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It’s ten pm on a Tuesday, and Bakugou Katsuki is at Shouto’s door.
“Shit,” Bakugou says as soon as Shouto opens the door. It’s not exactly on the top ten list of reactions Shouto hopes to elicit in people, but Bakugou Katsuki isn’t really people. Not to Shouto.
“Bakugou,” he says, after a beat.
It must be raining. Bakugou’s hair is stuck to his forehead, the sleeves of his jacket are dripping onto the mat outside Shouto’s apartment, and there’s pink running down the side of his face in rivulets.
Pink.
Shouto moves before he can think, one hand reaching to cup Bakugou’s face, the other going towards his chin to tilt him towards the light.
Bakugou flinches, just barely, and Shouto stops, his fingers less than an inch from Bakugou’s skin.
“Fuck,” Bakugou says, with feeling, then locks his eyes on Shouto’s. His expression is complicated; almost as complicated as Bakugou himself, as impossible a feat as that seems.
It’s at war with itself; again, Shouto thinks, not unlike Bakugou. Hesitation and want. Anger and affection.
“Sorry,” Bakugou mutters, jutting his chin up a little. It’s the slightest of movements, but Shouto recognises it for what it is: acquiescence, apology. A request. Wanting.
Shouto’s heart is thudding against his ribs, slow, steady, like a battering ram – gradually building, a creeping momentum, ready to break through any defence.
He ignores this, and resumes his motion, reaching for Bakugou’s face. He does not think about how Bakugou’s skin – soft to the touch, taut with exhaustion, you’re seventeen and the world is crashing down around you, or maybe just a building, and he’s tired, and you’re tired, and his face is in your hands, hey katsuki do you remember when—? – feels beneath his fingers. He tilts Bakugou’s face towards the light coming from the apartment, and sucks in a breath.
Pink, meaning blood mixed with rain.
“I shouldn't have come,” Bakugou mutters, voice hoarse. He kicks against the ground, scuffing his shoe against the floor, but he keeps his head still in Shouto’s hands. Lets Shouto brush a thumb over the cut, barely wincing.
Why did you? Shouto thinks about asking, but he doesn’t know if he wants to know. He doesn’t want a fight, not tonight, and Bakugou is – everything / volatile / twenty-two and screaming in your face that you don’t know him / still twenty-two six weeks later and swearing furiously through tears because he doesn’t know how to apologise, doesn’t know how to let you forgive him, doesn’t know what to do with your thumb on his cheekbone / twenty-two and pressing a kiss to your shoulder when he thinks you’re asleep, hey katsuki do you ever think about—? – unpredictable sometimes. It’s just a question, and Bakugou might look at it as such, or he might take it as an accusation.
Most of the time, Shouto doesn’t think he’s a coward. He’s never been afraid to do or say whatever he thinks; went toe-to-toe with government officials and his father as a teenager, never batted an eye at any of Bakugou’s threats, ran straight in whenever his friends needed him in a fight.
Bakugou, though. He’s not scared of him – never has been. It’s just that – sometimes things with Bakugou come easier than breathing, like moving with and around Bakugou is what his body is built for, two stars in orbit, but sometimes it’s like walking on a tightrope.
The problem is that Shouto isn’t sure why he’s so afraid of falling.
So he doesn’t say anything, just lets his face do its thing for him. Most people think he’s impassive, but Bakugou’s always been better at reading him than most, especially the last few years. Shouto doesn’t know what he’ll see.
“I just didn’t know where else to go,” Bakugou says at last. He swallows, a visible bob of his Adam’s apple, and Shouto pauses just to watch it move. His thumb stays on Bakugou’s open wound. Bakugou lets him.
Shouto doesn’t know if that means Kirishima is busy, or if Kaminari and Jirou are still on shift, or if Izuku and Ochako are on call, or if it means that this is the kind of night where everything is so helpless that Bakugou ends up at his door because Shouto has seen the most torn-asunder pieces of him, and has never closed the door.
All of the others would drop everything to help Bakugou, Shouto knows. He’s sure Bakugou knows too.
But there are some destructions that are too jagged to want anyone else to see, and Bakugou has always had a harder time bearing it than most. Izuku forgave him for the worst of himself, and Kirishima has been his rock through many nights when the way he felt about himself and others ate him up, but Shouto has always been the one he’s come to when he feels himself tearing at the seams.
It’s not for any reason, really. Shouto has always done the same thing. It’s not about trust, or care, because Shouto trusts Tenya more than anyone, and Bakugou would die before believing Kirishima would ever betray him, and they both know they always have Izuku in their corner – it’s just that the two of them have always been a little more war-born than the others.
War-born. War-torn.
Their whole cohort was war-torn, Shouto muses. More so for how unprepared for it they were when they were thrust into it.
But Shouto was weaned on violence.
But Bakugou has always looked for the fight.
Once, a few months before Shouto turned seventeen, he had broken Bakugou’s nose. Not intentionally – well, he’d hit him intentionally when they were sparring, but not with that intent – but he’d done it all the same. Bakugou’s face, covered in blood. Shouto’s hands, desperately searching for first aid supplies on his utility belt.
Bakugou’s blood had streamed down Shouto’s skin, running over his hands – pressing gauze against the blood flow, trembling a little, only yesterday you were using those same hands to ghost against his, hey katsuki can we—? – and trickling down his arms, and all Bakugou had done was laugh. Teeth bared, half-feral, blood in his mouth, and laughing, grinning at Shouto like he’d given him the best gift in the world instead of a painful injury and possible concussion.
“Fuckin’ finally, Half ‘n’ Half,” Bakugou had said, before spitting out some blood.
Shouto should probably not have found that as attractive as he did.
“Been waiting for fuckin’ ever for you to land a goddamn hit,” Bakugou had said, grinning and bloody and beautiful. Shouto had thought: I want to kiss you.
“That’s the adrenaline talking,” Shouto had said automatically, smiling a little when Bakugou scoffed at him.
“As fuckin’ if,” Bakugou had said, but he’d smiled the whole way to Recovery Girl.
Shouto looks at Bakugou now – no longer seventeen, a gash across his face instead of a broken nose, but still with his face in Shouto’s trembling hands, still beautiful, still here with Shouto, all these years later, with all these other places to go – and he says, “Come in.”
Bakugou’s eyes snap back up from where they’re trained on the wall beside Shouto’s door, meeting his.
Shouto, are you sure? He doesn’t know who the voice belongs to. Momo, maybe – she likes Bakugou fine, but she’s always been Shouto’s friend first. Or Tenya, possibly, who thinks of everyone. Fuyumi, maybe, with wringing hands, because she likes Bakugou, but she was the one who found Shouto in the corridor at the hospital, sitting outside Bakugou’s room after he almost drowned fighting a kaiju last year, eyes swollen and hands trembling. Or Izuku, maybe, because being in both their corners has always put him in the unique position of understanding them enough to know that the way they feel about each other has never been the problem.
“Shouto,” and it’s quiet, and hesitant, and it’s Bakugou – quiet in the night, eighteen and the sky is on fire, and so is your heart, and so are his eyes, and so is your name in his mouth, scorching and delicate all at once, hey katsuki are we—? – and he’s looking at him. “... You sure?”
No, Shouto thinks.
He steps back, releases Bakugou’s face. Watches the half-resignation, half-disappointment shutter across Bakugou’s face, then pushes the door further open behind himself.
Bakugou’s eyes widen.
Shouto takes a deep breath.
“Come in,” he repeats, and this time, Bakugou does.
“Looks…” Bakugou starts, then he pauses. Tilts his head as he takes in the bright yellow raincoat hanging on the hook, much too small for Shouto. His gaze travels down to the pink sandals on the floor beneath it. “Is the rugrat here?” he asks, voice suddenly hushed. A little reverent.
Shouto nods. “There was an emergency situation with one of Natsuo’s cases – they wanted him onsite to help advise the surgeon and the client. Fuyumi would have happily taken her, but she barely gets enough sleep as it is – new baby and all. And Mum’s staying with her, so…” Shouto trails off, then shrugs. “I was awake, and happy to take her.”
Bakugou nods. Then: “Fuyumi had her baby?”
A sudden, inexplicable grief rocks through Shouto at that, but only for a moment. A flash of devastation. You should have known that, he thinks, and he doesn’t know who to hold to account for that. You would have wanted to know that.
“Yeah,” Shouto whispers. “He’s – he’s loud.”
Bakugou gives him a look – exasperated, but fond, so fond that Shouto almost can’t stand it, not when they’re like this, half a metre apart, both close enough that Shouto could map the inside of Bakugou’s chest by instinct alone and so far away that Shouto doesn’t even know if he’s allowed to touch him.
“Babies are like that, Icyhot,” Bakugou says, and Shouto doesn’t know what to do with his first thought: it’s been so long since you called me that.
He’d known he missed it, but he hadn’t realised how much.
“I’ll introduce you to him,” Shouto says. Bakugou’s breath hitches. “You can compete with him on lung capacity,” Shouto continues.
Bakugou snorts, but he looks at Shouto carefully. “You don’t have to,” he says.
“I don’t have to do a lot of things,” Shouto murmurs after a moment, then reaches out for Bakugou’s hand and leads him to the bathroom.
It’s systematic. They’ve done this before. This is routine – removing wet clothes, throwing the jacket in the bathtub, Bakugou down to his tank top and boxers, pressed between Shouto and the sink as Shouto carefully wipes his face clean of grime, then cleans the cut. One wince for the first dab of antiseptic; a second for the way Shouto lowers the temperature of his fingers to numb the cut as he carefully dresses it.
This is also routine – Bakugou’s eyes falling on Shouto’s lips, the way their breaths hitch when they brush up too close to each other, Bakugou’s heartbeat rocketing into Shouto’s ribcage. One wince for how close they are; a second for the way they’re still not close enough, even if neither of them dare to breach the gap.
They end up back in the living room, and Shouto watches Bakugou watch his niece.
“She still wanna be a pro hero when she grows up?” Bakugou asks.
Shouto’s lips quirk up on one side. “She can’t decide if she wants to be Dynamight or Red Riot,” he says, and delights in the way Bakugou whips his head to look at him, expression shocked. A little touched.
“Kid’s got good taste,” he says after a moment, but his voice is rough. Emotional.
It makes Shouto ache.
If they were better at this, maybe this would be where Shouto would ask him if he’d want one himself, if he’d want them to be anything like him, if he’s ever thought about it, hey katsuki would you ever—?
But they are not better at this, and Shouto’s heart aches when he watches the way Bakugou’s expression softens when he looks back at Hitomi.
You guys keep going in circles, a drunk Izuku had said once, gesturing wildly. And you’re making the circles! Instead of going straight! It’s like you’re, I don’t know, scared to get in close or something.
Not scared, Shouto thinks, remembering his friend’s earnest eyes. Not of getting in close. Of – of what we do to each other if we do it wrong.
Bakugou can do anything he puts his mind to, Shouto thinks, but he remembers a teenage boy quietly telling him he doesn’t know how to fix things.
Shouto knows that Bakugou is not easily breakable, but Shouto has always been built for destruction, and he does not know if he trusts his hands with something as complicated and wonderful as Bakugou.
“Thanks,” Bakugou says, turning back to Shouto. He quirks his lips up, but the smile doesn’t reach his eyes, not really. It’s like a sidestep to the left; like there’s something else in his eyes instead. “I should…”
“Do you want to stay?” Shouto asks. Quick and sudden, like a blade to the skin.
He waits for the blood to flow.
Bakugou’s eyes, half-wild. Bakugou’s expression, caught. Half-wistful. Half-guarded.
“I shouldn’t,” he says, and Shouto’s heart plummets, because it’s not a yes, and he’s right.
(I shouldn’t, he says, and Shouto’s heart soars, because it’s not a no, and Shouto is weak.)
“Probably not,” Shouto says, throat dry.
Bakugou’s eyes do that complicated thing again, wanting and frustrated and unsure, everything, all at once.
“But I’m asking you to anyway,” Shouto continues, quiet.
Bakugou blinks, long and slow. Moments pass. Centuries, even.
Shouto wants it to be over. Shouto thinks he’d wait eternities for this.
“Will you dry me off, then?” Bakugou finally asks. “Don’t wanna get your furniture wet.”
Shouto’s heart leaps.
“Sure,” he says. “Gotta make myself useful, right?”
It’s a joke, or sort of – a callback, maybe, to when they were teenagers, and Bakugou would grumble at Shouto to be useful until he pressed himself against Bakugou and warmed him.
But Bakugou just looks at him.
“You’re enough,” he says, voice gruff. Quiet. “Always. You know that, right?”
Oh.
Shouto swallows. “I do now,” he says, more a breath than words.
Bakugou closes his eyes for a moment, like something is striking at him, but he opens his eyes. They’re a little wet. It could be a trick of the light.
“Better late than never,” Bakugou murmurs, then looks at Shouto. “Okay,” he says.
That’s all, but Shouto takes his hand. Pulls him into his bedroom – presses his left side against Bakugou’s skin and clothes, warms him up, shakily inhales the scent of nitroglycerin as Bakugou’s breath hitches – sinks into the futon, and watches as Bakugou shuffles a little closer, curling more into him.
Shouto thinks about the easy way out: not to say anything, or to head him off from the outset, tell him he can leave before Hitomi wakes up if he wants – to save Shouto’s pride from being left, or to keep Bakugou from feeling trapped, or –
Shouto thinks about Izuku saying that sometimes paths can be straight, and takes a deep breath.
(hey katsuki you know i’m in—)
“Hitomi likes pancakes,” he says, stark in the depths of the night. A beat. Two. “Please stay,” he whispers.
There is no answer.
Todoroki Shouto goes to sleep next to Bakugou Katsuki on a rainy Tuesday at eleven thirty pm.
He wakes up on Wednesday morning, and Bakugou is there, looking at him. Looking caught, looking hesitant, but he’s there, looking at Shouto, and he’s so, so beautiful.
And he stayed.
“Hey, Katsuki,” Shouto says, voice sleep-slurred, but warmer than anything he’s ever managed with his quirk. “Do you like pancakes?”
He’s not bleeding this time, and it’s half-crooked rather than half-feral, but when Bakugou Katsuki smiles at him, Shouto still thinks: I want to kiss you.