Nothing Left to Manage

Afternoon · The Grand Dynasty Ballroom — morning

The morning has had its say, and the ballroom begins to breathe differently — the credenza crowd dispersing by degrees, voices dropping into the lower register of a midday that hasn't quite decided what it wants to be yet. Megi drifts the last few steps to Kirishima's side at the sideboard, unhurried, and the ease of it is the quietest thing in the room: no announcement, no explanation, just her shoulder arriving beside his as though it already knew the way. He doesn't remark on it — only reaches past the coffee service and fills a second cup with the same deliberateness he gives everything, then sets it on the sideboard edge nearest her hand without making it a gesture. The afternoon light coming through the tall eastern windows has gone warmer, golden, and the crest banners overhead catch it in amber — and then, from somewhere between the breakfast tables, the sound of a chair scraping back too sharply, and Izuku Midoriya's voice going very still in a way that is the opposite of quiet.

Eijiro Kirishima: "Coffee's fresh. You look like you could use something warm."

Izuku Midoriya: "I'm not saying you're wrong, Kacchan. I'm saying the way you're right is going to cost someone else the choice."

Katsuki Bakugo: "There it is. There's the sanctimonious garbage I've been waiting for — 'someone else's choice,' like you're not standing here trying to manage the whole board again."

Shoto Todoroki: "This isn't the place."

Katsuki Bakugo: "Nobody asked you, Todoroki. And you —"

She looks up toward Bakugo at the sound of his voice and, as promised, doesn't blink. Doesn't flinch. Just waits for him to finish talking.

She looks up — not startled, not performing calm, just present — and Bakugo catches it immediately, the way a fighter clocks a stance shift. He was mid-sentence and he knows it, and what he does with that knowledge is not stop. He turns three-quarters toward her, the last of his attention peeling off Izuku, and the room reorganizes around that pivot: Shindo's chin lifts half a degree; Hawks goes very, very still at mid-ballroom; at the credenza Dabi sets his cup down without sound. The interrupted line finishes the way Bakugo does most things — without ceremony, without softening, aimed directly at the place where it will cost the most. At the sideboard, Kirishima's shoulders have gone level, neither forward nor away, holding the kind of quiet that is not passive — just chosen.

Katsuki Bakugo: "And you — you've been standing there since the beginning of this gala holding that equal footing line like it's a shield, but it's not. It's a stall. And everybody in this room knows whose side of the pond you slept on last night, so I'm asking you, in front of all of them: when does the stall end?"

Izuku Midoriya: "Kacchan — that's not what this is —"

Katsuki Bakugo: "I didn't ask you, Deku. I asked her. She's right there. She's not blinking. So go ahead, Megi Dullahan — finish it."

Shoto Todoroki: "She doesn't owe you a timetable."

Katsuki Bakugo: "No, she doesn't. I'm not asking for one. I'm asking if she's got an answer or just a very convincing impression of someone who does."

She takes a slow breath in, steadying herself so she doesn't flinch, doesn't have another panic attack. She meets his eyes, "It isn't a stall. It was an open door. Someone else walked through it, Bakugo-san. Don't take that out on anyone else but me."

The breath goes in slow and controlled — the only tell that it cost her anything — and when her eyes come up they are level, and they stay there. The room goes very quiet on a different frequency than before: not the held-breath anticipation of someone about to flinch, but the specific silence of a room that just watched someone plant their feet into the floor and refuse to move. Bakugo's jaw tightens by one degree. He has been pushing to find the crack in the composure since he opened his mouth, and what he found instead is her handing him back the full weight of his own dare without any decoration on it — open door, someone walked through it, and she is not apologizing for which direction that door faced. At the credenza, Dabi turns his face the remaining degree and goes entirely still; at mid-ballroom, one of Hawks's wings adjusts a single feather's width before settling. Kirishima does not move — shoulders level, neither forward nor back — but his hand closes around the coffee cup beside hers and sets it down on the sideboard with a sound that is very, very quiet and very deliberate.

Katsuki Bakugo: "Open door. That's what you're calling it. So you left it open for whoever had the nerve to walk through, and when someone did, you want me to stand here and not say anything. I'm not blaming him. I'm asking you — look me in the eye and tell me that's the full story, Dullahan. No martyrs. No 'it was equal footing.' Just you."

Izuku Midoriya: "Kacchan, that's enough —"

Katsuki Bakugo: "I said I didn't ask you, Deku. I mean it. This is between me and her."

Shoto Todoroki: "It stopped being just between you and her the moment you named the pond in front of the room."

"Don't yell at him," She snaps, clearly sharper than intended, before she softens, just a little, adding, "Izuku-san, it's okay." She squares her shoulders, meeting his eyes, "I'm not asking you not to say anything. I am asking you not to act as if Eijiro personally attacked you because he did what I laid out to everyone was necessary - proving that I was what they wanted with actions, not just talk - before you did."

The snap lands before she can sand the edge off it, sharper than she meant — and the room registers it the way rooms do when someone who has been holding perfect posture for three days finally sets something down without ceremony. Izuku goes very still, hands open, and the stillness is not hurt exactly — it is the specific quiet of someone absorbing a truth they already knew and needed to hear from that direction. Bakugo's jaw tightens by one more degree, not in anger this time but in something that might be, buried under three layers of his particular brand of pride, something adjacent to being impressed against his will. She is not explaining herself — she is drawing a line, and she is drawing it at him, and his eyes flick once to Kirishima — the fastest possible look — and then back to her face, and his arms don't re-fold. At the credenza, Dabi turns his cup a full quarter-turn the other direction and doesn't pretend he isn't listening anymore; at mid-ballroom, one of Hawks's wings settles the remaining feather into place and goes absolutely still. By the door, Hanta Sero, who has been nursing the same coffee for the last twenty minutes in a way that has nothing to do with the coffee, sets the cup down on the nearest tray without looking — something in the room shifted while he was watching the floor, and he felt it.

Izuku Midoriya: "You're right. I'm — yes. I hear you, Megi-san. I'm sorry."

Katsuki Bakugo: "So you're defending him now. Out loud. In front of the room. That the answer you wanted me to hear, Dullahan?"

Eijiro Kirishima: "She's not defending me. She's just saying what's true."

Katsuki Bakugo: "Yeah. I know. That's the part I actually respect."

Shoto Todoroki: "Then let it be enough for this morning."

"No- I- Izuku, I'm sorry," She apologizes, "I didn't mean to-" She looks toward Bakugo, setting her jaw as she nods, "Yes. I am. Todoroki-san is right. That's end end of it."

The apology lands on Izuku before she's finished drawing breath — clean and genuine, the snap already costing her something she didn't budget for this morning — and he absorbs it the way he absorbs everything that comes from her: completely, without deflection, hands open on the table. She turns back to Bakugo and sets her jaw, and the nod she gives him is not surrender — it is a door closing on her terms, the same composure she opened the morning with, now carrying a small visible seam where the sharp edge slipped through. The room reads it honestly. Shindo at the back table lowers his pen by one degree. Denki, at the credenza, picks up his cup and says nothing, but his eyes move from her face to Bakugo's and back again with a care he is not performing. At mid-ballroom, one of Hawks's wings adjusts a single feather and goes still. Kirishima, solid at her shoulder, waits until the room has taken its breath — and then, quietly enough that only she catches it, he tips his head the smallest degree toward her, the brass cuff-chains at his wrist catching the morning light as he sets the coffee service back without sound.

Katsuki Bakugo: "Oh, Todoroki-san is right now. You're closing it on his cue. That's real interesting, Dullahan."

Izuku Midoriya: "Megi-san — please. It's already okay. It was already okay before you said it."

Eijiro Kirishima: "You handled it clean. That's all anyone was going to get out of this morning anyway."

Shoto Todoroki: "It is enough. For this morning."

Katsuki Bakugo: "Fine. I'll let it sit. But I didn't come to this gala to let things sit forever — and she knows that."

💬 "I know. I'm counting on it." — hold Bakugo's gaze

The five words land without decoration — no smile softening them, no apology tucked inside — and the room takes a single, collective breath and holds it. She doesn't blink. She doesn't look away. The morning light from the eastern windows catches the angle of her jaw, the sand-colored linen at her shoulders still and unbothered, and for a long beat Bakugo's expression does something complicated: the jaw-line tightens, then releases, then tightens again — the specific face of a man who asked for spine and got it handed back at full weight and doesn't quite know what to do with the fact that he's satisfied. His arms, still not refolded since her first answer, hang easy at his sides now, and that is the tell — Bakugo Katsuki at rest costs him something, and right now he is paying it without being asked. Across the room, Denki sets his coffee cup down on the credenza with the careful deliberateness of someone who has stopped breathing and forgotten to restart; at the back table, Shindo's pen tilts another degree lower, and his chin lifts as he marks the exchange with the precise attention of someone filing it. By the door, Sero's mouth curves once — not a smile, something more honest, an acknowledgment — and he picks up the nearest tray without looking away from her. Kirishima, at her shoulder, does nothing at all, which is its own answer: she did not need him to, and he knew it before she did.

Katsuki Bakugo: "Counting on it. Yeah. Alright, Dullahan. I'll remember you said that."

Izuku Midoriya: "She means it, Kacchan. That's the part you should actually be listening for."

Katsuki Bakugo: "I know she means it. That's why I'm going to."

Eijiro Kirishima: "Morning went okay."

Shoto Todoroki: "There's something coming this afternoon. I can feel it settling already."

move on to the next activity

The five words land — "I know. I'm counting on it." — and Bakugo's chin lifts one degree, the specific tell of a man who has been handed exactly what he asked for and is not entirely sure what to do with the fact that it fits. His arms stay easy at his sides. He doesn't pivot away, doesn't refold, doesn't reach for another word to fill the silence he created — and that is the concession, cleaner than any formal acknowledgment he could have produced. The morning light, still gold through the tall eastern windows, sits across the whole room without opinion. Izuku exhales at the breakfast table — not relief exactly, something more like the particular steadiness of someone who was braced for worse and can now put the brace down. At the far credenza, Dabi turns his face the remaining degree back toward his cup; at mid-ballroom, one of Hawks's wings adjusts one final feather into place and the whole arrangement goes still as a held breath. Somewhere in the near background, Shinso has not moved from the window column — but his eyes, which have been tracking Denki's position relative to the credenza for the past twenty minutes, finally shift one degree toward the door, like a man quietly filing something away. Then Present Mic's voice arrives through the estate speakers — warm, unhurried, with the particular cheerful authority of someone who has been watching the whole morning from a production booth and has timed this exact moment to the second.

Katsuki Bakugo: "Good. Then neither of us has to pretend we don't know what this afternoon is about."

Present Mic: "Alright, dynasty darlings — morning's had its drama, the sun has cleared the east ridge, and your host has it on excellent authority that one very lucky heir is about to get a very private evening. Date card goes out at sundown. You've got the afternoon to make your case — or make your peace."

Eijiro Kirishima: "You handled that like you've been doing it your whole life."

Izuku Midoriya: "Megi-san — I want you to know, whatever comes this afternoon, I'm not going to make it harder."

Shoto Todoroki: "It's starting to settle already. Whatever it is — it'll find the room before the hour is out."