Work Text:
The first time Katsuki meets Aizawa Shouta, he doesn’t actually meet him. The landscape of the internet is different, way different, and he gets a message in his Xbox DMs instead.
‘course, he doesn’t know outright that it’s Aizawa then, either.
It’s just a message, from tgeraser, that says: man i loved ur crackdown video
Then, a moment later: wanna play halo?
Six months later, Katsuki will find out that the initial message wasn’t even Aizawa himself, was Yamada taking the leap because Aizawa is an introverted and awkward shit when he wants to be.
But in the moment, he types back out: sure
It’s not like he’s doing anything else, anyway, and some deathmatch is a great way to spend his night.
Katsuki ends up in a party with tgeraser and Mic642, two dudes who couldn’t be more different if they were trying. Mic is sporadic with his skill but very motivational (or he would be, to a normal person, but he’s not annoying enough for Katsuki to want to leave.) Eraser is sharp, aware, and a monster with a sniper rifle. Katsuki breaks the seal on foul language, inadvertently — he goes down in a hail of bullets and some choice words (fuck, fuck is his word of choice) and after that it’s like the two of them loosen up. Weird to think that Eraser would watch his Crackdown video and then be awkward about going off himself, but it’s not like Katsuki knows him. Maybe he’s just like that.
Six months later, after long nights playing with the two of them, after long shifts at his day job, Katsuki shows up at their regular time and finds that only Eraser is online. Which is fine, if not half-normal — Mic is apparently something like a social butterfly. He hadn’t asked.
“Hey,” Eraser — Aizawa, even though it’s weird to think of him by name — says when he joins the party, and Katsuki returns it even as he gets his headphones settled, sinks back into the couch. “Before we get started, there’s something I want to talk to you about.”
“Jesus, you couldn’t make that sound more ominous if you wanted to,” Katsuki blurts, gets a snort through the mic on the other side for it.
“That sounds like a challenge,” Eraser returns, smirk audible in his voice, and Katsuki rolls his eyes.
“You know what I meant, asshole. Tell me what’s up.”
Katsuki knew, vaguely, that Eraser and Mic worked with Rooster Teeth, with ‘the red vs. blue people,’ as he privately thought of them. He hadn’t been much into the show, and —
When he accepted the job offer, because that’s what it was, an offer to move down and play video games and scream at screens for a living, he didn’t know how big of a deal it was going to be. It was taking less of a leap and more of a step over a gap — it’s not like Eraser and Mic were strangers. And it was an opportunity to get away from his overbearing mother, and out of his shitty city — it was a no brainer. If things ended up fucked? He’d just stay down there and find work as an electrician.
The way the community reacted, though, when he joined, was interesting, if a little annoying. Yamada showed him how to work the website, where to find the forums. The hits on his Crackdown video skyrocketed after the news. The comments on his first Rage Quit under the Rooster Teeth — under the Achievement Hunter — umbrella, was so fucking popular he couldn’t stand to talk about it. It was fucking weird.
When he first met Aizawa and Yamada in person, they were exactly what he expected.
The first time Katsuki meets Midoriya Izuku, who quickly becomes just ‘Deku’ to him, they’re still in the old office. Not that it’s the old office yet, but — that’s the thing about storytelling. It’s not Stage 5. Whatever, not the part of this that matters.
What matters is that Katsuki is coming down off a screaming tirade at this week’s game for Rage Quit, and the fucker has the nerve to bluster through the previously closed door to the office, talking a mile a minute to fuckin’ nobody. Katsuki knows, too, that the door leaks sound, that it gets avoided like the plague when he’s recording — Hagakure, the community manager, had mentioned it like it was his fault. As if this isn’t why Aizawa hired him. Who fuckin’ cares, it’s a little yelling.
And clearly not enough yelling, if this fuckstick is going to walk in in the middle of his recording, chattering to no one but his own empty fuckin’ melon — Katsuki sees the movement in the periphery of his vision and expects to find more than one person when he whips his head around, but instead finds a fucking dork that does not belong in here.
It’s probably the post Rage Quit high that has him shouting at this absolute stranger, this moron for invading the office, but — RT is like that. It’s not gonna get him fired outright, at least, and the fucker’s already ruined at least part of his footage. Katsuki’s microphone is exactly shitty and too-sensitive enough to pick up the Moron Monologues.
“What the fuck do you think you’re doing, I could not have been more obviously recording if I’d slapped a fucking on air sign on the door, what is wrong with you—“ Katsuki stops to suck in a breath, and the guy...
Laughs.
This is very quickly turning into a situation of Katsuki being real-angry instead of fun-angry (and the latter is the one he gets paid for, he doesn’t need to actually lose his fucking cool at work.) He stops his recording (with the pitiful crunch of a few of his keyboard keys) and saves the footage. He takes his hands off the keyboard, balls them into fists against his thighs, and then takes a deep breath.
The guy has stopped laughing, at least, when Katsuki turns back around to look at him again. He even squeaks, jumps a little, when he sees the look on Katsuki’s face. Good.
“I—I’m sorry, Mr. Aizawa said to bring my stuff by and drop it off, and it sounded like you had mostly calmed down? I didn’t mean to interrupt!!” the guy blabbers, but Katsuki sticks on one thing: Mr. Aizawa?
“Oh my fuckin’ god,” Katsuki blurts, realization sweeping over him. “You’re the new guy.”
“That’s me! Midoriya Izuku,” the nerd — and he is a nerd, for what happens next — agrees. And then he produces a business card from what might as well be thin air and hands it with undeserved reverence to Katsuki. “You must be — Bakugou, right? That was Rage Quit, right? I love your videos!”
The text on the card that Katsuki’s reading, against his better intentions, has the dork’s name and phone number, the link to his YouTube channel. “...You’re the slow mo geek,” he says. Aizawa had showed him one of the videos last week, when he’d been mentioning the upcoming addition to their team. The guy he’d seen on video had been much more put together than this trembling teacup poodle of a man in front of him, though.
“Ah — yeah? I guess that’s me! I’m the slow mo geek,” he agrees, and and has the nerve to beam about it, like he’s happy with that designation. What the fuck.
The door opening again breaks their conversation, and Katsuki forces himself to calm down a little further when he sees that it’s Aizawa in the doorway. No need to look like a total shithead in front of the man that signs his checks.
“Oh, good, you’ve met,” he says, hand still on the doorknob. “Bakugou, show Midoriya around, will you?”
Katsuki does open his mouth to argue, or at least put up some kind of protest, but the door’s closing again before he can get even a word in.
“O-oh, uh, I mean. I don’t want to be a bother,” the dweeb says, fidgeting. “I’m sure I can get someone else to show me around! Miss Hagakure was very nice!”
Aizawa was already gone, sure, but Katsuki isn’t gonna let his new ‘coworker’ have such a shit opinion of him from the outset.
“What, you think I’m too busy to show you the ropes, Deku?” he sneers, getting to his feet. The nerd is stammering to himself about the nickname as Katsuki folds the business card in half, flicks it in the direction of the trash can. “C’mon, I’m gonna give you the best fuckin’ tour of your life.
The first time Katsuki meets Kirishima Eijirou, it’s actually at a convention. They’re covering some stuff at E3 that year — him and Deku and Yamada, which is a fucking wonder trio if he’s ever seen one, really — and despite his best efforts, Katsuki has not been allowed to spend his time manning the booth that RT had carved out for themselves on the floor. Or paid out the nose for, more realistically.
Instead, he’s stuffed shoulder-to-shoulder with a bunch of sweaty nerds, trying to make it to the next presentation on time. He should have left earlier, but he did have a shift at the booth and Yamada had been late replacing him, something to do with a merchandising opportunity and a short meeting. Katsuki didn’t ask questions, really, just grumbled and left, preparing to have to get shove-y.
Still, he only has so much time to cross the convention area, or he’s gonna be late and then he’ll never hear the end of it from the other two. Yamada would absolutely spend all weekend rubbing it in, even if it was his fault in the first place.
Katsuki catches sight of the smallest gap between two booths and, in a split-second decision, makes the choice to break off from the main alley and squeeze through. And it is a little bit of a squeeze, but he sucks his ass in as much as he can and pushes on.
There’s a clatter as he comes out onto the other side, into a much emptier minor alley, and he glances back behind him to make sure it wasn’t his fault, that it wasn’t something broken. Dealing with the fallout of that could be worse than being late to the presentation, depending on what it was.
But it’s just one of the boothkeepers having dropped something, unrelated to him, and Katsuki strides away.
Or, tries to.
Instead, he hits the human equivalent of a brick fucking wall, turning into it and only barely not bouncing his face off their chest, but chest-to-chest isn’t much better in terms of dignity. It takes a moment to get his bearings and, when he does, he finds that the person has put their hands on his shoulders to steady him. When he goes to look at them, he looks up, and up, and —
It’s a red-headed behemoth of a man, built like a brick shit house. He’d be intimidating — Katsuki has muscle but nothing like this — except the moment they make eye contact, the guy’s face breaks like Christmas has come early.
Fuck, it’s a fan.
“Oh my god, are you Bakugou Katsuki? The Rage Quit guy?” he asks, way too eager-beaver for this shit, and Katsuki has to force himself not to roll his eyes. People getting excited to meet him will never make fucking sense. He’s a goddamn gift, sure, but for strangers? Tch.
“What of it?” he says, for lack of something better to say. In the back of his mind, Katsuki is really just too-aware of the closing window for being on time.
“I, just — wow, dude, I’m such a huge fan! I loved your Impossible Game video, I laughed myself sick the first time I watched it. You’re iconic, man! How do you even come up with the stuff you say?” How does this guy keep talking without stopping to breathe?
Katsuki tries his best to keep a level head about it. It’s not this dude’s chipper, fanatic, stupid fault that he has somewhere to be. He shrugs at the question — there is no answer to that — and rubs his hand down his face. The guy finally lets go of him, making an embarrassed squeak. His face is going pink. It’s actually kind of funny.
“Look, Red, I’ve got somewhere I’ve gotta be. Do you want an autograph, or a picture, or what?”
“Oh, I can have a picture? Really? You have the time?”
“If you hurry your shit up, yeah,” Katsuki allows, shrugging again. How is a dude this big also such a dweeb. (Deku would say it’s an unfair judgment. Dweebs like him do pay Katsuki’s paycheck, more or less.)
The guy pushes his phone off on the woman running the nearest booth, getting her agree to take the picture in a social transaction that makes Katsuki roll his eyes (inwardly, still, he’s under a microscope here and there will not be word of his shitty attitude making it online.) Then he comes back, standing next to Katsuki — the vibrating energy radiating off the guy is like what happens when Deku finds out there’s a new movie in the works for him to pore over. It should be obnoxious.
Katsuki doesn’t even check the photo when they’re done. He checks his watch instead — he’s really gonna be cutting it close.
“I’ve gotta go,” he says, watching a grown man lose his mind over the picture of them together. The dude’s got a whole head on Katsuki at least, there’s a faint part of him that feels like someone as big as that should be a little more mature than this. But, well — not his problem.
“Oh! Yeah! Sorry, I didn’t mean to keep you —“ He absolutely did, Katsuki uncharitably thinks — “Thanks for stopping to talk to me! It was so good to meet you!”
Katsuki books it to the presentation and makes it just on fucking time, squeezing in at the back of the room. He gets some dirty looks but gives them right back — fuck all these extras, anyway. He’s just here to hear about EA’s games for the year.
When Katsuki finally (misguidedly, because Deku is at his shoulder and nagging him about it) checks his socials a couple of days later, burning time sitting in the airport, he finds that the guy had posted the picture on Twitter. Katsuki doesn’t look half bad, considering, even though vanity isn’t really what that shit’s about. Somewhere very deep behind the ever-present tinge of annoyance that he carries with him, Katsuki is vaguely appreciative of the fans. It’s just weird to be a celebrity, minor or not.
@Eiji1016: can’t BELIEVE my luck!!! e3 gods are smiling down on me @AHBakugou [img]
Katsuki types out a reply almost unthinkingly — he’s overworked an exhausted, his brain has every excuse to be mush — and sends it without thinking too much of it. Fan engagement is a tenet, that’s all. ‘nice to meet you, Red’, he says; nothing special.
(The way Deku coos over it when it shows up on his feed makes Katsuki kick him in the shins, but he loses steam before he can launch a full assault.)
The next month, at RTX, he finds it impossible to miss the towering redhead over the crowd. Makes sure to give the guy extra hell for not introducing himself the first time, when Kirishima comes through the signing line and stammers out his name to Katsuki for the first time. (If Katsuki laughs, it’s not entirely uncharitable. Not that he’d admit it.)
Still, he signs the poster Kirishima brought with him to ‘Red,’ anyway. What was the guy gonna do? Complain?
(Two years later, when Aizawa hires Kirishima and Kaminari at the Achievement Hunter panel, Katsuki has no investment in it. He’s known for weeks; there’s no need to get excited, really.)
The first time Katsuki meets Uraraka Ochako, it’s a bad first impression and absolutely Deku’s fault — he’ll die on this hill.
He’s heard of her before, of course — Deku likes half her fuckin’ tweets, easy, which means they show up on his feed — but that doesn’t prepare him for what happens.
What happens is: Katsuki walks to Deku’s apartment because they’re supposed to do ‘swimmy bevs,’ the obnoxious term Kaminari coined for drinking in the pool. It’s early afternoon, it’s hot as dicks outside, and Katsuki’s looking forward to relaxing like this — it’s been in their plans for two weeks, long enough for their different types of free time to overlap.
Katsuki drags himself up to the third floor, energy sapped by the searing heat, and knocks on Deku’s apartment door. There’s a voice from the other side, unintelligible, and then the door pops open.
The person on the other side is not Deku, decidedly. Half a head shorter, brown-haired and unfreckled. Curvy in places Deku has never been curvy, as long as Katsuki has known him. Those big brown eyes are familiar, and so is the giggle —
When his brain puts it together, realizes this is the cosplay artist Deku is always gushing over, showing Katsuki her craft videos — Katsuki’s mouth falls open, more out of surprise than anything. (For now.) She looks just as surprised to see him, too, though.
“Something tells me you aren’t here with the pizza,” she says, smiling big, going a bit pink in the face. Ugh, she’s just as earnest as that dork. He rolls his eyes on reflex.
“Only if you’re tipping well,” he remarks, flying by the seat of his pants, and —
Katsuki, generally? Does not like meeting new people.
He especially does not like meeting Uraraka in this scenario, as all the pieces fall together and put together a puzzle he’s not liking the look of.
“You’re here for Izuku, right?” she asks, and he watches her tap her chin, like she’s thinking.
“Yeah,” he agrees, but he’s not such a caveman that he’s just gonna barge in. That’s a desperation he’d never show.
“...where do I know you from?” she murmurs, and —
“Are you fuckin’ serious? I work with him!”
“Oh, I know that, I just can’t remember your name. Kaminari?”
“You’re fucking kidding me,” he growls, slapping one hand against the doorframe in frustration. It’s a million degrees and this airheaded walking mannequin won’t let him inside.
She laughs, clutching her hand over her mouth. “You’re right,” she says when she’s petered off into giggles. “Come inside, Bakugou.”
“‘chako, was it pizza? The app says the delivery is still a while out, but —“ Katsuki was seething, already, from the ugly puzzle he’s assembled and then Uraraka’s bullshit at the door, but knowing that they’ve settled in enough to fuck around and eat lunch? He could see red.
“No, it wasn’t the pizza guy. I’ve got something better!”
Katsuki follows her into the living room and discovers Deku standing on a little stool, arms held out at his sides. He’s half-pinned into some kind of costume, something unrecognizable, and...
Deku is turning to look, when Katsuki steps fully around the door frame, bumping Uraraka out of the way.
“Kacchan!” He looks surprised to see Katsuki, all in the eyes, even though he’s smiling big at him. That ugly puzzle is unmistakeable.
“You forgot,” Katsuki says flatly, shoving his hands in his pockets in an attempt to not make a total ass of himself.
“I— Was that today?” Deku does look pretty torn up, but he’s also fixed in place by whatever pin shenanigan he’s been caught up in. It’d be a topic of commiseration, on another day. He used to do this shit for his mom all the time.
But today... “Kacchan, I’m sorry!” Deku bleats, looking panicked, and Uraraka rushes over to help him down off the stool.
Katsuki just... gives up.
So what if Deku forgot they were supposed to hang out because he’s busy playing dress up and getting his dick wet. Of course he fucking would.
“Whatever.” He turns on his heel, ignoring the squawking behind him, and fists his hands against his thighs. He doesn’t stomp out of the apartment, but it’s only barely.
Ten minutes later, walking back to his apartment, twice-melted now, Katsuki feels his phone go off in his pocket. It’s probably some stupid apology from Deku, or something, but Katsuki is still too pissed to even read a text like that. He’ll say something he doesn’t mean and then spend all week getting pouty looks until he apologizes and lets Deku hug him or some shit. It’s not worth the trouble.
Eventually, Katsuki makes it home. He takes a cool shower, which is no comparison to the pool but at least cleans off the gummy sweat he feels drenched in, and then he settles in on his couch in sweats with Resident Evil 4 and a vengeance. It’s a better way to spend his afternoon than fucking around outside, anyway.
The weekend passes — Katsuki eventually gives in and at least opens Deku’s text, which is an apology and also an offer to rain check and hang out the next day, but Katsuki ignores that. Doesn’t even answer him, lets his read receipts do the talking.
Monday comes, though, and with it comes work — a distraction.
Except Deku is already at his desk with Katsuki shows up, and that pitches an alarm in his brain. Deku loves to sleep in given the opportunity, and that’s... suspicious. Katsuki isn’t even remotely late, why is he here?
He beams at Katsuki when he comes through the door, though, so he’s behaving normally enough. Deku has the good sense not to try to apologize again — one was enough, and Katsuki would blast his face off shouting if he’d had to suffer one in person. His temper isn’t as hair-trigger as it used to be, but he knows his fucking buttons by now. And frankly, he’s still a bit raw, but that’s a secret just for him.
(He’d always assumed Deku’s interest in Uraraka had been platonic in nature, in that naive childlike way Deku approached most things he was earnest about. He never mentioned any of her more lewd photo shoots, never made gross comments, and — it’s a fucking blindside, to get forgotten about for something like that.)
There’s time still before everyone shows up — that candycane bastard is never going to be early, is barely on time, and that’s a fact of life by now. Katsuki drops off his stuff, turns on his computer, and then turns on his heel to leave the room. Deku might have sense for now but he doesn’t feel like pushing it, doesn’t want to deal with a fallout that could be avoided with a little space. Katsuki is way more self aware than people want to give him credit for.
The fridge in the kitchen is always stocked with the better energy drinks, anyway, and he deserves a boost.
The first time Katsuki is supposed to meet Uraraka Ochako, it’s in the kitchen at the fucking office. She comes around the corner with Ponytail, talking about something, and Katsuki should have listened to the alarm in his brain that said something was wrong, today. Instead, it catches him by surprise and he nearly chokes on the Monster he’d been chugging.
“What are you doing here,” he demands, before she gets a chance to say anything or Yaoyorozu gets a chance to make introductions. She can’t be following him, but he’s pissed regardless.
“Ochako is joining our journalism department, Bakugou,” Ponytail answers, placid like a fucking lake. She’s impossible to ruffle. “Her previous work with Scallion is a very good background for it; we’re very excited.”
Uraraka laughs at that, round-ass face going pink, and she puts her hand on Yaoyorozu’s arm. “Come on, there’s more than that!”
That’s it coming — the revelation that she’s Deku’s girlfriend, here to stay for half a dozen reasons beyond just gaming journalism. (Privately, on another day, Katsuki would say he’s glad that’s not his job. Journalism is fucking boring, stints at conventions in the past aside.)
“Oh, well, yes, and we’re working on some costumes together, but that’s really more extracurricular!”
Costumes. What.
“I think I remember you liking the post,” Uraraka starts, looking at him. “Yaomomo made the costume I wore at last year’s RTX, you know.” She was at last year’s RTX? As if he’s going to remember something like that.
He scoffs and looks away, unable to find anything to say.
“Here, I’ll find it again — you always do such good work,” she says aside to Yaoyorozu, who claps her hands together in front of her face, pleased. He knew, distantly, that she was into shit like that, but not — not like that.
Ponytail’s phone dings while Uraraka is still looking — Katsuki feels half-trapped, between the girls and the wall at his back, and he’d never run away regardless. She raises it in a silent token of ‘gotta take this,’ and he watches as she leaves.
Still, it leaves Katsuki alone in the kitchen with the bubbly source of his problems from the last several days, and he narrows his eyes at her over his soda can. She stops scrolling, looking up at him, and her naive expression turns into something different.
She cocks her hip and leans against the counter, getting comfortable, crossing her arms. The look in her eye makes him feel like he’s getting sized up. He almost likes it.
“So are you and Izuku a thing?” she asks, tilting her head. “Or were you mad I was at his apartment for another reason?”
“I don’t have a thing with anybody,” he retorts, fingers digging into the can until it’s denting under the pressure. “Deku and I had plans to hang out.” He shrugs a shoulder. She makes a noise that sounds like she’s humoring him, and he glares. “Why are you asking, anyway? Aren’t you two,” he sneers her own words back at her: “a thing?”
She giggles, then, at that, breaking her own serious persona, and he has to fight down the urge to gnash his teeth.
“No, Izuku was just nice enough to let me stay with him until I can get my own apartment sorted out. He’s kind like that, you know?”
Katsuki can only roll his eyes at her, but she puffs up those cheeks of hers and comes to step toe to toe with him, poking him hard in the chest. “I think you should appreciate him more, you know! He was torn up all evening and you didn’t even text him back.”
“Jesus, Round Face, are you his secretary or his therapist or what?” He doesn’t shrug her finger off, just looks down at her. She meets his eyes, though, looking frustrated.
“No, but I’m his friend, and you should be nicer to him.”
“Yeah? He lets you stay one weekend and now you’re best friends?” He scoffs.
“We’ve been friends for ages, you butthole,” she returns, the pseudo-foul language something he’d laugh at under a different circumstance. His blood is pumping, though, no laughter here. “Since I started cosplaying, really, even! He’s always been a good guy.”
“Sure, whatever you say.” He grins, showing all his teeth. His ‘gremlin face,’ the fans call it. “But your Izuku is Deku to me, and our friendship isn’t sunshine and fucking rainbows. He’s a grown-ass man, and you ain’t gotta defend him.”
She deflates, then, stepping back, and watching her shoulders slump almost takes the air out of his sails too. Sure she’s overstepping, it’s not her business, but — he’d been having fun.
Uraraka sighs and rubs her forehead, looks back at him from a more normal distance now that they aren’t half-ready to brawl. “I’m sorry, Bakugou,” she says, and this he laughs at, finally.
“Ain’t nothin’ to apologize about,” he scoffs, bumping her with his elbow as he finally gets out of that fucking corner. “You’re too damn soft.”
“What is that supposed to mean!” she exclaims, elbowing him back.
“Means you were giving as good as you got for a minute there, and then you backed down. C’mon, Airhead, you can do better than that.”
“Airhead? Bakugou!”
(It’s a second impression that’s much better than their first one, at least, Deku being in the middle of it aside. And, over time, they become gym buddies and Team Winners and — he gets dragged into a Final Fantasy 7 cosplay duet with her that he pretends didn’t happen, but it still managed to be fun, somehow.)