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Scars. Everyone has them. Emotional, physical, mental. They are forever there, plastered like a map along foreign places many have not seen. Some fade through time, others remain to remind you where you have came from and where you have gotten. They each carry different memories, their own stories to tell. Some hold happier memories, while others will forever hold a dark past.
Midoriya Izuku. Scars align his arm, body, and face to remind him of his training. They remind him of what he has learned, what has happened.
“Not all scars are bad.”
He tells that to anyone who has seen them, proudly, with his bright smile. He believes it. He believes it for his physical scars, the ones the world has seen. The ones that his boyfriends have seen. The ones he sees in the mirror every night, forever tainting his skin.
It is the emotional scars that is where his smile falters.
Emotional scars from the past. Kids picked on him for being Quirkless, Katsuki constantly leading them with his dominating smile. Those are the scars that still haunt him.
His boyfriend has changed over the years to someone more loving, someone softer and not as quick to anger and insults. He feels awful for how he treated Izuku and not a day goes by where he does not feel that guilt.
Izuku forgives him.
But some days, the words of his boyfriend's older self still haunts him, and he believes it. He sometimes will sit and pick at his flaws for hours at a time, alone in a room.
Shouto is usually the first to find him and bring him back to their shared dorm where he calls for Katsuki. When Katsuki arrives, the two instantly get to work to cheering him up.
The taller two gently kiss their usually happy boyfriend all over, complimenting different parts of him. They run their hands over the larger scars, reminding him how he got them by saving people. Katsuki will pull him in his lap, wrapping his arms around Izuku and gently kiss his neck, apologizing for the past and telling Izuku how strong and better he has gotten. Izuku would instead turn around and tell his lover how it was not his fault and it was in the past; both Katsuki and Shouto knew their boyfriend's sudden distance revolved around the history they shared as childhood friends.
This always resulted in soft fights and laughter as they try to prove to each other their points, making Izuku forget what he was even upset over.
Katsuki is someone completely different and better than he was a few years ago. Izuku and Shouto could not be more proud.
Izuku can tell those scars are fading, healing over time the more Katsuki changes. He accepts they will never fully vanish, but he is okay with that. The words hurt, but without them he would not be this strong, this determined to keep going.
He is thankful for his scars, physical and emotional .
Todoroki Shouto. He, too, shares a large, physical scar. One that will forever remind him of the insanity of his childhood. One that will never be erased, one that will never fade. Shouto has accepted that. He has to.
He has small scars running down his chest and sides. Small ones on his shoulders and legs, most have faded over time. His boyfriends love to trace them, running delicate fingers over them. They follow these lines filled with memories all the way down to where they end, and Shouto honestly does not mind. He finds it calming when his boyfriends lose themselves in these paths trailing his skin.
The mental ones on the other hand are far less pretty. These scars keep him up at night with anxiety, cause him to flinch or have panic attacks if something resembles a similar experience of the past. Some nights he wakes up, gasping for air and crying while trying to ground himself. He is thankful his boyfriends are there to calm him down.
Sometimes, if Shouto is not aware of it, the sound of a kettle boiling and whistling brings him back to the incident with his mother. Sometimes the sound of a door slamming reminds him of his angry father. Even shouting might cause a sudden panic attack. That could be the reason why Katsuki started to calm down. His spiky-haired boyfriend was always noticing small reactions and tendencies to various things.
Shouto had expressed these things to his lovers, saying what they do and what reminds him of his past. With their loving help, he has gotten past quite a few obstacles of daily life.
He is extremely thankful for them.
Shouto still has nightmares of the endless training and abuse. According to Izuku, he has called out in his sleep before, shouting and yelling at someone not even there before waking up and breaking down. Once the fire half of his quirk activated and burned quite a few belongings.
The first few times it happened, the two teens had no idea what to do or help their bi-coloured lover. Thanks to some communication, trial and error, and advice from family, they found just giving Shouto breathing room to calm down before touching him helps the best. He will reach for them when he is ready. The rest of those nights are usually spent with Shouto wedged between the two, one with their hand in his hair, another playing with his hand and both whispering to him.
Shouto is getting better. Much better. Even with the occasional nightmare or panic attack, they are becoming less and less frequent the more he has the support of his two boyfriends.
He is slowly accepting his scars and allowing them to heal.
Bakugou Katsuki. His scars are different. While he also has a fair amount of physical scars from hero work, he has scars hidden far from view. These scars are different from any that could be caused by villains or daily accidents.
These are self inflicted.
Izuku and Shouto both know of their boyfriends tendencies. There is no way to not know about it. These scars range in size and shape, from various objects to even marks from his own Quirk.
Katsuki is ashamed of it, he will not talk about it at all. He wishes he could wash them off his body with each shower, resulting in him scrubbing furiously over the wounds. Sometimes he reopens them and the stinging can be shocking if he is not expecting it.
He knows these will never fade or simply wash away, but part of him hopes.
Some days he comes home distant and out of it. He will mindlessly fumble around until he ends up on the couch, either alone or with his boyfriends there. Katsuki sometimes gets back earlier than them, so he will lay curled up under some blankets until they return, often falling asleep until then. If they are home, they almost always pull him in to cuddle and tell him they love him.
When Katsuki ends up in this state, it can last a few days. He will forget all basic necessities until he arrives at school where he flips a switch to act normal. Once behind closed doors, he is practically hallow.
Izuku usually takes charge of making sure he is eating and sleeping properly during these times. He will stay up late with Katsuki if needed, telling him it will be okay. They usually sit at the table, and Izuku takes this time to slowly pick away at what is bothering the ash-blond teen. Katsuki is not very open about showing what is wrong, afraid of it being petty or stupid. Izuku is not always successful to figuring out what is upsetting his boyfriend, but he still feels hopeful that their talks helps a bit as Katsuki is usually a bit cheerier the next day.
Shouto helps by helping Katsuki with his homework and changing out clothes. He will make sure Katsuki does his homework on time and it is at least completed to a passing point. Shouto knows how his boyfriend is with grades, needing everything to be perfect and a hundred-percent. He takes that in consideration and will sit with Katsuki until it is. He always makes sure his boyfriend is changed and in clean, proper clothes as well.
When it comes to bathing however, that is a different story. It takes both Izuku and Shouto to bathe him. They got better at it, but the hard part is when Katsuki is really out of it and can barely take off his own clothes, or get in the bath with them on.
“Katsu- wait wait your clothes are on!”
“Oh, sorry.”
It is a struggle as Katsuki barely remembers what happens in this state. His mind is constantly far away, only present for moments before he is back to being lost in thought and feeling numb. He hates how he gets this way, and he has tried to snap out of it, but it never works - just makes it worse. He figured it would be easier on his lovers if he just let it happen instead of trying to fight it.
Katsuki is extremely thankful for all of this. He feels he does not deserve them at all, slightly adding to his low mood, but they are quick to change his mind on that. Katsuki hates feeling like a burden during these times, constantly apologizing but thanking them for what they do for him.
His urges and tendencies have lessened and decreased since he entered a relationship with Izuku and Shouto. They take care and love him as much as he does to them. They never complain about his mood shifts, never fight or lose their patience over it. They are always so calming and slow with him, which he appreciates so much.
He still injures himself sometimes with his quirk, saying he deserves it. His boyfriends disagree and do what they can to help the wound. Katsuki only relapses to self-injury when it gets severely bad - which is quite rare with Shouto and Izuku there for him.
There is no way he will ever be able to show his love and appreciation. He hopes one day he will be able to, but knows there is no way he could ever.
Thanks to them, he can allow himself to heal.
They each carry maps on their bodies, maps starting from different stories but aligning along the way. They will forever have scars, but together they can allow these scars to heal.