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In the living room of his home, a five-year-old Izuku wept. His hand clenched around a blond haired, red-eyed boy's like a savior.
In a way, the boy had been.
Their respective mothers noted no visible bruises upon Izuku, skin peppered with dirt and light scratches most young children bear with outside play. Of course… sometimes, the most painful wounds weren't ones that could be so easily seen.
"The other losers barely let Deku play," the blond scowled. "Then, Big Nose started inviting us to his lame birthday party but Deku didn't get one."
"Oh honey," Midoriya Inko said softly, dropping to her knees in front of Izuku. Despite being his mother, Izuku flinched back, burrowing himself closer into the other child's side. "Did they hurt you somewhere? Or just made you sad?"
"And why're your knuckles red, Katsuki?" The other mother in the room piped up.
Inko glanced warily her way at the growl woven throughout the tone. "Mitsuki—"
"Because! I punched Big Nose! Right in his big nose!"
"Bakugou Katsuki, we've talked about this!"
"But Mom!" Katsuki yelled, stomping his foot. "When Deku started getting sad, those extras told him to suck it up. Big Nose said that his dad told him to not invite Deku because it was a waste of time."
Mitsuki's brow twitched. "A waste?"
"Yeah! He said some really mean stuff! Like Deku not being around forever. So yeah, I punched him! And burned the crap outta his invite. Ground me if you want, I—oof! Auntieee!"
Katsuki's whine muffled itself into Inko's blouse when she crushed him to her chest. "Katsuki, you sweet, sweet boy."
At five and six, Izuku and Katsuki never could have understood the lackadaisical, uncaring words.
Centuries ago, the title of Avatar was one to be revered; heralded as the sustainer of order and peace until their energy faded from one mortal body to the next. However… not all were virtuous. Some took what they were gave with little in return.
More and more generations of Avatars passed, some softened from the consequence of prolonged peace. What had been hard to explain away was how each one seemed to hand over the torch younger and younger.
Odd coincidences, at first. A world unaware that beneath the ashes of the defunct Red Lotus years and years ago, a new evil sprouted in its place. Perhaps one whose roots were there long before, nourished through the chaos. A weed not plucked.
Humanity's most damning fallacy is that through peace, there is no need for evil. Where shadows lay, those that slink between them follow.
One such example is the anonymous figurehead heading the once-functioning Red Lotus. No one knew of his face or name, whether he was young or old. Having renamed the following to be known as the League of Masters, the shadows were his home.
A conspiracy to most, that he was the one behind the ramping disappearances of Avatars. One rumor even goes as far as to hint at longevity tied to immoral applications of blood-blending, yet only he would know for sure.
Or the leader's inner circle: head officers appointed for their specific mastery of their elements, twisting and shaping them into caricatures of their own souls given life. Perhaps dark, and festering; a temper hot enough to engulf one in blue so bright it blinds; blood that choruses the hymns of a maestro, far removed from their victim's own heart of which it flows.
The League of Masters went from curious whispers to stitched lips. The boogeyman under any proficient bender's bed.
The death sentence of an Avatar.
What was once seen as a blessing dwindled into the murmurs of being a curse. The more generations that passed, the younger they seemed to meet their ends. As such, Avatars became noticeably more weaker; some only having mastered their innate element—perhaps with a little elementary understanding or bending stages for the others.
Except for the first notable Avatar since the famous Airbender from centuries ago:
All Might.
No one had a clue what the legend's natural-born element had been; he'd been the first Avatar in ages to have a solid foundation for all four, yet his punches could have winds leveling mountains and a breath cleaving fields of trees bare of their leaves.
It was the first name Izuku shouted once he was told he was the next in line. Old enough to understand, yet too young to grasp the weight of the title.
So, when "kids were being kids" and the children Izuku grew up with fell for the ill-intended whispers of their parents, Izuku turned to Kacchan. The brave five-year-old that socked a kid in the nose for him; that dragged him to birthday parties and forced the others to include him in games.
The same Kacchan who, once they turned twelve, started distancing himself, too.
Hours turned into days. Days into weeks. Katsuki's drive to control fire as easy as his breath left his lungs consumed him like a pyre. Training Izuku could understand. Katsuki was crackling fire in his palms since he was four.
But then he, too, let a dark cloud settle over their friendship.
Izuku tried asking once.
He never expected that the same fist that protected him once would become what hurt him the most. "Loser" and "eyesore" became his name, and the dirty scrapes on his knees his new best friend. He tried to understand. Never one to give up, Izuku still kept at Katsuki's heels like a shadow.
He watched as Katsuki scorched his own palms; as he swore into the cover of the night as Izuku hid behind the trees. Izuku would watch him. He'd mimic his movement, match up their breaths. The first puff of smoke to erupt from his palms felt more hollow than celebratory.
Because Izuku knew the only person he wanted to run toward to share it with barely spoke to him. Katsuki promised they'd learn firebending together.
Instead… the flame of their friendship started to smolder into pitiful ash.
It was all Izuku could do to shelter what heat remained with his hands.
He tried asking him once, stopping the blond in the middle of a dirt path back into town from school. It was broken off from the main road, but they liked the silence. One that took weeks of courage for Izuku to break.
"Your firebending was amazing today, Kacchan." The nickname landed clumsily from disuse. The arc of Katsuki's kicks were perfect. Izuku could still feel the heat despite the fall chill.
Katsuki said nothing, of course. He pretended that Izuku wasn't mere feet behind him as he always did when they walked home.
"Y-You must be practicing a lot," Izuku pushed on. "The swing kick with the flames from the bottoms of your feet were—"
"You'd know, wouldn't you?" Katsuki gruffed, coming to a dead stop.
Izuku's own steps stopped, too. His heart clenched as he clutched the straps of his backpack tighter, nausea having begun to swirl in his stomach. "I… I'm not sure I—"
"If you had been pulling that shit with anyone else, they probably never would have noticed." Katsuki turned to face him then, features schooled, a slight downward pinch to his brows. "Taken to stalking now?"
Izuku's heart dropped. His lips stayed sealed, because he knew there'd be nothing he could say. Nothing to say, except… "If you knew, then…" He tried to swallow over the emotion that battered up his throat. "I wasn't trying to be weird," he whispered instead. "I wasn't. You just—stopped."
Katsuki's shoulders raised the slightest bit in defense.
"I never stopped being your friend," Izuku continued, choked. "I don't know why you… wanted to stop being mine, but I've never changed. I—"
"That's the problem, ain't it?" Their eyes met properly for the first time in what felt like years. "I can't stop. My time is just as limited, regardless of if I have a fuller life to live compared to—shit."
The quick breath Izuku sucked in through his nose matched the flood of poorly concealed guilt that overtook Katsuki's features. "Compared to me?" Barely a breath over the wind, but Katsuki heard him anyway.
"Dek—Izu— fuck."
Izuku followed the hand that Katsuki scrubbed over his face, more swears that his ears couldn't quite catch bled from lips that curled into a grimace.
"There was a kid once," Izuku said, sad and lonely and wet, "that always got in trouble for defending me against other kids who used to tell me the same thing." He let the sneakers on his feet carry him past Katsuki, stopping briefly once they were shoulder to shoulder to mutter, "You're lucky he's been away for a while, or you would've had to watch your nose, too."
Izuku never heard Katsuki's own footsteps pick back up behind his. In the weeks that followed, Katsuki became even more distant. No spared glances or mean words in the hallways in passing. But in spite of that, Izuku remembered feeling lighter.
Their mothers still met up for dinner every other week, but Katsuki never came, and they never went to the Bakugou's. Mitsuki wouldn't bring up her hotheaded son at all, except for one occasion when helping Inko with dishes.
"He hardly says anything at home anymore," Mitsuki glumly said. "He's always out practicing. Barely home. He won't talk about it."
Am I a bad mother? hung in the kitchen like wrecking ball. Inko had none of it.
"Our sons are preteens, you know," she assured. "Teenage boys. We can only imagine how different it is for them than it was for us."
Mitsuki only hummed. "Katsuki doesn't like admitting it, but he knows I know him like the back of my hand. Something happened that has him, I don't know… He walks around the house like he's got cinder blocks on his feet with guilt spray painted on the sides."
"Izuku's been a little down, too. Do you think that maybe…?"
Mitsuki sighed, both women falling silent.
When Izuku hopped into bed not long after, claiming a long day and sleep tugging him away, he hugged them, thanked them, and thought of Kacchan.
Kacchan who fell onto his knees in the middle of a small clearing in the forest. His chest heaved with exertion, fatigue threading itself into every muscle, and a pinpoint headache started to bloom between his eyes.
His sweat dropped from his bangs onto the charred grass like dew. Green strands clutched between his fingers so tightly that his knuckles were white.
He couldn't fucking do it.
At fifteen, Katsuki had the talent and skill of a man far in years. He'd redirected lighting—just once, still living with a phantom twitch in his heart—can control the heat of his flames in seconds. So why could he not combustion bend?
Katsuki didn't care that most combustion benders took years to master it. That, at his young age, it was unheard of. Simply not possible for someone of Katsuki's maturity to understand its intricacies.
But he knew.
The problem was as glaring as the migraine that battered around in his skull.
"You're lucky he's been away for a while, or you would've had to watch your nose, too."
Katsuki's teeth ground together. The metallic tang hit his tongue as strong as the regret had once those words left Deku's mouth.
"I never stopped being your friend. I don't know why you… wanted to stop being mine, but I've never changed."
Katsuki hadn't known either. Not until it was much too late. Guilt had settled over his conscience like layers of thick, fine dust. At that point, disturbing it would only poison his lungs further. He had no choice but to let it build.
He had to worry about himself, too, right? It wasn't selfish to believe that his growth mattered. He bit out a curse into the damp, night air. No, not selfish. Katsuki could handle being selfish.
But if there was one thing he couldn't stand to think of himself as being, it was— it was…
"Fuck that."
Stuffing his hands in the pockets of his sweats, he sulkily winded his way through the brush and treeline. No. He wouldn't entertain it, the realization that'd been bogging him down for weeks.
Coming to terms with it was one thing. Silently acknowledging that, somewhere along the line, you fucked up is one thing. But as someone who'd always made it a point to be conscious of his flaws—embracing them despite what others thought—the fact that this… this thing that had snuck between him and Deku had been allowed to…
He didn't know how to handle it. He'd never had to.
And, fuck. He'd missed Deku.
He'd missed his best friend that even though they never talked as they used to, Izuku was always there. In the corner of his eye, or a presence in a room that Katsuki felt raise the pimples onto his flesh.
Because more painful than his glaring oversight with his own feelings, would have to be a life with his one constant. His chest nearly caved any time he gave thought to what that would be like. No dorky rambles about Katsuki's firebending, so sparkle in green eyes as Katsuki showed off with a little too much flair, no nerdy voice calling out to him with that stupid name—
"Katsuki!"
His mother's palm dwarfing his wrist in a rush snapped him out of his sudden introspection. The next his eyes focused on the world around him, families scrambled into their homes, locking their front doors and gates in a hurry.
Through the outside lights illuminating the fronts of homes and the roads, clouds of dark smoke not too far from them billowed up towards the sky. "What the—"
"C'mon, let's go. Your father is getting the basement ready."
"The basement? Why—"
"For once, don't question me." His mother stared at him, unnerved and nerves steeled.
And so, Katsuki let his mother drag him down the street. His eyes took in the chaos—people shoving belongings in cars and screeching away, leaving behind the crisp scent of burnt rubber. Screams of confusion and slamming of doors.
This… This made no sense, Katsuki could only think to himself. Mindless violence of this scale had been unheard of for centuries. Not unless it was related to—
Katsuki halted dead in his tracks, his mother grunting as his arm tugged in place as she had to stop, too. "Deku. Where's… Are they here for…?"
"We don't know," Mitsuki answered honestly, eyes downcast. "He and Inko were both with your father before I left to come find you."
Okay. Okay.
So Deku… was with his dad. Just like that, Katsuki became the one to drag his mother along instead. Their house was just one more block down. Just a minute or two more and they could… they could retreat into the safety of the basement.
The raiders would come and go, and that'd be all it was. Raiders, not—not the alternative. Not the League. Not the people that would shake the foundation of Katsuki's life in ways he didn't want to acknowledge.
"—et away!!"
Katsuki and Mitsuki whipped their attentions to their family home, Masaru holding a frantic Inko by the shoulder who was shouting out her son's name in the front doorway. Izuku stood in a wide-legged stance at the entrance to the front gate, fists clenched and poised to strike, if a little shaky.
"Shit," Mitsuki hissed between her teeth. Her hold on Katsuki's wrist tightened, tugging him back closer to her. "Katsuki, wait."
They watched as the peculiarly dressed raiders laughed, Izuku's foot stomping the earth underneath him, rocks following the raise and punch of his arm as they jetted towards the strange men. One of them—a younger-looking man with white, shaggy hair and a scar running horizontally over his mouth—caught one with ease.
The rock crumbling to dirt-dust in his hands made Izuku shake harder, tears soaking into the collar of his night shirt as he fought to stand firm. Even when the man took steps to walk closer, a look so blank and dead it was a wonder that he seemed alive at all.
Something about the way the white-haired man's hand reached towards Deku, not aiming for Deku's body but his face, had Katsuki's palms searing. A twist in his heart warned that if that hand made it, there'd be no more flashes of green and freckles in his peripheral. No more of that grounding presence.
All because of that one thing that had its own fingers wrapped tightly around his throat.
Ignorance… was not bliss.
Ignorance was going to cost Katsuki everything.
His pride, his ego—he could build those back up. Yet he couldn't raise his best friend back from the dead. Katsuki's ignorance would become Deku's gravekeeper.
Katsuki closed his eyes to it. Didn't want to see or admit that he let himself be influenced by the bullshit that he fought against with his own two hands. Guilt ate at his conscience like a rat on cheese, and at some point the shame made it feel near impossible for him to take it all back.
But in that moment, Izuku was still there. Still standing and breathing, not in Katsuki's peripheral, but right in front of his eyes. Unmistakable if shaky, with a heroism so innate that deep down, Katsuki knew he could never match it.
Maybe that's what had done him in, feet glued to the asphalt underfoot. That hand getting closer and closer to the only person that ever made life bearable growing up, giving Katsuki reason to want to bother with anything at all.
Those stupid, hopeful, dumb green eyes that eventually flicked to him instead of the menacing hand that made like suck just a little less. "K-Kacchan, you're okay…!"
That idiotic, wobbly, goofy ass attempt at a smile that brightened Katsuki's day more than the sun ever could. His mouth ran dry. Izuku kept his eyes on him, a choice, not because he was afraid to look whatever fate the man closing in on him had in store, but because he wanted to.
Izuku was always watching him.
Izuku always smiled at him.
Izuku still remembered Katsuki's bruised knuckles and his timeouts when they were brats after defending the young Avatar's honor.
Katsuki knew that he'd never make it in time. The man too close and Katsuki too far. So instead, they stared. He couldn't recall the last time he cried; the sting so much different when drug out by misery rather than the smoke. His tears only multiplied the ones Deku let out.
"It, uhm… it'll be okay," Deku squeaked out over the tightening of his throat. "And I'm not mad. I'm not mad, Kacchan. The adults were right, huh?"
The crack of Deku's voice felt like a pipe through Katsuki's chest. Gaping and wet and so fucking wrong because no, they weren't. They were wrong. So wrong that the heat enveloping Katsuki's hands started to become unbearable, picking away at the callouses like the crumbs of a leftover pie.
Wrong.
Wrong wrong wrong.
Katsuki had sworn to himself that Deku wouldn't succumb. Deku would have the one thing that the other Avatars didn't: Bakugou Katsuki. Bakugou Katsuki that refused to lose. That sweat out the demons of his imperfections just to welcome in more, because Katsuki would never be perfect.
Midoriya "Deku" Izuku would never be perfect either. A fact that Katsuki grew to rub in the other's face the more they aged. However…
Izuku could get pretty damn close.
And Bakugou "Kacchan" Katsuki was supposed to be the one to help him get there.
Izuku wasn't giving up, even if the look in his eyes told Katsuki that he knew his time had come.
"Fuck that."
The growl caught his mother's notice, her own heart shattering at the dismay that washed over her son's face. So stunned she was that she hadn't noticed he was stepping forward until Izuku shouted at him.
"Kacchan, s-stay there, once they take me, it'll be fine—!"
"Fuck that."
"H-Huh??"
Katsuki's migraine only got worse. Throbs in time with his heartbeat pounded the shell of his skull. He hissed, sucking in a sharp breath that had his hand shooting up to massage between his brows.
The pressure started to build and build and shit, it hurt. Yet that hand, inches away from Izuku now, hurt more.
"I said," he ground out, "fuck THAT!"
A sudden flash punched out gasps and yells from around them. Katsuki's tailbone landed harshly on the pavement before scrambling back onto his feet. The white-haired stranger stood eerily still, staring at the outcropping of fragile bone where his pointer and middle fingers used to be.
Katsuki didn't hesitate to dart forward and grab onto Izuku's shirt collar, blocking the advance of the other League members with a stream of fire aimed behind him.
Just then, Mitsuki's flames erupt a wall as she called out, "We'll hold them here, never stop running!"
Izuku stumbled, crashing into Katsuki's back, gripping the blond's shirt as his sobs were lost to the taunts that grew more distant.
"You heard 'er, Deku!" Katsuki righted his grip on Izuku, pulling him along steadily.
Never stop running.
"So, Kacchan… now that I've mastered waterbending, you promised firebending would be next." The green of the field swallows Deku like he belongs there. The lavender color of his fur-lined water tribe tunic has him seeming more like a hyacinth than a nineteen year old Avatar.
Or he would, were it not for his obnoxiously red shoes.
Katsuki huffs in amused acknowledgement nonetheless, breaking his stare from the criminal shoes in question to the green of Izuku's eyes instead. "How many years is it gonna take for this one, huh?" he jokes, all snark but no bite; a vast difference from their fourteen year old counterparts from the past.
A year of intense focus saw to Izuku mastering his innate element of Earth, and—contrary to popular belief—he masters Air in less than two. They celebrated his nineteenth birthday in the company of the western water tribe where he spent the rest of the time learning the intricacies of waterbending.
Izuku is a genius. Blending the aspects of Water to his own Earth came with little trouble. A base understanding didn't take him as long—foundations were easy enough for him to build, but Izuku didn't want to stop there.
Since the first time Izuku was able to speak to the Avatar before him, it was like a switch flipped. The Spirit World, Deku called it, was impossible to describe. First, he met with All Might, unlocking his potential to dive deep into himself to start speaking with the others.
Element by element, with the past reincarnations on his side, his understanding bloomed. And from that foundation, Izuku only pushed the elements even more to their limits. And, admittedly, Katsuki was looking forward to Izuku moving onto fire.
Katsuki was excited to pick the nerd's brain and find ways to resonate with fire that he never would have considered before. Except…
Fire didn't come easily to Izuku.
But now, with the other three elements well beyond even a natural bender's, there was no reason to keep putting it off. That's not to say they never tried it before. The first few attempts resulted in a few burn scars on Katsuki's torso that Izuku still can't get himself to look at.
Even now, Izuku's voice wobbles just under the surface.
"Not too long, honestly. The Avatar State is next. I think…" Izuku purses his lips together. "Once I learn fire, All Might says the others think I should move on to the Avatar State. To… you know…"
Izuku trails off, but the words ring out loud and clear.
The reincarnations see Izuku's skill and natural talent as an opportunity. A real chance for not just future Avatars, but ridding the world of the evils the League welcomes.
Katsuki was the first one to pull Izuku out of his panic at the idea. How could Izuku take on an entire organization while also spending years on the run? "Because you have me, too," Katsuki had said.
And after everything they'd been through at that point… Izuku believed him.
As they got older, it was a matter of time before Katsuki's attitude towards Izuku began to shift. He'd never been a master of words, but his once harsh touches became softer. Once venomous jabs became chides and teases with no real bite to them anymore.
Both are old enough to realize that the growing insistence of butterflies and the occasional flirt means something. Their hearts choosing each other means something.
They didn't have to.
They've gone to countless towns and cities over their years of traveling, people and opportunity throwing themselves upon them along the way. It didn't change the truth that, despite the rough patch during their early teenage years, they were entangled from the start.
Katsuki had snatched Izuku's heart the moment he punched Big Nose in his defense.
Which Katsuki continues to do so, in earnest, though neither were sure how far they could allow themselves to sink into these feelings. One day, the League would catch up. Izuku will face them, ready or not.
But Katsuki would be there. Never will Izuku have to face a peril or challenge alone for as long as Katsuki's heart still beats. It never beat for Katsuki himself, merely continuing to pump blood through his veins so he could move for Izuku, breathe for Izuku, and—if he had to—die for Izuku, too.
That clarity granted him the insight he long needed to earn the tattoo on his forehead. After all, his combustion bending first manifested as Katsuki's unspoken desire to protect what had always been closest to him. It was only right that clarity and mastery came in the wake of his pledge of wanting to continue to do so.
"…So. Right now?" Katsuki ends up asking, more as a diversion from Avatar State talk than anything, but Izuku's eyes light up. Red eyes scan the field, and with a shrug he cracks his knuckles and takes a few steps towards Izuku. "Obvious thing first: we're surrounded by trees and grass. And those aaaare…?"
"Highly flammable." Amused, Izuku works the furred shoulder covering up and over his head, dropping it on a nearby tree stump. The sleeveless uniform top underneath brightens under the sun.
"S'right. Even if you're not meaning to, if you're not paying attention to where your flames are at all times, bad shit can happen. Fire is…" Katsuki pauses, and with intent, makes sure that he catches Izuku's stare once they're standing in front of each other. "It's unpredictable. And I'm not sayin' this because it's my element, but—it's no joke.
"Izuku," he stresses, making sure the other's really listening, "When we really get into it, you—accidents happen. You might burn me. Hell, I might burn you. When shit goes wrong, what do we do?"
"…Patch each other up and keep going."
"Right." Katsuki clears his throat, suddenly flustering under the undivided attention. "We'll start with the basics, Firebending 101. Then we'll get into some moves."
"Sir yes sir!"
It's stiff and awkward at first. Katsuki was never one to shy away from barking orders, but with Izuku, and their past—largely due to Katsuki's childish ignorance—he taught more with his hands than his words.
An arm slid into place there, a guiding palm on Izuku's back when, "you gotta take your breaths from farther down—yeah, yeah, like that, but more consistent."
The tension melts, as it always does, when Izuku's clumsier nature has Katsuki snorting laughs between each dodge of Izuku's punches. Izuku's puffs of flame are tempered and warm; a control so early on that only Izuku could pull off and a level of restraint and care few remember to consider.
One wobbly kick has Izuku yelping loud in the clearing, Katsuki cluing in just a second too late to avoid the world's shittiest pirouette. Their bodies thump against each other, Katsuki's lungs punching a swear out as it lands harshly against the grass.
Above him, Izuku stares down, wide eyed and rosy cheeks. His posture is stiff, arms straight on either side of Katsuki's arms, and knees bracketing Katsuki's hips. "U-Uhm, sorry, I lost my balance and then over-corrected and—a-are you okay? It sounded like it hurt—"
"What are we gonna do with you, Deku?"
Izuku's stare persists, but it's softer. As soft as the tone Katsuki fails to not use when he's so, irresistibly smitten. Stupid Deku and his stupid big green eyes and his shitty balance.
There's a choice here, Katsuki knows, as there had been when they'd find themselves a little too close for just friends. He understands why Izuku turns away from it. Much like the way the nerd's eyes are moving to disconnect them.
Usually, Katsuki lets him. Usually, they laugh it off, refocus, and get back to business. Usually, they pretend that what they have is good enough.
Fire is all Izuku has left before he has no more excuses to put off the Avatar State. No more excuses for Katsuki to insist that Izuku needs to keep him around. Izuku's not like that, Katsuki knows, yet…
If fire is all that's left, then Katsuki will teach it all.
Including the one that's been steadily burning between them all these years. Katsuki will fan these flames, too, he's decided. After all… Katsuki didn't need the third eye tattooed on his forehead to realize that—from the moment that combustion beam let them get away when they were snot-nosed teens—Izuku had already scorched Katsuki's heart enough that he couldn't go on without feeling its sting.
Katsuki reverses their positions. Izuku's big dumb eyes grow even bigger, but he doesn't push back. He waits, and Katsuki's fine stepping in when Izuku can't. When he thinks he shouldn't, or that he's not meant for it, or hasn't earned it.
Completely missing that Katsuki's the one who has to measure up, has to meet Deku more than halfway, because he put the cracks there. The world owes Deku, even if the idiot is too sincere to admit otherwise.
Matters of the heart or otherwise, it's the least Katsuki can do to pick up him up when he stumbles.
But he's not a complete asshole, so he dips his head, slowly; with unmistakable intent. "Knee me in the balls right now if you want nothin' to change," he whispers. Close enough to feel the silent catch of Izuku's breath. "I'm so serious, Deku, I swear if you let me do this because you'd feel bad sayin' no—"
"I wouldn't feel bad," Izuku butts in. A shaky hand shyly buries itself in Katsuki's hair. "At least, not because of that. But because I—this could be… would it really be okay for me to ask that of you…?"
"Is it okay for the world to ask of your life?" Katsuki counters.
"But I belong to them—"
"Aren't I part of that world? Don't I technically belong to you, too, then?"
And Izuku's eyes gloss over, fingers digging in deeper into hair and grass, because he's getting it, but he's so stubbornly selfless. Katsuki stiffens up when Izuku tugs just a little on his scalp, and he tries not to melt into it, surprise wracking his spine when Izuku says, "I guess, but… I want it to be different."
"Yeah? Well this is me, Izuku, wantin' something different. Unless you kick my balls in."
Izuku's laugh is a little wet, yet sounds so, so sweet. "I'm not going to kick you, Kacchan. I was just saying that… that you're not just part of the world. In some ways… you are the world."
Katsuki swallows down a groan, because fuck if he doesn't feel the same. He doesn't say it. Instead, he does what he knows. Lets his actions scream how much he fuckin' agrees when he finally doesn't have to guess what Deku's mouth feels like.
If Deku kisses as soft as he appears, or if he has some bite he has tucked away. Both of which are turning out to be true, when Izuku pulls Katsuki down closer. Like their mouths aren't pressed tight enough against each other. Like the years of waiting and being good wound them so tight that both needed more.
More of what, they aren't sure. Their kisses are as sour as they turn sweet, Katsuki greedily lapping up against the roof of Izuku's mouth with his tongue and resisting the urge to smirk at the squeak.
He likes the shade of red that Izuku blooms when Katsuki pulls back the final time, throwing his arms over face out of shyness before Katsuki has none of it. "It's so annoying how fuckin'—ugh, stopppp—!"
"How what?" Izuku barely gets the question out between laughs. Bubbly and warm and free like he deserves to be. How Katsuki wants to try and make sure he feels every day. "I can't stop if I don't know what I'm doing…! Kacchan!!"
Izuku squeals as Katsuki bites into his freckled cheek, more and more giggles breaching the love-damp air around them. "God, you make me so mad."
And he kisses Izuku again, because he can. Since finally, for once, they both settle onto the same page and decide that running from the League is tiring enough.
They may as well allow themselves a break and stop running from their feelings, too.
