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*
The days loop. Izuku is beaten by the rain, one night through the next.
His gloves scrape cement, his hands are more scar tissue than skin, this is it. This is how his heart spasms its way backwards, how he bleeds and bleeds and amounts to nothing.
Izuku wakes. He shelters his own mouth before he cries out. He forces himself voiceless, even if his heart insists: he will not scream.
I need to breathe. He’d been curled up at the margins of the couch, a blanket over his shoulders. Please, breathe. Please. He stumbles outside, he’s wheezing. He’s breathing. Finding relief in the pavement by sitting down. Why am I shaking so much?
… Oh, he thinks, then. I’m… I’m cold.
The night is mute, it ignores his shivering. Izuku tries doing the same — he ignores the cold, his empty-handedness, his loneliness. He folds his arms into himself. He thinks:
Kacchan wouldn’t let himself feel cold.
“How would it feel like,” Izuku mutters, molars chattering — “to be like that?”
Bakugou would never be helpless. Unlike Izuku.
He’s breathing properly now, no longer trembling. Squaring his jaw against the cold, inhaling smells of concrete and foliage. None of it is too particular, for a spring night like this one, or any other.
There’s so much Izuku wants to hide from. He tucks his face into his arms, into his knees. Even then, there’s no hiding himself from himself.
I’m not crying again. He smothers the edges of his eyes. It was just some stupid nightmare, I’m not —
“… Why’re you awake?”
Oh.
“… Kacchan?”
Izuku unfurls, raises his head, recognizes Bakugou’s face. A streetlight illuminates the coarseness of Bakugou’s brows. Izuku catches the moment they narrow from surprise, annoyance, or both.
He’d just asked him something — Izuku jerks himself to recall whatever it had been, wiping his face quickly, ungraciously, with the back of his forearm.
“I was just…” Izuku shrinks his shoulders into a shrug, as dismissive as he can be about himself. “Do you need anything?”
“… Do you?” Bakugou counters. Like he’s taking his time to look at Izuku, to blink at him.
Kacchan, Izuku wants to whisper. You’ve never had any nightmares, have you?
Have you ever noticed I always have?
Long before receiving his quirk, Izuku’s mind had always betrayed him, even asleep. Now, Izuku nearly lets his voice betray him through the cold, through all his breathlessness. He almost lets his heart insist, even if, deep down, he wishes he were invisible.
He wanted me to be invisible, too, didn’t he? Izuku thinks, though the memory of rain soon reminds him of how different everything is, now.
Then, if it’s different, Izuku stifles his exhale, what am I supposed to say to him?
“Here,” Bakugou mutters. In the same breath, he takes off his jacket, and stretches one arm towards Izuku. “Take it.”
The jacket hangs between them, within a perfectly reachable distance.
“… Izuku?”
That is his name, from Bakugou’s mouth.
“… Kacchan,” Izuku says, at last, so feebly.
He shrinks away, again. Away from Bakugou’s outstretched arm, and further into himself.
“Sometimes,” Izuku rasps, “when I get the chance to do something for myself… I can’t.”
A pause.
“M’kay,” Bakugou shrugs, so easily. What he does next is anything but dismissive. He stretches the jacket over Izuku’s shoulders, then plops onto the concrete floor beside him: all in the same heartbeat. All under the same night sky.
“I already knew that,” Bakugou mutters, after a pause.
“Okay."
Bakugou huffs, tilting his head sideways to blink at Izuku.
“That’s why I’m here. I’ve gotta make sure you don’t take it off, that’s all. Don’t want you catching a cold, or — whatever.”
“We could go inside, too,” Izuku suggests.
You’d go back to your room, and I’d…
I’d stay on the couch.
Bakugou wrinkles his nose. “And risk Aizawa catching us again? There’s no way in hell, nerd. Besides,” he adds, the lightness in his voice dropping to a grim baritone: “I don’t think you wanna go back there. Not for now, at least. And I'm right, so don’t you dare try to tell me otherwise.”
It’s Izuku’s turn to mumble, m’kay, Kacchan, while his brain hurries to figure out whatever had given himself away. Warmth spreads from his stomach to his chest.
“Izuku,” Bakugou says, making him jump.
“Yeah?”
“You’re staring.”
“… I am,” Izuku admits, and it must’ve surprised Bakugou, too, because the blonde’s left foot stops fidgeting with a pebble he’d trapped beneath his shoe.
“What’re you thinking about?” Bakugou asks. He kicks the pebble straight into the bushes, as if challenging the quiet beyond them.
Izuku lets out a mumble. Nothing. Everything. The air mists against his lips as he breathes out, as if reminding Izuku that, once the words leave his mouth, they’ll be so much more than immaterial: they’ll be true.
I should be scared, Izuku wants to tell him. But, you’re here. Even though I thought you’d never want to be. And, for some reason, because of that. I feel so… brave.
“When you found me, here,” Izuku murmurs. “How did you know I was awake?”
“I didn’t. I heard some real quiet snifflin’, before the front door clicked.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah. Figured you had allergies or somethin’,” Bakugou says, loosely. “I… might’ve stayed awake for a while, after everyone else went to sleep. Kept my door open a bit, too. Just… just ‘cause. You’re alright now, though,” Bakugou rasps, apparently, half to himself. “Aren’t you?”
“I am,” Izuku whispers.
Just then, a cricket bounces their way, stoutly pausing mid-bounce at the two, glittering black-green against the asphalt.
“Oi. Look, there.” Bakugou’s gaze glints, pearled and red. “We used to catch those, do you remember?”
Izuku exhales, half-smiling. The way Bakugou’s looking at the bug, Izuku’s quite sure he’s considering doing it right then.
“You used to sneak them under my pillow when I stayed over.”
“Shit,” Bakugou smirks, “I do remember that. Those summers were full of these guys, weren’t they?” Bakugou grins, then nods at the cricket. “I guess this spring ain’t so bad, either. But… I’d keep an eye out under my pillows from now on, if I were you.”
Izuku laughs, mindful of the fact that it’s late. But his quiet laugh is still a laugh, nonetheless.
“You always let them go, though, didn’t you?” Izuku tries.
“Yeah, as soon as you went home.” Bakugou murmurs, scratching the back of his neck in a brief pause. “I only kept them around ‘cause you were there.” As if on cue, he stretches out his hand and waves it towards the cricket. It skitters away into the bushes. “It should go back to sleep now, or whatever,” he mutters then.
Bakugou had a particular way of holding his hands together, Izuku knew this.
When he’s careful, or… nervous.
He was doing it now, very lightly. Kneading worn fingertips against the edges of his knuckles.
And Izuku watches him, unaware that his own hands, palms resting on either side of himself, had found the uneven cracks in the pavement to fidget over.
I want to tell you so many things.
How I felt when I saw you in the sky, in the rain, and you were looking at me.
How All Might’s katsudon is incredible, but it isn’t as good as yours, even though I’ve only ever had it when I was four and you were, too, and you had only helped your mom flip the pork chops —
“Izuku,” Bakugou starts, and Izuku startles, even if it was just a whisper of his name — in Kacchan’s voice.
It was, really, plainly — just his name. His whatever-name. But it was new, fragile, almost dear, like a single pearl of rain glittering in a blonde eyelash. Please, let me hear it forever.
“What I told you, before. In the rain,” Bakugou continues, after breathing out.
… Oh.
“It’s alright,” Izuku murmurs.
Neither of them looks at the other.
“I’m… what I’m trying to say, now, is. I — ”
“Kacchan,” Izuku says. He looks at the blonde boy with a small smile. “This is the first time I’ve heard you stutter.”
“All your mumbling must’ve rubbed off on me, nerd.” Bakugou clicks his tongue, clearly trying—and failing—to smother the amused tug at the edge of his lips. “I missed it,” he murmurs then, before Izuku can reply. His gaze wavers on Izuku’s face for a splintered heartbeat, as if capturing the boy’s freckles beneath the streetlights. “When you left, I really missed your stupid mumbling.”
“… I’m sorry.” Izuku’s throat aches.
“No, Izuku.”
Bakugou’s breath shivers, and Izuku knows this is his voice, so hoarse and faint, when he’s pleading.
"There’s nothing for you to apologize."
Velvet eyes on him. Izuku has nothing to say. They remain like this for longer, though. Breathing, staring at each other, unmoving, on the side of the road. On a spring night like this, like any other. How could I, Izuku thinks, bitterly. How could I ever tell him he couldn’t catch up, that he shouldn’t be near me —
Regret must be twisting Izuku’s face, but that’s something he’s aware of. Then, he notices Bakugou’s face, how bitter he looks, how he mirrors Izuku. Even with all this, with all his regret — he’s so beautiful.
“You know, you…” Bakugou starts, dropping his gaze back to his hands, to his bent knees. “After all of this shit’s over, I think you should… Y’know.”
Bakugou stops there, with no further elaboration, and Izuku blinks at him blankly.
… Huh?
“You should — you could,” Bakugou corrects himself roughly, forehead scrunching with the effort from, maybe, fighting through the awkwardness of not knowing where he’s going with his words.
“If you want to, you could — come to my… house,” Bakugou elaborates, looking at him through the corner of his eye. “For lunch, for dinner, breakfast — whatever suits you best.”
“… Really?” Izuku whispers.
The last time he’d gone to Bakugou’s house was years ago.
Right there, a furtive scent of childhood, of summer, it all rushes through Izuku’s memories.
Oh, he recalls it so fondly, then — the tiniest Bakugou chasing him, laughing and squealing and barefoot, trampling through dewy flowers and dirt, then, the two of them again, later, helping each other climb up the fridge to sneak all the popsicles out from the Katsukis’ freezer. They’d made a habit of eating them in the sun, all the sweetness melting down their stubby fingers and, at last, pooling into memory.
Back then, Bakugou — he still called him Izuku, and Izuku called him Kacchan — he would guide Izuku to his favorite bug-collecting spots in the forest beyond his patio, boasting about his discoveries to Izuku’s truthful wonder, and Izuku — Izuku felt as if he were understanding the world for the first time, every time.
“Yeah, I'd be…” Bakugou continues, but it’s the sound of him clicking his tongue that brings Izuku back to the present, to spring — to this night.
“I mean, the old h— my mom, would be really happy to cook for you again, I think,” Bakugou murmurs. “I’d help her a bit, maybe. Just to make sure it’s good enough for you.”
“I’d really like that.”
“Good.” Bakugou nods. “Me too.”
“… Kacchan?” Izuku mumbles.
“Yeah?”
“How are you so… good at — at anything?”
“Anything?” Bakugou echoes.
“At — fighting, cooking, even bug-catching when we were kids,” Izuku murmurs, and he glances away. “You’re just…”
The best.
“You really think so, huh?” Bakugou tilts his head. “That ain’t entirely true, though. There’s stuff I'd like to be better at.”
“Like what?”
Bakugou stares at him blankly. “Shit, I don’t know. I think I’d…” he pauses, closing his hand into a slow fist, as if considering even the air enclosed inside his palm. “… I’d like to be better at talking, I guess,” he mutters, averting his eyes. “To you.”
“But you already are."
“That’s ‘cause you — ” Bakugou stops, his eyes widen momentarily, as if he had just caught himself in a trap.
It is an elongated heartbeat in which Izuku stares at Bakugou’s round eyes. That is, until Bakugou blinks, once or twice, at Izuku. He finds his words again, finds the air between them to breathe.
“That’s ‘cause you make it easier. Talking to you, I mean.”
You make it easier.
“Look, most of the time, I don’t… I don’t know what I’m supposed to say to you, Izuku. And, most of the time, I don’t know what you want me to say to you. That — that makes sense?”
… Yes.
Izuku just nods, just breathes. On his end, Bakugou frowns a little.
“I just… It’s supposed to be easy, isn’t it? Talking? I just wish I could — ”
“It’s okay,” Izuku whispers. “I mean it, Kacchan. Sometimes,” he admits, a little sheepish, “I don’t know what to say to you, either.”
“Ha.” Bakugou smirks, “You, running out of words? That’s news to me. But, seriously,” he adds, a rasp. “I’d be glad if you just… talked around me, y’know. For the sake of talkin’.”
“Really?” Izuku smiles, because Bakugou’s expression is so contagious, so genuine, he can't help staring at Bakugou’s face. At the rough curl of his blonde lashes, the tiny snag of his upper lip. All of him, so achingly sincere.
He’d told Izuku this, just once: I wouldn’t say something if I didn’t mean it.
“Yeah.” Bakugou shrugs, as easy as ever. “I like hearing your voice, I guess.”
Wordlessly, Izuku tugs the sleeves of Bakugou’s jacket over his freckled hands, as if the act alone could smother the warm, tingling sensation in his fingertips. Bakugou sees him.
“Still cold?” He asks, and Izuku shakes his head stoutly.
“I’m alright.”
How am I supposed to tell you... this?
You’re here, now, and I feel so brave.
His thoughts and his breathing blurring, Izuku vaguely mumbles out, "Kacchan."
The blonde is already looking at him. Bakugou’s eyes trace the lines of Izuku’s mouth as, very softly, Izuku says this:
“I never got to thank you.”
“What for?”
“For…” Izuku wavers.
For finding me. For holding me, when I was the weakest I’d ever been. For speaking to me, for listening.
And, all of it — Bakugou had done all of it, in the midst and mercy of rain.
I know how much you hate the rain. And yet…
“For, you know — ,” Izuku starts, only faltering once. “For bringing me back to UA, with everyone else, and... For giving me your jacket.”
There is such a long pause, Izuku almost believes Bakugou didn’t hear or process anything he’d just said. Izuku would’ve believed that — if Bakugou weren’t staring directly into his eyes, to, ultimately, open his mouth and state,
“You’re lying.”
“… I’m not?” Izuku’s brows rise, but the edge in his voice betrays him.
“You’re still lyin’, nerd,” Bakugou’s eyes narrow to crimson slits, chin in hand. “You really thought I wouldn’t notice?”
“I’m not lying,” Izuku grumbles, unknowingly, tugging at a measly patch of grass between the concrete’s cracks with his fingers. “If you don’t want to believe me, that’s not my problem, Kacchan.”
“Pfft — ” Bakugou barks out a faint laugh, staring straight ahead. “I don’t know who you’re trying to convince here, but it ain’t gonna be me.”
“Kacchan,” Izuku bites out, falsely accusing and trying his best to sound serious. But, honestly, he’s struggling to stifle himself: His lips are already shivering with laughter, far more than they’d ever done from the cold, because of — because of Kacchan, because — his laugh is so contagious, and loud, even when stifled, he’s just… so —
“Okay, look,” Izuku puffs out, biting his lower lip decisively. “When have I ever lied to you?”
This catches Bakugou’s attention. His eyes glint, dangerously mischievous as he twists his head towards Izuku.
“You didn’t tell me ‘bout your new quirk as soon as you ate All Might’s hair,” he declares, voice silken with all the smoothness of a rusted chainsaw.
“You wouldn’t have believed me, especially if I told you I had to swallow it,” Izuku retorts.
“Maybe, but — ”
“Kacchan,” Izuku puffs out. “You were the first person I ever shared my secret with!”
“Another lie. All Might knew the truth way before I did.”
“Kacchan,” Izuku breathes, the nickname hitching at his throat and easily verging into a laugh.
Bakugou immediately dips his face into his knees, where Izuku won’t see his expression. But it is his notably broad, trembling shoulders that precede the most rough-edged, coarsest sounds of… giggling.
“For fuck’s sake, Izuku. You’ve gotta stop being so… easy to tease,” Bakugou snorts as he looks up at him, and Izuku exhales his relief.
Oh…
He really wasn’t being serious.
“Yeah?! Well,” Izuku retorts hurriedly, hotly, “Well, you’re—uh…”
Feebly, irrevocably, Izuku’s voice trails into nothing, and Bakugou gives him the stupidest, most triumphant grin about it. Loosely, he cards his fingers through his pale, tousled hair, then rests his elbow on his knee.
“See? You’ve got nothin’ on me, nerd.”
“I know some things about you that no one else knows, though,” Izuku points out.
“Yeah?” Bakugou’s nose wrinkles. “Let’s hear it, then.”
Izuku pauses, realization dawning on him.
Are you sure, are you sure.
I need him to know, I need him to —
“The reason why you’ve always hated the rain,” Izuku starts, not realizing that his voice is lower.
This catches Bakugou’s attention, because his grin falters.
I need to say it, Izuku thinks, desperate.
I need to know if you remember. If you remember, and if you —
“Right, then. I’m listenin’,” Bakugou rasps. He rests his face on his palm, eyes on Izuku.
You were four and I was four, too, and you were afraid of thunderstorms — is what Izuku begins with.
I suggested we hide under your bed to wait the storm out, and we did — you must’ve thought it was so stupid.
Izuku knows Bakugou must’ve grown out of it, pushing the memory to the very seams of his mind. That’s what Izuku had tried to do, at least.
“What I did... It didn’t mean much, back then, did it?” Izuku whispers. “I mean — it shouldn’t. We were just… dumb kids.”
It shouldn’t mean so much to me.
“But you looked so scared from the thunder strikes,” Izuku croaks, “I thought I could help, maybe, if I tried to—”
Izuku was four years old, with a heart too big, too quick for his chest, and Kacchan was afraid, but he was Kacchan, and Izuku knew.
“It was my fault, Kacchan. It’s my fault you hate it, isn’t it?”
They were four, and it was childish, and it should mean nothing.
I shouldn’t have —
“That ain’t all of it, though,” Bakugou rasps. All the coarseness of his words is scarcely louder than his breathing. “We were kids, and it must’ve meant nothing, right? But, y’know, I. I never kissed anyone else after that.”
“… Why?”
Bakugou’s lashes waver, all of him—wavers.
“Thought you’d already figured that one out.”
A pause.
Bakugou pausing, Izuku, breathing.
“Anyway, I got my quirk after that. I felt too nervous to see you at kindergarten the next day, an’ my palms were too fuckin’ sweaty, they started exploding. So, you… you know the rest of it. What I’m tryin’ to say is,” Bakugou continues, slowly, eyes on Izuku. “I’d go back an’ blast the shitty, four-year-old me with a howitzer if I could. I’d do it. In a fuckin’ heartbeat.”
He’s serious, he really, really is. But Izuku can’t help the sudden, deliriously relieved laugh that just bursts out of him, because — Kacchan.
You’ve always been looking at me, too.
“So, you know it now,” Bakugou mutters, and there’s a glint to his eyes, red and gold, with artificial lights overhead, oblique, chiseling the edges of his face.
“I do know,” Izuku replies, or breathes. The way he’s looking at Bakugou, now — the way Bakugou looks back at him, at me.
“So… I can say it, then, yeah? Askin’ you, and… stuff.”
Bakugou’s jaw sets, this time, his gaze drops, not to the pavement, nor to his knurly hands, but—
“I’m askin’ you now, Izuku. If you’d want…”
His eyes, on Izuku’s lips.
If you’d let me.
In Izuku’s eyes: Please.
It is graceless, the way they move towards each other, at first — frail-fingered, uncertain.
With the tiniest bits of gravel stuck on each other’s hands, soon enough, on each other’s faces, but, however graceless, — surely, now: this was a spring night unlike any other, and —
Oh … Izuku thinks, when Bakugou’s warm, trembling breath blends so softly into his mouth, when he cradles the edge of Izuku’s jawline to bring their lips together.
Calloused thumbs over his freckles, he’s unbearably gentle under Izuku’s eyes, and it’s so, he’s so —
“— Kacchan,” Izuku breathes, when the distance between their lips is, still, so dangerously close to nothing, and Izuku’s so, achingly, bone-certain he could spend the rest of this night, every night, counting the scarlet speckles in Bakugo’s irises, feeling him breathe in, so carefully, before kissing him — and, kissing him.
Izuku shivers.
“Not the cold, yeah?” Bakugou murmurs, against Izuku’s mouth, a tug, his smile.
“No,” Izuku whispers. It’s not the cold.
“Not tired, either,” Bakugou hums, but it doesn’t really sound like a question, and his hands have the mildest smell of sugar, all its sweetness cauterized, contained in his touch, to Izuku’s face.
No, Izuku murmurs, inaudible to anything in the world beyond themselves.
“You…” Izuku starts, then. Nudges Bakugou’s nose with his own, scarcely more than a touch. “What I wanted to say, before. I wasn’t being entirely honest.”
“Okay,” Bakugou rasps, in his eyes: I know.
“I wanted to thank you,” Izuku mumbles. “Not just for bringing me back to UA, but. For always being here for me, when I — when I need you.”
“You need me?” Bakugou breathes, impossibly soft with surprise.
Izuku nods.
I really do. I can’t explain it any further than that.
Bakugou’s eyes close briefly, as if he’s praying, as if he’s trying to bear what Izuku tells him.
“Izuku, I don’t… I don’t know what kind of shit you’ve seen while you were gone. I think — I think I’m even afraid to ask. But, if I can, I want to — I’ll do anything. If it’ll help you.”
“I know that, Kacchan,” Izuku whispers feebly.
But…
“Sometimes, I wish you wouldn’t.”
“What d’you mean by that?” Bakugou’s eyes flicker, surprise and just the smallest speck of hurt, which he allows Izuku to see.
“You jumped in my way,” Izuku croaks, and, now, his hands leave Bakugou’s face, to form weak fists clenched against his chest. “You… let Shigaraki stab you. When it should’ve been — ”
It should’ve been me. But, you —
“Izuku.”
Bakugou’s thumb skids across the curve of Izuku’s cheek. Please, listen to me.
“We save to win, don’t we?” Bakugou murmurs. “You said it yourself. You need me. Anywhere you need me, I’m there. But, I… I need you, too. You get that, don’t you?”
I need you, too.
“If I don’t put myself in the line for you, then I’d have nothing to live for. That’s why you have to live."
Weakly, wordlessly, Izuku kisses him again, and Bakugou lets him.
Bakugou’s lips are so soft, so soft, with all his sorrow. You have to live.
But, what if I’m terrified?
What, then?
Izuku’s stomach coils. His sudden anger is nothing more than fear.
“You must be thinking it’s such a shitty thing to say, now, yeah?” Bakugou murmurs.
“No, it isn’t.”
Izuku lets him go. He sits back on the pavement, palms over his bent knees. The sound of Bakugou exhaling, so quietly, watching him — it all keeps Izuku anchored, it keeps him alive.
“I…” Izuku starts, while there’s a gap of nightly air between them. “I want to do the same for you, Kacchan. I can't change that.”
Bakugou says nothing.
Izuku senses one of the blonde’s hands finding his, before he sees it. His knurled, scraped hand, slow fingers nudging into the spaces between Izuku’s.
“Then, fight for me as you do, Izuku. You already know I’ll do the same.”
Izuku swallows. His fingers, disoriented, thread into Bakugou’s, his scars, touched and sweetened by perspiration. Izuku feels it in his own palm.
He’s scared, too.
But — both of them, they’re both really thinking, really, knee-deep, just wanting —
I don’t want to think about it anymore.
“Why don’t we…” Bakugou starts to rasp. “Wanna come to my room? We can…” he pauses, swallows. “You can go over my All Might collection again, or whatever. Lecture me ‘bout all the ones I’m still missing.”
“Okay,” Izuku breathes, just a little easier now.
Okay, Kacchan.
*
Bakugou takes him by the hand.
He doesn’t let go as they walk through the dark and into the dorms. Occasionally he glances back at Izuku as if making sure he’s still there, as if he can’t entirely believe it.
Every time he senses Bakugou’s eyes on him, in the dark — Izuku squeezes his hand, just gently.
I’m here.
I’m here, and you are, too.
“You can sit on the bed, if you want,” Bakugou murmurs as he closes the door behind them. Izuku does as told.
At the back, Bakugou shuffles a bit behind his nightstand, turning a tiny All Might nightlight on. It casts its glow from the corner of the room, stout, warmly tainting it all a mild gold.
Izuku, now warmed by the air in Bakugou’s room, begins to shuffle his jacket off, folding it and moving over to Bakugou’s closet to return it.
“You can keep it,” Bakugou says, as he stands back up. “Have something to wear. Might be cold tomorrow.”
Izuku blinks at him, holding the jacket against himself. He hadn’t noticed before, but the fabric smelled sweet, even lukewarm.
Huh.
“Oi. What’re you doing?” Bakugou’s eyes narrow, only vaguely chastising Izuku.
“It smells nice, that’s all.” Izuku gives him a small smile.
“I’m here, too, y’know.” Bakugou’s lips twitch, and he glances away, pointedly, or self-consciously. Izuku can’t tell.
“Okay, then,” Izuku grins. “Show me your collection?”
Bakugou’s face wrinkles, an odd expression for him. “Y’really want me to? ‘Cause there’s… I mean, we don’t have to, ‘cause we could… Y’know.”
Izuku stares at him, faltering and stumbling with his words, until they’re both staring at each other in complete silence.
And, after a long stretch of nothing, out of nowhere — Izuku starts to giggle, and Bakugou blows out a puff of air, until they’re both giving in to laughter, which Izuku is particularly failing to stifle —
“Izuku, shut up, you’re gonna wake everyone else —” Bakugou heaves, hurrying over to press his hand against Izuku’s freckled face, eyes so crimson and round but mirroring Izuku’s own amusement.
Bakugou’s palm clumsily tries muffling his laughter. Okay, okay!
After a heartbeat, or two, Izuku’s laughs soften into silence, and —
You can move your hand away now, Kacchan, Izuku thinks.
But Bakugou gazes down at his face. As if he’d forgotten what he’d been doing just moments before. Izuku exhales through his nose, finding Bakugou’s wrist and curling his fingers around it, drawing his hand down again.
“You…” Izuku starts, breathily, “are terrible at flirting, Kacchan.”
“As if you’d do any better, nerd,” Bakugou mutters, but his lips twitch as if he’s trying not to grin. “Anyways, it ain’t my fault. It’s yours.”
“Mine?” Izuku echoes, smiling. “How?”
“‘Cause you’re so dumb, it makes me… nervous, ‘kay?” Bakugou grumbles, but his eyes are so round —
Izuku’s so endeared, then. At Bakugou’s disheveled expression, his burly hands, fidgeting with his own fingers, so unsure — it was something so unusual, something he’d only ever let Izuku see.
“Okay,” Izuku says, so easily. Okay.
This time, he stands on the tips of his toes to lean into Bakugou’s face.
“Then, kiss me, again?” Izuku murmurs.
“Hoped you’d ask,” Bakugou mutters back, his warm breath shivering against Izuku’s nose.
One of his hands reaches behind Bakugou’s neck, teasing his fingers into his abrasive-looking blonde strands, so docile to the touch. Izuku’s lips nudge Bakugou’s, and Bakugou's hands find Izuku’s face, drawing him to himself, just to himself.
“The world can go fuck itself,” Bakugou breathes, leaning back by a hair’s width. “Look, I don’t… I don’t know jack-shit about… anything. But, you —,” his adam’s apple rises, falls, he swallows, whispers, “you and me.”
Izuku touches his lips to Bakugou’s face, under his eyes, blonde, velvet-soft eyelashes tingling against his freckles.
You and me.
“That’s all I care about, Izuku.”
Between them, there is nothing more than each other’s words, nothing more than how they reach out to each other’s faces with both hands, calloused, often, with more scars than skin.
Afterward, when they shuffle a little just to fit in Bakugou’s mattress, Izuku notices he takes something out of his pocket, to put it on the nightstand.
Their eyes meet when Bakugo turns back to face him across their shared pillow, and Izuku blinks.
“It’s… nothing,” Bakugou murmurs, “just an All Might card I've kept around, for a bit.”
“Which one?”
Bakugou’s lashes lower, only momentarily. “It’s the only one I’ve ever had.”
Oh.
“You kept it?” Izuku breathes, and, for a heartbeat, Bakugou’s eyes close, yes, and, perhaps, saying more in this way, than he ever could with all the words he’s ever known.
I was four, and he was, too.
He was there. I was, too. In our hands, the same card. The same wish. And, all around us — the same blue sky, the same light.
How simple it is, then. How easy, how quiet it is.
Bakugou looks at Izuku, and Izuku looks back.
He needs me, too.
Maybe, tomorrow.
Maybe, now.
On this night, where they hold each other, where they speak to each other, unlike any other night —
Izuku begins to be brave enough to believe it.
He believes it.
*
Tomorrow, perhaps, I will sleep past the sunrise, and find that you'd gone in the night.
I’ll drink from the sky, and I’ll be by your side.
Oh, don't you know my childhood is in your eyes?