Izuku calmly and carefully pulled his headset off and placed it on the desk. He couldn't risk unmuting himself and letting X-Ray hear what was going on. They couldn't afford for him to be distracted right now, especially since they'd been given bad intel. "You should both think about what you're doing," he warned quietly. There wouldn't be any coming back from this if they went any further, and they all knew it.

Nite-Lite let out a sharp laugh that cracked in the middle. "You mean like how you thought before you ruined both of our careers?" She demanded harshly.

"I didn't do a damned thing except be transparent about what the two of you were doing." Izuku's mouth was tight as he watched them. "If you didn't want to have that impact your career, you shouldn't have done things that your bosses would frown upon," he said, a bit drily.

Nite-Lite's laughter took on a shrill tone that made Izuku want to take a step back, and even Bakugou looked slightly concerned. "You've ruined me," she told Izuku. "No one trusts me anymore-I've been relegated to fucking office work, instead of hunting down villains like I deserve, and it's all because of you !" She took a single step toward him, but was interrupted by Hideo's door swinging open.

"What are you two doing here?" Hideo asked sharply, taking his own step towards the standoff between the three of them. "Dynamite, you're not to be anywhere near this Agency and I know for a fact that Best Jeanist has made that very clear. As for you-" He turned to Nite-Lite, but before he could tear into her like he obviously wanted to, she raised a single hand threateningly. "Nite-Lite, if you use your Quirk against me, I will fire you and have you prosecuted, are we clear?"

"Crystal, sir," she said very evenly. An orb of light pulsed out of her palm, slamming right into Hideo's face. It didn't have any physical force, but the sharp light blinded him for just long enough that Nite-Lite was able to launch herself at him and tackle him back into his office. The door slammed shut behind the two of them with an ominous thunk, and Izuku was left alone with Bakugou.

"That takes care of that," Bakugou said after a moment, something viciously amused crossing his face. "I was wondering how I'd get her out of the picture-I shouldn't be surprised she did it for me. She doesn't have a lot of foresight, that one. Kept thinking that she could convince you to give her a chance." His expression turned ugly. "Kept thinking I'd share you if I managed to make you see how much better I am than the fuckin' hobo."

Izuku swallowed, because Bakugou was completely calm in a way he had never seen before, and

that was sending alarm bells blaring in the back of his mind. "No," he agreed slowly. "She's never been one to consider the consequences." He took a breath. "Are you considering the consequences of this?" He asked carefully.

Bakugou smirked. "Don't worry Deku, I have everything planned out." His smirk turned nasty. "It's a fuckin' pity that those villains recruited more just before your planned raid, isn't it? Gonna take a lot longer now-your fuckin' hobo boyfriend is too busy to come to your rescue this time."

Izuku's breath caught in his throat. No one had considered Bakugou a threat to the operational security of the raid-just that he might disobey orders and get someone hurt. So no one had thought to make sure he didn't know when the raid was, or who was involved-or what the backup plans were if something went wrong. "You've been planning this for a while," he realized.

"There's that big brain I've been hearing so much about recently," Bakugou sneered. "So smart, realizing that after I fucking spelled it out for you!" He laughed harshly. "So fucking smart, that you decided Todoroki of all the fucking people would be able to fool me-he's not that fucking sneaky, Deku! It was too fucking obvious he was feeding me bad intel."

Izuku bit back a sigh. That had been what he'd been afraid of-he'd hoped that Todoroki would be able to use his normal impassive facade to fool Bakugou, but it had obviously not worked. The best plans of mice and men, he supposed. He was just grateful that it was obvious Todoroki had at least tried -he'd worried that Todoroki was playing him, but Hitoshi had assured him otherwise. It was good to know that Hitoshi had been correct.

One hope was that, after realizing Izuku was no longer responding, X-Ray would be able to spare someone to come and check on Izuku and Hideo in person. But Izuku couldn't rely on that. He'd had to step away from coordinating a raid more than once due to someone from the Commission stopping by, or Hideo needing something urgently, so X-Ray probably wouldn't be too concerned over Izuku not responding until it was too late.

"What's the end goal here?" Izuku asked quietly. "Because at this point, there's no going back." Not after Nite-Lite had obviously faked an injury to get out of the raid. Not after Bakugou had chosen to come to the Agency despite being expressly forbidden from having any contact at all with Hideo's Agency. Not after Nite-Lite had attacked Hideo like she had and Bakugou hadn't done anything to stop her.

"That's a funny question," Bakugou began thoughtfully, sending chills down Izuku's spine. "See, originally I wanted you to see that I was better than the fucking hobo. We're childhood friends, our mothers are friends, us eventually dating and getting married just made sense and I was sure you'd see that eventually." Bakugou's eyes were laser focused on Izuku. "But now? You've made it clear that I don't have a chance-you set fucking Nedzu on me!" He took a breath, hands flexing as he tried to keep his cool. "So what do you think my end game is?" Bakugou sneered. "Since you're so fucking smart."

Izuku smiled grimly. "I'd like to say that your end game is to make me miserable and then disappear from my life, but I think we both know that's not the case." No, Izuku knew exactly what Bakugou's end game was here, and he suddenly regretted everything. He regretted being so firm about the fact that it was never going to happen, because if Bakugou had even a sliver of hope this probably wouldn't be happening. "I think you're going to kill me." It was barely a whisper, but managed to almost echo above the faint sounds of the fight still drifting through Hideo's closed office door.

"Well, what do you know?" Bakugou smirked, taking a step forward as explosions began to crackle on his hands. "You might actually have a brain."

"Wait." Izuku took a step back and held up his hands. "Just-wait for a second, ok? It doesn't have to go like this," he said quietly. Izuku wasn't afraid of a single fucking Hero in the business, but Bakugou? The scars on his arms burned, and fear settled like a stone in his stomach despite his best efforts. "You and me, we've been through a lot together-is this really how you want it all to end?"

To his surprise, that actually made Bakugou hesitate, the burnt caramel smell dissipating as his explosions slowed and eventually stopped. "This was never how I wanted it to end," Bakugou said roughly, rubbing a hand over his face.

Looking at him a little more closely, Izuku felt the fear clawing its way up his throat. Bakugou didn't look like he'd been sleeping much-if at all, and Izuku knew that meant his decision making skills were severely reduced. It didn't bode well for Izuku getting out of this unharmed. "It doesn't have to go like this," Izuku murmured, keeping his voice low and soothing. "We can talk-that's what you've really wanted, right? For me to just listen to you?"

Bakugou looked suspicious, glancing at the closed door where Hideo and Nite-Lite were still fighting. "Trying to delay me won't do anything Deku, no one's coming for you."

"I know." It hurt to admit that, but Izuku was well aware that he was on his own at this point. "But I think I've been unfair to you, and I'd like to make it up to you-at least a little bit."

It was a lie, of course. Izuku didn't think he'd been unfair at all-but at this point he'd say just about anything to give himself just a few more moments to try and strategize a way to get out of this alive.

"You think?" Bakugou bit out furiously. "You've been so fucking unfair I don't even have words for it! All I've ever wanted is for you to fucking look at me!"

Izuku's brow furrowed, because that...didn't make any sense. "I always looked at you," he snapped back. "The only reason I stopped was because you made it clear that you had no use for me!" And that had hurt , back when Izuku hadn't been able to understand how toxic their dynamic was.

"You were looking down on me!" Bakugou spat out, eyes a little wild. "You were always looking down on me, like you thought you were better than me! But I proved I was better, that I was the best ! And now you just look right through me like I don't fucking exist!"

That was the fucking limit. Izuku was done trying to play this game. "Because you don't exist in my life." Izuku felt a sense of perfect calm fall over him, his voice cold and remote. "Unless you're shoving yourself in front of my face, I don't remember that you exist at all. And that's how I like it."

"You should have taken that swan dive off of the roof in middle school to get a Quirk in your enxt life-at least then you wouldn't be ruining my fucking life now." Bakugou bared his teeth in an animalistic looking snarl. "But I can fix that right now."

Izuku was Quirkless, and he worked in Underground Heroics. That meant that he was well acquainted with the mechanics of a fight. He sparred with Hitoshi on a regular basis, and even when he'd been younger he'd been able to see the patterns in a fight-and he'd seen Bakugou come at him with the intent to harm more often than he'd ever admit. His lips twisted in faintly inappropriate amusement as Bakugou lunged towards him.

Always with that right hook first.

Izuku ducked around the almost clumsily thrown fist, and drove into Bakugou's stomach shoulder first, slamming him into the ground. He could feel explosions burning into his skin as Bakugou grabbed him and threw him to the side towards the wall, but he shoved that to the side and shoved himself to his feet hurriedly.

Bakugou snarled and launched himself at Izuku again, and this time, with his back to a wall, Izuku didn't have anywhere to go. Bakugou slammed into him full force, landing a hard punch direcly in his face before he grabbed Izuku's face and slammed his head back against the wall before he threw him towards his desk, following quickly behind. Izuku crashed onto the top of it and slid across it, scattering papers everywhere and knocking his headset to the ground. He couldn't help the sharp cry that escaped as he hit the floor, but shoved himself back as Bakugou reached for him and aimed a hard kick at his knee.

The kick connected, and Bakugou swore loudly as his knee gave out and he had to grab at the desk to keep himself upright. It gave Izuku enough time to drag himself to his feet, his teeth clenched against the nausea that rose as the room spun around him. He locked eyes with Bakugou, and the viciously triumphant grin the blond offered him had something inside of him hardening to steel.

He wasn't going down like this.

"Die!" Bakugou snarled, and the head injury made Izuku just a second too slow. Bakugou grabbed Izuku's arm and wrenched it back as he took Izuku to the ground face first. He was like a cat with a mouse-he wanted to play with Izuku before he killed him, wanted to see him scared.

Izuku had just a moment to let the flicker of memory hit him-Shouta, when Izuku first sparred with him-and he bared his teeth in a silent grin. Just as Shouta had done when Izuku had sparred with him, he managed to catch himself on a knee and then he got enough leverage to throw himself back. He let out a sharp noise of victory when Bakugou hit the ground just hard enough that his grip loosened briefly. He threw an elbow back towards Bakugou's throat and hissed triumphantly when it connected and Bakugou let out a choked noise and gasped for air.

He rolled off of Bakugou, and Izuku wasn't the type to play a game of cat and mouse. He grabbed Bakugou's face and slammed his head onto the floor hard enough to knock him the fuck out immediately.

In frankly spectacular timing, Hideo's office door creaked open slowly, and Hideo walked out calmly as he swiped away a trickle of blood from the sluggishly bleeding cut on his cheek. "Well, I see you've got this sorted," Hideo said mildly.

Izuku let out a peal of slightly hysterical laughter. "I guess so," he managed after a moment, dragging himself up off of the ground a final time and staggering slightly. "Also, I think I have a concussion because I'm pretty sure you don't have a twin."

"I do not," Hideo said drily. "Let's get some backup here, and I'll call the doc to come in and take a look at the both of us." He touched his throat, where there were clear imprints of fingers, with a grimace. "I...never expected this sort of reaction from Nite-Lite, and I feel like I should apologize to you for keeping her around you as long as I did."

Izuku huffed out a small laugh. "To be fair, I don't think anyone expected them to come here and try to kill us," he pointed out.

Hideo snorted. "True." He cracked his back and groaned. "I'm too damn old for this shit," he muttered.

A flurry of activity at the entrance had them both tensing, but X-Ray and Shouta came tearing into the room with the other Heroes trailing behind by a very slim margin. "What the fuck," X-Ray breathed out, taking in the mess the room had the turned into.

Izuku winced slightly. Between the obvious smear of blood on the wall where Bakugou had slammed his head up against it, the mess of papers scattered all across the floor, the chair he had beside his desk that had somehow gotten smashed-and he didn't even remember how that happened-and Bakugou's unconscious body, he could understand X-Ray's stunned expression. "We had a bit of a situation," Izuku said after another moment of silence.

"I'd say so," Shouta muttered, eyes narrowed as he glared at Bakugou.

"We heard the fight, but I didn't expect this ." X-Ray gestured towards the mess expansively, making Izuku shrug automatically before he paused.

"Wait, how did you hear it?" His brow furrowed with confusion.

X-Ray cocked his head and looked at him finally. "Through the headset." He hesitated. "You didn't...let us hear it on purpose, did you?" He asked, resigned to the answer he knew was coming.

"No," Izuku said slowly. "The risk of you getting distracted and injured was too high-I don't know how..." He trailed off, eyes catching where the headset had been knocked off of the desk during the fight. "It must have unmuted either when I hit the headset or when it got knocked off the desk." He staggered a little bit when he tried to take a step forward, and Shouta grabbed him quickly.

"Someone get Dynamite secured," Shouta snapped before turning to Izuku and softening his tone. "Here, just lean on me while we get this handled for you, ok?"

"Nite-Lite is in Hideo's office," Izuku said, swallowing as his stomach churned. "Someone should secure her too." He swallowed again, and then groaned. "Oh no," he managed before tearing himself away from Shouta and lunging for the nearest trash can.

It turned out that while the Commission could ignore a lot of things, the one thing they would not ignore was two Heroes attacking an analyst and a retired Hero who now owned an Agency. Both Nite-Lite and Bakugou were sent to Tartarus and their Hero Licenses were both revoked as well. Bakugou almost hadn't been sent to Tartarus, given that he'd attacked someone Quirkless and not a well respected retired Hero as Nite-Lite had done, but Hideo and Nedzu had both gone to the Commission and made themselves very clear about how bad of an idea it would be to let Bakugou off due to that. Shouta had been furious when he'd realized how close they'd come to having to deal with Bakugou again, just because Izuku was Quirkless.

"If they let him out just because he didn't attack someone with a Quirk, he's going to be on a missing poster real fucking quick," Shouta muttered darkly, scowling at the thought.

Nedzu, on the other hand, hummed thoughtfully. "Now that we have the Entrance Exam to UA corrected, perhaps it's time to start working on how society treats Quirkless people."

Izuku arched an eyebrow, wincing when the motion caused the bruising on his face to ache. "People don't want to even think about us," he pointed out. "Trying to make them see that the way we're treated is wrong is going to be a hard, thankless effort."

"Well!" Nedzu clapped his paws together. "No time like the present to get started!" Izuku couldn't help but laugh. "Alright," he agreed. "Let's fix the entire world, I guess."

It was a few weeks after Nite-Lite and Bakugou were both locked up that Izuku saw Ms. Joke sitting outside of a cafe sipping a drink. Before he could talk himself out of it, he slid into the seat across from her. She placed her drink down carefully and met his eyes. "You used me," she said quietly.

"Yes, of course I did," Izuku replied gently. "I played you and Bakugou off of each other so we could have time to plan." He smiled a bit wryly. "You have to admit, if you hadn't sounded a little obsessed with Shouta-and if you hadn't been badmouthing me all over the city-we wouldn't have been able to use you like that."

She laughed quietly. "You're not wrong about that," she admitted. "And...I'm sorry. I lost Shouta a long time ago, but when he never dated anyone after me I just thought that he was still hung up on me-I relied on that, honestly. And then you showed up out of the blue-I should have taken a step back and reevaluated."

"I appreciate the apology," Izuku said quietly. "And I'll pass it on to Shouta, but he'd prefer to not speak with you right now. He was honestly more upset than I was about the rumors you were spreading."

"I'm sure he was," she sighed, finishing her drink. "For what it's worth? I think the two of you make a lovely couple."

The relief Izuku felt after that conversation was staggering-he was exhausted with people trying to interfere in their relationship, and Ms. Joke realizing that she didn't have a chance was a weight off of his shoulders.

Todoroki apologized for not being able to deceive Bakugou successfully, and Izuku shrugged. "I'd be more irritated about it if he wasn't in Tartarus. But he is, and at this point all's well that ends well." Of course, that wasn't to say that Izuku didn't give Todoroki a warning-he made himself clear that if Todoroki ever invaded Hitoshi's privacy again, Izuku would make the rest of his life a living hell.

If Todoroki left that particular conversation pale, wide eyed, and just a little bit terrified of him, well, that was Izuku's business.

"What are you planning on doing with all of your things now that you're moving in with me permanently?" Shouta asked curiously as he sat on the bed watching Izuku pace as he muttered to himself.

"Well," Izuku began thoughtfully, "Some things I'll probably get your opinion on if they could replace what you've got-like my couch. I spent a lot of money on that couch, since I crashed out on it often."

"Mm, yeah, my couch is terrible," Shouta murmured. "We'll definitely replace it with yours."

"But first..." Izuku smiled, a little bit bashfully. "We might need a second bedroom. I'm moving to part time hours with Hideo for right now, because my freelance analysis business is picking up pretty significantly. So I'm going to need an office."

Shouta hopped up and immediately pulled Izuku into a tight hug. "That's fantastic , I'm so proud of you," he murmured in Izuku's ear. "We'll definitely need to move into a two bedroom unit then," he agreed as he pulled back. "Do you have anything in mind?"

"I do!" Izuku smiled brightly as he pulled out of Shouta's arms totally. "Let me go grab my

laptop!"

Shouta couldn't help but laugh as Izuku practically bounced out of the room. Once he was sure Izuku was searching for his laptop, he pulled his top drawer open and shifted some clothing to the side to stare down at the velvet box hidden there. It wasn't time yet, but soon.

Soon.