Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Bakugou inhaled deeply, the smell of burning sulfur filling his lungs and bringing a slightly manic smile to his face.

“Dude, did you see that? Holy shit, man, it was huge,” Kirishima yelled from across the street, running back towards them in the dark.

“It was so loud I felt my bones rattle, man. That was terrifying,” Kaminari agreed from beside Bakugou, his own face split in an equally wide grin.

Kirishima came to a stop in front of them, hands on his hips. “Alright, who’s next?”

“I’m next,” Bakugou replied, grabbing a shell and walking into the middle of the road before dropping it into a tube they had set up on a small platform. He checked briefly to make sure there were no cars about to come down the street before lighting the fuse, stepping back only a few feet because he liked to be as close to the explosion as possible, despite Kirishima and Kaminari’s constant reminders that what he was doing was extremely dangerous. Bakugou lived for dangerous.

A dull thud sounded, light streaking up and up before the firework went off with a resounding boom, blasting apart across the night sky in a mass of sparkles and color and raining down around him before slowly fizzling out.

Bakugou felt something almost like peace as he watched the sight, adrenaline pumping through his veins despite the feeling of calm the sight gave him.

It was that time of the year again. The 4^th of July. Bakugou’s favorite time of year. He set aside a large chunk of money every summer for the express purpose of buying fireworks. Nothing was as satisfying as watching something pierce the sky and shake the air around him with enough force to rattle the windows of the nearby apartment complex where Bakugou lived.

This time of the year was shit in general otherwise, often coming hand in hand with unbearable heat and a level of humidity that made Bakugou sometimes wish he lived in the desert. But the 4^th of July was still his favorite largely because it was the only time of year where he could really get away with blowing up as much shit as he wanted without people pitching a fit about it.

A set of flashing lights appeared at the top of the street, sirens blaring.

Well. He used to be able to get away with it as much as he wanted.

“Are you fucking kidding me,” Bakugou hissed, his calm from before disappearing in an instant. He stepped up to the curb as the cop car pulled to a stop beside the apartment complex. “Again? Fucking again?”

“Bro,” Kirishima snickered. “One of your neighbors really hates you, man.”

An officer stepped out of the car, sighing loudly. “Hello again, Bakugou.”

“Nice to see you again, Officer Aizawa,” Kirishima chimed in cheerfully, giving him a friendly wave. The officer acknowledged him with a small nod and a slightly strained expression.

“Kirishima. Kaminari. Nice to see your both participating in lawbreaking behavior yet again,” he replied flatly.

Bakugou glared. “What the fuck did I do this time?”

“We’ve had a noise complaint, Bakugou. For the third time this week.”

For fucks sake.

“It’s the 4^th of July. Fireworks aren’t fucking illegal, unless you know something I don’t, which I doubt. Besides, lighting this shit off is my patriotic duty, or whatever,” Bakugou bit out, crossing his arms over his chest.

Officer Aizawa looked like he was trying to keep himself from saying something he’d regret, meaning something that would probably set Bakugou off on a long-winded rant, which he’d heard a fair few of already. He raised a hand to rub at his forehead. “That’s all well and good, Bakugou, but it’s probably a good idea to wait till the actual 4^th of July. It’s still June.”

“The 4^th of July is like a week from today, what the fuck,” Bakugou replied, offended.

The officer gave him a flat look. “My point exactly. Not only that, but it’s 11 o’clock on a Tuesday night. You’ve got neighbors with jobs and families that are trying to sleep.”

From behind him, Kaminari snorted. He’d said the exact same thing to Bakugou not half an hour ago.

“That’s their problem, not mine,” Bakugou grumbled.

“Be that as it may, it is my job to tell you –again—that there is a noise curfew in effect from the hours of 9PM to 9AM. You need to stop for the evening.”

Bakugou shot him a glare.

“I’m serious. Don’t think I won’t give you a citation. Few things would bring me greater joy.”

Bakugou threw his hands up in the air with a frustrated growl. “Fine, jesus christ, I’ll stop for tonight. BUT I’M GONNA DO THE SAME SHIT AGAIN TOMORROW,” he yelled behind him to the complex at large, knowing whoever was calling the police in the first place was probably watching this all go down and eating it up, thinking they’d fucking won or something.

“No you’re not,” Aizawa said drily.

Bakugou crossed his arms over his chest again. “I have an image to maintain, ok?” he hissed quietly in response. “And maybe I will do it again. Maybe I just like you dropping by for a visit every fucking night to interrupt my goddamn fun.”

Aizawa rolled his eyes, walking back over to his police vehicle and climbing in the car. He rolled down the windows to give them one last tired look, his blood-shot eyes glimmering with a haunted depth, like he’d already dealt with more than any one man should have to put up with in a lifetime. “If I hear one more firework going off from this area before July the 4^th I will personally make it my duty to see you arrested for disturbing the peace.”

“What fucking peace am I disturbing by showing off how fucking patriotic I am and shit?” Bakugou half-shouted at him.

“My peace of mind,” Aizawa said darkly before rolling up the window, driving off a moment later.

A brief but poignant silence followed his departure, wherein Bakugou wondered, not for the first time, which one of his asshole fucking neighbors was always snitching on his fun.

“I hate living here,” he bit out.

Kirishima patted him on the back before throwing an arm around him and giving Bakugou a firm squeeze. Bakugou wasn’t exactly a fan of the jostling, but he was too used to Kirishima’s overly-affectionate bullshit to even protest most of the time anymore. “Nah you don’t, man. It’s great here. This place is in an awesome location, and it has the best rent in town. Even Kaminari and I get jealous of you sometimes.”

“No we fucking don’t,” Kaminari responded from behind them.

Kirishima shot him a look over Bakugou’s head. “Wow, that is so weird, it almost sounds like someone doesn’t like getting laid.”

There was suddenly another arm being thrown around Bakugou’s other shoulder. “Yeah man, we get jealous of this place all the time, like wow, you’re sooo lucky. Why don’t we live here already. Honestly we should just move in with you,” Kaminari gushed.

Bakugou snorted, shoving them both off without much force. “Shut the fuck up. I’ve had enough of new neighbors recently.”

“Uh oh,” Kirishima said, his tone implying he was clearly looking for gossip. “The new upstairs neighbor giving you problems again?”

“He stomps fucking everywhere,” Bakugou mumbled, turning to walk back towards his apartment building, Kirishima following after him—and leaving Kaminari scrambling to pick up the remnants of their firework destruction in their wake. “He’s like a goddamn elephant or something.”

Kirishima laughed. “Are you sure the flooring isn’t just shitty?”

“Who the fuck was just saying my apartment was the best again?”

“My bad, my bad. How about we go inside and have a couple of beers and play some Halo to blow off steam?” Kirishima asked, bumping his fist gently against Bakugou’s arm.

Bakugou had heard very few things in life that sounded more appealing than the idea of shooting aliens and drinking alcohol did just then. “Don’t fucking cry when I wipe the floor with your ass,” he said by way of assent.

“Deal,” Kirishima laughed as they began walking up the stairwell. “But only if we can change the loadouts so I can have a gravity hammer. That shit is so cool man.”

“Guys? Guys are you even—alright fine, fuck me I guess, I’ll just pick up everyone else’s shit. BY MYSELF,” Kaminari yelled at their retreating backs.

“Thanks babe!” Kirishima hollered from far away. “I’ll make it up to you tonight!”

Bakugou slammed the door shut loudly behind them.

Kaminari grumbled under his breath but didn’t complain too much, fighting off a blush as he resolutely bent to pick up the rest of the trash littering the ground before sulking in to join them.

They ended up drinking a couple of beers and playing Halo until about two in the morning, Bakugou screaming every time Kaminari managed to team kill him on purpose. Which was at least once every five minutes.

His mystery neighbor called the cops again as a result.

Aizawa was not amused.

---

Bakugou had been living at his current apartment for the last three years. Most of the time he and his neighbors got along fairly well, which was to say that they didn’t fucking interact at all—the best kind of neighbors anyone could have, in Bakugou’s opinion. The rent on the place was shockingly affordable for where it was located, and it was only a ten minute drive from there to Bakugou’s work at a local and very elite restaurant where he was a sous chef and slated to be the next head chef someday if he kept things going the way they were. He could walk to the grocery store, his favorite coffee shop was only a block away, and the gym was just right up the road.

In short, Bakugou basically had everything he wanted in life.

At least, he used to, until his new neighbor moved in upstairs.

Bakugou knew it was a guy who lived above him. How he knew that he couldn’t exactly be sure, given that he’d never actually seen the apartment’s occupant. He thought he’d heard him singing to himself once, though. Or maybe he’d just been playing a song loud enough for Bakugou to hear because it had sounded suspiciously nice, but either way Bakugou was certain a guy lived above him, because no woman Bakugou had ever met was quite that fucking loud when they walked across a room.

The guy, who Bakugou liked to refer to as The Asshole whenever he happened to cross his thoughts, also drove a really nice fucking car for someone paying the kind of cheap-ass rent they did to live at their complex. He also happened to be a big fan of parking said car in Bakugou’s parking spot every chance he had. Which was ridiculous, because everyone knew that spot was Bakugou’s. No one else was stupid enough to even try, and yet this guy regularly stole his spot from him at least four out of seven days a week.

Sometimes, when he couldn’t sleep at night, Bakugou liked to imagine how nice it would be to walk outside and slash the tires on his neighbor’s too-expensive car. Or how good it might feel to just fucking punch a dent in the hood. No one would ever know it was him. Or at least, no one would ever be able to prove it was him.

But Bakugou couldn’t do that. Bakugou had a promising career as head chef of a world-renowned restaurant in his future. Delinquents with criminal records were a lot less likely to become famous chefs. Probably, anyway.

As a result he contented himself with blasting his favorite rap songs in the middle of the night instead, because when he did so it often lead to The Asshole stomping around above him for a while and that brought Bakugou such a sense of vindictive peace he was often able to finally drift off to sleep.

It was on such a night the day after the firework incident where Bakugou was up at 2AM, unable to rest due to the stress of work, which he’d only recently returned from. Unsurprisingly, he’d come home to find his parking spot was once again fucking taken by the blue and red piece of shit his neighbor drove. He made a decision the moment he had to park further down the street, walking with purpose down the dark road and ready for vengeance.

This shit was frankly unacceptable.

He wandered around his apartment, taking his sweet time getting into his pajamas, brushing his teeth meticulously, setting his alarm for the next day and cranking up the AC before finally climbing into bed and shutting off all the lights. He turned on his music in the dark, just loud enough that the bass could shake the floor a bit, and snuggled down into the covers with a grin on his face as he patiently waited, Nicki Minaj’s “Beez in the Trap” serenading him and everyone else within a 50 foot radius.

Like clockwork, he heard someone stomp across the floorboards above him less than five minutes later, heavy footsteps clearly agitated as they stomped off into the direction of what sounded like The Asshole’s kitchen.

A joyful warmth flooded Bakugou, his eyes falling closed as a wide smirk worked its way across his face.

Justice. Justice was so, so sweet.

A few minutes later, a series of bright flashes forced Bakugou to open his eyes again, the smile dropping from his face when he noticed the lights were from a fucking police car as it came down the street and parked just outside of the complex.

He turned his music off abruptly, cursing under his breath. Seriously, it hadn’t even been that loud this time. He’d had it up way louder last week and no one had fucking cared. Except maybe the idiot above him, but really, what was new?

Bakugou froze.

Something clicked into place, Bakugou’s face snapping down into a full-blown scowl.

The Asshole. It was him who kept calling the fucking cops. It had to be.

Son of a bitch.

How had he not figured this out sooner? Everything suddenly made so much more sense.

Everything also made Bakugou so much more angry.

He threw the covers off of himself, storming over to his front door before the police could even knock and throwing it open. Aizawa was standing in front of the door, fist raised, a put-upon look on his face. “Good evening, Bakugou. Or should I say good very, very early morning?”

“Whatever,” Bakugou bit out. “I’m sorry, I turned it off already, blah blah blah, it won’t happen again. Are we done here?”

Bakugou didn’t have time for this. He was currently in the middle of the most important realization he’d had in the last several months easily. He had planning to do, for fucks sake.

Aizawa sighed, oblivious to Bakugou’s internal ravings. “Look. I’m going to level with you here. If this happens any more you’re going to find yourself with a court date. Or possibly an eviction notice. Likely both.”

Bakugou’s mouth dropped open, his brain seizing up.

What?

“They can’t do that,” he said, trying not to sound as scared as he felt.

Aizawa’s blood-shot eyes seemed to pierce him, his face deadly serious. “They can and they will. I’ve seen this happen more than once, kid.”

Well. Fuck.

“Fine,” Bakugou bit out, full of false bravado. “Whatever. I don’t give a shit. I can do whatever I want. I pay all of my bills and I work hard. I’m allowed to be loud if I want.”

“Sure you are. Between the hours of 9AM and 9PM,” Aizawa countered with a pointed look.

Bakugou hissed in frustration. “I get it, ok? Can you just fucking go now or something? I want to sleep.”

“I think everyone wants to sleep,” Aizawa muttered, but gave a dismissive wave as he wandered off back down the stairs. “I’m serious, Bakugou,” he called over his shoulder as he disappeared from view. “Don’t make me do this again.”

The silence of the night seemed to swallow up any response Bakugou might have made, his teeth grinding together in frustration. He didn’t like the implication that he had to change anything he was doing because Bakugou didn’t believe in changing for anyone. But he also knew that Aizawa was probably right. The last thing Bakugou wanted was to be taken to court. Or worse, evicted.

This was Bakugou’s home, goddammit. He wasn’t about to let some fucking asshole run him out just because he couldn’t handle Bakugou’s level of noise. Or antagonism. Or proclivity for managing a combo of the two at all hours of the day and night.

He shut his door softer than he usually would, leaning against it and frowning.

Well. At least he knew who the culprit was now. And who he needed to fucking confront as a result.

He walked back to his room, turning off all the lights behind him as he went and collapsing on his bed in the dark.

Silence surrounded him. Bakugou was not a fan.

First thing in the morning, Bakugou had a shitty fucking neighbor who needed to learn his goddamn place.

---

The next morning Bakugou woke up to a minor emergency. Kirishima and Kaminari’s car had somehow broken down, and they wanted a ride to and from the mechanic. Bakugou, being the good fucking friend that he was, agreed to drive over to their house –which was almost half an hour away—and help out.

This left Bakugou no time to do much of anything about his neighbor. But he was determined to at least do something, so in a frustrating compromise due to time constraints, he scribbled out a note on the back of a piece of old mail.

I fucking know you’re the one calling the cops. How about you try being mature and just fucking talk to me next time instead of being a dick and getting the police to come and deal with something as stupid as loud music? Asshole.

He stuffed it hastily under his neighbors door before running down the stairs, jumping in his shitty jeep, and taking off for Kirishima and Kaminari’s.

He ended up being gone for several hours, which he would have been a lot more upset about if: 1. It wasn’t his day off, and 2. Kirishima hadn’t bought him both breakfast and lunch in compensation for his help.

By the time he got home, Bakugou had honestly nearly forgotten about the note.

Until he saw a piece of paper taped to his front door.

Glad you have the deductive skills of a first grader under your belt. Maybe you should try not being so obnoxious in the first place.

The print was written in scrawling cursive, the letters somehow managing to seem both neat and careless at the same time.

He threw open his front door, flipping the paper over and grabbing a pen before writing on the backside.

Maybe you should mind your own fucking business. I can do whatever I want. I’m an adult. You don’t pay my fucking bills, so unless you’re prepared to start I suggest shutting the fuck up and letting me live my own damn life.

He stomped up the staircase, shoving it unceremoniously under The Asshole’s door before making a dignified and very loud retreat back to his own apartment, slamming the door shut behind him.

He spent the next couple of hours intermittently playing Halo and fucking around on his phone. After a while, though, he felt like something was just… off.

He walked to his front door, opening it.

Only to find another note taped to it.

That fucker.

Oh really, you’re an adult? I would never have guessed, given that you sound like a child throwing a temper tantrum most of the time. How about you grow up and stop being such a menace? You might be slightly less than human, but most people require things like sleep and rest in order to work jobs. You do have a job, don’t you?

“Who in the fuck does he think he even is?” Bakugou bit out, grabbing his pen up off the table again in a fit of rage and flipping the paper over once more.

I have a fucking job, asshat, unlike you who apparently has nothing better to do with his fucking time besides harassing your neighbors. How about you fuck off and move somewhere else?

He walked back up the flight of stairs, stuffing the note angrily under the door.

About an hour later, he had the same weird feeling again and opened his door to find yet another note. What was this guy, a fucking ghost?

Nice try, but I don’t negotiate with terrorists. YOU move out if you’re so upset about it.

“AUGH,” Bakugou yelled, slamming his door shut with a shout and repressing the urge to punch a hole in his wall.

He grabbed his phone off his table, dialing Kirishima’s number immediately.

“Yo, Baku my man, what’s good?” Kirishima said, picking up almost right away. “I feel like I just saw you. Probably because I just did.”

“I fucking hate him,” Bakugou growled into the phone. “I’m going to fucking murder my neighbor, and I’m going to go to jail and I won’t get to be head chef and it might be worth it, shitty hair, do you fucking hear me right now?”

Kirishima sighed into the other end of the phone. “I hear you, man. Don’t worry, I got you. Let’s go out tonight. You can vent to me about whatever the hell is going on, and Kaminari can sing karaoke at the bar. I’d hate to have to visit you in jail for the rest of forever.”

As much as Bakugou hated listening to Kaminari sing literally anything ever, he had to admit that the idea was more appealing than jail time. “Fine. Come pick me up, then. I’m not driving clear out to your place twice in one fucking day.”

“Yeah, yeah. You’re welcome by the way.”

“Whatever. Just hurry up before I get arrested,” Bakugou mumbled before hanging up abruptly.

He flopped back heavily onto the couch to wait for them, his blood still boiling, anger simmering in every fiber of his being. He wasn’t sure anyone had ever been stupid enough to try and pick a fight with him like this before. It ate away at him, his stomach tied up in knots, pissed off beyond all reason and unable to get the sarcastic scribbling out of his head.

“I hate him,” he spat again into the silence of his apartment.

Which was true. He really did. But for some reason, Bakugou now also recognized that some part of this was strangely… exciting. It felt like a competition of some sort. Bakugou hadn’t figured out what the rules were just yet, but he was determined to win all the same.

---

“So you’re basically exchanging love letters?” Kirishima asked, smiling over the rim of his drink.

Bakugou’s mouth dropped open, lip curling in disgust. “Love letters? I would set this fucker’s apartment on fire if it wouldn’t burn down my own.”

Kirishima laughed but Bakugou could barely hear it over the sound of Kaminari crooning the lyrics of some fucking Frank Sinatra song. Frank Sinatra was one of Kirishima’s favorites. Bakugou had a suspicion someone was trying to get laid tonight.

Bakugou had a suspicion someone was trying to get laid every night from what he’d observed since first meeting the two of them, frankly.

“So what are you gonna do about it then?” Kirishima asked a few minutes later when Kaminari’s song was finally over, having been too distracted and love-struck to continue speaking for the duration of the song. It would’ve been gross to witness if he didn’t like the two of them so much.

Bakugou frowned, glaring down into his empty glass. What was he going to do about it? He wasn’t sure yet, honestly. “I don’t know. Something to piss him off more, but which also won’t get me fucking arrested, I guess.”

“Well, there’s always more fireworks,” he suggested, smiling at Kaminari as he sat down. “I know Kami and I would be happy to help you set off a few more.”

“No we fucking wouldn’t,” Kaminari replied flatly, sitting down at the table beside Kirishima.

“Wow, that is so weird, it’s almost like someone doesn’t want to get—“

“Yep, wow, fireworks are so cool Bakugou, we should definitely set off a bunch. All of them, even. All at the same time.”

Bakugou barked out a loud laugh abruptly, but paused, eyes drifting thoughtfully up towards the ceiling. “That ain’t a half bad idea, actually.”

“What?” Kirishima asked, his hand skating under the table towards Kaminari. Bakugou watched Kaminari jolt slightly in his seat, eyes wide as he stared at Kirishima, who kept talking to Bakugou as if nothing was going on. “Setting off fireworks?”

Kaminari bit his lip, his face reddening. He turned his head away, staring blankly at something across the room with an odd level of focus.

Bakugou rolled his eyes, attempting to pointedly ignore the fact that Kirishima was definitely feeling Kaminari up under the table. “No, setting them off all at once. I mean, I can’t do anything illegal, but that doesn’t mean I can’t be really fucking annoying.”

“You’re already really fucking annoying,” Kaminari bit out, his jaw clenched. He looked even more red now than he had a moment ago. Kirishima was staring at him with a half-lidded gaze, his chin resting lazily in one palm, a grin stretched wide across his face.

Bakugou kicked out at them under the table, the both of them wincing simultaneously. “Shut the fuck up, dumbass. And no fucking handjobs under the table, jesus christ, I’m right fucking here.”

“That hasn’t stopped us before,” Kirishima answered, though he did move his hands back into his own lap somewhat dejectedly.

Which was true. Bakugou had seen more details of their sex life than he’d ever even thought to wonder about.

Bakugou rubbed at the crease between his eyebrows. “I am aware, shitty hair. I thought you guys were supposed to be helping me blow off steam, not make it worse.”

“What, did you want a handjob too?” Kaminari asked, grinning.

Bakugou placed his foot squarely on his chest under the table and gave him a hard backwards push, Kaminari nearly toppling over backwards in his chair with a squawk. “Do you want to live to make it home tonight?” Bakugou asked him.

“Please don’t kill him. I need him,” Kirishima pleaded, laughing facedown into the table as Kaminari struggled to right himself in his chair.

“You don’t need him, you just need his dick. There are toys for that. I’ll fucking buy you one myself if I have to,” Bakugou bit out, pushing back from the table and standing.

“Wow, rude,” Kaminari said, attempting to right himself with grace and failing spectacularly. “He happens to love me, thank you very much.”

Bakugou shot him a disbelieving look. “Debatable.”

“Aww, don’t be mean Bakugou. Of course I love him,” Kirishima said, standing as well and leaning over to kiss Kaminari exaggeratedly on the cheek. “I mean, I might love his dick most, but I love the rest of him too.”

“I feel like I should be upset about that,” Kaminari mumbled, face reddening as he moved to stand too. “But I’m not.”

Bakugou snorted, heading towards the exit. “Take me home before you two cause a fucking scene.”

“Implying you don’t cause a scene everywhere we go,” Kaminari mumbled under his breath.

Bakugou let the door fall shut in his face in response, Kaminari rubbing at his nose with a scowl.

“Are you sure you’re ready to go home, man? You’re not still mad?” Kirishima asked once they’d piled into the car.

Bakugou thought about it and realized he felt oddly at peace. “I’m good. I have an idea now.”

Which was code for Bakugou had a plan for vengeance. Nothing calmed him down quite as much as revenge.

Kirishima nodded, as if he understood all of this innately. “Alright, man. Let us know how it goes.”

“Don’t let us know how it goes. I don’t care,” Kaminari grumbled, head leaning against the passenger side window, clearly sulking.

“What was that, sugar muffin? Almost sounded like someone doesn’t want—“

“Yep you can tell me all about it in great and excruciating detail, Bakugou. I cannot wait, wow, I’m so excited.”

Bakugou rolled his eyes, an unwilling smile working its way across his face. He had no idea why he put up with these two. His taste in friends was definitely questionable.

---

The next day, Bakugou went into work for the early shift. Bakugou preferred working in the mornings to working in the afternoons and evenings, largely because it meant he didn’t have to interact with customers, since they weren’t yet open. The early shift was for prepping the kitchen for whatever would be needed for the rest of the day. Prepping the kitchen required a sort of methodical precision that Bakugou excelled at.

It also meant Bakugou had a lot of time to himself to sit and think. Well, sort of.

“So if the cops come one more time you’ll go to jail?” Ashido asked pleasantly. Like she was excited by the idea.

Not for the first time, Bakugou wondered how he’d managed to end up friends with her. Most of his coworkers were unbearable, but Ashido made work tolerable. Slightly. Usually. Unless she was in the mood to antagonize him.

Which sadly was all the fucking time.

Bakugou shot her a glare over the bowl he was currently whisking ingredients into. “I didn’t fucking say I’d go to jail, idiot. A court date isn’t jail time, for fucks sake. And don’t look so damn happy about it.”

“Sorry, sorry,” she replied, clearly not sorry at all. “This is just so funny to me.”

“Hah? Funny how?”

“I mean, the idea that you could actually avoid having the cops called on you is pretty hilarious.”

“Shut the fuck up, I’m not that bad,” Bakugou hissed, frowning at his bowl in thought.

Was he really that bad? Surely not. Bakugou was a model citizen. Anyone would be lucky to be his neighbor.

Ashido snorted derisively. “Yes you are, Bakugou. Don’t even. Denial is a bad look on you.”

His frown intensified, his whisking becoming more aggressive than was probably necessary. Except that it was definitely, definitely necessary.

“Whatever,” he bit out after a moment of angrily slamming things around the kitchen. “My point is that I have to find ways to piss this fucker off without getting the cops involved in the first place.”

Ashido hummed thoughtfully. “And you have ideas, I’m guessing?”

“Well, I have a few,” he admitted gruffly, still somewhat angry at the revelation that he might maybe actually be difficult to live with. Possibly. “But you’re kind of an asshole, so I thought you might be able to give me a few more.”

“That is an absolutely terrible way to ask someone for help,” Ashido replied, tossing a neatly covered pan into the refrigerator. “Lucky for you, I’m still on board.”

Bakugou snorted. “As if you’d pass up the chance to start drama.”

“Drama is the absolute best when I’m not directly involved. I can just live vicariously through you,” she said sweetly as she passed him, patting him condescendingly on the shoulder.

“So give me some fucking ideas then, drama queen,” Bakugou prompted, turning to find her leaning against the counter, a mischievous grin gracing her face, her pink hair making her look almost manic with glee.

“Alright,” she started. “In that case, here’s what you’re going to do.”

---

Bakugou got home in the early afternoon. He noted The Asshole’s car was absent from his parking spot for once.

Perfect. This gave Bakugou time to act with impunity.

He walked into his apartment, throwing open his laptop and pulling up google immediately.

cheap-ass fucking earplugs for my shitty fucking neighbor

The first result that popped up was a bottle of 50 fucking earplugs for like $10. Bakugou clicked ‘buy’ immediately, paying for overnight shipping with no hesitation.

He then opened a new tab.

cheap m80 fireworks

He knew they weren’t real m80s—real ones were illegal, and Bakugou was now all-too aware of the fact that buying something like that might spell out trouble for him.

He found a website selling the knockoffs in bulk and purchased $50 worth, clicking for overnight shipping yet again.

Sure, real m80s were illegal. But fakes were still loud as hell. And no one said anything about the legality of lighting off several at a time.

Chapter Text

The next day, when Bakugou got home from work, two packages were waiting for him on his doorstep. He snatched both up eagerly, pushing into his apartment and tearing into the boxes with a sense of righteous joy.

He looked at the contents with barely repressed glee, setting them on the counter with a smirk. One giant bottle of earplugs, and one box of mildly dangerous explosives.

That fucker was going to regret ever trying to pick a fight with him. Bakugou would make sure of it.

He pulled out a piece of paper to scribble down a note before marching up the stairs. He taped it to The Asshole’s door, stepping back to admire his handiwork.

Got you some earplugs since you’re apparently an old man who can’t handle a little noise. You’re fucking welcome, dickwad. Put them to good use. You’re gonna need it.

He set the bottle down on the doorstep, so pleased with himself that he couldn’t repress the urge to pump his fist in victory as he rounded the bottom of the stairwell.

He ducked back into his own apartment, grabbing the box of fireworks as well as a large metal bucket he typically stored tools in from his back porch before walking back outside.

As he moved out towards the road, whistling a vindictive little tune to himself, he noticed The Asshole’s car was parked not too far from his own.

Perfect. That meant he was definitely home.

It was only 6pm. It wouldn’t be dark yet for another several hours. No one could call the cops on him. He wasn’t breaking any laws OR any rules for once.

He was just being a dick. Few things brought Bakugou more joy, truth be told.

He dropped the bucket on the side of the road, twisting the fuses of several of the firecrackers together.

This was going to go be good.

He lit them before casually dropping them into the metal bucket, swiftly moving a few steps backwards and wisely covering his ears.

A boom so loud it shook the air around him and rattled the bones in his chest went off a few seconds later, Bakugou grinning widely and giving a whooping shout in response.

He turned around just in time to see The Asshole’s blinds swinging shut.

Vengence. Bakugou cackled, grabbing up his box of fireworks and twisting together several more in short order.

He spent the next several hours lighting off fireworks in the loudest and most annoying combinations he could possibly think of.

He wasn’t sure lighting off fireworks had ever felt this fun.

---

There was no note on his door when he finally turned in for the night at 9PM on the dot. Some part of Bakugou was disappointed, but he also felt like that could maybe be considered a win, too. Which was what he’d wanted all along, really. Wasn’t it?

Somehow, his victory felt strangely hollow.

The next morning however, there was a knock on his door. At seven thirty in the fucking morning. On his day off.

“What the fuck,” Bakugou mumbled, stumbling around his apartment and almost falling face-first into the wall in his scramble to pull on a pair of shorts and a shirt before going to open the door.

A woman stood on Bakugou’s doorstep, her eyes taking him in with a judgmental gleam despite the smile pasted on her face.

Bakugou just stared at her, saying nothing. He had no fucking idea who this was.

“Hello, sir. I’m here to extend an invitation to you,” she finally said when the silence wore on for too long, holding a piece of paper out to Bakugou.

He took it wordlessly, still struggling to achieve full wakefulness, his eyes scanning the paper blearily.

A large white building stood on the front, a cross on top.

“This is a church,” he said, his frown deepening.

“Yes, that it is. We would be happy to welcome you to the parish if you’d like to join us. Since today is Sunday, you’re welcome to come later this—“

“I’m not religious,” Bakugou responded, promptly shutting the door in her face.

He crumpled up the paper, throwing it haphazardly into the trash before wandering back to his bedroom, collapsing face-first onto the bed.

Half an hour later, there was another knock on his front door.

“What in the actual fuck,” Bakugou bit out, stomping across the apartment and pulling the door open, a suspicious sense of foreboding looming over him.

A man in a suit stood there this time, a wide smile on his face. “Hello, son of God! We at the Church of the Revived Holy Spirit would be delighted to welcome you to our—“

“I am not religious,” Bakugou repeated with a growl, slamming the door closed with more force than was probably necessary.

He flopped onto his back, staring at the ceiling. He was exhausted, but now his brain was going too fast for him to fall back into a restful sleep.

He’d had someone drop by his place once in the last three years to try and get him to attend some kind of church. And now twice in one fucking day?

About twenty minutes later, there was another knock on his front door.

“What the fucking fuck is going on,” Bakugou hissed, stomping across the room.

Two young women stood on his doorstep this time, both of them dressed nicely in long loose-fitting skirts. They offered him a smile, which he pointedly ignored.

“What do you want?” he barked.

“We—we just wanted to give you this invitation to our church—“ one of them began.

Bakugou cut her off with a sharp look. “Alright. This is the third time this has happened to me this morning. First of all I’m not interested, so don’t try and sell me on this, because I ain’t buying. Secondly, I want to know what in the hell made you guys decide to come bother me this morning.”

The two girls shared a look, both of them seeming nervous and slightly confused. “Well, we got a phone call last night saying that you were new to town and looking for a new parish, so we offered to come introduce ourselves.”

Bakugou’s mouth dropped open.

No fucking way.

“That fucker. I can’t believe this,” he hissed, the girls flinching back in response. Bakugou winced, taking a step backwards. “Uh, sorry.  Not you. Like I said though, I’m not interested, so you guys can go.”

They both nodded, looking grateful as they took off towards the stairs in a rush.

Bakugou shut the door quietly, leaning against it and fuming with silent rage.

He grabbed a piece of paper and a pen, writing furiously.

What in the fuck? Did you seriously call a bunch of fucking churches to come harass me?

He shoved it under The Asshole’s door, walking back downstairs and attempting not to break something in a fit of extreme rage.

He was eating ice-cream in his living room in an attempt to calm the fuck down a while later when he heard a noise at his front door. He stood up abruptly, almost dropping a spoonful of his homemade jalapeno ice-cream all over the damn couch as a result.

He opened his front door just in time to hear the door of the apartment above him close. He turned, finding a note stuck to his front door.

You sounded like you could use some peace in your life. I was just trying to be proactive.

Bakugou ripped the paper in half, kicking his door shut hard enough to knock one of his picture frames off the wall—which wouldn’t be the first time, and thus there was no glass left to shatter this time around.

He grabbed his phone off the coffee table, hitting dial immediately.

“Hey, Bakugou, how’s it—“ Kirishima’s voice started.

“I am about to commit homicide,” Bakugou hissed into the receiver.

Kirishima sighed. “Does that mean drinks?”

“Now,” Bakugou growled, stomping into his bedroom to find something to wear out.

“I don’t know how I feel about daydrinking, man. I mean, are we really at that point in our lives? Like, really? And on a Sunday?”

“Kirishima,” Bakugou started in a low voice. “If I don’t leave this house right now, someone will be going to jail, and it will be me.”

“Alright, fine, I get it, I get it. Just let me get Kaminari up, he’s still sleeping.”

Bakugou squinted at his clock briefly. “It’s almost eleven in the morning, what the fuck.”

“Yeah, well, he was up real late.”

“Doing what?”

“Well, me, mostly. But he also started watching Daredevil on Netflix and refused to sleep until he’d finished the first season.”

Bakugou sighed as though in great pain, throwing his hands up, despite that Kirishima couldn’t see it. “Jesus fucking christ. I shouldn’t have even asked.”

“Probably not, no,” Kirishima responded cheerfully. “Meet you downtown in, say, half an hour?”

“Fine,” Bakugou agreed.

---

“He—he fucking called a church—no, wait, multiple churches, and told them you were looking to join so they’d—they’d come to your—“ Kaminari broke off mid-sentence, smashing his face against the table top and laughing. He wasn’t even making sound anymore, just these barely audible wheezes that pissed Bakugou the fuck off even more than he already was, tears leaking from his eyes.

Kirishima wasn’t fairing much better, though he was at least smart enough to try and hide the fact that he found the whole thing absolutely hilarious.

“I hate you both,” Bakugou said emphatically, taking a large sip off his rum and coke.

It was that kind of day. Beer was nowhere strong enough for this fucking bullshit, frankly.

“I cannot believe that—that this guy actually—“ Kaminari tried again before breaking down into another fit of giggles. For at least the third or fourth time now. Bakugou wasn’t sure; he was losing count, as well as what little remained of his patience.

He frowned at nothing in particular, throwing a wadded up napkin in his direction. “I have to one-up this somehow,” he said, because that was really what he was hung up on more than anything else.

Kirishima finally removed his hand from his mouth, his grin still blatantly obvious despite his efforts to reign himself in. “I don’t know if that’s possible, man.

“Yeah, just fucking invite him out with us. I mean I already consider him one of my best friends at this point,” Kaminari put in. “He’s an honorary part of the squad as far as I’m concerned.”

“Fuck you, I would never invite that fucker anywhere other than maybe to a deserted alleyway for a good old fashioned ass kicking,” Bakugou said, shotgunning the rest of his drink in one go and slamming it down forcefully on the table. “Go buy me another.”

“Bakugou, it’s like one o’clock in the afternoon. Are we seriously getting blitzed right now?” Kirishima asked, sounding more curious than judgmental.

“I said get me another,” he hissed threateningly.

Kirishima threw up his hands in defeat, standing and walking to the bar with a shrug. “Alright, man, you don’t gotta tell me twice.”

“Yeah, I don’t take much convincing for day drinking. We should do this all the time to be honest,” Kaminari put in, leaning his chin on the palm of his hand. “Where’s Ashido? She digs this shit.”

“She’s working right now,” Bakugou mumbled, that same thought already having occurred to him earlier.

“Well when does she get off?”

Bakugou thought about it, which took a small amount of effort, given that he was already a few drinks in. “Three o’clock I think.”

“Invite her,” Kaminari put in. “She can join us when she’s out.”

“Invite who?” Kirishima asked, returning to the table, several drinks in hand. He passed them around as he sat back down, everyone nodding their thanks.

“Ashido,” Kaminari replied, taking a sip off of his glass and giving a quiet wheyyy when he realized how strong it was.

“Oooh, do it Bakugou! I want to show her a new line of lipstick I found.”

Bakugou groaned. “I will invite her if –and only if—you promise not to let this devolve into another makeup fest. I don’t care if you’re a professional artist or not. I always end up being a test dummy and I am not in the fucking mood today, ok?”

“Sure, sure,” Kirishima swore. “Just invite her.”

Bakugou pulled out his phone, texting Ashido, who responded almost immediately that she’d be there as soon as she clocked out.

By the time she arrived, they were all drunk. They greeted her with a mixture of cheers and groans, Kirishima passing her a shot glass excitedly. It didn’t take long before Ashido was drunk as hell too.

When they finally got too unruly for the bar, they decided to call an Uber. Everyone somehow ended up back at Bakugou’s apartment, Kirishima bringing in his makeup kit despite Bakugou telling him fucking not to. Just like he’d feared, Bakugou ended up being a test dummy for a new look Kirishima had developed, he and Ashido using his face to practice. Bakugou put up with it with a level of grace he could only achieve while hammered.

“You know, you should get him back the same way he got you, only in the reverse,” Ashido said thoughtfully as she applied eyeliner to his eyes. The alcohol was starting to wear off by this point, Bakugou’s ability to think returning to him slowly.

“How?” he mumbled, trying not to squint against the pressure on his eyelid.

“Well, he called a bunch of churches to come harass you, right?”

“Fucking obviously,” Bakugou replied.

“So,” Ashido continued, sounding somewhat distracted, “You should do the same, only in the opposite direction. Call him some strippers or something.”

Bakugou jolted in his seat, the idea striking him like a shock of electricity.

“Aww, Bakugou, you smeared it! I’m gonna have to start all over now,” she scolded.

Bakugou didn’t care. He grabbed her by the shoulders, hauling her in close and giving her a firm shake. “You are a genius.”

“What?” she asked, sounding startled at the praise. Bakugou wasn’t exactly forthcoming when it came to compliments most of the time.

He leapt up from his spot on the couch, jumping over Kirishima and Kaminari, who were making out on the floor as if there was no one else in the room. He hastily snatched up his laptop, opening google immediately.

local strippers for hire

A list of phone numbers appeared. Bakugou grinned.

“Who wants to chip in for a stripper?”

“Oh. Oh, definitely me,” Ashido answered, her eyes widening with glee. “This is gonna be good. This is gonna be great.”

They ordered and paid for two ladies (there was some kind of Sunday special going on, Bakugou wasn’t very clear about why but he also wasn’t about to complain) and impatiently waited, Kaminari stationed at Bakugou’s window while Kirishima and Ashido finished Bakugou’s makeover—which was apparently very important business for reasons Bakugou couldn’t fathom.

“Oh my god, they’re here,” Kaminari finally hissed in excitement. “Wow, they look great. Kiri come look at this, you’re gonna be jealous of the taller girl’s top.”

“What, let me see,” Kirishima said, pushing off the couch to peer out the window. “Oh my god. I want it.”

“I told you.”

“Do you think it’d be rude to ask her where she got it? I don’t want to interrupt them. They’re on the job.”

“Don’t fucking harass the strippers,” Bakugou snorted. “They’ve got enough to worry about without you pestering them for trade secrets.”

Kirishima frowned at him, clearly dejected.

“Well. Looks like our work here is done then,” Ashido declared, standing and starting to clean up the makeup mess that had become Bakugou’s living room.

Kirishima sighed, pushing away from the window to help her. “Yeah, we should probably head home, Kami. It’s about your bedtime.”

“Bedtime? What the hell am I, a five year old?”

“Obviously,” Bakugou put in, smirking. Kaminari flipped him off.

“You barely slept last night, dude. You need to rest,” Kirishima told him.

“Kiri it’s like 9PM. I’m not even tired yet, what the hell.”

Kirishima shot him a look over his shoulder. “Because there are things we have to do before we actually sleep. And I will make sure you sleep very well if you cooperate and help me pick up these brushes.”

“O-oh, uh, yes sir. Right away sir,” Kaminari replied, scrambling to grab various appliances off the coffee table before gently placing them in Kirishima’s makeup bag with great care. “Always happy to help. Definitely. And really, really tired all of the sudden. Man, I should really hit the hay.”

Ashido and Bakugou shared a look, rolling their eyes.

Bakugou shooed them out about ten minutes later, listening at the door to see if he could hear anything from upstairs. He wasn’t sure he even wanted to hear anything, truth be told, but silence was the only sound that greeted him regardless. He shrugged before heading back inside.

Either the strippers would piss The Asshole off, or they’d make him very happy indeed. Either way, Bakugou felt like he could count that as a win, either in the form of furthering his annoyance or in the form of a bribe.

He started doing his dishes despite that it was getting late, disliking any level of mess in his kitchen. The kitchen was Bakugou’s castle. And his castle was clean and impeccable at all times, dammit, whether he was still mildly buzzed or not. And because he was buzzed, he somehow ended up cleaning the sink and the counters as well, scrubbing away single-mindedly.

When he finally shut the water off sometime later, he froze, awareness prickling across the back of his neck. He turned, walking over the few steps to the front door and opening it curiously.

A note was taped there.

Nice try, but I’m not into women. We had a really nice chat over coffee though. Thanks.

Bakugou’s mouth dropped open, his eyes widening. No fucking way.

His neighbor wasn’t supposed to be gay. They weren’t supposed to have something in common. That was against the fucking rules.

Maybe he was just lying. That seemed like the kind of thing Bakugou himself would say just to get under someone’s skin if the shoe had been on the other foot. Except that Bakugou actually was gay, so it still wouldn’t have been a lie. Maybe his neighbor wasn’t lying either.  

“Fuck this,” Bakugou muttered, shutting the door with a slam and wandering in the direction of his bedroom. He fell onto the bed, not bothering to put on pajamas or even take off the makeup Kirishima and Ashido had caked on his face.

He was too fucking tired to deal with all of this bullshit right now. He’d deal with everything in the morning.

---

The next morning dawned with a harsh light, Bakugou’s pulse pounding in his head with just enough force to make him irritable (not that he didn’t usually wake up irritable anyway). He was thirsty, his body stiff and uncomfortable and just generally achy. He was almost sure the night before that he wouldn’t be hungover, and yet here he was. Hungover.

But beyond the slight hangover, he also just felt… weird. Something was off. He couldn’t put his finger on what it was. He just knew something wasn’t right.

He groaned, fishing with his right hand to try and grab his phone off his bedside table. It was about nine in the morning, he noted, blinking and squinting at the harsh light from the the too-bright screen. He didn’t have to be at work until the evening, thankfully. For once, the weather was miraculously cloudy, making Bakugou wish he could just lay in bed all day and sleep.

Sadly he was too uncomfortably hung over to go back to bed.

Fuck. Oh well.

The events of the night before crept back to him slowly as he laid on top of the covers, staring at the ceiling without seeing much, memories coming to him as though from far away. He couldn’t deny that despite how pissed off he’d been at the start, he’d actually ended up having a lot of fun with his friends. Even the makeup bullshit hadn’t been as bad as he’d feared.

The note that was left on his door just before bed still didn’t sit well with him, however. He wasn’t quite sure what to do about it just yet, so he picked his phone up again, checking through his messages to distract himself until he could get his fucking brain to work properly again.

He was flipping through facebook on his phone when he heard a noise, pausing in his scrolling.

What was that?

Drip. Drip. Drip.

“What the fuck,” Bakugou murmured to himself, eyes wide. He listened intently, the sound continuing at a slow but steady pace.

Drip. Drip. Drip.

That definitely wasn’t normal.

And it just kept going. It sounded like it was coming from his kitchen.

Something heavy settled in Bakugou’s stomach and he stood up despite his slight headache, moving down the hall with bleary eyes to flip on the kitchen light.

Nothing happened.

“What the fuck,” Bakugou repeated, stepping into the room properly.

His feet immediately splashed into a puddle of water, his mouth dropping open in shock.

He backpedaled, flipping on the light in the hallway quickly to illuminate the kitchen at least somewhat.

There was standing water. Everywhere.

“What in the actual fuck,” Bakugou said in horror.

His castle was ruined. The entire tile floor was covered in a layer of water, the rug in front of the sink a sopping wet mess and likely ruined. He looked up to find water leaking from the light fixture in the ceiling, dripping steadily smack-dab into the center of the kitchen.

Well that fucking explained why the light didn’t work, at least.

Thankfully, none of the mess seemed to have made it onto his counters, but the fact that his safe haven had been decimated in such a way left him feeling violated and more than just a little angry.

Enraged would probably be a better way to describe his emotional state, in fact.

Because this was all clearly coming from the apartment just above him. Where his nemesis lived.

His nemesis, who apparently thought the best way to seek revenge for him sending two strippers to his front door was for him to flood Bakugou’s fucking apartment.

This was the last straw. No more games. This crossed a fucking line.

He swore colorfully, turning around and whipping his front door open with a bang.

How fucking dare he.

Bakugou stormed up the staircase, stopping in front of the door directly above his own, his socks still dripping wet, and pounded loudly on the door.

He didn’t even spare a moment to consider how ill-advised it probably was to show up on someone’s doorstep, angry, wet, and hungover first thing in the morning. He was too fucking pissed off, ready to absolutely fucking deck this dude in the goddamn face for this kind of behavior. Bakugou no longer gave a shit if someone did call the cops on him, there was nothing holding him back from unleashing all of his pent up anger and rage on whatever middle-aged fucking piece of shit lived in this godforsaken hellhole.

He pounded on the door again loudly, silently fuming and raising his fist to do so yet again before it swung open suddenly in a rush, Bakugou opening his mouth to start yelling immediately—

Only to freeze, his eyes widening in shock.

The man before him was tall, broad shoulders bare and toned. His hair was split right down the middle, one half of it a brilliant red and the other a stark white in contrast. His eyes were downright unnerving, one a deep and dark gray and the other a vibrant piercing blue, a scar surrounding the left and adding something dangerous-looking to his expression. The most shocking part of all, however, were his arms, which were covered from top to bottom in a wide array of tattoos, black ink and splashes of color winding down his arms in a way that caught Bakugou’s attention and held it. The lower part of each arm was encompassed in a full sleeve—one in ice, the other in fire.

Bakugou’s words caught in his throat and wouldn’t come out.

This—this couldn’t possibly be who lived above him. Bakugou had never given too much thought to what the guy living above him looked like, but no matter what he’d pictured, it had never come anywhere close to looking like this.

“What the fuck,” Bakugou finally managed, yet again.

The man stared right back, his own eyes wide with surprise as they raked Bakugou over. As Bakugou watched, the man shook his head, seeming to come back to himself as his expression twisted into a grimace. “Great. It’s you,” he sighed, as though the sight of Bakugou were physically painful. “Please tell me your kitchen is fine.”

“It’s fucking flooded, asshole,” Bakugou replied, rationality returning to him slowly. He tried and failed to keep from looking the man over, but he couldn’t seem to stop. He clenched his fists, nails digging into the palms of his hands as he tried to recall his previous anger in an effort to focus himself once more.

He was here for a reason, dammit, and it had nothing to do with being weirdly overwhelmed by his fucking asshole of a neighbor’s appearance.

The man swore softly, closing his eyes briefly. “I am truly sorry. I was hoping I cleaned it up before any of it made it down to yours.”

Cleaned it up? What, so the flooding wasn’t on purpose?

That threw Bakugou off yet again, his anger deflating slightly once more. “The fuck did you do to flood not only your apartment, but mine too?” he asked, bewildered.

What the fuck was even going on anymore. This almost didn’t even feel real.

They stared at each other for a tense moment before the man finally sighed in a way that sounded defeated. “Look, can you—would you mind just stepping inside? I’ll explain everything.”

Bakugou figured he should probably be suspicious of something like being invited into the apartment of someone who was his sworn enemy. What if this was a rouse, and this fucker planned to attack him or some shit?

Oh well. Bakugou had always liked living dangerously anyway. He saw no reason to stop doing so now.

“Whatever. Fine,” he mumbled. “But my socks are wet. And I’m not taking them off.”

“Everything is wet right now anyway,” the man murmured, stepping aside just enough that Bakugou could squeeze through the door before shutting it behind him.

When he stepped into the apartment, Bakugou experienced yet another moment of vertigo. He was almost more shocked by the interior of the apartment than by its occupant. Or possibly because of its occupant.

Everything in the décor consisted of woods, a mixture of light and dark colors in various types of furniture; bookcases, tables, even a rocking chair Bakugou could see on the back porch, which he’d somehow never noticed before despite that he’d glared up at the closed blinds of the deck on more than several occasions. Everything from the furniture to the walls was in soft earth tones, greens, blues, and browns dominating the space. Bakugou was somehow expecting everything to be messy, or maybe covered in black with artfully placed skulls and bones based on the guys appearance. This was soft, though, comfortable in a way Bakugou didn’t know a home even could be and so far removed from his own that it was surreal to realize his own dwelling was just a few feet below.

That wasn’t really the shocking part though. The shocking part was the plants.

Living greenery covered almost every available surface Bakugou could see where he stood. Several hung from hooks on the ceiling, and one shelf near the back porch door was covered from head to toe in plants of various shapes and sizes. Bakugou could recognize that the windowsill in the kitchen was covered in a variety of small herb plants, while the livingroom seemed to have a mixture of ivy, succulents, and a wide array of green shit that Bakugou couldn’t even begin to guess the name of.

“What the fuck,” he said. He felt like he was saying that a lot today. Sadly there were only so many words Bakugou knew to describe his current emotional state, and that one was a pretty fucking good fit.

He heard a loud sigh and turned to look at the man again, who was staring into his kitchen, a flush riding high on his face. “What’s your name?” he asked, turning to look at Bakugou after a moment, seeming mildly pained.

“What’s your name?” Bakugou replied, some part of him still feeling bitter and competitive.

A loud yowl suddenly came from the direction of what sounded like the bathroom of the apartment, Bakugou jumping in surprise as he turned his head towards the source of the noise.

“My name,” began the man, sounding completely done with life. “Is Todoroki Shouto. And the weird noise you’re hearing is my cat, Batman. She’s in time out.”

“What the fuck,” Bakugou repeated. Again. “You have a cat named Batman?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“My best friend named her. He’s a big fan of superheroes. Batman is his favorite.”

Bakugou groaned, trying and failing to comprehend everything that was currently happening. “Sure. Batman. Why the fuck wouldn’t someone name their cat Batman. Makes perfect sense. Jesus christ.”

“Yeah, well, she’s more of a villain than a hero at the moment,” the man, Todoroki, replied. “She’s the reason your kitchen is flooded.”

Bakugou blinked slowly, turning to level him with a flat stare. “What.”

“She has a bad habit of lying in the sink. And I guess last night while I was sleeping, she somehow managed to plug the stopper into the sink and, ah. Turn on the faucet,” he admitted, looking embarrassed.

“What the fuck is my life right now,” Bakugou muttered, eyes looking into the kitchen and seeing the aftermath. Todoroki’s kitchen definitely looked a lot worse than his own, despite that he’d clearly been trying to clean everything up. “So your cat, Batman, managed to flood not only your kitchen by also my own, your name is Todoroki fucking Shouto which sounds like the title of a bad foreign film to be honest, there are plants fucking everywhere in this place for some reason even though you look like some kind of punk rock loser, and—and why are your eyes two different colors? Just. What the fuck?”

The last part came out as more of a whiny plea, if Bakugou was being honest. Which he wasn’t.

“It’s called heterochromia,” Todoroki responded flatly, though something about the curve of his lips said he was amused. Bakugou felt his ire spike back to life at the sight. “It’s not exactly something I can help.”

“Whatever,” Bakugou bit out. “It’s distracting.”

“My eyes… are distracting you,” Todoroki echoed, slowly, amusement now working its way into his tone of voice and glimmering in his stupid mis-matched eyes.

“Whatever,” Bakugou hissed, his face reddening as he realized how fucking stupid that sounded, waving his hand around as if to dispel the topic of conversation entirely. “Look. How are you planning to fix this shit?”

“What?” Todoroki asked, seeming thrown off.

“The water. What are you gonna do about it. It’s leaking into my apartment. My kitchen light is fucking broken. My rug is ruined.”

Todoroki cursed under his breath, running a hand through his hair. Bakugou watched the motion with a mixture of awe and irritation for reasons he couldn’t fully put a name to. “I’ve already called the complex’s maintenance guy. Hopefully he’ll be here soon and will able to do something about it.”

The cat was still yowling. Bakugou was fighting off one of the worst headaches of his life at this point.

“You should let your fucking cat out. She’s upset,” Bakugou bit out, unable to focus on anything but the noise for some reason.

Todoroki blinked at him, his eyebrows drawing together in a confused frown. “She’s in trouble.”

“She’s a cat, she probably doesn’t even know what she did. You’re just making everyone miserable with all the fucking racket she’s making at this point,” he grumbled, reaching up to rub at his eyes.

It was at that precise moment, as his fingers touched his eyelids, that Bakugou realized he hadn’t taken the makeup off from last night.

“Oh my god,” he said in horror.

Todoroki shot him a confused look.

“I’m wearing makeup,” Bakugou said, more to himself than to Todoroki.

He received a confused look in response. “Yes. I had assumed you were aware.”

“I wasn’t—I don’t usually wear fucking makeup, ok. My best friend is a makeup artist and I got roped into being a test dummy last night while we were drunk, and then I fell asleep and fucking forgot about it.”

Bakugou wasn’t rambling. He wasn’t trying to justify himself, either. He was just… explaining. He wasn’t sure why he even felt the need to do so, but for some reason he did.

“Oh,” Todoroki replied evenly. “That’s too bad. It looks nice on you.”

Bakugou’s heart slammed against his ribs once or twice, the compliment catching him completely off-guard. Was he fucking mocking him? What kind of nemesis compliments their arch enemy out of nowhere like that? But Bakugou also knew what Kirishima was capable of and had a feeling that even if he’d slept in the stuff, he still probably did still look pretty great.

“I’ll keep that in mind,” he said in response, not bothering to go light on the sarcasm. “Look, if that’s everything, I’m gonna go ahead and try and clean up my fucking kitchen now.”

He took a few steps towards the door, reaching out and opening it and trying not to look like he was running away. Which he was not doing.

Bakugou didn’t run. Not from anything. And he had no reason to run away right now anyway.

“Wait,” Todoroki called, Bakugou pausing to glance at him. Todoroki was wearing a slightly frustrated expression. “Mind telling me what your name is now?”

Oh.

“Bakugou Katsuki,” he said, in what he hoped was a threatening manner.

Then he shut the door firmly behind himself, marching back down to his apartment without another word.

When he got there, he walked past the mess in the kitchen –he refused to even look at it right now—and went straight into the livingroom. He picked up a pillow off the couch, the nerves under his skin feeling frayed and close to catching fire.

He screamed into the pillow. For several minutes.

Of all the times Bakugou had imagined confronting his fucking neighbor, never once had he imagined that was how it might go down.

He screamed one more time before throwing the pillow down harshly.

Bakugou didn’t know exactly how he’d expected it to go. He just knew it was not supposed to go like this.

Chapter Text

A few hours after Bakugou had first reentered his own apartment once again, and well after he’d finished cleaning up the mess that was his kitchen –and attempted to clean up the mess that was his life now, frankly—he got a knock on his door. The maintenance guy stood outside, explaining that he’d just finished up looking at Todoroki’s place, and could he come inside and work on Bakugou’s now?

Bakugou let him in awkwardly, leaving his front door open and stepping outside. Watching other people work in his home made him anxious somehow. He had a bad habit of hovering. And he was feeling anxious enough already today due to all of this bullshit. He didn’t need to make it any worse by standing over someone’s shoulder and complaining.

Not when he could be outside and complaining to himself, which involved one less person and was therefore perfect.

He leaned against the wall next to his front door, crossing his arms over his chest and huffing quietly, his eyes turning to lazily scan the yard around him.

He blinked, focusing in on a figure skulking around the bushes near the building across from him. A figure that Bakugou had only seen once, but was already more recognizable than any other.

Todoroki was bent over, murmuring something as he moved branches this way and that. He looked… a lot less calm than he had earlier, actually. Which was strange, given that even in the middle of a crisis, Todoroki had appeared irritatingly calm when Bakugou had spoken to him earlier.

He also seemed to be searching for something, Bakugou noted, his curiosity climbing higher with every passing second.

Before he could think about it too hard, he found himself descending the stairs, to the bottom level, his feet carrying him towards Todoroki and across the grass without conscious decision out of a dangerous mixture of curiosity, restlessness, and boredom.

“What the hell are you doing?” Bakugou asked him when he was a few feet away.

Todoroki jumped, turning to look at Bakugou with half-crazed eyes. “My cat,” he said, sounding slightly winded.

“Batman?” Bakugou asked, frowning at the look on Todoroki’s face.

Todoroki’s eyes flashed with emotion at the mention of her name, his fists clenching at his sides. “Yes.”

“Ok, uh. I don’t fucking follow, so,” Bakugou prompted, taking another step forward and feeling an unfamiliar emotion working its way through his chest. It was almost like… worry, except with more empathy attached to it?

Oh, god. This was concern, wasn’t it. For other people. Bakugou Katsuki was concerned about another living human being—and not just anyone, either, he was concerned for his fucking enemy.

What the fuck. What the actual fuck.

“My cat got out when they came to fix the apartment and now I can’t find her,” Todoroki said in a rush, his eyes barely looking at Bakugou, instead scanning the area behind him in quiet but still mildly obvious panic.

Bakugou remembered telling Todoroki he should let his cat out of the bathroom earlier, guilt suddenly sitting like a heavy stone in his stomach.

Fuck.

Todoroki strode past him purposefully, continuing to look everywhere but at Bakugou as he went. He was softly calling out her name as he went along, Bakugou realized, something in his chest twisting at the sight despite that he couldn’t actually stand Todoroki at all.

“Won’t she just come back?” Bakugou asked, somehow knowing the answer already.

Todoroki briefly turned to shoot him a sudden but fierce glare. “I am not going to just leave her out there. She’s probably lost and scared. She could get hit by a car, or attacked by a dog—or worse, some children.”

“You’re worried she’s gonna get attacked. By small children,” Bakugou responded flatly, following after him for some unknown reason.

“Have you seen the children that live in this complex?” Todoroki asked over his shoulder, his voice spiked with annoyance.

Bakugou had seen the brats that lived all around them, actually. Todoroki kind of had a fair point.

“Alright, fine, I fucking get it, but I doubt you’re gonna find her just by running around like—“

A sudden and sharp yowl came from somewhere above them. Both of their eyes snapped up, each of them running forward and out from under the stairwell they’d been standing near in unison to look up—

Only to see the fucking cat, about 30 feet up in a goddamn tree.

“Are you shitting me right now,” Bakugou deadpanned.

“Batman,” Todoroki hissed at the cat, voice reprimanding. “Get down. Now.”

Batman looked at them both and gave a very sad yowl in response. She looked scared. In fact, she looked terrified.

“She’s stuck,” Bakugou said, feeling his headache somehow manage to intensify even further.

Todoroki frowned up at her. “I think you may be right,” he agreed begrudgingly after a moment.

“Of course I’m right,” Bakugou muttered, walking around the base of the tree thoughtfully. There was no way to climb it. There were no limbs anywhere near the base of the tree. In fact, Batman was sitting on one of the lowest limbs on the damn thing, and it was a full 30 feet in the air.

Todoroki seemed frozen with worry and indecision, his eyes serious but full of obvious concern.

“We can’t climb this,” Bakugou told him.

He swallowed, eyes still locked on the cat. “I know.”

They gazed up at her in silence for a moment, contemplating their options.

Bakugou had no idea why he was even helping with this honestly. Frankly, he shouldn’t give a shit, considering all the trouble the cat had caused him, not to mention the fact that he couldn’t stand her owner.

Sadly, he was in possession of this thing called concern now. And he did have an idea.

“Alright. Fucking wait here. I’ll be right back. Talk to her or something,” Bakugou said, stalking off to his apartment without another word or backwards glance.

The maintenance man was still fixing the ceiling light in Bakugou’s kitchen. He ignored him, walking out onto his back porch and grabbing one of the thick and long scrap of wood Kaminari had left at his place after their last attempt to build a homemade skateboard ramp—an endeavor which had ended with Kaminari having multiple broken bones.

He walked back out to find Todoroki standing directly under Batman now, talking quietly up at her. Instead of yowling, she was now meowing softly down at him. She looked distinctly sad.

“I’m gonna get her down. Just… fucking wait there,” Bakugou told him. “Keep talking to her or whatever.”

Todoroki looked at him, his eyes widening in surprise. Bakugou ignored him completely, climbing the apartment stairs and stopping on the second floor, which was closest to where the cat sat in the air.

The tree she was stuck in was thankfully fairly close to an elevator shaft that jutted out from the rest of the complex. Bakugou threw the board onto the ledge of it before climbing over the railing of the complex himself, bending at the knee and jumping the distance to the roof of the shaft with ease.

He straightened himself up, looking at the tree.

Batman now sat at eyelevel with him, just a few feet out of reach.

“Hello, asshole cat,” he said by way of greeting. He picked up the board and reached out to lean it against the tree, holding onto the other end. “Come here.”

She looked at him, then down at Todoroki before giving another loud yowl once more.

“For fucks sake, just walk across the damn board,” Bakugou muttered, leaning as far as he could manage and holding out one hand for her to sniff.

She clung to the tree and didn’t budge.

“Do you want me to come up there and help?” Todoroki asked from down below.

“No,” Bakugou said through grit teeth. “If she falls, you need to be there to catch her.”

Todoroki didn’t respond to this. He also didn’t move to join him on the roof, either. Bakugou was both surprised and grateful for his cooperation.

The irony that he was now standing 30 feet up on a rooftop to selflessly help his asshole fucking neighbor, who had nearly gotten him arrested on more than one occasion, did not escape his notice. He spared a moment to wonder how his life had come to this.

“This is the worst day of my life,” he told the cat quietly.

For some reason, her ears perked up, and she looked at him cautiously.

That seemed like a good sign. “No, seriously. You have no idea,” he told her quietly. “You flooded my kitchen. I embarrassed myself by showing up in smudged makeup. And now I’m standing on a rooftop trying to rescue a cat for someone I don’t even like.”

She meowed quietly, sounding sad. But she moved one paw slowly to the edge of the board.

Bakugou wasn’t sure why his quiet complaining was working for this purpose, but he figured it wouldn’t hurt to keep going.

“I just wanted to light off fireworks,” he told her softly, fingers clenching around the wood of the board. “And listen to my music. And not have to fucking change anything.”

She moved her other paw forward, placing her weight cautiously onto the make-shift bridge. Bakugou held her up without trouble. She wasn’t an especially large cat, thankfully.

“And then I find out that I have a horrible neighbor who hates fun and who also looks like some kind of badboy rockstar—which I did not fucking plan for, by the way,” he continued, whispering to ensure Todoroki wouldn’t overhear him.

She moved halfway across the board, pausing as her weight shifted it slightly.

“And now I have no idea what the hell is going on with my life,” he finished with surprising honestly, just before she jumped and made a flying leap for his shoulder.

He dropped the board to catch her, wincing as her claws dug into his shoulder firmly. The board clattered to the ground far below, and he glanced down to see that Todoroki had wisely stepped out of the way in the nick of time to avoid being beamed in the head by a literal beam of wood.

Bakugou stumbled back a step, leaning against the elevator shaft and petting her fur for a moment in an effort to calm her. He could feel her tiny heart slamming against his shoulder at a rapid pace. It twisted something in his heart.

He was perfectly capable of empathy. For animals. Not for people.

“It’s alright, you dumbass cat,” he murmured softly, petting her gently as he stepped up to the edge of the roof again. “We’re just gonna jump over this and then you can go back to bothering Todoroki in the comfort of your own stupid home.”

She mewed quietly at him.

“Yeah, well, if you really wanna thank me you can dig up one of his fucking plants or pee on his bed or something,” he said in response, placing one hand firmly on her back before bending down and leaping across the ledge to grab hold of the railing across from them with his free hand. It wasn’t a hard feat for him to accomplish, even even with a terrified cat on his shoulder. He spared a moment to wonder if he looked impressive, but of course he would. When did he not.

“I’m a natural fuckin hero,” he told the cat quietly. “Look at me. I’m made for this shit.”

The cat cried out softly in response. Bakugou took that as agreement.

By the time he had swung his legs back over the railing, Todoroki had come up the stairs to join them, hovering awkwardly nearby and seemingly unsure of how to proceed.

“Here, take her,” Bakugou hissed as he tried to dislodge her hold on his shoulder, wincing when she dug her claws further into his flesh, unwilling to let go. “Fuck, do you ever trim her nails? They’re like knives, jesus.”

“Sorry,” Todoroki mumbled, taking Batman from him gently and holding her to his chest like one might a small baby once Bakugou had managed to pry her off, the cat burrowing into the crook of Todoroki’s elbow immediately and giving a soft and sad meow.

Bakugou straightened himself up, touching his shoulder to find a bit of blood seeping through his shirt where the cat had clawed him. Great. Just fucking great. The sheer number of shirts he possessed that contained blood stains seemed like it should probably be a cause for concern, but Bakugou was mostly just annoyed at the fact that he couldn’t wear this one to work anymore.

Apparently, people couldn’t wear blood stained shirts to work. He knew. He’d tried. More than once.

Todoroki stood a few feet away, stealing glances at Bakugou as he pet his cat but made no move to fucking leave. Bakugou had a feeling he was trying to decide what to say. This lead Bakugou to realize this would probably involve words. And possibly even an attempt at conversation.

Bakugou only had so much capacity for dealing with social interaction on any given day, and today he’d already gone well over his quota.

“Kay. Bye,” Bakugou said flatly, walking off in the direction of his apartment in an effort to avoid what he could tell was going to be something stupid and awful if given the opportunity.

“Wait,” Todoroki called out behind him, voice strained.

Bakugou actually stopped. He looked down briefly at his feet, glaring. That wasn’t what they were supposed to be doing. They were supposed to walk him into his apartment and away from this shit.

Instead he just stood frozen on the spot, unable to move forward but also unwilling to turn around and look at him.

“Thank you for helping get my cat out of the tree,” Todoroki said, sounding like the words were difficult to force from his throat. Bakugou imagined they probably were. If he had had to thank and be grateful to someone who was supposed to be his sworn enemy… well. Bakugou probably just wouldn’t have done it at all, to be fair.

He shrugged, scowling at nothing in particular. “It’s fine.”

“I’d… like to make it up to you,” Todoroki continued neutrally, despite that his voice sounded hard.

“Don’t worry about it,” Bakugou told him. Because he meant it, dammit. He didn’t want to have anything more to do with this. Or with him. Ever.

“Look, my cat flooded your kitchen, and then you still went out of your way to help get her out of a tree. I don’t like feeling indebted to you,” Todoroki told him, sounding honest, if not slightly annoyed.

Well. That part Bakugou could understand. It didn’t mean he was sympathic, though.

“Let me make you dinner,” Todoroki finished lamely. “Uh, not tonight though. I still need to clean my kitchen up.”

Bakugou opened his mouth to shoot him down, but paused.

Had Todoroki offered Bakugou literally anything else, he would have declined without hesitation. He would’ve argued and said nope, he could take his uncomfortable feelings of being indebted and fucking suffer.

But this was an opportunity Bakugou could not turn down. He was a chef. People rarely cooked for him in the first place, but more importantly, he knew this would be an opportunity for him to annoy Todoroki further with his superior skills and knowledge. He imagined Todoroki serving him dinner and being able to snidely remark that the meat was undercooked, or that there wasn’t enough seasoning used for the side dish.

And that—well.

Bakugou could never pass up an opportunity to be the best at something, after all.

“Fine,” he said casually, trying to hide the smirk that wanted to plaster itself onto his face as he finally turned around to grace Todoroki with eye contact. “You can make me fucking dinner. I don’t care.”

Todoroki nodded at him, an expression somewhere between pained and relieved settling across his face. “Are you free tomorrow night?”

“No. I work,” Bakugou told him. It was also the 4^th of July, and Bakugou had other plans besides dinner with his enemy. Like annoying his enemy, for example. “I’m free the next night, though. I guess.”

Todoroki nodded again, still stroking Batman, his tattooed arms shifting in the light and catching Bakugou’s eye effortlessly. It almost looked to Bakugou like Todoroki was trying to comfort himself more than the cat as he continued to pet her. Something about the sight was such an odd juxtaposition that it seemed unfairly adorable. Bakugou hated it.

“Alright. Come by around seven, then,” Todoroki told him, his stupid eyes distractingly bright in the light.

“Fine,” Bakugou mumbled, looking away.

He turned around again abruptly and walked off before Todoroki could try and say something further.

When he returned to his apartment, it was to find the maintenance guy had already left. His kitchen light now worked.

His rug was still fucking ruined, though. He’d have to get a new one. Not having a rug in the kitchen was just… unacceptable.

He picked it up, as well as his bucket of fireworks, before turning around and walking back outside once he’d checked to see Todoroki was nowhere in sight. He threw the rug in the dumpster as he passed by it, continuing further out onto the street with his bucket and settling in to light off as many loud exploding fireworks as he could before he had to leave for work.

Just because he’d helped Todoroki rescue his fucking cat from a tree didn’t mean Bakugou was going to stop being as annoying as possible. They weren’t friends. Bakugou didn’t even fucking like the guy. And he definitely, definitely didn’t find Todoroki attractive. Not even slightly.

Bakugou twisted together several m80s and threw them in the bucket, the resounding boom still somehow not loud enough to drown out the erratic beating of his heart.

---

Work that night felt grueling. Bakugou had been yelled at no less than six times already and his shift wasn’t even over.

“Did you take that tray out to table seven yet?” Ashido asked him sweetly as she zoomed around the kitchen. “They requested the chef specifically deliver it.”

“Table seven can fuck themselves,” Bakugou responded, though he dutifully grabbed the tray of food and whisked out the door to deliver their dishes. He didn’t do so with a smile, but he also didn’t do it cursing or screaming, either.

He considered that a small victory.

“You’re so cranky today,” Ashido noted when he returned, her mouth quirking up in a grin. “Are you stressing about your date?”

Bakugou threw a towel at her, smacking her face dead-on and receiving an indignant squawk in response. He wished he’d never told her about the day’s events. “It’s not a fucking date, pinkie. It’s my chance to show him up.”

“Suuuure it is,” she replied once she’d snatched the towel from her face, rolling her eyes. “Nothing says competition like two guys eating a meal alone together in one of their apartments.”

Bakugou growled, grabbing an ice-cube out of a nearby pitcher before stuffing it down the back of her shirt, Ashido hollering and attempting to slap him with a spatula in response.

It wasn’t a fucking date.

---

“Sooo, it’s a date, huh?” Kirishima asked him the next morning over the phone.

Bakugou wished he had some m80s left. He was feeling a very strong urge to blow something up right now. Violently.

Sadly, he’d already used them all up that morning. So much for celebrating the fucking 4^th of July.

“It is not a fucking date, for fucks sake, why does everyone keep saying that? He hates me. I hate him. This is literally just another chance for me to get under his skin.”

“And it has nothing to do with the fact that he’s apparently a tatted up hottie, huh?”

Bakugou felt his face flush at the words and was grateful Kirishima couldn’t see it. “Who gives a shit if he’s hot? Which he’s not, by the way.”

“Really? Because the way you keep describing him, over and over, in increasing detail, is starting to make me wonder if you are perhaps full of shit my dude.”

Bakugou groaned into the receiver, lying sprawled out on his couch, his feet dangling off the arm. “I hate you. You’re the worst fucking friend I’ve ever had in my life. You and Kaminari both.”

“Aww, I love you too, Bakugou. Kami,” Kirishima shouted, voice growing distant as he yelled at what Bakugou assumed must be Kaminari. “Bakugou says he loves us!”

“Tell him we fucking hate him,” Bakugou heard Kaminari shout back, voice muffled.

“Kaminari says he loves you too,” Kirishima chimed in helpfully. Bakugou could hear Kaminari mumbling something derisive in the background.

“Jesus fucking christ,” Bakugou sighed, rubbing at his forehead.

“So what are you planning to wear for your not-date, then?” Kirishima asked him a moment later.

Bakugou blanched. He hadn’t actually thought about it, honestly. It shouldn’t matter. It really shouldn’t matter. Because it wasn’t a date, it really wasn’t.

And yet somehow it did matter, because Bakugou was determined to look hotter that Todoroki. It was just another way to win. That was all.

“Actually, about that,” Bakugou mumbled, an idea occurring to him suddenly. “Are you fucking busy right now, or can you come over for a bit? I need you to show me something.”

---

Bakugou had work first thing in the morning the next day. After having just worked the late shift the night before. Back to back work was exhausting, but if you wanted to get ahead in the industry, you had to be willing to put up with some bullshit.

Or so Bakugou tried to remind himself. Frequently.

Once he finally got home, Bakugou saw Todoroki’s car was yet again in his fucking spot. Because of course it was, why would literally anything go well today for Bakugou.

He turned his music up as loud as it would go the minute he was in his apartment, shouting along the lyrics to Beyonce songs just because he fucking could.

He took his sweet time taking a nice, long hot shower, the temperature just shy of scalding as he let the heat relax his muscles. He was weirdly nervous about this evening for some reason. He wasn’t entirely sure why, exactly, but he’d felt tense and keyed up all day.

The hot shower helped. It didn’t really solve the problem, but it at least kept it at bay somewhat.

When he was done, he walked into his bedroom, pulling out a pair of skin-tight dark jeans. He threw on his favorite tank top, largely because it made him feel comfortable, the skull on the front a silent reminder to him. A reminder of who he was. Of where he’d come from. Of his strength. Of his devil-may-care attitude.

But mostly, it just reminded him of how hot he looked in this fucking shirt, which was the real reason it was his favorite in the first place.

Once he’d shoved his feet into a pair of boots, he stomped his way across the house and back into the bathroom.

On the counter rested something Kirishima had given him from his own personal collection, the label looking more expensive than Bakugou really wanted to think about. He picked it up, pulling the cap off of it and looking at his own face in the mirror.

He looked mildly pained, to be honest. Why the fuck did he agree to this dinner bullshit again?

Ah, right. The chance to be an asshole. An opportunity Bakugou could rarely pass up.

But was it really worth all this?

“You know what, fuckit. I do whatever the fuck I want,” he said to no one, leaning forward and grabbing his eyelid with determination.

A couple of minutes later, he leaned back, putting the cap back on the pencil and turning his head in several directions to admire his handiwork.

Todoroki hadn’t been wrong, Bakugou decided begrudgingly.  He did look good in makeup. Black eyeliner in particular, as he and Kirishima had decided the day before. Bakugou’s overall appearance often came across as highly intimidating, which wasn’t exactly accidental. But the hint of eyeliner added something soft to his features while simultaneously bringing out the sharp color of his eyes.

Bakugou stared at himself for a moment, feeling like he was having a minor existential crisis.

“This might be the gayest fucking thing I’ve ever done,” he told his reflection.

It didn’t disagree with him.

He slapped the pencil down on the counter, walking out of the bathroom and back into his bedroom, where the music was emanating from. Glancing over to his desk clock, he noted it was precisely five minutes till seven.

Bakugou considered the pros and cons of making Todoroki wait. Realistically, he could be as late as he wanted, he figured. It would probably annoy Todoroki if he wasn’t on time anyway. For some reason he struck Bakugou as the type of annoying asshole that punctuality was important to.

Sadly, patience was not one of Bakugou’s virtues, and he couldn’t be bothered to wait. Even for his own brilliant fucking ideas.

He turned his music off and made his way out his front door, locking it and stuffing his hands in his too-small pockets as he walked up the stairs. He was suddenly filled with nerves. Bakugou didn’t do nerves. He chewed on his lip slightly as he made his way up the stairwell, unable to focus much on where he was walking and barely missing tripping over one of the stairs.

He stomped up the last few feet to Todoroki’s door, pretending the nerves were actually anger. Anger was something Bakugou was a lot more comfortable with.

He raised his hand to pound on the door, but before he could swing his fist, it swung gently open, Todoroki’s face appearing around the edge. Bakugou was briefly startled once again by just how unnerving his eyes were. Somehow, in the last few days, the full effect of his stare had diminished in his mind into something less than distracting.

Which was terrible, because Bakugou was suddenly reminded of exactly how distracting it actually was.

“I didn’t fucking knock yet, asshole,” Bakugou told him when he’d gathered himself, face dropping into a scowl on reflex.

Torodoki raised one eyebrow. “You made enough noise coming up here that you may as well have. I heard you the moment you slammed your front door shut.”

“Whatever,” Bakugou mumbled, feeling awkward. “Are you planning to feed me sometime in the next year or what?”

Todoroki gave him a flat look that somehow managed to convey the perfect amount of lack of amusement while simultaneously letting Bakugou know that Todoroki was exercising the patience of a saint and that Bakugou should be incredibly grateful for his effort.

Bakugou rolled his eyes in response. He didn’t give a shit. Todoroki was the one who’d invited him, after all. It wasn’t like he hadn’t been aware that Bakugou was an asshole.

He swung the door open just enough to allow Bakugou to squeeze through before shutting it behind him.

Once inside Bakugou blinked, taking his time to look around the living space once more, which was somehow much different with the light of day slowly fading from the sky. Several lamps lit the living room with a gentle glow, the kitchen light showing Todoroki’s kitchen looked much better now than it had the last time Bakugou had been there. Except now it contained a few pots and pans, the evidence of cooking minimal but still obvious.

Bakugou sniffed cautiously at the air, noting that it didn’t really smell like… well, food.

“Go sit down on the couch or something,” Todoroki told him, clearly dismissing him. “It’ll be done in a few minutes.”

“And what the fuck is ‘it’, anyway?”

“If you expect me to be unnecessarily cooperative after you were blasting music all afternoon, you’re going to be disappointed. You can wait to find out.”

Bakugou made a derisive noise but didn’t argue further as he made his way into the other room. He supposed he did deserve that, he guessed.

He sat heavily on the end of the couch closest to the kitchen, unabashedly watching Todoroki move around and attempting to figure out what the fuck he was actually doing. Something was clearly simmering on the stove, though Bakugou couldn’t figure out what the fuck it was.

His attention slowly shifted from what Todoroki was potentially cooking to Todoroki himself. He wasn’t quite as punk looking as Bakugou had first thought, Bakugou was surprised to find. He was wearing a white t-shirt, his arms clearly visible once again. Bakugou wondered how many tattoos were hidden under the layer of cotton, too. He wondered if the images meant something to Todoroki, or if they were just things he found beautiful.

From what he could see of his arms, his tattoos were even more interesting than Bakugou had first realized. The left arm was covered in flames from the elbow down, swirls of color that looked almost vibrant enough that they might as well have been alive and moving. Above that, Bakugou could see only black ink, sharp geometric patterns with hints of nature between the lines. Bakugou could see a full moon on the back of Todoroki’s tricep, his eyes narrowing and attempting to catch more details from that distance but largely failing. When Todoroki shifted to grab something from the sink, Bakugou had a better view of his right arm. While the left had looked almost alive like a burning flame, the left was covered in sharp frozen shapes, cool blue ice crystals covering Todoroki’s arm from elbow to wrist. It looked strangely captivating, beautiful and yet somehow hollow.

He moved again before Bakugou could really get a good look at the rest of the tattoos covering his arm, Bakugou frowned slightly at nothing in particular, his eyes following Todoroki around without conscious thought.

After a moment he realized he was watching the way Todoroki’s hair shifted as he moved back and forth in the kitchen with a bit too much intensity. Bakugou scowled at his back, feeling slightly bitter. He was confident that he did look hotter than Todoroki did at least, but he was also disappointed to realize that in general, his win was by a pretty small margin.

Not that Bakugou thought Todoroki was attractive. Because he didn’t. Todoroki was just objectively pleasing on the eyes. Anyone would think that. Hell, even straight men probably looked at Todoroki and felt inferior for not being quite as broad and beautiful. Not that Todoroki was beautiful, really, just easy on the eyes. But not Bakugou’s eyes specifically. Everyone else’s though. Probably.  

There was a sudden shift on the couch beside him, and Bakugou startled slightly, distracted from his internal debate with himself and looking over to find two large yellow eyes staring at him.

“Oh. It’s you,” he said, expression softening slightly.

Batman stood beside him on the cushions, watching him with a curious but friendly gaze.

He glanced at Todoroki, checking to be sure he wasn’t paying too close attention. “Uh. What’s up, cat. How’s it going. Or… whatever,” Bakugou asked, feeling slightly stupid but noticing that the cat seemed to perk up at the sound of his voice, much like she had the day he’d convinced her to walk across a board 30 feet in the air.

He reached out a hand tentatively, palm down, and let her sniff him.

She gave a soft mew before bumping his hand gently with her head, her tail twirling behind her happily.

“Ok,” Bakugou mumbled. “That’s, uh. It’s good to fucking see you too, I guess,” he told her, giving her a firm but gentle scratch behind her ears.

She immediately began purring. Bakugou felt something in his heart melt, which was an unusual but not entirely unwelcome sensation.

His parents had kept a cat when he was a child. He’d forgotten how much he missed having animals around. Cats in particular were a weakness Bakugou was well aware that he had, though he’d never admit to it out loud.

As he continued petting her, she eventually climbed up into his lap, settling down. Bakugou didn’t even mind the fact that she’d probably get hair all over his pants. She was a black cat anyway, so her hair probably wouldn’t even show up.

He was so distracted petting Batman that he almost didn’t notice when Todoroki placed two bowls on the kitchen table just a few feet away. He looked up, realizing as he did so that he’d been smiling down at the cat in his lap distractedly. He forced his face back into its customary scowl. It wouldn’t do to be caught smiling in front of someone he was determined to mock here in short order.

But Todoroki had clearly noticed, because he was giving him an odd look. Bakugou thought he looked surprised, but perhaps also slightly… pleased?

What the fuck. Well that wasn’t part of the plan at all.

“Can I fucking eat now, or what?” Bakugou asked him, trying to break the mood. He picked Batman up gently and resituated her on the couch beside him so he could stand up, the cat giving him a mournful meow as he did so.

Todoroki shrugged. If Bakugou didn’t know better, he would say he looked slightly embarrassed. “Depends,” Todoroki replied, looking down at the table. “How brave are you feeling?”

“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?” Bakugou asked, moving over to the table to look down at what was in the bowl, his curiosity shifting into high gear.

Bakugou blinked, his eyes not comprehending what he was seeing.

Todoroki scratched at his arm for a moment before sitting down. “What I mean is that I’m not a great cook. I promised to feed you. I didn’t say it was going to be fancy or anything.”

The soupy mess before Bakugou seemed like it was personally trying to offend him with its mere existence, the sight of it almost like nails on a chalkboard to his senses.

Tomato juice and noodles. It was fucking tomato juice and noodles.

“Are you secretly twelve or something?” Bakugou asked, honestly offended.

Todoroki shrugged slightly, picking up a spoon and stirring his bowl a bit, seemingly unaffected by this statement—and by Bakugou’s attitude. “I can only cook a few things. This is one of my favorites.”

As he raised the spoon to his mouth, Bakugou smacked it out of his hand, the utensil landing back in the soupy mixture with a plop.

He’d even overcooked the fucking pasta. For fucks sake.

Bakugou felt his lip curl in disgust. “You are not eating that. No one is eating that. Jesus fuck, why didn’t you just tell me you couldn’t cook.”

This was a complete failure. Bakugou couldn’t find it within himself to carry out his original plan. Making fun of someone who obviously knew they were shit at something just wasn’t any fun in Bakugou’s opinion.

Bakugou sighed momentarily before coming to a decision.

He couldn’t mock him then, sure. But showing off? Well. That was something else entirely.

Bakugou snatched up both of their bowls, walking into Todoroki’s kitchen and dumping them in the trash as he went. Todoroki made a sound of distress, standing to follow Bakugou back into the kitchen and looking slightly panicked. Or at least, as much as someone who apparently had the most neutral expression on the face of the planet could look panicked, anyway.

“I don’t have anything else to feed you, Bakugou. I mean, I suppose I could order pizza, or maybe Chinese if you prefer—“

“Jesus christ, just stop talking and grab your keys already,” Bakugou  muttered, walking to the front door.

“What? Why?” Todoroki asked, seeming confused. Bakugou noted he did pick up his keys, however.

“Because we’re going to eat actual food for dinner,” Bakugou told him, sounding self-important and not even caring. “And I’m going to cook it for you.”

---

About an hour later, Bakugou wiped both hands on his apron before removing it with a practiced flourish, throwing it on the counter triumphantly. He picked up two plates and walked them over to his dining table, setting one down in front of Todoroki before pulling out a chair and seating himself in front of the other plate.

He glanced up to find Todoroki looking at him, mouth hanging open in a mixture of shock and awe.

Bakugou didn’t bother to try and hide his smirk.

Now that was how you one-upped someone.

“What is this?” Todoroki asked, eyes now glued to his plate as though he could hardly believe it was real.

Bakugou’s smirk widened. “That is real fucking food, and it’s called mushroom risotto.”

“How?” Todoroki asked, still not looking at Bakugou.

His smirk slipped slightly, a confused frown taking its place. “How what?”

“How did you do this?”

“What, do you want the fucking recipe? If tomato juice and noodles is the height of your cooking ability I’m pretty fucking sure this one is gonna be out of your league.”

Todoroki finally blinked, looking away from the food and back to Bakugou. He squinted at him, Bakugou glaring back on reflex. If Bakugou didn’t know better, he would say Todoroki was looking at him like he’d done something particularly suspicious.

“I mean how do you know how to do this?” Todoroki finally asked with obvious disbelief. As if he thought Bakugou was trying to pull a fast one on him. Like he’d fucking snuck the food in from somewhere else or something, despite that Todoroki had watched as Bakugou made the entire thing from scratch.

Bakugou felt his eye twitch. He didn’t know if he was more pleased or frustrated by that kind of response, truth be told.

“Uh, it’s my fucking job?” Bakugou replied, picking up a fork and sticking it in his food. He gestured sharply at Todoroki to do the same, which he did, though much more slowly. “I’m a chef at Plus Ultra. The fucking sous chef. Someday I’m gonna run the place, just you wait.”

“You work… at Plus Ultra,” Todoroki repeated, voice flat with disbelief.

Bakugou shot him a look. “Pretty sure that’s what I just fucking said.”

“And you’re a sous chef.”

“Yeah? What, got a problem with that?”

“You’re a sous chef at an internationally acclaimed restaurant,” Todoroki continued, his expression looking dangerously close to a scowl. “And you were going to let me cook you dinner?”

“Oh,” Bakugou said, understanding finally dawning on him. He smirked again, wide enough to flash his teeth this time. “Yeah. Obviously. I wanted to mock you.”

Todoroki actually did scowl at that. “You know, every time I start to think maybe you’re not quite as terrible as I first thought, you have a way of reminding me that you are, in fact, an asshole.”

“This might come as a fucking surprise to you,” Bakugou started, shoving a spoonful of risotto in his mouth and talking through it just to be as obnoxious as possible. “But I’m not really out to convince you you’re wrong about that.”

Todoroki raised one eyebrow. “Clearly.”

Bakugou snorted, but didn’t say anything further, looking away to dig into his food with gusto.

They ate in silence for a few minutes. Todoroki never said it was delicious, but he didn’t have to. Bakugou could see it on his face; could tell by the way the tension slowly drained from his shoulders; knew from the way the creases around his eyes seemed to ease into something almost like contentment.

“So,” Bakugou finally said, breaking the silence. “What the fuck do you do, then?”

He didn’t know why he was asking. It didn’t matter. And yet he was curious. Todoroki was… strange. Nothing about him really made a lot of sense to Bakugou. He was like an especially annoying puzzle that Bakugou felt like he was missing some pieces to. He just wanted to make sense of the guy who lived above him in an effort to exploit the information and use it to further annoy him.

“This will likely surprise you,” Todoroki replied drily, “But I am a tattoo artist.”

Bakugou frowned. He supposed he should have guessed that, given that Todoroki did seem to be virtually covered in ink, but somehow the idea had never once even occurred to him.

“You any good?” Bakugou bit out, hoping to needle him.

To his dismay, Todoroki’s lips quirked up in a smirk of his own. “You could say that.”

“The fuck is that supposed to mean,” Bakugou said, eyebrows drawing together.

Todoroki just shrugged, his smile too fucking mysterious. Bakugou tried and failed not to be both disappointed and annoyed at the lack of information. Somehow this had just made his curiosity worse.

“Alright, fine, be all enigmatic and shit. Suits your lame-ass emo image anyway,” Bakugou mumbled.

Todoroki actually had the gall to laugh at that, the fucker.

They ate again in silence for a minute, Bakugou quietly fuming at the fact that nothing was going the way he really wanted it to. He wasn’t sure how he wanted it to go, exactly. He only knew that it wasn’t happening.

“I wanted to thank you,” Todoroki said out of nowhere. “Properly, I mean. For saving Batman the other day.”

Bakugou groaned. This was also not how he wanted things to go.

“Don’t fucking mention it,” Bakugou said.

“No, really. You didn’t have to do that at all. And I know you were already mad about your kitchen, so the fact that you were willing to—“

“I said don’t fucking mention it. That’s not me being polite, like actually please shut the fuck up about it,” Bakugou cut in, feeling a mild headache coming on. “I didn’t do it for you. I did it for the cat. So stop talking about it already.”

Bakugou could feel Todoroki staring at him, but he refused to look up from where he was mulishly pushing food around on his plate.

“Right,” Todoroki said slowly, taking another bite of food and chewing thoughtfully. “For the cat.”

“Yeah.”

“The cat that you didn’t even know existed until that morning.”

Bakugou frowned.

“The cat that you hadn’t even met until you were pulling her out of a tree.”

“Shut the fuck up,” Bakugou hissed, his face flushing. “I might be an asshole, but I like cats, ok? Animals are cool because they’re not people and they don’t say stupid fucking shit like the stuff coming out of your goddamn mouth.”

Todoroki was looking down at the table, trying and failing to hide his smirk in his food.

Bakugou couldn’t stand him, jesus fucking christ.

When the food was finished, Bakugou couldn’t say he was exactly disappointed. As much as he was somewhat curious about Todoroki, he was also highly fucking annoying, and a large part of Bakugou couldn’t wait to have him out of his space.

Bakugou looked around thoughtfully as he gathered up the empty dishes, glancing around his own apartment. He wondered what Todoroki saw when he looked at the sparse furnishings, the white walls dotted with only a few things here and there. Bakugou wouldn’t say he was an especially clean person, he just didn’t own too much. It usually seemed like a waste of time and effort to have much of anything at his apartment when he spent so much time at work.

His kitchen was probably the most decorated and furnished room in his whole home, now that he thought about it. He wondered if his apartment felt lived in or was strangely cold and empty.

He dropped the dishes into the sink with a bit more force than was perhaps necessary at the thought. Who gave a shit if his apartment wasn’t as comfy as Todoroki’s? Not Bakugou.

“Thank you for the meal,” Todoroki said suddenly from behind him, Bakugou turning to find him standing in the kitchen doorway behind him. He looked uncomfortable, like he wanted to say something more but wasn’t sure what.

Bakugou, strangely, felt like he wanted to say something more, and that kind of weirded him the fuck out more than anything else had all evening.

“Whatever,” Bakugou replied, waving a hand lazily towards the door despite that he was panicking slightly. “Just get out of my apartment.”

Todoroki took an awkward step backwards, seeming reluctant. “It doesn’t feel like we’re even, given that I still didn’t really feed you.”

“Good. I like having one up on you anyway,” Bakugou replied, walking past him and opening the door. He gestured at Todoroki pointedly.

Todoroki sighed, stepping through the doorway. “I’ll find a way to pay you back.”

“No you won’t,” Bakugou assured him.

Todoroki turned to level him with a frown. “Well, what if I—“

“Nice talking to you neighbor,” Bakugou cut him off with false cheer, smirking. “Have a great rest of your evening.”

He slammed the door shut in Todoroki’s face, taking no small amount of joy in the look of annoyance that crossed his features just before the door shut with a resounding bang.

He waited until he heard the sound of Todoroki entering the apartment above him before walking away from his own front door, an idea coming to him slowly.

He didn’t like how weird and out of sorts he felt. Bakugou needed to feel like he’d won somehow, and right now he mostly just felt conflicted and oddly confused.

Which meant only one thing was in order: good old fashioned routine and tradition.

He walked back into the kitchen, starting up the water to do dishes and pouring himself a glass of wine because he felt like it was necessary, dammit, before walking over to his stereo, flipping through his phone until he found what he was looking for and setting up the Bluetooth immediately.

Humble by Kendrick Lamar rapidly filled his apartment with sound, Bakugou grinning at nothing in particular as he turned the music up to full volume.

It wasn’t quite nine yet, which meant Bakugou had plenty of time to be as loud as he fucking wanted with complete impunity from the law.

He took a long drink off his wine, throwing dishes into the sink with his free hand and dancing in front of the sink as he did so, shouting bitch be humble with complete awareness of how ironic it sounded coming from him and giving absolutely zero fucks.

Bakugou did whatever he wanted. Always. All the time.

He heard a door slam from somewhere above him, a pleased smile gracing his face as he swung his hips back and forth, scrubbing at a pan.

It hadn’t been such a bad night all in all, he decided.

He was blissfully unaware of the hell that awaited him the next day.

Chapter Text

Bakugou woke up in an uncharacteristically good mood. He spent most of his morning cooking himself an extravagant breakfast just because he could before using the rest of his time before work to clean up his house, even going so far as to pull out the vacuum and dust off the few surfaces in his living room that seemed to collect debris no matter what he did to try and prevent it.

By the time he left for work, he was feeling fairly accomplished with himself. Like he’d done responsible, real adult things and maybe deserved an award for it. Or at least a marginal amount of praise. He noted that Todoroki’s car was still out in front of the complex as he left, absently wondering if that meant he had the day off. He probably did, the lucky asshole.

“So, how did the date go?” Ashido asked immediately when he walked through the door at work.

“It wasn’t a fucking date,” he said automatically, snatching his chef coat off the rack near the door and tying an apron on over the front. He was eternally grateful for the fact that Plus Ultra’s uniforms were black and not white. “And it was fucking terrible, thanks for asking,” he told her as he adjusted his outfit, making sure everything was in its proper place.  Particularly the shiny little nametag he wore, which said Bakugou Katsuki, Sous Chef just over his breast bone.

“Oh come on, it couldn’t have been that bad,” Ashido continued, already in the middle of cooking what looked like the soup special they’d be serving that evening.

Bakugou shot her a flat look. “He tried to make tomato juice and noodles. And fucked it up.”

Ashido froze, pausing in her stirring to look up at him in mild shock.

“Yeah,” Bakugou said, nodding at her look. “Exactly.”

“Did you eat it?”

He made a derisive sound, washing his hands rapidly before joining her at the stove. “Obviously not, dumbass. I threw it away. And then I made him come to my place and I cooked dinner instead.”

Ashido raised an eyebrow. “Showoff.”

“You’re goddamn right,” Bakugou agreed, snatching up a knife to begin prepping a nearby pile of vegetables.

She resumed her stirring, humming thoughtfully. “Alright, so he ruined the most basic dish of all time and you brought him to your place and cooked to prove a point. But what did you make?”

“Mushroom risotto,” Bakugou mumbled, peeling potatoes with quick and practiced movements.

She laughed, turning the heat down on her dish and adding a small plate of mixed spices, the smell wafting into the air pleasantly the moment they hit the warm broth. “You made him one of your specialties? Boy, you really did go all out, didn’t you.”

“Shut the fuck up,” he murmured with less heat than he usually might, flinging a potato peel at the back of her head half-heartedly. “I just happened to have the stuff to make it on hand.”

“Bakugou, you literally have the stuff on hand to make just about anything at any given time. I’ve seen your kitchen. It’s… mildly terrifying in how well stocked it is.”

“So? You got a point or are you just telling me shit I already know?”

She sighed, but didn’t press him further, and Bakugou was grateful she let it go for once. Hell, he wasn’t even sure exactly what had prompted him to make that, of all things. The last thing he needed was for someone else to start grilling him over it while he was trying to work.

It was about this time of the day that his good mood began to deteriorate.

About an hour into their shift heralded the oncoming afternoon rush. Which wasn’t exactly unusual in and of itself. Except that one of their waiters had called in sick, and their line cook was apparently stranded about an hour away with a broken down car.

Fuck his life, honestly.

He was whisking eggs rapidly into a bowl to make breaded chicken when Ashido finally came back up to him, resuming their conversation as if they’d never stopped, seemingly immune to the break-neck pace they were all now forced to work at in order to compensate for being so short staffed. “So. What did you talk about?” she asked casually.

Bakugou thought about it. He probably shouldn’t be talking right now, given how busy they were, but talking in the kitchen sometimes kept him from outright blowing up at customers. “Not much, I guess. Work mostly.”

“What does he do?” she pressed, grabbing up a bottle of olive oil and dumping it onto a hot pan before tossing in rice and a handful of other ingredients with the confidence of someone who’d done it a thousand times already, her hands a blur as she worked. They should’ve made her the line cook rather than the prep cook, Bakugou silently acknowledged. He’d have to talk to the head chef at some point.

“He’s a tattoo artist,” Bakugou replied, blinking rapidly before frowning down at his own bowl of eggs. “Should’ve fucking guessed that much, to be honest.”

She turned her head, interest clearly piqued. “Where does he work?”

Bakugou realized suddenly that he hadn’t bothered to ask. “I don’t fucking know. Who cares,” he grumbled, grabbing up a chicken breast and dunking it in the batter. He wanted to be upset that she kept bringing it up, and that they were talking about it at all. But for some reason, he wasn’t.

Weirdly, he found he kind of wanted to talk about it, and he wasn’t quite sure why.

Probably just the stress of the kitchen. Kitchen stress often made him say a lot of weird shit.

“Is he at least a good tattoo artist?” she asked, her eyes glancing at him in a way that made Bakugou feel like she somehow knew what he was thinking even if she was smart enough not to say it.

He tossed the chicken breast into a bowl of bread crumbs, coating the entire thing before laying it on a pan and quickly shoving it in the oven. “He wouldn’t fucking say. Trying to be all mysterious or whatever. Asshole.”

She laughed suddenly, the sound loud and clear over the clanging of utensils that surrounded them, but she let the conversation drop as one of the waiters ran back into the room to deliver another series of orders, the two of them and the rest of the kitchen staff falling silent briefly in an effort to scramble to keep up.

It wasn’t until the dinner rush that Bakugou’s day finally went from stressful to straight-up nightmarish.

They had multiple large groups they were trying to cater to that night, which was a bad situation in the first place. Bakugou had no idea how they’d ended up this fucking busy for a Thursday night, and yet here they were, trying to fill orders for two groups of people who wanted completely different sets of dishes off the menu, basically ensuring that it would take longer to get each person their meal since he couldn’t make certain side dishes in groups because of it. All while fucking understaffed.

One of the newer waitresses had dropped a finished tray of food when she’d come into the kitchen to pick it up, meaning Bakugou had to start the entire process for at least half of one of the tables over. From fucking scratch.

But he was a professional, and this was all just part of the job, even if it did make him excessively annoyed to work at a pace that was borderline inhuman. His normal pace was Mach-speed compared to some of the other cooks that worked in their kitchen. This necessitated almost god-tier speed.

Bakugou didn’t get paid nearly enough for this bullshit.

Once the first group had been fully taken care of and the dropped orders had been replaced, Bakugou finally had a brief chance to breathe. For about thirty seconds. Because then a series of other orders came in from the normal dinner crowd.

That was just how restaurant life went, honestly.

Out of all of the incoming dinner orders, only one person had ordered the special. Bakugou made it perfectly in record time, already on fire from the earlier rush work he’d been doing. Because he was the best, and he knew what the fuck he was doing in a goddamn kitchen.

Except.

Apparently.

Someone wasn’t happy with it.

“He said it looks like a twelve-year-old made it,” the waiter told him nervously, very likely sensing the danger of being the one to deliver such news to Bakugou when he was in a kitchen surrounded by sharp utensils and on the verge of homicide.

Bakugou felt a his eye twitch. His mind blanked, his body so filled with rage he felt himself momentarily short-circuit.  

Who the fuck. Just. Who in the actual fuck.

“Fine,” Bakugou finally said, voice low. “Tell him I’ll fucking remake it then.”

Because Bakugou was a professional, and even if he was sorely tempted to poison the customer’s meal for daring to say something so absolutely fucking wrong, he was still going to do his goddamn job.

He spent extra time making sure it was absolute perfection in the form of food before handing the dish off to the waiter without comment. He was at that point in the night where all he could really think of was the fact that there was a bottle of wine waiting for him at home, provided he didn’t murder anyone and thus end up in jail. Jail had a surprising lack of fine wine, or so he’d heard.

Except about a minute later, the waiter reappeared. With the dish still in his hand. Visibly trembling.

“Are you fucking kidding me,” Bakugou growled.

The man swallowed audibly. A bead of sweat rolled down his temple. “He—he said he’d had better food served to him in the comfort of his own home, and he refused to take the dish unless the—the, um. Unless the chef delivered it personally?”

The whole kitchen froze. It was so silent Bakugou could hear very little over the sound of his own pulse, which thundered in his ears with unbridled rage.

“Oh no,” he heard Ashido whisper quietly from across the room.

“Give me that fucking dish,” Bakugou said darkly, reaching out to snatch it from the waiters hands. “I’ll fucking deliver it alright. All over his fucking face.”

“Bakugou—Bakugou don’t— we can’t afford another lawsuit, oh, jesus,“ Ashido started from behind him, but he pushed through the doorway before she had time to stop him.

He swept across the restaurant with the air of someone walking confidently into a boxing match, plate and head held high as he made his way to the back corner to deliver a lot more than food.

Only to stop abruptly, eyes going wide they locked with a mismatched gazed that was watching him with no small amount of amusement. Red and white hair fell artfully over his forehead, his mouth hidden by his hands as he rested his chin against them, leaning his elbows comfortably on the table. His shirt was rolled up to the elbows, putting his tattoos on full display.

How fucking dare he.

Bakugou forced himself to walk the rest of the way across the room, slamming the plate down with enough force to threaten to topple Todoroki’s glass of water. “You absolute fucking asshole. What the fuck are you doing here.”

“I thought that would be obvious, Bakugou,” Todoroki told him evenly. “I’m here for a meal.”

Bakugou ground his teeth together. Punching someone in the face was not conducive to keeping a clean criminal record, he reminded himself. “Don’t fuck with me, halfie. I’m not in the mood for your shit right now.”

“Oh? Is that anything like how I wasn’t in the mood for your musical performance last night? You’re terrible at rap, by the way. You should probably stick with cooking.”

“Fuck you,” Bakugou hissed, not even sure where to fucking begin he was so goddamn angry.

“That’s pretty poor language for someone who’s supposed to be the sous chef,” Todoroki noted patiently, picking up a fork and pointing it at Bakugou’s nametag as he spoke. Bakugou bristled. “But I guess I shouldn’t expect great service from someone like you. Maybe I’ll have to leave a review on Yelp. Or speak to the head chef, perhaps?”

Bakugou felt all of his anger drain out of him in an instant. Suddenly, he was too fucking tired to be doing this right now. He still had several more hours of work ahead of him. He was going to have a fucking stroke by the end of the night if he wasn’t careful.

“Look, just—“ Bakugou began, placing his hands on the table and hanging his head. “Just get the fuck out. Alright?”

Todoroki hummed as if thinking it over. “I don’t know. I’m having a lot of fun. And there are so many dishes I could try.”

Fuck. This was the literal worst.

“If you leave right now,” Bakugou murmured, squeezing his eyes shut and hating that he was willing to sink so low as to offer a bribe. “I will bring you dinner after work every night for a week.”

Todoroki paused in pushing food aimlessly around on his plate, his eyes widening slightly. He seemed surprised, but also genuinely seemed to be considering the offer. “Only a week?” he finally said, something mischievous lurking in his gaze.

“Fine, for a fucking month then, I don’t care,” Bakugou groaned. “Just leave, jesus christ.”

Bakugou opened his eyes, his gaze falling on Todoroki, who was staring at him intently. Bakugou held his eyes, refusing to back down.

He could either accept the offer, or Bakugou would just have to accept that he was about to commit homicide. Either way, really.

After what seemed like too long, Todoroki blinked, finally turning away. He cleared his throat quietly. “I will, um. I’ll have this to go, then.”

“Thank fuck,” Bakugou sighed, snatching the plate back up and marching back into the kitchen.

He threw the dish into a Styrofoam box, shutting it and quickly scrawling LEAVE on the top of it.

He underlined it. Several times.

Then he handed it off to a waiter, who was standing a few feet away, staring at him.

The whole kitchen was staring at him, Bakugou noted, confused.

“What?” he asked Ashido when the waiter finally left to deliver the box. “Why are you all fucking looking at me like that?”

“What just happened?” Ashido asked him, eyes shimmering with something that Bakugou couldn’t quite put a name to but that looked dangerously close to excitement.

He scoffed, walking a few feet back over to the counter to start working on another order. “My asshole neighbor just showed up to be a dick. That’s all.”

“That’s your neighbor?” Ashido squeaked, scrambling over next to Bakugou and almost knocking a bowl of flour off the countertop in the process.

He caught it just in time, making an irritated tsk as he righted the container and set it back on the counter. “Watch it, pinkie, good god. And yeah, that’s him. Why?”

“Oh my god,” Ashido squealed, turning to run back to the doorway to peer through the window, presumably watching Todoroki leave. “I can’t believe this.”

“What?” Bakugou asked, not really understanding what she was this fucking happy about. “Why the hell are you—“

“Bakugou,” Ashido cut him off, turning to pin him with a half-crazed stare. “Do you even realize who that is?”

Uh.

“I—“ he tried, frowning, his hands moving across the counter, completing his tasks on autopilot despite that his mind was elsewhere. “He’s my—“

“That’s Todoroki Shouto, oh my god, you don’t even realize, do you?” she said, more to herself than to Bakugou. She brought her hand up to rub at her forehead, a smear of flour coating her skin in the process.

“Realize what?” Bakugou asked, irritated that something was apparently going clear over his fucking head and having no clue what the fuck it even was.

“Just—do me a favor, ok? When you get off work, google him,” Ashido said. “You—wow. I just. God. I can’t believe that’s your neighbor.”

“Fine, whatever. Can we please get back to work now and shut up about this?” he asked, ignoring her eye roll. But she obeyed without further comment. Or at least, without further comment to him, because she kept randomly mumbling Todoroki Shouto, I can’t believe it under her breath for the next several hours.

Bakugou kindly chose to both ignore her and not strangle her for it.

The rest of work passed by in a blur of vaguely organized chaos. They somehow managed to avoid any further crises for the rest of the evening, though there were several near-misses. By the time the restaurant closed and the staff had cleaned the place up, it was already late, and Bakugou couldn’t possibly be more grateful to be going home. He was exhausted.

He was also dying to get to his computer, though he’d never give Ashido the satisfaction of telling her that.

The moment he got home –noting Todoroki’s car was in his fucking spot again, because of course nothing could go right for Bakugou—he kicked the front door closed and marched straight over to his laptop, not even bothering to put down his keys or take off his shoes, just prying the damn machine open and punching Todoroki Shouto into google as fast as he could get the stupid page to load.

He didn’t know what he’d expected to find. But hundreds of results rather than one or two was definitely not it.

Eyes wide, Bakugou scanned the images that showed up along the top of the search engine, an array of extremely detailed floral tattoos burning themselves into the backs of his eyelids. They were captivating, drawing him in almost effortlessly. But he could look at those later, he decided, clicking on the first link that came up instead.

It was for a tattoo shop. And not just any tattoo shop, apparently.

All Might Tattoo: Go Beyond! was proclaimed in bold letters at the top of the page. Bakugou rapidly clicked a dropdown box that said “artists”, selecting Todoroki Shouto immediately.

He tried not to be impressed. He really, really did.

It didn’t stop his mouth from hanging open in awe.

“Co-owner of All Might Tattoo, Todoroki Shouto is a world-renowned force in the tattoo world, combining his educational background in botany with his longstanding experience and skill in art to create hyper-realistic floral works that have astounded the world for years. Todoroki was raised around the art of tattooing from a young age, but struck out to pursue his own path in the world of tattooing after completing his degree. Todoroki’s specialty is in floral designs, but he is also trained in traditional, tribal, Japanese, and watercolor works.

Todoroki has won awards around the globe for the last ten years, breaking out as one of the youngest artists to ever win 1^st place in traditional tattoo work at age 18. To see a full listing of Todoroki’s achievements, click the link below.

If you’d like to book a session with Todoroki, please feel free to contact us! With such unique skills and credentials, Todoroki is currently booked out for the next four months, so plan ahead accordingly.”

Bakugou… did not know how to respond to that. What the fuck.

He clicked the link titled Awards, somehow both shocked and yet not shocked to find the list was very lengthy indeed.

“What the fuck,” he said aloud into the dark of the room.

There was—there was no way this dude was some kind of famous fucking tattoo artist. It just wasn’t possible. Bakugou refused to accept it.

But at least this did explain all the plants Bakugou had seen in his apartment, he supposed.

A tattoo artist with a degree in botany, of all things. Something about it just didn’t really make sense.

He clicked back, determined to sift through every single google article that came up if he had to until it did start making sense.

The second link he clicked on left him reeling for an entirely different reason.

“ESTRANGED AND AT WAR: Todoroki Enji and Todoroki Shouto, A Family Divided

Last weekend at the International London Tattoo Convention, Todoroki Enji and Todoroki Shouto had a very public and violent falling out in the lobby of a nearby hotel after Shouto won first place and Enji came in third.

Sources claim that father and son had not spoken in several years, and that it was the first time Shouto had seen his father since graduating college. Witnesses noted that the argument seemed to involve Shouto’s refusal to take over his father’s practice, and Enji’s disappointment in his son’s choice to venture into realism rather than traditional tattoo work.

The police were eventually involved when Enji struck Shouto across the face, security cameras and plenty of witnesses capturing the exchange. Shouto released a statement earlier this morning and is fully pursuing the pressing of charges, as well as filing for a restraining order.

Tensions between the father and son have been high ever since the death of Todoroki Enji’s wife two years ago, and seem to have only escalated with the opening of Shouto’s own tattoo parlor, All Might Tattoo. Will this be the end of things for father and son?”

The article was dated from almost eight years ago, and yet Bakugou could see several other similar, more recent ones beneath the link.

A heavy weight settled in his stomach. He felt like he’d somehow pried into something he shouldn’t have despite that it was apparently public knowledge.

It was almost enough to make him regret looking Todoroki up on google. But not enough to keep him from clicking link after link in an effort to learn all he could anyway. He’d already started down the rabbit hole, after all. Why stop now.

About twenty minutes later and Bakugou had learned several things:

1. Todoroki’s father was a fucking asshole. He also happened to be one of the most famous traditional tattoo artists in the world.
2. He and his dad didn’t seem to get along well. Which was a severe understatement, frankly. Some of the reason why seemed obvious even to Bakugou, what with the way Todoroki had apparently rebelled and struck out on his own rather than inheriting a very prestigious lineage of tattoo artistry and accolades, if Wikipedia could be believed. He suspected there was more to it than that, however.
3. Todoroki was really, really fucking good at realistic tattoos. Bakugou had spent most of the last twenty minutes doing nothing but looking through photos of tattoos he had done for people over the years, and on more than one occasion, he was legitimately stumped as to how what he was looking at was ink on skin rather than a photograph on paper.

Bakugou had frankly never given a lot of thought to tattoos. The fact that someone else –who he was definitely, definitely still better than—apparently had given most of his life to this topic made Bakugou feel like he was severely lacking in information on a subject he’d never considered relevant until that moment.

And if he was up until two in the morning looking up information about tattoos, tattoo awards, tattoo symbolism, and Todoroki in general, that was his fucking business and no one else’s.

---

“Wait, so your neighbor –whom I already love and consider a brother, by the way, despite that we have yet to meet—is not only wonderful and like my family, but is also famous?” Kaminari asked the next day.

Bakugou sighed deeply, attempting to reign in his patience, which was almost nonexistent at this point anyway. “I hate you. Just so you know.”

“This is not news to me Bakugou. Please answer the question.”

“Alright fine, yes, he’s fucking famous. Shit.”

Kirishima was oddly quiet, contemplatively pushing food around on his plate, the noise of the restaurant they’d stopped in to have lunch at surrounding them and filling the silence.

Bakugou didn’t know what to do. He hated the fact that he even felt like he had to do anything in the first place, frankly. It was just really… weird, to have to interact with someone, to bring them food promised in an ill-thought-out bribe, and know way more about them than they did about you.

At least, he thought that’s what the strange guilty feeling he was now carrying around with him was probably about.

“Why are you so convinced he doesn’t know about you, though?” Kirishima finally asked, stuffing a spoonful of pasta into his mouth and talking through his food. Bakugou cringed. “I mean, there’s information about you online, too. Maybe not quite that much or to that extent, but like. You’ve won lots of awards and stuff too man. For all you know, you’re just even now.”

Bakugou froze, his fork halfway to his mouth. He… had not considered that. But now that he did, well. Why the hell wouldn’t someone look him up? It made sense. If Bakugou was someone else and had just met him, he would certainly have looked himself up.

“Wait,” he murmured slowly, honing in on something Kirishima had said. “What do you mean not quite that much, asshole? Are you, what. Insinuating he’s better than me? That I haven’t won many awards? Because I fucking have, alright—I have an entire portfolio full of shit I’ve achieved, and I’m—“

“How did Ashido even know who Todoroki was? I didn’t think she had any tattoos,” Kirishima asked Kaminari, ignoring Bakugou entirely.

Bakugou threw up his hands, rolling his eyes with a huff.

Kaminari took a drink of soda before replying. “I asked her that, actually. I guess she got her tongue piercing at his shop from the piercing expert that works there. She’s apparently really into this shit. I never realized.”

Kirishima hummed thoughtfully, taking another bite of food.

Bakugou sometimes wondered why he even had friends in the first place.

“Look, I just—“ he said suddenly, rubbing his forehead. “What the fuck do I do now?”

Kirishima and Kaminari shared a look.

“Alright man, I’ll bite,” Kaminari said. “Why are you so fixated on this, exactly?”

Bakugou frowned. “What do you mean?”

“I mean,” he continued, “why do you care? What does knowing this change at all?”

What did it change? What did it change, now that he thought about it. Realistically, it shouldn’t change anything at all.

And yet, for some reason, Bakugou felt like everything he’d learned in the last twenty four hours had changed everything.

“He’s not better than me,” Bakugou mumbled. As if that was what he was hung up on. Which he maybe was just somewhat slightly annoyed by, truthfully, but he also knew that wasn’t all of it.

That shit about Todoroki’s family didn’t sit well with him. He couldn’t quite put his finger on why, though.

Kirishima laughed quietly around a mouthful of food. “Well, if he’s not better than you,” he said between bites, “maybe you should prove it to him.”

“Yeah,” Kaminari agreed. “The good ol’ fashioned way to solve any of Bakugou’s problems.”

“You’re not helping, Kami,” Kirishima told him, giving him a small frown. “If you want me to model that new thing  I bought tonight then I suggest you—“

“Yep, wow, my bad Bakugou my man, just—just you do you, you know? We’ve got your back. Totally.”

Bakugou rolled his eyes, ignoring them as they descended into another round of flirting that was barely acceptable in public, as usual.

They had a point, though. Proving he was still better, at least. That was a concept Bakugou was very much comfortable with. He was great at proving he was better than everyone else. He’d had years and years of practice, even.

And there was no better way to prove he was better than to show off his best skillset.

---

“Um. Bakugou. We’re… closed,” Ashido said carefully from behind Bakugou.

His shoulders tensed, but he didn’t stop what he was doing. “I fucking know that, pinkie.”

“Then why… are you still cooking,” she observed, peaking over his shoulder curiously.

He kicked at her half-heartedly with one leg, too focused on his task to really spare her much attention. “I’m making dinner. Fuck off.”

“But you already ate dinner earlier on your break. I saw you.“

“Go the fuck home, jesus,” Bakugou spat. “Mind your own business.”

He started to plate the food, blatantly pretending Ashido wasn’t still looming over him.

“Craving one of your specialties, I see,” she said, watching as Bakugou plated a piece of expertly cooked Chilean sea bass. A sea bass which he had painsteakingly marinated in marchand du vin sauce.

In a to-go box.

Bakugou pointedly ignored her, his jaw clenching.

“That’s pretty complicated stuff, too,” she hummed, watching him put the finishing touches on it before closing the box with more force than was probably strictly necessary.

“Are you fucking done here?” he asked her, turning to level her with a glare.

She put her hands up in a placating gesture, her smile all teeth as she backed out the door. “Just an observation, is all. Goodniiiight Bakugou!”

He watched her go before finishing cleaning up the kitchen himself, locking the shop up and driving the rest of the way home in silence.

He knew what he was doing, goddammit. And Ashido didn’t need to be clued in to that. At all. For the sake of his fucking sanity, mostly.

When he got home, he found Todoroki’s car was in his spot. Again.

He swore to himself as he parked before marching straight up to Todoroki’s front door, whipping a pen out of his pocket to scribble on the top of the box briefly.

Fucking park somewhere else, it read.

He sat it down on the doorstep, banging on the door loudly before stomping back downstairs to his own apartment and slamming the door shut behind him.

He wasn’t running. Bakugou didn’t run from anyone. And he wasn’t avoiding Todoroki, either.

He just didn’t want to see his stupid face. That was perfectly reasonable, in his opinion.

He collapsed into his bed gratefully, falling asleep with an odd sense of peace that had nothing to do with annoying his neighbor and everything to do with having provided him with a nice meal.

He refused to think about what that meant.

---

It turned into a routine.

Bakugou would make Todoroki food at the end of each shift and leave it on his doorstep when he got home. Always with a note, of course, like your car is lame, move it or I’ll slash your tires, or your cat is too good for you, and sometimes even something like I sure hope you like pasta because here’s a fucking lot of it.

Occasionally, Bakugou would receive a note back, a piece of paper tapped to his front door when he woke up in the mornings that often said something like, You’re just jealous of my car. It’s fine. I would be too if I drove something as sketchy as yours or my cat likes me better than she likes you, and I didn’t even pull her from out of a tree, and on one occasion, I love pasta. Cold pasta especially. Thank you.

Bakugou wasn’t sure what to make about that last one. He also wasn’t sure what to think about the fact that he started making Todoroki more and more cold pasta dishes, either.

But as Bakugou liked to remind himself often: he couldn’t figure out what to think about something if he refused to think about it at all.

And so he firmly didn’t think about it. Even a little bit.

One morning, Bakugou woke up and opened his front door to check for a note, as per his new morning routine, finding one tapped to it.

This is fun and all, it said, but I’m running out of paper. Can we please just text passive-aggressively instead? xxx-xxx-xxxx

Bakugou’s hand slipped off the doorframe, almost sending him sprawling into the hallway.

“Kirishima,” he hissed into the phone a few minutes later. “What the fuck does it mean when your asshole neighbor gives you his phone number?”

“Whoaaa dude, oh my god, hold on. Let me sit down for this one,” Kirishima’s voice replied, the sound of rustling on the other end of the phone telling Bakugou he must’ve slumped onto the couch. “Alright. Give me the deets man. I need to know.”

“Todoroki left me a note on my door,” Bakugou replied, not sure why he was whispering. “And he put his phone number at the end.”

“Oh my god,” Kirishima said. “Kami, come here, you are not gonna believe this,” Bakugou heard him shout across the house.

Bakugou’s fingers flexed around the phone as he paced back and forth across his living room. “Shut the fuck up, don’t bring him into this.”

“Too late, you’re on speaker now,” Kaminari’s voice responded. “What the hell is happening?”

“Bakugou got Todoroki’s phone number,” Kirishima gushed excitedly.

“What the fuck, no way. How the hell did he manage to do that?”

“Just—just shut up, alright, I am—“ panicking his brain supplied, which he was definitely not doing, not even a little bit. “I just don’t know what to do about this. What does it mean when your nemesis gives you his phone number?”

Bakugou heard Kaminari mumble something about them being the worst nemeses of all time and politely chose to ignore it.

“Look bro, just take a deep breath, and explain what happened. What all did the note say?” Kirishima said gently, though his tone of voice was still clearly very excited.

Bakugou told them he’d left a scathing comment about Todoroki’s hair on the box he’d dropped on his door the night before. You look like a Harley Quinn knock-off was what he’d actually said.

Then he read them Todoroki’s reply.

Kaminari whistled low. “Man, I don’t know how the hell you managed that one, but this is some next level flirting.”

“It’s not—we are not flirting, what the fuck,” Bakugou growled.

Because they weren’t. This definitely wasn’t flirting of any kind. This was Bakugou making good on a bribe for his own benefit and taking that opportunity to sass Todoroki as much as possible.

Just because Todoroki seemed to enjoy sassing him back, and that Bakugou maybe kind of liked it, didn’t make it flirting.

“Man, I don’t know how to break this to you,” Kirishima said in a way that told him he clearly knew exactly how to break it to Bakugou and was not afraid to do so. “But you’re definitely kind of flirting.”

“It’s not fucking—“

“Ok fine, whatever, but at the very least you’ve graduated to the frienemies stage,” Kaminari put in, Kirishima humming in agreement.

Frenemies? They weren’t friends. They hadn’t even seen each other face to face since that day in Plus Ultra. That could hardly be called friendship.

And yet there was something about their interactions that was more playful than anything else. That much, at least, Bakugou was willing to acknowledge. Privately. In the safety of his own mind.

“I don’t know what’s happening to my life,” Bakugou mumbled, sitting down heavily on his couch with a sigh.

Kirishima laughed. “I do. It’s called its’ finally getting good.”

---

Bakugou texted Todoroki when he got home the next night.

He pulled into the parking space directly next to his parking space because Todoroki’s obnoxious fucking car was in the way –as usual—and he was annoyed enough that he couldn’t stop himself from shooting off a complaint.

To Half ‘n Half
[Me]: There was literally a parking spot open directly next to mine. What the fuck.

He was about halfway to Todoroki’s front door when he got a response.

[Half ‘n Half]: Oh, my mistake. I didn’t see your name on it.

“Fucker,” Bakugou grumbled under his breath, making his way to the floor above his own resignedly.

He was about to raise his fist to bang on the door when it suddenly swung open, Todoroki standing in the doorway, a smirk on his face.

Bakugou’s mouth dropped open in surprise, because this was entirely unusual and not called for. His eyes fell to Todoroki’s hips of their own accord, where his pants were hung low. Bakugou could see the hint of ink around his hipbone, exposed where his shirt rode up slightly, but it was just a small sliver of skin and not enough to give Bakugou any idea of what the tattoo might be of.

Bakugou had a feeling he’d be wondering about it for the rest of the night as a result.

“I heard an elephant marching its way up the stairs and figured it must be you,” Todoroki told him.

Bakugou blinked rapidly, eyes snapping up to pin Todoroki’s mismatched own with a glare. “Fuck you. You’re the elephant here.”

Todoroki’s eyes widened briefly in surprise. “Am I really that loud when I walk?”

No, Bakugou wanted to say, because he wasn’t so bad most of the time, honestly.

“Yes,” he said instead, just to spite himself, thrusting the to-go box at Todoroki. “Here. Eat food or something and stop talking to me.”

Todoroki snorted, but took the box from Bakugou’s hands gratefully all the same.

They stood there awkwardly for a moment—awkward because Bakugou felt like he wanted to say something else but had no idea what it was.

He didn’t know why, but oddly enough, he didn’t really want to just turn around and leave.

“Batman told me to tell you hello,” Todoroki told him, looking off to the side and sounding almost shy.

Something about the idea that Todoroki talked to his cat about Bakugou caused a weird rush of emotions to flood his system and, inevitably, Bakugou’s face.

God, he hated emotions.

“Well tell her I said she’s too good for you and she should come live with me instead,” Bakugou replied in a rush, turning around before Todoroki could see how red his face now was and stalking off towards the stairs. He ignored the part of himself that wanted to stay and do—something. He wasn’t sure what.

He heard a sound like soft laughter come from behind him. “I will tell her you said so. Goodnight, Bakugou.”

Bakugou waved over his shoulder, but didn’t turn around.

---

“I knew it, I fucking knew it,” Ashido crowed triumphantly, jumping up and down in place as she pumped her fist.

She’d seen Bakugou’s phone light up with a text earlier in their shift, catching that it was a request for mushroom risotto, and when she caught Bakugou making it after work she’d put two and two together.

“You’ve been making him food this entire time, oh my god,” she gushed.

Damn her.

“That’s like, what. Almost three weeks now?”

Three weeks and one day, as a matter of fact, but Bakugou wasn’t about to tell her so. “It’s none of your fucking business, good god, fuck off. It’s a bribe, alright? I told him I’d make him food for a month if he just stayed out of the restaurant.”

“Oh my god. Ooooh my god,” Ashido squealed, bouncing around and nearly knocking over a stack of plates. “This is so fucking cute. I just. Wow. I can’t believe this. It’s like a romance novel.”

“The fuck it is, what kind of drugs are you on?”

“No, no, you’re right,” she agreed solemnly. “Much more like a rom-com than a romance novel.”

“Jesus christ I hate you. Get out. Go home. Go—bother Kirishima or something,” he grumbled, already cleaning the kitchen up before he left.

She stopped right in front of him, blocking his way to a nearby pantry, where he was attempting to place a handful of spices that had been left out. “Not until you promise to keep me updated on this. No more secrets, Bakugou. I want all the details.”

“I’m not a reality tv show you nosy bitch,” he mumbled, elbowing her gently out of the way to reach the cabinet. “You’re impossible to keep shit from anyway. You’re like a spy for Kaminari and vice-versa, I swear to god. You two get pleasure out of nothing but making my life a living hell.”

She made a pleased sound, rocking back on her heels with a grin. “As long as you understand.”

“Whatever. There’s nothing to report in the first place. It’ll be over in a week anyway.”

She tilted her head to the side, a smile on her face. “I don’t know, sweetheart. I have a feeling you’re wrong about that.”

“Don’t you fucking ‘sweetheart’ me you pink disaster,” Bakugou said, rolling his eyes as he shoved her towards the door, and grabbing his box of food on the way and locking the door behind them.

There was nothing going on. This was a business transaction, if anything else. Nothing more.

He wasn’t sure why everyone else was acting like it was more than that.

---

The next day, Bakugou worked the morning shift, helping with food prep for the first time in a while. Which sucked, right after closing, but it wasn’t anything he couldn’t handle.

It did mean that he was home a lot earlier than usual, however.

He was determined to enjoy the rest of his evening to the fullest as a result.

When he got off work, he brought Todoroki’s dinner into his own apartment, placing it in his fridge. Four o’clock in the afternoon was way too early to give it to him. He’d run it up later once it started to get dark, he figured.

Once he’d changed into a pair of comfortable sweatpants and a loose tank-top, he opened his blinds wide, pulling back the sliding glass door to his porch and letting a warm breeze into his apartment. He settled down onto the couch with a glass of wine, fully ready to relax and enjoy a few hours of responsibility-free time.

He played around on his laptop for a while, checking up on emails and looking at cute pictures of cats, which was a secret guilty pleasure he indulged in when he wanted to wind down. He considered turning on some music but was strangely happy to enjoy the sounds coming from outside for once.

About twenty minutes into his peace and quiet, however, he heard the door to the apartment above him open.

Oh? Interesting. Maybe Todoroki was going somewhere.

Bakugou sat his laptop down next to him on the couch before standing, walking to peer carefully out the back door. He wasn’t spying. He was just… observing.

Alright fine, he was spying, sue him. Bakugou didn’t give a fuck as long as no one noticed.

He watched curiously as Todoroki walked across the parking lot, presumably towards his car.

Only he never made it that far.

“SHOUTO!” a voice yelled, startling Bakugou—and Todoroki, too, if the fact that he dropped his keys was anything to go by.

Bakugou watched, wide-eyed with shock, as a boy with a mop of green hair ran full-speed across the asphalt before launching himself bodily at Todoroki, knocking them both backwards onto the ground. He was oddly adorable, his arms covered in tattoos. Bakugou could see piercings catching the fading light of the day from where they glinted on his ears.

Who the fuck?

His mind came to a screeching halt as the boy pulled back to kiss Todoroki on the face several time, arms wrapped around his neck as he chattered animatedly—words Bakugou couldn’t seem to hear, because his mind was too focused on the fact that Todoroki was smiling, his arms wrapped around the boy’s middle as they rolled around on the ground, laughing.

Bakugou closed his back door quietly, pulling the blinds shut, a numbness overtaking him as he stepped away from the window.

He wondered, distantly, why he felt like his heart was breaking.

Chapter Text

Bakugou had never been exceptionally good with emotions. Recognizing and naming his own emotions in particular was something he found difficult when those emotions had nothing to do with anger.

As such, it wasn’t until he was heartbroken that he suddenly realized he’d had a crush in the first place.

He wanted to be angry—mostly with himself for doing something so stupid as to develop feelings for a guy he barely even knew, and yet any anger he was able to dredge up was rapidly swallowed by the black hole that seemed to have consumed every feeling he possessed.

Feelings were horrible.

Lacking feelings was somehow even worse, though.

He spent the rest of his evening sitting in the dark, finishing off the bottle of wine and looking through pictures of Todoroki’s tattoo work online. He was already heartbroken; might as well go all out and dig the knife in a little deeper, he figured.

He didn’t take the food in his fridge up to Todoroki’s door. He couldn’t really bring himself to throw it out, so like most things, he just pretended it didn’t exist. It was fairly easy to do, so long as he refused to even walk into his own kitchen.

He didn’t eat dinner that night.

The next morning, Bakugou woke up feeling hungover and sad. Bakugou had woken up hungover and angry any number of times, but he had to admit that feeling like he was going to vomit if he stood up too fast while simultaneously also feeling like his heart had been gouged out was a first.

He ignored the fact that he had an unopened text from Todoroki waiting on his phone, shutting the thing off and somehow managing to drag himself into work a few hours later.

“Whoa,” Ashido said when he walked in. “What the hell happened to you? You look like shit.”

He shrugged, grabbing his chef’s coat and tugging it on slowly, not bothering to dignify that with a response.

He could feel the tension in the room as a result, because Bakugou tended to enter the workplace much like tornado of concentrated anger, barking orders left and right. Silence from him was unheard of.

“Um. Bakugou? Are you… ok?” Ashido asked, coming up behind him.

He nodded, not saying anything as he tied his apron over the front of his outfit.

He was being dramatic. Probably. He didn’t care.

A hand touched his shoulder tentatively. Normally, he would have slapped it away, shoving past her to start spewing orders at everyone in the kitchen. Instead, he just moved slightly out of her reach, not meeting her eyes as he walked to stand in front of the stove, grabbing the nearest order ticket to begin working on it.

Ashido slapped her hand down on the countertop directly next to where he stood, leaning forward to peer at his face. “Ok, seriously. You’re freaking me out. This is not normal. Are you sick? Are you dying? Did you... lose your signed Beyonce album again?”

“I didn’t lose my fucking album,” he mumbled petulantly, a small flicker of anger flaring within him briefly, because that was one time and he’d had every right to be depressed about that when it had happened.

She rested her hand on his shoulder again, more firmly this time, silently telling Bakugou she wasn’t going to just let the conversation drop anytime soon. He didn’t know if he was upset about that or not. “Then what’s wrong?”

Bakugou’s hands hovered over the stovetop, frozen. Everything about him felt frozen, really. He didn’t know how to put his feelings into words. It was a shockingly new concept when they didn’t involve him being pissed off about something.

“I think I fucked up,” he said slowly, because that much he was sure of, at least.

“Ok, well,” Ashido continued gently, voice soft. “That’s not exactly unusual, sweetheart. How did you fuck up this time?”

“I—“ he began, eyes narrowing because jesus this was harder to articulate than he’d imagined it would be. “I may have. Feelings.”

Ashido gave him a flat look before snorting abruptly. “Ok. Like, that definitely sounds fake, but ok.”

“Shut up,” he mumbled. “I mean, I may have feelings for—for my… neighbor.”

“Oh. Oh… my god,” Ashido whispered. “You’re admitting you have a crush. Is this real life? This can’t be real life. Bakugou, I am so, so proud of you. Where’s my camera, we need to document this occasion, Kirishima and Kaminari are never going to believe this if I don’t have proof to—“

“He’s dating someone else,” Bakugou cut in abruptly, the words feeling like poison in his mouth.

Ashido went silent immediately. Bakugou finally turned to look at her, and found her looking at him with wide, sympathetic eyes. “Oh. Oh, sweetie. No.”

Embarrassingly, despite that he hated when she called him pet names, he realized he was dangerously close to crying.

Wordlessly, Ashido wrapped her arms around him in a hug. Which Bakugou allowed. Briefly, before he put his hand on her face and kindly pushed her back out of arms reach.

Even if he was depressed there was only so much human contact he could handle.

“Do you want to talk about it?” Ashido asked him, unphased by his behavior. “Like after work, maybe?”

Bakugou wanted to say no, because he hated talking, especially about something as gross as feelings, but some part of him felt like he needed to. Maybe. 

Possibly.

“I don’t know,” he replied mulishly.

Ashido patted his shoulder understandingly before walking back over towards her station. “I’ll call the Bomb Squad.”

“The— Bomb Squad?” Bakugou repeated incredulously, frowning.

“Yeah, you know. Me, Kirishima, Kaminari. You. Plus Sero if he weren’t so far away at the moment, but. Well,” she responded vaguely, waving a hand as if to say what can you do. “We’ll just have a girls night out tonight, I guess.”

Bakugou’s eyebrow twitched. “It’s not a girls night out if you’re the only fucking girl there, dumbass. And since when do we call ourselves the fucking bomb squad?”

“It’s not my fault you’re all so incredibly gay and also happen to like the same shit that I do, alright. You’re my honorary girls. More fun than most the girls I know, actually— when you’re not getting us kicked out of places, anyway.” 

“Fuck you, that hardly ever happens. Just because I finish shit when other people start it—“

“You usually start it.”

“—just because I finish shit doesn’t mean it happens all the time, for fucks sake. Not my fault people talk a lot of shit they can’t back up.”

“See,” Ashido said, turning to wave a spatula at the whole of Bakugou meaningfully. “This? This right here? This is why we’re the Bomb Squad. Diffusing you when you blow a fuse.”

Bakugou glared, his mouth closing with a snap. 

He hated when she had a point. It was completely unfair. Not to mention cruel to do to a man that was currently nursing a heartache.

“Anyways,” Ashido continued pleasantly, “just throw yourself into work for a few hours and we’ll help you sort it out later, ok?”

Bakugou made a derisive noise that might have been agreement and turned back to his station.

---

“Oh no. Oh, babe,” Kirishima started, eyes big and watery.

Bakugou refused to meet his eyes, worried he might finally give in to the terrifying urge to cry if he saw Kirishima start doing so first. “Don’t call me that.”

“Yeah, don’t call him that,” Kaminari muttered petulantly, though he was currently leaning his head on Bakugou’s shoulder in sympathy. Which Bakugou allowed, but only because he was already pretty drunk.

“Look, maybe it was— maybe you just misunderstood something,” Kirishima said, trying to be reasonable.

Kaminari snorted. “How do you misunderstand a guy kissing someone all over the face?”

“Because maybe friends can do that too,” Ashido said, kicking Kaminari harshly under the table while simultaneously pushing a fruity monstrosity of a drink towards Bakugou with a sympathetic look. “Look at you and Bakugou right now, for example. You’re practically cuddling.”

Bakugou took the drink wordlessly, sucking half of it down in one go. It tasted surprisingly good. It was also surprisingly strong, he realized belatedly, too far in to care much right then.

He was feeling pleasantly empty. Which was a step up from feeling despairingly empty, he had to admit. 

Friends were nice. Maybe. Especially when they plied him with alcohol.

“Um, excuse you?” Kaminari bit out, nuzzling into Bakugou almost painfully. “There is nothing ‘practically’ about this, ok. We are cuddling. Like men. Because real bros show their affection to each other, alright?”

“That is— that is so beautiful, Kami,” Kirishima said with a sniffle. “So manly.”

Ashido rolled her eyes. “You three are a gay trainwreck, I swear.”

“I’m a hot trainwreck, though,” Bakugou mumbled, because even while feeling pleasantly empty, he still had priorities, and those included reminding people of certain facts at all times.

“What about us?”

“No. You’re just gay.”

Kaminari stole Bakugou’s drink out of his hand, finishing it off with a passive-aggressive flourish. “Excuse you, but I prefer to think of myself as electric rather than hot. I charm everyone, all the time. I’m captivating.”

Bakugou turned to shoot him a flat, disbelieving look. “You’re a fucking idiot is what you are.”

Kirishima barked a laugh, leaning against Bakugou’s other side heavily. 

“Ok, look, before you manage to start yet another bickering match over this topic –don’t give me that look, Kaminari, you always do this— I want to bring us back to the topic at hand,” Ashido continued, leaning forward on the table to rest her boobs on the surface.

Bakugou stared drunkenly. Boobs were sometimes fascinating. Even to a gay man, he supposed.

“Yeah,” Kirishima agreed, patting Bakugou on the thigh. “We need to figure out what you’re going to do now.”

Bakugou leaned his head back against the top of the chair, staring at the ceiling thoughtfully for several long minutes. What was he going to do now? What could he do now? He had stupid feelings he didn’t even want in the first place, and now the target of his lame-ass emotions apparently had some adoreably gross little twerp of a boyfriend. Which made Todoroki also an idiot for being into that and not into someone exceptionally hot like, say, Bakugou. 

How did one deal with their emotions like an adult, anyway?

“I’m going to kill him,” Bakugou finally decided, because if he couldn’t think of a way to handle the situation, then the only solution was to take away the source of the problem.

“I like the enthusiasm,” Kaminari said, patting him condescendingly. “A little too violent, but we can only expect so much from you, I guess.” 

Bakugou stole Kaminari’s drink from him with inhuman reflexes that only seemed to be functional when he was drunk. “Fuck you. It’s a great idea.”

“It’s maybe not a great idea, bro,” Kirishima put in sweetly. “But yeah, good energy or whatever.”

“Now hold on a minute,” Ashido said, slamming her empty glass down on the table and pressing her boobs even further into the wood. Wasn’t that painful? Bakugou thought it was probably painful. “Is that really a bad idea though? I mean, this guy did totally lead Bakugou on for over a month. Vengeance is completely called for in this kind of situation. I mean, I’d kill the guy if I were in his shoes.”

Bakugou looked up at Ashido with hazy, red eyes. “Does that mean I’m valid?”

“You are so, so valid right now hun.” 

“Don’t call me hun.”

“Babe?” Kirishima asked with a grin.

“Or that.”

“Sweetums,” Kaminari added, snickering into his glass before realizing it was in fact empty. 

“Look, call me whatever the fuck you want but I am valid as fuck for wanting to kill this dude and Ashido agrees with me. So there.”

“Eh,” Kaminari put in awkwardly, leaning forward to grab at another glass on the table without even caring who it belonged to. “She doesn’t exactly have the best track record as far as good decisions goes.”

“Excuse me? Name one thing I have ever done wrong in my entire life,” Ashido argued.

Kirishima leaned forward to put a hand on her shoulder. “Babe. I know this. And I love you. But you are the only person at this table who has been arrested, so.” 

Ashido threw her hands up, pushing back from the table. “You punch a guy for harassing you on a bus one time and everyone acts like--”

“No, bitch, you are valid,” Bakugou argued with the vehemence of the truly drunk. “Totally valid.”

“Yeah, you really kind of were,” Kaminari agreed. “But that doesn’t change the fact that you were arrested for assault, so.”

“Whatever,” she said, rolling her eyes and standing from the table. “I’m getting more drinks. Bakugou, figure out your shit before I get back so I can help you kill this dude.”

“On it,” Bakugou told her, giving her a thumbs up.

Oh. Oh, no. He was drunk enough that he was doing the thumbs up thing now? If he didn’t watch it, he’d be doing fingerguns and all kinds of stupid shit soon. Maybe he should stop drinking, actually. 

“I would like a shot of whiskey,” he called after her retreating form instead, to which she gave him a thumbs up in return. 

“Make that two shots of whiskey,” Kaminari added. 

It was times like these where Bakugou remembered why he and Kaminari were friends. Sometimes. Sort of. 

“So you’re going to kill him,” Kirishima prompted. “Hopefully in a way that doesn’t involve actual murder, but go on, my dude.”

“Right,” Bakugou mumbled. “Don’t lose the job. Don’t go to jail. Just. Be a dick. I can do that.” 

“Don’t you do that every day though?”

“Shh, he’s thinking, Kami. Be quiet or you won’t get any dick.” 

“Right, shutting up immediately, not a peep from my person for the foreseeable future, don’t you worry.”

Bakugou snorted, giving him a shove. “Don’t promise the impossible, idiot.”

Kaminari gave him a wounded look and mimed something with his hands that managed to look both rude and mournful at the same time.

“Ok, let’s think of it like this, then,” Kirishima said, ignoring Kaminari entirely. “What do you want?”

“What… do I want?” Bakugou repeated slowly, brow scrunched up in confusion.

“Like, if you could say anything you wanted to, what would you say? What would you want him to know?”

“That he’s a lowlife piece of shit, and that even though I might be an asshole, I ain’t a fucking cheater and I don’t lead people on,” Bakugou bit out.

Suddenly, just like that, Bakugou had emotions again. Or, at least, he had one emotion: rage. 

“Nice man, you tell him,” Kirishima encouraged, Kaminari nodding so vigorously he was in danger of falling out of his chair.

“And I don’t fucking hurt people who go out of their way to cook me fucking meals for free, or harass them where they work, or—”

“I’VE GOT IT!” Ashido yelled, suddenly reappearing and slamming a shot glass down in front of Bakugou. “You’ve gotta go confront him where he works!”

Bakugou didn’t respond, simply grabbing the shot and throwing it back without hesitation. 

“Where’s the other shot?” Kaminari asked sadly, clearly forgetting his promise to shut the fuck up.

“Drank it,” Ashido replied with a derisive wave of her hand. “Anyway, you have to go to All Might Tattoo and confront him. In public. Make a scene!”

“Oh man, don’t tell him to do that,” Kirishima told her, looking concerned, his hair falling out of the ponytail he’d put it into and hanging around his big dumb eyes. “You know he’ll do it. He makes a scene even on a good day.”

“Hell yeah dude, Ashido is right,” Kaminari argued. “And so is Kiri. You always make a scene. But it’s your strong point, and you gotta play to your strengths, you know?”

Bakugou felt like he should maybe be offended by this, but he wasn’t. Mostly because it was true.

An opportunity to cause a scene? To embarrass Todoroki the way he’d embarrassed Bakugou at Plus Ultra, only worse? A chance to just be a fucking dick?

“Sign me the fuck up I guess,” Bakugou said with a maniacal grin, elicting a loud round of cheers and shouting. 

They got kicked out, but Bakugou felt like it was worth it. 

---

A new day dawned, and with it, a new hangover. But despite the pounding in his skull, there was also a tiny shard of happiness in Bakugou’s heart once again.

That didn’t stop his chest from feeling like it had caved in on itself like some kind of soul-sucking void. He was still depressed, somewhere underneath all the anger. Thankfully, he was about to have a fight, and there were few things in life that brought Bakugou as much joy as unleashing his righteous anger on some well-deserving motherfucker. 

It was a small thing, but Bakugou clung to it tightly, letting the feeling drag him out of bed and into his morning routine. 

As he went to grab his keys, wallet, and phone, he noticed there was still an unopened text from Todoroki waiting there from the day before. With growing distaste, he saw there was in fact not one, but a handful of the fucking things now. 

“Nice try, satan,” Bakugou bit out, promptly shutting off his phone before rushing out the front door in a flurry of anger and type-A personality. He was about to be late for work. Bakugou didn’t do late for work. 

He also did not slash the tires on expensive, annoying fucking cars that were again in his fucking spot on his way to his own car. But only because he was in a hurry.

The day passed in a rush, Bakugou silently thankful for the chaos of work for once in his life. It left him little time to dwell on his impending battle to the death. Or battle to the, uh. Not jail. However those worked. 

Not to mention that cooking truly did bring Bakugou a sense of calm and rightness that virtually nothing else ever had, though no one else needed to know that. Finishing a well-made, complex dish under duress filled him with a confidence and strength that was powerful and heady. And running a kitchen while doing so? It made him feel like an absolute fucking king.

Which was how Bakugou came to realize that being depressed was for peasants, because the only real loser here was Todoroki. Bakugou was a prize unlike few others, despite Bakugou being an asshole. If Todoroki was too stupid to notice that, then that was his fucking loss. 

His real mistake was not in being too fucking dumb to recognize how amazing Bakugou was, though. On some level, he clearly had. Because his real mistake was that he’d led Bakugou on for an entire month until Bakugou had somehow caught feelings for him the same way one might catch the plague. He’d been charmed. Lied to. Mislead. Used.

Bakugou didn’t get heartbroken. He got even.

---

The next day was Bakugou’s day off. When he woke up in the morning, the first thing he did was look out the window to see if he could see Todoroki’s hideous fucking car.

He could not. Which meant Todoroki was probably at work.

Which meant it was go time.

Pausing only to make sure it was in fact past 9AM, Bakugou cranked his Bluetooth speaker as loud as it would go, the sound of Marilyn Manson’s voice coating the walls and enveloping Bakugou in a mixture of anger and sensuality that felt a lot like wrapping himself in a warm, well-used blanket.

He’d been a goth kid in high school. Sue him. 

Getting ready for war took Bakugou no less than an hour and a half. He chose his outfit carefully, wearing a tanktop that clung low and threadbare to his chest, the back cut to show off the muscles of his shoulders to perfection. He grabbed a pair of black pants that were almost criminally tight, throwing a pair of well-worn combat boots on over the top before marching into the bathroom with purpose.

He grabbed the eyeliner, brandishing the damn bottle like war paint and smearing it over his eyes in a way he’d seen Kirishima do a hundred times, the effect giving his eyes a slightly winged shape-- which only served to further the sultry and dangerous look he was going for.

If there was one thing Bakugou knew how to do, it was create a sense of drama. Dangerous drama was exactly the look he hoped to exude in palpable waves the second he entered this fucking tattoo parlor. He wanted Todoroki to quake in both fear and awe. 

Bakugou did a little turn in front of the mirror, admiring the shape of his ass in these pants. Hell, who wouldn’t be both terrified and turned on by him? 

Once he felt he was completely finished –his hair carefully gelled and spiked to look natural but also perfect and also extremely hot— he walked into the living room to turn his music off. 

Only to immediately be met by the sound of someone banging on his front door.

“What the fuck?” Bakugou hissed, not liking surprises or being thrown off his groove. Especially when he was out for blood. 

He whipped the door open with a scowl, mildly surprised to find none other than Officer Aizawa on the other side. 

“Hello, Bakugou,” Aizawa sighed, looking greatly put upon. “Glad to see you’re alive and well this Wednesday afternoon.”

“It’s like eleven in the fucking morning,” Bakugou responded flatly, his scowl morphing into a full-on glare. “I’m not breaking any laws or doing anything wrong. Why the fuck are you here.”

“I am aware of that, surprisingly,” Aizawa replied, a strange sort of half-smile briefly flickering across his features. “My reason for visiting today is less about your frequent lack of law-abiding behavior and more out of concern.”

“Concern?” Bakugou parroted, eyebrows rising. “For me? The fuck is wrong with you?”

“Plenty, apparently,” Aizawa muttered, seemingly to himself. “We received a call from a concerned neighbor of yours.”

What.

“You’ve apparently been unreachable for the last few days, and have allegedly been suspiciously quiet. Though, to be fair, I can see there was a misconception about your ability to generate a hellish amount of noise, given the racket I heard walking up here.”

“Fuck you,” Bakugou responded distractedly on instinct. “He fucking called the police because-- because he was worried?” 

Aizawa raised his hands in a gesture that clearly said he had no idea what was going on. Which, to be fair, he probably didn’t. “I’m just doing my civic duty and following up with the report. Apparently, the neighbor in question was worried you might have died or something.”

Oddly, Bakugou found himself dangerously teetering between laughing and crying.

“I can see you’re alive and kicking, so I’ll call this one in with an all-clear,” he continued, his radio springing to life briefly with a series of dispatch codes before he managed to mute it. His eyes looked genuine and honest when he pinned Bakugou with his stare. “Are you really alright, though?”

No, Bakugou almost found himself admitting. Instead, he managed to gruffly force out the words, “I’m fine.”

Aizawa didn’t look convinced. Bakugou didn’t exactly feel convinced, either.

“I don’t know what’s going on between the two of you, but I did notice a suspicious lack of calls out to this apartment complex in the last month. One would almost think you’d made a friend.”

At this, Bakugou did bite out a harsh laugh. “Friend my ass. I can’t stand the guy even more now than I used to. Trust me.”

The weight of Aizawa’s gaze felt heavy, like a physical force settling across his shoulders. It wasn’t unpleasant. And the realization that it wasn’t unpleasant made it instantly feel unpleasant, because Bakugou didn’t like the idea that it meant something to him that someone cared.

“Look, just get out of here,” Bakugou growled, kicking the door frame lightly. “I’m fine, you don’t need to worry, I ain’t dead or causing a problem, blah blah blah. Go bother someone else.”

“And here I was thinking you were always breaking the law just because you liked my company,” Aizawa replied, not bothering to hide his amusement from his tone. “I guess I’ll be on my way, then.”

Bakugou managed to give him a feral grin that was all teeth. “What, did you miss me that much? I can give you a reason to be back out here all the time, I promise.”

“I sincerely cannot begin to tell you how much I do not want to come back here anytime soon,” Aizawa responded flatly. He raised an eyebrow, giving Bakugou a pointed once-over. “Nor do I want to have to pick you up for prostitution, in case you were planning anything illegal in that getup.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment, asshole,” Bakugou bit out, his grin shifting to something slightly more genuine despite himself.

Aizawa turned from the door, rolling his blood-shot eyes before giving a small wave. “I’m sure you will. Behave yourself, Bakugou. And stay safe.”

“I’m always safe,” Bakugou mumbled petulantly. Aizawa likely hadn’t even heard him, given that he was already halfway down the stairwell by the time Bakugou managed to recover from the shock of someone giving a shit. 

He lingered in the doorway, staring off into space for what was probably too damn long given who’d just been at his door. For some fucking reason, he kind of felt better now that he’d seen Aizawa. Which was ridiculous for a number of reasons, not to mention counter-intuitive on so many levels, and yet…

“I’m tired of emotions,” Bakugou said to the emptiness of his doorstep before unceremoniously slamming the door shut.

He turned, leaning against the wood heavily, a weight still resting on him that he couldn’t seem to shake. He supposed that was what depression was supposed to be like, though. Without a conscious choice to do so, his eyes fell on his phone, which was still turned off.

He wondered how many unanswered texts he had from Todoroki now. Part of him even wondered what they said. 

The rest of him wanted to set the fucking things on fire.

“Get fucked,” Bakugou spat, grabbing his keys and slamming his door shut behind him without bothering to take his phone along for the ride.

It wasn’t an especially long drive to All Might Tattoo. It was in the opposite direction of Bakugou’s drive to work, but he found himself there in only fifteen minutes. Fifteen minutes was plenty of time for Bakugou to pump himself up, however, so he spent the entire drive focusing on all of the rude, mean, hurtful things he wanted to say to Todoroki for making him feel like he’d been treated rudely, meanly, and hurtfully.

By the time he arrived, Bakugou was brimming with unchecked anger and definitely not heartbreak. Not even slightly, no matter how much his burning eyes said otherwise.

He pulled carefully into a parking spot, turning off his car and listening to the tick of the settling engine as he sized the place up. There were a few cars outside, but it didn’t seem packed. Probably because people needed an appointment, Bakugou guessed, though he didn’t really know. Even googling a bunch of tattoo bullshit when he’d been overwhelmed with the urge to learn more about Todoroki had only taught him so much. He couldn’t really see much through the windows, but he’d noticed from online pictures that a lot of tattoo places tended to be fairly shuttered from outside viewers.

Given the amount of cars, though, it certainly seemed like enough people were probably inside to cause a scene in front of. And any audience was a good audience, as far as Bakugou was concerned.

Taking a deep breath, he gripped his keys in his hand until the bite of the metal on his skin gave him the focus he needed to leave the car. 

Time for some real fucking fireworks, he thought vindictively to himself, climbing out of the car and slamming the door shut with a satisfying smack before marching up to the front door.

He swung it open, stepping inside confidently as though he’d been there a million times before. His eyes swept over the room imperiously, noting that only two people were in it, neither of which were Todoroki. 

One of which, however, he definitely recognized. 

“You,” he growled, piercing eyes locking on a man who bore a surprised and vaguely worried expression from where he was busy sweeping the floor, his arms covered in tattoos, ears glinting with metal studs and hair a mop of forest green curls. 

“Uh,” the man squeaked, big eyes –also green, also pretty and annoying and stupid— giving Bakugou a once-over. “Do I, um. Know you?”

“No,” Bakugou said, voice low. “But I know you, asshole.”

“Uh,” the guy repeated, clearly not following. “I mean, that’s not— unusual, exactly, given what I do for a living, but you— uh, you look like you’re— what I mean is, you seem pissed off, and I don’t know how I possibly could’ve pissed you off if we’ve never even—”

“No fucking shit I’m pissed off,” Bakugou replied, glaring. “Not at you, though. At least not just at you. Where the fuck is your boyfriend, huh?”

Green-eyed dumbass seemed to short-circuit, his mouth opening and closing like a fish trying to breath out of water. “My— my what now?”

“Don’t play stupid, even though I’m sure you are,” Bakugou spat, crossing his arms over his chest. “I saw the two of you hugging and kissing on one another day before yesterday.”

“Boy, I sure hope not,” said a voice, suddenly reminding Bakugou that there was in fact another occupant in the room. “Especially since we just got engaged and all.”

The voice belonged to a woman. A very pretty, very heavily tattooed woman with heavy curves and even heavier muscles. 

“What,” Bakugou responded, voice flat with confusion. 

“Look, I don’t know what’s going on here,” she continued, standing up from behind a desk to walk across the room between Bakugou and Todoroki’s probably-boyfriend, hands on her hips. “But this is Midoriya Izuku, my fiance. I don’t know who you’ve mistaken him for, given that he’s adorable and one of a kind, but he sure as hell isn’t anyone’s boyfriend. Not to mention the man is painfully straight.”

“That’s true, I kind of am,” Todoroki’s not-boyfriend, Midoriya, mumbled to himself from behind her. 

The woman moved to pat Midoriya lightly on the arm, though her gaze never left Bakugou. Despite that she was smiling, Bakugou felt an unspoken threat hanging heavily in the air between them. 

He had absolutely no idea what the fuck was going on.

“Wait,” Bakugou said, shaking his head as if to clear it. “So you and Todoroki aren’t dating then?”

“Oh, this is about Shouto?” Midoriya asked, perking up slightly. 

“But… I saw you,” Bakugou continued, trying not to sound too forlorn. “You ran across the apartment complex and practically jumped him. Knocked him to the ground, hugging him and kissing his face and shit.”

“Oh,” Midoriya said, eyes widening in realization. “Oh, well yeah, of course. Ochako had just agreed to marry me, and Shouto had just agreed to be my best man. Who wouldn’t?”

The woman, who Bakugou guessed must be Ochako, gave an amused snort. “Just because he’s straight doesn’t mean he isn’t ridiculously emotional and affectionate.”

“I cry more than anyone,” Midoriya readily put in, nodding.

Bakugou sort of felt like his brain was leaking out his ears.

“But yeah, no, Shouto and I are definitely not dating,” Midoriya continued, seeming unbothered by the mental breakdown Bakugou was simultaneously privately and publicly having. “He’s way too into some guy these days anyway, won’t shut up about him, probably no one has a chance these days so if you were planning on trying I wouldn’t even bother with—”

“Deku, baby,” Ochako put in, gripping his arm like a vice suddenly. “This guy said he saw you at Todoroki’s apartment.”

“I— I mean, yeah?” 

“That means he was at Todoroki’s apartment complex.”

Midoriya’s eyes widened to an alarming size, his gaze whipping back to Bakugou so fast he was startled into taking a step back. “Oh. Oh, my god. No way.”

“Way,” Ochako said, sounding gleeful.

Bakugou was trying to keep up, but it was a lost cause. He felt like he was missing something significant. Several somethings, possibly. 

“So he’s—?”

“Yep.”

“And that means—”

“That’s exactly what it means,” she agreed, her mouth splitting into a grin that was definitely making Bakugou feel concerned for reasons he couldn’t fully grasp.

“So what’s your name?” Midoriya asked, stepping towards Bakugou like he was seeing a unicorn in the flesh.

“Bakugou Katsuki,” Bakugou replied unthinkingly out of pure shock. 

Ochako gave a whoop of victory, turning to give Midoriya a high-five. “Nice. Totally called it.”

“Called what, exactly?” Bakugou asked, completely thrown off his guard. His anger felt like a far-off memory, his heart-ache something like a bad dream. He didn’t know what he was feeling now, but it definitely wasn’t making a whole lot of sense. “The fuck is going on here?”

“You tell us, hot stuff,” Ochako put in with a smirk. “What are you doing here, exactly?”

Uh oh. 

“Uh,” Bakugou responded, eyes flickering around the room as though searching for a good answer, because he suddenly realized he didn’t have one even slightly.

Midoriya bounced on the heels of his feet excitedly, his green hair bobbing up and down adorably. Bakugou still hated him. “Yeah, why are you here, huh?”

Just then, two people rounded the corner from the back room. Bakugou’s heart lodged somewhere in his throat when he realized one of them was in fact Todoroki, who’s eyes locked on Bakugou in shock and— and something like relief, maybe? 

Bakugou didn’t know how to feel about that. Had no idea what it meant. Suddenly, he really, really wished he’d read whatever texts Todoroki had been sending him.

All the same, it wasn’t Todoroki that caught and held Bakugou’s eye, though. It was the man next to him.

Bakugou’s immediate thought was that he looked like some kind of modern, punk version of Frankenstein's monster. He had piercings and tattoos nearly all over his body, done in such a way that he looked like he’d been stitched together at the seams. His face alone was astonishingly pierced and tattooed, his entire jaw made to look like it had been artfully stapled on. His lower eyelids were made to match the look, piercings like staples resting in the hollows under his eyes, which made their bright blue color that much more stark and clear.

Bakugou’s second thought was that he was also really hot with all the piercings and tattoos and shit. And if he was really hot, and Bakugou was already really hot, well. 

This basically gave Bakugou all the inspiration he needed to make an impulsive decision. 

“Bakugou?” Todoroki asked when he finally seemed to find his voice. “What are you doing here?”

Bakugou swallowed, squaring his shoulders. 

“I’m here to get an eyebrow piercing,” he said.