Alright! Back with a new chapter (if a short one). This was inspired by wolfsrainrules, because she asked me what Izuku's and Katsuki's first flight was gonna be like and I (foolishly) admitted I hadn't considered it and ... well. Here we are. Hope you enjoy it! Feel free to listen to either Romantic Flight or Flying Theme from the HTTYD movie while reading, because that's what I wrote this to (that and Patrik Pietschmann's piano cover of Oogway Ascends because it's perfect for quiet, meditative scenes).

Review Response: Dear Guest, hi! Well thank you, and of course he survives! Wouldn't be much of a story if he didn't. I don't think the series has ever clarified if mutant type quirks are always born that way or not, so I assume it varies depending on individual. I know that Mic was born with his loud voice quirk, but Kirishima developed it later and both of those quirks have physical aspects to them so... yeah. Not sure which is more horrifying to think about, honestly. Probably the "get it later" one because ouch.

Dear Guest, hello there! (Dragon!Deku happily cuddles back with purring while Katsuki just scowls a quiet, blushing scowl). Glad you enjoyed!

Author's Note: So. Still working on the other stories (hi Trypticon, please go away AoT titans) and I'm declaring Ballad officially stuck for the moment (I'll keep working on it I promise). But in the meantime, have a nice fluffy interlude to pick up your day!

Interlude: First Flight

(Takes place around the age of ten)

.

"Deku." Izuku's ears swiveled in the direction of his friend's voice and he raised his head with a questioning noise. Kacchan was leaning against Izuku's side, both of them relaxing on the grass in the park after another successful improvised obstacle course for Izuku's flying training. The blond looked thoughtfully from Izuku to the sky, then down at the grass with an almost shy cant to his shoulders, "What's it like? Flying, I mean." Kacchan's voice as he asked was a little too loud for how subdued he sounded —after the incident with Kacchan's quirk and another kid's prank had required a trip to the doctor, Kacchan's ability to regulate his volume had been iffy. They were still waiting for Kacchan's hearing aids to be made—.

Izuku tilted his head and considered the question. How did someone describe what it was like to fly? Izuku chuffed and rattle-tapped his claws on the ground in the signs they'd been learning off and on so Izuku didn't need his vocoder all the time —though they'd been a lot more serious about studying it since Kacchan's Incident—, "It's amazing. And beautiful. And freeing. It's exciting to fly fast, but when I'm up high and flying slow I just feel … quiet."

"Quiet, huh?" Kacchan looked up from Izuku's claws and stared at the clouds instead. There was a flash of curiosity and longing on his friend's face, so deep and aching that it made Izuku hurt inside. Izuku was standing before he could think better of it, excited warbles spilling from his throat as he bounded around in circles, trying to convey his thoughts without his vocoder —they'd left it at home, it was just so uncomfortable and Kacchan was so good at understanding him anyway—.

Kacchan watched him in confusion until Izuku stopped and gestured emphatically from Kacchan to his back, even going so far as to gently grab Kacchan's wrist in his toothless jaws and drag it over to rest on Izuku's oversized shirt. Kacchan stared, red eyes going wide as he breathed, "You … you want to take me flying? You want me to ride you? Is that- is that okay-?"

Izuku cooed, yes-yes-for-you-for-you as he nodded so hard his ears flapped and then huddled low on the ground so that Kacchan would be able to clamber on —Izuku was getting taller every year and his shoulder was at Kacchan's eye level when they were both standing—. Kacchan hesitated, then carefully gripped the back of Izuku's shirt and heaved himself onto his friend's back. There was much yelping and cursing as Kacchan tried to crawl past Izuku's wings and get settled on Izuku's shoulders, but once he was finally there, he gripped Izuku's shirt tight, clamped his legs-.

And promptly tumbled straight off Izuku's back when the latter launched into the air too fast and the fabric of his shirt gave way under the conflict of Kacchan's weight and death grip versus Izuku's speed and sudden altitude.

Clearly, some forethought and strategy were required for this project.

The next two weeks saw Izuku and Kacchan huddled in Izuku's bedroom, clumsily sketching out ideas and figuring out how much allowance it would take to get something strong enough to work as a harness —without telling their parents because they could just imagine how badly they would react—. Leather was out of the question. The real stuff was far too expensive and hard to work with, and neither of them could sew to save their lives.

In the end they settled for sneakily collecting metal clips and nylon rope from various malls and hardware stores when their parents weren't looking. After many, many internet searches that ranged from "rope harness" and "diy night fury harness" to "pro hero rescue 101 how to rig a harness for a victim" and just as many failed attempts to tie and buckle everything properly —Kacchan had bruises on his back from how often he fell off Izuku's back while testing their harness on the park jungle gym—, they had their safety harness.

They snuck out to try it one early Saturday morning. So early the sun was only just coming up and there was still a bit of mist everywhere from the previous day's rain. They had no saddle, so the harness was tied over Izuku's shirt, under his belly and then around his chest and his shoulders before looping up to tie around Kacchan in a similar manner to keep Kacchan from falling off. They had also taken the biggest dog collar they could find and buckled it around Izuku's neck on its loosest hole so that Kacchan had something to hold on to that wasn't an easily ripped All Might shirt.

They had figured out that starting from flat ground was a bad idea. The sudden leap upward kept knocking Kacchan loose and if the harness didn't fail and dump him on the ground, Izuku then had to deal with flying despite Kacchan's weight sliding all over his back and wings. Starting from too shallow of a height, like the jungle gym, caused problems as well, because it took too much flapping to stay airborne and build momentum with Kacchan's extra weight. The jolting motion of trying —and failing— had dislodged Kacchan several times during their tests.

So instead, they snuck up to the very top of Izuku's apartment complex —picking the lock of the fire escape that led to the roof on the way because Kacchan was slowly learning vast array of maybe illegal life skills in his quest to be the most prepared person ever—.

The apartment wasn't the tallest building in the neighborhood, but it was a good six-seven stories tall counting the ground floor and it was the most easily accessible one for them to reach without being noticed. Besides, Izuku figured he that would be plenty extra height to get a good head start on flying, since really all he needed was enough clearance to get a running start with Kacchan's extra weight on his back —which they'd been acclimating to by having Kacchan ride on his back as he ran around the backyard—.

Once they were finally on the roof, Kacchan on his back and rope harness triple-checked —it wouldn't fail this time they'd tested this setup repeatedly— … they both hesitated. It was … it was a long way down from the top of the apartment building, and while Izuku had flown higher than that when practicing and playing, he'd never done it with a passenger —never done any real flying with a passenger, the test glides in the park didn't count and oh maybe this was a terrible idea—. He'd also never started off from this height, always gradually climbed higher and higher from a ground or near-ground position.

Kacchan's fingers felt almost chilly against his scales, knuckles digging into the collar they'd wrapped around his neck in place of his vocoder so that Kacchan had something to hold onto. Izuku could feel Kacchan's hands shaking slightly against his neck and, for a moment, Izuku thought about asking if Kacchan wanted to just turn around and go back inside. Forget all about going on a flight.

Then Kacchan's hands tightened even further and his friend shifted to hunch low over Izuku's neck, feet pressed tight in the makeshift rope loops that served as stirrups. Izuku took a deep breath, smelled Kacchan's flickers of fear-desire-determination in the chill morning air, and braced his feet to run. "Hold on," warbled Izuku softly, a deep croon that only the two of them could understand.

Izuku breathed deep. Took off at a sprint before either of them could think better of it. The edge of the roof rushed closer-closer-closer- and in that split second Izuku was half in the air, half on the ground with his back paws and tail still touching concrete, the world crystalized, focused, burned with fear-doubt-stop-stop-stop-that screamed at Izuku's senses the same way his race toward the villain to save Kacchan should have but hadn't. His wings faltered, tightened against his sides in a gut-wrenchingly human reaction to doing something so utterly stupid and dangerous.

The ground rushed at them and Kacchan screamed, high and terrified as the moment passed and they were falling-.

The thing in Izuku's head that he didn't like to acknowledge, the part that wasn't human but was night fury and wild and dragon took over and his wings snapped open, spread to the limit of his burning muscles to catch the wind as Izuku's back bent away from the ground and toward the sky Kacchan wanted so badly to experience for himself.

Two flaps to recover, a rattle of leaves as Izuku's legs brushed the tops of the trees lining the street, and they were off, rushing down the street at a breakneck speed while Kacchan huddled against his back and the rope harness pulled almost painfully tight against Izuku's chest. Over the snap of the wind and the yelp of surprised early morning risers down below, Izuku could hear his best friend's breath coming quick and fast, pants of fear and adrenaline rather than joy. With a soft croon that was more to himself than anyone, Izuku began angling upward. Kacchan had wanted to know the joy of the sky, not its terror, and Izuku was going to show him that.

It was the least he could do for his hero. His best friend.

.

.

.

.

Everything was too fast, too bright. A dash of colors and adrenaline and muffled sound that probably would have been thunder in his ears if his ears hadn't been- well- damaged. Katsuki clung to the collar and the rope harness with all his strength. Too terrified to scream again, too terrified to do more than cling and shake and pray as Izuku caught himself and the world became a rush of wind and blurring motion in Katsuki's peripheral vision.

Oh he shouldn't have asked for this. Why had he asked for this, he didn't have wings he belonged on the f*ing ground not up here where everything was terrifying and he wanted down he wanted his mom-dad-someone-Deku-help-Deku-.

"Kacchan." Not words, not anything he could hear. A vibration in his fingers and legs that went to his very bones, one he only knew from years spent listening and memorizing, even before that accident at school had turned the world's sounds into a jumbled mess of underwater mumbling and far-off blurry echoes. Katsuki opened his eyes on instinct —because he needed to see Deku to understand him, even more so now than before—. Deku's ear flaps brushed his downturned face, and the rumble shifted in Katsuki's bones, "Look. Kacchan, look."

Katsuki didn't want to look, but he'd literally asked for this, he had agreed to this idea and he wasn't a coward so he had at least look before asking Deku to take him back down to the safety of the ground.

He looked up.

And stopped breathing.

They were much, much higher up than the apartment building, easily as high as some of the super high rises in the main city. Everything around them was pale blue and ripples of orange-pink-purple as the sun finally cleared the horizon but was still low enough to set the clouds on fire. The air was cold against his face as it tugged his hair and clothes and everything he knew —the park, the school, the streets, the city— was laid out below him like someone had taken a giant carpet of a map and unrolled it at his feet.

He finally sucked in a breath of cold-cold air as he looked all around and realized- realized-.

The world was so quiet.

Not in the frustrating way it had been the last week or so, where there was noise and he knew there was noise but couldn't make it out no matter how hard he tried unless the noise was horribly loud. Not in the way it was at night when he lay awake staring at the ceiling, trying not to be eaten alive by the monstrous, nightmarish guilt squirming in his guts after waking up from another dream of That Day.

This was a good quiet. This was the quiet of the wind tugging all his nightmares away. This was the quiet of the world as it breathed and whispered, "Look. Look at me. Look at all that I am and will be," in a way that only people touching the sky could understand or hear no matter how deaf they now were to human words and ordinary sounds. This was the quiet of being alive in a moment so bright and crystal perfect nothing could catch it even as his stomach swooped in joy and fear both before fear was snatched away by the chilly kiss of the wind and there was only wonder left behind.

This was the quiet of opening his eyes and realizing he was free.

Katsuki's fingers slowly unwound from Deku's collar, shakily slid free and reached up with one hand into the open air. The wind batted at his fingers, made his hand bob softly up and down to the occasional beat of Deku's wings. Deku drifted even higher, his wings knifing through a herd of wispy clouds and Katsuki felt rather than heard the breathless laugh that bubbled from his own throat as his outstretched fingers slid through the tail of the clouds. I'm touching the sky.

He looked up and around, his other arm slowly rising to let the wind bat it gently back and forth, I'm touching the sky, whispered through his mind again, so soft he almost couldn't hear his own thoughts.

He was touching the sky.

His chest hitched slightly, reverent in the quiet of the sky as he tilted his head back and filled his lungs with the chilly, echoing, all-accepting quiet. For a moment, everything disappeared. His guilt, his anger, his parent's worry as they talked about his hearing aids at just the wrong tone for him to actually understand what they were saying beyond the general topic. Everything was just … gone. Far away and far below, lost somewhere amid the tiny trees and little grids of buildings as Deku drifted higher and higher into the hush.

Katsuki felt like laughing. He felt like crying. He felt like screaming his wonder-joy-awe into the sky because he knew the wind would snatch it away in an instant and restore the quiet that made him feel like he was floating and untouchable.

Then he lowered his hands back to Deku's collar, wrapped his fingers firmly around it as he pushed his feet deeper into the rope loop stirrups and lowered himself over Deku's neck like Hiccup always did with Toothless, "Show me more," he whisper-shouted to his best friend, "I want to fly, Deku, let's fly."

Deku's body vibrated with a joyous noise of victory and the occasional thump of his wings shifted to a blur of motion as they surged forward, up and over and around and then down-down-down so fast Katsuki could barely see past his squinting eyelids or feel his face past the bite of the wind. Melding to Deku's rhythm, to the lean and tilt and bob of the black-green scales beneath him was like learning to breathe again, necessary and exhilarating and so, so natural once he figured it out. Once he figured out how far to lean to stay balanced when Deku banked, when to throw his weight back against the makeshift stirrups and the collar when Deku dived and then pulled up again. When to lean and compensate and when to just press so close to his friend's back that he could feel his friend's massive heartbeat pounding through his own ribcage like a second pulse.

Even without any of the fancy tricks they'd seen in the movies, even though they only stuck to simple things like relatively shallow dives and long turns, it was terrifying and dangerous and so, so reckless for a pair of ten year olds who'd never flown before to do.

It was so worth it as morning bled to afternoon and the sun warmed the wind from biting cold to just refreshingly chilly and they were still flying. It was worth it when they finally circled back to Deku's apartment hours and hours later, well past breakfast and easily past lunchtime, and bumbled to a clumsy landing on the roof that probably everyone and their grandmother could hear. It was worth it when Katsuki tumbled off Deku's back, every muscle in his body —many of which he hadn't known existed until then— screamingly stiff and so in pain that all he could do was flop onto the hot concrete of the apartment roof next to Deku and laugh at the sky that he had just flown through. That he had just touched with his bare hands.

It was even worth it when Inko found them a few minutes later and dragged them inside, spouting a tearful lecture that Katsuki couldn't make out but was probably filled with demands for them to leave a note next time —or never do it again— and dire warnings of groundings and calling Katsuki's parents so Deku and he could be lectured twice.

He looked over at Deku at some point in the lecture that was still going on even as Inko stuffed them with a large lunch to make up for their skipped breakfast and saw the same knowledge that beat in his heart reflected in his friend's massive, gummy smile.

They were doing that again. They were going to do it again and again for as long as Deku could fly and Katsuki could cling to Deku's back. They were going to keep reaching out and touching the sky. It was a promise.

.

.

.

.

He didn't know that the real reason Izuku smiled so broadly and promised to passionately with just his eyes was that Katsuki was smiling, well and truly smiling for the first time in years. Guiltless and free for the first time since Izuku had become a night fury and Izuku was willing to do anything to see that smile stay.

That smile was also the reason Inko's lecture trailed off and, after a very long talk with Mitsuki and Masaru, they pooled their money together and got the boys a joint present of a custom leather saddle and safety harness a few months later on the condition that Katsuki and Izuku never get too reckless with their flying or leave the perimeter of Musutafu even when in the air.

The promise to not be reckless lasted only as long as it took to be unsupervised in the air, but that was alright, Katsuki knew how to catch himself with his quirk until Izuku could catch him —which he always did, always did and always would—.

.

.

.

.

Years later, Hitoshi Shinsō would shyly admire his friends' expert acrobatics in the air and then stare in astonishment when they offered to teach him how to fly on Izuku's back too. He would put on the harness that Katsuki no longer needed and hardly ever wore and cling frantically to Katsuki's waist as his friends hurtled into the early evening sky for his first flight. He would quietly cry as he opened his eyes and reached out and touched the sky with the same reverent hands Katsuki had that first time years ago, spend hours being taught how to lean and shift with every wingbeat and then breathlessly curse his laughing friends when he sprawled on the ground beneath a now star-studded sky and ached with every fiber of his being. Swear to never be that dumb again.

At least until he could walk in a straight line without limping once more and his friends offered him another chance to fly and he all but threw himself into the safety harness so he could reach up and touch the sky and listen to the quiet again. And again. And again until he didn't need the safety harness either, just trusted his body and his friend to know what to do, trusted to be caught when he willingly slid off the saddle and plummeted toward the ground far-far-far below while Katsuki and Deku chased after him and laughed for joy.