Chapter Text
It began with the birds.
There were dozens, hundreds, of them, all fleeing to the open sky in a mad exodus of wings and panicked squawks. They left a shower of feathers in their wake, raining down on Central Tokyo like confetti.
Shortly after came a strange noise from underground, groaning out of the subway vents and street drains in echoing bursts.
It sounded old. Deep. Foreboding.
As if the Earth itself was screaming.
The morning rush fell into a standstill as people stopped to look around in confusion, unsure what to make of it.
Then, barely a minute later, the ground began to shake.
It started off as a mild tremor at first, hardly noticeable. Maybe the surface of someone's coffee rippled, or a hanging chandelier swayed.
But soon enough, stuff began falling off tables and shelves. Windows cracked and shattered, and the pillars of buildings began to creak and groan. Power lines snapped, and the gas pipes under the streets ruptured and exploded.
Asphalt split and rose up like waves, swirling around the vortex of sinkholes that appeared all over the city, sweeping unlucky souls into the undertow of mud and sand.
Screams and sirens filled the air as the towering buildings of the capital came crashing down, raining glass and debris on the scrambling people below.
At half past eight on a busy Monday morning, the great city of Tokyo fell apart.
There's a painful throbbing at the back of Izuku's head.
It beats against the inner side of his skull like an aberrant pulse, making his vision spin and blur at the edges. Something sticky drips down the side of his neck, probably from the bleeding gash on his scalp.
Izuku decides to ignore it.
He hobbles through the darkness, his legs bruised but thankfully not broken. Down here, the air is stale and heavy with dust. It irritates his throat and he coughs harshly, sending a lance of pain through his chest.
But Izuku ignores that too.
Cracked ribs and concussions aren't a big deal. After almost ten years on the job, Izuku is long used to these kinds of injuries—hell, he'd gone through so much worse during his UA days and had survived.
Besides, he has more pressing things to worry about right now.
Izuku had just finished a grueling 12-hour shift when it began.
He was walking home when Danger Sense went off in a way it hadn't done since the final war with AFO and Shigaraki, and it made Izuku stop right in the middle of a busy crosswalk. The streetlight timer was counting down to the final ten seconds, warning him to get off the road.
And yet, Izuku remained frozen, paralyzed by this overwhelming feeling of dread. A car horn snapped him out of his daze but instead of moving away, Izuku radioed into Hero Dispatch, requesting for immediate back-up to his location.
When the dispatcher asked him why though, Izuku couldn't explain.
Something bad was about to happen. That was all he could say.
Most of his recent memories are still fuzzy, but Izuku clearly recalls the chaos that followed.
He had his hands full trying to save one civilian after another that he didn't notice the broken half of a skyscraper heading straight for him until it was too late.
The whole thing crashed into the ground like a meteor, making the street collapse into a massive sinkhole. It sucked in everything and everyone nearby—including Izuku.
The last thing he heard before losing consciousness was the sound of explosions and a familiar voice screaming his name.
"Deku!"
"—Deku!"
Izuku jolts when someone grabs his arm. He looks over his shoulder and finds red eyes narrowed at him.
"You've been zoned out for five minutes. You okay?"
Izuku's heart leaps at the concern he hears in Katsuki's voice. Then just as quickly, he drives that feeling away, berating himself for being so careless.
"I'm fine," he lies, shrugging Katsuki's hand off of him.
Katsuki doesn't look convinced.
"We can take a break if you need—"
"Thank you for the offer, Kacch—" Izuku stops, catching himself. "Katsuki," he corrects tersely. "But I can keep going."
Under the harsh neon glow of his uniform's emergency lights, Katsuki's scowl looks unnaturally deep. "Don't call me that."
"Oh, my apologies." Izuku's lips press into a thin smile. "That was unprofessional of me, Bakugou-san."
Katsuki actually flinches at that. "That's not what I meant—"
"Anyway." Izuku cuts him off and starts walking again. "Like I said, I don't need a break. We've been stuck down here long enough and can't waste any more time."
Technically, it's only been fifteen minutes since they began exploring, but the awkwardness between them made it feel like hours had already passed by.
Izuku quickened his pace, eyes trained at the darkness ahead, looking for a possible way out.
Unfortunately, the urgency of returning to the surface seems lost to Katsuki, who abruptly steps into Izuku’s path, blocking his way again.
Izuku inhales sharply when Katsuki pushes into his personal space.
The proximity sparks something between them, a tension as palpable and as critical as the burning wick of a firecracker just seconds from exploding. Izuku digs his heels into the ground, fighting the urge to flee.
He curses his luck—of all the pro-heroes on duty that morning, Dispatch just had to send freaking Dynamight to his location.
Apparently, Katsuki had only been seconds away when the building fell on Izuku and the whole street collapsed into another sinkhole, dragging both of them with it. One could argue that he could've flown to safety and left Izuku behind, but for some inexplicable reason, he had jumped in after him instead.
And now they're here, trapped together under several metric tons of rubble after five years of pretending the other didn't exist.
Izuku would laugh at the irony if it didn’t make him sick to his stomach.
"You look like you're about to keel over, nerd. Let's just stop here for a sec."
“I’m okay,” Izuku insists, his patience thinning.
“And I’m the Queen of England,” Katsuki sneers. "Quit being so fucking stubborn and just do what I say."
"You're not the boss of me," Izuku snaps back. "And last I checked, I outrank you this month, Mr. Number 2 hero."
"Yeah, 'cause you ran into a burning building without waiting for back-up and came out with third degree burns all over your body," Katsuki accuses. "Five years and you haven't changed one bit. Still a stupid, reckless Deku with no fucks to spare for his own goddamn life."
Izuku clenched his teeth. He's trying his best to remain professional because god knows this is neither the time nor place for personal drama, but Katsuki seemed determined to rile him up.
"If you want to stop here, then be my guest," he answers coldly. "I don't need your help." He tries to push past him, but Katsuki grabs his arm and roughly yanks it back. The movement jostles Izuku's bruised ribs and he flinches.
"You were injured in the fall." It isn't even a question. Those intense red eyes narrow at him like fingers probing into an opening wound, searching for the splinters, the cracks in his façade.
Suddenly, Izuku feels very exposed.
He squirms in Katsuki's hold, but the other man just tightens his grip, stubborn as ever. "You've been favoring your right side for a while," Katsuki continues. "And your gait is off too, as if you're having a hard time keeping your balance. Deny it all you want, but I trust my eyes more than I trust your stupid mouth."
A wistful ache throbs inside Izuku's chest.
Even after all that time apart, Katsuki can still read him so well, like a cipher keyed into the source code of his existence. He always saw too much, always knew more than what Izuku was ready or willing to share. It had been a pillar of their relationship as much as it was a source of frustration.
He could never lie to his Kacchan.
So instead of speaking, Izuku glares viciously at the man he's loved for most of his life.
The stand-off lasts longer than either of them expected. Surprisingly, it's Katsuki who caves first. He heaves a frustrated sigh before finally letting Izuku go. “Look, let’s just stop for five minutes okay?" He says, his tone softer this time. "Five minutes, then we go."
Izuku opens his mouth, but a wave of nausea suddenly slams into him. He stumbles to the nearest wall, collapsing hard against it as his surroundings begin to spin.
"Deku?"
"I'm fine!" He snaps, squeezing his eyes shut against the vicious vertigo. He can feel bile crawling up his throat, eager to get out. Izuku sank to the cold ground and ducked his head behind his knees, taking deep, shaky breaths.
"F-Five minutes rest. That's it. Then we keep going."
He inwardly begs his body to pull itself together, but there's only so much willpower can do.
Even before the earthquake hit, Izuku was already running on fumes. He hasn't eaten anything since lunch of the previous day, and his brief bout of unconsciousness aside, Izuku hasn't slept in over forty hours.
He is exhausted in every sense of the word.
The seconds tick by. Izuku was so busy praying for the world to stop spinning soon, that he didn't hear the footsteps approaching.
Izuku looks up just in time to see Katsuki reaching for his face.
He moves without thinking.
The harsh slap echoes loudly around them.
For a moment, both men are frozen in place, staring at each other in shock.
Then Katsuki steps back and Izuku tries not to feel guilty about the wounded look that flits across his face when his rejected hand drops limply to his side.
"I... I just wanted to check your head wound," Katsuki explains, quietly, gently.
As if he actually cares about Izuku.
As if he still loves him.
The thought crossed Izuku's mind before he could stop it, and he hates the way his heart flutters behind his broken ribs.
Izuku ducks his head again, angry at the tears that were building behind his eyes, angry at himself for still indulging a useless hope.
"Thanks, but I don't need your help," he answers curtly.
"Deku, I—"
“Just… Just give me some space, Bakugou,” Izuku adds weakly, pulling his knees closer, determined to hide from that probing red gaze. “Please.”
For a while, no one speaks. Izuku can sense Katsuki still standing in front of him, his unnatural body heat radiating in waves. But finally, after what felt like an eternity of tense silence, Izuku hears the other man move away.
He peeks over his knees and finds Katsuki retreating to the opposite wall a good distance away.
Izuku sighs and starts stretching his legs, only to stop when he knocks something over.
He looks down and finds a half-full bottle of water by his feet.
A lump rises up his throat.
This was Katsuki’s share of the two bottles they had found earlier. Izuku had quickly downed all of his in one go, and it hadn't been anywhere near enough to quench his thirst, but Izuku would rather die of dehydration than ask for Katsuki's share.
He frowns at it now, bewildered and suspicious.
What is Katsuki playing at?
The petty side of him wants to ignore the gift—or better yet, throw it back at the other man’s face—but the painful dryness in his throat made Izuku reconsider.
It’ll be monumentally stupid to waste resources in this situation. Who knows when they'd find any more supplies down there?
So despite his many reservations, Izuku took the bottle and drank from it, trying to ignore the weight of Katsuki’s gaze. He can't see him, but Izuku can almost imagine the victorious smirk on his unfairly handsome face.
The thought makes his heart flutter treacherously a second time.
Careful, Izuku reminds himself as he screws the lid on the now-empty bottle and throws it away.
He can’t fall for Katsuki’s tricks again, the same ones that had strung him along for most of their lives.
He should know better by now.
Katsuki doesn't love him.
He made that perfectly clear the day he let Izuku walk out of their apartment, their agency, their country, without a single word of protest.
Izuku had waited—days, weeks, months afterward—for Katsuki to text, to call, to do anything that would show he still wanted Izuku in his life
But he didn’t.
And it took half a year of unanswered messages and missed calls for the hard truth to finally sink in.
Katsuki doesn't love him. He probably never did.
Their five-year relationship that began shortly after graduating from UA had been nothing but a sham, a delusion Izuku indulged because he was so desperate to be loved by the one person he’d been chasing after since he was four.
Perhaps that was why Katsuki never wanted to go public, not even telling their families and close friends. He kept Izuku like a dirty little secret because he already knew then what Izuku was only coming to terms with now—that everything had been a fucking lie.
And so, in a fit of anger and despair, Izuku blocked Katsuki’s number and all his social media accounts. He disconnected from their mutual friends, had stopped talking to Mitsuki and Masaru, and had burned every single bridge that remotely connected him to the name Bakugou Katsuki.
Izuku even signed up for a two-year hero exchange program abroad, determined to keep oceans of distance between them.
Those two years extended to three, then four, until half a decade had passed with neither of them seeing or hearing from the other. And even after Izuku returned to Japan for good, he took great pains in making sure their paths never crossed, not even by accident. He joined Shouto's agency on the other side of the city, and he found out where Katsuki lived just so he could rent a place as far away from him as possible.
Yet, in moments of weakness, in the lonely emptiness of his new apartment, Izuku found himself dreaming of red eyes and a crooked smile that didn’t belong to him anymore.
Dreams that were full of hungry kisses and warm hands, of a gravelly voice whispering into his ear in the dead of night, saying that he loved him.
Izuku doesn't know what's worse—those dreams, or waking up to the reality that they aren't real. Not anymore.
And now, as he walks behind Katsuki, still following after him the way he had done his whole life, Izuku wonders if he’ll ever be free of those impossible dreams.
They find their first body after an hour of wandering.
He was an office worker in his late twenties, impaled on some rebar. By the time they got to him, he was already ice-cold.
His suit is frayed and patched up in some places, his leather shoes polished but old, with the soles so worn down they were nearly falling off. Izuku finds his wallet and there's hardly anything in it, save for his IDs and a family photo.
It looks candid, probably taken between more official shots, because he and his wife were posed in front of some generic backdrop, but their little girl wasn't looking at the camera. She was grabbing fistfuls of her dad’s hair, trying to crawl up his face with an adorably determined expression.
The man and his wife were trying to pull her down, their faces frozen mid-laugh. In the quiet stillness of his surroundings, Izuku can almost hear the warm sound spilling out of the old, glossy paper.
He wonders where that little girl is now. Is she safe with her mom? Is she out there, waiting, praying for her papa to come home?
If only I got to him in time
The thought echoes in between Izuku's ears like the ringing of a bell, oscillating from one end of his mind to another, growing louder and louder until he can hardly think of anything else. His chest is tight, the air heavy as if the earth's gravitational pull has somehow grown stronger in the last ten seconds.
Izuku staggers backward.
A warm hand suddenly catches his shoulder, steadying him.
“It’s not your fault," Katsuki whispers right into the shell of his ear.
Izuku jumps. "W-What?"
He tries to shrug Katsuki's hand off but the blond doesn't even flinch, relentlessly holding his gaze.
“It’s. Not. Your. Fault,” Katsuki repeats.
The steadiness, the ironclad certainty in his voice washes over Izuku like a bucket of ice water. The voices in his head don't fully disappear but they turn down just low enough for Izuku to finally hear himself think.
He looks at Katsuki, unsure what to say, but Katsuki doesn't give him time to speak—instead, he snatches the man's wallet out of Izuku’s loose grip and wordlessly starts to go through the mass casualty protocol they learned in UA.
Whenever it isn't possible or practical to retrieve a victim's body, it falls under a hero's responsibility to collect proof of identity and confirm the person's death for their loved ones left behind. Katsuki takes the man's national ID card and, to Izuku's surprise, he takes the family photo too.
"His kid should have this, if she's still alive," he answers Izuku’s unspoken question. "Something to help keep her sane after all this is over."
Izuku can only stare at him, flabbergasted.
The man he knew wouldn't have cared about such things. "Useless gestures" Past-Katsuki would have said instead. “It wouldn’t bring her dad back so why bother?”
Being hero partners, Izuku had always been the one left to pick up the empathetic slack, and many fights had stemmed from this stark conflict of natures.
Izuku always cared too much, while Katsuki never cared enough. Sure, he can be thoughtful if he wanted to, but that's exactly the problem—he rarely ever wants to. It was one of those big, red flags that Izuku didn’t see until his rose-tinted glasses slipped off his nose and shattered alongside his heart.
But as he looks at the man who stands before him with his head bowed and hands clasped in quiet prayer for the soul of a total stranger, Izuku can't help but wonder:
Who is Kacchan now?
“It’s not your fault.”
Katsuki repeated those words to him each time they came across another victim, each time they had to add another ID card to their collection.
It acted like a spell over Izuku, a verbal talisman meant to keep the bad thoughts at bay before they could swallow him whole.
And it worked. For a while.
Unfortunately, with every new victim they found, the power behind those words grew weaker and weaker. By the time they stopped to rest and re-evaluate their route, Izuku already had thirty-three ID cards in his back pocket. Katsuki had forty tucked inside his boots.
Overall, a total of seventy-three souls they had failed to save.
Izuku can't recall the last time he faced a catastrophe of this caliber. Not even the war with Shigaraki had produced this many casualties in one day.
In his naïve optimism, Izuku honestly thought things couldn't get any worse.
Until they found the school bus.
“It’s not your fault,” Katsuki repeats, more urgently this time, but the words have lost their magic by now. He tries to block Izuku’s view, but it's too late—Izuku has already seen it.
The blood, the mangled flesh, and the small bodies crushed beyond recognition inside the wreckage. He spots something shiny by Katsuki's feet and recognizes it instantly: a DEKU keychain, from his newest line of merch. They had released only a few hundred of it at first. Anyone who already has one must be a huge fan.
It's currently attached to a cell phone, held loosely by a small, pale hand.
Izuku feels the bile rising against his throat, and this time he can't hold it down.
“Oh god…” is all he says before throwing up all over Katsuki’s shoes.
But Katsuki doesn't jump away in disgust—instead, he quickly guides Izuku away from the bus, dragging him far enough until Izuku can no longer smell the pungent mix of drying blood and spilled guts.
On the way, his knees buckle, and Izuku crumbles, falling to the ground with an anguished wail.
Strong arms catch him before he hits the dirt, abruptly pulling him into a pillowy chest he had laid on so many times before. Izuku is hysterical and tries to push him away, but Katsuki refuses to let him go, hugging him tighter until all the fight drains from Izuku's body. He leans against him like a ragdoll, fingers weakly gripping the slippery fabric of Katsuki’s hero uniform.
He spots the panic attack right before it happens, like a tidal wave on the horizon, approaching faster than he can run to safety. It finally makes landfall and Izuku's breathing stutters, thinning into a strangled wheeze as he's dragged into the undertow, the impact sucking the oxygen straight out of his lungs.
All the dark thoughts that Katsuki’s magic words had driven away earlier now storm into his mind, returning with a vengeance like old ghosts rising from their graves—
Why wasn’t I fast enough?
I'm All Might’s successor
I could’ve saved them
I should’ve saved them
But I didn’t
I couldn’t
Kacchan knew I wasn’t worth it
Weak
Kacchan was right to leave
Useless
I would’ve left me too
Izuku sobs and screams, the guilt tearing into him in a hundred different ways.
It's overwhelming, it's frightening, and Izuku thinks he might just drown in his despair, but suddenly, there are hands grabbing each side of his face, forcing him to look up and meet burning red eyes.
“Izuku,” says Katsuki.
Hearing Katsuki speak his name again with a tenderness that only existed in his memories, breaks Izuku further. His fraying mind wonders why the other man is still there, why he hasn't pushed Izuku away in disgust or disappointment. Izuku expected judgment and revulsion, and yet Katsuki holds him like he's the most precious thing in the world.
“Focus on me, nerd,” he commands. “Tell me what you see.”
Izuku's mind stalls, confused by the request. What can he see? It’s so dark, he can't see anything. There’s so much noise in his head, he can’t think—
“Izuku,” Katsuki repeats more firmly. His hands—when did he take off his gloves?—are warm. No, they're hot. Searing. It's a stark contrast to the cold guilt weighing down Izuku's bones and he holds on to that familiar heat, making it his lifeline, his anchor to get through the storm that's ravaging his mind.
“Tell me what you see," Katsuki demands again, and this time, Izuku hears him.
“R-Red,” he blurts weakly. “Your… your eyes.”
“What, just ‘red’?” Katsuki scoffs, a teasing lilt in his voice. “You can do better than that stalker nerd.”
The challenge spurs something inside Izuku. “Not just red,” he corrects, pushing himself to focus. “The inner ring of your irises are a different color from the outer one.”
Central heterochromia. A rare eye condition and a little known fact about Katsuki. Little known, because very few people were allowed to get close enough to spot the almost imperceptible difference.
“Good,” Katsuki prompts. "What colors are there?"
“Red for the outer ring. But not brick-red like Kirishima’s or apple-red, like Eri’s,” he answers, slipping into a ramble. “Kacchan’s red is deep and rich, like well-aged wine. And the inner ring is copper,” he adds, growing more confident with each passing second. "Copper like dusk in an autumn sky." The panicked haze over his mind begins to lift. “It has flecks of gold radiating from the center. Like a small crown around your pupils.”
In hindsight, even blindfolded, Izuku could’ve answered Katsuki’s question without difficulty. He had noticed the heterochromia on their first day of preschool, though back then, Izuku didn't know the proper term for it. All he knew was how Katsuki had the prettiest eyes he’d ever seen—extraordinary, just like the rest of him.
Katsuki smirks, a proud and relieved look on his face. “Good boy,” he whispers, and his words send a confusing tingle down Izuku’s spine. “That’s it, take a deep breath. Slowly. In and out.”
Izuku follows his instructions, and soon the invisible noose around his neck disappears, and air is now freely moving in and out of his lungs, driving the numbness away.
He's leaning heavily against Katsuki, their bodies pressed together for the first time in half a decade. Izuku can feel each breath in his chest, the steady rhythm of his heartbeat, the thrum of his pulse. He feels Katsuki's body heat bleeding into him, warming him up from the inside out and he instinctively seeks out more of it, his arms sliding around the other man's thin waist, gripping tight.
Katsuki eagerly returns the embrace with a hum of—was it amusement? Approval? Izuku isn't sure but at the moment, he didn't care.
It's been a while since anyone held him like this.
Izuku doesn't know how long they just stood there hugging each other. But after a while, Katsuki's hand moved from his hips, trailing up his arms, past his shoulders, fingertips ghosting over the side of Izuku's neck before gently brushing the tears beneath his eyes.
Izuku's eyes flutter open—he didn't even notice when they had closed—and he meets Katsuki's astonishingly soft gaze.
"Better?" He asks, though it sounded less like a question and more of a confirmation. That handsome, knowing smirk on his face finally snaps Izuku out of his daze.
He panics and pushes him off, scrambling back until there is at least a foot of distance between them. Katsuki is left standing with his hands slightly raised, his body still embracing the imprint Izuku left behind.
“Oh god, I-I’m so sorry!” Izuku flusters, unable to look him in the eye. “I can’t believe I puked on you! I’m sorry!”
“I don’t mind,” Katsuki replies, casually flicking the vomit off his boots. His smile is gone, returning to the stoic expression he held before. “It’s no big deal.”
“No, wait, let me—” Izuku searches his pockets, looking for a napkin or handkerchief, anything he can use to clean up his mess, but then his fingers brush against the ID cards in his back pocket and he freezes up again.
But before he can spiral into another panic attack, Katsuki grabs his wrist, demanding his attention
“I spotted a takoyaki cart back there." He points at the direction they’d come from. “Go and check it out for water bottles and food."
Izuku blinks, the sudden shift in topic giving him whiplash. “I didn’t see—”
“That’s ‘cause your eyesight is shit,” Katsuki scoffs before releasing Izuku’s wrist and roughly pushing him toward wherever the cart was supposed to be. “I think it's partly buried under some rubble but you and OFA shouldn’t have a problem digging it out.”
“But t-the bus..." He swallows tightly. "W-We have to—”
“You owe me a bottle of water, nerd,” Katsuki interrupts. “Get going before I kick your ass.”
He glares at Izuku, daring him to refuse.
Normally, Izuku wouldn’t let Katsuki push him around like that, not anymore, but he’s still too raw and delicate from his recent panic attack and could neither find the will nor energy to protest.
So he does as he’s told, walking back through the tunnel, keeping his eyes peeled for a takoyaki sign in the dark. He can still feel Katsuki’s glare on his back as if he’s making sure Izuku didn’t renege on his duties, and it made Izuku feel more bewildered than he already was.
At some point, the pressure of Katsuki's glare lifts, and Izuku peeks over his shoulder, curious as to what the other man was up to in his absence.
That’s when he sees him quietly slip back into the school bus.
Oh.
Something inside Izuku comes to a complete stop. He tracks the orange neon X of Katsuki’s hero uniform through the broken windows, watching him go through the nightmare so that Izuku wouldn’t have to.
Fresh tears spring from his eyes, streaking hotly down his cheeks. A tide of emotions confront him—confusion, anger, gratitude, hope—all of them amalgamating into something so profound, it frightens him.
Why?
Izuku wants to shake Katsuki’s shoulders and scream at his face.
Why are you doing this?!
His chest hurts, his heart clenching viciously behind his breastbone, and Izuku can’t believe how a pain that comes from his mind can feel so real.
Why do you act like you still love me?