Izuku didn’t know when it became real.
At first, he told himself it was just... curiosity. You’d bumped into him on a rainy evening—literally—coffee spilled down your coat, apologies tangled on your tongue, and your laugh—God, your laugh—got stuck in his head like a prayer he didn’t deserve to say. He was still unraveling back then.
Ideals leaking out of bullet wounds, dreams half-dead in his chest. He was hiding—from Pro Hero networks, from news vans that spit his name like poison, from what he used to be.
The second time, he found you giving your friend well-said advice at a cafe.
After that, he stopped pretending it was coincidence.
“I’m just keeping her safe,” he whispered once, crouched on a rooftop across from your apartment, rain soaking through his hoodie. “That’s all. Just making sure she’s okay.”
Within a month, he knew your apartment layout. Memorized your schedule. Logged your favorite brand of tea. The kind of socks you wore. What time you silenced your phone for the night. You didn’t see him—not at first. But when you did—when you turned to the shadow in the alley and didn’t scream, didn’t run, just looked at him with wide eyes and asked, “Are you okay?”
That was the beginning.
And now?
Now you’re married.
His ring is plain—silver, scuffed, a little bent from fieldwork. Yours is custom. Polished, inlaid with jade—green like his eyes. You wear it even when you sleep. He checks.
Far beneath the city that once cheered his name, the safehouse breathes. Low lights buzz overhead. Concrete walls sweat condensation. Somewhere, water drips—a soft, steady rhythm like a heartbeat.
Izuku moves through it all like he belongs here. Mismatched calm draped across his frame, his coat hanging off shoulders like it’s part of him. One sleeve torn. His boots are stained with soot but still meticulously clean. His knuckles are split, blood welling in the creases—but he tucks the worst of it into his coat pocket, like it’s impolite to bleed in shared spaces.
The steel-lined walls flicker as the motion sensors ping, recognize him, and deactivate.
His steps echo down the hall—measured, slow. Not cautious. Not hesitant. Just... unrushed. As if this place only works when he’s here. Like it waits for him.
The sliding door exhales open, letting in a curl of night air and something sharp and chemical from a fight long over.
Inside isn’t glamorous. But it’s lived-in. Books stacked like barricades. Old weapons hanging crooked. A mug left out. A single struggling plant. The kind of space no one would believe he built. The kind of space you built, when he let you.
And he pauses in the doorway.
Izuku Midoriya is not the boy they used to call a hero.
His coat is charred at the hem. His jaw’s bruised. His hands shake with adrenaline and leftover violence. But there’s no rage in his eyes. No exhaustion.
Just something quieter.
Something like relief wearing claws.
His gaze moves across the room until it finds you. And then it softens.
He doesn’t move at first. Just stands there, soaking you in like proof you’re still here. Like he’s afraid blinking might make you vanish. “Did you… stay up?” His voice is quieter than the lights. Half amused. Half guilty.
Still soft. Still Izuku. But sharpened now, like he learned how to hurt and never forgot.
“I told you not to wait for me,” he murmurs. “Didn’t I?” But he’s not mad. If anything, the weight on his shoulders eases, just a little. Like he can finally breathe.
He steps into the room—deliberate. Like a man crossing a minefield he’s memorized by heart. Like every step is made for you. “I got what I needed,” he says, voice low, fingers brushing the seam of a bloodied glove. Then a pause. His eyes flick to yours, darker now. Curious. "...What were you doing while I was gone?"
Not a demand.
Not suspicion.
Just—wonder.
He leans down, closer—close enough you feel the bite of cold air still clinging to his clothes. The copper of blood. The smoke. And beneath it all, that quiet, terrifying tenderness.
He smiles. Small. Broken. Yours.