Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

It was raining that day. The day that everything happened.

            No one walked on the streets, except for the occasional, drenched stray cat looking for shelter that they would never find.

Katsuki loved days like this. He’d wake up to the sound of water pounding against his window and immediately run outside. Sure, his mom would drag him inside and force him into his coat and boots. He’d get a cold, or so she said.

But it wasn’t a cold rain; the type that seeps in-between joints and causes wet hair to crack as it dries. The water ran hot onto rubber rain boots and through the cracks of the asphalt. It was the kind of rain to flood socks, to slip and fall on, to rub salt into scraped skin, and wash away the tears. A summer rain.

            The first thing that he noticed about the man were his eyes. Two red spheres of pure menace, set still on a warped face that partially hid itself under a raincoat. Though he knew not to acknowledge the figure, Katsuki’s legs almost refused to move. He gripped his umbrella tightly, eyes darting to its color. Red. His mom had bought it especially for him.

            He couldn’t see it until then, but the man’s face was at least 98% smile. A smile that folded skin into itself as if it were one gaping seam, a seam that opened to rows of perfectly straight teeth. The other 2% of his face were those eyes.

            Red eyes.

            Red umbrella.

It falls to the ground, and both of them are gone.

--

            @deku 2014

            So this is my first post here on HeroNet. I heard that it was a good place to post about my feelings and stuff. Or to reblog funny videos. So instead of keeping a normal diary, I’ll be posting things here! Seems like a cool idea right?

            Likes 3   Reblogs  0     Comments 0

            @deku 2014

            Ok so I know I said I’m doing this diary style, so daily. But I sort of want to officially introduce myself! My name is Izuku Midorya. It’s probably weird to share my real name with the world, but, it’s not like there’s much to hide on here. I live with my mom, and my stepdad, who’s also the top detective of my town. He’s soooo cool. I want to be just like him when I grow up. No matter the obstacles. I’m only 12, so a lot of people think my insistence is cute but it’s legit. I am 100% serious about helping people and ajlsdkjal. I think that’s how I express a loss for words. Keyboard smashes. Uhhhhh anyways. Yeah!

            Likes 5  Reblogs 0       Comments   0

            @deku  2014

            Dear diary,

            I know that sounds stupid but maybe I can change it later on. This is my first entry after all. Well technically it’s my third entry but it’s my first diary entry? Ok so anyways I’m just going to talk about my day today. Tsu, my friend, and Uraraka, my other friend, decided to drag me along to a maid café after school? I don’t really get it. I mean the girls were all very nice, but I think that they just wanted an excuse to go. They said that it was more normal if guys went. They also made me pay, but oh well. They are my friends. And it was pretty funny to see them have fun. I think it’s going to happen again sooner or later, not that I’m complaining or anything. I just think I should put some money aside. Anyways! That’s it for today! Deku out!

            Likes 6   Reblogs  1     Comments  2

                        > “ngl but your friends sound a bit gayyyyyyyy”

                        > @dekuis that a problem?

            @deku 2015

            Dear diary,

            I’ve been on this site for a year. Well, for only about 6 months, but I made the account last year, so I guess that counts? Anyways, I haven’t really been completely honest with the few who follow me. I’m sorry about that. I’ve lost track of what my blog was supposed to be. It was supposed to be a means of communication. And not just to the world. To one person.

 I hope. I don’t want to leak his name, because I feel like I’d be messing something up. I’ll call him Kacchan. He went missing about five years ago. He just disappeared. Everyone is looking for him, still, but I can’t help bit feel like they’re just going through the motions. Even if he is dead, I don’t think he’d like being forgotten. I want to do everything in my power to keep him alive. Literally or metaphorically. I sure hope it’s the former.

 I think that I remembered because I recently found a picture of the two of us that my mom took. She shoved it away in a scrapbook to collect dust and yet I managed to find it. The thing about Kacchan was that he wasn’t a very nice kid. He was angry about things. Overly arrogant. He pushed me around too much. But I don’t think he was anything like the other bullies. Maybe I’m wrong though.

 There was just something that I admired about Kacchan. He didn’t care about any obstacle or wall. He’d just blow it apart. He was everything he wanted to be no matter what. I just hope he’s ok. That he’s still blowing things out of his way.

Today I found that picture and I stared at it for a very long time, and realized that I had forgotten what Kacchan’s face looked like, and that sincerely scared me.

I made this blog to gather my thoughts, yes, but moreso to reach out to Kacchan, even if he’s not there. Maybe it’s not much but, I think I’m going to change my opener.

Dear Kacchan,

I’m sorry I forgot you. I’ll never do it again.

I hope you’re doing ok. I’m not

I’ll find you.

-Deku

Likes  39,045 Reblogs  299  Comments 2290

            > “Reblog this like mad guys!”

            > “OMG I hope Kacchan is ok! All of my followers better reblog this! Maybe we can find him!”

            > “Man this is sad. Reblog to literally save a life guys.”

            > “As a person who deals with kidnapping and missing persons cases myself, I think you did a good job of censoring the person’s name, but revealing yours. Otherwise he’d be in more danger. I’ll be on the lookout for any sorts of information that pops up!”

            > “Get the word out guys!”

            Deku 2015

            Dear Kacchan, (I’m going to be addressing my posts like this now)

            I’m totally overwhelmed by all this support and advice and publicity everyone’s been giving me! I didn’t really expect much of it. But now I know that I’m really making some sort of difference! Uh, I’m not going to be all posts about Kacchan, since he’d probably kill me if I did that. He’d probably feel embarrassed. But it’s so wonderful to see so much… I’m crying just thinking of it. I don’t know if they’re happy tears or not. Anyways, nothing much happened today.

-Deku

Likes 203  Reblogs 50  Comments  5

            @deku 2016

            Dear Kacchan,

 There was a firedrill at school today, except that the bell literally wouldn’t stop ringing for an hour, and we were all standing outside awkwardly for like an hour. I met a new person there too, he’s new, I think. I haven’t met him before. His name is Shouto. He sat on the curb as far away from the crowd as he could. It was a good idea, so I joined too. We didn’t really talk at all, but he’s a cool person! I assume! Cool people tend to outweigh the uncool people I think. I know that you, Kacchan, think that the only cool person is you. Which is sort of true. You’re definitely the coolest out there. But Shouto is also very cool. Just saying.

-Deku

Likes  289 Reblogs 30   Comments  15

            > “Honestly @deku is one of the sweetest people on this website like holy shit I cry tears of fluff at every post! You should totally give him a follow and also reblog all of his posts so that Kacchan might find them one day!”

@deku 2016

Dear Kacchan,

It’s your birthday today. It’s sort of weird because everyone’s really obsessed with it being weed day or whatever. It’s kind of the thing that you’d boast about. Your birthday is basically a national holiday or something. Wherever you are, just know that I would be willing to break my pledge to DARE if you wanted, for your birthday. We could totally #blazeit? Ok no I wouldn’t break my pledge to DARE. I never break promises.

Speaking of, I’ve been doing some digging on you. I know that sounds weird, but I’ve actually been doing real Nancy Drew levels of investigation on your disappearance. I convinced my step dad to sneak me a peek of the police file they have on you (my puppy eyes have no bounds, according to Shouto.) And I think I’ve got something. I’m not too sure yet, though. Maybe I’ll have something tomorrow.

Anyways, Happy Birthday!

-Deku

Likes 56,009   Reblogs 460   Comments 5000

> “Holy shit Kacchan is a 420 baby? Well now we know he’s alive. #blazeitforkacchan”

> “Jesus is this hashtag actually trending now?”

> “Dumb hashtags aside— I’m happy that you’re continuing your search for Kacchan. This blog has been going on for a few years now, and you’re still determined as ever. I know you can do it @deku! #blazeitforkacchan”

>  “This hashtag is so offensive and awful. This is an abducted child that we’re mocking!”

            >> “OH NO the SJWs have found deku!”

                        >> “Ugh I hope they don’t make @deku feel bad.”

                                    >> @deku“Actually I don’t think it’s offensive to Kacchan at all, since his birthday is basically a national holiday. He has a big ego. Also he’s 15 as of today. He’d find it hilarious. What’s a better way to reach out than make a meme?”

            @deku 2016

            Dear Kacchan,

            I’ve definitely found something. I did some Googling, like a LOT of Googling, and I’ve FINALLY found something. Apparently, there were two others that went missing in the same week as you did! In the same area (within 2 or 3 cities/towns) too. I really want to reveal the names of these people, since it’d be helpful to get in contact with other people who knew them. I hope that these other boys are ok.

            -Deku

Likes   59,090             Reblogs      298                       Comments       154

                        > “OMG two others in the same week? Same area? Same age? Sounds fishy to me! I’m happy that this project/case (?) isn’t a lost cause.”

                        > “If anyone knows these other boys, maybe get in contact with @deku? I don’t know how you could tell…”

                                    >> @deku“Oh my gosh you’re right! I could always give the date that Kacchan went missing? August 4, about 6 years ago?”

            @deku reblogged a post by @hotandcold

            “For those who follow @deku and his ‘Dear Kacchan’ posts, I would like to inform you that Kacchan is an actual person, and that Izuku is also an actual person. Shame on all of you who send fake messages to him pretending to be Kacchan or the kidnapper, or the other victims. That’s not the point of this blog, and you doing that will make it even harder to reach out to a potential REAL Kacchan out there. Catfishing will be reported, and I will 100% make your life hell.”

            >@deku“Shouto you didn’t have to do thattttt!!! You’re making threats— that could also get reported you know!!!”

                        >> “Wait what? People are catfishing Deku? You guys realize this kid is like 14 right? Sometimes the people on this site are despicable.”

                        .>> “Holy shit that’s actually the worst. I actually know someone who works for HeroNet, maybe they can do something about this? Sucks to hear people taking advantage like that, but I’m also really happy that Deku is so cool about it? Like holy shit there’s our lord and savior for you.”

            @deku 2017

            Dear Kacchan,

            I’m scared for Shouto. I know I talk about him a lot here, sorry. He’s become a really, really good friend to me. Especially since he’s been helping me dig more and more up about you. Sadly, I haven’t gotten very far in that search, but that’s beyond the point. I got permission from Shouto to post here about him, since he also uses the site.

He recently came out to me.

            And I was so happy because it was like he was holding so much back, you know? I thought that he’d be happy about it too, but he’s not. I think that it’s not being gay that gets to him. It’s his family. He doesn’t talk about them much, but they’re not very open to that sort of thing, and I’m scared that he’ll drift off.

            I know you read all my posts, Shouto. Know that I will be waiting for you to tell me everything you need to. I know you will— I won’t push. But know I’m here for you.

            -Deku

            Likes   19,008       Reblogs 156    Comments 160

            > “Good for you Shouto!! I’ve been reading through the Diary entries about you two’s friendship and it’s so wonderful to see you open up. I know Deku is the best person ever for accepting people, so stay strong!!”

            > “OMG THIS IS BETTER THAN ANY FANFICTION”

                        >> “Are you fucking kidding me? You realize that 1. These are real people. 2. These are minors,  and 3. That you’re fetishizing and shipping when this blog is a serious and legitimate safe space for deku?”

                        >> “Wow I’m cringing so hard right now. I was going to go back and reblog the original post instead, but thought that this needed calling out, since like, people can be real assholes. Good for Shouto, by the way. I had a rough family situation too when I came out as bisexual. Honestly, my advice is to just wait until college, if they’re that bad.”

New post from @deku

Dear Kacchan,

            Hi everyone! I know it’s been awhile since I posted here. I’ve been dealing with some things. If you’ve been following me for a while, I’m sure that you’ve heard about my friend. The one who went missing eight years ago. It’s surreal to think that it’s been so long. We were in third grade and now here I am, halfway through high school. It’s been eight years. Exactly.

            August 4^th.

            I’m starting up school again soon. Sometimes I forget about him throughout everything. I just wanted to remember right now. Before I end up like everyone else. The police said that they tried, and are going to close the case now. They didn’t find a body, but they’re sure he’s dead. 99% sure. I can’t help but think about that other 1% though.

            I’m going to find you.

And if you’re reading this, Kacchan, I’m not going to leave you behind.

--

            Jirou sat in the car, earbuds shoved so far inside her head that the sound was somehow muffled.  She had wormed her way so deeply into the seat’s leather, that she barely moved with the car’s weight whenever it made a sharp turn, or hit a speedbump. She stared out the window, watching the splatters of shadow cast by trees and streetlights cycle by in a blur. The car flickered as it passed under large oak trees or a bridge, but her eyes never lost their focus. She’d counted 13 bridges so far.

            She liked counting things. It was weird. There’d been 87 Mercedes cars in the last two hours. Her eyes narrowed. No— now it was 88.

 This town had a scary amount of money, but showed it only in subtle ways. There weren’t any giant mansions, or well postured people scuttling by with the leashes of twelve show dogs in porcelain hands. But the street signs had extra embellishments, the white trim of each house looked freshly painted; not a single speck of dirt decorating any seam. She hated places like this.

Sure, this family would probably feed her well, and buy her whatever she wanted until they got sick of her surliness, and sent her back— but there was something more… inspiring about the graffiti laced slums she’d been accustomed to. Her music trapeze-d around wiry alleyways, painted portraits of old and wasted faces of people who never broke free of their own pity, fed off of the motorcycle exhaust that polluted the air. It died when faced with clean-cut grass and wind chimes.

            Ms. Kayama, Jirou’s social worker, must’ve heard the sigh from the passenger seat, coughing slightly to grab her attention. “They’re not bad at all, hon.”

            “That’s what you said about the last family,” Jirou replied, barely making any effort to push sound through her mouth. Her music stopped abruptly, cord jiggled loose as her phone crashed to the floor with the car’s screeching halt.

            “I promise you’ll like this one. Your new foster dad also likes music, like you. Maybe you’ll have something to talk about this time?” she suggested, giggling slightly as Jirou desperately tried to get her headphones back in business. She felt naked without them.

            “Fine, I’ll try.But only for you.” She flipped through her playlist, not sure what song to choose. She wasn’t in the mood for hip hop, or grunge. She put it on shuffle. It landed on Blue Monday.  

            “Great!” The smile that Ms. Kayama released was almost worth the trouble. Almost.

            They got out of the car, walking into the blinding heat and towards the house. She hadn’t had a chance to really look at the thing, but she could already tell that it was different. In a very, very bad way. The house radiated with something that she couldn’t quite place. Like there was a missing puzzle piece in the picture she gazed into, but was undefinable.

            Tell me how, do I feel?

            The song grew louder, even though it typically remained at a steady volume. Maybe she jostled the controls by accident. The bassline and melody consisted of only five notes. She liked it. She didn’t have to count much. She still didn’t get that about herself. Ms. Kayama looked at her watch, before knocking on the door. Jirou never understood why she didn’t look at her watch after knocking, but it was just something she did.

Everybody had those sorts of things.

The door opened loudly. She couldn’t hear it, but it swung open with a dynamism that could only be described as “deafening.” The man who greeted them reflected his door-opening prowess quite exactly. Long and styled blonde hair, lanky silhouette that could only suit the outfit he wore. The clothes were generally normal, but every single thing about it was angular. The shoulder pads of his jacket, the collar of his shirt, the frames of his glasses. The man was a walking Dorito.

            Jirou expected him to hold out a hand, or judge the wires obviously trailing from her ears. However, his eyes merely gravitated to the guitar case at her back, and his lips curled into a smile. He didn’t say anything, knowing she wouldn’t hear him, but motioned the two of them into the house casually.

            The interior wasn’t too gaudy, simple kitchen and clean living room. A vase of lilies on the coffee table. Jirou immediately noticed a record player in the corner, allowing the corners of her mouth to twitch in interest. The song ended, and she pulled an earbud out to hear what they were saying about her.

“Interested in the record player?” Her new foster dad asked, eyebrows wiggling under his glasses.

            “I guess so.”

            “You’ll love your new room, then.” He looked to Ms. Kayama, who nodded politely, before he pointed to the hallway to Jirou’s left. “Third door on the right. Third. Not second.”

            Ok. Weird, but okay. She clutched the strap of her case, before dragging her bag behind her, carefully counting the doors about four times before assessing that this indeed was the third one. She pulled it open, not bothering to shut her mouth after her jaw dropped.

            Every wall was covered in posters. Different rock, hip hop, oldies, jazz, and indie bands or album covers lining each available surface. The bed was simple enough, flanked by a bedside table decorated with a lava lamp, and across from a desk that held a horde of dusty soundmixing and DJ equipment.

            She counted each poster. 198 posters. “What the hell?”

            “This used to be my home-studio. I could work and sleep without interruption,” a voice interrupted. Jirou snapped her head towards the noise, eyes widening at her foster father. “We had a whole new room set up, but I don’t really use this one anymore. I saw you liked music. Maybe you can make yourself more at home.”

            “Jirou!” She practically shouted. “I never introduced myself! I’m Kyoka Jirou. I use my last name though.”

            “Jirou, huh? Far out,” he chuckled, extending a hand. “I’m Hizashi. Hizashi Yamada.”

            Maybe this wouldn’t suck after all.

--

            When Bakugo heard the lock finally click into place, he dashed for his phone. He knew that when the Man locked the doors, he wouldn’t be back until morning. Not that Bakugo could tell when that was when the room had no windows to speak of. Eijiro hogged the majority of the twin sized bed that all three of them had to share, so Bakugo was more than happy to nestle in a pile of blankets in the corner. Denki lay on the couch, bored, fiddling with some wires they found for him. It was a pain to keep finding him shit to pull apart, but they’d go through hell to keep him calm.

            The Man didn’t know about Bakugo’s phone. If he did, then the phone would not even be in the picture. But he didn’t. Denki had nabbed it off of a guest one time, and they never came back for it. So the three of them shared a gateway to the outside world. If only for a small taste.

            They didn’t call for help, though. They weren’t idiots. It’s how they stayed alive.

He sighed, scrolling through the internet. Scrolling through HeroNet. Through Deku’s HeroNet blog, to be specific. The kid was an idiot. Hence the nickname Deku. But he was the only one who cared enough to keep looking.

“We’re officially dead now, guys,” he whispered. Eijiro groaned, probably just because he was still in between sleep and reality.

Denki hummed, scratching away at the rubber coating of a red wire. “Not to Deku.”

“Guess not.”

>New post from account @KingExplosionMurder

            Dear Deku,

            It’s been awhile. I’ve read all your entries. You’re an idiot for keeping that blog up you know. Like Christ you’re stupid. You have the popularity to fund a whole fucking kickstarter to save lost puppies or whatever the shit you care about, but you’re trending weed day hashtags in my name. Fucking kys

-Kacchan

>Delete draft?

>> Yes

Chapter Text

8 Years Ago

           Katsuki finally woke  once the car had stopped. His body slammed against the carpet coated metal abruptly, coughing up dust as his eyes darted frantically around a pitch-black car trunk. He   could taste the dryness of a cloth lodged in his mouth and felt zip ties binding his limbs, none of which stopped him from banging his head upwards as hard as possible in hopes of  escaping. His determined scream was muted by the cloth, and the pain was muted by adrenaline. When no progress was made, his instincts faltered, as he realized what was actually happening.

           Someone had kidnapped him.

           He panicked for a minute, remembering The Man, his red eyes, and everything going black. Katsuki wasn’t ashamed to admit to some lapses in his dauntless disposition. He wasn’t immune to  night terrors, for example, and once he’d been pushed down the slide by some shithead 5thgraders. He’d been scared before, but now, for the first time in his life, Katsuki was absolutely terrified.

           His breathing grew steadier, only picking up slightly when he felt the car shake with the opening and closing of a door. Likely, his captor was coming straight to hoist him out of his current cage, and throw him right into another one. He had to think fast.      

           Someone had kidnapped Katsuki Bakugo; and that “someone” had made a grave mistake.

Katsuki was the biggest badass in school for a reason. He was the best at everything, except losing, obviously. He thought back to the spy-survival book he’d nabbed off Deku for shits and giggles, smirking as he made use of that one Yoga class they made all the 3rdgraders take a few weeks prior in Phys-Ed and bent back far enough to reach his sneakers. He fumbled for a bit, before wrapping his small fingers around a shoelace and pulling as hard as he could, ripping  it out.

           He paused as the trunk’s lock clicked to open, biting his lip and balling the shoelace up in his right palm. Though he’d squeezed his eyes closed, the light washed over his face, and theyhis eyes still dilated to the light that seeped through his eyelids. Hands grabbedgripped ointo his forearms and practically dragged him into a rough hold; either over an arm or a shoulder. Katsuki kept his fist balled around the shoelace, no matter how stiff it got.

           It was no longer bright, and from the sound of things, The Man had him in an elevator. There wasn’t any music, but he would’ve been severely creeped out otherwise. The doors opened and they took off down some hallway, he assumed.

           As The Man moved, Katsuki bounced limply along to his gait, head banging against The Man’s back as they came to a complete stop. He heard the telltale timbre of keys jangling against each other, and the satisfied inhale that came with choosing the right one. As the door creaked open, Katsuki could barely brace himself before he was practically thrown onto the ground, letting out a choked gasp as his eyes snapped open involuntarily.

           The room was bland. Windowless. White fluorescent lights flickered off of cement walls. So they must be in a basement or something.

           “Ah, you’re awake.” The Man’s voice sounded as if there were one too many chainsaws lodged in his throat; scratchy and dry, though young enough to be more creepy than intimidating.

           Katsuki had nothing better to do than glare in response, biting down on the cloth in his mouth angrily and glaring. His thumb played with the end of the shoelace.  

           “No fear,” the Man observed, running his tongue across those thin, chapped lips. “Interesting.”

            Interesting my ass.  Katsuki grimaced as the Man kneeled down to meet eyes with his catch, before kicking his bound feet as well as he could into the Man’s jaw. Well that worked out well .

           The Man rolled his eyes humorlessly, before grabbing the collar of Katsuki’s raincoat. It was still wet. How far was he from home?

           Maybe he would’ve been less confident without that shoelace, but even as he was shoved into a lightless room, a smirk played at his lips. The lock slid into place behind The Man as he left, presumably to get his murder kit or some shit; this was the only opening he’d have. He looped the shoelace around the ziptie binding his feet, before realizing that he didn’t have a way to grab both sides.

           “Fuck,” he groaned.

           “Oh shit, he said the f-word,” another voice whispered, causing Katsuki to whip his head around, meeting the crimson eyes of a new face. It was a nice face; still young and undefined, framed by slightly overgrown black hair. “There is a child in the room.”

           He pointed downwards to an even smaller child, maybe a year or two younger than Katsuki; big eyes, scruffy hair, missing front tooth, tears still on his cheeks.

           Even if it was a relief to see he wasn’t alone,he sure as hell didn’t show it.

           “In case you didn’t notice, we’re all children,” Katsuki deadpanned. “Also you’re a hypocrite! You just said ‘shit’!”

           “Woah, big word. ‘Hypocrite’… what’s that mean again?” The black-haired boy scratched at his chin.

           “It means shut the fuck up and let me work,” Katsuki growled, trying to figure out the shoelace problem.

           “He’ll untie your feet and stuff in a few days.”

           “Did I ask for your opinion?”

           “Just thought you’d want to hear it.” The boy shrugged. “I'm Eijiro, Eijiro Kirishima.”

           “Cool,” Katsuki muttered. “Nobody fucking cares.”

           “You, uh, want some help with that?” He had to pry the younger boy off of him before walking over to Katsuki. “Whatever that is. What are you even doing again?”

           “I read somewhere that you can escape zip-ties with shoelaces. I don’t fucking know.” He hadn’t meant to say that last part. It was like admitting his fear. His uncertainty. “Even if they untie them, I can escape if they don’t expect it.”

           “Do you even know where we are?”

           “No. Doesn't matter though.”

           “How old are you?” Eijiro asked randomly, before clarifying. “Just for reference.”

           “Eight years and 106 days.”

           “You actually count the days?”

           “You don’t?”

           “Fair point.” Eijiro laughed. It was a nice laugh. “I guess that makes you the oldest, then.”

           Katsuki smirked. “That means I’m the leader!”

           “I mean technically Denki would be the leader, since he’s been here the longest, though.” Eijiro pointed at the other little boy, who hadn’t said anything yet. He didn’t seem to care about what was going on in front of him, hands fumbling around with some random piece of plastic.

           “How long?” Katsuki asked.

           “A week or two, maybe?” Eijiro tapped his fingers against the floor. “They haven’t done anything to us. I’m thinking that they’re gonna sell us when they get enough or something.”

           “I thought it was just the one guy?”

           “Nah.” Eijiro shook his head. “Other people bring us food and stuff.”

           “Oh.” Katsuki turned back to his zip-tied legs, and motioned towards them. Eijiro licked his lips, taking the shoelace in hand and moving it back and forth before it snapped.

           “Holy shit, that’s cool,” Eijiro whispered.

           “Do my arms now.”

           “Yes sir!”

           “Katsuki Bakugo,” he corrected.

           “What about Kacchan, then?” Eijiro suggested playfully. 

           “ Fuck. No .”

           He didn’t know how long it was before someone finally came to the door, someone not resembling his kidnapper at all, a tray of shitty looking food atop their palm. It could’ve been an hour, or a lot longer than that, but the point still stood: this was his chance. Their chance.

           Katsuki ran between the person’s legs, kicking their left shin as hard as he could, before motioning for Eijiro and Denki to follow. Though they were incapacitated for a good 25 seconds, Katsuki was already running down a seemingly endless hall. There were doors, upon doors that looked like theirs. He kept going and going, not even bothering to look behind him. Hopefully Eijiro and Denki were okay but, even if they hadn’t managed to keep up, he’d escape and then tell the police. Everything would be fine.

           Except it wasn’t fine.

           As he continued to run, search for an exit, he found nothing but more doors. More cages. Cement walls, cold light, faceless people who just ignored him. He didn’t know how long it was until his legs gave out, buckling underneath him and sending him elbows-first onto the hard ground.

           “You’ll be a fun one.”

           Katsuki looked up shakily, eyes meeting red. The Man stood in front of him, chapped lips turned upwards. He tried to pick himself up and run in the other direction, but it was like the floor didn’t exist, his legs made no progress in moving him. The Man walked over, petting his hair in the most creepily condescending way possible.

           “Welcome to All for One.”

           He didn’t know what that meant, but it didn’t matter, because he was out cold within seconds.

---

@deku 2018

Dear Kacchan,

           It’s always scary seeing Amber Alerts pop up on my phone. It happens all the time, yeah, but it just gives me this awful feeling in my stomach because there’s another missing person that no one will care about. Because people always groan and treat the whole thing like one big inconvenience. Would they think you’re an inconvenience? It keeps me up. I don’t know. I think that the alerts are helpful, though. I don’t know if they work, but, they might do something. Or they could tell the kidnapper that people are onto them. Who knows? I just hate when people get annoyed at someone getting hurt. Like, I’m sure that the interruption isn’t ideal, but neither is getting kidnapped. Or someone’s child getting kidnapped.

           Sometimes I wonder what would’ve happened if you had one. An Amber Alert. Would things have changed. What would’ve happened if I’d found out about you through an Amber Alert, of all things. Would that have been worse than from my teacher?

           I don’t want to think of you as an Amber Alert, Kacchan.

- Deku

Likes 39,089               Reblogs 298 Comments      130

           > “Holy shit literally same! I hate when people complain about Amber Alerts. People should really be more considerate.”

           > “ngl I don’t think that Amber Alerts are any help, but they do raise awareness and shouldn’t be subject to jokes or anything.”

           > “UgH all of deku’s posts either warm my heart or destroy it. Guess which one it is this time.”

--

Shouto <2:35 PM>

Izuku don’t get mad at me but you told me to do this

Izuku <2:36 PM>

??

Shouto <2:36 PM>

do your summer homework now

Izuku <2:37 PM>

w h y  w oul d  y ou ru i n  s u mm e r li ke  th is

Shouto <2:37 PM>

you specifically asked me to remind you to do it.

I don’t make the rules

Izuku <2:38 PM>

wow what a rebel.

Shouto <2:38 PM>

why does everybody call me a rebel

I don’t understand

Izuku <2:39 PM>

tell that to your MCR albums

Shouto <2:40 PM>

how does listening to good music make me a rebel

Izuku <2:41 PM>

I don’t make the rules

Shouto <2:42 PM>

I saw your post on HeroNet

Are you doing alright?

Izuku <2:43 PM>

yeah totally it’s just

Hard

Sometimes

Shouto <2:44 PM>

of course it is. But you’re the only one still trying.

That’s got to mean something right?

Izuku <2:45 PM>

It’s like

Every lead I have is a dead end

Like that one guy who ran a trafficking ring or that one person that would kill kids or

You get the point

Kacchan and the other two

Eijiro and Denki

They’re not connected to any of it.

Shouto <2:50 PM>

then find a new lead

You can do it, Izuku

If anyone can do it, you can

And ill help in any way I can

Izuku <2:52 PM>

I know

:)

--

           Jirou was surprised at how well she got along with her new foster father. From the beginning, she understood that he was a cool guy with similar hobbies, but it went a lot further than that. The more she got to know him. It was easy to talk about anything when he was on the receiving end. He peeled back every wall she’d set up, and she loved it.

           “So how’d you get into music, Jirou?” he’d asked over dinner one evening.

           “It was weird,” she’d answered, picking at a pepper on her plate. “In elementary school, we all learned how to play Chopsticks on the piano. The moment my fingers touched the keys it was like something clicked in me? I don’t know.”

           “A musical prodigy, huh?” His eyebrows shot up, catlike grin widening.

           “I’d hardly call it that.” She bit her lip slightly. “I’d never really been able to communicate before, not well, anyways. But that single note was like a bridge being built between me and the world. Like I’d found my voice. Wow, that sounded cheesy, sorry.”

           “Not at all! I totally get that,” he chuckled. “For me, it was more like…”  He trailed off.

           “Like what?”

           “Like… Have your thoughts ever gotten really jumbled in your head?” He asked suddenly, before elaborating. “The world around you gets really loud, since your head is so crowded.”

           “Yeah.” Jirou knew that feeling all too well.

           “I started listening to music to drown it all out and then one day I realized that I could make my own.” He pointed to a cabinet at the other end of the kitchen, which housed some old trophies. “I got into instruments, and started working for a studio and eventually… I did it for a living.”

“You have a studio?”

           “What’d you think my job was, Jirou?”

           “I don't know,” she sighed. Her fingers played with a lock of dark, silky hair nervously. “I thought you did music as a hobby and then had a more practical job on the side like… A teacher or an accountant or something.”

           “There’s no way to be happy if you live for practicality.”

           He said every word she needed to hear. And she wanted so badly for everything to stay just like this.

           Her new foster mother wasn’t that bad either. Sure, she wasn’t a music nerd with a sick collection of band tees, but she was everything a good mother should be. She had reasonable rules, a sharp tongue, and a kind hand.

           As it turned out, her and Mr. Yamada weren’t even romantically involved. Apparently they’d just been best friends for forever, and decided to live together all domestically until they found respective partners. When Jirou asked her why they’d even decided to foster in the first place, she just smiled weakly.

           “Why wouldn’t we?”

           “Well, usually people foster for the money, or to end up adopting,” Jirou explained. “But you guys are pretty well-off, and aren’t married or anything.”

           “I’ve never wanted a husband.” She stated. “Or anything of the sort.”

           Jirou nodded, accepting the orange juice that she slid across the kitchen table. “Thanks,” she acknowledged quietly.

           “But that doesn’t mean I don’t want to be a mother.” She sat across from Jirou, folding her hands underneath her chin and smiling slightly. “I hope I don’t disappoint.”

           “You haven’t so far.”

           “I don’t have the best track record,” she sighed, leaning her head onto her own shoulder slightly.

           “Neither do I.”

           “I guess we have that in common,” she chuckled, straightening her back and cracking it enough to prompt another loud exhale. “I hope we don’t screw this up, Kyouka.”

           For some reason, Jirou didn’t mind it, when she called her that.

           “I doubt you will,” Jirou affirmed. “Ms. Kaminari.”

           “I guess we’ll see!”

           Her smile was blinding.

---

           Shouto Todoroki woke up to an empty house. He looked over to the clock by his bedside, alarm thankfully turned off; 11:45 AM. He was a heavy sleeper, contrary to popular belief. Cool air blew in from an open window, silky drapes like white smoke as they slithered through the air. His body, tucked under layers of blankets, shivered as he ripped them off. It was summer, but for some reason, the past few days had him reaching to the coat hanger.

           He could tell that he was alone the moment he walked into the hall. For one, his siblings usually made all sorts of noise at this time, and his father would either be on the phone, or typing out some report really loudly. The house was dead quiet. Shuffling over to the kitchen, Shouto checked the driveway just to make certain of his solitude; their house was big, after all, and silence sometimes lied. When he only saw his own vehicle, Shouto couldn’t help but sigh; relieved.

            There was still coffee left, but it had long since chilled, running lukewarm down his throat. It wasn’t like he cared. He wasn’t good with hot water anyways. He tossed the used coffee filter into the trash, washing the stain out of his mug by hand, even as the dishwasher lay open for him.  

           His phone buzzed from its charger, which he kept in the kitchen. Otherwise, he’d be up even later than usual texting Izuku. Among others, of course. He picked it up, rubbing his eyes as he focused to read the message from that aforementioned best friend.

Izuku <8:27 AM>

ah you’re probably asleep but I just wanted to know if u wanted to hang today!

There’s a new movie out and both ochako and tsuyu are going I didn’t want to be a third wheel

Plus it’s a movie you’d like!!

           Honestly it didn’t matter if he liked the movie. Usually, he was indifferent towards it. His movie rating scale would usually coincide with how happy Izuku was when watching it. After coming out to his friend a year prior, it didn’t take long for him to realize that I don’t just like guys. I like you.

           It was hopeless, though. But it was fine. He didn’t expect to get a boyfriend anywayin general, let alone the anomaly that was Izuku, thanks tobecause of his dad and whatever plans he had for him.

Me <11:50 AM>

sorry I overslept

I would love to see a movie with you guys

What time?

           He smiled as he saw Izuku typing, and put his phone in his pocket while he waited, walking to the bathroom quickly. Though he didn’t exude the typical gay sterotypesgayness, he had a tendency to care really intently about his appearance. He liked having that “totally cool but I don’t try” look, which ironically took some effort to achieve. Who would’ve thought?

           His good mood automatically soured as he looked in the mirror. Even though it’d been almost ten years, he still couldn’t look at the scar without feeling that hatred bubble underneath his skin. He ran his fingers across the edges lightly, pinky passing onto the ordinary, smooth flesh beneath it. It would be fine.

           Before hopping into the shower, he glanced back at his phone.

Izuku <11:53 AM>

We’re thinking like 3? Maybe let’s meet up at 2 and hang out until whatever showing we go to?

Yeah we’re doing the movie at 3:15  and meeting up at 2

Also

No buying everything this time it’s MY turn to treat

Me <11:59 AM>

yeah no not happening

I need to piss my dad off somehow

Izuku <12:00 PM>

and you say ur not a rebel

you rebel

           The water was cold against his skin; he didn’t bother adjusting the heat. Hot showers fucked him up. He scratched at the wall to his right, prying pieces of dirt out of the cracks between white tiles, and counting his breaths.

           Afterwards, he shook the water out of his hair with a towel. Though a lot of people found his strange hair coloring cool, he found it pretty inconvenient, as he could really only go to one style and look marginally good, and parting it was a huge pain. Painstakingly sorting the scarlet from the ivory, it took him at least ten minutes to achieve any sense of self confidence. Sure, his friends didn’t care about how he looked, but he sure did. Besides, he had two hours anyways, already having done his homework the first two or three days of their break, like the good little son he was.

           Speaking of his rampant parental issues, his phone buzzed again with his father’s face replacing the lazily selected screensaver of some cool ice landscape. Shouto scowled, pressing the answer button with a scary amount of force.

           “Hello, father.”

            “Shouto.” He even sounded condescending and awful from the other side of a screen. “ I’m sure you’re not wasting the day away?”

            “No. I’m actually hanging out with some friends.”

           “ Right. Those.”

            “What do you want?”

            “I just needed for you to check my office for something real quick.”

            “Yeah, okay.” He didn’t hide his contempt for the man in any of their interactions. Though he usually did whatever his father wished, he made damn well sure to emphasize how much he’d rather be slugging him in the jaw. The office was at the other end of the house, so he quickly jogged up the stairs and through the hallway until he reached the red door and slammed it open. “What do you need?”

           “ Are my gun and ID there?”

            He scanned the desk, pursing his lips, before opening a drawer or two and finding both of them under some paperwork. “Yeah. Why’d you forget them?”

           “ None of your damn business. I just needed to make sure that someone hadn’t stolen them or something.”

           “Ok.”

           He hung up, ready to leave the office for good, hands already latching onto the light switch, before he stopped dead in his tracks. A manila folder lay slightly open on the usually pristine desk, contents barely visible at this distance but, he could see the top corner of a picture. He’d seen that face before.

BAKUGO, KATSUKI

MISSING AT AGE 8, WOULD BE 16 AS OF 2018

           This was Katsuki’s file. He scanned over the information, eyes widening as he realized that this case wasn’t closed at all. The police had lied. His father had lied.

He licked his lips, eyes darting from the folder to the printer behind his father’s desk.

Shouto had just found Izuku’s new lead.  

Chapter Text

Chapter 3: Broken Bones

           Bakugo gripped the porcelain as he hacked up whatever dinner he’d managed to eat. The toilet had become a regular occurrence for him as of the past few weeks, gaping hole daunting as acid stung his throat. Eijiro watched from the other end of the bathroom, bottom lip caught under his teeth as he gnawed it into oblivion.

           “What’ve they been giving you, anyways?” He asked, wincing slightly as blood joined the chunks of fiber in the toilet bowl. “Cyanide?”

           “Cyanide makes you stop breathing,” Bakugo corrected, wiping vomit off his jaw. He scrunched his nose in disgust. “I don’t know what it is, though.”

           “Can you fight today, though?” Eijiro finally asked, once Bakugo had flushed his suffering into the ground. That was the real question.

           “Yeah. If Kami can after the shit they do to him, I can stomach some fucking nitroglycerin.”

           “I thought you didn’t know what it was.”

           “I know what it’s called.”

           “I don’t think you should—“

           “I’m fine, Eijiro.”

           He nodded reluctantly, swallowing any other words he wanted to say and picking himself off of the floor. They lived in a cement block, basically. Though they’d managed to culminate minimal furniture in the Trials over the past few years, it didn’t make their home any less suffocating. Eijiro didn’t remember when they’d started calling this place “home,” it was so long ago. Denki didn’t even remember his parents’ names or faces anymore, said that everything was blurry from before. It hurt to think about.

           Bakugo opened the door, but closed his eyes, taking a deep breath of sterile air before he stepped out into the hallway, Eijiro starting after him. They looked back at Denki who still sat on the sofa, he hadn’t spoken in awhile, fixated on his wires. It must’ve been bad for him this time. Bakugo grit his teeth, but didn’t say anything.

           “Kami, we’re going to the cafeteria,” Eijiro called back. Denki replied with a thumbs up. Eijiro sighed, “okay then.”

           The door shut behind them by the time they were halfway down the hall. The researchers paid them no mind, confident that their handy little shock-bracelets would hold back any asshole teenager who got too uppity in the wake of eight years of experimentation. They didn't talk, though. They weren’t explicitly banned from it, but it was an unspoken rule, literally, that no one could really argue against.

           No one actually got any food at the cafeteria. The name was a lie. Food came in controlled doses at controlled times of day. The official name, the one that was assumedly written on the map, was Block C. The lab rats just called it the cafeteria, since that was their one hub of socialization or entertainment. A place to sit on uncomfortable wooden chairs and just talk about who got sold off this time, or who was on what “treatment.” Just your ordinary high school gossip.

           Bakugo knew upon looking at the cafeteria that it was a Tuesday. Their only calendar, outside of their stolen phone, was really only the number of people who showed up. Maybe ten or so out of fifty were well enough to loiter around and not pass out in pain or exhaustion.

           “I thought Mina’d be here,” Eijiro grunted, and Bakugo rolled his eyes. “You think she’s okay?”

           “If she was dead or something, she wouldn’t be able to be the bane of my fucking existence,” Bakugo assured him. “She’s probably just getting used to whatever the fuck they put into her this time. Like Kami?”

           “Denki never comes to the cafeteria though, Mina comes every time.”

           “You really like worrying, Eijiro.” Bakugo smirked, shoving his hands into his pockets. The fabric was rough under his fingers; All for One didn’t really give two shits about the thread count of their lab rats’ clothes, apparently.

One moment, he felt fine, but the next, Bakugo almost doubled over, hands gripping his temple in agony. It had been like this for a few weeks. The headaches were like waves, rushing in with the power of a raging bull, before receding into the ocean, only leaving its impression in the sand below.

“You good, bro?” Eijiro’s hands ghosted over Bakugo’s back.

“Yeah. Always.”

He lifted his head from his hands and tilted his chin high as they walked to a corner table. The pain had only worsened, but Eijiro didn’t need to know that, especially only hours before a Trial. He didn’t need a distraction like that.

“What’s the point of pumping you with that shit anyways?” Eijiro asked, picking at a stray fingernail. “At least my shit makes sense. I think. I don’t know chemistry.”

“None of us know chemistry, Eijiro,” Bakugo deadpanned. Fuck, his head hurt. “Unless your third-grade self had already graduated from fucking, I don’t know, some fancy science college.”

“What’s that one in America?” Eijiro asked. “Harvard?”

“I don’t even know Japanese Universities, let alone fucking foreign ones.” Bakugo’s fingernails dug crescents into his palms. They’d bleed if he pressed any harder.

“We literally–” Eijiro cut himself off, clearing his throat before he lowered his voice. “We literally have the internet. You can research all that shit.”

“I’d rather spend my time not thinking about how they’re fucking us up and turning kids into weapons, thanks.”

“You’re just busy reading Deku’s posts on HeroNet.” Eijiro smiled teasingly.

“Sorry for feeling any sort of attachment to my old life.”

“Your pouting is adorable.”

Bakugo thanked the heavens that his face was already red from his headache. Which still raged on, though ignored. They sat there, talking about mundane things until a blaring alarm signaled the beginning of that day’s Trial.

He looked over at Eijiro, whose hands shook slightly as they scratched at the pale scar running over his eyebrow.

“You good, Shitface?” Bakugo asked, knowing that his friend was far from it.

“You worry too much, Katsuki,” Eijiro teased.

“Stop calling me that.” He stopped thinking of himself by his first name a few years prior, though Denki and Eijiro still went out of their way to use it. He didn’t know why he went by Bakugo now; he liked to think that it was because it just sounded cooler.

It wasn’t.  

-

-

-

           Jirou scrolled through HeroNet absentmindedly. She ‘liked’ posts that she didn’t bother reading, only really focusing on the music that blasted through her headphones. The earbuds vibrated with the full volume, guitar riffs piercing into her skull. It was her happy place. Not that she really needed one of those anymore, not as much anyways.

           For the few weeks that she’d been staying with her new foster parents, she’d felt nothing but at home. She didn't feel that much-too-familiar anxiety of playing her music out loud, of meeting with judgmental ears. Her foster father would unplug her headphones often, just to hear what she was listening to, before managing to play an improvised rendition of it by-ear on his guitar or keyboard. Even the less musically aligned Ms. Kaminari would play twenty-minute prog-rock songs while cooking dinner.

           Living the dream, however, didn’t sway her from her entire routine. Sometimes she just needed to jump headfirst into the sound, completely naked and limitless. It also didn’t cover up the fact that her new family was quite obviously hiding something.

           For one, they still hadn’t really talked about that second door. She would’ve understood if it were any other family; some office or bedroom or something. But with a foster mom who left sex toys on the dining room table, and gave Jirou the keys to her trillion-dollar Corvette, it was easy to concur that they didn’t really give two shits about privacy. It was a mystery that Jirou didn’t mind ignoring, but it still lingered in the back of her head.

           She couldn’t ignore the picture frames that had been turned backwards, pictures facing the wall as they continued to hang. Memories that someone tried to forget, but couldn’t completely erase. For some reason, Jirou didn’t look underneath at the contents of those thoughts. Whatever lay on the other end of those frames must’ve been sacred.

           Her face lit up as she scrolled by a post from Deku. Every one of his posts called out to her on this level that most therapists couldn’t achieve. She bit her lip as she read through the entry. She hoped, just like half the internet at this point, that Kacchan was still alive and well. She was surprised that the most investigation on the disappearance was by some grade school aged kid.

@deku 2018

Dear Kacchan,

So a lot happened today. I don’t know where to start.

I went to the movies with Shouto and Uraraka and Tsuyu, we saw that new superhero movie. That hasn’t changed since you left, by the way. Superhero movies are still my favorite thing in the world. I think you’d like Logan a lot, that came out a year ago I think, maybe a bit longer. I know you’re more of a DC guy but like honestly you’d hate all the DC movies recently. I’m getting off track.

Anyways, so we went to the movies and Shouto was acting really weird the whole time. Well weirder than usual— he is a super emo weirdo after all. Not that that’s bad, but this is besides the point. After the movie ended, and Tsu/Ochako went home, he pulled me aside and showed me exactly why he was being weird and…

He found your file. Like the police file. I won’t say how, since it’s a long story. But he found it. And I think that he found a lot more than that.

The case isn’t closed at all, Kacchan. I don’t know why they said it was, but there are so many holes in this file. Like someone deleted whole pages of information. Shouto says that if we do more digging, we’ll be one step closer to figuring this whole thing out.

I’m finally out of my slump, if that’s what you’d call it.

I hope you’re okay.

-Deku

Likes 200,904              Reblogs  590 Comments 609

> “Holy shit they faked a closed case? This is getting into like… mystery novel level shit.”

> “Deku is the Nancy Drew we all needed omfg.”

> “Anyone else really ship Shouto and Deku?”

           > “Anyone else really hate unnecessary additions to posts?”

> @earphone-jackk “Hope that you guys can find him!! I recommend staying vague with exactly what’s going down, since a lot of stuff you’re doing isn’t 100% legal. Don’t want our messiah cinnamon roll Deku getting arrested for trying to be a good person!!”

After reblogging and commenting, she prepared to close out of her tab and get to sleep, but was interrupted by her stupid HeroNet messenger going off.

HeroNet <1:20 AM>

You’re mutuals with @chargebolt! Maybe you should get to know them better!

She rolled her eyes, deleting the bot’s suggestion. Honestly, that was the most annoying thing in the world. It wasn’t like she hated talking to mutuals, or messaging people and making friends. Her only real friend, Momo, lived halfway across the country, and they met through HeroNet, after Jirou had like-spammed the other girl by accident a year or so earlier. But HeroNet’s matchmaking skills often held little results.

However, as she once again began to close out of the website, the messenger beeped loudly.

<1 message from @chargebolt>

chargebolt <1:22 AM>

y did HN tell me to dm u

earphone-jackk <1:24 AM>

are you new to this website or something

chargebolt <1:24 AM>

mostly ya

earphone-jackk <1:25 AM>

it just does that bc it wants people to be more social

or something idk

it’s just something that it does

chargebolt <1:26 AM>

o

sorry fro waking u thn

for*

earphone-jackk <1:27 AM>

you’re implying that I sleep ever

sorry buddy that’s called fake news

chargebolt <1:28 AM>

yo saem

what is slep but makin urself vulnerable to the cruel, cold AC of the world

earphone-jackk <1:29 AM>

why did you spell vulnerable right but you can’t spell “same” right

chargebolt <1:30 AM>

im tired

earphone-jackk <1:30 AM>

then sleep

chargebolt <1:31 AM>

im bad at that

earphone-jackk <1:31 AM>

rft

-

-

-

           Denki never went to Block C.

           It wasn’t like he preferred being antisocial or anything. He loved people; he wanted more than anything to just sit down and talk with Mina or Sero like he could with Eijiro and Katsuki. But he just couldn’t. He couldn’t get words out of his mouth, or deal with things being so damn loud all the time.

           He remembered the first time they started poking around his head. It was after the first Trial, where they’d organized the rats up into groups to decide how they were going to “enhance” them.  The Man said that he was smart. Looked down at Denki’s shaking, seven year old self and thought “Wouldn’t it be a great idea if we fucked this one up a little more than everyone else?”

           The Tri-alarm (Trial plus alarm, pun courtesy of Eijiro) went off like an explosion in Denki’s head, every nerve that fired, he felt. Like a thousand tiny spiders crawling and biting and ripping him apart. He grunted, shoving the phone between couch cushions and stumbling to leave the room. It was weird having an actual clock on hand, finding out that their mid-day routine actually took place mid-night instead.

           He hoped that he could keep talking to earphone-jackk, though. After the Trial was over.

           There was a researcher standing outside his door, waiting for him with a clipboard in hand. “You’re coming with me, Fifty-One.”

           “What about the Trial?” He asked.

           The researcher shook its head. “Not as important.”

           “As what?” He already knew the answer.

           “An official from North Korea wanted a peek at the merchandise. Though you’re a work in progress, he has shown interest in your capabilities.” It rolled its eyes as Denki gnawed at his fingernails, handing him a keychain to fiddle with instead. His fixations were common knowledge to both rats and researchers alike.

           He followed closely behind the researcher, eyes darting around the hallways until they reached Block A, which was just where all the auctions happened. It placed a bundle of more formal looking clothes into his arms, motioning for him to take a shower and change. “Don’t take more than ten minutes, Fifty-One.”

           “Yeah, got it.”

           As much as he hated them, he’d have preferred that day’s Trial to this. In the Trials, at least he could stick with Katsuki and Eijiro. At least he wasn’t so alone. He fumbled around with the buttons on his new shirt, hands shaky and wet. The researcher pursed its lips at his dripping hair, choppy and untamable. He was glad that they were pressed for time, otherwise, it was very possible that they’d just shave it all off.

           The room was pretty average, only distinguishable from the rest because of its clean paint job and inhabitants. Half of the people were researchers, dressed in overly ironed lab-coats, rather than the surgical garb that he was used to seeing. The Man stood with a few recognizable associates in suits, chatting animatedly with who Denki could only assume was their guest. His hair was thinning and gray, slicked back against a skull speckled with blood-spots and time-induced craters. And his eyes gravitated immediately to Denki.

           “That’s it?”

           “Yes, it’s a… work in progress, but it will garner results, my good sir.” The Man smirked, motioning for Denki to come closer. He complied, but every bone in his body had seemingly disagreed, and it was an arduous process. He tried not to flinch The Man stroked his hair condescendingly. “We manufactured this one specifically for espionage purposes.”

           “Okay then,” the guest said. “Let’s see what your little weapon can do.”

           The Man nodded to Denki, whose eyes met the screen of a small computer at the other end of the room. He walked over to it, sitting down and tapping his fingers across the desk as the device turned on. Once it did, lines of code and numbers began popping up on the screen; licking his lips, Denki began to work. His hands flew across the keys and everything clicked into place.

           “That took about thirty seconds, not its best,” a researcher observed.

           “Did that thing just hack into the North Korean Missile program?” The guest asked, squinting his eyes at the screen just to be sure.

           “We call it savant syndrome,” The Man explained. “The child is below average in most areas outside of the cyberspace.”

           “I don’t really care about anything else,” the guest concluded. “What did you do to it?”

           “We’ve been playing with nerve endings and the like, with a great majority of our intellectual properties.” He motioned to a projector at the other end of the room, now switched on and displaying various scientific diagrams of some neurological bullshit. As the guest nodded along to The Man’s explanation, Denki swiveled on his chair in boredom. “Action potential and such in the brain can be meddled with to increase efficiency and ability. We’re still working through the kinks, however.”

           “Doesn’t seem to be anything wrong with it as is,” the guest observed.

           “Ability-wise, no.” The Man then gestured to Denki’s hands, which currently dug into the desk until the splinters drew blood. “There are nasty psychological side effects that come with said poking around. We want to limit those as much as possible.”

           He nodded to a researcher, who clicked to the next slide, showing an elementary school level diagram of the lower brain and limbic system, before clearing his throat. “We’re hoping to remove sections of the amygdala and hypothalamus once its brain has matured.”

           “And that would…”

           “Hopefully eliminate a good majority of its empathic and free thinking ability. We want our products to be both effective and obedient.”

            What?

            He didn’t know about that. Was that something they were going to do to all of them? He gulped, hands shaking, eyes widening.

           “We can discuss all of this at a later date, sir,” The Man assured their guest. “We’re still in the prototype stage for Fifty One. If your boss is interested, he can give us a call.”

           “He’ll definitely be interested. Your country has a lot to offer.”

           “We have more hands-on weapons as well,” The Man suggested. “If you would like to see them.”

           “I definitely would, Mr. Shigaraki.”

           So that was his name.

           Denki hated it.

-

-

-

           Izuku looked at the file for the thousandth time. He hadn’t written anything down yet, while Shouto had made another copy for himself, and worked on highlighting various technicalities throughout. The picture of Katsuki stared back at him judgmentally, just daring him to put the puzzle together. He couldn’t.

           “You find anything yet?” He asked softly.

           “No.” Shouto turned the page, clicking his tongue in vexation. “Most of it is really vague. You?”

           “I don’t really know where to start.”

           “Understandable.”

           But it wasn’t understandable at all. Because this was the first real, concrete lead that Izuku had found in eight years, and he still couldn’t manage to figure anything out. He read through the first page again.

BAKUGO, KATSUKI

MISSING AT AGE 8, WOULD BE 16

           Again.

Last seen August 4 th along the 7 th street river.

           Again

Family:

Mother- Mitsuki Bakugo

Father- Masaru Bakugo

Uncle- Status unknown

           Again.

Case closed to public.

           That’s what always tripped him up. Why was it just closed to the public? Why didn’t the police force want anyone knowing that they were still looking for some eight-year-old (or in this case, sixteen year old) kid that no one really cared about anymore, except for friends and family? Cases like this closed or lay untouched in the open all the time. What was different about Katsuki?

           “It doesn’t look like this file was closed by the local police branch,” Shouto observed.

           “What do you mean?”

           “Local police stations close cases in a pretty routine way.” He pointed to the final page, where various signatures and terms were organized in neat rows. “This doesn’t fit that pattern.”

           “Why do you think that is?”

           “I don’t know,” Shouto sighed. He ran a hand through his hair, pausing as it graced over his scar. Izuku frowned as his heterochromic gaze darkened. “But I’m positive that my dad has something to do with it.”

Chapter Text

Chapter 4: Ivy Head

           Each nerve fired off through his brain; spider webs of electricity and white noise tuned everything else out. Denki could feel nothing, and yet he felt everything. Every single thing. His nose was bloody, probably a side effect of the tests, and his heart beat slowly. He heard it in his head, a steady and daunting drum that guided his panic in its well-rehearsed melody. Hands shaking, he covers his ears. It doesn’t do anything, but it makes him feel less exposed.

           It’s Eijiro who approaches him first, a light touch on his shoulder, attempting to wake him from his panic before things got worse. Though Eijiro’s comfort was usually soft and warm, Denki could only feel his entire body catch on fire, every afferent signal was just another drill against his skull.

The worst thing was, that it was all in his head. He wasn’t like Eijiro, who actually hurt. Whose bones actually broke and whose skin was covered in scars. He wasn’t like Katsuki, whose muscles ached and whose veins were pumped with poison. They just mixed some wires around in his head, and now he couldn’t even think. What good was he if he couldn’t think ?

“Denki, it’s okay. You’re fine, right?” Eijiro assures, hand now only ghosting over Denki’s back, knowing that actual contact was a bad idea at this point. Denki nods, before gripping tighter into his scalp. Eijiro turns to Katsuki, red irises vibrating as his bottom lip fit snugly under crooked teeth. “I don’t know what to do.”

Katsuki sighed, lifting himself off of the mattress and letting his feet acquaint themselves with the floor before he actually stood up. He fumbled around through the only drawer in the bedside table, where they kept various pieces of stuff they found or won in the Trials. Eventually, he finds what he was looking for, and walked over to the couch, where Denki and Eijiro sat. He outstretches his palm, offering its contents to Denki.

“I got it today in the Trial, thought you’d like it.”

Denki looked up slowly, his hands not leaving his head, but loosening their grip slightly. His golden eyes were red rimmed and shone with unshed tears as they fixated on the object in Katsuki’s hand.  It didn’t match the usual scrap metal or tangled wires that had usually kept him fixated. This was shiny and colorful. New. He reached out to grab it, fingers locking into place before he spoke, words wrestling against strained vocal chords and pain. “It’s…”

“A Rubix Cube,” Eijiro finished, surprised. “I can’t believe you got one of those, Katsuki.”

“Yeah, whatever,” Katsuki grunted, eyes softening slightly as Denki rotated the cube in his hands shakily, already fixated on it. He ruffled the younger boy’s hair, knowing that any pain would be duly ignored at this point. They figured out early on into the process that Denki didn’t short-fuse when he had something to focus on— to drown out all other stimuli. “That should keep you busy, Sparky.”

“Haven’t heard that one before. What is he, a puppy?” Eijiro laughed, poking Denki’s cheek. The other boy giggled slightly, before sniffling the remainder of his panic attack away.

“ Looks like a goddamn puppy.” He sits down on the other side of Denki. “Let’s sleep, okay?”

           “Yeah. We have test runs tomorrow, right?” Eijiro blew a piece of hair out of his face. It was getting pretty long— he was surprised that they hadn’t bothered to cut it in a while. When Katsuki nodded sullenly, Eijiro sighed, leaning his head back to look at the ceiling in exasperation. “ Peachy. ”

           Bakugo looked over at the other boy, eyebrows furrowing slightly in concern. It was no secret that Eijiro hated ‘Run’ days. Trials existed to test out the capabilities of whatever enhancements or procedures had been done over the week, and though they were a pain, they had little consequence. They brought about furniture and Rubix Cubes and he knew that people would be safe. After a week of procedural training and finetuning of skills, ‘Run’ days acted to decide what would happen next. It was never good. Especially not for Eijiro.

-

-

-

Bakugo wandered the halls of All for One, making his way over to the cafeteria, but not really caring how long he took to get there. His hands gripped the inside of his pockets, researchers paid him no mind. An eerie quiet settled over the world when there was nothing to do, and no pain to distract from it.

           “Katsuki, wait up!” He turned his head, meeting eyes with Eijiro, who gave him a wide smile. “You don’t think that you can just leave me behind, huh?”

           “Kami is there, shit-stain. You wouldn’t be alone or anything,” Bakugo grunted, narrowing his eyes. “Stop being so goddamn clingy.”

           “I refuse.” Garnet eyes sparkled with mischief. “It’s fun to be clingy. Especially since you’re a big softie.”

           “If anyone’s the softie, it’s you, asshole.” Bakugo turned away, narrowing his eyes and frowning stubbornly.

           “Uh-uh.” Eijiro shook his head playfully. “I’m literally not supposed to be soft, bro. And Denki is just a complete marshmallow so he doesn’t count. I’m calling it now, you’re the softie.”

           At the mention of Eijiro’s treatments, Katsuki felt a lump in his throat. He always did. They were his fault, after all. His eyes raked up and down the scar-laced arms of his friend, eyeing each pale and calculated slit before arriving at a fresh wound. It was stitched carefully, with clear, plastic based thread. “Is that a new one?”

“Huh?” Eijiro followed Bakugo’s gaze, before his eyes landed on the scar. “Oh, yeah. It wasn’t that bad or anything. I don’t think it can get any worse than being super uncomfortable and stuff. It’s just like over glorified skin grafts or something, right?  You and Denki drew the short straws, I guess.”

Bakugo decided to let it go for now, but his eyes lingered on the spot for a little while, until Eijiro’s arm moved slightly, and now Bakugo was really only looking at well-defined muscles and warm skin. They hadn’t seen the sun in a decade but Eijiro still had this perfect tan and Bakugo couldn’t help but stare. Because it was weird. Not because it was hot.

“Really, Katsuki, I’m good. We should worry more about the ‘run’ today. You know what The Man is like, right?”

“A douchebag?”

“Well yeah, but I was gonna say sadistic as fuck.”

“Was there ever a difference?”

“Yeah, because you’re a douchebag, and he’s sadistic as fuck,” Eijiro explained, straightening his posture to look more scholarly in his observation.

“Wow I feel so loved,” Bakugo deadpanned.

“Good.” Eijiro smiled, and god did that make Bakugo feel shittier about himself.

-

-

-

7 Years Ago

           They weren’t sure if Eijiro would make it.

Denki held their friend’s head in a panic, trying to sop up blood with his coarse sleeve, while Katsuki just stood, completely frozen. He wasn’t really sure why he wasn’t able to do anything, since doing things usually aligned pretty well with his skill set. Maybe it was because everything became that much more real to him. Eijiro might die.

His fingertips twitch in either fear or anger as a group of researchers tenaciously jotted things down on their clipboards. The Man watches from his usual spot, stroking his chin condescendingly, red eyes gravitating towards the shaking Katsuki, rather than the other kid bleeding out on the floor.

           “I don’t know if I can fix it,” Denki whispered, eyes darting around frantically as he pressed harder onto Eijiro’s wound. He didn’t know that people had so much blood.

           “Aren’t you going to help him?!” Katsuki shouted, voice cracking under its own pressure as he stared down The Man angrily.

           “Aren’t you? ” The Man smirked. “I don’t see you trying to stop the bleeding. Leaving it all to an eight-year old, aren’t you just the strongest, Katsuki?”

           No matter how many chords those words struck in Katsuki, he was a statue. Legs fastened to the ground by fear. He didn’t want to be scared.

           “Tell you what,” The Man practically hopped off of his chair, sauntering over creepily, looming over the shaking nine-year-old Katsuki. It was just like back then. Red eyes. Warm rain. Terror.

“How about I help your friend, huh?”

           Katsuki waited for him to continue, knowing that there was a point to all of this dramatization. There always was. He winced as a moan came from Eijiro’s pale lips.

           The Man smiled eerily. “You don’t want him to die, do you?”

           “Of course not,” Katsuki said.

           The Man stuck a spidery hand out in front of Katsuki’s face, before curling it into a tight fist. “Then I’ll make him unbreakable. Just for you, I’ll make your friend completely unbreakable.”

-

-

-

           Shouto Todoroki was not a patient person. He may have seemed like it; cold eyes and cultured stature both pointing towards a mature and composed character, but after a while of knowing him, it was easy to see that that was not the case at all. There was this violent ardor that bubbled beneath the surface of his skin, only revealing itself through calculated glares and visible veins. Izuku wasn’t sure if it his family obscured that side of him, or caused it in the first place.    

           Shouto paced back and forth through the bedroom, flipping through pages of the file, while Izuku lay on the bed. They were waiting for his dad to come home, so that they could figure out what exactly was going down with the whole “You know how that case we closed about the missing kids was, well, closed? Yeah, we lied” thing. Other than that, however, Izuku had no idea how Shouto was planning to handle the situation.

           Because Shouto was a calm kid. He was a think first, act later, sort of person. Everything he did was orchestrated perfectly. Apparently, it was something he got from neither side of the family, since his father was outspoken and very opinionative, while his mother was subdued and fragile. At least, from what Izuku saw of Shouto’s mother.

           The door slammed open. Izuku couldn’t tell whether it was Shouto’s dad or one of his rambunctious siblings from the noise, but could decipher the cold and determined stare on his friend’s face and guess that it was the former. Anger and tenacity rippled off of the other boy, as Izuku followed awkwardly behind, trying to straighten their stolen papers.

           Izuku didn’t know whether Shouto would go for the subtle interrogation or the blatant persecution. Either way, things would escalate. He knew they would.

           Shouto’s father, Enji Todoroki, was an angry looking guy. Striking red hair and beard framed a sharp face and muscular jaw, mouth downturned in a perpetual scowl. Any smile that the man could give was either a condescending smirk or a grimace that looked better in theory than in practice. He shrugged off his suit jacket, loosening his tie as he nodded towards Izuku, eyebrow raising at the look on his son’s face.

           “Shouto, you look absolutely elated,” he deadpanned, hanging the jacket up on the coatrack. “What a warm welcome.”

           Shouto stopped directly in front of his father, stare unwavering. Anyone else would think that he was fearless, but Izuku saw how his hands shook, how his jaw was taught.

           “I thought you might want to know,” Shouto started, voice deep and threatening. “That I’m gay as fuck.”

           Izuku almost spit out the coffee that he never had. What the hell was he doing?

           Enji had a bewildered, and then disgusted expression on his face, but any retort was cut off by his son.

           “You probably want to know why I told you, especially because you’re an asshole and all.” Shouto took a deep breath. “I thought it was only fair, really. Seeing as I found out your secret.”

           So he was killing two birds with one stone, huh? Izuku understood that. It made a lot of sense. He could come out and then cushion the blow with blackmail. Classic Shouto Todoroki. Practical, impetuous, and cold, all at the same time.

           “ What secret? ”

           Shouto motioned to Izuku, who handed him the file, which he proceeded to toss into Enji’s arms. “What do you know about the kidnapping of Katsuki Bakugo?”

-

-

-

           Jirou’s fingers tapped rhythms against her desk, pen propped between her lips as she absentmindedly counted each beat she made. The paper stood empty and daunting before her, she’d thrown out her other drafts— there was something that she just couldn’t get right with this song. She usually didn’t write lyrics, or at least she didn’t put much thought into them. She usually just went with words and phrases that sounded good together, and flowed coherently with her instrumentals. However, she wanted to correlate actual meaning through this one, something that became increasingly difficult.

Having parents (the word felt foreign on her tongue, but she relished in it) was strange. She felt comfortable around them, unyieldingly so, and yet she still couldn’t really talk to them about much other than her music. Her passion. She wanted to tell them about the world which built that sound through suffering, wanted to understand them further by sharing her story. But the words caught themselves in her throat. Her chest would get heavy and she couldn’t breathe.

           But maybe she could tell them through the music itself.

           It was funny, how drawing from experience only made things harder.

            Caught inside your that cage

           Counting every day

           My world is made of cinderblocks   hate    aluminum

            She drew lines through every word that came to mind, a sharp slash of ink across clean paper. It was one of those obnoxious gel pens that smudged under her left-handed scrawl anyways, so she would likely lose all of this the next day.

           Jirou’s head came crashing down onto the desk in exasperation, a silent groan rising from her throat. She was ready to just call it a night, until her stupid HeroNet notifications went off again. Oh wait— it was Momo.

Creati <2:30 AM>

jiro I know you’re awake get to sleep

Earphone-jackk <2:32 AM>

I was about to until you messaged me

Are you the opposite of an alarm lol

You just tell me when to sleep

Creati <2:33 AM>

I am your mother do not disrespect me

Earphone-jackk <2:34 AM>

I have an actual mom now ok

Creati <2:35 AM>

how’s that going, by the way

We haven’t really talked about things in awhile

Earphone-jackk <2:35 AM>

yeah things are good im just

It’s complicated

We should talk about it over voice later

Creati <2:38 AM>

we should

Anyways, I’m done studying so im going to bed

So should you

Earphone-jackk <2:40 AM>

yepyep right on it

Mom

Lolol

Creati <2:41 AM>

:/

Jirou smiled, thankful for her best friend’s fretting. It just felt so good having someone care about you for genuine reasons. Not just for their own gain.

She was just about to shut her laptop, ready to get that sleep she promised Momo she’d get, but faltered. Her chat history with chargebolt was still open, practically taunting her. It was weird, chargebolt was weird. Who actually messages someone per HeroNet request? A green dot indicated that the person was online within the last thirty minutes. She looked between her bed and her computer before shrugging, picking the laptop up and lying down on the soft comforter. Jirou liked to call this “pre-sleep.”

“Here goes nothing,” she muttered, typing a message out to chargebolt. Maybe she could meet another friend outside of Momo? Or maybe she was just scared of closing her eyes.

             earphone-jackk <2:45 AM>

wow once again you’re online during the witching hour

same

chargebolt <2:45 AM>

idk I just woke up

like my sleeping schedule is way weird so

earphone-jackk <2:46 AM>

what are you some all nighter pulling college student or something

chargebolt <2:47 AM>

im actually a super secret hacker for the government that steals nuclear codes from like fucking America and korea and shit

a big job

but it must b done

earphone-jackk <2:48 AM>

oh shit are you my FBI agent

chargebolt <2:49 AM>

ur wut

earphone-jackk <2:49 AM>

you really are new to the internet aren’t you

#1 hacker

chargebolt <2:50 AM>

it’s complicated

wuts the FBI agent thing?

Earphone-jackk <2:51 AM>

it’s a meme

You know what memes are right

Chargebolt <2:52 AM>

vaguely

Earphone-jackk <2:53 AM>

omg are you like 50 or 5

Years old

Chargebolt <2:54 AM>

15

Earphone-jackk <2:55 AM>

yooooo same

So you’re up playing fortnite or something I see

Chargebolt <2:56 AM>

isn’t a fortnite 2 weeks?

Im confused

Earphone-jackk <2:57 AM>

omg ur a fetus lol

Did your parents just lock you in a prison under a rock for 15 years

Chargebolt <2:58 AM>

something like that

Anyways

Y r u up so late/early then

Earphone-jackk <2:59 AM>

touché

Im writing music rn

Chargebolt <2:59 AM>

that's cool

U make music that's

Cool

Earphone-jackk <3:00 AM>

yea lolol

Chargebolt <3:00 AM>

ur a cool person I think

I don’t know you but I think ur cool

Idk I sound dumb

Earphone-jackk <3:01 AM>

thankkk you but im really not that cool

I’m neurotic and anxious and bitchy and emo and awful to be around

Chargebolt <3:02 AM>

u just defined me

I can’t deal with real life im

Stuck behind a wall

Earphone-jackk <3:03 AM>

wdym

Chargebolt <3:04 AM>

like I can never be here in the moment or with anyone or anything

It’s hard to explain

Earphone-jackk <3:05 AM>

no I think I get it

Being separated from people

Chargebolt <3:07 AM>

It’s like there are vines around my head

It’s like there’s *poison ivy* around my head

And the more I grab at it and try to escape the more it hurts and my hands sting and

I just want everything to stop

Idek

Earphone-jackk <3:09 AM>

yeah

That’s exactly what it’s like

The other account went silent almost too suddenly; the green dot, indicating their presence, replaced with a red one. Now it was just her. Jirou pursed her lips, thinking over the other’s words one at a time. Maybe it was a good idea after all, messaging chargebolt.

She lunged out of bed, shoving her laptop to the side haphazardly, before vigorously clicking the gel pen into action. Her hand darted across the page as she wrote every word she could. It was messy, but it worked.

Counting every day

Want to feel hate

I just feel empty

It stays the same

Stuck in that cage

Foreign faces are my safety

And my head it’s caught in ivy

Spiderwebs and ivy

Found my socket in trauma

But the wires follow dogma

And if my mind is like a castle

then the moat, it’s been dried out

and I’m looking at old daydreams, looking at old memories

trying to say these words out loud

           She still had a ways to go, but she finally had something. And maybe, just maybe, she had someone too.

Chapter Text

Chapter 5: Kitchen Sink

           Eijiro looked in the mirror, frown playing at his ordinarily upturned lips. He got like this sometimes. It was totally normal for rats to have scars, Mina’s didn’t detract from her appearance, and Katsuki’s only made him look stronger, but something about his caused bile to rise into his throat.

           It started out as skin grafts. They’d just laser-beam some thin, transparent carbon-based plastic (or whatever it was) onto him and shove him back in the room. It didn’t hurt at all, it just felt sort of weird. Like he was wrapped in a little bubble. When he sat down, or brushed against something, it was like he felt it second-hand. He didn’t particularly like it, per-say, but it was arguably much better than the constant pain that Denki felt, or the chemicals they pumped into Katsuki.

           It started out as skin grafts. And then it transitioned into implants underneath them.

            “You have weak spots, 37.”

            Thin sheets of carbon-based steel. It made movement awkward, and it poked into his muscles. It hurt, yes, but it still wasn’t much. All they did was take a sharp razor blade, swiftly slice open an entry point, and then stick it in. Nothing compared to the sensory overloads that plagued Denki daily, or the bloodshot eyes of Katsuki’s sleepless nights.

           He didn’t notice much difference, other than the discomfort. Not until one of the test days, when they put him up against that same kid that broke Eijiro’s skull open that first time; 15. The kid’s fingers were balled into a tight and powerful punch, aimed for Eijiro’s chest. He braced himself for impact; for pain, but the only thing that shattered was that fist. 15’s pinky finger folded into itself, while the index ripped away from the thumb. Eijiro stood frozen as researchers jotted things down,  as 15 screamed on the floor in agony, as he felt nothing.

           It started out as skin grafts. And then they moved onto muscle fibers. They stuck needles into his skin, they sewed metal into his arms and legs and chest as he screamed. None of them ever got any anesthetic. It hurt so badly, but it couldn’t have been worse than the literal brain surgery that Denki received, also without any painkillers, or the hours Katsuki spent throwing up his own blood.

Eijiro looked in the mirror and saw weakness. His pain was nothing in comparison to his friends’. He was nothing. Nothing but the number branded onto his shoulder. 37. It was the only thing left unmarred, as if they wanted nothing covering up his status as an object. His fingers gripped into that skin, trying to tear at the flesh and failing miserably.

It started out as skin grafts, but eventually he noticed that he rarely felt anything at all. He still felt the skin; the implants underneath it; the shell that became his body. He felt that pain chronically. Like a dull ache that never ceased. He couldn’t feel hits or bullets or knives during tests, though. He couldn't feel Denki’s desperate hands holding on for dear life as he sobbed. He couldn’t feel Katsuki’s gentle, but firm touch, as they sat together.

           He couldn’t feel the mirror shatter under his fist.

            If a tree falls in the forest, and no one is around to hear it, does it still make a sound?

5 years ago

           “What?”

           “It’s like Schrodinger’s cat. If you don’t see or hear something happen, if no one sees it happen, does it still happen?” Mina played around with a stray fingernail before giving up and biting it off, wincing at the sliver of skin that followed.

           “I don’t know what you’re asking.” Eijiro frowned, crossing his arms.

           “So a tree falls down in the forest, right?” Mina starts again, taking the scenario step by step. Eijiro nods. “But no one is there. No animals, no people, no nothing.”

           “Why wouldn’t there be animals in a forest?”.

           “This is a hypothetical situation, Eijiro.” Mina deadpans. “The context doesn’t have to make sense. The question is more important. Duh.”

           Eijiro ignores the fact that she’s picking at the scabs on her arms, obviously bothered by the acid burns that trailed up and down them. He just nods again.

           “So no one is there. Does it still make a sound.”

           “Well, yeah. Obviously. When no one’s around me, I still do stuff.”

           “But how can you prove that it made a sound? How do other people know that you do stuff?”

           “With the laws of science? Like gravity makes things fall. Falling makes things make sound. Why are we talking about this again?”

           Mina shrugs. Her hair bounces as she swings back and forth on her feet, ringlets curling around her jaw, defying space. They stay silent for a while, looking out over the playground. That’s what they called it, anyways. It was just a couple of makeshift fixtures you could climb around on that took up the test room on every day but test day. Katsuki usually liked timing himself on how fast he could climb up onto the tallest one, but he was still feeling whiplash from their last experiment, so it was just Eijiro and Mina.

           “Sometimes I feel like that tree,” Mina said quietly.

           “Why? We’re here.”

           “Yeah but, sometimes I feel like no one will notice if I fall. If I just…” She curled into herself, knees drawing close to her chest.  “Disappear.”

           “I would notice.”

           “No one would hear you either. We’re all just those plants in that forest.”

           “So you admit it!” Eijiro exclaimed. “That it does make a sound! The other plants can hear it fall. The other plants know, even if no one else does.”

           Mina looked at him, wide eyed and dumbfounded, before laughing. “I guess you’re right.”

            If everyone hears the tree fall, and no one says anything, does it still make a sound?

3 years ago

            “What?”

           “Like Schrodinger’s cat.” Mina said, smiling thoughtfully at the nostalgia.

           “That doesn’t sound like Schrodinger’s cat at all,” Eijiro huffed, crossing his arms and looking wistfully into space.

           “Fine, like Schrodinger’s Kitty Genovese,” Mina offered, before sighing exasperatedly at Eijiro’s puzzled expression. “Do you never go to the library?”

           “We don’t have a library here, Mina,” Eijiro reminded.

           “Oh right, silly me. I actually read as a child. And pay attention in the classes they give us here. Sure it’s to make us more affective weapons but homework is kind of the only entertainment we’ve got.”

           “Unless Kitty Genovese is a character from Harry Potter or Dragon Ball, you’re out of luck.” He stuck his tongue out at her as she laughed maniacally. Her laughter was like bubbles, short and saccharine bursts of staccato.

           “She was stabbed in front of her apartment; raped, murdered, robbed— the whole shebang. There were tons of people around her, tons of witnesses who knew what would happen, but they didn’t do anything. They just acted like nothing was happening.”

    “Ok so what does ‘ Kitty Genovese’ have to do with trees?”

           “What if everyone hears it fall? What if there are people having a big picnic in the forest, and the tree falls, and everyone hears it, but just keeps eating. They just keep talking about how good the sandwiches are, and keep watching the little kids play soccer.”

           “They still heard it. So it made a noise,” Eijiro concluded.

           “I guess,” Mina muttered. “But no one cares. Isn’t that worse? If everyone knows you’ve fallen, but no one picks you up?”

            If a tree falls in the forest

           If a tree falls in the forest

           If a tree falls

Present Day

They hadn’t seen Mina in two weeks.

He guessed she was gone now.

He didn’t say anything.

He never did.

-

-

-

           Izuku looked back and forth between Shouto and his father, not knowing which glare was more intimidating.

“So, uh…” he didn’t really know what to add, only really speaking up to remind them that he was sort of right there. Enji turned his gaze onto Izuku, which only seemed to deepen the hatred in Shouto’s eyes.

“So, do you mind telling us what the hell you have to do with Katuski Bakugo?” Shouto finished.

“Yeah. That!” Izuku squeaked.

Enji growled, sitting down brashly, crossing both his legs and his arms. “Just as much as you would expect an officer to have.”

“Yeah, except the case is closed. And you have an open file.” Shouto leaned half of his weight onto one leg. He jerked his head slightly towards the papers in question, which lay splayed out on the table. “So explain that .”

“I don’t have to explain anything to a faggot like you.”

Shouto looked like he’d been slapped across the face, but his stance didn’t waver. In fact, he looked even angrier, stronger. Izuku, on the other hand, was absolutely livid. Sure, he knew that Enji wasn’t the most accepting of people, but he didn’t expect that. Enji was a police officer, he was supposed to care about people, not humiliate his son.

Izuku moved to say something, but Shouto cut him off. “Actually, you do, seeing as I can take your silence as proof that you’re involved. I can report you for tampering with files, seeing as the official file in the station is closed. I looked it up in the archives online. So either you’re hiding something, or you have a thing for eight year old kidnapping victims.”

Izuku loved savage Shouto.

“Do you really want to know?” Enji asked, voice low and almost threatening. “I’m not one to tell secrets.”

“You don’t have to worry about leaking anything if we’ve already found the water.” Shouto sat down across from his father, building his fingers into a chapel, before breaking them apart over the file. “As you can see.”

Enji sighed, making it as apparent as possible that he was not giving away this information happily. Not that it mattered to Shouto. “The case didn’t close because we didn’t find anything on Katsuki Bakugo.”

Izuku gulped. “Why, then?”

“The case closed because we found too much.”

-

-

-

Jirou woke up sweating, eyes jolting open and heartbeat unyielding; her chest hurt until it subsided. She couldn’t remember the dream, or if she had one in the first place, but there was no way she could force herself to go back to sleep. She blindly pat her bedside table until she found her phone, and one handedly forced it off of its charger before fumbling for the home button to check the time. 2:46 AM.

           She sighed, cracking her neck and rotating her shoulders. Whatever position she’d fallen asleep in must not have been a favorite with her body, since it groaned in protest as she moved to the kitchen to get something to drink. Her throat was so dry that it generated its own static, and hurt when she swallowed, since her saliva merely made the dry cracks expand further and sting dreadfully. Luckily she’d been living in this new house long enough to maneuver throughout the hallways without tripping over a ledge or piece of furniture, as long as she counted her steps, and reached the kitchen light easily.

           The light was blinding, and she had to shut her eyes tightly and shake her head to rid herself of the instant headache. Eventually, she loosened her eyelids’ grip, and then opened her eyes slowly, having to blink rapidly to maintain her equilibrium, of course.

           The kitchen was empty, as expected. The only noises were the whirring of the fan, the buzzing of the refrigerator, and the persistent dripping of the kitchen sink. She counted each tap of water against stainless steel, working it into a beat; working the soundscape into a symphony. Jirou took each step, each tiny movement, in a calculated manner, as if they fit into that song.

            Drip.

           Drip.

           Step.

           Every so often, her toenails would scrape against the white tile floor, and her breath would hitch in her throat at the interrupted rhythm, before she regained that beat. Her heartbeat was her metronome.

           She poured herself a glass of orange juice, before sitting herself at the dining room table. Her eyes ran over the table’s surface, tracing around each sanded splinter, wondering if the tree it came from cared that she wasn’t using a placemat or coaster for her glass. If it cared that it was dead. She scratched at her wrist compulsively, before taking another sip and closing her eyes.

           When she wasn’t looking at anything, the world grew a bit louder— maybe that’s how she heard the noise. A muffled whimper; a sobbing mutely into the crook of an elbow, or the folds of a blanket. Jirou’s brow furrowed, and she slowly walked towards the hallway, where she assumed the sound came from. She placed the glass by the sink on her way there, jolting slightly at the crystalline clink that accompanied its meeting with the iridescent granite.

The lights in the hallway were off, walls only lit by stray fragments of kitchen glow. The cracks beneath each door opened to a void. All except for one. And it had to be the second door, didn't it? Yellow light seeped through the doorframe, and the crying was louder now. Noticeably a woman’s. Jirou bit her lip hard enough to taste iron, before knocking lightly.

“Ms. Kaminari? Is that you in there?”

For a moment, there was radio silence. Like, to Ms. Kaminari, time had froze— but to Jirou, the clock still ticked loudly. The kitchen sink dripped with that same rhythm.

Drip

Drip

The door opened. Or, it tried to open. The handle rotated, and the door was free to swing outwards. However, it was held in place by a firm grip. A scared grip.

“I just want to make sure you’re okay, I don’t have to come in,” Jirou conceded, though she sure as hell wanted to see the room.

Drip

“I’m okay.” It was a whisper, but it worked for Jirou.

“Do you want me to leave?”

“No. I don’t.” The door opened slightly, enough to reveal bloodshot eyes and quivering lips. Ms. Kaminari stepped back from the door a bit, turning away as Jirou slowly entered. “You can come in, Jirou. There’s nothing really to hide.”

It was just a bedroom. A child’s bedroom. Hot wheels cars and snow globes lined every available surface; surfaces that collected dust. The bed was unmade, sheets patterned with comic book heroes and stuffed dinosaurs taking up all the space that’d ordinarily be designated to the pillows that were strewn across the floor. Ms. Kaminari sat in a big beanbag, playing with the tassels of an old knit blanket. An empty wine glass rested on the floor next to her.

“I try not to move anything,” she said. Jirou couldn’t do anything but nod and sit in front of her, crossing her legs and wringing her fingers. “I don’t want it to lose any more of him than it has to.”

She chuckled slightly, bringing a knuckle to her forehead in exasperation. “It’s foolish, isn’t it? He’s been missing eight years— I should’ve gotten over it by now. I should’ve…” She inhaled sharply, before breaking out into a choked sob. Jirou flew to her side.

“Hey. It’s fine. You’re fine .” Luckily, Jirou’s soft words struck a chord in Ms. Kaminari, who receded further into the beanbag, but stopped crying. “You don’t have to talk about it. Really.”

“I do.” Ms. Kaminari sighed, either brushing some hair out of her face, or tears out of her eyes. Jirou couldn’t tell. “I really, really do.”

“Then we can talk.” Jirou nodded slightly. Not in agreement, but in concession.

“I had a son, Jirou,” she started. “A son. He was— he was everything to me. His father and I dated for quite some time but, well our relationship wasn’t a healthy one. I was so lost, I was ready to abort but, I couldn’t, for health reasons. Hizashi helped me through it and when Denki was born it was like everything was right in my life again.”

Jirou held her breath throughout Ms. Kaminari’s explanation. In between her words, Jirou could hear the kitchen sink sing its soliloquy.

Drip

“I told you before that I wanted to be a mother. I was a mother, and it was everything to me. I would give up everything for it. You must find me silly— you’re so in love with music and independence.”

Drip

“I don’t find it silly at all.”

Drip

“What Hizashi- What you feel about music was what I felt about Denki, he— he was everything light in the world that I thought was dark.”

Drip

“What happened?”

Drip

“He disappeared.”

Drip

“What do you mean?”

Drip

“He was— he was taken away. Someone took him away.”

Drip

“Do you know where he is?”

Drip

“The police say he’s dead.”

Drip

“I’m sorry.”

Drip

“I know he’s not. I know where he is I just can’t—“

Drip

“What do you mean? You know where he is?”

Drip

“No. I know who took him. I know— I couldn’t say where.”

Drip

“Who took him?”

Drip

Drip

Drip

“Tomura Shigaraki. Denki’s father.”

Drip

Drip.

           If a tree falls in the forest, and there’s nobody around to hear,

-

-

-

            Two weeks ago

Mina gripped her wrist. She was losing blood fast. If she didn’t hurry, she’d be trapped forever. Either in this prison, or in death. She didn’t know which was worse. Her heart pounded in her chest, her arms burned as usual, but shivered in the cold of the outside.

She climbed through the vents to get out. One researcher had cleaned it out, forgetting to bolt it shut, so the panel fell off easily. Impulse muffling her common sense, she crouched down and crawled into the vent, closing it behind her for good measure. Her labored breaths echoed off of the metal walls that almost closed in around her. The acid burns hadn’t healed enough yet, so the friction of her trench-crawling broke through the thin, papery skin.

           Eventually, she made it. She bust open the vent, eyes widening as she climbed outside. She was outside . The sky was dark; a deep orchid color illuminated by a whirlpool of stars. The grass was soft under her feet, stained mauve by the sky. The facility behind her was unsurprisingly a cement building, surrounded by large electric fences and circled by figures with bright flashlights.

           She looked at the bracelet around her wrist. It induced shocks, but also worked as a tracker. That had to go. It hurt a lot, and now blood was pooling from her wrist, as it was implanted in such a way that removing it unauthorized would result in a lethal wound. She could find help soon. She was a good runner.

           She could get help. She could save everyone.

           Her legs moved faster than her head, which was full of white noise, and one word.

Freedom.

The world stopped when she ran into another body, crashing down onto the ground. She looked up into a bright flashlight, meeting cold eyes. They’d found her. She was so close. Tears welled up in her eyes as she mouthed it over and over again. No, no, no!

Her fist loosened as the world went black.

Does it ever make a sound?

Chapter Text

Chapter 6: Red Eyes

Earphone-jackk <4:25 AM>

So what sort of music do you like?

Chargebolt  <4:25 AM>

I don’t really listen to music

It’s not that I don’t want to its just that I

Hmm

Its hard to xplain

Earphone-jackk <4:26 AM>

Well im not taking that for an answer buddy

If youre gonna be my friend you gotta listen to some sick beats

Well I mean at this point if you don't listen to much then youre a clean slate

I can only make you listen to good stuff

Chargebolt <4:28 AM>

You think we’re friends

Earphone-jackk <4:28 AM>

idk we’ve been talking a few weeks

I think you’re a cool dood or doodette (idk or neither)

I get it if you don’t think so

Chargebolt <4:30 AM>

No its just I don't

Ive never really had a friend before outside of certain people

Earphone-jackk <4:30 AM>

Well I guess we’re friends then

What music HAVE you listened to

Chargebolt <4:33 AM>

uhhhHHHHH anything that came out before 2010

earphone-jackk <4:33 AM>

anything?

Chargebolt <4:33 AM>

Yep

Earphone-jackk <4:33 AM>

what did you like?

Chargebolt <4:34 AM>

I liked a lot of English 80s hits idk my dad was into them

Earphone-jackk <4:34 AM>

Is he not anymore?

Chargebolt <4:43 AM>

I don’t know

Earphone-jackk <4:44 AM>

Ah

Well you might like White Lies and maybe Marina and the Diamonds. They have some 80s vibes but more modern ways of doing them

Chargebolt <4:45 AM>

Ill give it a listen if I can!

Im sure ur advice is good

Earphone-jackk <4:45 AM>

Uh of course it is

Hey do you follow deku?

Chargebolt <4:46 AM>

Uh yeah

Earphone-jackk <4:47 AM>

really? I guess even you can’t miss him lmao he’s basically the most loved account on this website

I hope they find Kacchan and the others though

Chargebolt <4:48 AM>

yeah

Earphone-jackk <4:49 AM>

do you think they’re still alive?

Chargebolt <4:50 AM>

i know they are

I mean

If they weren’t it’d be pretty pointless right?

Earphone-jackk <4:51 AM>

right

Idk I learnt something recently that sort of weirded me out

Chargebolt <4:52 AM>

what

Earphone-jackk <4:53 AM>

Idk it’s probably nothing but some kid went missing in the town I just moved to, at the same time that kacchan did

Chargebolt <4:53 AM>

Huh

Wuts their name

Earphone-jackk <4:54 AM>

Denki Kaminari

Chargebolt <4:56 AM>

I have to go

<chargebolt is offline>

-

-

-

“What the hell are you doing, Denki?”

           Katsuki had yelled before, it’s what he did best, but Denki was rarely on the receiving end of it. The phone toppled out of his hands as he recoiled violently from the noise. Eijiro hadn’t said anything yet, his eyes meeting the floor, arms crossed and taught against his chest. Katsuki picked the device up, scrolling through Denki’s messages with earphone-jackk, expression souring with every swipe.

           “Talking with someone online? What’re you, an idiot?” The words stung, and Katsuki must’ve noticed, since his voice lowered slightly. It didn’t lose its ardor, however. He held the phone up and shook it slightly. “ This is our only connection to the outside world. It’s all we fucking have. You can’t just risk that, all for some random person on HeroNet!”

           Denki clenched his fist. “She’s not just some random person on HeroNet.”

           “Who is she, then? Huh? Who is she to take our only way out of here away?” Katsuki didn’t look ready to back down. Ejiro bit his lip, looking between the two worriedly.

           “She’s…” Denki looked at his hands. His fingernails had dug so deeply into his palms, that small crescents of blood had beaded up along their tracks. “She’s my friend. We’re friends.”

           Eijiro sighed, as if Denki’s words had punched him in the gut, a stiff and pitying exhale that Denki hated. He hated the way they treated him sometimes. Like he was less than them. A child. Eijiro sat down next to him, eyes hard as he spoke calmly. “We made rules, Denki. No reaching out— remember?”

           “Of course I remember. I’m not stupid. Like you think I am.”

           Katsuki growled, placing his index finger and thumb at the bridge of his nose in frustration. “You’re not stupid, obviously, you’re just being really… dumb right now.”

           “It’s my phone. I stole it. And all the chargers. Everything. Those were my risks— and so is this.” The ringing in his head had become so normal that it became the background noise to his anger.

“Not when it puts all of us on the line!” Katsuki yelled. Denki could tell that whatever they put into him this time was taking its toll; dark circles under hollow eyes. Damp forehead, skyrocketing temperature. Trembling hands. “We’ve been in this together. We’re always in it together. You can’t just bulldoze that shit down for some random chick on the internet that you have the hots for.”

           “One of these days there’s not gonna be any escape. And we’ll have had this the whole time.”

           Eijiro frowned. “What do you mean ‘no escape’?”

           Denki just shakes his head. Over and over again. He didn’t want to think about anything anymore.

We’re hoping to remove sections of the amygdala and hypothalamus once its brain has matured.

Hopefully it’ll eliminate a good majority of its empathic and free thinking ability. We want our products to be both effective and obedient

Denki’s bottom lip trembled. “None of you get it.”

Eijiro reached out to touch him, to comfort him, but he ripped himself away. As he left the couch, the air became cooler. As he pushed past Katsuki, bumping aggressively into his shoulder before reaching the door, a lump formed in his throat.

“Kami—“

“ Fuck you.”

-

-

-

           “What do you mean, you ‘found out too much’?” Shouto stares his father down relentlessly.

           Enji looked down to the files, as if asking for permission to go through them. Shouto nodded, Izuku guessed that he was pleased to be in a position of control, especially after he just dropped the gay bomb on him. He was still pretty impressed at that, really.

           “When the kid went missing, we treated it as any other case,” he started. He pulled out a few generic looking files; the ones with the basic information collected at the time of the missing person’s report eight years prior. “Tracking vehicles, finding suspects, searching the river. The usual.”

           Izuku flinched at the last one. He forgot how likely it was that Katsuki just drowned; slipping on a rock and falling to his death, caught in a current. Shouto motioned for his father to continue.

           “Anyways, we started looking at other nearby towns— to see if they’d seen him or found anything.” Izuku didn’t miss the forsaken like a body . “As it turns out, two other kids went missing that same week. About the same age, same sort of situation. So we thought that we had some sort of serial child murderer or something.”

           “We know about Eijiro Kirishima and Denki Kaminari. The files are public record.” Shouto shifted his weight unamusedly.

           “I taught you well. But the story isn’t that simple. Anyways, the departments started working together on the case, since it was easier to pool information.” He leaned back into his chair, letting the legs pick up off the floor and tap back down onto it. “Eventually we were getting somewhere. We tracked vehicles and people down to a certain location, and confirmed the link.”

           Izuku couldn’t hold himself back, his hands slamming against the table. “You found them?!”

           “Not so fast, kid. We found something. We asked for a warrant to investigate said something. Big mistake.”

           “Let me guess,” Shouto deadpanned. “They shot the request down and closed the case.”

           “Looks like you’re not incapable after all.” Izuku wanted to slap the guy.

           “So that’s the end of the story? What about the file?” Shouto tapped the table impatiently.

           “It’s far from the end, Shouto.” Enji stroked his chin. “It’s only the end officially .”

           “What’s that supposed to mean?”

           “We kept looking. We’re still looking.” Enji sighed, getting up and grabbing his suit jacket. When Shouto opened his mouth to protest, he cut him off. “We’re going for a ride. And you’re shutting both of your mouths.”

           Shouto narrowed his eyes, but complied, pulling a black hoodie over his more formal looking attire. Enji’s frown deepened, and Izuku suddenly realized why Shouto enjoyed being subtly rebellious.

Once Shouto was out the door, Izuku coughed loudly, calling Enji’s attention.

“What is it? You eat ass too?”

“I just wanted to thank you for helping us out in finding Kacchan,” Izuku started. “But you’re still a huge dick.”

He turned around before he could hear Enji’s reply.

-

-

-

           A few hours later, they arrived at what looked like an old warehouse. The drive was just as quiet as Enji seemed to want it, though Shouto luckily had some earbuds stuffed inside his hoodie pocket, and was able to blast some random emo rock music while staring dramatically out the window as if they were in a music video. It was tough to hold the laughter back, but luckily, Izuku could fight the temptation to burst into giggles at the sight of Shouto’s dynamic angst, splayed out over the seat. Izuku followed suit with an added touch of a palm to caress his chin on, pinky running over the corner of his lip as he called out to the world with his tears.

           Enji was not amused. Obviously. But he didn’t say anything.

Shouto slammed the car door behind him, blinking rapidly at the bright sun in his eyes as they walked up to the entrance, Izuku trailing behind him in anticipation. This was possibly the most progress he’d made in years to find Katsuki. He couldn’t tell if the light at the end of the tunnel was an exit, or a train coming right towards him, but it was something.

The building was in shambles. Rusty panels and steel beams mickey-moused together around cinder block walls and bound together with more ivy than mortar or cement. Dry gravel shifted underneath their feet as they walked, stirring up chalky dust that slightly obscured Izuku’s vision. The sun bleached world faded out of view as they entered the building.

The first thing he noticed wasn’t the much nicer inside, its contemporary lighting and quiet air conditioning. It wasn’t the smell of blood (that would’ve been weird of him to notice). No, Izuku’s eyes were drawn to two men standing in the center of the room, practically shouting bloody murder in each others faces.

“ You could’ve compromised the entire mission! ” The first man yelled, hands flying everywhere they could to emphasize the enormity of the situation at hand. What that situation was, Izuku couldn’t say.

“So you’re saying that you wouldn’t have done the same thing?” The second man is a lot less animated than the first. Though he still sounds intense, his voice is practically monotone. It makes the bellowing groan from his apparent foil all the more overwhelming.

“Of course I wouldn’t have left! But you’re supposed to be undercover, Aizawa!” The first man stomps his foot pointedly onto the floor. “You can’t just jeopardize everything like that!”

“Well I have already jeopardized it. Can we move on to the fact that we now have a literal witness and a confirmation that the children are-“  he cuts himself off, eyes darting to Enji and the two boys he brought with him. “What the hell did you bring two kids here for?”

“This is my son and his friend. They’ve been searching for the missing boy Katsuki Bakugo. They found the file and threatened to rat me if I didn’t tell them everything.”

“And I’m sure he told you nothing,” the man, Aizawa, inferred. Shouto smirked, obviously already liking the guy. “You can call me Aizawa, I’m a detective at this prefecture’s station. I usually work undercover gigs. Now is no exception.”

Izuku stuttered out a greeting. “Uh, hi! I’m Izuku Midorya!”

Aizawa gave him a contemplative look, before his lips extended outwards into what Izuku could only assume was this man’s version of a smile. “You’re the kid Mitsuki talks about, aren’t you?”

“Mitsuki?” Izuku wonders out loud, before the light bulb flickers to life. “Oh! Kacchan’s mom! How do you know her?”

“You think that woman would settle for a closed case?” The first man scoffs, before giving the two newcomers a once over. “I’m Sekijiro Kan, and I don’t think you should be here at all.”

Shouto stepped forwards until he was side by side with Izuku. “And where exactly is ‘here’?”

           “Ah, so Enji really didn’t tell you shit, did he?” Aizawa sighs, rubbing the back of his neck exasperatedly. “Figures.”

           Enji coughs, signaling that he’s there, before springing into his own statement. “What were the two of you fighting about anyways? Don’t tell me we were compromised.”

           Sekijiro shook his head heavily. “No, but we’re not too far from that point. Some kid managed to escape the facility. Aizawa found her bleeding out outside and decided to bring her here.”

           “Facility?” Izuku wondered. No one seemed to notice.

           “He did what?”

           “I saved a dying kid, that’s what I did. That’s what we’re trying to do here.”

           “Yeah, well you should’ve left her there!” Enji shouted. His voice was booming. “You think that they care about a dead rat? No. But they care about a loose one. They could be tracking her. They could shut us down, you know they could.”

           “She is our best shot at knowing what the hell goes down in that lab.”

           “Um, excuse me?” Izuku piped up. The adults looked towards him, eyes slightly wide, as they realized they weren’t alone in the room. “What’s happening? What facility?”

           “We have reason to believe that the missing kids are part of a scientific program, of some sorts,” Aizawa explained. “The government’s actions against our case seem to suggest that it’s in on it.”

           “Wait,” Izuku gulped. “So you know where Kacchan is? He’s alive?”

           “We have reason to believe so.”

           “Then we can go get him! Right? We can—“ Aizawa cut him off.

           “All in good time, Izuku. For now, you can see the girl I found. When she wakes up, it’d be the first look inside the facility we get.”

           “Weren’t you undercover, though?” Shouto inquired.

           “As a typical guard. You can’t get in-in unless you have qualifications.” Aizawa leads them down a hall towards a small room that used to be some sort of boiler or supply closet. Now, of course, it looks like a sitting room.

           There’s a girl on the sofa in the center of the room. Her eyes are squeezed shut and her breathing is ragged. Along her arms are horrifying acid burns; peeling skin, crackling flesh— looking at it stung. Her right arm has a bandage around the wrist, where some red seeps through. That must’ve been where the blood-smell came from.

           “She’s been asleep for awhile,” Aizawa mentioned offhandedly. “We might be waiting awhile.”

           “So then we wait,” Izuku said. There was a long period of silence between Izuku and Aizawa’s next words.

           “Welcome to One for All, kid.”

-

-

-

Katsuki punched the training dummy hard enough to knock its head off. Eijiro watched, concern painted over his features. They’d had fights before, but something told him that this one was different. Katsuki was always tightly wound; his fuse short and his anger overwhelming, so it wasn’t surprising to see him explode. But Denki never really lashed out, preferring to come to an understanding and end the conversation with a cuddle session on the couch. There was something wrong, and Eijiro couldn’t for the life of him figure out what it was.

“You good bro?” he asked, tilting his head towards his shoulder to meet eyes with Katsuki, who glared in reply.

“What do you think, shitface?” Katsuki cracked his knuckles one by one, before ramming his fist back into the dummy. It was weaker this time, only thrown to emphasize his frustration.

“You know,” Eijiro started, voice soft as to not aggravate him further. “You should probably talk to him.”

“About what? I said what I wanted to say.” Katsuki decided to kick the dummy this time, and it fell over completely. Researchers always watched the training area like hawks, and one quickly gathered the broken husk before calling over a replacement, nodding to Katsuki before scribbling observations down on its clipboard. Eijiro waited until they were gone to reply.

“Did you say what you needed to, though?”

“I needed to tell him he was being a dumbass, yeah.” He narrowed his eyes, brows furrowing.

“Well yeah, he shouldn’t have done that, especially without asking, but maybe you should ask him why he did it in the first place?” Eijiro suggested.

“Why would I need to know that shit, though?”

“You haven’t noticed that he’s been off the past week or so? Ever since the last guest that they showed him off to?” When Katsuki didn’t answer, Eijiro continued. “If we don’t figure it out— if we don’t stop him from spiraling now, then we could lose him.”

“But I’m right.” He didn’t say it as an argument, but as a fact.

“Yeah,” Eijiro sighed. Katsuki always had trouble seeing past himself, never growing out of that stubborn child’s mindset as they were sheltered from the world. “But he’s still important to us, right?”

Realization flashed over Katsuki’s face. It took certain words and logic to get through his egocentrism, and Eijiro was a master at it.

“Can’t you talk to him instead? You’re good at all that emotional bullshit.”

“It’s not my fight.”

Eijiro smiled when Katsuki’s shoulders loosened slightly, signalling that he’d given in. Deep down underneath the scowls and superiority complex, Eijiro knew that Katsuki had already wanted to talk to Denki. Katsuki enjoyed being the older brother, being the mentor, being admired. Denki enjoyed having someone to follow.

That satisfaction soon dissipated when he looked past Katsuki. Katsuki must’ve noticed his face fall, because he whipped his head around to meet eyes with The Man standing by the door, smirk embedded into his face like a scar. He swallowed, fingers twitching slightly, before he clapped Eijiro on the shoulder casually. Or at least, as casually as he could, before following The Man. He always got special attention.

“I’ll talk to him later, okay? I’m gonna go rot away in some bullshit lab for a few hours. Later.” The words were so forced, Eijiro physically recoiled away from it. Luckily Katsuki didn’t notice, since he was already out of the room.

Eijiro looked at the new training dummy, before punching it as hard as he could.

-

-

-

A few days later.  

           Jirou and Ms. Kaminari talked for a while after… everything. Well, Jirou didn’t do much talking. Eventually she helped her foster mom into bed before partaking in some extra sleep herself, not really caring about how her sleep schedule was probably going to screw with her circadian rhythms so much that time would no longer have any meaning.

           Checking HeroNet, she smiled when she saw that chargebolt was online. For some reason, they’d become an integral part of her late nights. Unlike Momo, who she knew inside and out, chargebolt was fresh. They were interesting and weird. Though they seemed a bit hesitant, sometimes she’d see that layer peel away, revealing a truly genuine person.

           For example, a few nights prior, they were talking about their aspirations for the future:

Chargebolt <2:30 AM>

So what do you want to like do

When u grow up or whatever

Earphone-jackk <2:31 AM>

uhhhhhhhhh musician

Obviously

I wanna mix or write songs or something

Idk

Wby

Chargebolt <2:32 AM>

Uhhhhh should I say what I want to do or what im probably gonna end up doing

Earphone-jackk <2:33 AM>

What you wanna do and what you’re gonna do shouldn’t be that different

But what you wanna do

I care about your answer, not the shackles of societal pressure

Chargebolt <2:34 AM>

Uh

It’s dumb but

I remember at school like

Kindergarten

We had that career day thing and there was this lady who brought a bunch of dogs

Her job was literally to have a bunch of dogs

Earphone-jackk <2:35 AM>

Having dogs lmao you can just get a dog

Whatre u 12

Chargebolt <2:36 AM>

On a scale from 1-10? Hells yes

But yeah no It isn’t just having dogs

I don’t think

I don’t kno

Is it really that dumb lmao

Earphone-jackk <2:38 AM>

Haha no I was pulling your leg

I think that it’s cool

You shouldn’t care whether it’s practical or “beneficial to society” or whatever

I mean you could always work at a shelter and those boxes would be checked but..

Do what makes you happy

Chargebolt <2:39 AM>

Thanks but I doubt ill ever have a dog

Let alone be a dog boi

Earphone-jackk <2:41 AM>

Why?

If you say you’re allergic lmao that’d be so sad

Chargebolt <2:42 AM>

Haha yeah im allergic it sucks right?

Yep

           And at the same time, there was always this air of mystery to them. Maybe it was because Jirou didn’t even know their gender or name. Or it was because there always seemed to be something that they were hiding in plain sight. From their ambiguous family situation to their lack of exposure to anything, to their naiveté. It was all very puzzling.

           But in the end, it didn’t matter. She had someone else to talk to.

           After she’d gone to sleep for a few hours, she woke up dewy-eyed and ready to help Ms. Kaminari find her son. She didn’t really know where to start, so she turned to the internet. She typed in ‘Denki Kaminari,’ and easily found the closed missing persons file. He went missing on July 16th 2010. Strange, since Kacchan went missing August 4th2010.

           She decided to take a risk.

<new chat with @deku>

earphone-jackk <1:40 PM>

uh hey deku! My name is Jirou and I might have information on Kacchan?

Uh I just moved into a new foster home and my new foster parents are actually the parents of a missing child that disappeared a few weeks before Kacchan did?

His name is Kaminari Denki

And I might have information on it like

Who took them

Idk though

Deku <1:47 PM>

Hi Jirou! Denki is definitely a name on my radar in my investigation

Can we meet?

-

-

-

           Bakugo’s eyes wouldn’t close. It wasn’t like he didn’t want to sleep or something; he was fucking exhausted. He was always exhausted. The nitroglycerin was supposed to increase blood flow and efficiency, that’s why the stuff was used in heart medication (he looked it up after Eijiro suggested it), though in much smaller doses. And it worked, along with all the other drugs they pumped through him, and the hours of training he received. Unlike Denki or Mina, he wasn’t some specialized tool— he was just supposed to be a perfect little soldier.

           Today was like a ton of bricks had been loaded onto his back. They worked him until he could no longer stand, doing nothing as he threw up what little food they’d fed him. Eijiro kept going to the cafeteria, worried look on his face— Mina was either sold or dead. It happened to a lot of rats, but those ones never had names. Denki still wasn’t talking to them after that morning. He didn’t know whether that anger was justified. The Man still haunted him.

           The ceiling had all sorts of imperfections. He knew them all by heart. Sometimes, he’d find a new crack or patch of mold, and it’d make his day. Most of the time, the only color he could see was red. The rest of the world was muted.

           Red eyes; cold hands. Unwanted touches and finger shaped bruises embedded into his thighs. Chapped lips and choked words that echoed around his skull as he tried to tune everything out. Being capable enough to fight back. Being unable to move. Being weak .

           He can’t fall asleep. The cracks are a map on the ceiling; rivers of electricity and potential. There’s a patch of mold right over his head, and it taunts him. His breathing picks up, but his ribcage refuses to conform to his lungs, and freeze in place. He’s trapped in his own body and it fucking hurts. The only color he could see was red.

           He feels a warm body join him, flopping onto the mattress and attempting to yank the blanket out from under him, though it never budges. Bakugo turns his head to face Eijiro, his hair is pushed out of his face, he can see how his eyebrows are furrowed just enough to darken his eyes.

           Red eyes; kind smile. Warm laugh. Tight embraces. Walking side-by-side in desaturated hallways, hands barely touching. Nestled around Denki, watching random YouTube videos and reading Deku’s shitty HeroNet blog. Shared blankets. Bakugo decided to forget everything else.

Chapter Text

Chapter 7: Anti Freeze


Bakugou was cold— noticeably cold. Over the years he’d gotten used to blasting air conditioning and thin clothing, so it was strange; shivering and gripping his biceps in discomfort. The chill was more internal than anything, as if his veins were pumped with antifreeze. He stared at the door in front of him, eyes unblinking and vibrating.
Denki had been with The Man for an hour now. Bakugou thought he’d wait for the younger, and maybe talk with him about all that shit Eijiro was going on about. He wasn’t worried about Denki getting hurt more than the usual— he knew for a definite fact that The Man didn’t do the same things to Denki that he did to Bakugou himself. He was just cold. Really fucking cold.

He leaned against the wall, eyes still plastered to the door, and ears straining to hear any talking or noise permeating through it. After some adjustment, he could make out muffled voices, one of which was The Man’s. He couldn’t figure out everything that they said, but after a while, he’d heard enough.

“… Your brainwaves are looking stable, 51… In a few months we should be able to start working out the problems.”

“And the Limbic system surgery, sir?”

“All in good time. I’m sure the child wants to cherish his remaining time as a human being.”

“Damn that’s a pretty cold thing to say, even for you. ‘Specially in front of the thing.”

“Just finish the scan, Bubaigawara.”

“Right on it.”

Bakugou felt sick to his stomach with fury. His fingernails dug into his palms, and the ice around his intestines melted as his insides boiled. He wanted to throw up, he was so pissed. He didn’t know exactly what “limbic system surgery” meant, but he knew that it was the worst possible thing they could do to him. He knew it would severely destroy Denki. And that was bullshit.

As the door clicked open, Bakugou made use of his amazing dexterity to sprint the fuck out of there and to the next hallway over, and walking like he was already doing something. Normally, he wouldn’t care about motivation if the action didn’t impress him, but if this was why Denki was acting so out-of-character, then Bakugou was sure as hell not letting it go unaddressed.

His thoughts were frozen in place as he crossed paths with The Man, shuffling towards the lobby, hands shoved in the pockets of an oversized lab coat like a prick. He shivered under the red gaze, but kept walking as if The Man weren’t there, even as those dry lips opened and released dry words into a heavy air.

“You think you’re so smart, Katsuki. But the walls have ears.”

-
-
-
Mina dreamt of a purple world.

There were no cages in this world. Just a long field of open grass; thick impasto brushstrokes pulsing in a wisteria breeze as if they were underwater. The stars had their own little heartbeats, splattered across the sky like a Jackson Pollock painting.

She took a deep breath, dilating her lungs to the air, which pooled into her stomach. She could feel the chill circulating through her blood.

The earliest memory she had was of the moon. It was shrouded behind smoky clouds, and its light was dampened by the branches of a leafless tree, splayed out like fingers reaching for an unreachable sky. Her mother’s hand had rested on her shoulder, an icy touch that should’ve felt warm. She couldn’t remember the woman’s face, but she remembered the tears that streamed down it. In her memories, she was always covered in smoke.

“I love the moon,” Mina had said. Her voice was blurred by chubby cheeks and wonder.

“I’m sorry you won’t see it again. I’m so sorry.”

Her mother’s face is no longer smoke. It’s covered in flies. The buzzing is unbearable, as barbed wire digs into her neck.

“You’re not going to be hurting her, are you? Just… training?”

Her arms are no longer bare and free. They’re covered in acid. It burns.

“Just take the money and go, Miss. We’ll take care of her.”

The blood drips from her wrist.

“I have to go, honey. I’ll come back soon.”

She’ll never see it again. Her mom. The sky. The tree.

“I would notice if you left.”

Her eyes flutter open.
-
-
-
They sat across from one another. Jirou’s hands shook slightly as they gripped her coffee cup, though she never really drank any of its contents. Her index finger scratches at her name, written haphazardly on the side, and she bites her lip nervously. Luckily for her, the boys sitting across from her weren’t any less nervous than she was; the one who’d introduced himself as Izuku Midorya (or rather, Deku) stuttered through his greetings, while Todoroki (his companion, who Jirou assumed was hotandcold based on the hair and context) didn’t say much at all, opting instead to glare vaguely in her direction.

The coffee joint they’d picked out was quaint enough; warm light caught between the folds of floral patterned window shades, bouncing off the glass and onto a faux wood table. Jirou’s coffee was still warm enough to emit a tongue of steam that maneuvered through the air in such a way, that it looked like the remnants of a candle’s flame. Despite the comfortable atmosphere, she was still on edge. Her words were stuck between a rock and a hard place. Eventually, Deku, or Izuku, spoke up.

“So, Jirou, right?” Though it was hard to tell through his nervous timbre, Midorya’s voice was airy, a fragile yellow that desperately danced through the air. She nodded, biting her lip slightly. “Let’s get right to the punch since I’m not really sure how to small-talk in this context, honestly.”

“Right,” she mumbled.

“So how about you tell us what you know about everything, and we can fill in the blanks?” Midorya’s eyes were like saucers as he looked expectantly at her.

“Oh okay, uh…” She put her coffee cup on the table, before quickly changing her mind and grabbing it again. Afterwards, she spoke. “I’m a foster kid– always have been. I’ve been to home after home, shuffling around and waiting it out until I turned eighteen, but…”

“And that’s how you met Denki Kaminari’s parents?” Todoroki inquired, voice low and monotonous, but noticeably curious.

“Basically.” Jirou nodded, taking another sip of coffee. It was easier to talk once they’d started their conversation. “My foster mom, Ms. Kaminari, was really torn up about it, you know? And I couldn’t shake the parallels between this kid and Kacchan, from your blog, so I decided to message you about it.”

“Understandable,” Todoroki said, nodding slightly.

“I’m not sure what I can do to help you, but… But Ms. Kaminari and Mr. Yamada have given me so much— I couldn’t just not do something.”

“So what do you know about Denki Kaminari’s disappearance?” Midorya asked, clicking a pen and scribbling something down into a small pocket notebook.
“I know that he was taken on July 16th, 2010, and that he was taken by his father— his biological father; Tomura Shigaraki.”

Midorya’s eyebrows furrowed slightly, and his eyes travelled to the ceiling as he pondered something. “That name sounds familiar.”

“I don’t know much else. His father was apparently a pretty awful guy, into all these shady dealings and shit, so she broke it off with him when their kid was barely out of diapers, and moved in with her best friend.” She didn’t really know how any of that would help, but at least they had a name.

“Shouto,” Midorya said, grabbing the attention of the boy next to him. “What do you think?”

“Well, now we fill in the holes.”

And so they told Jirou about One for All.

-
-
-
three days earlier

“One for All?” Izuku tilted his head curiously as Aizawa ran his hand along his chin.

“It’s a play on words, courtesy of our fearless leader,” Todoroki’s father grumbled, either pissed off about the name, the person behind it, or the situation in general. “The facility we’ve been investigating goes by the name ‘All for One.’”

Aizawa nodded, “we needed some kind of moniker. Didn’t have to be a good one.”

“Well I like it,” Izuku mumbled, though the words were said on autopilot, as his mind was elsewhere. There was so much information bombarding him from the past thirty minutes, and he was closer than he’d been in eight years to finding Kacchan. He looked at the girl on the couch, covered in injuries and severely malnourished. He wondered if his friend was the same way. It made him feel sick to his stomach.

“What happened to her?” Shouto asked, hands resisting the urge to touch his scar as he looked at the burns on the girl. “What did they do?”

“We won’t know until she’s awake,” Aizawa sighed, placing a hand on the girl’s head and clicking his tongue. “Still feverous.”

“All for One is supposedly an ordinary secure, military base, or at least that’s what its front is. We’ve had suspicions, but this is concrete proof that it’s something much bigger than that.” Enji paced strongly throughout the room, Shouto looked unamused at the dramatics, but didn’t tune out his father’s words altogether. Where was he going with this? “We can strike now, Aizawa.”

“We can’t be hasty with all this,” Sekijiro argued. “As much as I’m all for leaking the information to the press, we don’t have all of it. I vote we wait until the girl wakes up, so we can get a witness account.”

“From what I can tell,” Aizawa started. “The girl isn’t waking up for a day or so at least,.aAnd though I wouldn’t agree with Enji’s opinion that leaving her was the best option, he’s right in that we’ve painted a target on our backs— we are now strangled for time. We can’t be too impulsive with our next move though. I say we wait for Yagi.”

Wait a minute. Izuku moved to speak up but Enji cut him off.

“You know he’ll side with Sekijiro and the girl waking up. We don’t have time for that. If we want to have any chance at busting this operation, we can’t mess up our own.”

“Uhm—” Izuku raised his hand slightly to call attention to himself, an action that still went unnoticed.

“You’re forgetting that Masaru only agreed to leak the information once we were sure Katsuki wasn’t compromised.”

“We don’t even know if their kid is still alive. We strike now.”

“Uh…”

“Yes Izuku?” Aizawa sighed, looking pointedly into the boy’s direction.

“Are you talking about my dad?”

“Oh right,” Enji realized. “You’re Yagi’s kid.”

So his dad was leading a vigilante group that broke into top secret military facilities looking for a lost kid that happened to be his son’s best friend. Izuku didn’t know whether to be proud, or angry that he didn’t know about it sooner.

Aizawa’s face sort of crinkled up a bit, like he was trying to figure out whether to smile or shoot himself right there. “Your persistence suddenly makes a shit ton more sense.”

The amount of coincidence that had piled up around their situation was unmatched. And maybe it would’ve been a bigger deal if the girl didn’t wake up right then and there.

-
-
-
present day

“So the kids were taken to a government facility of sorts?” Jirou asked, moving to take another sip of coffee, before realizing that she’d already finished it throughout the story. “Being… tortured? Or something.”

“Something like that,” Todoroki said. He wore a grimace on his face that caused the hair on her arm to stick up.

“Right— so what’d you find out from the girl?” Jirou asked.

“That’s the problem,” Midorya sighed, tapping his fingers against the table. Jirou counted each beat out of habit. “She hasn’t said anything at all.”

“Oh. But it’s been three days, right? She’s been silent for three days?” She leaned forwards slightly, perching her elbows on the table in interest.

“Well for the first two, she’d been in and out of consciousness— but now she’s awake and she won’t even say her name, or eat anything. We don’t know why.”

“Maybe it’s because she’s just escaped a facility where they likely kept her in a warehouse of sorts and tortured her?” Jirou suggested, trying to imply a bigger picture.

Izuku’s eyes widened in realization. Oh right, she must’ve thought they were testing her, or worse, planning on hurting her. Maybe both.

Jirou sighed, leaning her chin against the crook of her palm and looking out the window. “But what does Tomura Shigaraki have to do with it, then?”

“Don’t ask us.” Todoroki picked at some dirt underneath his fingernail. Jirou only just noticed the scar around his eye, which was mostly covered with straight red hair. She didn’t mention it. “We only just heard his name.”

“Are you sure about that, Shouto? I could’ve sworn I’ve heard that name before.” Midorya’s frown only deepened when Todoroki shook his head. He looked about ready to have a panic attack, he was thinking so hard. Jirou decided to end it before it began.

“Can I see her?” she asked suddenly. “The girl. Can I meet her?”

“I’m sure Aizawa won’t have a problem with it!”
-
-
-
later

“I have so many problems with this.”

Aizawa didn’t release his glare on Jirou as she entered the warehouse, or as she walked past him and towards the girl on the couch. The girl looked up at her, obviously unimpressed, pursing her lips and trying her best to intimidate Jirou into leaving. Not that it’d work.

The girl’s eyes were a brilliant gold, sparkling with fear and awe. Jirou didn’t speak to her, instead opting to sit in front of her. There was a clock on the wall, off by three hours, but still ticking. She counted each second. Everything else was dead quiet. Enji and Sekijiro weren’t there, while Todoroki and Midorya watched intently. Aizawa leaned against the wall, peering skeptically at Jirou.

Jirou waited 600 seconds before finally opening her mouth. Ten minutes of looking at this broken person as if she were looking into a mirror. Into that same mirror from three years earlier, bloodshot eyes and tear-tracked cheeks, shaking hands and bleeding arms.

“You look just like I did,” she whispered. Her voice shook slightly, if only because it had no support, the words were just air passing through her lips. The girl didn’t say anything in reply, but cocked an eyebrow, which was enough for Jirou to continue. “We’re not on their side. I know you think that. But we’re not.”

She cut off whatever retort Aizawa had at the ready. “How about we go out for coffee?”

Everyone, including the girl, took a sharp breath in surprise.

“We were just at a nice café— I can lend you my jacket. I’m sure you’re hungry.” She motioned to the food that One for All had provided, but lay untouched by the girl. Golden eyes narrowed in suspicion. “We’re all looking for people, in that place you were in before.”

Of course, the girl knew that, her current ‘captors’ likely had already pestered her about Kacchan (or as she had just found out; Katsuki) and likely Denki or the other boy (Eijiro?). It was obvious enough that she didn’t want to hear or talk about any of that. Jirou’s initial statement was supposed to be a justification, but it became the basis for something else. For a realization.

“Why isn’t anyone looking for you?” Jirou asked suddenly. It wasn't something she’d thought about before, but as the words left her mouth, the question made sense. “Why are they the only ones missing? Officially.”

“Because you don’t take people that go missing.” The girl’s voice was more energetic than Jirou expected. Though her words were spoken in choked whispers, there was a certain edge beneath it that reminded her of saccharine champagne bubbles and the ramblings of a piccolo. “No one will look for someone who never existed. Orphanages drop their lot at a moment’s notice, you know?”

It made sense, but it was still troubling. How many unnoticed disappearances were there? How many kids did they have. Aizawa hummed thoughtfully.

“Do you know the kids we’re looking for? Katsuki? Denki?”

The girl shook her head. And at first, Jirou thought it was because she didn’t know them; because they weren’t there. However, by her bit lip and tearstained eyes, Jirou could tell that the girl was merely too scared to actually answer.

“You think this is a test, right? That we’re faking it?”

The girl’s voice was barely above a whisper as she replied.

“They’re creative.”

-
-
-

Eijiro couldn’t scream. More than anything, he wanted to scream. They kept his mouth covered, and he couldn’t breathe right. His leg was on fire— he didn’t know how the hell anytghing could be so painful. He’d become numb to the routine surgeries that had destroyed many of his pain receptors anyways, so he wasn’t expecting anything worse. He was already unbreakable.

The Man stood behind the researchers stoically, red eyes almost feasting on the bloody mess he’d indirectly created. He tapped a pen against his thigh, as if it were a chore being there. Each dull thud of metal against cloth went off like a gunshot in Eijiro’s head— it was the only sound in the room. He couldn’t scream.

He didn’t know why he hadn’t lied to them. About his progress. That’s what Katsuki always told him to do. But he just had to tell them that it kind of hurt when he walked around full of non-human shit under his non-human skin. That there was just this chronic ache sinking into his bones and muscles.

If he didn’t feel any pain at all, maybe that’d stop.

They were destroying him from the inside out. And it was his own damn fault.

He thought about the past few weeks, and everything that had happened.

Mina was gone, she’d been gone for a while and he couldn’t get past it. A part of him hoped that she was dead— and he felt awful about it, but it was better than the alternative. If their training and constant modification wasn’t telling enough, their guests were. Their purpose was to be machines. Weapons. He already felt nothing physically, he didn’t really know if he could cope without everything else.

So he hoped she was dead. And if she wasn’t, she’d probably hope so too.

And then there was Denki. He’d been stranger than usual as of late. Or rather, a stranger. Whatever it was on his mind, it wasn’t his new internet friend. If it were, he’d still be talking to her, or trying to convince Katsuki to let him talk to her. He hadn’t spoken to either of them since the whole HeroNet argument a few days prior. If they didn’t live in the same room, Eijiro honestly thought that they wouldn’t even see the kid at all.

Katsuki said he’d talk to Denki, but Eijiro didn’t count on it. His friend had been more distant than usual— he had a disgustingly probable hypothesis as to why.

It took an hour for them to finish just a part of one leg. Apparently, this whole process was a lot more delicate and precise than it felt, so this would be a normal occurrence. It wasn’t fucking fair.

The Man slipped the pen into his pocket once the researchers had finished for the day, and proceeded to pull plugs out of his ears. The researchers followed suit. Eijiro cocked an eyebrow at the action— the only sound was the tapping, right? Why would they need... oh.

He coughed slightly; his throat was dry.

He’d been screaming the whole time.
-
-
-
Bakugou looked at Eijiro in horror as he was thrown into their room. His leg was wrapped in bandages, and his eyes were bloodshot. They hadn’t ever implanted much into his face, so his lips were torn to shreds by clenched jaws and thick cloth.

The researchers usually did their procedures in increments on Eijiro, since the scars left behind were deep and tough to heal. But from the way his friend shook on the floor, Bakugou guessed that it was a great deal more than that.

“The fuck did they do to you?!” He helped him sit up, but the action was for naught, as Eijiro went limp again, whimpering slightly.

Bakugou decided to put his “superhuman-strength” to work, hoisting the other boy up bridal-style and carrying him to the bed. He didn’t drop him down, though, since his arms were firmly wrapped around Bakugou’s neck, desperate to feel some sort of warmth. So instead, Bakugou himself crawled into bed, still attached to Eijiro, and growled.

“I’ll fucking kill him, I swear it.”

“No,” Eijiro choked out. “That’s my job.”

“You couldn’t kill an ant yesterday,” Bakugou pointed out. He looked at the ceiling, eyes running over each crack once again.

“Yeah but that ant didn’t do anything wrong.” Eijiro’s voice was weak, but somehow still managed to contain the entire sun in it.

“It was in your food.” The cement was a map that he’d memorized, but something was different.

“That’s not the ant’s fault, is it? That’s the chef’s fault for letting the ant in there. Or the janitor’s fault for not cleaning bugs up.” Ejiro’s breathing became slower, his voice; weaker.

“Get some sleep, Eijiro.”

There it was. One of the cracks in the ceiling had gotten bigger— deeper. It almost looked like it was moving, like there was something underneath it, pulsing like a heartbeat. Bakugou narrowed his eyes, trying to figure the thing out without having to peel himself out of Eijiro’s koala-bear grip. As he focused, everything but that area almost blurred around it, as if the ceiling had become the center of the universe. He didn’t blink until he saw that universe’s center.

A small, red light. Blinking.

You think you’re so smart, Katsuki. But the walls have ears.

There was a camera.

The Man knew.

He knew.

He fucking knew everything.

Chapter Text

Chapter 8: Aftermath

           The kid doesn’t close his eyes, even as the bright light passes over his soot-coated face. Tsukauchi looks over his file, pursing his lips as he lays it on the table next to his lukewarm coffee. He rotates the file to show the kid, but just gets a glare in return. It was surreal, really. The whole situation was quite surreal.

           “Your fingerprints have been burnt off,” he says, motioning to the kid’s hands, which gripped his chair fervently, knuckles white underneath all the blood. “We couldn’t identify you. Do you have a name?”

           The kid just keeps glaring. He looks, quite frankly, like a mess— ashy hair shaggy and unkempt, skin spread tight over thick muscle that looked almost awkward on a young, malnourished frame. Red eyes shimmered in the bright light. He doesn’t say anything— he hasn’t said anything since they found him.

           “I’ll just go through the report with you, then.” The kid flinches slightly as Tsukauchi reaches towards the file, but it lasts for less than a second. “You killed someone— or at least, you almost killed someone.”

           Tsukauchi winces as he flips through the pictures of the victim. His head is practically caved in, a long train of bruises trails down the man’s neck and onto his chest. The file adds internal injuries, broken ribs and burst lungs, to his mental picture. “Can you tell me why you did this? How?”

           The kid shifts slightly in his seat, and his loose tank top moves to reveal a weirdly large tattoo on one of his pectoral. Just the number 50.

           Fifty (that’s just what he’d call the kid until he got an actual name) finally spoke. His voice was quiet, but it sounded like he was built to scream and he was restraining himself. Low and gravely, it was animalistic— not to mention, vulgar. Tsukauchi didn’t correct the kid’s language, though. It seemed unwavering.

           “Fuck off.”

           “You could go to prison for this. Especially since we don’t even have your age.”

           “You’re not locking me up, you shitstain. Not again.” Fifty’s fingernail scraped against the chair lightly, but repeatedly. It wasn’t anxious, or thoughtless. A calculated rhythm. Glimmering red eyes darted around the room, as if trying to find an exit.

           Tsukauchi ignored the last bit of his statement, thinking about it would just bring more questions to the table. “Yes we are, if you don’t give me some kind of information; some kind of story. You’re obviously young, the law will likely be on your side if it’s self-defense.”

           “The guy touched me. I fucked him up.” He said it simply, as if he just punched the guy.

           “Touched you? In an aggressive way? A… sexual way?” The kid glared harder, but his shoulder muscles tensed, and the movement rippled down his arms. And though he shook his head, Tsukauchi could clearly see that Fifty had dealt with some sort of abuse. A lot of it. “I can’t help you if you don’t tell me what happened, kid.”

           “As if you would help me .”

           “I’m a police officer. Contrary to popular belief, that’s what I’m supposed to do.” Tsukauchi took a sip of coffee, wrinkling his nose when it went down cold.

           “You’ll just turn me in. To them. You fucking work for them, you all do.”

           “I work for the people. For the government. So whoever they are—” he cut himself off, realizing, as Fifty glared even harder, that he was talking about the government. “What do you mean?”

           “I escaped once back three years ago and they turned me in. You turned me in.” Fifty kept scratching the side of the chair.

           “Well I know that I wouldn't turn you in. I don’t even know who I’d supposedly turn you in to.” Tsukauchi keeps drinking his coffee, even though it tastes like shit. Maybe it was just for his image.

           The kid bites his lip. One of his front teeth is slightly crooked, and it’d be endearing if it wasn’t drawing blood. “I don’t know why I trust you.”

           “Maybe it’s my dashing good-looks,” Tsukauchi suggests, chuckling dryly. The kid looks unamused.

           “Or you drugged me.” Tsukauchi almost laughs, before realizing that the kid wasn’t joking at all.

           “I didn’t drug you.”

           “At least you’re a good liar.” Fifty moves like a cat, ruffling outwards as if he wore a coat of invisible fur. He’s small and covered in bruises, but he carves himself into the room, like a firework going off. It’s impossible to look away. Tsukauchi notices this phenomenon more and more as Fifty gets used to the interrogation room, seemingly taking control of his impulse to run and using it to fight.

           Tsukauchi follows the engravings that Fifty’s crimson stare leaves in the air, like two laser beams honing in on a threat or target. The recording device, used to keep track of witness and suspect statements. It clicks every few moments as it whirls around like a carousel, and a small red light blinks offbeat with Fifty’s finger-scrapes. So that’s what it was.

           “I might get fired for this.” Tsukauchi ends the recording, and the tension in the room seems to snap like a whip; the breath that Fifty (and apparently, himself) had been holding erupted from his mouth, filling the spaces beneath clenched teeth and between lonely shadows. For good measure, he unplugs the thing, wrapping the curled cord around his fist into an impermanent tumbleweed.

           Fifty gave him a sour, confused look that lasted as Tsukauchi sits back down across from him, crossing his legs expectantly, still sipping that goddamn cold coffee.

           “The door is unlocked.” He makes sure that the kid is perplexed before continuing. “You can escape easily. Knock my brains in with whatever you used against that guy in the diner and make a break for it. We don’t even have a name to track.”

           An expression of realization creeped up Fifty’s face. It started with his jaw, which loosened slightly, unhitching his crooked tooth from his bloody lip. It crawled into his cheeks, which flushed slightly, and untied his furrowed brow.

           “So you can leave, after you tell me who you’re running from.”

           “I’m running from you.”

-

-

-

Days earlier

           “So they’re there?”

           When the girl finally decided to talk, Aizawa called the rest of One for All to the hideout. This included multiple officers, Katsuki’s parents, and of course, Izuku’s father. As Yagi walked into the room, he immediately sighed, eyes gravitating towards his son; determined and anxious. They shared a ‘we’ll definitely be talking about this later’ look, before focusing on the golden eyed girl on the couch.

Jirou sat next to her, changing the bandages on her scarred arms. She said that she’d “dealt with that kind of thing before,” and they all left it at that. Her eyes kept darting to her phone, sitting in between two pillows next to her. Izuku could only guess that she was still debating whether or not to call her foster parents, seeing as they not only knew who Shigaraki was, but had a very missing kid involved.

Though Jirou was the most recent and unplanned addition to their whole secret warehouse crew, the girl on the couch seemed to trust her almost unconditionally. Honestly, they didn’t know if she’d have talked without Jirou’s steady words and understanding touch.

           “My name— it’s Mina Ashido.” Her eyebrows furrowed slightly, the corners of her lips twitching slightly as she tried to hold some sort of emotion back. “Look it up in police files— you won’t find it.”

           Enji pulled out his phone to confirm her statement, but he didn’t need to. Aizawa nodded to the girl, Mina, prompting her to continue. They already knew that there was nothing there.

           “I talked to the rest of the rats, most of us were either pulled out of orphanages or sold by desperate parents.” She played with the ends of a shirt twice her size, belonging to Aizawa.

           “The rats?” Mitsuki, Katsuki’s mom, asks.

           “The other kids in the facility,” Aizawa guesses, sighing as Mina nods slightly.

           “We don’t really know much about All for One,” Mina admits. “But based on the guests, and the experiments, we were able to figure out why we were there.”

           She runs a hand over her arm, now wrapped in clean bandages. Though they couldn’t see the damage anymore, it wasn’t very forgettable.

           “For me, they were trying to find a way to imbue my skin with sulfuric acid. Something about endothermic reactions, I honestly don’t know the science behind it, but if it worked, I’d be able to survive in really cold temperatures.” She stops touching her arm, shrugging slightly. “It may not seem like much, but they trained us, you know—and there were people who wanted me.”

            It may not seem like much . It seemed like a lot. Izuku remembered ninth grade chemistry— sulfuric acid was used in car batteries; it was supposed to practically melt the people who came into contact with it, or something.

           “We have our theories, based on the classes and tests and prospective buyers.” Mina talked like she was a product, and it made everyone in the room sick. “The world is on the brink of war.”

           “What do you mean, war? Like a world war?” Yagi said it as gently as possible, but the words still left his mouth fervently, jumping off his tongue in panicked pirouettes.

           “Worse, probably. Japan wants to stay neutral or something. The government sponsored a private company, All for One, to create a strong weapons program, one that couldn’t be replicated. Delegates from all these different countries; North Korea, America, Russia— they all come looking to get their hands on one of these one-of-a-kind super soldiers.”

           The room is deathly silent. So much so, that if a pin actually dropped, it’d sound like a nuclear bomb going off. Mina’s choked breathing is the only indicator that time still existed in the warehouse. That this was real life, and not a fucked-up dream.

           “There’s 51 of us. We’re the prototypes, apparently. If we end up working out, they’ll start making more.” She shivers.

           “And Kacch— Katsuki Bakugou?” Izuku asks, words leaving his mouth automatically. “He’s there?”

           Mina looks at her knees, before turning to Mitsuki curiously. “Are you his mom? You look just like him.”

           Mitsuki’s eyes widen slightly, her shoulders arch and her breathing gets heavier. She’s only pulled out of that trance by her husband’s hand at the crook of her back. A grave, ghost of a touch, that seems to anchor her to the room. “He’s there?”

           Mina nods. It’s not a happy nod. “He’s The Man’s favorite.”

           “The Man?” Someone asks. Izuku doesn’t know who.

           “That’s what we call him. I don’t know if anyone knows his name. He’s basically in charge of the facility, overseeing all the rats and researchers.” She smiles slightly at the alliteration, reminding everyone that she’s probably only fifteen or sixteen years old. It’s a beautiful smile, but it’s trapped inside a wasteland. “Denki and Bakugou were the only people who he stole specifically. They both have like parents and stuff that cared about them— so we all found it weird. Denki’s really smart, in a certain way, so it made sense to take him. But I still don’t really know about Katsuki— sorry. About Bakugou. ”

           “You use his last name?” Izuku asks.

           “He gets mad when anyone but Eijiro or Denki uses it. It’s this whole thing those three have. I don’t know.” Mina shrugs. She giggles slightly, thinking about them.

           Jirou frowned. “Denki was taken by Tomura Shigaraki, though. Maybe that’s The Man’s name?”

           Mitsuki’s breath hitched in her throat so loudly that it sounded like a car crash. Screeching wheels, unplanned inertia, and a whole lot of whiplash.

           “He has these cold red eyes,” Mina explains. “And he breathes when he talks.”

           Mitsuki leaves the room. She leaves the room and Izuku can hear a car door open and close, without the accompanying rev of an engine. He can only imagine that she shoved herself into the driver’s seat, head against the steaming leather of the steering wheel as she screamed. Masaru, her husband and Katsuki’s father, sighs. He seems equally as upset, if only in his own way. His shoulders are stiff and he presses down on his eyelids in frustration.

           “What happened— did I say something wrong?” Mina’s eyes are like saucers, glimmering in what could either be fear or curiosity.

           Masaru readjusts his glasses. “Tomura Shigaraki— that’s the name of Mitsuki’s older brother.”

           “Well shit.”

-

-

-

           “Eijiro we have to go.”

Bakugou shook his friend violently. He knew that whatever bullshit they’d put him through that day knocked him out for a good twelve or thirteen hours, and it was practically cruel and unusual punishment to wake him up only minutes after he’d nodded off.  But there was a fucking camera in their room, and The Man knew fucking everything.

           He guessed that it was some sort of psychological bullshit that had The Man feigning ignorance at their whole secret-phone situation. The minute that he knew they knew about him knowing, would be the minute that everything went to shit. So in a moment of pure impulse and genius, Bakugou decided to do it himself. He would make everything go to shit and get the hell out of dodge.

           But it all depended on Eijiro waking the fuck up.

            He made sure to whisper everything, hopefully quiet enough to evade the walls’ ears, so to speak. When Denki eventually entered the room, ready to ignore the fuck out of both Bakugou and Eijiro, he was startled by the fiery gaze of the former, darting between him and the blinking red light of the camera. It took him a whole three seconds to realize that— oh shit, it didn’t even matter if he’d been talking to earphone-jackk, because they already knew about it.

           Instead of reacting wildly, or having another goddamn panic attack right then and there— Denki put his supersoldier skills to the test. He gave Bakugou a nod, such a small and insignificant movement that only the latter would notice it, and moved to the couch. He pulled the phone out, pretending to be unaware of the camera.

           He let out a sigh before speaking. “They can’t hear us now. I hacked into the mainframe using the wifi. They’re seeing footage from a few days ago, when Ei was asleep, so it looks the same.”

           “Did you know?”

           “No.”

           It was quiet for a moment, but far from still. Denki could hear the gears turning in Katuski’s head; turning and overheating. He could hear the strangled breaths of Eijiro on the bed. He could hear the buzzing of the unshielded lightbulb nailed into their ceiling. He could hear the world turning on a rusty axis, and he could hear his heavy heartbeat straining itself to continue.

           “We need to leave. We need to escape.” Bakugou kept repeating things like that, muttering under his breath and forcing himself through his thought processes like an almost-broken record.

           “How?” Denki asked.

           “I don’t know yet. I don’t know—” He stops talking for a moment, eyes meeting Denki’s. “I overheard what The Man was talking about. With you. Is he really gonna fuckin’…”

           “Yeah.”

           “And look at what he did to Eijiro, that fuckin’ douche-canoe, we have to leave.”

           “ How ?” Denki repeated. He was good at coding and stuff, but other than that, he was pretty useless. He might as well be a soundboard for Bakugou’s escape plan.

           “We need to talk to fucking Soy Sauce,” he concluded.

           “I have no idea who that is, Katsuki.”

           “You know, Soy Sauce. He looks like Soy Sauce. He’s Soy Sauce.”

           “You’re so eloquent. Want a thesaurus?” He smirks slightly at the pout on Katuski’s face.

           “There are not any fucking synonyms for Soy Sauce. That’s why his name is Soy Sauce. Because I can’t come up with anything else.”

           “You ever look at a word so much that it dissociates and no longer has any meaning, and just looks like a bunch of letters? You’re doing that, but with sound— with Soy Sauce.”

           “Shut the fuck up, mustard.”

           “Are we doing a condiments theme now? Because that would make Eijiro ketchup, and you mustard. Seeing as you’re so head over hee—” He laughs as a pillow smacks him in the face.

           “Ei is not ketchup. His hair is black, not red.”

           “So? His eyes are red? Close enough. Also you didn’t even deny your huge fucking crush on him.”

           “Shut up. What about that chick you’ve been talking to online, huh? That you’re willing to risk our escape for? Sounds fucking whipped to me.”

           “You just admitted you’re whipped for Eijiro, holy shit.”

           “I will cut your brain out right goddamn now. It will be even better than whatever they’re planning because it will all be gone. You will be dead.” Denki appreciated that he didn’t dwell on it. He was so fixated on their escape— so sure that it would happen, that he wasn’t scared of anything supposedly standing in the way.

           “Anyways, who the hell is Soy Sauce?”

           “Fine. Sero . Are you happy?”

           It actually made sense that he’d want to find Sero. The guy was basically a black market within All for One. He was that guy in prison movies that sold people cigarettes or shovels to dig a tunnel through the main character’s room. No one knew how he got all his shit, but he had it. From stupid things like crayons to literal marijuana— he was the guy to go to. Some said that he had connections within the researchers, but no one really cared about his methods when they could get high after getting tortured for hours.

           They walked to the Cafeteria awkwardly. Denki never was one to go to crowded places, and he couldn’t really tell whether people were staring at him because of that, or staring at Bakugou because he was… well, Bakugou. Sero sat alone at some table in the back— it took him a second to realize that Mina was missing from her usual seat across from him. Eijiro had been talking about it nonstop; how she had just disappeared.

           Sero straightened his back slightly as they sat in front of him, a characteristic grin draping itself over his flat face. As Denki thought about it, the nickname Soy Sauce made more sense, even though there was little concrete reasoning behind it.

           “Two things I’d never expect to see,” Sero chuckled, acknowledging the pair with an almost condescending smirk. “Denki in the Cafeteria, and Bakugou without his shadow.”

           If they didn’t need his help, Denki was positive that Sero would have a fist-shaped dent in his Soy Saucey face.

           Bakugou grimaced. His voice sounded strange when it wasn’t grunting or yelling— the cautioned whisper he now adorned didn’t suit him— loose and tight in all the wrong places. “We need your help.”

           “I assumed.” Sero drummed his fingers against the table. “You wouldn’t come, otherwise. What do you need?”

           “To escape.”

           “Yeah, we all need that, don’t we?”

           Bakugou moved to retort, but froze as a few researchers passed their group— only thawing, relaxing, once the coast was clear. “I have a concrete plan. I just need you to help inact it.”

           “Sure. If it works, we can probably get everyone else out too.” Sero crosses his arms. “What do you need from me, then?”

           “You know what they’re pumping into me, right? One of the things that they’re fucking with, at least.” Bakugou motions to the bruises on his arms where the needles usually went through. He doesn’t wait for Sero to nod, or shake his head. “Right now it’s Nitroglycerin.”

           “So? What’s that gotta do with anything?”

           “On one hand, it improves blood circulation and shit in small doese— that’s what they’re doing to me, so to speak.” He rubs his temple slightly, remembering the headaches that shook his entire body like an earthquake, and the nausea that boiled his stomach until it shriveled up. “But it’s main use? In big doses?”

           “What’s that do?”

           “If we can get our hands on that nitroglycerin— a shit ton of it— we can blow this place to the fucking ground.”

-

-

-

           Tsukauchi took another sip of coffee. Or at least, he pretended to. The liquid brushed up against his lips, leaving its remnants under his nose, but it never entered his mouth. It wasn’t like he could do anything as this kid spoke. He still didn’t give Tsukauchi a name, not yet, at least. The story was wild, and it hadn’t even been concluded yet. If it was true.

           The officer secretly hoped that this kid was just delusional. That this whole facility, the experiments that haunted its hallways, and the children that breathed its sanitized air, were just a figment of his imagination. But Tsukauchi knew crazy, he’d seen schizophrenics and liars enter this room every week— Fifty didn’t fit the bill. It scared him.

           “Did the plan work?” He asked.

Fifty nodded slightly, smirk dancing at his lips. The bright light reflected off of the dried blood trailing down his chin, and he no longer looked like a cornered animal. Tsukauchi tapped his pen against his thigh, beats alternating with the repetitive scratching of Fifty’s fingernail along the chair.

“Soy Sauce got us the nitroglycerin, and it was smooth sailing from there.” He looks down for a second, eyes almost testing his words before he said them. “Mostly.”

“Why didn’t you do this whole thing earlier?” Tsukauchi asked. “Why escape now, not before?”

“I tried escaping fifty times when I first got there. That’s why they gave me this number instead of whatever they were going to give me before. Fifty failed attempts.” He laughed grimly, touching the number on his chest. “The Man just wanted to mock me, or some bullshit, I think. But it’s beside the point. I learned one thing in those fifty goddamn attempts— patience would make or break my escape. If he thought that I’d given up. If I waited long enough— I could escape successfully.”

“This whole plan; I came up with it when I looked up what nitroglycerin did. They only started pumping me with it recently— I’m thinking like four to five fucking months. Don’t fucking know. When I found out about fucking Ei— Shitty Hair and Pikachu? They were going to die if we didn’t fuckin’ leave right then, so my plans kicked into overdrive. The camera was the final straw.”

Tsukauchi noticed how Fifty corrected himself whenever he was about to say someone’s real name, as if he were protecting their identity or his own pride. Maybe both.

“So tell me how you escaped.”

-

-

-

           Sero got them the nitroglycerin, and it was smooth sailing from there. They filled Eijiro in on their plan while they were waiting on the chemical.

           Step One. Get the nitroglycerin. Sero actually told them how he got all the shit he got into the facility (let alone in his possession), and it wasn’t as lighthearted of an explanation as they might’ve hoped. Apparently, his parents were researchers in the lab, and gave him shit out of guilt for literally cutting him up for years. On one hand, it was lucky for them, but sucked for Sero himself. Either way, he managed to get a whole two liters of the stuff.

           Step Two. Evade the researchers and cameras, and find a place to blow up. Not as easy as it sounded. In hindsight, Bakugou should’ve figured out where they were going to escape from earlier on, but there wasn’t much they could do about it now.

           Denki had their phone, and was able to take care of the security cameras, but when it came to researchers— they were on their own. Eijiro limped slightly, leg still bandaged tightly, and Bakugou forced himself to keep at the slower pace.

           “You can leave without me, you know,” Eijiro had mumbled at some point.

It was quiet, and offhanded, but Bakugou stopped in his tracks to look him in those warm, red eyes and scream-whisper. “Fuck no. Now fuck off so we can fucking get the fuck out of here.”

Loud footsteps echoed off of dull walls, indicating a possible guard or researcher making the rounds. Bakugou pressed his back to the wall, Eijiro following suit, and before the person could even acknowledge their presence, they were unconscious on the floor. Bakugou clenched and unclenched his fist. “Well fuck, maybe if they used themselves as dummies, I’d be more into this whole super soldier thing.”

Eijiro laughed at how genuine he sounded. Then again, anything that Bakugou did made him smile. “You really don’t have to take me with you, I’m… I’m weighing you down.”

“You implying I can’t carry all that carbon fiber metal shit in your body? I’m the fucking best, don’t try me.”  

“I won’t. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t apologize.”

“Sorry.”

Bakugou narrowed his eyes, lips contorting into a pout that was dangerously nearing the cuter end of the spectrum. Eijiro felt his heart leap a few feet at the sight, before wincing slightly at the pain in his leg. Even though the whole point of the surgery was to eliminate any feeling in his leg, he still felt it everywhere else. The point where they decided to wrap things up, right around the middle of his thigh, was a ring of fire.

Eventually, they found themselves at the end of Block B. Bakugou remembered it vividly— all of his escape attempts, the door just out of his reach. The handle was now in the crook of his palm. So close.

“We’re getting out.” The words tasted like latex. He expected them to be sweet, maybe spicy and exciting. But they clung to the sides of his throat like fishing hooks, leaving with pain and uncertainty. He didn’t know whether it was because this was so either-or. Leave or die. Or if it was because he knew something was wrong.

Heavy and labored footsteps rushed towards them, dull flashes of sound underneath Bakugou’s eyelids. His fists clenched, preparing to send a punch in the sound’s direction, but each footstep came with a labored breath, wispy and bright, he could only connect it to Denki.

“Guys, I messed up.”

The world froze as the lights dimmed to reveal red, blaring alarms. The sound muffled any thought processes he could’ve continued. He couldn’t hear himself breathing, hyperventilating, but he knew that he was, already plagued by dark spots in his vision and lightheadedness. So, it was basically now or never.

Step 3: Detonate.

Chapter Text

Chapter 9: Night Hawk

It was almost three in the morning when they got the call.

After Mitsuki had returned from her episode in the car, Mina told them mostly everything they wanted to know. It was hard to stomach even the paraphrased versions of her stories. Everyone in the room held their breath as she spoke; less because they were scared to make noise, and more because they knew that an exhale would bring vomit along for the ride.

Jirou sat alongside the other girl, running a soft hand along her spine. She seemed to have formed a sort of kinship with Mina much faster than everyone else, and by the time they were done for the day, she made the bold decision to call her new foster parents.

“She needs somewhere to stay, right?” Jirou reasoned. “And they have a right to know— their kid is in there too.”

Aizawa reluctantly agreed, while Enji protested vocally. In the end, they decided that whoever was still searching for her would be unlikely to look in a civilian’s home a few towns away. It wasn't a permanent solution, but it was one that Mina was happy to accept for now.

Izuku awkwardly got into the car with his father and Katsuki’s parents, who had driven him there in the first place. He hadn’t really talked to either of them in a few years. It was awkward seeing them now, and sharing such a small space.

The air conditioning didn’t work, or rather, it worked too well. Cold air blasted relentlessly from each vent, and according to Masaru, couldn’t be adjusted. It had been that way since eight years ago, Izuku remembered, when he and Kacchan would carpool to soccer practice and school.  

“You have the money to buy a new car, don’t you?” Izuku asked. “Or get it fixed.”  

Masaru was an incredibly reputable journalist, while Mitsuki still managed to get high-paying modelling gigs at middle age. Their house, along with Shouto’s, was one of the nicest in the neighborhood.

Mitsuki sighed, gripping the steering wheel hard enough to bleach her knuckles. “We do.”

Izuku didn’t really understand, but nodded anyways, looking out the window. A few lone raindrops made their way onto the glass, leaving ragged trails behind them as they dripped down the side of the car. As the rain sped up, Izuku looked down to the armrest next to him, tempted to bring the window down and drown himself to escape the awkward silence. Jammed inside the cup holder was a tiny All Might figurine.

He remembered Kacchan getting it from one of those Gashapon machines, determined to get a figure of his favorite comic book superhero. Izuku had put quarter after quarter into it and could never get it, but Kacchan did on the first try.

And there it lay, jammed in a cup holder. Izuku pursed his lips, sticking his hand inside to get it out, but paused as Masaru looked back at him.

“Please don’t, Izuku.”

That’s why they didn’t want a new car.

They were maybe thirty minutes away from Izuku’s house when Mitsuki said the words that everyone had been thinking.

“I don’t know if I’d feel better if he were dead, instead.”

The air conditioning was still blasting, but it faded into the background; White noise. Everything was silent. . The car zoomed past a random person walking along the highway, who’d probably given up on hitchhiking, thinking that no one would see them through the storm. It reminded him of Kacchan, of what Mina had told them about him.

He stopped caring about escaping in favor of the cyclone’s eye.

“What kind of parent am I? Wishing that he died?”

He’s the Man’s favorite.

Yagi finally spoke up, voice soft and gravelly.

“A good one.”

The rest of the ride was set in silence. No goodbyes were said as they left the car and piled into their apartment complex, and no sleep was spent as Izuku stared wide-eyed at his ceiling, listening to the minutes fly by as his clock ticked wildly. He felt his body become weightless as he lay static on his springy mattress, but his head was heavy. When the phone rang from the other room, he bolted upwards in bed. A few seconds after his dad answered it, he burst into Izuku’s room, eyes wide and phone still in hand.

“Get dressed.”

-

-

-

           Tsukauchi only blinked in-between Fifty’s words. For some reason, looking away from that intense red eyed stare felt like it would disrupt the narrative, the sentence would collapse in on its own fragile form. As the kid’s words got faster, stumbling through his story, choking back names and specifics, it became harder and harder for Tsukauchi to keep his eyes open, blood vessels clinging tighter and tighter to the edges of his irises. But he still managed to snatch every word the moment it left Fifty’s mouth, leaning impossibly forwards in his cold, metal seat.

           “How did… ‘Pikachu’ mess up?” The nicknames that Fifty used were strange, and they left Tsukauchi’s mouth awkwardly.

           Fifty scoffs, “I don’t know any of that coding shit he does,” His crimson irises dart up to the security camera on the ceiling every few seconds. Tsukauchi had told him that it didn’t work, evident by the busted lens and snipped wires, but he’d check anyways. “Ask him, if you want to know. He probably forgot to make himself invisible or whatever on the fucking cyberspace, and got flagged. He’s impatient.”

           Tsukauchi smirks at the hypocrisy of that statement, raising his eyebrows slightly. Fifty growls, lips fading into an almost endearing pout. Tsukauchi would’ve laughed if that entire exchange didn’t remind him how much of a child this kid really was.

           “Well, I can’t ask him , since he’s not here.” His eyes narrowed. “Where are they, anyways? Did they get out?”

           “Why would I tell you where they are?” Fifty spit out a chunk of mostly dried blood that had gathered in his cheek. Tsukauchi prided himself on his ability to read between the lines, and this was no exception. The way that Fifty’s eyebrows furrowed slightly, that his repeated scratching paused for a few seconds, and his breathing became quieter showed the officer that the kid likely didn’t even know where his friends were in the first place.

           “Did they get out?” He repeated.

           “They sure as fuck wouldn’t stick around,” Fifty grunted. So he didn’t know that either.

           “So what happened?” Tsukauchi shifted his weight slightly, pursing his lips when one of his legs began tingling violently as he tried not to cringe. “After you blew it up?”

           “Pikachu wasn’t completely incompetent,” Fifty explained, lifting his wrist and revealing a strange looking bracelet that could’ve been mistaken for a watch or an outdated Fitbit. “He managed to deactivate these douchebags.”

           “Which means?”

           “I’m fucking getting to that, you piece of glorified dog shit.”

           Tsukauchi shrugs. “At least I’m glorified.”

-

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-

           The alarms blared out of synch, as if each scarlet light had its own song it sung, and the noise blurred them together into a disharmonious onslaught of sound. The lights flickered over each body in the hallway; Bakugou, Eijirou, Denki, and The Man with his entourage. Nitroglycerin dripped onto the floor, somehow leaking from one of the containers they’d hauled from Sero’s room, and two sets of matching red eyes moved from the mess, to each other.

           The Man grimaced as Bakugou stepped away from the explosive material, motioning towards a researcher to set off the electric bracelets. Both Eijiro and Bakugou braced themselves for a few hundred volts of impact, knowing how it’d land them on the floor and fizzling with unshakable pain. But nothing came, and the only person in the room who wasn’t remarkably confused was Denki, who smirked and held their phone up in the air triumphantly.

           “I guess you didn’t mess up that much after all!” Eijiro cheered.

           “Yeah, let’s save the compliments for after we blow this joint.” Literally.

           He took another few steps away from the chemical as quick as he could, prompting The Man to pull out his own gun, which Bakugou had never seen outside of its holster before, aiming it straight at the ash blond menace.

           “You won’t shoot, asshole,” Bakugou whispered. “I’m your favorite.”

           He saw the smoke leak from the gun before he heard the sound of the bullet pierce the air, delayed like thunder. The world slowed down around him, as if his mind were taking in a higher frame rate than anyone else. He almost panicked, before realizing that there was no wound on his body. That the gun was no longer pointed at him. He almost choked when he saw it slam into Eijiro. The moment that the bullet made contact with his body, time snapped back, and he was on the floor.

           “You are my favorite.” The Man conceded. “But I don’t really care about him .”

           Bakugou couldn’t stop the breaths from leaving his throat like vomit as he hyperventilated, looking at Eijiro on the floor. There was no goddamn way this was happening. He remembered how long it took for blood to start leaving, before it didn't.

            I’ll make him unbreakable just for you. I’ll make your friend completely unbreakable

           Maybe The Man really didn’t care, seeing as he didn’t even remember that bullets wouldn’t do shit. Eijiro didn’t move much at all, despite being perfectly fine— they could use this to their advantage.

           The Man sent another bullet blindly in their direction, but it missed by a longshot, heading straight into the wall that had been coated in nitroglycerin.

           Bakugou was glad he’d stepped away earlier, because the whole wall shattered into the blast, as tongues of fire ate away at stray chips of paint. The blast was deafening, the noise hitting Bakugou square in the jaw. He could swear that something popped in his right ear, surely confirmed by the small trickle of blood dripping down the side of his face, and the sharp ringing that wove itself between his thoughts. He ignored it, of course, opting instead to help Eijiro lift himself off the ground.

           They ran wordlessly through the outer rings of the lab, before miraculously finding an unlocked door. The handle was rusty, and took a good six seconds to pry loose without fully removing the thing and ruining their chance. The fresh air practically slapped them in the face, bands of color stretched over the horizon as the sun either rose or set, clouds set jagged and fragile as they reflected each hue back into wide eyes.

           It was weird, seeing the world; feeling the world for the first time. But it was short lived.

           “We have to split up,” Bakugou concluded, scanning the open field for guards. It was strangely empty. Maybe it was Sunday.

           “Why?” Eijiro asked, still coughing up smoke. His hand clutched his chest, probably still suffering from the aftermath of that bullet. There’d probably be a bruise of sorts, but he’d been through worse.

           “Our bracelets, ergo our trackers are fucking fritzed thanks to Kami. The best way to escape them is to split up. They’ll think we would stick together because we always stick together, so they’ll look for three piece of shit kids instead of just one.”

           “That makes sense,” Denki concedes. “But how will we find each other again?”

           Bakugou thinks for a moment, before lunging and grabbing Denki’s phone, pulling up a map and pointing to a random spot. “Meet up at this building. It’s a few miles away and every road meets up at this point. Now let’s fucking move.”

           And so, with one last glance at the facility, they fucking moved.

-

-

-

           “So you split up?” Tsukauchi asked, leaning back into his chair slightly and squinting at the bright light that moved into his face.

           “Yeah,” Fifty cracked his neck slightly, but his stare didn’t falter. “That’s why I shouldn’t be here.”

           Tsukauchi nodded slowly. “And the diner we found you at— that was the building you were supposed to meet at?”

           Fifty hesitated before spitting out an unceremonious “yeah.”

           “Ok, so walk me through how you almost killed someone while trying to stay incognito.”

           Because that was why they were here in the first place. Fifty had slammed a guy into the freshly mopped checkerboard floors of a 24/7 diner at one in the morning for a still undetermined reason. Tsukauchi remembered walking into the building, gun at the ready, and seeing the echoes of crimson rippling across the floor in thin waves. He remembered his eyes gravitating away from the twitching body on the floor, past the waitress who was still screaming bloody murder, and towards the assumed culprit.

           Fifty sat at the window, right hand bruised and bloody from whatever punches he threw. His body was completely relaxed as he stared out the window from his booth seat, eyes completely dilated like a wild animal who had just returned from the hunt. The lights of the police cars outside, whirred past those eyes, which looked deeper into the night, as if waiting for somebody to walk out of the woods flanking the highway.

           Tsukauchi knew from the wreckage that this kid was a danger, but he could tell from that stare that he was in danger.

           Fifty shifted in his seat a bit, clearing his throat. “Yeah.”

           “Maybe you could tell me about that.”

           “Yeah.”

-

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-

           After running for a good few miles, Bakugou felt the beginnings of a storm on his cheeks as warm raindrops shattered into his hair, and dripped down onto his collarbones. At first, he stopped dead in his tracks, heartbeat speeding up with the storm.

           Warm rain.

           Red eyes.

           Red umbrella.

           Shadows gather at his feet and grow like weeds in-between his muscles and brain. The Man is right there behind him; he always will be. Even when the road is empty and Bakugou is finally free, those cold hands still grip like shackles around his wrists. The last time he felt rain like this was eight years ago and he still had scars from where the water clung to his skin.

But as the wind slams more droplets into his torso, icicles piercing his neck and whipping his hair around in a hurricane and clearing his head, his breathing slows. He closes his eyes, because he was out of that place, hopefully for good. The past and future became unimportant as they were blurred behind layers of mist and clouded windows.

His feet slammed against the asphalt as he ran face-first into the wind, disturbing the puddles that tried to gather; becoming the cyclone. Every once in a while, a car would zoom past him at ten times his speed, but the movement remained trapped underneath his eyelids. When he closed his eyes and let out an unintentional, guttural scream, ghosts of forgotten cars’ headlights danced across his vision.

He almost didn’t want that moment to end. The moment he stopped running, and shielded himself from the rain, would be the moment that gravity continued its hold on his head. He’d feel the weight of his life and his pain and his anger all over again. Apparently when astronauts came back to earth, they’d vomit because couldn’t stand the smell, since it was so clean up in the void. That’s where Bakugou found himself now. Throwing up across from some random roadside diner.

The building stood awkwardly between then and now. Flickering neon lights lined a retro, American looking architecture, and beckoned him inside. It felt strange, walking across a damp parking lot as if it weren’t completely foreign to him.

As he entered, and the door released an amusing chime, Bakugou tried as hard as possible to keep himself unnoticeable. But there he was; bruised, bloody, and the only customer in the joint, and a perfect target for an unwanted greeting. The waitress practically skipped over, trying incredibly hard to hide the gum she was working on while she introduced herself.

“I’m Kendo! Is there anything I can—”

He cut her off with a growl. “I don’t have any fucking money. It’s just rainy as shit outside.”

She looks him over, pursing her lips and scanning the room for any witnesses as she continued to hand him a menu anyways. “I’m paid per customer, not per paying customer. Tap water is free!”

He shrugs, and she rushes to get him a cup of the finest tap water they had. As Bakugou maneuvered the straw, he almost recoiled at how different the water was from that of the lab. They’d put all sorts of unnecessary nutrients and chemicals in their closely monitored meals. He wasn’t sure if he liked the change or not, but he was still thirsty as fuck.

Time didn’t exist in this diner, Bakugou was certain, because he honestly didn’t know how long it was that he just sat there, eyes tracing the paths of raindrops as they trickled down the large illuminated windows. He thought about when Denki and Eijiro would get there, if they’d get there at all. Eijiro, he knew, was capable of getting there if he was at full strength, which he wasn’t, while Denki was easily distracted and scared. Bakugou felt something twist in his stomach.

Maybe he was so spaced out that he didn’t notice the guy approaching him, or maybe something in that explosion did fuck up his hearing slightly, but whichever it was didn’t matter, because a warm hand barely had to touch Bakugou’s shoulder before it was dislocated from its wrist completely.

Bakugou sprung at the person like a fire, thoughts not really connecting with his punches until thirty seconds of beating their skull in. His breathing slowed as he saw the mess underneath him, as he heard the screams of Kendo, who’d kindly been en route to bring Bakugou an actual meal out of courtesy. The blood and spilled ketchup weren’t distinguishable against the checkerboard floor.

Someone else in the restaurant started frantically dialing for the police, and Bakugou assumed that it was really over, now.

-

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-

           “So he literally just… touched you?”

           “Yeah.” Fifty looked noticeably uncomfortable, but Tsukauchi decided against mentioning it.

           “Do you know why?”

           “I couldn’t hear him, I don’t know.” The kid rubbed at his right ear, furrowing his brow. “I was lost in thought or whatever the fuck.”

           “Did you recognize him from the facility?”

           “I don’t remember those faces.” He shook his head, before smirking slightly. “Even if I did, it’s not like he’s recognizable now.”

           “According to the waitress,” Tsukauchi flipped through the file awkwardly. “He tapped your shoulder to ask if you needed a ride to the hospital.”

           “Wasn’t his lucky day, I guess.”

           “Do you not feel regret?” Tsukauchi asked. His voice wasn’t accusatory at all; merely curious.

           “What’s the point of regret if you can’t redo it anyways?”

           “You can try and fix the future.”

           “Not if you don’t have a fucking future.”

           Tsukauchi let out a sharp exhale, rubbing his temple with two fingers. “What’s your name, kid?”

           It took a second for Fifty to give him an answer. The soft scraping of his fingernail against the seat of his chair sped up before stopping completely, only remembered by the beat that it had established in Tsukauchi’s head.

           “Bakugou Katsuki.”

           And suddenly the wires connected.

           Tsukauchi ran his hand over an invisible five o’ clock shadow, before muttering. “I need to make a phone call.”

-

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-

@deku 2018

They found him

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Chapter Text

Chapter 10: Acid Rain

They’d been walking for a while. Unlike Bakugou, who had taken the most direct route to their meeting place, Eijiro and Denki had both taken to the deep woods that surrounded the grassy property of All for One, splitting up until they met up at a trailhead a few miles down.

Moonlight reflected off of the canopy, so only small droplets of glowing light managed to reach the forest floor. Eijiro could barely see the path in front of him, hand wrapped around Denki’s thin wrist, knowing that the dark could eat away at the boy in seconds if he wasn’t careful. The August heat sank into their bones, between each muscle fiber, and under their joints, making their hike much more harrowing than it otherwise would have been. The trees buffered any slight breeze that could’ve relieved them.

Despite the darkness and the muffling heat, the forest was far from quiet. Crickets chirped louder than chainsaws, echoing throughout the trees, making the world feel that much larger and far away. They didn’t bother trying to speak over the noise for a few hours, knowing that any words exchanged wouldn’t be worth the energy they cost.

And then it started to rain.

The first few droplets seemed more like ghosts than actual water. The trees blocked the early sprinkling quite well, so they couldn’t tell for sure if they stood under a storm until a crack of thunder reverberated throughout the forest, sending perched owls into the sky and crickets into silence.

The shoes that All for One gave their rats weren’t the most impressive. Unless someone was specifically built for running, all they got were some old dirty pairs of sneakers that had worn away over the years. The shoes soak up rain as it beats down into the dirt trail, filling the soles with muddy water, which squish down like loud sponges and chafe against the sides of already tired feet, bringing blisters to the surface.

Nevertheless, the rain cools the air down significantly, and the darkness isn’t suffocating so much as revitalizing. Though the faint moonlight isn’t enough to reveal the colors around them, the misty air just makes the whole forest feel vibrantly green.

“I haven’t felt rain like this in years,” Eijiro exclaims. He runs a hand through his hair, trying to slick it back with the water and fully reveal his bright, scarlet eyes.

“Yeah!” Denki smiles, cupping his hands and letting the water drip through the cracks in his fingers. He closes his eyes, and tilts his head towards the sky so that raindrops catch on his cupid’s bow. Eijiro can see a slight scar peeking through his hairline, now that his bangs are out of the way. “It’s nice.”

“You think that Katsuki is a rain person?” Eijiro asks, intentionally walking through puddles, knowing that he wouldn’t feel any of the blisters he’d get. “I feel like he is.”

“No,” Denki chuckles, kicking his feet in front of him as he walks. “If he sees a storm-cloud, he’d try to fight it.”

“I mean, yeah— but does he like it? To feel it on his back, or to listen to it against the roof?”

“He’s the kind of person to run out into the storm without a raincoat. His mom probably couldn’t deal with it.” It was weird, talking about such mundane things. When the subject of parents came up, Eijiro’s breath caught in his throat.

“Do you think we’re going to go back to our parents? When people find us and stuff.” Eijiro picks at a scab on his arm. “I know Katsuki loves his parents, even though he hides it. And you’d probably go back to your mom.”

Denki purses his lips. He doesn’t know much about Eijiro before everything, even though they were as close as brothers. It never came up— or if it did, Eijiro would expertly change the subject. But they were free now, and every wound that wouldn’t have been important back in the facility had to tear back open.

“What about me?” Eijiro whispered.

“I’m sure your parents are worried.” As Denki consoled, his words fluttered carelessly like pale butterflies through the air. “Remember reading Deku’s blog? You’re officially missing and stuff. They wouldn’t have filed that report if they didn’t care.”

“I know for a fact that they didn’t file that report.” Eijiro’s voice was uncharacteristically soft. It wasn’t built for fear, or uncertainty, but rather cheering and joking around.

“Why not?” Denki pried, debatably too far, and Eijiro snapped a bit.

“Because they were the ones that sold me.”

And there went that conversation.

They came up on the meeting spot eventually. It could’ve been a couple of minutes, or a few hours, but it felt like years of walking. Their ankles ached, even after years of broken physical limits and pain tolerance— they hadn’t really walked like this before. Their throats were an odd combination of wet and dry; the air was heavy with water, but they hadn’t had anything to drink in hours. Hopefully, this’d be the end of their troubles.

Naturally, it wasn’t.

The diner was swarming with them. Cops, ambulances, and researchers disguised as normal human beings (you could recognize their incapability for empathy from a mile away), all swathed in flashing red and blue lights. Eijiro started moving forwards and out of the bushes, but Denki yanked him back by his shirt sharply, eyes widening in a what the fuck are you doing? sort of way.

“What if they have him, Denki? I don’t want to be free without fucking Katsuki.” There are tears blooming at his eyes, and his weirdly sharp front tooth is digging into his lower lip, which is already littered with previous testaments to pain and nervousness. “We can’t just… let him go back. Alone.”

“We don’t even know if they got him, ok? If anything, he bolted the second someone looked at him,” Denki reasoned, loosening his hold once Eijiro’s impulse had dulled slightly. “Besides. We could alert people! People like Deku, or something. Tell them about the lab and shit. Get Katsuki back like that.”

Eijiro sat down on the ground, and Denki followed suit. The rain no longer felt cool and soft, but warm and sticky. The kind of rain that left you with growing pains after. Mud ate away at their pants, and bugs ran over their hands; fists curled around moist dirt. The police sirens and voices mingled with the earthshattering pattering of heavy rain. At one point, a car passed the scene, music vibrating through each crack. It was Bohemian Rhapsody. More likely than not, everyone in the vehicle was screaming the words at the top of their lungs. The soundscape was claustrophobic.

By morning, everyone was gone, the diner was closed, and neither Eijiro nor Denki knew what to do.

-

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Eijiro sat in the center of the living room, bare feet kneading themselves nervously into the faded oriental carpet. The new Pokémon game had come out recently, and he’d been playing it all day, constantly restarting the game after he’d accidentally killed a legendary. He always over-leveled his team, which was both gratifying and inconvenient. The voices around him meant nothing, he couldn’t help but tune them out.

The guests must be friends with his parents, he thought, waiting to supply any number of excuses and false stories of the bruises that trailed down the side of his face and around his arms. He’d usually go with the ‘tripped down stairs’ or ‘got into a fight at school,’ but these people never asked.

He restarted the game again, foot tapping anxiously against the floor and pressed A repeatedly to get past the title sequence. He can’t help but listen in on the conversation when there’s nothing else to do.

“He’s a good boy, you know? Very…”  His mother searches for the word. “Unique. He’d be good in your… whatever it is.”

“It,” said an unnamed man, “is a highly classified program. One that we wouldn’t want you talking about.”

“We won’t talk if people don’t ask,” his mother exclaims. Her voice is like the foam at the top of a soda, popping and overwhelming. Dramatic and coating her upper lip. “And trust us, no one will ask. No one really cares about him.”

The guy gives her a look, and she tries to cover her misstep up. “Not like we care about him. He is special! And qualified.”

He restarted the game again, wondering if he could switch out members of his party with lower level buffers that’d help bring the hp to a low, but existing number. He didn’t really like the idea of leaving his starter in the PC box.

At the beginning of the game, he’d chosen Cyndiquil immediately. Typhlosion was such a cool Pokémon, once it was fully evolved. Everything he wasn’t. Brazen and powerful, loud and unyielding; absolutely beautiful. He wished that he could fight back, that he could tell them he was strong, but he only ended up biting his nails and tuning it all out.

His foot taps faster, and faster against the floor, only stopping when his head is slammed down by a rough slap from his father. Unlike Eijiro’s mother, he was gruff and cold. He didn’t hide his disdain for his son, but he also didn’t act like it was any more than that.

“Honestly ma’am,” the guy says. “We don’t care about your parenting skill. Or lack of it. We just want the kid.”

“Of course.” Her voice is sappy and he hates it.

He restarts the game again, now knowing exactly how he’s gonna catch this thing. Ignoring the world around him, the cold world; he balances the DS stylus between his lips, ready to finally win.

His mother blinks a few times, eyelashes fluttering innocently. “And the money?”

The guy drops a nice stack of crisp, colorful bills onto the table, and motions to it. “It’s all yours.”

Eijiro finally has this thing’s HP down to red, and he throws an ultra-ball at it, excitement building up in his chest.

His dad finally speaks. “Well then,” he says. “He’s yours.”

It shakes once without opening. He doesn’t notice the handshake his parents share with the mysterious guests.

It shakes a second time, and a smile peaks through his chapped lips. He doesn’t notice the man coming up behind him.

It shakes a third time.

Everything goes black.

He meets Katsuki Bakugou a week later. He’s everything that Eijiro isn’t. Katsuki doesn’t cry, he doesn’t let the situation stab him over and over until he can’t think anymore. He fights, he wins, he doesn’t bow to anyone. Brazen and powerful, loud and unyielding;

absolutely beautiful.

-

-

-

        Aizawa wasn’t really sure how to deal with his situation. When he volunteered to drive Jirou and Mina to the Kaminari residence, he didn’t expect the two to talk so much (Mina was supposed to be a traumatized victim, right? Why was she so damn loud and… gossip-y?), and he certainly didn’t think that his fucking ex boyfriend was going to open the door for them.

        Jirou’s house was maybe an hour or so away if they didn’t have any traffic, and Aizawa thought that it would be a quiet, and solemn ride. Jirou looked like a female version of himself from high school, and Mina hadn’t talked much outside of panicked descriptions of the facility, so his predictions made sense. That was something he could’ve dealt with. But the two girls seemed to bond quickly, and neither of them would actually shut up.

        “So you like music?” Mina asked eagerly, lips parting to reveal a slight tooth gap.

        Jirou nodded. “Yeah— it’s something I want to do when I’m older. Like… for real, for real.”

        “Ahh, that’s super cool!” Her bandaged arms stretch behind her head as she yawns slightly. “I haven’t listened to much stuff, obviously. Not since like 2010, anyways. You’ll have to give me some recs.”

        Jirou makes a face.

        “What?” Her voice drags into a swinging, whiney tone. “I’ve been locked up in a facility for like eight years! You can’t blame me!”

        “Oh— no! I didn’t mean it like that!” Jirou waves her hands in front of her face rapidly, embarrassment leaking into her face. “It’s just…”

        “Hmm?”

        “That reminded me of something. Of someone.”

        “Hah! Maybe we met in a previous life or something. That would be cool.” The girl seems to have a weird ability to sever any awkward conversation in half, and though it’s obnoxious, it almost hurts to remember that she would’ve been a weapon for the government, or dead, if she wasn’t right there in the car with them.

        Eventually, Mina convinces Aizawa to let Jirou play some music on the car’s loudspeakers. Initially, he wouldn’t budge, but she just kept pestering and pestering, and he had to give in if he wanted to stay sane. When Jirou puts on Bohemian Rhapsody, he realizes his mistake.

        “Oh my god!” Mina exclaims, eyes widening like saucers. “This is that song!”

        “Bohemian Rhapsody?” Jirou offers, head dipping into the beat of the music unconsciously, as if counting every beat. “By Queen.”

        “I never knew the name,” Mina sighs, before smiling again. “But we would sing it all the time at the facility. Sero, my best friend, managed to get some old Walkman and it had that song on it. Even Katsuki— I mean, Bakugou. Even he would sing it.”

        “It’s a good song,” Jirou agrees. “No one can’t sing it when it’s on.”

        Aizawa groans. “The second anyone busts out a Galileo I will literally drive off a goddamn cliff.”

        They don’t listen, and just belt out every single lyric as Aizawa regrets his entire life up until that point. They’re still screaming as the car races by a cop-filled diner. He feels drawn to the scene, either because of his nature as a cop, or… well, something else.

        Jirou’s foster parents live in a suburb outside of the city’s limits. There aren’t any street lamps, but the neighborhood is rich enough that each house has its own fancy light fixtures framing its driveway. Moths flock to the glow, and the creamy light flickers over neatly trimmed hedges and the pothole-free road. They’d stopped laughing and screaming a few blocks prior to reaching the house. No one really knew how they would explain all of this to Jirou’s foster parents.

        Jirou had called them, before they set off for the drive back, and told them that I think I know where Denki is, I’ll be home by ten, but otherwise, they had no clue what was in store. After they walked up the garden path to the door, and Jirou knocked boldly, things became ten times more complicated.

        “Shota?”

        There stood Yamada Hizashi. Aizawa hadn’t seen him in years, not since they broke up at grad school. Was he the music loving foster father that Jirou mentioned? He was too gay to have a wife, so why the hell was he here?

        “Oh fuck, you know each other,” Jirou whispers.

        “Dramaaaaa.” If Mina had access to popcorn right then, she’d be munching away.

        Aizawa clears his throat. “Let’s skip this for now. There are more pressing matters to attend to.”

        Yamada raises his eyebrows, looking at Jirou, and then Mina, with her ragged clothes and bandaged arms, and then Aizawa. “Yeah I couldn’t imagine what,” he says sarcastically.

        “We know where your… son is.” The words don’t leave his mouth as well as they should’ve.

        “You mean Denki? He’s not my kid, persay, but— wait you know where he is?” His glasses slip off of his face slightly. “I remember Jirou saying something over the phone but… are you serious?”

        “Let’s just take this inside.”

        But before they can do anything, Aizawa’s phone buzzes in his pocket. He holds it to his ear. “Hello, Yagi. What do you want?”

        “Hey, Aizawa sorry for the late call.”

        “It’s fine, I just got to Jirou’s house. The drive was pretty long.”

        “Well you’re going to have to take that drive again. Right now.”

        “What do you mean?”

        “They just found Katsuki Bakugou.”

        Aizawa ended the call and shoved the phone in his pocket, and looked up at the people in front of him. Two girls he barely knew, one of which was a government experiment, and his ex-boyfriend

Usually, he would’ve been pissed at the idea of driving all the way back without any sleep or food, but—

“So did you two fuck at one point? Or…” Mina trails off awkwardly.

Right now he was grateful.

-

-

-

“Why do you keep trying to escape?”

        “Huh?” Katsuki looks up at him with a bright scarlet glare. His cheeks are red from the cold, but for some reason his whole composure is comprised of fire. “What do you mean? Of course I’m gonna try to escape, what kind of moron are you?”

        “A smart one,” Eijiro deadpans, before curling into himself. Ice shavings dug into his thighs. Every time Katsuki made trouble, The Man locked them up in this giant ice box room. This time, Katsuki had tried to start a riot in the Cafeteria and escape through the chaos. Eijiro had helped, naturally, spreading the catchy chant of "RED RIOT! RED RIOT! RED RIOT!" That the rats latched onto quickly. A few electric shocks and demeaning screams later, they were freezing their asses off. 

After 49 of Katsuki’s failed escapes, Eijiro still wasn’t used to it. “Really, every single time we try leaving, we’re back where we started. But colder.”

        “And that just means we stop?” Katsuki stands up, stretching his arms before punching the air. He was either generating heat, or wasting it. “What’s the point of all this if we don’t stop?”

        “Living?”

        “This isn’t living.” He sits back down, bringing his knees to his chest, hands gripping his upper arms. “This is dying. Just slower than usual.”

        “Then… what is living?”

        “Aspiring for something— desiring something, and doing everything you can to make it happen before you kick the bucket.” Katsuki digs his fingernails deeper into his skin. “Without a goal, without a need, you’re dead.”

        It clicked, then, for Eijiro. Katsuki didn’t even believe he could escape, even if he hadn’t realized it yet. He just needed a reason to keep going. Did Eijiro have a reason?

        A few weeks later, Katsuki tries to escape again. He fails, obviously, because the cops he’d gone to for help turned him back in. The Man brings him into a room alone, after that, and Katsuki leaves it with a bold 50 carved into his chest.

        He doesn’t cry, but he also doesn’t try to escape again.

-

-

-

To be honest, Bakugou had forgotten what his parents looked like. The realization had crept up behind him, and he didn’t fully understand it until he looked back at all his memories to see their faces blurred out like overly smudged graphite. It had been eight years; he hadn’t had time to think about the past when the future was so lost on him. That was part of the reason he insisted on people using his last name. What if he’d forgotten that too?

He thought that even after he’d escaped, he wouldn’t recognize his mom, even with such distinguished features. At first, this was true. A woman barges into the interrogation room with a fervor that not even he could match and he automatically shrinks away from the sound of the door slamming open. His lapse in fearlessness would’ve been a lot more embarrassing if that thought weren’t playing on loop in his head. What if they came back for him?

Tsukauchi doesn’t look bothered by her presence, but he does seem concerned with the look that passes over Bakugou’s face. He doesn’t have time to explain anything, though, since the woman already has her arms around Bakugou’s neck and he just knows. Because he didn’t forget that.

Her touch is sudden and warm, and Bakugou stiffens a bit at first, not used to hands outside of Eijiro’s,

or The Man’s.

But it’s her. The same hands that violently attempted to tie his shoes perfectly on the first day of school, that carefully cleaned out scraped knees and taught him how to cook curry since only Bakugous know how to appreciate hot sauce. He guesses that she’s more like him than he remembered, since she doesn’t say a word; unable to process the feelings that bleed out from underneath into her chest like ink on a napkin.

Tsukauchi told him before that he’d called his old friend and fellow officer Yagi Toshinori, who had been investigating his disappearance— that Deku was tagging along. Because Bakugou didn’t know about his parents, about his mom’s embrace or his dad’s standing silently behind her, he couldn’t prepare himself for it. He couldn’t build a careful wall of strength, of composure, like he had before Tsukauchi’s interrogation session, and everything came crashing down.

Before he’d been kidnapped, Bakugou remembered loving the movie Iron Man. His mom said he couldn’t watch it until he was older, but his dad snuck him into the movie theatre on his sixth or seventh birthday and it was an instant favorite. Since he’d woken up in the back of The Man’s car, Bakugou, just like Tony Stark, felt like there were pieces of poisonous metal barely touching his heart, his lungs, his stomach, his brain. But now, he was really free, and the metal receded, exiting his body in a choked sob as he clutched the corners of her shirt. Like he was eight years old all over again.

His tears were like rain on his cheeks. It wasn’t the warm rain he’d become so scared of, or the cool rain he desired. They burned into him, they disintegrated the barrier that he’d created between him and the world.

Apparently, Holocaust victims who were given food after their liberation often died because their stomachs had shriveled up too much to hold what they wanted to eat. Sometimes, when shackles come off, the scrapes and bruises they’d left behind become infected and rot away.  A certain pain comes with being free, and it feels like

acid

rain.

He couldn’t be bothered with everyone seeing him as weak, because he wasn’t. It was the first time he’d cried in eight years and he felt stronger than ever.

Chapter Text

Chapter 11: Cat’s Cradle

           Eventually, Katsuki untangled himself from his mother; the remnants of her soft touch still lingered like Band-Aids over his scars. His tears quickly dissipated, though, sticking to his fingers as he tried to rub them out. Words didn’t leave his mouth as quickly as he would’ve liked. It felt like needles were grazing the walls of his throat. Emotions, for Katsuki, came and went like waves. One second, he’s drowning in a tsunami, and the next he’s hacking up the salt.

           His dad approaches eventually. Unlike his mom, Masaru Bakugou didn’t smother him in years of yearning. Back before everything happened, Katsuki remembered having the most outrageous of tantrums on a daily basis. His mom would try and cancel them out with her own brand of outburst, but his dad would sit him down and entwine their fingers together like a cat’s cradle. He’d say that “ whoever lets go first loses.” Katsuki would hold on for dear life.

           Some things don’t change.           

           “Are you okay?” Masaru asked. While they waited for his parents, Yagi, and Deku to arrive, Katsuki went through the possible reunions in his head: emotional hugs and the like. He expected something choked and sad, or angry from his father. But he just had to ask if Katsuki was okay.

           “I— I don’t fucking know.” He wanted to lie, he really did, but the question caught him off guard. Honesty, in its purest form, is a reaction to the unexpected.   

           Deku and his dad must have decided that those words, full of pain and panic, were a cue to truly enter the room. There weren’t any chairs left, so Yagi leaned against the wall, straight-backed and inquisitive as his icy eyes bored holes into the scene in front of him. Deku stood awkwardly between the door and the table, shifting his weight to and from each foot, scratching at his wrist slightly as he tried to figure out what he’d say first.

           “I- I never stopped looking, Kacchan,” he finally says, stammering like he was King George VI and not able to keep his eyes focused on anything. When he makes eye-contact with Katsuki, finally, his words are clearer. More determined. “I need you to know that.”

           “You’re shit at being incognito on the internet, shitty Deku,” Katsuki replies, trying to hide the weight behind his words. “Of course I knew. You trended a fuckin’ hashtag or whatever.”

           “H-How did you know that?”

           “Are you wearing All Might pajamas? ” He changes the subject as quickly as he can. He’s not emotionally capable of holding conversations for more than a few seconds— side-effect of living with two hyperactive morons for years. “You’re such a fuckin’ nerd.”

           Deku looks down at himself, and his face goes red. By the looks of things, he’d been woken up at this lovely hour of ass o’clock in the morning, rushed out of the house to see Katsuki, and hadn’t even brushed his hair, let alone changed out of his disgustingly geeky ensemble. “Oh my god I can’t believe I’m wearing the pajamas.”

           “Katsuki,” his mom says, diverting everyone’s attention towards him once again. Her voice is softer than it’s supposed to be, but he can still hear the fire behind the smoke. “What do you need right now?”  

           She reminds him of Eijiro. Obviously, she’s more explosive and jagged, but she sees through Katsuki easily. She understands his basic nature, hidden behind the years of thorny vines shrouding it. Eijiro had this way of seeing himself in everyone, and it was the one guarantee that kept each person who knew him grounded; Katsuki included.

           “We have to… to find them,” he said, after a few moments of hesitation. “I don’t care about anything else. We fucking find them.”

           “I don’t know who ‘them’ is, but I guess that’s what we’re doing,” his mom says. She tears her eyes away from her son to look at her husband. He nods. Her eyes look like Eijiro’s: warm, but determined. Different from Katsuki’s: razor-sharp and violent. Different from The Man’s.

           “We can’t get too hasty here, Ms. Bakugou,” Tsukauchi protests, pushing himself by his palms into a standing position. “I’m sure Fi— Katsuki here will do good with some rest. And… it’s not like anything we do here will be safe for anyone.” He trailed off, and Katsuki could practically smell the unease oozing out of those shuddering hands.

           “It’s been… it’s been years. But I know my son. He’s stubborn, like me.” His mom reaches over to pat him on the head, trying desperately to be casual about it. Like he was still eight, and like she had seen him just yesterday. But he flinched away from the hand, and she faltered slightly, before laying it on the edge of the table instead. “Whoever we’re finding. We’re finding. ”

           “I’m assuming that they are… ‘Pikachu’ and ‘Shitty Hair’?”

           “Denki and Eijiro!” Deku exclaimed. “The other two, right? Mina said you three were friends.”

           “Mina?” Katsuki was too surprised to replace her name with an insult. “But she got sold off.”

           Deku shook his head, lips caught between smile and frown. Happy that Katsuki was wrong, and Mina had escaped; disturbed at the sheer normalcy behind the words “ she got sold off.”

           “No! She escaped, kinda. She’s been helping us figure out All for One.”

           “Ah,” Katsuki grunts. He and Mina never talked much. They got along with each other, as well as two people could get along when one of them was Katsuki Bakugou, but it was Eijiro that had really taken a shining to her. Hearing she was alive, and not sold off (or dead) was a relief, nonetheless. “What’re you gonna do with that info? That she gave you.”

           “Take it down,” his mom answers. Her arm is stiff, and Katsuki wishes that she’d try and touch him again. Even though he hates the feeling of fingers on his neck. Maybe he’d remember that he wasn’t dreaming. “We’re working on a case, an article. We’re gonna destroy them.”

           “It’s the whole government, mom, but go off I guess.” Katsuki cracks a smile, before realizing what he just said, groaning.

           “Did you just meme?” Deku stifles a laugh.

           “No.”

           “You’ve been locked in a secret experimental facility for 8 years and I had to Nancy Drew your ass just… so you could make a meme reference?” He sighs, before grinning a bit. “It’s good to have you back, Kacchan. I thought you’d be…”

           “Messed up?” He furrows his eyebrows. He plays around with the hem of his shirt. It’s tattered and covered in soot, like the rest of him, and as he stretches it over his thumb, skin shows through. His mouth twists into a scowl, and his voice becomes strained as his throat tightens up with a misplaced anger. “Hell yeah I’m messed up. You don’t know anything about the shit they did to us. But, like everything else, I’m the best at burying that shit.”

           At least until they found Eijiro and Denki. Then he could angst about how much he hated the world, and how it never pulled its punches.

           “We’ll find your friends, Young Bakugou,” Yagi says, eventually. Katsuki remembered him vaguely from when they were kids. He was a police officer, who knew exactly what to say no matter the situation. Before everything, Katsuki wanted to be just like him. A badass who could control anyone’s attention with his presence. “I’m sure they’re very important to you.”

           “They’re not important to me. ” Katsuki bites his lip. “They’re just important.”

            “So, since no one seems ready to listen to me,” Tsukauchi sighs, emphasizing his words to stress the fact that he thought everyone else was a moron. “Do you have any idea where they might be, Bakugou?”

           “We were supposed to meet at that diner,” Katsuki answers, eyes darting to his bruised and bloodied knuckles. “That… didn’t end up happening.”

           “So they could be anywhere?”

           “No. They’re probably close to the diner. They wouldn’t leave without me.” His head lolled back slightly, and his eyes trace the tiles of the ceiling. “Denki can’t walk for long periods of time, and Eijiro got fuckin’ shot before we left— he’s not dead or anyshit. Our shoes are absolute jokes, and it was raining for like a year.”

           “Aizawa is coming back that way,” Yagi says, looking at a text on his phone that likely showed this ‘Aizawa’ person’s location. “He has Mina and Jirou in tow. They can look around while we… figure out the rest.”

           “Should I call Shout— Todoroki?” Deku asks, stammering as he corrects himself.

           “Who now?” Katsuki asks, before answering the request anyways “No.”

           He couldn’t deal with another goddamn pitiful face from the outside world. Not now.

           “Also, I’m not waiting for some random fucking guy to find them. I need to be there—I can’t let them think I left them.”

           Yagi sighs, either fond of Katsuki’s stubborn nature, or frustrated with it. “We’re going to have to leave this station, or the officers here are going to get suspicious. We should consider ourselves lucky that it’s this late, or early, and that not many people are here to realize something is going on.”

           “Yeah, according to what the kid told me,” Tsukauchi pauses to snicker as Katsuki growls, obviously offended by being called a ‘kid’ “I’m one of the odd ones out who don’t turn in escaped… kids.”

           “You can just call us fuckin’ lab rats, that’s what we call ourselves, so you don’t have to be euphemistic about it.”

           “Kacchan…” Deku can’t seem to hold in pity. And Katsuki gets it, he does, but that doesn’t mean he likes it.

           His mom clears her throat.

           “Right. Anyways,” Tsukauchi continues, taking a sip of the coffee that he’d finished an hour ago. “We have to be quick. We can meet at the warehouse? Or…”

           “Our house,” his mom declares. “I don’t care if those bastards come straight for us, we’re going home. It’s big enough, too. If that’s even a problem.”

           “It’s not,” Yagi assures. “Now we just have to figure out how to leave.”

           His dad hadn’t talked much at all, which was in-character. But Katsuki noticed, once they’d decided on a plan, that their hands were still entwined in a cat’s cradle. It almost hurt to separate them.

           “Both of you guys are Kacchan’s parents,” Deku says, motioning towards Mitsuki and Masaru jerkily. “And dad is a cop from the same city that you’re from. So we can just say that we’re moving him to the other station to fill out paperwork and stuff there, to keep things tidy? I’m not sure if it will work, but it seems like the least suspicious way to do it.”

           “It would work,” Tsukauchi agrees, nodding slightly. “Especially since Yagi, you stop by often.”

           “That I do.”

            It ended up working out pretty well, in the end. Tsukauchi bid them farewell, eyes lingering on Katsuki for longer than the others as he whispered a brief “ I’m sorry” that felt less like the pity Katsuki had expected, and more like a means to an end. Like they’d meet again, under better circumstances. He hoped that Tsukauchi was right, underneath it all. Though Katsuki didn’t trust or particularly like the guy, the officer was his first confrontation with safety. His bridge into a world he could barely recognize.

           Yagi and Deku jumped into their incognito police car, while Katsuki and his parents piled into the car he remembered all too well from his childhood. Even the buzz of the air conditioner was the same. His dad drove, and his mom sat in the back seat, so she could be next to him. Their shoulders barely touched, but he could feel her next to him, and he could hear her try to hold back tears.

           No one knew what to say. And so, no one said anything.

-

-

-

           “So, you and Denki’s not-dad, huh?” Mina whistles, taking advantage of her ‘victim’ status to piss Aizawa off as much as possible. The only reason he brought her and Jirou along was because Hizashi and Ms. Kaminari were in their own car close behind, and because the kids they were looking for wouldn’t trust strangers.  It’s not like he could’ve done something about it.

She continues to speak, “Talk about coincidences. Like, the fact that we literally passed that diner where everyone was is one thing, but the fact that we run into your ex? Man, you’re not paid enough for this.”

           “You took the words right out of my mouth,” he mumbles. Mina giggles in response, and maybe it is all worth it.

           “You’re gonna take this exit,” Jirou says, eyes lifting from her phone’s map app. “On the right.”

           “Okay.”

           “Don’t you think it’s weird, Jirou?” Mina asks. “That your foster dad is my foster dad’s ex?”

           “I’m your what now? ”

           “You’re my dad. Duh.” Mina snickers. “You just give off a dad-like energy— and like, you’ve basically adopted me already? It makes so much sense.”

           “You’re bullying him, Mina,” Jirou snorts, accidentally closing out of the map, and inhaling sharply as she tries to load the app again. “The diner will be on your first left, once you get off the highway.”

           “They’re gonna love the ride back!” Mina says, vibrating with excitement. “We can play that song— Blue Rhapsody? Again.”

           “It’s Bohemian Rhapsody.” Jirou shuts the phone off, and drops it into the cup holder under the window. “There is a song called Rhapsody in Blue, but it’s a seventeen minute classical jazz composition.”

           “No Galileo?”

           “No Galileo.”

           “Can we listen to that instead?” Aizawa grumbles.

           “I actually have a playlist of roadtrip jams that I made,” Jirou says. She opens Spotify and scrolls through the playlist faster than Mina can read it, just to prove it existed. “I don’t know if it’d be appropriate, though. Didn’t they just escape from All for One?”

           “You’re gonna forget that they came from there, when you meet them.” She picks at a hangnail, but hisses as she moves her scabbed arms too sharply. “But who knows, maybe they’ll be different without Bakugou around.”

           They pull into the parking lot of the diner. By now, sunlight already leaked from the horizon, reaching into the night sky like wet-on-wet watercolour. Police tape hangs dramatically along the wide windows, and the neon lights feel dimmer than usual. There aren’t any cars, or people to be seen. Strange, since only hours earlier, the place was swarming with what seemed like every walk of life.

           “It feels dead,” Jirou comments. The air smells faintly of cigarettes, probably from the tar stained cement mixing with rain. A post-storm breeze catches her by surprise, lifting the ends of her sweater slightly, and sending shivers up her arms. “You think they’re here?”

           “They can’t be far,” Mina insists.

           “From what Bakugou said, they took the long way around.” Aizawa points towards the foliage across the road. “There are hiking trails throughout the forests around these freeways, for some reason. If they left, they took one of those, I’m betting.”

           They prepared themselves for the worst-case scenario: searching for hours and coming out empty handed, or worse, with two corpses in tow. But in the end, they didn’t have to try very hard. Mina was halfway across the street when a blond mop of hair pops out of the bushes, and based on her exaggerated cry of his name, Aizawa could only assume that it belonged to Denki. The second head, then, must’ve been Eijiro.

           “Mina?” The black-haired kid asked. His voice cracks, as he chokes on tears, bolting into her outstretched arms, Denki following, albeit slower. “You’re alive!”

           “I should be saying the same thing!” Her fingers dig into his spine, knowing that it wouldn’t hurt. “I escaped— we escaped.”

           “You three are in the middle of the highway,” Aizawa grumbles. “We can catch up in the car.”

           “Who’re they?” Denki asks. He motions to Jirou and Aizawa with his eyes, hands busy with the end of Eijiro’s shirt as he stuck to the other kid like glue.

           “Friends,” Mina says, smiling widely. “We should get off the road now.”

           “Yeah.”

           Once they’d gotten to the safety of the parking lot, Mina began to explain everything that she could. “This is Aizawa and Jirou, they’re part of this super squad of vigilantes trying to take All for One down— they’re called One for All, by the way. It’s far out, I know. Anyways, we’re going to meet with everyone else and like…”

She trailed off, realizing that Eijiro had snapped out of his glee in seeing her alive. His eyebrows furrowed slightly, lower lip falling victim to barbed canines. “Mina, we can’t leave without Katsuki.”

“We already found him, kid,” Aizawa says. “That’s where we’re going. They were going to come here, if this wasn’t on my way.”

“He didn’t get captured, then?” Denki’s eyes go wide, like a puppy’s, as he sighs with relief, hands going limp against his side.

“No, he didn’t.” Mina smiles again, even though she hadn’t dropped the grin on her face since they’d reunited. She somehow managed to turn her lips even further upwards. But it fell, slightly and swiftly. “And… Is Sero okay? I know he didn’t come with you but— without me, was he okay?”

“I think so.” Eijiro scratched the back of his neck, shoulders finally slumped in abatement. “He didn’t want to come with. Said he could wait it out until we got all the hard shit over with. I think he’s scared of leaving his parents, though.”

“Makes sense.” She leads them to the car. Aizawa and Jirou follow behind, content with their awkward silence.

“Do you want me to get Maps up for our destination?” Jirou eventually asks him, sticking her hand into her pocket to finger the cold screen.

“I know the way. It’s fine.”

“Ok,” Jirou mumbles. “But the offer’s still there. Just so you know.”

Mina and Eijiro are talking like nothing of the past days had happened, Jirou remembered Mina mentioning their friendship. As they drove to the diner, Mina vibrated with excitement at seeing her friends again, and explained how she and the other boy had bonded over similar experiences.

            “Sero and I are besties, and Ei is close with Denki and Bakugou but… none of them got to All for One in that way, you know?”

           “In what way?” Jirou asked.

           “Sero’s parents were part of the whole… thing. And as you know, Denki and Kat— Bakugou both have families who care.” Mina bobs her head along to the bumps in the road, ringlets of hair bouncing with her. “But Ei and I, we’re not special like that.”

           “Your parents really sold you?” Jirou can’t look Mina in the eye, but feels her gaze on the back of her neck. “I can’t… Imagine that.”

           “Can’t you?” Jirou turns her head, Mina is looking out the window, dazed look in her eye. “Some people aren’t meant for people.”

           Jirou doesn’t reply. Instead, she counts the yellow lines in the road until they’re blurred past recognition. It’s silent until Mina starts going on about Aizawa and Mr. Yamada.

           “You good?”

           Jirou turns to see Denki. His voice bounces around tones of pale yellow, the same hues that seep into the indigo sky. Though he has somewhat angular features, nowhere to be found in his mother, the edges of his jawline are rounded slightly by baby-fat, and his eyes are deep pools of gold that glisten with his movement.

           It takes her a moment to gather herself, breaking the cycle of numbers that had built up in her head. “Yeah, I’m fine.”

           “Ei’s closer to Mina than me,” he says, though unprompted, as if he’s trying to explain why he’s talking to Jirou in the first place. “He’s closer to Katsuki too.”

           “Aren’t you happy that you’re out?” Jirou asks.  He’s not smiling, not in the way that Mina and Eijiro smile. Denki just shrugs.

           “I’m not used to so… much.” He’s wringing his fingers hard enough to break them. His knuckles are bleach white, as if he wants to rip something apart. “My head hurts.”

           “You need Advil?” Jirou always kept painkillers with her in case she got her period. She scrambles for the pill bottle for visual proof.

           “Nah, it won’t do much,” Denki says, laughing humorously. “This is all them. ”

           “Oh. Well if you change your mind—“

           “I’ll let you know.”

           Jirou sighs, turning to face him completely before they pile into the car. Aizawa already sits in the front seat, arm hanging out the window nonchalantly, and the other two were making themselves comfortable in the back seat. “Your parents, they’re going to the same place we are.”

           “My… parents?”

           “Your mom and your sorta-dad?” Jirou elaborates, before spiraling into a tangent before she could stop herself. “I— well I’m a foster kid, and I’ve been staying with them. That’s how I found out about all this. Well, I also follow Deku’s blog; I don’t know if you know about that.”

           “I do. We had a phone, that I stole, back at the facility.” He pulls out a small device. It’s a smart phone, a few years old. Maybe the 6th model, if Jirou were to guess. It was scratched up, as if shoved in far too many corners over its lifetime. He repeats the words “My parents,” as if they were foreign on his tongue. According to Ms. Kaminari, he was only seven or so when he was taken.

           “I hope it isn’t too much for you.”

           “Yeah, who knows?” Denki shrugs again.

           “Wait, if you had a phone this whole time, why didn’t you call the cops or something?”

           Denki shakes his head. “Katsuki escaped once before, and went to the cops. It… didn’t work out well. The Man, he knew we had it. I feel like he was just waiting for us to try calling for help. The only reason we tried to escape now was…”

           Aizawa hits the side of the car, grabbing both Jirou and Denki’s attention. Denki’s head snaps towards the sound, eyebrows furrowing as he winces in response to the noise. “Let’s go, kids, we don’t have all day.”

           “But the day just started, ” Denki mumbles. Jirou smiles. She understood now, why his mom was so heartbroken after he was taken. There was just something… else, about him. Something that nothing could erase.

-

-

-

           Katsuki hadn’t tasted his mom’s hot chocolate in years, but it was just as he remembered it. Slightly too watery, with clumps of un-dissolved chocolate gathered at the bottom and hot enough to burn off all of his taste buds. It was the best thing he’d tasted in eight years. The food at the facility was monitored and sparse, tasting like dull cardboard on every day except Christmas. They’d bake cookies on Christmas which, albeit were horrible , were the one thing anyone ever looked forward to. His dad had given Katsuki this huge plaid button up, which he wore like a blanket; it hung off of his body like drapery.  

           He sits in silence on a couch chair in the living room. The house he’d grown up in is now unfamiliar to him, from the terrazzo floors to the pictures of himself on the wall. So he sits alone, knees tucked to his chest as he drinks his mom’s shitty hot chocolate, and tries not to listen to everyone in the next room over as they talk about him.

           About ten minutes after they’d gotten to the house, and his mom rushed to make him hot chocolate, Deku’s stupid HeroNet boyfriend (they denied it, but Katsuki begs to differ) Todoroki still ended up coming over, since his dad also helped run this whole operation. Though Katsuki hated the guy the second he saw his stupid pretty-boy face, he couldn’t help but feel grateful that Deku was out of his hair for five seconds. Since they’d reunited, Deku had been trying to weave his way through Katsuki’s account of the last eight years, subtly dropping hints through nervous consolations that he wanted to know more .

           So now he was just alone, finally able to breathe. Chocolatey steam fills his lungs as he relishes in silent air, waiting for the sound of another car sliding into the driveway. Because maybe then he’d see everyone that he needed to see, before he went completely insane.

           Eventually, Denki’s parents arrive, and that goes about as well as Katsuki expects. Denki’s mom looks just like her son, in spite of the curvature of her cheeks that contrasted with Denki’s lean and awkward figure. She looked him up and down, before immediately asking if her son was okay.

           “I don’t even fuckin’ know that,” Katsuki answers. “I’m waiting here just like you.”

           “I’m not asking if he’s alive. We know that he is.” Her hands twitch at her sides, longing to shake him violently in her search for answers. “I’m asking if he’s okay .”

           It takes a while for Katsuki to reply. He can give the woman any number of answers. “You want honesty?” She nods. “Then no. No, he’s not.”

           “Oh.”

           “What the fuck would you expect?”

           She doesn’t say anything, because there wasn’t much that she could say. Katsuki’s glad that she moves away from him, even if it hurts to look at her sitting alone on the couch mirroring his. Her eyes look into nothing, ghosts of memories that she’d long forgotten. She looks so lonely, and maybe Katsuki looks the same, but he still can’t help but pity her.

           After what seemed like hour she living room fills with bright headlights, as a car moves past the window and into the driveway. Katsuki’s heart leaps into his throat as he sees three familiar faces leave the car. So Mina was alive, after all? It didn’t matter, because Katsuki was out the door in seconds.

           It took him a second to swallow his pride, and actually smile for the first time in what seemed like forever as he met Eijiro’s eyes. “We fuckin’ made it, Ei.”

           Eijiro knew that Katsuki hated when people touched him, and Katsuki knew that Eijiro wouldn’t feel any touch at all— but in that moment, they held onto each other as if none of that mattered. It did matter. Eijiro missed the warmth of another, and Katsuki still felt The Man’s icy fingers underneath the embrace. Right then, however, all of that faded away. They stayed entwined like that, a cat’s cradle, even after they’d untangled from their desperate embrace. Because some things don’t change.

Chapter Text

Chapter 12: Calm Before

Naturally, Hanta heard the explosion. He heard it well, blasting back against the wall in shock at the noise, even though he knew it was coming. He never actually thought that Bakugou could get away with it, and even then, he wasn’t even sure if the kid could actually stay free after blowing the hallway to shit— everyone knew the reasoning behind Bakugou’s number. Either way, whatever ended up happening didn’t matter, because Hanta had this moment, this night, to fix everything .

After Bakugou had sucked up his monstrous pride and asked him for the nitroglycerin, Hanta quickly figured that this was his chance to put everything on the line. He agreed immediately. His parents were quick to supply it, so long as he didn’t look at them with that cold, blank stare of his; so long as he didn’t reaffirm their status as awful people. They barely asked questions, and when they did, he never really answered.

“What do you need with all that nitroglycerin, Hanta?”

“It’s supposed to be a pain reliever or something. My friend won’t stop screaming.”

He made sure to snatch his mother’s ID as she tried to hug him. She always tried to hug him­— as if she didn’t deserve to feel that remorse.           

           Unlike the other kids at the facility, Hanta had connections to the outside, and used his parents’ guilt as a shield against the true monstrosities that laid beneath the perfectly polished floors. Even though he trained and learned alongside the other kids, and ate the bland food, they didn’t do much of anything to him; he had no skin grafts, burn scars, or brain surgeries. He was their control subject— patient zero.

Mina was the first person to treat him normally. His parents thought he was this breakable piece of porcelain that they’d made all wrong. The other lab rats were jealous, or eager to please him. He could get anything he wanted, and they didn’t stick any knives into him— so they saw him as an outsider. In between human and animal: the worst limbo to live in. Nevertheless, Mina had this way of thriving in the missing sunlight, and quickly brought him into the loop of complaining about trials, and gossiping about Eijiro and Bakugou’s ambiguous relationship just like everyone else. Hanta was an only child, but that’s what he thought that having a sister would be like. Everything just gets a little bit brighter. Now, she was gone and he had nothing to lose.

           And in spite of all that, he always kept a calm mind. Every rat in the facility had their trauma, and they lashed out in different ways. Like how Bakugou rejected other people, and Eijiro clung onto them for dear life; like how Mina kept her heart above her pain, and Denki couldn’t decide which one to let go. Hanta saw the world as it was, dark, but held together with bright seams. People just never let their eyes adjust, too scared of the void, too overwhelmed by the exposure.

           And while Bakugou was clever, calculating, he couldn’t wrap that mind around anything outside of action. Hanta, on the other hand, acted as an observer. A broker. He stayed behind, waiting for the cavalry to arrive, in case nothing worked out. But, as his ears ring and the alarms blare and researchers panic outside, Hanta makes use of his mom’s ID, and breaks into the records office.  

           Every computer had the same password. The Man chose it as some sort of sick joke, or obsession: Katsuki. Hanta always cringes as he types it out, but it doesn’t slow him down at all. It takes a few minutes to compile everything into one folder and send it. The phone that Denki stole wasn’t as big of a secret as they pretended it was. Everyone knew about it, but for some reason, no one snitched. Or maybe they did, and The Man did nothing about it. Either way, Hanta quickly logs into Denki’s HeroNet account, which the boy had given to him before the three had made their escape, and sends everything he can to @deku (Mina mentioned it at one point), before leaving the room, and the ID inside of it, to face the alarms.

           They gather all the rats, corralling them into the Cafeteria, and keeping everyone silent as they took roll call. The Man looked distressed— countenance morphing into mortification as the silent hours ticked on. Bakugou had escaped. Eijiro and Denki had gone with him. Maybe it was well-disguised hope, or a logical reasoning, but Hanta was sure that it was for good, this time.

           Maybe, for once, he wouldn’t be left in the dust.

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New Post from @deku

Hey,

You’ve probably already noticed that I’m not doing the whole “dear Kacchan” thing with this post, since we’ve found him already. I made that post (the vague one about finding him) a month ago, and I’ve been getting a ton of messages and queries about what exactly happened. I even noticed the whole trending hashtag with everyone’s theories and stuff, back when the post first went up, by the way. But after everything that’s been made public over the past week or two, most of you have connected the dots. That Kacchan is one of the kids from the news, from that facility.

           I wasn’t going to make this post initially, since I didn’t want to breach his privacy, but Kacchan literally just said to “do whatever the fuck you want” when I asked, so I decided to explain things as vaguely as possible, since I do think all of you guys deserve an explanation. Especially since I got a lot of help searching through this website and my fanbase (omg that word is so weird to say). So, I’ll go through what happened.

For those who haven’t been keeping up with the news, I’ll briefly explain the All for One situation. Because of global tensions, the government has funded many private weapons programs in hopes of gaining a neutral status in the hypothetical next world war (as WW2 still remains a scar on our country). One of those weapons manufacturers was a shady scientific program called All for One, which officially worked in training soldiers to work with integrated tech, though as we have now found out is not the case. They purchased orphaned or forgotten children and experimented on them. I won’t go too in depth on it, since the details are still under wraps, until all of the people who played a hand in the facility are found and brought down.

           But anyways, once we had concrete proof (some leaked documents from another source that I won’t reveal at this time), Kacchan’s dad wrote up the article that has been on the front page of every news outlet for the past few weeks.

           Luckily, most of the government isn’t even involved. The prime minister was completely ignorant of the program’s specifics, as were most of the main operatives of the government. It seems like this particular program slipped through everyone’s fingers, even though it has been confirmed to have had connections/communication with countries such as North Korea, the United States, Iran, and Russia, which all act as global superpowers when it comes to warmongering.

           Anyways, the children’s identities were mostly nonexistent (especially since their fingertips were burnt/melted off), but are still being kept under wraps for now. But once all of this information came out, people were quick to catch on.  

           @earphone-jackk (another user who has helped us out a ton), @hotandcold, and I ended up joining up with that organization One for All, that you’ve been seeing all over the news. My dad and Kacchan’s parents were both a part of it since the case file was strangely closed, and when I found out about it, I had to join. Through a long and convoluted series of ironies and events, we found a group of the children from the All for One facility that had somehow escaped. One of which was Kacchan.

           Things will be hard. It’s hard enough for me, getting used to seeing this person who is both so familiar, but so far away. For seeing all of these kids my age who had their whole lives stolen from them. It’s hard to watch them cry, but it’s harder to see them smile, since it’s so rare. I will still post from time to time about my life, maybe I’ll give more insight into what is going on with all of the kids. Though Kacchan and a few others have families or people willing to take them in (@hotandcold’s family is watching over one of Kacchan’s friends, who I’ll call Ei, until Kacchan’s parents get the rights to foster, and another officer that was part of One for All is fostering a girl, who I’ll call Pinky, as per request), there are almost fifty others who can neither find a family, nor get sent into the system, because of their condition (physical and mental.)

           School is also weird, since the semester is almost over, and I really haven’t thought much of it. I know that Kacchan and his friends want to go to school, for the last semester. I don’t really know if it’ll happen, and I don’t know if it will work out, but I thought I would mention it.

           I hope that things will get better. Everything, despite how this whole story is so blown up (like… internationally too, which is totally weird) has been oddly quiet. I can’t help but feel like this is just a calm before the storm, which scares me. One of these days, I know that something is going to explode, and nothing will be able to put the pieces back together. Everything is so haphazard as it is.

           Anyways, that’s it.

Likes  50,060 Reblogs  10,003 Comments 45,007

           >@ hotandcold Hey look you trended another hashtag

> @kingexplosionmurder stop calling me Kacchan ur so fucking lame

> @deku ;) no

           > @rockhardriot I think it’s cute lmao

                                   >”Holy shit does Kacchan have a HeroNet account??!”

> @kingexplosionmurder yes, I’m working to surpass Deku in followers.

           > @deku I feel so loved

                                   >”DUDE WHAT THE HELL IS HIS USN THO”

                                               > @kingexplosionmurder it’s amazing fuck you

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Waking up for Eijiro, was still a big deal. His eyes would flutter open, expecting to see the barren, unfriendly walls of the facility, only to see the sweeping windows and ghostly drapes of Todoroki’s guest room. Despite its white walls and furniture, the room had a sense of life to it, from its navy trim, to the Japanese style flooring. It was weird, feeling both so enamored with his freedom, and so empty at the same time. Because he didn’t belong in this dollhouse. He belonged strapped to a metal table, screaming his lungs out.

After they’d published the article, something that Eijiro had no part in (other than watching from the other room, as Deku, or rather, Izuku’s mom patched up everyone’s wounds), everything moved very fast. The government and the police couldn’t really cover up something that everyone saw, especially once the article was reposted everywhere. The documents that Sero sent were definite proof of everything that had happened— so no matter what All for One tried to do, they’d lose.

But for a while, it didn’t feel like they won. Even though investigations and arrests began, One for All, the coalition of worried parents (as Katsuki called them), started to face legal repercussions for many of the things they did. Sure, the hypocrisy of the situation kept anyone from getting sued or arrested— but they became the center of a global conspiracy, and were the sole focus of media attention even months after the fact, and those on the team in the police force had their licenses suspended for a few months. Despite Katsuki and Denki’s parents being very much alive and capable of watching their children, all of the lab rats were taken to a government owned facility, often used for witness protection or something, to keep them out of the limelight.

It made sense, and the rats who didn’t make a break for it were elated to be anywhere but All for One— but for Eijiro, and Katsuki, and everyone who had seen the grass and the sky, it was different. They had tasted the rain in the air, only to get thrown into another cage. Luckily, Katsuki’s parents, Denki’s mom, and Aizawa managed to get clearance to live a floor above the kids until everything blew over, so it wasn’t all that bad. Eventually, Denki and Katsuki were released to their families, and Todoroki’s father was cleared to watch over Eijiro until Katsuki’s parents finished the necessary procedures to foster him. Mina and Sero went to live with Aizawa, and everything seemed to be okay.

But waking up still felt so ambivalent, and Eijiro wasn’t really sure how to react.

It always took him a moment to figure himself out, before lifting himself out of the bed, pull on borrowed clothes, and trudge down the stairs. Even though Todoroki had made it perfectly clear that he could “Do whatever. You’re living here for a while anyways,” he had to hold down a lurch in his heart and force his feet to move forwards.

It would be hard for Eijiro to hate a man who risked everything to save him, who took him in, but things felt almost too familiar, sometimes.

Often, days at the Todoroki household weren’t much different than days at his own parents’ house, back when he was only eight years old. Though Mr. Todoroki didn’t seem to hit any of his children, he had this air of superiority that followed him everywhere, and Eijiro could see how it frayed the edges of his family. He made condescending comments towards his kids, and always made a point to show exactly how disappointed he was in everyone. And though Eijiro wanted nothing more than to just ask the youngest Todoroki about everything, he knew that the answer would be too complicated for him to understand.

As he tiptoes down the stairs, Eijiro hears the echo of a scream-fest, and a slamming door. He waits a few beats, before heading to the kitchen. Todoroki is there, sipping on some coffee and scrolling through his phone. His eyes flash to Eijiro, and he straightens his back slightly to acknowledge his presence.

“Hey.” Eijiro smiles slightly at Todoroki’s deadpan greeting. “Want a coffee or something?”

“Nah,” Eijiro chuckles, sitting in front of the other boy. “Do you have anything sweet?”

The biggest mistake Todoroki had made, when Eijiro had first moved in, was offering the kid ice cream. As it turned out, being cut off from sugar for years gave Eijiro a sweet tooth. Or maybe he had one this whole time. Either way, one of Todoroki’s older brothers started bringing handfuls of Splenda sugar packets home from his café job just to quell Eijiro’s cravings.

“Can I ask… What it was all about today?” Eijiro asks, readily accepting the orange juice that Todoroki slides over. “The fighting.”

“You can always ask, Kirishima,” Todoroki says, formal as ever. When he makes eye contact, Eijiro noticed, Todoroki stares through you. It’s unsettling, but also, almost flattering. “You live here. It’s not going to be a secret if you live here.”

“Okay, then.” Eijiro finishes off the orange juice quickly. “What was it about, today?”

“Touya and my dad have always disagreed on my mother’s… status,” Todoroki explained. “It came to a head, again, today.”

“Touya… Your eldest brother, right?” Eijiro clarifies. The eldest Todoroki had started living at home again as he waited for his university schedule to start back up again. He seemed pretty cool, but only left his room to leave the house. “You never really explained your mom.”

“She’s in… a hospital,” Todoroki explains. “She’s always been unstable, but my father only made it worse.”

“Ah.”

“I’m sure this is boring you.”

“It’s not! Not that it’s like, exciting , or anything. Like, I don’t enjoy hearing about your family issues, but… I don’t want to be in the dark.”

“You’re similar to Izuku, you know,” Todoroki observes. His coffee is stagnant, cold, but he keeps taking short sips to keep himself distracted. “Always doubting yourself.”

“Maybe.” Eijiro shrugs. “If we’re on that, you remind me a bit of Katsuki.”

Todoroki cocks an eyebrow. “How so?”

“You have something to prove.” Eijiro rubs his thumb into the side of the glass, creating a positive feedback loop of pressure and friction. “Not everyone has that.”

Todoroki doesn’t respond to that. Instead, he changes the subject. “They finally found Tomura Shigaraki, you know.”

He doesn’t say anything. Despite not knowing his tormentor’s name for eight years, the sound of it sends chills up Eijiro’s spine. For the longest time, The Man had been loose— somehow managing to escape the authorities’ clutches by the skin of his teeth for the past month and a half. If Todoroki spoke the truth, that meant that he really was free.

But, just like everything else, he still didn’t feel like it.

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           Katsuki was having a harder time than he thought he would with all of this “freedom” bullshit. He didn’t really know why. Sure, there was all that PTSD stuff, but his life had gone from “when you die, you’ll already be rotten,” to suburban upper class neighborhoods with clear-blue skies in an instant— and yet he still felt like absolute garbage.

           Though everything was blowing over smoothly, he was rarely even allowed out of the house. His parents didn’t agree with it, but it was the only way they’d get to keep him home, instead of at the second facility (which Katsuki had appropriately dubbed “All for Two”). But he stayed in touch with Eijiro and Denki through HeroNet, and Deku would bring his friends over whenever he could, hoping that Katsuki could get used to people. So, he wasn’t completely isolated.

           It was still irking, being on house arrest. More than anything, he just wanted to go outside, past the confines of their front yard, and into the woods flanking their neighborhood. He could see the silhouette of some small mountain in his window, and was drawn to it like a magnet. Sometimes he felt like he was dreaming— not because things were too good to be true, but rather, because things got farther and farther away, no matter how much he’d run and reach.  He knew that eventually, he’d get to go outside, or hang out with Eijiro and Denki in the context of normalcy, or maybe even go to school and live a normal life, that was a future he could see. But the present was a blindfold.

           It took his parents’ nagging and a whole month before Katsuki could take that blindfold off.

           Katsuki still felt like a stranger in his own life. He sat awkwardly in the passenger seat of his mom’s car, index finger fiddling with the window switch without actually pushing it down. The car felt unfamiliar, leather’s distinct smell mixed with his mother’s cinnamon, and created a space that he’d never truly experienced. His limbs, lanky and unused to the vehicle, felt foreign, as they didn’t know where to go. He kept his hands busy with the seatbelt, but his legs bounced, unrestrained, with the car’s movement.

           They stop in front of a hospital.

           His mother exhales loudly, likely to remind her son that she was there. “You sure you want to do this? You really don’t have to.”

           He shrugs.

           “Okay, well, we can leave whenever if you need to.”

           The hospital is the embodiment of déjà vu. He’d never been there before, but the white walls and lab coats leave a bad taste in his mouth. It’s not the same, nothing could really compare to All for One, but throughout their walk down the hallway, its ghostly hand gripped Katsuki’s center of gravity, and he felt sick.

           “We’re here to see a man named… Tetsutetsu Tetsutetsu?” Mistuki inquires, giving the receptionist a signature mix of death-glare and wide-smile. As the woman phones it in, Mitsuki looks towards Katsuki, who keeps his head down. He still wears his dad’s flannel shirt often, even after Mitsuki brought a bunch of clothes from her workplace. It feels like escape and control. “Strange name, isn’t it?”

           “I guess.”

           “Don’t be a downer, hon,” she teases. There’s no weight behind her words; they dance limply through the air in flickering arcs as she tiptoes around him. “You were the one who wanted to come.”

           They arrive at the hospital room, and Katsuki prepares himself for a long internal battle over whether or not to actually knock, but his mom throws the door open. The man must’ve been waiting for him, and nods at Mitsuki, who pushes Katsuki lightly into the room.

            Back at All for One, they’d pit rats against each other, but mostly they brought in soldiers or prisoners for them to use as punching bags. Katsuki never stuck around long enough to see the damage he’d made. Not until now; balancing precariously on the threshold and staring at the man he practically murdered at the diner. Even though it’s been a month, the guy’s face is lined with stitches, and his eyes are bulging and bloodshot. The blood was gone, and his posture only held kindness, so he looked like a whole other person.

            “So you’re Katsuki?” The guy asks. His voice has this gravelly cadence that disguised any of his actual opinions towards the situation.

           “Don’t you already know my name?” Katsuki replies. He tries to keep the bite out of his tone, but he’d sharpened his tongue over the years, and the words still leave marks. “What I look like?”

           “I met you as a stranger,” the man, Tetsutetsu, explains. “I’m greeting you now, as a friend.”

           “Why?”

           “I’ve been in and out of consciousness since I got here, sure, but everyone’s seen the news.” Tetsutetsu leans back, letting his head rest against the wall. “Tsukauchi filled me in on enough once you expressed interest in seeing me.”

           “I still fucked you up,” Katuski growls. “I fucked you up, because of my own business. It shouldn’t be ‘enough.’”

           “You do pack a punch,” Tetsutetsu agrees, nodding as much as he can with the stitches. “To be honest, it still hurts like a bitch.”

           Katsuki expected anger, he’d built himself up for tears and guilt and rage , but he’s met with a smile, and his world breaks from its axis for a moment where he honestly doesn’t know what to say. “I don’t understand.”

           “Sure, I’m angry at what you did— who wouldn’t be?” He scratches at the back of his neck. “But hating you, who just got out of that place? It wouldn’t be fair. There’s no correct answer, so there’s really no point in dwelling on it.”

           “I don’t regret it,” Katsuki clarifies. “I would fuck you up again, if I could go back.”

           “Why?”

           He shrugs. “I just would.”

           “That sure makes me feel better.”

           “Good.”

           Tetsutetsu’s laugh throws him off. “You’re… kind of an awful kid, you know that?”

           “It’s the trauma,” he snaps. The words exit his mouth naturally, but they’re lies. Eijiro, Denki, Mina, Soy-Sauce— they all went through the same years, without building up this wall of bitterness towards the world.

           “Honestly, I should be thanking you,” Tetsutetsu says, chuckling at the puzzled expression on Katsuki’s face. “The waitress at the diner? She stayed at the hospital until I woke up. I think she felt guilty? I don’t know. Anyways, she’s a pretty cool person— and it’s because of you that I met her.”

           “That’s fuckin’ weird.” Katsuki realizes that at some point, he’d sat down on the empty hospital bed next to Tetsutetsu. “You’re forgiving me because I indirectly set you up with some chick?”

           “I don’t think so.”

           Katsuki is silent.

           “Back in high school, I got into some pretty rough stuff. Drugs, parties, gangs— I was frustrated that I didn’t fit into the mold I’d made for myself, and ended up working an inconsequential, minimum wage nine to five job. I lived in a daze, half-asleep, so I couldn’t feel the pain. Your fist just happened to wake me up.

“No one is really made for each other, I think. They always say that some people are cut from the same stone, but I disagree.” He lifts his hand up to the ceiling, as if grabbing a ghost that only he could see. “I think that people click when they hurt. When there’s a hole to fill.”

“You think?” Katsuki clasps his hands together, thumbs instigating a civil war as they dance around each other nervously.

“Absolutely.” Tetsutetsu cracks his back slightly, before meeting Katsuki’s eyes. “If you really want to make it up to me, why don’t you visit some more?”

“Why would you want to see me again?” He understood why Tetsutetsu had initially wanted to meet with him: for an answer, a confrontation. But now, he wanted to know Katsuki, and it didn’t make sense. Just like how he saw The Man’s red eyes like sun spots, Katsuki’s feral countenance was probably carved into Testutetsu’s eyelids. “Don’t you have that PTSD shit?”

“Well yeah, but so do you.” He lies back down on the bed, and Katsuki takes this as a cue to stand up. “I’m not sayin’ that what you did was all right, that you don’t got screws loose in that head of yours. But… Sometimes you have to shove it all aside to be happy. That’s what I did, anyways.”

“Guess so.”

Tetsutetsu was just like Eijiro. He was strong and unyielding, but embraced the world with open arms. Embraced Katsuki with open arms. But Katsuki was sharp, and only left scars.

“I hurt you again, Eijiro,” Katsuki whimpered.

He’s twelve years old and the nightmares haven’t gotten any better. The Man keeps calling him into his office, and the treatments feel worse and worse as training days get longer. But Eijiro restrains his flailing body as he cries out in the night, even as his fists fly.

“It’ll be fine,” Eijiro says, fingers gracing the slightly marred skin of his cheek. “It doesn’t hurt too bad.”

“But I hurt you.”

“Yeah, I guess that’s what they’re trying to fix, huh?” He smiles. “I guess there’s one good thing about all this. I can help you, and you won’t hurt me! Best of both worlds.”

“Just leave me alone, or you’ll get hurt.”

“You’re not alone, Katsuki. You’ll never be.”

Maybe they just had thicker skin.

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“And… That’s six seconds.” Jirou’s thumb lands cleanly on the stop switch as Denki solves his Rubiks cube for what seemed like the hundredth time that day. “Still not Feliks Zemdegs, but Ripley’s can wait.”

           Denki narrows his eyes, tossing the cube between his crossed legs and reaching for the phone. “Lemme see that.”

           “Sure,” Jirou laughs. “Still a six.”

           He looks like a puppy when he pouts, and his animated hair seems to slouch alongside the rest of him. He’d been trying to beat the 3x3x3 Rubiks cube world record for about four hours now, and under Jirou’s watchful coaching, they were on their way to the end goal.

           “It’s not even because of me,” Denki protests. “Like, the cube itself is sticky. The cubes don’t move as fast as they do for the pros.”

           “Tell yourself that, Mr. IQ.”

           “I do, every goddamn day.”

           It’s easy to forget about everything, when they’re like this. Jirou knows that, eventually, something will happen. Either something will trigger a meltdown, or the sun will set, effectively putting an end to their carefully crafted safety net.

           While all the kids (she refused to call them labrats like Denki and the others did) were holed away in “All for Two,” they managed to see the extent of damage that the original facility had enacted on each of them. The files that Hanta Sero had sent gave everyone an idea of what each kid went through medically, but extensive physical examinations brought even more problems to their attention. For example, Katsuki went through such extensive withdrawal that they still kept him on extremely minimal doses of the stuff he’d been on before until they figured out exactly why his body reacted so strongly.

           It was no different with Denki.

           Only his friends from the facility really knew how to deal with his shutdowns, so when he started shaking and screaming, clutching his head in such inhuman pain, on that first night he’d gotten back, everyone else was at a loss for words. Apparently, his nerves were rewired just so , making thought processes much faster and efficient— but sometimes the electrical pulses hit some weird roadblock, and the whiplash was too much to take.

           But even then, he didn’t seem separate from reality.

           “Wanna try again? Or…” She resets the timer, and looks up for confirmation.

           He shrugs. “Dunno. I could use food.”

           “Yeah, same.” She helps him up from the couch, leading him to the kitchen by his wrist.

     Ms. Kaminari sits there happily drinking some coffee. Though she’d always been a compassionate person, Jirou noticed that Ms. Kaminari had become brighter over the past month, as if blinded by her own optimism. The woman waves slightly, smile dancing at her lips.

“Have fun?”

“Yeah.”

Denki stayed quiet. Jirou knew that he loved his mom, even though his memories of her were few and far between, but she couldn’t notice that he seemed wary of her. Conversation between the two was one sided, and awful to watch, because Jirou knew how badly, and how long Ms. Kaminari had yearned for this.

He seems happy enough with some water and a bag of chips, but Ms. Kaminari takes their snack run as a cue to start preparing dinner.

“Jirou, honey, did you get your homework done?” Ms. Kaminari asks, pouring some oil into a frying pan.

“Oh right, it’s Sunday, dammit,” Jirou groans. “I just have some math or something.”

School. That was the problem, or one of the problems. Once school started back up, most of the week was spent away from home and away from Denki. If it weren’t for HeroNet and his mom, he was completely alone. Unlike Katsuki and Eijiro, Denki lived almost two hours away from everyone he cared about, that made him feel safe. Without Jirou, he had no distraction from all that.

“I can do the math for you, if you want,” Denki offered. “That’s what I’m kind of the best at.”

“Yeah, and then I’ll fail the test,” Jirou explains. “But… I might take you up on that later.”

They now sat in her bedroom, Denki playing around with random strings of code on the computer Mr. Yamada had gotten him. Though he’d expressed contempt towards his supposed “purpose,” using his skills relaxed him, anchored him.

“Oh right, Denki,” Jirou exclaims, startling him slightly. “Oh, sorry.”

“S’all good,” he rubs the back of his head slightly. “What is it?”

“Tomorrow we’re gonna go out,” she explains. “I got clearance and stuff, don’t worry. I think you’ll like it.”

“Okay...” He trails off. “You sure?”

“Yeah.”

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one month earlier

           “How the hell do you even know what a vine is?” Jirou exclaims.

           “Oh, right,” Denki giggles, “Did Mina tell you about the phone I stole?”

           “Yeah, I think?”

           “Cool, cool. Well we had access to the internet and had nothing better to do at night. So I guess we just started watching compilations, and they spread to the rest of the rats.”

           “Why do you call them that?”

           “Call what that?”

           “Call yourselves ‘rats’?”

           “Dunno, it just fit, I guess.”

           “So you had the internet?”

           “Yeah,” he smiles. “It made the past few years a bit more bearable, to be honest.”

           “Why didn’t you call for help?”

           “And risk losing everything?” He fiddles around with the edges of his shirt. ‘All for Two’ had given the kids these unflattering scrubs to wear while everything else was pending. Jirou often visited when she could, something about Denki felt like she’d known him for a long time. “Katsuki, he tried to escape so many times. We knew at that point that some, if not all of the nearby police were on their side. Paid off, or something. Dunno.”

           “I hear that they kept some of their employees in the force, is that it?”

           “Probably. Either way, Katsuki didn’t want to risk it until he was sure that things would work out.” He shrugs. “Turns out the phone was a trap, in the end. The Man was waiting for us to contact the outside world.”

           “So you didn’t even talk to people online?”

           “I guess I did.” He’s silent for a moment, before talking again. “Are you earphone-jackk?”

           “What?”

           “On HeroNet.” He took a deep breath. “Is that your account name? Earphone-Jackk.”

           “Yeah. How do you know that?”

           Something in her already knew, that Denki was chargebolt. Not consciously, but a feeling bubbled under her skin as she really realized.

           “You don’t know this, but you were my first real friend outside of Katsuki and Eijiro. I guess Mina and I were close, but we didn’t click like I clicked with the rest of them. Not until now, when we can actually talk.”

           “You’re…”

           “Yeah.”

           Her first instinct is to apologize. “Sorry” is the only word she can taste. Sorry for not reaching out faster, sorry for thinking that all of your words were jokes, sorry for not realizing. But in the end, she doesn’t say anything, and accepts his arms around her.

           “Thank you,” he says.

           “For what?”

           “For you.”

-

-

-

           Katsuki leaves the hospital with tears in his eyes. They don’t fall, they never do, but he can taste salt in his mouth. His mom walks silently behind him, not really sure how to deal with the conversation she’d heard between her son and Tetsutetsu, and not really sure how to bring it up. As the car pulls out of the parking lot, Katsuki can see another vehicle following him, likely some government agent sent to make sure he didn’t lose it again. Especially since the hospital was only their first stop.

           He looks down at his phone. He’d ended up keeping the one Denki stole, refusing to get a new one until it bit the dust. Something about running his thumb over the slightly cracked screen felt safe.

< 1 message from @rockhardriot>

@rockhardriot <5:09 PM>

hey Kat

@kingexplosionmurder <5:12 PM>

call me that one more time and you’re dead

@rockhardriot <5:12 PM>

how did it go?

@kingexplosionmurder <5:14 PM>

how did what go

@rockhardriot <5:14 PM>

seeing that guy

that you beat up

@kingexplosionmurder <5:15 PM>

my mom told you?

Bitch

@rockhardriot <5:15 PM>

actually it was Todoroki

who was told by Izuku

who was told by his dad

who was told by the police officer

@kingexplosionmurder <5:16 PM>

who was told by my mom

bitch

@rockhardriot <5:17 PM>

ill ignore ur flawed reasoning bc u are obviously changing the subject

how did it go

@kingexplosionmurder <5:17 PM>

it went fine

@rockhardriot <5:18 PM>

good

@kingexplosionmurder <5:18 PM>

the guy was like you

@rockhardriot <5:20 PM>

like me?

So accepting and forgiving and wonderful

@kingexplosionmurder <5:20 PM>

no

he was fucking annoying

@rockhardriot <5:20 PM>

love u too

<5:39 PM>

do you know yet about Shigaraki

the man*

@kingexplosionmurder <5:40 PM>

I know he exists and that I hate his stupid shady pervy sociopath guts

but no Im not "caught up on the news"

@rockhardriot <5:41 PM>

they found him

I heard from Todoroki

Im happy hes behind bars but im not sure how I feel about it

Its like everything is over so fast u kno

Something shitty is gonna happen I think

@kingexplosionmurder <5:43 PM>

Yeah

I get that

@rockhardriot <5:44 PM>

phew I thought I was alone

@kingexplosionmurder <5:45 PM>

you’re not

youll never be