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Izuku slipped his favorite sweater on over his tattered old t-shirt. By this point, it was a miracle that the thing even fit, but despite Kacchan’s best efforts, he was still able to slip the old piece of cloth over his head. He refused to throw it out, even with the many protests from his Hero Partner. At least with the sweater overtop, he wouldn’t be able to say anything. The air was chilly and Izuku didn’t anticipate taking it off any time soon.
He slipped on his sunglasses, mask, and baseball cap before grabbing his wallet and keys. He locked the door behind himself, putting in his alarm code and starting his walk to the little hole-in-the-wall café he always met Kacchan at.
Running the Wonder Duo Agency was a lot of work, and they constantly had new Sidekicks applying for jobs and Hero-hopefuls applying for internships. If they took them all as they came in, the two of them would never be able to patrol or do any of the other paperwork that was necessary to keep their Agency running smoothly. So, every third Saturday, they met at a tiny little café on the corner, exactly equidistant between their two apartments, and bought enough coffee and food to keep the business afloat until the next month.
Sure, they could do this at the office. They had a giant building, equipped with numerous conference rooms and all the latest tech Hatsumei could invent, but there was just something about this particular aspect of their job that he and Kacchan innately agreed needed to be done this way.
These decisions dictated the people they would take on into their Agency, the dream they had both held dear since they were children. They would be people they supported, that they would attempt to form into the kind of Heroes they wished they all would be. These were the people they hoped would surpass them one day, that they would feel comfortable passing the metaphorical mantel onto when they no longer had the strength to carry it.
And, not for nothing, they would have to see them every day for the foreseeable future, and Kacchan was a little prickly when it came to people.
To the Number One Hero Duo, deciding who to hire was the most important decision-making process they were responsible for, and it took little to no conversation for them both to decide that it was best made over a warm drink, manilla folders, and one of Izuku’s Campos Notebooks.
When he walked into the little shop, shivering as he was rushed with warm air that carried the comforting scent of coffee, his eyes immediately fell on Kacchan. He was sat in the exact same booth they always occupied on these days, facing the door, looking down with his wire-rimmed glasses balanced on his nose precariously as he organized the files he’d brought that day. Their favorite quiche was already on the table, along with both of their regular orders. Katsuki took a sip of his, finally looking up, allowing his tired red eyes to lock onto Izuku’s form in the doorway. His expression softened as he held up his mug in greeting.
Izuku was grateful. For the longest time, he never expected to ever be on speaking terms with Kacchan again. Now, they were closer than he ever thought possible. They made the childhood versions of themselves look like strangers. Their friends made fun of them for it—the way they finished each other’s sentences. How their personalities perfectly balanced each other’s. How they had some kind of sixth sense for the other, always just knowing what the other needed without being told.
Katsuki forgot his glasses on a desk day? Izuku had an extra pair with his prescription in his office. Izuku left his bento on the roof of his car, and it got scooped up by an overzealous fan before he could go back out to grab it? Katsuki just happened to have a gut feeling that morning and made an extra for him.
Their lives were in perfect synchronization with each other. They never stepped on each other’s toes. Existing in each other’s orbit was as easy as breathing. Their days were a dance where they perfectly weaved around each other, the strings of their fates always intertwining but never tangling. There were no snags, no knots. If one looked closely, they would find that it was simply the same string, winding about itself in an endless loop over and over again, creating an endless infinity of perfect understanding.
On the outside though, it just looked like Izuku responding with a smile. Not one as bright as he usually gave, but all the more special for it. The tension melted from his body as he sank into his own side of the booth, across from Kacchan. The last of it exited through an exhale when he sighed at the relief granted by the warmth of his own mug. He let out a hum of appreciation when the tea hit his tastebuds. Kacchan had put in just the right amount of honey, though he never had any doubts that would be the case.
Usually, his body ached terribly. The consequences of years spent sacrificing himself for the greater good and for his loved ones. Yet, here, in this little no-name café, with his favorite cup of tea, at his leisure to examine the way Kacchan’s glasses tilted slightly down on the left side of his face because one ear was set slightly lower than the other, he felt young again.
Not like a teenager—he was already experiencing the aches by then. Even in middle school he was experiencing the long-term effects of sustaining injuries. In this little bubble of warmth, he felt overwhelmed by nostalgia, as if he was four, running around in his All Might onesie, “saving” his mother from the evil blanket villain.
The nostalgia was tinted, however. Because this, these moments with Kacchan, were also new. They were quiet and calm and peaceful. He felt, for just a moment, the world still. There was nothing outside of them and the soft light cast by the overcast day through the small windows along the far wall.
He thinks that maybe it isn’t that he no longer feels pain in these moments, but that the pain is overshadowed by what he can only call the purest form of contentedness. He thinks he’s lucky, that he gets to feel something so soft and unassuming. To be uninteresting, for once. Just a man in a coffee shop with his work laid out in front of him, his partner across from him with no words needing to be said. It was bliss, Izuku decides.
He was pulled out of his musings by Kacchan’s soft, yet still gruff, voice. “We don’t have a lot of applicants this time, Zu. Eye Bags’ class had their sports festival last week.” Izuku hummed in acknowledgement and pulled out the notebook he’d filled while watching the competition.
“We need to decide who we’re going to ask for, huh? Were you thinking three offers again this year? Or did you have something else in mind?” he asked, flipping through to the first student he’d marked as a potential intern. Katsuki rubbed in chin in thought for a moment before responding.
“It’s a good class this year. Even I thought some of the quirks were interesting. How about we try to keep it to three, but no more than five if we can’t narrow it down that far?” Izuku hummed in agreement. He had been thinking the same thing, but he was glad Kacchan had said it first.
They continued on like this for the next few hours, speaking in soft voices to the background noise of shuffling papers and the whirl of the espresso machine and boiling of water. Eventually, they ended their day with four new Hero Student interns, three from the new Class 1A, and one from the Support Course that had impressed them both. They’d also decided on two new Sidekicks to take on. They were a duo themselves, but they had been split up directly out of Shiketsu. One had gotten an offer from Todoroki’s Agency, while the other hadn’t and had ended up with Mirio at the Nighteye Agency.
They had decided to gain some experience individually, but now they were hoping to officially make their debut as a Hero Duo. Both Katsuki and Izuku thought they would be a good fit. The two came with stellar recommendations, from both Shoto and Le Million, as well as from their previous teachers and internships. They’d looked up a few interviews with them and they seemed to have personalities that would mesh well with the rest of their Agency (Katsuki called them “not totally insufferable”) and their cover letters truly spoke to their desire to learn from Deku and Dynamight.
The fact that the two hoped to pass the Wonder Duo Agency on to another Hero Duo in the far-off future was an unspoken consideration in their favor as well.
As they shuffled out of the café with a promise to return, they both started walking together. Neither of them turned to head towards their individual homes. It was another moment of many where they were so in sync with each other. They didn’t need to discuss; they just continued their walk into the quiet autumn evening until they reached a patch of wildflowers on the side of a small hill. Wordlessly, they both bent to pick a few, before Izuku combined both bundles into one, tying them together with a blade of grass.
Their walk continued until they found themselves in a small, unassuming cemetery, in front of an even smaller headstone.
Toshinori Yagi
Mentor. Friend. Hero.
Katsuki bent to dust off the little dirt that had collected since their last visit, while Izuku replaced the old flowers with the new, using his sleeve to wipe a smear off the vase provided at the head of each gravestone by the cemetery. Then, they sat, side-by-side.
The ground was cold, slightly damp, but neither felt uncomfortable in the warmth of each other’s presence. They took turns talking to their mentor, telling him everything they thought he would want to know, and maybe some things he wouldn’t. They expressed the things they wished he had been there to see or help with. They asked for advice knowing that none would come but feeling better for asking all the same.
By the time they had finished, the sun was setting, and dusk was upon them. Izuku laid his head on Katsuki’s shoulder while he softly carded his hand through his curls. Silent tears soaked into the shoulder of his jacket, but he didn’t seem to mind. He never did. The silence dragged on for a moment until it was usually the time for the two to leave and return home. However, instead of patting Izuku’s arm as a signal for him to stand like he normally did, Katsuki continued to brush his fingers through green ringlets as he spoke again.
“Hey, All Might…would you be alright with me and Izuku getting married tonight?”
Izuku lightly lifted his head to look up at Katsuki. Confused, but not reacting as strongly as one might think he would. He allowed those words, that question, to sink in for a moment, before gently laying his head back down. Another moment passed before he began again, silent tears falling anew, dripping down his cheeks to further wet the dewy ground beneath them.
“I think…” he began. “All Might would be so confused at that question, Kacchan. I think he would have been under the impression that we already were.”
Katsuki hummed above him; hand having moved from his hair to trace little patterns on his shoulder blade. “You’re right, Zu. I suppose we should fix that then. Can’t have All Might thinking he was wrong about us.”
“No, Kacchan. We can’t let him think that at all.”
***
When the minister got a call from the Musutafu Court House security guard on duty at 9:50 pm on a Saturday night, informing him that the Number One Hero Duo, Dynamight and Deku, were standing in the foyer, covered in grass stains, tears in their eyes and smiles on their faces, asking to be married, he thought he must have fallen asleep on his couch and was in the middle of a very strange dream. It took him a moment to really believe what he was hearing before rushing over to see the unbelievable sight for himself.
Then, he married the two. He didn’t feel the need to counsel them, to ask them if they were sure. He could sense it, after so many years. There was no need to question something that was so palpable in the air that it engulfed the building in its fervor. The security guard volunteered himself as their witness without having to be asked first. When they kissed, even they could feel the electricity buzzing in the air.
The next morning, the two Heroes slept in, cuddled in warmth and marital bliss. When they awoke, they would see 42 messages from their Public Relations Liaison, and they would answer none of them. They would also both ignore messages from Todoroki and Ochako containing links to the paparazzi pictures that were snapped of them leaving the Court House the night before, eyes locked on each other, and hands intertwined. Even in the dark, it perfectly highlighted the impromptu rings circling their fingers, fashioned out of wildflowers.
Later, they would both decide in that silent way of theirs that they would never need “real” rings anyways. Instead, both opted to get those very same wildflowers tattooed on equally scarred fingers. Izuku would often stare at the matching symbols as he sat with his husband on their soft couch in the small home they’d bought together and think that the flowers made the discoloration beautiful in an ethereal kind of way.
He was so happy.