In Your Shadow [Chapter 7]

[Chapter 6]

The meeting didn’t come.

All Friday evening, Katsuki had waited to be tapped on the shoulder and sent upstairs, or for someone to knock on his apartment door and drag him down to the office, but after a long, sleepless night, Katsuki found himself in his usual spot, at his usual time, knocking on the heavy office door.

“Who is it?”

“Katsuki.”

“Come in, Katsuki.”

He stepped inside quietly, closing the door behind him, and tried his best to look meek and unimposing for once in his life – maybe if he pretended to be apologetic, Deku would let him stick around a little longer. Only a few days ago he’d thought it was impossible, that he could never lower himself that far, but apparently he had been very, very wrong about how low his standards could go.

“Good morning, Deku,” he mumbled, gaze locked on his shoes.

“Good morning, Katsuki. Please have a seat.”

“Thank you.”

He sat up carefully straight, fingers curling against his knees as he tried his best to stay still, head still ducked a little to hide his blushing face. Even with everything on the line, it still embarrassed him to hell and back just to sit up straight and be polite, ugh.

“You know, I haven’t watched a sports festival in years,” Deku hummed, glancing over at his computer monitor. “I’m just too busy, most of the time. Sometimes I watch a student or two that are recommended to me, usually people Aizawa says I might like, but I’ve never actually taken an intern on, until you.”

“Why me?” Katsuki blurted out, cursing himself for opening his mouth – way to go, Katsuki, just remind him that it was a stupid idea, great job.

“Jeanist mentioned you first, maybe a year ago. He said he’d ‘failed to tame you’ and that I might have more success at it. He wants me to be one of those heroes who take in troubled kids and set them back on the right track, but I don’t have the time for that.”

“I’m on- I mean, I’d like to think I’m on the right track. Uh, Sir.”

“You’re doing fine.” Deku cracked a smile. “No troubled kid would refuse to join the league of villains to their faces. You don’t need to be set straight.”

“I don’t?” Katsuki asked dumbly, staring. “I thought…”

“Because I want you to be polite to your seniors?” Deku huffed a little laugh. “That’s common courtesy, Katsuki, it’s nothing to do with whether you can be a hero or not.”

“I am a hero,” Katsuki snapped, kicking himself for it immediately. “S-Sorry, I just-”

“It’s okay,” Deku assured him, smiling properly for the first time all morning. “You’re right, you are. You wouldn’t be here if you weren’t. I’m not in the business of teaching people to be heroes, I’m only here to help improve the ones who are already promising.”

“You think I’m…?”

“All Might said I would like you, that you were a little rough around the edges, like any teenager, but that I would have a lot of fun working with you. He never begged me.”

“He didn’t?”

“I was going to say no, to keep you on my list for another day. I told him I was very busy, that it would be better to wait until another time, and he told me ‘Young Bakugou will take five minutes, if that’s all you have, and will learn more from it than others would learn in a month’. Needless to say, I was curious what kind of kid my hero and mentor was raving about.”

Katsuki flushed bright red, and Deku just shook his head fondly, picking up Katsuki’s daily timetable from his desk.

“Yesterday was the first time I saw you fight,” he finished, as he handed the page over. “I look forward to seeing it again.”

Katsuki nodded faintly as he stood, glancing over the list before he tucked it into his bag, and Deku flashed him a smile that made his heart rate speed up all over again.

“Have a good day, Katsuki.”

“You too. And, uh, thank you. For… You know. All of it.”

“My pleasure.”

He only paused again when he reached the door, hand already resting on the handle, but somehow unable to turn it and let himself out.

“Back then, though,” he said softly, his mind replaying the clip he’d had in his head for two years, refusing to leave him alone. “I would have been fine, you know. I would have gotten away on my own, if you hadn’t shown up.”

“I’m sure you would have,” Deku laughed. “But I’m glad I could help you, all the same.”

“I’m… Sorry, though. If I hadn’t been so… so weak, so stupid, if I hadn’t been… taken like that… All Might would… would still…”

“It wasn’t your fault,” Deku said firmly, without hesitation. “You did nothing wrong.”

“But… why did it have to be me? Why was I the reason for his… his…”

“You were not the reason for All Might’s retirement, Katsuki. There was so much more going on, things that you might never know, might never fully understand. It was time, and you just happened to be there. He accomplished what he wanted to accomplish, defeated the villain he wished to defeat, after fighting against him for so many years. It was always going to happen that way, whether you were there or not.”

“Thank you for helping him, at the end. For keeping him… Around.”

“Next time it’ll be your turn.”

Katsuki nodded, those same words echoing through his head in another voice, resonating in his brain even after so many years. Back then, he’d hated that it wasn’t him, had hated that he knew the words were meant for Deku, the man who beat him to everything just by being born a few years earlier. Beat him to U.A., beat him to being a pro, beat him to number one. The man who had always overshadowed over him at every step, without even knowing he existed.

Now, though…

No, he still hated it. He wished he could have some big epiphany about it being okay to go slow, about being okay with coming second to Deku, but the fact was that every fibre of his being urged him to beat the guy stupid.

“I’m going to beat you,” he promised, glancing back when Deku just laughed brightly. “Just wait and see, Deku.”

“I’m looking forward to it.”

─────

Katsuki worked with renewed vigour that day, and apparently everyone could see it. He spent three hours in the gym with Mirio, cycling through exercises, stretches, rests, and everything in between; he sucked down a veritable mountain of couscous with roasted vegetables from the lobby the moment lunch opened – his new favourite in the agency cookbook; he walked through his first Lunch Patrol, a quick two-hour circuit to keep an eye on various high-traffic areas while the other heroes were on their breaks; and at three o’clock on the dot, he stepped into a little concrete room with padded flooring, to meet with one of the heroes he’d patrolled with once or twice so far.

“Katsuki,” Solar Flare said in greeting, nodding at him slightly. “This your first time in our sparring gyms?”

“Yeah,” Katsuki answered, even though he knew it was rhetorical – Deku had obviously told him in advance. “I’m… excited.”

“Good,” Solar Flare said with a grin. “I assume U.A. still does plenty of sparring in class?”

“Not as much as I’d like, but yeah.”

“I suspect you’d say that no matter how much of it you did.”

Katsuki cracked a smile, and Solar Flare laughed knowingly.

“Me too. Deku figured I’d have some words of wisdom for you, about holding back and not over-doing it because of your enthusiasm.”

“But?” Katsuki asked knowingly.

“We’ll save that for next time, right now I’m itching for a good fight.”

“You got it.”

Solar Flare’s arms lit up with white flames, lunging to strike immediately, but Katsuki knew that trick – he was the King of attacking the instant the buzzer sounded. He whipped away, rubbing his hands together to warm them up as he moved, wishing he had his gloves and gauntlets to build sweat quicker. He wouldn’t always have them though, when something went wrong, and he was fairly sure that was half the point of the exercise.

“Spark Plug will make you talk to him as you fight,” Solar Flare warned him, swiping repeatedly with his bright flames as he advanced. “He’ll want to know your strategy, to see that you’re not moving mindlessly.”

“You told me we were just gonna have fun!” Katsuki complained, smirking all the same when he managed to knock Solar Flare off-course with an explosion, ducking under the burning arm and managing to punch him in the kidney. “Talking isn’t fun!”

“Just warning you,” Solar Flare laughed, unphased by the strike. “He’s a good teacher, despite his age, so you should definitely listen.”

“What’s wrong with his age?”

“He’s a child.”

“He’s at least twenty!”

“Exactly.”

Katsuki snorted, and Solar Flare took advantage of it to swing at him, grazing his arm and leaving behind what felt like a minor sunburn. He’d never been hit by Solar Flare’s quirk before, hadn’t even really seen people hit by it, so it was a weird sensation to process in the heat of the moment.

“Different to Shouto and Endeavour,” Katsuki explained, when Solar Flare raised an eyebrow at him as they continued to duck and weave and strike. “Was expecting straight fire.”

“Light flames,” Solar Flare explained, grinning. “Great for this, too.”

He lit them up extra bright, in an obvious attempt to blind Katsuki for his next move, but Katsuki was used to his own stun grenades – he averted his eyes quickly, moving on instinct and sound, sweeping a kick at Solar Flare’s leg where his vision was obstructed by his own light. Unfortunately, Solar Flare seemed to be a lot more immune to the brightness than Katsuki was to his, because he saw right through it, using one smooth movement to stomp on Katsuki’s leg, flip him onto his stomach, and pin him to the ground with a knee in his back.

“Rule one, every hero and villain keep secrets about their own quirks,” Solar Flare chuckled, moving to let Katsuki up. “So don’t overcommit if you don’t have any evidence.”

Katsuki nodded, chastised, but clambered to his feet and raised his fists, ready to go again.

“No pain?” Solar Flare asked pointedly.

“I’m good.”

“Alright, then try to keep me on my toes this time!”

“Damn right I will!”

Before he knew it, their hour was up, and reluctantly Katsuki lowered his fists. Solar Flare just grinned, clapping him on the shoulder, and gave him a look of understanding like Katsuki had never seen before.

“We’ll do it again,” Solar Flare promised. “Now that we’ve seen you, your control, you’ll get to do this with a lot of people.”

“Like Spark Plug later.”

“Other days, too,” Solar Flare assured him. “You’ll get rematches, you’ll get new matches, just as long as you keep proving that we can trust you, you’ll get a lot. Don’t let me down, alright? I want to spar with you again, but I can’t do that if Deku says you’re not ready.”

“I won’t let you down,” Katsuki said firmly – he felt like a dork for the words, but he knew they needed to be said. “And thank you, I had a good time and learned a lot.”

“Look at you,” Solar Flare smirked, “Deku isn’t even around.”

It took Katsuki a moment to understand, but Solar Flare was already out the door by the time he caught on – the thanks, the politeness, the not bristling at everything that he could maybe have considered condescending. Fuck, Deku really was getting what he wanted, and Katsuki hardly even had to try anymore. If he wasn’t careful, he was gonna end up going back to school talking like four-eyes or something.

Then again, he supposed there were worse prices to pay, to work with the Number One Hero.

[Chapter 8]