Chapter Text
Shouto can still recall clearly his last days at U.A., the final battle they fought as a class, the casualties, everything. He’d been witness to the people he had grown with displaying overwhelming power, but never more so when they gave it their all. No, they had to give it their all. It was All For One all over again, but the nightmare was very, very real, and probably more frightening than what any of them could have imagined.
He recalls explosions in every direction, smoke obscuring his vision as he tried to block the debris coming at him with walls of ice that appeared to spring from the ground as he passed. He remembers Bakugou’s face darkened with rage and his eyes glowing in a way that left no doubt that in that moment he was seeing red.
However, all of that was gone now. They tried not to count the days nearing their graduation and tried to graduate as quietly as possible, as least shaken as possible, despite the impossibility of it all. They were heroes, battle-hardened at an age adults still described as tender, and went on to try and save the world in their own separate ways so as to put food on the table and be able to achieve childhood dreams and prove their most nonconstructive of critics wrong.
Ten years later, Todoroki Shouto, never having decided on a hero name other than his own given name in spite of everything, had grown somewhat comfortable referring to being a hero as his profession. So had Bakugou Katsuki, it seemed—and he’s still as spitfire as ever although decidedly a bit less angry, Shouto notes amusedly.
Bakugou, at the moment, looks completely and utterly out of his element. He stands in civilian clothes, clearly as much of an adult now as Shouto is, and it feels jarring to see him after so long and like this. Shouto would even go so far as to dare describe him as looking a tad desperate—but only in his thoughts and also only because Bakugou doesn’t pull shit like this.
“I have no one else I can ask this from—believe me, I tried—so can you... ugh, please attend a wedding with me?”
A moment of complete silence passes between them.
“I-In what context?” Shouto asks uncertainly.
Bakugou looks at him like he had been betrayed. “You really want me to say it, don’t you? You fuckin’ asshole.”
Shouto raises an eyebrow, not understanding what he meant.
Bakugou groans, and then grumbles something through gritted teeth.
“What?”
“Ugh!” Bakugou exclaims, and Shouto thinks he can see smoke from where Bakugou’s clenching his fists.
Shouto raises his arms in an attempt to make the other hero’s in-the-moment animosity dissipate, even a little. “Look, I really don’t understand. Why would you ask me to come to a wedding with you?”
That cues the Classic Bakugou Glare, also known as the one where Bakugou Katsuki would look at you as if you’re a mound of dirt in his path. I always seemed to send a message drastically different from what he’s really trying to say, though, so Shouto tries to cut him some slack. After all, Bakugou is more or less asocial if he isn’t picking a fight or expressing dissatisfaction.
“You will not make me say this again, got it?” Bakugou pauses before continuing, teeth still gritted in a way that made his words sound as if he spat them out. “I need you to be my fake boyfriend for my cousin’s wedding,” he says in a single breath.
Shouto had several questions that took to his mind, hearing that statement, but first things first.
“I’m sorry, but I will have to refuse.” Bakugou looks like he might get angrier, so Shouto quickly elaborates, “I have never been in a romantic relationship even once in my life and thus I don’t believe I can pull this off.” He says this in the most serious tone he can muster.
“Are… Are you shitting me right now?! You’ve never been in a relationship,” he confirms disbelievingly, and Shouto nods. “Despite your popularity?”
Shouto bristles at that. “It’s because of that popularity that my private life has to remain strictly separate. And, also, that has nothing to do with anything.”
“You’re just rubbing your damn popularity in my face, now, aren’t y—”
“Besides, I could ask you the same thing; granted your rank, don’t you have rabid fans who would love to be in a relationship with you in spite of your personality?”
“Shut the fuck up about my personality,” Bakugou hisses, “You’re a goddamn hypocrite. And don’t make this about my rank.”
“Ah, now don’t start rubbing your rank in my face,” Shouto smirks and to that Bakugou gives him what’s probably the most scorn-fueled scowl Shouto has ever seen.
“Fuck you.”
“Hey, you’re the one asking me for a favor here,” Shouto retorts, still smug.
There’s a quick change in Bakugou’s eyes. “So you’re gonna do it?”
“I didn’t say—!”
“Shoutoooo! Can you please talk to your friend somewhere that isn’t the hallway?” A woman’s head suddenly pops out from one of the many doors lining the hallway. It takes a second more of her slightly exasperated stare to fully remind Shouto of where they are.
“Sorry, Yanase-san. He was just going,” he reassures. For a spontaneous decision, it might just actually be the right answer, considering the last thing Shouto wants to happen is him ending up inviting Bakugou into his ‘office.’ Yanase quirks an eyebrow before sliding her glasses up higher from their perch on her nose and huffs as she closes the door.
Unfortunately, Shouto does not account for one of Bakugou’s most apparent traits being ‘no-bullshit.’
“So are you gonna help me out or not?” Bakugou sounds done at this point, reflecting perfectly how Shouto feels. It’s barely past noon and he’s already as mentally tired as he would be after a long day’s work. Shouto doesn’t blame Bakugou for wanting to cut this short, taking into account their history and the favor being asked here.
“I will, but answer this first: is there some specific reason I can’t logically figure out for myself that drove you to ask me, out of all the other people you know?”
“Are you trying to play fuckin’ Twenty Questions with me?” There’s that glint in Bakugou’s eyes again—for the first time in an obscenely long time. It’s the one that has never failed to catch Shouto’s attention and pin it on Bakugou, but this time, if Shouto didn’t know better, he’d read that veiled emotion as defensiveness.
“Weren’t you the one politely requesting me to do something that wouldn’t hurt me if I refused?”
Immediately after saying that, Shouto retracts his original observation: Bakugou doesn’t look a tad desperate; he really is.
He looks conflicted before indulging Shouto with an answer. “I said I tried other people, a’ight?” Only at the last word does his his gaze stop flitting and meets Shouto’s head on. “This bullshit would be a whole fucking lot easier if Uraraka did not fucking work for my cousin or if my parents did not thoroughly know Kirishima. But no. You happy?”
Shouto nods, before deciding he could spite Bakugou a bit more since chances like these rarely come along anyway. “Ah, but what about Midoriya then?”
Bakugou stares at him, stares harder with an accompanying tilt of a head.
“You’re shitting me. You really are fucking shitting me,” Bakugou tells him in what was definitely the flattest tone he can manage.
Shouto can’t help it; he fails to bite back a snicker.
“Oh my fucking God, you are the worst—”
“But you did consider it,” Shouto affirms, and he’s smiling slightly now.
“Now, for the last time, will you go or not?” Bakugou looks even more done than before, but after hearing what he did, Shouto decides he doesn’t blame him. “I’m open for negotiating any kind of payback if this doesn’t completely go to shit,” he quickly adds in a way that makes Shouto think saying that wasn’t part of the plan. But, hey—what does he know?
Shouto’s face scrunches up a bit—recalling most of his life choices so far and how his lack of dating experience will probably screw things up at some point, but acknowledging he also does not have a lot to lose from this and, hello, it could be a chance to embarrass Bakugou further than what Shouto has achieved today—before he finally says, “Fine. Okay. I’ll go.”
Bakugou’s posture relaxes a great deal as he exhales in relief. “Can’t believe I’m saying this, but you’ve done me a real solid this time,” he says, seeming to be caught in the moment a little. The expression displayed briefly on his face, to Shouto, says ‘in case you’ve forgotten that this is Bakugou ten years later.’
“It’s fine,” Shouto dismisses, and shakes the thought from his head. “When and where?”
The other appears to have gotten over his gratitude quite quickly. “It’s next Friday. And you don’t need to worry about the ‘where;’ just shoot me your address and I’ll pick you up to make it look more... official or whatever.”
‘Ah, of course,’ Shouto doesn’t say. Instead he asks the other important thing: “Should I wear traditional or modern?”
Bakugou looks appalled that Shouto even asked this. “Modern, obviously; who even does it traditionally anymore?”
“Just making sure,” Shouto defends.
Bakugou seems to linger awkwardly for a moment before muttering a goodbye.