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Katsuki has a bad habit of looking over his shoulder at the end of every battle.
He’s not quite sure when it started. Jeanist called him out on it once, a few months into his time as a side-kick. Katsuki hadn’t wanted to believe him at first either, brushing Jeanist off as the perfectionist ass he tended to be. It isn’t until he sees the photos of himself in the press, the headlines that drawl nauseating prose over the so-called pining in his eyes and the meaning behind it, that Katsuki realizes the damn hero was right.
Best Jeanist was right, and he hates it.
Katsuki has tried breaking the habit—of course he’s tried. He avoids journalists like the plague for months. He stops answering phone calls from worried former classmates. He even changes his patrol routes, on the whim that a place with fewer charged memories would make it a little easier to not care so much.
It isn’t meant to last, and it doesn’t work worth a damn either. He finds himself back in Musutafu within the week, caving to Kirishima’s nervous voicemails.
Dynamight doesn’t run from a fight. He doesn’t hide away when shit gets tough. Dynamight isn’t—no, he can’t be like him. Like Izuku.
That doesn’t mean Katsuki can’t be, just a little bit.
Katsuki has never admitted it out loud, but he knows. He knows why he looks over his shoulder like he’s expecting someone to be there.
He’s looking for Deku, but Izuku hasn’t been a hero in a long time.
-
Katsuki remembers waking up on a battlefield. He recalls easily the way the wind whistled violently in his ears that day, and the feeling of hot tears splashing on his face. Blood dribbling onto his lips, foreign but so, so warm.
He remembers dying, too.
That’s the worst part of it all. Katsuki remembers dying for something he believed in. He remembers dying knowing that even if he was gone, he was leaving the world safe in his friends’ hands—in Deku’s hands. He remembers every horrifying, agonizing, satisfying shred of it.
But then Katsuki woke up, thunder roaring in his veins.
Katsuki doesn’t know how it happened—Izuku refuses to tell him, and so their classmates follow his lead like loyal little dogs. Even Kirishima, who looks at him with that wounded look in eyes sometimes like he thinks Katsuki is going to disappear, remains stubbornly silent. None of that changes the fact that the image of Izuku hovering over him, snot-nosed and teary-eyed and so damn happy it made Katsuki’s jaw tick, is still burned onto his memory like a blister that won’t heal.
They think they’re doing him a favor. They’re not.
One for All. Izuku had given him One for All, and there was no getting around that.
-
“Kacchan,” Izuku croaks on the battlefield as Katsuki blinks awake, lips quivering as they stretch into a gorey smile. “Kacchan, you’re okay.”
“What—?” Katsuki tries to ask, so disoriented that the world seems to tilt beneath his palms, but is interrupted by the blood still pooling in his mouth. He spits it out onto the grass. “What are you doing here, Deku?”
“You needed me,” Izuku says through a thick voice, bright-eyed as he fusses with the ends of Katsuki’s hair. “I’ll always be here, when you need me. You know that, right, Kacchan?”
Katsuki tries to sit up, then, only to be gently pushed back by Izuku who won’t stop smiling through his tears, who won’t stop petting at Katsuki like he’s some fucking child’s toy. He smacks the hand away, and Izuku only laughs unrestrainedly like it’s the funniest thing he’s ever seen.
Something is horribly wrong.
“Deku… What did you do?”
Izuku shakes his head, wiping at his nose as he gasps through his laughter. “It—It doesn’t matter. You’re going to be okay, Kacchan. You’re going to be a hero,” Izuku promises.
Now, it feels more like a threat.
-
The weeks that follow the end of the war are short lived. They fly by in quick succession and Katsuki barely notices them at all. He’s too busy running from Izuku, all earnest and helpful and quirkless. Running from his classmates—his friends— because he’s too ashamed to face up to the fact that he failed them.
They won’t say it, not in so many words, but Katsuki knows. He can see it in the way they fret, making subtle eyes at each other when he so much as stumbles, like his heart is going to give out all over again.
Izuku made damn sure it won’t, so they should quit their whining.
Izuku drops out of the hero course not long after, spewing some bullshit about opportunities in the analytical field, and Class A nods and smiles. They wish him well, all the while Katsuki burns. He burns for the hero Deku was meant to be, and for the fool Izuku has become.
All Might does his best to support the both of them, though Katsuki can’t help but wonder if the old man resents him for Izuku’s choice. He wonders, briefly, if the retired hero would be right to. But then he remembers his own anger, and Katsuki’s not really sure he cares.
Life goes on. Class 2A becomes Class 3A and soon enough they’re graduating, off to start their real lives in the real world. Off to be heroes. Katsuki hears that Izuku has found a home in Sir Nighteye’s old agency—now run by Number #7 Hero, Lemillion. He fills a void left behind by Nighteye himself in their first year, and is apparently doing quite well for himself. It isn’t where he should be, though, and One for All lies uneasy in Katsuki’s bones at the thought of it.
One for All. It’s become familiar to Katsuki in a way that things never should be. It fuels his quirk, yes, but it fights him too. He finds himself dreaming of wispy green silhouettes, of iridescent lightning and a cape that billows without wind to move it. The figure looks back at him—looks through him—sometimes, and Katsuki wakes to clammy hands and damp eyes, grasping at empty bed sheets like he’s expecting something to be there.
But Katsuki powers through it. He soars through the rankings as Dynamight, working with Best Jeanist until the man finally kicks him out on his ass and lovingly tells him he should strike out on his own. He meets with Kirishima for lunch once a week, or at least he tries to. He makes appearances, cuts ribbons, saves lives. He does his level best to move the fuck on.
He can’t stop looking over his shoulder.
-
“Kacchan? It’s me again,” Izuku’s voice starts, familiar and crisp through the speaker. “I… I hope you’re well. Toshinori says he hasn’t heard from you recently, so I wanted to reach out. You know, check in.”
Izuku’s voice pauses, and all Katsuki can picture is that damn smile on his face, the manic laughter as he cradled Katsuki’s broken body on an empty field. The cold numbness hits him then, and he grips tightly at the edge of the countertop to keep his hands from shaking. The traitorous quirk inside of him relishes in the sound of Izuku’s voice, though, thrumming beneath his skin.
One for All still plays favorites, huh, Katsuki thinks, almost humored. The feeling tastes sour.
“I hope you’re well, Katsuki,” Izuku says again, quieter this time. He doesn’t ask Katsuki to call him back like he used to.
No, Izuku gave up on that a long time ago. Like he gave up on being Deku.
Katsuki thinks he might hate the both of them for it.