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“Izuku, what are you doing?”
He’s not listening. He’s not listening. Katsuki’s got nowhere to put his hands, ’cause—because what the fuck is he supposed to do, when Izuku is down on his knees, completely honed in on something only that overactive brain of his could come up with?
Izuku’s hands flit down from the inside of his thighs—along the wound Katsuki almost sustained, but dodged, thank you very much—and over his calves, pressing in on the sides of his boots. Then he moves over to one side, Katsuki’s left, and nudges at the toe of his boot.
Katsuki had tried to shuck off the worst bits of his uniform before walking into the apartment, but Izuku was having none of it, dragged him by the wrist into their bedroom, which is just going to make a worse mess to clean up later, but—
But Izuku is still on his knees, and Katsuki thinks his brain is making those archaic dial-up noises.
Izuku nudges his foot again. Katsuki scowls. “You want me to fall over.”
Izuku peeks up from under his bangs. They’re so long now—have been since their third year at UA. Most times it’s tied back, little whisps and flyaways always making him look anything from adorable to unkempt. This battle, though—Izuku didn’t care that his hair was in his eyes, matted down with dust and sweat and, fuck, a bit of blood. Didn’t care that his body was screaming. Katsuki saw it through his blood-filled eye, the way Izuku went hell for leather trying to get to him in time. Bless the cleanup crew on this one, because Izuku lost the plot a little toward the end. Not enough to cause substantial damage, but he didn’t have the same care he usually did.
Maybe he was saving it up for this, at Katsuki’s feet, conducting this entire fucking situation like a maestro, all deft hands and cloud-soft gazes.
Izuku’s still looking at him. “Kacchan.”
“I’m not joking, nerd.”
“I know.” Izuku leans up, takes his hand, places it on his own shoulder. “Lean on me.”
“I don’t need—” Katsuki swallows the rest, because . . . well.
“I know,” Izuku says. “Oh, Kacchan, I know. But you can. I want you to. Okay?”
They’re fine, most days. They’ve each got their own therapists, they talk when they have issues, but—but. Katsuki can’t— There are days where he can’t imagine taking one more thing from Izuku, doing wrong by him one more time, even if Izuku only ever gives and gives, nobody’s ever been able to take—
Except when it’s Katsuki, according to Izuku. Only Katsuki has ever truly been stolen from him, and though Katsuki can’t get the stories out of him or anyone else, he’s learned it wasn’t a pretty scene.
Katsuki doesn’t do as asked, go figure. He will eventually, because Midoriya Izuku has the threads of Katsuki’s soul wrapped around each of his mangled fingers, but not right now. Right now, Katsuki is cupping Izuku’s jaw, petting through his hair, and Izuku lets him, because though they’re better at it now, this is never going to be easy. The living together, the knowing of routines, the comfort—easy as anything, sure. Back of their hands, they’ve known each other their whole lives. It’s this, the vulnerability and the hastened heartbeats; it’s the reality of Izuku being on his knees and Katsuki still feeling like he’s at the whim of someone who’s casually got the power of a god.
He is. He doesn’t feel like, he is, because Izuku has been dictating his life, for better or worse, whether he knew it or not, since day one.
Izuku leans up into his palms, kissing his wrists. No number of Katsuki’s warnings against lapping at the most dangerous parts of his body has dissuaded him from treating them with the same adoration he does every other part of Katsuki.
He’s putting off the inevitable. Fuck.
Stubbornly, he keeps most of his own weight, but he does make a show of pushing down oh so slightly onto Izuku’s shoulders as he lifts a foot. Something’s fucked up with Katsuki today, because when Izuku smiles at nothing in particular, looking so peaceful he may as well have found nirvana, he wants to cry.
Izuku unlaces his boots, fingers searing even through the socks, the stiff material of his pants. Katsuki grits his teeth against the gentle nature of it. He’d almost rather Izuku tear the thing off, claw into his skin with the intention to kill.
They’re past that, he reminds himself. They’re past that, and he’s got to get with the program. He is with it, most days. Not every day.
Definitely not today.
Izuku’s insane, because as he takes off the sock, he brings up Katsuki’s foot, and kisses the top of it. Katsuki hates how sensitive it is, how his spine tricks itself into thinking now is the time to shudder.
“Just ’cause the dangerous shit only comes out of my hands doesn’t mean you should—”
“Shut up.” A kiss to his ankle. “I’m not any less stubborn than you, Kacchan. You think you telling me what I already know is going to make me stop?”
“I just—” Katsuki’s not proud of the strangled noise that comes out of his throat, but he’s got other priorities. “I just don’t get why this is the plan you cooked up in that fuckin’ head you got. It’s not like we’re strangers to vegging out on the couch for battle cool-down.”
And Izuku full-on scowls, furious at . . . maybe a stain on their rug. Katsuki hates the thing, the one spill that kicked his ass, but he’s going to win one day—
“I almost watched your skull cave in, and I’m supposed to focus on some dumb movie? I’m supposed to be able to take my eyes off you, keep my hands off you? I’m supposed to risk, even for a second, forgetting you’re here? Thinking you’re still out there?”
Izuku’s got his ankle in a death grip, same goes for his calf, and it’s going to bruise and Katsuki’s going to fucking preen when he sees it, because that’s his hard-earned right as a certifiably insane bastard in love with another, certifiably insane bastard.
“Am I supposed to be fine?” Izuku whispers. Katsuki wants to shred apart the city at the sound of his tears.
Katsuki bends at the hip, uses an equally intense grip on Izuku’s hair as he presses a kiss to a scalp that’s still dirty as all hell, but this has always been them, the dirt and the pain and the need. The strength to want after all of that, to want more than that and want it forever.
“Didn’t mean it that way, Izuku.”
“I know,” Izuku says. “I know, I’m sorry, I just—”
“Don’t you dare fuckin’ apologize,” Katsuki cuts in as he pulls away. He knows he doesn’t imagine the way Izuku leans up, but for the sake of his heart, he lets it go unnoticed. “You’d never make me feel bad for somethin’ so damn simple, so I don’t wanna hear that shit from you.”
Honestly, empires would willingly bend the knee to have Izuku look at them the way he’s is looking at Katsuki right now. Like the sky cracked open to reveal his heart’s most desperate wish and delivered it right into the palm of his hand.
Katsuki’s terrified of that look, and has to make the conscious effort to swallow down the fear. As if he’s about to let that shit win again. His therapist would be so fucking pissed.
They’re stewing in that dense silence for all of a moment before Izuku’s back to his nonsense, patting Katsuki’s other boot in a quiet request. When Katsuki leans on his shoulders this time, he puts more of his weight. Izuku doesn’t move a millimetre under it, but Katsuki will choose to be annoyed about that some other time. Right now, it’s . . . it’s comforting. He’s come a long enough way to admit that, enjoy it.
His right boot joins the other. Izuku doesn’t skimp out on the kisses this time around either, when the sock is pulled off.
Izuku begins unlatching the belts around his hips—tiny incendiary devices are in the damn pouches, but no, of course Izuku’s priority is to get the costume off as efficiently as he can—and litters kisses even on the clothes themselves. Stop, Katsuki wants to say, they’re fuckin’ filthy, but he can’t find his voice. Maybe Izuku’s stolen it between one breath and the next.
Izuku peels away his pants, stuck in some places with grime and sweat. Katsuki really can’t do anything about the grimace he wears, and can’t stifle the disgruntled noise he makes when Izuku still kisses his thigh. He’s worlds away, ever and always stuck on some train of thought taking him to places that Katsuki only glimpse before following him along for the ride. It used to be the reverse, though Katsuki thinks Izuku is much less inclined to constantly look back. He thinks of Orpheus and Eurydice, even if Katsuki hadn’t had nearly such good intentions whenever he looked over his shoulder.
He’s always there. Even when I pull ahead, he’s always there. Katsuki wonders if he still looks back sometimes, without thinking about it—if he tries too hard to think about what was, even when Izuku is so great on what is, what could be.
“Silly Kacchan,” Izuku mutters, pulling him from rambling thoughts that would have given Izuku himself a run for his money. “Acting like kissing you is a chore. As if I wouldn’t break the stars and galaxies just to see you smile.”
What is he on about? Katsuki wonders in a panic. What the fuck is he talking about?
“I would have given it you,” Izuku’s saying. “I did. I really really did. I had to, but I was happy to give it to you, too. It would have been ripping out my heart, dulling my senses, but it was you, and it would have been okay.”
Izuku kisses him all the time, but only this one peck to his stomach feels like it’ll kill him, like Katsuki’s own explosions could never have burned brightly enough to prepare him for this. He thinks those fucking tendrils cutting right through his body hurt a lot less; feeling his own Quirk kill him brought less pain.
And yet, there’s nowhere else to go, nowhere else he could imagine wanting to be. If Izuku is going to kill him, Katsuki will watch it with rapture.
“I would do it again. I always will. If it’s something I can give you, Kacchan, I don’t know what could stop me from handing it over with a bow.”
Katsuki can’t think about it, not really, because how is any of this fair? How has he done anything adjacent to earning this?
Izuku’s hands come up underneath his shirt, palming across scars and marks and skin, and with them he rises too. Katsuki doesn’t dare meet his eyes, is staring at the spot between his feet. Izuku tries to lift his chin with a finger, but Katsuki resolutely shakes his head. He can’t, honest to fuck he can’t manage it right now it’s mortifying it sucks it’s progress undone but that’s just where he—
Izuku kisses his hairline and says, “Okay. Okay, Kacchan, it’s all right. We’re okay.”
“Fuck I love you.”
It comes out in a rush, unstoppable, unerringly true. Maybe it’s the fact that he’s being a cowardly little shit that can’t look the love of his life in the eye, but it is what it is. The sky is blue, the tide rises and falls, Bakugō Katsuki is so in love with Midoriya Izuku he’s drowning.
“I love you too. Always and forever”—The briefest hitch, and is he . . . ?—“Katsuki.”
There’s nothing he can do. He hates it, hates this whole thing for how helpless he feels against all these emotions, but he finally breaks down, chokes on his sobs. He wants to holler his happiness at the way Izuku doesn’t gather him into his arms, as if Katsuki could break; he keeps himself close, one hand at Katsuki’s jaw and the other on his waist, but gives Katsuki and his love-born heartbreak the room they need to breathe. Izuku talked a big game about what he would do for Katsuki, but the adoration and devotion Katsuki feels for the man in front of him could bend space, unravel time, tilt the world onto another axis. It makes him stronger than decades of training possibly could, and probably scariest of all, makes Katsuki think he can be not only better, but good.
Izuku nuzzles their noses together and Katsuki feels so gross physically, but how can he say no to him, like this?
“Kacchan, my Kacchan.” Which is just unfair, because Katsuki is vulnerable and open and susceptible to sobbing harder. “I hope you’ll always come back to me. Forever, always, I’ll chase after you, but I hope . . .”
“Fuckin’ moron,” Katsuki mumbles, stepping fully into Izuku’s space and smiling at the surprised hitch in breath he hears. “Where am I gonna go? When have I ever been anywhere but where you are? And don’t you dare start cryin’ all over me.” For good measure, “Bastard.”
Izuku nudges his way forward until they’re kissing, and it’s languid, sweet, as he peels off the rest of Katsuki’s uniform. There’s nothing left of his mask, so when the slim braces around his arms hit the floor, Katsuki is laid bare, and—
“Come to bed with me,” he whispers against Izuku’s lips. And if he’s laid bare anyway, “Hold me tonight, okay?”
Izuku sounds like he’s dying and he’s sounds like he’s never felt more alive, and it’s fucking atrocious the way he just tears off his uniform—rips the thing! Like it doesn’t cost millions of yen—but Katsuki wants him close and wants him now and—yeah, he can forgive a bit of rough treatment where the Deku costume is concerned.
They’re going to have to wash the sheets tomorrow, because Katsuki is going to wake up in the bitch fit of the century with how disgusting he’ll feel without a shower, but for now . . .
For now, Izuku is taking him by the waist, all that muscle built up over the years put to use in securing Katsuki to the bed, under the covers, they two so close they may start fusing together into one.
Katsuki has a hard time finding a problem with that.