Chapter Text
Bakugou Katsuki is furious.
“Aren’t you supposed to cover this shit?” He says, throwing his hands out at his sides before letting them fall on his hips.
Endeavor, who had been ignoring Bakugou’s presence in his office completely (even after Bakugou had very dramatically slammed the door), looks up and raises an eyebrow. “Cover what?”
“My insurance deductibles! Look at this shit!” He figures he shouldn’t be cursing in front of the number one hero (who happens to be his boss), but he’s been around the guy long enough and is his best-performing sidekick, even out performing Shouto. Bakugou hates that damn word. Sidekick. He can’t wait until he can leave this agency and all the extras in it in the fucking dust. “This one’s for fifty-thousand yen. Fifty-thousand! That’s half of what I make in a week! How am I supposed to eat?” He sets the bill down on Endeavor’s desk. He picks it up and eyes it with the same bored ambivalence that he normally has for everything relating to Bakugou. It’s strangely like Shouto, and just as frustrating too.
“Stop blowing up buildings, then,” is what he says, tossing the bill back to Bakugou. “You signed your contract just like everyone else. Shouto doesn’t have these problems.”
“Shouto this, Shouto that! Shouto’s a spoiled brat who’s rich enough to pay for this shit and I’m not.”
As soon as he said the words, he realizes just how badly he’s fucked up.
Bakugou knows he can do one of two things:
1. Backtrack immediately. Apologize. Give Endeavor about twelve thousand compliments relating to his son and hope for the best.
2. Start praying
Bakugou opts for the second option. It doesn’t end well.
“Your dad fucking benched me for the rest of the week!”
Shouto doesn’t even look up from his massive pile of paperwork. “What did you do?”
“Why would you assume I did something?”
“Because you always do something. Plus, you have more arrests than any other first-year hero besides Deku. It doesn’t make sense to bench you without a reason.”
Bakugou spins around in his office chair, unable to sit still. Shouto said they could spar after paperwork, but he’s quickly losing patience. “Dumbass Deku,” he mumbles under his breath. When he spins to face Shouto again, he says, “I insulted you...kinda.”
Shouto bursts out into laughter. “You’re a reckless idiot.”
“It’s not funny, you bastard!”
Shouto actually puts down his pen to laugh harder. “Yes,” he manages in between gasping breaths, “it is.”
“No it’s fucking not, Shouto! Not all of us are rich boys engaged to be married to a rich girl living in luxury! Some of us have parents who laugh at them and then hang up when they ask to borrow money and then end up living in a studio apartment because they have a quirk that fucking explodes shit.”
“You live in one room?” He looks absolutely appalled. Bakugou wants to fucking deck him.
“Yes! I live in one room. Because my damn insurance is so high that I can’t afford shit!”
Shouto scrunches up his nose. “Ouch.”
“Ouch? That’s all you’re going to say?”
Shouto picks up his pen and continues working on his paperwork. “Well what would you want me to say, Katsuki?” He says it in that tone of voice that he gets whenever he decides to start treating Bakugou like a very annoying timebomb rather than a person. Bakugou’s officially had enough of this conversation and every fucking Todoroki in the world.
He growls, standing up so fast his chair slams into the one behind him, and then storms out of the office.
He realizes halfway to the front door that he’s forgotten his coat, but he’d rather freeze than have to walk back inside that hell hole.
By the time he gets home, Bakugou’s sure that he’s never going to sweat again. He’s cold down to his bone marrow. This is what he fucking gets for being stubborn, he guesses. He decides that he’ll just take a steaming hot bath, get himself a nice warm dinner and then curl up to bed for the night. If he can forget about all the bullshit from his day, he can rest well and look at it all with a clearer head tomorrow. His therapist tells him that. Sometimes it’s just better to let things be and look at them another day.
His therapist is pretty damn smart, and hasn’t steered him wrong so far. He’s another one of the many necessary expenses that seem to be overtaking Bakugou’s life. Is this what adulthood is like? He didn’t sign up for this shit.
Bakugou turns on the bath to as hot as it will go before peeling off his dirty hero gear and tossing it on the floor. When the bathtub is halfway full, he sticks his foot in.
And then he immediately screams and takes it back out because the water is ice fucking cold. Unfortunately, because he just can’t win today, he goes stumbling backwards, slams pretty hard into the wall and ends up landing on his ass.
His hot water doesn’t fucking work.
He calls the company to make sure that he’s paid the bill (he has) and makes sure that the heater looks functional (everything is turned on) before he calls his landlord. The guy is pretty happy to talk to Bakugou until he says the words “Hot water” then suddenly his phone “loses service” and “he has to go”.
Bakugou gently sets down his phone and then closes his eyes and counts to ten to calm down. He has to do it three times.
Right, so food it is. He gets some nice, comfy warm clothes and heads into the kitchen. Cooking has always relaxed him. He stayed at the office really damn late, so it’s already closer to the time he wants to be asleep than the time he should have eaten dinner. He’s famished, and is positive that he’ll feel better after a meal.
Then, he opens the door of his refrigerator to find it fucking empty. Really, seriously empty. The only things in it are butter, soy sauce and a half gallon of spoiled milk.
He slams the door shut and opens the cabinet where he keeps his dry food.
In it, a cockroach greets him.
Just like the water in a tea kettle, if you heat Bakugou up enough, there’s nothing to keep him from screaming eventually.
“Whoa dude, that blows. You have roaches? You didn’t bring any here, did you?” Kirishima says, his face scrunching up.
“No, dumbass. I didn’t put it in my fucking pocket.” He stretches out on Kirishima’s couch as much as it will allow. He ends up kicking Kaminari in the thigh a few times before he gives up and rests his feet on his legs instead.
Kirishima tosses a blanket on him. “Sounds like you’ve had a really shitty day, man. I wish there was something I could do for ya besides let you crash.”
Bakugou pulls the blanket up and tucks himself in it so that only his head pokes out. “This has been the worst day of my life.”
Kaminari says, “Dude you say that like, every two months.”
“Have I told you to go fuck yourself lately?”
“You always say the sweetest things to me, Bakugou. You really do.”
“I’m a ray of goddamn sunshine.”
He isn’t sure how he ended up with friends who actually tolerate him, but right now he feels pretty lucky to have them. He showed up at Kaminari and Kirishima’s apartment shivering, furious and absolutely starving. Now he’s fed, warm and slightly less angry.
Kirishima comes up to him and gives him a gentle pat on the head, which Bakugou thinks should feel condescending, but right now just feels nice. “Look, Bakugou. You’re welcome to stay here tonight, but tomorrow you should go back home and deal with your shit. Call your landlord again, get an exterminator and try and at least get a couple things from the grocery store.”
“This all sounds very expensive,” Bakugou grumbles. “Can’t I just move in with you guys?”
Kirishima laughs, a good hearty laugh that makes him hold onto his stomach. “I love you, bro, but I’d kill you if I had to live with you.”
Bakugou pouts in return.
“Hey, that’s a good idea, though!” Kaminari says. “You should get a roommate!”
“A roommate? Who the fuck do you think I could stand enough to live with?”
Under his breath, Kaminari says, “Or who could stand to live with you.”
“I fucking heard that, asshole. But, you’re right. My insurance would go up even more if I had to kill someone in my own home, even if it was self defense.”
“You know what Bakugou, I feel like you’re missing a key part to these statements, but overall, yeah.” Kirishima says, nodding.
“Shouto’s out, since he and ponytail are getting married. Jirou moved to bumblefuck. Cheeks and Froggy live together now-”
“Plus Ochako would kill you,” Kaminari adds. Kirishima hums, agreeing.
“Pinkie would kill me too. I think in my sleep. I wouldn’t even have a chance. I ain’t ashamed to admit that.”
“Hey!” Kaminari says, snapping his fingers like he’s turning on a brilliant lightbulb of an idea. “I got it! What about Midoriya?”
“What?” Bakugou hisses.
“Yeah,” Kirishima starts, “Midoriya inherited All Might’s agency and stuff, so he’s doing pretty well. He works by himself. He’s busy as hell but we went over his apartment last month and It was really nice. Had a second bedroom too.”
Bakugou sits up to look at them both, really look at them, because this is fucking serious.
"Get this straight, losers and get it straight right now. I am never, ever, fucking never living with Deku. I'd rather work at a restaurant on my days off than live with Deku. I'd rather risk Mina killing me than live with Deku. I’d rather never have a hot shower again than live with Deku. I'd rather die than live with Deku."
Bakugou is going to move in with Deku.
Here’s how the fuck that happened:
It started with a text from Shouto, because all of the Todoroki family is not to be trusted.
Shouto, to Kirishima and Midoriya: Did you know Bakugou lives in a box?
Kirishima: Bro it’s a studio apartment not a box.
Midoriya: Yeah, Shouto. That’s not a box. But I didn’t know that
Kirishima: It’s pretty shitty too. He was over last night freaking out cuz he has roaches there
Shouto: Omg I touched him. Am I going to get them?
Midoriya: Poor Kacchan! That’s horrible!
Kirishima: Yea ikr? We told him to get a roommate but he said he can’t cuz nobody wants to live with him lol
Shouto: That’s probably true.
Midoriya: I’ll live with him
Shouto: Why would you do that
Kirishima: Uhhh not sure he wants to live with you back
Midoriya: It’ll be fine! Kacchan will move in with me and ditch his shitty apartment! I’ll ask him.
And when Deku, who’s also not to be trusted, invited Bakugou out to lunch, he said yes-- completely unaware of what he was about to walk into.
As much as he hates to admit it, ‘lunch’ is something that he and Deku do often together. Ever since they graduated from UA, they’ve been occasionally meeting up for things like dinner or lunch or drinks after work. It’s not the worst thing in the world, which is the worst thing in the world. Deku makes good company. He meets Bakugou exactly where he is, doesn’t expect sunshine to come out of his ass and most importantly, he always pays. He’s gone an entire year without seeing some of his old classmates, but Deku always makes a point to keep in touch. Case in point: the weirdest day of Bakugou’s life thus far-- and that’s including when he was randomly attacked by a sludge monster.
It had been a Saturday night about a month ago. A day where Bakugou had worked twelve goddamn hours running after asshole criminals, patrolling the streets and doing endless amounts of paperwork. He was fucking exhausted, and when Deku called him to cancel their plans that Bakugou had forgotten even existed, Bakugou had plopped himself down on the couch and laughed before saying, “Deku, I’ve never been happier to be ditched.”
“Did you also spend your entire day running around in circles without time to eat?” Over the phone, Bakugou heard the sound of Deku heating something up in a microwave.
“No! It wasn’t that bad. Jesus, you need to make time to eat. But it was twelve hours of hell.” Bakugou laid down on his couch, groaning with how good it felt to be comfortable and horizontal.
“Well, you can keep me company while I eat. Tell me about your day of hell, Kacchan.”
And for some unknown goddamn reason, Bakugou did.
He and Deku talked for hours. They talked about old things and new things and that All Might tv show they watched when they were kids. They talked about life, about work, about family. For some reason, Bakugou wanted Deku to know everything that was on his mind, and for some reason, Deku wanted to listen.
He had ended up falling asleep on the phone, waking up to a dead cell jammed uncomfortably up against his ear.
So, yeah, Deku said “lunch” and Bakugou said “okay” and then the sneaky fucker ended up asking Bakugou to move in with him. He had the nerve to ask it all sweet too. “Kacchan, I’m finding that it costs so much to run an agency, and I was just wondering if you could-”
Blah, Blah, Blah, it was a load of bullshit.
Bakugou has no idea why he said yes. In fact, he’s pretty sure he was drugged. More than likely he had a moment of weakness and clarity where he wasn’t afraid of letting someone help him the slightest bit, but Deku drugging him sounds more believable-- really, it does.
Regardless of what happened, here he is, carrying a box of his shit past joyful ass Deku. “This is the worst day of my life,” he mumbles.
Behind him, Kaminari says, “Oh...my god. Again?”
Everyone’s pitched in to help, even though Bakugou had exactly one fucking room at his old apartment and one fucking room at the new one, so it’s not like he has much. Uraraka floats in his dresser, and Deku uses full cowl to carry a disturbing amount of boxes at one time. It’s all very ‘let’s group hug!’ and ‘I’m so glad we’re friends!’ and Bakugou is so, so fucking miserable.
After what feels like four hundred hours, everyone leaves.
That’s when it hits him-- he fucking lives with Deku now. Every single day of his life he’s going to have to spend all of his time at home with Deku. He’s gonna have to eat with Deku and share a bathroom with him. They’ll have to organize chores and laundry and oh god.
Bakugou had really, actually moved in with Deku.
They were roommates.
Oh my god, they were roommates.
Maybe he can get a second job after all.
Bakugou manages to grumble out a ‘thank you’ to everyone (even Deku) before he heads back to his room to get into his bed and never get out of it again. He’s actually excited for it, which is probably why Deku goes and fucks it up.
“Hey Kacchan?”
“What?”
Deku’s voice sounds almost...nervous and Bakugou’s reminded of their early years at UA. Maybe someday he’ll stop feeling guilty for all that, but today isn’t that day apparently, because he turns around to see what Deku has to say. “I was wondering,” he’s even twisting his hands and shit. “If you wanted to hang out with me. I got some beer and I found this old movie that I think you used to love. It’s the one with the-”
“Yeah.” Bakugou doesn’t know why he agrees, but he does. In fact, he isn’t even dreading it. He’s excited to hang out with stupid fucking Deku. What. The. Fuck.
“And the- Wait, really?”
“I said yeah, didn’t I?”
“Okay! I’ll go get it!” Deku practically bounces back to his room.
Bakugou eases himself down onto the couch, sighing, “And I’ll be here.”