Chasing Tinkerbelle (BakuDeku)

4 - Talks And Dinner

Pissed that the plans that he'd had for his life were ruined and foolishly blaming his father, Katsuki had stopped trying in school.

He'd no longer cared about his grades, his family, friends or anything for that matter and had started focusing on getting the hell away from his father.

The morning that he was supposed to graduate, he grabbed a dufflebag, filled it with clothes, emptied his meager savings account and hitched a ride out of town.

A week later with a fake ID in his hand, he walked into a Marine recruitment center and enlisted.

It had taken the Marines less than a month to knock him on his arrogant ass and strip away every cocky assumption that he'd ever had about himself. They tore him down and kept him there until he was ready to grow up and be a man.

Joining the Marines had been the most foolish decision of his life, but it had also turned out to be the best thing for him.

Once he'd managed to get his head out of his ass, he'd worked hard to become the soldier that the Marines wanted him to be. They'd also turned him into the man that he never would have been if he'd continued acting like a spoiled brat.

He'd worked hard, earning rank after rank until he found himself leading a Special Forces team.

He would still be there if he hadn't caught a bullet a little too close to his spine for the Marine's liking and one through his right palm, destroying his ability to pull the trigger quick enough to make him anything more than a liability.

So after ten years of serving his country, twelve surgeries to save his life and to make sure that he wouldn't end up in a wheelchair for the rest of it, he'd come home to a father that wanted nothing to do with him, no education to open doors for him and no hirable skills.

If it hadn't been for his family, he would have been truly good and damned.

His mother, brothers, uncles, aunts and cousins had pulled together and made sure that he'd had whatever he needed to get through the last of the surgeries.

They'd brought him to physical therapy when he needed a ride and there had always been someone to hold his hand when the pain became too much.

They'd been there for him every step of the way, making the transition from damaged soldier to civilian easier for him and for that alone, he was eternally grateful.

He always had an invitation to dinner, someone willing to drop everything to help him out and the reminder that he wasn't alone.

It made things a hell of a lot more tolerable for him, but some days...

It wasn't enough.

Some days he longed for a home of his own and not just an apartment that his cousin rented to him for practically nothing.

He wanted someone that looked at him the way that Nejire and Ochaco looked at his cousins. He wanted children that pesters him in and out of house and made him smile even when they were going out of their way to piss him off.

He should be happy that he was alive and had a good job, and he was.

He just wished that there was more to his life than work, his books, eating dinner every other night at one of his uncle's or cousin's homes and looking forward to pissing off his cute little neighbor.

He needed to get off his ass and start dating again, but he just couldn't seem to force himself to get interested in anyone long enough to ask them out.

Like most his relatives, he'd never had a problem finding someone to warm his bed.

Sex was easy, uncomplicated and could be used to scratch an itch. But finding someone that he genuinely liked and wanted to spend time with outside the bedroom was a bit difficult for him. He just wished-

"I think we should focus back on Katsuki and his husband," Tenya announced, completely screwing him over.

Bastard!

"He's not my husband," he said evenly, forcing himself to eat another bite of the mushy rice.

"Not yet," Mirio pointed out.

"For Christ's sake, he's not even my type!" he snapped, not bothering to point out that he actually has no type.

Tinkerbelle was pretty, he'd give him that, but he was also too short for his liking. He was petite and had fluffy dark-green hair which sticks up at odd angles around his head, casting noticeably dark shadows onto itself, had emerald eyes and adorable freckles.

The boy attracts attention, pulls it, really.

But to be honest, he had this 'kid brother' aura about him that just made him want to torment the boy. But more than that, there's just something about his neighbor that he doesn't understand himself.

Despite the cute appearance, Izuku Midoriya is sassy, fiesty, stubborn, and hot-tempered- to him mostly- because whenever he sees the greenette around, he's usually polite, smiley, and patient, but all of that disappears whenever Izuku sees him.

And that's why he calls him Tinkerbelle, because, well, the boy reminds him of the small green fairy.

"Doesn't matter if he's your type or not." Tenya said, taking a bite of his meatloaf and noticeably trying not to cringe.

"Because he's my neighbor?" he asked, not bothering to hide his snort of disgust. When his cousins sent him a 'duh' look, he explained, "I've had plenty of neighbors that I enjoyed pissing off and I didn't marry any of them, so clearly, that is bullshit."

"You've had neighbors before," Mirio agreed, before he added, "but you've never gone out of your way to make any of their lives a living hell."

"That makes Izuku special," Tenya added with a wink before Ochaco said something that sent them all running from the table in search of a trashcan.

"That's not rice," she said, worrying her bottom lip. "That was baked macaroni and cheese."