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Izuku remembers when friendship used to hurt.
When it was cruel words and bruised ribs and burn marks that he hid from his mom.
Years have passed since. He was offered a quirk, was then offered as a sacrifice for a war they fought together and somehow won. Everything’s shifted, they’ve both changed.
The same hands that introduced Izuku to violence have saved his life multiple times since. And now, they’re intertwined with his own – which, unlike when friendship still hurt, are a mess of battle wounds and crooked bones. His smooth, innocent skin shed like that of a snake.
But the hand in his doesn’t seem to mind the imperfections. His friend's thumb brushes lazily atop his knuckles. Back and forth. A silent I’m here, you’re here, we’re here.
“Kacchan,” Izuku whispers, “why are we hiding in the broom closet?”
They’re close like this; squashed together in a space not meant for one third-year hero course student, let alone two. Izuku is sat with his knees pulled to his chest, back uncomfortably rested against a folded ladder. Katsuki, of course, is sitting criss-cross-apple slices and is taking up as much room as possible.
Izuku doesn’t mind though. Katsuki has always been larger than life. He’s used to it.
It’s only been a few minutes, but already the small space is warm from Katsuki’s quirk-regulated body temperature. All Izuku can smell is the chemical sting of cleaning products and Katsuki’s sweat. Which, from any other almost eighteen-year-old boy would be disgusting, but Katsuki is perfect in all ways, so of course, his nitroglycerin sweat smells like burnt sugar and the hard caramel candies grandmothers put out on hallway tables.
Katsuki huffs. “Izu, the better question is why the fuck are we playing hide and seek?”
Izuku can’t help his half-smile. Ever since the war, since The Dramatic Rain Apology, Katsuki tries. He tries so hard and it’s the best thing to ever happen to Izuku.
(Don’t tell All Might that)
One of the things he tries to do is refrain from calling Izuku ‘Deku’, which Izuku understands but thinks is silly. After all, it’s his hero name. It doesn’t mean what it once did. But Katsuki tries, so Izuku lets him, and Izuku tries in turn.
That does not mean he’s shifted to call Kacchan Bakugou like his other friends do, because he did try that once and it felt like a freaking crime. Kacchan had actually dropped his water bottle, denting it in the process, and visibly cringed.
“Never,” he’d choked out, “call me that again, Izuku.”
They bump shoulders. Back in the here and now, Izuku says, "We're playing hide and seek because it’s fun. Or would you rather go back to playing truth or dare?”
At that, Kacchan winces.
“We literally all know everything about one another. If I learn one more trivial thing about any of those idiots I’ll explode. Makes no fucking sense why we keep playing that.”
He has a point. But with UA’s strict on-campus rules, it’s not easy to come up with much else once they go stir-crazy from too much time spent in front of the common room TV.
It’s a school night sure, but with exams just having finished they have light coursework, and everyone’s dead bored. So here they are, Japan’s future heroes, playing hide and seek like primary school kids.
Izuku laughs, quietly of course, since ya know, they’re hiding. He thinks it’s Kaminari who is ‘it’ but he can’t really remember.
“I like hide and seek.”
“Of fucking course you do.”
Izuku squeezes his fingers. A little part of him wishes he could superglue their hands together.
They do stuff like this a lot now; hold hands, brush shoulders, reach out to ruffle the other’s sweat-damp hair after heroics class. It’s easy to play it off as something friends do, shrug when the others ask and say it’s just them catching up on lost time.
Neither dares to voice it’s actually both of them needing physical proof that the other is there, that they’re not dreaming, that they really did make it out alive.
Before Katsuki can argue back, the door is pulled open with gusto, and the light from the common room is harsh after a pocket full of minutes in the dark. Katsuki hisses as his eyes adjust like a stray feral cat. Izuku squints and looks up at who found them.
It’s Kaminari and Shinsou with a grinning Mina peeking over their shoulders.
“Found ya,” Shinsou drawls with a yawn.
Izuku pouts. “Does that mean Kacchan and I are ‘it’ now?”
Shinsou reaches out a hand, presumably to help Izuku stand. He opens his mouth to either confirm or deny the question, but Katsuki has jumped to his feet somehow and is stepping bodily between them.
It’s his outstretched hand that brings Izuku to standing.
So maybe a helping hand is symbolic to them. Plenty of things are these days.
No one comments – they all know it’s better not to ask.
They’re told the game is over for the night, that everyone has gone to bed. Izuku wonders if maybe they sat in that small space together for longer than they thought, just happy to be together. Lost in a world all their own, a quiet, calm one.
As they walk up the stairs to their rooms, fingers still laced together, Mina looks at her two remaining friends.
“When do you think they’re going to realize they’re dating?”
~~~
His alarm is going off, and Izuku would rather tell Aizawa he didn’t do last night’s homework because he was busy eating cats than get up.
“Shut that thing the fuck off before I explode it,” Katsuki rasps from his self-declared side of Izuku’s bed. He likes to sleep closest to the door with Izuku near the wall. It’s non-negotiable. Izuku doesn’t question it.
He grumbles a jumble of words that sounds a lot like Latin, but Katsuki is fluent in Sleepy Izuku Speak and interprets it as something along the lines of: you’re closer, dummy, you turn it off.
With a dramatic, reflexive, tch, stupid Deku, Katsuki’s palm slams down onto the offending plastic All Might alarm clock, and the room is blessedly silent once more.
That is until someone is pounding on the door.
“Jesus motherfucking Christ.”
“Kacchan, I doubt that’s who it is.”
“Get bent, smartass.”
Izuku laughs, more awake now as he hops up and scoots down to the foot of the bed, happy to pop over Katsuki’s feet rather than climb awkwardly over his broad torso. With time he’s learned the best way to navigate their preferred sleeping arrangement.
“Good morning, Iida-kun,” Izuku says now that his door is out of the way, the back of his hand reaching up to rub the remaining sleep out of his eyes.
Already in his school uniform, Iida blinks in surprise. “Good morning, Midoriya-kun. How did you know it was me?”
“You knock exactly three times at one-second intervals.”
“Noted,” their class rep for the third year running says with a small, serious nod.
Izuku gives a sleepy smile. “Yeah. Anyways, did you, uh, need something?”
“Ah, yes. Kirishima-kun came to me and reported one missing Bakugou-kun. Apparently, he went to his room to wake him as they had plans to exercise–”
“To lift, bro. To lift,” Kirishima interrupts, appearing from the other end of the hall in a ratty gym shirt and the leggings Izuku convinced him were comfier than basketball style shorts last December. He’s pretty sure that's actually the pair he gifted him for Christmas.
“But yeah,” Kirishima continues, a bit breathless as he comes to stand beside Iida. “We were supposed to lift together and he didn’t show and bro isn’t in his room but his phone is. Have you seen him, Mido?”
Izuku feels bad at the genuine concern on both of his friends' faces. But no matter how he feels for them, take that emotion and double it, and that’s how thankful he is that he moved his bed to a side of the room that isn't visible from the doorway. Iida, best buddy or not, would feel morally obligated to report them sleeping together to Aizawa.
“Uhhhh,” Izuku stammers, “I–”
A long arm is tossed over his left shoulder, a chin settles to rest on his right. Kacchan drapes himself sleepily over Izuku like a favorite blanket, like it’s second nature. He yawns. Izuku feels a bit lightheaded for some reason.
“I’m right here, dumbasses. Ei, we have plans for tomorrow, not today.”
Izuku watches as Iida and Kirishima go wide-eyed, as Iida’s cheeks redden and Kirishima slowly begins to smile an impish, gleeful smile.
“B-Bakugou-kun?” Iida looks absolutely scandalized. “Please tell me you just arrived in Midoriya-kun’s room for an early visit.”
“Nah, been here all night.”
Kirishima looks seconds away from screaming. Iida’s eye twitches.
“Certainly you slept on the floor…?”
Come on, Kacchan, Izuku thinks. He’s giving us an out here. Take it!
“As if,” Kacchan scoffs, absentmindedly smoothing down the wrinkles on the front of Izuku’s shirt. It feels nice. Kacchan has warm hands.
“Izu and I have been sleeping together since the middle of second year. ‘S not weird, so don’t make it.”
“Holy shit,” Kirishima wheezes, slamming a hand against his forehead as he starts to hop up and down. “You two really are dating?! I knew it!”
Izuku blinks. “Huh?”
It’s then that Kacchan’s words really register.
Sleeping together.
Aw, shoot. They must think –
Kacchan laughs, shoving off of Izuku to lean instead against the doorframe.
“Get your mind outta the gutter, Shitty Hair. We literally sleep,” he reaches out to push against Izuku’s cheek, forcing him to sway like a bobblehead. “I’m not doin’ nothin’ with this nerds ugly face.”
Green eyes roll, overly used to the half-baked insults he now knows his best friend doesn’t actually mean. “Rude, Kacchan.”
“Awwww,” Kirishima whines, a rare frown dragging his features down. “I got so excited, bro!”
Iida just stands there, looking like he’s been to hell and back in ten minutes' time.
“Right,” he adjusts his glasses. “Well, if there’s no… inappropriate behavior occurring, I guess I can refrain from telling Aizawa-sensei.”
“Cool, great, can you both fuck off now?”
Their visitors leave after Iida’s obligatory request for Katsuki to refrain from swearing, as he has every day for three years now. Katsuki responds by flipping him off. Izuku shuts the door.
“Who the hell would think we’re dating?” Katsuki asks as he opens the third drawer of Izuku’s dresser, pulling out the spare uniform he keeps there.
Izuku shrugs, moving aside the framed photo of them as kids as he reaches for his phone. The lock screen lights up, showing a photo of them in their hero costumes that they took for Heroes Weekly a few months back. It's from when they announced they’d be registering as a hero duo.
They’re grinning at one another, Katsuki reaching out to tug on the earrings he convinced Izuku to get only days before. The words Deku & Dynamight: The Wonder Duo glow above them in neon.
“No idea.”
~~~
Izuku is friends with everyone.
The teachers, the kids in Gen Ed, that wild girl with the pink hair who helped Katsuki’s gauntlets go from boom! to BOOM BOOM MOTHERFUCKER.
But yeah, everyone. The nerd has the kind of smile that no one can look away from, and once extras get a dose, they keep coming back for their next fix. Stupid little Deku addicts.
Katsuki’s begrudgingly used to it.
When it's people from his own class begging for his best friend's attention, Katsuki couldn’t care less. He’s even fine with the adoring, admiring looks from extras in other classes, since Izuku’s eyes never stray from Katsuki long enough to notice.
He won’t admit he sometimes thinks about the day Izuku does notice. Worries over it, because surely one morning the nerd is gonna wake up and realize he can do so much better than Katsuki.
Recently, however, those adoring looks are growing real confident (read: desperate) now that they’re a few months from graduating.
Katsuki finds he has to stay alert at all times. No place is safe.
They’re walking to lunch when he spots an extra with blue hair and a letter in their hands. They approach from the side, as though they were waiting against the lockers in the hall for class 3-A to get out.
An ambush. Code red. Defcon one.
Katsuki’s eyes zero in on the folded note, so gingerly held in the admirer’s shaking hands.
Addressed to Deku-san.
Which, of course it is. They all love the future number one hero, the beaming smile and fluffy hair and skin-tight costume. No one knows the real Izuku, the night terrors, the shame and guilt and uncertainty. No one other than Katsuki.
Regardless, it’s the third confession attempt today.
So Katsuki does what he’s been doing for weeks now. He wraps his arm around Izuku’s shoulders, easy and comfortable with their few-inch height difference, and glares daggers at the approaching threat.
Threat, because they have plans. Plans that do not include random, unnecessary romances. Deku and Dynamight are predicted to be the youngest rookies to ever break the top twenty by analysts, and they haven’t even graduated yet.
He can’t have Izuku looking anywhere else.
The admirer blanches at his glare, their eyes darting between Katsuki and the arm he has possessively wrapped around Izuku.
To finish them off, Katsuki pulls his ultimate move. He smirks before mouthing mine.
The blue-haired side character gulps, nods frantically in apologetic understanding, and to Katsuki’s eternal enjoyment, literally runs away.
Izuku never noticed them, too engrossed as he chatted with Uraraka and Todoroki on their way to the cafeteria.
And if the whole school is whispering about how two of UA’s big three are dating because of how Katsuki has been fending off suitors, so what. So long as he keeps Izuku’s attention, keeps those green eyes on him, it’s fine.
Also, he doesn’t exactly hate the idea of having that kind of claim on Izuku.
Not at all.
~~~
Class 3-A is in heroics class, working on rescue tactics alongside class 3-B. It’s the boring important shit he has to try to stay awake during. But at least since they’ve announced their intentions to register as a duo, Katsuki doesn’t have to pair up with anyone other than Izuku.
He hates being partnered up with anyone other than Deku. No one else keeps up. No one else just gets him.
“Did you see that, Kacchan?!” his nerd squeals, gripping Katsuki’s arm like he might float away if he lets go. To be fair, with his two million and a half quirks, he might.
They’re standing with the rest of the hero course students on a platform, watching on display screens as Half n’ Half and Frogger expertly extract Copy Cat and some green-haired vine extra from a collapsing building.
“See what, Izu?” he asks, even though he was watching. Because he knows Izuku wants to rant about the move Half n’ Half just pulled, and that he thinks better out loud.
Katsuki leans back onto the metal railing, settling in for one of Izuku’s famous rambling sessions.
About five minutes in, Copy Cat strolls towards them, raving in that manic way of his about how he truly didn’t even need saving, and how 3-A will fail in the real world once they graduate and have to rescue flesh and blood civilians.
…as though they haven’t all been in internships and work studies and a godsdamned war with civilians' lives on the line.
“I guess some things just never change,” Copy Cat says flippantly, still nearing where Katsuki stands with Izuku.
His blue eyes land on Izuku and widen. “Speaking of things never changing, Midoriya, how have you not realized literally everyone tunes you out when you mumble like that? How embarrassing for the supposed Golden Boy of UA.”
Izuku blinks once, twice. His words slowly die off.
And if that sad look on Izuku’s face doesn’t make Katsuki a certain brand of violent.
“Oi, fuckface,” Katsuki barks, crossing his arms. “You ever gonna stop projecting your own bitch boy insecurities? I’m listening to every damn word that comes outta his mouth. He’s been talking about how Half n’ Half’s ice is perfect for securing support beams in collapsing buildings and wondering if they should run trials in the peak of summer versus dead of winter to see how long it can last so they can have accurate time estimates during evacs.”
He doesn’t miss that it’s gone quiet, that both classes are watching, or that Izuku’s turned a bit pink.
Copy Cat only scoffs. “Of course you listen, Lord Explosion Murderer, you’re his super whipped boyfriend.”
Izuku snaps out of his sad boy moment. “Lord Explosion what, Monoma? Wanna run that by me again? Because I will drop-kick you into the stratosphere.”
Katsuki feels warm. All over. Warm everywhere. Izuku doesn't usually get angry, but when he does, it’s always because someone said something to Katsuki, about Katsuki.
He’s a glutton for it – Izuku’s wrath for his sake.
Copy Cat flinches. “Whatever, I’ll leave you two losers alone. Truly neither of you are worth my time.”
As he walks away, Katsuki cups his hands around his mouth like a makeshift megaphone. “Hope to see you never after graduation! Have fun being one of those ‘inside sources’ tabloids quote when they ask you about your famous former classmates since you won't break the top 500!”
From their left, Katsuki just barely hears Momo whisper to her girlfriend, Jirou, “Oh my goodness, they didn’t deny that they’re boyfriends.”
“I knew they were dating,” she replies casually, like this is common knowledge.
Do all of their friends think they’re together?
“We are not fucking dating!!!”
…Right?
Fuck.
~~~
Izuku passed out during movie night.
There are only two weeks left until they graduate, and class 3-A has basically moved into the common room, the space now full of air mattresses and pillow forts. No one is taking well to the idea of being separated after three years of this being home – of each other being home.
They’ve gone through a lot together. Katsuki isn't a sap, but he’ll admit the thought is daunting.
Thankfully, he’s moving into a two-bedroom with Izuku downtown. It’s a perfect spot, only a ten minute walk from the agency they’re going to be working at.
Anyways, yeah, Deku is dead asleep, out like a light with his head on Katsuki’s shoulder. It’s nothing unusual, they sleep together on the same air mattress every night in front of their class (which everyone thought was wild when they started camping out down here but thankfully got over quickly).
What is unusual is when the TV light illuminates the nerds face and Sero blurts out, “Huh, ya know, I never really thought about how many freckles Mido has.”
“Right!” Hagakure chirps, “I wonder how many there are?”
Katsuki frowns. “He has twenty-two on his face. How have you idiots not noticed that?”
Silence.
“Uh, Kats, buddy, my man,” Denki says, hesitant for some reason, like he needs to speak carefully, like his next words could be his last. “Do you, perhaps, by chance, know how many Midobro has in total?”
“That’s a creepy fucking question, Dunce Face,” Katsuki says slowly, warily.
Eijirou smiles. “So you’re saying there's something you don't know about Midoriya?”
“You’re trying to rile me up. I won’t fall for it. Not again.”
His friend shrugs. “No, really, if you don’t know, you don’t know. Maybe Todoroki–”
“He has thirty-one on his right shoulder and arm, forty-seven on his left. I’ve lost count a few times on his back because the little shit moves a lot in his sleep but he has over a hundred if you count the few on the back of his neck that were exposed once he started getting an undercut last year.”
A beat before the world explodes into teenage chaos.
From the corner, Koda whispers, “Just confess already.”
No one hears.
~~~
Crossing that stage, accepting his diploma from Nezu and All Might with a kind-of smiling Aizawa-sensei, felt a whole lot like walking off the edge of the world.
Sharing tears and hugs with his class, his closest friends, his first friends, the family he found and now won’t see every day, hurt.
When Ochako said they’d need to facetime nightly because her agency is hours away; when Shouto held him tight and thanked him for being his rock in harsh waters; when Iida called him Izuku instead of Midoriya-kun… Well, it was like ripping his heart in three and then putting it back together with staples and hot glue.
It’s proudly beating, but it aches.
They are now UA alumni. Izuku has never felt so bitterly happy. It’s like sucking on a sour candy that refuses to settle well in his stomach.
He’s only just closed the door of the Bakugou family car and already leaving campus with his things in the trunk feels wrong wrong wrong.
His breath starts to come quicker. The puffs of air are shallow. Izuku feels like a kiddy pool.
A hand falls atop his, the fingers long and elegant and more familiar than his own.
“It’s okay.”
Kacchan’s thumb brushes over his knuckles. I’m here, you’re here, we’re here.
Mitsuki starts the car, his mom sits shotgun beside her. Uncle Masaru politely looks away, focusing out the window where he sits next to Kacchan who is squashed in the middle.
Green eyes meet crimson – more red like honeyed wine this way with the sun hitting Kacchan just right. Golden hour at 11 am. Kacchan is always the brightest. Always.
Izuku smiles, his lungs work the way they’re supposed to.
“Yeah,” he breathes. “It’s okay.”
The radio plays for a moment. It’s a lull of peace in the middle of their hectic day. Graduation in the morning, lunch as one big family, then moving the boys into their new apartment.
“So, Brat,” Mitsuki casually says after the song finishes. “When should your father and I start designing the suits for you and Izukkun?”
Izuku watches as Kacchan frowns. “Suits for what?”
“Your wedding. I’m thinking of putting Izuku in forest green velvet and you in classic black. Whadda ya think?”
“Burn at the stake, you witch.”
~~~
They’re twenty-one and halfway to drunk, stumbling around Ground Beta in the dark.
Izuku jumps from one patch of faux streetlamp light to the next as Katsuki follows along, the bottle of tequila they’ve been killing together dangling from the tips of his fingers.
“You’re such a little bunny, Izu,” Katsuki whisper-yells, words slurring together a bit.
They have to be quiet – they aren’t supposed to be here. They’re supposed to be in the gym, here for Aizawa’s retirement party.
Apparently, the old man didn’t have the same desire to teach once all his favorite problem children had up and left. Now, he’s straight up kicking ass as a caterpillar cat dad by day and underground hero by night.
“I thought you liked bunnies, Kacchan,” Izuku laughs. “Come catch me!”
Here they are, everyone. The hero duo ranked together as the dual Number One hero in all of Japan. The men on billboards and commercials with million-dollar brand deals. The heroes who risked it all, and continue to do so every day.
Playing chase like they did in the woods as kids.
Because, Katsuki realizes, it’s always been them. Kids, teenagers, kinda adults.
They haven't moved out of that two-bedroom apartment they got after graduation.
The second bedroom is used as an office.
They’ve never dated anyone. They never go out. They never take a mission if they can’t ensure they’re in it together.
Katsuki is chasing Izuku through the mock city where he once pinned him to the concrete and screamed. Cried a bit and raged.
Katsuki realized a lot that night. Admitted a lot that night.
He has one more thing he needs to admit.
“Oi, Deku,” he calls. These days he calls his hero partner Izuku, Izu, Zuku, and when he gets really drunk, bunny.
Never Deku. Hardly even when they’re working.
So Izuku stops, emerald eyes snapping to focus, that One For All metabolism allowing him to grip to sobriety and tug when he needs it.
“Yeah, Katsuki?”
Just like that, he knows. Izuku only has to say his given name and his heart faceplants against his ribs. Katsuki laughs, lightheaded and dizzy, because this is a long time coming.
It’ll change everything.
It’ll change nothing.
“You know how everyone thinks we’re in love or some shit?”
They’re an odd amount of space away. Practically across the fake street from one another but neither raises their voice. The world feels like someone pressed pause.
Click.
Katsuki is under one street light, Izuku is under another. Little patches of yellow space, two different worlds.
Izuku tips his head to the side. It’s disgustingly cute. He’s always going and doing disgustingly cute shit, making Katsuki sweat even more nitroglycerin. Izuku’s level of cuteness is literally a danger to society. Katsuki could blow the whole world up over it. And what a shit defense in world crimes court that would be.
Sorry, I just really like this dumbass with the cutest nose and freckles this side of planet earth. Oops. Sorry for the explosions and mass murder.
“Yeah?” Izuku replies. “People have been saying that for years. Why? Did someone say something mean? Do we need to call our PR team?”
The feelings and words stuck in his mouth, in his throat, in his chest, fuck, they’re all so heavy. Katsuki feels like his bones are slipping, are being pressed down with the weight of it all, cutting through his skin to pin him in place. He’s going to become one with the pavement if he doesn’t do this, doesn’t get the words out.
He has to. It’s too much. Has been for a while.
He steps forward, out of his puddle of streetlight and into the grey dark.
“What do you think about it?” he asks, speaking around the years of aborted confession starters in his vocabulary.
Another step.
Izuku blinks, slow like a cat. “I think… I think I can see where they’re coming from.”
He’s so perfect, so pretty, so strong. So Izuku.
“Yeah?”
Another step.
Two more.
He crosses the dash dash dashes of street paint that separate the lanes of the road. “How come?”
“Because we’re always together.” Izuku says it like a question.
Another step.
Katsuki simply lets go of the tequila. The bottle clatters to the pavement. “And?”
“And we get along so well. That last reporter said it’s like we’re telepathic, like we’re one person.”
Step. Step. One more, and he’s on the outside of Izuku’s island of light.
Katsuki takes a deep breath. But he won’t move closer. Not unless Izuku wants him to.
“What would you say if I said everyone's been right this whole time? That I wanted to date you? That I kept people from confessing to you, that I know everything about you down to the number of freckles on your stupid face? That when we open our own agency I want it to be under one name?”
He’s nervous. He can see Izuku’s hands are shaking. Those hands that can hold up falling buildings by day and his hand when they watch scary movies at night.
“You don’t want to call it the Bakugou Midoriya Hero Agency?”
Katsuki shakes his head, “Nope. One or the other. You can choose. I don’t care. If you’re happy as Midoriya Izuku, fine, I’ll be Midoriya Katsuki. You wanna be Bakugou Izuku? Cool, great. Fuck I really don’t care so long as you say yes when I ask.”
Izuku is crying now. It isn't his usual heavy flood-the-world tears. It’s soft. It’s calm. He isn’t shaking anymore.
By everything good in this world, he’s beautiful.
“But Kacchan, what if I wanted to be the one to ask you?”
This can’t be real. It can’t be this easy.
But of course it can be – it’s them.
“I’ll just have to be faster then.”
Izuku smiles, wobbly lips over white teeth. Teeth Katsuki’s seen smile through the blood coating them from split lips and broken noses. Teeth he’s brushed for him when he broke both arms and Recovery Girl outright refused to heal him again.
“Is this a proposal or a confession, Kacchan?”
“It’s a confession,” Katsuki says, finally, slowly, stepping into the streetlight, toward the pure sunshine that is Izuku. “And a warning, in a way. You accept, you take my feelings and they’re yours. Non-refundable, no returns Deku. You think I’m clingy now? You think we’re inseparable today? Accept tonight, and tomorrow I’m gonna drive you insane. I’m yours, you’re mine, and it's set, checkmate forever,” he exhales. Inhales. “That cool with you?”
It’s Izuku who steps closer now, Izuku who meets him in the middle. “Leave it to you to make a love confession threatening, Kacchan.”
They’re a breath away now. The toes of their dress shoes kiss.
“So?” Katsuki prompts.
And Zuku, Deku, Izuku, his Izuku, reaches out and grabs his hand. They’ve held hands a million times. This is different. Somehow, this is more.
“I love you too, Kacchan.”
Dont. fucking. cry. Don't you dare fucking cry right now.
He tugs Izuku into his chest, wraps his arms around him and exhales shakily into his curls. He laughs, bubbly like Sunday morning mimosas and weightless.
“Damn right you do.”
Two blocks away, poorly hidden as a pack of drunk idiots behind a fake bus stop, the rest of what was class 1-A watches on.
Iida cries, “I can’t wait to be Izuku’s best man.”
Todoroki’s hand ignites. “I will battle you for the title.”
Ochako cackles. “Nice try, boys. I’m his best fucking man.”
Then –
– Then the UA faculty hears their whoops and cheers and outright screams when Bakugou Katsuki finally, finally kisses Midoriya Izuku.
“Damn problem children.”
Yeah, now they’re dating.