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Bakugo starts the count somewhere between the fog machine kicking in and someone losing a fake eyelash in the guac.
Midoriya’s apartment is packed wall to wall with Pro Heroes, half-assed costumes, and enough alcohol to qualify as a safety violation.
Everyone’s laughing, drinking, shouting over bad playlist remixes and worse Halloween puns.
Bakugo’s pressed against a wall near the snack table, arms crossed, fake wolf tail tangled around one leg.
He’s not watching Todoroki.
He’s just… maintaining visual awareness.
Across the room, Todoroki stands in a vampire cape and a mesh shirt like someone forgot which costume they were aiming for.
He’s sipping a drink the color of cough syrup and talking to Yaoyorozu and Kaminari.
Bakugo narrows his eyes.
One Drink Todoroki.
Calm. Quiet. Standing in one spot like a very polite statue.
So far, so good.
Fifteen minutes later—
Two Drink Todoroki.
Bakugo watches as Todoroki starts talking with his hands.
This is when the oversharing kicks in.
Kaminari leans in like he’s been waiting for it.
Bakugo reads his lips: “He makes my lunch look mean on purpose so people don’t flirt with me.”
Goddammit.
Three Drink Todoroki.
Sad phase.
Now Todoroki is sitting on the floor beside Jiro, staring into a plastic pumpkin like it’s a portal to another dimension.
He’s murmuring something, Bakugo can barely hear it.
Jiro’s visibly trying not to laugh. Midoriya sits cross-legged nearby, sipping something bright orange and regretting everything.
Todoroki turns to him, completely unprompted. “He said if I cried during a movie again, he’d revoke my movie privileges,” Todoroki says quietly. “But he held the tissue box out before I even started.”
Midoriya freezes, mid-sip. “Todoroki…”
“He didn’t even look at me,” Todoroki continues, eyes wide and watery. “He just… passed it over like it was nothing. That’s love, right?”
Midoriya looks like he’s about to cry too. “Todoroki, please. I can’t emotionally survive this conversation.”
Across the room, Bakugo stiffens.
“Kill me,” Bakugo mutters into his cup.
Four Drink Todoroki.
Dangerous. Dancing.
Todoroki is now swaying in the middle of the living room to a remix of Monster Mash. Alone. With his eyes closed.
Sero throws in a spin move to hype him up. Kaminari comes back over to give Todoroki glow sticks, and another drink.
Bakugo straightens up, and grabs a cup of water off of the drink table beside him.
Time to move.
Five Drink Todoroki.
This one's handsy.
Bakugo sees it the second it starts—Todoroki weaving across the room with his cup sloshing, laser-locked on Bakugo like a lovesick zombie with great hair and no regard for personal space.
“Oh hell no,” Bakugo mutters, intercepting him halfway.
“Katsu,” Todoroki says, delighted. “I've been looking for you.”
“I was standing completely still, idiot.”
Todoroki giggles into his drink, taking another sip.
“That's enough,” Bakugo says flatly, plucking the drink out of his hand like it personally offended him and replacing it with a cup of water.
Todoroki looks at it, confused. “What is this?”
“It’s water.”
Todoroki squints at it. “That’s suspicious.”
“It’s chilled wine,” Bakugo lies flatly.
Todoroki takes a sip. “Tastes like... Nothing.”
“Because you have bad taste. In men and chilled beverages.”
Todoroki giggles. Giggles.
Then leans in, wobbly, and grabs the front of Bakugo’s hoodie.
His mesh shirt has migrated halfway off his arm. Bakugo sighs and pulls it back onto his shoulder for him without a word.
“You always fix me,” Todoroki says dreamily.
“You always need fixing.”
Then—like it’s the most natural thing in the world—Todoroki reaches up and scratches Bakugo’s head, right where the cheap furry ears are clipped into his hair.
Gently. Affectionately. Like Bakugo’s a rescue dog who’s finally warmed up to people.
Bakugo freezes.
“You’re such a good puppy,” Todoroki says proudly, loud enough to echo.
Bakugo is praying that nobody else heard that, but of course. He'd never get that lucky.
Kaminari nearly falls off the couch. Uraraka drops her phone.
Bakugo stares into the middle distance like he’s planning his own funeral. “I’m going to bury myself alive.”
But Todoroki just smiles, swaying a little, and leans his head against Bakugo’s chest. “I love you,” he sighs. “Even when you’re grumpy.”
Bakugo exhales slowly, like he’s disarming a bomb. Because he is. It's just shaped like his boyfriend.
He cups the back of Todoroki’s head and says, low, “Drink the wine, dumbass.”
Todoroki sips obediently, then nuzzles closer.
Bakugo glares at the room like anyone laughing will meet god tonight.
And behind him, Todoroki whispers, “Such a cute puppy.”
Bakugo’s eye twitches.
Someone (probably Kaminari) chokes trying not to laugh. Todoroki sighs like this is the best moment of his life.
*
Bakugo tries to relax after the incident.
He really does.
He gets Todoroki to sit down on a beanbag, puts a granola bar in his hand, threatens Kaminari with violence if he brings another drink over, and even gives him his own hoodie to stop the mesh shirt situation from escalating further.
For five glorious minutes, it works.
And then he looks away for two seconds—just two—to help Midoriya unplug a speaker before it short-circuits the whole apartment.
When he turns back—
Todoroki is gone.
“Shit.”
Bakugo cranes his neck above the crowd.
No vampire cape. No stolen hoodie. No pumpkin cup.
Just bodies and glitter and chaos. Like someone shook a rave inside a washing machine.
Then he hears it: “Take it off! Take it off!”
Bakugo’s head whips toward the source.
There—center of the room—Six Drink Todoroki is alive and well, shirt off, cape spinning, standing on the ottoman with a shot glass in hand like a very pretty, very drunk lighthouse trying to guide ships into disaster.
Kirishima is beside him, howling with laughter, holding two empty shot glasses in triumph.
Mina’s cheering. Jiro has her phone out. Uraraka’s clapping like it’s a Broadway finale.
Bakugo sees red. “You absolute idiots,” he barks, pushing through the crowd. “I look away for one second and you gave him another drink?”
“He’s having fun!” Kirishima grins, not remotely sorry.
“He’s got the coordination of a baby deer on ice.”
But Todoroki just beams when he sees him. “Katsu!” he says like Bakugo’s the main event. “Welcome to my show.”
“It’s not a show, you maniac—get off the damn furniture.”
Todoroki wobbles, hops down (barely sticks the landing), and immediately sways into Bakugo’s chest, shirtless, glowing, and absolutely unbothered.
Bakugo grabs his face gently but firmly. “How many fingers am I holding up?”
“You’re holding me,” Todoroki replies, eyes glassy with delight.
Bakugo shuts his own eyes for a moment.
Prays for patience.
“You are such a dumbass,” he mutters, pulling the hoodie back over Todoroki’s head and pulling the drawstrings tight. “Drink this right now or I’m hauling you out of here like a sack of potatoes.”
He shoves another cup of water into Todoroki’s hands.
“This isn’t wine,” Todoroki says suspiciously.
“Nope. It’s vodka. Drink it, or I'll start crying.”
He won't. But he knew that would work.
Todoroki takes a sip.
Then, with no warning, his fingers slip behind Bakugo’s head again—scratching lightly at the fake wolf ears like he’s trained to do it.
Bakugo tenses. “Don’t,” he warns.
“You’re just so soft,” Todoroki says, delighted.
Bakugo grabs his wrist—but doesn’t pull it away. Not really. “I swear to god—”
“You saved me,” Todoroki says dreamily. “From party death.”
Bakugo rolls his eyes. “You’re shirtless in October. I saved myself from embarrassment.”
But Todoroki just leans in, nuzzling his face against Bakugo’s collarbone with a content sigh.
Still scratching his fake ears. Like a gremlin in love.
“Be nice to me, Kat. Puppies are nice.”
Bakugo lowers his head and mutters under his breath, cheeks blazing, “... You fucker. I'll give you five seconds.”
From across the room, Kaminari whispers, “Aw.”
Kirishima grins. “We’ve entered the acceptance phase.”
Bakugo flips them off behind Todoroki’s head.
But he doesn’t move.
Because for all his yelling, for all his threats—Bakugo never moves when Todoroki leans in.
*
Getting Todoroki out of the party is one thing.
Getting him home is the final boss fight. No health potions. Minimal backup. All glitter-based damage.
Bakugo’s basically carrying him down the sidewalk—one arm wrapped tight around Todoroki’s waist, the other hauling his phone, a water bottle, and Todoroki’s vampire cape, which someone stuffed into a trick-or-treat bucket at the last second.
Todoroki is useless.
He’s not even walking; he’s sort of drifting. His head keeps thudding gently against Bakugo’s shoulder.
“I wanna go to your place,” he whines, again. “Don’t take me home. My house is so big and lonely. It's like a haunted museum of trauma.”
Bakugo exhales through his nose. “Your place is like, twenty minutes from here.”
“I’m emotionally fragile, Katsu-go. Be compassionate.”
“You tried to take your pants off to Monster Mash. That’s not emotionally fragile, that’s felony adjacent.”
Todoroki gasps, scandalized. “I was too warm.”
“You’re warm because you drank enough tequila to kill a bear.”
They reach Bakugo’s building.
Todoroki doesn’t notice.
He’s too busy describing in detail why Bakugo’s apartment “feels safer than government bunkers.”
“I like your couch,” he mumbles as Bakugo presses the elevator button.
“You fell asleep on it once.”
“And your walls are thick. Like, private. Not emotionally, but like—structurally.”
Bakugo stares at the ceiling. “Jesus Christ. You don't even know what you're saying.”
In the elevator, Todoroki sags against him completely, nuzzling into his shoulder.
“I missed you at the party,” he says, voice thick with sleep. “You were across the room. With the snacks. It felt like miles.”
“I was ten feet away and watching you so you didn’t die of alcohol poisoning.”
“You care about me,” Todoroki sighs.
“I tolerate you.”
“Liar,” he mumbles happily, squeezing Bakugo’s hoodie like a favorite stuffed animal. “You’re my soft little rage wolf.”
Bakugo blinks like he's been personally attacked. “Stop calling me that.”
The elevator dings. Bakugo hauls him down the hall, unlocks the door, and pushes it open—
Todoroki stares at the familiar interior, blinking slow. “Wait. This is... this is your apartment.”
“Great observation.”
“You brought me here?”
“Was that not clear when you asked five times and I didn’t correct you once?”
Todoroki’s mouth opens. Closes.
Then he breaks into the biggest, sloppiest grin Bakugo has ever seen. “You're in love with me.”
Bakugo kicks the door shut behind them. “Painfully.”
“You really love me,” Todoroki says, throwing himself onto the couch in a dramatic pile of limbs and longing. “You brought me to your den. That’s wolf behavior.”
“I’m not a damn wolf, Sho.”
“You tucked my mesh shirt in. You fed me hydration wine.”
Bakugo tosses a blanket over him and mutters, “You’re lucky I didn’t leave you on the curb.”
Todoroki’s halfway under the blanket, one arm flopped out, fingers reaching vaguely in Bakugo’s direction. “Come here,” he murmurs. “I’m cold and in love.”
Bakugo rolls his eyes but grabs a bottle of water and kneels down beside the couch. “Drink this first.”
Todoroki squints. “Is it wine?”
“No.”
“Is it full of your love?”
Bakugo exhales slowly, like it's taking everything in him just to talk. “Sure, baby.”
Todoroki takes a sip, then tugs weakly at the hem of Bakugo’s hoodie. “Don’t leave. You’re my favorite person.”
Bakugo doesn’t move. Just watches him for a second. “You’re a goddamn mess,” he mutters.
But his hands are soft when they fix the blanket. His eyes softer still.
He tucks the blanket tighter around Todoroki, brushes glitter out of his hair, and sits down on the floor beside the couch with a resigned sigh.
Todoroki grins, eyes fluttering shut. “My soft little rage wolf,” he mumbles again.
Bakugo doesn’t respond.
Just leans back against the couch, head tilted toward Todoroki’s. Eyes closed. Breathing steady.
But he stays.
*
Todoroki’s half-asleep on the couch, sunk deep into Bakugo’s hoodie and a fleece blanket.
Bakugo stands above him with a pair of sweatpants, a clean t-shirt, and the exhausted posture of a man who has wrestled a thousand villains and is now wrestling soft drunk boyfriend mode at 1:30 AM.
“Alright. Let’s get you into something that isn’t sticky with jungle juice and shame,” Bakugo mutters.
Todoroki smiles up at him, eyes glassy and soft. “I like your voice when you’re tired.”
Bakugo gives him a flat look. “Don’t start.”
“‘S comforting. Like...a fire crackling in a forest where no one’s mad at me.”
“I am mad at you,” Bakugo says, already kneeling and starting to peel Todoroki’s shirt off. “I’m very mad. This is what fury looks like.”
Todoroki lifts his arms like a sleepy toddler. “You love me.”
Bakugo grits his teeth but gently tugs the shirt over his head. “Shut up.”
He helps Todoroki into the t-shirt—his t-shirt.
It swamps him a little, but Bakugo smooths it down anyway, palms lingering a beat too long.
Then comes the sweatpants.
“No funny business,” Bakugo mutters, hooking fingers around Todoroki’s waistband. “If you get horny I will choke you out.”
“Hot. I’d die happy,” Todoroki says cheerfully.
Bakugo ignores him.
Once he’s dressed, Bakugo grabs a washcloth from the bathroom, dampens it with warm water, and crouches again beside the couch.
Todoroki blinks down at him like he’s witnessing something sacred. “You’re washing my face?”
Bakugo scrubs gently at the glitter and smudged eyeliner around his eyes. “You look like you spent the night at a strip club. Of course I'm washing your face.”
Todoroki leans into the touch like a spoiled cat who’s never been told no. “You’re so nice to me.”
“I’m trying not to poke your damn eye out.”
“You’re perfect.”
Bakugo scoffs. “I’m exhausted.”
“You’re my favorite person in the world.”
Bakugo pauses. Wringing out the washcloth. Not meeting his eyes. “...you smell like tequila and sugar skulls.”
Todoroki smiles, soft and sure. “You smell like safety.”
Bakugo finally looks up.
And Todoroki’s just staring at him.
Dreamy, quiet, completely full of stupid affection.
“Alright, that’s enough emotional terrorism for one night,” Bakugo says quickly, grabbing the blanket and pulling it up again.
But before he can stand—
Todoroki grabs his wrist.
“Katsu,” he murmurs, voice sleepy and hopeful. “Will you wear the ears to bed?”
Bakugo blinks. “What.”
“The wolf ears. I like them. You look so—” He gestures vaguely. “Protective. Like you’d fight a bear for me.”
“I would fight a bear for you. Without the ears.”
“But... But they're so cute.”
Bakugo stares down at him like he’s being held hostage by an affectionate raccoon. “No.”
Todoroki pouts. Lower lip trembling. Eyes wide.
Crushed.
Bakugo sighs.
A sound that leaves his soul, shakes the floorboards, and definitely adds a new wrinkle to his forehead.
It’s the sound of surrender. Of future therapy. Of deep, enduring regret.
“Just for a few minutes,” he mutters.
Todoroki beams.
Bakugo grabs the stupid headband off the counter, scowling the whole way to the bedroom, dragging Todoroki behind him.
He practically shoves Todoroki into the bed, before situating those damn ears onto his head.
When he turns back around, fake ears a little crooked, Todoroki’s already curled up under the covers, waiting with stars in his eyes.
“Good puppy,” Todoroki whispers.
Bakugo goes still.
The pillow muffles the quiet sound of his soul leaving his body.
Bakugo flops down beside him and groans. “You say one more thing, and I’m sleeping on the fire escape.”
Todoroki cuddles into him.
He says nothing.
Just smiles.
*
Bakugo wakes up first.
It’s a rare event, and he regrets it instantly.
Not because of the warm weight of Todoroki wrapped around him, or the subtle ache in his lower back from letting said boyfriend sprawl across half the bed all night.
No.
It’s the buzzing.
Relentless.
His phone is exploding.
He groans, rubs a hand over his face, grabs it off the nightstand, and unlocks it to the horror show that is:
GROUP CHAT: “SPOOKY BITCHES 🎃”
Kiri: LMAOOO look at this one
[Image attached: a slightly blurry photo of Todoroki in Bakugo’s lap, petting his fake dog ears]
Mina: KUGO’S BLUSH 😭😭 this man is GONE
Denki: “you’re such a good puppy” i’m gonna have that engraved on a plaque for christmas
Deku: okay but it was actually really cute tho??
Jiro: Screenshotting for evidence in future trials.
Bakugo flops back onto the pillow, groaning. “I see a killing spree in my future.”
Behind him, Todoroki stirs, groaning too—but much more pitifully. “Why is it so bright,” he mutters into Bakugo’s shoulder blades.
“That's called the sun.”
“Well, turn it off.”
“I'm done doing you favors.” Bakugo shifts slightly to face him, phone held up like evidence. “Wanna see what you did last night?”
Todoroki squints at the screen. Blinks. Scrolls slowly through the pictures.
Then… smiles.
A small, sleepy, infuriatingly happy smile.
“You look cute,” Todoroki says.
Bakugo stares, incredulous. “That’s your takeaway from this disaster? I look cute?”
“You do,” Todoroki says softly. “All blushy and rigid, like someone threw a kitten into your lap and you panicked.”
“Because someone was dry-humping me in public, asshole.”
Todoroki shrugs lazily, unbothered. “I was feeling affectionate.”
“You called me your puppy, Sho.”
Todoroki doesn’t even hesitate. “I stand by it. You’re loyal. Protective. A little growly.”
Bakugo glares. “I should kick your hungover ass out right now.”
“You won’t,” Todoroki replies smugly, eyes already closing again. “You love me way too much.”
He’s infuriatingly correct.
Bakugo grumbles something unintelligible, sets the phone face-down, and yanks the blankets back over them both. “You’re the absolute worst,” he mutters.
Todoroki hums contentedly, snuggling deeper.
Silence stretches softly between them.
Todoroki’s breathing evens out, slipping back toward sleep. Just before he fully drifts off, he whispers—voice quiet and genuine—“Thanks for bringing me home.”
Bakugo’s chest tightens, just a little.
He exhales slowly, slides a hand through Todoroki’s messy hair, and says, gentle as he ever lets himself get, “Yeah, well. Couldn’t leave you there. Who else would take your stupid ass?”
His phone buzzes again.
He ignores it.
Let them roast him.
Let them laugh.
He’s not moving.
Not now. Not anytime soon.
Because yeah—he’s stupidly, painfully in love with this absolute disaster curled up against him, looking peaceful and safe and entirely too pleased with himself.
And if anyone asks him later about the wolf ears, he’s killing them and burying the bodies himself.
But for now?
He just pulls Todoroki closer, closes his eyes, and accepts the inevitable.
His idiot boyfriend might’ve publicly humiliated him in a mesh shirt, but he’s right about one thing:
Bakugo isn’t going anywhere.
***