Archive of Our Own ^beta

Izuku’s midterm is burning a hole in the bottom of his bag. He’d hardly let himself look at it, only saw its grade through the back of the page, fluorescent overheads beaming a bright-red, backwards 58 into his eyes. After realising his grade was not, in fact, an 82, Izuku had shoved the paper into his bag and sat through the rest of the class without hearing a single word. Not so different to usual, really. Guess that’s why he scored a 58.

Shame curls hot in Izuku’s stomach, acidic, but he doesn’t stop walking. Running, almost. It’s early evening on a Friday and the CIS Department building closes in twenty minutes and if Izuku doesn’t go there now, he’ll bottle it. He’ll never go again. He’ll drop out. For real this time.

He paints a ridiculous picture cutting through UA’s idyllic campus like this, swerving through students walking sedately across the grounds as if their midterms went just fine. That used to be him, back when his classes were still mostly comprised of gen-ed and the very most he had to worry about was a pop quiz on what he’d read the night before. Anxious though he is, he’d even take a 10-minute-long presentation over another Data Structures exam, but this far into his degree, he can’t afford choice. God knows he wouldn’t be booking it to the Computer and Information Science offices by choice.

The building looms up ahead, large, lustrous, glass panels gleaming the colours of sunset. Izuku slows down, catches his breath as he walks through the front door and makes his way to the elevator. His sneakers scuff white tile, the squeaks echo. He’s panting a little and he’s flushed a lot and he probably looks more like he just came from a fight than class. He wonders if students have ever been turned away by a tutor solely for looking too ridiculous.

Up the elevator Izuku goes anyway. He isn’t looking for a miracle, just some help, just enough to pass. He’s bad at admitting he can’t do things alone but the weight of his midterm is making his shoulders hurt. He has never failed an exam before. There’s a first time for everything, and Izuku will plead on his knees to make this the last. He just hopes it won’t break the bank.

The elevator spits Izuku out on the third floor and Izuku trapises around past old classrooms, looks inside and sees his happier ghost in the seats he used to occupy. He misses the passion he used to have for this, the excitement, the accomplishment. All it took was one class to rattle him with imposter syndrome, and he’d let it for a while, but he wants that ghost back. He wants to remember why he loves this subject. He wants to remember that he can be good at it.

He swallows the nerves sitting at the base of his throat, threatening nausea. He pats his curls down, tugs his shirt sleeve over his wrist to dab at the sweat on his forehead, and heads to room 306: Computer and Information Science Department, Tutoring Office.

There’s only one person in there when he arrives. He looks a couple years older than Izuku and he’s sitting at the reception desk, clicking away at a laptop resting on his thighs, eyes bored behind dark, thin-frame glasses. His hair is blond, a little spiky, looks kinda soft. …Izuku doesn’t know why he notices that. His arms, admittedly, are hard not to notice, sculpted in these lean curves and swells and shown off in that black muscle tee. He’s leaning all the way back in his chair, so Izuku can see he’s wearing sweatpants. Grey ones. Beneath the desk, he’s propping one white-sneakered foot on top of the other, legs stretched out.

He looks up when Izuku walks up to his desk. Those bored eyes are blood red.

“What?” he asks.

Izuku falters. His voice is short, gruff. And kinda rude.

“Uh. I’m looking for a tutor,” Izuku says. It’s all he can manage.

The guy looks unimpressed. “Yeah. This is the tutoring office.”

Izuku flushes. “I know.”

Glasses sighs and pushes his laptop onto the table, off to the side. He toes himself closer to the desk and crosses his arms on it. The muscles in his shoulders roll. He has long fingers, wide palms, perfect nails.

“Gonna tell me what class you’re sucking at?”

“Data Structures,” Izuku mumbles.

He scoffs. “Easy shit.”

Izuku washes hot. All the shame that had propelled him here floods his body uninhibited and he feels he might catch fire, might burn right in front of this jerk’s red eyes. He braved this trip only to get ridiculed for it. Half a semester’s worth of stress and sleeplessness lands on him like hailstorm and Izuku is so, so tired.

“Yeah, probably,” Izuku admits. “It’s probably really easy, to someone. Maybe even most people here. But not me. I just failed a midterm and even before that I was scoring really badly in my assignments, and I thought I wanted to do this forever but I can’t even do it for a semester, and I don’t know what to do but I thought I could at least come here for some help, and now you wanna tell me that everything I’m worrying about is easy? I wouldn’t be here if I thought it was easy!”

And now he’s nearly crying. God! He presses a palm to his eyes, trying to push the tears back in, mortified. His bag is huge on his back, his clothes, fading jeans and a simple black tee and a dumb flannel, suddenly feel like they dwarf him, and he’s a first-year all over again, uncertain and unknown and unutterably scared about it. He can’t cry in front of the mean reception desk guy. The mean reception desk guy already thinks Izuku is a loser, and since he’s the only person in the office, Izuku still needs his help to set up a tutoring session with someone. This is exactly why he’d worried about looking too ridiculous.

Izuku lets himself press at his eyes a while longer, terrified of what he’ll see when he stops. Eventually the silence gets too loud for him and he peeks to find that desk guy is just looking at him, somehow impassive and unbearably intense all at once. The heat on Izuku’s face is mostly from embarrassment now, and the guy’s stare isn’t helping at all. He looks like he’s seeing so much, and Izuku can’t fathom what he’s finding, nor why he hasn’t stopped.

He says, “What’s your surname?”

Izuku is so confused that for a moment he doesn’t actually remember.

“...Midoriya.”

The guy turns back to his laptop. He’s typing away. Izuku stands there and fiddles with his fingers. Has he just been dismissed?

Then Glasses swivels his laptop around so the screen faces Izuku. “This you?”

Ugh. Unfortunately. Izuku wishes he’d chosen a better picture for his school ID card.

“Yeah,” he confirms.

“This your number?” Glasses drags his cursor over Izuku’s contact information.

“Mhm.”

And Glasses goes quiet again. Ignores Izuku again. Takes his phone out of his pants pocket and starts typing on it. One more act like this and Izuku will leave of his own volition. He’ll learn from YouTube videos instead.

Izuku’s phone buzzes. Glasses tucks his own back into his pocket and stares at Izuku again, expectant this time.

Izuku frowns. “What?”

Glasses’ mouth twitches. It’s the closest to a smile he has managed since Izuku came in. He folds his arms over his chest, leans back in his chair once more, and nods to Izuku’s pocket. To where his phone just buzzed inside it.

Izuku takes his phone out. Opens up his messages.

unknown number
bakugou katsuki. im free tuesdays at 7pm

Once again, Izuku blushes. This time around, he doesn’t want to pinpoint why.

“That’s… very nice of you,” he mutters, staring at the text in disbelief because it’s better than staring at Glasses in… whatever emotion is on his face right now. “But I’d rather get to know someone a little better first before they take me out on a—on a date.” Also you basically just called me stupid, he thinks but doesn’t say.

When Izuku chances a glance upwards, Glasses—Katsuki—actually is smiling. Something in Izuku’s chest twinges. He’s—pretty.

“I’m a tutor, dumbshit.”

And he’s a tutor.

He’s. He’s a tutor.

“You—you’re a tutor?!” Izuku exclaims.

Katsuki nods.

“And you wanna tutor me?” Izuku is going to pass out.

“‘S what you came here for, ain’t it?”

“I didn’t think you were—I thought you just worked reception! Is there nobody else here I can ask?” Izuku rambles, knowing there isn’t, knowing that Katsuki is the only person in the office. He peers around anyway, and he knows he’s being rude, but desperate times. He cannot commit to being tutored by the meanest (prettiest when he smiles) person he’s ever seen, not even in peacetime, especially not when he just assumed this guy wanted to ask him out on a date.

Katsuki is frowning again. Unimpressed again, though not at Izuku. His eyebrows are furrowed like he just imagined something and hated it.

“Won’t find anyone better than me,” is all he says.

Izuku makes a face. The worst part is he’s certain Katsuki is telling the truth.

But he must look unconvinced, because Katsuki rolls his eyes, leans down to root around in a bag by his chair, and pulls out a sheet of paper. Izuku has been to too many career fairs and workshops. He recognises what it is immediately, even before Katsuki hands it to him.

Katsuki’s resume proclaims he’s an ex-UA student, just a year out of undergrad. He was a Computer Science student just like Izuku. Even before graduating with highest honours, he’d completed two internships, one as a database developer for a bank and the other as an analyst for a law firm. He’s currently signed to a fellowship program with Endeavor Corporation as a Data Engineer Apprentice. He tutors everything from Calculus to Algorithms, and he works the CIS Tutoring Office reception desk on the side.

He’s more than qualified. He’s perfect.

“Uh.”

“You said you failed your midterm?” Katsuki asks.

Izuku looks at his feet. “Got a 58.”

Katsuki whistles a low, almost sympathetic note. “And what do you get on your coding assignments?”

“Mostly Ds.”

“Hm. You taking Aizawa-sensei?”

Izuku nods.

“So he’ll give you extra credit assignments. You’ll do them all. You have three more coding assignments til the end of the semester. I’ll make you ace them. The final is worth 40%. You’ll ace that, too. You’ll be so fuckin’ good at this shit you’ll be mad you ever needed tutoring.” He raises his eyebrows. “So. You free Tuesdays at 7?”

Izuku nods weakly. He can’t afford choice.

Katsuki grins evilly. “Cool. Text me, we’ll figure out pricing. We start next week. I’ll get you right…” He stops for a moment, peers back down at his laptop. Then he looks up from over his glasses at Izuku, still grinning. “...Izuku. Won’t be getting Ds with me.”

Izuku dies.

“He sounds scary,” is Ochako’s first impression.

“And rude,” is Tenya’s.

“I’ll get my dad to fire him,” Shouto offers.

Izuku snorts. “Don’t do that, he could be a good connection.”

Shouto peers up at Izuku from the floor. “Isn’t he about to see how bad you are at data structures?”

Ochako falls into laughter. Izuku pushes her off his bed.

“You are not bad at it, Midoriya,” Tenya reassures, though he catches Ochako before she can hit the floor so Izuku isn’t certain whose side he’s on. “You simply need guidance.”

Izuku folds himself deeper into his bed and hides behind his laptop, grumbling. This is the last time he lets his friends study in his room.

Though realistically, no it isn’t. He’s far more productive with his friends around him. Left to his own devices, he’d open his laptop, boot up Terminal, then stare at it for an hour without typing a single thing. He’d already been twenty minutes into that exact activity when Ochako had texted him, asking about his meeting at the CIS office. And Izuku is bad at lying. So that’s why they’re all here.

“When will you text him back?” Ochako asks once she’s gotten over her giggle fit.

Izuku grimaces. “What if I just… don’t?”

“Won’t you fail out of the class?”

Izuku pouts at Shouto. “I’ll watch YouTube videos.”

“How many?”

Ochako laughs again. Izuku considers flinging himself off his bed. Wonders how hard he’d have to do it to get a concussion and score some excused absences.

“Go on, text him!” Ochako advises, wiping away tears. “He’s weird but he wants to help. Who knows, he might even end up a friend!”

Izuku squints. “Is that what you call Himiko? ‘Friend?’”

Now Ochako hides. She tugs her discarded textbook down from Izuku’s bed and buries her nose in it, mumbling something under her breath about, “That’s different…”

Izuku doesn’t see how it is. Ochako went through her own academic hell last semester with organic chemistry. She stills sees the tutor she’d found for it, even though the class ended months ago. But maybe Ochako is right, and his situation is different. Izuku can’t imagine that he’ll wanna see Katsuki for a single second past the end of their sessions. When Katsuki finds out just how woeful Izuku is, he probably won’t wanna see Izuku again either.

He goes a little quiet with nerves, and his friends know this silence well enough to leave it be. They go back to their own studies, and Izuku lets the sounds of their music, tinny through headphones, fill his head so the worries can’t. He breathes deep, reawakens his laptop when the screen dims from inactivity. Terminal stares back at him, letting him know his session has timed out.

Izuku clicks out and looks at his assignment requirements. He’s supposed to be implementing an ADT of a binary search tree. He looks up the term in his class notes and it doesn’t even show up.

He takes out his phone.

hi katsuki it’s midoriya izuku

Izuku isn’t expecting a reply right away, so he doesn’t know why he stares anxiously at his phone for a whole minute. He sighs, face flaming, and starts to click through the slideshow Aizawa-sensei had lectured from two classes ago. Maybe he’ll find binary search trees there.

A half hour later, Izuku realises he’s looking at the wrong slideshow entirely, and Katsuki texts him back.

bakugou katsuki
i know

Izuku winces. Stupid. Of course he’d know, he literally watched Izuku receive his text earlier. But still. He could be a little nicer about it. Now Izuku doesn’t know how to respond.

?are u still going to tutor me

Another ten minutes pass. Izuku doesn’t even bother going through his notes again. It’s approaching 10pm on a Friday night and the rest of it will be better spent on a movie than on not-coding. He scrolls social media, checks his emails, even finds himself on LinkedIn which is more of a cry for help than literally crying for help like he had today, then Katsuki answers.

bakugou katsuki
do you still want me to

Izuku doesn’t know that he actually said he wanted Katsuki to. In fact, he pretty much insinuated that he didn’t. But CIS is long since closed and Izuku has no other options and Katsuki would be the best one anyway. Izuku thinks back to the resume and admiration stirs warm in his gut before he remembers whose name had been on it.

yes pls

Again, feels desperate, but Izuku isn’t a total jerk, so pls it is.

bakugou katsuki
then yeah i am
¥2500 an hour?

Izuku makes a small noise of surprise. Not small enough, clearly, because Tenya looks up from his notebook, lifts up one side of his headphones, and frowns a question. Izuku smiles apologetically and waves him away, turning back to his phone.

thats not a lot

bakugou katsuki
i can ask for more

Izuku blushes. Whatever stirs in his gut this time is not admiration.

no no im just surprised
ive never done this before, i thought tutors might charge a bit more

bakugou katsuki
where would i get off extorting broke college kids

Izuku is surprised by his chuckle. Katsuki might be mean and foul-mouthed and prettier than he really has any right to be, but he’s kind of… nice. Considerate in a prickly way. He offered to help Izuku, after all. Izuku can’t wrap his head around it, but he’s all of a sudden not as apprehensive to go through with this as he’d been about a minute ago.

haha fair
that price works for me
?tuesdays at 7

bakugou katsuki
yeah in the library. study room on the 4th floor
bring your syllabus n shit

!sounds great
thank u sm

bakugou katsuki
yeah nerd whatever

There he goes again. Izuku frowns. He’s considering not gracing that message with a response, when Katsuki takes the choice out of his hands. That’s all he’s done since Izuku met him.

bakugou katsuki
you said youve never done this before?

i havent
but i also havent been close to failing a class before

bakugou katsuki
so youre not a dumbshit

!yeah, ur right, im not

bakugou katsuki
lol
but youre letting data structures fuck you over?

data structures is hard

bakugou katsuki
its not
just gotta get taught right

?and u can do that

bakugou katsuki
told you already
wont get anyone better than me

Izuku chews at his lip. There’s a specific brand of competence and its resulting confidence that he’ll always be in awe of, no matter who it comes from. He thinks Katsuki might just have it. Hell, he knows Katsuki has it. And he wants to impart at least some of it on Izuku. And for what it’s worth, he really is easy on the eyes.

?should i be worried

bakugou katsuki
ill go easy
for your first time

Oh. Okay.

In a blind, viciously hormonal panic, Izuku reacts to that message with a thumbs up and shuts off his phone. Would throw it at a wall too, if his friends weren’t all looking up at him expectantly, homework clearly neglected.

Izuku sulks. “What!”

Ochako smiles, smug. “‘Friend.’”

“You do not have a leg to stand on here!”

“Movie anyone?” Tenya yells over them both, shoving his notebook aside so hard it dents Izuku’s wall. Then he clambers onto Izuku’s bed, and Ochako follows him, gleeful, and Shouto follows her, amused, and the bed frame creaks. Izuku is gonna have to pay a hefty damages fee. He hopes his new ¥2500-an-hour commitment will leave room for it.

Izuku misses the library. Ever since acquiring a single room (a miracle that he still likes to think is worth the exorbitant fee increase), he hasn’t needed to find an alternative place to study, prefers the peace of his own space to a library’s stuffy silence. But fond memories probably would have sent him back here even if Katsuki’s commanding text hadn’t. He remembers squeezing into a too-small table with his friends, studying into early hours, trying not to let delirium reach him and laughing too loud with them when it finally did. The building is regal in an entirely different way to the glass box of the CIS department, more stone arches and brickwork, dark panelling and dim lighting. Izuku tries to keep his footsteps soft, wincing when floorboards creak, grateful to finally tread on the carpeted flooring that the school has yet to install on any floor other than the fourth.

The library sprawls. There’s plenty of space on other floors, plenty of other study rooms, so the fourth floor is almost empty, almost always. Izuku can’t fathom why Katsuki picked this one. Maybe he likes his space, too. Too bad Izuku is about to infiltrate it.

He’d talked himself up to this moment all weekend, and still slept nervous, woke up nervous, walked here nervous. The second he sees Katsuki through the study room window, Izuku considers turning right around, faking sickness. Katsuki looks up from his laptop and catches Izuku right as he’s shifting from foot to foot, debating whether to walk forwards or backwards. Izuku pulls a face. Katsuki’s brows lift and it feels like he’s trying not to laugh.

“Come on,” he mouths.

Izuku walks over manually. One foot in front of the other. Heel toe.

“Hi,” he mumbles in Katsuki’s general direction, shutting the study room door behind him and standing with his back right against it. That’s as far as he can let himself get inside the room.

Katsuki still looks like he might laugh. Izuku gets the feeling that his every move is something to watch, something to smirk at. How is he supposed to get through one session like this, let alone one a week for the next seven?

“Sit, nerd,” Katsuki instructs.

Izuku does. At the opposite side of the table.

Katsuki rolls his eyes. “Fine.” And stands up. He doesn’t let Izuku get away with keeping distance. Just picks himself up and comes around to Izuku’s side of the table, sits right next to him.

“You didn’t say I should sit next to you,” Izuku protests because Katsuki looks vaguely exasperated.

Katsuki scoffs. “My bad. Want me to bend myself over every time I wanna see your work?”

Izuku’s face flames. “This is fine.”

“Right.” Katsuki grins at him. His shirt is loose again today, white, some band logo Izuku doesn’t recognise plastered on the front. Different sweats this time, still grey, a little rattier. The same white sneakers. The same thin glasses.

“Take your nerd bag off, lemme see your syllabus.”

Wondering just what, exactly, is nerdy about his bag (except for the fact that it’s still on his back and he has to struggle in his chair to remove it), Izuku shuffles around and pulls out his laptop, powers it up to showcase his Data Structures syllabus, already loaded. He tilts his laptop to the side, and Katsuki leans in to peer at it. Izuku tries not to lean away. Tries to be normal. Tries not to notice how good Katsuki smells, how his shirt collar is dipping.

Katsuki scrolls through the pages, nodding to himself, occasionally shifting his glasses a little higher up his nose. Izuku, hands in his lap, watches. Katsuki in profile is severe, sculpted. He looks like he’d be both hard and soft to the touch, rough and smooth. A study in contradiction, somehow makes a perfect whole.

“What was your midterm on?” Katsuki asks.

“Uh, the design and implementation of different ADTs,” Izuku mutters. “How to implement them with an array versus a linked list.”

“And where did you fuck up?”

“Linked lists,” Izuku admits. “I think I understand arrays better.”

“Hm. You got your exam with you?”

Izuku freezes. He does have his exam with him. It hasn’t left his bag since he shoved it inside on Friday. Izuku swears it starts to glow at Katsuki’s question.

It’s one thing to admit he needs help. It’s another thing entirely for the help to see just how much he needs it. Izuku prefers to be contained about his shortcomings, less daunted by them that way. They’re a secret, a locked box. He has let Katsuki glance at them from afar, but now Katsuki wants to examine them. Anticipating the shame shrivels Izuku in his seat, and he doesn’t move from the slouch until Katsuki looks up from Izuku’s laptop.

“So you do,” he guesses.

Izuku nods.

Katsuki frowns and leans a little closer. Izuku slumps a little further away.

“Cut that out,” Katsuki scolds. His voice is low, close to coaxing. At odds with how he scowls. “Think I give a shit how bad you are at this? I already know what you scored. You’re paying me to make you better, and I’m gonna make you the best, but not if you hide shit from me.”

There’s that prickly kindness again. The one that dares you not to believe in yourself, to not believe in Katsuki. Izuku hasn’t been the subject of such passionate attention before. He doesn’t know how to respond other than to listen, and he takes out his Data Structures midterm like it doesn’t scorch his hand as soon as he touches it.

Katsuki tugs it toward himself before Izuku can think of reclaiming it. He peers over Izuku’s scribbles, barely even glancing at the vivid red scratch of Izuku’s score. It’s so obvious to Izuku, so glaring. How isn’t it all that Katsuki can see? How is he flipping through each page like there’s actually something of value in any of them?

What he does see is Izuku’s name. He snorts and turns the page back to him, pointing to Izuku’s scrawl at the top of the page. “Deku?”

Izuku blanches. “I—That is not what that says!”

“‘S what I read, Deku.”

Izuku pouts. “Don’t call me that.”

“Hm. Think I’m gonna. Makes you make a funny face.”

Then Katsuki goes contemplative again, quiet again. Leaves Izuku to stew in confusion. Slightly smitten confusion.

“You’re good at theory,” Katsuki eventually speaks into the silence.

Izuku almost falls off his chair. “I am?”

Katsuki nods, humming. “That’s where all your points are. It’s the code segment questions that you’re shit at. You didn’t fuck up with linked lists, you understand what they’re supposed to do just fine. Same with arrays. You just don’t know how to code them.” He peers closer at the last page. Izuku remembers it gave him the most trouble. “You don’t know how to code fuckin’ anything.”

Izuku’s gut curdles. His eyes are hot. “Anything?”

Katsuki shoots him a glance. Softens imperceptibly. “Your solutions are inefficient. You’re fucking up on pseudocode when you shouldn’t be, because you have all the foundational knowledge. How many of your assignments have you hard-coded results for, just so you could match the test case output?”

Izuku does not answer that.

Katsuki smirks. “Uh huh. You’re guessing too much nerd. You understand data structures. You don’t understand code. That’s what we’re gonna fix.”

He turns Izuku’s exam over, plucks a pen from his pants pocket, and starts writing. Izuku is too preoccupied with having a crisis over the difference between understanding data structures and understanding code (aren’t they the same thing?) so he doesn’t look at what Katsuki is drawing up. Katsuki has to flap Izuku’s paper under his nose to snap him out of it, and Izuku sees that he has created a schedule. Mapped out all the objectives Izuku is supposed to reach every week until the final exam for the course. It’s just bullet points, yet they almost fill up the entire page.

“Wow,” Izuku says.

Katsuki is looking very smug in his chair. “Yeah?”

“Could you maybe… walk me through this? It seems like a lot.”

“‘Cause it is,” Katsuki agrees. He tugs himself closer, sets Izuku’s new schedule back on the table, and starts to talk it over. The space between them feels like it’s on fire, it’s shimmering. Izuku tries to pay attention to what Katsuki is saying, and not to those long, perfect fingers as they point over his page. “We’re reviewing first. Functions, pointers, OOP shit like classes and objects. They’re basics for a reason; they’re in fuckin’ everything you do in data structures. The reason why you suck at coding is because you don’t know what these things do or why they’re used.”

Izuku frowns but doesn’t comment. He’d studied so hard for those early review tests. How isn’t that translating in his projects?

“Then we move to ADTs, the stuff from your midterm,” Katsuki continues. He looks sharply at Izuku. “Tell me what that stands for.”

Izuku baulks for a moment. “Uh. Abstract data types.”

“Good. We’ll go over all their operations: constructors, transformers, observers. We’ll run that fuckin’ ragged because this is what’s tripping you up the most. Not theory, just code.”

Izuku mumbles, “Got it.”

Katsuki takes him through the rest. Sorted and unsorted lists, trees, hashing, stacks and queues, and considering this is all taken from Izuku’s syllabus, it is shocking how little of it he remembers. Katsuki’s walk-through gets them through a good chunk of their session, and all Izuku learns is just how much he has yet to learn. How had he been running so blind up till now? How is he supposed to play catch up even as he’s learning new material in class, completing more assignments? Is this even worth trying?

“Hey.”

Izuku looks up into red. No less vivid though he’s seeing it through glass. Katsuki’s gaze is calculating, soul-searching like usual, like there’s more to Izuku than what meets the eye, more even than Izuku can see in himself. Izuku is mesmerised, seeing what his own potential looks like on Katsuki’s face. He can’t stop staring, and Katsuki can’t either. Or won’t.

“Why are you majoring in this, huh?” Katsuki inquires. His frown is inquisitive, and that curiosity chisels something gentle into all that perfect sculpture. “Seems like you hate it.”

Izuku fills his chest with air. He could give any number of bullshit answers. It would get me a good job. I got this far and it’s too late to switch up. I don’t know what I’d do instead.

But he knows none of them are true.

“The logic is cool. Sometimes it feels like a game, like a puzzle. I’ve always liked those. And I like the problem-solving. Figuring out why things aren’t working and fixing them. It’s creative in a way that I haven’t had to be before.”

“And?” Katsuki prompts.

Somehow, Izuku knows what he’s looking for. He’s looking for Izuku to be selfish.

“And… I like how it feels when I get things right.”

Katsuki looks so damn proud when he smirks at Izuku again. Appraising, understanding. Nearly appreciative. “Feels good, don’t it?” he nudges, sounding like he’s asking Izuku to admit to something much darker.

Izuku lets out a thin breath. “Feels amazing.”

Katsuki leans in even closer. Gets all up in Izuku’s space. Izuku’s mouth tingles with the promise of pressure, but all Katsuki does is talk.

“That feeling? How fucking good it is to know your code runs smooth because you made it run smooth? I’m gonna make you chase that. Gonna get you hooked on it. I’m not busting your balls. I’m not giving you extra work. I’m just teaching you how to do the shit you’ve already been assigned. Once you’re good at it, you’ll never wanna stop, and I want you thanking the fuck out of me when you get there. Got me?”

Izuku’s answer, “I got you,” barely rises above a whisper. Katsuki has tugged breath out of him, left him dizzy and light, hollow except for the flickers of something that Izuku hasn’t felt in months. Something contagious and lurid, a spark Izuku forgot the feeling of: motivation.

Katsuki’s grin bares teeth. Wolfish, glinting, dripping with challenge. In it, Izuku sees the tenacity that got him this far, this successful. It’s intimidating and inspiring in equal measure, and it’s all for Izuku.

“Perfect. Let’s get started.”

The enthusiasm does wear off a little, Izuku will admit. It’s all well and good to chase ambition when you’re not actively coding it. It’s 1am on Friday and Izuku’s assignment is due before his Data Structures class, which isn’t until 2pm, but he has two other classes before then. He won’t have time during the day. He has to finish it now.

He’s getting somewhere, though. Much further than he would have without Katsuki’s help. Even though most of what they’d done on Tuesday was review, Katsuki had taken a look at Izuku’s assignment, advised him on his next steps. Izuku is leagues ahead of himself already. His binary search tree code is more than a blank window now. It has already passed the first two test cases, it just needs to pass the last. He can insert a number into the tree just fine, and he can print the resulting list perfectly. Deleting an item from the tree? Not so much.

As much as it’s his favourite part of all this, figuring out a problem is always the hardest. He is almost 200 lines into this source code file, and there are two accompanying header files, each with at least 60 lines of code. How is he supposed to pinpoint what isn’t working? Has he made a function public when it should be private? Has he passed a function argument by value when he should have passed it by reference? Has he forgotten a fucking semi-colon? Where does he even start!

But he can’t ignore the fizz he feels. He’s doing this. It’s almost working. He finally understands what Katsuki had meant about the disparity between understanding data structures, and understanding how to code. Now, Izuku understands both. More or less. Still more than he had a few days ago!

Izuku can’t combat his pride. He also can’t combat the unshakeable urge to search for more of it.

It’s 1am. He shouldn’t be texting anyone, least of all his tutor. His mean, cocky, perfect tutor. Maybe Katsuki won’t even be up, Izuku reasons. He has a full-time fellowship on top of tutoring and reception-desk work. The last 1am that saw him awake was probably when he was in college just like Izuku. Izuku can send him something. Katsuki won’t even see it till the morning, no harm done. At least, that’s what he tells himself to quell a sudden, unexplainable onslaught of nerves when he compiles his code, runs it, and snaps a picture of the output. Two test cases passed, matching Aizawa-sensei’s expectations perfectly. One more left.

[img sent]
!two down, one to go

Izuku doesn’t expect Katsuki’s almost immediate answer.

bakugou katsuki
nice nerd
show me your code

He doesn’t expect that either.

Clearly, Izuku still has a long way to go with handling shame. It isn’t as strong as when he’d shown Katsuki his flunked exam, but it’s worse in a different way. This is hours and hours of toil, hundreds and hundreds of lines. It definitely isn’t as efficient as it could be, but Izuku is still so happy that it works so far. For all Katsuki’s faith in him, Izuku worries what Katsuki will think.

He opens his source file back up. It takes three screenshots to capture all the code, and Izuku doesn’t bother sending the header files even though he probably should, but Katsuki isn’t working right now. Izuku isn’t paying him right now. He doesn’t want to teach, he just wants to see. Izuku doesn’t have to show him everything.

[img sent]
[img sent]
[img sent]
pls be nice ive worked so hard on this

Katsuki takes a while longer to respond. Izuku nearly goes stir crazy waiting. Maybe he is going to teach? He supposes he wouldn’t really mind the help, but he just hopes Katsuki isn’t expecting overtime. Izuku definitely can’t afford it.

bakugou katsuki
[img sent]
[img sent]
[img sent]
[img sent]
[img sent]
[img sent]
mine’s bigger

Izuku gapes. He flicks through the pictures. Katsuki is working, just not with Izuku. He’s coding right now, at one in the morning, and when Izuku checks the number of lines in his source code, he almost drops his phone.

???SEVEN HUNDRED LINES OF CODE

bakugou katsuki
light work tbh
endeavor corp shit sometimes has thousands

?!??!this is an endeavor corp file

bakugou katsuki
lol yeah

!!are you even allowed to show me this

bakugou katsuki
probably not
gonna snitch on me?

Izuku knows Katsuki is joking. He doesn’t seem like he has cared about consequences a day in his life. But there’s something to be said for the trust he already has, no matter how fickle, to show his company’s inner workings to some random university student he only just started tutoring. Even by responding this early in the morning, Izuku has a glimpse of a different Katsuki, a Katsuki that can feel stress, the strain of a job. Nobody codes this early in the morning without stress, without worrying about something. Izuku would know. Katsuki seems so unflappable, so unbothered, and here he is showing Izuku the side of him that isn’t. And he still takes time amidst all of that to help Izuku out.

no ofc not
(: ?who would tutor me then

Something light and jittery is skipping around in Izuku’s stomach. He hides the lower half of his face in his palm and finds that his teeth press into it. He’s smiling. Dopey, childish. This is silly. Izuku feels silly. He has spoken to Katsuki a mere handful of times but for all his bluster, Katsuki is very easy to talk to. More than that, he’s fun to talk to. Izuku likes it.

bakugou katsuki
im the best right

ur amazing
idk what id do without ur help
!and yh i know im paying u but still
im so grateful 

bakugou katsuki
didnt do it for the money

oh
?u just wanted to help

bakugou katsuki
just wanted to help You

Izuku almost deletes his entire file.

He lifts his dropped phone off his keyboard and saves his code. Clicks out of the Terminal window. Takes a closer look at Katsuki’s text. Squints, even.

Is this—is this flirting? Izuku wouldn’t know flirting if it flirted with him. He also can’t believe there’s any reason Katsuki would flirt with him. Izuku hasn’t exactly made any lasting impressions beyond crying in Katsuki’s place of work, assuming he’d wanted to take Izuku on a date, and being shit at everything Katsuki is perfect at. Can’t be flirting. It’s just courtesy. Incredibly specific, Izuku-focused courtesy.

thats still rly nice

bakugou katsuki
not doing it to be nice either

Now that one, Izuku really can’t explain. Sure, Katsuki doesn’t seem like he does anything just to be nice, doesn’t seem to care what people think of him at all, but there’s gotta be more to that text than simply admitting that. Izuku’s gut is curling and his face feels hot so there must be. He’s suddenly reminded that it’s now approaching two in the morning, and Izuku saw a peek of dark sheets in one of Katsuki’s pictures, hidden just behind the corner of his laptop. They’re both in bed. And Katsuki just texted Izuku saying that he doesn’t want to be nice to him.

uh
?y r u doing it then

Katsuki doesn’t answer that for a while. For the rest of the night. Izuku fumbles through the rest of his assignment, thinks about jerking off, falls asleep sitting up, and awakes to sunlight, a dead laptop, and Katsuki’s 9:34am reply.

bakugou katsuki
so you ARE a dumbshit
guess ive gotta teach you abt this too

Teach him about what? Will it require extra hours? Will Izuku have to pay for those too? He asks himself these questions on repeat over the entire weekend, through his classes on Monday, and during his pre-tutoring study session on Tuesday. He’d only jerked off about it once though. It made him feel bad.

Realistically, he can guess what Katsuki had hinted at, but the last time Izuku assumed anything about intention, he made a fool of himself. He won’t say a thing until Katsuki says something first, and Izuku is still mostly certain he won’t. Still can’t fathom being seen that way, considered, checked out. And Katsuki looks… like that. He looks created, he looks dreamed up. Izuku has only met Katsuki in person twice and every single second, it was hard to look him in the eye. All those times, just how hard had Katsuki been looking at him?

The confusion makes Izuku dread his next meeting. It doesn’t help that his friends insist on coming to the library with him.

“We need to study, too!” Ochako justifies.

“You have apartments, don’t you?” Izuku grumbles.

“A/C isn’t working in mine,” Shouto lies through his teeth, and Izuku knows it. Shouto has never cared about room temperature anyway, he’s comfortable in anything.

“Could’ve gone to Tenya’s,” Izuku tries to protest again.

“No, we couldn’t have. Tensei is taking a work call and needs the quiet,” Tenya interjects. He sniffs down at Shouto’s and Ochako’s smug faces. “And they’re messy.”

Yeah. Really damn messy.

“We won’t stick around long!” Ochako promises after she finishes punching Tenya’s arm. Her voice goes sly. “We just wanna meet him.”

They’ve tried to get everything they could out of Izuku about Katsuki. Izuku should have known they’d elevate their efforts before long, and really, it is before long. Izuku has barely known Katsuki two weeks, but he supposes that’s quite some time for him. Should he be offended that his friends are this eager about all this? He’ll decide depending on how this goes.

Up to the fourth floor they go. Izuku has to shush Ochako’s giggles multiple times, and Shouto takes his phone out and hovers his thumb dangerously close to the camera app. Izuku’s panicked glances to Tenya only get shrugs in return, so Izuku goes non-verbal and stomps out of the elevator, hoping he can just brute-force his way through this. Just like last time, the resolve disappears once he locks eyes with Katsuki. Izuku thinks about everything they’ve said since the last time they met, everything he’s done, and his friends have to push him into the study room.

Katsuki doesn’t look all that impressed to see them. Izuku’s cheeks burn.

“Hi, Katsuki,” he mutters. “These are my friends.”

“Yeah. Why are they here?”

Izuku turns to them, eyebrows raised expectantly. They can explain it themselves.

Ochako giggles again. “We just wanted to say hi! Izuku talks a lot about you.”

That makes Katsuki grin. He leans forward, resting an elbow on the table, his chin on his knuckles. “Does he.”

“I don’t!”

Katsuki’s grin gets even meaner. “What does he say?”

“I don’t!”

“SHH!”

A student two tables away from the study room is glaring at them, finger over their lips. Izuku feels horrible, but there’s nothing like a reprimand from a fellow studious undergrad to kick Tenya into gear.

“We’re very sorry for delaying your session,” he whispers, bowing an apology. “We’ll be out of your way, Bakugou-san. Now.” He hooks hands in Ochako’s and Shouto’s shirt collars, starts to drag them away.

“Heh. See you, Izuku!” Ochako calls quietly.

Shouto lifts one hand in a wave. The other has been filming the entire time.

With Tenya’s help, Izuku ushers them out of the study room and only just remembers not to slam the door behind them. Izuku faces it for a couple seconds, trying to regulate his breathing. Behind him, Katsuki snorts.

“They’re nerds too, huh?”

Izuku chukles, nervous. “And liars.” He still doesn’t make eye contact when he turns away from the door and sits next to Katsuki, dumping his bag by his seat. “I don’t talk about you, honest.”

“Loser. You should only talk about me.”

Izuku doesn’t know how to respond. What an excellent time to remember that he has jerked off to this guy.

“Shitty dye-job. Half-n-Half.” Izuku looks up and Katsuki is gesturing to his own hair. “That a Todoroki kid?”

Izuku flinches. “Uh. Yeah. Is that a problem?”

Katsuki shrugs. “Fuck do I care? Just gotta know he won’t rat me out to his daddy if I mess with his nerd friend too much.”

Izuku tries to hide a shaky smile. His cheeks lift up anyway. “He might.”

Katsuki huffs. “Hm. Said I’d go easy on you, anyway.”

Izuku really hopes that’s still true. He has to shake off yet another bout of nerves as Katsuki instructs him to take out his laptop and present his finished assignment. Is this going to happen everytime they meet? Is Izuku going to have to cut their sessions short or risk cardiac arrest? He imagines Shouto really would rat Katsuki out to his father then.

“Here it is,” Izuku says, tilting his main .cpp file for Katsuki’s view. He doesn’t really remember how he did any of it. At least twenty of these lines were coded post-2am. Post-not doing-it-to-be-nice-either text. Izuku hopes Katsuki doesn’t look too hard at those.

But Katsuki doesn’t look too hard at any of it. “Run it for me.”

Izuku swallows but compiles his file, blessedly relieved that it doesn’t reveal any errors, that it hadn’t somehow corrupted sometime since Friday. He runs it, and Katsuki takes over. He types in his own input, and Izuku can tell by the amount of times he re-runs the code that he’s checking for every kind of output. He’s checking that Izuku’s program can delete, insert, and print items of the list, all while maintaing its structure. Izuku studied up on the binary search algorithm for hours. He used Katsuki’s teachings to implement it with a binary search tree. He just hopes that that’s what his program reflects.

Katsuki is quiet for some time, frowning at Izuku’s laptop. He frowns a lot so that’s not an automatic indication of failure, but it sure feels like it. Then when Katsuki turns Izuku’s laptop back to face him, it really feels like it.

For a moment, Izuku can’t tell what’s wrong. Katsuki has tested his code six different times, and everything looks fine. It isn’t until Izuku reaches the sixth test that he notices the error. Katsuki had typed in 3 4 6 7 8 to construct the tree. He’d prompted Izuku’s program to add another 4. The result? 3 4 6 7 8. There should be another 4, and there isn’t.

Izuku’s program only works when all the items in the tree are distinct. It doesn’t work for repeats. And that’s what he submitted.

It’s a small mistake. You wouldn’t even notice it if you didn’t know to check for that exact instance. But Katsuki had. That means Aizawa-sensei had. That means Izuku should have.

“I really thought I got them all.”

“You got close.”

“It passed all the test cases Aizawa-sensei gave us, so I didn’t even think…”

“Anyone can pass a test case just by hard-coding the expected output instead of letting the program figure it out. You’d know.” Katsuki peers at Izuku, accusing. Izuku blinks hard. “Aizawa-sensei wants to know that you understand this shit. He wants to know that you can understand what might go wrong with it. Any asshole using your program can type in a bunch of random letters or numbers, and you’ve gotta make sure you consider every damn possibility where they fuck up. You’ve gotta make your code account for that. It can’t just not work because they use it wrong. You’re a big boy, Deku. Aizawa-sensei can’t do all that checking for you.”

Izuku had clawed up mountains with his fingertips to get this far. Nails raw, head sore, it had still felt so good to be at the top, to see the wood for the trees. Katsuki is telling him he’d forgotten to look up, to check for an even higher summit. For all that climbing, all it took was one slip-up to feel like he’d fallen back to the bottom, and Izuku doesn’t know if he has it in him to attempt another ascent.

Katsuki sighs. “Look, nerd. You knew enough to get this far. What’s a binary search algorithm, anyway?”

Katuski is really gonna rib him with study questions now? Izuku is trying to wallow!

“It—it works on a list of numbers. Or letters. Or any kind of list, I guess, so long as the list is in some type of sorted order, like ascending or descending.”

“What does it do?”

“It finds the middle item in the list. If the item you ask it to search for is smaller than that middle, it’ll search the left half, or all the items smaller in value than the middle. If the item it’s looking for is bigger, it’ll search the right half—all the items that are larger than the middle. It’ll keep going like that, finding a new middle and splitting the list smaller and smaller, until it finds the item.”

It’s a dodgy explanation. Too wordy, too roundabout, sounds too much like Izuku is trying to explain it to himself rather than define it off the cuff, but Katsuki nods and smiles all the same, just a little, just enough. “Uh huh. And what’s a binary search tree? What structure did you just code?”

“Um. All trees have nodes where the items in a list go. The root node is the top of the tree, and it spawns different subtrees to the left and right. In a binary search tree, all the nodes to the left of the root are smaller than it, and all the nodes to the right are bigger. That means the root is always the middle of the list, so it’s easy to perform the binary search algorithm on that structure. All the subtrees have roots too, so the algorithm can always find the new middle node depending on whether the item it’s looking for is on the left or right. Or, y’know, if it’s smaller or bigger than the main root.”

“Good. So say I wanted to add an item to a tree that is exactly the same as another item that already exists in the tree. Where would I put it?”

Izuku blinks some more. He doesn’t know. He never considered it.

Katsuki cocks his head to the side, his glasses slipping down his nose just enough to not be stupid, to be very intimidating. “Is 4 larger than itself?”

Izuku frowns. “No, but it’s not smaller than itself either.”

“So where would you wanna put it?” Katsuki presses.

“...In the same place as its original?”

Katsuki’s grin widens. “Right. And if you did, how would you let the user know that there are multiple repeat values in that one node?”

Izuku’s mouth pops open. “Keep a count of all the instances of that value. But if you do it for one item…”

Katsuki folds his arms over his chest, that thing he does when he’s feeling self-satisfied. “Mhm. You got it, nerd.”

“...You’ve gotta do it for all of them.”

Katsuki’s eyes are sharp behind his glasses, viciously proud. “There you go. Sounds like a lot, but this is the cleanest, most effcient solution. You don’t wanna just think about ease. You wanna think about efficiency, presentation, something that doesn’t fuck with your big-O.”

He had Izuku until that last part. Izuku was understanding everything until that last part.

“Big-O?!”

Katsuki’s mouth snaps closed, his spiel forgotten. He frowns. “You dont know what that means?”

Izuku blushes. “I know what I think it means.”

Katsuki’s face transforms through several stages of disbelieving. First, the typical shock and incredulity. Then, a widening of his eyes like this is too good to be true. Finally, a smirk that suggests he knows exactly what Izuku thinks it means.

“No, dumbshit. Not that. It means time or space complexity. It’s the upper bound of how efficiently a program can run, or how much space it can take up in memory. Like, if an algorithm has a big-O of 1, it runs in constant time. Basically it’s a measure of how long an algorithm takes or how much memory it takes up in a worst-case scenario.”

“So it’s… the maximum time something takes to complete.”

“Or the maximum space it will take up in memory. It’s how you can tell if you’re shit at coding. There are hundreds of ways to code the exact same result.” He nods at Izuku. “What you just told me? Shows that you’re learning how to find the fastest way, the most efficient way.”

And just a week ago, Katsuki had looked at Izuku’s midterm exam and told him that he was inefficient. All it took was one week for Izuku to catch up to almost three years of studying, of scraping by.

“You’re amazing,” he whispers, stunned.

It’s a little out of the flow of conversation, Izuku realises. Comes to his mouth too easily, enough for Katsuki to probably guess just how often it’s on Izuku’s mind. God, he’d texted Katsuki the exact same thing a few days ago. A broken record stuck on Katsuki’s success. How many more times can Izuku say it before Katsuki starts to think it’s disingenuous?

He’s out of the clear for now, though. Katsuki just huffs at him and pushes up his glasses, grinning. “You got a lot to learn, nerd.”

Izuku does. And speaking of texts they’d shared a few days ago…

“Good thing you’re gonna teach me, right?”

Katsuki remembers it, too. Izuku watches his eyebrows raise, feels his stomach dip in response. Katsuki walks his gaze down Izuku’s body, and Izuku’s gut swoops lower and lower, following. That gaze climbs back up, meets Izuku’s, and promises.

“Damn right I’m gonna teach you.”

my grade for the bst came back
): i did rly well but idk if its gonna be enough
i dont have many assignments left

bakugou katsuki
you done any extra credit yet

no, i got too busy to ask sensei for them

bakugou katsuki
slacker

!!!
!!arent u supposed to encourage me

bakugou katsuki
sure nerd ill encourage you
[img sent]

…
r u in the gym

bakugou katsuki
no i have stairmasters and treadmills and weight benches in my tiny fucking apartment
yes im in the gd gym

u look
rly strong
and like ur working hard
but y wld u send me that

bakugou katsuki
encouragement

thats a distraction if anything

bakugou katsuki
youre such a fucking loser
[img sent]
go ask for extra credit
or send a pic back

…
ill ask now

bakugou katsuki
🙄
loser

!!!i have to code a calculator
!!!!the extra cred project is a calculator
))): thats stupid
i have one already

kacchan
god all you do is whine
should give you a better reason to

.
i should get u written up for being unprofessional

kacchan
right
but “who would tutor me then? 🥺🤩😖😵‍💫”

/:
kacchan’s annoying

kacchan
who the fuck is that

SHIT NO ONE
no one
i made it up
i mean i didnt make anything up
nothing happened
.i deleted it

kacchan
i screenshot it

!!NO

kacchan
lol
that your lil nerd name for me?

)':
i just call u that in my head sometimes
and its ur contact name now
and i forgot id never acc said it to ur face

kacchan
you should
wanna hear it tomorrow

u’ll laugh at me

kacchan
yeah, i will
show me the calculator shit

[img sent]
?could u help me w this one question
im taking a practice test and i cant figure out what im doing wrong

kacchan
what will you give me for it

oh
?i mean i can add on to your hourly rate if u want
): idk if i could afford too much more tho

kacchan
i said i wasnt doing this for money

oh

kacchan
stop saying oh

?what would u want instead

kacchan
send a pic

??of me

kacchan
fuck you’re annoying
yes deku

did you die

[img sent]

kacchan
jesus
have you never taken a pic of yourself in your entire fucking life

stop
omg
im deleting it

kacchan
too slow i saved it

.UGH

kacchan
im messing with you
i prefer amateur shit anyway

???CAN YOU HELP W THE QUESTION NOW PLS

kacchan
call me then

[call declined]
?huh
): ?what happened

kacchan
video call

ugh

kacchan

kacchan
deku

im rly nervous abt my final

kacchan
you doubting me?

no im doubting ME
u’ve been amazing i always say it
idk if i can be

kacchan
youre gonna be fine

): easy for u to say
u never had to worry abt this

kacchan
how do you think i got this good idiot
i always worried abt it

oh

kacchan
“oh oh oh”
starting to think theres a reason you keep saying that to me

stoppp im serious

kacchan
undergrad fucked me up
i didnt get tutoring bc i was a proud fucker
should have, but didnt. i learned on my own.
still think i never had to worry?

no kacchan

kacchan
youre working hard
getting better
told you id make you the best
and i know how to, bc thats what i fuckin did
so ease up and trust me yeah

yeah
i will
thank u so much

kacchan
thank me when you pass

Katsuki looks as tired as Izuku feels in their last session before Izuku’s final. Circles under his eyes, a little less lustre in his hair, slouching even more than usual. He gives Izuku a greeting that feels curt even for him, especially after how they’ve been texting. He checks over Izuku’s most recent assignment, gives cursory suggestions for improvement, then hands Izuku the practice test he’d drawn up and turns back to his laptop.

“You got an hour,” is his only instruction.

Izuku sets to work. His final is this coming Monday, less than a week away. He has been up to his teeth in practice tests, but one more won’t hurt. He just wishes Katsuki would type a little quieter. And not look so sad.

Izuku takes the entire hour to finish the test. He has been making sure to double check his answers now that he actually knows what to look for. He’ll always miss something, but he’s not aiming for 100%. With Katsuki’s help, he has already yanked his grade up significantly, back into passing territory. He just needs to stay there.

“I’m done, Kacchan.” He sets his pencil down and hands his paper over.

Katsuki barely looks up from his laptop. “Cool. I’ll look it over and send you feedback.”

Izuku feels a little ill. “Okay. Is—Is that everything?”

Katsuki does look up, then. Izuku would almost rather he hadn’t. “Need a hug or something? You did good, nerd, you’re set. Let me know how your final goes.”

“Okay. Thanks, Kacchan. I’ll see you around.”

Katsuki nods. That’s all he’s gonna leave Izuku with. That’s all Izuku’s gonna leave with. A nod.

It’s gotta be bad for Katsuki to be this short with him. Izuku doesn’t even think he was like this the first time they met. He could be mad at the dismissal, snubbed. Or he could help Katsuki even a fraction as much as Katsuki has helped him.

He reaches over and nudges the top of Katsuki’s laptop, pushing it down an inch. Katsuki’s glare could cut diamond.

“What.”

“Are you okay?”

It’s a stupid, obvious question that Izuku half expects Katsuki to bite his head off for, but all Katsuki does is deflate. He tucks his fingers behind his glasses to press at his eyes, then takes the glasses off entirely to rub at his face. It’s the first time Izuku has seen him without them. He is softer, younger, a different kind of pretty. Willowy and sweet-faced and exhausted.

“My last presentation with Endeavor Corp is the same day as your final,” Katsuki explains in a voice too quiet for his rasp; it almost drowns his words out. “It’s either the start of a full-time role or the end of my fellowship. And I don’t know what the fuck I’m gonna do if it’s just the end.”

Izuku still finds it so hard to believe that Katsuki worries about things like this, enough to have it etched into frown lines on his forehead. He put Katsuki on a pedestal from day one, and Katsuki, sculpted and stunning and smart, kept himself there, confirmed his place there. This is yet another side in that stone that Izuku never expected to see, and it’s as tricky to wrap his head around as BSTs.

“But you’re perfect.”

Katsuki scoffs. “Yeah, me and every other intern there. Only one spot open.”

“You’re gonna get it.”

“I’d better.”

“You will. You will, because I’m gonna nail my Data Structures exam, and you’re the one who taught me how, so you’ll nail your presentation. It’s ‘easy shit,’ right?”

There’s probably a wealth of false equivalencies there, but Izuku hasn’t bullshit a single thing since Katsuki started tutoring him, and he won’t start again now. Katsuki might not believe in himself, but he believes in Izuku enough for both of them. Izuku can return the favour. More than the money, more than an awkward selfie, this is how he pays Katsuki back.

There’s warmth in Katsuki’s face now, colour other than pallid purple. The flush in his cheeks matches his eyes. Wait, he’s flushed?

“Yeah. Easy shit,” he says.

Izuku blinks. “Ahem. Right. So you’re gonna be fine, okay?”

Katsuki smiles. “Okay, Deku.”

Izuku is also flushed. He likes Katsuki. He likes Katsuki so much.

He’s already halfway out of his seat, leaning towards Katsuki’s. “I know you said I should wait to thank you until I pass…”

Katsuki catches on before Izuku. Izuku still doesn’t really know what he’s doing, but Katsuki still shifts his chair to face Izuku fully, leaning back in it, waiting to accept whatever Izuku will give once he figures out what that is. “Yeah?”

Izuku has kissed three people before. Shouto, Ochako, and Tenya. It was a dare. He chickened out, kissed them all on the cheek, and had to down a shot for each of them as a forfeit. He barely remembers that night, so it’s not gonna help him much. He doesn’t really wanna kiss Katsuki’s cheek anyway.

He meets Katsuki’s mouth awkwardly. Katsuki doesn’t try to fix it right away, and Izuku can tell from the way he hums that he’s doing it on purpose. Letting Izuku make an idiot of himself on Katsuki’s mouth. Izuku, hunched over and hovering in a squat between his chair and Katsuki’s legs, feels like the definition of an idiot.

At least until Katsuki kisses back. He doesn’t hold Izuku’s face, doesn’t reposition him, nothing. A simple tilt of his head and their lips fit perfectly. Izuku makes an embarrassing noise of surprise that opens his mouth enough for Katsuki to slip him tongue, to catch Izuku’s lower lip in a bite. Izuku’s legs are starting to shake and he knows it’s not because of the squat.

Izuku tugs himself back to his chair, panting. From one kiss. He’s the world’s biggest loser, except he just kissed his super hot, super smart tutor, and the super hot, super smart tutor kissed him back, so he kind of feels like the world’s biggest winner. Even more so the longer Katsuki stares at him like that, lips a shade pinker, eyes a shade redder. Katsuki isn’t panting at all (of course not, it was one kiss, Izuku) but he looks like he might want to be. He looks like he wants to keep going.

Instead, he says, “Give ‘em hell, yeah?”

Izuku checks his watch. It’s way too late, and with all the comfort food he had bought to fuel him this week, he can’t afford their session to run into another hour. So he’s gonna go. He’s gonna go right now.

He packs his things in a hurry, stumbles out of his chair, then kisses Katsuki again. Punches him in the mouth with his mouth, really. Too shy, too uncoordinated, too giddy, crushing on him way too much. “You too!” he calls on his way out of the study room, before remembering he’s in a library. He thinks it’s that same student from weeks ago that shushes him again. Izuku smiles. He’s gonna pass his exam. Katsuki’s gonna get a full-time offer from Endeavor Corp. He kissed Katsuki. Katsuki kissed him back. He likes Katsuki. He’s pretty certain now that Katsuki likes him.

Ochako’s gonna have a field day with this. What is it about tutors?

Izuku has refreshed his browser twenty times in the past eight minutes. All his other classes have their final grades posted. He’ll probably be happier about how well he has done once he gets his final Data Structures grade back. Or he won’t be happy at all.

At worst, Izuku will have to retake the class. It’ll mean shuffling around some of his remaining requirements, maybe taking some courses over the summer, and he might have to forfeit that super relaxing final semester he was hoping for, but he still has an entire year of college left. He can afford to retake. He just doesn’t know if he can afford the feeling of failure, not after trying.

There’s a quiet over campus. Approaching midnight on a Monday. There’s a deadline nearby, an 11:59pm nearby, and students are scrambling to meet it. The hush is palpable, and even though this was Izuku’s last exam before the end of the academic year, he feels as high-strung as anyone, everyone. Sometimes the waiting is worse.

Recently, someone’s been really good at tempering that, wiring Izuku down, taking that high string and giving it slack. Izuku’s phone, the line to reach that someone, is propped up on a pillow next to him. Izuku curls an arm tighter around his legs, brings his knees closer to his chest, and refreshes his browser again. Izuku does everything except pick his phone up.

The last thing Izuku did with Katsuki was kiss him, and that was almost a week ago. Not a text nor a call since. They’ve both been busy, of course, and Izuku hasn’t had much time to think about the silence (except for all those times when he did and it almost consumed him), but he really wants to be able to break it with good news. It’s not enough to have Katsuki’s pride, he’s gotta feel worthy of it. He wants to send back a passing grade and prove that Katsuki was right to believe in him, wants to show him whatever he saw in Izuku that first day, made manifest. He doesn’t need a 100. He’d be happy with anything so long as it isn’t another 58. Or. Anything lower than that.

Izuku clicks around his screen some more. He came out of the exam at noon, and Aizawa-sensei said the scores would be released by the end of the day. That was a loooong time to wait, Izuku realises. A lot of clicks, a lot of refreshing. With his luck, he’ll end up sticking his trackpad down permanently.

He clicks again. Accidentally misses the refresh button. He isn’t sure what he hit instead, and the screen is taking its sweet time loading up so he can’t find out. Izuku groans, flicking at his laptop screen. What a time for it to crap out.

“Come on, come on,” he mutters.

excellent work, Midoriya

Izuku blinks.

He’d. He’d accidentally clicked into the comments section of his Data Structures page. That had been the most recent one. 11:42pm - excellent work, Midoriya. It’s pinned to an updated grade.

No wonder the browser had taken so long to load. It was loading Izuku’s final exam grade, too.

98.

Izuku is going to be so embarrassed about how he reacts to this in a few years, once he forgets just how nauseating it had felt to be so far from understanding, the crippling shame of feeling like the stupidest person in the room. Once he forgets the burn of keeping his eyes open hours and hours into futile studying, their weary, heavy ache in class the following day. The missed meals and rushed showers and the many, many tears. Years, and years, and years down the line, once this all fades, and it will take that long, Izuku will look back on the noise he makes, and how quickly his eyes fill, and he’ll laugh. He’ll look back on how he still doesn’t believe he was good enough to score this highly, and he’ll laugh.

All he does now is cry.

Thick, blissful relief, enough to send him flying backwards onto his mattress, staring wetly at the ceiling. Delayed ecstasy starts to feel like hysteria, like something welling up, pushing out. He shakes with his tears, and he smiles. Izuku smiles at a job well done, a job excellently done. God, he would hug Aizawa-sensei if he didn’t think it would really creep him out.

But there are some people that deserve that affection first.

Izuku finally picks up his phone. He sits back up to take a picture of his score. He zooms in until it’s all he can see on his laptop screen, even zooms in with his phone camera until it fills the frame.

He sends it to his friends first. Ochako, Shouto, Tenya, each in the middle of their own nearly-ending nightmares. Ochako sends paragraphs of emojis in return, a blur of hearts and balloons and sparkles that single-handedly drains Izuku’s battery two percent. Tenya sends the most fatherly congratulatory message Izuku has ever received, except for Aizawa-sensei’s. Shouto sends him a video. The one he’d taken in the library when they’d met Izuku’s tutor. Attached to it is a short, simple text that somehow manages to make Izuku cry harder.

shouto!
[vid sent]
we all knew u could do it but he knew first

He knew first.

He took one look at Izuku in his fading jeans and simple black tee and dumb flannel, and then he took a chance. It hadn’t been a chance for him, it had been a certainty. Izuku doesn’t need to check in on anyone else in his class, doesn’t need to inquire about anyone else’s grades. His alone was enough. Katsuki had made him the best.

[img sent]
thank u
thank u so, so much

Izuku doesn’t know what to do with himself while he waits. He feels like he could do anything, unburdened as he now is, but he feels anchored to his bed. He’s not sure what it is. Something just tells him that whenever Katsuki responds, Izuku’s gonna want to be lying down for it. Alone.

Izuku’s phone breaks the twenty-minute silence, buzzing next to his head. Butterflies in Izuku’s stomach thrum with it. He could play the long game, pretend that he isn’t chomping at the bit to see the text, to respond. He does not play the long game. He unlocks his phone and navigates to his messages instantly.

kacchan
fuck yeah nerd look at you
see what happens when you trust me
good fuckin shit

Another thing for Izuku to laugh at himself for later: how high-pitched his giggle is, how immediate his blush.

!!!hbu
??how did ur presentation go

Katsuki doesn’t respond for a while longer. A whole ten minutes longer. It’s not a comforting silence. Izuku’s mood dips and whatever’s weighing him to his bed starts to feel a lot like guilt.

A second buzz, Izuku’s phone humming in his sweaty hands.

kacchan
[img sent]
you tell me

Izuku’s phone slips. His jaw hangs. He takes sharp, giddy breaths through the circle of his open mouth, and his heart races, and his fingers fly over his keyboard texting complete nonsense because that’s an offer letter. That’s a picture of an offer letter, and it has the Endeavor Corp logo stamped at the top, right above Katsuki’s name.

ASHDHFSHASJKD
AHHHHH
AMAZING AMZINGNDJ
!KACCHAN U DID IT
!!I KNEW U WOULD

Never mind that for a second there, he really worried Katsuki hadn’t. What the hell was that radio silence for, anyway! He probably wanted to keep Izuku on his toes, like always. Izuku hates him. He’s a jerk.

ur perfect

kacchan
lol
yeah yeah

?no cmon arent u excited
???doesnt it feel good

kacchan
feels pretty fucking good yeah

!!so cmon
!!!celebrate

kacchan
talking to you aint i

Izuku is going to throw his phone into the sun. He’s going to smile so hard it splits his face. How can the hottest, meanest person he has ever met also be the sweetest?

ah i mean
yh
!but i dont see how thats celebrating
?arent there things u’d rather do

kacchan
other than you
no

Yeah. See? Izuku knew he was right to lie down; he’d have fallen over otherwise. He knew he was right to stay alone; he’d have an entire room of knowing stares on his face otherwise. Even now, there are probably rooms down the hall that hear how loud he squeaks.

what does that mean

kacchan
you cant be this stupid
you got a 98 on an aizawa exam i KNOW youre not this stupid

u’ve gotta be clearer kacchan
i dont wanna guess and get it wrong
again

It’s the first time Izuku has hinted at his fumble the first day they met. In his defence, Katsuki’s text had been very misleading. What else was Izuku supposed to have thought when someone really hot sent him their name and availability? That was one of the most direct texts Izuku has ever received, and he still misread its intention. He won’t dare risk reading into ambiguity. He won’t be the one to fuck this up.

kacchan
you wouldnt

It’s close, but it’s still not enough. It’s getting Izuku hot and bothered and half-hard but it’s still not enough.

cmon pls
be specific
u said u’d teach me abt… stuff like this
?arent u gonna

kacchan
fine
i wanna fuck you
wanted to since day 1
is that specific enough

Hot, bothered, and now fully hard. Hard enough it hurts.

yeah thats
i get it now

kacchan
do you 🙄
youre such a damn nerd
gets me sprung as fuck dont know how you couldnt tell

Izuku works to pace himself, breath and mind. He could fall head over heels into relief. He could spill weeks and weeks of longing in one burst, let it tumble out of his mouth and fingers until his phone is hot with how much he’s texting and his cock aches with how badly it needs to come. Something, presumably that same intuition from earlier, tells him to wait longer. Hold back. He slides a hand down to palm himself over his pyjama pants because he’s not that patient, but he doesn’t let his hips buck. He doesn’t squeeze, doesn’t even moan. He soothes the throb enough to think clearly, because he needs to be careful here. He can’t chase Katsuki away with how goddamn much he has wanted him, no matter how long and how much Katsuki has apparently wanted Izuku right back.

i guessed
but i didnt wanna believe it
nobodys ever thought abt me like that

That sounds sad. It sounds lonely and insecure and every bit the uncertain, inexperienced kid that Izuku so often feels like in Katsuki’s presence.

kacchan
i think abt you like that
so why tf would you care abt anyone else

Izuku is finding it harder to hold back. His hand is resting on his waistband, fingertips just brushing the tense, eager bump his cock makes beneath fabric, and the proximity is driving him crazy. Katsuki is driving him crazy. That possession, that brash, uncaring claim, all from a man that Izuku is just now remembering he has already kissed. You’d think that would make the anticipation easier to bear. You’d think it wouldn’t make him so turned on he feels faint.

i think abt u like that too

It’s all he can handle typing. Izuku doesn’t know where Katsuki gets the confidence from. That truth alone is so revealing Izuku can’t stand to look at it, blaring on his screen.

kacchan
pretend im surprised
pretend that i dont know you went home every tues to jerk off over me telling you how shit you are at coding
tell me about it

He’s mean like this too. Of course he is. Pushy, and foul-mouthed, and presumptuous. It screws Izuku’s gut up something awful, pinching and twisting round and round, a devastating knot that makes him squirm. Makes restraint even harder to maintain, so Izuku stops trying. That waiting hand, so desperate to touch, slips beneath his pants, curls its fingers around his cock. Izuku treats it to the squeeze it’s been straining for. He lets out the moan he’d been hiding. His toes curl in his loose socks.

He strokes enough to let his brain swim, to go somewhere dizzy and immaterial. Feeling both out of body and so deliciously in it all at once. It’s the only way he can do what Katsuki told him to.

i only did that once
sometime after our first lesson
i felt so bad after
u were helping me and teaching me and i hated that it was all i cld think abt
but it felt so good
u were so smart and mean to me and i liked it sm
and u wldnt stop looking at me
made me crazy so i had to
had to touch

Izuku wants to know that he did that right. He wants to be sure Katsuki liked it, wants to give more. He considers taking a picture, he knows Katsuki would like that, but he isn’t gone enough yet. He could get there, though. He’s so wet just at the thought of what he has already admitted to, cock drooling into his fist, making this slow, teasing pump feel even better.

kacchan
shouldve stayed
wouldve fucked you over that table if you told me you wanted it that bad

“God,” Izuku whispers. He has to put his phone on his chest, has to take his hand off his cock. It kicks in the absence of touch, flushed hot, stamping Izuku’s navel sticky.

As much as Izuku had imagined it (as much as he’d tried not to), it’s still an inconceivable possibility. More than that, it had been a certainty, if Izuku had only asked. Katsuki would have fucked him their first session. Katsuki wanted to.

Izuku is still figuring out how to respond when Katsuki beats him to it.

kacchan
still would

And it’s all Izuku can do not to come on the spot. It’s still a certainty. Katsuki still wants to.

The fantasy is so much better when it’s a promise, when it’s guilt-free, when it comes from Katsuki first. There aren’t repercussions if Izuku lets his mind wander, and he does. He looses a soft moan and drags his knuckles feather-light up his cock and the picture paints itself.

?u’d do that to me
?in a study room where ppl could hear

kacchan
are you loud deku

Izuku has been keeping up a constant, steady stream of whines since he started touching again.

maybe
but even if i wasnt someone could see

kacchan
wouldnt stop me
could have the whole building watching you take it and it wouldnt stop me
what are they gonna do anyway
its MY nerd im fucking

“Yours?” Izuku gasps. To himself, in his room, miles away from Katsuki, but he’s getting far enough gone that it feels like Katsuki’s right here. Katsuki might as well be, with his words on Izuku’s screen, his image in Izuku’s head. It’s barely a stretch to imagine speaking into Katsuki’s mouth, panting that question there. Izuku has already kissed it. Nothing’s off the table. Hell, Izuku himself might be on it someday soon. The thought makes him daring.

u make me feel crazy kacchan
and i guess i lied before
technically ive touched myself to u more than once

kacchan
wdym

While he shuffles his pants lower, Izuku spares a quick thought for the person he’d been a few weeks ago. The loose clothes and the so-called nerd backpack. Tears over his freckles, blush beneath them. Fresh off a failure and desperate to do anything to get better.

That kid would probably piss himself if he knew that weeks later, he’d take a picture of his aching dick and send it to the very same tutor he’d just cried in front of.

[img sent]
touching now too

Katsuki calls him. Video calls him.

Izuku stares at his own face. Sweaty, red, mortified, unbearably turned on. He can’t believe he’s gonna show this to Katsuki. Somehow, his dick was easier to capture.

He accepts the call anyway. Nerves can’t override just how badly he wants to see how Katsuki looks like this. Izuku wants to see how close he came to imagining Katsuki accurately.

Nowhere near, it turns out. Izuku hadn’t made him sexy enough. Couldn’t have, nothing could be sexier than the real thing. Red eyes misty through glasses steamed from body heat. Blond hair splayed on pillows, ruffled in even more disarray than usual, but pressed flat with sweat at the temples. Smirking mouth open to pant. Lightly flushed all over his throat and chest. Which Izuku can see. Because Katsuki isn’t wearing a shirt.

“Look at you,” Katsuki pants, grin wicked, and Izuku wants to baulk. Look at me? “Few weeks ago you almost creamed your pants over sending me a selfie. Now all of a sudden you wanna show me what that looks like?”

Izuku can’t think of a single thing to say. His mouth opens and closes, a bubble popping between his lips that makes him feel even more stupid.

Katsuki’s smile widens, open-mouthed so Izuku can see canines. “Shy now, nerd?”

Izuku nods. Subtly thumbs at his wet cock off-screen, though.

Not subtly enough. Katsuki must see his arm move.

“Already got a picture of it, Deku. C’mon. You can show me.”

Izuku swallows. The thought of flipping his camera and showcasing himself like that is so much more daunting when Katsuki is actively watching.

“Just put your phone lower. Still wanna see your face.”

Like Katsuki can read his mind. Izuku steels himself and readjusts, props himself up better on his pillow. He shifts his phone down his chest, his stomach. Rests it on his thigh and tilts his cock into view. Closes his eyes.

Katsuki whistles a low, short note. “Fuck. So wet, looks like you came already.”

“God, stop,” Izuku whines, eyes still closed.

Katsuki laughs. “It’s cute, Izuku. Got a cute little cock.” Katsuki’s audio crackles with the sound of shifting fabric. “Mine’s bigger.”

Izuku opens his eyes immediately. Moans, immediately.

“Kacchan. F–uck.”

Katsuki’s grin is still in the top left corner of the frame. His cock takes up the rest. Thick, obscene, much bigger than Izuku’s. Even as Izuku watches, Katsuki tightens his grip around the base and drags his fist up, so slow it looks like it hurts. He groans. Izuku groans back. Copies the stroke, too, forgetting for a moment that Katsuki can see him, focused entirely on how Katsuki’s knuckles curl as he drags them up his dick.

They’re like that for a while. Touching, watching, making soft, under-breath noises. Izuku doesn’t know if he should talk more, play this up more. The urge to please simmers in every movement he makes but the awe of watching Katsuki give himself pleasure scorches it clean through. He can’t make himself do more than whimper, stomach shuddering, cock pulsing.

Insane as this, deeply and devastatingly arousing, quite literally the stuff of Izuku’s dreams, it’s so easy to forget where this is all coming from, what it started with. A cry for help, an offer of guaranteed success, long, long weeks to get there. Along the way, Izuku learned to like Katsuki. He learned to like Katsuki a lot. Now he’s jerking off with him. Suddenly, he’s shy again.

“Mm, no. Don’t go hiding,” Katsuki croons. It’s a tease because everything he says is a tease, and it makes Izuku want to burrow even deeper beneath his shirt collar, but he can hear genuine reassurance too. “Told you you’re cute. Wanna see you come.”

“You keep—calling me that,” Izuku whispers, words full of breath.

“‘Cause you are,” Katsuki doubles down.

“Do you like me?” Izuku asks, feeling like such a baby, such a loser. It’s humiliating enough and he’s horny enough that it feels sexy, like a display Katsuki could do anything with, and Izuku would let him, but if Katsuki just laughs, Izuku might not be able to see this through.

“I don’t kiss people I don’t like,” Katsuki says.

“Oh.”

Katsuki’s chuckle tilts his head back. That, or it’s the way he twists his fingers around the tip of his cock, working it in a kneading grip that looks like it feels so good, Izuku just has to keep copying him.

“There you go again. Fuck, you turn me on.” Katsuki hasn’t looked back at his phone yet. Izuku watches his jaw move as he talks, sweat catching on his throat bobbing. “‘Course I fuckin’ like you.”

He sounds as gone as Izuku feels. His voice scrapes, melds with the shitty audio, fills Izuku’s room and head. His chest shines with sweat, his abdomen tensing along perfect lines. His glasses are askew. His cock is leaking into the gaps between his fingers, the mess is catching the dim light in Katsuki’s bedroom so Izuku can see it, deliciously lewd. He’s like that because of Izuku. Because he likes Izuku.

“I like you too, Kacchan.” Izuku moans softly, then louder as he picks up the pace of his own fist, wringing his cock the way he usually does, too close to coming to keep copying. “I—fuck—I like you so much.”

Katsuki groans. “Shit. Being this cute like you’re not about to blow all over your screen.”

“Can’t help it,” Izuku pants. His stomach aches, he needs to come so badly.

“Don’t. Keep talking.”

Izuku doesn’t even know if he can until he does. He nudges his shirt off his belly, gives into his hips when they start thrusting into his hand, and does as Katsuki says. Just keeps talking.

“You’re so—Kacchan’s so cool, and, ah, he’s smart, and he’s hot, and he’s pretty when he smiles. And you think ab–out me like that, too. And that makes me feel so weird, and f-fuck and nervous, and turned on, and now you’re gonna watch me c-come, oh god, it’s. It’s close, I’m close, gonna come—”

Izuku is still talking when he comes. He’s not sure what he’s saying, some combination of worship, some repetition of Katsuki’s name, but he knows his mouth is moving almost as fast as his fist. He strips his cock meanly, tugs his orgasm out, drags it on and on and over his shivering stomach. His toes curl his socks right off his feet, his hips push his sweats down to his knees. Izuku keeps his fist at his tip, thumbing the last of himself dry, and it’s so hard to do because watching Katsuki come too makes him so wet.

Orgasm looks like something Katsuki has to do battle with. It keeps him rigid, puts the meanest curl to his lips that Izuku has ever seen, digs a frown between his brows. The muscles in his arms bulge as he jerks himself through it, the veins on those muscles popping. He stripes all the way up to his neck and groans almost like he’s pissed off at how good he feels. And he shows Izuku everything. The hand holding his phone barely shudders. He keeps his perfect cock in glorious view and Izuku has to reach his hand lower to tug at his balls, to stop them pulsing, to take hold of his orgasm somehow so it can leave him. If he comes any longer he’ll pass out.

Izuku doesn’t know how much of himself Katsuki saw. He hopes it was enough, because he doesn’t think he could try again, not for some time. He rests his sticky hand on his hip, fingers curled up so he doesn’t make even more mess, and tries to catch his breath. Air crackling through his phone’s speaker shows Katsuki is doing the same thing, but Izuku can’t look at him yet. Post-orgasm Katsuki must be an entirely new beast and Izuku just came.

His room is too hot. His pillow is damp with sweat, a little drool (it’s streaking in twin lines down the corners of his mouth). Izuku closes his eyes and watches his head spin.

“Wanna see you,” Katsuki pants.

Izuku makes a confused noise and finally blinks into the camera. His cock throbs pitifully. Katsuki is so pretty in afterglow.

“You can.”

Katsuki snorts. “Idiot. In person.”

Eyes wide, Izuku asks, “Now?”

Katsuki pins Izuku with a ruthlessly examining stare. It says more than words could. Izuku can almost hear what he’s thinking, hear himself in what Katsuki is thinking. He’s loud.

“If you want.”

Izuku quails. His orgasm is finally cooling, along his nerves and on his stomach. There’s nothing left to propel him however many miles it would take to reach Katsuki’s apartment, nothing but nerves, and that would barely get him out of his bed.

“Maybe not,” he mumbles, shy.

Katsuki huffs a short, amused breath. Izuku would worry Katsuki is mad if he didn’t look so fond. “Then when?”

Izuku checks the time. Well past 1am. It’s now Tuesday.

Why not?

“Are you still free Tuesdays at 7pm?”

Katsuki doesn’t even need to check his phone. He grins. “You know where to find me, nerd.”

The library is almost entirely empty when Izuku arrives, stomach pulling every which way. Final exams are almost over. There are a few stragglers getting in some last-minute studying, but most students wouldn’t be caught dead in the library now. The first floor is very sparsely populated. The fourth must be even emptier.

The elevator doors echo almost ominously once Izuku makes it up there. There are a few students dotted around. Almost all of them have headphones on. Izuku hopes they’re noise cancelling. Izuku hopes the study room door is noise cancelling.

He’s not an idiot about this (anymore). He knows what he’s walking into. He’s been half-hard and horribly nervous about it all day. His first time having sex and it’s gonna happen in public? Sort of? This is so much more than he bargained for when he signed up for tutoring.

It took Izuku a few hours to get over the instinctual shame response, the certainty that he was doing something wrong. It still burns now, but he’s turning it into fuel. This is someone he likes. This is someone who likes him back. Katsuki will take care of him, do right by him. In fact, he’s probably going to do Izuku really, really right.

And there Katsuki is. Slouched in his seat, scrolling on his phone like this is just another Tuesday, just another tutoring. It’s easier to approach knowing Katsuki hasn’t seen him yet. Izuku walks forward. Tries not to run.

His heart is beating his chest sore. His lungs are overstretching, filling up with air faster than Izuku can expel it. He doesn’t think he has it in him to be any more nervous, but then Katsuki looks up, and he finds Izuku’s eyes, and he stands, and Izuku does get more nervous, he gets so nervous he could scream about it. Still in a library though, so instead he just walks faster. He’d sprint if he wasn’t trying so hard to be quiet, but Katsuki throws open the study room door which sort of defeats that effort, and there really aren’t that many people around but still, this is a library, so would it kill Katsuki to pull Izuku inside, shove him against the door he just slammed closed, and kiss him this vigorously, a little quieter?

Those complaints do fade out quite quickly though. Hard for Izuku to find anything to complain about with Katsuki’s tongue in his mouth. Katsuki kisses him so hard, it shoves Izuku up onto his toes. The door is firm at Izuku’s back and Katsuki is firm against Izuku’s front, even firmer on his mouth. He’s gripping Izuku’s face. Izuku doesn’t know what to do with his own hands except flail.

This is nothing like that first kiss. That first one was sweet. All Izuku had to do was purse his lips and hope for the best. He’s not sure how to match up here. Doesn’t know how to tilt his head, what to do with his tongue, but Katsuki kisses him like he doesn’t care. His mouth feels hard, insistent. Izuku feels sore, overly sensitive, from his jaw to his Cupid’s bow. And he likes it.

Katsuki leaves Izuku’s mouth alone eventually. He goes for Izuku’s neck instead, his throat, kissing where Izuku’s nervous swallows bounce. Izuku still doesn’t know what to do with his hands, and Katsuki, realising, finds them and traps them over Izuku’s head. Pushes them against the door so hard that it shakes in its frame. Izuku moans, and it’s a lot louder without Katsuki’s kiss to cover it up. He tries to hide his mouth, then remembers where his hands are. Has to bite his lip instead, and it’s already so swollen that the pinch makes him whimper.

Katsuki grins. Izuku can feel the teeth on his neck, on skin so tender and thin it feels like Katsuki is biting him from the inside.

“Aw, fuck. I wanna be nice to you, nerd. I really fuckin’ do. But you cried the day I met you and I want that more.”

Izuku’s knees buckle. He was unsteady enough on his tiptoes. Katsuki’s words make him keel over, and Katsuki catches him. With a knee. Pinned to the door between Izuku’s shaking legs.

Katsuki is going to get those tears much sooner than Izuku would like. His thigh’s pressure feels so good, much firmer than Izuku’s pillow or his mattress or anything else he dared to rub against when arousal trumped embarrassment. Instinct makes Izuku hump, a cursory little roll of his hips along Katsuki’s muscle. The pleasure is vivid even through all these layers, Katsuki’s sweatpants and Izuku’s jeans, both their underwear. Izuku’s cock aches against all those fabric seams and there are those tears, he can feel theim weighing down his waterline.

“Yeah. Like that.” Katsuki brings his mouth back up, kisses a tear as it falls. The softest, sweetest peck on Izuku’s cheek, like he wasn’t just bursting blood vessels along Izuku’s throat. “You good?”

Izuku pants and nods. “Think so.”

Katsuki kisses him again, a smile against Izuku’s mouth, still so sweet but Izuku’s lips sting.

“Congrats on that 98, nerd.”

Why is that what makes Izuku avert his eyes, shy? Not the thigh under his balls, pressing up on them even now. Not the blood Izuku can feel pulsing in the shape of teeth. But a congratulations from his tutor. The heat of Izuku’s blush could short out the entire building.

“Congrats on getting the job,” Izuku murmurs.

Katsuki hums. Now that he isn’t eating Izuku alive (and once Izuku feels like he won’t immediately explode), Izuku takes a good look at him. Katsuki’s glasses are askew, the lenses just as steamed–up as they’d been through the camera last night. His shirt, acid-wash, loose on him. His cheeks, pink. His eyes, red. His lips, some colour in between.

“So hot,” Izuku mumbles.

Katsuki smirks at him. “You too. Keep rubbin’ off on me.”

Mortified and hopelessly turned on (because that’s an instruction, that’s something Katsuki told him to do), Izuku whispers, “Okay,” and rolls his hips again. And again. And again, while Katsuki watches. His dick is starting to feel too big for his clothes, his skin too tight for his body. He needs it all off, needs fingers and lips and tongue not fabric.

“Good,” Katsuki praises. It fucks up Izuku’s rhythm, and Izuku hurries to reset it, to be good again. Katsuki’s thigh flexes. “Know what we’re here for, yeah?”

“Mhm,” Izuku confirms.

“And you want that.”

“Yes,” Izuku says. A big word in a very small voice.

Katsuki squeezes Izuku’s wrists, a request for focus. Izuku gives it to him, blinks a couple times, a couple tears, until Katsuki isn’t blurry anymore.

“Remember what I said about being nice?”

Izuku mutters, “That you won’t be.”

Katsuki nods. “Gonna be good, but I’m not gonna be nice. You’ll tell me if you wanna stop?”

It seems to Izuku that Katsuki is being so nice. Kissing Izuku’s cheek, the tears he’d wanted so much. Making sure Izuku will tell him when he’s overwhelmed. Congratulating Izuku once again on his test score, telling Izuku he’s hot, basically. Sure, he has roughed Izuku’s mouth up a bit, and pinned his wrists above his head so Izuku can’t touch him, but if this is as not-nice as Katsuki is going to be, why would Izuku want to stop him?

Izuku nods his agreement anyway, appreciates the concern. He then finds himself  hauled off Katsuki’s leg, pulled away from the door, and shoved down over the very same table Katsuki pledged to fuck him on barely a day ago. So Izuku doesn’t know why he’s surprised.

He is, though. Very surprised, stomach swooping with that, and arousal, and humiliation. Katsuki is kissing the back of his neck. Izuku hasn’t been kissed anywhere by anyone other than Katsuki so every new touch is destabilising, but there’s something particularly so about kisses on his nape. It means he’s on his front, it means someone put him there, he’s being kept there. Izuku’s back is to that someone, he can’t anticipate a thing. Maybe he should be able to guess, but he doesn’t have the capacity for prediction. When Katsuki removes his mouth, Izuku could never have guessed that he’d be pulling Izuku’s shirt up his back seconds later. Even that doesn’t clue him in to Katsuki unbuttoning his jeans almost immediately after. And nothing ever prepares him for Katsuki talking.

“I already know the answer but I wanna hear you say it.” Katsuki is tugging Izuku’s jeans down. “You been fucked before?”

“No,” Izuku whispers, left cheek squished onto the backs of his hands. “Never.”

Katsuki swears. He’s pulling down Izuku’s boxers. “‘Course not. You even know what getting fucked means, you damn nerd? Bet you still call your ass your naughty place.”

“Don’t be gross,” Izuku protests weakly. Like he has any room to complain with his ass out, cupped by the scrunched waistbands of his pants, his underwear.

Katsuki laughs at him. “I’m gonna be so gross. Gonna put my dick in your naughty place, nerd. Gonna fuck it ‘til you come from it.”

It’s disgusting. Silly, even. Izuku is sure he’s going to laugh at this later. He’s not finding anything funny now. His cock aches untrapped, bobbing between his legs, legs that Katsuki is trying to bully apart, as far as they can go, dragging Izuku’s clothes down further to free up space.

There’s a moment where Katsuki just pauses. Thumbs brushing back and forth over that little give where Izuku’s ass meets his thighs. Izuku knows he’s just staring, so with the silence, Izuku tries his guessing game again. What will Katsuki do next, what will Izuku feel next? A finger, most likely. Izuku wonders which one. Katsuki seems to know what he’s doing so it’ll probably be lubed. Or maybe they’ll be lubed. Would he use more than one right away…?

Izuku guesses very wrong. Tongue hadn’t even felt like a possibility. Izuku hadn’t thought to consider it. For all the evidence he already has of Katsuki’s dirty mouth, Izuku never dared to imagine that it would find its way against such hidden, sensitive skin this soon. Is this what Katsuki meant by not-nice? This slippery, insistent pressure, flicking at Izuku’s rim, trying to push past it? Is this what he meant by good?

It is. It’s so good. Izuku rarely touches himself there. When he’s alone, when it’s his own fingers, it always feels like too involved a process when he has so many other, easier ways to come. But Katsuki’s tongue there makes him feel stupid, for that way of thinking and just in general. Izuku’s toes are curling as much as they can in his sneakers. The way his legs shake is making his jeans and boxers fall even lower. He’s drooling onto his fingers. Moaning onto them. Not very loudly, but too loud for a library. God, they’re in the library. Izuku has Katsuki’s tongue up his ass in the library and suddenly the sound of that slick lapping feels like it carries. 

“Kacchan,” Izuku protests, freshly embarrassed. Unfortunate that getting licked out makes every word out of his mouth a whine. The higher, agitated pitch only makes Katsuki lap wider, flattening his tongue, licking Izuku wet from his balls back up to his rim, grunting when his glasses get in the way and ripping them off, chucking them on the table next to Izuku’s spit-wet hands.

“Kacchan, c’mon, we’ve gotta—hurry,” Izuku tries, pulling onto his toes again when Katsuki finally fits his tongue inside (finally? Was Izuku waiting for it?). “There are still people—ahh.” Izuku’s back is to the door, for god’s sake, if anyone comes in there’s no hiding what they’ll see…

Katsuki bites him. Slips his tongue out to do it, fits his teeth into the meat of Izuku’s ass, so close to his hole that Izuku feels it stretch.

“Not me you gotta worry about. Nothing’s louder than you.”

Not strictly true. Katsuki really was licking quite loudly. By some miracle, some inclination in him for mercy, Katsuki relents anyway. Izuku hears him shifting around, fabric folding than plastic ripping. He looks down between his legs to see a torn packet of lube pouring over onto two of Katsuki’s long fingers. Izuku shivers. He can’t decide if watching Katsuki coat his fingers makes the anticipation easier or harder. He looks away all the same.

Katsuki is actually nice with this, it turns out. He folds himself back over Izuku and strokes at his wet hole gently, petting like he’s trying to soothe. Katsuki’s tongue was infinitely more overwhelming to feel, but fingers have so much more control, so much more intent, it’s a different kind of embarrassing. Izuku shuffles from foot to foot and tries so hard to relax, probably defeating the purpose, but the anxiety isn’t for lack of trying on Katsuki’s part. He’s being so careful, so steady, making this feel more like a massage than a precursor. It helps. Izuku softens up soon enough, even pushes back onto those wet fingertips, doesn’t immediately freeze up when they start to inch inside, one by one.

But it’s slow-going. Izuku feels puffy and over-used down there already, wet but too tight even for this tiny stretch. He does his best, taking deep breaths, letting Katsuki in, trying not to feel like he should rush this, like Katsuki is waiting for it.

“You needed this, didn’t you. You needed breaking in.”

It would appear Katsuki couldn’t care less about the wait. Izuku mewls realising that Katsuki is watching him again, liking it. He’s slowing his fingers down to get a better show probably as much as he’s doing it to keep Izuku comfortable. That makes it even easier to relax. Izuku gives in to the rhythm of Katsuki’s fingers, their curl and tuck, the way the knuckles feel hitching Izuku’s rim open. Getting used to the feeling brings a building, inescapable pleasure. Katsuki rubs Izuku’s swollen prostate, and Izuku’s cock leaks, and from one moment to the next, the ache goes from bearable to barely-enough. Izuku is starting to feel this deep, it’s coiling in him just further than Katsuki’s fingers can reach. He knows what would find it.

“Can I have it now?” Izuku pleads weakly.

He thinks Katsuki will tease him. Demand specificity, maybe. It’s another wrong guess to add to a winding list. Katsuki doesn’t tease, he doesn’t even talk. He slips his fingers out, meets Izuku’s fussy whine by passing his wet hand up Izuku’s bared spine. His other hand disappears. More fabric-shuffling. Another packet-ripping sound, a condom opening, a low hiss as Katsuki rolls it on.

There’s pressure, then a push, then a breath-stealing feeling of fullness. It pops Izuku’s mouth open. Katsuki feels just as big as he'd looked. Maybe even bigger. The fill of his cock reaches stomach depths, lung depths. Izuku knows he’s squeezing trying to take this. He can feel it, can’t help it, the rhythmic, overwhelmed pulse of his hole around that thickness, the wet sound it makes.

Katsuki’s hands are firm on Izuku, one on his left hip, the other on the back of Izuku’s neck, keeping Izuku still. Such a steady grip. Izuku feels like his life has been fucked out of him on one thrust and there Katsuki is, composed as ever—

“God, fuck.”

Or not. Izuku has never heard Katsuki sound this helpless, not even when he was stripping his cock for Izuku on camera. Such a low, overcome near-whine, and Izuku brought that out. He’s making Katsuki feel good.

It gets noise out of Izuku too, thinner, higher, non-verbal. It’s a sound cut off almost immediately by Katsuki backing his cock out, then pushing it back in. Katsuki feels so heavy inside that Izuku has to reacquaint himself with that size on every thrust, get used to it all over again. It makes this measured pace feel unbearably overstimulating. Izuku can’t imagine Katsuki going any faster.

“H-Hey.”

Izuku doesn’t hear it right away, blood pumping too loud. Katsuki has to lean forward, closer to Izuku’s ear, hips still working, to get Izuku’s attention, and only then does Izuku realise that Katsuki had just stammered. That word came out of his mouth broken. Bakugou Katsuki, cool, confident, collected Bakugou Katsuki, feels so good when he fucks Izuku that it breaks his voice.

Izuku lets out a soft, besotted hum. “Y–eah?”

Katsuki grunts. “Fuck, you—you’re quiet.”

“It’s a lot.” Izuku takes about twenty seconds to say those three words. It is a lot.

“Wanna stop?”

“No, no please, I like it,” Izuku rushes to assure. “Feels good. Kacchan feels so good.”

Katsuki laughs, another shaky broken sound. Bent over Izuku like this, he’s finding new angles, new places inside to fuck against. He’s keeping that same, steady rhythm, and it’s suddenly comfortable enough to ease into. Izuku melts, fucked completely lax. He lets Katsuki stir him up, welcomes it, goes loopy and heavy-lidded and starts to feel it spark in him, sharp little pinpricks in his stomach. Katsuki hasn’t touched his cock once. He doesn’t need to. Izuku is going to come from this as sure as if he’d been pumping himself from the start.

“This what you wanted?” Katsuki goads. Both his hands are on Izuku’s hips now, fingers digging deep, hurting Izuku where he’s soft. And that feels good too.

“It’s better,” Izuku corrects, and there’s barely any breath in it. He’s getting light-headed.

“Hah, yeah?” Izuku can hear Katsuki’s grin, can feel the way he fucks at an even newer angle, a sweeter one, like he wants to exceed Izuku’s expectations even knowing he already has.

“Mhm, mm, so perfect, Kacchan’s perfect.” Izuku closes his eyes. No use keeping them open, they keep rolling up.

Katsuki laughs again. Izuku doesn’t know what’s so funny, but he likes the sound of Katsuki’s humour so much, especially when it’s got that much lust in, that much feel-good.

“So fucking cute.”

Izuku’s gut aches. He tries to curl up on it, legs twitching closer together, mewling when his cock leaks and doesn’t stop. It’s a relentless spill, Katsuki is fucking him so messy, and he’s calling Izuku cute again, and Izuku has never come from his ass before but the build-up is so unmistakeable, there’s no hiding what he’s careening towards.

“Close,” he whispers.

“Hm?” Katsuki fucks him harder, faster. Izuku knows he heard. Now he wants to ask for that specificity?

“I’m close, K-acchan.” The words come out stunted, bouncing off every thrust. “You’re gonna make me come.”

Katsuki groans, heaves a harsh breath out then sucks the air back in through clenched teeth. “Yeah, fuck, c’mon. Want it, Deku.”

Izuku moans. Doesn’t even realise he’s pushing his hips back until his cock beats against his shaking stomach, then again, then again. He’s fucking back hard, meeting Katsuki for every thrust he’s giving, taking everything he’s giving, and Katsuki wants Izuku to come. If Izuku was somehow in any doubt about that, he can’t be anymore. Katsuki told him, he as good as asked for it. Izuku will get there, he knows he will, he just needs it—right there, that pace, that depth, that spot, that stretch—

“That’s it. You can come on me, nerd, I know you can. Lemme see.”

“Fuck,” Izuku whimpers, rent and reedy, a feeble attempt to vocalise how fucking good it feels to let go right when Katsuki tells him to. Izuku comes so, so hard. He scrunches up everything, his eyes his stomach his legs, every muscle drawn tight in orgasm. There’s so much of this feeling, and so much of the mess that that feeling makes. He’s never gonna be able to go back to jerking off. He will always need to come like this, fucked full and open, fucked deep.

Somewhere above him, behind him, distant, Izuku hears Katsuki groan, “Good, baby. Fuck, you’re good.” Izuku really thinks he might die.

He’s not entirely with it for Katsuki’s orgasm. Katsuki keeps going, hauling Izuku’s limp body back onto him for thrusts that Izuku can’t keep count of, then all of a sudden he stills, root-deep. His lips return to the back of Izuku’s neck, open, spilling air. Izuku idly wonders if Katsuki’s gonna bite him there, but all he does when he’s done is kiss him again. So sweetly considering the bruise-throb Izuku can feel beneath Katsuki’s fingers, the fuck-throb Izuku can feel around Katsuki’s cock. For all his warnings, Katsuki really had been kind of nice to him.

He’s even nicer in the comedown. He shushes Izuku’s distress when he pulls out, kisses down his spine then shuffles around once more, getting rid of the condom then finding a napkin to clean Izuku up. Cleans the mess Izuku made on the floor too, against the underside of the table. Pulls Izuku’s pants and underwear up, his shirt back down. Sets his glasses back on, tugs Izuku to standing, and grins down at him. Dries the rest of his tears.

“Think you know me a little better now, huh nerd?”

“Hm?” Izuku mumbles. Half his brain leaked out his dick.

“How much more of me do you wanna get to know before I can take you out on a date?”

It still takes Izuku a second to figure out what Katsuki means. A couple sparking synapses later, he remembers. The first day they met, the assumption Izuku had made, the reason why he’d bowed out…

“So—So you were asking me out!” Izuku protests, throat sore. God, did he scream? How were they not caught?

Katsuki scoffs, adjusting himself in his pants. “No, I was trying to do my damn job. Now I’m asking you out.”

Izuku squirms. It’s so frank. Says he’s asking, but it’s not even a question. Katsuki just fucked Izuku to a bigger O than any class could have ever taught him about, and Izuku still marvels at being wanted this way. Sex is one thing. A date’s another.

But even as mean as Katsuki has been, Izuku supposes Katsuki did help him pass his hardest class yet. He did give Izuku more confidence than he has felt in years. He did kiss Izuku back, and celebrated by talking to Izuku when he secured his job offer, and made Izuku come so hard it’s giving him a headache. Now he’s hooking a finger in one of Izuku’s belt loops and dragging him closer, leaning Izuku against him when he stumbles on shaking legs.

“Yeah,” Izuku mutters shyly, barely making eye contact. “I guess I know you better. But I could always know you more.”

Katsuki grins down at him. Pecks Izuku’s swollen mouth, leaves it with another stinging bite. “Tuesday at 7?”

Izuku smiles. “Tuesday at 7.”