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Bakugou didn’t make a habit out of wandering the dorms at night. He slept like a rock more often than not, rose early (that was no secret), and it wasn’t a habit he planned on breaking anytime soon. No matter how many times Pikachu poked fun at him for going to bed earlier than his grandma.
Some nights, though…some nights sleep was tougher to get than others. It was just a fact of life.
So tonight – one of those nights – he figured wandering the halls was better than lying in bed trying and failing to turn off his brain for God-knew-how-many hours. Not like he was going to run into anybody else this time of night. Even the most nocturnal of night-owls in their class were tucked in their hidey-holes this late.
Or so he’d thought. The second he stepped into the common room he wondered if he’d spoken too soon because there on the couch was…something. A barely defined, shadowy lump vaguely in the shape of a human.
As his eyes adjusted, he realized that the lump was wearing a pair of familiar glasses.
“The fuck are you doing up, Sonic?”
A pair of eyes flashed gray in the moonlight streaming through the window, blown wide in surprise for just a moment before they settled into confusion. “I could ask you the same thing.”
Bakugou huffed. “None of your damn business.” He shuffled to the kitchen, filling a glass of water and downing it in one go. The fuck was Iida Tenya of all people doing awake at – he looked at the clock – two in the morning?
Two in the morning? Fuck, just realizing how late (early?) it really was made Bakugou’s eyes ache.
And their class president was sitting on the couch. In the dark. At two in the morning on a Wednesday. That wasn’t like him. It almost made Bakugou worry. Almost. Maybe two brain cells’ worth of worry. One. A half.
He groaned, slamming his glass down into the sink and heading back into the common room. “Hey glasses,” he huffed. “Tell me what you’re doing up.”
Iida blinked up at him, phone held in one hand illuminating his face and-
Fuck. Were his eyes red? And not just lack-of-sleep red. No, they were teary red. Recently-rubbed red. I-was-just-crying-please-don’t-point-it-out red.
Clearing his throat, Iida straightened his glasses – or made a good show of pretending to at least – and canted his head downward again. “It’s nothing you need to concern yourself with,” he said. “I hope I’m not keeping you up. I assumed nobody else would be…well, I thought I would be alone…”
“You got a whole dorm room to yourself to be alone in, ya know.”
Iida was silent for a long moment before admitting, “I suppose I was just looking for a change of scenery.”
“At two in the morning.”
“Yes.”
Maybe Bakugou had been looking for the same thing. He wasn’t exactly in a position to judge.
So Bakugou had a choice. He could go back upstairs and stare at his ceiling for the next hour, trying and failing to sleep, and pretend he wasn’t painfully curious about what the hell was going on with the guy. Or…
Or…
Shit.
Sighing, Bakugou went with option B: “Alright, glasses. I know you’ve been crying. So do you wanna tell me what the fuck has you blubbering in the common room in the middle of the night or do you just want me to leave so you can wallow?”
Iida stared at him for a moment, phone hanging loosely in his fingers. “Is…it really that obvious?”
“Your eyes are red as hell.”
“Ah…”
“Quit ignoring the question. What’s going on with you? You have a nightmare or something?”
“No…” Iida sighed. “No, I couldn’t even sleep. I suppose that’s where the problem lies, isn’t it?” He glanced back down at his phone, and for a moment Bakugou swore he saw fresh tears welling up in his eyes before he forced them back again. “I could tell you, but…maybe it would be easier to show you.”
Bakugou rose a brow. “Show me?”
“Could you come over here?” Iida asked, nodding toward the cushion next to him.
Seriously? Fuckin’ seriously? Bakugou suppressed a roll of his eyes and made his way over. “Fine,” he grumbled. “Show me whatever it is you wanna show-“
When he saw what was on the screen, he froze. Because right there, playing on Iida’s phone was a video of Ingenium – the original Ingenium, Tensei Iida, flanked by a pair of support bars...
...standing up.
“Holy shit,” he breathed.
“Yes,” Iida said, and Bakugou swore he could hear the smile in his voice as well as the tears, even if he couldn’t tear his eyes away from the screen. “Holy shit.” Out of the corner of his eye, Bakugou caught Iida removing his glasses and wiping his eyes with the heel of his hand. “He sent the video to me a few hours ago. I was just getting ready for bed and…well, suffice to say I couldn’t quite get to sleep.”
“When did…how?”
“My brother has always worked hard at everything he does,” Iida said, not even bothering to hide his tears anymore. He rested his glasses on the table, apparently giving up on them altogether. “It’s always been one of his best qualities. One I strive for myself. His time as a pro hero may be done, but he’s still been working tirelessly, with everything in him, and today…”
Iida pressed his palm against his eyes, his hand shaking as it held up his phone. And all Bakugou could do was stare.
“I’m sorry,” Iida sighed. “Forgive me – there’s no reason for you to sit here losing sleep because of me.”
“Fuck it, I couldn’t sleep anyway.”
Iida put his phone down again, groaning into his hands. “I suppose it’s all just a bit overwhelming.”
Comforting Iida. He could do that. He could do fuckin’ anything. He could comfort the hell out of him. With a hesitant hand, he patted him stiffly on the shoulder once, twice, three times.
Perfect.
The longer the silence dragged on, the more Bakugou thought he ought to say something. Something…soothing? “But it’s…a good thing, right? You’re happy about it?”
“Of course I’m happy. Happy is…it doesn’t feel like enough. There was a time I thought my brother was on his death bed, and now-“ He drew a shuddering breath. “I suppose it serves as a reminder of what makes a true hero. Of the ideals I should strive for. Of who I want to be…”
“Heavy shit for two in the morning.”
Through his tears, Iida snorted. “Heavy shit indeed.”
That was the second time in the span of ten minutes Bakugou had heard him curse, and damn if it didn’t feel like seeing a unicorn. But through his disbelief, Bakugou caught Iida…looking at him. With a strange expression on his face that he’d never seen before. He looked almost intrigued.
“Why are you still here?” Iida suddenly asked, out of nowhere.
“What do you mean?”
“You don’t have to stay here with me. Listening to me blubber on about all of this…I...I suppose I didn’t exactly expect you to care.”
“The fuck do you mean you thought I wouldn’t care?”
“You’re not exactly the most warm and fuzzy member of our class. No offense of course.”
“Fuck you – I can be plenty warm and fuzzy if I want to.”
Then Iida-
…laughed?
No, giggled. Actually giggled. There he was, their class president – with his glasses sitting arm’s length away on the table, hair a mess, teary-eyed, fucking laughing against his hand. “Oddly enough,” he finally said on the edge of a chuckle, “This is helping.”
Bakugou blinked. “What, laughing at me is?”
“Yes?” He leaned back against the cushions, an odd little smile still plastered across his face. He entwined his fingers together over his stomach, looking almost serene. “I do find myself getting caught up in my own thoughts sometimes, you know,” he admitted – to Bakugou? To himself? To someone else entirely? Bakugou couldn’t exactly tell. “I wonder if I’m strong enough to carry on the name of Ingenium. If I can make my brother proud. If I can fill the void he left when he had the name taken from him too early…”
When he opened his eyes again, gaze pointed toward the ceiling, they shone in the moonlight. And before Bakugou could think too much about that, he huffed, “Fuck that shit.”
Iida rose a brow. “Excuse me?”
“Of course you’re strong enough. You’re too damn stubborn not to follow through, ya know.” He rested his cheek against his knuckles, propped up with his elbow against the back of the couch. “As for whether you’ll make him proud…no point losing sleep over that. Just do it for yourself, glasses. Not anyone else.”
“That’s…oddly insightful,” Iida mused, and Bakugou bristled.
“What, didn’t think I could be insightful either?”
There was that laugh again. Maybe lack of sleep was making the guy loopy. “It’s a pleasant surprise, I’ll admit.” He let out a sigh, turning his head toward Bakugou and staring at him, eyes half-lidded like his sleepiness was catching up with him but he didn’t quite want to let it. “Why couldn’t you sleep, Bakugou?”
Bakugou shrugged. “Don’t know.”
“If you need to cry, I certainly won’t think less of you,” Iida said with a smirk – a smirk! “It’s only fair.”
“Fuck off. I don’t need to cry.”
“If you say so.”
One long silence later, Bakugou wondered if Iida had actually wound up falling asleep right there next to him. His breathing was steady, his head still tilted lazily back against the pillows. But his eyes were still open, Bakugou noticed when he looked up at his face again.
He let the quiet drag on and on, then finally, Bakugou crossed his arms and muttered, “I was just thinking...sometimes I think people expect me to make a better villain than a hero.”
Iida’s brows were raised as he turned to look at him. “Is that why you can’t sleep?”
“I never fuckin’ said that.”
“But you did bring it up for a reason.”
“It doesn’t have anything to do with that.” Lie. “It’s not like it bothers me.” Another lie. He grimaced. “You said you don’t know sometimes whether you can live up to everyone’s expectations, and I guess…fuck, I guess I just…I get it, okay?”
That was the truth, and he hated it.
Fuck, he hated it.
“Don’t get me wrong, I’m going to be the number one hero. But I’m not doing it for anyone else. My opinion of myself is the only one that matters.”
When he looked at Iida again, the guy was almost beaming at him, eyes bright and shining under his bangs.
Bakugou squirmed under that gaze. “What are you smiling at?”
“I’d like to emphasize just how insightful you continue to be, but I worry that it might earn me some broken ribs.”
He came down at two in the morning for a glass of water and this was what he got instead? Sass?
“I’m just telling the truth. You can take it or leave it.”
“I’ll take it, thank you.” And after a pause: “For what it’s worth, I think you would make a much better hero than a villain.”
“Whatever.” He sighed, mimicking Iida’s position and leaning back against the couch cushions, letting his eyes slide closed and stifling a yawn. Badly. “Not that it matters,” he muttered, “But Ingenium was always a pretty damn impressive hero. Not exactly my top three, but definitely in my top ten.”
“You think so?”
“Don’t let it go to your head. You’ll have to work your ass off if you want to break the top twenty, glasses.”
“I’ll strive to work my ass off then,” Iida said with a tired little laugh.
When exactly Bakugou fell asleep, he had no idea, but it happened. He supposed it was inevitable. But he woke up to sunlight streaming through the windows, stifled laughter reaching his ears, and-
A camera shutter?
“Dude, I told you to turn the shutter noise off,” someone hissed. Sounded like Shitty Hair, followed quickly by Pikachu stumbling over a frantic apology.
Bakugou opened his eyes and noticed three things in this order:
- He had sprawled out on the couch at some point in his sleep, totally horizontal.
- His idiot friends were crowded around him with the biggest shit-eating grins on their faces he’d ever seen, staring at him like he was a zoo animal.
- That wasn’t a couch cushion under his head.
No, definitely not a couch cushion. Because couch cushions weren’t this warm. And they didn’t move. They didn’t…breathe?
Oh.
Oh.
“Morning, sleepyhead,” Kirishima chuckled, and Kaminari wordlessly held up his phone again to snap another picture.
“The fuck?” Bakugou howled, shooting up so fast it made his head spin. “What do you chucklefucks think you’re doing?”
Next to him – under him – Iida groaned and blindly fumbled for his glasses. “Is it morning?”
“Guess you guys slept well, huh?” Sero snorted.
“Fuck off, Tape Face!” Bakugou bellowed, face blazing hot. “Pikachu give me that damn phone!”
“Not a chance!” Kaminari chimed, already halfway across the room, and Bakugou was on his feet in a heartbeat, sprinting after him before he’d even had the chance to rub the sleep from his eyes.
“Gimme the fucking phone you walking tesla coil!”
Iida yawned as he perched his glasses on the bridge of his nose once again. “What time is it?” he muttered.
“Almost eight,” Kirishima said with a grin. “You guys slept in.”
“Yes,” he sighed, and he managed a smile of his own, albeit a tired one. “I suppose we both needed it.”