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“Do you want me here?”
The first time Shouto asked it, he wasn’t looking at Katsuki. His eyes were glued to the map of the mission on the table between them, his golden wireframe glasses perched low on his nose. He knows his quirk isn’t as suited for the job as some, and despite the fact that they’re generally mission partners, he wants to give Katsuki the option.
Katsuki is quiet for a moment; Shouto glances up at him. The look he spots on Katsuki’s face is a mix of a grimace and a lopsided frown. Shouto had seen the look before, but no place that he could connect back to this. No place that gave him the context to explain the pained look.
If it were a few years ago, if they were their younger selves, he knows Katsuki’s answer would be a scoff, a flick of his shoulder, a mean grin and a typical ‘I don’t need anyone, and I don’t care about you. Do what you want.’ Maybe with an ‘icyhot’ or ‘candycane’ thrown in for flare.
Katsuki’s response now has the same energy, with entirely different words. “You planning on running off on me?” He gives a much weaker scoff than he used to manage. Shouto’s eyes flick to the blonde’s palms, where his thumb runs repeatedly up and down his index finger, and then back to his face, where he’s plastered a false condescending look.
Shouto shakes his head, “No, I’m not planning to.”
“Good, then let’s focus on what’s important. Not stupid shit like that.” Katsuki’s head flicks to the side, his hand worrying the back of his neck. Shouto takes that as relief, and studies his mission partner for a moment longer before looking back down at the map.
“Do you want me here?”
The second time he asks it is in the hospital waiting room, where Katsuki is pacing a hole in the shitty linoleum floor.
Katsuki, shoulders hunched with worry, head down and eyes focused on the strip of floor he’s pacing, doesn’t respond right away. When he does, it’s in the form of, “Why do I even care if she’s in here. Why am I worried about her. Fuckin’ bitch, what’s the point of even caring, besides…” which goes on for the next four hours.
Shouto takes that as a yes.
“Do you want me here?”
The third time he asks, it’s whispered. They’re both plastered up against the wall of the base they just infiltrated. Shouto follows it up with, “It might be faster if we split up.”
The look Katsuki flashes him is one of disgust. “Are you fuckin’ dumb?” Shouto’s eyebrows furrow, and Katsuki rolls his eyes, “You’re not leaving my sights, you complete moron. They do not take fucking prisoners here.”
Shouto’s look of surprise is missed by Katsuki, as he checks the map. A small smile creeps up onto his face, and he kneels to help Katsuki make sense of it.
“Do you want me here?”
The remnants of a party cling to the counters and floors of Katsuki’s apartment, the man himself lounging on his couch, face in his phone. Everyone else had left a while ago, but Shouto didn’t know when he was supposed to leave. That sort of thing had always flown over his head. For all he knows, Katsuki had wanted him to leave for ages now.
Katsuki takes a deep breath. Its one he’s heard a lot recently, one Katsuki had taken before addressing anything sent his way. Shouto figured it must be something he learned in therapy, something that helped settle his nerves. Shouto had long known Katsuki to be a nervous, reactive person. He figured that was a good lot of the reason he needed such a prickly exterior, and half the reason he lashed out.
“Stop looking at me like that,” Katsuki mumbles, and then he turns to Shouto, grimaces, and bites out a, “Yes. I do.”
Shouto blinks at him incredulously for the next few moments. The best he can manage in his shock is a highly articulate, “You…do.”
“Yes.” Katsuki’s jaw looks like it’s going to pop, and Shouto’s hand finds his knee without thinking, a thumb running along his kneecap. Katsuki looks at him, puzzled, but strangely seems to relax.
“When do you want me to head out?” He asks, just to be sure he’s not misunderstanding something. Katsuki stares at him for a long moment before shaking his head.
“I have a guest room. We’re going to the same place in the morning anyway.”
The next time Shouto goes to ask, he’s interrupted by Katsuki’s voice.
“I’ll be taking Shouto and Chargebolt on my team. You take the other two, we’ll circle this area here…”
It wasn’t the first time he’d heard Katsuki making a plan, but the tinge of pride he felt when Katsuki’s plan involved the help of others, especially himself, wasn’t easy to ignore.
He’d grown so much.
“Do you-“
“Why do you insist on asking that all the fucking time,” Katsuki sneers, popping the lid of his water with a flick, downing the whole thing in one go. Wiping his mouth with his arm, he scoffs a laugh.
It doesn’t sit quite right with Shouto, who stares at Katsuki for a few moments before mumbling a quiet, “Just being sure.”
Katsuki’s head whips around to Shouto, scanning his face. “No, no, fuck, I didn’t mean it like that. I just mean it’s. Fuck.” He presses his nails into the side of his neck, “You ask it a lot. Like you don’t know what the answer is already.”
Shouto’s silence stiffens the air for a moment, and then, “I usually don’t.”
Katsuki’s face slowly morphs to surprise. Then frustration, “What? You’re not dense, Shouto. Not that dense, anyway.” His shoe squeaks painfully against the kitchen floor, the food he and Shouto had put together for the heroes potluck in the oven. Just to have something to do, Katsuki checks it again.
With Katsuki’s back turned, Shouto’s eyes flick down to the floor, eyebrows pulled as he processes the slight tingle of hurt, a finger tracing the table he’s sat at. “I don’t understand what you mean by that.”
Katsuki twists to look behind him, then turns back to close the oven again, taking the oven mitt off and taking a seat next to Shouto, “I mean you have to…know I want you here, by now. I’ve even…said it. Before.” The admission looks to be painful, but Katsuki bites it down, eyes focused on Shouto, genuine and open, if hesitantly.
Shouto’s eyes meet his, lingering for longer than they usually would. “That was then. This is now. The answer could vary.”
“It doesn’t often vary.” Katsuki’s eyes flick down, posture stiffening from the vulnerability. “It almost never varies, Shouto.” His jaw muscle pops, but his eyes move to meet Shouto’s again.
“Almost never.”
“There are times I just want to be alone, yknow. But.” He kicks the table leg, “I still. Wouldn’t mind you there. If you were quiet. And didn’t judge me for shit.”
“I wouldn’t.”
Katsuki barks a laugh and nods, “I know.”
“I’m glad.”
“Shouto?” The voice is heavy with sleep, soft, and just a tad insecure, vulnerable, and it’s almost hard to believe it’s coming from the blonde.
“Yes?” Shouto looks down at the blonde, whose head had somehow found itself in his lap. Katsuki’s face is twisted with anxiety, his eyes struggling to stay open.
“Stay? Please?” Shouto’s hand, which had found its way into Katsuki’s hair, scratches nails against his scalp.
“I will.”
Katsuki’s face relaxes with relief, and he burrows further into the fabric of Shouto’s pants, drifting off to sleep.
“I want to. Be with you.” Katsuki looks almost horrified that the words have left his mouth for a moment, and then his face steels with resolve, his chin jutting out, his chest puffing up. Shouto thinks he looks like he’ll crumble any minute, burst into tears.
They’d been on the balcony of Katsuki’s new apartment for hours, laughing as if they’d been drinking when all they’d had was lemonade. Katsuki had gone quiet for a bit, just staring at Shouto, and then…this.
The buzz in Shouto’s chest makes tears form in his eyes, and he searches Katsuki’s face desperately. “Be with me. Be with me?” He leans forward ever so slightly, “Katsuki. Be with me?”
Slowly, giving him time to pull away, Shouto moves his way into Katsuki’s personal space, a hand cupping his face gently. Katsuki leans into the hand, nodding violently.
“Thank god.” Shouto presses his lips against Katsuki’s. They end up curled up in the porch blanket, wrapped around each other, dead asleep. The birds and the sun peek into their slumbering peace in the morning, and decide to let them sleep in.
“I want you here.” Katsuki’s eyes are burning into Shouto’s, his hands clasped around the other man's, a slowly warming apartment key between them.
Shouto’s face is bright with shock. He scrambles for coherent thoughts. He wonders if moving faster than lightning is a Bakugou trait in general, or if it was just his Bakugou that liked to skip all the in-between steps, cut out all the fat, and just skip straight to the meat.
“Don’t look shocked, Shouto. You’re here practically every fucking night anyway.”
Shouto blinks a few dozen times before barking out an ugly laugh and slamming his lips painfully against his partner’s. When they separate he stares him in the eye and says, deadpan, “You’re an asshole. Yes.”
“Katsuki?” Shouto mumbles it against his hair, arms wrapped around the blonde, legs tangled on the bed. Sometimes, he still couldn’t believe this was their bed, that he belonged alongside this idiot, that this was their home, that they had stupid idiot cats together. He couldn’t believe Katsuki was his, that he was vulnerable with him. That he was vulnerable back. He couldn’t believe this was his life, now.
Katsuki makes a happy, sleepy little sound.
“I want to be here. Very much.”
Katsuki opens sleepy eyes, twisting to look up at him. He says nothing, just peering up at Shouto with the widest, prettiest eyes he’s ever seen. Shouto hears him loud and clear.
“Before you ask, yes, I want you here,” is the opening line to Katsuki’s wedding vow. He says it with a shit-eating grin,
Shouto’s face twists into an incredulous, smitten glare. God, he loved this asshole. He was absolutely going to kill him after this ceremony.
Katsuki says the next bit softer, so sweet that Shouto could almost forgive him for the first one, “As long as possible, if you don’t mind.”
Shouto gazes at him lovingly, smiles, and says, “I’ll see what I can do.”
Katsuki’s face drops into a similar smitten glare.
Uraraka steps forward from her place behind them, says her bit, and then, “You may now kiss…or fistfight, whatever floats your boat.” Shouto, for one, thinks its a very clever pun. He doesn’t have much more time to consider it, because there are lips against his the next second, and a gentle uppercut to his stomach the next.
Katsuki yanks Shouto’s ear next to his mouth and whispers, “I’m so fucking glad you’re here.”
Shouto twists around to look at him, eyes scanning his face. Katsuki’s eyes are misty, and Shouto’s match them. He pulls Katsuki close to him, feeling his warmth against his body. He nods vigorously, squeezing his husband hard.
“I’m so glad I’m here.”