Chapter Text
Katsuki isn’t sure what to do. He has Izuku cradled to him, the smaller man’s attempts at trying to get free dropping the further they got away from the hospital. He eventually lands on a roof, ensuring that he doesn’t drop his friend on the harsh landing. Katsuki is exhausted, mentally and physically. He can feel it seeping throughout his body. His skin is drenched in sweet, his bones aching from the fighting, and he can feel his fingers starting to claw in pain from the strain of his quirk being used over such a long distance. He wanted the hospital out of sight, wanting distance between them in a desperate hope that the physical space would snap Izuku out of his stupor.
Izuku pushes him away, stumbling as he does. His freckled face is pale, his green eyes that usually are so vibrant with emotion dull. It’s almost as if he’s an empty shell, if it wasn’t for the completed devastation creased into every crevice of his rounded face. Katsuki has only seen this look on his face twice; when Izuku’s father had walked out on him and his mother, and when he had been given the news he was quirkless. Katsuki has seen it before though, many times, on the faces of family members whose loved ones hadn’t been saved in time. It’s a grief, Katsuki has yet to experience himself.
He watches as Izuku sinks to his knees, the thud of heavy flesh hitting the roof causing Katuski to flinch. His lips are parted, his eyes wide, and it’s as if his body is fighting desperately for air even though his lungs are perfectly fine. Fear, disbelief, panic, anger, and pain. They all cross his delicate features so quickly Katuski get’s whiplash just watching, and then Izuku lets out a wail. It’s loud, sorrowful, and it makes the heroes heart clench enough that he feels as if it’s going to give up on him completely. He’s frozen to his spot, watching his childhood friend crumble in on himself as the grief of loosing Shigaraki consumes him.
“Why…” he breathes out, desperate for answers. He didn’t expect this. Didn’t expect to see such raw devastation. He had expected the man to be annoyed, angry, but not destroyed like this.
“He’s gone, he’s gone, he’s gone,” Izuku’s clutching at his hair now, rocking slightly as he mumbles to himself. It’s as if a madness has taken him, a madness Katsuki can not help but feel guilty for. He takes a step forward, a trembling hand being held out and reaching. Cold green eyes snap to it, watching the gloved hand for a moment before he skirts back, and Katsuki can see his disoriented. When he looks up at him, it’s like he doesn’t even recognise Katsuki, and the sharp intake of breath the hero sucks in feels like shards of ice slicing at his throat.
“Izuku,” he breaths out softly, crouching down with his hand still out. He feels like he’s trying to usher forward a wounded, skittish animal, and he’s acutely aware of the ledge behind the green haired man.
“He’s gone,” Izuku repeats, eyes now darting around, searching in a delirious manner. Katsuki wonders if he’s suffering a psychotic break from how he’s acting.
“Izuku!” he snaps, desperate to draw his attention, to get him to focus and ground himself. It doesn’t work. “LOOK AT ME!”
“K-Kacchan?” it’s as if a trance has broken, and his eye lids flutter closed a few times as he blinks himself out of his stupor.
“Yeah, Nerd, it’s me,” he sighs, his hand still out, palm open and hoping the man finally takes it. Izuku looks to it, then back to the area the hospital sits, and the grief washes over his face again.
“I…can’t loose him,” Izuku whispers, his eyes going glassy before tears start to cut through the grey dusting of concrete particles on his face. “He’s all I have…”
“That’s not true,” the hero presses, still trying to coax him forward. He just wants to give him a fucking hug and reassure him that they can rebuild his life from the ground up again. “You have your mum, your friends…me.” He can’t stop the way his voice breaks at the end.
“You?” more tears fall, and there’s clear confusion by the way he’s looking at him. It makes Katsuki uneasy. “I don’t want you, I want Mura!”
“Izuku!” Katsuki can’t hold back his frustration, and the way he growls out the man’s name causes the small man to flinch. He regrets it immediately. “You can’t…actually love him. Do you?”
Izuku stills, the confusion seeping away and being replaced with an ugly snarl that doesn’t fit on his face. Katsuki doesn’t recognise the man in front of him in that moment. He only see’s the destruction Shigaraki has done. He’s tainted the best of them. Taking something so pure and innocent and twisted it into an ugly malice that has Katsuki standing up and taking a step backwards. This is his fault. He had given the villain an opening, an opportunity to take something so good and turn it so bad. In his desperate attempts to keep Izuku safe, he has allowed a twisted creature to form in its place.
“I’m sick of it,” Izuku hisses, getting to his feet shakily, his green eyes darkening to a shade Katsuki has never seen before. It’s pure, unrestrained anger. “You never understood. Not once. How could you! You, Katsuki Bakugou, who was handed the world on a silver platter! You have no idea the suffering of the world! None!”
“Izuku…wait…,” he puts his hands up defensively, the rage coming from the smaller man having him on edge in a way he’s never felt before.
“Tomura understood me! He saw my worth! He saw past what I don’t have and saw exactly what I did! My whole life, all I have ever wanted was to be seen, to be taken seriously, and all anyone has ever done is look down on me and take! My father took what he wanted from my mother and then abandoned us like discarded trash. You took my childhood, my dreams. You beat me down, kicked me, drove me into the fucking dirt until I had nothing left except a small, pathetic dream, and then All Might took that!” he watches as Izuku takes a step forward, teeth gritting, and fists balled.
“You forgave me!” Katsuki can’t help but yell back, desperate to be forgiven, to hold on to the thin apology that had allowed him back into his life all those years ago.
“Then I find a new dream, one that’s possible, that allows me to help, but even then it came with a fucking cost. My life wasn’t mine. My decisions weren’t mine. I was a puppet, pulled left and right for whatever purpose the commission saw fit, and I had been so blind in my desperation to help, to be useful.” Izuku looks down at his shoes, his chest heaving as he draws in long, harsh breaths. “Suicides and human trafficking, the statistics are so fucking high for those of us who are quirkless. I had been grateful to the commission from sparing me from that life, and I didn’t even realise I had signed over myself into an endless life of servitude.
Katsuki finds himself going quiet, just listening to the man’s struggle with a sick horror that he finally understands how they had gotten to this point.
“Tomura…Tomura never asked anything of me. Never took anything from me. Never wanted me to be something I wasn’t. He accepted me, loved me, wanted me, and you were only ever ashamed of me.” Katsuki shakes his head, he wants to argue, but his response is stopped by how his tongue feels swollen in his mouth and stuck to the roof of it. “You may put on the suit, may act the part, but you’ve never been a hero, not to people like me….”
“Fuck, Izuku, I…I didn’t know!” Katuski takes a step forward. He feels desperation creeping up his body, pushing him forwards. He has to let Izuku know that he’s wrong, has to get him to see how important he is to him, to them all. “Izuku…I…”
“Don’t you fucking dare tell me you love me,” Izuku snaps, face darkening and contorting again into something almost demonic. It makes Katuski reel back, as if he’s about to be struck by a quick moving snake. “Not when the one I love is down there, dead, because you heroes are too fucking stubborn to see the corrupt system you’re all tangled up in.”
“We can fix this! Together! We can change things!” he reaches out again, his voice soft, pleading, frantic as he tries to fix it all.
“I DON’T WANT TO LIVE IN A WOLRD WHERE BEING QUIRKLESS MEANS I’M USELESS!” the yell clashes with the sounds of buildings crashing down behind them. Katsuki stills, shock, and fear coursing through his body in a way he’s never experienced before. There’s a heavy presence in the air, danger, anger, and death. He doesn’t need to look behind him to know what’s happening, he can see it by how Izuku’s face morphs from twisted, black anger to relief and hope. The bastards not dead, and from the sounds of it he’s only gotten stronger.
“Izuku!” he rushes forwards, the sound of decaying buildings, ground and people rushing towards them at a speed Katsuki can’t believe is possible. It surprises him when Izuku doesn’t struggle, as if he’s stunned again, this time with a giddy joy instead of overwhelming grief.
Tomura Shigaraki isn’t dead, and all Katsuki can focus on is getting Izuku as far away from the mad man as possible.