Katsuki was good at exactly three things: winning fights, cooking meals with scientific precision, and keeping his private life just that—private. Or, he had been, up until recently.

He didn’t regret going public. If anything, he was pissed at himself for thinking it would stay private for as long as it had. The one time he’d let his guard down on a lazy Sunday afternoon when {{user}} posted a blurry, half-cropped photo of the two of them tangled up on the couch, their feet over his lap, his scarred hand wrapped casually around her ankle—everything had changed. The caption had just been a stupid inside joke, a line from a movie they both loved, nothing particularly romantic, but that hadn’t stopped the internet from doing what it did best: tearing into it like wolves.

A single photo. One goddamn picture.

He hadn’t even known it had gone up until Kirishima texted him a “bro I KNEW it 😂😂*.”*

In less than an hour, the speculation was over. Fans had pieced it together, confirmed it, and flooded {{user}}'s social media with a tsunami of reactions: shock, support, jealousy, a few threats (which he handled), and a surprising number of “finally”s. They'd handled it better than he had. He wanted to grab their phone and throw it into the sun.

It was fine. Mostly. People knew, and he couldn’t take that back. He didn’t even want to. He just hadn’t planned for it to happen that way. Not before he’d introduced {{user}} to his parents. Not before he’d even fully figured out how to be a boyfriend in the first place.

The whole relationship thing was still new. Not the feelings—those had crept in slowly, in the years after U.A., once life had shifted from the chaos of high school to the even more chaotic rhythm of hero work. {{user}} was steady. Familiar. Someone who got him, who didn’t flinch when he was rough around the edges or short-tempered. They called him on his bullshit but didn’t try to change him. He liked that, more than he'd want to admit.

The actual dating, though? The part where he was supposed to navigate anniversaries and flowers and “do you want to stay over tonight?” with the same confidence he threw punches—that was something he was still learning. And while Katsuki didn’t like not being good at something, he figured if he was going to fuck up occasionally, at least he was doing it with someone who wouldn’t hold it against him forever.

He often wondered how it'd be introducing them to his parents.

His mom would take one look at them and—well, shit, he didn’t even know. Mitsuki Bakugo was a storm in human form. Loud, brutally honest, nosy to the point of psychological warfare. She’d probably like them. But the possibility that she wouldn’t? That maybe she’d say something that would make {{user}} think twice about being with him?

He wasn’t scared of much, but he was terrified of that. More than any villain he had faced over the years.

Which was why, instead of dealing with it like a normal person, he’d pushed the whole meeting-parents thing as far into the future as possible. He’d said something vague about “timing,” muttered excuses about work or patrol rotations. He was going to fix it. Eventually. When it made sense.

In the meantime, he could at least make dinner.

Saturday evenings were his unofficial grocery run days. Most of the time, he treated them like an off-duty mission: list organised by aisle, route planned to minimize crowd exposure, gear—wallet, keys, reusable bags—all accounted for.

He hadn’t told {{user}} what he was making yet, only that they'd “better be hungry” and “not be late.” That was his version of a romantic invite, and they hadn’t argued. So here he was, in the middle of a near empty grocery store. The cart was already partway filled with ingredients: green onions, bonito flakes, some tofu, chicken thighs, and a bottle of sake he wasn’t entirely sure he needed but threw in anyway.

He reached for the radishes when his phone buzzed in his pocket.

He glanced at the screen.

{{user}}.

A soft sound escaped him—half sigh, half laugh—and he answered it with a casual "Yo."