Chapter Text
The lights turn on while the final credits are still on the screen. The other four people in the theater with them begin to stand up, murmuring a comment or two about the movie.
Beside him, Kacchan looks at the screen as he reads the credits that remain. Izuku knows better than to stand up before the credits end in front of him. ’There’s a shit lot of people that worked in this to have their name there’, he told him once, back when they’d started their weekly movie nights; Izuku has never attempted to leave before the credits end since then.
The screen turns white again. They gather their stuff, and step out of the theater.
“It was pretty good,”
“No, it was trash. Completely predictable,” Katsuki says.
“I had fun, Kacchan! It didn’t seem like two hours at all,”
“That just means it’s entertaining not good,”
“Fine, it was fun then,”
“A fun trash with clichés”
“Everyone love clichés”
Katsuki opens his mouth to reply; probably to tell Izuku that No, he doesn’t love clichés, meaning not everybody loves them (even though he does, he’s a sucker for them and Izuku only pretends not to know that about him in order to let him keep his reputation); when a high pitched voice interrupts them:
“Oh my god,oh my god!”
He sees Kacchan closing his eyes for a second, cursing under his breath.
“-It’s Dynamight and Deku!!”
It’s not weird that this happens, not after the war. Before, people who knew them were fans really, it was only when the war went down that Izuku’s name started to be known by everyone in Japan, and the rest of the class too because they’d decided to go up against Shigaraki and All for One with him.
It’s not weird that it happens in general, but this is their preferred movie theater because it’s mostly empty and, when it’s not, it’s always the same people so there’s nothing surprising about them both going through the door and buying a couple of tickets.
So what’s weird it’s that it happens here.
The girl practically skips to where they are, all smiles and light in her eyes.
“I can’t believe you’re both here!”
Izuku forces a smile. “Yeah, well, here we are, I guess,”
“Hikari, come back here, stop bothering them,” a lady standing a couple of meters away tells her. Then, she turns to them. “I’m sorry, she just admires you both a lot,”
At that, Izuku can’t help but melt a little. He remembers being fourteen and meeting heroes, right before he knew what it would mean to become one.
He smiles at the girl again. “Really?”
She nods enthusiastically. “Really! It’s impressive how much you’ve improved since your first year!”
“Thank you, I-“
“And Dynamight!” She goes on. “I’ve watched you since your first sports festival, and then the internship with Endeavor, and- and the war- God you were amazing going against Shigaraki, and the fact that you ended up quirkless and still came out on top of your class at UA-“
“I think it’s best if-“ Izuku tries because he can feel Katsuki growing even more tense beside him,trying to dry the sweat from his palms; habit that remains from when sparkles and sudden combustion still happened, from when something still happened.
“It gave me hope to become a hero, you know? I’m quirkless too and my mom,” the girl gestures to the lady behind her. “Well, she wasn’t sure at first but she’s letting me apply to the hero-course at UA,”
Please don’t ask the question. Please don’t ask the question. Please don’t ask the question. Please don’t ask-
“What are you doing right now? I haven’t seen you around since your whole class graduated and the papers don’t say much,”
Izuku internally curses their luck, preparing himself to give some sort of excuse to escape this whole conversation, if only to not let their movie night be ruined completely.
Poor girl, it’s not even her fault.
“I’m taking some time off for now,” Kacchan replies.
“Oh,”
“Yeah.”
Silence.
There’s no other explanation and her cheeks that were colored pink from excitement seem to go red from embarrassment.
“So… we better be going,” Izuku says, “it was nice meeting you. Try your best for the Hero-course, okay?”
She nods, passing her phone from hand to hand, her eyes barely meeting theirs.
He doesn’t even have to suggest it, because Katsuki sighs tiredly and points at her phone.
“You want a picture?”
Her eyes shine with renewed joy. “You don’t mind? It’s- it’s okay if you don’t want to. I wouldn’t post it anywhere or something like that though, especially if you’re trying to keep a low profile for now but-“
“It’s fine, kid.You can do whatever you want with it,” He assures her. “ you want Deku in it too right?”
If it’s possible she goes even redder. “I- of course, sure, I can ask my mom to-
Izuku chuckles. “I can take one of you two alone, if you’d like. Kacchan’s amazing, I’d want a picture just with him too,”
Kacchan rolls his eyes and Izuku can’t help but to smile as he takes the girl’s, Hikari’s, phone.
They stand at an awkward distance from each other. Katsuki has never been good at dealing with this kind of situation, fans, praise given by, well, anyone, but particularly from strangers… he doesn’t know how to respond to them so he basically hates the whole thing.
Izuku is pretty sure he doesn’t hate it as much as he lets on, he just needs a little push. “Hey! I thought Dynamight was your favorite one-“
Hikari looks down right offended at this. “He is!”
“Then show it!”
Now she beams at the camera.
Kacchan’s cheeks turn a little pink but smiles too. That gentle smile that doesn’t happen often.
Good, It meant their movie day wasn’t totally ruined.
He snaps the picture.
“Let me see! Let me see!” She snatches the phone out of his hands to look at it. A gasp. “It’s perfect, I’m going to put it as my lockscreen forever.”
Oh, Izuku remembers the joy and innocence of being fourteen, alright. What would he give to feel the way he did when he’d seen All Might’s autograph on his notebook.
“Thank you,”
Izuku turns around and finds her mother there.
“Oh, it’s nothing really-“
“It’s not nothing. It’s hard to find people that don’t laugh at her when she tells them her dreams, given her condition. Although, I feel kind of silly now, both of you know what that’s like,”
The fact that the word ‘condition’ rolls off her tongue so easily makes Izuku want to tell her that she’s probably the one that kind of laughs at Hikari because of her dreams. He would know, Inko opposed his chosen career until she couldn’t anymore.
“People are shitty,” Katsuki comments and Izuku doesn’t know what to make out of his tone.
“Yes. They really are,” She says and turns to her daughter, who alternates between looking at the picture in awe and texting. (Probably to tell her friends about how her favorite hero just happened to be at the same crappy theater where she’s at, the one that serves the terrible popcorn.) “I’d just do about anything to keep that smile on her face, you know?”
“Yeah,” Kacchan replies, without missing a beat. “Yeah, I get that.”
The woman nods, a small smile appearing on her face. “Well, thank you. For being kind to her, and listening, I guess. Hikari! The movie is about to start!”
“Oh.Right!” She hurries to where they are again. “It was amazing to meet you,” she says to them, especially Kacchan.
And Izuku doesn’t know if he means it or not, but Katsuki says “You too, kid. Work your ass off at UA.”
“I- I still gotta do the entrance exam-“
“You’ll get in, I know about this stuff. Knew it about this nerd too,” He adds, pointing at Izuku.
He can’t help but to blush a little. “As if. You told me I’d get myself killed at the exam”
Kacchan snorts. “Only because you’d do anything to get in. And you broke your bones trying to save Round cheeks so I was right,”
“Round Cheeks?” Hikari asks.
“Uravity,” Izuku offers as an explanation.
“And if it weren’t for her you’d be dead before entering UA so there’s that.” He turns to Hikari again when he notices the look of slight panic appearing. “Don’t worry, it’s just an exam. And now it’s more inclusive than it used to be. They realized they were being unfair.”
The words ‘since the war’ go unsaid but they know it’s there. A lot has changed since the war.
“I’ll try my best!” she promises him.
Katsuki nods, and the beginning of a smile draws itself on the corner of his mouth. “Then you’ll be fine, kid.”
They say goodbye after that. Hikari and her mother go one way, Izuku and Katsuki go the other.
They walk in silence. The sound of their feet crushing the snow as they go echoes down the street.
The week of December after Christmas has never been Izuku’s favorite time of the year. The hype around Christmas dies, the decorations begin to change for New Years. On the contrary, Kacchan has always liked New Years best. He says he doesn’t care about any holiday in particular but gets really happy on January 1st when they pay the first visit to the shrine with their families.
He’s too quiet for this time of the year; looking at his own feet as they step on snow. Izuku doesn’t know if he would have been if they hadn’t ran into this girl but he feels like it has something to do with it.
“I’m sorry they found us, Kacchan”
Katsuki shakes his head, dismissing him. “We’re fucking famous. Occupational hazard.”
Izuku hums in agreement.
A beat.
“Sucks though,” Katsuki adds.
“Yeah, it does”
More silence.
More steps. They turn right, in direction to the Bakugo's and, as always, the blond sighs tiredly.
Izuku has tried to convince Kacchan to stay with him for a while instead of punishing himself like this. His parents might be lovely and probably the people who love Katsuki the most in this world, but Mitsuki can be difficult to deal with to say the least, and since the-
Since the accident it's been worse.
For starters she's been up Kacchan's ass about dropping the hero course. ’Think about your options, Katsuki.’ ‘Look at Izuku for example, it's not like he made the hero-course while quirkless, did he?’ ‘What about out on the field, huh?’ ‘How are you going to win out in the real world?’ Izuku is pretty sure that Mitsuki being utterly against it made Katsuki want to train even harder. So that's what he did, he trained, pushed himself, and, as always,
came out on top of it all.
Everyone wanted to work with him. Offers practically rained on him, not only because of his experience on the field, but because he graduated with honors, no quirk. He even refused any kind of suit designed that worked as a replacement to his quirk. Katsuki just-
Katsuki just worked his ass off, surpassing the entire class, including him. He left Izuku behind, looking at him, amazed by how brilliant he is.
Because that’s what he is, he’s amazing.
And then graduation came and Kacchan announced he’d be taking a sabbatical year. You can imagine how that went.
Mitsuki practically screamed her head off, saying over and over that she had been right, that now he had to start over but he’s late to everything because he could’ve changed to general or support course but he went ahead and didn’t listen to her. Then there was the entire class asking why, that he’s the best hero there is, that he’s worked so far, maybe he could try a couple of months at Endeavor’s and then take a break if it’s too much. Even Masaru, who’s supposedly the person who understands Katsuki the best, tried to convince him to enroll in some sort of course that he finds interesting, if only not to lose the entire year doing nothing.
Izuku is proud to say that he only nodded and said ’Okay, Kacchan. But we gotta come up with something to see each other if you’re not training anymore’, came up with weekly movie nights, and that was it.
Katsuki didn’t need people telling him what kind of decision he was making when he had obviously thought it through; much less live at a house with someone that complains about their son doing nothing when they have more than enough to go by. They’re goddamn rich, it’s not significant to their economy whether Kacchan decides or not that he needs some time off to think and breathe, as he had yelled to Mitsuki a month after his graduation.
Hence the offer of living together.
Izuku wouldn’t bother him, he wouldn’t invade his space… He’s out a lot because Endeavor always chooses him and Shoto for the long missions, so Katsuki would have the apartment for himself. And even if it’s not the case, he’d have his own room, Izuku doesn’t have a lot of things so he could leave him the main bedroom if that’s more comfortable for him. And money wouldn’t be an issue either, he makes more than enough for both of them, and (as a last resort) they have the compensation they’ve received for helping in the war. (Money that both of them refuse to touch, because it would mean accepting that all the things for which they needed compensation in the first place, actually happened).
But it doesn’t matter because Kacchan has refused not once, but several times. As to why, Izuku honestly has no idea. He tries not to take it personal, but it feels pretty personal when somebody chooses to live at a house where they tell them everyday what they’re doing wrong, instead of moving in with you. Just saying.
Today, Katsuki drags his feet even more and, again, he doesn’t know if it’s his usual ‘I don’t wanna go home’ walk or if meeting this girl, Hikari, contributed to this… whatever this is.
“You can stay in the apartment if you want,”
Katsuki shakes his head. “It’s fine.”
“It’s not fine, Kacchan. I don’t know what this is but it’s not fine”
A sigh.
“Can we not?” He asks.
Izuku doesn’t know if he means ‘not fight’ ‘not talk about this’ ‘not end up in the apartment conversation again' but he doesn’t insist all the same. Because Katsuki asked him not to.
Instead, what he does is the only thing that seems to work with Kacchan in this kind of situation: he admits something first.
“It drained me a little. Running into a fan, I mean. It always takes much more energy than I expected.”
Katsuki hums in agreement. For a second he thinks there’s not going to be another answer than that one, but then he says:
“I hate it.”
“Fans?”
He shakes his head again. “That everything, us, we’re- I don’t know. Mixed with the war, I guess. That everytime we meet someone, whoever, the first thing that comes up is that we went through hell at sixteen and still came out okay.”
“Because we’re not okay, you mean.”
“Yes?” He says. “ We’re not okay, we’re fucking awful. We have trauma, all of us, ‘cause that’s something that drives me up the fucking wall too, you know?”
“What?”
“That it’s me, apparently, the one that got the fucking worst out of it, ‘cause I lost my goddamn quirk. It’s fucking disrespectful to the people that lost people. I almost lost-“
A beat.
Kacchan resumes his walk, his feet almost burying in the snow from how hard he’s stepping on it.
Izuku hurries himself to catch up with him.
“Hey! What was that?”
“Nothing,”
“What were you going to say?” He insists.
“Nothing, Deku. Drop it. You wanted to know and now you know. I hate it, I just-“
He sees him hesitate, as if he could say anything that Izuku couldn’t take. He’s the only one who can handle Kacchan’s feelings when he’s like this.
“Yeah?” He asks, if only to give him the little push he needs to say whatever is haunting his mind.
(It works.)
“I just can't deal with all of this. I can’t be number one and the goddamn poster-hero to quirkless kids, okay? And it feels fucking unfair It should’ve been you-“
Izuku frowns. “What the hell is that supposed to mean? I didn’t ask you to jump in front of me, actually I pretty much hated that you did that-“
“That’s not what I meant! And fuck you. I hated that you saved me from the goddamn slug villain too.” He yells at him, the fact that they’re in the middle of the street be damned. “So there. We’re fucking even.”
Silence.
More steps on the snow. Izuku doesn't want to let him go home like this.
“ What did you mean?”
A beat
The steps cease. Katsuki sighs again.
“I used to think you would make it without it.” He admits, his eyes fixed on his feet. “I never worried about the rest of our class in middle school, but you were a fucking threat to me. You’d be a better hero than I’d ever be and you’d do it quirkless, and that pissed me off. A lot.” A beat. “And if anyone should’ve been the first quirkless hero it should’ve been you. You deserve it. Not some cursed out quirk. Not the goddamn burden of leading a war. Just-“
"I get it." Izuku says. He wants to say that it's fine but Katsuki hates when he brushes off what happened, how he feels about it.
And he really does get it. Katsuki's quirklessness is intrinsically related to heroism. People like that. The public has seen him be one of them, then lose it, and still graduate on top of his class. It's an inspirational story. It's one of those stories that one day turns into some shitty Oscar movie in the US and some jackass who plays Kacchan wins Best Actor.
In contrast to Izuku's experience as a quirkless person, which basically involves feeling like a freak, being excluded, people hating you for no reason at all. And on top of that, now that everything went public, the war, All for One, why they were after Izuku… Now people when they see Izuku, they compare him to Katsuki and call him a cheater, someone who’s chosen the easy path; and end up claiming that a true hero wouldn't have taken it.
Most of the time he thinks they’re wrong. He didn’t think he had another choice available at the time, and with that and the fact that One for All was All Might’s- He said yes without hesitation.
But then he sees Kacchan. Kacchan who didn’t even want something that resembled his quirk as support. Kacchan who called him an idiot for even suggesting he should accept One for All after the war was over and they couldn’t get his quirk back. ‘I don’t want your stupid power. I don’t need it to be a hero, you taught me that, dumbass’. Kacchan who just went ahead and walked quirkless down the street as if it were a medal, a prize, something that means he’s him, even though Izuku remembers Katsuki in the skies, flying, and now he lost that.
So maybe he chose the easy way out. It’s hard to say when you feel that you did what you have to in order to survive in a society that thinks type of quirk equals a person’s worth and, simply, someone without any kind of quirk is worthless.
He’s never been as brave as Katsuki to face this kind of stuff, to face the outside look. He’s always been trying to prove himself to everyone, even people who don’t give a damn about him. Hell, he even won a war to show he’s worthy of One for All, didn’t he?
And Katsuki knows that, of course he does.
“I get it, Kacchan,” Izuku repeats when he notices that the blond hasn’t looked him in the eye for a while now.
“Good.” He says, briefly looking at Izuku before hiding his nose inside the collar of his coat.
Silence.
Neither of them walk the last bit to get to the Bakugo’s, probably because both of them are dreading it. Katsuki Because he doesn’t want to wake up to an annoyed Mitsuki again and Izuku because he never wants their talks to end. Even the hard ones, even the hurtful ones. He has always liked talking to Kacchan, even if there was a time when Kacchan didn’t want to talk to him.
“I just need time to think.” Katsuki says. “I thought a year would be enough but it’s almost January and I can’t go anywhere without talking about the war. About what I want. I hate it.”
And Izuku gets that too. They still live at the place where everything went to hell, they still go once a month to give talks at UA. They still have trouble finding a therapist who doesn’t think that they’re fine given all they’ve gone through, that they could be worse.
But, well, what else can they do? Even if they move out of the city like Ochako did it wouldn’t be much different. Not in Japan at least. They know them too much, they’re the ‘young heroes’ that saved them all.
And now the question exists in Izuku’s brain: what can they do?
What can they do to give Kacchan time?
What can they do to finally get some sort of rest?
What can they do to just breathe?
“What if we leave then?” The words roll off his tongue before he really thinks them through but now that they’re out it feels like the most logical thing ever.
“What?” Katsuki asks.
“We leave, Kacchan. It’s brilliant-“
“Where the fuck would we go, they know us everywhere-“
“We leave Japan! I wouldn’t go to the US because of Stars and Stripes but, I don’t know, Europe, maybe? I can talk to Rody, we can stay at his house. Probably-“
“No.”
Izuku blinks. “You don’t wanna go?”
“I don’t wanna go to Europe. We already went there.”
“On a mission, Kacchan, it’s not the same. And it doesn’t matter. You choose. I’ll go wherever you go,”
Katsuki hides his nose on the collar of his coat again and mutters “Stupid.”
“What? My idea?”
“You. You’re stupid.”
“You’re stupid too.”
“Oi!”
“You started it,”
Katsuki huffs and, if it’s possible, retreats his head further into the collar.
A beat.
“There’s a place,” He says, and that’s all that Izuku needs to hear before starting to jump around like an idiot. “Oi, stop. Deku! Can you just-“
“Where? where?”
Katsuki shakes his head, and even though he can’t see his mouth because it’s hidden, Izuku knows he’s smiling from the way that his eyes look.
“It’s in South America, Argentina.”
Huh. “Why there?”
“The Patagonia is there,” he says, as if he should know what the hell that means. “Woods, hikes, rivers and lakes,” he offers as an explanation when he sees Izuku’s face. “The hag never wanted to take me. Too much effort and they never take that many days off either. You need time to see it all, and a car. Probably.”
Izuku looks at Katsuki. He’s drawing patterns with his foot on the snow. He’s avoiding looking at him. This is something that Kacchan wants-
“I’m in.”
Katsuki blinks. “What?”
“Let’s go to the Pategonia”
“Patagonia”
“That. There. Let’s go there.”
“You’re insane, didn’t you hear what I just said? You need time, you don’t even have vacation yet. And even if you did, you only get ten days after your first year-“
“So I quit,” Izuku replies easily. “What?”
Katsuki has now abandoned the comfort of his collar only to look at him as if he’s lost it.
“The hell you mean you’ll quit? You love your job-“
“And I can do it when I come back. What are they gonna do? Not hire me? I’ve been a fucking war hero since I was sixteen.”
He can see Kacchan biting the inside of his cheek, holding a laugh, because Izuku has just used the same argument he had used with Aizawa during their last career consultation class.
“I hate you.” He says, still biting the inside of his cheek to keep his smile in check.
“Is that a yes?“ Izuku asks him, but from the way Katsuki's eyes sparkle he already knows the answer.
“Yes. Let’s go. Let’s get the hell out of here.”