Archive of Our Own

“Hey Kacchan, where’s Todoroki?” Kaminari asked, inviting himself to sit next to Bakugou on the couch.

“And why am I supposed to know?” Bakugou asked, because the last time he checked he wasn’t IcyHot’s babysitter.

“Well isn’t he your ‘boyfriend’?” Kaminari asked, motioning his middle and index fingers on both hands into air quotes.

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?!” Bakugou asked, repeating Kaminari’s air quotes on the word ‘that’.

“Don’t worry, Bakugou, your secret is safe with me,” he said with a nudge and a wink. “But here’s a tip from a friend, You two are going to need to be a lot more convincing if you want people to buy this whole, you two are a couple, act,” he explained, but somehow still managed to make absolutely no sense.

“Huh?!”

“Bakugou, I’ve got it all figured out,” he went on to say and Bakugou felt pretty confident in believing that Kaminari actually had nothing figured out. “Todoroki probably has some pent up daddy issues, or a sibling’s wedding he’s forced to attend, or a person he doesn’t know how to turn down, or a- y’know what? The why doesn’t really matter, what matters is that our boy Todoroki needs a, hot, ruckus filled boyfriend, and that’s where you come in,” he started to explain.

“Ruckus?!” Bakugou loudly objected.

“I called you hot too, keep up, Bakugou. Anyways, as I saying, Todoroki for whatever reason was in need of a boo and then there was you. Or maybe it was you who needed the boyfriend?” He went on to say, with enough enthusiasm to run a theme park.

“What the hell are you talking about?” Bakugou genuinely asked, because he truly could not make any sense of the words Kaminari was speaking.

“No reason to be so uptight with me, I get it, I do,” he said. Kaminari gasped dramatically. “Wait, are you two at the stage where your fake dating isn’t so fake anymore and you’re catching feelings for one another? I’m so happy for you, Bakugou. Are you planning a confession? Last minute airport confessions are a tad cliche in my opinion. Now last minute train confessions on the other hand, now we’re talking,” he babbled on, with an arm across Bakugou’s shoulders.

Bakugou quickly shrugged Kaminari’s arm off and in an amazing test of intellect, managed to pick out the important parts of Kaminari’s endless chatter.

Fake dating?!

“I’m not fake dating him!”

“Of course not,” he said with another wink.

“I’m not,” Bakugou said with gritted teeth.

“Exactly.” Wink.

“I’m not, you dumbass!” Bakugou argued to no avail.

“One hundred percent agree.” Wink.

Bakugou wasn’t going to waste his time arguing with Kaminari. Shouto Todoroki is, in fact, his boyfriend, and that annoying walking and talking light bulb had no idea what he was talking about. Despite that, there was this small inkling festering inside of Bakugou that perhaps Todoroki also felt they didn’t act ‘couple-y’ enough, that perhaps Bakugou was inadequate as a boyfriend. So stupid, Bakugou thought as shoved those feelings down. All he could focus on feeling, was the want to absolutely demolish any idea that them fake dating could ever possibly be true. Not just for Kaminari, because that would be stupid, no, it’ll be for any other person who attends this god forsaken school.

Much to Bakugou’s dissatisfaction his mind spent way too many hours trying to decide on how he was going to prove the merits of his relationship. It destroyed a part of his soul to even admit it inside his very own head, but a man has to do what a man has to do. So what does Bakugou have to do? PDA aka Public Displays of Affection aka Gross Mushy Business That Should be Done in Private, Assholes, but PDA is the shorter abbreviation of the two. Not only will Bakugou display affection in a public setting, he’s going to do it better than anyone’s ever seen. The other couples will simply not be on their level.

Normally Bakugou would just jump straight into the deep end, but Bakugou wasn’t in a relationship with himself, as awesome as that would be. No, he has Half ‘n Half’s feelings to consider and he can’t just do a complete one eighty out of nowhere. It has to be gradual. The most reasonable public display of affection had to be, he sighs in dissatisfaction, holding hands.

So there he stood a day later after the Kaminari incident and saw no better time than the present. He was currently inside UA’s cafeteria, meaning he had top tier visibility, there truly wasn’t a better place in the school to enact PDA.

Bakugou unabashedly cut the line for food to plant himself where Todoroki currently was standing.

“HEY!” Some extra that was standing behind him yelled out, clearly upset about Bakugou’s lack of respect for the unspoken standing in line regulations.

“I already got my food!” Bakugou explained, verbally waving off any need to be upset for his sudden intrusion. “Hey, Half ‘n Half,” Bakugou said, getting back to the task at hand.

“Katsuki,” Todoroki said and the way Bakugou's heart flipped was embarrassing.

He never listens. I didn’t say you can call me that in public. . . Wait! Bakugou thought before coming to the realization that Todoroki calling him that in a public forum is actually beneficial.

All Bakugou had to do was hold Todoroki’s hand, what could go wrong?

Bakugou gripped Todoroki’s hand in his and what followed quickly after was nothing short of a disaster. Bakugou, the one who thought too many things through, didn’t account for which hand of Todoroki’s he should hold. Bakugou had grabbed the left one, and for some goddamn reason IcyHot decided it was a good time to let his fire quirk go off. Todoroki’s fire plus Bakugou’s palm sweat equals a sudden and loud explosion. Several students shrieked from the sudden noise, and the smoke quickly traveled up toward the fire alarm, leading it to obnoxiously beep and for the sprinklers to spray on everyone inside the cafeteria.

“Sorry, you surprised me,” Todoroki explained.

“Just remind me to never do that again,” he replied.

The water drops falling on him mimicked the feel of rainfall, and Bakugou had found it a fitting way to bask in his defeat. If there was a bright side, and it wasn’t even really all that bright, almost dim, but what Bakugou had discovered in his brief stint of holding Todoroki’s hand, was that maybe holding Todoroki’s hand in public wasn’t the worst feeling in the world.

The hand holding was a complete and utter failure. So Bakugou couldn’t progress to level two PDA. He had to think of something else that could work, and the only thing he could think of, was pet names, gag, but, yes, pet names. There was no way that one could go wrong, there were no quirks involved.

A major problem in doing the pet name thing was deciding on a name he could physically bring himself to say without wanting scrub soap on his tongue from how gross it would make him feel. It didn’t leave him with a lot of options.

Todoroki was standing with his group of friends in the common room, and Bakugou had decided that would be public enough. He stormed over towards Todoroki with great purpose.

“Hey,” Bakugou started, the next word not wanting to fall off his lips. “ Babe,” he was barely able to spit out, wondering what demon had made its life goal to torment him and why was that demon’s name Kaminari.

Babe was the best Bakugou could do, it wasn’t overly mushy nonsense, it was a reasonable pet name. Also if the way people went on and on about Todoroki, he was babe worthy, Bakugou not being one of those people, to him Todoroki was his own other entity beyond babe.

That sounded even more saccharine! Bakugou realized in horror, wondering when he had lost his way. Todoroki’s fault, surely.

Bakugou put his honor and dignity out on the line and all Todoroki did was ignore him. Bakugou has never been more offended in his entire life.

“Babe,” Bakugou said again, louder than before in case IcyHot hadn’t heard him.

For all his effort, Bakugou had gotten nothing once again. It became clear that Bakugou had to get loud, and if getting loud was what he had to do, he could do that in spades.

“Babe!” Bakugou yelled only to be ignored, again. “BABE!” Bakugou yelled so loud that some of the cups on the nearby table started to shake. That was the one that seemed to finally get Todoroki’s attention, where he turned around with a clueless expression on his face.

“Who’s babe?” Todoroki asked.

“You’re babe,” Bakugou answered while pointing at Todoroki.

“I’m babe?” he asked while pointing his index finger at his own chest.

“Yes, you’re babe.”

“Oh,” Todoroki said with a blank face, but Bakugou could hear the chuckles or Uraraka in the background and Deku looking annoyingly amused. “Well, what do you want?”

“We’re still meeting up to study later, right?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“Don’t make me wait. Also eat something other than cold soba for once,” Bakugou barked out.

“I’ll think about it,” he replied, and with Todoroki that was the best answer Bakugou was ever going to get on that matter. That didn’t mean Bakugou had to be satisfied with it.

“Do more than think,” he said before storming off to his room.

It was a shaky feat, but Bakugou thinks he achieved what he wanted to do nonetheless. Surely Deku and his friends have no doubts about their relationship any longer, if they ever did, he’s never cared enough to ask. So now he can securely move to level two PDA.

What was level two PDA? Level two PDA in Bakugou’s eyes was hugging. Bakugou’s not a hugger, like at all, but he’s Katsuki Bakugou, he can handle one freakin hug. The tricky thing is, as a loud and proud non hugger, he doesn’t get what inspires one to hug. Thinking about his extremely touchy friends, the moment seems to strike them at random, but in general it was when they were in a good mood or when someone was sad.

The theories were all nice and stuff, but as Bakugou has always known, it was a completely different thing when you’re actually out there on the field.

Speaking of fields, that where he was at this very moment, along with Todoroki and the rest of his classmates. His teams just beat their group exercise, because he was on the team so a win was inevitable.

“Good job, Katsuki,” Todoroki said, welcoming Bakugou back.

“I know,” he replied and then realized that this was his opportunity.

Instead of wondering why or when to hug someone, the question on Bakugou’s mind right now was how. Is it just like a tackle? Except your goal isn’t to knock them down to the ground. Bakugou figured he could do that with his eyes closed.

Bakugou opened his arms and moved forward, only for Todoroki to lean back and step away.

Bakugou’s had a lot of shitty experiences in his short life, but this is easily one of the more mortifying ones. With this and the sports festival incident, Todoroki managed to take up two spots in his top five.

The absolute silence coming from all his classmates, just made the whole thing worse. Hagakure’s quirk would be really goddamn convenient right about now.

“What are you doing?” Todoroki asked, unknowingly toppling over any amount of dignity Bakugou had left.

“Nothing!” Bakugou lied, his guard completely up.

“Really?” Todoroki asked, knowing Bakugou well enough to buy the obvious deflection.

“If I said it’s nothing, then it’s nothing,” he said, because his own pride won’t let him admit to anything else. Bakugou looked away and feigned paying attention to the next match that was going on with his classmates.

If a metric ton of embarrassment wasn’t distracting enough, Todoroki’s pressing gaze filled with concern only multiplied the issue.

Todoroki in many ways was just as stubborn as Bakugou was, some would say their mutual stubbornness was something that made them understand one another, so if Todoroki didn’t want to just forget about it and move on, nothing was going to get him to.

So the text that came to Bakugou hours later wasn’t a surprise in the slightest. Bakugou was currently sitting at his desk inside his dorm room, having gone down a weird rabbit hole of internet videos he’s decided to watch on his laptop. Instead of letting the video finish and therefore waiting to check what the text would read, where then he would have the anticipation of what it could possibly say eat away at him, he just ripped the band-aid right off, and flipped his phone over to read what it said.

Todoroki:
We need to talk.

Talk about ominous, Bakugou thought, but having known Todoroki as long as he did, he knows he should take it at face value and not search too deeply for any other hidden meaning.

Bakugou:
Do we really?

Todoroki:
Yes.
Right now, preferably.

Demanding, little shit, he thought despite the fact that the gap in height between Todoroki and Bakugou was only increasing month by month. Bakugou almost wanted the guy to shrink, almost.

Bakugou:
I’m busy

Todoroki:
No, you’re not.
I’m in my room.

Bakugou didn’t want to dignify that blatant disrespect with a response, 

Bakugou:
Five minutes.

Bakugou begrudgingly had to say goodbye to the true crime videos, which considering his planned career were actually educational, and get ready for whatever Todoroki had wanted to talk to him about.

He walked to Todoroki’s floor and before Bakugou could even knock on IcyHot’s door, the door already swung open.

“I heard you coming,” Todoroki said, before Bakugou could ask.

“Right,” Bakugou mumbled, as he let himself inside Todoroki’s room. Bakugou’s seen it several times at this point, but it’s old fashioned design still manages to catch him off guard. Todoroki closed the door behind him and watched over Bakugou carefully.

“I’ll start,” Todoroki said.

Bakugou watched Todoroki with focused eyes. Todoroki seemed nervous, well as nervous as Todoroki can look, but there was something about him that was more stiff than usual.

“I just want to say, it’s not you, it’s me.”

Not only did Bakugou date someone who would say ‘it’s not you, it’s me’ unironically, but now he’s being dumped by the same guy. Bakugou much rather indulge in how pissed off that made him feel, instead of this other thing he didn’t want to put a name on.

“I’ve noticed you’ve been trying to be more . . . public, with our relationship, and I just wanted to say this before you think I’m ashamed of you, I’m not. I just don’t feel comfortable doing all of that in public,” Todoroki explained.

I’m not being dumped, Bakugou thought in relief. Todoroki’s unintentional dramatics striked once again, and the laugh that Bakugou released over this situation bordered on hysterical.

“What’s so funny?” Todoroki asked, rightfully lost.

“Nothing, Half ‘n Half,” Bakugou said, as he finally started to calm down. “The thing is, I’m not really comfortable with all that PDA shit either,” he added.

“Really?” Todoroki asked, tilting his head to the side looking awfully [redacted].

“Yeah, really,” Bakugou answered. “Listen, it’s just Kaminari said something about us looking like a fake couple and I don’t know, I guess I thought that maybe Kaminari had a point that we don’t seem like a couple and you wanted that gross couple stuff,” Bakugou explained. Todoroki’s expression turned from surprise to something entirely too soft in Bakugou’s eyes.

“You could have just asked me,” Todoroki explained. That answer being entirely obvious, but considering how they ended up here, it apparently needed to be said.

“Yeah, yeah,” Bakugou said, and Todoroki knew not to take Bakugou’s dismissiveness to heart.

“About earlier,” Todoroki started, grabbing Bakugou’s attention. “Were you trying to hug me?” he asked.

“Gross. Why would I hug you?” Bakugou asked, still actively trying to repress the memory of what happened earlier from his mind.

An amused small smile appeared on Todoroki’s face. “Didn’t you just explain why?”

Bakugou crossed his arms and let out some incoherent grumbles.

“Can I hug you right now?”

“When we’re in private, you don’t have to ask,” he mumbled and looked at everything but Todoroki.

With that invitation, Todoroki walked over and wrapped his arms around Bakugou’s neck. Bakugou’s chin landed right on top of Todoroki’s shoulder, and as far as hugs go, it was on the better end. That didn’t mean he was going to uncross his arms though.

“Shouto?” Bakugou asked.

“Hm?” Todoroki asked and the vibration of that hum felt surprisingly good against Bakugou’s skin.

“Was there anything about the PDA you did like?” he asked, perhaps out of morbid curiosity.

“PDA?”

“Public Displays of Affection.”

“Oh. Well now that you mention it,” Todoroki began. “I liked the hand holding,” he answered, and Bakugou could almost hear the smile he had in his voice.

“The hand holding?” he asked in disbelief.

“Yeah.”

“The thing that made you nearly blew our hands off.”

“I nearly blew up our hands because . . .  I did like it. You really did just surprise me,” he explained. Bakugou, perhaps too enraptured by Todoroki’s warmth, finally uncrossed his arms and placed his hand on Todoroki’s lower back. “Maybe we should try my right side next time.”

“Noted, and the pet names?”

“The pet names?”

“Yeah, pet names, the thing where you call-”

“I know what a pet name is. I just asked, because don’t you always call people by pet names?” Todoroki asked. When Todoroki phrased it like that, it left Bakugou reevaluating his entire life.

“It’s different,” Bakugou rationalized.

“Is it?”

“Yeah. A pet name is like something you say with endearment, the other ones are just nicknames, so no feelings involved,” he explained.

“You’re endeared by me, Katsuki?”

“Not the point,” Bakugou deflected.

“What about me?”

“Huh?”

“Can I have a pet name for you?”

Bakugou didn’t trust like that, but relationships are supposed to equal sided partnerships, right? “Depends,” was the most compromise he could give. “What do you have in mind?”

“I don’t know. Let me look at you,” he said and moved his arms, so now his two hands were placed on Bakugou’s shoulders, and then he leaned back so he could get a clear look at Bakugou's face.

“You ain’t sick of looking at me yet?”

“No,” he said with a shake of his head, being obnoxiously cute.

Todoroki inspected Bakugou with his heterochromatic eyes. Titling his head side to side in an effort trying to get all angles of Bakugou’s face. It seemed like he really was putting a lot of thought into it and that notion terrified Bakugou.

“I got it,” Todoroki announced.

“You did,” Bakugou said, his voice filled with dread.

“I do, darling.”

Darling?! Darling. . . Darling. “Darling?” Bakugou asked, truly mystified how Todoroki looked at him and thought up darling. 

“Yes, darling,” Todoroki said proudly.

“Really? Nothing like, my lord, or something?”

“No.”

“I!” Bakugou started, more than ready to shut this darling business down right then and there, but Todoroki’s annoying face managed to loosen his resolve. “You get one darling a week, and never in public, alright?”

“You’re serious?” Todoroki asked, looking completely surprised.

“What? You thought I would say no,” Bakugou accused.

“Honestly, yes.”

“Then why’d you ask?!”

“You don’t know until you try, dar-”

“Ah! Ah! Ah! You already used your one darling for the week!” Bakugou said and Todoroki was practically pouting.

Todoroki signed, before saying, “Either way, I don’t really mind the pet names, but I would prefer to keep this private.” ‘This’ referring to their current hugging thing.

“Me too,” Bakugou full heartedly agreed.

“And this too,” Todoroki said, before closing the distance between them and kissing him.

Bakugou would almost find it annoying how kissing Todoroki had just as much, if not more, of an effect on him than it did the first time. Bakugou liked kissing Todoroki though, he liked it a lot actually, so in a surprising turn of events, he couldn’t find it in himself to be bothered by it.

“And when we get to more than that, I think it’s obvious to do that in private, but just so we’re clear, that too,” Todoroki said after he pulled away, still looking very kissable.

“Got it, IcyHot.”

“Also, on the Kaminari thing, let me handle it,” he requested.

“You’ll handle it?” Bakugou asked skeptically.

Todoroki nodded.

“Sure, whatever,” Bakugou said. He still didn’t have complete confidence in how Todoroki would ‘handle’ it, but leaving Kaminari as a Todoroki problem was more than fine by him.

Todoroki’s version of handling it, seemed to somehow involve Todoroki whispering into Kaminari’s ear for a long and very disconcerting amount of time. Bakugou just watched the scene play out in front of him with a raised brow.

“What?! Really?!” Kaminari yelled out, and Todoroki nodded. Todoroki then leaned in again and continued whispering in Kaminari’s ear.

What was that line they always said in those ancient space movies? I’ve got a bad feeling about this, Bakugou thought.

Todoroki seemingly wrapped up his conversation with Kaminari, and strolled over to where Bakugou was standing, whose eyebrow was still very much raised.

“Situation: handled,” Todoroki told him.

Bakugou wasn’t buying that, but oh well, this is officially a Shouto Todoroki problem.

This mess of a week seemed to end the way it started, it would be poetic if it wasn’t so freakin lame, but he’s had worse weeks all things considered. So there they were once again, in the common room with Kaminari inviting himself to the open spot right next to Bakugou.

“Why, hello, Kacchan, darling,” Kaminari greeted making every hair on Bakugou’s neck stand up and not in a good way.

SHOUTO!!!

“Or is it just, Todoroki, who can call you that? My bad, by the way, you guys are actually dating,” Kaminari said, each word sending him further and further off the deep end.

In true Shouto Todoroki fashion, the same Shouto Todoroki who's one hundred percent Bakugou's actual boyfriend, has managed to let Bakugou win and lose at the exact same time. . . again.