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barbarian bakugou who has an arranged marriage with you to strengthen the kingdom and refuses to accept he's actually falling in love with you along the way

Barbarian!Bakugo x reader

Warnings: mention of injury

Bakugo had married you as a plot for his own strength, for his tribes strength. You were a means to an end for his dream, and past the official ceremony for your lives to be intertwined, he still hadn’t changed his mind on that. He never even considered changing his mind, because he simply didn’t acknowledge you, he didn’t need to. As if he had some sort of tunnel mindset, that focussed on one thing and only that, to be the best. Everything around him was blackened, cast into darkness by a shadow, apart from his one goal. This was an arranged marriage of convenience. And that was it.

And at some point, you understood that. Particularly on the day, when his large rough hands held yours, as he promised his life to you without a single ounce of his heart truly in his vows. You weren’t a soulmate to him, or barely even a wife, you were a ladder for him to climb over and reach a new piece of land to conquer. What did you expect from a barbarian? All they knew were how to kill and strike chaos, you doubted love was even a developed concept to his kind of people, or maybe they just didn’t care for anything that wasn’t covered in blood. And having understood that, you gave up trying to be that caring wife you really wanted to be. Or at least you tried.

It was hard, pretending a part of your heart didn’t want to love him, because you really wanted to. Bakugo is a hard worker, and took care of your every need be it clothes, wine or any precious jewel from any other land if you ever asked, but none of his heart or even an ounce of feeling was ever put into it, he done it only because you asked and part of that made it hurt even more when asking him for anything. And so, slowly giving up on getting him to be a loving husband to you, you simply and only attended your official wifely duties like attending public feasts with him, but kept yourself much more distant from him in all other aspects. It hurt too much to be near him, like standing close to the sun. But in the same way, standing too far from the sun would kill you, so you remain close enough where it stings, but you at least survive.

And maybe that’s what’s triggered this all, now that Bakugo thinks back to it. When that initial off-putting glow in your eyes faded to a glassed over, dull and greyed look. Maybe that’s when he started to look at you more, see you more. All when it felt a little too late. Seeing you slowly give up on trying to be that intimate lover you wanted to be for him, that he never really wanted, instead you became a more quiet version of yourself. More mute, less touching, more forced. It bothered him.

He notices it, without even realising he’s noticed it. How you go from trying to link arms with him and walk side by side with him, to walking constantly 3 steps behind him. Like some sort of subordinate, you were quick to understand your position in this marriage and somehow that irritated him. Only he would be able to able to be mad about someone doing their job too well. Call him picky, but he didn’t know why it annoyed him himself.

You still shared a bed, the shame of not sharing one was far greater than the shame of exposing yourselves to each other, was it how your skin felt? Was that what caused it all? Bakugo felt like, when he looked at you something deep in his chest was capsizing, a cavity grew there and it ached. As any man would, he continued to ignore it. But when your skin brushed against his in bed, when he felt that warmth your body hid away behind cold stares, it was hard to ignore that ache. Instead that ache would travel from his heart to his mind, and then it does it’s loathe-some wandering.

Thinking of you.

The more he tries to figure out why, the more you consume his thoughts, even when all bloody on hunting grounds, on the edge between severe injury and a bounty able to feed a family for a week, he still thinks of you. The way you smelt when you were against him in the morning unintentionally while you slept. That way you have some more colour and life to your expressions when you talk to the maids or get a nice cut of meat on your plate at dinner. And the way you- fuck. He’s cut his hand while tackling down a boar without even realising it. It’s your fault.

Its you. It’s all you. Why he’s acting weird or can’t even think, its all because of you, somehow sometime you’ve done something to him and he hates the feeling of it. And that powerlessness he feels of being so strong and feared, yet unable to figure out this lingering feeling he has bothers him even more.

You smiled at the seamstress today. And even spared a laugh. Katsuki didn’t intend on walking in on it, but he was passing by, on his way to the armoury when he saw you talking with the aged woman. You looked pretty when you smiled.

Pretty.

When was it he started having words like that in his vocabulary? Maybe when he called over the female jeweller, asking her what would be the best and most precious jewel he could give you. What was he doing anymore? Barbarians didn’t give each other shiny stones on delicate chains, they offered the skins of the most ferocious beasts in the land as a sign of deathly devotion. That was until he found out courting behaviours where you came from were much different. So here he is trying to accommodate to your customs. For you.

What is he doing?

He tries to deny it for a few weeks, pretending it’s nothing. He must be tired, stressed, heck maybe he’s just adjusting himself to having a woman so close to him. But pretending becomes less and less possible by the day. He hates waking up next to you. You always look so defenceless, the guard you have up around him constantly has vanished while you lay there asleep, face completely relaxed, hair unruly, skin bright, much like the you that he met before you married. On most days, he’ll force himself out of bed, pretending he’s having insane thoughts only because he just woke up. He must be half asleep.

Denial.

The fact that you consume his every waking thought makes him more antsy around you, more agitated. He can’t stand the sight of you, yet equally when you’re away, his mind obsesses over you even more. He’s reached a point where the only time he can silence his mind with all its incessant thoughts of you is when you’re right by his side, but that causes a whole new problem for his heart. When was the first time you started to fill his mind with thoughts of you you you? When his heart ached around you and apart from you, when his throat itched every time he spoke to yo-

He remembers now. It was the first winter night you spent together wedded, by then you were only wed for two seasons, and this winter were to be the roughest yet, where things become their worst and darkest in the tribe. Food becomes scarce, the weather becomes cold and brutal, and more people become irritable in these harsh conditions. Katsuki hated the cold, and he hated having to hunt in the winter even more. It was a shitty day, and unexpectedly he came home with an injury from a wild animal he wasn’t prepared to face. It was a large cut on his arm, still bleeding but slowly by the time he arrived home. He remembers that look in your eyes, pure fear, not of him but for him. He remembers how you stayed awake all night, sitting by him with a warm cloth, helping him with his wound. You didn’t even need to do all of that. You shouldn’t have to, there are plenty people equipped in the tribe able to take care of wounds like that. But you insisted he sat down and helped him. Your skin was warm. And your touch was soft, far softer than anything he had experienced from others around him.

His cut was ugly, with dried blood already covering half of it, while the other half spewed more, and he could tell you hated the sight of it, the way your eyebrows furrowed as you pulled a pained, contorted face at every swab to his injury said it all. And yet, as much as you hated it, you did it for him. You helped him take care of it, even after he insisted he could do it himself and that you should sleep. He watched your tired eyes as you let his blood dirty your clean hands throughout the whole night. He asked why you even bothered, because you didn’t need to do all shit. What the fuck was it you said to him that night?

“Because I’m your wife.”

Yeah it was then. Thats when he first felt that feeling. What caused this whole mess in his mind and heart in the first place.

Or probably, it was all of it. A little bit of everything, that made him stop thinking of you as a tool, and more as a woman, his wife, his love. Seeing you for who you were, more than what you let him see, and trying to understand you more. The more he thinks of it, the more the pieces all start to fit into a much bigger picture he was too blind to see before. He had only focussed on one piece for so long that he had lost sight of that big picture, which made it all the more impactful when he stood back and finally looked at it all at once.

Love.

Did he really love you? He must have. It’s the only explanation for his absurd behaviour. To think someone responsible for so much spilt blood was able to reserve the most tender part of his heart for something as delicate as love. It’s a shock, and he refuses to believe it at first, but the more he rejected the idea, the more it became obvious to him that he did love you. It’s why he insisted you stayed by him whenever you could, why he even bothered anymore in this marriage.

Unfortunately, he’s a little late, you’ve already lost your hope in having him love you. He hurt you without even trying to, without laying a hand on you. And somehow that made it hurt even more. Once Katsuki realises his fault, he’ll start to live his live devoted to you tirelessly, because if given the chance to earn your love all over again, even if he worked to the day he die for it, he’d take it.

I hope you like this! I love writing about mixed emotions and pining… so this was super fun to write :) if you enjoyed, don’t be shy to like, comment or reblog, because I read everything you guys say!