Chapter Text
Its been four days since Shinsou returned from the war ie getting kidnapped by incompetents and Bakugou finally feels like he can breathe a sigh of relief. Shinsou has returned to his regularly scheduled programming of constant texting and lurking in trees outside his windows but he hasn’t brought up anything about his apartment so Bakugou is pretty sure that he’s managed to get away with his little…...indiscretion.
He had scrupulously erased every trace of his presence in the last few days before Shinsou returned and then set up a small, discrete camera in the kitchen. Why? Because payback’s a bitch, that's why. Also he needs to be monitoring Shinsou’s cereal intake so he’ll know when to intervene. That much processed grain product—no matter how much fiber it claims to have on the label—just isn’t healthy for anyone long term. Pausing at his front door, he fumbles in his pocket for his keys for a few seconds before managing to get his shit together and unlock the door, thinking longingly of collapsing on his couch. What an exhausting day.
“Bakugou,” a familiar voice drawls from the depths of his darkened apartment as soon as Bakugou makes it through the door. He absolutely does not jump but he does slam the light switch with a little more force than necessary.
The lights flick on to reveal Shinsou, sitting on his couch, wearing the Mirko hoodie no is supposed to know Bakugou owns and an unimpressed expression.
“Why the fuck are you in my apartment,” Bakugou demands, deeply hoping that he doesn’t already know the answer to that particular question.
Seemingly disregarding the fact that he’s spoken at all, Shinsou pushes himself up off the couch and stalks over.
“Bakugou,” he says again.
Bakugou resolutely ignores him. He’s pretty sure Shinsou is about to bring up the minor home invasion thing and he refuses to have that conversation. Also how the fuck did he find out? Bakugou cleaned up after himself meticulously. He hadn’t even dusted anything! And don’t think that wasn’t an exercise in self control. Especially once he realized that Shinsou didn’t seem to own a vacuum.
Shinsou doesn’t take the hint. What he take is Bakugou’s chin in his hand in an attempt to force him to look at him.
“Sweetheart. Angel. Fluffy, kitten faced, incandescently enraged light of my life. When exactly did you file the paperwork with my agency to make you my emergency contact and also the authorized person to release information about me and my missions to?”
Oh……..that. Bakugou had almost managed to forget about that.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he says haughtily, trying to look away but Shinsou’s firm grip on his chin prevents that.
He thought he’d have a little longer before Shinsou found out about that. But at least he doesn’t seem to know that Bakugou had also spent several days sleeping in his bed while he was gone. So that’s something.
“You know, I thought you would say that. Which is why I brought this.”
Shinsou pulls a packet of papers out of the hoodie pocket and dangles it in front of Bakugou’s face. Bakugou still refuses to meet his eyes. He’s looking so hard to the side he may be getting a cramp in his ocular muscles. Shinsou remains undeterred.
He lets go of Bakugou’s chin to flip over a page. “How do you explain what is clearly your signature here. And here. Here. Oh and over here too.”
He flips page after damning page. “What’s even more interesting is my signature is also in all the relevant places.”
He shakes the paperwork and looks deep into Bakugou’s eyes. “Sweetheart, I’d be absolutely fascinated to learn when, exactly, you got so good at forging my signature.”
“None of your business,” Bakugou mumbles, crossing his arms tightly across his chest and returning to staring down at the floor, completely mortified.
It had been a bad night, okay. His insecurities had gotten the best of him. He hadn’t been able to stop thinking about how, just before he’d left for his mission, Shinsou had tried to kiss him on the mouth and then Bakugou had panicked so hard he’d exploded himself out of the window to get away.
The window had not been open at the time.
Shinsou throws the paperwork over his shoulder with a “you’re so fucking cute” and then he picks Bakugou up, who yelps and reflexively wraps his legs around his waist, then immediately unwraps them when he realizes what he’s done. Shinsou carries him into the living room anyway and drops them both down on the couch.
“I’m going to kiss you now,” he says solemnly in the low evening light.
Bakugou blushes. “If you fucking have to, I guess.” He is not screaming on the inside at all.
“Adorable,” Shinsou whispers hoarsely and kisses him.
Time stops.
Sparks fly.
Literally. The smell of burning cloth suffuses the room. Which Shinsou almost doesn’t notice until his shoulders start burning. He pulls back and glances down.
“Kitten, did you explode my shirt?” he asks mildly and Bakugou makes a break for it. Pops a small explosion in his face and then nearly kicks him in the face with a socked foot as he half back flips, half slithers out of his grasp. He makes it half way across the room before Shinsou catches him around the middle and drags him back.
“You are not jumping out another window over this,” he growls, gripping the back of Bakugou neck and shaking him just a little. Bakugou freezes. Looks up at him with wide, shocked eyes, his breath short. Shinsou does it again. Bakugou inhales sharply.
And Shinsou really, really wants to spend the evening figuring out all the ways he can possibly make Bakugou look like that…..But not today because Bakugou is starting to look a little panicky around the edges and Shinsou doesn’t actually want to freak him out too much. So he slides his hand from his neck to his shoulder and hugs him, keeping him wrapped up as he walks him back to the couch.
“We don’t have to talk about it,” Shinsou promises, “I’m serious about this relationship too.”
“Like I care,” Bakugou overcomes his mortification long enough to mutter.
Shinsou pokes his cheek with a smile. “You care soooo much and it makes you furious. I’m into it.”
Bakugou is willing to admit to himself, in the privacy of his own head, that he’s maybe a little bit into this relationship to a potentially catastrophic degree as well. It’s not his fault. He’s never given anything in his life less than a thousand percent. He was literally raised to be the most intense motherfucker on the planet, like, have you met his mother? She wouldn’t know chill if it sang her a soothing lullaby and offered her a cup of tea. ‘Go big or die’ was her life motto.
Besides, spending an evening sitting on his couch eating take out and watching the worst movie he’s ever seen in his life while Shinsou tries to convince him it’s a classic isn’t the worst evening he’s ever had. So he’s slightly less furious about his feelings than he could’ve been. And, after a few minutes of his deep breathing exercises, he was even able to accept that Shinsou wasn’t going to let him sit anywhere except his lap without exploding anything. It was nice. Cozy, even. He sort of gets why people want to have boyfriends now.
**********
To celebrate their newly agreed upon escalation into serious relationship territory, Shinsou promises to take Bakugou on a date that’s going to blow his mind, since apparently he’s not allowed to blow other things just yet. And, putting that last bit aside for the sake of his mental health, Bakugou has some doubts given that his standards are high as fuck….as long as you discount the whole dating someone who is exhibiting stalker like tendencies towards him…..and that he himself might also be mildly stalking ever so slightly in return. But that’s something to unpack with the therapist he will never get at a later date once he’s dead.
Anyway, the point is, Shinsou has brought him to a park. It’s nice enough place, he’ll admit. There’s a large lake, some weeping willows, ducks, couple a swans. No extras cluttering up the place. It’s pretty or whatever. There’s even a dock with a weathered looking rowboat bobbing gently in the water. The whole thing is picturesque as fuck if he’s completely honest. It reminds him of a vacation he’d taken with his parents when he was in middle school. They’d rented a cabin and hiked down to a lake much like this one. There had been a few happy couples rowing about, doing whatever it was that people did in rowboats, and looking disgustingly romantic the whole time. He’d gagged with all the dramatics that come with being twelve years of age. It remains to this day one of the cringiest things he’s ever seen and if that’s not what’s about to happen to him in the next thirty seconds he’ll detonate.
As they get closer he sees a picnic basket sat on the dock next to the boat and he has to ruthlessly squash the warm, fuzzy feeling that wells up in his chest.
“What the fuck is this,” he demands.
“A lake, obviously.”
Bakugou takes a deep breath and attempts to locate his Inner Well of Patience. This is his serious boyfriend who he tolerates and doesn’t hate spending time with. He will not kick him in the knee for being obnoxious. He releases the breath.
“I can see that, asshole. Why are we here?” See, he didn’t even swear once in that sentence so obviously he found it. He doesn’t count ‘asshole’ as a swear. It’s an insult and those are two totally different categories of word, but he digresses.
Shinsou smiles at him like his attitude is adorable instead of off putting. “Because a boat date is, like, the most classic romantic outing ever. Everyone knows that.”
Once again, Bakugou finds himself faced with a fact of interpersonal relationships that apparently everyone but him was aware of. “I doubt that,” he mutters, despite really only doubting himself.
Shinsou laughs and throws an arm over his shoulders, drawing him in to drop a kiss on the top of his head. Bakugou’s face burns.
“C’mon, angel, it’ll be fun. You might even get to yell at a swan or something.”
“I enjoy hobbies other than yelling,” Bakugou informs his idiot waspishly.
Shinsou just laughs again. “Sure, you do. But yelling is your favorite.”
Bakugou has nothing to say to that. He really does enjoy shouting at other people quite a bit. Usually people find it to be a character flaw but apparently Shinsou just finds it amusing. Which is….something. Nice, maybe?
“Your chariot awaits,” Shinsou says, gesturing towards the boat with a little sweeping bow, like a loser.
Bakugou wants to punch him in the mouth…with his own mouth. It’s deeply embarrassing.
Still he climbs into the boat, wobbling a little as it rocks, and takes the picnic basket when it’s handed to him. He secures it firmly between the benches then settles back and crosses his arms judgmentally to watch Shinsou clamber awkwardly into the boat and cast off.
“This is the most embarrassing thing you’ve ever done,” Bakugou feels the need to inform him in an effort to distract himself from the part of this brain that is currently melting into a puddle of icky gooey feelings because someone likes him, Bakugou Katsuki, inspiration for and winner of Musutafu’s Rudest Hero Award every year since he debuted, enough to take him on a romantic row around a lake so picturesque it looks like something straight out of a Miyazki movie. He’d never imagined that anyone would like him this much. He feels like sticking his head in the lake and screaming about it but that would reveal way too much.
Shinsou grins in what he clearly thinks is an endearing way—and tragically it is--and adjusts the oars. “Yeah, but you like it so what’s that say about you?”
Probably that his dignity is a lost cause, Bakugou thinks darkly. To distract himself, he rummages around in the basket to investigate what his culinary illiterate of a boyfriend thought was appropriate nautical snacks. He’s pleasantly surprised to find an assortment of fresh fruit, neat egg salad sandwiches, and a selection of cheese slices. Perfect picnic food actually.
Carefully he unwraps a sandwich and takes a bite, chewing thoughtfully. It’s good. The whole afternoon has been good thus far, actually. He decides to marginally loosen hold of his habitual prickliness and allow himself to enjoy the stupid moment. When he looks up, he finds Shinsou smiling softly at him and lets a small, genuine smile slip out in return, just for a second. Then immediately turns red and looks away to busy himself with the food until the blush fades.
He really was not anticipating this many emotions today. He sneaks another look at Shinsou out of the corner of his eye. Shinsou, who is still looking at him with this fond expression that Bakugou has no idea what to do with. Or how to return it. He’s pretty sure his own face doesn’t do that. But it’s not bad. He could definitely get used to being looked at like that. He clears his throat a bit awkwardly.
“This is good,” he manages in a mostly normal tone of voice, gesturing at the sandwich.
Shinsou looks relieved. “Oh, thank god. It took me a couple tries and I ended up having to watch a video tutorial but I’m glad they turned out alright.”
It’s been a lovely day so far so Bakugou decides to let the fact that egg sandwiches apparently push the limits of his boyfriend’s culinary skills pass without comment. He’s perfectly capable of not being a bitch all the time…..and he’s finding that he doesn’t really want to be. Today, at least.
“Thanks for this,” he adds quietly with a vague gesture around him and manages to look Shinsou in the eye and smile genuinely for a solid six seconds before he has to look down at his lap and take another bite to cope with his feelings.
Shinsou prods his shin gently with his foot until Bakugou looks back up at him. “Thanks for coming with me,” he says, a faint blush coloring his own cheeks.
And then they’re sitting there, smiling and blushing at each other like complete dorks, and it’s good. The sort of good Bakugou hadn’t thought he could get.
He should have known the whole thing was too good to last.
They’re closing in on the middle of the lake, eating and chatting about nothing, when it all goes tits up. Shinsou leans forward, reaching for the sandwich Bakugou dug out of the basket to hand him and one of the oars slides out of whatever the little thingy that the oars sit in is called and plops into the lake.
They watch it drift away in silence.
“Well,” Shinsou says after a beat, “that’s not ideal.”
“Obviously,” Bakugou says, exhaling hard through his nose. If he could have just one fucking day without the universe targeting him personally, that would be great, thanks.
They’ve still got one oar though so they should be able to make it to shore. They can probably just use it to paddle like a canoe. It’ll be awkward but they’re pro heroes and no one is even trying to stab them or take over the city. This is a fully manageable situation.
“Do you want to try getting back to shore now or we could wait a bit? There’s still food left?”
And it’s hard to be truly irritated when Shinsou is looking at him all tentatively hopeful and shit with a gentle breeze ruffling his stupid hair and the fucking adorable flock of baby ducks quacking after their mother just a few feet from the boat. Bakugou doesn’t actually want to end the day early. That would be giving up and he’s not a fucking quitter. He likes spending time with Shinsou. Bakugou likes his teasing comments and bizarre perspective on the world and the way his shoulders look in that t shirt.
The strawberry in Bakugou’s hand gets slightly squashed at that thought and he shoves it in his mouth before he can do anything humiliating like blow it up. Besides, it’s not like there’s villains attacking them or something. They can still enjoy the outing as planned and worry about getting back to shore later. They’ll just paddle the rowboat like a canoe. That’ll totally work. He nods decisively.
“It’s a fucking lost oar not a goddamn villain attack. We’ll be fucking fine. Hand me a water bottle before I die of dehydration.”
The smile that lights up Shinsou’s face is brilliant and Bakugou finds himself caught in it for a minute before he realizes that Shinsou has been trying to hand him the water bottle for at least eight solid seconds. He snatches it and chugs half of it in an attempt to cool off from the sudden heat that’s roared to life under his skin.
Once the food is mostly gone and Bakugou has gotten into a screaming match with an irate swan that left him feeling righteously indignant and at peace with the world, they decide to head back to shore. Bakugou feels like he should offer to help paddle but he’s got to preserve what remains of his dignity and paddling a row boat like a canoe looks quite frankly ridiculous. And Shinsou is a thoroughly ridiculous person ergo paddling is his responsibility. Also the muscles in his arms do interesting things when he does but that has nothing to do with anything. Bakugou sits back and viciously chomps off the end of a baby carrot as he watches Shinsou struggle.
It seems to be working, albeit extremely inefficiently, right up until Shinsou goes to switch the oar to the other side and it slips out of his grasp. Bakugou isn’t exactly sure how that happened because doesn’t his whole capture weapon thing rely a whole hell of a lot on grip strength? Whatever, he’ll analyze everything that went wrong later tonight when he’s trying to get some sleep. The current pressing concern is the fact that they no longer have a way to get back to shore and like fuck is he gonna swim.
**********
It’s very possible that the success of their early dates had led Shinsou to become ever so slightly arrogant and, as he watches the second oar of their rowboat float off in the lake that is now significantly less picturesque than when they started, he thinks that he should have probably stuck with what he knows and not tried to get so fancy.
“You have no idea what you’re doing, do you,” Bakugou says flatly, clearly not needing an answer to that question.
The oar bobs accusationally in the water.
Shinsou tries to smile winningly but he is definitely drooping under the weight of the continued failure. “In my defense, it seemed pretty straight forward. I didn’t exactly plan this part.”
He’d planned to lull Bakugou into a state of pleasant agreeableness, or at least as close as he ever got, via romantic outing and then hopefully finally get to kiss him senseless once they returned to shore. However, given recent events, it’s looking increasingly like what will actually happen when they return is Bakugou exploding the ever living fuck out of him. Which, sure there are worse ways to go but he kinds of wants to at least get a hand down Bakugou’s pants once or twice before he bites the dust.
They drift aimlessly in silence for a bit, at a complete loss as to what to do, and eventually the current brings one of the oars back towards them. Shinsou eyes it critically.
“I think I can reach it,” he says.
Bakugou looks between him and the oar. “You’re not gonna reach it,” he assess.
“No, I totally can,” Shinsou insists. He braces a hand on the edge of the boat and leans out over the water, stretching out a hand as far as he can go.
He manages to just brush the end of the oar before overbalancing and falling face first into the lake.
“Oh my fuck,” he hears Bakugou say loudly in obvious exasperation when he flails back to the surface.
And yeah, this is a real low point if he’s honest, but he's confident he can salvage it. Somehow. Shinsou attempts to wipe the lake water from his eyes with equally wet hands and then looks up at Bakugou with what he hopes is an endearing pathetic expression. He’s going for sad kitten left in a box in the rain so maybe Bakugou will feel too bad to mock him endlessly for this little mishap.
“Oops,” he tries.
It must work because Bakugou rolls his eyes and sighs loudly but he doesn’t throw the picnic basket at him so Shinsou’s going to go ahead and count that as a win. He goes to pull himself back into the boat, hoping like hell he doesn’t somehow manage to tip it over in the process but Bakugou’s hand in his face stops him.
“Oi, get the fucking oar first, dumbass!”
Shinsou looks over his shoulder. “But it’s all the way over there,” he protest plaintively. It had already floated a few yards away in all the splashing. He’d have to swim for it.
“Yeah, and? You afraid you’re gonna get more wet or something.”
He does have a point. Shinsou sighs heavily but turns around and strikes out to retrieve the oar. At least all that time Aizawa spent trying to drown him under the guise of teaching him how to swim is paying off now.
He retrieves the oar and manages to heave it successfully back into the boat after which Bakugou is magnanimous enough to offer a hand to help pull him back into the boat.
A mistake, as it turns out.
“I’m going to drown you,” Bakugou promises after he’s flailed his way to the surface, sputtering and enraged beyond all possible belief.
Shinsou can’t even blame him. This date has gone so far off the rails he wouldn’t be surprised if Bakugou broke up with him right there.
“That’s fair,” he concedes morosely.
Unfortunately, their attempts to get back into the boat do not go swimmingly and after they somehow manage to flip the boat entirely over on their second attempt to get back in, Shinsou is more than willing to drown himself and save Bakugou any more trouble.
“I hope we both drown,” Bakugou says miserably. He clings to the side of the boat, hair plastered flat to his head and looking exactly like a half drowned kitten.
Shinsou wisely decides not to tell him how adorable of a look it is for him.
“I think we might,” he acknowledges instead.
This is a personal and professional embarrassment. They’re both grown, experienced, successful pro heroes. They should not be losing to a boat and a lake. And yet……
Bakugou glares and coughs pathetically. “I hate you.”
“Valid.”
Shinsou treads water and thinks. They’re clearly not getting the boat turned right side up anytime soon so the only course of action appears to be abandoning ship and swimming for shore. Bakugou is going to hate it.
“I think we’re going to have to swim back.” He eyes the way Bakugou is clutching onto the boat for what appears to be dear life. “You can swim, right?”
“Fuck you, of course I can swim!”
“Are you sure?” Shinsou doesn’t mean to sound so doubtful but he does feel like it’s a fair question given his reluctance to let go of the boat.
“Of course I can,” Bakugou explodes and then abandons ship to throttle him.
Turns out he can swim and he chases Shinsou back to shore, yelling intermittently around mouthfuls of lake water the whole time. Shinsou’s honestly pretty impressed by the lung capacity.
**********
Bakugou pulls himself up and collapses on the pier with a waterlogged thunk. With the last of his energy he flops over on to his back and stares blankly up at the clear blue sky trying to figure out what the fuck just happened. Shinsou collapses down next to him and sighs heavily.
“That was the stupidest thing that’s ever happened to me,” Bakugou informs him.
Shinsou snorts. “Wish I could say the same. This isn’t even top five.”
“Why am I not surprised.”
“Because our souls are entwined on a cosmic level and spiritually you know me better than anyone?”
Bakugou rolls over onto his side to stare at the idiot he’s decided to spent the rest of his life with in disbelief. “Are you actively shitting me?”
Shinsou shrugs with a self deprecating little smile and the utter absurdity of the situation hits Bakugou like a wet fish to the face and he starts cackling. Shinsou stares at him in wonder for a second before he collapses into fits of laughter too.
“You fell off a fuckin’ boat,” Bakugou wheezes. Now that it’s not actively happening anymore, it’s hilarious.
“And you fell off trying to help me,” he counters, “let no one ever say that Dynamite doesn’t care about helping civilians.”
“You’re not a civilian, you’re a goddamn menace!”
My menace, Bakugou thinks and immediately wants throw himself back into the lake. What kind of sappy bullshit is that? His laughter dies out as he contemplates the horrifying return of emotion. Beside him, Shinsou pushes himself to his feet and then leans over to offer a hand to him. Bakugou stares up at him, standing haloed against the sun looking down at him with a revoltingly fond look on his face and has a terrible sinking feeling that he has emotionally imprinted on Shinsou permanently. He takes the offered hand in a daze and then, once he’s back standing on his own two feet, registers the fact that Shinsou is currently soaking wet and his t shirt is clinging in an extremely flattering way.
Bakugou swallows hard around a mouth that’s gone suddenly dry. Oh my god, I want to lick him. The thought echoes loudly around his empty skull. He’s covered in lake water. Birds and fish shit into it constantly. He should NOT want to put his mouth anywhere near that and yet….
While he’s processing this turn of events Shinsou uses the hand he’s still holding to pull him in for a hug and then press a kiss to his cheek. Bakugou freezes. Fortunately, he’s still too damp to successfully explode anything but the tiny sparks that pop and fizzle out pathetically are still far to revealing for his taste. Shinsou gives him a knowing smile and Bakugou fights the urge to push him back into the lake.
He loses.
Shinsou manages an indignant Hey! just before he hits the water again and Bakugou stares down in horror. What the fuck is wrong with him?! He scrambles to the edge of the pier and drops to his knees, reaching out to offer a hand.
Shinsou who says, “Thanks, sweetheart” with a sly smile as he grabs a hold of his wrist and then yanks him down into the lake too. Bakugou can’t even find it in himself to be surprised. Typical, he thinks as he hits the water for a second time. When he surfaces, sputtering indignantly, Shinsou kisses him. On the mouth.
Thank god his hands are still underwater or he’d have exploded both of them into fish food. Shinsou pulls back and shakes his head at the dumbfounded expression Bakugou is inescapably aware is on his face.
“Adorable,” he says fondly.
Bakugou makes a sound like a duck that’s been trodden on and forgets to keep himself afloat. As he sinks into the dim, green water he remembers telling Kiri and Kami that he was being normal about Shinsou. He’s going to have to admit that was an egregious lie. He lets out a sad stream of bubbles. They’re gonna laugh at him so hard.
Once Shinsou has managed to extract him from the lake bed and get them both back on shore, he strips off his shirt to wring the water out and Bakugou’s earlier crisis returns with a vengeance. Oh my god, he thinks, I want him to pin me down and…...He cuts off that train of thought ruthlessly. He will NOT deal with that, not now, not on top of everything else. So he very deliberately turns around and pretends nothing is happening behind him as he strips off his own shirt and tries to squeeze as much water out of it as possible. He can’t really do much about his pants since he’s definitely not taking those off in public and if Shinsou tries then he’s going to push him right back in that lake and let him drown there.
When Bakugou turns around Shinsou is sitting on the ground, wringing out his socks. Socks that are black and patterned all over with little orange Xs.
“What are we gonna do about the boat,” he asks gruffly, deciding not to acknowledge that for the sake of what remains of his mental health.
Shinsou squints up at him and then looks out over the lake where the boat is spinning gently around towards the middle. He shrugs and goes back to his socks.
“We can just leave it there. Its not like its my boat.”
“Whose boat is it?”
Shinsou shrugs again.
Bakugou pinches the bridge of his nose and searches for his Inner Well of Patience again. “Did you steal that goddamn boat?”
Shinsou’s mouth drops open. “Hey,” He says in obviously faux outrage, “I’m a hero, I never steal…..as a first resort. I borrowed it with every intention of putting it back.”
Bakugou blinks at him. Opens his mouth, closes it again. Looks out at the boat drifting peacefully across the lake then back at Shinsou.
“We can’t just leave it there,” he says finally.
Shinsou finishes lacing his shoes up and gets to his feet. He laces their fingers together and tugs Bakugou away from the lake. “Sure we can,” he say, “we’ve got more important things to do.”
Bakugou looks down at their joined hands, out at the boat, then back at the half smile tugging at one corner of Shinsou’s mouth. Shinsou squeezes his hand encouragingly. Bakugou shrugs and decides that boats aren’t that big of a deal in the grand scheme of things. It’s not like they blew it up or anything. It’s perfectly fine…if you don’t count the missing oars or the place on the ledge where he bit it out of sheer frustration with the then ongoing events. Then he registers the latter part of Shinsou’s sentence.
He eyes Shinsou suspiciously. “What things?”
Shinsou sets off for the entrance to the park, tugging him along behind. “Food, sweetheart. I’m hungry and anything we had left is at the bottom of the lake.”
Oh, that is a good point. Bakugou could definitely eat. Falling out of a boat and flailing around wildly as he experiences emotions beyond his usual spectrum burns a lot of calories. Two egg sandwiches and a couple of pieces of fruit wasn’t nearly enough. He lets Shinsou hold his hand the whole way out of the park, feeling a little too much like a duckling bumbling along behind him. But he doesn’t explode either of their hands about it so it’s fine or whatever.
Since most restaurants refuse to serve people who are dripping wet, they end up stopping at a convenience store for snacks to hold them over until they can get back to Bakugou's apartment and order something more substantial. Bakugou heads for the onigiri case while Shinsou disappears into the other side of the store, calling over his shoulder that he has to get a couple of household essentials while they’re there.
Bakugou shrugs and buys snacks for both of them because he’s nice like that and waits for him outside so he can go ahead and eat. He sighs in contentment as he chews. He could do better, of course, but sometimes shitty convenience store food just hits different after a stressful day. Shinsou joins him a few minutes later and Bakugou shoves a spicy tuna onigiri at him as a distraction while he snatches Shinsou’s bag. It’s fully his right as a serious boyfriend to find out what this weirdo thinks is a household essential.
It’s cereal. Two boxes. He doesn’t know what he expected.
He shoves it back at Shinsou in disgust.
And look, buying cereal isn’t weird in an of itself. Buying two boxes at a time is totally fine. Lots of people do that. Bakugou himself has done that a time or two. What’s not fine is buying two more boxes when Bakugou knows for a fact that Shinsou has an entire cabinet and a half solely dedicated to cereal. Because he eats that much of it. Because he can’t fucking cook. Bakugou eyes the dangling plastic bag resentfully as they walk to the train station. Shinsou catches him.
“Don’t tell me you’ve got a grudge against cereal or something.”
Bakugou elects not to continue looking at him in the interest of not succumbing to the urge to hit his first serious romantic partner in the mouth with his own bag of cereal.
“Cereal is fine. In moderation.”
Shinsou takes his hand again because apparently now that they’ve established the seriousness of their relationship, he thinks he can just do it whenever he wants now. Bakugou works very hard not to explode about it. Maybe he’ll get used to it the more it happens and one day he could even instigate it on his own. How the fuck he managed to face down the most evil super villain the world had to offer all those years ago when he can’t manage to stop being intimidated by holding his own boyfriend’s hand is beyond him. Maybe he’s just a failure after all.
“Everything I do is in moderation,” Shinsou informs him like Bakugou doesn’t know that’s bald faced lie and successfully derails his inner monologue.
Personally, Bakugou doesn’t think bugging a guy’s kitchen and then sitting in his tree at night with binoculars is very ‘in moderation’ but then again he wasn’t aware that boating was a classic romantic activity either so he lets that pass without comment.
Much later, after Bakugou has had a minor panic attack about letting Shinsou use his shower and borrow his clothes followed by yet another minor crisis when it’s his turn to shower—because he’s naked in his own home with Shinsou mere feet away, waiting for their food to arrive and he could totally change that if he could just get the hell over himself and stop panicking about that fact that he apparantly does want that—Shinsou kisses him good bye at the door and Bakugou explodes a hole in his own pants about it.
Shinsou takes it with good-natured grace when Bakugou throws him out of his apartment with a “Fuck off” that’s more embarrassed than mean and then immediately after Bakugou slams the door in his face, sends him six different good night themed Pusheen gifs followed by a paragraph of sparkly heart emojis and assurances that he’ll spend the night dreaming of Bakugou’s waterlogged kitten impression from earlier that day.
Bakugou yanks open the door to shout down that hall that Shinsou’s gonna wake up at the bottom of the lake if he doesn’t knock that shit off and then, after he’s slammed the door again and flipped the lock with a huff of righteous indignation, finds himself sending a text demanding that Shinsou tell him when he gets home so Bakugou can be sure that his own incompetence hasn’t gotten him killed in the twenty minutes it takes him to get back to his own place.
But, as he gets comfortable in bed, he can’t suppress a little fucking giggle because somehow today was still so much fun in spite of the chaos. His dad has always said that you don’t truly know someone until you work through a crisis together and sure, it was a pretty stupid crisis, but they didn’t actually seriously fight about it which Bakugou honestly hadn’t known he was capable of and that means this whole thing could really work. Long term, even.
When he wakes up, Shinsou has sent him a picture of a sad, squashy sort of cat looking miserable in a bathtub with the caption ‘so sweet dreaming about you last night, kitten’ and he has to stifle a tiny scream into his pillow because he’s so fucking happy. It’s revolting.
*********
Late afternoon—which is early morning to him after a night shift—finds Shinsou sleep walking into his kitchen. Bleary eyed and yawning, he bangs open his cereal cabinet and reaches for a box. He’ll have a bowl to shut up his stupid stomach, get another couple hours of sleep, and then swing by Bakugou’s apartment to wait for him to get back from his agency so they can have dinner together before he himself heads back into work. He slaps a hand uselessly around the cabinet for a solid thirty seconds before it registers that the cabinet is empty.
He rubs his eyes, blinks, checks again. Still nothing. His breakfast cereal and his lunch cereal are all gone. He yanks open the cabinet next to it. And his dinner cereal. Suddenly he feels wide awake. Someone is going to fucking pay for this.
Its not until he closes the door that he notices the note taped to it, in very familiar hand writing.
‘Breakfast is in the fridge. And if you ever try to buy more than one box of cereal at a time, I will staple you to your kitchen chair and burn them in front of you’
It’s not signed but there’s only one person who could sneak in without waking him up and its the only person deranged enough to even consider doing this. All his other friends know how seriously he takes his cereal. Resentfully, he shuffles over to the refrigerator and glares at the neatly covered bowls sitting on a shelf that was significantly more full of mostly expired garbage the last time he checked.
The breakfast is good, he’ll grant Bakugou that. But not good enough to derail him from getting his revenge.
**********
Bakugou unlocks his door and drops his keys on the little table just inside with a sigh. What a long, stupid fucking day. He kicks his shoes off, almost too tired to set them neatly on the shoe rack but his obsessive tendencies win out. He knows they’ll haunt him for the rest of the night if he doesn’t. He strips off his socks as well and makes a small noise of satisfaction as he stretches his toes on the hardwood and finally feels like he can breathe.
He leaves his bag in a heap next to the shoe rack and shuffles through his living room into the kitchen in the dark, thinking longingly of the spicy ramen he plans to make for dinner. Quick, easy, and comforting. All things that his job is not. Don’t get him wrong, he loves being a hero but the bureaucracy involved, god. So much of it is such pointless, exhausting bullshit. He had signed up to kick the shit out of villains not get cross referenced and subsectioned to death by paperwork. Sighing, he makes it one step into his kitchen before a familiar voice drawls his name. His hands snaps out to turn the light on and then he freezes.
Shinsou is sitting on his kitchen counter in full gear, spinning a ring knife around one finger, looking murderous. Bakugou swallows, hard. That should not be as attractive as it is. Maybe he’s the one with too many screws loose, actually. But he does his best to cover his surprise and react in the only way he can. Scowling magnificently and being the biggest bitch imaginable.
“Get your dirty fucking boots off my counters! That shit is granite, not the goddamn formica nightmare garbage you have in your fuckass apartment!”
Fuck. He’s not supposed to know what kind of furniture Shinsou has.
“That I assume you have,” he adds a bit belatedly.
Shinsou’s face betrays nothing as he slides off the counter to stalk towards him. Still spinning that fucking knife. Bakugou doesn’t even realize he’s backing up until his spine hits the wall. What the fuck is wrong with him? He took down a guy three times his size who was made out of goddamn boulders earlier today. One asshole that he knows for a fact wants in his pants more than he wants him dead shouldn’t be a problem. He’s mortified but…….. also kind of turned on. Does he have a sex drive now? His eyes are glued to the spinning knife. Is…...is this what a kink is? He shuts that thought down hard as soon as he thinks it. He can’t afford to cope with thoughts like that after the day he’s had.
“Bakugou,” Shinsou says in a deceptively calm tone of voice, “What did you do with all of my cereal?”
He lets the weight of the knife drop onto Bakugou’s chest with a thump that Bakugou feels throughout his entire body.
“I put it where it belongs!”
Shinsou puts just enough pressure to dig the sharp tip through Bakugou’s shirt and into his skin. Bakugou swallows, again, around an increasingly dry mouth.
Shinsou smiles, wide and creepy. “Now you couldn’t have done that because where it belongs is in my cabinet and it’s definitely not there.”
Bakugou is pressed as flat to the wall as he can get without becoming two dimensional. Again, he wonders what the fuck is wrong with him? He should explode the audacity right out of this motherfucker and then throw him out of his apartment. Not just stand here, letting him continue to tap a goddamn knife on his chest. He spares a moment to prod at the dark corner of his brain he keeps his feelings in. Is he enjoying this?
Shinsou drags the knife down Bakugou’s sternum, lighting him up from the inside out.
“I’m waiting, angel,” Shinsou says, “what do you have to say for yourself?”
Bakugou steels himself. “That I’d fucking do it again, you asshole.”
He lunges forward, heedless of the way the knife catches on his skin, kisses Shinsou hard, and then, while he’s distracted, shoves him back and makes a break for the living room. The knife thuds into the door frame as he skids through it, slipping a bit on the hardwood and a wild laugh builds in his throat. He darts across the room then uses his coffee table to propel himself over his couch—another knife slicing into the cushion where his foot had just been—and hits the floor behind it just in time to see Deku walk in from his front hall.
Fuck.
Bakugou had forgotten that he’d agreed to let him come over for dinner. Probably because he was temporarily concussed. Guys made out of rocks hit hard. Who knew?
Another knife thuds into the drywall next to his head and he flinches. Deku’s mouth drops open as Shinsou saunters into the room.
“What the hell is going on?!” He demands, looking from one to the other and then to the knife.
“Nothing!” Bakugou snaps at the same time as Shinsou, casually dropping an arm around his shoulder, says……
“Foreplay.”
Bakugou turns so red he think he might pass out. Deku looks like he wishes he could pass out to escape the current moment. Shinsou gives him a friendly smile, as if Deku hadn’t just walked in on him chasing Bakugou around his own apartment with a knife, then looks down at Bakugou. Bakugou internally curses—not for the first time—the few inches Shinsou has on him.
“I have to leave for work now, angel,” he says. Then he twists his fingers into his hair and yanks his head back, forcing Bakugou to look up at him and kisses him, hard and sloppy.
Bakugou can’t stop the stupid noise he makes in the back of his throat. It goes on for way too long and Bakugou keeps his hands tightly fisted, daring any sparks to sneak out. He absolutely will not explode anything or get hard with goddamn Deku in the room. But he also can’t seem to push Shinsou away and oh shit, he can feel the heat building up in his palms, he’s going to explode his own hands, something he hasn’t done since he was four. Shinsou tugs gently on his lower lip with his teeth, and fuck why does that feel so good. Although it would probably feel better if he could get his shit together enough to figure out how to kiss back. His hands are getting ridiculously sweaty and ridiculously combustible. He’s gonna blow them all through the fucking wall if this keeps up.
Fortunately, Shinsou pulls away before Bakugou can embarrass himself beyond all repair, gives Deku a lazy salute as he passes and then disappears out the front door. Now he knows how one works, the bastard.
“Don’t say anything,” Bakugou hisses at Deku, seething. The motherfucker had left his knife in Bakugou’s wall. And his couch.
Deku looks at him judgmentally but, mercifully, keeps his thoughts to himself. He always has been the better person.
Foreplay, what a joke, Bakugou thinks to himself savagely as he stomps back to the kitchen, he can’t get over himself long enough to get that far.
Deku is kind enough not to try to make him talk about it as he cooks and then they eat. Afterward Bakugou hooks up an old All Might video game, just to ensure that they continue to not talk about it, and he almost forgets about the whole thing as he spends a couple happy hours thrashing Deku into oblivion.
But he should have known the nosy jerk wouldn’t let the incident pass completely without comment and he chooses his moment as he’s getting ready to leave.
“Far be it from me to comment on your relationship, Kaachan,” Deku says, once he pulls his shoes on and Bakugou braces himself. “But you’re really living down to expectations here…..”
“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?!”
And then Deku does that thing that he fucking does where he looks at Bakugou with his big, far too perceptive eyes and says something that makes him feel far too seen, vulnerability crawling up his spine like ants.
“Nothing really. I’m just glad you’re finally letting yourself be happy.”
“Fuck you, I’ve always been happy,” he says reflexively.
Deku tilts his head and smiles gently. “In your job, maybe. But you seem less lonely now. It seems like you two really match.”
Bakugou bites back the instinctive response that he’s not lonely because maybe Deku does have sort of a point. He’s never really considered himself lonely, per se, because he likes his life, he really does. He’s doing the job he’s spent his entire life chasing and it’s fucking amazing. He’s got friends and hobbies and he’s making real progress on developing a good work/life balance. There’s nothing missing or anything. It’s just…he does feel…lighter somehow now that he’s got Shinsou. Like life is just a bit brighter. He considers that for a second. Maybe he was a little lonely, actually.
Aaaaaaand that’s enough introspection for this evening. Time to dissociate on his floor and forget that feelings exist.
Trusting Deku to close up after himself, Bakugou turns around, with a vague wave goodbye over his shoulder and walks back to his living room. He nudges the coffee table off to the side enough to stretch himself out on the plush rug in front of his couch. He might as well be comfortable if he’s gonna dissociating into the ceiling for a bit.
It’s as he blinks blankly at the ceiling awhile later that he has the thought…Should he get a lava lamp? That might be nicer to stare at than a popcorn ceiling.
**********
Post credit scene after the Boat Incident: smash cut to Aizawa, enjoying a relaxing afternoon in his own home on his day off with a cat in his lap and a book in his hand. Nothing could go wrong today he thinks in contentment. Moments later his phone buzzes. Slither is on the line. “Your son asked if stealing with intent to return was still a crime and then if we had any boat retrieval equipment.” “……I don’t have a son. Arrest the impostor and don’t call me again.”
COMING UP!
The full extent of the stalkerationship is revealed to only marginally surprised bystanders, Shinsou has a catastrophic misunderstanding, and Bakugou continues to explode things, on purpose this time.