the armor between us - katsuki bakugo
cw: 18+ knight!bakugo x princess!reader, yona of the dawn vibes.. and a tiny bit bridgerton inspired, p in v, angst and comfort, forbidden love, arranged marriage.. unrequited love (not really) majorrrr yearner katsuki, maybe a bit ooc?? but it’s wtv he’s a knight.
a/n: made this with the lovely @dienamiight in mind !! masterlist link here. emergency comms open. if you want to help support me and my work here is my buy me a kofi. <3
The ballroom feels narrow, twisting you this way and that, you feel like a prized pig at auction—the way suitors crowd in, their abnormally large noses hovering far too close, every mumbled comment feeling like it’s sneered directly at you.
Your palms grow clammy. Your eyes scan the vast room for a familiar tuft of blonde hair or piercing red eyes, but you find nothing. Not even a flicker.
Hopelessness settles heavy in your chest as you retreat to your chambers. It feels almost silly, you think, to always be looking for him—waiting for the comfort of his footsteps trailing behind you, never able to fully rest unless you catch the sound of his presence, or the soft murmur of curses under his breath.
He always knows where you are; he moves like a shadow at your side. That’s how it should be—partnership, companionship, or whatever strange thing the two of you share.
A harsh, urgent knock rattles your door just as your hair slips free from your stays, spilling messily over your nearly bare shoulders, where your corset sits loose and untightened.
“Someone left the party awfully fast.” he drawls.
You hold your breath. “Someone never joined the party.”
The corners of his mouth twitch, curling into an amused smirk.
He steps closer. And with every pace he takes, the room grows heavier, thicker, until your thoughts melt into something warm and dizzying. He stops mere inches from you—close enough that you feel the heat radiating from him.
“What’s got the princess hiding from her own ball?” he murmurs.
You scoff and turn away. “Oh, a ball where I’m paraded about like a pig at auction, awaiting my eventual death.”
His brow twitches—a flicker of something soft, almost wounded—but he buries it beneath a veil of sardonic humor. “And that death is marriage, I assume.”
“Don’t mock me,” you reply, your voice flat but trembling at the edges.
He exhales—a sigh rough in texture, but softened where it edges into fondness. “Is marrying some extra really all that bad?”
Your fingers tighten on the corner of your vanity. “Bakugo.” You say his name with sternness, a warning, a plea.
He ignores every layer of it. “Y/n,” he breathes back, low and steady.
You inhale, exhale, counting to three because if you don’t, you might break. “I do not love them. And I never will. I could never love another.”
There it is. The reminder. The truth he knows and tries to run from. Where you fight tooth and nail to love him, he retreats—because he knows his place, his rank.
Even though he’s so painfully in love with you he feels it corrodes him from the inside out, rusting through armor and bone. Yet he flees, not because he does not feel for you, but because he knows his place. His rank. What is expected of him. his reflexes, split him open.
He believes your love is something he cannot hold—fragile, forbidden, too precious for someone who grew up beside you with dirt under his nails and a sword forced into his hands.
Not a boy who played knight.
Not someone who grew up beside you and accepted the armor only because his father passed him the reins.
He’s grown into the role, grown to love the duties, the armor, the hero he became. And he has grown to love you too—terrifyingly so. Your beauty makes him lightheaded in the way a dog chases a bone, powerless to instinct.
You are the bane of his existence and, contradictorily, the object of his every desire.
You are the longing of his every waking moment.
So he shoves it all down. Buries it deep. Crushes it with clenched fists and a bitten tongue. He tenses and leans away. “You’ll get married.”
You tense too, hoping—praying—maybe this is his confession. You tilt your nose into the air. “What makes you so sure, when I have clearly stated I will not?”
He lets out a short laugh—half scoff, half something bitter. “You’re a romantic. You love the idea of love. I’m sure one of those wealthy men will sweep up your naive heart.”
Your body stills. The way it falls from his lips so smooth and easy—cruel in its simplicity—sends shivers crawling up your skin. “You speak in such a crude way,” you manage softly. “I will forgive your rudeness, since you’re only unknowing.”
He scoffs, disbelief curling through his voice. “This childhood fantasy you’re chasin’ isn’t fuckin’ real. It’s fake. It’s a fantasy. It’s naive to think we could ever fuckin’ happen. So just do everyone a favor and drop the act. Marry one of those bozos.”
The end of the sentence burns him. It shows in the rigid set of his shoulders, the way he can’t look at you. The cruelty hurts him more than you.
But he already knew—minutes before the ball began, he was informed of your arranged match. A nobleman traveling far to make your acquaintance tomorrow evening. That was why he stayed in the corner all night, fists clenched, chest tight. Why he chased after you the moment he learned you’d fled early.
He needs you to understand.
Your eyes sting. Tears threaten. You swallow them down, refusing to break—not in front of him. Not now.
You will prove him wrong.
Because you’ll never love another.
Because you are forever, irrevocably, in love with Katsuki Bakugo—your knight.
You are a princess in love with her knight, who grew into a man beside her.
You steady your posture and turn toward him, your voice starting shaky but calm, seething at the edges into something louder.
“Are you so dense? Are you such a martyr you cannot fathom your own being? Are you so absorbed with what’s around you that you’re unable to perceive your own self—unable to grasp that you are loved? By me. I am so in love with you it crawls up my throat and suffocates me in my sleep. I walk with such sorrow in every step, and you consume it with your shadow.”
Your breath breaks. Your voice fractures again, quieter now.
“You dare sit here and say my belief in love is what makes me naive—so much so that I’ll accept any love—when you can’t see that love is the foundation of all. And loveless forced marriages breed grotesque families and cruel leaders. I’m not sorry if fighting for a love I desire makes me stupid in your eyes.”
Bakugo slams his hand on the table. The sharp crack echoes through the room. His head throbs with the back-and-forth—because you keep twisting the knife, keep fighting for something he thinks cannot happen.
The sound startles you. You freeze, silent.
He breathes deeply and sighs, voice gravelly.
“You’re engaged. To some pompous fuck overseas.”
The air leaves your lungs. He waits a beat before continuing.
“The king’s tired of you refusin’ every damn suitor, so he took it into his own hands. That’s the word goin’ around, at least.”
“That can’t be.” Your voice cracks, fragile.
He speaks again, louder, rougher, as if dragged out of him by force.
“I love you. You know that. It’s why you push. And as much as I burn myself tryin’ to bore hatred for you, I can’t. I want you to quit me, because every time you push, you drive me into agony. I am half agony, half hope. My existence is spent chasin’ after you and the other half punishin’ myself for it.”
“There’s not a damn corner of this earth I can run to, to rid myself of the torment. I’m a knight—raised by my father to be a gentleman, to protect the king’s daughter. I carry that honor. But it’s hangin’ on a thread that grows tenuous every second I spend in your presence.”
His words seize your body. You hiccup through sobs—frustration, heartbreak, desperation blending until you can hardly breathe.
His entire frame snaps alert, instinct overriding thought. His voice softens in a way he never allows anyone else to hear.
“Baby…” he exhales. “C’mere, princess.”
His body is rigid, unsettled—as if he cannot, will not rest until he knows you’re all right. Only then does the armor around his heart stop rattling.
You let yourself fall into his chest, the cool metal of his armor against your flushed cheek. His hand flexes once, twice—like he’s afraid to fully hold you. You take his gloved hands, guide them around you, and lift your gaze to his bare face—those narrowing red eyes watching you like you’re the only thing he’s ever learned to cherish.
“I shall never be in love,” you whisper, “unless it is you I love.”
His hands cup your face, fingers trembling. “Say it’s a lie. Tell me I’m a fool. Don’t let me love you, princess. I am selfish when it comes to something I truly want.”
“I want so much of you that I cannot bear havin’ only parts. I’ll want so much I won’t be able to stop.”
You lean in, your eyelashes brushing his cheek like a vow.
“I’ve always been yours.”
The last thread of his restraint breaks.
He surges forward, armor clattering as he sheds it, gripping your face with too much force before gentling it—because it’s you. Because he could never hurt you.
His lips crash onto yours.
Your mouth opens easily, desperately, granting him everything. His tongue sweeps the roof of your mouth, tasting the longing you’ve carried like a wound.
Each time your lips ghost away for a breath, you let out soft, breathless whines—sounds that twist something feral inside him. Bakugo chases your mouth with an abandon that betrays all the walls he tried to build, all the duty he tried to hide behind.
He kisses you like he’s drowning
and you’re the first breath he’s had in years.
He pushes your back gently against the vanity, guiding you onto the wooden table as if you’re something delicate he’s afraid to break. His mouth finds your neck in open-mouthed breaths—warm, shaky, almost desperate—dragging slow stripes of heat up the length of exposed skin. His forehead bumps yours lightly between kisses, as though he keeps losing himself and needing to find you again.
When he steps back, his fingers flex uselessly at his sides before he starts removing his armor, each polished plate catching the flickering candlelight. You should probably reach out and help him… but you don’t. You can’t. You want to watch him—memorize the subtle twist of his wrist, the roll of his shoulders, the quiet sigh he makes as a piece finally loosens. There’s something so profoundly human about seeing him unmake himself like this, piece by piece, and you crave it. You crave him.
He turns to you, slipping his hands beneath your thighs to lift you effortlessly.
“May I?” he asks, voice low, uncertain in a way that makes your heart ache.
You nod, and he hoists you up, your thighs curling instinctively around his waist as if your body has decided for you. Your hands find his shoulders, sliding up to cling around his neck. His skin is warm—so warm it sends a shiver of dizzy pleasure down your spine.
He lays you atop the plush mattress with intense concentration, brow furrowing as though positioning you is some sacred responsibility. His breath leaves him in a soft rasp.
“Got ya,” he murmurs. “Always gentle for you, my princess.”
Your breath stumbles. Your fingertips brush his jaw, drifting up the side of his face. He’s above you completely, broad and steady, sandy-blonde tufts of hair sticking up like he’s too distracted by you to smooth them down. The boyishness of it twists something tender in your chest.
His head lowers to your shoulder, then drifts down to your thigh where your nightgown has loosened. He rests there, face pressed to your skin, breath unsteady. His armor lies scattered in a pile on the floor, where he discarded his honor, His hands settle on your abdomen—warm, trembling, like he’s the one overwhelmed.
“Every bone in my body aches for you,” he whispers, each word heavy with restraint. “Every pulse longs for your touch. Princess… I am not a man who begs. But I’d be a damn fool not to beg for you.”
“Katsuki,” he corrects—quick, but soft, like the name costs him something to ask for.
You smile, letting the sound of it linger as you try again.
It tastes sweet, the way it rolls off your tongue so smoothly.
His fingers tighten slightly around your thigh—not in hunger, but in feeling, as if he’s anchoring himself to you.
“Let me touch you,” he breathes. “Let me care for you… let me love all of you. Every inch you’ll allow me.”
You hold his face gently in your hands, thumbs brushing the uneven scar along his cheek, feeling the way he leans into your touch as if it steadies him. “My noble knight,” you whisper in your best royal tone, “you have my full consent.”
His lips twitch in the tiniest, most helpless smile. Your laughter bubbles up—soft, startled, warm—and his face lifts, eyes tracing the crinkle of your eyelids, the bloom of color in your cheeks, as if your joy were a sunrise he’s lucky enough to witness. Then he laughs too, quiet little huffs that brush against your skin.
Something intimate settles over you both—light at first, then deepening, warming, into something tangible.
He kisses you again—slow, searching—his hands cupping your jaw before sliding into your hair, fingers threading through the strands like he’s afraid to let go. They drift down your sides in wandering lines, as if he can’t choose where to linger because every part of you pulls him in. His mouth follows the trail of his touch, brushing along your throat, across your collarbone, each kiss soft and trembling with devotion.
His hands move in restless passes over your body, unable to settle—like he’s torn between needing to feel all of you and not knowing where to start. There’s a hunger in the way he leans in, the way his breath stumbles as he bows his head, his mouth finding its path down your neck again, slower this time, steadier, as if he’s memorizing the map of you.
You feel every place he leaves and every place he arrives like separate heartbeats—little shocks of awareness that spread through your chest, your stomach, your whole body. Your skin prickles at the sensation of being wanted so thoroughly, so openly, as though he’s seeing every inch of you at once and still choosing to come closer.
When he finds the soft swell of your breast, he pauses, almost reverent, breathing you in before pressing featherlight kisses over your skin, his lips barely there, making you lean into him for more.
His tongue traces slow patterns around your nipple, teasing and retreating, until his mouth finally closes around it, the warm pull of his suck making your breath stutter and your fingers curl in his hair.
Your body squirms under him, not from impatience alone but from the overwhelming rush of being worshipped like this, from the terrifying and thrilling truth that you like it.
Pleasure surges through you in waves, hot and insistent, pooling low in your belly as your thighs fight the urge to clamp shut and hold on to every drop of sensation.
Your pussy throbs with each drag of his tongue, a needy ache that leaves you torn between wanting to tug him higher and wanting to push him lower, greedy for all of it at once.
He makes soft, helpless whines against your breast, the sounds vibrating through your skin and straight into your chest like a confession he can’t voice.
His free hand kneads your other breast with almost clumsy devotion, fingers spreading as if trying to memorize its weight and shape.
His eyes stay fixed on you whenever he can bear to look up, dark and heavy with awe, like he still can’t believe he’s allowed to touch you, let alone taste you.
There’s a kind of desperation in the way he moves, as if pleasing you is not just desire but purpose, as if every approving sound you make writes a new law into his bones.
You can feel his breath grow ragged against your skin, not from his own pleasure but from the strain of holding himself back, of keeping his focus entirely on you.
“My princess,” he murmurs against your breast, lips brushing your damp skin, saliva and reverence clinging to your nipples as his fingers toy with them
His voice drops, thick with emotion and want, every word shaped around a vow. “I exist to serve—to kneel, to be molded by your desires. Let me give you everything, in ways words will never touch.”
Something tender and dangerous unfurls in your chest at his confession—power, yes, but also a fierce protectiveness for this man who offers himself so completely.
You smile, feeling the warmth in your gaze sharpen into something commanding, your fingers threading through his hair not just to hold him there but to claim him.
“Then show me,” you say, your voice soft but leaving no room for doubt. “Show me how far you’ll go to please me, my brave knight.
He takes it as a command the instant your breath falters. He sinks lower between your legs, hands locking around your hips to pin you to the bed. His devotion is absolute. Tongue first—slow, hungry—lapping at your folds like he’s been denied this for years.
It’s forbidden, punishable by death. A knight worshiping his princess like this. But what crime is there in a loyal man needing to tongue-fuck the woman he was sworn to? What’s so wrong with wanting to please her exactly how she aches to be pleased?
Serving the princess is his duty. He just can’t help that this is the way he was always meant to serve you.
He kisses the soft flesh of your pussy reverently before shifting lower, his tongue circling your clit in slow, teasing loops. Two fingers slide into you, pumping in a steady rhythm, curling just right as they move in and out of your tight heat. Your breath stutters, hips lifting to chase every stroke.
Warm pressure coils inside you like nectar, thick and dizzying.
“K-Katsuki… Suki—gonna cum,” you moan, the nickname falling out in a mess of need. Suki. A slip. A mistake. But the second it hits his ears, it twists something inside him, his whole body nearly lurching to hear it again.
“Say it again,” he breathes—almost a demand, but not quite. Still frayed enough at the edges to accept refusal… not that you’d ever deny him.
You whisper it again. “Suki.”
Smooth. Sweet. Too easy on your tongue. You say it once more, then again, breathless, until it barely sounds like a word at all.
It’s a confession in its own way.
His fingers speed up with every soft sound you make. Your hips lift from the mattress as the tension snaps, and you whine, flushed and trembling, “m’close.”
He watches the way your face tightens in pleasure, cheeks tinted red, stray strands of hair clinging to your skin. You look ruined and lovely and his.
You fall apart around his fingers.
He follows soon after, shuddering as he spills into his own hand.
And here is where his greed settles in. He should stop. He’s had enough.
But once he’s tasted you, he can’t quit you.
Your head feels heavy, your throat dry, but your mind clings to one thought alone—his cock filling you, stretching you open, making you cum so much you’re dripping down his length, coating him in your sweet sticky release.
You look up through your lashes, rising onto your elbows as you murmur, “I want more.”
You don’t need to elaborate. Knights are trained to know their princess’s needs before she speaks them. He rises over you, capturing your mouth in a kiss that’s bruising and starved, no gentleness left in him at all.
His hands slide beneath your thighs, spreading you open. He guides his tip to your entrance, pausing just long enough to look at you with something close to worship.
“Are you wanting this, princess? It’ll hurt,” he says softly, like the gentleness itself is a vow.
You breathe out yes—again, and again—and he pushes in slowly, inch by inch, until your warmth swallows him whole.
His hands shake as they cradle your face, brushing hair from your eyes while he thrusts slowly, savoring your warmth as your body adjusts to his size, to the fullness of him.
“I’ve dreamt of this,” he whispers, breath hot against your cheek. “Selfishly so.”
The confession makes your pussy ache around him.
“You feel so fuckin’ good,” he rasps in your ear. Your moans grow breathless with each thrust, your whole body trembling beneath him.
“Faster,” you demand, voice loud and broken.
He obeys instantly, hips snapping forward, ramming into you with full force. His breathing grows ragged, dragging with each thrust as he murmurs my princess, my princess—like he’s praying, like you’re the only god he knows.
Your head falls back as he drives into you faster and faster until the heat overtakes you both and, with a final shudder, he pulls out—his cock twitching as he spills his warm release across your lower stomach.
You’re both slightly gasping when he collapses onto your shoulder. His voice is bitter, fragile around the edges as reality creeps back in.
“You’re to be married to another.”
You catch his face in your hands, guiding him into your touch.
“No,” you whisper, steady and sure. “I am to marry you.”
He smiles—a small, aching thing. Like in another world, that truth exists. In this one, he’s still your knight, bound to fate he cannot touch.
He presses a soft kiss to your temple, voice low and steady as he breathes,
“I love you, my princess.”
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