Work Text:
Here’s the thing about Todoroki Shouto. He’s—well, completely unbearable on a good day, but, most importantly—not afraid. Unlike everyone else, he isn’t afraid of Katsuki. No matter what he does, Todoroki just stares at him head-on, unperturbed.
It’s unsettling. It makes Katsuki want to grip him by the shoulders and shake him until he finally gets a reaction. Sometimes, when he inevitably gets too bitter about everything, he thinks it’s just the childhood bully inside him rearing his ugly head back up. That he just wants to make someone else break for the disgusting pleasure of it.
But if Katsuki really lets himself think about it, he just wants proof Todoroki Shouto can feel something. Anything. Which is why, during an afternoon when they’re all sweaty from too much sparring practice, he wipes the sweat off his forehead with the edge of his t-shirt, even though it’s so soaked it clings uncomfortably to his back, and grits out, “Hey, half and half, I can go again.”
His lungs sting when he takes a breath, but no one needs to know that.
Todoroki lifts his head up. His hair is sticking to his forehead, but he looks fine besides that. He isn’t even breathing hard. “Alright,” he says.
Katsuki grits his teeth. Bastard, he thinks, but doesn’t waste breath saying it out loud.
Sparring with Todoroki is simple. Almost routine. He goes easy on Deku, but never with him. Katsuki can’t really articulate why, but watching Todoroki give it his all has always made him feel—good. A small bit of satisfaction that took root at some point and stubbornly refused to stop growing. Katsuki doesn’t know how to rip it out. Isn’t sure he wants to. It’s a little terrifying.
“I’ll beat you,” he says.
Todoroki arches a single eyebrow as if to say I’m sure you will. He doesn’t smirk (he never does) but his face looks like it might if he did. He’s a good fighter. He has to be with all the relentless training that went into making him one. Katsuki wonders, sometimes, who Todoroki would be without that. If he would have liked that boy. If that boy would’ve liked him. More often than not, just like right now, he shakes his head to get rid of the thought and plunges headfirst into whatever he’s doing.
Katsuki tries to land the first hit. Todoroki takes hold of his wrist. His left side is always warmer than his right, and Katsuki’s skin feels too hot. Whenever Todoroki touches him like this, there’s a small part of him that gets the urge to surrender, let go, and simply let him touch.
But he doesn’t know how to ask for that. Can’t ask for that. So he breaks free and tries to land another hit. This time, Katsuki manages to graze him. Todoroki’s eyes narrow. He goes for a hit of his own, but Katsuki dodges. They go back and forth like this for a while, neither landing a hit, until, somehow, Todoroki manages to swipe his feet out from under him. Katsuki falls, eyesight growing blurry.
He’s breathing hard, and it only quickens when Todoroki puts a hand on his chest and leans down. “You’re tired,” he says, like he’s actually concerned, which—inexplicably, hurts. Todoroki’s hand grows colder. It’s a relief. “You don’t have to try so hard.”
“I do,” Katsuki says. Doesn’t this fool get it? Of course he has to. “I fucking do.”
Todoroki’s gaze goes a little quizzical. His hand is still on Katsuki’s chest. “Why?” he asks.
Katsuki’s heartbeat speeds up. And—god, it’s horrible. Maybe it’s the exhaustion or the bitterness of losing or some other form of temporary delirium, but all Katsuki can think about as he meets Todoroki’s eyes is, “Because I love you, you fucking bastard.”
The room goes quiet.
Yaoyorozu drops her water bottle. Uraraka audibly gasps. Kaminari accidentally shocks Iida. Deku’s eyes go impossibly wide.
And Todoroki—Todoroki goes very still, fingers gripping the fabric of Katsuki’s shirt.
It takes a second, two, three, but when nobody does anything, Katsuki rips Todoroki’s hand off his chest, and flees, resolutely ignoring the way his body protests.
Outside, it’s raining. It’s soft, but still enough that it soaks him. Katsuki runs, doesn’t look back, thinks only of making it back to the dorms and the safety of his own room and a scalding shower. Halfway there, his legs give out on him.
He’s on his knees gasping for breath when the rainfall suddenly—stops.
Katsuki looks up. Todoroki is standing over him with an umbrella. He looks flushed, hair swept off his forehead by the wind. “Found you,” he says.
“Nobody said you needed to find me,” Katsuki says. He wishes he could stand up.
Todoroki places a gentle hand on his shoulder. He’s never this careful with him, usually. Katsuki stifles the urge to shake it off. He doesn’t need pity.
“I wanted to,” Todoroki says. “Didn’t want you to catch a cold.”
“Why?” Katsuki asks.
Todoroki puts out a hand. “Come on,” he says. “I’ll help you stand up. Lean on me.”
Katsuki’s eyes narrow, but he takes it. No use prolonging this thing, anyway.
“Did you mean it?” Todoroki asks, pulling him up.
“Did I mean what?” Katsuki says, slinging an arm over his shoulder.
“What—what you said in there,” Shouto says, gesturing to the practice grounds.
For one of UA’s top students, he’s incredibly dense. “Of course I did,” Katsuki says. “Why else would I have fucking said it?”
Todoroki gnaws at his lower lip. “Why didn’t you say something before?” he asks.
Katsuki scoffs. “When was I supposed to do that?” he asks. “Between breakfast and the five o’clock jab at your hero skills?”
“That’s not—,” Todoroki begins to say.
“That’s not what,” Katsuki cuts off. “That’s how we are. How we’ve always been. I don’t—expect more than that.”
It hurts to say, but the hollow ache in his chest is something he’s learned to live with. He isn’t meant to have this, he knows. It’s not how these things go. Todoroki belongs with someone like Deku or Yaoyorozu. A proper hero. Not—whatever Katsuki is. A disappointment, if you ask his mother.
Todoroki wraps a hand around his waist to keep him steady. “Maybe you should,” he says.
Katsuki blinks. “What?” he asks.
“Maybe you should expect more,” Todoroki says. “It’s not like you haven’t grown enough to deserve it.”
It takes Katsuki a second to actually process the words. They’re squeezed together beneath Todoroki’s tiny umbrella, his arm around Katsuki’s waist and—this isn’t how any of this was ever supposed to go, goddamnit.
“I haven’t,” Katsuki insists. “I’m still the same asshole I was back in first year.”
Todoroki shakes his head. “You aren’t,” he says. “You hold the door for Uraraka and Hagakure, and you make extra ramen when you know someone hasn’t eaten, and I saw you throw a blanket on Kirishima that one time he fell asleep after class movie night. Despite your best attempts to deny it, you, Bakugou Katsuki, are kind.”
Katsuki feels his cheeks heat up. “Don’t sound so smug about it,” he says.
“I’m not smug,” Todoroki says, turning to look at him. “I’m right. There’s a difference.”
Katsuki wants to kiss the stupid grin off his face. “You’re horrible, is what you are.”
“I thought you loved me,” Todoroki says, voice light in a way Katsuki hasn’t heard it before.
Katsuki freezes, forcing Todoroki to come to a halt, too. The rain has thinned, but it’s still falling. “You,” he says, slowly, “you’re welcome to forget about that.”
“What if I don’t want to?” asks Todoroki.
“Is this a joke?” Katsuki asks. “Are you pulling my leg right now, half and half, because I swear to—”
“I’m not,” says Todoroki. “I’m trying to say I love you too.”
His tone of voice is the same as usual, so Katsuki deduces there’s little probability he’s joking. He looks earnest, too, gaze open in a way Katsuki has never seen it and—it’s still unbearably horrible, how much he wants to kiss him.
It must show on his face, because, “Go ahead,” Todoroki says.
Three things happen: Katsuki cups his face, their mouths meet, Todoroki’s umbrella falls to the ground, and both his arms wrap around Katsuki, pulling him impossibly closer. Kissing Todoroki is—it's fucking great. It makes him feel fluttery and weightless and his heart still hurts a little, but it feels so much fuller than before.
“If I had known it would lead to this,” Katsuki says, rain soaking his hair, “then I might’ve embarrassed myself in front of eighteen other people a lot sooner.”
Todoroki smiles, with droplets of rain dripping down his skin. He looks magical. So pretty Katsuki has a hard time not kissing him again. “You definitely should have,” he says.
And—Katsuki still isn’t sure he deserves that smile, those words, and he probably won’t be for a while, and when the others get back they’re going to make fun of him mercilessly, he knows, but—right now Todoroki Shouto is looking at him with all the warmth of the world in his eyes and Katsuki finally knows what he looks like when he cares. When he cares about him. It’s—so pretty it makes his chest ache.
“Yeah,” he agrees, taking Todoroki’s hand, “I should have.”