Dandelion Mouse: A Mini-Fluff Thread

RedRiot is the sturdy hero, the manliest hero, and his sunshine attitude and hard-won charisma make him extremely popular.
Not just with the many men, women, & enbees thirsty over his arms and pecs and stomach and smile, but also with the kids who he talks too on patrol

The old people who approve of the way he always says please and thank you in interveiws and how he talks about how Crimson Riot, active long before All-Might was on the scene, was an inspiration.

One old man sends him his near-mint condition Crimson Riot lunch box in thanks for Red Riot's vocal support for memorials to remember Japan's heroes beyond just All-Might.
Teenagers love him for his story - taking a basic quirk and working his way through UA and beyond -

Middle-aged women love him for his manners and his smile and how earnest he seems to be, wishing that there were more heroes like him, middle aged men like him because when the tabloids take pictures of him its always him having a beer and laughing with his friends.

He's a hard worker, and his popularity rises with every interview he gives and every villain he apprehends, and there is more than one fan account dedicated to defending Red Riot from the evils of the world

One @ redriotcinnabon, posts a picture from a hero tabloid that has his fans howling with rage and calling for @ theonlyGroundZero to publicly apologize for whatever he did to make the sturdy hero upset

The picture in question features Red Riot and Ground Zero walking on patrol, Red Riot wiping at his eyes and clearly crying.

Ground Zero is several steps behind him, waving his arms and clearly shouting

That night, Kirishima's phone buzzes

Bakubro 19:27: WTF are your fans screaming at me on twitter

Kirishima logs in to check his feed and tracks it down to the picture, thinks back through the last few weeks, and realizes what's up.

Apparently there has been a misunderstanding

@ RedRiot_official retweets redriotcinnabon with a message of his own.

Hey folks! Thank you for all the support, but Ground Zero didn't make me cry! He's my main dude and he's way too manly to be that mean!

The hashtag whatmaderiotcry starts trending.

Speculation runs rampant.

Was there a breakup?

A death in the family?

A falling out between Red Riot and his mentor, Fatgum, or one of his other friends?

Kirishima, being the kind of guy he is, won't give a straight answer.

Whoever runs redriotcinnabon starts a charity campaign for one of Red Riot's favorite causes, quirk training centers for underprivelaged kids, both in rural and urban areas.

Red Riot is big on equal opportunity, citing his own difficulties in finding places to train before UA, and not wanting hero hopefuls to fail before they start because of the lack of facilities

Red Riot tweets that he'll explain what made him cry if the campaign reaches its goal

Ground Zero immediately donates 100k yen, because he remembers that day, and he can't wait to see Kirishima publicly admit what made him cry.
It was ridiculous then and its ridiculous now, and Kirishima may be his best friend and also really hot, but he's a goober

It only takes three days for the drive to meet its 10 million yen goal, and Red Riot's agent tweets out that he'll be appearing on the Midnight Hour Show next week to have the big reveal

Red Riot is the third guest of the night, after Centipeder's interview on physical quirk discrimination and the hero couple Kamui Woods and Sirius giving their public debut.

When Tanaka Shizuki welcomes Red Riot on, the audience bursts into applause. Red Riot rubs the back of his neck and smiles, earning whistles from some of his fans and more than one shout of "Marry me, Red Riot!"

Tanaka plays the crowd a little bit, avoiding the subject all together to ask Riot about his recently announced agency, in which he will team up with his classmates, and his thoughts on the retirement of his long time mentor, Fatgum.

Finally, he gets around to the crying.

"So, once this picture was published, a lot of your fans were really quick to try to defend your from your hero partner, but you claimed Ground Zero had nothing to do with it. So - how do you feel about crying?"

Riot laughs. "Zero didn't have anything to do with that! He was actually trying to get me to stop crying, but my bro doesn't always use tact! He's awesome at saving people, but comforting people is a different story, you know?

"You weren't upset about your picture being taken?"

"No way, Tanaka-san! As long as the press doesn't interfere with our work, I'm fine with giving statements and people taking pictures on the job. It would be different if I was off duty. Heroes deserve their private life too!"

The conversation gets off track a bit.

Sirius, Kamui Woods, and Centipeder all talk about privacy expectations and the press interfereing with their work with Tanaka and Red Riot for a bit, before Tanaka gets back to the question.

"Alright, Mr. Red Riot - your public has to know. What made you cry?"

Kiri grins.

"Well, my friend Chargebolt was in the hospital after his big fight with Curious, and he gets bored easily when he can't move around. So he'd been blowing up our phones all day, and he started sending us all these nature pics."

"We were video chatting when one came through and he laughed because he said my face got all soft, so he just kept sending me more and more of them and -well, even after lunch they kept coming through and they were just so cute I started to cry."

An "awwwwwe" echoed around the studio.

"You mean the Sturdy Hero, Red Riot, was reduced to tears because of cute animals?"

"That's right. Being in touch with your emotions is manly!"

"I beleive we have some of the pictures that Chargebolt sent to you, do we not?"

A slideshow of harvest mice perched on flowers starts. Even as the pictures go by, Red Riot's face gets soft, and he starts to tear up.

"They're just so /small/," he sobs. "I love them."

This thread brought to you by me avoiding housework.

Kirishima would TOTALLY cry about small cute animals and you can pry that headcanon from my cold dead hands.

(Kirishima and Bakugou start dating the week after the interview when Kiri's fans are no longer out for his blood)