Chapter Text
“I don’t know why I let you damn extras drag me out today,” Katsuki grumbles. He hates the mall. There are too many slow walkers and shitty music and it’s always too warm. He would’ve stayed at the dorms but Kirishima was very persistent with his begging and it was easier to just go along with him than to argue.
“Aw, come on! It’s not that bad!” Eijirou grins, wrapping his arm around Katsuki’s shoulders. The blonde grumbles, rolling his eyes but letting him do it anyway. He’s still getting used to the whole ‘relationship’ thing, especially in front of other people. He doesn’t even like showing platonic affection, let alone romantic. “Hey, it could be worse. It could be Christmas time.”
Well, that’s true, Katsuki supposes. But it’s October, so he wouldn’t be surprised if some places already had their Christmas displays up. “I can’t wait for Christmas!” Denki, who was slightly ahead, slows down, falling into pace with the couple. He looks like he wants to comment on their closeness, but the last time he did that it didn’t end too well. “Hey, I need to go to the stationary store. I ran out of pens again.” He says instead.
“
Again?
I literally gave you half a brand-new pack of them last week, dude!” Kirishima says.
“Well.. I lost them. Or they exploded. Or I let people borrow them.” Kaminari laughs sheepishly, rubbing the back of his neck. “And Aizawa said next time I ask him to borrow a pen he’s gonna make me write with crayons, so..”
“That’s what you deserve.” Katsuki snorts, knowing Aizawa will absolutely give him a crayon next time he asks for a pen, “Literal children are better at keeping track of their stuff than you are.”
“Hey, it’s not like I do it on purpose!” Denki huffs.
“Well, you could’ve fooled me,” Katuski replies, “And how the hell do you explode a pen anyway?”
“Because I chew on them and it makes them explode.”
“Well maybe
don’t
chew on them then?!” Katsuki scoffs incredulously. “Idiot. Eijirou, don’t give him any more of your pens if he’s just going to chew on them like a damn dog.”
“Aw, but I don’t want him having to write with crayons.” Eijirou pouts, holding the door to the store open for both of them.
“Well, he has to learn,” Katsuki grumbles. He crosses his arms, leaning into Kirishima with a sigh as Denki starts looking at pens as if he’s not going to lose them or destroy them within 20 minutes of having them. Katsuki shoves his hands into his pockets, looking around. At least there are no stupid Christmas displays in this store, and it’s relatively quiet, until-
“Kacchan, Kirishima!”
Katsuki whips his head around, already glaring before he even sets eyes on Izuku, who is standing a few feet away with Shouto beside him. Great! There was some All Might merch pop-up store so he’d hoped the nerd would just spend all day there but apparently not. Although judging by the bags on his arm, he’d bought a decent amount of stuff. No surprise there. “What are you doing here?” He asks. Eijirou places a hand on his arm, discreetly trying to calm him down.
“Well, I needed a new notebook, and Todoroki needed-”
“I don’t want to hear your stupid reasons, it was a rhetorical question.” Katsuki snaps.
“Right, well, um,” Izuku laughs nervously, shifting the bags onto his other arm. “We were gonna head to the food court after this, do you guys wanna come too?”
Katuski goes to say absolutely not , that’s the last thing he wants to do, but before he can get a chance, Kirishima interrupts him. “Yeah, that sounds good! Denki just needs to buy some pens and then we can go.”
“More pens?” Shouto asks as he raises an eyebrow.
“He chews on them and they explode,” Katsuki replies bluntly, glancing over at Denki who is still looking at pens. “Oi, sparky! Just grab whatever’s cheapest and go pay for them!” He calls. Denki looks up, surprised, like he’d forgotten anyone else was even there with him. When he notices Shouto and Izuku he smiles, waving at them before grabbing a random pack of pens off the shelf and heading over to the checkout area.
Shouto frowns and tilts his head, looking concerned. “Why does he do that? Does he have Pica or something?”
Katsuki gives him an odd look while Kirishima just chuckles. “Um, no, I think it’s just something he does when he’s trying to focus. Or like, a nervous habit.”
“Oh, right.” Shouto says, not looking completely convinced as Denki heads back over, oblivious to the conversation they’d been having previously about his potential Pica. Katsuki glances at the pens, then back up at Kaminari with an unamused look on his face.
“Seriously?”
“What, you don’t like them?” Kaminari teases, waving the pens around so everyone can see. They’re all adorned with different coloured animal prints, clearly aimed at preteens, which makes sense because Denki is, in Katsuki’s opinion, probably still at around the emotional age of a 14-year-old. And that’s being generous.
“Well, nobody will be borrowing from you anymore, at least,” Katsuki notes.
“They’re- Colourful!” Izuku says, ever-positive. “Here, do you wanna put them in one of my bags so you’re not carrying them around?”
“That’s probably a good idea, we don’t want him to lose them.” Kirishima teases. Denki sticks his tongue out in response as he puts the pens into one of Izuku’s bags.
“Ooh, you’ve got a lot of All Might stuff in there.” Denki chuckles, taking a quick peek inside.
Izuku laughs, a light blush dusting over his cheeks as he subtly tries to keep the bag closed so that they can’t see exactly how much stuff he’d bought. “Um- yeah. They gave us a discount because we’re UA students and Shouto is Endeavors son, so I went a little.. Overboard. Anyway! We should head to the food court now.”
“You bought about ¾ of the stall.” Shouto says as they leave the store.
“Is that more or less than half?” Denki asks, squinting as he tries to count in his head.
“Seriously?! We’re in our 3rd year and you don’t know that ¾ is bigger than ½ ?” Katsuki growls, turning and grabbing Denki, who is pretty much used to this by now, by the shoulders and glaring at him. He’s just about to unleash a string of insults when he notices something happening in one of the stores just over Denki’s shoulder. Looks like someone got caught shoplifting, maybe.
“Well, it’s not my fault fractions are confusing. I’ve had Yaoyorozu tutoring me, but-”
Katsuki lets go of Denki’s shoulders, cutting him off as he begins to walk in the direction of the store. He makes a point out of shoving into Denki’s shoulder as he passes him so that he knows he’s still annoyed at him.
Denki frowns, raising an eyebrow and turning to watch Katsuki leave. Weird. Usually he follows through with his rage-fuelled insults. “Hey, where are you going? You’re going the wrong way!!” He calls after him. He’s not exactly known for his subtlety, and the rest of the boys notice too.
“Oh man, not again.” Kirishima murmurs. He’s used to Katsuki just straight up ditching them by now. He sighs, starting to follow him, when he also notices the commotion. “Hey, guys-” He turns to Shouto and Izuku, gesturing in the direction of the store. He checks the name of the store and, expectedly, it’s a jewellery store. Probably a robbery, then.
“That doesn’t look good.” Izuku hums. He hoists his bags up, looking torn between ditching them to go and help or keeping them with him. “We should go and see what’s going on.”
“It could just be nothing,” Denki says uncertainly. Katsuki has come to a stop, still trying to figure out the situation. There’s a couple of men stood outside, and one just inside the store talking to a female member of staff. Her face is calm but her body language is tense- guarded. She’s uncomfortably close to him, and he appears to have a hand on her back, potentially holding a weapon. That means it’s not safe to just storm over and blow the guy up. Damn it.
“...Katsuki?” Denki whispers.
“Shut up. Something’s wrong, you see that?” He says, addressing all the others. Kirishima, Denki, and Izuku have to look for a few moments to realise what Katsuki is referring to, but Shouto, being as perceptive as he is, notices almost straight away.
“She’s being threatened.”
“Well then we should go over there-” Denki says. Katuski cuts him off with a firm smack to the back of the head.
“Dumbass! If we go over there it’s her that’ll end up getting hurt!” He hisses. Denki whines loudly, rubbing the back of his head. It hadn’t even clicked in his mind that the men outside the store were probably in on the whole thing too, and the smart thing to do would’ve been to be quiet and try to go unnoticed. One of the men, the one with orange hair, notices them, nudging his friend beside him. He whispers something to him, nods and then next thing the boys know they’re being shot at.
“FUCK!” Katsuki yells, shoving Denki to the side just in time for the bullet to graze the sleeve of his jacket. Denki yelps, patting his arm down to double and triple check he hadn’t just been shot. Kirishima activates his quirk, stepping in front of the others, knowing the worst he’ll get from a bullet is a bruise. Katsuki grumbles, wanting to shove him out of the way and say he doesn’t need help, but it gives him enough time to see the man in the store shove the woman aside, brandishing a gleaming blade seemingly attached to his arm. He smirks. Most of the other shoppers had run as soon as they heard gunshots. Now, he can let loose.
“Someone go take care of the extras still in the store!” Katsuki yells, hands crackling with mini explosions as he prepares to blast these asshole’s faces off. Deku is just about to make a beeline for the store when there’s a sudden cloud of something encasing the boys. It’s not smoke- it’s thicker, more suffocating, and he coughs, pain shooting throughout his entire body.
“WHAT THE HELL IS THIS?” He hears Katsuki yell between coughs. He forces his eyes open, trying to see something, anything that might give him a hint as to what kind of quirk this might be. He can just barely see a man with purple hair and dark, scornful eyes, one hand raised toward them emitting the smog. Shouto grabs onto him, and he feels his friend's entire body jerk as he’s hit by a second wave of the smog just in time for him to send a blast of ice forward, solidly encasing the two men.
“Wha- Shouto!” Izuku gasps, catching him as his legs give out and he curls in on himself. He’s taking short, shallow breaths as Izuku lowers him to the ground. The five of them look around at each other, trying to process what the hell had just happened. Izuku swallows thickly. “Is everyone okay?"
“Yeah, I-I think so,” Kirishima says shakily, checking himself for injuries before doing a quick scan of everyone else. Everybody seems okay, except for Shouto, who seems to be in pain. Right as Kirishima makes a move to go check if he’s okay, Katuski grabs his shoulder, pointing in the direction of the shop.
“The other guy is still in there.” He says urgently, dragging Kirishima along with him. “You three stay out there and make sure those two scumbags don’t get away!”