"Didn't you and Midoriya used to be close as kids?"

Katsuki Bakugou walked arrogantly down an alleyway, trailed by the two extras that had taken to being his little sidekicks or whatever. Like he needed them, he only tolerated them enough to not blow them up.

"Yeah, don't you think you were a little hard on him today?"

They were still freaking annoying though.

"It's his fault for getting in my way," Katsuki growled out, crushing the soda can in his hand with a small explosion and watching as the pieces fell to the ground.

If he was being totally honest, he wasn't sure how he felt about that day.

Would he ever admit that to anyone? Hah, in their dreams maybe. Would he admit that to himself? Pfft, no.

Maybe.

Deku had been suicide baited before. It was nothing new. The other extras would put spider lilies on his desk sometimes, and strangers told him too die in a ditch and stuff. Katsuki knew this.

But up until this point, he hadn't gotten involved in any of that stuff. That's something he'd always stayed out of.

Sure he'd never tried to stop it, because what did he care what anyone else did to that nerd?

But he'd never done it himself. He'd never dared to do it himself, especially after he looked up quirkless statistics when he was twelve out of curiosity and saw exactly how common it was for quirkless kids to kill themselves before they graduate high school.

Sure, Deku had been told things worse then what Katsuki said plenty of times before and it had never affected him. But, despite popular belief, Katsuki knew Deku looked up to him.

He wasn't dumb or blind, he'd always been able to see the admiration in the nerds eyes whenever Katsuki did something relatively cool. He knew Deku would never look down on him, he only used that excuse because he'd never known what to make of Deku admiring him so much.

But that meant Deku cared about his opinion on things. That was obvious enough. So Katsuki had always, no matter how hard he tried to deny it, been a tiny bit scared of how much more seriously the nerd might take that kind of thing coming from him.

But for some reason, today it was different. Any hesitation or concern he'd had was gone. He just saw the opportunity and took it, with the only goal of causing damage.

And he'd been second guessing himself since he stepped out into that hallway, those words on repeat in his head.

Just go take a swan dive off the roof of the building.

Oh what was he thinking?

Whatever. Since when does he care? Besides, he's overthinking this. It's not like Deku would ever actually kill himself. Get himself killed, maybe. But by choice?

Nah, he was fine.

He hoped.

"Speaking of Deku," one of the extra's said as they stepped out of the alley and onto the street, "Isnt that him over there?"

"What?" Katsuki looked At where the idiot was pointing, and sure enough, scrawny, slouching, stupid Deku was walking down the sidewalk towards them.

Katsuki raised an eyebrow in confusion. They were on the opposite side of town from his house, what was he doing here?

He had his nose stuck in his notebook like normal, and if the scorch marks and soaking cover had anything to say about it, it was the same one Katsuki had blown up and thrown out the window earlier. He was surprised it was still readable.

What was weirder, though, was the fact that he wasn't writing in it like usual, he was just reading it. His eyebrows were raised as if surprised and impressed, like he was just now reading this stuff.

"Oi! Deku!" One of the extras called, grinning mischievously.

The nerd didn't even glance up.

Katsuki narrowed his eyes slightly. "Deku!" He called himself.

Deku just kept walking closer, completely ignorant of them. The two extras glanced at each other, also clearly confused.

Katsuki yelling his name usually had him jumping out of his socks.

Just before Deku was about to pass them, Katsuki reached out and grabbed him by the shoulder, stopping him in his tracks.

Deku looked up this time, but when the green eyes met red, they didn't immediately widen with fear like usual. He just looked a bit surprised. "Uh, yeah?"

"Deku, you nerd," Katsuki growled. "You gone deaf or something?"

Deku's wide eyes blinked at him a few times before glancing around, still seemingly confused. "Um, sorry, I think you've got the wrong guy. My name isn't Deku."

Katsuki blinked at him and let go of his shoulder. He scanned Deku's eyes for some sort of lie, or amusement, or something that would point to this being some joke or something. "What?" He asked when he found nothing of the sort.

Behind him, one of the extras snorted. "Wow, what kind of joke are you even tryin to pull, Deku? Or have you just gotten way dumber? Can you believe this guy, Bakugou?" The other extra quickly joined in on the laughter.

Deku looked nervous, but not the usual kind of nervous. He looked more guilty right now, like he was scared of being caught doing something wrong. Usually it was more like an I'm about to get blown up kind of nervous.

Something was off.

"You guys go on," Katsuki grumbled, obviously to the extras, but never taking his eyes off of Deku. "I'll catch up later or whatever. I'm just wanna have a few words with him."

He could practically hear the smirks in the extras voices. "Sure thing, dude. Oh Deku's about to die!"

There voices slowly faded as they walked off. Katsuki stepped further back into the alley, and Deku hesitantly followed after glancing around again.

"Where are you going, Deku?"

Deku finally closed the notebook, then leaned back against the wall and crossed his arms. His posture was completely off, almost confident, but tense enough to not be relaxed. "I told you, my names not Deku."

Katsuki bared his teeth. "Is this some kind of joke? What's is up with you all of a sudden, you nerd? You know it's not like I'm about to call you Midoriya or whatever."

At the name, something seemed to almost click in Deku's eyes, like he finally realized something and he tensed slightly more. "Right, uh sorry, kid- I mean, um, dude."

Ok, what? Dude?

"Tch," Katsuki clicked his tongue in annoyance. Something was wrong, Katsuki just wasn't sure what yet. "Where are you going?"

Deku blinked once. "Uh, home?"

Katsuki's eyebrows pinched suspiciously. "Your house is on the other side of town, idiot."

"Oh, um, right," Deku seemed to be getting more and more nervous, but it was still that weird guilty kind of nervous. "Um, I'm going to the store. Dad sent me to get him some more coffee."

Katsuki's jaw dropped.

Dad?

He narrowed his eyes farther, feeling his own muscles tensing slightly.

Alright then, let's see about this.

"Do you even know what kind of coffee your dad likes?"

Now Deku was starting to look less nervous and more frustrated. Annoyed. Which was also weird. "Yes, I know what kind of coffee my dad likes. He does drink it every day."

Alright, that's it. This was not Deku.

His dad had disappeared when he was four. And from the little bit that Katsuki remembered of him, he'd hated coffee.

But, just in case, he had one more question that he knew would make or break any chance of this being Deku.

Even if Katsuki was going to cringe at it so hard later.

Katsuki smiled, the friendliest smile he could muster. "Alright then, sorry I stopped you. I'll see you tomorrow, Izuku."

Izuku blinked once, then smiled back. But it was not a Deku smile.

"Right, um, see ya... Bakugou," he said the name as if he'd just recalled it from when one of the extras said it earlier. Then a once again stunned Katsuki was left in the midst of Deku as he sprinted away.

Wait, no, scratch that.

Someone who looked like Deku.

But if that was just someone who was pretending to be him, then who was that really? Some villain?

And where was Deku?

In the next moment, Katsuki found himself darting after the fake.

No, he wasn't trying to save Deku. He didn't care about what happened to Deku. This definetly had nothing to do with Deku.

But he was going to be the number one hero, and being a hero meant beating villains.

And this was definetly a villain. A low life villain who did something he was going to regret today.