bnha boys | types of hugs.
pairings: izuku midoriya, shouto todoroki, katsuki bakugo, hitoshi shinsou / gn!reader
words: 1.3k
warnings: none, mild angst?
notes: this started as a kind of writing practise for shouto, but i got carried away. this may have a follow up part with more characters if you guys want it :’)
izuku midoriya - the tearful hug
when izuku looks at his hands, he sees a battlefield. scars and veins spiderwebbing over skin, every inch a blemish, a blessing, a curse. they're rough to his own touch, worn by months of labour and love - they're etched by memories, by pain, by a quirk that has only just stopped feeling alien to his own blood. they're good hands! strong hands! but he knows he doesn't like to look at them, and that he draws them away when his mother goes to link their fingers together, and that as much as he sometimes wants to reach out and feel your own hand beneath his, he puts them in his pockets whilst you walk together, and pushes the feeling down. he's seen your hands - they're soft and lovely, warm when they graze his wrist when you pull him over to you excitedly, tender when you brush his bangs back from his forehead. it brings tears to his eyes, how soft your hands are. he knows it's silly, he knows he wouldn't trade his quirk for the world, that each and every scar on his skin, each welt between his fingers, is a step from the person he used to be - but still, when one night you gently wind your fingers through his and pull insistently when he starts and tries to pull his arm away, he feels his eyes film with tears.
"sorry," he mumbles, throat tight. the world is blurry, but he feels your hand squeeze his own, tight, fingers brushing over the coarse skin, and you bring him to you and bury his face in the crook of your neck. he sniffles there, but his heart is hammering, soaring in his chest, that you see his scars and feel them with your own beautiful hands and you decide yes, he is still beautiful, still someone worth your time, your disposition, your love.
he shakes in your arms but his other hand comes up to cup yours, and you press back against his skin with something like worship.
shouto todoroki - the acclimated hug
shouto todoroki does not have the privilege of casual touch. if he was accustomed to it once, in the fuzzy dark memories where his mother presses kisses to his damp hairline and smooths the tears off his cheeks, it is a weakness quickly unlearned by years of isolation, of fear and pain, of his father moulding him into a perfect weapon, a thing only good to be wielded. he is unresponsive when you throw your arms around his neck after they return from kamino, doesn't understand the way your terror manifests into a need to touch, to feel his skin beneath yours, hear his heartbeat against your ear. terror for him as a child meant curling up on the hardwood floors, alone - if he was lucky.
you accommodate him to light touches. you don't like to think of it in such a clinical way, but you suppose it is conditioning. a brush of fingers when you hand him dinner on a plate, your shoulders nudging together when you sit beside each other on the couch, a pinkie finger hooking through his when you don't want to lose him in a crowd. overtime, he learns. he learns the beauty in the contact of skin, in feeling your pulse thud dully beneath his thumb, in the solidarity of your body entwined in his arms when you return from a patrol unharmed.
he’s still unsure when he presses his face into your neck, when his arms come up to wind round your waist, but you're like familiarity to him, and he will take all of that he can get.
katsuki bakugo - the stolen hug
katsuki is a person who thrives in isolation. affection is not given by him, it is pried from him by people he knows are better, softer, kinder. it is taken by kirishima, who going to fail his exams if katsuki doesn't help him study. by mina, who beams when he shoves leftovers at her because he knew she'd skipped dinner to revise. by you, and your smiles and your eyes that shine at him like he can do no wrong. you're so fucking wrong, he knows, but it was nice to indulge, for a while. after kamino, the curtain rises. he can no longer pretend he is worthy of the shining worship in your face, nor the worry it harbours when you see the circles under his eyes, nor the sadness when he breaks down before you in his room, back to you, arms braced on the desk, screaming at you to get out as his words stick in his throat, a bitter pill he can't choke down.
katsuki does not give affection. it is given to him, by people who deserve more. he knows this when you don't flinch away, when he feels your arms wind gently over his stomach and your cheek come to rest on his heaving back. there are tears dripping down his face, and his breath is hoarse in his throat when he inhaled sharply, but you cling tight, shaking, gentle, like you still think he's a thing worth saving. and for a minute he lets you - he slumps under your touch, sobs out his fury, his anguish, and then he lets you some more, till the tears dry on his face and your limbs begins to feel at one with his. then he steps away, and your arms retract, but you have stolen more of his heart, more of his affection.
he thinks he might let you keep it, pathetic creature though he is.
hitoshi shinsou - the tentative hug
shinsou is not in grade school anymore. he knows what the people around him think of him. he used to hate the way their eyes dropped, stiff and cold, when they found out about his quirk. it's an instinctive fear, he supposes, coals stoked over a fire. the knowledge that their wills are something malleable to him, something to prod and shift and change, that their thoughts can become nothing more than his own words, chastised into empty ears and then forgotten, lights up something primal and terrified in them. he used to think the disgust was worse than the fear, but now that he is highly accustomed to both, he thinks he'd choose disgust any day. disgust you can work at, with strong will. fear clings to your bones, lurks in your eyes, stays your touches, no matter how hard you work at it. so he gives up trying. he learns to expect the judgement in their eyes, and he combats it by making his own.
and then there's you. you invite yourself into his life and he can't bring himself to evict you, even though he knows it's going to hurt worse when you find out, when the warmth in your eyes and the admiration in your smile is replaced by something cold and rotten. when you call him your friend for the first time, he comes clean; he watches with resigned despair as your smile slips, your eyebrows cinch in a frown. he decides he won't watch as you get up and walk out of his life, so he looks away, eyes shut tight, waiting for the emptiness. and then he feels the pressure on his shoulder, and he goes rigid with wariness, with hope, as you tuck your head comfortably into his shoulder and sling an arm over his neck. he feels his breath shake in his throat and his eyes widen, and he searches for the telltale buzz of his quirk, because this can't be real. it's a fantasy, a dream.
and then you call him a hero, defensively, reverently, and he cracks because there's no way he could make this happen.
it's not something he could've conjured even in his wildest dreams.
