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Chapter Text

The mild slap against the back of her head, the scolding – it shouldn’t ease something inside of her but it does, her gaze fixated somewhere on her socked feet, hands shoved into the pockets of her pants and mouth dipped down in a scowl.

A sigh, a familiar stranger crouching down before her, a firm hand gripping her chin to tilt her head, studying the blossoming bruises, the tampon she’d stuffed up her bleeding nose.

“You can’t keep getting into fights like this, Katsuki,” the woman says and she shrugs dispassionately, refusing to meet worried eyes.

-

Bakugou Katsuki is the name of the body she’d woken up into some eight years ago – breathing in the smell of antiseptic, strangers grasping and squeezing her hands, unable to move, barely able to twitch as the days counted by, fading in and out of sleep, forced to absorb and come to terms with the situation she found herself in.

The strangest thing is the noise.

The world as she knew it was no longer quiet but filtered with everything from voices to machines to the low buzz of electronics, the wind outside the hospital room, the shift of the bed, the brush of fabric as she shifted, the crinkle of papers, the-

She spends hours staring up at the ceiling, trying to comprehend the sheer life of the world around her, twitchy and sensitive to the slightest of noise after nearly twenty-two years of complete and utter silence.

-

There’s static remains of what they had been – memories and impressions, violence pounding deep and hard through her, impatience badly tampered by bouts of apathy.

We’re both dead, this is the fundamental basis that makes up Bakugou Katsuki.

-

Noise cancelling headphones in bright orange around her neck, the new uniform half-heartedly shrugged on, tie hanging loose around her neck, toast snagged between her teeth and backpack hanging off one shoulder.

Katsuki squints up at the large walls of U.A. knowing she should feel something but finding only deep rooted apathy.

Even after everything; their move, the many schools she’d gone through, therapists that didn’t stop pushing, doctors that didn’t stop shaking their heads - she’d been accepted into U.A. with top scores, the news delivered by All Might himself on a small circular disc.

I owe him this much, she thinks as she dispassionately chews her way through the toast, one hand shoved deep into her pocket as she ambles her way into the school.

-

What’s in a Hero? Katsuki doesn’t know but she knows she wants to be the Best.

In a world of grey scales, a world without meaning, this is what she clings to for it had meant something once and she is desperate for it to mean something once again.

-

Midoriya Izuku is a name she hasn’t heard in years and her mind identifies him as Deku long before a nervous mouth opens with a stutter, eyes wide upon her.

Kacchan.

An exchange of nicknames, a stirring of something that had been – a curl of dislike heavy in her gut, cheek heavy against her palm, elbow against the table, half-slumped and already irritated by the choppy motions of the boy who’d practically shoved himself into her personal space when he’d spotted her with her tie dangling loose around her neck.

“I-It’s nice to see you again…?” Deku says awkwardly, wavering in place, painfully earnest for all that he fiddles in place.

Her mouth curls down and she looks away from him – Mitsuki’s warnings of starting anything ringing painfully at the back of her mind.

Don’t risk this, she thinks as the boy slumps, stammering and rubbing awkwardly at his neck when a girl round face thanks him for something or the other, suitably distracted.

Katsuki drags her noise cancelling headphones up and over her ears, blocking out the rest of the class.

-

Their new homeroom teacher looks as tired as Katsuki feels most days and she stares down at the baseball in her hand, throws it up, catches it with a contemplative squeeze before she draws her elbow back, shifts to get the strength of her shoulder and back into it, feels the sweat in her palm, eyes narrowing as she launches it off, explosion fired loud and volatile just as it leaves her hand.

She’s too familiar with her own controlled explosions to do more than twitch, watching as it sails far beyond her original toss, clocking seven hundred meter easily, hands disappearing back into her pockets as she ambles back to the rest of the class.

The rules are delivered with a too sharp grin from their teacher to nervous exclamations from her new classmates while Katsuki’s mouth curls down into a scowl.

-

A ruse.

She stares at her new teacher as relief spreads through the room, gaping mouths proclaiming of course he wouldn’t kick us out. As if he hadn’t kicked out his entire class the year before. As if the man wasn’t responsible to making sure they came out of the three-year-program as Heroes and not scraps barely passing by.

Katsuki narrows her eyes with a tch.

-

What’s in a Hero?

Katsuki is volatile, friendless, anti-social and prone to reckless behaviour that had ended up with her in the hospital more times than not.

Her teachers all watches her warily, her classmates gives her wide-berth and the path between school and home is spent with knuckles splitting open, blood in her mouth, teens far older than her leering down at her to teach her a lesson about ego.

She stops counting the many times she gets expelled, stops counting the scolding’s from his parents, stops caring about anything but the dreams of the boy that had been.

I will become the Best.

-

The first time Katsuki acknowledges any of her classmates she’s half-way undressed inside the boy’s locker room, resolutely avoiding looking at anyone around her as she drags the pants up over her legs, yanking her undershirt up from the hem, ear twitching and gaze turning just in time to see the shitty runt press his eye against a hole leading towards the girl’s changing room.

Sparky is laughing, Shitty Hair wavering beside them but no one is doing anything.

Katsuki slams her booted foot into the runt’s stomach, launching him across the room where he slides into a hard stop against the wall, arms curling around his stomach, a shocked noise as he stares up at her with wide fearful eyes.

Her palms crackles and her teeth bares in a snarl.

“If I see you do anything like that again,” she hisses in the shocked silent room. “I’ll fucking track you down and beat you half to death.” She takes a step forward but Shitty Hair halts her with an arm on her bicep.

“Hey, hey, Bakugou – don’t you think you were a bit too harsh there-“

She jolts off with a sharp jerk, grasping for her shirt as she kicks her locker shut and storms out of the room.

-

Katsuki gives anyone and everything a wide-berth, resolutely ignoring the strange looks shot her way, her temper already set on edge when the teams are revealed and she finds herself staring at Four-Eyes who is practically oozing disapproval.

“Violence against our fellow classmates absolutely cannot be condoned!” he tells her, away from the other teams who’d all split up to plan, her shoulders twitching at the wide arcs of his arms as they sweep through the air.

“Then fucking do something next time,” she bares her teeth. “Or do you condone his actions?” she mocks, taking dark pleasure in the splutter and denial. “Less talking, more action.”

She flips him off when he calls her name to plan.

Hah.

Her neck prickles at the sharp eyes of All Might follows her down the path but she resolutely ignores him, ignores everything, the sweet ooze of her quirk stinging her nose as anger coils through her.

-

As far as her memories recall Deku is Quirkless.

The boy is a mix of feelings about it – disappointment and resentment but also a sense of rightness because he was the best and of course the shitty Deku didn’t have a-

Only he does and Katsuki finds herself face to face with the proof, a single finger drawn back, desperation and determination alike in the green eyes that meet hers before she abruptly and sharply drops, wall exploding and crumbling behind her as her palms flattens against the ground, legs folding up and twisting around an arm with a sharp crack as she breaks it clean with a hard twist.

There’s a cry, legs stumbling back, her foot colliding hard with a chest, booting him across the room with a smack as his head hits the stone hard and he slides down, dizzy, shocked eyes locked onto hers as she gallantly settles back on her feet with a roll of her shoulders as she steps towards him.

“I wouldn’t move if I were you,” she informs him plainly when he shifts, that strangely familiar stubborn set in his mouth deepening as he pushes himself up, ignoring her words completely. “You have a concussion.”

He lurches towards her and Katsuki kicks him down.

Again.

And again.

And again.

It’s bloody and brutal but she never reaches for the fake handcuffs at her waist and Deku doesn’t stop until she presses him down flat on his back, barely ruffled as she levels her weight on already cracked ribs.

All Might’s voice rings distant as the time runs out, leaving them in a stalemate, and she steps off him with a scoff.

-

Katsuki eats her lunch alone on the roof - a bento carefully arranged by Masaru each morning.

She had told him that he didn’t have to – that lunch was paid and arranged for by the school. But he had insisted and she hadn’t fought him on it.

She stares down at the small sausages arranged into little squids, rice and seaweed forming a smiling whale, vegetables, tofu, omelette and fried shrimps crowding around. There’s a small note with a chibi drawing of his father giving a thumb-up and a Ganbatte! on the lid that she carefully folds away inside her math book.

The wind ruffles her hair, a slight chill in the spring weather as she draws the orange chopsticks from their small container, leaning back against the fence surrounding the rooftop as she sets to eat.

-

“Bakugou, please remain behind.”

It’s the last class of the day and she isn’t terribly surprised, sinking lower into her seat with a tch, ignoring eyes that dart curiously towards her as they pass her by, chatter from teenagers already making friends passing her by, backpacks rustling as they pack up.

She breathes out, straightening up and shoving her things into her backpack just as the door closes behind the last student, leaving her alone with Aizawa who watches her with dark eyes as she throws it over her shoulder and drags her feet up to him.

“I heard what happened with Mineta earlier,” Aizawa says, no real judgement in his eyes. “I would like to hear from you, however.”

“What’s there to say?” she scoffs. “He found a hole in the wall leading into the girl’s changing room and was getting a fucking hard-on drooling over them. No one did shit so I let him know it wasn’t okay.” She leans against the desk beside her, scowling.

“And why didn’t you fetch a teacher? Or simply tell him off?”

Katsuki barely resists rolling her eyes. “Yeah, as if you haven’t seen the way he acts during lessons. Clearly just having words with him is working just fine.” She folds her arms up. “Why the fuck are you even allowing him here?” she demands. “He’s fucking filthy.”

Aizawa stares at her with heavy eyes, the bags below them dark, chin scruffy, an exhaustion that tugs at her already depleted energy levels in empathy.

She twitches when he moves but it’s merely to drag fingers through a mane of dark hair. “You would have us expel him?”

“I never would have allowed him near the Hero course in the first place,” she spits.

Aizawa makes a low hm.

“Dismissed,” he says finally and she makes a wide-tour around him, slamming the door shut behind her.

-

Katsuki closes the door behind her, ignores the call from his parents as she flops down and wraps herself up in the soft blue covers of her bed, eyes shutting tight.

-

Every morning, from early spring to late autumn, at 4 am sharp, Katsuki goes from a run – chucking her shoes off once she reaches the beach, running through the heavy sand, feeling the ocean that laps at her ankles as she sinks down with every heavy step, alternating between fast and hard paces until her shirt is wet with perspiration and she’s struggling for breath, legs wobbly beneath her.

If there’s no ice she goes for a swim afterwards, shirt and shorts abandoned on shore – lets the soothing hum of the waves pull her under in a world where everything is muffled and heavy, murky, fish with glittering fins darting past her.

She’s gotten really good at holding her breath, counting almost twelve minutes in darkness before she’s forced to break surface for air.

It’s a soothing routine to her mind.

When she was younger either Mitsuki or Masaru would accompany her, wrapped up a blanket or two depending on the weather. But that had been before she turned ten and she was deemed old enough to go on her own after many loud arguments.

Dagobah Beach had been a dumping ground when they first moved back to Musutafu for her enrolment in U.A. but after nearly three months she’d made good headway with the trash built-up, her running tracks lengthening with every load either of her parents helps her drive away during the weekends.

Katsuki wades up from the ocean, dragging a hand through her short spiky hair, breathing in the spring air as she nabs her shirt and pulls it on, water running from the wet boxers clinging to her thighs as she carefully runs through her morning stretches before contemplating the remaining trash with a crack of her neck.

-

The pervy runt got expelled.

There’s a strange ringing noise in her ear as the news, the whispers too loud around her, fingers twitching as she drags her headphones up and over her ears, hands pressing down, muffling the world around her.

Stares at Aizawa-sensei who is practically half-asleep on the podium.

Huh.

-

“Kirishima told us what happened.”

Katsuki stares blankly at the two – a tiny sausage octopus trapped in her chopsticks, headphones on her ears which was the reason as to why she’d missed their arrival completely.

Pink hair, pink skin, strange raccoon-like eyes and yellow antennas on her head – the other rough and punkish looking with purple hair and headphone jacks stretching from her earlobes.

Katsuki mentally sorts them as Raccoon Eyes and Punk as she drops the octopus down and shoves her headphones off, mouth curling.

“What?” she demands with a scowl.

Punk scowls right back but Raccoon Eyes is grinning and it makes her skin crawl.

“Our Heroic Knight in white armour.” She pretends to swoon as Katsuki’s eyes dart between them, suspicious and wary at the fact that they had tracked her down to her roof.

“What d’ya want?” she growls.

Punk shoves her hands into the pockets of her pants. “Mineta getting expelled – we heard it was your doing.” There’s a challenge there, in her words, for what Katsuki isn’t entirely sure.

“He was a fucking perv,” she says, teeth baring. “Should have kicked him harder.” It’s a grumble, a spark extinguished by fingers that curls shut before she makes a new grab for her chopsticks, shoving the sausage octopus aggressively into her mouth and chewing hard.

“That’s a cute bento you got there,” Raccoon Eyes croons, leaning forward to peer closer as Katsuki narrows her eyes upon her. “You make it yourself?”

Katsuki simply glares, drawing it closer, daring them to do anything.

Punk snorts. “Come on, Ashido – lunch closes soon and I’m hungry.”

Raccoon Eyes waves goodbye, teeth glinting with her smile, and Katsuki’s instincts crawl with ill-boding.

-

“I want to be with Bakugou!”

Aizawa stares at the girl who’d interrupted him, eyes unimpressed, more than one pair or surprised eyes on the pink skinned girl in the middle of the classroom, arm raised up, smile wide.

Katsuki raises her head just enough to peer at the girl from the folds of her arms, eyes narrowing.

-

“We do not need to work together,” Katsuki denies, eyes flat. “You do your half, I do mine and you leave me the fuck alone.”

“That’s not what Aizawa-sensei said,” Raccoon Eyes denies, legs kicking where she’d pulled her chair to her desk, , a smug sort of smile on her lips that makes anger coil through Katsuki the longer she stares. “And you want to stay at the top of the class, right?” the other girls drawls. “You better make sure I do my part, it’s so very easy to forget, you get me?”

Blackmail. Katsuki was being fucking blackmailed.

The papers on her desk stares mockingly back at her and she slams her palm flat upon it, cramming it into her backpack. “Fine,” she snarls. “Library, after school.”

“No,” Raccoon Eyes denies, leaning forward as Katsuki levels her with a dangerous eyes. “There’s this café I’ve been looking forward to visiting – I think it would make an excellent study space.”

“A café-“

“My treat.”

Katsuki’s mouth snaps shut and Raccoon Eyes practically oozes smugness when Katsuki bares her teeth in a soundless snarl but offers no denial.

-

Raccoon Eyes makes one attempt at linking their arms but Katsuki twitches violently away from her, a pop from a smothered explosion stinging sweet to both their senses.

“Fine, fine – no touching,” she says, throwing her hands up, a mocking sort of ease as Katsuki stiffly marches past her towards the closest exit, already quite done but unwilling to compromise her streak of straight A’s for anything.

“You really are quite volatile,” the other muses beside her, golden eyes set in black scrutinizing her where she’s walking backwards, somehow easily navigating through the throng of people despite it. “Not exactly the right way to make friends, you know?”

Katsuki grunts, moving stiffly past people, most giving her wide-berth.

“Where’s the damn café?” she demands and Raccoon Eyes spins around, pointing triumphantly down the street to a small red sign.

-

Loathe to admit it the café is nice.

It’s not crowded, the chatter is low and the waitress doesn’t linger long past a smile after taking their order and Raccoon Eyes is humming across her.

She notices Katsuki’s eyes upon her, eyebrow raising.

“Doesn’t seem like your kind of place,” Katsuki admits reluctantly.

They’d claimed the corner table and she’s thankful to have the wall behind her, shoulders loosening just a bit as she peers about. The air smells of tea and a soft twist of sweetness from the cakes waiting to be served. The walls are decorated with pictures of cats and there are small furry creatures weaving about, one or two getting their absent scratches from groups of students cooing over them.

Raccoon Eyes flashes a knowing grin at her, tapping at her throat in mirror of her headphones. “Those aren’t for music, are they?” she asks as Katsuki stiffens warily. “Jirou guessed. Knows just about anything related to music, that one. I won’t tell,” she says, stretching her arms up above her. “But I figured you’d like a place that wasn’t too loud or crowded.”

Katsuki grunts and the other’s mouth softens.

“Honest though, I am pretty impressed by what you did,” she admits. “The world needs more guys like you. Mineta was making more than one of us pretty damn uncomfortable and teachers are less prone to hear us girls out about it.”

The part of Katsuki that had died a twenty-two-year-old woman resonates with empathy, easing something inside of her.

“’s not right,” Katsuki grits out. “Should have fucking kicked him the first day.”

“Boys will be boys,” the others says with a dry twist of her mouth and Katsuki bares her teeth.

“People who say things like that-“

“Can just fuck right off,” the other finishes with a smirk and Katsuki gives her a flat look. “That’s what you were going to say, wasn’t it?”

Katsuki grunts, turning away to stare out the window.

“You’re just a right softie under all that anger, aren’t you?” the other says with some consideration as tea and cakes arrives – a fluffy one shaped like a smiling lion settling in front of Katsuki, a strange sort of alien in front of the other. “You know, that match against Midoriya – it didn’t really paint you in a good way, you know?”

Katsuki prods a bit of the lion off, shoving into her mouth, tasting cinnamon as she flattens her tongue up against the spoon as she pulls it out.

“We all saw it,” the other girl continues breezily. “You could have wrapped him up and left him whenever but you let him get up over and over again until he couldn’t stand.”

Katsuki gives her a flat look.

“Just saying,” the pink haired girl says with a shrug, spooning the alien’s jaw into her mouth. “It was pretty brutal to watch.”

“… Let’s just get this over with,” Katsuki says, uninterested in making excuses, shoving the cake away and grasping for pen, paper and notebook – finding the eraser after a moment of digging and slapping it all up on the small table.

“Aye, aye Bakugou-kun!”

Katsuki’s face makes a complicated sort of grimace.

“Just Bakugou is fine,” she grumbles.

“Then – you can call me Ashido,” the other says with a sharp grin.

-

Katsuki stares down at her phone, at the single number added other than his parents.

Raccoon Eyes is fucking strange.

For all that she’d threatened to pin them down with something less than an A she was sharp when she wanted to and they’d gotten into more than one argument over how to spin their presentation, loud enough that they’d been hushed twice.

The other never cowered and her grin was fierce as she gave as good as she got.

Katsuki was so damn used to people flinching away at the first spark on her palm but Raccoon Eyes had merely held up her own hand, covered in a strange slimy sort of shimmer, unimpressed and just ready to fucking go at it.

A knock on her door makes her lower her phone, his father peering inside with a soft curl of his mouth. “Did you have a good day?” Masaru asks and Katsuki grunts.

“… It was fine,” she admits after a moment.

Her phone buzzes, a ping from an arriving message that startles them both, Masaru’s eyes widening before he smiles. “That’s good. Dinner in ten minutes, alright son?”

Katsuki nods, distracted by the shiny new chat box visible on her screen, unaware of the way Masaru draws a shuddering breath outside her door.

-

RACCOON EYES: i brought my own bento today!

RACCOON EYES: you’re eating on the roof, right?

RACCOON EYES: gimme like, five

Katsuki stares blankly down at her phone, chopsticks half-raised to her mouth.

RACCOON EYES: and you better not think of bolting

RACCOON EYES: i know where you sleep.

Three dots pending another message.

RACCOON EYES: also, I’m bringing company

It’s the only warning she gets before the door swings open and Raccoon Eyes practically bounces out, hand already raised, phone clutched tight in it, Sparky and Shitty Hair trailing behind her.

“What the hell are you doing here?” Katsuki growls out, wary eyes settling on the two boys.

“Aww, don’t be like that Ba-ku-gou!” She twitches. “You can’t spend every lunch alone.”

“I can,” Katsuki responds with a flat look.

“So this is where you’ve been hanging around?” Shitty Hair whistles. “How manly.”

Katsuki’s knuckles whitens and she bares her teeth only to jerk when Raccoon Eyes thwaps her forehead, muscles coiling as she lashes out, hand clamping down on the other’s wrist before she can pull back – a squeak of surprise leaving her as she tips forward, nearly succeeding in sending herself sprawling over Katsuki who practically shoves her back.

“Whoa-“ she gasps. “You were faster than I thought.”

Katsuki releases her as if burnt, the feeling of flesh beneath her touch alien, and the other girl gives her a strange look when she practically shoves her hand down into her lap. “Fuck off,” she growls. “I don’t want-“

“I don’t care,” Raccoon Eyes interrupts her simply. “We’re eating our lunch here now. Air is free.”

Smoke starts wafting from her lunch box before she abruptly releases it, reaching for the lid only to have it sliding out of her way, mouth curling as she fixates on Sparky who is looking far too innocent.

“I’ll kill you,” Katsuki promises, voice honey smooth. “If you don’t give it back in five fucking seconds, Sparky.”

“Sparky?” the boy mouths, looking rather offended. “My name,” he says, sliding the lid beneath him and settling with an audacious sort of smile, “is Kaminari Denki. Which you should know by now.”

“Kirishima Eijiro!” Shitty Hair volunteers as he folds down. “You can just call me Kirishima.”

“I’m not going to call you fucking anything-“

“Bakugou-“ Raccoon Eyes elbows him hard, an oof of surprise leaving her as her mind slowly computes the motion, girl settling easily beside her, close enough that Katsuki finds herself leaning out of her way as she reaches forward to drag her bag with her, skin crawling from the close proximity. “Behave. Make friends.” Raccoon Eyes fucking waves her hand with a flourish to the two boys.

“With Shitty Hair and Sparky?” Katsuki asks flatly. “I’d rather throw myself off the roof.”

Shitty Hair grasps his chest dramatically. “That hurt,” he says dramatically. “Right here.”

“Want me to kiss it better?” Raccoon Eyes coos and Katsuki is not doing this.

She shoves the remains of her bento, without lid, into her backpack – ignoring Raccoon Eyes flustered call of her name and the other’s surprised exclamations, something dark and furious twisting through her chest as she slams the door to the roof shut behind her, hands trembling.

-

Katsuki spends the rest of the day twitchier than normal, ignoring everything, headphones over her ears, heart beating too loud inside her chest, a wet thu-thump thu-thump that drowns out even Present Mic during the last lesson of the day.

She’s the first up, the first to leave, a text shot to a number with a location appearing in place and then deleted, feet carrying her down long-visited paths until finally-

“Why, if it isn’t Baku-chan,” a voice mocks as she rounds the corner, clever eyes already settling upon her, and something inside of her slowly relaxes. “I thought you were off becoming a Hero. Too high-up in the ranks to come spend time with us anymore.”

“Fuck off,” she snaps back with far less bite than normal, Dabi already holding out a cigarette with a raised brow, liquid amusement in his turquoise eyes.

She shoves her hand down to grab her lighter but he reaches out a finger, blue flames snagging at the tip, and she inhales, lets the smoke curl down her lungs, allows it to linger.

“Mou, you look a bit stressed there,” Freak mocks where she sits on the high-wall, eyes too bright, grin too wide. “A week into the Hero business and already stress smoking?” She clicks her tongue, legs swinging, looking cosy in a yellow sweater with too long sleeves. “Sure it’s the deal for you?”

“I’m going to be the Best,” she bites out after exhaling, lets the faux calm lull her into something less on-edge as Dabi tilts his head, a huff of air leaving him as he leans back against the brick wall.

Tall and thin, longish black hair spiking out about his head, heavy gnarled purplish scars stretching down from his mouth, staples sunk deep into his skin.

The first time Katsuki had met Dabi she’d been twelve, knuckles bleeding, nose broken, chest and back badly bruised from the group of teens that had cornered her in an attempt to teach her a lesson.

She’d won, barely, wrist wiping impatiently at the blood dripping over her mouth and chin to a budding pool of blood on the ground at her feet.

And he’d dropped from the fucking roof, looking like a deformed bat with the thick scars and lidded eyes. 

Katsuki didn’t think for a second that it was coincidence she kept running into him following that – if Dabi didn’t want to be found it was impossible to track him down and he wasn’t the sort to just hang around and wait.

Dabi eventually picked up the Freak along the way and Katsuki had memorized the number Dabi had recited her after her acceptance to UA, wary of entering it into her phone.

“I want to hit something,” Katsuki grunts as she stamps out the cigarette.

Freak clasps her hands together, leaning forward. “Oh please do,” she begs, eyes glittering. “Dabi always makes you look so pretty.”

Dabi tilts his head and Katsuki meets the strangely pretty turquoise of his eyes.

“Quirk or no quirk?”

“What do you think, dumbass?” she growls, shoving her jacket off and yanking shirt and undershirt up and over her head, leaving her bare.

Blue flames lick to life as he spreads his arms out. “I am but a gentleman,” he drawls and Katsuki snarls as she launches herself towards him, explosions already burning sharp and sweet in the palm of her hands.

-

“You’ve gotten better,” Dabi tells her as he steals the cigarette from her lips, drawing deep as Katsuki gives him a flat look, snatching it back and biting down hard on the butt of it, daring him to try again.

His mouth curves.

Her skin smarts where flames had marked her deep, sure to leave new scars among the already angry crawl of pink flesh that coiled where her undershirt could still hide them and she would need to keep a careful eye on them because burns could be tricky.

But the itchy crawl beneath her skin is gone and she feels far calmer than she had since stepping her first foot inside the walls of UA, breathing out beneath the setting sun.

If she scrapes her arm or something she’s sure she can get an extra visit to Recovery Girl to clear the worst of it.

“He still lost,” Freak points out, unimpressed and pouting over the bandages wrapped in place over gaping wounds, a bottle of water helping rid of the worst of the blood splatter. She’s tracing circles in a small red puddle of Katsuki’s blood, arms loose.

“I would like to see you do better,” Katsuki grumbles.

“Hand-to-hand you’d take wackjob over here easily,” Dabi says with a roll of his shoulders. “But you’d lose to her in a knife-fight. Quirk or no quirk.”  

Her jaw clenches but she does not ask about a quirk-to-quirk fight, for whatever reason Himiko Toga would not share exactly what it was she could do.

Katsuki does not care enough to press the issue.

She drops the cigarette when the heat licks too close to her skin, twisting down on it. She’d temporarily shut off her sweat glands after the fight and washed her hands off with water but it was better to err on caution when it came to her quirk.

“I’m off,” she announces brusquely.

“Make sure to call us if you want Dabi to beat you up again!” Freak calls, hands cupped around her mouth.

Katsuki gives her the finger.

Chapter Text

Katsuki is starting to hate the sound of her name.

“Bakugou- are you even listening to me?” Raccoon Eyes crowds too close, ignoring the way Katsuki coils tense. “How am I supposed to apologize to you if you’re not listening to me?”

She stares at the bus, at Four-Eyes that she mentally slots to Class Rep when she notes the band around his arm, a nagging sort of memory of a vote ghosting past before she dismisses it entirely as he tries to make them file into a line.

“It’s a fucking bus,” she growls, barely resisting the urge to slam her shoulder into him as she pushes past.

“Bakugou-san,” a finger pushing up, glasses flashing, “you are ignoring the importance of-“

“I don’t care.”

“He does have a point,” Katsuki hears somewhere behind her as she passes by the surprisingly spacy seats in the middle and hauls herself up in the first seat after the door, folding her arms up on the railing in front of her and after a few minutes her skin crawls as Punk drops down beside her.

“You should thank me,” the other girl has the audacity to drawl when she notices Katsuki’s foul mood. “Iida made Ashido stay in line but she was looking real eager to join you.”

Katsuki bares her teeth but doesn’t respond, slumping deeper into her arms and glaring mulishly down at nothing as the last person files in and Aizawa-sensei droops down into one of the last seats near the front.

-

The trip to USJ is surprisingly long – not quite that she finds herself dozing off but long enough that she gets why they took the bus when they had perfectly workable legs and a teacher who enjoyed driving them to the ground.

Katsuki entertains the picture of Aizawa-sensei on a small pink scooter at the front of the pack, class heaving and struggling to keep up…

Snorts quietly to herself, slanting a look to the side when Deku stammers out loudly, arms waving in front of him.

“They’re nothing alike!” he denies frantically. “All Might is… All Might! And I keep… I keep breaking my bones.” He practically wilts on himself as Froggy tilts her head, finger at her lip. “It’s – we’re really nothing alike.” Red faced, nervous, incredibly bad liar.

But what is he lying about? Her brow creases momentarily before she decides that she doesn’t care and turns her gaze to the nearing stadium-like building, anticipation curling low in her gut.

-

One moment she’s rearing back to slam her foot into the brimstone-smelling Villain and the next she’s in a roll, coming up with her hands slamming into the face of a low-ranking cockroach, skin fizzling as she burns off a hard explosion that sends him careening back with half the skin on his face missing, unconscious before he hit the ground.

She spits a wad of saliva at his crotch, categorizing the situation with coiled fists as Shitty Hair drops an unconscious one down beside her, eyebrows creased. “We better finish this off quick,” he says in an undertone, skin mottling strangely, almost like some sort of living rock, as he spies about the gathering of Villains watching them with wariness. “And then help the rest.”

Katsuki bares her teeth.

“You do that.” She lets sweat bead thick in her palms, feels the acrid sweetness of her quirk stinging her nose. “I’m taking out the Fog Bastard.”

She is surprised when – instead of fighting her on it he gives her words some consideration.

“You’re right,” Shitty Hair says breathing out, mouth stretching into a grin as he pushes his fist against his palm. “Let’s put our faith in our classmates and get this over with!”

She scoffs, anger and anticipation alike in her chest as she fixates on the closest enemy.

-

Katsuki thinks that, for just a moment, there’s a strange hollowness to the form of All Might – visible through the smoke before a wall rises sharp and tall between them and she twitches away from Shitty Hair who had reached out to put a hand on her shoulder.

She turns away.

It’s none of her business anyway.

-

The USJ incident leaves Aizawa-sensei with arms wrapped up and a scar by his eye and there’s a significant increase in security that means full-body scanning and new student IDs.

“It’s hard to digest it, you know?” Raccoon Eyes says from where she’s perched across her, completely ignoring the foul glare Katsuki has levelled upon her, bento precariously balanced on a knee. “I mean – what was the point of it? In the end All Might won because he’s… you know… All Might.”

Katsuki shoves a grape into her mouth, biting down hard and with relish, firmly ignoring her.

Raccoon Eyes slants a considering look her way. “You’re going to have to talk to me eventually,” she points out. “Whether during lesson or out in the field – there’s no way you can ignore me forever.”

Try me, Katsuki thinks fiercely.

“I thought we had a thing going,” Raccoon Eyes sighs, mock-mournfully. “Building rapport, learning the ins and outs of each other, becoming buds. You were fine with me and what kind of person would I be if I didn’t want my explosive friend to get along with my other friends, hm?”

We’re not friends, Katsuki thinks and her jaw aches as she strains not to express it verbally. I don’t have friends.

I don’t need friends.

-

There’s a blinking address when she gets off from school two days later which makes her hesitate – thumb tracing over the unsaved number with a faint crease in her brow.

A ding.

XXX-XXXXX-XX: Or are you too high-and-mighty to spend some time with me?

The mocking text stares at her for a full minute before she snorts and shoves the phone down her pocket after deleting it.

-

It’s a strange place – a bit off but still central enough that she’s drawn up against a wall near a sign that makes people veer around her and it both, one hand absently tracing around the shell of one of her headphones, tracking people with a frown as she waits for the familiar stretch of purple scars only-

He’s covered them up, of course, and Katsuki raises a brow at the thick purple scarf, the shade near exact the colour of his scars, wrapped about enough times to challenge Aizawa-sensei’s capture weapon, a cap shoved low and a slouchy sort of appearance that echoes closer to Katsuki’s own style.

It begged the question as to why he felt like he needed to cover up and it raised questions about why he’d called Katsuki out if it wasn’t to fight.

And why the fuck she’d agreed to it.

Dabi drags his eyes up from her shoes to her eyes, a considering hmm where’d he’d paused in front of her, looming with his considerable height even with his back curved, one hand reaching out to brush against the mottled yellow bruise on her cheek as her jaw clenches at the contact.

“Seems they didn’t get you too bad,” Dabi muses, beckoning her along, as if she was some kind of dog-

But, Katsuki realises, as she takes a step forward to follow, there’s no real anger just a flare of annoyance because Dabi was a fucking asshole who did as he wanted and she knew that.

“Where are we going?” she bites out, finding herself a step closer to Dabi than was reasonable to avoid a tall, broad and muscular man with bandana storming past. “And why the fuck are you looking like that? Trying to copy my style now?” She slouches back out of his personal bubble.

“Patience, Baku-chan.” She twitches. “Now, I have an important question for you.” He comes to a halt, hand disappearing down his pocket, and she can just see the way the corner of his mouth hitches up over the edge of his scarf. “Vanilla or chocolate?”

-

Katsuki stares down at the ice cream in her hand, at the white swirls with a sprinkle of colourful marshmallows that tilt precariously.

Beside her Dabi has abandoned his cap and tugged down the scarf, tongue dragging with a long curve around his vanilla ice cream before disappearing into his mouth with a flick against the tip of it.

She takes a hesitant bite, nose crinkling before she relaxes with a small huff.

“Please tell me you didn’t call me out for ice cream,” Katsuki says as she bites through the shell of the cone, fingers already sticky where the force of her first bite had blown the bottom of it, dripping awkwardly from her fingers despite her best effort.

“Would you prefer it if I called you out to beat you to an inch of your life?” Dabi wonders and Katsuki’s brow furrows at the look in his eyes – a strange sort of thing that she can’t quite place.

“I would blow you the fuck up first,” she promises him and Dabi snorts, shoulders easing as he tilts his head up to the sky.

“How long has it been since we first met?”

Katsuki stares at him, takes another bite of her ice cream, eyes drifting to her feet.

She’d been twelve when they first met and in just a month she would be turning sixteen and thirty alike in merged lives.

It’s meetings that comes and goes depending on her expulsions from schools, moving twice during the years of their acquaintance, Dabi eventually turning up to bother her one way or the other.

He was a strange constant in her life, one of the few, reliable in a way that should have been concerning.

“Four years,” she offers after a brief moment. “Why? Feeling nostalgic?”

“You’re such a brat,” Dabi scoffs but there’s… something about his tone that makes Katsuki’s shoulders tense, wary and not quite understanding. “Messy too,” he says, observing as she flicks the last bit of the cone into her mouth, biting down just as he reaches for her hand, ignoring the way she curls up with tension as he raises her palm up, thumb pressing flat against the inside of her wrist.

And then her eyes goes wide for he bends down, tongue flattening against her palm, dragging up and over her finger, curving to get drop of white on her knuckle–

Katsuki snatches her hand back from his grip, red spreading across her cheeks as she draws back from him, a sly sort of look in his eyes that makes something strange knot up in her chest as he drops his hand, not looking particularly bothered at all with what he’d done.

“You need to learn caution, Baku-chan,” Dabi drawls, unwrapping his scarf and threading it around her neck, too close as he leans forward to get it around her, his breath a strange mix of sulphur and sweetness. “Who knows what kind of people are out there, looking to use you.” His strange turquoise fixes upon her with a warning that sends a shiver up her back.

And then he’s ruffling her hair and she watches him leave, a wet thu-thump thu-thump in her chest, hand grasping at the fabric around her neck.

“The fuck!?” Katsuki bursts out in the remaining silence.

-

The Sport Festival approaches and between normal classes, Hero Training and preparations for it she ends up cleaning up the last of Dagobah Beach, a strange feeling settling in her chest as she stares out at it, feet bare, water dripping from her hair and down her body.

Somewhere about seagulls cries out and she drops down, sand immediately gluing itself to her boxers, and she knows she’s going to regret it later when she attempts to wrestle herself back into her shorts but she can’t get herself to care.

What now?

She breathes out, in. Feels the way her ribs expands as her lungs fills with air and the itch of a cigarette brings her mind to turquoise eyes and she feels her cheeks colouring, glaring down at her toes, burying them into the sand with a frustrated exhalation.

-

Sometimes Katsuki dreams of an apple orchard, feels the dirt on her palm, beneath her knees, a hand ghosting up her spine and a mouth tilting to meet her own beneath the warm sun.

She wakes up with screams choked down and tears on her face.

-

“I’m going to be the Best,” she tells the world with relish, tasting the absolute faith of the six-year-old boy that had been, ignoring the way her class groans behind her, ignores the way eyes narrow upon her back.

There’s a heady feeling, a warmth and weight of a promise made almost eight years ago when she woke up in a hospital bed in a body not her own.

-

The Sports Festival leaves her with a strange feeling inside her chest, gaze fixated on Deku who is staring up with wide startled eyes, as if unable to believe the way his name rises with exited cries in the stands around them at the end of the first task.

Katsuki gnashes her teeth together and beside her Half-n-Half crosses his arms, just shy of catching his breath, sweat dripping down one side if his face.  

It’s not unlike the way Dabi doesn’t sweat when his quirk is in use on some level and she realises she’s been staring when the other turns towards her, eyebrow rising coolly, and one of his eyes are-

“I’m going to win this,” she snarls at him with a temper that flares hot and hard. “So don’t get in my fucking way.”

“So far neither of us are in the lead,” the other says flatly, completely unmoved, and the reaction makes her cheeks colour before she catches herself – something strange twisting up in her chest as she turns away and marshes into the arena.

Fucking Half-n-Half.

Fucking Dabi.

-

Fucking Deku she’s going to fucking kill him-

-

Round Cheeks gives as good as she gets and Katsuki finds herself out of breath, panting and staring down at the other girl who had, finally, fainted – unable to move where she lies sprawled out, muscles and quirks strained to their max.

She’s aware of the way civilians and pro-Heroes alike are judging her in the stands and her face twists up before she breathes out and sets her face in a scowl.

What did gender have to do with competence? Nothing. Round Cheeks did good. Better than most would have against her. Other than Dabi and Deku there were few who stuck around to go head-on with her once explosions starting going off in her palms.

No one would have said anything had Round Cheeks been a boy.

She shoves her hands into the pockets of her training uniform and turns on her heel as she marches out.

-

It’s not Right.

Humiliation burns sick and heavy through her gut – chained and muzzled like a dog, her temper and feelings disregarded and panic so thick inside of her that only mounting anger overcomes it and she clings to it desperately with thousands of eyes upon her, future colleagues and civilians alike looking down at her as she struggles against the metal clasped around her wrists and mouth.

Why?

Laughter, sighs of exasperation, side-eyes and judgement.

She fights against nausea, against the burn of her eyes and a desperate wretched sort of horror, feeling terribly small in too big world as metal bites into her flesh, the medal heavy on her chest where All Might had forced it over her head.

WHY?

-

She tears away from Midnight, ignores the strange fuzziness of the world around her as she pushes into the boy’s bathroom and locks the door shut behind her before collapsing down on her knees and heaving into the toiled, shaking and pressing her hands flat against her ears as she squeezes her eyes shut.

Craves silence and darkness as she shivers and her hands trembles and sickly sweetness stings her nose, palms slick with sweat.

She remains there for a long time, until the world has once again settled around her and all she’s left with is tired apathy and a strange sense of loss.

-

RACCOON EYES: Are you OK?

Katsuki stares at the message, curled up beside her bed, back against the bedside table, ignoring the way handles presses uncomfortably into her back.

RACCOON EYES: i tried to find you afterwards but you kinda disappeared.

RACCOON EYES: not that I blame you.

Three dots stare back at her for a long time.

RACCOON EYES: want to head to the cat café with me on monday?

-

XXX-XXXXX-XX: Congratulations to a shitty win.

The phone explodes in her hand and she throws it against the door with a wordless snarl.

-

His parents make her favourite food and Katsuki draws her knees up to her chest where she sits at the end of the couch, tense and uncomfortable and scowling at the pictures on the television screen, headphones firmly in place.

She hasn’t taken them off since arriving home after the Sports Festival.

Mitsuki had attempted to gently cuff her earlier that day and she’s flinched back to violently she’d smacked her head into the wall and she’d done a sloppy work of wrapping it up, aware of their eyes upon her, aware of the way they see the trembles in her fingers, the way she’s coiled so tight that she doesn’t know what to do with herself.

She buries her face into her knees, elbows drawn tight over her face, humiliation so thick inside of her that she hadn’t been able to sleep, wretched and absolutely exhausted.

The sneers, the jeers, the laughter of hundreds at the sight of her-

Masaru gently settles a blanket over her shoulder, a tense look exchanged with his wife when his son only curls tighter upon himself.

-

“I’m coming with you to school today,” his mother says Monday morning and Katsuki pauses, oatmeal half-way raised to her mouth as she looks up.  

Takes in the sharp, crisp business suit and the way Mitsuki is clearly gearing up for war in the clack of her sharp heels.

“You don’t have to take the train – we’re taking the car. I’ll even come pick you up after, if you want.” It’s an offer made breezily, an underlying tension in the way red eyes focus upon her – a slight scowl on the woman’s face. “I’m just going to have a quick chat with your Principal.”

Mitsuki smoothers down the crisp white blouse and Katsuki really doesn’t envy Nedzu one bit.

“… I’m meeting Ashido after school,” she says after a moment, the name strange in her mouth and an unfamiliar warmth in her chest as the watches the woman shove two bars down her purse along with a bottle of water. “We’re heading to a cat café,” she tacks on when both his parents pauses to look at her in surprise.

“Sounds wonderful,” Masaru says with a gentle smile and Katsuki ducks her head, shoving a good helping of oatmeal mixed with applesauce into her mouth.

-

His mother escorts her all the way to the classroom, a click-clack of sharp heels as they head down the empty corridor, and her classmates looks up in surprise when the woman pushes the door open, halting Aizawa-sensei mid-word as she gently pushes her inside, a cursory glance darting over the some-eighteen heads already gathered inside before fixating on their teacher who slowly straightens up from his cursory slump.

Mitsuki glances back down at Katsuki who blinks and stiffens in slight surprise when lips presses a kiss to her forehead, hand rising to rub absently at it with a frown.

“You must be Aizawa-san,” Mitsuki says briskly as she straightens out. “I’m looking forward to our talk later this afternoon.”

Aizawa looks rather like he does anything but look forward to it and Katsuki shoves her hands low in her pockets as she ambles down the line and collapsed into her seat with a scowl.

“A pleasure,” the man says and Mitsuki gives him a firm onceover before nodding sharply, door clicking shut behind her as she leaves.

Katsuki ignores the curious eyes, dragging her headphones up and over her head as she sinks into her seat and focuses on the movement of Aizawa’s lips as he picks the lesson back up, making no mention of her tardiness as he drones on about the lesson for the day.

-

Raccoon Eyes is clearly brimming with curiosity when she bounces up on the roof but there’s also something careful in her eyes – in the way she pauses to regard Katsuki, as if making a mental judgement on just how much she’d be able to push.

“So, that was your Mom, huh?” she says, folding down after shrugging off her backpack which drops to the ground beside her.

She keeps her mouth clear in Katsuki’s vision even as she digs through her backpack in search of her bento box.

“What about it?” she asks, voice strangely muffled with the headphones over her ears, making it hard to judge just how loud she was talking but not quite caring.

She wishes she could turn off the world completely. Wishes she’d never have heard the jeers of the crowd gazing down upon her-

Katsuki blinks as an octopus sausage with a lopsided grin and ill-matched eyes drops into her bento box, raising her head to gaze at the other.

“You like them, right?” Raccoon Eyes says with a raised brow. “It’s my first try so be kind to it!” She points dramatically with her chopsticks and Katsuki draws tight before remembering herself and snorts as she gazes back down at the happily grinning thing.

“You look a lot like your Mom, you know?” Raccoon Eyes says with her mouthful. “Same hair, same eyes. I don’t really look anything like my parents – quirk kicked in, made me pink and, well, this.” She flicks one yellow antenna on her head, mouth chomping down on piece of vegetable omelette the second she’d finished talking. Chews. Swallows. “Kinda nifty though – my Hero name is going to be Alien Queen.” Her eyes glitters when she says it. “You know what you’re going to call yourself yet?” she asks, popping a greasy fried shrimp into her mouth and twisting the tail off, dropping it aside.

Katsuki frowns, biting down on an eggroll.

Hero name? The boy had idealised names like King Explosion Murder and she’d snorted quietly to herself when reading through those carefully saved drawings kept at her bedside table.

Her Hero uniform is kinda inspired by those drawings – the black muscle shirt with the orange X, the idealized grenade cannons foregone for optimal movement while keeping the heavy boots over thick heavy-duty pants.

But the name…

She chews thoughtfully, nudging back one headphone just enough to follow along Raccoon Eyes chatter as she thinks.

-

BAKUGOU: I need to decide on a fucking Hero name.

XXX-XXXXX-XX: What kind of number is this.

XXX-XXXXX-XX: Did you blow up your phone?

XXX-XXXXX-XX: Dumbass.

XXX-XXXXX-XX: You explode. Make it something explode-y.

Three hours passes before three dots once again appear on the screen and a ding rings through the room with a faint buzz in the hands of the sleeping teen, screen lightening up the room in blue.

XXX-XXXXX-XX: I’m partial to Ground Zero if you’re taking suggestions.

-

The prospect of doing an Internship gnaws.

3, 556 – that’s how many invitations she’d gotten and the more she stares at the number the more ugly the feeling inside of her chest grows.

How many of these had looked upon her and laughed? How many of them saw a pet project that needed to be put in line? How many-

She doesn’t know. She doesn’t like it. Katsuki is fucking angry.

She rips the top of the list off and burns the rest to ash in her palm, letting the wind sweep it with until she’s left with the sting of achy sweetness in her nose and a list of some ten names.

The best of the best, the Heroes at the top of the line, people who were supposed to be good.

One of you, Katsuki thinks just a tad desperately and with a frail sort of hope that doesn’t belong in a world that lets her down over and over again.

Chapter Text

Katsuki stares a bit blankly as the new student is introduced to the class.

The part of her that died a twenty-two-year-old horror game enthusiasm can’t resist slotting him as Purple Guy, eyes drifting briefly over the wild hair, the dark shadows beneath his eyes and the wary flat look with a challenge written in the depth of it.

There’d been a glaring hole in team-ups following the runt’s expulsion and Katsuki figures there’d only been a matter of time before someone had to step up and fill it.

Mind control, she thinks with a slight furrow in her brow, remembering the match faintly – the way he’d nearly made Deku walk right out of the ring.

She can’t quite decide what to feel about that sort of power when she has the capacity to blow someone up with a spark in her palm.

-

Aizawa halts her at the end of the day and Katsuki slumps back against Class Rep’s desk, hands shoved into her pockets, waiting as her classmates trail out amidst chatter and a curious look or two.

“I’ll wait for you!” Raccoon Eyes promises with a friendly buff of her shoulder that is painstakingly telegraphed to a flat look from Katsuki.

But she doesn’t protest and the other girl grins as she shoulders her backpack properly, the last to leave, Punk and Sparky both waiting for her just outside the classroom and the door closes, leaving Katsuki alone with their teacher.

Aizawa is taller than her – wired beneath the bagginess of his shirt and pants, his hair messy, the bags beneath his eyes unusually heavy as he lets out a sigh and drags his fingers through the dark strands.

“Your mother had concerns about you in the aftermath of the Sports Festival,” the man says carefully, eyes upon stiffening shoulders. “I won’t push,” he says. “But I am here if you need to talk. My number one priority is your safety and health.”

Where were you when metal bit into my hands and mouth? Katsuki wonders. Where were you when the world was laughing at the sight of me chained and muzzled like an animal because I dared to raise my voice in protest?

Dabi’s scarf is wrapped tight around her, hiding the bruises at her jaw, and she doesn’t answer him, finally released with another tired sigh and a phone number pressed into her palm.

She only just resists slamming the door shut behind her.

-

“We should head to the mall,” Raccoon Eyes muses beside her. “I need to pick up some extra training shirts for the Internship, my quirk keeps eating through them.”

“Oh!” Sparky perks up where he’s walking along with Punk on the other side of Raccoon Eyes. “I need new shoes.” He lifts his foot demonstratively and the lower half of it flops sadly down, revealing the underside of his foot before he placed it back on the ground. “I kicked the goal post during soccer yesterday,” he admits proudly. “Completely split it down and broke two of my toes but Recovery Girl took care of it this morning!” He folds his arms behind his head, grinning.

“You’re lucky we didn’t have Hero Training today,” Raccoon Eyes says with some amusement.

Sparky shudders. “I can just hear the lecture. Already got one from both my moms, don’t need a third one.” 

“I’ll tag along,” Punk says with a little stretch. “The new Hero Magazine comes out today.”

“What about you, Bakugou?” Raccoon Eyes asks, turning hopeful eyes upon her. “Need anything for the Internship?”

Katsuki doesn’t understand Raccoon Eyes. Doesn’t understand why she keeps pushing and hoping when the rest of the world takes one look at her and two steps back.

She reaches up to grasp at the scarf with a scowl.

“… Shirts,” she admits grudgingly, looking away when Raccoon Eyes lightens up, grinning.

-

“Ah- this one, this one!” Raccoon Eyes practically shoves the shirt into her face, eyes wide and expectant as Katsuki studied the drawing of a bunny that, when tilted to the side, became a duck, white lines against black.

“’s not awful,” she agrees and the other practically shines as she throws it into the basket before swanning away to search for more.

There’s a strange sort of lull to her thoughts, familiarity in actions, the chatter and wild energy of the other strangely soothing to the jagged spikes of her mind and she finds herself reluctantly enjoying the whole thing.

Punk is in the store music store two doors with Sparky who’d volunteered as company and her eyes track Raccoon Eyes as she browses over a section of sleeveless shirts in mottled camo.

Katsuki stuffs one hand absently into her pants pocket, the other arm threaded through the basket handles.

She’d only meant to pick up a shirt or two but when she’d messaged Mitsuki to ask for the money she’d gotten a text back to treat her friends to ice cream and a ding of a message from her bank informing her that there was now enough for some ten shirts and more on her account.

Friend.

The word echoes strangely to her because Katsuki doesn’t have friends. Doesn’t need friends.

Katsuki’s eyes pauses on a purple shirt with a raccoon in training gear, a heavy bar grasped in tiny paws, GYM TRASH scrawled beneath it, and there’s a strange sort of twist inside her chest the longer she stares at it.

Are you OK?

Raccoon Eyes had been the only one to ask that outside his parents since she’d woken up in this world – a genuine sort of inquiry in the aftermath of the Sports Festival. The only one in the stadium among Heroes and Heroes-to-be to pause and see something wrong in the bite of metal encircling her wrists and face.

Even her classmates gossiped and laughed behind her back.

It was really funny – best part of the entire Sports Festival!

Did you see how mad Bakugou got? He was practically spitting fire!

And then strangers.

If you don’t quiet down maybe I’ll take a hint from All Might himself and muzzle you up!

Oh – you’re that boy that-

Laughter.

Are you OK?

Katsuki grabs at it, nearly yanks it off its hanger, and she takes a step towards the other – tongue twisting up in her mouth when golden eyes in a spread of black turns towards her, surprise blossoming up in them when Katsuki practically shoves it into her hands. 

“This one,” she gets out, voice suddenly too loud even with the backdrop of music, and she hides the sudden tremble of her hand by shoving it firmly back into her pocket.

Raccoon Eyes slowly lifts it up, blinking at the pattern.

-

And if there’s a strange sort of warmth in her chest when the other puts it on and refuses to take it off, even after dropping ice cream onto it and flailing for paper and water, that’s nobody’s business but her own.

-

XXX-XXXXX-XX: Want to meet up?

Katsuki spends a long time staring at the message, remembering the press of a tongue against her palm, the leery amusement and the warning before Dabi had left her just like that.

Stuffs the phone beneath her pillow and squeezes her eyes shut.

-

”K-Kacchan.”

She pauses, glancing over at Deku who is one of the last people lingering at the station, most of the class trailing off to their respective trains, Aizawa-sensei close enough to listen in while pretending very much like he wasn’t with a squeeze-tube of some sort of fruit mash clenched in his corner teeth.

“Good luck!” Deku squeaks out, looking like he wholly and truly meant it. “I hope – I hope we learn a lot, both of us, and that, in the future – I would like to fight you, properly.” He swallows. “I’m still figuring out. My quirk. That is. But – I’m gonna become strong and then – I’ll challenge you.” A breath out, determination flooding green eyes. “Will you accept it? When the time comes?”

Deku dares- remnants of a boy inside of her hisses but.

She stares at him – at the earnestness in his eyes and the way he’s growing, overcoming and rising to challenge the rest of the class, a hand reaching out for her. Waiting.

If we didn’t move, Katsuki thinks to herself, if the boy and woman hadn’t died to become me then what would they have been? Rivals or the Best of Friends?

For – there’s a part of the boy that still that looks back and expects the company of a boy with moss-green hair and a stubborn never-give-up attitude. A childhood memory of a promise before discoveries were made and one of them found himself greater than the other.

Quirks and Quirklessness – as if it mattered.

Genetics and chance, there were little else to it.

Katsuki feels her mouth curling, a tch as she twists on her heel and marches to her train, feeling the weight of the bag on her back, her Hero costume which she now had a name and identity assigned to in the briefcase heavy in her hand.

I’m going to become the Best, she thinks as she shoves them up above her and collapses into her seat.

But even so, there’s a part of her that struggles to shake the image of the last match between Half-n-Half and Deku, the bitter disappointment of her win and the heavy humiliation following it.

I’m going to become the Best, she clings to the words even as she stares out at the word gliding into motion outside the window. Anything else is unacceptable.

-

A movement, a body slumping down opposite her, makes her narrow her eyes upon Purple Guy who is looking about as enthused about the trip as she feels.

“So, I guess we’re classmates now?” he drawls when he notices her eyes upon him, a look she doesn’t quite understand, her mouth curling down in response.

Drags her headphones up over her ears and looks down at her book.

-

“And practically neighbours,” he adds hours later, staring at her from the door just a step down from her own, keycard slipping over the apparatus on the side with a beep and a slow lift of his lips when Katsuki practically slams the door shut behind her.

-

“To be honest, I’m not a big fan of yours.” Those are the first words out of Best Jeanist mouth and Katsuki feels something cold slither down her spine, eyes somewhere at her feet. “And I imagine the only reason you chose my agency is because I’m one of the top five most favourite heroes.”

Tall and slim and decked out in an outfit that cannot be described as anything but jeans for miles, hair carefully and artfully styled aside.

“You’re the one who drafted me,” Katsuki returns carefully as she flexes numbing fingers at her sides.

“Yes,” Best Jeanist agrees, leaning back against his desk, green eyes sharp upon her. “Because all I’ve had lately are little do-gooders.” The world is turning strangely dull around her. “You are the first one in a long time who is a bit more ferocious. And my job, as a Hero, is reforming people like you.”

People like you.

-

Katsuki stares at the door to her hotel room some hours later for a long time before turning on her heel and disappearing down and out into the street, past Purple Guy who pauses to look after her with a slight furrow in his brow.

-

BAKUGOU: You know any good places to drink in the middle of Tokyo?

XXX-XXXXX-XX: I thought you were out Hero interning.

XXX-XXXXX-XX: Naughty.

Three dots for a long moment.

XXX-XXXXX-XX: Do you want company? 

The next message is just a new number and Katsuki stares at it before hesitantly shooting of a message and almost immediately there appeared a link for a GPS-shared location with a bright blinking red dot.

-

“Don’t you look miserable,” Freak greets her as she pulls the door open and Katsuki glances inside in vague surprise. “You’re lucky – Dabi keeps the good stuff at this place but it’s been awhile since any of us were around here.” The door is kicked close behind her.

It’s a small place – made and kept simple for two to crash. A mattress on the floor, a single couch in front of a small television with a low table and there’s piles of magazines and books crowding about. There’s a cheap gaming station, picture paused on the screen, and Freak has a big pair of bright green headphones dangling around her neck.

There’s fast food boxes and bags crowding about and a tall mug with a half-eaten stir-fry beside it on the low table. 

“There’s food in the fridge and alcohol in the corner cupboard.” Freak waves vaguely, dropping back onto the couch and drawing up her legs.

Hair loose and still damp from a shower and wearing nothing but a large hoodie that ended somewhere mid-thigh. Katsuki’s eyes linger for a moment on the other girl – struggling to merge preconceived notions of her with what she was looking at.

She’d half-expected jars of blood with the way the other fixated near dreamily at the liquid. Instead there were old stains and scratches and the occasional hole.

Over the television is poster with three knives sticking out of it and that, at least, was within the frames of expectancy.

She finds a bottle of whiskey in the cupboard pointed out – stealing along a bar of chocolate she finds in the near-empty fridge and, after a moment of hesitation, sinks down on the couch beside the other and it is small enough that only inches remain between them.

“Dabi keeps some sweats and hoodies in the box there if you want to change,” Freak offers, surprisingly amenably, and Katsuki feels a quiver running through her body, blinking a bit fuzzily at the screen before slowly reaching to get the muscle shirt over her head, dropping it with a clank of metal to the ground.

It takes her three tries to get the belt unmade, button undone and she doesn’t bother with the zipper, pushing it all down to her knees before dropping back to the couch cushion to unlace her boots and wrestle it all down and off her.

Breathes out.

“You don’t really look all that good, you know?” Freak comments with a roll of her shoulder as Katsuki looks up, stilling in place as knees knocks against her own, a body bending down far too close as her muscles coiled up tight.

She hadn’t even noticed her leave the couch.

A hand presses down flat against her chest over a large stretch of a pink burn scar, legs shifting and thighs settling down on either side of hers in a soft and far too intimate straddle, the hoodie rucking up pale thighs, the weight of her and the feel of her skin strange.

“I saw you,” Freak breathes. “Chained up and muzzled like an animal.” Her fingers ghost over her shoulder and down her arm to her wrist, circling around the scar left after the bite of the metal that had dug deep in her struggles. “Blood.” The other girl lifts her hand up and pressed it against her cheek in a soft nuzzle. “I saw that look in your eye.” Knowing eyes bore into hers. “You were afraid. Of the Heroes. And wasn’t that just a reality check of the ages.”

Freak’s eyes practically glitter.

“I’m – going to become the Best,” Katsuki rasps, feeling strange and exposed under the touch and attention of the other, reaching for anger but grasping at nothing. She just felt empty and tired after the day and the buzz of her thoughts left her feeling distant even from her body.

Freak tilts her head and then she lets out a little sigh, dropping Katsuki’s arm and instead pressing forward, arms sliding around her neck and chest pushing up against her own, the swell of her breasts echoing strange to her mind against the flatness of her own.

“The world is going to tear you apart,” she whispers into her ear. “But at least you’re going to break oh so prettily.”

-

Katsuki wakes with a little jerk, stilling in place as she struggles to re-orientate herself, phone buzzing insistently in her pocket with her morning alarm until she manages to fish it out and shut it off.

The first thing that registers is the warmth and she stiffens when she recognises the press of a body against her own, chest rising and falling softly, control still in her lap, the game character shifting and moving her hands occasionally, left in the middle of a wreckage.

A glance at her phone informs her that she needs to be at the Pro-Hero Agency in some two hours.

Katsuki doesn’t like to be touched – it makes her skin crawl, makes everything too real in a world that felt like a bad hallucination on a good day.

And yet there’s something inside of her that hesitates to move away even as she carefully extracts herself, reaching out momentarily to steady the other, a strange feeling in her chest as she carefully draws back and made her way to the bathroom in search of some painkillers to soothe the slight headache that came with drinking, even in some moderation, on an empty belly.

She’d spent the evening listening to the click-clack of buttons and the soft breathing beside her, watching blood splatter violently on the screen, slowly lulled into a strange sort of sleep, tongue heavy with the taste of smoky alcohol and smooth chocolate, head tipping to rest on a soft shoulder.

She stares at herself in the mirror and grimaces at the sight of her flat hair and the dark smudges beneath her eyes.

She takes a shower, taking care to scrub her hair free of stiff products with something that smells of apples, and after a bit of rummaging finds a hoodie and a pair of sweatpants to go with it and shoves her feet into a pair of too big boots she finds at the door before dodging down to the corner store she’d passed by on the way there.

Picks up some egg and bacon and enough ingredients to make pancakes, splurging on fresh blueberries and only just remembering to grab a bottle of juice.

Fr-

Toga is still sleeping when she arrives back and Katsuki turns the small plastic radio she finds on low as she starts frying up the first pancake.

-

“Why are you going back if you hate it?” Toga asks around a mouthful of pancakes an hour later, shockingly sharp in the morning, legs tucked up beneath her on the couch, and Katsuki severely doubts she’d slept more than four hours at most, bags beneath her eyes smudged grey. “If I were you I would just –“ She mimes hands pushing together and then spreading out in what was clearly meant to symbolise an explosion.

Toga’s hair is pulled up in the style she’s more used to seeing her in and the softness is nearly completely erased by the sharpness of her eerie eyes and the stretch of her mouth, a fang just peeking forth.

“Don’t have a choice,” Katsuki grunts as she laces up her boots. “And it’s just a week.” She straightens out her muscle shirt, X bright and sharp against the black.

“You Heroes are all about doing things because you have to.” Toga’s eyes lid in a flat sort of look. “Where’s the fun in that?” Her face rearranges into a pout. “I’m leaving in two days, are you really going to pick a Hero over spending some extra time with me?” It’s clearly teasing and Katsuki suspects that if the other had a tail it would have been curling like a cat stalking prey.

Katsuki gives her a flat look.

Toga’s grin grows but she eases back, elbow coming up to lean against the back of the couch and a knife appearing between her fingers. “You can always stab them,” she suggests with an enticing little waggle of the metal. “Teach them not to touch without asking. Just one little poke and they’ll think twice, I promise.”

Katsuki stares at it and Toga’s eyes slowly brightens when she doesn’t immediately say no, abandoning breakfast as she bounces up and kneels down in front of her. “It’s easy to disguise,” Toga says eagerly, clever fingers unlacing her boots and tugging at the flap. “You keep your boots high which means you can either secure it here-“ She lines out the inside of the flap, measuring the knife against it. “I prefer to keep them at the side though – easier to grasp in the middle of a fight.”

“I’m not about to stab Japans Number Four Pro-Hero,” Katsuki comments wryly, watching her with a slight dip of her brow.

“Then stab someone else,” Toga says, uncaringly, sliding the knife into a sheath and stuffing it down her boot with a sloppy bow of the laces and a little pat before she straightens up and drops her rump onto the couch arm, grin sharp. “Never hurts to keep one close. That teacher of yours? He can cancel quirks, right? It’s called having a back-up plan. You never know when a knife might come in handy.”

And the part of her that died twenty-two-years-old and the victim of violent crime really have no words to offer in protest to that.

Toga throws a package of cigarettes at her before she leaves, the clover on the front a welcome promise as she squints up at the tall building of the Number Four Hero in the distance, a sick curl in her belly and a twist of her mouth but– strangely reassured by the metal at her ankle.

-

It is a surprisingly fine thing, Katsuki realises later as she’s securing the knife sheath to the inside of her boot as per the instructions and pic-by-pic how to that had spammed her phone for the last hour of her patrol with Best Jeanist.

The blade is shining, carefully polished and well-cared for in its own way. There’s a little lucky clover carved near the handle, so fine that she didn’t notice until she tilted it just so, the handle dark and leathery – firm and reliable when she carefully wraps her hand around it.

She sends a picture of the knife along side-by-side with her boot where the sheath was now firmly in place and gets a bunch of hearts back, mouth curling slowly up.

“Toga.” She tastes the name carefully. “Dabi.” That one, at least, is familiar.

The entire day had just been a mess and there’s a lidded sort of exhaustion clinging to her after hours of being berated for the way she stood, the way she breathed, the way she handled things, the way she talked, the way she-

Best Jeanist looks at her and he sees nothing more than something that needed to be fixed.

It wasn’t unlike the way both doctors and therapists had handled her over the years. Grasping and making excuses with meds that were supposed to make things right but didn’t because she was no fixing her.

We’re both dead, this is the fundamental basis that makes up Bakugou Katsuki.

There was no way to undo that – her very existence was a fraud, a twenty-two-year-old dead woman and a six-year-old dead little boy crammed together in a too small body and what remained was just bits and pieces she struggled to keep together.

And– she’s doing the best she can. It’s not-

Katsuki feels something wet hit the back of her hand before she scrubs furiously at her eyes, fingers dragging through her damp hair and forehead pressing against the knees she draws up to her chest.

“Fuck.” She stares down at the wooden floor of the hotel room. “Fucking Best Jeanist.” It feels good to say it, cathartic almost as she focuses on her breathing and the wet thu-thump thu-thump of her heart.

Dead but – somehow alive.

She eases her muscles and sprawls out on her back, squinting at the ceiling lamp and wearing nothing but a pair of white boxers. Throws out a hand blindly and after a bit of half-hearted fumbling finds the package of cigarettes with the blue clover against black– draws a cigarette out and strokes her thumb along the fancy black wrap with a cool blue ring.

It was not the kind of brand to be found in the corner store which meant that they were likely tailor ordered, the lack of barcode on the thing telling.

She sniffs it and the sting of mint is a soothing familiarity by now.

The twenty-two-year-old woman had been a social smoker and it had carried along – it wasn’t a habit she indulged in outside her meetings with Dabi. She would ask or he would offer and there would always be at least one rattling around in one of his pockets.

She tucks it behind an ear and raises her hands up above her, signs 《Hero》 and then 《Jeans》 then 《dumbass》, relishing in the satisfying smack at the end.

Repeats it just because she can.

Katsuki misses the silence. It was easier than the loud world around her – words harsher, faster and spoken without care for what kind of impact they carried with. It was very different from the way she’d navigated one life with a very small social circle and a communication that required full attention.

Few bothered to learn sign language and her parents-

Katsuki closes her eyes.

Opens them.

Decides that, maybe it’s fine to smoke on her own this once as she hauls herself up on her feet.

-

Purple Guy stares at her and Katsuki stares back – the butt of the cigarette trapped between her corner teeth, he with a plastic bag with microwave food dangling from a hand half-stuffed into a pair of dark jeans.

“You’re Bakugou, right?” He’s got a low rough sort of voice and she tenses as he steps forward and into the alleyway instead of continuing past her. “Shinsou Hitoshi,” he introduces himself with a thumb hitched towards his chest.

He’s got a lanky sort of form, lacking in proper muscle strength needed for the Hero Course, and Katsuki doesn’t doubt that, if needed, she could easy take him out but in responding she would activate his quirk which was unacceptable.

She weighs the situation as she reaches for her cigarette, breathing out a trail of smoke before biting down firmly at the butt of it.

《Hello》, she signs and when his brow furrows she can’t resist finger-spelling: 《S-H-I-N-S-O-U-H-I-T-O-S-H-I》 before twisting her fingers into a P and giving it a little shake for 《Purple》 and then tapping her index finger against her temple for 《Mind》.

He gives her a flat unimpressed look and she flashes her teeth around the black cigarette.

Chapter Text

Something Katsuki does not take into account: Purple Guy turns out to be far more stubborn than she knows what to do with and, possibly, pretty bored with his internship.

“Who are you interning with anyway?” he asks her, on her floor, inside her apartment, and she isn’t quite sure how that had come about but she can’t get herself to quite kick him out because-

《B-E-S-T-J-E-A-N-I-S-T》 she fingerspells with one hand before cramming the ice cream cone awkwardly into her mouth, jaw stretched out, before she gave him the 《Hero》 and 《Jeans》 for the call-sign she’d given the Pro-Hero.

"Hero and…” She flicks her eyes to his jeans very deliberately. “Hero Jeans?” he guesses, snorting when she gave him a lazy thumbs up before popping the cone out of her mouth, pointing towards him. “Me? It was pretty last minute… No Hero Internships at the General Studies.” Bitterness, Katsuki observes, flattening her tongue up and over the melting ice cream. “I’m with Slugger.”

Katsuki gives him a blank look.

Purple Guy shrugs. “Low-rank Hero,” he says. “Not much to him. We do patrols, that’s about it.”

《Best Jeanist》, she signs. 《Big C-O-M-P-L-A-I-N-E-R.》 She gives him the proper sign for afterwards before raising her hands up, dropping thumb, index and ring-finger in a pair of devil horns that she raises to her forehead.

Purple Guy’s mouth twitches up in appreciation.

It’s nearing late night and Katsuki turns her head, considering the setting of the sun outside, realising a bit abstractedly that it’s probably the most she’s been talking for… years.

“Only two more days now,” Purple Guy says a bit absently and-

That’s right, isn’t it? Katsuki thinks as the other draws a package of cards from his pocket with a raised brow.

I’ve almost made it.

-

Katsuki’s Internship is a mess of berations and unwanted touch, hands heavy against her head and her protests bitten down because the Pro-Hero isn’t listening anyway and she’s sick of the berations that rise loud and sharp around her inside the Genius Agency, but it’s weighed against the familiarity of signing and the strange camaraderie she finds in the quiet company of Purple Guy who turns up at her door with food and a quiet sort of pushy request in learning.

It should make her wary but there’s a part of her that craves – like discovering the use of a lost limb.

It’s almost addicting.

And, she admits to herself as her mouth flattens, it’s a distraction.

Katsuki follows at the heel of the Pro-Hero, nails digging into her thighs inside her pockets, quite uncaring about the sharp look her slouch had gained at the beginning of their patrol but – maybe the man is quite fed-up with her as well because he hadn’t actually said anything.

Instead she can feel her neck prickle in warning because he’s watching her.

Katsuki slouches deeper, scowl on her face deepening.

Pro-Heroes.

The best of the best, the Heroes of Society, a rising tidal wave of crime fighters. The same people who also appeared on television during commercials, their merchandise sold for good money and some reaching fame just to live a life of luxury.

What’s in a Hero?

Words asked and echoed by a twenty-two-year-old dead woman against the idealised ideas of a dead boy.

I will become the Best.

“Bakugou.” She takes a hard step back when the Hero comes to a sudden halt in front of her, body shifting in that dramatic stance of his, one arm folding over his chest, fingers dragging along the smooth line of his fringe. “Tomorrow is the last day of your Internship.”

She stares up at him, wary.

“What exactly do you think I’ve been attempting to accomplish with you?” His eyes are green and intent and he’s completely ignoring the way people are forced to move around them.

Katsuki knows that, objectively, from what information she’d managed to dig forth on internet, that Best Jeanist is one of the better Heroes out there – his reputation clean and there’s records of him taking hits for fellow Heroes and Civilians and investing time and money in reaching out to high-crime areas in the poorer districts.

He also had a good reputation with troubled youths which Katsuki had gambled on meaning he wasn’t so fucking fast to push only to come face-to-face with the realisation that Best Jeanist didn’t waste a single moment to push.

From the choices offered to her Katsuki had made a decision between Best Jeanist and Gang Orca, lingering but finally unable to resist the top ranking number.

What exactly do you think I’ve been attempting to accomplish with you?

The same thing everyone attempts with me, Katsuki thinks a bit dully, mouth flattening out, wondering exactly what kind of answer he was looking for and what he hoped to accomplish with it.

Eight years of doctors and therapists trying to figure out what had gone wrong with the boy who screamed at the touch of his parents, who howled and swore and struggled and hated and was so angry and so fucking terrified that no one knew what to do with him.

She had found calm in the sea and its silence beneath the surface, a suggestion from a young up-and-coming nurse who had been sympathetic to the child drowning in a too big hoodie, red eyes shining out from beneath its hood, but it wasn’t until Masaru brought home a pair of noise cancelling headphones that some of the world started settling around her from the loud and frightening mess it had become.

Trapped in the hospital bed for weeks during healing – a machine shoved down her throat, forcing the broken body to breathe, caught in a jumble of whatishappeningwhoamiwhoarethesepeoplewhoisitsoloudwhyisitsoloudwhyisitsoloud-

Katsuki’s mouth stretches into an off sort-of smile.

“Make me a Hero I suppose, Best Jeanist-sensei.”

-

“You’re late.”

Katsuki pauses, boot barely past the door she’d pushed open before Best Jeanist was pushing past her and she turns on her heel, following along with a sense of being tugged along at a leash.

To her surprise the Hero doesn’t take the path down and out to the street but instead up the stairs and Katsuki frowns in confusion as it opens up to a large gym-like area – nearly the entire floor open, machines of sorts crowding along the wall to be pulled forth when needed.

“You have a graceful and fluid form.” Katsuki blinks, not quite sure she’d heard correctly because- “But you’re stiff,” Best Jeanist continues as she raises her gaze up to him, finding green eyes almost thoughtfully upon her, slightly narrowed. “You draw your shoulders up habitually and I bet your back is all knotted up.” A sigh, fingers gliding habitually over his fringe. “I’m going to work you through a series of stretches and you’re going to memorize them and do them every morning and evening to keep your form relaxed.”

What-?

Best Jeanist beckons for her and Katsuki takes a slow step forward.

“Remove your boots,” the Hero instructs and she slowly does as told, placing them aside before she straightens up. “If you’re comfortable, remove your shirt,” the man says. “Otherwise change into this.” He brandishes his own brand-shirt with Best Jeanist stylishly slanted at the front of it, the entire thing blue with a backdrop of a yellow shadow in his siluette with black belt-like shape to the letters.

She snatches it from his hand and the Hero turns his back to her as she yanks the muscle shirt with the metal at the shoulder over her head and drops it down on the ground, slipping into the surprisingly soft t-shirt.

“Done,” she hears herself voice when he remains politely faced away and he turns back to her with a soft hmm.

“We only have a day,” Best Jeanist says with a sort of flourish as she approaches him on bare feet. “Look at what I do and do your best to copy it.” He lowers himself down with a fluid sort of grace. “Once we’ve gone through it twice you’ll have to do it on your own and I’ll correct anything that might hinder rather than aid.”

She carefully sinks to her knees and for the first time during the entire week there’s something akin to approval in his gaze.

-

“I am going to touch your left shoulder and arm.” Katsuki feels something strange move in her chest at the warning just before hands carefully settles on her, shifting her position just so. “Pay attention to your shoulder blades – when you’re lifting heavy debris during rescue missions you need to stay focused or you’ll risk damaging your spine. This is best accomplished with a straight form, shoulders back and down.”

What changed? Katsuki wonders just a tad desperately as Best Jeanist guides her through the next form. And why now?

I-

-

“Good riddance that sullen, angry boy finally left!”

Tsunagu doesn’t glance back, finger curling around the sharp end of his fringe.

Angry, yes. It had the first thing that had stood out to him when he watched the Sports Festival. That kind of anger was dangerous – was the sort that would end up with either the boy or someone near him dead.

It had felt natural to extend the invitation – knowing very well that the arrogant and angry boy would be hard-pressed to resist such a high-ranking Hero offering a week of Internship. Endeavour was only interested in his son and Hawks was… Hawks.

Naturally the boy had come to him.

I might have made a bad call, Tsunagu admits to himself with a rare sense of regret as he peers out the large windows, brow dipping.

He’d been bothered by the response to his question, the way lips stretched without humour, something dark and off about the red eyes that had spent the better part of five days burning into his back.

It wasn’t until near the morning, when the strange feeling of off-ness had made him revisit the tape from the Sports Festival, that he got a sense for why.

Anger, yes. Tsunagu hadn’t been wrong about that. But behind it…

He breathes out a small sigh.

You have some of the best Heroes in the world looking after you, he thinks as he pushes away from the table, calling for attention as he lets his hand fall down.

Good luck, Ground Zero.

-

Katsuki’s Internship leaves her with a new morning and evening routine, two new phone numbers and a shirt shoved into the very bottom of her bag.

Seeya later, Purple Guy signs as Katsuki grabs the suitcase containing her Hero uniform and makes for Mitsuki who flips her phone shut at the sight of her, hand rising in a wave and sunglasses pushed up.

An arm loops around her shoulder, pulling her into a one-armed hug with a squeeze. “Did you have a good time?”

“Ah.”

The woman snorts, pulling her just a bit tighter. “Don’t ah me, brat. Details, I want details.”

-

Katsuki isn’t quite sure what she feels about being back at U.A. again. There’s a buzz, excitement and disappointment mixing together, the different realities of different Heroes exchanged like gossip while waiting for Aizawa to arrive.

Raccoon Eyes appears at the door opening and she doesn’t waste any time grasping the back of her chair and dragging it with a loud sharp noise that makes several people wince, Katsuki raising a brow where she’s half-slumped with her noise-cancelling headphones in place, chin in palm.

“You,” Raccoon Eyes says with a low voice as she straddles her hair, “wouldn’t believe the Internship I had. Mysteries, all of it very hush-hush.” There’s a wild sort of excitement in her eyes, a brimming sort of thing that is barely contained. “I can’t believe we’re going to be doing it in real-time, Bakugou!” she says, louder.

“You had a good one then, Mina-chan?" Ponytail says beside them and Katsuki pushes one-ear off to keep track of the conversation.

Raccoon Eyes immediately zeroes on her tone. “What happened?” she urges, patting the empty space on the side of the desk.

Ponytail accepts it – a little sigh as she leans forward. “Uwabami-san was far more interested in her modelling work than she was in teaching us anything,” she says in a slight undertone, as if worried about sullying the reputation of the Hero. “She only accepted us because we were cute.”

There’s frustration there, carefully hidden, Katsuki thinks, the corner of her mouth dipping down as she stares at the other girl.

Tall, clever, the kind of smart that easily outstripped everyone in the classroom and would have zeroed her on the top-spot if U.A. didn’t naturally rate destructive quirks and capacity to take-out Villains as the number one priority.

Katsuki wouldn’t have been very amused to find herself zeroed out because she was pretty either.

“She didn’t teach you anything?” Raccoon Eyes demands as she straightens up.

“She had us participate in her commercials,” Ponytail admits, lowering her head, a complicated sort of doubt in her eyes. “We didn’t even get to patrol…”

“Maybe-“ Katsuki says carefully. “Talk to Midnight-sensei about it?” she suggests, knowing that most things out of her mouth would sound cheap considering the gender she was presenting as. “She has a whole history of fighting for female Hero rights. She’s the one that got through that a body-suit wouldn’t be standard regulation some years ago - she probably knows some good Agencies for your next Internship.”

Ponytail gives her a surprised look and then a hesitant sort of smile. “That’s a really good idea, Bakugou-kun.”

“Bakugou is fine,” she says, fingers twitching a bit uncomfortably under the attention of her clever eyes.

“You can call me Yaomomo then,” Ponytail offers, smile warming. “Most do.”

“Bakugou here is a real softy beneath all that anger and scowling,” Raccoon Eyes says loudly with a blinding sort of grin that makes Katsuki scowl right back at her. “It’s adorable, really.”

To her mortification Katsuki can feel the very tips of her ears go red.

“’m not adorable,” she grumbles, slouching lower in her seat and desperately trying to ignore the way Raccoon Eyes coos as she instead focuses her eyes on Ponytail. “’s always going to be idiots,” Katsuki says with a scowl, batting away pink fingers reaching for her ear. “And those who don’t take you seriously. But fuck ‘em.”

The part of her that died twenty-two-year-old deaf woman echoes the words with resolution.

-

Katsuki slouches near the back of the class, listening with half-an-ear to All Might who is loud and boisterous and… there.

She finds herself strangely cold, half-expecting Half-n-Half to be closer by but he’s nearly at the other end of the group and she folds her arms over her chest, scowling at the ground.

She can still feel the bite of the metal, All Might’s loud A HA HA HA, fist on his hip and all gleaming Heroism after he’d forced the medal over her head where she stood chained in front of thousands.

It’s fine now. Why? Because I am here!

Katsuki rubs at her bicep, barely recognising the new groups and the task as she stares a hole into the ground, unaware of the way more than one pair of eyes are looking at her oddly.

-

“-kugou!” A floating blue glove appear within her vision and she halts suddenly, looking up automatically for a pair of eyes and finding nothing.

Decides that it’s strangely awkward to look at where she knows there’s a face only to see the green and brown outline of a tree through her skull.

“What?” she demands.

Gloves moving – arms clearly folding up. “We’re a team,” See Through informs her. “Were you listening to anything All Might-sensei was saying?” she demands.

Not really.

Katsuki scowls at her.

An unimpressed huff of air. “We’re doing tag-teams,” See Through informs her, pointing, and Katsuki reluctantly looks over – studying the teams up ahead before them.

She’d paid enough attention to know she was second to last, Deku teaming up with Sparky against Half-n-Half and Round Cheeks. “It’s a speed thing,” See Through informs her. “We can either take the roof-parts or go through the street, first who gets to the goal in the middle wins.”

Deku already had Sparky on his back, hands curled to steady beneath his thighs, and Round Cheeks touches her quirk to herself to make herself light as air before practically koala-ing herself to a visibly tense Half-n-half who doesn’t really relax until Deku brushes their shoulders together.

Most in the class had some way to move quickly with notable exceptions and Katsuki frowns as she turns back to See Through.

“Yeah, I’m slow,” See Through admits with what Katsuki suspects might be a challenge and a glare from the way her neck prickles. “So you better figure out a way to compensate for it because we both need to cross the finish line for it to count.”

If Katsuki was the kind of person who could accept a loss, even during lessons, she might have just upped and left because it didn’t leave more than one glaring solution and the idea makes her shoulders curl up, mouth flattening.

It’s a tense wait between them as team after team go up against each other with varying success until it’s finally their turn.

Katsuki kicks her shoes off and roughly yanks the hem up, securing it in place. Punk places one booted foot down on the hip of Duct Tape and hoists herself up with a little surprised wobble from him before they stabilize and Katsuki stiffly lowers herself to a crouch, waiting for a good moment, just about to turn her head and snap at her to hurry the fuck up, when arms carefully wrap around her and Katsuki reaches blindly for an invisibly thigh when she feels it press against her right side – easily hoisting See Through up and with her as she straightens up.

“They’re going to take the roof top,” See Through says in a low tone, a whisper of air over her ear.

Normally Katsuki focuses her explosions in her palms – the sweat glands responsible for her explosive chemical in her feet forcefully shut down. But it doesn’t mean she can’t use them and she curls and wiggles her toes, feeling the warm late spring sun above them, the prickle of sweetness stinging sharp from her shoes and feet alike.

“I memorized the map,” See Through continues as Katsuki settles at the white line, ignoring whatever All Might was saying in favour of listening to the low voice of the other. “I think there’s an underground path near the fourth district on the left-side that  will put us nearly directly at the goal.”

Katsuki tightens her grip on invisible thighs.

She had, foolishly so, assumed that See Through was wearing some sort of uniform that filtered to work naturally with her invisibility. Considering the world they lived in it hadn’t seemed like much of a stretch and she hadn’t thought twice about – had had no reason to think twice about it.

But the thigh in her palm is bare, prickling with goose bumps despite the warmth above, and there’s a careful deliberateness to the way the other holds onto her to avoid pushing bare body up against her.

It makes anger, violent and badly tempered, rise inside of her as she scowls furiously out at nothing.

As far as See Through was concerned she was just another teenage boy and the situation is so damn wrong.

Who the fuck allowed this? Katsuki wonders as a gun blows loud through the air and a sharp low explosion goes off, propelling them forward in an explosion of fast steps that jerks them sharply forward, trial and error with additional weight as See Through yanks hard at her to take a left and then a right, skidding and twisting to blow the next step against a wall with a sharp crack to avoid losing momentum.

They skid down to a dark alleyway with eleven minutes to spare and See Through easily slips off her, an invisible force that rucks up the heavy lid and pushes it aside before, Katsuki supposes as she counts to five, trying to follow the shift of noise, slips down, and she takes a slow step forward and when a call comes from below she grabs the metal railings and slides down with an immediate chill that runs from the soles of her feet and up.

It’s eerie.

She knows See Through is there but she can’t fucking see her, even as her nose identifies her somewhere in front of her.

“Down this way,” See Through says and Katsuki squints, grunting as she steps forward, eyes slowly adjusting to the dark, and she can soon make out the puffs of air from the other in front of her as they thread their way down.

“How do you think they’re doing?” See Through asks, the clack of cold teeth just caught. “The additional weight should have slowed them down and navigating by rooftop is always harder…”

There’s a drip drop of liquid, the stone beneath her soles sucking out all heat, and there’s a naked fifteen-year-old girl in front of her.

“Why the fuck don’t you have a costume?” Katsuki demands to a pause of steps that makes her halt, staring blankly out into the darkness, mouth flat.

“Ah, noticed that did you?” And for all that there’s a levity to her words there’s a tenseness there now, her pace picking up as she begins moving. “Apparently it’s really hard to make a fabric suitable for the kind of stealth my quirk allows for,” See Through says as Katsuki follows at her heels. “Most of the class thinks I’ve got one so I’d appreciate if you kept it to yourself.”

Katsuki’s mouth curls down.

“It’s not really that bad,” See Through says and Katsuki really doesn’t believe her. “Aizawa-sensei promised they’d have something for me after the summer and - ah, here it is!”

Katsuki stares up the ladder, lid moved aside and as far as her eyes can see nothing moves or shifts other than the brush of bare feet against metal that her ears picks up on and she frowns as she hoists herself up after the other.

There’s a tense moment where Katsuki’s crouching down before arms are once again wrapping around her and Katsuki very pointedly grabs as close to the knee as she can as she hoists her up.

-

Two minutes later, five minutes before end time, Katsuki is forced to go low, twisting down, one hand lashing out with a measured explosion to makes them glide nearly flat along the ground and below the tape that explodes out of nowhere.

“Hold on,” she grunts and See Through’s arms tightens around her, breasts pushed flat against her back and thighs wrapping tight as she took them through an awkward twist, launching them up and above with a step-by-step between walls, palm out and down as they went over the edge and a loud and violent explosion tears through the air as part of the building burst beneath them, crumbling to shouts below and behind them.

But it doesn’t take long before Duct Tape and Punk is going high behind them, more tape exploding out at their heels, and See Through yanks her left, forcing Katsuki into a shared roll to a grunt in her ear as the other momentarily bears both their weight before they pull up and she lurches over the edge.

“Left-“

Katsuki misses the next step, an unholy noise tooloudtooloudtooloud and it pulses and moves through her, the world narrowing strangely around her, mind locking down and barely recognising the desperate sort of shout muffled by the world that's ringing around her and-

Katsuki distantly recognises that she’s on her knees, See Through heavy on her back, invisible hands over her ears, and she pushes up with a grunt, stumbling forward and pressing her palm blankly against the building the noise was coming from.

Stop, she thinks and the world crumbles around them.

Chapter Text

A curse, the sharp sting of burnt sugar, eyes opening to darkness.

Katsuki becomes aware of two things slowly: she’s sprawled out on her back, a body hovering somewhere above her, legs spread and settled on either side of her waist, practically curled against her, shivering and leeching desperately for warmth in a small tight space.

“What-“

“Don’t activate your quirk-“ The hurried gasp stills one hand, even if it hadn’t been a thought that crossed her mind considering the absolute sickening overwhelming stench of her quirk practically overwhelming around them. “We’re trapped,” the voice continues as Katsuki’s sluggish mind identifies her as See Through. “The building fell down and- I got you out of the way but I think you hit your head, when we went down. You’ve been unconscious for – I don’t know.” A rough swallow. “Do you have any communication device on you? My costume doesn’t exactly come with one…”

Katsuki stares blankly up into the darkness, slowly becoming aware of the pressure on her leg and the pounding headache now that she searches for it.

Everything feels sluggish. Distant.

“You’re cold.” It comes out more slurred than she meant, eyes squeezing shut, and See Through makes a helpless sort of noise somewhere above her.

“I’m naked,” she giggles, just edging on the hysterics. “And we’re underground – I don’t know how far but the building, it took the entire ground with it. It must have been structural unsound or, something. Isn’t that what Ochaco-chan always complains about?” Katsuki’s brow furrows and she reaches up clumsily, finding an arm which she slides up to gently squeeze a muscular shoulder.

“I think,” Katsuki manages as a hand clamps down on hers, desperate for some sort of grounding in a situation neither of them were prepared for, and Katsuki thinks – distantly – that See Through has very calloused hands. “I think there’s an earbud from our first lesson in one of the back pouches. All Might – he never requested it back.”

“You think you can lift your back?” See Through asks with a breath of hope and Katsuki grunts, curling her shoulders down and trying her best not to think too hard about the fact that her leg was very much stuck as she curls her back up, the other pushing herself flat against her front, and the space must be far smaller than Katsuki had first realised because she barely gets inches up before See Through’s back hits resistance against the stone with a muffled noise of strain.

But it’s enough for a hand to grope blindly beneath her, digging into the first pouch, her breath warm against Katsuki’s collarbone. A pause, a crinkle of plastic.

“… Do you keep tampons on you?”

“’s good to have,” Katsuki huffs. “Nose and menstrual blood alike.”

See Through lets out a wheezy sort of disbelieving laugh, curling further to reach the second pouch when the first didn’t reveal anything and her fingers snag and she shifts carefully as she drags it out and Katsuki sinks back against the ground.

“There’s stations right?” See Through murmurs and she feels the way muscles work as the other twists and turns the tiny dial without vision to guide her.

They’re practically squished together and Katsuki thinks that it’s might as well that it’s dark – it’s not nearly as strange to accept the invisibility part of her quirk when all her senses are registering her as there. The smell of sweat, the rise and fall of her chest, the way she’s curling to keep as much as she can of Katsuki while trying to leech of her warmth.

“I don’t think they’re close enough,” See Through says after a long moment and Katsuki gives a small jerk, realizing she’d been dosing off, grimacing a bit as she shifts.

“Nothing to do but wait then,” she mumbles tiredly.

“Suppose so,” See Through says, tense somewhere above her, and Katsuki’s head is swimming and she’s tired which is probably not good but-

“You can rest against me,” Katsuki gets out, aware of the way muscles tenses up. “You’re icy cold and I’m warm. Shared body heat.”

A chest rising and expanding above her and then a careful shift.

“You sure?” See Through asks carefully, tone traced with a careful sort of hesitance. “You’re not exactly the… cuddly type.”

“’m not shitty enough to let you freeze,” Katsuki says tiredly. “And I think I have a concussion.”

“You’re not just saying that to have a pretty naked girl wrapped tight around you?” See Through jokes tensely as she carefully settles down against Katsuki, head turning and ear pressing down near her shoulder as the other draws her arms and legs as tight against her as she can.

The position leaves her acutely aware of the warm breath on her neck, the slight thrum of a heartbeat, but there’s a fogginess to her mind and she’s too tired to think.

“Not exactly interested in girls,” she grumbles.

“You like boys?” See Through asks, voice rising.

“Why the hell do you sound surprised?” Katsuki asks, tufts of short hair tickling her nose as she breathes in.

“I shouldn’t be,” See Through admits, shoulders slowly easing, and Katsuki strongly suspects she might be smiling even as a shiver runs through her body. “Don’t take this the wrong way but your aggression levels really go up around boys so it wasn’t really something I took into consideration.” A pause. “And,” See Through adds, “I think I’ve only seen you willingly hang out with Ashido.”

Katsuki grunts.

“You’re a hard guy to read, Bakugou,” See Through comments, shifting to get as much of her heat as possible. “But I don’t think you’re a particularly bad one.”

-

“… Do you think you could, like, hold me?” See Through asks some fifteen minutes later. “I’m really, really cold.”

Katsuki grunts, shifting carefully, pretending not feel the way sticky blood clings to her arms and hands as she draws the other tight against her.

-

Katsuki jerks awake with the first strip of light hitting her face, eyes opening sharply, squinting as she slowly becomes aware of the noise and- there’s definitively shouting but it’s muffled, as from far above.

On her chest, See Through doesn’t as much as stir and Katsuki tightens her grip on her, arms locked stiff in place as her muddy thoughts struggles to string together.

Light. Noise.

Rescue.

“We’re here-“ it leaves her mouth a rough rasp and Katsuki grimaces but does a second attempt, loosening one hand to reach out and scratch at the tiny stream of light but it’s barely more than a thumb in size and she can’t really make out anything through it from her angle. “Hey- HEY!”

The sound of her voice makes her wince, the noise amplified with the pounding headache, but she pushes through it shouting to a sudden hush, something heavy thudding to the ground and then-

“Bakugou!”

Aizawa-sensei’s voice rings out loud and sharp and Katsuki swallows before echoing his name loudly in response and- suddenly she can hear footsteps and she does it again and again and-

“Bakugou-“ Aizawa’s voice is a balm to her jagged panic, close but still a bit muffled. “Is Hagakure with you as well?”

Haga-?

Katsuki’s mind struggles to grasp and – “Yes,” she gets out. “But she’s unconscious, I think the cold got to her and she’s lost a lot of blood and I don’t know how bad it is. I tried to keep her warm but-“

And, Katsuki recognises distantly, that she’s verging on a panic attack and she snaps her mouth shut, forcing herself to breathe with a quiver that runs through her entire body.

“We’re both here,” she squeezes out wanting outoutout.

“You just need to hold on for a little while longer, Bakugou,” Aizawa’s voice reaches her, gruff but strangely soothing. “We’re working to get you out as fast as we can - Cementoss and Power Loader are both here. Are either of you hurt anywhere?”

“Hagakure’s back and- I don’t know, I think the worst was the cold but it’s dark and I can’t see.” Katsuki shivers, old and tired panic clawing for attention. “My leg – it’s stuck and I think – I think I have a concussion.” It’s a dull sort of realisation that veers against the panic leaving her in a strange sort of dissonance, jerking sharply when she realises Aizawa has been calling for her and-

“’I definitely have a concussion,” she gets out and somewhere above her Aizawa breathes out.

Another voice and- Katsuki knows that voice but she’s tired, See Through cold and shivering even unconscious.

Shivering is good, Katsuki thinks distantly but the why eludes her.

“- kugou, I need you to listen to me,” Aizawa presses in that calm soothing voice, a slight strain in his voice, and Katsuki wonders how many times he’d been forced to repeat himself as she grunts out tiredly. “Are you listening to me?”

“Yeah,” Katsuki forces out. “’m listening.” 

“We’re going to try and widen the hole and get a heat blanket down to you, alright? When that happens I need you to wrap the both of you up in it the best that you can and then press the button at the corner to start it up. Can you do that for me?”

Can you do that for me? What a particular way of phrasing things.

Katsuki thinks she responds but she’s not quite sure.

Can’t quite get herself to care either way.

-

Blanket good, blanket warm.

Clumsy fingers, a guiding voice somewhere around her, urging her push something and-

-

Katsuki jerks blearily to awareness as the weight of her chest is suddenly moving and a questioning sort of noise leaves her mouth, soothed by a palm that brushes gently over her sweaty forehead and she squints up – makes out dark messy hair pulled back into a ponytail and a pair of dark eyes watching her carefully.

“Hey – stay with me, Bakugou,” Aizawa says firmly. “We’re getting you out but we need to remove the rocks keeping your foot stuck first. Everything is going to be fine.”

Fine? Katsuki thinks distantly, recognising more than one Pro-Hero around her. But we’re dead?

“’s she going to be alright?” Katsuki slurs tiredly. “Tried to keep her warm.”

“I know you did,” Aizawa soothes and when she doesn’t jerk away from his touch he keeps petting her, brushing down spikes of pale blond, her eyes dilated and focuses half on him, half past his shoulder. “She’ll be fine. Recovery Girl is looking her over right now. You just focus on staying awake.”

Katsuki grunts, tired, exhausted and confused by the mess of her mind, grasping for the focus of a rough palm.

“Listen to Eraser, little listener,” Present Mic says as he drops down beside them, all leather and grease and handing something to Aizawa that Katsuki can’t quite make out and-

Oh, Katsuki thinks, looking at the moon. It’s night.

She wonders if the sun in the distance is setting or rising, a strange sort of ringing noise in her ears as she grimaces, pushing down with her shoulders to look at her foot only-

Present Mic moves and Katsuki’s attention is diverted by loud yellow hair and eyes that makes her stare, startled at the sight of them without glasses blocking them out and-

Katsuki doesn’t feel very much like herself at all, the feeling hitting her hard as she twists her head and a bag appears in her vision, a shiver running through her, cold sweat beading on her shoulders and forehead, stomach cramping as she throws up a second time and-

A sleeve is tugged down and Aizawa gently wipes her lips clean as Katsuki trembles and-

-

Katsuki is getting really tired of waking up in a jumble but she squints her eyes at the bright light, turning and looking down at the chair and the woman slumped over on her bed, categorizing the pale blonde hair and wan face, worry lines and dark smudges beneath her eyes.

It’s hard not to feel like an imposter when she keeps causing nothing but trouble for the parents who loved their son more than anything else – even after he’d died and ended up not quite right.

She slowly pushes herself up, realising that someone had changed her out of her training gear and into a soft t-shirt and a pair of sweatpants, both with the U.A. logo stylised on them.

Touches her hands to her ears and carefully removes the headphones.

Mitsuki’s chest keeps rising and falling, phone clutched in her hand and a call counting minutes on the screen. It was likely, Katsuki thinks a bit distantly, she’d fallen asleep talking to Masaru who was out of the country on job business.

She winces as she shifts her leg but she leans forward and carefully slips it out of the woman’s hand, pulling it up to her ear.

“Tou-san?” she asks quietly.

There’s a sudden thud, a scramble and a hasty excuse to someone before-

“Katsuki,” the breath of relief makes her squeeze her eyes shut, drawing her knees up as best as she can as she rests her forehead against them. “You’re awake. Mitsuki-“

“She’s asleep,” Katsuki says quietly. “How long…?”

“It took them almost twenty hours to get you out,” Masaru admits tensely through the phone and it’s rattling to hear the clear strain behind the admittance. “There were structural damage before your lesson and what should have collapsed a wall ended up concaving the very ground you were standing on. It was no-ones fault.”

Something eases slowly inside of her at the words and she swallows.

“Hagakure-“

“She lost a lot of blood and that coupled with the cold slowed down her heartrate which is why she was hard to rouse. Recovery Girl sent her home some hours ago. She’s going to be missing the rest of the week as she rests up but other than that she’s fine. The other two you were competing against managed to get out of the way and weren’t hurt.”

“That’s… that’s good.” A quiver runs through her shoulders.

“That teacher of yours, he’s quite something,” Masaru says through the phone. “He stuck with you through the entire thing, Mitsuki said. Not even All Might did that! He had to leave when lessons started up but he was down for lunch and afternoon classes should be over soon. It’s likely he’ll stop by again.”

Katsuki appreciates the heads-up, she does.

“When can I go home?” she asks tensely.

“I think I’ll be the one to answer that,” an elderly voice comes from beside her and Katsuki opens her eyes, turning to look at the woman as the curtain was yanked aside and she gave her desk a little kick, gliding close on a chair with wheels, cane folded over her lap.

“Can you put me on speaker?” Masaru requests quietly and Katsuki slowly removes the phone, pressing the button in question.

“Masaru-san,” Recovery Girl says in acknowledgement, receiving a greeting back. “How are you feeling?” This she directs to Katsuki.

“My headache is gone,” she admits, fingers curling around the telephone, taking comfort in familiarity. “My foot still hurts a bit but that’s it.”

“You were lucky,” Recovery Girl tells her. “You’ll make full-recovery. I want to keep you for an hour more to make sure you’re not feeling any adverse effects from the concussion now that you’re awake. My quirk healed up the worst of it and removed the pressure on your brain but the body always needs a bit of time to stabilize. It is likely you’ll be feeling a bit dizzy to and from in the following two or three days. Anything worse than that and I want you to let me know immediately, is that understood?”

Katsuki nods a bit tensely.

“Katsuki, words.” Masaru’s light reminder makes her jaw clench.

“Yes, ma’am,” she says grudgingly. “Thank you.”

The Pro-Hero merely smiles. “Gummy bears?” she offers, proofing her hand, and Katsuki slowly reaches out to take a handful.

“Mitsuki fell asleep some two hours ago,” Masaru says through the phone. “Let her sleep, if you can.”

“I will,” Katsuki says quietly, pushing the phone back from speaker mode and pressing it up against her ear.

“Good.”

Katsuki stares down the bed, pressing the phone just a bit closer, knowing that-

“I love you,” Masaru says and her fist clenches white-knuckled around the silvery device. “I’m glad you’re alright. I’ll see you soon, son.”

The conversation ends with a soft click.

-

Katsuki is playing around with an old mobile game on Mitsuki’s old flip-phone when the door opens up and she raises her head, finding Aizawa-sensei stepping inside, hair dark and messy, a hand dragging absently thorough it as he greets Recovery Girl.

But his eyes are on her and Katsuki isn’t quite sure what to feel as the elderly Pro-Hero gives Aizawa’s knee a pat before trotting out, closing the door behind her.

Katsuki takes comfort in the sleeping form of Mitsuki as her teacher approaches, sinking down on the spinning chair left in the other Hero’s wake, a slight slouch, his eyes hard to read as she flips the phone close, trapping it between her palms.

Aizawa glances briefly to Mitsuki before focusing his eyes steadily on hers. “So you’re awake.”

Katsuki remembers a soft hand against her forehead and a calm soothing voice amidst fragmented confusion.

Isn’t sure what to feel.

“We’re tearing down the entirety of the city training ground and rebuilding it,” Aizawa tells her. “Nedzu is overseeing it himself. Something like this won’t happen again.” He sounds exhausted but it’s the only clear read she gets of him – there’s a hard sort of emotion to place in the depth of his eyes. “You did good,” he tells her. “All things considering.”

You did good, words that echo strange, her gaze lowering, a slight furrow to her brow.

There’s a gap between them – drawn in the aftermath of the Sports Festival and Katsuki isn’t sure what to feel about her moment of vulnerability caught by him and even soothed and she swallows, neck warm, words stuck strangely in her mouth as she stares down at the green covers.

“I hope,” Aizawa says after the silence has stretched for a long time between them. “That you know that you can come to me if there’s anything you’re worried about.”

Katsuki isn’t quite sure what to answer and ends up saying nothing at all.

-

“Before you leave,” Recovery Girl says, as Mitsuki has left after a reassuring kiss to her forehead to fetch the car and pull it up to the entrance, “I want a quick word with you.”

Katsuki tugs the last knot in place on her sneakers, straightening up and frowning at the slight crease in Recovery Girl’s brows.

“Eraserhead helped me change you out of your clothes.” Katsuki’s stomach twists, knowing with sudden clarity what exactly she was inching towards. “The scars on your body-“

“Are none of your fucking business,” Katsuki bites out, lips pulling back to reveal sharp white teeth.

Recovery Girl pauses and then sighs. “I thought you might say as much,” the elderly Pro-Hero says. “If I honestly thought it was the cause of abuse I would have contacted the police.” Katsuki goes tense under sharp eyes. “But I suspect that, in your situation, I might just end up doing you more harm than good. Whoever caused that, I don’t think it was your parents.”

“Mitsuki and Masaru are good people,” she snarls.

Recovery Girl huffs. “Calm yourself, boy.” She taps her cane against the ground and Katsuki gives her a flat look of dislike. “I just told you I didn’t suspect them. Those burns – they’re undeniable quirk made. There’s few out there who could manage such a hot and precise thing.”

Katsuki remains tense, jaw clenched tight. “So what are you going to do?” she demands.

“For now? Nothing.” Recovery Girl admits with the sort of reluctance that gnawed at her professionalism. “The contract you signed upon entrance to U.A. prevents me from telling your parents and unless in the suspicion of abuse I am not allowed to act but I want you to be aware that there are help here if you need it. U.A. will never turn those in need away. But." She pins him in place with a stern look. "If you find yourself hurt like that again I want you to come here. I won't ask questions but burns can be tricky and they carry a high-chance of infection."

Considering the risk of the Hero Course contracts had been drawn to allow children the final say in their eventual withdrawal and granted a sort of guardianship contract to the class teacher. Aizawa was the only one Recovery Girl was legally allowed and required to share all of her history with and in a situation where Mitsuki and Masaru couldn’t be reached then Aizawa had the final say.

He even had the right to overrule when if he suspected they were making a bad call but it was the kind of power that was seldom put in motion past praxis.

It was a fine-printed thing at the end of the contract, carefully worded. It was partly to prevent parents from pressing legal actions when students, unavoidably, got hurt somehow or the other against each other or against teachers but it was also to prevent outside influence in forming their future Heroes.

Katsuki stares at her for a moment longer before grasping her bag, ignoring the slight dizziness with a grimace as she steps out, closing the door firmly behind her.

-

Katsuki feels another headache coming on when she turns her phone on after dinner, blueberry pie half-forgotten on the TV-table as she scrolls through the new group-chat she’d been invited to by Raccoon Eyes.

It looked like some kind of class group-chat and the mess of nicknames stares back at her, messages short-hand and full of emoji’s.

She leaves the group after scanning through enough to note Invisibly Girl’s expressed relief at being home, followed by many reassurances and badgering about her own health and Katsuki was so not dealing with that.

Her phone buzzes near two seconds later.

RACCOON GIRL: YOU LIVE.

RACCOON GIRL: i saw you in the chat!

RACCOON GIRL: or, rather, leave the chat.

An emoji with a sweat-drop followed the massage, sheepish looking, Katsuki decides after a moment of squinting at it.

RACCOON GIRL: Are you OK?

She writes a short message letting the other know she was fine and yes she was home.

Hesitates, but takes a picture of the blueberry pie and after a long moment of hovering her thumb over the send-button clicks it and backtracks out of the conversation and opens up the next.

PURPLE GUY: you’re just extra enough to drop an entire building on yourself, aren’t you?

Katsuki stares at the message before snorting.

BAKUGOU: i live for your care.

She doesn’t have time to back out before her phone buzzes rapidly in several short-hand messages.

RACCOON EYES: i’m glad to hear you’re alright <3

RACCOON EYES: i mean, they do say some people are too dumb to die.

PURPLE GUY: u’re too dumb to die so

RACCOON EYES: and only a dumbass manages to be back two days before-

Katsuki twitches and shoves her phone down and under the couch pillow with a scowl, grabbing for her cooled blueberry pie.

Chapter Text

Mitsuki insists on dropping her off upon returning to school once her body had recovered and Katsuki crams her toast into her mouth, scowling but not protesting when his mother adjusted the slouchy tie around her neck. She’d just end up loosening it anyhow, disliking the too tight itch of it, but Mitsuki had clearly been worried and Katsuki mutters and snarls but allows her to fuss during the days of her recovery.

Masaru slips her a bento with a ruffle of her hair and sticks a toast into her mouth when she opens her mouth to complain. “Growing boys need their food, son,” he says warmly with a little pat.

Katsuki grumbles but it’s covered in a generous layer of blueberry jam and she chews it slowly during the ride to U.A., Mitsuki strangely quiet beside her as she comes to a slow stop outside the large tall gates.

“I have my reservations about this,” she says as Katsuki reaches for the handle, pausing and craning around.

Mitsuki’s mouth is flat, her hair nearly as messy as her own, and Katsuki had wondered on more than one occasion what it would be like to echo the black lines of her eyeliner with their likeness having been pointed out on more than one occasion.

But their son was already dead and Katsuki owes too much to them both to do more than entertain it in the darkness of her bedroom.

“I’m your mother and I worry for your safety,” Mitsuki continues, ignoring the way Katsuki narrows her eyes as she leans forward. “But you’ve been steady set on becoming a Hero ever since you heard the name All Might and I’m here to support you, whatever choices you make. But I want you to know what we’ll be proud of you no matter what you chose to do with your life.”

“I’m going to be the Best,” Katsuki tells her with flat determination.

Mitsuki holds her gaze for a long moment before sighing and Katsuki twitches as her hand rises to give her forehead a little thwap.

“Brat,” she says fondly. “You should invite your friends over your dinner sometime this week.” It’s not a suggestion and Katsuki growls as she yanks the car door open, kicking it shut behind her, window scrolling down behind her. “Have a good day, honey!” Mitsuki croons cheerily and Katsuki snarls a goodbye, chin burying into the folds of Dabi’s scarf as she tugs sharply at her tie.

-

Katsuki is early and she’s regretting everything about it, noise cancelling headphones around her neck as Purple Guy droops in his seat opposite her with liquid satisfaction.

《I see you’re in one piece》 he signs as Raccoon Eyes watches them very very carefully where she’d quieted after he’d greeted her with a twist of his hands. 《I’m most impressed-》 Here he makes the sign for K and then Explosion, clearly feeling smug with himself.

《Creative》 she signs dryly, ignoring the slight softening inside of her that he’d taken the time to research names in the deaf community.

He makes a P, gives it a shake for purple and then a single tap against his head for mind.

His expression is terribly dry and her mouth twitches despite herself.

“Okay- okay, this isn’t fair!” Raccoon Eyes slams her palm down on the desk, leaning so close to Katsuki that she twitches, shoulders going up. “You can’t just go about making friends without telling me! And- and you already have your own language.”

To Katsuki’s discomfort she looks genuinely upset and it tugs strangely at something inside of her.

“It’s American Sign Language,” Purple Guy drawls, an edge to his smile. “Bakugou has been teaching me.”

His mouth curls around her name and Raccoon Eyes bares her teeth, hand snapping out to curl around his tight and yank him towards her as Katsuki leans back warily, not sure what to make of the entire thing.

“Maybe-“ Purple Guy says with a glint in his eyes. “You’re just not that close.”

Katsuki frowns when Raccoon Eyes releases him as if burnt, eyes flashing before she shoved away with a twist of her heel to Sparky and Punk who immediately turned worried eyes on her when she slumped down.

Her hands knots in her lap and she lowers her gaze to them as Aizawa steps into the classroom, calling for attention as she scowls.

-

Whatever has Raccoon Eyes so twisted up means that Katsuki finds herself eating lunch alone on the roof, stomaching knotting uncomfortably as she keeps glancing warily towards the door, and half-expecting it to slam open any moment.

She paws for her phone but it’s strangely silent, no new messages on the screen.

I don’t need friends, Katsuki thinks firmly to herself as her fingers clenches tight around it before she shoves it down.

-

“She’s jealous,” See Through’s voice comes from her right and Katsuki slowly turns towards her. “You might not realize it but she talks about you a lot and now here’s someone who has only been in the class for a small amount of time and you’re already friendly.”

“We lived in the same corridor during our internship,” Katsuki grumbles.

“And it’s easier for you to talk with him with sign than verbally considering his quirk,” See Through hums. “Maybe you should explain that to Ashido?” she suggests. “You are friends, aren’t you?”

They’re seated down on the floor, watching the sparring matches between her classmates, Class Rep gearing up to go against Half-n-Half with a glint in his eyes and a small curled smirk from the other as Deku cheered loudly for them both.

See Through had been the first one up, winded and loosing badly against Froggy whose versatile quirk slotted her among one of the highest ranked in the class. Katsuki had yet to go up against her, twitching a bit at the thought of that long tongue wrapping tight around her.

I’ll blow it off if she tries, she promises herself as her eyes linger on the back of the girl until she turns around, finger touching against her lip with a little tilt of her head and Katsuki bares her teeth.

“I never got to thank you,” See Through says when she doesn’t answer. “Aizawa-sensei said you were quite worried about me when they found us.”

“You were fucking freezing,” Katsuki says with twist of her mouth at the reminder. “It’s their fucking job to make sure you’re goddamn safe and they can’t even get you a fucking jacket.” She glows furiously at All Might as the man laughs loudly, something cold slithering down her back at the sound.

She jerks when fingers touches against her jaw but there’s nothing to look at, no face to read, no eyes to tell what the other is thinking as her thumb draws over the small scar is left from the the metal muzzle at the corner of her mouth where it’d bitten down.

It’s fucking eerie to see nothing when the touch is clearly there.

“I spoke with Aizawa-sensei,” See Through tells her in a light tone as Katsuki tries very hard not to feel stupid for glaring at the tree visible through her skull. “I told him that I didn’t feel very comfortable working with just anyone seeing as my situation is as it is. So – I get to decide who I want to work with until the support class figure out how to make me a proper costume.”

“Good,” Katsuki grumbles, shoulders loosening a fraction. “Should have been fucking obvious you wouldn’t want to work with just anyone like that.” The words sounds awkward in her mouth and her mouth flattens as she turns away, pausing as fire swirled up and squinting.

Half-n-Half hadn’t shown a single inclination to use his fire before the Sports Festival but since his match with Deku he’d been using more and more of it and her eyes snags at them, reminded of the white and blue of Dabi’s hot flames for all that they weren’t nearly as pretty.

Probably isn’t as hot either, Katsuki thinks with some gratification.

“I told him I’d prefer working with either the girls or you,” See Through says and Katsuki’s eyes snaps towards her, mouth opening. “My decision,” she presses and Katsuki’s neck itches, fairly sure the other was smirking at her. “Don’t worry, I won’t tell anyone what you told me- your secret is safe with me!”

Katsuki gives her a blank look, snorting as she drew her arms around her knees and pressed her mouth against them.

“Whatever,” she mutters, eyes lingering on the back of Raccoon Eyes head and then drifting to Purple Guy who stood just a bit off to the left, still the outsider, slouched with heavy eyes on them all.

-

In a turn of events Katsuki finds herself awkwardly hovering outside the classroom, hands shoved into the pocket of her pants and scowling furiously at Deku who stammered something incomprehensible before getting snagged along by Round Cheeks who grinned at her with a cheery goodbye to several strange looks between them both.

Most of the classes were getting out, the corridor filled with students, and Katsuki can hear their chatter, the way they laughed and mocked her behind their hands when they caught sight of her even as she scowled harder, sinking deeper and deeper into her scarf until only her eyes were visible.

This was why she refused to stay inside the school walls – her skin crawling and anger bubbling inside her chest until it’s hard to breathe from how thick it strangles around her lungs.

“Have you heard how he snarls and grumbles – more animal than human, that one.”

“Even All Might can’t stand him! Muzzled him like a do-“

“Hey!” Shitty Hair’s voice rings out loud, hand on his hip as he steps up beside Bakugou with a strange look in his eyes as he looks between her and the group of 1-B students. “That’s not very manly behaviour!”

“It’s true though isn’t it,” a smarmy looking boy with blonde hair and strangely blank eyes says as he spreads his hands wide. “It was hilarious, wasn’t it? Really put you in your place.” Katsuki mentally dubs him as Creep as her hands curls into tight fists inside her pockets.

There’s something tight inside her chest, like a hand grasping and squeezing down at her heart, because these children are supposed to be her future co-workers and-

Something sickly twists inside of her, raw and ugly as her skin crawls like ants beneath her skin.

Is this what it’s going to be like? Katsuki thinks, hearing strangely muffled as she turns her head away to stare blankly down the corridor. Do they really think I deserved-

A hand lands on her arm and Katsuki flinches violently back, taking two steps as her eyes snaps up to meet Raccoon Eyes.

A sudden hush falls around them and Katsuki realises she’s trembling, breath hitching strangely and nails digging claws against her thigh inside the pocket of her jeans.

Raccoon Eyes is frowning as she reaches out once more, her movement telegraphed clearly, and Katsuki stares dully at her as she grasps for her noise cancelling headphones and very gently brings them up over her ears before stepping closer, hand curling around Katsuki’s wrist to give it a little tug out of her pocket.

She hears her say something  to Shitty Hair who has his arms folded, stepping to block her from the sight of the 1-B students, but the world is muffled and her hand twitches as she turns it and grasps for Raccoon Eyes hand, staring a bit blankly at their contrasting skin.

She feels… disconnected, off, as if everything had slammed shut around her, but the hand in hers is warm and she focuses on that as Raccoon Eyes gives her a little tug, her boots dragging heavily as she follows, not sure where they’re going, quite unwilling to care if it meant getting away from other students.

The other girl stops at a door she doesn’t recognise, hand rising to knock sharply to a dull sound as Katsuki’s gaze falls somewhere at her boots, world flickering between dark boots and bare feet in straw coloured grass.

Her skin is crawling, her mind is buzzing and she’s still trembling as Raccoon Eyes tugs her inside and pushes her down until she sinks down onto a couch.

And then Aizawa is filling her vision, crouched down, scarf tugged down to bare his mouth.

“Can I touch your hand?” he asks her, mouth moving clearly for her to read.

Katsuki opens her mouth but she can’t grasp for the word so instead she raises her hand in a fist, dipping down twice in a yes.

His brows crinkles slightly and then he turns and addresses something to Raccoon Eyes who turns and hurries away and out of the door, the motion registering faintly at the back of Katsuki’s mind as Aizawa reaches for the hand the pink skinned girl had been holding only moments ago and brings it to his chest, flattening it out there.

“Match my breathing,” he mouths to her and she doesn’t understand because she is breathing only-

It’s coming out short and shallow, she realises distantly, and she sucks in as he makes and exaggerated motion that expands his ribs, holding it and then breathing out as she struggles to match, something ragged and raw in her throat as she does it again, fingers flexing against him, feeling the warmth through his chest, the low dull and steady thu-thump thu-thump of his heart beneath her palm.

It’s a familiar exercise, one his parents had guided her through on more than one occasion, and her mind grasps at it, knowing what it was supposed to do, forcing her body into complying with it as the buzzing at the back of her mind slowly dulled from the franticness she’d barely been aware of.

Stupid, she thinks tiredly to herself, her eyes on the messy dark hair of her teacher, Aizawa’s hand remaining grounding on top of her own even as her breathing calms into what it’s supposed to be.

Lethargy creeps onto her, as it always does after one of her disassociations, though this one had been far from as bad as it could have been. There had been times when she lost complete track of her surroundings as her mind dragged her down and under.

She tugs her hand slowly away from him and he allows it without fuss.

《Thank you》she signs, turning her head as motion registered and blinking as Present Mic stepped into the room, closing the door behind him, eyes on her hands.

《A-S-H-I-D-O said you needed my help》 he signs, fluidly in ASL, mouth moving with the words, and Katsuki jerks a bit in surprise. 《Eraserhead》 and he actually makes the sign for Eraser, fist rubbing against his palm and then touching his hand to his jaw and then the top of his head as is measuring in the sign for Head 《Is wondering how you’re feeling.》

《Tired》 she informs him, the tips of her fingers touching down on either side of her chest and then roughly down in a slant towards the middle of her chest.

《Understandable》 he says with a sympathetic smile as Aizawa watches them both carefully. 《Can you tell me what happened?》

Sign-language had been her life for twenty-two years. It had taken time to get used to the noise, the sound of her own voice, trapped and unable to communicate with his parents without explanation for suddenly picking up another language entirely and she had spent her first years completely terrified someone would figure out she’d replaced a dead little boy with a dead woman.

She is old enough now that it wouldn’t seem strange – the internet an easy excuse. But before Purple Guy she hadn’t even made the attempt past the dark walls of her bedroom and she can’t- the way Present Mic is watching her, glasses tucked away and the constricted circles of his eyes patiently on her hands-

《Panic attack》 she tells him before she can overthink it, the excuse falling easily. 《Small one》 she tacks on a bit tiredly.

《Have them often?》 he raises his brow to clarify question.

《Used to》she admits reluctantly.

《Can you walk me through what happened?》

Katsuki’s mouth flattens, hands curling in her lap and Present Mic tilts his head, the muffled sound of Aizawa’s voice somewhere beside outside her reign of hearing with the headphones in place.

《A-S-H-I-D-O said that some of the other students were making remarks》here his hand halts a bit hesitantly. 《About what happened at the Sports Festival.》

Katsuki’s shoulders draws up, tense and not at all liking the turn of the conversation.

《Have the other students been harassing you?》 he pushes, his eyes quite serious as he meets her gaze.

And – it’s so fucking ridiculous that she barks out a short helpless sort of laugh because who hadn’t at this point? She scrubs her hands over her eyes, squeezing them shut behind the palms of her hands before looking up at him, trying to understand the crease of his brows and the dip of his mouth beneath that silly little moustache and-

“I’m going to take a fucking nap,” she says before she draws her feet up, uncaring of the dirt beneath her boots as she slumped down against the pillow, hands pressing down on her headphones, quite done with the conversation as she turned her head away.

After a couple of minutes a blanket lands softly on her shoulders and she draws it tight around her.

-

Aizawa let’s her stay for almost two hours in his office and Katsuki lies on his couch with her back towards him, not feeling like dealing with the rest of the world.

At some point Present Mic had brought her a mug of hot chocolate and her hand is curled around it, eyes focused a bit blankly at the ridiculous pattern of the couch – a mish-mash of yellow, orange and pink twisting and curling about each other, little kittens hidden in it and she finds herself touching her fingers to one sprawled out on its belly.

In her pocket had phone had buzzed several times but she can’t get herself to muster up enough care to pull it out.

It’s quiet – she knows that if she were to nudge her headphones off all she’d hear would be scratch of Aizawa’s pen and his breathing and yet she can’t muster up the energy to even do so much.

Silence had always been her safe-haven. She’d been born deaf, had spent twenty-two years without noise, and if she’d remained as she was she wouldn’t have to listen to the disparaging remarks that followed her and she wouldn’t have been forced to hear the laughter of the Number One Hero as he forced the medal on her where she stood with metal biting into her jaw and mouth and wrists clasped together in a contraption befitting a criminal.

Her back knots, fingers tightening around the mug.

Heroes and Villains, that’s what the world is made up of. The boy had wanted feverishly to stand tall beside his idol and instead she’d found herself shackled as he laughed that stupid fucking laugh that she’d plastered herself to the small computer screen in a body not her own in an attempt to understand.

“Fucking All Might,” Katsuki hisses to herself, hating the bitter twisted curl of betrayal in her chest.

She doesn’t see the way Aizawa twitches behind her, a small narrowing of his eyes as he considers her.

-

“What the fuck?” Katsuki asks a bit blankly as she stares at the car and then pauses, craning her head to look through the window as it scrolls down, Midnight peering out with a sharp grin.

“Heard you needed a ride, Bakugou-kun.” She flashes her a peace sign as Katsuki glances warily back towards the school.

She could, entirely theoretically, just stay the damn night. The couch, no matter how ugly it was, had been comfy and Katsuki isn’t picky enough to think twice about where she slept as long as she was allowed to do it in peace.

And nothing about stepping into the same car as her teachers to be driven home felt remotely peaceful.

She twitches at the sound of familiar footsteps behind her and takes a jerky step to the left before Aizawa’s hand snags against her collar and hauls her beck.

“Now, now – we’re just taking you home,” he drawls.

Katsuki snarls wordlessly but then Present Mic is there and she yanks the front door seat open and claims the passenger seat for herself, slamming it shut and glowing furiously out the window as Midnight blinked a bit in surprise before smiling.

“Aww, relax – Shou-chan is just being a worrywart and it’s our responsibility as your teachers to make sure you’re alright.”

Katsuki gives her a wary look but she looks genuine enough so she huffs and reaches for the seatbelt, tugging it in place with an aggressive click as Aizawa and Present Mic slid into the backseat.

“So, I heard you’re quite fluent in American Sign Language,” Midnight says after flashing her card at the gate which rose to allow them through. She’s in civilian clothing – a white tank top beneath a leather jacket, boots high and tight against her calves but with a flat low heel to it.

“What about it?” Katsuki grumbles out.

“Just curious where you picked it up,” the female Pro-Hero says easily.

“The fucking internet – where else?”

“Do you know JSL as well?” Present Mic, arm on the back of Midnight’s seat as he looks at her, still in full Hero-regalia, his hair pressing up against the roof of the car, and Katsuki twitches, glancing through the mirror at Aizawa who had slumped back, sipping on one of those mushy fruit pouches he seemed to have an endless supply of and apparently all too happy to leave her to the mercy of his colleagues.

“… No,” she admits reluctantly.

“Is it something you’d like to learn?” Present Mic asks, glasses dipping down just enough to give her a flash of his eyes.

Her fingers twitches.

“If you’re interested we could arrange a meeting with Nedzu about picking up JSL as an extra credit thing,” he continues with an easy smile.

“Really?” Katsuki blurts out before she could stop herself, craning around to look at him.

“You’re already fluent in English and you have top scores despite sleeping through half of my classes,” Present Mic says, looking completely unruffled by fact as Katsuki’s brows creased. “There’s no point of you sitting through something you already know, right?” He says in English with a wink. “It might take me a couple of days to get it together but I’m sure Eraser will help me!”

Her homeroom teacher grunts, sinking lower against the leather of the car but it’s not a no.

“What do you say?” Midnight asks, glancing at her from the corner of her eyes.

Katsuki tries not to think of the softness of her scent this close – knew what hid beneath her skin and just what her quirk was capable of.

“’sounds fine,” she admits a bit grudgingly, drawing tighter on herself as she sunk deeper into her seat.

-

Aizawa slouches at her side as Katsuki unlocks the door, barely getting it open before Mitsuki’s arm was circling around her, drawing her inside with her back abruptly against her front, arms folding over her chest to keep her in place.

Katsuki stares a bit blankly down at his mother’s hands.

“Aizawa-san,” Mitsuki greets as Katsuki raises her head to look for Masaru. “A pleasure to see you again.”

The scent of food is heavy in the air and Katsuki can hear the rustle and click of the stove being turned off.

“Bakugou-kun had a bit of a rough turn with some of the students outside his class” Aizawa says, straightened out to his full-height in the door-frame but leaning against it with just a brush of his shoulder. “We’re going to have a talk with our respective classes following it and he’s excused from his first-lesson tomorrow.”

This was news to Katsuki and she lifts her head, Mitsuki’s arms tightening momentarily around her.

“Thank you for bringing him home,” Masaru says as he steps out from the kitchen. “Katsuki can be a bit of a handful.”

“I’m right here,” she grumbles but can’t help the way her head tips to meet the hand stroking over her hair as he steps up beside her, craving some reassurance.

“He’s my student and my responsibility,” Aizawa says with a strange sort of heaviness that makes Katsuki look up to meet dark eyes. “I’ll do my best to make sure it doesn’t happen again.”

“See that you do,” Mitsuki says with a tightening of her mouth.

He dips his head, sliding the door shut behind him as he leaves.

Katsuki finds herself turned around, Mitsuki sinking to her knee in front of her. “Are you alright?” she asks. “Was it-“

“I don’t want to talk about it,” Katsuki bites out, shoulders drawing up.

“That’s fine, son,” Masaru says gently. “Dinner is almost ready – why don’t you join us at the table?”

“Music?” Katsuki asks as she paws a hand tiredly over her eyes.

Mitsuki’s fingers brushes over her hair. “I’ll turn on the radio,” she says gently.

Chapter Text

Something Katsuki thinks about a lot is noise.

What makes noise, what doesn’t make noise, what kind of noise, and the things that didn’t make noise despite her very sure expectations of it.

The waves lap up against her feet, her ankles, a soft rush of bubbly water.

Above her the sun is hot but quiet.

Water trails down her skin, stinging with salt in places as she shifts with a little grimace, knowing that it would dry uncomfortably with little crusts in her hair if she didn’t get back and shower before school, her boxers sticky with sand from where she’d planted herself down and sure to get in uncomfortable places.

But she’d been excused from her first lesson and she has more time than usual to just sit and think and she’s not entirely sure it’s doing her anything good as she frowns out at the glitter of the water.

She’s jealous.

You are friends, aren’t you?

Katsuki wants to say no, wants to vehemently deny it – but she can’t stop thinking of the way Raccoon Eyes had reached out, had known just what to do as she brought her headphones up over her ears to block the sound of the voices as her mind spiralled.

And she thinks of the knotted feeling in her chest as the door remaining closed as she ate her lunch.

Whether she liked to admit it or not the warm feeling when Raccoon Eyes wore the tacky t-shirt she’d found in the store was a thing that was there. There were consideration in her actions that Katsuki seldom found among those her age (sixteen in two days, she thinks, but also thirty at the same time) and she grimaces as she drags a rough hand through her wet hair.

You should invite your friends over for dinner sometimes this week.

Katsuki has never brought friends over because there were none, she doesn’t relate to the people around her, and being stuck around toddlers when she was mentally far much older and far more ravaged than the painfully hopeful smiles of her peers who skittered and dodged and looked at her with fear-

Her palm presses down against her ribs, fingers curling into one of the many burn marks on her chest with strange sort of frustration inside of her as she draws her knees up and rests her chin upon them.

In a world that had become too much violence remained a constant that made sense. She’d always drawn those who wanted to hurt and she’d lashed out in response, finding a twisted sort of relief in the feel of her bruised knuckles, in the flames that licked hot against her skin as Dabi met her with a far too knowing look in his turquoise eyes.

Kindness is foreign and she feels constantly guilty in the face of his parents who’d been left with remnants of something ugly and broken instead of the son that should have been. They thought her something she wasn’t and she loves them but she’s a liar in a dead boy’s skin.

Raccoon Eyes doesn’t have to care and Katsuki doesn’t understand why she does.

She paws for her shorts behind her, pulling out the strap she secured to her bicep as she ran and wiggling her phone out from it, hesitating but then pressing the bottom button and watching it flare to life in a cast of light against her face.

There are no new messages from the pink haired girl but Katsuki scrolls up, eyes lingering on the words there.

Are you OK?

Katsuki hasn’t been OK for almost eight years, not since his and her death. Not since the violence that broke her down in the hands of a man she had loved only to drown for as he pressed a kiss to her bleeding lips as blood filled her lungs. Not since the boy had fallen off a bridge to crack his head open on a stone instead of hitting the water.

Her phone buzzes.

PURPLE GUY: the teachers are talking about you and not talking about you

Katsuki stares down at the message, a flat look stealing over her face at the ones that followed.

PURPLE GUY: i mean, it’s pretty funny, because they’re giving Heroes a whole spiel about bullying

PURPLE GUY: midoriya is looking like someone kicked a puppy right in front of him

PURPLE GUY: keeps looking to your empty desk.

PURPLE GUY: you should see the way todoroki is alternating between looking at him and glaring at your seat

Gossip, she shoots back to him.

PURPLE GUY: you turning up today?

PURPLE GUY: where do you eat lunch anyway, didn’t see you at the cafeteria yesterday

Katsuki scowls.

BAKUGOU: Why do you care?

PURPLE GUY: bakugou. you cannot possible be this dense

PURPLE GUY: no, wait, it’s you. nvm

A brief moment of dots jumping on the screen.

PURPLE GUY: so, tell me, how exactly would one go about telling someone in sign to unclench around the stick shoved up their-

Katsuki clicks her phone off and flops back into the sand.

-

It’s Tuesday which means no Hero Course and Katsuki turns up in time for Math, hair still damp from her shower and dropping heavily into the seat with a brief raised eyebrow from Midnight but no comment as she continued with the lesson.

She already feels like a spectacle with the many eyes on her and she loosens the scarf wrapped around her neck as she glances towards Raccoon Eyes before her mouth curves down and she yanks the zipper of her bag open with unnecessary force, drawing out her books and letting them drop haphazardly.

Katsuki is at the top of her class in all her subjects but she’d never liked Math, even now, even if there’s a reluctant sort of amusement in the fact that they’d incorporated numbers and statistics relevant for the Heroes they were supposed to become.

Just like the texts they read in English were factual tidbits and moral problems that were supposed to get them in the right thinking.

The Hero Course wasn’t just a thing of a name.

It takes some digging to find her pen and eraser, always haphazardly shoved down to get caught between pages and other things she kept in her bag, but she lets it roll over the desk as she pries open the book and flips to the page number slanted on the whiteboard behind Midnight.

Her fingers drums a bit anxiously against her knee before she catches herself and curls them into a fist.

“Please pair up two and two and make your way to the end of page 62. What you don’t finish today will be your homework for Friday!” Midnight says with a clap of her hands and Katsuki stiffens in her seat, glancing to Raccoon Eyes who is slowly gathering her things together and turning to look around-

Katsuki grasps for her things, books drawn to her chest and notebook crammed shut over her pen and eraser as she side-stepped Round Cheeks and hooked her ankle around a free chair, giving it a rough scrape against the floor with a clank before sinking down and letting her things drop.

Raccoon Eyes stares at her a bit wide-eyed and Sparky gives her a squinty look before turning to Punk, the two of them dropping into seat beside them.

“Partners?” she asks, tense and uncomfortable with the way Raccoon Eyes is staring at her.

“Partners,” Raccoon Eyes responds slowly as she lets her things drop, eyes assessing before turning down to the page they were supposed to be working on.

Her finger dips to the letters of the first problem, mouth opening-

“Are you free Thursday?” Katsuki blurts out.

Beside them Sparky makes a strange noise before Punk kicks him with a hiss and Raccoon Eyes gives her a downright owlish look.

“What-“

“My parents,” Katsuki forces out just a tad too aggressively. “Are having a birthday dinner. For me. I guess. And – they wanted me to invite my friends. Friend. You – I mean, if you want to.” Katsuki bites down on the inside of her cheek, ducking her head and refusing to look at the other as she glares down at the math book in front of her.

Silence ticks by and Katsuki is an idiot and her fingers tightens white-knuckled around her pen, a sick twisted feeling growing in her stomach with every second Raccoon Eyes doesn’t respond.

“You don’t- you don’t have to,” Katsuki squeezes out thickly, humiliation colouring her cheeks red. “Just-“

“I’d love to.”

Katsuki’s head snaps up, meeting golden in a sclera of black as Raccoon Eyes – as Ashido leans her chin into the palm of her hand, elbow against the table. “Sounds fun,” she says. “Want me to bring a present?”

“What-?” she says a bit weakly, distracted by the relief in her chest.

“I can’t believe you’re the oldest in the class,” Ashido pouts. “My birthday isn’t until 15^th of July but you better get me a present then, alright? That’s what friends do.” Her eyes widen. “Do I need to dress up? Wear something fancy?”

“What, no- you’re fine as you are,” she grumbles, missing the way Ashido’s cheeks colours slightly before she coos and reaches forward to give her hair a ruffle to a twitch and a scowl.

-

“I’ve never seen someone struggle so hard in inviting someone to a birthday party,” Kaminari breathes, doing his very best to pretend he wasn’t staring at the resident hot-head. “It’s a bit sad, don’t you think?”

“Don’t let him hear you say that,” Kyoka mutters, gaze flickering between a visibly relieved Bakugou despite his grumbles and complaints as he slapped Mina’s hand aside and drew a rough line from the beginning of her calculations before starting anew, voice rolling in a grudging sort of explanation.

She had to give it to him – he knew he was talking about, enough to easily break it down despite the fact that they had only started on the chapter during the Monday lesson.

He was a strange guy to make sense of, she’d long since decided, but Mina liked him for some reason or the other and somehow she’d wormed her way beneath the skin of their violent, stand-offish and downright anti-social classmate.

Enough for him to put himself in a spot that had been so visibly uncomfortable for him that it had been nearly painful to watch.

-

“I suppose that makes sense,” Ashido hums, rubbing a hand against her chin as she considers her words.

Katsuki for her part shoves an omelette roll into her mouth, chewing as she wind ruffles her hair. It’s the middle of April, nearing summer, but the breeze is still cool enough this high-up that she’d wrapped Dabi’s scarf loosely around her neck.

“I’d like to learn,” she says next as Katsuki pauses, blinking at her. “It looked cool, you know? And I bet it’d be great for Hero work! We could talk even when we have to all undercover and be quiet and stuff.” Her eyes glitters.

“Present Mic is arranging for me to learn Japanese Sign Language,” Katsuki finds herself saying, pinching a rice ball in two with her chopsticks.

“But it’s American Sign you use, right? Then that’s what I want to learn,” she says decisively before her brows dip in a contemplative little curve. “How did you meet Shinsou-kun anyway?”

“We stayed in the same corridor,” Katsuki says before showing rice into her mouth.

“He’s a bit strange – I don’t think he really likes anyone.” A pause. “Well, except you – obviously.” Her mouth thins. “I feel like I should make friends with him on that principle alone. We could start a club – Club Bakugou and Friends.”

Katsuki chokes on her rice. “Please don’t,” she rasps as she paws for her thermos.

“I don’t know,” Ashido says, clearly entertained. “It has a ring, doesn’t it? Do you have his number?”

Katsuki smells a disaster in the making but Ashido is already digging her hand into her pocket and Katsuki allows it with a little grumble and relinquishes her code as she steals one of the sausage squids from Ashido’s bento, the little things piled up in a corner and untouched despite nearly everything else being decimated in some way or the other.

She trades them for some fried shrimps Masaru had added that morning.

“Hey, Bakugou?”

“What?” she asks around a mouthful of squid sausage.

“Your phone is just sad.” Ashido turns it around, revealing her contact list which consisted of his parents, Aizawa, Toga’s number saved under Freak, Best Jeanist under Jeans Freak, Purple Guy and Raccoon Eyes at the bottom.

Dabi’s number remained unsaved and deleted for reasons she isn’t quite sure about anymore.

“Looks fine to me,” she mumbles.

“I’m adding Jirou and Kaminari,” Ashido says a bit decisively, fingers moving over the buttons as Katsuki gives her a long look, intent on deleting them at the earliest opportunity. “I thought for sure you’d have at least Midoriya saved here with the way he looks at you.”

Katsuki’s brows draws together. “I hardly know him.”

“Well, he’s clearly hung-up about you,” Ashido says a bit distractedly as she copies Purple Guy’s number to her own phone. “I thought you might have gone to middle school or something together?”

“We were neighbours until I was like, eight,” Katsuki says around some broccoli which taste surprisingly good with some sauce that she hesitantly identifies as something with curry and mango. “I changed school after the hospital and everything.”

Several times, she thinks to herself, her memories filled with gaggles of children that came and went, faceless and unremarkable.

“Hospital?” Katsuki jerks up, blinking at Ashido who is staring at her with wide eyes. “What hospital?” she demands.

“’s nothing,” Katsuki mumbles.

“A hospital isn’t nothing,” Ashido denies, leaning forward. “Bakugou-“

“I fell off a bridge, or something, I guess,” she admits, looking away. “Broke a few bones and cracked my head like an egg.” And died, she thinks just a tad morbidly.

She supposes he might have been there when it happened for Midoriya is always two stops behind in every memory of the boy, bright eyed and with a smile no-matter how the boy pushed and snapped with explosions in the palm of his hands.

The boy had thought himself better because of his quirk but she’d lived twenty-two years in a word without quirks.

It's just genetics and shitty luck as far as she's concerned.

“Bad enough to put you in a hospital,” Ashido says and Katsuki stills as her fingers reaches out, running through the spikes of her blonde hair. “How long?”

Katsuki stares at her silently because she has no good answer to give.

The fall had killed the boy, left her in the wake.

Dead, dead, dead, dead.

She wakes up not right to madness and noise, wild and afraid with violence pounding deep through her being even as his parents struggled to reach through the broken pieces and pull her through.

Hospital after hospital, doctor after doctor, all of them trying to fix her instead of helping her.

It hadn't even been a full year since her last visit but these are not things she can tell Ashido.

So instead she says nothing at all.

-

We’re both dead, this is the fundamental basis that makes up Bakugou Katsuki.

There are days where she wishes it’d stayed so.

-

Katsuki stares into the mirror – at the scowling face with the mess of short blonde hair, at the resentment reflected back at her in the red of her eyes. She’s tall, muscles lining her body, and she touches her palm against the flatness of her chest, feeling the wet thu-thump thu-thump of the heart keeping her alive.

Sixteen-Thirty.

She scrubs a frustrated hand through her hair before letting it fall and reaching for the clothes Masaru had left for her.

Dark jeans, a simple white t-shirt and a ridiculous pair of orange socks that she takes some satisfaction in pulling on before sinking down on her bed and pawing for her phone with a click of the button.

It opens in the end tail of a conversation and she blinks at the message there.

PURPLE GUY: your friend is weird

Katsuki snorts before clicking out and opening out the next one.

RACCOON EYES: my mom insisted on driving me, she’s very excited to meet your parents

RACCOON EYES: you better not have lied about the clothing, I hate feeling underdressed

Katsuki stares at it a bit doubtfully but then rises and faces the mirror again, making sure to keep her face out of the photo and pressing the button before she can talk herself out of it.

She sends it without looking and backs out of the conversation, hesitating but then opening up the message from the unsaved number.

XXX-XXXXX-XX: Remember what I said.

Katsuki stares at it for a long moment, brow furrowing, before deleting it just as her phone buzzes again.

RACCOON EYES: nice abs

RACCOON EYES: be there in five

-

Ashido Mai simultaneously looks nothing like her daughter and just like her, this is Katsuki’s first thought when she sees the short woman behind her– behind Ashido.

Her skin is light brown, horns curving back from her temples in a spiral of pink with little points that had been capped with metal. Katsuki guesses her an inch or so shorter than her daughter but she’d compensated it with heels, pulling of the combination of purple jeans and a buttercup yellow shirt with a sharp jacket over it.

Most notably her sclera were black, just like her daughter’s, but instead of gold her eyes were pink.

Katsuki straightens from her slouch and offers her hand after his parents had invited the woman inside.

“Ah, you must be Katsuki-kun then.” His parents had already invited them both to use their first names to avoid confusion and Ashido is looking positively gleeful as she swings an arm around Katsuki’s shoulder.

“My bud, my friend, Katsuki-kun,” she says with relish.

“Drop the kun,” she hisses even as the woman grasps her hand in a firm grip as AshidoMina? and fuck she wasn’t prepared for this.

“Mina speaks very fondly of you,” the woman, Ashido, Mai-

Katsuki’s mind gives up on it, sorting Ashido’s mother as Dragon Lady and her friend as Ashido and feels instantly better about the entire affair.

She doesn’t really know what to say in response to the words and nods a bit jerkily as Dragon Lady gives her hand a soft squeeze before releasing it.

“Why don’t you stay for a cup of coffee?” Masaru invites. “Give the kids some time on their own.”

“I’d love to,” Ashido’s mom agrees instantly, already half-way out of her jacket.

“Oh! You must show me your room!” Ashido says, practically vibrating in place, and Katsuki ducks out from beneath her arm only to have her hand curling around her wrist to a twitch of her fingers as she took the familiar path down the corridor.

It isn’t anything impressive but Ashido claps her hands together, looking gleeful as she practically dove for the desk, yanking the first drawer open without regard for her privacy.

The boy had crowded the room with All Might regalia and posters but she’s torn it all down and hung two horror game posters which Mitsuki had bought and framed for her after an outing together some two years ago. The bed is simple, the covers blue and a small plush dolphin she’d gotten from his parents at the hospital rested on one of the white pillows, headphones dangling over the headboard.

There is a desk with a computer, a television with a gaming station and a bean bag in front of it, weights crowding in a corner and a bookshelf filled with books and comics which crowded together a bit messily where she’d shoved them in place.

A single dresser with drawers and some stuff haphazardly strewn on the top soon draws Ashido’s attention and she lifts a small cat figurine with clear curiosity.

Masaru, the only one capable of keeping anything alive in the house, had added some green plants to her windowsill.

Katsuki sinks down on her bed.

“I’ve never been in a boy’s room before,” Ashido hums as she yanks Katsuki’s underwear drawer open and pulls up a pair of pink ones with cat face on the left cheek with a bubble containing a slanted meow.

She turns around, baring them almost triumphantly, and Katsuki raises her brow.

“Oh you’re no fun,” Ashido pouts at her. “But you have some serious underwear game…” she mutters as she reluctantly lets them drop and gives the drawer a push of her hip before practically skipping across the room to crouch down by the games, flipping through them, pausing and tugging some of them out before sliding them back. “We should game sometime,” she says. “I bet I’d beat your ass.”

“In your dreams,” Katsuki says, kicking one leg out idly.

“You know, you’re much more relaxed here,” Ashido muses. “You’re always so tense. But I guess it is your home. Oh! I almost forgot – your present!” Katsuki blinks as she practically trips over herself, her call for Mom ringing out loudly and interrupting the low chatter from the kitchen.

It takes a moment but then Ashido is back, kicking the door shut behind her and plopping down on the bed beside her, a package shoved into her hands.

Katsuki’s fingers curls a bit unsurely around it – the paper loud and bright, tape messily but with some care shoved in place to keep the flaps on the side in place. It’s pretty flat but broad and square where it rests on her thighs.

“I wrapped it myself,” Ashido confides, giving her a nudge with her shoulder. “Open it!”

The last time Katsuki remembers opening a present from a friend was in another world entirely and her fingers curls, paper ripping as she pried it open, not sure what to expect as a box was revealed.

She pries the flap open and tilts it, a t-shirt slipping into her lap.

The fabric is black and she tugs it up before her, blinking a bit bemusedly at the pattern on the front of it, the letters not making much sense no matter how long she stares.

BE

FUCK

BITC

But then Ashido bounces up, yanking her sweater up over her head. “Look!” she says, hand snapping up into a V-by her eye. “We match!” she says, clearly proud as Katsuki stares, eyes trailing down the letters of her shirt as she reads them out with her own.

ST

ING

HES

“We can wear them when we go shopping together,” Ashido says with a flash of gleaming teeth.

“No,” Katsuki denies instantly.

“You should change into it right now,” Ashido says, clearly ignoring her as Katsuki twitches. “Come on! We can take pictures.”

“No.”

“Katsuki,” she wheedles.

“No.”

-

Katsuki is half-wondering if she’s entered a fever hallucination as she watches Ashido sing loud and off-key with his parents at the table in front of a cake topped with sixteen candles, Dragon Lady looking far too entertained at her daughter’s side.

“Make a wish!” Ashido urges at the end of it, eyes wide and expectant as Katsuki gives the cake a wary look.

“Go on,” Mitsuki says, clearly amused.

Katsuki glowers at her but Ashido’s hopeful look registers at the corner of her eyes and she sighs as she leans forward, lungs filling up before she breathed out, getting the last one with a little huff of a breath.

“There,” she says, arms folding together as she slumped back.

“You know, we couldn’t put candles in his cakes after his fourth birthday,” Mitsuki says with a note of fond nostalgia. “He’d try to stick his hand right in it – nearly blew the entire thing up.”

“No,” Ashido gasps with delight as Katsuki grabs for her spoon, pink creeping up her cheeks as she dug in just a tad aggressively into the piece Masaru drops onto her plate.

“Mina was a bit of a disaster herself, comes with the territory of physical quirks I suspect,” Dragon Lady says with a wink as Katsuki glances up at her, reluctantly curious. “Melted right through her bed, that one. Was nearly half-way through the roof of the neighbour’s apartment before she woke up.”

“Mom!” Ashido squeaks.

"It's nothing to be ashamed about," Dragon Lady says with a laugh. "It's nothing compared to that whole disaster with the poisoned cake-"

"Mom!!"

Katsuki decides that as far as Mom's go Dragon Lady is possible the second coolest one she's ever met.

-

“I had fun,” Ashido says at the end of it, tugging her boots in place and straightening up. “See you tomorrow?”

“Yeah,” Katsuki mutters, a bit on edge from all the social interactions and craving her bed and headphones. “Lunch on the roof?”

“You know it!” Ashido grins, waving as Dragon Lady dipped her head, door closing behind them both.

Katsuki takes a step towards her room, halting as his father called her name and craning around.

“You did good today, son,” he says with a gentle warm look that twists something inside of her. “She seems like a good friend.”

“... She is,” Katsuki says after a long moment. “I’m going to bed.”

“Sleep well, honey,” Mitsuki calls as she bends down to pick up the remains of the cake.

Katsuki grunts, kicking the door shut behind her and flopping face down onto her bed, pawing for her headphones and pulling them down over her ears.

-

Two days after the party Masaru sneaks into her room to hang a single framed picture on the wall by her bed.

A photo of Ashido and herself, arms looped together, STBE INGFUCK CHESBIT spelled out in their matching shirts, a glittery party hat sticking out between two yellow antennas, her own hanging slanted against her chest where she’d shoved it down, her face pink and glowering beside the other girl who is grinning bright and wide.

For one reason or the other Katsuki can’t quite talk herself into tearing it down.

Chapter Text

”So?”

Katsuki stares at See Through and See Through stares back. She thinks. For all that she knew See Through could be making faces at her, the whole having no visible body wasn’t exactly helpful when in body-tells or facial expressions.

As someone who had lived and relied on body-language cues for years it was fucking eerie.  The morbid part of her can’t help but think about what it would mean for See Through to just die and get ditched – it would be next to impossible to find her.

Or maybe her quirk would cancel in death.

Katsuki can’t help but be very thankful that of all the bodies to be stuffed into it hadn’t been See Through’s. She’s not sure what kind of existential crisis she might have gone through if she woke up without a body reflected back in the mirror like a fucking vampire.

But she’d heard the beating of her heart, had felt her warmth, the stickiness of her blood against her hands and arms.

“What?” she grumbles, half-slumped beside the door to the boy’s changing room.

“How did it go?” See Through asks as the door behind her opens up and Round Cheeks steps out, hand grasping at her shoulder as she rolled it in preparation for whatever All Might had in store for them. “The birthday party,” she clarifies when Katsuki keeps staring blankly at her.

“’s fine,” she answers after a moment, brow creasing. “Why do you care?”

“Bakugou,” See Through says, tone making it very clear that she thought Katsuki very dumb for asking. “We faced near death together. That’s not just something I’m going to forget.”

“Going to face a lot more of those, being a Hero and all,” Katsuki says with a huff, watching through See Through as Round Cheeks seemed to deliberate for a moment before taking a step towards them.

“Bakugou-kun,” she greets.

“Bakugou is fine,” she grumps with a shift of her feet, gaze wary on the other.

For some reason this makes the girl smile at her, cheeks dimpling. “Bakugou then,” she says, clearly pleased for reasons completely beyond her. “I’ve been wanting to ask, since the Sports Festival-“ Katsuki tenses. “Would you like to spar sometime?”

Katsuki stares at her.

As does See Through, she thinks, for gloves and shoes shift in clear direction of the brown haired girl.

“Why?” Katsuki demands suspiciously.

Round Cheeks touches four of her fingers together in that particular way of hers and Katsuki wonders how long it had taken her to become habit to keep herself from floating away.

“I lost,” Round Cheeks says simply, dark brown eyes watching her with seriousness. “And I don’t like losing. I want to get better and that means I need to get stronger. You are strong so who better to ask?"

“That-“ See Through says with an odd undertone, speculative as her shoes squeak rather deliberately against the floor. “Is an excellent idea.”

“No thank you,” Katsuki says, pushing away from the wall she was leaning against, uncaring of the fact that Purple Guy would be up in her face about leaving him behind as she took a step towards the entrance leading out to the back field.

But a hand snags around her arm and she twists around, snarling with a hard yank that only makes the grip tighten.

“Bakugou-“

“Let go-“

“Not until- oh for-” Katsuki finds herself nearly yanked off her feet, stumbling awkwardly and a bit wide-eyed as See Through pushes into her personal bubble with a blue gloved finger against her chest. “Would it kill you to listen!?” the girl demands as Katsuki stares a bit blankly through her head.

“Hagakure-san,” Round Cheeks flails a bit but Katsuki’s gaze is locked where she thinks the invisible girl’s face might be, chest rising and falling hard beneath the finger pressed against her ribs.

“Look,” See Through says with firmness and cooling irritation. “You saw how angry everyone got at the Sports Festival, right? In the match between you and her-“ The finger lifts to point to Round Cheeks who stills. “Like it or not we girls are treated differently and it’s a constant frustration to know that there are those who will always hold back-“

“I don’t hold back,” Katsuki says with an ugly twist of her mouth, teeth baring.

“And that’s the point,” See Through says, close enough that Katsuki feels the frustration huff of breath ghost against her lips. “You are the best in the class. You ranked number one during the Sports Festival. You beat Uraraka fair and square. You know it, I know it, she knows it.”

Katsuki’s muscles eases some, brow dipping.

“It’s a good idea,” See Through says, her grip relaxing, and Katsuki takes the chance to yank her arm free and take a step back but not away. “To train together,” she continues in a bit of a rush. “And I think you should at least hear her out.”

Katsuki doesn’t like See Through and it’s a strange realization that her touch doesn’t set her off the way it might normally. But the girl had laid naked and bleeding on top of her in all her invisible glory and she scowls before turning sharply to Round Cheeks.

“Speak,” she demands gruffly.

Round Cheeks’s face does a complicated thing before determinations settles steely in her gaze and she takes a deep breath. “We have Hero Course training twice a week and it isn’t enough,” she says as Katsuki glares at her. “I – originally I just wanted to get my Hero Licence to help my parents but I want more than that. I want to win next time you and I face down each other.”

“You’re friends with Deku and Class Rep, why don’t you ask them?” Katsuki asks warily.

Round Cheeks blinks at the nicknames. “Deku- oh! You mean Midoriya-kun! I- He’s already training on his own with his, friend, I guess.” There’s a funny sort of tone to her voice when she says it and Katsuki squints at her. “And Iida’s family is from a long line of Heroes.” Which was self-explanatory in itself, Katsuki supposes, mouth flattening out.

Half-n-Half, Ponytail, Class Rep – those who already had a foot in thanks to their backgrounds, training from young age to become the best of the best. Katsuki knows that Half-n-Half hadn’t even made the entrance exam, a fact that curls heavy and ugly in her gut.

“But your parents aren’t Heroes,” Round Cheeks says simply.

“No,” Katsuki agrees slowly. “They are not.” Mitsuki and Masaru are both lawyers, his father often taken out of the country while Mitsuki dominated the home field – one of the fiercest voices in cases of quirk related abuse.

“And you don’t have a trainer.”

“No,” Katsuki agrees with a curl of her lips.

“And yet you beat them all,” Round Cheeks says, taking a step forward, something in her gaze that makes Katsuki hesitate because she knows that look – an unwillingness to feel small in the world that chewed and chewed at their heels because of their gender.

It’s ugly and bitter, she had lived twenty-two years with it and deaf to boot, faced with those who thought her dumb because she couldn’t hear, unwanted touches and leery eyes that dipped and lingered on her body as if they had a right to it.

As far as this world is concerned she is male – it is what she presented as and she’d long since stopped grimacing at the misgendering. But it doesn’t stop her being what she is and her fingers twitches because she empathizes as much as she doesn’t want to admit to it.

But she doesn’t owe Round Cheeks shit and the words to let her know as much lingers on her tongue.

“You’d get something out of too,” See Through says, as if hearing the direction of her thoughts. “You did nearly loose. That thing at the end? She could have won.”

“I know,” Katsuki hisses, missing the way Round Cheeks’s eyes widened and See Through gave a little jerk of surprise as she turned her head to glare at the wall.

Katsuki’s mind scrambles for rationality, pros and cons and then frustration that weaves through it all.

She likes fighting. The violence is as much a part of her as breathing, feels far more natural than the air that fills her lungs instead of blood most days and there’s a reason she’s so drawn to Dabi who meets her on her baser levels without hesitation or question, his flames licking paths up her skin in scars that will never go away, mottled and pink beneath her shirt.

What Round Cheeks is asking is different.

Dabi is an asshole. Katsuki is fairly sure he deserves at least half of the things she’s levelled at him and she relishes in catching him off-guard, those moments where his turquoise eyes flare wide before narrowing upon her.

He’s also older, late teens or early twenties when they met some four years ago and older now.

She doesn’t feel remotely responsible for him.

But by directly asking her she becomes involved and Katsuki is busy enough with Ashido and Purple Guy in her life and she isn’t interested in the implied responsibility of it all because she’s thirty and they might not know it but it doesn’t change that she is.

But the world believes her a sixteen-year-old boy that that’s who they’re asking to meet on their level and she doesn’t know how to say no without being no better than the men that she’d spent a life time loathing.

“Fuck!” Katsuki snarls. “Fucking fine.”

“Wait- really?” See Through blurts out.

Katsuki gives her a filthy look before glaring down at Round Cheeks. “You need to better your fucking bases before you can even think about beating me. Same to you.” She glowers at See Through before snapping back. “Whatever quirk you have is no goddamn excuse for not able to back up your hits so if you really wanna do this I’m going to run you fucking ragged.”

Katsuki twists on her heel.

“Find me after class if you’re serious or don’t bother,” she snarls, hand snapping out and clenching down at Purple Guy’s collar as the door finally opened, dragging him along to a curse and stumble that made her muscles bunch to keep him from falling over.

“See you then!” See Through hollers after her.

“You’re fucking slow,” she informs Purple Guy with a hiss, not bothering with signs and ignoring his startled look.

-

Katsuki ignores Half-n-Halfs wary look upon her, muscles knotted tense and all too aware of the way All Might is watching her as she steps into the playing field arranged for the day’s Hero Course training with her blood thrumming for violence.

“Want me to cheer for you?” Purple Guy calls dryly behind her.

“Of course we’re cheering for him,” Ashido says beside him as he shifts to give her a twitchy deadpan look as she slings an arm around his shoulder, the other rising to her mouth. “Go, go Bakugou! Beat his ass!” she whoops loudly.

Katsuki ignores them both, the sweet scent of her quirk filling up her lungs as she flexes her hands to urge more and more of her sweat to pool.

“Let’s have a good match,” Half-n-Half says with a side-eye to Deku before settling into a steady stance.

“You better use your fire,” Katsuki rumbles in a growl.

“Make me,” Half-n-Half challenges and Katsuki focuses on the turquoise eye on the red-haired side of the boy.

“Oh I will,” Katsuki promises him as she bares her teeth.

“I want a fair match,” All Might says from the side-lines, smiling that infernal smile, muscled and tall in his Hero suit, eyes momentarily hard on Katsuki’s back.

She ignores him.

Ignores the calls of her classmates, the chatter and noise of their voices, doesn’t hear the silence that settles as her fingers pop with a little curl of smoke.

Katsuki is moving the second the call rings out – explosion hard enough that only hard earned muscles keep her from yanking her arms out of their sockets as she twists through the air to a brief widening of eyes and then a smooth twist, ice rising out in the path of Half-n-Half’s booted foot.

But Katsuki is already moving high, twisting, ice exploding with a roar in her ears.

Katsuki is fast.

She prides herself on it and Half-n-Half might be good but it takes little to crumble the ice that rises in her path, her boots pressing down and using the ruins of it to propel her with an explosion that rocks the very ground they stand upon as he takes a stumbling step back.

His eyes narrows and her mouth twists into a ugly fanged thing filled with violence.

-

Katsuki only has a second to register the hand that sinks through the smoke before it grasps hard on the back of her collar and by then it’s already too late – she’s hauled back, sent into a skidding backwards roll which her shoulder takes the brunt of with a hiss of her breath and a sure to leave bruise as the air is momentarily torn from her lungs.

She twists up into a skidding slide back, head rising with a snarl on her lips.

But All Might meets her gaze with hard blue eyes as rage bubbles and froths inside of her.

“The fuck!?” she demands.

“The match is over,” All Might repeats at her surroundings slowly creeps back to her, wary and tense and loathing the way he looks at her – as if she’s nothing more than an errant puppy that had, in some way, disappointed him.

As if he had the right.

Half-n-Half coughs in the smoke, sucking a hard breath, and Katsuki’s gaze flicks to him, taking in the way his arm is clearly broken and cradled against sure to be bruised ribs, maybe even cracked.

“I’m fine,” he says slowly, waving Deku away when the green haired boy hovered near him with nervous twitchy fingers. “You’re good,” he says to Katsuki, a strange sort of meaningful look in his eyes as he pushed up with air sucked through his teeth. “But then, you did first place in the Sports Festival.”

“It was a shitty win and you know it,” Katsuki seethes.

“You won this one fair and square,” he says with a peculiar sort of look and Katsuki’s mind halts, air leaving her with a hiss.

“Both of you need to visit Recovery Girl,” All Might says and Katsuki spits out a wad of blood onto the ground.

“I’m sure Bakugou can take me,” Half-n-Half says when Deku immediately volunteers. “You still have your match,” he says when Deku pauses, green eyes darting to Katsuki and then down.

“You sure?” he asks in a hushed voice and Katsuki’s fingers twitches.

“I’m sure,” Half-n-Half says, taking a step towards Katsuki who gives him a wary look. “Right?” he challenges as he takes a halting step forward before straightening up in a way that made her pause, eyes narrowing.

Used to taking pain, she thinks with a twist of her mouth.

But also - used to hiding it.

-

“Freeze burn,” Recovery Girl says, unimpressed as she considers Katsuki’s hunched figure on the bed, curtains pulled aside to give some privacy as she was immediately told to remove her shirt. “And normal burn. You kids don’t do anything by halves, do you?”

Half-n-Half’s flames didn’t burn as hot as Dabi’s but they were far more volatile, lacking the control Katsuki was used to, and they had licked hot in a flare that stretched along the outside of her arm and then a jagged line of darkly patterned skin where the ice had sealed tight and cold before she managed to get it off.

Katsuki sees the way Recovery Girl’s eyes darts momentarily between the new mark and the old ones on her skin before leaning forward as Katsuki’s muscles wired tense, a quick kiss pressed to her cheek with a whoosh of her breath as energy was sucked out of her and the mark burned before bubbling to knit shut.

She’s handed a new shirt after some prodding at her bruises as they mottled to yellow and green, her shoulder dark where she’d hit the ground but turning soft purple beneath the healer’s eyes to a sharp satisfied nod.

“And you-“ Katsuki hears as Recovery Girl rolls over to Half-n-Half as Katsuki worms her way into the shirt with a hiss of breath and a tug of some satisfaction as it settled in place, feeling far less exposed. “Bruised ribs, two of them cracked, arm broken in two places.” She tsks. “A person with less control would have blown it off.”

Katsuki could have but she isn’t a monster.

No matter what these Heroes seemed to think of her.

She gives Half-n-Half enough privacy for the use of Recovery Girl’s quirk before yanking the curtain aside, meeting the mismatched eyes that are already watching her, a button-up shirt half-made up his chest.

“You’re not going anywhere,” Recovery Girl warns her when her feet dips to slide off. “There is a monitor if you want to watch the rest of the matches but you’re staying here until lunch.”

“That’s fine,” Half-n-Half answers as Katsuki glowers but reluctantly eases back, drawing one foot up and tucking it beneath her thigh as the Hero gave a push of an old thing and plugged it in before disappearing into her office with one last warning look at them both.

“You’ve fought against someone with a fire quirk before.”

Katsuki blinks, turning to scowl at the other.

“I thought I might have been mistaken at the Sports Festival,” Half-n-Half says with a roll of his shoulders, his face giving nothing away to any sort of pain. “But fire quirks are pretty rare and despite that you clearly got more comfortable once I started using mine.”

Katsuki’s eyes flickers momentarily to the mottled scar over his turquoise eye before turning away as Duct Tape stepped up to face Froggy. Both long-range, both with quirks that made Katsuki’s insides twist up uncomfortably.

“It’s pretty surprising,” Half-n-Half continues, not at all dissuaded. “I know you’re not familiar with my father and neither Fuyumi or Natsuo are very interested in fighting.” There’s a strange sort of thing creeping into his voice, something hopeful that makes Katsuki’s shoulders tense a bit warily as she flicks her gaze to him. “Have you – I mean, does the name Touya mean anything to you?”

Katsuki looks at him – her gaze resting heavy on the mismatched eyes that meets hers without fear.

“No,” she tells him slowly as his eyes narrow suspiciously. “Never.”

-

“You all healed up then?” Ashido asks brightly as Katsuki steps through the roof door, pausing as the sight of her and Purple Guy registered.

The purple haired boy had crammed himself into the corner, folded over with his elbow on his knee and with a tray of cafeteria food balanced on his folded leg, chopsticks decimating something that might have been fish to mix together with the rice and vegetables.

She meets his eyes for a moment, brow furrowing as he straightened out almost challengingly.

“Yeah,” she grunts, kicking the door shut behind her and ambling over with one hand shoved into her pocket to sink down where Ashido patted at the ground beside her and slumping back against the fence, twitching as fingers prodded over the bandages Recovery Girl had wrapped in place around her arm.

《Congrats on your win》 Purple Guy signs to her.

Katsuki ignores him, tugging at her backpack and digging for the bento Masaru had packed for her.

“Shinsou went up against Tokoyami and Dark Shadow,” Ashido informs her as Katsuki pops it open. “It was a bit sad to watch.”

“Oi,” Purple Guy protests. “I can’t help that my quirk isn’t very physically orientated. We can’t all generate explosions or acid on demand.”

“True,” Ashido says with some smugness as Katsuki glances at them both, headphones dangling around her neck and once again back in her school uniform.

“Aizawa doesn’t have a physical quirk,” she says as she shoves a fried shrimp into her mouth, twisting down and dropping the tail back into the box.

“Oh! Ashido nearly inhales a mouthful of noodles. “You should get like a weapon or something,” she says through a mouthful before swallowing. “Aizawa-sensei’s capture weapon is so cool. I have no idea how he controls it but remember USJ?” She gives a low whistle. “Our sensei is the coolest.”

Katsuki senses eyes upon her and glances towards Purple Guy whose gaze in strangely intense, a question in the brow that rises up.

“You can only control one person at the time,” Katsuki says dryly, even as wariness twists inside of her.

“Katsuki-“ She twitches at the use of her name and at the feel of the arm that drapes around her shoulders. “Knows I’ve got his back.” A hand squeezes against her bicep which tenses before Ashido draws back. “And anyway, you’re part of the club, right? So you wouldn’t use your quirk on us," she says breezily.

“Club?” Purple Guy asks as he piles together a lump of rice and fish.

“Club Bakugou and Friends,” Ashido says happily.

“I will stab you,” Katsuki tells her point-blank with a twitch of her brow.

“It’s a horrible name,” Purple Guy says with a snort of derision. “You should name it something like – Club Anti-Social Wreck and Friends,” he says with some relish.

“For fucks sake-“

“It’s a good name,” Ashido says with some consideration. “A bit long though,” she says with a touch of reluctance.

“We’ll figure something out,” Purple Guy says as he grimaces around the food, looking none-too-happy about the fish despite having done his best to hide it in the rice.

“I hate both of you,” Katsuki informs them with a scowl.

“Sure you do,” Ashido agrees.

“Filled with wrathful rage you are, I tremble,” Purple Guy deadpans. “Did you bring the notes? I was serious about my question and we got to figure out a good name for Midoriya. I’m thinking-“ He twists his hands as Katsuki stares at him.

“Oh! I recognised green,” Ashido says as she leant forward. “What was the other one?”

“Bean,” Purple Guy says as he repeats it. “Cause of his hair and he’s just… a bean.”

“What about me?” Ashido demands, gaze darting sharply and expectant to Katsuki whose fingers twitches.

Slowly she raises her hand up, index and middle-finger up, the others folded down, flicking the middle one twice against her jaw before shifting into a combination.

“Pink… something, person,” Purple Guy identifies slowly.

Katsuki shows them both the sign again. “Outer Space and Person,” she says, watching Ashido carefully. “’s a combination.”

“Like – like an alien?” Ashido ventures slowly. “Pink alien?”

Katsuki shrugs a bit uncomfortably, grabbing for her chopsticks.

“Because I wanted my Hero name to be Alien Queen,” she says with a widening of her eyes. “You – aww, Katsuki you’re suck a softie. Show me – one more time!” she begs, hand rising up in a clumsy echo. “Like this?”

“Index finger out more,” Katsuki corrects with a little crawl of colour up the tips of her ears.

“So?” Ashido asks seriously.

Katsuki had been allowed her Hero name but Midnight had point blank dismissed Ashido’s first choice and she’d eventually settled for Pinky but she hadn’t been happy with it and Katsuki had watched but not commented even as her chest twisted a bit uncomfortably.

“What was up with Hagakure and Uraraka earlier?” Purple Guy asks after Ashido had the sign down, repeating it to herself with a small smile. “They had him cornered outside the changing rooms,” he says to Ashido when her gaze flicks up.

“Nothing,” Katsuki growls, stabbing a bit too aggressivly through an omelette roll.

“You were angry,” Purple Guy says as Katsuki glowers at him. “That wasn’t nothing.”

“Was it about the Sports Festival?” Ashido asks sharply, suspicion filling her gaze.

“The fuck does it matter?”

“Because you’re our friend,” Ashido says just a tad exasperatedly as Purple Guy shrugs with a gesture of his chopsticks to the pink haired girl as if to say you heard her. “Aizawa-sensei was really upset about – you know.” She shifts, shoulder pressing against Katsuki’s. “Is this because she lost?”

“No,” Katsuki mumbles with a twist of her mouth. “Yes. I-“ She lets out a harsh sigh. “Round Cheeks-“

“That’s Uraraka,” Ashido informs Purple Guy.

“-Made an argument for something and then See Through-“

“Hakagure,” Ashido says, popping a vegetable roll into her mouth.

“-wanted the same thing,” Katsuki pushes out with an annoyed twitch of her eyebrow.

“Do you call anyone by name?” Purple Guy asks before his face twists with revelation “Wait – what’s mine?”

“Purple Guy,” Ashido informs him before Katsuki can do much more than open her mouth. “Don’t take it to heart, he’ll be calling you by your name before you know it.” She gives him a pat on the shoulder. “So, what did they want?” she asks expectantly.

“Fuck if I’m telling you Raccoon Eyes,” Katsuki hisses.

Chapter Text

Dabi isn’t answering her messages.

Katsuki scowls down at her phone, scrubbing a small towel over her damp hair, slinging it around her shoulders as she ambled into the kitchen, sinking down roughly.

“Any plans today?” Masaru asks her as he slides her breakfast in place, apron around his waist and oven glove still on his right hand. He’s a tall guy, broad chested with messy brown hair and yet his face is always gently and his eyes kind behind dark framed glasses.

There are few days he doesn’t make her feel insanely guilty about her very existence.

“Dunno,” she admits, grabbing and digging her fork side-ways through one of the eggs, staring down at the objectively healthy meal, vegetables and meat alike for a growing body that burned through a lot of calories without robbing it of taste and enjoyment. “Two of my classmates asked me for help with training,” she finds herself saying, flicking her gaze up to watch his expression.

But Masaru merely hums. “I take it you agreed to it?”

“They were… insistent,” she says a bit grudgingly. “Made a good case for it.” She shovels some egg into her mouth, chewing as he peeled the glove off and put it down beside him as he settled down in the chair opposite her where a pot, mug and a package of tea is already waiting.

“Do you want to help them?” he asks and she blinks before frowning.

“… I do,” she says finally with a furrow in her brow. “But I don’t know how.”

“You’ve always had good instincts,” Masaru says as he pours the hot water into the cup after picking one of the small square packages and tearing it open. “You get that from Mitsuki.”

Katsuki ignores the small warm glow in her chest at his words as she swallows. “They need to get stronger.”

“Physically or mentally?”

“Both? I guess?” Katsuki ventures after a moment. “Uraraka-“ It never gets strange forming her classmates names but she swallows down the discomfort of it. “She’s strong but she’s obviously never had a proper fight before U.A, lacks the instincts for it. Hagakure is… trickier.”

“Trickier how?” he asks her calmly as he tips two cubes of sugar into his tea.

“She’s invisible.”

Masaru pauses. “Ah, that one,” he says contemplatively.

“Hell if I know how strong she is and I can’t make a judgement of something I can’t see.”

“Language,” he chides her and Katsuki grumbles but ducks her head. “Where do you think you should start?”

Katsuki’s brow creases. “Establish where they are at now?” she ventures after a moment, rolling a piece of meat on her fork. “What they eat, what they already do? A spar?”

Masaru smiles at her. “Seems like a good start as any,” he says and Katsuki harrumphs.

She gets the dishes up with a bit of a juggle before letting it drop into the sink, turning the water on and grabbing for the dish-brush and dumping a healthy amount of soap into it, watching as it froths and bubbles in the hot water.

“Where is kaa-san?” she asks as she twists the dish-brush into the bottom of her glass, making sure to rinse it free from suds before placing it on the rack to dry.

“She’s out with some friends,” Masaru says with a rustle of his newspaper. “She won’t be home until late. I’m going to head out in a bit – need to finish up a thing in the office. I’m not sure when I’ll be back but I’ll transfer you some money for dinner.”

Katsuki drops the fork and unused, but cleaned, knife in place.

“I’m heading out,” she informs his, drying her hands.

“Son?” She pauses, tilting her head to indicate she was listening. “If you’re not busy mind doing your old man a favour?”

-

Katsuki squints at the different fabrics – colours and patterns, some rough, others impossibly soft when she reaches out and rubs tryingly at a patch of orange.

She’s already got five rolls piled onto her shoulder and she draws it out, twisting a bit to get it up on top before moving deeper into the store in hunt for yarns.

What, exactly, the project his father had in mind he hadn’t been inclined to share – just handing her a list of colour and measurements with a relieved little smile. It made the shopping just a tad harder but Katsuki was determined to at least try at getting it right.

She ends up piling together a handful of yarn into a basket she finds before dropping the rolls of fabric down before a young woman who blinks at her as Katsuki paws at her back pocket, pulling the note out.

“This much of them,” she says just a tad gruffly.

“Of course, sir,” she agrees easily, rolling the first one out and pulling for a measuring tape that Katsuki watches carefully, admiring the smooth straight lines of the scissor that followed with practical ease before it was folded up, note stuck in place on top before the next one went through the same proceedure.

Katsuki dips her head with a thank you and drags it all over to pay.

-

It’s still early and feeling restless she stuffs the plastic back into her backpack and shoulders it on before heading out to the park where she buys herself an ice cream before making her way to the arcade.

She’s two steps in and then one step out of the thing before her name registers. Loudly.

Cursing internally she slowly turned around.

“I didn’t know you liked games!” Shitty Hair says with a broad sort of smile, shark-like teeth flashing, the machine in front of him flickering with light, a loud disappointed noise and droning Game Over easily ignored. “Do you want to join us?”

“No,” Katsuki denies instantly.

“You sure?” Punk asks, leaning lazily against the thing. “Afraid we’ll beat you? Reveal just how bad big snarly Bakugou really is?” Her headphone jack flicks tauntingly down her front and Katsuki twitches.

“I’ll show you,” Katsuki snarls, tugging her backpack off and shoving it roughly at Shitty Hair before weaving her way deeper in search of the counter, slapping a handful of cash down to exchange for play tokens.

She ends up with more than she means and mutters as she scoops them up and shoves them down her pocket with a clink and rustle.

Sparky waves for her at a shooting game and Katsuki hesitates for just a moment before scowling and making her way over, spying Shitty Hair and Punk in queue for a loud blaring DANCE DANCE REVOLUTION thing that she wants no part of.

“I have to warn you,” Sparky says with a twirl of his plastic red gun. “I’m good.”

“I’m better,” Katsuki informs him with a flash of teeth, anticipating worming through her as she grabs for the yellow one.

It’s a zombie game, the rotten bodies groaning and lurching towards the screen only to fall at their bullets but it doesn’t take long before the big boss mauls them both to bits and they stare in silence as their protagonists are hauled up and choked down into a gaping maw.

“Ah,” Sparky says as he raises a hand as if to cover his eyes while leaving his fingers spread to watch through. “That’s… brutal.”

“You didn’t cover my back,” Katsuki says with a twitch of her shoulders.

Sparky hums, thumbing his weapon thoughtfully. “You didn’t cover mine,” he says with an easy little shrug.

They exchange looks, the silent understanding of poor losers settling between them, and Katsuki digs for another coin, shoving it in in tandem with his.

“We take his knees and elbows-“

“- and then we take his fucking head,” Katsuki finishes as they raise their guns up.

-

Katsuki finds herself tugged between games – absolutely mauling Shitty Hair in a game of fighting only to lose badly in a crappy rhythmic game which involved far more spins than Katsuki thought reasonable as Shitty Hair crooned out the lyrics in something distinctively Korean as she gave-up half-way to watch him with morbid fascination.

She wasn’t the only one – he had a small crowd going at the end of it, rubbing at the back of his neck as he was bid to enter his name onto the flashing screen.

Katsuki stares as he enters KIRI, watching it shoot onto third place onto the top-five scoreboard alongside the other identical rows of letters.

She gives him a flat look.

“Jirou is better, but she hates these kind of games,” he says a bit sheepishly. “She has the high-score on DDR though.”

Punk favoured the fighting games as well, her fingers moving quickly and palm slamming down in a combination that makes her character practically bend its back to slam Sparky’s down on its head to a cry of unfair while the girl smiled smugly with liquid satisfaction oozing from her as her character made a crude winning gesture with a roll of its hips.

Sparky combs home rows and rows on tickets on a basketball thing with ease and Katsuki takes a moment to watch him before weaving deeper and finding a motorcycle game which makes her pause.

A sharp sense of longing almost threatens to overwhelm her she finds herself reaching out, despite knowing it was nothing more than wires and plastic, cheaply made leather and metal footrests.

“You a fan?” Punk asks behind her. “It’s nothing like the real thing, of course.”

Katsuki says nothing, fingers drawing back.

“You know, I didn’t think you’d stick around,” Punk says with a peculiar sort of tone as she steps past, aiming for the row of claw games crowding at the very back, fingers gliding down the glass boxes before she pauses at one. “You keep surprising me.” Her eyes glints in the light of the machines as she turns around. “I hear you’re fancying yourself a teacher these days.”

Katsuki’s mouth curls up, shoulders bunching tight.

“Jealous?” she gets out, stuffing her hands deep into her pockets and flattening her sweaty palm against her legs to ease the sweet scent of her quirk. “That they didn’t ask you?”

“You wish,” Punk says with a snort, turning and pushing a coin into the slot with a whirr of the claw as it jerked into movement. “Suspicious that you said yes however? Sure.”

Katsuki gives the back of her head a flat look.

“If you want me to leave you can just fucking say it,” Katsuki says as the claw folds around nothing before pulling up. “I detest verbal games.”

Punk shrugs. “It was fun,” she says and she honestly seems to mean it, her eyes peculiar but not hostile when they glance momentarily back. “We should to it again.”

Katsuki watches the claw fold on nothing again before stepping forward to Punk who pauses but steps aside, coin already in place as she twisted the claw into movement, picking carefully before pressing down on the bright red button.

It lowers down, folding around the neck of a bright blue stuffed ferret, weak but snagging at the band there when it threatens to fall and they both watch it being lifted into the air and dangling precariously towards the plastic box where it falls with a soft sound down against the lid.

Punk crouches down, fishing it out.

“I don’t get you,” she says as she straightens out. “But I don’t dislike you. Don’t know you well enough to make a call either way but something I know? That temper of yours – it’s dangerous.”

“You think I’m going to hurt them,” Katsuki says flatly.

Punk waves her hand. “Hagakure, Ashido, Uraraka – they can take of themselves.” She leans back against the machine. “But indulge me because I can’t wrap my mind around it. Why do someone like you want to become a Hero?”

“Someone like me?” Katsuki repeats, nails digging hard against her thigh even as she remains slouched, red eyes meeting black. “As opposed to what – someone like you?”

For some reason this makes the other girl’s mouth twitch.

“You know, you’d like great with some eyeliner. It’d really bring out that glare of yours.” Katsuki’s mind halts and before she can wrap her mind around the words Punk shoves the blue ferret against her chest and side-steps her. “Hey, Kirishima! I have a bone to pick with you since our last race!” she hollers, drawing more than one irate look from the workers as she ambled away.

Katsuki twitches, gaze darting down to the beady plastic eyes of the creature in her arms.

-

Katsuki stares down at Purple Guy and Purple Guy does not look back, struggling to draw breath as he is, clutching at his bruised throat, hunched over in a way that indicated some sort of problem with his ribs where he sits slumped against the alleyway wall like a wheezing wet cat.

Because this fucking Saturday couldn’t get any weirder, Katsuki thinks to herself, flexing her stinging knuckles and threading deliberately on the groin of the only attacker who’d stuck around once her quirk flared, grinding her heel in momentarily before crouching down before her classmate.

“Leave me alone-“ Purple Guy spits at her after several moments, his purple eyes dark. “Leave!” he says louder, hoarser, only to fall into a fit of coughing that makes his head loll against the bricks once it stops, exhaustion in every line of his body.

Katsuki’s mouth flattens, fingers drumming against her thigh as she deliberates before she paws for her phone, pressing the button and scrolling through the short list contacts she had saved.

Dabi’s number blinks at the top, unanswered, and she deletes it before pressing a hence unused number and lifting it to her ear.

It takes three rings, Purple Guy glaring daggers at her all the while, before a grouchy tired voice picks up at the other end.

“Who is this?”

“Aizawa-sensei,” she greets and Purple Guy makes a violent sort of lurch towards her only to have his hand caught and squeezed in her grip with a twist that draws a noise of pain out of him.

“Bakugou,” Aizawa’s voice comes low, cautious. “Is there a problem?”

“Depends on what you classify as a problem,” she says, meeting Purple Guy’s eyes keenly, daring him to make another movement. “I do have one of your students wheezing for breath in an alley. Three assailants, one out cold, the other two booked it.”

There’s a rustle of movement, a low murmur of a voice in the background that Katsuki can’t quite identify.

“Where are you?” he demands next, any sign of tiredness gone from his voice.

Katsuki lifts her gaze, squinting at the sign there before rattling off the street number.

“Is it safe to remain where you are?”

“Yes,” she says after a decisive look at the unconscious man. “A bit wet.”

“A bit wet,” Aizawa’s voice comes flat through the phone.

“It’s raining,” she informs him just as the first drops hits her nose.

-

Katsuki hauls the man onto his front, rummaging through her backpack for the zip ties she kept there, mindful to keep it tipped from the worst of the rain with her purchases still in place.

She places a knee on the man’s back as she draws his arms back, pulling it sharply in place after placing the back of his hands flat together.

She uses the other three to make a looping band that she secures to the rain drainage on the ground after a bit of yanking and manoeuvring, the steady thrum of the rain picking up until it’s downright pouring.

She rubs her hand against the front of her pants, smudging the remains of her quirk in a way that his parents would have scolded her for.

To Aizawa’s credit it hasn’t been more than fifteen minutes before a silvery car rolls up and he steps out, Katsuki blinking wet eyelashes as Midnight followed from the driver’s seat with keen eyes as both Pro-Heroes took in the situation.

Purple Guy curled against the wall, bruised and wet and struggling for breath with blood trickling from a broken nose, Katsuki seated on the back of the unconscious assailant, fingers fiddling absently with the strap of her bag.

Aizawa makes his way past her in three long steps to crouch down before Purple Guy and Katsuki looks up at Midnight as the woman unfolds an umbrella above her.

“Police will be here in a moment,” she says, eyes on Aizawa and Purple Guy. “Have you called your parents?”

“Out,” Katsuki informs her plainly. “Shot them a message I’d be late.”

“Good,” she says. “Wait in the car. There’s a towels in the backseat.

Katsuki pushes to her feet, snagging her backpack along and circling around the car to the passenger seat, giving Purple Guy one last lingering look before slipping inside, reaching behind her and drawing a pink towel with kittens on over her head as she slumps back, head tilting against the leather to watch the rain fall.

-

Katsuki finds herself in her teachers’ apartment, head craning around a bit absently, towel around her shoulder and her clothes so wet it meant little in the grand scheme of things. She wonders if she’s supposed to be surprised by the fact that Midnight and Present Mic and Aizawa were either dating or just comfortable enough to share the same living space.

But apathy had settled somewhere with the first rain and she’s hard-struggled to feel much at all.

Purple Guy had been lead to the shower, Aizawa’s hand remaining on his shoulder until the door closed shut quietly and he straightened up, dark eyes turning towards her.

“What happened?” he asks, voice heavy, and Katsuki gives a shrug.

“They were beating him up. I stepped in. He wasn’t too happy about it.”

He hums, the noise low, strangely comforting as he sinks down beside her as the shower turns on.

“And what about you?”

She gives him a blank look. “I wasn’t the one beat up,” she says.

“You’re distant,” he informs her.

“It’s raining,” she tells him, turning her head away from his searching eyes.

“So you told me.” A moment, a tick of a heartbeat, and then a hand was very gently settled on her shoulder and she gives a small jerk before stilling, muscles tensing beneath his touch and then slowly relaxing when it remained, steady fast and grounding. “You did well,” he tells her. “Thank you for calling me.”

“You gave me your number.”

“I did,” he agrees. “Come – you can borrow some of my clothes.”

-

Aizawa’s clothes are soft.

Katsuki kind of want to keep the hoodie he gives her, pink with little kitten ears, the sweatpants dark and comforting against her skin.

She wonders if she can get away with keeping them.

Or just not giving them back.

She lifts her gaze, staring at the mirror – at the drooping hair and blank red eyes, mouth flat and refusing to move into as much as a scowl as she searches for the correct muscles without finding them.

“Bakugou?” It’s Midnight and she raises her head, craning to look at the woman. “Hot chocolate or tea?” the Pro-Hero asks.

“Chocolate,” Katsuki answers after a moment.

Midnight lingers, her eyes a very dark blue that searches hers carefully. “Want to help me make it?”

Katsuki blinks at her and then nods.

She’s set to stirring the milk and the melting bits of chocolate together – the smell wafting sweet, different from her burnt undertone of her quirk.

Midnight is digging through the pantry and Katsuki slants her a look, lingering on the swell of her chest in the white tank-top.

Distantly Katsuki hears the wet choking of lungs drowning in blood, slow and agonizing with tears and no voice to be heard. The sound is something that she’d only heard at the very end and she wonders if they’d been connected even then – the dead boy and the dying woman.

Can almost hear the whisper of the man who she’d loved as he pressed his lips against her mouth, achingly familiar in the way they moved against her cold ones.

A hand presses against her forehead and she blinks up at Midnight, lethargic and off as she presses just an inch closer, eyes flagging shut.

“Your phone has been ringing,” Midnight says quietly.

It takes a second but then- “Probably tou-san or kaa-san,” she manages. They knew how she got in the rain and she isn’t particularly surprised but she can’t dredge the motion or care to answer.

“Want me to take it?”

She dips her head, palm sliding briefly over her hair before her arm was given a little nudge in reminder to stir and the phone slipped out of her pants as Midnight took a step away from her, voice somewhere behind her, distant, as if her hearing was failing her.

The stove is turned off with a click and Katsuki relinquishes the wooden spoon, allowing herself to be shepherded to the couch and pushed down, a cup of chocolate soon pressed into her hands.

“Your parents didn’t want you to spend the evening alone,” Midnight informs her as she takes a seat beside her. “And I have to agree with them so you’re spending the night here. Shinsou-kun as well if we can’t get hold of his foster parents.”

Katsuki makes a noncommittal sound, aching for something beyond her mind’s ability to verbalize as she slowly draws the cup up to take a sip.

It’s good – sweet and warm but she just feels cold and strangely empty.

“Bakugou.” She looks up. “I might be pushing my boundaries with you here but – you look like you need a hug.”

“I-“ Her tongue feels thick and leaden in her mouth and the world tips a bit oddly, a tremble running through her. “I don’t-“ Something twists in her chest and the scent of burnt sugar mixes with the chocolate as her fingers claws against the ceramic.

“It’s okay,” Midnight says gently, tugging the cup out of her hands and placing it onto the table before hands were very softly brushing over her hair. “Shinsou is safe – you got to him in time.”

Katsuki’s breath jags in her chest and she tastes iron on her tongue.

The thing is that if Masaru hadn’t asked her to run the errand, if she hadn’t run across Sparky, Shitty Hair and Punk at the arcade, then she wouldn’t have been there at all.

The noise had registered when she was making her way home – the sound of flesh being struck and the wet desperate choking of someone being quieted had made her turn on her heel, palms growing slick as anticipation for a fight licked through her.

She hadn’t been prepared to see him.

Pressed up against the bricks, hand around his throat, bruised and hurt and frightened beneath the desperate anger in his gaze as the tip of a knife dug into the soft skin of his throat-

The very tips of Midnight’s fingers presses gently against Katsuki’s skin, the touch nearly scalding against the coldness of her own.

It’s raining.

Dead, she thinks. I’m de-

There’s a shift and Katsuki finds hands sliding beneath her armpits, hauling her up with surprising strength as she twists, awkward and clumsy in her own body as she’s drawn into strong warm arms, a hand settling gently against the back of her neck, pressing her closer as Katsuki’s hand curls loosely into the fabric of the back of her tank top.

A part of her is screaming, the other is drowning and she turns her head, pressing closer as a tremble runs through her.

Because she’d almost been too late.

And it’s raining.

-

It had been raining when she died, too.

-

“Asleep?” Shouta asks tiredly, the evening feeling impossible long with Shinsou finally asleep in the guest bedroom and his normally volatile student pressed up against Nemuri as she stroked gently through his hair.

There’d been something severely disturbing about seeing the normally angry boy staring blankly up at him with apathetic eyes, so lost and for reasons completely beyond him.

Sleep suits him far better.

She nods.

“Did his parents give any reason for it?” he asks as she sinks down on the couch beside them both, curbing the strange urge to reach out and grasp the lax hand beside her in his own.

Bakugou’s face is pressed against Nemuri’s neck, chest rising and falling slowly in deep sleep. He looks young, dressed in one of Shouta’s favourite hoodies, the colour soft against his skin and his face, for once, not twisted up in the anger that seemed constant and volatile in him.

Shouta had never liked feeling useless and now he’s got two problem children on his hands and not sure where to even begin with either of them.

“Just that he doesn’t like the rain,” she answers quietly. “They were both very worried.” This, at least, eases something inside of him – Shinsou’s foster parents hadn’t even answered and the boy hadn’t looked surprised about it.

Aizawa doesn’t particularly like the implications of it.

“This kind of reaction – it isn’t normal.” There’s a look in her eyes that he’s well familiar with and Shouta doesn’t allow his gaze to dip to the hand curled protectively against the boy’s neck or at the fingers still running through his hair.

He knows his partners – knows that this isn’t something Nemuri will allow herself to just walk away from. It’s too close now, personal. Perhaps the signs of it had already been there, with Hizashi going out of his way to turn their bedroom upside down in hunt for all his notes on JSL and hunkering down after his long radio shifts to cobble together a lesson plan when he was already balancing three works.

“No,” Shouta agrees heavily. “It isn’t.”

“What are we going to do?” Nemuri asks as the boy shifts, pressing closer to a brief stilling of her hand before she resumed stroking his hair, something soft flittering briefly through her eyes.

“What can we do?” Shouta asks tiredly. “I read his files,” he tells her. “There was an incident when he was eight – fell off a bridge, nearly died. And after that there’s just record after record of therapist and advice on a boy completely changed. There is nothing to points to why. No explanation at all.”

“Nothing?” Nemuri asks, hand tightening. “Something before the accident?”

“Possibly,” he says but he honestly doesn’t know. The sheer level of trauma implied in the clinical notes had been disturbing to read and he recalls the phone call from Best Jeanist after the internship – the regret in the Number Four Hero’s voice, the worry hidden in his questions, and the peculiar note in his voice when he asked about the Sports Festival.

Shouta had revisited the tapes after Bakugou Mitsuki’s visit to the school and his chest had clenched uncomfortably at the way her son had fought and struggled, eyes screaming for help and with a whole arena filled with Heroes who hadn’t bothered to answer him.

“We should sleep,” he tells her finally.

“They said he didn’t like waking up alone,” Nemuri says, eyes searching his.

Shouta rubs at his neck. “The bed is big enough, I suppose,” he says with a sigh.

It takes some manoeuvring but Shouta finds himself with an armful of sleeping student as Nemuri texts Hizashi to let him know about the situation since he wouldn’t be home for another hour yet.

The boy is solid and for someone who reacts so volatile to touch he curls close almost instinctively in his sleep as Shouta carries him down the hall and nudges the covers aside with his knee before placing him down.

There’s nothing conventional about the solution but he’s tired and it’s late and he’d either have Nemuri in bed or asleep on the couch. There’s a second bed in the guestroom but it’d be unfair on Shinsou who was already dealing with his own things and something had clearly gone down between the two, one-sided as it appeared to be.

He rummages for a pair of pants and a shirt, Nemuri doing the same when she slipped into the room, and they change quietly in the stream of light from hallway.

Shouta had placed the boy at the end of the bed but the moment Nemuri wormed down beside him he was turning towards her and she draws him up just enough to let him rest against her shoulder as she tucks the covers around them both.

“He’ll be angry,” Shouta warns her as he flops down beside her.

“I’ll deal with it,” she promises him quietly. “He responds better to females anyhow.”

“I’d noticed,” Shouta says just a tad dryly for all that the implication didn’t sit well with him. “He’s close to Ashido.”

“She’s good for him,” Nemuri says and he hums.

Chapter Text

Katsuki is warm.

The sensation registers strange. Off.

Wrong.

The memory of rain dredges thick through her mind and she shivers despite the heat, prying her eyes open as her nose flares, a soft scent filling her nose where it’s pressed up against something that slowly registers as skin.

She stills and then her muscles knot up and the arm around her tightens momentarily before loosening as Katsuki pushes up, feeling weak limbed and heavy.

Confusion and a different sort of emotion claws for her attention as she straightens up until she sits astride the body below her.

“You’re in our apartment,” Midnight tells her, watching her, hand reaching out to turn the lamp on as Katsuki blinks at the low cast of light. “Do you remember what happened yesterday?”

No.

Yes?

“It was… raining,” she rasps out slowly, feeling wobbly and unsure. “Shinsou-“

“He’s okay,” Midnight interrupts. “Shouta and Hizashi took him to see Recovery Girl when he woke up. He’s a bit bruised but okay and they’ve got him.”

That’s – “Good,” she says.

“How are you feeling?”

She doesn’t know. There’s a stretch of emptiness through her, the aftermath of a bad dissociation and what she should feel struggles against what isn’t there as she stares down at her teacher – a woman Katsuki had only interacted with a handful of times but whose bed and arms she’d woken up in.

Her fingers twitches and she gives her head a rough shake, like a dog trying to get rid of water.

“What do you usually do after an episode?” Midnight asks, apparently not in a hurry to move beneath her, body loose and relaxed but eyes never leaving her and Katsuki feels the burn of it as she lowers her gaze, watching the rise and fall of her chest.

“Kaa-san…” Katsuki swallows. “I need to call kaa-san.”

“Then we’ll do that,” Midnight says and Katsuki nods but neither makes a motion to move and Katsuki’s brows creases.

“Why – am I here?” she asks slowly.

“Your mother said you didn’t like waking up alone.”

That – is true, Katsuki thinks distantly. She’d been… afraid. Of waking up alone. Remembering the darkness of the world, the rain falling around her, choking and wheezing and dying.

Alone.

So very alone.

But-

Katsuki’s fingers sinks into the fabric she’s buried in – softshewantstokeepit – and something twists in her belly because-

She doesn’t like being touched.

And.

I don’t need-

The anger explodes through her like a roar, frothing through her veins as she hunches forward, lips pulling back with a hiss through her teeth and her eyes dilate, narrowing upon her teacher as a tremble runs through her and she growls low and furious and thisiswronghowdareyou-

“Ah, there’s the Bakugou I was waiting for,” Midnight hums as she pushes up and Katsuki’s stomach swoops from beneath her as she jerks back and away, nearly sends herself off the bed if not for the hand that clamps around her briefly and it burns as she’s yanked up and then released.

Katsuki’s mind is howling. It rages, it snarls, it’s drowning because-

“Breathe,” Midnight’s voice worms through the spiral of badbadbad and Katsuki sucks in a breath automatically.

“Don’t-“ she rasps. “Don’t fucking tell me what to do!”

“I’m your teacher,” Midnight says and Katsuki stills, breathing harsh and hard as she narrows upon dark blue. “I am not here to hurt you,” she says firmly as Katsuki struggles against the onslaught of emotions, the sweet sting of her quirk as her palms grow slick with sweat. “You dissociated, badly, I might add. You weren’t in a right state of mind.”

“So- you took advantage of me!?” Katsuki spits out, feeling vulnerable, hatinghatinghating that someone other than his parents had seen him-

Her.

Katsuki digs her fingers into her hair, clenching down as tremors runs through her and everything is hard and too much and Shinsou-

Purple Guy-

Katsuki snarls – angry at herself, at Midnight, at Aizawa, at fucking Shinsou and she-

“Fuck-“ she chokes. “Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck!”

“You need to calm down,” Midnight says with a rustle as she shifts. “No one is judging you here. You were in a bad spot, it happens and it’s nothing to be ashamed or embarrassed about.”

Katsuki jerks away from her touch when she reaches out, stumbling to her feet with a twist and nausea rolls over her so suddenly that she pushes through the door blindly but her knees hits the floor and she throws up.

She chokes, gagging as her mind roars and her body presses up against the door frame as her stomach clenches down, cold sweat breaking out as it happens again and Katsuki-

“- you need to breathe, honey-“

Katsuki pants, open mouthed and confused and angry and-

“- in and out, just like we’ve taught you, remember?”

Katsuki shuts her eyes, sucks air in and holds it, breathing out when Mitsuki’s steady voice tells him to.

In.

And.

Out.

She doesn’t know how long they stay like that – Midnight crouched down, making no show of reacting to the sick on the floor, Katsuki’s phone in her hand and put on speaker to reach her without encroaching into her personal space.

“Bad day?” Mitsuki’s voices reaches her, gentler now even through the tinning sound of the speakers.

Katsuki huffs a miserable laugh because her very existence feels like a fucking joke.

“Words,” his mother reminds her.

“Yeah,” Katsuki rasps. “’s bad.”

”I’m dealing with an emergency at the office but Masaru will be by to pick you up in an hour. Will you be alright staying with Midnight-sensei until then?”

Katsuki’s head raises just enough to meet the dark blue of her teacher's, the violent roar soothed into something less reactive even as it creeps beneath her skin like a violent sort of promise.

Eyes without judgement meets hers, steady and there.

“Yeah,” Katsuki manages. “’s fine.”

-

“You are the stubborn type, aren’t you?” Midnight muses as Katsuki sips the tea that had been shoved into her hand a bit reluctantly, some salty crackers places beside it on a small plate.

The sick had been cleaned up and deposited off without comment while the water boiled and her teacher pads barefooted through the kitchen, moving between the fridge and the stove where something is boiling beneath a lid.

Katsuki hadn’t been paying much attention but her nose suspects oatmeal of some sort and there is an arrangement of fruit being prepared.

“You know, you remind me a bit of Shouta,” she says, apparently fine with keeping up a one-sided conversation. “He’s never been the vocal sort but his actions says a lot and he cares for his students. More than he’ll admit to.”

Katsuki’s shoulders draws up.

“And that includes you,” Midnight says as she slides two bowls with strawberries and blueberries respectively onto the table before drawing a chair out and settling down, ankles crossing beneath it. “Would you hear me out about something that’s been on my mind? You can say no if you want to but I’d like you to hear it and I think you need to hear it.”

Katsuki is used to people doing what they wanted no matter her thoughts on it. With doctors who pushed and prodded at her like an animal that needed to be restrained. Prescribing medications that left her listless and unresponsive until Masaru had flushed them down the toilet as Mitsuki held her warm and there against her chest as Katsuki’s mind fractured and the world ceased to make sense.

People don’t ask. She’s regarded with fear and suspicion and like a project with an easy fix.

The sheer novelty of it makes her tongue curl around the automatic no.

“… Fine,” she grits out.

Midnight regards her for a moment longer and then – “Thank you,” she says, smiling as she leant back. “I think we’ve done you a disservice,” she says bluntly as Katsuki gives a little jerk, eyes flaring wide in her surprise as she looks up. “No, that’s wrong,” Midnight says with a little wrinkle of her nose. “I know we have and it’s not the kind of thing apologies are going to fix.”

Katsuki stares.

“What happened at the Sports Festival should never have been done to you and someone should have reached out to you sooner.” Her nails taps against the table, painted a pretty deep blue colour. “The moment you were accepted into U.A. you became our responsibility. You are a student, a teenager, and we should have done better.”

The thing is – that objectively, from Katsuki’s point of view, it’s hilarious. Because Midnight is thirty-one. In another world, another point of time, another twist of fate, they’d be two women in their thirties sitting across each other.

But instead she is and she isn’t and the eyes she looks out from belongs to a sixteen-year-old boy.

Two dead souls combining into something new and different, broken and angry, ravaged and not right.

Katsuki doesn’t trust these people. She doesn’t even like them. They’re her teachers and they had watched her chained and muzzled and had done nothing.

Her fists curls tight and white-knuckled around her cup.

I will become the Best!

A will and resonance of a dead boy who she’s desperate to make up to, the only thing that makes sense in the world she finds herself in.

Guilt – so much guilt for the boy that should have been and the parents who love him desperately even with her in a broken masquerade of their son.

She’s going to become a Hero.

And she doesn’t need anyone to make it happen.

-

Masaru presses a kiss to her brow after searching her face before drawing her into a hug and she knots up but allows it, breathing in the scent of him as he squeezes her tight before releasing her.

“Thank you for looking after my son,” he says to Midnight who is leaning against the wall, dressed in a long-sleeved turtle neck shirt and dark jeans.

“It was my pleasure,” she says with a curl of her red lips. “He’s my student, after all,” she says, as if it means something.

“I want to go home,” Katsuki interupts when Masaru opens his mouth to respond and his father pauses and Katsuki avoids his eyes when he looks to her, her own somewhere at her booted feet with a scowl that falls naturally with a twist of her lips.

“Of course,” he says softly. “But first – what do we say?”

Katsuki twitches but looks up, meeting Midnight’s eyes and ignoring the little flash of amusement there. “Thank you,” she mutters.

“Of course, any time,” Midnight says with a sharp sort of smile and a meaningful look. “See you bright and early Monday morning, Bakugou-kun!”

-

Masaru doesn’t pry and Katsuki doesn’t offer any details.

Instead his father puts on a movie and brings out cookies and milk and they spend the afternoon on the couch with a shared blanket over their lap that Masaru gently tucks in place.

Katsuki isn’t really focusing on the movie and she knows that Masaru knows that but they’ve spent years together and he and Mitsuki knows better than anyone how she works after long episodes of disassociations and panic attacks.

Bad one? Mitsuki had asked and Katsuki had confirmed because it means something between the three of them.

So Katsuki pretends that the shoulder that presses against her own isn’t there for as much as her own sake as Masaru’s. Pretends that the cookies and milk isn’t as much for her comfort as it is for Masaru to feel useful.

-

Dabi isn’t answering her messages.

Toga isn’t either.

Katsuki stares at her phone, trying to ignore the ugly twist in her stomach as she clicks it off.

-

Katsuki spends her classes with headphones pulled up, pen moving a bit listlessly over the pages in a drawing of something that might, generously, be called a dog.

Shinsou is ignoring her and at lunch he doesn’t make an appearance on the roof – something that makes Ashido pout even as she shoves meat and noodles into her mouth.

“Do you think something happened during the weekend?” she asks as Katsuki is contemplating how to best decimate the rice panda in her lunch box.

“He was attacked,” she informs the other a bit dispassionately as she cuts off one of the ears and pads it together with some omelette.

When she looks up at the stretch of silence she finds Ashido staring at her strangely.

“What?” Katsuki asks, shoving it into her mouth.

“It’s just-“ But Ashido pauses. “Nevermind,” she says slowly. “But what do you mean he was attacked!?”

So Katsuki tells her shortly what had gone down, skipping over Shinsou’s reaction to it because it was private and she’s not an asshole. But a part of her really wants to because she doesn’t get it and Ashido is good at understanding people while Katsuki finds them endlessly confusing and strange.

The blue ferret plush had been, very hesitantly and with many long looks, placed on a shelf in her room – a bit lost as what else to do with it.

If she hadn’t been there she might have suspected it of spontaneously combusting.

“You think he’ll be alright?” Ashido asks just as the door cracks open and they both turn towards it.

“I told you this is where they eat!” See Through’s voice reaches them as the girl steps right past Round Cheeks who peers around before following as Ashido immediately perked up, waving at them both.

“Hagakure! Uraraka!” she says as Katsuki sinks her chin into the fabric of Dabi’s scarf.

“Had a good weekend?” See Through asks as she drops down with a tray, Round Cheeks copying her with a raised brow at Katsuki who meets it with a glower.

“It was good,” Ashido says with a grin, open and relaxed even with the added company, and Katsuki notes the ease of which she tucked the worry away from her eyes and mouth. “I met up with some old classmates – it was alright you know? But it feels so different.”

“Oh I know what you mean,” See Through agrees with a little breath. “The Hero Course is just… so much more intense than normal school work.”

Katsuki thinks of her own experience in a normal college where students didn’t face down Villains or were encouraged to beat each other in festivals with audiences encouraging it and has a bizarre moment of complete and heartfelt empathy for whoever these old friends were.

People living completely normal lives in an abnormal world.

“What about you, Uraraka?” Ashido asks, golden eyes flicking to the hence quiet girl as she swirled together some noodles on her chopsticks.

Katsuki’s eyes are on See Through, bizarrely fascinated as a piece of meat simply vanished into thin air. Intellectually she knew it was just inside the girl’s mouth but it doesn’t make it any less strange.

“Mostly studying for the exams,” Round Cheeks admits a bit sheepishly. “Only three weeks left now.”

Ashido chokes and Katsuki thrusts her thermos at her when she keeps coughing and the girl pours it down almost desperately, eyes watering as she finally managed to get it down.

“What do you mean it’s in three weeks!?” Ashido demands, aghast and wide-eyed as she wipes spilled water from her mouth.

Katsuki, See Through and Round Cheeks all stares at her because Aizawa had been affirming it that very morning and Ashido flags down, looking abjectly miserable and then panicked as she gave a little jerk and swivelled towards Katsuki who tensed as hands folded down on her shoulders, a face pressing close to her own.

“Bakugou – Katsuki, my friend, my pal I’m going to fail.”

“What?” she asks flatly, leaning back to put some space between them.

But Ashido hardly seems to notice and there’s some genuine panic there. “I’m going to fail and – no, no, what if they throw me out!?”

“I’m sure it wouldn’t come to that,” Round Cheeks says, hands waving through the air in front of her. “I’m sure Aizawa-sensei wouldn’t-“

“He failed his entire class the year before us,” Katsuki says flatly as the fingers on her shoulders clenches down almost painfully. “Stop that,” she says with a look up. “There’s still time and you’re not stupid so calm the fuck down.”

Ashido stills and Katsuki grimaces a bit as she slowly loosens her hold and leans back.

“Just have Bakugou tutor you,” See Through suggests as a piece of carrot disappeared with a crunch of invisible teeth. “He’s at the top of the class.”

“I have a life,” Katsuki says flatly even as Ashido turns wide hopeful eyes onto her.

“You’re already helping us too,” Round Cheeks says a bit thoughtfully the fucking traitor.

Katsuki feels a cold chill run down her back and the omelette slides from her chopsticks, dropping into the plastic container with a sad noise as Katsuki draws it close to her chest.

“Katsuki.” She hunkers down, just a bit. “What do they mean you’re already helping them?”

-

They’re at the cat café and Katsuki really just wants to go home and take a long nap but Ashido had ambushed her at the end of the day and hauled her along with See Through and Round Cheeks.

A cat nudges its head against her jaw and Katsuki runs her hand over its orange head, fingers curling to scratch at its neck when it tilted into it with a low purr.

“This is such a cute place,” See Through says with delight, glove tugged off and a cat purring up a storm beneath her invisible fingers. “I’ve never been to a cat café before.”

Ashido had placed herself opposite Katsuki, leaving her with Round Cheeks on the small couch beside her – fingers gliding over the options on the menu, eyes flicking every now and then to the price with a hesitant sort of dip in her brow.

“Ashido is paying,” Katsuki hisses under her breath to her. “Get whatever the fuck you want.”

Round Cheeks gives a little startled jerk and then a strange look before it dipped into a hesitant smile.

Ashido gives her a look and Katsuki scowls right back.

“Right,” she says after a moment. “So – we need a schedule.”

“I can’t do Fridays,” See Through says immediately. “And I’m helping Mom with the restaurant during the weekends. What about you Bakugou?”

A paw lands demandingly on her chest when she momentarily stops her petting and she resumed it a bit grudgingly. “Whatever,” she grumbles. “But no more than two days a week. I have my own fucking life.”

“That’s fair,” See Through agrees readily enough. “We have Hero Course training on Mondays and Fridays so what about Tuesday and Thursdays?”

“Works for me,” Ashido says, perking up some.

Round Cheeks nods thoughtfully, four fingers pressing together. “But how are we going to do it?” she asks with a glance at Katsuki who pretends not to notice as another cat squirms its way up beside her and steps daringly into her lap. “If he’s helping all three of us.”

“Already thought of that!” See Through claps her hands together – at least by the sound of it. Her gloves are still beside her. “How about this – when Bakugou is helping Uraraka I can help you with your studying and vice versa?  We don’t really need him all the time, just for the sparring and you know, advice, I guess?”

Katsuki raises her head just enough to give her a dry look.

“What?” she asks. “I don’t know what you’ve got in mind but knowing you it means dusting your hands off us as soon as possible and we’re not stupid. We’ll figure it out once we’ve got the bases down.”

Ashido gives Katsuki an interested look. “What do you have in mind anyway?”

Katsuki growls but carefully pushes the cat on her lap aside to bend down and yank her backpack open, digging a bit before grasping for her notebook and fishing it up, nudging the second cat aside as she felt the paws of a third one on her back climb onto her shoulder and settle self-importantly there.

“Here,” she says, flicking the two side-by-side pages open and twisting it into a side-way slant for them both.

See Through and Round Cheeks had both answered the questions she'd emailed and Katsuki had spent her Sunday evening adjusting the notes she'd already made.

It's all very basic - what the two wanted was a boost in what to take into consideration for future fights, not an actual teacher, or Katsuki would have been tempted to go home and nap instead.

She still is. Tempted, that is. Just not overwhelmingly so.

Somehow Ashido's presence helps and she tries very hard not to think of why.

“Midnight has just started on nutrition and stuff but you both need to fucking eat better – you’re burning far more than you’re consuming with Hero training and whatever the fuck Aizawa surprises us with.” She pokes a bit aggressively at the list she’d made. “This builds muscles – what kind of muscles depends on what you combine it with.” She flicks her gaze up to See Through. “You want more wired ones, right? And stamina. A lot of stamina so you’re going to be running. And you-“ She turns to Round Cheeks. “Your powers are a fucking cheat. I’m going to make you bench press Deku when I’m done with you. No quirk fucking needed.”

Ashido gives Round Cheeks an interested look. “That’s a hot thought,” she says and the brown haired girl flushes deep red with a wave of her hands and a stuttered protest.

Katsuki wishes her all the luck with that because Ashido and See Throughs zeroes on her like interested sharks at the reaction.

“It’s all useless if you don’t know what to do with it,” Katsuki grumps as the waiter arrives to take their orders and she orders two cakes because she can.

“Make that a milkshake,” she growls over Round Cheeks order of water to go with it her own cake. “Largest one you got.”

She gives Ashido a challenging look but the pink haired girl remains silent, a bit contemplative as she flicks her gaze between the two before shrugging and making her own order.

Round Cheeks gaze itches at her skin and Katsuki ignores her.

“So, sparring?” See Through picks up as the woman bows with a smile before stepping away to prepare it.

-

The thing about the Hero course is that it doesn’t teach style.

The quirks are too diverse and the students come from all sorts of backgrounds so in many ways they’re expected to figure it out on their own with three years giving a liberate amount of time to establish their own style with help and advice when needed.

It’s reasonable – when not taking into the account the fact that there’s a group of Villains on the rise and All Might’s very existence had brought their focus upon them.

Katsuki finds it moronic in some ways – clever in others.

Downright cruel when taking into consideration those with backgrounds that leaves them leaps and bounds ahead before even starting.

There’s a reason that all of those that tops the Hero course nearly always have a background of families already in the Hero business. She’d combed through the records before getting admitted and while interning was supposed to help it wasn’t always a clear-cut thing.

Katsuki is at the top because she likes fighting, has the instincts for it, and she’d gone up against Dabi who is clever and watchful and likes making a point of the way he goes after her when they go up against each other.

A weak left side? He’d burnt her so deep she’d blacked out before realising what had happened and she hadn’t made the mistake of leaving it open again.

Her quirk is also explosive and flashy and it’s favoured because it stands out.

“Keep your clothes on,” she tells See Through bluntly where she stands opposite her and the girl pauses. “Or don’t. I already know what you can do when you’re invisible,” she says with a flash of teeth. “And it won’t much matter when you’re going up against me.”

“And what about you?” There’s a meaningful sort of challenge in the way she phrases it.

“No quirk,” Katsuki says with a roll of her neck. “Don’t need it to beat you.”

Ashido lets out a quiet oooh from the side-lines before yelping as Round Cheeks poked at her for not paying attention and dutifully focusing back on the books spread out around them.

She isn’t surprised when See Through choses to shimmy out of her clothes anyway because it’s familiar, it’s the way she’s been taught to fight, and Katsuki is going to make a point of it.

Because it’ll only take her so far and the world is a violent place.

So she remains still, listening carefully, and then she twists and lashes out when the girl tries to take her by surprise – hand sliding momentarily over a bare shoulder before locking down on her upper arm as she takes a sliding step backwards and hauls her up and over her shoulder in a hard roll that slams her back-first against the ground with a sharp breath and a bitten-back cry.

Katsuki’s eyes follows the small pitter-patter of blood when it becomes visible as she scrambles up.

“You don’t need a quirk to win,” she informs the other, flexing her fingers. “You just got to be smarter.”

Katsuki pauses when a finger presses up against her chest, breath ghosting warm against her lips as See Through leant close. “Show me how to do that,” she demands, blood rolling down an invisible back where it had scraped roughly open.

Chapter Text

PURPLE GUY: we need to talk

Katsuki stares down at the message, sand beneath her, the sea lapping against her ankles.

There’s an hour yet until school but-

Katsuki texts him an address before sliding it back into her shorts, tugging her shirt over her head and grimacing a bit as it melded against her wet skin. Brushes the sand away from her boxes as best as she can before she draws her running shorts up over them and making her way back to his parents’ house.

“I’m skipping first lesson,” she informs Mitsuki after showering and dressing, snagging an apple from the fruit bowl.

“Want me to drop you off somewhere?” the woman asks, half-way into her jacket and raising a brow.

Katsuki tips her head, considering.

“Sure,” she agrees, reaching for her boots and pulling them on.

-

“Just the first lesson – I’m calling school to let them know you’ll be late,” Mitsuki informs her mildly. “Make sure to grab something to eat, honey.”

Katsuki will never start to make sense of his parents but she’s thankful all the same, she supposes, muttering a thank you before shoving the door shut behind her and peering both ways before crossing the street to the small café, hands in her pocket and slouching down as she weaves through the thick throng of people.

The bell rings above her as she steps inside and the waitress is a familiar one who smiles before waving her along for the corner table.

She orders two of their breakfast trays, something sweet and syrupy that makes her grimace slightly as she quite preferred something steady in the morning.

“We can make the pancakes whole wheat if you want,” the waitress offers, catching her look. “I believe we have some carrots as well. I could probably make something out of it.”

Katsuki agrees and the waitress tips her head before leaving as one the cats climbs her lap and nudges on her until she feeds it one of the treats from the middle of the table.

It’s pretty empty in the morning and Katsuki doesn’t reach for her headphones, content with the low murmur from a couple quite a bit away from her and the soft purrs of the cats as more joins her before Shinsou actually makes an appearance.

He pauses, watching her from the doorway, and she raises an eyebrow in response – a cat on her shoulder, two more in her lap, another beside her and three on the table with lazy content flicks of their tails as they bask in the sunlight creeping through the window.

“I didn’t know you liked cats,” he says, voice low and something she can’t quite read in his dark lidded eyes.

She shrugs.

“I ordered breakfast,” she says and his shoulders tenses momentarily at the sound of her voice before he slides in, settling down across her.

“Not afraid I’m going to brainwash you?” he asks and there’s something there – in the depth of his voice, written in the way his muscles draws tight even as one of the cats on the table rolls lazily up on its paws and threads its way over to him to drop into his lap, curling belly up to offer it up for petting as it stretches out.

“We’re in a public café,” Katsuki drawls in response, teeth flashing momentarily.

The waitress appears, sliding a tray each in front of them. “Anything else?” There’s a tall glass of orange juice accompanying their food and they both declines it. “Just wave if you need me,” she says before drawing away to the counter.

Shinsou sits hunched over and staring darkly down at the stack of pancakes and the melting piece of butter on top.

“I didn’t have friends before U.A.” Katsuki blinks at him, fork half-way through the stack of pancakes and she tilts her head just a fraction as she presses down with a clink against the porcelain as it goes through. “I’m not even sure we are friends,” he says with a bitter laugh. “I didn’t want you to help, you know?” He looks at her, purple eyes tired and heavy. “I don’t get you.” His voice comes out short, rough.

Katsuki stuffs the pancakes into her mouth, saying nothing.

“People hate my quirk,” Shinsou continues when she doesn’t answer, as if spurred by it. “Brainwashing is a Villains quirk, you know? Robs people of their will and want to do my bidding. Even at the Sports Festival everyone-“ His mouth twists. “It was supposed to be different in the Hero Course but you won’t even speak to me unless you’ve taken precaution.”

He isn’t wrong. She’d chosen the café because the workers there were moderately familiar with her thanks to her frequents stops there with Ashido and sure to notice if something strange happened.

“I hate it,” he tells her. “Those guys in the alley – they’re co-workers with my foster dad. He-“ And here he swallows roughly. “He told them about me. About my quirk. They were going to – they told me that if they just silenced me then I wouldn’t be able to give any command.” His mouth stretches, an ugly thing filled with anger and hurt. “And then you stepped in and you wouldn’t even speak to me.”

“What did you want me to say?” Katsuki asks mildly curious.

He gives her a long tired look. “Anything,” he confesses and it looks like it hurts him to say it. “You’re- I don’t know what we are. I thought – maybe friends. It’s stupid. I know it is. And yet – you’re here. And you saved me from- that. And I’m just-“ He slumps back. “I’m staying with Aizawa-sensei now. He wouldn’t let me go back there. To my foster parents.”

Katsuki had wondered, a bit distantly, but she’d been busy with her own aftermath of the disassociation which had clawed angrily at her after waking up in her teachers’ bed.

“Is my quirk really that wrong?” Shinsou asks and he looks vulnerable, she thinks, and he’s made a bad choice in conversation partner if he’s looking for reassurances because-

“I don’t trust your quirk,” she says bluntly and he flinches before hiding it with a curl of his shoulders. “I don’t trust people.” She leans back, hand rising to scratch at the jaw of the cat on her shoulder. “Heroes, Villains, the world is fucking corrupt and ugly and I don’t do trust. Anyone is capable of turning on you. Ashido could be planning on stabbing a knife into my back and I wouldn’t know because she’s so fucking genuine and I don’t get that. I don’t trust it.”

Shinsou stares at her and Katsuki shrugs.

“I could blow up this entire café and they wouldn’t have time to blink,” she says with a twist of her mouth, smoothing her hand idly over the fur of the cat. “All Might can break bones with a single flick of his fingers, Endeavour can start a forest fire with just a gesture, Midnight could put our entire class to sleep and murder us one by one and we wouldn’t have time to do much more than blink. Ashido could melt your face off, Sparky could fry you and leave you in a coma with just a press of his finger, Round Cheeks could send you floating into the fucking sun and there’s nothing you or I can do about it.”

Katsuki taps her finger against the nose of the cat before drawing her hand down and spreading both out.

“You want to tell your quirk isn’t dangerous? Get off your high-horse. We’re all dangerous. Yours is fucking tricky and I like it as much as I like Duct Tape’s or fucking Froggy’s. It’s my mind and my body I’m not about to risk anything just to put your mind at fucking ease. You accept that or you don’t, I don’t care.”

“You’ve really put some thought into that,” Shinsou says after a long moment, a tremble in his hand as he runs it over his face before it frames his mouth, leaving only his eyes visible. “Anyone ever tell you you’re a bit messed up?”

Katsuki twitches. “Fuck off,” she mutters, shoving pancakes into her mouth.

“I mean it,” Shinsou says, voice slightly muffled against his palm. “You’re paranoid. You’re not – normal people don’t think about Heroes like that.” There’s something like a revelation in his eyes and for some reason he’s fucking smiling when he lowers his hand – a bit off, crooked, as if he wasn’t used to it. “What about Aizawa-sensei?” he urges, leaning forward. “His quirk just cancels others.”

“He wears his capture weapon like a fucking scarf,” Katsuki growls and Shinsou throws his head back and laughs.

-

“You-“ Katsuki snarls at Ashido as she side-steps Class Rep and whatever mantra he had waiting for her, leaving him to snag the still grinning boy behind her, the hair at the back of her neck rising as he kept his eyes on her. “Make him stop fucking smiling.”

Ashido, Sparky, Shitty Hair and Punk all stares at her and she twitches.

“I take it your talk went well,” Ashido says, looking entirely too entertained.

Her eyes flicks seconds before a hand lands on her shoulder and Katsuki goes rigid as Shinsou leans forward, far too close, her skin burning.

“Morning,” he drawls as Katsuki’s fingers curls. “And it did. We’re proper friends again, aren't we Bakugou?"

Katsuki jerks out of his grip, growling as she took two hasty steps back only to hit someone else and twitching away from Deku who threw his hands up.

“S-sorry, Kacchan. Are you- are you okay?“ He looks at her, all big green eyes, and somewhere deep a small voice hisses thatfuckingDeku- before she shoves roughly at it.

“I’m fucking fine,” she snaps and then growls because he flinches and she hisses a breath through her teeth. “Where is Present Mic?” she demands.

He blinks owlishly at her. “He’s – at his office, I think?”

“Show me.”

“Bakugou-kun,” Class Rep says disapprovingly. “You need to treat your classmates with-“

“Would you, for once, mind your own fucking business?” Katsuki hisses as she swivels around with a snarl at the tall blue haired boy. “Deku,” she snaps and he straightens up before sidling past Class Rep with an apologetic little look before slipping out of the classroom with Katsuki at his heel.

Behind them there’s a ruckus of voices and her muscles coils tight before she forces her shoulders down and slouches, hands disappearing into her pockets.

“W-what do you want with Present Mic-sensei?” Deku asks a bit hesitantly and it strikes her that this is the first time they’re on their own since she’d beat him half to death during their first lesson with All Might.

“Talk,” she says shortly.

“Oh.” He fiddles a bit and Katsuki slants him a look.

“If there’s something you want to say just say it,” she snaps, irate.

He jerks a bit guiltily before he swallows and straightens up, just a bit, shorter than her, still, and there’s a part of her that is young and dead and yet gloats.

“I’m – I’m sorry.” She stops dead in the hallway, turning around to find him still, bowed to the waist. “I should have – if it wasn’t for me-“ And fuck her, this day. “I know you don’t want to hear it!” he blurts out as he looks up at her, slowly straightening, determination in his eyes. “You’re – you’re my friend Kacchan and I’m sorry.”

Katsuki wonders, despairingly, what she’d done to deserve any of this.

“Would you just fucking stop,” she says tiredly, craving a smoke and a long nap away from children. “You – we – were kids.”

Katsuki is many things but she’s not about to lay blame at the feet of an eight-year-old boy for her existence. She’s not irrational or angry enough for such a thing and the dead boy had been as much to blame for the entire thing, perhaps even more, if the needle sharp memory of stepping back and away from a green haired boy with sudden vertigo just to avoid touching him only to find nothing behind himself, had anything to say about it.

And the boy is dead anyway and so is the woman who tastes rain and sound in her death as she chokes and gasps and drowns.

The boy’s death had been an accident, the woman’s a murder. Her very existence goes against all rational and sanity and she’s quite sure she’d be institutionalized if she was to as much breathe a word of it.

“You almost died,” he says and there’s old wounds in his eyes.

Katsuki wants to laugh.

The thing is – Katsuki remembers him. It’s like shaking dust off old tangled memories every time she sees him. Recalling a boy that follows and smiles, lips going wobbly as explosions goes off and words meant to hurt dig deep into shoulders that hunch and shrink but with eyes that never stop hoping for a friendship that had been.

Katsuki isn’t the boy. She isn’t the woman either but she remembers.

A friendship before quirks, hands clasped during sleepovers and a shared joy in the Hero they looked up to. Birthdays and scrambles up slides that had seemed impossibly high and fearsome as a small blond haired boy reached for a green haired one with shared trust between the best of friends.

The dead boy had turned cruel with the first taste of his quirk. Self-important and a sense of a rightness when Deku never gained his.

“You can’t save everyone,” she says, taking a step towards him, eyes narrowed. “Everywhere there are people dying. Gasping and choking, Heroes unable to reach them, those with little in life succumbing to the cold in harsh winters, children cowering between the fists of their should-be protectors. People suffer, it’s how it fucking works.”

Katsuki remembers a hand reaching out, wide and fearful as the world tilted and the boy fell and-

“I could have saved you,” he nearly whispers.

The rage that bursts through her is violent and her hand snaps out, curling into his shirt as she yanks him towards her, towering over his smaller form as she bares her teeth, malice in her eyes and tasting a sickening sort of enjoyment in the way his form shrinks as she presses her mouth in a warm breath against his ear.

“No one,” she says slowly, allowing the words to curl on her tongue. “Could have saved me. Least of all a useless fucking nerd like you.”

She shoves him away from her and he stumbles, staring up at her with wide-eyes in the empty corridor as she bares her teeth.

“We’re not friends. You and I are nothing,” she tells him with a glower. “Spare your heroics for someone who cares.”

She turns her heel, leaving him behind as he wraps his arms around himself.

-

Katsuki is glaring at nothing when Present Mic finds her, computer beneath his arm and bag beneath the other.

“Got lost, little listener?” he asks, visibly amused.

Katsuki turns her glower upon him but his smile only grows. “Come on, we can talk while we walk, yeah?”

-

Present Mic is Katsuki’s new favourite teacher.

Cheek resting against the palm of her hand, a pair of brand new headphones over her ears, her noise cancelling ones dangling around her neck, she watches in rapt fascination as the Voice Hero talks about the differences between ASL and JSL, making a show of the different ones on the small computer screen.

“- unlike the American Sign Language, JSL relies far more on lip movement to accompany the motion of the signs so make sure you pay attention to my lips, Bakugou-kun. For example, if you compare-“

This wasn’t a spur of the movement thing, weren’t notes scrambled together, but a lesson tailored and recorded entirely for her.

She flicks her gaze up to look at the blonde haired man, hair gelled up and wearing his leathery Hero get-up, glasses in place to hide the peculiar shade of his eyes and the constrictive circles around his pupils.

There’s enthusiasm for his work as he speaks, English falling as naturally from his lips as his Japanese.

She looks down again, clicking to rewind the last ten seconds and focusing back on the screen.

-

Katsuki’s last two weeks before the written exam is busy between training and studying and she’s barely spared the time to think between it all as the teachers bear down on them and panic spreads among her classmates.

Some handle it better than others but Katsuki finds herself with Ashido asleep on her bed after a long study lesson, the stress finally melting away from her face as she crashed the day before the exam.

Katsuki contemplates waking her but ultimately straightens out and ambles out of her room, drawing the door gently shut behind her.

“Kaa-san?” She peers into the living room where both his parents are curled up, watching the television. “Do you have the number to Ashido’s mom?”

“I do,” Mitsuki agrees as Masaru reaches for the remote, turning the sound down. “Why?”

“Ashido fell asleep,” Katsuki admits, scratching at the back of her neck and giving a rough shrug. “Can you tell her mom she’s staying over? I don’t want to wake her.”

Mitsuki’s face softens. “Of course, honey.”

“I’ll bring out the spare futon,” Masaru says with a little smile and Katsuki grunts before threading her way back.

Ashido is still sleeping soundly and Katsuki is mindful to keep quiet as she gathers the notes and books up, settling it on her desk as she dragged a hand through her hair, contemplating but finally stepping forward.

It takes some awkward wiggling but Katsuki gets her arm down and around her friend’s back and the other beneath her knees, lifting her up with a little grunt, ears tipping red as Ashido turned her head to press closer with a low murmur of her name.

She nudges the cover back with her knee and drops Ashido’s head down on her pillow, tugging her socks off before drawing the covers up and over her.

Masaru appears with the futon and together they spread it out on the floor beside the bed before stepping out of the dark room.

“Do you want to borrow one of my shirts to sleep in?” he asks.

“Yeah,” she agrees, relieved she wouldn’t have to fumble in the dark for one.

“Her mother was pretty relieved to hear she fell asleep,” Mitsuki says as she slides back into the apartment, having stepped outside to make the call. “She was surprised and happy to hear you’ve been helping her studying.”

“She asked,” Katsuki grumbles quietly with a glance towards her bedroom door.

It was meant to be a two-day thing in combination with the time spent with See Through and Round Cheeks but Ashido had been coming home with her nearly every day for the past two weeks and while Katsuki feels the strain of having someone in her space she hadn’t been able to deny the other.

“I'm proud of you, brat," Mitsuki laughs softly. "Go to bed."

-

She dreams of an apple orchard, straw coloured grass beneath her bare back and exhaustion in her limbs as she stretches out, her fingers brushing his.

The sun is warm above them and his lips tastes of the fruit they’ve spent hours picking when he rolls over and straddles her hips to press them against hers.

“I want to stay like this forever,” he breathes, mouth moving clearly for her to read as he draws back, his eyes impossibly soft as she reaches her hand up, pressing it against his cheek as he tilts into her touch.

《I don’t know,》 she signs as she draws her hand back. 《I don’t think the whole apple orchard thing is for me.》

《You’re right.》His eyes crinkles with a hint of mischievousness. 《We’re just going to have to switch if up. There are entire orchards of oranges and pears just ripe for our picking.》

《But not peaches,》 she says and he laughs, a breathy little quiver of his belly that never failed to warm her heart.

《No peaches,》 he agrees. 《Maybe if we’re lucky we’ll be spirited away by aliens.》

《Lucky?》

《I hear aliens are up to some funky stuff.》 He wiggles his brows and she snorts, looping her arms around him and drawing him down against her chest.

It’s a bit awkward – they’re both sweaty and dirty and his bare chest presses sticky against her shirt but she doesn’t care.

《I’m sure we could get up to plenty of funky stuff on our own, no aliens needed,》 she signs as he tilts his head up after she gives him a nudge and she feels the shiver that goes through him as he shifts.

《Yeah?》 he asks, his breath warm against her neck as he pressed forward to nose against it.

“Mm.”

《I kinda want to fuck you right here and now,》he admits before a hand ghosts down to brush teasing fingers against her belly where her shirt and ridden up and she shifts her hips encouragingly, groaning warmly as his hand dips obligingly beneath the fabric of her shorts to press up against her underwear with a little curl.

《So blunt,》 she signs before he bends down to catch her lips, tongues moving languish, content beneath the warmth and the sun.

“I love you,” he says, the shape of the words familiar on his lips.

“And I love you,” she assures him, words carefully practiced with a friend to make sure she spoke them right, breathing hitching as his fingers grounded down. 《I don’t think our Boss would much appreciate the voyeuristic show, however.》

His fingers pauses and then draws back as he slumps against her.

《Tease,》 he complains with a twist of his fingers, and she laughs.

Chapter Text

”Just borrow one of mine,” Katsuki grunts to Ashido as she went from surprised and delighted to waking up with in her bed, craning to look down at her sprawled out on her futon, to panic at the fact that they had to be in school in an hour and she didn’t have her uniform. “’s just a written test today.”

Ashido pauses. “You know what kind of rumours that’s going to bring, right?” she asks as Katsuki threads her way over to her dresser and pulling the top one open, rummaging about.

“I’m not completely socially backwards,” Katsuki huffs as she throws one of her spare uniform over with a flump on the bed. “Not that I care.”

Ashido widens her eyes dramatically. “Maybe this was your plan all along? A notch in the belt with the pretty Ashido Mina. Sure to boost the sad, volatile, anti-social reputation of one Bakugou Katsuki.”

“You’re not my type,” Katsuki informs her flatly, unimpressed.

Ashido clutches her heart. “I felt that right here.” She swoons back dramatically, sprawling a bit haphazardly in her wrinkled clothes from the day before. “Go on without me, I have suffered the sharp wound of rejection!”

“I’m sure to tell Aizawa just that when you turn up late for the finals,” Katsuki grumps, taking some satisfaction in the way Ashido gives a little yelp before scrabbling up, practically diving for the door.

-

The uniform doesn’t look half-bad on her, Katsuki decides some fifteen minutes later as Ashido practically pools into the chair beside her, hair wet and sticking up a bit messily from a rough towel drying.

Ashido is shorter than her and she’d rolled up the sleeves, letting the ends of the pants pool at her heel. But she’s muscular and her shoulders straight and proud and while the jacket sits a bit oddly over her chest it’s a decent fit.

Katsuki drags the plate from the middle of the table and pushes it in front of the other.

“Kaa-san said she’s driving us,” Katsuki informs her as Ashido brightens up, reaching for both fork and knife as Katsuki spears an egg in two with her fork on her own plate. “Tou-san made you a bento,” she tags on idly as she shoves it into her mouth.

Ashido turns to her, cheeks bulging and eyes shining.

-

Ashido isn’t wrong.

Katsuki’s shoulder bumps against her friend’s, uncomfortable and scowling as more than one sharp voice rose up around them.

She understands, suddenly, why Ashido had poked her into dragging her headphones on before entering the classroom because it’s fucking loud even with them on.

Beside her Ashido grins, hand on her hip and not looking remotely affected by it as See Through latches on and practically drags her towards the gathering group of girls.

Katsuki’s eyes linger for a moment longer before turning around and pausing – because there is Sparky, just a tad too close for comfort, Shitty Hair a bit wide-eyed behind him, Duct Tape staring at her with large round disbelieving eyes but a slowly spreading smile that made her lips pull back in response.

“Bakugou,” Sparky’s mouth moves. “I didn’t know you had it in you, man.”

Katsuki considers annoyance.

Considering anger.

But instead something else slots into place and she raises her hand and pushes her headphones down.

“Oh you misunderstand, Sparky,” she says with a sharp sort of smile as she leans forward, making sure to hold his gaze. “You’re more of my type.”

Sparky makes a noise like a wheeze.

“Thank you?” he chokes out, flushing of all things, and Katsuki straightens out with some satisfaction.

“We clear?” she checks, darting her gaze between the group of boys, and they nod a bit hastily.

The woman is straight. She thinks that the boy, if given a chance, might have been gay. Katsuki doesn’t dwell, what is – is. But she knows that it’s like to be a young girl and just a notch in the post and she wants no part in it.

A dull thump announces the arrival of their wayward sensei and Katsuki brushes her shoulder deliberately against Sparky’s as she passes him by, enjoying the way he jerked with a little flush to his cheeks, wide-eyed as he took a hasty step back.

Katsuki could never consider them anything but children and she’s not depraved but it’s amusing all the same and she snorts as she throws herself into her seat, letting her backpack thud against the ground as Aizawa slouched forward, letting a stack of paper land on top of the podium.

The tension that follows could practically be cut with a knife.

-

The day is just a long row of one exam after the other and Katsuki has a headache at the end of it, rubbing at her neck as she stepped out of the classroom.

It’d been easy enough but it was always tedious to formulate in the way that fit into the peculiars of the worded answers they wanted. But Katsuki had been good at school in one life and it had followed her into another.

Ashido’s arms slides around her neck, her weight following to a slight grunt.

“Katsukiiii, I’m tired.”

“What of it?” she mutters back as the arms around her neck flexed almost contemplatively before a boot came up to press against her hip bone and Katsuki’s eyes widens, tensing as it pressed down and the pink haired girl hoisted herself up, swinging legs around her waist as Katsuki’s hand snapped down to grasp at her thigh.

She stands a bit stiffly in place as Ashido wiggles in place properly before slumping down against her with a sigh of content, practically boneless.

“Hey, Ashido, Bakugou!” Punk raises a hand in a wave to them both. “We’re heading to grab some ice cream – you want in?”

“Ice cream,” Ashido practically moans and Katsuki breathes a sigh through her teeth before taking a step towards Punk who gives them both an appraising look and then a smile that made Katsuki eye her warily.

“Come on,” she says with a little jerk of her head.

-

We, turns out to be most of the class.

Ashido isn’t the only one who looks dead on their feet and Katsuki catches Sparky’s eyes flitter between Ashido and Shitty Hair before he leans in with large eyes to a laugh as the red haired boy crouched down obligingly to hoist him up.

Sparky shoots Ashido a smug look and she feels the pink haired girl’s arms tighten in response before blowing him a raspberry.

“Hey, Uraraka!“ See Through calls. “Is Midoriya joining us?”

Out of the twenty students he’s the only one not there and Katsuki tilts her head slightly to acknowledge Shinsou as he sidles up beside them while Ashido greets him with a bright exclamation of his name.

“Ah-no.” Round Cheeks rubs at the back of her head. “All Might picked him up after class,” she admits.

“They’re close,” a quiet voice observes beside Katsuki who slants a look to the dark feathery head beside her, blinking as a ball of shadow and yellow eyes peered back at her from the inside of a collar.

She hasn’t interacted much with Feather Head but it’s hard to forget someone with a beak for mouth and she raises a brow at the watchful eyes of Dark Shadow.

“I guess?” Round Cheeks says with a tilt of her head. “They have lunch together sometimes. All Might makes them bentos.”

“Speaking of bentos,” Ashido’s arms tightens, her cheek worming up to press against Katsuki's. “Your dad makes the best ones,” she sighs a bit dreamily. “I have no idea how he knew all my favourites but it was absolutely heaven.”

“He asked,” Katsuki admits a bit absently. “And he does.”

“Softie,” Ashido coos into her ear and Katsuki turns her head with a snap of her teeth in front of her nose to a laugh. “It’s alright! Your secret is safe with me! Knowing all my favourite foods, it’s sweet really,” she hums.

“Ready to head out?” Shitty Hair’s eyes sweeps across them all, Sparky resting contently with his chin on his shoulder and an excited grin, Class Rep a step behind them, arms folded and eyes glinting. “Celebratory ice cream it is!” He pumps his fist up, flashing rows of sharp teeth to cheers that rise loud around them a second after Ashido’s hands slides over her ears, elbows resting on her shoulders to allow the movement.

Katsuki feels the press of her breasts against her back, the warmth of her breath against her neck, something strange twisting up inside of her as she lowered her head and took a step forwards.

-

Katsuki licks the last of the ice cream from her hand, pausing as her mind flashed to another tongue entirely and jerking it down with a scowl before reaching over and snagging a napkin from Class Rep, who had brought a neat little pile of them along from the ice cream cart.

“- wonder what they have in store for us tomorrow-“

“- I heard about robots-“

“- do you really think –“

“- English was so hard-“

“- hey, hey, what did you answer on –“

Katsuki  reaches for her headphones, dragging them up and over her ears before leaning back on her arms and tilting her head up, letting the wind rustle her hair as she breathed in, out.

She flicks one eye open as Ashido leans to rest against her shoulder but doesn’t comment, content to just be.

-

“I can’t believe he allows you to do that,” Yaomomo whispers, hand rising to cover her mouth as Ashido leant her head against the shoulder of their resident hot-head who seemed to content to ignore the rest of them.

It’s a bit odd to see his face relaxed instead of scrunched up, a small dip of his mouth as his chest rose and fell slowly, jacket shrugged off and tied around his waist to leave him in the white short-sleeved button-up of the summer uniform. Headphones up and over his ears, eyes closed.

The girls had mostly gathered together, with the exception of Uraraka who was busy challenging Shouji to an arm wrestling to a gathering of bets being placed.

“Ribbit. He likes you, so much is clear,” Asui says bluntly, finger pressing to her lip with a contemplative little tip of her head. 

"Did you see how protective he got?" Jirou snorts. "Practically a love confession from grouchy there."

They quiet, all of them recalling the way he’d outed himself as gay without hesitation to avoid any rumours between him and Ashido.

“He… told me when we got stuck under the rubble,” Hagakure confesses in a low voice. “He figured out that I wasn’t wearing a suit when he had to carry me. And when we ended up in a compromising situation he just – told me. Mind you, he had a concussion, but still.”

“He is… surprisingly considerate in some ways,” Jirou says with a huff. “But you’ve seen the way he went after Midoriya.” She gives a low whistle. "Messy shit."

“They obviously have some sort of history,” Hagakure says, gloved hands pressing together. “I mean, Midoriya calls him Kacchan and Bakugou… Alright, to be fair, I think he knows like two of the names in our class.”

Yaomomo turns inquiringly to her.

“He uses nicknames,” Ashido says a bit absently. “He used to call me Raccoon Eyes. You’re Ponytail, Punk-“ she says with a nod to them. “See Through and Froggy, I believe. But you know! He’s a real softie behind all that anger and-“ hurt, lingers on her tongue before she swallows it because it’s personal. “I woke up on his bed this morning while he slept on a futon on the floor, and he cooked me breakfast,” Ashido admits a bit smugly instead.

Yaomomo makes a soft noise that draws more than one look and she flushes a bit. “It’s sweet,” she says a tad defensively.

“Is he always so grumpy?” Jirou asks, ear jack curling and eyes sharp.

“Oh, I’ve wondered about that too!” Hagakure exclaims, leaning forward. “Like, does he smile at all?”

“Not… yet.” Ashido’s mouth curls a bit hesitantly as she glances towards her friend, a bit troubled as her eyes snagged on the small scar at the corner of his mouth.

Ashido wonders how hard the metal of the metal muzzle had bitten down on the Sports Festival to leave lasting marks on either side of his face, soft lines that had healed from pink to white.

His eyes flicks open – a vivid crimson red that dips to hers, brow rising in silent question.

《Just thinking》 she signs a bit clumsily after scrambling for the correct ones from youtube videos watched late at night and during morning train rides.

He shifts and she dips slightly back when he puts his weight on his left hand, the right moving her hand to just above her brow. “Brain,” he tells her and then shifts it to her temple and taps her index finger there. “Thinking.”

His voice is always lower when he wears his headphones, almost rumbling through his chest, and she flashes him a quick smile before running through it again to a small grunt.

He flattens out her left palm and then drags his index finger over it and Ashido recognises it for what and mentally translates it into about what?

She pokes him in the chest for you and he makes a low hmm but doesn’t pursue it further as he slouches back again.

She's honestly surprised he'd even agreed to come along in the first place and with the ruckus rising as Shinou settled down in front of Uraraka she isn't surprised to see his headphones remaining on.

He got downright twitchy at loud noises and she'd seen him flinch and rub at his ears on more than one occasion.

An invisible hand squeezes down on her wrist and Ashido breathes out.

Being friends with Bakugou Katsuki is a strange experience. At first she finds amusement in the way he snaps and snarls and hisses, constantly on his guard, two steps off from the rest of the class and lost on his own world with the headphones pulled down over his ears.

But the more she gets to know him, the more she cares, the less can she ignore the sheer oddities of him. Like the violent reactions to touch, the way he knots up tight with eyes that burn and glowers, the way he just shut down in the corridor as the other class taunted him about being muzzled and silenced.

Ashido had thought it funny. For maybe two seconds. But the emotion had been there when she first caught sight of him being dragged out.

They’re Heroes, she’d reassured herself. No one is getting hurt-

And then she had seen him on the large screens, an icy shiver crawling down her spine as laughter and mockery rose around her and suddenly it wasn’t very funny at all as All Might snapped the muzzle in place to quiet him.

The ill-ease had only grown when she couldn’t find him afterwards.

She presses just a bit closer to Katsuki, wiggling up against his chest to feel the rise and fall of it behind her as he let out a small huff but didn’t protest it and she doesn’t take it for granted, the way he allows her close, a warm proud glow in her chest.

“I wonder what Aizawa-sensei has planned for tomorrow,” Jirou muses out loud with a flicker of a look towards Ashido, a raised brow and the question clear: you OK?

“I’m hoping robots,” Ashido pipes up with a flash of a smile at her, tucking her thoughts carefully away. “But knowing Aizawa-sensei…” she trails off, pouting. “It’s going to be hell, isn’t it?”

“He delights in chaos,” Asui says a bit solemnly and Jirou snorts with laughter.

-

Katsuki stares numbly at the mouth of Aizawa, watching the way his lips move but unable to filter it into sensible noise and words.

All Might’s gaze burns, eyes bright and shining where he looks down at them, and Katsuki bumps up against Ashido’s chest when she turns around before snapping back, aware of the way she’s coiled so tense her teeth grits together.

“I’m going to fucking win,” Katsuki rasps as she stares into the golden eyes of her friends and Ashido’s mouth snaps shut.

 Katsuki hadn’t even been aware of her talking.

“I know you will,” Ashido’s voice reaches her like through a thick fog and Katsuki’s chest expands and draws together with breaths that are too loud but slow, so slow, timed, perfect.

Counting, counting, counting.

Katsuki stares blankly at her and then she scoffs and jerks aside and steps towards the bus Deku and All Might are already waiting at as adrenaline worms its way through her body, heart thumping, mania creeping through her as her smile stretches fiendish and wide.

-

What’s in a Hero?

Katsuki doesn’t know but All Might is supposed to be the best of the best, the Number One Hero, the Symbol of Peace.

Katsuki has nightmares about him.

She flexes her hands, urging her sweat glands to work faster and harder as the scent of her quirk turns almost sickeningly sweet in the air around her.

“- think of us as actual Villains.”

Blue eyes, those fucking blue eyes.

She’s going to burn them right out of his fucking skull.

-

All Might’s palm connects with her face, covering her mouth, and a part of Katsuki wonders if it’s deliberate even as she kicks her leg up and meets his eyes with an ugly smile twisting behind his hand as she channels a spark that sets off an explosion that tears her shoe and forces him to go low as she twists, using his arm as a hanger for her knees as she aimed for his left side, his weak side, with enough force that the ground beneath them cracks where his feet digs in to keep steady.

The Hero grunts and Katsuki snarls as arms hook around her, too fast even with the weighs on his arms and legs, and she finds air torn from her lungs as she’s bent back and slammed hard into the ground with an ugly noise and a jarring of her bones that makes her taste blood as her teeth snaps down on her tongue.

A large heavy hand grasps at the front of her shirt and he throws her, sending her skidding over the ground, tearing her skin open as she comes into a hard smack against one of the towering fake buildings around them.

Katsuki wheezes, air momentarily torn from her lungs, but she’s already pushing back and dives to avoid the fist that breaks concrete where she’d stood and she flattens down, twisting on her palms as she blows another explosion from her bare foot that makes him take a single step back as she scrambles up with a livid snarl.

“A weak barrage hurts, but only a little,” All Might tells her, towering, not a hair out of place as she gasps for one breath following the other, a single trickle of blood running from his lips before he wipes it away from his thumb. “Your temper does you no services.”

Katsuki’s heart thumps inside her bruised chest and malice drips as she bares bloody teeth.

“I get it…” the Hero murmurs almost thoughtfully. “This is all about Midoriya’s incredible growth, right?”

Deku? Katsuki’s mind wonders wildly as it halts in harried confusion. What does Deku have to do with-

“When he starts at level one, and you at level fifty, naturally you’ll be growing at different rates.” There’s an almost soothing cadence to the Hero’s words but all Katsuki feels is a frothing, twisting sort of thing that fills her veins, circling with every wet thump of her heart.

“Don’t throw it all away!” All Might says, a single hand reaching out. “Don’t you see? You’ve still got time to grow! It’s not a matter of power but-“

All Might takes a step towards her.

I don’t want to die.

Katsuki’s palms explodes and she twists through the smoke and air, fist drawn back.

His brow dips and Katsuki doesn’t even have time to register the motion – one second his eyes are meeting hers and the next his fingers are sinking into her hair, grasping her skull tight before he slams her face into the concrete wall, her world exploding in white, and she gurgles.

His eyes are heavy with disappointment as he forces her head back, her hands curling around his wrist, leg twitching up, but she’s not fast enough.

The knee sinks into her sternum, ribs cracking, and Katsuki tastes blood and no breath and her mouth gapes for air that won’t come as he drops her carelessly, already turning his back.

I don’t want to die.

“Now, for Midoriya.”

I don’t want to die.

-

“Hey, Izuku? I'm going to be a Hero! I'm going to be just like All Might.”

-

Katsuki stares at the sky.

“Kacchan?”

She turns her head, sees a boy that lived when the other didn’t. Sees green eyes, bruised cheek, an arm curled clumsily over his chest.

“Why-“ she rasps. “Do you want to be a Hero?”

Deku blinks at her. “I’m – I want to help people,” he confesses quietly. “To save them with a smile! Just – just like All Might.”

Katsuki’s body hurts.

Something inside of her doesn’t feel right.

“Let’s work together,” she says as she pushes up as he scrambles to his feet, hand hovering awkwardly as she slowly drew to her full-height.

“Kacchan?”

“I get it…”

She takes a step forward.

“It’s all about Midoriya’s incredible growth, right?”

She flexes her fingers, ignoring her left ring finger which twitches, broken.

All Might-

Her tongue strokes over her bloody teeth, finding at least two of them loose.

I… truly am nothing in his eyes, am I?

-

The sun is bright above them.

Katsuki hears the rain falling.

-

Something inside of her doesn’t feel right.

Chapter Text

Something is wrong.

The feeling nags at him and Shouta shifts a bit restlessly the longer the distant absence of explosions stretches without an announcement from All Might.

Todoroki and Yaoyorozu had already been sent off to stop by Recovery Girl before showering and changing. They’d done well – he’s proud of them both and he’d told them as much. The exams were, predominantly a way for them, as teachers, to measure their growth and construct a challenge for them to overcome.

Which is why All Might’s strange insistence on taking on Bakugou and Midoriya both makes him wary.

Nedzu had allowed it, in the end, despite Shouta’s recommendation to pair Bakugou up against the Principal. Bakugou is clever and he needed to be pressed to think on his feet not just in fighting – to figure out how to work around and with problems and find an out of it without his quirk.

Nedzu would have been an excellent opponent.

But instead he’d set the boy up against All Might, who he clearly had issues with, and Midoriya, who he had some sort of history with.

Shouta can’t even discredit the argument All Might had made, no matter that it didn’t sit well with him. He has a bad feeling this is one of the Number One Hero’s ugly moments of favouritism rearing its head again.

He doesn’t know what is going on, exactly, between All Might and Midoriya but it’s there and the teacher inside of him is concerned because Midoriya is reckless and All Might clearly isn’t doing enough to reign him in. In worst case scenario it’s going to get the boy killed.

“- Eraser! Hey, hey, hey – are you even listening to me?” Shouta turns to Hizashi just in time to watch him give a full-body shudder, Kouda and Jirou trailing off companionably towards Recovery Girl behind him. “Your students are rascals,” his partner informs him. “There were bugs everywhere.”

“I heard your scream,” Shouta answers a bit distractedly.

Hizashi opens his mouth and then closes it, leaning closer. “You’re worried,” he observes. “Shinsou alright?”

The purple haired boy had been a bit of a strange addition to their household but Hizashi had clearly taken a shine to the boy and spent every moment he could prodding and poking at him, cajoling him into movie nights and games and ice cream rounds and whatever else Hizashi considered a good time.

They’d sat him down and talk about boundaries, how they at school were his teachers first and foremost, and he’d taken it seriously, accepting it for what it was before asking if he could tell Bakugou.

Shouta had allowed it, a bit surprised that the anti-social boy had been brought up, but apparently their new charge had taken a liking to the volatile boy.

Nemuri had been very amused by it.

“He passed,” Shouta tells him, eyes sliding back to the trees and the building stretching up above them in the distance. “He made a good team with Kirishima against Cementoss, I was informed. Although we need to have a talk with Kirishima, apparently his first idea was just to slug at it.”

Mic winces. “Ouch.”

“Something like that,” Shouta agrees drily.

Hizashi puts a hand on his hip, the other rising to give a tug at his moustache. “I’m guessing All Might haven’t checked back then?”

Shouta grunts, shifting on his feet.

There’s sudden static in both their ears and Shouta stills as All Might clears his throat across the channel.

“Recovery Girl? We… have a situation.”

-

“- excessive violence!”

Shouta stares at the boy in the bed, something cold in his chest as Bakugou rasps for breath, teeth gritted and hunched over as Recovery Girl tried to simultaneously chew out All Might while prodding him into lying back down.

He’d been unconscious when All Might brought him in, looking unfairly small in the large Hero’s arms, Midoriya hovering a bit panicky at his side before Mic had exchanged a look with Shouta and snagged the boy along and out of the room to check him over.

Bakugou is an ugly mess of dark, nearly black, bruises. More than one rib juts strangely beneath the mess of old burn scars, his arm limp and very near blown to bits by his side, and Shouta counts at least four broken fingers.

One of his feet is missing a shoe, the toes bent and skin charred in places, and there’s scratches and places where his skin had just scraped clean off. Hand sized bruises lingers on his upper arms, dipping down from the crown of his head, one eye swollen completely shut in the bruised side of his face, nose broken and jaw dislocated, gums baring bloody in a grimace.

Midoriya had looked – better. But there were some broken ribs there and his arm had been limp and red where he’d over used his quirk, bruised and with blood dripping from a broken nose and hunched over in a way that indicated that his back had likely taken the brunt of it.

Shouta doesn’t know what All Might had been thinking.

This – is completely beyond acceptable.

“All Might,” Shouta says sharply. “A word.”

All Might straightens, turning away from Bakugou who had looked ready to take to the window, and Shouta doesn’t miss the way the boy relaxes minutely as the Number One Hero steps away from him, a dark wary eye slowly focusing onto Recovery Girl as Shouta drew the door shut behind them.

“Aizawa-“

“Listen to me,” Shouta interrupts him, rounding on the other. “You and I are going to have a long overdue conversation, All Might. What the hell do you think that was? They’re children and you – did you even look at him?” Shouta demands, furious and just biting back a snarl as he digs cold eyes into the other. “That boy is terrified of you-“

“Don’t exaggerate,” All Might huffs but Shouta catches a brief flicker of ill-ease in his eyes before he covers it up. “I thought about the best way to get them to work together and they did. They teamed up once I showed them that they couldn’t win separately and they fulfilled the task.”

“You-“ Shouta grasps for patience that isn’t there. “You honestly see nothing wrong with this picture?” he manages, disbelievingly. “There’s a boy in here who is struggling to breathe because the Number One Hero couldn’t, what, figure out a better way to get two teenage boys to work together?”

“Bakugou-shounen is stubborn,” All Might says, lips moving into a thin line. “Volatile and prone to violence. He has a long road to becoming a Hero and he needs to learn not to rely on brute force.”

“And you thought beating him half to death was the way to do it!?” Shouta demands, taking a step forward, ignoring the way All Might’s muscled form rippled momentarily, dry eyes itching as his quirk threatened to flare. “He needs guidance. He needs to learn how to trust us and understand that he isn’t alone and that there are better ways to work things out. But instead you-“ Shouta clenches his fist, hissing out a harsh breath. “We’re Heroes. I don’t know what that means to you, All Might, but to me it means not leaving a child beat up in a fucking hospital bed terrified out his damn mind.”

“Midoriya-“

“This,” Shouta says with a dangerous curl of his lips. “Has nothing to do with Midoriya. And so help me, All Might, if you’ve made this into another quick fix of whatever problem those two need to work out on their own and between themselves because of your fixation on that boy.”

All Might straightens. “I made a decision,” he says slowly, eyes blue and heavy as he regards Shouta.

“To use excessive force on two teenage boys,” Shouta hisses out. “One of them who, notably, returned back on his own two feet while the other was beaten unconscious. Colour me not impressed.”

All Might draws his arms across his chest, looming, and a lesser man would have been intimidated but Shouta knows posturing and his hand snaps out, sinking into the fabric of the other man’s suit and giving him a harsh tug down to put them eye to eye.

He has no illusions of his strength, knows it’s surprise alone that allows him to do it, but he knots his muscles tense to keep him there and levels the other under his glare.

“You listen to me, All Might. Bakugou is my student and right now I don’t want you anywhere near him, do you understand me? We are going to have a long talk with Nedzu and I’m very sure I’m not the only one who is going to have words with you. This is so completely beyond acceptable, I don’t care for whatever reason or excuse you’ve given yourself because we’re Heroes and we’re supposed to be better than this.”

“Aizawa-“

“Do. You. Understand. Me?” Shouta demands, giving him a harsh tug.

All Might breathes out, a deep heavy sound, and it strikes Shouta just how old the other Pro-Hero is as he inclines his head. “Very well,” he relents.

Shouta releases him.

“Midoriya is with Hizashi and you’re going to go home and think,” Shouta says, stepping back from him. “Don’t bother coming in for the rest of the week.”

“That is not your decision to make,” All Might says mildly. “There are things going on that you’re not aware of. It’s crucial that you allow me to keep training young Midoriya.”

Shouta grits his teeth. “Fine,” he says shortly. “But you’re not taking a single step inside my classroom.”

Shouta draws a deep breath as All Might makes his way down the corridor, forcing himself to calm down even as his heart thrums hard in his chest, slowly levelling his breathing into something more acceptable before pushing back into the room.

A crimson eye darts up towards him, shoulders bunching momentarily before slowly relaxing, but the eye remain warily on him even as Recovery Girl fusses over his ribs.

She’d managed to wrap most of him up in bandages, fingers and toes set straight, a large patch over his swollen eye. While the damage was extensive the physical wounds were fixable and Shouta breathes out in a sigh.

“He has a concussion,” Chiyo informs him briskly. “And that’s not even the beginning of it.”

Shouta settles down on the low stool beside the bed near his student who twitches and draws his hand closer and away from him. Shouta observes it with a heavy heart but can’t blame him – not when he feels ultimately responsible for the way things had gone down despite knowing there was little he could do about it once Nedzu made his decision.

“How are you feeling?” he asks heavily.

“I’m fine,” Bakugou rasps, eye shifting away.

“To be frank,” Chiyo says with carefully held back frustration. “You’re not and we can’t send you home like this. You need someone with medical training to keep an eye on you and make sure nothing flares up. My quirk can only heal so much and the damage is extensive.” This she directs to Shouta who inclines his head in understanding.

Bakugou’s teeth clenches down.

“We have an extra bed, if you want to,” Shouta offers quietly. “Or any of the other teachers, if that would make you more comfortable. We can also contact the hospital and make arrangements for you to stay the night.”

The boy eyes him warily, distrust written in every line of his body, and Shouta resolves to have a long conversation with him at the earliest opportunity.

“Shinsou-“ Bakugou grits out, tongue dragging over bloody teeth. “He’s staying with you.”

“He is,” Shouta agrees.

“Fine,” he huffs. “But you-“ He coughs, a grimace flittering over his face as he fought not to hunch over. “You’re calling kaa-san.”

-

“I can carry you,” Aizawa says as Katsuki carefully inches her way to the edge of the bed. “Or Mic can but there’s no way you’ll get out of here on your own without worsening your injuries.”

Katsuki glares down at her wrapped foot, a dull sort of thumping in her chest, feeling a strange sort of heaviness as her head throbs and she struggles against a bout of nausea as she draws one careful breath after the other.

“Present Mic-“

“I’ll go get him,” Aizawa promises and Katsuki stares after him as he ducks out without argument or comment.

She grits her teeth, frustrated with her own weakness.

“Well, aren’t you just a pretty sight.” Shinsou’s voice makes her head snap up and she has to squeeze her eye shut as the world dips, her good fingers curling around the edge of the bed to anchor herself and regretting the sudden motion. “Whoa-“ His voice comes close and she reluctantly pries her eye open, slowly relaxing her tense muscles. “He got you good,” the purple haired boy says in a strangely subdued voice and Katsuki finds his hand just inches from her arm before it slowly lowers.

“Mic will be here in a sec, he’s on the phone with Kayama-san,” Shinsou informs her. “Aizawa is getting the car.”

Katsuki’s mouth flattens out and she turns her head away.

“You passed,” Shinsou says as he sinks down on the chair Aizawa had vacated. “As did Ashido and I. Aizawa said you might not remember – you were unconscious when they brought you in here. Midoriya was in quite the state.”

Katsuki swallows, tasting blood.

“You didn’t hear it,” Shinsou continues, unperturbed. “But Aizawa really let All Might have it. I wasn’t supposed to hear it but, well. I was around.” His shoulders lifts in a shrug.

Katsuki slants him a look and then up as the door opened and Present Mic stepped inside.

“Hello, little listeners,” he says, leathers traded for a soft green shirt with a thin summer jacket thrown over it. “I hear my aid is needed.” He sidles up beside her and Katsuki catches the way his lips dips slightly before he smiles. “Come on,” he says gently. “Let’s get you home.”

It takes a bit of careful shifting but Katsuki finds herself with her arms wrapped around the man’s neck, hands beneath her knees, and she has no illusions she isn’t heavy from packed muscles but the man hardly seems to notice despite his wiry build.

“Lead the way, Hitoshi.” Present Mic nudges at the purple haired boy and Shinsou shrugs but takes point, opening the door wide for them to pass through before letting it close behind them.

Present Mic smells like leather and hair gel and Katsuki hesitantly rests her chin on top of his shoulder, tired, eye flagging a bit at the rhythmic motion of steps below her.

-

Katsuki is half-asleep when they finally arrive at the house and Shinsou nudges her twice before gently being shooed aside and Katsuki mumbles tiredly as an arm settles against her bruised back before the other swoops beneath her knees as she’s hauled up with a noise of protest.

“We’re almost there,” Aizawa’s voice comes close to her ear and Katsuki tenses as she pries her eye open, focusing a bit blurrily at the visage of her homeroom teacher.

He looks tired, Katsuki thinks through the nausea and pain.

She grimaces but forces herself to relax as they step through the door and she finds herself gently settled down on the couch.

Shinsou throws a blanket into her lap and she gives him a flat look that makes his mouth curl at the corner.

“You look tired,” he tells her bluntly. “All Might sure didn’t hold back.”

“No,” Katsuki says slowly. “He did not.”

“Which is why,” Aizawa says as he steps up in front of her before crouching down. “All Might is going to have a meeting with Nedzu and I before the end of the week.”

“Like a naughty little student?” Shinsou asks with a kick of his foot.

“He’s just as responsible for his actions as any of us and his use of excessive force today was inexcusable. Had I know this is what he had planned I would have put a stop to it.” Aizawa’s mouth draws into a thin line. “If I had my way he never would have become a teacher in the first place,” he says slowly but strongly, meeting Katsuki’s eye as her head lifts. “That man is a good Hero but he’s far from a good teacher and he crossed many lines today.”

“I bet he’s going to be released with a slap on the wrist,” Shinsou says cynically and Aizawa grimaces but doesn’t disagree.

Faintly, ever so faintly, Katsuki can hear the sound of rain that isn’t there.

“I-“ Katsuki licks her lips. ”I don’t understand,” she admits, grimacing. “He was-“

“You have a concussion,” Aizawa interrupts her quietly. “Whatever you’re thinking about can wait to the morning when you’re in a better state of mind.” He hesitates, eyes searching hers. “You need to stay with one of us tonight. You can either stay in Shinsou’s room as one of us takes his bed. Or you can stay with us in our bed like last time.”

Katsuki blinks at him, mind a sluggish mess and her body a blotchy letter of violence.

“Your bed is fine,” she says quietly.

Aizawa offers her a small encouraging smile, or maybe a grimace, it’s a bit hard to tell with the world dipping and weaving around her.

-

Katsuki finds herself in the uncomfortable situation of needing help to change, unable to bend her body forward without her ribs shifting uncomfortably, and she keeps her eye on the ceiling as Aizawa helps her into fresh underwear, discarding the bloody ones before guiding her into a large comfy hoodie.

She finds that it’s the same one from last time and her hand presses against the impossibly soft pink fabric of it, eye flicking up to watch him as he tugged the covers aside as she leant against the dresser on one foot, feeling vaguely whoozy.

She can distantly make out the sound of voices in the kitchen as she focuses on her breathing.

“The others will join us after they’ve eaten dinner,” Aizawa says quietly as he changes out of his Hero clothing and into a simple t-shirt and sweats, his capture weapon pooling into the seat of the chair he throws it upon. “You need to drink some water but I suspect you might be too nauseous to actually eat anything of substance.”

Katsuki grimaces in agreement.

The last time she’d slept in their bed had been during an episode of disassociation and while Katsuki isn’t feeling her best she’s relatively clear headed and the whole prospect feels far more intimate than she knows what to do with.

She’d slept in his parents plenty of times, after episodes, during episodes, on off-days and good-days when she craved a sense of realness in a world that didn’t make much sense.

But Aizawa is her teacher – in some ways her own age, in others not.

Sixteen-thirty.

He steps towards her, telegraphing his motions clearly as he ducks beneath her arm and she allows him to help her the last bit to the bed, nausea curling in her gut with the jerky limping movement, and she grits her teeth as she slowly sinks down on the edge of the bed.  

The door opens with a small knock and Midnight steps inside with a small grimace of sympathy, a bottle of water in her hand and a bucket beneath her arm.

“Concussions aren’t very fun,” the woman says as she steps forward and drops the bucket down on the floor near her pillow. “But the best cure is to sleep and you have the day off tomorrow. Shouta will stick around to keep you company so you won’t be on your own and Recovery Girl will stop by to give you another dose of her quirk somewhere around lunch time.” Katsuki blinks as a hand threads through the spikes of her hair. “If everything goes as it should you’ll be home tomorrow afternoon.”

“Did you call kaa-san and tou-san?” she asks, swallowing the yawn that her jaw would very much not agree to with a brief clenching of her teeth.

“Of course,” Midnight agrees. “Mitsuki-san has already arranged a meeting with Nedzu tomorrow morning and they both sent their best wishes for a speedy recovery.” Katsuki grunts, accepting the bottle of water as she holds it forward.

But her fingers are broken and clumsy and Aizawa carefully tugs it out of her hands, unscrewing the lid before handing it back, and Katsuki takes a slow cautious sip.

It’s not her first concussion but there’s still something jarred inside of her, as if she’d been rattled and left less than before, and the feeling sits odd inside her chest as she pauses, giving her stomach time to come to terms with the liquid before taking another swallow and lowering it down into her lap.

The boy had loved All Might and the remains of it clings to her in the forms of dreams and memories and a feverish sort of want and she’d come to U.A. in a hope to make sense of it. To make something of a dead boy’s wants in a broken world she feels disconnected and wrong-footed in, tasting violence as a means to feel something.

And instead-

“Whatever you’re thinking of,” Aizawa says as he tugs the bottle of out her hands. “It can wait until the morning.”

Katsuki swallows and lowers her head.

It’s stiff work, getting her body down and against the pillow and Midnight smiles at her before wishing her a good night as Aizawa turns his back to allow her the privacy of it and she sinks down with a low careful exhalation.

Aizawa slumps down beside her, one arm behind his head and a tired sigh she feels echoed in her very soul.

“I don’t know what All Might told you today,” Aizawa says quietly, the small spring at the door casting a low light into the room. “But you have all the makings of a fine Hero.”

She turns her head, looking at him.

Katsuki is volatile, reckless, anti-social and angry. So so very angry. She’s made up of pieces that slots together in an ill-fit mess of memories and impressions.

She can’t stand the rain because it makes her think of a dead woman and she can’t stand All Might for he makes her think of a dead boy.  

She feels small in a too big world that laughs and mocks her and tries to fix her.

“Did I-“ Katsuki hesitates. “At the Sports Festival-“

“Bakugou-“

“At the Sports Festival,” she continues, stronger, swallowing the taste of iron. “I didn’t get it,” she tells those dark eyes. “I just-“ She licks her lips. “It was a bad win. I wanted – a re-match, something. I wanted fairness and instead-“ She quiets. “All Might is supposed to be the Number One Hero and he-“

A hand touches gently against her lips, quieting her, and she finds Aizawa pushed up on his elbow, an emotion in his dark eyes that she struggles to read.

“All Might is a complicated man,” Aizawa says after a long moment. “He is undeniable a good Hero, a symbol of hope for the large of society. But he is, in the end, just a man. He’s just as capable of making mistakes as any of us. For one reason or the other he has something beyond the walls of U.A. driving him and I don’t agree with putting him here as a teacher because all it’s done is paint a target on my class.”

“Midoriya…” Katsuki says slowly, thinking of the Pro-Hero´s strange fixation with the green haired boy. “He used to be quirkless.”

Inside of her the boy is quiet and Katsuki grimaces, missing the way Aizawa’s gaze sharpens.

“We- grew up together. It’s been years since I last saw him but… I remember that,” Katsuki admits quietly.  

She feels jagged and raw, as if she’d been pried open and left bare.

Katsuki wakes up in a world of noise after twenty-two years of silence. She wakes up to strangers touching her, in a body that isn’t hers, and the memories of a dead boy clinging to the remains of a dead woman who chokes and drowns because of the man she’d loved.

She wakes up in a world that is too much and she lashes out in the only way that makes sense.

In some ways, All Might had been her goal. The boy had adored him, had looked up to him, and the emotions remain in a tangled mess of what they’d become and she feels empty – robbed of the dream that had been and she doesn’t know what to do.

What was the point of becoming a Hero? What was the point of clinging to the dreams of a dead boy when his Hero was nothing but a-

Aizawa’s hand touches against her brow, stroking back her hair, and Katsuki blinks as he does it again, petting her, and somehow it eases some of the harried fragmented bits of her mind, quieting it.

“I was angry at you,” Katsuki tells him thickly. “I think I still am.”

“That is fine,” Aizawa says quietly. “Go to sleep – we’ll figure things out in the morning.”

Chapter Text

Katsuki goes to sleep at the very edge of the bed but she wakes up with a grunt to find herself with her head pillowed on Aizawa’s chest. Her teacher is already awake, a rough copy of a book angled to catch some light from the lamp on the opposite end of the bed where Present Mic was sprawled out, hand beneath his shirt and snoring softly. Between Present Mic and Aizawa Midnight is sleeping on her front, one arm beneath her head, mouth slack with sleep.

“Morning,” Aizawa says quietly and Katsuki squints tiredly at the alarm clock to catch the numbers 05:08.

“Did you even sleep?” she mumbles, voice coming out rough and hoarse and she grimaces. “No wonder you always look so fucking tired.”

He huffs as she slowly pushes up and onto her rump, legs folding as she drew a shaky hand thorough her hair, bruises and pains making themselves reminded as her shoulder cried out in response to the motion. All Might had nearly torn her arm right out of the socket as he threw her and she knew she was lucky not to have fucked it up worse than she had.

She lets it fall into her lap as Aizawa closes his book.

“Think you’re up to eating something?”

Katsuki considers it. “Smoothie?”

“I think I can manage that,” Aizawa says a tad drily as he draws himself up, looking tired and ragged, his hair even messier than usual and making no attempt to correct it as his bare feet touched down against the floor. “There are towels in the cupboard in the hallway if you want to take a shower.”

-

The warm water feels good against her body and Katsuki tilts her head up, eyes closing.

Her mind feels messy, shaken, caught wrong-footed in the aftermath of her match-up against All Might and she doesn’t even remember passing. Unconscious, Shinsou had said, and she’d woken up in a hospital bed what only sheer will keeps her form spiralling from.

Katsuki hates hospitals. Had spent too long with the noise and unwanted touches, the beep of the machine and the mask over her face forcing her lungs to expand, her throat thick and raw around the tube shoved down it.

“I get it… It’s all about Midoriya’s incredible growth, right?”

Katsuki doesn’t understand it.

She can count her conversations with Deku in recent times on one hand. She avoided him when she could and after the match-up at the beginning of their Hero lessons no-one had put her up against him.

Something gnaws inside her chest, ugly and twisted up.

All Might and Deku are close, it’s the worst fucking kept secret ever. The man picks him up with homemade bentos and he always has a steadying hand and offered praise during their lessons, pride so very visible on his face as he looks upon his young charge.

“They're nothing alike!” Deku had exclaimed during their trip to the USJ when Froggy pointed out the similarities between his quirk and All Might’s. “All Might is… All Might! And I keep… I keep breaking my bones. It’s- we’re really nothing alike!”

Liar, she’d thought but she hadn’t known what he was lying about.

Deku is quirkless, only he isn’t, and he goes from breaking his bones to one of the fastest growing in their class and Katsuki is fucking suspicious.

None of my business, she’d thought when she saw the hollowed form of All Might through the mist in the USJ but they’d made it her fucking business.

Katsuki thinks about reports of dwindling appearances, thinks of three fingers held up by Thirteen to a grim look from Aizawa, thinks of a teacher who never makes more of an appearance than he needs to and is always quick to excuse himself. Thinks of a Hero with a weak left side which she exploits to a grunt and-

Katsuki presses her forehead against the cool tiles.

Is she paranoid? Could such a thing even be done?

Katsuki wakes up in a world of impossibilities and she can’t say no because her very existence shouldn’t be possible but she stings and aches and feels and thinks and breathe and lives.

“For one reason or the other,” Aizawa tells her, “he has something beyond the walls of U.A. driving him and I don’t agree with putting him here as a teacher because all it’s done is paint a target on my class.”

It sounds like the stuff right out of a bad Hero manga.

Deku- the boy chosen by the Number One Hero to carry his power and Katsuki, what? The childhood rival that he grew for a way to measure his growth against?

But why else would he be here? She thinks just a tad feverishly. Why else would All Might concern himself on such a personal level with the Deku?

And for what reason? Why the hurry?

Katsuki’s mind chews and chews and hates and hates. It tangles inside of her in a web of dark feelings and she wants-

For just a brief naked moment of longing she wants nothing more than for Dabi to be there.

He’d been her constant for almost four years – appearing when she was at her lowest, sickly looking with the stretch of burn scars and staples that kept him together.

He’s there, cigarette offered as she’s staring out at the world she’d woken up in and laughing as lungs, unused to the smoke, tried to cough it up.

Congratulations to a shitty win, he texts her after the Sports Festival and Katsuki hates it because he understands her in ways that others doesn’t, gets her on a primal level that’s addicting and ugly in the way his flames burns into her skin in wraps of blue.

Dabi isn’t answering her texts and Katsuki hates that it fucking hurts.

There is no-one to text, no-one to meet up with and resolve the mess of her mind, instead she has no choice to let it lie and rot.

Above her the water runs lukewarm and finally cold, stiffening already aching muscles, and Katsuki squeezes her eyes tightly shut as she palms for the closest body wash.

-

“We need to have a talk,” Aizawa tells her as she’s sipping carefully on a cool smoothie made of berries and yoghurt.

She smells like fucking peaches and Katsuki regrets every morning decision that made her pick Present Mic’s body wash over the flowery scent of whatever Midnight used. Even Aizawa’s would have been better.

She fucking hates peaches.

“You said as much yesterday,” Katsuki reminds him, teeth clenching down, because she doesn’t want to talk.

What was there to say anyway?

All Might had made his choices, as had the school, and Katsuki is, apparently, just a chess piece in a far larger game – easily discarded for the better of the world. All Might is the Symbol of Peace, the world needs him far more than they need her and that’s the easy truth of the matter.

She doesn’t understand why it weighs heavy in her chest, makes her skin feel clammy and cold.

“I did,” Aizawa says with a heavy voice and Katsuki raises her gaze up to meet his dark eyes across the table in the small homely looking kitchen.

Most days Katsuki doesn’t know what to make of him. The man is gruff, blunt, not uncaring, she knows, because she’d seen his elbow nearly crumble to dust in an effort to look after his students. But he didn’t hesitate to push their limits, didn’t hesitate to lie under the guise of a ruse and he was an Underground Hero who craved neither fame nor money for his time.

He’s far from the idealized Heroes on the television and she thinks that she can respect that, in an off way, for all that him being her teacher puts another spin entirely on their relationship.

She thinks that he’s handsome and she thinks that he smells good and he has impeccable hoodie taste and she’s not ready to let go of the one she’s wearing quite so easily this time.

A clock ticks on the wall.

“What happened yesterday should never have happened,” Aizawa says bluntly and Katsuki’s mouth thins in response. “I would like to hear, from you, why you think it went down the way it did.”

Because All Might has already decided on the next Symbol of Peace and he’s going to cross any obstacle to make it happen.

Because Deku is fucking obsessed with a dead boy and whatever they talk about during their cosy little chats has completely warped All Might’s perception of me.

Katsuki does not say either of these things.

“Because All Might made a decision,” she says instead with a listless shrug. “And then he went through with it.”

Aizawa’s eyes are hard to read and Katsuki lowers her gaze, looking away.

“The exams exist for us as teacher to measure your growth as prospective Heroes.” Aizawa drags a tired hand through his messy hair. “We work from a position of power and there are rules and regulations in regards how we conduct ourselves, how much force we use, things like that, to make sure we don’t abuse it.”

Katsuki’s fingers curls tight around the cool glass of the smoothie.

“There is a case to make if you want to,” Aizawa offers and Katsuki snorts a bitter laugh because-

“And screw everything up for myself?” she asks with an ugly twist of her lips. “The world would never forgive me.”

“No,” Aizawa agrees heavily. “It would not. But I want you to know the option is there because All Might crossed a line yesterday. Favouritism is one thing but when it went out over you it reached a point where it can’t be ignored.”

Katsuki draws her shoulders tight. “It sounds like a fucking joke, you know that? Yeah, it was alright until, what, he decided to beat me unconscious because Midoriya is a fucking gossip?”

“What, exactly, did he say to you yesterday?” Aizawa pries.

“Why do you care?” Katsuki demands, looking up sharply. “You want it word for word and then fucking what?”

“I want to know because to even begin approaching it I need to know the cause of it.” Aizawa leans forward. “You might not be aware of it but Midoriya speaks a lot about you.  Even I find it hard to miss and All Might spends a lot of time with him. For better or for worse Midoriya looks up to you, admires you, no-matter your feelings on the matter.”

Katsuki stares at him.

“He does what now?” she demands, mind reeling. “He doesn’t even know me.”

“But he did know you,” Aizawa points out, the smartass, and Katsuki tugs at her hair with a growl of frustration.

“When we were kids,” Katsuki snarls out. “It’s been eight fucking years. Whatever hang-up he has is completely of his own fucking making. It has nothing to do with me.”

“All Might seems to think otherwise and there-in lies the problem in the situation.” Aizawa’s eyes narrows and Katsuki feels a shiver run down her spine, had seen just what he was capable of during the mess at the USJ and wary because of it. “Did something happen?” Aizawa asks, the sudden change of conversation jarring as Katsuki jerks minutely “That made you and Midoriya stop talking?” he clarifies.

“I know you’ve read my files,” Katsuki growls with a curl of her lips.

“I’ve read them,” Aizawa agrees bluntly. “But that’s not what I’m asking.”

She bares her teeth. “Nothing that concerns you.”

“I disagree.” Aizawa regards her, eyes unreadable. “I think it very much does. As your teacher you are my responsibility and your records make it very clear that you didn’t get out of that fall anywhere near a clear state of mind and you’re still suffering from the aftermath of it.”

The words are blunt, giving Katsuki little in a way to hide the instinctive little flinch, arms drawing tight around her chest.

“The thing is, that there is nothing that points to why.” Katsuki stares at him, mouth flat. “It worries me,” Aizawa says, his voice gentler now but no-less serious. “You’re deeply suspicious, to the point of paranoia. You struggle with interacting with your peers and you hate being touched. You don’t know how to resolve with whatever happened and you lash our because of it. You’re on a downward spiral of self-destruction and you don’t even seem to realise it.”

Katsuki draws tighter on herself, fingers sinking into the bruises on her arms, anchoring herself in the aches and reminders.

“I want to help you,” Aizawa says quietly. “But I cannot unless you allow me to.”

“I don’t trust you.” Katsuki struggles against a frail sort of hope and anger as she stares at the man. “Why the fuck would I tell you anything.”

“Because you need to talk to someone and for one reason or the other you won’t talk with your parents.”

And how fucking could she when she’d as good as murdered their son, swanning around in his body as if she had a right to it? They wouldn’t believe her. No one would believe her. She’d be hospitalized, again, and Katsuki doubts that, this time, they would let her out anytime soon.

She cannot – will not – allow that to happen.

There are days where even she wonders if everything isn’t just a bad hallucination and she’s screwed herself over completely by her own making.

“Maybe nothing happened,” she says with a smile that stretches without joy. “Maybe I’m just fucked up and there’s nothing for you to fix.”

“I don’t want to fix you,” Aizawa says flatly. “I want to help you.”

“It’s the same fucking shit in the end, isn’t it?” Katsuki’s heart and body hurts and she’s tired.  “You think I didn’t hear them, at the hospital? Everyone just sees something that’s twisted up and wrong and I’m fucking tired of it, alright? I know I’m messed up – I’m not fucking stupid. But I’m not some kind of – some kind of pet project.”

“I never said you were,” Aizawa rebukes. “You’re my student and I’m here to make you into the best Hero you can be and sometimes that means dealing with the messier part of things. It’s a part of life and simply makes you human.”

Katsuki doesn’t feel much like a human – she’s an abomination in the universe, something wrong that shouldn’t be and yet is.

“You think Heroes do the kind of things they do and don’t pay the price for it?” Aizawa breathes out. “Mental health issues in the Hero industry is far more common than the media would like it to be and while they do their absolute best to cover it up it’s there. We learn to cope and that’s what I want for you.”

“To cope,” Katsuki echoes blankly.

“To cope,” Aizawa agrees. “There is no quick fix for trauma and I won’t pretend there is. I don’t know what happened, and I won’t unless you tell me, but something did – so much you do not deny.”

Katsuki grimaces because he isn’t wrong.

“All Might issue aside,” Aizawa says, just a tad drily. “I’m here and I want you to talk to me. Big or small – any sort of concern you have, we can figure it out together.”

Katsuki stares at him for a long moment, not sure what to feel.

“Anything?” she asks finally.

“Anything,” Aizawa affirms.

She lowers her gaze to the table, considering it.

“What-“ she licks her lips. “What do you do when someone ignores you?”

Aizawa gives her such a blank look that for a second Katsuki wonders if she’d magically gone and sprouted horns. It doesn’t help when his hand slowly rises to cover his eyes before sinking down over his mouth with a suspicious little twitch of his facial muscles.

“Okay,” he says.

“Okay?” Katsuki echoes, affronted.

-

Aizawa is a terrible help and Katsuki digs her spoon into the oatmeal in front of her with some aggressiveness. He hadn’t laughed at her but it felt like he had. And Katsuki had some legitimate concerns!

So what if it wasn’t out of character for Dabi to just drop off the fucking edge of the earth? And so what if he’d done it before, returning at his own damn pace? She was just supposed to – what? Accept it?

Move on?

“That oatmeal must have done a terrible thing to you,” Shinsou drawls as he shuffles into the kitchen, still in his pyjamas. “I’m surprised you haven’t exploded it yet, from the way you’re glaring.”

“Fuck off,” Katsuki growls. “Why the hell are you up?”

“You say that as if I slept,” Shinsou snorts and Katsuki eyes the deep bags beneath his eyes before scoffing, dropping her spoon with some disgust. “You’re looking better – eye isn’t swollen shut anymore and you look less like a dark bruise and more like a mottled pear.”

“Your concern is overwhelming,” Katsuki mutters. “And I’m not a pear.”

“Apple then?” Shinsou suggests, opening the fridge to rummage about. “Those bruise easily and you’re obviously, ah, delicate.” He closes the door, unscrewing the lid of a milk cartoon and drinking directly from the mouth of it the heathen.

“That’s disgusting,” Katsuki informs him with a curl of her lips.

“Eh.” Shinsou shrugs, wiping at his lips. “You should check the class chat, it’s been going off since the matches yesterday. Apparently Hagakure spotted your unconscious body being hauled off to Recovery Girl.”

“I’m not in the class chat,” Katsuki says flatly.

“You are now,” Shinsou says with a fiendish little smirk that immediately makes Katsuki wary. “And I couldn’t just leave them to worry so being the kind person I am I let know how to reach you.”

Suspicious, Katsuki paws down her pockets for her phone which she’d dug from her backpack without looking at after showering and clicks it open, finding it with some 12% left and far too many notifications.

“You absolute fucker,” Katsuki breathes. “They have my number.”

Shinsou steps closer, peering over her shoulder as message after message crowds on the small rectangular screen, more incoming before their eyes.

“Did no-one fucking sleep?” Katsuki asks in disbelief, unfamiliar numbers with new messages, a chat bubble from an app Ashido had made her download staring back at her with a tiny three-digit number steadily growing in blaring red.

Katsuki ignores the class chat, pressing up her text-messages and pressing down blindly on one of them as Shinsou steps closer to peer over her shoulder.

“Morning, kiddos,” Present Mic’s voice reaches her distantly, Katsuki is too busy staring in mild horror at a text message from fucking Half-n-Half. As if it had any business being in her phone?

XXX-XXXXX-XX: you should come over for lunch some day

XXX-XXXXX-XX: if you’re still alive

XXX-XXXXX-XX: this is Todoroki btw

“What the fuck?” Katsuki breathes.

“How friendly of him,” Shinsou says with a smirk. “Looks like you have a date.”

“Someone asked you for a date?” Present Mic whips around. “Bakugou-“

To her horror Katsuki feels her cheeks colour. “It’s not a fucking date.”

“I don’t think even Midoriya has been over to his house,” Shinsou says smugly and Present Mic looks absolutely delighted. “Who knew Todoroki was so forward.”

Katsuki twitches, pressing out of the conversation and only just resisting the urge to delete it. She saves the number under Half-n-Half Bastard before clicking up the one from Ashido.

She finds an entire row of upset messages and she focuses on the last one.

RACCOON EYES: you better text me the moment you see this

I’m fine, Katsuki texts back, meaning to back out only to have three dots appear almost immediately followed by an uncomprehensive row of letters and then-

RACCOON EYES: I’VE BEEN SO WORRIED

RACCOON EYES: I’M NEVER LETTING YOU OUT OF MY SIGHT AGAIN

RACCOON EYES: YOU OWE ME A HUG

Katsuki stares blankly down at the words.

Fine, she texts back after a moment and then clicks out before her friend could respond.

She finds a wall of text from See Through, most of it rambling, informing her of how the others had done, who had passed and who hadn’t, and then a bodily threat to her person that makes her twitch.

Most of it are generic well-wishes, she finds, and she deletes the majority of them from her phone.

“Ruthless,” Shinsou whispers, impressed, as she deletes Deku’s without reading it.

Punk had forgone pleasantries completely and sent a gif of a squirrel squaring up against a bear.

She ends up saving Punk’s number and then fucking Sparky’s because Shinsou leans forward with just a bit of too much interest and Katsuki resolves to sell him out at the earliest opportunity with something thoroughly embarrassing in revenge.

Katsuki looks at the 700+ messages in the app and removes the entire thing from her phone.

-

Midnight stares at her and Katsuki stares back, brow furrowing a bit unsurely as the woman let out a sigh before reaching forward to give her hair a tousle.

“Try to take it easy today, kid,” Midnight advices, hand still on top of Katsuki’s head. “There’s ice cream in the fridge, have at it. Don’t be surprised if you find Shouta napping in some odd spot. He’s hanging around to keep an eye on you so give him a kick if you need him for anything.”

Katsuki strongly suspects Aizawa would plot her murder if she did but she grunts out an agreement all the same.

“Are you telling anyone what happened?” Katsuki asks as Midnight pulls her hand back.

“Do you want us to?”

Katsuki gives her an unimpressed look and Midnight laughs. “I know you’re a private thing, hot-stuff. Official story is something along the lines of a training accident. Nedzu is trying to keep things out of the paper.”

Katsuki’s shoulders relaxes some.

She’d already been mocked and hounded for being chained by the Number One Hero, she wasn’t interested in anything else being started up because of the fuck-mess of an exam.

“You’re bit of an odd one but you’re not a bad kid. Try not to let what happened stick to you, alright?” Midnight says with a poke against her chest to a twitch before Katsuki half-heartedly shoves her hand away.

“’m fucking peachy,” she grouses, the scent lingering on her skin and itching at her nose.

Midnight’s look speaks volumes of her disagreement and Katsuki scowls, trying not to feel self-conscious about the bruises still dark on her skin.

Chapter Text

”Of course you gotta visit him!” Katsuki stares blankly down at the comic opened up on her bed as Ashido’s voice comes bright with enthusiasm through the phone pressed between her shoulder and ear.

“… Shinsou told you, didn’t he?”

“Of course he did,” Ashido says smugly. “He was worried you would just let such a wonderful opportunity as visiting Todoroki’s home simply pass you right by.”

“Was he now,” Katsuki says dryly.

Ashido hums. “You are going, aren’t you? Todoroki isn’t the sort to do anything on a whim. You’ve got to be curious.”

“Not particularly,” Katsuki admits, absently flipping a page. “Congratulations of passing by the way.”

“Oh!” Ashido’s voice rises in volume, flushed and pleased. “We’ve both been working hard this semester, haven’t we? I heard you got the highest score in class. And-“ she continues a tad drily, “I am not a single bit distracted. Come on, Katsuki! It’s a chance of a lifetime! I want all the juicy details. What kind of person is Todoroki really? A boxers or briefs kind of-“

“Briefs,” Katsuki interrupts, flipping another page, gaze trailing over the pictures and bubbles. “Particularly the tighty-whiteys kind.”

“Way to just sell out a man’s business, Katsuki,” Ashido cackles. “He does seem like the sort. But come ooon, Katsukiiii, I want to know what it’s like living in the same house as someone as Endeavour. I mean – have you seen him on the television? He looks so grumpy.”

Katsuki opens her mouth.

And then she closes it.

Thinks of the easy way Half-n-Half’s face had smoothed out, the way he moved almost nonchalantly despite the clear pain he had to be in.

It was familiar because Katsuki knew how to do the same.

But Half-n-Half wasn’t the sort to get into brawls, his style was too stuffy.

He’d have to have learnt it elsewhere.

“Fine,” she grunts with a sigh, rubbing at the back of her neck. “I’ll go.”

-

Clad in dark jeans slouched low on her hips, a shirt with an orange goldish on and a pair of slip-ons, Katsuki finds herself outside the Todoroki mansion with her backpack dangling from her shoulder.

She paws for her phone.

Here, she texts, stuffing one hand absently down her pocket as she stares through the gated fence.

From what she can see the house is very old style Japanese, grand in an easy open sort of way. There’s nothing that gives appearance to anything unusual afoot but, then again, there never is.

Katsuki had been lucky in the way that his parents were the good kind.

Mitsuki had been loud and often volatile during their first years together, frustrated and struggling to make sense of the shell her son had turned into. But she had refused to let Katsuki tumble out of her hands and she’d simmered down, had met her half-way. Masaru had always been a gentle soul and together they had made something of the broken thing she’d become.

Her own parents had been… Katsuki doesn’t think of them too often. They weren’t the bad kind but they had never quite fit together in a way that made sense. They had supported her financially when they could and mailed her both birthday presents and Christmas gifts all the way up to her death. On the whole they had been OK to her but there’d always been a distance between them and she’d never found the courage to confide in them when it was met with polite, if awkward, smiles and pats on her shoulders.

There’s some irony in that Mitsuki and Masaru felt closer than her parents had ever been when she wasn’t really their son.

Katsuki is half expecting Half-n-Half to make some dramatic entrance with a slow rattle of metal. But instead some two minutes passes by before she sees him jogging calmly out towards her across the grounds. He slows, giving a little jerk of his head to the right, and she slouches her way to the small door in the wall as he unlocks it and lets her through.

“I hope you have lunch prepared,” Katsuki grumbles as he shuts it behind her. “Kaa-san insisted it was impolite to eat beforehand.” Not to say that Mitsuki hadn’t taken precautions and shoved both fruit and snacks down her backpack before leaving just in case but Katsuki figures that if she had to drag her way to his house it was only fair of him to at least feed her.

Half-n-Half hums. “Fuyumi can probably make something when she returns,” he offers, his voice quiet, polite, his gaze clearly lingering on the bruises on her face before he looks away and beckons her along.

“Your sister?” Katsuki checks as she follows in a slouch, peering about in half-interest.

“Yes,” he agrees.

Katsuki finds a pair of inside loafers offered to her as they step through the door and she raises an eyebrow but she’s not a fucking heathen and she doesn’t comment as she trades her slip-ons for them.

Half-n-Half puts on a pair of red ones and Katsuki decides that, if anything, at least he has some taste and she wiggles her toes inside the bright orange ones on her feet.

Brand new, she notes. She wonders why he’d taken the time and thought to arrange for them.

It’s… curious, she decides.

And suspicious as fuck, she thinks with a slight narrowing of her eyes as she follows him down strangely empty corridors.

Half-n-Half’s room is just as traditionally arranged as the rest of the house with tatami floors, walls kinda pathetically bare and it makes her skin itch because he’s fifteen and she’s seen more personality in a fucking shed.

All the books are perfectly and neatly stacked on their shelves, there are no pictures, nothing incriminating or personal about.

No wonder he wears fucking tighty-whiteys, Katsuki thinks, squinting at a desk with pens arranged in a perfect little line beside a notebook without as much as a folded corner.

“You’re probably wondering why I invited you over,” Half-n-Half says as he seats himself on the edge of his bed, hands folding together, and it’s kinda pathetically sad to watch because he looks both tense and serious, mismatched eyes in a far too mature face where the burn scar stands out vividly.

Katsuki gives his computer chair a tug and slumps into it with a small spin, unsurprised to find it made by rich expensive leather, the scent tickling at her nose.

“I’m just here for the free food and gossip,” she drawls, throwing her feet up on his desk just to see the way his shoulders twitches, brow dipping momentarily.

But instead of complaining Half-n-Half leans forward and Katsuki very deliberately doesn’t look at the turquoise of his burnt eye as he takes his time studying her.

“Will you allow me to be blunt, Bakugou?”

She blinks at him.

“Can I stop you?” she asks sarcastically before waving her hand as he opened his mouth. “Go for it. I came all the way here so it’s fucking whatever.”

Half-n-Half draws a breath and then exhales. “I find myself in a position of concern,” Half-n-Half says, mouth thinning. “And I’ve decided that I can’t just ignore it.”

Katsuki stares at him.

Half-n-Half stares back.

“Okay?” she ventures, brow raising up. “What kind of concern?”

If this has anything to do with Deku I'm blowing his bookcase up, Katsuki promises herself as Half-n-Half searches for the best way to word whatever was on his mind.

“I first took notice of it during the Sports Festival,” Half-n-Half says finally and Katsuki’s brows furrows. “I find myself understanding your position of wanting a fair match. It was an… admirable thing to ask for,” the boy says seriously. “I was… surprised, to see the way your words were met and it was uncomfortable to see the way the Heroes chose to deal with it.”

It’s phrased delicate, the hair on the back of Katsuki’s neck rising as her lips pulled back with just a hint of teeth.

“Yaoyorozu-san and I were matched up against Aizawa-sensei during the final exam,” he says, his voice staying level, eyes never veering from hers. “I don’t know if you’re aware of it but Yaoyorozu-san had some concerns and doubts on whether becoming a Hero is the right thing for her because she felt inadequate and unsure of her own choices. Aizawa-sensei pushed her to take initiative through the exam and we ultimately passed because of it. I’ve thought about it and I spoke with Midoriya at length and yet I cannot see a good reason for the way All Might acted during the Exam because there’s no point to senseless violence.”

For a long moment Katsuki simply stares at him, at this fifteen-year-old boy who had, apparently, taken it upon himself to invite her to his own home, arranging for a new pair of slippers and who was now pushing through the fact that they were very much not friends because he’d seen something that sat wrong with him.

“You think All Might acted out of line,” she states, slowly drawing her feet off his desk and letting them drop down to the floor.

Half-n-Half inclines his head. “The Exams were two days ago and despite Recovery Girl your face is still bruised which means that there were far more devastating injuries her quirk dealt with first. You were also beaten to a state of unconsciousness, from what I understand it. You and Midoriya were the only ones who had to stop by Recovery Girl’s office for more than a quick once-over and I find myself in a position of… concern.”

Katsuki's mouth thins into a flat line.

Pro-Heroes were admired. They were at the top for a reason, ranked because idealization and admiration demanded it. What did it even mean to be Number One? Number Two? What was the point of it if nothing more than to serve the public?

Unreachable, that was what the top Pro-Heroes were. Protected by their status and the public that adored them – ready to turn blind eyes and deaf ears if it meant keeping them there.

Even the Vigilante Stain, who had systematically ended the lives of several Heroes, had admired All Might. Katsuki had seen the uploads on Herotube, filmed in blurry, shaky clips of the man as he tilted his head with mania in his eyes and a too wide smile, blood smeared across his chin.

"Heroes? Don't make me laugh. This sham-filled society... and the criminals who wield their power in the name of petty mischief... are both targets of my purge. All for a better society."

But not All Might.

"COME! JUST TRY ME... YOU PHONIES! THE ONLY ONE ALLOWED TO KILL ME IS... ALL MIGHT, A TRUE HERO!!"

Never All Might.

Katsuki looks at a boy who is the son of the Number Two Hero and she finds herself not measuring up and she feels abruptly, and completely, fucking shitty.

Because she'd seen the signs and done nothing.

“Your father,” Katsuki says, watching the way the other stiffens with an uncomfortable heaviness in her chest. “He hurts you, doesn’t he?”

“That’s not-“

“No,” she interrupts, a scowl twisting her lips. “I’m not- for fucks sake.” She blows out a hard breath, scrubbing at her hair, meeting the wary gaze of the other as she looks up. “Look. We’re both, apparently, a bit fucked up, alright? I have my issues with All Might and you clearly have your issues with Endeavour. I’m here because you know that the number of a Hero doesn’t mean shit because when it comes down to it they’re fucking human and humans are petty and selfish and cruel by nature.”

“… Not exactly how I would phrase it,” Half-n-Half says after a moment and Katsuki snorts.

“I’m not wrong though, am I?” she challenges.

Half-n-Half gives her a thin-lipped, complicated look.

Katsuki is sixteen-thirty, that’s the truth of her existence, and she doesn’t want to get involved but she keeps getting pushed to be. Ashido, Shinsou, See Through and Round Cheeks-

And now fucking Half-n-Half.

She can’t just – ignore it. Not when he’d as much as admitted to it. He's a child and she's not.

They both startle, craning around when there comes a soft knock on the door before it carefully opened up and Katsuki finds herself staring at a painfully pretty woman in her early twenties, hair white with patches of red, her eyes soft grey and filling with visible surprise when she catches sight of Katsuki.

“Nee-san,” Half-n-Half greets, relaxing where he’d tensed up. “You’re home early.”

“I didn’t know you had company, Shouto.” Fuyumi, and Katsuki’s mind scrambles for a nickname but failing as the woman takes a measured step inside. “Hello, it’s nice to meet you. I’m Shouto’s older sister. You can call me Fuyumi, if you want.” Her smile is kind if a bit hesitant and there’s careful measuring look in her eyes.

“Bakugou Katsuki,” she offers, swallowing down the instinctive growl in her voice. “Katsuki is fine,” she tags on a bit gruffly.

The other blinks at her before her smile grows just a tad warmer and it softens her face. “Katsuki-kun, then.” And Katsuki can’t find herself to protest it because she realises, suddenly, that Half-n-Half isn’t the only one in the household, not the only child to have suffered, and it leaves her with an icy stretch of coldness inside of her.

-

“I don’t think Shouto has mentioned you before,” Fuyumi says a bit apologetically where she’s spreading ingredients out on the counter. “You are classmates, aren’t you?”

They’d migrated to the kitchen and Katsuki watches the young woman carefully as she opens plastic bags and packages, arranging everything neatly, a strange sort of tick that apparently didn't belong to Half-n-Half only.

“Yeah,” Katsuki agrees, aware of the protective way Half-n-Half is not quite hovering but remaining watchful and she struggles not to grimace in response. “We’re often paired up during Hero training since our quirks are a good match.”

Fuyumi turns to give her an inquiring look.

“I sweat nitroglycerin, sorta,” Katsuki finds herself saying with a bit of a shrug. “So – explosions.”

“Ah,” Fuyumi agrees thoughtfully. “I can see why then.”

Katsuki flexes her hands. “Do you- do you want some help?” she blurts out, uncomfortable with the entire situation.

Both Todorokis turn to her in surprise and Katsuki struggles not to scowl.

“I cook at home sometimes,” she grumbles.

Fuyumi gaze turns thoughtful and then warm and Katsuki struggles not to flush. “Of course,” the young woman says, shifting a bit to the side invitingly and Katsuki hauls herself up to her feet. “Why don’t you help me dice the vegetables while I start with the meat?”

Fuyumi is gentle, soft, everything Katsuki is not –skirt brushing at her legs and a pink sweater over a white blouse.

Katsuki struggles not to stare, knowing how uncomfortable it might be with what she was presenting as and instead glowers down at the carrots as she dices them neatly and efficiently.

“… I’ll set the table then,” Half-n-Half says behind them and, distantly, Katsuki hears Fuyumi thank him.

Katsuki shoves the carrots to the very edge of the board and start on the paprika and small chilies.

“I hope you don’t mind spicy food, Katsuki-kun,” Fuyumi says as Katsuki’s eyes are itching over the yellow onion, wiping her eyes discretely against the shoulder of her shirt. “If he could get away with it I suspect Shouto would live on nothing but soba.” There’s fondness in her voice and Katsuki wonders, a bit absently, what it might be like to have siblings.

She’d always been an only child, in this world and her first one.

“Spicy is fine,” Katsuki grunts. “Soba, however, is disgusting.”

Half-n-Half makes a vaguely offended noise. “No taste,” he says with a twist of his mouth as Katsuki glances back at him.

“It’s cold noodles,” Katsuki says flatly. "In cold broth."

“You can eat it warm,” Half-n-Half points out, one arm folded on the table where he sits with the chair drawn out to face them both. “Cold is better though.”

His mouth twitches when her face scrunches up.

“What’s your favourite food, Katsuki-kun?” Fuyumi inquiries as the smell of sizzling vegetables fills the room with a hiss of hot oil. “Maybe we can make some next time you come for a visit.”

Katsuki scratches at the back of her neck and carefully looks aside. “… You know those little sausages that looks like octopi? Those,” she admits a bit grudgingly, a tinge of pink crawling up her cheeks as she glares down at the radishes that had been left over. “You doing anything with these?” she demands abruptly.

Fuyumi is smiling when she says she isn’t and Katsuki grumbles, snatching the closest one up.

-

“You have a surprising side of skills,” Half-n-Half says as he studies the five radishes cut carefully into the shape of flower buds. 

Katsuki had ended up shaping bits of cucumber into leaves to accompany it and Fuyumi had looked delighted by it so Katsuki figures it’s alright.

“’s just vegetables,” she grumbles as she takes the offered sleeve and adds a generous helping of stew to her plate. “Basic knife-work.”

“I don’t think I’ve seen it done with radishes before,” Fuyumi muses, carefully plucking one of them and placing it on her plate with a small smile. “You can make roses with tomato peel, can’t you?”

“Yeah,” Katsuki agrees. “And cucumbers and stuff. If you’re making fancy drinks you can use fruit to garnish them.”

She hadn’t made any in years but she likes the way Fuyumi smiles, all soft and warm, a strange little swoop in her belly.

“You – have more siblings, right?” Katsuki grasps for a change of subject and then immediately ends up regretting it because Fuyumi’s smile falters and Half-n-Half stiffens in his seat.

For fucks sake, Katsuki thinks to herself as Fuyumi’s eyes finally turns to her and Katsuki’s chest twists up because there’s shadows visible in them.

“We have another brother, Natsuo,” the young woman answers. “There… We used to have another one but…”

Are you living with a murderer? The question curls ugly in Katsuki’s mouth but she cannot find it in herself to voice it but – maybe it’s clear in her face anyway because Fuyumi’s hands folds together carefully in her lap before opening her mouth to explain.

“Touya… had issues controlling his quirk,” Fuyumi tells her as Half-n-Half clenches his jaw tight and looks away and-

Katsuki knows that name.

It hadn’t been too long ago that Half-n-Half asked if she knew someone by it, the memory straining at the edge of her mind where she’d pushed it away after the odd encounter.

“He-“ Fuyumi clears her throat. “It was… stronger than father’s but he could never… control it. Touya burned alive in the house after he accidentally put it on fire.”

Katsuki stares at her.

“I… see,” she gets out, knuckles white where she's gripping her fork.

“It was years ago,” Half-n-Half says gruffly. “There was no body.”

-

Katsuki is three hours into her visit into the Todoroki mansion. In that time Half-n-Half has as much as confessed to Endeavour abusing him (them??) and there’s apparently a dead child.

Katsuki decides that Fuyumi probably doesn’t need to know she’s never planning on stopping by ever again as she resolves not to bring up any mention of their mother as lunch awkwardly picks up.

She hasn't heard a single mention of there even being one despite the very clear evidence sitting in front of her.

This family is one dead member away from a fucking tragedy.

-

Katsuki stares at Half-n-Half and Half-n-Half stares back, hands in his pockets, shoulders straight and looking far more relaxed than he had when she arrived, and her mouth thins.

Katsuki thinks she’ll be quite happy to never socialise again – she’s fucking exhausted.

“There are dorms at U.A. where you can stay with permission,” she tells him and his gaze turns appraising. “Aizawa chewed out All Might.” She shrugs. “He’ll listen.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Half-n-Half says neutrally.

Katsuki grunts, turning around and pausing.

“… Tell Fuyumi-san the food was fucking delicious.”

-

“- you’re all going to summer training camp.”

-

“Katsuki?”

There’s chatter around her, excitement in the air, Aizawa’s announcement having been met with loud cheers before he apparently gave up on keeping any sort of control of the class and left them to it.

Faintly, Katsuki can make out of the sight of him wrapped up in his yellow sleeping bag behind his desk.

“What?” she grunts, turning towards the other girl, only to pause.

There’s a nervous sort of anticipation in Ashido’s body-language, her hands clasped behind her back, eyes studying her intently, and Katsuki’s brows furrows in confusion.

“You don’t have to-“ Ashido says carefully. “But- I’d really like that hug now if that’s okay with you.”

Behind the pink haired girl Kaminari jerks with a thud of his knee against the underside of his desk as he cranes around and there’s more than one person copying him, Hagakure turning silent mid-word with Jirou as both girls turned to stare while Todoroki looks up with unreadable eyes. 

Katsuki sees none of this – her mind is caught on the words as she spends a long moment simply staring.

Slowly, and a bit stiffly, Katsuki pushes her chair back with a scrape of the legs against the floor before straightening up to her full-height.

She feels off as she lifts her arms in a jerky sort of aborted motion – something that had once come so easily feeling entirely fucking foreign.

The realization sits a bit pathetic inside her chest.

It's just a fucking hu-

Ashido's arms slips silently beneath hers, wrapping around her, and Katsuki’s mind quiets, muscles knotting up before her arms slowly lowered to rest stiffly against the other girl’s back.

Feels the warmth of her, the press of her breasts against the flatness of her own chest, and the scent of something acidic stings at her nose as she draws a slow, measured breath before letting it out, forcing her muscles into something less tense. 

“Thank you,” Ashido whispers into her ear, voice low and muffled.

I think I love you, Katsuki thinks but does not say as she stares a bit blankly at the wall across the classroom.

Chapter Text

Katsuki is questioning every decision that made someone think cramming twenty children onto a single bus for a camping trip in the middle of fucking nowhere was a good idea.

They’re three hours into the trip and Katsuki already wants to go home and take a long nap, head throbbing despite the headphones firmly in place over her ears.

Shinsou and Aizawa, the absolute fucking bastards, are both asleep beside each other in front of her and Katsuki forces down the little spark that itches to go off at her finger tips as she scowls out the window at the passing trees.

Ashido elbows her lightly. “Cheer up,” Katsuki reads on her lips as she turns around to glare at her instead. “Camping is supposed to be fun!”

“This isn’t fun,” Katsuki hisses as she tears her headphones off. “It’s a fucking nightmare.”

“Some socialisation won’t kill you,” Punk says behind her, clearly amused, and Katsuki twists around to bare her teeth at her.

“Hear, hear!” See Through agrees from her seat on the other side of the row near Ashido, feet swinging.

“I’m just happy to be here,” Sparky says beside Punk with a dopey sort of smile, practically radiating relief.

Katsuki hates all of them.

-

“Sorry, kids.”

She thinks she might hate Aizawa, too, as the ground crumbles beneath them under the wild cheerful smile of the newly-introduced Pixie-Bob.

-

“This is kind of fun,” Ashido muses, kicking a bit absently at the charred, half-melting creature as Punk kneels down to pick up a piece of its jaw, earphone jacks curling forward to give it a poke that made it crumble to dirt.

“That’s not what you were saying ten minutes ago,” Shinsou drawls, visibly tense as he peered about for more creatures.

“We just need to get through the forest, right? Easy peasy!” See Through says with a clap of her hands, so close that Katsuki can feel her shoulder bump against her own. “Especially with three of the class’s heavy hitters to throw at anything that pops up.”

Katsuki looks at Half-n-Half and Half-n-Half looks back.

She twitches and turns away.

“Anyone know how to orientate?” Ashido asks, as she turns around expectantly to look at their small group, pushing the glasses of her Hero costume up. She was the only one to have anything of the sort on her, all of them still in their school uniform.

“Leave that to me,” Punk says, straightening up.

“My quirk doesn’t work on the beasts,” Shinsou drawls. “And Hagakure isn’t much use either.”

“At least I won’t be drawing any attention,” See Through says with a stretch of her hands above her head. “I could leave you all here to be bait while I breeze my way through.”

“So I’ll guide, Bakugou, Ashido and Todoroki are our offensive team,” Punk concludes, hand on her hip and with a small smirk. “If we work together we should be the first team back.”

Katsuki unbuttons her jacket and shrugs it off, tying it around her waist as she flexed her fingers.

Ashido’s quirk had already melted the sleeves of her own and she doesn’t hesitate to discard it aside on the ground, her palm leaving a sizzling print on the fabric.

Half-n-Half simply loosens his tie, a frosty breath leaving his mouth.

“Alright,” Ashido breathes. “Let’s do this, Bakusquad!”

Katsuki nearly trips.

-

“You are not calling it that-“

“Shinsou and I had a vote-“

“I don’t fucking care. Also since when was fucking Half-n-Half included in this!?”

“Since you went and visited his house,” Ashido admits as she twisted her arm out in a rain of acid over something that might, generously, be identified as a wolf. If wolves had eight paws and a jaw wide enough to swallow a car.

“You visited Todoroki’s house!?” Hagakure squeaks as she rolls side-ways to avoid a large detached paw rolling over the grounds after melting clean off.

“Bakugou helped my sister cook,” Half-n-Half tells them, the rotten bastard, and Katsuki feels pink crawl across her cheeks as she twists around and blows up a giant cat-like creature as it burst through the trees, taking ugly satisfaction in its pained roar.

“Katsuki!” Ashido gasps theatrically. “You didn't tell me!”

“He made little flowers out of radishes.” Half-n-Half shoots an ice spear high to cut off the screech of one that swoops over the tree tops in a dive and it collides hard against the ground before crumbling to dirt before their eyes. “And leaves out of cucumbers-“

“This way,“ Punk says as she takes a right.

“-Nee-san was very impressed,” Half-n-Half concludes, barely looking winded despite the hard pace they’d been keeping.

Shinsou and Punk are the ones doing the worst out of them, See Through sticking close with a calm even paced breathing and Katsuki knows she must have been extending the original running time and distance on the schedule they’d worked out.

“And her-?“ Katsuki demands, throwing an accusing finger in Punk’s direction.

“I have a name,” Punk calls back, hoisting herself over a large fallen trunk. “You can think of me as a part-timer if makes you feel better.”

“You have a cuddly little cute blue ferret on a shelf in your room and we girls talk,” Ashido says with an apologetic little smile.

Katsuki’s teeth snaps down on the inside of her cheek and she tastes blood.

“Ashido tried to vote for team Katsu-cute,” Shinsou says with a pant as he catches up to her, looking ruffled and making a half-assed attempt to hide it.

Katsuki contemplates the moral issue of just leaving them all the fuck behind as she twitches.

-

“It’ll only take three hours, yeah, right,” Duct Tape wheezes, arm around his belly. “I’m so hungry I’m gonna die.”

“That’s how long it would have taken for us,” Mandalay says as more and more of their classmates stumbles out of the forest, dirty and exhausted.

Mandalay is brown haired, the metallic cat-like ears on her head pink where-as Pixie Bob was blonde haired and seemed to favour blue. The broad man with a tiger like tail is silent, arms crossed, while Ragdoll, green haired and yellow clad, seemed to be off in her own world, humming to herself.

The Wild Wild Pussycats – Katsuki had heard about them. They were a search and rescue team, pretty famous, though she couldn’t recall their quirks exactly. Pixie-Bob clearly had an earth-control quirk and she knew one of them had some sort of tracking quirk.

It was no wonder Aizawa had chosen to drag them out here – he could leave them stumbling blind in the forest and he wouldn’t even need to go looking for them on his own.

Katsuki is half-way through one of the bars Masaru had added to her packing before leaving, Ashido happily munching down a banana while Punk, See Through and Shinsou split a bag of chips between the three of them, sprawled out against the trunk of a large tree.

“Flaunting the power gap in our faces?” A boy Katsuki only knew enjoyed sugar says as he looks towards her, or rather the chocolate bar in her hand, and she raises an eyebrow as she flicks the last bit into her mouth, relishing in the pained little grimace it garners her as she bit down.

Pixie-Bob makes a strange mew mew mew noise that makes Katsuki crane towards her. “I actually thought it would take you longer,” she says with a flick of her tongue against her lips. “And you dealt with my earthly-beasts pretty easily, too.”

Ashido reaches down and Katsuki stares at her hand as fingers wiggled in her face and huffs as she grasps it, allowing the other to haul her up to her feet.

The other follows as well and Katsuki meets Pixie-Bob’s blue eyes. “Not bad,” the Pro-Hero says, gaze sliding from Katsuki to Ashido to Deku, Class Rep, Half-n-Half and then Froggy. “Especially you six.” Her grin turns knowing as she leans forward. “I’m guessing past experiences allowed you to act without hesitation.”

Katsuki snorts, looking away, pausing when she snagged on a fiercely glaring kid in a red cap with little horns and baring her teeth in response to a brief widening of his eyes.

“Katsuki-“ Ashido elbows her. “Don’t glare at the kid.” She sounds amused, craning past her to get a better look at the brat.

“I-I’ve been meaning to ask,” Deku’s voice comes hesitant. “But that boy – whose child is he?”

“Ah, he’s my nephew,” Mandalay admits, a white paw gesturing the brat forward. “Kouta! Come over and say hello – you’ll be spending the entire week together, after all.”

Deku takes a step towards the kid, crouching down with a smile and-

Katsuki mentally revaluates brat to favourite brat as she watches the kid sucker-punch Deku clean between his legs as Ashido wheezed out a surprised noise beside her.

“Right in the junk,” Punk says with some admiration as Deku tipped over, robbed of all colour as he clutched his hands between his legs.

“I can’t-“ the brat snaps, teeth gritting down, eyes dark, “abide jerks who wanna be Heroes.”

“Cute kid,” Katsuki says with a tip of her head and a grin.

“You’re a lot alike,” Half-n-Half says with a side-look.

“I’ll take that as a compliment,” Katsuki decides.

-

They’re all dirty from the forest and after a loud dinner they’re invited to use the hot spring and Katsuki’s mouth curls, watching her classmates thread happily down the corridor to the split between males and females.

“You should hurry up,” Mandalay says beside her and Katsuki slants her a look. “You’re getting up early tomorrow for training so it’s best not to linger.”

“… No thank you,” Katsuki says, turning on her heel, only to find herself snagged by her collar.

“Hey now,” Mandalay says and Katsuki jerks a bit in surprise as she was hauled back and then released before she had time to register the motion, a far too big white finger wagged in her face. “You can’t go to sleep all dirtied up.”

“I can,” Katsuki disagrees, stuffing her hands into her pockets with a scowl. “There was a lake some ten minutes away, anyway. I can just bathe there.”

Mandalay pursues her lips. “Sorry kid, but we’re responsible for you so you can’t just to wander off.”

Katsuki’s shoulders draws up tight under the Pro-Hero’s eyes

“Fucking fine!” she snarls.

-

Katsuki slams the door to the changing room open to a startled jump from Sparky who clutches his shirt to his chest.

“Bakugou!” he exclaims.

“Fuck off,” Katsuki snaps, growling as she yanked at the buttons of her shirt, throwing it roughly onto the shelf beside Shinsou as the boy raised a brow at her, already down to a small towel wrapped around his hips.

“You’re in a good mood,” he drawls as Katsuki tugs her belt open, a buzzing in her ear and anger frothing through her veins, barely registering the chatter around her as she kicked her shoes off and shoved her pants down, kicking them roughly off.

Shinsou sighs as he bends down to snatch them up, folding them twice before dropping them onto the shelf as Katsuki’s fingers folded around the bottom hem of her undershirt.

“You know, it wouldn’t kill you to-“ Shinsou quiets abruptly, and around her the noise dies down, as Katsuki shoves her t-shirt onto the shelf, heart pounding in her chest and hating, hating, hating.

“Bakugou…” Shinsou sounds wretched and Katsuki jerks, stilling as his fingers brushed against the scar on her left side, their eyes meeting. "What-“

“Nothing,” she snaps back, taking a step back from him. “It’s fucking nothing.”

“It’s really not,” Shitty Hair says in a low voice and Katsuki ignores him as she snatches one of the small white towels from the middle of the bench in the room and loops it around her hips before shoving her boxers down her legs.

She straightens out, meeting Half-n-Half’s unreadable gaze with a baring of her teeth.

-

Katsuki pretends not to feel the gazes of her classmates as she stares blankly up at the sky, Shinsou unusually quiet beside her.

The chatter had slowly picked up again but there’s a strange sort of tenseness in the air and her shoulders twitches, eyes dropping down to focus on Half-n-Half as he waded across the water, away from Deku and his friends, to claim a place at her side.

“They’ll stop eventually,” he says in a quiet undertone as he relaxed back and Katsuki very deliberately doesn’t look at the burn scars on his own chest, far from anywhere near as bad as hers but still there. Spots of shiny pink patches and small scars and scratches.

Katsuki wonders if Fuyumi has them, too. If Natsuo and the dead brother had suffered equally at the hands of their father.

“H-Hey Bakugou.” Sparky clears his throat. “We’ve – uh, we’ve got your back, you know?”

Katsuki turns her head to give him a flat look.

“Yeah!” Shitty Hair agrees, water splashing as he straightened up. “We’re class 1-A and we stick together! So if you need anything we’ll be right there, just say the word. We’ll beat up anyone who hurt you!”

Katsuki registers the sudden quietness from the girl’s side of the bath with something like resignation.

-

Dressed in loose sweats and a dark t-shirt, towel around her neck, Katsuki finds a hand clamping down around her wrist and yanking her inside the room beside the boy’s, mouth in a flat line when she meets Ashido’s worried gaze.

“Katsuki- why were they talking about beating someone up on your behalf? Are you still hurt from-“

“I’m not,” Katsuki says gruffly, a small anxious little twist in her belly. “Recovery Girl took care of the last before we left.”

Ashido’s eyes searches hers and Katsuki tries not to be bothered by the other girls who were arranging their things around their futons, giving them a hollow illusion of privacy.

“’s old stuff,” Katsuki admits, fingers curling a bit unsurely around the hem of her shirt.

“Hey-“ Punk calls, a small furrow in her brow. “Do you want us to leave?”

Katsuki turns around to stare at her.

“Yeah, you know, if it’s private stuff,” See Through agrees.

“We can go check in on the boy’s room,” Round Cheeks suggests, smile relaxed.

Froggy croaks an agreement and Ponytail nods, eyes wide and worried.

Katsuki already knows that they’ll find out anyway – class 1-A is an unrepentant gathering of gossips and they’ll still look at her and they’ll wonder if it’s as bad as the others describes.

It’s not like… she’s ashamed of them. But she knows they’ll stare, they’ll wonder, they’ll question, they’ll want to know.

And Katsuki isn’t interested in explaining because she knows they won’t understand.

Katsuki first meets Dabi when she’s twenty-six and twelve, four years after waking up in the body of a dead boy. She feels disconnected from everything and the only thing she finds sense in is the violence that rises sharp and jarring through her to fill the stretch of apathetic emptiness.

She can’t resolve with the two adults who claim to love her and she can’t connect with the children who are supposed to be her peers. Her doctors poke and prod and gives her meds that leaves her nauseous and lethargic and even more out of sorts with herself instead of helping.

“It helps you feel alive, doesn’t it?” Dabi observes, head tilting and a small smirk as blood drips from her broken nose, knuckles bruised and torn, her body pulsing from the blossoming bruises. “I bet I can do you one better.”

Katsuki had been entranced by the blue flame that blossomed in his open palm and then she’d been livid because he laughs as he pins her down, pressing his palm sizzling hot against her hip after dragging her shirt up as she howled. Struggling, clawing, twisting to get out from beneath him as he slowly lifted his hand up to admire his handiwork.

But the weeks afterwards Katsuki finds her fingers seeking it out, touching, reassuring herself by this mark – this one thing that becomes undeniably hers in a world that had robbed her of everything.

It hadn’t stopped her from lashing out the next time he appeared, her own explosions leaving starburst patterns on his skin as he grinned sharp and knowing, folding low before her world exploded in a beautiful stretch of blue.

And – maybe she’s just a bit tired of hiding. Of pretending to be something she’s not.

She can’t be a girl because she’s already stolen so much from his parents, she has to be Katsuki because it’s the body she wakes up in. She’s messed up, she’s dead and she’s not, and she loves Ashido, fiercely and undeniably as the girl folds her arms around her after All Might rattles the pieces inside of her.

There is so much she wants to tell Ashido but can’t but she can show her this, on her own terms, and she draws her shirt up and over her head before she can second-guess her decision, letting it dangle from her hand.

And she tries not to look as vulnerable as she feels as Ashido’s hand draws from where it’d risen to cover her mouth, a small tremble as she reaches forward to press her palm flat against Katsuki’s chest, fingers following the path of a gnarly stretch of purple skin.

Mina looks at her and Katsuki wonders what she sees in the stretch of scars that wraps around her in a soothing embrace of her own violent making.

-

Katsuki stares into the room – at the thirteen boys already crammed inside and swivels around just as a hand snaps out and Katsuki finds herself, for the second time that evening, yanked back and she snarls as she stumbles back, released, an arm looping around her neck.

“There you are,” Shinsou drawls near her ear and Katsuki’s fingers curls, muscles drawing tense. “I saved you a spot near the wall,” he says very, very quietly and Katsuki stills. “Todoroki and I claimed the places closest to you. He was surprisingly agreeable.”

Shinsou releases her and Katsuki forces the adrenaline to bleed out, slowly calming the beating of her heart as she meets his gaze as he slips his hands into his pockets with a little tilt of his head.

She swallows as she stares down at the futon neatly arranged, sides tucked in, not a crease to be seen on the pillow, and slants a look at Half-n-Half who had sprawled out on his own above hers, a history book held aloft in the air, lowering only to give her a brief flick of his brow.

“Bakugou!” Sparky exclaims, bouncing towards them in sleeping pants with little lightning bolt on them and a Pikachu tail stylised on his t-shirt. “Where’d you disappear to, man?”

“None of your fucking business,” Katsuki grumbles.

“He was in the girl’s room,” a boy Katsuki had only distractedly categorized as Shiny because of his tendency to sparkle, loud and bright with a fucking laser shooting from his belly button.

“How unexciting,” Sparky moans. “I thought you were off raiding for alcohol or something.”

Katsuki tries not to linger on how fucking enticing it sounds after the absolutely exhausting day and instead flops down on her bed.

“Kaminari-“ Class Rep swivels around as Sparky’s smile falters. “There will be no-partaking in any kind of alcohol during this trip! And on top of that, you’re underage. I expect-“

“Yeah, yeah,” Sparky mumbles sulkily, waving a hand. “I’ll be responsible, yadda yadda.”  

“You told Ashido?” Shinsou guesses in an undertone as he settles down beside her in a purple t-shirt with a cat flat on its belly with the words not today written below it.

Katsuki grunts and he hums.

“I wonder what Aizawa-sensei has prepared for us tomorrow,” Shinsou muses as he sprawls back.

Katsuki paws absently for her phone as it vibrates.

Pauses and stares at the message from a familiar, unsaved, number.

XXX-XXXXX-XX: See you soon.

Chapter Text

”Always be conscious of who you are. That’s the key to improvement. That’s why you’re out here sweating. Why I’m riding you so hard. Keep it in mind, always.”

Aizawa’s words rings through Katsuki’s mind as she shoves her hands down into the hot water, forcing her sweat glands to work overdrive as her skin prickles and burns before she yanks them up, explosions ringing loud above her as she grits her teeth.

Who am I?

A dead woman shoved into the body of a dead boy, an unnatural existence in an unnatural world of quirks. A world where every day civilians are armed with powers of extraordinary feats that she spends her first years absolutely violently afraid of.

Katsuki wakes up to too much noise after twenty-two years as a deaf woman living in a world where guns and knives are the weapons of the criminals on the late night news.

And suddenly there's Villains with their bodies frothing and warping, mania in their eyes, and she watches Heroes with too bright smiles basking in the media attention even as civilian lives tallies up.

She’s afraid and then she becomes strong, tasting the bitterness and joy of violence equally because the world forces her to take a stance.

Katsuki dunks her arms back under into the boiling water and hisses harsh between her teeth as something that would have scalded her skin bright pink merely itches and froths because she’s been made far more durable then she’d once been.  

Who am I?

Sometimes Katsuki honestly isn’t quite so sure.

She has no dreams, the dead boy’s tastes bitter in her mouth and, in the end, she’s been left bereft in a world not of her own choosing and she feels both empty and cheated.

-

Katsuki watches Aizawa drag away her four classmates with some amusement.

Mina shudders. “That could have been me,” she whispers, mostly to herself, and Katsuki slants her a look. “Honestly, I just barely passed,” she admits with a grimace. “If I hadn’t been basically camping at your house…”

“But you did pass,” Katsuki points out, hands in her pockets and peering about.

She’d only kept half an ear on the conversations around her, something about a test of courage which sounded more like an excuse for something relaxed and fun after a long day or training. She’d gone to plenty of haunted houses in her first life so the concept was pretty familiar, only instead of actors they were, apparently, supposed to scare each other.

“Alright Class 1-A!” Pixie-Bob says brightly as she holds out a rattling box. “Please draw your numbers and find your corresponding partners! Class 1-B will be the first to be offensive and Ragdoll have your numbers so please move your way towards her.”

“Oooh, I hope we get paired up!” Ashido bounces her way forward, slipping through the throng of their classmates as Shinsou sidled up beside Katsuki.

“You look pretty relaxed,” he notes as she tilts her head towards him. “Not scared of the dark?”

“I’ll blow up anything that as much as touches me,” Katsuki says with a little curling of her fingers.

“… If we get paired up I’m trading partner,” Shinsou says flatly.

Katsuki ends up with the number two, Half-n-Half stepping quietly up beside her with a flash of the same number. Ashido and Shinsou trades look upon realizing they’d both drawn a five and Katsuki spies Round Cheeks a bit pink cheeked beside Froggy, arms already linked together.

Half-n-Half notices her looking and she catches his arm moving from the corner of her vision.

“Try it,” she warns him mildly. “And I’m blowing your fucking arm off.”

-

“EVERYONE.” Shouta’s head jerks up, catching the undertone of panic in Mandalay’s voice through her quirk. “We’re under attack by two Villains! And there might be more out there! All those who can get back to camp should if they can. If you encounter an enemy, don’t engage! Just retreat!”

This, Shouta thinks as mind catches up to the message. Was exactly what we were trying to avoid by not bringing All Might here.

“Vlad! I’m leaving these guys with you.” He slams the door open, hand grasping for his capture weapon. “I’m heading out to protect the students.”

“How did our location get leaked!?” Kaminari exclaims behind him.

I’d rather not imagine, Shouta thinks grimly as he steps out, head turning up to stare at the large thick cloud of dark smoke, fire spreading wide in the distance.

“This is bad…” They had some thirty-five students, plus a kid, only six Pro-Heroes and an unknown number of Villains.

No matter how he twisted and turned the situation it was nothing short of grim.

“Always worrying about others, huh, Eraserhead?”

Blue flames explodes out violent and wide and so hot that Shouta feels the skin of his arm sizzle where he’d thrown it up in defensive over his face, capture weapon leaving him clinging to the roof of the house to avoid them.

“You Pro-Heroes… just stay out of our way.” The voice is rough, low, and Shouta watches as the flames dies down, revealing a young man with dark hair and stretches of purple burn scars, staples buried into his skin to keep the ruined scar tissue clinging in place, arm still outstretched. “You’re not the one we’re here for, after all.”

Something uneasy slides through Shouta as the Villain tilts his head up, mouth stretching as he catches sight of him. “Well, I guess that’s a Pro for ya.”

“Who are you here for then?” Shouta demands as he shifts, keeping a careful eye on the other.

The Villain hums. “Just a friend,” he admits, fingers flexing a bit absently in a tic that only adds to nagging suspicions at the back of Shouta’s head.

He clenches his teeth.

-

“That has to be one of the most fucked up quirks I’ve ever seen.” Katsuki stares at the man gurgling unintelligible words through a mouth with far too many strangely shaped teeth. “What the ever loving fu-“

“Bakugou!” Half-n-Half says with some exasperation, hands curled around the legs of the passed out 1-B student they’d found along the way. “Please focus.”

Katsuki bares her teeth. “I am,” she snaps, keeping a wary eye on the… man. Thing. “Who’s ahead anyway?”

“Shoji and Tokoyami,” Half-n-Half says, surprisingly calm considering the situation. “We need to find the others and re-group. There’s no telling what kind of Villains are out there or what they want.”

Katsuki gives Half-n-half a flat look, one arm gesturing towards the clearly unhinged quirk user on the ground, wrapped up in some kind of black leathery straight-jacket, a wide gaping mouth with lips pinned back.

He’s struggling against the ice Half-n-Half and caught him in but it was already cracking dangerously and with how versatile and quick the… teeth… were Half-n-Half couldn’t risk putting the student on his back down.

“Fucking hell,” Katsuki huffs, taking a step forward. “My fucking teeth are aching just looking at him.”

“We can put off any big fires,” Half-n-Half reminds her. “It could spread and kill everyone.”

“Cheerful of you.” Katsuki reaches down to her boot, drawing the knife Toga had gifted to her and giving it a spin, grasping it with the blade facing down along her arm. “I guess we’ll have to do this the traditional way then.”

She bares her teeth in an anticipatory grin as the ice shatters.

-

“Your positions, number and objective – spill it,” Shouta demands, pushing the Villain’s face harder into the ground, eyes dry and itching, heart pounding in his chest with every ticking second he wasn’t with his students while the man laughs below him.

“I already told you, didn’t I?” the Villain turns his head, turquoise eyes glittering. “We’re picking up an old friend.”

“Don’t play games!” Shouta twists the Villain’s arm, his body jerking with a grunt as the arm tore from its socket. “Your right arm is next so let’s do this rationally. If I get as far as your legs it’ll be a hassle for the arresting officials.”

“What’s gotten under your skin, Eraser?” the Villain drawls and Shouta clamps his hand rough around the scar tissue on the other’s wrist only to jerk, tensing and turning to look up as an enormous explosion went off in the forest.

“Sensei!” Several of his students bursts through the trees and Shouta is both relieved and cursing the timing of it as the Villain twists below him and Shouta throws himself back to avoid the blue flames that licks up as he’s forced to blink before activating his quirk again.

He shifts to take a protective stance in front of his wide-eyed students as the man slowly drew up to his feet with a short laugh.

“Quite worthy of being an instructor of U.A.” The Villain says as Shouta’s hand curls around his capture weapon still wrapped around the other, a far too knowing look in his eyes as Shouta snapped it tight.

“Is it cuz your students are so precious?”

Shouta’s eyes widens as dark goo splatters onto the ground instead of blood, body torn in two but freezing strangely before slowly starting to crumble. “I hope you have what it takes to protect them.” The Villain bares his teeth in a grin that slowly disintegrates. “See ya later, Eraser.”

The last bits slips down before melting into a pool of black on the ground.

-

“What kind of jerk comes swinging with a knife like that,” Tsuyu demands, hand thrown out and planted firmly in front of Ochako as she cradles the bleeding wound on her arm.

I didn’t even see her move, Ochako thinks warily as the girl hums, knife lifted high above her head as she studied the blood sliding down the edge of it.

Yellow eyes flicks down towards them. “I’m Toga.” If it wasn’t for the contraption on her face she would have looked like any normal high-school girl, a short pleated skirt ruffling at her thighs, an oversized yellow cardigan with green pouches strapped in place.

“You two are really cute!” On her back are two tanks and Ochako keeps a careful eye on them as a hand reaches back, drawing out a thick metallic syringe. “Asui… Uraraka…” The eyes of the Villain glitters, mania deep in her eyes. “But not as cute as Baku-chan, of course.”

Baku-

“You- you don't mean Bakugou, do you?” Ochako takes a step forward, wary of the familiar address. “How do you know-“

“Ah.” Toga lifts a hand up to her covered mouth, eyes wide with false innocent. “I wasn’t supposed to say.” She leans forward. “I guess I have no choice but to kill you then.” Ochako jerks at the casual proclamation, yellow eyes tracking her almost curiously.

Toga tilts her head, eyes sliding down to the blood dripping from Ochako’s fingers. “I’ve known Baku-chan for years.” She sighs dreamily, fingers folding around the edge of her mask, pulling it down. “I miss the way he bleeds.” The Villain’s tongue flattens and curls and over her fingers, eyes sliding shut. “I miss the way he taste.”

-

“Midoriya-“

“It’s really bad,” Midoriya gets out, arms blown to bits and hanging limp at his sides, Kouta clinging a bit wide-eyed but unhurt to his back, arms wrapped tight around his neck. “They’re – sensei, they’re after Kacchan-“

Shouta only just resists sliding his eyes shut.

Of course it’s him, he thinks just a tad bitterly. If it isn’t Problem Child one it’s Problem Child two.

But it also puts another new dangerous spin on the situation. The flame Villain claimed he was looking for a friend and Shouta had seen the burn scars that wrapped tight around his student’s chest, nearly identical to the Villain’s own.

Just what have you gotten yourself involved in, Bakugou?

“There’s so much I have to tell you but I need to tell Mandalay and we need to protect him-“

“Those wounds,” Shouta says heavily. “You’ve gone and done it again-“

“I know,” Midoriya interrupts. “But sensei, I already failed Kacchan once and I cannot allow it to happen again!” Green eyes meets his alight with determination, a weak little smile slanting on his mouth when he catches Shouta’s flat look. “Class 1-A sticks together, right?”

You look like hell, Shouta thinks but does not say. You have absolutely no business going back out there-

“Mandalay,” Shouta says as Midoriya knelt down to carefully let Kouta slide off. “Tell her this.”

-

“Ochako-chan,” Tsuyu warns. “Just because Aizawa-sensei told us we can protect ourselves doesn’t mean we should chose to engage.”

“I know, Tsu,” Ochako reassures her, eyes never leaving the Villain. “But if they came here for Bakugou…”

Toga bends low, a syringe in either hand as she grins, hunger glittering in her eyes.

-

Katsuki’s knife slides deep into the flesh of the Villain’s arm, snapping her hand out to go low in a carefully controlled explosion to avoid the teeth that zig-zags through the air, straining from the gaping jaw of the Villain as he howls.

“Do you have any idea-“ Ice shoots out, teeth shattering against it. “Of why there’s a group of Villains going after you?”

Katsuki very, very deliberately doesn’t think about the message from Dabi as she side-steps with a twirl to shatter more teeth, backing to fall near Half-n-Half as more and more ice spreads protectively around them.

“Hell if I know,” she snarls as the Villain goes high into the air, balanced on his teeth like some kind of twisted up spider, legs dangling limp below him.

“Give me… flesh…” the Villain wheezes. “FleeEsh…”

“Any bright ideas?” Katsuki huffs, sliding her knife back into her boot as she flexed her fingers.

“- there, I see ice! They must be fighting-“

Both Katsuki and Half-n-Half turns around.

“Bakugou, Todoroki- please, one of you-“ Katsuki stares at the enormous shadowy bird, Feather Head wild eyed in its grasp as it rises to swallow everything in its path with a desperate echoing cry. “Give us some light!”

-

Katsuki’s mouth thins, head turning as something caught at the edge of her vision, a small flicker of blue in the depth of the dark forest before getting snuffed out.

“- Bakugou? They’re after him?” Feather Head’s voice registers distantly.

Another flicker of blue, further away, and Katsuki takes a single quiet step back, away from Deku and whatever feverish desperation had driven him in a hunt for her. Away from Half-n-Half who had shown her genuine concern-

And then the next thing Katsuki knows she’s going down, her breath torn from her chest as her back hit the ground hard, hands clamping down on her shoulders, knees pinning her arms flat.

Golden eyes in a sclera of black fills her vision and Katsuki stares up at her friend.

“You.” Mina’s voice trembles. “What the hell do you think you’re doing!?” she demands, furious.

Shinsou steps out of the bushes, Round Cheeks and Froggy at his heels, and Katsuki finds herself with a sudden quietness spreading around them.

“Ashido?” Deku’s voice reaches them, unsure and tired where he lies slumped on the shoulders of a boy Katsuki only distantly recognises.

Mina’s fingers digs into her shoulders. “He was planning on leaving,” Mina says, her voice cold and it twists something inside of Katsuki, something helpless and furious at the same time because Dabi was practically at her fingertips and Mina was-

“The Villain we went up against knew you,” Round Cheeks says carefully and Katsuki slowly shifts her gaze towards her. “Blonde hair, a strange obsession with blood…?” She raises a brow.

“Toga is here?” Katsuki jolts slightly.

“So you do know her.” Round Cheeks pursues her lips. “And you’re familiar enough with her to call her by name.”

Katsuki tenses, teeth clenching down.

“We cannot allow ourselves to linger,” Feather Head says, voice low and dark where he’s watching everything with hawkish eyes.

“What exactly is going on here, Bakugou?” Half-n-Half asks as he steps to peer down at her. “You claimed you didn’t know why the Villains might be here for you but that’s not the complete truth, is it?”

And-

“I don’t know,” Katsuki snarls as she jerks only to have Mina press her down harder and something ugly claws inside of her, something wretched and desperate. “This isn’t right- this isn’t how it’s supposed to be!”

Dabi and Toga weren’t supposed to be Villains.

Her classmates weren’t supposed to be trying to keep her away from them.

Katsuki’s fingers sinks into the earth and she twists, her foot colliding with Mina’s ribs to shove her away as she scrambles to her feet.

Shinsou reaches out to catch Mina as she stumbles back, eyes wide and surprised.

But Katsuki hardly notices it, fingers sinking into her hair, clenching down as she snarls, her heart pounding too hard, too loud, her skin crawling and something wrathful and violent fills her chest as she scrambles for sense.

“Kacchan…”

Katsuki’s teeth snaps together and she swivels around with a snarl. “Would it fucking kill you to respect my fucking wishes and not call me that!?” she demands harshly. “Your Kacchan is fucking gone. I am not he. I’ll never be him!”

Deku stares at her, eyes green, so fucking green, mouth opening-

But Shinsou places a hand on his shoulder, quieting him. “You are not helping right now, Midoriya,” he says mildly and Deku hunkers down, nodding, eyes hard to read as he rested against the shoulder of the boy that Katsuki can't remember the fucking name of.

“What can you tell us about them?” Round Cheeks asks and Katsuki looks to her, eyes dark. “The girl – she was good with knives but there’s someone else out there, isn’t there?”

Katsuki’s mouth thins.

“None of your fucking business,” she growls.

“Bakugou-chan.” Katsuki jolts slightly at the address, turning towards Froggy. “Do you think this person will come after you?”

See you soon.

“Yes,” she grits out.

“Then wouldn’t it be pertinent if you told us what to expect from them?” Froggy continues, voice smooth, low, fucking rational. “Especially if you have some sort of personal relationship with them, kero.”

No, Katsuki thinks immediately because she owes Dabi her fucking sanity.

But Katsuki is never given a chance to answer because suddenly everything is violently and beautifully blue.

The flames explode past her on either side of her body, licking hot, the sweat on her palms crackling and popping from the sheer intensive heat as her classmates are forced back and away from her.

Katsuki's breath catches at the sheer destuction left behind it, ash floating lazily through the air.

“Thinking of selling me out?” A voice brushes soft against her ear and Katsuki’s mind comes to a stumbling halt as an arm loops almost gently around her, drawing her back against a familiar lithe chest and she inhales, sulphur filling up her lungs, ash mixing with the taste of iron on her tongue.

“Never,” Katsuki growls.

Dabi’s mouth stretches as his other arm wraps around her, his chin coming down to rest on top of her head as he folds her up in his embrace.

“Good,” he murmurs. “I’d hate for this to become a tragedy.”

Chapter Text

Dabi is warm – a side-effect of his quirk, Katsuki suspects. She wonders about the chemistry of it as she draws one breath after the other, chest rising and falling, her mind strangely calm.

“You have a lot to explain,” Katsuki tells him tersely because she’s still so undeniably angry.

Dabi had been ignoring her for weeks. And what had the idiot done? Gone and becoming a fucking Villain because that was apparently rational and she wants nothing more than to turn around and let him know just how fucking not okay she is with that.

But the other half of her is busy soaking in his presence, her body loose in his arms, because it’s Dabi. And she’d missed him more than she'd wanted to admit to, more rattled than she’d thought herself to be as tension she hadn’t even been aware of bleeds out at the scent of him, at the reassurance and stability she’s come to associate with him.

I’m messed-up, Katsuki acknowledges to herself as his coat brushing against the back of her fingers in the rustle of a breeze.

His chest rumbles in a low chuckle. “All in due time, Baku-chan,” he assures her.

“Before or after you try to kidnap me?” Katsuki asks dryly. “Because I’m not fucking stupid, you know, and I’m not terribly interested in whatever the fuck the League of Villains want with me. For one, it’s an absolutely horrible name. No finesse. And two, I’m just not interested.”

Dabi’s arms draws her tighter, his head angling down, lips brushing against the shell of her ear. “Don’t you think this charade has gone far enough?” he murmurs, so quiet that she has to strain to catch the words. “We both know you’re nothing like them.”

Katsuki shifts, angling up to put them face to face.

His turquoise eyes are just as beautiful as she remembers them and she thinks of evidence and conversations, about the mismatched eyes in Half-n-Half’s face and the tale of a boy who burned alive in the home of the Number Two Hero.

“You’re not a fucking Villain, Dabi,” she growls quietly. “And neither am I.”

“No,” he agrees. “You are something entirely of your own making,” he acknowledges as she furrows her brow. “Do you trust me?” he asks her.

“Right now?” Katsuki hisses, catching movement at the corner of her eye and tensing ever so slightly.

“Do you trust the Heroes?” he murmurs, his eyes glittering knowingly.

Katsuki bares her teeth.

Dabi’s grin flashes sharp, straightening up and shifting to grasp at the collar of her shirt as she tensed, stumbling a bit in surprise when he gave her a little jerk to the side just as something burst through the bushes. “About time, wackjob-“

Katsuki’s eyes widens as Toga sprung up, arms outstretched to wrap around her neck, knees clenching down on either side of her waist.

If it wasn’t for Dabi she would have gone right down as she grunts, knees bending before she catches herself with a steadying jerk of her jacket, an arm looping a bit awkwardly around the body clinging to her as she registers the familiar presence.

"Baku-chan!" Toga's grip tightens, iron and something softer filling up her nose as Katsuki breathes in. "I missed you," Toga whispers into her ear before her legs shifts, heels burying into Katsukis back as she pushes back to peer down at her. "Look at you," Toga breathes. "I saw the footage, you know?" A calloused palm presses against her skin, framing her cheek. "Only Dabi should make you bleed like that, Baku-chan." Her yellow eyes darkens. "It wasn't nearly as fun watching All Might just-" 

“Wackjob,” Dabi warns mildly. “We have an audience.”

Toga wraps her arms back around Katsuki’s neck to peer at him. “But it’s Baku-chan,” Toga pouts as she rests her chin on her shoulder.

-

This, Hitoshi acknowledges to himself, is not good.

He keeps one hand wrapped around Ashido’s tense wrist, eyes darting from the tall scarred Villain to the girl currently clinging to a faintly exasperated Bakugou who, despite his issues with touch, keeps one hand loose on the Villain’s hip as she argued with the older, his body-language steady and strangely relaxed.

Hitoshi doesn’t think he’s ever seen the other boy so calm as when the man wrapped him up in his embrace and it’s setting off all sorts of warning bells at the back of his mind as he glances to Todoroki whose gaze is locked on the man with a strange sort of focus.

Midoriya looks like he’s seen a ghost, pale, his breathing still harsh and struggling on Shouji’s back, and he really shouldn’t be here, Shinsou thinks. With how well he’s managed to backfire his quirk he risks being a liability they cannot afford.

Hitoshi doesn’t like the Villain's lidded look as turquoise eyes shift in their direction.

-

“I believe your friends are getting impatient, Baku-chan,” Dabi says with a stretch of his lips. “And we really can’t afford to linger.” 

“Fuck off,” Katsuki grumbles, pushing Toga off to a small pout as she reluctantly slid off. “I already told you-“

“Katsuki.” Mina’s voice makes her twist around, meeting golden eyes, and registers with a bit of a jolt that Mina looks tense and wary. “Come here.”

“Katsuki?” Toga echoes and Katsuki slants her a look as arms curls around her right one. “How come she gets to call you by your first name and I don’t?” Toga demands. “We found you first.”

“Who are you?” Half-n-Half is still staring at Dabi who tips his head slightly, turquoise eyes turning to regard him almost curiously. “And what do you want with Bakugou?”

“Todoroki Shouto…” Dabi muses, mouth stretching. “The prodigious son of Endeavour. It’s quite the company you’ve taken to keeping, Baku-chan.” His eyes drifts to Deku. “Even All Might’s little protégé is here.” He slips his hands into the pocket of his pants. “We are here because the League of Villains have decided that this one here would make an excellent addition to our ranks."

“And I told you I’m not interested, Dabi,” Katsuki snarls in response, taking a step back with a rough tug out of Toga's grip.

Dabi lets out a gusty sigh and Katsuki stills at the look in his eyes when he turns to her. “Tell me something, Katsuki. What do you think the Heroes will do once they find out you’re willingly associated with not one but two Villains?” Katsuki stills. “Do you think they’ll offer you understanding? A pat on the shoulder and send you right up the tracks to become one of them?”

“That’s not-“ Katsuki grasps for words but her mouth feels strangely dry and something cold is settling heavy in her gut.

“Aizawa-sensei wouldn’t allow them to do anything!” Shinsou says sharply but Katsuki only has eyes for Dabi who meets her gaze equally intense.

“Eraserhead is but one Underground Hero,” Dabi says ruthlessly. “In the end it’s those with fame and the backing of the public that lays down the law.” He leans forward and those strangely beautiful eyes of his swallows up her sight. “What do you think All Might is going to do, Baku-chan? He’s chained you up once, he’s brutally assaulted you without hesitation and a single word from him will pluck your dream right out of your grasping hands.”  

“All Might wouldn’t do that!” Deku gasps, pressing up desperately. “He’s not-“

“He’s not what?” Dabi drawls, not bothering to look at him. “The world praises and revers the Heroes in this rotten society but the truth is never quite so simple or true, you’re just happy to ignore it as long as it means you have someone to look up to and adore. No matter the price.”

It’s jarring, Katsuki thinks as she looks at him, to hear her own thoughts aloud.

“You and I are the same,” Dabi tells her and her hand presses against that first scar on her hip and his eyes dips, knowing and – she hesitates to call it soft but there’s something there in the depth of his gaze that makes her want to reach out and touch her fingers against his scarred jaw. “You know we are. It’s why you keep coming back, it’s why I keep seeking you out. Kin drawing kin.”

“Don’t listen to him!” Mina’s voice rings with a hollow note of desperation, taking one step forward only to halt when Toga shifts, gaze sharp and the edge of a knife glinting in the palm of her hand as she pinned her in place with a warning tilt of her mouth. “Maybe it’s true that everything isn’t perfect but it doesn’t have to stay that way. We can change it!”

“Can you?” Dabi asks, voice liquid soft. “As far as I can see it the world is caught stagnant. All Might has chosen his successor and the boy is threading in his footsteps with feverish adoration. One Hero will fall and another will rise. The system never changes. Becoming a part of it will solve nothing.”

Katsuki takes a halting step towards him.

“Katsuki-“ Mina’s mouth wraps around her name and Katsuki thinks of moments caught together, late night studying and camaraderie during lunch, the blinking screen and the letters Are you OK?

Thinks of arms that wraps around her as if Mina could keep all the pieces of her together.

But she also thinks of a softness she doesn’t trust and eyes that lacks understanding when a trembling palm presses against the scars on her chest.

“Please-“ Mina gasps, jerking at her wrist caught in the grasp of Shinsou’s hand. “I know you think you’re alone but there are far more people who care about you than you think! I’ve met your parents – Mitsuki-san and Masaru-san would lay down the world for you!”

Katsuki stills, heart beating loudly inside her chest because-

They’re not her parents, not really. They’re his and Katsuki resigns herself to a lot of things in this world, her identity and gender and very personality sacrificed to play pretend as someone she’s not and she lives for a dead boy whose dream taste like bitterness and regret.

“You’re my best friend!” Mina cries as she yanks out of Shinsou’s grasp. “Damn it, Katsuki, I-“

But Katsuki never hears what she’s about to say because Dabi wraps a hand around her wrist and yanks her stumbling into his chest, arm looping around her, and a knife thuds into the ground, forcing Mina into a tripping stumble, her knees hitting the ground.

Katsuki meets Mina’s wide-eyed gaze as fog stretches wide and yawning black to swallow them up.

-

Mina stares at the burnt grass, something terrible in her chest as the sudden silence stretches around them.

“He’s… He’s gone,” Mina manages numbly, eyes locked on the spot her friend had just been, half-expecting the fog to expound back, for Katsuki to appear back at her side out of sheer stubbornness.

But there’s no Katsuki – just ash and dust after the Villain’s quirk had ravaged the ground.

Dabi, Katsuki had called him, the name leaving his mouth easy and familiar.

“We need to find Aizawa-sensei,” Shinsou says heavily, pale, the bags beneath his eyes dark when Mina jerks towards him. “We need to let him know Bakugou has been kidnapped-“

“Was he thought?” Tokoyami says quietly as he melts from the darkness of the forest, beak curled in a grim frown, Dark Shadow peering wide-eyed from his shoulder, still small after the blue flames of the Villain.

“He never made the decision!” Mina rounds at him. “He never got to make the choice! You don’t – you don’t get to say that.”

“I’m not saying we shouldn’t help him,” Tokoyami denies, one hand rising up. “But lying to the Pro-Heroes or deliberately withholding information can risk their lives, too, and they need to understand just what kind of state Bakugou-san was in if they’ll want any chance of getting him back.”

“Tokoyami is right,” Todoroki says, a strange look in his eyes, lips pursued. “I do not believe that Dabi sought to hurt Bakugou – if anything he was strangely insistent on convincing him to come along when he could just have easily just taken him.”

“I agree,” Asui says with a nod. “They both seemed to care for him in some way but Dabi was definitely the more vocal of them. I believe that Toga would simply have taken him from the beginning had he not been there.”

Uraraka shakes her head. “This is all very strange,” she says, air ruffling her fringe as she blew out in a sigh.

Strange.

A tremble runs through Mina and something terrible curls in the depth of her chest, anger vicious and clawing as she squeezes her eyes shut, recalling the fear in her friend’s crimson gaze at the mention of Heroes.

At the mention of All Might.

-

“The whole Villain Revival… we took it too lightly,” Midnight says grimly, glasses pushed up into the jagged spikes of her hair. “They’ve already begun their war to destroy our Hero society. Even if we’d taken it more seriously could we have prevented this relentless flurry of attacks? Most organized crime has been erased since the rise of All Might so all that’s left is the best of the worst.”

“Basically we got complacent in this peaceful area.” Present Mic’s fingers drums against the table. “Otherwise there’d be no need for preparations when we realized what was happening.”

“I’m just mad about how useless I was.” All Might, in his true form, clothes hanging on his skinny frame, digs his fingers into his hair. “I was relaxing in the bath while they were out there fighting for their lives.”

“I reckon we can’t pretend to be undaunted any longer.” Snipe leans forward, one arm on the large round table they’re gathered at. “Lettin’ a student get wrangled is one serious failure for U.A.,” he says heavily. “And it wasn’t just Bakugou those varmints took. They stole away the public’s trust in us Heroes.”

“And the media is having a field day censuring U.A.” Nedzu holds up a newspaper. “We can assume they targeted him because of that crazed violent image of him at the Sports Festival was widely disseminated. If they are actually able to win him over then this educational institute is over.”

There’s a moment of silence, each Hero lost in their own thoughts.

“What about the report from the students?” Present Mic broaches finally. “They told us that that Bakugou knew two of the Villains by name.”

“Dabi and Toga, yes,” Nedzu agrees, paws pressing together. “They did agree on that he seemed surprised to see them there and showed signs of visible distress upon realizing they were part of the Villain force sent to kidnap him. I’m inclined to believe the situation is a bit more delicate than first appearance might give hint to.”

“That’s putting it lightly,” Present Mic says with a tired slump, exchanging a long complicated look with Midnight.

-

Mina grasps at the strap of her backpack hanging uselessly from her fingers at her side as she stares at the door.

She doesn’t know why she’s there but going home – it felt like giving up. Out of the forty students at the training camp some fifteen were in critical condition and one of them were missing.

Her friend is missing.

Mina presses down against the doorbell, jerking a bit in surprise when it opened wide almost immediately.

Mitsuki stares down at her, clothes rumpled, a furious look in her eyes that melts into surprise at the sight of her.

“Mina-chan?”

Katsuki really looks like his mother, Mina thinks as she blinks against the sudden burn in her eyes.

“I’m- I’m sorry,” Mina gasps, bowing low, arms wrapping tight around her chest. ”I tried to stop him but it wasn’t enough. And I – I should have done more and now Katsuki is gone and I don’t-“ She squeezes her eyes shut, feels the tears sliding down her cheeks even as she struggles against them. “I don’t know what to do.”

There’s a moment of silence and then a hand is gently settling on her arm, drawing her up from her bow and into warm arms and Mina's breath stutters before she melts into the embrace, fingers curling into the back of the woman’s sweater as she presses desperately closer.

“It wasn’t your fault,” Mitsuki tells her, voice rough, and it feels like a lie.

-

Mina is curled up on the Bakugous’ couch, nursing a cup of hot chocolate with a blanket draped over her lap when the doorbell rings. She peers up, watching Masaru drag a tired hand through his hair, smoothing out some crinkles in his shirt before opening it up.

“Aizawa-sensei?” Mina blurts out in surprise, nearly spilling hot chocolate over her fingers as she jerked up.

“Ashido,” he says heavily. “I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised to find you here.”

“Mina is always welcome in our home,” Mitsuki says a bit tersely. “I cannot say the same for you.”

Aizawa-sensei, if possible, looks even more tired than usual, the bags heavy beneath his eyes. He’s all dressed up, his normally wild scraggly hair drawn back, the white button-up beneath his jacket ironed out, and his back is straight and his eyes serious when he looks to Katsuki’s mom.

And to Mina’s absolute shock he bows low.

She stiffens in her seat, fingers clenching around the cup and looks away instinctively because it’s wrong and she doesn’t like it.

It wasn’t Aizawa’s fault – Mina knew Katsuki liked him, as much as the grouchy boy could like actually express liking anyone. 

Mitsuki lets out a heavy sigh as Masaru puts a hand on her shoulder with a squeeze.

“Stand up.” Aizawa obeys, eyes wary. “Come in – I’m guessing you have questions.”

Aizawa bends down to unlace his shoes, placing them carefully aside before threading inside to sink down on the couch beside Mina who glances a bit unsurely between the adults as Masaru and Mitsuki both claims chair for themselves across the small table.

“Should… I go?” Mina asks a bit unsurely.

“That’s not up to me,” Aizawa-sensei says as she looks to him. “It is not your responsibility,” he tells her heavily. “But Bakugou is your friend and you deserve to understand if you wish to. But the topics might be heavy and hard and you might not like what you hear.”

“No one will blame you for going home,” Masaru says gently. “You are just a teenager, a child in a world of Heroes. It’s on them and not you to bring him home.”

Mina thinks of tense shoulders and dark eyes at the mention of All Might, at the tremble that runs through the boy when she wraps her arms around him.

Thinks of distant and distrustful eyes, a body that twitches and flinches and draws back at simple touches and the way his mouth curls and scowls but never smiles.

Thinks about the bared purple scars that circle around her friend's chest in a macabre embrace.

Mina has known for a long time now that not everything is right with her friend but she’d been determined to wait it out, to let Katsuki take it at his own pace.

But she also realises that there’s just not enough enough time to do so anymore for she risks losing him forever.

Mina feels the empty place beside her like a solid lost piece of her heart and she’s sick and tired of feeling useless, unable to do anything but watch as her friend crumbles at the edges.

“I want to stay,” she says determinedly. “I want to help.”  

“I suppose we should start at the beginning, then?” Masaru says with a brief soft smile at her.

“That would be appreciated,” Aizawa agrees, inclining his head.

Chapter Text

It’s a terrible thing, Mitsuki thinks, to realize there’s something not quite right with your child.

She sits silent, lost in her own thoughts as Masaru speaks.

Mitsuki doesn’t pretend to know everything there is to know about her son. He’s a volatile child before the accident, brash, out-spoken and loud. She’d been forced into more than one confrontation with Inko about Katsuki’s behaviour, little Izuku half-hidden behind her legs with the skin around his eyes rubbed pink from tears.

Katsuki had been louder than the world and then he had fallen off a bridge, landing wrong, breaking bones and hitting his head hard on the rocks. And then he had been so very small and quiet in the hospital bed when they had finally been allowed to see him.

He’d struggled to breathe on his own, tubes showed down his throat and a too large mask on his small face as machines fought to keep him alive, very little of his tan skin visible, wrapped up in white and thick plasters to keep his mending bones in place.

“It’s not unusual for children to be withdrawn after an accident like this,” the Doctors tells them. “But they’re hardy things and usually bounce back given time.”

The thing about Katsuki, Mitsuki thinks with a thinning of her lips, is that he never quite does.

Katsuki wakes up wild-eyed and panicked, howling and flinching and lashing out with a desperation befit of a wild animal. He won’t accept their hugs, he shrinks and flinches and rocks in his bed with small palms pressed against his ears as if he could quiet the world. His speech is slurred, messed-up, halting and wrong and he looks at them as if they’re strangers even as kaa-san and tou-san stumbles out of his mouth.

He looks small in the hoodies he favours and he vomits and pants and panics, waking them up in the middle of the night with hands wrapped around his neck and gurgling for breath, gasping about drowning, drowning, drowning.

They try to put him on medication but it leaves him so shut down that getting out of bed becomes a struggle and his eyes becomes glassy and distant, locked up inside his own mind, and they quickly give up on that route.

Their son wakes up terrified and he never stops, he just becomes better at hiding it beneath anger and scowls.

Mitsuki can recall so many evening with her son plastered to the news with dark eyes as Heroes and Villains duked it out and they wake up more than once to the low flicker of the television screen visible beneath their bedroom door until one of them shuffles out to bring him to bed.

Katsuki who used to beg them for new All Might toys and merchandise tears his posters down and he stops talking about Heroes, watching the world with eyes too old, too dark, and far too afraid for a child.

It’s a slow road to get him back to something resembling normalcy. To get to know their son anew and meet him half-way, to try and understand his idiosyncrasies and worries, accompanying him during the early hours in the morning to watch him disappear beneath the waves just to see the shadows in his eyes lessen.

His reaction to the noise cancelling headphones is the first time Mitsuki dares to hope and she holds her husband that night as he clings to her, both so very relieved at that small hesitant little smile on their son’s lips as he slipped them on, the first one since he’d woken up.

There’s their son before the accident and there’s their son after it but there is no explanation and Mitsuki stops hoping for one, stops searching for one, for she decides that it doesn’t matter.

She loves her son and at the end of the day that’s the only thing she allows to mean anything.

“He was diagnosed with Post-traumatic stress disorder very early on,” Masaru tells them, voice heavy. “Depression, anxiety, prone to bouts of disassociation during rainy days. Medications didn’t work so we found other ways to help him the best that we could.”

“Was there ever a mention of any friends before he started at U.A.?” Aizawa asks, hands clasped together where he leant forward, elbows on his knees, eyes hard to read.

“No,” Mitsuki tells him with a shake of her head. “Katsuki struggled to relate to his peers and he was expelled more than once for getting into tussles with the older students. I honestly don’t know how many times that brat stumbled home with bruises and bleeding knuckles – it seemed to be the only way he knew how to relate to them. Before Mina-chan I honestly didn’t think there was anyone Katsuki might call friend.”

“He called both of them by name,” Mina says quietly, a bit pale but slowly regaining some colour. “Dabi and Toga both, he never does that – only with me and Shinsou. He always uses those odd nicknames of his.”

Mitsuki leans forward. “How exactly would you describe their relationship?” she asks, watching the girl their son had become fond of, opening up to in a way Mitsuki had hardly dared to hope for.

“He… Dabi, he said they were the same.” Mina’s brows creases. “He clearly wanted Katsuki to come along on his own free will. It was – it was strange to see them together. I don’t think I’ve ever seen Katsuki so relaxed as when he wrapped him up in his embrace. It was honestly a bit eerie.” Her arms draws around her. “It felt like…  I’d never truly known him at all, you know?”

“Katsuki loves you,” Masaru tells her gently. “I don’t know exactly what this Dabi is to him but it doesn’t lessen what you have.”

Mitsuki has always been thankful for her husband’s way with words and this is no exception as Mina looks up with those curious golden eyes of hers, considering the words before nodding.

“What about the girl? Toga?” Aizawa asks, turning towards his student.

“Scary,” Mina says immediately and Mitsuki has to suppress a snort. “Dabi was just… intense. Toga, I don’t know, she seemed to think it was more like a game – that Katsuki was just the price to be acquired whether he wanted to or not. She left the talking entirely to Dabi and seemed mostly bored with it. She was clearly possessive of him and more fixated on the fact that I called him by his first name when she didn’t.”

“Do you think he would have agreed to go?” Aizawa asks, eyes now steady on his student, and Mitsuki curls her fingers tense as she watches.

“I don’t know,” Mina says a bit helplessly and it clearly tears at her to admit it. “He was afraid,” she says with a small tremble in her voice. “Of the Heroes but All Might in particular. Dabi he said – he told him that All Might had already chained him up during the Sports Festival, and then he hurt him during the exam, and he told Katsuki that it was only a matter of time before he took away his chance to become a Hero too and he believed him.”

-

Shouta closes his eyes.

I should have fought harder, he thinks with a bitter tinge of regret.

Bakugou should never have been allowed to go up against All Might in the final exam, should never have been chained up during the Sports Festival – he’s Shouta’s student and he had failed him in all the worst ways.

But it was too late now, what had been done had been done and all he could do now was try to pick up the pieces in the aftermath of it.

“Katsuki has always had a strange relationship to Heroes,” Mitsuki says and Shouta opens his eyes to look at her, taking in the flat line of her mouth and the narrowing of her eyes. “He used to adore All Might, wanted to become just like him. But after the accident he tore down everything, got rid of all the merchandise and didn’t mention anything about it for years. I honestly thought he’d given up on the whole becoming a Hero thing. But then months ago he brought us the papers needed to join U.A. and it was the first time I’ve actually seen him take initiative to anything resembling a future.”

She shifts her gaze to him.

“You already know what I think about the Sports Festival – Katsuki wasn’t anywhere near okay after it and the exam was just a disaster in the making. I never would have though All Might capable of what he did, going after a child like that. But here we are and my son is missing because instead of helping you Heroes have managed to just drive in that you aren’t to be trusted!”

Masaru reaches out to squeeze her knee and Mitsuki draws a long breath before letting it out.

“There is a lot that All Might needs to answer to but right now he’s also our best hope of getting Bakugou back,” Shouta admits heavily. “He is the Number One Hero for a reason.”

“Is that really for the best?” Ashido asks beside him and he turns his gaze to her. “I don’t think Katsuki would willingly go with All Might,” she says flatly and Shouta sees the anger in her eyes. “He might just to do the opposite.”

“Which is why I’ll be there,” he tells her. “We are already gathering together a number of Heroes to help with the rescue mission, Best Jeanist among them who has expressed a vested interest in Bakugou’s wellbeing. We’ve kept his relationship with the two Villains on the down low and on a need-to-know basis and only those we believe might have a shot at getting him back will be informed. I’ll also personally have a talk with All Might beforehand about not initiating contact.”

Ashido studies him and Shouta meets her gaze evenly, willing her to believe him, to put her trust in him one more time.

Watches as her shoulders slowly lowers, hands clenching together in her lap.

“I want to be there,” she says fiercely. “I know I can’t join the fighting but I want to be there when you get him out. We don’t know what the League of Villains want with him or – or what they’ll have done to him.”

A week is a long time, Shouta thinks as he inclines his head. There’s really no telling what kind of state Bakugou might be in when, not if, they get him back.

But Shouta isn’t about to fail him again – he’s going down fighting if he has to.

-

Hitoshi stares up at the ceiling of his new bedroom, a complicated twist of emotions in his chest as the clock keeps ticking on the wall.

Had he done the right thing, holding Ashido back? The logical part of him says that, yes, he had. Those blue flames had burned hot and violent and Ashido wouldn’t have stood a chance if the Villain had lashed out at her.

He also hadn’t liked the way Toga had watched her, eyes heavy with dislike and something possessive as her yellow eyes flickered between Bakugou and Ashido.

Could he have done more? Hitoshi had seriously considered using his quirk but even if one of the Villains had answered him there’d been two of them and he had been wary of escalating the situation as long as Bakugou remained so close to them.

Bakugou…

“Heroes, Villains, the world is fucking corrupt and ugly and I don’t do trust. Anyone is capable of turning on you. Ashido could be planning on stabbing a knife in my back and I wouldn’t know because she’s so fucking genuine and I don’t get that. I don’t trust it.”

Hitoshi had been relieved, he remembers that. Bakugou didn’t trust his quirk but he didn’t trust anyone so that made it fine, right?

He’d called him paranoid.

“What do you think All Might is going to do, Baku-chan? He’s chained you up once, he’s brutally assaulted you without hesitation and a single word from him will pluck your dream right out of your grasping hands.”

The Villain, Dabi, had played Bakugou like a fiddle – going after those deep rooted fears Hitoshi had noted but not lingered on and now he was gone, kidnapped by two people who somehow knew him, one of them who had left lasting marks in the form of deep gnarly scars on his chest.

It was easy enough to put one and two together but it didn’t answer why. It didn’t explain the way Bakugou had relaxed so very easily into the Villain’s arms if the same man was responsible for them.

Hitoshi knows he’s missing pieces of the puzzle and it’s frustrating and he feels just a bit useless as he curls onto his side, staring at the blue painted walls courtesy of Present Mic who had taken it as his personal mission to fill out the bare spaces of his room.

He kept finding odd knick-knacks that appeared without explanation, a small stuffed toy here, an entire row of odd little glass turtles that had found their way onto a book shelf, an absolutely atrocious looking blanket with a large smiling cat that he’d fallen instantly in love with.

It is so very different from living with his foster parents.

There’s a knock on his door and Hitoshi cranes around, meeting the dark eyes of Midnight as she peers into the room, a single eyebrow rising up.

“Have you been here all day?” she asks, stepping inside and heading for the window, pulling the curtains aside to reveal the setting sun with a low cast of light. She’s in civilian clothing, sharply dressed in a black suit, and he’d seen her on the television when U.A. did their broadcast earlier that afternoon.

“Didn’t much feel like doing anything,” he admits.

“Thinking about Bakugou, huh?” Midnight murmurs, staring out. “We’ll get him back.”

“And then what?” Hitoshi asks her, drawing up and letting his feet dangle off the tall bed. “Will he still be able to become a Hero?”

“As far as the world is concerned Bakugou was kidnapped,” Midnight says, tilting her head to look at him. “He never actually agreed to go with the Villains which means there’s still a chance to reach out to him. There’s also an argument to be made for a case of Stockholm’s Syndrome and action during duress. Nedzu has also acknowledged that we’ve handled his case poorly and he’s planning on taking full-responsibility for it in the worst case scenario.”

“You mean if he agrees to join them,” Hitoshi says as he looks at her. “Do you think he will?”

“What do you think?” Midnight asks, stepping closer to sink down on the bed beside him, and he shifts slightly, just close enough to feel her arm press against his.

“I don’t think he wants to be a Villain,” Hitoshi says after a moment, thinking of the boy he had come to consider his first friend. “But I don’t think it’s quite so simple either. I want it to be, but I don’t think it is.”

“Bakugou is undeniable a complicated case,” Midnight agrees with a hum, folding her ankles together. “But you’re given three years to become Heroes for a reason and Shouta isn’t the sort to give up on his students.”

-

Momo glances up, blinking a bit in surprise as Todoroki slipped quietly into the hospital room just minutes after All Might and Detective Tsukauchi had left with the tracking device she’d made.

“How are you feeling?” he asks her quietly, one hand slipping into the pocket of his pants.

“Been better,” Momo admits with a weak smile. “What about you? I hear you’ve practically become a member of the Bakusquad.” Her mouth twitches when he huffs, a quiet, amused sound. 

“Bakugou and I have a… shared interest,” Todoroki says carefully, tilting his head to the chair beside the bed with a questioning brow, and Momo gives him a nod. “He’s an interesting person,” he admits as he sinks down.

“I don’t really know him that well,” Momo admits. “He gave me some advice, way back after the internship, but he’s the sort to keep mostly to himself unless pressed.” Momo folds her hands together carefully. “Mina-chan is undeniably the one closest to him.”

“We sent her a message but she didn’t want to come. She’s apparently with Bakugou’s parents according to Hagakure-san,” Todoroki tells her. “Shinsou-san promised to make his way here, however."

“We?” Momo echoes, blinking at him.

Todoroki tilts his head. “You didn’t think we’d all just leave one of our classmates in the hands of a league of Villains, did you? Most of the class is on their way here." 

“You heard, then,” she realises with a sharp look as he gives her a lingering one of consideration.

“That you have a way to track down Bakugou? Yes,” Todoroki admits without shame or hesitation. “I also suspect you might know how to make another one of those devices to track him down.”

“Even if I did,” Momo says, leaning forward. “This is something better left to the Pro-Heroes.”

“I agree.” Todoroki bobs his head. “There’s no way a small team would be able to infiltrate the League of Villains and quietly extract Bakugou while the Heroes are distracting its members.”

“Todoroki,” Momo says flatly.

He gives her an innocent look and despite herself she gives a small laugh, shaking her head, missing her ponytail as her hair brushes soft against her shoulders.

“Who would even go on such a mission?” she asks him, drawing her legs up beneath the covers. “Hypothetically, that is,” Momo tacks on. “It’s a lot to ask of anyone in the first place and we’d be breaking far too many rules.”

“We need stealth, not heavy-hitters,” Todoroki says promptly. “Jirou and Hagakure would be good options.”

“And you.”

“And me,” Todoroki admits. “In case of discovery.”

“Mina-chan would want to go,” Momo tells him, mind chewing on the idea. “But you think she might be compromised,” she realises as she looks at him, meeting heterochromatic eyes.

“Yes. Midoriya definitively is, too,” Todoroki says, inclining his head. “I believe Shinsou-san might make a good addition since we want to draw as little attention to us as possible.”

Momo’s eyes sharpens upon him. “There’s something you’re not telling me. Shinsou-san isn’t particularly stealthy and even if his quirk is handy he needs his opposition to respond verbally before it can be used.”

Todoroki’s gaze keeps hers steadily, mouth curling ever so slightly down.

“Todoroki…”

“There might be circumstances in play that are beyond what the public are aware of,” he admits reluctantly.

Momo mentally filters through the words, adds it together with Shinsou's brainwashing quirk and then-

“Are you saying Bakugou might have gone willingly?” she asks sharply, straightening up. “Are the Heroes-“

“They are aware of the situation,” Todoroki is quick to reassure. “And it’s not supposed to be widely spread but Bakugou… he knew two of the Villains and acknowledged them both by their names.”

“Bakugou did?” Momo asks, surprised, and then shakes her head. “That’s- I thought the only ones he did that with was Mina-chan and Shinsou-san.”

“He used my sister’s name, too,” Todoroki admits. “Maybe it’s nothing and I'm reading too much into it.”

“It is hard to tell what he might be thinking,” Momo admits a bit reluctantly. “But Todoroki – if he did go with the Villains willingly…”

“He never did,” Todoroki says, leaning forward, hands clasping together. “I can say, with almost certaintly, that had Bakugou been in a right state of mind he would never even have considered it.”

“Right state of…” Momo closes her eyes. “Todoroki, I know you’re trying to tell me something without actually telling me anything but I have a headache and I’m not really in the mood to play games. You are asking me to break a lot of rules for someone who might or might not have gone willingly with the Villains, who he apparently knew, and I need you to be honest with me.”

“… I don’t think I can be,” Todoroki admits and Momo drags a hand over her face, peering out at him over the edge of her palm. “I’m not comfortable sharing something entrusted to me,” he says heavily. “But if you think about Bakugou, really think about him, what do you think might motivate him into such a decision?"

Momo opens her mouth and then closes it, considering the question under the serious eyes of her classmates.

Anger, had been her first answer – it was easy. Bakugou was notoriously grumpy, snarling and snapping and growling at the world around him. Midoriya in particular had a way of getting under his skin in the few short interactions she’d seen between them but Kirishima’s manly rants were a close second.

But outside the anger… Bakugou was soft for Mina. It was one of those things that everyone acknowledged with exchanged looks and knowing grins. If he hadn’t expressively stated that he was gay to avoid rumours about the two of them Momo could easily have pictured something going down between them.

He was different with Mina in a way that was startling to watch sometimes.

So the softness outweighs the anger and she doubts Todoroki was aiming for such an simple answer anyway so what else was there?

The scars, Momo thinks, closing her eyes and picturing the purple gnarly things that wrapped around Bakugou’s chest as he drew his shirt over his head. It had been hard to understand the look in his eyes at that moment, when Mina pressed her palm against the large one slanting over his heart, and when he had left there’d been a lot of questions but-

Neither of Bakugou’s parents had a fire quirk, it had to have come from somewhere else and-

“The Villains… What were their quirks?”

Todoroki tilts his head. “Fire,” he tells her. “We never figured out the girl’s.”

Fire, burn scars, and yet Bakugou had gone with them willingly? If the Villain was responsible for them…

But it doesn’t feel right either for Todoroki had invited Bakugou over to his house before that, after the exam when he went up against All Might who-

Who…

Momo’s brow creases, mind working a mile a minute, recalling the way Bakugou snarled and struggled during the Sports Festival, the whispered rumours of a panic attack from the 1-B students, Monoma in particular who had watched Bakugou with a mocking curl of his lips during the summer camp…

That first message from Tooru-chan after catching Bakugou being carted off unconscious...

A boy who might have, willingly, considered going with the Villain’s because he wasn’t in a right state of mind.

“You’re kidding,” Momo says weakly. “You can’t be saying-“

“I’m not saying anything,” Todoroki denies but his eyes rests upon her, dark and serious.

“It’s All Might,” Momo denies, shaking her head. “He’s the Number One Hero! The Symbol of Peace!”

“And not without faults.” Todoroki looks tired, Momo realises suddenly, and the protest dies on her lips, something settling uncomfortable inside of her along the gnawing hunger of her quirk as her fingers curl into the covers of her bed. “I’m not saying anything,” he repeats, “but consider what it might be like had it been you.”

Momo kind of don’t want to but her mind won’t allow her not to.

And she thinks of what it might have been like to be in Bakugou's place, to stand face-to-face with the Number One Hero, having seen what he was capable of, only to find herself beaten so severely she'd lost consciousness in a school exam.

Weight it against her own experience with Aizawa-sensei who pushes her to overcome her doubts and who tells her he’s proud of her at the end of it.

"If Bakugou... if he really is afraid of All Might then he won't react well to being saved by him," Momo acknowledges with a twist in her chest. "But All Might he's... he's All Might."

"He's human," Todoroki says but there's a complicated look in his eyes and a small curl to his lips. "I truly believe he's a good Hero and a good man, too, but you cannot deny that something has gone wrong in his interactions with Bakugou."

Momo wonders what it might have been like to have the most revered Hero in the world look down at you and find you lacking.

She thinks she might have felt very small.

And as Momo looks at her classmate, a boy who catches it before anyone else, she finds herself wondering just what kind of man Endeavour really is as her eyes lingers on his scarred face.

Chapter Text

Katsuki is already moving by the time the fog ripples and expands to let them out, twisting as she jerked back, Dabi’s hand clenched around her wrist, a single step caught forward just as her knuckles connected against his jaw, snapping his head aside.

“What the fuck, Dabi!?” Katsuki snarls.

But he doesn’t let up, his turquoise eyes narrowing before he huffed, his hand coming up to rub gingerly against the scar tissue on his jaw as he straightened out.

“I suppose I deserved that,” Dabi murmurs.

“What’s this?” Katsuki stiffens, turning around, fingers curling and sweat pooling in the palms of her hands with the sting of burnt sweetness as she slowly takes in the small dingy bar, counting some five Villains with a narrowing of her eyes. “You’re already acquainted?” It’s the freaky hand guy from USJ, half-slouched at the bar counter but craning around to look at them. “You didn’t tell me, Dabi.”

There’s a strange lizard man with far too many swords, a creepy dude in a top-hat, another in a black skin-tight suit, and a surprisingly normal looking man, considering the company. The fog bastard is there as well, glowing yellow eyes watching her from behind the bar.

She’s painfully outmatched and Dabi and Toga had apparently gone off the rails so she couldn’t count on them to back her up, either.

“We’re old friends,” Dabi says with a curl of his lips, placing a hand on her shoulder and squeezing down warningly. As if he needed to. Katsuki is in so far over her head that it isn’t funny and she’s already died once, twice, depending on perspective, and she’s not in a hurry to experience it again.

She bares her teeth.

“What the fuck do you want with me you creepy hand-fucker?” she growls, coiling her shoulders tight as she glared at him, fingers twitching, itching to blow that ugly hand right off his face.

The lizard Villain chokes on a wheeze but the hand dude slowly straightens up, head cocking to the side.

“My name is Shigaraki.”

“The hell do I care?” Katsuki demands, the scent of her quirk turning almost sickeningly thick in the air, nitroglycerin sliding down her fingers to drip against the floor to a tightening of Dabi’s grasp.

“Don’t take it personally,” Dabi drawls. “Baku-chan has issues with names.”

“He used to call me Freak,” Toga shares, sounding far too delighted by it.

The hand creep seems to consider it, Katsuki’s eyes lingering warily on his form. “I don’t care,” he concludes. “You will use my name.”

“Or what?” Katsuki snarls, taking a single step forward only to find herself jerked back.

“Don’t cause trouble now, Baku-chan,” Dabi warns mildly as she finds her footing, twisting around to glare at him.

“You fucking kidnapped me-“

“Bakugou Katsuki.” She stills, sensing the danger in the voice behind her and catching a strange flicker in Dabi’s eyes before she slowly turned to look at the man. “I understand the invitation comes as a bit of a surprise,” the man, Shigaraki, Katsuki acknowledges warily with a thrumming of danger danger danger through her veins, says as he pushes off the chair, his entire body-language off and hard to read.

Despite the strange hunching of his shoulders he still stands taller than her, looming as he comes to a halt in front of her, his face tilting close, a single red eye peering out at her from the corner of dead fingers.

“Surprise?” Katsuki grits out. 

“Surprise,” Shigaraki agrees, hand rising up, and Katsuki freezes in place as his fingers presses against the corner of her mouth, against the scar left from the muzzle All Might had forced onto her. “We are not your enemies, Katsuki. In fact, I believe we’re about to become close friends, you and I.”

Katsuki jerks back, pushing up against Dabi’s chest, and Shigaraki’s mouth stretches wide enough that the corners curl up outside the palms of the hand on his face.

“Dabi, why don’t you take our guest to his new room?” It’s not a question and Katsuki’s heart thumps hard inside her chest, violence itching through her veins along with a liquid sort of fear she doesn’t understand. “Don’t worry, we’ll see each other soon enough,” he promises her with a little hum, hands slipping into his pockets as he turned his back on them.

Dabi’s arm draws around her shoulders and Katsuki stumbles before she catches herself, allowing herself to be led out of the room with a single look back at the man.

-

“You seriously have no self-preservation,” Dabi comments as Katsuki roughly tugs her shirt over her head, letting it drop onto the floor. “You don’t have to pick a fight with everyone you meet.”

“Next time I’m kidnapped I’ll just make sure to be on my best fucking behaviour,” Katsuki grumbles, dropping down onto the small bed.

The room isn’t anything impressive, bare save a bed and a small pile of book beside the couch Dabi claims for himself, sprawling out in a languish stretch that momentarily draws Katsuki’s eyes to him.

They’d picked up some clothes from Dabi’s room across the hall along with some bandages, polysporin and a damp towel and which Katsuki grabs for after bending down to wipe her palms onto her discarded shirt.

“You can’t do it on your own,” Dabi observes when she cranes to get a look at her shoulder which had been bleeding sluggishly since the teeth creep in the forest.

Katsuki shoots him a look as he straightens up, patting at the couch, and she growls quietly but makes her way reluctantly over, dropping down on the floor between his legs as he shifts to make room for her.

Fingers presses almost gently along the sides of the gaping wound before he sighs and reaches to grab the things from her hands, placing it aside on the couch save for the towel which he uses to wipe away at the drying flecks of blood, the rough drag of it sending goosebumps up her arms as she draws her knees up, hunching forward.

Dabi remains quiet as he works, trading the damp cloth for the polysporin and spreading it generously with the pads of his fingers dragging over her skin. Katsuki shifts, just a bit, to allow him to wrap the bandages over her back and chest before knotting the ends together.

“Are you angry at me, Baku-chan?” he asks her, his breath ghosting across her neck.

“Fucking furious,” she mutters back but she finds the feeling surprisingly hard to reach for, her eyes on her boots, the new ones Masaru had helped her find, nearly identical to her first pair.

He hums, a low sound that makes her neck prickle.

“I did not bring you here to be cruel,” Dabi tells her. “Shigaraki has had his eyes on you since before the Sports Festival, since that first match where you went up against All Might’s protégé. There are ears and eyes everywhere and U.A. isn’t nearly as well-guarded as it would like to think itself to be.”

“I’m not joining up, Dabi,” Katsuki says, shoulders coiling tight. “I’m not interested in becoming a Villain.”

“So you keep telling me,” he agrees. “But the world doesn’t take your wishes into account if you want to survive in it."

Katsuki tilts her head back to look up at him and Dabi’s mouth curls ever so slightly, his dark spikes drooping, a small fleck of blood at one of the staples where her hit had jerked it in his skin.

She raises her hand, presses her fingers against it, and a strange sort of emotion darkens his eyes as she brushes at it, feeling the roughness of his scarred skin, the cool bite of the metal against the pad of her thumb.

“You’ve become far more comfortable with touch,” Dabi observes and her fingers pauses, lingering before drawing back. “I think I rather like it,” he says, leaning closer to her.

“Don’t be weird,” Katsuki grumbles.

“Is that what I am? Weird?”

“I can think of a handful of descriptions that suit you just as well,” Katsuki assures him. “Idiot, for one. Because only an idiot disappears for weeks and turns up as a Villain for a fucking kidnapping.”

“You’re awfully stuck on the whole kidnapping thing.” Dabi draws back, slumping against the couch cushions. “I rather believe I was doing you a favour – sending you back to the Heroes would have been cruel.”

“Cruel?” Katsuki echoes, twisting around to look at him properly, propping herself up with one elbow on his thigh. “Is that what you think?”

“I’ve known you for some four years now, Baku-chan,” Dabi says, that strange dark look back in his eyes as he watches her. “You spend so much time pretending to be someone you’re not that I’m honestly surprised you’re functioning at all.”

Katsuki’s mouth thins.

“Don’t you tire of it?” Dabi asks, tilting his head.

“Maybe I do, maybe I don’t, Touya.” Dabi gives a little jolt and then he laughs, her eyes widening at the sound, fingers curling into the fabric of his pants.

“You never stop surprising me.” Dabi grins at her, staples straining. “Of course you’d put the pieces together. You are right, of course. I was once known by that name, stuck playing pretend at the whims and wishes of a Hero and now I’m not. That is the only difference between you and I.”

Katsuki looks at him, a strange little curl in her gut.

“Your sister was kind to me,” she finds herself telling him.

“Fuyumi? Yes,” Dabi agrees, almost thoughtfully. “She was always gentle, kind in a way that was strange in our little family.” His mouth curls mockingly around the word. “I’m glad it hasn’t changed.” His eyes sharpens on her. “Make no mistake, Baku-chan. I’m not trying to hide where I come from but it’s not exactly the sort of thing I want spread around.”

“I wasn’t about to tell,” she says with a curl of her lips, baring her teeth.

“Just making sure,” he says, reaching out to thread his fingers through her hair as she watches him.

“No one would believe me,” she tells him and his turquoise eyes dips to hers. “If I told them what I really am. They would sooner lock me up and throw away the key. It’s nothing short of insanity.”

“We live in a world of impossibilities, Baku-chan,” he murmurs. “I think you’ll find more willing to listen than you first believe.”

Katsuki thinks of his parents, of Masaru and Mitsuki who struggles to love the remains of the boy that had been without knowing that he was well and truly gone. That instead of a messed up boy there was a dead thirty-year-old woman playing pretend.

She wonders what it says about her that she comes to love them despite everything, the guilt gnawing because she doesn’t have a right to them.

“Maybe,” she says, resting her cheek on his thigh. “Or maybe I risk losing everything.” 

Dabi’s hand stills. “You honestly believe that.” He sounds thoughtful, she thinks, regarding him. “Why don’t you tell it to me? I doubt there’s anything you can say that’ll honestly surprise me.”

Katsuki flashes her teeth. “Prying for secrets are we?”

“A trade,” Dabi corrects. “You already found out mine, after all.”

She huffs, closing her eyes as he slowly resumed his petting.

“I don’t negotiate with kidnappers,” she tells him.

-

“Pretty weird, if you ask me.” Katsuki stares at the television screen where Aizawa and Vlad King had both bowed low after the announcement from Principal Nedzu. “Why are they criticizing the Heroes?” She shifts her gaze to Shigaraki, watching him warily as he spread his arms, as if for an audience. “Their only crime was doing too little, too late.”

Toga is sprawled out with her arms extended across the bar counter, a shimmering glass of red alcohol beside her, Dabi leaning up near her with his hands in the pockets of his pants, one foot draw up to rest flat against the wood.

“It’s their job to protect people, but anyone can screw up now and then, right?” Shigaraki turns towards her where she stands in the middle of the room beside a chair that she wants absolutely nothing to do with, lips pulling back to bare her teeth in response. “Why are people expecting them to be perfect? Heroes today have it rough I’d say, wouldn’t you agree, Katsuki?”

“The minute protecting people started coming with a pay check Heroes stopped being Heroes, that’s what Stain has taught us.” It’s the lizard Villain, Spinner, Dabi had told her in an undertone before leading her back into the room, and it’s a shitty identity but if she wants to have a chance here she better pay some fucking attention.

She’s painfully aware of the fact that she’s surrounded by people with quirks that could bring death with a single touch and she wants Shigaraki nowhere near her if she can help it.

“Save someone and you get money. You get fame. Sounds weird to me.” Katsuki’s eyes tracks Shigaraki, trying to ignore how the words echoes her own thoughts. “And in this society, where precious rules are everything, the people aren’t cheering for the losers, telling them to fight another day. They’re blaming them.”

Shigaraki tilts his head, red eyes meeting hers.

“Our war is based on a few simple questions. What is a Hero?“ Katsuki finger’s curls. “What is justice? Is this what society’s really supposed to be like? Once we get people thinking about this stuff, that’s when we’ve won.” His mouth curls beneath the hand on his face. “And I know you love to win.”

“You honestly believe you’ll be able to go up against All Might and come out on top?” Katsuki scoffs. “He already took out that monster pet of yours once and there are far more than one Hero out there. He won’t be alone in coming here.”

Katsuki curls her hands fists to hide the small tremble the thought of having the Hero anywhere near her brought.

Can almost taste the iron in her mouth at the memory of those fists, unrelenting and violent as he beat her bloody with a terrifying sort of ease.

The boy had loved and admired All Might, wanted to be just like him.

Katsuki wants nothing to do with him.

She clenches her teeth and doesn’t look at Toga or Dabi as Shigaraki takes a step towards her.

“You don’t sound very enthusiastic about it,” he observes with a mocking sort of thoughtfulness. “Can it be that the boy chained and beaten by the Symbol of Peace isn’t-”

Violence coils through her veins and Katsuki lashes out, palm curling around that stupid fucking dead hand as she shoots off a spark, an explosion following, loud and ringing through her ears as she snarls, boots digging against the floor as she jerks, struggling against the arms that wraps around her and pins her own flat against her sides.

“Calm down!” Dabi hisses into her ear but Katsuki is violence and anger and she wants to hurt, wants to claw the fuckers face off-

Shigaraki slowly straightens from the floor and he looks up to meet her livid eyes with a curl of his lips.

“Hit a sore spot, did I?”

“I’ll fucking kill you,” Katsuki promises with a rough jerk and a growl that rumbles deep inside her chest.

“Imagine, not measuring up to the Number One Hero himself,” Shigaraki mocks. “He’s already decided you’re not fit to become a Hero so what’s really stopping you from joining up with us? You know society is corrupt, you’ve tasted the backlash of it yourself – know it intimately.”

“It’s my life!” Katsuki snarls. “I won’t let you or All Might or any other fucking asshole make decisions that are mine and mine alone to make!”  She jerks but Dabi is stronger and she’s left straining in his grip, lips pulled back. “So what is society is fucking corrupt – how are you any better? You spin a pretty idealized utopia of your own making and then fucking what? You think society will magically shape up without Heroes? There will always be those in positions of powers and those left bereft, shivering and dying on the streets. Without Heroes and Villains you just have to find another fucking name for it!”

Katsuki’s aware of the way the Villains are watching her, from Toga’s curious yellow eyes to the silent mask of Mr. Compress in the corner, and the shifting of the one Dabi had named Twice.

“You could make an idealized world without quirks, without Heroes and Villains, and it would be just the same shitty thing,” Katsuki laughs, slumping in Dabi’s arms. “The rich eats the poor, those stronger takes from those weaker, humanity never learns.”

“You seem pretty sure of that,” Shigaraki says, head tilting, and she finds herself thinking that he looks rather like a very off-putting puppy. “What’s there to say such a world would be anything like you describe?”

“You don’t have to believe a damn thing,” Katsuki says, mania in the curling of her lips. “There’s a profound difference between you and I, Shigaraki. You believe you can change things but I know there’s no such thing. Take away quirks and humans will only find new ways to destroy each other. Take away Heroes and Villains and there would just be the corruption of the police force to measure up against criminals. It’s all just fancy names for the same shitty thing.”

“Sounds like a cynical way of looking at it,” Spinner says, folding his arms with a rustle of his swords, and Katsuki looks to him. “What’s the point of doing anything if we’re just stuck in the same wheel of fate?”

“The point is to fucking live,” Katsuki huffs. “If history has shown us anything it’s that we believe us capable of being better, smarter, and then we just repeat the same mistakes anyway, just in new forms and new names on the wars we fight because we can’t overcome our differences. Look at fucking All Might – he believed himself capable of creating a society without crime but what was the cost? He stands at the Symbol of Peace amidst corruption and more and more Heroes refuse to work in poor areas because it means less exposure, less fame, and we’re supposed to be fucking fine with it. But his era is coming to an end and with it the rise of Villains who have been biding their time and then Heroes will step up again because that’s what humans do. We rise and we fall. We never fucking settle.”

Mr. Compress shifts in the corner. “I have to say, it’s a curious one you’ve got your hands on Dabi.”

“He’s a treat, isn’t he?” Dabi agrees, slouching slightly to put more of his weight on her.

Katsuki twitches. “Fuck off,” she mutters.

“But, Baku-chan.” Toga folds her arms up, resting her chin on top of them. “If the point is to just live then why don’t you join us? What’s the point of going back? You have fun with us, don’t you?”

“And if you fail, huh? I bet you won’t have such a fun time in fucking jail. Because that’s where Villains go and I have better things to do than waste away inside four walls,” Katsuki snarls, ignoring the pout of the other.

Shigaraki lets out a cackling laugh. “If only the Heroes could hear you.” He bends down, picking the dead hand she’d blown off his face, wiping it off a bit absently, and Katsuki notes the way he’s careful to never touch anywhere with more than four fingers.

Just like Round Cheeks.

“You’re saying you’d be fine hanging around if it didn’t mean jail if we fail?” Shigaraki asks of her, scraggly light blue hair drooping down to shadow his eyes.

“There’s the whole morality of it, too,” Katsuki says flatly. “I don’t really see the point of going after a class of wannabe Hero children, for one. You really didn’t sell that one in well.”

“But what about All Might?” Shigaraki asks with a curious glint in his eyes as he spreads his hands, the dead one curled in a four-fingered grip. “He’s the one we want dead, you know, and you could help us make it reality.”  

“And have the world up in arms against me?” Katsuki scoffs, baring her teeth. “Yeah, no. I have enough problems as it is without a lynch mob at my heels, thank you very fucking much.” Her mouth tilts with consideration. “Endeavour though? That’s a whole other thing. You don’t even need to ask me - just point and I’ll pretend to trip and smear a healthy trail of nitroglycerin down his crotch. All he needs to do is use his quirk and boom goes his fucking nuts.”

Dabi makes a low wheezing sound, his shoulders shaking, and Katsuki feels something warm curl inside of her at the sound, something smug and complicated alike.

I’d do it for you, she thinks but does not say as she presses just a bit closer to him, watching Shigaraki with dark eyes and a fiendish little curl of her lips.

“You have time yet to learn, to understand. You are young – it’s only a matter of showing you the truth,” he tells her, sounding so infinitely fucking sure that Katsuki wants to hit him on principal alone.

Not as young as you think, Katsuki thinks viciously as he steps back.

It’s kind of funny actually – he can’t be more than twenty which means she has some ten years on him but he doesn’t know that. And it gives her an edge, a small one, but an edge nonetheless.

Heroes, Villains, it’s the same fucking thing in the end – just different executions and ideas. Katsuki chooses to become a Hero for a dead boy and maybe it’s left her bitter and wretched but it also brought her Mina.

Katsuki might not believe in a lot of things in this world but hell if she’s about to leave Dabi and Toga to fuck over their own futures in this shitty place and she’s going to make her way back to Mina if it so kills her.

She has a week, optimistically, before anyone as much as make an attempt to get her back.

Better make it fucking count, Katsuki thinks with a clenching of her fists.

Chapter Text

Katsuki is left to her own device inside the small room and she quickly grows bored.

They had taken her phone but her knife is still in her boot and she thinks that it isn’t terribly strange, considering that she’s a walking bomb on a good day. She supposes she could make a racket, blow the wall up, but she strongly suspects the Villains wouldn’t take very well to it.

They need her, for one reason or the other, but there’s a limit to everything and Katsuki figures that pressing buttons could wait for a day or two.

So instead she presses a single finger to the lock in the door and lets a small explosion burst forth, allowing it to swing open, and gives it a kick shut behind her.

Dabi’s room is just across the hall but he’d left on whatever fucking meeting Villains did for fun in and it had been pretty bare, besides. So instead she makes her way to the one he’d pointed out as Toga’s and blows it open before slipping inside, closing it shut behind her.

Toga’s isn’t terribly impressive either but Katsuki does find a small television and a gaming station arranged before it, a pair of expensive bright lime green headphones discarded on the couch and a game paused mid-play.

A bit of rummaging finds her nothing so she makes her way back to Dabi’s room and she really hopes they aren’t terribly fond of their doors as she blows his lock open and steps inside.

She’s moderately more successful, finding a bottle of cheap whiskey, a chocolate bar, a package of half-finished cigarettes and something that might be generously considered food inside the small mini-fridge set up in the corner.

Katsuki drags it all back to Toga’s room and sprawls out on the floor in front of the couch, unscrewing the lid and peeling back the wrapper of the chocolate bar before stabbing a fork into the… chicken salad thing? She pokes it a bit dubiously but ultimately shrugs, downing a mouthful of whiskey before starting up the game.

It’s a horror game, one she’s played before, and it’s easy enough to re-familiarize herself with the controls, zombies moaning and groaning on the screen as she rounds the corners with the panting of the protagonist loud in the headphones.

There’s different weapons on the screen to be chosen from but Toga had, unsurprisingly, been sticking to the first knife and Katsuki takes some amusement in sneaking up and stabbing the various creatures, the shitty alcohol mellowing her mood and the food only making her slightly queasy.

Really – it is a bit pathetic having a rundown bar as a hide-out and lacking any sort of decent alcohol.

Or maybe Dabi just had a bad sense of taste? Katsuki draws a mouthful, grimacing a bit.

She’s nearly three hours into the game, the main-Villain monologuing dramatically on screen, when the door is kicked open and Toga grins wide and toothily as she hauls herself up over the couch arm and flops down on the couch.

“The others bet on you leaving,” Toga informs her as her eyes flicks to the screen, taking in the wavering steps of the protagonist in denial over the villain being her former lover, now a grotesque pig-like creature. “Dabi said to let you know that he wants his smokes back, it’s his last package.”

“Should have thought of that before he abducted me,” Katsuki huffs, passing over the control when Toga makes eager grabby fingers.

“Ooh, you’ve been sticking with the knife?” Toga blinks at the screen when the action scene kicks into gear, falling back into first person mode with the weapon brandished in a bleeding hand.

“It’s your save.” Katsuki shrugs, reaching for the bottle on the table. “Got to stick with the style, right?”

She offers the whiskey to Toga who opens her mouth and Katsuki probably spills more than what is reasonable on the couch but the other girl doesn’t look an ounce bothered by it as she swallows down the liquid with a smack of her lips.

“You should have gone with Spinner’s room,” Toga says, fingers moving to snap the protagonist into a roll to avoid a heavy hammer. “He keeps the good stuff.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Katsuki grunts, taking a bite out of the chocolate.

“Nah, Baku-chan?” The light of the television flickers in the yellow of her eyes as Katsuki looks to her. “Don’t you want to live in a world where you can be just the way you are without anyone trying to force you into their version of what is normal?”

Katsuki pauses.

“I want to live just the way I am. Not hiding, not pretending. I want to be Himiko! Just- Himiko. You want that too, don’t you?” Toga’s eyes remains steadily on the screen. “And you should. I used to pretend, too. Everyday my parents told me that I wasn’t normal, that I was wrong, that I couldn’t do this or I couldn’t do that. But it wasn’t a very fun game, you know? They couldn’t expect me to play it forever, right?” Toga’s hands clenches around the controller. “But they did, Baku-chan.”

“… I think you’re fine the way you are.”

Toga let’s out a small giggle, cheeks flushing pink. “You say such nice things, that’s why you’re my favourite!” Toga says with a happy little sigh. “I didn’t mind when you called me a Freak, you know? Because you’re playing pretend, too, in this Hero society. So I’m gonna tear it down, just like Mr. Stainy said to do.”

Katsuki can’t exactly fault her logic but society will never truly accept someone like Toga - it has nothing to do with Heroes at the end of the day. Humanity will always dislike those that are different.

The first case of someone being born with a quirk had been met with fear and a terrified backlash from society. Given time the statistical rise of suicides had instead tipped towards those left quirkless when quirks came to be celebrated.

There was never any balance to it, just winners and losers in the lottery of life.

Would Villains in the long run show her more compassion? Maybe. It was a matter of what kind of people they were, in the end, but kin inevitably drew kin and those on the edges of society tended to flock together.

It didn’t validate the murder of those who had done nothing even if Katsuki in the long-run didn’t care all that much for whatever lives had already faltered and bled in her path. Because Toga is important to her, so much she had been forced to come to terms with when she and Dabi disappeared suddenly from her life. 

“Is Stain why you joined the League?” Katsuki asks as she breaks off a bit of chocolate and offers it to the other.

Toga hums in agreement as she bites down on it. “They’re pretty fun,” she confides with a flick of her tongue. “Tomura thinks he can take out All Might and he’s so pouty about it. I think he goes into a rant about it at least twice a week. Spinner is pretty boring but Twice is really, really funny! I like teasing him.” Her legs moves through the air behind her where she lies on her belly, torso half-curled towards the television near Katsuki’s shoulders. “And, you know, it was getting pretty boring with just me and Dabi when you were off becoming a Hero.”

Katsuki slants her a look and it strikes her how young Toga is, just two or three years older than Mina, really.

“… You can call me Katsuki, if you want,” she tells the other girl.

Toga’s fingers pauses momentarily before a quick flick sends the protagonist stumbling back.

“Katsuki-chan?” Toga tries it out with a thoughtful little lick of her lips. “Katsu-chan?”

“As long as it’s not fucking Kacchan do whatever,” Katsuki grumbles, focusing back on the screen.

She startles a bit when Toga shifts, her chin settling onto her shoulder, wiggling her body to get comfortable.

“You really are the cutest, Kasu-chan,” Himiko tells her with a small content smile.

-

Katsuki wakes up with her mouth cotton dry and a small headache, squinting up at Dabi who raises his brows in return, smirking.

“Looking comfortable there,” he comments, voice low and rough.

Katsuki grunts, glancing down at the girl curled around her, arms looped lose around her ribs in a half-hug, head turned aside, chest rising and falling in sleep. Neither had bothered to change and there’s still splatters of blood on the collar of Himiko's cardigan.

“I was saving that whiskey,” Dabi says idly as he slants a look at the nearly empty bottle.

“You fucking owed me,” Katsuki mumbles as she considers how to get out from beneath Himiko without waking her. “And it was shitty whiskey.”

Dabi solves her problem by reaching down and with surprising care managed to haul Himiko up, carrying her over to the small bed and depositing her down on it, grasping for the long pillow and stuffing it into her arms.

Katsuki watches as the other girl almost immediately curls around it with a sleepy little nuzzle.

“You got my smokes?”

She does, in her pocket, because she’s petty like that, and she gives it a pat.

“You’re a menace,” he tells her, threading towards the door. “I’ve been craving one for hours.”

She’s still wearing his t-shirt, an oversized thing that slants on her shoulder, her scars visible on her low edge of the collar. She knows Dabi wears them to avoid his staples catching at the fabric and she's not exactly cold but she would prefer a hoodie.

She makes a mental note to raid his room at first opportunity.

“I hope you have some actual food around,” Katsuki says idly as she follows him, peering around in half-interest. “I don’t know what the fuck that was in your fridge but it was at least a few days past edible.”

“Surprisingly, not one person in this building knows how to cook,” Dabi drawls as he pushes through a door and then-

They’re outside.

Katsuki takes in the cast of the low sun, the chilly morning breeze sending goosebumps up her arms, the world still so very quiet.

Dabi bends down, fingers slipping into her pocket to steal the package there and flicks it open, drawing one out before cramming thr box into his back pocket.

He rests it between his lips, the tip of his index finger lightening up in a little flicker of blue and he inhales, eyes falling shut, before he plucked it out and held it out in silent offering as he breathed out in a long stream of white smoke as she accepts it.

It’s familiar, but also not, new because there’s something that has fundamentally changed between them since that first meeting over four years ago now.

What are we? Katsuki wonders as she draws a deep breath, allowing the smoke to curl and linger in her lungs as she watches him.

They’re not friends, not really, they’re both more and less – a convoluted and complicated attraction of two people who finds each other in a messy world.

You and I are the same, he tells her and Katsuki thinks he isn’t wrong but not completely right either.

She breathes out.

“You’re going shopping,” she tells him and he opens his eyes, glancing down at her. “I’ll write up the ingredients. I refuse to live on shitty takeout.”

“Aye, aye,” Dabi agrees with a curl of his lips around the black cigarette.

-

It turns out at that there’s only a single kitchen in the place and Katsuki twitches as she peers into it, drawing back to give Kurogiri a highly unimpressed look where he’s lingering at the bar counter.

“You’re all fucking disgusting,” she tells him, narrowing her eyes upon the Villain playing a game of card with himself in the corner. “Hey! You!” Twice spins around to look at her, a single finger rising to point to his chest as he cast his head about before turning back to her, looking rather like a deer caught in a headlight. “You’re helping me clean,” she snarls.

“We’re doing no such thing!” He denies instantly and her eyes narrow he throws both his hands up. “I mean- we’d love to! We’d absolutely love to help!”

-

Katsuki dumps the last of the trash into the large bag she’d acquired, wrinkling her nose with a huff.

“Villainy is not an excuse to becoming fucking heathens,” Katsuki grouches as she ties it up, slanting a look at the Villain as he hummed to himself, happily scrubbing away at the last stains on the stove.

“I can’t believe we’ve been reduced to slaving away on the orders of a Hero brat.” Twice makes a twitchy sort of sloppy wipe. “It’s not like we were doing anything important and I think it’s starting to look nice!”

Katsuki has never met another person with dissociative identity disorder before and while she isn’t in the habit of diagnosing strangers Twice made a pretty clear-cut case. The way he went back and forth between two very different personalities spoke of something like it, though it could be quirk related for all she knew.

Some quirks had some strange and volatile drawbacks – Katsuki for one had to be wary of smearing fucking nitroglycerin least some poor fucker handled fire near wherever she happened to have sweated. She used to have lousy control over it but she’d learnt to shut the sweat glands off in her hands for hours at the time and was mindful to wash her hands before handling anything a lot of people would use after her.

“Are you really going to cook for us?” Twice asks, pulling his gloves off with a flourish. “Not that I want to taste it or anything,” he corrects almost immediately, tucking one hand beneath his armpit as he wagged the other almost warningly at her. “You could be trying to poison us or – or-“

“With what?” Katsuki asks dryly. “The fucking rat poison that you don’t have but really should stock up on?”

“Well.” He puts a finger thoughtfully to his chin. “You’re not supposed eat nitroglycerin, right? And you sweat it, right?” He leans forward and she has the distinct impression he’s widening his eyes beneath his mask for all that it’s hard to tell.

“It’s generally not recommended, no,” Katsuki agrees, studying him. “But unless I’m standing around excessive sweating for a good time there won’t be enough to fucking do anything. And, honestly, it’d be disgusting.”

He folds his arms up, leaning back with clear suspicion and then he abruptly brightens.

“Alright! I’m looking forward to it, Bakugou-kun!”

“Bakugou is fine,” she grumbles with a small twitch.

“Bakugou!” Twice claps his hands together. “I feel like we’re becoming friends already. Not that we want you to be our friend.”

Katsuki grunts noncommittally, glancing up at the sound of foot step and watching as Dabi paused, a look of mild surprise stealing across his face as he took in the clean kitchen.

“Dabi!” Twice exclaims.

“… You’re loud, shut up,” Dabi says without looking at him. “I see you’ve been hard at work.”

“I am seriously considering calling poison control on you,” Katsuki says flatly as he steps inside, depositing two bags onto the counter, looking terribly misplaced as he peered about, hands slipping into his pockets.

Katsuki quietly despairs about the entirety of the League of Villains as she yanks for the nearest bag, turning it upside down and letting the ingredients spill out.

-

Katsuki puts Himiko on dicing duty when the girl peers inside and then she quietly hopes her knives hasn’t been stabbing anyone recently as she watches Himiko happily dice up the vegetables Katsuki shoves in her direction with a knife pulled from her boot.

She ends up doing a spin of a traditional Japanese breakfast because it’s simple enough to make it a large portion without the hassle of having to flip an infinite number of pancakes.

Rice in the cooker, a pot with simmering miso soup, fish frying in the skillet and a large bowl with vegetables to be served at the side of it because she wouldn’t be even remotely shocked if they were inching towards fucking scurvy if they were living on nothing but take-out food.

She might have squeezed a lemon or three into it.

“You don’t need to do this,” Dabi says from where he’s watching the proceedings, half-slouched against the wall. “They can feed themselves well-enough.”

“We had pizza for breakfast three times last week,” Himiko confides, hovering a bit wide-eyed over the fish with the spatula Katsuki had shoved into her hand. “I didn’t know you could get tired of pizza.”

Katsuki shots Dabi an unimpressed look and he shrugs his shoulders in response, mouth curling up as he watches her sort the leftover ingredients into the fridge before kicking it shut.

“You’d look adorable with an apron to go with it,” he tells her, accepting the odd gathering of plates she drops into his hands with only a brief rising of his brow before he ambled out agreeable enough.

He returns, sorting out some chipped cups and glasses as Katsuki plates everything up, sending Himiko, and then Twice when he turns up to peer about suspiciously, out with it as she finishes up.

She ends up dragging out the entire rice cooker in lack of any proper bowl to serve it in and drops it down with everything else before grabbing for a plate and a small bowl for the miso, serving herself up.

“… I’m pretty sure it’s not in the norm for the abtuctee to serve food,” Spinner says where he’s watching the proceedings, arms folded up and back against the wall where he’s curled at the very end of a bench. “Anyone made sure he didn’t poison it or anything?”

“No-one is forcing you to eat anything,” Katsuki grumps as she drops down beside him.

“You’re kidding right?” Spinner inhales as Twice slides a plate down to him, grabbing for the fork. “Proper food? Yeah, no. I’m not missing out on this.”

Dabi claims a seat across her, Himiko beside her, and Katsuki wonders about the absurdity of the world as she digs in, the Villains around her slowly copying.

“This is so good,” Himiko says through a mouthful, hand pressing up against her cheek. “Kasu-chan, Kasu-chan, I want you to cook every day.” 

“The hell I am,” Katsuki growls. “I’m not your fucking maid.”

“But-“

Katsuki shoves a large bite of fish into her mouth, turning aside and pausing as she catches sight of Twice with his mask rolled up to his nose to reveal a scruffy chin.

Out of the Villains she had seen so far he and Compress were the only one of them who were sensible enough to have worn a mask.

The only sensible idiots in the place as far as Katsuki is concerned.

She isn’t exactly sure how Dabi is planning on living out his life but shopping for anything in the half-assed disguise of his hoodies is just a disaster in the making.

It is a fucking wonder these people had a working force left to go up against All Might.

Maybe they’re just fucking stupid, Katsuki muses as she chews. A one shared brain cell sort of situation.

Twice is happily shoving food into his mouth, listening to Himiko with clear fascination judging by the way he’s angled towards her, nodding along seriously as she described the cuts she’d chosen for the different vegetables, a slice of tomato speared and waved through the air.

It’s sort of adorable, Katsuki decides as she watches idly.

Spinner, despite his doubts, it mutilating the fish with large bites, swallowing with very little chewing, and Katsuki finds herself relived she hadn’t ended up with such an absurd quirk. What was he even? Her first guess had been something lizard-ish but she is inclined to think turtle with a closer look at him.

She looks up, blinking as she watches Dabi swallow mouthful after mouthful of the miso, a single drop escaping to trail down his jaw and she follows it down until it’s wiped away roughly on the sleeve of his hoodie.

He quirks an eyebrow at her and Katsuki huffs, spearing a carrot and popping it into her mouth with a loud crunch.

“How come you know him anyway, Dabi?” Twice asks, angling towards them. “We didn’t think you had friends. Ah- I mean, it’s a bit surprising, is all!” Twice waves a hand in front of him. “He’s, you know – becoming a Hero and you’re… you.”

“That’s none of your business now, is it Twice?” Dabi says with a lidded look of disinterest.

“Dabi and Kasu-chan have been friends for years,” Himiko says, lips stretching back to reveal sharp canines. “Even longer than I’ve known Dabi!” she confides, knife waving, and Katsuki notices that she’d completely forgone the blunt one from the cutlery in favour of one of her own to eat with.

“That’s disturbing. I think it’s sweet! Dabi needs all the friends he can get – and Himiko-chan too!” Twice makes a sort of jerky motion towards her and Katsuki finds a finger pointing to her face. “As long as you don’t steal Himiko-chan from us! She deserves better than some Hero nutcase.”

“My interest does not lie in girls,” Katsuki says flatly. “Kindly remove your finger before I fucking blow it off.”

Twice wavers but then he slowly draws back only to flash her two bright thumbs-up. “Out and proud – I’m so happy for you!”

“You never told me, Kasu-chan,” Himiko says through a mouthful of rice, swallowing it down. “Do you have a boyfriend? Is that why you don’t want to stay here?” Her eyes widens. “Was it that cute boy with the broken arms? Or – or the one with the burn scar?” Himiko presses forward, all sparkling eyes over whatever imagined romance she had brewing in her mind.

“They’re children,” Katsuki says flatly, mildly disturbed by the very thought.

“Going for an older, more experienced man, huh?” Himiko cocks her head. “That teacher of yours is cute,” she ventures, a curious little glint in her eyes.

“Aizawa?” Katsuki raises a brow and Himiko nods eagerly, fingers curling down over the collar of her shirt, knife pointing out sharply. “’s a good man but not exactly my style,” Katsuki drawls with a wrinkle of her nose. “Besides, I think he’s married – or at least dating Midnight and Present Mic.”

Spinner inhales wrong, grasping for his glass and choking down the water inside of it almost desperately before slamming it down.

“That’s unexpectedly hot,” he says a bit roughly, giving his head a small shake. “Who knew Heroes had it in them?”

Katsuki presses her elbow down against the table, supporting her chin in the palm of her hand. “Heroes are fucking funky,” she tells him wryly. “Have to get that fucking stress out of their system somehow, right?”

Katsuki spent far too much time hanging on gossip pages regarding Heroes. She’d stumbled across them during her research into Hero businesses and there were entire pages related to the odd sexual stuff Heroes got up to, names redacted but sort of there if you squinted to read between the lines.

There were only so many Heroes with wings, for one, and only one with feathers that she knew of and Hawks had an… interesting reputation on the net. Apparently he had a bit of a wing kink going for him which Katsuki could get behind, really. They did look awfully soft.

A lot of it was just bullshit, of course.

Midnight was a popular topic on the forums as marketing herself as the R-Rated Hero brought all sort of odd fantasies cropping up as “real life meetings” from fans who swore by it. She was a popular dominatrix fantasy and while Katsuki didn’t doubt Midnight would take great pleasure in stepping on them with those heeled boots of hers and a crack of her whip there is a clear distinction to be made between Hero personas and who they actually were.

The public isn’t all too interested in who Midnight is in private, of course, and that was the point of it, Katsuki supposes. Midnight was well aware of what the public would make of a woman like her and she’d played to it, claimed it, made it her own in a way that is honestly admirable.

Katsuki also severely doubts Gang Orca is the sort to whistle like a whale when he-

Some things are just better left in fantasies of fans, she decides with a wry twist of her lips.

“Know a lot about the on-going of Heroes, do you?”

Katsuki glances up, raising an eyebrow at Dabi.

“I’m not fucking my teachers if that’s what you’re asking,” she says dryly. “I think Present Mic would croak if I even suggested it to him.” Aizawa, too, honestly – not that she had any interest in either of them like that.

For some reason the very thought makes her feel vaguely nauseous.

Dabi hums, a low considering noise, rolling his neck with a crack. “Done?” he asks her, voice rolling low and smooth with a familiar glint in his eyes.

Katsuki pauses, considering him.

“Yeah,” she says, pushing her half-finished plate aside and rising with him as Himiko watches them both with a private little curl of her lips.

-

Katsuki peers around the large training area beneath the bar. Someone had been clever and covered up the wood with something a bit more fire resistant and she spots scorched marks on the walls, deep gorges where metal had bit deep and violent.

She drags her shirt over her head before grasping at her shoulder, rolling it, getting a feel for the motion with the wound still on her back.

“This feels nostalgic,” Dabi drawls, drawing his hands from the pockets of his pants and spreading them out, palms towards her, fingers faintly curled.

“I’ve gotten better,” Katsuki says with a challenging flex of her fingers. “Sure you can keep up?”

Dabi’s arms turn alight with blue, forearm burning in a beautiful ripple of flames that lightens his eyes.

“We’ll have to see about that,” Dabi says with a grin that strains at the staples on his cheeks.

Anticipation worms through her, the craving for violence spreading through her veins with the thumping of her heart as she coils tight, the explosion ringing loud through the room as she twists through the air.

Blue flames rises sharply to meet her, filling up her vision and lapping hot against her skin with a crackling of her fingers as her mouth stretches wide.

-

Katsuki laughs as she flops back on the floor and it might just be tinged with a hint of mania as she looks up at the ceiling, panting as the new burn on her shoulders radiates a low comforting heat.

Boots move across the floor and Dabi leans to peer down at her.

There’s a star burst scatter of heat stretching up his cheek, not deep or hot enough to leave permanent marks but there and he’s bleeding sluggishly from the scar tissue on his right arm where she’d gotten a good grasp of him before letting her fingers pop and crackle.

“Feeling better?” he asks with a stretch of his mouth as he considers her, eyes trailing down to linger on the shining stretch on her shoulder with a curious little glint in his eyes.

“Much,” she admits, resisting the urge to just close her eyes and take a long nap there and then.

“You’ve gotten faster,” he drawls. “Still not good enough to beat me, however.”

“I’ll catch up,” she promises him.

“I know,” Dabi says and the tone of his voice is enough to make her gaze flick up, meeting the turquoise of his eyes. “You’ve grown and you’ll keep growing, still. Maybe you’ll even outgrow this.” He spreads his hands.

Katsuki furrows her brows, pushing her aching body up and leaning back on her hands.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” she demands.

Dabi flexes his fingers. “At the end of the day we all have choices to make,” he says. “Nothing stays the same as long as the world keeps moving. What is today might not be the same tomorrow.”

“You’re being weird,” she tells him flatly and then she has to twist into an awkward roll to avoid a explosion of hot blue, hands pressing down to flip herself up, feet threading back across the floor. “What the-“

Another stream of blue whips towards her and she throws out her hand in a hasty explosion, boots sliding across the floor.

“Dabi-“

Katsuki bends low beneath a third one, feeling the lick of heat across her face, and then she jerks up and lashes out, hand clenching down around Dabi’s still bleeding wrist, yanking him towards her before trading her grasp for the collar of his shirt with a bloody grip as she jerks him down towards her with a snarl that he meets with calm eyes.

“You’re an asshole,” she growls, baring her teeth. “The hell did you do that for!?”

“Just making sure you aren’t getting too comfortable here among us Villains." Dabi leans down, so close that she can feel the warmth of his breath against her lips. “We’re nothing like your Heroes, after all.”

Chapter Text

Katsuki counts her breaths carefully.

I’m an idiot, she thinks roughly as she stares out over the plain empty ground of concrete outside the dingy bar where Dabi had brought her for a smoke.

She’d been angry after his stunt in the training area and she’d done what she always did when she was upset – tried to leave.

And Kurogiri had warped her right back.

One time, two time, three times. She hadn’t made a fourth attempt, choosing instead to slump down against the bricked wall, knees drawn up and arms folded upon them.

She’d known, logically, that being allowed to move freely through the Villains hide-out didn’t mean she was free to leave whenever. That she had, actually, been kidnapped – as in, removed from the situation she’d been in without her explicit consent and held against her will.

But for some reason the reality of it feels like its slamming into her brain with all the gentleness of a sledge hammer and she tightens her grip, the burn wound on her shoulder radiating heat in contrast to the cool wind ruffling the dusty spikes of her hair.

“We’re nothing like your Heroes, after all.”

It’s a warning, as much as Dabi will allow himself to make one. She’s known him for years now, has become intricately aware of his idiosyncrasies and come to understand him more, still, with the knowledge of who he had been and whose child he had grown up as.

Katsuki’s fingers digs into the skin on her arms, lowering her gaze to the concrete beneath her boots and the spider cracks where grass had forced its way through, a single dandelion blossoming bright yellow against the grey.

Dabi might as well have gone out and said be on your guard and Katsuki kinda wants to hit him because he’s the one who brought her here in the fucking first place. But he’s right in that as long she doesn’t make a choice she’s playing a risky game inside the walls of this dingy bar because she isn’t one of them.

Katsuki lifts her head as a door closing alerts her to the fact that she isn’t alone anymore but before she can do much more than twitch a tan coat was settling with a flutter on her shoulders and she grasps automatically at it, craning her head up to lever a scowl at Mr. Compress.

Gloved and masked, a neat red button-up and a black vest to go with the slacks and fancy shoes. His hand is still extended from where he’d dropped the coat but he slowly draws it back with a strange little tilt of his head and for all that the mask is clever she resents it something intensely at that moment.

Her instincts scream show man and she wouldn’t be an inch surprised if he was smiling beneath his mask.

“No use in catching a cold,” he says, his extended hand coming down to grasp at the edge of his top-hat with a little curl as he leant back against the wall beside her. “I do believe neither Himiko-chan nor Dabi would be terribly happy if you did and I can only take so much whining in this place.”

Katsuki’s fingers claws into the fabric, turning her head away from him with curl of her lips.

“I believe I owe you thanks for arranging some decent food here,” Compress says and there’s an exaggeration to the way he speaks, over-enunciated, perhaps, as if he is putting on a show just for her despite doing no such thing. “Simple, a bit plain perhaps, and you went a bit overboard with the lemon in the salad. But good nonetheless.”

“I didn’t make it for you,” Katsuki growls out, frustrated and not in a mood for whatever game he had in mind.

“No,” Compress agrees, surprisingly. “It’s quite clear that you couldn’t care less about anyone but those two friends of yours." His mouth curls around the word with a mocking little lilt to his voice. "But you’re pragmatic enough to make food for everyone despite knowing full-well it was being made for Villains.” His masked face tilts to her. “If you didn’t bring to mind a particularly confrontational mutt I would have pegged it as an underhand attempt to try to get on our good sides.”

Katsuki slants him an unimpressed look.

“Eat if you want, don’t eat if you don’t want to. ‘s fucking whatever,” she grumbles, looking back to her boots. 

“Yes!” Compress agrees, sounding fucking delighted for some inane reason. “A refreshing attitude in this society,” he tells her with a laugh, his left hand stretching out sweepingly at his side. “But then, you made your thoughts on things quite clear yesterday,” he hums, spinning around and taking some three steps back before halting.

His right hand slides down, grasping at his mask and pulling it aside and Katsuki narrows her eyes, studying the flat brown of his, the stretch of his lips, and the black balaclava hiding the rest of his features.

“We might seem a bit fanatical when it comes to our values but all we wish to show you is that there are other ways because you kids today… you have your values chosen for you. Heroes and Villains – it paints the world in broad strokes of black and white, wrong and right.” He lets his hand and mask fall to his side. “But you already know that it’s not so simple – it quite surprised me I’ll have you know!”

Compress taps his finger against his mask and Katsuki watches it disappear to a secretive little curl of the man’s lips as he spread his gloved fingers out to reveal nothing.

“Who are you even trying to convince?” Katsuki grumbles, doubly wary of his quirk and lips thinning as she considers him. “You say you want to show us but it’s not like they’ll be overly impressed to have their classmate fucking kidnapped. Wouldn't it just have the opposite effect?"

“Ah.” Compress taps his index finger against his nose with a knowing glint in his eyes. “That’s where you come in, you see. How different are Heroes and Villains, truly, if a prospective Hero-to-be choses to take another path entirely? And a student that was being taught by the great All Might himself, at that!” Compress spreads his hands by his side. “I would be quite the devestating blow, don't you see? How fast do you think U.A. will sell you out if only to make an attempt at saving their reputation following such a thing?”

“I’m fucking surprised they’re not already doing it,” Katsuki says dryly. “But Eraserhead is… He cares, I guess.” She lowers her head to hide a frown at the strange little twist in her chest at the thought of her teacher.

“The Underground Hero? Yes.” Compress folds his arms with a thoughtful little hum. “A man that can cancel the quirks of others at that – now that’s someone I wouldn’t mind having on our side! It can be quite the bothersome thing. But while he’s known to look between his fingers when it comes to Vigilantes he’s firmly on the side of the law when it comes to Villains. It’s a pity, really.” Compress let’s out a sigh and a little shrug in a what-can-you-do sort of manner.

“You sound like you admire him,” Katsuki points out with a furrow of her brows.

“I do,” Compress assures her. “Well, as much as you can admire a Hero.” He corrects. “He’s a decent sort, you know? Stain might have admired All Might but I’ve always had a bit of a fancy for those that do the gritty work without wanting recognition for it. Just doing what it right. If the Hero society was made up by more people like your Eraserhead rather than All Might, say, then I wouldn’t be terribly interested in tearing it down.”

Katsuki’s mouth thins and then her shoulders coils tight because Compress takes a step towards her before crouching down, far too fucking close.

“Is it so wrong to wish for something else than what we already have?” he asks her as she watches him warily. “You say that you don’t believe in change and maybe that’s true in the long line of things but right here and now? We can do something about the time we’re living in.”

“Of course we can,” Katsuki says flatly. “But what would be the point of it? You want to kill All Might? Fine. Then what? Endeavour becomes the new Number One Hero and behind him is just a long line of new Heroes stepping up the long rank of what is. All Might was never supposed to be forever and the civilians might not want to come to terms with it but the Heroes around him has always known.”

Katsuki thinks of three fingers held up by Thirteen at the USJ incident, think of the skinny form visibly briefly through the smoke, and she thinks of the blood that runs from his lips up after she shoots off an explosion at the weak spot on his left side.

All Might had been appearing less and less for years now but the other Heroes had been picking up the slack – it wasn’t like All Might would be leaving some gaping hole in their ranks. There would be an adjustment period, sure, and there was something to be accredited to what it meant for the society on the whole to lose a status symbol.

But the world would move on, wheels would keep grinding, and days would keep passing with or without All Might.

“You sound sure of that,” Compress comments, watching her intently even as he smiles. “Something you want to share with the class?” Katsuki narrows her eyes at him. “No? Well, we have a week to figure things out, you and I.” He straightens up, tall, slim and strangely elegant without the coat on his shoulders and already turning. “I’d wrap up that burn of yours if I were you!” He calls as he raises a hand in a small wave over his shoulder. “And please do knock the next time you feel like entering my room.”

-

Katsuki makes away with one of Dabi’s hoodies from his empty room, a dark blue one, and she takes a long cold shower because of course there’s no fucking hot water. But at least she comes out smelling like a strange mix of salt water and something spicy after nosing her way through the different body washes crowding on the floor of it.

No peaches, thank you very much.

With the hoodie folded in her arms and a roll of bandages on top of it she peers into Himiko’s room, finds it empty, hesitates but then wanders down the corridor to kick twice at Twice’s door. She shifts as she listens to the scramble and exchange of voices in the room before it opened up.

Twice stares at her.

“I need to re-wrap my shoulder,” she grumbles, pushing past him and into the small room because everything in this place is fucking small.

“Why should we help you?” Twice demands but he’s already closing the door and trailing after her in a hastily thrown on shirt and loose jeans, mask rolled down to his throat.

The bed is rumbled and still warm when she drops down onto it and she realises that he must have been napping despite it being past noon.

“Because I feed you?” Katsuki suggests, glancing around.

“It is good food,” Twice agrees with a thoughtful rocking on his feet, hands in his pockets. “But good enough to help a Hero?”

“You’re trying to recruit me, right?” she challenges. “I’m no real use to you if this gets infected and I end up with a fucking fever or something.”

“He does have a point,” Twice says, rubbing at his jaw with two fingers. “Fine.”

Katsuki shifts slightly, muscles knotting tense as she put her back to him. But Twice reaches for the bandages and starts to winding it around her shoulder, shifting it eventually loop around her chest just beneath her armpits to make sure both the burn scar and the wound on her back was properly covered.

She has the polysporin in her pocket but she can’t get herself to reach for it – the thought of anyone but Himiko or Dabi touching her more than is necessary in this place makes her want to claw something.

She resigns herself to bugging one of them into rewrapping it later.

“This is Dabi’s work,” Twice observes.

“What about it?” she grumbles, twitching as his fingers brushes against her skin only to disappear quickly.

“Just making an observation,” he informs her. “You disappeared together after breakfast and Dabi returned in a pretty bad mood. And he took Himiko-chan with him!" He wilts dramatically.

Katsuki grunts.

“Do you both use Twice?” she asks and the hands on her shoulder stills. “’s whatever but-“

“We do,” he interrupts her, body-language shifting as he studied her. “How did you know to ask?”

“’s pretty obvious." Katsuki's licks her lips. “You’re alike but you’re not the same.”

“You’re not wrong. But most don’t bother to ask. There’s a lot of assumptions about – but then we are not quite sane! It's easy enough to simply write it off as madness.”

Twice finishes up, knotting it together in a little bow.

“Thanks,” Katsuki mutters, drawing the hoodie on, tension loosening as the scent of sulphur crept up her nose, and she turns around to look at him.

Hesitates but-

“Doesn’t it ever get confusing?” she asks, studying him. “I mean, is there-“ Twice tilts his head. “Are one of you more than the other?” she gets out.

“Who knows,” Twice says, reaching back to rub at his neck with a hum. “Do you know what our quirk is?”

Katsuki furrows her brows. “No,” she admits.

“We can make clones,” Twice informs her, leaning forward. “And they retain the personality of the original one. What’s to say either of us is the real one?”

Katsuki considers that, fingers curling in the fabric of her hoodie. “I guess that would be confusing,” she says after a moment, trying to imagine it and grimacing slightly. “But does it really matter?” she asks, unable to help her curiosity. “You are you and your clones are you, would it make a marked difference whether you’re the first or not? The two of you are still here.”

“Ah, I believe it’s a matter of perspective!” Twice says, snapping his fingers. “It’s important to know oneself, after all. I’d say it’s one of the most important things in the world!” He spreads his hands wide “But here I am and I cannot even tell you if I’m the original or not.” He sighs dramatically.  “Maybe he’s already dead and there’s just us. We just don’t know.”

Katsuki’s mouth thins.

“We see that you do not agree.” Twice sounds amused, of all things.

Katsuki huffs but it’s not like she can make much of an argument. What does it matter if he’s the original or not? He’s a person still, isn’t he? She’s not the first owner of this body but she’s not messed up enough to think it devalues her as a person even if she’s pretending to be someone she’s not.

But then, it’s not like she’s a clone. She’s made up of the remains of two dead people – not quite either of them but her core values lean more towards the woman and she identifies more with the woman and she is a thirty-year-old woman and not a sixteen-year-old boy.

She itches to tell him. She’s looking at someone who might honestly, and truly, understand the complicated mess she’s become. Who might even help her understand herself more.

But he’s part of a group that’s kidnapped her and she’s not foolish enough to give them more leverage on a fancy whim.

So Katsuki keeps her mouth shut.

Like always.

-

Katsuki folds her arms on the bar counter, slouching.

“You have absolutely nothing fun to do about here, do you?” she drawls to Kurogiri has been cleaning the same fucking glass for more than ten minutes now.

“It does not to do be in a hurry,” Kurogiri says, voice dark and rumbling. “That is the problem with today’s youth. Always in a rush."

“How old are you anyway?” she asks him, squinting at the dark rippling shadows that make up his body.

Kurogiri pauses. “… Thirty-two,” he answers eventually.

“You read or anything?” Katsuki asks, bored out of her mind with both Dabi and Himiko gone from the base and absolutely not fancying running into anyone at the moment. Least of all the hand-creep. “I found some books in my room but it was mostly badly-disguised propaganda which, no thank you.”

Kurogiri straightens a bit.

“I do,” he says without looking at her. “But I doubt it’s anything of interest to a sixteen-year-old boy.”

Katsuki narrows her eyes. “I bet you’re the sort to read nothing but shitty crime novels,” she challenges, shifting, resting her chin in the palm of her hand. “Ever read A Living Soul?”

“… No,” Kurogiri answers after a moment.

“It’s this really funky book about a brain stuck in an aquarium – has a real existential crisis going for it and a crush on one of the researchers that work there. It’s supposed to get you thinking, you know? Is a person ever free? What would it mean to not have a body? What is the meaning of living? What is life?”

She’s read it in her past-life but she’d gotten her hands on it in this one as well which was the kind of existential crisis she hadn’t been prepared for. Because what did it mean that a book she’d read in one life existed here, in another world entirely? Had P.C. Jersild existed in both worlds? Was it still her world? Had she just travelled in time? 

But then she’s realised that Shakespeare isn’t a thing here, which was a discovery in itself. And the release date had been wrong on A Living Soul too, she knew it had been produced in the 1980’s but here it had appeared later and some things hadn’t quite matched up to her memories of it. It had been modernized and the continued existence of Ypsilon the brain had been attributed to a quirk instead of science.

Honestly, just trying to understand the discrepancies of soul displacement made her want to take a long nap. Because English is a thing, ASL is still the same, she’d heard Japanese on the television in the Before and she’s woken up with it on her tongue from the memories of an eight-year-old boy.

“How can a soul exist when the mind of a person can be broken down and manipulated in a laboratory?” Katsuki’s right leg swings a bit absently. “’s a pretty curious book.”

“There is no such thing as a soul,” Kurogiri says, his cleaning slowly picking up. “We live and we die, that’s all there is to it.”

Katsuki makes a noncommittally sound, slumping back down.

“You don’t really have a conventional brain or body, do you?” she points out to the dark fog. “What makes you human if not a soul?”

“What makes any of us humans?” Kurogiri humours.

“Dunno?” Katsuki mutters, giving the question some thought. “We think, we feel, we make decisions, I suppose.”

“Correct,” Kurogiri agrees, finally turning to consider her. “We live in the here and now. And then we die.”

“You’re a surprisingly straight forward guy,” she tells him to a small hum.

-

At least Kurogiri is quiet, she finds herself thinking, even as she remains too tense to do much more than let her mind drift.

We live and we die, that’s all there is to it.

Katsuki supposes he isn’t wrong. She’s not supposed to be but she is.

But she’s an abnormality in the grand scheme of things.

There are days that she wonders if the boy had been unfortunate enough to wake up in her body – if he’d found himself drowning and choking, spending his last moments on a cold rainy street as he bled out in a body that wasn’t his.

She finds herself hoping that life had been kinder to him that that.

She thinks, cynically, that it probably hadn’t been.

-

“I see you’re finding yourself right at home, Katsuki.” She lifts her head, hand curled white-knuckled around her fork but slowly loosening as the chatter around her quieted, focusing on Shigaraki who is staring down at the wok she’d made for dinner.

It’s just vegetables and meat fried up with salt, pepper and chili because, apparently, the League of Villains had a fucking food budget and it made no room for more than the most basic of spices. She’d squeezed two lemons into it out of spite because apparently Dabi could take a hint after she’d underlined it five times on the list with a little infinite symbol beside it and one of the bags he’d brought had been half-packed with the things.

“You should join us, Tomura.” Himiko says enthusiastically, fork scratching against the plate as she speared a piece of meat upon it. “Kasu-chan made enough for everyone!”

“Did he now?” Shigaraki mumbles, a low petulant sort of tone creeping into his voice.

“If you want to eat then fucking eat,” Katsuki growls at him.

Dabi, the fucking asshole, has been missing since his fucking stunt in the training room and she’s nearly up to a day without him in this shitty place and she’s just fed up. Her patience had been steadily declining for the past two hours and she has none left to whatever fucking issues Shigaraki has and she glowers at him from her place next to Himiko.

He shifts but then he reaches for one of the bowls left and the Villains move to make place for him across her as he slouches down, reaching up to remove the hand from his face and place it with care in his lap.

“Tomura…”

“Be quiet, Kurogiri.” Shigaraki reaches to pick a piece of meat up between his index and thumb, dry lips prying open up as he dropped it inside, chewing slowly.

Katsuki stares at him.

Creep, Katsuki thinks, spearing something green on her fork and cramming it into her mouth, tasting absolutely nothing as she forces it down.

Conversation slowly picks up around her as Shigaraki keeps eating, one slow drop into his mouth after the other, something unfathomable in the eyes that never veers from her.

Chapter Text

Katsuki wakes up in an empty room, a strange sense of vertigo striking her as she struggled into a sitting position, blinking a bit blearily as she pawed tiredly at her eyes.

There’s no clock in her room and the window had been boarded shut, revealing just a smidge of the low dusky grey light and she squints at it, stomach curling as she looks away.

Rubs a bit absently at her ears as she drags herself out of bed.

-

The shower is occupied and Katsuki ends up leaning against the wall beside it, a low sort of lethargy creeping up on her as she gaze falls down to her socked feet.

It’s not raining – she knows it isn’t – but the water in the shower sounds a bit like it and she grimaces, missing her headphones.

She hadn’t thought to bring them, hadn’t expected to be fucking kidnapped, and it’s not like she’s not functional without them. They just… make everything easier.

The world feels raw around her, a certain sort of prickling awareness that is hard to shake off.

She squeezes her eyes shut, knows that she cannot allow herself any weaknesses in a hide-out of Villains where more than one of them who wouldn’t hesitate to take advantage of her.

There’s only so much she can rely on Dabi and Himiko’s good will and she flexes her fingers, taking some comfort in the stinging scent of her quirk.

-

Katsuki ends up making a simple breakfast and resists the urge to just steal her plate to her room and eat there.

Don’t draw attention, her instincts cautions as she chokes the food down, refilling her water glass twice in an effort to make it just a bit easier and ending up slightly nauseous.

Regrets it as she stares down at her half-finished fish with her stomach rolling.

Should have made fucking soup or something, Katsuki thinks tiredly to herself as she digs her fork into it, peeling off a large piece and doing her absolute best not to grimace as she shoved it into her mouth, chewing with a shiver that creeps through her, struggling against the urge to just purge it right up as she swallows thickly.

She sincerely doubts Shigaraki would take kindly to her vomiting all over his plate and he’s seated across her, eyes drifting a bit absently as he eats, fingers digging into the fish with a noise that makes her stomach turn on itself.

I want Mina, Katsuki finds herself thinking, the longing nearly overwhelming.

Mina would have worried but she wouldn’t have seen weakness, wouldn’t be thinking of ways to turn Katsuki around on her head in an effort to drag her into her own beliefs.

Mina is gentle and her eyes doesn’t judge when she reaches out to drag Katsuki’s headphones up over her ears on bad days.

But Mina isn’t here.

A strange sort of loneliness twines with her already low mood and Katsuki’s fingers curl white-knuckled around her fork.

“Himi-“ Katsuki nearly chokes on a roll of nausea but shoves it down, licking at her lips, meeting the yellow eyes of the other girl who is watching her, fork sticking out of her mouth and head tilted. “Want to play something, after breakfast?” Katsuki gets out roughly.

“Mm.” Himiko gives her a considering little look. “Sure!” she agrees. “We can finish up the last chapter together.”

“Game?” Spinner asks, mouth crammed with fish.

“It’s a horror game,” Himiko confides. “Lots of monsters to stab.”

“Maybe.” It’s Shigaraki and Katsuki lifts her gaze to him, finding pin-pricks of red watching her. “I could join you.” The frayed edges of his lips curl into a macabre smile. “That’s fine, isn’t it, Katsuki?”

For just a moment, a single beat of her heart, Katsuki sincerely considers stabbing her fork through his eyeball.

“Whatever,” she forces out, one hand coming down to press against her ear with a curl of her fingers as her nails digs into the skin above it.

-

Shigaraki peers around Himiko’s room, lingering in the door opening for a long moment as Katsuki finds herself prodded down on the couch, Himiko’s face momentarily crammed far too close, a little dipping curve to her lips that disappear as fast as it arrived.

“I’ll be right back,” she promises in a low hushed little voice before drawing back and dodging past Shigaraki with a little bounce in her step as she disappeared around the corner.

Katsuki grabs for the controller, fingers curling tight around it as she stares at the paused screen.

“So,” Shigaraki mumbles as he sinks down beside her, slouching back, arms stretching out on the edge of the couch. “What’s it about?”

“’s a fucking horror game,” Katsuki grumbles. “You stab shit.”

“Eloquent,” he hums but as she glances at him there’s a strange focus on the screen, an interest perhaps, and it shouldn’t surprise her, she thinks as she unpauses the game in an effort to distract herself.

Himiko had clearly made head-way on her own since their last play together and the protagonist is crammed beneath a table, the shifting legs of one of the monsters just visible, a loud howling scream making Katsuki tense instinctively as it drives a hammer into the struggling bound figure on the table with a wet squishing noise as the body tapered into a gurgling gasping noise for air.

Oh, Katsuki acknowledges with a dawning sort of realization as Shigaraki’s mouth curls almost contentedly. This was a bad idea.

But she forces her stiff fingers to get the protagonist into movement, her body inching beneath the table, quiet, her breathing too loud through the speakers, knife clenched in a hand that had an ring finger missing, the bone sticking out awkwardly around the curling end of the shaft.

Katsuki is making painstaking head-way when Himiko reappears with a bottle of vodka and a carton of cranberry juice, three glasses cradled in the crook of her arm.

Shigaraki glances up and Katsuki only narrowly avoids getting their character killed by sliding into the shadows with a little jerk of the joystick as an enormous figure passed by with a dragging scrape of a great knife.

“What’s this?” Shigaraki asks as Himiko slides it all in place, dragging a bar of chocolate from the pocket of her cardigan and throwing it at Katsuki who pauses the game with some relief.

“Drinks!” Himiko says happily. “Mou, Tomura, don’t you know it’s only proper when playing a horror game together?” She manages to get just the right amount of an everyone-knows-this sort of tone into her voice to make the pale man’s mouth twist into a frown before giving the drinks a stubborn sort of look.

“Of course I knew that,” he says petulantly, reaching for the vodka bottle and yanking it towards himself.

Katsuki wonders if it would be terribly awkward if she just kissed Himiko there and then.

She knows nothing good can come out of drinking with Shigaraki but it’s ten times better than struggling against the clawing low mood trying to drag her under.

-

“Nooooo,” Shigaraki whines, pawing at Himiko with four fingers, thumb carefully tucked against his palm. "You can’t- you have to kill it.”

“I can’t,” Himiko explains patiently as Katsuki sinks deeper and deeper into the couch. “We need a better knife. If we go at him with this we’re going to be spending an hour stabbing and running and it’ll be boring.”

Shigaraki considers that, mouth thinning. “So, we’re getting the knife?”

“We’re getting the knife,” Katsuki agrees with a little toast of her glass that wobbles the ruby red liquid into spilling over the edge. “Shit!” She draws it towards her, tongue flattening up against her fingers, the vodka mix tingling in her mouth as she sucked away at the worst of it.

“The best knife?” Shigaraki asks, squinting at the screen.

“The bestest!” Himiko agrees with a giggle, cheeks flushed pink. “And then we’ll stab him again and again and again and again.”

“Stab him,” Katsuki mutters into her glass as the tips a mouthful, swallowing it with a burn that barely registers. “Castrate him,” she suggest with a little curl of her mouth. “Tie him up with his own intestines,” she says a bit decisively, nodding to herself.

“Can you do that?”

Katsuki blinks, turning to look at Shigaraki and his wide, almost childish, eyes.

“I… I guess?” she says a bit unsurely. “Himiko?”

“You can!” Himiko agrees. “You have like five feet of intestines crammed into your gut. Can't do it in the game though.” She pouts and then her mouth curls into a flash of her canines. “It’s a pity, really, he deserves so much worse.”

“He does,” Katsuki agrees, staring at the screen.

“The- the worstest,” Shigaraki agrees, arm stretching out to give the grotesquely wobbling pig-monster on the screen his middle-finger.

Katsuki snorts, head tipping and a hand reaching out to pat twice at his head.

“Good Shigaraki,” she mumbles to him. And then, because she sees absolutely no reason not to, she slouches down against his shoulder as he jerks, a surprised noise that become a stiff sort of tension beneath her cheek.

Katsuki frowns, poking her finger into his ribs to a twitch. “Be soft again,” she tells him petulantly.

“Yeah, Tomura,” Himiko giggles, her eyes glittering as the protagonist’s steps pounded down the winding dark hallways. “Don’t be so stiff!”

Katsuki hums when his shoulders slowly relaxes, huffing out a breath as she realises her glass is empty and pawing at Himiko until it was refilled, more vodka than cranberry this time.

She stares down at it and knocks it back with a swipe of her tongue against her lips.

There’s a knock on the door and they all turn to look as it opened up, Mr. Compress pausing as he took in the picture they made. Katsuki half-slouched against Shigaraki, Himiko pressed up against his other side, a near empty bottle of vodka on the table before them.

“… I’m not paid enough for this,” he says, tasting the truth of it, and then shrugs – closing the door.

Katsuki hears him calling loudly for Kurogiri and Shigaraki grumbles as he sinks deeper into the couch, a strange sort of look creeping into his gaze, almost melancholy.

“I don’t want- I want to keep playing,” he says, frowning while Katsuki's eyes droops tiredly.

“We can play again,” Himiko croons, pausing the game with a stretch of her arms up. “Right, Kasu-chan?”

Katsuki gives a soft snore in response, exhaustion and alcohol finally winning her over.

-

“Himiko?” The yellow eyed girl cranes around to look at her, her humming quieting as Katsuki dragged herself roughly up on her elbows. “You’re the worst,” she says with feeling, grimacing at the taste in her mouth.

“It worked, didn’t it?” Himiko’s lips pulls up, canines glinting.

“My head is fucking killing me,” Katsuki tells her flatly. “It was already killing me and now it’s gotten fucking worse.”

“That sounds like a you problem,” Himiko says without an ounce of sympathy as Katsuki narrows her eyes at her. “Hey! I got Shiggy off your back, didn’t I?” Himiko pouts at her. “And you two looked so cute together,” she sighs dreamily.

Katsuki grabs for the pillow, cramming it down over her head as she slumped down.

“Please fucking tell me I didn’t cuddle the creep.”

“You cuddled the creep,” Himiko giggles, kicking her legs on the couch, game paused on the screen and her green headphones dangling around her neck. “I think he enjoyed it. Shiggy wasn’t very happy when Kurogiri came to take him away.”

Katsuki squeezes her eyes shut.

“I’m going to get myself fucking killed,” Katsuki hisses. “And I’ll have no one to blame but myself this-“ She quiets, her breathing rough. “Why,” she says abruptly. “Aren’t you fucking hungover?”

“It’s never been a problem for me,” Himiko confides, folding one arm on top of the back of the couch and leaning her chin against it. “I could drink myself black out drunk and I’ll wake up just fine after some six or seven hours?”

“… Is it because of your quirk?” Katsuki asks, pawing the pillow just enough to look out blearily at the other. “It’s something blood related, right?”

“You’re so clever Kasu-chan,” Himiko sighs happily. “If you weren’t already Dabi’s I’d be tempted to keep you all for myself.”

Katsuki gives her a blank stare.

“What?” she voices, brow creasing. “I’m not fucking anyone’s.”

“But Dabi found you first,” Himiko pouts. “Which means you’re his and he’s yours.”

Katsuki turns her head and buries her face back into the mattress.

“Wake me up when you start making some fucking sense,” she grumbles.

-

Katsuki spends most of the afternoon and then late evening regretting her morning drinking and she’s on a lousy mood come dinner time.

She ends up making beef patties from scratch, mostly in an attempt to distract herself, and slides the bread buns into the oven as she sips away at a tall glass of water.

Glances back when she catches the sound of footsteps and raises a brow at Twice as he peers inside with two hasty jerks of his head, clearly trying to avoid someone judging by the way he silently tip-toed in with a gusty sigh of relief.

“Who are you hiding from?” Katsuki asks, turning to lean back against the counter.

Twice jerks. “No one!” he denies. “It’s that fucking hand-bastard! He’s been in a foul mood since waking up and we’d rather not be disintegrated.”

“He’s probably hungover,” Katsuki says with a jaw cracking yawn. “Didn’t much look like he’d indulged in alcohol before.” She rubs at her neck, grimacing at the stiffness there.

Twice makes a strange sort of twitchy motion.

“You… Drank with him?”

“I blame Himiko,” Katsuki grumbles. ”Was some good fucking vodka though,” she muses.

Twice clutches his heart dramatically. “Underage drinking? Among Villains? What have the world come to!”

Katsuki huffs, rubbing at her ear as she blew out a sigh.

“You should join us sometime,” she hears herself suggesting. “It’s pretty fun watching Himiko go all enthusiastic about stabbing things.”

“Ah, alcohol and us… Let’s just say it’s likely that someone won’t get out of the room alive,” Twice says, leaning forward dramatically.

“Then don’t just fucking drink,” Katsuki says with a shrug. “You don’t have to drink to game. Although,” she adds a bit belatedly. “Don’t mention that to Shigaraki – Himiko might have given him different ideas.”

Twice makes a strange noise and after a moment Katsuki realises he’s laughing, silently, his shoulders shaking.

“A Hero being a bad influence on our dearest Himiko-chan? How shocking!” Twice proclaims, shaking his head in mock sadness. “Kurogiri is going to kill you,” he says with thick amusement.

“Why the fuck is it my fault?” Katsuki demands. “She’s the one who got the fucking alcohol.”

Twice spreads his hands. “Who do you think is going to get blamed, little Hero?”

“Fantastic,” Katsuki mutters. “Can’t hide from that fucker either.” She glances towards the entrance to the kitchen, suddenly leery.

“Don’t worry, Bakugou!” Twice says loud enough that she twitches into a half-wince before she catches herself. “You should really worry. Hey! Hey! Don’t frighten the kid! Besides, Dabi is returning tonight isn’t he? You’re asking me? Hell if I know.”

“Where has he been anyway?” Katsuki asks with a slanted look at him.

“Mission,” Twice says brightly, twitching before he bent down to loom over her as she narrowed her eyes. “None of your damn business, brat.”

-

”You made your fucking point,” Katsuki greets Dabi when he steps into her room.

She’s sprawled out on the bed, head turning just enough to look at him, eyes narrowing as he closed the door behind him with a low hum.

“And what point was that?” he drawls, dragging a hand through his hair with a little ruffle, and Katsuki sincerely hopes he isn’t spreading the ash of incinerated people in her room as she watches the little flecks spiral towards the ground.

She gives him a flat, unimpressed look.

“I don’t know Dabi,” she mutters sarcastically. “Considering how fucking clear you were I feel like I should be shagging up with the nearest fucking Villain.”

Dabi pauses.

“I mean, at least Twice hasn’t been throwing fucking fire at me and Mr. Compress was downright friendly when he-“

Katsuki’s voice dies.

Dabi, suddenly far too close, hands pressed down on either side of her head, leans even closer, his turquoise eyes swallowing up her vision, his breath warm against her lips.

An unfamiliar sort of feeling worms through her, something nervous and anticipatory alike, and she has to resist the strangest urge to squirm.

“Apparently, my point didn’t sink home at all,” he says, his voice rumbling low. “Just how many did you talk to while I was gone?”

“I had fucking dinner with them,” Katsuki growls, fingers twitching at her sides. “Kurogiri is probably planning my death right now because Shigaraki is a fucking lightweight and Himiko is the worst influence ever.”

Dabi remains tense above her for a moment longer and then he huffs, shifting, and Katsuki squawks as he abruptly drops his entire fucking weight upon her, his face pressing down into the pillow beside her head.

She freezes with her arms half-raised on either side of his chest, an aborted move to protest it, perhaps, and she feels heat crawling up her face.

“Can’t leave you alone in this place for even a day,” Dabi mutters against her neck and Katsuki’s mind halts, recognising the exhaustion in his voice for what it is, and slowly, a bit haltingly, lets her hands fall to rest against his back as her brow furrows.

“To be fair,” she says “It’s been a day and a half.”

Dabi grumbles slightly, wiggling against her into something a bit more comfortable, and then goes completely lax with a tired sigh, eyes closing.

Katsuki has a lot of things she wants to say to him but they quiet on her lips before she can give voice to them. So instead she shifts, just enough to get her hand up to reach the dark spikes of his hair, smoothing them down a bit hesitantly.

And then does it again when he practically melts against her with a little nudge up against her hand.

She huffs but keeps petting him.

Keeps it up long after he’s relaxed into a deep sleep, chest rising and falling slowly against hers, the wet rhythmic thumping of his heart drowning out all other sounds as she stares up at the dark ceiling.

Dabi is heavy as he presses down against the burn still aching on her shoulder, his jeans digging into her hip, and the warmth of him is enough to make her skin prickle.

It should be uncomfortable but Katsuki finds herself lulled to sleep, hand slipping down to rest loosely against his neck as her eyes falls shut and her breathing evens out to match his.

Chapter Text

Katsuki wakes up warm.

Her shoulder is itching, something round and metallic is digging uncomfortably into her hip and there’s a prickling sort of feel to her right leg which protests when she shifts in an attempt to get some feeling back into it.

Dabi is still dead weight on top of her, sleeping soundly, quietly, his mouth open just enough to send a shiver down her spine when his breath ghost over her neck.

She thinks she should be embarrassed by the way she feels her cock painfully hard between her legs, pressing uncomfortably up against her jeans, but she finds the emotion hard to reach for. Instead there’s just a fond sort of exasperation because Dabi isn’t helping the situation at all with the way he rests between the spread of her legs, oblivious to her body’s response to him.

It isn’t Katsuki’s first experience with morning wood, some things were just unavoidable when coming to terms with the body she’s in. Her body, one she’d claimed painstakingly with every burn left behind, but a stranger’s body, too, in the way it reacts differently than she expects it to.

Instead of wetness there’s hardness, a different sort of physical awareness that is difficult to deny.

The desire feels new, too, a curious sort of heady thing because it’s Dabi.

She can’t put a finger on, exactly, why that makes all the difference but it does.

Katsuki hasn’t actually thought about sex in years. It had felt wrong, considering how young the body she’s in is. But she’s sixteen and thirty, old enough that it doesn’t leave a bad taste in her mouth, though her cheeks darkens because she wouldn’t know the first thing about how to go about it.

She’d known her body – had known just how to twist her fingers between her legs, just how much pressure that would leave her body arching with a groan as she grinded her palm down against her clit and she bit down on her lips to muffle the sound of her desire.

Her cock twitches and the embarrassment that had felt so distant suddenly feels overwhelming because she shouldn’t be thinking about it, not when Dabi is asleep, not when he doesn’t know the full truth of who and what she is.

She squirms, pushing at his shoulder to try and wiggle her body out beneath his without waking him.

Ends up groaning when he makes a low noise of discontent, tightening his grip around her, sliding up against her and-

This is wrong, Katsuki thinks even as her hips arches a bit helplessly beneath him, her pupils dilating and her fingers digging into his shoulder with a sharp inhalation as his legs spreads. And she realises, quite suddenly, that she’s not the only one hard as Dabi’s bulge registers with a roll against her hip.

“Dabi,” she hisses. “For fuck’s sake-“

She gives him a hard shove and he grunts in protest, body shifting, and it should be fucking illegal to be so slow, Katsuki thinks, as he pushes up with a tired lidded look that hovers above her as she glares up at him.

“You need to move,” she tells him flatly.

Dabi gives her a vaguely confused look and she feels momentarily bad for waking him.

That feeling disappears quickly as a slow sort of realization fills his eyes and he angles down to where their lower bodies are still pressing together, a low hum leaving him as the absolute fucker rocks against her almost curiously, his weight grinding down against her as she jerks, biting back a noise.

“Well, a good morning to you too,” he says, mouth curving in clear amusement.

“Move,” she growls at him.

“Are you sure you want me to?” he murmurs, doing absolutely nothing to remove himself from her. “You seem quite comfortable where you are.” He presses down, just enough that she can feel where her bulge presses up against his hip.

Katsuki feels heat crawling up her cheeks and she bites down on her lip as his mouth, if possible, stretches even wider.

“Look at that,” he says, tone obviously pleased. “There’s something wicked in that mind of yours.”

“Shut up,” she mutters. “It’s your fucking fault.”

“Want me to take responsibility?” he offers, lowering his head, and Katsuki stills as his lips presses against the skin by her ear. “I could give you a hand,” he breathes and she feels the way his mouth curls wickedly. “Or a mouth.”

Her cock twitches, nails digging hard into the skin on his shoulder.

The silence stretches, almost curiously between them, and Dabi’s body-language shifts from something teasing to something more intent as his muscles ripples momentarily, his body stretching on top of hers, knees pressing down between her legs to spread them out with a nudge as he made himself at home, her breath hitching as he rolled up, his bulge pressing against hers.

“Baku-chan,” he murmurs and Katsuki feels like a prey stuck below a predator as he moves languish and sinfully beautiful to loom over her. “All you need to say is yes.”

She stares at him, her heart beating hard and loud inside her chest.

Dabi’s turquoise eyes are beautiful in the low cast of light from the window, the gnarly purple burn scars contrasting against the paleness of his skin, the metal in his staples glinting as he considers her.

“You want it,” he observes and there’s something overwhelming and unfamiliar in his eyes as he says it. “But there’s something holding you back.” His fingers slides beneath her hoodie, curling almost comforting against that burn scar he’d left on her hip at their first meeting. “Tell me.”

“You-“ Her breath hitches as his thumb strokes over the scar. “You wouldn’t believe me.”

“You’d be surprised,” Dabi murmurs. “About the things I’m willing to believe when it comes to you.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” she demands but her voice comes out weaker than she means to, more breathless than demanding.

“It means,” Dabi says in a low voice. “That there are things about you that’s never added up. You crave pain for stability and your mind is a mess for no explainable reason. I thought, the first time I saw you, that someone was hurting you, that your parents were closer to the like of my father. But they actually seem like the decent sort and the more I watch you, the more I learn about you, the more I understand that things aren’t anywhere near so simple when it comes to you.”

He breathes out and Katsuki’s fingers curls into the covers.

“There’s nothing,” he says. “Nothing that would change my mind about you.” His gaze dips with something impossible, something soft, and Katsuki is struck by a sudden feeling of vulnerability. “Haven’t I already proven myself to you? Or do you doubt my intentions still?”

And Katsuki finds herself thinking that she doesn’t.

Dabi had brought her here because he wanted her, enough that he risked her ire and the wrath of All Might to bring her away from the Heroes as he sunk deeper into the shadows of society.

He doesn’t tell her I don’t want to lose you, but she thinks that, maybe, he doesn’t need to.

Their history is a tangled web of feelings, of explosions and fire and pain but also moments where there’s just the two of them, shoulders leaning together, understanding and empathy, anger and cruelty alike.

“You wouldn’t believe me,” she repeats, eyes burning and frustration coiling through her. “It doesn’t make any sense.”

Dabi narrows his eyes and Katsuki chokes on a desperate sort of noise when he presses down against her, grinding hard against her cock as she twists with a gasp, eyes flaring wide.

“You need to stop thinking so damn much,” Dabi rumbles as he levers more of his weight upon her, the fabric of their jeans rough and hard and uncomfortable against the straining hardness of her erection. “You’re so damn wrapped up in what others might be thinking about you that you forget that it isn’t about them. It’s about you.” He pins her hands down when she twists to shove him off her and his eyes are dark and his mouth is into an ugly sort of thing. “What,” he presses. “Will it take for you to understand that, Katsuki?”

“I know it isn’t about them!” she snarls as she jerks roughly beneath him only to have him press down harder, fingers coiling around her wrists and familiar heat licking against her skin as his quirk flares warningly. “But it’s not so fucking simple is it!?”

“How would I know?” Dabi says, voice dangerously soft. “How would anyone know when you’re so damn stubborn about it?”

Katsuki chokes on a laugh, a wretched desperate sort of thing that makes the heat of Dabi’s quirk simmer down until it’s just the two of them, no flames, no explosions, just anger and a hopelessly tangled mess of feelings.

“I died,” Katsuki spits out. “I fucking died, alright?” She laughs. “But the fucked up thing, you know? The fucked up thing is that I spent twenty-two years as a deaf woman in another fucking world entirely and then I woke up here. In this body, because the boy was dying, too, but unfortunately for him I was more stubborn about living than he was.”

Dabi looks at her, a considering little tilt of his head and eyes hard to read.

“That’s why I’m so fucked up,” Katsuki tells him, mania curling at the edges of her smile. “Do you know what it’s like? To come from a world without Heroes of Villains? From a world without quirks to this. Everything,” she chokes out. “Everything is just a fucking mess.”

Dabi’s hands loosens around her wrists and Katsuki’s chest fills with a yawning tangle of desperation and resignation alike as she looks up at him.

“So you’re a woman,” Dabi says after a long moment, tasting the reality of it almost curiously.

“That’s what you took from it?” Katsuki demands, struggling to make sense of feeling spreading through her chest, a strange sort of light, almost airy thing, as Dabi’s eyes trail over her features, lingering on her with a strange considering look.

“You said you were twenty-two when you died.” His head lowers, his eyes, so strangely pretty in their colour, swallowing up her vision. “How old are you now?”

“Thirty?” Katsuki answers, confusions nearly overwhelming. “Why-“

Dabi hums, so close now that his lips brushes against hers.

“It does make me feel a bit better about this,” he murmurs with a little curve of his lips.

Katsuki barely has time to register his intention before his mouth slants against hers, his scars scraping rough as she inhales sharply, fingers sinking into his shoulder, a low approving noise rumbling through his chest.

He swallows her protests, something heady and possessive in the way her presses down against her with a low groan as she arched up.

It’s not supposed to be this simple, Katsuki thinks wildly as sulphur fills her nose, thick and overwhelming.

But Dabi proves all her expectations wrong as he kisses her, lips dragging and coaxing her into a halting sort of response, his want for her clear in the hard press of his cock. His lower lip is rough, disfigured by the scars that stretches up to cover half of his face, but the upper one contrasts with its softness and the duality suits of him, she finds herself thinking, heart pounding hard in her chest as he draws back.

“My offer still stands,” Dabi drawls, eyes glittering. “Considering how tense you are I bet it’s been a while.” His fingers ghosts over the hem of her jeans.

Katsuki squirms.

“I’ve never-“ Her teeth clenches down. “Not in this body,” she admits roughly.

Dabi’s hand pauses, thumb lingering on the button.

“Never?” he asks disbelievingly. “What’s the point of that?”

“’s weird, alright?” Katsuki grunts. “I’m, ya know, used to different parts.”

Dabi sighs, hand shifting away before he slumped down on her to a grunt as she wiggled back with a push against him to get the spikes of his hair from poking up her nose.

“Twenty-two, huh?” Dabi murmurs as she stills. “Seems like an awfully young age to die.”

“Wasn’t-“ Katsuki swallows. “Wasn’t like I planned it,” she grumbles.

“Decent life?”

“If this is your way of asking if I offed myself the answer is fucking no,” Katsuki informs him sourly. “And it was – it was life, I guess.” Her hand reaches up to press against her ear. “You know, you’d think the quirks would be the weirdest thing, right? But I was – I don’t understand how you deal with all the noise. It’s been eight years and I just… I don’t get it.”

Dabi shifts to rest his head against her shoulder.

“I forgot that you didn’t have those headphones of yours,” he says with a lingering look. “Deaf, huh?”

“Mm,” she agrees. “I miss it. I think I could have gone my entire fucking life without hearing All Might’s fucking laughter.” She blows out a hard breath, slanting him a look. “You’re taking this far better than I expected.”

“You just informed me that I’ve had the hots for a thirty-year-old woman and not a sixteen-year-old boy. My moral compass is entirely at peace.” Dabi huffs out a low laugh at her flat look. “I don’t know what I was expecting but it sounds pretty messy and that is certainly in line with my guessing.”

Katsuki’s mouth thins but there’s really nothing she can say to that.

“It’s pretty fucked up though, living with the boy’s parents, pretending to be something you’re not.” She stiffens. “But I guess not getting attached is hard when you’re stuck living with someone,” he muses.

“Your siblings?” Katsuki asks hesitantly.

Dabi makes a noncommittal sound, pushing off her to drop down roughly at her side, the small bed leaving their shoulders pressed tight, the back of their hands just brushing together.

“I’m going to kill him,” Dabi tells her. “Endeavour.”

“I know,” Katsuki admits because she’s understood this about Dabi since learning that he was once Todoroki Touya. “I still thinking blowing up his fucking nuts is the way to go about it though. Leave him suffering. Death is a terribly complicated mess.”

Dabi chokes on a laugh, raising his arm to drop it down over his eyes.

“You make a lousy Hero,” he informs her.

-

The strangest thing about Dabi knowing, Katsuki decides as she watches the fish sizzle in the pan with little slices of lemon piled on top of them, is that everything changes and nothing.

They’re still just… Katsuki and Dabi.

She supposes it’s always been like that between them, an easy sort of acceptance of what is because they’re both aware that it’s something the rest of the world won’t give them.

He’d eventually ambled off to take a shower and when he returned he’d rewrapped her shoulder after smoothing a liberal amount of polysporin over the wound and aloe vera over the burn.

And then he’d crashed in her bed for a fucking nap.

“Ah. Katsuki.” She twitches, turning to look at Shigaraki as he peered into the kitchen. “What are you making?”

“Fish.” She rolls her shoulders. “Rice, salad, maybe some sauce?”

He watches her, red eyes lingering intently and she sees it because his the hand that usually occupies his face is sticking out of his fucking back pocket.

He steps inside, moving closer in that particular strange way he had of walking, and peering down at the salmon.

“What kind of sauce?” he asks.

Katsuki wonders if he were to bleed if she just… reached up and peeled some of those dry flakes away from his mouth.

She squints at him, wondering if he had an actual preference for food because she hadn’t seen him shove anything aside so far. He ate slow but he had a kind of neat precise method to working his way through whatever she made which she sorta appreciated for all that she really wished he would use a fucking fork.

Katsuki is perfectly fine with people eating with their hands but the way he did it… mouth opening and food dropping in? Yeah. No. He looked like some kind of baby bird only the mama bird was his own hand and just.

It gives her terribly strange mental pictures and she dearly wishes he would just stop.

But he struck her as the sort who might just petulantly start doing it more if she snapped at him.

 “Aioli?” she ventures finally, considering what ingredients she had lying about after Compress had dropped off two new bags that morning. “’s garlic, egg and oil, basically.”

Shigaraki watches the fish for a long moment and then his head cranes around and Katsuki stills warily.

“Show me.”

Katsuki gives him a blank look but Shigaraki is already moving towards the fridge, yanking it open, long gangly legs folding into a crouch as he reached inside, picking four eggs from the little bowl she’d dumped them in and cradling them against his chest.

“… The olive oil and garlic is already on the counter,” Katsuki says after a moment.

She watches a bit bemusedly as he follows her instructions, picking up the small basket of garlic and grasping four-fingered around the throat of the oil as she turns the heat of the pans down.

The broccoli and asparagus has finishes simmering so she dumps the water out and drops it into the couscous salad, grasping for a lemon and rolling it absently between her palms as he awkwardly spreads everything out.

“You need a bowl,” Katsuki informs him as he turns to her. “And the eggs should be room temperature but just hold it under lukewarm water for a minute or two and it should be fine. Take, like, three of them?”

“Not four?” Shigaraki asks with a strange look to the remain egg.

“… We can do four, I guess,” Katsuki says slowly.

Aioli was hardly an exact measurement of ingredients anyway.

She shows him how to slide the egg yolk between the halved shelves to drip the egg white into a glass before dumping it into a bowl she digs forth and then watches him repeat it with a careful sort of focus.

The garlic is next, peeled and pressed, and then, because they don’t have an electrical whisk, she shoves a normal one into his hands and sets him to mixing it together as she drops the olive oil in, watching carefully to make sure it didn’t split.

It takes some time and she has pretty much everything else piled together by the time it’s thick enough and she gives a low whistle before lobbying the salt at him.

“Pour and taste,” she tells him.

His eyes drags back and he tips a tiny amount inside, stirring it carefully, and Katsuki shuts her mouth and doesn’t point out that he was going to take forever at that rate. It was a fucking wonder any of the Villains had taken an interest in the whole process that got food on their table.

Best not… frighten him the fuck off or whatever.

-

“He kissed me,” Katsuki tells Himiko who stills, body shifting from the low bend to reach for the controller on the floor in front of the television, turning to look at her. “Dabi,” Katsuki clarifies, as if she fucking needs to.

There’s a funny sort of twist in her chest at the admittance, at tasting the words aloud.

And then she grunts because Himiko collides with her and Katsuki wheezes out in wordless surprise as she’s lifted clean off the floor and spun as Himiko laughed, dragging them both back as the other girl sprawled back on the couch, taking Katsuki with her.

Arms holds her, pressed tight, her ribs aching in protest as Himiko nuzzles up against her cheek.

“My Kasu-chan!” Himiko sniffs theatrically. “Getting his first kiss! Oh! We simply must celebrate!”

“’s not a big fucking deal,” Katsuki grumps, her voice muffled against the other’s shoulder.  

“Mou, Kasu-chan! Where’s your romantic side?” Himiko complains as her grip loosens just enough to allow Katsuki to draw up to look down at her. “It’s so cute. Imagining the two of you finally together…” Her cheeks flushes pink. “So cute!”

Katsuki grumbles, her ears growing warm.

“Does that mean you’re boyfriends?” Himiko wiggles her brows teasingly, fingers reaching up to give a little tug at a dusky yellow spike to a small grunt as Katsuki gave her a flat book. “Ah, you’re so adorable, Kasu-chan! Like a blushing virgin!” Her eyes widens. “Or are you?” she asks, voice hushed with intention.

“We didn’t- for fuck’s sake, Himiko-“ Katsuki raises a hand, dragging it over her red cheeks.

“Just teasing,” Himiko grins at her, canines flashing sharp. “But, Kasu-chan, this is good. It means you’re going to stay, right? You’re going to stay with us forever." Hands slides down, nails digging into her hips. “Right?”

Katsuki’s chest twists as she looks down at the hopeful girl beneath her, sees something very close to desperation in the possessive glint in those yellow eyes as her grin slowly dims.

“Kasu-chan?” Himiko presses. “You’re not leaving us, are you? Not with you and Dabi-" 

“I’m not,” Katsuki interrupts heavily, “going to become a fucking Villain, Himiko.”

Chapter Text

The knife slides sickly wet into her skin, burying deep, scraping against the bone of her arm as Katsuki twists, fingers curling around the wrist of the other as she snarls, teeth flashing jagged and sharp.

Himiko stares up at her, Katsuki’s blood sliding down the blade of the knife, soaking into the yellow fabric of her sweater.

Nitroglycerin pools in the palms of her hands but Katsuki doesn’t let it burn, forcing the violence inside of her to simmer down and leave nothing but the hollow beat of her heart as she squeezes her eyes shut, counting, before opening them up.

“You’re throwing your fucking future away and I don’t get that,” Katsuki tells the other girl roughly. “You- for fuck’s sake, Himiko, you’re meant for more than this.”

The knife twists and Katsuki bits back a hiss as the sharp edge scrapes against raw nerves.

“The world doesn’t accept us, Kasu-chan,” Himiko says, her eyes trailing down to linger on the blood that drips and pools. “You know it doesn’t.”

“I do,” Katsuki admits. “But the world doesn’t accept anyone, not truly. Even All Might create hatred and he’s one of this world’s most well beloved Heroes. It doesn’t mean you have to throw your life away doing the biddings of others. You’re smarter than that – you’re more than that.” Katsuki clenches her hand around the other’s wrist before slowly releasing it. “You found Dabi, right?” she points out, pressing her palms down against Himiko’s shoulder, ignoring the way the knife shifts with her movement. “The world will force you to hide but that’s why you’re supposed to find people who don’t allow you to.”

Himiko’s eyes glitters strangely and Katsuki twitches as the knife is abruptly jerked out of her arm, the edge sliding sharp beneath her chin instead.

“You’re a hypocrite, Kasu-chan,” Himiko murmurs. “You hide all the time and you allow the world to tear you apart at the seams until all that’s left is jagged and bleedings pieces of what’s supposed to be.”

“Yeah,” Katsuki admits with a grimace. “But it’s my fucking choice, alright? I made a promise and it might not mean much of anything anymore but I fucking made it and I’m keeping it.”

“To become a Hero.”

Katsuki bares her teeth. “To become the Best. Take if however the fuck you want but I won’t be able to fulfil it behind some damn jail bars.” She digs her nails into the shoulders beneath her, leaning closer. “There’s something shifty going on here, Himiko. There’s no fucking way Shigaraki is involved in those weird monstrous beasts, he doesn’t understand jack shit. There’s someone else playing the big game here and you risk becoming nothing but pawns in whatever fucked up shit it is.”

“You’re so strange, Kasu-chan,” Himiko tells her, knife clattering to the floor beside them. “You’re supposed to stay here – that’s why we brought you. To be together again, the three of us.” A hand wraps around her bleeding arm, clenching down. “Why do you have to make everything so complicated?” Himiko complains.

“Me?” Katsuki demands, affronted. “I’m not the one who-“

“You,” Himiko affirms, interrupting her. “I don’t like the world, Kasu-chan, and the world doesn’t like me. Is it so wrong to want to change it? To want a place in it?”

“You think this will change shit!?” Katsuki growls. “The world will see the death of All Might and it will hate you. You’re playing into every fucking expectation! It’s not revolutionizing, all you’re doing is spinning in the same fucking hamster wheel as the rest of them.”

Katsuki straightens up, tugging roughly at her hoodie until she gets it over her head, throwing it aside.

Himiko’s gaze widens below her, something startled and disbelieving in her eyes as Katsuki curls her arm in front of her, fingers digging into the wound to tear it open further, blood splattering against soft pink lips.

“You think the world doesn’t accept you? Fuck the world! Fuck what it thinks!” Katsuki bares her teeth. “You might not fucking get it but you’re mine and I’ll fucking tear this place apart before allowing them to use you.”   

“Kasu-chan…” Himiko’s voice trembles, something desperate in the hand that clenches down on her arm, drawing her closer, and Katsuki’s palm pressing down flat against the ribs of the other to avoid tipping forward. “Kasu-chan, you say such pretty things while bleeding all over me,” Himiko murmurs, voice fervent, desire clear as her mouth parts, tongue curling up.

Katsuki twitches but doesn’t pull away as her tongue slides wet and hot over the wound before Himiko’s mouth sealed down, fanged teeth sinking into her skin and yellow eyes watching as the other sucked the blood into her mouth, throat bobbing as she swallowed mouthful after mouthful.

The bliss, the soft rosy colour of her cheeks, softens something inside of her, and Katsuki struggles against the familiar dizziness that comes with blood loss, Himiko’s shirt already drenched in blood and more disappearing down her gullet.

The clock ticks and Katsuki breathes out carefully when Himiko’s teeth yanks out of her flesh with one last swipe of her tongue.

“You still don’t know what my quirk is,” Himiko says with a strange sort of revelation in her eyes as Katsuki shifts, one hand wrapping around the wound to staunch some of the bleeding.

“I don’t fucking care,” Katsuki grunts. “You’ve tasted my blood plenty of times before.”

“Not like this,” Himiko murmurs, eyes lingering where blood is dripping over clenched fingers. “Never like this.”

Her tongue strokes wet over her bloodied lips.

“I want to do it again,” Himiko breathes.

-

Katsuki smears a palm print of blood over Dabi’s face, ducking back when he came awake with a blue flame already burning hot in his palm, sizzling with a little crackle against her palm when it snagged at the nitroglycerin she hadn’t bothered to wash off.

He stills, taking in the sight she makes, bare chested and bloodied with more sliding down her arm to drip from the tips of her fingers, and then he huffs.

“I see you and wackjob had a disagreement,” he says, wiping at his face with a strange look at his hand as he drew up, eyes lidded with sleep but looking far better than he had. “Sit down, you look like you’re going to keel over, idiot.”

Katsuki grunts but takes two steps before dropping down in front of the couch.

Dabi vanishes out the door and when he returns a couple of minutes later he has a med-kit tucked beneath his arm and rubbing at his face with a wet cloth. He settles behind her and Katsuki shifts to throw her arm up against his thigh, ignoring the blood that smears against his jeans.

“So messy,” Dabi sighs and Katsuki gives him a flat look when he uses the same damp towel for his face to wipe at her arm but doesn’t voice any protest over it. Blood was blood, and it was hers anyway.

He pauses when the wound his revealed, a thumb pressing down in the middle of the two puncture wounds above it.

“You let her drink from you?” Katsuki can’t quite place the tone of his voice but there’s some curiosity there, she thinks, considering him.

“What about it?”

He hums, flipping the lid of the kit open and grabbing for the small needle kit, threading the hooked thing as she levels her breathing, resisting the urge to press her nose closer against his thigh as she half-slumped against him, closing her eyes.

“How much blood did she take?”

“Hell if I know,” Katsuki mumbles as the needle dips through her skin, the thread pulling it shut as Dabi worked his way down with small tight crosses. “She looked pretty happy, though.”

“She would be,” Dabi says. “I don’t think anyone has given it to her willingly before.”

“’s just blood.”

“You know it isn’t to her.” Dabi knots the thread it place after snipping it off. “You’re never going to get rid of her now.”

“Funny that,” Katsuki grumbles. “I’m not looking to get rid of either of you.”

“How sweet,” Dabi drawls.

He wraps the bandage tight around her arm, tying it shut with easy familiarity before shoving the med-kit shut and dropping it to the ground with a clang that makes her twitch, eyes opening to give him an unimpressed look.

“What set her off anyway?” Dabi asks, long fingers threading through her hair, clenching down to give her head a little teasing tug. “She’s usually pretty patient when it comes to you.”

“None of your business now, is it?” Katsuki grumps, giving a tug back, ignoring his smirk. “Congrats, by the way, you slept the whole fucking day away and it’s almost dinner time.”

“Did ya miss me?” Dabi drawls. “All alone among the big bad Villains.”

She twitches.

“Fuck off,” she grumbles, twisting and hoisting herself up, his hand sliding off her hair with a considering little tilt of his head as she rose to her full-height between the spread of his legs.

And then, because she fucking can, Katsuki hoists herself up and drops unceremoniously into his lap as he stills, turquoise eyes darkening as she pressed close, one hand curling around his shoulder.

“I’m going to fucking kiss you,” she informs him grumpily.

And then she does, pressing her lips against his, tasting him with an impatient little noise that he swallowed into his mouth as he parted his lips for her, allowing her to deepen it as his hand settled firm and grounding on her left hip, sliding up against the scar there.

Dabi is warm, he tastes good, and Katsuki can’t help the way pleasure curls through her, wanting more as her teeth drags over his scarred lower lip.

She draws back and it annoys her that, despite sitting down, he’s still taller than her, his eyes lidded with want as he patiently waits her out. Her fingers dragging from his shoulder and down, pressing her palm flat over the calm beating of his heart.

Keeps it still there.

“Can I blow you?”

Dabi wheezes out a surprised noise, his heart speeding up, and her mouth curls with satisfaction as her hand slides down, trailing all the way down to press loosely against the spread of his legs.

“Well?” she demands, tilting her head.

“You are something else,” he tells her, voice rough. “Fuck yes, you can.”

Katsuki flashes him a fiendish little grin and snaps the button open. She draws the zipper down before sliding back onto the floor and Dabi can take a hint because he gets his jeans and underwear half-way down his thighs before she tugs them down to his ankles.

It’s not a terribly flattering picture but it’s Dabi and Katsuki strokes her cheek up against the inside of his thigh, giving a small nip at the sensitive skin there as he gave a little twitch.

“You’re older than me, you know,” Dabi murmurs, slouching down further, his cock half-hard between the spread of his legs.

Katsuki is going to change that very, very soon.

“It’s fucking hot,” he tells her, voice rough and low as Katsuki angles her head, ignoring his cock in favour of dragging her tongue flat over his balls, rubbing against the skin there. Patient, slow, mapping him out as she lets her breath fan hot and wet with an opening of her mouth as she traced up, curling around the root of his cock as saliva pooled in her mouth.

Dabi tastes good. He’s still newly showered and she mouths against him, tracing every inch as he swells and grows. He’s circumcised, his pubis hair trimmed short, and she wonders if he dyes himself there as well for the strands are dark against the brush of her nose as he groans.

Katsuki presses one palm against his thigh but the couch is low and Dabi is close and though he’s well-endowed, deliciously so, she doesn’t have to strain to trace her tongue up, dragging it against the underside of the sensitive head to a low rough exhale.  

It doesn’t take much to get him to full hardness and Katsuki swipes her tongue over the first bead of pre cum with a low hum at the taste of him.

“You’re a fucking tease,” Dabi tells her, cock jutting hard and proud and dragging over her cheek as she presses forward to give his belly a nip of sharp teeth to a clenching of his abdominal muscles. “Katsuki…”

She opens her mouth wide, tucks her teeth carefully away, and swallows him half-way into her mouth.

Dabi jerks, hissing out roughly, his hand finding and clenching down hard in her hair, urging her down further.

She obliges, mouth curving with satisfaction even as her lips strains around the girth of him. Because Dabi is fucking big but the low ache in her jaw in a welcome thing and she curls her back to take him better as he sinks deeper into her mouth with a shudder that goes through his entire body.

“So fucking warm,” Dabi grunts as she flattens her tongue against the underside of his cock, saliva dripping and pooling in her mouth, sliding down his erection as she pulls back before sinking back with a drag of the tip of her tongue along the length of him, humming.

She has to shift her own legs, feeling her own cock swell in response to the taste of him, the scent of sulphur always so addicting and her nose sliding closer and closer to bury against his pubis hair as she swallows him down her throat.

It’s takes her a few moments to work around the instinctive gag when he presses deep, threatening to curl down her throat, and she shifts, brows furrowing in concentration as she gets a feel for it, bobbing along the length of him tryingly as his fingers grasp hard at her hair.

And then she angles just so and takes him all the way to the root.

Dabi’s hips jerks but Katsuki presses down on his thighs, swallowing around him, her throat folding tight to a muted curse.

She holds him there, measuring her limits as a small tremble works through his body, muscles straining to keep still, and she appreciates it, she does. But she wants it rougher, wants it harder, wants to see him come undone.

Katsuki draws up and all the way off him.

“I want you to fuck my mouth, Dabi,” she murmurs, tongue dipping out to curl around the head of his cock with a fiendish little grin.

His eyes sharpens on her and he presses against the back of her head. Katsuki keeps his gaze as she opens her mouth, not resisting an inch as he guides her all the way back, dragging her up roughly before repeating it, the muscles in his arms bunching tight as he simultaneously thrust up to bury deep and hard.

Katsuki adjust to allow it, her cock straining painfully against her jeans as Dabi sets a rough pace, the pulling at her hair doing delicious things to her own body. Her jaw aches and there’s a raw sort of thing to give up control like this, feeling the way his cock drags and thrusts into her, his pleasure clear in the dark hunger in his eyes.

Dabi shifts a leg, sliding it beneath hers and pushing up.

She nearly chokes in surprise, groaning low as her thighs clenched down around him, pushing up harder against him as he sunk into her, so deep that his pubes tickled against her nose, his balls pressing against her chin as he held her there.

A low straining groan from him makes her cock twitch and she bunches her muscles, pressing him just an inch deeper, rubbing her tongue against him as best as she can.

There's little care for anything but his own pleasure, his head tipping back and hips arching as he buried into her mouth as she struggled not to gag. 

“So fucking good,” Dabi praises as he draws her up, allowing her to breathe in through her nose before he thrust back into her as he buried her head between his legs.

It’s rough, it’s degrading, it’s fucking delicious.

Her hands slides around his bare thighs, pressing down as he pressed up, and his pace stutters.

“Fuck-“ Dabi tries to tug her up but Katsuki refuses, pressing her hips harder against him, rubbing herself against him as he comes with a choked groan of her name, the warm sticky come hitting the back of her throat, swallowed automatically to another jerk of his hips as he hissed out through his teeth.

She drags her mouth slowly off him, allowing his softening cock to slip out with stroke of her tongue along it. Works his jeans and underwear up to a brief rise of his hips to allow it, his eyes dark and hooded as he watches her.

The hand in her hair drags her roughly up and Katsuki finds herself twisted around, hands making short work of her jeans and getting them half-way down her hips with a bobbing of her cock before he drags her roughly back against his chest.

She lands a bit awkwardly in his lap, one arm looping around her chest to pin her close. His bare hand circles her straining cock and she twitches back against him, hissing as he dragged up, following the curve of it before his thumb pressed down against the slit of it.

“You’re a fucking wonder,” he groans into her ear before his mouth seals down, sucking wetly as his grip tightened, her mind buzzing from the feeling of him just holding her.

His hands are calloused and so fucking warm and it’s Dabi and Katsuki-

“Relax,” he tells her, hand smoothing up to catch the pre-cum at the tip of the sensitive head before curling down with a firm twist that made her hips arch up with a groan that she turns to hide against her shoulder, shivering as he stroked her, his mouth trailing down her throat.

Dabi’s fingers are long and strong and Katsuki struggles against a whine that builds low in her throat, sucking in a sharp breath, acutely aware of what was being done to her and just who was doing it, a coiling sort of disbelief and heady overwhelming want alike tangling inside of her.

“Just like that,” he encourages in a low rough voice as she arches up, his left arm wrapping around her chest to keep her pinned and her nails digs into the fabric of his jeans. “Feels good, doesn’t it?”

She gasps his name as he twists his palm up before dragging roughly down the length of her cock and she presses herself back against him, head tipping to bare her neck further as he scraped his teeth against her pulse point.

It takes her an embarrassingly short amount of time to come, Dabi’s hand wrapped hard around her and her hips arching as his teeth sunk into her skin and pleasure explodes sharp and overwhelming over her senses as her breath stutters.

Her hips jerk as he twists his hand up, making sure she was well and truly properly spent as she softened in his grip.

Dabi detaches from her throat and Katsuki gives his hand a bleary look as she registers the white come clinging stickily to his fingers.

And then she flushes a deep dark shade of red as his tongue flattens against them to swallow it down.

“Must you?” she asks, strangely transfixed by the sight he made as he hummed.

“Says the woman who just swallowed mine,” he says with a slanted look.

Katsuki gives him a flat one back, trying to ignore the warmth in her chest as the acknowledgement of what she is as his mouth twitches, his eyes dark and knowing.

-

Dabi isn’t wrong about Himiko, Katsuki soon learns.

There’s a new sort of intention to the way the other girl is watching her, lingering as Katsuki worked her way through the dinner preparations while trying firmly to ignore it.

She isn’t… entirely sure what to feel about it.

You’re mine, she’d told Himiko, the words ringing sure and possessive with claim, and Himiko hadn’t protested it.

Katsuki slices through a carrot with unnecessary violence.

People aren’t things to be owned, that, if anything, is Katsuki’s firm conviction in life.

She doesn’t belong to anyone, she has no place to claim others, and-

Fuck, Katsuki thinks as she stares a bit blankly down at the cutting board.

I’m so fucking compromised that it isn’t even funny.

Chapter Text

Mina finds herself just a tiny bit overwhelmed.

She hasn’t seen this many high-ranking Heroes in her life, all of them gathering together in preparation of getting her best friend back.

It gives her hope, just as much as it’s a startling thing to behold.

There’s Endeavour side-by-side with Hawks whose wings are red and bright and his mouth stretched out in a grin.

Ryukyu stands with her arms folded and a thoughtful furrow of her brow as she listens to All Might, broad chested and golden haired in the middle of them.

The Hero Katsuki had interned with is there, hand stroking down the curl of his fringe, most of his face hidden behind a large collar. Best Jeanist. And then beside him – Edgeshot, visibly shorter than most of his peers, one leg drawn up, foot flat against the wall, an distant thoughtful look on his face.

Kamui Woods and Mt. Lady are the only new comers to the scene and Mina takes some comfort in that the two of them look just as out of the depth as she feels in this room of Heroes.

Most of them rank above ten, the best and brightest that society had to offer.

They’re taking this seriously, Mina acknowledges to herself where she stands next to Aizawa-sensei and a Detective Tsukauchi. The two of them makes an almost startling contrast to the bright-clad Heroes, especially the detective in his beige coat and hat, his face plain and non-descript.

Mina had been introduced to him only a couple of days earlier when he asked to hear her take on things, eyes firm and non-judgemental as she struggled her way through the happenings that had resulted in her best friend’s kidnapping.

There’d been a strange look in his eyes when she told him about Katsuki’s terror of All Might but not once had he shoved any sigh of disbelieving her words. If anything he had been grim at the end of it, face lowering as he considered what she’d told him.

Mina tilts her head up, seeking her teacher’s gaze, but finds him watching All Might with bloodshot eyes.

“Thank you all for coming,” Detective Tsukauchi says, stepping forward, easily taking control of the room as the Heroes turn to him.

“Naomasa,” All Might greets, fondness in the warmth of his voice.

The Detective inclines his head in response.

“I know this is on short notice and there’s a lot we need to work our way through.”

He steps his way up to the center of the room, fishing through his pocket for a small stick which he slides into the computer.

Mina takes a step forward, eyes on the screen on the wall as a large map unfolded, narrowing down to a small red circle.

“We are confident that we’ve managed to trace the League of Villain’s hide-out to the Kamino Ward. It appears to be an old bar. During the last two days we’ve gotten reports back on both Dabi,” here a blurry picture of the scarred man from the forest folds up, “and Mr. Compress,” a picture of a man in trench coat, masked and tall as he steps out from a door joins it, “entering and leaving the premises.”

Mina’s eyes fixates on the picture of Dabi – on the patchy purple skin and black hair, one hand in his pocket and face blurred.

Next the picture of it bar itself joins the screen, a run-down thing with a blinking sign out front.

Mina had pictured far worse things, it seems almost anti-climactic to imagine her best friend trapped behind those old wooden walls. It would be easy enough to just blow up but Mina knows it’s not so simple, either, for she remembers USJ and the man with the disintegrating quirk.

Not to mention the man with the teleportation quirk, Dabi with his violent blue flames and the sharp grin of the girl, Toga, who Asui and Uraraka hadn’t managed to bring down despite her never revealing her quirk.

And there were more than them as well, Villains that hadn’t been caught on pictures but had been described in the class chat after the summer camp when everyone came together to share what had gone down with the realization that one of their own was missing.

Katsuki…

Four days had passed since his kidnapping, in just two more the Heroes were supposed to strike.

It’s a terrifying thing to imagine and Mina can’t begin to wrap her mind about what it might be like to spend an entire week in the hands of Villains. What might have been done to him, what thoughts he might have as day after day counts by without any Heroes many an appearance to get him back.

What if he believes we’ve given up on him? Mina thinks restlessly as she listens to Tsukauchi lay out what information they had.

Sketches of Villains appear on the screen, a lizard-like one beside a man in a dark body-suit, a red haired man with broad lips, Kurogiri with the warp quirk and, then, Shigaraki Tomura – pale haired and hunched with a terrifying stretch of a smile behind the hand on his face.

A picture of the first noumo from USJ and then those that had attacked at Hosu – all of them broad and warped in their abilities and quirks, created to withstand force and create destruction.

Creatures once human, genetically engineered to do the bidding of the Villains.

All in all, it paints a very grim picture.

-

“Ashido-san, please remain,” Tsukauchi bids at the end of the meeting and Mina feels the way more than one of the Heroes turns to regard her curiously. She’s acutely aware of how displaced she is among these people and she straightens her back and firms her mouth.

She’s relieved when Aizawa-sensei remains a steadying presence at her side.

“Best Jeanist, Edgeshot, Hawks… if you could as well.”

The Heroes in question looks to him and of the three it’s Best Jeanist who appears the least surprised, pushing away from the wall he’d been leaning against for the last half of the meeting.

He’s tall, Mina observes, wondering just what kind of man he is as he approaches them. Shinsou had told her that Katsuki hadn’t been very impressed by the man at first but that it had changed the last day or so.

She had also seen Katsuki wear the Best Jeanist t-shirt on more than one occasion which meant that her friend had taken a liking to him in one way or the other.

Mina’s fairly certain that if Katsuki would have burnt the shirt otherwise.

“Well, Tsukauchi-san, now you’ve got me all curious,” Hawks says, wings sweeping up to tuck behind him as he hoisted himself up on the table they’d crowded around for the debriefing, though few of them had chosen to sit down. “What could you possibly want with little ol’ me?”

She looks curiously to the Number Three Hero. He’s not very tall, slim and narrowly built, and she finds herself wondering if it’s consequent of his quirk as she eyes the beautiful feathery wings on his back.

“This has something to do with why Bakugou was taken,” Best Jeanist says, eyes slanting towards Mina before focusing sharply on the Detective.

Tsukauchi inclines his head.

“I would like this so remain between us. If you cannot promise me that I request that you leave as it possibly compromises the future of one of our Heroes.”

Edgeshot tilts his head. “Why us?”

“You have all proven to be calm and level headed in making calls in compromising situations,” Tsukauchi tells them. “And that is exactly what is needed here. There’s also a need for… discretion.”

“Discretion is my middle-name,” Hawks says, drawing one leg up and planting his boot on the table. “You can count on me.”

“I will stay as well,” Edgeshot agrees. “I trust your judgement, Tsukauchi-san.”

“You already know my thoughts on the matter,” Best Jeanist says firmly. “I will aid in what capacity I can. He was my student for a time, after all.”

“Thank you,” Aizawa-sensei says from beside her and Mina looks up at him in surprise.

“Of course,” Edgeshot responds almost immediately, grey eyes focusing on him. “I owe you, Eraserhead. I will do what I can to bring your student back.”

“So?” Hawks presses, eyes intent behind blue-tinted visors.

Tsukauchi shifts, pressing down on the computer and bringing up a picture of Dabi and then a sketch of Toga side-by-side.

“When the two Villains Dabi and Toga revealed themselves in the forest it was made apparent that Bakugou-san was already familiar with the two of them,” Tsukauchi reveals, hands pressing together. “The one known as Dabi was especially intent on Bakugou-san going along with them willingly, although it should be noted that he was never given a choice in the end. It is likely that being taken has left him in a compromising situation due to this association.”

Tsukauchi presses for the next picture and Mina startles, inhaling sharply as a picture of Katsuki appeared on the screen, her eyes widening.

He’s clearly asleep in the photo and from the wrap on his leg it was likely taken after he and Hagakure had gotten stuck beneath the crumbling building after the mishap during Hero Training.

Pale with dusty blond spikes and long lashes shut over his crimson eyes. Her best friend.

And there, for all the Heroes to see, the gnarly wrap of purple burn scars that circled around his body in broad thick patches – nearly identical to Dabi’s own.

“Aaah.” Hawks rubs at the back of his head, smile never faltering. “That is a problem,” he acknowledges, eyes lingering. “Dabi was the one with the fire quirk, right?” he muses thoughtfully.

“Yes,” Tsukauchi agrees. “Bakugou-san was, reportedly, distressed at the two of them having chosen to become Villains. Whatever their relationship is it is not necessarily antagonistic in nature despite evidence pointing to a somewhat… volatile background.”

“That,” Edgeshot says with a dip in his brow. “Does not look like a friendly one.”

“No.” Tsukauchi’s lips thins, giving the photo a brief unreadable look before looking to Aizawa-sense. “Thoughts, Eraserhead?”

“I spoke with Bakugou’s parents,” Aizawa-sensei says in a rough voice. “Eight years ago Bakugou had a near death experience that completely warped his personality. He was diagnosed with depression, PTSD, anxiety and dissociative identity disorder following it. It is still something he struggles with, notable in an inability to relate to his peers and he has a sore spot a mile wide when it comes to touch, among other things.” He drags a hand through his hair. "He has a history of getting into trouble, often coming home scraped and bruised though his parents knew nothing about the burn scars."

Mina catches Best Jeanist’s eyes turn sharply to Aizawa-sensei.

“You sure the kid’s Hero material?” Hawks asks with a cock of his head. “Sounds like it could compromise him in the wrong situation.”

“He has never once allowed it to get in the way on the field. From my observations he’s become quite adapt at compartmentalising and he still has time to figure things out. He is young and he is not beyond hope. If he wants to become a Hero then that is well within his right.” Aizawa-sensei’s voice sharpens at the end, hair rustling as he looks to the Number Three Hero.

Hawks raises his hands. “Hey, I’ve never met the kid – I’m just making conversation.”

“That is not all there is to it, is it?” Edgeshot observes with a lingering look at Aizawa-sensei. “I cannot help but wonder why All Might isn’t here when he is a teacher of Bakugou-san as well.”

“That-“ Mina takes a step forward, refusing to falter under the gaze of the Heroes when they all look to her. “That’s because he’s afraid of him. Of All Might.”

Hawks looks for a second like he’s about to laugh and Mina’s fingers curls at her side, ready to snap back at him-

But Best Jeanist lets out a rough sigh. “The Sports Festival."

“Yes,” Aizawa-sensei agrees, inclining his head, looking so tired that Mina itches to push him into a chair.

“A low moment for U.A.,” Edgeshot says with a brief dip of his mouth. “Chaining one of their own students up…”

Mina is almost ready to make him her new favourite Hero on those words alone, chest swelling with a relief that someone understood that it hadn’t been alright, that Katsuki hadn’t been okay in the aftermath of it.

“It was,” Aizawa-sensei agrees bluntly. “And we made an error of judgement again when we allowed All Might to go up against Bakugou in the final exam.”

“How so?” Hawks asks, one leg swinging idly. “I heard about it, sounds pretty crafty to me to put them up against real-life Heroes. All Might-“

“Beat Bakugou unconscious,” Aizawa-sensei interrupts, stepping forward and bending past Tsukauchi to press for the next picture.

Katsuki appears, his body bruised nearly black with violence, more than one rib jutting strangely beneath the mess of old burn scars, his arm limp and nearly blown to bits at his side, nearly all of the fingers broken and twisted.

One of his feet is missing a shoes, the toes bent and skin charred in places. There’s scratches and entire patches where skin had scraped clean off. Hand sized bruises dark on his upper arms, dipping down from the crown of his head, one eye swollen completely shut in the bruised side of his face. Nose broken, his jaw dislocated, gums bared in a bloody grimace.

Mina’s chest twists harshly at the picture clear proof of what her friend had suffered and finds herself unable to look for long, teeth sinking hard into the skin on the inside of her cheek as she turns to the Heroes instead.

For the first time since the meeting Hawks face twitches, smile dimming.

Best Jeanist straightens up and Mina catches a brief flash of devastation in his eyes as he looks at the picture of her friend. “That… a school exam?” he demands. 

Scratch that, Best Jeanist is her new favourite Hero, Mina decides, eying him.

Hawks wings lowers behind him. “That is some excessive force of violence to use on a teenager,” he observes, eyes lingering before looking to Aizawa-sensei. “So, basically, All Might is compromised in this matter? Never thought I’d see the day.”

“Has he given a reason for it?” Edgeshot asks as Tsukauchi gives a cough and presses down on the computer, pictures fading away.

“None that we can discuss here,” Aizawa-sensei says, mouth thinning. “What we can draw from this is that Bakugou is compromised from both sides in the matter – both in his relation to Heroes and now these two Villains who he’s already acquainted with. He might not be in a right state of mind to make a good judgement call.”

“Which is why you need someone who is not All Might to make first contact with him,” Edgeshot says with a shift of his feet. “It’s a sound idea but we’re strangers to him.”

“There’s no telling what will happen once you get there,” Tsukauchi says, drawing the Heroes attention to him. “But ideally anyone who isn’t All Might or Endeavour is our best shot here.”

“What, the kid’s got a problem with Endeavour too?” Hawks sounds, if possibly, affronted by the very idea.

“None that I know of,” Tsukauchi soothes. “But he’s not the most… approachable.”

“He is rather grumpy,” Hawks agrees with a twitch of his wings.

“Knowing Endeavour he’ll likely be caught up in the middle of things anyway,” Aizawa-sensei says drily. “He and All Might are the heavy-hitters here and with Dabi on the scene another fire use would be ideal in dealing with him.”

Hawks relaxes back. “True,” he says, leather gloved hands raising to rub thoughtfully at his chin. “Honestly, I’m not sure what good I’ll be trying to talk down a volatile kid but if I see him I’ll do my best. If anything, I might be able to get him far away from the mess of things, at least.” He stretches out his wings with a flash of his teeth, feathers bright and eye-catching behind him.

Aizawa-sensei turns to Best Jeanist. “You are familiar with Bakugou already since he did his interning at your Agency.”

“I am,” Best Jeanist agrees, hand reaching up to smooth down the fringe of his hair. “The information does complicate the matter but Bakugou didn’t strike me at the sort to roll over to the whims of others. He made a decision to become a Hero, it’s just a matter of reminding him why.”

Hawks raises a hand up with a little wave. “That said.” He turns to Mina. “Why are you here?”

“Katsuki is my best friend,” Mina answers immediately, straightening up. “If anyone has a right to be here it’s me.”

“Sometimes,” Tsukauchi says with a warm smile. “All we need is good friend when we’re feeling a bit lost.”

Mina clenches her hands into fists.

I just hope we’re not too late, she thinks as she looks to the setting sun outside the large windows.

-

Katsuki elbows Dabi when he reaches to steal the cigarette from her lips, huffing when he only drew her tighter with the arm looped around her, slouching down to put more of his weight on her.

“You’re heavy,” she grumbles as he inhales.

“You’re huggable,” Dabi tells her around the smoke as he breathes out, hand curling down to press the cigarette to her mouth.

Katsuki bites down on the butt of it, turning her head with a small huff.

On the horizon the sun is setting, slowly disappearing behind the tall buildings.

“What are you going to do?” Dabi murmurs, the hand on her waist dipping to disappear up the hem of her shirt to rest flat against her belly. “It’s only a matter of time before the Heroes arrive now.”

“Me?” Katsuki turns her head to look up at him, removing the cigarette with her thumb and index finger. “There’s a chance Endeavour is going to be there, you know. On a scale from one to ten, how fucking likely are you to do something stupid?”

“Very,” Dabi admits, mouth curling and the metal in his cheeks glinting.

Katsuki’s mouth thins.

“There’s something going on here, Dabi, and I don’t fucking like it. Shigaraki already made a disaster of USJ and then he fucked-up again at Hosu. He’s an idiot but he’s not a fucking idiot, he’s far too sure for man who’s faced defeat time and time again.” She gives him a hard look. “I might be playing live bait for the Heroes but there’s something else at play here, or rather someone else.”

Someone with enough confidence to believe themselves capable of taking on All Might.

Katsuki thinks of the sound of her flesh splitting, the crack of her ribs as they broke, the ruin of her arm as she choked on blood in his grip, struggling, fighting, nothing short of useless in the face of the sheer terrifying power of the Number One Hero.

And she thinks of someone capable of standing on even footing with him, someone who wanted to see the world crumble at their fingers.

Would it survive such a thing?

Something stretches deep and yawning inside of her, something wretched and useless alike, like claws jagged and desperate against her heart.

Would I?

“There is,” Dabi agrees, thumb brushing absently over a scar just above her belly button. “Perhaps if you agree to join I’ll tell you what I know,” he entices with a lidded look at her.

Katsuki scoffs.

“Yeah, no, I’m sticking to what I said. I think you’re all unbelievable idiotic for even thinking about it.”

“So stubborn,” Dabi sighs, palm flattening, pulling her closer.

“Honestly.” Katsuki gives him a look. “What’s the long-term goal here because I’m not fucking seeing one. The Leader of this inane plan kills All Might, you kill Endeavour, the world will fucking hate you. And then what will you do? Spend the rest of your life at the will and whims of whoever managed to off the Number One Hero?”  She flicks the butt of the cigarette to the ground and curls her hand around his wrist. “I went up against All Might and I didn’t stand a fucking chance. I came out looking like fucking patch-work. If he wanted to he could have killed me flat in seconds. That kind of power? It’s not fucking normal. It’s not right. And you’re as good as saying that there’s someone who might measure against it?” Her fingers digs into his wrist. “It fucking terrifies me, Dabi.”

He stills behind her.

“All Might terrifies me and I fucking know he’s not in the habit of killing teenagers, even those he doesn’t like, for ever fucking reason I did to deserve that. This unknown? Someone with the same kind of fucked up power?” Katsuki breathes out roughly. “I’ve already died once, Dabi, and I didn’t enjoy it one fucking bit.”

“You’re not going to die,” Dabi says, grip tightening. “I wouldn’t-“

“What?” Katsuki gives him a tired look. “Allow it? Face it, Dabi. I’m easily discarded in whatever game is at play here. Very fucking expandable, actually. You can’t promise me jack shit because you wouldn’t stand a damn chance anyway.”

She leans back against him, sinking into his embrace with a tug at his arms which he takes a hint at, slowly, and a bit haltingly, wrapping around her.

“You’re not going to die,” Dabi repeats, resting his chin on top of her head, and if he’s looking to reassure her it’s really not fucking working.

Katsuki wakes up in a world that terrifies her.

And it never fucking stops.

Katsuki wonders if she should start counting her days as she squeezes her eyes shut, feeling cold even with Dabi’s unnatural warmth pressing against her back.

Chapter Text

”So, how exactly did you die?”

Katsuki catches the juggling ball she’d stolen from Compress room against his exact wishes to knock.

As if she was willingly going to subject herself to more of his company than necessary – she got enough of him during meals with his underhand little pokes for information. She rather thought he found amusement in her less than poignant responses.

She turns to give Dabi a blank look where he lies sprawled out on the couch.

“Because I’ve been thinking about it,” Dabi says, fingers tapping absently against the cover of the book on his chest. “And twenty-two is an awfully young age to die and you said it didn't end on your terms.”

Katsuki’s mouth thins, breathing out as she turned her attention back to the ceiling.

“I was murdered,” she tells him bluntly. 

Trust is a horrible thing and Katsuki allows herself few allowances of it and it’s always compromised. She had paid the ultimate price once; choking, drowning, cold and lonely, betrayed by her best friend and lover.

Someone she had known for years and trusted implicitly.

“He left me to die on the street,” she says, fingers touching against her throat. “Never saw it coming.”

“You knew him,” Dabi says and her mouth twists because he’s always been sharp.

“Yes,” she admits.

“And he killed you.”

“And he killed me,” she agrees.

“Why?” Dabi presses.

“I don’t know.” Katsuki huffs out a harsh breath. “We broke up when I was twenty-one and I thought… I don’t think he ever got over it. Wanted to keep me all for himself, I suppose. But I don’t know, there was never time to ask.”

Katsuki remembers the rain falling above them, his face hunched above hers, shielding her from the worst of it as he bent forward to press his cold lips against hers.

“I’m sorry.”

“That’s fucked up.” Dabi pushes himself up and his feet hits the ground before he leant forward to rest his elbows on his knees. “You loved him?”

“Once,” Katsuki hums. “We met at an apple orchard of all things. Young, idealistic, no real direction in life, ya know? He was… a good man. Or so I thought, I guess. He taught himself to sign because he wanted to tell his bad jokes. I was a fairly competent lip reader before that, took him some time to realize I hadn’t been laughing at his jokes because they were bad not because I didn’t understand them.”

She had been amused by the way he had stubbornly proclaimed that he’d find a joke that would make her laugh, all huffy and clumsy in his signing, frustration clear in his face. He’d been two years younger than her, a scruffy sixteen-year-old who had bailed from a broken home in search of something better.

And he’d found her, Katsuki supposes.

“You sound like you miss him,” Dabi points out with a tilt of his head and Katsuki doesn’t quite know what to make of the look in his eyes.

“I’m not her,” Katsuki says with a grimace. “I have… both of their memories, the boy’s and the woman’s, but I’m not either of them, not truly. It’s fucking hard to explain but… he belonged to her and she died loving him, and it feels shitty to just dismiss that it was. She paid for it, ultimately, and I hate him but she loved him.” She huffs. “It sounds fucking insane.”

“It does,” Dabi agrees, the asshole. “You speak as if you were her but you insist you aren’t.”

“They are me and they’re not,” Katsuki struggles to explain it and ultimate gives up on it with a harsh breath. “I don’t fucking know. It’s just… messy.”

“That does sound like you." Dabi smirks and she bares her teeth at him, unamused. “What was her name? The woman’s.”

“Does it matter?” Katsuki gives him a half-curious look, a strange tug in her chest.

“No,” Dabi says, pushing up to his feet. “You like the name you have now?”

“Katsuki? Yeah.” She watches him with a small furrow in her brow. “It’s who I am.”

“Good,” Dabi murmurs, one knee pressing down against the bed before he leant forward to slant his lips against hers.

Long fingers tangles into her hair with a tug back as she parted for him, her eyes closing with a low groan as his tongue stroked up against her, devouring her with that heady contrasting feeling of roughness and softness.

Katsuki likes kissing Dabi – it’s such a simple thing but she rather thinks she’ll never tire of it.

-

Mina drags a flailing Midoriya behind her, glancing twice to make sure not one of the Heroes had caught sight of them before shoving him into the room she’d been staying at and kicking the door shut behind her.

“What are you doing here?” Mina hisses out, clamping down at her fury as she folds her arms and gives him a firm look.

She’d caught him skulking after All Might who was either oblivious or pretending not to notice his shadow and Mina is not having it.

You have no right to be here, she thinks with fingers that sink hard into her arm as he gives her a visibly distressed look.

Midoriya looks… bad, Mina admits to herself. She hasn’t seen him since the summer camp fiasco but she swears he’s actually lost weight since then, the shadows beneath his eyes dark and there’s a sallow sort of paleness to his skin that makes him look downright sickly.

She pushes down at any sort of sympathy, firming her mouth.

“I’m-“ He gasps, rubbing his hand through his hair and visibly giving himself a shake as he looks up at her. “All Might told me that they know where Kacchan is. That – that they’re going after him tomorrow and I-“

“You,” Mina interrupts. “Are not doing anything.”

Midoriya actually recoils before he seems to find himself, straightening out.

“I need to do something,” he tells her, taking a step forward. “If you were his friend you’d understand that Kacchan – he needs help! He needs-“

“The best Heroes this world has to offer,” Mina cuts him off, all sympathy officially squashed as she glowers at him. “What do you think you can do, really?” she demands of him. “Your quirk is hardly the kind to go under the radar, the Villains will know you’re there in two second flat and then you’ll ruin whatever chance I have of getting him back!” 

It’s a lesson hard-swallowed but Mina knows that her friends needs more than she can offer and she knows her quirk is all but useless in this situation.

She has never wished more in her life that she had a quirk like Hagakure, something that would allow her to just go by unseen.

But that’s not what she has and Aizawa is sympathetic but firm when he practically grinds into her mind how absolutely stupid it would be to interfere here.

“Don’t you think I hate this!?” she snaps, taking a step forward. “It’s always you, you, you when it comes down to it but Katsuki isn’t yours-“

“But he was!” Midoriya practically gasps. “My entire life I’ve looked up to him! I wanted to be just like him – just as brave, just as confident, I even wanted his quirk. We were best friends before- for the longest time everyone thought I was quirkless you know?” Midoriya switches tracks half-way through the sentence and Mina furrows her brows. “Even Kacchan – I hated it. That day on the bridge, I can’t stop thinking what if I wanted it to happen?” Midoriya buries his hands into his hair. “It’s my fault, it’s all my fault and he just – there was so much blood and he changed after it, you know, he changed because of me and I just – I.”

Midoriya digs his hands into his hair and takes two steps back before sinking down roughly on the chair there.

“I was- I was jealous of you, you know?” Midoriya admits, and it’s as if he can’t stop, the words bubbling and spilling over as Mina stares at him. “I wanted – for the longest of time I’ve wanted what you have. To have Kacchan- I just wanted him to look at me and see me. I finally had my quirk but I’m – it’s like I was just as invisible as I’ve always been and I hated it. It was even worse than the bullying because at least – at least he was looking at me but now there’s just-“

He gestures a bit helplessly, looking nothing short of incredibly lost.

“I know he doesn’t like me, I know we aren’t friends anymore, but I can’t stop thinking what if. And I can’t stop thinking about everything – everything I’ve said, you know? And – I’ve been thinking, I’ve done nothing but think this entire week and about the exam and-“ He hiccups. “And it’s my fault, Ashido-san. It’s all my fault. With All Might and – Kacchan he said, he said that I had to get over my Hero worship and just – he was so messed up after the exam and I’m just-“

“Midoriya.” His head snaps up. “Breathe.”

He draws a desperate sort of breath, chokes on it, and then tries again and again as Mina takes a step forward.

“Have you… spoken to anyone about the way you feel about him?” she asks, not sure where to even begin as she looks at him.

Midoriya hesitates but- “I spoke to All Might – about some of it,” he admits, looking honestly miserable about it. “I think- I realize that I probably shouldn’t have because- because All Might he hasn’t-“ Midoriya draws a large breath. “He hasn’t been entirely fair to Kacchan, has he?” he says in a small voice and it looks like it honestly pains him to admit to it.

“No,” Mina agrees and Midoriya flinches. “He hasn’t.”

Mina has seen the way Midoriya looks at All Might with naked adoration and she wonders what it must have taken him to come to this realization and then actually acknowledge it.

“I’m sorry.” Mina blinks at him. “I’m – I truly am.” Midoriya hunches on himself. “I feel like I’ve made a mess of things,” he admits.

“I’m gonna be honest with you here Midoriya because you probably have.” She grimaces a bit to herself as he shrinks. “But frankly, someone should have – I don’t know, spoken to you about this? Because it sounds like you’ve been bottling this up for a long time.”

Midoriya draws a shaky hand through his hair with a weak laugh. “There wasn’t – Mom she tries you know? But she… she didn’t like talking about it. When we – when we thought I was quirkless it was like, if she just pretended everything was alright it would be. And then with Kacchan – it was just the same thing again and I tried to move on, to pretend with her, but there was always that stupid feeling of what if. I can’t - it’s like I can’t shut it off.”

So much is clear, Mina thinks with a curl of her mouth.

“All Might he said – he just kept telling to keep my chin up, that everything would be alright, that he’d try- that he’d try to talk to him. And that’s – that’s what I wanted to hear but I think he just… misunderstood everything. And I didn’t realize it until after the exam because Kacchan – he’s never been jealous of me and it wasn’t – he never said anything about blaming me and I know that. But I blamed myself and- it all just tangled together. Became wrong.”

Mina closes her eyes, grasping for patience but finding none.

“Stay here,” she says abruptly and Midoriya’s head jerks up just as she slams the door in his face.

Mina flexes her fingers as she prowls down the corridor, torn between hitting something and just-

She needs an adult. This is just so far above her and Midoriya – Mina needs to make sure he knows to stay put because she doesn’t trust him not to do anything stupid after spewing all of that at her and Mina just-

She doesn’t understand how everything could have gone so wrong. Can’t stop thinking that if someone had just bothered to talk with Midoriya properly after the accident then maybe-

Maybe things wouldn’t have gone so wrong between her best friend and All Might.

She shouldn’t be furious at Midoriya because someone should have realized that he was blaming himself for the accident (even Katsuki had said it was an accident and that – if anything – Mina trusts) and not allowed it to fester.

Because Mina has seen Midoriya, has seen the way he obsesses, rambling on and on about the quirks of famous Heroes with a feverish sort of adoration in his gaze.

He’d looked at Katsuki the same way – the same desperate sort of want.

Something curls in her chest, deep dark and desperately possessive, because Katsuki is her best friend and it feels like everyone is trying to take him away from her, to claim him for themselves.

First Dabi and Toga and the League of Villains and now Midoriya and Mina-

Mina just wants her friend back.

She pushes into the large meeting room, reaching out and latching onto Aizawa-sensei who grunts in surprise, dark eyes turning down to look at her as she firms her mouth.

“Midoriya is in my room,” she says in a low voice after making sure the only one near them were Detective Tsukauchi who politely excuses himself after a look from her teacher. “He’s – he needs someone to talk to that isn’t me because I really, really feel like hitting him right now.”

“Of course he’s here,” Aizawa sighs, dragging a tired hand through his hair. “I take it he followed All Might?”

Mina gives a terse nod.

“Will you be alright on your own for a while? If you need to sleep you know where my room is.”

“I do,” Mina agrees because they’d been crashing here for a week now – it was easier and safer than commuting back and forth. “I’m gonna go bother Best Jeanist,” she declares, stepping back from him.

Aizawa’s mouth quirks up. “I think he actually enjoys your company.”

“Of course he does,” Mina agrees. “I’m a wonder.”

-

“What are you, a fucking leech?” Katsuki growls, pushing her palm against Himiko’s forehead. “Behave.”

“Be a good mutt, wackjob,” Dabi drawls, sorting through his cards. He’s on the floor, leaning back against the couch, a cardboard box turned upside down between the three of them with a bottle of whisky and a pile of cards.

“You’re just jealous I got to taste Kasu-chan first,” Himiko pouts at him.

“He does taste good, doesn’t he?” Dabi says with a gleam in his eyes as he slid two cards face down on the table.

Katsuki twitches.

Himiko gives him a very interested look before snapping around to look at Katsuki. “Progressing fast here, are we Kasu-chan?” she leers.

“Fuck off,” Katsuki mutters, slamming four cards down.

“So stingy,” Himiko giggles. “I bet he has the cutest face when he comes.” She presses her hands against her cheeks, pink spreading across them. “He was so fierce when he bled all over me – you should have seen him.”

Katsuki ducks her head as Dabi raises his brow at her, the tips of her ears growing warm. “It’s your turn, Himiko,” she grouches.

“Mou, you should call me Himiko-chan,” she complains but obligingly forks out a single card with a little flourish of her hand. “Or Himiko-nee-chan.”

“In your fucking dreams,” Katsuki says flatly.

“You should tell her,” Dabi drawls as he sorts their cards aside and deals them new ones.

Himiko takes a moment peering intently at the single card he flashes her before shaking her head and he slides her a card face down before picking up his own.

Katsuki’s mouth thins and Himiko peers curiously between the both of them before focusing on her.

“Are you keeping secrets, Kasu-chan?” Himiko wonders with a tilt of her hand, one hand sliding down towards her boot and the knife handle sticking out there.

Dabi snatches it out before her fingers can curl around it, stabbing it into the couch behind him to a brief narrowing of yellow eyes.

Himiko’s mouth opens-

“I’m a woman,” Katsuki grumbles and Himiko’s mouth snaps shut, her body jerking towards Katsuki with wide-eyes. “And I’m not sixteen, I’m fucking thirty.” She gives her cards a brief despairing look before looking up to the other girl. “I died,” she says flatly. “And then I woke up in this body. Hell if I know the why or how but I did. Do with that what you will.”

Himiko blinks at her and then leans forward to give her an intent look, eyes searching.

“You’re telling the truth,” she says after a long moment, a note of wonder in her voice. “Was that, like, your quirk of something?” Himiko wonders, fingers reaching up to press against Katsuki’s mouth.

“There were no quirks in my old world,” Katsuki mumbles against the fingers pressing down against her lips.

“Maybe you were the first?” Himiko suggests, drawing her hand back and then perks up, swivelling around to Dabi as he tilts his glass back to swallow a mouthful of whisky. “You’re dating a cougar.”

Katsuki nearly drops her cards. “For fucks sake, I’m only thirty and he’s twenty-“ She pauses, realizing a bit awkwardly that she has no idea, and turning to give him a suspicious look.

“Twenty-five,” Dabi drawls. “It’s pretty hot though, isn’t it?” he says, clearly pleased.

“It means I’m the youngest,” Himiko pouts and something inside of Katsuki relaxes.

Dabi gives her an insufferable knowing look with a smirk that pulls at the metal in his cheeks and she flips him her middle-finger.

It’s strange, Katsuki thinks, how easily things falls for her with these two.

She listens to the ribbing, the teasing, really, between the two of them as she folds her cards, rubbing at the back of her neck as she gazes towards the boarded up window of her room.

It’s so very easy to forget how unkind the world truly is when she is with them.

Mina… gentles something inside of her, Katsuki recognises that in how it’s so very easy to relax into Dabi’s arms when he finds her in the forest.

Breathing the scent of him, allowing the stability and sanity he offers in a way she never does before.

There’s a part of her that wants to stay here, hidden away from the reality of the world.

But Katsuki knows that good things aren’t meant to last.

And there’s a price to pay for everything.

Chapter Text

Katsuki aches.

It’s a… good sort of ache. Different but good.

Proof that she could receive pleasure in this body, that she could take for herself, that she is allowed to want.

Perhaps it’s a bit childish, the vindication she feels at the acceptance from Dabi, but it’s there none the less. The one person who had always met her at equal footing, who didn’t hesitate to press his lips to hers with the realization of what she is.

It’s a strange sort of giddy feeling that spreads through her chest, freeing in its simplicity.

She presses her nose into his neck, breathes him in, allowing the soothing scent of sulphur to fill her up with expanding of her lungs.

Her lungs. Her body. Her pleasure.

There are dark bruises on her neck where Dabi had laid his claim for the world to see, marks where his teeth had dug into her flesh as he pressed into her with a groan of her name that had echoed down to her very bones.

Katsuki still isn’t sure what had been more overwhelming – the feel of being claimed or doing the claiming as he showed her how to work his body open for her use.

Her cock twitches at the reminder, despite how spent she already is.

Katsuki swallows the words she desperately wants to tell him as she angles her head and presses her ear down to listen to the wet thu-thump thu-thump of his beating heart.

“You’re mine,” she growls quietly, possessive and desperate to keep what they have.

The hand resting on her hip twitches before smoothing gently over the first scar he’d left on her body.

“Go to sleep,” Dabi murmurs, voice thick with sleep.

But he doesn’t deny it.

-

Katsuki knows she’s run out of time when she opens her door and finds Kurogiri on the other side of it.

His misty body fluctuates and writhes and she stills when she recognises the clamp of metal in his hand. Cuffs made to prevent the use of quirks like hers – the same sort that had bit into her skin at the Sports Festival.

“Can I… put my hoodie on first?” Katsuki asks, dragging a hand through her hair. “… And maybe some pants?”

“Yes,” Kurogiri allows but when she steps back he follows her and Katsuki’s neck prickles uncomfortably as she bends down and snatches up her jeans.

It’s the same ones she’d worn on her kidnapping and there’s a dried fleck of chocolate near one of the knees which she digs her nail into before pulling them on. The hoodie she draws on next is Dabi’s, a dark blue one that still smells of him, and she takes some comfort in that as she pulls on her socks before sliding her feet into her boots.

Katsuki draws a careful breath before turning around and holding out her hands to Kurogiri, refusing to meet his gaze as the metal sealed shut with a twist and weight that pulls at her shoulders when he let go of them.

She flexes her fingers inside it, knowing that the backlash of using her quirk would likely blow off her hands if she attempted anything.

Watches with hooded eyes as he slips the key into his pocket.

“You have behaved yourself admirable during your stay.” Kurogiri’s voice is low, his words clearly meant only for the two of them. “Keep your head down and you might make it out alive yet.”

Katsuki’s mouth pulls into a thin smile. “It’s like you don’t even know me.”

She rolls her shoulders, squares them tight as steps out and follows him down the stairs to the bar.

All of of the Villains are already there, armed and ready, unsurprisingly.

Shigaraki is half-slumped with his back to the bar beside a small television with a shimmering black and white screen, the hand on his face hiding any sort of impression.

Twice is fiddling with the straps of the chair in the middle of the room and Katsuki feels something cold slither down her spine at the sight of it.

“Kasu-chan!” Himiko makes a move towards her but Mr Compress grasps the back of her sweater and pulls her back, side-stepping the stab of a knife that follows just a second later to a sharp glower from yellow eyes.

“Now, now, Himiko-chan, precautions needs to be taken, you understand?” he says, the mask on his face making it impossible to tell what he was thinking.

Katsuki finds Dabi seated on one of the chair, leaning forward with his hands clasped in front of his face, eyes impossible to read as she briefly meets his gaze.

“Katsuki,” Shigaraki murmurs, drawing her attention back to him. “I wish to hear your answer.”

Katsuki rolls her neck. “I suspect you already know my answer.” She lifts her hands and the metal clamped tight there. “But, yeah, it’s a fucking no from me.”

“You are a particularly stubborn soul,” Shigaraki sighs, one hand waving towards the chair. “It’s nothing personal.” A single red eye glint from the corner of a severed hand. “I hope you understand?”

And Katsuki knows how fucking outmatched she is. Knows that there is absolutely nothing that will prevent her from getting strapped into that chair, no argument, no words, nothing.

Nothing but her agreement to join them and that is the one thing she cannot give.

Katsuki takes the step forward before anyone can touch her, can make her, and sprawls back into the wooden chair with as much dignity she can cling to even as her back goes rigid with tension.

“Nothing personal,” she repeats as Twice bends down, looping the straps in place as Shigaraki pushes off his chair and steps to the middle of the room in that looping strange gait he had.

“The Heroes are coming,” he says, anticipation thick in his voice. “All Might will be leading the charge. They’ve managed to gather together quite the force for our dear Katsuki here. It seems like they’re quite anxious about getting you back.” A red eye lingers on her for just a moment before sliding away. “It’s too bad, really, that it won’t be quite so easy for them. The Noumo have already been dispatched and they’re awaiting your orders.”

Katsuki clenches her teeth, heart thudding loud in her chest as Twice pulls the last strap tight.

“Sorry, kid,” he murmurs and she jerks, realising that she was allowing her discomfort to show and curling her hands tight inside their metal prison. The sickly scent of her quirk is already stinging uncomfortably at her nose, her shoulders drawn tight, and there’s an ugly sort of twist inside her chest as she lowers her head, refusing to look at any of them.

“This day,” Shigaraki says with a feverish sort of gleam as he spreads his hands. “Will forever be remembered as the one on which All Might dies!”

“I still say you’re fucking idiots,” Katsuki breathes out, scraping her nails against the metal to anchor herself to the here and now.

“Yes, you’ve been very… vocal about your thoughts on the matter.” Shigaraki tilts his head. “In this society which has shackles us with its rules you’d think that someone just as oppressed would be sympathetic to our plight.” His lips spreads. “Take some comfort in that we’re not the sort to silence those who disagree.”

Katsuki stiffens at the jab, well aware of the scars at the corners of her mouth where metal had bit deep at the Sports Festival.

She bares her teeth.

“It’s curious, how you take his side, despite everything,” Shigaraki hums. “I wonder, will you celebrate or will you mourn with the rest of the world when he falls?”

“Shigaraki – the boy, he knows something about All Might that could be of help to us,” Mr Compress says before Katsuki can open her mouth and tell him just where to stuff it.

She tenses warily, aware of Dabi shifting in the background as Shigaraki takes a step towards her, eyes suddenly intent.

“Something that can help?” he almost whispers, desire deep in his voice as he looks at her. “Something you discovered when you fought him, perhaps? A weakness?”

“If you’re so fucking sure of this plan,” Katsuki growls. “You hardly need me to help you out, do ya?”

Shigaraki tilts his head. “So you do know something.”

“Hell if I’m telling you,” Katsuki breathes in an undertone.

“He’s remained stubbornly silent on the matter,” Compress says with a theatrical sigh, fingers pressing against his mask with a shake of his head “But perhaps with the right incentive…?”

Katsuki presses warily against the wood as Shigaraki leans down to peer at her past the decapitated hand, tensing as his fingers pressed up against the corner of her mouth, framing her face in a four-fingered grip, thumb hovering just beneath her chin.

She meets his gaze with a glower, heart pounding hard inside her chest.

“Why do you protect him still?” Shigaraki murmurs. “I do not wish you hurt you, Katsuki. Your stay here has been, dare I say it, enjoyable. You fit so well with us here and it frustrates me that you deny your true nature still.”

“My true nature?” Katsuki scoffs. “I assure you Villainy has never been a part of things.”

“Oh?” Shigaraki’s mouth curls. “Not even in your past life, Katsuki-chan?”

Katsuki flinches, eyes widening with alarm as his smile grows.

“Did you really believe we’d allow you to room freely inside these walls without a way to keep an eye on you? Oh it was a curious discovery to make, to realize that you’re more than you are. A thirty-year-old woman trapped in the body of a sixteen-year-old boy? What a miserable existence you lead.”

Katsuki jerks forward in her bounds with a snarl and only Shigaraki’s tightening grip keep her from activating his quirk.

“That has nothing to do with anything!”

Shigaraki releases her with a laugh that sends ice down her spine. “Oh, quite the opposite! What do you think the Heroes will say once they realise they’re risking life and limb for a thief and murderer?” He spreads his hands out, red eye glittering. “I believe they’ll be quite disappointed with you.”

Katsuki strains forward, eyes glowing and lips pulled back to reveal sharp teeth. “I’m not a fucking murderer!“

“No?” Shigaraki presses. “So you didn’t kill the boy and take his body for your own use? Playing pretend in his place? And, oh, his parents have no idea do they?” His teeth glitters in the wide spread of his smile. “Really, it’s nothing short of Villainous, wouldn’t you agree?”

Katsuki stares at him, a dull mute sort of buzz in her ears and an uncomfortable twist in her chest.

“Nothing to say?” Shigaraki mocks. "How... dull."

“Shigaraki… leave her alone.” Dabi’s voice rings out heavy through the room.

You're not helping, idiot, Katsuki thinks very loudly as she looks to him, hoping he reads just much she does not appreciates him stepping in.

He gives her a strange look back, turquoise eyes lidded and dark.

“Be quiet, Dabi.” Shigaraki cranes his head towards him. “I’m well aware you’re compromised when it comes to our dear Katsuki-chan. But I don’t hold it against you. She is quite the interesting case, isn’t she? Almost had me falling right into her hands with that act of hers.”

“Don’t call me that,” Katsuki heaves out. “So what – I didn’t exactly chose it. I fucking died and so did he.”

“Excuses!” Shigaraki rounds on her and there’s a feverish sort of light in his eyes that makes her own narrow.

“If you’re so fucking smart then maybe you should listen to me!” Katsuki snarls at him with frustration that worms thick through her. “I was born in a world without quirks, spent twenty-two fucking years in it. We didn’t have Heroes or Villains but it was fucked up all the same! You think getting rid of Heroes will change anything? Because I know it won’t! I’ve fucking seen it won’t!”

“In what way?” Katsuki jerks around, staring at Compress as he takes a step towards her. “It sounds to me like quite the idealistic society. No quirks, no Heroes, no Villains. What could possibly have been bad about it?”

Katsuki gives him a long measuring look, lips pulling back with a flash of her teeth. “You might not fucking realize it but your quirks? At least they’re connected to one individual who can fucking die. In my world we just got super fucking creative in mass murder and armed country after country with fucking nuclear weapons capable of wiping out all life. One push of a single button and all life as we knew it would be erased.” She growls quietly to herself. “Police brutality was common, minority groups getting murdered by the handful while the police responsible got off with a fucking slap on the wrist. And without Heroes and Villains to distract on the televisions we were really fucking busy getting into war over religions, oil, fucking skin colour. Humanity will always hate those different and it will always greedily consume for power. It doesn’t change.”

It’s one of those things that had really stuck with her upon waking up – that there were no wars. Instead of soldiers society was busy pumping out Heroes and it had become everyday life for civilians to call in late for work because a Villain happened to interfere with their commute to work.

Was it better or worse? Katsuki honestly can’t tell. She tallies the lives lost and just gets tired.

“It’s like the evolution of quirks just put a stop to the wars here. You’re several years into the future but you’re so fucking backwards when it comes to a lot of things, so reliant on quirks instead of science and development. Society takes enjoyment in the whole fucking Heroes and Villains stint and it’s distracting from a shit load of other bad stuff that could have been in its stead.” She raises her head. “So, yeah, I don’t fucking agree with killing All Might. But even if you do there’s Heroes behind him and maybe you should be really fucking thankful that there are.”

“Perhaps you make a good point from your own experiences but the world isn't set in stone. Consider what happens if there's never any change,” Mr Compress says with a spread of his hand but she can’t quite place the tone of his voice. “Society needs change, otherwise the corruption that already is will only grow with consequences thereafter. There is already people suffering and dying because of the allowances made for Heroes. But today marks the end of their Era and we might just end up proving you wrong."

Katsuki slumps in her bonds, glowering at him. “Maybe,” she snips, “there’s just something fucked up with humanity on the whole and we’re doomed to the same fucking hamster wheel, no matter what world we’re in.” She turns her head to Shigaraki. “You can try and blackmail me all the fuck you want but I’m not getting myself involved in this. I’m not telling you shit.”

“Even if it means the truth of you getting out?” Shigaraki presses, a strange look in his eyes.

“Even so,” Katsuki agrees with a grimace. “I fucking owe them the truth anyway.”

“You don’t owe them anything, Kasu-chan!” Himiko protests. “You don’t have to go back – you could stay right here and no-one would have to know but us.”

Katsuki clenches her teeth, turning away from the other girl.

Stiffens when an electronic laugh rings out into the room, her eyes darting towards the television on the bar.

“Oh it’s quite the brave soul we have on our hands, isn’t there? Don’t concern yourself with her, Tomura. All Might will fall today and she’ll be instrumental in bringing his end, whether she agrees to help or not.”

“So you’re the one who thinks he can kill All Might,” Katsuki growls as she screen flickers before settling on a picture of a man, or rather a head piece with the vague outline of a face in the black metal sticking out of a fine-tailored suit. “And who the fuck are you supposed be? Fucking Darth Vader?” she snips as a loud rattling breath registers to her senses. “Whose father are you? Shigaraki’s? Please don’t tell me it’s Midoriya’s because I couldn’t stand the fucking irony.”

Hadn’t Deku’s father bailed when he was, like, a toddler or something? The dead boy’s memories are hazy on the matter. She could just imagine how unfunny it was if his his mentor’s arch nemesis turned out to be his fucking father.

He laughs again, metallic and gritting to her senses. “I am not related to All Might’s little student, I assure you.”

Thank fuck for small mercies, Katsuki thinks with a thinning of her lips.

“I am All For One,” he tells her.

Katsuki gives the screen an unamused look. “And I’m King Explosion Murder,” she says flatly.

“Oh I know exactly who you are, Bakugou Katsuki. Though I admit myself interested in the exact circumstances behind your existence. Your case is quite… unprecedented. I do not believe there’s ever been a quirk that could transfer souls.”

“We didn’t have quirks in my world,” Katsuki snaps at him, heart thudding inside her chest. 

“There is always a first,” All For One rumbles in amusement. “I find myself looking forward to seeing you in person. I might even be able to shed some light on your existence.”

Katsuki grits her teeth. “Yeah, well, I don’t care.”

“I think you care more than you want to admit to, child.” He shifts, turning to Shigaraki who stills, eyes sharp and attentive. “Tomura, the Heroes are en-route.” He looks out at the room in large, more than one of the Villains straightening up, a strange heavy feeling of anticipation rising in the air. “Do not fail me.”

The screen turns black quite abruptly, leaving Katsuki glowering at nothing.

Chapter Text

Katsuki thinks that the most frustrating thing about the entire matter is that she understands.

She thinks they’re idiots, she’s fairly certain not one of them has thought about the long-term repercussions and even less about how it will impact on their own lives, but she understands the want and need for change even if she’s convinced they’re doing it completely backwards.

She had once struggled in a society that refused to meet her on even footing. Where she'd been reduced to passing notes to make orders and pressing down videos without captions or, worse, really bad ones, censored ones, as if she was a child.

Had she not wished desperately for change? Frustrated in a world that would not hear her.

Which was a fine fucking irony.

Killing All Might would bring change, whether society wants it or not, because putting a single man on a pedestal in the way it has is nothing short of pure foolishness. Is All Might responsible for it? In a way – he had set out to become the Symbol of Peace but he hadn’t prepared for what it would mean once he wasn’t around to fulfil the roll.

Arguably he had put it off for so long that he would impact society in one way or the other – he was already struggling to keep up with just their class and had been late to the USJ incident because he’d run his hours down.

Quirkless Deku reappears in her life after eight years with a quirk that strangely echoes All Might and the Number One Hero has a vested interest in him.

Even Katsuki can put one and one together.

But Deku is sixteen. There’s no time and now there’s All For One and Katsuki kinda wants to bury her head in the sand and ignore the reality around her because what did it mean? How to they relate to each other? Why had All Might been so desperate to bring Deku into his shoes now? And why had she never heard of a man who couldn’t possibly have appeared out of fucking nowhere?

Katsuki is fucking suspicious.

All Might had to be losing his power for a reason. He has a weak left-side – an injury? – and here is someone who is so very fucking certain he could stand on even footing with the Symbol of Peace himself.

It could be overconfidence, it could be any fucking thing, but Katsuki has a foreboding feeling life isn’t about to let her off so easily this time.

And what was the point of following All For One anyway? A man on a television screen, shrouded in mystery and with his own agenda. Were they so fucking desperate to bring the end of All Might that they were willing to bet on the unknown?

Because Katsuki doesn’t like that.

She doesn’t like any of this.

There had to be a better way of doing all of this – Katsuki can’t even be exasperated anymore because she’s just really fucking tired. And she’s in so far over her head that it had stopped being funny and she really just want to get out of these fucking straps because she’s so fucking done with being tied up-

She clenches her teeth, her heart pounding hard inside her chest as she shoves at the panic that very much wanted to drag her the fuck under because she’d known there were consequences for not trying harder to leave, to sticking it through because she didn’t want to leave Dabi and Himiko to screw themselves over.

Katsuki rather wishes someone would just sit down with a whiteboard and think about A and B and the consequences of reaching C.

Because that’s not what’s happening here.

And she hates that everyone is in such a fucking hurry. There’s no-one playing the long-game here, other than perhaps All For One, and isn’t that a thought, and Katsuki honestly contemplates if just blowing her hands off and bailing would be fucking easier.

She doesn’t want anything to do with him – is not at all happy about his expressed interest in her.

Katsuki glares down at her booted feet, aware of the restlessness anticipation in the air around her but quite unable to give two-fucks.

Heroes rise, Heroes fall, Villains rise, Villains fall.

It feels like the kind of shitty inevitable that someone, quite uncharitably, planted her smack-dab in.

“She’ll be instrumental in bringing his end, whether she wants to or not.”

Because that’s what Katsuki needs in her life, a life-time of society breathing down her neck by no fault of her own. It was the opposite of what she’d been trying to accomplish by keeping her mouth shut and it isn’t funny and Katsuki-

If Katsuki is completely fucking honest with herself she’s absolutely, mind-blowingly, terrified.

It tangles inside her mind, memories of watching the news, Heroes and Villains, the horrifying reality of war, what if’s and prospective changes.

Is all change good change? No. Katsuki knows it isn’t, knows that it isn’t so easy, knows that there’s little to build on ruin and death without it coming back. The world is too invested in All Might to forgive and forget. They’re not going to tarnish his reputation, he will go down in a blaze of glory and he will fucking inspire.

No-one is going to be thanking them for killing the Symbol of Peace and it feels like they’re missing something so glaringly obvious that Katsuki doesn’t even know where to begin.

But she’s out of time anyway, isn’t she?

The door opens with a bang and Katsuki has to consciously level her breathing as she looks up, frowning at the Villain who steps inside.

“Big Sis Magne!” Spinner grins, stepping forward to slap a hand against the shoulder of the woman, arm sliding up to draw her into a half-hug. “I was just starting to wonder where you’d disappeared to.”

“Someone had to handle things with the Heroes while you were stuck here playing baby-sitters.” The red head looks curiously to Katsuki who scowls right back. “How else would we know when they were going to move?” She waves a hand, smiling at the other Villains. “I hear there’s been quite the interesting developments around here,” she presses a bit coyly, eyes on Dabi in particular.

“That’s none of your business, is it, Magne?” Dabi drawls.

Himiko on the other hand is practically vibrating in place. “Dabi is dating Kasu-chan and Kasu-chan is really a woman from another world and-“ Dabi slaps a hand over her mouth.

“Really, wackjob, there is such a thing as oversharing.”

Himiko pries his hand away, pouting at his lidded look of warning. “Mou, I didn’t even tell them how I could hear you fucking through-“

Blue flames flashes and Himiko bends low, giggling as she spun around and stepped back until she bumped up against Twice who didn’t hesitate to put a hand on her shoulder.

“No need to be self-conscious, Dabi,” Himiko teases. “It sounded like Kasu-chan enjoyed it.”

Katsuki shifts as the room’s attention turns to her, lips curling back to bare her teeth.

“Kasu-chan, huh?” Magne echoes, eyes lingering curiously.

Twice sticks his hand up. “Okay so is everyone just going to ignore that she’s from another world entirely? Because that’s a thing apparently.” He turns to her with amusement that coils heavy and dark into his voice. “You’re even more fucked up than I first thought. But it does explain how you knew to ask! Can you hear him – the boy?” he presses eagerly.

Katsuki’s mouth thins.

“Leave her alone, Twice,” Dabi warns mildly. “The Heroes will be here any moment. We don't have time for chit-chatting.”

“It’s so sweet, seeing you all protective,” Magne sighs with a press of her hand to her cheek. “A captive Princess and her Villainous Guard.”

“Call me Princess again and I’ll fucking eat ya,” Katsuki warns with a growl.

“So uncute,” Magne flashes her a smile. “But you do have a point Twice, it is pretty curious. What was it like?” she asks, stepping deeper into the room.

“It was fucking life,” Katsuki mutters. “Break it down to the bare bones and it wasn’t much different from this one.”

“I doubt it’s quite to easy,” Magne rebuffs.

“They didn’t have Heroes,” Himiko confides, yellow eyes flashing to Katsuki, lingering on the bonds keeping her in place. “Or Villains. Or quirks.”

“Oh?” Magne hums. “Sounds dreamy.”

Katsuki nail breaks – she can feel it physically tearing from the nail bed but her mind is roaring because dreamy? Honestly? What kind of fucked up rose-tinted glasses were at work here?

“There is just life,” Katsuki heaves out, wrestling against the fury that lurks just beneath her skin. “You either luck out or you don’t. I don’t get,” she bites out, “what exactly you think will change with the death of All Might but it won’t miraculously stop life being fucking unkind to those born with miserable lots of life. That’s just fucking humanity for you and you can’t change its nature.”

“You’re quite the pessimistic one, aren’t you?” Magne raises both eyebrows.

Katsuki bares her teeth. “If you’re so fucking concerned with a more fair society, if you really want to expose the fucking mess that is the Hero Society, then maybe you should start by breaking it down not – this. People will still believe in All Might, in worst case scenario he’ll just go down a martyr. And the world will fucking celebrate when it brings you down at the coat tails of it.”

“Break the system from the inside?” Mr Compress hums. “It’s a curious idea but hard to execute, you understand.”

Katsuki very deliberately doesn’t look at Dabi because they had a fucking golden goose in their midst if they wanted to do just such a thing. But she’s not shitty enough to dredge up his past even if everyone seemed fine and dandy with dragging up hers.

Instead she scoffs. “People are already doing it,” she growls. “I don’t know where you’re hanging about but the internet is having a fucking gold mine, it’s just a matter of putting things together in a way that makes it impossible to deny it. People aren’t blind to the Heroes beneath All Might because they’re not being held to the same fucking standard as the Symbol of Peace. It’s still a fucking up-hill battle but people are actively dying because of Heroes fucking up, media just isn’t very interested in bringing it to attention.”

Katsuki rolls her shoulder, glad she’d worn black jeans as she feels blood soak into the fabric.

“What do you even know about this All For One person anyway? Because he’s saying he’ll fight All Might and win and that’s a pretty glaring warning sign to me because I know jack shit about him. Does he even want the same thing as you? What’s his end game?”

There’s a stretch of an uncomfortable silence where the Villains exchange looks and Katsuki’s exasperation with the lot of them hits the roof and the lands flat at her feet because-

“Of fucking course you don’t know,” she breathes. “Kill All Might, happy day, everything else will just roll all dandy with your wishes and wants.”

“Careful with the sarcasm there, Katsuki. You might just choke,” Dabi says dryly.

She gives him a flat look.

Because she knows his goals amount to murder and then more murder with the end of Endeavour and she can’t even fault him for it, knowing what she does.

First the Number One Hero and then the Number One Hero again as Endeavour rise to take All Might’s place.

At least he aims high, Katsuki thinks wryly.

“What’s your thoughts on this Dabi?” Mr Compress turns to the fire user who tilts his head, hands in the pocket of his pants and half-slouched where he stands. “You’re invested in her future, aren’t you? Or so I would assume.”

“Yeah, Dabi,” Katsuki snarks. “What’s your thoughts on this?”

Dabi slants her a look. “We have an… understanding,” he says, eyes lidded and dark. “Isn’t that right?”

Not explicitly and vocally framed in such a way – no, Katsuki thinks. Because he might not have protested her becoming a Hero but he had very much kidnapped her which she was fairly certain went against any sort of understanding between the two them.

Although, if she’s honest, he’d done very little to actually try and convince her of joining the Villains.

He’d been far more focused on making her want to stay with him.

“We do,” she says finally, deciding that it was just easier to play the game. “Doesn’t make me any happy about it thought.” She blows out a harsh breath. “Also, you can’t fucking fault me for asking when you’ve decided to stick me in the mess of things by fucking kidnapping me,” she mutters. “Brilliant, really, enjoying the planning here. Lots of thought put into it and not at all completely fucking reliant on some fucking creep you know nothing about.” She raises her head, furrowing her brow. “Are you sure you’re not just trading down All Might for something-“ She stiffens, stilling, confusion racking up with a ghostly touch against her shoulder because the Villains are all accounted in front of her and-

The hand tightens warningly, a mouth pressing hot against her ear, so close that she feels the shape of soft lips. “We’re here to rescue you.”

“… something worse,” Katsuki wrestles out because-

What the fuck is See Through doing in the League of Fucking Villains!?

In the nude?

-

Tooru had been carefully optimistic about the entire plan in the beginning of things.

It seemed simple enough. Find the hide-out, wait and follow one of the Villains back into it, find Bakugou, get him on his own and get him out of there.

Jirou had made sure the coast was clear, had given a accurate lay out of the building and she would keep listening in – keeping control of the area and warn Tooru in case the warp user returned from the backroom.

Shinsou and Yaomomo were both keeping watch, away from things, but Todoroki was keeping close, ready to intervene.

The ear piece Hatsume-san had made for her, capable of reflecting light and thus invisible in her ear, is quiet – all of them wary of risking even a whisper of sound.

So far nothing is really going to plan because Bakugou is the opposite of being on his own and Tooru is uncomfortably aware of the many Villains around them.

And – Bakugou is apparently a girl? And from another world? And he- she, Tooru corrects herself firmly, might be tied up but there is something here that just strikes her as off. Because Tooru can read the stress in those tense shoulders but there’s no fear when Bakugou tilts her head and meets the turquoise eyes of the scarred Villain.

In fact – Tooru feels her shoulders relax beneath her hand, aware of the levelled breathing of the other as she settled against the back of the chair instead of straining against the bonds.

But maybe the last movement was for Tooru’s sake more than anything as she dipped one hand to figure out just what she had to work with.

Her mind is, admittedly, a bit stuck on the whole Bakugou had sex with a Villain bit.

Just a smidge.

Is it wrong of her to think that’s hot? The fierce and normally volatile Bakugou picked to pieces under the hands of the Villain that had kidnapped hi- her? It’s the stuff right out of a romance novel.

You better be prepared to tell me everything after all this is over, Tooru thinks as she wavers between waiting for the right moment and just leaving it all to chance and release the bonds there and then and hope for the best.

In the end she settles to wait, eyes drawn down as Bakugou shifted one foot with a tap of the heel.

Tooru’s mouth opens in a little whoosh of breath; oh you brilliant person!

Because right there is the handle of a knife.

Aizawa-sensei had let her know that she would have a new costume ready after the summer and she vows to herself to incorporate a knife into the things she had already detailed out on the sketch with Hatsume-san. Maybe Ochako-chan would be willing to teach her? Or Bakugou?

Tooru would take anyone at this point.

She crouches silently, sliding two fingers against Bakugou’s ankle in acknowledgement without making any move to draw the knife. Too many eyes on them, so far, but it would only be a matter of time before the Heroes arrived and-

“Hand Creep and Fog Bastard, en route,” Jirou’s voice comes so low, so low that Tooru for a second wonders if she’d imagined it.

And then the door slams open and Tooru moulds herself as close to Bakugou as she dares, craning her head around the chair she was bound to with her heart pounding inside her chest.

She mentally hushes it.

“Shigaraki,” Bakugou’s voice rings out, dry as desert dust. “You sure you’re prepared for this? Because the Heroes will be here any moment and you look fucking frazzled.”

Do you have a death wish? Tooru wonders a bit despairingly, pinching down on Bakugou’s rear to a little twitch of her leg. Behave!

“Shut up!” Shigaraki snaps, rounding towards her. “You just- you just sit there and be quiet!”

“I thought you weren’t in the habit of quieting those who disagree with you,” Bakugou jeers.

A low smack rings out and Tooru has an immediate and new appreciation for the Villain, Dabi, she corrects herself, because there were a lot of Villains about here.

“Stop being so damn suicidal,” he hisses, flicking Bakugou’s forehead when she opened her mouth to protest, and she quiets mulishly with a dark look at him.

Tooru gives Dabi an invisible thumbs-up.

What she doesn’t like is the return of the warp gate Villain because he was the one Tooru actively wanted to be far away from by the time she made an attempt to get Bakugou out of things. It would be a terrible rescue mission if they were just… warped right back.

A bit embarrassing, honestly.

She hasn’t forgotten how very easily he separated their entire class during the USJ incident.

He is not to be underestimated.

And the hand-guy could make ash of her with a single touch which, no thank you. Tooru had enough anxious dreams about her mom never finding out about her death because no-one could find her.

Becoming invisible ash is not on her to-do list.

Tooru eyes the metal quirk suppressors Bakugou is wearing and shifts quietly, mashing herself close, mentally apologizing because she knows how much Bakugou loathes being touched but – necessity triumphed any comforts in this particular matter.

“Who has the keys?” she breathes very quietly, timing it with the drawling lilt of Dabi’s voice.

Bakugou doesn’t stiffen this time, head tilting towards the warp-gate Villain for a brief moment before rolling her neck and slumping deeper into her bonds.

Tooru considering the situation carefully, wondering how much awareness and sense of touch he had with that rippling miasma that made up his body.

“Right or left pocket?” Tooru slides her palms down on Katsuki’s biceps and she takes the hint, clenching the right one briefly.

Tooru gives her shoulder a little pat, straightening out.

Key, then knife, she thinks to herself as she takes a careful step forward, evaluating the position of the Villains around her and the hand-guy in particular, the most volatile and unpredictable among them.

Watches as a glass crumbles to nothing in his grasp, eyes glinting red with a sickening sort of anticipation.

Better make it quick, Tooru acknowledges with a wary look.

-

Hitoshi hunkers down, wondering about the luck that had brought the creature – noumu – onto his roof in particular and careful to keep his mouth shut least he distracted Hagakure.

He’d filtered most of the information into the background to be dealt with once they were all well and truly far away from the Villains with Bakugou in tow. But he’d switched the pronouns because – Bakugou, woman, that he could deal with on the now.

The whole other world bit could wait.

The noumu is large and hulking, disproportionate in its limbs, brain exposed in a way that made his own throb in sympathy.

Its gaze is distant, focused on nothing in particular as far as he can tell, and it’s so firmly not-human that Hitoshi doubts his quirk would even be able to work on it. Was it even capable of speech? It looked like someone had been experimenting with something that might, generously, once have been human(s?) and they were, supposedly, able to use quirks.

Can or cannot? Do I risk it?

His stomach curls, regretting the fish despite knowing it made his quirk stronger, easier to use.

He shifts back on his haunches, muscles wired tense as he waits.

Hurry up, you idiot.

Mina is waiting for you.

-

My brother might be in there.

Shouto’s heart pounds inside his chest, one hand pressed against the ear piece, carefully monitoring the situation while straining his hearing for just another word from the Villain with the blue flames.

Touya...

Chapter Text

Katsuki is half wondering if she won’t end up dying by a heart attack.

The anxiety twists through her, pounding her heart so loud and hard she’s wondering how the fuck no-one but her can hear it.

She can’t see See Through, for obvious reasons, and while she’s aware of it being a good thing it also leaves her uncomfortably aware of the fact that a teenager was risking her fucking life for her.

The Heroes made sense – it was their fucking job. But See Through had no business being here and Katsuki had absolutely no choice but to play along or risk screwing things up for the other girl. And she knows there’s no chance See Through decided to do this on her own which means Katsuki had an unknown amount of more teenagers on the scene.

There’s no fucking way I’m not ratting you out to Aizawa the moment I see him, Katsuki thinks just a bit vindictively because fuck.

She keeps her head hanging low, watching with lidded eyes as the Villains wait for the Heroes to move. Shigaraki had slumped down at the bar when there was no sign of immediate appearance of them, hand tapping impatiently and nursing a new glass of something courtesy of Kurogiri.

At least Kurogiri had habitually picked up a glass to clean, looking perfectly content to wait the entire situation out, which meant his hands were distracted and not about to slip into a pocket to check for the key.

Or so Katsuki fucking hopes.

“Who do you think will make an appearance?” Katsuki shifts her attention to Himiko who had sprawled backwards on a chair, her chin on the back of it, one leg swinging. “All Might is coming fur sure, right? I wonder who else…”

Katsuki blows out a breath. “Fuck if I know. Endeavour probably, he’s stationed pretty near here.” Her brow furrows and she absently wonders if Best Jeanist would make an appearance – the man was ranked Number Four Hero for a reason and they would likely go for as high numbers as possible.  

And Heroes were kinda notorious for taking things very personally.

“That teacher of yours might make an appearance,” Dabi drawls, stepping closer. “He was quite protective of his students. Admirably so, really.”

“Sounds like him.” Katsuki grimaces. “But yeah, probably. Would be stupid of them not to bring him.” Really, Aizawa’s power was an absolutely fascinating thing – capable of dragging the most overwhelming quirk down on even footing with just a look.

If the whole of the Hero Society wasn’t so fucking obsessed with flashy quirks Aizawa would have ranked higher than he did, easily. Her own feelings aside, she would take a man capable of preventing fires over someone causing them – she had read the threads of civilians caught in the aftermath of Endeavour’s destruction.

Villain stopped, house burnt down; how people could close their eyes to that sort of destruction was just absolutely beyond her.

Katsuki had spent years being praised for her quirk, had the memories of the boy whose chest had filled with a sense of rightness, an egocentric kind of narcissism balanced with an odd sort of feeling of inadequacy that had made him lash out.

It was like people were perfectly willing to overlook that she was a walking time bomb waiting to happen just because it was fucking flashy.

And the whole fucking curriculum at U.A. was so fucking biased towards strong quirks that it was ridiculous. Giant robots, one-on-one matches during the Sports Festival - it left those with quirks like See Through’s or Shinsou’s hopelessly outmatched.

Katsuki would bet anything that the entire fucking rescue thing would be made by heavy hitters and high-ranked Heroes and yet, See Through was fucking here, wasn’t she? Sixteen and so very fucking easily infiltrating the League of Villains because she wasn’t flashy. Because it was fucking sensible to try and get the kidnapping victim out without blowing a wall and risking their life in the process.

She had seen enough kidnapping dramas during shows in her old world to know that going in, guns blazing, was a sure way to get a lot of people killed.

“You never said.” Dabi reaches out, drawing his fingers through the spikes of her hair before clenching down and tipping her head back to look at her. “But what’s it like, on the Hero course?”

“What’s with the sudden curiosity?” Katsuki grumbles, absolutely not distracted by how close his face suddenly was to hers. “It could be fucking better.”

“How so?”

Katsuki gives him a dry look. “Planning on signing up? You’re probably a bit too late but there’s sure to be some remedial classes about somewhere.”

“Cute.” Dabi gives her hair a little tug. “But there must be something interesting, seeing as you’re so keen on going back to it.”

“Means to an end,” Katsuki says flatly. “Honestly, Principal Nedzu is supposed to be like a fucking genius or something but the whole course is a fucking joke.” They hadn’t even had any search and rescue missions, all of the focus had been on throwing the kids at each other, playing Heroes and Villains, stop the adversary by any means necessary. The USJ had been the closest thing to a rescue stimulation they’d had and it had ended rather abruptly.

Katsuki had wondered at more than one point if it was because of All Might – but it might just be her bias talking. It could just as likely be because they had, actively, been targeted by the League of Villains.

Or rather All Might had been targeted. Which was another fucking question as to why he was allowed to remain when he put a target on their head by his association.

Means to an end? A necessary sacrifice for Deku to keep being trained? Hell if Katsuki knew.

“You say that and yet you will not join us?” Dabi lowers his voice, his eyes searching hers. “You see the need for change as much as we do.” For the first time since she’d met Dabi more than four years earlier there’s something pressing in his voice, something urgent as he bends even closer. “You can be so much more than this.”

“We have different ideas of what more fucking entails because I fucking refuse to play to the will and whims of a mad man,” Katsuki hisses back. “I might not have much control of anything these days but I have some fucking integrity and I do not bow.”

Dabi is quiet for a moment, his grip on her hair slowly relaxing and he breathed out, hand sliding down to cup her jaw.

And then his mouth was slanting over hers and Katsuki stiffens in surprise – all too aware of the Villains around them, of See Thorugh somewhere in the room.

But Dabi’s lips are soft and rough and only lingers for a moment before he pulls away, his thumb brushing against the corner of her lips before he straightened up, hands slipping into the pockets of his jeans as he nonchalantly stepped back.

Himiko pretends to fan her face and Katsuki shoots her a flat look.

“Dabi,” Shigaraki slumps forward on his seat. “Do I need to remind you of what we’re doing here?”

“Nah,” Dabi drawls, eyes unreadable as he glances back towards her. “We’re killing some Heroes. The best and brightest society has to offer.”

Ice slithers down Katsuki’s spine and she clenches her teeth.

“Mou, don’t be jealous, Tomura.” Himiko kicks her foot. “I know you want Kasu-chan all for yourself but Dabi found her first.”

“I want nothing to do with that liar,” Shigaraki says petulantly. “The only one I need is Sensei.”

“I used to tell myself the same thing, ya know?” Katsuki flexes her fingers inside the entrapment, careful to keep her palms up. “It does get awfully lonely.”

Shigaraki’s red eyes lingers on her for a moment before he simply turns away, shoulders noticeably stiff.

“I’m nothing like you.”

I think we’re more alike than either of us want to admit to, Katsuki thinks but does not say. Lost in a too big world.

“You’re not feeling lonely anymore, are you, Kasu-chan?” Himiko looks to her with a feverish sort of light in her yellow eyes. “Because you have us now. Everything is going to be okay!”

Katsuki gives her a blank stare and then rolls her eyes with a huff.

“Sure, everything is going to be fine fucking dandy. I’m really enjoying the whole bonding session we’ve got going for us.”

Himiko pouts at her. “You’ll see, Kasu-chan! We’ll change this world. We’ll change everything. And then you won’t have to be afraid anymore because no-one will be able to force you into being something you’re not.”

“I already told you it’s my fucking choice,” Katsuki growls. “… Though I appreciate the sentiment, I suppose,” she tacks on grudgingly because Himiko’s smile wavers.

Himiko perks up, beaming at her.

Distracted she nearly jerks when an invisible hand squeezes down against her shoulder.

“I have the key,” See Through’s voice comes very quietly with the press of lips against her ear. “Yaomomo says she can see the Heroes outside. I am going to release you and we’ll make a break for it.” There’s a note of urgency in her voice, a rippling sort of tension even as it remained steady and quiet.

See Through doesn’t give her much time to wonder how exactly she’d managed to pull it off because the knife was slipping out of her boot, key becoming visible as it quietly pressed into the lock of her cuffs and Katsuki’s heart thrums.

The sound of metal rings through the room, the bonds between her legs following and then the ones at her shoulders, and the Villains all swivels towards her as the cuffs fall heavily at her feet.

Her hands become visible, nitroglycerin pooled in the palms of them.

Katsuki snaps them forward, a spark shooting off to follow in the path of the drops in a chain reaction, and she meets Dabi’s eyes just as his arm loops around Himiko’s waist as an explosions burst large and violent in a roar of red and yellow flames that blue rises to meet.

-

Shouta’s head snaps down to the Villain’s hideout as the explosion rings out – knowing just who had to be responsible and cursing as he twisted on his feet.

But All Might was already pushing off the roof, cement cracking beneath his foot, and Shouta is left staring at nothing.

“Fuck,” he breathes out with feeling.

-

Shouto only just gets a wall of ice up in time, ear ringing from the sound of the explosion as the bar was swallowed up by flames.

“Hagakure!” Yaoyorozu’s voice rings out with panic but Shouto hesitates because, that explosion meant that Bakugou had gotten out and-

Another explosion rings out, blue flames flaring out through the windows, and Shouto draws back as All Might lands, ground caving beneath him, fist drawn back as he rocked forward, the entire wall exploding with a roar of whip-like force as the very air seemed to momentarily concave around his fist.

Portals opens up on the street and Shouto’s eyes snaps to Bakugou when she rolled out in an awkward twist that made it very clear that she had wrapped around something, and he allows himself to breathe out even as the Villains followed.

“Bakugou has Hagakure,” he reports tensely with a press against the ear piece as Bakugou scrambled up, momentarily supporting something before they both found their footing. “There’s eight Villains that I can see.”

Bakugou snaps around, arm already out stretched as blue flames roared towards them both, and Shouto prepares his ice but All Might is faster, palms slamming together to send a violent gust of air that makes the flames blow back.

Bakugou flattens over Hagakure’s body and Shouto can’t make out her expression but he suspects there’s nothing good to it.

“Todoroki!” Jirou scrambles up beside him, one hand pressed towards her right ear which was bleeding. “Is-“

“The noumu is moving!” Shinsou’s voice suddenly snaps through the ear piece, voice visibly strained. “I managed to slow down one but-“ His voice cuts off, a ragged sort of breath ringing heavily and there’s a muffled grunt.

“Where are you?” Shouto demands. “The Heroes-“

“North, three roof tops down!” Yaoyorozu interrupts. “I think he’s managed to get it under his quirk but- he won’t be able to hold it for long!”

Shouto looks out of the alleyway of the burning bar as more and more Heroes arrived, Endeavour’s steps heavy, Hawks fluttering in the sky, eyes gliding over the situation, taking it in.

“We need to get away from here – I’ll grab Shinsou, re-group down the street!” Shouto orders, already pressing down, ice rising beneath him to send him rocketing up to the roof.

-

Katsuki hunches over See Through’s body, the sheer force behind a simple clap absolutely ridiculous as she was forced to her knees, grunting as she curled tighter around the other girl.

“There’s no escape for you, League of Villains!” All Might’s voice rings over it all, resolute and sure, and his visage lacking any sort of smile. “Why do you ask? Because we are here.”

“Fuck,” Katsuki breathes. “You need to get out of here.”

“I know!” See Through practically squeaks. “But I got you out, didn’t I?”

Katsuki can’t fucking see her but she snorts, grasping more firmly at See Through’s shoulder. “You did, Hagakure.”

“I feel so flattered, somehow,” the other girl mutters as Katsuki pushes up, and at least Hagakure is fucking sensible because she plants herself firmly behind her. “Just to check – female pronouns?”

“Yeah,” Katsuki grunts, watching as more and more Heroes appeared around them, the cries of noumus following in their footsteps, appearing like grotesquely shaped insects with gaping mouths and misshaped limbs down from exploding windows and walls.

Goes low as she registers movement at her peripheral vision, kicking her foot off to snap the hand off-course and Hagakure’s hand grasps at her hoodie to get them both down below a second one.

“Now, now – we still have need of you, Bakugou,” Compress says chidingly and Katsuki scowls at him because she still has no fucking idea what his quirk is and-

Wooden branches wraps around him, halting him and drawing him back from the both of them and Katsuki sees Kamui Wood’s fingers branching out wide above them, targeting the Villains and twisting thick around them even as blue flames rippled wide and hot around Dabi.

Katsuki twists around when she hears Himiko’s voice ring out, moving before her brain registers the motion, but Hagakure is faster and Katsuki chokes in surprise as her hood is pulled hard, her back bending instinctively to avoid getting strangled, feet twisting and a hand clamping down around a slim throat.

The violence simmers beneath her skin, pounding with the beat of her heart.

“We’re here to rescue you,” Hagakure says with a swallow that presses against the palm of Katsuki’s hand. “I don’t know what, exactly, is going on between you and the Villains but you risk losing everything. Ashido-“

“Then what the fuck am I supposed to do!?” Katsuki snarls. “Himiko is-“

“A Villain,” Hagakure interrupts desperately.

“She doesn’t have to be,” Katsuki grits out. “She’s – she can still get out of this. I just–“ But she doesn’t know what to fucking do and the knowledge twists ugly inside her chest.

“Kasu-chan!”

Katsuki’s hand tightens around Hagakure’s throat, gaze shifting.

“Kasu-chan-“

She twists, forcing Hagakure with the motion, releasing her as her boot rose up and slammed into her ribs with a choked gasp as she flew back, colliding hard against Aizawa’s chest as his feet hit the ground, yellow goggles in place and hair floating.

“Bakugou-“

“I can’t give up on them,” Katsuki says heavily, taking a step back and then she twists, pelting towards Himiko as Aizawa cursed behind them both.

Katsuki feels her quirk resettle and she twists low in a skidding roll beneath a grasping hand that reaches for her, flipping back and taking two staggering steps backwards before she turned around, her sweaty palm wrapping around the wood squeezing hard around Himiko.

“Kasu-chan.” A wide wobbly sort of smile, wood squeezing harder around her. “I knew- I knew you wouldn’t leave me.”

Katsuki grits her teeth, clenching down, focusing on her quirk and-

Her hand loses its grip, reality twisting sharply around her.

Black sludge bubbles and pools around her, from her, swallowing her up as she stumbled back, twisting around as her hands went automatically for her throat because she’s choking and she heaves as it pools in her lungs as she struggles for air that won’t come and-

“Bakugou-shounen!”

Katsuki’s head lifts, meeting the desperate blue eyes of All Might, her hand twisting out of the inky darkness and-

I don’t want to die

A wet gurgle leaves her mouth, jerking towards him, fingers brushing just as Katsuki’s world is swallowed by nothingness.

-

Toshinori stares at the empty spot previously occupied by his student, chest heaving, the failure rippling through him as the last of the Villains disappeared, swallowed up by a quirk he had only witnessed once before in his life.

“All For One,” he breathes out, closing his eyes, fists curling and teeth clenching tight.

Bakugou’s wide fearful eyes burn on the inside of his eyes, a vivid sort of desperation that sends a demand for retribution frothing through his veins and he flexes his hands to ease it.

Nana…

“Endeavour?” His colleague pauses, twisting around to look at him even through the cacophony of noise around them. “Can you handle this?”

“Does it look like I can’t?” Endeavour snaps back. “If you got to go then get going already!”

All Might lifts his head.

“Yeah, you take care of everyone here.”

Chapter Text

I don’t want to die.

The dead woman’s voice resonates through her mind as Katsuki’s knees hits the ground, vomiting black sludge, coughing and wheezing, her world spinning around her.

I don’t want to die. I don’t want to die. Idon’twantodie-

“Shut up!” Katsuki hisses out, pushing up, wiping sludge away from her lip with her sleeve as she straightened up to her full-height.

A bare landscape stretches out in front of her, a single man amidst ruin, his black metallic mask hiding any sort of expression as he considers her.

Not far from them lies three Pro-Heroes, one Katsuki recognises as Gang Orca, another as Tiger, Mt. Lady and then Best Jeanist – unconscious, as far as she can tell. His clothes threaded and ruined and she sees the blood on his chest and staining the once immaculate blond strands of his hair.

Remembers how he’d tried to force both jeans and shirt on her, insisting that a good Hero didn’t wear the slouching kind she favoured. He’d snuck them into her packing on the once day and she still had them buried in the back of her wardrobe though she’d made liberal use of the Best Jeanist t-shirt.

It had felt like a promise – to herself, somehow. That Heroes-

That there were good Heroes.

And All For One had defeated them so very easily, a power that didn’t fairly belong to any human.

Above them the skies are dark, clouds gathering thick and heavy with promise, and she can almost taste the rain in the air.

“I apologize for the messy transportation,” All For One says where he stands and the hair at the back of her neck rises at the sound of his voice. “Tomura will be here very soon but I wanted a chance to talk to you one-on-one before that.”

Katsuki flexes her fingers.

“Do you know what my power is, Bakugou Katsuki? If that is what you wish to be called.”

“It’s my name,” Katsuki growls at him, wary and distrustful and not wanting a single fuck to do with whatever reason he had for bringing her here.

“I suppose it is.” All For One inclines his head. “It’s admirable, really, the way you’ve come to accept and grow into yourself. It can’t have been easy.” He sounds almost… sympathetic and it makes her hackles grow in response. “You are young, especially to the workings of this world, but you understand some of it better than Heroes who have been around for years.”

“What do you want?” Katsuki demands, sliding one booted foot back despite knowing she had no way of escaping. He had already picked her up and brought her here from fucking nowhere and it would be a long way running before she could even think of hiding behind something.

The fucker had made sure of it and she doesn’t like it.

I don’t want to die, the dead woman’s voice resonates inside her mind, tangling with her own wariness and fear with the thickening scent of rain and Katsuki clenches her teeth.

“My power allows me to take the quirks of others and make use of them for myself,” All For One tells her and Katsuki takes an instinctive step back, something terrible in her chest as she looks at him. “Ah, I see that does not sit well with you. I imagine, that for someone who comes from a world without quirks, such power cannot have been easy to accept. I have heard your quite fierce opinion on the matter.”

“That kind of power does not belong to a single human,” Katsuki grits out, curling her fists to hide the tremble that runs through her.

All For One hums, head rising to look into the distance. “I put up a distraction for All Might but I suspect it will not hold him for long. Pity. I would have been interested to hear more of your thoughts on it. But – we have more important matters at hand, you and I. Namely the power that brought you here in the first place.”

“My world didn’t have quirks.” Katsuki takes another step backwards, despite knowing there were nowhere to run because there’s something sharp and wretched bubbling inside of her and for the first time in her life her instincts are telling her to run rather than to fight.

It leaves her feeling off-kilter and too small in her body.

“No,” All For One agrees. “But what is a quirk but power, solidified into a concept graspable by the human mind?” He takes a step forward. “I have a weakness, I admit. You see, when I see such an interesting quirk, or power, I cannot help but want it for myself.” Katsuki jerks sharply backwards. “It is my intention to leave Tomura to his plans but I do not believe this one small thing will interfere…”

His hand rises towards her, fingers curling, and Katsuki chokes because something grasps inside of her, and her boots slides across the ground even as she twists, digging in desperately and hopelessly.

She comes to a halt in front of him, body locked in place, and his fingers slides beneath her chin, her skin crawling as his tall body bent to put her closer to his covered face.

“Bakugou Katsuki… what should have been a boy of sixteen but is now made up of the memories of a thirty-year-old woman who should have died but didn’t. Yes. I can feel it. That desperate will to live.” His rasping artificial breathing is too loud in her ears, memories of waking up in the hospital with a tube shoved down her throat slipping unbidden to the front of her mind. “You did not die a kind death,” he murmurs, tilting her chin up further, fingers spreading, his palm flattening against her throat.

And then – impossibly – Katsuki feels something inside of her pull.

It’s a gnarled knotted thing tangled up in too much inside of her and she gasps, choking, because he’s tearing her apart.

It unravels inside of her and the dead woman’s screams echoes through her mind, her desperate pleading, feelings Katsuki wanted nothing to do with burning livid hot thorough her and she chokes and drowns, her lungs pooling with her own blood, tasting the iron of betrayal-

“I’m sorry.”

Katsuki jerks, a desperate heaving noise registering distantly and she’s released abruptly, her knees hitting the ground and she stares blankly down at the black pool of inky darkness and half-mashed food and-

“I’m sorry.”

She vomits a second time, taste the acidic on her tongue as her stomach cramps desperately to rid of something and-

“I’m sorry.”

Her world tips and blur around her, concrete and field of straw coloured grass with apples trees stout and proud beneath the warm sunny sky and-

“Hmm, stubborn,” a voice says far above her and Katsuki doesn’t understand because she shouldn’t be hearing anything at all because- “

Katsuki sees grey skies.

Katsuki sees the sun.

Something grasps and squeezes inside her chest but Katsuki is too out of it to register more than a pain she should be feeling, skies mixing and flickering, a masked face and a pale one wet with the rain falling down above them both.

Katsuki thinks she might be screaming.

She sees the rain falling from a grey sky and her best friend bending over her with eyes that are too kind to belong to someone with a knife in his hand as she chokes and drowns.

-

Katsuki stares up at the dark grey skies.

The world feels distant, hollow and out of her reach, like something out of a fever dream. She thinks – her ears might be bleeding. She thinks – something might have broken because-

A foot nudges up against her side and Katsuki’s head tips, sees a fancy black leather shoe, can’t put any value to it as she stares blankly at it.

“Breathe,” a strangely rattling voice tells her and Katsuki doesn’t understand.

But then it lifts, pressing down against her ribs, and Katsuki jerks, sucking in a wet desperate sort of breath, chokes, but makes a second attempt and-

“Good,” the strangely rattling voice tells her.

Katsuki’s mind reaches but it tangles inside of her, reason beyond her grasp, and she doesn’t know where she is, doesn’t know who she’s looking at, doesn’t-

Everything is just… off.

Like static on a television screen.

“It might comfort you to know what the power that twisted too deep inside of you for me to remove it,” the strangely rattling voice tells her. “I took the liberty of destroying it completely. An apology, if you will. Tomura still have use for you after all and he seems to be betting on your cooperation.”

“It’s raining,” Katsuki tells the strangely rattling voice, her eyes finding a dark metallic helmet which feels… wrong. Somehow. Because humans are supposed to have faces but-

The strangely rattling voice with the metallic helmet tilts his head up towards the dark skies and then down at her.

“It is not,” he disagrees.

Katsuki wonders why he’s lying.

She can-

“Ah, so he’s finally found his way here,” the strangely rattling voice with the metallic helmet says. “Late as always. But he cannot be faulted. Age is a terrible enemy, after all.” 

Katsuki’s ears are ringing strangely as she turns her head to look as the ground crackles and breaks, shaking strangely through a body that doesn’t feel like it belongs to her.

Sees blue.

All Might! The feverish voice of a young boy resonates through her mind. All Might is here! He’ll-

Kill us.

“All Might,” she rasps because there’s no mistaking those blue eyes and yellow hair and she doesn’t want to be here because-

Katsuki sees fists and violence and tastes iron on her tongue and-

I don’t understand, the dead boy whispers, lost and unsure inside her mind where he draws back. All Might wouldn’t-

“What- what did you do to him?” All Might demands.

“Corrected a simple wrong in the world,” the strangely rattling voice with the metallic helmet answers.

Katsuki feels wildly out of touch and not interested but when she tries to twist around she ends up jerking twitchily to her side, out of sorts with everything and the buzzing so loud that for a moment she squeezes her eyes shut and wishes she could do the same with her ears.

When she opens them again her nose is pressed against leathery shoes and a hazy sort of confusion worms through her.

“I did not expect this to be the side-effect, I admit.” The shoe shifts back and for some reason Katsuki’s arms flops out, arm looping around an ankle and fingers curling in the hem of fine black slacks and her shoulder sorta half-sprawls on the fine leathery shoes.

Expensive, something inside of her notes.

Irrelevant, something else grumbles.

Katsuki wonders if it’s insanity to wonder about ones sanity. It had to take something to question it in the first place.

She doesn’t feel very good.

Katsuki wonders if the strangely rattling voice with the metallic helmet and fancy shoes would mind terribly if she threw up on him.

She kinda wants to.

Nothing left to throw-up, something informs her dryly.

“Your shoes are safe,” Katsuki informs the strangely rattling voice with the metallic helmet and fancy shoes.

Realises with a sense if distant awkwardness that won’t quite register as her own that they were having a Very Important Talking above her but had both quieted to look down at her.

Rude, something drawls but it doesn’t feel like it’s directed to her.

“Just sayin’,” Katsuki grumps and then sorts half-wiggles, half-slumps backwards with her face half-crammed against the fancy shoes below her and her shoulders pressing up against a… leg. “Mr Him-“

“All For One.”

“Mr Darth Vader,” Katsuki soldiers on. “Says it’s not raining but- but it’s raining, right?”

Blue eyes stares down at her.

“No,” All Might answers after a brief moment of hesitance.

Katsuki furrows her brows, feeling rather like she was threading through water and the world was refusing to make sense around her.

“As amusing this is,” the strangely rattling voice with the metallic helmet and fancy shoes says. “I believe we have more important things to deal with, All Might.” He raises his head, peering into the distance, and Katsuki draws her chin up to sorta lethargically follow his direction of sight.

Sees buildings.

And.

Humans?

“Tomura,” the strangely rattling voice with the metallic helmet and fancy shoes says.

“Tomura,” Katsuki echoes and for some reason she’s looking at the gangly awkward man with a hand on his face – though there is a face.

For some reason that feels important.

Know thyself, something reasons with what might have been a shrug.

The man – Tomura – does a funny little jerky motion, red eyes flashing towards her.

She thinks he looks surprised. Like an owl. Owlish. Messy hair in need of a good preening – maybe his life would be better if he had a beak? And – he wouldn’t have to have that hand on his face if he had a beak to cover up… insecurities.

Katsuki’s brow creases because it doesn’t feel quite right and when she tries to picture it all she sees is black feathers.

And preening oneself had to be hard anyway.

“What the fuck is wrong with you?”

Katsuki cranes her head, blinking at white against black. A mask. Duality.

Flashes all her teeth.

“I’m dead,” she informs him.

“You’re not,” another voice says.

“You have pretty eyes,” Katsuki informs him solemnly, admiring turquoise eyes as she pushes just enough to slump on her back, her hand remaining wrapped around the leg. “And I am,” she tags on a bit belatedly.

Yellow takes up her vision, a body crouching down before her to peer at her and Katsuki blinks back.

“You have fangs,” she tells the girl. “Like a vampire.”

“Mou, you’re really out of it, Kasu-chan.”

“I don’t feel right,” Katsuki agrees, reaching a hand up, but it sorta flops awkwardly against the girl’s chest and she furrows her brow but a slim hand reaches down and wraps around it and tugs it up to press against a warm cheek. “Thank you,” Katsuki says, spreading her fingers and giving a little awkward tap.

“Himiko-chan.”

“Himiko-chan,” Katsuki nods.

“What did you do to her?” Turquoise Eyes sounds… something.

Katsuki doesn’t like it. She doesn’t understand it but she knows she doesn’t like it.

All Might steps forward and Katsuki sorta jerks, twisting and clinging tighter to the leg she’d claimed for herself because he’s reaching for her and-

I don’t want to die.

The world warps and twists around her and someone is moving and then there’s rocks and Katsuki watches All Might go flying and…

That doesn’t feel right either.

“You have failed again, Tomura.” Tomura slowly rises his head from Katsuki. “But you mustn’t loose heart. There will be more chances to set things right. That’s why I’ve brought along your little band. And the girl, because you determined her an important pawn.” Katsuki wonders if she’s the girl because she’s not- she’s not – she’s not-. “So try again. That’s what I’m here to help you do.”

Katsuki twists her hand deeper in fine black slacks, feels the fabric beneath her skin like an afterthought and echo of what is.

The scent of something sickeningly sweet stings at her nose.

“It’s all for you.”

“I won’t allow you to take him!” All Might rockets towards them.

“I won’t fail you, Sensei,” Tomura says as he straightens out to his full-height.

Katsuki meets Turquoise Eyes.

She gives him a lopsided grin just as All Might draws his fist back, hands rising to meet him.

“Boom,” she mouths to him and his eyes flares wide, darting towards the grip she still has on fine dress pants and something sparks at the very tip of her fingers.

He lurches towards her, hands grasping at her hoodie and then the world is exploding and a body wraps around her, rolling and skidding on the rocky ground and Katsuki wheezes out a surprised breath as the world rattles around her.

Lands sprawled against a slim familiar chest and a hollow sort of ringing noise in her ears that doesn’t feel right.

“Ah,” she grunts, feeling metal press against her cheek. “Big boom.”

Arms wraps around her and Katsuki stills.

“I don’t know what’s wrong with you,” Turquoise Eyes heaves out. “But you’re as suicidal as ever.” He pushes up and Katsuki finds herself hauled up, one arm keeping her pressed against his chest as her legs sorta wobbles beneath her and everything is kinda topsy-turvy. In the not fun way.

“What do we do?” Himiko-chan demands as she skids up beside them, a knife in either hand. “I don’t think Kasu-chan made him very happy.”

“He’s a liar,” Katsuki complains.

In the middle of the empty stretch of missing buildings smoke slowly wafts to the side and Katsuki blinks slowly because-

“Very big boom,” she amends because there’s skin missing. Peeled away in a stretch of charred remains and fabric burnt to ash all the way up his thigh and there’s… a chunk of flesh missing.

She presses back against the warm chest behind her as the air stretches with a strange sort of coldness that makes her peer dubiously up towards the sky because it’s raining not snowing but-

“Get him out of here!” All Might’s voice rings out as large spidery black things explodes out towards them and-

Blue flames wraps around them in a wall of heat that the black things goes right through and Katsuki looks at sharp ends without understanding because-

And then she’s on the ground and there’s a grunt from above her, warmth wrapped around her, something wet against her back and-

“You need to snap out of it!” A voice growls into her ear. “Or you’re going to get yourself killed!”  

“But I’m dead,” Katsuki heaves out. “I’m-“

“Alive,” Turquoise Eyes hisses as he draws them both up. “Wackjob- change of plans. We’re getting her out of here.”

“Aye, aye!” Himiko-chan salutes and Katsuki finds herself hauled onto a shoulder with a grunt and her fingers curl into a leathery coat, raising her head to watch black fingers stretch and dig into smoky fog dressed in fine clothing and-

Is that a human? Katsuki wonders as it gives a jerk and a strange sort of shudder, twisting and convulsing, mist stretching up to form an inky sort of darkness that makes Katsuki press closer to Turquoise Eyes.

“Dabi-“ Tomura twists around towards them. “You can’t-“

“Sorry, Shiggy, but Kasu-chan needs us!” Himiko waves her hand. “Bye, bye!”

Noise rise around them, something shatters, the very air rattling, and Katsuki twists to bury her face into a scarred neck with a low whine because-

Something inside of her doesn’t feel right.

Chapter Text

Katsuki’s mind is buzzing but strangely some of the jaggedness eases at the scent that fills her nose as she sucks in a lungful of air, Turquoise Eyes dark dress shoes pounding against the ground, her body jostling as she lifted her head from his neck.

“Ah.” Katsuki’s hand curls a bit unsurely into the coat. “They’re following us.”

Himiko-chan twists around, a knife rocketing through the air, but the red haired woman reaches a hand out and it bends through the air, curling before shooting off back and Himiko-chan yelps as she dives into a roll to avoid it.

Turquoise Eyes ripples with heat beneath her and blue flames flares out behind them and Katsuki’s eyes widen, one hand reaching out towards it, entranced by the beauty as it rolls over the ground in a roaring sea of violence that makes the other humans scramble back.

“Pretty,” she breaths, awed.

“Not the usual reaction,” Turquoise Eyes grunts. “What the hell did he do to you?”

Katsuki opens her mouth but Turquoise Eyes skids to a sudden halt, twisting them out of the path of an enormous monster and Katsuki stumbles as he drops her down, both of his hands thrusting out as inky darkness bubbles in the air, two more creatures climbing out of them with distorted limbs and gaping mouths.

“Oh boy,” Himiko-chan mutters, spinning her knives with a glance towards their pursuers. “Dabi-“

“I know,” Turquoise Eyes – Dabi – grunts out.

Katsuki tries to push up but collapses back down as her world spins around her, straw grass and ruined concrete rippling beneath her palms and she digs her fingers into it but – she feels it both as true as if it was and nausea rolls through her, the ringing in her head intensifying as she gasped for breath.

“I don’t feel very good,” she acknowledges to herself, feeling rather miserable as she collapsed onto her rump, pressing her palms over her ears, wishing everything would be quiet.

“You need to run!” Dabi shouts at her but Katsuki draws her knees to her chest and digs her nails into the skin above her ears as she struggles for sense. “For fu- Katsuki!”

“Can’t,” she gasps. “I can’t-“ She shuts her mouth, swallowing against the acidic taste in her mouth.

“I won’t allow you to ruin my plans, Dabi!” Tomura lunges towards him, one arm out stretched, but Dabi twists around it, his palm flaring blue as it grasped at the hand covering Tomura’s face and there’s an explosion of sound of light that makes Katsuki hunker down.

Himiko-chan’s hand reaches her through the smoke, wrapping around her wrist and forcefully drawing her up.

“Not the time, Kasu-chan,” she scolds as Katsuki stumbles, nearly collapsing again, but Himiko-chan is strong and she hauls Katsuki’s arm over her shoulder, half-carrying, half-dragging her along with her.

Katsuki squints up as something registers.

“What’s that?” she asks as Himiko-chan bodily shoulders her forward.

“What’s-“ Himiko-chan follows her gaze, her mouth clicking shut and steps halting at the dark mass exploding towards them in a flying leap of enormous limbs. Another monster – darker and broader than the pale twisting ones, its brain rippling pink on its skull and-

That can’t be right, Katsuki thinks faintly. Brains are supposed to be inside-

It collides hard with the pale one reaching towards Dabi, enormous body contorting and lashing out towards Tomura and-

There are children on top of it – red and white hair on a pale boy and another, tired one, with a mess of purple, both of them holding on desperately as the creature roar beneath them both, its eyes large and empty.

“Shouto?” Dabi stumbles back, one hand rising up to cover his face.

The red and white haired boy snaps towards him, mismatched eyes glittering. “Touya,” he says, almost triumphantly.

“I thought his name was Dabi,” Katsuki says bleakly, quite sure she’s hallucinating.

Or maybe this is what death is like? She kinda wants a refund.

She looks to the boy with purple hair, unable to resist slotting him as Purple Guy just as he hunches forward and his ears are bleeding, teeth gritting.

“Todoroki-“ he gasps and the other boy, Half-n-Half, Katsuki decides with a ringing of truth, tightens his arm around his waist.

“Shinsou can’t hold it for long,” he bites out. “Hurry up and get on!” He looks to her, one hand stretching out, and Katsuki finds herself reaching back after a nudge from Himiko-chan, fingers curling around his wrist as he hauled her up behind him.

The monsters growls, muscles rippling below her and Katsuki turns her gaze a bit dubiously down as Himiko-chan scrambles up behind her, arms wrapping around her waist.

Katsuki automatically does the same around the boy in front of her.

Safety first, something pipes up inside of her with a distant sort of laugh.

He twitches, turning to give her a strange look, and Katsuki blinks at him, fingers curling into the front of his shirt as she tilts her head.

Dabi throws another roll of blue flames into the path of Tomura before hauling himself up and the monster roars beneath them, shifting on all four before it lurches into movement.

“This is so bizarre,” Katsuki mutters, tightening her grip on Half-n-Half as she jerked with the movement, twisting a bit to press her face into the back of his neck as her stomach rolled, a low miserable groan escaping her.

Half-n-Half smells like ash and frost, not nearly as comforting as Dabi but grounding all the same and she ignores the way his muscles ripples as she tightens her grip.

There’s a roar, voices around her, loudness and the explosive force of two power houses and Katsuki really, really wants to wake up because nothing of this is making any sense and-

“Cover her ears,” Dabi’s voice reaches her and Katsuki blinks a bit blearily against Half-n-Half’s back as slim hands folds over her ears, quieting some of the too much.

Katsuki slumps forward and decides that it’s better to just not… think too much.

-

Katsuki finds herself tugged down, stumbling, body enfolded as she all but collapsed against Himiko-chan who nudged at her until Katsuki was sprawling against her back with her chin on the other girl’s shoulder.

The world tips and tilts around her as Half-n-Half draws Purple Guy’s stiff body off the monster. The front of his shirt is drenched with the blood dripping from his nose, his breathing laboured as he’s gently lowered down to rest against the wall of the alley they’d crammed into.

Katsuki feels for him – she does. He looks about as miserable as she feels.

“We need to burn it,” Half-n-Half says grimly. “Touya-“

“That is not my name anymore,” Dabi answers but he’s stepping up beside Half-n-Half. “On three?”

Half-n-Half nods, stretching out his left arm after a lingering look at the elder.

Katsuki half-lethargically counts along with them and then the world is exploding with red and blue flames that wraps around the creature, curling down its roaring mouth, skin popping and burning and melting as it lurched, limbs collapsing beneath it as it writhed on the ground.

“I’m going to vomit,” Katsuki informs Himiko-chan who yelps as she twists her head, stomach cramping and stomach acid dribbling a bit miserable out of her mouth before she spat.

Himiko-chan wrinkles her nose, shuffling them both away from it.

“I’m never doing that again,” Purple Guy groans where he sits, wiping the blood from his mouth with his sleeve.

“Todoroki! Shinsou!” Katsuki turns with Himiko as two girl’s skid into alleyway on an electric scooter and if Katsuki’s day wasn’t strange enough already there’s fucking earphone jacks dangling from the ears of one of them.

“Temporary truce,” Half-n-Half says with a step that puts him in front of Dabi when they both zero on him and Himiko-chan. “More importantly,” he says when they jump off the scooter, removing matching helmets and letting them clatter to the ground. “What’s wrong with Bakugou?”

Katsuki finds herself in the middle of suddenly far too much attention and she loops her arm a bit awkwardly around Himiko-chan who lifts a hand to pat against her head.

“It’s okay, Kasu-chan,” she says and Katsuki strongly disagrees.

“Don’t know,” Dabi answers reluctantly. “All For One… he got her on his own and when we reached her she was like this.”

Katsuki thinks it’s a bit unfair that she’s somehow become the oddity here, all things considered.

She turns her head as the girl with the dark hair steps towards her and there’s something… gentle about her. She wearing jeans and a dark thick jacket open to reveal a white loose belly shirt and her booted feet are quiet against the ground which Katsuki kinda appreciates.

She’s not quite over the fact that she’s hearing anything at all.

“Do you recognise me?”

“Should I?” Katsuki asks a bit dubiously, eyes shifting and lingering on her ponytail. “I’m quite sure I haven’t seen any of you before.”

“But you know who you are?” Half-n-Half asks with a tilt of his head, mismatched eyes lingering on her. One grey, the other as turquoise and pretty as Dabi’s.

Katsuki opens her mouth but the world choses that moment to tilt around her and she wheezes out, colour and noise twisting together into a mess that she can’t make sense of because-

She’s Katsuki but-

There’s another name, wrapped and tangled in too much and she chokes, legs folding beneath her but-

She doesn’t hit the ground because an arm loops around her chest, lowering her the last of the way and-

The ground is cold, and then it’s warm, it’s hard and then it’s rough, straw coloured grass prickling against her skin, and then the ground is dry, and then it’s wet, and it’s raining and-

Something presses down over her ears and Katsuki jerks, fingers curling around plastic and-

It’s quiet.

The relief bubbles through her, coiling through her veins and soothing the jagged pieces of her mind.

-

Momo breathes out in relief, shoving a hand into her pocket to grasp for one of the extra protein bars she’d brought as Bakugou curled on herself.

“Good thinking,” Shinsou says to Jirou, wiping at the blood still dripping from his nose with a grimace.

“She looked like she needed a moment,” Jirou says with a shrug and an unreadable glance at Bakugou who’d curled up on herself.

It makes for such a strange picture, Momo thinks. The anti-thesis of everything Bakugou was supposed to be.

Momo presses her hand against her belly again and this time, instead of noise cancelling headphones, she draws out two cotton tampons and offers them up to a brief blink of purple eyes.

“Thanks.” Shinsou quite unceremoniously shoves them up his nose. “I’m tanked,” he admits with a grimace. “I’m going to have such a migraine tomorrow,” he mutters, pushing up, one hand flat against the wall of the building to keep himself steady.

“That’s quite the handy power,” Dabi drawls and Momo pauses as his eyes focuses on her, wary, because he’s still and unknown and she doesn’t quite know what to make of him but- “Thank you,” he says, shifting his gaze back to Bakugou as Momo nearly chokes on her bar.

“Of course,” she gets out, swallowing it down. A polite Villain?

“How are you alive?” Todoroki steps forward to the Villain who tilts his head, eyes never leaving Bakugou. “They told me you died.”

“Obviously I didn’t,” Dabi drawls. “And what does it matter anyway? We hardly ever saw each other.” Despite his words there’s no clear antagonism in his voice, his eyes unfathomable as he looks up at Todoroki.

“It matters because you’re my brother.” Momo shifts because she’s never heard Todoroki sound so young, he was always so sharp and composed no-matter the situation. But his face is twisting up as he steps towards Dabi. “Do you have any idea how much Fuyumi mourns you?” he demands. “Natsuo hardly ever visits because-“

“Because our father is an abusive asshole,” Dabi interrupts heavily and blue flames licks briefly up his scarred arms before smothering out.

This close the matching scars on Katsuki’s body is undeniable, the same sort of gnarly purple stretch of ruined skin.

Momo exchanges a look with Jirou, not quite sure what to make of the situation, and the other girl shrugs with a brief grimace.

“Todoroki." Jirou raises her hand with a small wave. “As interesting as this is your family reunion will have to wait. All Might is facing that Villain and there’s no knowing how far the destruction will spread and there are more Noumu about.” She looks to their classmates, something troubled in her gaze. “And Bakugou is really in no-state to go anywhere.”

“I will carry her,” Dabi says immediately and Momo gets the feeling that disagreeing with him wouldn't result in anything good. 

It's alarming, all things considered, Momo acknowledges to herself. But Dabi is also the only one of them who could reasonably carry Bakugou and keep a decent pace. Shinsou is out and Todoroki is actually smaller than Bakougou who is both taller and more muscular.

She might be able to create something but it had been risky just making the electric scooter and it was small and meant to draw as little attention to them as possible. Not carry someone half out of it.

Shinsou takes a step forward and despite the blood on his shirt and the tiredness that hangs of him he meets the eyes of the Villain without fear.

“I don’t trust you,” he says bluntly. “I’ve seen the scars on Bakugou’s body. I know you’re the cause of them.”

“I am,” the Villain admits with a curl of his lips that pulls at the metal that bites into his skin. “Not that it’s any of your business. It’s something between Katsuki and I and if you don’t understand that you don’t know her nearly as well enough as you think.”

Shinsou stills, eyes darkening.  

“I’ve known her for more than four years, long before she met any of you.” Dabi turns his head in clear dismissal, fingers reaching out and brushing over dusty blonde spikes with a gentleness that is downright startling to behold. “There’s no-one who knows her better.”

“Kasu-chan is ours,” Toga proclaims with clear smugness as she steps closer to them, one hand pressing down against Dabi’s back to half-lean against him, her yellow eyes glittering with a promise of danger.

“Well, well, well – this is quite the gathering.” Momo doesn’t even have time to turn around before something flashes past her and Hawks tilts his head, knife missing, an entertained little smile on his lips as Dabi rose, Toga already palming a second knife with a little cock of her head.

Momo steps back and closer to Bakugou, Todoroki and Shinsou both echoing her.

“I didn’t even hear him,” Jirou mutters with a glance towards the Number Three Hero.

Hawks is looking at Dabi, a considering little gleam in his eyes. “I’m not here to fight,” he says, folding his arms behind his head in a loose relaxed stance. “Imagine my surprise when I caught sight of two U.A. students riding astride a Noumu. Quite impressive and very gutsy that. And now there’s five and two Villains to boot.”

“And?” Dabi drawls. “What are you going to do Mr. Pro-Hero?”

“You can call me Hawks, handsome.” Hawks flashes a flirty little wink.

Dabi gives him a highly unimpressed look while Toga bristles. “Dabi belongs to Kasu-chan!”

“The kid?” Hawks glances down towards Bakugou. “That’s a can of worms I didn’t expect,” he hums. “Anyone ever tell you that predatory behaviour is terribly unsexy?” His head tilts, gaze deceptively blank, for Momo feels her skin prickle in response and she’s not even the target of it.

“As if I care what a Hero thinks,” Dabi rolls his neck. “This has nothing to do with you.”

“My orders, in particular, was to secure the kid,” Hawks disagrees. “More importantly, what’s wrong with him?”

“Her,” Dabi corrects with a lidded look.

“Her, then,” Hawks agrees with a shrug. “Any reason why she’s all curled up with headphones on while you’re all standing around debating?”

“Something is wrong with her,” Momo steps in before Dabi can open his mouth. “We don’t know why but she’s… She didn’t recognise us.”

“No?” Hawks gives Dabi a brief look before rolling his shoulders, wings shifting and folding properly on his back. “Well, I’m not a Pro-Hero for nothing. Mind if I talk to her?”

Dabi gives him a long look. “Do anything suspicious and I’ll burn you.”

“Yeah, yeah, hot stuff.” Hawks waves a dismissive hand, trotting deeper into the alley as Dabi shifted, eyes sharp as the Pro-Hero crouched down in front of Bakugou.

Reaches out and taps the knuckles of his index and middle finger gently against her cheek.

-

Katsuki reluctantly raises her head, blinking at yet another stranger, half-certain that humans weren’t supposed to have wings.

“Hey here,” she reads on his lips. “Do you know who I am?”

“No,” Katsuki says dully, curling her arms tighter around herself. “Should I?”

“Well, I am pretty famous,” the winged-man tells her, blond with messy hair and scruff on his chin. “Admittedly not as famous as All Might but being the Number Three Hero isn’t too shabby, if I do say so myself.”

Katsuki gives him a flat look.

“There’s no such thing as Heroes,” she disagrees, her own voice coming out muffled.

He tilts his head. “No?”

“Just in stories,” Katsuki clarifies because apparently the world had gone mad around her and she isn’t too interested in playing along with it. “And- I’m dead anyway so this is just… this is just some weird dream isn’t it?” She glances towards his wings and then down, biting down on her lip and nudging at the headphones just enough to bare one ear.

“How can you be dreaming if you’re dead?” he asks her.

“I don’t know,” Katsuki draws tighter on herself. “But it’s the only thing that does make sense, isn’t it?”

“You’re not dead,” Dabi says from behind the winged-man.

“I feel dead,” Katsuki mutters, her right hand curling around the headphones. “He killed me. I know he did. And I-“

“You lived,” Dabi interrupts her and she doesn’t understand the look in his eyes, her mouth thinning a bit unsurely. “What is your name?”

“Katsuki,” she says a bit haltingly but the name twists strangely on her tongue. “I’m- there’s another name but-“ She hunches forward. “Nothing is making any sense.”

“I have to agree with you there,” the winged-man agrees with false lightness. “Anyone want to clue me in?”

“Kasu-chan had another life.” Himiko waves her hand a bit absently, yellow eyes fixed on Katsuki. “She died and then she lived.”

“How old are you?” Dabi presses, taking a single step forward, just behind the winged-man who twitches slightly but his smile doesn't waver.

“Twenty-two,” Katsuki answers but it doesn't feel quite right. “I was twenty-two when he- I don’t understand.” She looks up imploringly because she’s quite tired of the topsy-turvy threading of the world. “He was my best friend and he-“

“Killed you,” Dabi agrees heavily. “You told me as much.”

“Oh.” Katsuki gives him an unsure look before looking to the winged-man. “Everything is wrong and I’m… I’m confused,” she admits to him. “I think… I think the man with the metal helmet he… it hurt.” Her hand curls into her hoodie above her heart. “I think… I think he took something from me.”

“I bet,” the winged-man says, “you feel all out of sorts with yourself right now.”

“It’s raining,” Katsuki confides. “I don’t like it when it rains. It rained when he… and he just left me. In the rain. And.” Her fingers digs into her chest, which is wrong, because it’s flat when it shouldn’t be and her world wavers and tips a bit oddly around her until she slowly removes it, curling it the fabric of her jeans instead.

“I have no idea what’s going on with you,” the winged-man tells her bluntly, dropping his chin into the palm of his hand and Katsuki blinks at him. “But according to your files rain is a pretty bad trigger for you.”

“Oh,” Katsuki whispers, not really understanding but- “Okay.”

His lips loops into a little smile. “It’s going be alright, kid.” He flooffs the hair on her head.

“I’m not a kid,” Katsuki grumbles but doesn’t bat it away – it feels kinda nice, somehow. “I’m-“ The world loops and wavers and she blinks between yellow eyes and brown, blond hair and wet dark strands.

“Don’t strain yourself.” He straightens out. “It’s not really safe to remain here,” he says to the gathering of people and Katsuki buries her head back into his arms, disliking the many eyes watching her, not sure what to make of their expression and wanting nothing to do with it. “We honestly risk being in the way because the sheer destruction All Might and that masked Villain is causing is pretty severe. So, we should really be thinking of booking it.”

“I hope you’re not actually conspiring with Villains, Hawks," a new voice says gruffly and Katsuki raises her head to see an enormous man with fire for a beard step into the alley, eyes hard and unforgiving as he looked over them all, his shadow stretching down from the darkening skies behind him.

Something curls inside of her and Katsuki doesn’t understand the feeling that spreads through as she looks between Dabi and the new arrival.

“Endeavour,” Dabi breathes, mouth curling and a feverish sort of mania creeping into his eyes.

There’s loathing in his voice, something deep and visceral that had buried deep enough to grow gnarled and old.

They have the same eyes, something inside of her notes with a lilting sort of resignation and a sigh.

Chapter Text

Tooru pads through the top floor in thick sweats and a comfy sweater, both in grey with TOKYO METROPOLIS POLICE DEPARTMENT on the chest and down the arms and legs. The cat headed police officer, who had introduced himself as Sansa after Aizawa-sensei quite unceremoniously dropped her off with a firm and very stern look after she’d tried to cram in what she knew to him, had even found her a pair of thick socks and a cup of hot chocolate which she cradles thankfully in her hands.

She’d been left to her own device after she had assured Sansa that, no, she wasn’t planning on ducking out. For one, she had no idea where anyone had gone to, and two-

Tooru stops, looking out the window to the dark skies and the dust rising in the far off distance.

… They had more important things to deal with. Like the fact that Bakugou, Todoroki, Jirou, Shinsou and Yaomomo were still out there somewhere among Noumus and Villains and it’s hard not to feel useless in the face of it.

Tooru closes her eyes.

She finds some regret in giving Aizawa-sensei her ear piece. Tooru might be a smidge annoyed at Bakugou for bruising her ribs and leaving with the Villains but there’d been desperation in those crimson eyes of the other girl and… she didn’t deserve her secrets spilling out in the way they were.

Tooru can only do so much and she knew she couldn’t not tell Aizawa at least the basics of it, and he’d promised her he’d do his best to reel in the fallout of it which Tooru had to trust, at least. But she still feels like she’s betrayed Bakugou’s trust in doing so, even for her safety, even to get her back to them.

Tooru can keep a secret and she’s determined to keep this one and she thinks the rest of them are, too. But there’s no changing what she now knows – that Bakugou had, apparently, lived a life before this.

Tooru lifts her head, glancing to her left when she picks up a familiar voice through closed doors and only hesitates for a moment before trotting her way over and pushing it open, slipping inside as heads turned around to look at her.

She finds four people inside and Tooru pauses at the sight of them, blinking at Midoriya beside a brown haired man seated beside a woman that could only be Bakugou’s mother (which was a bit of a doozy because was she really Bakugou’s mother if she wasn’t really their son?).

And there, head craned around, pale and tense and squished up against the woman is Ashido.

“Hagakure!?” the pink skinned girl squeaks out, eyes widening, and Tooru raises her hand in a wave, missing her gloves since she relied a lot on hand gestures to clarify her moods without a face to translate it. But at least the sleeves of her sweater are long and she thinks she gets the point across.

“Heya,” she greets, awkwardness threading through her.

“Oh, you’re that girl that got trapped with Katsuki.” Bakugou’s mother (and Tooru decides that it’s just easier to think of her as so, no matter the mess of things) looks tired – bags beneath her eyes and there’s a stretched sort of wan look to her.

It’s actually a bit startling how much she looks like Bakugou – the same eyes, the same dusty blonde spikes, longer than Bakugou’s but not by much. She’s older, her features sharper, and there’s a femininity to her that Bakugou doesn’t have with the slope of her chest further accentuated by the pale lavender sweater and skirt that brushes past her knees.

There’s the fact that Bakugou is far more muscular as well but-

Given what Tooru now knows of Bakugou it’s hard not to compare them and Tooru knows that the body she’s in doesn’t make Bakugou any less of a woman. It’s easy enough to accept and adjust to the new pronouns and Tooru does spend a moment to wonder what to wonder what Bakugou might look like with make-up to accentuate her eyes as she looks at this woman.

“I am,” Tooru agrees, wondering how much she could tell as she glances to the television screen where All Might is facing down who Tooru could only assume was the Villain behind Bakugou getting kidnapped in the first place. “What are you doing here, Midoriya?” she asks curiously because he’s the obvious displaced one here because Bakugou had made her dislike of him pretty clear.

“Oh-“ Midoriya ducks his head. “I’m… behaving,” he says with a strange look at Ashido who snorts. “What about you, Hagakure-san?” he asks with a searching look. “You-“

Tooru makes a decision, making sure the door was closed behind her before claiming the armchair beside the couch and leaning forward with her elbows on her knees. “I got Bakugou out,” she says very, very bluntly and Bakugou’s mother inhales sharply, her father straightening up, and Ashido’s head jerks up with a desperate sort of look.

“What-“

“He-“ It leaves a bit of a bad taste in her mouth by the misgendering but Tooru decides that it’s not her place to clarify things that Bakugou had clearly kept secret, “was tied up in the Villains hide-out. I snuck inside, got him out of it. I don’t know where he is now but… He’s got a chance. I gave Aizawa-sensei my ear piece and… Todoroki, Yaomomo, Shinsou and Jirou are all with him.”

“They’re not the only ones,” Bakugou’s mother observes but there’s relief in her face. “Dabi and Toga-“

“I only heard so much but they’re… I think they’re trying to keep him safe, at least.” Which was another can of worm entirely but at least Bakugou hadn’t ditched her for people who didn’t, on some level, care for her back.

“Thank you,” Bakugou’s mother says with such empathetic sincerity that Tooru finds herself very glad no-one can read the guilt on her face.

“We haven’t introduced ourselves. Hagakure, was it?” Bakugou’s father says.

“Hagakure Tooru!” She perks up. “You can call me Tooru-chan,” she offers a bit cheekily.

“Masaru,” he tells her with a kind sort of smile. “And this is my wife, Mitsuki.”

“Masaru-san, Mitsuki-san,” she agrees easily enough.

“I can’t believe you got him out,” Ashido breathes and there’s a strange mix of emotions in her eyes as she looks down at her clenched hands.

Tooru resolves to talk to her once they’re both out of earshot of Bakugou’s parents because it had been unfair to leave her out of it, to not even let her know they were going to try and get Bakugou out. But Ashido…

She’d been too close to the situation, they’d reasoned, and Tooru agrees with it, on some level, but she still feels guilty about it.

“Was he-“ Ashido swallows. “How was he?” she asks finally. “The Villains-“

“He was still Bakugou,” Tooru tries to reassure. “Scowling and picking a fight with the hand-guy, Shigaraki.”

Mitsuki breathes out. “Of course he was,” she says with a touch of fond exasperation as Masaru reaches out and Tooru looks away as they grasps at each other’s hands with a desperate soft of relief.

“That’s good.” Ashido looks to the screen as Midoriya hunkers down, his eyes focused with teeth sinking into his lower lip as All Might skids back, form rippling with tension as he blocked an enormous large twisted construction of the Villain and Tooru’s eyes narrows because-

All Might is the Symbol of Peace – the stabilizing pillar of society. He’s always been there for as long as she can remember, just a small tot in front of the television screen as he rose from the wreckage with a smile that instilled hope and comfort to those who saw it.

She’d been ecstatic when she learn that he’d be one of her teachers at U.A. It was one of those once in a life time happenings and she’d soaked up every kind word he took to spare her during lessons with him.

But then she’d seen Bakugou get carted off in the aftermath of the final exam and she hadn’t felt… very good about it. Because Bakugou had been really hurt. In a way that Tooru hadn’t seen even Villains get out of clashes with the Number One Hero.

Tooru doesn’t understand it – can’t begin to wrap her mind about it. And maybe some of her guilt in the aftermath of it still lingered because she had wondered, even briefly, if… maybe, just maybe, All Might saw something in Bakugou’s anger and deemed it dangerous.

Maybe Bakugou wasn’t supposed to be a Hero? Maybe All Might saw something and-

Tooru had felt terrible about it and the knowledge of even having had those doubts eases some of the anger at Bakugou for bruising her ribs and leaving her to Aizawa-sensei’s mercies despite her classmate having no idea of it ever having crossed her mind.

“How’s he doing?” Tooru asks, worry coiling through her because All Might…

He was clearly struggling and Midoriya… there’s something with the look in his eyes that makes Tooru narrow her own.

It’s no secret that there is something between Midoriya and All Might that made them close enough that Midoriya was often picked up to have lunch together. Tooru strongly suspected that All Might had had a hand in training the green haired boy, their fighting styles and quirks were similar enough to make so much clear.

Her emotions on the matter is tangled. She feels cheated, for one, because it felt like – she didn’t measure up. She knew her quirk wasn’t flashy and she would never be the winner of the Sports Festival or stand as the Number One Hero but… Her quirk wasn’t useless. She’d proved it, hadn’t she? She’d infiltrated the League of Villains and gotten Bakugou out before the Pro-Heroes had even arrived.

But she’d gone to U.A. knowing that the world clearly favoured those with more flashy executions.

It didn’t make it easier to accept that All Might appeared to be of the same mind but Aizawa-sensei was brilliant and he didn’t let anyone step over him. Tooru admired him and she was relieved he’d been given as their teacher because he clearly didn’t agree with it and circumvented the system when he could.

Sometimes Tooru wished… for more? She supposed. But still…

Midoriya was All Might’s student, his favourite, and it had never been clearer to Tooru that something had gone clearly wrong with it when Midoriya limped a bit bruised and battered but okay beside the bleeding and unconscious form of Bakugou who wheezed for breath.

But All Might is still All Might.

Tooru admired him, what he had done and represented, and it was absolutely impossible to wrap her mind around All Might doing anything but winning.

But Midoriya is clearly worried, which is fair, Tooru is too, but it’s All Might…

Ashido’s mouth curls, something dark brushing momentarily through her gaze and Mitsuki reaches out to put a hand on her shoulder with a squeeze.

“He’s going to win.” Midoriya raises his head. “He has to,” he says with a quiet sort of achy conviction.

“Yeah,” Tooru agrees, focusing back on the screen as her teeth sunk into the inside of her cheek.

-

There’s something ugly in his brother’s eyes, Shouto thinks as he looks between Touya and Endeavour.

He shifts where he stands just a step or two from his brother as their father’s eyes drags over them, taking in the situation, judging. The other Villain, Toga, spins a knife idly in her hand as she slinks up on Touya’s other side, still close to Bakugou, her yellow eyes glinting with curiosity and judgement alike.

“This the one you want to kill, Dabi?” she asks, pink spreading across her cheeks and anticipation clear.

Endeavour narrows his eyes. “Shouto.” He stills, turning warily towards his father. “You are not supposed to be here.” Eyes the same colour as Touya’s, the same colour as his own left one, fixates upon him and Shouto tenses instinctively.

Endeavour’s attention has never meant anything good and Shouto knows he’s going to be paying dearly for this.

But despite that he can’t get himself to regret it. Bakugou needed his help and Touya – his brother is alive and Shouto refuses to let him stand against Endeavour on his own. He’s tired of being afraid and he’s tired of mourning and he’s tired of constantly finding himself in the shadow of his father.

Midoriya had shown him that he was more, that he was his own person. Things had changed ever since the Sports Festival, in more ways than one.

For a long time it had only been he and Fuyumi left to face the wrath of their father but before that Touya had stood on his own, as the oldest.

Shouto refuses to allow history to repeat itself.

They’re not children anymore.

“Do not involve yourself in the business of others, Villain,” Endeavour’s voice coils dangerously.

“And if I make if my business?” Touya challenges with a stretching of his lips. “Endeavour, the Number Two Hero, always second best in the shadow of All Might.” He cocks his head with a lilting sort of smirk. “I would say it’s a pleasure but I think we both agree it’s not.”

Endeavour narrows his eyes, the fire flaring briefly on his face before settling, a glowering undercurrent of danger as studies the Villain.

“Hey, hey – Endeavour.” Hawks folds his wings properly against his back, trotting up unafraid towards the other Hero with a glint in his eyes. “All Might is still fighting, we need to get the kids out of here and-“

“We have Villains to deal with, Hawks,” Endeavour interrupts, not sparing him a glance.

“Sure,” Hawks agrees without faltering. “But they’ve already made it clear they won’t hurt the kids so if we can just move…” Hawks makes a sweeping sort of gesture with his hand, head tilting.

Shouto already knows that Endeavour won’t view that as a priority. He had always been more focused on catching Villains than involving himself in saving civilians. He had the highest count of Villain captures for a reason – even higher than All Might who had been around for longer.

“Oh he won’t,” Touya drawls, eyes shifting to the winged Hero with a smile curved with dark amusement. “Endeavour doesn’t care who he steps over as long as it means he gets to capture the bad guy. He’ll leave you to die if it suits his intentions. No one would question the Number Two Hero, would they? Society adores him, after all.”

There’s bitterness in his voice but also something sharp and venomous.

What happened to you, Touya? Shouto finds himself wondering, eyes lingering.

His brother had never been cruel but Shouto understands his anger all too well.

“This Hero Society?” Touya’s voice rolls out heavy as he spreads his hands. “It has become nothing more than a media playground and the worst sort of capitalism – gambling on lives for money and fame. Everyone is happy as long as they get to see real-life Heroes, aren’t they?” A feverish sort of light enters his eyes. “Nevermind those falling through the cracks because it’s not worth playing Hero to those born to bad lots in life. Isn’t worth paying attention to those born with the wrong sort of quirk.”

Shouto remembers Touya as he was – small with a head of tufty white hair. Touya had been born with a body made for their mother’s quirk but he had inherited their father’s and Shouto couldn’t recall a portion of their childhood where Touya hadn’t been wrapped up in bandages because of it.

Bad constitution, Endeavour had called it, eyes dark and unforgiving at the dining table. A pity.

“There are children growing up right now who won’t be spared a second of attention because their quirks doesn’t measure up and meanwhile those with right ones are just greedy front figures whose wrongs will be hidden as long as media is allowed to love them.” Touya takes a step forward, bright blue flames licking up his arms. “I’m going to raze it to the ground.”

-

”Hey-” Katsuki scrambles for a name, snags on the black hair and- “Ponytail.” The right girl turns sharply towards her and Katsuki has to be smug about that – she’d always been good at picking out distinctive traits, a bit unconventional in her naming but it wasn’t like most were able to understand or use the names she gave them anyway.

Whatever she was here, in the world, reality, whatever the fuck was going on, her names had stuck around and it might be a dream or a really vivid hallucination but it was grounding all the same.

“You-“ For a second something like hope climbs through her dark gaze but then it shifts with realization and a brief glint of curiosity. “Of course that wouldn’t change. Why Ponytail, though?” she asks and Katsuki blinks at her as she crouches down, arms folded at her knees.

There are words being exchanged behind her and Katsuki thinks that, maybe they should be paying attention to that, should be watching Dabi, but-

She reaches out and brushes her fingers over the little arch of black strands which is allowed with a curious tilt of her head. “’s pretty,” she tells the other girl honestly. “Different – easy to remember.”

To her surprise pink touches the pale cheeks of Ponytail. “Thank you,” she murmurs, mouth curling soft and pretty.

“I’m guessing I’m back to Purple Guy again then,” the purple haired boy says with some exasperation, sparing her a brief glance as she looks up to him, his shoulders tense.

“FNAF was a good game, fucked up, but good,” she tells him sincerely. “I’ll forever associate purple with it and you’ve got plenty of it.”

He gives her a dry look, shifting, and then his hands rises and Katsuki jerks up, eyes widening because-

《Purple Mind.》

“The name you gave me,” he says with an unreadable look. “You don’t much like my quirk. My power,“ he clarifies when she gives him a bit of a lost look.

“It’s what allows me to this.” Ponytail presses a hand against her bare stomach and Katsuki stares because that’s-

“How?” she breathes, fingers touching against a tiny little pink and purple raccoon with a soft smile coming unbidden to her face as it was dropped into her hands and she draws it close, admiring it’s dark sclera and vivid gold eyes with a brush of her index finger between tiny ears.

Raccoon Eyes, the something inside of her aches with longing that ghosts through her.

“Quirks,” Ponytail says with a considering look. “Keep it,” she says when Katsuki makes a move to hand it back. “I can always make more.”

Katsuki hesitates but slips it into her pocket and strokes her palm over the small lump.

“So – quirks allows people to do weird things?” she asks with a look at Endeavour. “You said I didn’t like your quirk which – are they individualized? How come those three have fire quirks then? Who is he anyway?” Katsuki asks, finally remembering her original question as she straightened up.

“Yes, quirks are all personal,” Ponytail explains patiently in an undertone while sparing a glance at the rising of Dabi's voice. “In some cases a child inherits one of their parents’ quirks, sometimes they inherit from both to make a new quirk entirely. There are cases where there are no real explanation for the quirk of the child, it’s hard to tell. But even quirks that might look the same at first appearance have different limits and capacities.”

Katsuki lowers her head, mouth thinning.

“Then my hands- I made that man’s leg-“

“You sweat nitroglycerin.” Katsuki freezes where her palm had pressed down against the lump in her pocket, suddenly all too aware of the fact that she’d been pretty much smearing her hands everywhere and-

They did smell sweet, didn’t they? Like burnt sugar or caramel, and that wasn’t normal, it wasn’t what sweat was supposed to smell like and-

I’m a ticking time-bomb, Katsuki realises with a sick sense of horror as the colour drains from her face.

“How,” Katsuki asks with a desperate sort of feeling curling inside of her, “could you ever allow me outside.” Ponytail’s eyes widens and Punk and Purple Guy both snaps around to her but Katsuki is frozen stiff in terror as she tucks her hands into her armpits with a tremble. “I should be locked up,” she says feverishly. “I could blow this fucking street up. I could blow myself up- are you all insane!?”

“Bakugou-“ Ponytail says very very gently, one hand reaching out to touch her shoulder.

Katsuki flinches back.

“Don’t touch me!” she snarls, curling on herself and Ponytail stills. “I’m- I’m a fucking bomb. I’ve smeared that stuff all over me and there are three fire users gearing up to fight and-“ A mind blowing sort of terror claws through her and her mouth snaps shut on a wheezing breath because- “I’m covered in it,” she breathes. “I’m covered in nitroglycerin and-“ Red eyes snaps up, zeroing on the first burst of blue flames, pupils dilating to pinpricks.

“Himiko-chan-“ she gasps out and the yellow eyed girl stills where she’d stepped forward as Half-n-Half raised his voice in the background, ice spreading out over the walls as the winged-man flared his wings. “Himiko-chan-“

“Kasu-chan?” The other girl turns towards her as Katsuki presses herself back against the wall, using it to keep herself upright as she struggled to her feet.

“I-“ She digs her nails into her skin through the fabric of the hoodie, so hard she knows she’s going to leave bruises behind and so very unable to care. “I need to get out of here! I need- I’m covered in it.” She stumbles side-ways, nearly falls, jerking out of the path of hands that tries to stabilize her and latching onto the yellow eyes of Himiko-chan because-

Because-

“Himiko-chan please,” Katsuki gasps as she hunches on herself because she can’t do this on her own, she can’t, and she’s-

What’s wrong with this world, Katsuki wonders desperately where she stands in the middle of an alleyway with four children, two people claiming to be Heroes, Dabi and Himiko-chan branded as Villains (and Katsuki doesn’t know what to make of anything because the something in her mind considers Dabi and Himiko-chan good and there’s an uneasy dislike at the sight of the Hero Endeavour and what even is sense in any of this?).

Her brain is buzzing, her skin is dry despite the rain, she stinks of burnt sugar and she can’t make her hands stop leaking fucking nitroglycerin. Her body isn’t her body, she’s not stupid, she feels the weight between her legs and the lack of weight on her chest and she’s- she’s not stupid.

This isn’t her body.

But she’s in it all the same.

“Go!” Half-n-Half slams his foot down, ice exploding out between Dabi and Endeavour as Katsuki stares up in a bleak sort of shock because what. “Dabi- Bakugou needs you!”

Katsuki does not because she’s a fucking bomb and she does not want or need flames anywhere near her person, thank you very fucking much.

Turquoise eyes snaps towards her all the same and Katsuki stills, trembling and pale and terrified out of her fucking mind.

“Shit,” Dabi growls out, and the ice is already melting because red and yellow flames are exploding high on the other side of it and Katsuki lets out a miserable sort of noise as she twists around from it.

And then Himiko-chan is there, hand wrapping around her bicep, hauling Katsuki along as she struggles to keep her footing as the ground wavers between asphalt and straw coloured grass and the kids are, too, and does not a single person around her have an inch of self-preservation?

“What’s wrong?” Himiko-chan demands, knife held securely in her hand and an unhappy look on her face as she glanced back.

“I’m sweating fucking nitroglycerin that’s what’s wrong!” Katsuki gasps out as she’s dragged around the corner. “’m fucking covered in it! I can’t make it stop.”

“You could before.” Himiko-chan’s hand slides down, wrapping around her wrist and dragging her hand up to show glistening palms, ignoring Katsuki’s attempts to draw it back down. “Can’t you just shut them off?” She gives Katsuki’s hand a little wave, not appearing to grasp the severity of the situation at all.

“How!?” Katsuki demands furiously because nitroglycerin is fucking unstable, she remembers so much from chemistry class and- “There’s no fucking off switch-“

Something sparks at the very tip of her hand in response to her rising emotions and Katsuki’s world explodes, her back hitting the wall hard with a snap before she crumbled to the ground and she whines as she curls around her hands, peering up to find that Himiko-chan had, at least, managed to duck beneath the blast, her hair slightly singed and eyes wide.

“Make it stop,” Katsuki pleads because this isn’t okay, this isn’t funny, this is so far from acceptable that Katsuki wants to vomit, shaking as her heart pounds too hard and too fast inside her chest. “Please-“

“Okay-“ It’s Ponytail again, a worried crease to her brow and one hand stretched out without touching. “It’s- it’s going to be okay, Bakugou, alright?”

Katsuki kinda disagrees and she curls tighter on herself in response, feeling the wet slick and sting of the nitroglycerin in her nose.

Chapter Text

The part of Katsuki that isn’t busy spiralling over the fact that she’s, somehow, become a living bomb, is kind of distantly aware of a shift of the air and-

One second she’s looking into the dark eyes of Ponytail and the next she isn’t. Because there’s black fog sputtering and flickering and she sees Tomura step through, as easy as can be, hands buried deep into the hands of his pockets and the hand that had been covering his face sticking out of his back pocket.

(And Katsuki has opinions about the fashion in this world – she’s quite sure decapitated body parts had no business being anything but extra parts or, in the name of science, explored in such a way).

There’s a rising wariness and curiosity alike from the something in her chest because he returned and why?

The kids, on the other hand, is looking rather like the devil had chosen to make his appearance and Katsuki knows that appearance had little to do with the capacity for cruelty because James had looked kind, hadn’t he? With his wavy pale hair and glinting eyes, soft cheeked with a mouth meant for smiles and not frowns and-

He had killed her.

It feels like only moments ago she was choking out on a street and then there’s rain and more rain and legs and Heroes and Villains and Quirks and she’s a living bomb.

Katsuki doesn’t think she’s going to get over that part very soon, especially with how flippantly she’d been told about it because it wasn’t okay it wasn’t what normal people were supposed to do but she wasn’t normal and she’d never adhered to a sense of normality because it was a farce anyway, wasn’t it and-

There's Tomura because it’s a name, and she doesn’t know why she doesn’t give him another one but there’s a tangling wariness and a beat of dangerdangerdanger and-

There’s a masked man in a suit that reminds her of Venom, maybe, because Katsuki has always been a comic book fan and that’s where Heroes and Villains belonged – in stories not this messed up reality that hurts, thrumming with the pull at her shoulder where old wounds rests and the jarring throbbing of her head from hitting the wall too hard and-