Chapter Text
Katsuki almost jumps out of his skin when Izuku hugs him from behind. One second he’s standing in the kitchen alone, and in the next second Izuku is there, dropping his chin onto Katsuki's shoulder and tightening his arms around his waist. “What are you making?” he asks, close to Katsuki's ear.
His ear that’s now flushed red and radiating heat.
“It’s a strawberry syrup,” Katsuki answers, hoarse and a second or two late. “For waffles.” The relationship label is new and they’ve barely been living together for two weeks—part of him feels the need to impress Izuku with domestic things like this.
“Can I try some?” Izuku’s voice is low but eager, breath warm, and his chest is warm too where he’s pressing against Katsuki's back.
“Yeah,” he mutters, spooning some out and holding it up for Izuku to take. The spoon hovers in the air for a few long seconds, a foot in front of Katsuki, then he shakes it to prompt Izuku into moving his hands. He was the one who asked to taste it—
Izuku turns his head and muffles a sudden, amused laugh into Katsuki's neck. It tickles, and Katsuki curls in, his shoulders rising. He gets it now, and his face must be as red as the strawberries.
“Feed it to me, Kacchan,” Izuku says anyways, and his laughter trails into a happy little hum. He squeezes Katsuki's waist harder.
“Shut up,” Katsuki mumbles, defensive. “How was I supposed to know you…” He jabs the spoon over his shoulder in the direction of Izuku’s face, and one scarred, freckled hand finally moves to curl around his wrist. Still chuckling, Izuku guides Katsuki's hand with the spoon to his mouth.
He makes a sound, almost—almost a fucking moan, at the taste. “Mm. Delicious, Kacchan.”
Katsuki ignores the thud of his own heart and huffs, too flustered to make eye contact or return the flirting. “Course it is, I made it.”
Izuku is still holding his wrist, fingers stretching delicately across the back of his hand. Katsuki is frozen as he turns it to kiss the inside of his wrist. Izuku guides it down to set the spoon on the counter, and he’s tilting his head to lay a soft kiss to the side of Katsuki’s neck.
Katsuki is still, careful, trying to feel out the situation. Izuku is slow with things like this, always telegraphing his movements. On some unconscious level, it helps that he’s on Katsuki's good side, closer to the eye that still has full sight. Izuku turns him; nudges Katsuki until he gets the hint and they come face to face.
He feels…closed in. His back to the kitchen counter and another body right in front of him. Izuku draws him into a kiss like it’s easier than breathing. Katsuki can taste a little of the fruity syrup on his lips, and he tries to match Izuku as their lips part and the kiss deepens.
He’s gotten better, and they’ve been taking things slow. Really slow, because Katsuki is loath to admit it, but this sets him on edge. He’s out of his depth, out of control, unsure what he’s supposed to do. There aren’t many areas of his life where he feels that way, but this is one.
There also aren’t many areas these days where he feels like he’s behind Izuku—like he’s far ahead and Katsuki's struggling to get his bearings and catch up. It reminds him of that crushing feeling he had for years, that Izuku was sprinting towards being the best, and Katsuki fell a step farther behind him every mile, watching his back. He knows Izuku wouldn’t want him to feel that way.
It’s love, intimacy—a relationship. It’s not a race or a competition. Katsuki has to repeat it to himself in his head sometimes.
He’s figuring out what to do with his hands, one on Izuku’s neck, and one on his shoulder, when one of Izuku’s slides down to the small of his back, and then lower, warm through his sweatpants. The breath shudders out of his lungs, and he holds himself carefully still aside from his lips, before he relaxes into it.
They can keep kissing, this is really nothing, just a hand on his ass. Katsuki has always found it important to push himself out of his comfort zone, and has also always found that with enough repetition, once-difficult things become easy.
Izuku, encouraged, gives a little squeeze to his waist with the other hand and then moves that one too. He kisses Katsuki deeper, and when he gets both hands on Katsuki's ass, he pulls him forward so their hips press together. Teeth nip at his lower lip, prompt him into reciprocating, and Izuku grinds against him.
This—fuck, this is too much—
Katsuki breaks away, panting, hands flat on Izuku’s chest to get some distance. “I’m not…not yet.” He flounders, breathless, and Izuku releases and slides his hands back up to Katsuki’s waist. “Not ready yet.”
Izuku lands one more light peck on his lips. “That’s alright,” he says, then sighs a dreamy sound that melts into a giggle. His eyes close when he smiles, freckled cheeks lifting. “I love kissing you, Kacchan.”
Just when the poor blood vessels in Katsuki's face thought they could catch a break.
“Your mouth is so soft,” Izuku says. “And it’s cute when you use your teeth. Like a kitten.”
“Ugh.” Katsuki wants to give a better response than calling Izuku a weirdo, but nothing comes to him. He shakes his head to clear it, and goes back to his strawberry syrup, prodding Izuku away with his elbow.
—
Katsuki couldn’t see out of his right eye anymore. It was still there—the eye—but it didn’t work right. His cornea was all cloudy, like a film rested over it and blurred out his vision to nothing. With his good eye he could see the color of it in the mirror, a milky reddish-pink. It clashed a little bit with the crimson red of his good eye, but it matched the mottled pink skin of the scar that stretched over most of the right side of his face and up into his hairline. That was fucked up too now, a jagged edge above his temple where the hair wouldn’t grow back anymore.
Katsuki was lucky. He could make out vague blurs of light, flashes of movement. It was enough. And the scarring wasn’t as bad as it could have been, thanks in large part to quirk-assisted healing. No eyelashes grew there and his eyebrow was sparse and patchy, but his eyelid made it. He could still blink and all that shit. And the skin wasn’t tender and shiny like the first few weeks of healing. He was beginning to settle into his skin.
The scars on his chest were pretty bad, but he already had plenty of those before, and these wouldn’t be the last. They didn’t bother him much.
The missing arm bothered him.
Not really bothered. It tormented him. A whole lot at first, when he was trying to learn how to get by without it after the battle. Katsuki was crushed.
He cried so hard he couldn’t breathe when he woke up in the hospital with his mom at his bedside. The confusion of voices and the feeling of something on his face, over his nose and mouth, the IV and the tubes and wires restricting his movement. His mom’s hand baby-soft on his forehead, stroking his hair, shushing him while nurses did fuck knows what.
His dad and Izuku and Auntie Inko crowding into the room. And Katsuki, struggling his way through his drug-addled haze to lift his arms; reaching out and realizing that there was nothing to reach out with but a few inches of mangled tissue where his arm used to meet his shoulder.
He didn’t remember another time he’d been that upset. That day—coming into the realization that he’d lost half his sight and half his quirk in one go. That he was lucky to even wake up in the first place, because it had taken the speed and abilities of more than a dozen people to save his heart.
Maybe he’d been in that much pain after Kamino? After his uselessness and shame and bitterness. Ending All Might’s career, and all of his wild anguish over it.
He still thought waking up in the hospital after the final battle was worse. Because after Kamino, Katsuki himself still had his dreams. He still believed he could be a hero. But—
Katsuki never imagined he would be one to take it so hard. Months before, if he heard about the state he’d be in, he probably would have talked a lot of shit about how nothing that stupid could hold him back. It was heroic—losing pieces of himself taking down pretty much the worst villain of all time. That was fucking cool. He would already be a hero after that and he definitely wouldn’t stop there.
But thinking like that in the face of it all was easier said than done.
They couldn’t save his arm, and the scarring would be severe in several places, and he’d probably deal with recurring bouts of pain forever. Not to mention his declining hearing, because nobody had put together that his quirk was bad for his ears and maybe he wasn’t yelling all the goddamn time on purpose, until the doctors were doing a full-body physical.
He had a temper tantrum in the hospital that was embarrassing to even think about later, and the following week his parents scheduled an appointment with an audiologist so he could get fitted for hearing aids.
Even then, it was weeks before he could do tasks as simple as showering alone. And without his right arm, Katsuki’s explosive power was cut in half. He wouldn’t be able to propel himself anymore, maneuver midair. It wouldn’t even be possible to hold himself steady in the air while he fired with his good arm. Not to mention that every single one of his signature attacks used both hands in conjunction.
He was close to useless. It was the first time in his living memory Katsuki had to consider that he might not end up as a pro hero.
—
Living with Izuku is so different from living with his parents or his classmates.
There’s something in it that unwinds his tension, lifts a subtle weight off his shoulders. Izuku works full-time as a sidekick—overtime most weeks—and it leaves Katsuki with more alone time than he’s accustomed to. He has exercises from his PT that he has to do four times a day on top of the others from an occupational therapist contracted through UA. He takes care of the errands and most of the housework, and he goes to therapy—only weekly because he’s been doing better than he used to. So he stays occupied. But he gets peace and solitude in a way that doesn't feel lonely, because he knows Izuku will be back at the end of the day.
And now Katsuki can cry when he wants to without anyone shuffling around in the hall outside his room, wondering if they should knock and check on him. He can cook meals with just the sound of his thoughts and whatever music he wants to play. He can just exist there—no one breathing down his neck, trying to engage with him.
Time to himself was always a relief for Katsuki, but now it also makes him appreciate it more when Izuku is home. Home. Their home. Their one-bedroom fourth-floor apartment with their hand-me-down sofa from a friend of a friend, their mishmash of plates, their queen-sized mattress.
That sleeping arrangement is both a blessing and a curse.
Katsuki knows Izuku gets nightmares—he gets them too. But not like Izuku. Where he’ll wake up in a panic and have to call Katsuki in the middle of the goddamn night to listen to him breathing until the adrenaline evaporates.
This way, he only has to wake and turn onto his side, reach out far enough to bridge the small gap. If he’s not awake already, Katsuki always rouses at the feeling of Izuku’s trembling hand pressed flat to his chest over the thud of his heart.
The bed is difficult, too, though. Katsuki has never shared one before. Being so close to someone all night, in touching and cuddling range, all while he’s sleeping and he doesn’t know how he might move or if he’s gonna talk in his sleep—that’s intimate. And nervewracking.
And he doesn’t sleep well sometimes with the phantom pains and the ache of trying to get used to his prosthetic. It leaves his shoulder sore and the skin irritated where it connects, even when the arm is off. He hates tossing and turning when Izuku is right there next to him and sure to be bothered by the movement and noise.
Three weeks into living together, sharing space while they sleep, Izuku wakes up groggy and confused at Katsuki’s restlessness. “Hurts, Kacchan?” he mumbles, one hand groping across the bed. Katsuki swallows hard. He can’t say anything.
He doesn’t need to, because Izuku sighs and fumbles closer, gets his hands around Katsuki’s waist and pulls. He wraps himself around him and pins him in place with his heavy legs and grabby arms and the sweltering heat of his body.
Chest to back, legs all twisted up under the blanket, Izuku’s face pressed to the back of his neck, Katsuki lets himself cry. Izuku is heavy-limbed and almost unconscious, but he pulls Katsuki even tighter to him when he sniffles. He must know what’s happening, but he doesn’t address it. Katsuki doesn’t wipe his face, just lets the saltwater drip onto the pillow and dry on his skin.
He’s never been held like this before.
He can feel and hear when Izuku slips back into unconsciousness.
Izuku has been ready for years—he said as much when he confessed his feelings to Katsuki just a few weeks ago, after months of steadfast companionship early in Katsuki’s recovery process. Ready to be with him and shower him with adoring gestures, and just—to function in the context of a romantic relationship. He spent half his life daydreaming about it. Maybe for Izuku this all came easily—a quick lateral frameshift in the way he saw their relationship.
That confession took Katsuki's entire framework and turned it upside down and shook all the loose change out of it and he’s still trying to regain his sense of balance. He never let himself imagine them together in such vivid color, and he feels almost paralyzed now that they are.
Izuku’s breath is warm at the back of his neck, his arm heavy and slack over Katsuki’s waist, and Katsuki holds himself still. He doesn’t want to move and disturb him again.
Katsuki has impulses, of course, now that they’re a couple. To grab Izuku’s hand or touch his hair or kiss his cheek. And he’s allowed to act on his impulses, he knows he is.
Sometimes it feels like his heart is going to smash right through his ribcage if he does, though. If he actually leans in and kisses Izuku, he’s going to go hot and cold all over and pass out from his heart rate spiking too quickly.
It tries to pick up now, when Izuku’s foot shifts against Katsuki’s leg and he’s reminded of how close they’re pressed together. Izuku is warm, though—the kind of warmth that makes Katsuki’s eyes get heavy enough to ignore the throb of his shoulder. He falls asleep again after what feels like an eternity but must be only minutes.
—
He struggled a lot even after he was cleared and discharged from the hospital. Depression, everyone told his parents. That was why he couldn’t get out of bed. Why he could barely get the few supplemental assignments and forms done for class A’s accelerated graduation track in the month following the fight. Couldn’t function much aside from fulfilling the most basic of his needs. He wouldn’t have even done that if he didn’t still live at home and have parents who forced him up and around.
Izuku—still in the friend category at that point—spent a lot of time with him, though it must have been boring. And irritating. But he never showed it. Maybe it wasn’t boring to him.
He came to their house after his sidekick shifts to sit in Katsuki’s room and just talk to him. About hero stuff that Katsuki tuned out because it hurt too bad, and about their friends and his mom and what he ate for lunch, and messages other people gave him to pass along to Katsuki.
He was always lingering in Katsuki’s life, ever-present and steady. Even as he was healing himself and starting his own career. As he joined an agency and worked patrols and made rescues and captures and climbed in popularity after his heroics during the war.
As Katsuki did stretches in his PT appointments and learned to brush his teeth with his left hand.
He felt far too old for his age. Pathetic, because he was the one who was supposed to save people. Patched up, but not the same. And his fucking arm stump hurt. And his face hurt, and his eye, and his chest, and everything hurt all the time and he wasn’t a wimp but he was tired of it.
Being in pain at every moment of the day was exhausting.
Katsuki was too upset to talk about anything for a while. Months. Izuku tried. Katsuki’s dad tried a lot too—tried to get Katsuki to open up, tried to comfort him, tell him that things would get better, and that he didn’t know what the future would hold. That he wasn’t the kind of person to let this hold him back, and that whatever he decided to do, the people who loved him would support him.
It just made Katsuki cry, and that made him ashamed, and he projected it out as anger because that was comfortable. Making his dad upset was even more shameful. Katsuki had never been able to accept his parents’ help, and fuck, he hated that. At his lowest, when it was so clear to everyone that he wasn’t okay, he still couldn’t get himself to be kind to his father, who had always been so kind to Katsuki.
Eijirou spent time with him, too. Came by his parents’ place sometimes to sit in Katsuki’s room with him and play videogames. He would grin and insist on using the controller one-handed, too, because it’s only fair, bro! It made Katsuki scowl every time until it became normal for them.
Eijirou made him go outside too, spouting a bunch of stuff about how the sunlight is key, and you gotta have your wrists—I mean, your wrist—exposed because that’s where the vitamin D absorbs the fastest! They couldn’t do real hiking, because Katsuki’s right lung was still pretty fucked up and he needed an inhaler to even go for a walk. But they went walking in the park a few blocks away and bought snacks at the convenience store and it forced Katsuki out of bed and into real clothes and put a flush in his skin from a form of exertion that wasn’t at that goddamned physical therapy practice.
He had to start going to other therapy, too. The mental kind—he already spent way too much time talking to his physical therapist in those days than he cared to. And he had so much anger and disappointment and hopelessness built up even before the trauma of the war. Unaddressed and then compounded by everything he went through in battle.
His mom made him go, and Katsuki threw another fucking tantrum—yelling at her, at his dad, more pitchy and desperate with every word until his voice was cracking and he broke down into messy sobs and the two of them folded around him from either side and kept him together. Because his dad couldn’t see him like this anymore—couldn’t stand to watch him be so sad.
He let them hug him for a while, finally. The thing they’d both been wanting to do since he’d been discharged from the hospital and they drove him home. Katsuki forgot that his dad was still taller and broader than him, until he was pressing Katsuki into his chest with unexpected strength. He thought about the way his parents both stayed at the hospital in shifts to keep him company at visiting hours, the lectures his mom gave him about safety and self-preservation even while she stroked his hair away from his bad eye, the times that his dad would put his hand on Katsuki’s shoulder and try to smile.
He was crying at that moment, just like Katsuki and Mitsuki. Katsuki accepted the embrace—accepted his mom smoothing his hair back and kissing his forehead—and he accepted the appointment they set up for him with a counselor.
The person he got referred to was certified in cognitive behavioral therapy, with a specialty in both trauma and grief counseling. Katsuki stared back and forth between the business card and his arm stump, and laughed.
—
It’s the time of year when night falls early and makes it feel later than it is. They start their movie night just after dinner, so there’s still time left in the evening when the credits roll. Izuku is warm pressed against Katsuki’s side. The credit music swells and fades, and still neither of them moves.
“Not quite as good as the first movie, or the second or the fifth,” Izuku murmurs. “But it’s my fourth favorite. The flashback sequences to All Might’s past set it apart.”
“My fifth favorite,” Katsuki says. “The first silver age movie is also better.”
Izuku’s eyebrows furrow, and he opens his mouth to argue, then closes and twists it in thought. “It would have been, if it wasn’t for the one scene—you know which one I’m talking about. It’s so unrealistic!”
“Yeah, but it’s good for the film, it’s exciting.”
Izuku chews his lip and doesn’t disagree with him out loud. Katsuki’s about to goad him into it, when Izuku yawns. He worked a long shift today, left the house early. He must be tired.
He yawns again, and it makes Katsuki do the same. And then, slow and easy, Izuku makes room, scoots closer to the arm so he can lie down on his side. He puts his head on Katsuki’s lap. Uses his right thigh as a pillow, and sighs when he settles in, arms curled and tucked up in front of him, his legs scrunching in.
Katsuki is suddenly aware of his own breathing, of every micro-movement he makes. Izuku lies there, seeming at ease, but Katsuki knows he must be nervous too. He’s too still—they both are.
Katsuki wants to touch. He’s not sure how to in practice. And sure, Izuku’s never been in a relationship either, technically, unless you count whatever kind of weird schoolkid dating and fumbling around he did with Uraraka at UA. But he always makes it seem natural—showing affection, saying things up front, being tactile. And Katsuki wants it to be natural for him too, because he likes it. With Izuku, he likes it.
And he’s so cute, curled up like this, using Katsuki as a pillow, and the darkness of the room gives Katsuki courage. He raises one hand, hovering in the air. Izuku’s eyes are closed, so he can’t see what Katsuki’s doing, and it means there’s no rush. But he makes himself lower his hand to Izuku’s head now, because if he allows himself to procrastinate for a second longer he’ll chicken out. He relaxes his hand as it descends, and runs it over the softness of Izuku’s hair.
Sometimes Katsuki feels like a little kid who’s still learning to be gentle with his hands.
He goes slow. Things are easier if he gives himself plenty of time to figure them out, and Izuku doesn’t appear to be going anywhere anytime soon. Katsuki tries combing his hand through the green curls, pulling them nearly taught and then letting them bounce back into place. He nestles his hand in there, metal palm molded to the shape of Izuku’s skull and slowly warming to body temperature with the contact. His fingers scrunch closed so the tips of them drag across Izuku’s scalp. Izuku sighs, and after a long minute of easy repetition, he opens his eyes.
There’s a sleepy warmth there that is becoming familiar.
“Hi.” Izuku smiles, then keeps smiling even as his eyes slide closed again. “Feels nice.”
Katsuki swallows words he doesn’t know how to string together, and nudges Izuku’s head so he can get to the other side, smooth a stray curl away from his temple and pet it back into place. He watches Izuku’s hair recoil as it slips through the gaps in his fingers.
They go to sleep that night curled together. Katsuki wakes up from a hazy dream that he can’t quite grasp, and Izuku is holding him.
The next night, Katsuki hugs Izuku’s fluffy head tight in the crook of his arm, mashes him right into his chest and keeps him there until they both drift off, and when Izuku twitches and gasps awake, he doesn’t even have to move to check Katsuki’s heartbeat.
—
The psychologist’s office was a forty-five minute trip one way if there wasn’t traffic, so it was a whole half-day expedition for Katsuki’s one hour time slot, twice a week, every week. Apparently Dr. Kawamura was good at her job, though—supposed to be worth the trip and the expense. Katsuki’s mom drove him on Tuesday mornings, and his dad on Fridays.
He pretended not to notice the classical conditioning bullshit they were trying to pull, stopping by the coffee shop and buying him a drink after every time. He liked the routine, though. It reminded him of when he was a kid and his dad would walk him to the convenience store every other Saturday afternoon, let him pick out some cheap, breakable toy that he’d be ecstatic about for the rest of the day.
He felt awkward walking in there looking like a teenager and a beat-up veteran at the same time. He was. Still with bandages around his eye and what was left of his shoulder, healing cuts and burns on his skin. But the receptionist didn’t bat an eye, and Katsuki realized after the first few sessions that Dr. Kawamura saw a lot of fucked up people in her day-to-day.
Two months of fucking therapy and a low dose SSRI, and before Katsuki entirely realized it himself, he was feeling different. Better. Not good, but better.
And then there was that day, almost four months after the conclusion of that decisive battle, when Katsuki’s mom had a Tuesday morning meeting she couldn’t skip. She dropped him off outside the practice’s office building as always, and said she’d worked out someone to give him a ride home.
That someone was Aizawa.
Katsuki hadn’t seen him in person since he’d gotten out of the hospital. He wasn’t an unwelcome sight. Aizawa took him straight home, and Katsuki was grateful. The appointments were tiring sometimes, and feeling like he needed to make conversation afterward was another mental strain. Aizawa walked Katsuki up the stairs and inside, and ignored how labored his breathing got by the time they reached the third floor.
Then he sat Katsuki down on the couch, kicked his fake ass leg up on the coffee table, and told him that losing a limb was bullshit, and it was bullshit that he could and would get used to. And, that a support-item startup some former students had founded recently contacted him; they wanted to design a specialized prosthetic for Katsuki. One that he was gonna really like, that would be way cooler than Aizawa’s basic shit.
He handed Katsuki a tissue without speaking about his watering eyes, gave his shoulder a firm pat, and left after making him promise to call later once he had time to think on it.
Katsuki wasn’t sure what Aizawa meant by any of that—what the support-item designers meant by it either. Something cool, that he would like. For what? Folding laundry and cooking dinner? The only reason for a hero support startup to be involved is if they thought their prosthetic was feasible for hero work.
It gave him pause. Enough pause that he didn’t contact Aizawa for a while.
Katsuki talked to All Might, too, finally. There weren’t a lot of people who could understand Katsuki. Even All Might couldn’t in full—he’d lived his prime, he’d done those things before he got older and couldn’t anymore—Katsuki’s prime was stripped from his grasping fingertips right as he’d reached it. But All Might got it more than most people did.
It was fucked up, because Katsuki had been the one to take so much from him, but here he was still comforting Katsuki. He knew now that it wasn’t all his fault—he knew that—but sometimes when he was already upset and everything hurt, it was easy to slip into those thoughts.
Then he had to shake some sense into himself. He’d made up for it—he saved All Might. They were on even footing, and even if they weren’t, Toshinori wouldn’t have resented him. He never did; that had come from Katsuki himself.
Toshinori was shit at being comforting, honestly, but the understanding that he was there, and that he cared for Katsuki and wanted him to succeed and be happy—that did something. So they talked. And they kept talking, as Katsuki kept seeing his therapist and kept getting his physical health back bit by bit.
Katsuki was always introspective, but in the most damaging way possible. Denial and avoidance and covering up his internal inferiority complex with an external superiority complex.
So yeah, the fucking therapy helped once he got over it and actually starting listening and trying. Learning how to break himself out of negative thought spirals, grounding techniques for when he got so upset and anxious that he couldn’t think about anything else. It should have been obvious and therefore useless, but as a person without a single coping mechanism besides violence—a coping mechanism he was physically unable to access—it did a lot for Katsuki.
—
Izuku stays up later than him almost every single night. He gets caught up in whatever he’s doing before bed, and he can’t make himself put it down. Looking at old notes, finishing computer work, going on a deep dive of youtube videos, whatever it is. But he always gives in and comes to bed shortly after Katsuki does, so long as his fixation is something that can be carried on there.
Tonight, he’s reading a book—something fiction, which is unusual, but makes sense when Katsuki sees the note stuck to the dust-jacket. Shouto’s handwriting—he must have loaned it to Izuku as a recommendation, and of course Izuku would take it seriously.
He clicks the bedside lamp to the dimmest setting when Katsuki lies down. The hearing aids are still in—a little sign that he’s not actually ready to pass out at any second. Izuku must see it as an invitation, because he scoots a little closer to Katsuki before going back to reading. It’s quiet, just rustling pages, Izuku murmuring to himself, faint creaking footsteps from the apartment above them. His mutterings fade, and Katsuki looks up to find eyes on him. He frowns, disgruntled by the attention.
Izuku shuffles his legs under the blanket and smiles something hopeful. “Do you want to put your head in my lap?” He looks so overcome by the idea of it, so adoring and optimistic, that Katsuki grumbles out his agreement even though it doesn’t make sense with how they’re arranged. Izuku’s smile is already reward enough though.
They have to angle themselves opposite on the bed, and Izuku has to raise his book to make space for Katsuki’s head. But Katsuki settles down on his thighs, warm through the faded pajama pants, and closes his eyes.
Izuku’s quiet self-monologue doesn’t start up again like he expected. When Katsuki cracks his eyes open, squinting in the light, Izuku’s just watching him. He sets the book aside.
Then his hands find Katsuki’s hair and the side of his face, and Katsuki closes his eyes again. It’s too much to look up at him while he touches Katsuki’s face with such reverence. His skin flushes with a hint of warmth under so much focused attention, but he doesn’t turn away or resist. It feels nice, when Izuku drags his knuckles along Katsuki’s cheek, then flips his hand and traces the bridge of his nose, the tops of his cheekbones. He doesn’t want to pull away.
Izuku never breaks the contact all the way. He lets each exploration, each caress, drag over Katsuki’s skin, from hairline to eyelids that twitch and flutter. Izuku’s thumb on the center of his lips makes them part. He skims over the shape of Katsuki’s mouth and doesn’t rush.
His touch loses its hesitance after a minute with no retreating to be met, and his fingers grow more sure on Katsuki's skin.
When Izuku brushes against his ears, Katsuki holds still, barely breathes while Izuku tugs his hearing aids free. The world goes quiet. His vision dims too, dampened by Izuku’s shirt when he leans over Katsuki to put them on the charger. He closes his eyes and leaves them closed even after Izuku sits back and the brush of cotton lifts away.
He touches Katsuki’s neck, and it makes his skin shiver, goosebumps chasing after it. Just callused fingertips on his throat and the jut of his Adam’s apple. Izuku’s thumbs press under the hinged corners of his jaw, and he massages every tense muscle around there in circles, up to his cheeks and back down under his chin.
Katsuki didn’t even realize there was tension there until it eases.
—
Izuku was vital right after the war, of course he was. Even when Katsuki started getting better, he stuck around, clinging like a limpet—like Katsuki was still a person worth clinging to.
Even though Izuku was living Katsuki’s dream, he couldn’t hold onto the bitterness. Not when Izuku stood on the doorstep of his parents home and cried, as messy and earnest as anything, fumbling to hold Katsuki’s hand between both of his and cling on, gasping his confession through the tears. He told Katsuki he was in love with him.
Kacchan. I love you. I’m in love with you.
In an instant, it felt indispensable. How had Katsuki existed without that knowledge put into words and pressed into his cautiously open hands?
Being with Izuku—loving Izuku—was woven right into the fabric of his life. That understanding punched Katsuki in the face at full strength with no warnings and no-holds-barred. It all fell into place fast and hard, and he tripped headfirst into it before he could even try to regain his footing. It hurt his brain to try to comprehend that feeling.
Katsuki hated his own unworthiness of that love for too long. Because for year after year Katsuki was never there for Izuku. Always off to the side, only there if he wanted to try to add insult to injury. And now when their roles were reversed, Izuku never wavered. Never looked away from Katsuki, never stopped showing him that he mattered to him. It made Katsuki feel sick—Izuku’s undeserved devotion to him.
But if Izuku didn’t hate him, how could Katsuki continue to hate himself? If someone so blinding, so good, wasn’t bitter with Katsuki—there had to be enough good there to make him salvageable. And even though the unfairness on Katsuki’s part made him so, so angry with himself, he couldn’t refuse Izuku. The thought didn’t cross his mind.
He heard it over and over when he closed his eyes. Kacchan. I love you. I’m in love with you.
He still can’t put into words if he had been surprised by it or not, at the time. It was so easy to see in hindsight.
Part of him had never really believed he could be worth that love, but did it matter? If Izuku wanted to give it, did it really fucking matter that Katsuki thought he shouldn’t get it?
Izuku’s confession was more than a confession—it was a plea, and a reminder of everything he was giving up on, and more, and it lit a fire under him.
Katsuki sort of wanted to punch himself in the face over and over for how he let his hero aspirations slip to the back of his mind. He didn’t realized how much he’d just accepted that—committed to it—until Izuku said that couldn’t stand to watch Katsuki give up.
Kacchan, I know this is hard—I know you’re not okay and it’s hard to look past that right now, but you can’t—I know everyone’s telling you to do what makes you happy and they’ll support you, and you don’t have to…pursue that like before. But I can’t watch it. I can’t support that.
That look in Izuku’s eyes—the fire there, unwavering, staring Katsuki down like he was daring him to shake his head and give in and let Izuku get to the number one spot without a fight.
With that, and the promise of his new arm—Katsuki felt like his head broke the surface of the water for the first time since he’d woken up in that hospital bed.
He called Aizawa back. And he went to his prosthetic consultation with an arm, an eye, and a boyfriend.
Hawks and Mirko congratulated him when his mom posted some stupid photo on her middle-aged lady social media of him getting it fitted, and Katsuki yelled at her again because it was fucking embarrassing for whatever reason he’d come up with. And of course Aizawa was happy for him, in his stoic, teacherly way. His small, tight smile and the glint of pride in his good eye. Katsuki had to crack a smile thinking about what a pair they made.
He got used to the prosthetic little by little. It gave him hell at first. Hell, and more fucking physical therapy. Hell when he had to detach his fake fucking arm at the end of the day so he could sleep comfortably. When he forgot he could use it now because he’d grown accustomed to nothing there. When he reverse mirrored the action from months before of waking up and trying to do something with that arm on instinct only to find it gone.
Katsuki still wasn’t sure he deserved to be happy. What had he done? Been mean to people. Been weak and then even meaner to disguise it. Fucked up a lot of things.
Apologized. Made amends. Been a hero and fought and protected people. Saved Izuku’s life. More than once. Saved a fuck ton of other people.
Was that enough to make up for it?
Izuku thought so. It was hard for Katsuki, to be comforted by people who didn’t know the whole truth. But people like Izuku and Shouto and Aizawa and All Might, who knew the whole story and still looked at him like he was someone capable of being good, someone worthy of living well—they made it seem like he could believe it. It would take months and years of them chipping away at him and reminding him and nudging him before he really did.
People always told Katsuki that he was young. And he’d always hated being told that. Felt like they were looking down on him. But he started to see it for what it was. He was young—still was. He’d been to hell and back, but he was young. He made a lot of mistakes, and they weren’t unforgivable, and none of this was the end. It was the beginning. He deserved to move on, grow up, live.
It was remarkable technology—the arm. The engineers who designed it to work with Katsuki’s quirk did something real fucking special; storage for nitroglycerin sweat generated by the rest of his body, advanced cooling features, material that was light and maneuverable and comfortable while withstanding the blowback of his explosions, trigger mechanisms that corresponded with his other hand so he could properly activate his quirk.
Not to mention the motor control fine enough that he could cut out tiny shapes of nori to make designs on the onigiri for his and Izuku’s bentos.
The outward appearance of the arm wasn’t made to look like skin, just smooth plates and joints of metal ending in perfectly-articulated fingers. Because Katsuki didn’t want something that looked sort of real but not quite. It was a fake fucking arm, so make it look like one. It was more badass this way. But however artificial it looked, it felt real. There was a neural interface, literally implanted at the base of his head just under the skin at the nape of his neck. He could feel with the prosthetic.
That was a later addition, after a couple weeks of getting used to the arm. It was something that Katsuki wouldn’t admit to crying over when he experienced it for the first time. It got rid of that phantom limb syndrome, the pain he had in a nonexistent appendage, and psychologically it was such a relief to feel it again. It made a startling difference in his ability to activate his quirk and use it with better precision on that side, too.
It put a semblance of normalcy back in his life. A sense of control and stability that he desperately needed.
He and Izuku moved in with each other too fast for what they were. What they were in words, at least. They were something far closer, deeper, in an unspoken sense.
Two weeks after they got together, Izuku sidled closer to Katsuki at the breakfast table in his parents’ apartment, pushed his shitty old laptop in front of him, and showed him a set of apartment listings that he’d already narrowed down.
Before Katsuki could even grumble and demand it, he back-clicked out of that to show the whole array of 6,947 available apartments in the Musutafu area, so Katsuki could go through them himself and determine the best ones. They ended up with the same list, went to four showings, and signed their first lease two weeks after that.
Katsuki’s mom got all you brat, deciding to move out without even asking me for advice, and you’re barely even old enough to rent, what are you in such a rush for, blah blah blah. Until Katsuki showed her that the address was only six blocks away. He wasn’t ready to let go either.
—
Jeanist’s agency locker room is not a sexy location. And yet here they are, Katsuki’s back to the lockers and Izuku’s hands in his hair.
Katsuki started it. Three months of dating—three months of preparation since rekindling his childhood aspirations—and he put on his hero costume this morning instead of his civilian clothes. His first shift back in the field—just a four hour patrol to ease him into work again—has him buzzing, exhilarated.
No major incidents, nothing of note, but he’d been sky high off of adrenaline and the excitement of being back that he kissed Izuku before he could think better of it. A full-on kiss, taking hold of Izuku’s face and crushing their lips together without a second thought. Kissing has become almost automatic now.
Katsuki’s exhausted, when he bothers to take stock of his body, but the adrenaline had held him aloft and pulsed anew in his body when Izuku backed him up and pinned him, groaned against his mouth.
“Kacchan, you—” His hands are on Katsuki’s waist now, tracing down to the straps around his thighs and back up to follow the X pattern criss-crossing his chest. “In this —” He snaps the elasticized fabric against Katsuki’s side and makes him jump. He didn’t know Izuku had a thing for his hero getup, but it’s no surprise.
He pulls Katsuki closer by his waist and goes for his neck, mouthing under his jaw, hot and desperate. Katsuki’s metal locker door rattles when his head falls back against it.
Izuku’s hands, maybe not sure in the way they touch, but certainly wanting, tug at Katsuki’s belt, the reinforced zippers on his costume. It startles Katsuki enough to realize what they’re doing—what he initiated.
He freezes up.
Izuku presses against him, and with one blink, Katsuki becomes violently aware of his heartbeat. So much adrenaline. The excitement gets easily confused, muddling in his brain until he can’t separate it from fear. Or maybe it had been fear before this moment and he’d conflated that for eagerness.
His fingers twist into the nylon of Izuku’s clothes. He’s trapped, held here like this, Izuku’s mouth on his pulse and hands firm on his hips and moving lower, his chest pressing tighter to his.
Katsuki shoves him with a burst of nerves that he channels into force, and Izuku stumbles back. His eyes are wide, surprised and pleading, lips still swollen from kissing.
It’s so quiet in the locker room that it makes Katsuki’s stomach swoop and twist in on itself. He’s panting. “Sorry.”
It takes Izuku a second to blink and straighten and snap out of whatever haze he’s been in. “No…no, sorry, Kacchan. I didn’t—I thought—”
Katsuki swallows. “I started it.” He smooths out his clothing, as if it’s not skin-tight synthetic fabric that hasn’t budged an inch. His hair is disheveled, though, and he fixes it, like arranging the spikes will arrange his frayed nerves too. “Just. Too much.” How many times has he said that same tired phrase now? “Um, anyone could come in, and…” He gestures around them. The locker room setting gives him an out, a perfect excuse, and he takes it.
Izuku nods, pressing his lips together, straightening the sleeves of his costume in a familiar anxious gesture. “Yeah, we shouldn’t.” He looks so disappointed it hurts, but he forces a smile anyways. It’s even worse than other times, because this time Katsuki had been the one to start it—given him that affection and attention and touch that he wanted, only to take it away so soon.
Katsuki doesn’t exactly feel guilty. He shouldn’t feel bad for having boundaries, he knows that, but he can’t help the curl of disappointment in his own chest either. Those seconds when his fight or flight response was clicked off, when it was been only elation and desire—there was something intoxicating about that.
—
“It was good to see everyone last night,” Eijirou says.
Katsuki makes a noncommittal noise of agreement. The whole thing was in his honor—celebratory drinks at Shouto’s to toast to Katsuki’s official sidekick status—and it was sweet. But he and Izuku went straight there after their almost-something in the locker room, and he didn’t even have a chance to process that. And then Shouto was asking him probing questions in a casual tone about why he and Izuku were acting shifty. Something about Shouto makes Katsuki feel strangely willing to overshare, and now he wonders if he vented too much.
“You and Midoriya sure left Todoroki’s house early,” Eijirou says with a bright grin. He drops the set of dumbbells after he finishes his set, and relaxes his weight back on his hands behind him.
Katsuki scowls. He’s not obtuse and he knows what Eijirou’s getting at. “We didn’t leave early to fuck.”
“Whoa, I never said—”
“Don’t play dumb.” Katsuki swats at his head, and Eijirou dodges, laughing.
“I’m just teasing, man. I’m really happy for you guys. Midoriya’s always doing that googly-eyed thing, staring at you—it’s sweet.”
Katsuki starts a new set of curls at a borderline-frantic pace so he can blame his flush on the exertion of the workout. “Yeah,” he mutters.
“His face was so red yesterday, did you see that? When Mina asked him if you’re good in bed— which is a question I don’t condone at all! It’s totally inappropriate of her to ask that, you know! But it’s just that I happened to overhear, and we’re all a little curious, you know—”
“Ugh, tell her to stop being nosy.”
“I’ll tell her!” Eijirou assures him, nodding with vigor. He chews on the corner of his mouth with sharp teeth, and picks up his own weights again. Halfway through the next set and a little out of breath, he speaks up again. “But just, like, man to man, you know.” He gives Katsuki a side-eye. “Is it, um. Fun?”
Katsuki wants to fling his dumbbells at the wall. Instead, he takes a calming breath and sips his water. Eijirou is just curious. He’s genuinely glad for Katsuki to have someone special, he’s said that since Katsuki and Izuku got together. And he’s not even being nosy about them in particular. Eijirou has never dated anyone—his only knowledge about sex comes from the ridiculous shit that Denki talks about, which he gleaned entirely from porn.
Eijirou’s shoulders are all tense like he knows he misstepped.
“It’s…” Katsuki doesn’t know what to say. Maybe he should lie and say that it’s great. That they’re having hot sex on a daily basis and it’s the best thing ever. “We, um. Haven’t gotten that far yet.”
“Oh.” Eijirou’s face smooths out into gentle surprise. “Really?”
“Yeah,” Katsukui mutters, and tries to not be defensive. It’s a Wednesday morning, the gym is practically deserted and no one’s around to hear. And Eijirou wouldn't dream of telling anyone his personal business. “Just…not ready yet.”
Eijirou nods. “I mean, yeah. Same.” He huffs as he strains on the last overhead press of his set. “I can’t imagine…doing anything like that.” His face is all pink and he won’t look up. It’s such a contrast with the bulging muscles and abs showing through his muscle tank. He pulls his hair tie loose and re-ties his ponytail. “Um. Sure seems like Midoriya wants to, though!” He grins and laughs, and it’s such a conscious effort to compliment Katsuki and to lighten the mood, even though it’s the exact opposite of what Katsuki wants to hear.
He smile-grimaces and chugs more water. “Yeah, he needs to chill the fuck out,” Katsuki grumbles. It’s mean to say. He doesn’t even believe that at his core, he’s just frustrated, worked up about it from the day before still.
Eijirou clears his throat. “Ahah, sorry man, um.” He rubs the back of his neck. “You…all good?”
“Yeah,” Katsuki mutters. “Can I adjust this?” He pats the bench where it’s laid flat, and bends down to move the pin and incline it up when he gets a nod.
Eijirou’s all shifty still. “Is he…? I mean…” He stops, tries to start again, stops again.
“What?”
“Do you feel like, uh, like he’s pressuring you? Or something? You just seem a little bent out of shape about it, and you’re not usually one to get—”
“He’s not pressuring me,” Katsuki insists. He swallows hard, feeling like something’s blocking his airway, like there’s a pull in his sinuses. Izuku isn’t. He’s careful. They’ve been together for months and he keeps waiting and waiting and Katsuki’s waiting too. Waiting to not feel like a fish out of water, and somehow still feeling like one. “He…initiates, yeah. And—I usually turn him down,” he explains before he can stop himself. “But it’s not…”
“So you feel pressured?” Eijirou says, so quiet and careful Katsuki wants to break something.
“No. I’m just—it’s fine, Eijirou. He’s not—” He chews on a handful of different words before he can find the right ones. “I’m like, pressuring myself. And he's also—I mean. We’re both pressuring me, I don’t fucking know.” He shoves his weights onto the rack and grabs a heavier set. Eijirou doesn’t say anything for the entirety of Katsuki’s twelve reps or his own.
Katsuki has to be the one to talk again. Even though he’d made it seem like he didn’t want to talk. But then as soon as Eijirou stopped pushing, he’d wished he would. Maybe he does want to vent about it, but bringing it up himself is hard. He does it though.
“I really want to, you know,” Katsuki mutters.
“Want to what?” Eijirou’s voice is casual. It’s a way out for Katsuki, if he wanted to take advantage of it.
“I don’t know, fuck? Suck a dick?”
“A dick?” Eijirou almost giggles, and Katsuki pulls back his arm like he’s going to throw a 25 pound weight at him, an empty threat.
“Shut the fuck up.”
“Alright—alright, no, go on.”
Katsuki sighs and pouts and takes a long-ass time. “Ugh.” He rubs both hands over his face, then cringes at the sweat everywhere. “I want to…have sex. With him.” Katsuki flops down on the bench and picks up his weights again. “Don’t know why it feels like such a big deal.”
Eijirou claps him on the shoulder and squeezes. “No, I get it, man, I do.”
Katsuki shakes his head and cracks a tiny half-smile, then shoves the dumbbells up with his knees and gets them in position. He’s not crazy.
Dinner that night with his parents and Inko and Izuku keep his mind off of it, but he can’t keep the stress at bay forever.
—
Several more weeks of getting back into light hero work are a confusing mix of ups and downs. On the one hand, it’s better than he could have ever imagined, to be out there doing what he always wanted, living that childhood dream months after convincing himself he’d lost that chance forever.
But it’s also so demoralizing that Katsuki gets into a routine of crying in the shower every night when he gets home. The progress is just. So. Slow. Learning completely new muscle memory for moving with the prosthetic, reinforcing the neural signals that make his hand and arm move the way he wants, constantly adjusting his center of gravity. And it hurts to watch his former classmates who hadn’t been set back by months of recovery, picking up right where they left off and making progress.
It wasn’t that they were better than Katsuki—it was that they were better than they had been before, and he was worse than he had been before.
He falls asleep at 8 pm after a full week of short patrols, workouts, occupational therapy with a prosthetic specialist, and another session with his psychologist. When he wakes, it’s sweltering hot under the blankets, and he’s surrounded by heavy limbs—a leg tossed over his hip, Izuku’s bicep under his head, his other arm flopped across Katsuki’s waist. And as Katsuki shifts his body, preparing to move out from under the stifling blankets, he feels it.
Izuku is hard, pressed there against Katsuki through his underwear. Izuku feels something too—detects Katsuki trying to move away and compensates. He shifts and grumbles behind him, rolls a fraction closer. His arm over Katsuki’s side tightens with sleepy lack of coordination. Imprecise, he drags his hands over the warmth of Katsuki’s skin.
“Kacchan.” It’s murmured into the back of his neck, almost unintelligible. “Morning.” He hugs Katsuki even closer.
“Morning.” Katsuki relaxes. Izuku doesn’t even seem like he’s noticed his own erection.
Then he mumbles some more and hugs even tighter. His hips slot right there, snug against his ass, and he makes a sound.
Katsuki is torn for a second—Izuku is warm, comfortable. His hand traces lazy fingertips over the scars on Katsuki’s bare chest. But his hum vibrates through where they touch, and he kisses the back of Katsuki’s shoulder.
“You’re warm,” he says, and pets his way down Katsuki’s chest. His breathing is still slow and drowsy, but his pelvis rocks forward again, searching. It must be instinctive. He’s not conscious enough to think too hard right now.
“Yeah,” Katsuki says after too long a pause. “Hot under the blanket.”
“Mm.”
Izuku’s clumsy hand fumbles over his hip and thigh, just stroking the skin around the hem of his boxers. It’s a wonder he can’t notice Katsuki’s rabbit-fast heartbeat. Katsuki shifts his legs and, fuck, he’s half hard too. Can feel it now that he focuses on himself instead of Izuku—the slow-building ache and the glow of heat.
“Kacchan…hair smells nice,” Izuku mumbles, nuzzling up into his hair. His hips seek more friction, and his hand skirts too close to Katsuki’s thickening cock. The air leaves Katsuki’s lungs.
“I—have to pee,” he blurts out. It’s hard to pull away from Izuku, even still, but he drags himself free and stands on shaky legs. Izuku’s wounded noise makes him glance back over his shoulder. He’s blinking in confusion, rolling closer to the warm spot he left behind.
Katsuki brushes his teeth left handed, since he was in too much of a hurry to even grab his prosthetic on the way. It takes a few long minutes, combing his hair, splashing cold water on his face, getting ready for the day before he even can pee. He stays in the bathroom until he’s calm. Emotionally and physically.
When Katsuki returns for his arm, Izuku is awake and much more alert, already getting dressed. He offers Katsuki nothing more than the lightest kiss on the cheek as they pass each other.
—
Katsuki thinks maybe this would be easier if he didn’t want Izuku so bad. If it really was unreciprocated and he could just say he wasn’t sexually attracted to him and they could put it to rest.
But thinking about Izuku keeps him up at night.
He’s not here right now, and it’s all Katsuki can do to keep his thoughts in check. It’s unfair—that when Izuku is right in front of him and asking for Katsuki, reaching out for him, Katsuki’s thoughts lock up and stumble and fall, but the moment Izuku’s out of the apartment working an overnight op, Katsuki can’t stop them.
It isn’t just Izuku’s body, though of course that’s part of it. How could it not be, when his form looks the way it does. But it’s everything else about him too. His face. The expressiveness of it, the way he looks at Katsuki.
The way he touches him when he starts to forget himself. It’s dizzying and anxiety-inducing and arousing—
And his voice. It shouldn’t be—Izuku’s soft, bubbly voice paired with his round cheeks and freckles everywhere and his odd little mannerisms—none of that should be sexy. Katsuki’s mind has brainwashed itself into finding everything about him attractive by extension, just because it’s attached to Izuku.
Katsuki can imagine him talking in his sweet voice, and the things he would say if Katsuki let his guard down and allowed him to.
Kacchan looks so pretty like this.
He’d say it and mean it, too, despite how ridiculous that is. Katsuki huffs in frustration, rolling onto his side and curling around his pillow. He’s hard. His dick is hard because he thought about Izuku’s perfect body and what he would sound like calling Katsuki pretty. It’s maddening.
But there’s no one here, just him, and he doesn’t resist or deny himself.
A hand around his cock makes his hips flex forward, and Katsuki flops onto his back again so he can move easier, shuffles his sweatpants down far enough to be unrestricted. Relearning how to touch himself was a whole process a few months ago—figuring out how to get himself off with the wrong hand. Made him frustrated beyond belief for weeks. He’s got it by now, though, and he strokes himself steady and quick right from the start, hips thrusting into his own grip.
Izuku wants to see him like this. It would be unthinkable if Katsuki didn’t want the same in reverse. Izuku would probably cry with happiness if he knew Katsuki thought about him while he touched himself.
He’s so—fuck. He’s gorgeous, Katsuki could never deny it. His muscles have been shaped and filled out by so many hours of training, in stark contrast with the softness of his face and his hair. And he’d take the lead if Katsuki hesitated for too long. The idea is both horrifying and arousing. Because isn’t that so much of what Katsuki’s afraid of? Being behind ? Not knowing what to do while Izuku does, and Katsuki can only follow his direction?
And yet—
Just like that, Kacchan. You can go faster.
He shudders at just the thought, and works his hand quicker. Fuck—yeah, Izuku would—
Feels good, doesn’t it?
Katsuki can almost see Izuku, over him, around him, his hands on Katsuki’s thighs, his hips. He would touch gently at first, until he realized he didn’t need to be cautious. Because Katsuki would be fine, in this little fantasy world. Relaxed and calm, letting Izuku pet his hands up Katsuki’s body and watch him with dark eyes.
He could even put on a little bit of a show—maybe arch his back all nice and say something in return about how much he wants Izuku, how good this feels.
For me, right, Kacchan? All for me?
He’d want to know that, and Katsuki wouldn’t hesitate to answer because of course it’s for Izuku, just him, there’s no one else Katsuki wants—
You’re so good, baby. Perfect for me.
It’s not—Izuku wouldn't say things like that. He’s not that smooth, but Katsuki—he wants. He wants it, craves Izuku’s adoration, his words of praise. He’s always needed to hear those things. His cock is almost throbbing in his fist now, shiny-wet at the tip, balls tight like he’s about to come. He is, he realizes just before it hits him.
That’s it, come on.
Katsuki pants through his teeth and jerks his cock through it as he comes in his hand, hot and sticky. It cools quickly where it drips onto tensed abs that flex with every pulse of his orgasm.
He falls lax on the bed when it’s over, breathing hard. “Fuck.” He digs the heel of his clean hand into his good eye until colors dance behind it. “Fuck.”
This is getting ridiculous. Katsuki cleans himself up with tissues and shoves them all the way to the bottom of the trash can when he goes to wash his hands.
—
The arm was good. The scars were fine.
He was adapting to having roughly one and a quarter eyes worth of vision.
His ears still bothered him a little. They were working on hearing protection for when he started to get back out on patrols and likely to be using his quirk a lot. So the hearing loss wasn’t progressing, but it was still frustrating to rely on a breakable piece of equipment for one of his senses. His eyesight was already fucked—learning that his hearing was going too was yet another painful blow.
He still had some—he wasn’t completely deaf. The barrage of every explosion he could create being set off back to back to back in that fight was sort of the nail in the coffin, so without his hearing aids a good bit of what he did pick up on was drowned out by tinnitus. He had to wear them during the day. Put them on and take them off at the same time as his prosthetic.
He was good at reading lips for when he didn’t have them in—learned some sign language, too. He’d been resentful of having to learn in the first place, but practicality eventually won out with him, as it tended to do. He learned the basic things he might need. And cuss words too.
And Izuku had started learning sign language long before even Katsuki. Before they’d even been together. Nerd. He started studying when he’d visit Katsuki in the hospital, in the weeks before he could get off the ventilator and be discharged. Most of the time it’s not needed, and he gets by once the aids are out for the night with lip reading and body language and asking Izuku to repeat himself more clearly and really fucking loud.
Some of his friends from UA showed enthusiasm about sign language as well, though Katsuki was too embarrassed at the time to appreciate that they were trying. Eijirou’s hands were terribly clumsy, but his excitement when he communicated properly was so visible that even Katsuki had to smile.
It was hard to watch his friends show him so much kindness even as they vaulted ahead of them in their careers. But when he got out of his own head and looked at them—well, Katsuki wasn’t the only one fucked up by the war. One night of Izuku staying over shortly after Katsuki came home from the hospital, sleeping on his parents’ sofa and waking up from nightmares with OFA crackling around him showed Katsuki that.
None of them were exactly the same as they had been, and they all pretended enough to make it okay, to trick themselves until they got to a day when it really would be okay again.
Katsuki thinks he’s getting close to that now.
—
Izuku meets him on the rooftop of Jeanist’s agency for lunch. It’s usually only on Wednesdays that their schedules match up, and even then it doesn’t always work out. Sometimes paperwork drags them away, or a patrol incident takes longer than expected to resolve.
So this is sort of a special treat. Katsuki took to packing Izuku’s bento for him after they moved in together. He still does, with varying levels of detail and complexity depending on the day. Now that he’s working too and has to get ready to leave the apartment in the morning, the food is simpler. Izuku never minds.
“It’s not that exciting today,” Katsuki tells him before he can even get the box open. “Just leftovers.”
Izuku smiles and leans his shoulder harder against Katsuki’s. “That’s perfect. I just like sitting with you.” He still makes this little anticipatory hum about the food. “Anything Kacchan makes for us is exciting.”
Katsuki wrinkles his nose. He’s smiling on the inside though. Izuku praising him for his cooking never gets old. It’s a win-win—he likes doing it anyways, and he gets to make Izuku happy.
They always sit near the rooftop access door, though neither of them get up here that way. Still, it’s breezy up this high, and the windblock is a welcome respite. They’ve yet to run into other people up here, probably in part because of the weather. It’s cold just sitting still. In the middle of the day with the sun out it works, but there are sure to be other days that necessitate an alternate lunch spot.
Izuku gave Katsuki this dumb blanket when he started here, to keep in your work locker, he’d explained. For our lunch picnics! It’s embarrassing as hell to get this giant orange fleece blanket out of his locker on Wednesdays at noon when the place is swarming with other sidekicks and staff, but Katsuki does it anyway.
The thing is big enough to wrap around both of them. Katsuki shakes it out and gets it arranged, and hunches his shoulders in around himself to keep warm.
It makes Izuku laugh. “You look like a bird of prey or something,” he teases. “Trying to shield your food from me.”
“Yeah, don’t even think about it,” Katsuki shoots back.
“Kacchan! I wouldn’t —I have my own, and it’s delicious.”
Katsuki eyes him. “That hasn’t always stopped you.” Izuku’s stomach is a bottomless pit. Maybe all those quirks run up his metabolism. He pouts at Katsuki’s suspicious gaze and goes back to his lunch. He’s already scraping the bottom of the box, though Katsuki always gives him bigger portions.
“So yummy,” he says, bumping his shoulder against Katsuki’s again.
He nudges back. “Thanks.”
It’s been a good day. Really good. Katsuki isn’t even tired yet. Normally his body is flagging by break time, making the second half of his patrol drag on. But he’s been working his endurance up little by little. He’d done well with the two incidents he’d been involved in this morning too. No clumsiness with the arm, no issues because of his eyesight.
His blind spot continues to be a weakness he knows villains could exploit, but he’s gotten faster at interpreting the vague blurs of motion there, redirecting his focus to compensate. The improvements he needs to make don’t feel never-ending today.
Izuku heaves a content sigh and drops his head onto Katsuki’s shoulder when he finishes eating.
“Thank you,” he says.
“Mm, I don’t mind.” Katsuki tugs the blanket up higher around his shoulder.
“Still.”
When time is up, Izuku helps him fold the blanket into a neat bundle that can fit back in his locker, and leans in lighting-fast to peck him on the lips. Katsuki grabs the front of his costume, drags him in for one more, then releases.
He watches Izuku wave as he steps off the edge of the roof and go catapulting away in a blur of green lighting, tendrils of Blackwhip flickering out around him. Katsuki goes back to his workday with renewed motivation.
The rest of the day is good too, but he’s worn out and sore when he gets home. He’s still not at one hundred percent capacity, and his body doesn’t let him forget it.
Izuku’s weight on his lap while they kiss settles him. It helps Katsuki relax into the sofa cushions while Izuku nips at his lips and sighs into his mouth. It relaxes him until it doesn’t. When Izuku’s hands slide down over his chest and the switch flips from feeling settled to feeling cornered.
“Kacchan,” Izuku says, pressing the cool tip of his nose into Katsuki’s throat. His lips are cool too, and wet, when they follow. “Do you…do you want—” His fingers press into Katsuki’s waist, and it feels nice, that touch. But Katsuki’s heart is thudding out against his ribcage from inside with enough force to scare him. “Can I…?” Izuku’s hand slides under Katsuki’s shirt, strokes over the small of his back, and then walks down to the waistband of his sweats.
He’s waiting for Katsuki now. But the longer he thinks about how he needs to answer, the less he’s able to answer, and he’s—Izuku is so hesitant. He’s so careful when he brushes his fingertips over the front of his pants, where his cock is barely stirring, and Katsuki tenses up in an instant.
“Izuku—fuck, not—not today, I…” He tries to shuffle Izuku back, further away from his lap to give himself space.
Izuku’s face is transparent. So easy to see the surprise and disappointment flash across it before resignation sets in. “Okay,” he whispers, sitting back. His hands are back on Katsuki’s shoulders, and even that feels like too much right now. “Sorry, Kacchan.”
“S’okay.” Katsuki wonders if he should say sorry too.
He knows he’s attracted to Izuku—he is. He looks at Izuku and he can see the shape of him and imagine what he looks like and feels like under the layers of clothes. And it’s fascinating, arresting, to imagine touching him. To imagine Izuku touching him, showing Katsuki that he’s attracted to him too.
But it’s very different to think those thoughts and to act on them, and he’s still trying to figure out how far the attraction extends and how he would even go about acting on it and what he’s okay with—and he just—he can’t envision a way for him to do anything where he won’t be painfully awkward and nervous and he knows if he feels like that it will show and Izuku will know, and Katsuki wants…not that. He wants to be casual about it. Not have his own nervousness rub off on Izuku and make him all anxious and make everything fucking uncomfortable.
“It’s just—” Izuku bites off the rest of his sentence and looks down. His lips are already shiny and pink from kissing, but he chews on one anyway. “I just thought…maybe soon we could start…” He lets his hands drop from Katsuki’s shoulders. “You know.” He must realize how he sounds, because he shakes his head and his face flushes. “No, I—I know you’re not ready, Kacchan, I’m not trying to push you. But we should—I mean I would like it if we could… talk about this.”
Katsuki swallows. “Talk about what?” Don’t say it, don’t fucking say it.
“Sex,” Izuku says. Shit—he’s—of course Katsuki isn’t the only one who can get emotional about it. “Don’t—please don’t pretend you don’t know what I’m getting at.”
Katsuki’s jaw twinges. “What is there to talk about?” he says. “I don’t even know why you’re bringing this up, Izuku, I’m not there yet—”
“And I’m trying to figure out what I can do to help you get there, because it feels like as soon as we make progress we’re always going backwards in the next second.” Izuku stands now, leaves Katsuki numb and still sitting on the couch, and rakes his hands through his hair.
Make progress. “Progress? What is that supposed to fucking mean?” Katsuki stands too. “Progress toward getting your dick wet? I’m not…you can’t just—”
“That’s not what I mean, Kacchan, don’t put words in my mouth!” Izuku says, hands balling up into shaky fists. “I’m just saying that I know you’re nervous and it will take time, but I thought that you were getting comfortable with me and—that we were having more intimacy. And that’s something I really want to share with you, and it’s—it’s important to me. I don’t just wanna—fuck you. That’s not what it’s about. It’s about…I want you to be comfortable enough in this relationship that you want it too, and—”
“Well I don’t fucking feel comfortable right now, Izuku!” Katsuki’s voice is getting loud, and tiny sparks tingle across his palms. “How is you trying to feel me up every four seconds supposed to make me feel comfortable with intimacy? ”
He looks up at Izuku.
He—shit. He looks like Katsuki just slapped him. Fuck. Fuck fuck fuckfuckfuck, he needs to explain himself—backtrack—because that sounded worse that he really meant—
“I just—like, I go to work and it’s fucking—stressful, okay? I’m—trying to get used to everything and shit is just stressful right now, and I don’t wanna come home where I’m supposed to be able to relax, and I—I have to deal with…this.” Katsuki gestures frantically at Izuku’s whole body. “With more stress because you keep…because you wanna have sex or whatever, and I don’t—I can’t, Izuku—I’m…” He swallows back the thickness in his voice and shut his mouth. His explanation did not make things better.
Izuku’s eyes are wide in his face, and he looks flushed with shame under his freckles. He swallows, effortfully. His voice is quiet. “Oh.” God, his eyes are watering. “I…didn’t realize you felt that way.”
“Izuku—”
“Kacchan, why didn’t you just—say that? Sooner—more clearly—I don’t know.” He scrubs his cheek with his sleeve, “I would stop, you know, if you just. Communicated. I thought you were…shy, or you just needed a nudge or something. I thought I was helping, I didn’t know you didn’t like any of it—”
“I do like a lot of it—the…the stuff I’m used to now.”
Izuku tugs his sleeves down over his hands and rubs at his other cheek. “I don’t know what to think, Kacchan.”
Katsuki’s mouth opens and closes. He doesn’t want to say anything else in case it comes out like shouting. He does that even when he doesn’t mean to.
“I feel like…” Izuku sniffs, thick and watery, and scrubs at his face again. “Like, Kacchan, I didn’t—this whole time, I didn’t think I was…pressuring you. Forcing—” He cuts himself off and makes this horrible noise that wrings Katsuki’s heart like a damp rag. Izuku’s head tilts down to hide his face, and he takes a shuddering breath that doesn’t seem like it helps to steady him. “Sorry—I’m sorry, Kacchan, I just. Need a minute.”
Katsuki doesn’t move until the sound of the shower running startles him out of his trance. It’s not loud enough to cover up Izuku crying.