Archive of Our Own

It started with Ashido sneezing.

The class had just come back to school from the first long-holiday UA had allowed them throughout the last year and a half - two full weeks back with their own families in their own homes, spanning both Christmas and New Year, no pro-hero guardian following them around or demanding they remain within a safe area by them delimited. Kirishima had been as ecstatic as every and each of his classmates when they had been delivered the good news, happy to finally have the chance to spend more than just one day with his family and to once more sleep peaceful rest under the covers of his childhood bed - he missed it, after all, and talking on the phone could only cut it for so long before homesickness started to take a hold of him again.

It had only taken him a day and a half to realize that, against all predictions, going back home had just meant exchanging missing his relatives for missing his friends, though. He hadn’t noticed just how attached to them he’d grown, while having them all always so promptly within arm’s reach - it had been distressing for a while, but at least it had made going back to the dorms less of a sad ordeal than he had originally imagined. He’d been refreshed by his time spent with his family, and was excited and ready to waste his whole first day back on school grounds just lazing around with his best friends and exchanging stories of everything that had happened to them through the two weeks spent apart.

He’d been doing just that, draped on one of the couches in the common room and laughing at Kaminari’s exaggerated recounting of his Christmas dinner with his family, Bakugou’s heat pressing blissfully all along his side and easily grounding in him the feeling of truly being back in his second home, when Ashido had taken a long breath in, tilted her head back, and sneezed loud and violent.

“Sorry,” she said once she realized she’d unintentionally halted the chatter in the room, reaching a hand inside her hoodie’s pocket and pulling out a paper tissue, “went up in Sapporo with my family these holidays, my body didn’t like it much.”

She sounded miserable as she said so, blowing her nose to try and get the congested feeling off her nose and voice, and Kirishima aw’ed softly in sympathy, reached out to pat her on a shoulder in silent comfort. He hadn’t gotten a cold himself since before his quirk first manifested, luckily, but he’d nursed his mom back to health often enough to still be familiar with just how horrible it could feel.

He was just about to offer making her a warm cup of tea, when he noticed the impossible stillness Bakugou’s body had adopted by his side: stiff like a rock, as if he'd found a way to temporarily steal Kirishima's quirk and had gone unbreakable right on his first try. He turned to look at him, Kirishima, one eyebrow raised and a question on the tip of his tongue, only for his thoughts to be stopped by the thoroughly horrified look on his best friend’s face - wide eyes and twisted mouth, it was so genuine and accented it nearly turned comical, making Kirishima unsure over whether to laugh or be worried for the unexpectedly extreme reaction to Ashido’s poor health.

Not like it was any news for Bakugou to be over the top with his answers to any normal and mundane situation, but still. It was just a sneeze.

“Dude, are you-” he started, lips twitching at a corner to hold back an unsure smile, but his voice seemed to kickstart Bakugou back in action, had him jump up from the couch and away from the whole group in one scrambled motion, point an accusing finger at Ashido as he opened and closed his mouth around unsaid words.

“Wear a fucking sick-mask if you’re ill!” he seemed to settle on in the end, shouting it like Ashido’s germs had personally killed his whole family and waving his hands in angry swipes as small explosions popped all over his palms - then he turned around and, with one last growl, stomped away from them and towards the stairs, heavy steps and smoke trailing behind him.

His sudden outburst left them all in stunned silence for a long minute, eyes all trained on the corner he’d disappeared behind as their minds tried to make sense of what had just happened.

Sero was the first to break out of it, a soft wow falling from his lips as his usual wide smile started stretching them, “he really never changes, huh?”

“I just sneezed!” Ashido whined in annoyed answer, slumping a little against the couch she was sitting on, and Kaminari rolled his eyes as he pushed a shoulder against one of hers, told her not to think about it too much, that it was just typical, incomprehensible Bakugou behavior.

On his now empty couch, Kirishima just sighed to himself, deep and defeated.

So much for all the work he’d put into convincing Bakugou to join them.

—

It wasn’t to jinx it for himself, but Kirishima was reasonably sure things had been looking up with Bakugou, recently - and he didn’t mean it in the platonic, best-friends-and-hero-partners sort of way either.

That Bakugou liked him in a friendly, partners-in-crime manner had been clear since the beginning of their first high school year, had been made obvious through his sticking around and laughing with him, helping him when in need and accepting help in return when necessary. Kirishima had never doubted their bond as best friends, and even if at some point along the way he’d started yearning for something different, something more he used to be sure Bakugou would never be willing to give, he’d never wavered in his knowledge that what they shared was plenty special and fulfilling in its own, complete way too.

But recently things had started looking up in the other sense as well, and Kirishima hadn’t known what it meant to be over the moon until he’d found himself skipping along the dorm’s hallways at seven in the morning on a Monday, of all days, just because the night before Bakugou had smiled at him soft and private for the first time since knowing him.

He’d smiled.

Just for him.

Kirishima still found himself awake at night thinking about it.

It was in the way Bakugou deliberately leaned against him, brushed his knuckles against his as they walked side to side, grabbed him to pull him along instead of just calling for him to follow. It was in the late nights spent talking in hushed tones across adjacent balconies, and in the long afternoons rushing through spars and heated taunting, too-close contact and perfectly placed, unassuming compliments. 

Kirishima really didn’t want to jinx it for himself, but for however slow he’d never been dim, he knew flirting when he saw it, and Bakugou had never had a subtle bone anywhere in his body to begin with - and anyway, Kirishima knew him well enough to be sure Bakugou wasn’t even trying to be subtle with what he was doing.

He wanted Kirishima to notice, and Kirishima had been doing his best to show him that he had, that he was happy with what Bakugou was offering and was willing to give back just as much.

The two-weeks-long holiday suddenly thrust upon them had done little to stop their ongoing game, simply moved it from intimate nudges and whispered words to late-night video-calls and neverending strings of texting, and now that they were back in the dorms Kirishima was more than ready to start back where they had left off - had been dreaming of Bakugou’s heat against his own since he’d left it behind in late December, wanted nothing more than to feel his whispers on his skin and his explosions against his hardened bulk.

Which was why the locked door currently stopping him in his tracks was surprising, to say the least.

Bakugou’s door hadn’t been locked for him in months.

He tried the handle again, giggling it left and right in the hope of it magically turning properly, and then knocked with a confused pout to his lips, once more when the only answer he received was deafening silence.

“Bakugou?” he asked, trying the handle again for lack on anything better to do, “dude, you in there? Weren’t we supposed to go running together?” the last question was asked more to himself than at the door in front of him, his voice going quiet and confused by the end of it as doubt started worming its way inside his mind - had he forgotten about an agreement to a change in plans?

He pulled out his phone to check their chat backlog for an answer, but before he could really begin scrolling a clattering noise from inside Bakugou’s room caught his attention once again, had him raise his head just in time to see the door shift slightly ajar, Bakugou’s messy hair and frowning eyes barely visible from behind it.

Relieved, Kirishima found himself smiling through his confusion at the sight of him. “Hey-”

“‘m not going,” Bakugou immediately interrupted, voice soft and muffled as if coming from behind a shirt, or a scarf. At his words, Kirishima’s smile dropped and his eyes widened, his eyebrows shot up in stunned surprise: Bakugou wasn’t the type to skip on workout like that, was he not feeling well? He opened his mouth to ask as much, but before a word could make it past his lips Bakugou rolled his eyes and took a step back, opened the door just that much more necessary to properly see his sick-mask-covered face.

“I’m fucking fine,” he said, crossing his arms at his chest with a finality that felt somewhat out of place in their casual conversation, “and I’ll remain so for as long as I’ll have any say in this.”

Kirishima looked at him with a slack jaw for a stretched-out handful of seconds longer, then he moved his stare down to his mask, up once again to his determined expression. “Is this about Ashido sneezing earlier?” he realized, surprised disbelief written all over his face as his mind finally put all the pieces together.

As a more than exhaustive enough answer, he got a door slammed shut in his face.

—

We’re still up for going to the movies tomorrow night though, right? he asked later that night through text, worrying his lips and tapping his fingers against his thigh in badly-concealed distress. Neither of them had called it a date, obviously, but Kirishima had been thinking of it as such since before he found the guts to ask Bakugou about it, and Bakugou had looked at him knowingly before agreeing, had grinned and nudged him with a shoulder in that soft manner only Kirishima got to experience.

It was a date even without really being a date, both of them knew as much. Bakugou wouldn’t cancel on a date-not-date just for a one-off sneeze, would he?

After being startled by his phone going off and nearly dropping it in his haste to check the answer, Kirishima was more than unhappy to realize that Bakugou not only would, but did.

Was he really that worried about getting sick? Or had he just never really wanted to go out with him to begin with?

No no no, Kirishima shook his head, he’d been working hard to put an end to the negative thinking, he wasn’t falling back into it because of doubts over Bakugou’s feelings, of all things. He knew Bakugou never agreed to anything he didn’t want to do, putting himself down over the unlikely possibility of it was as useless an endeavor as they came. 

Slowly, he picked his phone up once again, shot Bakugou a text to ask if he’d mind the movie night being changed into a night-in watching movies on one of their laptops, and made himself breathe his relief out when Bakugou answered with a curt, my room, seven sharp. He really was just concerned about his health, then. Definitely still wanted to spend time alone with Kirishima.

That was good, he told himself as he let his body fall back heavily against his bed.

Maybe he’d be lucky and in a week’s time Bakugou would have forgotten all about his sudden fear of germs, and they could give the whole not-really-a-date-but-still-very-much-a-date thing another, hopefully more successful try. They could add dinner to the movie, since they were already revisiting the plan, and maybe even a night walk though the local shopping district. And, who knew, maybe in a week’s time Kirishima would have found the guts to properly call it a date, too, and because of the clear label he’d have the chance to end it with a hug, or even, dare he hope, an actual kiss.

A kiss. 

From Bakugou.

That would have been nice, he thought with a smile as he let himself finally drift off. So incredibly nice.

—

Against each and all of Kirishima's most optimistic predictions, Bakugou remained shut in his room for the rest of Winter break. 

The only times in which he was seen outside of the controlled confines of his personal space were to fetch food for himself or use the communal bathrooms, otherwise his door remained shut and he himself kept away as if suddenly turned into a particularly elusive ghost. Kirishima, given his status of best friend and possibly romantic interest, only needed to pester him so much before being allowed inside, though always for a limited amount of time, and once or twice had even been able to coax him into staying and eating together before turning back to his newly acquired status of hermit - he couldn't say he minded too much since he still got to see him, all things considered, but he was starting to miss his sparring partner and gym buddy.

That, and he was also beginning to find annoying Bakugou’s obsession with forcing a sick-mask on him whenever he caught him with a bare face. 

He’d told him more than once that he simply never caught colds, but Bakugou seemed adamant in keeping him inside as sterile an environment as he was building around himself. When Kirishima really thought about it, it was cute of Bakugou to worry so much about his health - he appreciated it, really, more than words could ever express, but… well, he just didn't like wearing sick-masks. They were itchy, and broke every time he used his quirk on his face or caught on his teeth, and anyway he didn't even need them. 

Regrettably and predictably, Bakugou was as stubborn a mule on that topic as he was on everything else. 

It was in those cases especially that Kirishima hated the most just how attractive he found him and his headstrong nature - after all, it made it impossible to do anything but sigh and accept the masks pointedly thrusted at him, for however much he might have despised them.

Bakugou could be annoyingly endearing when he wanted to be.

Two days before the end of Winter break, Bakugou was suddenly called off to his internship with Midoriya and Todoroki, and all three of them remained out until the night before the beginning of the new school trimester. Kirishima hadn't been too worried, as he’d kept on nearly constant touch with Bakugou through annoyed texts about how that mission was bullshit and how he felt like he'd been wasting hours just sitting around for nothing, but he still slept better once he heard the door next to his own open and close between a grumbled curse and the next in the middle of that last night. After all, it must have meant that Bakugou really had come out of the sudden internship call with his health perfectly intact.

Or, so he thought until they met up the next morning.

“Uhm,” he eloquently said as he took in Bakugou’s heavy coat and thick scarf, the now usual sick-mask covering noticeably red cheeks and nose, “you… good?”

“Perfect,” he sneered, slamming his dorm’s door at his back with more violence than strictly necessary - but that wasn’t any news, really, and therefore no reason for Kirishima to worry about his well-being any more than his appearance demanded of him.

And his appearance was already worrying more than enough by itself.

“Are you sure? Cause you’re looking a little-” ill, he wanted to say, but got interrupted by Bakugou tilting his head back as if preparing for a sneeze, stopping there for an endless moment, just to throw a hand up to pinch his own nose shut and hardening his stare into a violent, determined frown.

A second passed, then another, silence thick between them and through their floor’s hallway. Then Bakugou blinked and breathed out slowly through his mouth, let his shoulders slump with the movement, and turned his withering stare on Kirishima’s raised brows.

“I’m fucking perfect,” he repeated, tone as if daring him to disagree, “where the fuck is your sick-mask?”

He didn’t wait for an answer before reaching inside his coat pocket and pulling a new one out for Kirishima to take, and Kirishima couldn’t do anything but sigh in defeat as he made himself drop the topic and accept it.

—

If there was anyone who could bring fighting a cold out of its metaphorical space and right in the middle of a physical battlefield, that was Bakugou Katsuki for sure.

Through the past three days, Kirishima had seen him use as his weapons of choice scalding teas and too many layers of clothing, innumerable balsamic candies and hot, spicy soups for every single one of his past four meals. He’d witnessed him pinch his own nose to avoid sneezing, glare his own shivers into impossible submission, mutter at himself to not cough, don’t you dare fucking cough, it’ll only get worse if you let yourself cough. Last time he’d been inside his room, Kirishima had counted five different types of meds between pills and creams and throat syrups lined atop his bedside table, and he’d felt silly in having to point out that a cold wasn’t really something you could fight your way out of, that if it had to come it would come whatever you tried to do to avoid it, and he’d felt even sillier when Bakugou had spit a spiteful but relentless just fucking watch me.

He had never known Bakugou hated being sick to those extents. It really must have been true that you never stopped learning, he idly guessed to himself.

Sitting hunched over his desk as he waited for Aizawa to show up, Kirishima slowly and carefully dragged his marker across the sick-mask Bakugou had forced on him that same morning, tracing the lines of a cartoonish set of sharp teeth with as much precision as he could manage with his limited knowledge of anything relating to art - if he had to wear those things, he had decided the previous day, he at least wanted them to look fun. Yesterday he’d opted for a simple rendition of his hero costume’s mouth guard, today it was his sharp teeth in a wide, happy smile. He was thinking Crimson Riot’s logo for tomorrow’s mask, that would have been manly as hell for sure.

Before him, Kaminari was trying to pile the contents of his pencil-case in a stable tower while Sero not-so-subtly kept on nudging the desk leg to make things harder on him, and Ashido was draped across a chair with an exaggerated, distressed pout.

“He keeps on glaring at me, and he won’t come anywhere within, like, a million feet radius from me!” she was saying, arms crossed at her chest and shoulders pulled up against her ears, “he acts like I personally injected the germs right into his bloodstream, how petty can he be!”

“It’s Bakugou,” Kaminari shrugged, carefully pulling out a pencil from his improvised jenga tower and cheering with Sero when the rest of it didn’t fall on itself, “it’d be weird if he weren’t that petty.”

Satisfied with his handiwork, Kirishima capped his marker and picked up his mask, carefully placed it on his face trying hard to not mess up his hairstyle over his ears. “He just doesn’t wanna admit he caught it out on his internship, anyway,” he said, reaching over to pat Ashido on a shoulder in sympathy, “he’s taking it out on you to not admit he miscalculated, probably.”

He wasn’t really sure actually, what with incubation periods and all those technical things he’d never managed to properly wrap his head around - and to be fair, Bakugou was definitely informed enough about that sorta stuff to know his facts before pointing an accusing finger. But Ashido still didn’t deserve to feel as guilty as he was making her, and a little white lie now and again to help a friend out wasn’t too big a sin, in Kirishima’s book.

Also, he just didn’t feel up to taking Bakugou’s side, right then.

The previous night, Kirishima had been right on the edge of deep sleep when he’d been startled awake by the sound of retching coming from the next room over; he’d jumped up and out of his bed to rush to Bakugou’s dorm, worried for his health and ready to offer anything he might have been in need of, only to find the door predictably locked. He’d knocked, then sent Bakugou a text to let him know he was outside and could he let him in as soon as he felt well enough to?, then knocked again when ten minutes went by and the door before him remained shut. 

When Bakugou had finally opened up, he’d looked as if death had tried to pull him under and had just barely failed - hair a mess and skin white as a sheet, wet eyes and pale lips, hands oh-so-subtly shaking where they held him up by the door’s jamb and handle. Through the two years he’d known him, Kirishima had never seen him look quite as horrible as he had right then. It had been distressing, to say the very least.

Before any word of concern could leave his lips, though, Bakugou had coughed once in his trembling palm, had sniffed subtle and wet.

“‘m fine,” he’d rasped through an obviously sore throat, “perfectly healthy, go back to sleep,” then he’d shut and locked the door back up, and had refused to open up again for however long Kirishima had remained outside his room, knocking and asking him to please just let him in already.

So, yeah, maybe Kirishima was a bit pissed off, right then.

Maybe he’d thought they had moved way beyond the refusal of help and the toughening it out, and maybe he’d thought Bakugou didn’t mind having him close through his most vulnerable moments, liked it, even, and maybe he’d guessed that that was a necessary condition they wouldn’t have to worry about figuring out, before trying to embarc in a romantic relationship. Maybe he’d thought being equals meant not lying to each other’s face to keep up a useless pretense of invulnerability, maybe he’d assumed Bakugou had come to trust him, with that sort of things.

He was sure he'd rationalize and get over it, eventually, but for now Bakugou didn’t really deserve having Kirishima stand on his side, after all.

“I mean, yes, but-” Ashido began complaining once more, only for Aizawa to finally throw the classroom door open and, with it, put an end to their idle conversation.

Kirishima looked at her with raised shoulders as Aizawa roughly explained the dynamics of that day's self-training, and then let himself turn to seek Bakugou out with his eyes as everyone moved to pick up their costumes, debated with himself only for a few seconds before sighing in exasperation at his own soft heart and moving to stand by Bakugou's hunched-over figure.

He was still pissed at him, there was no denying it, but, he guessed, that didn't necessarily mean he'd suddenly stopped being worried for his well-being - for however much Bakugou might have insisted in pretending he was perfectly fine, Kirishima could clearly see his health’s poor state in his obvious struggling to simply stand straight, and he couldn't in good conscience just leave him to fend for himself in those conditions.

Even if, given the previous night, that was exactly what Bakugou would have preferred.

With another long sigh and a soft nudge against Bakugou's shoulder to make him aware of his presence, Kirishima made himself put his annoyance on hold till he’d be sure his best friend was back to full health. Then, he promised himself, he'd beat into him just how unhappy he'd been with being unreasonably shut out like that.

Beat into him literally too, if it turned out to be necessary. A good spar had always been their smoothest form of communication, after all.

—

One moment he was laughing with Sato and exchanging tips for a proper uppercut, body subtly and precisely angled to keep in his line of sight Bakugou’s bright figure twirling midair and blasting to dust one rock after the other, and the next Kirishima found himself jumping at the sudden distressed shouting from Uraraka and Hagakure, his body immediately springing into action as he witnessed Bakugou’s flames die out and his bulk begin to free-fall towards the unforgiving ground.

He was one second too far away to intercept him before it’d be too late, but luckily Midoriya and Iida had been as fast as their quirks and training had allowed of them - when Kirishima finally came to a stop beside his thankfully still intact best friend, he found him struggling to get out of their safe holds, Iida’s hands steady on his shoulders (“It's against school rules to take part in physical training when your health conditions aren't up to par with regulamentations, Bakugou-kun!”) and Midoriya’s on his forearms (“Kacchan, oh my god, are you okay? Do you need the nurse? Should I call a carrier robot you did look a bit under the weather this past few days are you sure you're okay?!”), his legs shaking as he forced himself to hold his own weight and stand by himself.

Kirishima took a long breath in at the sight, let it out trembling and relieved as he listened to Bakugou’s rasped groans and threatening growls. Then he took the last steps needed to put himself between Bakugou and his other classmates, reached out to snatch one of his arms up and loop it around his neck.

“Aizawa-sensei!” he called out as his teacher jogged to get closer to them, one hand settling on Bakugou’s waist as he made himself tune out his complaints, “I’m taking him to Recovery Girl!”

“I don’t need Recovery Girl!” Bakugou barked immediately, the force of his yelling scraping at his sore throat and breaking the last word with a fit of wet coughing - and then, as soon as he managed his breathing back under control, “I’m fine, let go of me!”

Kirishima was sure his stare had never been quite as unimpressed as it was right then.

“Your face is blotchy red, and I don’t think your eyes are properly focusing,” he said around a sigh, starting to slowly maneuver through the rocky platforms of the training grounds and his worried classmates; he waved off Sero and Kaminari’s concerns as they made to get closer and try to help, and tightened his hold on Bakugou’s shirt when he attempted to pull away once more, “dude, seriously, will you stop struggling?”

In answer, Bakugou pushed weakly at his naked chest, the gloves of his hero costume damper with sweat than Kirishima had ever felt them. “I’m good,” he growled again, clearly annoyed, but when he made to keep complaining his words were interrupted by a loud, violent sneeze, and then another, and another, and another.

Kirishima had never been as glad for Bakugou’s sudden obsession with sick-masks as he was right then.

“No, you're clearly not,” he snapped, pulling him up and closer to himself, “you, what, passed out? In the middle of quirk training? How can you not realize how dangerous that was!” he’d tried to not think about it, Kirishima, the way his heart had jumped out of his chest at the sight, how it had stopped when he’d realized he wouldn’t be fast enough, the relief that had washed over him as Iida and Midoriya had gotten a safe hold on Bakugou and had carefully lowered him to the ground. He’d been scared, in a way he had never experienced outside of a battlefield, and he’d been trying not to think about it to avoid going off at a Bakugou that could barely stand on his own two feet, let alone defend himself and yell back at him, but he’d been. 

So scared he’d felt his blood chill in his veins, so worried he’d felt himself go sick to his stomach.

“You’re lucky you were being an idiot in a room full of licensed heroes,” he grumbled as he pulled Bakugou along the empty school hallways, feeling his weight grow heavier the more he refused to cooperate with his movements, “I can’t force you to let me help you out if you don’t want to, but at least take care of yourself, man.”

Kirishima didn’t even want to think about what would have happened had Bakugou been alone while forcing himself to go through his usual training routine as he kept on pretending nothing was wrong with his health. Just how uselessly obstinate could someone be before it turned into plain and simple stupidity? He felt like through the past week and a half Bakugou had been getting very good at toeing the line between the two - it reminded him a lot of how he’d used to be back at the beginning of their first high school year, and not in a good way.

When Kirishima was honest with himself, it was starting to become more annoying than he was willing to put up with.

Bakugou’s breaths came rough through a wet throat, heavy and sick-sounding, laboured enough to fill the silent air of the empty hallway, but he didn’t try to complain anymore as Kirishima took another two steps forward, pulled him along and huffed at his lack of cooperation. He kept silent as Kirishima leaned further to the side to better hold up his full weight, and he didn’t let a sound out as both of them nearly came toppling down on the floor when one of Kirishima’s feet tripped on one of Bakugou’s uncoordinated boots, either. 

“Dude, at least keep track of where you’re putting your steps if you don’t want me to pick you up and carry you to the nurse firefighter-style,” Kirishima sighed as he caught his balance once again, the exasperation in his tone tightly laced with genuine annoyance, by that point. It was only when even then he didn’t receive a snarked remark that he finally turned around to check in on Bakugou properly, and felt a weird mixture of worry and resignation when he found him limp under his arm - eyes closed and breaths coming heavy through his mask-covered mouth, face flushed and damp with sweat, furrowed brows, too-hot skin.

Completely and unmistakably passed out.

“You’re feeling good, huh?” he sighed under his breath, bending at the knees and shifting his arm up to loop around Bakugou’s shoulders, bringing the other to settle under his knees and pulling him up in a bridal-carry to rest against his chest. He felt sticky and uncomfortably warm against Kirishima’s naked skin, his breaths rattling in his chest and shaking his whole shivering figure, making him tremble between Kirishima’s suddenly too big, clumsy arms. He didn’t weigh any less than he was supposed to, clearly, but to Kirishima he still felt too small, too light and delicate, nearly fragile in his current state. Like he’d break if he put too much strength in his hold, like he had to be careful not to accidentally hurt him any more than he already was.

“Just so you know,” Kirishima started as he took off to a light jog, his brows furrowed and his mouth in a frown, “this is absolutely not how I wanted my first time holding you to feel like.”

—

“Your current temperature is considerably above average,” Recovery Girl said, pushing the thermometer back inside her pocket and turning around to start rummaging inside what looked, to Kirishima, like a medicine cabinet.

On the infirmary bed, Bakugou crossed his arms at his chest with a frown to his face, sniffled with more violence and haughtiness than Kirishima would have guessed humanly possible before getting to know him. “My temperature is always above average,” he grumbled, and it would have sounded properly threatening too, Kirishima was sure, hadn’t the anger in his tone been noticeably downplayed by an obvious stuffy nose.

He was acting like a child, and Kirishima was pretty steady on the fence between finding it absurdly ridiculous and impossibly adorable. 

“I meant your average,” Recovery Girl sighed, and then, without giving him any time to answer, she thrust a piece of paper and a bottle of pills at him with finality. “Take two in the morning and two at night for three days in place of whatever anti-inflammatory you’re already taking, then come back down to see me; if you’ll have regained enough energy, I’ll use my quirk to fix the rest of it.”

Bakugou had woken up just a couple of minutes after being deposited on the infirmary bed, and Kirishima had been relieved for his regained consciousness only long enough for him to start complaining about having been brought to see the nurse once again - his eyes were barely open and focusing, his figure swayed even while sitting down, and yet he insisted that he was fine, that he could get up and back to training at any given moment, if they only let him already. 

He was being so petulant and unreasonably insistent about it that Kirishima was nearly tempted to take him back to the gym just to let him experience for himself how ridiculous his demands were being, at the moment, and hadn't Bakugou looked still mostly out of it he might have actually done as much, too. 

He looked like he was complaining more through force of habit and inertia than any proper awareness of the words he was grumbling, though.

Recovery Girl instructed Kirishima to make sure he’d get back in his own bed and remained there for as long as the fever kept up, then turned around and left the room with brisk pace, muttering about letting Aizawa know about it and reckless students lacking any and all self-preservation instincts - she’d just rounded the corner of the infirmary door when Bakugou pushed the covers off himself and made to get up, swayed on the spot to dangerous degrees before trying once again.

“Le’s go, Kirish’ma,” he slurred, then bent over and forward through a coughing fit, swatted his arm at Kirishima when he made to reach out and keep him steady, “le’s get outta here before the bat comes back.”

Kirishima blinked at him slowly as he processed the words. He looked at him sneeze, and placed a palm on his back to rub between his shoulder-blades as the sneeze set off another coughing fit, then used that same hand to help him stand straight and keep steady as he began to walk. It wasn’t until they were out of the infirmary and halfway back to the training grounds that he realized that maybe Bakugou hadn’t meant his let’s go the same way Kirishima had instinctively understood it.

It had probably been too much to expect some rationality out of his best friend, right then.

“Nope,” he said, popping the p as he settled before Bakugou’s trembling shape to stop his advance, placed his hands on his shoulders to hold him up and back, “we’re going back to the dorms, don’t make me carry you there, Bakugou.”

At his words, Bakugou groaned and slumped a little forward, pushed weakly at Kirishima’s chest as if trying to move him out of the way. “I’m fine, how many fucking times do I gotta tell you I’m all good!”

“Maybe try again when it’ll be true, I might just believe you,” Kirishima huffed, bodily turning him around and starting to push him towards the school entrance. Bakugou whined again at his answer, tried and failed to plant his feet and prevent moving.

“Fuck you,” he spit once he realized there was no stopping him with his current physical strength alone, and then, when all Kirishima did was idly agree and keep pushing him, he crossed his arms and leaned back against him, let him carry all his weight without offering neither help nor resistance.

They stopped by the classroom to retrieve their coats and scarves, and Bakugou huffed and puffed as Kirishima bundled him up in both his clothes and his own zipper hoodie, groaned as he watched him steal Sero’s beanie to force it on his messy hair, but didn’t otherwise make a sound the whole way back to the dorms and up to their floor, silently offered the key to his room and on his own wobbled to his bed and let himself fall on it.

“I’ll fucking sleep right now,” he said then, voice muffled by the stuffy nose and the scarf and the sick-mask and the duvet he was currently planted face-first into, “cause your nagging tired me out.”

“Yes, yes,” Kirishima sighed, pulling his own scarf off and draping it on the back of the desk chair. He let himself take a moment to just look at Bakugou breathe heavily on his bed, nearly disappearing between the clothes and sheets surrounding him, and then reached over to start helping him out of the coat and hoodie, slowly unraveled the scarf from his neck and pulled the beanie from his head.

“‘s not cause I’m sick,” Bakugou pointed out sluggishly while Kirishima removed all the troublesome bits from his hero costume, weighed the pros and cons of helping him into his pajamas before sighing and turning back around to look for a clean shirt, “because I’m not. I’m not sick.”

“You did say that, yeah.”

Neatly folded on the dresser, Kirishima recognized one of his own patterned, long-sleeved shirts: it was red with a blue print on it, and Kirishima clearly remembered the disgusted face Bakugou had made when he’d offered it to him to change out of his damp workout clothes. Bakugou was as wide on the shoulders and arms as Kirishima himself was, but his waist was so tiny it had disappeared behind the folds once he’d put the shirt on, and Kirishima had felt the strong urge to reach out with his hands to check for himself where the empty space had ended and his skin had begun - it had been now several weeks earlier, but he could still see Bakugou’s satisfied smirk when he’d noticed his expression, his slowly brushing a hand along the pattern on his chest and declaring that maybe it wasn’t all that bad, the shirt.

I might just keep it, he’d said with a sly glint to his eyes. Kirishima had been embarrassingly close to blurting out how okay he was with Bakugou stealing his whole closet, if it meant seeing him wearing his clothes every day for the rest of his life.

Now, Kirishima reached over to pick up that same shirt that had never been given back to him, turned around with the intention of offering it as pajamas only to be met with Bakugou’s bleary eyes looking at him from the bed, a frown twisting his brows from under his damp fringe.

“Not that one,” he said, rasped and slurred but definitive, “I’m wearing that one tomorrow, put it back.”

Kirishima looked down at the shirt with a raised brow, then up at Bakugou with confusion written all over his expression. “Tomorrow?”

“Shhh,” Bakugou hissed, letting himself fall back against the bed and closing his eyes, turning his head around to slowly scratch his nose against his pillowcase, “it’s a surprise, you can’t know yet.”

He wanted... to surprise him by wearing his shirt?

Kirishima sent another confused glance down at the garment before putting it back on the dresser, moved slowly towards the bed to carefully sit on the mattress by Bakugou’s side. He was starting to feel cold, only wearing his hero costume pants without any form of physical activity to keep his body warm, so he reached over for the hoodie he’d just made Bakugou wear, pulled his arms through the sleeves without bothering to close the zipper up - even with the little amount of time it had taken to make the trip back to the dorms, Bakugou’s scent had still managed to cling to the hoodie enough to easily pass through the sick-mask covering Kirishima’s nose, smelling smokey and hot and slightly burnt around the edges, making his insides churn and his cheeks warm up.

It was a welcome form of overwhelming, having it surround him like that.

He wondered if Bakugou had felt the same, wearing his shirt all those weeks ago. The idea of it made him blush even harder, somehow.

A soft grunting noise coming from behind him snapped him back into the present, and he turned around to see Bakugou melting even further into the bed, eyes closed and breathing slowly evening out, if not going back to its normal smoothness. Without thinking, he reached a hand to brush the fringe off Bakugou’s forehead, and Bakugou sighed softly at the contact, chased the cool feeling of his fingers with a little whining sound that had Kirishima bite his lips and hold back a whimper of his own. 

He looked so soft and small, right then.

“You really aren’t feeling any good, are you,” he asked lowly, moving his hand down to check Bakugou’s temperature on his cheek and then, when the sick-mask made it impossible, on his neck - he needed to get him out of the sweaty clothes as soon as he could, he reminded himself. He wasn’t even sure the heated costume was a good thing for him to be wearing, right then: with how hot it must have been making him, it was surprising his hands weren’t sparking with explosions every time they moved even the slightest bit.

Softly, Bakugou huffed under his breath, a sound halfway between a grumble and a cough. “’m fine,” he insisted yet again, and once more Kirishima found himself frowning deeply at his relentless obstinacy on the topic.

“Why do you keep saying that?” he asked in a sigh, “I can see how ill you are, do you really trust me so little with your health that you gotta lie to my face like this?”

He started to pull his hand back as he wondered as much, mostly expecting Bakugou to be too out of it to understand his words and properly answer to them, but as soon as his palm stopped contact with his skin Bakugou groaned of a sound halfway to a whine, reached over clumsily and blindly to grab his wrist and pull his hand back to his face.

“‘s not that,” he breathed against his palm, “you gotta think I’m fine.”

Even through his sick-mask, Kirishima could feel his breath warm his skin as he spoke, his lips moving slow around the words. He’d dreamed of holding Bakugou’s hand, of feeling his mouth against his skin, for well over a year at that point, but the circumstances around them and the words he was speaking put a consistent damper on Kirishima’s enjoyment of the situation.

It was so unfair.

“Why?” he asked again, exasperation starting to creep in his voice, “you believe I’ll think any less of you if I see you sick? Is that what’s going on?”

But Bakugou immediately shook his head, pushed closer against his hand and tightened his grip on his wrist, kept him from moving any further away than he already was.

“You won’t want to go out, if I’m sick.”

The words took a second to register in Kirishima’s brain properly. At first, he thought Bakugou meant that he wouldn’t want to date him if he found out he’d been ill, date him at all, date him ever, but the longer he turned that interpretation over in his brain the less sense it made - Bakugou wouldn’t believe Kirishima thought him impervious to all germs and bacteria, would he? And he wouldn’t try to hold himself up to such impossible standards anyway, even if he did believe Kirishima had put such ridiculous expectations on him. Bakugou wasn't one to bend out of shape for anyone but himself, Kirishima had always known as much.

Which meant his words were literal. Specific. Time sensitive.

“...when?” he asked softly, stunned by his realization, but words from just minutes earlier came back and gave him the answer without Bakugou needing to spell it out for him. I’m wearing that one tomorrow, he’d said about the shirt Kirishima had tried to change him into.

Tomorrow.

Bakugou had planned something for the next day. He hadn’t been shutting Kirishima out, or putting up a useless pretense of unwavering power for the sole sake of seeming undefeatable - he’d been trying to keep his cold a secret because he had plans. With him.

He’d made plans for the next day to go out with him.

Kirishima was sure his heart had just skipped a beat inside his ribcage.

“‘s a secret,” Bakugou hushed anyway after a second, like he was worried someone might hear him as he spoke, “been planning for months, you’ll love it so much you’ll die.” Kirishima couldn’t see his mouth through the mask, but he could still make out the grin that curved his lips from the creases at the corners of his closed eyes, the way his quiet voice tilted just so, “I’m gonna kill you with it, and then I’ll kiss you till you’ll die again, and it’s gonna be the best- the best...”

He trailed off softly, and Kirishima felt his own expression pinch and his heart squeeze as Bakugou blinked his lids open slowly, took seconds to allow his wet eyes to focus on the room around him, on Kirishima before him, his awareness coming back to him one small bit at a time.

“Shit,” he said then, with feeling, trying to push himself up to a sitting position and just barely managing it without toppling back over right away, “I wasn’t- supposed to tell you that yet. Fuck.”

Inside his chest, two feelings were warring against each other and making Kirishima’s heart and lungs squeeze in on themselves: elation on one side, because Bakugou had planned an official date for them to go on! He’d spent months setting it up, months, and he meant for it to end with a kiss! He was ready to take the next step with Kirishima, finally, and finally Kirishima would be able to stop worrying about being the only one hoping for their flirting to shift into something more concrete, something he could put a clear, obvious label on. 

He felt like that one time Uraraka had used her zero-gravity on him, light as a feather and somewhat sick to his stomach, exhilarated and thrilled. He was ecstatic, on that one side. 

On the other, though…

“We can’t go,” he made himself say, forcing the dejected waver off his voice and face. He really, really wished he could just say fuck it and postpone taking care of Bakugou’s cold for a day, but the way he shook under his hands as he pushed him down to lay flat on his back was all the proof he needed that it was an impossible and reckless idea to even just consider.

If they tried to go out anytime before Recovery Girl’s instructed bed-rest period ended, Kirishima was sure Bakugou would just pass out on him again. That wasn't how he wanted their first date to be like, for however much up until that same morning he might have been sure he'd have taken anything - at the very least, he wanted Bakugou to be well and awake to enjoy it.

Ahhhh, that whole situation was way more unfair than they deserved, Kirishima decided in a sighed huff.

“What, no,” Bakugou groaned, struggling against the hands holding him down to get back up, “‘m fine, I‘m good, we’re going.”

“It's okay, Bakugou, we’ll just put a rain check on it,” Kirishima tried to pacify as best as he could, tone quiet and calm to hide how disappointed he himself was feeling; his words only seemed to agitate Bakugou further, though, and between that and Kirishima's strong palms pushing on his chest to keep him down on the bed, another coughing fit took hold of him, making him rasp his breaths in and give up on his attempts at moving upright.

He breathed in and out roughly and rattling for a few seconds, visibly struggling to hold in more coughing, and Kirishima allowed himself to reach out for his hair once more, pushed it out of his face and slowly carded his fingers through it in what he hoped would be calming comfort. It was probably fine for him to touch Bakugou like that, since a romantic date had been in the plans, and it wasn't like he’d been shrugged off at any point in the past half-an-hour anyway, he reasoned with himself. Bakugou was probably okay with that form of casual intimacy at that point, right? 

Man, he’d always assumed their crossing that type of bridges would happen in a somewhat romantic setting, both of them aware enough to make perfectly clear what was fine and what not. This was turning out to be so much harder than he’d guessed it would be.

At the very least Kirishima could take comfort in the fact that, going by Bakugou's unhappy frown as he glared at the ceiling, he probably felt the same about the situation they had gotten themselves into. Small victories, he told himself.

“It's not okay,” Bakugou groaned once the air was again flowing in his lungs as smoothly as it currently could, “we can't postpone it, I've got fucking- fucking tickets and all.”

“Tickets?” Kirishima asked, tilting his head to the side in curious surprise, and before him Bakugou stilled in his soft movements, cursed softly as he realized he had, once again, said something he wasn’t supposed to - Kirishima only kept on watching him, though, trying to make obvious through his stare alone just how little he meant to let the topic drop now that he’d heard a hint of it. 

It wasn’t like they could go, after all, so what was the harm in being told about it beforehand?

“What part of surprise didn’t you understand, fucking hell,” Bakugou huffed after a second longer, and then groaned as Kirishima only tilted his head further, groaned harder once again as he realized there was no getting out of it - Kirishima was getting good at the insistent, pleading eyes when it came to Bakugou, he could admit as much.

He was pretty proud of it, really.

“Fucking- tickets, yeah!” Bakugou snapped in the end, “for the damn Quirked-MMA final! It’s gonna be cool as shit and you’re gonna love every second of it so much you’ll think about this fucking date for years, it’s all planned out! You can’t just- rain check the perfect moment, fuck you!” then he made himself inhale slowly to straighten his breath, rolled on his side to push himself up and into a sitting position with a trembling arm.

The movement dislodged the hand still carding through his hair, made the fingers fall to his shoulder and then on the comforter under them, but Kirishima was too stunned, at the moment, to mourn the loss of contact too much.

Quirked-MMA, Bakugou had said. Tickets for the final. 

They’d been sold out for months even with the astronomical price they’d been selling for - Kirishima knew, he’d been wishing to see it live at least once in his life since he’d been ten, he was aware of how impossible to get ahold of those tickets really were.

But Bakugou had them. 

For them to use the next day. 

Had found a way to get his hands on them just to take Kirishima out on the perfect first date, by the sound of it - had he known just how much Kirishima had always wanted that? If Kirishima had told him about it, it’d been in passing enough that even he himself couldn’t remember it ever happening, but… Bakugou had remembered it? Kept it in mind long enough to figure out a way to make it reality?

Kirishima was nearly sure his heart was about to stop. 

“You…” he started softly, just for his eyes to move to Bakugou’s blotchy red face, his sniffling nose, his trembling frame. Oh, he frowned at himself. Right. He was beginning to understand why Bakugou had been so insistent in denying his poor health state, if those were the circumstances they were working with.

Probably noticing the shift in his expression, Bakugou groaned lowly, swatted at him with the back of a hand to get Kirishima’s wandering attention back on himself. “We’re going,” he said with finality, “I don’t have a cold, I made-” a cough, then a deeper frown, “I made sure of it. I did everything to avoid it, so I don’t have it. I can’t have it.”

He was talking about the meds, Kirishima immediately realized. 

He was talking about the masks, and the teas, and the soups and candies and too many layers of clothing whenever he put a single foot outside of his own room. And then, when he muttered a soft I made sure you’d be fine, too, Kirishima realized that he was talking about the mask he himself was wearing as well. About the shouting whenever he caught him without a coat or a scarf, about the warm foods and drinks pushed on his tray every other meal, the obsessive checking of his room’s temperature.

All to make sure they’d both be fine for the date he’d been meticulously planning for months. A date tailored around one of Kirishima’s silliest, most ridiculous, oldest dreams. And it hadn’t worked right in the end, of course it hadn’t, Kirishima had told him as much, after all - you can’t avoid a cold once it starts coming, all you can do is wait for it to pass, but...

Shit.

He let his lips shake just a short second with the effort of holding everything back before he gave in to a crazed grin, allowed it to pull up the corners of his sick-mask as he leaned over to grab one of Bakugou’s sweaty hands, twined their fingers and squeezed hard, without a care for the small explosions popping over his palm because of the sudden friction.

It felt impossible in how suddenly it had become clear, but gods, Kirishima loved Bakugou so damn much.

Was he allowed to think that? Was it too soon, to feel something big enough to crush his ribcage as it expanded his lungs beyond limits, to experience the overwhelming happiness making his blood run hot and his cheeks warm with color? Could he think it, say it, let it flow out till Bakugou had no choice but understand the enormity of what he was putting him through?

He felt full to bursting with it, right then. Trying to hold it back sounded like attempting to fit the whole ocean inside a tea cup.

“I’m gonna kiss you,” he found himself blurting without thinking, and then, when Bakugou’s hand went stiff between his fingers, he turned around to properly look at him in his bleary eyes, pushed close enough to startle Bakugou into jumping away. 

“Bakugou Katsuki,” he said through a still impossibly wide grin, pulling him back closer by the hold he still had on his hand, sliding his free palm up to cup his cheek and then back between the hair at the nape of his neck, “you’re the most considerate asshole and the dumbest smart person I’ve ever met, and I’m gonna kiss you. Right now.”

Bakugou looked at him with wide eyes and still frame for a beat as he pushed even closer, then his eyebrows suddenly jumped up into his hairline, down in a deep frown, his arms coming up to stop Kirishima in his advance as he scrambled back and away.

“You can’t!” he shouted, high enough to scrape his sore throat and come out broken; the violence of it had Kirishima actually stop in surprise, and Bakugou seemed to take the moment to even out his breath, put as much space between them as the small mattress allowed of him, “I’ve got a fucking- I’ve got a plan! I worked on it and it’s- it’s goddamn perfect! You can’t just- just-! Who- who the fuck do you think you are!”

Despite himself, Kirishima couldn’t hold back the sniggers as he crawled closer, cut the distance between them till it was once more nearly non-existent. “It’s fine,” he smiled at Bakugou’s disgruntled face, nudging his nose against his chin and then his cheek.

His heart was beating a mile a minute in his chest, so loud he could hear it crashing like waves in his ears, and he was sure he was blushing of a violent red, could feel it in how warm everything around and inside him suddenly was. There were shivers running along his arms and spine, but he’d never felt further from cold than he did at the moment.

“It’s fine, see, there’s barriers between our mouths,” he told Bakugou as he moved to nudge at the tip of his mask-covered nose, let himself just barely feel the heat of his feverish breath through the cloths separating them, “it’s not gonna be the first kiss you planned for, just a… a preview of it. A small taste before the actual meal.”

Bakugou looked at him with narrow eyes for a long second after he spoke, and Kirishima spent it forcing himself not to move closer, to wait for an obvious green light before covering that last, significant inch. Then he felt a stronger breath against his lips, a deeper huff, and Bakugou rolled his eyes, nudged his nose right back against his own.

“You’re fucking ridiculous,” he said, but Kirishima could easily see how much redder he’d just gotten, how he was not-quite looking at him straight in the eyes, and he smiled a bit wider still in answer to it, leaned down to close the distance between them.

All Kirishima could feel against his lips was the material of the sick-mask, and its taste the only flavour too - but finally pressing against Bakugou’s mouth, even just that much, sent a violent shiver running down his spine anyway. 

He could feel how plump his lips were, clumsy as they shifted against his own, pressed in, pulled back; they were hot, unnaturally so through the fever still bringing Bakugou’s temperature to impossible highs, and his breath felt moist as it filtered through the masks, his chest rattled under Kirishima’s palm when he raised a hand to rest against it, moved his other to softly brush his damp hair away from his cheek. If Kirishima had found his scent overwhelming when he’d worn the hoodie earlier, it was nothing on how it felt right then, pushed as he was inside Bakugou’s space and breathing him in, feeling it surround him and fill his aching lungs.

When they pulled apart, Kirishima took a second to once more nudge his nose against Bakugou’s, couldn’t stop himself from diving back in and stealing one more half-peck. It was slow work, finding the strength and will to move completely away and open his eyes back up, but when he did he found Bakugou looking at him with a half-lidded, glazed over stare, his cheeks ruby red, his head tilted as if he’d just barely stopped himself from following him as he moved away.

Kirishima was suddenly very tempted to throw away both masks and just make out with him for real.

“That was stupid,” Bakugou said then, blinking his haze away slowly, and Kirishima laughed softly in answer, settled a hand on his shoulder to guide him down while he let himself fall back to lay on his bed.

“I told you it wouldn’t be the real deal,” he grinned as he pulled the covers from under Bakugou to settle them over and around him - he’d help him out of his costume later, he decided as he watched him snuggle further between the sheets and pillows of his bed. He’d find a safe way to have him shower and then put him in his pajamas, and once he was doing that much he’d go look for something warm to have him eat, too.

Now that he was actually being let in and allowed to help, he’d make sure to do things right.

It felt like the very least he could do, at that point.

“You look stupid,” Bakugou gruffed after a beat, voice barely discernible between everything contributing to muffle it, “why’d you draw teeth on your mask? You already got teeth.”

The petulant way in which he said as much had Kirishima roll his eyes through a grin, and he slowly crouched down by the head of the bed to once again card his fingers between Bakugou’s hair, careful and steady. “Cause you can’t see them behind the mask, obviously,” he explained, and Bakugou huffed a sound halfway between a laugh and a scoff, rolled his eyes behind closed eyelids.

“Obviously,” he repeated in a mocking huff.

They remained in silence for a while after that, still and peaceful, long enough that Kirishima began to think Bakugou had fallen asleep, finally: his breathing had evened out, though still wet and coming through sniffles now and again, and his eyebrows had eased, his frown less pronounced than the usual norm. He was just about to get up and go look for proper clothes to change into, when Bakugou pushed his head harder against the palm still between his hair, wiggled around till he was closer to the edge of the bed and, therefore, to Kirishima himself.

“Kiss me in the stupid way again,” he demanded without opening his eyes, soft and rasped and sudden, and Kirishima found his heart beating right in his throat at the request, his stomach squeezing at how unexpected it’d been.

It was such a typical Bakugou thing to do, to first complain and then ask for more.

“Thought we decided it wasn’t a proper kiss,” he pointed out anyway as he leaned closer, just to make fun of him a bit, just cause it felt right in the moment, and Bakugou huffed haughtily at him in that way unique to him, reached a hand out from under his covers to twine between Kirishima’s hair and pull him down faster.

“It isn’t,” he declared with finality, “I’ll show you a proper kiss tomorrow, you just wait.”

They weren’t going anywhere the next day, but Kirishima decided to leave that battle for tomorrow-him to fight. Right then, he decided, all he was going to do was enjoy his half-kisses and Bakugou’s heat and scent surrounding him; nurse his not-quite-yet-boyfriend back to health, pet his hair for as long as he’d be allowed to. Think of all the proper kisses and dates that were now sure to come, and laugh as Bakugou used the little strength he had left to pull him over and on the bed, as he threw an arm around him as if trying to trap him by his side with the whole weight of his weak, feverish body.

It was an unnecessary waste of energies, really, and Kirishima snorted through a grin as he settled down in the hug, moved his arms to hold Bakugou tighter and snuggle him closer. Now that he’d been finally allowed back in, after all, he could have never wished to be anywhere else but right where he was.