Chapter Text
Katsuki’s first sign that the day was going downhill was when he nearly bumped into fucking Deku on the way home from school.
“K-Kacchan!” Deku exclaimed. He darted a look backwards as considering trying to turn and run back down the street that had intersected Katsuki’s path, but instead he held his ground.
“What do you want, you shitty Deku?” Katsuki said, putting all the disdain he could muster into the name.
“N-nothing, Kacchan!” Deku stuttered. “I was just walking home, I-”
He was hiding something behind his back. Katsuki darted forwards and grabbed it, ripping it out of Deku’s hands and shoving him away.
“Wait!”
Katsuki looked down. It was one of the nerd’s notebooks, with Hero Analysis for the Future, No. 13 written across the front. Katsuki sneered.
“What, a new one? Why do you still bother with this stupid crap?”
Deku swallowed. “I mean, we’re in our last year of middle school, right? The more I study existing hero tactics the more ready I’ll be for UA’s-”
Katsuki’s temper flared white-hot. He threw the notebook to the ground and shoved Deku into the wall with one forearm, getting in the damn nerd’s face.
“Let’s make one thing clear, Deku. I’m going to UA. You are not going to UA, you are not even going to try to get into UA. You’re not anywhere near my level so don’t even think about it!” He held his hand close to Deku’s face and released a few pops, just to drive his point home.
The nerd’s quiet whimpers were gratifying. He really was just a worm to be crushed, a pathetic little weakling who had the gall to think he was better than Katsuki. It was time he learned his place.
“Are we interrupting something?” a sardonic voice said.
Katsuki looked up in surprise and saw that he and Deku were surrounded by a group of adults- five of them, all standing in a semi-circle around the two middle schoolers. One was massive and looked like he was made of living rock, one looked vaguely reptilian, and the other three didn’t have visible mutations but were equipped like they were prepared for a fight.
“What the fuck do you want?” Katsuki said, still holding Deku against the wall.
The person who had spoken before- a woman with white hair that seemed almost luminous- smiled invitingly.
“We’re a group of heroes. There’s a threat in the area, and we want to take you to safety.”
Katsuki exchanged a look with Deku, then released him and turned to face the people behind them. He could tell the nerd didn’t believe this group’s bullshit any more than he did.
“Show us your hero licenses,” Deku said, his voice shaking.
Several of the group members laughed. Lightbulb Hair stepped forwards and spread her hands as if in surrender, smirking.
“Oops, looks like you caught us. Let me be straight with you, then: come with us, and no one has to get hurt.”
Katsuki shrugged off his backpack and held his hands out palms forward, releasing some crackles as a warning.
“Back the fuck off!”
Lightbulb Hair just sneered.
“I would come willingly if I were you,” she said. “It’s going to hurt less if you do, and the end result will be the same.”
Kastuki bared his teeth. “As if you could touch me, fuckers!”
He let out a blast from his hands, blowing two of the villains backwards. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Deku slip off his backpack and club one of the villains in the face with it in the same motion, making an opening to flee through. Then Katsuki lost track of Deku as he focused on defending himself from the several villains coming at him.
Avoid and evade, Katsuki reminded himself. He wasn’t strong enough yet to defeat all of these people at once, as much as it rankled him to admit. But he was strong enough to shoot himself into the air, and he’d been practicing his trajectories in early preparation for UA’s entrance exam.
Katsuki let out a blast that flipped him into the air and over the head of the charging rock villain, then aimed another one diagonally to simultaneously hit the villain and change direction to avoid another attack. The world narrowed down to the rhythm of the fight: dodge, blast, adjust, dodge. Katsuki felt his face break into a grin of exhilaration. These extras should have known better than to mess with the future number one hero of Japan!
“Stop, unless you want your friend here to bleed all over his uniform,” someone called.
Katsuki turned and saw that the one of the villains had Deku pulled flush against his chest, a large knife held to the nerd’s throat.
Their eyes met. Deku’s were wide with fear and glistened with unshed tears. He mouthed, I’m sorry.
For a moment, Katsuki hesitated. Whatever these villains wanted with him and Deku, it couldn’t be anything good. Maybe if he launched himself forwards, he’d have a chance to get to them before-
Knife Nut pushed the blade inwards, creating a line of red on Deku’s throat. Deku cried out.
“Stop!” Katsuki shouted.
He went to hold his hands up in surrender, then thought better of it and instead held them out loosely with his palms down, the most nonthreatening position he could think of.
Rock-for-Brains came forwards with a pair of cuffs, the kind designed to fully cover the hands and neutralize offensive quirks. He advanced slowly, as if expecting Katsuki to suddenly bring his hands up to attack, but Katsuki just looked away, desperately keeping a hold on his impulse to do just that. He couldn’t afford to risk it, not when Deku’s life hung in the balance.
The cuffs closed over his hands with a soft click. Katsuki spat across Rock-For-Brain’s face, making the brute recoil in disgust.
There was a sudden impact against Katsuki’s head and he felt a flare of pain, followed by another as his head and shoulder collided with a hard surface. Katsuki tasted blood, and it took him a moment to realize he was on the ground, the side of his face throbbing from Rock-for-Brains’s slap.
“Little shit,” the villain swore. Katsuki felt a jab of pain as a boot connected with his ribs, and he grunted, determined not to give them the satisfaction of crying out. Somewhere above him, Deku was sobbing his name.
“Enough,” Lightbulb Hair’s voice broke in. “We want him intact. Let’s go, before one of this time’s heroes finds us.”
Something about that wording seemed strange, but Katsuki’s head was still ringing from the blow too much to parse it. A hand grabbed him roughly by the elbow, yanking him upwards.
“Bastards,” Katsuki grated out, “I’ll kill you!”
“Initiating the jump now,” Lightbulb Hair said. The group of villains all grabbed onto one another, Rock-for-Brains still holding Katsuki by one arm, as an orb of light formed within Lightbulb Hair’s free hand.
Katsuki panted, “What is this, group hug ti-”
He cut off when he saw the orb growing. Katsuki started to struggle, trying to pull away and stay out of the light, but the villain jerked his arm hard and pulled him back.
Katsuki’s entire world turned white, and he knew no more.
Izuku woke slowly. He groaned in discomfort- wherever he’d fallen asleep was cold and hard. He opened his eyes and started as he saw Kacchan’s battered face staring down at him.
“Kacchan, what-“
“Shut up,” Kacchan hissed, looking off to the side.
The situation came rushing back, and Izuku sat up quickly enough to almost knock heads with Kacchan, earning a “watch it!” from his classmate.
They were in an unfurnished stone cell with thick iron bars closing them off from the other half of the small chamber. Kacchan still had his cuffs on, but Izuku had no other restraints. They probably think I don’t need them, he thought ruefully. And they’re probably right.
Standing on the other side of the bars were two people: the woman who had brought them here, and a large blue-haired man dressed stylishly in black.
“So?” the woman said. “They’re both awake now. What do you think?”
The man stepped forwards and looked Izuku up and down. His gaze was like that of a car dealer looking over the latest model, and Izuku found himself shifting in discomfort.
“I think,” the man said finally, “that we’re going to have people killing each other over the right to claim these two. This is spectacular, Leaper. We’re going to destabilize the entire hero industry and set ourselves for life while we’re at it.”
Izuku stared, not sure he was hearing the man correctly. People fighting for them? Destabilize the hero industry? They were just a couple of middle schoolers!
The man looked back and forth between Izuku and Kacchan, and a sadistic grin stretched across his face.
“I’m going to take great pleasure in this” he said. “Rest while you can- tomorrow’s not going to be pleasant.”
As both villains turned and walked out, Kacchan leapt up and slammed his cuffs into the bars with a loud clang.
“YEAH, YOU’D BETTER RUN, YOU BASTARDS! TOUCH ME AGAIN AND I’LL KILL YOU!”
The steel door to the chamber slammed shut with a terrible finality, followed by the distinct sound of a lock clicking into place.
There was a thump, and Izuku turned and saw that Kacchan had half-collapsed into a seating position, his head hanging down.
Heart in his throat, Izuku ran over to inspect the other boy.
“Kacchan, are you okay? You got hit really hard.”
One side of Kacchan’s face was starting to bruise a deep purple and his eyes were clouded with pain, but he still managed to give Izuku an impressive glare.
“Get the hell away from me, Deku! I don’t need your pity!"
Izuku bit his lip. “But Kacchan, you’re hurt...”
“And whose fucking fault is that, huh?” Kacchan yelled, his voice cracking. “If it weren’t for you, we wouldn’t even be in this mess! I had everything handled before you had to go and get caught like the pathetic loser you are!”
It would have hurt less if Kacchan had blasted Izuku directly in the face, because for once he was absolutely right. Izuku said he wanted to be a hero, but the first time he’d faced any real danger he’d been nothing more than a liability. Now Kacchan was hurt and they were both trapped in this cell with little hope of escape. How could Izuku become someone who saved others with a smile when he couldn’t even save himself?
“I’m sorry,” Izuku whispered.
Kacchan sighed and shifted so that he was leaning against the wall, his back to Izuku.
“Just leave me alone.”
Izuku wasn’t sure he’d ever heard Kacchan sound so subdued. It was because this was the end, he realized. He and Kacchan were going to die here, and no one, not even Mom, would ever know what had happened to them.
Izuku curled up in the corner, buried his face in his knees and tried not to let Kacchan hear him cry.
Izuku didn’t know how long he spent in that featureless cell. It felt like a long time, but after a while the moments began to blur, endlessly bleeding into one another as he and Kacchan awaited their fate. Eventually Izuku was brought out of his haze by a new sound, a sound that made him sit up and strain his ears for more. Was that... voices?
The voices grew louder, and soon they were accompanied by booms and screams. Izuku’s heart pounded as the stirrings of hope rekindled in his chest. Could it be...?
Izuku and Kacchan both ducked as the wall in front of them blasted apart, sending bits of debris flying everywhere. A figure stepped through the hole, and Izuku heard Kacchan gasp as they became visible.
The hero, who was wearing a black, orange and green costume that showed off his heavily muscled arms, looked strikingly familiar. His grenade-shaped gauntlets and explosion-styled headdress would have made his quirk obvious even if they hadn’t just had a clear demonstration, but what truly gave away the hero’s identity were his shock of spiky ash-blond hair and the red eyes that burned out from his mask with a familiar intensity.
The adult version of Kacchan stopped short as he realized just who was in the room.
“Fuck.”
Another hero stepped in after him, a woman with dark purple hair and earlobes that dangled down to her shoulders. Her eyes widened as she saw them.
“What the hell,” she breathed.
Adult Kacchan had already stridden forward and was inspecting the cage, conspicuously not looking at Izuku or at his own younger twin.
“Oi, Ears,” Adult Kacchan said, “Go tell that idiot that we need him to break these damn bars. I don’t want to blow it and risk hitting them with shrapnel.”
The other hero- Ears? -blinked as if coming out of a stupor.
“Uh, right,” she said. She stared at them for a moment longer and then disappeared back through the hole in the wall.
Kacchan was staring up at the hero in unabashed wonder. With a painful burst of nostalgia, Izuku realized it was the same expression he used to wear when they would watch videos about All Might together.
“Are you-” Kacchan breathed.
Adult Kacchan turned and looked at them, his eyes narrowed and body tense.
“What year is it?”
“What?” Kacchan said.
Izuku rattled off the date. “Are you asking because you’re a time traveler? That would make sense given your clear similarities to Kacchan. It’s not out of the realm of possibility that someone else could have a quirk like Kacchan’s but given that Explosion is a unique and powerful mix of his parents’ quirks it would be extremely unlikely, plus there is the clear physical resemblance to consider. It would make sense for time travelers to want to kill Kacchan if he grows to become a hero, but why would-”
“Shut up, Deku!” Kacchan yelled. “Do you ever stop-”
“It was a valid question,” Adult Kacchan cut in, a dangerous edge to his voice. His expression was unreadable as he turned to address Izuku. “The date you just gave me is ten years in the past. I’m not the time traveler here- you two are.”
Izuku breathed in sharply and Kacchan let out a strangled curse. Adult Kacchan growled deep in his throat and turned away, his posture still betraying clear discomfort. Izuku would expect a Kacchan who had achieved his dream of becoming a hero to be confident, even arrogant, but right now he seemed to want nothing more than to leave the room.
“And you’re right,” the hero said after a moment. “I am Bakugou Katsuki.”
A thrill ran down Izuku’s spine. He’d surmised as much, but to hear it spoken out loud made it more real, somehow. They really were ten years in the future, being rescued by a hero who was none other than Kacchan himself.
Izuku was opening his mouth to ask more questions when another hero stepped through the hole in the wall. This hero was slightly shorter than Adult Kacchan but similarly well-muscled. He was dressed in a green jumpsuit with red, white and black accents, including reinforced red shoes. A bunny-eared hood was pulled up and over his head, obscuring his hair as well as his face down to just below the cheekbones. The way the hood’s ears perked up reminded Izuku of All Might, and he felt some tension drain out of him at the sight.
Adult Kacchan looked at the green hero and said, “Really?”
“I don’t want to risk it,” the hero said.
Adult Kacchan huffed and jerked his head towards the cage.
“Well get going, dumbass. I don’t want to stay in this dump any longer than I have to.”
The green hero stepped forward and gave Izuku and Kacchan a bright smile. Izuku saw that his eyes were a deep emerald, round and earnest. They looked strikingly like Mom’s, and Izuku struggled not to tear up at the sight. He hoped Mom was okay, and that she wasn’t too worried about him.
“It’s going to be alright,” the green hero said, as if sensing Izuku’s distress. “We’re here now.”
The hero gripped two of the bars. Green lightning flickered around his body as he heaved, and the bars bent with a shriek of metal until there was a sizeable gap. He helped Izuku out through the hole, then held a hand out for Kacchan, who stubbornly ignored it and clambered through by himself. The green hero took Kacchan’s cuffs and ripped them in half, freeing his hands.
Izuku would normally have been excited to see such a strong quirk in action, but this time he felt his heart sink. For a moment he’d looked at the green eyes, the red shoes, and thought... But this hero had a quirk, and a powerful one at that. And Izuku had given up on that hope a long time ago.
The green hero turned to Adult Kacchan.
“I neutralized Leaper and a few of her comrades. There weren’t as many as we were expecting, though- I think she sent a number of them through time to evade us.”
“Dammit!” Adult Kacchan yelled. “That puts us back at square fucking one!”
“I know,” the green hero said, hands up in a mollifying gesture. “We’ll deal with it as it comes. For now, let’s just focus on finishing this up.”
“Fine,” Adult Kacchan said, looking annoyed but not pressing the issue. Izuku found himself mildly surprised that Adult Kacchan wasn’t yelling at or blaming the green hero for failing to capture the rest of the villains. Then again, maybe he only treated Izuku like that.
The green hero turned and smiled again, his eyes warm and comforting. “Let’s get you two out of here.”
The two heroes led them through a series of corridors and then Izuku found himself blinded as he stepped outside and was hit with the light of day. When his vision cleared, he saw that they were on a mostly deserted city street, the lighting indicating that it was early evening. Ears was speaking with a small group of police a ways away, some of whom were rounding up the captured villains into a prison van.
“Sit over here and wait, okay?” the green hero said, gesturing to a nearby bench. “There are medics who will see to you.”
He looked pointedly at Kacchan, whose face was starkly purple in the daylight.
Kacchan scowled back. “I don’t need anyone’s help!”
“Uh-huh,” the green hero said. “Detective Tsukauchi may also come over to collect eyewitness accounts. I’ve got to go speak with the others, but don’t worry- you’re perfectly safe here.”
He walked off, leaving Kacchan shouting indignantly about being ignored. Like the green hero had said, after a few minutes a medic came over and used their quirk to heal Kacchan, who had bruised ribs and a concussion, and then Izuku, whose neck would otherwise have required stitches.
After the medic was done and Izuku had thanked them profusely, a middle aged man in a tan coat and hat came forward.
“Are you Detective Tsukauchi?” Izuku asked.
The man nodded. “Could you describe what happened?”
Izuku went through the story of being kidnapped, including the villains’ descriptions and the strange white light. The detective nodded, occasionally asking clarifying questions but otherwise just listening.
“Could you repeat for me what the man said after you woke up?” the detective said, jotting down Izuku’s statements in his notebook.
Izuku hesitated. He looked at Kacchan, who didn’t appear to be paying them any attention, staring instead at his adult self who was deep in conversation with the green hero.
Izuku looked back at Detective Tsukauchi. “It was something about how they were going to destabilize the heroes, and make themselves rich in the process. Is it because Kacchan is going to become a hero, and they want to take him out before that can happen?”
“Most likely,” the detective said. “The villains who captured you are known human traffickers. I imagine that many parties would pay handsomely to get their hands on a younger version of Bakugou Katsuki, and removing him from history would have a profoundly negative impact on the timeline.”
Izuku shivered. Kacchan was amazing, Izuku had always known that, but to think that people wanted to hurt him for it before he was even ready to face them? That was terrifying.
“Don’t worry,” the detective said. “You’re in good hands.”
Izuku took a deep breath. “And w-what would they want with me?” Could I be a hero in this time, too?
The detective looked at him seriously. “I think answering that question is up to the heroes who rescued you.”
Izuku nodded, feeling a pit open up in his stomach. He couldn’t think of any reason for the detective not to tell him if his future self was a hero, not right after he’d been so open about Kacchan. If Izuku was being honest with himself, he knew he was probably there as collateral, someone to threaten to ensure Kacchan’s compliance. It was how they’d gotten their hands on Kacchan in the first place, after all.
As if on cue, Adult Kacchan came over. “You done?”
The detective nodded.
“Good. We’re taking them to my agency since we don’t want to attract too much attention. It should be empty around this time; I don’t have any idiot sidekicks like some people.” He shot a look over at the green hero, who just smiled back.
“We’re taking my car,” Ears said. “It’s parked a few blocks away.”
“You came here in a car?” Kacchan said incredulously.
Ears crossed her arms. “What? Some of us can’t fly.”
Kacchan dashed for the car’s passenger seat but Adult Kacchan beat him to it, slipping in and locking the door behind him. Kacchan scowled and climbed into the farthest seat in the back.
Izuku hesitated at the car door. The idea of sitting next to Kacchan made his stomach do flips, but he doubted any of the adult heroes would be willing to-
The green hero slipped past him and sat in the middle, ignoring Kacchan’s loud protests at the space he was taking up. He turned and gave Izuku another warm smile.
“You getting in?”
Izuku slid in next to the green hero and gave him a quick, relieved glance. It was almost as if the green hero had known what he was thinking, but of course that was impossible. He’d probably just seen Izuku hesitating and not wanted to be held up.
They set off, and the first few minutes of the drive passed in awkward silence.
“Did you go to UA?” Kacchan said abruptly.
“Of fucking course,” Adult Kacchan replied, pride evident in his voice.
“Ka- Ground Zero! We shouldn’t be revealing any more than we have to!” the green hero said.
A derisive snort. “As if that was ever a question.”
Izuku felt something resembling jealousy stir in his gut. Had the green hero been about to call Adult Kacchan- to call Ground Zero, Izuku corrected himself- by his given name? The Kacchan that Izuku knew wouldn’t let nearly anyone do that. The fact that he still tolerated Izuku using his name was one of the few elements of friendship they had left, and Izuku didn’t like the idea of losing even that edge.
On the other side of the green hero, Kacchan was having his own crisis over the exchange.
“Ground Zero? What kind of name is Ground Zero?”
Ground Zero shot a glare back over his shoulder. “A fucking awesome one, brat.”
“It has ‘Zero’ in it! At least put ‘kill’ or ‘murder’ in there somewhere!”
“And sound like a shitty preteen who thinks he’s edgy? I’m named after a fucking nuclear explosion!”
“Could you please refrain from yelling at yourself?” the green hero said.
Ground Zero flipped him off, which for Kacchan was showing considerable restraint.
“Are you a hero team?” Izuku asked.
Ground Zero sputtered angrily. “What? A hero- With him? Who do you take me for-”
“Ground Zero and I have been collaborating on this case,” the green hero said, amusement coloring his voice. “Earphone Jack joined us for this particular mission because she specializes in infiltration and rescue operations.”
The codename Earphone Jack made sense, Izuku thought, looking more closely at her ears, which were shaped just like her namesake. Her quirk was probably sound-based, then. Izuku itched to ask her questions about how it worked, but first things first...
“What’s your hero name?” Izuku asked the green hero.
The green hero hesitated and then said, “I don’t think I should tell you that.”
“Sorry!” Izuku squeaked. “I didn’t mean to-”
“No, no, it’s okay!” the green hero said, waving his hands in front of him. “I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable! It’s just that I- well, I can’t really explain, but just- just call me whatever you want, okay?”
Izuku pondered this silently. What reason would the green hero have for refusing to share his name? He’d given away Ground Zero and Earphone Jack’s codenames without issue, and he couldn’t be anyone Izuku would recognize, not with that quirk. Maybe it was because he and Kacchan would meet in the future, and for whatever reason revealing his identity now would change how those events would play out? Izuku supposed it didn’t matter; this hero had made his preferences known, and Izuku should abide by them.
“I’m going to call you ‘Midori,’” Izuku decided.
The hero looked at him sharply. “You’ll call me what?”
Izuku shrank back. “M-midori. Green. Because of your costume, a-and your quirk.”
The hero laughed nervously. “Right, Green. Of course.”
Beside him Kacchan also laughed, a cruel sound. “Desperate much, Midoriya?”
Izuku felt his face grow hot. He hadn’t even thought about how the character for green was in his own name. Had he overstepped?
“I think it’s a great name,” Midori said. He gave Izuku another smile, and Izuku felt warmth replace his embarrassment.
“Oh my god,” Earphone Jack groaned from the driver’s seat. “This is too weird.”
“You’re telling me,” Ground Zero muttered.
The car pulled to a stop, and Izuku stared out his window in wonder at the building before him. It wasn’t particularly big, at least for hero agency standards, but it more than made up for its size with its unique design. Spikes in the shapes of the windows and roof echoed the design of Ground Zero’s costume without being tacky, and one side of the building was painted with an elaborate mural of stylized explosions, the yellows, oranges and reds standing out starkly against the building’s black. The overall effect was quite impressive, almost intimidating. It suited Kacchan perfectly, Izuku thought.
Ground Zero turned around in his seat and gave them a cocky grin.
“Well here it is, brats. Welcome to the Ground Zero Hero Agency.”