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Izuku was shepherded by Iida and Uraraka into the Common Room for 1-A. He’d been exercising in one of the many gyms on UA’s campus and lost track of time… Again.
The Dekusquad had gone out to round him up. The others would be returning in a few moments, as Uraraka had messaged them that they’d found him.
“What is going on?” Iida demanded.
Izuku twisted from where he was facing Uraraka to look at the room. The Bakusquad, minus Bakugo, was spread out over the couches. With Mina clearly filming Kirishima and Kaminari, who were in the motion of downing a pint glass each of something liquid. Although Izuku very much doubted it was meant to be drunk, by the colour of it.
“Drinking competition.” Sero supplied.
“That is not proper behaviour for UA students!” Iida started.
“Chill!” Kaminari leaned back, having finished his glass, “There’s no alcohol.”
“Nah!” Kirishima smiled, “We’re just seeing who is Manlier. So far we’ve done a raw egg each and a pint of pickle juice.”
“Does Kacchan know about this?” Izuku pipped up.
“It’s past his bedtime.” Mina laughed, “Besides he’d just yell at us for wasting food or something like that.”
“No…” Izuku breathed, “No… He wouldn’t. Not this. I’m gonna get him.”
“You sure you wanna do that?” Kaminari breathed, “He gets grumpy if you wake him up.”
“I know.” Izuku shrugged, “But he won’t want to miss this. Don’t do anything else till I get back. I should only be a minute or so.”
With that he bolted for the stairs. The lift would take too long.
Okay, so maybe Iida would give him a lecture if he knew exactly how Izuku was going up the stairs. But he hadn’t broken any bones or anything else, so Izuku was counting that as a win.
Izuku banged on Bakugo’s door.
“What the fuck do you want?!” Bakugo snarled as he slammed the door open, “Fucking Deku I’m gonna kill you…”
“Kirishima and Kaminari are having a drinking competition downstairs.” Izuku blurted out.
“What did you just say?” Bakugo paused, his hands moments away from exploding.
“Kirishima and Kaminari are having a drinking competition in the Common Room.” Izuku repeated, “So far they’ve drunk a raw egg each and a pint of pickle juice.”
“And you came to get me, Nerd?”
“Of course,” Izuku shrugged, “One, you’d hate it if you missed it, and you’d kill me tomorrow when you found out. Two, I know exactly what you’re thinking. Three, this is probably going to be our only chance. And four, I don’t think I’ve got enough supplies.”
He had been counting off on his fingers; easily taking his eyes of the seemingly present threat of Bakugo’s hands.
“You don’t have supplies?”
“I’ve got some. Just not enough. Certainly not enough for four glasses.”
“How much have you got?”
“Half a bottle? I’ve been using it. Some of our classmates don’t know how to cook.”
“Says the useless Nerd who can’t cook.”
“I’m a good prep chef. I just rarely get the chance to do any of the actually cooking. You know what mum’s like.”
“Yeah, Auntie always worries. With good fucking reason. You get distracted the moment a Hero fight appears on the telly. You’d burn the fucking house down. Let me check what I’ve got.”
Bakugo pulled out a drawer under his bed. A moment of searching later and he smugly removed a bottle.
“I did not know it came in bottles that large.”
“Well, it fucking does. What size is your bottle?”
“The standard? But we’ll have enough with that.”
“I’ll bring it down. Let me get dressed.”
“I’ll check that we’ve got everything else we need.”
“There’s tomato juice in the fucking fridge. I saw it earlier.”
“Thanks! See you in a moment.”
Izuku actually bothered to take the lift down, as well as raiding his room for his supplies. He wasn’t going to do this without contributing somehow.
When he got back downstairs he found that Tetsutetsu and Monoma had joined the group. Iida was pinching the skin above his nose and clearly trying to control his breathing.
“He’s alive!” Kaminari crowed as he saw the greenette, “Bakugo sleep through your wake up call?”
“He’ll be joining us in a minute.” Izuku headed towards the kitchen, careful to hide the supplies he had already gathered, “Just needs to get dressed.”
“Bakubro’s joining us?” Kirishima stared, “This isn’t his kind of thing.”
“Exceptional circumstances,” Izuku shrugged, “This is… This is basically the only non-emergency thing he’d get up for… This precise situation… Why are you two here?”
“To prove the superiority of Class 1-B over 1-A! As if a mere drinking competition has any chance of going in your favour.”
“I saw this on Snapchat.” Tetsutetsu stated, “Thought it looked Manly. We’ve caught up. It’s not as if a raw egg or pickle juice is anything to sweat over for Manly people!”
“Why would Bakugo be interested in this sort of thing?” Uraraka frowned, “This isn’t… He doesn’t have a very good tolerance for stupid things.”
“True!” Izuku chirped, his head in the fridge as he searched, “But this is different.”
“How?” Mina blinked, “Why?”
“It’s an old family story.” Izuku emerged and started trying to find pint glasses, “To be honest I can’t remember a time when I didn’t know it. I can’t remember if it’s his family or mine…”
“Tt! Mine Shitty Nerd.” Bakugo declared as he entered, immediately honing in on the kitchen.
He ignored all the cries of “Bakubro” and “Bakugo”, as he swept past his squad.
“That makes sense,” Izuku bobbed his head, “Anyway, it’s an old story. Pre-Quirks. One of Kacchan’s ancestors was in the military.”
“Army.” Bakugo corrected, as he lined up the glasses, Izuku was pulling down from the shelf.
“And one night there was a drinking competition.” Izuku carried on, “Much like this. The bet was being able to drink a pint of anything. Kacchan’s ancestor won.”
“Of course he did!” Kirishima crowed, “Bakubro’s ancestor would be just as Manly as him!”
“The story’s been passed down through the generations.” Izuku smiled, “This is a recipe from that night.”
“An actual Pre-Quirk recipe?” Iida pushed his glasses back up his nose, “Are you certain? We lost a great deal of knowledge during the early Quirk-Era.”
“This was an oral story.” Izuku returned, “Surprisingly a lot of stories like that actually survived. Even with all the chaos. Those families with a strong oral tradition actually managed to keep many of their stories alive.”
“Like we’d want to forget what made us strong.” Bakugo muttered.
“So why haven’t you made it before?” Sero asked.
“Family rules.” Izuku fired back, “This recipe is only to be used for a drinking competition. And we’re not allowed to start one in order to use it. But I’ve wanted to try it for years. And I know Kacchan’s the same.”
“Stupid Old Hag, I know she just made that rule up!” Bakugo hissed, “Stop fussing with them, Deku!”
“I wasn’t sure it would split easily among six glasses. I only expected to have to make four.”
“Well, it’s a good thing I had a second bottle, isn’t it?”
“Yeah. Thanks, Kacchan.”
The two of them carried out six pint glasses between them, all filled with a reddish liquid.
“What is that?” Mina exclaimed, “It looks horrible.”
“It’s just red.” Kaminari laughed, “I don’t see what’s too scary about it. This the next one in the game?”
“Sure,” Kirishima nodded, “Why not? Seeing as Bakubro went to the lengths of making it for us.”
Each of the contestants reached forward and claimed a glass.
“What is in it?” Iida pressed, “We shouldn’t be damaging our bodies.”
“One, who do you think you’re taking to, Four Eyes? Deku doesn’t know how to keep his fucking body in one piece. Two, it’s mostly tomato juice.”
“Just even more proof that Class 1-B is superior. We could easily come up with something more challenging.”
Monoma arrogantly took a swig of the drink. Quickly followed by the other three there. Bakugo and Izuku simply watched.
It was quite amusing to watch as the four of them literally ran to the kitchen after water. Kaminari and Monoma managed to spit out a good portion of their mouthfuls across the table before they ran.
Iida had to remove his glasses to clean them.
Smirking, Izuku quickly downed his glass. The liquid being swallowed so fast that Mina wasn’t even certain that it touched the sides.
Bakugo simply sneered as he started to sip on his glass. He was sprawled in his chair, like some sort of ancient King on a throne.
Izuku meandered into the kitchen, where the four were fighting about who got to stick their head under the tap. Taking pity on them, he poured four glasses of milk and forced them each to drink it. He drank a smaller glass, but didn’t seem to be in any pain.
“Your ancestor drank that?” Kaminari stared at Bakugo, “What was he made of? Metal?”
“Apparently he had a cast iron stomach,” Bakugo snorted, “But no. He didn’t drink that.”
“But you said it was from that night.” Tetsutetsu frowned.
“We said he won the bet.” Izuku laughed, “We never said he drank it. He wasn’t the one who claimed he could drink a pint of anything.”
“He just came up with a drink the other guy couldn’t drink.” Bakugo sneered, “Tabasco sauce, as much as possible, and tomato juice to fill the glass.”
“Why did he have Tabasco?” Uraraka stared at the glass Bakugo was still making his way through.”
“He liked spicy food. And Army food was bland.” Bakugo retorted, “He got his mom and his sister to send him bottles, Round Face.”
He was about half-way through his glass.
“How are you drinking that?” Kirishima was seemingly transfixed by Bakugo’s relaxed sipping. It was as if Bakugo was actually drinking lemonade rather than something so spicy. He might have considered that Bakugo’s glass only contained tomato juice, if it wasn’t for the fact that he knew Bakugo wouldn’t cheat like that. He had standards.
“Cast iron stomach.” Izuku snorted, “He’s been eating spice since before he was out of nappies. He’s been toning it down when he cooks here. You don’t want to try the Green Arrow Chili. And definitely not the Ghost one.”
“And how did you manage, Deku?” Uraraka accused.
“I’ve always believed that it could be drunk if you never let it touch your taste buds.” Izuku laughed, “The glass of milk was just to take the last edge off it.”
Kakashi finished his glass, placing it firmly down on the table.
“You idiots can wash this all up. And you owe me a new bottle of Tabasco.”
He stretched as he got up.
“Don’t wake me up again.” He stated as he stalked towards the lift.
As he passed Izuku, he reached out and ruffled Izuku’s hair.
“Seems you’re not completely stupid, Deku. Thanks for telling me. I’ll beat you up in the morning.”
“Sure, we’ll spar tomorrow.” Izuku smiled.
“Woah!” Uraraka stared, “He was actually nice!”
“I did say he wanted to try it.” Izuku smiled, “And I knew we were only ever going to get one chance at this.”
“Why do you say that?” Sero frowned.
“Mina’s posting this on as many social media sites as she can, right now.” Izuku pointed out, “No-one else is going to fall for this again.”