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Bakugou cared for few people and respected even less. He respected Midoriya and Todoroki but did not care for them. He cared for his Idiot Squad, but had little respect for their shenanigans. But there were two people other than his parents who earned both his respect and his love.
Kirishima quickly wormed his way into Bakugou’s heart with his tenacity and ability to weather Bakugou’s explosive moods. A solid rock in all stages of his tumultuous high school years. A true brother and Bakugou’s best friend.
Uraraka was a completely different matter. Never had a girl faced him with such ferocity. The sports festival was the first moment he truly noticed this goddess. For the next three years he watched her as she grew into an amazing hero who feared no one and called everyone out on their crap, especially him.
But with love comes pain. Comes anger. Comes defeat…
Why the woman who could make the heavens rain down on him would settle for Deku blew his mind. The Nerd would never, ever, see Uraraka for the unstoppable force she was. Bakugou was sick every time he heard Deku talk about how he “needed to protect her” when he knew damn well that Uraraka was the reason Deku survived many fights. Saving his ass and everyone else's in the vicinity every time Deku let OFA spiral out of control or make an impulsive choice that put himself and everyone around him in danger.
But as much as he hated that she chose Deku, he loved her enough to not get in the way. Self destruction and self medication became his best friends.
The day they announced that they were dating in the third year, Bakugou trained so hard that he put stress fractures all throughout his arms. Recovery Girl made him wear the arm casts for 3 days before finally healing him “to teach him a lesson in overexertion.”
The day they moved in together he went to the bar and got so hammered that Kiri had to physically drag him home and throw him on their apartment couch. He woke up with the biggest headache he had ever had and spent the entire day fighting off nausea while he patrolled.
He fared better when they got engaged then any of his friends would have thought. Honestly in his mind he was in denial. He figured this was the farthest that they would make it and he could swoop in after it fell apart and help her pick up the broken pieces.
Nothing hit him harder than their wedding day. Deku asked him to be the best man, unknowingly rubbing salt into Bakugou’s shredded heart. Bakugou went straight to Best Jeanist and requested an out of country placement until the whole ordeal was over. With pity in his eyes, Jeanist didn’t hesitate to sign the papers.
Bakugou went off to America, with newspaper headlines driving him into a deep depression over the happily married pro hero couple that Japan had fallen in love with from their debuts. Nights seemed endless, haunted with dreams of what could have been. Days shone too bright to the newly established insomniac. Mina would joke that he could give Shinso a run for his money whenever he would facetime his friends. Kirishima and Sero would always give him worried looks from the background of the calls as Denki and Mina rambled on about his day.
Alcohol became his best friend and his toned body and drive to be a hero dwindled down to nothing. Jeanist came personally to America after checking in on his wayward sidekick, along with Kirishima, to dig Bakugou out of his trash heap of a life and dragged him back to Japan to face reality.
For three months, Dynamite was a mystery in the Japanese tabloids. Someone snapped a picture of the disheveled man as he exited the airport with Best Jeanist and Red Riot upon his return to Japan. Rumors were quickly laid to rest however when he stepped back onto the scene and stopped a major bank heist on his first patrol. Gone was the scruffy man whose large body seemed void of muscles and here stood a behemoth with a fresh undercut and filed out frame that demanded attention and admiration.
Dynamite was back, bigger than ever. Kirishima had forced Bakugou into the gym at least two times a day and enforced a strict diet to bring him out of the depression he was drowning in. Beer was banned and Kiri attempted to make home cooked meals but after the kitchen almost burned down within the first week Bakugou was home, he quickly took over the cooking.
Honestly he found cooking to be therapeutic in a way. He had control over how the knife moved, how big or little the pieces were, the seasonings, and how to plate the food. He was methodical in every part of the process, which helped steady his stormy mind. It was like connecting back to a piece of the boy he used to be. He still struggled to make curry though, as he always felt a twinge of sadness when he thought back to the training camp where Uraraka fawned over his knife work, but he would quickly shut those feelings out.
Two years passed and when Ochako announced that she was pregnant, Bakugou realized that while he could never stop loving her, and would never be able to find another to fill that place in his heat, he was ready to let her go…