Warnings: Katsuki is his own warning

Chapter One - Eri and Izuku

Of course, that was easier said than done.

Katsuki kept his place in school through sheer intelligence, grit and just how stupid and cowardly the rest of their class was. THey had immediately tried to rough him up the day he got back and throw him out of his place in the pack. His so-called friends.

His friends that he didn't need now.

He showed them. They needed their Quirks to have anything done for them. He knew how to fight with it. Learning how to fight without it wasn't hard. It was hard to start but… he was at the top of the pack because he deserved to be. Showing he deserved it was easy as pie.

"Hmph. Idiots." He wiped his hands free of dirt and dropped the handkerchief into the sink. Rubbed water over his bruises, stuck his hands in his pockets and went on with the day with groans left at his feet.

So it continued. Day in and day out, in class and out, they tried to break him as he had tried to break them. And they lost. It was tiring and frustrating but they lost.

He was starting to wonder how Deku had even kept up with him all this time, if this was what he had put the numbskull through.

Not that he felt bad about it. This really was only temporary. Once he got his quirk fixed and his body really was back to normal rather than pretending to be boring and dull and weak (again, like Deku.) everything would be the way it was supposed to be and they'd all be able to laugh this off like a bad joke or a sick week.

Something in his stomach said they wouldn't be able to laugh it off at all. Something in him said it wasn't over.

And even Deku was treating him funny. Stayed away from him in class, rarely stayed after, just tended to skirt the edge of the classroom around him. Sometimes he'd pretend Katsuki wasn't even there.

How was that even possible? Surely it was obvious he was around, that he was brilliant, that he still existed. Why would someone, especially him be acting otherwise?

And the adults didn't let him go over either. Even when he snuck over, Inko would gently but firmly say his lackey wasn't there (though she wouldn't call him that, she was too nice to insult anyone like that, even nicely) and he would have to come back later. But later never seemed to arrive.

This was annoying and gross, and weird. Like they were trying to isolate him or something.

Maybe that was it. They were isolating him so they could experiment on him! Cause his was the magic case of the quirk that poofed away! They wanted to test him to see when it would come back! They thought was sick too, yeah that was it.

Katsuki snorted. He was healthy as a horse! That was the Bakugo genes at work, he'd never had a cold in his life, just the flu and chicken pox. He wasn't gonna spread any dumb diseases!

His mother was the worst. She was almost calmer now than she had been before, twisty and uncompromising and strange. She punished him more, he had more chores (which was fine it made his arms tougher and stuff, just like All Might), and he was rarely allowed to stray off his beaten path.

He was also doing more math, which was boring but good for his quirk. More number crunching, more… not heroic stuff. It was support stuff and he guessed that was important.

Okay, it super sucked.

But there was nothing he could actually do about it. Maybe if he wrote a letter to All Might, he would have an answer.

But the day he sat down to write it, (because the boy didn't know and how could he?), Deku came over.

If he had been alone, Katsuki would have cursed him out. Because not only was he useless, he was a hypocrite now because he'd promised Katsuki something and so far avoided fulfilling that promise in any way. Jerk.

But Deku was not alone. He was walking slowly with a tiny girl's bandaged hand in his. She was using him as a human shield, which for a moment Katsuki found rather insulting. Like he'd actually hurt someone that small and helpless when he wasn't. He wasn't that bad

(He didn't understand yet. He had never felt truly small before.)

"You're here, Deku," he said, keeping his voice flat and quiet and contained even though all he wanted to be was fire and blood and annoyed. "Who's this?"

Deku just looked at him. For a moment, his lackey - rival, since this was his mind and he could actually be honest here - looked disappointed, almost. Then he looked at the little girl instead and as the red eyes turn to peer at Katsuki himself, Katsuki remembers.

The gunshot. The weight in his body, her weight on his body, her tears, her fingers clenched tight. He remembered dragging her close, her going limp, him going limp, the pain building and building and growing and growing until everything went white.

"Eri," Izuku said lightly. "This is Kacchan. This is your hero."

He said it so lightly, so easily, and that's what hurt the most, out of everything. Because how the flying fuck was he a hero? He didn't win! He didn't do anything but stand there and get shot and scare a little kid! He didn't do a god damn thing! How dare Deku-

He was cut off by the girl's sniffle. "I'm sorry…" she said with a blank stare, and it was a face that Katsuki recognized, not from kids, but from people who got saved on TV, who saw someone they loved still in the blast, still in pain, still hurting, but were too in shock to do anything about it. "It's my fault you're like this. I'm sorry."

She said this like a fact of life, like how science told them that they were in the luckiest time in the history of the universe because we were when life existed at this moment and there was no other time where humanity will prosper after this. She said this the way that All Might assured people that he is here, that he was the hero they wished for, that he would win.

Katsuki made a face at her and Deku tensed slowly, hands up, curling like they were going to do something laughable like make fists. She only stared back at him, undaunted, unable to fear someone who was too big for the world to handle.

Then he shuttered closed and hunkered down over his homework. "Che. You got time to be sorry you got time for better stuff to do. 'S not like you shot me or anything."

Katsuki didn't have to look to see Deku light up like a brand new bulb. "See, Eri? Kacchan's not so bad."

"I'm great, the heck are you talking about?"

"You're aggressive," offered his mother. "Runs in the family."

Katsuki was sincerely tempted to vault over the table and fistfight his mother. He hadn't yet done it this year but he'd considered it often enough. "So are you," he grumbled instead, if only because he did know what manners were in front of guests. Even if Deku -Izuku, he guessed - wasn't a guest and more of a nuisance or a presence you couldn't pay to lose. He focused on Eri instead, who still wasn't smiling, was more looking at Katsuki's mother like she'd eat her rather than place stupid cutesy looking snacks in front of her for her to eat.

"Try them," he said to Eri. "They don't bite. Mom's bad at most stuff, but she can cook."

He deserved that smack, he guessed but it was true. She was too klutzy to clean, was bad at shopping, hated buying things in fashion season or whatever. She was a great cook though, and that should be enough for Eri, who cautiously nibbled on one cracker. Her eyes didn't light up, but the subtle shaking of her shoulders and hands faded and she took another snack.

Deku looked at him. "Kacchan," he said.

"Don't call me that… Izuku." Katsuki hated the way it sounded, not true or real and Izuku wasn't any less useless than ever. But tit for tat, he guessed. "So, have you figured out anything about my arms or what?"

Izuku's eyes widened briefly and he struggled visibly for a second. Katsuki shrugged and turned away, uninterested in his floundering. If he's got nuthin' then there's no point in talking.

"You're not the first one," he finally said.

Katsuki turned to look at him. "Whut?"

Izuku glanced at Eri, who was now being distracted by something his mom had in hand. "You're not the first one who's been hit by it." He paused. "It was hard to find much but no one really pays attention to me you know? So I sat around places and listened. We had - the nurses had me take her outside and stuff so she knew where to go if stuff happened again or something. No one paid us most notice… so they talked. You're not the first. You didn't even make the news, Kacchan."

Katsuki glared at him, but Izuku kept looking him in the eye.

He heard what was actually there: someone is spying.

There's a villain with power.

Good. No point if he wasn't getting a challenge.