Work Text:
The mistake Bakugo makes is bickering too loud. He and Midoriya are walking back to the dorms and the brat is trying to insist his right hook has gotten better than Bakugo’s. This complete, delusion-fueled falsification is not something to be corrected quietly. Naturally, Bakugo has him in a headlock.
“You’re totally mad because you’re jealous,” Midoriya says, grinning big and evil as he tries to squirm free of Bakugo’s hold. They trip in a circle as they half walk, half wrestle their way up the path.
“As if!” Bakugo shouts. “You tripped during your goddamn cool off stretches, what the fuck would I envy about you?”
Midoriya groans. “Oh my god, my shoe was untied.”
“Who forgets to tie their fucking shoe? How old are you?”
Midoriya opens his mouth to protest, but they both stop when they hear a faint call of Bakugo’s name.
It drifts through the wind towards them. A familiar singsonging of “Kaaaacchan.”
Bakugo shuts his eyes.
Midoriya giggles. He turns his head and talks before Bakugo can slap his hand over his mouth. “Hi Kaminari!”
“I knew I heard the sounds of senseless bickering!” Kaminari shouts back. Midoriya and Bakugo lean off the path. Along the side of the building, they can see Bakugo’s idiot friends, crammed in a cluster on Jiro’s balcony. “We need your help!”
“I’m busy!” Bakugo calls back.
“No you’re not,” Kirishima says instantly. All Bakugo can see is the stupid shock of red and his distant profile. He doesn’t even have the decency to face him when he decimates Bakugo’s excuse.
Midoriya uses his moment of weakness to escape his hold. He jogs backwards as he darts up the path, hand raised in a smug wave.
“Have fun with your friends, Kacchan!”
“I won’t!” Bakugo snarls after him. Midoriya giggles to the beat of his feet on the pavement as he scrambles away to the front doors.
Bakugo takes a breath to steel himself for whatever chaos he’s about to enter as he steps off the path and walks over to Jiro’s balcony.
He comes face to face with a ladder made of Sero’s tape. It sways in the wind. Its creator leans on the railing and grins wide.
“Come on up,” Sero calls. Bakugo gives him a flat stare, then ignores the ladder to blast himself up with his quirk. He lands on the railing with a loud clang, shoving his hands between his knees to clutch the bar and steady himself.
“Boo,” Sero says to his complete rejection of the tape ladder. “You’re no fun.”
“Historically,” Bakugo mutters. He turns to the rest of the group. Sero’s standing to his right and leaning against the railing. Ashido’s beside him, curled up in the corner. Kirishima’s sitting to the left of Bakugo’s feet with his back against the bars. After him, Kaminari’s curled in the other corner, with Jiro beside him, and Shinso beside her. Shinso has clearly strategically chosen the spot that allows him to rest his head against the sliding doors.
“What the fuck are you all doing here?”
“I was trying to come up with a name for my new move,” Kirishima explains. He’s gripping the bars above his head, swaying back and forth slightly.
Bakugo narrows his eyes. With a silent huff, he fully seats himself on the railing.
“What move?”
“You know, the one where I harden my hands and use it to climb up flatter surfaces.”
He frowns. “That shit isn’t new. You’ve been doing it forever.”
“But it’s never been named!” Kaminari insists.
Bakugo glances at him. “And you decided it was going to take this many of you?”
“Well, not exactly,” Kirishima laughs.
“I was with Ei, so I suggested we go to Kyoka for help. Since she writes,” Kaminari explains.
“Songs,” Jiro interjects, “not stupid boy stuff.”
“Transferable skills and such,” Kaminari insists, waving a hand. “But then as she so eloquently put it, she decided we did need to enlist a stupid boy, so we called our favourite one.”
Sero salutes. “Plus Ultra.”
“But he was already with Mina, so she obviously came over too.”
“I wasn’t done painting his nails!” she insists, waving her nail polish bottle around. “I had to finish my work while we were walking down the hallway.”
“It was pretty impressive,” Sero says.
“But by the time they got here we’d already moved to the balcony and were all settled, and we didn’t want to relocate so we just decided to hold the meeting here.”
Bakugo raises an eyebrow, nodding to where Shinso’s curled up and pretending to be asleep. “And how the hell did you convince him to show up?”
“This is a hostage situation,” Shinso grumbles with his eyes closed.
“We saw him walking back from his training with Mr. Aizawa,” Kaminari says.
A mischievous grin dances across Jiro’s lips. “The boys shouted at him until Aizawa ordered him to go train his social battery,” she snorts.
Bakugo hums. That explains his capture weapon tossed on the floor inside Jiro’s room, and his strange outfit consisting of the pants from his hero costume and an oversized shirt Bakugo is pretty sure belongs to Jiro.
“So did you figure it out yet?” he asks.
Kaminari looks confused. “Figure what out?”
Ashido cackles as Sero hides a smile behind a facepalm.
“Fucking hell,” Bakugo grumbles.
Kirishima chuckles as he leans over. He puts his weight against Bakugo’s calf until he has his attention. “I was going to go with Rock Climb, but the girls didn’t like that one.”
“It’s lame,” Jiro says flatly.
Ashido nods frantically. “Mhm, mhm. It’s missing its WAPOW!” she says, opening her hands on the sound for emphasis.
“You don’t want to be missing your wapow,” Sero says seriously.
“I kinda agree, dude,” Kaminari blurts, “It doesn’t have the kinda BABOOM effect you want when you yell it out in battle, you know?”
Sero shakes his head in mock disappointment. “Can’t be missing the baboom either.”
“Plus,” Shinso cracks one eye open, “regular people rock climb all the time. It’s not something unique. You want them to associate the move with you.”
“Tough crowd,” Sero chuckles. He glances at Kirishima and shrugs. “I thought it was fine.”
“And that’s exactly why he came to me for advice first,” Jiro teases. Sero lazily holds his hands up in surrender.
“So they slaughtered you for Rock Climb,” Bakugo summarizes.
Kirishima nods. “Pretty much, yeah.”
He scoffs, lip twitching up. “Deserved.”
The redhead reaches up and swats his knee, smirking even as he tries to look agitated. “Man, I knew you would say that.” He shakes his head, loosening his little ponytail. “Fine, fine. No to Rock Climbing.”
“Wait.” Kaminari sits up a little straighter. “Are we still going rock climbing this week?”
“We were going rock climbing this week?” Jiro mumbles.
“Dude, you are so bad at checking the group chat.”
“You guys talk too much!”
“I thought our plans got postponed because Blasty was being a freak about it,” Sero says with a grin.
“Fuck you,” Bakugo snaps, “I was getting us in for free.”
Ashido pauses on the nail she’s painting. She looks up at him. “You have connections with the rock climbing people?”
“No,” Sero drawls, “you and Denki wanted to go to that place in the city, but Bakugo wanted to ask Aizawa if we could have the mountains of Ground Omega to ourselves instead.”
“What!” Kaminari yelps. “That’s gonna be like climbing an actual mountain.”
“Exactly,” Bakugo insists. “It’ll be way better training for you idiots.”
“Ugh, this isn’t supposed to be training, this is supposed to be fun!” he whines.
“Why can’t it be both?” Kirishima pipes up. “I thought it was a good idea.”
“Of course you did,” Ashido mutters with a smirk and a roll of her eyes.
“If we’re going to do it anyway, we might as well get some training out of it!” Kirishima flexes, his elbow bumping Bakugo’s boot.
“I’m fine with climbing here.” Jiro shrugs.
“Of course you are!” Kaminari laments. “You didn’t even know we were rock climbing until thirty seconds ago, you have no alternate versions of this plan to mourn!”
“Shouldn’t you be all about going beyond, Plus Ultra and all that?” Sero says. “Taking every possible opportunity to become the number one hero?”
“No way!” he shouts. He waves a finger between Bakugo and Kirishima. “Those two have muscles where their brains are supposed to be, and I refuse to be convinced their mindset is either healthy or normal! When we grow up, I’m going to be the only one out of all of you with any sense of work-life balance!”
“Sounds like laziness to me,” Jiro mutters. Kaminari gapes at her. Shinso fails to muffle a laugh.
“I thought your brain was a muscle,” Ashido whispers. She shakes her head. “Either way…I’m actually okay with Bakugo’s plan.”
Kirishima clicks his tongue. “Outvoted, Denks. Sorry.”
Kaminari slumps back against the railing. “I’m attending none of your funerals.”
“You’ll have to cut back on your caffeine intake if you plan to beat any of us to the finish line anyway,” Shinso mutters.
“I thought you were asleep!” Kaminari snaps.
“I am.”
“What about Earthquake?” Kirishima blurts.
“No, I don’t want to go to the earthquake zone, that’s even worse,” Kaminari says instantly.
“Ugh, yeah, never take me back to the USJ.” Ashido exaggerates a shiver. Kirishima frowns, opening his mouth like he plans on elaborating.
“We’re going to Ground Omega and that’s final.” Bakugo crosses his arms. “We have the space until eleven p.m. You’re welcome. And we’re not using quirks.”
“What?!” the entire porch exclaims.
“First you make it training, then you make it training training,” Kaminari whines.
“You wouldn’t be able to use them if we’d gone to a public place anyway,” Bakugo argues.
“But now we’re not going to a public place, so I should be able to sabotage Denki by taping his feet to the rocks if I want to,” Sero says.
Kaminari jabs a finger at him. “The next time your phone dies you will get nothing from me.”
“Just because you can use your quirks doesn’t mean you should.” Bakugo says.
Kirishima leans back and swats at his shin. “Man, like you’re one to talk.”
“Yeah!” Kaminari joins in. “You blast us just to scare us all the time!”
“Not during training,” Bakugo grumbles. He refuses to let the idiots distract him. “The point is, you should be considering times when you wouldn’t be able to use your quirk.”
Sero raises an eyebrow. “Like when? I get that that’s an issue for Denks and maybe Mina, but me and Kys sort of have our quirks built in. Not to mention Shinso and Eijiro have pretty few limits. So, like, when would we not be able to use our quirks?”
“Your arms could be broken,” Bakugo starts. “The surface you're trying to scale could be too slippery for your tape to stick, or hold your weight. You could have a head wound messing with your balance. Visibility could be too low to safely navigate—”
“Uh oh, you got him going.”
“I should’ve seen this coming.”
Bakugo raises his voice over the peanut gallery, holding a finger out for each point. “You could be carrying a civilian with an injury that can’t be jostled. You could be fighting a villain with a quirk like Aizawa’s that neutralizes your own. You could be pinned by something too heavy to pull yourself out of. You could—”
“Okay, Midoriya. We get it,” Ashido blurts.
Bakugo snaps his mouth shut fast enough that his teeth crunch. He shoots her a vile glare. All she does is twitch before she buckles with laughter. On the other side of Bakugo, Kirishima does the same. Bakugo swings his legs out in either direction to smack both of them. They roll away from him, still cackling.
“None of you are fucking funny,” he snarls.
“Denial is a disease, Katsuki,” Kirishima teases.
“It’s jealousy,” Kaminari corrects.
“I’m not jealous!” Bakugo snaps.
“No—” Kaminari stammers. His voice is breaking on a rising laugh. Jiro’s already cackling beside him, kicking her feet. “The saying—it’s jealousy is a disease.”
“Oh right.” Kirishima tilts his head. “What’s the one about denial?”
“It’s a river in Egypt,” Sero says.
“I know that, but what’s the saying about it?” Kirishima says. Jiro cackles harder, clutching at her stomach.
“All boys are lost causes,” Ashido mutters.
“You thought the brain was a muscle,” Shinso mumbles.
Ashido looks bewildered. “It seriously isn’t?”
Sero mutters something exasperated in Spanish. Bakugo doesn’t understand it, but he’s inclined to agree.
He feels something cold hit his finger and jolts. He looks down to see Ashido has turned towards him and is reaching up to paint his fingernails, trying to target them where they’re curled around the railing. He pins her with another glare. She smiles sheepishly.
“It’s black,” she promises, raising the bottle and waving it slightly to show him. Bakugo scowls.
“Don’t fuck it up,” he grunts.
“Wouldn’t dream of it, Blasty!” she says with a grin.
He turns his head towards the rest of them and tries to ignore the slight, repeated pressure of Ashido’s brush against his nails. “To summarize, we’re going to Ground Omega after supper and we have it until eleven p.m. No quirks allowed. Does that work for all you losers?”
There’s a chorus of confirmation with a vast range of enthusiasm. Shinso, with his eyes still closed, holds out a thumbs-up.
“I thought you were asleep,” Jiro says.
“I am.” He drops his thumb.
“Okay.” Kirishima claps his hands together. Then he grabs Bakugo’s calf and shakes it. “Now that that’s settled, can we go back to my thing? What about…claw…something.”
“Oh yeah.” Sero nods seriously. “Claw-something has a sexy ring to it.”
“Dude, shut up,” Kirishima says through a laugh, kicking at Sero’s ankle. “You’re supposed to be helping.”
“Clawsome,” Kaminari blurts.
“Clawsome!” Ashido repeats with a snort.
“That’s gotta be our worst one yet,” Jiro drones. “Imagine being saved by ‘Clawsome.’” She can barely get through the word, she dissolves into a cackle again. Kirishima looks up with a complete and honest exasperation. Bakugo can’t help but laugh at him too.
“Focus, idiots.” Bakugo shifts his hands to adjust his weight, which earns him a pinch on the wrist from Ashido for almost smudging his nails. He taps his foot against her in retaliation and she pretends to bite at his ankle. Bakugo swallows his smile. “Let’s think about what Ei’s move does.”
“He hardens his hands to climb stuff. Haven’t we already said this?” Sero waves his arms.
“What are we going to do for supper?” Kaminari blurts.
Kirishima puts his head in his hands. Bakugo laughs.
“It’s almost eight, you haven’t had supper yet?” Shinso grumbles, one eye opening.
“No, no, sorry.” He waves. “I’m still thinking about rock climbing. Should we go out to eat before?”
“Ugh, but then we have to leave campus and come back,” Ashido groans. “It’s easier if we just stay here.”
“We can cook something at the dorms,” Bakugo suggests. He’s instantly met with the silent, pleading stares of six teenagers. He sighs. “I can cook something at the dorms.” He rolls his eyes. “Useless fucks.”
“You’re such a tsundere, Kacchan.” Kaminari leans into Shinso’s shoulder as he smiles. “We all know if we even tried to help you’d kick us out anyway.”
“It’s his love language, let him have it,” Ashido giggles.
“I don’t have a love language because I can’t stand you guys,” Bakugo says reflexively.
“Right, right, whatever you say man,” the crowd echoes, entirely unphased. He should be aggravated, but he’s smiling.
“You’re avoidant when it comes to emotional vulnerability so you lean on your acts of service to convey that you love us, dude,” Sero says easily. “It’s fine, we get you.”
Bakugo stares at him. “You made up half of those words.”
“Oh, here we go again. He thinks All Might’s self-improvement mission has been deeply inspiring,” Kaminari explains, completely sarcastic.
“Teach gave Hanta one of his novels.” Ashido rolls her eyes. “Now he’s obsessed with the therapy speak.”
“All Might needs to stop reading so many self-help books,” Bakugo grumbles.
“I think it’s awesome,” Sero says with a stupid grin. “It’s really good stuff. It’s like I finally get to assign you guys star signs the way Mina does, but way funnier.”
“Denki’s Cancer-ism is no joke!” Ashido insists.
“And neither is his anxious attachment style,” Sero snickers.
“I don’t like this game,” Kaminari decides.
“What about Bulldoze?” Kirishima suggests.
“Kats is the bull. You’re the scale,” Ashido clarifies.
“No—” Kirishima smacks his face with a hand. “Guys,” he pleads.
Bakugo shoots him a knowing grin. Kirishima mirrors it through his fingers. Through the stupidity of it all, they share the strange affection over the fact that this endless loop is exactly where they want to be.
“Okay, recapping the plan,” Sero says. They go through it again, from their classes ending to their dinner plans, what they’ll need to bring and when they’ll leave for the gym. It takes another hour, accounting for their dedication to consistently getting sidetracked. By the time they’re done talking, the sun has set entirely. They’re sitting on Jiro’s balcony in the dark, the light from her room seeping through the window to illuminate their little square of bodies. A spotlight on their cluster of comfort. Bakugo’s nails are painted black and dry. Ashido did a great job. She always does. She knows he doesn’t tolerate anything less than perfect.
“And none of you fucks are going to be late, right?” Bakugo says with a pointed glare at each of them.
“We’ll be together from the moment class starts until after we’re done rock climbing, dude, where would you lose us?” Jiro drawls.
“You shitheads would find a way.”
Kaminari holds his hands up in surrender, as if to imply it’s entirely out of his control if he somehow gets lost between the dorms and the gym. Shinso, who has his eyes half open now, laughs. He shuts his eyes quickly again when it makes people look his way.
“Then it’s settled.” Ashido claps her hands together. Her rings click against the nail polish bottle in her palm. “Yay! I’m so excited!” She jumps to her feet. Kaminari stands too, offering Jiro a hand to pull her up.
“Look at us being so organized.” He grins.
“This was all me!” Bakugo jabs a thumb at his own chest. Sero leans away from the railing and pops his back.
“Sure, take the credit Blasty.” He shrugs. “I won’t argue with you since it’s past your bedtime.”
“It’s past all our bedtimes,” Shinso groans. He grabs at Kaminari’s shirt to pull himself up. The blond yelps as he stumbles. Ashido laughs at them.
“Yeah, yeah,” Bakugo groans, “let’s fucking call it then.”
Slowly, they drag themselves away from the railing and closer to each other. When they aren’t all pressed against the side of the balcony it’s much more obvious that the space is too small for this many people. Somehow, they’d done the impossible of making themselves all fit. They linger in their cluster without saying much as Jiro fumbles for the latch of the door. Kaminari cracks a joke about her coordination that makes Sero laugh. Ashido pats Bakugo’s shoulders a bunch as if it will get him through the shut door faster. Someone points out that they never got rid of Sero’s rope ladder. It’s still swaying in the wind.
Crammed between Sero’s bony elbows and Kaminari’s back and Ashido’s hands, Bakugo is sickeningly, undeniably fond.
He looks back and sees Kirishima starting to stand from his spot to follow them, only to stop as he meets Bakugo’s eyes.
“Wait!” he yelps. Jiro finally gets the door open. They all stop and turn.
“We never named my special move!” Kirishima says.
The group of them groans. Bakugo and Kaminari mutter the same curse. Jiro sighs and shuts the door again with a resounding click.
All of them sit back down.