Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Kirishima shouldn’t be surprised. Honestly, he really shouldn’t be at this point in his life. It’s his second year at Starfleet Academy, and he’s been through the wringer more times than he can count. He understands why physical training for security officers is so grueling and challenging, but the courses for command track security officers is doubly so. Kirishima’s been to Star Medical so often that the receptionist knows him by sight, and he can roam the halls without getting lost. It’s sad that that the only reason Kirishima knows this building so well is because he gets so many injuries. He and Midoriya are quite the pair. Every week last year either he or his roommate came to pick the other up from treatment of some sort. Seeing as Kirishima is training for one of the most dangerous positions on board a starship it’s more understandable, but Midoriya’s the command track golden boy.

Kirishima met Midoriya the first day of his first year at the Academy. He was still jittery from his physical assessment when he came upon the boy staring at their dorm door shaking in his boots. After Kirishima got used to Midoriya’s skittish-to-manly-in-seconds-flat disposition and the mumbling, Midoriya was a pretty cool dude. Hell, he could handle his liquor like a champ, and they’ve gotten up to some pretty funny shenanigans. Kirishima guesses something went right with them because they stuck together for their second year. They’ve tried to become more responsible and manly this year by staying away from Star Medical for as long as possible. Kirishima is proud to say that he’s lasted three months and fifteen days.

But, here Kirishima is, reflecting on his life as he cradles his arm on a biobed in a private room at Star Medical. He knows his shoulder’s dislocated and his forearm’s probably broken. Hopefully, he’ll get Nurse Chika or Doctor Juan. They’re nice and super-fast at working the regenerators, and they ensure it’s as least painful as possible. Then after he’s done here he can go back to PT and kick Tetsutetsu’s ass weight lifting.

It’s only when the door slides open does Kirishima come out of his thoughts. He blinks up with a bashful smile on his face, an apology for the trouble and a quick greeting bubbling behind his sharp teeth. Kirishima freezes as he openly stares at the man that charges into his room. Suffice to say it isn’t Doctor Juan. Oh, no no. This man is not someone Kirishima has seen around before, he would have remembered the way his brow creased as he looked down at a PADD, the way his gorgeous mouth was turned down in a scowl, the way his eyes held molten lava in their gaze when he glanced up, the way this beautiful manly man made Kirishima’s heart stutter to a stop.

“You’re a goddamn idiot, fuckmunch,” the man says, and Kirishima’s shaken from his daze.

“Hi, uh, I’m Kiri-Kirishima Eijirou, and I apolo—,” Kirishima blurts, tongue clumsy in his mouth.

“Yeah, I fucking know who you are, shithead. I’ve read your medical history which has led me to the fucking discovery of the year that you are, in fact, a goddamn idiot,” the man says as he grinds his teeth and approaches the biobed. “Or do you need me to bloody repeat myself for the third fucking time, shit stain?” Kirishima blinks slowly.

“No? I’d just like to be tended to and then return to PT?” he says slowly, cautiously. The man turns and his unruly blond hair shields his face from view as he looks at the monitors.

“Yeah, cause that’ll help you so goddamn much. Straining healing muscles and bones is just another fucking way to injure yourself. I’m putting you on mandatory medical rest for today and tomorrow, shitty hair,” the man turns back to Kirishima as he puts a pair of blue gloves on. Kirishima frowns.

“Yeah, but I don’t want to be behind in training and—,” Kirishima starts, but the man grips his shoulder and without even breaking a sweat pops it back into its socket manually. Kirishima grunts and bites his tongue to hold in his scream of pain.

“Are you really medically qualified?” Kirishima squeaks out as the man pokes at his forearm before grabbing the osteoregenerator. The man whirls on him with a snarl so nasty Kirishima would bet money it could curdle milk.

“Yes, I am motherfucking medically fucking qualified. I shit you not I graduated with my goddamn two PhDs and my damn MD last year, and I most fucking certainly am the smartest goddamn doctor in this underqualified shithole. You got that, fuckface?” Kirishima nods as pain bubbles up his arm. He’s slowly realizing maybe angering your doctor isn’t the best idea. Especially this one. The man scoffs and turns back to the screens. When the osteoregenerator hums to a halt, the pissy blond bombshell of a doctor takes it off and glares at Kirishima down his nose.

“Does this fucking hurt?” he asks as he rubs at Kirishima’s forearm and pokes around his shoulder.

“Shoulder’s a bit tender, but otherwise just sore,” Kirishima answers truthfully. The man nods curtly and grabs a hypospray before jabbing it into Kirishima’s neck. Kirishima winces and gurgles indignantly.

“The hell man? You ever been told your bedside manner is like cruel and unusual punishment?” Kirishima says as he rubs his neck indignantly. The man huffs and glowers.

“Something like that. Don’t do anything fucking stupid to stress out your shoulder today or tomorrow. I don’t want to fucking see your ugly ass in here the rest of the month.” He turns to go, but before he reaches the door he looks over his shoulder.

“If the shoulder’s still giving you shit in two days call the stupid broad at the reception desk and ask for Dr. Bakugou Katsuki. She’ll put you through to me, and I’ll give you some exercises to do, asswad,” he says then leaves the room. Kirishima stares dumbfounded at the door. He gets up and wanders back to his room, head full of thoughts about sneers and fiery red eyes.

When Midoriya flops on his bed and groans, Kirishima rolls over and says, “I met a walking time-bomb today, man.” Midoriya peeks out from his green locks, Kirishima always thinks he’s ready for Christmas the way his hair and his red uniform clash.

“What happened?” Midoriya mumbles into his pillow. Kirishima rolls onto his back and laces his fingers behind his head.

“I went to Star Medical today because of hand-to-hand, and I got this new really hot doctor with the worst bedside manner on the planet,” Kirishima says. “Dude could probably make Klingons burst into flames with his glares.”

“Yikes. I don’t think I could’ve handled that today,’ Midoriya sighs. Kirishima grunts. “What was his name? Is he new?”

“Yeah, said he graduated with two PhDs and MD from some school last year,” Kirishima says. Midoriya lets out a low whistle. “Honestly, I think he’s just prickly ‘cause he was as far away from gentle healer as one can get, but he did say to call if my shoulder’s still bothering me, so I know he’s a decent person. His name’s Bakugou Katsuki.” Kirishima hears a thump and loud bumps before Midoriya’s face is insanely close to his own.

“Did you just say Bakugou Katsuki?” He asks, eyes wide and face a weird mix of flushed and pale.

“Uh, yeah?” Kirishima says. Midoriya squawks and sits down on the ground, head resting against Kirishima’s bed. “Yo, what’s wrong, dude?”

Midoriya laughs shakily and looks up, “I grew up with Kacchan.”

“Kacchan?” Kirshima’s brow wrinkles. “You mean Dr. Bakugou?” Midoriya nods.

“What? How?” Kirishima sits up.

“We used to live in the same neighborhood. Kacchan was always the leader of the class, always the smartest. His IQ was over 170 when he was ten years old. Graduated college at twelve. Starfleet recruited him when he was fourteen. He went into the command track, but dropped out when he was seventeen. That’s unheard of, especially for such a young recruit,” Midoriya says as he waves his hands to emphasize his words. “He vanished. Nobody knew where he’d gotten to. He basically fell off the face of the Earth,” Midoriya looks up at Kirishima and smiles crookedly, “until now.”

It takes Midoriya all of three days to learn everything there is to know about Bakugou Katsuki. Kirishima thinks that Midoriya’s knack of skulking and gathering information is unparalleled, and therefore, Kirishima finds Midoriya just a bit scary. The little dude probably even knows which brand of toilet paper Admiral Nezu prefers.

The rumors Kirishima’s heard over the past few days while Midoriya’s been digging for other information are dreadfully outlandish. And expansive. Some said Bakugou was responsible for the twenty two toads found in Captain Yagi Toshinori’s office. Others said he’d eaten a whole platypus, beak and tail included.  Monoma insisted that Bakugou killed his parents in cold blood, he was selling coke, and he was part of a gang. Kaminari even knew of Bakugou; however, he only knew of his sexual prowess. Apparently, the angry dude was as much of a beast in the sheets as he was on the streets, and anyone—Bakugou didn’t discriminate between male, female, or different species—just looking for a good fuck was in luck if he or she could put up with his personality for a bit. Some people thought—think—he was clinically insane. The most popular rumor, though, was that during his four year absence, Bakugou had run off to Captain a space pirate ship that ruled the neutral zone.

Midoriya, however, is able to deny most of the rumors—except for the ones about the toads, space pirates, and Bakugou’s sex life. For the most part, Kirishima is relieved to listen to Midoriya mumble about how exciting it is to know Kacchan is alive and still his bombastic self.

According to cadets that share classes with Bakugou, he’s avoided at all costs. No matter how deplorable his attitude is, he’s always ranked number one in the medical command track classes. Since Bakugou had already completed most classes that overlap for all command track based cadets, he’s able to enter the Academy as a second year medical cadet. Even then, having acquired two PhDs and MD already, Bakugou has free range on research and labs. He’s one of the most feared personnel at Star Medical. He’s an extremely dedicated and steady-handed surgeon. He’s also taking extra chemistry classes. He likes spicy foods and is a decent cook. He’s also been instructed to teach first year medical cadets in a biology class.

All in all Bakugou’s a busy guy. To be quite frank, the medical staff hate his personality, but they can’t argue with his knowledge and efficiency. He’s always either in class, at PT, Star Medical, or catching a few stray hours of sleep at his dorm. How Midoriya found all this out in three days? Kirishima never wants to know.

“But what really stumps me, Kirishima, is that Starfleet doesn’t let recruits with such promise just up and leave!” Midoriya says as he paces back and forth. “But they did, right after he took the Kobayashi Maru… And even if they would have just let him leave, Kacchan is too obsessed with being the best at whatever he does, and his pride would never have let him give up when he was so close to graduating!” Midoriya stops and bites his thumb nail. “So what went wrong?” With Midoriya finally falling silent, Kirishima takes a deep breath and slaps his hands on his knees.

“Well, your guess is as good as mine, man. I’m gonna head to the recreation center to get some extra cardio in,” Kirishima says. Midoriya hums noncommittally, and Kirishima knows the boy genius is in his own world. After changing into some more comfortable workout clothes, Kirishima scrawls a note saying where he went for Midoriya when he snaps out of his own head.

When Kirishima arrives, Ashido and Kaminari are just heading up towards the room with the cardio equipment and free weights. He hops over to them and slaps a hand on their backs.

“Hey! What are you two doin’ here?” Kirishima smiles wide and toothy. Kaminari returns the offered fist bump, and Ashido smiles back.

“Hey, man! I was going to go do some extra work with the free weights. Sero’s starting to pass me by in PT, and Ashido agreed to come and do some spinning on one of those uncomfortable as fuck bikes,” Kaminari says as the three ascend the stairs.

“Just because you have sensitive thighs, Denki, doesn’t mean spinning is the worst exercise ever! Right, Eijirou?” Ashido pouts. Kirishima shrugs.

“Dunno. I don’t really care what I do for cardio, but I think I’m gonna do a bit of running today,” Kirishima says. He ties his hair back in a ponytail and heads over towards where the treadmills and bikes are located. Kaminari heads over to the free weights, music from Jirou’s band already pumping in his ears. Ashido drags Kirishima over to a treadmill next to a spin bike. She knows he won’t talk to her much, but they both like the company. The cardio and free weight room has a huge glass wall by the treadmills and bikes that overlooks the Academy’s competition-size swimming pool. Kirishima is grateful for the glass so that the warm muggy air from the pool deck is kept out. It’s after he’s completed a ten minute light jog and is starting to rev up the intensity that Ashido pokes his shoulder animatedly. He grunts in acknowledgement, and she points jerkily down at the pool.

“Isn’t that Bakugou?” she asks, breathless and excited. Kirishima scans the water, and—what do you know—Bakugou, spiky hair shoved into silver swim cap with goggles resting on his forehead, is leaning against the pool’s ledge looking at a piece of paper on a kickboard. Kirishima assumes something regarding his workout is written on the paper and begins wondering what exactly but is quickly distracted when Bakugou turns and looks at an analog clock mounted on the opposite wall. Sweet Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. Bakugou’s back muscles are impressively built, and when he pushes off underwater, Kirishima sees just a small strip of black fabric around his waist.

Holy shit. Bakugou Katsuki is wearing a speedo swimming, and holy fuck is he good at swimming. Every stroke is full of power and is as smooth as if he’s a knife cutting through butter. It’s technically beautiful and fast as hell, and Kirishima is enraptured. He makes sure to turn his treadmill to the right speed for a decent workout while he watches Bakugou swim laps back and forth for what seems like hours. When Bakugou finally gets out, Kirishima’s mouth runs dry, and he almost trips.

He knew Bakugou was attractive when he first saw him, but in basically his birthday suit, Bakugou struts with confidence as he flaunts his power and manliness. Kirishima knows he’s already in deep shit when Ashido punches him in the shoulder and waggles her eyebrows at him when they’re both done their workout. Kaminari meets them at the stairs, and Kirishima groans.

“I’m fucked aren’t I?” he says. Kaminari looks to Ashido in confusion, and she smiles impishly.

“Eijirou’s just thinking with his dick, Denki,” Ashido says. Kirishima’s face burns red. Kaminari huffs out a laugh.

“What? Why?” he says.

“Because Bakugou Katsuki is sexy as hell in a swim suit,” Ashido replies.

“Ah,” is all Kaminari says.

Kirishima thinks he wants to die. Just a little bit.

The next time Kirishima sees Bakugou is at a local bar. Kirishima agreed to come with Kaminari for an end of week celebration. Sero and Ashido are already in a booth with twelve tequila shots and some lime slices. Ashido waves them over. The table is rickety and the leather of the booth’s seat is sticky. They all down a shot quickly, and the burn from the alcohol makes Kirishima grimace slightly. He looks around the dimly lit bar. It’s grungy and just the right side of clean to have some regulars. A couple other cadets laugh boisterously from two other booths. Some old century rock music plays quietly, and the bartender sways with the beat as he washes glasses.

Kirishima likes this bar. It’s dingy and homey and not as crowded as the clubs and other popular bars. It’s more down to Earth. Kirishima likes the low lighting because it makes people’s eyes glow and teeth shine bright like Cardassian Sunrises.

It’s while Kirishima’s scanning the small bar after his third shot that he spots the familiar dandelion like hair at the bar. Bakugou is hunched in on himself as the barkeep passes him another small drink. Bakugou bobs his head in thanks and quickly downs half of his golden drink.

“I’m gonna go get some beers,” Kirishima says and hauls himself out of the booth. His friends shout out specific brands as he makes his way over towards the bar and the blond.

“One Corona Light, two Budweiser Classics, and one Guinness please,” Kirishima says as he leans his forearms on the edge of the bar. He looks over at Bakugou and grins when he sees the man glaring daggers.

“Hey there, Doctor,” Kirishima says jovially. The alcohol already in his bloodstream making him feel warm. Bakugou grunts and swallows the rest of his drink.

“What’s your poison?” Kirishima asks. The bartender presents him with his order, and refills Bakugou’s glass.

“Bourbon,” Bakugou spits out as Kirishima slaps some credits down on the bar.

“His drink’s on me too,” Kirishima jerks a thumb at Bakugou, and the bartender nods before walking away to charge him. Bakugou bristles next to him.

“What the fuck? Keep your goddamn money, fuckmunch,” Bakugou growls. Kirishima cocks his head at him.

“Dude, it’s cool. It’s my way of saying thanks for helping me at Star Medical,” Kirishima says. Bakugou downs his drink and slams the glass back on the bar. He stands and gets right up in Kirishima’s face. Kirishima’s heart stutters in his chest as he looks at those ruby red eyes glowing in the light like fireballs. Bakugou snarls and takes a fistful of Kirishima’s shirt.

“I don’t want your thanks or your damn money,” Bakugou says, and his voice sounds like gravel, and his breath smells like the smoky flavor of the bourbon he was drinking. “Stay the fuck away from me, shitty hair.”

“And if I say no?” Kirishima says without registering the rising angry flush up Bakugou’s face. Bakugou’s teeth grind tightly.

“I’ll beat your stupid ass,” Bakugou hisses. Kirishima chuckles, the buzz he has going giving him a bit more brazenness than usual.

“I dunno man, I wouldn’t want you to mess up your pretty surgeon hands. I’ve got pretty thick skin,” Kirishima winks at Bakugou as steam seems to pour out of the other man’s ears. Kirishima thinks Bakugou might scream at him again or shove him away, but instead he gets a fist right to the nose for his troubles. Kirishima knows it’s not broken, but he feels warm sticky blood splurt and start trickling down to his lips. He shakes his head as he pats gently at his face. He looks up to express his annoyance and confusion, but Bakugou’s already gone.

Kirishima glares at the door as he grabs the drinks and shoves a napkin under his nose. That was just rude and unmanly using a surprise attack like that, even if it wasn’t really that surprising. Whatever, Kirishima’s annoyed because his face is throbbing. After facing his friends’ jeers and drinking two more beers, Kirishima is warm and fuzzy and pretty content. It’s in this drunk state of mind that he decides he’s going to do the impossible. He’s going to become Bakugou Katsuki’s friend, and he’s not going to rest until he’s achieved his goal.

Or something. The only thing Kirishima knows for certain is that Bakugou is hiding something under those layers of grumpy, solitary, pissy attitude problems. He’s going to get to the bottom of this new mystery even if it kills him.

Chapter Text

Sometimes life gives you lemons, so you make lemonade. Uraraka personally thinks she makes some of the best lemonade ever. Other times, life says, “Here, have some tea with honey to help you heal,” and Uraraka appreciates its help and generosity. More often than not, however, life—the cruel bitch—says, “Go deep throat a cactus, you stupid fuck.”

And Uraraka is fed up with life’s bullshit. All Uraraka wants, at this point, is for Bakugou to not be such an asshole. She knows she’s asking a lot, but she thinks she deserves this one favor from life. Just this one time—

“—and that fucking shithead had the guts to show up at Edgeshot’s Pub!  The fucker wouldn’t leave well enough alone, I tell you. I hope I fucking broke his nose! The fucker has a death wish, round face, a death wish!” Bakugou has been seething in their shared common area. Having already completed grad school does have its perks in Starfleet. Bakugou and Uraraka share a suite style dorm room with two other medical cadets: Kendou Itsuka and Bondo Kojiro. Uraraka likes Kendou for her straightforwardness and her competence as a nurse. They often share shifts at Star Medical. Bondo doesn’t talk or interact much with anyone and tends to keep to himself. They each have their own room and share two bathrooms, a small kitchenette, and the common area where Uraraka is contemplating slamming her head on their low coffee table because of Bakugou’s ranting.

“Here’s a suggestion, Bakugou: stop working on your flexibility,” Uraraka says. She’s sitting with her head tilted back on the couch so she can glare up at the ceiling. Bakugou’s sneer comes into view as he walks behind the couch to glare directly at her.

“The fuck does that mean? You know goddamn well flexibility prevents injuries, and yoga is a damn good exercise,” he says. Uraraka fights to hold back her grin.

“Well, I’m sorry it’s just a little disconcerting seeing you with your foot in your mouth and your head up your ass all at the same time.” She shrugs and lets her amusement bubble out in laughter as Bakugou’s face reddens in rage.

“Why you little bitch! I oughtta—,” Bakugou says as he leans closer to Uraraka’s face. She slaps a hand over his mouth and raises an eyebrow.

“Who bailed you out when you pissed of Midnight, hm? Remember that punishment you avoided because of me?” Uraraka says. Bakugou’s eyes widen. Uraraka guesses his face is red for another reason besides anger now. “What was it again? Oh, yeah! You had to—!” Bakugou pulls away from her hand and slaps one of his own against hers.

“We agreed to never speak of that again, round face,” Bakugou hisses through clenched teeth. Uraraka smiles sweetly behind Bakugou’s hand, and he rips it away before she can lick it in retaliation.

“Make me something good for dinner, and I’ll forget about it,” Uraraka says. He growls and turns to stomp into the kitchen. “For now!”

“God dammit, you piece of shit!”

The only reasons that Uraraka knows she spends too much time with Bakugou are: One. She lives with him. Two. She’s one of the few people that can put up with his personality in the work place. Three. She shares a lot of classes with him. And Four. She witnessed one of the most bizarre things that has happened to Bakugou.

Plus she called him a “motherfucking twatbastard” on Tuesday. But that’s beside the point.

She’s on a six hour shift with Bakugou in the ER one night. They’re returning from their mandatory fifteen (ten) minute break for food in the On-Call room when It happens. Bakugou and Uraraka are bickering over a lesson from their mandatory Ethics in Medicine class. Bakugou lovingly calls it the “I-don’t-have-feelings-to-argue-with-mentally-so-I-don’t-need-this-shit” class. Bakugou groans and is just about to call Uraraka’s point bullshit—mostly, she just argues with him about this stuff to reaffirm for herself sometimes that he does in fact have a very tiny, very black heart—when a man with flaming red hair that is brighter than the flaming red cadet uniform he wears runs up to them shouting, “Yo, Bakugou!!”

Bakugou stops dead in his tracks and whips his head up to look at the man with more vitriol boiling behind his normally angry glare than usual. Uraraka is automatically intrigued.

“What the fuck are you doing here, shitty hair? I thought I said I didn’t want you in the fucking building for the next month,” Bakugou says. The man chuckles and reveals two rows of sharp teeth. Uraraka’s mind jumps into the medical curiosity and wonders what his genetic makeup looks like.

“Noooo, you said ‘I don’t want to fucking see your ugly ass in here the rest of the month.’ There’s a difference see, Lord Grumpybutt,” the redhead says. His imitation of Bakugou’s snarl and growl are comically accurate, and Uraraka stifles her laughter behind a fist but snorts at the childish name-calling. Bakugou does not take kindly to jibes and marches over to the man and gets right up in his face.

“Look here, motherfucker. Tell me what you want or get the fuck out of my hospital. Then leave me the hell alone,” Bakugou spits. The man just smiles and holds his hands up in surrender.

“Aight, aight. Do you ever chill out?” the man says with a lopsided smile. “I wanted to ask if you wanted to, like, be friends. Or something.” Uraraka’s jaw drops. It took her the better part of the year to warm up to Bakugou, and even now, she doesn’t know anyone else besides maybe  Tokoyami and Kendou who would even want to be considered Bakugou’s friends. And now this hyper-active-happy guy—who, she presumes, was the guy Bakugou was ranting to her about the other day—suddenly wants to be buddy-buddy with one of the most disliked cadets at the Academy? Uraraka is definitely intrigued.

Bakugou shoves him out of his way and stomps back toward the ER. “Get the fuck out of my hospital and stay out, dammit.”

Uraraka and the man watch Bakugou make a show of stomping in a huff around the corner. They turn to look at each other for a moment before they break out in peals of laughter.

“Oh, oh my god! I haven’t seen—haven’t seen anything like that happen with Bakugou before!” Uraraka says as she wipes away a tear from her eye and approaches the strange man. “I’m Uraraka Ochako. People tend to regard me as Bakugou’s handler.”

The man sticks a hand out as he smiles wide, revealing those sharp teeth again. “Kirishima Eijirou. People tend to regard me as manly stubborn-as-a-rock man. Nice to meet you!”

Uraraka giggles again at Kirishima’s enthusiasm. “Nice to meet you, too.”

“I bet we’ll be seeing a lot of each other from now on.”

“We’ll see.”

Uraraka thinks that she’s figured out that when life gives you cactuses, you cut them open to get to their nutrient-rich water. Uraraka hasn’t been this amused in years. Med school tends to drain a lot of fun out of things. Usually, when Bakugou tells someone to scram, they scram. No questions asked. No repeat offenses. But Kirishima is a persistent guy. Uraraka will give him that. Being one of the only people—maybe the only one period—who can work and associate with Bakugou without getting a scalpel to the face means they spend almost one hundred percent of their time together. To say that Bakugou suffering is amusing makes her sound like a bad person, but when he constantly bitches and screams at you, it becomes more acceptable. So, yes, Uraraka knows exactly why Bakugou’s been more snappish lately, and she is eating every moment of it up like popcorn at a movie.

Kirishima starts small. He pops by Star Medical at least once every day that she and Bakugou have a shift for two weeks. Someone hacked the medical schedule or something because he’s always there. He starts with asking Bakugou a question and blocking his path until he gives an answer. It didn’t take Bakugou long to figure out that if he complied with Kirishima’s whims he could get on with his life faster.

“Tea or coffee?” Kirishima asks.

“Coffee. Now fucking move.”

“Dogs or cats, Bakugou?”

“Cats.”

“Why’s that?”

“Because dogs are too fucking loud and demanding and clingy and they slobber everywhere. Like you. So fucking move.”

“Do you prefer sweet or salty food, Bakubro?”

“Spicy. Now fucking leave.”

“What color socks are you wearing, my man?”

“What color—why the fuck? You know what I don’t have fucking time for this, I’m wearing black socks. Now get the fuck out of my face, shitty hair.”

“Why are you always glaring at people?”

“I’m hoping that they fucking spontaneously combust. So either explode or leave.”

“What’s your fave color?”

“Black, and before you fucking ask me why, it’s because it’s fucking dark like my soul. Now leave, dammit.”

“Well that’s harsh, bro. You need to look on the bright side. Take a gander at, like, yellow or something,” Kirishima says to Bakugou’s retreating back.

Uraraka has to give Kirishima credit because he’s wrestled more information out of Bakugou than Uraraka’s managed to in four months of living with him. It’s when he starts appearing everywhere that Uraraka starts wondering what exactly is wrong with Kirishima that he desires Bakugou’s company so much.

Kirishima's interactions evolve in the beginning of January when Uraraka is studying in the library at ass o’clock at night for a huge Romulan, Klingon, and Vulcan Autoimmune system test the next day while Bakugou grades tests from his Advanced Biology class.

“Jesus H. Christ on a fucking popsicle stick, Turner! You’re such a fucking idiot!” Bakugou says. He’s as quiet as he can get in the library because he’s not a total asshole. The few interruptions Bakugou makes are barely above whispers and grumbles, and Uraraka is grateful for it. It’s when the ancient antique grandfather clock chimes two times to signal it’s two in the morning that Uraraka rubs her eyes and gives up studying. She’s been staring at the same page for the past five minutes and hasn’t absorbed a thing. She watches Bakugou rake a hand through his unruly hair and growl at the papers as he marks them up with angry red pens.

“Stupid, stupid, stupid. They’re just so stupid,” he says. Uraraka smiles sleepily. Despite what people think about Bakugou being a self-serving ass, Uraraka knows he wants his class to succeed—if only so they don’t end up screwing up down the line.

“Hey, holy crap, Bakugou, Uraraka! Man, am I glad to see you two!” Kirishima’s voice breaks the relative peace and Uraraka jolts out of her sleepy staring. She turns to see Kirishima approaching their table with a pale, stricken look on his face.

When Kirishima slaps his hands on the table and sighs shakily, Bakugou looks up and squints at him before saying, “What the fuck do you want now?”

Kirishima laughs weakly. “I’ve been cramming for this basic astrophysics test tomorrow since three this afternoon, and I’ve been holed up in here for so long I think I’m starting to hallucinate because I just saw a ghost.”

Uraraka snorts, and Kirishima looks over at her with wide eyes. “It’s true! This, like, decapitated, like, old woman just kept breathing down my neck, and it was creepy as fuck.”

“I think your hair has finally overtaken the last of your fucking brain cells. Just go back to your dorm and go to bed,” Bakugou says flippantly as he goes back to grading papers. Kirishima pouts at him.

“I’d appreciate a bit more concern here, bro. What, with all the bridges I’m trying to build between us that you keep trying to burn down,” Kirishima says.

“Burning a bridge takes too long. I prefer explosives,” Bakugou says with an air of finality. Kirishima sighs but smiles crookedly, and Uraraka dares to think it’s just full of fond exasperation.

“Fine, whatever. See you later, my dudes,” Kirishima says, and just like his sudden appearance, he’s gone in a flash. Uraraka looks at Bakugou as he finishes grading his papers while grumbling about how dumb his students are. The little frustrated crease between his eyebrows has smoothed out though, and Uraraka thinks that maybe some of Kirishima’s bridges are almost done being constructed.

Uraraka and Bakugou are walking from their last class of the day to Star Medical. It’s another cold clammy day in February, and Uraraka has a hand-knit pink scarf wrapped tightly around her neck and covering her face up to her nose. The weather report says the temperature should be in the low fifties, but without the sun shining through the clouds and with the chill from the wind, it feel like it’s below forty. After living in California for so long, the cold feels amplified. She’s not sure how Bakugou manages to walk around without a coat on over his uniform. His nose and cheeks are pink and wind-chapped. The tips of his ears are red and his hands are jammed into his pockets. Bakugou sniffs and grumbles a bit under his breath.

They’ve seen a lot of Kirishima around for the past two months. Sometimes he stops and chats for a couple hours, sometimes just a few minutes. Bakugou has just recently started interacting more with Kirishima during conversations. He’s less hostile too. Kirishima’s taken to inviting Bakugou out to do things with him—not discouraged when Bakugou always rejects his proposals—and Uraraka isn’t offended. Kirishima and she have a few friends in common, so they’ve started going to movies and dinners together with their own little group on occasion. Bakugou’s mood has also been less malicious lately as well.

When Uraraka spots a familiar thatch of spiky red hair farther down their path, she smiles. “Hey, Kirishima-kun!”

Kirishima turns around, his communicator in his hand. When he spots them his face lights up with one of his most sincere shark-toothed smiles—Uraraka still needs to ask him about his genetics. He stops and waits for them to catch up.

“Heya, Uraraka, Bakugou! Wassup?” he says. He’s more cheerful than mostly everyone on campus during this dreary weather. Bakugou just snuffles and tips his chin up to gesture toward the building up ahead.

“Going on shift, fuckface. Shouldn’t you know that considering you fucking hacked the schedule?” Bakugou says. His voice is rough in the wet air. Even Bakugou’s been drained of his manic energy because of the weather. Kirishima hums thoughtfully before his brow crinkles in confusion and worry.

“Dude, why don’t you, like, have a jacket on or a scarf or something? It’s nippy out, Bakubro,” Kirishima says. Bakugou glares weakly at him and just huffs. Kirishima’s smile sharpens again as he takes the grey wool scarf from his neck and quickly wraps it around Bakugou’s. Bakugou squawks in protest, but Kirishima’s already dashed out of his reach.

“Don’t catch cold, Nitro!” Kirishima calls as he runs away waving. He knows Bakugou hates being called that. The nickname sprung up from some antique comic book geek—Kirishima—calling him a “ticking time bomb” and relating him to Marvel’s explosive villain. It stuck, and Bakugou was pissed for days. Bakugou hisses and spits curses for the rest of their trek to Star Medical, but he keeps the scarf on all the way. He makes a show of ripping it off when they enter the heated building and stomping away.

When Uraraka is waiting in the lobby for Bakugou at the end of their shift so they can walk home together, she sees him turn around a corner with Kirishima’s thick grey scarf wrapped around his neck. She smiles wickedly and whips out her communicator to snap a quick picture. She’s so going to send it to Kirishima later. Bakugou growls and his sneer dials up from “I’m-tired-as-fuck-from-working-all-damn-day” to “I’m-tired-as-fuck-from-your-bullshit.”

Uraraka opens her mouth to tease him a bit, but he holds up a hand. “Not a word.”

Uraraka leaves him be. For now.

When Uraraka sees Bakugou walking around wrapped up in Kirishima’s scarf again, however, she snaps another picture and teases him relentlessly about it for their entire Valentine’s Day shift. Bakugou refuses to give her the chocolates he bought for her afterward, but it was worth it.

“Hey, hey! Bakubro!” Kirishima’s voice calls from up ahead by the local coffee shop. Bakugou groans.

“What?” he snaps. Uraraka smiles apologetically at Kirishima. He smiles, unfazed by Bakugou’s sour mood.

“Can I give you a flyer for the local animal shelter? They’re having a fundraiser,” Kirishima says. Uraraka takes one and folds it up to put in her bag. Bakugou’s lip curls.

“No, get lost, shitty hair,” Bakugou says and goes to move around Kirishima. Kirishima blocks his path.

“C’mon, man. It’s a good cause,” Kirishima says. He sticks his bottom lip out and looks up from under his lashes.

“No. Now move,” Bakugou says. He goes to move the other way.

“It’s a no kill shelter!”

“I don’t give a flying fuck.”

“Don’t be so cold hearted, bro. Just take a flyer!”

“I said ‘No!’ N. O. What do you not fucking understand about that?”

“How you don’t care about helpless animals!”

“It’s not my problem, dickbag!”

“It’s still the right thing to do!”

“What take a shitty piece of paper? Yeah, that’ll help a shit ton.”

“You could read it and show up to the fundraiser! Take. A. Damn. Flyer.”

“No, you deaf piece of dog shit!”

“C’mon, man! It’s not gonna bite you!”

“I don’t want the damn flyer!”

“Dude, just take it!”

“Get that fucking shit out of my face right fucking now or I swear to—“

“Swear to what? The god that wants helpless kittens to die because their no-kill shelter foreclosed because nobody saw the flyers about the fundraiser? Yeah, man, you’re some saint!”

“…”

“…”

“…there are kittens?”

“Yes, Bakubro. They have a little room you can go in and play with them.”

“…I can go see the little fucking furballs?”

“Yup! Just take a flyer, my man! I’ll go with you and Uraraka to play with the kittens sometime this month. Sound good?”

“You don’t have to fucking be there and neither does she! Just gimme the damn flyer.”

Uraraka gives Kirishima a fist bump behind Bakugou’s back as he stomps off.

Uraraka is walking out of the Bernie’s with two steaming cups of coffee: a chai tea latte for herself and a white mocha latte for Bakugou. He never goes in to get his drink if he wants something other than espresso. Uraraka rolls her eyes at his idiocy but stops short on her way back to meet him at the street corner. She bites her lip to keep from laughing.

“I told you to get the FUCK away from me, you fucking freak!” Bakugou screams. His face is red in rage and from the cold, and some of his veins are standing out along his forehead and his neck. He’s absolutely furious. He’s furious because John the Christian Street Corner Preacher has latched on to him to give a sermon on cleansing his soul.

“But I do say, oh sinner, if you cast off your demonic ways and rejoin the path of righteousness and light, Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior, will help your soul rise above the mortal temptations of the flesh!” John bellows. Bakugou throws his hands up in frustration.

“What the fuck, you deranged shitfuck!” Bakugou shouts back. John puffs up his chest.

“Swearing is a sin, oh naïve one. Our Lord shalt not forgive thee if thou dost not repent!” John says as he waves a thick leather-bound bible in the air over his head. Bakugou pinches the bridge of his nose, trying to calm down.

Uraraka is snickering to herself when she sees Kirishima come out of a shop right in front of her and discover Bakugou’s predicament. She rushes up to kick the back of his knees before he goes and ruin her fun. “Sh! Just watch!”

Kirishima complies reluctantly, and they go stand by the shop’s windows to be a bit more out of Bakugou’s line of sight. Just as they settle in place, John slams the bible down on Bakugou’s head. Uraraka huffs a laugh as Kirishima mutters, “Oh, shit.”

“WHAT THE ACTUAL EVERLOVING FUCK??? DID YOU JUST HIT ME? WITH A BIBLE?” Bakugou shrieks as he grabs the front of John’s dingy white shirt. “You’ve got a death wish, old man!”

“The Lord only forgiveth those that repent! Repent young sinner, and thy soul shalt be freed from these mortal woes!” John says as Bakugou shakes him.

“Why are you trying to talk in bad Shakespearean, you cockwaffle? I’m not repenting for shit, God dammit!” Bakugou shoves John away from him.

“DO NOT TAKE THE LORD’S NAME IN VAIN, FOUL SINNER!” John shouts. Bakugou growls in frustration.

“You know what, you twat? Fucking fine. I’m a goddamn sinner. I fucking swear, I hate people, I goddamn curse God, I fucking lie, I’ve had sex and I’m not married, I’ve had sex with someone who’s married, and you know what my fucking worst sin is? Huh? I’ve only had sex with MEN! So fucking suck my dick, you fake preacher because that’s a goddamn sin too, you dicknosed douchecanoe!” Bakugou screeches. He’s right up in John’s face, and the man looks stricken by disgust and fear.

“May God heal your soul,” John says weakly. Bakugou looks purple with rage. When Bakugou opens his mouth again to rip John a new one, the man takes off down the street, and Bakugou huffs.

Kirishima and Uraraka head over to him. Bakugou glares daggers at Uraraka who is laughing and hiccupping hysterically and taking shaky breaths in between peals of laughter. Bakugou takes his coffee and takes a burning drink. Kirishima is still trying to hold back some of his amusement and be mature.

“Dude, dude, you totally destroyed, uhm, him. Oh gosh, that was something—that was something,” Kirishima bleats out a laugh, and he’s lost it too. “That, that was—demonic!”

Bakugou glares at them both and flips them off. He turns to walk across the street. “He was a fucking homophobic piece of shit.”

Uraraka pats Kirishima’s shoulder as he wraps an arm around her waist. They giggle for another block as Bakugou marches ahead. “I’m glad you held me back from stepping in to try to help,” Kirishima says. Uraraka waves him off.

“I’m glad I did, too,” she says happily. Kirishima squeezes her side.

“I think if I tried to butt in I would’ve been collateral damage,” he says. Uraraka nods in agreement.

“Believe me. He would called you worse than a ‘dicknosed douchecanoe’ if you stepped into his fight,” Uraraka says. She breaks out into more helpless laughter as Kirishima’s face pales at the thought. Bakugou chooses that moment to turn around and snarl at them.

“Well? Are you gonna fucking catch up or not? I’ll leave you two asswipes behind,” he says. Uraraka and Kirishima smile at each other before jogging to Bakugou’s sides. Uraraka glances between the two boys. She’s rooting for Kirishima for sure.

“I’ve come to a point in my life where I need a stronger word than fuck, Denki,” Ashido moans. She’s been lying face down in the grass for so long that Kaminari was starting to worry about her suffocating. He looks over his PADD to the pink girl. They’ve been out “studying” on the quad because today is one of those freaky warm days in late February where the weather decides to say, “Fuck it. I want heat and sun.” They’re waiting for Kirishima.

“And why’s that?” Kaminari says. He looks back down at the advanced warp core circuitry blueprints that he was thinking about recalibrating so electricity flows better throughout shield systems.

“Because!” Ashido exclaims as she sits up, bits of grass are stuck to her face and her wide black eyes give her a manic aura. “I can’t keep getting shit on by Bakugou in Molecular Spectroscopy because Kirishima can’t take a hint!”

“Yikes. Does he scream at you in front of your class or something?” Kaminari has seen—experienced—when Baukgou goes nuclear. It’s scary intimidating, and it makes you want to sock him in the mouth with a robotic arm that has enough power to punch through a brick wall. Not that Kaminari has ever considered stealing a robotic arm for such trivial reasons. Nope.

“No! I could handle him just fine if he kept screaming bloody murder in my face!” Ashido rakes her hands through her pink hair. “No, he stopped screaming at me after the first month, and now he’s just a passive aggressive little shithead. He can correct the professor, Denki! So he goes out of his way to make me feel stupid, and he glares at me all class!”

Kaminari looks up from his PADD as Ashido tugs on her horns. Usually Bakugou’s rage is explosive and leaves people drained and wrecked like they were just hit by a tornado. When Bakugou isn’t on the rampage, he’s unnaturally smart and focused on absorbing as much information as he can. Kaminari has seen him interact with medical staff while he waited in the ER to be treated for an electrical burn. He’s seen how he bites his tongue and glares and doesn’t scream unless someone has really fucked something up. Kaminari holds up his hands.

“Mina, my girl, hear me out. I don’t think Bakugou is trying to be passive-aggressive,” Kaminari says. Ashido blinks her big black eyes at him in confusion.

“Why the fuck not?” she whines.

“Because Bakugou is full of catatonic rage, not wishy-washy passive-aggressiveness. He’s a bit lacking in the empathy department and his social skills are horrendous, but he probably wants you to improve. He might not be going about it the right way, but he’s not Iago from Othello. He’s not trying to manipulate you for revenge or anything. He’s just,” Kaminari waves his hand trying to come up with what he deems as the correct word choice, “socially inept.”

Ashido stares at him. Kaminari isn’t an idiot. He does have break through thoughts every now and then. Ashido’s mouth opens and closes as she struggles to either defend herself or absorb this new perspective. In all actuality, Kaminari rather likes Bakugou. Sure, he’s pissy and a dick. But Kirishima’s assessment of him as a good person is something Kaminari can agree with.

He’s still a dick though.

“Guys! Guys, guess whaaat!” Kirishima yells from about twenty feet away. Kaminari smiles when he sees his best friend running over towards them. Kirishima has one of the happiest, fullest smiles splitting his face in two. It’s like that one time Kaminari and Midoriya took him on a day trip to the beach last year.

“Wassup, broski?” Kaminari asks as he extends a hand up for Kirishima to high five. Kirishima slaps his hand and slams down on the ground.

“He said YES!” Kirishima squeals. “Bakugou said he’d hang out with me tomorrow!”

Kaminari and Ashido stare at him in silence for two heartbeats before they both get as close to Kirishima’s face as possible. “He what?” they say in unison.

“He agreed to go to the animal shelter I was handing out flyers for couple weeks ago. We’re going with Uraraka tomorrow to go play with the kittens!” Kirishima sighs happily. He flops on his back and laughs full heartedly. “Holy shit, I’m going ot play with kittens with Bakugou Katsuki!”

Kaminari and Ashido look at each other in disbelief before they look back at Kirishima’s warm smile and pink cheeks. They sit back down, and Kaminari leans over to whisper in Ashido’s ear, “I’ll get the caramel ice cream and fried Oreos in case it goes wrong, and he needs comfort food. You get the phaser and two communicators so I can rig them up to be a very painful punishment if we have to exact revenge on Bakugou, deal?”

“Deal,” Ashido says.

Chapter Text

Bakugou hates sleeping. He despises falling asleep in his own bed where he has no control over his dreams. He’s tried lucid dreaming and all that psycho-babble about controlling your dreams. Bakugou’s shit at it. So, he only falls asleep when he absolutely has to, when his body is crashing and burning, when the stims and caffeine in his system start becoming dangerously overused, when his hands start to shake, and his vision starts to double and fade around the frayed edges, when his ugly weaknesses start popping up through his tightly sewn seems like daisies.

But Bakugou loathes sleeping. So he’ll take power naps at Star Medical for maybe ten, fifteen minutes, or he’ll find an empty lecture hall and pass out in a seat for an hour, or he’ll skip meals if he’s crashing in the middle of the day, or he’ll set his alarm for every two hours when he falls asleep in his own bed for a night. Bakugou takes extreme measures, when his body allows it, to make sure he doesn’t dream.

It’s only when he gets off of twelve hour shifts from hell that he allows himself to crash into his mattress and sleep like the dead for as long as possible. He doesn’t dream then, his body too focused on recovery. Bakugou knows deep down, like deep deep down that he could see a shrink about this. After all, he is a certified psychologist himself. He knows what PTSD and anxiety disorders and all that jazz look like. But his pride, that wonderful little skittish animal, rears up at the thought of talking about the flames and alarms that flash fever bright behind his eyes and the screams and sobs and wails of hopeless defeat that ring in the darkness.

Nope. Sorry. Those dreams are locked away in a box, inside another box, inside another, larger box wrapped in chains and deadbolts and welded shut, and then thrown to the bottom of the sea. Not available. Be back NEVER.

But then there are also the nights that Bakugou sleeps in someone else’s bed. Sex has the uncanny ability to knock him out for a few hours of blissfully dreamless sleep. Bakugou is good at sex. Hey, being a doctor does have some unforeseen advantages, and Bakugou doesn’t have a shortage of partners willing to open up their bodies and their beds to him.

So Bakugou gets by with one of the most unconditional—unhealthy, too—sleep patterns at the Academy. He’s doing pretty damn fine. He makes sure to get enough sleep before surgeries, and he never misses a mark on an exam—but, then again, his professors are morons and the subjects are fundamental. So Bakugou goes about his life hating sleep.

Especially because of nights when he slips up. It happens once in a blue moon, but it’s enough for Bakugou to be awake for four days without even a cat nap. It’s when his dreams take over and memories of a crash warp and exaggerate what little he can recall from the trauma. He remembers the fear, the icy cold adrenaline as he rushed through red-washed corridors to the symphony of explosions, screams, and wails, the sweat trickling down his back as he was thrown to the side as the starship was rocked with another blast, the pain, and the moment he was launched out into the inky quiet of space. This is where the memories change from memories to more dreamlike fears. Cracks in the glass separating him from the black appear or the explosions propel the unknown ship toward him or his parents float dead-eyed and blue like lifeless dolls amongst the stars.

He’ll wake up to the phantom feelings of blood dripping from his forehead, hands shoving him in a too small, too tight escape pod, his ears ringing from the noise and then the silence, the helplessness as he tore away from the disaster, the empty numbness as he buried two empty caskets and attended one thousand two hundred and forty eight other funerals.

Bakugou hates sleeping.

It’s late April when Bakugou disappears. He vanishes without a trace for four days. Nobody knows where he went or what he was doing. Kendou and Bondo know nothing, and Kirishima has a slight meltdown when Uraraka asks him if he knows anything.

“What do you mean he’s gone?” Kirishima screeches. Uraraka flinches and taps her fingertips together.

“He’s just…not been at the apartment, or anywhere else. I think Admiral Aizawa said something about a leave of absence?” Uraraka says. Kirishima looks like a deer caught in headlights. He’s frozen with his mouth open like he doesn’t know what to do.

“Do you think he’s okay? Oh my god, what if he went to, like, some monastery to live in seclusion, or he went to go join a gang or something worse?” Kirishima slaps a hand over his mouth to halt the stream of worried babble. Uraraka shakes her head.

“No he’s scheduled for a surgery on Friday. I don’t think it’s anything major,” Uraraka tries for a reassuring tone. She smiles, but she doubts it meets her eyes. “He’s probably just blowing off steam or something. Maybe his Biology class just did something really stupid and he needed a break?”

“Yeah. Yeah, you’re right,” Kirishima sighs. He rubs the back of his neck and looks down at his shoes. “It’s probably nothing.”

When Kirishima asks Midoriya if he knows anything, Midoriya’s lips tighten into a straight line and his eyes flick down quickly. “No,” is all Kirishima gets, and he knows when not to push with Midoryia by now. Kirishima can’t decide if the man knows something or if he feels guilty for not knowing.

Bakugou shows up at the apartment Thursday smelling like twenty handles of liquor mixed with sweat, puke, and depression. Bakugou staggers inside without a curse or a glance toward any of his roommates sitting in the common area. He bumps along the wall in grimy clothes and oily hair sticking to his sweaty forehead. Bakugou staggers into the bathroom and turns on the shower.

No matter what Uraraka does, she can’t get a bit of information out of Bakugou about where he was or what he was doing. He doesn’t even curse at her or tell her to fuck off. He just sits and takes her questions and accusations and insults as he stares blankly at the wall. Uraraka gives up the fight and goes to stand in front of him. He looks up at her, and Uraraka’s heart breaks a bit at how red and tired his eyes look. She sighs and rubs his cheeks.

“Alright, you don’t have to tell me. This time, anyway. Maybe some notice before you disappear again, please?” Uraraka says. Bakugou shrugs half-heartedly. She sighs and squishes his cheeks together. “At least you’re in one piece,” she says with a watery smile. She leans down to kiss his forehead. He shoves her hands off his face and glares weakly up at her.

“I’m not gonna die that easily, round face,” Bakugou says. Uraraka laughs wetly and smacks the back of his head.

“You’re an asshole.”

She and Kirishima mark down in their calendars that around late April is a bad time for Bakugou.

“Ah, ehm, Kiri-Kiri-Kirishima? I really—I really don’t think that—that th-this is a good idea!” Midoriya squeaks. He’s digging his heals into the grass as his roommate literally drags him toward the other side of the quad. It’s late May, and the sun’s out, and the perpetual fog that hangs over San Fransisco has dissipated to leave warm dry air behind. The quad is crowded, and Kirishima spots someone he desperately wants to spend time with twenty feet away.

“C’mon, Midoriya! You were so excited to know he was alive literally, like, six months ago, and you still haven’t gone to say hi or anything!” Kirishima smiles over his shoulder as he pulls the other man along.

“But! But! You don’t know what our relationship was like when we were younger! We—we didn’t get along!” Midoriya whines as he tries to rip away from Kirishima half-heartedly. Kirishima was as stubborn as a rock when he set his mind to something. Midoriya knows that at some point he has to face Kacchan, but he just…doesn’t know how the other would react.

“Yo! Bakubro! Lemme introduce you to my roommate!” Kirishima calls. Bakugou is sitting in the shade beneath one of the taller trees on campus. Uraraka and Tokoyami are discussing something on a PADD next to the blond. Bakugou looks up, and tenses. Midoriya’s mind is racing a thousand miles a minute. Bakugou would be so angry. He’d be so mad that Midoriya was even here. Oh God, Bakugou would kill him!

“K-K-Kacchan!” Midoriya blurts out as Kirishima wraps an arm around his shoulders. Bakugou’s gaze flickers from Kirishima’s smiling face to Midoriya’s pale one. He sighs through his nose and glares. Midoriya is practically vibrating with anxiety.

“Deku,” he spits. Kirishima glances between the two. Bakugou was usually expressive and a bit too aggressive with his emotions, but when addressing Midoriya, Bakugou was almost completely closed off. He was expecting some bro-hugs or a huge blowout, not—not whatever this was.

“How—how are you?” Midoriya says. It seems like an honest question, but by the way that Bakugou stiffens up, Kirishima can tell something is off. Bakugou stands up and yanks Midoriya away quickly, waving off Kirishima’s and Uraraka’s questions, and leads him around the corner of a nearby building. He glances around and deems it deserted enough to turn around and face the other man.

“I thought we had cleared this issue up almost a decade ago, Deku,” Bakugou says. His voice grates on Midoriya’s ears. It used to make him angry or sad whenever Kacchan turned on him in the past. Whenever he’d be pushed around or berated, Midoriya used to hate the harsh bark of Kacchan’s yells. He almost misses those years. Almost.

“Well, you kinda decided what was best—was best back then without really, uhm, listening to me?” Midoriya rubs the back of his neck. Bakugou glowers.

“Because it’s not any of your fucking business, you fucking dumb shit,” Bakugou says. He shoves his hands in his pockets. “I never fucking asked you to fucking help me.”

“But you were my friend, Kacchan! What was I supposed to do? Just let your grief eat at you until nothing was left?” Midoriya cries. He doesn’t understand why this is so hard for Kacchan to grasp. He didn’t back when they were kids, and he still doesn’t now. Bakugou growls and steps closer.

“It wasn’t your fucking place to decide what was best for me! I tried everything I could think of to get you to leave me the fuck alone, but you never fucking took a hint!” Bakugou grinds out between clenched teeth. “I don’t want your fucking pity. I didn’t back then, and I still don’t.”

“No one should have to go through what you did alone! Why can’t you accept that you can’t do everything on your own?” Midoriya says. He throws his hands up and slaps them against his sides exasperated. “I cared about you. I, I still do. Kacchan, I just want you to be happy!”

Bakugou’s lip curls and one of his hands takes a fistful of Midoryia’s shirt. “I’d be fucking happy if you gave up this hero act. I don’t need saving. Can’t you see that?”

“I do! I do see that! It doesn’t mean that helping you is bad though!” Midoriya says. “Haven’t you ever cared about anything but your pride? Haven’t you cared enough to let someone in?”

Bakugou shoves Midoriya away from him. “Deku, I said this before and I’ll say this again. Stay the fuck out of my affairs. I don’t fucking need you. I don’t fucking want you. If you’re still worried about my fragile mental state, then fine. Keep it to yourself. I’m a doctor, dammit. I’m a psychologist, too. I can handle myself just fucking fine.”

Bakugou brushes past Midoriya. Midoriya latches onto his arm. “Okay. Okay. I’ll step back. But, Kacchan, you need to open up to someone. It doesn’t have to be me, but, please, let someone care about you and trust them enough to let them in!” He lets Bakugou shrug out of his grip and watches as he stalks back toward the quad. He stops before rounding the corner and looks over his shoulder at Midoriya. Midoriya’s breath catches in his throat at the look in Bakugou’s eyes.

“For every time I gave a fuck, that fuck,” he spits the words and gnaws on his lower lip harshly, “fucked me over.” And just like that, Bakugou is gone.

Midoriya leans against the wall reeling from the tiredness, frustration, and loneliness warring in Bakugou’s gaze. He sighs and looks at where Bakugou had stood not a moment before and clenches his jaw tight. He may not be able to support Kacchan how he wants, but that doesn’t mean he’s going to stop completely.

Midoriya steels himself and walks back to the quad. He sees the others still sitting under the tree. He sits next to Uraraka, a nurse at Star Medical, and Tokoyami, a cadet in his Aviation and Advanced Physics classes. They all chat and laugh together for a couple more hours. Bakugou steadily gets more animated as time passes, and Uraraka and Kirishima are bosses at keeping him snickering or ranting. They keep the mood light, and even Tokoyami cracks and chuckles a few times.

When Midoriya catches Bakugou’s eyes as they all say their goodbyes, Midoriya smiles tentatively. He hasn’t spent that much time in Kacchan’s space without them fighting in years. He missed it. He missed the Kacchan that would smile and dream of traveling the stars with him. He missed the boy that laughed and held his hand as they raced along the sidewalk toward another adventure of pretend space exploration. He misses the friend he lost before he even realized he was losing him.

When Bakugou doesn’t look away, the cold mask of indifference that Kacchan started wearing before he left for the Academy all those years ago never sliding into place, Midoriya smiles a bit stronger. Bakugou snorts and rolls his eyes before glaring and flipping him off. Uraraka tugs him away toward Star Medical before he can say anything, but Midoriya watches him go. As Kirishima calls him, Bakugou turns back to look over his shoulder, a very, very small smirk adorning his features.

Midoriya thinks he finds a shooting star in his small—oh, so small—smile, and he wishes and hopes that everything will turn out alright.

“Goddamn! How did you get through college, huh? How did you even get through fucking high school? No, fucking scratch that—elementary school?” Bakugou yells. He’s been tutoring Kirishima in classes that he’s doing poorly in for about two months, but Kirishima still sucks at English and Standard Composition. Kirishima tugs on his hair and laughs.

“Hard work and determination!” Kirishima says. Bakugou looks across the table at him blankly.

“You’re a fucking moron,” he deadpans. Uraraka smacks the back of his head lightly.

“Hey! That’s not nice, Bakugou! I thought we were trying to improve your bedside manner? Apologize!” she says. Bakugou glares at her and growls as he flips her off. She sticks her tongue out and goes back to taking notes from a diverse species anatomy textbook. Kirishima snickers as Bakugou glares at him.

“I’m sorry you’re a fucking moron,” he says. Kirishima laughs and shrugs as if to say ‘What can you do?’

“Who doesn’t fucking know that ‘could of’ is not correct grammar? It’s basic shit, dammit!” Bakugou groans. He’s proof-reading one of Kirishima’s essays for Starfleet History 220. Most of Kirishima’s work gets dissected like Bakugou’s Biology class’ does. Lots of angry red pen slashes and circles on his work.

“I don’t really see what the big deal is, bro,” Kirishima says. Honestly, Kirishima understands what his mistake was at this point. He’s been lectured by Bakugou enough to know how he fucked up. He just says things now to get a rise out of the doctor. He likes seeing him talk when he’s passionate about something, even as simple as basic grammar. Bakugou talks with his hands. They’re never still, and his eyes get so focused that they look like flickering flames.

“—and that’s fucking why it matters, dumbshit!” Bakugou snaps. Kirishima hums in acknowledgement as he looks over to Uraraka. She winks at him, and Kirishima smiles brightly.

He loves his friends, man.

Sero sighs for what seems like the thousandth time in the past two hours. Why? Because he’s been stuck to Kaminari and Jirou while being subjected to their awkward conversations and shy glances, and Sero has had enough of these two idiots. Honestly, if Sero weren’t stuck to Kaminari’s butt, he’d kick his ass into the next solar system. They waddled from the engineering labs to Star Medical as fast as they could. Kaminari and Jirou are stuck face to face, and Sero kept tripping over Kaminari’s feet. They toppled over more than once.

Sero is almost ninety eight percent sure someone should have come in and tried to separate them by now. He’s gonna rip whoever is their physician a new one when they get in here.

The door slides open and Sero cranes his neck to glare at whoever—oh, fucking shit. Just great. It’s Dr. Bakugou. Could his day not get any worse?

“I thought I fucking told Janet not to give me anymore stupid fucking ‘sex-gone-wrong’ cases,” he deadpans. Sero’s jaw drops, horrified at the thought, and wheels them all around so he can stare down Bakugou.

“Now, listen here, dude. This is not anything sexual! It’s just a science experiment gone wrong, and—,” Sero starts indignantly, but Bakugou waves him off. He walks over to the monitors and hums. Sero puffs up indignantly.

“Yeah, uh, no thank you, but, uhm, I’ve got a girlfriend. So, yeah, no,” Jirou supplies helpfully.

“I don’t really give a fuck who you imbeciles fuck as long as I don’t have to deal with it,” Bakugou taps on a few blue boxes and sighs like his life is just, oh, so hard. Sero wants to sock him in the jaw.

“So, can you unstick us, Doc?” Kaminari asks. Bakugou rolls his head over to look at them through his lashes.

“Have you tried, I don’t know, cutting the stuck clothes so you can get out?” Bakugou waves a hand in a circle as he speaks. Sero rolls his eyes.

“The clothes have stuck to our skin, too, so, uh, not unless when want to chop off hunks of flesh,” Sero snipes, bitter annoyance coating his tongue. Bakugou raises an eyebrow, and his perpetual frown deepens.

“Well, I could go through the correct protocol of quarantining you three for twenty four hours while I whip up a dissolvent,” Bakugou says. “Especially, since you want to fucking antagonize me.”

“Oh, Jesus, no. Please, I can’t take being stuck to Sero’s ass for much longer!” Kaminari wails. Sero elbows him in the ribs. Bakugou smirks.

“Well, I could also tell you that I have a not so orthodox method of undoing you’re fucking mess,” Bakugou says.

“Anything!” Jirou pleads. Bakugou smiles, Cheshire cat wide, and Sero just knows his day is about to go from awful to hellish real fast.

Twenty minutes later, Sero is a free man, but he’s going to smell like Tribble piss for about three weeks. He’s sure of it. Kaminari and Jirou high-five, and Sero sees Bakugou smirking with a clothespin on his nose. Sero thinks his day can’t get any worse so he makes a ride or die decision.

In hindsight, Sero’s day could very much get worse because hugging Bakugou Katsuki in clothes soaked with Tribble piss was definitely not one of his shining moments. Sero spends the rest of the week whipping around and checking his back because he swears he feels Bakugou glaring holes in the back of his head. Sero decides the next time he’s in Star Med and Bakugou is his doctor, he’s going to keep a very close eye on the scapels.

It’s finals week, and Kirishima is dead on his feet. He’s done his physical tests, his history exam, and his Basic Field Training exam as well. Kirishima knows he aced those with flying colors. History has always come easy to him, and he doesn’t slack on training or on learning important skills regarding first aid and worst case scenario run-throughs.

But it’s his other classes that Kirishima is worried about flunking. He’s been studying his ass off for like three weeks, and Kirishima knows he looks like death. His hair is flaxen and greasy, his complexion is waxy, and the bags under his bloodshot eyes have bags of their own. Kirishima knows he doesn’t look pretty, but honestly he doesn’t really care. The one person he doesn’t want to look like a zombie in front of hasn’t been around for a week.

No, Bakugou may have beaten his brain into shape with ruthless tutoring—he helped Ashido, Sero, and Kaminari out too—but he also has his own hell week. Kirishima knows for a fact that Bakugou wrote his Biology class’ exam and he gave them a study guide too. He’d seen him working on it while Kirishima and Uraraka compared Aviation and Advanced Physics notes. Bakugou had been grumbling to himself as he loomed over a stack of old tests and a few open textbooks. Kirishima kept watching him rub at the wrinkles in his forehead in exasperation and agitation. Normally the spiky blond bangs covered some of them, but the thin black headband pushed his unruly hair out of his face. It was…distracting.

But Bakugou had his hellish schedule, and, from Kirishima’s understanding, he and Uraraka still had long ass shifts at Star Medical. Kirishima couldn’t fathom any more work than was already on his plate. He and Midoriya were already jittery from stims and caffeine, so he can’t even imagine what being a doctor was like.

Kirishima misses Bakugou more than he wants to admit, but he’s got three more finals and he’s done. Then he can sleep and find Bakugou the day after the shitstorm is over.

At least, that was Kirishima’s master plan. Really, he meant to avoid Star Medical for finals week, but fate had other ideas. The only things he remembers is finishing his last final, heading out with Kaminari and Sero clinging to him in exhaustion as they made their way back to the dorms to go into stress-and-sleep-deprivation-induced comas, stumbling along and hearing a loud explosion from a building, deep searing pain, and Sero and Kaminari screeching at him before he was practically thrown on a biobed in the ER. Kirishima knows that the nurse pumped him with some type of painkiller because she’s focusing on stopping the blood flow from the gash in his side and he can’t feel a damn thing, and the lights are starting to waver as unconsciousness pulls at him.

“God fucking dammit, Kirishima! What the fucking fuck did you do this time?” Bakugou’s voice slices through the fog tugging at Kirishima’s mind and he glances over at the doctor rushing around and checking screens and readings. Kirishima smiles. Bakugou still looks just as pretty as the first time he was in here.

“Fucking idiot! I can’t fucking leave you alone otherwise you’ll end up dead!” Bakugou growls as he slaps on a pair of blue gloves and grabs for some shiny machine that Kirishima doesn’t recognize. It doesn’t matter. Kirishima’s just staring at Bakugou’s frown. Was it always so endearing to see the little wrinkle between his brows? Yeah, it was.

“Nope,” Kirishima says giddily. He’s on some really good drugs right now. Bakugou rolls his eyes as the nurse moves and he takes over fixing Kirishima.

“You’re high as a fucking kite. If you weren’t already making a damn valiant effort at dying, I’d kill you myself,” Bakugou says. His nose scrunches in concentration. Kirishima giggles, and Bakugou glares at him. “Stop that, dammit.”

“Kay. But I’d really appreciate it if you stitched me up quick as a whip, ‘cause I think I need to pass out?” Kirishima says. The fog is wrapping around him again. Bakugou snorts.

“That’s some fucking medieval medical technique you’re talking about. I’ll do you one fucking better, I’ll use the regenerators and not a needle and some thread,” Bakugou says. He sounds far away, and Kirishima closes his eyes against the spinning ceiling.

“Kay, thanks, broski,” Kirishima says before he passes out.

When Kirishima wakes up a couple hours later, Sero, Kaminari, and Ashido are all dead to the world in chairs around his bed. Kaminari’s snoring with his mouth open wide, Sero’s leaning his head on top of Ashido’s, and Kirishima shouldn’t feel disappointed that Blasty McSplode isn’t in here with them. It’s only when the biobed starts beeping obnoxiously loud do they stir slightly. The door to his room slides open, and Kirishima looks up to see Uraraka’s tired smile, She’s got some serious bags going on under her eyes, and her usually shiny brown hair is dull and messy. Bakugou glares angrily over her shoulder as they enter. They quietly check the monitors and turn the alarm off. Bakugou won’t meet Kirishima’s eyes, and Kirishima slowly realizes that he’s pouting.

“Sorry to worry you guys,” Kirishima says. Bakugou glares at him shortly and huffs before falling down in a seat. He crosses his arms and glares at the floor. Kirishima turns to Uraraka as she giggles behind a hand. She smiles and leans down to his level.

“He’ll say he’s mad that you made him work over-overtime, but he was really just shocked and worried,” Uraraka stage whispers. Bakugou stomps his feet on the ground.

“I was not!” he yells. Ashido and Sero jolt awake, but Kaminari still sleeps on unperturbed.

“Kirishima!” the two cry as they tackle-hug him. He laughs as he pats their backs.

“I’m glad to see you, too, guys,” he says. When Sero and Ashido pull away, Bakugou kicks his bed to get his attention.

“You’re a goddamn fucking shit-for-brains moron,” he deadpans.

“Bakugou!” Uraraka admonishes with her hands on her hips. She reaches into her lab coat pocket and pulls out a quarter-full mason jar. “That’s seventy five more cents for the swear jar!” She shakes the jar menacingly over the biobed, and the coins jingle.

“I’m not fucking giving you any more of my damn money, hag!” Bakugou yells.

“How long has that been going on?” Ashido asks. Sero outright laughs at Bakugou’s animosity.

“Since finals started,” Uraraka replies. She glares at Bakugou and shakes the jar again. “C’mon, now it’s a dollar!” Bakugou groans in frustration and rakes a hand through his hair.

“Fucking fine,” he says.

“Another twenty five!”

“Stop, you round-faced menace!”

Kirishima chortles as he watches Bakugou practically slam five quarters into the mason jar. He whispers to Uraraka as she puts the jar down on his bedside table, “You know that’s basically useless right? What with credits being the new monetary system?” She winks.

“He collects old coins, so I’m confiscating his stash. I don’t know why he has them on him. He won’t tell,” Uraraka snickers. Kirishima nods in understanding as he smiles over at Bakugou.

Just as Bakugou’s lips curl into a snarl, the door slides open again.

“HELLO, CADETS! TIS I, ALL MIGHT!” a large, hulking man bursts into the room with enough noise to rouse Kaminari.

“What? Huh?” he says before he looks at Kirishima. “Bro! You’re awake!”

“I’M HERE TO FORMALLY APOLOGIZE FOR THE EXPLOSION THIS AFTERNOON. ONE OF MY CLASSES HAD A SYSTEM MALFUNCTION, AND I HAVE COME TO MAKE SURE THIS YOUNG MAN IS FINE,” All Might shouts. Everyone blinks uncomprehending at the smiling man. Kirishima is the first to go into action and waves his hands in front of him.

“No, no, sir! I’m perfectly fine! It was just an accident!” Kirishima says, face heating.

“The fuck you are!” Bakugou says. He stands up with his hands curled tightly into fists. “If you hadn’t been as close to the ER as you were, this could’ve ended very fucking differently!”

“YES, THE YOUNG DOCTOR IS CORRECT! I DO HUMBLY APOLOGIZE!” All Might bows low.

“No, please, really—it’s fine, so—,” Kirishima stammers.

“I said it fucking wasn’t!” Bakugou shouts.

“That’s seventy five more cents, you rude bafoon!” Uraraka holds out the jar.

“Get that outta my fucking face!”

“A dollar!”

“I don’t give a flying fuck!”

“One twenty five!”

“Fuck you, shitty bitch!”

“TWO dollars!”

Bakugou howls in frustration. All Might whips his head between the two arguing medical personnel as Bakugou throws the coins at Uraraka. She growls at him as she stuffs them into the jar.

“PERHAPS I SHOULD RETURN AT A MORE OPPURTUNE TIME?” All Might says. He takes a step back and slams into the sliding door. A second later, it slides open and All Might wobbles as he loses his balance. He places a foot behind him and slips on the small metal part of the sliding doorframe on the floor. In one of the most dramatic falls Kirishima has ever seen, the Symbol of Peace, the greatest captain in Starfleet’s history, the man who always smiles regardless of the danger falls flat on his ass. It’s dead silent in the hospital room.

“Shit,” All Might says.

As Kirishima stares at All Might sitting on his ass after toppling over backwards, Uraraka inches forward and sticks the swear jar in his face. Without smiling or reconsidering her decision—Uraraka has some nerves of steel, holy shit—she stares him dead in the eye and says, “That’s twenty five cents, please.”

All Might blinks up at her with his blinding smile. He quickly glances around and sees one of the quarters Bakugou had thrown earlier next to his hand. He picks it up and drops it in the jar. He stands up, brushes off his butt, and salutes the room.

“I MUST GO! I’M GLAD YOU ARE RECOVERING FINE, CADET!” and All Might rushes off. Uraraka watches him run away before turning back and staring at Bakugou.

“He’s a fucking dork,” Bakugou says. Kirishima bursts out laughing and doesn’t stop until his sides protest and tears are clumping his eyelashes together.

Kirishima hates Starfleet during the summer. They get two weeks for summer vacation, and Kirishima didn’t see Bakugou after he got out of Star Med. Kirishima was bummed, but he did get to go home and visit his family before hiking it back to the Academy for two summer courses that he agreed to take with Midoriya. He hates Midoriya just a bit for that too. He can’t find Bakugou on campus at all. Most, if not all, red alarms are going off in Kirishima’s brain because Bakugou is extremely dedicated to his course work and his shifts at Star Med. It takes him till the middle of July to man up and ask Uraraka where the angry man has disappeared to.

“He what?” Kirishima almost chokes on his own tongue. Uraraka sighs, and puffs a breath of air up into her short bangs.

“I tried to tell him not to, but you know how pigheaded he is,” Uraraka says. She chews on her lower lip and inspects her short nails. Kirishima can tell how worried she is.

“I thought only fourth year command track and security officers went on that extreme survival course?” Kirishima throws his hands up.

“You don’t think I told him that?” Uraraka sighs. “He said that ‘Four-eyes is fucking going, so I fucking am too.’ And that was that.”

“But, but, but it’s Organia,” Kirishima hisses. “You know? The planet that’s more gas than planet? With acid volcanoes? That’s where Bakugou went!”

Uraraka grits her teeth and leans over to growl in his face with an expression so similar to Bakugou’s snarl that Kirishima’s heart aches. “I know! I’m just as worried as you, Kirishima, but instead of freaking out and tormenting myself, I’ve accepted the fact that I’m just going to have to trust the fact that he’s a tough as shit asshole. He’ll look Death in the eyes and it will quiver in fear.”

Kirishima watches Uraraka’s jaw clench. He nods and smiles. “You’re right. There’s nothing I can do now.” He takes hold of one of Uraraka’s clenched fists. She tangles their fingers together in a grip meant to tether them both down and keep them from drifting away into their fears.

“Damn right I am.”

Even though Kirishima told Uraraka he’d try not to worry, he still does. He worries like never before. When his mother was giving birth to triplets? He was a nervous wreck, running up and down the halls tormenting nurses, pulling on doctors’ coats, crying. This? Worrying about Bakugou’s safety on an unstable planet probably inhabited by Klingon scouts and who knows who else? About three thousand times worse.

In the first week of August, Midoriya hacks into the Organia survival course registry to see who went on the three month trial. Nowhere does Bakugou’s or Iida’s name appear. Kirishima all but has a heart attack until Midoriya finds an encrypted frequency between Bakugou and Commander Midnight. Kirishima almost wishes Midoriya hadn’t told him that Bakugou signed up for some highly classified mission and that he would do his best to find out more.

 Kirishima usually considers himself a warrior with how he’s learned to push fear behind him and move forward into danger. That’s his job, protecting people. But now that Bakugou is out of his reach doing who knows what—the mission he’s on is classified so Kirishima knows he didn’t just volunteer. No, Bakugou just said that to calm Uraraka down a bit and not to mention he lied about what he was doing—Kirishima considers himself a professional worrier with a PhD in thinking up worst case scenarios.

So, to distract himself from this gnawing fear, Kirishima picks up another class. He doesn’t tell Midoriya about Bakugou’s mission. No, even though Midoriya will find the information regarding what is happening out in space, Kirishima knows he’ll go to extreme lengths and probably get them both kicked out. Bakugou would have his hide if he was expelled from the Academy after all the time he invested into Kirishima’s tutoring.

Kirishima sticks to a routine that summer through fall: wake up, eat, go to class, eat, work out, study, eat, work out, go to bed, repeat. Every day without fail. Kirishima is fucking crushing his classes, but he wants to share this achievement with a grumpy jackass. It’s considerably less satisfying.

Bakugou’s been gone for four and a half months—holy shit, when did it becoming October?—when Midoriya bursts into their dorm with a look that could vaporize atmospheres it’s so intense. Kirishima swallows audibly, and Midoriya steps silently up to his desk and glares down at him. Midoriya is scary as fuck when he’s seriously pissed. He’s silent as the black and as explosive as a supernova.

“Uh, hi, uh, bro? What’s up?” Kirishima tries. Midoriya’s glower intensifies to bone-liquefying levels.

“He’s in the neutral zone,” Midoriya says. His voice is calm and low-pitched. It’s like staring down the barrel of a phaser before it fires.

“What—what do you mean?” he says. His voice cracks. The only good part about this encounter is that Kirishima knows that he isn’t the one that Midoriya is infuriated with.

“Kacchan. Has been on a classified mission for months. Do you know what he’s been doing? He’s on Frutia. The planet that’s basically a ticking time bomb between the Klingons and the Federation? Why would a cadet be out on a dangerous planet on the verge of war?” Midoriya says. Kirishima takes the questions as rhetorical and keeps his fat mouth shut. It’s the right idea. “Because there’s a parasite wracking the planet’s inhabitants, and Kacchan is the genius that basically pioneered the bone grafting area of medical procedures.” Midoriya waits for Kirishima to realize why this is the answer to the mystery. He sighs and scrubs at his hair when Kirishima stares solemnly at him.

“This parasite is destroying brain stems, and the Admiralty thought that Kacchan was the best bet at figuring out a cure in case the bug spreads. So Iida-kun, Admiral Aizawa, Commander Midnight, Recovery Girl, and Tsuyu-chan all accompanied by other officers went off on what is basically a suicide mission!” Midoriya looks ready to hijack a shuttle and try to fly to Frutia himself with how angry he is. Kirishima isn’t so sure he would stop him as the information sinks in.

“Holy shit,” Kirishima breathes. He’s up and pacing around the small room grabbing fistfuls of hair and rubbing his face. “Holy shit.” He’s gonna be sick. Bakugou’s a genius, yes, but he’s basically a dead man walking because he may act like he’s invincible, he may try to convince everyone else he’s invincible, he may believe he’s invincible, but he’s not invincible.

Kirishima rushes into their little shared bathroom and throws up his meager breakfast. After dry heaving for what seems like an hour, Kirishima exits the small bathroom to find Midoriya mumbling and coding at his intensely modified PADD setup. Kirishima sits down and sips at a bottle of water next to him as he works.

“Do you think you can figure out how they’re doing?” he rasps, voice raw from bile. Midoriya hums at him absently. About two minutes later, they jump when a recorded com message pops up on the main screen Midoriya has set up. They glance at each other, and Midoriya quickly hits play. The sound is tinny and sometimes static filters through. The visual is white-washed, a bit blurry, and glitchy. But the quality of the message doesn’t matter, because lo and behold, Bakugou pops onto the screen with his spiky blond hair, red eyes, red uniform, and ever-present scowl.

“Cadet Bakugou’s Medical Log. Code: Napalm Gunpowder. Stardate: 2257.24. We have been at planet Frutia for approximately seven Earth days. Midnight and I have been surveying cadavers of natives that were infected by the parasite and consequently died from it. Recovery Girl is observing and attempting to assist patients still stable. From what I am able to gather so far, the parasite—,” Bakugou speaks with authority, confidence, and no hint of fear. Kirishima hangs onto every word, but the technical jargon Bakugou spouts flies right over his head. He’s relieved to even see his face. “—I will be assessing cranium samples tomorrow. Cadet Bakugou, signing off.”

Another video pops up on the screen. And another. And another, and another, and another. There are twelve videos from Bakugou, and Midoriya and Kirishima watch every one of them enraptured.

Bakugou steadily becomes more haggard. His eyes become bloodshot, his hair is unrulier than ever, he yawns during sentences, and his waxy complexion does not bode well. He looks frustrated and determined in every one, but slowly something else flickers more and more into his tone. Kirishima realizes on the ninth video that it’s self-doubt he’s hearing. They’ve made little progress. The biological and chemical makeup of the parasite is very adaptable to treatments and prevents any real progress from being made. It resembles HIV in its ability to evolve and change so quickly that treatments couldn’t cure the disease for decades. Many more patients have been registered in the overcrowded medical facilities. Most are children or elderly natives.

In videos ten and eleven, Bakugou still looks dead on his feet, but hope bursts through his report as he speaks quickly about new developments regarding treatment, spinal cord grafting, Vulcan genomes, and some type of space worm. Kirishima and Midoriya breathe shakily, and they wrap an arm around each other in triumph. Things are looking up.

“—as the cure solidifies more and more each passing hour, I will need to test the hypospray before administering it to live patients. The medical team is searching for a parasite that is not yet attached to a brain stem for this purpose. I will update again once one is found. Cadet Bakugou, signing off.”

When they reach the last video, Kirishima is holding his breath. He’s praying that the cure has been developed and the tests were successful. The video starts playing, but it’s not in the usual setting as the others. The room they are seeing is light blue with one biobed with many monitors surrounding it. The three walls are so close that Kirishima immediately recognizes it as a type of quarantine room. His heart stops when he sees Bakugou being dragged in unconscious by officers in contamination suits.

“Commander Midnight’s Medical Log. Code: Somnambulist. Stardate: 2257.78. Disregarding my direct orders to wait for an uncontaminated sample to be obtained, Cadet Bakugou Katsuki infected himself with the parasite and injected himself with the unstable prototype. The cadet is being quarantined for further study and observation to keep him as stable as possible while a sample of the parasite is located and tested. I hope that I will be able to reprimand the cadet’s actions at a future date, but the outlooks are grim. The prototype is speeding the parasite’s metabolism and therefore it is causing more damage. More information will be provided when available. Commander Midnight out.”

Kirishima doesn’t realize he’s crying until Midoriya wipes his cheeks and presses their foreheads together. He’s crying, too. “Kacchan is strong. He’ll beat that stupid bug. He always wins,” Midoriya says. His comforts fall on deaf ears, however, and Kirishima feels himself sinking into helpless fear.

“I know,” is all he says.

Midoriya sets up an interception routine so that they are able to acquire whatever update is available as fast as possible. Kirishima, however, is slowly losing hope the more days pass. His grades aren’t dropping because if he loses his focus, he’ll only think about Bakugou and the very real possibility of his death. Kirishima has flown through all necessary simulations for graduating, and his time is very rarely free. Midoriya’s schedule is much the same. Midoriya and Kirishima know that they are working themselves to the bone. Their friends are worried as well, and they all draw comfort from each other.

It’s early November when Kirishima finds his old grey scarf at Uraraka’s apartment. He was looking in a closet for her coat so they could head out to eat when he spots the thing shoved in a box of Bakugou’s things. Kirishima’s mouth goes dry and he reaches out to retrieve the article of clothing. He rubs the fabric between his fingers. It’s old and frayed, but the cotton is soft. He brings it to his face and tries to hold back the tears. He catches a whiff of Bakugou’s familiar smoky cologne. He sniffs at the fabric and almost bites holes in his lips when Bakugou’s familiar scent assaults his senses. He wraps the scarf around his neck and retrieves Uraraka’s jacket. She smiles softly with watery eyes that blink fast to hold back the tears when she sees the old scarf. They don’t eat much that evening.

They intercept another message from Midnight. There is little to update on Bakugou’s status, but the parasite has taken longer to…well, overtake its host this time. Midnight does not know if it is because Bakugou is a different species than the natives or if the prototype is beginning to work. The damage done to Bakugou’s spine and brain stem, however, looks drastic, and there is no telling what the actual damage is until the bug removes itself. The only way that Midnight will know that Bakugou is alright is if he wakes up after the bug is removed and undergone as much nerve repair as possible.

It’s radio silence again after that. The weather changes, the leaves fall, the fog sets in, and the chill in the air permeates everything around San Francisco. Novemeber slowly rolls into December, and the stress of finals for the first semester of Kirishima’s third year at Starfleet comes to a close. Kirishima dreams of celebrating with Bakugou in the bar they first met, holed up in a booth in the back with their gaggle of friends. He hopes he’ll get to see Bakugou’s smile and see the way the light made his eyes glow like inextinguishable flames again.

Kirishima sighs when he finishes his last final. Relief and dread mixing together. He doesn’t know how he’ll occupy his time over break to keep his worries away. The way everyone has been acting lately, it’s like they all are already moving through the stages of grief. Maybe he’ll take some tactics classes to keep his mind from buzzing with awful thoughts. Suffice to say, Kirishima is still in the denial stage of grieving.

When he walks back to the dorm, exhaustion pulling him along with the promise of fourteen hours of sleep, someone slams into his side hard enough to send them tumbling to the ground in a graceless heap. Kirishima glances down at the messy mop of brown hair that belongs to the woman that just tackled him to the ground in a death hug.

Uraraka is shaking and heaving breathes into her lungs and Kirishima assumes the worst. He thinks that Midoriya intercepted a message that finally confirmed what they all have been dreading. When she finally looks up at him, her face is puffy, splotchy with tears and emotion, mouth quivering, but her eyes are bright around their red rims. Kirishima stops breathing.

“He’s okay,” is all she gets out before Kirishima has hauled her up, and they are sprinting to his dorm. When the burst through the door, everyone is crammed in the tiny room. They all are hugging and whooping and slapping each other on the back. They welcome Kirishima and Uraraka into their celebrations, but Kirishima insists on seeing the message with his own eyes. Midoriya ushers him forward and restarts the video.

At first, Midnight is seen outside the quarantine room. She’s wearing a white lab coat and winged glasses that accentuate the purple circles under her eyes. She smiles shakily. “Commander Midnight’s Medical Log. Code: Somnambulist. Stardate: 2257.96. After being on life support for approximately seventy six Earth hours, Cadet Bakugou started making drastic improvements in his condition. The damage the parasite had caused to his spinal cord and brain stem slowly started to regenerate because of the chemical substances in the prototype Cadet Bakugou injected into his bloodstream approximately two months ago. The parasite itself had dissolved and the nutrients it had drawn from the cadet added to his speedy recovery. After running all necessary tests, the cadet showed promising recovery. Today, Bakugou has regained consciousness and wishes to make a remark.” The camera follows Midnight into the quarantine room, and she moves to the side of Bakugou’s biobed. The blonde is so thin and pale, Kirishima stops breathing. His hair is puffy and oily, cheekbones sharp around the oxygen tubes attached to his nose. Kirishima only sucks in a breath when Bakugou smirks and his eyes blaze like wildfire.

“Cadet Bakugou Katsuki speaking. I’m alive and kicking and the prototype serum has thoroughly been adjusted to increase the rate of recovery for the natives. As far as I’m concerned, it’s mission accomplished. This is another victory for medical science,” Bakugou says. His smile is shark-like and he winks before glaring at the camera. “I’m not gonna fucking die because of some goddamn space worm, you shits. So you better not have built me a fucking memorial or any—”

“Thank you, Cadet Bakugou. We expect to be back planetside before the New Year. Cadet Bakugou is on the road to a full recovery, and Recovery Girl will be overseeing his treatment. This is Commander Midnight signing off.”

They all go out to celebrate that night, and Kirishima feels his heart soaring. Everything is working out for the best, and soon he’ll have Bakugou back where he can keep an eye on him. Kirishima smiles softly as his friends cheer and have fun with their drunken shenanigans. They take turns impersonating Bakugou, and Kirishima thinks that this was not how he expected his future to turn out when he first laid eyes on the blond doctor. Kirishima shrugs and banishes the thought from his mind because he wouldn’t have it any other way—as soon as Bakugou is back dirtside.

Kirishima is the first one to start running towards the shuttle as it finishes docking and its doors his open. He sees the puffy blond hair and hears the caustic remarks in that same biting tone as he rushes to envelop Bakugou in a bone crushing hug. When he notices the cane and the wary eye Midnight casts towards a wheelchair not too far away Kirishima only speeds up. He crashes into Bakugou with a roar that devolves into laughter as he lifts Bakugou off the ground—he’s so light now.

“Put me the fuck down, shitty hair! This isn’t some fucking dumb romantic reunion. Get your snotty nose off my fucking uniform!” Bakugou screeches as he whacks Kirishima on the back with his cane. Kirishima obliges and sniffs loudly when Bakugou grumbles and straightens his uniform. He looks up at Kirishima from under long lashes, eyes a rusty red with exhaustion and something Kirishima might dare to call affection.

“I’m alright, dumbass,” Bakugou says. He quirks his lips up into a small genuine smile, and Kirishima if floored. Before he can say anything in return—which would have probably just been word mush—their friends rush past Kirishima to crush Bakugou in a group hug. Immediately Bakugou snarls and starts swing the cane like a battle axe.

“You idiot! You big dumb idiot! Don’t you ever scare me like that again!” Uraraka shrieks as she yanks on Bakugou’s ear. He winces.

“Alright, alright, good goddamn, woman!” Bakugou bites out. It’s quite the scene seeing everyone swarm him in the middle of the shuttle hangar. Asui and Iida are also in the group hug, and Midoriya’s tears are practically waterfalls, and Kaminari is making stupid quips as Ashido, Jirou, and Sero start singing “For He’s A Jolly Good Fellow” and the whole thing is just chaos.

Kirishima makes eye contact with Bakugou, and the blond rolls his eyes before scrunching his nose up in distaste. Kirishima knows from the tint of pink on the tips of his ears that he’s embarrassed by all the affection, but he loves every second of it because he never refuses a hug with more than a whack of his cane and a short complaint. It’s only when Bakugou smacks Kaminari into an indignant Jirou that Bakugou starts laughing loud and relieved and absolutely unrestricted, and his voice is hoarse and raw, but it screams of victory and triumph and joy. Kirishima decides right then and there that he loves his blond bombshell of a doctor, and he’ll be damned if the man doesn’t know it.