Chapter Text
“How do you feel about kids?” Like usual on the way to middle school, Izuku is having a wonderful conversation with his twin brother Mikumo.
“Hmm,” the red-eyed teen mulls it over a bit before giving a shrug. “I don’t really know. I mean, they’re okay. Like if I saw one I wouldn’t throw a rock at it.”
“Why would you throw a rock at a child?” Izuku squawks.
“Hey, I just said I wouldn’t.” Mikumo huffs before looking away. He notices someone walking on the other side of the street and immediately retracts his statement. Because there is definitely one person he would throw rocks at if they were a child, and that person is indeed Katsuki Bakugou.
Katsuki Bakugou: fellow classmate and local asshole. He’s always kind of been that way since the twins have known him, which has been quite a while, but it wasn’t appropriate for small children to say that at the time, so they had to use words like ‘jerk’ and ‘poo-poo head’ instead.
Anyways, that’s old news. Word on the street now points to Katsuki tailing the twins wherever they go to uncover why they were beefing up and who the hell was feeding Deku steroids, holy shit.
And no, Katsuki was NOT intimidated by this new development that may threaten his chance of being the only one to get into U.A. from this dump of a middle school. Deku was a quirkless crybaby who couldn’t do jackshit with how useless he was, and his emo brother was wannabe villain trash. Extras that shouldn’t be worth his time, except that’s not what happened. There has always been something off about them. Something that crawls under Katsuki’s skin and rattles his brain and pisses him off.
Like yesterday.
“Hey old man,” Katsuki calls to his dad in one the rare quite hours of the Bakugou household. “What are they up to?”
“Hmm?” Marsu looks over his magazine. His son has paused his homework in favor of staring out the window, pointing to two kids outside. It’s the Midoyira twins kicking a soccer ball across the street. “They’re just playing, Katsuki.”
“Hah?”
“They’re playing.” Marsu resists the urge to sigh. His son has always been ridiculously suspicious about those twins for who knows what reasons. Marsu has met them plenty of times, and they seem like good kids.
“Tch,” Katsuki turns back to the window, narrowing his eyes at the sight of them laughing and playing. “I don’t know about that.”
See? Shady as fuck.
So Katsuki had no other choice but to try and find out what they’ve been up to recently and obliterate it for the sake of humanity or whatever.
(Key word: try.)
Two months and three days later, Katsuki still has no idea what the hell the twins are up to.
No matter how fast he runs or how close he is, they escape. He’s been sneaky as hell, one time resorting to jumping from rooftops to follow them miles away, yet they always catch wind of him. Even direct confirmation with them ends in disaster.
There! Katsuki lands on an apartment building when he spots two rat’s nest of green and black hair existing out of an alleyway. He had lost sight of the twins when they turned into a busy crowd, but now here they were, this time carrying boxes. Where did they get them from? Was it drugs? That would explain how they bulked up a bit and how Deku seemed completely zoned out some days. A quick peek into the alleyway revealed no dealer slinking off, but he could find the scumbag later. Right now he had to grab the evidence from these punkass nerds to reveal their dirty little secret.
Quick as lighting, Katsuki shoots down to them with a grin. He can’t wait for the pathetic looks on their faces when they get expelled!
“What are you extras hiding?” With a slash and small explosion, the boxes are blown open.
Big mistake.
Its not drugs. Its not books, groceries, or even a box full of kittens. It’s a fuckton of Roombas-armed with knives, guns, tasers, a blow torch, wads of chewed bubble gum, razors, and other deadly weapons to cause mass destruction. Which they waste no time in doing, especially on Katsuki.
“What the hell Katsuki?” Mikumo exclaims while chasing a Roomba with an initiated time bomb strapped on it’s back, as if this was all Katsuki’s fault.
“Shut the hell up! I’m not the one going around carrying fucking death machines!” The blonde growls back as he wrestled a chainsaw wielding Roomba. “Why the hell do you have these things in the first place?”
“They were abandoned on the side of the street!” Izuku cries with watering eyes, breaking his soothing coos to one Roomba that was repeatedly crashing into him while screaming profanities with each run-in. “ We couldn’t just leave them! What if they don’t find a home?” Clearly Deku was more upset of the thought these ‘free Doombas’ would be unloved and without a family than of the fact that his ankles were being hammered-attacked by the profanity screaming Roomba.
In the end, they all found loving homes for the Doombas. Katsuki kept none of them. The twins adopted six.
Three months into his search and with no headway, Katsuki added a different tactic.
Information gathering.
It was stupidly easy to nab Deku’s phone one day in class. All he had to do was find a reclusive spot behind the lockers during lunch and type in his password (All Might related of course, the fucking nerd). The text messages prove fruitless, so he opens up the gallery and clicks on the first video.
“So the boys had to go the dentist today. It was quite the adventure,” Hisashi’s voice begins at the start of the video. He appears to be driving, but spares an amused smirk at the camera. “They got to experience the wonderful effects of nitrous oxide for the first time.” The camera swivels around.
Buckled in the back of a car are the twins, except they look eight years old and one of them is sobbing like a little bitch. Surprisingly, its not Deku. The camera blurs as it zooms in and refocus back on Mikumo’s ugly face.
“What’s wrong, sweetie?” Auntie Inko’s voice rings out somewhere behind the camera, holding a hint of suppressed laughter.
Mikumo’s response is to cry even harder. “H-how c-c-can ‘birthday c-cake” be a fl-flavor, if birthday cake can be a-ANY FLAVOR!” His wails reach a crescendo on the last words, with fresh new tears and snot dripping done his face. Izuku reaches over and pats his brother’s head.
“Don’t cry! Don’t cry! Guess what Yami?”
A sniffle. “What?”
Deku slaps his hands on his own cheeks. “My mouth taste like teeth!”
“Mine does too!” The adults’ laughter in the background is ignored by a now very excited Yami, who also appeared to be vibrating. “And guess what Izu? Guess what?”
“What?”
“Sharks are hatched with the knowledge that I am delicious and it’s their life goal to eat me!”
“That’s great!” A burst of giggles bubbles out of Deku. His twin joins in like a fucking idiot.
“Thanks!”
They giggle there for a good minute before Deku rolls his head over to his old man.
“Dad, Dad, guess how old you are?” Holy shit, with how fast Deku was rocking back and forth in the video, its no wonder he has fucking brain damage.
“How old am I, Izuku?” Hisashi plays along.
“231 years old!”
The camera jerks violently when the car unexpectedly pivots to the side, and Auntie Inko yells ‘Hisashi, eyes on the road!” before the video cuts off.
“What a waste of time,” Katsuki grumbles as if he didn’t just spend a few minutes watching a whole video from six years ago. “Who the hell sorts their gallery from oldest to newest?”
Scrolling down to the more recent months only shows two videos were made. He starts the first one and sees it’s Izuku’s idiotic brother recording this time.
“And here, you can see the endangered Izuku in his natural habitat.” Mikumo drawls in a piss-poor Australian accent before switching the camera from his deadpan expression to a pajama-clad Izuku, unaware that his phone was stolen by his brother and he was being recorded shuffling down the stairs with a bowl of cereals in his hands. Between a huge yawn he misjudges the steps and goes tumbling with a shriek. Milk and grains flies everywhere as he clatter and crashes down the stairway in an almost cartoonish cartwheel before hitting the wall with a loud thump. Mikumo, impassive as ever, flips the camera back to himself.
“Natural selection is coming for this specimen.”
Katsuki clicks the next last video.
This time it’s Izuku recording, as familiar red shoes walk over to a closed bedroom door.
“Yami?” Hesitantly, Izuku opens the door to reveal a towering pile of cute stuffed animals flooding the room. Engulfed face down in the center of the fuzzy pile was the twin in question. “Are you okay?”
“I’m having me time,” came a suffocated reply from Yami whilst sinking deeper into the plush. The video shut off.
Useless. Nothing here proved what Katsuki needed to find. But there was one last place to look: the call history.
“Mom, mom, mom, Yami, Mom…hah!” There was a call to someone labeled ‘Dad Might ★☆★ᕙ(`▿´)ᕗ★☆★’ a week ago. Scrolling down showed he was also called in the last few months. Grinning, Katsuki hits the call button.
His phone began vibrating.
Katsuki froze.
He reached into his pocket and pulled out his phone. An unknown number was calling. Just a coincidence. He rejected the call.
Izuku’s phone was abruptly sent to voicemail.
Okay, that was coincidental too.
He called the number on Izuku’s phone again. His own phone rang again.
He ended the call on Izuku’s and his phone’s vibrations dropped.
Suspicious now, Katsuki checked the number under Dad Might. The number was different from his own cell. For good measure, he blocked the unknown number on his phone before calling Dad Might on Izuku’s phone again.
As soon as he hit the call button his own phone began to vibrate, showing an incoming call from a different unknown number.
“What the fuck.”
He hung up and, after making sure the number listed does not match his own, calls ‘Yami ꒰๑*｡̀ ̫ ｡́ *꒱*›w‹)꒱’
Another call from an unknown number pops up. Katsuki smashes the accept call button. “WHAT THE FUCK?”
“WHAT THE FUCK?” his own voice screams back from Izuku’s phone.
“Oh, Kacchan! You found my phone!”
Katsuki whips his head around and sees Izuku approaching him, his brother following behind. Izuku snatches his lost phone out of Katsuki’s twitching hand and sends a brilliant smile. “Thank you so much! I’ve been looking everywhere for it! I didn’t even noticed it was missing until Yami couldn’t find his phone and asked me to find it.” Mikumo nodded.
“Speaking of, can you call mine?”
“Oh, right.” Izuku calls ‘Yami ꒰๑*｡̀ ̫ ｡́ *꒱*›w‹)꒱’ and Katsuki looks down at his own cell for the incoming call. It never comes. Instead, the voice of Izuku stating ‘Sea bass are illegal’ rings out somewhere above their heads.
“Ah,” Mikumo snaps his fingers. “I forgot I was on top the lockers earlier today.”
If there was the slightest wonder of why Mikumo was on top of the lockers in the first place, Katsuki didn’t care. He is beyond care at the moment. He also is beyond words.
Katsuki’s phone it hurtled to the ground with a sounding crack, drowned out from his screams of rage. Izuku jumps back in fright.
“Eh? Kacchan, what’s wrong?”
“You’re phone! Unknown calls!” Katsuki howls. Eyes red as coal burn into the green haired teen. “What. Are. You. Playing. At?”
“Wh-what?”
“Ignore him,” Mikumo jumps down from the lockers and steers his confused brother away from the scene, shooting an icy glare at the frothing blonde. “He’s just throwing a little bitchfit, as usual.”
“I’ll throw you out the fucking window!”
“See?” Mikumo continues since the blonde was so generous to prove his point. “Now let’s go eat before the bell rings. Oh, and Katsuki?” He tosses one last dirty look over his shoulders before they round the corner. “Your phone is ringing.”
Katsuki looks down at his phone. The fizzling screen shows here is an incoming call from his own cell phone number.
Explosions rip into the air.
Needless to say, Katsuki requires a new phone by the end of the day.
“Did you know?” Like usual on the twins’ walk to All Might’s training, Izuku fills the conversation while Mikumo listens. “Humans are deuterostomes, which means that when they develop in the womb, the anus forms before any other opening.”
“This means that at one point, you were nothing but an asshole.” Mikumo responds with a grin, which immediately drops when he glares at some bushes in a park they just passed by. “And some people never develop beyond that stage. Or know when to stop butting into other people’s business. Isn’t that right, Katsuki?”
“Fuck you,” Katsuki’s head pops out of the bushes now that his cover’s blown. “And I would have gotten away with it too, if it weren’t for you meddling bitch and your dumb Deku too!”
The twins watch the grumbling blonde stalk off with leaves in his hair before continuing their merry way.
“Kacchan is getting more desperate each day.” Izuku hums idly as he text All Might that they were a few minutes away. “Just yesterday, he held up a playground I was passing and challenged me to a card game for some answers.” Mikumo raises an eyebrow.
“And?”
“He didn’t believe in the heart of the cards.”
They’re almost at the beach when Izuku speaks up again.
“I honestly feel bad for Kacchan. He’s been following us for about four months now.”
“I don’t.”
“Of course you don’t,” Izuku snorts, but the humor wanes quickly. “Kacchan is one of the most stubborn people I know. He won’t give up until he finds out and he’s getting close.” Mikumo gives him a sidelong look.
“You’re saying we should throw him a bone.”
“It would get him off our backs,” Izuku admits. “But we can’t let him know that we are, of course! Kacchan is too smart and would definitely-“
“pick up what we’re planning, I know.” Yami finishes with a nod. “He won’t believe anything unless we stroke that inflated ego of his. What do you got in mind?”
Izuku pulls out his notebook.
“Hah?! This is what you idiots have been hiding for over four months now?” A fucking Pokemon gym ?”
“Kacchan!” Izuku yelps, nearly dropping his hammer off the roof of said gym building. Mikumo pokes his head out one of the windows to see what the commotion was. “What are you doing here?”
“Finding out that you guys are bigger nerds than I thought. Not surprised,” Katsuki snarks out, which is a total lie. He had started following them after school like usual, but he got bored waiting for them to leave a mall and started playing Pokemon GO. After a while of walking around catching some monsters he saw a Team Instinct gym on the map and here he was. On a small cliffside overlooking a beach.
The blonde strolled in the building and if was impressed by the integrity of the design or the complexity of the challenger’s pathway, he didn’t say. His shoes echoed across the rocky terrain as he made his way to one of the lifts above a man-made pool, watching sparks reflect rainbows across the saltwater as they zig-zagged from metal beam to metal beam all around him. “Where the hell did you find all this stuff anyways? The dumpster?”
“Pretty much,” Mikumo shrugged from the second floor where he was hanging a massive framed painting of a surprised Pikachu face. He jabbed his thumb towards a window. It viewed the waves gently lapping against sand and piles of trash scattered around. “The beach over there is covered in junk, so we recycled most of it to build ourselves a proper gym worthy for Team Instinct. Not like you Valor folks would understand.”
“Oh, we understand plenty,” Katsuki smiled. Because now it made sense why the twins had bulked up, and why they kept it a secret. They spent all this hard work building this place and they knew if Katsuki found out, they would lose it all pathetically to him. “Thanks for maintaining the place. The interior décor could use some work, but I can fix that once I crush you losers. Using you’re blood to repaint this place in Valor’s colors sounds like a good start.”
“And spill blood in my Valentino white bag?” The black-haired twin scoffs, offended. “Not a chance.”
“Though we could use some head mounts to spice up the place,” The hairs on the back of his neck shot up and Katsuki turned to face most crusty ass face he had ever seen. Red eyes glinted at him between the greasy gleam of snow blue hair. Like Katsuki was the newest plaything for him to toy with until it broke. “I’m thinking somewhere at the entrance or the battle stadium. What do think, Yami?”
As if Katsuki would let him! He didn’t know this guy, and he didn’t care to know either. “Eat shit and die, creep. I’ll take all you extras on!”
“Hey, watch your fucking language,” Mikumo snaps. “This is Christian Minecraft server, you filthy cretin.”
“And a murder-free establishment!” Izuku adds as he runs up to the group. “I just put up the sign, Shigaraki. So let’s just please battle Kacchan with our Pokemon and not do something illegal. I really don’t want to go back to jail again.” Crusty rolls his eyes but nods, pulling out his phone. So he added his Pokemon to the gym team, alright. That didn’t explain that last sentence Izuku said.
“The hell did you go to jail for?”
The green-haired twin sweats nervously, thinking back to the time he almost went back.
“I-I was- I, uh…”
“Wow, look at the buns on that guy,” Izuku points out to his brother at the grocery store what looks to be the aftermath of a customer that got into a fight with the bread aisle, and the aisle won. The man was now lying face down on the tile, smothered in hamburger buns. Mikumo takes one look and bursts into laughter.
“You’re under arrest!” In a flash, another customer nearby approaches the scene, flashing out a badge to the twins. “This is the comedy police. The joke was too funny!”
Izuku pulls out a gun. “I’m not going back to jail!”
“I-It’s not important, Kacchan. Let’s get ready to battle.”
Katsuki walked away from the beach not with the blood of his enemies but the utter defeat staining his soul (in truth is was a very close match, but a loss is still a loss to Katsuki). Still, there is weight lifted off his chest. After months of following the twins, he finally found out their little secret. A secret that was not worth four months of his time, but winning that gym from them would be a nice consolation prize.
And tomorrow, that prize will be his.
(Spoiler alert: He doesn’t win the gym.)