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Katsuki Bakugo was blind.
He was deaf.
He was cold.
And he was also crushed and buried under a collapsed building, and if he let himself think about that for more than half a second, he’d lose his goddamn mind.
So he didn’t.
He rocked back and forth instead, small and careful, the motion bringing him into contact with the solid barrier behind him—where broken concrete met broken concrete, forming a weak excuse for a corner.
The wall was freezing. It scraped against his bare skin, stealing heat with every movement. Grit bit into flesh already rubbed raw and bleeding, but he ignored it. Pain was manageable. Pain was familiar.
The dark and silence was not.
His eyes stayed tightly shut. It was better that way. There was nothing to see anyway—no light, no shadows, no shapes. Just black. Endless, suffocating black.
And nothing to hear.
Not his breath, even as it whistled shallow and wrong in his chest, fogging uselessly in the dark. Not the thunder of his heartbeat, even though he knew it had to be pounding hard enough to split his ribs apart from the inside. Not the dull thud of his fists when they struck the wall in frustration, skin numbed and stiff.
Nothing.
Complete. All-consuming. Silence.
His back screamed from his crouched position. It sent large spikes of pain every time he shifted, the ache made worse by the way the cold seeped into his injury. One leg was definitely fucked up—there was no sugarcoating that. It felt achy and heavy and distant. Something in his ribs ground together when he breathed, sharp and wet, and his head felt like it had been split open and shaken for good measure. Concussion. Multiple breaks. Internal injuries, probably.
But still alive. Still breathing—thin, shallow breaths he tried to keep steady, because too much air hurt and too little made the cold feel worse.
The last thing Katsuki remembered was patrol.
The city stretched out beneath him—streets laid out in patterns so familiar they barely needed thought. Wind roared past his ears as he vaulted between rooftops, explosions cracking behind his heels, routes and distances already mapped in muscle memory.
They’d been dispatched to apprehend a villain at a warehouse near the river. Reports were vague. Their quirk was unregistered, unknown, though the villain herself had been easy to spot—she was far too fast, too strong, long black hair whipping around her shoulders, skin pale enough to look sickly, eyes sharp.
Deku was at his side. Too close, as always—hovering just inside Katsuki’s peripheral vision, muttering into his comm about quirk mechanics and countermeasures and evacuation routes like the damn nerd he was.
The fight started fast.
One second, Katsuki had her lined up—palms sparking, already feeling the recoil of the blast that would end it—
—and the next, she pivoted and threw a hit at Deku.
It was heavy. A single strike that caught Deku square in the chest and sent him flying far out of Katsuki’s range, his body arcing back into the air.
At this point, Katsuki was already moving, already airborne, recalculating angles, blast output, distance—ready to retaliate—
—and then he saw her palm turn toward him.
He didn’t feel it activate. There was no flash. No sound. No warning.
Just nothing.
Blindness slammed into him like a physical wall, his vision snuffed out instantaneously. His hearing cut off so abruptly it felt like pressure, like something clamping down inside his skull. Not fading—vanishing. The world didn’t go dark or quiet. It ceased to exist.
For one terrifying, weightless moment, Katsuki was midair with no up, no down, no sound, no sense of where his body was in space.
The quirk left him utterly—humiliatingly—defenseless.
She swarmed him.
He didn’t see it. Didn’t hear it. He only knew by the way his body remembered afterward—hands seizing his arms, dragging him off balance. A fist slamming into his ribs. A kick catching his thigh, then his side. The sickening sense of being crowded, overwhelmed, struck from angles he couldn’t anticipate.
He fired back on instinct alone. Explosions tore from his palms, blasts flaring uselessly into a void—too wide, too wild, detonating against nothing, hitting nothing. Every recoil twisted him further off balance. Every miss made it worse.
He remembered hitting the ground, hard.
More blows followed—shorter now, closer. The dull thud of impact reverberated through his body, pain stacking on pain until his limbs went heavy, sluggish. By the time it stopped, he was barely conscious, sprawled and bloodied, breath ragged in his chest.
And then the building started to come down.
That, at least, he anticipated.
Even blind and deaf, he felt the vibrations change. The ground shuddered—not sharp or localized like explosions, but deep and wrong. A rolling tremor that passed through concrete, through air, through bone.
Instinct took over where his senses failed him.
He blasted downward.
One sharp, controlled explosion. Concrete shattered beneath him, the floor giving way just enough. He dropped fast into the opening he’d made, curled tight on himself, arms snapping over his head as the world collapsed around him.
That was six hours ago.
He’d counted them, carefully. Marking time by ragged breaths, by heartbeats hammering in his chest, by the slow, creeping chill as adrenaline drained and the cold seeped deeper into his bones. Each minute stretched into something that felt like years.
Impatience gnawed at him, sharp and ugly. Worry followed close behind.
The nerd should have found him by now, pulling him out, muttering frantic apologies under his breath, analyzing the villain’s quirk mid-rescue. What the hell was taking him so long?
Deku didn’t leave people behind. Not ever.
A flicker of something darker, more poisonous, crawled into his chest. He hadn’t known—couldn’t know—what had happened to Deku the moment he went down. If he was blasted far away enough from the radius of the collapse, if he was trapped under the rubble like him, or if the villain had gotten him too.
Was he hurt? Was he—
Katsuki drew in a shuddering breath, the cold biting into his lungs, and forced the thought down before it could finish.
He had nothing. There was absolutely nothing he could do.
Blasting his way out of a crumbled, unstable building while blind and deaf was a great way to get himself pancaked—or kill some poor bastard digging through the rubble above him. Even he wasn’t that stupid.
So he waited. He stewed. He tried to conserve heat the only way he could, curling in on himself as much as his injuries allowed, drawing his limbs in tight until it hurt to breathe. His body shook anyway, small, uncontrollable tremors he couldn’t stop.
He tried not to think about the quirk that hit him—about whether the darkness and silence were temporary or permanent. Tried not to think about how utterly vulnerable he was like this, stripped of every instinct and advantage he’d built his life on.
He tried not to think about the nothingness, the lack of sensation. About how it seeped into his bones, how it felt wrong but familiar, the silence and darkness echoing something buried deep in him—eight years ago, a hard blow to the chest, red eyes and a wrinkled smile and the certainty of death pressing in—
No. Stop.
Deku would come for him.
Through everything—through the pain, the confusion, the anxiousness and waiting—that truth remained unshaken. Solid and immoveable.
He always did.
Katsuki pressed his forehead against the freezing concrete, eyes screwed shut, jaw locked tight enough to ache.
Not a single doubt.
Something was happening.
Shuddering vibrations traveled across the floor and up the walls of his small makeshift shelter, jolting straight through his shoulders and into his spine—shaking loose a shot of adrenaline he hadn’t realized he was still clinging to. He felt the rubble around him groan—concrete scraping against concrete, weight shifting in slow, deliberate movements. His cramped enclosure widened, cleared of the overlying rubble that had trapped him.
Cold, crisp, winter air spilled over him, sharp enough that his breath caught painfully in his throat. Katsuki turned toward it on instinct, his body chasing the sensation.
He should have been seeing sunlight through the cracks, hear the crackle of moving concrete.
Nothing.
The darkness stayed absolute. The silence pressed in just as heavy as before. Every nerve in his body screamed that this was wrong—that he should be able to see something now, hear something— And yet couldn’t.
Nothing.
Except— the hairs on the back of his neck prickled. Even without sight or sound, he knew. The sensation was sharp and undeniable.
Someone was there.
Warmth brushed against his skin. Somebody’s body heat. Somebody was standing? Crouching by him? Close enough that its presence pressed against him through the cold.
He wasn’t alone anymore.
Relief should have followed.
Instead, his breathing hitched into a sharp, unsteady gasp as fear slammed into his chest, sudden and vicious. It wedged itself between his ribs, reminding him just how defenseless he still was.
Somebody was there, but he couldn’t see them, identify them, anticipate them approaching.
It could be Deku.
Or it could be her—the villain. She had been fast, brutal, and merciless. Whatever her quirk was, it was ruthless, and the way she had swarmed him felt personal. What if she’d circled back to finish what she started? To kill him?
Katsuki stiffened instantly.
Whoever it was, they were slow to approach. Cautious because it was a terrified Deku, worried about accidentally hurting him? Or was it her, stalking him, savoring the fear he radiated, ready to strike?
Katsuki wasn’t about to find out the hard way.
Ignoring the way his back screamed and his ribs protested, he forced himself upright, standing unsteadily. Pain lanced through every muscle, white-hot and relentless. The ache from the stiffness of his body from hours crouched in rubble was near unbearable, but he shoved it aside.
Sparks crackled weakly from his palms, and although he couldn’t see or hear them, he could feel his quirk was still there.
“That had better fucking be you, Deku,” Katsuki snarled into the silence. “It had better be you. Fucking restrain me. If you let me take you down, I will be so very, incredibly pissed off.”
It had to be Deku.
Had. To. Be.
The thought wavered anyway, thin and fragile.
He couldn’t take the chance.
Deku would restrain him.
Anyone else—some shitty villain trying to kill him—-Katsuki would try his best to take them down. And though his best was very well beyond average, Deku would be able to match him. He always did.
He lunged, quick and deadly. He thrust his arm forward, palm out, ready to stun. To hurt. Sparks flew, raw and jagged against the dark.
A hand clamped around his wrist, iron-strong, using his own momentum against him. The world spun as he was yanked sideways, then dragged backward. His legs buckled uselessly, and his back hit the ground hard enough to knock the breath from his lungs.
Before he could even think to struggle, something wrapped around him—long, slender, unyielding. It crossed his arms tight against his chest, firm but careful, immobilizing him completely.
Blackwhip.
A memory clicked instantly—Deku had done that same move, a week ago while sparring. He remembered Deku grinning, eyes bright and challenging in his new suit.
I finally caught myself a Kacchan! Deku had laughed, swinging him around playfully using Blackwhip, as Katsuki cursed and thrashed in vain.
Deku.
Deku was here.
Thank fuck.
Katsuki exhaled, and Blackwhip suddenly retracted. Then, heat, real and familiar and searing, flooded around him. Arms slipped beneath him and lifted him upright, drawing him into an embrace that he didn’t need eyes to recognize. He let his head fall forward, pressing against a chest that rose and fell so familiarly, that he didn’t care that he couldn’t hear the accompanying breaths.
Hands moved over him, careful, worried, tender. Fingers grazed open wounds, traced bruises lightly, checked his ribs with agonizing gentleness. One hand slid into his hair, slow and soothing, no doubt searching for blood, for swelling, for anything wrong.
Katsuki barely felt the pain of being moved. Relief hit him instead—so overwhelming it left him dizzy, hollowed out, trembling in Deku’s arms. His body gave up the fight almost immediately, muscles slackening with a traitorous ease that would’ve embarrassed him if he had the energy to care.
He should’ve been panicking about his hearing and sight. The way the world still refused to come back. He should’ve been demanding answers, snapping, pushing—doing something.
But it had been a long, brutal, fucked-up day, and Deku was holding him.
Yeah, Katsuki didn’t care anymore. He was so fucking done.
His head buzzed with a dangerous, low hum. The world tilted.
It didn’t matter. As his eyes rolled back and his strength gave out completely, he felt it—
Soft pressure against his temple. Deku’s lips.
Then the dark took him, and Katsuki let it.
Two days later, Katsuki was still fucking blind. Still fucking deaf.
When he came to the first time, it was to the same endless black and the same dead, oppressive silence. For a few disoriented seconds, drug-heavy and floating, he thought he might still be trapped under the rubble—that the rescue had been a dream.
Then a familiar, roughened, callused hand closed around his. The grip tight, not enough to hurt—just enough to anchor.
Another hand followed, brushing his cheek, then his temple, thumb moving slow and deliberate, tracing the edge of his jaw. The touch lingered, warm and steady, refusing to let Katsuki drift too far. The pressure of his thumb, repeating the same quiet message over and over: I’m here. You’re safe. I’ve got you.
Katsuki could feel it all. Deku’s fear. His relief. His guilt. His simmering anger. It was all there, vibrating through skin and bone.
Katsuki swallowed.
It was disgusting, really. How much the nerd cared about him.
The next few hours—or maybe it was days, time was slippery like this—blurred together in fragments Katsuki had to piece together afterward. Nurses’ hands on his arms, on his chest. The sharp sting of needles he couldn’t see coming, couldn’t brace for, sending his nerves into a useless, flaring panic. Blood drawn. IVs placed. Bandages wrapped tight around injuries he could only catalog by the ache they left behind.
Deku stayed with him through it all. Holding his hand. Patient and gentle and encouraging.
Yeah. Really disgusting.
When the worst of the haze lifted, Deku started telling him things the only way he could— He took Katsuki’s hand and slowly traced words into his palm, neat and deliberate, character by character. Kanji first, then simpler script when Katsuki’s head started to pound too hard to keep up.
The villain’s name was Blindspot.
Katsuki scoffed faintly. Of course it was.
Deku wrote that he’d taken her down. Arrested her on the scene before she could disappear. Katsuki could feel the controlled anger in the way Deku’s finger pressed into his skin as he spelled it out.
Blindspot had wanted Dynamight dead. Why?
Because a month ago, Katsuki had arrested her villain father. Something about revenge, legacy, family bullshit.
Katsuku scoffed. How very cliché. And annoying.
Deku hesitated before continuing, his finger hovering just long enough for Katsuki to notice. When he resumed, the pressure of each character felt heavier.
She’d brought the building down on him on purpose.
Pre-rigged explosives. Load-bearing points mapped. Enough force to bury Dynamight completely. This hadn’t been sloppy or emotional. It had been planned—meant to draw Dynamight in, destroy him, and then vanish in the wreckage.
The entire block had collapsed.
No casualties, somehow. A few civilians with minor injuries. And Deku was knocked clear of the blast radius moments prior, just like Katsuki had hoped. Katsuki felt a grim satisfaction at that.
The structure, though, had been unstable as hell. With no heroes nearby whose quirks were suited for precision reinforcement or mass stabilization—no Uravity to float everything, no Rock Lock to hold everything steady—the only option had been for Deku and a few other local heroes to remove the rubble manually. Slowly. Steadily. Carefully.
Careful enough that the whole mound wouldn’t collapse inward and finish Blindspot’s job.
That was why it had taken so long.
Katsuki felt Deku’s hand tremble more as he wrote that part, the strokes less even, the pauses longer. Guilt bled through every line, thick and unmistakable.
Katsuki swallowed and squeezed his fingers once, as much reassurance as he could give without words.
Later—after Blindspot was restrained, detained, and very much defeated—she still refused to explain the specifics of her quirk. No details on its mechanism. No timeline. No answers about how long Katsuki’s sensory deprivation would last.
The doctors seemed optimistic, though. They said his sight and hearing should return. Probably within the next few days. A few weeks, at worst.
Should. Probably.
Katsuki shuddered, cold settling deeper into his bones.
The rest of the damage was less ambiguous. Cracked ribs. Fractured Tibia. Concussion. Strained back muscles. A generous collection of scrapes and bruises. Even with quirk-enhanced medicine and cutting-edge technology, it would be at least three weeks before he was cleared again for hero work.
Three weeks.
What a fucking drag.
At least they didn’t keep him hospitalized. Katsuki would’ve lost his goddamn mind if he’d had to lie there any longer, trapped in the dark with strangers poking at him and the constant smell of antiseptic clogging his nose.
Which was how he ended up here.
In a wheelchair. With Deku behind him. At the doorway to their shared apartment.
The door shut behind them—he felt the shift of air, the subtle vibration through the floor. Then Deku moved, kneeling beside him. Katsuki felt hands wrap gently around his, warm thumbs brushing over his knuckles.
Deku traced a word into his palm.
H–O–M–E.
“Yeah,” Katsuki said into the void, voice rough and strange in his own throat. He still hated not being able to hear it. “I know. I can smell your pile of dirty laundry all the way from here.”
Deku laughed, his chest vibrating where he leaned, close and grounding. Katsuki’s mouth twitched despite himself.
“I want a bath,” Katsuki declared into the silence. “If I gotta live another second with this hospital stink on me, I’m seriously gonna be pissed off.”
There wasn’t even a pause. Arms slid behind his shoulders and beneath his knees, steady and sure, and suddenly Katsuki was being lifted. He let out a quiet huff and allowed his head to tip forward, resting against Deku’s shoulder. His eyes closed on instinct as he breathed Deku in, slow and deep.
He was just fucking exhausted, okay. It wasn’t because he liked being carried by the nerd. Or whatever.
It was colder all of a sudden, being held away from the ground like this. Katsuki felt it when his body started to shiver, small and involuntary. Almost immediately, Deku adjusted, his steps picking up just slightly, still even, but quicker. The sappy idiot.
They reached the bathroom, and Deku eased him down onto the closed toilet lid. Hands found the hem of Katsuki’s sweatshirt—slow, careful. Deku worked it up inch by inch, mindful of his bruised ribs and wrecked back, guiding Katsuki’s arms, steadying him when he wobbled.
His fingertips lingered longer than necessary, concerned and gentle, warm against skin that felt sore and sensitive everywhere.
Katsuki hissed softly through his teeth. He had to look like shit—purple and yellow and swollen all over, if it felt anything like this.
Once his sweatshirt was removed, Deku suddenly leaned in, and Katsuki felt lips brush against the side of his neck. Not heated. Not demanding. Just… there. Warm, grounding, held against his skin as Deku’s hands slid down his back next, helping ease his sweatpants down his legs.
Deku leaned away after that, but not far enough that Katsuki lost the sense of his warmth. He could feel movement—Katsuki guessed he was neatly folding his clothes, setting them aside somewhere. Then the faint vibration through the floor and tub as the faucet was turned on.
Steam started to rise almost immediately, chasing the lingering chill from the room. Katsuki breathed it in, shoulders loosening just a little.
A hand took his then, guiding it to the side and down, into warm water, letting him test the temperature. His thumb traced gently into Katsuki’s palm.
O–K–?
“Yeah,” Katsuki started, then paused suddenly.
He reached out, pressing his hands flat against Deku’s chest—and frowned when he gripped fabric instead of skin.
“Why the hell am I the only one naked?!” he demanded.
Deku laughed, and Katsuki felt it vibrate through his palm, through his arm. One hand settled on Katsuki’s casted knee, rubbing lightly, like he was trying to explain without words.
Katsuki groaned in acknowledgement. Right. Their bathtub wasn’t exactly built for two.
Not that it’d ever stopped them before– They’d squeezed in a handful of times when the mood was right—tight, close, impractical. And right now, with Katsuki bruised to hell and sporting a ridiculous cast on his shin, it probably wasn’t the smartest idea.
Tch. Still.
Deku helped him to his feet, steadying him as Katsuki lowered into the tub. Firm hands gripped his sides, bracing him against the wall of the tub. Deku was careful with his cast, keeping Katsuki’s injured leg propped safely on the side of the tub, out of the water.
The heat hit him all at once.
Katsuki gasped, then groaned, jaw tightening as the warm water washed over him. His injuries flared sharply, his body going rigid on reflex. He wrapped his arms around himself, shoulders hunched, waiting for the sting to fade.
Beside him, Deku stiffened.
There was a brief hesitation—then movement. Shuffling. Soft movement of clothes hitting the floor.
A moment later, Deku’s hands were back on Katsuki’s sides, gently nudging him forward. Making space. Katsuki followed without resistance, letting himself be guided as Deku stepped in behind him– and overwhelming warmth pressed flush against his back.
Deku tugged lightly at his shoulders, and Katsuki went willingly, settling back against Deku. Deku’s legs bent around his sides, bracketing him securely. Soothing arms wrapped around Katsuki’s middle, hands grazing lightly as Katsuki trembled and let out a low groan, head tipping back to rest against Deku’s neck.
The pain ebbed, slowly. The warmth stayed.
“Tch,” Katsuki muttered. “You pushover.”
He felt Deku scoff behind him—and then a sharp pinch to his ear.
“OW! WHAT the—HEY!” Katsuki snapped. “Oh you’re in for it now!”
He twisted his head back, feeling Deku flinch and tense in anticipation, clearly expecting ruthless retaliation.
But instead of biting or blasting or anything dramatic, Katsuki leaned in and pressed a slow, soft, deliberate kiss into the hollow of Deku’s throat.
He felt Deku choke on a startled breath beneath him.
Katsuki grinned, satisfied. He wished he could see him—probably flushed red and flustered like an idiot.
Turning back around, Katsuki leaned into Deku again. “Tch. Wish I could take better advantage of this,” he murmured. “But this’ll do, I guess.”
Before long, soapy hands moved to his shoulders.
Deku worked it over Katsuki’s raw skin gently, methodical and patient. Katsuki felt him tense every time he brushed over something tender, like he was absorbing the pain secondhand. Deku took a moment to kiss his ear before continuing.
He took his time—over Katsuki’s shoulders, chest, carefully down his thighs, stopping just before the cast. When he finished, Deku kissed the top of Katsuki’s head and lifted one arm, working his way slowly down it, from fingers to shoulder, pulling Katsuki closer into his side as he did.
So what if he let himself get pampered like this? He couldn’t see, and his body was completely laid out, exhausted, so trying to do it all by himself would have been a disaster anyway.
Deku reached for the shampoo next, shielding Katsuki’s eyes before working it into his hair. He took his time there, massaging it in gently, building a lather.
Katsuki might have made a noise, then. Maybe. But it wasn’t like he could hear it himself anyway, so he had plausible deniability.
Deku smiled—Katsuki knew he was smiling—and continued, far longer than necessary. Fingers ruffled his hair, then smoothed it back down, slow and unhurried. He worked the shampoo in carefully, thumbs circling over Katsuki’s scalp, tracing behind his ears and along the base of his skull, always skirting around spots that made Katsuki flinch, even a little.
By then, Katsuki was barely holding onto consciousness.
He could feel his muscles becoming slacker with every moment, his weight sinking heavier against Deku’s chest, like he was melting— then—-
Then—-
Then, gentle arms shook his shoulder.
Katsuki blinked, disoriented. They were in the same position. The water, however, had cooled to a lukewarm temperature that was just shy of unpleasant.
“Shit,” Katsuki muttered, embarrassed. “I fell asleep, didn’t I. Why the hell didn’t you wake me?”
Behind him, Deku just shrugged, unapologetic. As if this hadn’t been entirely on purpose. The goddamn bastard.
“Ugh,” he added after a second, voice rough in the quiet. “Yeah. We should probably get out.”
Deku laughed, loud and warm against his back.
Dinner was… a process.
“So, like,” Katsuki said, squinting uselessly down at the bowls of rice and miso soup in front of him as if that might help, “how long are you off?”
Katsuki pinched at a clump of rice with his chopsticks, lifted it carefully, smugly—
Nothing.
By the time it reached his mouth, the rice had vanished.
“Slippery fucking—damn it.”
He huffed and tried again, slower this time. Same result.
Beside him, Deku’s fingers brushed his arm. Katsuki felt the familiar pressure as Deku traced letters against his skin.
U–N–T–I–L B–E–T–T–E–R
Katsuki snorted. “Yeah, and knowing your students, they’d forget how to read by the time you come back.”
Another pause. Then Deku traced again, neat and deliberate.
A–I–Z–A–W–A C–O–V–E–R
Katsuki shuddered. “Damn. Illiterate and traumatized.”
He finally managed to get a decent chunk of rice into his mouth—mostly. Some of it missed, sticking to the corner of his lips and probably his chin too. Whatever. His fingers felt heavy and uncooperative, dulled by medication and exhaustion. He chewed stubbornly, refusing to acknowledge the mess.
Deku’s hand settled over his then, light and hesitant. Not grabbing. Just… there. Like a question.
“If you’re trying to get me to let you feed me like a fucking baby,” Katsuki warned, “you better think again.”
He reached sideways instead, groping for the soup spoon. His fingers brushed it, then knocked it slightly, the bowl wobbling.
Before anything could spill, Deku gently guided his hand—helping, not taking over. Adjusting Katsuki’s grip, steadying his wrist just enough so the spoon didn’t slosh. He let Katsuki do the rest, lifting it himself, bringing it to his mouth.
It didn’t feel pitying, or teasing. Just… patient. Encouraging.
It hit Katsuki right in the gut, warm and soft and entirely unfair. He hated it on principle.
The soup was fine. Perfectly edible.
“So bland,” Katsuki said anyway. “And too salty. Not enough green onion. You’re seriously hopeless if you fuck up something as easy as miso soup.”
Deku’s shoulders slumped as he sighed—Katsuki couldn’t hear it, but he felt the movement beside him well enough.
“When I get my senses back,” Katsuki continued, tapping the spoon pointedly against the bowl, “I’m gonna teach it to you. Again.”
Deku nudged his knee with his own, a gentle bump that felt suspiciously fond.
Katsuki scooped another spoonful, slower this time, more careful. It still dribbled a little, but less.
They spent the next few days being complete bums.
Katsuki still felt weak, groggy, and perpetually foggy from the medications. His body lagged a second behind every thought, heavy and uncooperative. There wasn’t much they could do about it. Aside from a few intense thumb-wrestling matches and a handful of spur-of-the-moment make-out sessions born almost entirely from boredom, their options were limited.
Not that Katsuki minded. Much.
Most of the day was spent with him stretched out on the couch, drifting in and out of sleep with his head resting in Deku’s lap. The TV was on, volume useless to him, but Katsuki could feel the faint vibrations through the cushions and Deku’s leg. Judging by the timing and Deku’s frequent huffs of laughter, it was probably All Might: Epic Adventures for the four-hundred-eighty-nine-thousandth time.
For this context—and this context alone—Katsuki was glad he was blind and deaf.
Deku’s fingers moved idly along his back, tracing slow, absent patterns through his shirt. It was grounding. Something Katsuki could anchor himself to when his head felt floaty and wrong.
In the brief windows where he was more awake than not, Katsuki vaguely remembered feeling words traced into his skin. Familiar characters. I LOVE YOU. CUTE. KACCHAN. ALL MINE. IZUKU. Too many hearts. A couple of flowers.
He pretended not to notice.
When they went to bed, Deku held him tight.
Not their usual arrangement—not the easy linked arm or the hooked ankle with a space between them. This was closer. Deku pulled Katsuki flush against him, legs tangled, tucking Katsuki into the warm hollow of his neck. Skin to skin, no gaps.
It still got to him. Even after all these years of dating, the proximity made heat crawl up Katsuki’s neck, made his chest feel almost uncomfortably full. Normally, this would’ve been unbearable. Deku talked in his sleep—the nerd wouldn’t stop muttering quirk analysis even in his rest—and Katsuki flailed, shifting every five minutes.
But now? Now, the tight closeness was… not terrible. Different. Nice, even.
Deku’s warmth wrapped around him completely, chasing away the lingering chill, grounded him even in the dark, in the silence. It was like Deku knew exactly what Katsuki needed, without even needing to ask.
That gross, sappy nerd. It made him want to throw up. Or marry him. Either worked.
Okay.
Katsuki was seriously getting restless.
It had been eight days since he’d been whammied by that quirk, and there was still nothing. No flicker of light behind his eyelids. No vague sense of color. No shift, no static, no ringing—nothing. Just the same oppressive, nauseating black pressing in from every direction, heavy and inescapable. The same dead silence, complete and all-consuming.
A couple days, the doctors had said. Eight days was too long.
His thoughts kept circling back to the other day, when Deku had been on the phone.
Katsuki had been bored out of his skull—restless, itchy under his own skin—so he’d done what he always did. Annoyed Deku. Poked at his face. Stuck his fingers in his mouth. Tickled his sides until Deku had squirmed, trying to fend him off while still holding the phone. Trying and failing to peel Katsuki’s fingers away, then eventually holding his wrist to keep him still.
That part had been normal. What hadn’t been normal was Deku himself.
Even without sight or sound, Katsuki had felt it. The way Deku’s mouth moved too fast, words tumbling over each other in a rush he could feel through breath and tension. The stiffness in his posture. The tight grip on Katsuki’s wrist when he finally caught it—stronger than necessary. Controlled, but strained.
Worried. Anxious. Scared.
Deku had spelled out that he was talking to his mom, but Katsuki wasn’t an idiot. He knew how Deku was when calling his mom—soft, slouched, smiling through every sentence. Laughing easily. Rambling about his students, about whatever Katsuki had cooked, about how insultingly bad the All Might: Epic Adventures live-action remake was.
This hadn’t been that.
No. Katsuki knew he’d been talking to a doctor. Or a quirk specialist. Or someone with a clipboard and a careful voice who used words like permanent and unknown outcomes and we’ll continue to monitor.
Every time Katsuki asked, Deku gave him the same careful answers.
B-E-T-T-E-R. S-O-O-N. Or some variation of it.
And when Katsuki demanded specifics, pressed harder, Deku’s optimism frayed at the edges.
Should. Probably. Thinks. Not sure.
Non-answers.
If his senses didn’t come back… that was it. The end of his hero career. The end of the life he’d built with his own two hands. His strength. His independence. His self.
The picture came too easily.
A life where he is constantly fucking babied. Needing help being bathed and fed and changed and even fucking pissing.
A world narrowed to a dark, silent abyss where Katsuki only existed at the peripheral of Deku’s life. Not as an equal. Not as a partner.
As an obligation. A burden.
The word dug in deep, ugly and sharp.
The anger that followed was irrational and unfair, but it burned hot anyway, too big to sit quietly in his chest. With nowhere else to go, it turned outward—found a target to lash at.
“I don’t need you slaving after me like I’m some kind of pet.”
The words left him sharp and out of nowhere, thrown vaguely in Deku’s direction from the couch. He couldn’t see him, but he could smell oil heating on the stove, feel the faint shifts of air as Deku moved around the kitchen.
“Just dump me back at the hospital,” Katsuki continued, bitterness curling tight around his ribs. “Or toss me at shitty hair or something. Go back to your lame teaching job.”
He scoffed. “You don’t gotta stay with your useless blind fucking boyfriend.”
Silence.
Katsuki braced for it—for the careful response, the reassurance he didn’t want, the gentle lies he was already sick of. He could practically see the shape of Deku’s mouth, the soft crease between his brows.
“You don’t have to say you want to stay either,” he added quickly, preemptively. “Didn’t ask.”
Another beat.
Then—movement. Approaching. Close enough that Katsuki could feel it now, the subtle vibration.
And—was he—
Laughing?
“Shut up! The hell are you laughing at!?” Katsuki snapped immediately. “And—I didn’t forget deaf. I was workin’ up to it!”
Warm arms slid around him from behind, light and easy, no hesitation. Deku fit against him naturally, chin hovering near Katsuki’s shoulder, utterly unconcerned.
“Stop—no—don’t hug me!—Deku, I’m serious, st—”
Lips pressed to his cheek. Then—air. Wet and vibrating and unmistakably juvenile.
“WHAT THE HELL—are you a child?!” Katsuki barked, swatting blindly.
Then another raspberry, right against his jaw.
“AGH—EW—Why the hell are you blowing—stop—quit it—EW NO—I’m serious, I’m seriously gonna kill you—”
Ten minutes later—and far too many disgusting raspberries later—Katsuki was seated on the couch, trapped securely between Deku’s legs, Deku’s arms locked around his middle like a restraint. Katsuki’s face was hot, flustered, and annoyed—but the crushing, gut-deep anger had ebbed away, siphoned off somewhere between Deku’s laughter and his infuriating refusal to take Katsuki’s bait, to even humor the idea of Deku leaving Katsuki’s side.
“Sorry,” Katsuki muttered at last, voice rough and low.
Deku’s chest just laughed against his back.
Then the unmistakable stench of something burning hit the air. Deku jolted, abruptly letting go as he sprinted back toward the kitchen.
Katsuki snorted despite himself.
It was the middle of the night.
Katsuki woke with a violent start, his body jerking as a nightmare ripped him out of sleep—memories years old, but carved deep into his bones. Red eyes. A wrinkled smile. White hair. A hand to his chest, and a blow so final it stole the world out from under him.
His heart slammed painfully against his ribs, racing so hard it burned.
He forced his eyelids open.
Nothing.
Just darkness. Thick and absolute, like something solid pressed against his eyes. And the silence—God, the silence was worse, it was crushing. It pressed in from all sides, filling his skull, squeezing his thoughts flat.
His brain felt fogged over, sluggish. His body hurt with a low, constant throb, pain blooming in places he couldn’t quite map. He didn’t know where he was. Didn’t know what was happening. Didn’t know how long he’d been asleep. Didn’t know if he’d woken up at all. Every attempt to grab onto a coherent thought slipped through his fingers, dissolving before it could take shape.
Instinct kicked in before logic did. Katsuki reached to his side, fingers scrabbling against rumpled sheets.
Empty.
Deku wasn’t there.
Panic flared sharp and immediate, a spike straight through his chest.
“Deku?” Katsuki shakily called out into the void.
No answer. And not a single sensation.
His breathing spiraled, coming too fast, too shallow. He forced himself upright, hands tangling uselessly in blankets and too many pillows. His balance felt off—and before he could brace himself, he tipped.
He fell.
The impact was brutal. The floor slammed into him hard enough to knock the breath clean out of his lungs, pain detonating through his body as old injuries flared violently awake. His ribs burned. His leg screamed. His back throbbed in deep, nauseating pulses. Katsuki curled in on himself instinctively, gasping, shaking as the cold of the floor leeched into his skin.
The darkness pressed down harder, heavier. Crushing.
His body trembled, desperately searching for sensation, for orientation, for anything that proved he was still here—still real. Without sight or sound, he felt untethered, floating helplessly in a void with no edges, no ground. Cut off from the world. From life.
It felt like before.
Like that moment suspended between life and death, when the world had gone quiet and black and he’d been—
Dead.
That had to be it.
He was dead.
This was what death felt like. Just like before. He’d never really come back. This was just the end catching up to him.
His chest seized.
No—no, he wasn’t ready. He couldn’t—he didn’t want to—
Then suddenly—
Hands.
Strong, steady arms wrapped around him, unmistakably real, pulling him close. The hands were cold, slightly damp—fresh from water.
The rational part of Katsuki’s brain clawed its way through the panic. Bathroom. Deku must’ve just been in the bathroom. He’d rushed over. He was here. Katsuki was still here. Everything—everything was still—
Hands swept slowly up and down his back, grounding and deliberate. Katsuki pressed his ear against Deku’s chest, and there it was—the familiar rumble beneath him, vibrating through bone and skin.
Deku’s mouth moved against his ear. Katsuki could feel the brush of breath on his skin, soft and frantic. Words poured out of him, urgent and constant, as he held Katsuki tighter.
Katsuki knew what he was saying: I’m here. You’re safe. You’re loved. You’re okay. You’ll be better soon.
Empty promises, whispered into ears that couldn’t hear them.
His jaw clenched, rage flaring hot and familiar in his chest. He wished—God, he wished—he could hear them. If he could hear Deku, maybe he’d believe him. Maybe Deku could pull him back from the edge like he always did.
The frustration curdled into something sharp and ugly and unfair.
And then—fuck.
Tears spilled over, hot and violent, his body betraying him completely.
“SHUT UP!” Katsuki choked, the raw crackle in his throat vibrating uselessly. The sound disappeared the moment it left him. “SHUT UP! SHUT UP! YOU DON’T KNOW THAT—YOU DON’T KNOW THAT—YOU DON’T KNOW THAT— SHUT UP—”
He screamed until his throat burned, until his chest ached, every sound swallowed whole by the silence. It was like screaming underwater. Like screaming while dead.
Finally, he buried his face into Deku’s stupid, warm, rumbling chest and sobbed, fingers fisting desperately in his shirt like it was the only thing keeping him tethered to existence.
It might have been.
Deku held him tighter.
“Ugh, something about… bees?”
He felt Deku shake his head.
Katsuki was lying directly on top of him, chest to chest, his fingers trailing lightly over Deku’s lips as they moved—up and down, side to side, sometimes parting enough to expose teeth. He followed the shapes carefully, brows knit in concentration.
He was sick of the written characters. This was his new plan. Unfortunately, it turned out he really fucking sucked at lip reading. He’d been trying—and failing—for the past hour.
“Almight-ee?” Katsuki tried. “Am I getting closer?”
Deku shook his head again.
“Don’t tell me,” Katsuki snapped. “Let me think.”
He wracked his already throbbing head, scowling. Deku’s hands traced lazily over the skin of Katsuki’s hip, where his shirt rode up.
G-I-V-E U-P?
“HELL NO! I JUST NEED ANOTHER MINUTE!”
Deku rumbled beneath him, chest vibrating with what was definitely a teasing, squeaky laugh—one Katsuki would’ve absolutely torn into if he could hear it.
“Yeah, yeah,” Katsuki started, irritation curling sharp and familiar. “Go ahead, laugh at how pathetic I am, you shitty ner—”
The rumbling stopped instantly.
Katsuki paused, tilting his head questioningly for a second.
And then smacked Deku in the face.
“Are you stupid?” Katsuki snapped. “I was obviously fucking joking, you little shit! This is—this is— just do it. Laugh at the fucked-up situation, or I’m gonna end up crying like a baby again, and that freaking sucked.” His voice dropped, rough around the edges. “I can cope if I’ve got you and you’re laughing like an idiot. Deku. Don’t make me smack you again.”
The rumble returned immediately.
“Good,” Katsuki muttered. “Okay, fine. I give up. Tell me.”
Deku’s fingers moved again, translating.
Katsuki scowled immediately. “WHAT THE HELL! My hands ain’t sweaty! Your hands are just dry and cracked as shit, so you think mine aren’t normal!”
This time, it was Deku’s turn to smack Katsuki in the face—though he was a lot more gentle than Katsuki bothered to be. Katsuki could almost see the way Deku would be rolling his eyes. It was an old argument.
“Okay, fine,” Katsuki huffed. “You cocky piece of crap. See how you like it.”
He grabbed Deku’s hand, dragging it up from his hip to his mouth, ready to mouth some terrible insult to his ancestry, or something dramatic like that.
But at the last second, he changed it.
He slowed, exaggerated every movement, every shape, feeling Deku’s fingers hover, attentive and careful as they followed his lips.
I love you so much, I feel like I could burst, sometimes.
Deku stilled beneath him.
Then, slowly, his fingers traced back against Katsuki’s hip.
I-W-A-N-T M-O-R-E L-I-M-E-S ?
Katsuki sighed, collapsing down against him. “Yep,” he said dryly. “That’s exactly it.”
It was the middle of the night again.
A subtle shift beside him pulled Katsuki from sleep. He still couldn’t see, couldn’t hear—but he could feel the familiar dip of the mattress, the sheets warm beneath him. One hand was still linked with Deku’s. Safe. Okay.
Except Deku was turned away.
There was a cold distance between them that hadn’t been there before. Something felt wrong.
“Deku?” Katsuki tried, quietly. There was no answering squeeze. No movement.
Carefully, half-asleep, Katsuki groped through the dark with his free hand until he found Deku’s back. It was shuddering.
His heart dropped straight through the mattress.
Slowly, deliberately, Katsuki let his hand travel up Deku’s spine, over shaking shoulders—asking without words. Deku didn’t pull away. That was all the permission Katsuki needed. His fingers slid up along his neck, then gently to his face.
Wet cheeks. A trembling mouth. A face folded in on itself. The sheets beside Deku’s pillow were soaked. He’d been crying for a while.
Katsuki sat up fully, wide awake now.
“Hey… Izuku,” Katsuki murmured into the dark, thumb brushing carefully beneath his wet eye, then over his lips. “You okay?”
Deku nodded a little too enthusiastically, then mouthed a silent phrase against Katsuki’s fingertips. Katsuki might be shit at lip reading, but he knew Deku.
“If you’re fine, then why are you crying?” he asked, voice low.
Katsuki unlinked their other hands and cupped Deku’s face, guiding him to turn, pulling him closer. Deku’s expression crumpled further, sobs breaking harder now, shoulders shaking in earnest.
Deku caught one of Katsuki’s hands and kissed it—once, twice—then tried to write characters against his palm. But his hands were trembling too badly. The strokes were broken, the pauses too long, the emotion too heavy to translate into something careful and precise.
Katsuki’s chest tightened.
He was deaf. Blind. Barely able to communicate at all.
Comfort didn’t come easily to him even on good days. He was blunt, prideful, built from sharp edges and instinct. Gentleness from Katsuki was something learned and hard earned—from trial and error, from a conscious effortful restraint that was practiced until it stuck. It wasn’t intuitive or natural for him, like it was for Deku.
But Deku needed him. So he tried.
Katsuki guided Deku forward until their foreheads touched, breath mingling in the small space between them.
“Hey,” Katsuki said quietly. “Just… say what you’re thinking. I won’t hear any of it, but saying it out loud might help.”
Deku nodded immediately.
His mouth started moving fast, words tumbling out between uneven breaths. Katsuki felt the soft brush of air against his skin—desperate gasps, broken sobs, confessions spilling free. Every so often Deku paused to press a kiss to Katsuki’s forehead, to skim careful fingers over injuries, to rest a trembling palm over Katsuki’s heart, like he needed to feel it there. His lips never really stopped moving.
Katsuki couldn’t hear a single word. But somehow, he felt all of it.
It must be killing him—seeing Katsuki like this. Helpless. In pain. Weak. Upset and anxious over things he’d never given a second thought before.
And worse—finding him buried in that awful rubble over a week ago. Hours of tearing through concrete and dust, of not knowing if Katsuki was still breathing under there or already crushed beyond saving. It dragged up everything Deku never talked about— the sludge villain, summer camp, when he’d been impaled by Shigaraki, when he’d been killed—every moment where Deku had carried the quiet, suffocating, belief that he’d failed Katsuki. Fear like that didn’t just fade. It lodged itself somewhere deep, relentless, demanding to be acknowledged.
And still, Deku had kept going.
He’d sat with Katsuki through the long hours, even when Katsuki drifted in and out of sleep. Spoke softly and sweetly into ears that couldn’t hear him anyway. Laughed on purpose, too loud sometimes, just to cut through Katsuki’s frustration. Held him steady and sure, hands firm and grounding, a constant anchor. Took care of him with a patience so gentle, it hurt.
Katsuki swallowed.
It was so like Deku—always folding himself smaller, shoving his own feelings aside over and over until he cracked under the weight. Katsuki should’ve seen it earlier. The signs had been there. He’d just been too wrapped up in his own shit to catch them.
It was Katsuki’s turn to care for him now. And caring for Deku—for both of them—came as naturally as breathing.
His grip tightened, deliberate.
“It’s okay. We’re both okay,” he said firmly.
He pulled Deku closer, arms tightening around him, letting him sob into his chest. Deku went willingly, trusting him completely, accepting every scrap of warmth Katsuki offered—like Katsuki wouldn’t already give him everything he had.
Something bright and consuming bloomed in Katsuki’s chest then. Terrifying in its intensity.
He loved Izuku. So much.
So much that, in that moment, Katsuki thought—even if his senses never came back—he’d be okay, as long as Deku stayed here. As long as Deku let him love him like this.
Needing to give more, needing to do something, Katsuki lifted both hands and gently pulled Deku’s face away from his chest. He searched him blindly, fingertips tracing familiar lines, looking for whatever Deku needed most.
Deku’s cheeks trembled. His hands were still fisted tight in Katsuki’s shirt.
Huh.
Katsuki leaned forward and pressed his lips to Deku’s—soft, careful, slightly wet with tears—his thumbs sweeping gently beneath his eyes.
If all Deku wanted was Katsuki’s reassurance, well, he didn't even have to ask.
“I love you,” Katsuki breathed, so quietly he wasn’t even sure Deku could hear it. “You know that, right?”
Deku sniffled and nodded.
“Thank you… for looking out for me,” he whispered back.
Katsuki felt Deku’s cheeks lift beneath his hands, forming that familiar, stupidly fond smile.
Katsuki didn’t rush it. He kept his arms where they were, thumbs moving faint, absentminded circles that said I’m not going anywhere without needing words. Slowly, the tension bled out of Deku in small pieces.
They stayed like that, wrapped together, the world narrowed down to warmth and breathing and the quiet proof of each other.
Katsuki felt Deku’s weight settle more fully, his muscles finally loosening. The hand over Katsuki’s heart curled slightly, like he was holding onto it even in sleep.
Katsuki let his eyes close.
The darkness was still there. The silence still pressed in.
But it didn’t feel so empty anymore.
When Katsuki woke— he could see. He could hear.
But—well. Not much.
The room was still dark, early morning light barely slipping through the thin cracks in the curtains. It painted the bedroom in soft shadows, illuminating only blurry outlines and muted colors, shapes more than details. The quiet was there too—but not the crushing kind—peaceful. There was the steady, familiar sound of breathing beside him. The distant, indistinct hum of the world beyond the walls—cars, people, life, continuing on without urgency.
Katsuki’s heart stuttered, then surged.
His eyes darted around the room, taking it all in eagerly, disbelief and relief crashing together so hard it almost hurt. He could see. He could hear.
And then– Deku.
The familiar shape of his face came into focus—soft, unguarded, asleep. The small freckle near his temple, the messy spill of green hair across the pillow. The gentle rise and fall of his chest, the subtle tilt of his shoulders, the way his fingers curled against the sheet—Katsuki drank in every detail greedily, like a starving man.
He’d memorized this face by touch alone over the past week, over and over with intimate detail. Somehow, seeing now it didn’t make it feel old.
It was the best thing Katsuki had ever seen.
He reached for him on instinct, hand lifting to shake him awake, to yell, to laugh, to tell him it worked—that he could see, hear, that everything was fine, maybe even fling open the curtains just because he could—
His hand stopped midair.
Katsuki swallowed.
Slowly, he lowered his hand.
Closer inspection pulled him out of his excitement. Deku’s face was slack with exhaustion, skin paler than usual, dark shadows etched under his eyes. The past week written plainly there: the sleepless nights, the constant vigilance, the cooking, the cleaning, the holding himself together so Katsuki could fall apart without guilt. And the emotional weight of last night—he could feel it even now.
Katsuki let his thoughts linger, humbled by his patience, his gentle strength, the way Deku had carved him a space to be scared, angry, vulnerable, without ever making him feel like a burden.
He didn’t know what he’d done to deserve that. Maybe nothing. Maybe Deku just was like that.
“…Tch,” Katsuki breathed softly.
Fine. Maybe the nerd had earned himself some Katsudon tonight. A big portion, too. He’d make it later—now that he could operate in the kitchen without killing both of them.
For now, he’d wait.
Deku needed the rest.
Katsuki could handle the dark and silence, for a little longer.