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It happens on a perfectly ordinary day in mid-March.
Midoriya Izuku punches Bakugou Katsuki.
After an ice pack pressed to his split bottom lip and some not so careful pestering later, Kaminari wrangles this information out of a sulking Bakugou.
“Ah,” Shouto says from his spot on the floor, back against the common room couch, “you kind of deserved it. Like, really.”
Bakugou glares, but then his shoulders drop, and he sighs. “Yeah, halfie, I fucking did.”
The rest of the story, it turns out, is rather anticlimactic.
“Bakugou,” Shouto says.
Bakugou winces. The cut on his lip must not make talking all that comfortable.
“What happened?”
“Nothing much,” Bakugou says. “We were sparring in the practice room. I said I really deserved to be punched for—for all the shit I put him through on the daily as a kid. Izuku—he just—he fucking looked at me all pensive and shit, and then he went Yeah, you do actually.” He shrugs. “Then he punched me.”
Shouto is sharply aware of the fact that this is one of those things Momo would frown at, one of those things that takes good, responsible hero points off his track record, but still—
He snorts. Out loud. Very audibly.
The entire room turns to look at him.
“No,” he says between bouts of laughter. “No, I’m sorry, it’s just—it’s just Midoriya punched you. Like, he punched you. It’s like—it’s like if—if he didn’t look both ways before crossing the road, or if he stopped being nice to little kids or, or if he, well, if he punched you.”
Momo puts a hand primly over her mouth. “I see Shouto-kun’s point,” she says.
“Yeah, yeah,” Bakugou grumbles. “Laugh your ass off, Candy Cane.”
“Come on,” Shouto says, because he’s learned he doesn’t have much to lose with Bakugou Katsuki, these days. “You want to laugh too.”
“I fucking can’t,” Bakugou says. “In case that somehow slipped your notice.”
Shouto shrugs. “Maybe you should come closer,” he says. “So I can see better.”
Behind Shouto’s back, Jirou makes an exaggerated gagging noise.
“Maybe we should all go back to our rooms,” Iida says tactfully. “It is getting rather late.”
“Whatever,” Bakugou spits, with no real venom behind it.
Shouto has gotten good at that now. At realizing how much Bakugou means and when he really means it. He tries not to look too closely at this particular tidbit of knowledge. (Sometimes, he misses being a little less self-aware.)
As they’re all making their way to their rooms wordlessly, Bakugou grabs Shouto by the arm. “Stay,” he says, and it sounds—
It sounds almost soft, almost pleading.
“Why?” Shouto asks. “Do you still have some leftover anger you need to work through?” He doesn’t mean to be bitter, it just—it comes out like that. All raw and still with spikes. Because so much of Shouto’s life came with spikes, and he’s had to grow his own. To learn how to protect the softest parts of himself.
Bakugou glares at him. “Don’t be a dumbass, Shou,” he says.
It gets to Shouto. Despite the harshness of it, the protective layer of assholery, Bakugou always gets to Shouto.
“So,” he asks, “Did Midoriya really just—go for it?”
Bakugou nods once, sharply. “Pretty much.”
“Oh my God,” Shouto says. “Oh God, this is priceless. Wait, tell me everything. No—no, show me. I need the full experience.”
Bakugou looks him over. “The full experience, huh, princess?”
Shouto swallows, doesn’t even realize why he feels the need to. Then, abruptly, Bakugou moves closer. “Bakugou?” he asks weakly.
“It went something like this,” Bakugou says, pressing Shouto against the wall by his bedroom door. “I had him pressed to the mat, and he just—he looked kind of—I don’t know, young or small or—or something, so I said—I told him I really deserved to get punched. And at first he looked surprised, so I figured he was going to drop it, but then he—he asked if I really meant it.” With those words, Bakugou flips Shouto, is now the one standing with his back to the wall. “And then he took advantage of me being surprised and just—fucking went for it.”
“That easy?” Shouto asks.
Bakugou laughs. It’s not mean. “Yeah,” he says. “That easy. I guess De—Izuku had a lot of stuff pent up, deep down.”
Shouto bites his lip. “Do you? Have things, um, things pent up, I mean.”
“Been trying to work through it,” Bakugou says. “I guess—I fucking suppose today was a solid step forward.”
Shouto wants to kiss him, suddenly. Wants to dip his tongue into the still fresh blood from the wound on his lip and taste Bakugou. “Do you regret it?” he asks instead. “All of it, I mean?”
Bakugou looks to the floor, before steeling himself and looking back up at Shouto. “Yeah,” he says. “I would take it all back if I could. I was horrible. I did things—I said things that were—I was real fucking shitty, halfie.”
Shouto nods. “It’s good,” he says. “It’s good that you can admit that. Makes you—makes you brave.”
“I’m trying to apologize,” Bakugou confesses. “I really fucking am.”
“Hey Bakugou,” Shouto says, letting himself run both hands up his forearms. “Would it hurt too much?”
There are better times for this, he knows. It is, perhaps, a question that shouldn’t be asked at all. Not today. Not ever. Shouto should just—he should just leave it alone. Let the barely-there unresolved thing between them fizzle out on its own. Not—not make it worse. They’re both going to burn if he adds gasoline to this particular fire, Shouto knows.
“Are you asking what I think you’re asking, princess?”
Shouto laughs. Lets go of Bakugou just to put both hands over his face in sudden, inescapable shame. Maybe someday he’s going to figure out why being alive comes with so much shame sometimes, but right now he just—he wants to hide. To run. To flee. “What if I am?” he whispers instead, barely audible.
“Then I might just give it to you.”
Oh, Shouto thinks.
“Was Midoriya okay?” he asks, instead of saying something like Really? or Please? or God, I want.
“What?” Bakugou asks.
“What Midoriya okay?” Shouto repeats. “After he punched you.”
Bakugou blinks. “He was fucking fine. A little embarrassed, I think. He started apologizing. He offered to carry me to Recovery Girl.”
“That does sound like him.”
Bakugou blows air out his cheeks. “Now that we got that out of the way,” he says. “Is it okay if I kiss you?”
“But you’re hurt,” Shouto says, this time in place of Yes please you can do whatever you want to me.
Bakugou snorts. “Haven’t you ever heard of kissing it better?”
Shouto can live with that. (A small, dark and cramped part of his brain kind of wants it. Wants Bakugou at his worst, at his most vulnerable.) “I don’t think that actually works,” he points out anyway, because when has he ever allowed himself to simply have nice things.
Bakugou sighs gravely. “Shut up,” he says, and grabs Shouto by his shirt just to pull him in.
Shouto shuts up. Dutifully. He dutifully does as told, because kissing Bakugou—
Kissing Bakugou is bloodier than expected, but that’s okay. Everything is just okay, okay, okay.