Katsuki Bakugo

Katsuki Bakugo had always believed that if his marriage ever ended, he'd know exactly when it started falling apart.

There would be a moment.

A betrayal. A terrible secret. Something enormous enough to split three years of marriage and even more years of loving each other cleanly in half.

He hadn't expected it to happen quietly.

You and Katsuki had been together since U.A.

You had loved him before the agencies, before the interviews, before billboards carried his face across Musutafu and strangers screamed Dynamight from behind barricades.

At twenty, Katsuki married you.

People told him it was young.

Katsuki told them to go themselves.

He knew what he wanted.

He wanted you.

At twenty-two, he had almost everything else.

An agency.

Money.

An obnoxiously expensive black motorcycle that he maintained with the kind of attention most people reserved for newborn children.

A house with you.

Not a mansion.

He could've afforded something bigger, but neither of you wanted hallways that echoed or rooms nobody entered.

So you'd chosen something that felt like a home.

A kitchen large enough for Katsuki to cook in. A backyard. A garage for his bike. A bedroom that belonged to both of you.

And more rooms than two people technically needed.

A family house.

There had once been conversations about what those empty rooms might become someday.

Someday.

Katsuki had liked that word.

He had assumed the two of you had plenty of it.

And then there was his career.

Number Five Pro Hero: Dynamight.

He'd climbed toward it viciously.

Every rescue, every fight, every sleepless night and broken bone had been another rung beneath his boots.

Then the new rankings came out.

Number Fifteen.

Ten places.

Gone.

It wasn't because Katsuki had suddenly become incompetent.

His combat record remained exceptional. His successful rescue statistics were among the highest at his agency.

But hero rankings weren't built on strength alone.

Public approval mattered.

Interviews mattered.

Being marketable mattered.

And apparently telling a reporter to "shove the microphone somewhere useful" wasn't considered charming.

Katsuki said he didn't care.

You knew better.

Everyone knew better.

That was when the silence started.

Not immediately.

At first, it was little things.

Katsuki stayed at the agency an hour later.

Then two.

Dinner went cold.

You reheated it.

He came home and complained that it tasted different.

You told him he should've been home when it was fucking fresh.

He snapped.

You snapped back.

Ten minutes of yelling.

Then nothing was solved.

The following morning, Katsuki left for work without kissing you goodbye.

Neither of you mentioned it.

Then came another argument.

And another.

Never about what was actually wrong.

A towel left on the bathroom floor somehow became screaming.

An unanswered text became accusations.

Katsuki leaving his boots somewhere you'd asked him a hundred times not to leave them became twenty minutes of both of you dragging up mistakes from three years ago.

Then silence again.

Those were almost worse.

Dinner with nothing but silverware scraping ceramic.

Watching television without either of you actually watching it.

Katsuki lying beside you at night with his back turned toward yours, staring into darkness while only of mattress somehow felt wider than the entire fucking city.

Some nights he'd wake up and feel your warmth behind him.

His body would instinctively want to turn around.

He never did.

Pride.

Always fucking pride.

Then came the last argument.

Katsuki didn't remember exactly how it began.

He remembered coming home late.

Again.

The house was dark except for the kitchen.

You were waiting.

He knew from the moment he saw you that something was wrong.

Instead of asking, he dropped his keys onto the counter.

"What?"

Your eyes narrowed.

"What do you mean, what?"

"You've been staring at me since I walked in."

"Because you said you'd be home three hours ago."

"Shit came up."

"Shit always comes up."

Katsuki's jaw tightened.

"Don't fucking start."

That was probably the moment.

The match.

You stared at him.

"Don't start?"

"I've had a shitty enough day."

"And I've had a shitty enough month, Katsuki."

He scoffed.

Wrong response.

"Stop acting like an asshole!"

"I'm acting like an asshole?!"

His voice immediately filled the kitchen.

"You've been riding my ass about every goddamn thing I do!"

"Because you won't talk to me!"

"The you want me to say?!"

"Anything!"

That word struck harder than either of you expected.

Your voice cracked.

"Say literally anything to me that isn't you yelling! Tell me you're angry. Tell me you're embarrassed. Tell me you're scared. Tell me the ranking hurt you. Just stop coming home and treating me like I'm the fucking reason it happened!"

Katsuki went still.

There it was.

The actual problem.

Finally dragged into the room.

And Katsuki hated it.

Because you were right.

So naturally, he became angrier.

"I don't need you psychoanalyzing me."

"I'm your spouse, Katsuki!"

"And?"

Silence.

The word had left his mouth before his brain caught it.

Your expression changed.

Katsuki saw it.

He could've stopped.

Could've apologized.

Could've crossed the kitchen and admitted that he was exhausted and humiliated and terrified that maybe Number Five had been the highest he'd ever climb.

Instead, his pride wrapped its hands around his throat.

"And I'm supposed to matter to you."

"You fucking do."

"Then act like it!"

"I bust my ass every fucking day for this life!"

"I didn't marry your ranking!"

His nostrils flared.

"I married you!"

"Yeah? Well, maybe you should've thought harder about that!"

Silence.

Immediate.

Absolute.

Katsuki heard the refrigerator humming.

His own breathing.

The faint ticking of the clock hanging in the hallway.

He regretted the sentence before the echo had even disappeared.

But neither of you took anything back anymore.

Your eyes glistened.

Then you said it.

Quietly.

"Maybe you're right."

Katsuki's anger faltered.

"What?"

You swallowed.

"Maybe we shouldn't be married anymore."

His stomach dropped.

For the first time all night, Katsuki had absolutely nothing to say.

He stared at you.

Divorce.

The word hadn't even been spoken yet, and somehow he heard it anyway.

Fear climbed into his chest so quickly it almost made him nauseous.

No.

No, that wasn't what he meant.

He hadn't meant any of it.

He just needed to calm down.

You needed to calm down.

Tomorrow morning you'd wake up, argue again, eventually somebody would apologize, and things would...

"I want a divorce, Katsuki."

Something inside him went cold.

His face showed it for barely a second.

Then pride arrived.

Reliable as ever.

It buried the fear.

Covered the hurt.

Turned everything vulnerable inside him into anger because anger was something Katsuki understood.

"Fine."

Your face fell.

He hated himself.

And kept going.

"Been getting real fucking sick of your shit anyway."

The lie tasted poisonous.

He grabbed his black leather jacket from the chair.

Then his motorcycle keys.

You didn't stop him.

Some pathetic part of him had wanted you to.

The front door slammed hard enough to shake the photographs hanging beside it.

One of them tilted crooked.

A wedding photograph.

Neither of you noticed.

---

Katsuki didn't come home the following night.

Or the night after that.

A cheap motel became his home for the next week.

He could've afforded the nicest hotel in the city.

He chose somewhere miserable.

Maybe because it matched him.

The room smelled faintly of stale cigarettes despite the NO SMOKING sign. The air conditioner rattled through the night. Neon from the vacancy sign outside painted the curtains in intermittent flashes.

He hated the mattress.

Hated the shower.

Hated the instant coffee.

Most of all, he hated waking up and reaching across the bed before remembering nobody was there.

At work, Dynamight became unbearable.

More unbearable.

Sidekicks learned to communicate using the fewest possible words.

One intern received a death glare for breathing too loudly after a patrol.

Kirishima called.

Katsuki ignored it.

His mother called.

Ignored.

You didn't.

That was worse.

Every morning he considered going home.

Every evening he found a reason not to.

Tomorrow.

He'd apologize tomorrow.

Except tomorrow required admitting he was wrong.

Then an envelope arrived.

Katsuki sat on the edge of the motel bed with it between his hands.

He already knew.

He opened it anyway.

Petition for Divorce.

The words blurred for a moment.

He blinked.

Read them again.

Still there.

His eyes traveled down the pages until he found the blank line waiting for his signature.

Something ugly twisted inside his chest.

This was real.

Not an argument anymore.

Not something shouted while both of you were angry.

A signature.

That was all it would take.

Years together reduced to paperwork.

His thumb rubbed against his wedding ring.

He hadn't removed it.

Not once.

Katsuki stared at the signature line.

An empty liquor bottle sat nearby.

He grabbed it.

CRASH.

Glass exploded against the wall.

" !"

Heat erupted from his palm.

The divorce papers ignited.

Orange curled around white.

Katsuki watched your marriage turn into black flakes of ash.

His breathing became ragged.

"No."

The word slipped out.

He stared.

"No..."

He pressed both palms against his face.

"I don't fucking want this."

Finally.

The truth.

Too bad the only thing listening was an air conditioner.

He missed you.

Not some grand, poetic version of you.

The ordinary you.

Your weight against him in bed.

Your voice calling from another room.

Your laugh when he said something unintentionally funny and then became pissed because you wouldn't stop laughing.

Your arguments over groceries.

Your shampoo in the shower.

Cooking while you hovered around the kitchen stealing pieces of whatever he was making until he threatened your fingers with the knife.

He missed coming home.

Because home had never really been that house.

It had been you inside it.

He thought of the extra rooms.

The conversations about someday.

His chest tightened.

He had spent his entire life chasing victory so aggressively that he hadn't noticed when he'd started treating his marriage like another battle he couldn't afford to lose.

And now he'd lost anyway.

Because he'd rather destroy himself than say two fucking words.

I'm sorry.

Katsuki stood abruptly.

He needed air.

Needed noise.

Needed something faster than his thoughts.

His eyes landed on his motorcycle helmet.

---

The engine screamed beneath him.

Highway lights streaked across Katsuki's visor.

He shouldn't have been riding.

He knew that.

Alcohol still sat warm in his blood. His thoughts were fractured. His hands were too tense around the handlebars.

Every instinct he'd developed as a hero told him to pull over.

He accelerated.

Wind hammered against him.

Faster.

The speedometer climbed.

He slipped between traffic.

It was reckless.

Stupid.

Dangerous.

He knew exactly how many families he'd rescued from crashes caused by decisions like this.

Tonight, somehow, he had convinced himself consequences belonged to other people.

Another light flashed overhead.

Then another.

His eyes burned.

Katsuki clenched his jaw.

No.

Absolutely fucking not.

Something hot rolled down his cheek.

Then another.

" ..."

His vision distorted.

He blinked hard.

Pathetic.

Number Fifteen.

Failed husband.

Twenty-two years old and crying underneath a motorcycle helmet because he'd been too much of a coward to tell his spouse he was hurting.

He blinked again.

A car ahead began changing lanes.

Too late.

Katsuki's pupils shrank.

His fingers slammed around the brake.

The world became metal.

Noise.

Pain.

CRASH.

Then nothing.

---

Sirens.

Katsuki's eyelids fluttered.

Red.

Blue.

Red.

Blue.

Lights bled together above him.

Someone was speaking.

"...sir, can you hear me?"

His body wouldn't cooperate.

Something wet trickled across his cheek, tracing the old scar already carved there from another battle years ago.

His lungs hurt.

Everything hurt.

An oxygen mask covered his face.

He blinked.

Ambulance.

Another blink.

Hospital ceiling.

Doctors moving alongside him.

"BP's dropping."

"Trauma bay is ready."

Another blink.

Bright surgical lights.

Then black.

---

Beep.

Darkness.

Beep.

Warmth.

Beep.

Pain.

Katsuki slowly opened his eyes.

White ceiling.

His throat felt like sandpaper.

He tried shifting.

Instant regret.

"F... ."

Even the curse barely existed.

His head was bandaged. One arm immobilized. Bruises disappeared beneath the hospital gown. Every breath reminded him that his ribs had apparently participated in the crash too.

He stared upward.

Fragments returned.

Motorcycle.

Highway.

Car.

Divorce papers.

You.

His heart monitor accelerated.

Then he saw you.

Sitting beside the bed.

For a moment, Katsuki wondered whether the pain medication was making him hallucinate.

Your eyes were puffy.

Red.

You looked like you hadn't slept.

And you were holding his hand.

His wedding ring was still there.

Katsuki stared at your fingers around his.

Then at you.

Something inside him simply...

gave up.

Not his body.

Not consciousness.

The fight.

The endless fucking fight.

His face crumpled.

"... ."

He turned his head away, ashamed even now.

His eyes burned.

But there wasn't enough pride left to turn it into anger.

He'd almost died.

And if he had, the last meaningful thing he'd ever have said to you would've been that he was sick of you.

Katsuki's fingers weakly tightened around yours.

"Come here."

His voice cracked.

You stared at him.

He swallowed painfully.

"Please."

There it was.

The word he'd avoided almost as fiercely as sorry.

You moved closer.

Katsuki looked at you again.

His red eyes were wet.

"I don't want the fucking divorce."

His breathing shook.

"I lied."

His jaw tightened, but he forced himself to continue.

"When I said I was sick of you. I fucking lied."

A tear slipped down beside his scar.

For once, Katsuki didn't wipe it away.

"I'm sick of me."

His voice dropped.

"I'm sick of fucking everything up and acting like everybody else did it."

His fingers curled weakly around yours.

"I miss you."

Another shaky breath.

"I miss home."

His eyes found yours.

"And I don't..."

He swallowed.

"I don't know how to do this without you."

Katsuki had spent years learning how to throw himself toward danger without hesitating.

This was somehow more terrifying.

Because you could still say no.

The accident hadn't erased what he'd done.

Nearly dying didn't entitle him to forgiveness.

You didn't owe him another chance just because he'd finally learned how to ask for one.

But for the first time since you'd said the word divorce, Katsuki stopped trying to win.

He just looked at you.

Vulnerable.

Terrified.

Waiting.

"...I still wanna be your husband, my love."