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Contrary to popular belief, Bakugou didn't find King Explosion Murder in the aftermath of a bloody battle and decide to take him home with him. He wasn't in the habit of picking up random lizards in the aftermath of battles, not to mention that it would be a real shitty move to focus on getting a new pet while there were people crying and sirens everywhere and shit.
No, he got him at a pet store like a normal human being. And he already liked him more than most of his classmates.
"Bakugou," Kaminari started when he saw Bakugou come back from his day in the town, carrying a box of miscellaneous electrical supplies and a small carton of what could have passed for chicken nuggets if the label wasn't from the pet store. "What is all that?"
Bakugou ignored him.
"Bakugou," Kaminari asked again a little later, knocking on his dorm door loudly to be heard over the sound of moving furniture. "What are you doing?"
Bakugou ignored him again.
"Kacchan," Kaminari practically pleaded at dinner, watching Bakugou empty a bag of crickets into a little plastic container right at the dinner table. Kirishima pushed his food away, not hungry. Sero seemed to be doing his best to block out the whole situation. "Why are you like this?"
"Shut up," Bakugou breathed, focused on his work. "If one of these fuckers gets away, I'm not chasing it down, y'hear?" He finished up whatever it was he was trying to accomplish, sealing the container tightly, and finally turned to face Kaminari. "You'll see soon enough."
"Well that's not concerning at all," Kaminari said, a little hysterically. "So no one else is concerned with all of this?"
"Bro, what do you think all of this is for?" Kirishima asked tiredly.
Kaminari blinked. "I dunno, that's why I'm asking."
"Obviously he got himself some kind of pet," Sero said gently. "And he's being cryptic about it because that's how Bakubro is. Right, Bakugou?"
"If only the dumbass had half of your brain cells," Bakugou said as a form of agreeing. Kaminari blinked again, then slumped in his seat.
"You coulda said that from the start," he said sourly, but then perked up. "A pet? I didn't know they let those at UA. That's so cool!"
"They let certain types of pets," Bakugou said, sticking the container of crickets into his bag and replacing it with a plate of food for himself. Kirishima sighed in relief, returning to his own food. "Nothing that needs to be loose a lot, so just fish, reptiles, and amphibians."
"Which one is your pet?" Kaminari asked, trying to remember what an amphibian is. Lucky for him, Bakugou said it was a reptile. "Oh, sick. When are you gonna it to us?"
"In a few weeks," he responded, and Kaminari groaned. "It has to acclimate, dipshit, otherwise it'll freak out."
"Sorry I'm not a reptile expert," Kaminari said, rolling his eyes. "'Acclimate,' please. He thinks he's so much smarter than us."
"He is," Sero and Kirishima said at the same time, and Kaminari let it drop because he knew they were right. Didn't stop him from using the word 'acclimate' five more times over the course of dinner, though.
The reptile, which Kaminari later found out was a bearded dragon, made its grand entrance after dinner a few weeks later.
By then, he had almost forgotten about Bakugou's mysterious pet that he never showed them any pictures of.
"You'll see him when you see him," he said. "People who take pictures of their pets are obsessed." And since none of them were allowed in his dorm room, that left the reptile a mythological creature in their dorm. Ashido doubted it really existed for a bit, but after some consideration with Uraraka, concluded that Bakugou wasn't the type to pull pranks. He laughed at other people's, sometimes, but also called the perpetrators dumbasses with too much time on their hands.
Seeing the lizard in person only confirmed this belief.
"Well damn," she whistled, eyeing the lizard perched on Bakugou's shoulder. It was about the size of her palm, and brown with orange spots. "That's a lizard."
"Wow, your weird eyes can see shit, congrats," Bakugou bit, but she could tell he was pleased. Not with her - those moments were few and far between - but with the creature sitting upon him like a king on its throne. "His name is King Explosion Murder."
Ashido and Uraraka cooed over it, watching its head move from side to side to look at them all, while Yaoyorozu - who was a little antsy with small creatures - stayed back with Aoyama. Asui, ever suspicious of other cold blooded creatures, eyed it sideways. The lizard, with its side-facing eyes, eyed her back.
"So what does that thing do?" Kaminari asked, poking it experimentally. The lizard did nothing; Bakugou, by contrast, looked ready to bite him.
"First off, hands to yourself, asshole," he snarled. "Second, it's not a thing, he's a living creature. And third of all..." He paused, thought about it for a bit. "He doesn't do much. But if he doesn't like you, he'll shit on you."
"Couldn't think of a better pet for him," Shinsou whispered to Midoriya. Then, louder, "So you regifted your rejected hero name to your pet? Talk about sloppy seconds."
Bakugou couldn't blast him to high hell with King on his shoulder, but he could give him the finger with his other arm, which he did with enough gusto to count as two middle fingers. Shinsou snickered, but still asked to pet the lizard, which was received with a "Fine, but do it gently. One finger. And I reserve the right to kick your ass later if it looks like you're stressing him out."
"How the hell am I supposed to know what stresses out a lizard?" Shinsou said under his breath, but pet the lizard anyway. His head was cold and bumpy and felt a little bit like petting a rock, but King closed his eyes like he was enjoying it, and Shinsou decided he liked him.
"Can I pet him next?" Uraraka asked, and Bakugou let her, and Shouji, and Todoroki, and even Kouda, who started whispering to the lizard when he got close.
"If you're giving him bad ideas, I'll kill you," Bakugou warned, and Kouda jumped.
"Um, no, I'm just telling him that everyone here is nice and that he's in a good place and shouldn't be worried," Kouda squeaked.
"Is he worried?" For the first time that most of them could remember, Bakugou looked worried. "Is he unhappy?"
"No, no, I don't think so," Kouda said quickly. "He's just meeting a lot of people at once, so I'm being welcoming. He seems happy, though."
"Fuck yeah he is," Bakugou muttered, and Kouda breathed a sigh of relief, happy to be granted another day on this earth. "I'd never treat my pet shittily." He started back for his dorm then, saying that both of them - he used the collective we for him and the lizard - had to get to bed.
"Will you bring him back again?" Todoroki asked. He had not pet King Explosion Murder, but had stared into his eyes in an odd sort of staring contest. Todoroki had won. He had been a little surprised to find that the lizard had eyelids at all.
"Yeah, probably," Bakugou called back. "He has to get his exercise somehow."
"Nice," Todoroki said, and immediately searched up if bearded dragons ate red meat. He didn't distrust Bakugou, per se, but wouldn't have put it past the boy to buy a pet that would enjoy snacking on some of his classmates if one of them pissed him off.
They could eat red meat, but only in small amounts. Todoroki made a mental note to make sure King Explosion Murder was well fed before their next encounter.
King Explosion Murder continued to make nightly appearances, first for only a few minutes, then for longer stretches of time.
"He likes me," Sero insisted, feeding him a treat at Bakugou's nod. "He's always looking at me."
"Maybe he's just freaked out by you," Kirishima suggested. "Like he wants to keep an eye on you."
"Nah. I'm gonna ask Kouda." Kouda had been thrust into the spotlight a little since King's first appearance, and had spoken to Bakugou more in his first month of owning the lizard than all of the months before that combined, helping him with various concerns that mostly boiled down to King being too cold or hungry. In return, Bakugou cut Kouda a portion of his dinner every night and gave him sparring tips. Not that Kouda had the guts to ask Bakugou for any sort of payment, but hell if Bakugou would stay in his debt.
"He likes you both equally," Kouda said peaceably, a half lie. In truth, the lizard didn't really care about any of them besides Bakugou, who he saw and was cared for by the most, and Kouda, who could talk to him and knew when he was hungry. But he didn't mind their presence, either.
Well, most of their presences.
"It is merely I who gives him trouble," Tokoyami rumbled from the corner of the common room, sitting with Yaoyorozu and brooding. The class had quickly discovered that while Tokoyami was human, he was bird-like enough that King distrusted him from the get go, and tended to run away and/or shit himself when he saw him. Therefore, Tokoyami found himself banished from his own common room by a lizard. "He fears that I will consume him. How ridiculous."
Kouda worried sometimes that Tokoyami would eat the lizard, just out of spite, but didn't say anything.
"If I saw a giant creature with a lion head I would be pretty freaked out," Kirishima said consolingly.
"We know a guy with a lion head, and I have no problem with him," Tokoyami said brusquely.
"Oh. Right. Well, King is kinda stupid."
"Don't talk shit about my lizard, Kirishima," Bakugou said, laying on the couch and watching King explore the room. "I'll blast you to hell."
"In front of the lizard? You'll give him trauma," Uraraka cut in.
"Animal PTSD is no joke," Iida said sternly. "I had a fish once that was so terrified of nets that when I took him out for a cleaning, he died of fright." He hung his head, ashamed to have been such a subpar pet owner that didn't consider the feelings of his fish. Uraraka rubbed his shoulder consolingly.
"You're right," she said. "I won't joke about it anymore."
"Hey, can we teach him tricks?" Ashido asked. "I searched it up and you can teach bearded dragons how to come when called and stuff. It's really cute."
"Why doesn't Kouda just ask him nicely?" Ojiro asked. "Wouldn't that be easier?"
"I could ask him, but it doesn't mean he'll say yes," Kouda said. He approached the lizard, whispered for a bit, then stopped to listen. "He wants to know what's in it for him."
"Bakugou, you son of a bitch, you're raising a mini mafia member," Shinsou cackled.
"Lizards aren't very, well, smart, so most of their thinking involves food or warmth," Kouda explained timidly, not wanting to be called out for insulting King. Since Kouda was the only one who knew more about lizards than he did, Bakugou let it slide."If I offer a treat, he should be responsive."
"I've never heard Kouda talk so much," Satou whispered.
"Yeah, well he usually stays quiet about stuff he's not sure about," Jirou replied. "With this, though, he's the expert."
Under Kouda's guidance, Ashido summoned King to her side, feeding him a snack of celery when he complied.
"Not too much, he'll get fat and lazy," Bakugou said, climbing down to the floor to try it himself.
"Who gets fat off of celery? There's like negative calories in it," she grumbled, but gave up the rest of the stalk anyway.
Midoriya, meanwhile, was working up the courage to ask to hold King Explosion Murder. He and Kacchan were doing fine these days, but there was a big jump between the two of them existing in the same room without quarreling and him holding his beloved pet lizard.
"Um, Kacchan," he started, and Bakugou grunted in response, eyes still on his pet. "Could I, um, hold him? Just for a bit, and only if he's comfortable with it. I wouldn't want to make him uncomfortable." He might have been overcompensating, but he knew that if there was a slight chance that it would bother King, Bakugou would never agree.
The rest of the class held their breath. Nobody else had had the courage to ask besides for Kaminari, to whom Bakugou responded with a "Hell no, your hands are disgusting," and a glare. Kouda had held him before, but he was practically a co-owner at this point.
"Have you ever held a lizard before?" Bakugou asked after a short pause. His eyes were narrowed in suspicion, but not necessarily in abject refusal. Midoriya took it as a good sign.
"No, I don't think so."
"Hmm." Bakugou picked him up off the floor, cradling him with two hands. "I'll show you, then. You gotta support his stomach and feet, otherwise he'll start flailing all over the place. His tail will hang over your hand, that's fine. And if he's comfy, he'll put his head down, too. Make sure your hands are warm too, otherwise he'll freak out."
He had Midoriya cup his hands out in front of him, and transferred King over to him, watching with eagle eyes as he first resisted, then settled into the new hands. The class held its collective breath, waiting to see if Midoriya would be approved or banished from King's sight forever.
Finally, gratefully, the lizard lowered his tail and put his head down, seemingly content to stay where he was. Uraraka took a long sip from her water bottle, relieved.
"And there was peace in class 2-A," Shinsou narrated. "All was well and right in the world."
"If all was well and right then you'd still be back in gen ed," Bakugou retorted. From anyone else, this would be a grave insult and cause for Shinsou's unending ire. From Bakugou, however, it was just a wordier way of saying shut the fuck up, and Shinsou responded accordingly by smirking in his direction.
Bakugou found the package outside of his dorm room some time later.
He kicked it first, to make sure it wasn't a smoke bomb or full of bees or some other crazy shit sent to him for Kaminari and Sero's amusement. When nothing dangerous seeped out, he carried it into his room, carefully peeled off the tape, and emptied the contents onto his dorm room floor.
"The fuck?" he muttered, picking up the scrap of fabric that fell out. He checked the box for instructions or a note or some explanation, but found nothing. He turned his attention back to the scrap of fabric and bristled, recognizing his hero colors. "Wait a fucking second."
It wasn't a random scrap of fabric, it was a costume. For King Explosion Murder. It was a cape, sorta, with his hero costume design printed on it that secured loosely at the neck. Sure, yeah, he saw some shit online with beardie owners dressing up their pets, but he never thought about doing it himself. It was insane, and weird, and a total waste of money.
But since someone else decided to be dumb enough to buy one - and a custom one at that - he thought he might as well try to put it on him.
It was a bit of a struggle, he had to say. First, King tried to eat the costume. Then, once he figured out that it wasn't a weird vegetable, didn't want it anywhere near him. But Bakugou persisted - "Come on, you fucker, my costume has seven thousand buckles and yours is just a cape" - and eventually got the velcro shut around him. King stared at him, maybe in reproach, maybe in head-emptiness, but didn't struggle anymore, and after a bit, climbed back onto his rock to rest under his lamp. Bakugou considered it a success.
He brought King out later that night, still in his costume, which he was sure he would have to wash sooner or later. King had a tendency of messing up his entire enclosure every so often just for fun.
"Oh my god," Uraraka gasped, the first to see the costume. "He looks so cute! I'm going to pass out. Can I take a picture?"
"If you wanna be a creep," Bakugou said stiffly, because he himself had taken twenty pictures of King all decked out earlier in the day.
"Damn, he has better drip than I do," Kaminari said, rubbing his head. "Respect."
"I didn't think you were the type to buy clothes for your pets, Bakugou," Shouji said, and his mouth was hiding among his arms, so Bakugou couldn't see if he was smirking or not. Either way, he bristled.
"I'm not," he spat, pulling King closer to his chest. "You think I'd buy him something so tacky?" He scanned the room, eyes settling on a remote corner, where one of his classmates - him - was napping. "Hey, get over here, Icy Hot!"
The boy startled awake, looking around blearily, and shuffled over at Bakugou's insistence. "Explain this," he demanded, jerking his chin towards the lizard in his arms.
"Oh, you got my gift," he said, and smiled a little. "I'm glad it fit."
"I fucking knew it was you. No one else has money to throw away at such dumbassery." Bakugou seemed to be angry at him, which Todoroki didn't understand, and vocalized as much. "I'm not mad, I'm just-" He cursed under his breath, and King cocked his head to the side, as if he were participating in the conversation. "Just why?"
"Look how happy he is," Todoroki said, gesturing at King. "So spiffy."
"He doesn't care about being spiffy, he's a fucking lizard," Bakugou argued.
"Well it makes me happy, okay?" Todoroki the untouchable, Todoroki the unfazable, looked pretty damn peeved to Bakugou. "I enjoy seeing your little man in a little costume. Is that so wrong, Bakugou? Do you have a problem with everything light and good in the world?"
There was a heavy pause in the air.
"Maybe take a chill pill, Blasty," Shinsou said. "It's just a cape."
"And it's not an ugly cape either," Kirishima agreed. "It's a totally manly hero costume cape."
"I don't think King minds that much, either," Kouda added quietly. "He hasn't said anything about it to me, at least."
"Fine," Bakugou said finally. "He can keep the cape, I don't give a shit. Endeavor's wasted money, not mine." He paused, then added, "He does look pretty spiffy, doesn't he?"
The whole class agreed that yes, he looked quite spiffy indeed.
"Plus, since he's my godson and all, I figured I should make sure he's dressed nicely," Todoroki continued.
Bakaugou's eye twitched, and that was the only warning Todoroki got that he should be running. "The FUCK did you just say?"
"About him being my godson, or about you not dressing him properly?" Todoroki asked innocently.
Gently, ever so gently, Bakugou handed King off to Kouda. By the time he launched himself from the floor, screaming bloody murder, Todoroki was already halfway out the room, propelled on a path of ice that he would have to sublimate before it soaked the carpet. But that was a problem for later Todoroki. Now Todoroki was set on survival.
"Guess motherhood doesn't soften everyone," Shinsou sighed, and patted Blasty Junior on the head.