Work Text:
There's a ruckus in the common room when Katsuki gets in from training. Katsuki tries to avoid these sort of Class A shenanigans on principle, but he tends to get involved more often than not—because most of the time, Izuku is right in the middle of them.
Like right now, Izuku is quite literally in the middle of a large group of their classmates. Except it—it's not Izuku, or at least not the proper Izuku. He's younger, smaller, and he's wearing their middle school uniform.
“What. Happened.”
Everyone turns towards him, including Izuku, who gawps at him. Iida is the one who speaks. "This young Midoriya got in the middle of a scuffle during his time, and had a quirk used on him. It seems to have swapped him with our version."
Katsuki tries to bite down on his panic. He looks at Izuku—he seems so small. So fragile and breakable. It’s strange to see his right hand so unblemished, missing the scars that Izuku hated, the ones that Katsuki wants to press his mouth to. He doesn’t have the confidence Izuku has fought so hard for, either. He’s a half-finished piece of art.
“What happened,” he says to Izuku, who is still gaping at him. He stutters over his words.
“I—I went to that r-ramen shop near Aldera for lunch, do you—um, remember that place?” He asks, as if Katsuki hadn’t been at that damn school just three years ago. “And on m-my way back, um, there was a fight, and I was, um, watching it, but when the heroes showed up the villains all ran and one of them touched me—”
Katsuki can’t help the way he snaps, “Were you writing notes in your damn journal?"
Izuku turns red and looks down. “I—I’d never seen quirks like that.” Katsuki stifles a bout of swearing and tries to calm down.
“Are you hurt?” He asks. Izuku seems taken aback by the question.
“N-no, I’m fine. Um, Kacchan, c-can we—can I, uh, talk? To you? Um, privately, maybe?"
Katsuki sighs. "Yeah. Everyone fuck off."
"Wait, seriously?” Someone asks. Katsuki looks at them all expectantly, and eventually everyone trickles out, grumbling.
Katsuki sits down and gestures to Izuku to do the same. He does, perched on the edge, wringing his hands in his lap. "Kacchan, I—a-all those people, they said they were my classmates, and that we're—that we're at UA. In the hero course!” His eyes gleam with excitement for a moment before uncertainty takes over again. "I just—how is that possible? I mean, I know I always said I was going to apply and I’m not saying I don’t have hope but I know that the actual chances are—"
Katsuki interrupts before the muttering has gone too far. "Look, I don't know if this quirk is time travel or what, but I'm not going to tell you too much about your future. Just—all you need to know is you get a quirk. You get into UA." He looks him in the eye. "You become a hero, Izuku."
Izuku's eyes fill with tears, which was to be expected—but then he says, "You're making fun of me, aren't you?"
Katsuki rears back. "Wha—"
Izuku wipes at his eyes. “That's mean, Kacchan."
Guilt and shame and a hundred other ugly feelings rear up inside him as he understands. Why would 14 year old Izuku believe anything Katsuki told him? When the only Katsuki he knew was the terrible bully he'd used to be. Katsuki feels a little nauseous. He thinks about his Izuku. He hopes he's okay.
He needs to deal with this. Needs to take care of the Izuku in front of him before he has a self-loathing induced breakdown. "Stay here," he says, a little hoarsely. "I'm gonna go get some of your friends. They'll show you."
Izuku perks up and says, "Friends?" The ball of hatred in Katsuki's chest grows.
He did this. He did this, he did this.
"Yeah," he manages to say. "One sec, okay."
He finds Shouto in the kitchen talking to Sero and Kirishima. Shouto will be perfect for this.
"Hey," Katsuki says roughly. "Todoroki. Can you go talk to him? Don’t tell him too much about his future, but just—let him know he’s a hero." Shouto cocks his head.
"Why? What's wrong?" Kirishima and Sero are looking at him in concern now. Katsuki wants to go upstairs and sulk in his room.
“He doesn't believe me," he says. Kirishima's face does something kind and sympathetic that Katsuki doesn't deserve. He doesn't want to see it. "Look, just—just go out there and show him that he has friends, and that he’s a hero, and that he belongs here." They just keep looking at him, so Katsuki throws all dignity to the wind. "Please.”
Shouto and Sero go, but Kirishima stays behind. Sometimes it's really fucking annoying that he's such a good friend.
"Hey," Kirishima says. "You know it's not like that between you guys anymore."
"I don't wanna talk about it,” Katsuki says.
"Katsuki—"
"I mean it," he snaps. "I'm going upstairs. Just let it be."
Kirishima thankfully doesn't follow him. He must be able to tell that Katsuki needs time alone right now. Upstairs in his room Katsuki lays on his bed and stares up at the ceiling. He grabs his phone and texts Izuku: you okay? He gets a not delivered notification.
Katsuki rubs his hands over his face. He's worried about Izuku. He probably switched places with the kid, and was back during their middle school days. Katsuki knows Izuku can take care of himself, but he doesn't like that he's somewhere Katsuki can't reach.
He stays upstairs for about an hour or so, resting his eyes but not sleeping. His thoughts are on Izuku; not much different than usual, to be honest, but this time the thoughts are more anxious and fearful instead of pathetic and horny.
Eventually he gets up to head downstairs. He's worried about the Izuku who’s here, and eventually his need to check on him overpowers his shame. When he gets downstairs, there's more people gathered around him. Shouto and Sero are still there, but Ururaka and lida are there too. Katsuki is glad—Ururaka was good at this kind of stuff.
Izuku sees him as he enters the room, but instead of fear, there is excitement in his eyes. He scrambles up off the couch.
"Kacchan! Kacchan, everyone was showing me and telling me about my quirk and about everyone here and they said that you can do new things with your quirk too! And that you’re even more powerful now! And they showed me your uniform, can I see the gauntlets? They sound so cool!"
Katsuki chuckles a little, and his mood lightens a bit. Always a nerd before all else.
"You wanna come outside and see?" He looks up and jerks his head at Todoroki. "Shouto and I will spar."
Izuku starts literally bouncing on the balls of his feet. "Really! Really!"
Katsuki smiles. He feels a great surge of protectiveness in his chest when he looks at the boy in front of him. They bring him to the training grounds and he and Todoroki fight; Izuku is utterly enthralled, and when they're done (they call it a draw, because a spar between them like this, with their quirks, would get a lot more serious before there was a winner) Izuku bombards them both with a flurry of questions.
"Kacchan," Izuku says, once he's asked his questions and Shouto has gone off. "Everyone was telling me… w-well, they were explaining about how some things are now, and they said—are we friends? A-am I Kacchan's friend?"
This is a complicated question, because the answer is yes, but the more truthful answer is that Katsuki is so stupidly fucking in love with him that the thought of life without him is literally panic inducing—but he’s not about to say that to this kid.
What he says is, "Yeah, we're friends."
Izuku grins, and he looks so happy that it's infectious. It makes Katsuki reach out, aiming to ruffle his hair.
Except Izuku flinches away from his raised hand.
It feels like a bucket of ice water dumped over his head. Katsuki pulls his hand back as if he'd been burned. He swallows around a lump in his throat and takes a step back from Izuku.
"It's not always gonna be like this," Katsuki says hoarsely, as if that is going to mean anything to this traumatized kid. "And I'm sorry, Izuku." Too late. Too late, and not enough.
He takes another step back away from him. Izuku's eyes are full of tears—how many times has Katsuki made him cry in their lives?
Too many. Too many times. Katsuki can't look at those big green eyes anymore; he turns and hurries away, ignoring Izuku calling after him.
Katsuki stays up in his room through dinner, which of course means nosy extras come to bother him about it. Kirishima knocks; Todoroki has zero sense of boundaries and just walk in. Katsuki's fault for not locking his door.
"Hey man," Kirishima says, putting a plate of food on his desk, like a fucking mom. “You missed dinner."
Yeah, no shit. He's grateful that Ei brought him some, though.
"What's wrong?” Shouto asks directly. He was never one to beat around the bush. Katsuki wants to tell them to fuck off—but he keeps seeing Izuku flinching away from him. He goes to sit at his desk and takes a few bites of dinner, and then he runs his hands down his face.
"He's fucking terrified of me," he says. Kirishima and Todoroki exchange a look, which is annoying. Katsuki doesn't like the idea of people talking about him when he's not there.
"No he isn't," Todoroki says. Katsuki takes another bite of dinner.
"Yes he fucking is."
"Katsuki," Kirishima says. "He talks about you all the time."
"All the time,” Shouto adds.
"He's been here for like, seven hours, and I'd estimate he says your name at least once every five minutes."
"At least,” Shouto says, like a goddamn echo. Katsuki gives him an annoyed glare.
"That’s just ‘cause he's a fan boy. He's always been like that, even when I was at my meanest. That doesn't mean he's not afraid of me."
Neither of them answer, which just goes to prove his point. But then Kirishima says, "So what?"
Katsuki looks at him in confusion. "Hah?”
"Look, I know this is bringing back some really bad shit for you. But you and Midoriya sorted this out ages ago, and he'll be back soon. Yeah, this Midoriya might be afraid of you. But he won't always be. And when our Midoriya is back, things will go back to normal."
This doesn't actually make Katsuki feel any better. "Seeing him," he says, staring down at his dinner, "it just—he never should have had to go through that. I never should have done that to him."
"But you did," Shouto says. Katsuki looks at him in surprise, and he continues. "Things that happened in the past can't be undone. You just have to keep moving forward."
Katsuki looks at Shouto’s scarred face and understands.
"Yeah, okay," Katsuki says. And it's not that Katsuki doesn't believe him—it's just that he can't get Izuku's face out of his mind. Flinching away from Katsuki's hand; crying and accusing Katsuki of lying about him being a hero. He'd caused so much damage. He'd been working on trying to atone for that, but seeing it up close again—
"I'm sure I'll be fine when Izuku gets back," he says, even though he doesn't believe it. He just wants to get them out of his room. "I'm going to bed." It’s a little early, even for him, but he just wants this day to end.
Shouto and Eijirou exchange another look. Katsuki's not a big fan of this whole 'exchanging looks' thing the two of them have going on. "Yeah, okay,” Kirishima says. "I'm next door if you need me."
Katsuki turns away so they can't see the smile fighting to stretch across his face. "Yeah, I've lived here for three years. I know, Ei."
Kirishima claps him on the shoulder, and the two of them leave. Katsuki sighs and buries his face in his hands, sighing deeply before he heads to bed.
He dreams of Izuku that night; he dreams of green eyes and a river of tears and a boy who'd jumped when Katsuki had told him to. He wakes up sweaty and panting, and he can't fall asleep for a long time after that.
Izuku is back early the next morning. Katsuki knows this because he starts banging on Katsuki's door and shouting his name.
"Kacchan! Kacchan, I'm back! Open up, I wanna tell you about it! I saw Aino-sensei again! And you should have seen your face when you saw me!" Izuku giggles. "It was so funny. Kacchan come on! Are you awake?" Katsuki opens the door but doesn't otherwise greet or acknowledge Izuku; he goes to sit on the edge of his bed and rests his elbows on his knees.
Izuku walks into the room, but the smile fades off his face as he sees Katsuki.
“Kacchan? What’s wrong? Are you okay?”
Always worrying about others first. Katsuki hates that about him.
“Yeah, I’m fine,” he says, because Izuku is looking worried. Izuku’s eyebrows furrow, and he takes a couple steps closer.
“No you’re not,” he says. “What happened? What’s wrong?”
Katsuki doesn’t know how to tell him. He doesn’t know how to say it out loud. He’d spent most of their lives hurting him, and now he has the audacity to be in love with him.
“It’s nothing, Izuku. Don’t worry about it.”
Izuku looks hurt. “Please don’t lie to me, Kacchan,” he says, voice a little broken. “We don’t lie to each other anymore.” But that’s not true either, is it? Or is hiding the truth about yourself not considered lying? Is it a lie every time Katsuki sees him and doesn’t tell him that he loves him, or doesn’t reach out and touch him, or doesn’t make it clear that Izuku is the brightest star in his fucking sky? He’s the only star in his fucking sky. His true fucking north. His way home.
Katsuki shoves the palms of his hands into his eyes. It’s a recent habit—he’d been too afraid when he was younger that he’d blow his own head up. He has better control now, though. He trusts himself. He’s going to be a good hero. He’s never once doubted that.
Now, though, his hero dreams have Izuku beside him. When he imagines his future, Izuku is right there with him every step of the way. It’s strange to think that just a few years ago, Katsuki was planning on going to UA and never thinking about shitty Deku again. How much more empty his life would have been.
He looks back at Izuku, who is staring at him with those big green eyes. The difference between him and his fourteen year old self is startling; not just the physical differences, but the way he holds himself, too, the look in his eyes, the easy way he bends down to peer into Katsuki’s eyes. “Kacchan,” he says, and he looks so hurt that Katsuki is hiding something from him. Even when Katsuki doesn’t want to hurt him, he does.
“Your younger self,” Katsuki says hoarsely, because he can’t stand the look on his face. “He… he—” He doesn’t know how to say it, so instead he just says, “I’m so sorry, Izuku.”
And it’s a testament to how well they know each other that Izuku seems to immediately pick up what Katsuki is saying. He stands up straight, eyebrows furrowed.
“Kacchan… you know it’s not like that anymore. We’ve worked through this.”
“But it—” How does he explain this to Izuku? Katsuki had wanted to catch up to him, and now he realizes that he’ll never be able to. He’ll never be able to close the gap between them. Izuku is just too good. Far better than Katsuki could ever hope to be, even if he hadn’t spent ten years trying to crush Izuku into the dirt. “Seeing it up close again, he—you—”
“Do you trust me?”
He stares at Izuku in disbelief, because he doesn’t know what that has to do with anything. But still— “Yes.” Of course he does. He trusts him with everything—his life, his safety, his fucking heart. That’s never even a question.
“And do you think I’m smart?”
“I—” What? “Yeah, obviously.”
Izuku has a strangely dangerous look in his eyes. “And do you think I’m capable of making my own decisions?”
“What the fuck are you talking about? Obviously!”
“Then why,” Izuku hisses, “do you refuse to believe me when I tell you that that’s over between us! It doesn’t matter! It’s in the past, and we’ve dealt with it, and you’ve apologized and I’ve forgiven you, so why do you keep bringing it up?”
“Because you don’t give a shit about yourself!” Katsuki yells. “You put everyone and everything before yourself, so how am I supposed to trust you?”
“Because I’m your—” Izuku stops there, probably because he doesn’t know what the fuck they’re supposed to be, either. “Because how are we supposed to do anything if you can’t trust me? How are we ever going to be on equal footing if I know you still think like this!”
“We’re not on equal footing, Izuku, that’s the point. How can we be?”
Izuku stares at him in wonder for a moment—then he stomps forward and shoves Katsuki hard in the chest, shoving him back onto the bed.
Katsuki sits up; Izuku is breathing hard.
"Yes, Deku, this is what you should be doing! You should be mad at me! Just fucking..." Shit, Katsuki feels like he's gonna cry. How embarrassing. "Just be mad at me like I deserve!"
Izuku's eyes are filled with fury; when he turns on his heel and storms away, somehow the anger doesn't make Katsuki feel any better. He lies down on his bed and he stares at the ceiling and he cries, because he's an embarrassing fucking baby who's in love with a guy who he does not in any way deserve.
He's planning on spending his whole Sunday sulking in his room when his door slams open, and Izuku comes storming back in. Katsuki sits up in a hurry. Izuku still looks pissed, and he stalks forward, shoving a piece of paper into his hands.
"Read this," he orders. Katsuki can do nothing else but obey.
Dear Izuku,
Wow, it feels so weird to write a letter to myself!
First of all, I'm sorry for any mess I caused! I hope everything went okay on your end. I wish I could have seen Kacchan's face when he saw you!! I hope you got back safe.
Your friends (My friends? Our friends?) told me a bit about how I become a hero in the future. I was going to try and explain what that means to me, but you already know. I probably didn't need to write you this, but I guess I wanted to say that I'm proud of us, and I can't wait to start.
Be you soon (haha get it, like see you soon, except I won't, but I'll be you soon, because you're my future),
Izuku
P.S. Kacchan says we're friends now. Is that true? Do we really get everything we ever wanted? I think I hurt his feelings earlier—will you tell him I’m sorry? And thank him for everything. I would have been a lot more afraid if he hadn’t been here.
Katsuki's eyes stay locked on the postscript, more specifically on that line: do we really get everything we ever wanted?
“That’s just one note he left. He also had a notebook filled with different observations about you. And sketches of your uniform. They were actually pretty good,” he adds as an aside, frowning. “I should start again, I’ve fallen out of practice with everything else.” Katsuki is still tracing those words with his eyes. Everything we ever wanted. “Don’t you see, Kacchan? Even then, at your worst—even at your worst, you’re all I’ve ever been able to see. You’re all I’ve ever been looking at. No matter what happened back then, no matter how mean you were—if I still wanted you even then, why wouldn't I want you now?”
There’s that word again: want. A heavy word. A heavy word that starts most of Katsuki’s internal dialogue, when it came to Izuku. I want you. I want to hold your ugly hands and I want to kiss your stupid face and I want to touch your dumb freckles and when I wake up in the middle of the night with nightmares of me dying and you dying I want to be able to reach out and know that you’re fucking okay. I want you every day of my fucking life.
“Everything you ever wanted,” Katsuki says, finally looking up from the letter. “That true?”
Izuku’s gaze is steady before he answers. “Well, everything he wanted. I grew up and got a little more greedy, at least when it comes to you.”
Katsuki’s fingers clench in the paper a bit, and it crinkles. He couldn’t look away from Izuku if the world literally depended on it. If Shigaraki came back and all Katsuki had to do to defeat him was look away from Izuku, well—better get ready for more creepy fucking fingers and whatnot.
“Then what do you want?” Katsuki asks. “What do you want, Izuku?”
Izuku licks his lips, a sight which is going to live forever ingrained in his mind. He says, “Whatever you’re willing to give me, Kacchan.”
“That’s not what I asked,” he says. “I asked what you wanted.”
Izuku bites his lip. Katsuki is almost certain all of these lip movements are specifically to make him suffer. There is a spark that exists between them, and Katsuki wants to blow it the fuck up.
“Show me, Izuku,” he says, when Izuku still doesn’t speak. “Show me what you want from me.”
It’s slow motion, when Izuku moves forward and pushes Katsuki backwards, when he leans above him so all Katsuki can see is green and that smattering of freckles that haunts his fucking dreams. Izuku looks nervous but determined, and Katsuki grabs him by the back of the neck and drags him in.
“I thought I was supposed to show you,” Izuku mutters after they mostly figure out what kissing means.
“You were taking too long,” Katsuki says.
“You’re always so impatient, Kacchan.”
“Stop fucking talking, Deku.”
Izuku does—and they kiss until Katsuki’s lips are numb, until he’s memorized the angle of the curvature of Izuku’s back, until he’s intimately fucking acquainted with the inside of his mouth. They make out until Katsuki’s hair is a total disaster from Izuku’s fingers running through it, and even though both of them are hard, they mostly ignore it—there will be time for that later. Katsuki is in no hurry, and neither, it seems, is Izuku.
They pull apart eventually, and Izuku settles in next to him, head on Katsuki’s chest over his heart, an arm slung across his waist. Katsuki doesn’t want to say anything as absolutely ridiculous and sappy and stupid as the two of them just fit together, but the two of them really do just fit together.
“You know, Kacchan,” Izuku says. “I know you have a view of what happened and who you were back then, but seeing you—going back and seeing you now, knowing what I know—it’s easier to see that you weren’t quite as blustery as it seemed.”
Katsuki isn’t sure how he feels about the word blustery. “What do you mean?”
“Well, I went back to school when I figured out what happened, because I wanted to make sure when my younger self got back he wasn’t behind—” Katsuki knows he’s in deep because rather than being annoying, he finds this intensely endearing. “And after school I went back home, because I wanted to see my mom and tell her about what happened and that her Izuku was safe—but you stopped me on the way home. It was really cute—you could barely look at me.” Izuku giggles. “I think maybe you were attracted to me and didn’t know how to deal with it. Anyway, you asked me where that world’s Deku was. You were trying really hard not to say my Deku. I told him that Izuku was just in my world, and then you asked if he was safe. ” Izuku laughs again. “God, you were so cute. It made me miss you a lot.”
“I asked if you were safe?”
“Well, not in so many words,” Izuku says. “But I’m a lot better at understanding you now. You asked where useless Deku was, and when I told you that he was just back in my world, you said, and is he gonna be okay there or is his useless quirkless ass gonna get himself into shit. I told you that he’d be safe, and you told me I looked ridiculous and stomped off.” Izuku sighs. “You were so cute, Kacchan. I’m sorry that meeting my younger self was hard for you, because I actually had a pretty good time.”
“I’m glad,” he says, because he is. He’s always happy when Izuku is happy. It’s pretty pathetic, honestly.
Izuku yawns and kind of snuggles into Katsuki even more. “Tired,” he mutters into Katsuki’s chest. “I didn’t sleep much last night. I was worried about everyone.”
“Putting others first again,” Katsuki mutters. “Why am I not surprised.”
Izuku pinches him. “That doesn’t count,” Izuku says, even though it definitely does. “Can we sleep for a bit, Kacchan?” He wiggles around a bit again, and his fingers graze the bare skin of Katsuki’s side. “You’re so comfy and warm.”
Katsuki doesn’t think he’s going to be able to fall asleep right now—he’s wide awake and wired from the taste of Izuku on his lips and the sheer amount of everything that’s happened. But he most certainly wants Izuku to sleep next to him, not least because this gives him a really good opportunity to obsessively stare at him and memorize each line and pore of his stupid cute face without Izuku noticing and realizing how totally weird and whipped Katsuki was for him. He also likes that Izuku feels safe with him to do this—and that he still stays with his head on Katsuki’s chest, like he wants to make sure Katsuki’s heart is still beating.
“Kacchan?” Izuku says after a minute.
“Hm.”
“What did he mean in the letter? When he said he hurt your feelings?”
Katsuki sighs at the reminder. “I raised my hand, and he flinched away from me.”
Izuku is quiet for a moment, then he sits up. Katsuki misses his warmth immediately, but then Izuku reaches out and grabs one of Katsuki’s hands. He kisses the palm before he brings it to his own face, cupping his cheek. Katsuki presses his thumb to the constellation of freckles there.
“I love Kacchan’s hands,” Izuku says. “They’re big and warm and powerful and I know they always have my back. And I’m never scared of them now. You have wonderful hands, Kacchan.”
Do you trust me? Do you think I’m smart? Do you think I’m capable of making my own decisions?
“Okay,” Katsuki says. “I believe you.”
And he really fucking does.