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There are rivers arching down Izuku’s arms.
They snake over tendon and bone, creep between his knuckles. The skin is softer, there, weirdly smooth. Some of his freckles have drowned. He has less now than before.
Izuku is not vain; he knows he isn’t much to look at to begin with, and his scars are honestly pretty gnarly.
It isn’t the look of his marred skin that bothers him; it’s the ache. But when Izuku digs his hands in earth, the motion feels like a balm; he pulls weeds like dragging the ache out of his own bones, pats dirt firm over a seed with the knowledge that his hands are still useful, here. He can still produce.
“Midoriya-san.”
Izuku whips his head up from the planter pot and gasps, bowing quickly. “Takahashi-san! I’m sorry, I didn’t hear you come up.”
“Don’t worry about it,” his coworker smiles pleasantly, “Not everyone can brag they snuck up on the Symbol of Hope.”
Izuku pinks and rubs his head somewhat bashfully. “Ah, well.”
Takahashi-san teaches class 2-B, the only other instructor close to his age currently at UA. They’d quickly become friends, Takahashi transparent in his admiration of Izuku’s hero work, Izuku transparent in his admiration of Takahashi’s successful wrangling of his boisterous, trouble-making class.
“Just needed a breather,” Takahashi offers, stretching and tipping his face to the sun. The loud popping of his back makes Izuku giggle, and he joins his peer at the railing of the school roof.
“Yamamoto get stuck on the ceiling again?” Izuku asks, half-joking.
Takahashi groans, letting his head hang in defeat. “Yes.”
Izuku claps his back in reassurance. “He’ll graduate soon.”
Takahashi snorts, and after a moment, groans louder. “That means I can’t fail him.”
Izuku turns back to the rooftop garden, still smiling, and crouches by the komatsuna again. Takahashi joins him, and they chat for a bit while Izuku digs and plants and digs, until lunch ends and Takahashi has to return to his class.
The sun is starting to beat down on him, and Izuku sits back to wipe his face. There’s a thud, and when he opens his eyes, Kacchan stands before him, looming over him with his trademark frown.
“Kacchan!” Izuku chirps happily. Because he’s glad to see his childhood friend, of course, and not at all because Katsuki is blocking the sun rays.
“You leave hero work for five minutes and I immediately find you sitting on your ass?” Katsuki berates, unabashedly lightly.
Izuku rolls his eyes. “I’m still training,” he reminds him, “I don’t have a class yet.”
Katsuki notices the garden, and his face visibly brightens. “You put this here?”
Izuku shrugs. “I thought it’d be nice.”
Kacchan would join him, sometimes. In UA and the years after, when Izuku would garden obsessively as recommended by his pysch and physical therapists. The dirt is always cool on Katsuki’s still-hot palms, red from use all day. And it’s nice, to get their hands dirty in only the most peaceful of ways. It’s freeing.
“I’m getting so much company today,” Izuku muses happily to himself, inspecting a leek.
“Who else came up here?” Katsuki asks too-quickly, attempting to look disinterested and falling short by a mile.
Izuku hides a smile at his antics, ducking further into the dirt. “Just Takahashi-san. His kids are little gremlins.”
Katsuki is quiet for a moment, thinking. “2-B? The brown-haired prick?”
Izuku tuts. “Don’t let Aizawa hear you, Dynamight-san.” He hesitates, then allows, “…Yes, him. The other teacher around our age.”
Katsuki scowls at that, for some reason, crossing his arms. Izuku quickly looks away.
Katsuki mutters something unintelligible.
“What?” Izuku asks, willing his face to cool down. Maybe he could pass his flush off as the heat getting to him, and not Kacchan’s muscles bulging obscenely in his black sleeves.
“Nothing,” Katsuki says, “Are you done for today? Let’s go.”
Izuku looks longingly at his unplanted seeds, then longingly at the street below them.
“You can garden more at home,” Katsuki reminds him, teasing.
Izuku loiters just to be difficult, and flees to grab his things when Katsuki threatens to fireman-carry him home.
₊⟡
Katsuki takes his shoes off and heads straight for the shower. Izuku follows him, needing to pee.
Katsuki groans loudly as he peels his suit off. “Fucking hell.”
Izuku laughs. “Comfortable?”
Katsuki holds his gear in his hand with a grimace, the material slicked wet. “We’re lucky my sweat doesn’t smell like shit. Still feels godawful.”
Izuku hums thoughtfully. “Crime has gone down in the last couple of years. Maybe you can cut your sleeves.” He thinks a moment longer. “Actually, your sleeves are the best wire line to your hands, so if anything they should stay. Maybe we can do cut-outs to keep you cool. Or…”
His words catch up with him, and he reddens at the image. “Or maybe we just need better wicking tech. I’ll text Hatsume-san.”
Katsuki stares at him, deadpan. “If she gives me an ab window, I’m quitting on the spot.”
Izuku blushes furiously. “Kacchan!”
Katsuki keeps talking as he pops out his hearing aids and strips, stepping into the shower. He raises his voice over the water. “I don’t give a fuck about the heat. And the sweat’s fine when we’re outside. It’s just with the aircon that it gets sticky and shit.” He glares at his suit, considering. “Have you ever peeled a wetsuit off sweaty? It’s hell.” Then he coughs. “Not that I… really care… it’s not a big deal,” he grumbles.
“If it was, Kacchan would fix it,” Izuku chants cheerfully.
“You’re damn right,” Katsuki huffs, soaping his sides. Izuku tries not to stare, but…
Katsuki suddenly sticks his head out the glass door. “Hey, why are you sitting down? Are you taking a shit in here?!”
Izuku giggles evilly. “Maybe.”
“What the fuck?! Get out!”
Izuku laughs outright, because Katsuki is wet and naked in the shower and can’t do anything to him. “Hmm, nah.”
He wasn’t actually using the restroom anymore. He just felt like sitting to hang out with Katsuki. But he didn’t need to tell Kacchan that.
Katsuki steps fully back inside and rinses off. “You have five seconds to wipe before I’m beating your ass.”
“I’m calling your bluff!” Izuku crows. Katsuki loved to unwind in his after-work hot shower. It was one of the few luxuries he allowed himself, especially on his measly hero pay.
Izuku kicks his feet a little, enjoying his victory. Then the water abruptly cuts off, and he jerks his head up to see six feet of burly, very naked, dripping blond stomping threateningly at him. Izuku screams, and flees.
“Wash your fucking hands!” Katsuki roars after him, and Izuku makes a sharp turn to the kitchen sink, heart racing. Kacchan was so scary about hygiene.
₊⟡
Izuku is wrist deep in dirt when Kacchan sneaks up on him early the next morning.
In his defense, he was humming a J-pop song to himself, and he would also forever maintain that close proximity to Kacchan’s explosions since childhood had screwed with his hearing a bit, too.
“WAA-chan!” Izuku jolts away from the smirking mouth blowing cold air over his ear. Unfortunately, not all of his body jolts with him — said wrists still stubbornly rooted in the ground — and he faceplants rather succinctly into a pile of loose soil.
Kacchan is on his ass with laughter when Izuku manages to right himself. His wheezy cackles echo in Izuku’s ears while he brushes dirt off his face, biting back a smile.
“You’re a dick,” Izuku informs him. It comes out much too fond.
Katsuki’s humor eventually relaxes into a happy look, and he smiles at him. Izuku loves when Kacchan smiles like this, content and at ease and bright-eyed. It softens the edges of his face, makes him look younger, boyish. Izuku is helplessly charmed.
“You should’ve seen your little ass in the air,” Kacchan taunts, grinning.
Izuku elects to ignore this comment. He rubs his face fruitlessly, amidst Katsuki’s protests to not get dirt in his eyes. “If I get tetanus, it’s on you.”
“You don’t have any cuts on your face,” Kacchan replies easily, and damn him for setting Izuku’s heart aflutter with his casual but constant attention.
“I could,” Izuku goads, “Maybe I cut myself shaving this morning.”
Katsuki gives him a flat look. “You didn’t, because you don’t shave.”
“You don’t know that!”
“You don’t even own a razor.”
“Wh- yes I do!”
“Not for your face.”
Izuku sticks his tongue out at him. Hopefully the dirt hides his flush.
“Here,” Kacchan says, and abs oh dear god abs he’s lifting his shirt Izuku can see his V-line–
Izuku sputters as Kacchan cleans his face off with the underside of his shirt like he’s a particularly messy toddler. Rough and efficient, making Izuku’s face scrunch up, rather like the aforementioned kid.
Izuku glares at him through his scrunch when Katsuki pulls away, and Kacchan laughs at him again.
“Thanks,” Izuku grumbles, but he smiles into the tail end of it.
“Sure,” Kacchan says.
“Now my face is flammable,” Izuku adds, with cheek.
Kattsuki flips him off, then frowns a little. Izuku tilts his head, asking with his eyes, but Kacchan’s stare is lower, distracted.
“Okay, Kacchan?” Izuku asks.
Kacchan makes a displeased noise, then rubs at Izuku’s cheek. His boyish grin returns.
“There you are,” he says, sounding mollified.
Izuku touches where his hand had been, burning. He hurriedly brushes the rest of the dirt from his face.
They garden (Izuku gardens. Katsuki seems to have constructed a small anarchist state out of mulch and weeds that he is very serious about perfecting for a nearby ant colony. Izuku doesn’t question it) until Katsuki has patrol and Izuku has to wash up for class. Kacchan hands him his bento and Izuku hands him his latest quirk analysis, updated for a couple criminals at large that, officially, Izuku Does Not Know Kacchan is tracking.
The memory of Kacchan’s touch sits like a brand on his cheek all day, still burning when he gets home hours later, begging to be— what? Marveled at? Spread like a balm onto more of his skin, presently left cold and bare? Izuku aches, a tugging in his chest amidst the itch and the butterflies, urging him to just look. Just look at it, because it feels to Izuku like his skin should be glowing where Kacchan touched, and because Izuku needs to do something or his heart will explode.
Izuku peers at his very normal face in their bathroom mirror and sighs at himself. He’s a bit pink, perhaps, but that’s more of a whole-face-and-also-ears situation. He zeroes in on where a phantom touch lingers red-hot, even now, and lifts his own fingers to press over it. Only lightly, so as not to wipe it away, but his cool fingertips are soothing.
He blinks. Draws his hand away. Moves it back. His breath stutters.
He lowers his arm and uncovers his freckles once more.
There you are.
Izuku shoves his entire face into his arms and quietly screams.
₊⟡
When Izuku wakes the next morning, it takes a little longer than usual for his hands to unfreeze. He’s rubbing them all morning, knuckles aching in an uncommonly persistent way.
“You alright?” Takahashi asks when he passes by his classroom, a good half-hour before the students would be let in.
“Yeah, I’m well, just a little sore today. Thank you for asking,” he chirps politely.
“Sure,” Takahashi says, “Let me know if you need anything.”
Izuku thanks him as he leaves, smiling a little. He has such nice coworkers. He lifts his coffee cup for a sip and winces, knuckles throbbing.
Aizawa’s students are picking hero names today. He watches them fondly, withholding his input, until his former teacher notices him vibrating in his seat and prompts him to give feedback with a fond huff.
He ignores the twinge in his heart when Kota looks at him proudly when announcing his choice of name, and when he whips out his hero suit, full of elements from Izuku’s own old design.
The school day only seems to crawl by slower after that.
11:56
> notes were good
> that mt. lady movie is in theatres now let’s go tmrw
> oi you should be off for lunch rn tf are u doing
> if you’re nerding out instead of eating again i’ll kill you
I was nerding out instead of eating sorry :P <
> don’t sass me dweeb
I’m glad you liked the notes!!!! <
Takahashi-san wanted to show me a book so I was just a little late you don’t have to worry so much Kacchan <
> did he now
it’s on phenotypic effects of quirk mutations it’s pretty cool <
I can ask if I can borrow it if you want to read it <
> no
> …
> fuck it does sound good but no don’t
Why not? I’m sure he won’t mind <
> yeah. I bet he won’t
Why are you being cryptic you’re not mysterious you know -_- <
> I’m very mysterious. I’m the best
Can’t argue with that <
> cmon say it
Say what <
> you know
hdmsgmf what <
> 10minutesofdekusayingkacchansugoi.mov
HSVSJAGJFGSKD <
WHY DO YOU HAVE THAT <
> it was trending on twitter a while ago
> like two months into us being rookies
> naturally I saved it for this very moment. because… I am…
> …
Izuku smiled helplessly at his phone, the ache throbbing.
Self obsession is not appealing to most people you know <
but it’s true <
Kacchan sugoi !!!!!!!! :D <
> there we go
> :)
> gtg i’ll see you at home
byeeeee be safe <
> 🫡
> seriously don’t go asking for the book
> izuku
[img0420.jpg] <
too late <
“Midoriya,” Aizawa calls him over, and for once Izuku feels more dread than excitement at the prospect of chatting with his favorite Pro-Hero-turned-Sensei.
The conversation proceeds as he expects. Is he doing okay. Yes, sensei. Is he eating enough. Yes, sensei. Is he giving Bakugou trouble. No more than usual, sensei.
Aizawa peers at him with his usual unreadable gaze. “You’re still pushing yourself too hard.”
Izuku doesn’t know what to do with that. “I’m just training to teach, like we planned, Aizawa-sensei.”
His old teacher’s glare is as piercing as ever, looking past his eyes, it feels, to the dark recesses of his secret mind.
“And are you content with that? Do you forgive yourself and your circumstances for it?”
Izuku blinks very quickly. “I… I don’t— Yes?” No.
Aizawa is stern, even if his eyes are kind. He won’t give him the answers. Ever the teacher. “Why don’t you just be?”
That’s a luxury for people able to live it, he thinks, and it’s only possible for them if I make it so. Yet here I am, not making it so. I can’t. Not like before.
“You’ll be good at it.”
Izuku whips his head up at the random compliment. “What?”
Aizawa puts a steady hand on his shoulder. “Teaching, or whatever it is you choose to do in the future. But you need to find peace with it, Midoriya. It’s okay not to know. But beating yourself up for being unsatisfied—“
“I’m satisfied,” Izuku insists. It comes out steady, even if it feels emptier than he can usually make it.
Aizawa just watches him.
“I am,” Izuku says, but his lip wobbles, and Aizawa draws him into a gruff embrace.
“Alright,” he allows, and Izuku doesn’t feel worse than before, but he doesn’t feel better, either.
₊⟡
It had been a long, long day, and Izuku needed to stick his hands in soothing, dry dirt expeditiously.
It’s oddly dark in his room.
Plip. Plip. Plip.
There’s a faint pattering on glass, hesitant at first, then picking up speed. When Izuku looks outside, it’s raining, and everything is all at once too much for him. He’s trembling, looking out the window, and there’s an aching in his chest he can’t blame on his scars. It’s taking everything in him not to cry.
Katsuki finds him like that, not five minutes later, holding himself together all alone in the dark of his room.
“Why are the lights off?” he inquires brusquely. He’s still in his hero gear.
Izuku must make some sort of noise, because Kacchan is frowning when he flips the light on, eyes searching.
“Izuku?” He doesn’t try to come closer. Izuku is so grateful for him.
“It’s raining,” Izuku rasps, “I… I wanted to…”
Katsuki looks over his shaking form, then out the window, expression unreadable.
“This is important to you?” Katsuki asks.
Izuku tries to shrug but ends up tensing weirdly. He gives up, nodding miserably.
“What’s stopping you?” Katsuki asks him, stare glinting with something sharp. “If you want to garden, then go outside.”
The dirt won’t pack right. It’s not the right time. I might upset root systems by accident. What if I scare away the worms. I could catch a cold. It’s not the right time.
“Izuku,” Katsuki says again, eyes blazing, and like every day for the last two decades, Izuku is helpless but to look at him, “If you want it, then go do it.”
Izuku ends up in the dirt in a daze. The rain pelts against his shirt, then into it, and he’s soon soaked all the way through, right down to his bones. Water falls in streams over his cheeks and jaw from his flattened hair, and when he pushes his curls away from his eyes they smear over his forehead instead. His hands hurt. He’s crying.
Why are you crying? the little voice in his head asks.
I wanted this today, and then I couldn’t have it, Izuku replies, sniffling. He uproots some weeds. It’s easier than usual.
You have it now, the voice says.
It’s not the way I wanted it, Izuku insists.
So what? the voice demands. It sounds an awful lot like Kacchan.
Kacchan hates rain, Izuku thinks to himself.
It feels good. The soil, the action, the movement, the mud. Izuku couldn’t do this how he wanted. Izuku is doing it anyway.
He lets out a watery giggle. It’s lost to the sound of uprooted earth and rain.
When Izuku looks up, Katsuki is kneeling next to him, hands in the dirt. Water drips from his spiky hair steadily into his eyes, and he’s squinting at the ground.
Oh, Izuku thinks, Look how much he loves me.
Izuku looks at the plot he was working on, weed-free in record time. His hands had stopped shaking. They didn’t even hurt, much, gone numb from the cold. He’s still blinking tears out of his eyes, but they’re warmer, and taking a longer path down, over cheeks stretched with a smile.
Izuku clears his throat.
“Kacchan,” he croaks, but it’s lost to the rain.
“Kacchan,” he tries again, and this time, Katsuki hears him, looking up with his hands stilled on a particularly persistent root. The rain gentles to a drizzle.
“Is this not a weed,” Katsuki asks immediately, alarmed, and Izuku laughs at his wide eyes.
“It is,” he tells him, sniffing, wiping his eyes with the back of one hand.
“Oi,” he hears, thinly veiled concern peppered with raindrops, “don’t get dirt in your eye, nerd.”
Izuku can’t take it anymore. He opens his eyes to Katsuki watching him with nothing but care in the lines of his slight frown, copper eyes on him like they were the only people in the world.
Those eyes flicker over his face twice, and seem to approve of what they see. “What?” Katsuki asks, and it’s full of knowing pride.
“I’m ready now, I think,” Izuku says, and Katsuki’s mouth pulls wide with his grin. “I’m going to be a pro hero.”
“Hell yeah, you are,” Katsuki grins, and Izuku flings his arms around him, water flying off his arms to join their falling comrades.
“Thank you,” he whispers, and Katsuki pretends not to hear him.
“I’m proud of you, ‘Zuku,” Katsuki murmurs into Izuku’s hair, arms sliding around his waist, and it’s the final final straw, the emotions bubbling in Izuku’s chest threatening to explode.
Izuku pulls back just a little, and slides a slightly muddy hand over Katsuki’s jaw. He winces at the smear. Whispering a quick apology, he looks up, only to find Katsuki’s eyes fixed on his mouth.
Even the sky seems to hold its breath.
Warm hands drag over Izuku’s pants, then stuff themselves into his drenched hair, and Izuku’s mouth is taken like it was never his to begin with. Kacchan kisses him like Izuku is his last breath of air, and he could cry again, gasping into his mouth and tasting rain.
There’s a river of affection coursing inside him. Izuku had always tried to stay on the bank of it, unsure, but now he’s ankle-deep.
“So fucking proud of you,” Katuski whispers again between kisses, and Izuku tries not to sob, pouring everything bright and overflowing in his chest into Katsuki’s mouth the only way he knows how. There are no words for this feeling, not this magnitude, not this shade of gold. He can only communicate it remotely effectively through this kiss, their first kiss, oh god Kacchan’s kissing him, he’s kissing Kacchan… He’s making little noises, he knows, he knows because Kacchan reacts to every single one with a groan or a flex of the hand on his waist or in his hair or by shoving his tongue further down his throat. He seems to like them, so Izuku will keep making them, for Kacchan. He doubts he’d really be able to stop himself, anyway.
When they finally stumble inside, drenched and freezing, Kacchan shoves them both into the shower immediately, grumbling half-heartedly about colds somewhere between Izuku’s neck and shoulder, sneaking lovebites while the water heats up. He can’t seem to lift his face (or hands, or arms) from Izuku’s chilled skin, and Izuku welcomes it. It gives Izuku permission to do the same, and for once his fingers don’t ache. The cold seems afraid of Katsuki, and the heat running under his skin bleeds into Izuku’s hands, washing away even the memory of pain. Izuku feels– full, and whole, a glowing sun in his chest, a steadiness to his bones. He’s standing straighter. He can’t stop smiling. It’s brimming, this happiness, spilling out between his teeth. He laughs it into Katsuki’s skin, gets it pressed back into him in the most gorgeous ways. He’s never been touched like this. It’s corporal and it’s striking his soul. He’s tapped into a gold vein, and now there are rivers of sunlight arching across him.
₊⟡
Later, they lie flushed and panting and finally, finally satiated. Kacchan plays with his fingers over the covers, and Izuku watches drowsily from Kacchan’s shoulder, cuddled into his arm.
Katsuki mumbles something, and Izuku lifts his head. “What?” he asks, because he surely misheard him.
“Pretty,” Katsuki says again, tracing over his gnarled hand, pink dusted over his cheeks. His voice is resolute and unashamed.
Izuku looks at him, stunned. He resists the urge to tug his hand back, if only because it seemed to belong in Kacchan’s. “Kacchan, you don’t have to– It doesn’t bother me that they’re ugly.”
Katsuki glares at him, his first in what feels like ages. “I don’t give a fuck what you think. They’re mine and they’re pretty.”
It’s almost too delicate a word to be coming out of Kacchan’s mouth, yet the way he says it makes it sound like a universal truth. Like he’s listing Izuku’s strengths, not complimenting his scars.
He’s lying about the first part, too. Izuku knows he cares. It’s not the first time Katsuki has disputed Izuku’s opinion on his hands.
Kacchan interlaces their fingers and just. Looks. Izuku looks too, watching Kacchan stare at their joined hands out of the corner of his eye.
“Yeah,” Katsuki nods to himself, and Izuku knows what he’s thinking. Pretty. Mine.
Butterflies make a mess of his digestive system. Izuku’s got to be reaching some sort of threshold for how much one person can blush in a day. Katsuki kisses his cheek, then the back of Izuku’s hand, pulling it up with his own.
“I’ll show you,” Katsuki swears, and Izuku believes him.
₊⟡
Izuku, predictably, has to take a day off from work for a head cold. Katsuki, also predictably, does not. He wakes up from a midday nap to Kacchan sitting on the edge of the bed in his hero gear, glaring at his phone.
Wait a minute– “That’s my phone,” Izuku croaks blearily. His eyes can barely stay open.
Once he realizes Izuku is awake, Kacchan immediately starts stroking his hair, and it almost sends Izuku right back to sleep. He’s still burning holes into Izuku’s phone, though, so Izuku manages to sit up, slumping on Kacchan’s side to see what was so incensing.
08:29
> Good morning, Midoriya-san. I hope you get well soon. We will miss you today! I was just thinking about our conversation last week about body heat as a (...)
His head rolls on Katsuki’s shoulder as he peers up at him in confusion. “It’s just Takahashi-kun?”
Kacchan starts tapping on his phone, muttering darkly under his breath.
His typing is so forceful that his arm is jostling Izuku. He whines about it unintelligibly, half dozing off, and Kacchan relents to typing more reasonably.
Izuku hears a satisfied huff above him and finally peers at his screen.
> This is his boyfriend. Fuck off. Thank you.
“What the hell,” Izuku mumbles sleepily. Then–
“Kacchaaaan,” he groans, “Why.”
He had wanted to say more, probably. Something about how long it took to compose that and social etiquette and assumptions that may or may not be correct because Izuku is dense but not stupid. But his head hurt and also felt stuffed with cotton, so he couldn’t think too hard.
“I said thank you,” Kacchan points out helpfully.
Izuku considers this.
“And you didn’t tell him to die… pretty good,” Izuku eventually nods, acquiescing. His eyes are closed, so he can’t see Kacchan’s face, but he can practically hear his smile.
He could damage control later.
Something soft presses onto his forehead, and now Izuku can feel his smile, too. A hand holds the back of his head, stuffed in his curls. They stay there a moment before Katsuki shifts him into a sleeping position again, tucking him under the covers. He pets his hair while Izuku sinks slowly into dreamland.
Just as sleep threatens to fully pull him under, Katsuki takes his hands. The last thing Izuku remembers before knocking out is Kacchan pressing a careful kiss to each knuckle, thumbing lovingly over his scars.
He holds no ache in his hands, right now, only love. Warmed by Kacchan, and by his own inner light. Izuku smiles, and falls asleep holding Katsuki’s hand.