Archive of Our Own

There were three things that Katsuki Bakugo, aka Pro Hero Great Explosion Murder God Dynamight, refused to compromise on: his food, his health, and his sleep. No matter what the situation, even back when he was scrimping and saving, trying to ensure they stayed on track for Izuku’s suit, he still made sure these three base principles were taken care of. Katsuki never skipped a meal or relied on instant noodles like Izuku loved to stock up on. He exercised regularly and kept his regimen strict enough that his body never displayed signs of stress, and above all else, he made sure to sleep. No matter what the situation, no matter what kind of crazy shift he was assigned or weird hours he had to pull, he would always have a minimum of seven hours of sleep under his belt.

So when the clock struck twelve on April fifteenth, and he was still wide awake, it’s safe to say that Katsuki was more than a little irritated. He turned over onto his side to glare at the alarm clock sitting on his bedside table. One of those old analogue ones, you know? Chunky black design with the little handle on top and a metal bell hammer to sound the actual alarm once wound up. Kaminari had teased him for at least three days, “Just put the alarm on your phone??? You’re ancient, Bakugo.” 

Katsuki scoffed and reached over to grab the alarm clock off the table. He glared at it again, as though furrowing his eyebrows tighter or pursing his lips harder would make the thing do what he wanted. Which, admittedly, Katsuki wasn’t even sure what that was. The problem, you see, had started two nights ago. Katsuki Bakugo couldn’t sleep. And it wasn’t nightmares, or not being tired, or even visions like the ones that had haunted him after the war. No, those he knew how to deal with. He had a frame of reference for each of those problems and had figured out ways to work around them. This was something new. 

“Come on,” he muttered, shaking the alarm clock before tossing it back on the small wooden table. The clang ricocheted through the silent bedroom like a gunshot, making Katsuki cringe in his bed. “Traitor,” he cursed and pressed his palms to his eyes. “This is ridiculous. Just go to sleep, Katsuki.” 

Alas, his mind seemed to be just as stubborn about listening to him as it was to other people. Katsuki sat up in bed and stared across the dark room at the silhouette of his curtains. Technically, he did know what the problem was. In some part of his mind, he didn’t particularly like unlocking; he knew exactly what the issue was, his 25th birthday was approaching. Katsuki had what you could call a weird relationship with his birthday; he didn’t hate it exactly, never had any real reason to hate it. His parents always bought him the exact gifts he wanted without him even having to mention it. If he wanted a party, there would always be people to attend, and once he started UA, he had actual friends to attend the parties. It wasn’t like he had some traumatic memory attached to his birthday that kept him from enjoying it. For all intents and purposes, he should actually be looking forward to this one. 

Twenty-five… he sighed again, rubbing his right palm until the skin started heating up under his thumb. Twenty-five was supposed to be a milestone birthday. Twenty-five years alive, twenty-five years crossed, twenty-five should be exciting, and yet here he was, sitting alone in the dark as something cold and creeping climbed up his chest. 

-

“Bro, you look like warmed-over shit,” Kaminari informed him three days later. 

April seventeenth. He still hadn’t been able to sleep much more than three hours, and that cold dread had only taken root harder as the nights passed. He was sure it was about his birthday now. That locked place in his mind could only keep things compartmentalised for so long, and unfortunately for him, all his friends wanted to talk about was his birthday. He was the oldest is the thing, one year older than everyone else, the first to turn twenty-five, and unfortunately, to his friends, that had always been a huge source of excitement. So, naturally, for the last three days, every time he saw any of them, all anyone wanted to talk about was how they would celebrate; where to have the party, who to invite, what gift Katsuki wanted, declaring they were getting a chocolate cake this time, and Katsuki would just have to deal with that. Birthday, birthday, birthday. Everywhere he turned, it was “Bro, you’re almost twenty-five, that’s crazy. You’re old as shit now.” 

“Fuck off,” Katsuki grumbled, halfheartedly shoving Kamnari’s arm off his shoulder. “Just tired.”

“Tired?” Kirishima asked from the other side, alarm bells going off in his head already. Katsuki Bakugo was never tired. “Bro, you’re never tired,” he especially wasn’t tired on patrol, “Especially not on patrol.” 

See?

Katsuki rubbed his eyes, the corners of his eyeliner smudging slightly onto his palm as he did, “Haven’t been sleepin’ well,” he answered. 

Kirishima and Kaminari both stopped, falling behind their grumpy friend as they shared matching concerned looks and ran to catch up with him. 

“But you always sleep well,” Kirishima countered brilliantly. 

“Yeah, well,” Katsuki replied, shrugging one shoulder.

“You having nightmares again?” Kaminari asked, gently driving his elbow into Katsuki’s side. “You know, you can come stay with Hanta and me if you need to, right?”

Katsuki forced himself to roll his eyes before the offer settled too warmly in his chest and nodded, “I know, I know, now quit buggin’ me!” He exclaimed, shoving his hands deep into his pockets. “Been stressed is all.” 

Kirishima’s eyebrows furrowed at that, and he leaned back to catch Kaminari’s eyes again, only to have his sleeve grabbed and pulled forward. 

“I can fuckin’ see you, dorks. D’ya think this is a movie or somethin’?” Katsuki asked, reaching over to smack Kaminari behind the head for good measure. “Just let it go already,” he said, voice a little tighter, “I’m fine.” 

The boys didn’t share any more looks after that, not for fear of Katsuki getting mad exactly, but more so because they’d been friends with him long enough to know when pushing wouldn’t help. Instead, Kirishima made a mental note to send out an all-important text later, once he was safely away from “getting smacked for meddling in Katsuki’s business” distance. 

-

1:50 am once again.

“Fuckin’ell,” Katsuki grumbled. He had started imagining shapes on his ceiling. The usually flat, smooth surface shifted in the absence of light and passing flashes through the cracks in his curtains until Katsuki was sure he was seeing through the coat of paint to a message the previous owner had left for him. “Ridiculous,” he said and rubbed his eyes again. 

They were getting a little raw now. Not so bad that the redness was particularly visible, but Izuku always noticed. He would notice even the slightest changes in Katsuki immediately and react with immediate caretaking. Katsuki turned his head to the right, where Izuku lay tonight. Face buried in the pillow, one heavy arm thrown over Kacchan’s waist and blanket tangled between his legs, cause he couldn’t stop kicking even dead asleep. “Idiot,” Katsuki mumbled fondly, bending his arm awkwardly to reach over and poke what little of Izuku’s cheek he could see. Izuku snorted at the touch, snoring loudly once before grumbling and burrowing deeper into the pillow. 

Katsuki sighed and turned his head to the left to look at his alarm clock again. The face looked almost like it was smiling, the numbers lit a dim green and staring at him like they were mocking his inability to sleep. 

“I’m gonna get you,” he whispered to the little machine, his voice vaguely threatening. “I know you’re doing this to me.” Katsuki wondered momentarily if he should break the damn thing. Maybe if he didn’t have something tracking exactly how many hours he had right beside his bed, he would be able to stop thinking about it. “Bastard.”

“Kacchan?”

Katsuki froze for half a second before sighing, glaring at the smiling clock one more time for good measure and turning onto his side to face Izuku. 

“What’re you doing?” Izuku asked, his voice heavy with sleep like unconsciousness was still trying to drag him back. 

“Nothin’,” Katsuki mumbled, watching as Izuku’s eyes struggled to adjust to the dark and focus on Katsuki’s face. “Why’d you wake up?”

Izuku didn’t reply right away. He rubbed his eyes, trying to force the sleep out and reached out to wrap his arms around Kacchan’s waist, a pleased sound leaving his lips once he felt Kacchan’s warm skin under his palms. “You called me a bastard,” Izuku mumbled, shifting closer until his face was buried against Kacchan’s neck. “What’d I do?”

Katsuki snorted out a laugh, his hands automatically wrapping around Izuku’s shoulders, one set of fingers sliding into the back of his hair like he had done a hundred times before. “Wasn’t talkin’ to you, nerd,” he mumbled against Izuku’s forehead. 

“Then who?”

Katsuki didn’t reply immediately; instead, he thought of the alarm clock again, and somehow in his sleep-deprived mind, the hands at two and ten looked less like timepieces and more like the grin of a trickster sent to trouble him specifically. 

“Fuckin’ clock,” he grumbled. 

“Huh?” Izuku pulled his head back from the crook of Kacchan’s neck and squinted up at his boyfriend. “The clock’s a bastard?”

“Ain’t lettin’ me sleep,” Katsuki explained, blinking as though he was making complete sense. 

Izuku blinked back for a very different reason and lifted his head to peer over Kacchan’s shoulder at the innocent alarm clock sitting on the bedside table, glowing a dim green. “Kacchan,” he began, lying back down. “The clock isn’t doing anything.” 

“Hmph, you’d think so,” Katsuki argued, tugging lightly on Izuku’s earlobe. 

“And what is that supposed to mean?” Izuku asked, a small smile curling on his lips as his feet found Kacchan’s under the second blanket. 

Katsuki opened his mouth to explain, to offer some kind of defence and found there were no words there. He wasn’t sure where he was going with that; suddenly wasn’t even sure why he had been so confident that the clock had been the thing taking sleep away from him. God, I’m tired. He thought to himself. “Dunno,” He conceded finally, groaning and burying his face amongst green curls that smelled like apricot shampoo. “‘M tired, ‘Zuku,” he muttered, muffled against Izuku’s hair. 

“Mm,” Izuku hummed, rubbing circles on Kacchan’s back. “You haven’t been sleeping?” 

“No,” Katsuki replied, “can’t.”

Izuku was quiet for a moment, his circular motions pausing before he asked, “You know why?” 

Katsuki considered shaking it off for what was barely a split second before sighing and shifting down so he could press his face into Izuku’s chest. His feet hit the footboard once he settled. “Birthday soon,” Katsuki confessed quietly.  

“Ah,” Izuku nodded, his hands now following the line of Kacchan’s spine. “Scared?”

Katsuki scoffed; instinct after almost twenty years of pretending to be stronger than fear. “Not scared of shit,” he retorted, the blunt tips of his nails digging into Izuku’s bare back ever so lightly. “Just… weird…”

“What kind of weird?” 

“Weird, weird.”

“Kacchan,” Izuku warned in that tone he used with his students, the tone that almost sounded like Mitsuki if Katsuki was particularly exhausted. 

Katsuki sighed again, long and dramatic this time, before he spoke, “Feels weird. Growing up. Getting older. It’s all weird. Don’t wanna do it.”

Izuku chuckled and tugged softly at the back of Kacchan’s hair, “You don’t want to grow up?” He asked, grinning that toothy smile he knew Kacchan was weak to when he pulled back to glare at Izuku. “You’ve wanted to be twenty-eight since you were seven.”

Katsuki huffed, averting his eyes to the wall, anywhere but the stupid way Izuku’s lips tugged upward, and his middle teeth peeked out. “I was a kid then, dumbass. Stop taking shit so literal.” 

“Kacchan,” Izuku called again, his voice much softer now, and cupped his boyfriend's jaw, “tell me what’s going on in your head. Why’re you scared of your birthday?” 

“Am not-” Katsuki paused. Damn Izuku, and the never-ending well of patience in those ink pot eyes of his. Katsuki took a deep breath and sat up, leaning back against the headboard as he waited for Izuku to join him. “It’s not my birthday,” he began softly once he felt a calloused hand slip into his own, “not exactly. It’s– it’s time.”

“Time?” Izuku asked when the silence stretched uncomfortably. 

Katsuki nodded, “I’ll be twenty-five day after tomorrow and I just… I feel like I’m dragging. Like I’m stuck.” He waited for Izuku to respond, to offer some kind of platitude or reassurance that “Kacchan is not stuck, he’s the best!” but it never came. Instead, Izuku just squeezed Katsuki’s hand and waited; patient, always so god damn patient. “Sometimes it feels like it was just yesterday that we got into UA, like I blinked and all of a sudden I’m out here on my own.”

“You’re not on your own,” Izuku cut in immediately, the pouty frown forming on his lips making a smile curl on Kacchan’s. “Don’t laugh at me!” Izuku exclaimed, “And don’t say that. Don’t say you’re on your own. You’re never on your own.” 

Katsuki watched him for a moment, the apples of his cheeks rising as his bones warmed inside out. “I didn’t mean you, nerd,” he promised, lifting their joined hands to kiss the back of Izuku’s. “Or the idiots,” Katsuki added, a chill going down his spine at the thought of Kirishima or Jirou finding out he had said he was alone. “It’s just– when we were little,” Katsuki shifted to sit facing Izuku now, “there was always something to fall back on. Even if I never wanted to accept it, even if I fought against it with everything I had, there were safety nets. No one expected me to never fail except for myself, no one wanted me to have everything figured out at fifteen, but now…”

Izuku watched as Kacchan’s eyes drifted across the room. They had been sitting in the dark long enough to adjust to the lack of light in the room, and he could make out the faint outlines of Kacchan’s furniture. His desk pushed against large windows, the monitor, silhouettes of books and files stacked high, a rolling chair with reinforced back support, his vanity, his closet. Kacchan’s gauntlets were sitting at the far end of the bedroom, propped up against the wall carefully and a toolbox tucked nearby. Izuku had always loved watching Kacchan work on his gauntlets; he had always been so particular about those things. Even when the rest of their friends would send their support equipment to the support course for upgrades and management, Kacchan always worked on his gauntlets himself. Izuku watched as Kacchan’s eyes lingered on the photos framed on the wall beside his vanity. He couldn’t really see the pictures clearly, but Izuku had spent the better part of the last two years in this room, tangled between these sheets, so it wasn’t difficult to guess where Kacchan’s eyes had gone. 

“Do you miss it?” Izuku asked, shuffling closer until their folded legs were braided together and Izuku could place his hands on Kacchan’s hips. 

“Mm?” Katsuki leaned closer on instinct, almost like a scared animal finding a cave to wait out the storm. “Yeah,” he murmured. “Graduation was fun.”

Izuku snorted, “Kacchan, you threatened to blow Kaminari into the sun for asking you who you were going to give your jacket button to.”

Katsuki waved it off, a short laugh escaping pursed lips. “He deserved it.”

“Yeah?” Izuku asked, pressing a fleeting kiss to Kacchan’s jaw. “Will you blow me up if I ask now?

“Idiot,” Kasuki murmured, tilting his neck to give Iuzku easier access. “Wanted to give it to you… Obviously.” 

Izuku made a pleased noise against Kacchan’s neck, nuzzling his nose into the skin and holding tighter when Kacchan tried to shove him off. “Graduation was fun,” Izuku agreed finally, pulling back to look at him. “I never could have imagined we would have spent our high school graduation together, or that we would have a picture with both our parents in the same frame. Or that you would have been smiling when I got my degree,” he added, unable to resist teasing his boyfriend a little. 

“Oh fuck off,” Katsuki muttered, mentally cursing the live stream cameras that had caught Katsuki’s unbearably fond smile watching Izuku walk across that stage. To this day, he couldn’t explain the way it made him feel, but there was a well of emotion in his chest, and all of it steeped in affection to a certain green-headed, freckled nerd he’d known all his life. “It was nice,” he continued, “seeing you up there, getting you acknowledged by the place you swore you would get to. Everyone was there, Monoma and I got to do that stupid ‘blow up the stage’ bit,” Katsuki sighed, tracing the ends of Izuku’s healed scars. 

“Were you scared then?” Izuku asked, his eyes moving from the picture of the two of them with their families and All Might to one of Kacchan and his friends. “Of time?”

Katsuki considered the question for a long moment, his finger circling a particularly gnarly scar that started inside Izuku’s palm and stretched all the way up to his forearm and shook his head. “No,” he paused, “I don’t think so. It was exciting. Moving forward, leaving high school behind, becoming heroes, and finally being able to start working on your suit properly. It was all exciting.”

“You’re not excited anymore, Kacchan?” 

Katsuki thought about that too. Was he bored? Was that what this whole thing was about? After getting Izuku his dream back, after starting a relationship with the person he’s loved forever, after securing his own dream and becoming a name that could never be severed from the idea of heroism… after all that… was Katsuki bored? 

And then he thought about how it felt to run beside Izuku across the rooftops, laughing and chasing each other in a space no one else could touch them. He thought about sitting at the drums behind Kyoka while she poured her heart out after a breakup, a failed mission or another existential crisis. He thought about standing back to back with Shoto, bleeding from the head and still bickering about which was the best strategy, before things just clicked into place. Katsuki thought about easy, almost lazy patrols with Kirishima and Kaminari flanking his sides, about tying Hanta up with his own tape when he drank too much or carrying Mina’s clothes when she wanted to do “retail therapy”. 

[ NUMBER ONE HERO: GREAT EXPLOSION MURDER GOD DYNAMIGHT ] crossed his mind unbidden, and his chest tightened. The sight of Izuku’s ring finger, empty and waiting, filled his vision.

“No,” Katsuki answered finally. “Still exciting,” he promised, closing his grip on Izuku’s hand and looking up at him. “It’s not that the future isn’t exciting, it is. Every day that passes, and I get to be a hero beside you, with the people I care about and do the thing I’ve been yearning to do for as long as I can remember, is exciting but–”

“But you still feel stuck,” Izuku finished for him. 

Katsuki nodded, suddenly more exhausted than he’d been in days and leaned forward to rest his forehead on Izuku’s shoulder. “I don’t know why,” he confessed, “I’m number five on the Hero Charts, aside from some… behavioural complaints… the people I’m saving seem to like me. I have you, I have the idiots, I’m okay. I should be okay, right? I don’t know why it feels so heavy in my chest.” 

Izuku’s hand returned to Kacchan’s back, rubbing circles between his shoulder blades. “If everything is okay right now, and you’re excited for the future–” Izuku paused, chewing on the inside of his cheek as he turned over the rest of his sentence in his head. 

“What, nerd?” Katsuki asked, sensing the way the muscles in Izuku’s shoulder tensed against his forehead. “Spit it out.”

“What if… what if it’s about the past then?” Izuku felt Kacchan freeze as soon as the words left his mouth, and he so desperately wanted to suck them back in. “Kacchan?” He asked, sitting still as a statue and half as cold as he waited for a reaction. 

“The past…” Katsuki trailed off. 

Izuku had freckles on his shoulders. Of course, Katsuki had already known that; he had licked and kissed every inch of his boyfriend's body already, but he hadn’t ever paid attention to the freckles on his shoulder. He had counted the ones on his back, 57 little stars scattered over brown skin to be exact, and he knew that there were exactly five left on his face after the war, four on the left and one his scar didn’t cover on the right. Katsuki knew there were about fifteen or so littered around his thighs; he had tried to count the ones on Izuku’s ass (honest!), but he always wound up distracted by the time he got there. But his shoulders, Katsuki had no clue how he had missed those. 

Now, in the barely there light, Izuku’s skin was only illuminated by the passing flashes of headlights from the window and that damned evil clock’s nighttime display. “How many d’ya have, ‘Zuku?” Katsuki asked, raising one finger to connect the constellation he was sure he found. 

“Freckles?”

Katsuki hummed, “On yer shoulder,” he clarified, “I know the map everywhere else. Memorised it a long time ago” 

Izuku didn’t bother trying to fight off his smile. He couldn’t. He already knew he couldn’t, not when Kacchan was being so sweet. “I think twenty-something, Kacchan,” he replied, “I’ll let you count them all day if you tell me what’s keeping you from sleeping.” 

“Yer such a teacher,” Katsuki grumbled. He tried to stay buried against Izuku’s shoulder for a moment longer, but Izuku tugged on the back of his hair again, and Katsuki sighed heavily, almost as if he was being forced to roll a rock up a mountain and not just talk to his boyfriend. If you asked Katsuki? Same thing, really. 

“Come on, Kacchan,” Izuku urged, “you’ve got me all curious now. Don’t leave me hot and bothered like this.”

Katsuki groaned at the cheeky smile he saw on Izuku’s face when he peeked up. “Pervert,” Katsuki mumbled, straightening his back as he shoved Izuku lightly. 

“Tell me,” Izuku’s hands slipped into Kacchan’s once more, his voice now soft and patient once more. “I’m here.” 

“It’s stupid,” Katsuki said, staring down at their joined hands. “And it doesn’t make sense.”

“Tell me anyway.” 

Katsuki frowned, stupid patient teacher hero piece of shit always listening always waiting asshole. 

“I can hear you cursing me out in your head, Kacchan,” Izuku interrupted, bumping Kacchan’s forehead with his own. 

Everyone had always thought of Katsuki as stubborn, and to be completely fair, he was pretty stubborn. He didn’t like it when plans got changed at the last minute, he didn’t like being forced to do things he didn’t want to do, and he didn’t like being told to change the way he behaved or become a different person for different situations. Katsuki had a certain way he liked things to be done, and a certain way he liked to be, and there wasn’t a single person on earth who could convince him to change that. It had always been that way. His parents, no matter how hard they tried, could never really get Katsuki to mould into anyone he hadn’t already decided he was; his friends had no real influence over the choices he made, and even his teachers could only really suggest things to him. He had figured out a long time ago that he was the kind of person who needed to be free to make his own decisions, whatever those decisions may be and however they may hurt him later, or he would run. 

And maybe that’s why he had been so vehemently against letting sweet little baby Izuku near him. Maybe the reason he would snarl and growl like a caged animal was that Izuku had been the only person he ever wanted to change for. And maybe change is the wrong word, maybe change is what he had convinced himself Izuku wanted from him, so he had a reason to hate his little friend. 

“It’s hard now,” Katsuki finally spat out, eyes stubbornly locked on the spot where Izuku’s knee pressed against his. “Being me. Being this person. It was easy to do everything on my own and demand that I could handle it when no one expected that from me, now… now that I’m a person, a real person–” Something tight and suffocating squeezed in Katsuki’s chest, and he looked up to find Izuku still just watching him. 

Maybe it was never about changing or staying the same. Maybe when little Izuku, with his chubby fists and round cheeks and leaky eyes, clung to the back of Katsuki’s t-shirt and insisted on going with him because it wasn’t safe to go alone, or when Izuku, with his sneakers wet and dirt on his face from sliding down the little hill, offered Katsuki his hand; maybe all it was was about being honest. 

“I don’t want to hold it on my own anymore.”

The room was silent once the words finally settled between them. Katsuki forced himself to hold eye contact with those huge green things staring back at him. 

“It’s pathetic,” Katsuki added quickly, familiar walls trying to slam into place as the quiet stretched into something suffocating. “I’m a grown ass man,” he scoffed, words picking up speed the longer Izuku remained quiet, “I shouldn’t be saying shit like this, whining and bitching about not wanting to do things on my own. Just pathetic, forget abou- mmph?!” 

One second, Katsuki had been speaking, tripping over himself, trying to smother the vulnerability he’d made the mistake of bearing, and the next, Izuku’s lips were crushed against him. It was weird, Katsuki thought as Izuku’s hands cupped his face. The nerd's tongue wasn’t pushing in the way he usually did, wasn’t breathing heavily into Katsuki’s mouth or gripping the front of his shirt or his waist like he wanted to dig his fingers into Katsuki’s flesh. No, this was something different altogether. Izuku’s lips were pressed to Katsuki’s so tightly, he was sure he could feel the outline of Izuku’s teeth through their lips; his hands cupped Katsuki’s face like he was terrified Katsuki would run away alongside his insecurities if Izuku didn’t hold him down. 

“Wha- what the hell, asshole?!” Katsuki asked when Izuku finally allowed for some breathing room between them. 

“You’re not pathetic,” Izuku said firmly, his eyebrows knitted together like he was threatening to kiss Kacchan again. “Or whining or anything like that. It doesn’t matter if you’re an adult, Kacchan; you’re still a person, and people need other people. That’s just…” Izuku trailed off, and Katsuki could almost see the gears furiously turning in his head as he tried to find the right words. “That’s just the point!” He finally said. 

“The point of what?” Katsuki asked, raising an eyebrow. “And let go of my face, freak.” 

Izuku kept his hold firm, even tightened it a little. “The point of everything,” he said as though it was obvious. “Of life, love, hero society; it’s all about helping and being helped. About caring! You’re not pathetic for wanting to be held up like you hold other people up, Kacchan!”

Katsuki rolled his eyes, “Of course you’d say that.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Izuku asked, offence flashing on his face for a split second. 

“It means that your whole schtick is about helping people and depending on them to help you,” Katsuki mumbled, averting his eyes from Izuku’s. “People want to help you, Izuku. They look at you, and they want to help. People want to carry your books and cheer you on. They’re waiting for you to mess up so they can prove they have worth in your life, not because they want to see you fail. You’re Japan’s ‘Boy Saviour’, Izuku, the country itself wants to hold you up.” 

Izuku stared at his boyfriend like he was speaking a different language altogether. “Kacchan, what the hell are you talking about?” Izuku asked, his hands dropping to the bed now. “Everyone loves you!” Izuku found his expression mirrored back to him on Katsuki’s face at that, and stubbornly kept going, “Pretty much every hero from the older cohort is obsessed with teaming up with you. Everyone in our class, even the people you don’t even talk to, thinks you’re amazing. If you think I’m some kind of golden boy, Kacchan, you’re ‘The Symbol of Victory’. Did you hit your head or something?”

“It’s not about them!” Katsuki exclaimed, pushing Izuku off and standing up. He rubbed his hands over his face, his blood rushing in his ears as he began to pace. “It’s not about whether they like me or not; that doesn’t matter when they’re all looking at me like I can’t fail! I don’t want to be fucking amazing, I don’t want to be an idea or represent victory. I don’t want them to look at me and think, Oh yeah, Bakugo can handle it; I just want to be a fucking person!” 

Izuku watched Katsuki pace the length of the bedroom, trying to wrap his mind around a Kacchan who didn’t want to be seen as the personification of victory. “You… you are a person, Kacchan,” he said quietly. 

“Am I?” Katsuki asked, his voice had gone soft, too soft, almost like he didn’t trust himself to speak this particular fear out loud. “How can you be sure?” 

 “What?” Izuku asked, a chill settling along his spine. “Kacchan, what are you-”

“How do you know that I’m a person?” Katsuki asked again, cutting him off. “How do you know that I’m real? That I’m alive?” 

Izuku slid off the bed immediately, crossing the short distance of the bedroom, only to come to a dead stop within touching distance of Kacchan. “I know,” he whispered, the tips of his fingers brushing against Kacchan’s bare back. “I can feel you. I know you’re alive. Don’t– don’t you?” 

Katsuki didn't respond right away. He didn’t know how he could, didn’t know how to tell Izuku that he hadn’t felt like a real person in years, or that sometimes he walked around all day like a zombie going through the motions because somewhere in his chest something cold and terrifying had settled almost nine years ago and never really left. 

“I don’t know,” he said finally, fingers curled into tight fists. “I don’t know how to know it.” Katsuki snorted, humourless and grating, at the silence that had washed over Izuku. “And you don’t know how to react to that,” he added, something bitter hanging to the ends of his words. 

“No, I–” Izuku cut himself off because… Kacchan was right. He didn’t know what to say. Sure, Izuku had dabbled with his fair share of suicidal ideation and seeing things he didn’t know were real or not, and sure, there had been moments early on when he had wished he had just died in the war, but this didn’t feel like any of that. What Kacchan was saying, what he was trying to say, didn’t feel like anything Izuku could relate directly to. Izuku opened his mouth again, fingers hovering just within reach of Kacchan’s back, like maybe if he just crossed those few inches and took Kacchan into his arms, he could fix this. He could tell Kacchan the things he had learned all these years, hold him gently and promise they would find their way out of this. 

And then a different face flashed in his head. Brown hair and pink cheeks sobbing into his arms about a grief that felt so heavy and overwhelming she thought it would kill her. A similar feeling of panic had coursed through his veins at not knowing how to relate to what she had said, at not knowing how to help her, how to save her, and eventually, disasterously, saying the wrong thing and dooming her to the same atonement-focused life he had once promised to live. He hadn’t listened to her then, not really, not in the way she needed him to listen, and Izuku wouldn’t do that again. He couldn’t do that again, and especially not to the man he loved more than life itself, so Izuku reached out and placed his palm flat against Kacchan’s back. 

“I don’t,” Izuku mumbled, crossing the final inch of distance between them to press his forehead between Kacchan’s shoulder blades. “You’re right, Kacchan,” he said. “What you’re talking about is confusing to me, and I don’t get it, like at all, but…” Izuku’s heart ached at the way Kacchan’s shoulders tightened, “I want to listen. Even if I don’t get it, I want to know what you’re thinking.” 

Katsuki angrily blinked the tears that had begun to pool in his eyes away and scoffed, “Yer such a fuckin’ hero, aren’t ya, Deku?”

Izuku frowned but remained attached to Kacchan. “I am,” he agreed and slid his arms around Kacchan’s waist. “But not right now. I’m not your hero, you’re not mine. You’re not a symbol or an idea or anything other than my Kacchan,” Izuku continued, tightening his grip on the other man as he spoke. “No matter what you say you are, what they force you to be, outside these walls, in here you’re just mine, and I’m yours. So stop deflecting by being mean and tell me the truth, Kacchan.”

Katsuki tried to scoff again, tried being the imperative word. What came out instead was a watery, pathetic sort of laugh. “I hate you,” He mumbled, his palms coming to rest atop Izuku’s. “Too righteous for your own good.” 

Izuku pressed a kiss to the nape of Kacchan’s neck, “Tell me.” 

They waited, Katsuki hoping Izuku would give up, Izuku determined to hear this out. They waited until a small, bitter chuckle escaped Katsuki’s lips, and the words he spoke sucked the air out of the room.

“I died, Izuku.” 

Of course, Izuku had known this. He had seen it happen; had seen the dead body devoid of colour and drained of blood, had listened to ShigAFO goad him and confess that he left Kacchan’s corpse as a present for him, he had lost his mind with grief and guilt and brought back only by the promise that they would save him. Izuku knew this was about his death when Kacchan started talking as well; of course, he knew. He had been following Kacchan around and learning about the way his mind worked since they were literal toddlers. Instinctively, he knew. That, however, didn’t change the way Kacchan’s words kicked into Izuku’s chest with the power of a collapsing star. He held on tighter. 

“I know when people talk about it,” that same bitter chuckle slipped out of Katsuki again, “if they talk about it, everyone always says how impressive it was what I did. That it’s so poetic how I was revived, and how it was divine intervention that Edgeshot was there and could do something, but I just– no one ever wants to talk about what it really feels like to come back to life.” 

Katsuki paused, squeezing Izuku’s hands tight as he tried to regulate his breathing. He looked up, eyes drifting to the vanity mirror across the room from him. A shadow stared back, and he tried not to flinch at it. 

“I died,” he said again. “It wasn’t near death or slipping into a coma. My heart stopped. I was dead on the ground, and the only reason I survived is that somehow my sweat sparked my heart back to action. I was dead. Gone forever.” Katsuki shook his head and turned around to face Izuku. “You understand what I’m saying? This,” he grabbed Izuku’s shoulders tight enough to bruise and shook slightly, “us, being a hero, my friends, this apartment, none of it was supposed to happen. I died, and then something somewhere changed, and I came back. That wasn’t supposed to happen, not to me, not when I didn’t deserve it.” 

“Kacchan, no-”

“No, Izuku!” Katsuki exclaimed, shaking him again, “You don’t believe it because you love me, because you forgave me and maybe now. Maybe if I were given a chance now, I would come back, I would agree that I deserved to be here, to do more good, that I’ve done enough good to be here, but not then… not at sixteen.” Katsuki let go of Izuku and walked back to the bed, pressing his palms to his red streaked eyes as he sat on the edge. “Sometimes I wonder if I took someone else’s place.”

Izuku frowned, worry etched onto every line of his face. “What do you mean?” He asked, feet bolted to where he stood. 

“‘Chako talks about her sometimes,” he mumbled, “about Toga. I know you regret what happened to Shigaraki. Sometimes I wonder if when they brought me back, whoever it was, took the life someone else was supposed to have. A second chance for someone who deserved to grow up more than me.”

“More than you?” Izuku asked, his voice coming from somewhere far away like he was back on that battlefield. “Why would you say that?” 

Katsuki laughed again and shrugged, “I don’t know, man,” he said, sighing. “Maybe dying was the best thing I could’ve done for hero society. Become a martyr. Remind people that there are real consequences for their actions. Maybe you could have used my life and death to teach kids about being cruel, about what happens when you realise you need to be better, too late. At least you wouldn’t have to deal with this mess if I had just stayed dead, huh?”

“Shut up.”

“Huh?”

“I said, shut up,” Izuku snapped, his lips pursed, and eyes scrunched closed. “You can’t–” Izuku paused, sucking in a sharp breath like he was trying not to cry. “You don’t get to say shit like that. If you want to feel guilty about surviving, that's your right, Kacchan, but you don’t get to tell me how I feel or what would be better for me.” 

“Izuku, I wasn’t-”

“No, you were,” Izuku cut him off, walking over to him and dropping to his knees between Kacchan’s legs. “You want me to agree with you and validate this self-loathing you’re carrying around because it means you’re right, but I’m not going to do it.” 

“Iz-”

“You’re not a burden, Kacchan,” he cut him off again, closing his fingers around Kacchan’s knees. “You didn’t steal someone else’s chance to live, you weren’t supposed to die a martyr, and we definitely wouldn’t have been better off without you. You think you have to do everything yourself, but guess what? So does everyone else. It isn’t some kind of cosmic punishment put on you because you came back to life, Kacchan; you’re just growing up. You feel like the world is on your shoulders, well, so do I, so does Ochako, so does Kirishima, so does Shoto. If you ask some of my students, they feel that way too. Most people feel like they have to solve every problem or carry every weight, or they’ll be punished. Kacchan, I love you, but you’re not special for feeling that way.” 

Katsuki stared at Izuku for a long moment, typically narrowed eyes blown wide at his perpetually kind and patient boyfriend's sharp words. He watched as the explosive passion with which Izuku spoke deflated, and he braced as if expecting Katsuki to get mad; the sight made something thaw in his chest. Katsuki laughed. Not bitter this time; not the angry, regretful chuckle that had been bouncing off the bedroom walls for the past hour. No, this was something that started in his stomach and bubbled up the way the sun rose in the morning. 

“Kind of harsh, no, ‘Zuku?” Katsuki asked, laughing again when Izuku blushed and shrank into himself slightly. “C’mere, nerd.” 

Izuku surged forward immediately, wrapping his arms around Kacchan’s waist as he buried his face in his chest. “I’m sorry,” he mumbled, words muffled and a little slurred from the tears that had finally broken through. “I wasn’t– I didn’t mean to be an asshole, I just hate that you think you’re alone in this, Kacchan. We may not know exactly what you’re going through, and maybe I’ll never understand fully what it’s like to die and come back, but this feeling of being the only one who’s made responsible for being responsible, it isn’t just you, and it sure as hell isn’t a punishment for anything. You deserve to be here, back then and now. The things you did and said, they were really shitty, and you were a little prick of a kid, but–”

“Jeez, Deku,” Katsuki laughed again, this time with his lips pressed to Izuku’s forehead. “Take it easy on me.” 

“Sorry, but you were!!” Izuku exclaimed, pulling back as a smile grew on his own wobbly lips at the sight of Kacchan grinning. “But that’s not my point!”

“What’s your point then, nerd?” 

“That even if you were an asshole back then, you didn’t deserve to die. You didn’t deserve to live or be forgiven or be crucified either. Deserve doesn’t have anything to do with any of it because deserve doesn’t matter.” Izuku reached up and cupped Kacchan’s face, firm and grounding once more, “I forgave you because I never really blamed you, and the knowledge that you apologised to me without me ever blaming you was enough for me. You died because you chose to protect the people in your charge, you chose to buy me time. You came back to life because two Pro Heroes saw that you were indispensable not only to our cause but to me. You came back because you’re stubborn and angry and a damn good fighter who would never be taken before you get your perfect win. It’s not about fucking deserve, Kacchan, it’s just about what you did.” 

Katsuki stared at Izuku, tears pricking at the corners of his eyes. He tried to look away, only to find himself held captive in his boyfriend's palms and scoffed, “You curse too much.”

“ME?!” Izuku asked incredulously, now laughing alongside Kacchan. 

“Idiot,” Katsuki muttered, shaking his head and pulling Izuku’s hands down from his face to lace them together on his lap. He stared down at their hands for a moment, at the way the scars on his right arm seemed to bleed into the scars on Izuku’s left. “You really think so?” He asked, voice quiet again. “Do you really believe that I’m here? That I’m alive?”

“I know it, Kacchan,” Izuku promised him, squeezing his hands. “You’re so god damn stubborn, there’s no way you let yourself get taken out forever, and I know you would never have let me fight alone. Not then. Not now. Not ever. You’re here,” he brought their laced fingers up to his lips and kissed Kacchan’s knuckles one by one. “You’re with me. Alive and breathing and so annoying.” 

Katsuki laughed again, nodding slowly as he watched the way Izuku’s lips brushed against each of his knuckles and fingertips. “Doesn’t feel that way sometimes,” he repeated. “Even when you say it. Even when I know it, sometimes I just… I feel like I’m there again.” 

Izuku’s heart ached, “Me too,” he confessed. “Not about me, but sometimes when you go on missions alone, or I can’t reach your coms, I feel like I’m there again. Arriving at The Coffin and ready to fight, only to see you bled out and pale on the ground. It was the most horrifying moment of my life, Kacchan, but we got past it.” Izuku let go of Kacchan’s fingers only to climb onto his lap, straddling him and cupping the sides of his neck. “You came back to me, we got through rehab, high school and graduation. You brought me back to hero work, and we made it through pining and getting together and fighting and so many more firsts,” Izuku leaned in and placed a small, fleeting kiss on the corner of Kacchan’s lips, “and we’ll keep doing that. Together.” 

Katsuki’s eyes fluttered to a close as Izuku’s lips brushed against his, and he let out a sigh, “Together, huh?” He asked, his eyes half lidded, when Izuku rested his forehead against Katsuki’s. 

“Always, Kacchan,” Izuku promised, “for the rest of our lives, right?” He asked with a little laugh. “You’re the one who said that.” 

“Even if I lose my mind and don’t know what’s real and what’s not?” Katsuki pressed, his hands on Izuku’s waist. 

“Especially then.” 

Katsuki laughed, leaning forward to catch Izuku’s lips in a proper kiss this time. His right hand slid up and cradled the back of Izuku’s head as his tongue swiped across Izuku’s bottom lip. Another laugh was muffled against his lips when Izuku readily opened his mouth, deepening the kiss by slotting his own tongue into Katsuki’s mouth. 

“Greedy,” Katsuki muttered when they finally parted, forehead resting together once more.

“Okay, and?” Izuku asked, smug as always. “You started it.” 

Katsuki shook his head ever so slightly and squeezed Izuku’s waist, “Yeah, I guess I did.”