Work Text:
It was New Year’s Day, and the UA 3-A class had made plans to celebrate with a big party at Momo’s estate. The snow was freshly fallen from the night before, coating the world in a layer of quiet wonder, readying it to start afresh with the changing of the calendar. The chilly air was so crisp, and any sounds seemed to echo all around.
Bakugou arrived to the party fashionably late, having walked over with Kirishima. Mina and Kaminari spot them instantly and rush over. “Hey guys!” Mina exclaims, “I was almost worried you wouldn’t show! What, did you set Eiji’s hair gel on fire again?”
“One day, Shitty Hair’ll get the message, but until then, I’m doing a public service burning that garbage,” Bakugou replies smugly.
“Hey!”
“There, there,” Mina soothes her indignant boyfriend, “I think your hair looks cool, styled or not.” She wraps an arm around his neck and makes to ruffle said mop of hair while he half-heartedly bats her hand away. Bakugou mimes gagging, and waves them off to go grab a drink.
In true Momo style, the gathering was quite possibly the most elegant winter soiree any of the budding heroes had attended; it took place in the gardens of her home, which in themselves were lovely even in the snow, but were classed up with some simple ribbons around pillars and lighting features to accent the season. There were delicious looking hors d'oeuvres on small plates and non-alcoholic drinks in glassware along a banquet table off to the side, and the classmates were spread about on the patio furniture.
Bakugou grabs a glass of sparkling grape juice, takes a sip, and grimaces at the sweet flavor. He reaches over for something that looks like a mini hotdog and bumps hands unexpectedly; “Oh-oh! Sorry about that, Kacchan, after you.”
Now, Bakugou’s crush was an ill-kept secret among the squad of idiots that seemed to cling to him, but at least they new better than to tell anyone else. However, if anyone had been looking directly at the explosive blond at that moment, they might have detected a trace of a blush around the ears. Luckily for him, it seemed that the party members were all otherwise occupied, and the aforementioned crush was busy averting his eyes in his own little panic. “Whatever, nerd. Be more assertive next time, are you going to be this much of a doormat when some villain attacks? ‘Oh no, Mr. Evil Man, you were there first!’”
Let it be known that Bakugou still hadn’t gotten over his habit of overcompensating with venom whenever the slightest bit of emotion reared its head. Fortunately though, the two were better friends than they had been two short years ago.
Midoriya sputters, then has the audacity to laugh. Laugh. And lightly punch him in the arm. And keep laughing. “Deku, it wasn’t that funny,” Bakugou says deadpan as Midoriya doubles over, then reaches over and grabs half the tray of the mini hotdogs.
“I just- oh god, I know, it’s not but - Mr. Evil Man?!” Midoriya chokes out, falling into another fit of laughter.
At that moment, Momo comes over to greet them. “Welcome welcome, Bakugou, Midoriya- are you quite alright there?” she asks concernedly, putting a steadying hand on the hysterical boy's back. His face is starting to go red from the lack of air. “Do you need help breathing? I can make you a paper bag,” she continues fretfully. “Goodness Bakugou, what did you do to him?”
“Haah? What do you mean what did I do? It's the damn nerd's fault he has a weird sense of humor.” Bakugou stuffs food in his mouth to stop himself from saying his next thoughts, which revolved around ‘ Fuck he's cute when he's flushed like that’ and also ‘ Get you hand off him, hoe.’
Midoriya finally calms down enough to take some deep breaths, and thanks Momo. “Sorry, I didn't sleep very much last night. My mom and I wanted to stay up to great the new year and now everything is just 5 times as funny to me.” Bakugou snickers quietly, with a soft ‘ Finally,’ under his breath.
“That sounds like a Deku problem. So unprofessional to let yourself get weak over losing a few hours of sleep,” he taunts, turning his back as if to leave the conversation before his admittedly ridiculous posturing gets out of hand. Why am I always like this around that idiot? he pleads mentally to whatever higher power might possibly respond. He hears a noise of frustration behind him, and feels a glare boring a hole through the back of his head, but puts it out of his mind as he goes back towards the peanut gallery.
Kirishima and Kaminari are in a heated debate with Mina and Tsuyu over some stupid topic (whether tomatoes were a fruit or a vegetable; Kaminari kept interjecting that no matter which was correct, that salsa was in fact a salad) and Bakugou joins them for a while. (“ It’s a recipe for acid reflux you morons, remember the last time you ate 3 pounds of salsa the day before training camp?”) However, he couldn’t help his wandering eyes continually tracking Midoriya throughout the get-together; he watched him as he politely chatted with their host, then sat around a koi pond with his gossip crew (that Uraraka was way better at keeping secrets than Ashido, and always seemed to know what was what), then saw him whisper something to Todoroki. Oh yeah, get all chummy with the half’n’half bastard, huh? That stupid-
Bakugou’s brought out of his train of thoughts by pink hands waving in front of his face, and a voice saying, “Earth to Bakugou? Hello in there! You might need another drink there.~” He snaps his focus back and sees that, in fact, he is now holding a chunk of melted plastic and purple liquid adorns his hand as well as the ground. ‘ Gross.’ Mina smirks at his look of disgust and taunts him in a sing-song voice, “Paying a little too much attention across the room are we? Baku’s got a cruuuuush-” She dodges the melted cup, but still steps back away from the sparking boy.
Eyes dart back over to Midoriya, but he appears to not have heard. Todoroki had just whipped up an ice sculpture of a giant snowflake, intricate and perfectly symmetrical. Satisfied on that front, he turns back to his pink classmate and scowls. “You wanna continue that thought?” he threatens, advancing on her as she squeaks and hides behind Kirishima, sticking her tongue out at him.
“Bro chill, you’re never going to get anywhere with that attitude. Really you should just go talk to him directly,” Kirishima reasons, shaking his head. Bakugou snorts, and crosses his arms in a huff and a bit of a pout.
“Whatever. I’m not trying to ‘get anywhere,’ you don’t know me.” He knows exactly how childish he’s being and resents himself for it a little bit, but also figures that if his friends are going to act like kids it doesn’t matter.
“Dude come on, it’s not that big a deal.” Kaminari casually puts a hand on Bakugou’s shoulder, then quickly removes it when he starts growling. “We’re all rooting for you man. And we’re this close to graduation, there’s no better time to approach him!” He coughs and says under his breath, “Then maybe Midoriya can tame that temper of yours, yikes.”
“That was some coughing fit, huh?” Bakugou remarks, but before he can cause any property damage or set blonde hair aflame, Momo stands up on a table and asks for everyone’s attention.
“Thank you everyone for coming to my home! I sincerely wish that you feel welcome and have a lovely time! We have a few activities planned - there’s a photo booth under the veranda, a snowman contest, and mochi pounding! Of course, there are plenty of snacks, and please don’t hesitate to suggest something! Uraraka will be in judging the snowman contest, so here she is with the rules!” Scattered cheers and applause rings out across the garden.
Momo carefully steps down from the table as Uraraka jumps up. “Alright everyone! Time to get creative! For this contest, everyone will be in teams of 3-5 people. Momo has graciously provided some fun decorations to use, which will be on a first-come-first-serve basis! Once we get started, each group can send one person up to grab whatever supplies they can, and that’s what you will have to use. Winners get bragging rights and their choice to opt out of dorm cleaning for a week!” This statement is met with more cheers and whistles. “You have 5 minutes to pick teams- and go!”
Bakugou regards his cohort for a moment, already sharing ideas and plans for the best snowman. “Snowmen are so lame,” he complains.
“Come on, Bakubro, where’s your holiday spirit? At any rate, not having to clean will give you more time to totally not ogle Midoriya , right?” Kirishima leers at him.
Grumbling, Bakugou decides that if it must happen, he might as well be in charge. “Sparky! Go grab Sero. Shitty Hair, you and Pinky can make the basic shape of the thing.” He proceeds to lay out plans for what will clearly be the best snowman ever seen by humankind.
Midoriya had arrived to the party early with Starbucks to help Momo set up, alongside Ochako and Jirou. The night before had been a lot of fun, but the lack of sleep had him reaching for every source of caffeine available to him until he was practically vibrating. (Ochako, a chronic coffee enthusiast, was even astounded by the volume of peppermint mocha her friend managed to down in the span of five minutes. “You're going to make yourself sick, Deku!”) Setting up took no time at all with their combined efforts, and soon their classmates were strolling in.
“Midoriya! Are you in there?” Iida's voice snapped him out of a daydream. He had been totally zoned out and missed most of the conversation after he had walked up and greeted them.
“Wha- yes, I'm here, I'm here! Not sleeping, I promise!” he put his hands out in front of him in apology, only to be met with a skeptical look.
“Uraraka mentioned to me you didn't sleep well. Maybe you should sit down for a while?” Midoriya smiles back at him, appreciative of his mother-henning nature.
“I'll be ok! I think I just need something to eat, I'll be right back.” He wanders over to the snack table, where he runs into none other than Bakugou Katsuki. The Bakugou Katsuki, who was part of the real reason he couldn’t sleep last night. Watching fireworks never failed to remind him of his explosive childhood friend and the frankly massive crush he’s been harboring since, well, who can say when it started, but he’d only recognized it a few months ago when Uraraka pointed out how often his eyes wandered to the other boy. Ever since then, he just couldn’t stop thinking about it; what were his real feelings toward his rival? Could this be justified by his general obsession with heroes? Surely, he’s just studying him to take notes and figure out new ways to Go Beyond…. Oh, who was he kidding? It’s always been Kacchan.
Cue massive overreacting to the slightest touch when they both reach for the same tray. Suddenly he was laughing and couldn’t stop, God why can’t I stop, making an utter fool of himself.
“That sounds like a Deku problem. So unprofessional to let yourself get weak over losing a few hours of sleep.”
Midoriya truly intends to make a clever comeback, or at least some sort of indignant response, but Kacchan has practically bolted out and he’s already made a scene. Rubbing a hand down his face exasperatedly, he slinks back to his friends, food forgotten.
A few minutes later, he feels a warm tap on his shoulder. “Oh, hi Todoroki! When did you get here?” he says, turning to the other boy.
Todoroki shrugs. “Been here a while already. Saw you at the snack table,” he replies in a low tone, eyes averted as if to avoid attracting attention. “Wanna talk about it?”
Midoriya nods once, then ducks out of the current conversation with a “Be right back!” before following Todoroki to the other side of an expertly trimmed hedge. Todoroki was the only person he'd officially told of his little maybe crush for a few reasons: firstly, it was common knowledge that Todoroki was dating a guy from Shiketsu, and thus could perhaps give some advice on this kind of thing, and secondly (and perhaps even more importantly) he could keep a secret.
“You seemed to be having some trouble there,” Todoroki says with an eyebrow raised, implicitly beckoning Midoriya to spill the beans.
Once he gets going, well, it just doesn't stop. “- and I don't know what came over me but you know ever since the idea that I might really like him got into my head I just can't stop thinking about it and now he probably thinks I'm a weirdo and I'm scared I might have lost his respect and I feel I've earned that after so many years of hard work and-”
Todoroki puts on his best ‘Yes I'm listening’ face as he nods at appropriate times and waits patiently for the frazzled boy to finish his overflow of thoughts. It takes a few good minutes, but eventually Midoriya has to stop and breathe, at which point Todoroki puts a hand on the other boy's shoulder in a comforting gesture.
“If Bakugou's opinions of you were that mutable to change from one interaction, it certainly would be an anomaly. You earned that respect through your actions, and you know he values actions over words. That's one of the things you can't stop praising him for. Have a little more faith, and keep breathing.”
Midoriya exhales slowly. “You're right, I know you're right,” he sighs. “I've got to figure out a way to keep my cool around him.” He sits down on a stone bench and leans back propped up on his hands. “Did you feel anything like this around Yoarashi before he asked you out?”
Pausing in thought, Todoroki shrugs. “I may have gotten a little flustered, but Inasa’s manner was such a dead giveaway. One time while we were talking, he started babbling on and on about his moms, then asking me questions that he already knew the answer to, answered them himself, then just stopped dead still for 5 whole seconds before up and walking away. I should have recorded it, it was honestly priceless,” he chuckles lightly with a fond smile. Midoriya giggles. “Seriously though, the best thing to do is just tell him. Even if he doesn't feel the same, he'll respect you more for confronting it.” On seeing Midoriya continue to sport a pensive look, he looks around and notes, “hey, you helped with the decor, right? I wanted to come early too but I got delayed. Maybe this will help.” He closes his eyes and uses his quirk to whip up a block of ice, then uses his flames to shape it into a snowflake. “They have this kind of thing at nice parties, right?”
Midoriya nods enthusiastically, finally smiling again. He stares at it with wide eyes, dazzled by the beauty. “That's amazing Todoroki! I bet if you ever need a side gig, this skill would come in handy.” They share a chuckle before their train of thought is interrupted by Momo and Ochako's announcements.
Before she even finishes, Midoriya is formulating a plan and figuring out who the best teammates would be. “It's too bad Ochako is judging, I would really appreciate her sense of style… who else knows her sense of style? Hagakure maybe? Tsu would help us get the garments we want before anyone else with her tongue, or would Iida be a better pick for that? Todoroki, would you be- where'd he go?” By the time he finally snaps out and looks around, Todoroki had already walked back over to Iida and Tsu. He looks back and meets Midoriya's eyes, and gestures to him to join them.
When he jogs over, Iida is already taking charge. “I believe it would be best if I went to grab the decorations, as we can't really see what's available at this distance and there may be something that could give us an edge near the back. Todoroki, do you have any ideas on the snowman itself? Maybe we could make it into a cute animal, or a snow-Ochako, or-”
“How about an angel, kero? I saw a figure of one on Ochako's desk the other day, it seemed like it might be important to her,” Tsu chimes in.
“Yes, that sounds excellent! Todoroki, can you make a snow-angel?” Todoroki gives Iida an impassive stare with a raised eyebrow. “Yes, yes of course you can. Silly question. Moving on! Should we focus on a specific color scheme?”
Midoriya jumps in. “Angels are typically white and gold, so go for that gold tinsel-looking thing and some sort of flowy dress if you see one. I think blue goes pretty well with gold.”
“Alright teams, I've marked some areas to use as your workstations. Please send the person who will be grabbing your decorations to the red ribbon line right away so we can begin!”
The group moves toward an area labeled “Snowman station B,” right in between Bakugou's group and another team made up of Tokoyami, Ojirou, Mineta and Rikidou. Iida, Sero, Tokoyami and Hagakure make their way up to the starting line.
“On your mark, get set, aaaaaaand GO!”
Iida and Tokoyami dash out, engines and dark shadow raring to go, but promptly trip seemingly over their own feet and face plant into the snow. Iida lifts his head and shakes the powdered chill away, yelling “Sero that was Very unsportsmanlike conduct, you hear me!?” as he shakes a fist in the air. Sero sticks a tongue out at him, shooting more tape out toward the pile to grab the majority of the decor laid out. However, the as he is pulling them back towards him, Hagakure manages to grab at the pile and loosen some of it out of the tape's hold, causing the whole thing to collapse.
“What are you doing, tape-for-brains?! Get those back!” Sero shrugs off Bakugou's jeers and targets a few specific items this time with the tape, and manages to secure them before Iida and Tokoyami can try to steal anything.
By the time Iida arrives, pickings are slim, but he does find a few things that he thinks they can work with. However, his teammates are a little less enthused when he returns.
“Iida, we needed something like a dress. This, uh, doesn't quite fit the image,” Tsu chides while holding up a white with blue trim pool shirt. He had also managed to procure the gold garland at least, but also a pair of mismatched gloves and a plaid bow tie.
Bowing low, Iida apologizes profusely. “I should have been more careful, then maybe we would have something a little nicer. However! I think our angel plan will still come out on top! We can make this work out!”
“Maybe we can cut off the collar somehow and just make the angel small enough that it looks like a dress?” Midoriya muses. The others nod, and Todoroki gets to work creating the snow angel.
Bakugou wipes away a bead of sweat from his forehead as he puts the finishing touches on their snowman. Despite the frigid weather, the strain of controlling his explosions to precisely chisel the snow into shape, in addition to the heat of said explosions, had warmed him up considerably. But, at last! The masterpiece was complete, and was bound to be the best anyone had ever seen.
The finished snowman was a near perfect facsimile of Uraraka (at Mina's insistence; if it were up to Bakugou, it would've been himself in his hero costume, but alas the traitorous group outvoted him) dressed in a cute wintery outfit of pinks and reds. He gives his team a satisfied nod with a confident smirk. “We've got this one in the bag. Good job not fucking it up, gang.”
Kaminari opens his mouth to complain that they aren't that incompetent, but Sero puts his hand on his shoulder and shakes his head. Kaminari settles for pouting and sighing dramatically.
“Time's up! Everybody stand back and the judging will commence!” Uraraka's voice blares out from a megaphone, which lets out a shriek of feedback causing many of the students to cover their ears. “Sorry about that! Let's get a look at group A - wow! It's like looking in a mirror! Momo, can I have that scarf when we're all done? It looks so good on snow-me!” Momo assents, and Uraraka jumps up excitedly. “Huzzah! A round of applause for group A!”
Moving on to the Midoriya's group, she oohs and ahs at the angel. “It appears that our group B has redefined snow angels! The ice work on the wings is beautiful! It's such a precious little angel! Though, the edges of the dress are a kinda messy, and it is really small for a snowman. Still, points for cuteness! Give it up for the group B angel!
“And what do we have here?” she asks rhetorically as she moves over to Tokoyami's group. “Is that a snow-Dark Shadow? The Santa hat really makes him quite the charmer!” The snowman, in fact, is more of a snow-body with Dark Shadow inside, head popping out the top. Dark Shadow blushes at the praise and coos. “We're seeing lots of creative quirk usage in this contest! Moving along!”
The last group is Hagakure, Jirou, Kouda and Shouji. “Here we have a classic snowman, very stylishly dressed, with some nice snow animal friends! Oh, looks like Kouda brought in some real squirrels too to enhance the scene! Wait, what is this? Upon closer inspection, it appears that these small woodland snow creatures are in a rock band! How cute!”
Momo takes the megaphone. “Alright, we've seen the contestants! Time to see whose will come out on top! Let's give Ochako a couple minutes to decide.”
Determined to put the snow-Ochako over the top, Bakugou has one last trick up his sleeve. “Sero, now,” he instructs.
Sero had been holding on to the end of a string of lights, which are strategically wrapped around the snow sculpture. On Bakugou's command, he turns to Kaminari. “Open your mouth.” Kaminari stares at him, confused (guess who wasn't paying attention earlier when plans were laid out? You guessed it, this guy) and suddenly blushing like mad.
“What-what's this about, Sero?” he stumbles over his words, backing away.
“C’mon, open up!” the taller boy repeats, and pushes the hard plastic into his face. “You do this all the time to charge your cell phone, what's the matter?”
Opening his mouth to protest, the plug is shoved in. The matter with this being, when he charged people's phones this way, it didn't involve having an attractive classmate - a dear friend, really - putting his fingers on his lips. Or in his mouth, as they are now. Sero realizes the mistake too late, as Kaminari short circuits. Far too much electricity is sent through the string lights, setting the whole thing aflame. Mina shrieks, and Kaminari rushes to pat it out, but the damage is done; the once perfect snowman is now deformed and much of the clothing was burnt.
Bakugou stands there in shock, redness slowly consuming his features. After a moment he regains his senses, and shouts “What in the fuck was that you utter morons?!” He continues to berates the group while Kirishima bodily holds him back, but despite his rage it isn’t really necessary. When it comes to his friends, he’s more bark than bite.
Thirty minutes later finds the squad sitting morosely by a fountain.
“So much for all that hard work,” complains Mina, leaning heavily into Kirishima’s side.
Kirishima shrugs. “Better luck next time, folks.”
Sero shakes his head remorsefully. “I wish we could’ve at least gotten a picture before everything, uh, melted.”
“Well actually,” Mina starts as she sits up proudly, pulling out her phone, “yours truly made sure to document everything! Wanna see?” She holds it flat with the pictures she took displayed so everyone can see. Bakugou tsks and stays in his spot a few meters away.
As they scroll through the images, they giggle and chatter and delight, but suddenly Kaminari speaks up saying, “Hey, wait a minute… in almost all of these pictures- you guys notice something?”
“Huh? What’re you talking abo- oooh,” Mina quickly flips back through each photo.
“Uh, guys what are we looking at?” Sero asks, scratching his head.
“Look in the background! In every shot with Bakugou.”
Bakugou wasn’t paying much attention until he heard his name. “Hah? What’re you going on about?” Mina beckons him over, phone screen pointed to him.
“See? See!?” she shouts, pointing to part of the screen. He grabs it out of her hands (“Hey, watch it!”) to look closer. Sure enough, nearly every picture of him had something in common - a very special green haired boy in the background looking over at him. Bakugou lights up scarlet for about the third time that day.
What in the- I mean he’s been watching me for years, this is nothing new. It doesn’t mean anything. Can’t mean anything. Might mean something?
“He can’t keep his eyes off you, bro. That’s gotta be a sign of something!” Kirishima says in a hushed voice, wrapping an arm around his shoulders. “Come on, you’ve got to go talk to him already.”
Bakugou shakes his head firmly, but inside is in turmoil. Unfortunately, he isn’t given much time to think as Momo stands up on a table again asking for volunteers to pound the new year’s mochi. Before he knows it, the arm on his back is pushing him forward very hard, accompanied by Kirishima’s voice shouting across the way, “Bakugou will do it!
“What the-”
“Come on, show some class spirit!”
Turning aboutface, Bakugou crosses his arms and lifts an eyebrow. “Really, Kirishima?”
“It’s… a good team-building exercise?” He’s met with a blank stare. “You’re not really doing anything else at the moment?”
Loudly to their right, Mina remarks, “Oh look, Midoriya is volunteering! How interesting~ ”
Could they be any more obvious?
Out of the corner of his eye, he sees the boy in question tilt his head in confusion, asking nobody in particular “Why is that interesting?”
Smirking, Mina slinks over. “Why indeed~ Hey Deku, wanna hear a secret?”
Kirishima whispers to Bakugou, “You may wanna step in over there if you don’t want your crush exposed to the world, bro.”
He takes a second to glare at the red-head, then briskly walks over to disrupt a potential catastrophe. Putting on his usual front of egotism, he shouts, “It’s interesting because I’ve seen you try to cook, Deku, and I’m not impressed. I guess if we want this mochi to turn out half-way decent, I’d better step in. For the greater good and all.” Nailed it.
He watches as Midoriya turns slightly pink before regaining composure. Curious. “Well then Kacchan, I’ll accept your assistance.” He holds out a hand, shakey grin on his face.
Plucky little shit, aren’t ya? Bakugou grasps the hand in an overly tight handshake. “Let’s get this over with, shall we?”
Momo guides them over to an ornate mortar already filled with rice, with a wooden mallet leaned up against it and a bowl of water nearby. Bakugou inspects the set up for a moment, then nods, satisfied. “Alright, musclehead, pick up the hammer and get to it. Chop chop. Try not to break anything.” Midoriya sticks his tongue out at him childishly and grabs the mallet, which was heavier than it looked but still no sweat.
Bakugou stretches his arms and legs before squatting near the mortar, hands up and ready to fold the rice over between strikes of the mallet. The rest of the class stands back, and Mina lets loose a shout of “Pound that ass, Deku!” right as Midoriya had the mallet reared back to strike. Both boys go red as Midoriya drops the mallet a foot to the right of the mortar and the rest of the class laughs uncontrollably.
“Pinky I will kill you!” Bakugou flips her off.
Mina returns the gesture with a grin. “Love you too~!”
Someone in the crowd, he’s not sure who, yells “Get on with it, it’s cold out.”
The blonde’s eyes meet Midoriya’s, still looking flustered. No lie, that’s a pretty good view from this angle. Aloud, he demands, “You heard ‘em, let’s get this done.” Midoriya nods, and the pair get to work.
They fall into a steady rhythm, but it’s too slow for Bakugou’s taste. “Come on Deku, you can move faster than that!”
Smirking, Midoriya retorts, “You sure you can keep up with me Kacchan?”
“Who the hell do you think you’re talking to, hah?” They move ever faster, breathing in sync and breaking a sweat.
The rice turns to mochi in record time, worked over with such strength and agility. Once it looks to be just the right consistency, Bakugou shouts for Midoriya to stop and catches the mallet, breaking the trance and leaving them standing there, breathing heavily. Midoriya has a manic grin on his face, an expression that Bakugou is mildly aware that is likely reflected on his own as he looks into those bright green eyes.
The two collapse against the brick wall of Momo’s home as she tends to the mochi, covering it in flour; however, they’re lost in their own little world. The rest of the class disperses, going back into whatever conversations or games they were involved in before.
Midoriya catches his breath first. “You know, we make a pretty good team when we want to.”
“Mm. Ground Zero and Deku, Pro Heroes Numbers One and Two.”
Midoriya snorts. “You mean ‘Deku and Ground Zero.’”
Shoving the other over, Bakugou retorts, “I said it the right way, just you watch.”
The grin turns into a wistful smile. “I’ll always watch you, Kacchan.” Midoriya suddenly looks embarrassed as soon as the words leave his mouth, like he hadn’t meant to say that. They both look away from each other.
Bakugou can’t decide if the sentiment is creepy or endearing. He knew from Mina’s pictures that it was probably true. Kirishima’s voice rings in his ears, ‘you should talk to him about it.’ He’s not a coward. Time to take action.
“Deku-” “Kacchan-” They start simultaneously. Midoriya looks sheepishly at him, “You go first.”
Bakugou sighs. “Deku…. No, Izuku.” The other gasps softly at hearing his first name. “Izuku Midoriya, would you wanna get dinner with me on Saturday?”
Blinking, Midoriya asks, “Get… dinner? Like a… da-”
“ Yes, like a date, Deku.” He runs a hand through his hair nervously. “Yes or no, what do you say?”
Midoriya eyes are unfocused and looking away, lost in thought. It took every bit of Bakugou’s patience not to snap at him to demand response. Instead of shouting, he tentatively reaches his hand out to Midoriya’s shoulder and waits.
And waits.
A minute later he squeezes the shoulder to get Midoriya’s attention as he starts mumbling aloud. “Oh! Yes, Kaccha- Katsuki! I’d lo- I’d love to! Of course!”
Disbelief dances over Bakugou’s face, quickly replaced by a patented smirk. “Making me wait,” he shoves Midoriya’s shoulder and listens fondly as the other giggles.
“Sorry, sorry! I just, I wasn’t sure if I was dreaming or if it was some sort of prank or something.” Midoriya fidgets for a bit, acting like he has something else to say. Bakugou pulls on his ear and calls him out on it, inadvertently getting really close to his face. “We- I mean- I uh, just wanted to say that I like you, Kacchan.” He blushes so prettily, and in the heat of the moment Bakugou can’t resist pressing a kiss on that red cheek.
A squeal is heard from both Ochako and Mina, each standing a ways away and quickly being dragged off from watching the scene by Iida and Kirishima respectively. Bakugou jumps at the sound and shifts away, sending some rude gestures to any onlookers. He glances back to the boy at his side. “6 PM at Aunty Inko’s? I’ll pick you up, you better be wearing something nice.”
Hand touching his cheek where his lips had just been, Midoriya replies, “Of course!” and sways back and forth for a moment in indecision before he leans in to give Bakugou a proper kiss. It isn’t the stuff of rom-coms or anything, kind of short and cold and not very soft, but at least Bakugou could supply his own fireworks.