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Despite the amount of times Katsuki had barked, “I’m a charitable man,” just to boost his own ego and annoy Izuku, he disliked charity events.
Not because he was an asshole—he liked helping people—but because they dragged on for no damn reason.
He’d been sitting in the sun for five straight hours, handing out pamphlets, sweating through his hero uniform, and listening to Izuku chirp in his ear about this new initiative that would apparently “change lives” and “save children” and “bring hope to the next generation.”
Katsuki couldn’t give a rat’s ass about any of that right now.
He cared about shade, he cared about water, and he cared about not hearing Izuku say the word community one more fucking time.
Izuku, meanwhile, was thriving. He bounced from person to person with that bright, earnest smile that made civilians melt and made Katsuki want to walk into traffic. Every kid got a sticker, every parent got a pamphlet, and every elderly person got a hug.
Shoto stood behind them, sipping an iced coffee he absolutely did not pay for, casually making neat little ice cubes for the refreshments being handed out to the workers.
Not for Katsuki, though—apparently, he “doesn’t need refreshments.”
Katsuki wiped sweat off his forehead, waving off some extra half-heartedly before turning to Izuku, “I swear to All Might, if one more brat asks me what my quirk smells like—”
Izuku elbowed him. “Kacchan, be nice! This is for charity!”
“It’s forty fuckin’ degrees,” Katsuki snapped. “Charity can wait.”
Izuku laughed, bright and sunny. “You’re doing great!”
“I’m gonna kill you.”
“You won’t.”
Shoto nodded. “He won’t.”
Katsuki glared at both of them.
And then—like the devil wanted to make everything worse—a little girl marched up to them with the confidence of someone who had never been told no.
She tugged Izuku’s sleeve. “Hi, Deku!”
Izuku lit up instantly, sunshine incarnate. “Hi there! Are you having fun?”
She nodded, then turned to Katsuki with zero fear. “And hi, Boom Boom.”
Katsuki’s eye twitched. “Don’t call me that. It’s Great Explosion Murder God Dynamight.”
Shoto rolled his eyes. The little girl ignored Katsuki completely.
Then she spoke up—and by the smug curiosity leaking out of her expression targeted at Izuku, Katsuki knew whatever was about to come out of her mouth would ruin his damn day.
“Are you and Dynamight dating, Deku?”
Izuku’s eyes widened. He immediately began flailing—genuinely doing too much—as signed posters slipped from his hands and scattered across the pavement.
Katsuki, on the other hand, tuned out the man beside him entirely. His body froze. His heart went way too fast for his liking—and probably for his cardiologist’s liking too.
Shoto stifled a small laugh and crouched down to pick up the posters Izuku had dropped.
Katsuki instinctively shifted aside to make space for him, and the movement snapped him back into reality.
Izuku was still spiralling. “W‑WHAT—No—HAHA—We’re just… friends! Best friends, actually—Really good friends—Like friendly friends—”
Katsuki hooked his arm over Izuku’s shoulder and slapped his hand over the mans mouth, “Hell no—This nerd wishes he was dating me.”
Izuku, effectively silenced, lightly slams Katsuki’s foot in protest, forcing the latter to begrudgingly release him.
Katsuki muttered a low, irritated, “—Screw you, Deku,” under his breath.
Then, he jabbed an accusatory finger at the small girl, barking, “And you—what kinda damn rumors—”
The girl shrugged, before cutting Katsuki off. “You look like you love each other.”
Izuku turned tomato red and took two quick steps away from Katsuki, who looked like he was choking on air—suddenly realising that they were way too close for comfort.
Shoto—choosing to ignore the rising tension entirely—looked up at the two men, nodding thoughtfully. “They do.”
Katsuki’s neck snapped downwards, glaring at the man. “Shut your damn trap, Icyhot.”
Izuku squeaked, reaching out to lightly grab Shoto by the collar, tugging him up from the ground where he’d been gathering posters.
“Shoto, please—”
The girl giggled. “You guys are funny.”
Izuku, trying desperately to take control of the situation, clapped his hands together and smiled nervously. “Look, we’re just really close! As rivals! Kac—Dynamight is very important to me!”
Katsuki side‑eyed him—not with his usual annoyance, but instead with a sharp and unwelcomed flick of surprise.
Like he couldn’t quite process why Izuku had said all that out loud to some random kid. Like he wasn’t prepared to hear that Izuku, the man who cries over movies and weighs tomatoes, freely express how much he cared about him.
How much Katsuki meant to him.
Katsuki’s expression tightened, confused and a little pink around the ears, as if the sincerity hit him harder than the kid’s question ever could.
He forced himself to shove down whatever the hell that feeling was—bury it, ignore it, pretend it didn’t exist—and tune back into this dreaded conversation.
The little girl tilted her head. “My mum says people who yell at each other a lot are married.”
Katsuki hated this conversation.
Izuku—a man who somehow could never admit defeat—just sighed fondly. Pretending it was fine, pretending his face wasn’t the exact shade of a tomato and pretending he hadn’t been tapping his foot against the concrete as a stress‑relief mechanism for the past five minutes.
Shoto nodded again. “Mm, that tracks. They always argue about laundry.”
Katsuki yanked Shoto up by the collar, sparks popping from his glove. “Stop telling this little shit our business—”
Izuku grabbed him by the back of his shirt before he could commit a crime in front of children. “Kacchan—Kacchan—please—charity event—charity event—”
The girl looked delighted. “You are dating! You act just like my parents!”
Katsuki’s eye twitched violently, shoving Izuku always from him.
The sheer confidence of this child—boldly comparing them to her parents while said fucking parents were nowhere to be found—was almost impressive in the worst way.
Shoto, now somehow munching on an icicle stick, just watches Katsuki slowly lose his sanity.
The girl shrugged once more, then waved and took off running. “Well, it’s time for me to go find my parents! Bye, Deku! And say bye to your boyfriend, Boom Boom!”
“At least mention my fuckin’ name,” Katsuki muttered.
Izuku’s face was on fire.
Shoto added, completely calm, “She referred to you as Midoriya’s boyfriend, so you were technically mentioned.”
Katsuki slowly turned toward Shoto, his glare sharp enough to cut steel. “Do you want to be incinerated—”
Izuku sighed—the kind of long‑suffering sigh of a man who had been preventing homicide for five straight hours—before yanking Katsuki back again. “Kacchan—please—children—”
Shoto kept licking his icicle stick, completely unfazed. “You two should work on your communication so it isn’t just Midoriya treating you like a child, Bakugou.”
“The next fucking charity event we go to is your memorial.”
“Kacchan!”
⸝⸝
By the time they finally made it back home, Katsuki looked—and felt—like he’d aged ten years.
He shoved the front door open, tossing his hero gloves onto the entryway bench like they’d personally wronged him. “Fucking charity event,” he muttered, kicking off his boots. “If one more old geezer tries to touch me, I’m becoming a shitty underground hero.”
Izuku, who had spent the entire car ride holding his breath to avoid triggering another rant, collapsed onto the couch with a soft groan—humming something that barely counted as a response.
Shoto stepped inside last, closing the door gently like he hadn’t spent the entire day instigating warfare. He hung his jacket neatly on the hook, walked over to Flowers, gave her a few calm pets, and speaks up, “I thought it went well.”
“I thought it went well,” Katsuki mocked, voice pitched just enough to be insulting. “If you chat to me one more time, Icyhot. I’m gonna—I’m gonna—”
Katsuki threw his hands up, exasperated. “No, okay, I don’t even know what I’m gonna fuckin’ do, but it’s gonna be violent.”
Izuku, still face‑down in the couch cushions, let out a muffled whine. “Kacchan, shut up. And can you take my boots off for me… please.”
“You shut up, don’t tell me what to do.” And yet Katsuki stomped over, crouched down, and yanked off Izuku’s boots in the most domestic way possible.
“Right,” Shoto said flatly, giving Flowers a pointed look—like the two of them were silently acknowledging exactly what was going on.
“Fuck off,” Katsuki barked, placing Izuku’s boots aside before shoving Izuku over so he could plop himself arrogantly onto the couch—manspreading and taking up far too much room.
“Well, I’ve actually got dinner with Tenya, and I need to leave…” Shoto glanced down at his watch—and his eyes widened. “…Now. So, I’ll be out of your way. All I ask is that you two take care of Flowers. Is that okay?”
Izuku perked up immediately. “Aww, you’re hanging out with Tenya? Tell him I said hi! And of course—don’t worry.” He wiggled his fingers at Flowers. “We’ll take care of this cutie.”
Katsuki rolled his eyes, a small smirk playing at his lips. “You’re gonna scare the living crap outta her. Just piss off, Icyhot—we got this.”
Shoto nodded and sped off toward his room to get changed.
A small moment passed—Izuku cooing at Flowers, Flowers sniffing him suspiciously, Katsuki pretending he wasn’t watching them like a hawk—before Shoto walked back in, fixing his hair and rolling up his sleeves.
“Thank you, guys,” Shoto said, slipping on his shoes as he walked toward the door.
Izuku perked up immediately, clasping his hands together as he stood in the doorway, “Of course, Shoto! Have fun!”
Katsuki didn’t bother getting up—he just waved a hand from the couch, already half‑slouched into the cushions with Flowers curled against his hip, “Yeah, whatever. Don’t die.”
Shoto paused long enough to glance back at them—Izuku bright‑eyed and earnest, Katsuki sprawled like a king, Flowers purring like she’d chosen hell by choosing him— and nodded once with a small smile before heading out.
The door clicked shut behind him, leaving the house warm, quiet, and filled with that same tension from the charity event that Katsuki pretended he didn’t notice.
For a moment, neither of them moved.
Then Katsuki let out the most dramatic groan known to mankind.
“Oh my god,” he announced to the ceiling. “He’s gone. Finally. Peace. Quiet. No Icyhot commentary. No damn instigating. No stupid observations. We’re fucking free.”
Izuku blinked at him from the hallway, “Kacchan… he literally just left.”
“Exactly,” Katsuki said, throwing an arm over the back of the couch, “We’re like… parents whose kid finally went to a sleepover.”
Izuku snorted, plopping himself back down beside Katsuki on the couch. “Shoto is not our kid.”
“He acts like it,” Katsuki argued, turning his head to look at him whilst listing things off with his fingers. “We feed him. We remind him to sleep. We stop him from saying weird shit in public. That’s parenting, Izuku.”
Izuku opened his mouth to argue—then closed it. “…Okay, maybe a little.”
Katsuki smirked, victorious, and turned his attention back to the TV. Some shitty show played as background noise, flickering across the room. He didn’t move his arm draped behind Izuku—just left it there, close and casual, like it was normal.
Izuku shifted, sitting up properly, brushing couch lint off his shirt. “Well… now that Shoto’s gone, we can just relax. Watch a movie or something.”
Katsuki nodded, casual. Too casual. “Mhm. But I reckon we should make out, yeah?”
The room went dead silent.
Izuku froze.
Katsuki’s mouth snapped shut, eyes widening a fraction as the weight of what he’d just said crashed down on him. His whole posture stiffened—shoulders locked, spine straight, like his body was trying to physically reverse time.
Even Flowers stopped purring, her head lifting in slow, judgmental confusion.
The TV droned on in the background, some pointless show flickering across the screen, but it felt miles away—drowned out by the thick, suffocating tension that dropped over the living room like a bomb.
Izuku stared at him, eyes huge, cheeks burning, breath caught somewhere in his throat. His fingers curled into the couch cushion like he needed something to hold onto.
Katsuki didn’t breathe. Izuku didn’t blink. The air didn’t move.
Izuku’s breath hitched, the words tumbling out of him in a frantic mess. “K‑Kacchan—what—why—what—”
Katsuki, effectively shitting his pants, stared back at him. “I—no, fuck—I wasn’t—I meant—I didn’t mean—it was like—the parent shit— a joke—dragging the parent bit— you understood that, yeah?”
Izuku just stared at him, mouth wide and cheeks pink.
They both sat there, neither breathing, neither blinking, and both regretting every life choice that led them to this exact moment.
Izuku finally squeaked, breaking the shared gaze by snapping himself toward the TV like it could salvage the situation. “Kacchan…”
Katsuki slapped a hand over his own flustered face, sinking into the couch. “Don’t. Don’t say anything.”
A beat.
“Uh, did I interrupt something?”
Izuku’s entire body locked up once more, and Katsuki feels his heart genuinely drop to his ass.
Flowers perked up from her seat, ears twitching like she sensed incoming entertainment.
Shoto stood in the doorway, jacketless, holding his keys, looking at them with the calm curiosity of a man who had absolutely walked into something.
Izuku squeaked, voice cracking. “Sh‑Shoto—hi—uh—welcome back—”
Katsuki shot upright, “What the—Who the fuck let you in?”
Shoto blinked, unfazed. “I forgot my jacket.”
Izuku sighed, exasperated, sinking deeper into the couch as he dragged a hand down his face—because of course Shoto would come back now, at the worst possible moment in the history of moments.
Shoto looked between them—Izuku stiff as a statue, Katsuki red‑eared and feral, Flowers staring like she was watching a soap opera.
“…So, did I interrupt something?”
“NO.” They both screamed in perfect, panicked unison.
Katsuki, mortified, flustered begins stomping toward Shoto like he was about to commit a crime. “Oh my fuck—get out—why are you still here—go to your stupid dinner—”
Shoto stepped aside calmly as Katsuki yanked his jacket from the hook, like he’d been expecting this exact reaction. Izuku stayed frozen on the couch, still processing the fact that Katsuki had suggested making out approximately forty seconds ago.
Katsuki shoved the jacket into Shoto’s chest, practically slamming it against him. “Nothing fucking happened, got that?”
He pushed Shoto out the door and slammed it shut with enough force to rattle the frame.
Shoto stood outside, jacket half‑on, blinking at the closed door.
And from the daggers Katsuki had been shooting at him, Shoto couldn’t help but think his assumption was correct—and that he did, in fact, walk in and interrupt something.