Work Text:
The last thing Midoriya expected was to have Bakugou knocking on his door in the middle of the afternoon asking for help. That was just too unlikely.
What was far more believable however, was Bakugou barging into his room, taking a seat on his desk chair, turning to him, and saying, “You’re going to do something for me.”
“I- I am?” Midoriya asked, confused by everything that just happened.
“Is Glasses single?”
Midoriya’s eyes widened at Bakugou’s words. “Wow, Kacchan. You know I really didn’t think he was your type but I guess I can see it, and-”
“Not me!” Bakugou burst out. “Tape Face is being annoying and you’re going to stop that,” Bakugou explained, confused at why Midoriya didn’t get it the first time.
“Are… are you asking me for help right now?”
“NO!” Bakugou immediately replied. “Did what I say sound like a question to you?”
“No, but I can translate you pretty well,” Midoriya explained. “What’s up with Sero?”
“He won’t stop gushing about Glasses, so since he’s your friend, this is your problem now,” Bakugou growled.
Midoriya paused at that, taking in what Bakugou had said. “Wait, Sero likes Iida?”
“Did I stutter?”
“This is perfect!” Midoriya cheered. “Todoroki, Tsuyu, Uraraka, and I have been listening to him talk about Sero, and while we all support him, we’re very tired of him not doing anything.”
“Fucking peachy,” Bakugou says. “They’re going to fall in love and be all romantic and then I wouldn’t need to gouge my eyes out every time I read a text about how ‘he works out his chest and arms so he can give out the best hugs.’”
“I mean he does,” Midoriya muttered under his breath. “If you want it to be super romantic and make sure they get together, we can hold out until White Day.”
“I cannot last a month and one day, and I know for a fact that you probably can’t either,” Bakugou said, and unfortunately, he was correct. He loved Iida with all his heart, and literally almost died for him, but he was going to punt him across UA if he heard about Sero’s crooked smile one more time.
“Fine, we can do it tomorrow. The girls are making chocolate for the class downstairs and I’m sure they can spare some for our cause, but how are we going to get them to talk to each other?”
“Easy. You talk to Plain Face, I talk to Sonic,” Bakugou states.
“Won’t they know something’s up though?” Midoriya asks. “Sero and I don’t talk about stuff like that, and the only time you and Iida ever spoke civilly was when you were aggressively signing at him and he took off his glasses so he didn’t have to listen to you.”
“He’s a petty bitch, but that’s not the point. If they know something’s up, they’ll get suspicious, realizes they should do something if even we know, talk to each other, aggressively hit on each other, fall in love, and get married.”
Midoriya was following along until about halfway through, when he tilted his head at his childhood friend. “Not everyone falls in love like your parents, Kacchan.”
“Well not everyone’s parents meet in a coffee shop, Deku. Some people have to make do,” Bakugou shot back.
Midoriya sighed and checked his phone, seeing if there were any messages from Iida. Luckily, there was one update.
“Iida’s in the gym and alone right now if you want to find him now. Do you know where Sero is?”
Bakugou looked at his watch. “It’s almost 4:00, so he should be making a late lunch right now.”
Midoriya stared at Bakugou, processing the weirdly specific knowledge he has on his friends as he watched him leave his room. He shook his head and steeled his nerves. He was going to get one of his best friends his happiness!
Now changed into his workout gear, Bakugou stepped onto the treadmill next to Iida, slowly turned the speed up to go higher than his, and began jogging in place.
Iida did a double take as he saw who was next to him. “Bakugou?”
“Yes?” Bakugou replied.
At Bakugou’s completely nonchalant response, Iida’s confused quickly turned earnest. “I see you’re taking advantage of the empty gym as well!”
“Well I can’t really jog outside since the field is still damp from the rain. I’m assuming that’s why you’re in here too.”
“That’s exactly it. Although, I must ask,” Iida looks at the row of treadmills and back to Bakugou. “Why did you pick the one next to me?”
“Is it illegal to stand next to you, Mr. Class Rep?” Bakugou shot back.
“No, no, no, not at all. I was just… curious.”
“That’s what I thought. So what are you doing tomorrow?” Bakugou immediately winced at his bluntless. He had about as much subtlety as All Might entering a room.
Iida stared at him wide eyed. “Do you know what tomorrow is, Bakugou?”
“Yes.” Fuck. go back, go back, abort mission.
“This is a strange circumstance to be asking me this, but I should let you know I already-”
“I’m not asking you out!” Bakugou barked. “We both know you can’t handle me, anyways.”
“You’re not… wrong?” Iida replied hesitantly.
“I was asking because I’m making dinner and want to know who’s not going to be at the dorms,” Bakugou quickly lied. The more he spoke, the quicker the words poured out of his mouth. “I just have you and Tape Face to ask. HeywhatdoyouthinkaboutSero?”
Holy shit, he really doesn’t know how to talk.
Iida raised an eyebrow at Bakugou, deciding not to question Bakugou’s weird behaviour. “Sero is wonderful, and I am very happy to have met someone like him.”
“Cool, cool, uh, he thinks pretty highly of you too.”
That brought a smile to Iida’s face. “He talks about me to you?”
“Never fucking shuts up,” Bakugou replies, watching Iida somehow smile even brighter.
That was enough talking, right? He should probably just leave now before he gives himself away.
“Anyways, hang out with him tomorrow.”
Iida’s confused expression returns for an encore. “I don’t see why-”
“Just do it!” Bakugou interrupts, getting off the treadmill and walking out the door. “Bye!”
Midoriya enters the kitchen, happy to see that Sero was right where Bakugou said he would be.
“Making lunch?” Midoriya asks, putting his elbow on the counter and looking the opposite of casual. “It smells delicious.”
“Thank you!” Sero replies, stirring the vegetables in the pan. “I’m no Bakugou or Satou but I think I’m doing a pretty good job.”
“I think Iida might be one of the better chefs in the class too.” Ah, yes. The perfect transition.
“It takes talent to follow a cookbook that precisely,” Sero laughed. “I remember one time when I was with him in the kitchen, he added in two extra garlic cloves because he was feeling pretty ‘wild.’”
Midoriya burst out laughing at the thought of Iida’s spectrum of risks going from throwing down with a serial killer in an alleyway for vengeance to risking some light heartburn.
“You and Iida sure are a great duo,” Midoriya adds. “Your partnered work during training last week was amazing.”
“Thanks, Midoriya,” Sero said with a smile. “We thought about what would happen if he used my tape like a capture weapon a few days before the class, and I’m happy that we got to finally test it out.”
“He’s a smart guy, isn’t he?”
Sero looked off into the distance, or as much as he could with a kitchen wall right in front of him, and smiled. “I shouldn’t be explaining it to you since you’re one of his best friends and already know, but he really is one of the greatest guys I know. I know we all tease him about being the class robot or whatever, but he’s so goofy once you start to get to know him better. I’m really happy we’re- MY FOOD!”
Sero quickly lifted the smoking pan and placed it on the counter before grabbed a spare rag near the sink, hurriedly trying to wave the smoke away from the smoke detector before the alarms went off.
Midoriya turned off the stove as Sero continued to wave the rag around. “Sorry for distracting you.”
“Don’t worry about it man,” Sero replies. “Almost burning your food is half the fun.”
“That’s what Todoroki said before he got his life ban from the kitchen.”
Sero paused his fanning for a moment. “I take it back. Don’t tell the others I said that or they’ll ban me too.”
“My lips are sealed, but going back to before, you really like Iida, huh?” Midoriya pressed.
Sero raised an eyebrow at Midoriya before resuming his fanning. “I mean, yeah, of course I do.”
“And since you like him so much, you two should definitely hang out tomorrow specifically.”
Sero’s arm fell to his side once again as he gave Midoriya the most confused expression. “What are you ta-”
“Okay, byeeeeee.” Quick as lightning, Midoriya zoomed out of the kitchen, leaving behind a bemused friend and some slightly crispy food.
The next evening found Uraraka handing two boxes of chocolates to Bakugou and Midoriya after the two explained that no, they are not competing to win someone’s heart, they were just setting up Sero and Iida, to which she was more than happy to help.
After recruiting Aoyama to forge two notes that were a suspiciously perfect replica of the other’s handwriting, they left a box at each of their door, cleared the common room, hid in the kitchen to eavesdrop, and waited.
After a few minutes, Iida finally came down the stairs, dressed very nicely for some reason. Not even a minute passed before Sero arrived too, also dressed for a night out.
“Even though I can’t eat this, this is still quite sweet of you. I don’t know why you requested me to meet you here when we already agreed on it though,” Sero said.
“I was about to say the same thing, minus the beginning part,” Iida says. “I wouldn’t make you non-vegan chocolate. That isn’t from me.”
“And that,” Sero points to the chocolate in Iida’s hand, “isn’t from me.”
Iida picks up the note attached to Sero’s box and reads it over. “Something tells me this has to do with Bakugou acting strangely yesterday.”
“Bakugou was being weird with you?” Sero asks.
“I didn’t know what to do! I think he was giving me a shovel talk?”
“You too? Midoriya kept asking about you and telling me to meet up with you today and I wasn’t sure if he was going to threaten me or not.”
Iida put the note back down and looked at Sero. “What do you think they were actually trying to do?”
“TRYING TO SET YOU TWO UP!” Bakugou finally yelled, bursting out of the kitchen with Midoriya following behind.
“I’m sorry, what?” Sero asks, watching Bakugou and Midoriya pause in front of them and simultaneously cross their arms.
“Since you two really like each other, we wanted to set you two up!” Midoriya said.
“Midoriya… are you joking right now?” Iida asks, laughing in disbelief.
“Don’t fucking laugh, Tape Face is a fucking catch,” Bakugou growls defensively. What he doesn’t expect is for Sero to burst out laughing too.
“Dude, he’s not laughing because he doesn’t like me, he’s laughing because he does like me.”
“Uh, yeah. That’s why Kacchan and I set all this up,” Midoriya says slowly.
Iida looks over to his friend and smiled. “Midoriya, Sero and I don’t need to be set up at all. We’re already dating.”
Time froze for Bakugou and Midoriya as they processed what they just heard. They looked at each other with wide eyes before looking at the couple in front of them.
“You’re what now?” Bakugou asks.
“We’ve been dating for like, a month,” Sero explains. “We were going to get dinner tonight.”
“A month!? And you didn’t bother telling anyone at all!?” Bakugou yells.
“I told you guys ‘I’m going out with Iida’ and you didn't really react!” Sero says. “I appreciated you guys not making a big deal about it but now I see that none of you got the message.”
“I also texted you all saying ‘I’m going out with Sero.’” Iida says to Midoriya.
“That doesn’t imply dating!” Midoriya nearly shouts. “We all thought that meant you were just going to hang out with Sero that day!”
“Are you telling me all that fucking gushing wasn’t because you were pining, but because you were bragging about your fucking boyfriend?” Bakugou asks, incredulously.
“Yeah man, keep up,” Sero says with a snap of his fingers.
“You know, I was going to tell you I had a date with Sero already, but you interrupted me before I could finish my sentence,” Iida says to Bakugou.
“You bolted out of the kitchen before I could tell you the same thing,” Sero tells Midoriya.
The two boys thought back on their conversations from yesterday, and suddenly, the confusion from Iida and Sero started to make a lot more sense.
“You two are the worst,” was all Bakugou managed to muster out. “No one in this class thinks you’re dating.”
“Look on the bright side,” Midoriya says to Bakugou. “Thanks to us, they’re finally going to properly explain themselves to the class.”
“That doesn’t help me at all.”
“Chocolate?” Iida offers, handing the box to Bakugou. Bakugou snatched the box out of his hands and held them close.
“I thought you didn’t like sweets,” Sero pointed out.
“They taste better when I take them away from a traitor.”
Sero chuckled before handing his own box to Midoriya and taking Iida’s hand. “This was a riveting conversation, but we’ll be heading out now.”
“Have fun!” Midoriya says with a smile.
“Touch Sero and you die!” Bakugou shouts as the happy couple disappeared behind the front door.
Bakugou looked at the chocolate box in his hand and scowled. “I’m never doing anything nice ever again,” he says as he stormed off towards the elevator.
Midoriya was soon left alone in the common room. He took a seat on the couch and reflected on whatever the hell just happened.
At least he got some chocolate.