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They’re in the middle of evacuating a collapsed skyscraper when the quirk activates.
One moment, Bakugou is squeezing past Kirishima to pull out the father and child trapped in the rubble, feeling more than hearing Kirishima grunt in effort as he stabilizes the upper floor to prevent them from getting crushed — and the next, all that weight drops on Bakugou instead.
“The fu– Hrghh, shit.”
Bakugou’s exclamation rumbles deep in his chest, his voice sounding so much louder and weirdly... off to his own ears. It must be muscle memory of some kind moving his body: He’s barely aware of the things that have changed, yet he knows he has to straighten his back and bend his knees a certain way, or they’re all dead. Gasping against the strain, Bakugou clenches his eyes shut and pushes.
His palms scrape along the crumbling ceiling with a strange lack of sensation. Then his fingers cling on, bury deep. Digging in there like the concrete has spontaneously turned to putty.
What. The fuck.
“Don’t panic”, rasps a voice behind him. Rough, overly familiar in that eerie way listening to a recording of himself tends to— Hold on. “Don’t... Gods, this is weird. This your quirk, kiddo? Ah, keep walking, we don’t have much time. Hey Nitro, can you hear me?”
Kirishima. The speech pattern, the casual use of a nickname he came up with early on and never let go of...
That’s Kirishima talking in Bakugou’s fucking voice.
Taking as deep a breath as he can manage, Bakugou replies, “Yeah. My hearing sucks ass, you know that”, and since he himself is sounding more and more like Kirishima, it can only mean one thing: Quirk accident. Fan-fucking-tastic.
“Hurry up already. Shit’s fucking heavy.”
A small gasp. Bakugou squints his eyes open to the scandalized face of the father, pointedly shielding his kid’s ears as they crawl to freedom. Seriously?
“Language should be goddamn low on your priority list right now, you—”
“Ah-ah! Just keep going, sir!”
“Red...” Oh, growling sounds pretty badass coming out of Kirishima’s mouth. Bakugou’s been envious of his sharp teeth since forever, might as well show those off too.
Which is the last thought Bakugou can grasp before Kirishima himself pops into his line of sight and he immediately feels like he’s tripping on something. Of course Bakugou is aware of his own looks — undercut and eyeliner, sleek-black Hero suit covered in the blood of his enemies, y’know, the works — but seeing his best friend and boyfriend wear his meat suit is plain odd.
Especially when he insists on blowing his eyes wide and pinching his lips in worry. On Kirishima’s face it’s cute or whatever, but on Bakugou’s? Disturbing.
“Okay, yup, definitely weird. Stop glaring, dude, you're making me look— Kinda manly, actually? Hmm, should I glare more? Maybe I should glare more.”
“Eijirou, you—”
Above them, the ceiling shifts. Bakugou immediately regrets his lapse in attention when his (Kirishima’s?) body starts to tremble with effort, the weight doubling and tripling for his (Kirishima’s!) exhausted muscles. “Fuck”, he hisses, “How do I...?”, wincing as he tries to regain a calmer breathing pattern. This is truly the worst moment to learn a new quirk.
Yet Bakugou has been by Kirishima’s side every step on his path to becoming a Hero. No way in hell is he making Red Riot look incompetent in front of civilians.
Kirishima, too, must recognize time is running out. Shooing the family towards the exit, he waves off the kid’s frantic cries of “Sorry, Mr. Riot! Mr. Might! Sorry!” with a (far too kind) smile.
“Just another Tuesday for us, don’t worry. Stay safe!”
Kirishima’s expression sobers to one Bakugou’s more used to seeing in the mirror as he turns back towards him.
“Alright. You with me?”
Bakugou just nods, out of breath to bitch with. Fuck, Kirishima has never mentioned how excruciating situations like these feel to him.
“Good. You’re doing amazing, bro. I’m gonna need you to relax now, okay? Relax, and when your body starts to soften, drop everything and step forward. We got everyone out, no need to be gentle.”
In battle, Bakugou is fueled by tension, the constant flow of adrenaline pumping in his veins. He can barely let go of it when they’re at home sprawled lazily on their couch; here, now, relaxing is asking for the impossible. Staring into his own eyes, however, he sees determination that’s all Kirishima. That Red Riot brand of unwavering faith in his Hero partner.
“Trust me, ’Suki. Breathe, then walk towards me.”
Another, slower inhale. Bakugou stares into that gaze for a second longer before glancing upwards. Focusing not on the jarring angle but on the familiar lines mapped on Kirishima’s skin: The cracks of his quirk in action, the scars where it has failed him in the past. Always got back up, though. Always hardened again and kept going.
Bakugou exhales. Relax. Kirishima is here. He knows what to do.
“There we go”, Kirishima says, Bakugou’s voice softer than it’s ever been. “Almost there. Try wiggling your fingers? You should be getting some feeling back in ’em by now.”
Word for word, Bakugou follows Kirishima’s advice until—
The quirk relents, and he falls into a warm hug as debris crashes all around them.
*
“Oi, Eiji.”
Pausing mid-motion to grab the towel a first responder is offering him, Kirishima looks towards Bakugou. Yup, still strange, watching his own head tilt like that of an inquisitive dog.
“Spark off—”
“—before I touch anything, right”, Kirishima nods, staring in concentration at his own hands. Cautious sparks pop and prattle over his bare palms, much more controlled than Bakugou’s back when he was teaching himself this stuff by trial and error.
Bakugou isn’t surprised. Kirishima’s seen him do it a million times, and he’s a fast learner, and he’s the best, so it tracks.
Towel successfully snatched up, Kirishima insists on wiping the dirt off Bakugou’s face first. “Oh man, I am not getting used to this”, he mutters under his breath, booping the other’s nose and snickering as Bakugou automatically glowers.
“Stooop, you’re giving me wrinkles! See this?”
Kirishima smacks a finger between blond eyebrows. All Bakugou sees is a fuckton of concrete dust, which he immediately points out to him. A roll of eyes, a half-hearted swipe with the towel. The gesture is repeated, exaggerated even more, and…
Okay, so Bakugou’s resting bitch face carved a permanent line there, so what?
“…Fuck off. S’intimidating and shit.”
“Aw, baby, you’re pouting! Stop that too, I can’t kiss you like this.”
Snorting, “Oh yeah?”, Bakugou prioritizes that statement over the fact Kirishima essentially called himself baby in Bakugou’s voice. Leaning in obnoxiously close, he teases: “Too chickenshit to kiss your own fucking face, huh?”
Kirishima gasps, offended. “What? Since when is that a weird take to have?! How about you kiss your own fucking face, huh!”
“Don’t think I won’t!”
“Well, sounds like you should prove that you would!”
“Fuck you, I will kiss the shit out of—”
A subtle cough. “Dynamight? Red Riot? If I may.”
Both their heads snap to the side. “What?” Can’t they see they’re in the middle of an important discussion?
An eyebrow raised in amusement, the medic wordlessly jabs a thumb over their shoulder. Bakugou flashes them his teeth (which makes them pale a little, fuck, he needs these all the time) before focusing what they actually want.
Half-hidden behind her father’s leg, the girl from earlier pipes up with an uncertain, “Um?”, eyes flickering from Kirishima to Bakugou and lingering there.
Begrudgingly, Bakugou wipes the aggression off his expression and rights himself, trying to figure out a somewhat friendly posture to match his partner’s Golden Retriever vibes. The way said idiot melts like butter in the sun over the kid’s reluctance, he has no qualms completely contradicting Dynamight’s reputation.
Smiling brightly, Kirishima kneels down to her height. “Hey, little lady! Don’t mind Grumpy Face over here, he doesn’t bite.”
“Much”, grumbles Bakugou under his breath. Louder, he asks: “You good, small fry?”
The girl seems to catch it regardless, blinking before she giggles. “Mr. Might looks scary, but is really nice. And Mr. Riot is always nice!” Suddenly, she frowns. “Even after I switched you guys around...”
Ah. Waterworks incoming. Bakugou shoots the father a quick glance, getting his silent okay to crouch down next to Kirishima. Focusing on the kid, he tells her:
“No harm done or whatever. Like Red said, this shi— stuff happens to us all the time. Got a pretty cool quirk there, hm?”
Her face brightens considerably. “You think so?” She takes a step towards them. “Even if it caused you trouble?”
“Mine used to cause me trouble all the time, too!”, goes Kirishima like the angel of a man he is. “Kept scratching stuff with it and myself, too. Even Mr. Might, look!” He confidently shows off a scar on Bakugou’s forearm like it’s his own. It runs down to his elbow and had Kirishima crying with guilt when it happened back in second year.
Bakugou rolls his eyes. “Just ’cause he got lucky on a spar. But yeah, burned him plenty of times, too. Quirks are messy. You’ll get the hang of yours eventually.”
Kirishima shoots Bakugou a fond look — and yeah, that one Bakugou does know. It’s the type of softness only Kirishima can bring out in him. Huffing, Bakugou nudges their shoulders together.
Meanwhile, the father ruffles his daughter’s hair to get her attention. “Wasn’t there something you wanted to say to Mr. Might and Mr. Riot?”
The adults around her wait patiently while she hmmms, trying to remember. Finally: “Ah! Yes!” She bows, so prim and proper it would have Iida ‘Ingenium’ Tenya tearing up with joy, probably.
“Thank you for saving us, Heroes!”
*
Once cleared from their post-mission duties, they take the rest of the afternoon off.
The quirk will switch them back within a day, the father had promised them. They can’t risk being mid-combat again when it does, and besides, grasping the basics of each other’s powers isn’t enough to take down the villains they’re up against on the daily. In their Uber home — the prospect of having to pretend to be the other in public sounded entertaining, but also very exhausting —, their exchange of tips on how to handle their bodies and quirks thoroughly weirds out their eavesdropping driver.
Kirishima’s mostly consist of managing stress and tension, which fuels the obsession with meditation and power yoga he dragged Bakugou into when they moved in together straight out of high school.
Bakugou simply tells him he now has fucking bombs for arms and to keep ’em away from animals, kids, anything remotely fragile or flammable.
Nodding, Kirishima immediately chirps, “Good thing I’m none of that, then!”, offering Bakugou his hand and wiggling his fingers demandingly. Bakugou complies with minimal complaining, as jarring as it is to feel his own calluses and how sweaty his palm gets after a while.
Reaching their apartment, it takes some coordination and patting of pant pockets to find where they each keep their keys. Similarly, Bakugou watches Kirishima nearly fall on his face after realizing Dynamight’s boots aren’t as simple to slip out of as Red Riot’s. The stupid quirk has its benefits, though: Bakugou marvels at Kirishima’s easy reach of the upper cabinets in their kitchen while Kirishima swoons over finally being able to use the bathtub that is normally too tight a fit for him.
Sing-songing, “See ya in like two hours!”, he shimmies past Bakugou in the fluffiest bathrobe they got, Riot-red bluetooth speaker in tow.
Bakugou cracks up at how ridiculous he’s being. “Don’t fall asleep in there. And put some lotion on afterwards!” He’d add to not caterwaul like Kirishima usually does while in the shower, Bakugou’s singing voice is a mess even on a good day, but he’s not that evil.
Finger guns. A bright grin. “You got it, babe!”
(Yeah, that Uber ride was a worthy investment. Hell knows what a widely publicized body swap would do to the #DynaRiot hashtag and the internet at large.)
And it’s precisely because he didn’t demand some peace and quiet that the sudden silence behind closed doors seems... suspicious. Protein shake set aside — Kirishima’s mix, not his own —, Bakugou pads across the living room. Kirishima’s steps are heavier and louder than he’s used to; not loud enough for Bakugou’s ears sans aids to pick up, so he knocks for good measure.
“Red? Don’t tell me you slipped and busted my face after all, I’ll fucking kill you.”
More silence. Bakugou frowns. Peeking inside, he spots Kirishima standing motionless in front of the sinks, bathrobe bunched around his mid-back. In the mirror, his expression is...
Bakugou can’t really place it. “Eiji?”, the worry in his voice more obvious than he’d like. It’s not often Bakugou feels like shit seeing his own reflection these days, but it still happens. Too many imperfections, visible chinks in his armor. Too many memories of himself plastered on screens all over Musutafu along with sensationalist headlines he’d rather forget.
Does the quirk transfer scars like that, too?
“Hm?” goes Kirishima, absent-minded at best. A short over-the-shoulder glance, and Bakugou joins him. The image of Kirishima standing behind Bakugou and wrapping strong arms around Bakugou’s waist is instinctively correct, even if their roles are currently reversed. Humming, Bakugou kisses Kirishima’s cheek to complete it, smiling a little when Kirishima does, too.
“Talk to me, c’mon.”
Sighing, “M’okay”, Kirishima leans his weight against his partner. One arm comes to rest on Bakugou’s, palm warm on his wrist. “It’s just...” In the mirror, Bakugou watches his own hand run up his abdomen, then pause over his chest, gentle around the crater of a scar there.
“Every other heartbeat… pinches. Somewhere here. It hurts, and I didn’t— You never mentioned it still bothering you.”
Quiet devastation. That’s what that expression is.
Kirishima’s red eyes go soft with emotion to match as Bakugou says, “’Cause it doesn’t”, honest. “Physical therapy and shit helped a lot, still does. Got used to the rest. And it’s not all bad. Important reminder, some days.”
Again, their gazes meet. “I guess, yeah”, mutters Kirishima, squeezing Bakugou’s wrist though their reflection shows the opposite. Fitting together like puzzle pieces, regardless of what’s changed today and years past.
“Just another Tuesday, hm?”
Bakugou recalls that skyscraper, the ache in shoulders broad and strong enough to carry the world. Thinks of sacrifices big and small, and the things they take for granted.
Nuzzling Kirishima’s cheek, he whispers, “Mh. Enjoy your bath, yeah?”, and swears to himself Kirishima will never be one of them.