Inspired by Mourning by SilentJo.
Hiii,
if you follow me on any of my other stories that's updated, then you already know I was computer-less for over a month during Winter Break so my entire writing calendar is in shambles :( I'm balancing out catching up on work and reassembling this AO3 into a semblance of consistency, thank you for your support and patience.
This chapter has been in the work for months and it kept growing and growing, tbh I'm not sure how I feel about it but it's as edited as it's going to get. I shall gladly received any feedback you have to offer.
I am sorry for the delay, but better late than never, enjoy, the second part for Behind Closed Doors!
Mirio has to travel very far to meet Gran number one hero can still hear the ambulances pulling away from the scene when he turns around to leave. It feels like walking down the hall late night, like something evil lurks behind you. Mirio wonders at the memories he has made today, and how long they'll live on in his shadow, doggedly following him away from the dark.
"Lemillion!"
Any other day, Mirio would've stopped. It's unconscionable to him to not acknowledge someone calling his name, but this time, his feet keep pulling him forward even as he sinks down into the Earth. He's running away, and he's old enough to call it what it is. There's been something building inside him ever since he walked into that museum, unraveling his focus, stinging with a profound sense of loss he hasn't felt in a really long time.
Intellectually, experience indicates that he'll get past this moment, never losing the smile his mentor taught him to value. But right in this instance, scant hours after witnessing two of his colleagues die, head spinning at the implications and revelations of the afternoon… Mirio knows he needs time.
More than time, he needs answers.
Recovery Girl -who he is most familiar with- will be swamped on a day like this, scurrying on weary bones to bring people back from the edge. This leaves only one option.
Mirio arrives at Gran Torino's apartment after three awkward phonically, finding it at the city's outskirts. The old man leaves in the first floor, and the building has no elevator. The hallway towards his door is long and open, the sun shining right on Mirio's face when he emerges from the staircase. It can't be even four in the afternoon, Mirio feels like this day has lasted forever.
The worst realization arrives when the older hero opens the door, and Mirio sees his puzzlement. Gran Torino doesn't even know yet.
Mirio seems to be breaking this news to too many people, too soon.
"Lemillion," the man acknowledges faintly, thick eyebrows trying to decipher what has the number one hero at this doorstep. Mirio has the inane thought that the man probably doesn't even know his real name. Not that it matters. "Do the police need me for something?"
Recovery Girl or Gran Torino… no one else.
Nothing has really changed since he arrived. Mirio was too late. Bakugou and Izuku are dead. He got handed down Bakugou's quirk. Yet Mirio feels tears prickling the corners of his eyes. He doesn't let them fall; instead, taking off his mask because he cannot bear to deliver his colleagues fates without compassion. (Having to do it over comm had been... Mirio just, doesn't want to ever go through a day like this ever again in his life.)
"I… I'm very sorry to be the one bearing bad news," he begins, "but I was told you're the person I must talk to about… about One For All?"
Mirio thinks he might've been too subtle and that Gran Torino won't understand, Mirio will have to explain to him that Izuku and Bakugou are no longer amongst the living. He's wrong.
The old man's grip on his door tightens almost imperceptibly, and his gaze lands somewhere off to the side, eyes searching the corridor. He sighs and sinks into himself, stepping back stiffly onto his cane. He turns around without a word, but Mirio is fast enough to follow him inside, catching on to the tacit invitation. At the older hero's well-conceived grief, Mirio's own comes blooming to the surface. Kindred, tragic spirits calling out to each other. The images Mirio's brain picked up at the museum tire him out, leaving him a deep gaping hollow at the bottom of his stomach and bubbling burning rising up his throat; he refuses to ask for the toilet despite how unsteady the world feels as he steps on polished linoleum.
Mirio's a hero.
He's seen death and violence before; and he needs to remain strong. He needs to understand what he signed up for.
Gran Torino sits down on a rocking chair in the room to the side of the entrance door, each of his motions slow and pained. In turn, Mirio all but collapses across from him on an overly soft couch, his knee trembling with restless energy. His hip aches and exhaustion has every one of his muscles pounding in protest, squeezing him into the edges of consciousness now that the adrenaline starts wearing off. He feels wired still like he drank too many cups of coffee.
"What happened?"
Deku's missing arm.
Bakugou's last words.
Iida's tears.
Kirishima's rage.
Mirio's training answers for him.
"Today, the League of Villains attacked downtown," Mirio informs. "Heroes Deku and Ground Zero took down three Nomus along with Shigaraki Tomura. I arrived in the aftermath of the battle. Bakugou, fatally injured, gave One For All to me."
Gran Torino seems impassive at the retelling of events right up to the end. His gaze is sharp as it rises to meet Mirio's.
"Bakugou?" he questions, but before Mirio can answer, he continues, shaking his head. "No, the user of One For All has always been Midoriya…" But his thinking is fast-paced, and he goes on, speaking through his realization. "He wasn't alive when you got there."
There's no helping the flashes of Midoriya's corpse that paint themselves behind his lids, but it makes it ten times harder confirming it.
"No, sir."
"So he passed it on to Ground Zero first… those brats. I can't believe they managed to keep One For All alive." His tone is rueful and sad, but there's something alive in his gaze, glassy as it is with unshed tears. Pride. "Okay, Lemillion, I don't know how much you understood before taking it, but know I'm glad you did." The knot sitting in Mirio's chest eases a little, but it still has all of his insides uncomfortably arranged. "One For All is a quirk, and it wasn't Bakugou's -who most likely never wielded it, but rather, it's the quirk you've been seeing from Midoriya all these years. Before being Izuku's though, it belonged to All Might."
Mirio looks down at his hands, quivering and gloved, feeling the floor going out underneath him.
"All Might's... quirk?"
"It's a stockpiling quirk that gets passed on to the next generation. You are its… 11th holder if I'm counting right." Mirio's probably going to ask about all this information again, brain too tired and disconcerted to truly process the magnitude of what he's hearing.
"Midoriya talked about something like that… back when I lost my quirk." He had never consciously recalled this moment before, but the idea of transferring quirks snaps the memory to the forefront of his mind.
"It sounds like something he would do." Gran Torino says somewhat cryptically. "I'm not sure if it matters if I say this, but before Midoriya appeared, you were the favored candidate to succeed Toshinori in wielding One For All. It's almost miraculous that it was you who found… Ground Zero."
There's something odd in the way he says it. Mirio wonders if he'll ever be old enough to be so clear-headed after hearing a colleague or student passed away and be able to get right down to business. Is it cold? Practical? Surely, Gran Torino is going to have a horrible time once Mirio is gone. Mirio is going to have an awful time once he has gone. Both of them are just holding on to this responsibility, burrowing in the mission, but such an excuse won't occupy their minds forever.
Mirio's going to have to process what happened today whether he wants to or not.
"I'm not sure what to do with it," he voices, even when he knows it's a question without an answer.
"You'll figure it out," Gran Torino tells him, a platitude if he's ever heard anything. The older hero pauses, perhaps thinking along the same lines before adding - a lot more resolutely: "heroes always do. And, well, I think by now, I can at least help you have a simpler time of it than your predecessors."
"Thank you for your kindness." Mirio lowers his head.
"... It's the least I can do."
In the following silence, Gran Torino seems to be full of questions for Mirio, and the younger hero can imagine what they are. Details. Gruesome and perhaps comforting, heartwrenching either way. Mirio just... he needs a break from everything right now, and Gran Torino seems to understand that because instead of asking Mirio for more, he limps his way to making them some tea.
This time, Mirio does cry.
The first thing Mina notices when she and Aoyama arrive at the penthouse is that it's as eccentric as she thought it would be. Nothing less for her explodo-boy after all. The second thing is the smell.
"Yikes, did something d…" she bites her lip and doesn't finish. If Aoyama caught her careless comment, he doesn't say anything, and they follow the stench through the silver door of what must be the kitchen. Sitting in a corner table, between the laundry area entrance and the kitchen sink, is a small cornered table in front of floor to ceiling windows. On it, there are two plates of food.
Stale bread and rotting avocados are growing a fluffy sort of shroom, next to them - smelling the worst - is Miso soup. A favorite of Katsuki's. (They didn't have the time to try it.) The smell of coffee is strong, warm inside the electric coffee pot - like most heroes in the city that morning, Izuku and Baku left in a hurry. There's an obscene amount of coffee made for only two people, but Mina's heard Baku complain plenty about Izuku's caffeine addiction, a habit he picked up after high school. It's not an uncommon vice amongst heroes, but Baku has always been anal about health and nutritionary needs.
There's some pot in the sink, leftover from the morning's cooking, and two mugs are laid out on the kitchen island, most likely awaiting coffee that would never be served. One is a plain burnt orange, the second one looks like a hollowed grenade with GZ spray-painted on white. Mina recognizes it as some of Baku's first hero merch. It strikes her as odd, but Izuku and Baku were close friends and hero partners, and her former classmate has always been a colossal hero nerd.
She knows - also from Baku's endless complaining - that such a thing has not changed through the years.
The kitchen scene is frozen in time. Mina knew coming here would be difficult, but her throat seizes up as Aoyama moves to throw away the food and put the other plates in the sink. The sound of porcelain against metal is jarring even though it's not truly loud at all. Her former classmate eyes her, maybe somewhat aware of her line of thinking, but if her sorrow is as visible on her face as inside her mind, he doesn't comment on it. Mina viscerally dislikes how composed he is in that moment but knows deep inside her he cannot blame him. Aoyama is the only one with a key to this place other than the people who lived here, and he's more consciously aware of mortality than even Mina.
She should be doing something useful, but she stays frozen in the kitchen while Aoyama carefully washes the dishes. She's always found the sound of rushing water calming, and it washes over her now but does little to ease her rising distress. Mina knows Baku and Izuku passed away. She's known for days. Eijirou had told her over the phone, voice shaking and pleading for her to sit down. In turn, Mina had to relay the news to Denki, who was with her. Not before digging her nails into his arm as Ei spoke to her. They were some of the lucky few who didn't hear it over the comms or the news.
She sat at their funeral and remembers every painstaking detail of it, from Ochako and Ei's eulogies to the feeling of despair as she walked through crowds and no fans called her name. Mina doesn't remember the last time she felt like just one more in a crowd, but that's what mourning does to people. There's a lot of evidence that her friends are no longer here with her, but it's all numb. Like she's just getting through a dream sequence, and nothing is really happening. It's not that she thinks she'll wake up and all will be fixed; it's that she just feels like that.
The apartment rocks her to the core, abandoned and ready to be emptied. No longer a place anyone comes home to.
Her friends' deaths have never felt more real.
Mina's always thought she lives one day at a time, that her job has taught her to value the people around her and appreciate everything, but whenever loss hits her, it never seems like enough. She saw Baku ages ago. Sure, she met him on the job from time to time, they had an arrest together just last week, but it's been at least a couple of weeks since they'd sat down and talked. They went out to their favorite Sports Bar, a punk place they'd been visiting since high school, and that had become a little like a second home for the Baku Squad. Neither Sero, Jirou, nor Ei made it, but between Kaminari and Baku, Mina had an absolute blast. She got so smashed, too, not that it mattered. Like always, Baku grumbled the entire way he took her home, which always made Mina giggle.
She's an adult, and she can hold her liquor. Even if she couldn't, she has no doubts as to her ability to make it home. Baku doesn't roll like that though, he doesn't drink either. Didn't. Didn't drink.
She didn't hang out as much with Izuku. He never joined them in their Sports Bar outings, despite being enthusiastically invited on more than one occasion. He always had politely refused, I wouldn't want to intrude, or It's not really my type of place, but have fun! Or, sometimes, I think Kacchan and I've had enough of each other for today.
Sero asked about it once, Mina remembers because she thought Bakugou would snap at him, and he didn't. Her explodo-boy's temper hadn't quite mellowed out per se. Rather, it was that his wrath was more focused, sharpened to pin-point accuracy. Bakugou didn't feel the need to explode as often, but he struck where it hurt when he did. Mina has never been (will never be) on the other side of that particular cruel curl to his smirk, thankfully, but she's been witness to it once. Regardless, Baku could still go off like nobody's business, especially when it came to Izuku. There's a reason the pair of them had their own comms channel: their bickering, sharp, fast and merciless had distracted - and worried - more than one colleague. It could be extraordinarily vicious, especially to those who hadn't met the pair back in their school days. Compared to UA's first year, the barbs and gibes of their adulthood were child's play.
How come Midoriya never joins us? I thought you guys were getting along.
Baku's face had shifted slightly, taking a sip of coke and pondering on the answers. It was a rarity for him to have any care with his words, but it seemed like he wasn't sure quite what to say, or maybe, how much.
Boundaries, he settled on, cryptic and vaguely secretive as always. No amount of prodding made him elaborate.
Mina would've been overjoyed to have a peek inside her friend's home any other time, especially with what her exploration with Aoyama soon reveals. Literally, any other time would've been amazing. Not today and not like this.
Inko and Mitsuki have had tea together every Wednesday for almost ten years. It's routine, comfort, and familiarity all rolled into one, some stability in the ups and downs of superhero moms. On the bad days, Inko wished Izuku had gotten into something sensible like soccer. This week is not the week for social outings, but if they've ever needed comfort and routine, it's definitely now when the world has pulled the carpet from under their feet.
There is a third person with them today. The young man is - much like their kids - a hero. One who was too late. Too late to avoid a lifetime of guilt, too late to witness Izuku's last moments. Or perhaps, right on time to avoid sharing their fate. Inko thinks a part of her might be angry, but most feelings are being smothered by how tired she is. She's had years to prepare herself for this moment, has been in the precipice of it more times than she can count.
Maybe that's why she's still expecting Izuku to walk through the door any moment, even though everyone has made sure to tell her that it won't come to pass.
Mirio had called her and asked for some of her time. He'd been the last to see them, and there was something he wanted to share. Impulsively, Inko had invited him to their following tea meeting. She'd been relieved that Mitsuki was okay with it when she'd belatedly consulted the other woman. Inko really should've asked before inviting Mirio, but her head's just not right these days. Izuku and Katsuki's funeral was brutal, even though Inko hardly remembers it beyond the open hole in her chest and the relief that she hadn't had to organize it.
The public seemed to like it, seeing as even a week later, it is all the media keeps talking about.
Inko's never been a violent woman, but she's been very close to kicking over her TV.
She just wants for her son's death to stop being national news already. Mitsuki argued that - as unpleasant as the constant reminders were - she was glad no one forgot any time soon what her child gave up for them. Inko sees her point, but… she can't see beyond it. She never wanted Izuku to be famous or loved by millions. She just wanted him to be happy, just wanted him to be safe.
She regrets ever letting her child into UA. Izuku's many slips had all been heading towards this moment where the world would be safe one more day, but Inko would be childless forever. Mitsuki's hand rests on her elbow, seemingly trying to shake her off the spiral she's going down on.
Her friend has always been the strong one out of them, forever strong, tall, and elegant. She's as put together as ever, but she cannot fool Inko's eyes. Mitsuki has always been slim, but now she's thin in an unnatural way, her wrist looking like Inko could wrap her own chubby fingers around it without trouble. Her skin is sallow, a contrast to Inko's permanently red eyes.
Grief isn't kind to anyone.
When one loses a parent, one is an orphan. When one loses a spouse, one is a widow.
There are no words to contain the grief of a parent who loses a child.
Inko lets out a breath, offers Mirio a shaky smile.
"Thank you for having me, Miss Midoriya, Miss Bakugou," the young man is nervous, but he returns an equally wobbly smile. "I imagine you might be tired of hearing it, but let me offer my sincere condolences and…" he stands up, bowing a straight 90 degrees angle and startling both women, "I'm sorry I couldn't be there faster, I wish I… I wish I had been stronger, but I promise you, I will spend the rest of my life aiming to be as selflessly courageous as your sons." His voice is measured and soft, but it strikes with whole-hearted conviction. Here is someone who regrets.
"Don't be," it escapes Inko before she can swallow it, and she immediately feels the weighty stare of the young man in her living room. Izuku spoke so much about him; it's almost unbelievable this is the first time she's met him. She swallows and makes sure to meet his stare. "Don't be selflessly courageous," she repeats. "Be safe, be careful. Ask for help when you need it, and please remember that your life is important too." Don't make your mother go through this pain, she almost adds, but she doesn't know this young man's home situation, and it wouldn't do to assume. She's said enough.
Mirio's stare is awed, and a little baffled, but the smile he offers her feels a lot more genuine.
"Izuku carried in him a lot of you in the line of duty, Miss Midoriya," he tells her and promptly panics as her face crumbles into tears. "I- I'm sorry, I shouldn't have…"
"Stop panicking, brat," Mitsuki dismisses, grabbing ahold of Inko's hand and rubbing soothing circles into her skin. "Izuku's crybabiness came from her too."
It's your comfort that I think about, Mom; did you know? When someone needs help or support, when someone looks like they need love. It's you that I always think of.
Mirio chuckles awkwardly, scratching the back of his head as he waits out Inko's soft cries. When she feels like she can stop hiccuping for the moment, she straightens out and dabs at her eyes.
"So, what was it you needed to tell us, kid?"
"Yes," he begins, eyes darting around the room briefly. "As you might be aware by now, I was the first responder to Gro-eh, Bakugou, and Izuku's request for backup. I was delayed by a Nomu, and their battle was over by the time I'd arrived. Izuku" he hesitates "had already passed, but Bakugou was still conscious. We had a brief exchange of words. His… His last request was to be by Izuku's side. I'm not sure how to say this, but, I… your sons, they… really loved each other, and they were together 'till the end. I know, they were partners and, it's not okay what happened, but… they were… they were together and I, at least Bakugou, he seemed… content. I was, I'm still… I'm sorry, I practiced this, but I… I wish things were different, but they're not, even so, in those last moments, Bakugou looked at me and… it was so clear he was annoyed, but he didn't look resigned or anything, just… calm. He and Izuku, they… really loved each other. I think they felt... that it was okay because they were together and… it's given me a lot of comfort. I don't wish to upset you and I know it's presumptuous. I understand if you feel this was unnecessary, but I…" The younger man bites his tongue, arms himself with courage and drives home his point. "I think that Izuku and Katsuki were more than hero partners and that they went down protecting each other. In fact, I'm sure of it. I think… that they would've wanted you to know."
The silence is charged, waiting for something. Mitsuki - as usual - is first to burst.
"I fucking knew Katsuki was never going to give me grandbabies," Mitsuki chokes off, gritting down on her teeth, "no matter what. Inko, can you believe this…?"
"Together?" Inko repeats, eyes misting and showing her a plethora of moments that spell it out to her. "When were they ever anything else?" From forest explorations to play fights on the playground, from UA to the news. It had always been Kacchan and Deku, right 'till the end. Inko's almost jealous.
"I can't believe it."
"I understand it might be shocking, but-"
"-I knew."
Shouto doesn't tend to form many opinions about other people or their lives. He is very much settled into taking things as they are. Accepting, Izuku had called him once. It makes you a terrific friend, he'd added, looking a little guilty. (He had also taken the odd comment at face-value back then.)
The heroes at Izuku's penthouse experiment varying degrees of disbelief at Mina's statement. They'd have to check, of course, but the evidence is damning in itself. There are very few reasons for two adults, cohabiting males, to share a bed after all. Shouto isn't that surprised, though.
They still check the house over. Maybe Bakugou or Izuku has a secret bedroom or something equally bizarre.
It's not that the idea of Bakugou and Izuku being together is off-putting, or even truly surprising, but…
Shoto cannot quite explain the bitter feeling rippling down his throat. It's ridiculous, pointless. It definitely doesn't matter anymore, and there's no one to give him an answer now anyways.
He thought he'd known everything about his friend.
Why wouldn't he tell him?
Why keep it a secret?
Maybe from the public, but from them? Friends enough to pick after you when you die, but not to share your happiness while you live?
(What a horrible thing to think.)
God.
Izuku died, and here is Shoto feeling sorry for himself over not knowing he had a boyfriend... but it wasn't any boyfriend either.
For all that Bakugou had never been his closest friend, Shoto cared for him, and they shared plenty of time together. These weren't random people. These were friends he trusted, that he confided in, that he would've died for… so, why?
"I knew," Inko whispers quietly once more.
"You what?!"
"I… Izuku told me years ago, when Katsuki was in that medical comma after his neck injury. You know Izuku... He's never been good at secrets. He begged me not to share it, told me in the heat of the moment when I visited them at the hospital. It wasn't quite shameful, he said, they just weren't ready to talk about it. He never brought it up again. I guess he just needed to feel like someone knew with the whole scare that we had. I wasn't even sure if they were still… I'm…" guilt gnaws at her. Should she have asked? Told Mitsuki? Have they now missed irrevocably a fundamental part of their children's lives and identities? Was it selfish of her to keep it to herself? Cowardly to not push Izuku to share more?
Mitsuki bites down on her lip, truly upset.
"It's so obvious when you think about it too," she says, surprising Inko. She shakes her head, "Masaru was on to it, you know? I kinda laughed at him for it…"
"He was always perceptive," she concurs.
"He always knew Katsuki best," her friend amends.
Aoyama has the video on him, they did leave this recording at my office a year ago, he'd said, it might explain something. Ochako feels nauseous just seeing it. The disk is an attractive red and has written, to our friends in thick black marker. It's barely legible in Izuku's messy kanji, but Uraraka is well-versed in it. Surrounding her are the heroes tasked with cleaning up, packing up her best friend's life and slowly start ridding the world of the space he called home.
Most of the former UA students arrived upset, and now, hurt and confusion are hiding in every corner of the house. She's just… sad. Sadder than she has ever been.
She tries not to think why Deku and Bakugou didn't tell anyone.
Tries not to think that they were all too late to reach them.
She'd seen Izuku a few days before… he'd been so happy. Tired and overworked like always but fulfilled. And now…
"Ready, everyone?" Aoyama asks from where he's crouched over the DVD player. Ochako meets Kirishima's eyes, he's quick to turn back and glare at the TV, demanding out of it the answers they're twisting in their seats to know. Next to her, Tenya tenses up.
In the end, Tsuyu answers.
"Play it, Aoyama."
The video starts suddenly, with no introduction. Ochako startles when she recognizes that Deku and Bakugou, in matching grey and black hoodies and sweats, are sitting on the same couch their friends now occupy. (It sends a shiver down Ochako's spine, but she grounds herself out of the ominous superstitions it arises.) They're sitting comfortably close but in no way differing from their general behavior. They're clearly lounging on an off day.
"Jeez, this is so awkward," is the first thing Izuku says, hands fisted over his thighs. Bakugou, arms open and spread over the backrest of the couch, rolls his eyes. Looking slightly down on Deku.
"Are you serious? We've recorded like, fucking five of this now. They'll be able to do a fucking movie about us at this rate if we don't go and kick the bucket soon.
"Kacchan, don't say that." Ochako doesn't know why this adult Izuku, who had an entire secret life apparently, the one she saw just last week seems so different. Ochako thinks back to when they met. Deku had looked nothing like the tank of muscle he'd become, dwarfing even Bakugou's frame if not quite his height. His face had lost all of the puppy fat to keep only his huge green eyes and myriad more freckles. In the video, he strikes her as familiar and foreign simultaneously, like a complete stranger you see in your dreams.
She has so much to say to him, and she did say it, when she read his eulogy, but… it doesn't feel like enough now.
"Just get on with it, for god's sake, there are so much better things to do than this," Bakugou continues. He says it at the camera, almost like it's the viewer's fault he's forced into this in the first place. In a way, he's right, and out of the two of them, Bakugou's the one who's maybe changed the most and least at the same time. He's taller and broader, lightly built to allow for all his crazy aerial shenanigans. He'd been paired up with Ochako more than once.
He'd still been a short-tempered, bluntly honest perfectionist, but he'd also been a role model to dozens of people. He didn't participate in the infinite charities Deku did, always unable to say no, but he was staunchly committed to the ones he did involve himself in. He'd gotten Deku out of more scrapes than Ochako could count, and he'd been stupidly dependable. She knows her gut wasn't the only one that relaxed a little when the Wonder Duo arrived.
"You know this is important," Izuku persuades, more puppy eyes than argument, but it does the trick. Bakugou huffs out but remains seated, a hand motioning along with his next words.
"I plan to be around for a while longer, actually. No need for this bullshit."
"It's just in case." Izuku smiles up at him, a little hesitantly, which makes the blond man frown.
"It won't matter if we're both dead."
"People will have questions!"
"How is that our problem?"
"They're our friends."
"And they can mind their business," Bakugou grumbles.
"It's nice to see that things don't change," Kirishima murmurs, the lightheartedness of his tone contrasting heavily with the way his body presses forward towards the TV, every inch of him almost trembling to harden in reflex.
"Why do you have to be difficult every time we do this?" Izuku's voice interjects, exasperated at Bakugou.
"How so?" There's something different in Bakugou's stare this time around; challenge, Ochako thinks, but different. The video switches itself for a moment, and editing cut apparently, and both heroes appear significantly more disheveled.
"My interest in this footage has grown so much," Bakugou smirks cockily, looking down at Izuku, who has his face buried in his hands.
"I cannot believe you, this is an epistle for our possible deaths; how can you just…?"
Aoyama, reading the mood, pauses the video.
"Did they just…" Mina begins.
"Yup," Eijirou confirms, eyes wide. Next to her, Tsuyu stays in silence, but Ochako catches the way her ears redden. Ochako feels her own face heat up and cannot help but burst out laughing. Plenty of her friends follow.
"I…" Iida begins but falls short.
"It's creepy but normal at the same time, and it's fucking with my head," Todoroki comments.
"I feel like now we know where all the tension is going," Tsuyu deadpans.
"I need... a break, I'm sorry." Kirishima rises quickly off the couch, looking unsteady on his feet as he rushes into the bowels of the penthouse. Ochako shares an uncomfortable look with Tenya, only for the second it takes Mina to dash off after the red-headed hero.
Eijirou once asked Midoriya if he and Bakugou were dating.
His general thought process regarding their relationship had been carefully carved through the years.
In High School, Katsuki had still been so guarded… Kirishima didn't want to risk setting him off unnecessarily, incredibly aware of how complicated his relationship with Midoriya was. When they'd move in together, Eijirou thought about the implications, but then again, Katsuki and Midoriya seemed to be working 24/7, when would they date. For all their seamless teamwork, they had always been each other's greatest critics, and even as they matured and their barbs eased, that did not change.
Watching Katsuki and Midoriya was always a bit of a show. They were never that couple (not that Eijirou knew they were a couple in the first place), but hanging out when they were together, it could make you feel like an intruder. Usually, if they went out, Midoriya and Katsuki kept their distance, eventually leaving together, so it would be hard to notice. But Eijirou had been privy to it on a classroom reunion where Katsuki and Midoriya were late. They'd sat down together at the far end of the table.
Eijirou wondered when Midoriya had become Bakugou's best friend.
There was nothing blatant about it, and even now, Eijorou feels hard-pressed to put it in words, but there had always been something unique to Katsuki and Midoriya's relationship. He thinks it's probably born out of knowing someone like the back of your hand; they'd been in each other's lives forever… they were.
He stands in their bedroom, one side of the bed made, and the other crumpled and disorganized. Eijirou wonders which one of them is the messy sleeper. Why only fix one side of the bed? Did one of them sleep somewhere else that last night? Maybe a fight? A solo mission? (Eijirou hopes not.) He doesn't know. He never will.
He's not sure why he cries.
The pressure builds in his throat and doesn't let him breathe. He felt like this before. At the site of their deaths, trying to wrestle with the shock. At Bakugou's childhood home, visiting his mother. At their funeral, choking out a eulogy he wishes he'd never had to write.
Could he even really say to have known Katsuki Bakugou? The things he valued and loved? The type of life he lived?
Mina's pink hair tickles his sternum as her arms wrap around his middle. She's crying too, ugly, trembling like lightning in her shoulders; it leaves him feeling the tension, static itching as it curls underneath his skin—two overcharged batteries feeding into each other.
"It's okay, Kiri," she sobs quietly.
"I thought they were dating, I even asked…" He feels a little hollow, but his voice comes out coherent enough despite the watery echo of it as he sniffles. Eijirou can't believe he's letting this hit him so hard but it's been a week. "I've never forgotten having to call Midoriya that time against the gas villain."
"Oof," Mina winces. Eijirou shares her sentiment. It'd been wrong, everything that happened that day. "Right… you were there when Baku broke his neck."
She doesn't need him to nod, but he does anyway. The sound of it haunts Eijirou to this day too. Baku's face, the blood. Tell Deku… He hates everything about that afternoon. As the ambulance took his best friend away into emergency surgery, he remembers looking up at the heavens, cleared and so blue, and thinking that watching Bakugou be taken away in that ambulance is the hardest thing he'd ever go through.
Then, he met Midoriya at the hospital.
Kirishima, where's Kacchan?
There was truly no gentle way to explain a broken neck, but Eijirou tried his best.
Midoriya. He'd grabbed the top of his elbow, the muscle underneath powerful and dangerous but feeling brittle under his soot-covered fingers. Come sit down.
"Midoriya was off-duty post-surgery, remember? For his… for his arm." Eijirou arrived late on the scene, yes, but not late enough to know exactly what it looked like to go against Shigaraki and three Nomus. Like every time he thinks about Midoriya and Bakugou's cold corpses, almost painted into an entire scene of misery and mayhem, his stomach acts up, trying to exit his chest up to his throat. He'd met Iida and Lemillion there, but there had yet to be anything to cover the fallen heroes with. Eijirou stood outside the museum, refusing them entry to anyone until the bodies could be covered. He thinks now, vaguely, that his friend's final moments, tangled upon each other... maybe Eijirou had known it was a private thing even then.
"Yeah…"
Kirishima, you're scaring me. Midoriya didn't look anything like the tiny high schooler that Kirishima met, but, with his arm in a sling and clothes rumpled and hanging off his body, he felt youthful and innocent in a way that Eijirou knew he'd tarnish. Despite his protest, his tone high in anxiousness, the other hero sat down. His eyes never strayed from the redhead's solemn facade.
He's in surgery, Midoriya… he, the villain… last I heard, well, they think he has a broken neck.
Kacchan's… neck? Kirishima watches as if in slow motion as the shock overtook Midoriya's features. The way his jaw loosened, allowing his lower lip to hang open. Thin dark eyebrows move up and apart. Vivid green eyes follow by growing unnaturally wide. Kirishima expected the surprise, even the faint tremors of shock, the building horror. He didn't predict the irrevocable heartbreak when Midoriya whispers, with the misplaced certainty of tragedy: I should've been there.
The sorrow and utter loathing in the statement scuttle like a chill down Eijirou's back.
I should've been there. Midoriya repeated it once, twice, three times, over and over until it's a blurred, high-paced mantra under his breath as he curls into himself. His legs, covered in bright orange basketball shorts and sporting bright green Ground Zero sneakers, rose up to press against his chest in a clearly uncomfortable position that Eijirou hoped wouldn't mess with Midoriya's healing arm. He tries to stop him, calm him, reach him, but there's no abating the downward spiral Midoriya drowns in.
He shakes his head if in denial or reprehension is impossible to tell. The more Eijirou tries to get him to calm down, the worst it gets.
Eijirou should've recognized it as a panic attack, not that he'd known Midoriya was prone to them the way the other hero would explain later on.
Midoriya cries, and then he screams, and then a nurse eventually drugs him into sleep. Not before causing a scene in a -thankfully empty- hallways and scratching Eijirou's shoulder.
The freckled man wakes up before Bakugou is out of surgery, and Eijirou is there by his hospital bed because he's worried and feeling responsible. Midoriya sits up in bed, heavy and tired but anxious, and Eijirou answers his question even before he can voice it.
Still in surgery.
I'm… very sorry.
Eijirou didn't think he has anything to be sorry for, but he did have a question that kept running through his mind.
Eijirou's mind has been going in circles. Baugou's fall. The ambulance. The panic attack. No news is good news, he keeps telling himself. He would usually never get into people's business unwarranted, but... maybe he needs something else to focus on. If Midoriya feels terrible about not being there, how should Eijirou feel? He was there and couldn't do anything to help his friend. But… but, the look in Midoriya's face. It's not the same, Eijirou knows it; he just does.
Bakugou and Midoriya's seamless teamwork in high school.
The way Midoriya always softens Bakugou's temper, how Bakugou always understands Midoriya's mumbles.
Living together through the years with no thoughts of doing anything else.
A million other little things that Eijirou always chalks up to being childhood friends, classmates, hero partners.
But the pain reflected in Midoriya's eyes of life slipping away… that's not the same.
Midoriya…
Hmmm? The other seemed drained. Pale and tired in the bed, holding onto his healing arm half-heartedly.
Are you and Bakubro dating?
Hmmm? He harmonized, probably still under the influence of drugs, exhaustion, and shock. Does it look like we are?
Sometimes, Eijirou admitted honestly. A goofy smile spreads through Midoriya's face at a snail's pace.
Sometimes I wonder too.
That answer was charged with too much, and Eijirou doesn't know what to say back. Despite everything, he thought Midoriya would just say no.
Bakugou makes it, though his recuperation is tedious and slow.
By the time he's back in active duty, it's been over half a year. Then it's been two, three, and… too late now. Eijirou never asked again.
"Do you think that…" Mina's voice interrupts his reminiscing, not that it was pleasant in the first place; his burning eyes and burning throat can attest to that. "...Do you think they would've told us… if we'd ask?"
Eijirou thinks about Bakugou's words when he laid on the ground, slipping into unconsciousness a few meters away from Kirishima.
Tell Deku…
He thinks of Midoriya's goody, half-drugged smile.
Sometimes I wonder too.
"I would…" he hesitates, standing in Bakugou's most private chambers, now nothing more than meaningless objects to be repurposed and fitted for someone else's life. He thinks of Bakugou's saucy smirk in the video, Midoriya's mortification, how it was all so familiar and so strange at the same time. How everything feels like it was clicking into place but also falling apart. "I would like to think so," Eijirou finally admits. He's not sure where the answer comes from, but maybe, despite what he'd thought earlier, he does know Katsuki Bakugou at least a little, and his friend wouldn't lie.
"Yeah, he seemed to think we knew."
"You know, everyone always treated them like a package when you think about it." One party invitation, wedding seats, carpool arrangements… "In a way, I think we did."
"We compiled a list-" Izuku continues once Kirishima and Mina return.
"You compiled a list," Bakugou corrects, but Izuku doesn't miss a beat.
"I compiled a list of basic questions that I think you would want to know," he side-eyes Katsuki, and it's so strange. They look so typical even through the screen; it's hard to look at it and think they're actually gone forever. "Kacchan and I have been together since the summer before the third year of high school," Izuku has a white, thin notebook opened in his lap as he recounts the story with animated hand gestures. "We had already been hanging out as - well, you all know. And then…"
"I can't believe you insist on sharing this, you embarrassing nerd."
"And then," Tsuyu can tell they've done this before, if only in the way that Izuku expertly steamrolls right over Bakugou. "We kept blowing up on each other before the summer, and I knew I liked Kacchan, but I also never thought that he'd be interested in me and decided that I'd step back that summer, just to grieve it out or something." He waves mildly, turning to looking sheepish. "Kacchan... did not take this well." The blonde hero shoots him an annoyed glance.
"'Cause, you were avoiding me for absolutely no good reason."
"I'm not having this argument again," Izuku tells him, but there's no anger behind the gesture, just a heads up. "The point is that… well, he showed up at my house, and… Kacchan totally came to beat me up, for the record, I feel like this is important."
"But, then your big mouth finally had some use, like communicating and talking to me, like an adult."
"I was literally 16, Kacchan, and you were not any better." Bakugou must agree with this assessment because he only crosses thick forearms over his chest and huffs. Izuku grins at them from the screen, "and that's how we got together."
The pair of them fall a little into silence, Izuku frowns a little and then:
"I feel like it didn't explain anything somehow."
"What's there to explain? We obviously held hands right after." Izuku shoves him a little, ending up pressing his own thigh against Bakugou's without bothering to move back.
"Don't be nasty."
"I'm not," Bakugou grins, "Nasty would be to say what really happened with that mo-"
"Whyyyyy do you do this every time?" Izuku laughs. "This video already needs more editing than intended."
"Look, I liked you, and you liked me, and we managed to get that through to each other at some point, like every other couple in history ever. Next, you always tell them that we've never broken up, and no one else but your mom knows. Not that you've ever had an entire conversation with her about this, defeating the purpose of telling her."
The video goes on a little bit. The pair talks about some vague specifics: they're unmarried and some stories that make a little more sense with context; they watch and laugh, sharing their last new interactions with people they've known for ten years. It's bittersweet and lighthearted, a positive emotion that Tsuyu thinks is a little unique to grief. Unexpected, guilty happiness. But eventually, Izuku and Bakugou's banter dies down, and the elephant in the room is left.
"The only thing missing, I guess, is, well. Saying goodbye? This never stops getting weird."
"Let's just wrap this up quickly, please; it's taken forever."
"Also… well, why didn't we just… say any of this."
No witty reply comes from Bakugou, even though it looks like Izuku is waiting for it.
"I don't want you guys to think that we don't trust you or something like that. If you're watching this video, you mean so, so much to us. At first, everything was so new and strange, and we had so much to come to terms and we also… didn't know if things would last. With school and everything, we just wanted to figure ourselves out before bringing anyone in on it. Then, we decided to partner up, and the school has questionable policies about those things when students are dating, so we decided to keep quiet to avoid any issues. Then we went pro, and we were swamped and just… no time ever seemed good? I mean, eventually, things calmed down - as much as they can - and we felt like we were in a place to tell people, but Kacchan had that… that accident, and suddenly we had paparazzi banging our doors and the doors of our friends and family. Our lives were under the microscope. Even when it died down, we didn't want to bring any more of that attention again and decided to wait… and I get it that we could've told only our closest friends. Still, there's a lot of people we felt should've known, and secrets in this line of work aren't too… well-guarded, to say the least, and we didn't want you guys to feel like you needed to do anything differently, and it wasn't because we didn't trust you or because we thought we didn't have your support… At some point, with our lives becoming more and more public as we climbed the ranks, it was just… nice, having this to ourselves. I know it sounds selfish…"
" You're mumbling," Katsuki interrupts, stopping Izuku in his tracks. "And... it isn't selfish." His tone of voice is more gentle than Tsuyu's heard him. "We don't owe anybody anything like this." It's a sobering thought to their friends, Tsuyu can tell when both Kirishima and Todoroki seem to snap back from the TV. Bakugou's right, of course, but it doesn't make it a less bitter pill to swallow.
"Maybe one day it'll just come out? But, if it doesn't, and if you're watching… I'm, we're sorry to have kept it from you, and I hope you understand that we love you and care for you, and trusted you beyond reason but, it never seemed like the right time. No matter what's happened, we have no doubt you've done the best you can and know that we appreciated it. Kacchan and I, we'll be okay. We just wanted to share this with you, better late than never, right? Feel free to share it."
"Or don't; we won't care either way."
The video is supposed to end, but it keeps running after their friend's final goodbye. It blacks out, but Katsuki, sitting up in what Tsuyu now recognizes as the master bed, appears on the screen. The footage is nothing like the high quality from before, a little grainy and only illuminated by -possibly- the laptop's brightness. As an avid consumer of YouTube, Tsuyu realizes this must be Bakugou when he was editing.
Next to him, a lump of blankets presses against his side, a clump of curls is barely visible in the darkness. Tsuyu thinks she only catches it because she's looking for him.
Katsuki glares at the screen, but it carries no heat. It's his default expression, Tsuyu learned long ago. His red eyes have always been powerful, perceptive. Now, through a screen and beyond death, they pin her down to the couch.
"Look…" he begins before pausing. He frowns further, seemingly looking for the right thing to say. "You knew, okay? Yeah, we didn't tell you, and maybe you didn't call it like it is, but no way any of you has more than two functioning brain cells and didn't know." He lowers his gaze, and Tsuyu aches to see what expression he wears as he looks down towards Izuku. She's never seen it - and now she never will. Katsuki's eyes are genuine and earnest when they turn back to his viewers, a strange look on him. "You were good to us, whether we told you about it or not. So, don't be snot-nosed brats about this, okay?"
"Kacchan?" Izuku's voice is barely a whisper from under the covers, more asleep than awake. Katsuki snaps towards him, but Izuku doesn't stir again. One of Katsuki's hands settles on the mass of dark curls.
"'s nothing, Nerd," he mumbles out. He gives a final look towards the camera. "' Till next time, extras."
This time, the video does end, and the silence lasts only a minute.
"Leave it to Baku to end his epistle with an insult," Mina whispers, wiping away her tears.
The intercom interrupts the moment, and Tsuyu looks around searchingly for who else might be arriving. Aoyama gracefully stands up.
"I ordered some food," he explains, probably the only one who could think about such things on days like these. Tsuyu, now feeling the gnawing of her stomach, is endlessly grateful for his foresight. "I'll be back in a minute."
"I'll help." She follows him.
As Tsuyu and Aoyama stand to bring back the food, the rest of the heroes are left in different states of reflection. In character, Kirishima breaks the silence, a reverent quality to his voice.
"I just told Mina that I thought Bakubro felt like we knew literally ten minutes ago, fuck."
"It's not like no one thought about it," Ochako concurs, "I knew Izuku was bi since forever, but he never really talked about anyone, which now makes sense and stuff."
"When I found them, Lemillion was there. He… accompanied Bakugou in his last moments. He had helped him reach where Izuku had fallen… I didn't even think of it at the time. He was…" Iida chokes, but keeps going, words coming out of him distressed. "He was tucked into his chest, and they looked, I can't say at peace, I can't… they were, I'm sorry, I shouldn't say this but, just, after a battle… they just… they clearly gave it their all and yet, even then… it made sense, to see them like that, close and together and forever having each other's backs I guess, I didn't even think about it. It made so much sense in my head."
"I know I have things I like to keep to myself; their secret was just shared," Todoroki adds in, calmer than Mina's seen him today. His cheeks are flushed, and she wonders who Todoroki confides in now. If she's not mistaken, he was always closest with Izuku.
"I would've liked to know," Ochako murmurs wistfully, "I would've fangirled with Izuku so much, I wonder what type of boyfriend Baku was."
"They're the most stable relationship in Class A, damn." Mina comments. She and Kirishima had never made it to anything serious, and Momo and Todoroki had called it quits after a few years. "Maybe this whole secret relationship thing has its merits."
Epilogue
The battle at the square is nothing special, other than it's been years since Mirio ever thought his quirk was ill-suited for anything. Statistically, it would come to pass, finding an enemy who was his natural enemy, but then again, Mirio had been told he had a useless quirk for a long time. Now, he's been the number one hero for over a decade.
He's unsure what triggers it, but he feels a mild tingling of his palms, something itchy and uncomfortable. Mirio immediately tries to understand if he's missed something, but he feels hot all of a sudden. Before he can put any real stock in it, just as the villain comes at him from overhead, an explosion goes off. It shoots off with no control or finesse, leaving Mirio to pass harmlessly through a parked car and a display window, dematerializing by reflex alone.
(And then... huh?)
He wakes up from the vision anxiously, apologizing to the cafe customers hovering over as he hurries right back on the street, rattled and choked up but unharmed.
His opponent is nowhere near as lucky. She had been caught off-guard just as much as Mirio, but her quirk hadn't shielded her from the blast. It had been mild for an explosion, nothing compared to what Ground Zero had managed back in his day, but between the surprise and the power of it, she'd slammed straight into a light pole. Suneater, now on the scene, is already twisting vines around her unconscious form.
"Suneater!" Mirio calls out.
"Lemillion," his old friend acknowledges. He frowns. "Mirio… that explosion…" The blonde hero swallows, nodding his head and confirming his friend's suspicions.
"Bakugou's, it came in right when I needed… more."
"Are you okay, Mirio?"
"Well, I think my eyebrows might be a little singed," he laughs mirthlessly, shaken. "But…" He recalls his vision, fading a little at the seams. He gathers that, if Amajiki saw the explosion and is only now arresting the villain, Mirio must've been out of it for less than a minute.
Well, I hope you can handle this quirk. Mirio has seen Bakugou's cocky grin in dozens of posters, memorials, social media posts, even in real life... But for years, ever since that day at the museum, none of that, no other image has been able to over-impose itself to the memory of Bakugou holding on to a deceased Midoriya, resigned in his death. Not until now.
"Mirio?"
"Yeah," Mirio finally answers, his vision a little blurry, "I'm alright."
It makes a lot of sense that the stockpiling quirk keeps hold of more than just quirks in hindsight. When Mirio caught a glimpse of the last two vestiges, something in him loosened. Even in this, Bakugou and Midoriya remain tag-teamed, living on in One For All forever.
I just want to thank you for reading, and apologize once more for the delay, I appreciate any feedback or comments and invite you to enjoy the rest of my writing.
In this specific genre of BKDK:
The Worth of a Quirk Vol 1. The way the world treats the quirkless isn't forgotten in the excitement of One For All.
Apparations AU:
- All We Know of Heaven: Katsuki's trying to understand why the beginning is tasting so much like the end. Nothing about this afternoon is making any sense.
- Alll We Need of Hell: Katsuki told Izuku it was okay that he had died. Katsuki told Izuku it was okay that he was leaving him alone. Katsuki told Izuku he'd be okay with just that one kiss. Katsuki knows better now.
Much love,
Dee
