Chapter 3: Helpers

A/N: "When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, "Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping." ― Fred Rogers

"Asane Kaiko," the healer wasted no time to introduce as they plopped down in a stool in front of Katsuki, giving him a once over. "They/them/theirs. I haven't seen you here before. Just a spectator until now?"

"Bakugou Katsuki, or I guess Pitbull in the ring." He glanced around at the various tired, beaten bodies in the cots and figured most were unconscious or already knew who he was. It also didn't help with Ochako's very public and obvious display during the fight, either. He also didn't come in disguise, really. So, he tacked on, "Dynamight if you see me in uniform," for good measure. "He/him/his. First night for everything here."

Asane left out a low whistle and looked Katsuki over again, more appreciative this time, but took his hero persona reveal in stride. "Just jump right in, why don't you?" Katsuki gave Asane a red-tinted smile. "Well, who'd you fight? What's the damage?"

"Ura—Uh, Jupiter," Katsuki corrected, glancing over at Ochako.

Asane hummed and glanced over in Izuku's direction, doing a double take at the bruises across his face, too, and to Hitoshi hovering ominously behind him. "Yeah… I need a raise."

"You just got a raise!" Izuku protested immediately.

"I deserve another one!" Asane hissed back.

"I know for a fact that you get paid more here than anywhere else you work," Izuku countered.

"There's a reason for that. Have you seen the people I deal with here?" Asane retorted, waving his hand vaguely in the direction of Katsuki and Ochako on the cot in front of him, and then just in general around the room.

"You just gestured to everybody!" Hitoshi argued, leaning back against the doorframe.

"I'll show you a gesture, Cadaver," Asane snarled before flipping him off.

"Maybe later," Hitoshi drawled with a wink.

Izuku hummed, lost in his thoughts, bringing a hand to his chin as he muttered to himself, eyes squinting at the ceiling before he suddenly perked up, nodding enthusiastically.

"Sure, fine. I'll see what I can do!" Izuku promised with a one-shouldered shrug.

Some things never change.

Asane glanced between Izuku and Hitoshi and hesitated. "Uh… the sex or the raise?"

Izuku opened his mouth to respond, paused, and then smirked. "Guess you'll have to wait and see." And the look he sent to Asane was absolutely smoldering.

Some things never change.

Oh, but some things did.

"Oi, Deku," Katsuki called. "The fuck are you doing here?"

"Uh, getting healed, Kacchan. Same as you," Izuku answered.

"You little shit," Katsuki sneered, and would have been halfway across the room to him if Asane wasn't already taking their time to poke and prod their way around Katsuki's injuries.

"Kacchan? That's cute! And Deku?" Ochako repeated under her breath, fingers tapping against her lip in thought. "Like dekiru? Oh, that suits you so well!"

"Like dekunobou," Hitoshi interjected to correct. "You must have gone to middle school together," he said, narrowing his eyes on Katsuki, glowering from his place in the doorway.

Ochako sucked in a breath through her teeth. "Shit. You're right. I forgot about that!" She frowned then, as she turned to really study Katsuki. "You were one of the ones who used that name to bully Izuku?"

"Used it? I fuckin' gave it to him," Katsuki barked, careful not to rip his arm away from Asane's careful prodding that may or may not have gotten a little rougher throughout the topic of conversation.

Izuku laughed awkwardly, waving a hand in front of him. "Water under the bridge! Right?"

Izuku was promptly ignored.

"You fuckin' what?!" Ochako snarled.

"He fuckin' asked for it!" Katsuki snarled right back, like that was an appropriate answer. Like everyone would just accept that response and go, 'oh, okay, Katsuki. As long as you say he deserved it, then I guess it's fine!'

"You better fuckin' pray they don't decide to pair us up again, Bakugou," Ochako said quietly, eyes dark and unwavering.

"Get in line, Jupiter," Hitoshi said just as quietly. "I want a crack at him, too."

Katsuki looked Hitoshi up and down. "You any good?"

Hitoshi snarled at him, then promptly turned on his heel and stormed out. When Asane yelled out after him to remind him that they hadn't healed him yet, Hitoshi snarked, "Like I could forget," and then quickly reassured them that he'd be back later for a proper healing session.

Ochako left, too, hesitating at the doorway to see if Izuku would follow. When he didn't, she sighed and left anyway. A girl's gotta have some self-preservation and self-care skills, and she couldn't reasonably stand to be around Katsuki right at that moment without the freedom that being in the ring gave her to pummel his face in, so she had to remove herself from the situation. Izuku was a big boy who could take care of himself and make his own decisions, no matter how stupid she thought he was for staying behind.

"Oh, you've done it now," Izuku said.

Katsuki smirked. "I want a good fight."

"Well, I'm sure you'll get one," Izuku said, but the squeak in his voice made Katsuki look over at him.

"The fuck is wrong with you, nerd?"

"That's Cadaver that you've thoroughly pissed off," Asane answered before Izuku could. "And on your first day here, too," they continued, finishing off with a low whistle that would make them seem impressed, but Katsuki knew that it was brimming with sarcastic energy.

"When Cadaver wins," Izuku explained, "he doesn't stop when his opponent goes down. Losing to Cadaver means waking up with more injuries than you fell unconscious with. And that's when he likes the person he's fighting."

"Then I'll just win," Katsuki said like it was obvious.

"He has a 90% win rate," Izuku stated bluntly.

Katsuki smiled, sharp and perfect. "Excellent. Just what I'm looking for."

Aldera

Izuku decided to find something to fill his time with. He first met Ochako in an after-school improv club. It was far enough away from Aldera that he didn't know anybody from the middle school, so no one knew he was quirkless. It was perfect.

"The first rule of improv is to always say yes!" the instructor, Yamada Hizashi, preached. He was a local high school student that ran the club for middle schoolers in his free time for community service extra credit. "'Yes, and' will be the new phrase running through your heads on repeat! First, let's go around the room and tell a little about ourselves. How about we start with our names, ages, and quirks!"

It was not perfect. It was a horrible, no-good nightmare.

Of course, quirk status would come up within the first five minutes.

That was just the rule of the world, and rules were rules.

Some things just couldn't be helped.

"To make this exciting and start off on the right foot, nothing you say can be the truth!"

Izuku took it all back. It was still perfect.

"I'll go first! Hi! My name is T-Rex the Dancing Soda Can, and I just turned 500 about 400 years ago, give or take a few centuries. My quirk, well, isn't it obvious? I'm the shortest person in the world!" Hizashi declared as he towered over the giggling middle schoolers.

"Hi!" the brunette greeted Izuku after the class had ended. "Is your name really the Supreme Ruler of the Universe?" she joked.

He laughed. "Midoriya Izuku," he introduced, bowing in official greeting.

"Uraraka Ochako," she returned.

"Oh," he gasped, scandalized. "So, you aren't Princess Pluto? And here I thought I was meeting royalty."

She yanked him in to whisper against his ear conspiratively. "Keep your voice down. The more people say my true name, the closer the rebel assassins will get to finding me and taking over the throne for themselves."

Izuku pulled away and gave her a sad look. "Sorry to break the news to you, princess, but we've already found you."

That's how Izuku ended up chasing Ochako around the empty room, trying to 'assassinate' her once and for all, and how she retaliated in play-panic and ended up accidentally using her quirk on him.

"Oh! Oh, no! I'm so sorry!" she said, as she grabbed onto him, releasing her quirk and allowing him to fall to the floor. "Oh, no!" she said again. "I'm supposed to make sure you have your feet on the floor before I release! I keep forgetting! I—"

But Izuku was laughing, eyes bright with the new experience.

"Hey, that's your quirk? So, it wasn't eye lasers after all!" he joked, referring back to her improv speech the hour before. "That's so cool! Will you tell me about it?"

It was Ochako who noticed that something wasn't quite right with Izuku–the way he held himself, the way he winced when grabbed during improv and then brushed it off too easily, the way the bruises weren't completely covered by his shirt's collar, and the way they seemed to graduate to spreading across his jaw when his tormentor seemed to no longer care if the damage was easily hidden.

"Are you safe at home?" Ochako asked. "If your parents are hurting you–"

"Oh, no!" Izuku interrupted. He rarely did, but he couldn't allow her to think that a moment longer. "My mother is excellent!" he reassured. "This," he said, gesturing to his face, not able to quite meet her eyes, "this happens at school."

"Bullies?" Ochako asked.

Izuku shrugged. It was a non-answer that Ochako took as an affirmative; Izuku let her.

"I'm quirkless," he finally admitted, waiting for her to pull away, to walk away, to turn her back and never talk to him again.

She sat there, waiting for him to continue, lending her never-ending listening ear.

"The kids at school are mean. The teachers… they grade my schoolwork differently than the others. They don't care when the kids corner me at school, use their quirks on me… call me Deku," Izuku said. It was weird, talking to someone about this. Someone who actually listened and heard him instead of scoffing and turning away.

"Deku?" Ochako repeated to make sure she heard correctly, only continuing when she got Izuku's nod of confirmation. "Why do they call you that?" Ochako asked.

"My best friend, Kacchan. When we were learning how to read, he accidentally read my name incorrectly," Izuku began explaining with a small, soft smile that quickly enough fell off his face as he continued on with his explanation. "It can be read as "Deku," too, though, and he was really mad at himself for getting it wrong. He hates making mistakes. He's the one who got everyone to call me that. He told everyone that it's short for dekunobou." Ochako inhaled sharply, insulted on Izuku's behalf. "So, if you ever hear anyone yell out "Deku," we should probably run away unless I say it's okay to stay. They probably don't have good intentions if they're from my middle school."

One day, Izuku showed up to improv class with a black eye.

"Woah, little listener! You sure you're good to play? Do you need to sit this one out?" Yamada asked, tilting Izuku's head back and forth slightly to see the full extent of the damage.

"I'm okay," Izuku assured. And, in the interest of the improv class, he added, "I just tried to parachute here and snagged into a tree." Izuku gestured to the sticks and leaves in his hair he acquired while running from Kacchan and his lackeys when he tripped over a root in the forest and took a tumble for added evidence to back up his wild claim. "Won't happen again, sir. I'll improve my landing aim before next class. Promise."

Despite himself, Yamada snorted. "At least let me get you an ice pack, yeah?" Yamada said, standing up from his crouch. "Does your mother know about this?"

"Not yet. It happened in school today," Izuku said, finally dropping the pretenses, knowing that Yamada would require a real answer out of him, fingers brushing tenderly over the darkening skin surrounding his eye.

"I'm going to give her a call, all right?"

"As long as you don't interrupt her meeting," Izuku said. Yamada looked at him quizzically. "She is the Prime Minister after all," Izuku said in a tone that said Yamada should have known this all along.

Yamada's eyes widened as he played along, nodding enthusiastically. "If I don't get through to her directly, I'll make sure to pass it along through her assistant, yeah?"

Along with an ice pack, Izuku was handed a flyer for some self-defense lessons, led by Yamada's friend and classmate, Aizawa Shouta, for his own extra credit community service hours.

It wasn't hard to convince Inko to sign him up. She had been worried for the whole hour and a half after Yamada's call until Izuku had arrived home so she could assess the damage herself, and she did not like what she saw. Another fruitless call to the school and another awkward dinner where they ignored the elephant in the room was on the to-do list, Izuku knew.

That was just the rule of the world, and rules were rules.

Some things just couldn't be helped.

But it seemed like Inko was tired of at least one of those things.

The phone call still happened. Izuku doubted those would ever stop unless Inko could finally round up enough funds to move them to another school district, and that's only if wherever they ended up had a better atmosphere than Aldera, which would be hit-or-miss, Izuku guessed. Better the devil he knew than the one he didn't, he figured, so he never inquired about moving away anyway.

The dinner, though, was different.

"Izuku," Inko said, as soon as she sat his colorful plate in front of him. He paused in picking up his eating utensils to see what she wanted to ask him. "Are you and Katsuki still friends?" she asked, getting right into her direct line of questioning.

Izuku thought that she would make a great Prime Minister if the opportunity ever arose for real.

"Of course," Izuku answered easily. "He's my best friend."

"I just don't understand why you're coming home in this condition all the time when it wasn't an issue before," Inko said, eyes filling with tears as she sat down in her own seat, practically collapsing against the table, taking care to avoid falling into her own plate in front of her.

"I'm sorry, mom," Izuku said, tears rushing to fill his own eyes in response to seeing his mother's reflective eyes. "He can't protect me from everything, you know? He does his best."

"You're right, sweetie," Inko said. "It's not right to put it all on Katsuki, either. He's just a kid, himself. I'm just relieved to know that you at least have him. It really should be on the teachers! I don't know why they won't pay more attention to you, even after this issue keeps happening. If it ever feels like too much to handle–"

"Too much to handle?!" Izuku rarely interrupted his mother, but he knew she felt guilty that she couldn't pull him from that awful school. "Are you kidding? It's like an adventure with my best friend every day! We get to pretend like we're heroes! I get to sneak around the corners like I'm undercover. It's actually really fun!" Izuku insisted. "It'll be even more fun once I can learn some of this self-defense!"

Izuku was signed up for self-defense classes the next day, right after that scathing phone call to Aldera that would go nowhere (because it's not that the teachers didn't pay attention, Izuku knew. They saw him, all right).

Izuku was grateful that Ochako wasn't difficult to convince to come along; it was easier to practice on someone his own size, especially when just starting out. It felt kind of like dancing when they got the hang of the moves, and it became more smooth and less robotic and jerky. The "dance," though, would end up with one of the children slamming the other onto the mat, flat onto their back, the one slammed wheezing for breath and the other laughing joyously, high on the feeling of completing a move correctly from start to finish, the older adults taking the class watching their antics with poorly disguised amusement as Aizawa gave critiques or showed them their next move that they would be working to perfect.

It was after a few months of classes when they were really getting the hang of it and having a good time sparring for minutes at a time before either one of them would yield that they were both approached about the fighting ring.

The young woman had been watching through the windows and approached the kids, at first asking them how long it took them to get to that level. Once they were out of range of the dojo, though, that is when her real intentions were revealed, and she spoke of the fighting ring and how she wanted to recruit them after seeing their potential.

Ochako was ready to flee until the woman mentioned that the winners take home actual money when they won. The woman seemed amused when Izuku made her explain how the amount that the winner got was calculated, and then impressed when Izuku made her run through an example calculation and asked follow-up questions so that Ochako could determine if it was worth the risk.

"And you're small. And a girl," the woman who had introduced herself as Hamato had said, writing out different calculations and drawing arrows over her notes. "So, you'd take home an even larger pot when you win because you'd have the majority betting against you. And you would win, at least sometimes, because you're scrappy. People wouldn't expect it."

"Do you speak from experience?" Izuku asked.

Hamato laughed. "I do," she said. Izuku didn't doubt her based on the fading, yellow bruises littered on the woman's skin and her busted knuckles that were slowly healing but would probably be busted open again before they could heal completely.

"I won't go without Izuku," Ochako declared.

"And you won't want me because I'm quirkless," Izuku said, puffing his chest out with confidence that he didn't feel.

"Oh, honey, that hardly matters," Hamato drawled, smile sharp, knowing that she could count on two new recruits in her downline as they leaned in, ready to hear what she had to say next. Hook, line, and sinker. "We're all quirkless in the Pit."

Izuku thought that he might stand a chance when his first fight was against another kid around his own age.

Izuku thought wrong.

Izuku went into the dingy, fenced area, facing off against the middle-schooler with purple hair, immediately clocked his white irises and made a mental note to ask him about his quirk as soon as the fight was over, and was promptly knocked out in less than 30 seconds. When Izuku returned to the world of the living, he looked like he had been through a much longer fight than he had been based on the injuries he had sustained, and Ochako was nice enough to fill him in on what happened after he had been knocked out.

"He just kept going!" she said, fearful tears in her eyes as she helped him wrap himself up. "You dropped, the match was over, he won. But he didn't care, Izuku. He just kept going."

Both kids tended to their own injuries, wondering what the hell they had gotten themselves into.

But Ochako had won her match, and the money she took home was no joke. No matter the risk, they weren't being scammed.

She still thought Izuku was crazy for approaching the purple-haired kid that was announced by the stage name Cadaver before their fight.

Izuku introduced himself, asked what the kid's quirk was, and when the kid hesitated, he jumped into his own theories that turned into a five-minute rant before the kid could finally utter out, "uh… I'm Hitoshi."

Izuku blushed, and Hitoshi was grateful that it was visible under all the bruising he had caused and that Izuku wanted to talk to him despite him being the one to cause all that bruising in the first place.

"How did you know I had a mental quirk? And why are you talking to me if you pinned me with a mental quirk so fast?" Hitoshi had asked.

And that was the start to their beautiful friendship.

After every match they were put together for and Izuku would wake up with more injuries than he would be knocked out with, Hitoshi braced himself for their friendship to end, but Izuku always just plopped himself down next to Hitoshi and started on some new quirk theory or his dream to either rise to be a hero or maybe even a stakeholder at the Pit someday and make some major changes with how the place was ran.

The Pit

"Who do I have to bribe around here to fight that guy? What's his name? Corpse?"

Izuku was quick to smother his snicker. "Cadaver," he offered. "And you don't have to worry about bribing anyone."

"Deku—" Katsuki snarled, prepared to state his argument, but Izuku wasn't finished.

"Because Cadaver," Izuku continued, nodding over in the fighter's direction, "is already taking care of that for you."

Katsuki looked over in the direction Izuku indicated to see Hitoshi leaning threateningly over a table with charts and brackets spread over it, waving one hand wildly around while one hand supported his weight in his intimidation tactic of leering over the seated individual at the table. Katsuki caught Hitoshi's glare as he glanced over his shoulder to gesture in Katsuki's direction before turning back around to slam both hands back on the table.

"Looks like you get what you want for free this time, Kacchan," Izuku said.

"What about next time?" Katsuki asked, turning to look at Izuku, eyes grazing over the yellowed bruising tainting his skin.

Izuku laughed. "You want to lose that badly, Kacchan? No bribe necessary. I'll put in a good word if you want to see what it's like to be knocked down a few pegs, yeah?"

Katsuki sneered, half-dismissive and half-excited about the idea of fighting the nerd one-on-one in a fair fight where he actually fights back. "Like you'd stand a chance, Deku."

"Don't underestimate me," Izuku warned. And damn, it actually sounded like a warning. "No quirks allowed in here. You'd be surprised how much that evens the playing field."

"Still beat Uraraka," Katsuki groused, rubbing his shoulder petulantly.

"Barely," Izuku conceded, "seeing as how much Asane had to patch you up. Is your shoulder still bothering you?"

"Just the injection site. Their quirk doesn't work very fast on puncture wounds, they said," Katsuki said.

Izuku stopped walking.

Katsuki walked a few more steps before he realized.

"Oi! What're you doing?!"

"You got the quirk-nullifying injection, Kacchan?" Izuku asked.

"Obviously," Katsuki said. "Not trying to die out there, shitnerd. Anyone knocks me out, or even gets me close, and my quirk has the potential to go out of control. Oi! Why the fuck are you crying?!"

Izuku hastily brushed his tears away. "No reason! It's nothing! Forget it!" And Izuku laughed, running forward, grabbing Katsuki's hand, and dragging him along to give him a tour of the rest of the arena.

Katsuki watched, as he always did, observant as ever, the way that others interacted with Izuku. Not only were the ones he classed as Izuku's friends kind to him, but he was treated with a weird kind of distant respect from other fighters who were not so familiar–newer fighters like himself? Then an important looking man in a suit asked Izuku if he would have time to talk about something important before the night was over, and Izuku told him no.

"We can schedule a meeting for later this week. I'd hate to have to keep repeating myself for every stakeholder, anyway, so it's better if I talk to everyone at once, if possible," Izuku said to the man before abruptly bidding him goodbye and dragging Katsuki off.

Katsuki very quickly understood that Izuku was some kind of big-shot in the Pit.

It didn't surprise him. Not really.

Once they were done with the tour and Izuku led him outside to wander around the perimeter of the area, Katsuki finally had his chance to turn on him.

"Oi," he said, darting an arm out to stop Izuku from his progression through the narrow alleyway back out onto the open street to complete the loop around the perimeter. "What happened to going to UA?" he asked, dropping any pretenses and just driving right to the center of the point. "You just dropped off the face of the planet, Deku."

Izuku sighed, allowing himself to lean back against the cool brick of one of the buildings that made up the alleyway.

"It would have been the same as Aldera," Izuku said.

"You think?" Katsuki pressed.

"There was too much risk, especially after not making it into the hero course and being stuck in general education," Izuku said. "It was safer to just do an online course where quirk status wasn't obvious, the other kids wouldn't be able to physically get to me, and the work would automatically be graded so the teachers wouldn't have any flexibility to deduct points just because I'm quirkless."

"After everything I did to you–"

Izuku laughed, lighthearted and easygoing. "If you thought you were bad, you should have seen me after my first fight with Cadaver!" Izuku said. "Actually… No, nevermind," Izuku said, changing the trajectory of where he wanted the conversation to go. "You're not the worst thing to ever have happened to me, Kacchan. Far from it, so don't go getting a big head," he finished with a wink, ducking under Katsuki's arm to continue on their trek. "Besides, the grades that I got in Aldera were more than enough to get me into the advanced track in the online course I did. You did enough to get the teachers off my case back at Aldera that–"

"Hey! You two!"

The two exited the alleyway only to turn and see two patrolling police officers quickly approaching them.

Izuku's reaction was automatic. He put his back against the brick again, pulling Katsuki with him, over him. Katsuki braced his hands on either side of Izuku so as to not collide into him, feeling the rough texture of the brick against his palms, his chest coming to rest over Izuku's as the police neared.

"Kiss me, Kacchan," Izuku demanded.

So, Katsuki ducked his head and kissed the nerd.

And then was abruptly pushed away again.

"Oh, hi! Didn't see you there, officers!" Izuku called out, putting an intentional slur to his voice.

The officers wandered closer, still cautious but letting their guards down a little now that they thought they were just dealing with two drunk lovers on a nightly stroll.

Until they got closer and saw the bruising.

"You two look awfully beat up. Are you two okay?" one of the officers asked.

It was a probing question. They knew there was an illegal fighting ring in the area and maybe they would be taking in two of their fighters tonight.

Until one recognized Izuku.

"Oh, hey, I recognize you!" the other officer said, stepping closer to see better under the dim streetlights. "Mizoriya, right?"

"Midoriya," Izuku corrected lightly. "That's quite the memory you have, though! I'm sure you meet so many people during your patrols!"

"Yeah! That's right!" the officer said, snapping his fingers and nudging his partner in the ribs with his elbow. "He's that quirkless kid we sometimes come across, remember?"

Izuku winced. If Katsuki was just a hook-up or something, and did not know that he was quirkless, the police officer might have put him in an unsafe situation by revealing his quirkless status just then. They could really do with some better training, and Izuku made a mental note to write into the department in the morning to express his concerns. Then, he glanced over at his companion and thought that maybe a letter from Dynamight would have more impact than a letter from a random, quirkless civilian and wondered how much convincing it might take.

"That's right! How've you been holding up, sport?" the other police officer asked, stepping forward and further dropping his guard.

"Are you quirkless, too?" the other one had the gall to ask Katsuki, wondering if they might be taking in one of the duo for fighting, after all, but had a regretful kind of tone, like he didn't want to take away something from the quirkless wonder who had made it the whole way to adulthood.

The other officer glanced over to Katsuki, did a double take, and his jaw dropped as he slapped his partner's shoulder several times in a row. "Oh! Oh, no! That's Dynamight! What are you doing way out here?!"

"Had a date," Katsuki muttered, slinging his arm around Izuku's shoulders who could seemingly blush prettily on demand. Katsuki made a mental note to ask him how he did that later.

After signing some autographs and having the officers leave them to the rest of their night, hearing their conversation drift along after them about how it was good that the quirkless wonder found such a powerhouse of a partner to protect him (to which Katsuki snorted at, to Izuku's absolute delight), they continued their walk back to the Pit to grab their things.

"I wonder what they would do if they knew you earned every bruise," Katsuki said.

"Bold of you to assume when you haven't seen me fight, yet," Izuku said.

"I doubt you'd just stand there and take it," Katsuki retorted.

"I did before," Izuku responded wistfully.

"Not by choice," Katsuki said. "And I saw how you had to force yourself to fight against your training. What was it? Self-defense or some kind of martial arts?"

"Self-defense," Izuku said. "My improv teacher recommended it when I kept showing up with bruises," he explained with a laugh.

Katsuki hummed. "They look good on you," he said, reaching out to brush a thumb along a healing bruise along Izuku's jaw, making Izuku shiver. "Always have."

"They don't look too bad on you, either," Izuku said. "Maybe you should skip the fancy healing quirks more often."

"Yeah, let's just give the villains some targets displaying my weaknesses, areas they should aim for, why don't I?" Katsuki groused.

"Oh, Kacchan," Izuku drawled, batting his eyelashes dramatically. Katsuki braced himself for whatever bullshit was about to come next. "Like you couldn't handle a few extra disadvantages, huh? I've seen your takedowns. The villains don't even come close!"

Katsuki snorted, stretching out his shoulders to disguise just exactly how pleased he was with the praise and the idea of Izuku following his fights and progression as a hero. Then, to keep the banter going, Katsuki abruptly complained, "that would have been a shitty first kiss, nerd."

"Good thing that wasn't our first, then," Izuku quipped, smiling up at Katsuki. "Spend the night at mine?"

With so much time spent apart, never getting that closure that he needed, never getting to be Izuku's hero after constantly playing the role of the villain, Katsuki wanted to find it difficult to give in to Izuku's request. Looking into bright green eyes framed by flushed, freckled cheeks, Katsuki wouldn't dare.

"Sure, Deku. Whatever you say."

Some things never change.

Katsuki giving into Izuku's whims and ideas seemed to be one of those things.

Which is exactly how Katsuki ended up spending the night writing and rewriting a letter to the local police department until Izuku's (and his own) satisfaction about how disclosures of quirklessness in front of unknown subjects should be kept to an absolute minimum for the safety of the quirkless population in the area.

Katsuki got heavily rewarded for his efforts and discovered that Izuku's pretty blush was completely natural. Katsuki was pleased to find out, over and over again throughout the night (and the next night, and the next) that Izuku seemed to be just as affected by Katsuki as Katsuki was by Izuku.

Still.

Even after all this time apart.

That was just the rule of the world, and rules were rules.

And that was one rule that both of them were determined to have written in stone.

Some things just couldn't be helped.

Not that either of them was asking for any help. Not when it came to each other. Never when it came to each other.