Chapter Text
The air outside the reception hall was too warm for how cold he felt.
Still wearing the same sharp suit they’d stuffed him in for the wedding, Bakugou shoved his hands deep into his pockets and walked like he had somewhere to be. He didn’t.
He just couldn’t stay in there any longer.
Not with the way Deku had looked at her when they danced.
Not with the clinking glasses and the hundred fake-ass smiles, all saying isn’t this perfect?
It was. Of course it fucking was.
He found himself moving through quieter streets, away from the noise and music and dumb little fairy lights. Somewhere in the distance, the first test-firework cracked, a low pop echoing against the skyline.
“Ten minutes to the main show,” someone had said earlier. Like it was some grand event. Like that kind of beauty didn’t burn.
He ended up near a park. Small, barely lit, a few benches scattered beneath trees that had lost half their leaves already. It looked like the kind of place people forgot existed when they were happy.
That was probably why he noticed her.
Just one person on a bench, sitting alone, legs crossed at the ankle, sipping from something wrapped in brown paper. Slim figure, pale hair falling loose in waves — not curled or brushed like everyone else at the party. Just… real.
Bakugou didn’t mean to stop.
But his feet did.
And then, for some reason, he asked:
“You ditch the party too?”
The girl looked up slowly. Her eyes were… odd. Not wide. Not startled. Just quiet. Like she had already figured out who he was and decided it didn’t matter. A bright gold that had been dulled somehow. His eyebrows furrowed slightly. He thought he recognised those eyes for a moment there. She spoke and he snapped out of it. Must’ve mistook her for someone else.
“Couldn’t bear it,” she said simply. Her voice was softer than he expected. Rough around the edges, but gentle. Not the kind of gentle that came easy. The kind that had to be earned.
Bakugou blinked. He didn’t recognize her. And maybe that should’ve set off alarms, but he was too damn tired to care. Maybe she was some relative of someone. Maybe she had just wandered over from somewhere else. He didn’t ask.
He just stepped closer.
“Mind if I—?”
She shook her head once and scooted over without a word.
Bakugou sat. The bench creaked under his weight.
He stretched his legs out in front of him, eyes on the skyline where the fireworks were about to start. The air smelled like ash and sugar from the street vendors a few blocks down.
For a long moment, neither of them spoke.
Then, from the corner of his eye, he saw her hold out the bottle to him.
He hesitated.
“…That doesn’t look legal.”
“Not much about tonight feels legal,” she said, with a dry, amused kind of sadness.
He took it anyway. Just a small sip. Burned a little going down.
Cheap. Sharp. Honest.
They sat in silence again. The kind that wasn’t awkward — just necessary.
The kind that filled your lungs with something other than noise for a change.
The first firework went off. A golden and green burst in the shape of a star.
It shimmered, then disappeared before either of them could react to it.
“I thought it’d be louder,” she murmured, not looking at him.
Bakugou kept his gaze forward.
“It is. You just stopped hearing it.”
–
She hadn’t meant to sit this long.
The plan was to walk until the music stopped chasing her. Keep going until her legs gave out or her heart quieted. Whichever came first.
But the park pulled her in.
A stupid little patch of green caught between streets, barely enough trees to call it that. One working streetlamp flickering at the far end like it was considering giving up.
It felt honest. Which was rare tonight.
So she sat. Cheap bottle tucked in her coat, hair frizzing from the wind, dress too thin for this late in the season. Not that she noticed. The cold had stopped bothering her a long time ago.
Far-off, the wedding celebration raged on. She could still hear the echo of it — sugar-glass laughter, hopeful music, the rise and fall of voices that sounded like they belonged to people who believed in things.
Toga didn’t.
Not anymore.
She’d made it through the ceremony. She hadn’t cried. That was something. That had to mean something.
She’d watched Ochako take his hand with that soft, shaking smile. Had felt her chest cave in without a sound.
And then she’d slipped out. Quiet, practiced. Not because she was afraid someone would stop her — but because it was easier than staying.
Easier than watching her Ochako say “I do” to someone else.
The fireworks were starting soon.
She didn’t expect anyone to find her. She didn’t want them to.
So when the footsteps crunched on the gravel path behind her and paused, her first instinct was to go still.
“You ditch the party too?”
The voice was low, rough with wear. Familiar in that way certain memories were — the ones burned in from too much adrenaline and blood.
She turned her head just enough to see him. The blond spiked hair, that sharp-jawed scowl that didn’t quite hide the weariness beneath. Hands stuffed in his pockets like he was bracing for the world to punch him again.
Bakugou Katsuki.
Of course.
It was funny, really. Even when she was still a villain, still chasing death with a smile, she could tell.
Bakugou and Midoriya — they lived in their own private storm. Revolving, chasing, colliding.
Like they were born for each other’s gravity. Everyone else just… orbited.
Toga knew what that felt like.
She knew what it meant to want someone so badly, you’d set yourself on fire just to glow close to them.
And she knew what it meant to watch them choose someone else.
“I already saw everything I needed to,” she said, and the words tasted bitter but honest. “Couldn’t stomach the rest.”
He didn’t question it. Just moved forward. Stared at her like he was half-surprised she’d answered. Like maybe he expected silence.
“Mind if I—?”
She shook her head. Scooted over.
He sat with a grunt and stretched his legs out like he didn’t care if they took up too much space.
He probably didn’t. That was the kind of person he was — loud in presence, even when quiet.
They didn’t speak again for a while.
She liked that. She liked the quiet that didn’t press her for more than she could give.
After a minute, she pulled the bottle from the bag and held it out.
He hesitated, because of course he did, then took it. One sip. No thanks.
She watched the way his jaw worked, how his eyes stayed locked on the skyline like he was waiting for something to explode.
“You know,” she said, voice softer now, “I thought they’d be louder.”
He didn’t turn to her. Just spoke into the night.
“They are. You just stopped hearing it.”
The next firework cracked open the sky. Bright white, no color. Like someone had set a scar on fire.
She didn’t flinch.
Because some things don’t surprise you after a while.
Some pain gets so familiar it stops bothering to dress up.
–
The sky lit up again — bursts of gold, pale pink, greens and oranges, sparks falling like rain that would never land.
Somewhere, cheers followed. Music swelled from speakers down the hill, where the reception still hummed with wine and wonder and the easy hope of people who hadn’t lost anything tonight.
On the bench in the park, neither of them moved.
He held the bottle now, resting it between his knees.
She sat back with her arms wrapped around herself, not shivering, not quite still. Just quiet in the kind of way that suggested she was bracing for something. Maybe she had been for years.
Another firework split the sky. A bright pink this time.
It reminded her of someone. She looked away.
He watched the streaks of color without really seeing them. His jaw was set, his mouth pulled tight like he was biting down on words he didn’t want to say. Like if he opened his mouth, it might all come spilling out — how it felt to watch the person you once bled beside promise forever to someone else. How it burned in places no battle scar could ever reach.
There was a kind of comfort in the fact that she didn’t ask.
And he didn’t ask her, either.
Didn’t ask why she looked like a ghost in borrowed clothes. Why her voice was hoarse in that particular way grief gets when it’s been sitting too long. Why her eyes seemed fixed not on the fireworks, but on the shadows between them.
He didn’t ask, because he already knew.
Not the details. Just the shape of it.
People like them — they only ever got to watch from the edge.
Minutes passed. The final rounds of the fireworks began to crack like thunder. Bright, bright white against the night, like someone trying too hard to light up a sky that didn’t want to be seen.
The bottle made one last round between them before she tucked it away, quietly, into her coat again. He stood first.
She didn’t.
He waited a moment longer, eyes on her face, still unreadable even now.
Some part of him itched to say something — not kind, not cruel. Just true. But the words didn’t come. They never really did, not when it mattered.
She looked up at him as the final bloom of red exploded over his shoulder. Her mouth pulled into something that might’ve once been a smile, before it got tired of pretending.
“You should get back,” she said. “They’ll miss you.”
He didn’t say they wouldn’t.
Didn’t say he didn’t belong there, either.
He just nodded once.
Then he walked away.
She didn’t watch him go — not all the way. Just enough to let herself believe, for a moment, that it hadn’t mattered. That this was just a coincidence on a stupid night under a lying sky.
The park emptied with the smoke in the air.
The celebration went on without them.
The stars came out, but only the ones you had to squint to see.
And somewhere far away, the people they loved were dancing.