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aro-of-argentum · 1 month ago

Text

Suppression- Chapter 3

WC: 5,716

Notes: Bakugo builds furniture, Kirishima has a close call at work and then a hard conversation with reader about it, Bakugo starts to open up (not a lot, don't get too excited), a rough night followed by a rough day, and naps on the couch. This chapter contains talk of serious injury and accountability, but otherwise no major warnings

Beta'd by: @teaspacebar as always

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Chapter 3:

The new coffee table was delivered a couple days later. The guys that brought the box up from the truck offered to assemble it. Bakugo declined. Because of course he thought he could build it himself. In fact, he’d insisted on it. And yet, when you got home from work, only a few hours after leaving, he was still sitting angrily on the floor, surrounded by pieces, glaring at the instruction booklet like it had personally offended him, and muttering to himself.

“Still going?” You asked as you stepped into the living room, arms crossed and eyebrow cocked in unsurprised amusement.

“Heh?” He didn’t even turn fully away from the papers he held, eyes still trailing over whatever section he was reading.

You shook your head slightly at his frustrated focus. “You need any help?” you offered.

“No,” He snapped like a child being asked if they needed a nap and you fought not to let your smile grow wider at his barely contained dismay. “Aren’t you supposed to be at work right now?”

“I went to work. I’m home now.” You sighed dramatically as you fell onto the couch behind him. “Short days are the best.”

“I wouldn’t know,” he grumbled, clearly still only half paying attention to the conversation as he attempted to decipher the instructions.

An overdone pout befell your face, though you knew he couldn’t see it when you started, “Oh poor baby, all amazing and powerful in the top ten. Is the fame and fortune really hard for you, or…?”

He turned then, slowly, jaw set, eyes with daggers in them as he looked over his shoulder to glare silently at you. You couldn’t help the snort and smile that made an appearance before you were able to collect yourself.

“I’m sorry,” you conceded. “I’m sorry. Your job is hard, it can be really dangerous, and you earned the place you have in the rankings, I know that.” You waited until after you saw him nod, saw him turn back around before adding, “So, how many offers of marriage came in your fan mail this week?”

Bakugo snarled and threw the instruction book at you, not hard, but enough to make a point. “Be useful or get out.”

You chuckled, picking up the booklet and asking, “What step are we on?”

It was almost complete by the time Eijirou made it home.

“Okay, so for the last screw, you have to wait until-”

“The drawer won’t close.”

“That’s because you didn’t wait to hear the instructions,” you snipped back before explaining, “You have to push the drawer in before you tighten up the last screw or you’ll interrupt the track. So, you need to unscrew it most of the way, push the drawer in, and then you can tighten the screw, because the drawer will stop it from going too far.”

“Fine, one second.”

It was the brief moment in which Bakugo was silent, twisting the final screw into place, that Eijirou came in. “I’m home!” he shouted from the front room.

“In here!”

“Yeah!”

The pair of you in the living room called back to him at the same time.

“It’s done,” the blonde grumbled.

“Yay!”

“What’s done?” Eijirou questioned when he walked in the room, though he immediately found his answer when his eyes landed on the project of the afternoon. “Oh nice! It looks really good, guys!” His smile was enough to light up the room, even though it was tired, and it made your heart swell just as it always did.

“Hello, handsome,” you greeted, reaching for him as he drew closer. His hand closed around yours as he bent over the back of the couch to press a soft but lingering kiss to your lips.

“Hey, gorgeous,” he responded with a mischievous smile, face still only a breath away from yours.

“Get a room,” Bakugo snarked as he stood up, collecting pieces of leftover packaging and other trash.

You turned to sass him back, only for your voice to get stuck when you noticed with confusion, as he was walking out of the room, that Bakugo’s ears were red. You shook the questions from your head as you turned back to your boyfriend hovering over you. “How was work?”

He grimaced. “You weren’t watching the news, were you?”

Your eyes went wide with worry. “Eiji, what-”

“Nonononono,” he cut you off as he hopped the back of the couch and landed next to you, immediately pulling you into his lap to hug you close. “Don’t freak out, I’m fine. I’m perfectly fine, it was just a lot, and if you turn on the news it’s going to look way worse than it was.”

You searched his eyes, for an indication he was lying, for pain, for anything to tell you whether this was something for you to actually be worried about. And as you stared, you saw it. His gaze faltered. He was hiding something. “Talk,” you commanded, eyes narrowing as you prepared to evaluate him further.

“It really was nothing, baby, I-”

“Tell me the truth, Eijirou.”

The eye contact grew tense as he swallowed, hard, as though he was debating whether to drop his palm onto a hot stove. Eventually though, he broke. “While I was chasing down a villain today, it’s uh… possible, that a small, very small, building fell on me?” He rushed through the last few words as though saying them quickly would minimize your reaction. It didn’t.

“WHAT?” you shrieked, and it immediately brought Bakugo back around the corner.

“Oi! Quit screaming, what’s your issue?”

Your attention snapped to the blonde, though your hands stayed firmly planted on your boyfriend’s shoulders. “A villain dropped a building on him today!”

“EXCUSE ME?”

Eijirou shrunk under the weight of the stares boring down on him.

“What happened to being more careful on missions?” you questioned, tone bordering on accusation.

“If I didn’t cut through there, then he would have gotten away, and I was Unbreakable anyway so-”

“Your damn quirk doesn’t make you invincible, dumbass!” Bakugo shot back.

“I mean it kinda does…” Eijirou muttered, though the sentiment died in his throat at the look in your eyes.

“Eiji, it’s not about whether your quirk can take a falling building. It’s about what if you hadn’t activated it in time, or what if you got trapped and your endurance ran out before someone found you, or what if it’s a bigger structure next time and your quirk can’t take it?” You searched his eyes again, pleading with him to understand. “I know what your job is, I know the risks, but you have to be careful, Eijirou. I need you to keep coming home.”

He nodded eagerly, nothing but reassurance in his eyes before he pulled you back into his chest and wrapped his arms around you. “I know. I’ll do better, I promise.”

Next, you heard Bakugo’s voice, still from the entryway to the kitchen, irritation laced all through his tone. “This article says Suneater caught him a block away from where you were.”

Eijirou went stiff in your grasp like he could feel the oncoming fury.

You started to pull away so you could look him in the eyes, and you knew he felt it, given the way he squished you further into his chest. You proceeded with your question anyway. “You had backup nearby you knew could probably catch him, and you did the reckless thing anyway?”

“I didn’t know the building was going to come down!” he defended, though it was entirely useless because Bakugo began to read aloud.

“‘The villain, upon seeing Red Riot was still in pursuit, detonated explosives behind him in a clear attempt to collapse the building. Red Riot bravely followed the criminal anyway, and despite being trapped briefly in the debris, we are happy to report Red Riot is okay.’”

“Eijirou-”

“I swear I didn’t know!”

“So, you weren’t paying attention at your super dangerous job,” Bakugo barked from his place.

“Dude!” Eijirou pleaded over your shoulder, still doing his best to hold you to his chest so he wouldn’t have to look you in the eye for this. But his resolve to defend himself disintegrated the moment he felt water, tears, hit his shoulder. “Baby, I’m okay,” he tried to reason, finally giving you the space you’d been trying to create so he could see you. “And I’m so, so, sorry. I-”

You silenced him with a raised hand and a refusal to look at him. “I am angry with you.” There was a finality to your statement that came largely from your efforts at keeping your emotion from shaking your voice. Tilting your head back slightly to blink away new tears, you continued, “But I need a minute to calm down before we talk about this.” You got off his lap and the couch, pausing where you stood in front of him to say, “So, I’m going to the bedroom, and when you’re ready to have an actual conversation about it, you come talk to me. Good?”

“Yeah.” The word came out barely above a whisper, shame all over the man’s face.

You nodded, grinding your teeth together in an attempt to regain your composure as you walked from the room. You could only offer Bakugo a half-hearted, apologetic smile when you passed him. His eyes reflected the same.

It was once you were out of the room that Eijirou dared to move his eyes away from your path. He found Bakugo, who was staring him down from where the man still stood in the doorway. “Did you really need to read the article out loud?”

“Would you have told the truth if I hadn’t?”

Eijirou’s jaw snapped shut indignantly, knowing what his answer was, and knowing Bakugo knew it too. He could feel the blonde’s eyes on him as Eijirou sighed, deflating as he resigned himself to the fact that he was outnumbered and in the wrong. He pulled his phone from his pocket, taking only a moment to find the contact he was looking for. The man picked up after only one ring.

“Red, I told you to take the rest of the day, you don’t have to check in with me. Is everything okay?”

Kirishima smiled faintly, feeling as cared for as ever by his boss’s concern. “Yeah, I’m okay. I was just wondering if we could set up some kind of training for me. Practical or simulation is fine, just something to help me be more aware of my surroundings.” It took him a moment, and a steadying breath to admit both to his boss and himself, “Saying I’m going to be better about it isn’t actually doing anything for me in the field. I need to practice staying engaged with what’s around me, even during fights, or I’m going to get hurt.”

There was a moment of quiet before a response finally came back through. “It takes a big man to admit when he has work to do. I’ll set something up, okay? We can all participate. You get some rest.”

“Thanks, Fatgum.”

As Eijirou hung up the phone, he looked back up at Bakugo and saw the man nod before stepping back into the kitchen with the announcement, “I’m gonna do dinner.”

“You wouldn’t want to switch jobs with me, would you?” Eijirou asked, tone pleading despite already knowing the answer.

Katsuki’s face contorted in disgust. “Tch. And tell your partner they were wrong when they weren’t? Absolutely not. Go deal with it, dumbass.”

The redhead nodded to himself and waited only another moment before slowly getting up from the couch and walking to the bedroom the two of you shared. He knocked gently, opening the door only slightly at first, waiting for you to tell him to wait if you needed more time. When you remained quiet, he approached carefully, sitting down beside you on the bed. He left a respectful amount of space between you, not wanting you to feel smothered, but to him the distance felt like a storm-wrought chasm. He only left the quiet intact for another moment before he started with your name, soft, careful.

You knew he was squirming, even without looking at him, so you didn’t make him wait any longer. “You know,” you thought aloud, gaze still resting on the floor from where you sat at the edge of your bed, “I have this kid at work with a quirk called Unravel. He inherited it from his mom and it’s kind of a weird one,” you commented, tone deceptively light for the conversation. “Any time they touch something, their fingers will just materialize a thread that if they pull on it, the whole thing comes undone like pulling on a lose string on a knit sweater.”

You could hear the confusion in his tone, despite his efforts to understand, when he responded, “Yeah, I could see why that would be hard for him to deal with.”

You nodded thoughtfully. “Yeah, especially since his version works on people, too.” There was a silence so complete between you that you could hear a knife hitting a cutting board in the other room. You paid it no mind. “I have another client that breathes corrosive acid vapor. By default, mind you, so she has to put active effort into not melting everything in a two-meter vicinity anytime she isn’t wearing her mask for it. I have a lot of kids with quirks like that; devistating, unless completely under control.”

“Baby, I-”

“My job is dangerous, Eijirou,” you interrupted the man to clarify. “Not in the same way yours is, but still dangerous.”

“I know that, honey.”

“And I don’t think I’ve ever almost not made it home. I’m so careful. Always. Because I know there’s someone waiting for me at home.”

“I know,” he said, covering your hand with his own where it rested on the bed beside you. He squeezed your fingers as though to emphasize, “I swear I’m going to do better.”

“You said that the last time you were in the hospital, Eiji.” His grip tightened further for a moment before it went dead, entirely releasing your hand without pulling away from you.

His response was only an ashamed whisper of admittance. “Yeah, I did.”

These conversations weren’t easy, but you needed to have them, you needed him to understand. “I get that sometimes, to do the right thing, to catch the bad guy, you have to do the scary, dangerous, thing. But doing that when there are other options isn’t brave, it’s reckless, and you could get hurt again, or worse.” Your voice cracked only slightly toward the end of your statement, but Eijirou caught it anyway.

“Hey,” he cooed, quick to scoop you up, pulling your entire body, effortlessly, into his arms so he could hold you. Not to restrain you this time, only to reassure you he was there, he was whole. “I know I’ve said it before, but I need to you know I mean it when I tell you I’m going to do better. I’ll show you I mean it.” There was a determination you recognized in his voice, the one he got when he’d truly set his mind to something, and so you leaned toward wanting to believe him. The next thing he told you only reaffirmed it further. “I called Fat, asked him to set up some training so I can figure out how to pay attention outside of any active situation. That way it’ll just be muscle memory for me soon and I can take it into the field.”

You nodded, the side of your head rubbing slightly against his collarbone at the motion, before you let your forehead rest against his throat once again. Your, “Thank you,” was breathed on a sigh of relief as he hugged you, and you snaked your arms around him too when you requested, “hold me tonight when we lay down?”

Eijirou leapt to comply, affirming immediately that he would. “Of course, sweetheart, I wouldn’t be anywhere else.”

It was then that you finally allowed yourself to relax enough to feel your more vulnerable feelings on the matter. You let them all process at once as your boyfriend held you, tears of worry and hypothetical grief left you as you breathed away the fires of righteous anger and irritation. You let the relief sink in too, that he was okay, that he was here, that he was making meaningful changes to ensure it wouldn’t happen again, at least not needlessly.

“I love you.” The phrase was pressed into the top of your head, and you felt, rather than heard the ‘I’m sorry’ in the way he clung to you as he held you in his lap.

“I love you,” you responded softly, squeezing your arms around his waist to emphasize the sentiment.

You deflated further as you rested against your boyfriend’s chest, and he stroked your back slowly with one hand while the other kept you locked in his embrace. After only a few moments of silence, Eijirou asked, “Are you still mad at me?”

You pulled back, squinting up at him with a frown. “Did you want me to be?”

“No! No. I just…” He broke eye contact as he considered his next words. “I don’t know, I guess I thought you were going to yell more? Or at least tell me I’m an idiot, or something.”

“You already spent the last couple of hours beating yourself up over it, didn’t you?”

“Well, yeah, but-”

“And you already talked to Fatgum about fixing the issue, right?”

“Yes,” he assured with a nod.

“And you apologized and meant it, so…” you let the word hang in open air for a moment as you shrugged. “I don’t think there’s anything left except to be relieved you made it home.”

The man released a sigh of relief, a soft and small smile forming on his lips as he stopped rubbing your back to instead cup the side of your face and run his thumb along your cheekbone. You could see in his face the way his heart melted when you pressed into his palm. He inhaled like he had something to say, but was cut off by his phone, the text-tone for Bakugo piercing the still air. His smile turned mildly apologetic as he checked it. “He says dinner’s almost done.”

You gave a hum of affirmation before leaning forward enough that Eijirou read the cue and leaned in as well to rest his forehead against yours.

“I’m glad I made it home, too,” he said like it was a confession. “I love my job, but this…” his grip tightened around you as he searched for the right words. How was he supposed to put the feeling in his chest into words? How was he meant to describe the way you pulled him in, the way he felt so comforted and safe and loved and all of it so unconditionally. Even when you were mad it was only because you worried for him, and he had no idea where to start to voice it to you. Instead, he settled on, “It’s my favorite thing to just be home with you.” He hoped you heard all the things he meant by that.

And you did.

Dinner was good, and despite the tension you were concerned might make things difficult, it was nowhere to be found. The three of you enjoyed your meal in relative peace together, and when it was time to clean up, you took everyone’s plates from the table.

“I’ll help,” came from Bakugo as the man also stood from his chair.

“It’s okay, Bakugo, it’s my night, I can-”

“I said I’m helping, dumbass.”

You rolled your eyes at the nickname, by far one of your least favorites in his standard list, but made no effort to further dissuade him from assisting. It wasn’t until the two of you had been standing at the sink for a few minutes, you handing Bakugo dishes to dry after you’d washed them, that finally he spoke up.

“You talked to him?”

“Yeah,” you assured, continuing your task.

“And he knows not to do that shit again?”

You chuckled slightly. “So, he says. I think he means it, though.”

You caught his nod from the corner of your eye. “He told you he called Fatgum, right?”

“Yeah, he said he asked for extra training, I hope it helps.”

Bakugo only grunted beside you as he took the last dish from your hands with a towel. After you’d rinsed the sink and grabbed another towel for your hands, he asked, “Are you okay?” It was timid, almost, which drew your gaze to the man. His refusal to make eye contact gave you a full view of his ears and the pinkish color they were turning.

“I think so,” you answered on a sigh. “I really appreciate you having my back.”

His ears went redder, and you saw his jaw flex before he responded, “Yeah, well he should already know better.”

It was a dodge, and you knew that, but you let it slide. Instead, you asked him in return, “Are you okay?”

He froze for a moment, going rigid only just long enough for you to notice, like his whole body had reflected an anxious skip in his heartbeat. But he returned to normal immediately afterward. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

“Cause he’s your best friend, and you’re allowed to be worried about the people you care about.”

Bakugo’s frown deepened for a moment, and you accepted the lack of an answer as an answer in itself. He wasn’t just going to admit to you-

“’M fine.” But his teeth ground together, and his lip pulled up almost in a snarl, words gone unsaid just hanging from his mouth.

“But?”

“But what kind of moron-” his sentence cut off with a growl and a huff.

An amused sigh escaped through your nose, happy, despite the circumstances, that Bakugo cared, and was being so open about it. You planted a hand on his arm in a gesture of comfort and understanding. You knew how frustrating it was to have people you loved constantly in danger, especially when one seemed to throw himself into it, caution to the wind, at nearly every opportunity. What you weren’t expecting was his other hand to instantly close over yours and squeeze, keeping your fingers trapped and digging into his bicep.

“Bakugo?”

“I don’t-”

“Babe?” came from across the house.

Both of you snapped your heads up in the direction of Eijirou’s call, and you looked to Bakugo a moment later as his hand fell from yours, and found his face heated by embarrassment and features contorted with guilt. But as he stepped away from you, out from under your hand and your reach, he looked pained, almost sad in the way his throat bobbed with a hard swallow and his jaw ticked with tension, the way his lips pursed with something unsaid.

“Katsuki, what did you-”

“It’s fine. I’m good.” The glass in his eyes exposed the lie; reflective and fragile. But when you reached for him again, he dodged away from you. “You should go see what he needs.”

You watched, struck still by your confusion as Bakugo walked from the kitchen. You exited a moment later, sparing only a glance into living room where the blonde was settling as you moved toward your bedroom.

“Yes, my love,” you finally answered, announcing your presence in the doorway to his turned back. You did your best to ignore the way he flinched, clearly sore, as Eijirou lifted a new shirt over his head. “Here, let me,” you offered, quickly crossing the room and taking over the task of dressing the enormous man that sat in front of you.

He beamed up at you once his face was free from the fabric. “Thank you.”

“Always,” you ensured, leaning down to peck him carefully on the lips before pressing a kiss to his forehead as well. Once you’d stood back up all the way, you asked, “What is it you needed, Eiji?”

He pressed into where one of your hands cupped his face, eyes fluttering shut at the feeling of your other fingers gliding absentmindedly through his hair. Eijirou was positively melting into your touch, whole body relaxing and leaning forward until his face pressed into your stomach. Having quickly run out of space to keep your palm on his cheek, you instead wrapped your hand around the back of his neck as you continued to run your nails on his scalp, careful not to tangle the length of his hair. It was grounding for him, the hold you had on him, and you knew that, so you left your question to hang in the air unanswered. Perhaps this is what he’d been seeking anyway.

But eventually, he mumbled into your shirt something that sounded vaguely like “I’m tired.”

The attempt made you chuckle, and you pulled away, still supporting the weight of your boyfriend’s head in your hands as you spoke. “I’m sorry, sweetheart, you want to repeat that so everyone else in the room gets the message?”

He smiled at you sleepily. “Any chance you’re ready for bed? It’s been a long day.”

“Mm,” you hummed in understanding, “I’ve heard falling buildings have a tendency to really take it out of a guy.” Eijirou’s immediate tensing in your arms made you chuckle, but you didn’t want him stressed over the possibility that you weren’t actually okay about the situation despite the fact that you’d told him you were. So, you were quick to ensure, “Yes, baby, we can go to bed.”

The man relaxed immediately, melting once again in your hold before leaning back and doing his best to drag you with him. “Would you put me under tonight?” he asked, almost sheepishly, as though he didn’t feel he had the right to ask such a favor right now.

But you’d never minded at all, even on days you were exhausted, it never took very long for you to put Eijirou to sleep that way, and it gave you an excuse to cuddle him, not that an excuse was ever needed for it. “Of course,” you answered with no hesitation as you joined him to lay down.

The redhead was quick to pull you half on top of him, which despite your concerns, had always been a position he claimed was one of the most comfortable ways for him to sleep, so you indulged him. You always ended up sleeping on his side with one arm and one leg thrown over his chest and hips anyway, which was easy to get to from where he put you now.

“I love you,” was pressed into your hair, barely more than a whisper, but with the weight of the days conversations to back it up.

“I love you, too, Eiji. So, so much.”

“Goodnight,” he whispered again, tone more conspiratorial now, resembling that of a child up past their bedtime.

“Goodnight, Eijirou. Get some sleep.”

And he did. You made sure of it. Because you were awake all night using your quirk to make sure your boyfriend was not awoken by the same thing that had pulled you from your slumber less than an hour after you’d finally managed to fall asleep: Bakugo.

In the otherwise dead silence of the night, you’d been able to hear the initial time he woke up with his powers going off. You’d been able to hear it before the big boom, which you could only find yourself thankful for, as you were able to take Eijirou’s hearing before the explosion woke him up. But the noise didn’t stop there. Bakugo was moving around the house, closing cabinets and doors more forcefully than necessary, stomping like the floor itself had pissed him off, and cooking for some forsaken reason at two in the morning. All of it was enough to keep you up, and would have been enough to wake Eijirou, and you couldn’t have that, not when he needed the rest so badly, so you didn’t let yourself fall asleep, even in the longer quiet stretches, just in case you needed to guard your boyfriend’s peace.

Work the next day was a living nightmare.

When you got home, you were a mess, and you knew you looked it. Eyebags from hell, induced by both the sleepless night and the regression of almost every client you saw today. Somehow the universe had synchronized to drop you in the middle of the most horrific shit storm you’d seen in a while, and by the time you were leaving for the day, you were exhausted. From overuse of your quirk, from the toll of the healing you’d underwent to nullify some of your worse injuries, from the smaller ones still irritating your skin and muscles, from all of it, probably.

Your movements were sluggish and careful as you changed from your work attire into house clothes, and as you stepped out into the hall, pulling the door shut behind you, you found Bakugo doing the same in the entryway.

He looked up when he heard you, and you saw one of his eyebrows quirk in something between concern and question. “You look like shit.”

You snorted, taking in the hunch in his shoulders, the bruise blooming an angry redish-purple on his jaw, the pained tenderness with which he removed his shoes. “Must be looking in a mirror, then.”

The man rolled his eyes with no real conviction. “Rough day?”

The slight bob to your head as you began shuffling again, now headed to the living room, only gave further indication to the blonde of your exhaustion. “And then some. You?”

“Yeah, something like that.”

You’d been sitting down, scrolling absentmindedly through your phone with your feet tucked to your side, for only a couple minutes when Bakugo appeared, container in hand, and sat on the other end of the couch. Out of the corner of your eye, you caught him holding the container out to you, chopsticks already sticking out, neatly tucked along the edge. When you reached for it, and looked inside to find homemade gyoza, your brow pinched. They looked amazing, but there hadn’t been any in the fridge yesterday. And then it dawned on you. “Is this what you were making this morning?”

His eyes widened slightly. “You heard me?”

“You think I look this good just from work?” There was no real venom to the snarky remark, more sarcasm than anything. But when you took one of the dumplings and sunk your teeth into it, your eyebrows raised with an awe that was matched in your tone. “Woah.”

You looked up in time to see Bakugo swallow from behind his scowl. “What, you thought they were gonna be bad?”

“No,” you insisted, “Just a little surprised they’re this good.” You thought for a moment as you ate the other half, immediately picking up another before the man snatched the container back from you like a territorial raccoon. “But you’ve made those before, haven’t you? I would remember if they always tasted like that.”

He shrugged and gave a roll of his eyes that seemed genuinely irritated by his own response. “They always come out better when I make them in the middle of the night for some reason. I don’t fucking know.”

The only acknowledgement you gave was a hum and quirk of your head as you dug into the one you’d collected only a moment ago. After you’d finished it, Bakugo held the container toward you again.

“Do you want another one? I’m going to put the rest back in the fridge.”

You shook your head ‘no,’ knowing if you kept eating, you’d be opposed to not finishing the entire set in one sitting. “Thank you,” you responded, tired but genuine and sweet, and Bakugo rose to his feet quickly, exiting the room with gyoza in hand and silence in his mouth.

In his absence, you turned on the tv, to something easy and quiet that you’d seen plenty of times. You knew Bakugo didn’t mind the program much either; you could only hope that wouldn’t be changed by his lack of sleep.

You only had a vague awareness of Bakugo returning to the living room several minutes later, exhaustion having overtaken you again, now that you were laying horizontally with a throw pillow under the side of your head.

“Move your feet.”

So, you did, pulling them up toward the rest of your body and grimacing slightly at the new scrunched position. You felt the couch dip on the other side, followed immediately by warm hands on your ankles, pulling your legs back to their previous stretched out positioning, but now your calves rested across Bakugo’s lap. His proximity was like a sedative, and you weren’t sure you made it all the way through your question of whether the volume was fine before you passed out.

When Eijirou made it home less than an hour later, he had questions of why his ‘On my way’ texts had gone unanswered. He found his answer when he entered the living room. Bakugo was as close to starfished as he could be while seated on the couch; hips forward and legs spread wide so he was leaned back and sunk into the cushion, head tilted all the way back, mouth open and snoring, one arm out and over the armrest, the other draped carefully over your legs with his hand wrapped around your ankle. You were stretched out mostly normally, but your neck and head sat at an odd angle because of how you were positioned against the armrest.

Eijirou shook his head, amused. Neither one of you was going to be very happy with the way your joints would feel when you woke up, but given the fact the pair of you had fallen asleep like this at all, told him you both needed it. When he saw the bruises and bandages littering each of your bodies, Eijirou found all doubt in his decision erased. If you weren’t already up by then, he’d wait until dinner to wake you.

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