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When Midoriya Izuku was 13 years old, her mother Inko died in a car collision. It was the worst time of her life, and she could barely remember anything substantial.
Mr. and Mrs. Bakugou let her stay at their house, and Kacchan didn’t even try to bother her at all. He just stared at the husk of a girl she’d become, silent and un-judging for the first time in nine years.
The police station of Musutafu was an eerily lit building, and being in it made her hands go cold and clammy and her breath come out short. She was in there at least three times after her mother died, and each was worse than the last time.
Finally, she stopped having to go because someone important had shown up, and she was no longer considered a ward of the state. Now, she was back to being a kid with a parent.
Midoriya Hisashi wasn’t a very tall man, but he stood very imposingly. He had green eyes and heir just like her, but no freckles could be seen on his face. Those had only been from her mother. Hisashi - that’s what she called him in her head - also had a lot of money.
He took one look at her the first time they met and declared his immediate need for a DNA test to make sure she was really his daughter. Apparently that was why she’d been to the police station so many time, so that they could collect spit and hair and nail particles from her.
It was absurd, of course. Hisashi remembered the daughter he abandoned, and Izuku at least vaguely remembered the father who left her and her mother. Besides, she was practically his splitting image. It was all just him being a stubborn ass according to Mrs. Bakugou’s furious whispers.
It took barely a week for the DNA tests to come back, mostly because Hisashi had thrown so much money in the police’s general direction to speed things up. Finally, the man she’d long been informed had abandoned her family after learning she was quirkless, told her rather forcefully that she was to now address him as ‘Father’. Mrs. Bakugou had been in the room at that time, and it took the strength of two police officers to stop her from kicking Hisashi straight in the teeth.
What the officers couldn’t stop her from doing was screaming her lungs out at Hisashi for having the ‘goddamned audacity to demand anything from a mourning child he abandoned nine years prior and didn’t have the balls to admit was his own flesh and blood the very second he saw her.’
In the chaos of Mrs. Bakugou and Hisashi’s ensuing screaming match in the precinct, Izuku smiled for the first time in two months. It was a tiny thing, unseen and ignored by everyone, but it was there.
Unfortunately, that momentary happiness didn’t last.
Within a month Hisashi packed up her entire life and started dragged her off to Europe.
Immediately after her mother’s funeral, people started coming to the house and taking things away.
In his general carelessness about her, Hisashi didn’t give a damn about where she was during the day, just that she’d return by dinner time to ‘enjoy’ a stilted and always awful dinner of takeout with him.
Izuku always found herself running away to the Bakugou house, to get as far away from Hisashi as she could. In a 13-year-old girl’s mind, who could be a better protector than the wrath of Mitsuki Bakugou? Absolutely no one, so every day Izuku left home immediately after breakfast and ran the whole two blocks to the deep blue house with the lilac tree in front.
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The first time she ran away to the Bakugou house, it had been a Tuesday. Mitsuki and Masaru had been at work all day, but there was a key to the house in her own front hallway closet. She’d ran the whole way with a single-minded decision to get away from Hisashi, and hadn’t stopped until she was curled up safely in the corner of the comfiest couch in the living room.
Katsuki found her there, hours later when he came home from school. The slam of the front door had abruptly woken her up, and she frantically sat up on the couch, facing him.
Katsuki had frozen upon entering the living room, taking in the sight of her frazzled expression, paired with her bloodshot eyes that were obviously from lots of crying.
He very slowly narrowed his eyes and slunk away into the kitchen. Moments later, he returned with a saran-wrapped rice ball and set it before her on the coffee table. As she stared blankly at it, he slumped into the plush chair across from her and spoke quietly.
“Did you eat anything today?” he questioned. “Besides snacks, I mean.” Before she could say a word, her growling stomach answered for her. Katsuki gained a pinched look on his face before he sighed. “The hag and old man will be late tonight. I’ll make tonkatsu, but you have to eat that first. It’s ebi, your favorite.” Izuku stared down at the rice ball again before looking back up at Katsuki. He had his irritated face on. Yikes. As he opened his mouth to no doubt berate her, she beat him to it.
“Don’t you have homework to be doing?” she rasped out painfully, breaking into a coughing fit almost immediately. As she cupped her hands over her mouth, she watched Katsuki’s face turn red with anger. He stormed out of the room to- the kitchen? Moments later he returned, shoving a tall glass of water before her face.
Still coughing up a lung, Izuku reached out and snagged the glass, taking a full minute to gulp down the water. Katsuki stood beside her the whole time with crossed arms and an aggravated look on his face. When she finally stopped drinking, he spoke.
“Sasaki-sensei can kiss my ass. When have I ever care about his stupid literature lessons anyway? It’s not like I’ll ever need literature to be the Number One Hero.” Izuku smiled. There was the Kacchan she knew. It was strange to see him acting all differently. But Katsuki saw her smiling up at him and froze.
“Hey,” he yelled at her, motioning to the now-abandoned rice ball on the table, “Why the hell haven’t you eaten that thing yet? Eat!” It made Izuku smile again as she reached for the food, and Katsuki’s face went bright red.
“Kacchan,” she sighed, preparing to assure him that she wasn’t in fact belittling him as he always assumed, but he hightailed it out of the room before she could even continue. Soon after, the sounds of the fridge being yanked open and the air fryer whirring to life told her that Kacchan was making good on his promise of tonkatsu for dinner. Izuku happily munched away at the ebi rice ball, soothed by the meticulous sounds of Kacchan’s cooking.
Something was poking her. Izuku could feel the tiny feeling in her arm every time it dig into her skin. It was a cold touch compared to her warm surroundings, and it felt out of place. She yawned and turned over on her side, hoping to outrun the creature in her dreams. But soon, its voice came to life.
“-eku! Get up already! Up!” The poking continued for another minute before it finally stopped. Good, peace and quiet was finally here.
“Get up!” the voice shouted, and the warmth that had previously enveloped her was yanked away. Her eyes popped open in shock, only to see-
Kacchan. He was standing in front of her, once more with a tight look in his eyes. His angry expression, however, was betrayed by the fluffy white blanket he’d taken from her. A blanket which definitely hadn’t been there when she’d last been awake, and she knew with every fiber of her being was from Katsuki’s own bedroom.
When she finally looked back up at him from the blanket, she could see that he knew she knew. But Katsuki’s embarrassment was saved when Izuku finally noticed all the food on the table. What could almost be called a feast decorated the coffee table, with a solid third of the space being covered in tiny tonkatsu-piled dishes. Her amazement was immediate, and her appetite demanded she dig in that very moment.
“Kacchan sugoi!” she exclaimed, practically having heart-eyes at the sight of so much tonkatsu. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Katsuki faintly blushing, an expression he quickly tried to cover up by coughing into his fist and moving to sit down.
But before he could, Izuku let out an irritated noise, holding out both hands for the blanket back, expectantly. Katsuki blinked like an owl, staring in confusion at her outstretched hands before looking down at the fluffy monstrosity in his arms. Finally, he let out a humph, almost tossing it back into her arms.
“Just don’t get any sauce on it.” Katsuki’s demand didn’t have any bite behind it, and Izuku giggled, wrapping herself back up in it before digging into the tonkatsu. Across from her, Katsuki finally sat down and simply stared as she devoured the dinner.
For a few minutes, it was just the same thing. Izuku ate while Katsuki sat in silence, until finally, a big smile came across his face, and he dug into his own food.
Izuku hadn’t seen that kind of genuine look on Katsuki’s face in years, and it felt wrong to interrupt their dinner to ask about it, so she just kept eating.
Unknown to her, Katsuki kept watch over her all throughout their meal and even dessert, when he brought out what he knew to be her favorite ice cream. He watched her every move, cataloguing every twitch and breath and movement. He watched even as she left the house at dusk, peering out the second floor hallway window as she walked down the street, all the way until he couldn’t see her anymore.
Katsuki watched and watched and watched all evening. And as Izuku walked away that evening, he came to two very dangerous conclusions. He decided that Midoriya Hisashi was a dead man, and nothing would take his Deku away from him. That was the day that everything changed.