Chapter 5 — Okay

The day had been a disaster from start to finish.

It began with a mission that should have been routine. A simple villain apprehension, low threat level, the kind of thing Izuku could handle in his sleep. Except the intel had been wrong. One villain became three, the “low threat” quirks turned out to be a coordinated combination that nearly brought down an entire city block, and by the time backup finally arrived, Izuku had taken enough hits to leave him sore for a week.

Then came the press.

They found him outside the hospital where he’d gone to get his shoulder checked. Cameras flashing, microphones thrust in his face, the same questions he’d been fielding for weeks now. How did it feel to be an Omega hero? Was his secondary gender a liability in combat situations? Did he think he was setting a good example for other Omegas by putting himself in danger?

He’d answered as best he could, keeping his voice steady even as exhaustion pulled at every syllable, and escaped as quickly as professionalism allowed.

And then, on his way back to the agency to file his report, he’d dropped his lunch.

It was a small thing. Stupid, really. Just a convenience store bento that slipped from his tired fingers and splattered across the sidewalk. But standing there, staring at the ruined food while pedestrians flowed around him, Izuku had felt something crack in his chest. The accumulated weight of the day pressing down until he could barely breathe.

He didn’t go back to the agency. Couldn’t face the empty halls and the colleagues who wouldn’t meet his eyes. Instead, he launched himself into the air, letting One For All carry him up and away from the streets, away from the noise, away from everything.

He didn’t have a destination in mind. Just up. Just away.

But somehow, inevitably, he ended up on a rooftop overlooking the eastern district. And somehow, inevitably, he wasn’t alone.

Bakugo stood at the far end of the roof, leaning against the railing with his back to the city. His hero costume was scuffed and singed in places, evidence of a recent fight, and his posture carried the particular kind of tension that meant he was coming down from an adrenaline high. Cooling off. Processing.

Izuku hesitated at the roof’s edge. He should leave. Give Bakugo his space. The other man clearly wanted to be alone, and Izuku wasn’t exactly great company right now.

But his feet carried him forward anyway.

“Hey,” he said, his voice coming out rougher than intended.

Bakugo’s head turned. His eyes swept over Izuku, cataloging the details. The dirt on his costume. The careful way he held his left shoulder. The exhaustion written in every line of his body.

“You look like shit.”

“Thanks. It’s been a day.”

For a moment, Izuku thought Bakugo would tell him to leave. There was a flicker of something in his expression, resistance or irritation, the instinctive push-back that was so fundamentally him. But then his shoulders shifted, making room, and he turned back to face the city.

An invitation. Or the closest thing to one Bakugo ever offered.

Izuku crossed the roof and settled against the railing beside him. The metal was cool through his gloves, the evening air crisp with the first hints of autumn. Below them, the city sprawled in a tapestry of lights and shadows, streets pulsing with traffic, buildings glowing with the warm light of a thousand occupied rooms.

It was beautiful. Izuku had almost forgotten how to notice.

“What happened?” Bakugo’s voice was gruff, but there was something underneath it. Something that might have been concern.

The question opened a floodgate Izuku hadn’t realized he’d been holding shut.

“The mission this morning was a mess. Intel said one villain with a minor enhancement quirk. Turned out to be three of them working together, some kind of quirk synergy that let them amplify each other’s powers. I had to improvise a lot. Made some mistakes. Got knocked around more than I should have.”

He shifted, wincing as his shoulder protested. “Then the press ambushed me outside the hospital. Same questions as always. Am I a liability. Am I setting a bad example. Do I really think an Omega belongs on the front lines.”

Bakugo’s scent sharpened slightly, burnt sugar taking on an acrid edge. He didn’t interrupt.

“And then I dropped my lunch.” Izuku laughed, the sound hollow. “That’s the stupidest part. I’ve been through so much today, and the thing that almost broke me was dropping a convenience store bento on the sidewalk. I just stood there staring at it, and I couldn’t… I couldn’t make myself move.”

He took a breath, let it out slowly.

“I’m tired, Kacchan. I’m so tired of fighting all the time. Not the villains. The villains are easy. But everything else. The looks. The whispers. The way people treat me like I’m made of glass now, like finding out I’m an Omega erased everything else about me.”

The words kept coming, spilling out in the rambling rush that he could never quite control when he was around Bakugo. All the frustrations he’d been swallowing for weeks, all the small indignities and large ones, all the moments when he’d smiled and nodded and pretended everything was fine when it wasn’t.

Bakugo listened.

He didn’t interrupt, didn’t offer empty reassurances, didn’t try to fix anything. He just stood there, solid and present, his shoulder close enough to Izuku’s that they almost touched. And somehow, that was exactly what Izuku needed.

When the flood of words finally ran dry, they stood in silence for a while. The city hummed below them. The wind carried the distant sounds of traffic and voices and life continuing on.

“You never put in the transfer paperwork.” Bakugo’s voice was quiet, almost neutral. But Izuku heard the question underneath.

“No.” He stared at the skyline, unable to look at Bakugo. “I haven’t.”

“Why?”

The question hung in the air between them, heavy with everything it implied. Izuku had been avoiding this conversation. Avoiding thinking about it too hard. But here, now, with the city spread out below them and Bakugo’s warmth beside him, he couldn’t find anywhere left to hide.

“I’m scared,” he admitted finally. The words felt like pulling teeth. “Not of the transfer. Not of working together. I’m scared of what happens after.”

“After what?”

“After you realize I’m not worth the trouble.”

He felt more than saw Bakugo stiffen beside him. The burnt sugar scent spiked, sharp and sudden.

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

“It means…” Izuku’s hands tightened on the railing. “Right now, we have something good. Something that works. We see each other on patrols, we fight together sometimes, we have these moments. And it’s enough. It’s more than I ever thought I’d have with you.”

He swallowed hard. “But if I transfer to your agency, we’ll be together all the time. Every day. And what if that’s too much? What if you get tired of me? What if all the things you put up with now become unbearable when you can’t get away from them?”

His voice cracked slightly. “I can’t lose this, Kacchan. I can’t lose you. Whatever this is between us, it’s the best thing in my life right now, and I’m terrified that if I push for more, it’ll all fall apart.”

Silence. Long and heavy and impossible to read.

Then Bakugo said, very quietly, “‘Zuku.”

Izuku’s heart stuttered. Bakugo never called him that. Never used anything softer than his hero name or the perpetual “nerd” that had somehow become almost affectionate over the years.

“That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard.”

The words were harsh, but the tone wasn’t. Bakugo shifted, turning to face him more fully, and when Izuku finally gathered the courage to look up, he found red eyes watching him with an intensity that made his breath catch.

“You really think I’d just… get tired of you?” Bakugo’s voice was rough, like the words were being dragged out of somewhere deep. “After everything we’ve been through? After all the shit we’ve survived together? You think I’m that fucking fickle?”

“No, I just—”

“You just what? You just assumed that everything I’ve said, everything I’ve done, was some kind of temporary thing?” Bakugo stepped closer, close enough that Izuku could feel the heat radiating off him. “You think I keep showing up on your patrols because I’ve got nothing better to do? You think I threw a goddamn chair at my director because I was bored?”

“Kirishima told Ochako about that.”

“Of course he did.” Bakugo exhaled sharply, running a hand through his hair. “The point is, you’re not a burden. You’ve never been a burden. And if you actually think I could get tired of you, then you’re even more oblivious than I thought.”

Izuku opened his mouth to respond, but Bakugo wasn’t finished.

“Do you remember the war?” His voice had changed, dropping into something lower, more serious. “When I—when I shielded you. When I almost died.”

“Of course I remember.” Izuku’s throat tightened. “I think about it all the time. Kacchan, I—”

“Do you know what I was thinking? In that moment, when my body moved before I could think?”

Izuku shook his head, not trusting himself to speak.

Bakugo looked away, staring out at the city. The lights reflected in his eyes, tiny pinpricks of gold and white.

“I was thinking about whether I could still catch up to you.”

The words hung in the air, soft and devastating.

“All my life, I’ve been chasing you. Even when I was too stupid to realize it. Even when I was trying to push you away, trying to convince myself you were beneath me. You were always ahead. Always moving toward something I couldn’t quite reach.”

He let out a breath, something tight in his voice loosening.

“That day, when I saw that attack coming for you, I didn’t think about being a hero. I didn’t think about winning or losing or any of that shit. I just thought… if I could do this one thing. If I could protect him this one time. Then maybe. Maybe I’d finally be the kind of hero I wanted to be.”

Izuku felt tears burning in his eyes. He blinked rapidly, trying to hold them back, but it was useless. They spilled over, tracking down his cheeks, and he didn’t have the strength to be embarrassed about it.

“Kacchan…”

“The kind of hero I already saw you as.” Bakugo’s voice was barely above a whisper now. “That’s what I was thinking. That’s what I’ve always been thinking, even when I was too much of an asshole to admit it.”

A sob escaped Izuku’s throat, rough and broken. He couldn’t stop the tears now, couldn’t stop the emotion crashing through him like a wave. All those years of uncertainty, of wondering where he stood, of being afraid to hope for too much.

And Bakugo had felt this the whole time.

A hand landed on his shoulder. Heavy and warm and grounding. Izuku looked up through blurred vision to find Bakugo standing right there, closer than he’d ever been outside of a fight, his expression stripped of its usual armor.

“Come fight by my side,” Bakugo said. “For real this time. Not just when our patrols happen to cross. Not just when you’re in trouble and I show up to bail you out. All the time. Every day.”

His grip tightened, just slightly.

“Because when we’re together, I’m a better hero. And I’m pretty sure you are too.”

Izuku stared at him, at the fierce sincerity in his eyes, at the vulnerability he was allowing himself to show. His heart was pounding so hard he could feel it in his throat.

“Okay,” he whispered.

Just that. Just one word.

But it was enough.

Bakugo’s shoulders loosened, tension draining out of him like water. He didn’t smile, not exactly, but something shifted in his expression. Something that looked almost like relief.

He didn’t move his hand from Izuku’s shoulder. If anything, he leaned in closer, their bodies almost touching, the warmth between them building into something tangible.

Izuku became suddenly, acutely aware of Bakugo’s scent. Burnt sugar, but softer now. Warmer. The sharp edges of his earlier agitation had faded, replaced by something almost… content. And underneath it, woven through like a thread he was only now learning to recognize, was the faintest whisper of something responding.

Something sweet. Something that smelled like honey and mint and home.

His own scent. Faint and impossible, but there.

Bakugo’s nostrils flared slightly. His eyes flickered with recognition, with something deeper, but he didn’t comment on it. Just held Izuku’s gaze, steady and unwavering, as the city lights sparkled below them and the night air wrapped around them like a cocoon.

They stood there for a long time, shoulder to shoulder, leaning into each other’s warmth. The silence between them had changed. It was no longer empty or uncertain. It was full, heavy with everything they’d said and everything they hadn’t.

Eventually, Bakugo’s hand slid from Izuku’s shoulder, but he didn’t move away. They stayed close, watching the city together, and for the first time in weeks, Izuku felt something he’d almost forgotten.

Peace.

“I should probably head back,” he said eventually, his voice still rough from crying. “File my report. Try to get some sleep.”

“Yeah.” Bakugo straightened, shoving his hands in his pockets. “Don’t forget to put in that transfer paperwork tomorrow.”

“I won’t.”

“I mean it, ‘Zuku. First thing.”

The nickname again. Softer this time. Almost tender.

Izuku smiled, feeling something warm bloom in his chest.

“First thing,” he promised.

They parted at the rooftop’s edge, launching themselves in opposite directions across the city. But Izuku carried the warmth with him all the way home, a steady glow that no amount of exhaustion could dim.

Tomorrow, everything would change.

And for the first time, he was ready for it.