Chasing Tinkerbelle (BakuDeku)

18 - Pink Alien

"You're pink," Kota said, studying Izuku with a tilt of his head as he placed the lollipop back in his mouth.

"And you found my stash," Izuku said with a mock glare and a growl as he reached up and grabbed the large bag of lollipops by Kota's side, pausing with the bag long enough for the boy to grab a few more lollipops before he carried it around his desk to put it back in the-

"Your checkbook is unbalanced," Kota announced with a bored sigh as he raised his legs and swirled around so that he was facing Izuku with his feet on his desk. "I balanced it for you," he said with a shrug as he focused back on his lollipop.

"You went through my bag?" he asked, although really, by this point, nothing this kid said or did or any of the children related to the Bakugos did for that matter, should really surprise him.

He narrowed his eyes on Tenya's youngest son as he asked, "Did you break into my computer again?"

"Yup," the boy said, letting the word pop around his lollipop. "And you still haven't told me why you're pink."

"That's because you never asked," Izuku muttered absently as he dropped his lunch bag on the desk and the bag of lollipops back in the bottom desk drawer.

He picked up his checkbook only to bite back a groan.

"You're off by sixty-two yen. You might want to transfer some money into that account before it bounces," Kota said conversationally as he leaned forward and pointed at the column that he'd fixed.

"You do realize that you're only six, right?" Izuku pointed out instead of admitting that there wasn't any money to transfer.

This was it, which was pretty sad because it wasn't a hell of a lot.

He was going to have to run across the street during his lunch break and see if Momo could cut him a check a few days early.

He'd planned on working through his lunch break to get things settled for the renovation, but now it looked like he was going to be spending it standing in line at City Hall and then at the bank.

It also meant that he was going to have to stay an hour extra tonight to make up for the loss.

"You gonna tell me why you're covered with pink streaks?" Kota asked, studying him curiously.

"I'm part alien," he said with a sigh, trying not to think about the twenty-five yen overdraft fee that he was going to have to pay now.

"I see," Kota murmured thoughtfully, studying Izuku for a moment longer before he abruptly nodded and turned around on the counter and jumped off.

"Where are you going?" Izuku asked, looking up in time to see the precocious little boy who was secretly one of his favorites, head for the children's section, which instantly put him on alert.

"To play with the other kids," Kota said with another one of those careless shrugs that made him nervous and for good reason. "And to tell them that you're an alien out to steal their brains."

"What? Wait!" Izuku almost screamed, the sad state of his finances instantly forgotten, as he rushed to go after the little boy before it was too late.

*****

"What the hell happened to your hands?"

"Don't worry about it," Katsuki said, reaching over the passenger seat of his truck and grabbing his bag.

"Don't worry about it?" Tenya repeated with a snort of disbelief as he gestured down at his hands. "It looks like you shoved your hands in acid!"

Katsuki couldn't help but chuckle at the comparison. "Close enough."

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?" Tenya asked, keeping pace with him as he made his way to the old library that he personally believed should have been torn down years ago.

"It means that you might want to find another place to dump your wife's science experiments," he said, glad that Ochaco wasn't around for this conversation.

She was a really sweet woman and it would kill her to know that her food had actually harmed someone. He would rather shut up than hurt the woman.

She'd been there for him during his recovery, sat with him and read to him, and kept his family from aggravating the shit out of him with their constant worrying.

Ochaco was the sister he never thought he needed. But honestly, her cooking was out of this world.

"Ochaco's lasagna did this?" Tenya asked, grabbing him by the arm and pulling him to a stop so that he could look over Katsuki's damaged hand.

For a moment, Katsuki could only stare at his cousin in horror. "That was lasagna?"

"Yeah," Tenya said, sighing heavily as he continued to look his hand over. "Maybe we should get you to a doctor," he said with a worried frown, the same one that everyone in his family got whenever he so much as sneezed.

"Eijiro already took care of it," he said, pulling his arm away. "It will clear up in a few days."

"Did anyone else got hurt?" Tenya asked, once again keeping pace with him.

"Some of it got on Izuku," he said, deciding that using his nickname for his little neighbor would only encourage more bullshit- bullshit that he wasn't in the mood for, not after last night.

"Shit," Tenya muttered, looking truly upset. "Is he okay?"

"He's fine. But if I were you, I would probably give him a month or two of free rent," he said, wondering what he was going to do about Tinkerbelle.

The only thing he knew for sure was that he wanted him.

He wanted to be with Izuku, to hold him, to bury himself to the hilt inside him and stay there while the rest of the world disappeared, but he wasn't sure that he could be what Izuku wanted.