Well, that promise to take a month off turned out to be a fucking lie. i have way too many drafts and creative energy to take a break lmao

Enjoy.

CW: canon-typical violence, swearing, minor gore

Chapter 1: if it's with you

"Hero Deku, two villains spotted two blocks on your right. Civilians caught in the line of fire. Take caution."

"Eliminate or capture?"

The comms crackled for a moment, the sound painstakingly louder than the explosions and screams of terror around him. Izuku held his breath.

"..We trust your judgement, Deku. Do what needs to be done."

He gritted his teeth, green lightning spreading across his body as he moved from building to building. The locator beeped ominously. He hated the sound that rang in his ears, heralding his step into the arena of life and death.

"Roger that. I'll give an update on the situation once I get there."

And choose whether I'll take a life to save another.

It was an unspoken thing, words unexchanged and lost to the turbulent storm brewing in his chest. Izuku hadn't expected to ever make that decision in his life.

But being a Pro-Hero wasn't all glam and glory. It wasn't all idealism of saving everyone– civilians, heroes, and villains alike. It wasn't all showing up with a smile and stretching out his hand. Being a Pro-Hero didn't mean always having a happy ending at the end of the day.

It was dirty. Grime filled the lines of his shining smile, a dirty black seeping through the crevices covering him in darkness. Reality tugged on his ankle and led him to fall– to let his eyes focus on the potentiality of a threat than the potentiality of being saved.

Izuku allowed himself a bitter smile, one hidden in his mouthguard and unseen by the fiery vestiges of Musutafu that grew with every minute and every cry of terror.

To save to win, indeed.

But to save who? To win what? Who was he– no, who was anyone to determine who to be saved? Who was he to treat the act of saving lives as a game to be won, like a twisted version of the scythe-holder from the underworld?

Except he wore a green hood, and his cream-white gloves dripped with invisible blood of the innocent and guilty.

Another explosion shook the city, snapping him out of his thoughts as he almost stumbled headfirst to the ground. Izuku gritted his teeth and planted his feet on the walls of a building, hands gripping concrete and glass like cloth.

His visor glitched, the blips going in and out of existence.

The comms crackled to life once more, with the voice a bit more muddled and distorted than before. "..ku? You...ight? Red Ri...nd Tsukuyo... triggered an...one of tho...vices. Please...eful."

Izuku looked down at where he was supposed to fall, wincing at the ominous teeth of jagged glass and steel jutting out from damaged cars.

That would've been a nasty way to end his career.

"Hello? The explosion damaged the comms, I think. My tracker's not worki–"

It only took a second for Danger Sense to kick in. The sharp stabbing sensation in his head probably wouldn't hold a candle to the swords that erupted from the building he was on a second later– not that he wanted to test it out.

Izuku wondered if there was something wrong with him if his main concern was how the support team would nag at him for damaging his costume once this was over.

Once, because to hell if Izuku would let these ragtag group of revolutionaries– Neo-League of Villains, they called themselves– burn Japan to the ground.

It hadn't even been a decade since the war ended. Too many people continued to mourn over lost comrades and family, some still nursing their hatred of the heroes that built themselves back up.

Izuku wouldn't let them wreck the peace he and many others had glued together piece by piece.

Two figures stood several feet away, one of them extending their hand with a manic grin on their face. At a twitch of their finger, Izuku cursed and shot out Black Whip to a nearby pole, blades emerging from the pavement barely missing him.

"De... What's hap...? Have..ou made...tact...villains?"

"I–" The greennette dissolved Black Whip and activated Float, the pole now looking like an art exhibit at a modern museum. "Yes, I think so. Two of them, one of them looks to have an emitter quirk that can make very sharp blades come out of anything."

Sharp enough to reduce him into kebab strips if he didn't move fast.

"Civ...ans?"

Izuku took a quick look around, trying to look for any sign of hostages or evacuees as the villains scowled up at him. "There's nothi–"

Then he saw them, just around the corner of the block he was supposed to intercept the villains in, and he felt his blood grow cold.

There was a family. A young boy with blank, unseeing eyes, had blades dripping with fresh blood and tearing through his flesh. The women beside him had their mouths open mid-scream, spears replacing their tongues. The walls behind their heads dripped with something gray that he didn't want to identify.

The boy was still holding his sister's hand.

"Dek...u?"

Izuku swallowed around his dry throat, the crackling of the comms tearing through the red haze that threatened to take over. He tore his eyes away, not that it did anything.

It was already another sight seared into his mind. One that would tear at him in the cover of the night until Izuku was nothing more than an incoherent bundle of emerald tears and sweat-filled sheets. It would haunt him just as the others had.

The pills helped, but tear streaks still dried on his cheeks in the morning as he got ready to be a hero again.

"A family of four. Two women, one boy and girl. I..." Emerald eyes burned through the visor at the villains, the one that attacked him looking to be throwing a tantrum to their indifferent partner.

They didn't burn with impending tears. They burned with a blood-curling mix of hate, anger, and indignation. They burned for blank eyes that couldn't burn with the flame of life anymore.

"I was too late. Please send me the location of the medic station after I'm done with the villains. I'll drop them off."

Izuku didn't bother listening to the response on the comms. Wind rushed in his ears, and he lashed out Black Whip to nearby poles, using the momentum to propel himself straight at the villains.

The sword villain threw a tantrum when I used Float, so that means their quirk only applies to either a certain radius or only on inanimate objects. My costume wasn't affected, so it doesn't affect clothes or any inanimate material wrapped around a living thing. But what about the other one–

Even with Danger Sense warning him, Izuku couldn't have done anything to avoid the attack. Steely gray eyes swiveled to his, twisted fingers lifting towards him. A finger pointed at him, then they slashed down, and he followed.

A gravity quirk–!

Izuku cursed and released Smokescreen in droves as he went down, the two villains disappearing from sight. Black Whip dug into the concrete, barely stopping his descent before he became a splatter on the pavement. A broadsword popped out from the ground beside him, white gloves muffling his scream that almost gave away his location.

There were too many close calls today. Too many surprises. Too many things he– no, everyone was unprepared for. Too many casualties could've been prevented if they acted faster– if they thought smarter and caught on earlier.

If they listened to Katsuki.

He'd wallow in regrets and self-depreciation later, though. Now he braced himself, green lightning flashed and spread across his body, already honing into the location pinpointed by Danger Sense.

The smoke had already stopped coming out long ago. Still, the billows of the night wind carried by explosions from far away maintained his cover. The curses and taunting voices of the villains lost to the chaos and rumbling around them.

Izuku breathed, focusing on the familiar stabbing pain and the direction it was pointing him.

There, 2 o'clock, Izuku. Make it fast and quick. The phantom voice and hand nudged him, the only signal he needed to move. He'd never doubted it in the years of being a hero, and he never would.

It was over in a blink.

Black Whip had gone on ahead, the wisps of black wrapping around their ankles and holding them still, both unaware. Izuku only saw two pairs of eyes widen before he'd grabbed onto their faces, smashing them back to the ground, cracks appearing on the concrete.

Snapping the quirk-neutralizing handcuffs on both, Izuku sighed and shook off his hood. Emerald eyes underlined with black circles looked down at the villains, shadows playing along his unshaven face scattered with freckled constellations.

He remembers the dead family and closes his eyes. Out of pain, out of pity or hatred, he wasn't sure.

Izuku clicked the comms on, patting his visor a couple times until the glitching audio stopped. "Two villains in Sector B subjugated and neutralized. Please send someone to retrieve them. I'll take care of the family."

The voice that went through was different from earlier. The deep rumble that no technological invention could replicate resonated with his heart. The gruff end at each word made Izuku almost choke out a sob, emerald eyes opening in relief.

"Fuckin' finally, nerd."

There was a smell of something burning, and the villain whimpered, trying to worm away from the glowing embers of an imminent explosion.

Gloved hands shook them harder, and they couldn't stop the tears from running down their bruised and battered face. "I–I–I really don't know! P–P–Please, s–spare m–me!"

The tears only gushed harder when the palms bunched at their collar crackled, pops going against their skin. Katsuki growled, crimson eyes amidst a sea of fire making him look something farther from a human.

Then again, if being human was being like this piece of shit, he'd rather be the devil itself.

"Fuck you, shitbag! You fucking know something so spit it out before I explode your useless face!"

The villain whimpered. "N–n–no, I–I– Aren't you a h–hero?! Sh–Shouldn't you b–be merciful t–t–to someone l–like me?!"

Mercy?

Katsuki's left palm exploded, the smell of burning cloth and singed flesh made the villain cry out. Their pained howls and struggle stopped at a gargle when the blonde's other hand wrapped around their neck.

Katsuki grinned menacingly, canines glinting sharply, with his fierce features illuminated by fire-filled skies. The heat around him was a blessing– a god-given approval to build up more sweat, more ammunition to punish the sinner.

"Looked like you lucked out, assface. Now," His palm crackled against the skin, small pops slowly turning into bigger ones. "You ready to talk while you still fucking can, ha?!"

Maybe if Katsuki wasn't a hero, he wouldn't even be making the threat. He would've blasted the fucker's face, throat, chest– everything if he wasn't one.

But he was.

He was, and it was infuriatingly disgusting to see this waste of space grovel and plead to him as a 'hero' when they were, just minutes ago, cackling as they contorted bodies and limbs until they broke. When this blubbering mess with snot dripping from their nose had looked upon the cracking and popping of bones and joints with sickening glee.

The villain looked like he was on top of the world then. Until Katsuki arrived at a scene that mimicked a circus of contortionists.

But no one was laughing. Not with necks twisted and broken, heads lolling to the side with eyes bulging out of their sockets. There weren't howls of joy with not a single civilian left breathing with their hearts beating, for humans could handle only so much trauma before their minds gave.

This was only one of the times Katsuki regretted being a hero. Because being one, despite operating under the flag of justice, had its own shackles– its own cage to contain its fighting dogs.

With the blubbering mess of the villain in his hands, he couldn't help but laugh at the situation.

For Katsuki had won against the villain. He had taken the bastard down within seconds of arriving, their cackles turning into groans and slurred words.

Win to save, huh?

Save fucking who? Was winning against assholes like this all there was to being a hero? What use was winning if he was swimming in bodies of those he couldn't save? Who was he to declare this a win as if lives placed in a balance were nothing more than an obstacle to be cleared in a game?

Katsuki was nothing– no one. He had no fucking say in anything, with his ideals of fame and glory already reduced to cinders and ash when he faced the ugly side of being a hero.

The villain was still pleading with him, their sickeningly desperate voice grating on his ears. Their cries grew marginally louder with every crackle that got a little too big, a little too hot. A little too close to the heartbeat he felt under his gloves. The constant drum mocking him as the heat grew, small explosions aching to stomp over it.

Hero. Hero. Hero. Hero

The comms crackled to life in his ear, "Hero Great Explosion Murder God Dynamight, what's the situation there?"

Katsuki clicked his tongue and gave the useless piece of shit one last glare before he punched them in the throat. They choked on their tongue, and Katsuki didn't give them a single second to rest, grabbing and smashing their head on the ground.

He gave the asshole one last kick to the crotch before he snapped a pair of cuffs on them. "Got the fucker. Pretty sure they pissed themselves before I knocked them out."

Tsunagu sighed through the comms. "Did you at least get something from them?"

"I got to see a cold-blooded murdering lunatic plead for their life like a baby. Does that fucking count?"

"So nothing then. No intel whatsoever on their leader or their location?"

Katsuki grunts.

"Nothing, still, huh. Alright, Great Explosion Murder God Dynamight, we'll send some sidekicks to your location to transport the villain. You should get some res–"

"Wait."

The blonde moved and picked something up from the ground, the card singed and drying with red. Katsuki handled it like one would with a piece of pottery– one littered in cracks and ready, just waiting for the gust of wind to split it into a million parts once more. To return to the ground whence, it came.

He wiped away the dirt from his blasts, revealing a smiling face.

The smile looked too bright under Musutafu's night sky that exploded with reds, eyes looking too alive as Katsuki stood among dead ones.

Crimson eyes flitted over to the overturned bus' name, skipping over strews of bags and luggage– bright pinks, sky blues, neon greens– that tore out in floods from the windows. "There're civilians here, Best Jeanist."

The comms crackled, the sound strangely soothing for Katsuki. It reminded him that he wasn't alone in this seemingly never-ending nightmare that shook them all out of their tiny bubbles of peace. It was a reminder that someone had believed in him when he was drowning in doubt-filled months.

"There's a school bus here so they must've been on a trip or something. All girls school, probably. The name has 'Kofu' in it, so I'm assuming that's where they're from."

"...Assuming? Dyna– Bakugou, why aren't you sure?"

Katsuki moved again and stopped. Blonde locks set on fire by the red sky whirl with the breeze carrying the scent of smoke, ash, and death. Crimson eyes hidden behind the jet-black mask and visor look down at unseeing pale pink ones.

He went down and squatted, gloved fingers moving to close them. "'Cuz I'm not."

.

.

The sidekicks arrived a few minutes later. Katsuki didn't bother lashing out when a couple of them went green in the face and scrambled to vomit away from the scene.

He would've too.

But he didn't. He owed these children whose futures were ripped out too early and too cruelly to, at the very least, disentangle them from bent and contorted limbs.

Even the dead deserved honor, after all.

When the last of the bodies were taken away to the set-up medic station, and the villain knocked out (again, though everyone turned away when Katsuki punched their teeth in), he allowed himself to fall.

Katsuki's legs buckled under him, and explosions were set off into the night, masking his cries and frustrated screams until his throat was scratched raw. Every inch of his body ached with nothing and everything. Fingers, gloves set aside, dug into the ground, and he made sure it hurt. That every explosion that rumbled the earth and reared back to him hurt.

He wasn't sure how long it was until his ears picked up the crackling of the comms again, the blonde absentmindedly letting the connection go through. Katsuki's fingers shook and fell to his side as soon as it connected.

"Bakugou," Tsunagu's distorted voice washed over him. "I'm connecting you to Midoriya. He just finished wrapping up too."

Katsuki nodded, the motion unheard and unseen by anyone, but it seemed like his mentor understood. His throat felt sore, palms a bit too scratched up to his liking, knees burning from the scrape on concrete.

He was tired, but when the call connected, he couldn't help the sigh slipping from his lips. Crimson eyes fluttered open, and he tilted his head to face the red sky.

The soft voice in his ear making everything seem a little bit softer. A little less harsh. It made the sky look less that it was bathed in the blood of hundreds and more like the delicate sunsets spent with green hair and bright smiles.

"Fuckin' finally, nerd."

There was a crackling again before Katsuki heard it. The name that only one person could mutter like a spell granting him air to breathe in, giving him the brightness he'd needed.

"Kacchan."

Izuku pulled at his lower lip, yelping when a ruler hit his hand square on the back. He rubbed at the reddening spot among protruding scars and scowled at his partner.

"Kacchan! What was that for?"

"Ha?" Katsuki scowled, "How many fucking times have I told you to stop doing that, shitty Deku?"

"Uh.."

"No. Do not fucking answer that." Katsuki pointed the ruler at the greennette menacingly, making the latter shut his mouth. "The fucking point is to stop it so we can get back to this."

Izuku groaned and thumped his head on the table, the tuft of green curls from his undercut cushioned by the various maps splayed out.

"I can't help it, Kacchan! We've been at this for hours today and I just know you'll bring this home with us too– don't look away Kacchan! Don't think I didn't see you sneak in a couple case files in your gym bag!"

Katsuki scowled and just mumbled stupid doting shitty nerd under his breath, silently grateful that Izuku overlooked the documents he sneaked in the greennette's bag earlier.

Izuku sighed, cheek squished on papers as he turned to look at the other half of the Wonder Duo. He couldn't help but coo internally at the adorable sight before him. Katsuki's ever-present scowl sat on his face, the ferocity undeterred by the neon green Deku pin holding his bangs back.

Of course, he afforded a moment of silence for his heart that died a couple times that night. Now, if only those crimson eyes would look at him and not at the piling mountains of files between them, he could ascend to heaven properly.

"Kacchan."

Katsuki ignored him, moving to scratch and circle something on the maps.

"Kaaachan."

The blonde laid out the ruler and drew lines connecting the new points. The chaotically organized collection of maps looking more like a ball of yarn.

Instead of Nagano's detailed routes and streets, emerald green eyes blinked up at him. "Kacchan! Don't ignore me!"

Not even batting an eye, Katsuki grabbed Izuku's face and shoved him off, leaving the greennette off-balanced from leaning over the table. Scarred arms flailed before he rocked back on his chair, miraculously not falling and breaking his neck.

That would've been a nasty way to end his career.

Izuku huffed and swiped one of the files, flipping through it. "Kacchan, don't you think you're getting a bit too obsessed? They're called closed cases for a reason, you know?"

The file in his hands was one of the old reports from two years ago. It was a standard villain subjugation, a clean-cut incident handled by one of the agencies at Sapporo. No civilians harmed, no excessive destruction of property– nothing extraordinary.

Honestly, Izuku thought that the villain probably just had a bad day.

He peeked up from the file, emerald eyes following the blonde move frantically across the room as he pinned up mugshots, scrawled down notes, and went back to his maps.

Apparently, Katsuki didn't think so. He didn't think so even when Mirio shut down his request to interrogate and call up ex-convicts who had already served their time. He didn't think so even when he got bombarded with emerging cases as an attempt to steer him away from his 'obsession.'

"Fuck off, nerd. I know there's something more to these cases," Katsuki bit his lip, a stray strand coming loose and falling just above his brow slit. Izuku's clutched at his jumper to prevent them from doing something stupid.

Like, reach out and tuck in that loose strand, for example. Or maybe stroke that infuriating brow slit that his partner went and showed up with one morning. With absolutely no consideration at all for Izuku's weak heart.

"–cident. Like fuck, they're all pointing to something but I just can't– Agh!"

Izuku blinked and realized he'd spaced out during his crush's rant, which probably wasn't placing him in Katsuki's good books. "Sorry, what was that, Kacchan?"

He laughed and dodged the thrown marker, getting up and moving towards the blonde. He leaned over Katsuki's shoulder to look at 'The Map' (dubbed and titled by everyone in their agency), scarred hands landing on either side of the blonde.

Izuku frowned, emerald eyes looking over the chaotic mess before him. As much as he wanted to understand it, it was hard to when it looked like a child's very creative illustration. Or one of Kaminari's attempts at drawing something at charades after downing a whole bottle of tequila.

Katsuki elbowed him in the stomach. "Fucker, this ain't shitty."

Wheezing from the attack, Izuku leaned closer and rested his chin on Katsuki's shoulder, trying to revive his lungs. He didn't even notice the flush on his partner's face, nor did he see the tips of Katsuki's ears reddening.

Not that seeing it would've prepared Izuku for the up-and-close view of crimson pools of fire turn to him. Nor would it have prepared him from realizing just how close he was to his lifelong crush.

Katsuki clicked his tongue, and Izuku wanted to scold himself for how his eyes had wandered immediately to those lips. "Just look over here, idiot. Since your shitty brain can't understand my fucking genius."

With his heart still debating on whether to keep going or not, Izuku pouted and tried for a nonchalant tone in his voice. "'M not an idiot, Kacchan."

"Uh-huh," Katsuki turned away and patted the greennette's warm cheek, already opening up the laptop. "Keep telling yourself that, 'Zuku."

Well, that was unfair. Completely, utterly unfair of him. That simple gesture of skinship and the smooth slip of the nickname that came out of nowhere a few years ago was unfair.

It was unfair how much Izuku would stumble and barely function with every one of Katsuki's action when his crush barely batted his eyes when the greennette would try for hand-holding or cuddles.

Un-fair.

The blonde's fingers flew across the keyboard, too fast for Izuku to understand or muster a comment about. With a few clicks, Katsuki drew closer to the screen, the greennette following close.

Izuku saw dots– locations of various cases handled by hero agencies in the aftermath of the war– pop up one by one on a nationwide map of Japan. He looked as the dots changed color per timeframe and as lines were drawn.

They were spreading across every corner of Japan. The lines connected cases seemingly different and isolated but showed buried links. A kidnapper in Saga turning out to be the best man of a black-market arms dealer in Kobe. A smuggler in Kochi was married to a minor villain gang boss in Mito.

By the end, as the last dot and line were drawn, Izuku's blood ran cold. Scarred hands gripped at the table, whole body tense. There was something wrong with the maps.

Nothing made sense, even as he cycled through the case files he'd drilled into his head since Katsuki started this up several months ago. Even Izuku, with his mouth and mind constantly running, stopped.

"Kacchan..."

Katsuki shut the screen, lips pressed into a thin line. "They– I don't know who or what are moving and spreading like goddamn insects. There isn't a single shitty pattern in anything, other than they're fucking everywhere."

His hands clenched into fists, beside scarred ones. He wanted to blow something up. Katsuki wanted to punch the living daylights out of someone– he didn't know who, just that he wanted to feel the satisfying crunch of flesh and bone under in his knuckles.

Izuku pressed closer, and the impulse went away. Katsuki stuttered out a breath, fists unclenching. His fingers splayed out on the mess of papers and maps, just shy away from scarred ones.

It would only take a nudge from either of them—a simple movement to the right for blistered palms to envelope scarred ones. Just a few inches left before Katsuki's fingers could trace each white raised line.

"It's okay, Kacchan. We can figure this out. Together."

Katsuki wanted to bring those scarred hands and place them on his chest, offering everything he could– to wrench out his heart and know that every beat sang Izuku's name.

Deku. Deku. Deku.

Because this was his partner– the one he trusted to cover his back. Midoriya Izuku was the one he trusted the most in the world to hold him in nights when bare feet padded on the floor, eyes sunken. The one who shared the demons and tormenters of the dark that came with the shadows of light they held high.

With every light came darkness. Every life saved came a life lost. Every thank you came I'm sorry. Every walk home came a funeral march.

Katsuki grunted and moved his hands away, turning to flick Izuku's forehead. "Of-fucking-course we can, nerd."

Izuku smiled, and the blonde allowed himself to succumb and drown in the well of vulnerability he always found in emerald eyes and freckled constellations.

A tendril of regret tugged on his heart, palms tingling for the lack of contact it craved. Katsuki pushed it down, just as he always had.

Not yet. I've got all the time in the world. This isn't the time just yet.

.

.

.

He should've held Izuku's hand.

Technically this is chapter 1 pt.1 ch1 got too long so i needed to chop it off

The style's a bit different from my other works cuz I wanted to see if this was 'it' for me. Well, we'll see lol

If I got you hooked, follow cuz the updates are going to be every week-ish. I'm on Twitter ( _empressvika) too