Chapter Text
April 20, 2120
Four months later
By some grace of god, Kirishima managed to wake up before Bakugou and sneak out of bed without waking the other man. In past years when he’d done this it had always been easy because, obviously, they were in separate rooms. Now that they were together, though, it was by sheer luck he snuck away. It was also very possible Bakugou spared him and pretended to stay asleep.
Kirishima tiptoed into the kitchen and began to execute his Incredible Birthday Surprise Plan. He’d been noticing for the past few months Bakugou acting weirdly. He’d toss and turn a lot at night and was having trouble sleeping even with Kirishima there. On top of that, he was constantly sneak off to talk to Kaminari. That could maybe be normal for anyone except Bakugou. Every time Kirishima tried to talk to him about it, he’d always snap at him and claim that he was acting completely normal. Instead of pushing the subject, as it was getting him nowhere, Kirishima decided to try and cheer him up with a birthday surprise.
He tried not to be too loud as he bustled around the kitchen. The day before, he had gone out and bought all the ingredients he needed to make Bakugou’s favorite omelette, as well as pancakes for his own benefit. He also carefully wrapped the gifts he’d chosen. He was surprised to find he had a hard time picking what it is Bakugou may want; the blonde didn’t really seem like the type to want material things, and on top of that, even if he did, he had enough money to buy whatever he did want. He saw their plushies being sold outside a convenience store and it felt like fate. On top of that, Uraraka told him about an opening in the top floor of her apartment complex, and he jumped on the chance. It was definitely time they moved into a better place, even if Kirishima’s heart ached at the thought of leaving their first home.
Kirishima had always been one to get overly connected to things with sentimental value, but in this case he was okay with moving as long as Bakugou came with him.
The red head sighed with his hands on his hips and looked around. It didn't take long for him to prepare all the vegetables he had bought yesterday. Ever since Bakugou taught him how to cook, he had spent a lot of time in the kitchen. He was confident enough to say he had perfected his omelette dish. The omelette had all sorts of fresh vegetables as well as cheese, and he thought the mini-pancake he put on the side was cute. The balloons he blew up were probably not filled with enough air, but other than that he was satisfied with the work he’d done, and it shouldn’t be long before Bakugou was awake. Right on cue, Bakugou shuffled out of his room.
“Morning, E,” Bakugou grunted, dragging his feet along the ground as he walked into the kitchen. He had large dark circles under his eyes, as he had for days now, but Kirishima didn’t mention it. He still looked amazing.
“Katsuki! You’re up!” After placing his boyfriend’s breakfast down on his usual spot, Kirishima scuffled around the counter to peck him on the cheek as he sat in his stool. He expected to be pushed away, but instead Bakugou grabbed his sleeve and pulled him back to kiss him again. Kirishima found out after the first time that the way Bakugou kissed was intoxicating. It was a little rough, as you would expect, but so passionate. Just like everything he did, he did it with his entire being.
Bakugou looked at the egg and pancake with a weird look, almost like it was making him nauseous. Kirishima pouted a little. “You haven’t disliked my cooking for years, dude. And I put in extra love to this one, so it has to be good.”
Bakugou glanced at him and rolled his eyes slightly, though it lacked a lot of its usual spunk. He picked up his fork to begin eating when Kirishima took out his party blower and made a loud honk.
“Happy birthday!” Bakugou flinched so hard that his fork flew across the room. Kirishima burst into laughter.
“Jesus christ, I should’ve fucking seen that coming,” the blonde complained. Kirishima tried to catch his breath.
“I’m sorry,” he laughed, “I didn’t think it’d be so loud.”
Bakugou just huffed as Kirishima handed him a new fork. He seemed off, and Kirishima’s gut was telling him something was wrong.
“Is everything ok?” Kirishima asked, leaning forward on his elbows. Bakugou glanced up at him and swallowed the bite of egg, looking like it pained him to do so.
“Fine,” he grunted. “The eggs are good.” Kirishima narrowed his eyes but nodded.
“Uh huh. Well, I was gonna save presents for after breakfast,” Kirishima smiled, “but maybe they’ll cheer you up a little.”
“I told you I’m fine, idiot,” Bakugou shook his head, jabbing into the eggs again with his fork. Kirishima hummed doubtfully and sat in the stool next to Bakugou, who turned so their legs were bumping together. Bakugou took the bag from Kirishima’s hands and reached into it. He pulled out an envelope.
“Do that one second,” Kirishima insisted. A small skip in his stomach made him realize he was nervous, even though he hadn't thought he was. Bakugou put it to the side and reached in the bag to pull out his plushie. He didn’t hesitate as he pulled out the second as well. There was a long moment of silence. His hands were shaking with how hard they were gripping the plushie, and he didn’t look up to meet Kirishima’s eyes.
“Katsuki,” Kirishima sighed, putting his hands over his partner’s, “tell me what’s wrong. Please.”
“Damn it,” Bakugou muttered through clenched teeth, “I said nothing. Nothing’s wrong.”
Kirishima glanced down. He knew Bakugou was too stubborn when he acted like this to admit to anything, but he was really worried.
“Open your next one,” Kirishima suggested. Bakugou’s jaw was still clenched when he nodded and exchanged the plushie for the envelope. He ripped it open and stared at the paper. Kirishima felt his nervousness rise when he didn’t say anything.
“Uraraka loves her place, and, as much as this apartment means to me, we can afford an improvement,” Kirishima said, a little faster than normal. Bakugou looked up at him. His eyes were deep, like they were holding some secret Kirishima couldn’t figure out. “I-I guess I just assumed we would keep living together, and I promise I will--”
“Fuck,” Bakugou grunted, clapping himself on the cheeks. It looked like he was trying to snap himself out of his funk. “Fuck. Yes. I’ll move in with you. And you better keep you shitty goddamn promise this time, you moron.”
Kirishima was thrown for a loop when Bakugou stood up and grasped him in a tight hug. He didn’t know when he had ever broken a promise he made, but he decided not to mention it. Kirishima sighed a breath of relief and hugged him back.
“I love you. I love you so, so much,” Kirishima murmured, kissing the top of his partner’s head. He knew he’d never admit it, but Kirishima could tell Bakugou liked all the lovey-dovey stuff as much as he did. They'd only been together for four months, but Kirishima was shocked by how often Bakugou cuddled with him, and let him pepper him in kisses. He didn’t know why now the atmosphere felt so heavy, or why he felt the nagging need to tell Bakugou how much he meant to him over and over again. It felt like there was a dark looming presence that Kirishima couldn’t detect.
“I love you, too,” Bakugou responded, inhaling deeply against his neck. Kirishima wondered if Bakugou liked how he smelled as much as he liked Bakugou’s.
They pulled apart after a few minutes. Bakugou looked up at Kirishima with the cutest scowling face, and the redhead couldn’t stop himself from leaning forward and giving him a lasting kiss. He couldn’t help but notice the weight the action held. They had agreed not to come out to the public or anything, or at least not yet. By this point, most of their close friends new about their relationship, and it seemed everyone was very happy for them. Kirishima had never been in a relationship with a man before, and he was pleasantly surprised that they hadn't run into any bigoted asshole yet. Still, he unfortunetly expected that there would be people who wouldn't be happy that two of the top twenty heroes were actually a gay couple.
“Alright!” Kirishima said, loudly, while clapping his hands. It was an attempt to change the weird atmosphere, and it seemed to have somewhat worked. Bakugou clicked his tongue at the noise, but seemed thankful for the change in energy. Kirishima smiled and hopped out of his seat. Before he left the kitchen, the plushies caught his eye. He smiled and walked over, positioning them to face one another.
“That’s better,” Kirishima decided, crossing his arms and stepping back, “Now they’re kissing!”
Bakugou rolled his eyes.
---
When they walked to work, Bakugou seemed to be in a little better headspace than in the morning. Kirishima recognized his determined face plastering his features, but when he asked him about it he didn’t get any response. It was strange - usually he was very vocal about what he was trying to accomplish.
“Riot, did you see the new episode?” Rin said, pulling Kirishima out of his thought process. He and his two interns - which he had come to think of more as his children, honestly - were downtown on patrol. There were plenty of people commuting, but it didn’t seem like there were any lingering signs of trouble. Kirishima was relaxed walking alongside the two kids; spending time with them was one of his favorite things.
“Ah!” Kirishima exclaimed, “I haven’t. I didn’t get a chance to last night. No spoilers!”
Rin laughed. “I would never. But let me tell you that--”
Kirishima plugged his ears with his fingers. “La la la! I’m not listening!”
When he unplugged his ears, even Nariko was giggling quietly. He smiled.
“How’s UA going? It’s been awhile since I visited.”
“Good! The training is getting harder this year, but I feel like I've adjusted more since my first year,” Rin responded. "Plus all our classmates are getting crazy strong. We keep having competitions with class 1-B and it's always super close."
"Yeah, I used to love our class rivalry," Kirishima smiled, "I've told you guys about my first year sports festival, right?"
"I don't think so, but we've seen it," Nariko responded.
"Really? Wouldn't you have been too young to watch?"
"Nariko and I watched the recording together when we found out we were going to intern for you!" Rin said, "It was awesome. You had, like, 5 of the top 15 heroes in your class."
"Yeah," Kirishima laughed, "that was a great group."
"Mr. Ground Zero was kind of a maniac," Nariko contributed. Rin agreed. They had already met Bakugou a few times, though they didn't know him well. They also didn't know they lived together, just that he and Kirishima were close friends.
"That wasn't even the worst of it," Kirishima responded, "Back then, Katsuki was even more off the rails than he is now. Did you know he wanted his hero name to be Lord Explosion Murder?"
"That's such a cool name! Why didn't they let him keep it?" Rin complained. Nariko hummed thoughtfully.
"I have to say that it is fitting," Nariko commented.
Kirishima’s emergency phone blared from his phone. He picked up immediately and heard the sound of the generic robot they use to send out messages.
“Four villains just attacked in sector 3. They split up. Two headed East, one North, and one is stagnant. Their quirks are unknown, though it appears--”
The call was cut off by a deafening crash and screaming. The crowd around him began to shift frantically. To his right down the street, two figures approached. A large boulder that had been ripped from the ground floated in the air. The street was already chaotic.
“Rin, Nariko, let’s go!” Kirishima yelled over the chaos, already making his way over to the villains. He felt the familiar stir of his skin growing hard. Looking at the situation, their priority for the time being should be keep the villains in place and detain them as soon as possible. If they couldn’t get close enough to arrest them, they needed to at least distract them long enough to get civilians away from the area.
It seemed that the one on the right could control earth, which Kirishima should be able to take with his quirk. He assumed there was a limit to what he could pick up, and anything that flew too fast to dodge he could just break with his hardening. The question was what the second's quirk was. When he was closing in, the other one stepped in front and covered him in flames.
“Damn,” Kirishima grunted, feeling the burn of fire around his skin. He wouldn’t be damaged, but he still felt the uncomfortable pinpricks of heat. Still, now at least they knew what they were working with.
The fight was frustrating. The two villains knew how to work together well, and, even with Rin and Nariko's quirks, it was difficult to get close to them without running into flames or a giant piece of rock. Kirishima noted that the area around them was getting pretty badly beat up, but at least the civilians were gone and cleared from danger. He wasn’t sure how long they had been fighting, but backup still hadn’t arrived. He could tell Nariko was losing energy from the way she moved, and Rin was getting annoyed that he couldn't manage to get close enough to land a solid hit. Kirishima could feel the ache in his own body from holding his quirk for so long.
“Bastards!” Rin exclaimed, out of breath. He had been repeatedly dodging spray of fire. “What are you even trying to accomplish?”
The villain just glared at him and wound up to fire again. Kirishima could see the gears turn in Rin’s head. The one with the fire quirk had been using the same move every attack, and Rin had been provoking him in order to find an opening. His plan worked perfectly. Rin teleported in, narrowly dodging the spray of fire, and managed to land a punch on the fire controlling villain. In that same moment, Kirishima glanced to his left.
Instinct was an incredible human ability. It was almost like a quirk everyone had. When Kirishima turned and saw a boulder launching its way towards a mid-growth Nariko, even without thought his tired legs pulled together to reach her in time. She didn’t seem to realize what was happening until she was already pushed out of the way.
People say that time slows before you die. Kirishima never thought much about it, but he could see the expression on the young girl’s face morph into one of sheer terror. He could feel the crawl of reinforced hardening up his calves and along his arms, knowing that it was moving too slow to reach his head and chest to protect him from what was coming. In the corner of his eye, he could see the growing shadow of the boulder that would soon crush him. Time really was a weird thing.
There was a weird feeling inside him, alongside all the panic and regret and fear. It was one of eerie familiarity. That he had been here once before, that he had felt this exact dull pain of knowing he would die in the peak of his life. It was strange, and concerning. Was deja vu another thing that happened before death?
He wished he could say he was more comforted at the fact he saved Nariko, and yet he wasn’t. He didn’t want to die here. He had so much he still wanted to do, so many more conversations he wanted to have, and people to meet. It felt like his head was chaos, like he was thinking everything at once, and yet one thought screamed at him like a desperate howl.
I’m so sorry, Katsuki, that I can’t keep my promise.
Time sped up once again. Kirishima’s entire body was suddenly covered in a blanket of unbearable heat. His vision was filled with white, and all he could hear was a deafening scream and a crashing boom. He swore it sounded like--
“YOU FUCKING BASTARDS!”
Katsuki stood in front of him, hands still smoking from the explosion he let out. Tears streamed out his eyes, and even Kirishima felt a sickening rolling in his stomach at the look on his face. It was pure, unbridled fear.
“YOU’RE DEAD! I’LL FUCKING KILL YOU!”
His voice came out wrecked and strained, and it cracked on a couple words. Kirishima snapped himself out of his shock, looking down to see himself okay. Bakugou must’ve appeared as backup at just the right time to explode the boulder before it could hit him. He didn’t stop to think about how close of a call that was, and instead got up to get back into action.
It seems he didn’t have much more fighting to do because Bakugou had already blasted himself over to the villain and had him pinned on the ground. His fist was raised high behind him, ready to punch.
“Katsuki!” Kirishima yelled, scrambling his way over to the pair. “Katsuki, stop, you already got him.”
Kirishima managed to grab his arm before he could do anything. The blonde was shaking.
"It was him... he did this to me," Bakugou yelled, "He deserves to pay for what he fucking did!"
“Calm down, man. It’s all good. Everything’s okay, I'm right here.”
Bakugou looked over at him and exhaled, and his entire body slumped with it. For some reason, he stood up and crushed Kirishima into a hug. Thankfully, Ichika was already there to grab the villain before he could do anything else.
“I love you. Fuck,” Bakugou gasped, loud enough for only Kirishima to hear, “Fuck, fuck, fuck. Thank god. Thank god.”
Kirishima felt a blush creep onto his cheeks. Bakugou was never this expressive, especially on the job and in public. He glanced up to see Kaminari jogging towards them.
“I thought you said it’d be 5th street,” he gasped, winded from running. Bakugou let go of Kirishima, but stayed looking at him.
“I did. I don’t fucking know why they met on 8th,” he responded. Kirishima felt his eyebrows furrow.
“What do you mean?”
“Oh,” Kaminari exclaimed, “Uh... we got inside information! Yeah... This morning. It was wrong though, clearly.”
“Huh,” Kirishima shrugged. A hand grabbed the back of his head and pulled him down.
Bakugou was kissing him, rough and controlling as ever.
Kirishima’s eyes went wide for a moment, but he recovered fast and returned the kiss. He gently placed his hands on the other’s hips. A low whistle interrupted their moment. They looked over to see Ichika, Uraraka, Nariko, and Rin staring at them.
“I totally called it!” Ichika exclaimed. Uraraka rolled her eyes.
“Please, Invisa. We’ve known this since first year,” she teased, a small smile on her face. A camera shutter flashed and Kirishima glanced over to see the news recording them. He took a small step back from Bakugou, as though they weren’t already caught.
Instead of freaking out like he expected, Bakugou grabbed his hand and started dragging him away, towards their home. He didn’t seem to mind at all they had just been caught on live TV kissing in their hero outfits.
“Katsuki, what--”
“It’s my fucking birthday, shitty hair,” he interrupted, still dragging Kirishima away from the attack sight, “and we’re going home to fucking cuddle. Fuck work.”
Kirishima couldn’t help it. He laughed.
---
October 26, 2124
4 years later
“Fuck,” Kirishima sighed, flopping onto back. His chest rose and fell, and he could hear Bakugou’s doing the same to his right. His body was covered in a layer of sweat. After a few minutes, Bakugou pushed himself up and walked naked over to their bedroom window. Kirishima admired the view of his ass before getting up and following him. He stood behind him and wrapped his arms around the shorter boy.
It was late at night, and the city looked beautiful covered in snow. Katsuki stayed looking out the window, but let Kirishima wrap himself around him. They had a great view of the city from the large windows. Katsuki stood in this spot a lot, just like he used to in his bedroom in their old apartment. When they first moved in here a few years ago, the view was what made Katsuki adjust easier. It seems that it calms him.
"How are the interns?" Kirishima asked.
"Ugh, fucking dumb," Bakugou responded. Kirishima laughed. "The two idiots barely know their left from right, I swear to god."
Kirishima was sure Bakugou was trying to hide the fond smile that came on his face. It didn't work.
"I think you'll be a great dad someday," Kirishima said. Bakugou sputtered.
"Did you not just hear what I said, dumbass?" Kirishima smiled and kissed his reddening neck. Bakugou could deny it all he want, but Kirishima knew he was a softie.
“Do you still miss the old view?” Kirishima asked after a moment, letting his chin drop onto the blonde’s shoulder. Bakugou hummed in affirmation.
“But I wouldn’t go back,” he added.
“Oh?” Kirishima questioned.
“Yeah,” Katsuki sighed, content. He was fiddling with the red wedding band on his left hand. Kirishima had noticed he did that a lot. Whether it was subconscious or not, he wasn't sure. “I wouldn’t go back.”
Kirishima smiled. This life, his life, felt like a dream.
“Happy anniversary, Katsuki. I love you,” he whispered, kissing him on the lower side of his jaw. Bakugou turned his head and kissed him on the lips.
“I love you, too, shitty hair.”