Backstory time!
Chapter 2: Bakugo Katsuki
Bakugo Katsuki was four when he learns that not all men were created equal.
He comes to this universal truth when he uses his Quirk for the first time. His fellow students and his teachers coo at the little puffs and fizzles that come out of his palms, all but falling over themselves in their attempts at showering him with praise. And Katsuki takes it all, because he damn well deserves it.
With this Quirk, he was going to surpass All Might, it was just a matter of time.
Believe it.
Izuku cheers at his side, pressing close and running his fingers on his palms while babbling excitedly about the properties of his Quirk and biology and other things Katsuki cannot bother to remember, but he listens half heartedly while nodding along. Raised together, he'd long since accepted the smaller boy's rambling habit so instead of pushing him away like the other extras, he carefully grabs his wandering fingers with his non active hand to keep the brat from burning his fingertips.
The other boy was a rascal half the time, drawing attention from the rowdier children and forcing Katsuki to spend most of their free time making sure he didn't have to explain to Auntie Inko why Izuku was coming home with scrapes and bruises. She was smaller than his mother and looked like a breeze could blow her over, but Katsuki knew better from the last time his mother had dragged him to the Midoriya residency to apologize after he fought Izuku on some topic he couldn't even remember by the time he's standing in front of the green-haired woman, stuttering a apology through gritted teeth.
Auntie Inko was terrifying. That was just another fact of life. Not in the same way as Mitsuki, though. With her soft appearance and wide green eyes she shared with her offspring, she had a knack for making you feel disappointed about yourself.
It's not a feeling Katsuki likes.
He hated people looking down on him, but he despised even more feeling like a failure.
So if he made sure Izuku wouldn't end up walking into traffic while reading the latest All Might comic, who cared? Katsuki definitively didn't. He just wanted Auntie Inko to stop looking at him like that, goddamnit.
Izuku's Quirk, Katsuki decides, would be just as much trouble as the green-haired brat. If it wasn't useless outright, like most of the Quirks his classmates possesed.
He's not wrong on the first part, and entirely off with his second belief. Katsuki is four and a half when his friend's Quirk finally, blessedly decides to show up-
-and it's fucking awesome.
"Do it again, Deku!" He commands like a general to his soldier, and the smaller boy giggles. There's tiny shades of luminous blue sparkling within the depths of his pupils, giving a far away, ethereal look to his face.
(Katsuki didn't hate the color blue then.)
Izuku purses his lips, tilting his head to the side. His friend waits impatiently as the boy seemingly squints at something only he can see. Then after a few seconds of nodding at empty air, Izuku opens his mouth.
"T-that boy, over there!" The green-haired child points at a older kid in their class, who's yelling at another boy. He's holding a juice bottle out of the second's reach. "He's gonna trip. Watch."
And Katsuki does so avidly, resting his chin on a fluffy mop of green hair.
It takes less than five seconds for the prediction to become true. Caught up arguing with his friend, the boy doesn't notice the particularly large pebble until he steps back on it. Balance lost, he slips and falls, spilling his juice across the playground floor. They both start crying.
Katsuki roars with laughter.
"I should have warned him." Izuku pouts.
"Fuck that, this is funnier!"
His friend turns away, but Katsuki still saw the upward slant of his lips.
When Izuku's Quirk first manifested, Katsuki was man enough to admit he was jealous. Because how cool was a Quirk that allowed the user to know what's going to happen next, to read the future on a whim? No villain could match a hero with the ability to see their next move before they even thought about it!
If anything, it reminded him of Sir Nighteye. And what a thought that was, that Deku had a Quirk like All Might's sidekick. It might as well be written in the stars that the boy would be Katsuki's sidekick, no matter what Deku decided to say.
This way of thinking mellowed however when he realized that despite how wonderful Izuku's Quirk turned out to be, it was also a passive Quirk. Physically, he was as helpless as the day they first met, when Inko settled him next to Katsuki on the living room carpet to play together while she chatted with his mother over tea. Which meant no fighting villains, no matter what the steamed broccoli thought.
"I can learn to fight! There's plenty of pro-heroes who don't have offensive Quirks but still can kick ass!"
"Like hell," Katsuki had sneered back, palms smoking. "You're just going to get your ass killed!" Izuku continues to smack back, and their argument quickly devolves into shouting and punching from both sides until the teacher had to step in.
Katsuki hadn't cared what Izuku thought, back then. In his young mindset, the path was already written in stone; his friend at his back, keeping him informed, keeping him ten steps ahead of the situation, and the villains cowering at his feet as Katsuki rained down terror upon the battlefield.
Yeah, that would work.
.
.
.
At least, that had been the plan.
.
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Katsuki's five when he truly understands that not all men were created equal.
It starts slowly.
At first, nobody takes notice because Izuku is a naturally air headed child, too caught up in his own thoughts to pay attention. He's clumsy by nature, too shy and lacking the self confidence to make it through the day without second guessing every single one of his actions and ending up tripping over his own shoes. At least Katsuki couldn't be blamed for that.
One would think that with a powerful future sight Quirk, he would be able to go through his day without ending up hurting himself, but Deku apparently was born to prove the world wrong.
Sometimes though, it takes just too many times calling his name to make him look around. Too many times to count had Katsuki needed to jab his side with a finger to get his attention. Repeatedly. And Izuku would blink and turn to him, the last traces of the shimmering blue that marked his Quirk activating dissipating when their eyes met.
(If he knew then, he would have memorized how green Izuku's natural eyes were. But he had been a foolish child, too caught up in his own superiority to notice until it was too late.)
The first time it happens, it lasts a whole minute.
"-and with the sudden appearance of Quirks and a rising number of people who couldn't conform to their laws, Japan initially applied a…."
Silence.
"Izuku?"
Izuku was reciting a passage of their textbook at their teacher's behest when he'd, for a lack of a better word, blanked out mid-sentence, pupils lighting up with blue. There's a moment of silence, then the teacher calls on him again.
"Izuku? Is something wrong?"
No answer.
"Oi! Deku!" By then Katsuki's darting out of his seat to yank on the brat's collar. Izuku's body tilts at the touch, head lolling. Fractal patterns swirl within his pupils, bigger and brighter than the previous times he'd used his Quirk.
He's completely unresponsive. Panic breaks out across the classroom.
Katsuki was scared then, but he'd refused let it show. Not for Izuku, who was staring off into space wide eyed and not there, not for the other students who are crying around them, not for the teacher either, who was trying to hold on the reigns of the small class as it dissolves into panic while trying to call for help.
Instead, Katsuki choked down the fear because that's what heroes do. That's what All Might does and he had to stay calm, and terrified as he was. He reached out, grabbing Izuku by the frilly blue top of his tunic and pulling him close. The smaller toddler doesn't respond to the sudden shove -his eyes just stare past Katsuki like he isn't there, blue pulsing in the middle of his eyes.
Something inside him breaks.
"Deku!" He snaps, shaking him. Then he has to catch him as the boy practically falls over on top of Katsuki, limper than a doll. "Wake up, shitstain!"
Nothing.
Just spinning blue that makes Katsuki's stomach roll.
By the time the nurse rushes through the door, Izuku's jerking up in Katsuki's arms, choking on nothing and limbs flailing as he struggles to get air back in his body. His green eyes spin in their sockets, wild and terrified. They finally locked onto Katsuki's red ones, and he starts openly sobbing.
"K-Kacchan..." The green-haired boy cries.
Katsuki knows tears. He'd seen Izuku cry before. A lot. The smaller boy cried over the slightest things, and it was always a hassle to get him to calm down. There was a difference between then and now, though. These tears were desperate, terrified. These were the tears of someone who'd seen things and were hopelessly looking for comfort.
The blond paused. He wanted to yell at him, wanted to punch him in the goddamn for making him feel so scared, wanted to hold him close to the point of choking the damn bastard to make sure he didn't slip away again. He never did any of those, instead carefully looping a arm around his waist and pulling him up, making soft noises in an attempt to comfort him.
"It's okay, shitty Deku. I'm here."
.
.
.
It's the first time, and it's not the last.
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A month later Izuku slips again. It barely lasts thirty minutes.
Katsuki spent them laying at the feet of his bed, trying not to burn a hole in the cheap fabric.
He stared at the abandoned video game, watching the characters die on screen without the lack of player interference to keep them moving. The controls have been thrown to the ground, forgotten. From one moment to the next, surpassing the score on screen went from his greatest goal to one of the most meaningless thing Katsuki had ever seen.
Izuku wakes up at the end of those thirty minutes, bleary-eyed and expression haunted. Katsuki doesn't ask. Instead, he wordlessly goes downstairs to tell Auntie Inko to make two hot cups of chocolate for them.
.
.
.
Three weeks later, it lasts a entire hour.
Katsuki spends them curled up around Izuku at the kindergarten, shaking, palms smoking and crackling to ward off the other boys. He refuses the teachers' help, snarling at their approach as his Quirk flares, betraying his distress. Izuku doesn't even react, his face nestled into his neck.
His eyes stare off into the void like those of a blind man. The blue had eaten the entirety of his pupils. Brilliant fractal patterns spread across green like a invader, blooming swirls of color that wouldn't stop growing.
Katsuki wonders what he sees.
He thinks he's better off not knowing.
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.
.
"His Quirk is activating on its own." The doctor tells Inko while Izuku sat on her lap, head resting on her chest. Blue fractals swirled within his eyes, stretching over green. Three hours had passed since the Quirk had taken over.
Her lower lip trembles when she asks.
"How do we stop it?"
The doctor purses his lips, expression tight. His eyes drift to the toddler curled up in Inko's protective embrace. One shaky hand rests on a nest of messy curls, petting them gently. She is holding onto him tightly, as if attempting to shield him from the dangers the world had to offer.
"I don't know."
(How could she protect her son from himself?)
.
.
.
A full month after the second incident, at barely five and a half years of age, Izuku slips under for ten whole hours.
He was atop a flight of stairs at the time.
Katsuki's not there when it happens -he should have he should have he should be there to protect him- but he's alerted to it when he reaches his home and finds his mother and father waiting for him. Inko, according to his mother's trembling voice, had transferred Izuku to a hospital after he cracked his head at the bottom of a staircase. He's out the door before she can even finish.
His father lags behind them when they reach the hospital, his gentle nature unable to match his wife and his son's righteous fury as they all but bash their way through the hospital staff and swarm one Midoriya Inko, who was sobbing as she sat outside the operation room.
Katsuki watches as his mother, dark-eyed and vulnerable, all but sweeps the smaller woman up in her arms, nearly picking her best friend off the ground. Inko cries into her shoulder, loud and open and painful in a way that rattles something deep within the blond boy. He steps close and puts his right hand on her back, pressing just enough that the grieving woman knows that he's here. She doesn't react to his presence, merely sobbing harder.
Then a doctor steps out of the surgery room, white coat peppered in red. Katsuki watches him with narrowed eyes as he speaks to his parents and his aunt. He couldn't understand what they were saying, but he catches a few words.
Cranial fracture.
Internal bleeding.
Possible brain damage.
Later, he sits next to his friend's lax form and holds his limp hand tightly. Izuku looks too tiny on the hospital bed, his hair shaved to make space to the massive bandages wrapped around his skull.
His eyes are open though.
Wide, unseeing.
Blue.
Katsuki spends the remaining four hours quietly talking to him, trying to coax the green-haired boy out of his trance. Izuku continues to stare resolutely at the ceiling, fractal-infested eyes spinning lazily in their sockets.
.
.
.
When he comes out of the hospital, Izuku doesn't return to school.
It's impossible to participate in the classroom when he keeps slipping more and more often. The teacher can't keep a eye on him at all times, and the normal classroom schedule did not work with Izuku anymore now that his awareness slipped constantly, his Quirk spiralling out of control no matter how many times he tried reeling it in.
Omniscience was a passive Quirk, constantly there, constantly mocking them with the spread of blue across Izuku's emerald eyes.
Katsuki's routine changes from then on; the moment he finishes school, he most often than not finds himself at his childhood friend's house, helping him study now that he was unable to go to class anymore. What little friends Katsuki managed to make complained about it, but it's not like he cared. They were useless extras that got in his way, pestering him non stop for his time.
Their Quirks were so not made for heroics, no matter how much they complained or Izuku reprimanded him with Kacchan, not everyone has a perfect Quirk like you. Give them a chance.
Perfect Quirks.
Ha.
Says the boy who's Quirk was slowly stripping him of his autonomy.
.
.
.
Bakugo is six and he can only watch as his friend's Quirk rots him from the inside. The green of Izuku's eyes fades of a teal blue, glazed and distant; the moments of awareness become farther and farther away. Blue takes over, spinning fractals grating at Katsuki's sanity and making him want to scream and claw and tear at something.
It hurts, to see the other boy like this. Quirks were supposed to be awesome, they were supposed to make heroes out of people. They were things of greatness.
But what was great about this?
What was fair?
And the incidents -they just keep piling up.
He doesn't fall down the stairs again -his mother or whomever is available shadow him each time he's near any stairways, sticking close no matter how much of a daily hassle it was. Izuku takes it with restrain, his shoulder dropping in a defeated slump each time Katsuki leads him up or down the stairs of the house. Despite what many thought, Izuku was prideful in his own way; he didn't have Katsuki arrogance -which was well earned in his opinion- but he had a quiet defiance and determination that was his own.
"I can do this one my own," He mutters through gritted teeth as Katsuki hovers over his shoulder, red eyes narrowed into a squint as he watches the other boy attempt to arrange the upper shelves filled with collectibles while standing precariously on his chair. "I'm not made of glass, Kacchan."
You might as well be, the blond thinks, though he doesn't voice it out loud. "I'm just making sure." He says instead, for because despite his sickly state, Izuku shared his mother's mythical ability to make Katsuki feel like the worst person on the face of the earth with just a disappointed glance.
Fuck him if that wasn't a Quirk in its own right.
However, after stopping in the middle of the road and subsequently nearly being crushed under a speeding truck, Izuku was admitted into a hospital ward for permanent residents.
He takes it solemnly, like he knew it was coming. The bastard probably did know about it before the idea ever formed in Inko's head.
On his side, Katsuki accepts it with his usual grace.
And by that, he meant breaking down his bedroom door and trashing half his room before Mitsuki manages to get him under control again. Never let it be said that Katsuki handled things like a mature person. It wasn't his best moment.
(Fuck that though, what right did the nerd have to leave?)
"I'm not going anywhere." Izuku tells him as they arrange his personal belongings in a few boxes. "I'll still be in the city. I won't just disappear, Kacchan."
It wasn't all of his things that went with him to the hospital -a good two thirds stayed here with Inko, for when she would pick up her son from the ward when she had whole days off to spend with him.
"I know." Katsuki replied, grinding his teeth as he clutched one of Izuku's All Might figurines almost to the point of breaking it. "It's just...urgh, I can't even say it!" He snarls, shoving the collectible into one of the boxes. He plants his hands on the edge of the cardboard box, breathing ragged. "It's-"
The words stick to the top of his mouth like tar. Katsuki wants to scream in frustration.
"...not fair?" Izuku murmurs at his side. He feels the green-haired boy's hand rest in between his tense shoulders. His warmth seeped into the corded muscles, and Katsuki allowed himself to breathe. "I know. Trust me, I know."
Of course he does, the nerd. He sees too much, Katsuki reminds himself as Izuku walks past him to raid the closet. Of all Quirks, why this one? Couldn't you have gotten telekinesis like Auntie Inko, or your shitty father's firebreath?
(At this point, he'll take no Quirk over this.)
One thing was now sure though.
Unless something drastic happened, Izuku could never be a hero.
His Quirk kept him from that -and what an irony it was, that the power that should have carried him forward was now tying him down. Omniscience was just too unstable for proper hero work, and the state it left the smaller boy when it just became too much to handle. It would be suicidal to bring him to a battlefield. A person who was in the constant risk of dropping into a coma without warning would only be a hindrance in the field.
Despite knowing this, Katsuki only felt a conviction bloom within him, a promise that settled deep into his soul like a brand. It doesn't matter if Izuku couldn't achieve his dreams.
Katsuki was going to be a hero for the both of them.
(Of course, Izuku found a way to derail that, too.)
This Katsuki will be slightly different from the canon version -I was going to write him normally, as in him ignoring Izuku entirely, but then I started to think what the better alternative was. What would be more fun to write. Izuku's Quirk is traumatizing for the both of them; some of Katsuki's philosophies in canon wouldn't hold up around this version of Izuku, where his own Quirk is holding him back in life. So Katsuki is there during the progression of Izuku's Quirk, and he sees firsthand what it causes.
He's still going to be a little shit tho, just not to Izuku. Most of the time. Let's be fair, Izuku knows how to push his buttons. A version of him that knows everything in advance? Rip Katsuki's sanity. He gonna kill the self-sacrificing nerd.
How to better explain it? Oh, right.
Izuku: *Knows about the thing, should be careful since he knows about the thing*
Katsuki: DON'T do whatever you are thinking of doing. You can just tell me and I will take care of-
Izuku: *Does the thing anyways*
Katsuki: *Insert angry explosions with a side of mental breakdown*