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One day… one of these days… Katsuki is going to use Izuku’s front door. Not today, though.
It was already late when he finished his shift, and his car is in the shop, so he had to blast his way home because he sure as fuck wasn’t walking, and Izuku’s apartment is closer to his agency than his own is, and he was already up here, and, you know what? It’s no one’s business why he’s not using his front door. He just is.
He lands on the little balcony with a thud loud enough to send dust cascading onto the one just below it, but since it’s in the middle of the night, who cares? They’re not gonna know.
Izuku’s got his laundry hanging up out here to dry. It’s just undershirts, underwear, and whatever other unders he needs for his little nerd laundry. Katsuki pinches one of the shirts. It’s dry, so he yanks it off along with the rest of the lot, shoving the bundle in his arms because Izuku didn’t think to leave a hamper out in case someone decided to drop down on his balcony and do his laundry for him. Inconsiderate. No foresight whatsoever.
He nudges the glass door open. Izuku never bothers locking it for whatever reason Katsuki doesn’t understand, but it sure makes things easier when the nerd is so deep in the zone with work that he doesn’t even notice someone else is there barging into his apartment. Katsuki would roll his eyes and then chew his ass out for his lack of survival instincts, but since he has a built in danger alarm inside his head, it’s not like it matters. Villain, robber, or serial killer, Katsuki is not. He wonders if it also works on jilted lovers, but since Katsuki isn’t one of those either, he guesses he’ll never find out.
“Don’t shit yourself,” he says by way of hello.
“Jesus!” Izuku yelps, his evil little grading pen flying across the room in surprise before a tendril of Black Whip catches it and snatches it back. He puts his hand over his heart like he’s just a delicate little debutant with his shivers timbered and not, arguably, one of the most dangerous people in the world—the argument being motive versus ability, but why the fuck would that matter to him? One, he’s not a law student. Two, he can still kick Izuku’s ass this way to Sunday any day rain or shine, and that’s a fact. “I didn’t know you were coming.”
Katsuki drops Izuku’s laundry into a chair with a groan as his muscles scream at him. He is definitely not 16 anymore. And he doesn’t want to hear any bullshit about how 26 is too young to have aches and pains when he literally blasts himself at high speed at shit stains with bulldozer quirks for a living. His last spine x-ray looked like a string of popcorn, and no he does not want to talk about it.
“Did you get hurt?” Izuku asks.
“Nah. Just sore as a bruised ballsack.”
“You didn’t have to get my laundry,” he says.
“Yeah, well, the last thing you need is some Deku fanboy panty sniffers to find out those are your fucking g-strings in the wind.”
Izuku’s face flashes hot. “Those aren’t g-strings! They’re jock straps!”
“Whatever you say, Miss Universe. Hope you waxed before the pageant.” He barely dodges the pen in time before it clips him in the ear, and he barks a laugh. “Nice aim, loser– OW!”
Izuku gives him a flat smile of cruel victory as Katsuki rubs the back of his head where the pen smacked into him thanks to Izuku’s stupid shadow tentacle quirk or whatever the hell that shit’s made of.
“Fucker.” Izuku shrugs, not even reacting when Katsuki flips him off as he sulks across the apartment. “I’m crashing here tonight.”
He doesn’t ask if it’s okay because he never has before, and he definitely doesn’t ask if there’s someone already here hiding. He hopes there is so he can throw them out personally for stinking up the place when he’s trying to wind down after a shift.
He drags himself to Izuku’s bedroom and peels off his costume before he takes a much needed hot shower. His body is black and blue from the freight train he tangoed with today, but with no broken bones or internal bleeding, he was cleared to go. He’ll probably take tomorrow off, depending on how stiff he is though. At least he was told to, but he hasn’t decided if he’s going to listen or not.
Izuku must he swamped since Katsuki didn’t get a million messages about it as soon as he got back to his agency. Not that he was bothered by it. No, it’s nice to not have to say don’t worry I’m fine, I’m Dynamight the greatest hero who ever lived. Why would he want to do that?
There’s a new bottle on the shelf. He frowns as he picks it up and flips back the cap before he gives it a quick sniff, assaulting himself with such a pungent dose of peppermint and tea tree oil that he makes his own eyes water. He grimaces and puts it back without bothering to see what body part it’s meant to clean. It’s not coming anywhere near his body that’s for damn sure.
He finishes washing up and dries off before he goes back to Izuku’s bedroom to steal some clothes. One of the benefits to being close to the same size is he never has to think about it. And he doesn’t have to sit around in his sweaty ass costume after a hot bath.
He goes back to the living room where he unsurprisingly finds Izuku hard at work, his coffee table covered in papers and folders with a beer sweating on top of an opened piece of mail.
“I ordered food,” Izuku says without looking up as Katsuki makes his way to the kitchen.
“Forget to buy groceries again?”
“No, I didn’t forget. I just haven’t done it yet.”
Katsuki puffs out a laugh from his nose as he opens the barren refrigerator for a beer, not commenting on how Izuku cannot live like this if he expects to, well, live. UA’s got a good cafeteria, and his mom has always been eager to drop stuff off, so he knows Izuku isn’t starving, but there’s gotta be more to life than condiments. Maybe if he does take off tomorrow, he’ll pick some things up for him. Not to be helpful, but as a fuck you, of sorts. To humiliate him into buying his own groceries. It’ll work.
He sits next to him on the couch and leans over to look at the scattered papers. He’s grading again, based on all the little red lines and the smiley faces to soften the blow. Izuku is simultaneously too easy on his students and not nearly as forgiving as he should be. It’s a weird balance where he wants them all to succeed so desperately that he both doesn’t want to hurt their feelings or let them get away with not knowing what they should. He’s a perfect split between All Might and Aizawa, which means he will spend all night maintaining that balance even if it means forgetting to buy things like eggs or vegetables.
A folder on the edge of the table with a classified stamp on the top catches his attention. He raises an eyebrow as he reaches for it, curiosity getting the better of him. Regardless of the warning, Izuku doesn’t stop him because there isn’t a secret left between them and there hasn’t been since Izuku revealed the truth about his quirk. The government just has to get over it.
He flips it open, his eye catching the mugshot on the first page immediately. His eyebrows both raise.
“Is this Shigaraki’s rehabilitation file?”
“Yep,” he says without looking up.
“How the fuck did you get your hands on that?” Katsuki asks.
Izuku gives a noncommittal shrug. “I’m Deku.”
Like that explains everything.
It does, but still, fuck him. Cocky little shit.
He flips through and finds the visitation logs. Unsurprisingly, the most frequent names are Deku’s, All Might’s, Aizawa’s, and one other guy who may have been one of his little minions from ten years ago. “You still visiting him?”
“Every week,” he says, not bothering to lie.
“Is he still telling you to fuck off?”
“Almost every time,” Izuku says with a smile. “But I think I’m starting to wear him down.”
Katsuki tuts a laugh as he flips through the rest. “If anyone could…”
“You know how his quirk was fragmented from a copy of Overhaul’s? Well, apparently there’s a doctor who’s been working on fixing it. Eri’s quirk is the best resource they have right now, but since she’s a teenager, and, um, not training to be a hero, Monoma has been copying it from her during their test days. It’s actually pretty cool. He touched a can of soda with all of his fingers, and it didn’t blow up.”
“No, shit,” he says, genuinely intrigued. He’s not as invested as Izuku is, but every time he remembers the guy can’t touch another person without risking turning them into blood splatter skin vapor, he can’t help but squirm. He’s not touchy by any means, but he’s pretty sure if he could never touch a person again, he would lose his mind.
The image of grabbing Izuku’s arm suddenly and accidentally turning him into ash flashes in his mind, and he immediately washes it down with a heavy gulp of beer before he shoves the folder away and replaces it with one of the ungraded papers. He grabs an unused notepad off the table and props it up on his legs before he sits back and gets to work.
“Oh, Kacchan, you don’t have to do that.”
“Sooner it gets done, sooner you can quit scowling at it. Jesus, Deku, leave some disappointment in the world for the rest of us.”
“I’m not disappointed, I’m– underwhelmingly surprised.”
“So disappointed,” he says.
Izuku gives him a bemused look. “I’m this close to quitting and becoming a beetle farmer.”
“A beetle farmer?”
“Oh, that’s a thing,” he says gravely. “And it’s calling my name, Kacchan.”
Katsuki waves a hand. “Take a break. I can handle these.”
“You don’t know the criteria,” he says, earning a flat look. Of course he knows the fucking criteria. He’s a hero. Izuku teaches hero school. They share a brain. What’s there to think about? “Okay, maybe.”
“I’ve got this, Professor Plum. Unclench.”
“Professor Plum?” Izuku asks. “That’s all you’ve got?”
“I’m out of steam,” Katsuki says. “I’ve gotta save what I can for your idiot ducklings.”
Izuku takes a sip of beer. “Speaking of. Think any more about maybe taking on an intern this year?”
Katsuki scrunches his nose, displeased.
“Come on, Kacchan,” he groans, dropping his head back on the couch, turned towards him so he can give him those big puppy eyes he thinks will work on him. No, it’s worse because that’s just his fucking face, and he doesn’t even realize it. “You’d be a great mentor! We have a whole new generation of heroes at our fingertips, and you’re already a legend to them. At least once a week my class begs me to get you to come visit. Imagine how much more motivated they would be if they found out you could pick one of them to take under your wing. And it would make me definitely the coolest teacher ever.”
He adds a cheeky smile with that last bit.
“Uh huh,” Katsuki says. “And you didn’t say anything about your little brats wanting me to come by.”
“I didn’t want you to have to say no,” he says, earning a scowl. “What?”
“Who said I was gonna say no?”
Izuku frowns. “Kacchan…”
“No, fuck you, I’m coming next week. Tell your class if they all pass their next quiz or whatever you throw at them, Dynamight will come and let them give me all they’ve got to show off their quirks.”
Izuku’s eyes widen. “Are you serious?”
“Do I look like I’m fucking around to you?”
“Well, no, but–.”
A knock on the door interrupts their conversation, and Katsuki gets up before Izuku can bother. He opens the door, and the delivery guy’s face actually drops when he sees him. What the fuck?
Katsuki’s brow furrows as the guy tries—and fails—to look behind him, and then he watches as he checks the address again like he got the wrong place. “What?”
“I have an order for a Midoriya?”
“Yeah, that’s me,” he grumbles, taking the bag from him.
“Oh, um, I didn’t know there was a–.”
“A what?” Katsuki asks, impatient.
“Kacchan? Is something wrong?”
“No,” he calls back, raising an eyebrow at the delivery guy. “You good?”
“Oh, yeah, I just–. Have a good night.”
He bails like his ass is on fire, and Katsuki cranes his neck with a confused expression as he practically leaves skid marks on the hallway floor. Well, that was weird.
He closes the door and brings the food back to the table, the papers all put away so they don’t get grease on the kids’ hard work.
“What was that about?” Izuku asks.
“I don’t know. Guy seemed surprised to see me.”
“Like a fan?”
“No, because I wasn’t you,” he says.
“Oh,” he says with a frown. “I guess I’ve been ordering a lot lately.”
“Define… a lot…”
“Every night?”
“Deku.”
“Well!” Izuku says. “Kacchan, you know I don’t have time to cook, and it’s so convenient, and I have a rewards card!”
He raises an eyebrow at that. “A rewards card?”
Izuku smiles sheepishly. “Like the free dessert I got us?”
Katsuki sighs and slumps back onto the couch, his gaze withering enough to make Izuku’s shoulders hike up to his ears.
“Okay, well, you don’t have to eat it if you don’t approve.”
“I don’t know who taught you how to host, but you could use a few more lessons.”
“Says the guy who came to my house uninvited,” Izuku says.
“Uninvited?” Katsuki scoffs in disbelief. “Well, fine, I’ll just go home, then.”
Izuku pushes him back down with a hand on his chest as the other rifles through the plastic bag. “Man, I’m starving. I got you the extra spicy beef bowl they just added to the menu last week. The regular version is tasty, you’ll like it.”
“Uh huh,” he says as he sits up to join him. “Alright, let’s see if your new bad habit is worth it.”
“Make sure you leave room so you can eat your words after,” Izuku says.
Katsuki snorts. “Fuck off.”
The two of them eat dinner as quietly as expected, which is not quietly at all, and at some point when his hands are too sticky to smack Katsuki without getting sauce all over his own shirt, Izuku pinches the shit out of him with his creepy little toes. Where the fuck did he learn how to do that?!
And a case of beer later, the papers are all graded and stacked neatly together to be packed away and returned to their owners tomorrow with the promise that if they do well on the next one, Dynamight himself will come and co-teach a class. And by co-teach, he means yeet a room full of teenagers across the room like giant hormonal baseballs.
Izuku takes a shower, leaving the door wide open, which leads to Katsuki sitting on the edge of the sink, talking over the falling water about his shift today, and when he finally gets to the part that he thought Izuku would have freaked out about, Izuku does freak out enough to get his stupid peppermint and tea tree oil scalp treatment in his eyes, leading Katsuki to half hang over into the shower as he tries to help him wash it out. Dumbass.
Katsuki yanks his wet shirt off and tosses it into the hamper, leaving his upper body bare, which is how he prefers to sleep anyway, before he sulks back into the living room while Izuku finishes up since he apparently can’t bathe himself if he gets too excited.
Bored and a little tipsy, he ends up folding Izuku’s laundry, even though he swore he wouldn’t because the pile just sitting there in the chair untouched is only a little more than irritating. Especially since he knows Izuku will probably just pick his underwear out of it for the next week rather than put it away, not even caring if he flashes his big freckly full moon in front of the whole neighborhood, thanks to the big glass balcony door he never locks. Katsuki rolls his eyes.
By the time Izuku drags himself out of the shower, Katsuki is back on the couch with the pile of clothes sorted into the appropriate drawers, and if he thinks too hard about why he knows which drawer is designated for what, his head might explode. But maybe Izuku is just the most predictable person in the world, and Katsuki is extremely smart. Did anyone ever think of that?
Izuku, the walking recognizable pattern himself, pads out of the bathroom as he squeezes the water out of his hair into a towel, the wet tendrils coiling around his face so dark they’re nearly black.
His stupid shirt looks back at him, the eyes where his nipples would be, and Katsuki sighs audibly. They may be older, but he’s still the biggest loser Katsuki knows.
“Survive your bath?”
“Somehow,” Izuku says, completely immune to Katsuki’s teasing. He would be by now, though, wouldn’t he? “Do you need a painkiller or anything?”
“Nah, I’m good,” he says.
“Let me see it.”
“No,” he says.
“Kacchan,” he scolds, and Katsuki lifts his shirt, earning a sympathetic hiss.
“It’s not that bad.”
“You’ve got road rash.”
“Your face has road rash,” he says, earning a flat look. “I said it’s fine. I’ve taken harder hits from you.”
“Yeah, but I’m really strong,” Izuku says, making Katsuki laugh so hard he wheezes.
“Yeah, yeah, whatever,” he says, and Izuku grins. “Fucker.”
“You love it,” he says before he turns on his heel and disappears down the hall, returning without his towel. He then goes to his work pile and pokes at it a bit like he isn’t sure it’s all there before he folds himself up on the couch with Shigaraki’s file.
Katsuki watches silently as Izuku flips through it, making little notes in the margins, and without having to ask, he knows him well enough to know that he’s making himself a little study guide for the next time he visits. No one is more committed to getting that asshole out of prison and back into the real world as Izuku is, even if Katsuki isn’t actually sure it’s possible. It’s not like he just robbed a bank or something.
But Izuku is nothing if not persistent, and so if anyone can actually pull something like this off, it will be him. There’s no doubt about it.
“What do you guys talk about?” Katsuki asks.
“Games, mostly,” he says. “I’m not a psychologist, so I can’t really talk about his family, which I think is the real secret to getting beneath the villain, but I think having some kind of common ground works. Maybe I’m stupid, but I think I can get through to him if we can move past heroes and villains and All For One and One For All. I think Tomura deserves to live his life the way he always wanted to, and if that life is playing video games all the time, then why not? There’s nothing wrong with that.”
“Tomura, huh?”
Izuku closes the folder. “He won’t let anyone call him Shimura Tenko, but I think hearing the name Shigaraki and associating it with himself just cements the idea that he is an extension of All For One, and he’s not. He’s me, Kacchan. If I had had a quirk and it was dangerous, I could have just as easily ended up in that house instead. It could have been me.”
“No,” Katsuki says. “Because you’re missing the part where if something happened to Auntie Inko, my parents would have brought your ass home to us, and you would have had us, even if we had to put you in mittens and booties.”
“But he didn’t have someone, Kacchan,” he says sadly. “That’s the point. When I think of people like Tomura or Toga, it breaks my heart, because they could have had good lives if they had someone, and they didn’t, and people died, and I know they’re responsible for their own actions, but I don’t want to give up on someone who was already given up on.”
Katsuki sucks in a breath through his nose, but he has absolutely no argument for that.
Izuku sags into the couch and sighs. “I think I wanna go to bed.”
“You think?” Katsuki asks, and Izuku nods. “Then go to bed.”
Izuku turns to him and blinks slowly without a word.
Katsuki frowns. “What?”
“You got your butt kicked.”
“No, I didn’t,” he says.
“You did a little bit,” he says.
“Bullshit,” he says. “But what’s your point?”
“My point is,” he says as he sits up. “We’re not 16 anymore, and I just think it sucks for you to have to sleep out here on my couch when it’s just going to make you twice as sore, and we both know it.”
Katsuki blinks. “If you were gonna kick me out, a warning a couple hours ago would have been nice.”
“No,” he says. “I mean–. Look, my bed is big enough for two people, and it’s not weird for two people to sleep together, especially when they used to share the same bathtub–.”
“Twenty years ago, sure.”
“Will you just–. Will you come with me?” Izuku asks, poked into frustration enough to blurt it out. “Or later, if you want. I mean, I’m going to bed now, but if you want to stay up a little longer, you can, but can you just sleep with me from now on? I mean when you stay over. I mean unless you just really like the couch, but I don’t see why when I’ve got a perfectly good bed in there, and we’re used to each other. I mean, we’re friends. It’s not weird.”
“Which one of us are you convincing right now?” Katsuki asks, too amused with the reasoning to let himself think anything else about it.
“You,” he says. Katsuki blinks in surprise. “You’re gonna say fuck off, nerd, and then get a crick in your neck, and spend your entire patrol tomorrow looking at everyone sideways.”
“Am not.”
“Oh, super mature,” he says. “I forgot I was talking to a giant man baby.”
“Man baby?!”
“You heard me,” Izuku says, jabbing his fingers at him.
Katsuki catches his hand and holds it up between them like a threat. “The only baby I see here is you, cherub cheeks.”
“Cherub cheeks? Is that supposed to be an insult?”
“Yeah, it is,” he says, before pinching one of them. Izuku snatches that hand though, putting them at a weird impasse of immovable grips where the only feasible solutions include letting go and losing or wrestling the other to the death. Katsuki will take those odds. “Go to bed.”
“You go to bed,” Izuku barks before he catches himself and closes his eyes. “If my students could see us, they would never respect me again.”
“Oh, they respect you now?”
“You know what?” Izuku shouts, letting go to stand up to his feet. “You can sleep on the floor! Good night!”
“Hey!” Katsuki shouts back as Izuku storms off to his bedroom. Katsuki jumps up and follows him, hot on his trail and slapping the lights off as he passes them because there’s no need in blowing up his power bill. “Get back here!”
Izuku breaks out into a sprint, which has Katsuki acting on pure instinct because the next thing he knows, he’s full speed light step running into Izuku’s bedroom and tackling him onto his bed like a damned provoked animal, snarl included.
He pins Izuku to the bed, both of them out of breath and a little feral, and Izuku blinks up at him, realizing the peculiarity of it a half a second before Katsuki does.
Oh, that was weird.
That was big weird.
It is weird.
“I’m not unpacking this,” he says down to him.
“Me neither,” Izuku agrees in a breath.
He peels himself off of him and drops down onto the bed without another word about it. Nope. Not tonight. Not this month. Not this lifetime.
Izuku clears his throat and passes him a pillow before he settles in himself. Katsuki accepts it and shoves it under his head, willing his freak of a pulse to calm down before it sets his heart monitor off. He would probably have to go home no matter how late it is if it does, and he’s not sure he would ever be able to bring himself to come back.
But thankfully, it decides he’s probably not dying and leaves him alone, making the only sound in the room the ragged metronome of Izuku’s hurried breaths.
Well, this is–.
“Night,” Izuku chirps.
Yep.
“Night,” he says back, the word catching in his throat like a total loser.
Beep.
Oh, fuck off.
Izuku sits up with a gasp. “Kacchan, are you okay?!”
“Yep,” he strains. “It’s just making sure I know it’s there. Good night.”
“Oh, okay, good night,” he says, settling back down into bed.
“Night.”
“Night,” Izuku says again. Katsuki looks at him, his brows raised, but when he catches Izuku’s gaze, Izuku flips over away from him so fast he almost takes all the blanks with him. He throws them back behind him. “Sorry.”
Katsuki sighs and closes his eyes as he readjusts the covers over him. Once a nerd, always a nerd.
Heh.
He sleeps like a fucking baby. Which shouldn’t be a surprise because he was already exhausted when be got there, and then with a full stomach and a few beers in him, an earthquake shouldn’t have even been able to wake him.
But it’s a rare night where he doesn’t toss and turn or fight the sheets for hours because he’s either too hot or too cold. Goldilocks, eat your heart out, he’s content. Maybe he should order one of these beds for himself and find out which silk and cloud shop Izuku got these pillows at, because good god.
He sleeps so well that instead of being mildly annoyed by the sound of an alarm clock, it scares the shit out of him.
“Wake the *beep* up loser!”
Katsuki sucks in a breath as he’s startled awake, and Izuku scrambles off of Katsuki’s chest to get to his side table to turn it off as Katsuki’s own voice barks at them to get the beep out of bed.
“Was that me?” Katsuki asks, groggy.
“No,” Izuku lies. “Sorry, I didn’t know the volume was up all the way.”
“It’s fine,” he mumbles as he rolls over onto his stomach, closing his eyes as he buries his face into the pillow, his arms hooked around it into a hug. It smells too much like Izuku, but what else is Izuku’s pillow supposed to smell like? Peppermint?
Well. Kind of.
“I need to get ready for work,” Izuku says quietly.
“Mhm,” Katsuki hums.
“I’ll leave the coffee maker on for you,” he says quietly like if he speaks at a normal volume, he’ll wake him up more than the screaming alarm did. Katsuki grunts that he heard him and pulls the blanket over his head to be left alone.
The last thing he hears is Izuku digging through his closet for one of his fancy teacher man suits before he slips back into that much needed deep sleep he was so rudely snatched out of.
Izuku is right. They are too old to be sleeping on couches. He’s never going back.
And he stays right where he is well into the morning before he drags himself out of bed and steals himself a cup of coffee. His stomach growls, but when he goes to rectify that, he’s immediately reminded that Izuku hasn’t gone to the store in what has probably been months.
He sighs loudly and rakes his fingers through his hair before he takes the spare key out of the kitchen drawer. It looks like he’s making that grocery run sooner than he intended to.
Might as well.
That’s just what friends do, and he would know because that’s exactly what he and Izuku are.
He steals a hat and a pair of sunglasses so no one will recognize him, and he trudges down to the nearest market, shooting a quick email from his phone that he will be taking that day off to lick his wounds after all.
Tomorrow he can return to the real world, but today he’s got some real hero shit to take care of. Or something.
He’s still there when Izuku gets back, and neither of them question it.
But why would they?