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Chapter Text

Katsuki stomps into the classroom and dumps his backpack onto the first desk he sees before slouching into the seat. Detention on the first fucking day at this school. He can’t decide whether to be pissed off or proud of himself.

He doesn’t pay attention when other people walk in, too preoccupied with picking at the bits of tissue still sticking to the dried blood on his knuckles. Stupid nurse didn’t think to bring proper gauze on the first day?

“Soooo, what are you guys in for?”

Irritated at the disturbance, Katsuki finally looks up and does a quick assessment of the room. The detention monitor, Mr. Aizawa, is slumped over his desk, asleep. Lazy bastard. It seems the other students – four others – have decided to take advantage of the lack of supervision, pulling out snacks and moving around in their seats.

Katsuki looks over at the seat near the window occupied by a tall, lanky kid dressed in ratty loose jeans, an oversized red flannel over a plain white shirt with some holes in it, a pair of beat up Vans on his feet, and a yellow beanie with black hair poking out underneath. Small silver hoops hang from his ears. He’s pulled out a bag of chips and what looks like soy sauce packets, of all things. Katsuki watches in disgust as he proceeds to dump the contents of the packets into the bag of perfectly good chips.

His eyes move two seats over to land on a girl with short, bright pink hair and an outfit that nearly blinds him with the amount of neon, from her holographic purple headband and matching choker to her vomit green crop top and knee high socks, with plenty of pink to match her hair in her skirt, holographic shoes, and fishnet gloves. Katsuki can’t figure out how she’s managed to fit so much metal on both her ears, with small chains and studs clanging at every turn of the head. She’s given up on her chair completely and is currently sitting on the desk itself.

He brings his gaze over to the guy sitting a few seats ahead of him with bright red, spiky hair, with matching red sneakers and muscle tank with a band logo on it that Katsuki vaguely recognizes as the punk band Red Riot. Gee, I wonder what his favorite color is. The only parts of his outfit not matching his obnoxious hairdo are the black cuffs he wears around his wrists and his black jeans, a thick chain hanging off that clinks as he moves to kick one foot up on the seat next to him while pulling a bag of what looks like corner store jerky out of his backpack. His obnoxious chewing brings attention to the piercing on his lip.

Finally, Katsuki’s eyes land on the source of the grating voice he’d heard earlier, a blond kid with hair going in every direction, dressed in a black leather jacket over a yellow shirt with a black lightning bolt in the center, black jeans, and combat boots with yellow lightning bolts painted on. He’s leaning back in his chair with his hands behind his head and his feet kicked up on his desk, looking to all the world like he owns the whole room. Katsuki has to fight the urge to punch the smug look off his face, right in the hoop attached to his raised eyebrow.

The neon chick answers first, with way more enthusiasm than Katsuki thinks is warranted. “Dress code violation! Ms. Kayama said she’s never seen someone break that many dress code rules at once. I swear, she was totally impressed!” She finishes off with a giggle that’s almost as grating on Katsuki’s ears as the first idiot’s voice.

The guy with the shitty red hair perked up at her response. “Oh, me too! Except mine was just for the red hair.” He gives a sheepish grin as if he’s, for some reason, embarrassed at only breaking one rule in the dress code.

The Kurt Cobain wannabe speaks up next around a mouthful of chips. “I got detention for skateboarding in the halls.” He lifts up his yellow skateboard covered in stickers and duct tape, as if to show as proof, and gives a dismissive shrug. “It’s not like I crashed into anyone or anything. It just gets me around faster.”

“Damn, now I feel kinda lame. I just got detention for being too loud in class.” The blonde kid that had prompted everyone says with a shit eating grin on his face, clearly still proud of himself. “My name is Denki, by the way! Denki Kaminari.”

The skateboard kid grins back. “Oh right, I’m Hanta!”

The pink-haired girl raises her hand as if to call attention to herself – as if the walking traffic accident needs any extra help doing that – and said, “Mina Ashido, nice to meet you guys!”

The red head sits up a bit at that. “We actually went to middle school together, I’m Eijiro Kirishima.”

The girl almost physically racks her brain for a second before looking back at him, wide-eyed and apologetic. “Sorry, doesn’t ring a bell.”

“Ah, it’s fine, I wasn’t really memorable back then,” the spikey-haired kid finishes his sentence off with chuckle. Katsuki rolls his eyes. Who just admits that?

Suddenly the chick looks directly at Katsuki, and he notices for a split second how unnaturally dark her eyes look surrounded by all that color before she points her holographic fingernail right at him and asks, “What about you?”

“Eh!?” All eyes immediately turn to him.

Katsuki shifts from where he was slumped in his seat, uncomfortable with all the attention suddenly directed at him. He has on a loose black t-shirt with a skull in the center over a white long-sleeve currently stained with blood – the old hag is gonna get on him for that for sure –, loose black jeans with several chains hanging off, scuffed up combat boots, and a short silver chain hanging off his neck to match the ones around his wrists and the silver studs in his ears that could give the pink-haired girl a run for her money. All that, matched with his signature spiky blonde hair and black eyeliner, and most people who see him are quick to look away, just how Katsuki likes it. But these weirdos just stare at him, patiently waiting for him to respond.

When he doesn’t, the kid in the leather jacket takes it upon himself to prompt him. “What are you in here for my dude?”

Katsuki lifts an eyebrow at their questioning faces. Even if they haven’t noticed the blood quite literally still on his hands, he had stupidly let his guard down long enough for dumb Deku to get in a decent hit to face and has the busted lip to prove it. It seems these idiots, though, need everything spelled out for them.

“What are you dumbasses all blind? I got in a fight. Of course, it’d be more obvious if you could see the other guy.”

This was usually the part where people tend to either back off in fear or try to decide if they could take Katsuki in a fight themselves. But these morons must all be missing their fight or flight responses, because instead he’s met with a barrage of questions.

“Who did you fight?”

“Why did you fight him? Did he start it?”

“Did you win?”

Katsuki briefly considers ignoring the invasive questions, but they all look genuinely interested, almost excited, like they weren’t judging him for fighting in the first place, which was more than he’d gotten from anyone in the office, and he figures this is probably going to be his only chance to vent. Or brag, depending on who you’re asking.

“I fought that loser Deku. He’s been bugging me ever since we were kids and my mom convinced him it was his life mission or whatever to be a ‘good influence on me’, and today he finally pushed it too far and pissed me off.” He frowns at the memory of Deku insisting that Katsuki spend all his time with him and his nerd friends because “it’d be nice for you to have some real friends in high school”. The patronizing tone alone had been enough to make Katsuki throw the first punch. “And of course I fucking won! Like hell was I gonna to lose to a nerd like that. Tch, the only reason he managed to get this hit in is because he can’t fight his own battles and needs his little girlfriend to protect him, and I’m not gonna hit a fucking girl. – Well, I’m not gonna hit a girl I don’t know can throw a punch right back.” His frown deepens into a scowl as he thinks back to how that round-faced girl managed to pull him back enough for Deku to swing at him, unconsciously picking at the scab on his lip.

“Oooh, childhood rivalry, how dramatic!”

“Nice dude!”

“Good on you for being willing to take a hit to stand by your morals. That’s super manly!”

“But hey, at least the cut on your lip makes you look totally badass!”

Katsuki’s eyes widen as they all lean towards him and start chattering at the same time. Definitely not the reaction he expected.

Suddenly the girl lets out a squeal that makes Katsuki wince and silences the others.

“Oh my God! This is just like The Breakfast Club! We should all totally be best friends after this!”

Katsuki rolls his eyes for what feels like the millionth time in the past five minutes as the rest of the extras nod and grin in agreement. “You watch too many goddamn movies.”

Speaking turns out to be a mistake, because as soon as he does her grin widens. “What was your name again?”

Katsuki narrows his eyes at her enthusiasm. “Never mentioned it actually.”

She rolls her eyes at his suspicion. “Come oooon! We already told you all about us, and we should at least have a name to tell when we talk about the super cool fighter we met in detention.”

Katsuki scowls at her logic and relents. “Katsuki Bakugo.”

She somehow brightens up even more at that. “I love it! Since you’ve got the most badass reason for being here, I hereby dub this friend group the Bakusquad!”

“Ha!?”

Katsuki’s eyes nearly pop out of his head as the weirdos around him let out a cheer at the ridiculous new moniker. Before he has a chance to tell them all how stupid they are for agreeing to that, let alone for thinking he would ever be friends with any of them, the detention monitor sits straight up and sternly tells them all to quiet down. The only sound for a while is restrained snickers from the four idiots until it’s decided that Mr. Aizawa is once again deeply asleep, and then Katsuki just sits and stares as everyone around him fangirls at the idea of being a “squad”.

“Hey, do you guys think I could get a dress code violation if I dye a black lightning bolt in my hair?”

Morons, all of them.

Chapter Text

It’s been a little over a week since that first day of school where Katsuki had to deal with an hour of some random idiots insisting they were all “besties” and a “squad” now just because they all managed to piss off the teachers on the same day. Since then, they haven’t left him the fuck alone. He had figured since they’re all morons and he’s mostly in honors classes that he wouldn’t have to worry about ever seeing them again, but they had managed to find him at every lunch break, found his locker, and, of course, regularly shared detention with him. As if it couldn’t get any worse, the blonde lightning freak ended up in the same music elective class as him, and has decided to spend every class talking Katsuki’s ear off until he ends up losing his patience and yelling at the dumbass to back off.

Not that Katuski could worry about any of that now. No, right now he’s mostly preoccupied with dodging fists and trying to land some of his own.

He’s not stupid. He knows that, even with the hundreds of patches and pins he’d managed to fit on his backpack, the bright, rainbow-colored button would stand out the most, and it was only a matter of time before someone tried to see if that made him an easy target. Hell, he’d practically welcomed the moment, wondering if hanging a flag in his locker would be too much.

What he hadn’t expected, though, is for that person to be too much of a wimp to fight one-on-one.

But when that preppy rich kid, something-Monoma, had come up to him at his locker, hurling insults before finally letting out that fateful slur, Katsuki didn’t even spare a glance at the sasquatch and praying mantis-looking fuckers that had strolled up with the asshole before he slammed his fist right in that smug grin.

That was how he’d ended up in the situation he’s in now, being held up by the giant hairy guy while the prep and his insect-looking friend take turns landing punches on Katsuki’s chest and face.

Katsuki manages to kick Monoma in the face and pulls his legs back to try and land another one when, out of the corner of his eye, he sees a flash of red before he finally feels his arms being released. He doesn’t bother to look back, having had that mess of red spikes forced in his face too many times in the past week for him to wonder who it is.

Despite still being outnumbered, Katsuki and Eijiro work great as a team, having each other’s back when they need it and trusting the other to take care of himself when they don’t. By the time a teacher finally shows up, they’ve basically cleaned house, with Monoma and his lackeys practically laying on top of each other, trying and failing to stand upright.

Since it’s already the end of the school day, Katsuki and Eijiro are sent immediately to detention – because of-fucking-course they believe that stupid trust fund baby’s word over his – with Katsuki being given a formal warning that another fight will result in a suspension.

Eijiro swings an arm around Katsuki’s shoulders as they walk out of Principal Nezu’s office, and Katsuki lets him as a small thanks for the assist – he refuses to use the word “help”.

“Hey man, how’s your face doing? You’re looking a little swollen in some places.”

“Tch, you’re one to talk, Hair for Brains.” While Katsuki had clearly taken the brunt of the other guys’ hits, Eijiro still has a few bumps and bruises himself, and his signature spikes are a mess. But despite this, the guy is grinning at Katsuki like always, even laughing at his insult. Weirdo.

Only taking a second to hesitate, Katsuki tries to look as uninterested as possible as he asks the question that’s been nagging at the back of his mind since the fight ended. “Why did you jump in back there anyway?”

Eijiro gives him a lopsided smile that makes the tips of Katsuki’s ears turn pink. “I heard what he said back there, dude. And even if I didn’t have a stake in it, it wouldn’t be very manly of me to just stand by and let them beat up my bro!”

Didn’t have a stake in – Ah. Katsuki huffs and rolls his eyes in response, scratching at the side of his head in an attempt to hide the deepening blush on his ears.

They sit next to each other in detention, and once it’s clear that Mr. Yamada is too lost in whatever music is playing in his headphones to hear anything, they spend their time talking about anything and everything, like how Eijiro likes punk rock while Katsuki prefers heavy metal, how Eijiro got the scar over his eye, and even touching on Katsuki’s issues with Deku – who’s apparently in Eijiro’s weightlifting elective class, because of-fucking-course he is.

As the redhead glances down to check a notification on his phone, Katsuki can’t help but look at him, almost searching for something. He’s never had anyone help him in a fight before. Deku’s tried to break up his fights plenty of times in the past, but that’s mostly resulted in him getting in the way and both of them walking away with black eyes as a result. But Eijiro had jumped in without question, and they had worked together so effortlessly, as if they’d been backing each other up their entire lives. Katsuki’s never considered anyone worth his time, let alone his equal. Even those two nerds that are already trying to give him a run for the top spot in their class – Four Eyes and Ponytail, as he’s so creatively dubbed them – are nothing more than obstacles in his way. But this idiot with the ugly ass dye job seems to just get him, almost on instinct, in a way no one ever has before.

Eijiro looks up at him, biting his lip and shaking as if to hold back a laugh, and before Katsuki even has the time to be embarrassed at getting caught staring, Eijiro’s phone is being shoved in his face.

“Look at what the rest of the squad’s been up to while we were being punished for getting hate-crimed.”

Katsuki snatches the phone out of his hand and takes a look. In a group chat, someone had sent a picture of what an earlier text says is Monoma’s locker looking completely vandalized. These extras somehow managed to get their hands on rainbow colored duct tape and had sealed it over every opening possible. Several brightly colored zip ties are tied tightly through the handle for good measure. That fucker isn’t getting anything out of there any time soon.

But the real kicker is what’s spray painted over the locker in big, colorful letters:

“Gay Pride Mother Fucker!”

Katsuki throws his head back with a cackle, which finally sets off Eijiro, and soon they’re both laughing so hard Katsuki is convinced Mr. Yamada is trying to burst his own eardrums if he’s playing music so loud he can’t hear them.

When they’re finally breathing normally, Katsuki, who still has Eijiro’s phone clutched in his fist, quickly types in his number before handing it back with a smirk. “Send that to me, Shitty Hair.”

The grin the other boy gives him is only worth the small act of friendship for a second before the redhead opens his mouth and says, “Awesome! I’ll add you to the Bakusquad group chat!”

The smirk drops from Katsuki’s face as his phone is suddenly blowing up with texts from the other idiots. He glares over at Eijiro and gives him a growl that would make anyone else back off in fear, but the guy just chuckles and goes back to responding to the group chat.

Katsuki stops growling and gives the other boy a hard look before sighing and saving his – and only his – number in his phone as “Shitty Hair”. Katsuki can’t help but look back up at the smiling idiot.

Maybe this one’s worth keeping around.

Chapter Text

Katsuki should have known giving those morons an inch would result in them taking a goddamn mile.

Deciding that Eijiro isn’t a complete lost cause seems to have been interpreted as an open invitation to the rest of the idiots. They now spend even more time pestering Katsuki whenever they can find him, which he hadn’t thought was possible. Even worse, because of his split-second moment of weakness, even when he succeeds in avoiding them, they’ll still blow up his phone with stupid memes and even stupider responses. It took about three days of annoying texts from unknown numbers for Katsuki to finally relent enough to at least save their numbers under the nicknames he’s given them – fuck if he’s going to take the time to learn their real names.

And the worst part about it was that the small acceptance he had shown them has shattered any fear they had of him. Now every time he growls at them, they just laugh as if he’d told a joke. The only upside to any of this was seeing the look on that damn nerd Deku’s face when he saw that Katsuki was, in fact, capable of making friends, just not with him.

And of course, there was the fact that Katsuki got to hang out with Eijiro. He’s the only one out of the band of stupid extras that Katsuki would be willing to call a friend, and if he has to put up with those morons to spend time with him, so be it.

Which is how Katsuki finds himself here, a month after the fight with those bigoted assholes, hanging out with these idiots outside of school. It’s a Friday, and Eijiro had spent all of lunch practically begging Katsuki to hang out with all of them after class until he finally gave in, and only because he had already finished all of his homework for the weekend, and he figured this would be just slightly better than sitting in his room bored out of his mind.

They had gone to the movie theater right after school and snuck into the latest superhero movie before getting kicked out halfway through for being too loud. Then Hanta had taken them to a taco truck he claimed has the best tacos in the entire state. After eating four, Katsuki couldn’t really disagree. Despite Soy Sauce’s weird snacking habits, the loser has good taste.

After that, they had wandered around a bit until they stumbled on an empty playground, which they took upon themselves to take advantage of for the rest of the night. Mina is a blur of bright colors on the swing, insisting she’ll be able to swing herself all the way around. Hanta is taking turns between using his skateboard to scrape the paint off of any railing he can find and narrowly missing taking Denki’s head off trying to get enough height to jump over him. Katsuki and Eijiro are sitting at the top of a jungle gym, Katsuki trying to teach the other boy all the different ways to light a match. Eijiro had picked up using a boot faster than using his hand – the idiot has giant hands he has no idea how to use outside of a fight or the gym – but is currently failing to light the match on his teeth for the fifth time now.

Eijiro pouts as another match snaps in half in his mouth. “Maybe I could do it if I sharpen my teeth. Make ‘em all pointy, you know?”

Katsuki rolls his eyes but can’t hold back a fond chuckle. “I already told you, Shitty Hair, it’s not about sharpness, it’s about your teeth being dry and being quick about it.”

Katsuki lights another match on his teeth. His upper jaw is starting to get uncomfortable at the constant pressure, but Eijiro looking at him like he’s made of magic each time makes it worth it.

“Hey Ei! Stop flirting and let me see if I can ollie over two people!”

Katsuki and Eijiro look up to see Hanta waving at them, a shit eating grin on his face, and Denki laughing. Both spiky-haired boys start blushing, and Katsuki thanks whatever God might be out there that it’s too dark to see them properly. Eijiro starts fidgeting, clearly wanting to help with the trick, but not wanting to leave. Katsuki rolls his eyes and jerks his chin towards the others. “Go ahead, just don’t come crying to me when Plain Face cracks your head open, dumbass.” Eijiro grins at him and starts climbing down, but as soon as his feet hit the ground, they’re all suddenly blinded by headlights. Katsuki climbs down after him to see two police officers walking towards them. Shit.

“Show us your hands!”

Hanta puts his skateboard on the ground carefully to lift his hands, and Mina stumbles to her feet after digging them into the ground beneath her to get herself to stop swinging. One of the officers shines a flashlight in each of their faces, one by one. Katsuki squints as it’s shone right in his eyes.

“What are you kids doing out here so late.” The officer’s voice is stern, with suspicion clear in his tone. There’s a pause before Denki finally answers, tripping over his words.

“Uh – we were just hanging out. Sir.”

The officer huffs, clearly unsatisfied with this answer.

“Hand over your IDs. We need to make sure none of you have any warrants out for your arrest.”

They all slowly reach into their pockets to take their IDs out of their wallets and hand them to the officer not holding the flashlight, except for Mina, who’s frantically fumbling with her holographic pink fanny pack as the officer holds his hand out, clearly losing his patience.

When he finally has all of their IDs, he takes them back to the cop car that still has its high beams on. The other officer keeps his flashlight and eyes trained on the group of teenagers.

“You know you kids aren’t supposed to be here after dark, right?”

It’s Hanta who answers this time, faster than Denki had been, “No sir, we didn’t, we’re sorry, we’ll leave right now.”

The officer just grunts in response, and a tense silence falls over them. Katsuki tries not to let his disdain for the whole situation show on his face. He knows the cops are just picking on them because they all look like a bunch of delinquents. Who checks to see if a bunch of 14 year-olds have fucking warrants? They sure as hell wouldn’t be hovering their hands over their guns if they had stumbled upon Deku and his loser friends. Hell, those nerds could probably attempt murder and the cops would offer them a ride home.

The other officer finally comes back and hands each of them back their IDs. “They’re clear.” No shit.

The one with the flashlight nods and finally turns it off. “You kids should head on home now.”

They all nod and start moving, still trying to keep their hands in clear view. Hanta kicks his skateboard, intending to catch it in his hand without having to bend down, but his foot must have slipped, because the board goes flying in the other direction.

Right into one of the officers’ face.

They all stare wide-eyed for a moment while the man curses and grabs at his own face. When Katsuki sees the rage in the cop’s eyes, he says the one word that comes to his mind.

“RUN!”

They immediately break into a sprint out of park, all seemingly choosing the same random route. Katsuki can hear the cops yelling and running after them but doesn’t dare look back. He chances some glances around him to see Denki and Mina with pure panic on their faces, both clearly not used to so much physical activity, Hanta speeding ahead on his skateboard – this idiot really stopped to pick it up? – and Eijiro right beside him, easily keeping up with Katsuki’s pace. They briefly make eye contact and grin at each other wildly, adrenaline pushing each of them forward.

They all turn a corner, and Katsuki briefly considers telling them all to split up when Denki suddenly yells out and speeds up towards a random parked car.

They all stumble to a stop, looking between the dumb blonde, who’s currently reaching into an opening in the driver’s side window to unlock the door, and back towards the sound of approaching footsteps.

“Oi, dumbass, what the hell are you doing!? That shit’s useless without any keys!”

“Just give me a second!”

“WE DON’T HAVE A SECOND YOU MORON!”

The idiot just ignores him and crouches underneath the steering wheel. The cops finally round the corner, and Katsuki’s about to just grab Eijiro’s hand and leave the rest of the extra’s to get caught when the car suddenly comes to life. They all waste no time jumping in, Katuski and Eijiro piling into the back with Mina while Hanta shoves his skateboard onto the dashboard. They just barely get the doors closed before Denki speeds out onto the street. Katsuki turns around in his seat to see the cops sprinting back to their car, and he smirks, knowing by the time they reach it it’ll be too late.

It’s Mina who breaks the silence, poking and grabbing at Denki from behind his seat. “Holy shit, Denki, where the hell did you learn to hotwire a car!?”

Denki takes his eyes off the road for a split second to grin at them, pride and excitement written all over his face. “I keep telling you guys, if it’s got wires, there’s nothing I can’t figure out!”

Katsuki barks a laugh, which unleashes laughter and cheers from everyone in the car. Katsuki kicks at the driver’s seat. “Of course this would be the one thing Sparky over here’s actually good at.” This earns another round of laughter from the others and a whine from the boy in question. Katsuki just snickers to himself.

I guess even this idiot can be useful.

Chapter Text

It’s two months into the second semester, and Katsuki has slowly gotten used to having the others around him. They’re still way too loud and way too dumb, but at the very least Shitty Hair and Dunce Face are entertaining.

Katsuki can admit, a part of him had been worried that being seen with “friends” who weren’t scared of him would result in the extras at this school thinking he’d gone soft, but as he walks down the hall towards the cafeteria with Eijiro on his left and Denki on his right, Katsuki is pleased to see that all of the other students are still moving out of the way and averting their eyes. Hell, if anything, they look even more intimidated than when it was just Katsuki. Don’t know why, these two idiots would probably cry after stepping on a spider.

It’s going to be just the three of them at lunch today since Hanta has a make-up test he needs to take, and Mina had claimed she NEEDS to sit with some girl Katsuki swears he’s never seen at this school before to “get caught up on the latest gossip”.

To be honest, Katsuki had assumed on that first day in detention that the chick who had insisted on being best friends with four guys would be one of those “I’m too cool to hang out with other girls” types. But he had quickly seen that the opposite, in fact, is true, as she had made quick friends with half the girls in their grade. She just prefers to hang out with the “bakusquad” the most. Why she insists on making this band of losers follow him around everywhere, he’ll never know.

“No but you don’t get it. Bakubro threatened to DECK, DEku. Get it? It’s hilarious!”

Katsuki rolls his eyes, but before he can tell Denki how stupid he sounds, all three boys look up at the sound of a familiar voice yelling from inside the cafeteria. Suddenly, Mina is stomping down the hall towards them, fury in her face and tears in her eyes.

Before any of them can ask what’s wrong, Katsuki sees a familiar purple backpack trying to run past them, and he immediately knows what’s going on. He grabs the shorter kid and slams him against the lockers.

“Alright you little pervert, hand it over.”

Minoru Mineta.

Katsuki knows the kid from most of his honors classes. He’s become infamous, particularly among their female classmates. The little weirdo gets his rocks off by trying to take upskirt pictures of any girl he can get close enough to. Katsuki had just assumed the creep had backed off once he’d made an enemy of all the honor student boys, but apparently, if one of those nerds doesn’t have a pathetic crush on you like Ponytail and Round Cheeks, you were fair game in this perv’s eyes.

The boy looks up at Katsuki, sweating bullets and trying in vain to get out of his grasp.

“Aw, come on man, can you blame me? Just look at how she’s dressed!”

Katsuki sneers at that and pulls the other boy off the lockers to slam him back against them even harder, this time dragging him up off his feet.

Logistically, Katsuki knows what the little cretin is talking about. Even without being straight or a sexual degenerate, no one can deny the fact that half of Mina’s dress code violations have more to do with the lack of clothing on her body rather than the clothes itself. Today she’s dressed in all black – because apparently some stupid tv show said to do that every Wednesday, and she got the whole “bakusquad” to participate, which he only technically takes part in because he’s never not wearing all black – with a headband, choker, oversized sweater serving as a dress, and fishnet stockings tucked into her boots.

But everyone, even some of the teachers, knows that Mina getting detention every other week just for wearing a crop top or a short skirt is bullshit, and the idea that this little creep thinks her outfits somehow give him the right to violate her like that makes Katsuki want to pummel the kid right then and there.

“I said hand it over, or I’ll take it off your lifeless body.” He growls out the words, making it clear this is no empty threat.

The kid quickly decides he does not, in fact, have a death wish, and instantly pulls his phone out of his pocket and hands it over without another word. Katsuki, without letting him go, drops the phone on the floor, and stomps on it over and over, until he hears it splintering underneath his boot.

When Katsuki’s finally satisfied, he looks up to see Denki gaping at him, wide-eyed and mouth hanging open, Eijiro grinning and looking at him like he’s a hero, and Mina smiling at him, teary-eyed and sniffling. Before he can say anything, Mr. Kan steps out of his classroom and takes in the scene in front of him. Katsuki curses under his breath. You have GOT to be kidding me.

He ends up spending most of his lunch break in the principal’s office, relaying his part of the story and knowing that it’ll all get turned around on him anyways. Sure enough, the meeting ends with the pervert getting a slap on the wrist while Katsuki and Mina get detention for assault and a dress code violation, respectively.

Katsuki doesn’t see much of the other morons for the rest of the day since his afternoon is entirely made up of his honors classes, and is shocked to walk into detention and see all four of them already sitting there.

“What the hell are the rest of you idiots doing here? Last time I checked only Pinky and I got detention.”

Denki speaks up, bouncing in his seat looking way too proud of himself. “We’re here in solidarity man. In protest!”

Katsuki lifts an eyebrow and huffs. “That’s not how protests work, Dunce Face.”

Eijiro grins up at him. I swear, grinning is this guy’s default facial expression. “It’s the least we could do! It was so manly of you to stand up for Mina like that, the fact that you guys ended up with detention is just, so – so –”

“Unmanly?” Hanta offers, an amused look on his face.

“Exactly!”

They all chuckle at that, and Mina looks over at Katsuki with a small smile on her face.

“Honestly though, thanks Katsuki. You didn’t have to do that.”

Katsuki shifts uncomfortably and frowns at the blatant display of gratitude. “Whatever. The little creep had it coming anyways.”

Katsuki drops into the seat the others quite obviously left empty for him and quickly changes the subject. “So, what did you three dumbasses do to get detention so quickly anyways?”

The three boys grin up at him, and Eijiro pipes up again.  “We tried to see if all of three of us could fit on Hanta’s skateboard…. right in front of Principal Nezu’s office.”

Katsuki feels a fond smile starting to grow on his face and quickly turns it into a smirk as he rolls his eyes.  “Morons.”

The rest of them start chattering, all giving a half-assed attempt at keeping their voices down while today’s detention monitor, Mr. Higari, has what looks like an exhausting conversation with a student showing him some weird machine she must have made in his robotics elective class. Katsuki is only vaguely paying attention to what’s being said around him until Mina turns to look at him again, a mischievous look in her eye that instantly puts him on edge.

“You know, now that I know for sure that you boys have my back, I could totally name a list of people I need taught a lesson.” She looks up and taps on her chin, as if already coming up with the list of names in her head.

Katsuki gapes at her for a second before scoffing and shaking his head.

This chick’s gonna get him killed one of these days.

Chapter Text

Katsuki sits, leaning back against the wall in the cafeteria while straddling the bench, and looks over at the others at his table. I can’t believe I put up with these dumbasses for almost an entire school year.

Hanta sits across from him, typing on his phone, while Eijiro sits next to Katsuki as they go over their English notes. Denki and Mina are sitting at the other end of the table, all their notes laid out in front of them in a chaotic mess and taking up most of the table, leaving the rest of the group to cram their own things on what’s left of the space. They’re supposed to be studying for finals like Eijiro and Katsuki, but instead are gossiping about Denki’s new crush. Apparently, he’s finally gotten over that alt girl in their music class that barely gave him the time of day, and is now crushing hard on some boy he had met in the principal’s office – the idiot was getting detention for having his phone out in class again – who’s apparently going to be transferring to their school next year.

“Hey morons, aren’t you supposed to be studying?”

Denki gets a pained look on his face and Katsuki already regrets speaking up, knowing he’s going to have to deal with the idiot’s whining.

Sure enough, “But math is haaaard. Why can’t you help us like you help Ei?”

Katsuki scoffs. “Because Shitty Hair’s the only one here that’s not a completely lost cause. Trying to help the rest of you dumbasses would just be a waste of my time.”

Mina gives him a knowing grin. “Mhmmm, that’s TOTALLY why you only tutor Eijiro.”

Katsuki glares at her. “What the hell is that supposed to mean, Raccoon Eyes.”

“Oh nothing,” she practically sings at him, and the other two boys giggle along with her while Eijiro and Katsuki both blush hard enough to almost match the redhead’s hair. Katsuki scratches at his head to try and hide his burning ears, mentally cursing himself for the fact that it’s basically become a habit since he’s known Eijiro.

“This is why I don’t help you idiots. The last thing I need is your stupidity rubbing off on me.”

Mina rolls her eyes at the insult and goes back to listening to Denki gush about a boy he’s only met once.

Hanta suddenly hits the table to grab Katsuki’s attention. “Hey, where did you get all your piercings done? Did you like ‘em?”

Katsuki raises an eyebrow at the other boy. “I knew a guy, but he moved last month. Which sucks, since I was thinking of getting another one. Why, you looking to get more?”

“I was actually thinking of getting mine stretched out a bit. I got these done when I was like, twelve, and it was a family friend who did it. He doesn’t really do this kinda stuff, so I’ve been trying to find someone who will. What were you planning on getting done? Trying to catch up with Mina?”

The girl looks up at hearing her name, but is quickly distracted again by Denki going on about “purple hair that defies gravity”. Katsuki rolls his eyes. “Nah, I’m done with my ears. As soon as I find someone else who’s not a fucking nerd who’s scared of working on someone under sixteen, I’m getting a tongue piercing.”

He ignores the small part of himself that’s smug at the light blush that crosses Eijiro’s face as he looks at Katsuki’s mouth for a moment before quickly averting his gaze. Hanta hums in response, then pulls his phone back out and starts typing again, and Katsuki deems the conversation over and goes back to beating material into Eijiro’s head. He doesn’t think about piercings again until the last five minutes of lunch when suddenly the black haired boy jumps in his seat with an excited grin.

“Dude I found someone! This place is totally legit, but as long as you got some sort of ID, they don’t even care how old you are. I got us both an appointment this Saturday!” He shoves his phone into Katsuki’s hand, showing proof of the appointments.

Katsuki just stares at the phone, trying to register the sudden information. “Ha?!”

“They said to be there by two. We should get there a bit early though, so we can check the place out for ourselves.”

Katsuki looks up and stares at the other boy. Every piercing he’s ever gotten had been an act of rebellion. A way to get people to think twice about approaching him. The idea of getting one done with someone else, almost as some sort of bonding experience, is foreign to him.

“Oh my God, yay! Let’s all go!” The entire table is suddenly buzzing, making plans for the entire day to revolve around the appointment.

Katsuki rolls his eyes and tosses the phone back to Hanta. “Oi, dumbasses! You’re not going anywhere this weekend that doesn’t involve making sure you don’t all fail your finals.”

He chuckles at the resounding groans he gets from the others.

Three days later, Katsuki’s staring at his new piercing in a mirror while Hanta’s getting his last ear stretched. “Stop squirming idiot, you’ll end up all lopsided.” The other boy makes an offended noise, but listens.

The piercer finally finishes up, and Katsuki hands over the mirror. Hanta smiles excitedly as he moves his head around to look at himself from every angle, pleased with the small holes that are now stretched just wide enough to look through. “Dude, this is awesome! We look so sick!”

Katsuki smirks. “Of course we do.”

“Come on man, let’s show the squad.”

Hanta leans in – even after nine months, no one but Eijiro can get away with putting an arm around Katsuki – and pulls his phone out to take a selfie. He grins widely and throws up a peace sign while Katsuki gives an open mouthed grin of his own, sticking his tongue out to the camera.

Both their phones start blowing up as the others react to the picture. As both boys walk out of the shop while responding to the groupchat, Katsuki can’t fight the small smile that pulls at his mouth when the others start planning to meet up later that night. He reminds them harshly that they need to study, but once Denki suggests stealing some shopping carts and challenges him to a race, it’s Katsuki who ends up naming the time and place.

Jesus, how did he end up stuck with this band of idiots.

Chapter Text

It’s the last weekend before the start of sophomore year, and Katsuki is sitting at a bus stop, wiping his sweaty hands on his shorts for the hundredth time while he waits for the idiots he’s spent most of the past year with to finally show up. How are these assholes always late to shit THEY planned? If he’d been hoping to finally be rid of them when the school year ended, then he severely underestimated their determination to stick to him like gum on the bottom of his shoe. If anything, the lack of classes just gave them more free time to bug him.

He can’t say it was all bad, though. His mom had been happy at the prospect of him supposedly having “friends” for all of five minutes before she laid eyes on the band of weirdos. Katsuki still smirks every time he remembers the look on her face as she took in the eccentric outfits and brightly colored hair.

Speaking of the idiots in question, Katsuki hears them before he sees them. Loud fuckers. He looks up and glares. “Oi, you dumbasses are late.”

None of them respond, instead just coming to stand in front of him with mischievous grins on their faces. Katsuki narrows his eyes, immediately suspicious. “What are you idiots up to?”

It’s Mina who finally talks, practically vibrating with excitement. “It’s almost the one year anniversary of the bakusquad!”

He rolls his eyes and scoffs. He still can’t believe they’ve kept up that stupid name for a whole year.

She ignores him and continues. “Soooo, we decided to commemorate the occasion with a surprise!”

He eyes them cautiously, wary of what kind of chaos these idiots have come up with. “What did you do?”

“Look!”

Each of them starts to pull at various parts of their clothing, revealing matching “bakusquad” tattoos. Mina lifts the hem of her skirt to reveal her tattoo on the outside of her thigh. Eijiro pulls down the collar of his tank top to show his is on the left side of his chest, right over his heart – Katsuki brings his hands to the back of his neck, hoping his arms will cover the blush on the tips of his ears. Hanta awkwardly twists his leg around to show off his tattoo on the back of his calf. Finally, Denki sticks his arm in Katsuki’s face to reveal his written out across his forearm.

They smile eagerly at him, waiting for his reaction. For a moment he just stares at them, trying to process what he’s seeing. After a beat, he says the first thing that pops into his head.

“You’re all stupid.”

They all break out into laughter, clearly expecting the insult at this point. Denki’s the first one to catch his breath.

“Come on man, we had to do something. It’s cool!”

“It’s sure as shit NOT! The whole squad thing was lame in the first place!”

Mina rolls her eyes and waves him off with a smile. “Come on, it’s fun! And you can pick wherever you want to get yours.”

Katsuki looks at her like she’s grown a second head. “Eh?! Like hell am I doing that shit! You morons are on your own.”

Eijiro pouts at him. “Come on Bakubro! You have to!”

Katsuki gives him a hard glare. The bastard knows exactly what he’s doing. He turns and starts to walk away before Eijiro can pull out the puppy dog eyes that never fail to get Katsuki to go along with whatever idiotic idea they have.

“Shut it Shitty Hair! Just because you dumbasses decided to make your first tattoos a waste of time and money doesn’t mean I have to.”

Hanta looks up thoughtfully. “I mean, it’s not as fancy as what the dekusquad did, but I’m with Denki, this is way cooler!”

Katsuki stops in his tracks and slowly turns around. “The WHAT!?”

Mina smiles brightly, oblivious to the growing rage building inside the explosive blonde. “The dekusquad! That’s what Ochako started calling their friend group after I told her about the bakusquad. If you ask me, it’s kinda lame to just – “

Katsuki holds his hand up to stop her. “You’re telling me that damn nerd is COPYING ME?! With the name I GAVE HIM!?”

Mina flips her short hair and gives an almost scandalized look. “Right? That’s what I said! But apparently the name stuck for them, and after finals that one kid – Shoto I think? The one with the scar – I guess he’s got money or something because he bought them all matching jackets that say ‘dekusquad’ on the back! I spent all summer trying to figure out what WE could do that doesn’t look lame next to that, but, you know, we’re all broke, so – “

Katsuki places a hand on her shoulder this time, his left eye twitching. There’s no way in hell he’s going to be outdone by that goddamn loser.

“Tell me where you got the stupid tattoos.” The others cheer as he continues to seethe.

That’s how, two hours later, Katsuki’s fists are sore from something other than a fight for the first time in years.

Eijiro is practically jumping up and down with a giant grin on his face. “Dude, I can’t believe you got it tattooed on your knuckles! That’s so manly!”

Denki leans his head in comically close to Katsuki’s hands, who has to mentally remind himself not to smack the other boy with his still sensitive hands. “Hey dude, I didn’t wanna say anything before, but uh, you know you’re missing a letter, right? Aren’t you the one in Honors English?”

Katsuki scowls and settles for shoving him away with his elbow. “Tch, that’s the point Dunce Face! ‘Bakusquad’ has more than eight letters, so I took the ‘u’ out to make the whole thing fit and still look right.”

Hanta mumbles his approval around a mouthful of candy that he’s doused in hot sauce. Some things never change.

Mina skips to the front of the pack before turning around, a grin already growing on her face. “Alright, last weekend before school starts. What are we doing?”

Hanta swallows his candy in one gulp before saying, “I know a way to sneak us into that waterpark across town.”

Mina claps her hands together excitedly. “Oooh yes! I need one last good use out of my bathing suit before summer’s over!”

Denki starts to smirk. “Do you think they’ll kick us out if we try to play chicken in the wave pool?”

Katsuki lets out an exasperated sigh. “You guys are such idiots.”

Eijiro throws an arm around his shoulders and gives him a warm smile. “Yeah, but we’re your idiots.”

Katsuki starts, almost sending the redhead tumbling, as his eyes widen in revelation.

Ah shit, he’s right.