I don't give a fuck if Valentine's Day is over.
I wrote this after going back to look at this beautiful piece by herbarimoon one too many times :)
AU where cupids are angels that are given human assignments to help them fall in love, and Midoriya's first case is Bakugou Katsuki.
As if finding someone for this difficult human to fall in love with wasn't hard enough, it just had to be the one Midoriya had a soft spot for. As a fledgling angel, he loved to watch humans from above the clouds, but his favorite of all was the bratty blonde man that secretly feeds his scraps to kittens in alleyways and strives to be the best at everything he does.
Midoriya wants to find the perfect partner for this man. He searches high and low, until he's found him! Someone that could love his beloved human enough, and someone his human could love in return. And yet, when push comes to shove, and it's time to fire, he messes up the shot and the arrow gets lodged into Bakugou's heart. For it to work, the arrow has to shoot through his chest. What's even worse is, with this magic love arrow stuck in his heart, Bakugou can now see Midoriya, and the other cupids. And he's fucking pissed.
"Are you kidding me? You had one fucking job and you can't even do that right? You stupid fucking Deku!"
Midoriya promises that he will fix this. He looks for the man that he planned to be Bakugou's partner, but he can't find him anymore! Where did he go?
Meanwhile, Bakugou's upset as all hell. What the fuck is this? Is this fucking real? No way in hell is he going to be set up to fall in love. If he's going to fall in love, it will be because he chooses the fucker. Midoriya has to drag him kicking and screaming to find his future partner. People stare after him likes he's crazy, since they can't see the angel holding his wrist and pulling him along.
Try as he might, Midoriya can't find the perfect match again. Well... They'd have to keep trying. What a mess he's gotten himself into.
Bakugou doesn't fucking know what to do. This fuck ass angel keeps following him around, into his home, to his work, hovering over him worried and shit. And on top of that, he's got this arrow sticking out of him. He won't admit it to the idiot, but it hurts. It hurts to put his clothes on, even though the arrow phases through them. It hurts when he wasn't even thinking about it, a dull throbbing in his chest. Because obviously it would hurt to have something stuck in your heart. But fuck that bastard. He doesn't have to know shit about him. Like hell he'd fall in love with whatever random fucker Deku assigned to him. He can deal. He can figure his own way out of this. Apparently they can't just pull out the arrow, otherwise his heart might be damaged beyond repair - meaning he won't be able to fall in love afterwards. He doesn't actually believe that; not until he tries to tug on it at night when the angel is sleeping on his couch and it hurts like a motherfucker.
Fine, okay, this is going to take some time. He just doesn't really get why... There's this nagging sensation in the back of his mind... Why there is something familiar about this angel guy...
Shenanigans ensue. Obviously. Bakugou looks kind of strange half the time, sometimes talking to someone that isn't there. But it's only when he goes to his parents house for something or other, and he sees a picture of himself from childhood. There, beside him, his old friend who drowned in the river when they were kids. It looks just like this fucker that's been harassing him and sleeping on his couch and consuming all of his sweets because even though he doesn't need them, he still has a sweet tooth (and, well, Bakugou could speak up more if it really pissed him off...)
That night he shows Midoriya the picture, and Midoriya is stunned. That is him. Truly. But...he doesn't remember that. It's kind of freaky. Bakugou can tell that it freaks him out, too. And that's when he starts to suspect.
When Midoriya sleeps that night, he dreams of being a child, of playing with his best friend. His best friend, who is the coolest in the whole world, the strongest, the bravest. Going out to play one day when it's raining and his friend... Ka... Ka... His friend stayed home that day. And he slips on the log they used to cross all the time and plummets to the waters below... It's dark, and so, so cold...
He wakes up with a gasp and a splitting headache. Midoriya tries to recall his earliest memory, but the further back he goes, the foggier it gets. No one can really remember their first day alive, their beginning, can they? But he remembers the heavens, a life that feels so long ago, though its only been weeks. He was a bit of an outcast up there, longing constantly for the humans, for one in particular...
That morning, Bakugou studies him silently, but doesn't speak, which is fine, because Midoriya doesn't feel like speaking, either.
They're in that same park, the one where Bakugou first saw him. They're sitting on the bench together, strangely silent. Normally they bicker; Midoriya points out people and asks Bakugou about them, if he's interested, and Bakugou proceeds to tell him all the ways he hates them. Why Bakugou always agreed to sit with him and watch, he could not explain. But today, Midoriya is quietly focused.
Suddenly, he shoots up and grabs Bakugou's hand, pulling him along. There! There he is! The man Midoriya paired him with originally. And Bakugou finally gets a good look at him. Crap! He's his type... He looks at Midorya's excited face, seeing the cupid looking only at their target, and Bakugou frowns. Yeah, okay, maybe he kind of gets Bakugou after all.
Bakugou digs his heels into the ground.
"The hell is that? You think I could fall for somebody like that? Look at his shitty hair! He looks like an idiot!"
Midoriya stares at him, the excitement slowly draining from his face until he is crestfallen. Oh well. Looks like stupid Deku is going to have to take the time to find him someone else. Shame.
Before either of them can say anymore, Bakugou's face crumples in pain, and he falls to his knees. He hadn't wanted to tell the angel about his pain, but it was getting worse as time went on. He was pretty damn good at ignoring it, but it floods his chest right then, along with a bunch of regrets he'd been holding back for longer than he could remember.
Midoriya follows him down, panicking now. How could he have not noticed! Of course Bakugou would have been in pain this whole time. Humans can't handle long exposure to magic like that, and this arrow had been pumping him full of it for a month now! How he had lasted this long was a miracle already, but he'd never complained, so Midoriya never realized...
"Kacchan, Kacchan please-" where had that name come from? "Please, tell me, just tell me someone-" he looks around at the people in the park, some looking curiously at the man crouching, but Bakugou grips his wrist and holds his gaze.
"Dumbass..." He croaks out. "I don't want anybody else." Then he falls onto his back and the crowd around them gasps. There's screams and calls for an ambulance, but Midoriya is too shocked to notice the commotion. Anybody else...
There are tears in his eyes that he doesn't even feel as he straddles Bakugou. Nobody can see him, or the arrow sticking out of the fallen man's chest. So they can't see it when Midoriya, with his determined gaze, places his hands around the end of the shaft, looking down into Bakugou's eyes, so open and revealing, and he pushes down.
The sound Bakugou makes hurts his own heart, but he doesn't stop. He pushes the arrow through him, slowly, steadily, watching Bakugou gasp and cry, and then reach up and hold his hands and guide them in while he looks directly at Midoriya.
It was his own fault this was painful. If he'd just shot straight, it would've gone clean through. But perhaps there was a part of him that hadn't wanted that shot to work out. A part that had betrayed his trained accuracy. As he holds Bakugou's pained gaze, he takes full responsibility for it, pushing the arrow through and soaking in every wince and tear. He embraces his own selfishness; he wants this heart for his own.
When it's through, they both gasp. The arrow disappeared. And Bakugou... Well, aside from the deep, heaving breaths, and the tears he's blinking away, he looks just like normal. When he sits up, that's when Midoriya notices the crowd around them. And for some reason, they seem to be staring at him.
"Idiot." He looks at the sound of Bakugou's voice and sees him smirking at him. "They can see you now, Izuku."
Midoriya never told him that name. Midoriya hadn't known it himself. But the second Bakugou gives it to him, he feels it fit like a glove. The people around them murmur, saying, "He saved him, thank god..."
Midoriya doesn't know what they saw, or what they think they saw, but he knows what they're about to see. He dives forward and kisses the man beneath him still, and Bakugou holds the back of his neck as he lets him.
He never regains the memories from his childhood - those were swept away by the river. But his heart could never forget. He always wondered if that arrow ever actually worked - nothing feels any different between them. Kacchan loves him just the same.
Though, there is one thing that changes. He's human now (again) his powers stripped from him for falling in love with an assignment. Maybe it's for the best. He was never really good at this cupid business anyway.
