i think. I THINK. because bakugou is so bad at verbalising all that he feels for you, he goes above and beyond plus-ultra and everything in his actions. he knows he loves you, he thinks about it every time he sees you but he just can’t say it. so what does he do? he covers the table corners when you’re picking something up from the floor. he does your dishes for you even when you didn’t ask. he greets you at the door when you come home and he takes the time to set your bag down onto the cabinet and he bends down to take your shoes off. he prepares your lunch boxes to take to work everyday without fail. when it’s a sunday and you two are sleeping in, he’ll use his head to block the sun from shining onto your eyes so you won’t wake up. so he can cuddle you longer. his actions are always over the top because it’s the result from having all of these iloveyouiloveyouiloveyou bouncing inside his head with no way of escaping and this is the only way they can get out to the world and into you.
synopsis - bakugou has hated rainy days for as long as he can remember. but now, when droplets of water trace his skin, when the clouds cast a shadow over him, he remembers you and your warmth.
cw - prohero!bakugou, referenced side character death, reader has a quirk (inspired by weathering with you), female pronouns, hurt/comfort, reuniting !!!!!!!!! HAPPY ENDING !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
a/n - sorry for disappearing for so long ... :( school has just been an ass but enjoy this ! i'll try to do sth for 420 too !
taglist - @staraxiaa @hatsukeii @cashmoneyyysstuff i miss u guys sm i hope you're doing well
Bakugou’s feet are firmly planted on the moss-covered concrete, he stares at the tiles, worn down by the weather. When he returns to his upright position, there was a brief window of time when the umbrella on his shoulder couldn’t shield him from the rain. His hair whips like sand in the wind, back and forth with force. He looks at the bouquet of flowers he’s laid down, drenched down to the stem, leaves somehow still attached despite everything. Petals of white, pink and yellow stand out like a sore thumb on the muted grave. Sighing, he doesn’t hear his own voice. He lets his mind meander, and, he briefly wonders how sad you are. It’s been raining non-stop for the past three days, grey clouds never letting the sunshine through, not even for a moment.
He looks back at the tombstone, your last name etched onto gravelly stone, an unexplained sense of heaviness seeps into his eyes. He entertains a guilty, fleeting thought— he’s glad your sister is dead. A child shouldn’t die, he knows that more than anyone else, but the selfish part of him, the unheroic side, is glad that you’re alive. It doesn’t matter, not as much, that you aren’t alive with him. But the fact that you’re existing, out there, outside of a coffin, above the ground, doing something mundane, like going to work and washing the dishes, it instils comfort into him like no other.
Sure, he would have rathered that you went to work with him, or that you did the dishes with him, but the fact that you can keeps his feet planted on the mossy earth.
He’s bowed thrice by now, and he should be lighting the candles in front of your sister’s tomb next, but the rain prevents him from doing so, let alone the howling wind, sending trees swaying, threatening to tumble down.
He looks at the picture of your smiling sister, a person he’s met twice, and he doesn’t know what he’s doing here. It’s Wednesday, and it’s his off-day. Why is he spending the time he gets off the clock here servicing you and your sister?
She was a really quiet child, she never screamed or cried, her voice was always soft. Social anxiety had its grip on her from a young age, almost rendering her unfit for public school, but she insisted on going to the same one that you went to. You’d always tell him about the story of her first day in middle school. He had heard that story many times, but he’d listen to you intently as if it were unheard of.
“She gripped onto my dress until she tore a hole through the fabric, it was my favourite one! But she was so scared. I didn’t know what to do, I couldn’t leave her behind but I was gonna be late to work. I didn’t want her to get bullied for needing her sister to walk her everywhere, so I settled with a deal. I told her that I’d be there first thing when school finished. And I was! I was the first person in line that day, packed like a damn sardine by the parents, I even had to take a half-day off ‘cause school ends so early apparently. But her toothy grin makes it worth it.”
She never made it to her first day of high school, and you stopped talking about that story after she died. Bakugou wishes that he could’ve had more time to spend with your sister, he wishes that he could’ve been around her more, he wishes that he would’ve been known as her uncle.
This longing for something that never was strangles his heart like Tomura had, regret, rue, wishful thinking. He knows that his next day isn’t guaranteed, not when he’s a hero. The people need Him, the nation needs Him, and they outweighed you. A stupid mistake on his part, and if he could rewind time so he’s standing in your studio apartment again, he would have caught your hand and never let go. His quirk isn’t about time, though, instead it’s about leaving destruction in his wake, reducing the things around him to ruins beyond recognition.
He left because he feared for you whenever his name is scorched onto alleyways by villains out for blood, whenever his moniker is used in conjunction with a threat, an ultimatum that if he doesn’t surrender, they’ll find out where his secret lover is and dismember her limb by limb.
He never lets these scum get close to you, your name, or your family. But it was enough for something in him to awaken. Dynamight isn’t known for His trepidatious nature, He was known for always winning; He is victory reincarnated. But Katsuki was too late, the feelings had long been seeded (so the villain did win, after all), it sprouted, took form until the roots ran long and deep into his beliefs. Ugly, green vines wrapped around his spine until he suffocated, until he had to cede his love to you; unwillingly; involuntarily;
In his head, he had begged you to shout at him angrily, to scratch at him with ferocity, and maybe then his own persuasion to leave you behind would have hurt less. It was morning in that studio apartment, a late one, you lounged in sleepwear as he prepared breakfast. You probably noticed his unease but decided he’d come to you eventually. You sat on the couch, crossed legged. Sunlight danced on your face, eyes bright, vehement, under the golden streaks of warmth. He, back then, had stood in the kitchenette, a space obviously not built for him, too large of a torso, too tall a frame. He didn’t care, before, he would’ve bent down until his back ached and soured if it meant cooking for you. He had stood in the shadows, shy of your light.
This conversation never comes easy, but it’s one that is well rehearsed in the confines of your homes, his agency, and over the phone. He always loses, no matter what you say, objective points, arguments, frustration-fuelled statements, he never gets past you when it starts showing on your face. He tried to look away from you, but your stubbornness keeps him losing. He forfeits when your eyebrows begin to scrunch and your lips pout. He loses, every single time.
You thought that this would be no different. Levity evident in your voice as you danced around the topic, but you hadn’t seen what he‘s seen, you hadn’t heard what he’s heard. Echoes of that nobody’s warning haunt his everyday life, when he showers, when he eats, and when he sleeps.
He won, but for the first time, he was upset. You fought back with all that you had, threw arguments at him that were impossible to dismantle, insistence bleeding through your hoarse voice, he was on the brink of defeat. But He wins, Dynamight wins.
He leaves destruction in his wake.
It’s been raining non-stop for the past three days, grey clouds never letting the sunshine through, not even for a moment. He’s dedicated enough of his time here, servicing a debt that’s unending, so he calls it a day. Sighing, he doesn’t hear his own apology in the rain. With an umbrella on his shoulder and regret at his throat, he’s going to walk away.
“Katsu?”
The black umbrella in his grip turns obsolete as sunlight filters through a cleared, blue sky. Warmth inundates him.
He looks at the discarded bouquet of flowers on the moss-covered tiles, petals of white, pink and yellow standing out like a sore thumb in a sea of muted colours.
He sees you, the edges of your body smudging in the sunlight, blurred floral patterns on your dress, is he crying?
He doesn’t speak, suppressed by the fear that wraps around him like a noose, maybe his voice would scare the ghost of you away.
Your shoes click against the slippery, moist floor. He wants to tell you be careful, don’t get hurt. Thuds ring in the cemetery, trees still dancing as a slight wind blows. You look bright, vehement, in the streaks of golden light. It took you ten seconds, longer than a century, to reach Bakugou. He closes his eyes. It hurts. It hurts. The world is cruel for playing this joke on him. Regret, rue, wishful thinking. With trembling hands, you reach for his skin, tickling the scars that tell a story bigger than you and him. The wrinkle between his brow settles, “you’re here.”
He says, more so to convince himself, “you’re here.” to will itself into reality. The rain that had poured down on him like salvation is replaced by the intangible sunlight that washes over him like penance. He chases after atonement blindly, wildly, perhaps as a form of Sisyphean punishment for the hurt he had dared slain on you. It doesn’t matter, you’d say, because you’re here, now. You exist, beyond tree roots and above grass, in his arms. With your lips on his and your fingers on him, you're here now, bathing in sunlight, shy of rain. You’re vehement in his grasp.
thank you for reading ! i hope you enjoyed it, all interactions appreciated, have a wonderful day <3
katsuki stares at you from across the street, is that really you? the you from middle school? the you who always sat with him when people got tired of his mean and rough words? you look so different, not a bad different per se, just a melancholic different. he could see how you grew up, your curves have filled out, and your face slimmed down too, but some things never really change, like the way you’re holding flowers looks the exact same as when you held the books that your teachers gave you, the way your eyes glimpse over the sunlight peaking behind the skyscrapers looks identical to how you looked at the pigeons that landed outside the classroom windows, you look the same, but also so foreign that it makes his skin itch.
and he’s about to open his mouth— call out your name and run up to you and ask ‘how are you doing, loser?’, but he pauses, because he remembered just why you stopped talking in the first place.
the noise of crumbled cardboard pierces your eardrums, and you stare, crestfallen, but bakugou was too busy looking at the floor angrily to notice just how eerie it is to see that expression on your face. your mouth opens, sounds of incoherence tumble out and he laughs, because who do you think you are to confess to him?
‘stop following me around you quirkless freak! are you also fucked in the head? it’s been 2 years, just lay it off, god damn stupid chalk..’ his spit lands on your face as he flails around, he won’t know that expression on your face because he’s already turning around and leaving the classroom and slamming the door behind him. you never knew that you’d grow to cringe at that nickname. he started calling you chalk after he had teased you for stalking him, and so whenever you’d try and deny that accusation along with your lisp, he had turned to mocking your pronunciation instead. ‘what? loser can’t even pronounce the word stalk?’ but you’ve only ever felt adoration from that name, but things change.
the clacks of his shoes are loud in the tensed air, he won’t know just how much that stepped-on box of chocolate mattered to you until tomorrow, he won’t know just how much it killed you when he exploded your valentine’s day card without a second thought, because the day after that you didn’t wait for him at the school gate, you didn’t sit with him during lunch, you didn’t wave at him when he entered the classroom, you didn’t even look at him when he knocked into you on the hallway.
he didn’t think anything of it at first. he thought it was maybe a tantrum that would be forgotten after a few days, but that never happened. you continued ignoring him, and after a week, he tried to find you, to ask you ‘what the hell is your problem?’ but even your friends told him off, he couldn’t reach you, his number was blocked on your house phone, it was like you had disappeared from his life, a ghost he can see but never touch.
he never really understood why he felt so weird and sticky after you started ignoring him. you stopped interacting with him completely, the last thing you’ve ever said to him being ‘excuse me’ when he was blocking you from your seat during the graduation ceremony, but you had not met his eye, and for some months after that incident, he thought it was fear, and he had felt giddy, god damn stupidly fucking giddy that he finally got you off his tail, and he thought he should’ve felt that way. until he grew up, until he got into U.A. and saw how chubby cheeks would look at deku, how dunce face would sneak glances at ears, and how shitty hair would stare at raccoon eyes, and finally did he realise what he had lost.
but he’s bakugou katsuki, and he knows just how much being a hero meant that tomorrow, let alone the next second, will never be guaranteed in his line of profession. so he walks up to you, fixes his tousled hair left from his patrol, and heaves a determined breath before saying, ‘haven’t seen you in a long time, chalk.’
you’re jostled because you almost didn’t recognise him. with the way his voice has gone down a few octaves since, and also with the absence of curse words in his sentence, he’d grown, and he’s no longer the childish boy who’d laugh at the people who can’t get pass the monkey bars, he’s grown, you’ve seen him on television, and although certain parts of him will never change, his screams are the same, either that be to shitty deku, or to reporters to get the fuck out of my face before i blast you to pieces!
but you’re also not the same star-struck girl in middle school anymore.
‘please don’t call me that.’
the way you wrench out those syllables was painful. katsuki was a big and significant part of your childhood, and as much as you wanted to hate him and to leave him behind you, he was still that kid who protected you from the other bullies in the sandbox when you were seven.
so when you see the oh-so similar crestfallen face on him, you wanted to cry.
‘i know i never got the chance to apologise for that, i’m different now, i’m a hero and i- i got a therapist, i just wanted to, fuck! i don’t know, i wanted to try again,’ he’s shocked by himself, taken aback by how easily the words that he begged with rolled off his tongue like butter, and by how cold you seem to look.
he glances down, and he catches the lanyard around your neck. he sees the ‘Dr.’ before your name, so he can’t help the sense of pride he feels in his chest to know that you’ve become a doctor, your dream job from all those years ago.
he can’t blame you, not everyone is like izuku and so naively forgiving, so he’s desperate when he tries, ‘come on, i know i was an asshole, and i- i guess i still am, but please, i was so much of a boy back then, i know you, i really want be your friend again, your favourite animal was a tiger, your favourite colour was orange—‘
‘it’s black, now.’
in those three words, you’ve conveyed all that you needed to, and the way katsuki’s eyebrows shoot up, you know he feels mocked, pushed down, but you don’t care, you don’t care enough.
‘goodbye, ‘tsuki, if the timing was better next time, maybe i would’ve said yes.’
