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Being out after dark is generally known as a bad idea for people who happen to live in Musutufa, Japan. Of course, it’s generally a bad idea in any city, any place, for any person, but in Musutufa especially. Because while the movies always frame Tokyo to be the big metropolis that gets stomped by giant monsters and blown up by bad guys, the real ones would rather come to Musutafu. It’s a hotbed of laser death rays, maniacal laughter, and just plain terrible people who got their grubby hands on destructive technology. But it’s fine, for the most part, because Musutafu’s also got superheroes to go with its villains. Namely, All Might, the Symbol of Peace and Puncher of Giant Lizards.
Even with All Might, Musutafu citizens would rather not go out by themselves at night, because if the villain doesn’t kill you, nothing ruins a Saturday night on the town more than a bad guy getting blasted through the bar wall and shattering the last bottle of your favorite tequila (everyone’s got a story). Despite this, there Katsuki was, walking home from soccer practice as the sun sank below the horizon. Usually, he’d get a ride home from practice if it ended after dark, but today he’d been forced to stay after because he’d nearly broken a teammate’s nose with a particularly strong kick to the ball and was too prideful to call his mom. The coach and shitty teammate claimed he’d done it on purpose, and he did. The bastard said some shit about Deku anyone else would’ve known to keep to themselves, especially around one Bakugou Katsuki and a soccer ball.
God, he could almost hear Deku’s stupid voice in his head chiding him about it now. Kacchan, your record! Yeah, as if the school could afford staining his record and kicking him off the team – the Bakugou family’s donations kept the program afloat. And he didn’t feel too bad about using his parent’s power to put some bigoted assholes in their place. If Deku heard about it he’d probably have a fit, though, and go on some rant about Katsuki not needing to put himself at risk for his sake. The thought almost made Katsuki smile.
Any semblance of his amusement was wiped out by a deafening crash from somewhere way too nearby. A sharp gust of wind came with it, nearly blowing Katsuki off his feet as he raised his arms to block flying bits of debris.
“Shit,” he hissed under his breath, dropping his arms to start searching for the source of the ruckus. He didn’t get much of a chance to look, though, because the ruckus came to him in the form of a massive creature bursting through a neighboring hairdresser’s wall with a screech that would’ve gotten it kicked from any singing show in two second flat. “Fuck!” Katsuki swore again, searching around wildly for anything to defend himself from the…thing.
It definitely wasn’t a man, though it had the massive body of one. Its skin was a washed out gray-pink color, its head some nightmare combination of a vulture and an exposed fucking brain. Weirdest of all, it had on a pair of blue jeans that looked like they came freshly starched from the laundromat – where does one even find cowboy jeans for a monster with a waist as wide as a Volkswagen Beetle?
The creature screeched again, it’s incredibly disgusting googly eyes narrowing in on Katsuki, and he decided that the strange fashion circumstances of monsters trying to kill him was the least of his worries and dove for cover as it lunged at him. The clumsy shit only managed to scrape his leg, but by fucking god did that scrape hurt. He jumped up as soon as he hit the ground and ran into the destroyed hairdressers in hopes that he’d find some kind of pseudo-weapon there. The place was destroyed.
The creature screeched again from behind him.
“Oi!” he yelled, grabbing what might’ve once been the footrest of a hairdresser chair and whirling around to brandish it at the creature. His leg was bleeding, wasn’t it? This sucked. “You think you can scare me, fuckwad?” There was no fucking way he was dying right now, at ten pm on a Thursday night while wearing fucking sweatpants. That was not a cool way to die.
Cowboy Vulture lunged again, and Katsuki screamed and brought down the chair piece on his head as hard as he possibly could, aiming for the disgusting bits of brain. He hit its neck instead, and his weapon cracked in half against what was apparently rock-hard muscle. “NOT FUCKING FAIR!” he shrieked, scrambling backwards until he hit a random counter and grabbing the nearest object, which happened to be a can of hairspray. He needed to start carrying knives of some shit. If only he had a lighter – he could’ve made a flamethrower and absolutely flambeed this son of a bitch.
He didn’t have much time to lament his lack of knives or flamethrower materials, though, because the monster was already trying to rip his limbs off again. “GET AWAY FROM ME YOU UGLY PIECE OF SHIT!” he screamed so hard his throat hurt, squeezing the top of the bottle of hairspray to shoot it at the creature and covering his face with his other arm. The monster screeched and the ground fucking shook so hard that Katsuki fell flat on his ass.
Did that just fucking work? There’s no way in hell that worked. There’s no-
Another crash made Katsuki finally open his eyes, coughing into a cloud of dust and hairspray to find a glowing green thing attacking Mr. Levis. The green thing looked like some kind of eldritch horror, glowing black whips shooting out in every direction and slamming the vulture monster into the wall, cutting off its screeching almost instantly.
“What the fuck,” Katsuki breathed, gripping his bottle of hairspray tighter. The green thing whipped around to face him, green eyes wide. Then, like someone flipped a switch from Terrifying Creature to Just Some Guy, the whips retracted, the electricity stopped buzzing, and the person dropped to their feet on the solid ground. The Vulture Man slumped against the wall, apparently unconscious, but Katsuki was too startled by the green guy – who was wearing a fucking bunny mask? – suddenly running at him to care much about that.
“BACK THE FUCK UP!” he yelled, jolting to his feet only to slam his head into the bottom of the counter he’d fallen under. “OW! SHIT!”
“Are you okay!?” the green guy asked, making Katsuki freeze, one hand on his head and stream of curses dying on his lips. The green guy put his hands out in a placating gesture, shuffling towards Katsuki a little bit more. “Sorry if I scared you…sir.”
Katsuki narrowed his eyes at the guy, who he finally recognized as that new hero that had been popping up on the news every so often. Dark green suit, metal mouthguard and mask, bunny-like ears. And most importantly, a highly recognizable voice and posture. Katsuki gripped the bottle in his hand to tight he dented it, gritting his teeth and levelling his childhood friend with a glare that parted hallways like the red fucking sea.
“I’m going to fucking murder you,” he hissed, shuffling out from under the counter. The green eyes behind the mask went a little bit wider.
“Uh,” Deku squeaked, “what?”
“What the hell was that, Deku?” Katsuki yelled, gesturing wildly to the unconscious creature. “You fight monsters now?”
“Wha-”
“You’re a fucking idiot,” Katsuki snapped, chucking the hairspray bottle as hard as he could at his boneheaded friend.
“Ow!” Deku whined when it hit him right on his thick skull and bounced off with a loud clang, then clattered to the floor. “Kacchan! That hurt!”
“Fuck you!” Katsuki yelled, pushing himself to his feet only to topple sideways as his leg – that was apparently a lot more injured than he thought it was – gave out. Deku shot forward in a flash, grabbing Katsuki by the waist to hold him upright. Katsuki felt his cheeks flush bright red as he again was faced with the reality of Deku’s growth spurt. Was that because of a fucking superpower? If Deku was taller than him because of some superhero bullshit he was going to be pissed.
“Oh my god, Kacchan, you need a hospital,” Deku said, worry defining his voice as he glanced down at Katsuki’s bleeding leg.
Katsuki ignored him. “Take off that shitty mask before I make you,” he threatened, sticking his finger in Deku’s face.
“I think the hospital is more important right now-”
“Deku.”
“It’s my secret identity-”
“I don’t give a shit,” Katsuki snapped, grabbing one of the stupid bunny ears and yanking on it as hard as he could.
“Hey!” Deku protested as his head was pulled sideways with the rest of him, the stupid mask riding up enough to reveal his freckles, eyes, and a few strands of wily green hair. “Kacchan!”
Katsuki’s heart fucking dropped when he actually saw Deku’s dumbass face behind the mask. It was final confirmation of the worst possible scenario he could imagine. He’d seen this masked green hero get thrown through concrete walls, fight monstrous villains ten times his size, and jump off buildings, all through a TV screen without knowing who exactly was getting hurt. Suddenly, all those things he’d been noticing the past months made sense – random bruises on Deku’s arms, scratches on his face, a bit of a limp at one point. He’d taken Deku’s weak excuses as the truth, brushing it off as his friend’s classic penchant for injury-ridden situations and accidents.
How had he been so blind? How could Deku been so fucking stupid?
“You. Little. Shit,” Katsuki growled, “You’ve been lying to me. For months!” Deku’s eyes widened in a panic, but Katsuki didn’t give him a chance to speak. “What the hell made you think this was a good idea, Deku? For fuck’s sake, YOU COULD GET KILLED. WHY WOULDN’T YOU TELL ME? WHY WOULD YOU DO THIS AT ALL? DO YOU EVEN THINK? WHAT THE FUCK AM I SUPPOSED TO DO IF YOU DUMBASS DIES OUT HERE? HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO EXPLAIN THAT TO YOUR MOM?”
“Kacchan-”
“NO, SHUT UP,” Katsuki screamed, “You are a lying piece of shit and I have never been more mad at you in my entire life.”
Deku pursed his lips and nodded. “Yeah.”
“You owe me so many explanations.”
“I do.”
“And apologies.”
“I can make you food to go with it?” Deku suggested.
Katsuki scowled. “That’s the worst damn apology you could think of, your cooking sucks ass, don’t do that.”
“That’s a little harsh, I don’t think I’m too bad!”
“Remember that time you burned box mac and cheese so badly that you and your mom had to come over to my house while your apartment aired out of smoke?”
“Fair point,” Deku amended, “I’m taking you to a hospital now.”
“Fine.”
“Thank god.” Without warning, Deku bent down, swung his arm under Katsuki’s knees, and scooped him up into a bridal carry. Katsuki’s screech of indignation only got louder when he took off flying, again without a single warning. Katsuki threw his arms around Deku’s neck and squeezed as tight as he could, shutting his eyes against the sickening view of the ground disappearing out from underneath him. There was nothing worse than heights.
Heights and stupid fucking Midoriya Izuku.