Chapter Text
"Nice one, Dynamight, that's another victory in the books!"
Katsuki smirks as his sidekick's voice comes in through his earpiece. He presses on the tiny device to speak as he scans the area. The villain in this particular case is being escorted away from the scene. Further off, he eyes the police barricade that separates him from the hordes of reporters eager to get a statement from him.
"Yeah, the fuckin' press is about to pounce," he scoffs.
It shouldn't be a surprise, especially this far into his career. Yet, no matter how many times he's approached, his stomach twists and his throat gets all dry. He's not the best with words and the idea of the press taking him at face value and trying to tarnish his public image is constantly looming over him. Those people have way too much power, and it drives Katsuki crazy. Unfortunately, not talking to them isn't an option. Then, he just comes across as cold and uncaring, which would also tank his ratings.
"Better get it over with! Remember, short and sweet."
He sighs. "Yeah, whatever."
Kyouka's been his sidekick since he first came on the scene. They went to school together and all that junk, and it ended up making sense for them to team up when they went pro. Her quirk makes her great at recon as well as making sure Katsuki doesn't hit a damn pipe bomb with his explosions. (It happened one time—Fucking disaster, he won't make that mistake again!)
Reluctantly, he heads over to the crowd of reporters and journalists. He does his best to hide his uneasiness, holding his head high and confident like he always does.
"Pro Hero Dynamight! Can you give us a statement?"
"Can you comment on the quirk related damage caused here today?"
"How much is this going to cost the city?"
Katsuki forces a smile. "I can't comment on that—But I do know that there is one less villain on the streets of Musutafu, and my goal is keeping everyone safe."
With that, he gives them a final, bright smile before turning on his heel and walking away.
Their questions are so fucking hard to answer. What the hell is he supposed to say? He's not in charge of the city budget! That's way over his head and no one seems to get that. To make things worse, it's a hot button topic that's really been upending his job lately. It's for the best, in the end, but for now it just means more paperwork and more time in the office instead of patrolling the streets.
When he gets back to the agency, he blatantly ignores everyone who tries to talk to him. It's all small talk anyway, nothing important. After a draining mission, he doesn't want to be bombarded with questions and random chit chat. He just wants to go to his damn office and catch his breath for a second.
But as soon as he gets to his floor, he can see that's clearly not going to be happening. There are people in his damn office.
"What the hell is all this?" Katsuki scoffs as he steps into the room. At first he's pissed when he sees the new desk set up in the corner of his office. His eyes land on his director, Yaoyorozu, and a stranger he's never seen around the office before, and he's furious.
But then, the stranger turns around and stops Katsuki in his tracks.
He's on the shorter side, and a bit scrawny. But he's got sparkling green eyes and soft freckles spattered across rosy cheeks. It's been a while since Katsuki's been completely swept away by someone's looks, but damn. New guy is fucking adorable.
"Bakugou!" Yaoyorozu exclaims, clapping her hands together. Her tone is thick and sweet, the same one she uses every time she's about to tell Katsuki something he doesn't want to hear.
"This is Midoriya, he's your new administrative assistant."
"My admini—What? What the fuck do I need that for?" Katsuki scoffs, stomping over to his own desk on the other side of the large office space. Truth be told, his interest is piqued, especially if that means he gets to work with the guy. But he doesn't want Yaoyorozu to know he thinks the guy's cute, so he puts up a front.
"With all the new debriefing forms rolling out, this is a new initiative we're using to make sure everything gets done in a timely manner in the way that it's supposed to."
Katsuki rolls his eyes and drops back into his seat. Figures. Whatever, as long as he gets to focus on being a hero and not shitty paperwork, then he's fine with it.
"So…He gets to do all my paperwork for me? Sweet," he chuckles. His eyes flicker towards the new guy— Midoriya . He gives Katsuki an awkward smile, and it dawns on him that shit, he probably shouldn't act like a jerk. He doesn't know he's just kidding.
"He's not an intern or a personal assistant, Bakugou. I better not hear that you're sending him for coffee and dry cleaning."
"I'm not gonna!" Katsuki groans, swiveling around in his chair once before the other two appear in his line of sight again.
"Anyway, let me know if you need anything, okay?" She asks Midoriya sweetly.
"I will, thank you," he replies. His voice is soft and timid, which seems odd for some reason. Katsuki just can't quite place it.
Katsuki watches as Yaoyorozu leaves the two of them alone and lets the office door swing closed behind her.
"So…Midoriya, huh?" Katsuki starts, his confidence wavering a bit when their eyes meet. God, he's so fucking cute. Would it be inappropriate to ask him out? Ah, probably. Don't wanna scare him off by coming on too strong, it might make things awkward.
"Yeah, I ah, sorry I'm a little nervous," he admits, giving Katsuki a little smile. He's trying to kill him, obviously. "I'm kind of a huge fan."
Straight through the heart!
"Nah, you're just trying to flatter me," he grins, trying to act cool and casual.
"No, I mean it! I've been following you ever since you came on the scene and you're an amazing hero!" His smile grows even wider and his face lights up. Oh wow. Wow.
"Th-thanks," he swallows, trying to ease his fast-beating heart.
"I think heroes are really cool, too. Ahh, sorry I probably seem like a total nerd right now!" he laughs, his face growing redder and redder.
"Not at all," he says. "I think heroes are cool, too. That's why I became one."
"Wow," he marvels. "I wanted to be a hero when I was a kid. I guess this is as close as I'll get, but it's still pretty cool."
"Yeah? You have a lame quirk or something?" he teases. Midoriya's smile immediately disappears and Katsuki freezes. Fuck, that came out wrong. He was just teasing. Maybe even flirting? He's bad at this shit, okay?!
"I'm quirkless."
Oh.
"Shit, I'm sorry. That was a shitty thing to say—"
"No! Don't worry about it!" he insists, waving his hands in front of his chest. He laughs, but it doesn't seem all that genuine. "I'm used to it, you know?"
"Yeah," Katsuki swallows. It's not a conversation he knows how to approach, not by a long shot. Ever since his quirk manifested as a child, his entire life has revolved around having said quirk. He can't even imagine being without it.
"So, um, you just got back from a mission?" Midoriya asks, changing the subject. Katsuki blinks.
"Yeah," He shrugs. It was rather uneventful—Just another day on the job, really. Does Midoriya really want to hear about Katsuki nabbing a low-level bank robber? Probably not.
Come to think of it, he can’t really get a good read on the guy. (Besides the fact that he’s absolutely stunning.) He’s quiet and reserved, and even though he’s been smiling a lot, his smiles aren’t fully formed. His hair is wild, but it’s brushed and clean. His clothes seem a little big on him, but they’re nice. Maybe just not properly tailored.
Usually Katsuki is great at putting together small details and noticing things about people. It’s a skill that really comes in handy in his line of work.
But Midoriya…Well, he’s a mystery for now.
“What was it?”
“Hmm?”
“The mission?”
Oh, right.
“Just a bank robbery. I gotta do the damn forms.” With a tired sigh, he slumps back in his chair and quickly types away at his computer.
“All you have to do is the report section and I can finish the rest,” Midoriya reminds him, finally sitting back down at his new desk. Katsuki glances over, quietly watching as he hunches over his keyboard and furrows his brow in concentration. He looks so serious like that, and it’s cute.
“So, what brought you to Creati’s agency?” Katsuki asks, the report screen on his computer still blank. It’s hard to concentrate when he has someone else that’s so much nicer to look at.
“Um,” he mumbles, sitting back in his seat for a moment. He glances towards the floor, as if the answer to Katsuki’s question is down there somewhere. “I needed a job, I guess. And I like heroes so much, so it seemed like a good fit.”
A pretty tame, normal answer. It doesn’t match up with the way Midoriya suddenly seems nervous and teary. Fuck.
“Well, cool,” Katsuki clears his throat, letting the subject die.
They sit in silence for a while, each independently working on their own thing. It’s fine. Katsuki isn’t that distracted. Maybe he looks over every few minutes just to steal another glance. Every other time it happens, Midoriya looks up, and Katsuki immediately goes back to his computer, hoping that he’s successful in pretending he isn’t staring.
A while later, after they’ve been working in dead silence, the door to the office swings open and they both jump. When Katsuki looks up, he’s greeted by an angry version of his sidekick. Ah, fuck.
“There you are! I’ve been looking all over for you, you said we were going to meet in the conference room!” Kiyouka shouts. She’s no longer in her hero costume, just a plain ensemble of leggings and an oversized sweatshirt.
“Did I say that?” Katsuki asks, blinking. To be honest, any interaction he’s had between the bank robbery and meeting Midoriya has kinda flown out of his mind. Kind of stupid, but he’ll never admit to his reasoning.
“Yes!” She shouts, exasperated. “Do you have your phone on you? I’ve been texting you.”
“No you fucking haven’t,” Katsuki scoffs, fishing his phone out of his desk drawer to find…a fucking barrage of missed calls and texts. “It was on fucking silent, jeez.”
“Jesus Christ, Katsuki!” she groans, then pauses as she suddenly notices Midoriya at his little desk in the corner. She puzzles for a moment before she relaxes, clearly figuring out his purpose. “Sorry, you’re new! I promise we don’t usually yell this much.”
“Don’t lie to him, Kyouka,” Katsuki teases.
“I-it’s okay, really,” he chuckles nervously, his voice back to being small and quiet.
“A little bit of advice—Katsuki acts like a jerk, but he’s actually a big softie, don’t let him push you around,” Kyouka grins. Katsuki scoffs at her, his ears burning red at her words. He’s not sure what he’s more embarrassed about—Midoriya believing that he’s a softie or that he’s a jerk.
“Oh, okay,” Midoriya swallows, awkwardly.
“Anyway, Katsuki, we need to meet about logistics and…” she trails off as she gets an alert on her phone. She groans. “And now we need to meet about the press!”
“What the hell does the press need?” Katsuki groans.
“The whole no comment thing? Yeah, they hated that,” she scoffs, using two fingers to zoom in on her screen before holding it up towards Katsuki’s face. He squints at the image of himself from just a few hours earlier, coupled with the headline that reads:
Pro Hero Dynamight declines to comment on quirk-related destruction
“So what?! I didn’t say anything,” Katsuki groans. He can’t fucking keep up with these losers. Nothing he says is ever correct and he hates it. They don’t know a damn thing about him, but they like to pretend they do and it’s infuriating.
Assholes.
“That’s the point,” she sighs. “Look, it’s not your fault. You’re just easy to pick on because your quirk is destructive.”
“Would they rather I just let the bad guys go? Let them cause damage to the city? Because that’s the alternative, here.” He turns away from her, angrily, his eyes falling back to Midoriya in the corner. And he pauses.
Midoriya’s eyes are wide, his shoulders tense. Is that…Fear? Fuck.
“Sorry, I’ve been dealing with this shit from them for a while and it’s getting on my last nerve,” Katsuki sighs. He doesn’t know why he feels the need to explain himself. If it was any other extra he’d just met, he’d tell them to shove it and deal with it. But for whatever reason, his gut tells him that he needs Midoriya to know that he isn’t an angry person. That he can be reasonable and kind. That his anger isn’t directed at him.
It’s strange.
“We need to meet with the media department now,” Jirou reminds him. “Come on, you know these kinds of things move fast!”
“Okay! Okay, I’ll be right there,” he groans. “Just give me a minute, okay?”
Kyouka agrees and mentions something about meeting him in the conference room on the third floor. Katsuki leans his elbows on his desk and holds his head in his hands. His breathing grows heavy, despite his best efforts to keep it steady.
“Are you okay?” A small voice asks.
Katsuki swallows a lump in his throat and nods without moving his face from his hands. Fuck. Fuck. It’s a rather harsh reminder of why he enjoyed being alone in his office, before he was distracted by the prospect of a cute new assistant.
“I hate the fucking press,” he explains. “Bunch of selfish assholes.”
“Oh,” Midoriya replies, awkward and unsure. Katsuki feels bad for making him uncomfortable. It’s the guy’s first fucking day in the industry, he doesn’t need Katsuki’s cynicism. He probably has no idea how ruthless people can be.
How someone so important can just be gone in the blink of an eye.
How easy it is for the media to place blame.
He shakes his head and takes a deep breath. There isn’t any time to unpack that right now. He has a lot of work to do, and things will only get worse if he dwells on it. He’ll be okay. Everyone will be okay. It’s been a long time since then, and Katsuki swears he’s fine.
He is.
“I gotta go meet her,” Katsuki reminds himself, standing up quickly from his seat. He arches over for a minute to send the form he’d been working on to the printer next to his desk. Scrambling, he goes to grab it, with the intent of handing it off to Midoriya and then leaving. As he picks it up, though, his hands are shaking so damn bad and he drops the small stack of papers.
“Damn it,” he mutters, watching them all float to the ground.
“I’ll help—”
Midoriya moves over and squats next to him, helping to scoop up and re-stack the papers. Katsuki keeps his eyes downcast, focusing on the task at hand. His heart beats loud in his chest with the other man suddenly so close.
He smells nice.
Crap.
It doesn’t help.
“Here, let me take that,” Midoriya offers, stretching out his arm to take the papers that Katsuki’s picked up. As he does, the sleeve of his sweater pulls up slightly. It’s so quick, so slight that most other people would never have noticed.
But Katsuki is quick, even when he’s stressed.
He can’t not notice the dark, purplish bruising that wraps around Midoriya’s wrist. Or the way that he pulls back a little too quickly in order to cover up again. Katsuki could assume it’s nothing, but that would be ignorant and irresponsible.
As a hero, he’s been trained to notice certain red flags.
As a human, he knows that things aren’t always as simple as they seem.
“Midoriya—”
“ Don’t.” The sudden sharpness in his tone throws Katsuki off. But then he clears his throat and goes back to his desk. “I’m going to sort through all of these, don’t worry about it, okay?”
“But—”
“I said, don’t worry about it, I’ll fix it,” he insists. He looks up at Katsuki again, this time, his eyes wide and pleading. Like he’s begging Katsuki not to push the envelope. He knows what Katsuki saw, and he doesn’t want to talk about it. He doesn’t know Midoriya’s story. Doesn’t know where he comes from or who he lives with. But something isn’t right, and Katsuki is sure of it. Domestic violence? Gang related activity? A mugging? Best case scenario, he’s really into BDSM and—Ah, fuck, no, he can’t be thinking about that right now.
“Tell me if you need anything, okay?” Katsuki says, finally standing up. For a moment, he’s able to set aside all of his concerns about the media. He can focus on what’s in front of him. One of the many reasons he’s stayed in hero work despite everything that’s happened. It’s grounding. Distracting.
“Okay,” he whispers.
“Anything,” Katsuki clarifies. Midoriya blinks as he pulls the sleeves of his sweater over his hands, covering himself completely as he turns back to his computer screen.
“Okay,” he whispers again, this time his voice barely audible.
Reluctantly, Katsuki leaves his office and heads to the damn conference room. He passes through the lobby on his floor, averting his gaze from the memorial plaque that still hangs on the wall. It's a habit, at this point.
The plaque is nice. The picture that hangs over it is one of his best. He deserves to be remembered for everything he did, and Katsuki’s glad the agency put everything up to memorialize his life.
But to this day, he still can’t look at his picture without crying.
It’s been five fucking years, and he’s gotten better at managing his grief. But it hasn’t gotten any easier. None of it ever makes any sense, either. He can go through photo albums at home and smile, wear his old t-shirts and feel comforted. But then, when he’s least expecting it, things that aren’t supposed to remind him dig up memories that he never even realized he’d buried.
“Katsuki,” Kyouka says as soon as he enters the conference room. Thankfully, she’s the only one sitting at the table, meaning Katsuki doesn’t have to put up any sort of front right away. So, he closes the door behind him, locks it, and collapses into the seat closest to his friend.
“I didn’t do anything, Kyouka, I swear,” he gasps, choking through his tears. She softens and rubs her hand between his shoulders. “I was careful and nothing even—There wasn’t any damage, was there?”
“I know, I know,” she says, softly. “It’s fucked, I know. We can go over everything we did, and I’ll vouch for you. It’s gonna be okay.”
“Why do we even have to—”
“Apparently part of the sidewalk cracked, but we can easily explain that,” she sighs, letting him lean further onto her shoulder. He groans. Everything feels like it’s falling apart, but at the same time, it’s nothing new. The media always has something to say. Just when he thinks he has them figured out, they turn around and give him something new to worry about.
That being said, it can’t ever be any worse than what they’ve already done.
“I’m tired of this.”
“I know, but it’s a part of what we do,” she explains, like she has countless times before. In front of others, Kyouka may seem like she’s tired of Katsuki’s shit. But Katsuki knows that she isn’t. If anything, she’s the only person in the world who isn’t.
She gets it. She was there that day. She knows.
“Fuck, I need to calm down, I don’t know what the fuck is wrong with me today,” he complains, sitting up and pressing his clammy palms against his cheeks.
“They’ll be here soon,” Kyouka reminds him. “Talk to me about something else. Tell me about your new admin assistant.”
Admin assistant. Midoriya.
“Ah, shit,” Katsuki sighs. “He’s cute.”
“He’s cute?” she snickers. “I was asking like, professionally, but shit. Crushing already?”
“Nah,” he lies.
“Is he single?”
For a moment, the image of Midoriya’s bruised wrist flashes in his mind.
“I don’t…I don’t know,” Katsuki swallows, staring across the table at the blank wall in front of him. “Didn’t come up in conversation.”
“Probably for the best, don’t want to scare him away,” she teases. It’s a light teasing, something effortless and easy, which makes it oddly comforting. It feels normal. After five arduous years, he still longs for things like normal and simple.
“Yeah, probably,” he grins. His chest feels lighter, but only by a little bit.
“Well, keep me updated,” she says, with a playful wink. She glances up as someone knocks on the conference room door, reminding Katsuki that he had locked it when he came in. With another deep breath, he gets up and pulls it open, flashing a fake smile to the two representatives from the media department who enter.
“Good evening, Mr. Bakugou,” one of them says. A short woman with dark hair named Aiko. Her colleague is a lanky, elderly man named Hiroshi. They’re both so formal all the time, which is a little unsettling.
“Hey,” he says, sitting back down and settling back down in his chair. Hopefully they can’t tell that he had been crying. Not that they’d care. His tears have never meant much to them before.
“So, we’ve prepared a statement about the concrete outside the bank,” Hiroshi begins. Katsuki sighs and stares tiredly at the paper shoved in his direction. “Read this.”
Katsuki swallows and scans over it before he reads. “Are you fucking kidding me?”
“Katsuki, just do it,” Kyouka sighs.
“Fine,” he mutters, as Aiko pulls out a voice recorder and flips it on.
“I acknowledge the damage that was caused outside of the East Bank earlier today. The damage was caused by the impact of my quirk while apprehending the villain. It was done in an attempt to not cause bodily harm to said villain.”
He glares up at them and shoves the paper back in their direction. Aiko turns off her voice recorder and smiles. “Thank you, Dynamight.”
“Sidewalk was probably already cracked,” Katsuki mutters.
“Hmm?” Hiroshi raises an eyebrow.
“Nothing,” he mumbles. “Doesn’t matter.”
“Alright then,” Hiroshi says. They both stand up and leave the room just as quickly as they had entered.
“See? That wasn’t that bad,” Kyouka says, once they’re alone again. “It’s over.”
“Not true, it’s never over,” he sighs. “It’s just going to be something else tomorrow.”
“Love the positive attitude.”
He closes his eyes for a moment. He’s been trying to stay positive.
“I think I’m gonna head out,” he finally says, after a long bout of silence.
“Get some rest, bud,” she offers, and he nods.
When he returns to his office, he finds that Midoriya has already left. Mildly disappointing, but nothing too devastating. He’ll see him again tomorrow. Probably. Katsuki needs to find out what his schedule is.
He powers down his computer and grabs his coat from the back of his chair. Each day he goes through the same motions of locking up and leaving the building in silence. He keeps his head down and avoids getting stopped on the way out.
But today just seems to keep throwing him curveballs.
As he makes it to the main entrance on the first floor, he notices Midoriya sitting on one of the couches, waiting. He has his coat on and his backpack strapped to his back. A blessing in disguise, perhaps? Is this the universe telling Katsuki to ask him out for coffee?
Whew.
Katsuki marches over. “Hey, what’re you waiting out here for?”
“Oh, hi,” he says, blinking as if he’s surprised to see Katsuki approaching him. “Are you leaving?”
“Yeah, are you waiting for someone?” In his head, he’s thinking the newbie needs to check in with Yaoyorozu before he leaves or something.
“My boyfriend is supposed to pick me up.”
Oh.
Well.
Fuck.
“Y-yeah?” Katsuki asks. Midoriya folds his hands in his lap and nods. He panics for a minute. No way he can let himself sound disappointed or anything. “Your boyfriend, huh? How long have you, um, been together?”
He hopes he doesn’t sound as uncomfortable out loud as he does in his head. The pit in his stomach twists as Midoriya pauses and mumbles to himself, like he has to do the math first. Surely a sign that Katsuki isn’t gonna like his answer. If they’d just started dating, Katsuki could hold out hope—
“Sixteen years, technically. ”
Well, shit.
“Wow, that’s…A long time,” Katsuki says.
It’ll be fine, he’s not emotionally invested in the guy. If anything, he can just let it go and admire his looks from afar. Katsuki is not the kind of guy to meddle in others’ relationships.
“Izuku!”
They both startle as a man’s voice suddenly rings out from the front door.
“I have to go,” Midoriya says, quickly. Katsuki looks up and finds the man the voice belongs to. A tall, thin guy with bleached hair marching over to where Midoriya is quickly gathering up his things.
“Izuku, I’ve been fucking waiting for you in the parking lot, the hell are you doing?” he scoffs as soon as he gets closer. Katsuki keeps his mouth shut, but stares the guy down as he processes the scene playing out in front of him.
“Sorry! I didn’t know you were here, you said you were going to call, so I—I didn’t want to stand in the cold,” he sputters.
“Yeah, whatever, just come on already,” he groans. As Midoriya struggles with his backpack, the guy finally glances over at Katsuki. “The fuck are you staring at?”
“Rin, it’s okay, he was just reminding me that I have to be here early tomorrow,” Midoriya says, his eyes flickering over. It’s just for a moment, but there’s that silent pleading again. Desperate.
“Yeah, we have a lot of work to get done,” Katsuki lies.
“Like what?” The guy, Rin apparently, scoffs.
“That’s classified,” Katsuki swallows.
“Fucking whatever, man,” he rolls his eyes. “Come on, ‘Zuku.”
Katsuki watches as Rin grabs Midoriya by the wrist and pulls him in the direction of the main door so that they can leave.