lauren @fandomtrashwhoops - Tumblr Blog

Feb 12, 2023

VOICEMAIL #01 ┊ MIDORIYA IZUKU

synopsis: in what you believe to be your final moments, you make one last phone call that changes the shape of your relationship with Izuku forever.

tags: AFAB reader, NSFT, eventual best friends to lovers, eventual smut, near death experience (descriptions of drowning and being trapped under a building), angst and fluff, quirk assisted injury recovery, resolved romantic and sexual tension, symptoms of PTSD (flashbacks), aged up characters (Pro Hero Deku & Pro Hero Dynamight), reader works in Hero Public Relations, reader is carried but Deku can literally lift a bus so we good, handjobs, spit as lube, light masochism (hair pulling; m! receiving), mention of being on contraception, vaginal oral sex and fingering (reader receiving), unprotected vaginal sex, spooning position

wc: 17k

For a few short moments, lasting as long as a lifetime, you are in a home that is intuitively yours and yet not the one you know. It’s bright — the windows are ceiling to floor, flooding the room with heavenly light, and sitting by the balcony is a figure bathed in green. Bangs held back by a shoelace tied into a makeshift headband, the upper half of his hero costume unzipped and loose around his waist as he fiddles with his gloves. You had not felt the sun's warmth, not until he lifted his head to meet your gaze, freckles lining the swell of his cheeks as he smiled. He opens his mouth to say something, perhaps your name, but his lips part and the crashing sound of running water passes through his mouth.

As you are abruptly pulled into consciousness by a blinding flash of pain, you cannot help but appreciate how incredible the human body could be in times of trauma.

Your chest heaves, rising and falling with each laborious breath, shock trembling throughout your body as you try to calm your frantic thoughts. A dream, it had only been a dream, a little piece of solace conjured by your brain to protect you from the trauma. It’s all so dark here in comparison, your sight adjusting just enough to make out the silhouette of your arm where you reach out into the shadows for leverage. You pull yourself up, supported by rebar spearing through the nearby wall, and almost collapse in utter agony as you lean your weight onto your left leg.

Still loud, a cacophony in your ears, is the rush of water at the far end of the room. Instinct alone has you moving in the opposite direction, the space you’re entrapped in getting narrower with each step, dragging your broken limb awkwardly behind you. There is no source of light, no way out, solid jagged surfaces surrounding you from every corner.

Your memory is disjointed. Fractured. You’d been working at your desk, coffee percolating by your computer as you’d slumped into the keyboard, a litany of random numbers and letters unrolling across the desktop screen. As Head of Communications for the Dynamight agency it fell to you to appease and placate; may that be the press, the local government, fellow heroes or the public. It was exhausting, but admittedly it was never boring, and you loved the people you worked with.

It’d been abrupt. You recall the way the building had shook, how you’d gotten to your feet and rushed out into the lobby only for the glass panels to suddenly shatter, the aftershock of a nearby explosion reverberating throughout the room and knocking you to your feet. Everything had fallen still then, just for a few seconds as the other employees regained their bearings. It was not until the third explosion that people had started to genuinely scream, sprinting towards the exit empty handed, while you had foolishly rushed to check the other meeting rooms for strays.

While you might’ve only been a business student, after all the villain attacks UA had ingrained evacuation and safety protocol into you and your classmates bimonthly until it became as familiar as breathing. An ever present, incessant buzz beneath your skin seemed to pilot your movements, something that felt like an intertwining of instinct and intuition. You didn’t need to think — your body just moved. Knowing that the heroes were not in the building you’d forced a tone of authority into your words as you guided people out to the front.

It must’ve been somewhere between the fourth explosion and present time that the building had fallen, ten stories of cement, brick and timber caving in on top of you. From above there is only a haunting silence, and below is the echo of death, the water levels slowly rising, its wet embrace creeping toward you. Your body sinks down onto the displaced rubble at the realisation that you probably weren’t going to make it out, sharp where it digs into the back of your thighs. The pain in your left leg is so great that it begins to numb.

Finding your phone in your pants pocket brings little relief. You press the home button and it lights up, iridescent cracks cutting across the homescreen image, an old picture of you and Izuku at his going away party. You’re leaning into each other heavily, he’s flushed with alcohol and glassy eyed, though that could mostly be attributed to the tears he’d shed all night.

You brush the pad of your thumb over his face and feel your throat begin to swell, a familiar burn in your sinuses, cheeks damp before you even realise you’re crying. While you still spoke to your best friend as often as your schedules allowed it, you hadn’t seen him since the day he left for America, following in his mentor's footsteps to touch hearts in a global effort.

If only he’d known that he took your own heart along with him.

The device in your hand is heavier than you remember. There are unread texts and missed calls from your friends and coworkers gradually blinking onto the screen, delayed by the single bar of signal mocking you from the top corner. You unlock it, shaking as you tap the call icon, blood smearing along your list of contacts as you scroll.

There wouldn’t be much time either way. Make a final call with the remaining air you have, both in the room and in your lungs, or simply wait until the water takes it from you. There’s no time like the present — that’s how the saying goes. If only you’d taken it to heart two years ago, liquid courage in your veins and a confession on your tongue, then maybe you wouldn’t have to die with regrets.

Impatience spikes through your chest the longer the moment draws out. The dial tone rings repetitively, the speaker pressed so tight to the shell of your ear that it’s uncomfortable, but you can already feel moisture filling the soles of your shoes.

You’re almost pleased that it runs to voicemail. What little vision you have blurs at the sound of his voice — I’m probably sleeping or on patrol, so I can’t pick up! Sorry, but– leave a voicemail! I promise I do listen to them — followed by the muted beep to indicate the recording has started. Four minutes, that’s all you’d have before it cut out, but judging by the cold kiss around your ankles it would likely end around the three minute mark

You try valiantly to keep your voice steady as you speak, strong enough to be heard over the running water, and pray that the microphone wasn’t damaged in the collapse. “Hi, Izuku…” you begin.

All the words you want to say are there, cloying where they sit in your oesophagus, where they’d been rotting away for all the years you’d known him. It felt as if you’d developed a premeditated reaction to any urge to confess, almost like your psyche was protecting itself. Your body wanted to live, you wanted to be happy, you wished to never hear the words “I’m sorry” or see the uncomfortable yet regrettable smile pull at his mouth.

“I know we’d usually speak tomorrow night but I just needed to talk to you before…” your pant leg clings to your calf, wet, and you cannot see the water for it is as dark as the room, “there are a lot of things I’ve wanted to say to you but I never had the courage. I always felt so… cowardly, standing beside you. Proud, but cowardly”.

It’s difficult, you think, to find the right words amongst the mess. Which ones will hold less weight, which ones will be lighter for him to carry, which ones will leave him without lifelong guilt. Knowing Izuku it wouldn’t matter all that much, because he would ruminate over them until they served as self punishment, and he would likely never be able to let go of them.

“I saw your big fight on the news the other day! Bakugo was playing it on the TV in his office, don’t tell him I told you that, though—” he’ll kill me, you almost say.

“I just wanted you to know how incredibly proud I am of you and that… that I miss you a lot. All the time. I bought a short sleeved t-shirt with the English word ‘sweater’ on it because I thought of you. Isn’t that dumb?”

You laugh softly, though it sounds more like a sob, and it ricochets through the empty air left above your navel. It’s cold, oddly soothing where it ripples around your broken leg, the buoyancy leaving it weightless.

“You make me so happy. You make me want to be a better person, you always have. Even back in our days at UA,” and it’s hard to keep the words from cracking as you recount them, “your smile was always so bright, it was like looking directly at the sun. I wonder if you’re aware at all, of just how many hearts you’ve saved…”

“…I know people call you plain but— you’re handsome too! When you smile, I mean,” the waves are lapping at your chest, now grazing the line of your collar. It’s ridiculous that even as the pressure increases, as space becomes narrow and your vision is rendered useless, you’re still tiptoeing around the thing you truly want to say.

“I don’t know when you’ll listen to this. You might already know what’s happened to me, though I’m not sure when they’ll be able to find me under… all of this”.

As it crawls up your neck you tilt your chin up, nose pressed uncomfortably against the ceiling of the room, the panic finally beginning to set into your bones. Thoughts frantically running amok — I don’t want to die, somebody please find me — silently praying to every God and Deity you’d read about since you were a child.

“I should’ve told you before you left. That night, at your party, I tried to but I thought it would be selfish of me,” water at your jugular, tear stained cheeks and composure slipping through your fingers, “but I love you. I’m in love with you and I’m sorry I didn’t say it. You deserved to know”.

You try to withhold hysterics as you feel the first licks of moisture against the back of your phone. Soon it will seep into the charger port, beneath the screen and smother the microphone. The device will be swallowed first, mercifully quick, and then you will follow.

“You’re my best friend, and I was so lucky to have you, Izuku. I love you. I love you, thank you for… for all you do, for letting me into your life, thank you for—“

With eyes squeezed painfully tight, you continue to ramble even as the small source of light cuts out, even as the speaker begins to glitch and the last goodbye sinks into the depths. As you’re pulled under with his name still on your lips the water rushes in, a surge of intense pain ricocheting through your ribs and around your torso.

Still, you heavily claw at the rubble, instinct thrashing in the grips of death. Vibrations boom through the water from above, but the panic has already begun to fade into numbness, your pulse increasingly weak. The line between conscious and unconscious blurs until there is no feasible difference, no light, no sensation or thought.

You curl into yourself, suspended in time, and your heart slows to a stop.

Death is odd, or at least that’s what you think. You had expected it to be something of an abyss, devoid of sensation, a stark nothingness — yet there is a tangible something, still. Though you’d died encased in a little pocket of water your body feels as if it is at sea, muffled voices penetrating the surface, your consciousness at odds with the push and pull of the waves.

Words distort until all you can hear is a continuous, repetitive beep to your left, the pitch incessant in your ears. The black behind your eyelids fades into a dull, murky shade of red and you squint as they open, flinching shut against the brightness surrounding you.

A pleasant, thick sensation thrums through your veins, movements made sluggish as you try to understand where you are. Maybe this was death, then. Perhaps you had done enough in the living world to deserve this, swaddled by soft blankets and bathed in sunlight, the weight of a familiar hand holding your own.

At your bedside, curled over the mattress edge to rest his head against his forearm while the other reaches for you, is Izuku. His hair is a little shorter on the top than you remember, the deep green a sharp contrast to the white of your sheets, freckled cheeks darkened through the summer months.

You couldn’t decide whether it was kind or cruel of your mind to summon up an apparition of him. After all that’s the only thing he could be, because Izuku is still in America following in his mentor's footsteps, thirteen hours in the past and still unaware of what had happened to you. But he’s oddly warm, fingers threading through his loose curls, his shallow breaths stuttering for a moment as he wakes.

The bridge of his nose wrinkles, turning into the crook of his arm with a quiet complaint, one foot in consciousness and the other in sleep. You poke the crease between his brows, smoothing it with your thumb, a growing confusion at how real he felt beside you. When he truly wakes his back suddenly straightens with an exaggerated inhale, gaze unblinking and tears swelling, the pitched beep on your left increases its rhythm.

He exhales, your name catching in his throat. It’s so much clearer when it isn’t said through your phone's speaker.

“You’re finally awake,” he gives a watery smile, nothing like the broad and beaming reassurance he would give the public. Here, with you, he knew he didn’t need to be Deku — just Izuku Midoriya, your dedicated best friend of many years.

Your eyes linger on the fresh scar curved over his jawline, still raised and pink, a wound he had told you about during your last phone call but you’d not yet seen. With that thought the sunlight dulls, what seemed ethereal becomes a muted white, the reality setting in.

You’re lethargic, confused. You frown at the uncomfortable pull of the IV nestled in the crook of your arm as you lift it towards your face, cautiously feeling the thick plastic mask held firmly around your nose and mouth. A hand covers yours; Izuku is gentle as he pries back your fingers with his own, crooked and thick from years of being pieced back together.

“You shouldn’t take that off yet. Not— not until the doctor has cleared you,” he says.

You take a breath, rasped as the air scratches the tender muscles in your throat. “I don’t understand. Where am I? How are you here?”

His expression softens, a hint of heartbreak oozing through the cracks though not surprised, expected. Like he’d anticipated your questions, and only hoped you wouldn’t ask them.

“We’re at Tokyo General Hospital. Paramedics rushed you here once Kirishima resuscitated you at the scene,” he tentatively explains, “after the attack you were trapped in the water under the debris. He broke through the concrete with his quirk and pulled you out”.

He strokes the pad of his thumb along the dips and peaks of your knuckles as he speaks, distracting enough that his words barely register, hearing the relieved intonation more than the story. “That was four days ago. As soon as I heard your…” voicemail. He stalls for a moment, meeting your half lidded gaze and seeing the anxiety simmering behind your pupils. The monitor skips again at the sight of him and you fight the urge to rip the pulse oximeter from your index finger.

He squeezes your hand, his smile tightening at the sound. “As soon as I heard what happened I booked the next flight back to Japan,” he says.

The memory of your final goodbye floods through you. He really had heard it then — the voicemail. The confession. The poorly disguised fear and your unspoken pleas, the rush of the water as it consumed you, the way your words had blurred together as you hastily tried to say them all.

“Why?” you croak.

Tenderness twists as his brows draw together in frustration, appearing offended by even the mere notion of not returning to see you, but still you continue. “It’s okay, Izuku. I’m okay, so you don’t need to feel guilty or… or make it up to me. We can forget I ever said anything—”

“—no,” he interrupts, the desperation in his voice ringing true. It is then that your doctor steps into the room, the door sliding open loudly with total disregard for the conversation. He’s a tall man but otherwise unassuming, the tension in the room depleting as he introduces himself as Araki Kenji.

“It’s fantastic to see you awake and cognitive,” he offers you both a polite nod, leaning forward to rest the clipboard held to his chest down on your left bedside table. He indicates to you with his hands, penlight held between his fingers and silently seeking your permission to check your pupils. You push back the urge to blink as he grasps your chin, tilting your head and watching the black shrink into your irises.

“And now follow my finger,” he murmurs, guiding his index finger side to side in your eye line, “good… good. How are you feeling? Any nausea or pain?”

“No”.

“Alright. I heard you talking before I came in. Any slurring? Trouble with your thoughts or memory?”

“No I… I remember all of it, I think,” you admit weakly, tongue heavy and dry where it sits in your mouth. Araki hums in acknowledgement and pulls the length of his silver stethoscope from behind the collar of his shirt to listen to your lungs. You inhale deeply as he instructs, a quiet sense of relief at how your chest balloons until it hurts, at how you’re still able to breathe. You exhale and he requests you repeat the action twice more, Izuku completely silent on your right side.

“Okay,” he straightens his back with a sense of finality, and your grip on Izuku’s hand tightens, “you look to be recovering nicely. It's a small mercy that because of the temperature of the water you were submerged in, most of the oxygen in your blood was diverted to protecting your organs, so there appears to be no lasting damage aside from your broken leg”.

He picks up the clipboard, a thin pen half full of ink hanging from it by a string, which he then grabs to write up his observations while he continues to speak. “Our orthopaedic specialist was thankfully available when you came in. Her quirk is called marrow mache — a silly play on paper mache — which means she was able to reset and patch up the break in your bone”.

You can feel Izuku’s fingers twitching, the ever present and habitual itch to understand one’s quirk, the restless excitement he felt in his gut at the thought of gaining new information. But still, he is charitably quiet.

Araki further explains that the ability allows a cast to be created around the bone, rather than a patient wearing an external cast, and that while it’s much more efficient it will still take a week for it to completely set. “You will not be able to bear much weight on it, if any at all, as it is quite fragile for the first few days,” the scratch of his pen comes to a stop, “I can discharge you but I recommend you have someone around to help you during the recovery”.

“I’ll be here for the week,” Izuku finally cuts in, “so that won’t be a problem”.

Araki’s eyes flicker towards him and endearingly, the hero begins to shift under his appraisal, as if he were anxious to make a good enough impression. You however, are far too stunned to even object, the passing thought of perhaps asking your neighbour for assistance quickly dismissed. Before you know it Araki is nodding in agreement, causing Izuku’s nerves to settle as his shoulders sag forward, and bidding you goodbye with the promise of release in no more than an hour.

“What do you think you’re up to?” you rasp, then pulling down the mask around your mouth to hang by your collar, “why did you volunteer yourself like that? You have far more important things to get back to”.

You had made peace with it years ago — the fact that even if he did ever happen to reciprocate your feelings you would always be second to the greater good, to the things he felt were right. Loving him would always come with the view of his back. Izuku, kind hearted and well intentioned as he is, would not be able to sit still in your small one bedroomed apartment for a week while the rest of the world needed saving.

“There’s a lot more to heroics than we thought in high school, you know that,” he says with a weak smile, “I’ve got plenty of reports to write up while I’m here, and I trust the people I work with to keep everything afloat”.

He casts a lingering look to the space between your bodies where your fingers intertwine, he adds: “you’re important to me too”.

You’re discharged from the hospital soon after with strict instructions to return for X-rays in a week, crutches laid across your lap where you sit stiffly in the wheelchair they’d given, Izuku at your back and pushing you towards the car he’d called. At your further insistence that he return to his work he admits that the vacation days had already been signed off on, having cited it as a family emergency before his hasty exit from the country.

Then, “Not— not that I just view you as family, or anything—!” in an attempt to spare your feelings.

Tired and exasperated, all you’d needed to say for a few minutes of silence was his name. The looming knowledge that he had certainly listened to your voicemail confession, and that he was ignoring it for your own sake, gnawed away at your chest until it hollowed. A part of you wished you’d have taken advantage of the situation and claimed temporary amnesia, maybe then he would not feel the need to baby you out of guilt.

“I should at least try to use my crutches,” you swallow the swell in your throat as his hand rests against the small of your back, searing through your loose shirt. He’s too close, his other arm resting atop the car roof for leverage as he helps you onto the pavement, bringing you into his firm chest. The street isn’t crowded but there are still more than enough pedestrians to be cautious — that’s all this is, caution — his distinct green hair already forced under an All Might themed cap.

Despite your adamance you lean all your weight onto the uninjured leg while keeping the other from touching the floor and he notices. His lips move against the crown of your head, speaking under his breath as he holds you for a second too long. “You can. I promise, when we’re in your apartment where the ground is more level,” his nose brushes over your temple, words warm along your skin, “you should be careful for today”.

“I’m supposed to take that advice from you of all people?” you're relieved at the opportunity to tease while he sinks you back into the wheelchair and tucks your crutches beneath his arm, the evening light blanketing him in a hue of orange and pink as he meets your eyes. The memory of how you’d told him he was handsome echoes through your thoughts, and his stare is so intense you can’t help but fear he can hear them.

A stray, mossy curl peeks from behind his ear no matter how often he pushes it beneath the hat. Crow's feet wrinkle above his cheeks as he smiles, head tilted and endearingly playful. “I haven’t broken my legs since second year,” he huffs, making his way around the chair to begin pushing you through the lobby with a wave to the driver.

Security greets you happily by the elevators and you return it in kind. You’re thankful for their discretion when their eyes linger on Izuku, who has never been a master of disguise even with his best efforts. Still it is comical to observe as he shrinks into himself, Dynamight branded hoodie stretched across his shoulders and deep charcoal sweatpants over his stirrup leggings.

“Which floor?” he asks, quickly wheeling you into the lift.

“Fourth,” you watch in the large mirror as he reaches over to press the button only to be caught off guard by your own reflection. It’s the first time you’re seeing yourself since the accident; eyes slightly sunken and dark, a sickly undertone across your skin and your hair lifelessly flat. There’s a sense of humiliation to him seeing you like this, and yet you still feel entirely comfortable with him, selfishly wanting him to see every version of you and love them as they are.

The elevator begins to move and gravity washes unpleasantly through your stomach. “I look like a corpse,” you mutter, the words then followed by a visible wince. Izuku meets your stare in the mirror, silence permeating the air and it hangs like humidity, heavy and stifling. As the cables come to a halt, trembling slightly at the sudden brake, the two doors open with the ding of a bell.

“Tough crowd…”

His mouth twists in the reflection as he begins to back out into the corridor, the corner of his bottom lip trapped between his canines, an expression you’d seen more times than you could count. “Are you trying to make me cry again?” he says.

Your wheelchair jolts slightly over the gap between the doors and the floor, both of you murmuring a soft spoken apology. Thankfully your apartment is not much further into the building, and Izuku too seems intent on getting you inside sooner rather than later, struggling to slot his spare key into the lock the first time in his haste.

You are led in first with the forethought of getting you over the genkan. Even with his apologetic warning you startle as you’re tipped backwards, wheels lifting easily over the step and onto the landing. He toes off his shoes and lines them up by the cupboard, evenly balanced on the balls of his feet as he crouches to take off your own, all the while ignoring your protests.

“Izuku, I promise my arms still work. I am perfectly capable of taking off my own shoes,” you say wryly, emphasising your point with a firm pinch of his cheeks. He’s at your level like this, eyes wide in earnest and his thighs thicker as he kneels — you’re at a loss of where to look. Between your fingers is his newest scar, the skin raised and a pale pink.

“I don’t remember you ever being this reluctant to accept help from me before,” he tilts into your hand, stare half-lidded as if he could see right through you, “so stubborn”.

Before.

“I’m not a toddler,” you tell him, “or are you going to help me bathe, too?”

You didn’t want to be smothered with his regret. The purposeful distraction would only make him overthink later on, but it allowed you a few minutes of reprieve — a niggling of satisfaction curling into your chest at the first flush of red by his ears, gaze no longer analysing you in favour of ducking his chin. It has always been easy to fluster him.

“Okay. Just…” you look at him expectantly, and whatever it is he was going to say he decides the better of it, “…nevermind. I’ll order food while you’re in the bath”.

Your body deflates with slight relief, exhaling a sigh as you slip an arm through the crutches. “Thank you,” you murmur, Izuku assisting you just enough that you can bear your weight against the handles. The length is perfect for you, though there is already an ache spreading along the heel of your palms.

You move through the apartment with an awkward gait, feeling pressure build in your upper arms as you move. You sense Izuku hovering a few steps behind, offering to shift your furniture and make navigation easier but still respecting your wish for independence. Exhaustion befalls you by the time you’ve reached the bathroom, propping one crutch up against the tile while you use the other to lower onto the edge of the tub.

Through the thin walls you listen to Izuku’s muffled voice, accompanied by restless footsteps, no doubt pacing the living room as he spoke. He hadn’t been to your place in years and you idly wonder what he thinks of it; him being an unexpected guest you hadn’t had the time to clean it up, and while Izuku was something of a maximalist you knew the mess of paperwork and laundry dotted throughout was quite different to that.

You huff in exertion and reach over to turn the taps. The stream splutters slightly and begins to pool in the basin, spiralling into the open plug as you wait a moment for the temperature to warm beneath your fingers. Deep inside your sternum you feel something twist, a weightless panic settling at the pit of your stomach.

For some reason the sound is that much louder, a rush of running water echoing through your ears. Familiar fragments of trauma still festering. You tremble and inhale slowly, realising just how narrow of a space your bathroom truly is, incognisant of the taps now scolding your hand.

You briefly close your eyes to collect yourself, only to wake again beneath the rubble of the Dynamight building with death forcing its way into your lungs, and distantly you feel yourself drop the crutch still held in your right hand. You resurface at the impact, an obnoxious clatter, and the door swings open.

“What happened? Are you alrig—!”

You clutch desperately at the fabric of his hoodie, body wracked with shakes that you can’t put to rest, and hear yourself say his name. Then he’s right there, pulling you into his gentle embrace, and the water is no longer running. “I’m here, it’s okay,” he settles you between his legs on the bathroom floor and subtly rocks you side to side.

“Sorry,” you rasp between breaths, “m’sorry”.

“There’s nothing to be sorry for,” he strokes a hand along the curve of your spine, “we’re at home. You’re safe here”.

The use of 'we' goes unnoticed. With your ear pressed against his chest you hear the rhythmic beat of his heart and the baritone of his voice, lulling you back into security. The palpitation behind your breast doesn’t quell even as your breathing steadies, embarrassment quickly filling the spaces left by your anxiety. In the arms of a man who has witnessed and fought atrocities for most of his adolescence — you were trembling because of bath water.

You swipe your damp cheeks with the sleeve of your shirt, inhaling sharply through your nose and ignoring the sting in your sinuses. “I don’t know what came over me,” you lean back and try to smile up at him as you speak, smile and reassure him just as he would for you.

“I’m okay. I just got overwhelmed,” you say.

His eyes flit across your features in search of discomfort or dishonesty. While he doesn’t look convinced, his expression is one of understanding, and that alone is comforting enough. “It has happened to all of us at some point or another,” he says, “you don’t need to be ashamed of it”.

“You’ve told me before that you have nightmares every so often,” you murmur in recognition, tracing the seam of the large orange ‘X’ across his front, “how did you deal with it?”

“A lot of therapy,” you snort lightly at the monotony and he visibly brightens, “…and if I ever had a bad night, I’d uh— I’d talk to you”.

There were a few times that really stood out to you, the first in particular. It would have been around four in the morning for him at the time, which you’d found uncharacteristic, as he was always adamant about you getting enough sleep. His breathing had been laboured, his voice pitched and a little thick as he’d asked you to tell him about your week. About anything that you could think of.

At the time you hadn’t really registered the significance, thinking that maybe he just couldn’t sleep, and you were so happy to hear from him that you didn’t question it. He sought you out for comfort in his darker moments just as you had. With fingers curled around his bicep, a hand now resting on your lower back, your words are muffled against his collar.

“I’m happy I can be there for you too,” his pulse is notably faster and you are inexplicably pleased by it, “honestly, in our friendship I’ve always felt kind of helpless”.

His eyes are smiling down at you, too. Glittering under the cheap luminescence of your bathroom light, like he knows something you don’t. “Stubborn and dense. Maybe I really have been gone too long,” he teases.

You level him with a faux glare, sniffing furtively. “Whatever. Make yourself useful and get me something to change into,” you continue as his lips purse into a pout, “I’ll be fine. The shower shouldn’t freak me out as much”.

“Alright. What… what do you want me to pick out for you?”

“Shorts and a big hoodie should be okay,” you tell him as you thumb the material of his own and he nods with appled cheeks. The nervousness is as endearing as always, and just as bad for your heart.

He leaves to quickly grab the clothes while you push up onto one leg, keeping the other off the ground as you sit back against the tub and pull out your foldable stool from the shelf. Atleast with this you’d be able to sit and wash yourself beneath the spray.

As you’re tugging your socks from your feet, Izuku materialises in the doorway and forces a cough to draw your attention. You look up with mouth parted to speak, the words dying in your throat at the sight of him beaming with his merchandise in hand.

“I can’t believe you have this one,” he says excitedly, flipping it over his forearm so the hood hangs low and the bunny ears unfold, “the first edition of my costume! It was limited, right? Why didn’t you tell me you wanted it? I would have sent something over—”

“Izuku,” your tone errs on warning, his speech slowly blurring in his enthusiasm. Heat crawls along your cheeks as you snatch the clothes from his grasp, averting your eyes toward the tile grout, and he laughs breathlessly.

“Sorry, sorry. I just want to see you wearing my stuff,” he rubs sheepishly at the back of his neck. How can you say that so easily? you want to ask. It’s cruel.

“I’ll wear it if that’ll make you happy. Just go wait for the food,” you assent, the exasperation in your voice betrayed by how tightly you are holding the fabric to your chest. A muted flush of humiliation passes over you as he shuts the door, following your instruction. This hoodie is the one you usually slept in, but he didn’t need to know that.

Your shower is quick, albeit clumsy, still too cautious to put your left foot flat to the floor. You use a crutch to support your body in front of the mirror hung above the sink, muscles relaxed from the hot water and struggling under your weight. The Deku hoodie hangs slightly loose on your frame, having bought it oversized for comfort, the hem stopping by your thighs and almost covering the edge of your shorts.

Colour is already beginning to return to your skin and you appear considerably brighter. At the very least you can say you no longer look as if a light breeze will keel you over, scrunching the wet ends of your hair into your bath towel before pushing it back from your face.

Izuku has seen you happy, angry, unwell and panicked. He has witnessed you inebriated, and then deathly hungover, he has gracelessly walked you home a number of times without complaint. Him seeing you like this shouldn’t be any different — yet as you are coaxed from the bathroom with the tantalising smell of your favourite food, you feel warm at the domesticity of it all.

And beneath that is the knowledge that he’s entirely aware of your feelings for him.

His back is turned as you enter the living room, busy pulling hot tupperware out of paper bags, and you’re met with an odd sense of melancholic affection. In all the years you’d known him he was always just ahead of you, destined for greater things and higher purpose. It might be easier to stomach the distance if he did not always look back at you, like he expected you at his side.

“Ah! I hope you still like this as much as I remember. I ordered from our usual place,” he says as he turns on his heel, facing you with a grin and two hands full, “the delivery guy was the owner's son, Daichi! I can’t believe he’s already nineteen”.

“You sound like an old man,” the dull ends of your crutches thud against the flooring even as you attempt to carry more of your own weight, all too aware of your downstairs neighbors. Izuku makes an aborted motion to help you as you begin to walk but ultimately lets you reach the couch on your own merit, instead opting to set out the food on the coffee table.

He lifts it with ease, dragging the table close enough that it is within your reach, lining up the cutlery neatly either side before taking the remote. You notice then that the television is paused at the beginning of a new thriller that you’d been wanting to watch.

“Did he freak out when he saw you?”

The audio starts to play, eerie and drawn out as the fog across the screen clears. Sheepish, Izuku smiles. “He asked for another autograph,” he says, “told me it’s different from the first one I gave him. Like I levelled up, or something”.

You hum, pleased that he was receiving recognition, though most of your attention remains on the food. Chopsticks tucked into the crook of your thumb, you begin to eat, and he takes a seat on the other end of the sofa.

“You are kind of a big shot,” you remind him between bites, idly licking the flavour lingering on your lip, “it’s one thing to be known in Japan. But you’re also loved in a lot of the West now, too”.

He stares at your mouth as you speak, noodles spun tightly around his fork and suspended mid air as if he had stalled, eyes following your tongue briefly. “Izuku?”

You observe his subtle flinch and the way he shovels the fork onto his tongue, the shell of his ears a tint of red. Then he holds up a finger as if to tell you to wait while he chews, eyes firmly on the fictional crime scene unfolding on screen. Buying time to collect his thoughts, you realise.

“I guess that’s true,” he abruptly clears his throat and you lift your tupperware to hide a smirk behind the plastic, “kind of like having a signature from All Might in his Silver age, and another from his Golden Age”.

“Can I have one too, then?”

You hear his small noise of flustered disbelief, throat bobbing as he swallows deeply. It’s endearing, even with the actress crying through your TV speakers. Behind him are the balcony doors, curtains still hooked open, and as the sun is blanketed his silhouette darkens against the evening until his cheeks match that of the skyline.

“I mean— yes, but why?”

“I’m proud of you,” you tell him plainly, pushing your remaining food around the corners of the tub, “I still have our graduation book with your signature in it. So I want another one”.

That had been his second time ever writing out his autograph, if you didn’t include the years he’d spent wishfully perfecting it since he was a child. His first had gone to Eri, something she had asked for right away after you’d explained the purpose of a hero's signature. The moment was deeply engraved in your heart, his face had been so red you’d expected plumes of steam to be coming from his ears.

And he had cried, of course. Both times.

“Okay,” and there’s that quiver again in his lower lip, “I’ll write one for you before I go back”.

Eventually the conversation dies down into a gentle simmer, Izuku murmuring commentary under his breath as the movie progresses, laughing quietly at your offhand complaints about the effects or the dialogue. You feel the weight of his stare on you as the hours change, your living room fading into grey and lit only by the wide screen of your television. When you turn to him you see it reflected brightly in his eyes, his expression overcast by shadows but still warm.

He’s completely relaxed now, in a way that most people will never get to witness. You can see it in his posture — how he has finally let himself sink into your plush cushions and stretched out his legs, an arm laid along the back of the sofa with his head tilted back. In your periphery his fingers twitch as if they’re reaching for you.

“What’re you staring at?”

“You,” the corner of his lip curls up into a minute smile, his eyes straying back to the film as he speaks gently, “I missed you”.

It’s incredible how three simple words could have such a profound effect on you, shallow breath hitching with a surprised inhale. Now it is your turn to look, to appraise how soft and malleable he can be when he’s at ease like this, his body close and turned towards you even if it means uncomfortably angling his neck. Something kindles in your chest at the sincere fondness on his face, spreading lovingly even as the flames spit.

“You’re being weird”.

“You’re being obtuse,” he retorts, and you know what he's really referring to.

He’s coloured blue as the lighting changes with the scene, ironically fitting. “I just don’t want all this to be from a place of guilt,” you breathe, watching on as the characters begin to mourn. Almost an hour into the film, you do not remember a single thing about the plot.

“I can’t lie and say I feel no guilt for not being here to prevent what happened. But that has nothing to do with why I’m here now,” his arm folds inward and hangs over the back of the cushion, fingertips brushing the soft hair on your forearm.

“I want to help you because you’re precious to me. I’m not here to play the hero. I— I was so scared,” his brows draw together, eyes earnestly wide as if silently begging you to believe him.

“And I know it's selfish, but I want to be the only one you rely on,” he sags with the confession, the beginnings of a pout to his lips, “I’m here because I want to be”. You release a light, breathy laugh, taking his hand from your wrist and hearing him inhale as you trace the line of his fingers.

“I missed you too,” you tell him. It’s heavy on your tongue, the flimsy confession crowded in your throat. Friends will say that kind of thing to one another all the time, you yourself have done so before, but this felt like the cautious dip of toes into scalding water. Even if you let yourself acclimate to it — the temperature, or namely, him — he would still be gone by the weeks end. You just didn't want to be hurt.

A few beats of hesitance, shadows flickering along the walls with each change of frame, the protagonist sweeping a man into a passionate embrace. Quiet but firm, he says “I don't want to keep avoiding the voicemail you left me”.

Sensing your unease, he threads his fingers through your own until your palms kiss, scar tissue raised and rough against skin. There was too much potential for hope in such a small gesture, and you feel your heart quicken. “I know,” you murmur, “it’s just a lot for one day”.

He hums in understanding, adjusting himself to inch closer, the movement drawing you into his magnetism until you’re leaning a cheek against his shoulder. The proximity is nothing new to you, sorely missed but not new, and yet it still felt as such. There’s an ironic connection between the navigation of your feelings and your recovery; held on crutches, unsteady and hesitant to put a foot forward, but too far ahead to suddenly give up.

“Kacchan texted a few times and said he’d come over tomorrow morning,” his chin resting atop the crown of your head, moving as he speaks, “so maybe after he’s gone, we can…”

“Yeah,” you nod shortly and ignore the lump in your throat, “tomorrow would be— I’m okay with that”.

Seemingly appeased, Izuku merely nuzzles into your hair, the television screen darkening with a slow fade to black until the lines of the room disappear. Blanketed by night, your senses sharpen and his shallow breathing accompanies the silence.

“Katsuki, huh?” you mumble to yourself, “he must be worried if he feels the need to check on me”.

His shoulder shakes beneath you, and a smile pulls at your lips, influenced by his silent laughter. “I think he’s more worried that I’m the one staying with you,” he says as he shifts to pull his phone from his pants pocket. The screen lights up with a photo of the two of you from years ago, to which he quickly swipes up, unlocking it and opening his messages.

He tilts the device so you can see the texts.

Dynamight (Kacchan) 18:03

You’re staying there? You can barely take care of yourself. I’ll be over tomorrow to make sure you’re both still alive.

Me 18:05

(u_u) we’re fine though kacchan! I just ordered some food!

Dynamight (Kacchan) 18:37

Lazy shit. Atleast you won’t burn the place down.

And I’m not joking about visiting. It’ll be early.

Me 18:59

(＞人＜;) !!

Dynamight (Kacchan) 19:06

Stop using those fucking emoticons.

“See?” he sulks.

You glance up at him, soft features illuminated by the white light of his phone. When he returns the gaze you feel the warmth of his exhale, his nose only an inch from your own. Your cheeks burn and you look away.

“He’s partially right. You always used to burn the stovetops, and you were awful at keeping up with your physiotherapy”.

“In highschool—!”

“I’m just saying,” you quickly interrupt with amusement glittering in your voice, the nerves stirred by your intimate moment now settled by familiarity, “he knows you. It’s his own way of showing you concern. I bet he missed you too, even if it’s just a little”.

“Kacchan missing me?” he makes a small, theatrical sound of wonder, “you really do want to see me cry”.

“Idiot,” you murmur fondly, an ache in your cheeks and light in your chest. Izuku laughs again, though it’s far more of an abashed giggle, and his hand squeezes tight as his thumb strokes along the back of your own.

“We missed the end,” he refers to the movie, “want me to rewind it?”

With you in agreement he reaches for the remote and flicks back to the last scene you remember watching, settling into your side as it plays. The effort is futile, because in the darkness swaddled by his warmth and calmed by his touch, you soon find yourself lulled to sleep.

Through the dips in consciousness you feel your body carefully jostled, a weightlessness beneath your legs and a firm chest, something soft beneath your head and a hand on your cheek. When you do eventually wake you’re laid in the middle of your bed, the sheets up to your shoulders and tightly tucked in, the late morning sun already phasing through the curtains in scattered streams.

You don’t remember going to bed, nor do you remember anything beyond the forty minute mark of the movie. Being here could only mean that Izuku had carried you to bed himself, and while you were aware he could lift three times your weight before he had even graduated, the idea still embarrasses you.

You survey the surroundings. He isn’t here and there’s no sign he had been, which means he must’ve slept on the couch, though you shouldn’t have expected otherwise. Leant against your bedside table are your crutches, and atop it is a phone — brand new and plugged in to the charger. As you lift it the screen flickers on and you sigh at the time blinking back at you. 11:04. The background would appear to be a default image to anyone else, but you recognise it as a picture of the New York skyline that Izuku had sent you two months ago.

You’re slow to notice the item left underneath it, a pale blue sticky note, corners slightly curled upwards in age. On it is Izuku’s distinct, quick handwriting, reassuring you that most of it had already been set up for you to use. At the end of the message are two clumsy hearts, one roughly scribbled over in what you think might be embarrassment, and the other a little bigger as if he had talked himself into redrawing it.

As you pull back the covers, you almost forget about the injury to your leg, feet hanging just an inch above the carpet as an uncomfortable tenderness begins to radiate through your calf. The morning is chilly, which only seems to add more heat to the sensation, still only in your sleep shorts with nothing to shield the cold.

With the help of your crutches, you’re finally able to stand comfortably, hobbling towards the bedroom door. You hear Katsuki before you see him, the rough intonation of his voice reverberating through your apartment walls with ease. Though your gait is cumbersome and heavy there’s no longer a sharp ache when you put your foot down, smiling as the fond aggravation gets louder in your approach to the kitchen.

“…then be useful and go get some, shithead. Better than you hovering around here like a ghost!”

Izuku whines, and as you turn the corner you see his upper body leant childishly across the counter top where he sits at the breakfast bar. “Kacchan—!”

Before Katsuki can reply he sees your movement from the corner, immediate in his intense appraisal of your body, deep red lingering on the way you cling to the door frame for support He’s in his gym wear, shorts low on his hips and compression leggings underneath, black hooded jacket half zipped. “Exactly what time do you call this?” he huffs.

It’s then that Izuku lifts his head, cheekbone pink where he’d pressed it to granite, only spreading pinker at the realisation that you’d heard him complaining. “Good morning,” he smiles hesitantly, eyes brightening as they inadvertently flicker between you and his childhood friend. The man in question wrinkles his nose with disdain.

“Morning? It’s almost noon,” Bakugo turns on his heel to forcefully pull open your fridge door as if to emphasise how appalled he is, “and your kitchen is fuckin’ empty”.

His concern, though a little aggressive, is endearing and entirely welcome. “It’s good to see you too, boss,” you reply, smiling at the familiarity. In your periphery, Izuku appears to mope at the interaction.

“What were you guys talking about?” you ask, limping towards the counter where Izuku is seated, scratching an underlying urge to reassure him of his inclusion. Katsuki narrows his gaze, but mercifully he doesn’t mention it.

“I’m sending him on a grocery run while I’m here. You can’t eat takeout all week,” he explains while knocking your fridge door shut, “the nerd won’t leave you by yourself so I’ll stay while he goes”.

“But—!”

Izuku shuts up at the exasperated glare sent his way, a pale finger pointed between his brows that he peers up at with crossed eyes. Katsuki pokes his forehead harshly: “people recovering from injury need real food. You volunteered to play caretaker so go get it. And no fucking ramen!”

You bite back a grin as Izuku relents, pushing his stool back to get to his feet and feeling around his sweatpants pockets, and you realise they’re the same ones he’d worn the day before. “You could at least give me a list or something,” he complains, fingers grasping the outline of his wallet just to ensure it’s still there.

“Fruit, vegetables, green shit. Stuff that’s good for you, Deku. If you’re really that lost then call Auntie when you’re out!”

It’s as good a time as any to insert yourself into the bickering. “You could stop by there, too, maybe pick up some more clothes for yourself while you stay here,” you gently suggest. Izuku sags at your reasoning, while Katsuki claps his hands together.

“There you go, sorted. Now get on with it!”

You have nothing but the image of a solemn puppy to compare to the expression Izuku sends your way as he moves to leave the apartment, withstanding further irritable comments from Bakugo as he lingers in the small genkan, leaning out into the hallway to wave goodbye to you.

The door closes with a resounding thud, followed by the click of Katsuki’s tongue. “That was easier than expected,” he mutters.

“It was?”

The look he gives is nothing short of incredulous. “You were damn near dead, you do know that right?”

“Hard to forget something like that,” you swallow down the dryness at the back of your throat, finger idly tracing a small scratch etched into your countertop. Katsuki exhales loudly, and after years of knowing him you know it’s just to smother his frustration, grounding himself before he speaks again.

He sidles up beside you and offers his arm, bent at the elbow as it waits in suspension. “Come on, idiot. You should sit down and rest,” he indicates once more that you accept his assistance. Touched by the consideration, you wrap your hand around his bicep and lean into the support.

“Thank you,” you say. He quietly grunts in response.

The sofa is still made up as a makeshift bed for Izuku. He'd clearly found the spare blankets from your closet, most of them laid across the couch cushions and your spare pillow at the foot of it. Katsuki insists on helping you lower yourself onto the sheets, and while you know it’s not necessary, you can recognise it’s to alleviate some of his own anxiety about your condition.

You know better than to thank him twice aloud, so you simply smile at him, and the tension bleeds from his shoulders as he sits.

“Not that I don’t appreciate it, but I promise you didn’t need to check up on us,” you lean against the back cushions as you brace yourself for the inevitable lecture. With the extra quilts it’s much more comfortable, embraced by the still-lingering scent of Izuku even after he’d left.

“Who do you take me for?” he rolls his eyes, though not unkindly, but more like he’d been expecting what you said, “you work for me. It’s my responsibility to check up on you”.

He bristles at your raised eyebrow, turning away from your dubious stare. The longer you look the tighter he’s coiled, fist tightening and uncurling restlessly. “Whatever. I guess we’re friends too— tentatively,” he’s sharp in his endeavor to silence you, already anticipating your interruption, “anyone that brings me homemade food is a level up from just being coworkers. Just don’t tell the other shitheads I said that, because they’ll start calling favouritism”.

“A friend…” you mumble softly to yourself, a smile lifting the swell of your cheeks, “…nice to know all our years together puts me a single level above your receptionist”.

“That’s the spirit,” he makes a noise that sounds suspiciously like a laugh, and you feel a little lighter for it. Silence temporarily descends upon the two of you, not uncomfortable in the slightest, yet still anticipatory. You got the feeling that there was still much left unsaid, and that alone set you on edge, as Katsuki was never the type to withhold his thoughts.

“Heard you got everyone out that day,” he’s fiddling with some of the stray thread in your spare blanket, the crease between his brow smoothened in contemplation, “thanks”.

“All those times Aizawa shoved our classes into the USJ really paid off I guess,” you close your eyes briefly to reminisce, nostalgic for the days when life was a little simpler, even if you hadn’t appreciated it at the time.

“Though I still managed to get myself trapped and nearly ended up dead, so maybe not”.

His lips press together into a thin, tight seam as he ignores your self deprecation in favour of observing your apartment. He’d only ever been here once, a brief drop by to discuss a work matter on your rare day off a few months after you’d moved, but back then it was undoubtedly emptier than it is now. He pauses at the framed photographs of you and some of his classmates, a few were taken at the reunion party, pressed cheek to cheek and flushed with alcohol.

“It was ears that found you,” his voice held a tone of regret, uncharacteristically soft spoken. Jirou had found you. The knowledge takes refuge on the back of your tongue, the lump you cannot swallow, the guilt you cannot stomach. “She heard you talkin’ on the phone under all that concrete and rubble. Immediately sent Ei to dig you out,” he says, “just in time too. Your… heart had stopped”.

Honestly you’d avoided asking any sort of questions pertaining to the accident because it frightened you. Not only to realise that you truly had been teetering on the edge of death, but to know how it’d hurt the people around you too. For Jirou to have heard your desperate last words, and Kirishima to have pulled your lifeless body from the depths — it forms a cacophony of emotions in your chest; gratitude, embarrassment, regret, relief.

You should call them soon.

“Ei, huh?”

“Shut the fuck up,” he quips with a snort, now finally looking back at you. His expression gives way to bated breath. A true reflection of his feelings on his face, no veil of annoyance or anger. You would not call it warm, nor soft, but it is entirely sincere and brimming with solitude.

“I’m glad you’re alright”.

You inhale, tucking your hands between your thighs to smother the trembling, your lungs expanding in the confines of your ribs. Your eyes sting as you exhale, lashes damp in the effort to blink away the swell of tears.

“Me too,” you whisper, the words rough and catching in your throat. You stare at the other threads peeking from the old blanket beneath you, perhaps more likely to have been pulled apart by time, but you can picture Izuku laid along the sofa picking at the fabric nervously as you sleep in the other room. You curl it around your finger as you miss him.

“He told me about the voicemail you know,” Katsuki murmurs, the vibrations of his voice oddly comforting, somewhat like a purr. “Made a big fuckin’ mess, crying all over me in the middle of the hospital. I wish you’d have just told him before he left”.

You do, too. You don’t think there’s anything you regret more than tucking your feelings for him away until it felt it was too late. “I just… He never acted any differently with me, so I’ve always been sure that there was nothing between us. I thought it’d burden him”.

“Christ. It’s like when you’ve been around a bad smell for so long that you don’t even notice it anymore,” the edge of exasperation is returning to his voice, your intimate moment passing quickly. The implication that everything you’d wanted had always been within reach is frustrating, but you can’t help smiling either, giddiness thrumming around the cage of your chest.

“He was always mooning over you in highschool, and long after we graduated,” a vaguely vindictive grin spreads across his face, “he was always jealous that you came to work for me too”.

“I doubt that—”

“You callin’ me a liar?”

“—but speaking of work,” you make a point to raise your voice to be heard over his loud complaint and he settles unwillingly, “I noticed you’ve been pretty quiet on the press front. Does that mean you’re avoiding them until I’m back to tone down your bullshit?”

He grunts, like admitting it was painful for him, but it’s as good a confession as any. “Wow,” you mumble in soft surprise, “you really do feel guilty”.

“I know the blame doesn’t fall on me for the building collapsing. But I was part of the team trying to lead the villain away from civilians and she still blew up the area anyway,” — he sinks forward to lean an elbow against his thigh, resting his head in his hand — “so I do feel some responsibility for that. It’s like I said, I’m just… glad you’re alright”.

In the short, thoughtful pause between words, there is a thud from outside your balcony that rattles the doors on their hinges. Katsuki startles to his feet, dropping out of his defensive stance with various curses tumbling from his mouth as he stalks over to the windows where Izuku is waiting. There’s a duffle bag at his back, the strap crossed tightly over his chest, and two grocery bags in each hand.

“Are you fuckin’ crazy?” Katsuki slides open the balcony door and yanks the groceries from his grasp, kicking his ass as he ducks into the living room. You laugh at Izuku’s yelp, and he’s drawn to the melody of it, glare already softening into a smile.

Katsuki continues his verbal assault while he carries the food to your kitchen, bags clattering on the countertop as he unloads them — fuckin’ roof hopping bastard. What kind of idiot enters using someone’s balcony, I should put you in cuffs myself — but Izuku pays him no mind.

“I’m home,” he says. It settles like hot coffee in your stomach. He looks better already, having changed out of his previous clothes into some loose basketball shorts and a plain t-shirt, mossy curls still slightly damp from what must’ve been a quick shower.

“Welcome home,” you reply.

Katsuki pulls his lip back to sneer at Izuku as he walks over to hand you some painkillers and a cool glass of water. “Please tell me nobody saw you”. Your gaze flickers back and forth between the two of them as you drink down the pill, grimacing at the residue on your tongue.

“Nobody saw me,” Izuku reassures him offhandedly while pulling the strap over his head. Now holding the dufflebag by his side, Izuku makes his way across the threshold to set it on the breakfast bar, “and I got plenty of veggies too. Aren’t you proud of me, Kacchan?”

“Thinks he’s so clever,” Katsuki mutters, eyes narrowing further as you cough to hide your own laughter. He takes the glass back from you once you’ve finished and turns toward the kitchen where Izuku waits with a pleased grin, sliding it over the counter.

“You’re both being stupid, so I need to get out of here ‘cause it’s infectious and I’m around enough of it as is,” his hand comes down heavily on Izuku’s head, flattening the dark curls and bringing him closer to murmur something inaudible before glancing over his shoulder to address you.

“Behave, alright?” his eyebrow lifts as if to taunt you, “and get your shit together. I need you back at work ‘cause I can only keep my mouth shut for so long”.

“Kacchan needs his leash back,” Izuku laughs, entirely unperturbed by the short smack Katsuki gives him, affection flooding your senses at the sound.

“And you need to get a clue, nerd!”

The friendly bickering follows them all the way to the front door, Izuku sagely bidding Katsuki goodbye and ignoring the mocking comment of this is a fuckin’ door, you use them like this as he leaves. In their absence you pick up one of the crutches laid at your feet and allow it to bear your weight as you stand.

It’s still early afternoon, though darker than expected, clouds suppressing the late spring sun. On the panes you see the beginnings of rain. You approach the open balcony door and the sound floods in, a small puddle forming by your socks and you shrink against the frame, sitting back to watch grey overcast the city. For a moment you are free, tethered only by the patter of rain on the skin of your arm, heavy but light in your chest.

You feel Izuku’s presence at your side without needing to look at him. The warmth from his body so prominent in the cool air of the impending storm, embraced by the smell of petrichor as his muscled thigh presses against yours. In that breath, you could be deluded into believing you were the only two people in the world.

“Are you okay?” he asks, leaning into you a little more, “you look like you’ve been crying”.

“Yeah. I just realised a lot,” your stare follows the stream of droplets running down the window, the pitter-patter growing louder as the pressure strengthens, “I didn’t think he’d feel so responsible for it all”.

He hums a regretful note, close lipped as he ducks his chin, hair falling over his eyes. “While you might know it’s irrational, it’s still hard not to blame yourself in our profession. Even I…”.

“…you?”

“I feel like I should’ve been there, that I could’ve gotten you out before— before you’d been hurt,” he smiles despite himself and reaches to shape his hand around your leg, right where the clean break had been.

“I know logically that there’s nothing I could’ve done, that I was thousands of miles away and everyone at the scene did their best. But what good is it… being a hero, wielding all this power, if I can’t protect the people precious to me?”

You rest your hand atop his own, thumb stroking along the dips of his knuckles, lifted by scar and bone. Back there, beneath the collapsed Dynamight building, you’d submitted to death and immediately attempted to tie up your final loose end. What you’d left unsaid had been your one regret — your dying regret — and it was eating away at him.

Maybe the voicemail had been a little unintentionally cruel. Selfish might be a better word for it. While you had given your confession without expectations of it being reciprocated, only wanting him to know that he’d always been loved, you hadn’t given thought to how it would affect him. Standing by a casket, hands cupped together and holding your love for him, living the rest of his life not knowing where or when to put it down.

“Jirou found me because I was talking to you on the phone,” you tell him, voice wavering as he turns over his hand to hold yours, “she heard me while they were searching for survivors”.

You tighten your grip. “So I guess in an odd, roundabout kind of way, I was saved because of you,” his breathing stutters slightly beside you as you continue to speak, “I don’t regret calling you, but I’m sorry you had to listen to that”.

The rain comes down harder as the wind picks up, mercifully blowing in the opposite direction, water no longer building at the foot of your doorframe. Izuku pulls your intertwined hands into his lap. “If this hadn’t of happened, would you have ever told me?”

“I don’t know,” you quietly admit, “I suppose it sounds bad when I say it outloud but I just… accepted that you belonged to the world”.

“You’re a part of that world too, you know”.

You smile weakly at his lighthearted attempt of comfort, pushing through the shame twisting throughout your sternum. “I know that, and I know you care. But it’s more than that. I— I wanted you to belong to me”.

A sting radiates through your cheeks and pricks by your eyes, lips still moving to fill the empty spaces, too scared to know what he was thinking. “I didn’t want to hear your rejection. And I know you, Izuku. You’d try not to act any differently but it… it wouldn’t be the same anymore”.

The weight of his gaze is poignant and you find yourself rambling. He’s quiet as he listens, so quiet you think he might’ve held his breath, and you look over to find his left cheek sucked between his teeth. Green swallowed by black, pupils expanding, his eyes are warm. Too warm, lovingly warm, a disquieting sense of hope kindling in your chest.

When he finally speaks, the flames only grow. “What makes you so sure I would reject you?” he asks, the words softly encouraging as if he were attempting to overturn the stones in your mind that you’d refused to touch.

Your jaw slacks in disbelief.

“Do you think I’m this affectionate with all my friends, that I would do all of this for them?” he continues with an endeared smile, pink blossoming beneath his freckles and eyes squinted, “I’m a hero and I pride myself on doing what I think is right, but I’m not that good of a guy”.

He cautiously repositions himself at your side, switching the hand you’re holding for the opposite as the heat from his arm radiates by your lower back, hesitant to touch you; and so you let yourself sink into his chest. The tension leaves his body, his relief almost palpable, and you’re charmed by how nervous he’s being even with the sure knowledge of your feelings.

“The version of myself that I give to the world and the one I give to you, they’re different. No one… no one has ever had me the way you do”.

The insinuation barely registers. “How long have you…”

“I realised when you profiled me in the fall of our third year,” he readily admits, “it was for your media relations assignment. Whenever you met with me in the library you’d bring a hand warming pack because you knew my joints would get sore in the cold”.

“All that time,” you mumble.

He hums. His nose ghosts over your temple into your hair, his lips wet and soft against your cheek, and he lingers there to breathe you in. Beneath the hand that rests by his collar, you feel the flicker of his heartbeat under your palm, and his fingers tighten around the other. You feel held, cradled.

“Then, you really were jealous that I went to work with Bakugo?” He tenses for a moment and relaxes again, a puff of air by your ear as he snorts, grumbling an inaudible complaint of ‘why’d he have to tell you that…’.

You laugh, the truth of it both amusing and childish. He lowers his face to your shoulder with embarrassment, nestling into the crook of your neck, instinctively tilting to give him more access. “You never know. If you finally decide to set up a base somewhere after your travels, I might come and work for you instead”.

“Really?!” his head lifts, leaning further until he excitedly meets your eyes, his own wrinkling at the corners. It melts into something a little more playful as he says: “I heard it’s dicey to work with the person you’re dating, though”.

“So we’re dating now, huh?” — he at least has the decency to appear sheepish, holding air in his cheeks as he pouts — “even… even though you’re leaving so soon?”

“I want to,” he exhales, a longing intonation in his voice, “I want to be with you. I know I still have seven months left in the States but I promise I’ll give twice the effort. I’ll call every day that I can and set an alarm to— to text you good morning and—”

“Izuku,” you cover his mouth with your palm, effectively cutting off his rambling. “Breathe,” you tell him. And he does. Still, as you remove your hand he pushes on, catching your wrist mid air and eyes widening with a plea.

“You deserve better. You deserve someone that can be here with you. I know that and it scares me,” he says, “but I want you. I’ve wanted you. I almost lost you once and I can’t let this go, not anymore”.

He brings you back, has you cupping his cheek, and he turns into your touch. His eyes do not stray from yours as he tilts ever so slightly to press a featherlight kiss to your heart line, visibly swallowing his nerves. “I love you. Will you let me?”

The atmosphere thickens, dipole strengthening so harshly it’s almost painful to deny it — the magnetism that has you crawling into his lap, ignorant of the ache spreading through your healing leg as you raise your other hand to cradle his face.

He looks elated, wrapping both arms around your waist to keep you in place, bright like the surface of the sun. It fills you up, brimming in your chest and spilling over, unadulterated love and lust and temptation and satisfaction. With one simple question he has given you permission to want him, a saccharine feeling of relief, so many closed doors now hold the possibility of being opened.

You want to open them.

In the doorway to your balcony, caressed by the damp afternoon breeze, you finally lean forward to kiss him. His lips are full, pillowy and soft, hastily moving against your own. The first is chaste, you pull away barely an inch just to look at him, his eyes already half lidded and watching you. Being this close you could count his lashes, dark as they fan across his cheeks.

“Don’t stop,” he mumbles, and you feel it between your thighs. The next kiss is longer, greedier. Your lips part to mirror him, his tongue tantalisingly dipping along the seam, coaxing you back into his mouth. It becomes hungry, insatiable as you swallow his breathless sigh, hands slipping to play with the hair on the back of his neck.

It evolves into something more desperate. You murmur his name — Izuku — and he plucks it from your mouth, responding with a helpless moan. You can feel him in your stomach, along the surface of your tongue and your teeth, bruising at your waist. Barely catching your breath, so lost in the throes of impatience that you’re barely cognisant of your hips grinding circles against his firm thigh, pulling him impossibly close.

You try to readjust, to spread your knees a little wider for more leverage, but as you shift the weight of your body a hot flash of pain flashes through your leg. Izuku is quick to pull back at the wounded sound.

“Shit, I’m sorry. Are you okay?”

He’s so beautifully dishevelled, hair unkempt and face coloured pink, that you’re almost too proud to care about your injury. You steady your breathing as the throbbing dulls into a soft ache.

“I’m okay baby,” you say, reaching down to squeeze at your calf, “see? All good. I just leaned too far onto it, I think”.

He stares back at you with his lower lip caught between his teeth. “What?” you ask, but he only leans forward again, releasing the bitten smile as he kisses you.

“Baby,” he repeats, voice a little thicker than before, “I like that”.

“Yeah?” pride rears its head once more, the push and pull between mystified and smug, fingers playing with the hem of his t-shirt and watching his eyes flutter. It was you who did this, you who could pull all these reflexive reactions from him.

“Yeah”.

You slip your hand up, his abdomen flinching against your palm. Between your bodies you can see the outline of his cock, hard and leaking, the fabric of his shorts darkening as it’s saturated. As your touch furthers, brushing along the divots of his stomach and over thick pecs, the shirt pools around your wrists and lifts with them. Impatient, he crosses his arms to take it off completely.

“You can touch me,” he tells you, though it sounds less like a suggestion and more like please touch me. You indulge him, and yourself, by doing as he says.

His skin a litany of battles fought and won. Fought and lost. There were plenty of victories that you knew he hated himself for. You trace the outline of each mark, follow the pale sheen of stretch marks traversing his hip, connect the dark freckles dotted across his torso and shoulders. You feel him shudder and relish it, pleased as you observe the surface reaction to your touch, the goosebumps and the blush.

“You really are handsome,” you breathe.

“So you’ve said,” he grins, though the teasing has far less impact when it’s spoken so breathlessly. You feel yourself flush, want leaden where it sits in your belly, wet at the sight of his clothed cock twitching by his thigh. You trace your fingers over him, curling them around the fabric and squeezing, his hips jolting upwards into your palm.

“Can I see more of you?” you ask. His jaw slacks as you hook into the waistband of his shorts, only pulling them down when he gives you the go ahead, just enough that his cock sits flush against his navel. It’s pretty, a little darker than the rest of him and blushing red at the tip, tufts of neatly trimmed dark hair around the base. Only in the light can you see the slight green hue.

“So big,” you gently circle your thumb over his slit, spreading the arousal over his frenulum. You feel his thighs tightening beneath you, his cock fat and heavy as it twitches at your touch. After years spent imagining it, of fucking yourself to the thought of it, you want to see him come apart.

His hands slide up your thighs to your waist, pausing to grope each new centimetre of skin, aimlessly pawing at your hips as he watches you bring your hand up to your mouth. Saliva pools beneath your tongue and your lips part, spitting directly into it. Izuku rasps your name, drawing your attention, and he mirrors your actions. You feel yourself throb as he drools into the same hand, his eyes never leaving yours, the string of spit slowly thinning between his lip and your palm.

You slide your fist down his cock, coating it with the mix of you and himself in one fluid motion. He tucks his nose to your temple as he whimpers, nails digging into your soft hips as you fuck him with your hand. “Good?” you murmur, alternating your pace and finding a rhythm that he likes.

“S’good,” he rasps, the words warm against the shell of your ear. He ducks to kiss you again, mouth still wet, sloppy as he licks over your tongue. With every gasp for breath he appears to flush pinker; skin like a summer evening when the sun and the stars are able to meet for a brief moment. You praise him unabashedly — so beautiful, Izuku, so pretty like this — and it only seems to pull him deeper.

“Fuck,” he’s whining, his body beginning to squirm. It’s tectonic how his muscles shift, his chest rising and falling the closer he gets, fingertips bruising where they’re anchored in your flesh. Just as you think he’s going to cum, he grabs your wrist to stall your movements.

“Not yet— I want…” there are dark, stray hairs stuck to his forehead, a cloud of red spreading up his neck, “…not as tight and— a little faster, maybe. Please. Please”.

“Like this?” you loosen your fist and let him guide you, focusing your touch around the tip of his cock in fast, light strokes. His abdomen clenches, eyes fluttering shut with his brows pinched together. Oh, you realise. He likes to draw it out a little longer, to tease himself as he’s teetering on the edge, coiling tighter as he curls into you.

“Yes,” he gasps, “fuck, baby. Just like that, m’so close—”

“Let me see you when you cum,” there’s nothing in the world that could keep the pleading tone out of your words, your free hand threading into his hair and pulling him back. Your grip tightens at his scalp and as he meets your gaze his lips part, a silent sob pulled from his chest, and his muscles seize for a short moment.

Like the string of a bow pulled taut, when it is released his body slacks in relief, trembling through each wave of his orgasm as it passes. As he cums it coats the top of your fist, flicking against his belly as you continue to fuck him through it, and he doesn’t stop you even as he softens.

“Fuck. So perfect, look at you,” — you’re so wet that it’s almost painful, the throbbing between your own legs still neglected — “you like it when it hurts a little, don’t you?”

“A little,” he presses his forehead to yours as he comes back to himself. Slowly, he litters chaste kisses across your face, to your brows and your cheeks, your nose and your lips. “I love you,” he mumbles.

You laugh at how satiated he sounds. “Down for the count already?”

Hearing the challenge in your voice he leans back, a glimmer of mischief in his irises as you feel his hands slip around the back of your thighs. With newfound vigor he gets to his feet, hoisting you up, chuckling at your surprised squeak. “Don’t drop me—!”

“As if I could,” he smirks crookedly, your legs tightening at his sides as he carries you through to what you assume will be your bedroom. You suppose he has every reason to be a little smug, holding all of your weight as if it were nothing at all.

He readjusts his grip to gently lower you into the centre of the bed, forearms then resting either side of your head to cage you against the mattress. With both hands you cup his jaw, still soiled as you brush your thumb along his lip, slipping it into his mouth as he opens up for you.

“How’s it taste?” the question breathless and thick. Izuku pulls off with an obscene pop, lips a deeper rouge and mildly bruised, and hums contemplatively. Then the bridge of his nose wrinkles.

“…I don’t know if I want you to taste that,” his lips pursed as he bites back a laugh, though yours comes freely, turning your cheek into the covers when he dips to hide his face in the crook of your neck. He hums, a pleased rumbling that you think mimics a purr, and kisses your pulse point.

“I like when you laugh,” he begins to descend the length of your torso, cautious at first as if seeking your permission, continuing once your chest curves up into him. You feel his hand, rough and so much larger than your own, slip beneath the material of your hoodie.

“I like you in my colours,” he pushes it up until it sits below your chin and takes a handful of your breast, your nipples perking up between his thumb and forefinger. His eyes, reflecting his hunger, watch closely how you react to his touch.

And you, embarrassed by his apparent reverence of you, can only murmur his name. He takes you between his lips, flicks his tongue, pushes your tits together as he mouths across your chest. “I like when you’re flustered, too,” he grins.

“Stop teasing and kiss me,” you huff — bordering on a whine. He only beams wider as he crowds back up into your space, his display of giddiness entirely contagious. Cradling either side of his face, you feel the heat in his cheeks, and tilt up to kiss him.

He freezes. “Wait, but it—!”

“I don’t care if it’s bad, I want to taste you,” you encourage him with the squeeze of your thighs either side of his hips, the soreness in your leg gone as it rests elevated on his back. It doesn’t take much, just a soft please and he’s there again, nipping tenderly at your lower lip.

He groans as you slip into his mouth, picking up only a faint bitterness on your palate, making a point of sucking his tongue to consume all remnants of it. It didn’t matter if he thought it was bad, because it was him, and you wanted every piece. He presses you further into the bedsheets, weight sinking as he moans, rutting his hips forward against your own.

The friction is staggering despite the discomfort, his cock already half hard again and heavy against your pussy. After spending all this time untouched you feel some relief to the ache, fabric soaked as it clings to skin. “I want to taste you too,” he breathes, “can I take these off?”

He twangs the waistband of your shorts against your pelvis, stomach jumping at the sting. He’s so gorgeous above you, curls framing his face with such adoration in his gaze. “Yes,” you awkwardly lift your hips so he can drag the fabric down your thighs and pull the hoodie over your head, laid bare beneath him.

“Careful,” he pauses to kiss the top of your healed calf, rubbing over the spot as if it were ointment, “tell me if it starts to hurt at any point, okay?”

“Okay”.

Time seems to slow as he pulls your knees apart, hands slipping to the apex of your thighs, thumbs settled in the creases to gently part your labia. You feel yourself twitch, and you know he sees it too, breath hitching at the sight.

He plays with you out of pure indulgence, passing a finger through your arousal and spreading it over your clit. The pressure is barely there, massaging slow methodical circles against you. You watch through half lidded eyes as he swallows, as if his mouth had begun to water, and the thought shoots straight to your cunt.

“You’re so wet already,” his finger toying with your entrance, your hips chasing the feeling. He sinks into you gradually, pushing until he meets resistance and waiting, smoothly curling up into a come hither motion.

“More,” you croon. He shuffles further down the bed until he is laid between your legs, lips quirking into an amused smile at your noise of complaint, which is soon silenced. He presses a long, gentle kiss to your clit, sticky as he pulls back for breath. The next kiss is wet, open mouthed with his tongue rolling languidly through your folds, groaning shamelessly at the taste.

He, a man left in the dry sun, and you, the water he greedily drinks. You feel any and all rigidity bleed from your body, his arms hooked beneath your thighs and lax as he holds you, letting you grind down into his mouth.

“Fuck, baby”. His nose knocks against your clit while he fucks you with his tongue, the lewd squelch of arousal and spit reverberating throughout the bedroom. You’re obscenely worked up, pulsing and clinging to him each time he slips out of you, coiling that much tighter as he pushes into you again.

You stretch readily around two of his fingers, and he gently works you open, taking you between his lips and tracing tantalisingly slow shapes against your clit with his pointed tongue. Something ripples through you as he sinks in a third, other hand shifting to spread you open further for him. What was a steady trickle begins to swell as he curls up towards your belly, peering at you from the apex of your thighs to appraise your reactions, following the path your body lays out for him.

“Izuku,” a thrill dances through you, “Iz—Izuku, I’m going to—!”

Your hands thread into his hair, anchoring yourself and keeping him exactly where you wanted him to be, grip tightening as your legs begin to tremble. He moans wanton against your clit and you pull harder, encouraging him further. You’re squirming, frantically chasing the sensation, desperate for it not to slip away from you.

Distantly you hear his quiet murmurings, words slurred and disjointed, muffed into your pussy between breaths. “That’s it baby… fuck, that’s it…”. Your head tilts back into the pillows, eyes squeezed shut and jaw loosening around his name, expression pinched in awe. Your orgasm crashes over you, an unsuspecting wave that drags you further from the shore, clenching tightly around his fingers as you cum.

His soft kisses keep you by the surface. They’re dotted across your inner thighs and your stomach, your calves and your chest. Slowly he makes his way back to you, appearing in your line of sight as he hovers above on his hands, pink cheeks wet and lifted with his grin.

“You’re so beautiful,” he breathes.

“So are you,” you tell him, running your hands up the length of his arms, appreciating how firm and thick they are. Years and years of work carved meticulously into his body, all for the sake of keeping others safe. Even with his incredible build, the compliment renders him boyish, reluctant to meet your eyes.

You tilt your chin, indicating you want him to kiss you, and he understands without need for words. You lick yourself from his lips, his own peeking between the seam to brush yours, before turning to kiss his jaw. There, you quietly ask for more.

“Want you to fuck me,” you murmur. He exhales, the air shaken in the space between your bodies.

“Are you sure?” You nod. “Do you have condoms? I can get tested for you this week if—”.

“Have you always used condoms when you have sex?”

His eyes narrow minutely, nervous as he appraises your expression, like he was expecting it to be a trick question. “Yeah, I mean. Of course”.

“So have I. I know I’m clean, and I’m on contraception. So…”.

“You want… you’re okay without using a condom?”

“If you are,” you hastily reassure him, pushing the hair back from his face to cradle his cheeks, “we can if you want to. I just— I want all of you”.

Heat rushes to the surface of your skin at the confession, at the underlying implication of it. I want you to cum inside me, you think. Now that you finally had him you’d let yourself be greedy with the knowledge that he would always try to give it to you, because in his own selfish way, Izuku was a limitless giver.

As if sensing your inner turmoil, he leaves a lingering kiss to your lips, tender and slow as you share a breath. You hear his soft whisper of ‘okay’, the mattress dipping with his weight while he tugs off his shorts. At the foot of the bed he lifts your ankle, slipping a thumb beneath your sock.

“Want me to take these off?” he asks, “you look kinda cute in them like this, though”.

His odd perversion makes you laugh. The room fades into grey as a darker cloud passes over the sun, and in that quiet moment you remember that it is raining. “You can leave them on then,” you say.

His cock is completely hard now, twitching as he kneels between your thighs, the tip swollen pink against milky white. You force yourself limp as he bends your knee and rotates your body so you are laid on your side, one leg resting atop the other, and settles himself behind you.

“This comfortable for you?” happy with the position he scoots closer, smoothing his hands along the curve of your hip, “if we’re doing this I don’t want to hurt your leg”.

Your torso twists back slightly to look at him over your shoulder, only to find that he is already there, big enough to lean over you. One arm slips under to pillow your head while the other crosses over your chest as he cradles your jaw, thumb stroking the swell of your cheek. “Yeah. Yeah, this is good,” you say, a little breathless at how well his body shapes around your own, cock heavy and twitching against your ass.

He slides a knee between your thighs, pelvis pushing up against you as he holds you to his chest. With a kiss to your shoulder he murmurs: “get me nice and wet first”. You reach to guide him, a light push that has him slipping smoothly through your folds, fingers brushing along the underside of his cock and rubbing against the frenulum.

Your senses prick at the soft, slick sound of your arousal, releasing a quiet sigh as he passes over your clit with each back and forth of his hips. The tip of his nose is pressed to your temple, a low and pleased hum vibrating by your ear.

With one last push the tip of his cock is nudging your entrance and you’re arching back against him, savouring the gradual stretch as he sinks into you. The feeling satisfies something within yourself that you’d never been able to itch, the firm musculature at your back and the secure embrace, surrounded by him, him, him. He sighs, your name tumbling from his lips, whimpering as you clench around him.

You reach back to thread your fingers through his hair, scratching lightly at his scalp as he draws back, the drag of his cock indelible. Then he’s rolling forwards, filling you up again, fucking himself a little deeper each time. The sound it pulls from your sternum is startling, erring on wounded, still sensitive and alight from your previous orgasm.

“Izuku— baby,” the next thrust stutters, your fingers tightening around his curls and you smile blissfully. Your neck tilts as he mouths along the curve of your throat, a trail of gentle nips at your jugular.

“Feels so good, baby. You feel so good,” he breathes, turning your cheek so your foreheads meet, eyelids heavy as he looks down at you. He’s flushed, lips parted and swollen, a brushing temptation against your own mouth. You want to kiss him again, you think.

The intimacy is like nothing you’ve ever experienced before. The loving expression he bathes you in feels like lying in a sun spot, such a stark contrast to the harsh plunge of his cock into your cunt.

A familiar kindling spreads, with every gasping breath you feel yourself wound tighter around him. His hand leaves your cheek only when he’s certain you won’t look away from him, palming at every plush part of you he can reach, fingertips finally bruising at your waist as he drags you back against him.

Your heart beats incessantly in your chest, the palpitations felt all throughout your body — in your throat, in your stomach, in your pussy. He must feel it too, the desperate clench as he pulls out, the way you cling to the tip. “Thought about this, about you, for so long,” the words are warm against your mouth, “fucked myself thinkin’ about you”.

“Shit, Izuku,” his expression slacks at the broken call of his name, his pace stumbling. You then feel the wet pads of his fingers press lightly against your clit, flickering back and forth with a deliberate rhythm even as you squirm, arching into his chest.

“Wanna hear it again,” he murmurs, “say it again”.

He looks enraptured. Green peeks behind black, his pupils blown and swallowing the iris; his tongue, pink and dipping into your mouth. “Izuku,” you whine, thighs reflexively clamping around his hand, muscles tightening around his cock. He groans — again.

“Izuku. Izuku,” not unlike the times you had touched yourself thinking of him, whispering his name into the night air and hoping he would feel it. He’s here, you’re swaddled by him, loved and wanted by him: “please, baby. I’m—!”

“Cum for me”.

It pulls down to your core, bearing down on his cock as you find yourself trembling. So contradictory is the unrelenting coiling in your belly as the tension bleeds from your limbs, surrendering yourself to the safe tide as it takes you. You pull at him, tethered to his hair and encouraged by the moan that builds in his chest, breath caught in your throat as you crest.

You might still be saying his name, you think. Perhaps not, your jaw slack around a silent cry as he continues to fuck his cock into you, mumbling sweet praises against your cheek. “Love you,” the breath catches in his throat, his brows pinched in concentration as he gazes back at you, “so— I’m so close”.

“Inside me,” you tell him, “wanna feel you to cum inside me”.

He clutches your hip, fingers sodden with your arousal, the grip bruising as he lets himself go. You don’t want to miss a thing, intently watching the emotions flit across his face as he reaches the edge. He tenses, eyes shuttering closed as the rigidity threads through him, and he moans. There is no space left between your bodies as he roots himself deep inside you, filling you with his cum. And you — still pulsing with the aftershocks, back flush to his front — gently milk his cock.

His eyes remain closed as he catches his breath, repeatedly dipping to press short kisses to your lips between each inhale, your hand moving from his curls to caress his cheek. He softens, finally meeting your gaze as he slips out of you, his release drooling down the back of your thigh.

He shifts and you roll onto your back, quickly catching the wince you make at the movement. “Is your leg okay? Was I too rough?”

“It’s not my leg that’s sore,” you laugh. He smiles shakily, flushing from his chest to the tip of his ears, and you’re glad he doesn’t apologise for it.

For a few minutes you both collect yourselves in silence, becoming sleepy as he twists your hair around his finger, another innocent kiss to your temple. Outside it is still raining, the wind whistling an eerie song through your hallway when it dances through your still-open balcony doors, you dread to think how wet your carpet has gotten.

“We made a lot of mess,” you sigh, too satiated to be irritated by it, “I hope there aren’t any puddles in my living room right now”. There’s certainly one on your bedsheets.

“I’ll take care of everything,” the promise is followed by the low rumbling of your stomach, his lips twitching into a smirk, “and I’ll make you something to eat, too”.

“Not without supervision you’re not,” you murmur. He snorts, abrupt and less than charming, and it makes you laugh. A part of you is tempted to pinch yourself, another still warding off the anxieties that came with every what if; the spot below you grows damper but you can’t bring yourself to move just yet, soaking up the moment as it is, as much as you can.

“I can hear you thinking”.

Though ‘thinking’ doesn’t quite seem like the right synonym for ‘suppressing every worst case scenario you can think of’, you smile at his perception. “Aren’t you?”

“I’m okay,” he takes your hand and intertwines your fingers, bringing it to his lips, “I think we both will be. I don't think I could ever regret trying”.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah”.