Steve reaches the top of the stairs on his way to get ready for bed when he hears the weary call of his husband from the other end of the hall.
“Steeeve,” Eddie groans, “Rescue me please.”
He’s in Hazel’s room, Steve can tell, which probably means that tonight is another night in a long string of failures to get their three-year-old into bed at a reasonable time (seriously – their older two went to sleep without any issues hours ago, but their sweet Hazel James has been in a phase of doing everything she can to avoid her bedtime).
Indeed, Steve walks into their youngest daughter’s bedroom to see that Eddie is the one blinking bleary eyes at him while Hazel, on the other hand, is wide awake and standing on her mattress in her Halloween pumpkin pajamas (yes, it’s June – very few battles are won by Steve and Eddie these days).
“Uh-oh,” Steve warns her, ”You’re putting Daddy to sleep, sweet girl. It’s supposed to be the other way around.”
“Well, first I hafta show Daddy all the places I got hurt today,” she replies, coming up right to the edge of her bed so Steve really has no choice but to pull her in for a snuggle.
“Where’d you get hurt today,” he asks her.
“Don’t,” Eddie mumbles, an arm over his face shielding his eyes from the light of Hazel’s lamp, “It’s a trap.”
But Hazel is already wiggling out of Steve’s arms, backing away just far enough to push her sleeve up and reveal the impressive collection of colorful, patterned bandages decorating her arm.
Earlier this week, Hazel had discovered the magical power of Band-Aids (in other words, she fell and was completely inconsolable until Eddie suggested putting a princess Band-Aid on the nonexistent “owie” – surprise, surprise, the agonizing pain disappeared without a trace almost immediately).
Now, she’s practically covered in the damn things.
“Look,” Hazel says, pointing at a princess band-aid by her wrist, “‘Dis is where I fell and a stick poked my arm.”
“A stick poked your arm?” he repeats.
“Uh-huh, so now you gotta give it a kiss.”
Obviously, Steve obliges, planting a dramatic kiss onto the plastic band-aid.
“All better?” he asks her.
“Yep. And then this one –” Hazel points at a Ninja Turtle band-aid up by her elbow (Steve’s gotta make sure Robbie doesn’t see that one or her six-year-old version of hell will rain down on all of them), “This is where I got stung-ed by a bug.”
Steve kisses that one too, and then Hazel hits him with a pretty fantastic yawn.
“You wanna come cuddle in bed with me and Daddy?” he asks quietly. She nods, and as he scoops her up, Eddie grumbles something that gets muffled into his arm.
“What was that?” he asks (only a little sarcastically). Eddie drops his arm and lifts his head to look Steve dead in the eye.
“You’re a goddamn sucker,” he repeats.
“Let’s go,” Steve ignores him, holding out the hand not holding Hazel. Eddie takes it and lets Steve pull him to his feet, and then they head off to bed.
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There's a lot of validity in the idea that older Bakugo is a traumatized pro-hero with major PTSD... but you know what's kinda fucked up to think about? The fact that Bakugo is also a 22-year-old pro-hero with major PTSD even before that, too.
It's almost easy to imagine that things are actually better when he's older (the therapy finally a routine, the trauma long set and on the path to being healed)... and that it's his whole 20s that are spent as a pool of disaster trying to recover from the war(s).
He looks back and barely even remembers being twenty, much less twenty-five or twenty-seven. Barely remembers how little he slept, not at the hands of trying to balance hero work and getting a degree at the same time, but just out of the pure insomnia that came from trying to move on and every nightmare attached.
Hardly ever showering, never shaving (not that he ever grew much of a beard, but the facial hair was definitely there. There's pictures of him on the news with an awkward, grown out haircut and patches on facial hair that make him look positively... immature), barely even eating more than a few protein bars or an energy jelly drink-a day. It's a blur, and his friends are hardly there to pick him up out of it because they're all going through it, too. Somewhat.
It's definitely weird if you meet him during this period. He's not all there, at least, not all of the time. He doesn't really register your interactions, the friendship you extend to him (a younger, or ever older, version of him would've shown you that deep seeded ferocity in response, tried to bite the hand that fed him, even if it were love... but 20s Bakugo... doesn't seem to notice). Even though only one of his eyes is clouded over, the good one never seems to brighten up.
There's definitely moments when the old him shines through: when he's with Deku, when he's in the midst of battle, when he finds out that Todoroki still does a shitty job at chopping scallions. But it's a long time before he's even close to the same, able to step out from underneath the fog of simply surviving and into the sunshine of recovering.
But I think sticking through it with him is worth it.
(It's a weird moment, a happy moment, the first time you realize that Bakugo has changed. That the pouring rain outside hasn't bothered him since he showed up at your apartment. He forgot his umbrella, he's been quite careless ever since the war—wet and shaggy hair frizzed up, cheeks red from cold—but he doesn't seem to mind, with his bare feet up on your coffee table, his eyes gazing out the window. You hand his tea, and instead of gulping it down in one go, letting it burn in his throat, he winces at the heat.
"Tastes like shit," he says, and you laugh because it always does. Just this time, he noticed.)
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