Midoriya Izuku was the only person who could get close to him.

Katsuki hated that.

...

"Hey Deku." He slams his hands onto Midoriya's desk. The smaller boy startles from where he had been packing his book bag, spinning to look at Katsuki with large, frightened eyes.

"Kacchan! Did you—"

"What the fuck do you think you're doing?" he spits. His quirk itches against the palms of his hands, but he doesn't allow the explosion to ignite.

"I'm uh, packing my bag?" Deku squeaks, pressing himself as far back into his chair as he can.

Midoriya, you wanted to go to Yuuei too, didn't you?

Pathetic.

"Stop fucking following me!" He snarls, feeling the familiar tug of the scar tissue on his cheek. "I can't do anything without you being right fucking there!"

"Sorry—!"

"Don't apologize to me! I was supposed to be the only one from this shitty junior high to get into Yuuei. You don't get to piggy back off me like you do for every-fucking-thing else!" A small explosion lights between Katsuki's hands and the desk, and for a moment the world stops. But Midoriya is too distracted to activate his quirk, and Katsuki silently thanks whatever God there is for that.

Midoriya does wince at the sound, though. "Kacchan, I don't—I wasn't—!"

"You can't even use your damn quirk without me." Katsuki presses closer into Midoriya's space, hands still firmly planted on his desk. "You'll never make it in without me, and I'll be damned if I'm caught anywhere near you." He straightens up suddenly, grabbing Midoriya's notebook in his hand as he stands.

Hero Analysis for the Future No. 13. Deku is such a fucking nerd.

"I'm better than you," Katsuki spits. "It doesn't matter what you try, I won't let you near me, and I will win." He has to be quick about this.

Deku is standing, hand outstretched when Katsuki lights an explosion in the hand holding the notebook. Sure enough, the fire is gone from his hand as soon as it appears. He snarls. The paper is decently singed, but the weight in the pit of his stomach is still there.

Deku lunges at him, the fire from Katsuki's explosion suspended over his hand. He steps back, pushing against Deku's chest to unbalance him, before making a break for the window and throwing the notebook out and into the koi pond in the courtyard.

"Kacchan!" Even without looking, he can hear the tears in Midoriya's voice.

He forces himself to turn around. His own flames still dance between Midoriya's fingers, and he tears his eyes away to throw his chin into the air. "You won't use it against me," he says. "You can't."

He watches Midoriya bite his lip and one of his hands curls into a tight fist (the other still plays idly with the flame, and he forces himself not to look). He is shaking, and Katsuki knows he has won.

"Sure, take the entrance exam. It'll prove just how useless you are without me." Katsuki turns on his heel toward the door, leaving a quaking, crying Deku in the classroom.

As soon as he is in the twisting maze of hallways, sure that Deku won't come running after him; Katsuki feels the tension drop from his shoulders. Tears prick in the corners of his eyes, and he bites his tongue to push them away. The scar tissue on his cheek pulls almost painfully (if he was still capable of feeling it) and he brings his hand up to run his fingers over the malformed skin.

It has been six years since Midoriya had turned his own quirk against him.

Some part of him is still terrified it will happen again.

…

Izuku doesn't watch Kacchan walk out of the room. He stares hard at the little ball of fire in his hand, and watches it flicker between his fingers. He knows he's crying, but this isn't new. For someone with a fire quirk, he sure does cry a lot. He almost laughs at the thought, and wipes his nose on the back of his hand.

He is the only one left in the classroom, and Kacchan is probably out of the building by now. Or pretty close, at least. He sighs, and the flame flickers, but doesn't go out.

"What am I supposed to do with you, huh?" he asks.

It doesn't respond.

"Figures." He squints, and blows on the flame. It flickers and grows under his breath, shrinking back to its original size when he stops. "Guess you're coming outside with me," He mumbles, grabbing his book bag and throwing it over one shoulder, careful not to let the obnoxious little flame get to close to anything.

"All things considered, that could have gone a lot worse." His footsteps echo in the empty hallways. "I mean, he didn't try to attack me, and I managed to snatch you up before he burnt my book too badly." He winces when the flame brushes his ring finger. He must have gotten careless. "That's not very nice, you know. Burning me." He scowls at the little fire in his palm.

It doesn't respond.

Izuku sighs.

"He's right, you know. Well, kind of right. I can't work on my own. I am useless without him. " he feels the burning at the back of this throat again, and tries desperately to fight it down. The flame flickers against his breath and Izuku scowls at it. "And you! You're not helping."

The afternoon sun is bright, and Izuku squints against it, nearly losing his delicate control over the small flame (not small enough that he can just blow it out though). He stops by the first decorative pond and lowers his hand into the water, watching the flame sizzle out. He shakes the water off his hand before jogging over to the koi pond beneath his classroom's window.

His notebook is floating (thankfully) on the surface of the water. He rescues it from the few curious fish that are nibbling at the corners and it drips with water as he pulls it up. He curses under his breath. Drying paper is the worst task. Maybe if he had held onto that flame he could try drying it a little faster, but of course he hadn't thought that far ahead. He does have a few hours before he needs to be home, though, so he can sacrifice a couple minutes and let the sun work its magic.

Careful not to rip the (very, very) wet paper, he opens the book and lays it out on the hot stone around the pond (the ink hasn't run everywhere thank the heavens). He drops his backpack to the ground between his feet and sits down.

The news is relatively quiet—a couple of skirmishes, something about a guy with a slime quirk trying to steal a woman's purse. He switches to the hero forums. It looks like Mount Lady's debut earlier this week is kicking off wonderfully, people love her. Granted, half of the comments are about her "shapely physique" and nice face. While it is twice as bad for female heroes, Izuku knows that a large part of a hero's popularity comes from appearance.

Which is why he knows he had to be twice as cool as everyone else if he's going to be a great hero—either that or he's going to have to have some kind of wicked mask. Izuku knows he is kind of plain. Not unattractive per say, but his wild green curls and round face aren't anything to gawk at. That's not to mention the twisting, red burn scars that cover his hands and forearms. Perks of having a fire quirk, he muses, turning a few pages in his notebook to give them a chance to dry.

His quirk is… well in some way most quirks are impractical, aren't they? They're not supposed to be functional super powers like old comic books wanted them to be. They just are, and it's people who can use them well that turn them into super powers. He knows this, and yet he can't help but think his quirk is especially impractical.

In one of their first biology classes they had a unit on quirk genetics. Because quirks are, at their heart, mutations, it isn't unusual for a child to manifest a quirk that is completely different from either parent. But quirks are genetic mutations, which means they are usually hereditary. Sometimes the child inherits the same—or a similar—quirk as one of their parents (Kacchan and his mother comes to mind), and sometimes the two parental quirks combine in the child, making something new.

His mother can draw small objects to her, and his father can breathe fire.

So naturally, Izuku can draw fire to him.

Izuku's quirk… well it's everything his four-year-old self would have wanted. It's cool. Any type of manipulation quirk is cool, and it earns him a lot of awed looks. But it doesn't afford him a lot of benefits, either. Literally all he can do is pull fire toward him. There is only a pull motion, no means of stalling or hovering, and certainly no "push" function. He can't make fire like Kacchan can (or Endeavor, for that matter. When he found out he had a fire quirk he was so excited to be like the Flame Hero, but alas). He doesn't even have a means of extinguishing whatever fire he can collect. And—save for his lips and the inside of his mouth (thanks Dad)—his skin is still as susceptible to burns as everyone else. It made the first few years a nightmare, to put it lightly.

There is some buzz on the forums about how All Might hasn't been seen around the Tokyo area in a few days. A few of his friends are speculating that he has been sent on some kind of covert mission.

ProfessionalYike: is he even capable of being stealthy tho

ProfessionalYike: like come on

ProfessionalYike: this is All Might we're talking about

CrimmsonRiott: yeah but I s2g he's gettin sneakier

CrimmsonRiott: BestJeanass you live in Tokyo when was the last time u saw AM getting his grocieries

BestJeanass: dontf uckn drag me into this uhhhhhh

BestJeanass: oh shit

BestJeanass: come 2 think of it I've never seen him doing mundane shit.

Izuku frowns. He turns another few pages in his notebook (it's almost dry enough) and pulls up YouTube. A quick search later and he's jumping into the chat.

Small_Might: There's tons of videos on YT of him the laundromat or wtv but theyre all 6+ years old

CrimmsonRiott: ayyyy trust deku to know whats up

ProfessionalYike: where does he go, then? He's a fucking mountain he can't hide

Small_Might: idfk m8

BestJeanass: helpful as always

Small_Might: I live to serve

He pockets his phone and stands, stretching until his back pops. The quickly-wrinkling pages of the notebook are still damp, so he opts to just carry it. Izuku loves his tacky yellow backpack, but he doesn't trust it as far as he can throw it.

The path home is familiar. The shortest route happens to cut through a lot of back neighborhoods—the loudest part is through an underpass, for heaven's sake—so it's a perfect, quiet environment. That is, he can talk out loud to himself without bugging anyone. Ideal.

On top of that, he can practically walk it with his eyes closed, so he can't really be blamed for being distracted, can he? He is just so lost in his own head that he doesn't hear the wet slurping sound of something coming through the manhole behind him.

Or, he does hear it, but too little too late.

"You won't mind if I borrow your skin for a little, will you boy?" the thing grins—if it can be called a grin at all. Its mouth drips with dark green slime, and its yellow eyes swim through its gelatinous body.

Izuku turns to run, a scream curdling in his throat. But, as always, it's too little too late. The slime monster is on him before he can make a sound. It lifts him off the ground, thrashing, but his desperate fingers find little purchase in the villain's liquid body.

"This will only hurt for a minute," the villain practically giggles, forcing a liquid tendril down his throat. "And then it will all be over for you!"

Izuku tries to scream above the villain's giddy giggles, but he doesn't have the air, he doesn't— . His vision begins to swim, a black haze creeping around his line of sight. He pulls desperately on his quirk—if the villain is liquid then he will be weak to fire, right? Right?

Nothing comes. He pulls with all his fading strength but nothing comes. The tears already welling in his eyes spill over. He has a fire quirk! A perfect match to a villain like this and he can't even use it, and now he's going to die because of it.

Oh god. He is going to die.

He's going to die, and he never got to tell Mom goodbye. His movements are sluggish. He can't fight much longer. His eyes are unfocused, and he closes them, squeezing out a tearful apology to whoever would miss him.

"Ah! There you are, Villain." Izuku can't quite hear the new voice through the sludge in his ears. There is a yell (from far… far away) and he slips into the waiting arms of unconsciousness.

A wind, stronger than any he's ever felt, whips over his body, ripping the sludge from his lungs, and he gasps, choking and coughing. He doesn't register that he is falling until two strong arms catch him moments before he hits the ground. They set him on his feet, but Izuku still feels hands on his shoulders, keeping him upright and he unconsciously leans into them. He tries to blink the tunnel vision away, his chest still heaving with every breath (he will never take air for granted ever again). Slowly, his vision clears and he looks up from his feet into the face of his savior.

"Are you okay, my boy?"

His brain short-circuits. "All—All Might!" He instinctively throws his hands in front of his chest, and he knows he is gesticulating wildly, but heaven help him All Might is right here. "I'm fine! Well actually I was nearly suffocated by that guy, but you seem to have taken care of him, thank you, by the way. Thank you! I was trying to get out but it wasn't really working and what are you doing here, anyway? You're based in Tokyo! Unless you haven't been seen in Tokyo lately because you've been here? In any case I'm just so glad you showed up." He squeaks as All Might laughs and claps him again on the shoulder.

"A nervous talker, eh?" Izuku nods sheepishly (or as sheepish as he can be, with his eyes still owlishly wide). All Might laughs again and Izuku is going to be hearing that sound for the rest of his life. He'd bottle it up if he could. Play it on repeat in his headphones as he falls asleep. Blast it at Kacchan whenever he comes too close. If only. All Might is talking again and shit Izuku has been so caught up in his own thoughts that he hasn't heard a word of it.

"Well, I'll be off!" All Might grins, lightly smacking the sludge guy, who glares at him from the inside of the two plastic bottles. "Gotta turn this fella into the police, after all."

"Wait!" Izuku snaps out of his daze and tumbles forward, accidentally smacking All Might in the leg with his outstretched hand. The sludge villain glares at him from his tiny plastic prison. "Can I get your autograph?"

"Already done, my boy! Stay out of trouble now!"

"I—I will! Thank you again!" Izuku calls, but All Might has already jumped into the air. The windy backlash catches him full in the face and he stumbles backwards, nearly stepping on his notebook. Sure enough, the open page is covered in All Might's large, distinctive signature. Too bad it's this book, which is going to be permanently warped by water. Maybe it'll add charm.

He doesn't realize that he's trembling until he picks the notebook up and tries to close it. It makes sense. He had just nearly died. That probably isn't going to process for a few more hours. Clutching the notebook to his chest, he sits down with his back to a nearby tree.

Small_Might: ProffesionalYike BestJeanass CrimmsonRiott I found All Might

CrimmsonRiott: you WHA T

ProfessionalYike: Well you can't just leave us with that

Small_Might: eyeah yeah I'm still tryn to process

Small_Might: cuz I almost got killed by this slime guy

Small_Might: but then All Might showed up and saved me

Small_Might: so I'm not dead! And also AM signed my notebook? and I'm 80% he cradled me in his arms but I was kinda dying so im not really sure

CrimmsonRiott: Bro are you okay?

CrimmsonRiott: I can't even - WOW

BestJeanass: that's a fuckin tale if I ever heard one

ProfessionalYike: his strong beefy arms…..what I wouldn't give….

CrimmsonRiot: oi knock it off our boy almost died

Small_Might: yeah have some sympaty

Small_Might: *sympathy. Im still shaking a;slaiasoijaljg

Small_Might: I asked him while he was here and not in Tokyo.

BestJeanass: and?

BestJeanass: I'm dyin here bro wut he doin

Small_Might: I think he answered me but I was too busy being starstruck to hear what he said

Small_Might: sry

CrimmsonRiott: bro its k

ProfessionalYike: Yeah it's not like we expected anything less from you, the ultimate fanboy

BestJeanass: so r we still thinking hes on some covert mission or other?

BestJeanass: do we need to keep this on the ~down low~

Small_Might: ? Mabye? H'es taking slime guy to the police so maybe not?

CrimmsonRiott: well keep us updated bro

CrimmsonRiott: and go take a nap smh u need a cookie my friend

Izuku snorts. He does need a cookie. Or at least, a cookie would be really nice right now. Maybe when he gets home he can bake some before practice? What time is it? He groans and looks at his phone's clock again. He still has time, but he will probably have to enlist his mom's help if he does want cookies before he has to leave.

He isn't shaking nearly so bad now, it will probably be safe to stand up. Aaand he immediately regrets that decision. Bracing his hands on his knees while he waits for the tunnel vision to fade, he feels the familiar tremor return—not to his limbs, but to his core. Like his ribcage is quivering. It isn't a pleasant feeling, and he prays it will fade soon enough.

A large explosive noise crashes into his train of thought and he spins around to find the source. His eyes widen as he sees the plume of dark smoke climbing into the sky. No rest for the wicked, eh? Looks like cookies are going to have to wait.

Clutching his notebook to his chest, he starts to move toward the commotion. His walk turns into a run, and soon he is sprinting into town. The air becomes thicker with smoke the closer he gets, and his still-weak lungs protest, leaving him coughing.

If All Might is in town, maybe he will be here to sort things out? That would be awesome! And even if he doesn't show up there are lots of other heroes in the area that he still could use more notes on (he can always use more notes on everyone).

The actual scene is significantly less under-control than he expected, considering it took him nearly 6 minutes to run there. On top of that, a crowd has already gathered and Izuku is far too short to see anything that is happening. "Excuse me, what's going on?" he asks, hoping to grab the attention of one of the nearby spectators.

Thankfully, someone hears him. "There's some guy with a slime quirk holding a middle schooler hostage. The pros can't get close without hurting the kid, or none of their quirks are effective. Anyhow, we're kinda at a standstill."

A slime quirk? There's another person with one? He fights the panic rising in his throat. "What was the explosion earlier?" If the guy has a slime quirk why is everything on fire?

"The kid he's got has some kind of explosion quirk I think." The guy says, rocking on his feet trying to get a better view. "He's making everything really difficult, actually."

"Th—thanks I've got to, I've got to go," Izuku stammers, scampering away. He skirts the edge of the crowd, blood roaring in his ears. He has to find a way to get in. This is Kacchan, it has to be. They have Kacchan.

The crowd is thinner here, near the wall bordering the alley. Izuku stops near a tall, gaunt man with wild blond hair and jumps, hoping to see past the crowd.

He does.

It isn't something he wanted to see.

Unbidden, tears well in his eyes and he claps his hand over his mouth to stifle the sob that rips through his throat. "No." someone in front of him shifts, and he now has a full view of the dark, mossy green sludge villain with its rolling yellow eyes and its maniacal grin. "No. I thought—he was—All Might—" The villain swirls and moves and strains around the small, thrashing body it holds captive.

If Izuku had been looking, he would have seen the blond man look down at him with something like recognition—and dawning horror—flashing in his eyes. But he isn't looking. He doesn't see how the man grimaces and clutches his side, his grip on the light post tightening until his knuckles go white.

He does see Kacchan's wild eyes searching for something, Izuku doesn't know what. He does know that those eyes met his, and in them he sees fear. Fear is not something he wants to see in his friend's (can he even call Bakugo a friend?) eyes. It is something he has caught glimpses of now and again, but it has been six years since he had seen Kacchan this overcome with fear.

"No no no I have to do something! I have to—" He must have knocked the soda bottles loose when he crashed into All Might asking for his autograph. The second time he's seen Kacchan scared and of course it's his fault again.

"Young man, I don't know what you're thinking, but the pros can handle it." Izuku finally looks up into the skeletal face of the man next to him. The tears brimming in his eyes finally spill over (something the man is not expecting).

"Here watch my bag please I'm sorry I'm so sorry," Izuku says, dropping his bag at the man's feet before turning and sprinting through the crowd toward Kacchan.

He is through the safety line the pros made before he has a chance to think. The strike of each foot against the ground sends reverberations through his body and someone is yelling at him but he can't hear the words over the sound of his own heart in his ears. He spins past a fire before he realizes he has no plan.

Wait.

There are fires here! He nearly sobs in relief. He isn't useless. He can do something.

His quirk (lovingly named "fire pull" by his mother) can only pull fire toward him. There is no power in him to push fire away or direct it, but that doesn't mean he can't trick it. The first time he "propelled" fire anywhere he had been eight years old and it had caused a horrible accident that he regrets to this day. It would be another two years before he had any semblance of control over where he could "throw" the flames. Even now, six years later, he only can really control small amounts of fire with any kind of confidence.

That being said, the amount of fire he is now pulling to himself is no laughing matter. It is no candle flame that he can pull between his fingers to watch it dance. It is not a small handful of fire stolen from one of Kacchan's explosions that he can comfortably spread between his fingers or even slingshot across a room if he wants. This is several bonfires that could consume him if given the chance.

He pulls at all the fires behind him, his quirk tugging until he feels the air behind him get hot. He could probably get the best propulsion if he starts low, so he pulls the fire toward his knees. The fire runs on the ground after him like a blazing trail, licking at his heels and threatening to burn.

"Kacchan!" Izuku is almost close enough to touch the slime villain, and one of its rolling yellow eyes sees him and glares. "Duck!" He stops running and throws his hand in the air toward the slime villain's eyes and what he hopes is its head.

And then he pulls.

More specifically, he yanks the fire toward the very tips of his outstretched fingers. He feels the fire rushing over his back and he ducks his head, muffling a cry of pain when a tendril brushes too close to his neck. Just as the first of the flames reaches his fingers he stops pulling and drops to the ground, rolling away from where the fire, lost in its own swirling momentum, continues upward and tears into the oozing flesh of the sludge monster.

Izuku watches from his position, crouched low to the ground, as the villain howls and Bakugo breaks free from its hold long enough to gasp, and cough, and breathe.

And he almost cries with relief but then it has him again. One of its eyes is rolling dead on the ground as proof that Izuku had done any damage at all, but it wasn't enough. It wasn't enough and now Kacchan is suffocating again and he wasn't enough.

He pushes himself onto shaking feet and reaches again for the fire but it's all wrong. It's all in the wrong directions and if he pulls it to him now he'll hit Kacchan. He has to move, get to another side and somehow get enough momentum to push that much fire at the villain again.

His limbs are heavy. He forces himself to take a step, to move to another place in the alley where he can get some kind of advantage.

Thick, cold tendrils of slime wrap around his wrists and ankles, locking him into place and dragging him toward the swirling mass of sludge. Distantly, he hears himself scream. He's still in the wrong place—the fire would hit Kacchan. He would just as soon hurt him as he would the sludge villain and he can't. Not again.

Izuku's fingers rake uselessly through the slime as he tries to claw himself free. It's no use. All the work All Might had done to save him, and here he is getting himself and his classmate killed by the very same villain.

Suddenly All Might is there and he yells something that Izuku doesn't quite hear and then all he can feel is the wind as it rips through his hair and around his skin.

…

"That was a really stupid thing you did. You could have gotten seriously hurt."

Izuku nods and tugs the blanket he was given tighter around himself. His legs kick absently from where he sits in the back of an ambulance. Kacchan is being fussed over by a small team of paramedics across the way. There's burn cream and gauze on the burn on his neck, but other than that Izuku wasn't seriously injured so here he is, being scolded by a man in a tan trench coat with short, dark hair.

"And I don't want to scold you too much because the whole thing must have been traumatizing, especially with what All Might told us." The man sighs. "But that was still horribly reckless. And we're all immensely grateful to you."

Izuku looks up sharply, his mouth hanging slightly agape. He starts to splutter something, but the man laughs and cuts him off.

"Don't look so surprised. If you hadn't stepped in, your friend would probably be in significantly worse condition." He gestures to where Kacchan is sitting. "I'm not saying it was a smart, or hell, even legal, thing to do, but for what it's worth, we're glad you did it." Izuku looks down at his feet again and the man pats him lightly on the shoulder. "Just take better care of yourself in the future, okay?"

Izuku nods and almost misses when All Might, of all people, walks up to him.

"Tsukauchi!" he isn't quite yelling, but Izuku is quickly realizing that All Might's default voice is pretty close to a yell. "I hope you have not been scolding the boy too much."

The man—Tsukauchi—forces a laugh, and Izuku misses the worried glance he throws in All Might's direction. "Not as much as I expect his mother will."

Izuku groans and buries his face in his hands. His mother is going to be so worried about him.

"My boy," All Might says, and Izuku looks up, realizing his idol is talking to him for the second time that day. "We've met twice now under less than ideal circumstances and I haven't had the chance to learn your name."

"M—Midoriya." His voice is shaking something awful, and isn't that just the best possible impression he could make. "Midoriya Izuku."

"Midoriya, my boy, for what it's worth I think you could make a great hero."

(A/N) I'm trying my hand at a series rewrite fic! hit me up on Tumblr i'm fullmetalhearts