Work Text:
5+1 Disasters
(1)
The first time Izuku saw the guy who would become his instant crush was the day he moved into his college dorm. The handsome red-eyed blond with pecs for days was one of the students hired to help freshmen move in their stuff. He was just wearing a tank top and was very sweaty from carrying mini-fridges and suitcases the whole day.
Let it be said that Izuku isn't smooth whatsoever, so when that greek god looked at him and asked "Need some help with your shit, shortstack?" he freaked out, stuttered and heaved.
The Adonis just chuckled and moved to take the big box Izuku was carrying out of his hand "Give me that, it looks heavy. The fuck you put here? Your rock collection?"
No, it was worse. It was his comic books and manga collection. Panicking with the idea of this perfect specimen of a man finding his stash, Izuku hugs the box against his chest while the other man pulls it to himself.
"Fuck- Let go or else-" and the flimsy cardboard rips scattering superhero comics and sketchy BL manga on the floor.
Izuku prayed that the ground would open up and swallow him into the depths of hell, but what happened was that the blonde perfection kneeled down on the floor to gather the fallen collection. Izuku 'yeeps!' and tries grabbing the comics faster than the other man, but the damage had already been done.
"Interesting… reading material, nerd" the blond says holding a BL manga with two men doing the unthinkable on the cover.
(2)
Bakugou Katsuki is his name, as Izuku eventually finds out. Chemical engineering major who works as a TA in Izuku's required calculus class.
You see, Izuku isn’t the traditional STEM nerd who can program an app to solve the derivative of X in his lunchtime. No, he is from a more bohemian clan of nerds, the art and literature kind. So to say he was struggling with the class would be the understatement of the semester. He had no idea whatsoever how any of what the professor said connected to his previous knowledge of math.
Usually, that wouldn’t be such a big deal for him, Izuku is no stranger to long nights studying and putting in the necessary work to achieve his goals. However, one of the things that was preventing him from overcoming his issues with calculus was the fact that he didn’t have the courage to ask for help from the TA.
Bakugou is way too handsome, smart, put-together and he saw Izuku’s collection of BL manga! Just the thought of talking to the man makes Izuku’s heart hammer in his chest fast enough that he thinks he might go into cardiac arrest.
The situation came to a breaking point after Izuku flopped the first test and is on the shortlist of names that the professor gave Bakugou telling the blond to help these students to not fail the class. So now Izuku had a study meeting forcibly scheduled with Bakugou in less than ten hours. He needed to learn everything about calculus until then so he wouldn’t embarrass himself in front of Bakugou. He also needed to cut their meeting short fast enough so that he wouldn't die of a heart attack at the young age of eighteen.
Izuku ends up spending the whole night awake studying calculus, watching videos on the internet and consuming copious amounts of caffeinated drinks. At eight am sharp, he’s standing in front of the professor’s office where he’s supposed to meet Bakugou with the biggest knowledge of calculus he will ever have and the biggest caffeine high his heart could ever survive. His hand shakes when he knocks on the door and Bakugou opening it with his hair still a little wet from a morning shower should have been against the law.
“Get in and sit down. Did you bring your notes? We need to look through them to find out what the fuck you can’t understand.”
Izuku’s throat closes and he doesn’t manage to answer, so he just sits down and pulls his notebook. Bakugou takes the notebook from his hands and flips through it.
“It looks complete, as I would expect from a nerd”, Bakugou smirks. “So what is the problem with you?”
He probably meant ‘what didn’t you understand’ but Izuku couldn’t help his brain from going over everything wrong with him — ‘Maths are hard, I can’t pay attention in class because you are on the corner and I keep looking at you. You are so hot I can’t breathe’.
Luckily the answer comes out like a little wheeze “yeep-”
Bakugou frowns, “you fine, nerd? You look a little blue…”
Izuku wants to say he is completely fine, he just struggled a little with calculus because he didn’t study enough but he’s on track to fix this issue and Bakugou shouldn’t worry himself with little old Izuku. But unfortunately, the room gets dark and begins spinning before Izuku manages to get the words out and somehow he faints in front of his crush without uttering a single word.
(3)
Bakugou ended up taking him to the medical center and wasting his morning to make sure Izuku wouldn't actually die. The irony is that every minute the blond stuck around made Izuku one minute closer to dying of embarrassment.
But despite Izuku's many protests, Katsuki waited until he got permission to go back to his dorm with the promise of not touching coffee for a week and getting some sleep. On the plus side, finding out Bakugou can be a nagging mother hen helped ease a little of Izuku's anxiety.
Now, however, Izuku has a new problem at hand: he needs to thank Bakugou for helping him out. If he was a smooth man, Izuku would offer to pay for dinner as thank you and get himself a hot date as a bonus (like his friend Ochako suggested when he told her of his conundrum). But, as it was already established, Izuku is not smooth and he doesn't think he would survive going for dinner with Katsuki anyway.
So he takes a page from his mother's book and buys a fruit basket to give him as a gift. In the store he freaks out a bit when the saleswoman asks for who he was buying the gift for; so he stutters an answer like "Th-thank yo-you-... your ef-ef-effort-... in the ho-hospital-". The woman takes pity on him and prepares a really beautiful basket with all kinds of fruits and a nice bow on top.
Armed with the basket and a pre-rehearsed thank you speech, Izuku knocks on the professor's door during Bakugou's office hours.
"Hey nerd, good to see you’re fucking alive" Katsuki teases with a smirk and that almost gets Izuku to turn tail and make a run for it, but he stands his ground.
"Fo-for you as a th-th-than-"
"Yeah, yeah, I get it" Katsuki interrupts him and grabs the basket. "I'm guessing this is a thank you for dragging your ass to the med bay?" He cocks an eyebrow and Izuku nods profusely.
Alright, the prepared speech won’t happen but at least he can communicate non-verbally.
"Don't sweat it, nerd. Just don't get yourself intoxicated with caffeine again."
"I-I won-won't! Pro-pro-promise!" Izuku stutters eagerly.
"You won't promise?" Katsuki teases with a smirk showing he understands perfectly what Izuku means but wants to taunt him some more while enjoying Izuku's failed attempts at correcting him without talking. "Well, if you pull that shit out again I'm gonna expect some gift better than…" Katsuki pulls a little card stuck to the basket that Izuku hadn’t even realized it was there "...a 'Congratulations on your baby, new mommy!' fruits basket."
Izuku gathers the rest of his dignity from the floor and runs away.
(4)
The fourth time Izuku made a fool of himself in front of Katsuki it’s completely out of the blue so he didn't have time to work up a good ball of anxiety in his stomach beforehand. He’s in the cafeteria talking with his friends Ochako, Tenya and Tsuyu.
They’re in a heated debate about the newly released Marvel movie and its developments. All of them had seen the movie, but Izuku is a Grade A Nerd and is explaining at length all the easter eggs and references the others missed.
"...and when the Captain enters the room there is a poster on the far left wall that it's an obvious reference to the seventeenth arc of the comic when Doctor Faustus-"
"It's good to see that you can actually talk, nerd" a husky voice sounds on his back and Izuku freezes like a deer caught in the headlights. That is Katsuki's voice, he knows without even looking from how many hours he spent fantasizing about that voice in his ear.
"Hey, Ochako! What are you guys up to?" A girl with bright pink hair and some heavy eyeliner sits down at their table talking a mile a minute.
"Hi, Mina! We were just geeking out about the new Marvel movie. Izuku here is kind of an expert" Ochako answers smiling. "Guys, this is Mina! We’re on the volleyball team together!"
A bunch of hi's, hey's and greetings goes around but Izuku stays stunned in place because Katsuki decided it was a nice idea to sit by his side!
"So, you were in this whole nerd tirade about an unimportant prop in an insignificant scene that is supposedly a reference to a comic no one who ever got laid read" Katsuki teased and Izuku went deep red in the face (though he doesn't know if it was because his crush was talking to him or if it was because his crush was undermining the importance of canon content for Captain America's story arc).
"Don't tease him, Explodey" Mina scolds him. "Guys, this is Bakugou Katsuki, my boyfriend's insufferable best friend."
"The nerd and I know each other already" Katsuki says without taking his eyes off Izuku, and goddammit! His heart is threatening to explode again!
This man shouldn't be allowed to be so handsome! It's a health hazard!
"Yeah, I almost died in front of him once, just like Bucky on volume 57."
Izuku's mouth says the words without his brain's permission and Bakugou has the audacity to laugh! A sexy and cheerful laugh that makes Izuku's stomach do somersaults.
"I fucking see… Not only a nerd but also a shipper?" And then Izuku closes his mouth and doesn’t ever open it again.
(5)
Izuku is minding his own business, just browsing the selection of fiction books on their local bookstore. Since he managed to pass calculus with quite a good grade in the end, he decided he could treat himself.
So here he is, internally debating between two options (does he really need to read a new fantasy&swords&dragons book? Maybe he should go for the dystopian living-in-space-under-a-corrupt-government novel… but really, one could never get enough of sexy knights flirting with dragon queens) when a voice pulls him out of his thoughts.
"Since you are an expert, which one of these would you recommend?"
Katsuki shows up in his personal space holding two extremely explicit BL mangas. These are not your sweet shounen-ai high school romance that you will be lucky to see a kiss after ten volumes, no. These ones have very clear sex scenes on the covers - there are hard dicks, tears, wetness, the whole shebangs.
"I like the whole vampire with a conscience shit this one has going on… but this one, well, one can't really accuse the artist of not being thorough." Bakugou says with a half-smirk.
Oh, the artist was thorough alright. You could study anatomy on that cover alone. Izuku blushes a deep red and feels the air vanish from his lungs.
"Are you really going to leave me on read again, nerd? This whole going mute routine is getting old. I've heard you ranting to your friends, I know you can articulate a fucking intelligent thought with that mouth of yours."
"My mouth can do much better things than speaking my thoughts." WHAT?! Where the hell did that come from?!
Seizing the opportunity of Katsuki being the one stunned for a change, Izuku turns tail and runs.
(+1)
Katsuki is angry. Actually, a mental health professional would probably say he’s frustrated, anxious, excited, distressed, distraught, troubled and agitated. But that’s all too much fucking bullshit, so Bakugou will stick to angry.
You see, Katsuki has his eyes set on a cute little freshman since the beginning of the semester. But fast forward to fucking spring break and he still hasn't managed to get more than two sentences from the cutie. He had told his friends he would get a number in the first fucking week of classes, but now the assholes are saying Katsuki doesn't have game and Freckles doesn't want anything to do with him.
He knows that is not true, the other man clearly has at least some kind of physical interest in Katsuki. He blushes the prettiest red when Bakugou talks to him, it's fucking adorable and makes Katsuki feel gross on the inside. But it's been two weeks since the semester ended and, without calculus classes to force Freckles to talk to him, Katsuki hadn’t seen the man at all.
And the worst: today finally he saw Izuku on campus, he was in line to buy coffee in a vendor's cart. But when the nerd saw Katsuki going his way, he ran! He ran without even giving Bakugou the chance to talk to him!
So now he’s in a stupid frat party with his stupid friends drinking stupid cheap beer in very stupid amounts to try to ignore the fact Freckles blew him off.
"Bro, I know you are heartbroken but take it easy with the Buds" Kirishima says concerned.
"Fuck off, Shitty Hair" Bakugou says picking another can from the cooler. This party is shit, but at least the beer is free.
"You know, if you didn't tease him so much maybe you would have had a chance." Mina says poking him in the ribs, he slaps her hand away.
"Fuck you all, it's not my fucking fault. He looks cute when he’s flustered." He grumbles before taking a swig of the disgusting beer.
"Yeah, Eijirou, let Baku drown his sorrows for scaring away his next lay. Our homeboy will already have to go home with his hand tonight", Camie teases.
"Shut up, bitch. He wasn't just a next fucking lay. He reads nerdy vintage comics, is smart as hell, can rant about superheroes for hours-"
"Stalker much, fam" Camie says and Eijirou tries to make Katsuki stop talking "Baku, maybe-"
"Shut up all of you! Let me fucking finish! And he has the fluffiest hair, such pretty curls. And the freckles are fucking adorable, but he’s also so fucking hot. So no, he wouldn't be just a fucking next lay. I want to bend him over and make him have my fucking babies."
On hindsight, Bakugou should have noticed the panicked looks his friends were throwing over his shoulder. But beer and overwhelming emotions clogged his thinking.
"I don't think the babies part is anatomically possible" he hears the voice he has been hoping to hear on his back and Katsuki winces. Shit, he fucked up. Might as well roll with it now.
"With that attitude, you can't" he grunts turning to meet those gorgeous green eyes. Bad idea, Freckles is even hotter than usual, the fucker has the gall to have eyeliner on. And how many fucking buttons did he have to let open in that fucking shirt?! Who the fuck gave him the right to play with Katsuki's heart like that?
"Good to know I'm not the only one with the ability to spout idiocies."
Freckles said with a small smile and Katsuki's heart just gave up. It was too much for him. Together with the heart, his brain decided to clock out early too leaving only Katsuki's dick and the beer to run the show, bad decisions all around.
"You’re hot."
"Th-thank you, I-I think you look very handsome too." Freckles says looking down, blushing and scratching his neck. It's too fucking adorable how he becomes flustered.
"Please go out with me before I say any more bullshit. I'm losing all my street cred from how much I keep screwing up when talking to you."
Izuku chuckles, "I thought I was the one who was screwing up our interactions."
"Nah, that was all me. I see you and I lose control of my fucking mouth. But since you said your mouth has some interesting abilities I was thinking maybe we could train my mouth to behave better together."
Shit, the fuck did he just said?! That was the worst pick up line ever to be used in the history of talking to cuties. But Katsuki seems to be in luck, Izuku must not have very high expectations because he just laughs and says:
"Alright, you can take me on a date if you promise not saying anything remotely similar to what you just said."
"Deal."