Archive of Our Own

1.

Bakugou Katsuki is seventeen and on the edges of sleep (on the remaining edges of a war) when you appear in his bedroom, unannounced.

It’s like the tide drawing out. The curtains move in, a breath, and you are left standing there—your wedding dress glittering and luminescent in the light. For a moment Katsuki thinks he’s having some kind of weird-ass dream—who the fuck dreams about random extras dressed up like brides?—but you are fumbling forward, a shower of confetti falling over you, catching in the lace of your veil. 

“Oh,” you say, “Oh—shit—”

Katsuki is no longer sleepy, his reaction instant—and you are left staring as the glow (the threat) of his hands light up the dark room, outlining a familiar scowl set in a baby-soft face. 

“The fuck are you?! Hah?!” He demands roughly and you’d laugh, you would, you’d laugh at what you were seeing, the lack Katsuki’s adult timbre and his fat, infant face, but he’s moving quickly— crouching on his bed and snarling like a creature possessed and you can see exactly why Hanta grimaces when talking about him during their school days. “Why the damned hell are you in my room, you damned pervert—”

You don’t even know why you’re here and you’re one hysterical moment from shrieking that at him. One moment you were under the sunshine, following behind your husband—and now you were here, in a bedroom you have never seen, with a child you never knew. 

“Answer or die!” Katsuki barks, hands sparking and you flinch, a reaction you wouldn’t have to the Katsuki you do know. 

But this isn’t that Katsuki. This is a younger more wild version and you have enough sense, despite the jarring shift in your reality, to be actively wary of him and the damage you both could do. 

Your bouquet drops to the floor with a soft thump; petals and confetti and ribbon splaying at the hem of your dress as you show him your hands, bare of Quirk or weapon.

“I’m not here to hurt you,” you promise, your voice threatening to tremble. That’s your first mistake: he takes it as a sign of admission, his nostrils flaring and you commit your second mistake by repeating, “I’m not. Katsuki, I promise I’m not here to you, I think I’ve been hit by a Quirk—”

“Don’t fuckin’ call me Katsuki,” he spits—the light of his hands glowing hotter, the heart of a nuclear bomb, readying for detonation. 

Careful—instinctual—you lower to the floor, placating, holding yourself ransom to a teenager’s temper: but Katsuki doesn’t move, watching you warily from the vantage point of his bed. After a few moments, when you haven’t been returned to the primordial ooze of existence, you ask him, “Are—are you okay?”

He scowls harder—you can almost hear his thoughts, die!—but what comes out is a gritted, “Get rid of the shit around your face.”

You suck in your breath. This is something you’ve learnt with the Pro Heroes you know: the reassurance (the leverage) they have when seeing someone’s face. He’s trying to ID you, to assess how much of a threat you are, but—

“Show your fuckin’ face,” he demands, hands sparking and bleakly you hope that whatever this does—whatever this means—it doesn’t change the future. 

Katsuki tenses as you move; when the gossamer-fine lace of your veiling is behind you, at last, he frowns, still not relaxed.

“T’fuck are you?” He asks again, eyes narrowing as they dart all over your bare face, all over your dress, moonlight silk spilled on the dark floor of his room. He’s memorising you, you think; so he can find you and bring you to justice if you escape. Or send you back to your maker with a Howitzer. 

Your heart tightens. It’s so weird, after seeing pictures of this Katsuki, hearing stories about this Katsuki, to be sitting in front of him now—a literal child, untrusting of you. With good reason, you think wildly: you, some random, adult stranger who just appeared in his room in the dead of night.

Katsuki tches, low and impatient and you swallow, your fingers curling against your dress. What do you tell him? How do you negate the impact of being here?

“I was hit by a Quirk,” is all you finally offer. “I guess? I don’t know why I’m here, but I’m not going to hurt you. I just don’t know how long I’ll—”

The tide rushes back in. Katsuki’s curtains breathe out—and just like that you are gone, a ghost, a memory of something that hasn’t happened yet, leaving Katsuki to stare at the space you were—confetti (bright, gold, all over his fucking floor) and your bouquet of flowers (heavy, stupid, stinking like they were just picked from a garden) the only proof you were there. 

2. 

“-be here,” you finish, or try to: choking instead as you breathe in smoke and fire, the world around you shifting from the dark of a school dorm to a warzone.

Your veil billows around you with a wave of heat; you cough, eyes tight and before you can think to move, to run, to get out, you are slammed into the ground with all the force of a freight train. 

You go down hard, your head only saved from smashing like an egg on the rubble by your veiling—bunched up in a gloved hand, protectively cupping the back of your head. 

Choking, you buck against the grip—blinking wetly as a 100-or-so solid kilos of Pro Hero scowls down at you, face twisting angrily under his mask and the grime. 

“Why the fuck are you here?!” He snarls. 

You breathe in, sharp; shrinking away from the burning heat of his presence, your hands caught against his chest. 

This is a version of a man you don’t know yet. A version—ignited, made of heat and pressure, Dynamight in the truest sense—that you have rarely, rarely seen in person. 

He scowls down at you when you don’t answer, eyes darting all over your face; you feel his fingers fan out against your veiling, your skull, probing—checking for injury, despite his anger. He looks young, still—younger than when you’ll know him, but out of his teens and still not the man you will come to love. 

And yet—

He’s being—gentle, you realise. Recognise. Still cupping your head, buffering it, hunched over you carefully. He tches to himself; his breath hot and stale over your face. If he was your Katsuki you’d make fun of him for it—instead your heart hums, desperate for these glimmers of the future version you see. 

It’s silly; it’s tiny. Your fingers curl against the material of his shirt, instinctive, pulling him just that little bit closer; over you Katsuki freezes, muscles cording tightly. 

You don’t get the chance to dwell—there’s a shout beyond him, the only warning either of you have. 

“Shit. SHIT! DYNAMIGHT—INCOMING.” 

It speaks to the hero Katsuki has always been that he reacts quickly; furiously rolling you out of the way as the sky—bright, high blue—implodes into smoke and debris. 

Katsuki—Dynamight—shields you, arms and bracers protecting your head, your face, even as the crackle of static electricity—left over from whatever that attack was—flickers over you both. 

He huffs into your collarbone. You keep your eyes shut tight and try not to think of how your dress—the expensive, vintage Italian silk your mother-in-law insisted on, with all it’s beading—is catching on the rough ground underneath you, or how your hair is pulling. 

“You right?” A gruff voice asks, too close; you’re cheek-to-cheek like this and you have to resist the urge to rub against his face like a cat, hungry for the familiar touch.

“‘m fine,” You tell him, quiet. 

Katsuki—Dynamight—grunts in the affirmative, hoisting himself up, opening the world to you again—and then you, too easily, as there’s more shouting. 

The shouter comes to a skid, fumbling and kicking up loose rubble; and you’re left standing there in the middle of a battlefield, hand still in Ka—Dynamight’s—as Denki Kaminari stares at you, wide-eyed. 

You stare back. Katsu—Dynamight—is scowling heavily, uninterested in whatever fuss his friend’s about to make and you squeeze his fingers for attention. “He looks better without the ponytail,” you say, quietly.   

“What?” Denki asks, overhearing, confused. 

Katsuki just frowns at you, before glancing to his friend—and his short hair. 

Deciding to ignore the severe judgement from the both of you, Denki shakes his head and turns to Katsuki accusingly. “Dude—your ghost’s real?” 

“Ghost?” You echo, annoyed. Your veil billows out with the hot heat of the smouldering ruins around you, and you drop Katsuki’s hand to gather it up. “I’m not—a ghost? Really? Have you been telling everyone I’m a ghost? I’m not dead! I told you last time, I think I’ve been hit with a—”

Smoke billows over the field; your veil picks up with the breeze that’s carrying it and once more you are gone, not a trace of you left in the rubble beyond the ache of impact in Katsuki’s knees and the bulge of Dunceface’s eyes as he stares at where you were standing. 

“Dude,” Sparky breathes, awed. “What the fuck was that?” 

Katsuki curls his hand tight, and turns away. “Doesn’t matter,” He says, short. “C’mon—we’ve got shit to do.”

3. 

“—Quirk!” You blurt out, but it’s too late; you are now standing in an alleyway, silent beyond the reverberating beat through the walls. In the purple hum of the neon lights just beyond the alley, the silk and sequins of your dress are lavender, a dusk sky filled with stars. 

There’s a low tsk behind you, annoyed, and you would know that sound anywhere: in the dark—in your sleep. In another life. 

You twist around, your dress and veil tumbled sea-foam about you—Katsuki, leaning up against a wall, watching you carefully. 

“Figures you’d come back now,” he says, face severe and irritated. Your eyes dart over him, cataloguing the differences. He’s dressed well this evening, in dark, slim jeans and a forest green bomber jacket. It’s the piercing, though, that throws you. A talon gauge—a talon gauge Jirou talked him into, when they were twenty-three.

You’ve never seen it in person; only the scar it left when it was torn out in a fight, but—

“It looks good,” you tell him, simply. 

Katsuki frowns at you and you tilt your head, showing your own ear—Katuski grunting when he realises you’re talking about the piercing. 

“Got it a few months ago,” he says, confirming your conclusions about the year. It’s practically chatty for a Katsuki that doesn’t know you. 

“Where are we?” You ask, curious, trying your luck. The music thumps on—you don’t recognise this place. It’s not somewhere you’ve ever been.

“You from the future?” Katsuki asks instead. He’s staring at you, deceptively—dangerously—placid, eyes glittering in the gloom of this alleyway, a waiting predator. If you lie, you think, he will have no hesitancy in pouncing. 

“Yes,” you admit. 

Katsuki’s jaw twitches; he stares at you for a moment longer, then looks away. “You don’t know this place in the future?” He asks, eventually. 

You squint at him. “Do you know everywhere in this city?” You ask, pointed. “If it’s still around, it’s not somewhere I go.”

“Ears is playing tonight,” He says, ignoring your attitude and all you can think is: oh. This must be the club where Jirou jammed out with her band. You’ve heard the recordings, seen the videos thanks to Denki proudly showing them off, but it all ended before you came along; Jirou’s Pro Hero career taking precedence over the band’s.  

“They happy?” Katsuki asks you and you look to him curiously, not understanding until he tsks again. 

“Ears and Dunceface,” he clarifies roughly and if you didn’t recognise the tense line of his shoulders as Katsuki bracing himself for bad news, you would laugh. 

You think of Jirou, playing the guitar on their couch—Denki at her knees, crooning like a dying dog. 

“They are,” you promise him with mirth. “They’re very happy.” 

You’re not sure what you were expecting; more grumpy, taciturn alley cat, maybe. But you’re reminded of how young this Katsuki is, still, when he stays silent, the soft-face of his teen years echoed in his vulnerability. There’s no trace of the Great Goblin Manslaughter Nightmare Dynamight in his expression—not now. Not with you confirming that his friends are still together in the future. Instead he just nods like he’s satisfied—like he’s accepting something—and your earlier thought about laughing fizzles out in your chest as you realise you are watching him finally, finally lay some hidden hope—some secret want—to rest. 

Maybe he doesn’t like you staring at him, waiting. Katsuki breaks the silence himself by nodding towards the club, dismissive. “Dunceface finally—y’know.” 

You don’t know, actually; not really, though you can guess. You refrain from saying so, looking to the club wall like it could spare you and Katsuki both from this but—

It doesn’t. It’s just a wall, a dark mass here in this alleyway. Dunceface finally—y’know. Oh. Oh. 

“I nearly invented a new form of electro-therapy,” Denki will tell you in the future, bright and loud. “I was so freaking nervous! They’d just finished playing and Shinsou pushes me and next thing I know, I’m up there on the stage, trying not to spark up—”

The night Denki makes his move, and finally confesses to Jirou—fumbling in front of the whole bar, apparently, in front of their friends. He tells—will tell—the story every time he’s feeling sentimental, to great effect: Jirou laughing at him in all the right places, still embarrassed, even years later. It’s one giant in-joke, endearing only to the pair that share it, their private mythos but—

You think of the Katsuki you’ll know, older and relaxed; a Katsuki who will lean against the wall with a beer in his hand, rolling his eyes as Denki blatantly lies about what he said—

A Katsuki who is a lifetime away from you, abd from this Katsuki before you: younger and unsure, dressed to impress. Hiding in an alley. 

Who knows the damage you’ve already done, flickering in and out of the Pro’s life like a threat? You’ve been as subtle as a wrecking ball, dealing out untold consequences, your gut knotting at the thought. Knowing of the hero Katsuki is, before you meet him, is different to actively making pit stops in his life and seeing the parts of him you were never meant to—the parts that belonged to him, and him alone.

Like this solitary heartbreak, nursed quietly, angrily, in the dark space outside this club no one will think to come find him in. He holds hopes and fears you don’t even know, you realise—won’t even know, a lifetime’s worth of them, rippling out far beyond the window you’ll come to know him in. 

What can you say, in the face of that? What should you say, knowing what you did of a future him that doesn’t exist, in this moment?

Maybe the answer was nothing. Maybe you had a duty to let it unfold as it was—but you can’t stay silent, you won’t. You love the Katsuki you will come to know; a Katsuki who will hold this version of himself inside, somewhere. A Katsuki that you’re already affecting, simply by standing under this neon purple light with him. 

You shift, your skirts moving with you. “One day,” you promise to the quiet between you, “they’ll talk about this night and you’ll… you’ll laugh at them both.”

 
The blond frowns and you think of yourself, weirdly—a younger you out there, somewhere, nursing your own hurts. If you could offer that version of yourself the same reassurance—the same comfort—you would. 

But—

You can’t. That other self is a city away from you, now; a lifetime away. It’s just Katsuki here. A Katsuki who needed it, too. 

The silence stretches out for a long moment and you begin wonder if you have pushed this unfamiliar version of him too far until, at last, he says, “‘M gettin’ outta here. You coming?” 

You shrug, feigning having to think about it. “Hm. I guess I can spare the time,” you tell him; the disgusted look you get in return for your terrible joke makes you laugh, easily. 

When you disappear this time, you’re standing at a set of pedestrian lights; waiting for them to turn green, though the street is empty.

Katsuki can feel your eyes on the side of his head like a physical touch, not missing how you’re balling your veil in your hand. Fidgeting.

“What?” He grunts, refusing to look at you. It doesn’t stop him from being able to feel it when you smile. 

“Just thinking of something funny,” you answer and he scowls, glancing to you just as the lights change—and you are gone, the tinny cry of the walk signal echoing along the empty street, leaving Katsuki standing on the edge of the road—

Alone. 

4.

You start laughing (he hasn’t—doesn’t—change, you correct yourself, fondly) just as you reappear in the rosy twilight of an autumn evening—in the middle of a park.

In the middle of a crowd.

Someone shrieks. You’ve managed to materialise amid a group of young girls, just trying to take photos of their ice-creams—soft-serve zoo animals in pastel colours with marshmallow snouts, chocolate ears. You go to move—but your veil catches in one of them, soft-serve smearing through fine, Italian lace and you have no idea who’s more horrified: you or the girl who’s ice-cream you’ve ruined. 

“Your veil!” She cries, dismayed.

You barely hear her, exclaiming your own apologies. “—I’m so sorry, it’s a Quirk thing!” 

Her friends come to the rescue, pulling out tissues and water-bottles to try and to dab it off your veil—the other people in the park walking around the lot of you, trying not to stare. 

“You look beautiful,” one of the girls tells you, hushed. The calmest out of you all, she consoles you and her friend both; taking a tissue and working at your veil diligently, gently. A lady-in-waiting—a bridesmaid, attending to you carefully.

When you don’t reply she glances up, fine lace stretched out between her fingers like spider-spun silk at a fairy market. 

“Thank-you,” You whisper a beat too late, a moment too unsure. She smiles, and you—you’re thinking of your best friend, making a face as she helped you put on your shoes that morning. The way she had fussed over your wedding robe at the temple, arranging it during your photos, smoothing down its bright red and gold.

“You have a wonderful life ahead of you,” the stranger—the girl—in front of you promises warmly. A wish for your future. It’d be a sweet thing to say to someone at a wedding, but—

Your stomach swoops. 

You’re not—you’re not even—

You’re not even anywhere near your wedding. Belatedly, you realise you have no idea if this stupid Quirk will even… return you— 

Don’t panic, you tell yourself, panicking anyway. It’s hard not to, the more you think about it; you are literal years away from everything you know—from the person you become, even. Years away from being under that clear, warm sky: the perfect blue. From trailing after Katsuki, your friends and families cheering as confetti booms over you all, bright and gold. 

Katsuki will never forgive you if you freak out now. You could imagine him clearly—standing there next to you, frowning. Use your damn head.

What had happened? In your time? The confetti had started falling as planned and Katsuki had turned to you, his face serious as ahead of him, Deku had stiffened—

And now you were here. Underneath a full moon, the skeletal branches above you lifting strings of warm fairy lights, like shawls. 

It’s cool enough, comfortable enough, that the park is busy. The girls accept your weak excuses of needing to meet back up with the photographer, leaving you with a chorus of well-wishes and excitement. 

You swallow, something within you tightening in fear. You are standing here, in this park—your skirts whispering over the fallen leaves around you, waiting. Waiting for Katsuki, you realise bleakly. 

Since jumping back you’ve been connected to him, somehow—a familiar tether, a lifeline, boomeranging around your explosive Pro Hero. But amid the tree-lined alley of this park you cannot see him: just clumps of strangers in autumn coats. Families. Couples strolling along and enjoying the clear night. Groups of lively friends, young. There’s the promising warmth of good food cooking, somewhere close—a restaurant if you remember correctly, housed in a nearby pavilion. It was meant to be award-winning, you think dimly, though you’ve never been. Reportedly booking out months in advance, a fancy place for dates—or wedding receptions.

Some look at you oddly, in your floating lace, your silks, your glitter. Some ignore you completely, but all give you a wide-berth, leaving you displaced among the crowd. Displaced in time.

You glance back up to the moon like you can anchor yourself. Beyond the dancing branches It’s shinning white, untouched by the city smog—the kind of moon a younger you might be looking up at, too, somewhere out there. 

You have to find Katsuki. Or someone—if this Quirk has left you stranded in the past, then you need to find a way to undo it. Katsuki knows this version of you, now, thanks to how you’ve skimmed along the surface of his life like a skipping stone: he’s your best option for being believed, even if it could ruin everything yet to come.

Swallowing, you look up to the moon again. You only need Katsuki to vouch for you—then you can demand that he palms you off to Deku or Todoroki, Kirishima, Best Jeanist. Someone Katsuki trusts; someone who will come to trust you. And from there, somehow, you can get home. Maybe. 

Use your damn head. You had to get to Jeanist’s agency—he probably wouldn’t see you, mistrustful, but if you were enough of a menace he’d relent, surely—

“Congratulations!” Someone calls out, and startled you turn—your heart flipping as you look straight past the woman now smiling at you to the man standing behind her, wary. 

“Thanks,” you choke out, Katsuki’s face impassive. Oblivious to your piquing anxiety the woman smiles brighter, her dark blue hair rippling out as though caught in an ocean current, light refracting through it like sunlight on a wave.

She’s beautiful. Waverly, you recognise. The shinning star of Singapore’s Pro Heroics scene. When had she been here? You rack your brain, trying to remember—she’d been all over the news for a solid year or so, after the Mako Tsumani. The press couldn’t get enough of her—or the shots of her parting the sea itself. And then she’d stayed in the city on that Hero Program exchange, or whatever—the media tailing her everywhere like adoring dogs, new rumours flying every week—

Rumours like her involvement with Katsuki. Dynamight. 

You must have a look on your face at the idea of it—running into your stupid, hot-headed dummy husband on a date—because Waverly (this glorious treasure of a Pro Hero who single-handedly saved Japan’s western coastline) reaches out to you, asking, “are you okay?”

Katsuki watches in mean-spirited interest as you struggle not to look at him.

“Yes,” you squeak, like a coward. “I’m—I’m a big fan.”

Waverly smiles bashfully, prettily, as behind her, Katsuki—Great Murder Bastard Asshole Dynamight—snorts at your lie. 

“Please,” She tells you, ignoring him, “the honour is all mine. You look lovely—is this a Bélanger?” 

A slim hand is motioning to your dress, your sequinned silk—your Bélanger. You nod, wordless, as she reaches out to touch your skirt reverently. In a few short years, she’ll end up modelling for the brand in a campaign that sees her on billboards and magazine pages, dripping in pearls and holding handbags, lipsticks. It’s so—it’s so weird, you think in alarm. Knowing what you do of her future and still having to stand here, to act normal. You can see it clearly: picking up a copy of Vogue Japan with her on the cover, heavily pregnant and laughing against her husband. Her future husband? You hadn’t thought anything of it, distracted with your own life and the way it implodes after you meet Katsuki, officially, but—

You swallow. Thinking this way, anxious and wired, takes seconds. Seconds too long.

Katsuki grunts, getting Waverly’s attention. “C’mon, I ain’t losing our reservation because of some frilly extra.” 

He shoots you a pointed glare as he says it, and Waverly’s making appalled with noises, already telling him off but you—

For the first time in this overwhelming bullshit time fuck of a day, your temper flares; hot and arid, like the desert heat. 

“Make sure you make him sign a prenup, if you ever get married,” you say aloud, to Waverly, “you wouldn’t want some extra to take half of those big Pro Hero dollars.”

Behind her Katsuki’s eyes narrow but Waverly grins at you, more pointed than her media-friendly smiles. “We’re no where near the nuptial stage,” she promises, “but I’ll remember that.”

You almost feel bad for the future Husband—a very handsome, Chinese popstar who doubled as a model and probably had a prenup of his own, now that you think of it—but Waverly is reaching out again to take your hand, squeezing it lightly. “You’re beautiful,” she tells you sweetly, perfectly. “Congratulations—may you always be happy together.”

You can’t help yourself: glancing past her even as she holds your hand, congratulating you on your marriage to a man now silently walking away from you. 

You can’t mope—there’s too much at stake. But before you can even make it out of this wretched park and bang on Jeanist’s door, the heel of your shoe—dainty and precious and impractical for any kind of walking that doesn’t involve an aisle—snaps. 

It’s a tiny thing, miniscule. But one moment you are striding through a tree-lined lane, determined to somehow get home to a future you have built with blood, sweat and tears—and the next your ankle twists as your heel gives way underfoot. 

You yelp, suddenly lopsided; a startled couple skirts around you like your misfortune might be contagious and suddenly you’re aware of how you must look—wild-eyed and rumpled from being bounced around all day, like a child’s toy—like a doll, thrown to the side.

It’s almost funny. Almost. Maybe in the future (whatever that meant for you, now) when you’re back home safely, you could laugh about this whole shit show. But the exhaustion catches up with you swiftly; you barely manage to make it to a bench, half hopping to get there before you deflate, falling apart gracelessly.

Beyond the noise of the others in this park, it’s quiet. You squeeze your eyes shut and tell yourself to breathe—to let it out, to let it go—and when you open them again you look up to the moon, still bright. Still there, gently glowing: a paper lantern held high. 

Was a younger you looking out at the same sky, tonight? Had you even noticed it? You try to remember what you might’ve been doing in this moment—caught up in your own little life, the petty dramas of your friends, the more serious dramas of your job and your own wishful thinking as you walked yourself home alone, night after night. 

So much changes after you meet Katsuki, you realise, lifting your hand, your ring illuminated in the moonlight. With him came his world—his friends, laughing on their couch as they retold the story of how they got together. His friends, and the life and death choices they faced every day. 

You stretch out your fingers; the stone in your ring glitters perfectly, cut to catch and refract the light, creating stars in its own universe.

It was beautiful. And you hadn’t cared about it at all, when Katsuki first proposed. 

The two of you had been trying to make the most of his rare vacation days, Katsuki wanting to hike. He had been so determined to show you something, cross checking the day’s weather obsessively—only for it to end in disaster, the pair of you stranded in a freak downpour, soaked and annoyed with each other. 

Everything could’ve ended so sourly, you think; the two of you baled up against the thickest trees. But you had glanced back to him almost unwillingly, wanting to know what he was doing, what he was thinking—even mad as you were. 

It shouldn’t have been funny: the sight of your boyfriend’s furious face, hunched in on himself as he glared at nothing. Like a wet-cat—an old meme. But despite yourself—despite the gloomy weather—you had laughed. 

Laughing at Katsuki Bakugou was always a safety hazard. His face twisting, you thought you had made things worse—but you must’ve looked just as stupid to him, because he was tsking, shoulders loosening as he moved away from the measly shelter of his tree to stand before you. 

“You’re an idiot,” He’d said, mouth working after those words like he couldn’t capture what else he needed, even as his eyes burned. “But—I want this. I want you. For the rest of our damned lives. Marry me.” 

And now—

Under the trees of this wretched park, you let your hand drop. I want you, he had said. For the rest of our damned lives. And now you were just some frilly extra, sitting on a bench in a park and staring at a rock you won’t be given for years, yet, by a man who—

Who’s—

Who’s standing before you, frowning silently, a plastic bag in hand.  

Despite knowing it’s not your Katsuki, your heart lifts; you can’t help the wobbly smile you give him, startling yourself when you realise your eyes are wet. 

“Waverly’s too good for you,” you sniff, dabbing furiously at your face. “Where have you left her?” 

“Some pretty boy model or whatever wanted her to scribble on his face,” Katsuki says, shrugging. “So I faked a call from Denim Head.” 

You sniff again, watching your shoes instead. They glimmer, beautiful and useless and like a child you let your shoe with the broken heel dangle precariously, before dropping from your foot. 

Katsuki watches this in silence and when you don’t look up, he makes a small, annoyed sound. “I’m—m’ sorry,” he says at last, roughly. “For… brushing you off. You looked like you were boutta blow and tell Ripples she was gonna drop dead, or something.”

Your breath catches in your throat; an involuntary laugh as you glance up to him at last. 

“Not dead,” you promise him wetly, balling the ends of your veil in your hands. “She’s fine. Seems happy.”

Katsuki watches your fidgeting silently, eyes unreadable. 

“Y’gonna cry?” He asks, gruffer than before. 

You make a show of sniffing, then shake your head. 

“You’re safe,” you reassure him, but the blond frowns harder at you. 

“I can handle some f’king waterworks,” he says defensively, and you snort despite yourself. “‘M just—” staring pointedly at your dress, he adds, “You probably shouldn’t be crying in that… or whatever.” 

You blink at him, and to your horror you can feel the wobble under your skin, the burn of tears. 

“It’s been… a long day,” you concede, thickly.

Katsuki’s mouth thins as he makes a small, irritated sound—shoving the plastic bag he’s holding at you, rustling it. 

“Got you some shit,” is all he says, when you stare at him. 

In a puddle of glimmer and silk and tulle you open his offering—carefully, as though you’re pulling the corners of a furoshiki-packed lunch. 

Your mouth droops when you see what he’s brought you; heavily, involuntarily, weighed by unshed tears. There’s a bottle of cold water, condensation making the flimsy plastic of the bag stick to it like a second skin. A smaller bottle of soda, the sugariest on the market. A packet of pale pink tissues, the wrapper covered in some pastel cartoon you vaguely remember being popular. Konbini sandwiches, egg salad—and a ice-cream. You pull it out first—it’s a seasonal flavour, printed with English letters, in gold foiling. Green-tea & Strawberry.

“Quirk ‘ffect means you need to keep your blood sugar up,” Katsuki explains, when you look to him. He’s determinedly not looking at you—even as you unpeel the water bottle free. 

“Thank-you,” you say, softly. 

Katsuki scowls deeper—then, jerking his head like he’s disagreeing with something, internally, he lets himself drop onto the bench. 

You gulp down the water as he watches you, furtively—when you empty the bottle you motion with it, pouring out water that’s no longer there. “Thirstier than I thought,” you say, and Katsuki grunts. 

The pair of you are—not hidden, on this bench, not with you in bright white and Katsuki as—well, Katsuki—but it’s shadowed enough that people glance at the two of you, briefly, then keep moving. In front of you, your shoe glitters and you watch it for a moment—its lifelessness, lying there in the dirt, its loneliness, before you finally have the courage to say, “I’m sorry I interrupted your date.”

Katsuki grunts again, shifting so that he’s leaning forward—hunched. “S’not like you knew,” he says, simply, but it doesn’t lessen the knot in your gut. 

You look at him, assess him carefully, his jaw tightening as he ignores it. His gauge is gone, now, you note dimly—the tear of his scar obvious. You know so much about him, you think suddenly. Will know so much about him—in the future. And yet you couldn’t even give him one night, one date, without looming over him like a threat. 

The tab for your sandwich pulls away, easily, the icecream still sitting in your lap. One of the few things your Katsuki treasured was the ability to go his own way—to make his own choices. 

“I would’ve hidden, if I’d seen you,” you tell him, picking at your sandwich. He cuts his eyes to you, unmoved, and you add, “It’s a good night for a date.” 

Katsuki’s jaw moves; the imperceptible grind of his teeth. 

“Guess,” is all he eventually gives you, and you wonder how long his broken heart lasted, the last time you saw him. How this thing with Waverly will end—how he would take it.

You nurse your sandwich as the two of you sit in silence, Katsuki watching the parkland. His eyes are sharp, though you can see the bags under them. 

“Hard day?” You ask, out of habit. It’s a tiny slip up and you almost wince with it, but Katsuki—Bakugou—just frowns at the thinning crowd before you. 

Asking that question of your Katsuki gets much the same reaction; he frowns to himself and does some complex, internal math before deciding what he’ll share. The Katsuki you’ll know, in the future, eventually opens up. 

This Katsuki frowns harder, before glancing to you. 

“S’fine,” he says at last. “Usual crap. Put some extra down, in front of his kid—”

Katsuki cuts himself off, grumpy at having to revisit it. You watch his fingers curl into a fist. “Had him cuffed and frog marching past his own brat.”

“How old—?” You start, but Katsuki’s already shaking his head. 

“Dunno,” he says, frowning again. “Can’t tell shit about ‘em. Young, or whatever. Eleven?”

“That’s a rough age to watch your father be arrested,” you reply, trying to imagine it. Some poor child’s stricken little face as their father is taken away. 

Katsuki grunts in cursory agreement, letting the silence lapse between you for a moment, then two, before asking quietly,“Where’s your dumbass?”

The question startles you so much you laugh. 

“I’ve been wondering the same thing,” you tell him, which just causes the Pro next to you to frown as you explain further, “He’d be here, if he knew.”  

You watch as his younger self frowns deeper—and smile at him. “He’s a good man,” you defend to the silent judgement. “A great man. And I know—” your voice hitches, just tiny, “I know that—that he’s waiting—”

You’re holding your sandwich as you talk, the wind picking up just enough to rustle the plastic bag, still in your lap. The silk skirts, underneath it. 

One moment you are there, talking about how great your extra is—and the next Katsuki is left with nothing but cold empty space, the sandwich you were holding tumbling to the ground and cartwheeling, messily, until it hits your shoe, left behind like some shitty fairytale. 

5.

The first time Katsuki kisses you, it’s storming. 

That’s what you think of when you’re plunged from the dry, autumn evening into sudden, cold afternoon rain—the storm that brought you together.

It’s jarring; jolting. You’re displaced, again—shuffled through time once more. You’re not in that first storm with the Katsuki you’ll come to love—you’re not with him at all, you’re in a new day, a new place, breathing in sharply as ice-like water drenches you. 

You were just there, you think wildly—just there with him, sitting on some stupid bench in some stupid park—

You gasp with the delayed shock, flat on your ass in the middle of a downpour—in the middle of a puddle, dead leaves and cherry blossom petals all around you. The cold, dirty pavement water is seeping through your silk and your tulle to your skin and you lift your arm, like you could crawl away from the suffocation of where you find yourself now—weighed down by your own veil clinging to you, a drowned ghost.

Scraping at the gravel, you can’t tell what’s tears or rain; the roar of it thickens, the koi-fish jump of the water reaching higher, in answer and for a moment you feel as though you will drown, sitting there—in the rain, in your own self-pity. 

Get up, you tell yourself viciously—just as the rain lightens overhead. Stopping, flimsily. You glance up—your heart crawling its way through your throat in hope. 

“Katsuki,” you say. Katsuki, something deep within you whispers. 

He’s holding an umbrella over you, his jacket shinning wet. You watch the rain bead along it, trailing down, before glancing to his face—smooth and calm, unflinching even as water drips through his fine hair. 

He’s still not your Katsuki—but he’s more familiar, now. He’s—you—

You think of that storm again. The one that brought him to you, at last. How he looked much the same: as though he had been waiting in the rain.

The wobble within you is threatening to unleash. You have needed him, you realise—any him, any version—so, so much. And now he was here.

“We have to stop meeting like this,” you joke instead, weakly. Katsuki narrows his eyes, wary, but holds out his hand. 

“C’mon,” he says. “I’m soaked waitin’ out here for you.” 

You take his hand and even as he grunts, hoisting you up, you think it’s just as warm as it always is—as it always has been. 

“Here,” he says, and you look at him, blinking the water out of your eyes to where he’s offering you a pair of slip-on shoes. You stare at them: and then him as he tches, looking away from you as he explains, gruffly, “They’re just for now. Your other damned thing is in m’bag.”

Suddenly conscious of the fact that you are now a heel down, you wobble in spot—a hand slipping to your elbow to keep you steady, your new shoes waiting. 

It’s a team effort, getting your other heel off—you hiss with the wet, the cold, but the other shoes slip on easily, perfectly sized. You glance to the blond, wondering, but Katsuki refuses to look at you, helping instead with your veil. You wince when it pulls, heavy and he tches to himself again, making you hold the umbrella.

“Hold still,” he commands—you make an annoyed noise in answer, but Katsuki’s already working his fingers in the back of your hair where the veil combs in, tugging at it until you’re free. 

“Better?” He asks, squinting with the rain, running rivulets down his face. You nod, suddenly wordless and with your veil wrapped around his arm, Katsuki motions for you to follow.

It’s a quiet area; back-street homes clumped together. A little cube car drives past and Katsuki hoists the umbrella higher—protecting more of you as he leads you to the warmth and glow of a laundromat. 

It’s small, empty. You toe inside gingerly, grossly aware that you’re dripping—but behind you Katsuki grunts, shoving his umbrella in the rack by the door. 

“C’mon,” he says. “Get some of this shit dry.” 

Your dress is limp now—heavy and trailing, wet against you. Katsuki nudges you to one of the plastic chairs—dropping his bag onto the table, your veil still wound around his arm. 

You don’t want to sit, still uncomfortable, but Katsuki throws your veil into a dryer, glancing at you when you don’t move. 

“There’s a towel in the bag,” he tells you, loud in the small space, and you can hear the cool slide of coins as he counts them out. “Use that.”

It’s a black shoulder bag. Looking at it brings back memories you hadn’t even realised you’d forgotten: the familiar, background dressing of it hanging in Katsuki’s entryway. The way he’d sling it over his shoulder, like he was still in school. You trace your fingers over it for a moment, remembering those early days of knowing him—almost able to reach out and touch them. 

The leather still smells new, when you unzip it. He’s brought a bath towel—big and dark and thick and you pull it out carefully, minding the other things he has in there, too. 

“You were prepared,” you try, going for lighthearted. Katsuki’s dryer tumbles to life as he grunts. 

“Knew you were comin’,” is all he offers and you stare at him, his towel pressed to you. 

“You—today?” You ask, and it comes out more incredulous than you intended. 

Katsuki shrugs off his jacket, draping it over the back of a chair. “Yeah, today.”

When you stay quiet he glances to you, frowning at how you’re hugging the towel. 

“Use that properly,” he demands, and you squeeze it tighter—suddenly shy. 

“How did you know?” You ask.

Katsuki stares at you, mouth flat before he tches, pulling his bag to him. “It’s been two years,” he says, voice suddenly rough. “Since the park. S’enough time to look at a few damned registries.”

“Registries,” you repeat, and Katsuki squints at you like you’re concussed, pulling out a dark lacquer box. 

“Quirk registries,” he clarifies, like it’s obvious. “You’re an on-going investigation. We’ve been looking for shitheads that might have some bullshit Quirk that’ll explain this. You.” 

An on-going investigation. How would that—how does that—

Setting the box down with a matching, thin case, Katsuki tches again, moving to you. 

“You’re not using this,” he accuses, and you let him tug the towel out of your hands, deceptively gentle before he opens it with a rough flick—then dumping it over your head. 

It’s a universal sensation of instant safety; held there, Katsuki’s hand on the crown of your head like the reassuring weight of you burying yourself up against your pillows as a child, protected under your blanket.

“Use it properly,” he repeats and you nod under his fingers, hyperaware of when they shift, still bracketing you—holding you. 

“I know how to use a towel,” is what you say instead, your blood singing in your ears.

Katsuki hums. “Dunno ‘bout that.”

You hiss, annoyed, but he’s moving away from you—his hand slipping away and you peak out of the loosening towel to watch him open the lid on the box he’s laid out. On the bento, you realise, steam still faintly rising from the rice. 

Against the lacquer red innards of the box, the food Katsuki’s made looks like a glossy magazine spread. There’s salad—and the rice, sprinkled with seasme seeds, nori, salt. Neatly rolled tamagoyaki, sunshine bright. He’s layered the golden, crumbed shrimp with tempura lotus root and—

You stare at the pickled ginger; gleaming pink and arranged like a rose, with a dab of wasabi. He will still plate it like that for you, in the future, when he’s showing off. 

“Should eat,” he says, motioning to all of it. “You never finished your damned sandwich.”

The egg sandwich he brought you. Your stomach flips, empty, but you still don’t move—instead watching as Katsuki lays out chop sticks and a thermos. 

It’s surreal; Katsuki, setting out a bento for you under fluorescent lights. Katsuki, you think dimly—a different one, slightly older, setting out dinner against the warm lighting of his apartment. Looped together, over and over, interchangeable. 

“How did you know?” You ask again. Katsuki frowns—thinking, and you add, “if you can’t tell me because of the—investigation or whatever, that’s fine, but… I just—”

“There’s only three fuckers in this county that might fit,” he interrupts you, sitting down. Away from the chair he’s kicked out for you, you note. “One’s already in jail. The fucker could pause time for a few seconds—people, more like—and used it to rob places. The other’s a kid.” Katsuki shrugs, “Thirteen, sullen little shit. Reckons he can displace things, but the tests were a flop.”

You finally sit, still listening, and Katsuki hesitates after a few stretched out moments, his mouth working silently. “The… the last one’s some dusty old extra on his death bed—he drew shit.” 

“What did he draw?” You ask, despite yourself. The blond frowns, his cheek taunt.

“You,” he admits at last. “Lookin’ like a soaked cat.”

You make a small, annoyed noise but Katsuki finally grins at that—pointed and sharp.

“S’pretty good likeness,” he says, evilly. “The old fuck got that saggy, sad-frill look just right.” 

“Shut up,” you tell him, without heat. It keeps you buoyant, though: you feel lighter than you have in a few hours, and finally pick up the chopsticks.  

The bento before you—when you touch the sides, gentle and tentative—is still warm. You marvel at Katsuki’s timing. How—?

“How did you know when I’d—when to show up?” You blurt out. 

Brow furrowed, the blond just stares down at the food he’s prepared for you. “The old fart gave a date,” he admits, slowly. You raise your eyebrows, waiting for the rest, and Katsuki rolls his eyes. “A vague as shit one, fuckin’ riddle bullshit—but it beat racing here every time the sky caved in on itself.” 

Something in your chest tightens, the chopsticks in your hand wavering. Racing here every time the sky caved in on itself. It should be romantic, you think dimly—that he’d say it like it was an option. But all you can think about is the darkness of his bedroom when you first appeared in front of him—his school dorm. The furious fear on his younger self’s face.

Katsuki is watching you, eyes narrowing the longer you’re silent: taking in the minute play of emotions you’re failing to hide. 

“Stop overthinkin’,” he demands, like he doesn’t do the exact same thing. “Why the fuck would I let you sulk in the damned rain?” 

He cannot see the dark mirror of your heart—of your fear. “I’m an investigation?” You remind him.

It’s a tiny jump, in his throat: the one that happens when he’s taken by surprise—or uncomfortable. 

“You need to fucking eat,” he says instead, and you breathe out—tiny, stressed—and Katsuki tches, his face souring. 

“You’ve been doin’ this for ten years,” he says, his voice a low rumble. “Get over yourself and feed your damned face. I know you’re fucking hungry.”

It’s the same aggressive concern he shows his friends—Deku, too reckless. Kirishima, too hard on himself. Kaminari, too flippant about his worth. The same aggressive concern he will show you. Is showing you. Has shown you. 

The bento box before you is beautiful and you stare down at it, wishing desperately you weren’t even here. 

He never stood a chance, you admit to yourself. 

“Ten years is a… is a long time to live with this,” you say, quietly. The dryer beyond you tumbles on.

Katsuki tsks, like you’re talking about a coworker he can’t stand, or bad weather. Something mundane. Something that isn’t actively changing his life.  

“You think I can’t handle some random shitty visits?” He challenges, leaning forward. “Y’think I do shit I don’t wanna?”

Your temper licks at you; defensive and hot. “Did you even have a choice?” You challenge back, and Katsuki squints at you, cheek jumping. 

“D’you?” He asks tersely, in return. “Hah? Y’wanna play that game? Alright. Yeah. How’d you get hit by a time-travelling Quirk, then?”

You don’t answer, can’t answer, and Katsuki snorts meanly. “Yeah, s’what I thought. I bet I can fucking guess. You think assholes with those kinda Quirks make a habit of targeting everyday civilians?” He tsks again. “Look me in the fuckin’ eye and try and preach to me about fucking choice.” 

He doesn’t even know what he’s getting mad about—and how can you tell him, without it being more of a fight? Without doing more awful damage?
 

It takes so much control to keep your mouth shut—you want to scream at him, your fear bubbling to the surface, rancid. For you it’s only been a few hours, at most—for him, a decade. How could he even try and argue with you about choice?

When you don’t speak any further, Katsuki clicks his tongue, shifting back into his chair. 

“S’too fuckin’ late now,” he says, gruff. “‘M always gonna make my own choices.” 

You think about Waverly; her hair moving against the twilight sky like a dark ocean ripple. Grinning, conspiratorially.

Your voice is quiet, when you finally speak. “I just… I just want you to always have one.”

Katsuki scoffs, crossing his arms. “You’re dumber than you look if you think I’m gonna let some damned scribbles—some damned bullshit—tell me what to do.” 

The muscles of his biceps flex; you look away. The Katsuki you know will take great delight in coming back from his workouts, wretched and sweaty and catching you in a headlock when you playfully refuse to kiss him.

This Katsuki stares at you in flinty challenge and you ache. You want to reach out and just—what? Touch him? Touch him. Reassure yourself that somewhere, out there in time, he’ll still be waiting for you. That he will choose you. 

“Eat,” the blond commands. You wrinkle your nose, but the spread before you is waiting and you—

You let your shoulders drop, picking up your chopsticks. 

The pair of you sit in silence, Katsuki watching as you bite into a lotus root. It’d be unnerving at the best of times, having someone stare at you—eventually you crack. 

“What?” You ask, halfway through lifting a shrimp. 

Katsuki snorts. It annoys you even more. “What?” You ask again, jabbing the air in threat. 

“Nothin’,” he says, which is infuriating. Whatever the look on your face, it just makes his ungodly mouth twitch—the beginnings of one of his smug, shit-eating grins. 

“Stop it!” You say, and in his amusement, Katsuki’s teeth are brilliant.

“You idiot,” he states. It has all the affection reserved for a cat that’s tumbled backwards off a couch, and you make a small, thin noise. 

The mindlessness of the moment eases you again; loosens you into trusting the safety of it. With his towel wrapped around you, in a warm space, lunch on the table, you could reassure yourself that—that things would be okay. No matter what happened. 

“Rain’s breaking,” Katsuki observes, after a while. You glance up from where you’d been concentrating on the tamagoyaki—only to see the fine drizzle of it, lesser now, than what had chased you in.

“Maybe we’ll get to see the last of the daylight,” you say, an empty thought. “It’ll be nice, after all this rain.” 

When you look back to Katsuki, though, he’s watching you: silent. Questioning. 

It’s—you recognise this look, you think, your heart in your throat. He doesn’t know it yet—maybe he’ll never know, but that’s the look—the one your Katsuki gave you, will give you, in the future—soaked, brought in from the rain. 

A moment that will define you both—the moment in the mythos you and Katsuki will share. Your version of a public confession, on stage. 

“Fuckin’ shit weather,” Katsuki will complain in the future, stepping in as you open the service door at work for him.

“Why are you here, then?” You’ll tease, leading him through the backrooms to where you’re doing stocktake, out the front. 

After-hours, the department store is quiet; liminal. Luxury on pause. It’s a job you both love and hate—in the heart of the city most days keep you busy, keep you running. You get to see the best of people: excited, buying fine-china for a wedding. Or relieved—clutching a vase for their mother, who’s chemo was successful.

You also experienced the worst of people, too. 

It had been one of those days. The rain had been constant and heavy, peoples attitudes just as miserable. All you wanted to do was go home, eat some junk and curl up with your hotwater bottle—unwind, empty out. But you had stayed back as a favour for a co-worker you didn’t even really like, doing the stocktake. Any other time and your manager would be here with you, suffering just as much: but both she and others had had to leave, the train lines they depended on under threat of flooding, leaving you alone, the only one with a safe way home.

You will never admit to it—the way everything within you had lifted, held aloft by golden hope at the sight of Dynamight in that moment, drenched as he was.

Waiting, in the rain. Just for you. 

“You alone?” Katsuki will ask, looking around the shop floor, wary. 

“Just me,” you sing-song. “No fans tonight, you’re safe.” 

It’s not quite the truth—you’re never truly alone in a department store. But for now you and Great Explosive Murder Bite Dynamight are the only inhabits in your strange, empty kingdom of fine-china.

It’s so funny—will still funny, in the future. The Pro, so out of place. You’ll distinctly remember trying not to laugh at how guarded he was, standing away from the displays, the heavy black and orange of his artillery and armour refracting through the glass of Champagne flutes. Clashing with rose-patterned plates.

When you think of this moment, you think of that, his terseness. The way he would frown at your elbow or your collar or even the tea cups, behind you, flexing his hands all the while, like a nervous habit.

Any other time you would’ve laughed at him for it. But that night—

The rain pelts down outside and suddenly skittish you half-turn from Katsuki, feeling safer that way.

“Did you just finish patrol?” You ask, your tablet lighting up as you look over what you’ve yet to do. 

The Pro Hero tsks; a yes, you presume, risking a glance back. His hair is dark and heavy with the rain, half plastered to his head, water beading down his neck, his uniform, glittering under the department chandelier. Like this, you can trick yourself into more benign thoughts—like this, he reminds you of a wet cat your best friend likes to send you pictures of, angry and disheveled and harmless, captioned with inane things like: LAME Mondays and NO!!!  

It makes you smile, amusement you bite your lip to hide as you throw him one of the store aprons, a makeshift towel. “Don’t catch a cold.”

Katsuki catches it with a grunt and you—

You look away from the slick shine of his arms, well-defined in the low light.

Every nerve within you is singing. A long, silent song you’ve been humming with since the day you met him. You don’t know the whys, yet, at this point in time—why Dynamight Great Explosion Mastermind himself has appeared, begrudgingly, on the peripheral of your life. Why he hasn’t left you behind in the smoke and dust of his meteoric-like trail. 

For two years—two years you will circle each other. Two years of your shock and suspicion and then bemusement, as this Pro Hero and his friends gather around you, popping up like it’s pure chance, like of course they had to be there. 

You’ve drunk with them in isakayas; sat next to them in hard plastic seats and shovelled down ramen, at places with laminated menus; been walked home by them, at night. Dynamight there all the while, stand-offish, an awkward shadow. 

Waiting for you at the edges, when the others peel off.

Like this night. The night. 

“You might as well go home,” you admit, tapping the back of your tablet in mindless rhythm. There’s still the entirety of the glassware to go—crystal decanters, flown in from Italy. Salad bowls, hand-blown locally. “Don’t let babysitting duty mean you can’t have a night to yourself, for once. You deserve it—it’ll be nice! Especially after all this rain.” 

The babysitting thing is a joke; a bad one that, even in this moment, you know he doesn’t really like. A bad joke that stuck ever since he first started lingering behind, making sure you got home. 

It will take you years to understand why he goes mute whenever you laugh about it. And tonight, when Katsuki doesn’t say anything—not even to tell you to die, or shuddup—you turn to him, expectant. 

He’s watching you—silent. Questioning, his eyes dark under his mask, under his hair. 

The apron is fisted tight in his hand, unused. You follow the star-like gleam of water curve down his chest, wondering, distantly, why your heart feels like it’s threatening to squeeze inwards on itself. 

Katsuki’s lips hitch: a tiny reflex of his tightening jaw, you think, zeroing in on the movement as though you could feel it, like your own. 

“I’m going to be here for a while,” you continue with false bravo, turning away from him. The pair of you are just on the edges of the glow of the counters—the other chandeliers. Pocketed, and protected. “There’s no point in both of us suffering.” 

The silence behind you is unnerving. Not a thing you would’ve thought to associate with Great Explosion Devastation Detonation Dynamight, before meeting him. You wish he would say something, anything—

“You gotta favourite colour, or something?” 

Thrown for a loop by the random—the odd—question, you wheel around: only to be met by the Great Wall of Muscle Dynamight himself, standing before you, having covered the space easily and quietly.

He’s normally so good about keeping a strict distance. You step back and manage to ask, without waver, “What?”

The department’s lighting is designed to make things glow; under the lights, Katsuki’s red eyes burn, like coal. “Is it the shit you’re always wearing?” he asks, his voice low. Husky, you think with a shiver, not missing how his eyes drop to your mouth. 

You want to run away—you want to run into him. 

Your favourite colour. You swallow, and shake your head. “It’s—”

It should be such a simple answer. But Katsuki is so close; you could reach up and run your fingers through the water beading on his costume and feel his next breath against your chest. 

Instead you step back again, bumping the display shelf behind you—making the plates it holds rattle. 

They’re echoing your nerves. You glance to them, worried: but they’re fine. Patterned with cats, the range of colours different on each.  

You stretch out and pick one up, Katsuki’s gaze prickling your skin all the while. 

“It’s this,” you tell him, the plate between you offered, like a Legion’s shield. “The cats.”

The blond stares at it wordlessly for a long moment, then to you. “Why?”

You stare back. It is one of the weirdest moments of your life—so far. Why? How could you describe it? How you liked the look of it on your favourite bag—the warmth of it in the afternoon light, walking home. How you’d wanted everything painted in your favourite shade as a child—wanted to live in it, wrap yourself in it, drink it if you could. How it just—it just—

“It makes me happy,” you say, soft. 

Katsuki’s nostrils flare; you grip the plate as a gloved hand comes up and brushes against your chin, testing, like he’s unsure if you’re real. 

No one ever—has ever—

You betray yourself and make a small, hungry noise: a mewl almost, pressing into his touch. Your eyes flutter shut—you feel it when Katsuki sucks in his breath.

“You’re mine,” he says, dark and quiet. You huff against his fingers in an abortive answer—but they slip away, too sudden, and you protest just to feel them against your neck seconds later, tilting your head in a cradle as his mouth slides over yours in a warm, wet promise. 

You breathe in against the kiss, your stupid plate almost slipping from your fingers—safe only for Katsuki pressing into you tightly, a solid weight.

He must know it, then, you think—what kissing you in that empty department store will do, will seal. 

The Katsuki now, the one you’re sitting across from in a laundromat where you’re half caught in the memory of that first kiss—will watch you in much the same manner, unware of what’s coming for him. 

The dryer behind him stops tumbling; leaving only the lightening rain between you, in absence of talk.  

You rub your cheek against your towel, and look away from him—all too aware that the Pro is still watching you. 

Waiting for something he doesn’t even know is coming.

You and Katsuki linger in the laundromat.

You’re grateful to him, though you don’t know if you can say it without it—without it creating some kind of ripple effect, and keeping him chained to you. But you’re dry enough, eventually, and Katsuki pulls out your veil from the dryer like silk scarves from a magicians hat; magicking your shoe from his bag, the heel repaired. 

You slip back into your wedding heels, tapping your feet together and watching their glitter, under the bright lights. 

“Thank-you for taking care of me,” you say, overly formal, trying to comb your veil back into place.

The blond just evil-eyes you, unimpressed. “Shoulda just let you drown,” he says rudely, and you hiss at him.

Katsuki ignores the warning, frowning as he watches you—your hair is a mess, now, unsalvageable, but you’re trying to make things work enough in the hope that you’ll eventually end up back where you started.

“Gimme that,” he demands. You protest as he’s tugging the comb and veiling out of your hands; but he stills you by thumping his fist on your shoulder, making you squeak—letting him secure it place, like he has any right to. 

You don’t dare breathe while he’s so close, and when he pulls away at last, tsking to himself, you look out the window. 

The rain has slowed, now; almost nonexistent, though it’s left the world in a gray, miserable twilight. 

So much for that sunlight, you think to yourself. 

“Shitty weather,” Katsuki says, mirroring your thoughts. 

You can’t help it; you smile. “Maybe it’ll be better next time,” you say. 

The blond is silent. You glance to him, furtively, and find he’s frowning out the window. 

“‘M gonna stop your stupid jumping,” Katsuki announces, suddenly. “Just wait.” 

Chest tightening, you look away. “Save the date, then,” you joke, weakly. 

He lets the silence stretch on between the two of you for a long moment, before he says, gruffly, “I don’t even know your damned name.” 

For some reason, it’s that—that one, tiny thing that makes your eyes prick. “I don’t think I can tell you,” you say, just as quiet.

Katsuki huffs. “Yeah. Figured.”

You think this might be the end of it, his careful pushing, but then he turns to you properly, and you look to him—drinking in the smooth face you remember from your first true meeting. The man he was—is—when you meet at last. 

“Just gimme one thing,” he asks, and it’s so quiet you’re sure your heart’s thumping is louder. “When… Is it soon?” 

You have no idea—no reference for time, in this shifting reality. But you think of the way this Katsuki reminds you so clearly of your own, of all your firsts with him. 

Even if it takes his choice away, you want—you want to reassure him. Promise him. But the words stick in your throat, and as though the door to one of the dryers has opened, a hot breeze ripples over you—moving your veil, your skirts—

Leaving Katsuki standing there, under the bright laundromat lights—his throat tight, alone. 

(He doesn’t know it yet, but you are on your way—barely days away. 

It’s Denki’s fault: will be Denki’s fault.

It’s April—the cherry blossoms lingering after an unusual season. The last days of Katsuki being twenty-eight years old. He’s allowing Denki to drag him downtown, the idiot waffling on about—something. 

Katsuki will be listening, regardless, but they’ll pass by the giant windows of a department store and something inside will move—

And it’ll be you. Holding a giant, crystal platter, helping rearrange the display.

You’re not in bridal white and your hair is combed back, pseudo-professionally but—

You’ll glance up by chance, and it’s the same wide, steady gaze that Katsuki has been meeting with all these years, again and again. 

Everything within him coils, tense—the shock on your face must be mirroring his, Katsuki thinks numbly, because Denki is suddenly in his space, shaking his arm, “Dude, what—”

And then the idiot sees you, too, Katsuki barely even feeling it when Denki yips, letting of static discharge in his excitement. “Kacchan! No way! That’s—”

Before Katsuki can even think of stopping the slippery bastard, he’s running off—people exclaiming as he pushes past them, shouting apologises—you and Katsuki left to stare at each other. 

He’s making you anxious, he thinks distantly. Your coworker, holding some crystal goblets, says something to you, frightened.

You shake your head, not looking away from him and Katsuki—

He takes an unwitting step forward, automatic; stopped only when Denki appears by your side, sticking his fat, useless head into the display, breathless.

Katsuki won’t know what he’s saying to you until later, when the idiot himself gives the blond the full report—Denki’s got enough audacity to be asking you something now, though, and pushed into action Katsuki will scowl, thumping on the glass angrily to get Denki’s attention. 

The moron will wave a dismissive hand, grinning sudden and sharp and you—

 
You’ll shake your head, say something anyway, and it won’t be until he drags Denki out of there by his collar that Katsuki will learn you gave the idiot your name.

Your name—after all these years. 

Katsuki will yank a protesting Denki away—his heart pounding viciously all the while. 

He won’t look back, mouth set, even as he can feel your bewildered gaze on the back of his head. 

He will drag Denki—still complaining—into the afternoon sunlight. Step by step away from you—step by step into the future, laying out, brick by brick.)

+1

One moment you are under fluorescent lights, chest tight—and the next you are under a clear, warm sky. The perfect blue. 

There’s shouting; golden confetti fluttering over you and you blink, confused, at the hand now in yours, holding tight. 

“Gotcha,” your husband smirks, altogether too smug, confetti catching in his hair. You stare at him, unable to process it—unable to process that it’s him, your Katsuki—and Katsuki’s grin drops, his hand and mouth tightening. 

“You good?” He asks. His hair is still neatly swept back, you note absently; Best Jeanists handiwork. “Oi, talk to me—”

Behind him, you catch the tail-end of Deku’s whip—winding around a young-looking server, his drink tray on the ground, glass everywhere as Denki crouches before him, hand on his shoulder.

“What happened?” You ask. Fingers still in Katsuki’s, you squeeze back: he presses your hand, still gripped in his own, against his chest.   

Katsuki tches. “Some brat,” he says, cutting the kid an evil glare. “He fucking—I dunno how much you remember, but we had a line-up of fuckers we questioned over their Quirks, and he fucking faked it—faked his damn ineptitude.” Eyes flat, your husband—your husband—looks down at you. “The brat’s old man’s in jail—some shitty, old, two-bit case. But ‘m the one who dragged him there, and the kid’s been bidding his time ever since. Our stupid wedding just gave him the opportunity he needed to be a shit.”

Deku and Denki are both crouching with the server, now, talking lowly. Deku looks so serious—the Symbol of Hope, explaining something that has their suspect—the teenager—nodding, his eyes downcast. 

You think about your time in the park, with a younger Katsuki; his tiredness and resignation at the stupid things people did in front of their children.

“What’s going to happen to him?” You ask, and Katsuki—your Katsuki, the one you belong to—snorts, glancing to where Deku is now helping the kid up. “I oughtta blow his face off,” Katsuki threatens, darkly. “But Deku will probably walk him through his rehabilitation bullshit.” The muscle in his jaw twitches; his hold on your hand a vice grip. “Unless you wanna press charges. If you do, I’ll make sure he’s buried.” 

You’re pulled close, like this, to Katsuki. His breath is warm over you whenever he speaks, and despite the worried ache in your heart, you say, “I’m—I’m fine, but…” Your veil is moving, with the day’s warm breeze—wrapping around Katsuki’s legs. Trapping him. 

You have to give him one last choice—one last chance. 

“It’s you he affected more,” you say, quiet. “You could’ve—your life could’ve gone any other way—”

Katsuki scoffs and your veil climbs up higher, confetti fluttering free. “I make my own damned choices,” he says. “And I’m choosing you, dumbass. You think I haven’t thought about this shit?”

Despite his gruff words, his free hand comes up—gently, hesitant—brushing against your chin. “It goes both ways.” He says, lowly. “I dunno if you ever stood a chance, but—”

He swallows, his hand dropping and your heart is in your throat as he continues, “Now that you know… if you want outta this, you—”

You scoff back, eyes wet. “I make my own damned choices,” you tell him, and it’s enough—Katsuki’s hand is back on your face and you are kissing him, breathing in against his skin, relieved. 

“Get it, Kacchan!” Someone—Denki—hollers, and people are clapping, cheering the pair of you on and in embarrassment you both break away from each other—Katsuki pulling you back, just for a moment. 

“Rest of our damned lives,” he says, warm against your temple.  

He is solid against you. Firm and real and—

Yours. 

You press your face against the crook of his neck, inhaling the clean, woody freshness of him— reassuring yourself. He’s here and you’re here and you curl your fingers against the nape of his neck, glancing over his shoulder—only to meet Aizawa’s dark gaze, the man standing by patiently, and holding a familiar bouquet.

You’d forgotten all about it—it had to be fifteen years old by this point, the flowers dried, preserved, the silk ribbon around it faded. Aizawa raises his eyebrows and you—you pull away, just a little, to look to Katsuki, his eyes illuminated like embers in the sunlight.

For the rest of our damned lives, he had said to you. 

You touch his face, smooth and calm as it is, careful of this precious thing between you. “For the rest of our lives,” you promise. 

Katsuki grins instantly, bright and unfetted like daylight, nothing gentle about him—and then he is tugging you in closer for another kiss, lips warm and giving as the people you love groan and laugh and cheer: one more time.