Chapter 6: Kitten Shenanigans and Parental Claims

If Bakugou thought that it was a mess when Shadow was a kitten, it was nothing compared to the new litter in the dorm. Perhaps it was because they all knew that they'd have to say goodbye to the kittens at some point (visitation rights not withstanding), but everyone was even more engrossed than usual. It was becoming increasingly aggravating trying to gather everyone up for their studying sessions. It didn't help that the kittens were crawling over everything.

They like to explore, Kouda had explained easily one afternoon, when Bakugou was dropping three kittens off at Shadow's "nest" halfway up the cat tree. She was curled into a cylinder hovel set on the center platform.

He was picking them off his clothes, their tiny claws leaving holes in the fabric. One from his thigh, one from his shoulder, and one from his back. He plopped them down with a scowl, leveling his gaze with Shadow. She meowed up at him, wriggling in her spot to show a bit more of her belly.

"Temptress," Bakugou accused. Jirou choked on her soda from the corner of the common room in her laughter.

"Blasty! My nose!" she whined.

"Fuck off," Bakugou snapped. He pointed down at Shadow, stiffening when she licked the tip of his finger. Bakugou had to take a deep breath. He knelt down to be eye level with Shadow. She curled her tail around the kittens convening at her stomach for the warmth. "Handle the little shits."

Shadow stretched her neck and licked his nose. Bakugou sighed heavily, petting her between the ears. He took his phone out, snapping a quick photo and opening the chat with his mother. Ever since he'd taken Shadow in he'd been sending her photos. No context, no words, no explanations. Just the photos. He'd been diligent in never explaining it even in casual conversation, either. Her reaction to an unprompted photo of a kitten had been far too great for him to ever break his tradition now.

Honestly, the knee jerk reaction was her first mistake. The very first time he hadn't really intended to send her just a photo with no context. Shadow had fallen asleep on his lap and he'd hit her chat instead of his partner chat. It had taken a full minute after his message had been read before she'd responded:

Hag: What

He'd almost dropped his phone on Shadow, and then the next message came in.

Hag: Where'd you get a cat?

And of course, he had only one logical option at that point.

Grenades sent a photo

Hag: WHERE DID YOU GET A CAT?

Grenades sent 3 photos

Hag: WHERE THE FUCK DID THE CAT COME FROM

Grenades sent a photo

Hag: How many photos could you possibly have? Are these all the same day?

Hag: WHERE. WHY. A CAT?

Grenades is typing…

Hag: fuckin finally

Grenades sent 12 photos

Hag: THAT'S NOT A FUCKING ANSWER

Hag: YOU LITTLE SHIT

Grenades sent a photo

He'd sent a photo commemorating the first time Shadow had ever climbed his shoulders, albeit in her attempt to get onto the desk behind him, but his mother didn't need to know that. And if he was going to send a selfie of all things (Ashido would've been proud to know) he was of course going to flip the camera off with a glare. Shadow lounging in her cat tree, on his shoulders, and utterly collapsing the mental health of his partners when she slept across their collar bones were all included in the small album he had already started to text his mother.

Hag is typing…

Hag is typing…

Hag: BRING THAT FUCKING CAT HOME OR I'LL DISOWN YOU

From then on the tradition had begun. The only reason his mother knew anything more about Shadow than what she could glean from the photos was because Midoriya blabbed incessantly to his own mother, and the two women had Gossip Time every weekend. Regardless, he got a kick out of the reactions, and this would be no different when he sent the photo of Shadow with her kittens to his mother. Her response was almost a solid thirty seconds later.

Hag: Where did the kittens come from

Grenades has sent a photo

Hag: That is not an answer BRAT

Hag: NOT THIS SHIT AGAIN

Grenades has sent 76 photos

Hag: HOW FUCKING LONG HAVE THERE BEEN KITTENS

Hag: DOES THAT SAY /76/?!

Hag: BITCH I KNOW THEY'RE NOT THAT OLD THEY'RE SCRAWNY

Hag: HOW DARE YOU NOT SAY A DAMN THING

Grenades sent a photo

Hag: I am appeased only because of them

Hag: I want you to fucking know that

Grenades: See you this weekend

Hag: LIST EN FUCKE R

Bakugou closed out the chat, turning his attention back on the literal kitten pile before him. There had been… four, before, right? He had found three, obviously, so the final kitten was still out in the wild of the dorm. He turned around in the common room, trying to find the singular kitten that was still eluding his gaze. There was giggling from the dining tables and he turned his attention there.

Asui was walking around the table in circles, with various members of the class watching as she did, because the final kitten was following her like a duckling. It scrambled after her on tiny legs and with a wagging tail, tiny meows mixing with the giggling. He turned back to Shadow expectantly only to find she'd started to doze with the kittens. He quickly snapped one more photo before marching to the dining room. He scooped the kitten up as Asui passed him.

"Oh… I was having fun, kuro…" she says, sitting dejectedly in a spare seat.

"Party-killer…" Sero grumbled.

"Shut the fuck up," Bakugou snapped. He deposited the kitten to the pile, giving Shadow a quick scratch behind her ear, earning a purr in return. He resisted the urge to either clench his fist, or try to shove his face into the hovel she'd holed up in to kiss her forehead. He wasn't so lost to the power of the cat that he'd humiliate himself like Ashido would. She would try that in a heartbeat; the reality that her head wouldn't fit be damned.

The kittens would keep pulling stunts like this for the following few weeks. Bakugou had been told by Kouda and Aizawa on separate occasions that the kittens were being moved once they were weaned, but until then, they were the dorm's kittens. Shadow's shenanigans had apparently been learned by sheer osmosis, Bakugou was convinced of it. There was no conceivable way that they'd already learned these behaviors from her they had hardly been alive long enough to know how to walk and climb. It had to be genetics.

He had found them following in line behind random classmates like ducklings, much like the single kitten had done with Asui. And while that was adorable-not that he'd ever admit it even if his life depended on it-it was a terrible distraction for studying sessions. It only got worse as the kittens were able to get around easier as they grew. Multiple people had caught the kittens mid-jump as they tried to get onto the table or the counters. They were comically short of their leaps, and the catches were mostly to ensure they didn't snap a bone on their landings, but they were going to get there one day.

But, it was more distracting to see how big they were getting in such short time. It reminded him of when Shadow first came to the dorm. She'd gone from small enough to fit in his palms to large enough to take up most of his lap when she took a nap. Now, he'd come into the common room to find Shoji or Kirishima with the entire colony of kittens plus Shadow in their laps.

He was honestly surprised that Todoroki hadn't been vetted for his ambient heat like half the other boys had been. After the kittens had started to walk, it had taken all of one day before Shadow was carrying the kittens one by one up the stairs and to his bed. She was on the last kitten when he'd walked in on her doing this crime against his bed sheets.

"OI!" Bakugou threw down his bag and glared daggers at her as she turned to him, the last kitten still in her mouth and slowly blinking at him.

"Mmmww."

"Spit your little gremlin out and speak proper, bitch," Bakugou snapped. Shadow set the kitten down and turned back to him again. She tilted her head and meowed again, quieter, with a higher pitch. Almost a squeak.

The conniving little shit.

Bakugou stormed over, leaning down to glare at her face to face. She booped their noses with a purr. He sighed heavily, bumping foreheads briefly before he looked over to the pile of kittens right in the center of his bed, right up against his pillow. Did she have to put them right there? Apparently, because she took up the opposite side of the kitten pile in a half moon lounge to box them in. It wasn't even like his blankets were the warmest-he heated up way too fast for that. Asui's bed sheets were the best in the whole dorm, he could attest to it himself. And yet.

Rather than scour the internet for an answer that he'd have to vet for an hour, he grabbed Kouda. The boy was silent and slightly trembling the entire time he was being brought up to Bakugou's room. Bakugou had hesitated for a second at his door, wondering if he had just kickstarted a mistake that would snowball to the demise of his reputation within the school. He turned to Kouda, waiting to make sure the boy was looking him in the eye before he even so much as turned the handle.

"Do not. Under any circumstance. Speak of this," he says. Kouda nodded hurriedly. Bakugou opened the door and pointed to the kitten pile. "What the fuck is she doing?"

Kouda blinked at the sight for a moment before he mindlessly signed towards Bakugou. She feels safe here and wanted to share that. They do it with people they trust implicitly.

Bakugou stood frozen. He shut the door in silence, standing there processing for a moment. "Thanks."

He disappeared before Kouda could ask anything further.

And then All Might came for a visit.

It was a long weekend, and Midoriya had invited him for dinner at the dorms. He'd come in and seen the cat tree with Shadow lounging over the edge mid-stretch, and just stared. Bakugou could almost see the man lose all his willpower in one fell swoop. The cat had a Quirk, all right, and it was mind control.

He was still cooking when he glanced All Might's way again and saw Shadow on the table, where she knew she wasn't allowed, at that, sniffing All Might's hand. She pawed at it, pulling it closer, and fuck if that didn't make Bakugou want to scour away a piece of chicken for her for later. But he had willpower, damn it. He would not be bested by a cat. He watched as Shadow sniffed from All Might's hand, to his shoulder, to his hair.

Once he'd started to plate the table she shifted down to the floor to sniff All Might's legs and shoes. She hovered around him the entire dinner, taking up space under his seat when activity around the table became too hectic. Bakugou was watching her intently, at first, unable to focus on much else. Eventually, his attention was dragged away and he paid her little mind for the rest of the meal. It was during clean up that he heard the first sound of willpower being systematically destroyed, in the form of Ashido squealing at a near imperceptible pitch from the living room.

He glanced up from the pot he was rinsing to see All Might on a chair, with kittens crawling over his feet, his legs, his shoulders, and one on his head that was fighting for balance. All things considered, the man looked like he was in heaven. It was perhaps the most content he had ever appeared since… well since the class had started to attend UA because that's really when a cycle began of everything turning into shit every two weeks. There were copious amounts of video and photos being taken. Ashido helped the kitten on All Might's head readjust when it slipped, clinging pathetically to one of All Might's ridiculously long bang-tails. The man was practically melting into the chair in bliss. And Shadow, as vigilant of a mother as she was, was observing from the coffee table.

Bakugou abandoned the dishes to Kirishima and Tokoyami. He marched over to All Might and the gaggle of kittens, crossing his arms when he got close. Instead of addressing literally anyone else in the room, he turned to Shadow.

"And just what the fuck is this?" he asks. She gazed up at him, mewing. "Manipulative bitch."

"I have no complaints," All Might says. "Language."

"Don't 'language' me!" Bakugou snapped. He clamped his mouth shut immediately.

There was still a spike of anxiety for shouting at not just a teacher, but the old Number One Pro, that had Bakugou briefly choke on his own actions. More so because it was All Might, but damn it this was his cat and she was playing an unfair game. Bakugou shoved that anxiety deep, deep, deep inside and kicked the door shut. He'd unpack that alone in his room at two am like a normal teenager. He wasn't getting caught up in that right here, right now, and let the fucking cat run the house. Whether she was 'his' cat or not, he wasn't losing in anything to a god damn pet.

"This bitch knows what she's doing!" Bakugou shouted, resting his hand on Shadow's head. She twisted out of his hold and jumped up onto his shoulders with a stretched meow. She rubbed her head against his cheek with a purr. Every wrong thing in the world disappeared and he'd never felt so content. "Fuck off."

Ultimately, Bakugou had to leave the kittens to do what they would. When he tried to pluck them off All Might they not only made it very vocally known how much they disagreed with that decision, they latched their claws into his suit and threatened to destroy it if Bakugou tried to remove them. As much as he wouldn't care if the suit was ruined-it was already horrendous, it wasn't like the world of fashion would lose anything-he didn't want to ruin All Might's suit. The man may have a laughable sense of fashion for his frame, but it made it clear what he took the time to pick out. As much as Bakugou would tear someone's fashion to shreds when he felt so obliged, he wouldn't actually try to destroy anything.

Except for Kirishima's godawful shoes. If you could even call them that. He just kept getting more, it was infuriating.

Bakugou came down the next morning to find three of the kittens floating around, side to side, as if held aloft just under their arms. It took his sleepy brain a few seconds to actually register what was happening.

"Hagakure."

"Good morning!"

"The fuck are you doing up already?" Bakugou asks. He normally was the only one up at almost 6 am, save for Momo and Iida on some days, was there something wrong?

"They all snuggled me so long I started to overheat," Hagakure says. The kittens bobbed in the air as she shrugged. One was half asleep still. "So I came down here since I was already awake."

"Uh huh."

"And I found out I can do this!" Hagakure dashed towards the windows that were letting in the bright morning sun.

She set the kittens down with their siblings and Bakugou could only watch as she demonstrated what she'd learned. A concentrated beam of light came from near the window. It was very thin, in size and intensity. He still wasn't entirely sure how she adjusted the concentration of her light beams, but it was cool. She was tilting her hands around, only distinguishable because the light beam moved. And the kittens chased it. Bakugou gave a great guffaw of a laugh. Hagakure laser pointed the kittens around, no doubt adjusting her hands as the beam traversed the room at all angles.

"You found that out and this is what you use it for, of course," Bakugou sighed. He couldn't help the smile on his face. Hagakure paused in her fun, the kittens piling on one another as the laser halted. It disappeared and the room was left silent. Bakugou glanced up to where he thought she'd been standing. He felt a quick peck of a kiss on his cheek.

"You love me for it!" she says, also giving him a quick hug. "Have fun on your run! I'm going back to bed while they're distracted."

Bakugou hummed, rubbing his cheek as he left the dorm.

When he returned, Todoroki was on the couch, and he was absolutely horded upon. The kittens were up against his warm side as much as they could be. They were splayed out or curled up into one another either on or beside him. One was draped over his shoulder, their head lulling against his collarbone. Bakugou wanted to do a lot of things right then and there, but all of them would be substantially less romantic or enjoyable while he was covered in sweat. These cats were destroying him.

He opted to ignore it entirely and go about his day. It wasn't as if he hadn't been taken advantage of for his heat before. The kittens had taken up Shadow's habit of silently slipping into his room at some point in the night to steal his heat as he slept, and thus couldn't kick them out. He had woken up at least a handful of times not only to Shadow on his pillow, but to kittens against his body all up and down the blanket. Sometimes being a walking heater had its advantages, he would admit. Asui would love to call dibs on one of his sides during movie nights when she could get away with it. She could sit with him on the couch with the blanket draped only over their legs instead of cocooning herself in it, which he imagined was a massive perk. When she couldn't get him, her backup was Todoroki's warm side. Otherwise, it was the blanket cocoon.

They were having one of those movie nights when the kittens discovered the wonders of the multiple bodies and blankets combo. It happened with hardly half of the group realizing it. The kittens had broken apart from one another to seek out a classmate to exploit. Those who had been chosen were heavily reluctant to leave their spots, as the kittens had fallen asleep on their laps during the course of the movie.

Frankly, Bakugou couldn't blame them. He hadn't had so many good experiences with a pet before in his entire life. Even when the whole cat clan worked together to pin him to the couch or his bed, he couldn't rightfully complain. He did still try to wring the neck of anyone who took a photo and threatened to post it on social media-because he had a reputation that was still intact outside of this class and he wasn't about to let that go so easily-even if it was in jest. Frankly, he would believe Shinsou when he said he'd do it.

At least not every behavior completely impeded anyone's ability to do anything. But they had taken up some… troubling habits. Shadow had taught them how to hunt. Normal for a mother cat to do. The problem was that Shadow had taught how she hunts. Utilizing hiding places and striking any poor passerby. It was one thing to have a single cat snatch at your ankles as you passed the couch. It was another to have a whole litter do the same thing. And while it had been hilarious to hear Shoji's surprised shriek, it was less hilarious when it was Bakugou's ankles they went for.

He'd been passing the couch on his way to refill the popcorn bowl during date night with Kirishima and Ashido. He'd been warned before. Jirou had made a point to warn everyone what Shadow tended to do when she couldn't be found and the probability she was in the couch was always high in those times. He had thought she was upstairs in his room with all the kittens hogging his bed like the glutton she was, but of course not. He'd made to the other end of the couch when he felt several pairs of something latch around his ankle. He'd jumped, kicked out and subsequently knocked his foot against the couch, swore, and his palm ignited.

The resulting explosion scared the several kittens off his leg in an instant. Sadly, on landed claws out on his other thigh, another rebounded off his other leg with its claws out as well, and the third had somehow twisted around to land on the couch and then jump onto Kirishima's shoulders. If the boy hadn't activated his Quirk the second he processed the explosion, it would've been a gnarly sight. Bakugou stumbled back, shouting and fighting the urge to throw off the kitten still latched to his thigh. The look of utter shock and fear as it braced his leg as well as its tiny body could was just heart breaking.

"You okay, bro?" Kirishima asks.

"Little shit is in my skin, so no!" Bakugou snapped. Fuck, why are kitten claws so sharp?!

He knew he was going to end up scaring them at some point. He knew it. It was inevitable and honestly he was shocked it had taken this long. He had to pry the little thing off as it wailed the whole time. Shadow appeared before him, tentatively taking the kitten in her mouth and slinking away.

Great, now she hated him, too. It was great while it lasted, he supposed, but it still hurt. It hurt more than the dozen pin pricks bleeding through his shorts. Just as quickly, however, Shadow was back over to him, meowing and slinking between his legs.

"What?" he asked. Was it not bad enough he'd terrified her babies, she had to harass him, now? What, was she rubbing salt in the wounds? He was trying to step away from her, almost tripping on her. He groaned, running his hands through his hair. "God-damn-it! What?!"

Shadow stood on her hind legs and bit the hem of his shorts, tugging him. He begrudgingly followed her to the Kitten Korner. She hopped onto the middle section, where the kittens were huddled in the "tent" column. She meowed at him, pawing gingerly at the opening of the column. When Bakugou only stared, she meowed again, readjusting impatiently, and redoing the motion.

Bakugou resigned himself to whatever she was doing. He reached a hand up, watching her intently. She turned from him to the kittens and back again expectantly.

.Really?

Bakugou reached his hand in, gently petting the kitten who had latched onto him. It gave him the tiniest trill of a meow. There was a pang in his chest. Shadow headbutted and rubbed against his arm with a purr.

Oh, he was fucked. Bakugou Katsuki rarely admitted defeat in anything. So Kirishima and Ashido had better fucking appreciate this.

"Alright," he sighs. Ashido leaned off the edge of the couch.

"Hmmm?"

"This bitch is my cat-"

"YES, FINALLY!"

Ashido cheered, bouncing off the couch to dance around the room. Bakugou ignored her, continuing to pet the pile of kittens hidden in the column. It was official. He'd kill a man for this damn cat.