Chapter Text
“So, remember how you yelled at me in front of everyone yesterday?” Izuku asks, keeping his voice down and his focus on the front of his locker as he gets changed into his costume.
“Remember how you’ve been being a pushy little shit?”
“I do,” he hums. “So we help each other make dinner tonight? Whatever you want as long as it takes a while.” He glances over his shoulder to watch Katsuki shrug off his T-shirt, meaning to get a peek at body language but taking a wrong turn down the canyons carved in morphing back muscles. He quickly snaps his eyes up when Katsuki turns his head to face him.
A scoff. “Having fun there?”
“Uh… a little.” He smiles meekly. “So… dinner?”
Katsuki shrugs. “Your place?”
Izuku nods, chin to chest, and another mean laugh cuts through the air.
“Don't hurt yourself dipshit,” he reaches over the bench between them to grab Izuku's head and harshly hold him still. “You got stuff for curry?” He threads Izuku’s bangs between his fingers before pulling back his arm.
“Uh…” Izuku stammers stupidly for the second time. “No. I’ll-I’ll have to go to the store… But you’re in a good mood, huh?” he asks, eyeing the non-angry smirk on Katsuki’s face.
He huffs a laugh out of his nose. “Sounds like you’re apologizing to me for once, so, yeah.”
Izuku crumples his brow. “We’re apologizing to each other,” he clarifies.
Katsuki jerks his head, flippant, and shoots his fist to just in front of Izuku’s face, a playful jab that Izuku doesn’t flinch at. “Still. Pretty pleased with myself.”
Izuku uses a flattened hand to guide his fist out of the way. “Glad you’re happy.”
The noise every ingredient makes as Izuku clunks them on the counter grates in his ears, the only sound in his too small kitchen. The only sound he can hear, anyway. Katsuki might be talking to him, asking about what Izuku's putting out. And Izuku might even be responding. Describing things and what they're going to do with them. What he’ll do. What Katsuki’ll do. They're talking, right?
And all Izuku has to do is keep talking but change the words. That's it. That's all. He’s doing it right now. Talking. Word by word. He can feel his mouth moving and throat vibrate so he knows it's happening. And each word is different from the next. He can do this. He has practice in speaking. He does too much of it every day.
But Katsuki looks pleased. For once. Not uncomfortable or angry. Just pleased.
Would changing the category of words tumbling from his lips too much bring his mood down? He should just ride this out today. Quit while he's ahead. They’ll just cook a nice, hearty meal together and eat it and talk, like he's still doing, and laugh and Izuku won't say anything inappropriate and he won't try to dig into something Katsuki doesn't want to talk about.
He can do that.
But Ochako would really make fun of him for chickening out.
And what if Katsuki's pleased because they're spending time together? What if he’s pleased because he wants to make dinner together and he actually really really wants to be with Izuku in every other way too? There's a chance he's just been so overwhelmed by everything that he didn't have the chance to be happy about their feelings being mutual and it all just kicked in this morning.
“My bangs ,” he thinks. What are the non-romantic reasons that someone would gently drag their fingers through his hair? “Lint, no boundaries, familial affection, barber.” Only one of those could make sense.
“Was there something in my hair this morning?” he asks.
“Deku, Jesus Christ, slow down. What?”
“Okay so no lint,” he thinks as he puts their conversation back on auto pilot. So, romantic. Definitely putting that specific touch into the romantic category. Or at least affectionate. And it wouldn't be familial, no, not with Katsuki. Not enough yelling to be familial. Not enough hissing and clawing. So again. Romantic.
Right?
Which, why is he even guessing at this? Katsuki said he loved him. That should be enough to know that something like that was done with love. Romantic love. Love love. Same with everything he's been doing between Izuku's manic grasps for the gearshift to their relationship.
He gets upset but then he calms down and Izuku will experience the whiplash of him reaching over without warning to zip up his costume or call him Izuku or look at him in that way he can where it's painful and longing.
Little touches. Still. Gentle words. Still.
So this should be fine. Pushing him a little more but being more precise and mindful about it should be fine. He’ll get away with it and not make things worse. All he has to do is-
“Deku!” he hears Katsuki shout.
“Hm, uh, what? Yeah. What?” he stammers out, unsure what's happening.
“You’ve been going nonstop for like five minutes. The fuck is the matter with you?”
“Oh, uh…”
Now is the time. Just say something. You were doing it a second ago. Just change the words. Speak, Izuku, speak. You can do it. Just tell him you want to talk to him. It's a normal thing that people do. You don't even have to say you want to be with him forever. Just- just tell him you're fine with a physical relationship with him. That's all it has to be. Like with Kirishima. They had that going for years, he's pretty sure. Maybe Izuku could have that too. Then at least he’d have something.
He could go to Kirishima and ask how he did it. How he got Katsuki to agree to something like that and how he kept it going for so long. Speak, Izuku, speak. Dinner tonight can be normal and a good apology and then he’ll ask Kirishima how to approach things going forward and the problem will be solved.
Izuku can settle for just getting to touch him occasionally and be touched back. They don't even have to be exclusive. Just say something. Anything. Just say words, Izuku. It would be selfish of him to suggest that he's all Katsuki needs if they were only in a physical relationship. Even past that, is Katsuki normally monogamous? They didn't even talk about that. Does he date people? How long has it been since he stopped talking? How quickly has this all gone through his head? One second? Ten minutes? Speak, Izuku, just say something. Say something say something SAY SOMETHING
“I want to talk,” he forces out, deciding everything in the single moment between the words “to” and “talk.”
Katsuki chuckles. “Yeah, I can see that.”
Izuku shakes his head. “No, I mean I want to talk about us.”
Sharp eyebrows raise over crimson eyes gently narrowed with annoyance and teeming with ever-burning flames that engulf everything in their wake. “... Let's start cooking first.”
“So,” Izuku starts as he roughly chops up potatoes. “I know I’ve been out of line lately.”
“You’re sure fucking right about that,” Katsuki grumbles as he starts ripping open spice packs from multiple boxes of curry.
“I'm sorry about it, genuinely.”
Katsuki gives him a sideways glare, full of anger and fight but somehow still always laced with something akin to affection. The way he can mix carrot and stick with a look is something interrogators should study.
“I’ll accept that when you fucking stop.”
“So that's what…” Izuku sighs out a gentle sigh. “That's what I want to talk about.”
“About you stopping right the fuck now?”
“No. Well, I mean, yes, if that's for sure what you want, but-”
“It is.”
“Yeah, I know, but what I mean is like-”
“Deku. I want you to stop.”
“I know, but-”
“Seriously.”
“But Kacchan, I-”
“Deku, I'm not fucking around, I-”
“Just listen to me!” Izuku shouts as loud as he can, slamming the knife in his hand down on the counter. He tries not to yell outside of the field. He really does. But sometimes it's the only way to be heard when it comes to Katsuki. He brings his voice back down. “For two minutes, Kacchan. Please. Just listen.”
Katsuki maintains his glare before shrugging and rooting through Izuku's spice cabinet. “Two minutes.”
It feels like he actually means that literally, so Izuku gets right to it. “Kacchan, I feel like you're trying to push me away even though you want to be with me. And you can correct me if that's wrong, but I think that's why I’ve been being so awful. Because it's hard to feel like you're so close at hand but slamming an arbitrary door between us. I understand that something hard happened and I understand why that might make starting something new difficult or uncomfortable but I feel like it doesn't make it forever impossible, which is what you seem to think. So I want to confirm why you're not willing to start something right now and to ask whether you think you’ll ever be willing to. It would be helpful to get a straightforward answer from you and for you to reject me myself instead of the concept of a relationship with me, if that makes sense, or else I don't think I’m going to be able to move on from this.”
Izuku stands and huffs, out of breath, pretty sure he managed to get that all out in about twenty seconds.
Katsuki only shrugs again. “Deku, I loved someone that was made to be a copy of you,” he says like that's the end of the conversation.
“Yeah, Kacchan. I know,” Izuku says, trying not to be dismissive but also unsure how that’s a finalizing statement.
“I had sex with him more times than I can count,” he says again like he’s giving final evidence to shut a case closed.
“I kind of figured,” Izuku says even though he hadn't realized it was that many times.
“I called him Izuku. Not just sometimes. That's what I called him.”
Izuku smiles, appreciative affection pooling in his stomach for the man across from him who's trying his best to protect him in the most idiotic way possible.
“You call me Izuku too.”
“Yeah but you're- you're Deku to me, right? He was Izuku.”
Izuku looks to the side and back and shrugs. “... And? Kacchan, we’ve talked extensively about you calling me Deku. It's something I'm proud of. And I have reverence for the name’s connection to you and how it's a symbol for how different our relationship is now. You know all of that.”
“Yeah but you want me to call you Izuku. You love it when I do. And I don't cause I'm a dick and I refuse to give you anything you want and I-”
“Kacchan. Why are you trying to push me away?”
“Because you shouldn't be fucking near me, Deku!” he shouts. “You- you feel like you need to fucking prostrate yourself to me,” he gestures angrily to a spot beneath him “just to tell me you love me because I have never been good to you one fucking day in our goddamn lives unless you're purposefully putting yourself below me and even when you still somehow found it in yourself to care about me after all of that I still went to someone who, for all I knew, couldn't reject me if he wanted to because I couldn't stand the thought of you treating me how I deserved to be fucking treated and I…” Katsuki deflates. Angular fingers dig forcefully into Izuku's countertop. “Deku, this won't end well for you.”
Izuku sighs and lays a careful hand on Katsuki’s, who stiffens like he tends to do when Izuku touches him, like he’s always expecting every swatch of contact to be the precursor to a bloody fist-fight. Like he thinks Izuku's trying to play dirty and trick him into letting his guard down by pretending to be affectionate. It's the closest Katsuki will ever get to actually being pitiable, and the quiet vulnerability of the reaction always wrenches Izuku's heart. “I guess I'm just wondering if you think that because of what happened with him.”
“Of course I do!” he shouts in a rancor, incredulous, glaring roaring flames into Izuku like it was offensive to insinuate that it might not’ve been the case. “He was you. And I left him to die. And then didn't even do what he asked me to do.” The words fall to the floor and shatter, one by one.
Izuku squeezes his unresponsive hand. “What did he ask you to do?”
“Nothing, Deku. It doesn't matter.”
“I mean, it seems like it does.”
“Well how about fuck off?”
“How about you talk to me ,” Izuku pleads. “Kacchan, it's okay for this to be scary or for you to not be ready after what happened. It's okay if you need some time or if you don't want to go through it again. But it's not okay for you to tell me that I'm better off not being with you. You don't get to decide that for me. Only I get to do that. And I made my decision the second you called me up on that roof. And it's not going to change any time soon. Believe me.”
Izuku thinks of Katsuki as his, in some ways. His partner. His childhood friend. His rival. His unrequited love. And sometimes it's hard to see something of his so obviously feel like he doesn't deserve to be kept close and precious. “I don't want to hurt you any more than I already have,” Katsuki murmurs through his perfect, nearly fanged teeth.
Izuku titters and takes a step towards him so his abdomen is pressing into Katsuki’s tense, muscular, outstretched arm, gripping the counter. He leans forward to try and look him in the eyes.
“Then try not to. Okay? I believe in you,” he says with an air of mockery but meaning every word and knowing that Katsuki will know that too.
Their eyes ghost over each other for the barest of seconds before Katsuki averts his again. “... If we do this, I'm gonna wanna go slow, Deku.”
Air flushes across Izuku's widened eyes. “Yeah, Kacchan. Of course, that's fine.”
They share a warbling stare, looking through the lines of a heat wave, both of them in their own fevers that combine anticlimactically to produce calm and resignation. Katsuki shifts his hand on the countertop to lay two fingers on top of Izuku’s and Izuku’s body fragments against the gentle something embodied in a kiss he’ll spend the night cataloguing in his mind and the rest of his life casually replaying.
Katsuki pulls away and immediately averts his gaze back down to the countertop.
Curling his hair behind his ear, Izuku stammers. “So, uh… does that mean we’re good?” he asks, not wanting to be blunt and say anything like “dating” or “boyfriend” and crunch a branch in front of a stock-still deer.
Katsuki shrugs. “I guess,” he grumbles.
Izuku purses his lips and sighs through his nose. “Okay, um, so-”
“No, sorry,” Katsuki barks, turning fully to Izuku. He’s taller than him. Just by a few inches, but it’s enough that Izuku has to tilt his head up slightly to look into the piercing, fiery eyes that so perfectly turn his blood to molten nerves. Warm-hot, needy hands with the potential, and sometimes intent, to tear him limb from limb press gently to either side of Izuku’s face. His thumbs trace along his cheekbones. “Izuku, I love you,” he says plainly before kissing him again. A hand streaks heat up Izuku’s cheek and pushes back his bangs. A soft, unshakable kiss presses to his forehead. “And I…” he takes a steadying breath. “I want to be with you.”
Adrenaline-fueled, nervous giddiness pushes away anything Izuku would normally rationally say in this scenario in preference of him tackling Katsuki into a hug that’s warm and hard and everything. Izuku buries his face into Katsuki's neck, feeling the tackiness of his hot skin in contrast with the soft, smooth comfort of gliding his hands across the back of his T-shirt, and breathes him in unabashedly for the first time. Needles prick at his eyes.
Katsuki holds him gently at first, like he's trying to keep the door open to Izuku backing away at any moment. But when Izuku takes a half-step closer, trying to forcefully meld their bodies closer together, Katsuki's forehead presses firmly to his shoulder and the air gets squeezed out of him.
Izuku wonders if his ribs will break. And he wonders who Katsuki’ll be thinking of when he breaks them.
He tightens his hold. “So what do we do about Arekarashi?”