Archive of Our Own

Katsuki doesn’t sleep that night.

He lies on top of his bed like it’s a slab of concrete, boots still on, jacket tossed somewhere on the floor where it landed hours ago. The room smells faintly like smoke and metal and something sour he doesn’t want to name. His phone buzzed earlier—agency messages, patrol updates, Kirishima asking if he got home alright—but he turned it face down and let it die.

The silence presses in. It’s the kind that makes his ears ring. The most put together hero on paper, and the most emotionally wrecked idiot alone in his apartment after midnight.

He stares at the ceiling, jaw clenched so tight it aches, replaying the night over and over like a punishment he can’t stop himself from administering.

Izuku’s face, soft with surprise in the glances Katsuki allowed himself to take through the rearview mirror. The way his eyes lit up when Katsuki spoke. The way he smiled like Katsuki had handed him permission instead of a goodbye.

Katsuki swallows.

He remembers exactly how his voice sounded—steady, convincing. Like he hadn’t just split himself open wide and taken out the beating organ out of himself. Like he hadn’t already decided this was how it had to end.

Giving special treatment to everyone means that no one is really special to you.

The words echo now, grotesque in their vulnerable clarity. The hope that Izuku would parse the meaning, see the words that he really meant. Except he could practically hear the gears turning beneath those curls, and knew better than to keep holding onto hope. He understood, but his attention was on someone else. Someone that wasn’t Katsuki.

Katsuki rolls onto his side and reaches blindly for the bottle on his nightstand. He doesn’t even remember buying it. Some cheap sake he picked up on autopilot after driving Kirishima and Mina home, because the idea of going home sober felt unbearable.

He never drinks. He hates the loss of control. Hates anything that dulls his edge or corrupts his focus and attention. Anything that takes away his edge at becoming the number one hero—not the greatest one, that place has already always been taken. But tonight, he twists the cap off with shaking fingers and takes a long pull anyway.

It burns as he guzzles it down his throat. He welcomes it with open arms, anything to distract him from this—this pain.

The alcohol settles heavy and useless in his gut, doing nothing to quiet his thoughts. If anything, it loosens them—lets them roam where he’s spent years keeping them caged. Enough to feel Izuku’s absence ache sharper in his ribs.

Izuku laughing during their joint training sessions back in their UA days. Izuku standing too close, shoulder brushing his as they stood side by side after a fight. Izuku standing outside his door with red-rimmed eyes after a nightmare, looking guilty and hopeful. Izuku looking at him like he’s waiting for something Katsuki never gave.

Katsuki squeezes his eyes shut.

“Fuck,” he mutters into the dark.

He doesn’t cry. His body refuses to give him that relief.

Instead, his chest feels tight, compressed, like someone stacked concrete blocks on his ribs and dared him to breathe anyway. His heart keeps slamming against his sternum, loud and frantic, and no matter how many times he exhales, it doesn’t slow.

Sleep doesn’t come to rest over his eyes. Neither does it punch him in the face.

He thinks of asking him to join his agency, to be his sidekick, to be right by his side like he promised he would be. And it burns, burns worse than the alcohol, burns worse than his quirk crackling through the blood in his veins when he’s overworked it. 

Twice. Rejected twice. All in one night. He clenches his fists and feels smoke curl around his fingers and flow up to ceiling. The bottle remarkably stays solid despite the blackening ink that’s starting to consume the neck of it.

Every time he closes his eyes, Izuku is there—standing on the sidewalk, turning back, hesitating. Like he’s waiting for Katsuki to say something different. Like maybe this time, Katsuki will stop him. He remembers his hand twitching to do just that. Like he’ll reach out for one final time and catch his hand. Like he might just tell him everything. Like he might just say, Don’t go. Live our dream. Stay. 

But Katsuki never does. And Izuku never turned back to look at him. He doesn’t think about how long he stood there with his hand raised, only pulled away by the hollering of his friends and numb feet carrying him back to his car.

His eyes snap open each time with his teeth grinding and his hands opening and clenching into fists, sheets twisted like he’s been fighting something in his sleep. His wrists twists stiffly to stare at the bottle of alcohol slosh around in its confinement. He doesn’t bother checking the clock anymore.

At some point before dawn, he sits up abruptly and drains the rest of the bottle, throat working as he forces it down. His hands and tongue feel numb. His thoughts don’t.

He stares at the wall until the sky outside the window begins to pale.

Morning comes whether he’s ready or not.

₊⊹₊⊹

He calls in sick.

The words feel foreign on his tongue, worse with the slur encompassing them. He’s never given himself the luxury—injured, exhausted, bleeding, it never mattered to him. He showed up. He always showed up. It’s what heroes do.

But today, the idea of putting on his gear feels impossible. The heavy weight of it, the expectation, the way Izuku used to stand beside him—

He hangs up before they can ask questions.

Then he does it again the next day.

And the next.

Three days off of his hero duties. An indulgence he’s never allowed himself. An emptiness he doesn’t know what to do with. Time loses its shape in the form of bottles. He scrambled through his alcohol cupboard to look for more, unwilling to face anyone outside of his apartment. The irony in the fact that none were purchased by him isn’t lost on him. Gifts. Dusting away for years.

He forgets to eat. He forgets to shower. He even forgets that his head should be aching in his skull, numbed out by the copious amounts of alcohol in his system refusing to acknowledge it. He sits on the floor with his back against the couch, bottle replaced by another he doesn’t remember opening, staring at nothing while his mind chews itself raw.

The apartment feels too quiet without Izuku’s voice echoing in it, without the imagined presence Katsuki never admitted he carried with him everywhere. He’d gotten so used to that constant awareness, that certainty. Izuku was always there. Even when he wasn’t standing side by side with him, he was always there.

And now—

Now Katsuki is alone with the consequences of a choice he made sober, clear-headed, and convinced it was the right thing to do. That’s the part that hurts the most.

He didn’t miss a sign. He didn’t misunderstand. He didn’t hesitate because he was scared. He chose this.

He encouraged Izuku to move on because he thought love was something you stepped aside for. Because he thought wanting him was selfish. Because he believed that Izuku deserved more than a life orbiting Katsuki’s sharp edges.

Katsuki presses the heel of his hand into his eyes until sparks flare behind his lids. “Idiot,” he mutters.

But he doesn’t know who he means.

He tries to sleep again sometime late in the afternoon. Lies down properly in his bed this time. Pulls the blanket over himself like that might trick his body into rest. Contorts his body into a tight ball, and then releases his muscles like they taught him in physical therapy. It doesn’t work.

His thoughts spiral—what Izuku might be doing, who he might be with, whether he smiled the way he always does, whether he hesitated at all after Katsuki said goodbye. The stupid hope that he’d turn around, and see Katsuki the way he sees him.

Because there’s only ever been Izuku, even when Izuku wasn’t his to have. He reaches over for the bottle on his bedside table and takes a longer pull of the drink.

The idea that Izuku might have taken him at his word makes something hollow open up inside him. Katsuki turns onto his other side, curling inward, gripping his own forearm hard enough to bruise. Always crawling back to the same thoughts, because he always goes back. Even after everything, even after Izuku leaves him standing alone with his hand raised and waving like a fool, to chase a future Katsuki doesn’t fit into.

He doesn’t cry. He glances to the side at the speaker system he has set up in a corner of his room, quietly replaying that damn Hozier cover and silently agrees that he too has dreamt of him every night this week. He just lies there, breathing shallow, heart aching, waiting for a sleep that refuses to come.

Waiting for someone who won’t.

₊⊹₊⊹

Katsuki goes back to work because that’s what he’s always done.

The uniform fits the same. The explosions still answer his call. The streets still open for him like they always have. None of it feels real.

He moves through patrol like he’s underwater, vision narrowed, sounds dulled. His eyes track the streets out of habit more than awareness—rooftops, windows, alleyways—muscle memory carrying him where his mind refuses to stay. His body will move before his mind ever catches up if it needs to. And yet, Izuku keeps slipping in anyway.

It’s stupid, the things his brain latches onto. Not the big moments. Not the fights or the speeches or the way Izuku always ran headlong into danger with that feral determination Katsuki used to despise.

It’s the small things.

Izuku nudging his shoulder during patrol briefings, leaning in like they shared a secret. Izuku asking questions Katsuki pretended to hate answering, only to get visibly pleased when Katsuki explained anyway. Izuku smiling at him like Katsuki was the first person he wanted to tell anything to.

Moments Katsuki had catalogued as theirs. Moments he thought made him special.

He lands on the corner of a rooftop, surprised with himself as he didn’t remember activating his quirk to blast through the sky and freezes for half a second, expecting—stupidly—to hear the bunny hops of a landing behind him. Expecting Izuku to be there, breathless and grinning, saying something earnest and irritating and warm.

There’s nothing. Just wind. Just concrete. Just the echo of something he already lost.

“Dynamight!”

The shout snaps him back into focus. A group of civilians below wave when they spot him, phones already raised, excitement crackling in the air. Kids point, toothy grins with some of the front missing. Someone cheers his name further in the distance.

He raises a hand automatically. The gesture feels hollow. Feels the same as it did that night. Foolish, inconsequential, useless.

His eyes refocus on a plume of smoke coming from a block over, he rolls his shoulders and bursts forth with his quirk not just from his palms anymore, but redirecting the force of it through his back and legs. He calls in the situation swiftly to his team, not listening for them to give him the go ahead or if his quirk is compatible against the villains or not. He doesn’t care, there is a job to do, and hell if he won’t die trying to win. To save.

The dispersed recoil throughout his body is a familiar sensation now after almost a decade, and once he locks eyes on the villain causing mayhem amongst a small grocery store, his lips curl up for the first time in a week. Mean, nasty, teeth bared, this is the kind of hero Katsuki indulges in being from time to time.

He resolves the incident quickly—efficient, clean, textbook Great Explosion Murder God Dynamight. The villain is restrained, the area secured, the adrenaline fades like it always does.

Usually, there’s a high that comes after. A sharp, electric satisfaction—he wonders briefly how Izuku managed being a livewire with One for All. He’d turn, expect Izuku’s eyes shining with pride, the new suit glinting in the sun, that unspoken we did it hanging between them.

Instead, there’s no one to turn to. The absence is loud. Louder than the sheer screams of “good job, Dynamight!” or “did you see how fast he took ‘em down?” from the civilians standing too close for comfort behind some other hero’s barricade. Before, he would give a cocky grin that his fans would eat up, maybe answer a question or two for the press, but that sense of victory no longer pertains to him. He hands off the villain to some rookie hero on the sidelines and takes to the sky again.

Someone is speaking in his intercoms from his team, telling him to show his face to the masses on the street. Best Jeanist used to tell him it made people feel safer, a tapestry of trust, an unspoken “I am here” that heroes tended to give when walking alongside the rest of the population.

He doesn’t think he’d be able to give that sort of presence today, not with the scowl permanently etched onto his features. As he moves through the skyline amongst the city, he starts noticing them everywhere.

Screens in storefront windows.

Magazine covers at kiosks.

Electronic billboards stretched across buildings too tall to ignore.

NEW COUPLE ON THE RISE?

DEKU AND URAVITY: HEROES AND HEARTS ALIGN

Izuku’s smile is the same one Katsuki remembers. Soft. Open. Warm. The kind that made his chest ache even when he pretended not to notice. Uraraka stands close, comfortable, hand curled into Izuku’s sleeve like she belongs there.

Maybe she does.

Katsuki looks away too late.

The words stick anyway.

He keeps running into them—headlines, murmurs, fans whispering excitedly about “they look so cute together” and “did you see they were spotted at that ice cream place?” like it’s harmless, like it doesn’t carve something out of him every time. Somehow, it’s worse than when his actual heart touched the air of the Coffin in the Sky made for Shigaraki. He wonders if this time it might actually give out and stay out.

He tells himself this is what he wanted. He made this happen.

Still, every victory tastes like ash. He can’t outwork any of the signs glaring him dead in the face. Can’t be louder than them, even though his palms ache with the tingling of an explosion. Wishes he could lift his hand and pulse his quirk out at one of the billboards. Just once.

His phone vibrates in his pocket mid-patrol. He falters from his momentum in the sky, grunts gruffly and changes his trajectory to land with a heavy thump of his boots.

He almost ignores it.

Almost.

The name on the screen makes his chest tighten, breath caught in his throat as he stands on the ledge of some building. His glove is hanging from between his teeth from where he pulled it off, and he clenches his jaw to stop it from dropping in awe. Chasing after his glove in the wind of high buildings would just be the cherry on top of his day.

Deku:

hey! r u free 4 lunch today?

Katsuki stares at the message longer than he should. His thumb hovers over the screen, indecisive, heart beating too fast for something so small.

Lunch. Like nothing’s changed.

Like Katsuki didn’t draw a line and call it mercy.

For a second—just one—he imagines saying yes. Imagines sitting across from Izuku at a table, hearing him talk too fast, seeing the way his hands move when he’s excited about something. Imagines leaning his chin against his palm with a bent elbow on the table, tracking every beat of his eyebrow movements, the curve of his lips as he laughs about some comment one of his students made. Imagines pretending this doesn’t hurt.

He types.

Deletes.

Types again.

Katsuki:

Can’t today.

He sends it before he can reconsider.

The reply comes fast.

Deku:

oh ok! another time then.

Katsuki locks his phone and shoves it back into his utility belt like it burned him.

He harshly shoves his hand back into his glove, grits his teeth against the frigid air, and jumps off the ledge in a free fall knowing his explosions will catch him. Another time. He doesn’t know what that means anymore.

The days blur after that. He quietly requests to his team that they don't schedule him for patrol at the same time as Izuku. He claims it’s because Deku the Hero needs to work on being more independent, that he needs to work with other heroes, needs to adapt to his suit without Dynamight in his ear telling him all the things he’s doing wrong or right. He denies to himself that it’s because proximity hurts too much. His ears burned after he stomped out of his agency’s office. He doesn’t care to listen to the whispers or face the stares of the people that work around him.

Patrol. Appearances. Interviews he doesn’t want to accept and barely listens to. People praising him for being sharper, more focused, more dangerous than ever.

They don’t see the truth.

They don’t see how his eyes keep drifting to empty spaces where Izuku used to stand. How he keeps turning at the end of fights, instinct screaming for a presence that isn’t there anymore.

How every win feels unfinished. Even after proving himself to the world, garnering respect and freedom in how he moves through the streets. No longer hearing whispers of “was rabid at that sports festival” or “Deku is friends with him?”. Even after getting shouts of encouragement or common greetings from the civilians he’s sworn to protect—despite it being a well known fact to not get too close while he’s working.

He’s achieved everything he’s ever wanted—even comfortable with just holding his title of Japan’s Number Five Hero—but the praise feels hollow now.

At night, he sits alone in his apartment, staring at the wall, the city lights bleeding through the massive windows of his apartment. The bottles accumulate on the counter—silent proof of a habit he never meant to form. He doesn’t drink to forget. He drinks because being sober means remembering everything.

Izuku’s laugh, the loud and care-free one he seemed to let run longer and uglier around Katsuki.

Izuku’s faith in him, the constant approval and praise that would drip from his tongue in earnest.

Izuku’s partnership, always standing shoulder to shoulder after a win, toe to toe during an argument in a way no one else could ever hope to come to with Katsuki’s fierce bullheadedness.

The way Katsuki thought he had more time. Victory was supposed to mean something. But what’s the point of standing at the top if there’s no one beside you?

Katsuki closes his eyes and exhales slowly, chest tight, jaw clenched.

He keeps moving forward. Because that’s what heroes do.

Even when the dream they were chasing belongs to someone else now.

₊⊹₊⊹

Katsuki knows something’s wrong the second the doorbell rings. He sits staring blankly at the TV in his living room, nursing an untouched protein bar in his hand. The screen flickers with muted colors he hasn’t processed in minutes. No one comes over unannounced. Not anymore. Not unless they’re dead or dying.

He doesn’t answer it.

Same response he’s given the ring for weeks now. He always stands, moves on autopilot and retreats toward his bedroom and presses play on the stereo system—loud, aching, enough to drown out thought. He usually ducks into the confines of his bed sheets, rubbing his knuckles against his sternum like that can physically hold him together.

The only person with a key to his apartment hasn’t come looking for him.

The knocking starts five seconds later.

“BAKUGO!” Kaminari’s voice bleeds through the door, loud and cheerful and already annoying. “Open up, man, we know you’re home.”

Katsuki is on his feet and shuffling to the door before he can even register his actions, he slams the heel of his palm against the door frame in surprise and exhaustion as he exhales sharply through his nose. The lock clicks open before Katsuki can stop himself.

They spill in like a fucking hurricane. He barely has time to move away from the door and hunch inwards as he stares.

Mina first—eyes sharp, already scanning the entirety of the apartment that you can view from the genkan. Sero behind her, taking in the chaos with a raised brow. Kaminari kicks off his shoes and barrels straight toward the kitchen, stopping short when he sees the counter.

“…Dude,” he says. “Is that—”

Bottles.

Not hidden. Not cleaned up. Lining the counter, clustered on the table, a couple tipped over on their sides like casualties from Katsuki’s jittery hands. Empty. All of them.

The apartment smells stale. Sour. Wrong.

This place is usually immaculate. Katsuki’s control manifests in clean lines, organized shelves, nothing out of place. He keeps his home clean like he does everything else in his life, with an aggressive fervor, obsessive and controlled. A space where everything makes sense.

This doesn’t.

Mina’s mouth presses into a thin line. “Okay,” she says carefully. “So, this wasn’t us.”

Sero and Kaminari exchange uneasy expressions towards each other, stepping carefully around the mess in socked feet like the floor might crack under them. Kirishima doesn’t move from his place in front of the shut door. He just watches Katsuki, arms crossed over his chest, expression soft but steady. No joke. No greeting. No hand on Katsuki’s shoulder like their usual embrace.

That—more than anything—makes Katsuki’s skin prickle with unease, and he visibly bristles to shake off the feeling.

Denki glances at Katsuki with an eyebrow inclined up to his hairline, “You been throwing ragers without inviting us?” he chuckles as he says it, like he’s trying to laugh it off.

Katsuki doesn’t answer. He swiftly walks into his kitchen avoiding eye contact with his friends, cracks open a beer from the fridge without answering. He feels more than sees them scurry after him, taking posts in different positions in the kitchen.

The metal groans under his grip—too tight, too much pressure. The sound cuts through the room like a gun shot. He lifts it to his lips and takes a big chug anyway, his chin angling back as his throat works around the liquid. He doesn’t look at anyone.

Silence drops like a curtain. Heavy and thick.

Mina shifts, clearly uncomfortable. She tries to fill it, because that’s what she does.

“So!” she says too brightly. “Did you guys see that interview? With Deku and Ochako? It seems like they’re like… trying things out? Kinda cute, honestly.”

The can crumples in Katsuki’s hand as he grinds his teeth. Beer spills over his knuckles, cold and sharp. He doesn’t notice until it drips onto the floor.

No one breathes. Denki’s teasing grin vanishes quickly, eyebrows bunching in confusion. Hanta’s gaze darts away to anywhere but the mess on his floor. Mina’s eyes widen, a gasp caught in her throat, immediate regret flashing across her face.

“Oh,” she says softly. “Oh, Kats—”

“I’m happy for them,” Katsuki grits out, it feels painful, burns up his throat like bile.

The words come out flat. Automatic. He takes a sip from the ruined can like nothing happened, molding his features back into neutral.

“I said I’m happy for them.” Katsuki turns his gaze away, brushing his thumb along the rim of the can he’s holding, avoiding eye contact. He braces himself for one of them to joke, maybe Sero or Kaminari, for a lecture that he doesn’t want to hear.

He realizes they’re watching him, not the TV or the mess. Distantly, he understands that maybe this is what it looks like from the outside.

Kirishima, who’s been quiet this whole time, finally speaks. He uncrosses his arms from across his bulky chest, crosses through the room to stand opposite of him in the kitchen, stance relaxed with his wrists angled outward, like he’s trying to show a stray animal he’s trustworthy. Katsuki’s never been intimidated by him, but he shivers under his gaze, turning his eyes to the floor. Kirishima’s voice is calm. Too calm.

“Bro.”

Katsuki’s jaw tightens, grits out through his teeth, “What.”

“Are you?”

Kirishima doesn’t yell. Doesn’t accuse. That makes it worse. He just looks at Katsuki like he’s trying to understand something that doesn’t add up.

Katsuki slams the can down onto the island counter in front of him, cheap beer sloshing across the surface. “I just told you I was,” the last of the words come out in a hiss through his teeth.

Kirishima doesn’t flinch, he just steps closer—just enough to make Katsuki aware of him. “You don’t look happy.”

Katsuki scoffs, eyes sliding past him to another wall. He takes in a breath, lets it fester as it fills his rib cage, blows it out through his teeth, lips pursed, but he doesn’t feel the calm envelop him like it usually would. Not the way it did in his anger management classes that he ended up taking seriously, at his request. “That’s your problem.”

Kirishima’s gaze flickers to their friends on the sidelines, the room stays dead quiet. He thinks he sees Mina nod her head in support.

“No,” Kirishima says gently. “I don’t think it is."

Katsuki laughs sharply, mean and ugly. He’s gripping the edge of the counter now, spine ramrod straight as he tries to burn his gaze onto the sleek surface. “I’m happy for them,” he repeats, louder this time. Like volume might make it real. “I wanted this. I told him to go after someone special. You were there. This is good. This is what’s supposed to happen.”

No one interrupts him. That somehow makes it worse.

Kirishima finally crosses his arms over his chest again, leaning the bottom of his back against the counter opposite of him. “You’re lying,” Kirishima says simply.

The words land heavy.

No explosion.

No argument.

Just truth, stated plainly.

Katsuki feels his nose scrunch, sniffing quietly before tilting his jaw upwards in defense. “No, I’m not.”

Kirishima exhales slowly. ”I’ve known you forever, man. We all have. You’ve been drinking like this… Skipping meals. Not hanging out even during lunch. You don’t collab on missions anymore,” He scrunches his nose and sniffs primly, his lips downturned. “You just stay cooped up in here. Staring at your phone like it's gonna give you back what you lost.”

Katsuki’s fingers flex around the can, releasing his death grip on it and setting it on the counter. He slips his hands into the pockets of his sweats, turns a fierce glare to meet Kirishima’s gaze head on. He subtly rubs his sweating palms against the fabric of the inside of his pockets, feels his ears burn hot as Kirishima’s gaze flicks down to register the movement. “It’s nothing.”

”Nothing?” Kirishima shakes his head, tilting it to the side to rake his gaze carefully up Katsuki’s tense posture. “You let him go like you didn’t care. Like it didn’t hurt. And now you’re sitting here pretending you’re happy while you’re falling apart.”

Katsuki looks around at the space of the kitchen, eyes flicking back and forth between the people he has come to call friends. Mina crosses her arms, biting her lip—Katsuki recognizes the glistening of her bright eyes and decidedly ignores it. Denki stares at the floor, fingers strong from constant guitar melodies now grappling and twisting the bottom of his shirt. Sero shifts uncomfortably from foot to foot, like he wants to leave but knows he shouldn’t.

“I did what I thought was right,” Katsuki snaps, clenching his fists in the pockets of his pants as Kirishima pushes off the ledge of the counter, standing tall with an air of tranquility. Katsuki glares at the can still crumpled from his brute force, unable to keep his gaze any longer. Ashamed.

”And maybe it was,” Kirishima says softly. “But you’re not thinking about you. Or him. You’re thinking about whether you can survive without him. About how it looks if you’re strong alone.”

His hand comes down on Katsuki’s shoulder—firm, grounding, feels the same even after 9 years. He didn’t even reagister him coming around the counter, and Katsuki takes in a deep shuddering breath, quietly shaking his head against the comfort.

”That’s not how people live.”

Katsuki’s vision blurs. “I—I just—“

”You just want him to be happy. I know,” Kirishima tilts his head to the side, trying to catch Katsuki’s eyes. “But if you keep ignoring how much this hurts.. you’re gonna wake up one day and realize what you missed.”

The words hit harder than any explosion he’s ever produced—quiet, precise, devastating.

His knees buckle, pulling his hands out of his pockets to steady himself against the counter once again. Palms pressed flat against the surface, breaths coming in faster than normal.

Katsuki looks around his apartment from across the bar countertop—at the bottles, the mess, the life he’s been sleepwalking through—and for the first time, he doesn’t have an answer ready. He doesn’t feel like the hero prodigy everyone has always told him he is.

“I’m fine,” he says, breath hitching around the words, because that’s all he has left.

The room stays quiet.

They don’t argue with him.

They don’t push.

They just busy themselves quietly, rushing around him, grabbing snacks and cans of soda to clatter on the coffee table in front of the TV. Mina quietly presses her hand to his forearm and delicately wraps her fingers around the thickness of it. She guides him along towards the living room, pushing a soda into his empty hand and pressing his shoulder down until he collapses onto the sofa. His breath shudders violently before he leans his head back against the couch cushions and stares blankly at the chaos around him.

They stay longer than they usually would, reclining where they land, talking about nothing, watching him out of the corner of their eyes like they’re afraid he might shatter if they leave. He doesn’t think he can do that either. Still hasn’t let a single tear slip amongst his devastation at his loss. Hasn’t made a dent to his punching bags or the reinforced walls of his private training room, not even silent jealousy can get him out of this form.

He can barely track their conversations, stews silently in his corner of the couch, eyes unseeing as he lets their words wash over him in comfort. He thinks the conversation goes quiet at some point, Sero murmuring to the others thought he got over him after high school—feels Mina stiffen and inhale harshly somewhere to the left of him. Katsuki swallows stiffly, throat tight, closes his eyes like the words will disappear if he doesn’t acknowledge them.

He doesn’t speak, doesn’t move from his position on the couch. His mind loops around all the ways he’d let things slip past him, all the moments he could have said more, done things differently. His fingers flex around the soda in his palm.

He still hasn’t cracked open his can, it burns in his palm despite the coolness it had coming out of the fridge. They weren’t his to enjoy, the knowledge of who brought them over sits heavily in his chest.

He feels hollow despite their presence. Feels smaller than ever, sitting in his own apartment, surrounded by friends who knew a little, but not enough, and yet somehow managed to see everything.

Eventually, Katsuki kicks them out.

“Get the hell out,” he grumbles. “You’re loud.”

Normally, they’d knock out on his couch or wherever else they landed. Normally, Mina would steal a blanket and snuggle up to Kirishima, Denki would fall asleep mid-sentence with a can of beer in his hand, Sero would claim the floor like it’s a privilege to rest upon. He has a guest bedroom, but they always seem to prefer to rest in the presence of comfort that they so easily exude as a group.

Tonight, they hesitate.

Denki huffs quietly at Katsuki holding the door open as he slips his shoes back on—a silent “or else” etched into the twitch of Katsuki’s eyebrow—raps his knuckles against the door frame in goodbye and slants a small smile at him. Sero bumps his elbow against Katsuki’s, murmuring something about being there if he needs him.

Mina brushes her fingers against the scar underneath his eye, like she’s trying to brush away his despair with glassy bright eyes. Katsuki can’t even remember the last time someone touched his face like this, even longer since he didn’t feel the need to spark his hands at the mere conscious thought of a hand coming towards him. 

Kirishima lingers behind the others before he comes to stand directly in front of Katsuki, hands on his hips and demanding eye contact—the weight in the air feels heavy on his shoulders. Katsuki glances back into his home, feels his spine hunch inwards—brushes the palms of his hands against the sides of his sweats.

“It… it didn’t feel like it was supposed to hurt this much,” he breathes out quietly, almost to himself.

Kirishima softens, as much as he can for a man made out of pure muscle, takes a small step closer nodding his head. He rests his palm heavily on Katsuki’s shoulder, like he’s trying to absorb the weight that suddenly has grasped his chest in a tight grip.

“Maybe it did. But you can still fix it. You just have to decide you’re done running first. You don't have to figure it out tonight..” Kirishima gives his shoulder a reassuring squeeze, and Katsuki feels the corner of his eyes sting. “But if you keep telling yourself it’s fine without listening to how much it actually hurts…,” he swallows, and Katsuki looks forward to face him—desperate to catch the rest of his words. “Realizing what you lost because you didn’t try? That’ll hurt worse than this.”

Kirishima gives his shoulder a shake, grins a small smile at him as he releases him. “Don’t waste more time thinking about what’s ‘right’. Just... think about him.”

Then they leave.

The door clicks shut behind them.

The silence is immediate. Crushing.

Katsuki stands there for a long moment, palm pressed up against the door behind his stiffened spine, chest tight like the weight of the room is physically pressing in on all sides. The apartment feels smaller, colder, emptier, the echoes of voices linger like ghosts.

Every bottle on the counter, every knocked over soda can, every small trace of noise from only a few minutes ago—it’s all screaming at him, reflecting the chaos inside his own head. He’s trembling before he can tell his body to stop, eyes fixed somewhere on the floor as if it might swallow him whole.

His chest heaves harshly, shallow breaths pushing past his mouth that feel like they’re tearing him apart from the inside, scraped up his throat like daggers. His fingers flex against the wood, trembling without permission, the weight of everything—everything he’s held in, everything he’s shoved down like a hero should—slides deep into the crevices of his bones.

It hits him in fragments as his knees threaten to crumble underneath him.

The thought of him, smiling at her, hand curled into hers and laughing like Katsuki wasn’t apart of the picture. The moments he’s missed because he decided it wasn’t his place to fight for them, to stake his claim, to make him feel special. The gnawing, hollow ache of realizing he’s let someone else occupy the space that should have been his own to fight for.

He carries the guilt like the heaviness of the billboards with advertisements surrounding the city, gossip and rumors, the stuff that the rest of the population thrives on that he’s never taken an interest in.

He’s afraid that in finally stepping into his own truth, he might trample something already fragile. Something that isn’t his to ruin because of his own obsession, his own inability to let go.

And yet.

The thought doesn’t make him flinch. Doesn’t make him retreat. It twists harder and harder against his lungs, like his ribs could snap under the pressure. He wants to run, wants to crush the guilt in the palms of his hands before it spreads—but he can’t. He can’t.

Something gives.

He slides down the door, letting gravity take over his trembling state, until he’s sitting on the floor, back pressed flat against the wood of the door. His knees come up instinctively, arms wrapping around them to pull them to his chest. He bows his head into the comfort of his own cavern between chest and legs, curling himself tight like he might vanish if he’s small enough for the world.

And for the first time since that night—

He cries. The first tear slides down. Then another, and then they don’t stop. He surrenders to a release he hasn’t allowed himself in weeks, the residue of an anger he didn’t know he’d been holding.

It’s not loud.

Not dramatic.

Just small, sharp betrayals, breath hitching in an uneven rhythm, chest burning, tears spilling down his face like his body finally ran out of ways to hold it all in—weeks of numbness spilling out in a slow aching river. His hands tremble around his knees and he presses his fist to his mouth, biting down hard enough to hurt, like the pain might keep him together, might keep the yells of despair in.

But it doesn’t. Izuku’s name lodges in his throat, unspoken for weeks on end. Starved. Screaming without a sound to flow amongst the wind.

The guilt sits heavy above the ache. He sees flashes in his mind; every time he encouraged Izuku to keep moving, that he’d be right on his heels to surpass him, every time he let himself step back and pretend he wasn’t desperate for more, every day he stayed silent while his life kept on moving without him.

He cries for the absence, for the hope he let slip into the middle of his being, for the boy he’s loved longer than he can admit. For the weight of silence he carried alone. His breath shakes as he exhales, hot and ragged. His tears soak into his forearms, dampening the sleeves of his shirt.

The apartment bears witness to his silent anguish. For once, it doesn’t demand he hold it together. Doesn’t echo his own steel-clad obsession and resolve back at him. He’s allowed to just exist here, raw and broken with no mask, no duty, no status, no hero to uphold.

And somewhere deep beneath the layers of guilt and the ache, beneath the self-loathing for what he might have ruined—both for himself or for his person—a small flicker stirs in the caverns beneath his sternum.

Quiet. Fragile. Almost laughable in its weakness—but it exists. That maybe it isn’t too late. Maybe he can still do right by the person he loves. Maybe he can push forward, not as the number five hero, not as the flawless, untouchable Bakugou Katsuki, but as someone willing to be seen.

When the tears finally stop, Katsuki is exhausted in a way no fight has ever made him. After the last tremor passes, he lifts his head from his knees slowly, wipes his face with the back of his hand—nose congested and throat still tight—and stares past the empty, cluttered room, to the dim glow of the city outside. It begins to feel less like a cage to his own anguish, and more like a threshold.

Tomorrow, he’ll get up.

He’ll clean.

He’ll put the mask back on.

But tonight—

Tonight, he lets himself break, lets himself feel every sharp corner of the heart he’s kept blocked on every side by a brick tower, away from the world. And in that raw, quiet despair, the question fizzles in his chest, sharper than any explosion he’s ever been capable of creating: Can I fix this?

₊⊹₊⊹

Katsuki doesn’t sleep much.

He drifts in and out of it in shallow stretches, never long enough for his body to fully settle into rest, never deep enough for his thoughts to let go. When morning comes, it feels abrupt—too loud, too bright, like the world didn’t get the memo that something inside of him cracked the night before.

Work doesn’t care, because that’s the life of a hero.

He gets up at his usual time, showers, dresses himself in his comfy civilian clothes to just be able to walk down to his car and go. He moves through the routine with the kind of muscle memory that doesn’t require thought. His head throbs faintly—he’s unsure if it’s from the alcohol or the loss of hydration from the tears—not enough to slow him down, just enough to remind him that rest was never really an option.

He scrolls through his notifications quickly on his way down the elevator, emails, messages from the agency, some texts from everyone that showed up last night. He doesn’t read through those.

At the agency, he shows up exactly as he always has: sharp, focused, systematic. He handles patrol without hesitation, instincts clean and precise. Civilians barely register more than they need to. His timing is perfect, his control is flawless, no one could accuse him of being distracted. 

And he isn’t. Not really.

But between calls—between the quiet stretches where there’s nothing to explode, no one to save and nowhere to be—his mind drifts back to the same words, uninvited but steady.

Don’t waste more time thinking about what’s right. Just… think about him.

The simplicity of it irritates him at first. Katsuki has never been allowed simplicity where Izuku is concerned. Everything between them has always been layered, heavy with consequence, tangled in expectations and history and other people’s feelings.

Uraraka’s face surfaces, unwanted. The way she looks at Izuku like the ground beneath her feet is solid because he exists. Katsuki’s jaw tightens, he grips the railing at the top of some building, like it could ever actually prevent him from falling.

The guilt follows immediately, sharp and unwelcome. The idea that wanting something for himself might mean taking it from someone else makes his chest ache in a way he doesn’t have a word for.

He shoves it down and keeps moving, onto the next building, in the sky above the streets, anywhere and nowhere. This district is Katsuki’s, these streets call him by name, and sometimes they call his name too—with the same sort of reverence and awe that Katsuki does. 

The other line creeps in, quieter but more dangerous.

Realizing what you lost because you didn’t try? That’ll hurt worse than this.

That one doesn’t leave.

It lingers through the rest of the day—through paperwork, through sidekick reviews, through the mechanical act of being excellent at what he does. It doesn’t demand anything from him. It doesn’t tell him what to do.

It just sits there, solid and patient, like a truth that will still be waiting whenever he’s ready to look at it.

He doesn’t reach out to Kirishima.

But the words stay anyway, grounding him in a way he doesn’t entirely understand. Like someone set a hand between his shoulder blades and didn’t push—just reminded him he wasn’t about to tip over at the gentle ruffle of a feather. 

When he finally gets home, the apartment is quiet.

Too quiet, maybe. But manageable.

He drops his keys onto the counter and exhales, long and slow, toes off his heavy boots at the genkan first, before moving through the space. He doesn’t turn on the TV, doesn’t bother with music. He ends up standing in front of the display case without fully meaning to, gaze snagging on the familiar rectangle inside.

The All Might card.

Still in its acrylic casing that he put on it after he finally got his signature, after the war, after his own death and revival. It’s still a little scuffed at the edges. The darkened stain near the corner hasn’t faded with time, no matter how carefully he’s kept it and how much he cleaned it with a microfiber towel and the precision that he does everything. 

He remembers when it happened—shoving it into his pocket during the war without thinking, like muscle memory, like instinct. As if carrying it meant something. As if it tethered him to something solid. To someone. 

He opens the display case and pulls out the card. 

The card feels lighter than he expects when he holds it, even with the acrylic casing, worn smooth by years of being kept close and never examined too hard. He doesn’t linger on the memory of pulling it alongside Izuku when they were kids, but it presses in anyway—the shock, the laughter, the brief, electric feeling that wanting had been allowed back then. That it had been simple.

He doesn’t think about it much when he threads it onto his keyring.

Doesn’t narrate the choice. Doesn’t justify it.

It just makes sense.

Later, when he lies down, the day finally catching up to him, his thoughts drift—not spiraling, not sharp. Just present. Izuku’s face surfaces again, softer this time. Not tied to fear or regret. Just… there. Familiar. Steady.

He doesn’t decide anything. 

But when sleep finally takes him, it’s with the quiet understanding that life doesn’t feel frozen anymore. That wanting might still exist. That tomorrow will come whether he’s ready or not—and maybe, just maybe, that won’t be the worst thing.

Waking comes with the knowledge of purpose. The agency insists.

They always do.

A mandatory rest day, once a week—non-negotiable after the war, after everything. Katsuki only agreed on his own terms: he stays on call. Phone on. Gear ready. Close enough that if something goes wrong, he can be there in minutes. 

They never call.

Villain activity has slowed to a crawl, the world held together by people like Deku—relentless, tireless, still moving forward even when everyone else wants to stop and breathe. Katsuki tries not to think too hard about that as he wakes up later than usual, the apartment still wrapped in quiet.

It doesn’t feel like rest. It feels like being left alone with too much space.

He starts with the mess.

Empty bottles first—beer, soda, sake—glass and metal clinking too loud in the recycling bin. Then dishes. Soap. Heat. Dry rags. Stack. The rhythm of it steadies him, even as his mind drifts. He wipes down counters, clears stray wrappers, straightens things that don’t need straightening, sweeps and mops the floor with a control he relishes in. When he lifts one of the couch cushions to retrieve something that fell between them, a notebook slips free and hits the floor.

He freezes.

Green cover. Bent corner. The spine cracked from use.

One of Izuku’s old hero analysis notebooks.

Katsuki stares at it for a long moment, jaw slackening in surprise. He reaches down and flips it open despite himself—dense handwriting, diagrams, margin notes scribbled over each other like Izuku never knew when to stop thinking. There’s nothing new inside. Nothing Katsuki hasn’t seen before.

Still, he closes it carefully and sets it on the coffee table instead of putting it away. His mind briefly glides across the memories of lectures he stormed in on, Kota side-eyeing and glaring at him from his seat, children begging him for words of wisdom from a top hero.

Laundry comes next.

He sorts without thinking until his hands pause on a familiar shirt—soft from too many washes, faintly oversized. Izuku’s. Left behind weeks ago, forgotten in the quiet way things get forgotten when you assume you’ll be back soon.

Katsuki doesn’t bring it to his face.

Doesn’t need to.

The awareness is there anyway, sharp and uninvited, lodged beneath his ribs. He tosses it into the washer with more force than necessary and slams the lid shut, irritation flaring hot and useless. He keeps moving. 

The gym doesn’t help, but he goes anyway. Forces his body through the motions, weights clanking, sweat burning his eyes. His form is perfect out of habit, but his focus slips in the spaces between reps. His mind keeps cataloging absences instead of counting.

The couch that feels too big now.

The fridge stocked differently.

The extra toothbrush in the cupboard. 

The toolbox with screwdrivers tiny enough to fit into mechanical parts.

The unfilled side-kick application in his desk drawer with just a name and an address.

The quiet that doesn’t settle—it just waits.

At some point, sitting on the bench in the gym with his elbows braced on his knees, Katsuki exhales hard and finally lets the truth surface.

This still hurts.

Accepting it didn’t dull the edge or make the ache smaller. Letting Izuku go—telling himself it was right, that it was necessary—didn’t cauterize anything. It just taught him how to live around the pain.

And that’s when the other realization hits, slow and unavoidable.

Wanting didn’t disappear just because it was inconvenient.

It didn’t vanish because it made things complicated. Because it might hurt other people. Because it scared the hell out of him. Wanting didn’t care about timing or logic or what he told himself he should feel.

It was still there.

Quiet. Persistent. Unmoved by his attempts to outrun it.

Katsuki sits with that longer than he expects to.

He doesn’t make a vow. But something inside him settles—not into peace, but into certainty. The kind that doesn’t need noise or witnesses.

This isn’t something he can ignore his way out of.

Later, back home, his keys land on the counter with a familiar clink. The All Might card clacks gently on the table before going still. Katsuki watches it for a second longer than necessary, then turns away.

His phone stays silent.

Sleep comes in waves, but Katsuki wakes on time. Work goes as it always does. Villains. Scaring kittens back down trees to safety. Reports in and handled with a determined precision. He does his job with the same brutal efficiency that’s kept him at the top even when everything else feels like it’s slipping out of reach. The absences press against the back of his skull in warning, he lets them slip in and out freely. They don’t slow him down this time. 

Afterward, the work day runs down to an unsatisfying finish and he goes to the grocery store.

It’s routine, muscle memory. Cart down the same aisles, hand grabbing the same brands without looking. Protein. Rice. Vegetables. Things that last—things that make sense. He moves through the space like he belongs there, like nothing inside him has shifted at all.

The truth is quieter than that.

On the drive home, the city hums around him—late afternoon traffic, the low sun glinting off windshields. When he reaches for his keys at a red light, the motion catches his eye.

The keychain swings once.

Twice.

The All Might card—creased, protected, worn—glinting faintly in the light before settling against the steering column.

Katsuki doesn’t cry. He doesn’t even come close.

He just watches it for a second longer than necessary, breath steady, hand relaxed on the wheel.

And the thought arrives fully formed, solid as a locked door:

He’d let it hurt again if it meant he tried.

Not if it worked.

Not if he won.

Not even if Izuku chose him back.

Just—if he tried.

The realization doesn’t knock the wind out of him. It doesn’t spiral— doesn’t demand anything yet. It simply exists, heavy and undeniable, settling into place like it’s been waiting for him to stop running.

He wants him.

He wants him enough to risk the ache. Enough to step into the mess. Enough to live with the answer, whatever it turns out to be.

That’s it.

No action follows. His phone doesn’t need to be lifted. No message typed and deleted. Katsuki turns onto his street, parks in the garage, unloads groceries, slots them neatly into cabinets like nothing has changed.

But everything has.

Hiis phone buzzes while he’s putting away leftovers.

Kirishima:

heads up! hero gala’s officially confirmed. end of the week. your going, right?

Katsuki exhales through his nose, staring at the screen.

Another buzz, barely a second later.

Mom:

Dad finished your suit.

You better not have changed measurements since the last time I tailored you, Katsuki.

I am NOT fixing it last minute again.

He scoffs despite himself, shaking his head as he sets the phone down on the counter.

The gala.

The suit.

The timing.

It feels less like coincidence and more like the world nudging him in the ribs, subtle but insistent. Not forcing. Just… presenting.

Katsuki looks around his apartment—clean now, ordered, quieter in a way that feels intentional instead of empty. His keys rest on the counter, the card still visible where he left them.

He doesn’t reach for his phone.

Not yet.

But for the first time, the thought of seeing Izuku again doesn’t make him fold inward.

It sharpens him.

And somewhere between the steady beat of his pulse and the quiet hum of the city outside, Katsuki understands something else, just as clearly:

This isn’t over.

₊⊹₊⊹

His mom strides into the room with the same pristine confidence she has held since before he was even born, a pinstripe pantsuit sculpted to her figure. “You’re late,” she sniffs primly. 

Katsuki huffs out a quiet laugh to himself as he sits on the leather couch in his parents work office, not mentioning that he’s been sitting here for ten minutes twisting his sweaty fingers together.

“I do have another job you know. Being a hero, saving civilians and smacking down villains,” he grumbles out, sitting up straighter in his seat, digging his nails into the knee of his pants. “Minus kissing babies and shit, that’s Deku’s part.”

His mom eyes him strangely, glances at his father and tips her chin towards the black garment bag hanging on the wall. His father swiftly gathers it and chuckles quietly to himself as he watches their stare down in amusement.

“How exactly is little Izuku?” Mitsuki questions him as she straightens her posture to slip into her seat at her desk, pressing a button to slide the curtains closed over the large windows of the office. 

She swivels her chair to face him, rests her hands upon the desk and folds her palms together. An intimidation tactic if he’s ever seen one, he bristles quietly and ducks his head as he stands to start peeling off his clothes. 

“Deku’s just Deku. Still teaching brats how to be pros, still saving puppies on the streets,” he peels out of the oversized shirt he came in, nods in thanks at his dad as he passes him the black dress shirt he’s to wear. Katsuki shrugs on the shirt, quietly relishing in the expensive sleek fabric as it glides against his skin, fiddles with the buttons just to keep his gaze lowered. 

His mom steels her sight on him, he feels her eyes pass over his chest scar before regaining sharp eyes on his face, tapping her fingernails against the desk in tandem. “I’ve seen the news, you know, sort of my job to keep up with what’s ‘hip’ and what not.”

Katsuki groans, kicks off his boots and drops his sweatpants, sliding the fabric of his dress pants over his legs and huffing quietly as it snags around his thighs, she always insists that he needs to show off his “assets”. 

“People don’t say ‘hip’ anymore, you old hag. Thought you weren’t too interested in gossip rags,” his father gives him a shy shrug, a nonverbal I’m sorry as he watches Katsuki slide his hands into the back of the fabric to adjust his ass to fit better into the slacks. He sulks and shakes his head, shrugging off the silent apology. 

His mother hums quietly, rests her chin in her hand and muses out loud, “I always thought something would kick up between the two of you. Inko always said little Izuku was so fawn over you.”

Katsuki yelps as he snags his finger in his zipper like a dumbass, swiveling a fierce glare at his mother. He pulls up the rest of his zipper and buttons his pants, a sneer on his face, “The whole world ‘fawns’ over me, isn’t that what you’re supposed to say as my mother?”

He grumbles quietly to himself as he fastens his cufflinks onto his sleeves—his signature explosions that Izuku had custom made for him the first time he got ranked high enough to matter. 

“You know that’s not my point,” She stands up from her seat, takes the suit jacket from his father’s hands and helps Katsuki slide his arms into it. She twists him by the shoulders to face the floor length mirror, grinning at him like a shark that’s caught a trail of blood. 

The suit is perfect.

That’s the problem.

It fits Katsuki like it was carved onto him—sharp lines, dark fabric, tailored to emphasize strength without softness. There’s a light sheen across the fabric when he moves, like molten red lava beneath the surface. The cuffs sit exactly where they should. The shoulders are structured without being stiff. There’s not a single loose thread.

His mother circles him like a predator, tugging once at the lapel, eyeing his collarbones like she’s trying to decide whether he needs a tie or a bow tie—maybe a collar and leash. 

“Don’t slouch,” Mitsuki snaps, lip curled in admonishment. “You look like you’re going to a funeral.”

“I feel like I am,” Katsuki mutters.

Masaru hums thoughtfully, smoothing an imaginary wrinkle along his shoulder. “Nah. Funerals are quieter.”

Katsuki glares at his reflection. The man staring back at him looks composed. Respected. Like a hero who has everything figured out.

It pisses him off.

“I don’t wanna go,” he says for the fifth time in an hour, texts and calls included.

Mitsuki throws her hands up in exasperation, stands next to his father like they’re going to march him off to war. Again. “Then what’s the point of being the number five hero if you can’t even enjoy it?”

The words hit harder than they should.

Katsuki scoffs, tugging at the bottom of his suit jacket and straightening his spine with his jaw jutted out. “Enjoy what. Standing around while people clap?”

“You earned it,” she says sharply. “Act like it.” Mitsuki comes to stand in front of him again, bands a simple tie with that red sheen around his collar and ties it up with efficient hands. She pulls it tight, twists her glare up at him with eyes like the burning sun. 

Katsuki doesn’t argue, but something bitter curls in his gut.

Earned it.

He thinks about the rankings.

Number five.

He knows better.

He knows exactly why he climbed so fast.

Because Izuku was back.

Because the rivalry—the real one, the thing that sharpened him, drove him, anchored him—had returned. Because chasing Izuku and being chased in return had dragged him out of stagnation and forced him to grow.

Katsuki #5.

Deku #4.

Always right there.

Always just ahead.

He adjusts the tie roughly, like it’s choking him. Reaches into his duffle with his clothes folded neatly into it, shakes out a benzodiazepine that he keeps refilling out of habit.

The little white pill sits in his palm for a second.

He exhales sharply through his nose, “…Tch.”

Katsuki closes his fist around the pill and shoves it back into the bottle. He turns the bottle over in his hand, then sets it back in the bag with the rest of his things.

He attempts to run his shaking hand through his hair but stops himself as he remembers all the product that's in it. He zips up the bag and sets it aside, he’ll pick it up in the morning, not like his parents will trash it or anything.

His parents reconvene and putter around the desk, his mother smiles sweetly at his father as he slides a hand down her spine. Steadies her and grounds her, Katsuki looks away and swipes his palms against the fabric of his suit jacket. He hopes it’s nonflammable. 

Kirishima shows up ten minutes later, already dressed and smiling wide like tonight might actually be fun.

“Bro,” he says, eyes widening. “Damn. You clean up nice.”

“Don’t start,” Katsuki grumbles aloud, turning away from the mirror and doing up his jacket buttons as his ears burn. His mom smirks at him from his dad’s side, resting her head against his shoulder. 

“You gotta go,” Kirishima insists. “Just… let loose a little. You’ve been cooped up for who knows how long.” 

“I hate galas.”

“Yeah, well,” Kirishima says, clapping a hand on his shoulder, heavy and steady like always. “You hate a lot of things.”

His parents wave him off, tell him to get at least one photo for the press—everyone already knows they’re the only ones allowed to dress him for events like these. Kirishima steers him out of the office before he can protest again with a toothy shark grin and a casual farewell to his parents. 

They make it to the venue whether Katsuki likes it or not.

₊⊹₊⊹

The venue is obscene. 

Glass and steel climbing into the night sky, lights blazing from every floor like the building itself is trying to outshine the stars. Valets dart back and forth. Press barriers hum with anticipation. Camera flashes pop every few seconds as early arrivals pose and perform.

Katsuki parks his car outside the front entrance, and the engine shuts off with a low, mechanical sigh. For a moment, he doesn’t move, fingers resting loosely on the steering wheel as the city hums around him.

Then he reaches for his keys. 

The key ring is heavier than it should be—not because of weight, but because of what hangs from it. 

He turns it once between his fingers. 

The worn acrylic surface catches the glow of the streetlights bleeding through the windshield. All Might’s face is smiling up at him with that big toothy signature grin of his, and it feels like a gentle push. 

He squeezes it once—not hard, not desperate. Just enough to feel the familiar shape press into his palm. 

Comfort. Resolve. Something small and stubborn and alive beneath his ribs. 

Then he exhales, looks over at Kirishima and nods his head once before they step out. 

The valet waits by the curb when he steps out and walks around the car to him. 

Katsuki closes his fingers around the acrylic one last time—brief, almost unconscious—before handing the keys over. 

He does not look back at the car. 

He straightens his suit jacket instead and inclines his head at Kirishima, mid-story about something Kaminari texted when Katsuki stops walking.

Just stops.

“Oi?” Kirishima turns.

Katsuki doesn’t answer immediately.

The night air is cooler than he expected. It slips beneath his collar, brushes the back of his neck. The city smells like pavement and distant exhaust and something sweet from a vendor cart down the block.

Normal.

Grounded.

Inside those doors is performance.

And something more he hopes to achieve past that.

He rolls his shoulders once, feeling the structure of the suit settle over his frame. The fabric moves with him perfectly. Of course it does. His father doesn’t do anything halfway, and his mother would never allow him to look anything other than his best. 

The tie sits tight against his throat but he doesn’t loosen it. 

Across the street, reflected in the dark glass of a parked car, he catches himself again.

The Number Five Hero.

Polished. Controlled. Unshakeable.

He knows better.

He knows exactly why he’s here.

Not for applause.

Not for rankings.

Kirishima studies him for a second longer than usual. “You good?” he murmurs quietly to him, turning his head and nodding at an event coordinator that tells him they’re to go up the long winded stairs next. 

Katsuki clicks his tongue. “Don’t get weird.” 

A beat.

Then, quieter:

“Yeah,” he murmurs. More to himself, but he nods his head and steels his resolve. He straightens his posture and tips his chin up higher, he doesn’t need to smile for the world to know him as he is. 

It’s not a lie.

He is not spiraling tonight. He is not running. He is not pretending the ache isn’t there.

He inhales slowly through his nose, holds it, lets it out. He feels Kirishima anchor a palm onto his shoulder, ready to nudge him into the fray and steady behind his back. 

Inside those doors is Izuku.

Not unreachable.

Just… there.

Katsuki adjusts his cuffs — the tiny explosion cufflinks glint under the floodlights — and smooths his hands down the front of his jacket.

Armor in place.

Resolve intact.

He starts walking again, feels Kirishima’s hand drop and loosen at his sides. The flashing lights at the entrance are blinding. This time, he doesn’t hesitate. Kirishima stays behind—ever the chivalrous hero—to speak to the press. Katsuki continues on. 

The doors open before he reaches them.

Light spills out.

He steps inside.

₊⊹₊⊹

Katsuki hates events like this. He never understood this part of the job. 

The place is massive—crystal chandeliers, flash photography, music humming low beneath conversation. Heroes everywhere pretending they aren’t scanning exits out of habit. People laughing too loud, clinking champagne flutes, congratulating each other on surviving another year.

Too bright. Too loud. Katsuki feels like a ghost drifting through it despite the fact that there’s too many eyes on him. He stands where he’s supposed to, smiles when he has to, nods through conversations that barely register. 

He ignores the way Kaminari wolf-whistles when he finds them immediately, already tipsy, drink sloshing dangerously close to the rim. Ignores Kirishima’s proud grin and Mina quickly trying to adjust his lapel like he’ll explode if she touches him for too long. 

“KACCHAN!” Kaminari shouts in a sing-song voice, swaying into his space with a bright grin on his dorkish  face . “Bro. You look—wow. This is like… runway shit.”

Katsuki scowls, subtly turns his body to the side with his ears burning. “Lower your voice.”

Denki shrugs his shoulders, grins as Sero slides in out of nowhere and nudges his shoulder in silent camaraderie. Katsuki looks away and scans the venue, eyes blazing because he can’t ignore the pull. 

He’s not looking for Izuku. 

That’s the lie he tells himself. 

He’s learned to spot him without trying—the way his posture shifts when someone enthusiastic corners him, the way his laugh carries just a little higher than the rest of the room. Katsuki clocks him from across the hall. Instinct. 

Izuku stands across the room near one of the tall windows, green suit cut sharp across the shoulders. He looks good. Comfortable. Confident in a way that no longer surprises Katsuki, but still does something sharp and familiar to his chest. 

Uraraka is at his side. She laughs at something he says, and her hand brushes his sleeve when she leans in to say something closer to his ear. 

Jealousy flares within him. It’s sharp and instant. 

He tampers it down immediately, beating on it like one would extinguish a small fire by stomping on it with the heel of their boot. Effectively cutting off it's oxygen. It doesn’t control him anymore. It informs him. 

This still hurts.

The realization from two nights ago settles heavier here, under chandeliers and public fake smiles. 

Wanting doesn’t go away because it’s convenient.

He swallows briefly and locks back into the conversation that’s surrounding him. Sero is nudging Kaminari towards the table Jiro is sitting at, Kirishima’s arm is wrapped around Mina’s slender waist as he laughs along with the jokes going on. Katsuki feels the corner of his mouth tilt up, chuckles quietly as he feels their energy brighten inside of him. 

His shoulders relax as he glances back towards Izuku, feels the small smile on his lips be directed there instead. Kaminari, of course, is the universe’s worst-timed instrument of truth. He leans back into Katsuki’s elbow, drink still in hand and already half-grinning like he has tricks up his sleeve. 

“Yo,”, he says, nodding towards Izuku. “You see Midoriya tonight?”

Katsuki grunts, noncommittal, nudging his elbow against him to get him to lean back towards the group. Kaminari squints at him anyway, “Man… you’ve been weird lately.”

Katsuki shoots him a glare, nostrils flaring like the Taurus he was born as. “Careful.”

But Kaminari doesn’t back off—not really. He just shrugs. 

“Just saying,” he adds, voice dropping a notch. “Kinda feels like you’ve been standing still while everyone else keeps moving.”

That lands harder than it should. Kaminari does this sometimes, he muses over philosophicals like nothing then reverts back to a dead brain. 

Katsuki’s gaze shifts back to Izuku without permission, a frown slowly etching onto his features. 

Izuku is talking animatedly now, hands moving as he explains something to a pro hero Katsuki barely recognizes. He looks alive, open, like the live-wire he was with One for All. The way he always does when he’s allowed to be himself. 

And suddenly, Kirishima’s voice slots neatly in his mind:

Don’t waste more time thinking about what’s right. Just think about him. 

Orbit begins immediately after that. 

Every time Katsuki turns, Izuku is somewhere within sight line, deeply captivating and as beautiful as the day he lost him.

At the bar, leaning in close to someone like he's deep in conversation. By the press wall, hands moving enthusiastically and mouth moving so quickly that mics lean closer to catch his words. Laughing at something Iida says and falling back into Todoroki's side. Nodding through a conversation with a council member with a determined expression. 

It takes exactly thirteen minutes for their eyes to lock the first time. Katsuki is loathe to admit that his breath catches in his throat, feels his soul drift away to the other side of the room. 

Izuku looks like he has something lodged behind his teeth, palm slightly raised like he wants to reach out. Just like that day in the war, Katsuki swallows and looks away first. 

Not avoidance. 

Control. 

Sero notices everything. 

“Okay,” he mutters under his breath, sliding into Katsuki’s space with a grin that means trouble. Kirishima glances at the two of them with concern, but is quickly pulled back into conversation with Mina and some other hero. “So we’re just doing the slow burn eye contact thing? That’s where we’re at now?”

Katsuki rolls his eyes as he turns his shoulders towards him, eyes never straying too far from Izuku. He grunts out sharply, “Shut up.” 

Sero grins like he knows he’s got him in a snare, “Dude, it’s been like, tragic-romance-core for months. If you don’t make a move tonight, I will.”

Katsuki doesn’t deign to dignify that with a response, but he feels the smoke curl around his fingers anyway. 

Sero snorts next to him, waves at someone passing by and leaves with a call for drinks to the rest of them. 

Katsuki doesn’t follow this time, just shakes out his stiff hands and moves them into his pockets. But he continues to track Izuku. 

He’s listening to something Uraraka is saying, smile soft and polite, hands loose at his sides. She’s angled towards him, smiling. Not clinging. Not distant. Not performing. 

Just… there. 

Katsuki feels the old guilt stir against his sternum. Not jealousy—not really. Something heavier. Something quieter. 

This is the life he stepped away from. 

Uraraka’s dress is glittering like the chandeliers, a soft pink as tangible as her cheeks. She laughs at something, touches Izuku’s forearm briefly to steady herself—friendly, unconscious—then gets pulled away by someone else calling her name. She leaves without hesitation. 

And… Izuku doesn’t follow. 

He watches her go, polite smile still in place, and then his shoulders relax. Just a fraction. Like he’s relieved to stand on his own again. Katsuki only noticed because he’s known him for too long. 

That’s when it hits Katsuki. 

Not as pain. 

As clarity. 

They’re not choosing each other. They’re just… existing near each other.

And Katsuki realizes something horrifying and grounding all at once:

He didn’t misread it. He didn’t lose anything. He simply never stepped forward. 

Across the venue, Izuku feels it too. His posture shifts when Katsuki finally moves. Subtle. Like gravity adjusted itself half a degree to the left. 

Katsuki moves. Feels it in his bones that he’s needed. Feels the pulse in his blood like after he woke up. 

They circle without touching. 

His friends find him again and drag him into conversation after conversation. Kirishima introduces him to an agency director. Mina pulls him into a group photo. Kaminari convinces him to take a shot. Sero keeps throwing glances between him and Izuku like he’s tracking a tennis match. 

And finally, Izuku ends up only a few feet away during a press photo lineup that they move in on together. 

Their shoulders almost brush. 

Almost. 

Izuku’s voice is steady when he speaks, low enough not to carry. 

“You look good.”

Neutral. Careful. 

Katsuki’s fingers twitch against his pant sleeve. He doesn’t look at him immediately, but the pounding of his heart is loud in his ears. “I know.”

Katsuki taps his fingers against his pocket as silence fills the space between them, lifts his chin and continues to stare directly into one of the many cameras around them with an indifferent stare.

Izuku swallows, “You’re not avoiding me tonight.” 

It’s not an accusation. It’s observation. 

“Didn’t think you’d want that," the words leave him with a deep exhale.

There it is. 

Weeks of space compressed into a sentence. Camera flashes burst white across their vision. Katsuki finally turns his head to look at him directly, is blinded differently by the white of Izuku’s smile. 

Up close, Izuku looks exhausted in a way only Katsuki would notice. Like he hasn’t been sleeping either. 

“You thought wrong,” he murmurs, his gaze sliding to the side to look up at Katsuki, the mere three inches he has on him making a world of a difference. “I’ve never wanted that.”

A photographer tells them to step closer for framing. They do. 

Not touching. 

But close enough that Katsuki can feel the heat of him through fabric. He turns his gaze back to the cameras. 

“The kids have been asking about you, you know,” Izuku mumbles out of the side of his mouth, brilliant smile still on display as he faces forward. Katsuki briefly wonders how many pictures the photographers need, but desperately wishes in vain that they’d never stop. Just to remain by his side, no matter the circumstances.

He glances to his side at Izuku quickly, stiffening his posture and allowing a slight smirk to tug at his mouth, “Tch. Brats finally realize how boring you are without me?”

Izuku looks down as he releases out a low chuckle. Shaking his head in disbelief before looking back up at the cameras, smile dimmer but no less blinding and pretty.

Katsuki puffs out his chest in pride, hands stiffening at his sides in an effort not to reach out and—

Uraraka shifts on Izuku’s other side, polite smile fixed and perfect. She glances once at Katsuki—not hostile, not territorial. Just aware. She knows something is happening. 

The photos end, applause erupts from somewhere else, movement resumes. 

Izuku turns to him and starts to say something, “Kacchan, I—”

Kaminari appears like divine intervention gone wrong. 

“Midoriya!” he shouts, throwing an arm over Izuku’s shoulders, he looks happier and even more drunk somehow. “We need you for a group shot before Mina cries!”

The interruption slices the moment clean in half. Izuku hesitates as he gets tugged along, looks back at Katsuki with wide eyes. 

There’s that thing again. The unspoken. Katsuki doesn’t rescue it. He just says evenly with a tip of his chin, “Go.”

Not in dismissal, permission. Izuku goes. The night stretches on like a velvet blanket over a never-ending grassfield. 

More orbiting. More almosts. Every time Izuku laughs, Katsuki hears it. Every time Katsuki shifts rooms, Izuku recalibrates. 

At the bar later, alone for the first time all evening, Katsuki loosens his tie half an inch. It’s late enough that he won’t get papped, and he decides to take it off altogether and stuff it in his back pocket. 

He catches his reflection in the mirror behind the bottles. 

He is done waiting. 

Not in a dramatic, sweeping way. But in a quiet, immovable way. 

Across the hall, Izuku is watching again. This time, Katsuki doesn’t turn away as their eyes catch. 

He lifts his glass slightly, with intent. 

A challenge. 

An invitation. 

A decision. 

Izuku’s breath visibly catches from a distance. 

Good.

Let it. 

₊⊹₊⊹

The decision feels smaller than Katsuki expected.

He doesn’t make a scene. Doesn’t slam the glass down on the wood of the bar. 

He simply finishes the drink in one swallow and sets the empty glass on the bar. The soft click of crystal against wood feels louder than the music. He lifts his hand to drag his thumb across the liquid at the corner of his mouth, then turns around to look. 

Across the room, Izuku is already watching him.

Katsuki doesn’t hesitate this time.

He straightens, rolls his shoulders once beneath the structured weight of the suit, and starts walking.

He doesn’t look back to see if Izuku follows.

He knows he will.

Behind him, Kirishima notices almost immediately. Of course he does. Katsuki sees it in the reflection of the mirrored liquor shelves—the way Kirishima’s head turns, the way his eyes flick between them.

Then Kirishima casually shifts his stance near the press wall.

Just enough.

Just enough to block the direct line of sight from a cluster of photographers.

Good.

Katsuki pushes through the crowd without apology. Polite smiles bounce off him like shrapnel. Someone says his hero name. Someone else laughs too loudly. A council member lifts a glass in greeting.

He ignores all of it and keeps walking. 

The music fades with every step toward the hallway doors.

Behind him—

Footsteps.

Fast.

He doesn’t turn because he knows. 

The doors to the balcony swing open when he pushes them. The cold night air immediately spills over his skin and it feels like a small reprieve from the suffocating atmosphere from inside. 

The city stretches beneath the building in a grid of white and red lights, cars sliding through intersections far below like glowing veins. He thinks he hears laughing from below, and he finally inhales a deep gust of air into his lungs. 

The noise of the gala muffles behind the glass doors.

Silence settles around him.

Almost.

Katsuki walks to the railing and plants his hands on the cool metal, staring out over the skyline. He clenches his fist around the coldness of it, a small attempt to ground himself for what’s coming. 

He hears the doors open again—a gentle pull, like they’re afraid they’ll startle him—and he feels the strings holding him up like a marionette loosen across his spine. 

They close, shutting out the noise. He swears it’s like the noise of the city has shut off for this moment. 

For a few seconds, neither of them speaks.

The space between them hums with everything unsaid.

Katsuki exhales slowly through his nose and takes a long blink. He wishes he could just shut his eyes completely, let this pass him by and stand frozen here. He can feel Izuku standing a few feet behind him.

Close.

Not touching.

The air shifts when Izuku moves. Careful footsteps approach the railing, and Katsuki feels like he can’t breathe for a second. Izuku has never been careful around him, not for a long time at least. Not since he realized that Katsuki wasn’t as mean and ugly as he pretended to be. 

But now they’re side by side again, and yet it feels so much different than it has all those times he thought about before.

Heavier. Still not looking at each other.

Katsuki keeps his gaze on the city lights, loosens his grip on the railing and allows himself to bask in his presence instead. Allows himself to feel the subtle relief no matter how much tension there is. By his side. Where he was always meant to be. 

He silently prays that this won’t be the last time. 

“Thought you’d send Kaminari,” he mutters.

Izuku huffs out a breath that might be a laugh. He feels the way his shoulders seize up with it, and he swallows thickly as they still don’t brush against him. Not like before. 

“Tempting.”

His voice is quieter than it was inside. 

No performance. No microphones. No audience.

Just Izuku.

For a long moment, neither of them says anything else.

The wind brushes against the fabric of Katsuki’s suit jacket. The loosened collar of his shirt shifts against his throat. He casts his gaze down to his hands, brushes his fingers along the underside of the railing. 

Beside him, Izuku leans forward to rest his forearms against the railing, eyes forward and tracking. He’s close enough now that Katsuki can feel the heat of him through the thin space between their shoulders.

It’s been weeks.

Weeks of distance.

Weeks of careful avoidance.

And somehow, standing here like this feels… familiar.

Dangerously familiar.

Izuku breaks the silence first.

“You stopped running.”

The words are calm. Observational. Not accusing.

Katsuki snorts softly, clicks his tongue against the roof of his mouth.

 “Wasn’t running.”

Izuku turns his head slightly. Katsuki can feel the weight of the look without meeting it.

“You said goodbye like you were,” Izuku says.

That lands.

Katsuki’s fingers tighten slightly against the railing. He licks over his dry lips then subtly scrapes his teeth over the bottom one, thinking.

He finally allows his eyes to glance sideways. 

Izuku’s hair is a mess from the wind, green curls shifting against his temple. The gala lights spill out through the glass doors behind them, outlining the sharp lines of his suit jacket.

Up close, he looks tired—not physically, something deeper, like someone who has been carrying a thought around too long—and Katsuki feels a surge run from the tips of his toes up to his throat. He’s still so beautiful. 

Katsuki drags a rugged hand through his hair, his skin prickles with guilt. “I thought letting you go was the right thing,” he says. It comes out rougher than he intended.

Izuku studies him.

Really studies him.

Not the number five hero.

Not the rival.

Just him.

“And was it?” Izuku asks, his eyes tightening like he’s really seeing something past Katsuki. Past the stonewalling and ignorance that he has held. 

Katsuki doesn’t answer immediately.

The wind slides between them again as their breaths linger through the space in silence.

Down on the street, a siren wails faintly somewhere in the distance.

Finally—

“No.”

The word sits heavy between them.

Izuku’s shoulders shift slightly, like he hadn’t expected the honesty. 

Katsuki keeps going before he can stop himself. Before he can take back his decision. Before he can allow the regret to consume him any longer. 

“You said goodbye like you were okay without me,” The words come out sharper than he intended, but they’re out all the same. “So I figured I was the only one who—“

He cuts himself off and tightens his jaw, a click in his chest like a warning. For a second, it feels like he might swallow the rest of it. Like he’s done a thousand times before. Then he exhales. 

Izuku looks like he’s gearing up to speak, but Katsuki can’t have that yet. He turns his head away again because he can’t take those eyes on him, not for this. 

“I thought if I stepped back,” he mutters, eyes fixed back on the skyline, “you’d get whatever you wanted.”

Izuku’s brow furrows faintly.

“With Ochako,” Katsuki adds quietly.

There it is.

Izuku inhales slowly. Katsuki shuts his eyes now, he can feel the pinpricks behind his lids but he refuses to show more than that. 

“I tried,” he says.

The admission is simple.

Honest.

No defensiveness.

He feels the pricks slide down to his chest, and the ache behind his sternum feels harsh and aching. He opens his eyes again, because he has to face this, but they’re still unseeing amongst the buildings that span the lines in dirt that he protects. “I know.” 

Izuku looks down at his hands on the railing. He fidgets his thumb over the nail on his other, just like he used to do when they were kids.

Katsuki glances over at his hands and swallows roughly, thinks of running the streets as a brat, bruised knees and crooked teeth, holding too much power for a body so small, pulling a card of his favorite hero with those very same hands—only so much smaller. 

“I really did try.”

Katsuki nods once, he believes him. Of course he does.

Ochako is good. Kind. Easy to love. Beautiful, both inside and out. 

For a moment the balcony fills with nothing but the quiet city air again. The subtle shift of their shoulders moving with their even breaths.

Then Izuku speaks.

“There are different kinds of special,” he breathes out. 

Katsuki finally shifts his body, looks at him fully. His heart pounds against his chest but he can’t allow it to do much more than that. It feels like it’ll slip right out of the hole that he used to have and jump out to splatter on the pavement. 

Izuku’s gaze stays forward, watching the lights below. Katsuki notes that his fingers curl lightly against the balcony railing. “So I thought… maybe that’s what you meant.”

Katsuki’s throat tightens, but he nods his head, because he understands. He understood it when he said it all those weeks ago, when Izuku’s mind was somewhere else. On someone else. His fingers grip imperceptibly around the bottom of his suit jacket. 

“Ochako and I went out a few times,” he admits quietly. “I thought maybe that’s the kind you were talking about.”

The words aren’t defensive. They’re thoughtful—careful. Like he’s still trying to solve a problem that never made sense. The glaze over his eyes feels… lost.

“It felt good,” Izuku continues. “She’s amazing. She deserves someone who—“ 

He stops himself abruptly, his mouth parted on the last word before closing with a click. “But it wasn’t…” A small breath leaves him, “It wasn’t the same.”

The thumping in Katsuki’s heart continues, and he has to clamp his right hand down against the railing. He has to sit with the horrifying realization: Izuku didn’t move on. Izuku was just trying to live the life Katsuki thought was best for him. 

Katsuki doesn’t ask if they’re still together. If they ever were together. Because selfishly, he doesn’t want to hear the answer. 

“I thought,” Izuku goes on slowly, “maybe what I felt for you was just… history.” 

His mouth twitches slightly. “Shared trauma. Childhood rivalry. Something we outgrew.”

Katsuki’s chest tightens and his eyes drift down to Izuku’s chest, feels the sting of those words ricochet throughout his limbs. His right hand spasms involuntarily against the railing from too much pressure. He knows he needs to loosen it up, he knows he still can’t push it too hard even after all these years. He doesn’t. 

“And?” Katsuki asks.

Izuku laughs softly. But there’s no humor in it.

“Turns out that doesn’t really go away just because it’s inconvenient.”

Katsuki freezes, looks back up suddenly to try to catch his facial features.

That line.

His own thought reflected back at him.

Izuku finally turns his head and their eyes meet. 

Up close, the green of Izuku’s eyes looks darker in the low light. Not like the mossy warm forest he’s come to know, but they still shine like jade and malachite. 

“And you,” Izuku says quietly, hand coming up to his own chest like he needs the reminder that he’s still breathing, “made it really hard to forget.”

Something hot flashes across Katsuki’s chest.

Weeks.

Weeks of trying not to look at him, look for him.

Weeks of pretending it didn’t matter.

“Funny,” Katsuki mutters. “You were doing the same shit to me.”

Izuku’s lips twitch again. Then the expression fades from his eyes and the space between them shifts.

Not hostile.

Just… heavier.

Izuku’s voice drops when he speaks again, and he clenches his hand around the fabric over his sternum. “I already made peace with you leaving.”

The sentence lands like a stone dropped into still water. Katsuki blinks and feels his breath catch in his throat as he processes the words over and over again.

That… wasn’t what he expected.

Izuku shrugs slightly then, drops both his hands to his sides like he can’t hold them up anymore, “I figured if that’s what you needed, I’d respect it.” The quiet acceptance in his tone twists something deep in Katsuki’s gut. Except… he can’t accept that either.

“You weren’t supposed to,” Katsuki blurts.

Izuku’s brows knit together like he’s confused, “What?”

“You weren’t supposed to just… accept it.”

Izuku just stares at him, brows furrowing in confusion or anger or something else Katsuki can’t define.

“Katsuki,” he says carefully, “you told me goodbye.”

“Yeah.”

“You walked away.”

“Yeah.”

“You ignored me for weeks.”

“Yeah.”

Each answer comes sharper than the last. Izuku’s frustration finally flickers to life.

“What exactly was I supposed to do with that?” he stares at him in disbelief. His arms start to come up like he wants to cross them, but stop like he refuses to show even that vulnerability. 

Katsuki opens his mouth—

Stops.

Because the real answer is ugly.

Fight for me.

Chase me.

Don’t let me go.

But he didn’t give Izuku that chance, and so he’ll have to live with that for the rest of his life. But he can’t yet back down, not without explaining, he can’t.

He swallows hard.

“I tried to let you go,” Katsuki says again. Because he has to understand, he has to see what he means. 

Izuku’s expression tightens slightly again, shaking his head in an aborted movement as his eyes track over every feature across Katsuki’s face.

“And?”

Katsuki’s hand leaves the railing. The wind catches his hair, pushes it across his forehead.

For once, Bakugo Katsuki feels uncertain. Just for a second.

Then he steadies.

“I can’t.”

The words land between them.

Simple.

Final.

Izuku goes very still, but the city continues to hum below them. 

Katsuki holds his gaze. He refuses to look away, refuses to retreat. He feels desperate as he tries, tries his hardest to get him to see. To get him to feel. No matter what happens tonight, he can’t leave without this. 

“I can’t pretend you’re not—” the reason he breathes, the first thing he thinks of when he wakes, why he still fights, everything; he stops, jaw tightening, searching for something that doesn’t sound pathetic.

Izuku waits.

Katsuki exhales hard.

“You’re it,” Katsuki says.

Izuku’s breath catches but Katsuki keeps going before his courage evaporates. “I thought if I stepped aside you’d get the life you deserved.”

His voice drops as he murmurs out quietly, “Turns out that life still had me standing in the middle of it.”

The wind shifts again. He takes a deep breath, gearing himself up to continue. To keep fighting, to prove himself, to show him what he truly means. 

For a moment Izuku just continues to stare at him.

Processing.

The wind tugs loose strands of Izuku’s hair across his forehead. Katsuki drags a hand through his own hair, irritated by the way his pulse won’t settle. And his attention snags on something stupid. 

Izuku’s mouth. 

The way his bottom lip presses between his teeth for a second, like he’s holding back words. Katsuki’s jaw tightens immediately. Dangerous thought—not the point of this conversation. 

Then Izuku whispers:

“You’re serious.”

Katsuki scoffs, “When the hell have I ever joked about you?” his lips turn down in a frown, shakes his head and continues, “I’d risk my damn life for you. Over and over again if it meant you got to live.” He feels his breath shudder out of him, too much—no, not enough.

That finally cracks something in Izuku’s composure.

His shoulders shake slightly—not laughter. Something closer to overwhelmed disbelief.

“You idiot,” he murmurs shaking his head gently as he looks down, but there’s light in his eyes again. A light that Katsuki hasn’t gotten to see in so long. A light that binds him to solid ground, that tethers him to the world. To Izuku.

But the words are soft—not angry, not mocking. Just… full. 

Katsuki feels his nose twitch against an overflow of water that wants to leak against the corner of his eyes. He straightens his stance and sniffs quietly, staring him straight in the eyes. And for the first time tonight—he wonders if this might actually work.

But Izuku isn’t finished. He lifts his head slowly and his eyes are sharp again. His chin is uplifted and strong, jaw jutting out, and suddenly Katsuki feels so much smaller than him. No matter the height difference, the breadth of their shoulders, their muscle mass—Izuku has always been much bigger than even the rest of the world.

And Katsuki has just been chasing on his heels to be included in that. 

“Say it properly,” he says.

Katsuki frowns, “What.”

Izuku steps closer. Now the space between them is barely a breath. Which is funny because it’s like suddenly Katsuki can breathe again. 

“If you’re going to blow up my entire emotional stability tonight,” Izuku says quietly, “you don’t get to half-ass it.”

Katsuki stares down at him and something dangerous sparks in his chest. It flickers within him like a smoldering flame, slowly growing brighter and brighter until it pops—just like his explosions—and the feeling progresses into deep pleasure and satisfaction. 

“You really want that?”

Izuku nods once, “Yeah.”

The wind howls faintly around the edge of the building. He feels his arms freckle in goosebumps despite being fully covered and warm. 

Katsuki leans down slightly, close enough that Izuku could kiss him if he wanted to. Just enough that his voice drops to a low rumble between them.

“I can’t stop loving you, dumbass.”

Silence crashes over the balcony.

And Izuku—

Stops breathing.

He stares at him. Not blinking. Like the words just detonated somewhere behind his ribs and he hasn’t caught up to the sound yet.

“Kacchan…” he breathes. It’s barely a voice, more like something escaping him.

Katsuki’s stomach drops immediately.

Great.

Fantastic.

He’s finally said it and now Izuku’s going to—

Izuku grabs the front of his suit.

Hard.

The fabric bunches in his fists as he yanks Katsuki forward to meet him, and he stumbles a step, eyes wide and furious and shining in a way that makes Katsuki’s pulse slam against his throat.

“You can’t just say something like that,” Izuku says, voice shaking, but he doesn’t let go of his suit jacket. If anything, his grip tightens. 

Katsuki blinks down at him, heart still hammering from the confession sitting between them like live wire, “I just… did.”

Izuku makes a strangled noise somewhere between a laugh and a sob.

“You absolute idiot.”

But he doesn’t let go.

And for half a second, Katsuki braces himself again for rejection, for the polite apology, for the gentle way Izuku always finds to soften the blow. But it never comes. 

The fabric of Katsuki’s suit is wrinkling under Izuku’s fists now, knuckles pale where they’re twisted into the lapels. “Do you have any idea,” Izuku says, voice rough, “how long I waited for you to say that?”

Katsuki’s pulse stutters, feels the corners of his lips start to uplift but it’s wobbly and unsure.

“…Tch.”

Because the answer is obvious.

Too long.

Years.

A lifetime.

“I thought letting you go was the right thing,” Katsuki mutters again, stubborn even now.

Izuku’s head snaps up, “And I thought,” he shoots back, “that if I waited long enough you’d realize you were being stupid.”

Katsuki chokes on a breath, his mouth pulling sideways in something dangerously close to a smile, “Well.”

Izuku’s jaw tightens, “Well?”

Katsuki shrugs one shoulder, cocking his head slightly to the side as he feels his lungs fill with a breath. The movement connects them together from the chest down.

“Guess we were both idiots.”

Izuku stares at him for half a second.

Then—

He surges forward—not gentle or hesitant or careful. Perfect. He kisses him like he’s furious about it. Their teeth knock together the first second because neither of them slowed down enough to make it pretty.

Katsuki makes a startled noise into Izuku’s mouth, and for a split second he just stands there like an idiot while the reality of it crashes around him. Midoriya Izuku is kissing him. 

It’s sounds like water is rushing into his ears and leaving him lightheaded, like he might faint. But Izuku starts to pull back and—instinct detonates and he grabs him back immediately and squeezes his eyes shut. His fists tangle in the fabric at Izuku’s shoulders, hauling him closer like gravity suddenly doubled.

It’s messy.

Hot.

Months—years of frustration crashing together all at once.

Izuku kisses like he’s been starving—like he’s trying to prove something. Like he’s trying to make up for every moment they didn’t do this when they should have.

Katsuki answers immediately. Because of course he does. Because he’s wanted this for so long it feels almost violent finally having it.

His hand slides up the back of Izuku’s neck, fingers tangling in soft curls as he pulls him in deeper. His hand shakes, he doesn’t even realize it’s happening until Izuku makes a quiet sound against his mouth and pulls back just enough to look at him. Katsuki feels his eyes flutter open to catch his gaze, his green eyes are wide and soft. 

Their foreheads bump together, breaths mixing between them.

Izuku’s hands slide from his front to around his waist like he’s steadying him. Grounding him, just like his dad does for his mom. Just like everything he’s ever wanted. 

“I’ve got you,” he murmurs. 

Katsuki huffs out a breath against his mouth. Half laugh, half disbelief. His other hand grips at his forearm because it feels right. All of this feels so achingly right, like he’s meant to be here. Like the world is resettling around them and murmuring a quiet, there.

“You’re still an idiot,” Izuku murmurs.

Katsuki snorts—and it startles him as warmth floods his chest anyway, “Yeah?”

Izuku’s fingers curl tighter in his suit, nodding against his forehead and grinning as his lashes come to rest against his cheeks again.

“But you’re my idiot.”

Katsuki stares at him for half a second, then he surges forward to kiss him again. Like he’s sealing the confession into something real.

Izuku’s chest is warm against his, and he truly wonders how he ever survived without this feeling. Their lips meld together in deep kisses, and he tilts his head to the side to allow for better access. He feels as Izuku inhales through his nose, the way his eyelashes brush against his, and how his lips are slightly chapped. 

Katsuki tightens his fingers in Izuku’s hair, holding on like it’ll stop him from falling any deeper than straight into Izuku’s soul. His tongue sweeps out—almost by accident—to glide along Izuku’s lower lip. To feel the roughness of it by his strongest muscle. 

But then Izuku’s mouth drops slightly, like he wants more of it. And Katsuki’s—well Katsuki has never been able to deny him anything. 

Their tongues are shy as they meet, he feels as they both gasp against it like they’ve been electrified. But Izuku only grips his hips tighter and Katsuki pushes his tongue harder against his. 

He can’t even complain against the extra spit collecting in his mouth, Izuku tastes like the sweet champagne they were serving inside and he digs deeper to find the place that’s just him. 

Izuku moans imperceptibly, and starts to pull back like he’s embarrassed. Katsuki chases after his lips anyway, because this feels like the only thing that’s holding him steady right now. 

Their lips press together tenderly, plush and red against one another. 

The kiss slows with gentle smacks of wet lips against wet lips, and Katsuki pulls back just enough to look at him. Watches as he licks his lips and the string of spit between them disconnects from the space.

Izuku’s hair is a mess from the wind. His lips are swollen and he’s breathing hard, same as him. His eyes are wide like he still can’t believe this is happening.

Katsuki brings his hand from around the back of his head to Izuku’s jaw and brushes his thumb across Izuku’s cheek almost without thinking. Right across the scar dragging down the span of his cheek. 

Izuku exhales a shaky laugh, still gripping Katsuki’s hips and staring at him. 

“Wow,” he murmurs.

Katsuki feels his lips upturn and his cheeks heat, “What.”

Izuku shakes his head, still smiling in disbelief and awe.

“We really wasted a lot of time, huh?”

Katsuki stares at him for a second, quirking a brow in amusement, “Shut up.”

“You’re unbelievable,” Izuku breathes, but it comes out like he wants to giggle about it.

Katsuki hums quietly, leans in so he can brush the tip his nose over the width of his forehead, “Yeah.” He relishes in the fact that he’s allowed to do so, feels the reverence settle deep within his bones and pulls back.

Izuku narrows his eyes slightly, “You know this means I’m never letting you run again.”

Katsuki grins, his teeth peeking out to glint against the moonlight, “Good.”

Izuku sighs out then presses his forehead against Katsuki’s collarbone and laughs weakly.

“We’re going to have to go back inside eventually.”

Katsuki groans, nudging his nose against the top of Izuku’s hair and digging it into his skull in admonishment, “Absolutely not.”

“Kacchan—” Izuku snorts, shaking his head against his collarbone as his shoulders lift up and down in silent giggles. 

“I just confessed I’ve been in love with you for half my life,” Katsuki mutters, mouth turning down in a pout. 

Izuku lifts his head, “Not in so many words but,” his eyes are glistening as he stares up at him with a gentle smile, “…fair.”

Katsuki glances toward the balcony doors then back at him, the confidence rearing within him and lighting up as sparks in his chest.

“Let ‘em wait.”

The city hums below them like it always has and Katsuki doesn’t know what tomorrow will bring. He doesn’t know if this will be easy or how much things will change for them. 

But he knows, with the quiet certainty that sits heavy in his chest, that he would choose this pain again if it meant standing here beside him. 

And for the first time in a long time, the future doesn’t feel like something he has to survive alone.