Chapter Text
I’m not sure what to do without you.
“Do you two really have to do that here?”
Shouto is having one of his usual mornings spent on the beach: eyes closed, white sand between his toes and caking the back of his hair. He usually spends these mornings alone, but today, for some reason, Dabi and Hawks set up a blanket next to him and are currently making out.
He honestly doesn’t have a clue why they’re still staying at Hawks’ vacation house. There isn’t any benefit from hiding out in Itoshima anymore. The whole point was to hide from Bakugou and Midoriya, and given the fact that he fucked Bakugou a couple nights ago, it doesn’t seem to be effective at all.
But he’s been trying to forget about it; it’s easy for Shouto to shut down when he really has to. It’s how he got through his childhood, and it’s how he’ll get through this.
He does everything he can not to think about what happened between him and Bakugou—tries hard not to think about the ache, the fullness, the heat of having Bakugou inside of him; the bruising kisses, scorching touches, and whispered prayers. But most of all, he doesn’t think about how Bakugou apparently meant it when he said he loved him last year, doesn’t think about how Bakugou wants more from him.
(Shouto doesn’t even know what more means.)
Dabi, however, looks like he’s enjoying their stay here: he’s sitting in Hawks’ lap, tongue down the blond’s throat.
“Oh yeah,” he mumbles, finally pulling away from Hawks’ mouth. Shouto hears a soft whine come from the winged hero. Gross. Hawks came back from Tokyo last night, and he and Dabi haven’t done anything but make out. “The whole point in us coming out here was that we wanted to talk to you.”
Shouto opens his eyes and sits up, wary. “About what?”
“You need to, like, get out of the house more and shit,” Dabi replies, wiping his mouth with the back of his palm. “I’m fucking worried for you, bro.”
“What?” Shouto isn’t only confused, but extremely offended.
“You spend all your time moping around the house,” Dabi explains, resting his chin on the crook of Hawks’ shoulder. “Back at the apartment, at least you had a job to distract you and all. Now, you’re kind of just sad and lifeless unless you have a mission. Especially after you mysteriously disappeared for hours that night you went to Nakasu.”
Shouto twitches a bit at the mention of Nakasu. He has a feeling that Dabi most likely knows that he was with Bakugou, but hasn’t cared enough to mention it.
“But you spend all your time here too?” he argues weakly. Sure, he doesn’t really have anything to do these days, and without his coworkers, he doesn’t really have anyone to talk to other than Dabi, but he spent the first fifteen years of his life not even knowing what it meant to have a friend—so it’s not like being alone is abnormal to him. It’s just—how things are. He doesn’t see what’s wrong with it.
And he can’t exactly argue with Dabi calling him “sad and lifeless”—Shouto just. Doesn’t have much to do. Because thinking too hard about anything makes him think about Bakugou, and thinking about Bakugou is like jumping into a pool of sharks. Not recommended.
Shouto honestly doesn’t know what he’s been doing these past few days; life just goes by, and he’s kind of just going through the motions.
Dabi snorts and replies, “I can’t exactly go out in public looking like this on the regular. And my boyfriend’s here most of the time, so it’s not that bad for me.”
“You don’t need to worry about me—”
“Yeah, he kind of does,” Hawks interrupts coldly before Dabi can. “You’re his baby brother, and he’s the one who dragged you into all this shit when you were fifteen.”
Shouto thinks of blue fire, poisonous gas, and black clouds; Midoriya’s screams, footsteps in the distance, and Shigaraki’s laughter on the other side. Shouto thinks of Fuyumi asking him to come home, of Natsuo asking him to make sure Touya would be okay, of his father bombarded by reporters, demanding to know why two of his sons have become villains.
He thinks of Bakugou finding him a month later, asking him why he did this, why he joined the League, and if what they had even meant anything to him. He thinks of how he regretted it, at first; thinks of how much he missed Bakugou, Midoriya, Fuyumi, and Natsuo. But he eventually realized that this was something he had to do, something that only he and Dabi could do.
It wouldn’t mean anything if two random villains took down the Hero Commission, but the two fallen sons of the number one hero? Society started to question what truly meant to be a hero.
He made the sacrifice, and Japan is the better for it.
Dabi was right: a single person with a single conviction has the power to change the world. In their case, it was two people.
Shouto came to terms with this a long time ago. He did. He swears he did.
But with Bakugou—
Shouto doesn’t want to go down that route. Doesn’t want to think about all the things he should have done and shouldn’t have done. All the things he should have said and shouldn’t have said.
Some things can’t be fixed, shouldn’t be fixed, just like there are people who can’t be forgiven, shouldn’t be forgiven.
“That was my decision,” Shouto exclaims, hot-headed and insecure. His voice cracks a little, and he hates the sound of it—hates it when his emotions slip out of him like this, because now he isn’t really sure.
—he can’t help but feel like he left things unfinished.
Hawks sighs noncommittally. “I’m just saying, Shouto, you don’t need to bear the consequences of saving the world all alone.”
Dabi grunts in confirmation, sleepily nuzzling his face deeper into Hawks’ shoulder. (They’re devolved into something so domestic, it’s disgusting. Maybe Shouto should start taking them more seriously whenever they gush about how real their relationship is. He might end up with a third brother at this rate.)
“What do you want me to do then?”
Shouto became Atlas at fifteen and bore all the world’s sins for three years. At nineteen—the weight of the world has been lifted from his shoulders, and he doesn’t know what to do now that he’s free. Doesn’t know who he is now that he’s free.
“Hawks can take you out to Nakasu tonight!” Dabi offers gleefully.
“Wait,” Hawks objects, pushing Dabi off of him with a scowl. “Babe, I thought you and I, tonight, y’know—”
Dabi, despite his purple, stapled skin, manages to blush.
Shouto makes a gagging noise and stands up, ready to go back inside. “I’ll go out by myself. You two can have the house to yourself.”
“Thanks, little bro! I apprecia—mmph!” Dabi shouts happily, cut off by what Shouto assumes was Hawks’ mouth on his. Disgusting.
As Shouto walks back into the house, he absently wonders if that concerned talk was just a clever excuse for them to sexile him.
He misses the apartment already.
I know. I know, I know, I know.
The sun is starting to set, and the ruby glow of lanterns colors the district red. Shouto thinks of dragons in the waterfront, spraying the sky with fire. He doesn’t really know how he’s going to spend the evening, but for now, he might as well get something to eat.
He’s circled the block about seven times trying to pick a food stall, disappointed that no one is selling cold soba, when he notices it.
Someone is following him. Someone in a black hoodie, hands shoved in their pockets.
Though he isn’t sure if it’s because he looks like an easy target for mugging or looks like Todoroki Shouto, he’s aware that, no matter the reason, this isn’t good.
He should leave; he knows he should leave, but on his eighth go-around of the area, he notices something else, someone else, sitting alone at a ramen stall squished between a nightclub and an izakaya pub, blond hair mostly covered by a Red Riot ballcap.
Something flutters in Shouto’s chest, but he shouldn’t risk it.
Why would he risk it? He doesn’t want to see Bakugou anymore; he made that clear the last time they saw each other.
To make things worse, if whoever’s following Shouto does recognize him, he would run the risk that they’d also recognize Bakugou. He’d be putting both of them in danger, and yet—
Like a moth to a flame, Shouto finds himself walking over to the ramen stall.
He sits in the seat next to Bakugou and frowns when Bakugou doesn’t immediately react—just continues reading something on his phone. Bakugou is probably undercover for a mission, Shoto reasons out, trying his hardest not to attract any attention to himself and hasn’t realized that it’s me. Now that Shouto thinks about it, Bakugou doesn’t look that recognizable. He’s not wearing his usual hero outfit, of course, but he also isn’t wearing his signature baggy attire. He’s as non discrete as Bakugou Katsuki could possibly be.
Shouto doesn’t realize that he’s been staring until—
“Oi, the fuck is your—” Bakugou’s eyes widen when he finally turns to see who’s sat down next to him.
“Hi,” Shouto says dumbly.
Bakugou furrows his brows, a scowl pursing his lips. Shouto still thinks he looks pretty. “How the fuck did you recognize me?”
“I just—knew it was you.”
Bakugou snorts and takes a sip of his beer. He side-eyes Shouto and mutters, “Thought you didn’t want to see me anymore.”
Shouto quickly glances around the area and sees that whoever was following him has disappeared, so he sighs in relief, turns back to face Bakugou, and frowns. “I never said that.”
“You—”
“I know—” Shouto blurts. The fact that Shouto continues to seek out Bakugou even after rejecting him the other night is illogical and contradictory, but everything he feels for Bakugou has always been illogical and contradictory. “I know. I just. I just wanted to say hi.”
“You came all the way to Nakasu to say hi?”
“No, I—” Shouto sighs, pink rushing to his cheeks. He surveys the area one more time to make sure that no one is listening in. “Dabi and Hawks kicked me out for the evening. They suggested I come here.” And as the words leave his mouth, Shouto comes to the belated realization that Hawks definitely knew Bakugou would be here tonight, and sent Shouto here in the hopes that he’d cross paths with him.
Wow. Shouto is stupid. He’d just gone along with it; he hadn’t even questioned why Nakasu in particular.
Bakugou quirks an eyebrow up and scoffs. His hands tighten around the half-empty glass of beer. “Right. Hawks and your villain brother are fucking. I almost forgot about that.”
“Dabi isn’t a villain anymore—”
“Once a villain, always a villain,” Bakugou cuts in, eyes sharp and cold.
Once a villain, always a villain.
Shouto made his choice a long time ago, and he doesn’t regret it. He knows that what he did was right, so why does he feel like absolute shit hearing Bakugou say that?
“Yeah,” he mumbles, mouth pleated into a thin line. His throat feels all tight, and breathing gets just a little harder. Once a villain, always a villain. “I suppose so.”
Bakugou’s eyes soften, like he’s just realized the implications of what he said. “Wait, I—I didn’t mean it like that, idiot. I was just talking about him.”
“Yeah,” Shouto repeats. Even if Bakugou didn’t mean it like that, it still applies to him. Shouto doesn’t really know anymore, doesn’t really know what he’s doing. He doesn’t deserve to feel guilty—it was his choice to leave. He came to terms with this a long time ago. He did. He did.
Music from the neighboring nightclub creates a strange cacophony with the boiling ramen noodles; humid air and the sweet scent of crepes by the waterfront grants Shouto a feeling of calmness as an unbearable silence consumes him and Bakugou alive.
“He was the reason you left,” Bakugou utters after a while. “He’ll always be a villain in my eyes.”
The dragons in the waterfront sink to the bottom of the harbor as the sky blackens above them. As half-lit lanterns soak in their fire, Shouto feels his left side come alive. “He wasn’t the only reason I left.”
Bakugou sighs, fingers curling around his glass, water beading down his knuckles. “I know.”
“So why are you here?” Shouto asks.
“I’m staking out the area,” Bakugou answers. “Rumor is that one of the night clubs in Nakasu is being used for money laundering for a villain group. It might be this one.” He motions over to the nightclub on his left. Shouto hums in response. “Deku’s checking out one a couple blocks over. It’s probably connected to that factory you burned down the other day. Thanks for that, by the way, the idiots over at my agency won’t let me do shit until I find concrete evidence. I assume Hawks put you on it?”
Shouto hums in confirmation.
“What happened to your job at that cafe?”
“I’m on leave for a little bit.” Shouto doesn’t bother explaining why when one-half of the why is sitting right next to him.
Bakugou frowns and sighs, fingers tapping the wooden table. “If you want—I can tell Deku to stop looking for you. And I can stop looking for you too. For good. I know it’s fucking counterintuitive, since you’re right fucking here, but after tonight . . . ”
Huh. That’s what Shouto has always wanted, and it would make everything so much easier, but . . . Shouto doesn’t know how he feels about that.
“Are you sure?”
“We just wanted to make sure you weren’t dead, Icy Hot,” Bakugou explains. Shouto thinks he sounds hurt. “Now that we know you’re doing fine . . . ” he trails off, eyes lingering on Shouto’s hair, the bruises on his neck, and the way Shouto’s clothes seem to hang off his body. “You were right back then. I can turn you in, but I can’t make you stay with me. You made that pretty clear.”
It sounds like he’s reading off a script, reciting words he doesn’t really mean, but Shouto doesn’t think he has any right to judge someone else for not meaning the words they say.
“That’s . . . ” Shouto bites his tongue; he doesn’t know what he should say to that.
Luckily, the cook interrupts them. “Tonkotsu miso ramen, extra spicy,” he announces, placing a hefty bowl down on the table. And then he looks over at Shouto and asks, “What would you like to order, sir?”
Shouto opens his mouth to order the same thing Bakugou got—it looks really good, smells really good too, and he’s really hungry—but Bakugou cuts him off.
“Another tonkotsu miso ramen. Extra spice.”
The cook nods his head, and Bakugou slaps down a couple hundred yen bills on the table. Shouto gapes when Bakugou shoves his bowl of ramen in front of Shouto. Some of the broth splatters onto Shouto’s lap, but he finds that he doesn’t really mind.
“You can have this.”
“But you—”
Bakugou glares at him, irritated, but the blush on his cheeks makes Shouto’s heart clench. “You look more hungry than me. Just fucking eat it. I can wait. You can pay me back after.”
“Oh. Okay,” Shouto breathes out, grabbing the chopsticks balanced on top of the bowl. His mouth starts to water a little bit; he can’t remember the last time he was this excited to eat something.
Before he brings the noodles up to his mouth, he glances over at Bakugou, who looks happy. Really happy, like Shouto’s just done something very right.
“Make sure you’re eating okay, Halfie,” Bakugou mumbles shyly as Shouto chews on the noodles.
Shouto doesn’t miss how Bakugou sneaks a couple glances to make sure that he’s actually eating.
It’s been a long time since someone took care of Shouto like this.
Everything about this, whatever this is, feels strange. Strange, but not wrong. It’s illogical and contradictory and it doesn’t make any sense whatsoever—but it doesn’t feel wrong.
Shouto doesn’t know why.
Do you regret forgiving me?
Shouto doesn’t know how it ended up like this.
“I didn’t—fuck. I meant you could, hngh, pay me back with fucking money, H-Halfie,” Bakugou grunts out, a soft, breathy moan escaping his lips before he can help it.
Shouto’s jaw aches a little, pink tongue pressed against the underside of Bakugou’s dick, lips struggling to stretch around Bakugou’s entire girth. His eyes are stinging with unshed tears as he forces them open, but it’s worth it—worth seeing how wrecked Bakugou looks right now.
A hand fisted in Shouto’s hair, head thrown back against the wall, his happy trail damp with spit.
They’d walked around after dinner, walked by the blooming cherry blossom trees along the waterfront and the gaming arcades. Bakugou insisted that his shift ended at seven, and that there wasn’t anything wrong with leaving the block around the nightclub. Shouto isn’t sure if he was lying or not—all he knows is that a couple minutes later, he found himself on his knees in a dirty alleyway, god knows where.
Shouto pulls back from base to tip and sucks on the head for a bit, tongue swirling and licking around the cockhead before letting it rest on his tongue, then he places a wet kiss on the tip and fully pulls off.
“Sorry, I just—” Shouto pants, his mouth already missing Bakugou’s cock. His head feels a little cloudy, but he doesn’t think he’s quite gone yet. “I didn’t get a chance to do this the other night,” he says, his left hand starting to pump Bakugou’s cock, the wet slide a little hotter than normal—just how Bakugou likes it.
“Fuck,” Bakugou groans, eyes fluttering shut. “I thought, mmh, thought we were done with this.”
“Does it matter?” Shouto asks, turning his head to run his mouth along the side of Bakugou’s dick, wet lips shaped into an O, his thumb playing with the head, but then—
Bakugou tugs on Shouto’s hair again, exposing his forehead and the full extremities of his scar, forcing his mouth off his cock and smearing his jaw with precum. The head of Bakugou’s cock nuzzles his chin, so Shouto sticks out his tongue to try and get Bakugou back inside his mouth, but the blond just pulls even harder. Shouto lets out a soft whine, brows knitting together in frustration.
“Yeah, it fucking does matter. Icy Hot, you can’t just—”
“I can’t just what?” Shouto snaps. He doesn’t get it; Bakugou was more than fine with this just a moment ago.
“You can’t just suck me off in some dirty alleyway and pretend like—” Bakugou sighs loudly, tucks his cock back into his underwear, and zips his pants back up. “Do you even remember what I said?”
Shouto ignores the question. “What’s wrong with this? We used to do this all the time—”
“We used to do this. I don’t—I don’t want to just do this anymore. I told you already. I want more from you. I want more than this.”
Shouto stands back up, wiping his mouth with his sleeve. He bites his lip and looks the other way, back to the neon-lit streets, filled with people whose love lives aren’t as fucked as his—people who never became villains, people who didn’t get attached to the first person they kissed, people who aren’t chained down by their own feelings. People who deserve to be forgiven.
“I can’t give you more than this,” Shouto decides.
Bakugou’s eyes are livid; Shouto can see that, even in this half-darkness. “You were the one who found me tonight.”
“That doesn’t mean anything,” Shouto rasps, even though he knows that it does. It means something, but Shouto doesn’t want to accept it, doesn’t want to accept that fact that no matter how hard he tries, he still wants Bakugou—wants every part of him he can get.
“Well,” Bakugou utters, voice harsh and grating, “whatever it is you want, I can’t give you it either.”
Shouto wants Bakugou, he does, but he’s hurt Bakugou too much and he’s betrayed him too many times.
There are things that cannot be fixed, shouldn’t be fixed.
“I forgave you a long time ago,” Bakugou says hoarsely, grabbing his Red Riot cap from the ground, fixing it back on his head. “But you haven’t forgiven yourself.”
And there are people that can’t be forgiven, shouldn’t be forgiven.
“Fuck you,” Shouto whispers, head lowered, heart racing. He can’t bear to look at Bakugou, because then, maybe, he’ll start to believe him. And he doesn’t want to believe him.
“I even told you I loved you.”
No, no, Shouto doesn’t want to hear this again. Can’t hear this again. “You didn’t mean—”
Bakugou grabs a fistful of Shouto’s collar and shoves him up against the wall.
“I fucking meant it. I traveled over all of Japan for you. This past fucking year, I haven’t stopped looking for you. And there you were, working at a fucking cat cafe, living with your brother, who, oh yeah, my coworker just never bothered to tell me he’s been fucking for years—” Bakugou’s voice cracks, thins out, and breaks into a quiet sob. He lets go of Shouto’s shirt and looks at him with beady red eyes. It’s the most vulnerable Shouto has ever seen him. His knees buckle under him, and Shouto goes to catch him, but Bakugou slaps his hand away.
So that’s how it feels, huh?
Bakugou laughs brokenly; tears run down his blotchy cheeks, and Shouto feels guilty, because all he can think about right now is how pretty Bakugou looks when he cries. “Hawks has known where you were this entire time, and there I was, chasing after your ghost like a fucking idiot when you’ve been right here this entire goddamn time. I meant it then, and I fucking mean it now—”
“Don’t. Don’t say it—”
Shouto is scared; he has always been scared.
Bakugou breathes out another laugh, looks right into Shouto’s eyes, and smiles bitterly. “I—”
Loud, frantic footsteps, and then: “Kacchan, I’ve been looking for you everywh—” The voice dies as quickly as it came.
“Todoroki-kun,” Midoriya utters. His face is expressive as always: puppy eyes wide with betrayal, forehead creased in disbelief, lips parted into a heartbreaking frown. He looks at Shouto, then back at Bakugou, and rasps, “Kacchan . . . you—?”
It’s at this moment that Shouto realizes that he’s driven a wedge between Bakugou and Midoriya, planted seeds of doubt in their friendship. It was an unspoken thing that Midoriya didn’t know Bakugou came into contact with Shouto again. He’s already fucked things up so much, too much—he can’t handle the guilt. He already has so much to be guilty for.
He creates an ice wall again, but it’s small, weak, and translucent. Easily breakable.
He forces himself to feel nothing.
And this time, as Shouto runs away, runs away like he always does—he looks back. Just once, just enough to see Bakugou on his knees, hugging Midoriya’s stomach. Midoriya still looks as confused as ever, but he pats Bakugou’s head to comfort him.
Shouto takes it back: Bakugou and Midoriya will be just fine.
Some things can be fixed, and some people can be forgiven.
Can he?
I feel sick thinking about what we were. But I still think about you everyday.
The first time Shouto saw Bakugou after the failed rescue mission was nearly a month later, outside the Shie Hassaikai compound.
The League of Villains had temporarily teamed up with the Shie Hassaikai; Shouto, Toga, and Twice were sent to join Overhaul’s forces. Bakugou hadn’t got his provisional license yet at the time, but Midoriya had informed him that there was evidence to suggest that the League had allied with the Shie Hassaikai. The two of them were already regularly skipping classes to search for Shouto, so Midoriya notifying Bakugou about the raid wasn’t anything out of the ordinary. Bakugou didn’t want to risk getting Midoriya in trouble, so he waited outside the compound, waiting for something to happen.
And when the three League members were sighted above ground—Bakugou was right there with them.
Toga and Twice had let Shouto stay with Bakugou while they carried out the rest of the mission—teasing him about having a “hero boyfriend”; it was one of the first moments that Shouto had actually felt like the League was more than an outlet for his and his brother’s goals.
But the conversation didn’t last long. Shouto didn’t have any answers to the questions Bakugou asked.
“Why did you leave?”
Shouto, at the time, still wasn’t sure. Still wasn’t sure if he believed in hero society or not. Still wasn’t sure if he could trust Dabi, or Touya, or whoever he was.
“Why did you become a villain?”
Shouto didn’t know what to say. He followed his brother blindly because he would do anything to escape his father’s footsteps—to prove that he wasn’t bound by his father’s blood. He didn’t want to be someone who hurt people like his father hurt his mom, but there he was: in the League of Villains.
“Did I ever mean anything to you?”
This one, this one Shouto hadn’t even thought of. What he had with Bakugou, he never thought was more than a high school fling. But if it was just a high school fling, if it truly was nothing more than making out in forests, holding hands where no one could see them, lying in Bakugou’s bed because he was too tired to return to his own room, then why was Shouto still there?
The only thing Shouto could say was, “I’m sorry, but I have to do this.”
Shouto feels sick to his stomach, thinking of how he left things then. He should’ve told Bakugou, “No, you didn’t mean anything to me.” Should’ve cut things off right then and there, but he didn’t. He let things drag on until it was too late, until the tiny, budding, insignificant crush he had when he was fifteen bloomed into horrible, terrible, undeniable feelings by the time he was eighteen, and couldn’t afford to have anything or anyone dragging him down.
Shouto feels sick to his stomach as he stumbles into the beach house. He didn’t drink at all tonight, but it feels like he’s drunk, feels like he isn’t himself.
Dabi is on the couch, hair damp and a towel under his head. Shouto faintly hears the sound of the shower running; it must be Hawks.
“Hey little bro, how’d—”
Shouto’s entire body collapses on top of Dabi, and he buries his face in his brother’s neck, the staples cold against his skin. Because of his quirk however, Dabi runs warmer than Shouto, and the warmth of his body is nice.
“Touya,” he mumbles.
“Are . . . are you okay?” Dabi asks hesitantly. Shouto doesn’t blame him for being hesitant; neither of them are the touchy type, and they rarely open up about their feelings to each other.
“No,” Shouto mumbles, biting his lip, praying to god that he doesn’t start crying.
Dabi awkwardly pats his head like he’s petting a dog or a small child, and Shouto frowns. He doesn’t know what he was expecting. But thankfully, Dabi doesn’t try to force conversation; he waits for Shouto to speak up first. It takes Shouto a little time to finally think of something to say.
“How did . . . you and Hawks . . . ” he trails off, not knowing where to go with that statement.
“Me and Hawks . . . ?”
Shouto stays silent, biting his lip, and after a couple seconds, Dabi just sighs.
“I told you already, kid. I just did what I wanted, and what I wanted was to fu—”
“My problem isn’t sex,” Shouto snaps bluntly.
Dabi just laughs apologetically. “Then what is your problem?
The problem is that Bakugou still loves me, and I . . . I—
Shouto frowns. He decides to work around the problem itself by asking, “Why did you—how were you okay with becoming more? He’s a hero, and—”
“There are no true heroes.”
Shouto has heard that a million times before, and it doesn’t help him at all, because even if there are no true heroes—Bakugou is still good, good down to his very core. Every part of Bakugou is good, even the rash, cruel, terrible parts of him. Shouto has been tainted since birth—tainted by his father’s ideals, by his father’s blood, by the ghost of who his father wanted him to become. His motives are fueled by hate and his actions are driven by his insecurities.
“There are no true heroes,” Dabi repeats quietly, “and there are no true villains. That’s how.”
Shouto has spent the past four years trying to deal with the guilt of leaving everything unfinished, but now, maybe he has the chance to make everything right. His heart is a mess and his head is one too; he doesn’t know if he’s ready to forgive himself, even if Bakugou forgives him.
Right now, all he can do is snake his arms under Dabi’s bony midriff and squeeze him as tight as he can. A lonely tear drips down his cheek and wets the purple skin underneath him. Dabi hums and rests his hand on Shouto’s spine.
“You’ll figure it out, little bro.”
When we were together, it felt like the whole world stopped for the two of us.
Shouto spends the next few days holed up inside the beach house; Dabi and Hawks’ mission to cheer him up failed spectacularly.
But unlike before, he thinks about Bakugou, thinks about what to do if he ever sees him again.
He isn’t being fair to Bakugou; he knows that. He pushed Bakugou away after they had sex, but he was the one who found Bakugou in Nakasu. He can’t keep doing this; he can’t keep playing with Bakugou’s feelings when Bakugou laid his heart bare the other night.
In the back of Shouto’s mind, he knew all along that Bakugou and Midoriya were still looking for him, but he didn’t want to think about it. Pushed the thought out of his mind and went on with his life.
He has to make things right, but Shouto has no idea how to do that. Does he jump headfirst into an actual relationship like Bakugou wants, even if he knows he’s not ready? No, no, that’s not fair to him or Bakugou.
Maybe he can ask Bakugou to wait. Maybe he can promise—
No, promises never work out between them.
Shouto thinks of the night they kissed at UA, snuck out to fight, but ended up making out on the ground for hours. Breathless, they laid on their backs and stared up at the sky, too tired to kiss anymore. They stared up at the sky, looked at the stars even though neither of them knew any constellations. It didn’t matter.
The sky was pretty regardless of how you looked at it—shining stars piercing through the black night, the moon bright and full. The world was still, stopping just for the two of them.
They hadn’t said a single word to each other the entire night, but out of thin air, as he stared up at the night sky, Bakugou uttered, “Hey, Icy Hot, promise me something.”
Shouto turned to look at Bakugou, abandoned his view of the stars to look at the boy lying next to him and ask, “Promise you what?”
“Become a hero with me, no matter what.”
Shouto paused. He knew he shouldn’t have hesitated, knew that the answer was a no-brainer for a student at UA. But he couldn’t muster the words. He didn’t know why it was so hard to say yes. So he gazed up at the stars as if the answer was hidden in another galaxy, in another universe filled with stars. But Bakugou didn’t care. He let Shouto take his time, let Shouto actually think about the promise.
Eventually, Shouto thought, What’s the harm in just saying yes, even if it feels wrong?
At that point, a few days after the sports festival, he hadn’t met Stain yet, he hadn’t even begun to question whether being a hero was right for him—whether he even wanted to sell his soul to hero society. He hadn’t even thought that there was another choice. He didn’t even know that Touya was alive—
“Sure. I promise.”
Shouto thought he meant it when he said, “I promise.” He really did.
Bakugou hummed happily, and they didn’t say another word.
Promises don’t work out; all Shouto does is break them.
But Shouto wants to make things better because he wants Bakugou. Undoubtedly, undeniably, he wants every part of Bakugou all to himself, and he has to deal with that. He can’t ignore this any longer. He isn’t ready to forgive himself, he isn’t ready to fully commit to Bakugou, but he wants to change. He does want more, even if he doesn’t know what that means, he wants to do better, be better—
The doorbell rings, and Shouto’s thoughts are interrupted.
Dabi is out for the night on a mission with Hawks, but maybe one of them forgot something. He opens the door without much thought—it has to be one of them, Hawks assured him that no one knows he owns the place.
But when Shouto opens the door, his hand drops limp by his side.
Bakugou.
The tides are violent tonight; the sound of waves crashing against the shore fills the silence.
How did you—
“I asked Hawks,” Bakugou says, answering Shouto’s question before he even gets the chance to ask it. His eyes are soft, tender, and Shouto feels like a part of him is breaking.
“I thought—” Shouto doesn’t know what he thought. He was the one who fucked things up, so it was up to him to fix things. Why is Bakugou here?
“I changed my mind,” Bakugou declares, looking right into Shouto’s eyes. “Because with you, I’ll take what I can get, because anything is better than nothing.”
Shouto doesn’t understand. There are so many things he doesn’t understand.
“That isn’t fair to you,” he ends up saying, his voice quiet, barely a whisper.
Bakugou puffs out a soft breath of laughter. He grins just enough for Shouto to see his canines, then licks his lips. “I know. But I’m willing to wait for you. Wait until you get your shit together to realize that you love me back, asshole. It’s gonna happen. I know it will—but I won’t push you. As long as you’ll have me, I’ll be here for you.”
I can’t, I don’t, I—
Shouto swallows a nervous breath, forehead creasing, He doesn’t know what this means, but he knows that this isn’t right. This isn’t right, but—it makes things easier. This isn’t fair, and this isn’t right, but it’s the easy way out—
“So are you gonna let me in?” Bakugou says after a while.
Shouto bites his lip, stares at Bakugou’s face, the fading scar on his cheek, the hardened skin of a hero.
Bakugou is right here, right here offering himself, offering an easy way out, an easy solution to all of their problems. How can Shouto resist?
Bakugou is right here.
So Shouto pulls on his wrist, and closes the door behind them.
I just want to sit on your bed, and talk, and kiss.
“So,” Bakugou rasps, tracing shapes into Shouto’s bare skin. Bakugou had fucked him, then Shouto sucked him off until he came in his mouth. They didn’t say much during—Shouto had a feeling that Bakugou was too afraid to say anything, in fear of ruining this fragile dream. Now, their bodies are sticky with sweat and dried cum, but neither of them have the strength to go clean themselves up. But Shouto likes being next to Bakugou, so he doesn’t mind. “You’re staying at Hawks’ beach house?”
“Thought you already asked Hawks.”
“He just gave me an address. But there’s no way you and your brother could afford this place.”
Shouto laughs, body aching every time he tries to move. “Hey, I’ve saved up a lot of money from my job at the cafe.”
Bakugou snorts, resting his palm on Shouto’s chest to feel his heartbeat. “I bet you have, Icy Hot.”
It feels a lot like that night where they laid under the stars; it feels like the world has stopped just for them. Fireflies and humid air, bugs in the grass, whispered promises. Shouto thinks that maybe he could tell him, maybe make another promise—except this time, he’ll keep it.
He wants to say something, but he doesn’t know how to say it. I want more. Does he? Or does he just want Bakugou? I want to be better. Is he even capable of that? How would he do that? I want you to wait for me. But Bakugou has already spent the past four years waiting for him, looking for him. It isn’t fair, none of this is fair, but Shouto is too selfish not to go along with it.
But Bakugou, like always, beats Shouto to the punch.
“The first night I saw you again,” he says, “I snuck into the training grounds and laid in the grass where we first kissed.”
Shouto blinks, stares up at the ceiling and looks for stars. Now more than ever, he does not know what to say. His heart beats a little quicker, pangs a little louder, but he does not know what to feel about that.
“I’m sorry,” he ends up voicing. The cool air from the shore flows in from the open window, but Shouto still feels warm.
“I already told you I forgive you. I forgave you a long time ago,” Bakugou mutters, brushing Shouto’s bangs out of his face. He looks sad. Shouto thinks that he looks sad. “Things aren’t as black and white as I used to see them.”
“Not for that,” Shouto says. “I mean, I am sorry for that, but—I’m sorry that I can’t give you what you want.”
Bakugou presses his lips together, runs his hand down Shouto’s stomach, and rests it now on his muscled leg. His eyes darken, and Shouto shivers under the touch. “Until you figure yourself out, until you make up your mind, even if it’s that you never want to see me again, I’ll take what I can get,” he utters, voice low and husky.
Shouto’s breath hitches, and he looks at Bakugou out of the corner of his eye, then looks at the hand now positioned high up on his thigh. “Which is?”
The bed dips under Bakugou’s knee. He switches over to his hands and knees, caging Shouto in. He grips Shouto’s thigh harder, harsher, and Shouto hopes it bruises.
“This.”
I see you everywhere I go, in everyone I meet.
Shouto goes back to Nakasu the next night. Bakugou will be there, he knows that.
And he is—sitting at the same ramen stall, eating the same tonkotsu ramen with extra spice. Shouto joins him, and they walk around again once Bakugou’s shift is over. He doesn’t have anyone following him this time, so he decides that that first time must have been a fluke.
“How’s the job going?” Shouto asks. He’s vaguely aware of how close their hands are as they walk through the streets, but he doesn’t want to cross the line, so he settles for lightly brushing their knuckles together whenever he gets the chance.
“The police managed to get one of them in custody, and he confessed to everything. We’re gonna raid the place by the end of the week, since we need to get everything together. It took long enough. But since the facility was burned down, at least the consequences waiting weren’t as bad as it could’ve been.”
“Exciting,” Shouto says flatly.
“It’s not,” Bakugou grumbles, kicking a rock in frustration. “I memorized all the quirks and shit, and they’re shit. Even the ring leader has a useless ass quirk. He can turn invisible for an hour, but he can only use it once a day.”
Shouto hums. “Didn’t one of our classmates have an invisibility quirk?”
Bakuogu looks at him weirdly. His hand brushes against Shouto’s right hand, and Shouto feels a bit of ice frost at the tips of his hair. “Yeah, Hagakure. You remember that shit?”
“Well, my first year at UA was pretty crazy. We got attacked by villains twice.”
Bakugou scoffs, side-eyeing Shouto with a grin. “Oh yeah? Mine was even crazier. One of my classmates dropped out in the middle of the year and became a villain.”
Shouto pouts. Over the past four years, he’s gotten a lot better at controlling his fire—better than Dabi, he’d say—but when it comes to Bakugou, he always ends up losing control. Red colors his cheeks, and he feels his left side start to bloom with heat.
“Low blow.”
Walking alongside Bakugou like this makes Shouto think about what would have happened if he stayed at UA. Maybe they could’ve had this all along—maybe they could’ve walked to class together, gone out to the city, strolled along the shore. Nakasu is loud at night, neon-lit and lantern-filled streets, but Shouto thinks that he would go with Bakugou anywhere.
His knuckles graze Bakugou’s again, soft and feather-light, and it has Bakugou erupt into laughter.
“Oi, Halfie.”
“Mmh?” Shouto squeaks, scared that he’s been found out.
“You’ve been trying to hold my hand all night.”
Shouto bites his lip and looks to the side. “O-oh, you could tell?”
Bakugou grips his wrist and pulls him over to the side, between another food stall and an arcade. “If you’re gonna do it, don’t half-ass it, okay?” And he shoves his fingers between Shouto’s, roughly interlocking their hands. Bakugou’s palm is sweaty, but Shouto likes it anyways—likes him anyways. He thinks of how they would hold hands at UA when no one was looking, how Bakugou would get so nervous he couldn’t speak, and how Shouto would only be allowed to use his right hand because fire plus Bakugou’s nitroglycerin-like sweat left them both in the nurse’s office that one time.
“B-Bakugou,” Shouto stutters, heart jumping into his throat.
The blond looks to the side, embarrassed. Shouto still catches the prettiest blush on his cheek. Bakugou just squeezes his hand harder and mumbles a soft, “Shut up.”
Shouto smiles. Bakuogu is too cute, it makes him want to do stupid things: like tell Bakugou he’s ready for more, promise Bakugou that one day he’ll be ready for a real relationship. But for now, Shouto only arches his head down to kiss Bakugou’s cheekbone. Bakugou’s eyes flutter open, and he looks at Shouto like he’s just been burned; and by the fierce blush on his cheeks, maybe he has.
“You asshole. You can’t just—”
Shouto curls a hand around Bakugou’s nape, blushing pink, when he kisses his cheek again, and Bakugou effectively shuts up.
Maybe this doesn’t need to be so hard. Maybe he just needs to give this some time. Maybe, maybe.
Bakugou grumbles and whips his head around so that Shouto doesn’t have a chance at sneaking another kiss. Shouto frowns, but Bakugou is adorable when he blushes like this (Embarrassed Bakugou might just steal the number one spot on Shouto’s favorite Bakugous list one day), so Shouto simply relents. He lets Bakugou angrily tug him along the street, and they continue walking until they reach the love hotel at the end of the block, the same one they went to that first night Bakugou found him in Nakasu.
Shouto smiles, eyes glittering happily. However—
As they walk into the establishment, Shouto swears that he sees someone in a black hoodie at the corner of the block.
It was probably nothing, Shouto decides.
You changed me. Because of you, I am always trying to be better.
“You smell like sex.”
Shouto narrows his eyes in disgust. While he expected to get shit once he returned to the beach house, he didn’t think it would come from Hawks. He grabs a water bottle from the fridge and sits down on the love seat adjacent to the couch, trying his hardest not to let it on that his ass is sore.
“What are you doing here?”
Hawks grins wide, and Shouto once again remembers why he became a villain-turned-vigilante in the first place. He hates heroes; most of them, anyways. Hawks is one of the few good ones, but he’s still irritating, lying back on the couch with his legs thrown lazily over the armrests in Dabi-fashion.
Shouto has seen way too much of the winged hero these past few days.
He walked into Dabi’s room the other day without knocking (they’ve been sharing a studio apartment for the past few months, so he didn’t think that he needed to knock) and he learned way more about Hawks’ anatomy than he really needed to know.
“This is my house, Shouto.”
“Whatever. Where’s Dabi?”
Hawks sits up to face him. On closer inspection, Shouto can see that he’s wearing one of Dabi’s oversized shirts, a crude hole torn at the back to fit his wings. Hawks puts his phone down on the table, and Shouto winces when he sees what looks like Twitter on his screen. “He’s taking a shower, relax.”
Shouto bites his lip. He doesn’t talk to Hawks that often; Shouto doesn’t understand the hero’s relationship with his brother at all, but maybe hearing about his perspective will make things a little bit clearer. He and Dabi seem to be happy, seem to have everything all figured out, even though they met when they were on opposing sides.
“Hey—”
“I know, I know. I’m surprised too. He never lets me shower with him because of my wings. How cruel!”
Already frustrated, Shouto exhales. “That wasn’t what I was going to—never mind.”
“Sorry,” Hawks hums, not sounding sorry at all. He lies back down and stares up at the ceiling, a wide grin on his face. “So how’d it go with angry boy?”
Shouto blinks. “Huh?”
“The limp and all the hickies on your neck, kid. You’re not slick.”
Shit. Is he that obvious? “That’s none of your business,” Shouto chokes out, weakly covering the side of his neck with his hand.
But Hawks pays him no mind. “Is blondie a good fuck? I like my men lean and anemic, so I can’t really see the appeal, but given how hard it was for you to sit down, I bet it was—”
“You and my brother are disgusting,” Shouto hisses, pink-cheeked. He hasn’t even bothered to comment on the dirty implications of Hawks being here, awake at 2 a.m., waiting for Dabi to finish showering. But then something occurs to him: “Wait, were you the one to tell Bakugou where I was that first time? I know you set me up a couple nights ago, and then again yesterday, but—”
“Nah,” Hawks dismisses, waving his hand. “Angry boy found you all on his own. He and the finger-breaking boy are focused in Nakasu right now, so you two were just in the right place at the right time. I figured you two needed a little push after that though.”
Shouto glowers. Meddling bird.
“So what was it you wanted to ask before I so rudely interrupted you?”
Shouto attempts to think of a better way to articulate his thoughts than he did with Dabi. He sits on it for a little bit, and Hawks doesn’t seem to mind.
“You were undercover when you first met Dabi, right?”
Hawks rolls his eyes. “No, I didn’t start fucking your brother because of the mission.”
“That’s not what I—” Shouto bites his tongue. He supposes he should hear what Hawks has to say. Not to mention that a part of him has always been curious about that anyways. “Never mind. Go on.”
“I was flirty, but that’s just who I am. It worked wonders in gaining his trust,” Hawks laughs fondly. “But it’s not like I planned to sleep with him or anything. It just . . . happened, and what we had ended up becoming something that i was willing to take a risk for.”
“So you risked the entire mission just for him?” Shouto asks. “You were lucky that we weren’t completely aligned with the League.”
Hawks hums a little bit, wings flapping as he thinks about it. “I guess. But I mean, c’mon, you did the same exact thing with angry boy for those three years, didn’t you? It isn’t any different when it comes down to it. Me and Dabi, we didn’t start out serious either. But attraction is a thing, and feelings happen.”
Shouto’s nails dig into his palm. Hawks does have a point there. “It didn’t bother you that he was a villain?”
Hawks chuckles. Answering this question comes a lot easier to him. His eyes lock with Shouto’s. “Before I met Dabi, I was a brainwashed puppet for the Hero Commission, fighting and killing people for the sake of a corrupt hero society. I changed for the better, I think, after meeting him. even if he was a villain,” he says. “I think Bakugou probably feels the same about you.”
“I don’t know,” Shouto exhales.
All he’s done is drag Bakugou down, taint him with lies, broken promises, and betrayals.
“Shouto,” Hawks says after some silence. “Don’t you think you deserve more than this? Don’t you think you deserve a real shot at happiness with Bakugou? He’s kind of an asshole, but I’ve known worse.”
Does he? Shouto hasn’t even made things right with his mom, his other siblings, or Midoriya.
“I don’t know,” he repeats quietly.
“Man, you’re such a bummer, kid,” Hawks sighs disappointedly, grabbing his phone from the table. Shouto squints and sees that Hawks is tweeting again. The sound of the shower running stops, and Hawks’ ears perk up. “Dabi’s done showering. I suppose you don’t want to be in here while we, you know . . . ”
Shouto grimaces and gets up. “Yeah, yeah, I’ll go.” But before he completely leaves the room, he stops at the foot of the steps. He turns around and looks back at Hawks.
“Hey.”
“Mmh?”
Shouto takes a deep breath, putting away a little bit of his pride to mutter a soft, “Thanks.”
Hawks smiles, and Shouto feels a little at home. “No problem, kid.”
Love is enough, sometimes.
“I’m thinking of leaving Japan for a little while,” Bakugou confesses in one of the quiet, star-lit nights. “Not permanently, or even for a long time. Maybe just for a month or two. I want to do it soon, I think. I’ve never left. Lived here all my life, but I’ve never left.”
The raid is in a couple hours, and Bakugou chose to stay at the beach house with Shouto, even if it’s much farther than his hotel is from the meetup location. Shouto doesn’t question him.
Shouto’s brows furrow together in confusion. “What’ll happen to hero work? Your ranking?”
Bakugou’s sweats lie low on his hips, exposing his thin happy trail, still slightly damp from the shower they took together.
“Some things matter more than rankings.”
You really have grown up, Shouto thinks, fondly remembering his days at UA. Back then, Bakugou wouldn’t talk about anything about him surpassing All Might and becoming the number one hero. Shouto hums, a small smile tugging on the corners of his lips. He wants to kiss the fuck out of Bakugou right now.
But then, Bakugou adds, “You taught me that.”
“Huh?” Shouto asks, head whipping to the side to gawk at Bakugou.
“When you left, it forced me to question what was so great about becoming a hero,” Bakugou explains. “If you of all people decided not to become a hero, I wanted to figure out why. I did a fuckton of thinking, and it made me realize that maybe the hero world wasn’t as good as I thought it was. The same happened to Deku, too. You leaving really fucked us up.”
Shouto thinks of what Hawks said; Dabi changed him for the better. The same goes for Dabi too, Shouto thinks. He didn’t know Dabi before Hawks, but there was a gradual change. Dabi opened up, became less cruel, became more tolerable as a person.
He wonders if he’s changed because of Bakugou too.
“I’m sorry.”
“It wasn’t all bad, Halfie, that’s the point. You don’t need to keep torturing yourself over the shit you did to us. And sure, things will get bad again at some point, but things are good now. Peaceful. You made things good.”
Shouto shakes his head, closes his eyes, and replies, “I’m a criminal, Bakugou.”
The blond scoffs and rolls his eyes. “You’re an arsonist at best. But still, do you think I care? Do you think I would’ve fucked you again if I cared? Hell, your brother’s the murderer, and Hawks is fucking him.”
“That’s different. You’re different,” Shouto insists. Hawks has always toed the line between hero and villain and he knows it; it’s who he is as a person and it’s who he is as a hero.
“How is it any different?”
Eyes lidded, Shouto quietly answers, “You’re better this. You’re better than us.”
He admires a lot of things about Bakugou: his confidence, strength, and patience. Resilience. Once upon a time, he hated Bakugou for those things, but now, these are qualities that Shouto strives to have. Bakugou is the embodiment of hard work, natural talent, and pure determination. Shouto wants to be as strong as him, as good as him. Bakugou is good, every part of him is good.
Angrily, Bakugou sits up and glares at Shouto. “Enough with this angsty bullshit,” he spits. “I make my own decisions, and I choose to love you no matter what, even if you’re a two-bit villain.”
He loves me. Someone as good as Bakugou loves me.
It’s the first time Shouto’s heard him say those very words, the first time since the battle against Shigaraki. His heart nearly stops in his chest, and the only thing that he can think to say is, “Vigilante. I’m a vigilante.”
Bakugou laughs, abs clenching, chest blushing red. “You work at a cat cafe, Icy Hot, and you burned down one building a couple weeks ago.”
“It—it still counts,” Shouto argues with a pout and pink cheeks.
Bakugou climbs on top of him, sits on his thighs. His eyes sparkle like the sea, like the moon outside, and Shouto has that same thought again: maybe, maybe he can do this. Maybe it’s okay if he forgives himself, maybe he can make things right with everyone. Bakugou loves him; he still loves him, even with the things he’s done, even with the person he’s become.
“Come with me.”
And, in this moment, it occurs to Shouto that maybe he did mean it when he told Bakugou he loved him a year ago. Fuck. Fuck. His heart beats faster at the possibility, and he forgets how to breathe.
Has he loved him all along? Shouto frowns at the thought. Does this change anything? Does it—
“That’s too much, isn’t it?” Bakugou asks when Shouto doesn’t respond, shoulders hunching. With a sigh, he gets off of Shouto, throws his forearm over his eyes, and lies back next to him. “Shit, I’m getting greedy again. Sorry, I told you I wouldn’t push you.”
If Shouto’s loved him all along, it doesn’t change anything. But does he want things to change? Does he want to be with Bakugou like Bakugou wants to be with him?
Shouto sucks on his bottom lip. His head is a mess, and he doesn’t know what to say. But he doesn’t want to ruin this, doesn’t want to ruin this like he’s ruined everything in his life already, so he asks, “Can you give me some more time?”
Bakugou’s eyes widen, and Shouto sees him grin. “I’ll give you all the time in the world, Half-and-half.”
This time, I swear I’ll make things right.
But as it turns out, Shouto doesn’t need all the time in the world.
Bakugou leaves early in the morning. Shouto holds on tight to him like a sleepy koala bear, but eventually Bakugou breaks free. Shouto falls asleep soon after, replacing Bakugou with a pillow. He wakes back up around eight in the morning to the door being broken down, wood clattering to carpet.
“You’re such a heavy sleeper, what the fuck? Guess it runs in the family.”
Irritated, Shouto rubs his eyes and sits up with much struggle. “Why did you break down my door?”
Hawks stands by where the door had been, hands in the pockets of his sweatpants; he looks just as tired as Shouto feels. But behind him, oh no, oh no—
“You have a visitor,” Hawks announces lazily, walking out of the room and closing the door behind him.
It’s been a long time since Shouto got the chance to really take a look at Midoriya, to see how much he’s grown physically. He’s almost Bakugou’s height, Shouto realizes; his baby face hardened, his skin tanned, and he’s finally gotten a haircut. His face is flushed red, the tips of his ears pink, and his eyes are livid.
Midoriya speaks first, since Shouto is too shocked to even think of words.
“Bakugou is in the hospital.”
Tired, Shouto rubs at his eyes again. Midoriya’s words don’t quite register in his brain. “The raid, what—? I, he told me it would be an easy raid—”
Midoriya crosses his arms over his chest. Shouto catches a quick flash of green lightning spark and fizzle out. “He was ambushed on the street on the way to the meeting point this morning. Kacchan is never late, so I tracked his phone and found him passed out on the street. The raid is going on without us.”
Shouto gulps.
Bakugou was ambushed? Bakugou has been undercover this entire time. How would anyone even know where he was this morning? His hotel’s not even close to the beach house. Hawks said that no one knows he owns this place, so how could they have—
Shouto remembers the person following him a couple nights ago, and then again earlier in the week. They must have tailed him and Bakugou on the way back one night. And then he remembers what Bakugou had said about the ring leader; they had some sort of invisibility quirk they could use for an hour a day.
This was premeditated; this was planned.
Oh. This was Shouto’s fault; if he had been more careful—
“Todoroki-kun?” Midoriya asks, his cold tone warming into something soft when Shouto doesn’t respond.
“Why did—” Shouto white-knuckles the sheets, hair falling over his eyes. “Why did you come here to tell me this?”
Midoriya sighs. “Bakugou’s hotel room is thirty minutes from where he was attacked. If he wasn’t coming from there, I assumed he’d, based on what happened the other day, I assumed he’d be with you, so I asked Hawks—”
Shouto is tired of this, tired of everything happening over his head. “Is Hawks just telling everyone about this place?”
“Todoroki-kun,” Midoriya snaps. “This isn’t about Hawks. This is about Bakugou—”
“I know it’s about Bakugou,” Shouto yells, cheeks flushing at his outburst. “Midoriya, I was the one who put him in danger.”
Shouto doesn’t want to keep doing this, doesn’t want to keep hurting Bakugou, but he also doesn’t want to go back to how things were. He can’t keep pretending that his feelings for Bakugou don’t exist.
He realizes that now. He can’t rely on Midoriya to come find him the next time that Bakugou gets hurt. He wants to be there for Bakugou; he wants to be with Bakugou right now. All the time. He wants Bakugou by his side.
Huh. He does want to be with Bakugou like Bakugou wants to be with him.
He doesn’t want it to be too late, he needs to fix things now, he need to make sure that Bakugou knows—
The room smells of burnt fabric. Shouto looks down and sees that he’s singed the sheets with his fire. He takes a deep breath to cool himself down.
“The authorities arrested everyone involved in the ambush—they turned out to be allies of the villain group me and Bakugou were investigating—and the location of this place will remain a secret. Bakugou took all of them down, but one of them had a tricky quirk. If he got a hold of any of your limbs, your bones would shatter,” Midoriya explains. “He got Bakugou a couple of times near the end, but Bakugou still managed to defeat him. He’ll be fine in a couple weeks. Trust me, I know from my own bone-breaking experiences. He just needs to stay in the hospital for now.”
Good, good, at least he’s okay. Shouto’s forehead relaxes, and his heart starts to beat again. He starts to relax, think with a clear head, but then—
“If it’s nothing serious, why did you come here?” Shouto asks, confused and honestly a bit embarrassed at how severely he responded.
“I don’t have your cell phone number anymore, so I had to come myself because I thought—I thought you’d want to see him,” Midoriya confesses abashedly. He doesn’t seem mad anymore, and he sits down next to Shouto on the bed.
Shouto flinches. “You knew?”
Midoriya flashes a smile, eyes curling into moons. It’s been a long time since Shouto saw Midoriya smile like this. He decides that he wants to see more of it; he’s tired of making Midoriya sad all the time. “I had a feeling. Kacchan’s my best friend after all,” he responds, scratching the back of his head shyly. Quieter, he adds, “He really likes you, I think, so you can’t screw it up this time.”
Shouto won’t. He can’t. He won’t.
“Can I see him now?”
Midoriya looks him dead in the eyes. “He’s in the VIP ward at the university hospital. They require ID, so I’ll need to sneak you in.”
Right. Shouto and Dabi are still enemies of Japan, even if no one is actively searching for them anymore.
“Will you?” Shouto asks sheepishly.
“If you promise me one thing,” Midoriya insists firmly. It’s clear he came prepared for this exact situation. “Tomorrow, we’re talking about this. About everything. Just you and me.”
At the very least, he owes Midoriya an explanation, a conversation. It’s long overdue. He owes his siblings one too, and his mom most of all. If Shouto is going to try things with Bakugou—he needs to make things right with everyone else he hurt first. He won’t run away anymore.
“Yeah,” Shouto breathes out meekly. “We can do that.”
“I missed you, Todoroki-kun,” Midoriya mutters, doe-eyes watering a little.
“I . . . I’m sorry,” Shouto says; it feels like that’s all he knows how to say nowadays.
Midoriya pouts, but he looks happy at the same time, somehow. Shouto feels the inexplicable need to give him a hug, but he resists for now. He doesn’t think he’s earned hugging privileges just quite yet.
“Don’t go disappearing for an entire year again, please.”
Shouto grabs the bed sheets again. He doesn’t want to make anymore promises that he can’t keep, but for some reason, it feels like he can keep this one.
“I won’t. I promise.”
Thank you for always being there for me.
The car ride to the hospital is the most painful thing Shouto has ever experienced. Midoriya tries to talk to him about Bakugou, but Shouto blurting out “Bakugou gives really good head” ruins the entire attempt at a conversation. Shouto already dreads the conversation they’re supposed to have tomorrow. It’s comforting, however, to know that Midoriya doesn’t hate him for everything he’s done.
Midoriya says that he has connections to this hospital (Shouto doesn’t doubt it, considering how little care Midoriya has for his own physical health sometimes; he wouldn’t be surprised if Midoriya had connections at every hospital in Japan at this point), so they sneak in through the employee entrance of the VIP ward.
He lets Shouto go into the room alone, saying that he’ll be in the cafeteria to grab some food.
Shouto is nervous. Should he apologize first? Or is Bakugou tired of hearing all of his apologies?
He stands outside the door for a couple of minutes, thinking over every possibility, every option numerous times, but it doesn’t get him anywhere; he decides to throw caution to the wind and step right into the fray, like Dabi had said that time. Do what you want, and figure out the rest as you go. What Shouto wants right now is to see Bakugou and make sure that he’s safe, make sure that he’s okay.
It doesn’t matter anyways, because when he walks into the room, Bakugou is asleep.
Fast asleep, it seems; he’s sprawled out, chest rising and falling with his deep breaths.
Shouto smiles. Bakugou always wakes up earlier than him, so Shouto doesn’t get many chances to see what Bakugou looks like when he’s deep in sleep. Bakugou looks cute, Shouto thinks, even with casts on both his legs and one of his arms, stitches on his cheek and forehead.
“What am I going to do with you,” he mumbles fondly, a soft smile on his face as he sits on the chair next to Bakugou’s bed, pulling it closer so that his knees touch the mattress. He plays with Bakugou’s hair a bit, runs his fingers along Bakugou’s scalp, and even pokes Bakugou’s cheeks a couple of times, just to make sure to make sure that he’s actually sleeping (and maybe because Bakugou is too cute for Shouto resist).
He wonders if Bakugou is still going to go on that out-of-country trip he was talking about. Bakugou never said where he wanted to go; Shouto doesn’t think he’s actually ever been out of the country. Shouto used to go on business trips with his father when he was a child; his father said that it would be good for him to see the rest of the world if he’s going to surpass All Might. But now Shouto is nineteen, and his father is as good as dead to him.
“I can’t go with you. To wherever it is you wanna go. Not yet,” Shouto utters, rubbing Bakugou’s cheek with his thumb.
Shouto isn’t quite sure what he wants, so he thinks out loud.
“I . . . I want to be with you, I think. The same way you want to be with me. I think I’ve always wanted that, but the guilt was always just—too much. It still is too much. I have to do a couple of things first. I need to see my siblings and fix things with them. I need to visit my mom in the hospital—it’s, it’s been years. And I need to make up with Midoriya. He isn’t mad at me anymore, I think—but I still was terrible to him. And to you too. But—” Shouto bites his lip and takes a deep breath. “I want to do better, be better. And to do that, I need to forgive myself first, and in order to do that, I need to make things right.”
First, Midoriya tomorrow.
Then maybe he can arrange for Hawks to invite his other siblings over to the beach house. Dabi might be mad, but if Hawks is the one to introduce the idea to him, he’ll probably be okay with it.
And then his mother. That one might be tough. The hospital is on high alert for Shouto, but maybe he can figure something out with Fuyumi and Natsuo.
Reconciling with his mother is something he has to do, more than any of the others, he thinks.
“I care about you,” Shouto says; it’s more for himself than for Bakugou. “I—”
He doesn’t know if he can say it, but he thinks that’s okay right now. Right now, knowing it is enough.
Knowing that one day he will be able to say it, for now, is enough.
He’s tired of being sorry, of saying sorry. He doesn’t know if he deserves someone like Bakugou, someone as good as Bakugou, but he wants to become who deserves it, eventually.
And to do that, he has to fix things on his own terms.
Bakugou snuffles a little bit in his sleep; Shouto coos at such a cute sound coming out of Bakugou.
“You must be tired,” Shouto mutters. “I’m tired too.” And then he slips his hand into Bakugou’s, lacing their fingers. “I’m sorry you got hurt because of me. I should’ve been more careful. I noticed the tail twice, but I didn’t want to bring it up. I just wanted you all to myself. I was being selfish. I’m sorry for that.”
Shouto runs his thumb along Bakugou’s lips, the dip of his Cupid’s bow, the corner of his mouth.
“And I’m sorry you have to wait a little longer for me. I keep wondering if I went about this all wrong. Back then, after the battle against Shigaraki, I thought I could be rid of you. I . . . thought that if I ran away, you would give up on me, and I could pretend like my feelings for you were a lie. I tried, and it almost worked, but—” Shouto chuckles, then smiles so wide that dimples press into his cheeks like flowers, “—but you just had to show up again, force yourself back into my life.”
Bakugou’s brows pinch together, nose scrunching. He’s about to wake up, but Shouto keeps going, his frail heart beating quicker and quicker.
“Thank you for that. For finding me again, even if it was a mistake. From now on, I’ll try just as hard as you did. You and Midoriya. I’ll stop running away,” Shouto promises. His voice thins out and cracks slightly, but he keeps smiling. “And I’ll start running toward you.”
Eyes fluttering open, Bakugou instantly starts to scowl, but Shouto is sure that he’s still disoriented, so he continues to verbalize all his thoughts, letting them all out into the open.
“That was cheesy, sorry. I’m still not good with words, but I think I’m better at it than I was at UA. Working at the cat cafe did wonders for me. I think I’m going to go back to the apartment in Fukuoka so that I can start working again. I like my job a lot. And I have a feeling that Dabi will want to stay with Hawks back at the beach house, or wherever, honestly. But that’s okay. I think that Dabi was only living there to keep me company. He’s a good brother. I know you hate him, but he’s been good to me,” Shouto mutters. Bakugou’s eyes squeeze back shut, and Shouto is certain that he isn’t registering a word of this, so he quietly adds, “Besides, I have you with me, now. So it can’t possibly get too lonely. Tch. Maybe I can start doing some of your dirty work on the side.”
“Ngh,” Bakugou groans sleepily, struggling to keep his eyes open with the whiteness of the hospital room.
Shouto squeezes his hand with a smile, rapidly blinking damp eyes before Bakugou catches it. “Morning.”
“Half-and-half?” Bakugou grumbles, voice gravelly with sleep. “Fuck, am I on morphine or some shit? Ugh, shit, last time I was awake, Deku was here—”
“I don’t know about morphine, but it’s me,” Shouto says, holding Bakugou’s hand even harder. He’s going to hold the fuck out of Bakugou’s hand for as long as he lets him.
A sleepy Bakugou is always much, much more pliant and obedient than regular Bakugou. It’s number one on Shouto’s list of favorite Bakugou’s for a reason.
“Assholes got a jump on me. I beat them all bloody and blue. A cheap quirk got me like this.”
Shouto puffs out a laugh. “I’m happy you’re okay,” he says quietly, resisting the urge to apologize. Bakugou probably doesn’t even blame Shouto, even if this is all his fault. “Midoriya told me all the details about the attack.”
“Did he bring you here?”
“Yeah.”
“Fuck Deku.”
Shouto chortles. “I’m very thankful to Midoriya.”
Bakugou raises a brow, but winces instantly when he feels the stitches pull at his skin. “Did you two make up?”
“We talked a little,” Shouto replies, cheeks warming up at the memory of their aborted conversation in the car. He hopes that Midoriya won’t act weird around Bakugou because of what he said. “But we’re going to talk more tomorrow.”
“That’s good,” Bakugou remarks, sounding pleasantly surprised. Then, after a moment, his eyes flit to their hands, and his entire face colors with pink. “Oi—”
Fireworks start to crackle at Shouto’s palm, and he instantly releases Bakugou’s hand. “Sorry,” he says, not apologetic at all.
“Asshole,” Bakugou grumbles with a pout. “Taking advantage of me in my sleep.”
“Did not.”
Bakugou flicks Shouto’s forehead. “Oi, Halfie. I heard you mumbling about something while I was waking up. What were you going on about?”
Shouto smiles. He doesn’t think that he could’ve said all that if Bakugou was awake. It would’ve been too embarrassing.
He’ll tell Bakugou everything in due time.
So for now, he leans down and gently kisses Bakugou’s cheek, right on one of his stitches, to distract him from his question. Bakugou stutters adorably, and Shouto decides to play with him a little more: he steals another kiss, right on the lips. The kiss is wanting, and Shouto kisses him hungrily, mouth lingering as long as he can manage.
“What the fuck is wrong wirh you all of a sudden?” Bakugou hisses, pushing Shouto off of him, facing the other way in a poor attempt to hide his blush. His lips are pink and wet and parted; Shouto can’t help but be absolutely captivated.
A lot has changed, but maybe some things haven’t.
“Sorry, I’m just really happy right now.” Shouto knows what he has to do, knows what he wants now.
Bakugou glares at him. “I broke both my legs and an arm, and you’re happy?”
“Yes,” deadpans Shouto, grinning even wider, hearts in his eyes. “Very happy.”
Bakugou uses his one free hand to lightly punch Shouto in the gut. “Jackass.”
Shouto takes a deep breath, and decides that now is as good as ever to reveal: “I like you, Bakugou.”
Bakugou blushes an even brighter pink, and he tries to look disgusted, but Shouto can tell that he’s really, really happy right now. Maybe almost as happy as Shouto. “What the fuck are we, in elementary school?”
“Baby steps.”
“Suck my dick.”
“Gladly.”
With a loud sigh, Bakugou buries one side of his face in his pillow. After a moment, he peeks an eye open to look at Shouto. He smiles into the fabric, and Shouto feels his heart batter, beat, burst, and everything in between.
“What am I going to do with you?” Bakugou asks softly.
“Anything you want,” Shouto answers, and he means it.
Bakugou swallows, and his eyes turn a little dark. “Anything?”
Shouto laughs. Of course Bakugou would take that in a dirty way.
“Anything.”
“I’ll hold you to that promise one day, Icy Hot. When all my bones aren’t fucking shattered.”
“I wouldn’t have it any other way, Bakugou.”
When Shouto was fifteen, he left behind a piece of himself and buried it deep in Bakugou’s heart. He stole a piece of Bakugou to keep with him and told himself to treasure it for as long as he was gone. But now that Shouto has returned to reclaim that piece of him he left behind, he decides that maybe it’s better off with Bakugou.
Shouto holds a part of Bakugou’s heart tenderly in his hands, that piece of Bakugou he stole when he was fifteen, and tells himself to treasure it for the rest of his life.
Cats definitely still hate you.
The sound of cicadas fills the sticky summer air. Jiji’s Purring Cat Cafe is due to close in a few minutes, but the bells on the door chime, and a new customer walks in. He wears a Red Riot hat, torn and faded, blond hair peeking out under it. When the woman at the cafe sees him, she tucks a strand of white-blue hair behind her ear and welcomes the latecomer with a gentle smile, gesturing for him to come into the staff room.
She makes him a black coffee in the meantime.
A boy with off-white hair and bright red roots on the left side of his head is curled up into a little ball in the corner of the staff room, a small calico cat sitting in his lap, pawing at his chest. His eyes sparkle happily, but not as happily as when he sets eyes on the latecomer. He stands up, cradling the kitten in the crook of his arm, and tries to push her into the blond’s hands. The cat hisses and claws at his face, but somehow, he’s never felt more at peace.
But they don’t linger there too long, as much as they want to; they have a midnight flight to catch after all.