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Katsuki’s just out of his shower when Izuku finally returns to their shared apartment, hugging a bag of groceries to his chest as he fumbles with the lock and finally makes it into the kitchen, plopping the bag down on the counter. Katsuki watches him, not offering to help.
“Hey,” he greets, making Izuku look up and beam, which kills him a little inside.
“Hey, Kacchan!” Izuku says, “I think I got everything on your list this time!” He starts pulling things out of the bag to put them away, and this time Katsuki does go to help. Katsuki always has to give Izuku lists of groceries whenever it’s his turn and Katsuki has a patrol, because, left to his own devices, Izuku would come home with the supplies to bake a batch of cookies, some junk shit, and maybe a carrot. It had happened before. Never again.
“So, guess what happened on my patrol today?” Izuku chirps, but chirps more like a bird flittering around nervously than one calmly singing in a tree.
“No,” Katsuki deadpans like he usually does, figuring he’d figure out what the hell was bothering him soon enough.
“That’s fine, I’ll just tell you,” Izuku barrels forward, also like he usually does, launching into some ramble about a grandmother who hit a class B villain with her cane while refusing to be led to safety. Or something. Katsuki didn’t listen too closely, content to let the now-familiar background noise fill the room as they put away the groceries and he sets out things for dinner.
He’d been roommates with Izuku for almost three years now, pining for six and head over fucking heels in love for almost five, and the more he got used to it, the more complicated his feelings got. He’s not stupid, he can tell his friends know about his feelings, but he hasn’t actually said anything to anyone because…well, because then he’d have to do something about them. And he’s already pretty much decided those feelings were a lockbox he isn’t even going to make a key for.
But moments like this, moving around each other in the tiny kitchen with no problems, chatting away, the fucking domesticity of it all made his chest ache.
Katsuki is selfish and he knows it, feels it every time he looks at Izuku and can only imagine hugging him to his chest and resting his chin on the top of his green curls, just because he can and not because he’s having another nightmare. Looks at him and can only imagine pulling him into a kiss, touching his lips to every stupid freckle on his face. Looks at him and can only imagine Izuku hugging him back, kissing him back, loving him back.
Looks at him and can only imagine the impossible, the future where he and Izuku don’t eventually part ways as nothing but good friends, the future where Izuku doesn’t inevitably find someone better, someone who deserves him more than Katsuki, because if there’s one thing Katsuki can admit defeat in, it’s love, and it’s Izuku.
He’s selfish to want for things he doesn’t deserve, hasn’t won fairly, or at all. He’s selfish, so fuck it, he’s sinking his claws into every second he can get with this man. He’s wringing everything he can out of the time he does have, takes what he gets and sits and stews about the things out of reach. One day, he’ll leave again, and this time, Katsuki will inevitably be unable to follow.
But that’s fine. He’s made his peace.
“Kacchan?”
“What?” Katsuki replies, glancing over his shoulder as he fiddles with the heat under his noodles to find Izuku watching him from the middle of their kitchen, chewing on the inside of his lip in the barely noticeable nervous habit of his.
“Oh, you’re still cooking,” Izuku says, as if that weren’t obvious, “Sorry, I’ll…later.”
Katsuki narrows his eyes at him. “Spit it out, Deku.”
“No, it’s fine, I’ll just talk to you later!” Izuku assures, breath of fake laughter stuttered and nervous.
“You’ve been nervous about something since you got home, nerd,” Katsuki snaps, “Tell me what the fuck is up and stop chickening out.” Izuku opens his mouth, taking in a breath like he’s about to speak, then bites down on his tongue in says nothing. “Christ, Deku,” Katsuki groans, “just say your shit, you breaking up with me or something?” He tries to play off his literal greatest fear as a mere joke, but Izuku’s eyes widen at the tease.
“What? No! Kind of…” he takes another deep breath, “kind of the opposite, actually.”
Katsuki heart damn near stops beating, breath catching in his throat. WHAT.
“Kacchan,” Izuku starts, looking down at the floor then forcing himself to meet Katsuki’s eyes, “I’ve been thinking for a long while, and I feel like we’re already together so much, and we work so well together and everything…and you’re-I honestly couldn’t imagine doing any of this without you, so…” He trails off again, collecting himself for whatever bomb he’s definitely about to drop on Katsuki’s long-suffering conscience.
“Kacchan, I think we should be hero partners.”
Katsuki wonders if it’s humanly possible for a heart to actually shatter. Of course. Of course it would just be this kind of shit again, heroes and legends and saviors and job partners but not people, never just fucking people. Katsuki can’t believe he forgot. Forgot the rules that bound his life and his relationship with the most important person in it.
“We already are,” he manages, a bit too much bitterness seeping into his voice if Izuku’s expression of hurt is anything to go by. Katsuki hates himself for that.
“Well, kind of,” Izuku says, so kind in the face of a reaction he’d obviously not expected, “but I mean…real ones, you know? Officially the Wonder Duo and all that.”
“An official partnership?” Katsuki clarifies, and Izuku nods. Katsuki feels his heart sink, shoulders slumping with sudden exhaustion. This idiot. “People can’t back out of that, Deku, at least not with a shred of decency or pride left. It’s a permanent thing. We become permanent parts of each other’s lives.”
“You don’t want that?” Izuku’s voice warbles, just barely, his expression of hurt so deep and his words so wrong Katsuki can’t even look at him anymore.
Permanent. Izuku. With him.
It’s what he wants. It’s what he’s wanted for years, maybe lifetimes, but…
“You don’t want that.”
He can’t do that to him.
“What the hell are you talking about, Kacchan?” Izuku snaps, and Katsuki glances up to find himself fixed with the harshest glare he’s seen on Izuku yet, at least not directed at anyone but a villain. But there are tears in his harsh green eyes, the hard line of his lips trembling ever so slightly. “If you wanted to end this…our…whatever we are, you should’ve just said it.”
“I never said that, you dumb fuck,” Katsuki snaps back, reverting to anger and insults like he’s a child again because he can’t deal with how wrong this all is, how wrong Izuku has it.
Izuku sucks in a sharp breath, clenching his jaw and raising his voice. “I’m dumb now? How in the world-”
“YES, YOU ARE,” Katsuki yells over him, anger boiling over, “You’re an idiot! You can only be an idiot if you want to be stuck with me like that! Why would you-”
“BECAUSE I LOVE YOU, ASSHOLE!”
“You can’t-” Katsuki cuts himself up with an embarrassing splutter as what Izuku just screamed in his face catches up to him, or rather hits him like a truck. “What?” he practically wheezes. His eyes find Izuku’s, and he’s crying, the angry look melting into something resigned, remorseful.
“You’re the idiot, Kacchan,” he says, sounding crushed, “You’re an idiot and an asshole and you could at least take some responsibility for breaking my heart instead of putting it on me. I didn’t exactly mean to love you and screw everything up.”
“I’m not-I don’t,” Katsuki stutters, searching desperately for anything he can still manage to say, “Don’t say that, I’m not-fuck.”
“I wouldn’t be ‘stuck with you’, Kacchan,” Izuku huffs softly, sadly, “Or rather, stuck with you is the only place I’ve ever wanted to be.”
Oh.
Oh, fuck, Izuku loves him.
Izuku Midoriya loves him.
And Katsuki is selfish, so, so selfish, because he meets Izuku’s teary green eyes, and he tells the truth.
“I love you too.”
Because he’s never not taken an opportunity when presented, because he always grabs his chances with both hands, and fuck it if he’s being selfish right now. Fuck it if he can’t feel deserving of him yet. He’d die for him again and again just to prove he was.
“You what?” Izuku breaths, new tracks of tears welling in his eyes.
“I love you too, Izuku,” Katsuki finally, finally admits, words rolling off his tongue and settling in the world around them like they belong there, because they do. “I just thought…I didn’t think you did.”
Izuku swallows thickly. “I didn’t think you did.”
“Idiot,” Katsuki mumbles, just noticing that, at some point, Izuku took a few steps across the small kitchen, bringing him inches away from Katsuki.
“That makes two of us,” Izuku murmurs, and suddenly his lips are on Katsuki’s. Kissing him. Holy shit.
Katsuki feels his entire chest explode out his body, warmth absolutely everywhere, making a home in his bones like it’s been there the whole time. It’s so overwhelming and he’s so unfamiliar with being overwhelmed that it takes him a moment to start kissing back, wrapping his arms around Izuku and hugging him closer. Their chests press flush together, and he’s only a bit surprised to find Izuku’s heart racing just as much as his.
Izuku pulls away for a second, and Katsuki opens his eyes to vibrant green, thinking he can take a few breaths, but Izuku is just as quick to dive back in as he was to pull apart, pressing into him with something a little less unsure and gentle, a little more needy. Katsuki, who feels like his world is being flipped upside down, is so surprised by the sudden advancement that Izuku’s push is enough to make him stumble backwards into the counter, and he puts a hand out behind to stable himself.
Except that’s the stupidest thing he could do, because he ends up shoving his hand right into the pot of boiling water he’d forgotten about.
“FUCK!” he yells, yanking his hand away as soon as it dips into the scalding water and jolting forward. He would’ve knocked Izuku backwards if he didn’t still have one arm wrapped solidly around his waist.
“Are you okay?” Izuku yelps, reaching up to grab Katsuki’s offending hand. Katsuki does his best not to yank it away like his first instinct tells him to, instead allowing Izuku to take it gently in his calloused own.
“I’m fine,” he lies, a lie not because of the burn but because of Izuku and everything that happened in the last ten seconds. He feels like his brain’s overloaded and shut down.
“You sure?” Izuku asks, looking up from his hand to his face. Katsuki’s about to snap that he really is fine when Izuku continues, “Your face is all red.”
“Shut up,” Katsuki says, feeling his face heat even more.
Izuku smirks at him, the little shit. “Okay, Kacchan.” Katsuki scowls at him and he turns his attention back to his injured hand, still smiling. “It doesn’t look that bad. You should run it under cold water, though.”
“I fucking know,” Katsuki says. He reluctantly lets go of Izuku to turn off the stove and go put his hand under the sink faucet, the cool water soothing his burning skin but absolutely nothing else. Especially not when Izuku sidles up right next to him and leans into his shoulder.
“So…” Izuku starts, trailing off with a smile and gorgeous dusting of pink blush across his freckles, “you have a crush on me?”
Katsuki uses his non-injured hand to dig his fingers into Izuku’s side, making him yelp with laughter. “Fuck off.”
“You totally do!” Izuku laughs, “Ha!”
“What the hell do you mean ‘ha’?” Katsuki says, “You’re in love with me!”
“You’re in love with me!” is Izuku’s response, cackling and snorting like a madman.
“What is wrong with you,” Katsuki deadpans, though he can’t hold back a smile and doesn’t really try. They should probably talk about some things, maybe go back to the hero partner situation, but Izuku seems too damn giddy for that.
Instead of answering, Izuku puts a hand on his hip, a gentle push for him to turn more towards him, then grins up at him lazily in some kind of drunken serenity. “I’m gonna kiss you again,” he warns, but Katsuki’s already way ahead of him.
They’ll talk later.