Work Text:
One
Izuku buys chicken nuggets at the store every so often. Most of the time he avoids them because he’s pretty sure that there are days when Kacchan catches him eating that shit food and debates ending him. Probably because Kacchan can actually cook, and firmly believes that everyone should have the better diet like heroes if they’re already in the top high school. Possibly true, since a better diet could serve them well in their futures, but also they were teenagers and he loves chicken nuggets.
Shouto moves to sit next to him on the couch. Only he pauses as he catches a glimpse at the food on Izuku’s plate. “What are those?”
“Have you never had chicken nuggets before?” Of all the crimes that he’s heard from Todoroki’s childhood. Including the ones that have led him to believe that committing murder against the number two hero int he nation, may not be nearly as evil of an action as he once thought, this might take the cake. Everyone should know what a chicken nugget is, even if their parents are strict and don’t let them have them often.
Shouto shakes his head. He reaches out a hand and snatches one from the plate. He pops it into his mouth. “Oh, these taste nice.”
That’s the end of the discussion in Izuku’s mind. At least, other than the fact that he’ll cook enough chicken nuggets for them both whenever he chooses to make them. That’s all he thought about it until everyone started laughing in the group chat and bugging him to come downstairs.
Shouto is sitting on the couch. A bag of frozen chicken nuggets next to him. And he’s flash cooking them with flames to throw straight into his mouth. Half the class is filming him while laughing.
Izuku can’t help but join in with the laughter. “Honey, you’re supposed to use an oven or a microwave.”
“Boring, I have flames for a reason.”
Surprisingly, there’s no argument for that one. Quirks have been used for random stuff like that for forever, and since it is Shouto using the fire side of his powers without wanting to scream or shout at what Endeavor did, Izuku will support his crazy chicken nugget eating tendencies.
Two
The two of them didn’t always make the most sense. They were the two richest people in the class, and they absolutely loved shoving money at their friends to make some of the more simple problems just fade away, but that doesn’t really effect the truth that they work together.
Momo hangs off his desk before Aizawa gets to class, and he tangles his hand in hers when they walk to practice their sparring. They move together. Hell, if Aizawa ever paired them up together in a training match with partners, she’s sure that they would move worlds.
Nothing beats the days when they curl up in one of their two rooms and ignore the rest of reality though. Movies in the background, just basking in the fact that they are alive. They are alive and happy and good.
Similarly, none of her friends have ever been super vocal about her needing to come see something that her boyfriend is doing before either. Which is how she finds herself being led by Ochako and Ashido into the main group area.
Shouto has his hand stuck into a bag of frozen chicken and is slowly cooking them to stick into his mouth one at a time.
Ochako points at this as if she’s supposed to have some great reaction to it. In all fairness, she does have a great reaction to it. Most of the time those bags of chicken nuggets are made by her, because neither of them want the rant from others if their parents find out that they had the audacity to buy such a cheap thing when they have the money for so much more. And trust her, they have the money for so much more.
She pulls her hands out of the other girls’ grasp and flips herself over the couch. She tucks herself in under Shouto’s arm. He moves it for her almost the second that he sees her.
He starts handing her pieces of the chicken to eat as well. One for him, and one for her. Both flash cooked by the flames in his hand, and when the bag starts to run empty. Well, it isn’t like anyone but them is ever going to know that she made sure that the bag wasn’t empty during the group movie.
Or that the rest of the class doesn’t have blackmail material by ensuring that none of those videos ever make it onto the internet. That’s just being smart. If they want to be pro heroes, they’re going to have to work to not get caught doing all the stupid shit one of these days. But, things like this are what makes living the hero life worth it.
Three
Sero has gotten used to three things since starting to date Shouto. One, expect absolutely nothing. He does not understand half of the common tropes for couples, and if you ask about them, he’ll just get all flustered and confused. Two, if you are upset, always anticipate that whatever you were upset by is going to be destroyed. Three, neither of these two things are proof of love one way or another, that can be easily found out by a simple question. Every time he asks whether Shouto loves him, he gets the same answer, yes.
He has news though. He has news for the Bakusquad because he needs to tell them that the relationship is serious. He needs them to know that he fully plans on loving Shouto for the rest of their existence, and he would drastically prefer if they didn’t make fun of him for it. Problem is making fun of Shouto is kind of easy. He doesn’t get all the social cues, and that makes him an easy target.
Sero groans. He digs out his phone to send a message to Shouto. Wish me luck, please
You still haven’t told me what it is you’re doing.
But yes, for whatever good it does, good luck. I believe that it will go well.
Denki throws the door open almost the second that Sero arrives. “My dude, you’re nearly late.” Then, he’s being dragged into the room.
Bakugou takes one look at him and raises an eyebrow. “You good?”
Sero shrugs. “Got something to say before we start going all crazy over Kaminari’s video games.”
“So say it.”
Mina and Kirishima both lean over to slug him in the shoulders, but Bakugou just keeps that same stare on him. He doesn’t seem to be bothered that either of the others think that he’s being rude, which checks out. He just wants to know what the hell is happening and doesn’t really care why everything else is happening.
“So, you all know that I’ve been dating Shouto.”
“Yes, dumbass, if we didn’t, we couldn’t possibly call ourselves heroes, with how fucking obvious the two of you are all the time.”
Kirishima pinches Bakugou to get him to fall quiet. “Of course, man. We’re happy that you two are doing well. Are you running into problems?”
“Problems?” Bakugou laughs. “The two of them are draped over each other at every possibility. Even the teachers would know if an issue happened that was causing them to be close to a breakup.”
“I was more hoping for some support.”
“Support for what?” Mina asks. She wraps an arm around him. “Not that the Bakusquad needs to know what you need, just a general direction of what you need, and we’ll be there. No further questions needed.”
“I kind of want to propose before our graduation.”
Bakugou holds out his hand with a smirk on his face. Both Kirishima and Denki are forced to slap money into his hold. “Did you get the ring?”
“Umm, yeah.”
“And you’re confident on your choice?”
Choruses of “Are you fucking serious” span throughout the group. Bakugou doesn’t pay them anymore mind now then he did at the start. He’s completely willing to enrage the others.
“Because this is what your prospective husband is doing right now.” Bakugou throws a phone over to him.
There’s a video streaming all over the internet, of Shouto right outside of a grocery store as he eats the bag of frozen chicken nuggets with tiny flames coming from his hands. The video has over 200,000 views and is growing every second.
Sero breaks out in a full grin. “Yeah, I’m pretty sure I want to marry that idiot in particular.”
His friends all high five him as they ditch the video games for the night. They have a proposal to plan for epic good times.
Four
Mina is perched on top of the couch as half the class is yelling at her boyfriend. Not that they’ve come out to any of their friends about the fact that they’re dating but still.
Shouto has decided that today is the perfect day to attempt his newest idea. Which is cooking chicken nuggets in the palm of his left hand rather than having to stand up and walk all the way to a microwave to use it.
The first attempt ended as horribly as everyone anticipated it ending. With a fried charred nugget on the floor after Ochako managed to spray it with the fire extinguisher before the fire alarms went off. That part is drastically important because if they have to drag Aizawa in here for something this stupid, he will make all of them regret it for the rest of eternity.
Now, Izuku has his journals out as he’s coaching everyone on how he thinks the best way to cook them in the palm of his hand would be. Mina could probably do this better. Mostly by grabbing the bag, walking to the microwave, and they’d be ready before anyone could figure out the temperature gauge.
She doesn’t move to do that though. She just watches as the intensity in the room goes up with every failed chicken nugget on the floor. At this point, the first bag is gone and Izuku has donated his own chicken nuggets to the game.
Kaminari sneaks up behind her. “We’re planning on slipping out to do anything else, you in?”
“Nah, he’ll get this eventually.”
“And you want to watch the extra succeed or something?” Bakugou questions as he arrives near them.
“Something like that.” She quirks her mouth into a true smile, something that Bakugou rarely questions, and in all honesty usually results in him leaving her alone.
This time, he drops into the seat next to her. “This is purely academic interest.”
“Uhuh.”
Mina has often wondered whether Bakugou would like to be friends with Shouto, but he keeps most of his feelings always bottled away. She leans her head on his shoulder as they both stare at her boyfriend.
She can tell when Shouto realizes that she’s tired and staying for him. Because the next three nuggets are cooked perfectly. One goes into his mouth, one is shoved into Izuku’s outstretched hand, and the final one ends up close to her.
“A nugget, my lady?”
She leans over and eats it out of his hand. “Thank you.”
Bakugou laughs. “That your reason?”
She winks at him as she lets Shouto pick her up to start carrying her back to her room. “Well of course. It would be rude to leave my boyfriend to Izuku’s journals without any backup.”
He rolls his eyes. “Take care of her, Icyhot.”
Five
Fighting against villains is exhausting. It doesn’t matter whether it managed to be a night without civilians in any danger, or one where the cops are happy because there’s a fool behind bars finally. Because they’ve been fighting for years, ever since they were children.
Shinsou stands next to him right outside the police taped off area. He barely had time in this operation, but it was his contacts that had set this up. And he was the one who intervened before the villain could take hostages.
Still, Shouto’s the one who had to spend most of this time making sure that quirks didn’t go haywire during this whole situation. He had also been the one to make the traps and the end arrest. Plus, the lovely bruise to the side of his head from where the stone hands had slammed him into a wall.
Shinsou huffs as Shouto moves to leave. “Medical says that you can’t be alone tonight, in case you have internal bleeding.”
“I literally do not care.”
Shinsou glares at him but leads him to his car. “Yeah, well, I don’t want anyone having any reason to claim that I’m not a team player, and all that shit, so just deal with the fact that I’m taking you to my place.”
The car door closes, flashes from the cameras catch the two of them leaving, but once they leave the crime scene both men drop the masks.
“I couldn’t leave on my own?”
Shinsou chuckles. “I didn’t trust you to remain standing on your own two legs, so I chose to get creative to get you in my car without the media speculating correctly.”
“You mean about how we’ve been dating for five years, ever since we were graduated practically.”
“Hey, I made it a month before tracking you down.”
Shouto growls. Not that he means anything by it. They’ve made their peace about the stalking aspects of the beginning. And the whole, everyone in the media will believe that he’s under mind control if they ever come out about the fact that they’re dating each other. That doesn’t mean reminders don’t make him super upset.
Shinsou rolls his eyes. He leads them both up into their apartment. He slips into the kitchen to hand Shouto his chicken nuggets from the freezer. “You should eat.”
Shouto sticks his hand into the bag, digs out about five of them, flash cooks them and starts eating. He knows that Shinsou is right. He needs to eat after a fight like that or tomorrow he will be a monster to literally anyone that comes anywhere near him, but at the same time, he wants to just lay down on the bed and pass out.
“Don’t you dare start complaining about how much effort it is to eat, Mr. I flash cook chicken nuggets in the palms of my hands.” Shinsou is back in the kitchen, making himself some toast.
“I’m sure with some burnt bread, I could figure out toast too.”
Shinsou laughs. “Nah, this relaxes me more than the other could.” He presses a soft kiss to Todoroki’s cheek. “Go get some rest.”
Shouto goes without complaint into their bedroom. Life is good, even when villains make it difficult to believe in the nice portions of life.
+ one
Shouto has a love for all things quick and easy. Maybe it is because he never got all that much attention growing up, and he loves the little rebellious impulses that pop up. Like using his father’s money to buy ridiculous snacks, like chicken nuggets and then eating them incorrectly. Or maybe it has a lot more to do with the fact that he likes people starting to underestimate him.
He’s used to the way that his father shouts at him to be better with every given battle. He’s used to the way that Izuku and all of their friends believing that he can be the best that he can be on any given day, but what he loves more than all of that, are the other set of days. The ones where someone thinks that they have a shot against him because he was laying under a tree. Or the ones where no one was expecting him to go charging into danger to save a classmate, because those were things for other people to do.
That’s why he doesn’t correct people who assume he’s too lazy to go to the kitchen to cook the chicken nuggets. Also why he doesn’t bother to say a word as they tease him about it as another movie is chosen by the class.
None of them notice the way that Kirishima glares at the bag of chicken nuggets like it is personally offending him. None of them notice that Kaminari almost steals the whole bag a total of seven times within a few minutes.
Shouto notices, but he doesn’t say anything. He knows that Katsuki was making his favorite in the kitchen, and he also knows how many calories they both burned off on the training grounds today. They could afford a few more bites, and the snack would ensure that he doesn’t actually push his luck and bother Katsuki while he’s in the kitchen.
He gets away with this plan for quite a while. Until Mina comes flouncing into the room and snatches the bag of chicken nuggets with a true pout on her face. “You’re so mean, Todoroki.”
“Mina, I’m allowed to snack.”
She turns towards Kirishima, the pout still firmly planted on her face. “Tell him.”
“Bakubro is making your favorite in the kitchen, and he might be sad to hear that you were willing to eat something else.”
Shouto sighs. They never have learned that he wouldn’t do a thing to upset Katsuki, especially not when soba is on the line. Still, they underestimate him and that’s better than the alternative. “Hey, Kats, do you care?”
“Do I care what, candy cane?” Katsuki’s head pops out of the kitchen. “Oh, Mina, could relocate those to the freezer, my meal will be ready in about ten minutes, and he’ll finish the bag if you let him.”
“So you do care,” she exclaims fist pumping the air.
“No, he’s hungry because of all the extra training we did. He needs the pick me up of the nuggets before the meal or he’ll starve half to death while waiting for me to finish it.” Katsuki smiles at him. “It just means that he gets his favorite snack and favorite meal today.”
Shouto can’t help the smile that climbs up his face. He stands up to kiss Katsuki before the other man sneaks back into the kitchen. He smirks at all of the leering that goes up around that. “It is our anniversary, guys. I’m not that much of an asshole.”
The spluttering as not a single one of them had out the date together, makes him laugh the whole time that Katsuki is ensuring everyone gets fed. He’s happy to be here, with a boyfriend who will not only let him cook chicken nuggets in the palm of his hand, but also make him cold soba for their anniversary while he snacks on said chicken nuggets. That is the good life.