Chapter Text
There's one thing I want to say so I'll be brave
You were what I wanted, I gave what I gave
I'm not sorry I met you
I'm not sorry it's over
I'm not sorry there's nothing to save
-"Your Ex Lover Is Dead" by Stars
10 Years Later
Katsuki rips through the drawer for the fourth time that morning looking for something specific. He thought that he had picked out the perfect outfit, but now that he’s looking at it, something seems off. The remedy for this will come in the form of socks — the pink ones with the bunny rabbits on them.
“She looks fine, babe,” Eijirou tells him from the doorway. His arms are crossed over his chest and his stance suggests annoyance, but his face says otherwise. He’s smiling, the way he always is, like Katsuki’s something special.
“Fine isn’t good enough,” Katsuki snaps back, pushing aside the lavender ducky socks that are cute, but just not what he’s looking for right now. “Have you seen her pink socks?”
“The ones with the bunnies?”
“Yes,” Katsuki says, closing the drawer with a little too much force. “We just did laundry, they should be in her fucking drawer—”
“These ones?” a tiny voice pipes up from behind Katsuki that makes his heart melt away along with his sour mood. He turns around to face his daughter who is sitting on her bed in her little pink dress with her feet held high in the air. On them are socks. Pink socks. With bunny rabbits.
“Yes,” Katsuki says after letting out an exasperated sigh. “Were you hiding them from me?”
She lets out a giggle that lights up the room. “No daddy,” Himari says, shaking her head. “You put them on me like, seven hours ago.”
Katsuki smiles, crouching down to take a bunny-clad foot into his hand. “Seven hours, huh?”
“Yeah,” she tells him, matter-of-factly. “Can we go now?”
Katsuki sits back and presses his palms into his eyes. God, he’s been so stressed about this whole thing. “Yeah,” he says. “Yeah we can go. Just go put your shoes on, okay?”
His daughter nods and hops off of her bed, breezing by him and out into the living room.
“Not your crocs!” Katsuki shouts after her, which earns him a groan from Himari and a cackle from Eijirou.
“She’s my kid, alright. No doubt about that.” Eijirou comes into the room and sits down beside Katsuki. He places a gentle hand on Katsuki’s arm. “You okay?”
It’s a simple question which should have a simple answer. Except that Katsuki doesn’t really know how he’s supposed to feel so everything is just… messy.
“Yes,” he snaps, harsher than he means to. Eijirou doesn’t pull his hand away and Katsuki sighs, finally pulling his hands away from his eyes to look at his husband. “No,” he admits, quieter. “I’m just… Are we sure that this is the right thing for her?”
Eijirou thinks about it for a moment before nodding. “I think so. She’s seven now, which is when we said we would start exposing her to the world we live in. She’s old enough to know.”
Katuski and Eijirou had made the decision to shield their daughter from the hero world shortly after her birth. It had been easy back then, to make a choice so big for someone so small. Their world was dangerous. It was messy. It was filled with people who might use the knowledge of her existence to harm them. Keeping her from the public eye was the right thing to do, there was no doubt about that.
She knows that her dads are heroes. She knows that they do dangerous work and that sometimes, daddy needs to watch the news to make sure that her other daddy is safe. She knows that her aunts and uncles are all heroes too, but she hasn’t ever been allowed to attend public gatherings or autograph signings. She has only met the people closest to Katsuki and Eijirou, and for the most part, they don’t let her watch a lot of TV.
Tonight, though, is different. Katsuki has finally broken into the top ten and it’s a momentous occasion of celebration and honor. The ceremony is tonight along with the formal gala afterwards and everyone who is anyone is going to be there — his mother, her new husband, Eijirou’s moms, everyone. So it feels right that Himari should be there too.
It just… It feels like a lot. Really fast. All at once.
And Katsuki doesn’t know how to feel about it.
“Are you sure that she’s ready?” Katsuki asks, but he doesn’t really need Eijirou to answer. She is ready. He knows that.
“Kats, you wouldn’t want her to miss this,” Eijirou says and he’s right. He’s always right.
“I know. I’m just…”
“Nervous?” Eijirou finishes for him.
“Yes. There are parts of my life that she is going to have to see, parts of my life that I’m not proud of.” He doesn’t say what he’s thinking, but he doesn’t have to.
Eijirou nods, his expression understanding. “Mistakes make us who we are,” he says, squeezing Katsuki’s thigh. “What kind of parents would we be if we let her think we were perfect all of the time?”
Katsuki knows that he isn’t perfect. He’s far from perfect in a whole mess of ways. He’s done a lot of things wrong, but Himari has been the only thing he’s ever done right. He doesn’t know what he’d do if she ever viewed him differently. If she ever found out about the horrible things he’s done.
The most horrible mistake of all will be there tonight, too. He is the number one hero, after all.
It’s been a decade since Katsuki said goodbye to Izuku in that hospital room. He made sure to never accept missions alongside Izuku, even if it meant missing out on major clout. He’s kept Izuku from Himari’s life and it’s been for the best, even if this is never how he pictured his future looking.
Tonight, though, they will have to see each other. Tonight, Katsuki will stand on stage with only nine other people between them and Katsuki will try his best not to puke all over the stage.
“You’re gonna be fine,” Eijirou assures him.
Katsuki nods, even though he doesn’t fully agree with his husband on this.
“Okay,” Katsuki says, finally standing up. “Let’s get this over with.”
*.*.*.*.*
It turns out that when you’re standing on a stage in front of the entire fucking world, nine people feels like several thousand foot ball fields of space. Katsuki is aware, in a general sense, that Izuku Midoriya is standing on the same stage as he is. If he squints, he can make out that familiar head of green curls all the way at the other end of the stage, but for the most part they don’t see each other at all. Izuku gives his speech but Katsuki tunes it out, too distracted by the sound of his own heart pounding in his ears.
The night goes by in a flash of champagne and pats on his back and “congratulations”. It’s overwhelming. Strangers and journalists corner him with tooth-rotting artificial sweetness and empty compliments that send him reeling and itching to get the hell out of the venue and back home to the comfort of his apartment.
Katsuki sits down at a table in the corner with his family and puts on his best angry face to keep people away. His mother takes a turn entertaining Himari and Katsuki takes his moment of solitude to sneak off towards the bathroom.
He’s managed to make it the entire night without freaking out, but that comes to an end when he turns the corner and bumps right into the person he wants to see least in the entire fucking world.
Izuku makes a noise of surprise and Katsuki’s heart stops in his chest as he looks up and into the eyes of one of the only people he’s ever loved, dressed in a suit that probably costs $3,000 and a drink that’s now spilled all over it. It takes Izuku a moment to realize what’s happened — that he’s covered in gin and tonic and that the person who bumped into him is in fact Katsuki, but once he processes all of it, an unmistakable look of panic floods his face.
“Oh,” he says, swallowing loudly. “H-hey, K-Kacch— Ground Zero. It’s good to see you again.”
“Uh, y-yeah.” The stutter of Katsuki’s name makes his heart ache, but he doesn’t let it show. They aren’t Izuku and Katsuki anymore. They’re Ground Zero and Deku. Strangers. “Hey.”
Izuku looks down at the wet stain on his clothes but visibly decides that it’s not important. He shifts uncomfortably, looking around the room before finding Katsuki’s eyes. There was a time where Katsuki could read those brilliant green irises and know what Izuku was thinking, what he was feeling without even having to talk. When he looks at them now, they’re completely foreign to him. Deep and green with specks of gold that shine in a different way than they once did. Everything about them is different, changed in a way that makes Izuku unreadable.
And that’s a good thing, Katsuki thinks.
“Congrats on making the top ten,” Izuku says after a minute. He smiles, something genuine and soft. “I’m sure it feels good to finally have what you’ve always wanted.”
“Thanks.” Katsuki isn’t sure if this is what he’s always wanted. He thinks that there was a time when a different version of him wanted something else. Something more. But he doesn’t say that out loud. “Yeah it feels...uhm. It feels good.” He looks up to find that Izuku isn’t looking at him anymore. Izuku is staring at something across the room, his expression soft and familiar. Katsuki recognizes that expression — he remembers it from when Izuku once wore it to look at him.
Katsuki turns to follow Izuku’s line of sight towards where he sees Inko, older and greyer than the last time Katsuki saw her. She’s wearing an emerald green dress and smiling down at the swollen, pregnant belly of a woman that Katsuki has only ever seen on magazine covers and talk shows.
Right. Izuku’s wife .
Katsuki had heard that Izuku had found someone. She is beautiful, Katsuki thinks, and Izuku is looking at her like she’s the most precious thing in the world. She doesn’t see them staring at her, but she says something that makes Inko laugh in a way that Katsuki never could, and Katsuki thinks that maybe, things are okay actually.
“Congratulations to you too,” Katsuki says softly. Izuku looks back down at him, cheeks turning red from getting caught staring. “On uh. Well. That.” He gestures towards Izuku’s wife.
“Oh! Yeah. Thank you. It’s a big change but we're pretty excited.” Izuku puts his attention back on Katsuki. “You have a daughter, right?”
Katsuki sighs in relief, happy to have something easy to talk about for once. “Himari,” he says, “yeah. She’s seven.” He feels a familiar warmth start in his belly when he thinks about his daughter. “She’s too much like me for her own good.”
“I’m sure that’s not a bad thing.” Izuku smiles again, a real one. A perfect one that shows all of his teeth. “You’ve got a lot of heart. That’s why people like you.”
“Yeah,” Katsuki says, and he can’t help but smile back. “I guess.”
For the first time, the silence that settles between them is comfortable. The years between them are not quite so heavy anymore.
After a few heartbeats, Katsuki says, “I should go back to — to my table.”
“Oh,” Izuku breathes, before nodding in understanding. “Uh. Yeah. Me too.”
He gives Katsuki one last tight-lipped smile before turning to walk away. He is vanishing into the crowd when Katsuki reaches out to him, grabbing him by the shoulder in a moment of thoughtlessness. They’ve said their goodbyes before, but Katsuki thinks he still owes Izuku something.
Something he should have given him a long, long time ago.
“Izuku—”
Izuku turns, surprised. “Hm?”
Katsuki’s heart is too big for his chest. He knows what to say but he doesn’t know how to say it. “Uh. I just. I wanted to say—”
“Don’t,” Izuku says, stopping him. He puts his hand up between them, eyes meeting Katsuki’s again. He seems to know, even after all this time, what Katsuki’s thinking. Like he knows, just from the tone of his voice and brush of his hand what the one million thoughts buzzing through Katsuki’s brain mean, what they’re trying to convey that he can’t ever seem to put into words. “Seriously. It’s not… we don’t have to, okay? I don’t want to say sorry, because it would mean that all of those things that brought me here were mistakes. It would mean that Himari is a mistake. I’m not sorry about the path that brought me to my wife, and I’m sure that you aren’t sorry about Himari, either.”
“No,” Katsuki says thickly. He swallows the sob in his throat. “I’m not.”
Izuku reaches out and takes Katsuki’s hand in his. He brings it up to his face and holds it just below his lips, but he doesn’t kiss it. He just breathes on it, feels it between his fingers and holds Katsuki close in the only way he can. He smiles, one last time. “Good. Then. Let’s just. Skip the sorries for tonight, okay?” There is no pain in his voice. “I’m not sorry. Not about you. I could never be sorry about you.”
Katsuki’s eyes burn. “Yeah.”
Izuku places one gentle kiss on the back of Katsuki’s hand. “Goodbye, Kacchan.”
“Goodbye, Deku” Katsuki breathes. Izuku turns and vanishes into the crowd, for real this time. Katsuki catches sight of him again, across the room with his wife. Izuku meets his eyes and smirks and Katsuki smiles back.
When Katsuki returns to his own table, Himari is watching him. Her red eyes are narrowed in suspicion and she turns her head to squint off in the distance towards Izuku. She must have seen Katsuki talking to him, because she says, “Daddy, who was that man?”
Katsuki isn’t sure how to answer her. He’s read her stories and picture books, but he doesn’t quite know how this one begins. All he knows now is how it ends.
“Is he your friend?”
Katsuki reaches out and takes his daughter into his arms. He kisses the top of her head and holds her close, feeling whole for the first time in his life. “No sweetie, he isn't,” he tells her. “Not anymore. He’s…” He looks across the room and watches Izuku take his wife into his arms and twirl her around as the next song starts up and they take to the dance floor. Izuku is smiling and his wife is laughing and it feels right. “Just someone that I used to know.”