Listen up, a**hole - Chapter 6

“Why do you care so much?!” Bakugou demanded, rounding on Midoriya as the nerd followed him into the kitchen. “What does it matter?!”

“Because Aizawa-sensei asked you, Kacchan! He knows you! He wouldn't ask you unless there was a really good reason.”

“Which part of I don't do press conferences do you not understand?!”

Midoriya pouted at him as he began slamming drawers and cupboards, watching silently and sullenly as Bakugou started cooking. Bakugou could see the pout out the corner of his eye, but he refused to acknowledge it, settling for throwing a few more cupboards shut in a hurry and angrily chopping meat.

“Kacchan, I seriously think you should-”

“Hold on a second,” he interjected, holding a hand up to halt him. “Need to adjust shit.”

“H-Huh?”

He pulled out one of his hearing aids, making a sufficiently big show of flicking the little switch to “off” before he slotted it back in.

“What are you-? Kacchan, are you-? Did you just turn me off?”

“Yeah, hun, I'm listening, what were you saying?”

He went back to his task, ignoring the spluttered protests. They both knew he could still hear the arguments, but Midoriya was too damn stunned to say much more than a few half-finished words.

“That's not how it works!” he argued finally, grabbing Bakugou's arm and shaking him pointedly. “I'm not an idiot, Kacchan! I know you only lose background noise not speech.”

Bakugou gave him a pointed look, and Midoriya burned red, shoving him a little more roughly.

“Don't you dare call your boyfriend's voice background noise!”

“I didn't,” Bakugou snorted. “You did that to yourself, idiot.”

Their argument was broken by a knock on the door, and a last set of scowls were exchanged between them as Midoriya stalked off to answer it. Bakugou flipped his hearing aids back on, returning to his task – despite their fight, he was still cooking dinner for both of them. He was such a damn sap.

The momentary peace was broken by a loud crack right behind him, and he nearly jumped out of his skin as he whirled around, hands up and ready to throw down with a shitty villain.

Instead he found a familiar face waiting for him, wide eyes staring in silence as electricity died down on his fingertips.

“Sorry,” he said finally, before Bakugou could snap at him. “You- You don't normally jump! You're normally the only one I can't scare!”

“The fuck was that, asshole?!”

“What do you mean?! Have you seriously just been tuning me out for all these years?! Not cool!”

“Kaminari likes to scare people with his quirk,” Midoriya explained quietly, running a hand through his hair. “You're normally too caught up in your own thing to notice it, it's been his big prank since high school.”

“What the fuck, are you a damn child?! You can hurt people with that shit!”

“Y-Yeah, sorry,” Kaminari swallowed hard. “I didn't mean- I wasn't- Shit, just forget it, I'm sorry dude.”

“Ugh.”

He whirled around again to continue his cooking, a long silence falling over the kitchen before Midoriya finally broke it with his little chirp of a voice.

“We were arguing, Kaminari,” he explained. “I'm sorry, we're both in a bad mood now. It's not your fault, just bad timing.”

“What the hell?! Since when do you two argue?!” he demanded, face filling with concern. “Like, a serious argument? That never happens! Kiss and make up!”

He grabbed Midoriya by the arm, dragging him across the room and jamming him into Bakugou's arms despite their protests. He even went so far as to hold them there, their arms awkwardly thrust around each other, and gave them the sternest look he could muster.

“I'm not leaving until you hug,” he insisted. “I'm not letting the best couple I know fight over something stupid when I'm right here to make you cut it out!”

“Best?” Midoriya squeaked. “Since when?”

“Since always, dude! You're like, soulmates or something! You've never been apart, your whole lives! It's the cutest shit ever!”

Midoriya found himself peering up at Bakugou's stubborn pout, watching the scarlet eyes dart away in a hurry.

He knew that look, it was the only precursor to his cute little blush.

“I'm sorry I nagged, Kacchan,” he said finally, tightening his grip around Bakugou's slim waist and letting Kaminari step away. “I can't make you do anything you don't want to do.”

“Sorry I insulted you,” Bakugou grumbled. “I know you're trying to help.”

“There!” Kaminari beamed. “Isn't that much better?”

Midoriya planted a little kiss on Bakugou's jaw, then stepped away to let him cook, watching him pull a pot off the heat and pour the contents into two bowls.

“Why are you here, anyway?” Bakugou asked, shooting a weak glare at Kaminari. “Who let you in my apartment?”

“Oh! Yeah!” he grinned. “I came to talk to you about the press conference!”

Midoriya covered his ears when Bakugou yelled something incomprehensible, grinning sheepishly at Kaminari's stupified look and watching his boyfriend kick the kitchen counter in his rage.

“ENOUGH ABOUT THIS STUPID PRESS CONFERENCE.”

─────

Bakugou looked up with a strange softness when he heard the complaints start, surprised as he looked over the crowd first, watching their mutters, then over to his companions on stage, giving him stern looks.

“I missed whatever just happened,” he said needlessly. “Someone want to catch me up?”

“We prefer if the contributors refrain from using their phones during the conference.”

“Good for you,” Bakugou scowled. “What are you, my mother?”

News reporters were scribbling notes all over the room, and with a little groan he imagined the headlines, the pictures of him absorbed by his screen.

“It isn't like that,” he said, a little softer. “I just needed to adjust something real quick, it's no big deal.”

“And it couldn't wait until after the meeting?” Aizawa rebuked him quietly.

“For fu- crying out loud,” he growled. “I had to adjust my damn hearing aids, okay? I couldn't hear a word from the people asking questions and figured that was a pretty sh- stupid way to continue a press conference.”

The whole room stared at him with wide eyes, and he reached for one ear, tugging at a little plastic stick and holding the tiny metal device up for everyone to see.

“You happy now? My hearing is sh- awful and I need them to help me out. If you prefer, I can just switch the things off and not participate. What's with all these stupid assumptions when someone pulls out a phone, huh? There are a lot of important things I could be doing that are none of your business!”

“How long have you been keeping this secret?” one of the reporters spoke up quickly. “Are you ashamed that it has come out?”

“Excuse me?! There's nothing to be fffff-freaking ashamed of! How many of you have gone on patrol with support gear or tech to help you out?! How many of you wear glasses to read?! I kept it a secret so that the freaking villains wouldn't try to use it against me!”

“And what will you do now that they know?”

“Hear them coming and beat their a- uh, beat them.”

He stuck the device back in his ear and rummaged through his bag, digging out a little pen-shaped contraption Midoriya had forced on him “just in case.”

“So while we're at it, I'm putting this piece of sh- thing down here so I can hear you better,” he added, crossing the stage to set it down beside the microphones. “Just ignore it and talk like normal.”

Immediately the press conference topic was forgotten, replaced with questions about Bakugou's tech, about working with a disability – although Bakugou hated that damn word – and about discrimination in the hero world, about the tech other heroes used to make their own lives easier.

“Ground Zero, Sir, one more question.”

“Go for it.”

“Did you have any difficulties getting through hero education with your dis- uhh, impair-? Uhh... support gear?”

“I didn't have them back then, my hearing loss was a result of my Quirk usage” he clarified, surprising even himself with how open he sounded. “Too many loud explosions with no ear protection left me with ear damage, but these things muffle the sound of my quirk a little so they should help prevent me from getting much worse. And before you ask, if it gets worse, there are still much stronger hearing aids they can give me.”

“Then, Sir, in what moment did you realise there was a problem?”

“I'd kind of known since I was a teenager. I had trouble following a conversation in the lunchroom or I had to ask people to repeat stuff a lot, and my teachers could all tell you firsthand that I talked way louder than necessary.” He gestured toward Aizawa, who was watching and listening with rapt attention, but nodded faintly in response. “I was in denial until one of our routine health exams at work picked up on it and noted it had gotten worse since my last appointment, and my... my partner, who is very supportive and super damn stubborn, talked me into trying them out. Eventually I realised that yeah, maybe they were helpful after all.”

“Do you no longer work as a solo hero?”

“My romantic partner,” he clarified, his face burning. “Not my work partner.”

He knew his phone would be ringing off the hook the moment they left the room, gossip magazines pleading for information, but he couldn't bring himself to regret the words.

“So yeah,” he smiled sheepishly, “sorry, ladies, no can do.”

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