Author's note: ((Manga Spoilers HEAVY in this chapter and this note. So if you're not caught up I'd heavily recommend doing that before reading unless you dont mind spoilers)) I'm in shambles, my heart just got curb-stomped. I'm hoping he magically comes back to life, so I'm just going to continue on like that horrible thing never even happened because I'm in denial :) I knew it was coming so I planned in advance though. ))

Ch. 16

Ami was practically sweating by the time she joined the girls downstairs. She hadn't had to hide anything of this caliber since she'd been at Seiai with Michiko, and despite that having carried it's own risk with it, this situation had one that was even bigger.

If word were to get out that she and Katsuki we're a thing- or if it got out that they'd slept together, she knew she'd get snatched out of UA so quick her head would spin. She was sure she could fight it and probably win, but that would come at the cost of being at odds with her uncle.

And picking a significant other over family wasn't something she'd done before. Or ever even thought to do.

She knew the risks, though, so she'd done her best to abide by her given set of rules. She'd kept her grades up, participated in class and trainings, and stayed out of trouble. But the second she'd started developing feelings for Katsuki... it was basically a death sentence for all that good behavior. The feelings had sprung up from irritation, which was enough of a sign to show the strength of her attraction to him, and had even persevered through them falling out for as long as they had. Now that she was actually with him and had the real explanation as to why they'd fallen out... she really didn't want to blow their cover.

"Finally!" Mina groans, pushing up from the table and walking over to Ami. "You should really set alarms or something to remind you when you have plans." She stops in front of her and crosses her arms. "...Well?"

Ami squirms slightly, "... I'm sorry?"

The pink girl huffs, "Acceptable enough."

Still, she did need to let Mina in on the secret. She wanted to know what Mina had already known prior to everything changing with Katsuki. She could have asked Katsuki himself, since it was him that brought up Mina in the first place.

"Did Mina tell you shit? If she did and you're mad at me just say that."

Ami sighs and grabs Mina by the arm, pulling her over to the far side of the kitchen. "I need to ask you something," She starts, dropping her voice low. "It's important."

"Important how?"

"Katsuki... He said something yesterday that had do do with you."

Mina's eyebrow quirks up, "Katsuki?"

Fuck. "He got mad because I was acting weird around him and he said, and I quote, 'Did Mina tell you shit? If she did and you're mad at me just say that'." Ami continues, ignoring the question. "Led to a whole... moment, but him saying that stuck with me."

Her friend purses her lips and leans back on her heels, "First, tell me what kind of 'moment' you two had. And when you got on first name basis."

Ami sighs, "I think we both know damn well what kind of moment."

You can practically see the wheels turning in Mina's head before she gasps, putting her hands up to her mouth. "Did you fuck him?" She whispers, eyes wide.

Ami feels the fire flash through her face. "Mina focus." She hisses, refraining from answering. "That's not what I meant by 'a moment'."

"But you didn't say I'm wrong."

"Mina. What was he talking about?"

Mina pouts, giving up. "Fine, but you are giving me details later." She pushes before continuing. "Bakugo confirmed my suspicions and told me he had a crush on you."

"So you knew?!" Ami whisper-hisses.

"He was absolute ass at trying to hide it. That's something both of you have in common there."

"How did it get brought up?"

Mina crosses her arms and looks off to the side, thinking. "He came to my dorm one night and basically asked for my help. That's how I knew that boy had it bad. Bakugo never asks for help."

"Help with...?"

"Winning you over."

Ami snorts, "Well, I guess I should be thankful that you didn't just give me away then and there. I think it only would've inflated his ego to find out he already had."

"Exactly. So I put him through the dance as a trial, that he failed mostly, but I think it still gave him the push he needed."

"Trial?"

Mina gives her a sheepish smile, "I... may or may not have asked Kirishima to show you an extra good time because Bakugo thought you liked him."

Ami sighs, "That much I already knew. And I told him he was wrong." Guess I wasn't convincing enough then. "So you and Eijiro worked together on this then?"

"You could say that. He was tired of seeing his best friend brood."

"And all of this needs to be kept a secret," Ami adds. "If it gets out then I'll leave to change schools again."

"WHY?"

"SHH!" She hisses. "I promised my uncle that I'd stay out of trouble, and I told him that Bakugo wouldn't influence me."

"And now here you are dating him," Mina sighs. "Well damn. Ok. Consider it locked away." She taps her temple.

"Thank you."

But then Mina's eyes start to sparkle with unasked questions and Ami knows immediately that she's going to have to quell that curiosity before she can relax.

The two rejoin the group, very soon after joined by Tsu and Ochako so the girls can eat together. Conversations quickly start up, some of weekend plans and some of school studies, but Ami's mind is... elsewhere.

She had just left Katsuki's room and already she wanted to go back. Climb back in his bed under the covers with him, exchange more sweet words and kisses, more touches...

"You're a million miles away right now." Ochako says softly, pulling Ami from her thoughts and back into the present.

The other girls hadn't noticed yet, continuing to laugh and talk on, so Ami tunes back in. "Hm?"

Ochako's smiling, leaning on her hands with her elbows propped up on the table. "Something good must've happened." She continues. "You're smiling."

Ami blushes and tries to wave it off. "Just happy to be here." She says, which was true. She wasn't used to having a group of friends to spend time with. "At Seiai all the girls were competitive and toxic. It's... nice to have friends that aren't."

"I can't imagine how bad that had to have felt. Wanting to go to a school to be a hero and having to deal with all of that instead."

In truth, her parents had wanted her to go to Seiai. She'd wanted to go to U.A. from the very start, feeling like that would be her best way to end up as one of the big league pro heroes. She trained her quirk on her own as a kid from moment it had manifested, testing to see what she could do and if it was the kind of quirk that would get her to her goal. When her quirk first appeared she was home with her parents and had seen a large spider on the wall. In her panic, the black fog had started to emerge from her palms. Her parents, who at that time hadn't seen the spider, were more focused on the appearance of her quirk than whatever had caused it.

Ami's father had reached down and grabbed her hand -admittedly a bad move since he had zero knowledge of what her quirk was- and had immediately been "overloaded". She wanted the spider gone, and had basically steered her father towards the corner it was in so he could see it.

Her father's quirk is telekinesis, something relatively simple yet powerful when needed. Her mother's was what gave Ami's quirk it's incapacitating aspect; she could also overpower a person's senses, but to the point where they couldn't use them. Sight, touch, taste, smell, hearing, and moment were disabled entirely, but her quirk could only be used for roughly 4 minutes before it started to lose it's hold, as her mother never received any type of hero training to strengthen it.

When Ami had been told to try out for admission to Seiai, she had only done it for her parents. But when shed received the new of her acceptance she'd had to kiss her dreams of attending UA goodbye for good.

Or so she had thought.

Now here she was, living the dream she'd long since abandoned, with new friends, a new lease on life, and a boyfriend. One that she still couldn't fully wrap her mind around having after how the year had started off. One that she also couldn't wait to get back to.

By the time the girls have finished eating, Mina's practically bouncing out of her chair. The others had plans afterwards so that would leave Ami at the mercy of Mina's merciless questioning. Usually she loved talking to her, but this situation was so fragile that Ami was almost afraid to breathe wrong for fear that the secret would get out immediately.

By the time Mina pulls Ami to her dormroom, she's managed to calm down significantly. This was her best friend, and there was no real reason to fear opening up to her. Though, despite this, she was still hesitant to talk too much. Ami could assume that Kirishima already knew from either 1.) Katsuki telling him, or 2.) Kirishima reading him and knowing immediately.

So it should technically be OK to tell Mina a few things, at the most.

"Tell me how it happened!" Mina squeals, pulling Ami from her thoughts. They sit on her bed, the pink girl bouncing with excitement.

Ami purses her lips, sitting cross-legged on the pink and black comforter, and clears her throat. "Well... we went to go train as usual. I got there before he did." She explains.

"Go on."

Rolling her eyes, she obliges. "One of my... uh... daydreams got to me while we were training and broke my focus. Katsuki grabbed my wrists to stop to flow of my quirk and... well, he got too close."

Mina's eyes are sparkling, "Then did he kiss you?"

"No. Mr. Aizawa walked in and scared us apart and that's how we ended up getting assigned to cleaning the classroom."

"And then he kissed you."

"No," Ami laughs. "Actually we got into a small argument. When I panic or get nervous my quirk activates on it's own, and he saw my smoke as a threat. He stepped up to me and that was when he asked if you'd told me anything. He thought I knew he talked to you and I was mad about him liking me after how he'd treated me prior."

"Are you?"

"Am I what?"

"Mad." Mina says. "He did speak to you pretty rudely."

Yeah, because he was touchy after the dream he'd had. "No, honestly." Ami shrugs. "I got over it." And she had. Especially given the recent... developments. She'd burned through all her anger earlier on anyway, so now she could actually enjoy said developments.

"Then what happened after that?" Mina presses further.

Ami can feel the blush before Mina even reacts to it. "We... well..." Maybe I should leave that part out.

"You fucked in the classroom?!"

"MINA NO!" Ami's laughing now, covering her face with her hands. "I admitted that I liked him accidentally and he told me he felt the same."

"And...?"

Ami uncovers her face and grins, "And then I kissed him."

Mina gasps, delighted, "Shut up!"

"After that I... went to his dorm. He gave me the key and sent me up ahead of him."

"And I'm guessing that's where you were when I called this morning."

She nods.

"...How was it?"

Ami playfully pushes Mina over, "Wouldn't you like to know."

After a second of debate, she decides that she'll keep the deep details on that part of the story to herself. Though, she does share the fact that Katsuki would be spending the night in her room that night.

And that was something she was very much looking forward to.

"Here?"

"Fell out of a tree when I was 5."

Ami's eyebrows practically touch her hairline, "Why were you in a tree?"

"Trying to see if I could use my quirk to fly," He laughs softly. "Surprise, I can. Just... not when I first tried it."

They'd been laying in bed for the last three hours together, talking about life and things prior to them meeting. He had -admittedly- been overindulging too, closing his eyes and letting himself enjoy the peppering of tiny kisses she had started to plaster his face with. He wasnt... used to something like this. This outpouring of affection. With every gentle caress and kiss she gave him, she'd been steadily chipping away at the wall he'd built up around himself. That had also given her time to really look at him, and while he was used to people looking at him, he just wasn't used to them looking this closely. That was when she started to trace his scars, gently and hesitantly, prompting him to start explaining them.

"And what about this one?"

Katsuki gently touches the faded scar across his eyelid that her fingers had softly traveled over seconds prior, "From our final battle against All For One. That's actually where the worst of these are from."

He didn't like talking about it, but once Ami had started tracing the scars on his chest he knew the questions were inevitable.He knew his tone gave away how he felt about this specific topic the moment he spoke on it, but it wasn't something he could help. The pain was still fairly new.

"I... died, for a moment," he continues.

Ami shoots straight up in bed, turning to look down at him, "Excuse me? You what?"

Katsuki sighs heavily and his hand drops to the scar on the left side of his chest briefly before he holds up his arm, the dark marring of scars there another reminder he could never erase. He still hadn't fully recovered the strength in it after it had been mangled almost beyond repair. "My heart stopped." He says quietly now, moving his finger back and forth in front of his eyes to keep himself grounded as he recalls the memory. "If it hadn't been for Best Jeanist, Edgeshot, Izuku, and Eri I'd probably have stayed dead. Or lived but just never recovered."

Ami doesn't immediately reply, sitting there in silence as her eyes scan his face. So he takes that as a sign to continue if he wished.

"We didn't know All For One had pulled one last trick, and it put us in worse danger than we'd been in initially. I ended up momentarily blind in one eye with a useless arm before I died. Shigaraki managed to reach me before our current Big Three or Mirko at that time could pull me out of the way to stop him, and he punched straight through my chest and into my heart. The only reason I didn't stay dead was because Best Jeanist managed to use his quirk to temporarily stitch my heart together before we... found a more permanent solution." Which had come at the cost of the other pro's life. Their #4.

"Then what happened...?"

"Well, apparently Izuku got there, saw me, and..." Katsuki pauses before shaking his head. "Went nuclear. Almost killed Shigaraki. He managed to get a hold on himself and did some kind of internal tampering through their quirks. Separated his consciousness from the big bad's."

"...I thought Shigaraki did die."

Damn it. He didn't want to lie to her but it wasn't public knowledge that they'd managed to "save" him. The general public was filled in on just about everything else leading up to the fight, so the secrets of One For All and All For One had long since ceased to be secrets. So with that, he goes with an overall truth. "Tomura Shigaraki is dead," he continues. "Izuku just wasn't the one who killed him."

Ami seemingly senses his discomfort and changes the focus of the topic, "How long did it take you to fully recover?" She asks after a moment.

Truthfully, Katsuki hadn't fully recovered. Aside from the strength in his arm not having fully returned yet, he had suffered a massive setback as far as the output of his quirk went. His sight in his right eye had mostly returned but sometimes it lost focus. Due to the side-effects from Eri's quirk, Katsuki was having to re-learn his own body all over again to add to it. His quirk's power was still there, just suppressed. He hadn't been able to make the sweat on his body detonate anywhere but in his palms again, so he was still trying to figure out how to make it happen a second time. He couldn't push himself as hard because it caused strain on his heart, and his parents were concerned that something could give and he'd die anyway.

His parents had completely changed after that experience. His mom was... softer, towards him now. His dad was more-or-less the same but he started spending more time with him than usual, which started when Katsuki was still in the hospital recovering. He was told he'd been in a coma for a while, but all he remembered was firing off a concentrated blast at Shigaraki and then the next thing he knew he was waking up in the hospital almost two months later.

Izuku had been asleep on the couch beside his bed when he woke up and had cried immediately when he woke up and saw Katsuki sitting up in his bed. After he'd calmed down, he'd caught him up on everything that had happened while he'd been asleep, recovering his energy. Including the sacrifice that had been made to save his life.

"If I'm honest," Katsuki begins again. "I never did fully recover from that. I don't think anyone could. My firepower didn't fully return, so that's why I train so much now. I'm trying to get back to where I was... it's like playing 'catch-up' with a past version of myself."

"You seem plenty strong to me."

He sighs, gently rubbing circles on her back as he stares up at the ceiling. "That's because you didn't see me at my peak." He murmurs. "When I went all-out."

Ami kisses his forehead softly and brushes his hair back from his face. "You'll get there again," She says. "And you'll surpass even that. I know it."

Katsuki doesn't fully agree, but he rewards her with one of his rare smiles. "Thanks, Shortstack."

Her fingers go down to travel lightly over the uneven puckering of scars across his torso. "All of these wounds are so... deep." Her touch is gentle but curious, making tiny shivers travel up and down his spine with every gentle brush of her fingertips. "And all from the same villain... Weren't you ever scared to face him after all he'd done?"

Katsuki shrugs, "He didn't put me down the first time he tried. Or the second. Or hell, even the third. It took him four tries to kill me and even then it still didn't stick. Being in the way of danger is what a hero does, and if that would've scared me off then it would've meant that I didn't deserve my hero license after all."

Ami's silent for a moment, contemplative. "Aside from being the #1 hero," She says softly. "What other things do you want in life?"

"I want to open my own agency."

"Well of course, but I mean like... personal life goals."

Katsuki looks over at her, studying her face. "You mean aside from hero work." He hadn't really put a ton of thought into it, really. Not beyond a few things, which is what he rattles off next. "Pay for my parents to live comfortably, get a place of my own, a car." He shrugs. "Why?"

Ami shifts a little, "What if... I was there? Then what?"

He blinks hard, his train of thought derailing. "...If you were there?" In truth, Katsuki hadn't though about dating anyone to the point that he'd never factored the possibility of a live-in girlfriend before.

Or anyone beyond that.

"I just figured..." She continues, hesitancy slowing her speech. "That it would make sense to see where our wants line up if it got to that point."

"Well what do you have as a personal life goal?" He counters, eyes meeting hers again.

She doesn't push back, "Well... I want a family." Her eyes drift to the window, faraway now. "I want to get married, and maybe have a kid or two after some good years of hero work."

Katsuki had never thought about either of those things. Getting married just sounded like gaining a lot of extra expectations, and kids? Kids never even crossed his mind aside from whenever his parents would off-handedly mention grandchildren in some distant, hopeful way. Even then, when the thought of kids did cross his mind, it was fleetingly.

"I guess I just want to see if that's something you'd be... willing to be a part of, if the time came." Ami continues, eyes scanning his face now for any sign of change.

"I'll be honest," Katsuki sits up and tugs her close, pressing his cheek to the top of her head when she lays it on his shoulder. "I never thought too deeply on any of that. Before now, having either of those things was never even a possibility since getting married means you have to fall in love and all that shit first. I didn't even look at people for too long until... you. But..." He pauses, thinking back.

"But...?"

He presses a kiss to the crown of her head, "But, if our previous #1 could do it, I could do it better."

Ami's nervous energy drops almost immediately, her body relaxing against his. "So, you think that you could-"

"Love you?" Katsuki murmurs against her hair. "I'm already starting to."

She looks up at him then, her nose gently brushing his. "So the feeling's mutual then." She says, voice just above a whisper.

"I'm still... new to all this, though." He continues, tucking a stray curl behind her ear. "So be patient with me, ok?"

Her lips gently press against his, and he returns it with more enthusiasm, gently pushing hers open in a deeper kiss. "I can do that." She says against his lips, a smile in her voice now. "I'm known for my patience."

Katsuki snorts softly, "Now that has to be a lie."

Ami grins and kisses the tip of his nose, "I waited on you, didn't I?" She cups his cheek in her hand and runs her fingertips lightly through the hair behind his ear.

"I still feel bad that you liked me that whole time and all I was doing was running from it."

"Well at least you apologized."

Katsuki exhales through his nose in a huff, "And you almost died immediately following it."

Ami's mouth drops open in shock, the corners lightly curled in a smile. "I did not!" She laughs. "I just slipped."

"And almost died."

"You caught me though," She reminds him. "What a hero."

Now it's his turn to laugh, "Luckily for you." Then he pauses, gently laying his hand over hers that still hold his cheek. "I wanted to kiss you that night." He admits.

"When you caught me?"

He hums an agreement. "I almost didn't want to let you go. There was so much... shit, running through my head already. Then you went and slipped, messed up your towel, and then looked up at me the way you did." He recalls, turning to kiss her palm.

"I wish you would've." Ami murmurs. "I wanted you to."

Katsuki kisses her then, lightly biting down on her bottom lip before he pulls back. "I probably should've, then. I just... thought I was reading you wrong." He remembered the way her eyes had traveled to his lips as he held her close. She hadn't pulled away or even tried to when he did the same, but he'd still let her go all the same. Things were fragile at the time, and he hadn't wanted to push it too far.

"I had a dream about you that night."

This snaps him from his memories, "You did?"

Ami pushes up and throws a leg over his so she can straddle his hips. Her hand goes back to his cheek, a light blush growing in her own. "Turns out I'd wanted you more than I'd thought back then." She says.

Katsuki's hands drop to grip her waist, "And now?"

Emotion flares to life in her eyes at his touch. "And now," She continues. "I want you even more than that."

A shiver travels up his spine at her words, "Let's do something about it then."

And so they did.