Chapter Text
bakugou has been going to the same cafe for the last six years. he had a routine. during the winter, round face would tease him for looking like a burnt marshmallow and he would threaten to blow her and her little coffee shop to bits. during summer she would laugh at his “stupid wannabe punk tank tops” and he would threaten to blow her and her little coffee shop to bits. it was a good routine. nice and calming.
he was running late that morning. his goddamn fucking alarm clock broke and he was going to be late for his theory of high explosives lecture and that professor is an asshole on a fucking good day. so he was in a rush. and he was kind of, maybe, looking forward to snarking with round face for the five minutes it took to make his coffee. but when he got to the front of the short line, it wasn’t round face. oh no, what stood before him was a shock of red. this was a break in his routine he was not expecting.
red, spiky hair in the shape of fucking horns. who the fuck had hair that red, bakugou didn’t know. but what was worse than the shitty hair was the goddamn fucking smile. weirdly sharp teeth formed a bright ass grin that seemed to radiate fucking sunlight. and oh, the guy had asked bakugou a question.
“large black coffee, five shots of espresso, leave room.” he grunts out over the top of his scarf.
shitty hair smiles again, “woah bro, that’s like, a lot of caffeine!”
bakugou just stares and hands over his card, he’s running late dammit.
“can i get a name for your order?” that shitty fucking grin was pissing him the fuck off.
he stares the guy dead in the fucking eyes and says, “lord explosion murder.”
shitty hair snorts. bakugou notices a scar on his eyelid. he also notices his eyes. bakugou looks away.
“right bro, i’ll have that right out for you.”
bakugou grunts and goes to sit down at the nearest empty table. he scrolls through his phone, shaking his head when he sees that deku was in the hospital last night for breaking another goddamn finger. dumbass.
it’s been five fucking minutes. he’s about to go up and ask where the fuck his fucking coffee is when a voice calls out, “LORD EXPLOSION MURDER!”
the cafe goes silent for a moment, then people go about their fucking business. bakugou goes up to the pick up counter and almost sighs when he sees knock-off pikachu.
“oh man, i knew it was you.” pikachu fucking guffaws.
“oh fuck off electro-shock.” bakugou grabs his coffee and finally fucking leaves.
he’s late for his lecture.
bakugou has a life outside of the cafe, okay? he does. it’s just, it’s the best place to study and round face gives him free coffee as some kind of pavlovian experiment when he goes an hour without threatening to blow something up. he refuses to say that it’s working.
shitty hair isn’t always there. according to bubblegum he works two other jobs. not that he asked, mina just likes gossiping and bakugou is unfortunate enough to be a favorite of hers.
he’s tutoring shinsou when it happens the first time.
plus ultra! has a weird fucking playlist. round face may own the place, but she lets each of her employees and even some of her favorite regulars put songs on it. it’s a wide mixture of anime openings, english top 40’s, kpop, punk, and the weirdest of all, german metal.
so when a song comes on that bakugou vaguely recognizes, he ignores it and continues shoving knowledge down shinsou’s throat.
then, suddenly, from the kitchen, a voice starts yelling in english, “IT'S GONNA TAKE A LOT TO DRAG ME AWAY FROM YOU! THERE’S NOTHING THAT A HUNDRED MEN OR MORE COULD EVER DO! I BLESS THE RAINS DOWN IN AFRICA!”
very softly, softer than anyone thought bakugou’s voice could go, he whispers, “ what the fuck.”
and that’s how it starts.
he’s at a party. why? he doesn’t fucking know. one minute he was explaining to headphones just how much c4 to use to explode a suv and the next the living room was full of people. at least he knows all of them. god, he cannot deal with strangers today.
he can see deku tripping over someone’s phone cord from his place on the couch and it takes everything in him not to facepalm. shitty damn nerd is going to end up in the hospital again.
someone sits next to him and when he looks over he’s blinded by the sun. no wait, that makes no fucking sense, it’s 10 o’clock at fucking night. bakugou slowly blinks and when he opens his eyes he sees that it’s just shitty hair. he almost groans.
“bakubro! i didn’t know you would be here!”
yeah, he’s not dealing with this shit, “fuck off shitty hair.” he moves to stand up but pauses when he feels a hand on his wrist. he looks from the wrist to shitty hair’s face and back again. shitty hair removes his hand and sheepishly rubs the back of his neck.
“don’t go.” that fucking pout is going to be the end of all things, bakugou is going to explode himself and the entire block.
he sits back down.
they sit in silence for a few moments before shitty hair turns sideways on the couch, leaning against the arm of it. he opens his shitty fucking mouth and, “if you had a superpower, what would it be?”
bakugou stares.
“no really think about it! i think if i had one it would be like, turning my skin to rock or something.”
bakugou stares.
“like consider it! i would be impenetrable. i could like, punch through concrete and stop a bullet!”
bakugou takes a deep breath.
“and i’d have to have long sleeves because my skin would hurt people. but i’d be able to turn it on and off.”
“nitroglycerin sweat.”
“and- wait what?” now shitty hair is the one that’s staring.
“i’d have nitroglycerin sweat and be able to create explosions out of the palms of my hands.”
shitty hair gapes for a moment, then, “that is so COOL!”
an hour later and they’re sitting cross legged on the couch, leaning towards each other. they’ve assigned superpowers to everyone in the room.
“no, look, listen, deku would have this insane super strength but wouldn’t be able to control it so he’d break his fucking bones all the damn time.” bakugou insists.
“but what if he was just like, all powerful and the world bowed down to his whims? like when he cries natural disasters happen and fucking cthulhu appears in the sky.” shitty hair has a shitty grin on his face.
“deku drinks that bone breaking juice. he needs a bone breaking power.” bakugou deadpans.
shitty hair fucking loses it. people have been looking at them for the last hour, but now people turn and stare. bakugou turns his head into the couch to hide his smile.
yeah, he hates parties, but the company could be fucking worse.
he hated midterms. he hadn’t had an actual midterm exam since he started his masters degree, but he had four projects due in two weeks and he was fucking exhausted. he had basically been living at the cafe.
“i got you an herbal tea because i can see you shaking from behind the counter. no more caffeine today.” he looks up blearily and if he squints he can kind of make out round face.
he grunts and goes back to trying to explain the chemical break up of ammonium nitrate in a way that a high schooler would understand. fucking fuck this project. he didn’t want to teach snot nosed brats about how to make bombs.
“we close in twenty minutes bakugou, go home and sleep.” she pats his head in a way that would have set him off three days ago and walks back behind the counter.
he grumbles to himself and sips his tea. huh, peppermint, his favorite.
fuck winter, fuck the grey sludge monster that cities call snow, fuck cold weather, and fuck plus ultra!’s fucking bell for announcing his presence.
“bakubabe! i figured you’d be home for winter break!” fuck goddamn shitty hair and his eternal sunshine smile, too.
wait–
“who the fuck are you calling bakubabe shitty hair?!” bakugou pauses at a table and sets his shit down, taking off his coat and unwinding his scarf while he’s at it.
“well bro, do you know any other bakus?” bakugou swears he sees a hint of a smirk.
he walks up to the counter and leans forward, “i’m not your babe.” and he flicks shitty hair on the forehead.
shitty hair laughs and rubs the reddening spot, “i guess we’re just not there yet.”
bakugou rolls his eyes and orders his fucking coffee.
winter break is almost over and bakugou has successfully avoided going home.
it’s not that he hates his family, it’s just. well, the old hag and him have never gotten along and he’s a grown ass adult and refuses to be smacked around anymore.
so when his dad calls and tells him that the old hag expects him home for new years, it takes every bit of his(admittedly, slow going) character development not to hang up. again, he’s a grown ass adult.
instead he makes up an excuse, tells his dad that shinsou convinced him to have a party at their place and he refuses to let the troll burn the place down. they’d been really good about keeping property damage to a minimum and he really wants his security deposit back.
so he escapes the hands of the hag. but then deku texts him.
bone breaker: so i hear there’s a party at your place for new years??
fuck.
“so let me get this gay. you want to have a party. at our place. for new years. because you told your old man that you were and he told the witch and she told midoriya’s mom and she told him and we all know that he can’t tell a lie for shit.” all of this is said in deadpan whilst shinsou’s face is half smashed into a throw pillow that’s been perched on bakugou’s lap.
bakugou tugs on the hair he had been playing with, “look, we all know that if hell froze over and i hosted a party, deku would be invited. i’d probably ominously text him a date and a time with a pinned location.”
there’s a moment of silence, then they both snort.
“he’d probably think, ‘this is it, this is the day kacchan blows me into so many pieces that they’ll never find the body.’ and then show up with a smile anyway.” shinsou sounds exasperatedly fond.
“he’d open the door and hear fucking africa by toto because shitty hair somehow won aux cord rights and we’d all watch as his soul was transcended to the next plane.” bakugou snickers.
“he’ll walk in, trip whilst taking his shoes off, and break another finger.”
“the lot of us would spend another new year in the hospital.”
they go quiet for a few moments, then:
“so you and kirishi–”
bakugou proceeds to try and suffocate shinsou with the pillow. shinsou’s squawk of indignation and surprise so loud that their downstairs neighbor bangs on the ceiling with her broom.
they calm down and shinsou sits up and leans his head on bakugou’s shoulder, “so i guess we’re having a party.”
the party itself goes fine for the first few hours. deku doesn’t break any bones, sero doesn’t try and tape all of their toilets closed, and kaminari doesn’t electrocute himself while setting up the speakers(for an electrical engineer, he’s pretty fucking susceptible to being shocked).
then shitty hair gets control of the fucking music.
after playing what’s new pussycat three times, he relented to ochako’s beating and put on a playlist with actual, mostly not memes, music.
after kendrick, florence, beyoncé, and bts, they were lured into a sense of false security.
everyone had congregated to the couch and the floor surrounding it. there were four different conversations going and bakugou could feel his anxiety amping up.
he was about to stand up and get some air when—
“da da da da da da da duuum”
he predicted this. he knew this was coming. and yet, it seems like something out of a horror movie when slowly, eleven heads turn towards shitty hair.
who doesn’t notice a thing, because he’s sitting next to bakugou on the couch, arm slung across the back, head back with his eyes closed.
he starts singing along, “i hear the drums echoing tonight.”
now ten heads swivel to look at bakugou.
and look, this might have become a bit of a thing.
shitty hair likes to sing along to the radio at the cafe, but whenever africa by toto comes on and bakugou is there? he serenades .
but it seems like that isn’t happening tonight, so people start going back to their conversations and minding their own fucking business.
then shitty hair’s arm falls around bakugou’s shoulders and his face tilts towards his. his eyes are still closed and there’s a bit of a smile on his face as he whisper sings, “i seek to cure what’s deep inside, frightened by the thing that i’ve become.”
so maybe bakugou gets the chills. maybe he nudges his temple with shitty hair’s. maybe he closes his eyes and hums along. no one's gonna fucking call him out on it.
but maybe he should have that talk with shinsou now, because holy fuck feelings.