Miner Therapy

This is a partial-rewrite of a thread I posted on twitter a while back, now available in fic form!

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Everyone at middle school had spent hours talking about the dumb game, but back then, Bakugou had had no interest. He preferred to spend his time studying for the U.A. entrance exam or working out in the gym, maybe even honing his quirk a little more if he could find somewhere to do so safely. It had never even crossed his mind to pick up a computer and sit for hours at his desk playing some mindless game full of bad graphics and weird cubes.

It wasn't until early in his first year of U.A. that he found himself picking it up – he didn't even know what spawned the idea, really. He just needed something to occupy his mind when he couldn't sleep, to take his thoughts away from the endless cycle of panic and dark thoughts. He'd never expected it to get so addictive – not the game, no, just the weird soothing effect it had on him. Something about the nature of mining out blocks, converting them into other items, using those new things to build bigger and bigger buildings, had become oddly therapeutic.

It had taken him by genuine surprise when he heard the words come from Kirishima's lips, after a long day of constant mistakes, his eyes downcast and his smile barely existant.

“I think I'm just gonna hole up in my room for the night, play some Minecraft or something.”

The words had halted him in his tracks for a moment, red eyes widening – did someone else use the game the way he did? One of his FRIENDS even?

No, more likely it was just a random phase like so many people went through with the game, coming back non-stop for a week then not touching it again for a year.

“Want me to play with you?” he asked finally, watching Kirishima blink at him in surprise. “I'll, um, keep you company.”

“Yeah! Sure!”

And so he carted his laptop to the next dorm room over, setting up a server at Kirishima's desk in record time. Kirishima sat back on his bed, propped on a few pillows, watching curiously as Bakugou hooked it all up without a word.

“Do you play often?” he asked finally, when they logged into the server and he spotted Bakugou's custom skin – designed to look just like him in his hero costume, of course. “Or, like, did you play in middle school or something?”

“I still play,” he confirmed, shrugging a little. “It's relaxing.”

“Yeah, I think so too.”

Hours later, when he began to yawn, Kirishima shot him a tiny smile, beginning the log-off process knowingly.

“Thanks for playing, Bakugou. I had fun.”

“Yeah,” he nodded. “Another time, okay?”

“Awesome! Get some sleep man, I'll see you in the morning.”

Little did Bakugou know, it would become the first in a long series of Minecraft encounters. Any time Kirishima had a bad day, he would show up at his door with a laptop in hand, ready to take his friend on a quest to kill a dragon, or maybe just make a bunch of cakes. When his other friends got word of it, they, too, began to hint at him – turns out all his friends were god damn nerds. No surprises there.

It was kind of entertaining how quickly Bakugou managed to overrun every world they started with shrines to himself, with giant 3D sculptures of a little smirk and a black and orange costume, and even, when he was in a particularly weird mood, with creepy animal sacrifices devoted to their lord and saviour King Explosion Murder.

And on incredibly rare occasions, he even let them into his own world, to roam intricate hero-themed cities, learning quickly where the well-practiced statues came from, when they found different Bakugou-poses lording over them in every town square.

When Kaminari did terribly on a math test, Bakugou pulled up his server and showed him around, letting him explore all the carefully designed houses. He almost cried when he found the yellow-carpeted house with a jukebox and a black-covered bed inside, demanding that Bakugou immediately make it night so he could sleep in his bed.

When Ashido was rejected by some extra he'd never even heard of, he showed her the spiral tower in shades of pink, even let her tame a dozen cats that would no doubt be squawking in his headphones for the rest of the life of his server.

Kirishima made the mistake of telling him how sweet it was that he had houses built for all his classmates, grinning sheepishly when Bakugou burned bright red and yelled at him nonsensically.

“The assholes were just stuck in my mind!” he insisted finally. “Because they were being assholes!”

“Okay,” Kirishima laughed. “Sorry, my mistake.”

He wasn't fooling anyone, of course, but Kirishima was willing to pretend, to let him save face.

He quickly noticed, however, that a certain colour seemed to be missing from 1-A town. There were no forest towers with black framed windows and red floors, not even a little cottage in the back with green carpet. He mentioned it in passing one day when they were all gathered on Ashido's floor with their laptops, but Bakugou's face didn't change, even when the entire squad murmured their agreement and confusion.

If they wanted to be oblivious idiots, that was their right as humans.

It was sheer chance that Midoriya learned about the world, when he walked into the common area one day and found Kaminari and Kirishima in the living room. The words “King Explosion Server” jumped out at him from the screen, further down the list than the one they were trying to set up, and he couldn't help but stop and look closer.

Kaminari forgot his vow of silence in an instant, already gushing about Bakugou's building and design skills, the way he always had some epic quest planned for them if they were feeling down, how easily he opened the doors and let them come and be distracted. He almost wished he had more bad days, just so Bakugou would game with him more often.

To Midoriya's surprise, half the class were nodding along, praising Bakugou's weird affinity for cheering them up with some carefully planned-out task in his magical world. As it turned out, a LOT of people had been de-stressing with him – they'd simply been sworn to secrecy, so none of them would realise how vast the range was.

Midoriya found himself feeling oddly left out as they sang Bakugou's praises, and Kaminari saw it immediately, waving him over as he clicked on the silly server name. It was up and running, like it almost always was – he changed the password frequently, to keep all the losers and griefers out, but Kaminari had been there only the night prior.

Midoriya marvelled when the world unfolded before him. He'd seen the blank slates his friends started with, he'd seen the tiny builds people had shown off at middle school, but Bakugou's server was on a whole new level.

Kaminari realised his mistake as they were looking through the row of classmate houses, halting in his tracks at the end of the line.

There was no Deku house. He'd forgotten that awkward fact.

Thankfully, he was saved by an angry blond storming in, ready to smash his damn laptop if he had to.

“Get the fuck off my server, dunce-face!” he demanded. “I swear to fuckin' christ I'm never sharing anything with any of you ever again you fucking assholes, stay out of my shit!”

He stormed out again and immediately Kaminari was banned from the server, the password quickly changed to prevent any of them getting back in. His classmates were already whining, lamenting the stupid decision made in a moment of excitement, and with a wobbly smile Izuku stood up.

“I'll go explain, it was my fault, you were just trying to show me! He'll calm down, I'm sure he'll let you play again!”

He shook his head when they tried to argue, smiling still as he stepped out to the hallway and began his ascent through the floors.

“I don't know anything about the game,” he admitted, when a fuming Bakugou opened his door. “But you made them all so happy! Please don't take that away from them for a silly mistake! They just wanted to show me!”

“You don't know what fuckin' Minecraft is?” Bakugou demanded, fixated more on that than the apology. “You're the biggest fuckin' nerd here.”

“I just, um, you know, I didn't really have anyone to play with,” he said sheepishly. “You know that.”

“God damn idiot,” Bakugou growled, dragging him inside. “Sit the fuck down.”

And that was how Midoriya ended up with a fresh new Minecraft account on Bakugou's old laptop, wandering through a fascinating landscape of castles, statues, shrines, towers, enchanted forests and flaming hellholes. He didn't understand any of it in the slightest, but he did feel like he was starting to understand why everyone was so impressed.

"You built all of this?"

"It helps me get to sleep" Bakugou explained, surprisingly calm now that some time had passed. "I guess it was cool to see people get excited about it all."

"Did you only build houses for the people who played with you?"

"No, I built them for everyone in class."

"Everyone...?"

As he followed the blond in-game, Midoriya felt a sneaking suspicion that Bakugou had made his character skin himself, too. It was too perfect, too reminiscent of following him around in real life.

"The rest of us are self-absorbed assholes," Bakugou explained quietly. "You wouldn't have a Deku-house in real life."

When Bakugou stopped moving, before him stood a stained-glass castle, ten times the size of any of his classmates' houses, shining under the custom shaders Bakugou insisted he had to install on the old machine before he'd shoved it in Midoriya's lap. A marble path led the way to the entry, and each spiralling turret was a different shade: red, white, blue and yellow.

Bakugou smirked in real life when they walked inside, the front room filled to bursting with the biggest Bakugou statue of them all, sneering down at his tiny character. He couldn't help but laugh, smiling to himself still when Bakugou took him on a tour, showing him every little room decorated with All Might colours.

“See? It's perfect for you, you damn nerd.”

He didn't seem to see the irony in the statement, but Midoriya resisted the urge to point it out.

The tour ended back at the statue, when they both seemed to simultaneously realise how long they'd been playing. Their classmates were all sound asleep, the argument forgotten for the night, ready to be addressed in the morning instead.

The Bakugou statue was adorned with a wooden sign, weirdly out-of-place in the fancy room, and Midoriya walked his person closer to read the tiny black font.

"Now you HAVE to watch me, stupid nerd."

Like he'd ever stopped.

"Thanks for showing me all of this, Kacchan. I had a lot of fun."

"Whatever, nerd."

They stood in Bakugou's doorway, but neither of them really wanted to part ways, no matter how late it was. They had school in the morning, though, and neither of them was stupid.

"Want to play tomorrow night?" Bakugou asked quietly.

"Yes!" Midoriya agreed immediately, beaming. "Teach me!"

"We'll start a new world, you can learn from scratch."

"Wonder Server!" Midoriya laughed. “It sounds great!”

"Whatever, nerd. See you tomorrow."

"Sweet dreams, Kacchan!"

"Yeah. You too."

And so it quickly became part of their nightly routine, meeting up after dinner to mine and build and adventure. The world grew exponentially, and King Explosion Server was eventually bequeathed to his classmates to maintain and build and play. His new world was much more special, with someone important to build it with him.

This time, All Might Castle had a double bed.