Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

~

“You know,” says Katsuki, feet up in a hammock and slathered ass to tits in sunscreen. “This retirement thing isn’t so bad.”

Izuku lifts up his sunglasses to stare at him. He has an incredulous look on his face, a little too snarky for this whole vacation concept they’re testing out. After only one day, Izuku is already a honey-warm gold from the tropical sun, because his skin soaks it up like a plant to water.

“Really now.”

“Yup.”

“You’re not feeling…restless?”

“Nope.”

“Bored?”

“Nuh-huh.”

“Murderous?”

“Just the normal amount.” Katsuki picks at his teeth with the toothpick from his pina colada, and glares at Izuku’s flat expression. “What? You don’t think I can relax?”

“No,” Izuku says cheerily, returning to his book.

Katsuki tuts. He rolls the pick to the other side of his mouth, and looks out past the sandy lawn of their bungalow. The ocean is a rich blue, bluer than any of the seas they know intimately back home.

“It’s sure a hell of a lot easier without work up my ass and thirty booger-eating interns begging for the time of day.”

“You love being a hero,” Izuku scolds.

Yeah. Despite everything…yeah.

Katsuki flexes the fingers of his right hand. The scar tissue has been reshaped through countless surgeries, but the damage was so intense, his quirk is forever unusable through this palm. A whole fuckton of different doctors offered a platter of prosthetic options, but Katsuki didn’t want it. For his own reasons.

He glances back at Izuku. All pretty and glowing in the sun, his old scar is faded white and dented into the side of his cheek; it adds to his charm. For all that he is and will always be a hero, he is still undeniably quirkless. A fact of life, like green eyes and freckled shoulders and bad sleeping habits; it just is.

Not one to give up, Izuku didn’t let his lack of a quirk stop him from chasing his dream. Katsuki’s partner-in-anti-crime for over fifteen official years. Not like it matters – they turned in the resignation papers last Tuesday.

Katsuki squeezes his fist. The limb is tingly, then numb, then throbbing again.

“Don’t get too ahead of yourself,” Izuku says, flipping a page. “We start teaching at UA the day after we get back.”

He huffs, “So let me pretend, fun sucker.” Izuku waves his hand around as if to say carry on then, and Katsuki crosses his arms. “No, see, you’ve ruined it.”

“I’m sorry – we can start over. Wow Kacchan, can you believe we retired? Just in time for a midlife crisis.”

“Shut up. This sucks more than when we tried to roleplay.”

Izuku laughs loudly. Katsuki squirms angrily in the hammock, and Izuku devolves into giggles. When he finishes his little fit, Izuku folds a bookmark between the pages, and sets it on the lounge table. Katsuki watches with sudden interest as Izuku rises from the wicker chair, then saunters over to him like a terrible angel. “Aww, don’t be like that… I still enjoyed it, Doctor Katsuki.”

“Ugh, stop.” Katsuki groans, but still opens his arms to allow Izuku to crawl on top of him. He smells like body butter and coconut oil and it’s fucking amazing. He’s sticky from the humidity, smooth and soft where scar meets freckle, years of muscle that is permanently sculpted into his physique like some fine ass art. Katsuki immediately finds the thick elastic waistband on his swim shorts, fitting his palm over the perfect mound of his buttcheek, and Izuku makes a short noise, squirming so the hammock swings. Katsuki snaps, “If we fall out of this thing I will bite your face off.”

“This isn’t a private beach,” Izuku scolds, but they’re both aware that this side of the island is empty. The families went home once the sun dropped too low.

“You started this,” Katsuki reminds him. He fits so perfectly under his arm, and Izuku rumbles a happy mmmm into his shoulder.

He wonders if Izuku can hear his heart beating. Even after all these years, it still races for him like the very first time they laid like this, broken and mummified in a hospital bed.

It wasn’t always so seamless; they danced around each other until their third year, were on and off as rookies, two short term breakups and one longer one, because they can fight like hell hath no fury when it really comes to blows — but that was forever ago, the last time Izuku threatened to move out, then did. They’ve got a new place now, about thirty minutes sans traffic to their old school. Katsuki would consider himself domesticated. 

A gentle breeze rolls in off the ocean. Izuku damn near purrs, and it’s too much of a good thing. For all that they’ve been through, Katsuki still wonders when Deku will wake up and realize he’s much too good for him. And it’s not like Katsuki doesn’t consider himself a fucking catch, but Izuku is different. He’s always been different.

The hammock swings, and Izuku sighs happily, dipping the ends of his fingertips into the crook of his arm, following the long, twiny scar that went pale with time. Katsuki throat bobs with a swallow; he glances past the frizzy wisps of dark hair, out at the ocean as it hisses and curls.

Suddenly (or not so suddenly at all), Katsuki can feel the ghosts of the small fingers that drunkenly fisted into the front of his shirt – not even three months ago – on the veranda of his own fucking birthday party.

“If you don’t marry him, you’re going to lose him,” Ochaco hissed. “So grow up.”

It still makes his stomach hurt. Not like he didn’t already know that, but the reminder sits on his chest like a two-ton rock.

“You’re tense,” Izuku sighs. Then, his eyes fly open.

Katsuki grabs the back of Izuku’s head and jams it into his chest, narrowly missing the knife that slices through the tops of his curls, and pings itself into the wood bungalow wall.

And if that isn’t enough adrenaline already, Izuku flings himself out of the hammock; tucking, rolling, kicking up the table and using it for cover while Katsuki yanks the knife from the wall, grabs one of the attackers by the wrist, and holds the blade to their throat.

The hooded figure gurgles in surprise, their shock muffled by a fabric mask. Katsuki shouts Deku’s name, and in seconds, Izuku has flung a lawn chair, tackled the second attacker, and pulled them into a headlock; knee at their shoulder, and a hand around their throat. One and fucking done.

“What the hell?!” One shouts, “I thought you said they were has-beens!”

“Hey!” Katsuki barks.

The hooded assailant in Izuku’s headlock yelps, “They’re supposed to be retired!!!”

“Oh my god,” Izuku blinks. He turns his head around to look at the man he’s strangling. “Are you ninjas?” The masked man struggles in Izuku’s grip, and his eyes bug at Izuku’s strength, quirkless or not. “Kacchan, we just got attacked by ninjas.”

“Focus,” he snaps. Katsuki turns the knife into the woman’s throat – feminine sounding, by the way she gasps. “Who the hell are you?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know!” She hisses. In a flash, something metal drops from her belt, and both Izuku and Katsuki roll away from the explosion. It’s only a smoke bomb, but it kicks up enough sand to coat the roof of the bungalow.

Instantly gone.

“What the fuck?!” Katsuki snarls, wiping his face. Izuku sits up out of the sand with a gasp.

“Did you see the crest on their backs? Those are Kouka shinobi! I didn’t know their clan still existed – everyone thought they went extinct with the rise of modern heroes – if there’s shinobi after us, then that means someone really, really important wants us super, ultra dead.” He sounds excited about it. “That’s so cool!” Ah.

Katsuki spits the sand stuck in his mouth, and shakes out his hair. “Who the fuck do they think they are, only sending two assholes to take us out. Don’t they know who we are? We saved the world!”

“Retirement means ‘washed up’, apparently.”

“Fuck that. Hawks is going to hear about this.” Katsuki stomps towards the porch, stops, then stomps back to pull Izuku back to his feet. “After we finish our vacation. This room is nonrefundable and I haven’t even fucked you in it.”

Izuku laughs. “What if someone tries to murder us again?”

“Foreplay,” Katsuki huffs, and pushes him towards the door.

~

They don’t shower together often, because Izuku turns up the heat to a billion kelvin and then likes to stand there for half an hour until the skin melts off his scalp – so Katsuki gets in long enough to wash the sand out of his hair, then leaves him to count the grout in the tile or whatever the hell he does when he maladaptive daydreams.

Katsuki still leaves the bathroom door open, so Izuku can talk at him while he looks for clean boxers. Because he still kinda likes him. 

“I wonder if someone put a target on one of us.” Izuku’s voice is echoey, drowned in the rain head shower. “Or, what kind of bounty we’re worth...”

Katsuki flops over the bed and hangs over the side of the mattress, searching for his suitcase that he shoved under the frame when they arrived yesterday.

“Whatever they offered, it ain’t enough, I’ll tell you that.”

“Could also be a coincidence – we’ve made a lot of enemies. Not just in Japan, either.”

“If they’re an ‘enemy’ of mine, they’re either dead, really fucking dead, or behind bars.” Katsuki grunts as he finds the handle of his samsonite, yanking it out and open. He pauses, listening for the continual hush of the shower before he unzips the side pouch.

“There was that bounty hunter in Hong Kong.”

“The fractured bullet in my spine intimately remembers the bounty hunter in Hong Kong, babe.” Katsuki fishes around blindly, momentarily panicking when he comes up short. But his fingertips ultimately brush thin metal, and he breathes a tense sigh of relief. 

The shower shuts off, and he panics again. He yanks up the zipper, closes the suitcase, and shoves it under the bed just as Izuku walks past the doorway dripping wet and in search of a towel. Because Katsuki is but a man, he snaps back to attention when Izuku steps into the suite. He towels his body, then his hair, and Katsuki checks him out like he hasn’t seen him naked half a million times.

“You’re already thinking about canceling our retirement, aren’t you,” says Izuku. 

Katsuki watches as he shifts his weight to one lovely, tantalizing hip. He looks up from between his thighs to reply,

“Huh?”

Izuku rolls his eyes and turns around to fish in the cabinet. They have to keep their shit separate, because Izuku always dumps his entire suitcase into one drawer and it makes Katsuki want to – hello, perfectly round ass.

“I keep telling you, just because I want to slow down, that doesn’t mean you have to –”

“No no no, put that back.” Katsuki sits up on the bed and points to the underwear Izuku is holding. “You don’t need those, come here.”

Izuku turns, frowning.

“Please be serious. I know we keep talking about this but – if you want to get back out there – ”

“The only thing I want is to eat your fucking ass, come here dammit.”

He receives a judgmental squint for his mouth, but Izuku closes the drawer and pads barefoot across the bamboo rug, so he considers it a win. Katsuki’s arms wrap around him and magnetize straight to his naked butt, cupping and pulling and squeezing as he sighs heartily. He fits right in his hands, like he was made for him.

“You’re being obstinate on purpose,” Izuku pouts.

Katsuki looks up at him from where he’s sitting on the edge of the bed. It’s the only time Izuku will ever be taller than him, besides when he’s in his arms or riding his cock or getting sucked off, so the sight of the underside of his jaw is something Katsuki has come to associate with eroticism. With great effort, Katsuki tunes into the conversation, but not without nipping his teeth into the delicious skin of Izuku’s flat belly.

“We argued about this a thousand fucking times back at the house, a thousand fucking times at the office, then again at the airport and on the damn plane. How many times do I gotta’ tell you I don’t care until you listen?”

Izuku winces. It’s not an ideal reaction, especially if Katsuki has any hopes of his big fat mouth being allowed anywhere near his boyfriend’s hole – but he’s tired, dammit. He sat in the sun all day and he got attacked by ninjas, give him a break.

A hand finally lands on his shoulder. 

Katsuki sweeps one palm up his lower back, urging Izuku to step closer, to wrap around him, to let Katsuki press his cheek into his chest and hear his heartbeat. Alive. Just checking.

“I’m sorry,” Izuku sighs. “It’s not that I don’t believe you…”

“But you don’t believe me.” Katsuki closes his eyes, summoning all his patience for this one person that loves to string him to the end of it. “Look. We’ve given everything to this job, all the bones we can spare to break. Maybe I just want to spend some time with you before we fall apart for good.”

He didn’t mean for it to sound as profound as it did, but Izuku gives a little inhale. His fingers card into the top of his scalp, and Katsuki resists a pleased groan, choosing to nuzzle into his stomach instead. His dick is right there, but Katsuki knows when a little discretion is needed, so he resists the sweet temptation.

“Okay,” Izuku relents. “Just…be honest with me, okay? Always, right?”

Oh, if only Katsuki could rip apart the seams of his ugly soul and show this idiot just how much his existence revolves around him. If only he knew every scar he wears is branded in Izuku’s name.

Cheek still pressed to Deku’s torso, he peels the hand from his hair, brings it to his mouth, and stares longingly at his fourth finger. He bites it, Izuku yips, and he kisses over his knuckles, like he didn’t just try to gnaw on the bone. Izuku is still waiting for an answer, so Katsuki sighs, “Always, baby.”

He feels (more than hears) the breath leave Izuku’s lungs. Another stocky hand pulls at his cheek, so Katsuki leans up and away to find his mouth there; spongey, eager, bitten lips seeking a kiss in familiarity. Katsuki welcomes him into his lap, wrapping his arms taut around his waist. He squeezes hard, as if he could force the anxiety out of Izuku’s body like a tube of toothpaste.

“You’re tense,” Katsuki grunts. A deja-vu from earlier. Izuku nuzzles his cheek, kissing his scar wet and sloppy. He pretends he doesn’t like it, but Izuku knows he loves that sappy shit. “Issit the ninjas? Cause I’ll kill em.”

“No,” Izuku laughs. He moans when Katsuki’s hand pets down his spine again, hooking on his asscheek and pulling hard. “I’m just – wound up.”

“I think,” he mumbles, “you’ll unwind when you have my tongue up your asshole.”

Izuku shoves him back with a scandalized laugh, and Katsuki flops on the white bedspread with a grunt. “Stop that – do you have any idea how much sand I had up there?”

Katsuki raises his eyebrows. “Inside?”

“No!” Izuku straddles his middle, and Katsuki grabs at his thighs and squishes the muscle there like it’s a novelty. It is, it is. Izuku mimes with his finger, “The runway.”

Katsuki wants to laugh, but resists, because he doesn’t need Izuku to think he’s funny. “Oh, well that’s fair game.” He grinds Izuku into him a little, and gets him to shift so they can kiss again. One kiss bleeds into another, sloppy and loud. The mirror across the room is giving him a two-for-one special, and Katsuki groans into his mouth.

Izuku asks between kisses, “What?”

“Your fucking bodyyyy.”

He cracks another smile, slinking down and lining up their cocks. Katsuki instantly regrets putting on underwear, even if Izuku is still mostly soft.

“You don’t have to lay it on so thick. I’m going to let you fuck me.”

Katsuki lets out a short yesss, and Izuku pinches him. “What? I ain’t laying on shit, ‘sides you, in a minute. I’ve licked damn near every inch of you and I’ll do it again.”

Izuku looks at him fondly. Katsuki isn’t sure what’s got him in such a mood tonight, but he’s determined to peel him out of it.

He rolls them over, gets Izuku tucked and proper in the pillows, then goes down on him. He hardens in his mouth, soon tight and swollen and vehemently interested. Izuku always tries to fight back the sweet little noises he makes; a pointless effort, because Katsuki has heard every possible noise this body can muster, be it cute or embarrassing or stupid or hot, he wants it all. Even the deep, throaty groan when he sucks his length down to the base. Especially that. He sounds like a dude getting his cock wet, exactly how he should. 

“Kacchan,” he groans. There it is. The nickname that Katsuki wears like a badge of fucking honor. He sucks, swallows, peels up and licks the slit. It bubbles with spit and precum, how awesome is that.

“I want you, baby,” he sighs. “Twenty-four-seven. Been telling you that for years, and you still act like this.”

“Sometimes I still can’t believe it.” Izuku bites his lip. The hazy, unfiltered expression of want on his face hits Katsuki like a freight train. “That someone as cool as Kacchan still chooses to be with me.”

“You’re a dumbass,” Katsuki tells him, then tongues between his balls. Izuku drops his head back on a silent moan. He’s so damn beautiful, caught in the last few rays of light that set out on the beach. The dark wispy ends of his hair glow green, like a lush halo. There’s a round knot in his throat that Katsuki wants to bite. He licks his upper lip, savoring the bitter taste. “B’sides, I gave up my cool points when I turned thirty.”

Izuku lets out a shuddery laugh. His arched chest inhales, then exhales, stalling only when Katsuki bobs him back in his mouth again.

“If the media is still – ah – basing trends off of whatever you decide to pull out of your closet, then I’d say mmm, y-you still have your cool points.”

Tch. It’s annoying, too. He can’t even have a bad laundry day without it slathered all over the internet.  

Katsuki decides to drool on his dick rather than reply. He waits until the thigh squeezes into his shoulder, until his hips are squirming to stay planted on the bed and his cock is throbbing in his mouth – and once Izuku starts to gasp, Katsuki pulls off and rolls him over. Izuku groans,

“Ugh, you dick.”

He cackles theatrically, getting Izuku face down and spread on his knees. His poor cock drools from his cruelty. “Aww,” Katsuki coos, “Life is just so hard.” He spreads him apart, thumbing over his pretty pink hole, still soft and smooth from the shower. It’s annoying, in a way, that his skin smells more like soap than Deku, but Katsuki would eat him out after two twelve-hour shifts and still thank God for his meal. He squeezes one cheek, spits on his hole, and watches it roll down his taint. “You want it?”

Izuku sighs, “Yeah.”

“How bad?”

The sheets rustle as Izuku hunkers down, arching his back slow, and looking over through the crook of his arm. He stares at Katsuki with wet eyelashes, and an expression so dark he could shelter in it.

“Really fucking bad.”

Katsuki lives to serve. Also, to be a terrible influence. He grins wickedly, then thumbs over his hole and follows it with his tongue. Izuku moans a sweet sound, and Katsuki hooks his arms around his thighs and pins him down like he’s locking him down for a fight. Ain't no running from this. He eats him out like his life depends on it, licks and sucks and slurps loudly on purpose, because he knows it makes Izuku’s ears turn straight red.

“Oh my god,” Izuku groans. He’s finally starting to push back, trying to fuck himself on his tongue, and Katsuki can feel the arousal pit in his stomach like a brick. “I – mmm, oh, I might come.”

Katsuki pulls back only to wipe his chin. “I’ll cream my fucking pants if you cum right now.” That’s not even a lie, Deku makes his dick so hard it feels like steel against his thigh. Well, maybe it’s a partial lie – he’s not wearing pants.

Izuku giggles, and it sounds feverish and out of breath. Katsuki starts to lap up the spit, and Izuku groans. “Which part of our childhood trauma do you think made us like this?”

“Like what?” He nuzzles his freckled cheek, then pets one hand up his spine, and watches it curve under his fingertips. “You mean gay? Probably fighting on a frontline at sixteen.”

“Depraved,” Izuku corrects.

“Oh. Definitely the war, then.” The star-shaped scars in his chest don’t mean much to him, but he catches Izuku staring sometimes. He dips the tip of his middle finger in his hole, no lube, but he knows Izuku loves the fucking burn. 

He immediately keens, his motormouth unhinging from where it’s been clamped shut.

“Oh, Kacchan please – that feels so good – baby please touch me, I really can’t – I’m close –”

“No shit?” He’d usually find the lube, pry him open and make him come on his fingers, but Izuku’s cock drools a fat string of precum, and Katsuki realizes he’s out of time. “Fuck, that’s hot, yeah sweetheart, I’ve got you.” He laps up from where his balls are tucked up tight, and reaches around to fist the head of his cock, and Izuku rips out a groan that Katsuki hasn’t heard for quite some time. The walls are thin in their condo.

But not here. Not with the wide sandy beaches stretched between the bungalows. Izuku shivers and curls and shoots into the cup of Katsuki’s palm – a good catch on his end, or else they’d be calling the hotel for new sheets, and he’d rather die.

“You’re so mean,” Izuku sighs, puddly and spent. Katsuki leans over to yank tissues off the side table, wiping his palm then tossing the wads towards the wastebin. Two in, one miss.

“The word you’re looking for is charitable. Wow, thanks Kacchan, that orgasm was awesome, you’re so selfless and your dick is huge.”

Izuku rolls to his back, and despite the smirk on his face, his eyes are full of affection. He’s always looked at Katsuki like he hung the damn moon, but it’s not like he ever got used to it, fuck.

“Two of those things are true,” Izuku teases. Katsuki scowls at him, then pauses when Izuku hooks a hand under his own knee and presents himself; wet, puffy hole and all. “Well, come on then.”

You don’t have to tell him twice. Katsuki fishes out the lube, stretches him once, twice, then slides in, because they’ve done this dance before. Izuku’s face twitches at the overstimulation, but he takes it good, and Katsuki tells him that. He’s always hot, always tight and perfect. Katsuki won’t last a fucking god damn.

“Fuck,” he seethes in frustration. He fucks him hard, fast, so he can make something more of this. “Maybe we are depraved.”

“We’ve been busy,” Izuku defends. He hooks his leg on Katsuki’s shoulder so he can free his hand, finding his clammy neck and squeezing. They are scar tissue on scar tissue, knot for knot, bruise for bruise. That knowledge weighs heavily on his soul. Izuku drags him for a kiss, and Katsuki falls into it, into him, into orgasm. “I love you,” Izuku tells him. Like a password, Katsuki unlocks.

The world feels like too much on his skin. Too much humidity, sweat, too much salt in the air, too much emotion he can’t contain.

~

Izuku whispers into his hair, “I think I’m sunburnt.”

“I fucking told you, dipshit.”

Katsuki pulls out with a hiss, catching his cum and pushing it back inside with his fingers, so it won’t drip. Knowing the program, Izuku rolls over until he can find a towel.

“I forgot the sun is stronger here,” Izuku pouts. He pokes at his own shoulder and winces. “Ugh, I’m going to get more freckles.”

“Don’t complain about getting sexier. But when you die of skin cancer, I’m going to say the fattest I told you so.”

His point soars right over Izuku’s head. He sighs, “It’s not fair, you have perfect skin.”

Katsuki wants to grab him by his hair and shake him until his brain crushes against his spinal cord. He wipes him down instead, then throws the towel at his face. Izuku makes a disgusted noise, pretends to get mad, but eventually curls up under his arm anyways. He’s sweet like that.

Blood rushes in his ears as Izuku’s words float downstream, pooling into the shallow of his subconscious.

Be honest with me.

~

“Always, right?”

It wasn’t so easy to climb the rooftops anymore. Not without Izuku’s blackwhip, or Katsuki’s other arm. He could fling himself around a battlefield just fine, but no more arial carries, so stairs became the norm again.

They still liked to meet here, on the twentieth floor, perched on the other side of the railing. The fall would be deadly. Maybe that meant something, too.

Izuku looked good in his new uniform; all outfitted with the newest gear, the lightest metal, the strongest weapons. It had Hatsume’s name all over it, and yet the frown on his face wasn’t like him. Katsuki tried not to take offense, but did.

“If you’re gonna be such an ass about it, I’ll go sign somewhere else.”

“No,” Izuku breathed, before he could finish his sentence. “I didn’t mean it like that. I want to fight alongside you, I want to keep trying.” His eyes were a hollow green, like sorrow lived there. “Just please, promise me — promise you’ll keep getting stronger no matter what.”

Katsuki bristled near violently, leaning back against the rail. “No fuckin’ duh, you hit your head or something?”

Izuku’s hand covered his gloved fingers on the rail and squeezed so suddenly, that it sobered him.

“Please.”

His heart stopped. Izuku’s gaze was so intense, that Katsuki had to look away.

“This is dumb – but fine. I promise I’ll keep getting stronger so I can kick your ass and be better than you forever.”

Izuku smiled then, like he fulfilled his purpose. He tugged down the costume hood, the rabbit ears fluttered in the breeze, and Katsuki wondered if he would ever understand this person, or if it would always be weird bullshit after weird bullshit. He liked him so much, he was willing to put up with it.

After that day, Katsuki continued to train until he bled, and Izuku never brought it up again.

~

The island gifted them good weather today. No clouds in the sky, and a breeze that keeps the heat off the beach; maybe there is a point to this paradise thing. The water is so clear, Katsuki is afraid to even spit in it.

Izuku has set himself up with a striped umbrella and a new paperback novel, having already finished the first edition last night. The waves are so mouthwateringly round and white, that Katsuki refuses to pass up the opportunity to surf them. He rents a board from the resort and rides up and down the shore for a while. Izuku spares him a glance or two when he catches a good wave, but otherwise stays tucked down in his lounge chair. 

His loss. Katsuki is flipping on some sick fucking waves, dumb nerd should feel properly seduced right now.

The freedom of flying across an open sea kind of reminds him of…before. A long time ago. When he could leap off rooftops and catch himself on his own firepower. 

Katsuki paddles out, then coasts along the curl of a wave, watching for the little blob of his boyfriend snuggled in the sand. He’s always looking for him. In every room, every street corner, every shop window.

A second surfboard rises out of the water, and a katana nicks the top inch of his ear.

Katsuki flips the board around, wobbling for balance. He then cuts the wave’s edge, using it as a weapon to put distance between him and the fucking ninja.

“Are you KIDDING me?!” Katsuki ducks, spins again, and gets his good hand in firing range. His palms are wet, so the explosion is dinky, but it’s enough force to blast one shadowy figure off their board. He turns to the second shinobi that rises out of the wave. “Fuck OFF. I’m retired!”

“You must return what belongs to the master!” The ninja throws three shuriken, and Katsuki hisses as he takes a slice up the cheek. “A debt is to be collected, and it is in your name, Katsuki Bakugou!”

The wave is outrunning him. Getting locked in a fist fight on a surfboard was not on his to-do list today, so Katsuki makes the quick decision to kick out on the board, throwing the ninja off balance, along with himself. They both crash down in the wave, fumbling, spinning through the oceanic washing machine, then surfacing for air. Katsuki, alone. He coughs, catches his breath, then screams into the cloudless sky.

“Oh no.” Izuku looks up as Katsuki stomps up the beach, dragging his board behind him. “Did you fall?”

“I got attacked –” Katsuki points, furious, “ – by a ninja, on a surfboard!”

“Woah, really?”

Katsuki struggles to roll down the tight top half of his wetsuit, seething through his teeth, “You didn’t see me fighting for my fucking life out there?!”

With dogshit timing, Izuku decides to finally check him out. He’s staring at Katsuki’s tits when he says,

“No, I’m at the part where Angelica just found out her sister’s husband is actually their uncle…” Izuku stops at Katsuki’s expression. It is no doubt, furious. “I didn’t know ninjas could surf.”

“Me neither, buddy.”

“Oh, you’re mad.”

A puff of sand explodes into the air. A hooded figure emerges from the sand and smoke, swinging a sword in their gloved hand. Their full black tactical gear sticks out like even more of a sore thumb.

“We can do more than surf!”

Izuku jumps into action. He grabs the umbrella, breaks off the pole, and swings it like a spear. Katsuki desperately dives for the towel. He attempts to wipe off his hand so he can pop a proper explosion – but Deku is kicking ass with that umbrella pole, spinning it between his arms and using his speed to counteract the precision of their attacker. Eh, he’s got it handled.  

The ninja releases a sound that makes Katsuki’s brain rattle – some kind of emitter quirk – but Izuku shuts that down as fast as it starts. A crack across the face, the weapon knocked from their hands, and a flip-flop flat on their chest.

“Who sent you?” Izuku questions. “And how much are they paying you?”

The shinobi squirms in his pinned position, vulnerable on his back like a turtle. Izuku steps harder, and he wheezes, beady eyes narrowing in Katsuki’s direction.

“Katsuki Bakugou must return what he stole!”

He sees the exact moment that Izuku stops playing around. Green eyes narrow with a fury few have survived. “Excuse me?”

The shinobi rolls his head to look at Katsuki, murderous brown eyes staring into his soul. 

“You will answer to our master. In truth, or in blood.” 

Katsuki takes a step forward, only because Izuku lifts the pole like he’s really about to spear him on it, but a sudden puff of smoke emerges from the ninja’s utility belt, and then Izuku’s foot is stepping on sand.

The beach settles around them. Katsuki looks at their upturned towels, the broken umbrella, and Izuku’s book buried under the rain of sand.

“Well, that’s annoying,” states Izuku. He stabs the pole back into the ground.  “What did you do to piss off the shinobi?”

Katsuki pushes his wet hair out of his eyes, and sighs. “Not a clue.” It’s then that Katsuki spots his clothes blown down the beach, and freaks out. 

Feet pounding the sand, he takes off running, snatching his shorts out of the seaweed and plunging his hand through all the pockets. When he finds what he’s looking for, he lets out a long, groaned breath.

“Are you okay?” Izuku hollers. He’s trying to put the umbrella back together, but that shit is broke, broke. He looks back at Katsuki, and immediately sags. “Let me see your cheek.”

Katsuki ducks away from his hand, wadding up his clothes and stuffing them back in his beach bag. “I’m fine. Still fucking pissed, by the way.”

“I’m sorry I missed the surfboard ninja.”

“Yeah, whatever.”

~

They walk to the resort plaza for dinner. Katsuki is less excited about the evening crowd, but is won over by the strong margaritas at the walk-up bar.

Izuku has anchored his palm comfortably into the back of Katsuki’s pocket, and he’s not inclined to move. It takes Katsuki one glance around the bar to see why; lots of pretty, well-off vacationers in bikinis and sundresses and expensive watches. He finds it funny that Deku still feels a need to stake a claim on him – but then again, it’s not like they’re wearing rings.

Ugh.

“Kacchan?” He turns at the sound of his nickname. Izuku licks sauce off his pinky finger, and looks up through big green eyes. “Are you okay?”

It’s the second time he’s asked that today. Katsuki tries to formulate an answer, but realizes he’s talking about his cheek. He rolls his eyes.

“Dude. It’s a scratch.”

“Yeah, on my beautiful Kacchan,” Izuku pouts dramatically. Katsuki nudges him with his hip, and Izuku laughs, bumping into the barstool. “Sorry. I just don’t want this to ruin our holiday. The uh, ‘attempted murder’ thing.”

Yeah, because that definitely needed clarification.

Katsuki takes a fat sip off his margarita, then swallows. “Won’t be the first, won’t be the last. Could get worse once we get involved again with UA, who knows. They’re a dogmatic shit show.”

Something happens on the bar TV, and the crowd cheers. Izuku makes a sour face.

“I didn’t think about that.”

“It’s all politics, sweetheart. Bright side is, we’re pretty good at that crap.”

“Not always,” Izuku ponders. He slips a hand back around to his hip, and Katsuki allows himself to sway into the crook of his arm. He doesn’t give a fuck about any stray stares they might catch. Deku has an attitude tonight, and it’s really doing it for him. “I’d like to think we’ve dabbled in our fair share of controversies.”

Katsuki spares a glance at the game. A player with a deer-mutation quirk is sweeping house, and it hardly seems fair. Life never is.

The tequila makes him fuzzy, so he steals some fries from Izuku’s plate. They’re a half-mile from the beach, and Katsuki can still smell the salt over the atmosphere of liquor and pineapple. Izuku is still slightly sunburnt across his shoulders, and it endears him; the tank top, the checkered board shorts, the flip flops. Katsuki wants to kiss him. With tongue. 

Izuku jolts as his phone buzzes on the bartop. He scoops it up, wipes the smudgy screen off on his thigh, then answers it with a finger plugged in his other ear. Number sixty-one takes a penalty shot on the TV, while Izuku goes, “Hey, yeah. No no, I’m – give me a minute.” He pulls the phone away, and tugs at the hem of Katsuki’s linen shirt. It’s a silent request that they move somewhere private. No questions asked, Katsuki nods once, swallows the last of his drink, and steps around the barstools to lead the way.

Garden lights string through the plaza, illuminating the center fountain and the surrounding retail shops. Katsuki takes them towards the direction of the beach, along a quiet alley between bars, then towards a door that says employees only. Once alone, Izuku leans up against a half-wall and puts the phone on speaker.

“Hey guys, we’re both here.”

Eijirou’s voice pops in first. “Hey, lovebirds!”

“Yo, how’s paradise!”

Great, a group call.

“What do you want?” Katsuki snaps shortly.

“Well uh.” Ochaco clears her throat. “Sorry to interrupt, but we were wondering if your vacation has been particularly…exciting… perhaps in the fighty division…”

Izuku presses his lips together, then lets them slide through his teeth. “Is there any chance that you happened to be attacked by an ancient clan of masked shinobi?”

Eijirou again, “You too?!”

Katsuki pinches the bridge of his nose.

“You’ve got to be kidding me.”

“I’ve been working in an office for so long now, I forgot what it was like to have someone try to murder me,” Hanta says. “I was kind of flattered – until they brought up your name.”

“Yeah man! What’d you do to piss off the Kouka clan?”

“Fuck if I know!”

“Did they get away, too?” Izuku asks.

Ochaco’s voice sighs in. “Unfortunately, yes. I think we were all caught by surprise. I’ll try and get in contact with the rest of the team to see if anyone else had an altercation.”

“Thank you.” Izuku shares a look with Katsuki. He can’t manage to say anything, because he’s trying to keep his shit together. Izuku continues for him, “Please keep us updated. They weren’t particularly powerful, but it’s still concerning that multiple heroes were targeted…”

“Hey, you guys focus on your trip, let us handle this.”

Denki chimes in, “Yeah, it’s our worry now! You fuckers quit!”

“So did you!”

“I’m on a sabbatical, that’s different.”

“Hang up,” Katsuki tells him. Izuku jerks the phone away so he can say a proper goodbye.

“Text me if it gets worse. I can call the Chief, tell him to put out a flag to the other pros.”

“At least pretend to be retired,” Eijirou teases. “We threw that party and everything.”

Katsuki scoffs, “I’ve still got my license, don’t make me come over there and do your job for you.”

“Goodbye, my unemployed friends.”

“Use protection!”

“Don’t get murdered!” 

“Bye guys,” Izuku says dryly. He hangs up before Katsuki can pop a vein in his forehead. He looks up, raises his eyebrows, and tucks his phone back in his pocket. “Well, that’s a development.”

Katsuki rubs into his temples. His head is throbbing like hell. “I need another drink.”

“Seriously, what did you do?”

“What haven’t I done?” 

Izuku opens his mouth, then closes it. He nods thoughtfully, and threads his fingers with Katsuki’s, like he’s deciding to tie their fates together anyways. He won’t think too far into that – some rabbit holes aren’t worth the trip. 

~

Two drinks and a quesadilla later, Katsuki receives a text from Ochaco. He only just changed her contact name from [redacted] at Izuku’s complaint, so he almost doesn’t register the sender when he first reads it.

> “Did you ask yet?”

He refuses to answer.

Kicked back in the booth, he wraps an arm over the back of Deku’s shoulders. Izuku wiggles into him, steals a sip from Katsuki’s drink, and mouths along to the awful karaoke music. Two songs later, Ochaco texts him again.

> “Coward.”

She knows how to push his buttons, and he refuses to take the bait.

Heart pounding, palms sweating, he thinks about it, though. 

The tourist sings off pitch, and Katsuki winces. Ugh, especially not here. 

~

The resort staff come around to light up the fire pits sunk in the sand in front of each bungalow. They could easily light it themselves, but Izuku takes the offer, and ends up chatting with the poor kid longer than she probably planned to. 

Katsuki is still simmering in a defensive anger he struggles to control, so a few drawers get slammed in collateral. He doesn’t want to admit defeat; that today flustered him, that he’s ‘worried’. No, his contacts are giving him dry-eye and he can’t find his fucking glasses and swear to god if he left them back home, he’s going to pack a bag, say fuck this shit, and fly home –

Izuku waves goodbye to the hotel employee. He then shuts the door, rummages in the closet, and comes back with a glasses case. Katsuki stops mid-rampage. Izuku stares patiently. 

He goes hmph, and yanks the case out of his hand, marching to the mirror to start ripping out these old contacts. Izuku’s voice is small from the bedroom. 

“I’m going to grab a few towels. It’s getting cold, you might want a sweatshirt.”

Katsuki flicks the contact into the sink. 

“Kay.”

“Babe?” Izuku calls after him. 

“Hmm?”

“What’s your resting heart rate today?” 

“Uh.” Good question. Katsuki slides on his glasses, then flicks out his wrist to look at his watch. He flips through the screens as Izuku comes to lean up against the doorway, waiting expectantly. “One-ten.” Not great for someone trying to avoid a third open heart surgery. 

Izuku nods thoughtfully. “Come on.” He steps away, and heads towards the sliding door. Katsuki rubs his eyes under his lenses and sighs. 

Okay, fine. Learning that his friends were attacked in his name is admittedly uncool. Not like some weakass punks could take them down, but it now nags in the back of his mind. Too many years of sleeping with one eye open, too many knives in the back. A sinking feeling reminds him:

That’s not my job anymore.

Katsuki pulls on an old threadbare sweatshirt that says SUM-41 across the back. He fixes his glasses, catches his reflection in the mirror, and tries not to cringe.

When he steps out the door, he descends the stairs and into the sand. Izuku is already sitting in one of the plastic chairs. The crackling fire pit glows along the side of his face, making him look warm. Like home.  

Katsuki starts for the other chair, but Izuku waves him over, pointing to the spot between his feet. “No, over here.” 

Seeing that he’s already put a towel down, Katsuki humors him. He kicks off his sandals, and plops down between his knees. He glances down the line of firepits strung down the beach, and chuffs, “Huh. A bit much even for you, but I’m not above some exhibitionism.” 

Izuku knows he’s teasing, so he slaps his shoulder. “Shut up, just turn around. You need to relax.” 

He flicks his wrist up to check his heart rate again. One twenty-one. 

“Alright.” 

So soon as he turns his back, Izuku fits his hands at the side of his neck, and digs in his thumbs. Katsuki immediately sags, dropping his head back and groaning, “Fuck, for real? It’s not even my birthday.” 

Strong fingers massage into the tissue there, finding the knot and pushing into it. “We can pretend.”

“Didn’t think I’d earned that. Seeing that I’ve unwillingly put us all in danger again.” 

He can practically hear Izuku’s frown. The fire crackles, and two thumbs parallel down into his shoulders, digging in practiced circles. A thin layer of fleece isn’t enough to dull the strength in those hands. 

“We’ll figure this out. It’s like you said…we might become more of a target now that we’re off the force. I doubt this is your fault.” 

“That’s cute of you to say,” Katsuki mumbles. Fuck that feels good. He rolls his head to the side, and lets him really get in there. “You wanna rock me to sleep while you’re at it?” 

He expects an eyeroll, or a tug on his ear, or a pinch to the neck. Instead, Izuku leans over him to kiss the crown of his head, and Katsuki blinks his eyes open, staring straight-faced at the crackling fire. 

“If it made you happy.” 

Katsuki tries to shrug him off, but Izuku is stronger than that. Knuckles roll down his shoulders, and he sags again, groaning in his throat. “Only thing that makes me happy is you.” 

His hands stall for a moment. One pulls away, only to return to his scalp, scraping dull nails through short strands. Katsuki could fall asleep like this. Could get hard, too. Both is good. 

Further down the beach, the ocean hisses with a high tide. Izuku draws him back to land with his gentle tone.

“If you keep being so sweet to me, I might get the wrong idea.”

“What, that I like you?” Katsuki closes his eyes and smiles to himself as Izuku’s ministrations lull him somewhere nice. “Can’t have that.” 

Izuku laughs under his breath. He always knows exactly what he needs. There is no one else on Earth that he can be like this, with. No one else with their history, no one that has seen him at his best, his worst, and his absolute lowest. Izuku has forgiven him for the unforgivable. To love someone so much, it’s terrifying. 

Katsuki focuses on the fingers that swirl around his ears, that play with his hair, that rub back down his neck and push into his shoulders, like he’s expelling the stress by force. When Katsuki bothers to peek open an eye again, he checks the number on his watch. Eighty two. Good enough. 

“We should jetski tomorrow,” Izuku says. 

Relaxed like this, Katsuki feels like he needs to anchor himself to something. He finds Izuku’s ankle, pets back up to the knee and hooks an arm there. 

“I thought you didn’t wanna go.”

“I changed my mind.” Izuku’s other foot worms its way under his butt, like his toes are cold. Katsuki is happy to sit on them ‘till they hatch. “You’re hiking that mountain with me on Thursday, so it’s only fair to compromise.” 

For untold reasons, his stomach flips a somersault. Katsuki clears his throat. “I’ll fuckin’ jetski. We’re going out to dinner though, so if you’re too tired I’m still dragging your corpse to our reservation.” 

Izuku leans forward to nuzzle into the top of his head, kissing it again, and ending the massage by wrapping his arms around his neck and staying there. 

“Sounds like a date.” 

It’s so disgustingly tender, Katsuki has to cough away some of the affection stuck in his throat. “You’re on something tonight.” 

“You give me cute aggression,” claims Izuku. He physically feels his sigh, heavy with the sins of the world. A hand pinches his cheek, thumbing the textured scar there. “So many people were staring at you tonight. Don’t they know you’re mine?” 

Badump. 

Katsuki yanks his hand off his cheek, but brings it around to kiss his knuckles. He doesn’t give a fuck if it’s four-ply soft, the world is a boundless black beyond their campfire and God is well-aware how whipped Katsuki is for this man, ‘cause the only time he’s ever prayed has been in Deku’s name. 

He nips his fingertips, then chews on one of the knuckles, making it bloom pink.

“See, I don’t have that problem, I make sure to mark my property.” 

Izuku lifts a hand to feel over the bruise Katsuki gave him last night. Those same knuckles brush his own neck, and a laugh tickles the shaved hair on his nape. 

“I can remedy that.” 

Not what he meant, but he’ll take it. 

~

The new rankings were always posted on Mondays. They used to print them in the dailies, back when people bothered to read newspapers. Now it goes up on the Association website, a time old tier list, inspiring petty competitiveness since Heroship became a job. 

Izuku sighed, and Katsuki already knew what was coming. He leaned against their kitchen island (messy with the breakfast they rushed through) and waited for Izuku to show him his phone. Sure enough, the newest Hero rankings were posted. 

11: Katsuki Bakugou

15: Izuku Midoriya 

He knew it was his so-called ‘fanclub’ that was pushing him higher on the hero list. That pissed him off more than the taste of almost being in the top ten. 

“You were so close,” Izuku frowned. 

Katsuki scoffed, and handed his phone back. “You know it’s all bullshit. If they judged us as a duo, we’d be number one by a fucking landslide – our numbers are triple what Todoroki is pulling in.”

That didn’t make Izuku feel any better. The frown wore him, rather than the other way around. It felt wrong, especially when he was so adorably half-asleep and half-dressed and all-fucked against that counter not even five minutes ago.

“It wouldn’t be fair. The hero ranking is equal parts strength, popularity, and success. Naturally, two heroes are stronger than one.” 

Izuku didn’t understand that Katsuki sees that as a good thing. They kick ass together. Maybe it took two of them to function at the power of a number one hero – but so what? Katsuki didn’t plan on going solo anytime soon. 

“Stop checking that crap. I’ll give a shit about the ranking when they start cutting bigger checks for the number one.” 

Izuku didn’t seem to believe him. But he did stop checking the rankings.

In his presence. 

~

Chapter Text

~

For someone that once mastered a quirk from nothing, gave up unimaginable power to save humanity, then studied every martial art over the following fifteen years, Izuku somehow crashes his jet ski. Into what? Absolutely nothing. That’s some true prodigal son shit. 

Katsuki calls him an idiot no less than ten times, but also the image of Izuku flying head first off a runner was enough to make his side cramp from laughing. It’s hot and it’s muggy but this is fun. Too fun…

“What is it?” Izuku asks. He’s trying to slather sunscreen on his peeling burn while his waverunner bobs in the water. The puffy life-vest makes him look adorably, deceivingly small. 

“Nothing.” Katsuki does another look around. Four surfers, a parasailer and two teenagers in a paddle boat. It would be an easy opportunity for an ambush, but, “I guess ninjas don’t do watersports.” 

“Are you disappointed?” Izuku caps the bottle, stuffs it back in his bag. “I mean, a little kinky even for me, but all you had to do was ask…” 

Katsuki squints. “Don’t make jokes like that, I can’t tell when you’re serious.”

Izuku laughs, and guns it. They have a half hour left on these rentals, so Katsuki decides he has enough time to kick his ass before dinner. 

Finally, a successful outing without someone trying to kill him. Katsuki isn’t so naive to hope that was the end of it, but as they walk back down the boardwalk, it’s quiet and calm enough for Katsuki to think – maybe here? 

The sun is sparkly gold on the water, and colorful kites tether down to children playing in the sand. Izuku chatters about the book he finished, hands waving wildly around him (hands that have held and saved and killed). Katsuki stuffs his fists in his pockets, then looks between Izuku, the open bench, and the orange sky.

“—and then, it turns out the uncle was really the lord of the – Kacchan?” Izuku stops, waiting for him to follow along. He’s fucking glowing. “Something wrong?” 

Katsuki sucks along his bottom lip. He brings his hands out of his pockets. 

“Nah. Sun’s got me tired.” 

Izuku grins at him cheekily, bending at the knee and gesturing behind him. “I can give you a ride.” 

Katsuki slaps him flat on the ass. “Oh, you’ll give me a ride alright.”

~

As the sun sets, the bats come out to feed on the bugs clinging to daylight. Izuku watches them flutter outside their window, well entertained while Katsuki chucks various items of clothing at him. 

He knows better than to let Izuku dress himself. Sometimes. Deku is sexy as fuck when he’s trussed up right, but Katsuki doesn’t need the whole world to know that, so he saves that particular knowledge for special occasions like these. Izuku is years past questioning his fashion taste; he obediently puts on anything he gives him, and Katsuki would be lying if he said it wasn’t a little bit of a turn on. 

Izuku appears in the clothes he gave him; a floral camp shirt and straight leg slacks, looking so tan and freckled and toned, Katsuki bites the meat of his cheek and pops open his top button under the distraction. Scandalized, Izuku slaps a hand on the slobbery mark.

“Hey, what was that for?”

“You’re hot,” Katsuki tells him. He hands over a thin chain for him to borrow while he swaps out the hoops in his ears for studs. He flips down his collar, and when he spots the hickey Izuku selfishly gave him yesterday, he smirks. “I changed my mind about the UA job. I don’t need a generation of teenagers using you for their sexual awakening.” 

Izuku knows he’s joking, but still says, “You’re so gross.”

Katsuki walks around the dresser to help him with the chain, knocking away his fingers and fixing the clasp for him. He sighs in defeat.  

Izuku doesn’t ‘own’ jewelry, just whatever Katsuki decides to lend him for the evening – but he kind of likes it that way. Collateral. If Deku breaks up with him, at least Katsuki can rest knowing he won’t be attracting flies with designer watches and sterling rope chains. “We were also gross teenagers, remember.”

Izuku’s eyes flirt over him in the mirror, shamelessly checking him out, then dipping away once caught.  

“Ugh, no comment.”

Their reservation is at an upscale five-star whatever planted halfway on the sand, some fifteen minutes from the resort. Katsuki was more interested in the location than the menu when he picked the restaurant, though Izuku seems impressed by the long list of fresh fish. 

The hostess seats them out on the porch right, sheltered under a canopy and accompanied by heated lamps to ward the night breeze. Their table has a small candle, and it’s about as romantic as it’ll ever get between them. They’ve never been into rose petals and candlelit lovey dovey blah – a bunch of mushy bullcrap, so far as Katsuki is concerned – but this is a vacation years in the making (they quite literally had to quit their job to be here), so Katsuki is willing to pull a few teeth in the name of romance. 

“The last time we sat across a fancy table like this…” Izuku mumbles, fiddling with the butter knife. “Jeez, it had to be two Christmases ago.” He looks slightly uncomfortable, but in the way he gets when he’s in an unfamiliar social setting and is trying to be extra polite. 

Feeling stiff, Katsuki shifts out his legs, the side of his foot bumping Deku’s beneath the table. “Yeah. After you got out of the hospital.” That’s what started this all; Izuku’s eventual plan for retirement. His body reached the limit at sixteen, so to push it another two-decades past that – he hit a wall so bad the doctors had to defib him three times. Katsuki was so sick of crying over this asshole, he wasn’t even mad. 

And that’s the truth of it. No matter how hard Izuku trains, how fast he runs, how many weapons he learns to wield, he is no match against those hundred-foot skyscrapers that rampage through the city. There are some villains they just can’t fight. And once you’ve reached the top, it’s hard to settle for less. 

They settled for this. A life they can live together. Izuku smells like cologne and is fidgeting with the stray curl between his eyes and is so damn fine while doing it, Katsuki has no complaints about where ‘settling’ has gotten him.

“Can I try?” Izuku points to his drink. 

Katsuki pushes the glass towards him, saying, “You don’t like mules.”

“Maybe I’ll like it this time.”

Katsuki swabs a piece of bread in olive oil, and watches with a straight face while Izuku sips, cringes, and goes “Eugh.”

“I told you.”

Izuku chases down the taste with his own drink, which makes Katsuki want to gag in turn, but their waiter comes with their tray of food, so he resists in the name of all the manners mom beat into him. 

A guitarist begins to strum music from the inside of the restaurant. Izuku’s attention continues to turn out towards the open sea, now a blueish black as the last daylight soaks over the horizon. He looks deep in thought, and so, so pretty – the profile of his face, his long and dark lashes – Katsuki doesn’t want to break the spell he’s under, so he says nothing. He could stare at him like this all night. 

“I know it was hard on you,” Izuku says suddenly. Katsuki stops with half a bite of lobster on his fork. 

“Hah??” Oh wait. “I mean – what?”

“When I got hurt again.” Izuku brushes a hand over his side, as if remembering. It’s one wound of many. He’s a landscape painted over so many times, Katsuki can’t even remember what he looked like when he was an innocent, blank canvas. “I don’t want to put you through that. I don’t want you…to worry.” 

Surprise flashes on his face. Katsuki chews, swallows, and attempts to gather his words in a way that won’t come out wrong. He wants this night to be good. Maybe even perfect. 

“Doesn’t matter where you go, babe. Imma worry about you.”

Izuku smiles warmly. He fishes around in his food, brings his fork to his plush, pink lips, and keeps the prongs there even after he’s swallowed. 

“I think we’ll make good teachers. I liked being squad leaders on the pro teams. It’ll be fun to nurture the next generation.”

He shrugs down in his seat a little, and grumps into the rim of his glass. 

“Might be the only way we finally get some good replacements out there. You want something done right, you gotta do it your fucking self.”

“Aizawa would be proud.” 

Katsuki barks a laugh. “I haven’t even told that bastard we’ll be taking his job.”

“Oh, I’m sure he knows.” Izuku smiles too, and curls a hand around his ear. His hair isn’t long enough to tuck away anymore, but the old habit is still there. “He was younger than we are now, when he taught us.”

Katsuki clicks his tongue. It’s too weird. Sensei felt like a wise old man back then – but now, fuck, he doesn’t want to think about it. 

The candlelight flickers with a stray breeze. When Katsuki looks up, Izuku is smiling at him all fond-like. The flame reflects in his mossy eyes, his cheeks a constellation of freckles that mirror the night sky behind him. 

“You are so fucking beautiful,” Katsuki blurts. 

Izuku rears a little, clearly off guard – and for the first time in forever, he flushes all the way to his ears, like he used to do when they were dumb little virgins. 

“Oh.”

Katsuki feels like he has prey in a snare. He grins, elbow on the table, head in hand, manners forgotten. 

“Aww, too much for princess?”

“N-No.” Izuku rubs under his nose. “It just sounded so…sincere.” 

It was. 

Briskly, Katsuki’s ribs restrict into a vice. He sucks in a breath, drops a hand off the table, and feels along his pants pocket. Izuku is pink faced and fiddling with his food, flustered and adorable and – he needs to do this. He has to. 

“Izuku, I…”

He looks up, and goes cold with an overwhelming pang of existential dread. A whistle of air blows past his ear. Katsuki leaps up from the table, and catches a kunai by the handle, the blade a mere inch from Izuku’s face. 

Izuku gasps, startling back. 

Katsuki turns his head and snarls, “Fucking really?!!!” 

A masked figure lunges across the table. Katsuki blocks the blow with the knife, twisting away and dodging the sword that jabs at his throat. Izuku immediately enters combat with the second shinobi, grabbing them by the arm and heaving them over his shoulder. 

“Kacchan!” He shouts. “The civilians!”

Katsuki risks a glance backwards, expecting dramatic pandemonium – but the restaurant continues business as usual. Stilling in shock, he grunts as a boot kicks him in the sternum, sending him towards the unaware couple at the next table. 

He falls through them, and into the ground. The couple laughs, none the wiser. What the hell –

Before he can even grasp how stupid this situation is, Izuku already has it figured out. 

“It’s a quirk,” Izuku grunts, blocking with his forearms, then throwing a right hook. “They’ve pulled us out of reality!” 

“Smart, aren’t you,” the female shinobi hisses. “A shame your cleverness was wasted as low-rank hero filth.”

“Shut UP!!!” Katsuki rolls to avoid the tip of the sword, bouncing back to his feet and firing a series of blasts from his palm. The ninja howls as they ragdoll across the sandy planks. “Can’t you see we’re on a date? It’s fucking –” pop, hiss, bang, “– rude.”

Hands grab him from behind. Katsuki struggles, choking, throwing back an elbow to get free. A voice whispers hotly through a barrier of fabric. 

“Tell us where the Biosplice is, and the master might spare your life.” 

Katsuki sputters into a record scratch. Izuku calls his name, but is stuck dodging the swing of another sword.  

“Excuse me, what?” 

“So you play stupid,” the ninja sneers. His voice sounds so slimy, like the hiss of a snake. “No matter. The master can pull the knowledge from you, dead or alive.”  

Katsuki rocks back his skull and stuns him just enough to wretch free. He smashes the shinobi through their dinner table, and it splinters into pieces. Apparently, the table joined them in this frozen reality. Neat.

Katsuki stomps hard on his chest, breaking ribs. Wide, black eyes stare in shock. He digs his heel in to really it hurt, then snarls, “Leave my friends alone, and maybe I won’t use my good boots to smash your ‘masters’ face into a bloody fucking pulp –”

Behind him, Izuku lets out a pained sound. Katsuki immediately turns over his shoulder, and sees the second shinobi twisting his arm at a hard angle. He caught Izuku by his bad side – not on Katsuki’s watch. His palm sweats, burns, and just as he’s about to end the life of this idiot that dares lay a hand on his Deku – the injured shinobi lets out an electronic, chirped sound, and cuts the illusion in a puff of smoke. 

Katsuki’s explosion rocks through the empty air. The crowd behind them gasps, all eyes turned to the freak that just punched a fireball into the sky. 

“Oops,” Izuku pants. The waiter stands with a tray in his hand, staring in awe at the broken table, and the food scattered all over the porch. Katsuki stares at his open palm. Izuku laughs awkwardly, and rubs a hand through his hair. “Um. Would you believe it was ninjas?”

The spilled candle begins to catch against one of the legs of the broken table. Izuku stomps the flame out with his heel. 

“I’ll take the tab,” Katsuki says. 

They are escorted from the premises. 

~

Their walk is spent in tense silence. Some romance that was. 

Izuku’s expression is unnervingly blank. It’s uncharacteristic of him, and it makes Katsuki’s stomach turn because that usually means he’s in the shitting doghouse, and this wasn’t even his fault. Mostly. He thinks. 

They unlock the door to the bungalow. The tense atmosphere shatters as Izuku slams him against the wall. 

“Ah,” Katsuki muses, watching Izuku immediately work at his belt. “What did it?” 

“Catching the knife,” Izuku hisses. He spits his words, like the memory is hot in his mouth, “Two inches from my face, like what are you?!” 

Katsuki openly laughs, and drops his head back against the plank wall. 

“I thought you were mad about our fucked-up dinner.”

Izuku fists the front of his shirt, and yanks so his head swings forward again. “Put your tongue in my mouth or so God help me –”

Katsuki leans in to kiss him. The slight height difference has always delighted him throughout his life; first out of pride, now out of endearment. Izuku stands tall on the balls of his feet and kisses hard and fast, needy and nasty, that little shit. The taste of liquor and blood meets his tongue behind teeth, and Katsuki feels the bump along the side of his mouth, the spot where he bit his cheek. Izuku moans, and rips out his belt, clattering it to the floor.  

So soon as Katsuki has a hand on the back of his neck (fisting where he can scruff him, tipping his head up so he can control the kiss and consume him whole), Izuku slips clean out of his hands, and drops to his knees. Adrenaline spikes. 

“Izuku Midoriya,” he warns. Try as he might, Katsuki still flinches when cold fingers yank down the zipper, and flirt under his waistband. “You be nice.”

Izuku sighs like he’s asking him to carry him uphill through the snow. “Fine.” He pulls him out of his pants; soft, but not for long. 

It’s not like Katsuki is a quick fuck (sex used to take him forever because he’d get all in his head about it), but now Izuku plays by an entirely unfair set of rules, being that he’s mastered every secret shortcut to orgasm that Katsuki didn’t know he had; the up up down down left right combo that can make Katsuki bust in under sixty seconds. Which is unanimously not very nice. 

That’s probably Katsuki’s fault. One day Izuku asked him if he could practice going down on him for a while, ‘to make it feel good for you, Kacchan’, he said. Little did Katsuki know he was handing over the cheat code to his fucking dick. Lesson learned, don’t teach a nerd to fish.

Izuku takes his soft cock by the base, brings it to his mouth, and swirls his tongue around the head in three consecutive circles, sucking him past the breach of his lips and rubbing hard into the slit, and Katsuki slaps a hand back against the wall as the wind knocks out of him. 

“Fuck! What the fuck did I just –”

Izuku strokes him down, up down, squeezes the head, then down again, all while looking up through his big doe eyes, innocent as the devil. He kisses him sweetly, right on the tip. Plush, fuckable lips with that pronounced cupid's bow. “Please?” 

His cock pulses once in Izuku’s palm. Katsuki sighs, and extends an olive branch.

“Hands.”

Izuku lights up. He takes both his hands and allows Katsuki to hold him captive; a silent challenge to only use his mouth, which is still a weapon of destruction all on its own, but at least he has a chance of lasting long enough to enjoy it. 

Palms clasped together, Izuku leans up on his knees to suck him all the way into his throat, and Katsuki squeezes his hands hard enough to make the bones squeak. God, he is so evil. Izuku bobs his head enthusiastically, his mouth silky wet and too clever. He watches Katsuki’s face through his lashes, smugly knowing that Katsuki is grinding his teeth to avoid the groan stuck in his throat. He doesn’t want to give him the satisfaction. But when he drools down his length, down his fucking balls, Katsuki rocks his head on his shoulders and huffs, shuddering. “Fuck.” 

Izuku moans happily. He bobs hard, fast, gets down far enough on his length to extend his tongue flat and lick the base, and Katsuki will never tire of the sight of his cock bulging in his cheek. Never, ever. 

He knows the exact pace to get him there, down to a science. He can’t pull some of his fancy tricks without the use of his hands, and Katsuki knows he’s dying to, by the way he pulls and struggles in his grasp. Katsuki bucks his hips a little, and Izuku’s eyes roll back. “Shit.” His balls clench so hard, it hurts. Shit, shit shit. “Deku, fuck, Izuku.” 

That little asshole makes it look so easy. No gagging, no hesitation. He spits and sucks and laps beneath the head now swollen and pink with his efforts – “Look what you fucking do to me,” he grits, and cums without warning. Izuku doesn’t need to be told what he already knows. 

Izuku purrs as he sucks him down again, allowing Katsuki to thrust in his mouth as he pleases, displacing spit and cum. It spittles down his lip, but the rest is swallowed. He finally allows Izuku the use of his hands, and he immediately goes for his balls, cupping and pulling to draw it out, to make sure he gets every last drop. It damn near rips the soul out of his body.

“I’m going to wring your shitty little neck,” Katsuki snarls. His head clunks against the wall, stunned and exhausted. Izuku gives his cock one last overstimulating kiss, then wipes his mouth with his hand, and licks his palm. 

“I think I could’ve beaten my record, if you let me use my hands.”

“Seriously going to kill you,” he continues. The world fades in and out of a hundred colors he can’t name. “They won’t even find the body.” 

Izuku nuzzles into his clothed thigh. He couldn’t even bother to properly pull down his pants. “Sounds romantic.” He helpfully tucks Katsuki back inside his underwear. It leaves a sticky spot at the front, something Izuku instinctively dives to touch with his tongue, but Katsuki catches him under the armpit and hauls him to his feet, pushing him towards the bed. 

“Begone, horny demon. Go jerk off so I can watch.” Izuku flops back, yanks his shirt over his shoulders. He gets one hand on the button of his fly before Katsuki bats his fingers away. “Nevermind, I’ll do it.”

Izuku giggles at him. Katsuki chases him back on the mattress, kisses his mouth and gets him tucked up under his arm before he finally slides a hand down his shorts. Izuku goes all melty-soft under him. Katsuki absorbs the want and need through his open mouth; slow, heated kisses that make his afterglow feel like a hot sauna. Izuku doesn’t even try to thrust into his hand. He doesn’t ask, doesn’t beg. Just takes whatever Katsuki is willing to give him. 

His dick is hard and cute and fits perfectly in his palm. It twitches, and accompanies Izuku’s breathy moans. “You’re fuckin wet,” Katsuki mumbles, and Izuku keens, pushing one leg higher up on his thigh. Closer. “Is all this just from my cock in your mouth? Yeah, I bet it was.” 

“Always is.” Izuku begs, “Make me cum.” Katsuki’s world explodes. 

He spits into his palm and strokes him with purpose. Izuku arches beautifully, sighing a long noise as he winds up further. Katsuki kisses his warm neck, sucks on his burning ear, pulls hard enough that he might peel off the freckles and fucking eat them. Izuku spills between the webbing of his fingers, twitching and jerking and coming so hard, the sound gets stuck in his throat. Katsuki could watch this a hundred, a million times, and it’ll always be just as good as the first night he ever got him off like this, back in the agency locker rooms, shoved up against some grimy shower wall. 

With all the time in the world, Katsuki strokes him slow and kisses him slower, as if lowering him down back to earth. Izuku powers off under his hands. 

“Thank you,” he purrs. Oh, the nails on the back of his neck bring goosebumps. 

“Mmm.”

Izuku whispers to the side of his cheek, “Do you think they’re watching?” 

They. Right, the people trying to kill them. 

His eye twitches. “If they are, then they just got one hell of a show.” Izuku smirks back at him. 

“Encore?”

“Hmph. What song?”

“Singing in the shower.”

Katsuki groans, wiping off his hand. “You know I hate shower sex. Lube and water is a recipe for a hip replacement.”

Izuku kisses his nose. “I’m flexible, and you have nothing to complain about, my love.”

Fair enough. Katsuki gives one final look around their suite, before following him into the bathroom. No cameras behind the seashells or microphones in the tacky lampshades. Safe from voyeurs, for now.

~

They’re dressing down for bed when Izuku’s phone rings. 

Towel over his head, Izuku shakes out the rest of the water from his hair, and pats blindly for his phone. Katsuki spits toothpaste in the sink before handing it to him. He cringes, because it’s sticky for some reason.  

Izuku pulls the towel from his eyes and reads, “Uravity wants to video call.”

“Just don’t show her my dick.” 

“Then put on some pants.” 

Katsuki wipes his mouth and grumbles, stomping to the bedroom. Izuku answers the call with a cheery smile. 

“Hey, how’s it going?”

“Shouto’s been kidnapped,” Ochaco says. 

“I’m sorry?” 

Another video joins the call. It’s Shouto, tied and bound on his knees.

“Hey guys, I’ve been kidnapped.” 

Katsuki jerks his head back into the bathroom, fumbling to get in the frame and see this shit himself. “Dude, come on.”

“I was asleep, what do you want from me.” 

The pixelated image of Ochaco looks unimpressed, and Katsuki rubs deeply into his eye sockets. The camera on Shouto turns around to reveal a thin, greying older man, well-dressed in a tailored suit, with beady eyes peering through thick-rim glasses. Behind him are traditional shoji doors, and tatami mat floors. 

“I take it you have received my message quite clearly by now.” 

Katsuki yanks the phone out of Izuku’s hand, and begins to snarl, “Look, I have no idea what the hell you want, but if you think kidnapping Todoroki is going to get you anywhere, then you might as well keep him, fuck, you’d be doing us all a favor.” 

“I’m having fun,” Shouto monotones, off camera. “They threw me in a trunk.” 

“Shouto, shh!” Ochaco hisses.

The old man does not react. He stares coldly into the camera, then says, “Tell me where the Biosplice is, and I will spare his life.” 

“I don’t have a god damn clue what you’re talking about.” 

“Fine. Continue to be stubborn, you will see where it gets you. For your little friend, a few less fingers will do.” 

A flat voice replies, “Oh, nice.” 

Shouto’s video drops from the call. Izuku and Ochaco sigh in tandem. 

“I’ll get him,” says Ochaco. 

“Do you have to?” 

Izuku looks at Katsuki dully. “I’m assuming you really don’t know what this ‘Biosplice’ is.” 

Katsuki wants to say something smart, but he can see the tension on Izuku’s face, so he simply answers, “No.”

“I’ll call the team and look into it. Maybe Momo or Tenya knows what it is – he seemed affluent, they might recognize this man’s face. At least we have a lead.” 

“You might check with Endeavor too, uh, after you get his son back.” Izuku makes a show of bowing his head gratefully. “Please let us know what you find.” 

Ochaco nods. Behind her, a kettle whistles, and she takes it off the stove. A toddler babbles for her attention and she makes a shushing noise towards the ground. “I’ll – shh, it’s okay  – I will, don’t worry. Hitoshi’s operative team should have Shouto back in under twelve hours.” 

“I’d be surprised if it even takes that long, these guys seem sloppy.” 

Katsuki squints at the camera. “You babysitting?”

“Yeah, Kendo is out of town tonight, and with the weird ninja-sightings, nobody’s taking any chances.” She pulls on a big smile, round cheeks squishing in a way that reminds him of the kid he knew in highschool. “But we’ve got this!! Don’t you worry!” 

Izuku breathes a laugh, and sways his shoulder into Katsuki’s arm. “Thanks for calling.” 

She smiles, waves goodbye – and in one short, agonizing flash, Katsuki sees the exact moment she glances at him. He feels all the protective skepticism accumulated in that one look, the exact expression Deku’s friends have been digging at him for over a year. He attempts to communicate a nonverbal glare that means I’m fucking working on it, and Ochaco beams a toothy smile. 

“Kay, bye bye!” 

Izuku sets his phone on the counter, and Katsuki combs the damp cow-lick out of Izuku’s hair with his fingers. “At least they didn’t take anyone important.” 

“Be serious.”

“Babe, you know Shouto is playing with them. He probably got bored fighting crime and is just riding this out so he doesn’t have to talk to his dad.” 

Izuku presses his lips together, and his lack of a comment speaks volumes. Katsuki finds the scar that runs along his scalp, and follows it with his finger. He then tries to give him a mohawk, but he’s shooed away with the damp end of the towel. Izuku replies, “I wonder what it is they want so badly.” 

“Dunno. But apparently, it’s important enough to drag an entire clan out of hiding.” Katsuki really has no idea what a Biosplice is, nor does he think he wants to. “I’m supposed to be retired, damn it.” 

He can see that Izuku wants to stew on this, but is resisting for their vacation’s sake. It’s going to take a long time to get used to this feeling – the idea that they’re not supposed to drop everything at the first call of danger. 

Izuku hangs his towel, turns around, and faceplants into his chest. The hug catches him off guard, and it takes Katsuki an extra moment to settle his arms back around him. 

“I’m sorry. This trip hasn’t been very relaxing, has it?”

“Now who said that? Wasn’t me, was it?” Katsuki leans his weight into the wall behind him, so he can take on Izuku as he sways forward. Something primal settles in him when Deku is close like this. Like the smell of him calms his nerves. “I’ll never turn down the chance to kick ass. And Todoroki was kidnapped? If I didn’t know better, I’d say it’s a holiday.”

Izuku gives him a defeated slap on the hip, making a low noise into his chest. Katsuki takes a glance at the bathroom mirror, and nearly flinches at the fond expression on his own face. He looks away. 

~

Stiff hotel sheets rustle noisily as movement creaks the bed. A flock of birds fly over their bungalow, and the wood crackles from the morning sun heating the eastern wall. A weight settles over his thighs. 

“Kacchan,” Izuku whispers. Katsuki twitches as a mouth kisses lovingly under his jaw, pecking at the stubble. Minty breath puffs across his ear – he’s been awake for a while. “It’s time to get up. We can’t miss the bus.”

For one agonizing moment, stuck between dreamscape and reality, Katsuki struggles to remember what year it is. His voice rasps, “Bus?”

“For the hike.” 

Oh, right. He’s not in school, and he’s not dreaming; Deku really is straddled over him, shirtless while he rocks circles in his lap. Katsuki is sleep-hard, which isn’t true arousal, but it could be, really fast, if Izuku keeps this up. 

He rubs the sleep from his eyes, and squints to try and read the digital clock on the nightstand. “It’s early as shit.” 

Izuku plants his hands on his chest, and sits back up. He rubs against him leisurely, like he only wants to frot for the novelty of it. “The hike is eight miles, and I know you don’t want to climb the incline in peak heat.” 

Katsuki shifts under him, giving his firm thighs a squeeze. “And you’d be damn right.” Izuku smiles, and leans forward for a real kiss. He never has any reservations about Katsuki’s morning breath, which is kind of gross, but Katsuki allows the kiss anyway. It’s lazy, and the best way to wake up. 

However, when Izuku shifts again, Katsuki flinches. He pats his leg, the signal for off. 

“Don’t – that’s –” He groans, shifting his hips. “I gotta piss first.” 

Izuku isn’t deferred. He pokes into his lower abdomen, and Katsuki chokes, because ow. “Can I hold it?” 

Katsuki bucks him off. “No.” 

Izuku sighs dramatically, rolling over as Katsuki stands up from the bed.

“You don’t even love me.”

“No, obviously not,” Katsuki replies sarcastically. “Because I won’t let you hold my dick.” 

Izuku props his head in his hand, and gets a dark glint in his eye. “See, I just find it ironic that you let me hold it when it’s convenient to you.” 

A shivery tendril of dread crawls up his back – the same feeling he gets when he realizes he’s on the losing end of a fight. He throws open the bathroom door with a sigh. 

“Fine.”

“Yay!” 

They’re standing at the shuttle stop in thirty minutes. Katsuki finds himself picking at his bottom lip, desperately hoping he wiped all the cum off the floor. Fuck, he should’ve hung up the do not disturb sign, those poor maids. 

He looks over at Izuku, all bright and bushy-tailed in his cargo shorts and his stuffed camelback and his nerdy hiking shoes. The instinctual urge to bully him is so overwhelming, Katsuki licks his finger and sticks it in his ear. 

“Ack!” Izuku flinches. “Hey!” 

“You look like a dad.”

Izuku gets that look in his eye again; the one he earned when he was sixteen, when he finally learned to fight back. 

The blue shuttle pulls up to the curb, and Izuku sticks out his smart little tongue and says, “Then make me one.” 

Katsuki has no response to that (or none that can be deemed appropriate for the public), and Izuku obviously knows that, because he all but prances onto the shuttle, counting his win.

Izuku: 1 | Katsuki: 0 

~

Their bus unloads with a gaggle of dopey tourists, but they outpace the group in minutes. It’s not the hiking itself that’s an effort, rather the lack of shade and the rocky terrain, but for two (ex) pro heroes, it’s light work. 

Izuku stops to take pictures of the ocean view (and the flowers, and the clouds, and the wildlife). Their hats shade out most of the sun, but Katsuki still shoots the back of Deku’s neck with sunscreen when he’s not looking. 

“Cold!” He gasps. 

“You’re going to get burnt again, dumbshit.” 

Izuku bounces along the path, laughing. “Do you think our ninja friends would follow us all the way out here?” 

“If you jinx us, so god help me.” 

Izuku turns on the switchback, walking backwards so he can say, “Something about it doesn’t sit right with me –”

“No shit, really?”

His sarcasm soars right past him. “I mean, specifically their quirks. It’s unlikely that more than one person harbors a teleportation quirk, and the swordsman on the beach really bothered me, when I stepped on him, it was like…” Izuku spins back around, rubbing the sweat away under his cap. “I don’t know. I have a weird feeling.”

“Don’t try to apply logic to this situation,” Katsuki grumbles. “You’ll make yourself crazy.”

Izuku hums an agreement. 

The incline makes Katsuki itchy. Not in a buggy, mosquito way, but in the impulsive need to…

Rocks crunch beneath their feet. Katsuki looks at his bad hand, twisting and flexing it. Izuku swears by the compression sleeves, but Katsuki hates the restrictive feeling. He wonders what it would be like to be young and powerful and stupid again. Blessed with the ability to just…jump. 

He checks his heart rate.

Izuku stops to face the breeze. He smiles widely, closing his eyes to enjoy it. “You know, in a way, this feels kind of like home.” 

He knows what he means. Not their hometown, but their country – coast to coast, Izuku traveled all over Japan to make himself a better hero. To be strong enough as a human, alone.

Sticky with sweat, Izuku’s dark hair curls under the brim of his cap. The cliff’s edge tumbles hundreds of feet down beside them, and the tide snares as it crashes on the rocks below. The sun glows on Izuku like a fucking angel, haloed by an ocean that doesn’t end. 

Katsuki’s heart hurts. 

He glances around them. None of the other hikers have caught up yet. No more bullshit, he’s fucking doing this. 

Katsuki grabs Izuku’s wrist, and yanks him off the path. “Hold up.” 

“Oh!” 

Katsuki drags him towards the grassy plateau; a round, flat field near the barriered rock edge. Huffing and puffing, he grabs both his arms and forces Izuku straight in front of him. 

“Deku.” He corrects. “Izuku.” 

Concerned doe eyes blink up at him. Too much of Izuku’s pretty face is hidden by his hat, so Katsuki yanks it off and turns it around, plopping it back on his head. It startles Izuku further. 

“Kacchan, are you okay?”

His heart pounds in his ears. The adrenaline is giving him cottonmouth. Izuku reaches up to feel his cheek, and Katsuki loves him so much he could die. 

“Is it your heart? We can take a break –”

“I need to tell you something important. Stop, I’m – I’m fine, just fucking listen.” He takes a breath and steadies himself like he’s stepping back out to war. Katsuki drops a hand from his arm, and reaches for his pocket. “I’ve been trying to do this all week. It’s been – I mean, I need you to know that  –”

A puff of smoke explodes around them. One, two, three, four, five shinobi, all with weapons in their hands. 

“FUCK!!!” Katsuki shouts, blind with rage. “FUCK MY FUCKING LIFE!!!” 

“You are out of warnings,” says a short, slender shinobi. A black hood shades their eyes, and their gloves squeak on the handle of a sharp throwing knife. “The master says you have chosen the hard way.”

An even blinder rage. 

“THIS IS SUCH!! BULLSHIT!”

Woosh!

Izuku shoves him, “Look out!” 

They dive in separate directions, and all hell breaks loose. Katsuki is beyond mercy, beyond holding back; he fires off shots at full power, and the blasts are so loud it echoes down the valley, rattling birds from the trees. They flock to the sky in a chorus of panicked caws. Izuku roundhouses a brick-house of a ninja, and tosses another by the straps of their utility pack. “Kacchan, the mountain!” He handsprings, and gasps as he dodges the point of a sword. “Your quirk–! You’ll cause a landslide!” 

Fuck, the other hikers. Katsuki stifles his next blast, instead using the bottom of his boot to create distance. He’s edgy and distracted, and it’s throwing him off. Too many sounds, too many weapons – a woman locks him in hand to hand combat, this crap again – and Katsuki doesn’t like that it puts him away from Deku. They’re trying to separate them on purpose. 

Her muffled voice hisses, “We will drag you home in pieces if we must! You will spend all your days beneath my knife, until the truth is spilt from your bloody mouth!” 

Katsuki knocks the blade from her hand, but grunts as he takes a hit to the jaw. He tosses her backwards. “How many damn times do I have to tell you – I don’t know what you want!” 

“We will never believe your lies! You just want to hoard the power all for yourself!” 

He’s unprepared, he needs his gear, it’s utter chaos. 

Individually the shinobi are weak, but in an ambush like this, Katsuki can’t get a good footing. As he tries to calculate if he can blast this motherfucker into space without dislodging the rock behind them, Izuku lets out a pained scream – and suddenly, fuck this shit. 

Izuku yanks a knife out of his arm with a snarl. He’s been stabbed. 

Katsuki grabs the woman by the throat, and slams her into the ground. Her hood falls back, revealing long black hair. Her eyes go wide as Katsuki squeezes her windpipe and growls, “Call them off. I said call them off, or I’ll fucking kill you.” 

The other ninjas give pause. Katsuki clicks his tongue in satisfaction – this one is definitely the leader. Izuku slaps a palm to his bleeding arm and calls his name, but it’s too late, he’s fucking pissed.

The shinobi gurgles beneath his palm, “Heroes don’t kill.” 

“I ain’t no hero,” Katsuki spits. “I’m retired.” 

As expected, she poofs out from under his palm. The others begin to retreat one at a time. 

The last ninja stands there, scarf blowing in the wind. Blood oozing between his fingers, Izuku takes a defensive stance. The ninja says, “It’s too late. We know your weakness, Katsuki Bakugou.” Then, gone. 

Jackass.

Katsuki jogs over to him on autopilot. “You good?”

“Just a stab wound, no exit.” Izuku looks under his arm to confirm. “Yeah.”

Katsuki finds their discarded pack and rummages around for the bandana he wrapped their lunch in. He shakes it off, then plucks Izuku’s hand from the wound and applies pressure with his own palm. “I am so fucking tired of this shit.” 

“I’m sorry,” Izuku offers. “They were faster today. I think they’ve been – urgh, learning, each time we fight.”

That doesn’t surprise him. “I’m going to find that old man and wring his turkey neck.”

Izuku doesn’t flinch when he squeezes. Instead, he lifts his other hand to brush the mark flowering on Katsuki’s jaw. “This has become a bigger inconvenience than I expected.”

His teeth squeak as Katsuki grinds his jaw. Peeking under the bloodied bandana, he says, “We need to go to a hospital.” 

Izuku frowns like a sad puppy. “Aww, but we didn’t get to reach the peak. Can’t you stitch it up back at the hotel?” 

“Sure, but it’ll heal like shit.” Once the bleeding slows, Katsuki ties the knot tight. He then takes a big breath, and lets it out, like blowing out candles, the therapist said. The blood seeping through the bandage makes him feel sick. Katsuki picks up his pack, and hauls Izuku’s bag on his other shoulder. With no room for argument, he says, “Let’s go.” 

Izuku looks up at the peak of the cliff, then down at his dirty shoes. The dejected look on his face is a stab wound all on its own. “Okay.”

Katsuki doesn’t know what to do. He wants to hold him, kiss him, make it all better – but Deku got hurt. The fury races like a wildfire, and he doesn’t want Izuku to get burned by his anger. Not anymore. 

They descend the mountain, and feign ignorance to the well-meaning party of hikers that question the commotion. Nope, didn’t hear a thing.

~

Katsuki spends an hour in the hospital waiting room, periodically texting the group chat. They express dissatisfaction with his lack of details, but he’s more preoccupied with the needle going in and out of Deku’s skin, so fuck off.

The sun is down when they return to the bungalow, and Katsuki is so tired he wishes he could pluck out his own eyes and plug them into the wall like his dying phone. 

Izuku staggers in behind him, and collapses on the dressing chair. Katsuki can see on his face that he’s tempted to crawl right under the sheets, but over his dead body will Katsuki allow their nasty, sweaty, hospital-germed bodies in that bed, so he shepherds them into an efficient shower, like the ones they’d take back at the agency. Scrub body, wash hair, rinse, done. Katsuki takes special mind of his new bandage, and Izuku is not enthused about it.

“I’m sorry,” he says, breaking the silence. Another senseless apology. Katsuki holds out a pair of boxers for Izuku to step into. “If I was stronger, I…” Katsuki’s eyes flash, daring him to finish the thought. Izuku clears his throat. “I guess this is why I wanted to retire.” 

He pulls the boxers up his freckled hips for him, then pats his thigh. “Stop thinking about it. Could’ve been me, we don’t know.” 

“No.” Izuku lifts his hand to cup his cheek, and he doesn’t even have the nerve to act like he got stabbed today. “It wouldn’t have. I don’t want to be dead weight for you. I know you…look out for me, but…you shouldn’t have to.” 

Katsuki catches his hand off his cheek and squeezes it. He frowns deeply. “Do you really think that?”

Izuku’s eyes are tired. He opens his mouth, but his phone begins to buzz. Katsuki groans, “Let it ring.”

“I can’t, it might be important.” Izuku leans over to answer his phone, and Katsuki debates if he needs to find a shirt, but abandons that thought when he sees that it’s just a normal call. “Hello?” 

“Hey, guess who we got?” 

“Hi,” Shouto greets. “I’m no longer kidnapped.” 

Damn. 

“Congrats,” Izuku smiles. “How’d it go?” 

“Boring,” Eijirou says. “We found their ninja hideout, but they just dumped him and ran. They didn’t even stick around for a fight, like we weren’t worth their time.” 

Katsuki scowls, “I hope you’re on their asses, and not just sittin’ around with a thumb up yours.”

“We’re on it!! Sheesh. Bad day?” 

“Dude, Midoriya got stabbed.” 

“Oh yeah.”

“How are you doing?” Ochaco asks. 

“Fine,” Izuku shrugs, as if they can see him. He sits on the edge of the bed, and Katsuki leans up against the dresser across from him. Izuku meets his eyes, then looks away. “It wasn’t anything serious. I think they’re toying with us.” 

“They’re only interested in Bakugou,” Shouto says. “I tried to get them to talk, but the grunts were loyal to a boring fault. I thought I recognized their leader though, had to call my dad to check, but we think it’s Ryu Takeda.” 

That name means nothing to Katsuki, but Izuku blanches, “The scientist?” 

“Yes.” 

Izuku immediately begins to mumble, “He quit his research thirty years ago when funding was cut by the Hero Commission – but they went under during the war, why would he associate himself with a dead shinobi clan, and what could he possibly want from Kacchan –”

“Sorry, that’s all I got. Besides all ten fingers.” 

There’s the sound of water rippling in a hollow pot, then coughing. Sero asks, “Didya get any clues about what that ‘Biosplice’ thing is?” 

“Wasn’t she in a girl band?”

Katsuki presses both hands into his closed eyes, rubbing at his dry contact lenses. “That’s baby spice, Denki.” 

“Wait, hold on,” Eijirou starts. 

“Can we get someone with above average intelligence over here? Where’s Shinsou?”

“Wrapping up the scene where they found Shouto. We should tell the Association that Deku was hurt.” Ochaco says, with a wince in her voice, “They can launch a funded investigation, but you’ll probably have to come home to testify.” 

Katsuki scowls just as Izuku sighs, picking at the edge of his bandage. “That’s what I was trying to avoid.” 

“I’m on my way to my father’s agency to see if we have any archives of Takeda’s work, or this ‘Biosplice’ thing. It must be important enough to warrant all this effort.”

“Guys,” Eijirou tries. 

“Did Hatsume find anything?”

“Nope. She said she’d never heard of it, and I think that pissed her off, because she always knows everything.” 

“Wait, wait wait.” Eijirou finally breaks through the chatter. “The Biosplice, I know what that is!” 

Silence. Katsuki shares a long look with Izuku. 

With visibly low expectations, Izuku politely asks, “Excuse me?” 

All the loudmouths on the call shut up long enough to let him talk. 

“Yeah, yeah – I mean, Katsuki, dude, don’t you remember? I was there when that old fart handed it to you. He looked nothing like this Takeda guy – he had that crazy hair, like he stuck his thumb in a socket – I think ‘cause you rescued him from a fire in his lab. He came around a few weeks later, blabbing about his research. C’mon man, you really don’t remember?” 

Katsuki’s heart sinks to his feet. Izuku’s head whips up to look at him. 

Ochaco asserts, “Wait, Kirishima, this really happened?” 

“Ei,” he starts, but like a train wreck in real time, Katsuki is powerless to stop it. Eijirou lets out an astounded laugh. 

“Of course! We were smoking at your old apartment when some guy banged on the door. Said he designed this new technology that could repair you back to ‘better than new’ without cutting anything off. I think he even offered to fix your heart. You turned him down, ‘cause you just joined that agency with Midoriya and didn’t want to leave him behind. He ended up giving you some fancy code on a flashdrive, I guess bro retired. I wish I could remember his name.” 

Green eyes burn violent holes into the side of his face. Katsuki swallows hard. 

Like a greyish dream settling into technicolor, he remembers. 

He remembers that cloudy day in his basement apartment, no windows beside a crank-shaft near the ceiling to keep the smoke from setting off the alarms. He was saving up for a new place, for an apartment he could share with Deku. Eijirou, his resident couch surfer, had just come off the nightshift with him. The banging startled him out of his high.

He said his name was Renji.

“This is my life’s work,” Renji said. Big buggy eyes, and hair wild like a bushel of weeds. “But I see what I must do with it, and I can trust no one better than the hero that saved my life.”

It was a flat, unassuming flash drive. Katsuki had been given all sorts of weird crap from people he rescued, so Katsuki tried to hand it back. “I don’t want it.”

“Heh. How funny. Me neither!” There were gaps in his teeth, silver in his long curly eyebrows. A man that was clearly devoted to his work, seeing that Katsuki had to pry him off of it in that damn fire. “But one day, if you do…give this to the right engineer, and you could really do some damage to this world.” 

Katsuki was tired of damaging this world. But he took the stick anyway, to shut him up.

He knows exactly where it is. 

Izuku is still staring at him, the whites of his eyes glowing beneath his phone light. Heart pulsing in his ears, Katsuki stares at a point on the wall; a singular round knot in the wood grain.

“Jesus, none of you thought to ask Kirishima?” 

“Kirishima never knows anything! No offense.”

“None taken.” 

“We can’t continue this conversation by phone,” Katsuki says carefully. A tense silence follows; a universal understanding that he fucking knows where it is. 

“You need to come home,” Ochaco says. “Now.” 

“We’ll call you back,” says Izuku. He hangs up without so much as a goodbye. 

Katsuki’s hand sweats against the lip of the dresser. Izuku shakes as he sets aside his phone. All the humidity sucks out of the room; the air is a freezing cold precipice. The cutting edge of a lie. 

“You…” Izuku’s breath trembles. He looks dangerous, frigid and wide-eyed like a spooked animal. “What have you done.” 

The room spins around them; this unassuming bungalow with bamboo rugs and seashell lamps and their crap on every flat surface. Katsuki starts to plead his case. “I told you, I didn’t need some fancy new arm to make me a hero.”

“You said you didn’t want the surgeries because you had to cut the limb.” Izuku stands and digs his hands into his hair, pulling like he wants to rip it from the root. “You never mentioned this! Oh my god, I cannot believe you turned down the opportunity to fix your body because – what, you had to leave me behind? Oh my god!” 

“We just signed with the agency – and if you remember, we worked our fucking asses off to get there. No one thought we could do it, but we did!”

“You could’ve been whole!” Izuku paces, sucking in breaths faster, harder. “You knew you couldn’t reach top ten with your injuries, that was your fucking dream, Kacchan! Why would you throw that away?!” 

Katsuki rises, swelling in anger. It feels like a wave breaking, and he’s going to drown in it. 

“For what? To get shipped off on a hundred suicide missions, then switch to another agency and see you twice a year? I made my choice, end of discussion.” 

“Because I couldn’t keep up.” Izuku presses his face into his hands, lets out a sob of a breath, then laughs bitterly. “I told you I couldn’t keep up. I told you I just wanted to run as far as I could. You said you were going to fight to get stronger no matter what, you promised me.” 

Katsuki throws up his arms, “I did! We were pros, Izuku, I didn’t need to fly to kick ass, and neither did you!”  

“You held yourself back!” Izuku wretches out the words like they’ve been festering inside him for a long time. “God, you’ve wasted your life!” 

It’s like a gunshot. The wind is knocked out of him, suddenly sober from the drunken anger festering in his mouth. Izuku fists his hands into his eyes, like he can’t bear the sight of him. 

A waste? The last fifteen years; working late in the office, fighting bad guys, ramen after work, rescuing civilians from house fires and digging cars out of earthquakes – everything they’ve done together, a waste? 

Katsuki’s fury melts into a sour rasp of, “How fucking dare you.”

Izuku’s head snaps up again. His eyes are wet and dark, mimicking a rage that Katsuki never wanted him to inherit. 

“How dare you. I knew doctors approached you, I knew that, but I thought – you had goals you wanted to achieve on your own. God, I was an idiot for thinking you were complacent with our mediocre careers because you had to be.”

Katsuki reaches for him out of necessity. 

“Why are you acting like it’s such a crime that I wanted to be with you?!” 

Izuku pulls out of his reach, eyes teary and hurt. “Stop it. I gave up my quirk, and you dragged yourself down with me. We’re not the same.”

“This –!” Katsuki waves his bad hand, stiff with scar tissue. “This was for you!” 

Bitterly cold, he says, “I know.”

Katsuki watches as he pulls on a pair of shorts, then yanks a hoodie out of the drawer, shoving it on so fast it gets twisted around his middle. He’s going to pull his goddamn stitches. Katsuki’s stomach sinks into a rancid pit. 

“And where are you going?” 

Izuku shoves on his shoes, fingers shaking as he messily ties the laces. “I need to walk this off.” 

Katsuki feels like his entire world is walking out the door. He reaches for him again, “This is not that serious –” but Izuku jerks so violently out of his reach, it’s like cold water in his face. 

“Just. Give me a minute.” 

It’s a shocking realization, that Izuku won’t look him in the eye. Katsuki lets him go. The door slams, and he looks down at his bad arm; something he once thought of as a hindrance, now just a part of who he is. In a world where he took that dumb flash drive and made himself a God with it – some new number-one hero to die on the next cross – it doesn’t give him the same feeling he had when he was a kid collecting hero cards. He doesn’t know how to show Izuku that he…

Too frantic to pick out a fresh set of clothes, he shoves on the same pants he was wearing earlier, and yanks his arm through one sleeve of a shirt. 

“Fuck,” Katsuki hisses. Something goes woosh, and sticks to the back of his neck. “Fuck!” 

He whips around, slaps a hand to the sting, and flinches when he feels a dart stuck in the skin. 

Oh, that sucks. That is astronomical levels of suck. 

The drug’s effect is immediate. Nausea, lethargy, dizziness; the walls melt into slime, pooling into a kaleidoscope of mushy colors. 

No, no no no.

As Katsuki drops to his knees and fights for consciousness, his only thought is of Deku. Shadowy figures morph into his vision. 

“If you touch him, I’ll…” Katsuki heaves as the world ends. 

~

Chapter Text

~

As soon as the door closed, Eijirou looked at him like he had grown a second head. 

“You sick, or somethin?” 

Katsuki tossed the flash drive on the coffee table, and picked up his lighter. He bought it at a smoke shop during one of his work studies in America, because it had one of his favorite cartoons on the front – the kind deemed too violent for daytime TV.

“Hmm, don’t think so.” 

Eijirou had a talent of looking so dumb, that Katsuki took pity on him. 

“I mean, it sounds like a good deal. Isn’t your whole shtick all about ‘getting stronger than Deku’ or whatever.” 

Katsuki kicked back on the couch – damn lumpy thing that it was – and stretched an arm over the back of Eijirou’s shoulders. He felt loose from the high, so he said,

“Sure, but we’re a team now, and I play to win. If it don’t fix him up too, then I’m not interested.”

Eijirou kept wearing that stupid face. He was still struggling to grow out a bad buzz-cut back then, but Katsuki liked it better that way. Less shitty, even if he still dyed it that offensive red. 

Katsuki decided to end the conversation by firing up the TV, but Eijirou bent over to pick up the flashdrive, turned it over, then flipped it again to read whatever was sharpied on the back. 

“Huh. Weird name.”

~

Shuffling, rumbling, the idle of a motor. 

He hears footsteps in sand. Wooshing, and a cold breeze. In and out the world stays dark, eyes open or eyes shut, it makes no difference. 

The sound of the ocean throws him off. 

“-ch-an!”

He wakes up on his knees. The hood is ripped off his head, and Katsuki groans as the drugs mix with the morning sunlight, giving him a pounding headache. Someone definitely kicked him. 

“-acchan!”

His fingers are on pins and needles. Katsuki flexes his arms, and finds them bound behind his back. When he struggles in the restraints, he feels cemented cuffs. The tingly, burning sensation is familiar; a quirk suppressor. 

“Kacchan,” a voice begs. 

Katsuki snaps his head up, and looks directly into Izuku’s eyes. 

They’re kneeling in the grass. Izuku’s cheek is swollen, and his position mimics his own; hands behind his back, bruised, but a little less disoriented, like he’s shaken off the drugs already. Blood trickles down his arm where he tore yesterday’s stitches.

“Fuck,” Katsuki seethes. “Izuku, where the fuck are –” His eyes drop down, and his stomach wretches. “Oh my god.”

A bomb. These crazy motherfuckers have collared a bomb around Izuku’s neck. Three little nitro vials strung around his throat like jewelry. This just got serious. 

Izuku takes a shuddery, careful breath. He tries to smile, but his cheek is swollen, and it comes out lopsided. “I guess I got to see the peak after all.” 

Katsuki frantically takes in their surroundings. They’re in the grass, far away from humanity, right up against the edge of the highest cliff on the coast. The ocean is calm, unlike the wild creature in his chest that pounds away at his ribcage.

“Don’t move,” Katsuki pants. He flexes his hands, struggles in the cuffs, tries to get his feet under himself, then grunts as a fist clenches into the top of his scalp. 

“Now now,” a shinobi tuts, scruffing his neck back like a dog. “Not so fast. The master would like a word with you.”

Katsuki thrashes, “What the hell is wrong with you people?!” 

“You have something I want,” Takeda says. In the flesh he strolls beside them, one hand tucked in his sueded suit pocket, the other clutched to a round cane – the very same man that kidnapped Todoroki. “I thought I was abundantly clear about my expectations from you.” 

“I don’t have your stupid flash drive.” Another ninja grabs at Deku’s hair, pulling so hard he groans, and Katsuki’s voice bleeds with panic. “Stop, I said I don’t have it!!” 

“Cease this performance, you know where it is.” 

Izuku stares at him wide-eyed. Wordlessly, he conveys; it doesn’t matter what this thing does, you can not let them have it. Katsuki agrees.

He shifts on his stiff knees, trying to pull against the fist damn-near ripping the hair from his scalp. Quick, he needs to think, make him talk, he needs a plan.

“What’s so special about some piece of junk?”

Takeda’s cold expression twists into one of repulsion. He looks sixty, maybe a little older, but everything about his body language bleeds money. 

“That piece of junk is the life’s work of my late partner, Renji Wanatabe. A genius of his era, I will never understand why he chose to waste such a valuable, expensive piece of research on a worthless hero.” Takeda glares, and Katsuki scowls right back at him. “I thought it long gone in the fire, but I was enlightened to learn that his research was not destroyed, but gifted to an idiotic child.” 

“Sucks to be you, I threw it away,” he growls.

The ninja holding his hair states, “He is lying.” 

“My friend’s specialty is to waft through lies, you see.” Takeda smirks like a man that knows he’s already won. Katsuki grits his teeth together. Fucking fuck. “You have no use for such a weapon. Renji was not capable of dreaming big enough. That nanotechnology can completely rewrite the DNA code of the human species. Mending bone, curing diseases. Enhancing quirks, and perhaps, in time, creating entirely new ones.” 

“Oh shit,” Izuku exhales, speaking Katsuki’s fucking mind. 

Takeda’s eyes narrow pretentiously. “The Kouka clan has been a haven for the quirkless for nearly a hundred years. Through my research, I have given these shinobi the power to compete in a world that aims to leave them behind.” He smiles fondly to both his shinobi associates, and Katsuki feels the hand tighten at the back of his neck. He’s more concerned about the fucking bomb around Deku’s throat than any possible bald spot he might get from this ordeal. “Consider it a mobility device.” 

“You are off your fucking rocker.”

“Quirkless,” Izuku whispers. His eyes jerk back and forth, his quick mind visually putting the puzzle together, like that’s the piece he was missing. Katsuki doesn’t see how that’s more important than their imminent death, but now that he thinks about it…

A third ninja appears, dressed in traditional shinobi wrappings, rather than the modern tactical gear the others wear. An assistant, maybe. “Sir, forgive my interruption, but there is an urgent call waiting for you.”

“Ah. Excuse me.” Takeda beckons his ninjas to follow with a thin, wrinkly hand. Katsuki and Izuku immediately begin to fight the cuffs again, but Takeda waves around a small remote. “Move, and the timer takes a shortcut to zero.” 

They pause. Footsteps walk back into the grass, and muttering follows. Katsuki is mentally running through every possible escape route, but the timer on Izuku’s collar says 5:03. That’s not long enough. 

“Kacchan,” Izuku calls. He zones back in. “Calm down. We can – we’ll figure this out.” 

“If they’re quirkless, then that freak has been outfitting his little goblins with top-of-the-line support tech.” Katsuki is reminded of the alternate reality. That’s not good. “Izuku, your fucking neck.” 

“It’s okay,” Izuku shushes. “I’m here.” 

He is. He’s still here. Katsuki sags his head, trying to think – but his brain is suffocating in a fog of panic and blind rage and whatever drug they stuck in him. 

Katsuki is visibly uncomfortable with the fact that he can’t see behind him, so Izuku keeps an eye over his shoulder, watching Takeda speak quietly further away in the grass. 

“I’m sorry,” Izuku whispers. Katsuki glances back at him in a wide-eyed startle, but Izuku shakes his head. “No, I…about what happened. I yelled at you, and I said things I shouldn’t have. I was just so…so sad.” 

“Don’t talk like you’re dying,” Katsuki sputters. “You’re not dying.” 

“I never wanted to hold you back,” Izuku continues. His eyes brim with tears, and Katsuki’s gut plummets to his bruised knees. “Knowing that life could have been better for you, if it wasn’t for me…the guilt is unbearable. I love you so much. I only ever wanted to see you shine.” 

Katsuki’s eyes burn. He snarls, chasing away the tears through sheer spite. “Stop. You – you don’t get it. I didn’t…” He stops himself and lowers his voice, in case the goddamn ninjas are listening. “Denying the implants. It wasn’t some grand act of selflessness. I didn’t give up on being the best because of you. Fuck. I gave it up for me.”

Izuku stares wildly. The timer continues to tick around his neck. The bruise on his face makes Katsuki want to throw up.

“I don’t understand.”

They’re really doing this here. Tied up, beaten, and on the edge of a cliff. Katsuki takes a deep breath, and looks at every corner of his face. Lips, nose, cheeks, eyes. Lumpy, scarred, freckled, and perfect.

“After the war – hell, even before we dated, I realized that I love you a hell of a lot more than I love being a hero.”

Izuku is shattered. He gasps through his nose, and the blood makes him choke. “But you – all you ever wanted was to be number one.” 

Katsuki grits his teeth, trying so, so hard to keep his patience. “You’re comparing me to the disillusions of a naïve fifteen-year-old with a massive ego and an inferiority complex. I’m not that boy. If that’s what you fell in love with, then he’s not here anymore.” 

Izuku’s mouth falls open. Blinking back tears, he hangs his head, and Katsuki hates it. All of it. He can’t see the timer anymore. 

“That’s not…I didn’t know.” 

Katsuki bites his cheek. He hears muttering continue behind him – a flock of birds fly overhead, and a loud wave crashes on the rocks below. It’s nothing, a muted world narrowed down to the person living and breathing in front of him. That’s all that matters; Deku’s next breath. Katsuki wants to cup his cheek; to hold him and comfort him so badly it tears at the mangled fabric of his soul. His voice comes out hoarse and genuine. 

“I didn’t care how slowly we went. I just wanted to be with you.” For all that he aches, he bleeds the truth. “Please don’t make me run where you can’t follow.” 

He once hated Izuku for being quirkless. And now, it’s one of the many parts of him he likes the most.  

Izuku’s cheeks stream and drip, silent tears rolling off his chin. He looks gutted, like this is admission is something he can’t even fathom, and Katsuki wants to kick himself for not finding the words sooner. He needs more time, fuck, please.

Footsteps crunch softly in the grass, and when Izuku tips his head up, the timer says three minutes. 

“Would you look at that.” Takeda approaches, smiling. His silvery slicked-back hair and his perfectly pressed suit just piss him off further. “You’re out of time, and I have someplace to be. Ayane, if you please.”

The lady ninja strolls around to grab at Deku again. Katsuki rips his head around as the old man begins to stroll away with his merry band of masked assassins. 

Katsuki pulls at the cuffs so hard, the restraints brand into his skin, thrashing and barking, “You’re a fucking coward! Prehistoric dried-up cunt — come back here and face me like a man! When I get my hands on you I’m going to hang your hip replacement on my mantle like a goddamn TROPHY!”

Smoke billows, and Takeda waves without turning around. “Creative.” Woosh, gone. 

Ayane, apparently, grabs Izuku under the arm and yanks him to his feet. He stumbles slightly, but she yanks him straight and holds a knife to the tip of Izuku’s collar; right above the ticking clock. Izuku goes rod-straight, and Katsuki stops breathing. 

“Careful now. Thanks to our master, my associates and I can teleport before this number hits zero. It would be in your best interest to advise the location of the Biosplice.” 

Katsuki realizes there is a blade at the back of his own neck. He doesn’t know how long it’s been there, because his vision is so pinholed on Izuku. Ayane plays with one of the wires of the bomb, and Katsuki sputters, “Okay, okay. Slow down, let's talk about this.” 

“There is no negotiation. Where. Is. The. Device.” 

Izuku locks eyes with him. With his jaw clenched tight and his head held high, he refuses to show weakness. Katsuki knows that face. 

“Kacchan,” Izuku warns. Do not tell her. 

He swallows thickly. That bomb is going to blow, and they’re both going to explode into a thousand indistinguishable pieces. What an ironic way to go – to be killed by the same power that runs through his veins. Katsuki always hoped he’d die in the comfort of Deku’s arms. Now he can’t even have that. 

Izuku stares into his very soul. Shiny green pools reflect his own image; a black eye and a bloody mess of blonde hair, body rigid with panic for the one person he cares for above all else. Izuku smiles sweetly at him. 

He can’t do it. 

Katsuki’s voice cracks, “It’s shoved inside a –”

“I love you,” says Izuku. Then, he throws back his weight into Ayane, and sends them both tumbling off the cliff. His whole world, gone in an instant. 

The shinobi behind him releases his hair in shock, and Katsuki lets out a scream so fierce, it seems to shake the earth around them. It rips out of his soul, a guttural cry that has him breaking the cuffs out of sheer willpower. 

“NOO!!” 

An unstoppable force meets an object now moveable; Katsuki darts out of his captor’s grasp and jumps off the cliff without hesitation. 

He catches the tail end of a smokeball; that ninja fucker poofs out of existence like the cheater she is. Izuku flails as he falls, twisting around and gasping as he sees Katsuki lunging after him. Fingertips spread, his arm outstretched like a lifeline, Katsuki reaches. 

The ocean rushes towards them. As he grasps the fluttering of Deku’s shirt and pulls him close, Izuku chokes, “Kacchan no!”

Wind whips through their hair. The rock wall flies by his peripheral at an alarming rate. 

They have seconds before impact, but the adrenaline slows everything down to an excruciating freefall. Katsuki gets a hand to the back of his collar, rips off the clasp, and chucks the bomb as far away as he can. Still bound, Izuku’s tears float from his eyes. 

Adrenaline, panic; it’s a struggle to get his arm around Izuku as they fall. Katsuki pulls him tight to his chest, his right hand cupping his skull as he points his good palm downwards, preparing to slow their fall. Dull blue water approaches like a death sentence. He only has enough time to word-vomit a slur of, “Holdyourbreathholdyourbreath holdyourbreath!!” 

They hit the ocean like concrete. It immediately knocks the wind out of him. He suppresses the urge to inhale, and the burn is unbearable. Twenty-feet away, the bomb goes off underwater. They both cry out beneath the surface as the sudden force tosses and turns them, fumbling in a roaring black void. Katsuki kicks, but he can’t tell up from down. He can’t breathe. Out of reflex, he sucks in water – he’s going to fucking drown –

An arm grabs under his bicep and hauls him to the surface. They both gasp and choke as they breach. Izuku keeps him up with an iron-grip on his arm — he was able to free himself from the cuffs, thank Christ.

“You’re crazy!” Izuku sputters.

“And you’re a self-sacrificing asshole!” He slaps the water out of frustration. “Every goddamn time!” 

His entire body is burning with the effort to stay above the surface in this wild current. The explosion has created a riptide, and they’re tossed by another white wave that crashes into them. Pulled under, over, and away.

~

They wash up on the shore. Katsuki crawls himself to his hands and knees and spits up seawater, while Izuku lays on his side and catches his breath, the waves lapping up to his water-logged shorts. 

“Oh my God,” Izuku wheezes. “Are you okay?” 

He’s pretty sure he fucked up his shoulder, and his wrists are a bloody mess from breaking out of the cuffs, but he’s had worse. “Fine.” Katsuki coughs wetly again, and the salt burns like hell. “Why the hell did you jump?!”

Izuku’s chest rises and falls, his hair half-stuck in his eyes. The sand clings to them, but his voice is so gritty it sounds like he swallowed a mouthful of it. “Whether you told the truth or not, they were going to set off the bomb anyway. Better me, than both of us.” 

“Well now it’s both of us!”

Izuku coughs, too weak to sit up properly. “I won’t apologize.”

Katsuki lets it go, because he would’ve done the same. He sits back on his heels and sighs, sweeping his sopping hair from his forehead. “We need to go back. That jackass Takeda will think we’re dead. If we play this right, we can get home without…” A zing of panic shoots down his spine. 

He slaps a hand to his pants pocket. He checks his front, his back, the cargo pocket on the side. Empty, empty, empty. 

All at once, the adrenaline bruises into a thousand emotions. An overwhelming despair that eats at his stomach, boils his guts and steams into his eyes. They burn, then brim. 

“Fuck!!” Katsuki curls over himself, balls his fists into his eyes, and screams, “FUUUCK!!!!” 

Izuku frantically pushes himself into a sitting position. “What?? What happened?!!!” 

He loses control. His chest sobs without his permission, fat tears pouring down his nose in pure anger. He shakes, cries, and lets out every curse he knows. Distraught, Izuku crawls closer to beg him,

“Please baby, you’re freaking me out –”

Katsuki grits through the wall of his teeth.

“I lost the ring.”

“What ring??” 

“The ring I was going to FUCKING PROPOSE WITH.” 

It goes quiet. Katsuki lets out another frustrated shout, rubbing furiously at his eyes, then his snotty nose. He’s such a loser. If he popped the question sooner, if he made up his mind and stopped carrying the damn thing around like a pathetic coward –

“The ring,” Izuku repeats weakly.

Blood in his hair, fingers at his scalp. He chokes.

“Yes.”

“Okay,” says Izuku. “Yes.”

Katsuki wipes his forearm across his face, shuddering a breath. “What?” 

A hand pushes at his shoulder, forcing him back on his ass. He grunts as it shifts a few bruises, then flinches as Izuku immediately crawls into his lap. Their wet, sandy clothes make a terrible grating noise, and the pressure on his hips is a borderline pain – but Izuku grabs his face in both bloodied hands, and stares straight down at him like a hawk stalking prey. 

“Of course I’ll marry you,” Izuku states breathily. 

Katsuki shudders a wet, sore breath. 

“Seriously?”

Izuku grins, teary-eyed. “I’ve only wanted it all my life.”

The relief is a fleeting thing. Katsuki carefully holds his sides, griping, “Great, you waited ‘all your life’ for a shitty proposal and no ring, you should say no if you have any self-respect –”

Izuku kisses him, and Katsuki’s brain just…stops. 

None of it matters. The aches, the pains, the burdens, and the challenging road ahead of them. It’s a kiss of sea salt and blood and it’s the most romantic thing he’s ever experienced. Izuku’s hands clutching to his face, split-lips moving in a synchronized dance they’ve practiced years for. It’s second nature, and it’s brand new. 

He said yes.

Excitement flowers out of him slowly. He suppresses it, then drowns in it, slowly cracking a smile as he realizes, he said yes!

His stomach clenches near painfully. Izuku’s smile matches his own, lips still skimming his own, humming a happy sound as Katsuki holds him with all the strength he has left. He likes him — he loves him, he loves him so much it hurts. 

Izuku ends the kiss with three consecutive pecks to his cheek, then one long kiss at his forehead. Katsuki tremors out a content sigh. The sun rises higher, and the ocean laps at them lazily, none the wiser to the violence that stirred it ten minutes before. His contacts are burning. Izuku meekly breaks the silence. 

“What do you say to one last mission?”

Katsuki smiles tiredly, and presses their foreheads together. 

“I could go for some revenge.”

~

And for their first trick; how to leave the country without being spotted by cameras, the government, or actual ninjas. It’s a good thing they have friends in high places – and he means that literally. 

“Wow,” Izuku gasps, leaning over the back of the pilot’s seat to look at all the gizmos beeping on the plane console. “Rody, this is amazing!” 

“Right?” Rody grins. “She’s a beauty, I told you we needed to go for a spin. It’s been years since you asked for a ride – I should’ve known it would be for a dramatic getaway.”

“Sorry,” Izuku laughs. “You know bad luck follows me.” 

“That it does.” 

“Alright, alright,” Katsuki huffs, batting Izuku away. “A bible length apart, both of you – that’s my fiancé, and I don’t want to hear about your little ‘summer fling’ you two had fifty years ago.” It was actually nineteen years ago, but who’s counting (Katsuki). 

Rody looks over his shoulder to raise his eyebrows. He’s barely aged a day, despite the pathetic patch of hair on his chin — another trait Katsuki can’t stand. “You’re engaged? And you didn’t tell me?”

Izuku sits in the opposite seat and grins sheepishly. “Well, it literally just happened. Like, this morning.” Because Katsuki doesn’t trust this Rody guy as far as he can throw him, he continues to stand between them. Rody smiles suavely, while the bird on his shoulder chirps and flaps excitedly. 

“Well, congrats. Am I invited to the wedding?”

“No.”

“Yes,” Izuku glares. “Especially after this – seriously, you’re a lifesaver.”

Rody tilts the plane (definitely on purpose) and it makes Katsuki stagger on his feet. He groans as his sore side hits the headrest. 

“I knew it had to be serious to send an SOS like that. I can get you to the airport, but I don’t know how you’re going to sneak home from there.” 

“We’ll be fine. Right Kacchan?” 

“Yeah yeah, I have a plan,” he grumbles, rubbing his ribs. Watching the endless ocean outside the plane window is giving him motion sickness, so he sticks his attention on that annoying little parakeet. “We need you to get a message to our friends. They might already think we’re dead.” 

“I didn’t know you had friends.”

“More than you, birdbrain.”

“Be nice,” Izuku says, to both of them. Rody clicks his tongue, but the bird laughs. “Please, Rody?” 

“Sure, whatever. Saving the world and crap, I get it – look, can you make him sit down, he’s stressing me out.” 

Katsuki scoffs, but Izuku pats the seat next to him, so he crosses his arms and plants his ass. Unfortunately, it helps with the vertigo. Izuku holds out his hand impatiently, and Katsuki slaps his palm in his. Both their arms are bandaged; the skin is still raw from breaking out of those cuffs, and the sting zips through their nerves as their forearms touch. They don’t pull away. 

The sun sets on the worst, and best day of his life.

Izuku yaps for the rest of the flight, and when they land in one piece, he makes Katsuki say thank you, but he actually half-means it. Rody is smug, until Katsuki offers to shake his hand like foreigners do. Eyebrows at his terrible hairline, Rody shakes back. 

“He’s got you domesticated, man.”

It’s a compliment. 

~

Fresh in their new disguises, Izuku fixes his wig in the back seat of the cab. The privacy window is closed, so Katsuki helps him turn the wig around before slapping a bucket hat back on his head. 

“There. Should get us past the cameras.”

Izuku spits out some of the blonde hair. “Not my color, I don’t think.” 

“No,” Katsuki agrees. “I’d still fuck you, though.” 

“Thanks. Black weirdly suits you.” 

“Don’t.”

They ride in silence. Katsuki is less than enthused about having to creep into his own house. Hopefully the group received their message by now. The success of their plan hinges on it.

Izuku shifts in his seat. He fumbles with his fingers, and rubs at his fourth knuckle. The city rolls by, streetlight after streetlight. 

“What did it look like?”

His mind is elsewhere. “Ehh?”

“The ring.” Izuku twists an imaginary band around his finger. 

His chest gives a little jerk. He hesitates, because it’s fucking embarrassing, but Izuku looks up at him with those eyes, so he caves.

Katsuki takes his finger and points as if a ring is sitting where it should be (and not at the bottom of the ocean). 

“Silver, no stones. Nothing flashy, but it was thick and…” Ugh. “Engraved with the markings from our hero costumes – don’t cry.” 

Izuku bites his wobbly lip. He sniffs. “That sounds beautiful.”

Katsuki rips his hand away and tucks it under his armpit, flustered. “I’ll buy you another one.”

“I’m sorry…it must’ve cost an arm and a leg. I should be the one to –” Izuku stops when he sees the look on his face. It must’ve been a good one, because Izuku sucks on his bottom lip and concedes. “We’ll talk about it later.”

“Mhmm.”

~

Their condo smells unfamiliar, like stale air. He knows it’s because the windows were shut all week, but it still makes him think ew, do we smell like this?

Izuku hits the lights. Their spare key is sitting on the counter, just like they asked.

“Hatsume says her scan didn’t find any bugs or hidden cameras,” Izuku reads from his phone. “We should be okay.”

Katsuki slowly slides off his disguise, but is still cautious. Some stuff looks out of order; a hoodie where he didn’t leave it, books stacked neat that were previously a mess over the coffee table.

“Those shinobi swept the place,” Katsuki mutters. 

Izuku nods. “I figured. They waited for us to leave the country for an extended time, then took their chance to search for the device. Takeda must’ve sent them after us when they couldn’t find it.” Izuku frowns, and sets down his duffel bag. He lowers his voice. “Do you…really know where it is?” 

Katsuki presses his lips together. He looks around, then jerks his chin towards the bedroom, urging him to follow. 

Those shinobi were here too; their room looks immaculate, no dust, despite being unoccupied for a week. It creeps him out. Izuku sits on the bed with a relieved groan, and Katsuki goes rummaging into their walk-in closet. 

“Wherever you hid this drive, it must’ve been really good…for an engineer that is capable of inventing pseudo-quirks, I’m shocked they didn’t find it.” 

“Me too,” Katsuki calls. He grunts as he pulls down an old bin from the top shelf. “I mean fuck, even I forgot about it.” 

He drops the bin to the floor. Izuku gives him a look. 

“Our comic collection?”

“Shut up.” Katsuki sorts through the old comic books, toys, and t-shirts. He finds what he’s looking for; a faded, well used All-Might action figure. It’s the same edition Izuku had growing up. One they fought over as kids. 

He takes the toy, and rips off the torso. 

“Kacchan!” Izuku chastises, then gasps. Katsuki turns over the toy, and dumps out the flash drive. Izuku looks dumbfounded. “Jesus Christ.”

“I used to hide vapes in here,” Katsuki says. “From my mom.” He lifts up the silver flash drive. It’s thin, old, and unassuming. “All that fuss, just for this piece of crap.” Sure as shit, the faded sharpie reads Biosplice on the side. 

Izuku stands, and begins to search for their backup phones. “We need to call the team, tell them to meet at the rendezvous. Hatsume will want to check this over and see if the technology is legit –”

“Izuku.” He stops. Innocent eyes stare patiently, and Katsuki clenches the drive in his palm, leaving square-shaped indents. “If this could give you your quirk back – any quirk, would you do it?”

While the question throws him, it doesn’t come with a lack of an answer. It’s as if Izuku is reflecting within himself – remembering the vestiges that once lived in his soul. “No,” he says. “I gave up One For All with the intention of not getting it back. I accepted this quirkless life, and now I know, you did too.” He smiles, as if to himself, “Whatever’s in there, I don’t need it.”

Pride consumes him. Katsuki grins widely, “Good answer.” He takes that flash drive and explodes it in his palm. Jaw dropped, Izuku stares like he just shot someone. 

“Katsuki Bakugou!!! That’s not what I meant!” 

Ooh, government name. He expected that. He takes the crunchy ashes in his palm, and pours the bits into the empty mug on their nightstand. Izuku clutches into his hair. “You just – that was – what have you done?!! That device could’ve changed history! Could’ve saved countless lives!” 

“Could’ve ended more, too.” Katsuki frowns into the mug. A grey pile of garbage, and nothing more. “Some things are better off not existing at all. I think Renji knew that when he entrusted his research to me.” A sudden ache throbs in his right palm. He looks down at the scar tissue. “He knew I could choose the hard way, for the better good. I’ll shoulder that weight.” 

Eyes wide as saucers, Izuku staggers back. He places a hand across his mouth, and sits again on the edge of the bed. When he lets out a laugh, it sounds wet. “You never cease to amaze me, Kacchan.”

“Oh, so I’m Kacchan again?”

“Getting there,” Izuku teases. He runs a hand through his hair, and settles into this new, sudden reality Katsuki has thrown them into. He calms himself with a deep breath. “Okay. Well. What now?” 

There he is – that’s his ride or die he loves so much. 

Katsuki breaks out in a toothy smile, and lifts the mug. 

“I think we should ‘hand deliver’ Takeda’s nanodevice.” 

Izuku’s eyes flash with interest. Their hero costumes are a siren call from their closet. The thrill bounces between them – the suggestion of a mission. Their favorite flavor, too.

A manhunt.

~

There is no satisfaction that compares to the utter delight of catching a clan of ninjas off-guard. Not that Katsuki has had any previous experiences to compare it with, but the room of shocked faces when he kicks through the door of the dojo is something he will cherish for a long time. 

“Pizza delivery!” 

Shouto and Shinsou move in from behind. Denki takes the side door with Ochaco and their agency's sidekicks. Katsuki crackles his quirk in his palm, and oh, how it feels good to be back in his gear again. Hell breaks loose in the best of ways.

Katsuki pulls the pin on his gauntlet and fires, “Now it’s an even fight, assholes!” 

Like a thousand times before, Izuku sweeps in under the blast. He’s much faster in his tricked-out costume, and now a real threat with his weapon of choice in hand. He pulls the rod from his belt, clicks in the button, and springs out the retractable staff, sweeping two shinobi off their feet and spinning the staff so fast it clotheslines another. 

Katsuki flips a guy over his shoulder. He knocks him out, then takes a moment to really appreciate Izuku’s form. Bum arm and all, Izuku spins that pole around him so fast, it’s a blurred line of deathly metal. The sound of it hitting bone is nasty work. Also, hot. 

Alarms blare through the courtyard. A shinobi throws a smoke bomb, but fool him twice; Katsuki blows it out with a blast (goodbye paper walls). 

A masked woman hops from the upper floors with a whole army behind her, and Katsuki recognizes Ayane immediately. He has neither forgiven nor forgotten the bomb she tied around his Deku’s neck.

She pulls a katana and narrows her pitted dark eyes. “So you have survived death. And you come to bring us the Biosplice, how kind of you.” 

Katsuki pats his pocket performatively. “Come and get it!” 

She readies her sword, and before Katsuki can prepare to fight, Izuku is already shouting hot with fury, “No, back off!! You’re mine!” 

The hair on the back of his neck prickles, and Katsuki dodges a sharp kick from another ninja. Ice slithers up the far wall as Shouto skates through the palace, blasting fire down an opposite hallway. Ochaco just black-widowed some poor kid. 

Metal hits metal as Izuku takes on the squad leader. He’s steaming with an anger that even Katsuki doesn’t want to touch, so he lets him handle it. She dodges, and Izuku uses the wall to spring off and gain leverage with his next swing. Ayane looks cornered, and it brings a big fat smile to Katsuki’s face. 

Not so cocky now, assface. 

“Dude, Takeda is in the main office!” Denki hollers. Shinsou flinches next to him, covering his ear. 

“Ow. Bakugou, we have him cornered, come get ‘em.” 

“On it.” A shinobi poofs from the ground, and Katsuki grabs them by the throat and throws them out the window. He goes to call Deku, but pauses as Ayane’s sword comes flying at him. The blade pings to the floor, and Katsuki follows the flight path to find it was Izuku who knocked it right out of her hand. 

In three quick strikes, he sends Ayane to her back, steps on her arm to pin her down, and whacks into the side of her utility belt. An electronic crack rings through the dojo. 

“No –!” 

Izuku swings his staff back to his side, and it tears off part of her cloak, revealing a square device that sparks at her hip, broken. Izuku smirks at her. “I figured out your clever ‘teleportation’ quirk. No more quick escapes.”

Lord, he is so sexy. It’s a shame he needs to focus.

Katsuki crosses his arms, “Alright, quit playing with your food. C’mon.” 

Izuku nods, and stands off of her. He takes one step, then pauses in his tracks. Ayane springs towards him with her bare hands, but that’s not why he stopped. He grabs her wrist and squeezes. “Kacchan. Is this my ring?”

No shitting way. 

Katsuki crosses the broken tatami floor, and stares at the hand twisting and squirming as she attempts to peel out of his iron grip. Her glove is ripped, and atop a bared finger rests a silver ring engraved with crisscrossing symbols. He has to stop himself from grinning ear to ear. 

“That’s your fucking ring, baby.”

Izuku dislocates her finger, and she screams. He plucks the ring off daintily, gasping as it reflects the light. “Oh my God…it’s beautiful.”

Katsuki smiles, and beckons at him. “Here, let me.” 

Izuku flushes happily as he hands over the ring. He bites off one glove, stuffs it in his back pocket, and holds out a hand so Katsuki can slide it on. Across the dojo, Denki and Ochaco go “Awwww!!” Ayane screeches about her finger. Izuku purses his lips so Katsuki will lean down to peck him. All is right with the world again.

“That is so fucked up,” Shinsou says. 

Ochaco huffs, “I know! It took way too long.” She cups her hands around her mouth to shout, “Good job Bakugou, I knew you had it in you!” 

“Kill yourself!” 

Shinsou blinks. “No, I meant – you know what, never mind. I’m going to secure the courtyard.” 

“And awayyy we go,” Denki sings. He skips to follow him, his boots squeaking on the floor. “When am I getting my ring?”

“Never, I hate you.” 

“Congratulations!” Ochaco cheers, while strangling a man. Katsuki isn’t paying attention to any of the chaos happening around him, because the ring looks so good on Deku’s hand. A brand, a claim, his, his, his – a possessive thrill pumps through his veins. He didn’t think the sight of it on his scarred, stocky, crooked little finger would drive him instantly mad, but it does. He wants to scream, he wants to dig his teeth into Izuku’s neck and thrash him around until it snaps. He needs him. 

Izuku sees the shift on his face, and gently grabs his bicep. “Let’s finish this.” 

It takes effort to tear his eyes away. He nods, putting himself back in work mode. 

“Yeah.” 

They find Takeda frozen to his desk chair. Shouto is browsing the wall of high-tech weapons like he’s shopping for a new pair of shoes. Katsuki decides to ignore him entirely. 

“Hey gramps, I’ve got something for ya.” 

Takeda lifts a thinly shaped brow. “I’ll admit, for two broken heroes, I’m impressed you’re alive.”

Katsuki scoffs. He would never consider himself anything less than fucking perfect, and Deku was once the strongest literally of all time. “Broken my ass. We just chewed up your entire clan like an appetizer. You got a main course, or was that it? Cause your Ayane is going to be eating out of a straw for a while.”

The scientist glares. Shouto accidentally knocks a kunai off the wall and mutters, “Oops.”

Helicopters and sirens wail in the distance. Takeda’s jaw tightens as he realizes he’s been trapped.

“We have something for you,” Izuku says. He urges Katsuki on with a nod – not like he needs any encouragement. Katsuki is all too pleased to pull the baggie out of his pocket, tossing it on the table. Takeda takes in the broken bits and the gathered ashes, and does not flinch. 

“You lie.”

“He does not lie, sir,” a voice says. Katsuki goes oh shit what the fuck – because he missed a ninja frozen to the ceiling. Oh, the one that bruised the back of his scalp. Good, he can stay there.

Takeda’s face slackens. “If you…if you have truly destroyed it, then you are a much bigger fool than I thought. That would have sold for untold fortunes – could have toppled governments, could have changed the modern world!” 

“The only thing you’re changing are those clothes.” Katsuki crosses his arms. “I hope you like orange.”

The chopper shakes the foundation as it lands out in the courtyard. Shouto is ‘ahhing’ and ‘oohing’ at Izuku’s finger. Some of the ice slathered on the ceiling drips onto the furious forehead of Master Takeda. 

As soon as the engine cuts, Hawks can be heard shouting outside. “Alright kids, I want this wrapped up tight and tucked in bed. I’ve got a hot date waiting for me back home, and her name is Bagga Weed.”

“And it’s platinum,” Shouto continues, inspecting Izuku’s hand. “He spent money, that’s good. I told you to say no if it looked cheap.”

Katsuki’s eyes fall to his hand again. That curl of possessiveness rolls down his back once more, and Izuku’s eyes jerk back to him, like he can sense it. The tips of his ears are red. 

Oh. 

Okay.

~

“Not a word,” Katsuki snarls at Ochaco’s smug face. The chopper shifts, and he grips onto the door open handle, bracing his weight against the turn. “I mean it.” 

It’s unfortunate that she’s not afraid of him. “You’re welcome for the advice.”

“Let’s get one thing straight — none of this was your idea.”

“Mhm, are we doing a destination wedding, or what?”

“You’re worse than his mother.”

Ochaco giggles. Her hair flies around wildly from the wind, and she’s unaffected by the helicopter’s sudden jostling. 

“Speaking of, have you told your parents yet?”

Ugh, that’s going to be a whole day. They don’t even know he’s back in town.

Katsuki’s eyes narrow on the passenger seat. Izuku yaps away, waving around that left hand enthusiastically. His body feels hot. Sweat rolls down the back of his suit, and it tingles with the urge to catch flame and explode. Each passing moment spent apart feels like bitter agony. He exhales slowly. 

Patience. 

“I have something I need to do first.”

~

When they return to their condo, it finally feels like home. No cameras, no bombs, and no poorly timed ambushes; Katsuki is free to shove his fiancé up against their bedroom wall and kiss him stupid. Peace at last.

Izuku moans candidly, and loudly. He can feel the relief through his mouth, his lips immediately making room for Katsuki’s tongue. They kiss, break, gasp and kiss again; mouth to mouth, to nose, to tongue. He needs to swallow him, he needs to cut him up and eat him, it will never be enough. 

He fists a hand in the back of Katsuki’s costume and hauls him in, so the sentiment is reciprocated. They didn’t even bother to stop by the agency and change – it was straight home, and for good reason. 

“I need you so bad.” Izuku gasps, dropping his head back as Katsuki’s knee slots between his thighs. The pleasure ripples as he grinds on him. “Oh, please.”

Katsuki kisses his mouth, then his jaw, and the spot where his collar sticks to his skin. He licks, sucks, pulls, puts his hands wherever he can get them. He unlatches his utility belt just as Izuku does the same for him. Both clatter to the floor. 

“God you turn me on, I wish you could’ve seen yourself today.” An idea strikes him. “Actually, you’re gonna see yourself now. Strip and face the mirror.”

Izuku’s ears go pink. Obediently, he undoes all the secret clasps of his hero costume; buckles and zippers and cowls and gloves. Katsuki yanks open a dresser, grabs the lube, and by the time he returns, Izuku is standing naked with his hands against the mirror, watching from over his shoulder. He takes one extra moment to appreciate his body for the millionth time; all the angles and curves of him, the muscles in his back, the dimples in his spine, the flushed nape of his neck, strong legs and sculpted arms. It’s all he can spare before he loses his mind.

Katsuki wets his fingers and sinks right into him. Izuku’s lashes flutter, and he rocks on the balls of his feet, sighing in relief. Katsuki grumbles, “Fucking look at you.” He grabs one fat cheek and pulls him open, watching his pretty hole flutter as he rubs a thumb around him. “You’ve sure done it now – you put that ring on, there’s no taking it back.”

Said ring clicks against the mirror, where Izuku has splayed his palm for balance. Katsuki sweeps a hand up his back, making him bend over more, and Izuku arches like a fucking dream. “I’ve always belonged to you, Kacchan. I’ve just been, oh, w-waiting for you to realize it.”

His throat chokes up. Curling his fingers, he pushes down flat and hard on his prostate, wringing out a winded noise as he struggles to stabilize himself. He feels insane. Muggy, like the world has fogged around him. He can see all the expressive faces Izuku is making in the mirror – and also, unfortunately, his own shitty countenance. He barely recognizes himself; red eyes dilated so wide, it’s like a demon staring right back, judging him for his sins. 

Katsuki struggles to focus. He tries to fuck him with his fingers, tries to make it good for him, but Izuku swings a hand back and catches him forcibly by the wrist, and his desperate expression stops him in his tracks. 

“It’s okay,” Izuku exhales. “The rest we can – later. I just want you in me.”

Fuck. 

Katsuki grabs him by the jaw and kisses him from over his shoulder. Izuku twists halfway to meet him, eagerly giving back; licking and sucking, then moaning as the kiss stretches so long, spit rolls past his chin. The sight of him is obscene. 

With one hand, Katsuki reaches down to free himself. He’s rock hard, dripping wet for him. 

“Ugh, I fucking love you.”

It sounds bitter, and Izuku lets out a short giggle. He purrs when Katsuki flicks his cock teasingly up against his hole, his insides fluttering, as if sensing what’s to come. Izuku makes eye contact with him in the mirror, and flushes as he says, “I’ll be a good wife for you, Kacchan.”

Katsuki’s hips jerk forward, thrusting into him mostly by accident. The shock of it makes him groan, and Izuku drops his head back, gasping as he’s suddenly filled. Oh fuck, oh fuck that’s good.

He slurs, “Yeah baby? You gonna bend over for me whenever I ask, like a good wife?” 

“Oh, yes!” Izuku gasps. He squeezes around him, an absolute vice on his cock. “Like that!”

Izuku’s hands twitch on the mirror, and Katsuki slaps his left over Izuku’s, threading their fingers and squeezing so hard, he can feel the ring indent on the skin between his knuckles. Deku’s pretty cock hangs hard between his legs, all on display in the foggy reflection. Katsuki brings one hand around to support on his stomach, using the leverage to keep him still while he starts to fuck him in earnest. 

Izuku squirms and moans and coos, his poor dick sobbing all the while. He doesn’t dare touch himself, wholly trusting Katsuki to make it good for him, and that realization sets his entire spine on fire. 

Katsuki is now beyond teasing. He needs to carve himself a place inside him, needs to fuck him so hard that they can never split apart. The force of it rattles his bones and aches in his teeth, the slick, lewd sounds getting him off all on their own. Izuku’s face squishes to the mirror, his breath fogging across their threaded fingers, and Katsuki squeezes harder, thrusts faster, and watches Izuku react viscerally, eyes rolling back and pink mouth parted.

He is so beautiful. 

Before he can say it, Izuku’s lashes flutter open. He turns his nose to the mirror to watch Katsuki again – then keenly, shamelessly, he slurs, “So pretty, Kacchan, you are so, so pretty.”

It steals the breath from him. His own expression catches him by surprise again; and fuck, he sure doesn’t see what Deku does – his spiked hair is all sweaty and stuck to his face, that scar still halfway up his cheek, his mouth split and his shoulder bruised from falling off a goddamn cliff.

“Fuck.” 

He would die for this man, a hundred million times – as many as it takes. 

Katsuki slaps his other hand against the mirror, trapping both his palms flat to the glass, and Izuku moans happily as it sinks him deeper. His breath hazes the back of his neck, adding humidity to the damp, curly strands. He mumbles, “Fuck yourself on me.”

Izuku does, immediately. He plants his feet better, wiggles on his cock like he’s testing the fit, then begins to move his hips back, skin slapping hard as Izuku fucks himself on every inch of his length. It feels so good, Katsuki moans shallowly, two sets of hands white-knuckled against that mirror. It might break. He might break. Watching Izuku chase his own pleasure is its own kind of drug, and once again Katsuki’s attention is drawn to the cock bobbing between his creamy thighs, flushed and wet with need. 

“Tell me you love it,” he croaks. 

“I love it,” Izuku cries. His hips push back, rocking in deep, strong circles, all to get more of his cock. “Kacchan is so wonderful, so good to me – everyone wants you, but they can’t have you.” He whines as he finds his prostate and rubs his cock on it, rolling on his toes to chase the hot wash of pleasure. “Mm! Ah!” 

Katsuki slides off his right hand so he can fit his palm around the front of Deku’s throat (where they so very dared to blow him to pieces). He presses his mouth to his ear, sees his own eyes stare back like a wild animal. “Why can’t they have me, baby?” 

“Because – mm!” He’s met on the next thrust, a lewd slap of thigh against ass. Izuku hangs his head and sobs, “Because, you’re inside me! I won, and they lost!” 

The sudden thrum of competitiveness makes him snarl, dragging his jaw around for a sloppy, broken kiss. Izuku is all bite, and Katsuki eats it up. He wants him to fight back – he can take it, for all he’s ever dished out, he yearns for Deku’s anger. Izuku’s right hand slithers out of his grip, and Katsuki lets him go, moaning viscerally when he immediately fists into his pale hair. Sloppy, painful, and a tether straight to his dick. Katsuki realizes with a jerk in his chest that Izuku has grabbed on because he’s about to come. 

“Fuck, I know that’s right, I’m all yours baby – you’re doing so good, you gonna cum like this?” He brings his freed hand to cusp his chest, and he feels his heartbeat rabbit under his fingertips. 

Izuku nods frantically. Two, three more thrusts, and he goes tight inside, squirming and riding back on his cock, one foot stepping back on his own, like he can’t hold himself up. Katsuki keeps him there, and watches with rapt attention as he gets a view of his cock spraying across the mirror, bobbing flushed and untouched. “That’s fucking crazy,” Katsuki blurts. He pets his palm down his chest, and covers his smooth belly to feel him haul in each ragged breath. “Look at the mess you made, couldn’t even wait for me to touch you.” 

He’s shivery with aftershocks. It must be dragging on, because his insides flutter and squeeze around his achy cock, and Katsuki bites down on his molars. The twist of orgasm looms over him, and Katsuki has to take back control of the rhythm, for that reason.

Izuku whines and whines and then sobs, when Katsuki uses his freed hand to fist his softening cock. His body immediately tries to jerk away from him, fleeing from the overstimulation (trying to save itself, poor, feral thing). “Oh, Kacchan please, I – no, no please!” How cute. He fights himself, like he wants more, but can’t. 

“Running away already?” Katsuki kisses his cheek, the ear he can reach, and his temple. “Come on sweetheart, don’t leave me at the altar.”

Izuku moans weakly, like the pet-name ripples through him. They’re both sticky, and it’s so swelteringly hot between them, Katsuki has to force himself not to catch a spark.

When Katsuki shows no signs of giving in, Izuku wails a frantic slur of I can’t, I can’t I can’t – but Katsuki knows he can. Says it right in his ear, chalking the head of his cock to be even more evil, “Don’t give up baby, you can do it, look up – no, look, watch yourself cum again, you’re fucking gorgeous, look how pretty you are.” Izuku opens his eyes, sees himself, and gasps. Green eyes warble, waver, then boil with unshed tears. They lock eyes, and he sees. 

The hand in his hair is bruising where it’s already sore, but he doesn’t give a damn, he’ll anchor himself to the ground if that’s what he needs – and that’s what it’s really about – what Deku needs. 

He sees the tip of his nose buried in Deku’s shoulder. He sees their eyes, no longer human. Izuku feels like he’s going to melt through his hands. Katsuki fucks into him short, and hard. “There he is – the love of my fucking life. Cum for me.”

He jerks the tip of his cock quick and fast and makes him spray the glass with an orgasm that sounds painful. Izuku rips a hoarse sound out of his throat, squeezes his left hand to the mirror, and cuts that ring into their fingers. Somehow, mid orgasm, Izuku manages to beg, “Please, baby please, oh my god, inside, I need you to come, Kaccha-ah—!” Katsuki gasps as he goes wicked tight again, and that’s it for him; his balls clench and his vision whites, and he slams Izuku up against the glass. It shatters in a perfect circle, where their palms are. 

Oops. 

Shuddering, Katsuki chases the orgasm, slamming his hips without rhythm as he rides the wave. Damn near every hair on end, from that one. He edged himself too long, so his body aches with the aftershocks (the world filling in color again, the broken glass chipping under their fingers), except Izuku starts to slip through his arms, and he wakes up fast. 

He catches him, and Izuku cries out just from the brush of his palm against his inner thigh, like the mere thought of touching his cock is agony. It makes him smile. 

“You’re amazing.” 

“That,” Izuku pants, limp in his arms. He’s lowered into his lap, sat safely on the ground. “Almost killed me.”

“Hmm, wonder why it’s called ‘post orgasm torture’.” He receives a pinch to the arm, and smiles.

Tired, spent and sweaty, Izuku lifts his hands to cup his cheeks and kiss him. Katsuki closes his eyes and enjoys the afterglow. He slowly realizes that the throb in his left hand is from the spot between his third and fourth fingers. A drip of blood, and a reddish bruise, where the ring cut into him. That’s impressive. 

It almost looks like he’s wearing one too.

Nice. 

~

Minimal effort is spent on cleanup, because he’s going to have to chuck the mirror no matter what, but he still wipes it down for propriety’s sake. It sucks, because that’s money he wasn’t planning on spending (but it was also totally worth it).

Washed, dried and warm in his pajamas, Izuku watches him from the bed with a fond expression. Katsuki almost trips on one of their suitcases, and Izuku laughs at him. 

“We need to unpack.” He kicks aside the suitcase. Izuku extends his arms. 

“Technically, we have two more days of vacation. Let me hold you.”

He won’t admit that his stomach does a small swoop. Katsuki clears his throat, then throws aside the sheets to crawl into them. Izuku pulls him close immediately, purring as he secures his head under his chin, and for all that Katsuki tries to be tense, the stiffness melts out of him. His scent, his heartbeat, their calves knocking together, fuzzy legs and Deku’s cold fucking toes. 

Izuku immediately has to fiddle with something, so his earring becomes the victim. Katsuki lays there and listens to him breathe. It’s quiet. While the sounds of their apartment are familiar, he’s still unsettled (and pissed) that intruders were here. He’s going to have all the locks replaced, and then some. 

He lets out an anxious breath. Izuku immediately catches it, nails pausing on their monotonous journey up and down his neck.

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.” A ghost-pain stabs through the old scar in his chest. Maybe it’s indigestion. “Are we stopping by headquarters tomorrow?”

“Yes, to speak with Hatsume about the evidence seized on Takeda’s estate. Why, do you want to stay home? I can go.”

“No. I’m going to tell Hawks I want to work part-time.”

Izuku’s hand stills again. “Oh.”

Katsuki swallows. One half of the All-Might toy is still sitting on the dresser, and he struggles to make eye contact with it. 

“I’ll still teach heroics. I just think that homeroom shit is more up your alley. Less classes frees up some time, I could pick up some hero shifts I guess.”

Dull nails scratch up to the peak of his scalp, and his eyes roll back. Izuku says, with all the sappy sincerity he can muster, “I think that’s a wonderful idea.”

“It’ll suck without you,” Katsuki adds. “And twice the work. But, I dunno. I can fight a little longer. Might as well.”

“I’m right here,” Izuku says, and it rips him back to reality. Katsuki sits up to stare with unguarded shock, and Izuku just smiles. “You’re not outrunning me. I’m here with you, no matter what.” He laughs at Katsuki’s expression. “You’ve done it now – there’s no leaving me behind. Might have to cut the ring off if you want it back.”

“You’re gross,” Katsuki says, on the verge of tears. He swallows them back like a horse pill, and reaches up to kiss him tight-lipped. “Love you.” His cute pinkish button-nose is right there, so he bites it. Izuku doesn’t react. 

“Mmm, love you too. You’re going to make the team very happy, there were more than a few kicked puppies when you said you were leaving with me.”

“Tch, that performance was for you. I won’t baby the interns.” 

Izuku pokes him on the forehead. “Oh yes you do, in your own way.” Katsuki folds his arms around him and noses back between his muscled chest, and Izuku holds him there. “Part-time will be good for you, they might call you on night shifts but they’ll need extra help with some of the detective-work, like poor Amini, she always knows where to start but never how to close a case…” He devolves into thoughtful muttering. A walking library of information about every quirk, intern, sidekick and hero he’s ever met, purely because he loves it so much. Katsuki’s chest hurts for him. He interrupts Izuku mid rant.

“Are you really sure you want to retire as a pro? And don’t – don’t give me the I can’t keep up bullcrap, lord knows Hawks would stick you in administration faster than you can spit in his fat mouth.”

He expects a laugh, but it goes quiet again. Izuku sighs under him. 

“Do you think I could sit behind a desk and watch while the rest of my friends risk their lives outside my window? That I could push papers while you continue to do the job I love so much?”

Ouch. Now he feels like an insensitive dickwad.

“Sorry. Didn’t think about that.”

“It’s okay. I want to teach. I think it’ll force me to pour all my energy into something I know I can do. Into something I care about just as much.” Izuku kisses into his damp hair, and the affection flowers heat through his bones like a disease. “I didn’t ‘retire’ just because the hero work was breaking me. I’ve lived on broken bones, Kacchan. I would stand out there and fight until it killed me – hell, I’d walk out there right now and die protecting this city, if I had to.” Katsuki’s entire body tenses with dread, and Izuku soothes him back down. “One day, I realized that I don’t care about me. But I care about you. And so long as you want me around, I need to make sure I’m here to stay.”

Oh.

His stomach clenches into a heavy knot. 

They’ve both been fools. Giving up one vice for another. All these sacrifices just so they can hope to live a long life together. Katsuki’s right arm aches in the most amazing way, a perfect reminder of why he’s here, why he chose to keep all these scars, why he’d follow Deku off a hundred cliffs, as many as it takes. 

“I’m going to marry the fuck out of you,” Katsuki hisses. 

Izuku’s somber exterior melts into a giddy smile. Lopsided, and nerdy – and for an instant, the mature, chiseled features of Izuku’s adult face softens into that of the kid he once knew. The one he pushed around, spat at, bullied (the one he adored so much, admired, crushed on, to pathetic degrees). 

His younger self would be horrified by the man he’s become. But Katsuki buried that kid a long time ago; under street rubble and pouring rain. 

Rest in peace.

~

“You won’t believe the kind of goodies this guy had baking in his evil kitchen,” Hatsume says, scrolling past data too fast for any normal human to keep up with. “Holographic fabricators, massive genetic sequencers, I kinda’ feel put to shame, granted he had a fifty-year head start but I am so stealing all this research.”

“Hawks said it’s yours,” Izuku nods. He leans up against Hatsume’s desk, and by the way his eyes move, Katsuki can tell he’s keeping pace with her. “What I want to know is, if Takeda’s own research was so advanced, why did he need the work of a colleague?”

Hatsume adjusts her goggles with one hand, and types in a passcode with another. She ranks high on the list of people that Katsuki has minimal patience for, but her usefulness long outranks her eccentric personality. 

“I thought the same thing – but then I found hundreds of blank schematics, massive troves of data with parts scraped out of it – the kind of shit you see when two partners split and one gets the house while the other takes the kids.”

Ochaco spins around on one of the rolling chairs, putting out a foot to stop herself. “Woah. You think he was in bed with Renji?”

“In the physical way, not my business, but theoretically it would make sense as to how Takeda knew what Renji was researching. None of their work is logged in any official Association databases, this was all under the table.” Hatsume pulls up a myriad of files that still mean little to Katsuki, but he can make out the 3D rendering of a human body. Barely, human. Mei gestures, “Takeda had big plans for this nanotech, and I mean, the whole world-ending kind. He would’ve turned that entire clan into walking weapons.”

Katsuki shares a look with Izuku, then Ochaco. She looks like she knows more than she’s letting on.

“And I assume the shinobi were just paid arms to do his dirty work?”

“I looked through the bank statements they seized.” Ochaco curls a lock of mousey hair behind one ear. “He had money, yes, but none of it was going towards any kind of salary. I think they shared similar views on hero society. Each one of them was quirkless, Takeda included. They felt slighted by the hand life had dealt them.” She tries not to look at Izuku, but fails. “It created a bitterness that united them together.”

Sounds a little too familiar. 

Izuku looks away. Katsuki squeezes one hand into a fist. He’s about to put a forceful end to this conversation when the door comes flying open with breakneck speed. The commotion scares the shit out of the other support heroes working in the lab. 

“I want to see the RING!!” Mina shouts. Momo hip-checks her out of the door. 

“Midoriya, I heard the good news! Congratulations!!” 

Iida’s scandalized voice follows, “I can’t believe you shut the elevator on me.”

“Show me, show me, show me!” 

Izuku and Ochaco share a look, then start to laugh. He glances at Katsuki for permission, and he waves him off. Better for Deku to deal with that crap. Ochaco reads the impatience on his face, and stands as well, circling an arm through Izuku’s.

“I’ll bring him back.”

“In one piece, preferably.” 

Chatter flows down the hall as Ochaco ushers them out of the lab, and Katsuki crosses his arms, continuing to watch Hatsume work. 

“A shame you blew up the flashdrive,” Hatsume says, typing. “By the gaps in this data, it would’ve been some real big stuff for support techs and heroes alike. Honestly, I’m tempted to look into this nanotech idea.” Katsuki tenses, and Hatsume grins toothily. “But I get it. Us tinkerers have a hard time knowing when to stop. Sometimes enough is enough.” 

“It’s like I don’t even know you anymore.” 

“Heh, trust me, I’ll find a way around this blackwall sooner or later, but maybe these weapon-plans can fall into a dark hole with a lock and key.” She suddenly turns around, and her grave expression makes him freeze. “You know, there’s no way you were given the only copy of the Biosplice. Someone capable of such groundbreaking research would definitely have a failsafe somewhere.”

Katsuki frowns. He looks out to the hallway, and he can see Izuku smiling through the window. His mouth moves soundlessly, flinching and laughing as hands reach out to pat across his head. Some things never change. 

“I know. But if that old bastard and his ninja brigade couldn’t find it, then I know that weapon is hidden well enough for me to sleep at night.” 

“To be fair, they couldn’t find your copy, and it was shoved inside an action figure.”

“Obviously it was a really fucking good hiding place.”

~

Izuku is quiet over dinner. Katsuki doesn’t ask what’s wrong, because he knows he’ll tell him. 

“Do you think,” he starts, right on time, “In another life, Takeda could’ve been…me?”

Katsuki is not impressed with the question. He sets down his chopsticks so he can glare at full capacity. “There is no universe where you become that bitter and self-centered, because it would’ve happened by now. That would change who you fundamentally are, and I hate hypothetical questions.” 

A weight seems to lift off his shoulders. Izuku slouches down in the dining chair.

“Thanks.” 

“Don’t ask me that again.”

“Okay.”

“I love you.” 

“I know.”

~

Eijirou’s smile lights up the whole room.

“Hey, dude! Good to have you back!” He throws out a hand, and Katsuki clutches it, letting Eijirou drag him in and clap him on the shoulder. He smells like sweat and asphalt, just clocked off a hero shift. “I knew you had a few years left in ya.”

“It’s just part time,” says Katsuki, attempting indifference. When he tries to pull back, Eijirou grabs at his hand a little tighter, earning his attention. 

“Um, I didn’t get the chance to talk to you, y’know, after all this ninja drama – but I think I fucked up majorly on that phone call. Sorry if I put you in a tough spot with Midoriya.”

Katsuki breaks out in a wicked grin. This time, he’s the one that drags Eijirou back in, clasping his shoulder to bring him close – and it puts the fear of God in Eijirou’s eyes. 

“Don’t worry. You fucked it up just the right amount.”

Katsuki pulls away to continue prepping his gear, and Eijirou stands there with his hand hovering awkwardly in the air. His voice gets small. “I’m so scared right now.” 

Setting the pin in his mouth, he cleans out the grenade chamber with a cotton swab. 

“Why? You only outed a decade-old secret, and now I’m engaged.”

“Mina,” Eijirou calls tentatively, towards the hall. “I need an adult.”

Katsuki turns to smile at him again, “Actually, I should be thanking you.”

With increased urgency, “Mina! Help please now!” 

“Come here.”

Eijirou runs like hell, and Katsuki waits until the door slams to resume putting his gauntlets back together. Shinsou, who lives by the phrase ‘seen and not heard’, speaks up from the corner of the mudroom. 

“Did he deserve that?”

“Yes.”

“Nice.”

He gets partway through reassembling the left glove, when his phone lights up on the bench. He scowls, checks the ID, and relaxes immediately. His attention flickers to Shinsou, and he makes the quick decision that whatever it is Deku has to say, Shinsou probably won’t give enough fucks to remember it. He answers, holds it up to his good ear and says,

“Hey baby.”

Across the room, Shinsou’s mouth twitches, but otherwise continues to dig around in his locker. 

“Hi Kacchan. Is this a bad time?” 

“Nah. You forget something at home?” 

“No, no. I wanted to see if you had your schedule yet so we can go shop for venues this weekend.”

A smile cracks across his face. He rubs his palm over it, so he won't get caught looking soft. “We don’t even have a date set yet.” 

“I know, but the girls told me the venues always book out years in advance and I don’t want to wait that long, Kacchan, please don’t make me –”

His stomach flutters with butterflies. It’s a struggle to involve Deku in any planning process that doesn’t revolve around his special interests, so to hear him so eager is a surreal, out of body experience. 

“Calm down,” Katsuki soothes. “I’d marry you in a fucking ditch if I had to. Let me finish up here, and we can talk about it at home.” 

He can hear the shallow breath that Izuku exhales, before his voice becomes softer. “Okay. Okay. I should be back around five.” 

It’s weird, this new phase of their life. But the days spent apart make him that much more eager to see him again. 

“I’ll see you then.” 

They echo their goodbye, love yous, and then Katsuki hangs up again, looking for his damn screwdriver. Shinsou’s low voice makes him jump. 

“You know you’re going to have to lock Yaomomo in a steel box if you want to stop her from planning your entire wedding for you.” 

“You’re still here?” He grumbles, settling back down, “And I know. Pretty sure she and Uraraka are in cahoots already.” 

“Your friends waited a long fuckin’ time for this,” Shinsou says, slamming his locker. “Should’ve made them wait longer, now you’re giving Denki ideas.”

Katsuki can’t cast the first stone, because he’s a fucking sinner, so he says, “That idiot loves you.” 

“Ugh.”

Katsuki looks down at his phone as it lights up again; a series of messages come in from his own idiot. He’s talking about cake. Katsuki taps his phone against his bottom lip, and hides the grin there. 

His life begins all over again.

~

The clouds cast shadows as they slide across the sun, giving short moments of reprieve from the blaze that heats the sand. Katsuki has his feet buried in it, warm all the way down to his fingertips, music blasting through one earbud, so loud that Izuku tells him to turn it down. 

Katsuki rolls his head over on the blanket, and looks up at him. He carried the chair out for himself, but gave it to Izuku when he saw him struggling to keep sand out of his lunch (that Katsuki also packed for himself, but whatever). A blob of sunscreen is smothered on his nose, he has tan lines from his swimsuit, and he’s cute as fuck.

Izuku reaches over to feed him a chip, and Katsuki takes it with his teeth, since his hands are sandy. “Do you think we’re testing fate?” 

He chews, swallows.

“All the time, whatchu’ mean?”

“Attempting a beach destination for our honeymoon,” Izuku explains. “Since our last one went so perfectly.” He offers another chip.

“Mh, different beach. Doesn’t count.” He lays back on his makeshift pillow, and breathes in a deep perfume of sea salt and sunscreen. “Besides, fate knows better than to fuck this up for me. I can, and will, go off the deep end, I’m not afraid to bring everyone else down with me.” 

Izuku laughs, digging around in the bottom of the chip bag, then eventually shaking it into his mouth. He chews, “I brought up the idea of a ski resort, but you –”

“I hate the cold.” 

“ –hate the cold, exactly.”

“I’m not going to let the last memory of our beach vacation be tainted by a bunch of shitty ninjas,” Katsuki huffs. 

Izuku smiles, and it gives him this glow. Hero, teacher, husband, best friend. He’s everything. “No, you’re right. We have lost time to make up for.”

Katsuki turns his hand over, and watches his wedding band glint in the sun. Honestly, he’s still feeling hungover from the reception, and that was over a week ago. He planned for a quiet, simple backyard wedding, and their friends heard ‘party of the century’. Sure it turned out fine, but neither of them have been able to stomach any liquor since. He’s worried he might never drink again. 

Katsuki sits up, shades his face from the sun, and looks out on the sparkling ocean. The waves are gentle in this cove, and more families splash around in the water. He pokes Izuku’s sandy ankle for his attention. “Wanna swim?”

Izuku skeptically looks to the water, and back. He says, with no intent of moving, “Race you?” 

Katsuki scoops him up and over his shoulder. “Nice try, but that won’t work a second time.”

Izuku laughs and complains at the same time, wriggling and kicking, but not trying too hard to get free. “Noo, unhand me! I just dried off!” 

He grins, stalking towards the water, feeling like he ransacked a village and stole their prized virgin. “Come now, husband, did you not agree to sickness and health? To death do us part?” 

“None of my vows agreed to swimming with sharks.”

“They’re fuckin’ harmless, I bite more than anything in that water.” 

Izuku gasps as he wades into the cold water, and reaches down to slap him on the ass. “Oh, well, maybe I should’ve married the sharks.” 

Katsuki dunks him under the surface (and for a moment, the rushing waves reminds him of a tall cliffside, of blood around his wrists and the sound of a bomb plunging under the surface), but Izuku rises with a laugh and sweeps his feet out from under him, and then – that terrible memory erodes into the best parts. Of Izuku crawling in his lap, kissing him, and saying yes. 

Caught in the swirl of a wave, a little green bottle washes up on the shore. It’s tossed, rolled, sucked by the tide, then caught in the sand. Its contents are untouched by the sea, perfectly preserved in an air-tight tomb. 

Feet step around it, none the wiser. 

And the bottle rests there, soaking in the warmth of sun, before the ocean calls it back to sea. 

~