Chapter Text
Whenever Shinso Hitoshi came back to Japan, there were two absolute certainties he could always rely on.
One: Aizawa Shota, his ultimate father figure, would have a room for him to crash in.
And two: Bakugou Katsuki, his ultimate nemesis, would appear out of thin air to drag him to the nearest quirk gym and beat the shit out of him.
Shinso liked both of those things a great deal.
Shota was his port in the endless storm that was international undercover work and Bakugou was, well. A little harder to define.
Back in school, Shinso hadn’t quite been able to help himself when it came to provoking their resident human bomb, winding him up like a motorised toy and enjoying the show. Now they were sort of adults that had only ever gotten worse and honestly, he thrived off the fury those red eyes threw his way. Not to mention Bakugou was the only one who could give Shinso’s hand to hand skills a thorough challenge in every way.
Midoriya was quirkless again in the aftermath of the war and whilst he was still extremely skilled at dishing out black eyes, he didn’t fight with anywhere near the same determination to do actual bodily harm like Bakugou did.
Todoroki was a long range quirk fighter and yeah, he had technique and finesse literally beat into him since he was a kid, but he would fight with a bland expression and roll his eyes whenever Shinso tried to provoke an emotion from his stoic ass.
Kirishima was close. He was a real demon at hand to hand and could banter like the best of them, but punching a human golem only resulted in broken knuckles and very little else for a reward.
Such as it was with all Shinso’s associates.
It was only Bakugou that set his blood on fire and stoked that incurable itch to be a fucking asshole Shinso liked to indulge in so much.
The two of them had chemistry. Admittedly, that chemistry was the equivalent to homemade napalm instead of fireworks like people usually meant, but it was still exciting.
Imagine Shinso’s surprise then when he returned for a month’s R&R and wasn’t immediately violently accosted in the street for a brawl.
It was actually disappointing.
Curious and a little hurt, Shinso started information gathering.
“Kacchan? I-I don’t know.” Izuku said to him, a wobbly smile on his expression which meant that was a bold faced lie and the little goodie goodie was probably going to cry if Shinso pushed.
Shinso was somewhat allergic to tears, but extracting information from unwilling participants was kind of his whole MO and his job never really ended even if he was on break.
“Izuku, my sweet little green bunny, lying to me only delays the inevitable.” Shinso cooed at him softly. Izuku’s eyes went glassy as he looked away with wide eyes.
Shinso frowned at that.
Either he was doing this because he had been sworn to secrecy which was possible given who they were dealing with, or he was being protective. Protective Izuku was usually a far more unhinged and confident beast so…
“Did he make you promise not to say anything?” Shinso asked tilting his head innocently.
Izuku’s lips pursed and his eyebrows did something very complicated, then his eyes flickered to Shinso and he gave the tiniest nod of his head.
Fair enough. Given Izuku was one of the literal saviours of humanity, Shinso would let him have his peace and gather his intel elsewhere.
“Okay. Then I’ll leave you alone.” He said earning a huge exhale of relief. “But, is his address still the same?” Shinso added making Izuku recoil violently somewhat akin to a snail when poked in the face.
“Hitoshi, I… I don’t think… you shouldn’t-…” He couldn’t seem to figure out quite what to say. Shinso watched it with vague interest.
“I’m going to track him down with or without help. He’ll also know that.” Shinso said to him flatly as he lifted his mocktail to his lips and drained it.
Izuku sighed but nodded again.
“Honestly? Good.” He said quietly.
Uh oh. That wasn’t a positive sign.
“Oh dear. Okay, I’ll make sure I’m prepared.” Shinso mused. Izuku sighed and rubbed at the back of his neck.
“Kacchan’s, urgh. He made me pinky promise.” Izuku whined making Shinso laugh.
“With actual pinkies?” He asked, delighted by that little fact. Bakugou Katsuki made Izuku pinky promise.
Izuku sighed again, deflating into his seat.
“Yeah. He knew I’d take it more seriously if he went through the small humiliation. But Hitoshi, please be gentle with him okay? I know you two like the back and forth you have, but this is, serious.” And there was that sudden confident beast that meant Izuku’s protective instinct had been instigated.
Shinso just smiled at him.
“Gentle? Sure. I can do gentle.”
Bakugou lived in a very nice high rise apartment in downtown Tokyo. Shinso had been there only one time before and had just about managed to peek around his living room before being hurled right out his window. It was impressive given how the window was only open a crack, they were very high up after all. In Bakugou’s defence, Shinso had picked his lock and broken in purely to be a dick and give him a little scare. He had also managed to use his capture weapon to not die so fair play all round.
As brief as that poke around was, Shinso had learnt several things. Bakugou was home, Bakugou was militant clean, and Bakugou would defend his space with lethal intent.
As Shinso once again went about picking the lock to his apartment door, only two of those things were still true.
Bakugou was home and Bakugou would defend his space with lethal intent.
He ran at Shinso with a knife.
Shinso was more than used to strong men rushing him with sharp objects and simply redirected the attack, manoeuvring Bakugou around and tossing him to the floor hard in his entryway. What was really surprising about that was that Bakugou went down easily and hissed in pain. Also, his apartment was a fucking mess. Shinso could tell that from the hallway.
Shinso wasn’t even being called names. Izuku was right to be protective it seemed.
“A knife? From you? What’s the deal with that? Also, I still have all my teeth and I’ve been in the city for almost a week now. I’m a little bitter about it to be honest.” He said before frowning at him. He was still crumpled on the floor in what looked like horrendous agony and honestly, he looked like a wreck.
Shinso walked around him, eyes assessing and his mirth at being attacked with a knife thoroughly gone.
He squat down beside his head, his hair greasy and clothes dirty. He had bandages peaking out of his shirt.
This was all extremely worrying.
Bakugou was a perfectionist in every facet of his life, his own health and body included.
This was not the Bakugou Katsuki Shinso knew and even from here Shinso could sniff out old take-away boxes. He knew the smell well.
“Hey.” He said, far more gently.
“Get out.” Bakugou finally managed to wheeze but Shinso just scoffed at him and stood back up.
“That’s a hard pass Handsome. You want me gone? You’ll have to throw me back out your window and it looks like you’re not going to manage that for a while.” He said before walking deeper into his apartment.
Yikes.
It was a horrifying change. There was trash and clothes everywhere, plus a lot of broken furniture that clearly bore the brunt of that endless forge of rage Bakugou usually channeled into his day job.
Shinso paused at a pile of bloody clothes and examined them closer.
T-shirts with the same blood patterns. Ribs and sides.
He was actually injured and had apparently decided not to get it seen too.
This painted a very grim picture indeed.
Shinso headed back to the hallway where Bakugou remained on the floor.
Was he asleep?
Huh, a micro-nap like that either meant he hadn’t slept in days or Shinso’s presence had somehow relaxed him. That latter one was very doubtful.
“Am I going to have to pick you up?” He asked with interest, squatting down again but keeping out of striking range from experience.
Bakugou startled awake and made a deep noise of anger, his body trembling as he tried to force it to move.
“I don’t need your fucking pity.” He spat, voice rough, but his heart really wasn’t in it.
Shinso hummed.
“Remember who you’re talking to Hot-Stuff. Pity isn’t really my thing.” He said simply. Bakugou’s arms shook violently as he continued trying to force them to move with little success. Then he flopped back to the floor and heaved out a sigh.
Shinso hocked a hefty glob of saliva and spat right on his face, mentally apologising to Izuku for breaking his ‘gently gently’ promise. This particular angry critter usually didn’t respond well to gently anyway.
Sure enough, Bakugou’s head snapped up immediately and the look of pure incredulous fury had Shinso grinning.
“There he is. Hello Sweetheart.” He said brightly. Bakugou lunged for him, fuelled past his pain by sheer rage.
Shinso laughed as he dodged and weaved the attempts to murder him easily given Bakugou’s sorry state, but caught his fist and pulled him around into a decent hold as he started to slow back down.
With little grace, he hauled Bakugou toward the open door of his bathroom and roughly shoved him into his bathtub.
Bakugou fell like a sack of potatoes and heaved out breaths as he stay there.
Then came tears.
Again, Shinso was never one to engage in the deep emotions and tears made him very uncomfortable, but with this Bakugou it seemed like tears were a necessity so Shinso didn’t try to stop him. Instead he unhooked the shower head and began to hose him down, stinky clothes and all.
He shrieked at it, and as Shinso batted away his hands and wrestled him out of his bloody shirt, he remained reluctant to accept his fate.
It was very much like trying to bathe a cat. Specifically Shota’s angriest cat aptly named ‘Miss Bitch’. Bakugou bit him, scratched, screamed, kicked and flailed. But Shinso did get those gross bandages off and also got to see what he was dealing with.
Burns.
At least second degree ones.
Giant infected pus blistered ones.
A few of those blisters had been popped by their scuffle too.
Shinso moved the shower head away and frowned at them.
Bakugou knew how to handle burns and he clearly had fucking not handled these. That said a lot of things and every one of them was immensely concerning.
Bakugou had gone completely still, eyes lowered and the strongest aura of defeat around him Shinso had ever seen.
“So.” Shinso said. He didn’t respond. “You know what? I don’t think I even want to know how the fuck you ended up like this because it’s probably horrifying, but, in my own self interest, I’m gonna force you out of this funk and get you fixed up and you know what else?”
He still didn’t respond.
Shinso grabbed him hard by the hair and forced his head up, a strange and vicious anger deep in his bones that was genuinely quite unusual for him.
Bakugou’s expression looked Todoroki Shoto level of vacant and Shinso sighed at it as he let him go.
“You’re going to let me sort this or so help me, I’ll use my fucking quirk on you. You understand? Nod or shake your head.” He said clear but controlled.
Fact was, Shinso did not like using his quirk on the people he was close to. Even those he was close to in a mostly violent but still sort of companionable way. Shinso’s quirk was a million times more powerful than it had been at UA and the shit he had done with it kept him up at night.
Bakugou also knew that. Had witnessed Shinso have a mortifyingly epic meltdown about it once when he used it on him by accident during one of their beat downs.
“I’m fine.” He lied, like an idiot.
“Yeah, see, you’ve never been good at lying and, even if you were, I’m kinda shit hot at picking up on deception. Let’s not insult both of our smarts and pretend you didn’t say that shall we?” Shinso said haughtily earning a very pathetic look of defensive resistance.
Shinso moved closer, his nose barely a few inches from Bakugou’s own and despite now very much being in striking range, no attack came.
Again, that said a lot of unspoken things.
“This is going to happen, with or without your permission.” Shinso began, quiet and gentle, but firm. “If you make me, I will use my quirk on you and the result will end up being the same as if I didn’t, except then both of us will be extremely triggered. So. What’s it going to be?”
Honestly, Shinso expected more resistance. This Bakugou seemed quite fond of being in pain given his untreated injuries and having the bonus of hurting Shinso was probably extremely attractive to him right about now. But, thankfully, he just closed his eyes and nodded.
“I killed a kid.” He whispered.
Shinso sighed as he pulled back.
“That’s never fun.” He said flatly.
Red eyes looked at him; agony, anguish and just a dash of curious hope. Shinso knew why. He wanted to know if Shinso understood his plight from a personal perspective given his response. An exceptionally rare and somewhat alarmingly desperate wish to connect.
Even if Shinso was in a merciful mood, which he wasn’t, his tongue was mostly tied by unbreakable NDAs.
This wasn’t the time for trauma bonding anyway.
“There’s a system for dealing with shit like this and I know your self destructing ass is more than aware of that. But the system only works once you get over the inherent desire to punish yourself. It sucks ass, but it will eventually help. So. Again. I’m going to get you patched up, you will allow this bruise to your pride to happen, then once you’re back to your usual self and we’re back to punching the shit out of each other, we won’t ever speak on it again. Deal?”
Bakugou grunted, eyes lowering, but he nodded.
“Great. Now, I’m going to the local pharmacy to pick up some shit, you can stay right here and get another power nap in whilst you wait for me to come back.”
Another nod.
Good.
Shinso got up and marched his soggy ass to the shops to buy fresh gauze and the most wasp-sting like brutal antiseptic he could find.