Chapter Text
Katsuki dreams about it almost every night. Or at least, the nights when he sleeps.
It doesn’t always start the same; sometimes it starts before the mission, when they’d been sparring and teasing each other. Sometimes it starts right as the building crumbles. Tonight, it starts in the aftermath.
The villain fight had been taken care of by the time they got there, and it was strictly a rescue mission. They’d been warned when they’d arrived that the foundations of the buildings were weakened from the bombs the villain had shot out of his head, like Mineta except infinitely more useful, in Katsuki’s mind at least. Secure any stranded civilians, but do it carefully— which meant Katsuki’s quirk was out of commission.
It should have been fine.
Later, the report says that they’d found a bomb with a countdown, clearly planted by the villain before he was captured as a way to increase the collateral damage. An obvious fucking plan. They’d made so many mistakes.
In the dream, he is on his knees. There are tears streaming down his face rather absentmindedly. He is missing three fingernails because he’s been clawing at rocks for so long. Each one he throws away is stained with his blood. He doesn’t stop. He doesn’t stop. He can’t fucking stop. Even when his muscles strain and he can’t close his fingers around the rocks anymore because his body won’t listen to him, he doesn’t stop. He doesn’t stop until someone calls his name, and somehow he manages to convince his useless legs to stand so he can make his way over to where Kirishima and Shoji and Jirou are standing, and Kirishima immediately goes to him and holds him up because Katsuki fucking drops, and he screams until he vomits, and then he keeps screaming, and all he can see is—
A severed arm, clad in green and heavily scarred. Katsuki knows that hand in the dark. He’s pressed his lips to it, sucked the fingers in his mouth, been pinned down beneath it.
It’s all that’s left.
The dream doesn’t usually have the aftermath, maybe because Katsuki can barely remember it. Sometimes he gets fragments; sobbing into Kirishima’s arms, the funeral, Inko nearly catatonic with dry eyes, which was so much fucking worse than if she’d been crying. Kirishima had stayed with Katsuki for a month after because Katsuki refused to let Mitsuki do it, cleaned up and cooked and made Katsuki get out of bed, shoved him into the shower, washed his fucking hair when Katsuki had just stood there and stared at the wall. Then one day he’d sat down next to Katsuki and he’d said, come on man, how are you ever supposed to be the number one if you stop fighting?
Katsuki picked himself up, figuratively and fucking literally. He’d moved out of the apartment he’d shared with Izuku, packed up all his stuff that had been haunting him for months and stored it in a unit because he couldn’t bring himself to throw it out, but he sure as shit didn’t want it where he could see it. He built a home that had no fucking trace of Deku in it, and never would. He rose in the ranks, fifth, fourth, third, second. The day he reaches number one he turns his phone off and gets drunk off his fucking ass because it’s not nearly as fucking satisfying as it should have been. The whole point of being number one was knowing Deku was number two.
He doesn’t date. He doesn’t even fuck anyone. He's never wanted anyone but Deku.
He lives. He wins. He does everything he’s always sworn he would, and he does it by the age of 25. But he does it alone, and it doesn’t feel like winning. He goes home to an empty apartment, and he dreams only in green and red.
“Hey,” Kirishima says from beside him. Katsuki grunts.
“What.”
“Would you rather be a tree or a snail?”
Katsuki stops so he can give the full weight of his glare at his best friend. “The fuck?”
“This is the world’s most boring patrol. I’m trying to think of ways to entertain us.”
“And that’s what you fucking landed on?”
“Just answer the question! I think I’d rather be a snail. I don’t think trees have consciousness.”
Katsuki gives a disgruntled snort and starts walking again. “And snails do?”
“Well, they’re alive, right? They do snail things.”
“Trees are alive,” Katsuki points out, because it really was the world’s most boring patrol.
“But they don’t think.”
“So what the fuck do snails think about?”
“You know,” Kirishima says. “Snail things. So which would you rather be?”
“I’d rather kill you.”
“That wasn’t an option,” Kirishima complains.
“It’s always an option,” Katsuki threatens.
The world’s most boring patrol ends with barely a mouse squeak, and the two of them head back to the agency; Katsuki showers, gets dressed in his normal clothes, says goodbye to Kirishima with a grunt and the bare minimum hand movement required to count as a wave. It’s like any other night. Like every other night will be for the rest of his fucking life.
When he gets home he cooks dinner, because if he stays still for longer than two minutes, thoughts he’d rather ignore start seeping into his brain. He sits down to eat and pulls out his phone, because it’s been vibrating incessantly the whole fucking time; it’s the stupid group chat (still called “The Squad” despite how many times Katsuki has changed the name; they always add him back to it when he leaves, too).
Kirishima: would you guys rather be a tree or a snail
Ashido: wtf
Kaminari: a tree
Ashido: why were you able to answer that so quickly
Kirishima: interesting choice
Kirishima: Sero, any thoughts
Sero: do we still have our quirks
Kirishima: no you’re either a quirkless tree or a quirkless snail
Sero: tree then
Ashido: i’d be a snail if i got to keep my quirk. It’d be super cool if my snail ooze was acid
Bakugou has left the chat.
Ashido has added Bakugou to the chat.
Ashido: snail or tree kat
Bakugou: murder
Kirishima: still not an option
Bakugou: wanna fucking bet
It continues on like this for a bit, the dumb, inane chatter of his friends a backdrop of white noise to his dinner, one eye on the still continuing conversation as he eats. It’s… nice. He can admit that now, can access his feelings a little bit better. The grief counselling helped with that. It’s nice, in his home, at his table, eating food he prepared, watching his friends bicker about snails versus trees as he sits at the top of the top hero list. It’s nice. It’s always nice.
But it’s always missing something. It’s never quite enough.
Katsuki lies in bed that night with his hands over his face. “I fucking miss you, nerd,” he mutters into the darkness. “If there’s such a thing as an afterlife, I’m gonna kick your ass when I see you.”
On the five year anniversary of Pro Hero Deku’s death, Katsuki blows up six televisions.
The first is his television, because he’s stupid enough to turn it on. It doesn’t really matter what channel it had been on, because it’s on every channel. Deku was insanely popular even though he’d died at twenty, and Katsuki's continued popularity meant people were still interested in the tragic end of his partner, so basically every channel was running some kind of story on him. Clips from the three sports festivals he’d taken part of at U.A (the first year event was a media favourite, because the idiot hadn’t broken any bones in the other two), from other media appearances or cellphone camera during rescues. Katsuki’s in quite a bit of it, usually glaring at the camera or trying to push Izuku into the car to get him to stop signing autographs so they could fucking leave. But there’s always one fucking picture that every fucking segment shows, a candid some asshole had gotten, and Katsuki had wanted to kill him and when Deku wouldn’t let him he’d wanted to sue him, but Deku wouldn’t allow that either. They’d been coming out of a restaurant, and Katsuki had been slightly, a little bit, minorly tipsy, which is why he’d been plastered against Izuku while they’d been waiting for a cab. At the time he’d been whispering the most explicit shit he could think of to see if he could get Izuku to pop a boner before the cab arrived, but all you could see from the picture is Katsuki, clingy like a koala and giving Izuku a smile that has not been since on his face since. Katsuki wishes he could kill everyone who’s ever laid eyes on the fucking picture, but since that would be a large chunk of the world and all of Japan, he settles for blowing up his television instead.
And then two televisions in windows on the street, which he pays double for because people tended to forgive things easier when there was money involved (not that they were even mad—as soon as they saw it was him, they told him not to worry about it, which is even worse).
And then the television in the agency break room.
And then the small television in the agency kitchen.
And then the backup television that one of the dumbass extras at the agency pulled out.
“Why wouldn’t you take today of all days off?” Kirishima asks him over the smoldering remains of the break room television.
“That would have been way fucking worse.”
He gets through the day, because he gets through every day. But he can’t pretend that it doesn’t fucking suck, so when Kirishima tells him he’s coming over for dinner, Katsuki doesn’t even put up a fight. Something about having your best friend fucking bathe you while you sob in his arms after your boyfriend dies breaks down any lingering defenses Katsuki might have had, when it came to this spiky haired moron, at least. So Kirishima invites himself over and Katsuki lets him, because he’s enough of a fucking adult to admit that he doesn’t want to be alone tonight.
After their shifts end, Kirishima hails a cab. “If it’s one that has a television inside I’m gonna blow it up,” Katsuki warns, and Kirishima laughs as if he’s joking.
The cab pulls up, with no televisions mounted on the dash or on the back of the seats, thank God. Katsuki collapses next to Kirishima as he gives the driver Katsuki’s address, finally letting himself sag a bit, tipping his head back against the seat and closing his eyes.
Five years. Five years without him. Katsuki’s hands clench in his lap. He needs a hot shower and a good meal, and also, technically, a new television, although it’s probably best to wait a few days so Deku’s face isn’t plastered across every channel. His next day off is Thursday, he could probably—
The car blows up.
Well, that’s not strictly accurate. Something blows up beneath the car, and the car goes flying. Katsuki tries to burn through his seatbelt to get out, but he doesn’t have time before Kirishima yanks Katsuki to him, cheek scraping against his hardened chest, protecting Katsuki as the car hits the pavement and then rolls.
He blasts them out, dragging Kirishima out; he goes to help the driver while Katsuki raises his hands and settles into a stance, eyes flicking around to try and figure out what the fuck just happened.
“See if there’s anyone else that got hurt in that blast,” he orders. In the wreck of the cab, he sees some kind of smoking, circular disc. Like a bomb.
Then he gets hit by a fucking truck.
No, not a truck. It feels like a truck. It feels like a fucking mountain. Katsuki goes flying into the pavement and groans.
He’s up quick. He’s the number one fucking hero, after all. Takes more than blowing up his car and knocking him around a bit to get under his skin.
And now he can see who hit him.
It looks like a perverted copy of Deku’s old suit, except this one is mostly black. He’s wearing thick boots and straps around thick thighs, a protective collar guarding the lower half of his face. He’s standing far enough away that Katsuki can’t quite make him out in the darkness.
Katsuki grins.
“Y’know,” he says loudly, rolling his shoulders and cracking his knuckles. “I was getting pretty damned bored. Thanks for the distraction.”
He hurtles himself at the villain, but the newcomer is quick. Katsuki gives chase; this really was an excellent distraction. Nothing like a good fucking fight to get his mind off what this day means.
And it is a good fight. The villain is good, quiet too, never rising to Katsuki’s taunts. Katsuki is pretty sure he’s got some kind of strength quirk, judging from the wreck they’re making of the street and how quickly he gets out of the way of Katsuki’s blasts. It would be the perfect fight, actually, if this fucking villain didn’t remind him so much of Izuku. Same kind of outfit, some of the same moves. Katsuki normally sees Izuku in places he isn’t, but this is a little much.
It pisses him off, actually.
“Oh come on, you’ve barely landed a hit on me yet!” He taunts, ignoring the blood spilling down his face from a cut on his eye. At some point during the fight a thick cloud of smoke had settled over the street, which means this dickwad probably has a partner hiding somewhere. Hopefully Kirishima manages to take care of that.
It’s adding an extra layer of difficulty to this fight, though. The villain is fast enough that he comes out of nowhere, gets a hit on him, and is gone before Katsuki can even turn around. The speed and the smoke mean he can’t get a fucking eye on the guy, he just gets bitch slapped and thrown around and is left blasting explosions at empty air.
“Hey Shitty Hair!” He shouts. “You planning on helping anytime soon?”
“Can you not call me that?” He hears Kirishima complaining. “You’re undermining me in front of the villains, dude!”
“Can you try and find out where this fucking smoke is coming from?”
“Yeah. I called for backup, too,” Kirishima says. “They should be here soon.”
Katsuki desperately fucking hopes that’s not a bluff. He’s starting to suspect there’s something more to this fight, to this villain. He grits his teeth and stands back up.
Enough.
“Alright,” he spits out, and then he actually spits, and he’s pretty sure he loses a couple of teeth with it. “Now I’m really starting to get pissed off.”
“Just starting? Your anger management must be getting better,” Kirishima says, and Katsuki strains to try and figure out where his voice is coming from.
“Well, aren’t you two cute. Does this banter help with your ratings?”
Katsuki whirls, but he can’t tell where the voice is coming from. It seems amplified all around him, like it’s in the smoke. It sounds… familiar.
“Who the fuck are you?”
“I… am going to tell you a little story.”
“I’m good, thanks,” Katsuki yells out. “Not big on stories.”
“Everybody is ‘big on stories’,” the voice says, with humour laced in his tone. “Human civilization is built on stories. And I have a really good one.
“Once upon a time, we built a weapon perfectly designed to kill a hero. Well, almost perfectly, I guess. You know, you were there. An embarrassing failure, looking back on it. But I think I know where I went wrong. See, the best way to kill a hero… is to make it personal.”
Katsuki feels cold. There’s no way this is who he thinks it is.
“You know, I’d always planned on taking revenge sometime, but I never could have even dreamed an opportunity like this.” He gives a deranged laugh. “Have you guessed who I am yet? Oh, come on. I’m so excited for us to see each other again.”
And then a section of the smoke clears, and he sees—
But he was—
Why did this keep happening?
“No,” Kirishima says from somewhere still in the fog. “No, you’re dead.”
“Am I?” Shigaraki grins. “Must not have gotten the memo.”
“You bastard!” Kirishima shouts, and Katsuki doesn’t have time to tell him not to before he sees Kirishima come flying through the smoke, fist poised to strike. And then an impossibly fast blur gets between them, and Kirishima goes flying. Now that he can see better, Katsuki can make out that one of the villain’s arms is metal from shoulder to fingertip.
“Red!” He scowls and turns back to Shigaraki. He had to trust that Kirishima could take care of himself. He couldn’t let this bastard out of his sight.
“Did you take some kind of monologue course while you were healing up?”
Shigaraki chuckles. “You know, Dynamight. You really are so cool.”
Katsuki flexes his fingers and—
Before he can even take a step, he’s pinned down by intense strength, and his head hits the pavement with a very painful thunk.
“Are you ready for the reveal?” Shigaraki purrs.
Katsuki looks first at the metal arm that is pinning him to the ground; his eyes travel up, to hair that he can see now is green and out of control, wild curls going in every possible direction, and beneath that, eyes that are Katsuki’s favourite shade of green.
It feels like every part of his body stops working. Like for one moment, every part of him stops. His blood stops flowing, his brain stops firing, his heart stops beating. Like he dies of shock, right there on the fucking pavement.
He says, voice barely a whisper, “Izuku?”
At some point, he’d pulled the collar down so that Katsuki could see all of his face. Izuku gives him a smile that doesn’t fit his face, and his eyes are cold when they look down at Katsuki. He cocks his head when Katuki says his name. He looks… he looks evil.
“Hi, Kacchan,” he says sweetly. Then he stabs Katsuki through the shoulder.
He yells out in pain, body jerking. Izuku had stabbed the knife through his shoulder and into the fucking pavement, keeping him pinned like a fucking butterfly. It must have been a really long knife; in the back of his mind he wonders at what point a knife becomes a sword. He wonders if that's the hysteria talking.
“Do you like it?” Shigaraki says gleefully. Katsuki can barely hear him.
“Izuku,” he says again. He’s dreaming. He must be dreaming. This can’t be real.
“Do you know the best part about abducting your boyfriend and turning him into a superweapon designed specifically to kill you?” Shigaraki’s voice is overly casual. “It wasn’t even that hard to brainwash him against you. All I had to do was erase any memories of you after the age of fourteen.” Shigaraki laughs. “You did most of the work yourself. Thanks for that.”
“Hey, Kacchan,” Izuku says. His voice has the same kind of mocking lilt to it as Shigaraki does. He leans in close, so their noses are almost touching. It’s a position they’d been in hundreds, thousands of times before, but it feels so wrong. “Do you wanna take a swan dive off a roof?” He laughs, and he digs his metal fingers painfully into Katsuki’s shoulder. “Or should I just—”
Katsuki screams again; Izuku has stabbed another knife into his other shoulder. He didn’t need to. Katsuki can’t remember how to move anyway.
“Deku… you’re— but… how—”
Shigaraki’s laugh echoes all around him. “Oh, this is so much better than it was with All Might.”
Katsuki can’t look away from Izuku’s face, from the cruelty etched on it. Those metal fingers have a vice-like grip on Katsuki’s arm, and he finally makes the connection.
“Your arm—”
“Yes, I had them leave that behind for you,” Shigaraki says. “Something to remember him by.”
If Katsuki could remember how to cry, he would be. As it is he feels completely disconnected from his entire body, and all he can do is lay there and stare into the icy eyes of the man he’s been mourning for five years.
“Izu—”
Deku is shoved off him suddenly, and Katsuki yells in pain as his body is wrenched against the knives stabbing him into the pavement. He cranes his neck to see what had happened and sees the smoke and glint of Iida’s costume. He’d taken Izuku by surprise with his speed, had slammed him into the ground, had taken him away from Katsuki again.
“Wait— wait, wait, wait—” He struggles, but he can’t move, can only watch as Iida pins Izuku to the ground. “No— Deku—”
“Stop, fiend—” Iida cuts off suddenly, because the smoke has dissipated enough for him to see who he has pinned. He releases Izuku, stumbling back, and although Katsuki can’t see his face beneath his helmet, he can imagine what it looks like.
“Midoriya—” Iida says, but he’s cut off again, this time by Izuku lunging at him and punching him hard in the stomach with his metal arm. Iida goes flying, and Katsuki can hear a distant crash.
Shigaraki appears, crouching over him. “Do you like your present?”
Katsuki’s eyes look for Deku, but he can’t see him anymore. He’d lost him after he’d punched Iida.
“What did you do to him?” He wants to sound angry, threatening. Instead he just sounds lifeless.
“Brainwashing is pretty easy, when you know how to do it,” Shigaraki says. “Easy enough to corrupt his memories, even easier to turn him against you. You did half the work for me.” Shigaraki pats him on the shoulder, and Katsuki grits his teeth in pain. “Anyway, I know it’s not right to play with your food, but if I kill you now, you won’t get to wallow in this pain. And it is so nice to see that look in your eyes.” He leans down so his mouth is right next to Katsuki’s ear. “When I first started torturing him, he kept telling me you’d come to save him. But you never did, did you?”
Katsuki screams and tries to move, but he can’t. “I’ll fucking kill you,” he spits out.
“You already tried,” Shigaraki says. He pats Katsuki on the cheek. “And you certainly won’t kill him, will you? Don’t worry, you’ll see him again. I’ll send him to kill you in a little while, after you’ve gotten to suffer for a bit more.”
Katsuki can’t do anything. Shigaraki gets up and starts to walk away, and Katsuki tries to sit up, tries to unearth the knives keeping him pinned, but the pain is too much.
“See you later, Dynamight,” Shigaraki says, and then he’s gone, and Katsuki can’t do anything, so he lies there and screams Izuku’s name until help comes.