Chapter Text
Bakugou had been a spectacle at doctor’s appointments since he was a kid. The fact that his body excreted a highly flammable chemical as sweat meant that he constantly had nitroglycerin in his system.
And the main side effect of nitroglycerin was lowering his blood pressure.
The first few times he’d had a check up after his quirk manifested, he’d been on a one-way trip to the ER via ambulance to figure out why his blood pressure was 75/50. Only for it to be quickly established as a normal consequence of his quirk.
So every time a new nurse inflated the cuff on his arm and pressed the diaphragm of their stethoscope to the pulse point just above the crook of his elbow, he would watch their eyes go wide and quickly tell them that it was normal for him.
Frequently he sat there and watched them take it again, just to confirm that their ears and eyes hadn’t deceived them.
When he was much younger and still learning how to use his quirk, he’d had frequent episodes where his blood pressure would drop too low for his body to handle after excessive training or he forgot to drink anything when running around on a hot summer day. Each time that happened, he would either get really dizzy and have to sit down or he would wake up on the ground.
So when he was training on a particularly hot and sunny afternoon, he knew what was happening as soon as the nausea and dizziness hit.
He’d been sparring with Kirishima, throwing explosion after explosion at the boy’s hardened exterior.
Using an explosion to propel himself into the air, Bakugou swung his legs around in a form that made it look like he was going to kick Kirishima. His partner hardened his forearm and prepared to block the impact.
As Bakugou descended, he quickly snapped his body with a keen precision, his other hand coming down from over his head, to deliver an explosion into Kirishima’s face as Bakugou’s feet connected with his chest.
They both tumbled to the ground, Bakugou’s explosion hitting his partner’s hardened face as the back of Kirishima’s head hit the concrete.
If it was anyone else, Bakugou would likely have killed them. Instead, as he staggered forward, trying to catch his footing after the impact, he could hear Kirishima’s loud laughter ringing out from behind him.
“That was so cool!” Kirishima shouted, his voice a little breathless, undoubtedly from Bakugou’s feet knocking the air from his lungs.
“You were too slow,” Bakugou huffed, sweat dripping off of his face and arms.
Against his will, he sank to his knees as dizziness flooded his senses, his knees colliding heavily with the ground. It was a familiar sensation, but not one Bakugou had felt in years. He was stronger now, he could handle his quirk better.
They would keep training and it would pass.
“What do you mean? I didn’t get hurt at all!”
“You should have been hardened at least a full second before the explosion went off,” Bakugou snapped, pulling himself back to his feet. He spun on his ankle, turning back to face Kirishima. “Let’s go again.”
He must’ve seemed off, or his voice didn’t carry its usual strength, because Kirishima hesitated for a moment and just stood there facing him with his eyes fixed onto Bakugou.
Which was a good thing because Bakugou took two determined stomps towards him before his knees buckled.
He gave Kirishima a lot of grief, but the taller boy had great reflexes, quickly closing the distance between them and catching his friend before he could hit the ground. His arms were strong as they wrapped around Bakugou’s chest, holding the older boy close to his own.
“Whoa, you good?” Kirishima asked, his voice a rumble in his chest. The vibrations Bakugou felt against his cheek were soothing.
“Yeah, just set me down.”
“You sure?”
Bakugou nodded, suddenly very aware that his face was smushed between Kirishima’s pecs.
“Alright,” Kirishima said, “we’ll go slowly.”
Any other day, Bakugou would have fired off a round of explosions into Kirishima’s chest if he even dared to try and help him do anything, let alone manhandling him onto the ground. But he knew if Kirishima let go of him now, he’d hit the ground at a very painful speed, unable to stop his fall.
Carefully untangling their limbs, Kirishima eventually got them both situated on the ground.
With his eyes closed, Bakugou could still feel the world spinning around him. At least he’d managed to stay conscious through the entire ordeal.
“Sitting up or lying down?” Kirishima asked in a soft voice.
“Lying down.”
Once he was on the ground, Bakugou took a few deep breaths, knowing that they were bound to attract attention and he didn’t have the patience for anyone hounding him. He just needed a few minutes and possibly a bottle of water, but he would be fine.
As if he’d manifested it, the first shout came not too long after he’d draped an arm over his eyes, a shield between him and the sun.
“Bakugou!”
He didn’t particularly care to know who was yelling, he just wanted them to shut up.
“Kacchan!”
He knew who that was and he let out a groan. At least with the nerd there, he didn’t have to explain. He just really wanted to be left alone, but he knew that would never happen even if he wasn’t currently lying on the ground in the middle of Ground Beta.
“What happened?” Aizawa’s gruff voice filtered through the chaos that was undoubtedly the sound of the rest of the class gathering in curiosity.
“I don’t know. We were sparring and then he just dropped,” Kirishima said. He sounded very nervous.
Aizawa’s voice was closer the next time he spoke. “Bakugou, can you hear me?”
“Yep.”
“Did you hit your head?”
“It’s his blood pressure,” Deku’s voice chirped helpfully.
Bakugou knew that the nerd had that written in his notebook. The page all about how great his quirk was also had a box at the bottom of the page with the underlined sentence “nitroglycerin is an incredibly powerful explosive but when produced in the body causes an incredibly low blood pressure” .
“What do you mean, problem child?”
“His quirk makes it low—which will be on his file—and that makes him more likely to feel unwell if it drops. It’s probably dehydration and the increased sweat production from training.”
Bakugou groaned, did the nerd ever shut up?
“Do you need to go to Recovery Girl?” Aizawa asked, his question directed at Bakugou this time.
“No. Just give me a minute.”
“It helps if he lies down,” Deku added. Bakugou was going to kill the nerd as soon as he could sit up without seeing stars.
Something blocked the sun, casting a shadow on the back of Bakugou’s eyelids and relieving the heat against his sweat-soaked skin. Opening a curious eye, he saw Arms standing over him, acting as an umbrella to keep the sun off of his fallen classmate.
The shade was nice but Bakugou would never admit that.
He just wished everyone would stop staring at him. He was perfectly fine and if he caught any of these extras looking at him with worry then he’d blow their heads clean off their shoulders.
“Do you think you can sit up and drink something? I’d feel better if you did,” Aizawa said.
Bakugou didn’t want to do anything to make Aizawa - or anyone - feel better, but he also knew that water would help, and hopefully would also quell the nausea still curling in his gut.
Resigning to his fate, Bakugou gave Aizawa a nod, keeping his eyes shut as two pairs of hands worked to ease him into an upright position.
Bakugou immediately buried his head between his knees and groaned.
“Nauseous?” Kirishima asked. He’d been suspiciously quiet for himself but Bakugou also suspected that he was the culprit of the hand currently rubbing reassuring circles on his back.
Bakugou let out an unintelligent noise that he hoped Kirishima understood as a “yes”.
“Can you try taking little sips of this?” Another voice asked.
Bakugou groaned again. Not because he was nauseous or lightheaded, although he was, but because the boy he currently had such a big crush on he felt like he could die if he looked at Kaminari Denki for too long, was seeing him in his current state.
Talk about embarrassing.
His heart skipped a beat at the sound of worry in Kaminari’s voice. Kaminari was worried about him.
Bakugou was an asshole to everyone in his life, but still, the human version of a ray of sunshine was worried about him .
“Yeah,” he grumbled, trying to keep the harsh edge to his voice and failing miserably as he slowly lifted his head, resting his chin on his knees.
He couldn’t ever remember feeling so unsteady before, his memory of childhood episodes being mostly cloudy and faded by now, but he hated it.
“He lives!” Kaminari cheered, keeping his volume down but not bothering to hide his wide grin. He pressed the cold form of a water bottle into Bakugou’s shaky hand.
Taking initiative, he held onto the water bottle as he undid the cap.
The only downside to that plan was that Kaminari’s hand was over Bakugou’s and he seriously felt like he was going to pass out if his heart beat any faster. He swore he could feel it hammering against his ribs, begging to be set free from the cage in his chest.
At least if he passed out now, he could blame it on the episode he was currently having, and didn’t have to admit that Kaminari did weird fluttery things to his insides.
He hoped his expression looked more disoriented and dazed as opposed to flustered.
And as if his life couldn’t get worse, his hand was shaking too dramatically to keep a good grip on the water bottle as Kaminari’s hand left his. The water sloshed threateningly and the only reason the bottle didn’t fall was because Kaminari’s hand hovered so close.
He clicked his tongue in sympathy. “You really mustn’t be feeling well. It’s okay, I’ve got it.”
Kaminari pressed the mouth of the bottle to Bakugou’s lips and carefully tilted it so that Bakugou could take a sip. If his heart wasn’t currently doing flips in his chest, the cold water probably would have helped to quell the nausea.
They passed the next few minutes in silence. Kaminari tilted the bottle every so often and Bakugou obliged without complaint. At some point Aizawa had sent the rest of the class off to do whatever, run laps or something, Bakugou didn’t care, and just left the four of them on the ground.
Bakugou would never voice it, but he missed the umbrella of arms between him and the sun.
It was just a very uncomfortable situation, he was dizzy, weak, drenched in sweat and being fussed over like a child. He hated it, but there was something inside him that didn’t want Kaminari to ever stop looking at him with that softness in his golden eyes.
“Are you sure you don’t need to go to Recovery Girl?” Kaminari asked in that caring voice that made Bakugou suddenly unsure. He would almost definitely be fine if he just sat there but a selfish part of him wanted Kaminari to keep hovering close to him with that look in his eyes.
Maybe, even just for a little while, he could pretend that Kaminari felt the same things he did.
“I-” Bakugou started, his voice feeling weird in his mouth. “I’m not sure. Usually I would feel better by now.”
It wasn’t entirely a lie, but also Bakugou hadn’t had an episode in so long that he couldn’t actually remember the usual time it would take him to recover. He didn’t even pass out, so the lingering symptoms probably meant that it had come on because he was dehydrated or exhausted so he needed to deal with the cause before he was okay again.
Kaminari’s eyebrows furrowed in worry, his lips pressing into a firm line.
Aizawa settled it for them. “You’re going to go see Recovery Girl. I assume the two of you will be perfectly capable of getting him there?”
“Yes, sensei!” the two boys said in an unsettling unison.
“Alright, you’re all excused for the rest of the period. Be on your best behaviour, listen to Recovery Girl and don’t disturb anyone else.”
“Of course, sensei, thank you,” Kirishima said in that voice he always used to placate teachers. Bakugou envied him for that, he simply could never convince teachers of everything but looking at those wide red eyes and earnest expression, they always trusted Kirishima. Which was good, no one would ever trust Bakugou and Kaminari to get all the way to Recovery Girl’s office on their own.
Aizawa stood up and gave the three of them a firm nod. “And Bakugou?”
“Yes?”
Here it was, the moment Bakugou had been dreading. Aizawa was going to tell him that this was a weakness, a liability, and would make him sit out of training and work studies. He was powerful but so was a drawback that made him nearly pass out.
“Feel better soon.”
Caught off guard, Bakugou couldn’t help but to stutter his way through his response. “I’ll try my best.”
Aizawa left without another word, undoubtedly to reign in the terror of seventeen unsupervised students with superpowers. At least they couldn’t blow something up without Bakugou or Kaminari there.
Kirishima gave Bakugou a firm, yet comforting, pat on the back. “Do you want a piggyback or are you my bride today?”
Bakugou groaned. “Piggyback or I’ll kill you.”
“He’s feeling better already!” Kirishima cheered as he and Kaminari shifted.
Bakugou didn’t entertain Kirishima with a reply, just an indignant huff.
However, he wasn’t paying nearly enough attention to Kaminari, jolting at the sudden contact of an arm around his waist. Only to realise that it was Kaminari.
Kaminari was holding him. Kaminari was holding him and laughing that little bubbly and light sound that filled Bakugou’s daydreams.
“I’m sorry, Blasty. It’s only for a little while, until you’re on Kiri’s back,” Kaminari said.
God, Bakugou wished this moment would last forever.
He mentally checked out from reality for the entire time Kaminari worked to maneuver him onto Kirishima’s back. All he could think about was Kaminari’s arm around his waist, the other holding his elbow to steady him as they moved.
Bakugou could tell you one thing definitively: Kaminari was much stronger than he looked.
He wasn’t bulky like Kirishima or Bakugou, or even the weird wiry muscle that Sero had, but he was able to take the weight of Bakugou without much effort. Bakugou could swear he’d never seen Kaminari lift a weight in his life, but clearly he had underestimated Kaminari.
Quickly, before he actually collapsed, he had to dispel the mental image of Kaminari in a tank top, hair plastered to his forehead with sweat as his biceps curled and bulged under a weight he was lifting. He had to remember to invite Kaminari to one of the late night gym sessions at some point, for science.
The process of arranging Bakugou’s limbs across Kirishima’s back so that the redhead could pick him up, went a lot more painlessly than Bakugou had anticipated. Soon enough, he was secured in place and Kirishima was standing up and walking them out of the training grounds, Kaminari in tow.
He idly wondered if he could give his friends a glowing recommendation for handling patients as pro heroes.
Fuck, this lightheadedness was making him too nice.
It took too much energy to be mean. Energy he was currently running very low on.
He could feel the rumble of Kirishima’s chest as he spoke. “Let me know if you think you’re going to pass out. If you fall, it would be bad news.”
Bakugou mumbled an affirmative, resting his head in the crook of Kirishima’s neck. Exhaustion had definitely caught up to him, but he no longer felt like he was going to sign out of consciousness. Which was a relief.
The walk through UA went by peacefully. Kirishima and Kaminari handled most of the amicable chattering as they walked. At least the corridors were empty seeing as it was the middle of the period.
At one point they’d walked past Midnight in the corridor but she didn’t stop them, clearly noticing that any situation involving Bakugou being carried and both Kirishima and Kaminari hadn’t been murdered meant they were headed for Recovery Girl.
By the time they got there, Bakugou was ready to just fall asleep on the cot that Recovery Girl told Kirishima to dump him into.
He assumed that Kirishima explained the situation to Recovery Girl, but Bakugou was entirely distracted by Kaminari pulling off the bulky and awkward parts of his hero costume. He started with removing the gauntlets, and the feeling of his soft fingers on Bakugou’s freshly exposed wrists would be enough to send him to Recovery Girl’s office if he wasn’t already there.
And then there was the matter of the head spikes. Bakugou had never been more grateful that he’d added them to his costume than in the few moments Kaminari spent hovering close, his face a few inches from Bakugou’s as he removed the spikes.
Bakugou swore he didn’t breathe the entire time Kaminari methodically pulled off the rest of the random bits of his costume. His neckpiece, the knee pads, even his boots.
The feeling of Kaminari’s hands on him was going to haunt his dreams for the rest of his life.
As Kaminari plopped down on the nearby seat, happy with his work, Recovery Girl took his place next to Bakugou and started taking his vitals. Her gloved hands replaced the ghost of Kaminari’s touch on his wrist, a stupid clip on his finger and even a blood pressure cuff around his arm.
“You’re pretty low,” she hummed as the cuff deflated, and interrupted Bakugou before he could even say anything, “even for you.”
Tasked with resting, Bakugou listened to Kaminari and Kirishima talk about whatever crossed their minds until they had to leave for their next period class. They both cast him an apologetic look as they left, but he met them with his usual sneer and told them not to be late to Cementoss’ class.
He ended up being allowed to return to class halfway through that period. Kaminari and Sero cheered as he walked through the door. Something about the miracle that Bakugou was alive.
He told them to die and walked to his seat, but he couldn’t hide his fond smile as he met Kaminari’s eye, the younger boy practically glowed with joy.
Just when he swore he couldn’t fall more in love with Kaminari Denki.