A/N: bkdk pride week day 3 - happiness | yellow

Originally posted June 3rd, 2021

He'd gotten the elephant in the room out of the way in the first session.

Bakugou had stomped in the room and planted himself on the disarmingly comfortable, shockingly ugly couch, arms crossed, legs spread. His first therapist had said that that could be construed as a sign of dominance, but Bakugou hadn't much cared about that particular tidbit. If a little manspreading was the worst issue the counselor could diagnose him with, that was a fucking victory.

Then he'd said: "Here's the deal. I'm gonna tell you the must fucked up shit I said to Deku in middle school, and then we'll go from there."

It wasn't like he and Deku had to introduce themselves to the counselor—that was what the shitty intake forms were for. Bakugou Katsuki; issues: anger, superiority, inferiority; trauma: plentiful. Midoriya Izuku; issues: savior complex; trauma: compartmentalized. They knew the drill. Best to just cannonball into the appointment and let the damn therapist know what's what.

The counselor had looked at Deku with raised eyebrows, but Deku had taken his sweet time sitting beside Bakugou. He'd calculatingly placed his hand lightly on Bakugou's knee in case he needed to give it a forceful squeeze of support or warning at any point, and just smiled and said hello. God bless him.

Miraculously, the shrink hadn't deemed them unfit to get married on day one, instead scheduling them for a second appointment. Of the five that were suggested for premarital counseling.

Damn Dunce Face and his premarital counseling. The guy thinks he's had one good idea—Bakugou was still pretty confident that it must have been Ears' idea, but whatever—and suddenly Bakugou is dealing with take your fiancé to therapy day.

That's right—it hadn't even been Deku and his pretentious friends. It had been Bakugou's shitty, nosy tagalongs.

Not that he didn't think that therapy worked—he was living proof that it worked—but that didn't mean that he enjoyed it. It was regular maintenance like eating your vegetables and working out, except Bakugou liked both of those.

This appointment was continuing along where the last one had ended. The tell me about your childhood of it all nearly had Bakugou rolling his eyes.

"Neither of us were exactly happy before high school," Bakugou found himself saying. His first round of therapy had shed a lot of light on the emotions he'd felt while rolling with the extras he'd aligned himself to in middle school. At the time he might have called it happiness but now—well, compared to what he had now—not so much. "And yeah, yeah, I know that I'm not supposed to speak for him, but to be fair, the nerd does it for me all the time."

"But?" Deku prompted, squeezing his thumb and middle finger on either side of Bakugou's knee, right where it tickled.

Now Bakugou did roll his eyes. "But I usually want him to because it's usually to some shitty extra I don't wanna talk to anyway."

"Right," Deku said, patting Bakugou's knee and turning back to the therapist. "And anyway, I actually was a fairly happy child."

"Hah?"

Bakugou knew, he knew that Deku had been cheerful before their quirks—well, Bakugou's quirk—had manifested. After the nerd's had failed to show up, he'd been heartbroken. Bakugou knew that better than anyone. The bullying that followed had been the main topic of last week's session, and the only reason they all made it through relatively painlessly was because of Deku and Bakugou's previous private therapists and many difficult shared conversations since high school.

"I was happy," Deku repeated. "I had my mom and my interests and I never gave up on my dreams."

"Every time I saw you for years you looked like you were going to wet yourself at a moment's notice."

Deku shook his head and looked at the therapist. "He means I looked scared." Then his eyes were back on Bakugou. "You think I was unhappy because I was unhappy around you."

Okay, that one stung. Bakugou hadn't felt a blow like that in a while. It hit harder than that filing cabinet he'd taken to the chest the day before while some angry, overworked paper pusher tried to destroy an office in their precinct. The filing cabinet that his husband-to-be had then folded in half with a single kick.

Their therapist stayed quiet, turning expectant eyes over to Bakugou, obviously awaiting a response. Honestly, Bakugou figured he and Deku were spending their money on imprinting their asses into the goddamn couch, for all the therapist said. He was more a paid spectator to the sport that was watching Bakugou and Deku volley their twenty-year history back and forth.

With a breath to match each action, Bakugou unclenched his jaw, unflared his nostrils, and released the painful bite on his tongue. "I'm sorry," he said finally. He wondered how many years of therapy it would take for those words to stop tasting bitter.

"It's okay," Deku said. "Being around Kacchan now is when I'm happiest."

Deku smiled at Bakugou. The same smile he gave when Bakugou served him breakfast. The same smile when Bakugou kissed him in public. The same pleased as fucking punch smile Deku gave Bakugou when he did anything, when he so much as blinked.

Bakugou smiled too. The little one for when he wasn't exactly calm but getting there.

Bakugou took Deku's hand as soon as they'd passed the lobby's framed prints of flowers and green wallpaper that were trying so hard not to look clinical, and made it out the front door. The day was humid and Bakugou was thinking cold noodles for lunch. He was already anticipating Deku mentioning Half 'n Half, at the mere thought of cold soba. Still, that's not what he said first.

"Want out?" Bakugou asked, his grip loose around Deku's knuckles in case the other man wanted to cut and run at just that moment. "Only got three more chances."

Of course, Deku could leave him at any time, premarital counseling or not—it was a fact Bakugou was terrifyingly aware of. He was sure that shrink up there would say that's why Bakugou was joking—not joking—asking like this.

"Still no," Deku said with a smile. "And you only get three more chances to ask me that, then Kacchan is stuck with me forever."

The present is the state of being on one side of the forever that you know and the forever you don't. Deku had already been Bakugou's forever on the first side. And in just a few short months, he'd be able to say the same of the other side.

Truthfully, he already could.

"Then let's get these over with, nerd," Bakugou said, squeezing his hand tighter. "Want cold noodles?"

"Oh, yes!" Deku said excitedly. "Shouto-kun just told me about a restaurant in this area…"

"Of course he did," Bakugou said, feeling that validating swell of victory that therapy had never managed to quite tamp down. Premarital counseling or not, he knew Deku better than anyone ever would. He leaned over to kiss Deku's ample cheek, right against the starkest freckles, and felt the rise of that selfsame smile on Deku's face against his lips. "Show me the way."