Chapter Text
Todoroki thinks he is a good friend.
Statistically, he helps out his friends atleast 7 times out of 10 whenever they ask him for it. The other times are when he wants to help but is either not the right person for the task, or he tries but fails. He’s a patient person, and is usually good at dealing with his friends who are all over the social spectrum. He regularly gets extra coffee on his way to the office for his friends. He also remembers all their birthdays and makes sure to wish them on the dot, always.
His winning trait however, is probably the fact that he does whatever he’s asked to do, if asked nicely enough.
Todoroki doesn’t mind this. Infact, he enjoys doing things for other people. Midoriya had once said it was because his love language was “acts of service”. Todoroki agreed. Something about a job done well and the satisfaction he receives when the other person smiles at him for it is empowering to him.
That doesn’t mean he’ll do anything, of course. His friends would never take advantage of him like that.
Kaminari isn’t exactly a friend, though. He’s an acquaintance, a friend of a friend, and is currently at Todoroki’s feet begging him to “Please just sleep with Bakugou once! You just need to get him to blow off some steam and I’ll never bother you again! Please, Todoroki!”
“Umm…” Todoroki says intelligently.
Kirishima has his head in his hands and is trying very hard to hide how red his face is. Ashido is doing her best to not burst out laughing. Sero is already on the floor doing an incredible impression of a dog with a bad case of the ticks.
“Please. He’s going to fire me otherwise. Worse, he’s going to blacklist me! He’s been on my case this whole month and I can’t take it anymore! Do you want to see me jobless and on the streets, Todoroki?” Kaminari has legit tears in his eyes.
Todoroki scratches his head.
“That wouldn’t be ideal, but could we not have discussed this somewhere more… private?”
He glances around at the Accounting department, where his cubicle is situated smack dab in the middle of this floor.
Everyone dips their head back into their work like it was the most interesting thing in the world, like they hadn’t just been listening in on their conversation, if you could even call it that. Todoroki knows better though. The Accounting department was drab and boring and mentally taxing on everyone here, and the only way they survived was by inhaling gossip like oxygen.
Kaminari gapes like a fish and immediately starts blushing. “Fuck!” he whispers passionately.
Todoroki sighs. “Come on,” he says, turning towards the break room.
Once the break room is bolted and secured, he turns onto Kaminari again.
“So,” Todoroki starts off.
“So,” Kaminari replies.
An awkward silence ensues. Todoroki doesn’t know how to dispel the weird energy in the room, and Kaminari is doing his best to avoid his eyes completely. Oh, so now he feels embarrassed?
“Can we please just get this over with? God.” Todoroki agrees with Kirishima. The faster they get this over with the less mental damage he acquires.
“Right! So, umm. The thing is, I may have kinda pissed Bakugou off…? And like, I said sorry! Multiple times! But he just snorts in my face and tells me to go redo my work for the hundredth time. I don’t even know how he keeps finding mistakes in it! And it’s performance review in 2 weeks and I’m like, 80 percent sure he’s going to put in a bad review or something for me and I just! Ugh!!! Please help me out, Todoroki! I’ll do anything to repay you…” At this point Kaminari is kind of rambling nervously, and Sero pats him empathetically on the shoulder.
“You know Bakugou’s not the kind of guy to fire you over some petty grudge, dude,” Kirishima says. He promptly gets ignored.
Todoroki is confused. “Isn’t Bakugou pissed off all the time though?”
Bakugou Katsuki is the head of the HR department, and usually walks around barking out orders to his subordinates with a nasty frown on his face at all times. As far as Todoroki knew, Bakugou may as well have been born with a constipated looking face. How he became the head of the HR department with that god awful temper, only god knows.
“Well, true. But this absolute idiot here ate all the macaroons Bakugou’s parents sent over from France. And they’re back in Japan again, so he can’t ask for more. They’re from this really famous pâtisserie and there’s only a limited amount of them available, so…” Ashido shrugs, and smacks Kaminari across the head.
“Ow, hey!” Kaminari rubs his head and groans loudly. “How could I have known I wasn’t supposed to eat them? They were just sitting on his desk and I thought it was one of those confession sweets boxes and Bakugou throws them all out anyways, so I figured I could do him a favour and just clean it up for him!”
Ashido snorts. “Yeah, you cleaned out his macaroons and your paycheck for next month too, idiot!”
“Hey, no fair! It’s not my fault Bakugou has such a gigantic stick up his a-”
“Bro, this is totally your own fault and you know it.”
“Kirishima’s right, you know? Idiot.”
“Can you stop calling me that? I literally haven’t seen my mom in a week and I’m in a fragile state right now.”
“Man, I bet those macaroons were tasty as fuck…”
“Hell yeah they were! I almost don’t regret eating them…” There’s drool on the floor now and how did this even happen?
“Can you guys get to the point? Why come to me?” Why Todoroki? And why for specifically that reason?
“Oh man,” Kaminari grimaces.
“Well, you know how Bakugou is gay, right? No wait, he’s bisexual actually. Yeah. And the thing is, we’ve never seen him dating. Or even hook up with anyone even though he gets offers all the time! I’m so jealous. Anyways, that has to be why he’s so angry all the time! Cause he’s not getting any! He’s not gonna hook up with any of us, and he probably has standards as high as Eiffel Tower, so you’re the best option for us right now! Please help me out Todoroki, seriously I’ll do anything to repay you.” And then he claps his hands together and bows his head.
Todoroki sympathises, kind of. He’s definitely not stupid enough to eat something off the desk of someone as volatile as Bakugou, but he also wouldn’t want to be terrorised like this if he did. He’s still confused, though.
“You said I’m the best option. Why?”
“Dude,” Sero says. “Are you for real?”
“Yes?” He raises an eyebrow at them, wondering why they all look shocked.
“Todoroki! Man! You’re like — fucking gorgeous! You won ‘Hottest Employee of the Year’ three years in a row! Anybody would want to boink you! And Kirishima said you sort of do anything people asked you to, so I figured you might be able to help me… but also no worries if you can’t?”
“I did not say that,” Kirishima says but gets ignored again.
“Uh, thanks?” Todoroki doesn’t know whether to feel flattered or put off by the comment. He never really thought of himself as gorgeous or anything of the sort so it was a bit… well. But even then, “Would Bakugou really play along with this? You said his standards are very high.”
“Todoroki! You’re hurting my feelings here now! You’re so beautiful Bakugou spat out his coffee the first time he saw you. And I swear on my mom’s top secret donburi recipe! If this doesn’t work, nothing will.” Kaminari looks at him with earnest desperate eyes.
Todoroki sighs. What a long day and it wasn’t even lunch yet.
“Alright. But I need you to know, I’m not gay. Atleast I don’t think so. And I can’t flirt. I’m not exactly a virgin, but having sex with a guy is… on top of that, it’s Bakugou. If this doesn’t work out…” he shrugs and lets them do the math for themselves.
“Thank you so much, oh god, Todoroki, you’re the best man ever!!” Kaminari leaps out of his chair for a hug, but Kirishima catches him at the last moment and hauls him back. Todoroki nods in thanks.
Kaminari was an interesting person, but he was also a bit too intense, or maybe it was just a hard time for him, but Todoroki wanted absolutely no part in that mess.
He’d do his job, get his smile and thanks, and fuck off like he always does.
Just the fact that he absolutely has no idea how to do it. Bakugou and him weren’t even in the same department.
“We’ll help you out!” Kaminari replies with a face splitting grin to his worry.
“Hell yeah!” The others bar Kirishima agree cheerfully.
[]
And that’s how Todoroki finds himself inside Bakugou’s office with a very pissed off blond staring daggers at him.
“Where’s Raccoon Eyes.”
Raccoon Eyes? “Who?” he says out loud.
“Fucking — Pink Hair! Moron. I told her to get the Sales file done by 4. Where the hell is she?”
“Uh,” Todoroki did not prepare for this. What was he supposed to say so Bakugou wouldn’t bite off his head today? “She wanted me to tell you she was having a stomach ache and needed some time off.”
That was a good enough excuse, Todoroki thought. Bakugou didn’t look convinced though. He eyes Todoroki from top to bottom condescendingly and somehow manages to glower even harder.
“And she told you to tell me why? Couldn’t have gotten any of the other losers on my team to tell me?” He crosses his arms across his chest and raises a perfectly shaped eyebrow up at him.
Bakugou doesn’t wear a tie, Todoroki notices. His top button is popped open and his collarbones are partly visible. They are very good collarbones. Todoroki also notices Bakugou has very nice arms too, pure muscle and strength obvious even through the black nondescript shirt he’s wearing. A gym rat?
“I was near the bathroom and there wasn’t anybody near, so…” he trails off.
“And pray tell me what the hell were you doing on this floor? Got a secret girlfriend here, hah?” Todoroki looks to the side and winces. This was getting painful. Bakugou clearly had no interest in having a civil conversation. If Kaminari really wanted someone to sleep with Bakugou, then Todoroki was the worst choice by a mile.
“I don’t have a girlfriend here,” he says, and hopes he doesn’t get kicked without even starting up a real conversation.
“Then get the fuck outta here already! What are you staring at my face for?”
Well, shit. He racked his brain to come up with something, anything. Todoroki says the first thing that comes to mind.
“I don’t have a girlfriend, but I do have a crush on someone on this floor.”
That gets Bakugou to look up from the file he’d been going through. The rim of his glasses shine in the office lights, and Todoroki feels a little off-balance, for some reason. Maybe he shouldn’t have agreed to help out Kaminari.
Bakugou takes off his glasses, and sets them down gently by the desktop. “Yeah? This better be worth my time, Halfie, or I’m cutting off the Accounting department’s break time by half next month and the one after it!”
“How did you know my department…? Also, I’m pretty sure that’s an abuse of authority,” Todoroki says.
“Hah?!” Bakugou stands up and his eyebrows furrow in such a way that Todoroki feels sympathy for his facial muscles. It shouldn’t be humanly possible to have a frown that deep. “I’ll do whatever the hell I want, you half and half bastard! Fucking ‘abuse of authority’,” he airquotes mockingly, “Fuck you! And you calling me dumb or somethin’? Parading around with those dead fish eyes and looking all primpy like that loudass copycat and you expect me to not figure out what department spawned you… Everywhere I look, it’s just a bunch of idiots…”
He slumps back onto his chair loudly, growls frustratedly, and goes back to reading his file as if Todoroki just stopped existing or something.
Todoroki stands still for ten long awkward seconds. Should he leave? Should he try again? Maybe Bakugou is just in a really bad mood today. Bakugou looks up again at him, clicks his tongue loudly.
“What the hell are you still standing around here for? Get out, dumbass.” He waves his hand dismissively.
“But I still haven’t told you who my crush is,” Todoroki tries one last time. If Bakugou doesn’t bite this, then well. Whatever.
“Well, newsflash asshole! I don’t give a shit!” He huffs out and raises his hands. “Can you just — get out!”
“But you were the one who wanted to know.”
“Arghhh! Fine! Fucking tell me who this oh so special crush of yours is then, you stubborn son of a bitch!"
Todoroki takes a deep breath. It's now or never.
"First of all, I'm not gay," he starts off. Bakugou rolls his eyes so hard Todoroki feels it in his bones. Nonetheless, he pushes through.
“I’m not gay, but I think this one guy in your department is very… good looking.”
“Huh,” Bakugou says. “And you thought, what — I’ll set you up with him if you told me ‘bout your fucking crush or what? Where you going with this, hah? I know all the guys in this department and none of them are worth anyone’s fucking time. Buncha losers, tch!” He raises his eyebrows at Todoroki, mouth twisting into a snarl.
"I was hoping you might. And it’s… it's not them, actually.”
“Then who the fuck are you talki—” Bakugou freezes.
Todoroki sees the exact moment Bakugou figures it out. His mouth slackens, the scowl relaxing slowly. Red eyes daze over and Bakugou blinks rapidly, like he couldn’t believe what he was seeing. Or maybe what he was hearing. With his expression relaxed and somewhat perplexed, Bakugou looks so childlike and innocent; like Natsu-nii when he was told Santa isn’t real.
Todoroki doesn’t think he’ll ever forget this expression.
“You,” Bakugou wheezes out, as if someone just suckerpunched him. “You what.”
“I like you,” Todoroki says simply, and thanks his childhood trauma for giving him the most impeccable, impenetrable poker face ever.
“You can’t just fucking— say that, you absolute asshole! What the hell? Don’t fucking play with me!”
Bakugou’s face is so red Todoroki is worried he might explode any second. The flush spread across his neck and collarbones looks nothing short of mesmerizing. His arms flex and bulge, the buttons of his shirt threatening to burst open. Yeah, Todoroki totally gets the thing about the confession sweets now. Bakugou may be a hot headed asshole, but those pectorals were sculpted by god.
“But—”
Before Todoroki can say anything, Bakugou stalks over to him, and fists his collar tightly. He gets so close to Todoroki he can count the lashes on Bakugou’s eyes. A sweet smell wafts over to him, like warm melted caramel.
“I said - don’t fucking play with me,” Bakugou snarls. His eyes blaze like embers, bright and the most vivid red Todoroki has ever seen. A shiver runs up his spine.
“I’m not. I don’t know what I want from you, but I do like you, Bakugou.”
Bakugou exhales forcefully. Warm breath fans over Todoroki’s face, and it’s a relief on his nose that got too chilled by the air conditioned room. Bakugou shuts his eyes closed. Todoroki wonders what he’s thinking about all this.
There’s a tension in the room that’s palpable — so real he can taste it on his tongue, but he just can’t seem to figure out what it is exactly. Bakugou seems to have some idea though, because when he opens his eyes and stares up at Todoroki, there’s clarity in them. And an open challenge.
“So you like me. This should be okay then, right?” Bakugou says.
And then he punches Todoroki on the lips.
With his own lips.