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“Oi,” says a voice above Denki’s head. Denki looks up, phone charger in mouth, to see the absolute hottest guy he’s ever seen. Fluffy, platinum blonde hair that would look weird on anyone else. Piercing red eyes. Biceps that Denki wants to squeeze, and make Denki’s insecurity about his own twig arms flare-up.
“Y-yes?” What the fuck.
“I need an outlet,” says Hot Stranger. “For my phone.” He shoves a phone charger in Denki’s face.
“O-okay.” Does he want Denki to lick his charger for him? Who does this? What type of weirdass person goes around demanding free electricity.
“Hurry the fuck up,” snaps Hot and Sadly Rude Stranger, “I need to call my mom.”
Denki numbly takes the charger and puts it in his mouth. It’s just an hour or so until his flight, and then he can be out of the hell that is Tokyo Haneda Airport on a busy Friday afternoon, and onto a new hell that is flying on an actual fucking airplane. In the meantime, he can scroll through Flitter and try to ignore the guy who looks more attractive the more times Denki glances at him.
An All Might meme makes him snort and subsequently short out both his and the stranger’s phone, just as Hot Stranger’s phone is booting up a Pear logo.
“Oops! Sorry, man,” Denki says, laughing nervously.
“God-fucking-damnit!” screams Stranger, storming away and snatching the charger from Denki’s mouth. His hands let out tiny explosions. Damn. Hot and a strong Quirk. Not that Quirks really mean anything. As Denki boots up his phone again, the first thing that comes up is an Armani ad, with a suspiciously familiar face.
Bakugou Katsuki, says the credits. A further Google search makes Denki realize that he fucked up. Holy shit.
He just pissed off a goddamn supermodel.
Thank goodness he would probably never see the supremely-hot Bakugou Katsuki again.
------
As Denki boards Flight B-11, his hands are sweating. His breath comes out in rapid beats. Every step through the airplane feels like a step to his untimely demise, but finally, he makes it to his seat and sits down, and closes his eyes tightly.
God, does he hate airplanes. His dad better appreciate all the suffering he’s going through to see him for the first time in 4 years.
As he sits, head in his hands, breathing slowly--in, out, in, out--he hears the sound of impending doom.
“You,” says Bakugou Katsuki, looking just as angrily hot as he did half-an-hour ago.
“Me,” says Denki, contemplating death. “Uh, is this your seat?”
Bakugou grunts, and plops his (finely shaped) ass beside Denki. If his personality wasn’t steeped in actual garbage, Bakugou would be the biggest catch to ever exist within 6 feet of Denki. Luckily for Denki, the airplane has an outlet on each seat, so he will never have to suffer again via sucking on a supermodel’s charger.
The next 15 minutes are dead silent. Sometimes Bakugou shifts in his seat, but beyond that, they are two 20-some-year-old guys, one much more successful than the other, scrolling through their phones in tense silence. When the plane starts moving, however, Denki grips his armrest, knuckles white. The bumps on the runway turn into earthquakes. His heart pounds faster. The plane speeds up.
“Fuck,” Denki says, breathless. “I hate flying.” He’s shaking.
“Shut the fuck up,” says Bakugou. “I’m trying to sleep.”
“Bro, you are such a fucking dick-” The plane takes off.
Holy shit holy shit I’m going to fucking die-
The thing about Denki is that his Quirk works a little like a living antennae pole, and while your standard person’s odds of being hit by lightning are like, 1 in 500,000, Denki’s is probably 1 in 1000. Or something like that. Bad things happen when Denki gets on airplanes, and despite being told thousands of times that there are plenty of failsafes in place in the case of any accidents, every plane ride is excruciating. His breaths come out faster and his grip tightens--one on the armrest, the other digging fingernails into his own palms.
Two strong hands grab Denki’s biceps.
“Hey-hey. Look, sorry about that. Breathe with me.” Denki breathes, inhales, exhales, blinks away dancing black spots, and stares at Bakugou Katsuki. “You okay?” grunts Bakugou.
“Y-yeah, thanks,” says Denki, flushing. “I think. I just… don’t wanna die. You get me?”
Bakugou nods, and for a second, Denki’s starting to think hey, maybe he’s just a little rough around the edges when-
“Bitch, we’re not even that high up. Also, I only know like two people who’ve ever been in a plane crash, and they were both because of some fucking stalkers and they survived.” Bakugou flippantly lets out a couple of sparks from his hands and settles back in his seat, acting like his sentence was helpful in any shape or form.
“Thanks,” says Denki, dumbly, wishing he wrote a will before he set foot on the plane. By this point, the plane’s movement is chill. He can ignore it. Right as he thinks this, a shriek and a thud echo from across the plane, probably from the business section.
“FUCK! EIJIROU!” screams a female voice.
Denki cowers in fear. Bakugou rolls his eyes.
“That’s my dumbass manager, I’m pretty sure.” Denki starts drafting his will.
4 hours into the flight
“Dude. Bakugou,” says Denki. Poke poke. He’s bored.
“How the fuck do you know my name, Pikachu,” says Bakugou Katsuki.
Denki probably has a death wish or something: “Aww, nicknames already? Also, I saw you on an ad coming in. Why are you here and not in the business section, anyway?”
“I’m never talking to fucking strangers again.” Bakugou pauses. “I don’t wanna sit next to my managerial team because they’re a load of crazy imbeciles, but I guess they got replaced with something worse.”
Damn. Bakugou Katsuki packs a mean punch.
“More than a pretty face, I see,” mutters Denki. “I’m Kaminari Denki, by the way! Nice to meet-cha.”
“I don’t give a fuck about you, Calamari,” says Bakugou, going back on his phone.
“Look man, we’re about to spend a load of quality time together. So much quality time. I’m gonna sit here and scream whenever there’s turbulence. You’re gonna have to put up with it. Why not get along?” Denki decides to ignore the mangling of his last name.
Bakugou grunts. He was a lot more intimidating when he was just Hot and not Hot with Shitty Interpersonal skills.
“What’s your skincare routine?” Denki blunders onwards, genuinely curious at the perfectly clear and dewy skin of Bakugou that has somehow survived at least 4 hours of dry airplane air.
“I just… wash it and shit. I dunno. Shitty Hair keeps making me buy shit but I don’t know what to do with it.” Bakugou scowls at his phone.
“I just wash it and shit,” mocks Denki, rolling his eyes. “Bitch, I wash it too but you don’t see me with fresh and glowy skin, do you?”
“Maybe your skin is as stupid as the rest of you,” says Bakugou.
Denki scowls. Maybe he’s more sleep-deprived than he thought he was, because he reaches out a hand to feel Bakugou’s face up. Predictably, Bakugou slaps his face away.
“Keep your fucking hands to yourself,” Bakugou mutters. “It’s probably the nitroglycerin. I sweat it out of my, like, pores.”
“So your face isn’t dewy? It’s sweat?”
“Shut the fuck up my face is fucking perfect.”
Why can’t Denki be the one blessed with perfect fucking skin because of a Quirk that literally keeps you moisturized 24/7. Life is sad.
4.5 hours into the flight
“I’m a chemistry major!” says Denki, out of the blue.
“What does that have to do with me.”
“Doesn’t your face like. Explode. If it’s leaking nitroglycerin.” Denki’s on an airplane sitting next to a potentially explosive guy who Denki could potentially explode with his own electrical Quirk. That will better be written by the end of the flight.
“Hell yeah it does,” says Bakugou Katsuki, looking concerningly fired up at the prospect of exploding his own face off. “But I’m resistant, so it’s fine. But when I was like 3, when my Quirk came in, I just exploded shit nonstop. Nitroglycerin’s fucking wild, man.”
“Sounds like a good Quirk for heroics, honestly,” muses Denki. “But you’re a little aggressive to be like, super popular. I guess you could pull the Endeavor schtick but he kinda has the strong and stoic thing going for him.”
“Eh. I was gonna go for heroics at one point. UA’s fucking expensive though--their goddamn entrance exam had these robots that you destroyed for points and even if you get in the tuitions fucking crazy and my mom’s whole fashion brand had this scandal with sludge monsters and shit, so-”
“That’s… pretty cool. So you went for modeling instead of heroics? That’s hella heroic.”
“Heh,” huffs Bakugou, seemingly in a better mood with the mention of hero-ing. “I fucking killed the modeling industry, anyway, so it turned out fine.”
Denki sighs. “I was gonna go for the hero industry at one point, too. But like, shit happens, y’know?” Actually, what happened was that Denki was a complete dumbass and lacked any semblance of real skill and used his arguably really decent Electrification Quirk to fry one robot and then pass out. His mom blamed it on the airplane incident of 2XXX, since falling that far does sometimes leave effects, but Denki’s about 90% nothing would’ve changed without it.
“What’s your Quirk, anyway? Some electricity thing?”
“Yeah! I electrify shit!” Denki holds up his phone as an example. “I’m… not great at control, though. So sometimes I electrify too much shit. Y’know what I mean?”
“Sure,” grunts Bakugou, who whips an eye mask out of nowhere and promptly falls asleep.
6 hours into the flight
Denki’s jamming out to some real old early 2000’s American pop when Bakugou wakes up and blinks blearily at him.
“Can you…”Bakugou yawns. Denki is somewhat reminded of a lion yawning. Cute, but terrifying. “Can you stop fucking humming?”
“Oops! Yeah, my bad. 2000’s music, y’know. Real catchy. Can’t stop myself.”
“Huh,” says Bakugou. “You like that old-ass shit?”
“Have you ever even listened to ‘old-ass shit?” Here-” Denki shoves an ear bud into Bakugou’s ear.
Hey, I just met you and this is crazy/ But here's my number, so call me, maybe rings out a couple times before Bakugou rips it out and hands it back to Denki.
“Pass me with that stuff. So goddamn shallow. There’s too many fucking old songs about love and weak shit,” Bakugou scoffs.
Denki pouts. “I mean, everything nowadays is about Quirks and stuff. Don’t you ever just wanna… slow down. Think a little about other stupid, non-Quirk stuff like worrying about stupid hot boys who you probably won’t ever meet again?”
“Do you know any stupid hot boys you’ll never meet again?”
“M-maybe,” says Denki, rolling his eyes. “It’s not… shallow, anyway. We’re all people first, right? And then Quirks are this weird, secondary thing that everyone’s gotten all fixated on. I dunno. Just, this whole love schtick’s so universal and so not-outdated but now we have a bunch of emotionally stunted dudes who get taught that having good Quirks is the epitome of being cool. Does that make sense? Things are better now, but there’s all this stuff that we’ve forgotten since Quirks showed up.”
“Uh-huh,” says Bakugou, sounding doubtful.
“A-and like, chemistry, y’know, is so fucking cool and right before Quirks showed up, they were figuring out shit for like… cancer and how certain chemicals interacted with biological functions. But now we just kinda hope that someone like Recovery Girl or Cementoss pops up out of nowhere and can cure everything or fix everything or do stuff that we tried to figure out so everyone could pull stuff off. Yeah?”
“I have no clue how you got from Calling People, Maybe to a treatise on Quirks and chemistry, but sure,” says Bakugou.
Denki flushes. “Haha,” he laughs, embarrassed.
“Goddamn, Sparky. I mean like, good shit. Good thoughts. Quirks suck ass. I was this huge fucking bully in middle school and all the teachers were like, ‘Go, go Katsuki you’re so fucking cool since you can squirt explosions from your hands,’ and then I got into the modeling thing and everyone told me I was an asshole.” Bakugou’s face turns a bit red, and he shoves his hands in his lap. Denki takes that as a tentative agreement.
“You’re still an asshole today, though,” says Denki.
Bakugou scoffs. “Trust me, I was worse back then.”
7 hours into the flight
Denki wakes up from where he’s drooling on Supermodel Bakugou Katsuki’s shoulder. Oops. Hopefully, Bakugou didn’t mind. Denki’s a bit of an airhead, he’s been told, so technically his head should be on the lighter side.
The speakers crackle overhead.
“Hello… this is your pilot speaking. We are currently encountering a bit of turbulence from the oncoming storm. Please keep your seatbelts on at all times.”
Just as the pilot finishes speaking, the plane lurches. Denki pulls his seatbelt tighter as the plane lurches again. Holy shit. His hands go back to clutching the armrests, knuckles white, and blood draining from his face. Next to him, Bakugou stumbles awake.
“W-what…”
“Holy shit,” whimpers Denki. Bakugou’s seatbelt isn’t on. “Bakugou omigosh put your fucking seatbelt on before you die.” The supermodel grumbles and starts fishing for his seatbelt as the airplane feels like it does a fucking loop-de-loop in the air. “Holy shit,” Denki says again, caught between a rock and a hard place. Does he save Bakugou Katsuki (really hot, supermodel, fucking ripped) from a lack-of-seatbelt-induced death, or does he sit and cling to his armrests and watch Blasty-chan fumble around in a half-asleep daze?
Denki musters up the last remnants of his heroic-persona and grabs at Bakugou.
“Holy shit holy shit where is your seatbelt omigosh.” He pats around Bakugou’s lap and under his lap and on the seat on the other side and for a momentary, brief, embarrassing second, on Bakugou’s lap (Bakugou gives a startled almost-squeak) before finding the elusive sides of the seatbelt and jamming them together. They won’t click. They won’t fucking click and Denki’s too fucking dumb to do shit and-
“Calm the fuck down, Pikachu,” says Bakugou, calmly taking the seatbelt and fastening it over him. Denki watches, numb, as he pulls the strap tightly. “We good?”
Denki lets out half a sob as the plane jerks again.
“Y-yea, we good,” Denki says as his wobbly smile vanishes again. In an impulsive motion, he grabs Bakugou’s hand. Bakugou jerks, but doesn’t pull away.
“Bakugou.”
“What.”
“Your hands are sweaty.”
“Well stop touching them then, you fucking weakling,” snaps Bakugou, but his hand gives a small squeeze. It’s a little sweaty, but warm and placid in Denki’s as the plane continues to hump its way through the dark sky.
8 hours into flight
Bakugou shoves Denki. They stopped holding hands a bit ago, but their legs and sides stayed pressed up against each other, a basin of warmth on Denki’s left side.
“Where’s the button?”
“What button?”
“The fucking button to call the attendant lady thing.”
“Ohhhh. This button?” Denki presses the button, which is literally in plain sight. Bakugou might need glasses or something.
“Do you have alcohol?” says Bakugou when the flight attendant comes over. “Yeah, like, hit me up with a couple of glasses. For me and the Dunce Face over there.”
“Of course,” says Flight Attendant Lady, and comes back with a thing of Strawberry Nigori, the type that tastes lowkey like straight shit-juice and fucks you up without you noticing. It’s Denki’s favorite.
4 shots later, it is even more so Denki’s favorite.
“Time to stop,” says Bakugou when Denki paws at his face for the fifth time.
“Bakugouuuuu Katsuki, just lemme, another one, por favor. Do me a favor. We’re bros, right? Bros who drink together stay together?” Denki sobs a little, trying to drum up pity points. The shit tastes like fucking juice. Bakugou’s a killjoy.
“Shut the fuck up,” says Bakugou, almost tentatively. “I think it is definitely time to stop.”
“Stop..stopping me,” whines Denki. “Hey, Bakugou? Bakugou, your face is so fucking pretty and you’re so fucking ripped and hot but like your personality is so shit. It’s so shit. I dunno who made you.” Denki pauses, concerned that SuperModel Bakugou Katsuki might be offended. “But also you’re hella nice, y’know. So fucking nice and so fucking hot.”
Denki squeezes Bakugou’s biceps a couple times. They’re as nice and strong as they look, and leans in really, really, really close to Bakugou’s face. It’s important to take a good look. When’s Denki gonna have another chance? Bakugou’s all hard angles and sharp vermillion eyes with an oddly soft jaw that works and plush (super-moisturized!) lips. Fuck. Denki wishes he was as fucking pretty.
Bakugou turns bright red and flags down the flight attendant.
“Here, I’m gonna throw this away-” Bakugou tries to throw away the Nigori. Denki bats at it.
“Give… give me the fucking… booze, oh my gosh.”
“NO MORE DRINKING,” says Bakugou, whacking Denki’s hands away. Denki gets a lucky hit on the bottle and upends it over Bakugou’s lap. Oopsie. It’s not important enough for Denki to care about.
He continues amidst Bakugou’s cursing and screaming and sigh of resignation: “And y’know, you have like, a legit reason to not be a hero. Saving your mom’s fashion business. That’s..that’s showbiz, baby. That’s so cool. Fuck, Bakugou Katsuki-”
“Just do Katsuki if that’s easier for your drunkass brain to remember-”
“Katsuki, Katsuki. Katsuchan? Kacchan? Hehe. I can be Denki. Do you wanna hear my poor fucking story about how I wasn’t… dude I’m wasted and also I’m just so useless like I tried out for the hero course but I’m kinda really fucking stupid and a waste of space. And I fried like one robot and then I was just comatose for like most of the thing, but this one guy. This guy with like. Some sort of super-strength All Might shit went and saved this fucking girl and broke all his limbs and I just kinda sat there and stared. This dude broke 26 fucking bones to save someone. So heroic. And. I can’t handle anything that’s even a little scary and I wish this plane would crash but like just my seat. You know?”
“Fucking lightweight,” says Katsuki, reaching out to steady Denki’s swaying world. “Look, you probably should not be drinking. But you’re not a dumbass. Or like. We’re all dumbasses if you’re a dumbass.”
Denki wails. “Look at you! Supermodel fucking Bakugou Kacchanski telling me how I’m not a fucking dumbass who’s already made 2 planes crash in my life and got 1 point on the UA entrance exam and passed out for literally the entire thing. Why are you trying to stop me-”
“You’re not a dumbass what-the-fuck-”
“Don’t even try to stop me from drinking!” Denki yells tearfully, disregarding the fact that Katsuki has already done so. He drapes himself over Katsuki’s lap, intent on throttling him, hugging him, whatever. Then, he passes out.
9 hours into flight
Thank God for Denki’s god-tier metabolism. After peeing like 4 times, he is refreshed. At least his metabolism does something other than keeping Denki looking like a twink. His metabolism doesn’t erase the pounding behind his eyes, though, and Denki groans as the now-sunny sky pierces his eyeballs.
“Why are you heading to the States, anyway?” asks Bakugou Katsuki, who Denki somehow missed was still sitting there. Denki notes that everything still smells a little like Strawberry Nigori, oddly mixed with the scent of burnt sugar.
“I just wanted to leave. Visit people. Figure out stuff. You?”
“Modeling shit,” says Katsuki. Goddamn. What a hotshot. Fucking modeling shit where he’ll stare broodily into the camera when Denki will never see him again in person, and only through really hot Armani and Calvin Klein underwear ads. “You gonna be busy?”
“M-me? Busy?”
“Literally who the fuck else.”
“Probably not that busy. Like I have like… one thing planned.”
“Cool,” says Katsuki, a thoughtful expression on his face. “Also, you’re not a dumbass.”
“How would you know?” says Denki, turning and looking at Katsuki carefully. “You’ve heard me say like ten things ever, and four of them were when I was drunk.”
“You’re probably not a dumbass,” Katsuki amends. “I’ve met a whole lot of dumbasses though. You’re not one of them. What dumbass spend their time thinking about shit Quirks and shit society when they’ve got a not-shit Quirk already?” His face is flushed. It might be hot in the airplane.
“Sure,” says Denki. “If you say so.” Katsuki’s palms spark and crackle.
12 hours into flight
One hour to go! Denki loves the ground. Misses the ground. His hand is a little drenched in nitroglycerin from the 40 times he’s had to use Katsuki as a stress toy, but it’s fine since it smells good and keeps his hands feeling real moisturized. Suddenly, a rumble jolts Denki out of his vintage Marvel-induced daze.
What the-
The intercoms crackle on overhead.
“This is your pilot speaking. We have encountered a peculiar airfield with abnormal airflows. Please stay put-”
The whole left side of the airplane cracks open.
“Holy shit,” says Denki for the thousandth time on the plane, as people fall out, as the blue-blue color of the sea peaks out from the hole in the plane, as heroes yell and carry civilians out to safety. His mouth is dry. His hands are trembling.
“Calm down, Kaminari...Denki. Calm down, Denki,” says Katsuki, hand on Denki’s hands. Katsuki’s hand’s deep warmth cuts through the growing panic in Denk’s brain. “It’s… there are people. It’ll be fine. We’re all good.”
A metal-headed evil-looking guy immediately busts his way into the plane.
“Do I smell… STRAWBERRY NIGORI!? HAHAHA! I am Duke Rhino! Flying is immoral!” Duke Rhino tears up a partially shredded chair and sends it flying across the plane. The new hole it makes, right across from the original one, makes a creaking noise as the ground seems to fold in two and the airplane looks like it's seriously contemplating ripping apart. Denki’s going to die.
“As for YOU TWO,” says Duke Rhino, spinning and pointing a crusty finger at Denki and Katsuki. “This is all your fault. How dare you participate in the aerospace industry. Those immoral, disgusting fools.” Duke Rhino pulls (?) Denki and Bakugou’s chairs towards him, ripping up a ton of the flooring and the screws anchoring them in place. His Quirk? Either way, Denki’s heart is racing.
“Fuck OFF,” says Bakugou Katsuki, who is as ballsy as he is hot. “How the fuck are people supposed to travel without goddamn airplanes?”
“Ah.” Duke Rhino stares at Katsuki. “While you are very attractive, you bring up an ignorant point. It is the fools of your generation that must… DIE.” Duke Rhino surges forward, arm raised to bitchslap Katsuki across the face of the Earth, when Denki lunges in, grabs the ripped up cord Duke Rhino is standing on, and forces half-a-million volts through it. Duke Rhino jolts, and then passes out cold. He faceplants with a thud. Denki and Katsuki stare at the passed-out villain.
“Fucking hell, Pikachu,” breathes Katsuki. “That was badass as fuck.”
“I AGREE,” says a booming voice. A super blonde and American looking guy comes swooping into the plane. “VERY HEROIC OF YOU. I AM CAPTAIN CELEBRITY. THANKS FOR TAKING DOWN THE DUDE. SURFS UP.” Duke Rhino gets booted off the plane into the arms of another hero emitting green fog, who clamps cuffs on him and throws Denki a thumbs up.
“Thanks For Your Service, Civilian!”
As Captain Celebrity carries Denki and Katsuki to land in his well-muscled arms (but not as well-muscled as Katsuki’s), Katsuki holds out a fist. Denki numbly fistbumps him.
“Look, man. What type of dumbass would be able to pull that shit off? You just took down a goddamn airplane-freak villain. Hella badass.”
They land.
“I’m a dumbass,” mutters Denki.
“My dumbass, though,” says Katsuki. He blushes.
Denki short-circuits.
On land
Denki cheers as they reach the baggage claim.
“Hell YEAH. Survived the third hell flight of my life.” Not to mention that it’s the first time shit didn’t happen directly because of him. Villains attacking are their own fault. Katsuki gives a half-grin.
“Hell yeah, you did.”
Denki grabs his busted black suitcase, which is right next to Katsuki’s hella posh one. They stand and stare at each other.
“Uh-” grunts Katsuki.
“So this is it, I guess?” says Denki, oddly reluctant at never seeing really hot Katsuki again. “Uhhhh. Good luck modeling.” He reaches out and awkwardly clasps Katsuki’s hand.
Katsuki grunts again. “Sure, Pikachu.” He gives his hand a short squeeze, stares, lets go, spins around and walks away. Denki stares at his retreating back. Should he ask for his number? Would Bakugou Katsuki want anything to do with Denki after hell-flight B11? Katsuki vanishes before Denki makes up his mind.
Another missed opportunity flushed down the drain. Sad. Denki stares mournfully at the spot where Katsuki disappears to, exhales, and begins lugging his luggage in the opposite direction.
On the way out, Denki hears a shout.
“HEY,” shouts Bakugou Katsuki, running like a madman towards Denki who’s flagging down a taxi. A girl with pink hair yells behind him. “HEY. Here’s my business card. Hit me up if you feel like modeling. We need another fucking blond around here.”
Denki numbly takes the card from Katsuki’s hands.
“O-okay.” Bakugou Katsuki stares at him and leans really close. His eyelashes are blond and really fucking long. His skin is poreless. His lips-
Oh. His lips are even softer than they look.
“HELL YEAH. GET IT, KATSUKI!” screams a voice in the distance.
“SHUT THE FUCK UP, SHITTY HAIR.”
Katsuki struts away.
“New beau?” says the cab driver, smirking, as Denki shoves his stuff into the vehicle.
Denki laughs, bright red.
“Something like that.” The business card is still in Denki’s hand. Denki flips it over.
Call me ;) XXX-XXX-XXXX. My phone number. Fucking call me, maybe.