Collateral Damage [Threadvember]

This one is for Hotshott! I hope you like it!!

─────

"Do you wanna go to the movies?"

Midoriya froze, staring at Bakugou with eyes wide and unblinking, waiting for the ball to drop and Bakugou to sneer at him or take it back.

"Yeah," he said finally, when it never came. "I do."

"Okay," Bakugou nodded, shoving his hands in his pockets. "Are you busy? We could go now and get dinner first."

"I'm not busy!" Midoriya assured him quickly, bolting up out of his chair. "Just let me go change!"

"Okay. I'll be here."

Midoriya wasn't sure what was going on, frankly, but he knew better than to jeopardise it by asking questions. He simply darted up to his room, changing out of his baggy old sweats into a decent pair of jeans and a button-up shirt. Looking in the mirror he immediately had second thoughts, contemplating for a moment before he unfastened the buttons, letting it hang open over his dark tank top.

There, perfect. A balance of classy and casual.

He sprayed himself with deodorant and grabbed his wallet, then he was out the door again, a smile working its way across his lips when he found Bakugou still waiting, just as he'd promised.

"Ready!" he said brightly, when scarlet eyes glanced his way. "Where do you want to go?"

"I don't mind," he shrugged. "You have any preference?"

He pulled his jacket on in the entryway, holding the door open for Midoriya to pass through first, and with a giddy smile on his face Midoriya turned to putty in his hands.

"Maybe the ramen place by the cinema? Unless you don't feel like ramen? We could get burgers instead? But they're not very healthy, and I know you don't-"

"Ramen sounds good," Bakugou cut him off knowingly, before he could dissolve any further into his mumbling habit. "They do one that's actually spicy, none of that half-assed bullshit."

"Yeah!"

On some level, Midoriya was still waiting for the punchline. A small part of him was waiting on edge, ready to be torn down with a derisive laugh or mocking words, but he did his best to stifle that nervous part of his brain and focus on the good: He was out for dinner with Kacchan, they were going to hang out. He'd been waiting a long time for that.

And as time wore on, that part of him began to fade. Not just muffle, stuffed in a back corner where he couldn't hear its snide remarks, but really, genuinely fade. They chatted over big bowls of hot noodles, they leaned in and made fun of dumb moments in the latest superhero movie together, and at the end of the night, they walked home in the warm glow of sunset, laughter bubbling in Midoriya's stomach at how good it felt to just be back together again.

But, of course, it couldn't last.

For three whole days, it seemed like they were back on track. They did homework together, went running together, even ate meals together a few times, but then Kirishima opened his big mouth in the school lunchroom.

"I guess the bet went well, then!"

Midoriya stared at him quizzically, waiting for clarification, and Kaminari laughed brightly.

"It's been like three days, it must have gone great!"

"Bet?" Midoriya asked, a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. "What bet?"

"He didn't tell you?" Kirishima chuckled. "Typical. Bakugou lost a bet, so he had to hang out with you without yelling and insulting you. It seemed to work, I haven't heard him calling you names much recently?"

"Oh," Midoriya nodded. "R-Right, yeah, of course. Um, s-sorry, excuse me, I just remembered I need to return a library book before the bell rings."

His chair scraped loudly against the floor as he pushed it back, but he was out the lunchroom door before anyone could look up to investigate, not even stopping to apologise when he ran into someone in the hall.

The moment he closed himself in a bathroom stall, he let the tears go. They streamed down his face in two rivers of stupid, and it took everything in him to resist the urge to bang his head against the wall repeatedly.

He never should have let that part of him fade.

─────

For an entire week, Midoriya managed to avoid him. He turned the other way in the halls, holed up in the gym or the library for long hours, spent the weekend back at home with his mother – as long as he stayed busy and far away, he could stop himself from thinking about it.

The weekend at home was hard too, in some ways. Not the least of which was seeing the old photos pinned to his bedroom walls, both from back when they were kids and from the past year or so as they had slowly grown back toward something that people other than Midoriya might call friendship.

But even the best of heroes slipped on occasion, made a mistake that found them cornered at the back of the school grounds during their nightly run, far away from anyone who might rescue them from the conversation. He should have known Bakugou would figure it out eventually, he wasn't stupid. In fact, of the two of them, he was very clearly the least stupid.

"Why the fuck are you avoiding me?" he demanded, shoving Midoriya up against the tall fence that surrounded the school grounds. "You never avoid me. If I did something wrong you're meant to fucking yell at me, not just run away every time I see your damn face."

"Are you kidding me?" Midoriya demanded, surprising even himself with how sharp the words were. "Leave me alone. Go make more stupid bets with your jerk friends."

Bakugou's jaw dropped, and his face immediately contorted into anger, looking away as he spat curse words under his breath.

"Gonna fucking kill those bastards," he muttered. "It's not like that, alright asshole? You're reading into this shit too much."

"Did you even consider it?" Midoriya demanded. "For a single moment, did you stop and consider my feelings? Was I just supposed to be collateral damage or something?! Answer me, Katsuki!"

The word stunned Bakugou enough to let Midoriya pull away, twisting out of his grip.

"I was such an idiot," he hissed, as he took a step back, scrubbing angry tears from his eyes. "Like you would ever feel the same way."

"What?" Bakugou asked, staring at him blankly.

"Just leave me alone, I'm out."

"No really, what? You like me?"

"You're supposed to be smart!" Midoriya insisted. "Why are you so stupid?!"

In the wake of Bakugou's confusion, he took the opportunity to leave, storming back to the dorms and locking himself in his bedroom. He couldn't stop the tears from falling, but he knew the grimace on his face was enough to keep people away, to stop them trying to rush to comfort him. At the very least, they would give him time to cool off.

Except, of course, he spoke too damn soon, as usual. His angry sniffles were interrupted by a knock at the door, and even though he didn't move or speak, didn't give his presence away, they persisted.

"Midoriyaaaaa," Kirishima called pathetically. "Please open the dooooor."

"Just for a minute, dude!" Kaminari pleaded. "Pleeeeeaaaase?"

A small part of him wanted to hide, wanted to curl up under his blankets and pretend he wasn't there, in the hopes that they might eventually give up. What won out, though, was a part of him he didn't encounter often, something simmering inside him and balling his hands into fists.

"What the fuck were you thinking?" he demanded, as he flung the door open. "I thought you were decent humans. Why did you have to prove me wrong?!"

On the carpet in his doorway, he found not two, but four figures. They knelt with their heads down, hands together as if they were about to pray, silent as they waited for Midoriya to finish admonishing them.

"We were stupid!" Kirishima answered, when Midoriya's mouth closed into a scowl. "I'm so sorry! We're so sorry! It wasn't meant to go like this, we were so dumb!"

"We're so sorry!" the others parroted, glancing up with pleading eyes. 

"Please just let us explain!" Sero added quickly.

"You have ten seconds," he grumbled, folding his arms stubbornly. "Make it quick."

"He never stops talking about you!" Ashido spoke up in a hurry, silencing the boys around her. "He's obsessed and it's super cute because he has no idea why he thinks about you so much! It was a stupid plan to make him realise how he felt and act on it! But you're right, we didn't think about your feelings and we're so, so sorry for that!"

He wanted the words to fill him with hope, even just a tiny spark, but he was just too far gone, too far overrun by anger and embarrassment.

"I want to be alone," he said flatly. "Please respect that."

He caught a glimpse of the faces falling as he closed the door on them, guilt washing through him, but he refused to cave. He refused to open the door and let his defenses fall away again so easily. It had taken a long time to build up his walls, to figure out exactly what he did and did not want to escape from that fortress. It was a place to lock up his impulsive decisions and irrational actions, to force him to rely on logic and careful consideration for the sake of keeping himself intact and everyone else alive. And now, it was a place to hide away that little bubble of love he'd felt for so long, a place where it could remain locked up, away from his logic and rationality.

It was a relief to hear the footsteps retreating, leaving him to his rage fueled by such a stupid humiliation. He never should have dared to let himself hope.

Phone calls went unanswered, texts unreturned, his phone switched off and discarded rather than keep hearing it buzz and ignoring it all the same. He just wanted to wallow in his self-pity for one night, then he could slap that smile back on his face and act like everything was just fine.

A rustling at his door made him look up, grimacing as he braced himself to either yell or hide, but the piece of folded paper that slid under his door made him pause.

It was probably just another dumb apology from Kirishima and his friends, expressing their regret after being yelled at by Bakugou. All the same, he walked over to pick it up, sighing faintly. He glanced at his name on the front, then flipped it open, grip tightening when he saw the far too familiar handwriting.

"Come yell at me, I can't stand this silence."

It took him a solid minute of staring to realise that he hadn't heard the footsteps retreat again, so tentatively he opened the door, tensing up when he found Bakugou leaning on the wall in wait.

"Can we talk?" he asked, surprisingly quiet considering Bakugou only seemed to have two volume settings: loud and louder.

"I guess," Midoriya conceded, stepping aside to let him in.

"Um. Thanks."

Midoriya gave him a scathing look, and against all odds, Bakugou didn't take the words back.

"I should have told you," he acknowledged, eyes darting away for a moment then right back to Midoriya's. "It was an asshole move, I know."

"Yeah, it was."

"It's no excuse, but I didn't expect to... Enjoy it."

"Woooow," Midoriya rolled his eyes. "Thanks, Kacchan, I'm so glad to hear it."

"Let me finish, dickwad. I didn't expect to enjoy it, but I did, you ass. The first time was a stupid bet, but the other days were me."

"How do you expect me to believe that?"

"I don't. But I still have to tell you. Hurting your feelings was a mistake, not some kind of shitty collateral damage. We're heroes, and we're gonna be the best heroes. We don't do collateral damage."

"Heroes constantly do-"

"Not us," Bakugou cut him off. "We win and save, not one or the other. The day your ass or mine accepts collateral damage is the day we lose to each other. You got that, nerdass?"

"Yeah," he said faintly, his anger all but gone as he ducked his head. "You're not wrong."

"So let me do it right this time," Bakugou continued, through gritted teeth. "No shitty bets, no asshole friends, just me and you on a date. Got it?"

"Wow, how romantic."

"I'm trying here, shitty- Ugh! Izuku! Fucking Izuku, I'm trying, okay? You know I'm shit at this."

Midoriya's heart pounded a little harder at the sound of his name coming from those familiar lips, a sound from back when they were still so young and innocent, before he became Useless Deku.

"Fine," Midoriya sniffed, wiping his eye hard. "But it better be the best damn date in the world."

"Damn right it will be," Bakugou smirked. "If it's you and me, how is it not gonna be fuckin' perfect?"

"You're such a sap."

Bakugou reached out, a warm, smooth hand cupping Midoriya's cheek, wiping away a stray tear as he tilted the head to look up at him.

"No more shitty stuff, just you and me."

"You promise?"

"I promise."

Midoriya stepped forward, shoving his face unceremoniously into Katsuki's chest, and a laugh came from above him, as the hand moved awkwardly to pat Midoriya's back.

"You wanna go punch some shitty extras with me?"

"That sounds like a perfect first date."