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Today was their six-year anniversary and Katsuki had to work. He swore up and down his boss hated him, and this damn well proved it. Of course, Mina and Hanta worked at the same agency and attempted to calm him down, because Eijirou and Denki both had the day off. Lucky dumbasses.
"It's alright, my king!" Mina grinned to him when he came into work that morning, "I'm sure Denki's missing you just as much as you are him!"
"You're not helping, Mina." Hanta chuckled from his desk, "At least we're on deskwork. He's on patrol."
"I can fucking hear you, tape face!" Katsuki growled.
"C'mon, Your Majesty, we gotta see the rock before you give it to him!" Mina said, getting up from her seat and catching the attention of the nearby interns, who halted in their pace. Hanta groaned, facepalming at his girlfriend's actions.
"Fuck off, pink queen," Katsuki said as he clocked in for the morning, already done with their antics.
"Alien Queen!" Mina corrected, covering up the whispers of the interns at the doorway.
'Who would Ground Zero be proposing to? I didn't know he was seeing anyone,' they gossiped, and Katsuki found his patience wearing thin like a lit fuse. If they had time to continue on their gossip, then they could be actually doing their jobs. He flipped them off and made his way to the locker room, his friends and former classmates following.
Mina's unruly pink curls had been tamed today, mostly by her new patterned undercut to match Hanta's after he finally got a haircut. Only took him six years.
"I can't believe it, Han-han!" Mina whined to her partner, "Our king is going to officially make his little Lightning bug his consort!"
"You're gonna go through with this until Bakugo makes you stop, aren't you?" Hanta grinned, watching the girl bouncing up and down.
Katsuki raised a middle finger to them as soon as he heard Mina chirp a happy little 'yup!', only making his suffering all the more evident.
If Denki were here, he'd be making stupid jokes to lighten the mood. Something along the lines of 'Well, we can at least say that we'll take down any adniversaries!' just to purposefully butcher the word and hear Katsuki laugh at how stupid it was. A stupid word combo pun. Over the years, Denki had found little ways to make him smile no matter what happened. Even when a villain attack had destroyed his childhood neighborhood, Denki was there to sit by him and let him be in the moment. With Denki, he didn't have to be the best. Didn't have to be Ground Zero; he could just be Katsuki. He didn't understand when that happened.
"C'mon, show usss~!" Mina whined, and Katsuki stopped by the door with a sigh. Reaching into one of the pockets of his cargo pants, he pulled out a simple dark blue box, holding it out to her so she could see and finally stop bugging him about it so he could get changed.
The ring wasn't anything special, at least by normal standards. Simple in design, made of titanium without any of the six diamonds elevated. Understated in comparison to other engagement rings, and the only thing which showed it's personality was the engraving. All along the outside, cracks had been simulated with a gold color in a similar fashion to marble. On the inside of the ring, nothing more than a quotation mark and a semicolon, something they didn't quite understand the meaning behind.
"Dude, what's with this? It's weird," Mina said, staring at the little thing, "It doesn't make sense."
"It doesn't have to, not to us." Hanta shrugged, "It isn't our engagement ring."
"Yeah, I guess. I bet Denki's gonna love it!" She closed the box, handing it to Hanta for safekeeping as the whispering around them increased in volume.
"It's Chargebolt?" Their secretary said, on her way to deliver papers to the big boss, "The one Ground Zero is proposing to?"
The two heroes nodded, and her smile was wide.
"Well, it seems some of our interns owe me money."
"What?" Hanta laughed, while Mina pouted.
"There's been a betting pool for a while on who Ground Zero was with, and I just won."
Katsuki overheard the last words she said on his way out, snatching the box back and putting it into his locker. "Fuck you and your stupid betting pools!"
Katsuki hated patrol in general. From the comments to the swarming to false reports and holy mother of fuck, the paparazzi. He hated every bit of it, on principle. What right does the media have to his personal life? None. None whatsoever.
But he kept up appearances; a face of indifference and alert senses as people around him acted as if they'd never seen a hero on patrol before. If Denki were here, Katsuki knew, then it wouldn't be a facade to put on for the media. Oh, yeah, the cameras loved Denki. Never could get a bad shot of him, not even when he went stupid.
How the hell was someone supposed to be grumpy with someone who was perpetually happy and warm next to them? Katsuki supposed he was the only person in the world with the ability to keep himself upset around people like that. But still, Denki made him happy with his mere existence. Even when they fought, it never ended badly. Cheer exuded itself from the blonde, spreading all around to the world.
"Ground Zero! Ground Zero, is it true you've got a secret lover?" A news reporter asked, referring to the recent pictures surfacing of Katsuki buying the ring. His anger levels rose, eye twitching slightly and his fingers tapping against his thigh as he muttered out a blatant "No comment."
"Why were you in the jewelry store, Ground Zero? Who's the lucky lady?"
Like a teenager, Katsuki wanted to scream and walk away from the situation. Taking a deep breath, he stared everywhere but at the man following him. How was anyone supposed to work with blood hungry people like that around?
"No comment." He hissed out, continuing on his route for patrol. Today's route brought him by the park, where the festival was being set up for the festival. The same festival, in fact, that he and Denki went to as their first date.
What a first date that had been.
Back in their first year, when Katsuki was still as impulsive as ever, and when Denki had been far more snarky and inclined to trouble. Somehow, they'd come together for the festival, which was more of an event than an actual proper festival and had made a mutual agreement to avoid their classmates together. He couldn't help but smile at the memory of Denki with his stupid mask, walking around with their hands entwined to look like a couple so as to seem less suspicious to their attending classmates. Specifically, those who had taken the day as an excuse to have a date. Denki still had the plush gray cat he'd won for him in their closet. The photo reel from the booth was still in their yearbooks, despite Katsuki's claims of burning them when he had gotten the chance.
Ever since, every year, they'd attended together. And every year, they took another photo reel, which had gotten closer and closer as their relationship progressed.
"Ground-" The news reporter attempted again, and Katsuki had to clench his fist in order not to blast the man's face in. In his twenty-two years of life, the powers that be had never tested him as much as they did on this day.
"One question. Then you leave me alone to do patrol." He said through gritted teeth, and the media man's eyes lit up.
"A-Alright then! So, Ground Zero, who were you buying the jewelry for? Is it an engagement ring perhaps?"
Katsuki shouldn't have indulged the mongrel.
"I bought it for my partner," He supplied, "That's all. Fuck off." And with the final note, he walked away and went back to work.
"Katsu!" Denki called with a bright smile, waiting for him once he gets out of work.
Katsuki rolled his eyes at the antics of his partner, Mina patting him on the back on her own way out.
"Go get 'em, Your Majesty!" She cheered in a whisper, which caused Katsuki to roll his eyes.
The crisp late summer air was a blissful respite after spending the day on patrol. He'd bagged a few villains, but nothing worth reporting about since the damage had been minimal.
"Ready to go, babe?" Denki asked, walking alongside him with a grin. He'd pinned back his hair to hide the lightning bolt, which allowed them to blend into the crowd further. He wore black jeans, a loose dark blue shirt, along with his gray sneakers. A red flannel had been tied around his waist to complete the little look he'd gone for.
"Yeah, let's go."
In recent years, the festival had become less and less of an official event, where attendees could come wearing whatever they pleased so as to make the hero on duty not be as targeted and more able to do their job. For this festival, on this particular day, Kyoka had been chosen as the sacrificial hero. Always, every year, children would take the opportunity to bother the hero on duty and play stupid pranks. So, to make it less obvious who was the hero on duty, the officials had decided to make it come as you are.
They arrived at the well-lit park as the sun began to sink over the horizon, and Katsuki could see Kyoka already having made eye contact with them on her way over, though she couldn't contact them until well into the night.
Deftly, they avoided their former classmate like the plague, not out of any ill will but instead to mess with her. What? They had to have fun too. After an hour, the weight of the little box in Katsuki's pocket felt as if it had been lifted, along with the nerves which came from the significance of such a little thing. Finally, they'd been cornered by Kyoka by a hill which they always watched the fireworks from.
"Kaminari, Bakugo!" She waved, Denki's eyes lighting up as he dragged the ashy blonde over to her.
"Hey, Jirou! It's been a while, hasn't it?" Denki laughed, and Katsuki merely stood there without care for the situation.
"I guess it has. Huh. Just a head's up, the fireworks were rescheduled, so you two might want to go claim your spot now because they're announcing it in five minutes." There either wasn't much for her talk about despite chasing them around all evening, she didn't want to, or she genuinely didn't care about catching up. Katsuki assumed the second option was responsible.
"Thanks, Jirou!" Denki waved goodbye as someone else called for her attention and he turned to Katsuki, who's heart thumped wildly at the sight of his smile in the sunset light, "Let's claim our seats, yeah?"
Suddenly, the weight of the tiny box came back tenfold. And with that weight came the nerves. He once heard nerves mean you care about something, but he'd never been one to let them get the better of him. Until tonight. They laid their jackets down on the ground by the tree at the top of the hill, sitting down and looking over the festival together.
"Hey, Katsu?" Denki said, snuggled up against his chest.
"Yeah, what is it?" Katsuki mumbled back, finally sitting down after a day on his feet letting him relax.
"I'm sorry you had to work today, it must've sucked."
"Not as much as it could've, media was a bitch though."
"Isn't it always?"
Katsuki cracked a smile; Denki's happiness is infectious.
"Everyone, the fireworks will begin in two minutes! Two minutes!"
"I saw your fights today, Katsu." Denki hummed, sighing in contentment at being so close.
"Oh yeah? What did they say about me this time?"
"Other than the usual? Not much."
Katsuki hummed, watching as people flooded to the free space around them to watch the fireworks. It filled faster than he expected it to, with a small local media crew covering the event. The countdown began.
"Fifteen!"
"Hey, Denki?" Katsuki said, his heart pounding in his ears.
"Fourteen!"
"Yeah?" Denki purred, not willing to ruin his voice by joining the countdown this year.
"Thirteen!"
"Stand up, let's join them."
"Twelve!"
"You sure, Katsu? You never wanted to join before."
"Eleven!"
"I've turned down my hearing aids. Why the fuck not?'
"Ten!"
"Then yeah!"
"Nine!"
They both stood, Denki leaning against the tree slightly and refusing to let go of Katsuki's hand.
"Eight!"
The people around them started turning on their phones, ready to record the fireworks. Katsuki squeezed the electric blonde's hand gently. He wasn't a romantic; words were never his specialty but he needed them to be right.
"Seven!"
"Oi, Sparky."
"Six!"
"Yeah?"
"Five!"
"D'you wanna spend forever together?"
"Four!"
"What do you mean, Katsu?"
"Three!"
"I mean, this." Katsuki let go of Denki's hand, taking the box out of his pocket as he saw Denki's eyes widen in the light of cell phones surrounding and his own quirk acting up, frizzing their hair.
"Two!"
He knelt down onto one knee, only now realizing how cliche the whole set up was. Luckily for him, the years had taught him how much his partner loved cliches, especially romantic ones. He held the ring box in his hand, opening it as tears filled the amber eyes staring at him. "Kaminari Denki, will you marry me?"
"One!"
Denki nodded a teary smile, fireworks launching with a whistle and cheers surrounding them as he surged forward, pressing their lips together. Damn whoever watched, he was too happy to care about public images. He'd known Katsuki hated proposals, had heard him scoff and say how overrated they were, and yet here they both were.
"I love you," Denki whispered against his lips, tears streaming down his face. Happiness exuded from his entire being, only for Katsuki to pull back and take the ring from its satin placement, sliding it onto the smaller blonde's finger.
They separated with red faces and fast pulses, sitting back to let Denki take in the details of the metal band. A new wave of tears came to the amber eyes, overwhelming him as he held his hands over his chest.
"Hemingway? Katsu, you sap!"
"Shut up, Sparky." Katsuki rolled his eyes, the colored blasts of fireworks lighting up his face in the most beautiful way possible.
Sure, working had sucked throughout the day, but watching the anniversary of their first date become a new celebration of memories was a better experience than could ever be brought down by mere villains.
And exactly two years later, on their wedding anniversary where Katsuki had to work again, Mina finally asked the question which had been on her mind since that fateful day.
"Why all the cracks? Even your wedding band has fake cracks, Denki!"
Denki merely smiled at her and motioned to her own engagement ring.
"Ernest Hemingway once said, 'We are all broken. That’s how the light gets in.' and Katsu is my light. I'm his and he's mine. Isn't that great?"
"Awwwww, man, that's so sappy, even for His Majesty, Bakugo!"
"Wouldn't that make me the mistress, my Queen?" Denki chuckled at his own usage of the joke, but the pink woman only pouted.
"Nah, I like my Hanta too much to be Bakugo's queen. You can have him."
"Good, because I wasn't planning on letting my husband go any time soon."