bit his lip around a sob, pushing his head into Deku’s neck, and clinging as tightly as he dared. “I-I do…” he said. “I was a stupid kid, and-and, I’m sorry, but…”

Deku waited, patiently. He merely tilting his head into Katsuki’s and breathed deeply. 

“But that kid… he doesn’t d-deserve how much I’ve hated him.” 

Katsuki felt his husband’s stomach clench rapidly as he cried. “No,” Deku agreed, “you don’t deserve that, Kacchan. You never did. So say it again.” 

“I-I… f-forgive myself,” he whispered. Was this really okay? Was it okay to let go like this? “...for everything…” For hurting Deku, for screwing things up at UA, for getting kidnapped and ending All Might. He would forgive himself. Or he’d at least try. 

Those things had been done by a kid. A shitty, confused, brilliant kid. Who, as it turned out, actually had a huge capacity for kindness. When he let himself rest and reach for it. 

Deku pulled back. His eyes were shining with tears, the afternoon light painting them like gold down his face. “Say it again,” he said. 

“...I forgive myself…” 

“Again.” 

“...I forgive myself.” 

“Again, Kacchan!” 

“I forgive myself, shitty-Deku!” 

“I’m proud of you!” Deku yelled, grin blinding. He launched himself forward, tackling Katsuki back against the couch. 

The air rushed from Katsuki’s lungs with an oof sound, but it didn’t keep him from smiling. The tears didn’t either. Katsuki cried, and he smiled, and he felt lighter - freer - than he had in years.