#fic fodder

Karen didn't feel right about not thanking Tommy, at the very least. She knows the FBI and the military were happy to let everyone rot away down there without a cure, and that would've included her wife.

So, it starts out as a simple thank you, but then they start chatting more and more. He tries really hard not to overstep and ask about Evan, and she tries really hard to avoid the topic all together, while also keeping to herself just how sad he looks.

But it does go both ways. He tries to understand what she's going through when she's having a particularly bad day with Mara, but he's happy to just listen.

They'll occasionally do lunch, and no, Karen doesn't mention it to anyone, as she doesn't want to make it seem like she's choosing sides, especially since she knows that no one has reached out to him since the lab.

But Hen starts to get suspicious. Is Karen hiding something? (Taste of your own medicine, Hen?)

Is Karen cheating? (Taste of your own medicine, Hen?)

Maybe she tasks Howie to help her do some recon one day, and she catches them out to lunch.

The one thing Tommy didn't realize, is that Buck has been making lists about them as well. He finds out two months after they got back together, when he's helping Buck moving and a notebook falls from where it was perched on Buck's hoodies in the closet.

When he crouches down to grab it, he reads "Dates I want to go on with Tommy" and stops in his tracks. There's a long list on the page, some items ticked off - planetarium, art museum, aquarium, picnic - and others - drive in, Disneyland, wine tasting - still waiting for their tick. He's impressed and curious, so he leafs through the pages and stumbles onto other lists: weekend trips ideas, places I want to visit with Tommy, gift ideas for my boyfriend... And then, the most lovely list Tommy's ever seen. "Things I love about Tommy."

It's incredibly long and Tommy doesn't get past the third item on the list (how safe I feel with him) before tears run down his face. That's how Buck finds him, hugging him from behind.

So now, even though things are great, Izuku is rocking that UA teacher AND ProHero life, and they compete with each other every damn day for #1 and they're practically hero partners anyway, Katsuki still has crippling anxiety that Izuku will OBLIVIOUSLY decline again, or something if Katsuki asks him to marry him?

So he's gotta find some super transparent, no-way-it-gets-confused sort of way to propose, and his friends just tell him "fucking get on your knees, hold out a ring and propose, you lovesick idiot", and "it doesnt get any more obvious than that" but you DONT UNDERSTAND IT HAS TO BE MORE SPECIAL THAN THAT, this is Katsuki DynaMight Bakugou, and the love of his life Izuku Deku Midoriya! They have had so much between them, they have saved the world practically hand in hand multiple goddamn times, they are the twin stars, the wonder duo, it has to be UNIQUE, beautiful, poetic, something as meaningful and deep as the years of suppressed yearning Katsuki has felt in his busted up heart.