Chapter Text
We both know
You want to be, you got to be
On your own
You take with you half of me
Knowing all I've done
To keep it from happening
Is not enough for you
Like water in the palm of my hand
I feel you slipping through
No matter how hard I try
I can't hold on to you
So tell me here and now
Don't drag my heart around
If you're gonna break me in two
Do what you gotta do
- The Band Camino
Izuku’s not woken up by the knock on his door, because he’s not asleep to begin with.
He’s been staring at the ceiling since he went to bed about four hours ago. His mind is a restless creature, his whole body tight and uncomfortable and somehow ready to snap.
He tosses and turns. He fidgets. He gets up and walks around. He drinks some water. He even counts sheep!
As a last resort, Izuku decides to flick through some of his Quirk theory booklets just for something to numb his mind since he can recount them page for page.
They normally fill him with a sense of calm and inner peace: the old drawings he made of all his classmates’ suits in his childish scrawl, alongside all his innocent observations about them and ideas for improvement. They remind him of a simpler time. When being a hero was only an imaginary concept.
Of course, his handwriting has vastly changed now, but some things remain the same.
Izuku drifts his fingers over the pencil indents.
Nothing.
He’s wide awake.
Izuku shuts his booklets and goes back to bed, only to lie in silence for another hour.
It’s been this way for the last few weeks. It can’t be a rut, obviously, because he’s on heavy-grade suppressants that have kept things at bay since his UA days.
He’s never even had to alter the dosage!
There are some misguided theories that not having a rut for an extended period of time can be damaging, but suppressants work exactly the same as the pill for menstruation: they’re perfectly safe if not without a few unpleasant side effects. Low libido, for one, but Izuku’s never much struggled with it.
The lack of scent, on the other hand, is endlessly frustrating. It feels like everyone is tuned into a language he can’t speak at a frequency he can’t hear, but it’s a lesser evil to the emotional turmoil of his Alpha hormones (which were very chaotic and distressing in middle school, and caused all sorts of ruckus specifically between him and Kacchan).
It was recommended by All-Might that he start suppressants before being given One For All, and so Izuku’s just never stopped taking them.
Work has been very normal, all his lessons are running smoothly and all his students are all on track to complete the year. The suit is functioning perfectly too.
Of course Izuku has already completed one notebook with adjustments and ideas alone, but he’s still getting used to it. It’s been less than a month since it was gifted to him by everyone. He still can’t believe all the trouble and effort they went to.
He still can’t believe any of it, actually. He’s just dazed and astounded.
Yet a small part of him feels strangely … embarrassed.
Why didn’t I think to look into developing a suit that mirrored OFA? Why did I just accept that without a Quirk I wasn’t able to become a hero, after everything that happened? Why did I once again accept what society told me, as if we all hadn’t sacrificed so much to make a change?
But also… why did everyone feel the need to do this for me?
Why didn’t they want to involve me or ask for my opinion or measurements?
Why didn’t they think I would be useful in developing it?
Is this what kept everyone away for so long? Is that why schedules could never line up and plans always failed?
Did they think I would reject the idea, brush it aside as a mere fantasy?
Did they think they had to see it through in order for me to accept it?
The biggest part of Izuku is too overcome to even process it. He’s frozen in shock.
I can be a hero again.
Not at a professional level, of course. I have responsibilities and commitments. I have a life that I’ve built for the last eight years that I truly love and find so fulfilling. I was only a hero for one!
And I love my students. I love teaching, being able to guide the next generation who will inherit this world after us.
Do I miss it – of course, but I’m so blessed that I get to watch everyone excel.
I’m so blessed that I once stood on the world stage with them.
The knock, when it comes, isn’t powerful.
It’s not trying to batter the door down even though it’s close to 3am on a weeknight.
It’s soft, almost tentative.
But that instantly draws Izuku out of bed on high-alert. The gentleness of the sound hoping to go unheard. The hesitation. The half-second beat before it comes again.
Izuku doesn’t bother to dress: just pads over to the door in his night shirt and flannel trousers.
His heart is pounding. The taste of it coats his tongue. Only a few people know where he lives, and wouldn’t be knocking on his door at this time if it wasn’t important.
Who could it be? All-Might? Aizawa-sensei? Is it about one of his students? Maybe a Quirk manifestation they need help with? Or is it a villain attack in the area that his old classmates need back-up for? Could it be his mother?
Underneath the logical part of his mind, the thinking and reasoning part, his heart screams: Kacchan, Kacchan, Kacchan, Kacchan—
Izuku opens the door.
‘Kacchan.’
The word is a torn gasp from his throat.
Kacchan is leaning heavily against the doorframe, one arm supporting his weight. There are dark bags under his eyes, ugly and unslept. There’s a red rim around his bloodshot eyes, his gaze piercing as it focuses on Izuku.
Worst of all, there’s a sharp gauntness to his face that wasn’t there the last time they spoke.
That would have been two and a half weeks ago. The night of the Class A reunion dinner, where Kacchan drove Izuku and Kirishima-kun in his new Porsche (with very comfortable if a little out of character plush backseats). The night Kacchan asked Izuku to join his agency as a side-kick or employee of some sort (which was also quite out of character for Kacchan, but Izuku assumed it was a spur of the moment decision and felt he laid out all of the reasons why it wouldn’t be possible quite well).
Of course, Izuku wished they saw each other more regularly, but Kacchan’s been busy.
Although Izuku suggested Kacchan come by UA to talk to his students, Kacchan didn’t take him up on the offer.
Izuku’s students always loved a surprise visit from the Great Explosion Murder God Dynamight. Normally, Izuku and Kacchan grabbed some food afterwards, chatted about this and that, and caught each other up on the goings on in their lives.
It’s one of the only ways Izuku has felt remotely connected to Kacchan’s life the last few years. That thought twists a sharp piece of barbed wire wrapped around his heart.
Of course they’re both busy adults now! They have jobs, apartments, dishes and relationships now. Things were always headed this way. Their childish competitiveness had to end at some point. Kacchan can’t just drag Izuku into the street for another stress-relieving fight anymore.
Their lives diverged, went off in entirely different directions, and neither of them could reroute the course to line up in parallel.
There was nothing to be done.
Izuku is blessed to have so many amazing friends in his life. He never even thought Kacchan would be one. He couldn’t ever ask for more.
But sometimes, Izuku thinks about Kacchan so much he gives himself a sore head.
He’ll wonder what Kacchan is eating, and who he’s with, and how he’s sleeping, and if he’s hurting, and get so derailed from what he’s doing (normally grading or chores) that his brain starts to gently pulsate from the strain and he’ll have to massage his temples.
Izuku didn’t think it was possible to think about a person every single day for eight years. Especially if he didn’t see that person for months at a time.
But he was wrong. Every morning, Kacchan is the first thought that comes to his mind. The first image behind his eyelids.
Izuku used to believe that time and age would change his silly childhood habits, his desperate hero worship and his ache to touch the tips of the heights Kacchan flew at.
But of course, some things remain.
‘Kacchan, what’s wrong? Are you alright?’ Izuku reaches out, stops himself, then curls his fists tight and opens the door wider. ‘Come in, Kacchan, please.’
Kacchan stumbles inside with less grace than Izuku has ever seen him move with.
Even when Kacchan’s being bullish and standoffish, he’s never ungainly. But Kacchan practically staggers inside until Izuku realises he’ll have to do something.
Kacchan isn’t wearing his hero costume, so he can’t be on patrol. He’s in massively baggy grey jeans that hang low and an oversized black skull jumper. He’s wearing trainers but no jacket. When Izuku wraps an arm around his waist to support him, he’s cold.
How long has he been outside?
Kacchan’s body is lean and wiry, grown and aged since the last time Izuku felt it. That would have been back in their UA days when they used to train together. Kacchan’s muscles contract at Izuku’s touch.
A bolt of heat shoots to the top of Izuku’s head, but he’s too worried to take any notice.
‘Kacchan, talk to me, please.’ Izuku begs, voice softening on instinct.
‘Nnhn.’ Kacchan mutters, groggy, his feet shuffling.
Izuku takes a deep inhale.
There’s no smell of alcohol. Kacchan doesn’t seem intoxicated since he normally flushes pink when he’s drunk and giggles a little here and there. Kacchan’s also never touched drugs, not even suppressants, because he doesn’t want anything to interfere with his Quirk or threaten his physical fitness.
A surge of annoyance at being unable to scent anything deeper floods him. Izuku once again pushes through it to reach the truth.
No. This is something else. Heat?
Is Kacchan in heat?
Kacchan is normally so aware of his own cycle, he disappears for the days before and after his heat so nobody can get even the slightest hint of his mood during it. He’s so intensely guarded and private, Izuku knows Kacchan would never willingly let someone see him under the influence of his cycle.
(Unless they were his partner, of course, but Kacchan hasn’t trusted anyone with that … honour, Izuku supposes would be the word, in all the time he’s known Kacchan and also in the last eight years since they graduated, although it’s probable that Kirishima-kun might take that place at some point, being very openly queer and popular with male fans, and Kacchan’s best friend, and the person Kacchan trusts most, and his plus-one to I-Island, and the one person Izuku knew Kacchan would reach for –)
‘Damnit nerd, I can hear ya thinking.’ Kacchan grumbles, his words slow but mercifully lucid. ‘I’m not in damn heat, or some Quirk-induced shit-storm, and the hag and the old man are fine, and the world ain’t over, so can you quit panicking?’
Izuku instantly relaxes. Kacchan would hate for Izuku to see him in heat. Izuku himself would loathe to impose or witness Kacchan in a moment of weakness that Kacchan would later resent him for. The thought makes bile sting the sides of his throat.
‘Oh.’ Izuku exhales, a rush of relief igniting his veins. ‘Alright. I’ll get some water, please, sit down.’ Izuku gently deposits Kacchan onto his couch and scurries off to the kitchen.
His hand shakes as he fills up a cup.
What could it be?
Why would Kacchan come here so late?
What’s happened?
When Izuku comes back into his living room, there’s only a thin ray of moonlight illuminating a strip of carpet. In the darkness, Izuku can make out Kacchan lying sideways on his couch.
He’s passed out.
Izuku rushes over. ‘Kacchan!’ He spills a little bit of the water in his haste.
Kacchan screws up his face and blinks his eyes open. ‘Nnngh, shut up, will ya?’
Izuku kneels beside him. ‘Okay. Sorry, I thought you were hurt. Here, I’ve got some water.’
Kacchan accepts it, but only takes a sip before he sets it on the floor. Then he rolls over onto his back and sighs, slow and heavy. ‘Look. My damn … ceiling collapsed okay?’ Kacchan rubs his forehead as he speaks. ‘It was an accident, my shitty Explosion went off at random, so I’ve been staying with my folks but they’re driving me insane and you’re the closest to them.’
‘Oh.’ Izuku feels the exhale down to his toes. Kacchan is fine, just exhausted and frustrated, but he’s not hurt.
And he came to Izuku first.
‘How – how did your Quirk get set off?’
Kacchan sighs again. ‘It’s on a need-to-know-basis, and I’m tired, Zuku.’
‘Oh.’ Izuku stands up, a little flutter of something in his chest at the childhood name Kacchan used to call him. ‘Well, please take my bed Kacchan, I couldn’t sleep in it knowing you’re out here and clearly exhausted.’
Kacchan peels open one eye to squint at Izuku. ‘Round Cheeks not here?’
Izuku flushes to the roots of his hair. They haven't actually made time for one another this week ...
‘Oh, um, we’re not – at that stage –’ He flaps a hand.
‘Spare me the freaking details.’ Kacchan rolls into a sitting position and then laboriously stands up. ‘But fine. I’ll take the bed.’
Izuku escorts Kacchan to his room and tries not to feel embarrassed or self-conscious about the state of disarray it’s in; books haphazardly strewn across his desk, sheets ruffled, pillows everywhere.
Long gone are the days where everything made Izuku self-conscious and mortified in Kacchan's presence. Simply being near Kacchan made Izuku so painfully aware of his own skin during his middle school days that it physically hurt, a mingled mixture of pride and pain and shame and worship. It still feels that way sometimes.
But right now, he only feels worried. Kacchan shuffles his feet so slowly, as if they're hundred-tonne weights. Izuku resists the urge to ask again if he is truly alright.
‘You better not be giving me this cause I’m a damn Omega, nerd.’ Kacchan grumbles, his voice low and rumbling.
Izuku smiles despite himself. ‘Of course not. That’s never much mattered to me.’
‘Oh yeh? Mr Saves A Lady from The Perilous Danger of Walking Across a Road? You don’t care about that shit?’
‘I would save anyone if they were struggling to cross a road, and you and I both know that you’ve never needed any help Kacchan.’
‘Tch, damn right.’
‘You’ve always been amazing to me.’
Kacchan falls quiet. It's contemplative. Izuku recognises it as the same silence that fell over Kacchan in the car ride on the way to their class reunion, before he told Izuku to think more highly of himself.
Izuku is still puzzling over that conversation. He’s still trying to understand why Kacchan would say that.
But it sparks the memory of every other time Kacchan went quiet.
The quiet that fell over him on the way to the police station, after being kidnapped by the League of Villains.
The quiet on the battlefield that day …
The unending silence ...
Izuku’s heart starts to pound as sweat beads his brow and nape, cold like goosebumps, like icy fire blazing down his spine.
Don’t think about that now. Stop it.
He can’t fall down the rabbit hole of remembering every single time he failed Kacchan.
‘Here we are.’ Izuku pushes his door open to dispel the quiet. He hates when Kacchan doesn’t talk.
Fight, kick, bite, scratch, but don’t ever go silent. Please just don’t go silent, I can’t take it.
Kacchan kicks off his shoes, dives straight into Izuku's bed and burrows under the covers.
The sight settles the torturous restlessness in Izuku. For once, that endless chain of thoughts and worries and hyper-vigilance goes calm. He feels at peace.
He stays there, looking at Kacchan and basking in the reassurance it gives, for a few seconds.
A noise bubbles up. A very soft and gentle grumbling ... until Izuku recognises it as a purr.
Kacchan is purring.
The sound of contentment, familiarity and home. The sound Omegas make when they're totally comfortable.
It sends a lightening bolt of joy straight through his core.
But what should he do? Should he reciprocate? He isn’t even sure what noise to make, it’s been so long. If he was off suppressants it would come instinctively. He would be able to tune into the frequency Kacchan is speaking to him with, and speak back.
The noise stutters, once, then cuts off. Kacchan stops purring.
It seems almost forced.
‘Kacchan–’ Izuku tries, his voice at its sweetest tone without even trying. He wants to join in, he wants to speak the same language.
‘I need to sleep, Izuku.’ Kacchan tells him. He sounds different. Flatter. There’s less colour and heat. Less personality. He sounds … sad.
‘Okay.’ Izuku whispers.
He wants to do something. Brush a hand across Kacchan’s shoulder or tuck the covers up over him. Comfort in any way he can. But he doesn’t know how much it would help or how welcome it would be.
If Izuku could just scent Kacchan, understand the layers of his emotions like he used to when they were kids and spoke without words —
Control your heart.
Yes. That's right. He needs to remain in control of himself. He gets too carried away, too emotional. Everyone tells him that. All-Might tells him that. Even his students affectionately tell him that. It’s his biggest weakness.
Izuku presses a hand to his chest and takes some steadying breaths before he steps outside, closing the door softly. For some reason, the tiredness of the last few weeks absolutely floods him. Izuku staggers over to the couch and passes out.
He has the best sleep he’s had in weeks.