hi! so this is my first attempt at bnha/heroaca and surprisingly enough despite my very unhealthy love for all things todoroki shouto here i am writing a bakudeku HAHAHA why /self anw i just made this yesterday so it's just a short thing but i hope you all enjoy it anyway :D happy reading!

disclaimer: i don't own the cover image nor the characters, all rights over boku no hero academia go to horikoshi kohei-sensei and the art to its original creator :)

It's a quiet afternoon when Midoriya closes his eyes, when the pale orange sky gives way to the dimmer shades of dusk, a welcome respite from the wild streaks of red he'd seen all morning as he teamed up with Shouto to fight villains during their patrol.

There's the sound of the door as it clicks open. The heavy weight of footfalls and a brief shuffle of garments as a coat is hung on the rack. The tinny clinking of keys as they're set aside.

"Welcome back, Kacchan," Midoriya greets, trusting. He doesn't need to open his eyes to know it's Bakugou. He recognizes the sound of those footsteps more than anything else.

Midoriya knows Bakugou well — or, at least, well enough considering all the years they have had between them. He'd been documenting these things for decades now. The emerald-eyed boy has data mined on pro heroes of all types handwritten in his notebooks since he was nine, but Kacchan's has always been a special case. Midoriya has information about him hoarded in volumes, meticulously observed and painstakingly detailed; he knows him like the back of his hand. For all his smarts back in U.A., it had taken the green-haired hero a whole day to come up with a strategy on how to adjust his fighting style, but ask him one question about Ground Zero in person and he'll list all the different ways Bakugou Katsuki craved victory in a heartbeat.

He can tell you just the way Bakugou likes to think in combat (quick, rash, always leaning a little to the back and starting out with a right-handed swing to deliver the first blow) to the way that he likes his coffee (he doesn't; he prefers tea, warm and soothing like that of chamomile). He can tell you the way the blond's lips curl up into a smile everytime they spar in training (there's a difference between the one he makes when he hides the fact he is afraid, and the grin that spreads across his face when he feels he's on the verge of winning); the way he likes to add karashi to his plate for dinner (three droplets of the yellow mustard per dish – no more, no less). He can tell you the way Bakugou's voice varies in volume throughout the day (loud and obscene and a bit rough around the edges for the most part he's awake, but lilting with a pitch just a little bit higher, a volume just a little bit softer, when they're alone in the night); the way his temperature runs warmer in the mornings (not like a fever, thankfully, but just enough for Midoriya to wake up grateful during the winter season, cradled in the heat of an embrace that reminds him of spring).

Even so, there's still a lot more about the golden boy that the young hero has yet to discover. Most he will figure out in time. Lucky for him, the biggest perk about living with someone is that you find out more things about them than you'd have ever thought.

There's a heavy weight pressed against his chest the next moment Midoriya takes a breath. Green eyes open to find the larger hero on the floor next to him on the couch, head against his torso, bruised arms and calloused fingers gripped tightly on the sheer cloth of his t-shirt.

"Kacchan?" the freckled boy asks, voice gentle. Gingerly, he rests his hand atop the other's head. "Something happened at work today, huh?"

Bakugou doesn't even so much as say anything, already all-too-aware of the sheer pain he's inflicted by just the silent admission. Instead, he leans closer, soothed, sated — the smaller boy's touch a welcome embrace for a body so worn, wrought with the scars of battle, the pains of triumph and the wreckage of war.

"T-Two," Bakugou mutters hoarsely, under his breath. "Two casualties."

The room grows dim around them, a fluorescent lamp the only source of illumination that frames their figures in a glazed halo of light. Midoriya listens wordlessly, lets his hand remain where it lies and curls his fingers in the warmth of blond tresses. Outside, the night falls.

"I defeated the villain," Bakugou tells him then, and grits his teeth in frustration at the memory. "Some asshole with a noxious gas quirk. He took a pregnant woman for hostage, so I had to use my AP Shot to blast that fucker unconscious. It took me three whole minutes. But…she…by then, I—"

It's not your fault, Midoriya means to say, but at this point he knows his words are futile. Instead, he maintains his hold, runs his hand through the other's hair in a repetitive cadence – a small attempt at comfort. At the back of his mind, Midoriya notes the way the fallen hero shakes under his touch, the distant feeling of his shirt as it grows damp; he chooses not to comment on it further.

(It is, after all, when we get a taste of kindness that the heart softens up to the point of vulnerability.)

"What kind of hero am I?" Bakugou wonders aloud, and grips more tightly on the cotton of his shirt. "I'm supposed to beat you, damn it. How can I become the number one hero if I can't even save a person's life?"

In a broken voice, he adds, "Can I even call myself a hero, now?"

Bakugou Katsuki is a boy fueled by his pride, driven to excel with a penchant for victory. Heroes in their world are always expected to win, after all, but Midoriya cannot help but wonder: what comprises a genuine triumph in the first place? How, exactly, must a hero define the constitution of success? Even if one's efforts lead a villain to be held behind bars, there is still the weight of responsibility, a heavy burden in one's heart, to be carried when such an effort results in the loss of a life.

Morality – as always, the green-eyed boy thinks – is a tricky, fickle thing.

Midoriya remembers the first time he'd lost a civilian on a mission. It was a child, a little boy he'd peg to be around five, stabbed through the heart by a villain with a quirk that allowed him to manipulate his limbs to resemble blades. He is not a stranger to these emotions – the feeling of dejection, of doubt and regret. He knows how Bakugou must feel by the turn of events. He knows what it is like to question one's value as a hero.

Still, he reminds himself, they're only human, after all. They all have their limits. They all make mistakes.

"Do you remember," Midoriya begins, "when All Might took on that battle against All For One? In Kamino?"

Bakugou stills beneath his hold. Of course, he thinks. Of course he'd remember. Stupid Deku. He still has nightmares about it at times; the guilt of seemingly robbing his childhood idol of a future of service has never allowed him to forget.

"The one that forced him into retirement?" the blond replies. The because he used up his powers to save me goes unsaid, but it is there, implied nonetheless.

Midoriya nods on instinct, though he realizes that Bakugou cannot quite see it from his position. He pauses, briefly, deep in his thoughts before he lets out a small breath.

"And do you remember," the freckled boy says to him then, hand still in the other's hair in a gentle caress, "what he said to you after that incident? When he went to your house to ask our parents to let us move into the dorms?"

"I asked him about you that time," Bakugou retorts, voice lacking his usual bite. "Stop making this conversation about yourself you shitty ner–"

"He told you that he thought of me as a hero with a bright future ahead, just like you."

Midoriya smiles at him softly and continues on, unfazed.

"Nobody blames you for what happened then, Kacchan, and nobody blames you for what happened now. You did the best you could do but that doesn't mean your best wasn't good enough, you know." He adds, "There were casualties that night, too; it comes with the job. We try and we try, but we can't always avoid it. Even so, this doesn't make you any less of a hero."

"Remember that pain can only make you stronger, love," he confesses, "and that your tears do not make you any weaker."

At this, the blond hero lifts his head, crimson eyes damp as he meets the other's gaze.

"You finally looked me in the eye," Midoriya notes warmly as he flashes him a smile: hopeful and earnest, small yet sincere. With scarred hands he lowers his grip, moves to cradle Bakugou's jaw in his fingertips as he hunches over to bump his forehead against his.

"Ground Zero," Midoriya calls to him at last, and in a whispered murmur, in a quiet voice, he says, "you are worthy of being a hero."

(Midoriya does not know yet, really, how Bakugou best prefers to cope with loss, or what exactly is the best way for him to offer comfort and support, but he is learning.)

please feel free to leave a review (or hype with me about todoroki), i'd love to hear from all of you! 3