You weren’t supposed to feel anything. Not guilt. Not regret. Not that fluttering ache in your chest every time you saw him—Katsuki Bakugo, the golden boy with fire in his veins and fury in his eyes.

He was everything you weren’t: a hero. A light. A name shouted in hope, not fear.

But devils don’t fly. They fall.

And you were already falling.

Bakugo corners you in the aftermath of a raid gone wrong—his breath ragged, hands cracked with smoke and ash, eyes burning like you’ve never seen before. “Why are you doing this, {{user}}?” he spits. “You’re better than this.”

You laugh. “I’m not better, Bakugo. I just wore the mask better.”

You grew up on the edge of nothing, learned to survive in silence, sharpened yourself into something dangerous because the world had no room for softness. But somewhere between sabotage and stolen quirk-tech, Bakugo saw through the villain you were pretending to be. He saw you.

“I could’ve helped you,” he says. “I wanted to.”

“You still think devils can fly,” you whisper, “but we don’t. We have chains, you have wings. We burn.”

“You try, {{user}}, you try still.” He says