Work Text:
"Bakugo! Bakugo open up, man!" Kirishima pounded on the other's door, frowning, glancing at the clock in the hallway.
The two walked to class together from the dorms every morning. Always. The redhead knew he was usually the one who had to be ripped out of his drooling dreams; Katsuki never let them be late (he was one hell of a perfectionist).
But other's rock music alarm wasn't going off. It hadn't exploded like it did daily at a decibel that rivaled a jet engine. And they had a damn exam to get to; Kirishima was already worried enough about remembering the do's and don'ts of villain pursuit and capture methods.
He checked his phone and called Bakugo again, an uneasy feeling starting to sink into his stomach. The other's cell going unanswered behind the door didn't help - four, five, six rings, sending his concerns to voicemail.
He was still in there, wasn't he?
Or was something wrong?
Kirishima dialed the other again and banged on the door as it rung, not holding back anymore, knocks connecting more like punches. They were probably the only people left in the dorms anyway. Shoji was long gone.
Each loud pound left him more anxious than the last.
Bakugo had to be ignoring him. Had to still mad about Kirishima's stupid comment yesterday, and he hoped that was the simple, easy answer. But a part of Eijiro's mind still dragged him kicking and screaming back to Kamino Ward - to the campground, despite how ridiculous it was to jump into such extremes. The worried hero fell into a deep breath and gave in to his matching extreme solution.
The skin on Kirishima's fist hardened to a rocky consistency as he punched the door handle, impulsively breaking the lock to pieces. He burst into the other's room expecting to see strewn clothes and furniture, a telltale scene of a kidnapping, signs of a struggle and a fight-
"What the fuck are you doing?"
Bakugo looked like he'd just been woken by an earthquake. Messy hair, messier frown - shooting up and kicking his blankets away. He pulled the headphones off his ears, they were large and probably...
...noise cancelling.
"Oh," Kirishima let his quirk dissolve, neck turning red and a flush replacing steel, feeling entirely ridiculous. Over-protective.
Protective over Bakugo.
"Yeah, oh," the blond dangled his legs off the bed, eyes burning a charred path to stomp towards Kirishima on.
"What am I supposed to do about this shit?" He gestured angrily to the splintered wood and metal laying on the floor, remnants of the lock and handle. Kirishima's absurdly dramatic entrance for someone who'd just missed an alarm.
"I didn't-"
Bakugo snorted and interrupted him, mocking the explanation he'd need to supply, "My bad, Aizawa, this was just from my fuckin' hair-for-brains boyfriend breaking in at-"
At fifteen minutes late for homeroom.
Bakugo's pointy gaze finally widened with realization. It looked like he almost forgot his anger from seconds ago, but he quickly found a new reason to frown at Kirishima:
"You could've said somethin' earlier," Bakugo cursed, eyes cracking the sleep from their corners. The exam after homeroom probably wasn't weighing nearly as heavily on the other's confident thoughts - he was smart as all hell. But this rocky start wasn't exactly a good sign of things to come. And Kirishima just stood in place trying to decode the other's tone. The difference between Katsuki's 'real mad' and 'for show mad' had taken a while to puzzle out at the beginning.
And he was stuck for the first time in a while.
Kirishima watched the other fling off his shirt, not quite in a panic but definitely racing. A red glare blew through him like a rocket as Eijiro stared - unapologetically, heavily, hungrily, at Katsuki's uncovered skin.
Bakugo was down to his boxers in a little more than a second.
Kirishima had still seen him do it faster.
The other's shirt and pants whipped through the air at him, connecting with Kirishima's chest. They dropped to the floor as he found himself utterly distracted. He tried not to imagine and fantasize so hard, not to burn so hot, but it was a fool's game. Bakugo turned around to tear his uniform out of his dresser. And with the light beaming through the blinds, outlining and shadowing the other's back - unexplored, begging shards of his skin and scapulas, he looked just like-
"We gotta go angel, it's already-"
Bakugo's head whipped around.
"What?"
Kirishima rewound. Let his mind catch up to his mouth and the word that had rolled out of it so naturally.
"What did you just call me?" Bakugo pressed further, taking dense steps closer like he was approaching to attack. He pulled his shirt down over his head. Left no evidence of the sight that had brought the thought- the damn intrusive, impulsive thought to life. The blond's expression was some skewed ratio of anger and confusion, and his pupils looked a lot closer to grenades than question marks.
Katsuki might be 'real mad,' and really mad.
"I, ah-," Kirishima glanced at the wall because it was easier. He wondered what twisted universe he'd been lost in to where pet names seemed like the next logical step between them. With Katsuki. And after only three impossibly short months together, even if he'd been fucking captivated, corrupted, ruined by the blond - smile stretched to the sun from hour one.
But that didn't mean Kirishima could just pull some name out of thin air and expect it to work. And he hadn't even started small; he didn't give Bakugo a chance to catch on to bite sized pieces and easy cliches. No sweetheart, love, babe, hero...even Explosion Murder would've been better to try seriously.
"Angel?" In contrast, the word left Bakugo's throat like astonished, rancid confusion.
"I don't know, I don't know, you just-" Kirishima couldn't even finish his thought. He had no idea how to justify it.
"Just what? Am I looking fucking heavenly today? Did I sprout some damn wings I wasn't aware of?" His jeers alone were harsh. Like he wanted nothing to do with the much-walked path a relationship was supposed to follow, cute names and touches, and instead carved his way through theirs with TNT and bites.
Kirishima considered his reply. And while he was already embarrassed, he thought one more confession wouldn't hurt.
"I don't know 'bout heavenly, but you're damn stunning," he tried to lighten the other's grizzled, bared teeth with a genuine compliment. An opening to strike appeared when Katsuki's head lowered, targeted under Eijiro's fiercely immoral smile and eyes. The redhead set his next comment loose and it hit the air like a pile of lit fireworks: "And if we weren't late already, I'd be all over you."
Bakugo froze.
"Don't try to distract me from being mad."
But he suddenly...
...didn't seem angry anymore?
Maybe Kirishima's attack had worked. Or maybe Bakugo had just found an emotion that was more exciting to keep. The other's eyes flashed, widened, hinted at holding something close to amusement. A smirk left his face and planted itself on Eijiro's flushed throat.
"It just slipped out, okay," Kirishima finally grumbled an excuse, fully aware how his pouted lips worked like puppy dog eyes. Figuring out he could charm Bakugo had been an evil discovery.
And it didn't fail now.
The blond regarded him for a silent moment, but Kirishima was realizing importantly, once again, than it was a moment they couldn't spare. The clock was furious. Aizawa would be even more furious. They were wasting time now, missing valuable minutes to spend flipping through notes and branding facts in their eyes like cheat sheets and-
"Say it again."
It was Eijiro's turn to jerk his head and ask a convoluted: "What?"
Bakugo moved forward, closing in on him like a stalking predator, inches away from his gullible lips. Lifted his hand to cup Kirishima's face, keeping his touch so impossibly light for a hero so strong and unrelenting. For fingers that might as well be wicks. He brushed his thumb along Eijiro's cheek and the redhead would've whined if he didn't have an order to obey.
And Kirishima did give in.
How could he not.
"We're gonna miss our exam, Angel," he said with lost and found confidence. The nickname didn't come as easy or thoughtless as before, but he might actually like it. For real. Katsuki leaned in to respond to his statement, and when his lips were pressed against Kirishima's ear - growl locked and loaded in his throat - he let the bullet fly.
"Then we better hurry, baby."
Kirishima blinked
It took longer than he'd admit to figure it out. To realize Bakugo was messing with him, completely teasing him. Kirishima pushed the impossible hero back with an open palm, his frown holding a little roughness and a lot of embarrassment.
"What's wrong, honey?" Bakugo was laughing, cackling now, the most fantastic sound he'd ever heard when it happened the first time - and Kirishima could never get enough of it. Raspy and rough and higher pitched than his usual growled tone; altogether it was the epitome of sweet and sour. Concentrated Bakugo. When it left the blond's mouth, Kirishima fell a little faster towards ground zero.
But he should still probably be annoyed at being mocked, so he went with that instead.
"I'm leaving without you, jackass."
"No, I'm leaving without you," Bakugo challenged instantly, snorts now faded. Grabbed his backpack and slung it over his shoulder as he rushed past his ruined door - which, when he passed, reminded him to give both the splintered wood and Kirishima the same scowl.
"You weren't answering!" Kirishima defended himself, pulling his own bag off the floor in the hallway. His entrance from before seemed even more embarrassing when he tried to shut Bakugo's room. It turns out a shattered lock didn't make for much privacy. And a door handle was probably the second most important thing to have for a door. He sighed and jogged to catch up to the other, promising himself that he'd be the one to explain to Aizawa (in half-truths) what he had against the school's architecture.
"So your genius solution was to barge in like a maniac," Bakugo continued, not looking over when the redhead matched his pace.
"You have to admit it was manly as hell."
Bakugo smirked.
"I don't have to admit shit, sweetheart."
He filled the nickname to the brim with sarcasm, continuing his teases. Kirishima groaned and begrudgingly kicked the door open to the staircase. Trying to ignore the knowing, prodding smile on the other's face. He pounded down the stairs, calling out a reply behind him.
"You think you're funny?"
"I'm fucking hilarious."
He was something.
And they were late, so late to class now, but neither of them seemed to care or move faster across the grass to the main building. Kirishima snuck a glance down at the other's hand and despite the teases - despite how stupidly excessive it would be, he wished he could grip Bakugo's chemical-laced palm openly. Warmly. Embrace the danger and confession of doing it, and the looks it would bring his way. It wouldn't matter if he could hold onto Bakugo all the time, tightly - into every corridor, throughout class, under the table during lunch-
He peeked at the other. Puzzled at his meaningless frown that could mean a mystery box of things. And Kirishima recognized that Bakugo would take a little longer than him to be OK announcing their status to the school, to Kaminari, to his rivals.
To the world.
But that didn't mean Kirishima couldn't wonder how touching him without inhibitions would feel.
(Probably a little like calling him 'angel').
"So, you gonna hold this over my head for the rest of my life?"
"Hold what?" Bakugo was playing stupid - he knew exactly what the redhead was talking about. And like before it took Kirishima a second to understand the code written underneath.
Why Katsuki would ask that, unless he wanted to hear him say it again.
"Angel, you're killin' me," Kirishima tested it out on his tongue for round three. But something felt different this time. The syllables left his mouth more syrupy, spontaneously; he really wanted to say it again. Again, shouted a thousand times. He suddenly needed to know how it would feel to whisper it against the other's dusted red neck, kissed into his palm, intertwined with a simple "hey" like it had a right to be there too.
Something close to comfort spread around Kirishima. He was as good at resisting it as he was resisting Bakugo.
Although judging by the expression on the other's face, Bakugo couldn't either.
It took him far too long to realize that Katsuki's silence was empty air that meant the same as permission. That he was begrudgingly, willingly backing down. That he had undoubtedly changed his mind. They were two developments that felt too foreign to be real. They couldn't be. He was far too stubborn. Kirishima was expecting the other to choke out "don't forget me, sugar," on his damn deathbed, holding a snarky smile as Eijiro remembered the time he called him angel.
Kirishima's stare was hardened embarassment. Bakugo was damn unbelievable.
"Stop looking at me like that," the other grumbled (and at least some things were still easy to predict).
"Like what?"
"Like you wanna kiss me all fuckin' romantic or something."
Kirishima hadn't been thinking that at all, but he sure was now.
"Who says I don't?"
Bakugo pressed his mouth into a frown while it fought to turn upwards instead. Took a second to judge the emptiness of the hallway, how important it was to make it to the second half of homeroom, and how much a stolen kiss was worth. And it suddenly happened again. For the second time in a far too short period, on someone far too hotheaded and stuck in being difficult, Bakugo gave in.
Don't turn into a damn softie on me, Katsuki.
And at the very least, Bakugo's lips were definitely getting softer.