Chapter 14: Vulnerability Under Fire
The walk to Izuku’s apartment was a quiet negotiation of space. They didn’t touch, but their shoulders brushed occasionally, a silent acknowledgment that the two feet of air between them was deliberate, not distant. The city lights painted everything in sodium orange and deep blue shadow.
Izuku’s place was a testament to organized chaos. Notebooks stacked on the kotatsu, All Might merch mingling with technical manuals, a single, lonely houseplant on the windowsill that looked like it was surviving on hope alone. It was warm, lived-in, the polar opposite of Katsuki’s stark, minimalist setup.
Katsuki toed off his shoes with more force than necessary, lining them up with a precision that felt like anchoring himself. “Told you your coffee was swill,” he grunted, nodding at the half-empty bag of cheap grounds by the sink.
“You haven’t had any yet,” Izuku said, moving to the kitchenette. His voice was careful, like he was navigating a floor covered in broken glass.
“I can smell it from here. It smells like burnt dirt.”
“Do you want some or not?”
“Make it strong. I’m not sleeping anytime soon.”
That was the truth. The adrenaline from the gym, from Iida’s interruption, from the conversation on the street, was still buzzing under Katsuki’s skin. It had nowhere to go. The usual outlets—aggression, action, sex—were temporarily off the menu by mutual, frustrating agreement.
He paced the length of the small living room while Izuku busied himself with the kettle and mugs. The flicker of the streetlight through the window caught the edges of Izuku’s figurines, throwing long, distorted shadows. Katsuki stopped in front of the bookshelf, his eyes scanning the spines. Hero analyses, quirk theory, a few well-worn fantasy novels. No surprises.
His gaze landed on a framed photo tucked between books. It was from their second year at UA. They were all in casual clothes, arms slung around each other after some stupid festival. He was scowling, but he was there, in the frame, part of the group. Izuku was beaming, his smile too big for his face. Katsuki remembered shoving Kirishima’s hand off his shoulder two seconds after that photo was taken.
“Here.” Izuku’s voice was close. He held out a steaming mug.
Katsuki took it, their fingers brushing. He didn’t step back. “You keep this crap?” he asked, nodding at the photo.
Izuku glanced at it, a soft, almost private smile touching his lips. “Yeah. It was a good day.”
“It was loud and annoying.”
“You won the takoyaki eating contest.”
“Damn right I did.” Katsuki took a sip of the coffee. It was, as predicted, terrible. Bitter and thin. He drank it anyway, the heat a grounding sensation in his throat. “So. Boundaries.”
Izuku leaned back against the couch, cradling his own mug. “Boundaries.”
“You said I had to try to talk. Instead of the other thing.” Katsuki couldn’t look at him. He stared into the dark liquid in his cup. “What the hell are we supposed to talk about?”
“I don’t know,” Izuku admitted. He sounded exhausted. “Anything. Why you hate my coffee. The weather. The fact that you’re vibrating like you’re about to explode just standing still.”
Katsuki’s head jerked up. “I am not—”
“You are. Your left hand. It’s sparking.”
He looked down. Tiny, harmless pops of light were fizzing across his knuckles. He clenched his fist, stifling them. A flush of hot shame climbed his neck. Losing control of his quirk was infantile. It hadn’t happened outside of a fight in years.
“See?” Izuku’s voice was gentle, without accusation. “That’s what I mean. You’re all wound up. From earlier. From… everything. And your answer is usually to burn it off physically. So talk. To me. What’s in your head right now?”
The question hung in the air, monstrous and simple. Katsuki wanted to throw the mug against the wall. He wanted to cross the room, pin Izuku to the couch, and swallow the question whole. But the rule was there. You have to try.
He set the mug down on the bookshelf with a sharp click. He turned, facing Izuku but still not meeting his eyes. “I’m pissed. At Iida. At the whole situation. I’m pissed that he looked at you like you were some… victim. Like I was coercing you on the goddamn mat.”
“He was worried.”
“He was judging!” The words exploded out of him, too loud for the small room. He saw Izuku flinch, just slightly, and he forced his volume down, grinding the words out between his teeth. “He sees me and he sees a liability. A problem waiting to happen. He always has. And now he thinks he has proof. That I’m your… your dirty secret that’s gonna blow up in your perfect, heroic face.”
Izuku put his mug down on the kotatsu. He stood up, but he didn’t come closer. “You’re not a dirty secret.”
“Aren’t I?” Katsuki finally looked at him, and the vulnerability in his own voice disgusted him. It sounded weak. “We’re hiding. We’re making rules about where we can and can’t fuck. That’s the definition of a secret, Deku. A carefully managed one.”
“It’s not about shame. It’s about survival. For both of us.” Izuku took a step forward. His hands were open at his sides. “Your public image is ‘uncompromising, ruthless dynamight.’ Mine is ‘the compassionate, hopeful successor.’ What do you think happens if a video leaks of you slamming me into a supply closet wall? How do you think the public, the commission, our agencies, reconcile that? They’ll say I’m being manipulated. Or they’ll say you’re unstable. They’ll pick us apart. They won’t see… this.”
“This,” Katsuki echoed, the word a bitter pill. “What is this, exactly? Because I don’t fucking know. I know what to do with a rival. I know what to do with an enemy. I know what to do with a temporary fuck.” He ran a hand through his hair, pulling at the roots. “I don’t know what to do with you looking at me like that. With you asking me to talk about my feelings like we’re in some shitty daytime drama.”
“Then don’t talk about your feelings,” Izuku said, his own frustration starting to show. “Talk about the facts. You’re angry. Okay. I’m scared. That’s a fact, too. I’m scared of messing this up. I’m scared of you getting hurt because of me. I’m scared of wanting this so much it makes me stupid.”
The admission landed in the center of Katsuki’s chest, disarming him. Izuku’s fear was never physical. It was always this—emotional, strategic, vast. It was why he was always ten steps ahead.
Katsuki’s anger deflated.
Katsuki’s anger deflated, leaving behind a hollow, shaky feeling. He stared at Izuku, at the freckles standing out against his pale, worried face. The quiet in the apartment was thick, broken only by the distant hum of a refrigerator.
“That’s the fucking problem,” Katsuki said, his voice rough. “I don’t know what to call this thing between us. It’s not just sex. It’s not just… whatever we were before.” He gestured vaguely, helplessly. “But ‘dating’ sounds like some stupid, tame shit with dinner and movies. And that’s not us.”
Izuku’s breath caught. This was the unspoken question, the one that had been hovering since the first time Katsuki hadn’t shoved him away after. “What is us, then?”
“I don’t know!” Katsuki exploded, throwing his hands up. He began pacing again, a trapped animal. “I want to say you’re mine. I want to walk in that gym and have everyone know it. But saying it out loud… putting a label on it…” He stopped, facing the window, his back rigid. “It makes it real in a way I can’t control. And if I claim you publicly, everything that goes wrong is on me. My damage. My shit. It’ll splash on you.”
Izuku moved then. He crossed the room until he was right behind him, close enough to feel the heat coming off his body. “You think I’m not already covered in it?” he asked softly. “Your shit, my shit, it all got mixed up a long time ago. In the best way.”
Katsuki’s shoulders tensed. He didn’t turn around.
“Maybe it’s okay not to know the name for it,” Izuku continued, his voice steady. “Maybe right now, it’s just… this. You and me. In this room. Closer than friends. More than just… that.” He couldn’t say ‘friends with benefits.’ The words felt cheap, insulting to the rawness between them.
“An in-between,” Katsuki muttered, testing the phrase. It felt both accurate and terrifying.
“Yeah.” Izuku dared to reach out, placing his palm flat against Katsuki’s spine, between his shoulder blades. He felt the muscles jump, then slowly relax under his touch. “An in-between we build ourselves. No one else’s rules.”
Katsuki finally turned. His red eyes were bright, searching Izuku’s face. “And you’re okay with that? With not having a… a defined thing?”
“I need you to be okay,” Izuku said, his thumb rubbing a slow circle on Katsuki’s back. “I need you to be solid. And you’re not. Not all the way. You’re still putting yourself back together.” He took a deep breath, giving voice to the condition he’d been turning over in his mind since the gym. “So, this in-between? It’s good enough for me. It’s more than I hoped for. But it stays in-between until you’re cleared for fieldwork again. Until your therapist says you’re not just managing, but you’re actually fit.”
Katsuki’s eyes widened, then narrowed. It wasn’t an ultimatum. It was a diagnosis. A strategic assessment from the person who knew him best. “You think I’m broken.”
“I think you’re healing,” Izuku corrected, his gaze unwavering. “And I won’t let you glue yourself together with just me. You have to be whole on your own first. Then we can figure out what to call ‘us.’”
For a long moment, Katsuki just looked at him. The vulnerability was stark, naked on his face. Then, slowly, he lifted a hand. It was trembling, just slightly. He cupped Izuku’s jaw, his thumb brushing over his cheekbone.
“You’re the only fucking thing in my life that hasn’t been about winning,” he said, the words scraping out of him. “And I don’t know what to do with that.”
Izuku turned his face, pressing a kiss into Katsuki’s palm. He tasted the faint, familiar salt and chemical tang of nitroglycerin. “Just be in it with me. In the in-between. That’s all.”
Katsuki’s other hand came up, framing Izuku’s face. He held him there, not kissing him, just looking. The tension seeped from his body, replaced by a weary, accepted gravity. “It’s a shitty deal for you.”
“It’s not a deal,” Izuku whispered, leaning into the touch. “It’s a promise. To both of us.”
A single, sharp nod. That was all the agreement Katsuki could manage. He let his forehead drop against Izuku’s, their breath mingling in the dim light. The undefined space around them didn’t feel empty anymore. It felt charged, fragile, and theirs.
“Your coffee is still swill,” Katsuki mumbled against his skin.
Izuku laughed, a quiet, watery sound. “I know.”
The laugh dissolved into the quiet. Their foreheads still pressed together, a point of heat and connection. Katsuki’s thumbs traced the arch of Izuku’s cheekbones, a slow, rough caress that felt more intimate than any kiss they’d shared.
The emotional vertigo of the last hour still swirled around them, a dissipating storm. The rules were set. The in-between was acknowledged. It left a strange, hollowed-out space in Katsuki’s chest, a cavity usually filled with fury or want.
He pulled back just enough to see Izuku’s face. The green of his eyes was dark, pupils wide. Katsuki’s gaze dropped to his mouth, then back up. The want returned, hot and immediate, a familiar tide washing over the new, fragile landscape.
A muscle in his jaw ticked. The words came out gruff, stripped bare, a raw segue from vulnerability to need.
“…So… I talked… Can we still fuck?”
Izuku’s eyes flew wide. A startled, high-pitched noise escaped him. “Kacchan!”
“What?!” Katsuki shot back, defensive, his hands still framing Izuku’s face. The flush on his own neck deepened. He’d done the talking. He’d laid shit bare. The coiled energy needed a release, and every instinct screamed for this one, for the one thing that made sense between their bodies.
Even then, Izuku had no objections.
He saw it the moment Izuku’s shock melted into something else. The quick, shallow rise of his chest. The way his lips parted on a shaky inhale. The undeniable darkening of his gaze. The rules said their homes were the place. They were home. The talking was done.
“Yes,” Izuku breathed, the word more air than sound.
It was all the permission Katsuki needed.
He crashed their mouths together. This kiss wasn’t like the others. It was pure claiming, a searing reassertion of a known truth. Izuku moaned into it, his hands flying up to fist in the back of Katsuki’s shirt. The taste of bad coffee was forgotten, replaced by the familiar, desperate heat of each other.
Katsuki walked him backward without breaking the kiss, navigating the cluttered room by memory. The back of Izuku’s knees hit the edge of the low kotatsu. He broke away, panting. “Bed. Now.”
He didn’t wait for a reply. He shoved the table aside with a screech of wood on laminate, not caring where the notebooks slid. His hands went to the waist of Izuku’s sweats, yanking them and his boxers down in one brutal pull. Izuku kicked free, his own fingers scrambling for the button on Katsuki’s jeans.
They stumbled the short distance to the bedroom, a tangle of urgent hands and ragged breath. The dim light from the living room spilled across Izuku’s narrow bed. Katsuki pushed him down onto it, following him, covering him. The feel of Izuku’s naked skin against his own, still partly clothed, was maddening.
“Lube,” Katsuki growled against his throat, biting down on the tendon.
“Drawer… left side…”
Katsuki stretched, yanking the drawer open so hard it nearly came off its rails. He found the tube, slicked his fingers with a frantic, messy urgency. He didn’t tease. He pushed one finger into Izuku, deep and immediate.
Izuku arched off the bed with a choked cry, his legs falling open wider. “Kacchan—!”
“Too much?” Katsuki’s voice was a harsh rasp. He stilled, watching Izuku’s face, the sheen of sweat already on his brow.
“No. More. Just… more.”
A second finger joined the first, scissoring, stretching. Katsuki fucked him with his hand, the obscene, wet sounds loud in the small room. He crooked his fingers, searching, and found the spot that made Izuku’s back bow off the mattress, a broken shout tearing from his throat.
“There. Right there, you fucking…” Katsuki muttered, pounding his fingers against that bundle of nerves relentlessly. Izuku was a writhing, pleading mess beneath him, his cock leaking onto his stomach, his hands clawing at Katsuki’s back.
“Now, please, now, I’m ready, I’m—”
Katsuki pulled his fingers out. He shoved his own jeans and briefs down just enough to free his cock, hard and flushed. He poured more lube into his palm, stroking himself once, twice, a sharp hiss escaping his teeth. He notched the head at Izuku’s entrance.
He paused. Their eyes locked. Izuku’s were blown black, desperate. Katsuki’s were molten, holding a question he couldn’t voice.
Izuku answered by hooking his legs around Katsuki’s waist and pulling him down.
Katsuki drove in. One deep, brutal, sheathing thrust. Izuku cried out, a raw, open-mouthed sound of pure feeling. He was so tight, so hot, clenching around him like a vise. Katsuki buried his face in Izuku’s neck, groaning, his whole body trembling with the effort to not just pound into him mindlessly.
“Move,” Izuku begged, his voice wrecked. “Please, Kacchan, move.”
Katsuki pulled back and slammed home again. And again. He set a punishing rhythm, each thrust jolting Izuku up the bed. The bedframe knocked against the wall in a steady, frantic tempo. Katsuki braced himself on one forearm, the other hand fumbling between them to wrap around Izuku’s cock.
He jerked him in time with his thrusts, his grip tight, almost rough. “This,” he grunted, sweat dripping from his chin onto Izuku’s chest. “This is still us. This is real. Tell me it’s real.”
“It’s real,” Izuku sobbed, his hips meeting every drive. “It’s you, it’s always been you, I can’t—oh god—” His words dissolved into a string of gasped curses, his body coiling tighter and tighter.
Katsuki felt the tell-tale flutter deep inside, the clenching that signaled Izuku was close. He fucked into him harder, faster, his own orgasm a live wire sparking up his spine. “Come on. Come for me. Let me feel it.”
The command, guttural and direct, snapped the last thread of Izuku’s control. He came with a shattered cry, his release striping his stomach and Katsuki’s hand in hot pulses. The intense, rhythmic clamping of his body was too much. Katsuki’s vision whited out.
He drove in one last, deep time, burying himself to the hilt as his own orgasm ripped through him. He came with a choked-off roar, his hips stuttering, pumping his release deep inside Izuku in thick, hot waves.
For a long moment, there was only the sound of their ragged breathing and the knock of the bedframe settling. Katsuki collapsed, his weight pressing Izuku into the mattress, his face still buried in the sweat-damp crook of his neck. He could feel the frantic hammer of Izuku’s heart against his own.
Slowly, reality seeped back in. The smell of sex and sweat. The uncomfortable stickiness between them. The profound, trembling exhaustion.
Katsuki shifted, pulling out carefully. Izuku winced at the sensation, a soft gasp escaping him. Without a word, Katsuki rolled off him, staring up at the dark ceiling. His mind, so frantic minutes before, was a blank, humming quiet.
He felt the bed dip as Izuku turned onto his side to face him. He didn’t look.
A hand, tentative, came to rest on his sternium, over his heart. Izuku’s fingers were gentle, tracing the defined muscle.
“So,” Izuku whispered, his voice hoarse. “That’s the in-between.”
Katsuki finally turned his head. In the near-dark, Izuku’s expression was soft, sated, openly affectionate. It should have made him bristle. It didn’t.
He covered Izuku’s hand with his own, pressing it more firmly against his chest. He didn’t have words. Not now. He just gave a single, short nod.
Yeah. This was it. For now.