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This isn’t the first time Deku’s ever come over after work, but it is the first time Deku’s ever come over alone (Todoroki is out of the country again) and after dark (it’s January), and Katsuki’s fine. Really.
He’s known Deku since he was dirt pile high, and they used to be hero partners, kind of, and they’ve gone from amicable to defaulting to being each other’s plus one whenever the hero world calls for it. Clearly there isn’t a problem here. The word friend still feels sticky on his tongue, but progress is progress.
But Katsuki has been pacing for half an hour, socks thinning at the soles, and Deku still isn’t here yet. Nothing’s wrong, he’d know, but the longer he has to wait, the more he starts to think that this a bad idea.
It is a bad idea, isn’t it? They can’t be alone. That’s how doors get blown off the hinges and windows get shattered. Katsuki and Deku have historically been volatile at best, and every time they’re alone, he feels that old something bubble up inside him.
It started the first time they ever fought one on one when no one was around to see them, and no, it wasn't rage or anything stupid like that. It’s worse. He felt alive.
And it’s not just when they fight. Deku has this way about him that lights Katsuki up from the inside out, and sometimes it’s over stupid shit like the look in his eye when he tells him about a collectable spotting they’ve both had their eyes on, but sometimes, like tonight, it’s when he calls Katsuki out of the blue to tell him about a case he has to get his hands on.
It makes him hungry, restless even. Putting their heads together and figuring shit out feels better than fighting ever did. Call that personal growth or whatever, but maybe it’s just because no one else makes him want to be right as much as Deku does. Maybe proving that he’s smarter than anyone else doesn’t hit the way it does with Deku.
Either way, Deku is on his way now with his case notes, probably junk food, and Katsuki is about to wear his own floor out waiting for him.
A knock comes like a final reprieve, and Katsuki has to pace himself to keep from running to the door like a jackass. He’s not excited to see him, damnit, that’s lame as shit.
He swings the door open and catches Deku with his fist up, ready to knock again.
“Kacchan!”
“You’re late,” he grumbles and steps aside.
Deku shrinks as he slips past him, backpack heavy over his shoulder with work shit and greasy bag of food in his other hand. Smells like chicken and something covered in hot sauce. What can he say, the nerd knows his company.
Katsuki walks towards the kitchen while Deku settles in. He knows his way around well enough to be able to put his shit down without being told how to, and Katsuki can’t look at him too much yet. There’s the faint shine of a bruise on his cheek, and it makes his mouth water. Deku fought some asshole without him, and the last thing he needs to do right now is get too hyped up about it. He’s here for his brain today, not his itchy fists.
“You on the job?”
“Off an hour ago,” Deku calls back. Katsuki grabs two beers from the top shelf and walks back into the living room. “Thanks.”
“Whatchu got for me?”
Deku beams as he spreads the map across the table. “I made copies of everything so don’t worry about the grease, but I think I’ve figured out where those quirk boosters are coming from.”
“You serious?”
Katsuki gets down on the floor next to him, and Deku taps a highlighted spot on the map.
“It’s still a guess, but there have been too many EMS calls here, and it’s, like, not a dangerous place, you know? And it’s not residential, but they’re like reaction calls. Anaphylactic stuff, some worse, but it’s weird, right?”
“Not if there’s a seafood restaurant nearby.”
“None. There’s an auto shop right here, some storage units, and there’s a gas station across the street. Unless people are just suddenly super sensitive to motor oil, I–.”
“Yeah, fine, that’s weird.”
Deku turns to him then, both the chicken and beer ignored in favor of pressing his hands flat on the map, and Katsuki’s chest tightens, that familiar rush building up in his stomach where his sense of self preservation never quite took hold. “If I’m right… I can’t go in by myself.”
“Fuck no, you can’t,” he says, his eyes wild. He feels his own lips curl back into a snarl, and Deku’s eyes light up like two big green balls of fire. Supernovas or some other big space shit like that, maybe, and it feeds right into that familiar tightness in Katsuki’s chest that’s a constant whenever he’s near him. He wants to sink his teeth into it. If he had claws, he’d dig them in too.
“You want in?”
“The fuck you asking for,” he elbows him, and then he reaches for the food because if he doesn’t chew on something now, he’s going to gnaw his own fist off.
They’re not partners, but they could be. Deku never asked, and Katsuki’s got too much pride to do it himself, but he knows they’d make the best damn hero duo this world’s ever seen. Maybe just knowing that is good enough for them. They don’t need to test it. They don’t need proof. It’s obvious, and they can always team up when they feel like it.
Like now, for instance.
Deku runs him through all of his notes while he eats, and Katsuki makes his own notes over them with one of the pens because Deku needs to know who it was who helped him solve the case. Then they can do this over and over again, and Katsuki will never have to try to remember what it feels like to fight with him.
He can keep this going forever.
“Do you have a partner yet?” Deku asks, eyes locked onto a particularly interesting smudge on the map that turns out to be more grease than effort.
“Nah,” he slinks back against the sofa. “Jeanist tried to saddle me with some new kid loser, but dumb fucker got his shit rocked his first day in.”
Deku looks at him in horror. “Kacchan, you didn’t.”
“Fuck no, I didn’t,” he scowls. “We got a call about a local villain group bothering some school kids, trying to recruit them or whatever, and when the dumbass dropped in, one of the kids blasted him in the face with this foam shit like at the car wash. Got him right in the eyes, the moron.”
Deku winces and sucks his teeth. “Oof.”
“Yeah. Oof.”
He turns back to his work and slurps the top of his beer can. “So I take it he won’t be wanting in, then.”
“I doubt it. Better this way anyway,” he says, and Deku looks back at him, surprised. “Don’t wanna train some extra to know when to keep his leg down.”
“Kacchan,” he scolds with a laugh, reaching out to knock his fist into the center of Katsuki’s chest. It’s funny how much that hurts, especially when he’s got no quirk behind it. Deku becoming someone this strong is somewhat a source of pride for Katsuki, and he refuses to address that.
“What. You want me to bring someone?”
“No,” he says too quickly. “You’re just gross.”
“I’m right though.”
Deku scrunches his nose and takes a swig of his beer. “Maybe.”
“What about you? You bringing anyone with you, or is it just us again?”
Deku shakes his head. “I would ask Shouto, but he’s out of town, but I think we should be able to handle it.”
“Good,” he says. “I’d hate to see what kind of loser you’d call a sidekick.”
“Hmm.”
“What.”
“Nothing,” he sighs.
“What.”
“I was just wondering if it would kill you to say you like it when it’s just the two of us,” Deku shrugs. “Because we’re, I don’t know, good together, or something.”
“Oh fuck off.”
He glances at Katsuki out of the corner of his eye before leaning forward just enough that his face is completely out of sight. “I do.”
“You do what.”
“I like it when it’s just the two of us.”
Deku’s ears are red, and he refuses to look back at him. Katsuki’s pulse hammers loud in his chest, and suddenly he’s back to wanting to slam Deku down against the concrete or toss him out of the window, but like in a good way. The kind of way where Deku slams him back, and Katsuki’s head is clear, and everything makes sense. The shithead.
Katsuki leans forward and bites him in the shoulder, and Deku yelps in pain and surprise.
“Hey! What was that for?!”
“Show me your stupid case work,” he grumbles. “Chicken’s getting cold.”
“But–.”
Katsuki bites him again, and this time he grabs him, keeps him from squirming away, and Deku pushes back against his chest but barely.
“Ow.”
“Shut up,” he grumbles into Deku’s stupid t-shirt, and he bites him again, and Deku’s hand drops down to his knee, giving in somehow.
“I’m not the chicken.”
Katsuki snorts.
“Kacchan?!”
He ignores him, letting his free insult float over them while he reaches for his beer, keeping his other hand on the small of Deku’s back while they work. He knots his fist around Deku’s t-shirt, and Deku’s hand shakes as he flips the papers over to his report.
Katsuki’s eyes follow the curve of Deku’s ear and watches how it wiggles when Deku talks. He bets no one else has noticed that. They’re not nearly as smart as he is. Deku’s gotta stop working with dumbass extras who don’t notice his ears wiggle.
Hours later, Katsuki’s eyes are heavy, and he’s found a comfortable place on Deku’s shoulder to chew on, and Deku leans back against him easily, tired and three beers in on a Thursday night.
“Kacchan?”
“What?”
“Why aren’t we partners?”
“You never asked.”
“Oh alright,” he says, and Katsuki hums. “If I asked, would you say no?”
“Do you think I would?”
Deku swallows. “Maybe.”
“Only one way to find out, I guess.”
“You could just tell me.”
“Nah,” he says, biting down on his shoulder one more time. Deku turns back, his nose brushing over his, and he looks at him straight in the eye like he’s never had a reason to look away, and maybe just this once, Katsuki thinks Deku might be a little braver than him.
Just a little bit.
“Do you… want to be my partner?”
Katsuki bites again.