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The Explodo-kill agency is a lot of things. It is a hero agency, filled with dashing heroes and magical girl transformations and angsty backstories. It is a cult, because when all of them show up together you run for your lives. It is a band of misfits that bond over blowing up buildings and causing traffic delays and initiating problems for everyone around them. However, first and foremost, it is a gossip agency. And like any good gossip agency, it is their moral obligation and duty to investigate any suspicious activities.
That is why all five of them of the #StopBakugouShitfits2k30 are hidden in the bushes and garnering several strange looks, because none of them are bothering to crouch and hide; they are just standing and staring unabashedly. Todoroki is holding a camera. Mineta is salivating. Kirishima has binoculars. They are #NotSuspiciousAtAll.
The last time this happened, they were at a warehouse instead of a park. Todoroki had been asked by a girl to meet her out there because she wanted to confess. It was very fishy, but Todoroki went anyway, because he was determined to finally have the same amount of love experience as Bakugou Katsuki. The rest of the #StopBakugouShitfits2k30 followed along, of course, because they were good friends and everyone knows that good friends snoop and pry and nose around each other’s private lives. In the end, they all watched Todoroki get ambushed in that very fishy warehouse and the jerks didn’t even try to help. Kirishima uploads the video online and gets rich off of Todoroki’s suffering. Todoroki wonders why he can’t even get a single love confession without misery.
Iida got a love confession once too, which is strange because they are a group of oversized babies who play Mario Kart for a living and destroy bridges in their free time. The girl is obviously only after Ingenium, but lucky her, because Iida is also very in love with him! The girl leaves after two days because she is convinced that Iida has a brother complex, and they transform the agency into a no date zone, not because none of them can find dates, of course not, but because they’re too cool to be shackled down. Todoroki tells them they’re all in denial. They refuse to let him into the agency for a couple of days after that.
They also try to keep Bakugou out too, because he’s happy when they aren’t and that is unacceptable. It doesn’t work because Bakugou just goes to watch movies and eat pizza while getting paid to do so so he ends up still being the winner. Meanwhile, those left at the agency are forced to listen to All Might tell his failed love stories because he thinks it’ll make them feel better. Hint: it doesn’t. If Todoroki wanted to hear a failed love story, he’d just look in the mirror.
Bakugou shows up at the park first and he is wearing a pink ‘Can’t Touch This’ shirt that’s very existence seems to offend Mineta. Todoroki has the exact same shirt that he received from his dad for Christmas. He has a feeling his father probably misinterpreted the meaning.
Speaking of clothes, they are all wearing suits and sunglasses. Iida does not know if this makes them look more like peeping toms or the police. He had been very against the idea at first because spying on friends is apparently morally unethical, but he is eventually persuaded to use his findings “for science”.
They see a green blur of happiness, niceness and masochism walk past them. Midoriya is also apparently blind because he doesn’t even glance at the quintet of very suspicious people trying and failing to hide behind a very small bush that’s more of a patch of grass than anything else. Kirishima suggests that they dress like thugs next time. Todoroki states that Bakugou is already doing a great job of that on his own.
“You’re fucking late, Deku!” Bakugou looks in distaste at Midoriya’s All Might t-shirt. Midoriya has it in five different colors and twelve styles and he isn’t afraid to let his boyfriend know that he isn’t the most important man in Midoriya’s life.
“I’m not late, Kacchan. You’re just early,” Midoriya is looking with similar distaste at Bakugou’s pink shirt. “How long were you waiting for?”
“I just got here,” says Liar Bakugou Katsuki who came an hour early. The #StopBakugouShitfits2k30 had been standing in their sad little bush for way too long watching as Bakugou walked back and forth while cursing up a storm.
“Oh, here! I got you a gift.” Midoriya takes out a bouquet of flowers and hands it over to Bakugou. Kirishima snickers as Bakugou holds the flowers as far away from his body as he possibly can as if it’s poisonous. “I saw them on my way here and they reminded me of you. The owner says they’re called pansies.”
“Fuck you,” Bakugou says and blows them up.
Before she joined the hero agency, Uraraka used to work at her parents’ company, helping with the construction of buildings around the city. It was a small and modest business, but Uraraka didn’t realize how truly important it was until she joined the Explodo-kill agency and started wrecking buildings herself.
She meets Bakugou when she finds her apartment blown to bits on day after she returns from cram school. He is standing there like it wasn’t him who destroyed the building and tells her that it was a villain when she can clearly see the scorch marks everywhere and his hands still steaming. Bakugou is very stellar at giving great first impressions.
Uraraka only ends up joining the agency because he name drops All Might. She finds out later that Bakugou is an expert at two things: blowing things up, and then mentioning All Might to cover up for his mistakes. It is surprisingly successful. He manages to attract all of them to the agency, after all. ‘Fucking charisma’, Bakugou had said, but none of them believe him because he is about as charismatic as a talking pig on two legs trying to find a date (though he is apparently a very successful talking pig on two legs, which is very infuriating).
Midoriya is nice and Uraraka likes him. He buys them cakes and helps them out with hero work whenever he drops by the agency. He is also a certified Bakugou trainer and can get the volatile boy to do almost everything. Uraraka was the witness to #TheMostDespairingEventKnownToMankind when Bakugou Katsuki willingly went down to the supermarket to buy a pack of cookies for his boyfriend when Midoriya flashed a few crocodile tears. Midoriya looked entirely too self-satisfied the whole time and Uraraka wonders if Bakugou knows that his boyfriend is actually a manipulative little troll.
He is actually the reason why she is here, on this Sunday afternoon, sacrificing her time to watch other people be happy because masochism is a trait that runs in the agency. The suit is hot and stuffy but Kirishima insisted that if they were going to stalk, then they’d have to do it right. Todoroki thinks it’s just an excuse for Kirishima to get new sunglasses after Bakugou stepped on them the week before.
Midoriya brought it up a week ago that since he and Bakugou started dating in the middle of his trip with All Might, they had never gone on a date before. And thus he subjected the entire agency to a week of nervous Bakugou—which really was just a Bakugou who screamed louder than normal. Todoroki still remembers Bakugou coming up to him and asking for dating advice. He thinks his ‘tie him up and make babies’ is particularly effective because that’s how he was born after all.
Kirishima runs into Bakugou one day at the bookstore hoarding shoujo mangas. He literally tries to fight a little girl who tries to take the last volume of the series. The shopkeeper gets annoyed seeing him sit in the aisle for a week or so and demands that he buys something, but Bakugou namedrops All Might like a pro and he doesn’t get in trouble. Kirishima tells him that shoujo manga is not realistic, but apparently ‘it is more helpful than Todoroki and his bdsm shit’, so Kirishima leaves him alone.
Bakugou has also learned to break into cars because he is a bundle of hero-like qualities, so instead of wrecking Todoroki’s car like usual, he steals it. Todoroki thinks it’s stupid because the park is literally a five minute walk from the agency, but apparently Bakugou wants to make a fashionable first impression. Todoroki thinks that that’s impossible as soon as Midoriya sees his face, anyway.
Midoriya reaches over and grabs Bakugou’s hands, and they all visibly cringe. They all know with experience from Mario Kart game controllers that Bakugou tends to get very sweaty palms when he’s running on adrenaline and they all fear for the wellbeing of Midoriya’s limbs. Midoriya just smiles, though, and Bakugou turns into a tomato and starts randomly screaming because he has the maturity of a kindergartener.
“I made lunch for you,” Midoriya says earnestly, and Kirishima laughs as Bakugou’s face becomes severely less constipated, because they made a list together in the library and receiving homemade bento boxes was the number one indication of true love, according to shoujo manga. “Let’s eat later, okay?”
“Okay,” Bakugou says, not even bothering to hide his staring at his promised lunch. Midoriya holds the boxes out of reach and sticks his tongue out and it is so unbelievably cute that Todoroki takes a picture and sends a copy of it to everyone else.
“Let’s go to the movies first. There’s one that just came out that I want to watch,” Midoriya says, completely disregarding the step-by-step date plan that they all know Bakugou has in his pocket. He spends the days when Midoriya is out doing fieldwork complaining about his love life, which makes them all angry because at least he has one.
Bakugou looks like he wants to disagree and go to the first place on his list, but he just scowls and follows after Midoriya, who is swinging the lunch boxes around and chattering about some villain that he had recently profiled.
“Ahh… young love,” says Kirishima, and they all sigh.
#TheMostDespairingEventKnownToMankind takes place on a Monday at the agency, because nothing good ever comes out of a Monday. All Might is doing his city patrol, which means they won’t get another hero request for at least another week or so, because villains are smart and they realize they won’t get anywhere if All Might is protecting the city, but they are also stupid because they quickly forget that All Might is protecting the city if he doesn’t show up to patrol once every so often.
Midoriya’s desk is next to Todoroki’s, which Bakugou isn’t too happy about. Bakugou thinks that he’s trying to steal Midoriya away from him. Midoriya thinks that he’s trying to steal Bakugou away from him. Todoroki just wants to make enough money to be able to move away to an isolated island so he can finally get the peace and quiet he deserves.
It is cake day at the agency, and Midoriya brings in this huge homemade cake to celebrate coming back from the trip. Midoriya is very good at baking, so there is a mini World War III for it. They all manage to salvage some pieces, but Bakugou ultimately wins because unlike the rest of them, he has no qualms about actually murdering one of them for the sake of pastries. Bakugou doesn’t even like sweets so they don’t know what he’s doing.
He wolfs down three quarters of the cake, including Midoriya’s portion. Midoriya looks like a kicked puppy. Bakugou scowls and blames him for being too weak and letting his cake get eaten, because that’s what Bakugou does, but then he almost trips over himself as he runs down to the bakery. He comes back later holding a pack of cookies and they all marvel in the miracle worker that is Midoriya Izuku. Midoriya, of course, is not at all surprised because Bakugou apparently makes grocery runs for his cravings at least once a week.
Speaking of food, the best cooker in the agency is Midoriya, followed by Iida, Uraraka, Mineta, Todoroki, and then Kirishima. All Might and Bakugou are in a league of their own and it is a wonder how two people who spent so long living on their own can cook up such atrocious concoctions. They have a competition once, but it ends in a tie because none of the judges are willing to taste the suspicious purple steaming substances that were presented.
They have hotpot night on Thursdays at Midoriya’s and Bakugou’s shared apartment, against Bakugou’s wishes. They find out that Midoriya’s room is basically an All Might lovefest, and it’s even better when they find out that Bakugou sleeps in the same room. Kirishima teases him about getting cockblocked by All Might and Bakugou gets angry, but he doesn’t correct Kirishima, so they realize that Bakugou actually might be getting his love life denied by posters of the number one hero.
Hotpot nights are perfect opportunities for blackmail material, so they end up playing Truth or Dare on most nights which brings them uncomfortably close. Todoroki think he would’ve preferred to have lived his life without the knowledge that everyone in the group has at least one pair of All Might neon yellow underpants and that Midoriya’s are even signed, or that Mineta once tried to charm a girl by walking around wearing nothing but that.
They learn that Midoriya and Bakugou have been friends for a long time based on an accidental phone call. Mineta gets annoyed after that and starts dialing random numbers in an effort to try to find his true love. He ends up accidentally calling a stripper and panics, but Todoroki just leaves his father’s address when asked. Todoroki notes that the only way Endeavor can get people to love him is if he pays for it.
Iida reveals that he has twenty five pair of glasses because he needs to reaffirm his nerdness. That, and he used to get pegged in the face with balls a lot during PE. Iida says with a straight face that he is a ‘balls magnet’ and doesn’t understand when they all laugh at him and ask him to repeat himself. Uraraka uses her nonexistent photoshop skills to make signs of him and puts them throughout the city. Iida is clueless to why he suddenly becomes famous.
Bakugou comes out of the movie theater first looking like someone just stole his quirk and destroyed it. “Deku, you fucker!” He yells, but it surprises them all when it comes out as more of a whimper. He is holding a can of soda, which he crushes and then explodes.
“Sorry, Kacchan.” Midoriya appears next out of the movie theater, looking slightly sheepish. “They advertised it as an action movie. I didn’t know it’d be scary.”
“It wasn’t fucking scary,” says Bakugou, trying to find his misplaced manliness. Unfortunately it is so far away that it is out of range and unable to be located.
“Okay,” Midoriya says, trying but failing to hide his smile. “I’m sorry for lending my arm to you in your time of need. Next time you are shaking and crying, I will make sure to turn the other way.”
“Shut the hell up, Deku! I wasn’t crying!”
“If you say so,” Midoriya says mildly. “You can pick the next place, okay? Let’s do something you want to do, then.”
Bakugou looks like he’s about to pull out that shoujo guide to romance in his pocket, but then he grins a super satanic smirk that makes even Midoriya take a step back.
“Don’t you fucking regret saying that,” Bakugou says, and then pulls Midoriya to hell.
Bakugou Katsuki may be the manliness man among men, or so Kirishima says, but he has a lot of weaknesses that he starts to reveal the longer they get to know him. They know that he’s weak to Midoriya, of course. He’s weak to his smiles, his hugs, his words. Bakugou also has a habit of reaching for Midoriya instinctively whenever they go out as an agency, as if reassuring himself that his boyfriend is still there. This results in some very awkward moments in which Bakugou accidentally grabs Todoroki’s hand and the two of them just stand and stare at each other, because neither one is willing to let go first.
Through hotpot nights they also learn that he hates sweets and long trips. Kirishima does what any good friend does with that information and plans a ten day agency trip to Europe. Bakugou starts complaining about being bored around thirty minutes in on the plane, and Midoriya offers him one of his fifty volumes of All Might recordings that he brought with him. Bakugou refuses to watch such blasphemy, so instead Midoriya watches it with All Might, because what better way to spend a long plane ride than watching documentary after documentary about yourself?
Iida spends the plane ride dutifully planning the entire trip for them, from landmarks to see to food to try. Kirishima sleeps the entire way, and Todoroki is glad that the entire plane has to suffer from the snores that he suffers from every night. Bakugou is not nearly as kind as he is and he sticks Kirishima’s earphones into each nostril. It backfires because the Kirishima snores cannot be stopped, and Bakugou soon finds the earbuds blown back into his face.
The four of them left—Bakugou, Todoroki, Uraraka and Mineta—decide to play some poker. Bakugou quickly discovers that not only is he terrible at the game because he yells every time he gets dealt a bad hand, but Todoroki has possibly the best poker face that anyone has ever seen. Todoroki calls this move his Resting Bitch Face and it is particularly effective against Endeavor.
“Because he’s a bitch,” says Bakugou, whose Water Gun was also super effective. Other moves he tried include ‘Accidental’ Banana Peel Drop, Pots and Pans Avalanche and Mop Attack, all with varying amounts of success.
Their vacation takes place during holiday season, and as such, only two rooms are available when they get to their hotel. Uraraka snags one of them for herself, leaving the six boys and an All Might to cram into one double bedroom. They end up drawing lots for the different sleeping areas, and Todoroki wonders when his luck got so bad when he is assigned to the bathtub. Which isn’t even a bathtub, because apparently they have showers in Europe. In hindsight though, perhaps he is lucky, because the bathroom ends up blocking most of the Kirishima snores and he is the only one—other than Kirishima—who ends up getting any sleep.
Midoriya takes it upon himself to act as their tour guide, since he went to Europe on that trip with All Might before. However, they quickly discover that both Midoriya and All Might have terrible senses of directions. They even end up crossing over to England without realizing it.
“This is Spain!” Midoriya says happily.
“The sign is in French. I think we might be in France,” says Todoroki, trying to be helpful.
“Shut up, fuckface! Deku says this is Spain, so it’s Spain!” says whipped boyfriend Bakugou Katsuki. They end up in front of the Eiffel Tower, which Bakugou proclaims proudly is a steel tower in Spain. Kirishima snickers and takes a video of the proclamation. Todoroki is beginning to wonder if he’s overestimated Bakugou’s intelligence all this time.
The trip ends up dragging because All Might insists that they all tour around the city together rather than splitting up, because it’s not like they see each other way too much on a daily basis anyway. They are forced to wait while Uraraka tries on almost all the clothes in the store and makes Iida rank them all for her. They are forced to wait while Midoriya buys every single hero related item on the continent, and even whipped boyfriend Bakugou Katsuki starts to complain because his wallet is getting lighter and lighter with every store they go to. They, very fortunately, do not have to wait while Mineta goes to do whatever sketchy things he does in his free time, because none of the places he wants to go to believe that he is above twenty one.
They end up attending a soccer match, because Kirishima’s idea of fun is to blow a lot of money to stand amongst a screaming crowd. None of them have any idea what is going on, and the most exciting part of the experience is probably when a fight breaks out a couple rows behind them. One beer can is accidentally thrown at Midoriya, which unleashes the #MidoriyaIzukuProtectionSquad, led by All Might and Bakugou Katsuki.
“It could’ve killed you,” says Bakugou.
“It was an empty can,” says Midoriya flatly. “The chair you flipped over when you started rampaging hurt more.”
The trip ends with all of them famous for the wrong reasons, and Midoriya ends up giving them the silent treatment for a week despite all of them only jumping into the fight to protect his virtue. But he ends up forgiving them anyway because they are all his friends and he cares about them—not because they bribed him with cookies or cake, of course.
They see Midoriya exit the roller coaster first, looking genuinely upset. They think that it’s a sin for Midoriya to be upset. “That was mean, Kacchan,” he sniffs. “You know I hate heights.”
“Payback’s a bitch!” Bakugou sneers.
“Has anyone told you that you’re an incredibly childish person who thinks you’re always right?” Midoriya muses.
His statement must have struck a nerve, because the #StopBakugouShitfits2k30 are forced to watch poor Midoriya Izuku as he is dragged on four roller coasters, two freefalling rides and one pirate boat before he is allowed to have lunch.
Why did Iida Tenya join the All Might agency? Why did he not work under his brother, you ask? That is simple. His brother is an amazing pro hero, of course, one of courage and will. He has many accomplishments and lives saved, and he is a true hero to the very definition!
But while Iida Tenya looks up to his brother, he also has this desire to surpass him! That is not being rude, however. In fact, it is the opposite! There is no greater respect than for someone to try their best to surpass someone they look up to. Just take a look at Midoriya! He is quirkless but he gives his all and works his hardest, and he has managed to garner the respect of both All Might and Bakugou Katsuki, two very prominent figures in society (for very different reasons).
In order to surpass his brother, Iida Tenya decided to join the All Might agency, to be able to learn and grow under the tutelage of the number one hero! He is certain that coming to this place will help him grow both as a hero and as a man. He will be able to learn the ways of a good hero, and then he will go back to his brother’s agency and show him what he has learned!
Unfortunately, not all things in life work out as planned, so Iida Tenya finds himself dealing with Bakugou Katsuki for the first four months of his new job. All Might is off on some faraway continent taking care of some hero business, so instead Bakugou is put in charge, and Bakugou is the definition of disrespectful! He dares to put the dirt on his feet onto the sacred All Might desk, sullying such a precious artifact! He has no control over his quirk and destroys more buildings than he helps rebuild. He does not finish any paperwork and instead makes everyone else do it!
Everyone else at the agency is fairly nice and they all work toward the same goal. Uraraka likes laughing and he’s sometimes not sure if she’s laughing at or with him, but she is very respectful when he talks to her! His only complaint would be that she likes to steal his glasses and forgets to return them, so he often has to go out and buy the backup of the backup of the backup of the backup of the backup of the backup of the backup of the backup of the backup of the backup of the backup of the backup of the backup of the backup of the backup of the backup of the backup of the backup of the backup of the backup of the backup of the backup of the backup of the backup of the backup in case all twenty five pairs of backups get lost at once!
Kirishima laughs a lot too, but they sometimes disagree, because he acts based on instinct while Iida acts based on intellect. As such, they don’t have very much in common, but his quirk comes very handy during missions. Kirishima also has a strong sense of responsibility and justice, so the two of them can talk about that as well! Kirishima does seem to enjoy sparring with Bakugou Katsuki, though, so Iida is not sure they’ll ever be able to understand each other.
He hasn’t quite figured out what Mineta Minoru is, so no comment.
Todoroki is the son of the number two hero, Endeavor, so it was fairly surprising to see him join All Might’s agency! Thinking that they have gone through the same experiences, Iida tries to talk to him about family, but he feels like he may have misunderstood something when he sees Todoroki slam dunk a picture of Endeavor into the trash. He finds out why later when Endeavor visits the agency and suffers through the next two weeks thinking about the hardest dilemma of his life: should he respect him, because he is such a good pro hero, or should he not respect him, because he is such a bad father?
“Why are you having this problem,” Todoroki asks flatly when he passes by Iida smashing his head against his desk. “You’re not even involved in this at all.”
He meets Midoriya later than everyone else, but he admires Midoriya’s determination and hard work! The boy greets all challenges with a smile and does his best to help those in need! The only complaint he has is that Midoriya gets overzealous sometimes and is prone to injuries. That leads to injuries for the rest of them as well, because Bakugou Katsuki has a tendency to blame absolutely everything on everyone who is not involved. Midoriya likes him, though, so Iida tries to be nicer to him, out of respect for his friend.
He joined this agency to grow, and grow he did! He has also managed to make so many new friends and learn so many new things, so he does not regret leaving his brother’s agency to come work at the All Might agency! Though it’s called the Explodo-kill agency now, which doesn’t sound anywhere as cool.
“Iida-kun,” Uraraka says, trying not to laugh. He has come to learn that that means that she is laughing at him. “Why are you narrating your life?”
“Yeah, shush man! They’ll hear us!” says Kirishima as all five of them stand suspiciously behind the park bench that Midoriya and Bakugou are currently sitting at.
“Can we talk about how my description was only twelve words?” Mineta asks. Everyone ignores him.
“Kacchan, you’re so mean,” Midoriya says, and they don’t need to see his face to know that he’s pouting. “I don’t think I can be your boyfriend anymore after what you did to me. You traumatized me for life! How am I supposed to go about my business anymore if I know that there is someone lurking out there who is willing to drag me onto the rides of doom?”
“Whatever,” Bakugou says, though he looks kind of tense. Maybe? His nose is a little scrunched up. Todoroki says that that’s how he looks on a normal basis. “Give me the lunchbox. I’m starving.”
“No,” says Midoriya. “You were mean to me, so I don’t wanna.”
“And who’s fucking acting childish now?” yells Bakugou Katsuki as he throws a temper tantrum.
“Still you,” says Midoriya.
“Fucking fine! I didn’t want to eat your homemade shit anyway!” says Liar Bakugou who obviously does want to eat the Midoriya Special Homemade Shit. “I’m going to buy something to drink!”
He surprises them all when he comes stomping back seconds later. “What the fuck do you want, Deku?”
“Just a water is fine. Thanks, Kacchan,” Midoriya says.
“This has got to be the most dysfunctional relationship I’ve ever seen,” Kirishima murmurs, and they all nod in agreement.
Once upon a time, the Explodo-kill agency had a test of courage because All Might decided that his agency clearly did not have enough drama. Since there were seven people all together, they split into one group of three and two groups of two. And since Bakugou Katsuki prepared the drawing lots, it is widely accepted knowledge that he definitely rigged the process so that he ended up paired up with Midoriya Izuku.
Unfortunately, there was one thing outside of his calculations. And that thing is currently next to him, doing his best to cockblock him.
“I’m sorry,” says Todoroki, not looking very sorry at all as he walks in between Midoriya and Bakugou. He has his Resting Bitch Face on and Bakugou wants to punch it off of him. “I can’t stand on the outside. I’m scared.”
“Like hell you are!”
“It’s okay, Kacchan,” says Midoriya, who sure does look happy despite getting his cock blocked. “Just let Todoroki-kun walk in the middle. You can stand on the outside, can’t you? You’re really brave. It should be no problem for you at all!”
“Of course it’s not a problem,” says Bakugo, like they’re not arguing about the difference of about five inches in placement. Todoroki very nicely does not point out how Bakugou is clearly standing closer to him than both of them would prefer. “Fucking Halfie, switch with Deku!”
“I’m sorry,” Todoroki repeats. “I can’t stand on the outside. I’m scared.”
Bakugou looks like he is about to blast Todoroki’s face off, but before he can do so, something growls in the bushes behind them. Midoriya then makes the mistake of saying, “Hey, Kacchan, isn’t this scene exactly like the horror movie we watched last week?”
Elsewhere, Uraraka and Iida are walking through the forest together, which isn’t very enjoyable for Uraraka because Iida is making sure to check behind every bush and tree before he allows them to advance to the next area.
“If you go to them, then they won’t be able to scare you!” Iida says proudly.
Iida’s logic aside, Uraraka is starting to feel bored. She agreed to this test of courage because she likes the thrill. In the agency, she thinks she maybe ranks third in the courage department, because Midoriya is fearless and Todoroki hides a lot behind that mask of his. Bakugou is unexpectedly low, because it is now common knowledge that he can’t deal with anything related to horror movies or jump scares.
They hear a loud yell afterwards that scares Iida, and he trips over the trap that Uraraka was setting up behind him. The rope pulls his body up so that he’s dangling by his foot, and in panic he accidentally activates his quirk, and he starts rotating around the forest in a circular manner.
Kirishima and Mineta are the last group, and their conversations go absolutely nowhere. Everything Kirishima claims as manly is scary for Mineta, and Kirishima doesn’t really want to talk about girls right now because it feels disrespectful to be speaking anyone’s name while walking through the forest of gloom and doom.
It gets boring after a while because All Might is short staffed and no one really wants to help him while he does his best to scare his employees. It is a Saturday night and really, everyone else has much better things to do. On the other hand, it is kind of his fault because the only one he asked for help was Aizawa. If he had asked someone else, like, say, Endeavor, he would have gotten a very different result. For example, there would be actual corpses scattered around the forest for extra effect.
“Anything for my son,” said Endeavor, probably.
Kirishima decides to take it upon his own hands and try to scare Mineta in order to spice things up a bit. It doesn’t sound like a very hard thing to do; after all, Mineta seems to cry about almost anything. The agency once caught him crying when a bee started chasing him while they were picnicking. In the end, several good baskets of the Midoriya Special Homemade Shit were wasted, and the only person who got stung was Bakugou.
“He got pricked because he’s a prick,” says Todoroki, and he thinks he’s a little funny but Midoriya is the only one who ends up laughing.
However, before Kirishima can do anything, a black mass of doom appears before them, circling at five hundred miles per hour. Upon closer inspection, the black mass of doom is Iida, whose glasses fell off long ago and is therefore virtually unrecognizable. Mineta starts screaming upon seeing this black mass of doom and starts chucking his purple balls in every single direction because that is definitely the smartest move.
One of the balls hits an unsuspecting Midoriya, who is still watching Bakugou try to persuade himself that he is not scared of horror movies, in the back. It is gooey and really yucky feeling, and Midoriya lets out an instinctive “Ow.”
“Don’t you fucking touch Deku!” Bakugou yells and promptly forgets that he is in a forest surrounded by a lot of flammable wood, and proceeds to burn the entire forest down.
They meet up afterwards, standing on the barren soil. Midoriya sighs and asks flatly, “Why are we like this?” It is a question no one has the answer to.
“Does anyone remember the test of courage?” Todoroki asks. They all shake their heads no because it is a traumatic experience that none of them want to relieve. Todoroki points, “Because it looks like Midoriya and Bakugou are going into a haunted house now.”
Kirishima steals the binoculars back from Mineta, who is trying to look up some girl’s dress. “Oh, they totally are! Let’s stay out here. We’ll be able to hear Bakugou’s screams from here, anyway.”
“It looks like they’re trying to see who can become Satan first,” says Uraraka.
“That spot is already taken,” Todoroki says.
“Todoroki, man,” says Kirishima. “Do you need to bring up your dad every time?”
The picnic occurs because Mineta complains about being stuck in the city every day. When they’re not in the agency, they’re in the streets fighting villains. Other than their Europe trip—which did not end very well—they don’t get very many opportunities to go out and enjoy themselves. So All Might gives them permission and Midoriya is delegated the Homemade Shit maker. Bakugou Katsuki is not allowed in the kitchen during those hours. However, as anyone who knows him can tell you, the more forbidden something is, the more Bakugou wants to do it (just look at Midoriya!). And as such, the entire agency gets to witness the sight of Bakugou Katsuki yelling out at midnight one day that he just wants to wear an apron and cook some shit.
Todoroki has a lot of blackmail videos so he ends up spending his Saturdays making them into a film out of the goodness of his heart. Bakugou does not appreciate it when Wednesday movie nights are spent watching his very embarrassing and comical actions. However, no one really cares since there isn’t much in the world that Bakugou likes to begin with, and the national anthem of agency becomes ‘I will fucking wear flower crowns every day if it means that I don’t have to see that shit ever again!’ said one Wednesday night when Bakugou may or may not have been a bit too tipsy.
Mineta hates Bakugou, probably more than anyone else in the agency besides Todoroki, though nowadays, no one really knows what to call their relationship. One time he was fooling around while on a job—so it was kind of his fault—when Bakugou burned all his clothes except for his All Might underwear and made him go pick up girls like that. It was mortifying! It was even more mortifying when it actually worked! The girl asks for his number and calls his phone the next time she needs a stripper and it is the most awkward moment when Mineta’s mom is the one picks up his phone.
He is a scaredy cat, but it is hard not to be one when you are in an agency of fearless, self-destructive heroes who recklessly jump into the face of danger. He still remembers that one time Midoriya jumped off the roof of a building to catch a falling cat. The news called him heroic, but Mineta thinks that everyone in this city has confused the words ‘heroic’ and ‘suicidal’. Midoriya doesn’t even have a quirk! What did he expect his heroism to do, spout wings and allow him to fly? That is not heroism. That is the definition of doing drugs.
Mineta is just… normal. He likes things guys his age like—girls, food and booze. He is a bit on the short side, but that gives him the perks of having great views. He doesn’t particularly enjoy game nights because Bakugou has this tendency of getting too invested in Mario Kart and then blocks everything and Mineta can’t see because he’s so short, but of course, whenever he mentions it, he is being a sore loser. He thinks that if anyone is being a sore loser, it’s Bakugou! He’s lost count of how many new remotes they had to buy because the guy is unable to not chuck his out the window in rage whenever he loses—which is actually quite a bit; for someone who has never played video games in his life before, Todoroki is very very good at making sure that Bakugou loses.
So ordinary and not-that-sketchy Mineta proposes a picnic, and off the agency goes to probably the only patch of grass in the whole city, which Todoroki thinks is someone’s lawn and definitely private property. He wonders why his dad and All Might are constantly fighting over how to one-up each other in illegalities.
The picnic starts off like any agency activity starts off; Bakugou and Todoroki start to fight over who gets to sit next to Midoriya despite there clearly being two spots. They arm wrestle for the privilege of bathing in the Holy Midoriya Ray of Light and in the end, Midoriya ends up in between Kirishima and Uraraka, and Bakugou is pissed and he isn’t afraid of letting absolutely everyone know it.
Mineta is just enjoying the wind and the food when the mass harbinger of doom manifests itself in the shape of a bee and comes to attack him. He does what any sane human being would do and starts screaming and running. Bakugou may call him a fucking wimp, but he hasn’t had the traumatic experience of going through his purple balls and cleaning them out of insects and bird poop that manage to get stuck between the cracks.
In his haste to get away from the bee, Mineta knocks over some baskets of the Midoriya Special Homemade Shit, which gets Bakugou yelling and Iida lecturing about the importance of not wasting food. The bee pursues him for a while before it notices Ray of Sunshine Midoriya Izuku and makes a beeline for him (“Was that pun really necessary?” Kirishima asks.)
Even though it is just a bee and Midoriya looks ready to accept his fate of getting one bee sting, Bakugou is apparently upset with the thought that anyone other than he can mark Midoriya’s skin. And so he jumps in front of Midoriya like a valiant knight in shining armor and gets stung like a knight in shining armor, except the actual thing is nowhere as poetic. Bakugou drops like a sack of potatoes because he apparently forgot that he has a bee allergy, and their picnic ends early because Bakugou lost to a bee that was about the size of the tip of his pinky.
Bakugou at the amusement park is not fairing much better, and he comes out of the haunted house looking kind of green. Midoriya, apparently, runs out of his sadistic allowance of the day, because he grabs Bakugou’s hand and smiles apologetically.
“Sorry, Kacchan,” Midoriya says. “Let’s go do something fun, okay? Maybe a carousal or something?”
“I don’t want to go on shit that spins round and round,” Bakugou growls.
“Oh,” says Midoriya. “Does that mean that the Ferris Wheel is out of question?”
“Midoriya,” Kirishima whispers when Bakugou looks significantly better than he did seconds ago. “The Ferris Wheel is never out of question.”
The #MidoriyaIzukuProtectionSquad is initially created to protect Midoriya from Bakugou. Like any good friends, the #StopBakugouShitfits2k30 decided to test Bakugou to see if he was worthy of Midoriya’s affections, never mind the fact that the two of them were already dating before Midoriya even met the rest of them. They were mostly looking for an excuse to slap Bakugou around a bit anyway.
They all set difference entrance exams on him. Iida’s features a struggling old woman trying to cross the street with her groceries. Bakugou doesn’t help and Iida is appalled and tries to break up with him (“Dude, he’s not dating you,” says Kirishima). Uraraka makes him substitute as the cashier at a convenience store one day, and he is about as good at customer service as you might expect (To be fair, the woman was trying to return a half-eaten bag of chips). Kirishima tries to make him pick up some of the litter at the beach, and this one he actually does, but only because Midoriya apparently has the habit of cleaning up the area once in a while. Bakugou also apparently thinks it’s okay to chuck empty soda cans into the ocean and pretend like he’s not doing it. Mineta makes him watch some highly suspect movies that makes everyone around Bakugou suffer from second hand embarrassment just from watching him, and then he reveals (“Too pure! Too pure!” says Kirishima) that he and Midoriya have never gotten anywhere further than holding hands. Todoroki doesn’t need to test him, because he already knows that Bakugou is a horrible person.
While all of their little personalized exams test Bakugou’s character, All Might’s tests Bakugou’s will. He grabs Bakugou’s shoulders one day and gives him a look so terrifying that makes even Bakugou starts to sweat. “Young Bakugou…” All Might says seriously, as if he’s about to smash his face into oblivion. “If you are serious about Young Midoriya, go jump off that cliff right now.”
“All Might, I’ll die,’ says Bakugou.
“Are you saying that you wouldn’t die for Young Midoriya? Is that how shallow your affections are?!” All Might booms and then drags poor Bakugou somewhere. For a second, Todoroki actually feels bad for him. Only for a second though.
“Why did you dodge that?” Todoroki asks flatly one day while training. “You should have taken the hit and died. Is that how shallow your affections are?”
“What,” says Endeavor.
Bakugou wants to disband the #MidoriyaIzukuProtectionSquad because he says that he alone is enough to protect Midoriya. They do what any good friends do and go against his wishes. It feels counterproductive to add the supposed villain to the protection squad, but they know Bakugou will whine and complain about not being bestowed this superficial title and really, they—namely Todoroki—has better things to do than to spend all Saturday watching as Bakugou trashes his apartment and eats all of his ice cream. Once again, Bakugou doesn’t even like sweets.
The #MidoriyaIzukuProtectionSquad isn’t very successful at first. They realize after several failed attempts and that disastrous Europe trip that perhaps their definition of protection is very different from Midoriya’s. He gets mad because they jump in to protect his virtue, but to be honest, Todoroki thinks that it is kind of his fault for continuously charging headfirst into dangerous situations while conveniently forgetting that he is quirkless.
“I don’t forget,” says Midoriya. “It just… slips my mind.”
“That’s the definition of forgetting,” says Iida.
They all have things they conveniently forget. Bakugou conveniently forgets that he is a human being and should have at least some shred of morals. Iida conveniently forgets that he is a certified nerd and does not need to talk so formally to reiterate it. Uraraka conveniently forgets that this agency seems to be a bad influence on her and that she should probably run away before they start making her sell drugs or something. Kirishima conveniently forgets to wash his dishes and close the door at night so that Dog will stop running away. Mineta conveniently forgets the concept of privacy and decency and the fact that he’s supposed to be a hero. Todoroki conveniently forgets everything but the fact that he has a dad named Endeavor and he is a jackass. He is convinced that he will be an old cat grandpa (except the cats will all be called Dog and it will be hell) and he will still be harping about his father.
All Might conveniently forgets the fact that he’s supposed to be running a hero agency.
“Are they kissing yet?!” Mineta screeches as he plasters his face to the glass, trying to see into the next carriage. “Are they making out yet?! Are they doing the dirty?!”
“Mineta, man, chill out,” Kirishima laughs. “They’re not even sitting on the same side. They’re just talking.”
“JUST KISS!!” Sexually deprived Mineta yells despite the fact that they all know that the glass is soundproof.
“This is morally incorrect,” declares Iida, though he has his nose pressed against the face like the rest of them. They wonder how neither Midoriya nor Bakugou have noticed this obvious peeping tom convention.
“They’re talking now!” Uraraka says excitedly. “Let’s narrate by reading their lips! Kirishima-kun, you can be Deku-kun! Todoroki-kun, you can be Bakugou-kun!”
“I don’t want to be Bakugou,” says Todoroki flatly.
“That’s not what Bakugou just said,” Kirishima frowns. “You’re not too good at this, are you?’
Todoroki squints his eyes. “Deku, what did you want to tell me?”
“I like you, Kacchan,” Kirishima narrates. Mineta gives an appreciative hoot in the background. “I’m really happy we got to meet.”
“Me too,” Todoroki says gruffly, trying to imitate Bakugou’s voice.
“This is so sweet!” Uraraka cheers.
“This is so wrong!” says Iida.
“But,” Kirishima continues. “I don’t think I can be with you anymore. I’m sorry. I’ve thought long and hard about this, and it was the most difficult decision of my life. I’m really sorry we had to end this way. Wait a second, isn’t this getting kind of serious?”
“Why is Midoriya breaking up with him?” asks the pragmatic Iida.
“Because Bakugou’s a jackass,” says Todoroki.
“I signed up for fluff! Not this angst!” Uraraka yells at the soundproof glass.
In the other carriage, Bakugou looks equally as shocked. “What are you talking about, you shitface?” Todoroki says. “Why are you suddenly saying this?”
“I like you. I really do,” says Kirishima, who is beginning to feel some tears well up. “I just found someone I liked better. It was really hard to choose in between you two! You both mean so much to me! The agency’s going to be awkward as hell tomorrow, man.”
“What,” says Todoroki. “Who is this fucker?”
“I met them yesterday,” says Kirishima. Midoriya looks like he’s about to cry. “They were just standing there and… it was perfect. I fell in love instantly. It was love at first sight. I’m really sorry.”
“Maybe… we should stop watching,” Uraraka says uneasily. “This looks really personal.” Mineta looks like he want to disagree, but in the end, he too respectfully turns around to let the couple have one last moment alone before the end of the bakudeku ship.
Meanwhile in the other carriage…
“I don’t think they’re looking anymore,” says Midoriya.
Bakugou rolls his eyes and sits forward. “What was that, you fucknerd?”
“Sorry, Kacchan,” Midoriya says sheepishly. “It must have been boring for them to follow us around all day so it was a little entertainment for them.” He looks down. “Also, I’m kind of mad that we didn’t manage to get a single moment alone today, so that was payback, I guess.”
“You’re fucking weird,” Bakugou says, and Midoriya laughs a little like it’s supposed to be a compliment. “And that god damn terrible acting.”
“It’s not my fault! You know I’m bad at anything that requires lying! I tried my best!” Midoriya looks down shyly. “But, um, Kacchan, they’re not looking anymore and we’re at the top of the Ferris Wheel, so can we…?”
Bakugou turns slightly red himself. “What the hell are you suggesting?”
Midoriya fidgets around. “Please…?”
Bakugou is trying to look cool but failing immensely. “Fine,” he says after a moment of silence. “Get over here, you fucking Deku. I’m not getting up for this.”
“You won’t get off your lazy butt for me?” Midoriya asks with a small smile, already moving toward him. “Is that how shallow your affections are?”
“Say that again and the only thing your mouth will be getting are explosions.”
“Literally or figuratively?” Midoriya says, but he’s blushing too. “Because I wouldn’t mind figuratively.”
Bakugou groans but leans forward anyway.
Bakugou goes to work the next day and find five bouquets of pansies on his desk and a new poster on his wall that says ‘SORRY FOR YOUR LOSS!’
And so he begins his first day post-Midoriya-kiss by blowing up the agency.