- Created By hpnutter
like a boss
Bakugou is, surprisingly, a whiny bitch when he's sick.
Not that Kaminari is going to say that to his face, of course. He doesn't have Kirishima's hardening, after all, and he's only stupid after he fries his brain. As if sensing his thoughts, Bakugou narrows his dazed, scarlet eyes at the blond with a frightening intensity. Kaminari gulps a little nervously, cursing Kirishima for dragging him to Bakugou's room.
"Dude," Kirishima is saying softly, "you haven't really eaten in the past two days, and you're probably severely dehydrated."
"Fuck off, shitty hair," Bakugou rasps before erupting into harsh, hacking coughs that make Kaminari wince in sympathy.
"Just come to the common room," Kirishima replies. "I can make you soup or we can just watch TV."
"No!" Bakugou growls, wrapping himself in enough blankets to look more like a burrito than an emotionally challenged teenage boy. "I don't want to deal with all of you extras right now. Just leave me here to die in peace."
Kaminari rolls his eyes and wishes more than anything that Recovery Girl could just heal the whining drama queen. But, nooooo, he doesn't have enough stamina, and it's just the flu, he'll be fine recovering on his own. Easy for her to say - she doesn't have to deal with him!
As a matter of fact, neither does he.
Escape plans just cross his mind before Kirishima firmly grabs his arm and doesn't appear to be willing to let go. Traitor.
Kirishima opens his mouth, no doubt to try to unsuccessfully convince Bakugou to rejoin the human populace, but is cut off by a knock on the door.
"I'll get it!" Kaminari offers immediately. God has given him an opportunity, and he is going to fucking take it.
He's a little surprised to see Midoriya. The green-haired hero-in-training is holding folded bedsheets in his hand, and deposits them into Kaminari's hand without so much as a by-your-leave. He strides over to the Bakugou Burrito and promptly pulls off the covers.
Bakugou refuses to let them go without a fight, but he is weaker than normal. One particularly vicious tug later and Bakugou falls out of bed with a yelp.
"Deku," the blond hisses, his hands producing small sparks. "What the fuck do you think you're doing, shitty nerd?"
"Go take a shower, Kacchan," Midoriya demands, unfazed and looking like he has not one single fuck to give. Never before has Kaminari admired him so much. "You stink and you've been sweating in the same clothes for days."
"You're not my old hag!" Bakugou snarls. He's going for a 'I'm going to turn you into fireworks' look, but with his dazed eyes, flushed cheeks, and the way his entire body trembles ever so slightly, he does not pull it off.
Midoriya starts glowing, green and pink energy swirling around his body as he lifts Bakugou up by the collar of his shirt. "The way I see it, you have two options, Kacchan." He lifts one finger. "One, you can have Kirishima over here walk you to the bathroom and you can wash yourself, or," and another finger goes up, "two, I can do it. What'll it be?"
Kirishima lets out a quiet sob and whimpers, "So manly!"
Bakugou growls and bares his teeth, but Midoriya will not be moved. He cocks an eye and waits as if he's not staring death in the face. It's right then and there that Kaminari knows Midoriya will make it to number one hero someday.
Bakugou slaps Midoriya's hand away from him. "I don't need any help," he snaps, and proceeds to walk unsteadily towards the door. Kirishima trails behind him like a mother hen, giving Midoriya a bright grin and a thumbs up for accomplishing the impossible.
"You can both join us in the dining room when you're done!" Midoriya says. Bakugou flips him off and stumbles away.
Once they're gone, Midoriya lets out a quiet sigh and gives Kaminari a bashful smile. He grabs the sheets back from the stunned blond's hands and proceeds to strip Bakugou's bed.
"That was the most amazing thing I ever saw," Kaminari says quietly.
Midoriya's face erupts in a furious blush. "Oh, K-Kacchan has always been like that," he squeaks out. "If Auntie wasn't firm with him, Kacchan would just lay around and waste away." Once the clean sheets are on Bakugou's bed, he gathers the dirty ones in his arms and deposits them in the laundry basket by the door.
"Ya know, looking at the guy, you'd never think Bakugou would be so…so…" Kaminari pauses, struggling to find the right word without somehow offending Midoriya. Plus, he's maybe just a tiny bit worried that Bakugou will somehow hear whatever he says and will descend upon him like a bat out of hell.
"Melodramatic?" Midoriya says with a grin. He walks over to Bakugou's drawer and starts pulling out clothes. "Yeah, he can be a bit of a baby when he's sick."
Coming from Midoriya of all people, that is saying something.
"At least you know how to deal with him," Kaminari says diplomatically.
They walk out of Bakugou's room together and ride the elevator to the first floor, chatting amiably. Midoriya stops by the baths and gives Kirishima the clothes he picked out for Bakugou before heading towards the kitchen. Most of their classmates are in the dining room area, two tables pushed together and various textbooks open as they each contribute to the study session. Kaminari wastes no time in joining them.
Midoriya is in the kitchen, hovering over the stove when Bakugou comes strolling in. His hair is still wet, small droplets of water dripping down onto the tank top he's wearing. He plops into one of the unused tables and glowers at everyone and everything, crossing his arms over his chest, his body still shivering with barely visible tremors. Kirishima sits across from him, his shirt wet as if Bakugou threw water at him. Knowing Bakugou, he most likely did.
Kaminari cocks an eyebrow at Kirishima, who shrugs tiredly. Midoriya walks over to Bakugou. He has something in his hand, and it immediately puts Bakugou on edge.
"Deku," he says warningly, glaring at the approaching teen.
In a fascinating display of his lack of self preservation skills, Midoriya unceremoniously sticks an adhesive cool compress on Bakugou's forehead. Bakugou lets out an impressive string of curse words that has heads turning, and Midoriya uses the opportunity to stick another one on the back of Bakugou's neck.
"Quit whining, Kacchan," Midoriya says so firmly that Kaminari knows his jaw isn't the only one that promptly fell open. "You know these help." And then he walks back to the kitchen like nothing happened.
"Stupid shitty Deku," Bakugou snarls. He slams his hands against the table as he stands. "Get back here, you son of a—!"
But Bakugou never finishes what he was going to say because Midoriya does indeed come back. He's carrying a bowl of hot and sour soup, and emphasis on hot. As soon as the smell hits Kaminari's nose, he rears back. It smells like Midoriya put nothing but peppers in the soup, and he finds himself breaking into a cold sweat.
"Eat up," Midoriya says as he puts the bowl in front of Bakugou.
For a moment, Bakugou looks undecided. He glances at the soup, and then turns to glare at Midoriya, but his glare is weak and lacks conviction. He does this for a couple of times, ping-ponging between the food and his childhood friend before he finally sits and, for the first time in two days, starts eating, grumbling under his breath the entire time.
Kirishima looks at Midoriya with pure admiration, which is not undeserved. The redhead had tried everything to get Bakugou to eat or drink something, and had only gotten shut down for his efforts. Now, Kaminari knows, it's because Kirishima wasn't assertive enough.
And the thought of Midoriya being assertive, with Bakugou, is laughable. Hell, when everyone had returned to the dorms Friday after classes and saw Bakugou fever flushed and snarling at the world from his place on one of the couches, Midoriya had promptly turned around and noped the fuck away. Kaminari had thought Midoriya just didn't want to deal with a sick Bakugou (not that he blamed him) but now sees that he was, perhaps, gathering supplies to deal with the explosive teen.
Midoriya nods in satisfaction. He gets Bakugou a cup of green tea, ignores the quietly murmured death threats, and goes about cleaning up the mess he made in the kitchen, unaware of the astonished eyes following him.
"Is that really Deku?" Uraraka whispers to Iida. He mutters back a confused grunt, and they stare as Midoriya calmly walks to the TV and turns it on. Soon, the only sounds are Bakugou eating, and Mighty Adventures, an All Might cartoon.
Eventually their classmates return to their studying. After all, Aizawa-sensei will be unforgiving if any of them fail their next test, and Midoriya's surprising BAMFness is not a good enough excuse.
Bakugou leaves his bowl and cup on the table when he's finished, and after a moment's hesitation, he joins Midoriya on the couch. He sits as far away from the green-haired teen as possible, and focuses only on the cartoon playing. It's an old one, incredibly cheesy with corny one-liners and shining lessons in morality, but it was something they both watched religiously, a lifetime ago before circumstances (quirklessness) tore them apart.
Bakugou presses his lips in a firm line. This episode, in particular, was always his favorite. It has, by far, the most action in the entire season, with plenty of explosions and crime-fighting sequences that a young wannabe hero like him admired. Of course the shitty nerd would remember that.
"You can change it," Bakugou says quietly, not wanting to be heard by their classmates.
Midoriya turns to him, head cocked in confusion. "But this episode is—"
"I'm just saying," Bakugou interrupts harshly, "if you wanted to put on that wimpy episode with All Might's sidekick, you can do that."
It's a concession that child Bakugou never would have made. He's always been a 'my way or the highway' type of person, which resulted in Midoriya giving into a lot of his demands. But now it's not just a concession, but also a thank you that Bakugou would rather chew nails than outright say.
Midoriya, however, is quite fluent in Bakugou-speak, and he understands immediately. He smiles at his childhood friend, a careful thing in light of their slowly rebuilding and still fragile relationship.
"Thanks, Kacchan," he says quietly.
Bakugou says nothing, and together they watch the cartoon of their childhood, even long after everyone else goes to bed.
End
