I lied about the weekly updates.

Also, I depicted gore but in a creative way that you won't feel like vomiting (i hope)

Chapter 2: before my eyes, open yours

The bright lights of Tokyo illuminated the darkest of streets and alleys, neon lights buzzing with life. The capital had always been a beacon in the night– a signal that Japan was alive and kicking.

"Fuck!"

"Kacchan!"

Katsuki let off a blast behind him to minimize the impact as he crashed against one of the digital billboards, cracks appearing on the model's smiling face. Shards of glass dug into his back, and he stifled a groan into the comms. He glared at Stone Face, itching to blast that grin off the villain's stupid face.

"Kacchan! Are you okay?!" Green lightning ran across Izuku's body as he rushed over to Katsuki before a gray blur moved and sent him hurling mid-air.

Katsuki cursed and blasted off to where his partner crashed and skidded across the pavement. Spotting the other two villains gearing up to stop him, he blasted off into the air and placed his hands close. Palms glowed and formed a sphere of light before it went off, the explosive flash blinding them.

It wasn't going to last long, but a few seconds were all he needed anyway.

The blonde went and grabbed the green heap on the ground, blasting away just in time to avoid Shitty Sonic. Izuku groaned and tapped his arm, which Katsuki took to mean that it was fine to throw him up in the air.

Immediately, smoke spread and filled the area, Black Whip wrapping around the blonde's torso, stopping his descent.

Crimson eyes raced from one end of the plaza to the other, honing in on the moving lump of rocks barreling their way through the smoke.

Gotcha.

"Deku! 12 o'clock, now!" He hadn't even finished talking when the black wisps of smoke around him tightened, rearing back before throwing him.

Katsuki didn't need to turn around to know that Izuku could handle Shitty Sonic and their stupidly insane speed. What he did know was that it was satisfying to see Stone Face look at him in terror as the blonde tore through thick smoke, hands glowing to release the explosion.

He managed a few kicks in on the asshole before the smoke dispersed, showing Izuku slugging the other unconscious villain over his shoulder with their wrists already cuffed.

Izuku frowned at him, emerald flitting from Katsuki's smug face to the unconscious villain on the ground. "Kacchan, please tell me you at least cuffed him."

Katsuki snorted and kicked Stone Face over, showing their wrist cuffed to their ankle. "'Course I did, nerd."

The greennette opened his mouth to start on a lecture on the hundred ways that was wrong but thought otherwise. He just shook his head and tapped the comms, a familiar crackle coming to life in their ears.

"Deku. Dynamight. Report?"

"Two villains, a mutant and emitter type quirk-users," Izuku glared at the blonde who was not-so-subtly giving Stone Face some more kicks to the groin. "Dynamight and I are fine, seeing as he can't stop assaulting the subdued villain."

"Fuck you, shitty Deku. Having glass embedded in my fuckin' back ain't a walk in the park, asshole."

"Wha– Why didn't you tell me, Kacchan?!"

"'S not a fuckin' problem, that's why."

"How is it not a problem when you could bleed out?!"

"You tellin' me I don't know my fuckin' limits, ha?"

The comms crackled to life again.

"Heroes, please, have your love quarrel some other time. We got new intel," Tsunagu ignored the curses and sputters, though he was sure the two were red in the face. "The leader's there in Tokyo. We're counting on you two. Hero Shoto and Ingenium will follow as backup."

Emerald met crimson as Izuku rattled off their location for the pickup of the villains. Katsuki huffed and crossed his arms, masking his wince when some of the smaller shards moved on his back. It didn't fucking help that there was a rattling sound with every breath he took in, making it hard to breathe.

He definitely broke something when Stone Face threw him, that's for sure. His black mask was already torn in half from the other villains they passed and subdued.

Katsuki didn't want to think of the ones he had taken a step too far with. The villains that landed wrong after he blasted them away, the ones that ended up in unmoving crumpled heaps as civilians cried in terror, running.

We trust your judgment. Do what needs to be done.

Izuku wasn't faring any better, mouthguard split in half, and the hood of his costume blown off long ago. He walked with a slight limp, something he tried to cover up, but Katsuki wasn't fucking blind to see how his partner ground his teeth.

As Izuku lay the villain on the ground, he turned away, not wanting to see if their unconscious breathing bodies overlapped with broken, unmoving ones. He didn't want to think about the villains that talked too much, their tongues spitting out taunts that made him see red until Katsuki held back his fist dripping with blood.

We trust your judgment. Do what needs to be done.

They were both tired. It was pure adrenaline pushing them to take even a single step forward at this point.

Flashes of fire and sounds of fighting could be heard around them, the Tokyo landscape still gleaming bright and a beacon of life even as lives were lost.

"Let's go, Deku."

They were tired, but they were heroes. Izuku ripped off the broken mouthguard, Katsuki following suit with his mask.

"Let's win, Kacchan."

They were heroes, and heroes took that step forward when it mattered the most.

They were winning.

Izuku's breath was going fast, chest heaving as his lungs struggled to take in even the minuscule slivers of air. In and out, in and out. An action he took for granted became a chore that Izuku was ready to quit on.

He spotted Katsuki spit something red to the side. A tooth, maybe. Izuku's elbow had hit his partner too hard earlier– not by choice– with the infuriating quirk of the villain to pull and push them around like rag dolls.

Playtime didn't last long, with Black Whip eventually wrapped around their necks until their eyes rolled back, and their bodies went slack and off to the world of the unconscious.

Katsuki snarled and stepped forward menacingly, shadows of fire playing into his features. "All right, fucker. You got five seconds to surrender before I blow you to high hell."

Izuku didn't know if he should be proud that the number went up from a negative number since their rookie and sidekick days.

He sighed and turned to the lone figure remaining before them, the last of the leader's lackeys unconscious and cuffed on the ground. Izuku felt a pang of pity when he saw the man– lanky figure, hair flopped on his gaunt face with sunken eyes.

He was trembling.

Izuku took several steps closer, hands– one already rid of a glove– raised placatingly. "Sir? I'm Hero Deku, and this is Dynamight. We're here from intel that you're the leader of the nationwide attack–"

"Deku, what the fuck are you doin–"

"–and we just want to take you and your companions back to the police. Do you," Izuku didn't bring his eyes away from the trembling figure a few feet away from him. Instead, he took a few steps closer. "Do you understand what I'm saying?"

The hung head lifted a fraction, pale eyes flitting to emerald and crimson, before ducking back down. He nodded.

Izuku let out a breath and took another step. Another and he'd only be couple feet away to apprehend the man.

.

"Don't spook him and move fast."

"The fuck?"

Tsunagu sighed, the sound muffled. "Intel was scarce, but our informants who managed to come back were adamant about this. Dynamight, Deku: Do not give him a chance to lift even a single finger."

.

He could see a flash of black, gold, and red at the corner of his eye, inching closer with every step he took. It was reassuring, Izuku thinks, to have someone at his back at all times. To have Bakugou Katsuki at his back.

Even in this hellscape, he couldn't stop the fluttering feeling in his stomach– a sensation he'd already become used to in the years he's loved Katsuki. It's a feeling that comes easier than breathing, something already ingrained in his body as natural as the green of his eyes and the conviction to save.

Without realizing it, loving Katsuki was something natural.

The corner of Izuku's vision seeped with black, but he gritted his teeth and continued onwards. It hurt more to keep his face smoothed over with a smile, with his hands placed up as if it was him who had done wrong.

Just a few more steps.

Izuku lifted his boot to take another, Black Whip already ready to pounce and capture at the ready.

Just one more step.

One more.

One.

More.

.

Pale eyes flashed behind stringy hair, and Izuku saw a yellow-toothed smile stretched so wide– so similar to one belonging to a white-haired manic man.

It reminded him of amputated hands and fingers that spelled destruction at a touch.

The sharp pain in his head came a second too late, the tiny hairs at the back of his neck rising in warning. Danger.

Then something barreled into his side, pushing him out of the way of pale eyes glinting with delight. Izuku's arm burned with pain that ran across the broken planes of muscle and tissue bent wrong. Something sharp dug into his hip, red spreading at an incredible pace too unnatural for a scrape.

But none of that pain mattered, not really.

Izuku raised his head and saw crimson eyes and golden locks where he had stood. He saw a face he had come to know for every day of his life contorted into a scowl he knows can turn into the warmest of smiles.

The villain laughed, the timer on his chest beeped its last, and everything became colorless and devoid of sound.

Devoid of anything but the desperate cry of a hero who had failed to save. The blood-curling scream of a hero who was left trembling, face and body bleeding with scratches as he looked upon the broken body on the ground, crimson bleeding into gold.

Save to win. Win to save.

What a joke.

.

"KACCHAN!"

.

.

.

There were bright lights above him, its unforgiving rays scorching red-rimmed emerald. He tastes the ashy wisp of smoke, fire, and burnt flesh on his tongue, the flavor heavy and wretched. It made him want to reel back and let the curdling waves of nausea crash against his windpipe as it went out onto the crimson pavement.

Izuku tried to move, but he remained frozen, tears falling upon molten gold and charred rubies thrown into the fire.

He couldn't look down. He couldn't move his arms from how they wrapped and clung to charred fabric and skin. Izuku doesn't know if his tears reached the ground that continued to pool with liquid ambrosia– an unending flow of life in and out.

He couldn't do anything.

Izuku could only look up at the bright lights that descended upon him, shadows coming and giving reprieve from its harshness. He couldn't hear anything, and he thinks of the drops of ruby that dried like flakes on his ears.

He couldn't do anything again.

His eyelids felt heavy, every blink a concerted effort to keep the cycle going. Close, open. Close, open. Light, shadow. Light, shadow. He had to keep going.

Fingers wrapped around wrists torn at the skin and bone, the sinews stretched and exposed like a stray thread. Izuku's eyes blinked for every beat he felt under his bloody fingertips. His lungs took in air and breathed for every twitch blistered fingertips would do, the gloves long gone.

Something comes between Izuku and the bright lights. Shadows bigger than the brief reprieves he'd had covered the assault on cracked orbs that spilled waterfalls. The whirring of wind was stronger, and he breathed in relief when the taste on his tongue got whisked away.

Izuku felt his world shift, the rocking motions making him tighten his hold on the body half-strewn across his own. His mouth contorted into a snarl, and words spilled. Whether they were coherent or audible, he didn't know.

All he knew was the weakening heartbeat against blood-caked fingers and the warmth he'd known all his life slipping and feeding the land.

He couldn't do anything but hold his crumbling world, tears falling into the cracks to mend and heal them.

The shadows moved faster. Or was it Izuku who moved slower? He wasn't sure. Emerald burned as green lightning flashed and crawled its way across his wrecked body and mind. He couldn't let these shadows interfere. He couldn't let them take his everythi–

Something sharp goes at the back of his neck, and the light goes out, the shadows going with it.

Izuku opens emerald and closes it.

This time they don't open again.

Time passes and halts for Izuku.

When he gets to the hospital, and bright lights again greet him like an old friend, he screams. IV lines and machines surrounding him ended up crushed in heaps as they were thrown to white walls.

Red splatters litter the pristine white, and Izuku's knees buckle. Not from the hordes of people that entered, holding him down.

He buckles from visions where scarred arms– now clean, too clean– were elbow-deep in blood, flesh, and heartbeats. The nightmare– no, the memories come, and his eyes roll back as lungs that breathed in ash and death heaved.

"KACCHAN! KACCHAN! KACCHA–"

Something sharp comes again. The feeling mocked Izuku as his body struggled. Not again, he thinks. His lids fall heavy, his mouth going slack with a tongue that fails him in the end.

He didn't even finish the name.

White turns to black, and time whisks him away once more.

Sometimes Izuku sees glimpses of red and white, soft brown, dark blues, and deep greens.

He never sees them for long before phantom hands– hands familiar, warm, and alive grab his. Izuku sees crimson and a cocky grin, and he follows, loving the heartbeat he feels under his palm.

He sees these glimpses trying to talk to him, to pull him away from that warmth, and he wonders.

Why should he let go?

There's a deep rumble that reverberates– one that had always given him warmth– and Izuku laughs as time whisks him away from memories of liquid ambrosia and burning flesh that wasn't his.

"Hey," A soft voice accompanied the warm hands carding through his hair. "There he is."

Izuku groaned, eyes shut and wincing at the light assaulting his eyelids. He hears some shuffling, and the light goes away. He sighed, and slowly, emerald eyes opened with lids crusted from disuse.

The blob before him was unrecognizable until his eyes adjusted, revealing shining brown eyes on the brink of tears.

"O–ch–" He coughed, throat too dry to utter another syllable. Immediately a straw was guided into his mouth, the refreshing feel of water sobering him as he drank.

"Th–ank you, Sh–outo."

"It was no problem, Izuku."

Soft, warm hands run through his hair again, and he looks up at one of his dearest friends. Izuku tried for a smile, and it must've been something similar because Uraraka cracked a smile of her own.

"You with us now, Izu?"

Izuku frowned, "How long was I out?"

Her smile slipped, concern creeping upon the relief on her face. She exchanged looks with Shouto and the others, biting her lip. "Izu... how much do you remember exactly?"

"What do you me–"

Then the memories come at him, and the constant hammering in his head since he woke finally broke through the wall his unconscious had built. To forget or to protect, he wasn't sure.

The beeping of the monitor that looms over him like a twisted guardian angel gives away his panic. The once monotonous sound shifted into a cacophony of beeps that made him remember a similar sound.

He had heard it then when he faced the villain. Izuku had picked up on the soft beeps, but exhaustion led him to be careless and keep moving forward.

He heard it, yet he still kept walking, and Katsuki had trusted and kept following.

Someone was holding his hands, another gripping his shoulders. Voices merged into one and many that Izuku couldn't process or separate.

"Izu, just breathe, okay?"

"Midoriya, you need to calm down."

"Izuku, pleas–"

"Kacch–," His voice broke and croaked from prolonged disuse, so he tried again. "Ka–chan. Kacch...an."

Izuku's voice was lost to the storm of stronger ones around him, trapping him in the middle of a cyclone. They would tear anything to shreds anything that came near him, but so too would they tear him to shreds.

He's faced worse.

"WHERE'S KACCHAN?!"

All four of them flinched, but Izuku couldn't find it in himself to feel guilty for raising his voice. But his words were strong and true, even as the effort rattled his lungs and stung his throat.

For what was pain but a price he had always paid?

Emerald burned, lids heavy but open as they flitted from green to blue to brown. No one was meeting his eyes. He didn't even notice when his friends had taken a step away from him, not until he couldn't feel Uraraka's hands running through his hair anymore.

Betrayal was an ugly poison he dipped his tongue in, the drops fueling the burning anger in his chest like gasoline to a fire. It was quick, fast, and vicious. Just as Izuku had always been when it came to his everything– to his world, his sun that hung the stars in the sky.

To his symbol of victory.

The power that slumbered in him reared its head and flapped its wings, each beat making green lightning crackle and his body glow. Rationality was something of the past, his lips turning into a snarl.

Izuku looked feral and dangerous.

So they did what they were told before they were ushered in by the doctors and nurses. Iida and Asui moved quick, the latter binding Izuku's legs and the dark-haired man pressing Izuku's arms against his back. Uraraka had rushed out to call the nurse, Shouto already before Izuku with a syringe in hand.

"No, no, no–"

"Sleep, Izuku."

"NO, TELL ME WHAT HAPPENED TO KACCHA–"

Sharp pain comes, and he could do nothing more than be ushered back to the cyclone's embrace.

The man grinned, yellowing teeth matching his fraying clothes and the battered chair he sat on. Stringy hair was tied up into a small half-bun, showing a gaunt face and sunken, pale eyes.

"It's been almost a decade since the glorious war of our messiah, Shigaraki Tomura, wrecked and stripped this corrupt society's golden image. It seemed only yesterday when he rallied us into the cause of absolute liberation!"

The man's grin slipped into a frown, features contorted into a simmering fury that would– that had set buildings and cities ablaze.

"It's been a decade since the false prophets and heroes," He spat with disgust as if the word had been a blasphemous one. "Stepped over our beliefs of a better and equal society by throwing him into the depths of Tartarus!"

"They told us things would change, and for a moment, we thought it did, didn't we? We saw them take down hero rankings, side-jobs prohibited, and heroes' salaries placed on par with other public safety officers."

The man chuckled and ran blistered hands through his hair, stringy strands coming loose. "I, too, thought there was finally change. That the us that society wrongfully branded as villains would finally be accepted with open arms!"

Images popped up on the screen, their contents varying but carrying a single theme: villains being captured or killed. Some showed delinquent students shoved down onto concrete and cuffed. Some were 'villains' in their pajamas, dragged out of their homes screaming for their families.

The man opened his arms, gesturing to images that continued popping up in endless series. "Is this change, heroes? Is this acceptance? You still brand us, budding and former, as villains– as the dirt at the bottom of your designer shoes that you bought with our bloo–

.

Izuku set down the remote softly on the bedside table, the dark room falling into the silence broken only by machines.

He laughed and scratched his head. "Sorry about that, Kacchan. I'll talk to the nurses later. Knowing you, you'd have probably jumped their station and screamed something like–"

Get that shitty thing outta my room, got it? I don't want to make myself any fucking sicker, you pieces of shit!

He turned to the bed, half-expecting a pair of glaring crimson eyes and a cocky grin to greet him. Izuku's lips turned up at the corners as he sat on the chair by the bed. His chair, the nurses and doctors dubbed it. Even when someone came in to clean up, they'd always place the chair back.

Out of pity, maybe.

Izuku spotted new flowers on the vase, fingers gently caressing the tiny petals of the chrysanthemum. They weren't there earlier.

"Oh, it must've been your mother. Or maybe Eijirou-kun?" He hummed and pulled away, fingers snagging a couple of petals to join the rest that had already started pooling on the table. "You never liked these types of flowers, though. Thought they were too delicate and shed too easily."

If they're gonna be all weak and shit, weed would be better! At least those motherfuckers never die.

Emerald eyes lingered on the changing colors of the flowers bathed in the thin slips of moonlight through the blinds of the room. Izuku wanted the window left open and to have a delicate curtain cover it instead of the blinds.

He needs a sterile environment. I'm sorry, Deku-san.

The monitor continued beeping, with machines of all sizes and kinds whirring. Tubes and wires connected these lifeless creations of man to their creator.

Izuku hummed a tune unbeknownst to anyone but himself. It was off-tune; some notes were sung too high and too low. But he kept at it as he smoothed out the wrinkles on the pristine white sheets.

"Sorry if I visited you late, Kacchan," He picks at a lint and flicks it off. "It took a while before they allowed me to come over."

Took you fucking long enough, 'Zuku. Thought I was gonna grow white hairs waiting for your ass, nerd.

Izuku chuckled, ignoring how the sound went out forced and broke off at the end.

The room was still dark, and he knew he could've flicked on the lights once he entered. The nurses even told him it was good for Katsuki. Some stuff about how even the barest hints of visual stimuli would be good.

He smoothed out the pillows where slips of moonlight had converged, drawn to molten gold that mimicked the sun's grace. His eyes roved away before they reached familiar planes, landing instead on the bars of the bed.

"Kacchan, did you know?" The monitor continued beeping, and Izuku thinks it answered him. "They found out about the plans after interrogating parts of his close circle. Ah, I think you called them Stone Face and... Shitty Sonic?"

Fucker broke my goddamn ribs and annoyed me more than one of those shitty bugs that flew too fast. 'Course I remember.

Izuku hummed and fiddled with the metal bars, nails scraping against the paint uselessly. "Well, they finally spilled everything about their operation. But, of course, it wouldn't have been possible if it wasn't for Hitoshi– Ah, don't call him that, Kacchan! He was an excellent help!"

I can call him whatever the fuck I want, Deku. He's a Mind Fucker, so what else am I gonna call him, ha?

He shook his head, and his eyes drew back to the closed-off television screen. Izuku remembered pale eyes looking back at him and dug his nails into his palm, the sting grounding him away from the sea of black.

So emerald pulled away and back to the bed, a new kind of burning making its way to them as they surveyed the state of the body.

Almost every part of Katsuki was wrapped in bandages, and Izuku would've laughed at the similarity to a mummy if the humor was shared.

It wasn't.

Izuku wasn't naive. Nor was he blind nor deaf to the pitying looks and gossips splattered on tabloids and in nurse stations when he passed.

The life support machine beeped and whirred again, and for a second, a familiar ember sparked in him. One he hadn't felt since the war– not since Shigaraki had released spears into his world.

Hate.

That slip down the hillside was quick and fast, phantom red wrapping around his eyes as it urged him to move. To wreck that machine that mocked him with every visit in the room, its beeps and whirrs reminding him of what had been lost.

And all the same, Izuku's reminded of what more could be lost if the power went out for even a minute long.

When the doctors and his friends asked him what he remembered, he gives them an edited version. He tells them he only remembers the villain leader, the bomb counting down, and waking up in the hospital.

Izuku doesn't tell them how he remembers everything.

Every moment he spent crawling despite the pieces of shrapnel that dug into his body, the spears of pain unfelt as silent and loud cries spilled from his lips. He remembered his scarred hands bathing in liquid ruby, fingers searching and searching for what was left.

He remembered the cry of relief when he gathered up the bigger pieces in his arms. Wisps of black smoke strung them together even when the lady of darkness threatened to pull him under.

Izuku remembered when his own heart wouldn't beat until Katsuki's own came back, weak but there. So when he kept asking his friends, coworkers, doctors, and nurses about his partner, he wasn't asking if Katsuki was okay.

He wanted to know if Katsuki's heart was still beating. If his chest, the one he saw caved in, moved as it should. He wanted to know if the minutes and hours spent piecing the love of his life back together had helped.

His hands shook in his lap until he realized it was his whole body that trembled.

Ha? What's with the shaking, shitty Deku? You fucking scared or something?

"Kacchan," A sob rang out, a sound this room cloaked in darkness had already witnessed. Liquid salt fell upon white sheets and white tiles, the room soaking it up with eagerness to feed. It fed upon his tears, his cries, and the life and warmth of his world.

"Kacchan, I'm scared."

He was scared of everything and nothing happening. He'd been scared since they'd stopped shooting poison moonlight into his veins that dragged him into depths once a paradise.

Midoriya Izuku was afraid of losing the love of his life.

"Please, please," Scarred hands reached for rough hands that had always reached back with a force and power unique on their own. "Kacchan, please."

Fingers intertwined with bandaged ones, one squeezing, the other lax and unmoving. Emerald finally looked upon Katsuki's face, and threads tying his heart together snapped, pieces of red falling, falling, falling.

Because Bakugou Katsuki looked like he was simply sleeping, delicate blonde lashes resting against the high planes of cheeks Izuku had always wanted to caress. Blonde locks, regularly washed by weary parents, splayed out onto moonlit-touched pillows, molten gold turning into immaculate platinum.

His fingers tightened their hold on bandaged ones, afraid of what might happen if Izuku let go.

"Kacchan." He wanted to run his fingers through the hair he knew stuck up during early mornings, one side matted flat.

"Kacchan." Izuku wanted to stroke and plant soft kisses on every part of his world, each touch a promise of protection, love, and devotion for as long it was welcomed.

"Ka–"

He choked, the name lodging in his throat. The blockage grew and magnified until it rested in his chest and gut, no longer able to get up on its wobbly legs to get out.

Izuku had been saying his name– the name that tied them together from days of innocence, hurt, misunderstandings, friendship, and comradery– like a prayer.

Even in dreams, he uttered it to the darkness that greeted him before the nightmares or false happiness came.

He swallowed around the lump, still looking upon closed crimson. Then, with a trembling hand, he cups Katsuki's face, bringing his forehead down to hover above the blonde's.

Rain fell upon planes of frozen fire, dew catching onto lashes before following its brethren.

Stop crying, shitty 'Zuku. You're gonna get snot all over me, nerd.

Izuku laughed, breath a lover's whisper unheard. "Tell me that then, Kacchan. Wake up, you idiot, and tell me to stop crying."

Soft droplets turned into torrents that washed away the dust of death that covered Katsuki. His mouth lay silent of expletives, covered instead with masks, tubes, and wires that sustained him.

"Please," Izuku closed his eyes, focusing on the heartbeat under his fingers caressing the bandaged wrist. He focused on the thrum of heat and blood rushing through cheekbones scarred fingers caressed.

"Please wake up, Kacchan."

.

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I love you.

Mhm, yeah. sorry if there was mix-up with the british and american spellings. English is hard.

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