deaf!Bakugou teaching you sign, his rough hands over yours as he shows your fingers what to do, his red eyes intense as he watches you practice, the soft huffs of laughter when you mess up. deaf!Bakugou patting your head as he leaves, the only sign that he's pleased with your progress. you'd never guess his heart was pounding in his chest as he taught you the sign for "together."
a/n: i love katsuki so much guys i don't think you understand.
constantly thinking about pro hero katsuki who, due to his quirk and the fighting he had to do during his UA days, now has to wear hearing aids. they’re nothing flashy, but they do match his hero costume somewhat. he never thought he’d needed them and tried to ignore the ringing in his ears for as long as he could, until he realized he could no longer hear the people he loved like he used to—their voices that were once so close now so far away.
and yeah, it takes some getting used to; it took a lot to convince him to even seek help, and going from hearing fine for most of your life to struggling to hear anything at all was terrifying at first. it felt like the silence was closing in on him, haunting him. but now, after some time—and many, many, frustrating sign language classes and lip reading attempts—he's managed to adapt.
and it's not like he's incapable of hearing anything at all. he can still hear the faint laughter of his friends when they meet up for dinner amidst their busy schedules, hoping to squeeze in one more drink before having to go their separate ways again. he can still hear the children yelling his name in excitement as he speeds through the sky, sending him encouragement for all of his upcoming fights. he smiles faintly at them, his way of thanking them for the support.
at first, he didn't want the public to know about it. it was partially in fear of being underestimated (by civilians and villains alike) and partially because he didn't want his image to be reduced down to his partial hearing loss. and while he does deal with the occasional 'off' interaction (his poor pr team had quite the mess to clean up, but that news reporter talking about katsuki when he thought he couldn't hear him had it coming.) he still carries himself with pride, hearing aids and all. he has no reason not to.
he's still gonna yell all he wants, though, partially deaf or not, just for the hell of it—he is katsuki bakugou. old habits die hard, i guess.
I missed drawing in chibi style..! I thought it would be cute for this prompt :)
"Deaf!Katsuki is planning to make a dinner to confess to Kirishima but Kirishima leaves him stunned and drops his plate for Kirishima when he sees Kirishima use sign language for the first time and confess to Katsuki how much he loves him."
Thank you Wifeygamer! Read the fic that inspired this art here !!!
I’m a sucker for this headcannon. gn!reader. takes place during second year. Born-deaf reader, and bakugou who loses his hearing after the war from his quirk.
deaf!bakugou katsuki who begrudgingly accepts your offer of teaching him JSL. “I’m not weak because of this. don’t go taking pity on me.” you beamed, setting a cup of tea infront of him. “exactly. neither of us are weak.” you signed.
deaf!bakugou katsuki who already knows a surprising amount of sign language, just because he wanted to be able to communicate with deaf!reader. he doesn’t admit it though, and claims his father taught him awhile ago.
deaf!bakugou katsuki who begins knocking on the door to your dorm, but not for more lessons. “to teach you how to fight,” he always says, but the two of you never train, rather, you end up on your bed talking about whatever manga you had both just finished.
deaf!bakugou katsuki and deaf!reader who sometimes both turn off their hearing aids and just sit in each others company, ignoring people’s calls for them and the annoying buzz of the dorms air conditioning.
deaf!bakugou katsuki and deaf!reader who will sign to eachother from across the room, far to fast for anyone else to read. No one knows what they talk about in their little conversations ; the occasional giggle from you or eye roll from katsuki.
deaf!bakugou katsuki who will always accompany you to your audiology appointments. “just because,” he says. In turn, you go to his, “just because.”
deaf!bakugou katsuki and deaf!reader who don’t even need sign or words to understand the other. a simple glance of the eyes or a nod of the head is all you need to communicate.
deaf!bakugou katsuki who spent far to long perfecting how to ask deaf!reader out in sign. he wanted it to be perfect, so you wouldn’t have to correct him. ( he never minded it, you taking his hand in your tiny ones and showing him the correct way )
deaf!bakugou katsuki and deaf!reader being a couple doesn’t surprise the class of 2-A ; in all honesty, they assumed the two of you had started dating awhile ago.
deaf!bakugou katsuki who gently takes off deaf!readers hearing aid when you forget to before bed. careful not to wake you up, he brushes away your hair and gently removes it, setting it safely next to his on the nightstand before wrapping you up in his arms again, placing a gentle kiss on your hairline.
deaf!bakugou katsuki who learnt the sign for “I love you” ages ago, and finally gets to use it.
BONUS ;
deaf!bakugou katsuki who has no shame in dirty talking to you in sign in public. absolutely no shame. even in a crowded room, packed with people, he’ll do it.
“bathroom, 10. need you.”
“katsuki, we’re in public! and I’m not having sex in a dirty bathroom.”
“i’ll just hold you, then. won’t have you touching anything but me.”
“how about I just suck you off the car ride back?”
he pauses, that usually stoic face of his cracking for a split second.
“deal.”
He finger-signed touching, you noted. you’ll have to teach him how to hand sign it the car, to.
Siren Hitoshi making people crash their ships before they can land at his island versus deaf pirate Bakugou, the first person to make it to the shores alive
Okay but deaf!Katsuki HC is just 🤌 so good for angst, AND it makes sense. Like, ofc he's eventually gonna lose his hearing, and probably sooner rather than later because he's a reckless teenager with 0 survival instinct
I was thinking and literally one of the most intimate things for me with my hearing aids is letting someone else handle them.
Like these are thousands of dollar worth of medical equipment, that would take at least a month to replace and that I need in order to function in society. They are ridiculously easy to break because of what they are and how they are made, and to lose because they are small (I know someone whose hearing aids are smaller than the size of the first knuckle of their pinky).
So to let someone else hold them, take them out of ears, to change the batteries, put them into the charging port, etc.?
It Speaks volumes to both how close the two people are as well as how much the deaf person trusts the other.
Anyways I was thinking about this with either deaf!Yamada Hizashi and Aizawa or deaf!Bakugo and someone else.
Imagine the fluff potential. Especially with teen aizawa who is all prickly and doesn’t like anyone but is slowly growing to like and trust Yamada, Kayama, and Shirokumo. Imagine the relationship being solidified when Yamada is busy finishing up a paper when his hearing aids die and he just gives them to Aizawa to go and charge for the night. Imagine Aizawa pulling away and refusing to accept the hearing aids after Shirokumo dies because he has convinced himself that everyone he grows close to will be hurt and die, and the hearing aids are a physical sign of how close they are. Imagine Aizawa slowly accepting the hearing aids again, first just to hold briefly while Yamada fixes his headphones, then to restart them when Yamada’s carrying too much stuff when they start acting up, and slowly accepting them for more and more things. Imagine a villain with a Quirk that fucks with sound waves dropping Yamada who is screaming in painbecause that Quirk hurts like hell when his hearing aids are in, and Aizawa just bolting through the rubble to pull the hearing aids out so that Yamada stops hurting.
Imagine Aizawa starting to go deaf, because that’s what happens in battlefields when humans are constantly exposed to extreme sound, they lose hearing. Imagine him not knowing what to do and struggling to adjust to the hearing aids and Yamada just standing there, a guide and helper to get Aizawa through the transition period.
The sheer intimacy and trust that everything involved requires is just amazing