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It had been a few years since Iida and the rest of his class had graduated, with most of their classmates starting off as sidekicks or otherwise working their ways up in hero society. Iida was one of the notable exceptions, almost immediately inheriting the Ingenium name with the help of his family’s agency. Bakugou also made his debut right out of high school, and as a result the two ended up working together frequently in their time as pros.
Still, this was a little out of left field.
“Hey babe, come with me for a second.”
Bakugou said it with a certain nonchalance that made the pet name seem well-practiced. Under normal circumstances Iida would have had a lot of questions: but right now he was Ingenium, and he knew Ground Zero wouldn’t be calling him ‘babe’ without some sort of reason.
So with a nod of his head, he followed.
They had met each other on their patrol routes, and now Bakugou led them away from the open city streets to weave into a maze of back alleys. Slowly the amount of people diminished and the sounds of civilian life faded into a distant murmur. The privacy seemed to be what he had been looking for, because without reaching any obvious landmark Bakugou came to a halt.
Turning to face him, Bakugou turned off his communicator and motioned silently for Iida to do the same. Only then did he start talking.
“My agency’s caught on that someone’s been targeting me.”
Iida nodded silently, not asking any questions. He knew Bakugou would explain everything in time. “We don’t know if it’s an individual or an organization yet, but they’ve probably got some surveillance or stealth-based quirks. We can’t seem to pin them down, otherwise I already would have chased the bastards out of hiding myself. They’ve also been obnoxiously cautious and aren’t making any moves.
“We think they’ve been waiting for an opening, but I don’t want to wait around and give them one. I don’t make mistakes, so they’re going to be waiting forever if they’re banking on a slip up to take advantage of.”
Bakugou paused then, staring until Iida’s eyes widened in understanding. “So you’re artificially creating a weakness?”
Bakugou grinned. “I’m glad you're as fast on the uptake as you are on your feet.” Pleasure glinted in his eyes as he stepped into Iida’s personal space, lips ghosting the skin of his jaw as he spoke his next words. “I want you to be my bait and pretend to date me. Sound up to the task?”
Iida barely suppressed a shiver, feeling surprise tug an uncomfortable smile across his face. “Disregarding the fact that you basically roped me in already with your comment earlier...of course.”
He felt more than saw Bakugou’s responding smile. “I’ll have my agency contact yours and share what we know.” Then the lips left his skin as Bakugou stepped back, and the absence of that warm breath almost made him shiver again.
---
“Took you long enough!”
When Iida opened the door to his house he wasn’t expecting anyone to greet him, so when a voice erupted from within his home he refused to feel embarrassed for jumping nearly a foot in the air.
“Bakugou?!”
Hurriedly toeing off his shoes, Iida leapt into the living room to find Bakugou making himself at home on the couch. He was stretched out, lazily flipping through channels and looking as natural as if Iida’s living room was a second home to him. (In actuality he had never visited, not even once: he hadn’t even come to Iida’s housewarming party when they graduated, complaining it was too soon to have some sort of reunion when he was still ‘actively sick of everyone’).
In response to Iida’s yet unasked question, Bakugou lifted one arm to jangle a spare key. “I stopped by your agency after my shift, and they told me to let myself in.”
Iida sighed, feeling the tension relax from his shoulders. Of course Idaten would have keys to his house—so his family could reach him in emergencies. Not for letting Bakugou into his house when he was too impatient to wait for Iida’s shift to end.
“Couldn’t someone have warned me? I thought I was off the clock.”
Bakgou pocketed his keys as he watched as Iida fall heavily into a chair beside the couch. “They’ll be paying you extra for this, don’t worry. Your agency agreed to it, we just need to log the extra hours.”
Lovely, more paperwork. “And why could this not have waited until our next shift? You could have scheduled a meeting, rather than invade the sanctity of my home.”
“Because when people are dating they tend to spend time together outside of work.” He rolled his eyes as he said it, slumping down against the back of the couch. “This way we get to discuss our plan, spend a convincing amount of time together, and you get paid overtime. Any problems?”
Of course Bakugou would have thought of everything. Iida found himself resenting his inability to voice any complaints, but rather than admit to that he asked, “so what is the plan?”
Bakugou crossed his arms across his chest, which might have looked professional if he hadn’t sunken halfway down the couch. “Did you get a chance to review the information we sent over?”
Iida let a tired sigh colour his voice as he sat back. “I hardly had any time at the office before I went home, my last assignment ran late and I only stayed long enough to strip off my costume and shower.”
“And you complained about no one telling you shit.” Bakugou grabbed for the remote, turning off the television and increasing the professionalism of their briefing a few degrees. “From what my agency can tell, I’m being monitored in a few ways. Someone likely has a quirk that let’s them listen in on communication devices, like phones and coms.”
Iida was already reaching for his cell phone, digging it from his pocket and turning it off. Bakugou watched idly as he continued talking. “We’re guessing they haven’t used that shit on you yet, but they’ll start to soon. Turning your phone off will be a good habit to get into at the office if our agencies talk about the case, but when it’s just us it’ll be better to keep them on. We don’t want them to know we’re onto their game.”
Iida nodded, setting his phone aside. He wasn’t about to turn it back on just because Bakugou implied it wasn’t necessary—better safe than sorry, as they say. “And what are the other surveillance methods being used?”
“Regular espionage: watching me, researching shit, the usual stuff. So we gotta get their attention across the board so they start believing we’re together.”
“Being seen together, being heard together… all while never knowing when they’re paying attention.”
“Exactly. It’s annoying as fuck.”
Iida nodded, too tired from his shift to dignify Bakugou’s crass language with a response. “How are we planning to draw them out?”
Bakugou sat up, lifting one hand so he could gesture with his fingers. “Step one: convince them we’re dating so they start targeting you. Step two: they see you mess up and take the bait.”
Iida immediately sat up. “Why are we assuming I’ll mess up?”
“Relax four-eyes, it’s not a judgement against you. Even the best heroes make mistakes sometimes,” he shrugged, “except for me. Which is why you’re here.”
“Right,” Iida grit out, finding it difficult not to take offense.
“Anyway, they’ll bank on you having more openings than me and come after you. Then you either take them down when they reveal themselves, because you’re a competent hero, or if they’re actually strong I’ll bail you out and we’ll take them down together. The police will have their eyes on you too, so they’ll spring out whenever these guys fall for our trap.”
At the vote of confidence Iida felt some of his impatience fizzle out. Yes, Bakugou was abrasive no matter how many years went by, but he’d come straight to Iida with this request. Which begged the question...
"Why me?"
Bakugou relaxed back into the couch, letting the back of the sofa slowly subsume him. "You're not known for covert operations, but I know you can do them. No one would suspect you. And we already know each other."
Yes, they knew each other, but well? They were classmates for 3 years, sure, and they'd lived together most of that time, but it's not like they'd ever been close. Even working together as much as they did, Iida wouldn’t label them as more than good acquaintances.
Still, there was a more pressing matter. “I’m sure there was still a more obvious choice. I mean, I’m…” Iida gestured unnecessarily at himself. “A man?”
"I came out in an interview a while ago.” Bakugou shrugged, completely nonchalant. “We have to account for these spies having read the article."
Oh, Iida hadn't known that. He didn’t exactly keep up with the publicity side of their careers. "What did your agency think of your coming out?"
Bakugou grinned. "They hated it."
Oh, well then. Iida didn’t have a reply for that; he let his eyes dip to the floor, uselessly fidgeting. Bakugou, completely unbothered, graciously barreled ahead.
"Speaking of, I'd prefer if we kept this out of the news. With the amount of surveillance they got on me we shouldn't need to feed those gossip rags anything about our relationship, and if they do catch wind of it it'll be a pain to clean up after all this is over." Bakugou massaged his temples at the thought of it. "So we don't need public displays of affection or anything like that, being convincing in private is what we need to worry about. Neither of us are the type to let a relationship get in the way of our job, anyway."
“And how do you suppose I act like I’m in love with you?” Iida asked.
“I’m sure you’ll be fine. I’m easy to love, after all.”
Iida could have argued Bakugou actively made himself harder to love the more he talked, but he swallowed down the words. He’d signed up for this, after all. "Do you know why they're targeting you?"
"No clue. Probably another Stain wannabe deciding I don’t deserve to be a hero because I don't shit out smiles and daffodils." Iida cringed at the phrasing; Bakugou either ignored his reaction or didn't care. "I haven’t had any shortage of critics since my debut, it could be anything. What matters is that they’ve been accessing fucktons of private information and doing illegal surveillance. That’s all we need to know.”
They continued talking through the details of their scheme into the night, until eventually Iida was walking Bakugou to the door. Before leaving, Bakugou turned to him one last time.
"This isn’t a mission that has ‘off time’, yanno. Once we start this we don’t get to stop acting, and we won't be able to talk about it. That okay?"
Iida merely nodded, eyes tired. “I know what I’m signing up for, Bakugou.”
Iida opened the door, the night air greeting them both. Bakugou stepped out into the darkness.
“We’re dating now, four-eyes. Call me Katsuki.”
Over the years, Iida had greatly learned to appreciate sleep. Days were long, work was tough, Iida got cranky after his shifts. Sleep was a blissful haven he could never get enough of, which was a shame considering his phone rudely awoke him the next morning far before his alarm was supposed to.
Iida grabbed at his phone and answered the call without reading the name on his screen, eyes too bleary for the effort to be worth it. "Hello?"
"God, did you just wake up? What happened to you being a morning person?"
Bakugou’s voice crackled on the line, bringing with it memories of their recent agreement. Looks like Bakugou had really meant it when he said there’d be no breaks...sleep included.
"Good morning to you too." Iida yawned, getting out of bed and reaching for his glasses. "You knew I had a long shift yesterday. And it's only—” he checked his bedside clock, "6 in the morning."
"Yeah, well I have work soon. I'm walking to the office now."
Iida could hear the sounds of early morning traffic on Bakugou's end. It occurred to him that Bakugou planned this call on purpose, hoping his pursuers might be watching him as he got in to work. "Trying to get your fill of me while you still can?"
"It's not like we've been able to talk recently! I can't believe we start dating and you immediately got busy."
Iida mentally catalogued the fiction growing between them: their relationship was recent, but they haven't been in touch lately because of his schedule. Bakugou's pursuers wouldn't be able to disprove that, and it explained why their interactions would come off as sudden. "You just saw me yesterday. You were at my house."
"Yeah, and you weren't. Shit lot of good it does to visit and you hardly be there."
Iida padded to the kitchen to get his morning glass of orange juice, finding himself uncharacteristically amused at the irritation in Bakugou's voice. A night of sleep did wonders for his mood. "I didn't realize you were so needy."
"And I didn't know you were such an asshole." There was shuffling on the other end then, Bakugou doing something Iida couldn’t identify. "I'm almost at the office, I gotta hang up soon."
"Okay. Will I be seeing you on patrol today?" The hidden question: were their agencies coordinating to give them time to be seen together?
"Probably." More rustling, the sound of keys, and then for a moment there was just silence. When Bakugou finally spoke again it was quiet, almost a whisper. "I'm here. Bye, love you."
It's a good thing the laugh that startled out of him came off sounding so fond. "I love you too, Katsuki. Take care." Bakugou hung up without another word, and Iida was left staring at his phone in wonder.
-----
Iida got to the office and someone silently mimed at him to turn his phone off; he did so, and his first briefing on the Ground Zero assignment began.
From now on, his phone would be off during confidential meetings. Any staff around him would also be on high alert in case their communications were tampered with. There was no telling when surveillance would start; they would have no awareness of when their enemies would become interested, and once they did there was no telling when someone was paying attention. Always assume someone could be listening or watching; do not discuss the case after this point; do your job as usual, but follow Ground Zero's lead.
Iida nodded, donned his helmet, and became Ingenium.
-----
Patrol was fairly normal; a few incidents, a lot of aimless, uneventful hellos. He only ran into Ground Zero near the end, and their greetings were brief and professional.
They stopped for a bit to chat and compare observations ('it was quiet west of here when we passed through; I thought I heard some commotion over on a street in your area; an event is coming up soon that will draw crowds on such-and-such street...') and it was only as they were saying their farewells that Bakugou addressed him personally.
"What time are you getting off?"
It took Iida a moment to process the question, shifting his brain out of work-mode. "The same time as yesterday. Why for?"
"I'm coming over." It was a statement, but Iida could recognize the implied question. He nodded his assent.
"Just let yourself in if you get there before I do."
Bakugou had already turned away, lifting one hand in farewell. "I'd do that without you telling me."
--
Iida came home to Bakugou in his kitchen, an empty bag of groceries lying on the counter, and the smell of beef stew.
If there was one thing Iida knew about Bakugou, it was that he strove to be the best at anything he did. That included acting, apparently; for some reason Iida was convinced that if he were truly dating Bakugou it would feel a lot like what they were doing now.
Not that Iida was half bad at it himself: it had still been their early days at UA when he discovered his unexpected strength in stepping into a character. He found it relatively simple to push aside his predilections and immerse himself in a temporary reality, becoming someone else with relative ease. He was honestly surprised Bakugou had noticed, much less remembered, but he also hadn’t realized Bakugou had paid attention to his food preferences. Evidently, the man had been paying more attention during their school days than Iida had thought.
It was little things like this that made it easy to adopt his part as Bakugou’s boyfriend. Then there were his comments the day before recognizing his competency as a hero; Iida had always assumed Bakugou acknowledged him, but it’s not like it was common for the man to dole out praise. So while he had no trouble assuming a role, it was easy to greet Bakugou with fondness when the man had remembered his favourite food like it was nothing; it was easy to add a tender note to his voice when Bakugou asked about work, to gaze at him lovingly from across the table and let pleased laughter bubbled up in the right places.
(And if he added a bit of playful flirting, well, that’s just how he always assumed he’d be in a relationship. It’s what he thinks he’d like to do, anyway, and it was admittedly pretty fun getting to try it out...even if under unexpected circumstances. )
What was strange was acting for no perceivable audience, especially in the comfort of his own home. It was impossible to tell whether anyone was even hearing the false flirtations they were spewing, and Iida couldn’t stop the nagging feeling that they were alone in an empty house playing at being lovers.
Not that he put out anything but his best, but it all felt a little...silly. Like they were making fools of themselves. But fool about they did, all that night: they ate together, they cuddled next to each other on the couch, and eventually Iida left Bakugou alone with the news so he could get up and wash the dishes. He was arms deep in a soapy sink when he heard Bakugou call out from what was most-definitely not the living room.
"Hey."
Iida looked up to see Bakugou beside him. “Hm?”
"Let me stay the night."
Iida's hands stilled, nearly dropping the plate he was holding. Instead the only thing that broke was his face, skewed in some reddened facial expression Iida couldn't begin to imagine. Bakugou's reaction alone told him it was pretty bad.
"We just started dating Tenya, I'm not gonna jump you. Get your head out of the gutter."
Iida’s reaction to that was a lot of sputtering and choking on his own embarrassment, but while he did all that he realized something: they didn't necessarily need to play at being a couple for this to succeed. The only thing they needed was to establish that Bakugou cared enough about Iida for it to be a liability. Bakugou didn't need to sell their relationship, he just needed to sell his own feelings.
It didn't matter how Iida responded, and Bakugou probably knew that. Iida could say no, could enforce as many boundaries as he liked, and things would still end up fine for their operation.
Somewhere amidst these thoughts he found himself pointing Bakugou toward the bedroom.
They got into bed together, laying side-by-side, and maybe it was the awareness of their phones resting on the bedside table (their silent buzz always at the back of his mind now) that made him turn over and grin.
"So...you really aren't going to jump me?"
He didn't need to do this—and he didn't need to sound so goddamn hopeful, goodness—but this is what he'd do if they were actually dating, right?
Bakugou merely scowled. "We both have work tomorrow, you horny bastard. Keep it in your pants."
Iida chucked sheepishly and reached over to turn off the lamp. As they settled in to sleep, Iida had the lingering thought that even after this was all over he wouldn't be able to pretend he didn't know what it felt like to fall asleep to the lullaby of Bakugou's body heat.
Iida woke up to a weight on his chest, his mind alert as it processed something hovering over him. Opening his eyes, the faint early morning light softly illuminated Bakugou laying partially on top of him, their faces a few breaths apart.
Even in the low light, Iida was close enough to see how Bakugou’s eyes were bright and alert, all-business. He stared down with an intensity that was informative on it’s own; if Bakugou meant for him to look at the window, he would have cheated his eyes there himself. But Bakugou kept his eyes on him, so Iida stared right back.
“Is someone getting impatient?” The words came out soft, still quiet with sleep: they hung still in the morning air, the double meaning acknowledged without a word.
“I’ve been awake for a while,” came Bakugou’s whispered reply, “and yeah, you could say someone’s tired of waiting.”
The satisfied curl of Bakugou’s grin was all the confirmation Iida needed: he sat up to brush their lips together in a gentle kiss, a show for whoever Bakugou had seen watching them.
--
From that moment on, kisses were code for something being wrong.
Their first kiss was someone watching from the window. It was short, a little celebratory, and easily ended when Bakugou leaned back and announced “your morning breath is making me gag.” The moment ended with an easy out and a gentle feeling of relief that their efforts had been noticed.
Their second kiss was after Iida came home from a shift later that week and noticed some of his things had been moved. He called Bakugou over immediately, and as soon as the man had breached his entryway Iida was kissing him against the door. This kiss wasn’t light or satisfied—this kiss said ‘someone broke into my house’ as desperately as he dared to communicate.
Their third kiss, like their first, was in Iida’s bed. After he’d realized someone had been inside his house Iida asked Bakugou to spend the night more often than not; Iida could handle his own in a fight, but if their target chose to strike while he was unconscious there was little he could do. Bakugou’s presence was a helpful deterrent and a welcome comfort.
It’s not that Iida was afraid, but the reality of the situation had hit him by that point. Constant surveillance had gone from an abstract idea to something tangible, something that ground on his nerves every second of every day. He didn’t sleep as well the nights Bakugou wasn’t beside him; it was hard to fall asleep knowing someone could be listening, watching, in his home.
He wondered, sometimes, how Bakugou had held up before roping Iida into the operation. If he’d felt as invaded and paranoid, and if he was as grateful for the companionship as Iida was.
---
"Oi, what gives?"
Iida sighed; Bakugou had called just as his shift ended, and Iida had the audacity to pick up on the third ring. "Patient as ever, I see. Bad day at work?"
"Yeah, which is why you're gonna meet me for dinner. You busy?"
He'd had to say no the last two times Bakugou invited him out, with each refusal resulting in a long rant over how Iida was busy ‘too damn often’. “Shit like this is exactly why I was ghosted by my lousy excuse for a boyfriend right after confessing,” he’d say, and with how often his tendency to overwork himself had been pointed out he sometimes forgot it wasn’t the truth. They’d been pretending to date for a little over a month without any breaks, and it was easy to forget they hadn’t always been this way.
"I'm actually free tonight, where did you want to meet?"
Bakugou named a time and a place, a nice in-between spot between their agencies. "If you don't arrive by then I'll assume some villain offed you, so don't be late."
Bakugou tended to say things like this often during their calls, and they were one of the only things that felt unnatural about their act. The comments were seeds Bakugou carefully planted throughout their interactions: Intercept Iida and you know I’ll notice , he advertised to anyone who might hear, I’ve given you everything you need to grab a hold of my weakness and lure me out. These were the few times Iida was reminded of their actual goal, a break in the fiction that had absorbed their lives.
"I'll be sure not to be killed on my way to dinner,” he said with a hint of fond exasperation. “See you soon."
"You better," he barked back. Then, as always, he lowered his voice to tack on a quiet, "love you."
"I love you too, Katsuki."
Hanging up the phone, Iida let his mind wander once again on the subject of their relationship. It was incredible how saying those last few words felt so natural now, almost second nature. He wouldn’t be surprised if it took a while to break the habit once this was all over—oh, and wasn’t that a mortifying thought?
His traitorous mind was in the middle of imagining saying those words in front of their friends (one ‘I love you Katsuki’ spilled while working alongside Shouto would lead to a scenario so uncomfortable that his brain insisted on agonizing over every hypothetical detail) when something stirred in the shadows.
Scratch that, not in the shadows; the shadows themselves seemed to shudder, and then an arm was reaching out to drag him inside.
Even caught off guard, Iida’s reaction time was nothing to shrug at; he avoided the arm with ease, leaping out of the shadow he’d been walking in. He watched the arm retreat back down into the darkness, but just as quickly something else sprung out—a body, he realized—and dove into another shadow, disappearing into the concrete.
It was early evening, and shadows covered the city. If this person could travel between them they couldn’t have picked a better time to strike: Iida did a quick once-over of the street he was on and found stretches of shadows crossing through the whole area. He could likely outrun this person, but there was no guarantee their pursuer would ever reveal themself again; Iida had to take this chance to subdue them.
He wasn’t able to think any longer than that before a different shadow shuddered in his periphery; he dodged just as a hand reached out from his blind spot. This person wasn’t going to give him time to think. Following his gut, Iida ran to a less populated street while making sure not to lose his pursuer. The shadow traveller was fast enough to keep his pace, lunging out from the darkened walls of buildings and beneath his feet with alarming precision. He was always just fast enough to avoid, studying the movements and attack patterns as best he could as he led them to an empty alley.
It was there that he saw the shadows in front of him undulate, and the dark form of his target leapt up exactly how he thought they would. Iida leapt forward and tackled them out of the air—
and immediately his stomach lurched as he was pulled into the shadows of the alley floor.
The world swam by like he was under a raging current, the towering buildings flashing past above him as they travelled from shadow to shadow. Each time his captor pulled them up out of a shadow before plunging them down into another the world spun, each dolphin-dive a roller coaster drop he couldn’t escape.
It felt like only seconds before they surfaced, Iida gasping for breath. Dizzy and disoriented from the travel, it took a few seconds before he was able to make out his surroundings.
They were in an empty parking tower, slants of red sunset striping across bits of rubble and debris. The structure had been collateral damage in an incident a few months back, and had been empty since...that’s what Iida had thought, anyway. Evidently, that hadn’t been the case for a while.
A rug was laid on the asphalt floor, and some devices were set up all around it. Sitting in the middle of all this was a woman with a satellite dish for a head; l Iida couldn’t help but find it fitting.
The woman looked up over her shoulder as they surfaced, jumping a little. “I always forget how fast you can travel!”
“Nevermind that, help me restrain him!” The shadowy figure kept both themself and Iida half-submerged in the shadows, but the struggle was evident in their voice. Still, Iida couldn’t escape from their hold; he felt as if he was built into the concrete itself, with no feeling in his lower body.
The satellite woman jumped up, grabbing some chains that were piled on the ground beside her. It was only once she had thoroughly wrapped him up that he and his captor floated up out of the shadows, leaving both of them lying on the concrete floor.
“Okay…let me just...rest for a bit.” The shadow user crawled away from Iida before flopping bonelessly onto part of the rug.
“No problem, we still have some time before Ground Zero should notice anything’s wrong. Until then we should plan—”
And then, with almost comedic timing, she was interrupted by the sound of a distant explosion. Iida broke out into a grin.
“I wouldn’t be so sure about that.”
Another explosion came, louder this time, and then the next was close enough to shake the ground at their feet. In seconds Bakugou Katsuki blasted in through an open wall, still dressed in his civilian clothes.
“It’s about time you stopped hiding!!!”
Whatever trap the two of them had hoped to lure Bakugou into, no one ever got to see it. The shadow jumper tried to grab their partner and dive into the darkness, but Bakugou propelled himself forward with an explosion that scattered the shadows too wildly to use. Bakugou captured them in seconds, and they stood in the light of the setting sun as they waited for the police to arrive. (Iida was able to break out of his chains rather easily; they were cheap, likely bought from some department store. It was child’s play.)
Soon enough the sounds of sirens surrounded the parking tower. It was a bit of a chore to get them both into police custody (a quirk that lets someone drag anyone they touch into the shadows complicates capture for sure) but it wasn’t long before the villains were safely handed over.
Iida ran a hand through his hair as he watched the cop cars drive away. “It’s a good thing we thought to share my phone’s GPS with you and the police.”
“Yeah, lemme delete that now. It was creepy knowing where you were all the time.”
They stood together in silence, Bakugou frowning down at his phone as he removed the tracking data and effectively the last of their ruse. Iida watched with a tired smile.
“I guess that’s the end of our little charade. A shame, I think I’ll actually miss flirting with you.” He huffed out a little laugh, a bit embarrassed to admit it.
“No one’s saying you have to stop.”
Iida did a double take, but didn’t trust himself to say anything. Bakugou didn’t say anything either, just continued fiddling with his phone. It gave Iida a few seconds to process, to blink and stare and wonder if he actually heard correctly.
“...If memory serves me, we had a date planned. Want to talk about this over dinner?”
Slowly, a smile stretched across Bakugou’s face. “Is this our victory celebration now?”
Iida found himself smiling back. “No; still a date.”
Despite calling each other nearly every day this past month, they had a lot to talk about. They finally got to discuss all their feelings about the case: the stress of constant surveillance, the signs they’d noticed, the things about their own relationship they had liked.
Afterwards when Bakugou started walking Iida home, he couldn’t come up with any excuse and had to admit he just wanted to spend a little more time together. Considering it was their first real date, Iida insisted on kissing him at the door—though he ended up ruining it when he laughed against Bakugou’s lips.
“It’s hard to stop associating this with something going awry. I’d rather not feel a spike of adrenaline every time I kissed you.”
“I’m sure we can write over that instinct with a bit of practice.” Bakugou tipped his growing smirk into Iida’s lips, reaching up to pull Iida into another kiss.
Another surge of adrenaline ran through him, but this time it was tinged with excitement rather than panic. Iida wrapped an arm around Bakugou’s waist, pulling him closer.
“Would you be interested in coming inside after all?” Iida leaned in for another quick kiss, entirely incapable of keeping hope from staining his voice. “We could explore our relationship a bit more thoroughly, now that we don’t have an audience.”
“Cut to the chase, four-eyes. What exactly are you propositioning me for?”
“How did you phrase it before? Ah, it was..." Iida felt his cheeky grin squint his eyes nearly shut. "Did you still want to jump me, Katsuki?”
Bakugou laughed in his face before unlocking the door himself and pulling Iida inside.