Chapter Text
Smoke
They sat huddled together close to the ground. It was the start of All Might’s class and Izuku felt so lucky to be paired with Kacchan instead of against him for a change. He tried not to hyper focus on this because Uraraka and Asui were also on his team as well and he should consider himself lucky to be paired with anyone really. It wasn’t right to just be happy about Kacchan being on the team, he was friends with the girls as well! And the girls were friends with Kacchan too so it wasn’t like they would consider themselves lucky to be on a team with Izuku but then again-
“Plan, Deku.”
Izuku blinked for a moment, gaze moving from the floor to Katsuki’s unamused face. “If you keep spacing out like this, we are doing my plan instead,” he hissed through grit teeth.
Right. The plan.
Both Katsuki and Izuku had chimed in that they had plans for the exercise and the girls wanted to hear both before deciding what to do. The fake mission was easy enough; get to the top of the building, fend off the “villain” team of four, and retrieve Aizawa who was acting as an incapacitated hostage for the activity. Whichever team accomplished this with minimal damage to the building would earn a special reward according to All Might, and everyone knew Katsuki would freeze over hell itself to win.
Which is why Izuku vetoed his plan to blast his way to the top of the building, shatter some windows until they found Aizawa, and leave the same way.
“My plan is a little slower than yours, but I think we can minimize more damage," he turned to the others. “Uraraka should make herself, Kacchan, and I, all weightless to minimize the sound of our footsteps. Asui, uh I mean, Tsu is already pretty quiet when she moves so she will use her camouflage to walk ahead of us and act as a scout to see where the others are. She should walk along the walls and ceilings to avoid bumping into anyone patrolling.”
“Is that it? Sounds easy enough I guess,” Tsuyu nodded.
“Actually,” Izuku took a breath. “I want to make sure that the other team is disoriented and let us slip past them. So Kacchan should be generating a layer of smoke the entire time.”
“Smoke?” Uraraka questioned.
“Yes. Then when we get Aizawa-sensei, we can just open a window from the inside and descend with your quirk and Kacchan’s quirk together.”
“So, you just don’t want us to fight at all?” Katsuki tsked at the notion.
“Well, the assignment isn’t to neutralize the villains, its only to rescue the hostage. My plan might take the instructions more literal, but there would be no actual property damage this way since your quirk doesn’t generate soot.”
Katsuki nodded at that, “Fine. We’ll do it your way for this but we are doing it my way when we switch to the villain team next round.”
Izuku bit back a laugh before looking to the girls, “Is the plan ok with you guys?”
Tsuyu nodded and Uraraka still looked a little confused but nodded as well before the buzzer to begin sounded.
They entered the building through a side entrance, the four of them crouched low to the ground. Slowly, they all locked eyes with one another before Katsuki held his hands out to the sides with his palms facing down. Izuku watched in rapt attention as his hands first started to steam and then wisps of smoke started to dance about the air. Progressively the smoke got darker and more pronounced before it engulfed them entirely and began creeping through the hallway in a dense cloud.
Tsuyu climbed onto the wall, invisible to the untrained eye, and went ahead from the rest of the group murmuring “coast is clear” and “no one down this way either,” into her headset.
“Alright, time to follow her. Stay close to me,” Katsuki said as he leaned slightly toward Uraraka to allow her to tap his face.
Izuku nodded and the three of them collectively began to move after Uraraka finished applying her quirk to the both of them. As they rounded the corner of another hallway, Izuku noticed Uraraka still looked confused.
“Something wrong?” He whispered to her as near silently as he could.
“No? Not exactly,” she whispered back.
“Is there something about the plan you didn’t like?”
“No, the plan is fine-”
“Then shut up,” Katsuki interrupted. “Keep the line clear for Froggy.”
“It’s Froppy,” came Tsuyu’s static filled rebuttal.
“I know what I said,” Katsuki scoffed.
They continued to move slowly, allowing Katsuki’s smoke to fill out large sections of each floor before finally making it to the top uninterrupted. Tsuyu propped the door open to the final area, just enough to allow plumes to enter and create their distraction.
“What’s that smell?” Kaminari gagged from the other side of the room. “Smells like someone’s burning a million marshmallows.”
“I think they let Bakugou light part of the building on fire! Look at all this smoke,” replied the disembodied voice of Hagakure.
“Anyone here able to like, do something about that?” Kaminari pressed.
“Like what? Go confront him? I’ll pass,” Ojiro said nervously while Koda nodded in agreement beside him. “Honestly, I think you are the most well equipped to do that since you are the only one here who can actively use a long-ranged attack.”
Kaminari wrinkled his nose at that and opened his mouth to counter, but froze as he noticed just how thick the smoke was beginning to settle through the area. “Alright, I’m going to go put out the fire where ever it is! Guard Aizawa-sensei!”
Just as Kaminari ran toward the door, Tsuyu hoisted the ground trio into the air with her tongue and hid them among the elevating smoke. Katsuki grinned as he temporarily cut off the supply and the team watched as Kaminari ran down the stairwell toward a false source. They all waited with baited breath as they watched him descend a few levels before going through a doorway they had left open.
Tsuyu gently lowered the rest of the team to the ground and went through the open door and crawled her way on the ceiling toward the target. The rest of the team crept through the shrouded room as Katsuki began to emit smoke again. Izuku locked eyes with him and Uraraka separately and nodded toward where he assumed the windows would be and again toward where he saw Tsuyu disappear to.
“Kaminari better hurry up, I can’t see a thing!” Hagakure whined loudly.
“I feel kind of bad,” Ojiro said as Uraraka slowly creeped behind him toward Aizawa and Tsuyu. “One of us should have gone to help him. Bakugou does tend to go all out.”
Koda gripped onto Ojiro’s shoulder and Hagakure’s voice rang out a lot closer than he was expecting, “You still can! I think we can handle it. I like my odds with Koda against the other three than the alternative.”
From the other end of the room, Tsuyu whispered into the mic, “Aizawa-sensei is freed.”
“Found the window,” came Katsuki’s reply.
“Target is now weightless,” chimed Uraraka’s voice.
“On the count of three, Kacchan can stop the smokescreen and we all need to make a run toward the windows.”
Katsuki nodded next to him with bated breath, “One.”
“Two,” came Tsuyu’s voice.
“Three!” Izuku hissed as he threw open the window.
A rush of clean air blasted through the smoke, allowing Tsuyu and Uraraka to burst through with their target secured. They made the leap through the opening first, relishing in the scandalized shouts of alarm the opposing team let out. “SUCK IT LOSERS!” Katsuki cackled loudly as he grabbed a hold of Izuku by the waist and jumped from the window to victory.
The decent from the window was exhilarating but carefully controlled. Izuku felt no danger, even as he watched the light of sparks and listened to the booming of Katsuki’s explosions as they lead the duo safely to the ground.
A new buzzer sounded shrilly before All Might’s voice cut through a distorted speaker system, “Heroes win!”
Uraraka and Tsuyu cheered with one another, clasping hands and doing a silly dance. Aizawa, still floating, looked incredibly unamused and ruffled from the fall.
Speaking of still floating, Izuku glanced toward Katsuki’s face. It was painted with a near manic grin, basking in his own success from a job well done. Izuku almost felt bad for breaking that little bubble when he forced a timid cough. “Kacchan? You can put me down now.”
Katsuki turned his attention toward his companion, grin splitting wider upon his face and a mischievous glint lighting up his eyes. Izuku gulped.
“HEY ROUND FACE!” Katsuki screeched, voice breaking on his own laughter. “CATCH!”
And like a beach ball, Izuku found himself tossed toward the girls in a wide arc.
Uraraka sputtered, hand flying over her mouth to muffle her giggles. Tsuyu, the traitor, bumped him back toward Katsuki to start a mocking game of volleyball. They managed to pass him a few times back and forth, even Uraraka stopped laughing enough to join in briefly, before Aizawa cut in, “Alright kids, enough.”
“Sorry Sensei,” Uraraka replied, still bubbly and amused, righting Izuku as he drifted back toward her after one last bump from Katsuki.
Tsuyu righted Aizawa as well before Uraraka released her quirk upon the group for them all to start heading back toward the observation area.
“Good work out there,” Aizawa started. “I know All Might is going to supply more feedback but I think you all scored very well.”
Izuku couldn’t help but grin toward Uraraka and Tsuyu as they walked on either side of him. Katsuki had elected to walk slightly ahead of the group as usual, but Izuku could see the relaxed slope of his shoulders and could tell he was also pleased with the end result of their exercise.
“Your team might score the highest, even if you did have to set part of the building on fire.”
“Huh?!” exclaimed Katsuki as he whirled himself around to walk backwards.
He opened his mouth to shout more, but Tsuyu cut him off, “Actually, we didn’t set anything on fire. Bakugou made all that smoke.”
“Yea! It was pretty cool! I didn’t even know he could do that!” Uraraka added with a tilt of her head.
“Neither did I,” Aizawa hummed. “I apologize for the assumption then, Bakugou. Great job.”
“Do none of you assholes know how my quirk even works?!”
Instantly, Uraraka and Tsuyu echoed, “Midoriya does.”
At that, Katsuki sneered for a moment before grumbling, “Can’t believe this shit, you all are idiots,” before turning around and power walking away from them in a hurry.
The whole exchange felt too fast for Izuku to properly chime in, but he frowned as he watched Katsuki stomp off. The tension in his form was back, no doubt meaning he would be brooding and unreasonable during their practice sessions with All Might after class.
“So, has Bakugou made smoke a lot in the past or is that something new he learned to do?” Uraraka questioned from her place walking beside him.
“Kacchan has always been able to make smoke?” Izuku looked between the three people glancing toward him. “His quirk is a combination type. The explosive sweat is only one part, the other is the ability to generate heat on his palms. I’m sure if his palms were dry enough, he could probably also ignite things by touching them if he tried.”
They all seemed a little impressed with the analyses, but that only caused him to frown more. “Did none of you really know he had to generate and release heat to ignite his explosions?”
Uraraka looked a little sheepish, Tsuyu merely shrugged, and Aizawa added “Faculty are only given the same information the quirk registry has. Sometimes that information isn’t the most detailed.”
“But,” Izuku interjected. “Just... you all didn’t even notice?”
“Not everyone is as observant as you, Midoriya,” Tsuyu patted him on the shoulder.
“It's so obvious though?” Izuku almost whined, unwilling to believe he was the only one.
“I wonder what else you know about Bakugou that you think is obvious!” Uraraka laughed.
He slowed down his pace at that thought, allowing the others to walk further ahead. Did he know a lot about Kacchan that the others didn’t? If he did, was there things that Kacchan would take issue with the class finding out?
He was lost to his murmuring until he heard Aizawa sigh from a distance, “I hope no one else thinks to throw me out of a window.”