#de aging Bakugou | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

candleshopmenace · 2 years ago

Text

don't say a word.

SUMMARY

Present Mic frowns. “You cook dinner by yourself?”

“Yeah?” Katsuki tilts his head, confused. “Don’t you?”

“Of course I do,” Present Mic says, and he sets down his cup. “But I’m an adult. You’re eight.”

“I can cook!” Katsuki says. “And I bake really well, too!”

“Bakugou,” Present Mic says, and there’s something in his voice that makes Katsuki feel very small, “that’s not the point.”

—

Katsuki is pretty sure that there’s nothing wrong with his family. He doesn’t understand why nobody else seems to agree with him.

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[discord server]

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When Katsuki wakes up, the first thing he wants to do is go back to sleep. His entire body feels achy in a way that reminds him of what Auntie Inko called growing pains, and his head hurts, and when he opens his eyes he has to close them again because the lights are too bright. Plus, he’s tired. Which makes no sense at all, since he just woke up, but things rarely make sense, and so Katsuki is fucking exhausted.

From the doorway, someone says, “Bakugou? It's time to get ready to go, buddy.”

Katsuki cracks his eyes open and sits up, ignoring the way his stomach churns in favor of looking at Present Mic. “Where are we going?” he asks, blinking several times to make the room stop spinning. Everything looks weird, like it's smaller than it used to be, but he dismisses that as his mind playing tricks on him.

“Well, Eraserhead and I have to go to work,” Present Mic says. “We have to teach. I was thinking that you could sit in the teachers’ lounge until we’re finished.” Katsuki doesn’t know what expression he’s making, but he must look upset, because Present Mic quickly adds, “You wouldn’t be alone. All the teachers have different planning periods, so there’d always be someone to watch you.”

Katsuki frowns. He doesn’t need anybody to watch him. He can watch himself, and he’s even old enough to cook things on the stove at home! But he doesn’t say that, because he doesn’t want to seem rude or ungrateful that Present Mic is thinking about him, and it's not like he’d been asked a question or anything.

When an adult said something to you and it wasn’t a question, that meant that they were telling you what to do. And if an adult was telling you what to do, that meant you had to listen, because they would get mad at you if you didn’t. It's probably twice as true for heroes, since they were really strong and could hurt you really badly if they felt like it, and so everybody had to listen to them. Even other adults had to listen to them. Katsuki doesn’t want to make Present Mic feel like Katsuki isn’t listening to him, and so he says, “Okay.”

Present Mic’s shoulders relax, like he thought that Katsuki would throw a fit or argue with him about something he said. “Okay?” he says, copying after Katsuki, and then nods. “Okay! Well, get dressed, and then we’ll go downstairs and get some breakfast, alright?”

Katsuki sighs. His head hurts, and he’s pretty sure that eating will just make it hurt even worse. It feels like there’s someone inside his skull, whacking at the space between his eyes with a heavy metal hammer, and he really doesn’t want to get out of bed but he does anyways.

“Bakugou?” Present Mic asks, and, when Katsuki looks over at him, he sees that he’s frowning. “Are you feeling alright?”

Katsuki stares at him, wondering if it's a trick question, if he’ll get in trouble no matter what answer he gives. If it's a trick question, he needs to figure out which answer will get him into the least trouble, because his body hurts and his head hurts and his stomach hurts and he doesn’t know how many more things can hurt before he starts to cry, and wouldn’t that be embarrassing, crying as soon as he wakes up?

He must be quiet for too long, because Present Mic gives him that smile that people give when they don’t really want to smile but don’t know what else to do with their face. “Well, okay,” he says. “Sorry for waking you up so early, kiddo. I just didn’t think that you’d want to be left by yourself.” His eyebrows pinch together. “Do you want to be left by yourself?”

Without thinking, Katsuki says, “No!” He doesn’t know why he says it as quickly or loudly as he does, but then he imagines being left alone in this big building with all its hallways that he could get lost in, where anything could happen to him, and his heart feels like it's trying to beat out of his chest. Maybe he’ll get in trouble for being clingy, but he’d rather get punished for that than be stuck in an unfamiliar place, by himself, for an entire day. “Don’t leave me here. I’ll be quiet, I promise.”

Present Mic holds up his hands. “I’m not going to leave you by yourself if you don’t want me to,” he says. He sounds worried, which makes Katsuki feel guilty because he’s sure that Present Mic has bigger things to worry about than him. “I was just asking because you look tired. I could take the day off, if you want. You look like you could use some rest.”

… Is he trying to get rid of him? Is he that annoying?

Katsuki gnaws at the inside of his cheek, unsure of what to say. Should he agree to stay behind? Is that what Present Mic wants? Would it be selfish to say that that’s not what he wants? But why would Present Mic offer to take him along in the first place if he was just going to turn around and do the exact opposite?

Katsuki feels sick.

Present Mic clears his throat and Katsuki winces at the sound even as his head jerks towards it. He cringes further when he sees that Present Mic’s smile is even tighter than it was before. “I’m not trying to trick you, Bakugou,” he says, which is exactly what people say right before they try to trick you, but Katsuki doesn’t point that out because he’s seen what happens when he interrupts someone. “If you’re feeling unwell, I’d be willing to stay with you, since you don’t want to be left alone.”

Katsuki shakes his head. “It's fine,” he says. “I feel fine.” He hesitates, then braces himself and says, “I’d like to come with you.”

Present Mic is quiet for a moment, and fear floods Katsuki so fast that he feels like he’s fallen into a giant pile of snow. He did that once when he was six, and Auntie Inko had to rush him to the hospital because he got hypothermia. He remembers feeling so cold that he thought he was going to die, and that’s how he feels right now because he’d just failed a test he didn’t know he was taking. He gave the wrong answer.

Present Mic says, “Okay.”

Katsuki stares at him. He feels dizzy and cold and sick to his stomach, and his head hurts, and he almost wants to cry. He says, so quietly that he almost can’t even hear himself, “Okay?”

“Yeah,” Present Mic says, shrugging. “Okay.” And then he says basically the same thing he said earlier, says, “Get some clothes on, then let’s get something to eat.” As he closes the door, he says, “Make sure to wear something warm!”

Katsuki wraps his arms around himself and shivers.

There’s a plate in front of him. He’s in the kitchen and Present Mic is watching him and there’s a plate in front of him. Katsuki looks at Present Mic, who blinks back at him like he doesn’t know what the problem is. Like he doesn’t know that there even is a problem. He says, “You need to eat so that you have energy for the day,” and Katsuki can’t help but feel like this is a trap.

Katsuki shakes his head, digging his nails into his palms so that he can ignore the part of him that wants to reach forward and grab the plate that Present Mic is offering him, because that’s not healthy food. He’ll ruin himself if he eats that, and then he’ll never be a hero. Besides, heroes were supposed to have a lot of self-control. That’s what his mother always said, and it made sense, and so Katsuki has to control himself and not eat something that he knows will only hurt him in the end.

“Bakugou,” Present Mic says, and Katsuki takes a step back, shaking his head again. “Look, you need to eat. I’m being serious.” He looks between the plate and Katsuki, then sighs. “This is exactly what I made you for breakfast yesterday. What’s different about today?”

“I don’t -” The words feel like they’re stuck in his throat. “I don’t - I can’t eat eggs. Not the yellow part. They’re bad for you.”

“Well, I’m not letting you only eat toast again.” Present Mic straightens, setting the plate down on the stove. “You know, that’s probably why you’re so cold.”

“I’m not cold,” Katsuki says, even though he is. He’d put on long-sleeved shirt and then a sweater and then a jacket, but he still feels like there’s ice under his skin, spreading and growing like a sickness, like a disease. He says, “And I like toast.”

Present Mic sighs and turns in a circle, looking around the kitchen. “What else do you like?” he asks, walking over to a cabinet and opening it. “Cereal?”

“I want an apple,” Katsuki says.

Present Mic sounds very tired when he says, “That’s not enough, Bakugou.”

Katsuki frowns, thinking of all the times he asked for a snack and then watched his mother take an apple out of the fridge. She’d cut it in half, then weigh each piece on the little scale on the kitchen counter. She never said that apples weren’t enough. She never said that any kind of food wasn’t enough. Glancing around, Katsuki sees that there’s no scale in this kitchen, and he wonders how all the people who live here know how much they’re supposed to eat if they don’t have a way to measure it. “You guys should get a scale,” he says.

Present Mic closes his eyes for a moment, then opens them and says, slowly, “We don’t need a scale, Bakugou.”

Katsuki starts to argue, then bites down on his tongue. Present Mic has a ring on his finger, and it always hurts more to be slapped by a hand that has a ring on it. Present Mic’s ring doesn’t look like it has a gemstone on it or anything, but Katsuki still doesn’t want to risk it. “Okay,” he says. “Sorry.”

“Why are you apologizing?” Present Mic asks, and it sounds like one of those questions that adults asked but never actually wanted an answer to, and so Katsuki stays quiet. “You don’t -” Present Mic sighs and glares up at the ceiling for a moment, then looks at Katsuki like he’s trying to see inside his head. “Bakugou, if I get you an apple, you need to actually eat it. Okay?”

Katsuki blinks at him. “Why would I ask for food if I wasn’t going to eat it?” He watches as Present Mic crosses the kitchen, pulling open the refrigerator door. He waits until Present Mic is far enough away, then points out, “You should totally get a scale.” Present Mic straightens up so fast that he hits his head on the top part of the fridge. “Ow, fuck,” he mutters, then looks at Katsuki. “We don’t need a scale. You don’t need a scale. You’re eight.”

“My mom has a scale,” Katsuki counters. “She uses it for food so that we can stay healthy, because she’s a model and I’m going to be a hero.”

“That’s not what being a hero is about,” Present Mic says. “Being a hero is about saving people, not eating, like, one thing a day.”

“I eat more than that!” Katsuki says, and it feels weird to be saying that, but Present Mic is wrong. “I would die if I only ate one thing a day.”

“Oh my God,” Present Mic says. He closes the refrigerator, shaking his head. “I can’t believe that I’m having this conversation.” He looks at the apple in his hand, then at Katsuki, then sighs. “Do you want me to cut this up?”

“No, it's fine,” Katsuki says. “You’re probably already late for work.” He takes the apple when Present Mic offers it to him, then stares down at it. Now that he’s actually holding it, he kind of wants to ask if Present Mic can cut it in half, but he guesses that it’s fine. Apples are healthy, anyways, which is why they always had them in the fridge at home.

Present Mic puts a hand on his shoulder. “Are you sure that you feel well enough to come along?” he asks, sounding concerned. “I wouldn’t mind -” Katsuki says, “I’m fine.”

Present Mic looks like he wants to say something else, but then he just sighs again. “Alright, then,” he says. “Let’s go.”

Like the rest of Yuuei, the teachers’ lounge is huge. There’s a teachers’ lounge at Katsuki’s primary school - he knows because he’s caught glimpses it while walking by when the door was open - but he’s pretty sure that it's not as big as this.

When Katsuki says that, Present Mic laughs a little and says, “Well, Yuuei has a lot of teachers. Plus, they have to convince people to work here somehow, right?”

“I guess so,” Katsuki says. He pulls his legs up into his chair and crosses them, leaning his elbows on the table as he watches Present Mic bustle around the kitchenette in the corner, and then he asks, “Where’s Eraserhead?” Because now that he thinks about it - and he is thinking about it, a lot - he hasn’t seen Eraserhead since yesterday. “He wasn’t here this morning.”

“He was taking Eri to school,” Present Mic says, taking down two mugs from the cabinet above the sink. They’re gray, with the symbol of Yuuei printed on the sides, and he pours hot water into both of them as he says, “He’s teaching right now. He’s Class 1-A’s homeroom teacher.”

“That’s the hero class, right?” Katsuki asks, sitting up in his chair. He remembers seeing a special documentary about Yuuei, and he remembers thinking that Class 1-A was the class he wanted to be in when he got older because that was where the best heroes came from. “Y��know, where the top-ranking students are?”

“Yep! You’ve met a few of them, actually.” Present Mic glances over his shoulder. “Let’s see… you’ve met Ashido, Todoroki, Kirishima…”

“And that girl with the ponytail,” Katsuki adds. “She made me some clothes because you guys weren’t expecting to have to take care of me.”

Present Mic hums in agreement as he turns around with a cup in each hand. He carries them over and sets them on the table, then sits down across from Katsuki. “Her name is Yaoyorozu,” he says, then nods at the mug he’s placed in front of Katsuki. “Let that cool down a bit, and then you drink it. It’ll warm you up.”

“I’m not cold,” Katsuki protests. He pulls the sleeves of his sweater over his hands and drags the cup closer to him, feeling the steam on his face as he peers at its contents. “Is this tea?”

Present Mic nods. “Peppermint.”

“I like tea,” Katsuki says, and he finds himself rubbing at the mark on the side of his palm. It's barely even noticable, just a few shades darker than the rest of his skin, but it feels rough beneath his fingers. “I tried to make some a couple days ago, but Todoroki wouldn’t let me because he’s an asshole.” He hears a snort and looks up to see that Present Mic is doing a terrible job of covering up a smile. “I’m being serious! I was trying to make some tea and then he came running in and started yelling at me!”

Present Mic’s smile turns into a frown. “Todoroki did that?” he asks, like he thinks that Katsuki is lying. “That doesn’t really sound like something he’d do.”

Katsuki tenses. He should’ve just kept his stupid mouth shut, because Present Mic has obviously known Todoroki for longer than he’s known Katsuki, and that meant that he’d be on Todoroki’s side. Like how Katsuki’s father always agreed with his mother, or how Kariage always backed him up in a fight. He doesn’t know what good it’ll do, but he finds himself saying, “I’m telling the truth.”

Present Mic’s eyebrows shoot up. “I never said you weren’t,” he points out. “I just meant that Todoroki usually doesn’t act like that.” He takes a sip of his tea, then muses, “Maybe it's because he was sick.”

And that’s something that Katsuki didn’t know about. “He was sick?” he asks, remembering how angry Todoroki had looked when he ran into the kitchen, the way he grabbed Katsuki’s arm and shook him and asked if he wanted the burn to scar. “So he’s usually not that mad?”

“Well, he’s mad, but not loudly. If that makes any sense.” Present Mic looks at Katsuki over the rim of his cup. “Does that make any sense?”

Katsuki thinks about how his father sometimes got really quiet, and that usually meant that he was pissed about something or the other. And then something would set him off, and he would explode, going on a rampage like some kind of monster. He’s never been well and truly angry at Katsuki, but he’s seen it happen. It never ended well. Katsuki presses his hands to the sides of his cup in an attempt to make them warmer, then says, “Yeah, that makes sense.” But now he can’t help but wonder what it was about him that seemed to make Todoroki so upset. Did he do the wrong thing? Did he say something he wasn’t supposed to? Maybe Present Mic is right, and maybe Todoroki was acting weirdly because he was sick, but Katsuki has the feeling that it's somehow all his fault.

He takes a sip of tea and winces when it scalds his tongue. Present Mic catches the motion, because of course he does, and asks, “Is it still too hot for you?”

Katsuki shakes his head. “Nope,” he says. He hates it when people worry about him because that means that he’s distracting them, and people always got mad if you distracted them for too long. “It didn’t even hurt! One time, I accidently put my hand on a burner while I was making dinner, and I couldn’t move my fingers for, like, a month. That hurt way more than this.”

He’d said that in an attempt to reassure Present Mic that he was fine, but his words seem to have the opposite effect - Present Mic frowns, and his eyebrows furrow again, and he looks even more worried than before. “You cook dinner by yourself?”

“Yeah?” Katsuki asks, feeling confused. “Don’t you?”

“Of course I do,” Present Mic says, and he sets down his cup. “But I’m an adult. You’re eight.”

“I can cook!” Katsuki says. “And I cook really well, too! Everybody says so.”

“Bakugou,” Present Mic says, and he sounds weird. He’s speaking quietly, but there’s something in his voice that makes Katsuki feel very small. “That’s not the point.”

Katsuki presses himself back in his chair, unsure of why Present Mic suddenly seems angry. He’s not sure if he’s angry at him or if he’s angry at something else, but there never seemed to be a difference in how Katsuki got hit, and so he can only assume that he’s done something wrong. “Sorry?” he tries, because maybe if he apologizes, shows that he really does feel bad about whatever it is that he’s done, he can get away with only a single blow.

Present Mic’s eyes go a little wide. “I’m not angry,” he says, and he says it quickly, like he thinks that Katsuki might try to interrupt him. “I was just… thinking.” He pauses, then says, “How many times have you cooked dinner by yourself?”

Katsuki lets himself breathe. But he doesn’t relax, not completely, because if he does something wrong this time, he’s sure that Present Mic will change his mind about not being angry. “A lot,” he says, because maybe that’s the right answer. Maybe Present Mic wants to know if he can take care of himself - which he can, by the way. He’s not a fucking baby. “I have to stand on a stool to reach the spice cabinet, but I’m good at cooking. And baking! I know how to make cookies and stuff, but I only ever make them for my friends. And for Deku, because he’s not going to be a hero, so he doesn’t have to worry about not eating healthy things.”

He waits to see if Present Mic is going to respond, but he doesn’t, and so Katsuki continues, “He likes those ones that have chocolate chips in them. I want to eat them, sometimes, because they smell really good, but…” He trails off, thinking about how good the cookies smelled. And they looked good, too, and he knew they tasted good by how much his friends seemed to like them, but all the ingredients that went into them were bad, so they had to be bad, too. “They’re bad for you. They have a bunch of sugar in them, and butter, and then there’s all that chocolate, so there’s no way that they’re healthy. They’re even worse than peanut butter, I bet.”

When he finishes, Present Mic still doesn’t speak. He just looks at Katsuki like he’s watching a sad movie, and he’s frowning again, and he hasn’t taken a sip of tea in the past five minutes, and Katsuki tries to think of what it is that he’s done wrong. He got asked a question, and so he answered it. Was he not supposed to answer it? Was his answer not the one he was supposed to give? Was his answer too long? The third option seems like the most likely, and it makes the most sense, so Katsuki says, “I didn’t mean to talk that much.”

“No, it's…” Present Mic pinches the bridge of his nose like he has a headache. Like he has a headache because of Katsuki. “It's fine. You haven’t done anything wrong. I was just wondering about something.” His glasses are fogged with the steam from the tea, and so he takes them off and cleans them with the edge of his shirt, then asks, “Do your parents leave you at home by yourself?”

“Well, yeah,” Katsuki says, feeling relieved, because at least that’s a question he knows the answer to. He’s been asked it a bunch of times, and he never got in trouble for his response. People always just smiled at him and told him how responsible and mature he was, which was a good thing because it meant that he was better than other kids his age. “A lot! It's because they know that I can take care of myself, and I know the way to school, and I look both ways before crossing the street. One time they left me by myself for, like, a bunch of months, and I had to go to the store by myself and everything.” That last part is important because he had to carry the groceries home by himself afterwards, so he couldn’t get too much. He was responsible and mature for his age, but he was also small for his age, too, so it's not like he could carry a lot of stuff at one time. “But my dad left me a bunch of money, so it wasn’t that bad. I read a lot of books and stuff, since house was really quiet.”

He stops talking and watches Present Mic, hoping for the praise he always got when he told that to other adults. He was responsible and mature, and that meant that he was going to be a good hero. The best hero, actually, because Katsuki was great at being the best! When he got the highest grades on his tests and stuff, his father would smile at him, and even his mother would tell him, good job, and then she would brag about him to all her friends, which was a good thing because it meant that he’d actually done something right for once.

But Present Mic doesn’t smile at him, and he doesn’t say, good job. He just says, in that weird voice that makes Katsuki feel tiny, “Right.” He puts his hands around his cup of tea but doesn’t drink it, just holds it. “How old were you when they left you alone for all those months?”

Unease flares through Katsuki’s stomach. Does Present Mic think that he’s lying about being able to stay home by himself? But that can’t be right, because Present Mic said just a couple of days ago that he thought that Katsuki was going to be a great hero. Those had been his exact words, You’re going to be a great hero. Did he change his mind? Did Katsuki make him change his mind?

Hesitantly, Katsuki says, “Seven?” and then winces when the word comes out sounding like a question. He tries again, saying, “I was seven,” and then he adds, “It was last year,” because he wants to show how long ago that was, and he’s gotten older than that, so that means he’s even more responsible and mature than he was back then.

Present Mic’s frown deepens. “You’re really young, Bakugou.”

Katsuki scowls. “No,” he says, feeling hurt, “I’m not.” Why can’t Present Mic just act like all the other adults that Katsuki has met? Why does he have to react so differently to everything?

“You’re eight,” Present Mic says, like that changes everything. Like that changes anything. “You’re too young to be left alone for a day, much less an entire month.”

“It was a bunch of months,” Katsuki corrects.

“That’s even worse,” Present Mic says. “How many people have you told about this?” The way he says it makes it sound like he thinks that Katsuki was trying to keep it a secret. “How many adults know about this, Bakugou?”

Katsuki tries to remember all the adults he’s gotten compliments from, but quickly loses count. He shrugs. “A lot, I guess.”

“And none of them have done anything about it? None of them have tried to help you?”

Katsuki tenses, feeling hurt that Present Mic thinks that he needs help. He just told him that he was able to take care of himself! He doesn’t need anybody to help him with something that he already knows how to do! “I don’t need help!” he says, and his voice sounds louder than it should, but he thought that Present Mic said that Katsuki was going to be a great hero, and great heroes didn’t need help. All Might never needed help, which was what made him the best hero. “I’m responsible and mature!” and he’s never actually said that out loud before, so he stumbles a little over the words. He sputters, then continues, “I know how to take care of myself!”

“That’s not what I meant, Bakugou,” Present Mic says. “I know that you can take care of yourself. But you shouldn’t have to. You’re too young to worry about things like that. You should be having fun, not… not worrying about making yourself dinner. That’s what a parent is supposed to do.”

Katsuki shakes his head. “That’s what parents are supposed to do for kids that don’t know how to do things for themselves. I know how to do everything by myself. I don’t need anyone’s help, so my parents don’t have to do that.” He tries to keep himself calm as he explains it, but Present Mic is looking at him like he’s something to be sad about, and the anger grabs hold of him again and refuses to let go. He doesn’t want to be here. He should’ve just stayed back at the dorms. Sure, he’d be lonely, but at least he wouldn’t have to deal with one of his favorite heroes telling him that he’s practically useless on his own. He feels sparks crack across his palms and quickly smothers them on his pants, knowing what happened when he couldn’t control his Quirk, but he’s so, so angry and he hears himself say, “Don’t you have a class to teach?”

“Not for another thirty minutes,” Present Mic says, then pauses like he wants to say something else. He closes his mouth. Opens it, then says, “Bakugou, you deserve more than this.”

Katsuki doesn’t answer, and they spend the rest of the time in silence.

After Present Mic leaves, time passes in a blur. Katsuki is bored but doesn’t want to say it, knowing that complaining would just make him sound ungrateful, and he distracts himself by watching the hands of the clock tick away the seconds and minutes and hours. True to Present Mic’s word, all the teachers have different planning periods, so there’s always someone in the lounge with him. Some of them talk to him, and he tries to respond politely, but most of them just stare at him while trying to pretend that they’re not staring.

Katsuki sighs.

He must fall asleep for a little bit, because he wakes up when the chair across from him scrapes against the floor as someone pulls it back and sits down in it. “Oh, sorry,” they say. “I didn’t mean to wake you.”

Katsuki straightens, rubbing at his eyes. “It's okay,” he says, because that’s what you’re supposed to say when someone apologizes, even if it's actually not really that okay. “I -” He looks at the person who just sat down and freezes, staring. He says, after a long moment of silence, “You’re Midnight.”

The woman raises an eyebrow, looking amused. “Yes, I suppose I am,” she says. “And what’s your name?”

Katsuki stares at her. It takes several moments for her question to register in his head, and, when it does, his answer sounds nervous even to his own ears, “Bakugou.” He clears his throat and tries again, steady and confident like his mother always told him to be when introducing himself to strangers. “I’m Bakugou Katsuki.”

“I should’ve guessed,” Midnight says, and he has the feeling that she’s teasing him. Before he can say anything about it, she smiles and asks, “What are you doing here?”

Katsuki pauses, thinking about how he should respond. Does she want to know why he’s in the teachers’ lounge, or does she want to know why he’s at Yuuei in the first place? The second choice seems the most likely, since it would give her more information, and so he says, “Eraserhead is taking care of me,” which is a concept that still feels weird to think about. He didn’t even know that his parents were friends with any heroes. But his father once shook hands with some super important person in America, so he supposes that it's not actually that strange. “And Present Mic.”

“Really? That sounds fun.” Midnight’s smile widens. She seems delighted by the sight of him, and he can’t figure out why. “How old are you, Bakugou?”

“I’m eight,” he says, watching her warily. She looks really happy to see him. He doesn’t remember the last time anyone ever looked happy to see him. Actually, Deku looked at him like that, and so did Kariage and Yasu, but they didn’t count because Katsuki has known them since forever. “I’ll be nine in April.” He counts on his fingers, then adds, “That’s in three months.”

Midnight nods as if she’d been expecting that answer. “That’s really close,” she points out.

“Yeah, it is.”

Midnight puts her elbow on the table and leans her cheek against her palm, watching him. “What are you hoping to get for your birthday?”

Katsuki blinks at her. He hasn’t gotten birthday presents since he was, like, four. Well, he got them Deku and Kariage and Yasu, but, again, they didn’t count. “I’m too old for presents.”

“Nobody is too old for birthday presents,” Midnight says, that teasing tone back in her voice. When Katsuki shrugs, she asks, “Well, what kind of cake do you plan on getting?”

She’s asking all the wrong questions, Katsuki thinks, then says, “I don’t like cake.” When her eyebrows shoot up, he hurries to explain, “I tried it once at a party, and it tasted good, but my mom found out and got really mad at me.” He shudders at the memory of how mad she got at him.

“... Why would she get mad at you about something like that?” Midnight asks, sitting up. She’s frowning. “What’s so bad about cake?”

“It's unhealthy,” Katsuki says, and it's true, so he doesn’t really know why Midnight’s frown deepens when he tells her that. “Like, it has all that sugar and stuff in it. It's really bad for you.” The silence stretches a bit too far, and Katsuki shifts in his seat, suddenly nervous. When his mother got quiet, it usually meant that she was really, really angry at him. And when she got angry, people got hurt. He got hurt. He doesn’t know if Midnight is the same way, but she’s watching him with wide eyes and she’s staying so still that she looks like a statue and Katsuki doesn’t know what he’s supposed to do, and so he says, trying to relieve the tension, “I have to eat properly if I’m going to be a hero.”

“Bakugou,” Midnight says, and she doesn’t sound as happy as she did before. “That’s not… sweetie, you should be allowed to eat cake.”

Katsuki leans back in his chair, putting himself out of her reach. “Sorry,” he says, because he’s obviously made her upset. He thought he’d been doing the right thing by saying that, by proving how much he wants to be a hero, but he guesses that he was wrong. He feels like he’s been wrong about a lot of things, lately.

“You don’t have to apologize for anything,” Midnight says, and her voice is just barely above a whisper, and Katsuki doesn’t like the way she’s looking at him. She’s looking at him like she’s never seen him before.

Katsuki shrinks under her gaze, holding onto the sides of his seat to keep himself from running.

… He doesn’t know where he’d go, anyways, if he did run. Somebody would find him, because somebody always does, and then everything hurts more than it would if he had just stayed where he was. He knows this because he still remembers the one time when his mother was yelling at him and so he ran into his bedroom and shut his door in her face, and she responded by locking it and not letting him out until he apologized. But he didn’t want to apologize, not to her, and so he missed dinner for two entire nights. And then when he did get to eat, he threw it back up because he ate too fast, so he didn’t get dinner that night, either.

Katsuki winces at the memory. The only good thing that came out of that experience was that he learned his lesson: running away didn’t help anything. It just made things worse.

Midnight closes her eyes for a moment, then opens them and asks, “Are you bored?”

“No,” Katsuki says, because that’s probably the answer that she wants.

Midnight’s eyebrows pinch together. “Are you sure?” she asks. “It doesn’t look like you have anything to keep you busy, and I’d be pretty bored, too, if I were stuck in here for hours.” When it becomes clear that Katsuki isn’t going to respond, she scrapes her chair back from the table and stands, holding out a hand towards him. “C’mon,” she says. “You can help me in my classroom, alright?”

Katsuki starts to reach out, then draws back. “Present Mic told me to wait here,” he says, suspicious.

“I’m sure he wouldn’t mind.”

“He told me to wait here.”

“Look,” Midnight says, taking out her phone.

Katsuki can’t help the way he goes so tense that his entire body aches. His teachers used to get him to behave by threatening to call his parents, and he knows that Midnight isn’t going to do that, that she doesn’t even know his parents, but some voice in his head whispers, But what if she does? They’d be so mad if they had to come home early just to pick Katsuki up. His mother might even be mad enough to -

Don’t, he tells himself. Don’t think about that.

But Midnight doesn’t call his parents. She just says, “We can ask him, okay?” and then dials somebody’s number before Katsuki can respond.

Midnight puts the call on speaker, so Katsuki can hear it when the phone rings once, twice, three times, and then Present Mic’s voice asks, “Do you need something, Nemuri?”

“Yes, actually,” Midnight says. “So, I’m in the teachers’ lounge, and -”

Present Mic interrupts her, asking, “Is Bakugou okay?”

“Bakugou is just fine,” Midnight says. She puts a hand on Katsuki’s head and he flinches, thinking that he’s done something wrong, but then all she does is ruffle his hair. “I just wanted to know if you’d mind me bringing him to my classroom.” She pauses, then asks, “What were you thinking, anyways, leaving a kid in here with nothing to do?”

Present Mic is quiet for a long moment, and then he sighs. “Yeah,” he admits, “that was a pretty bad idea.”

Midnight shakes her head, but she’s smiling. “You’re not very good at this whole babysitting thing,” she says, then, speaking over Present Mic’s protests, “Anyways, you’re fine with me taking him for a little bit? He can hang out in my classroom. The kids will love him.”

“Are you sure it’ll be okay?” Present Mic asks, sounding worried. “Have you told them about -”

“Yes,” Midnight says, cutting him off. “Everybody already knows. They’ll all be perfectly behaved.”

“... Well, alright,” Present Mic says, still sounding unconvinced. “Don’t let anything happen to him.”

“Oh, please,” Midnight says. “Who do you think I am?” Then, without waiting for Present Mic to answer, she ends the call and grins down at Katsuki. “See? I told you he’d be fine with it!” She puts her phone away and holds out her hand.

Katsuki takes it.

Midnight’s classroom is empty. When Katsuki looks around, wordlessly questioning, she explains, “I’m still technically on break. They’ll be here in -” she looks at the clock over the door “- about ten minutes.”

Katsuki says, “Okay,” and then falls silent, unsure of what it is that he’s supposed to be doing. She must want him to do something, but he can’t figure it out. But he doesn’t want to ask, because then he’ll feel stupid if the answer is something obvious.

Midnight smiles at him. “What kinds of things do you like to do?” she asks, walking over to her podium. “I’m sure I can find something to keep you entertained.”

Katsuki follows her after instinct, trailing behind as he considers her question. He likes to read, but it looks like the only books in here are textbooks about history and stuff, and he likes to draw, but all of the supplies that Eraserhead got for him is still back at the dorms. “I don’t know,” he answers. “I just -”

Somebody says, “Kayama-sensei, I’d like to speak to you about something.”

“Hold that thought,” Midnight says to Katsuki, then looks towards the voice. Katsuki follows her gaze to a tired-looking boy in the doorway. “Yes? What do you need?”

The boy walks forward. He starts, “I was wondering -” and then stops short when he sees Katsuki. Aside from his raised eyebrows, Katsuki can’t read his expression. “Is that -”

“His name is Bakugou,” Midnight says, and there’s something in her voice that Katsuki can’t quite decipher. It almost sounds like a warning. “I’m looking after him for a little bit.” She clears her throat, and her voice is back to normal when she asks, “Now, what is it that you needed help with?”

With what seems to be great difficulty, the boy looks away from Katsuki. “I had a question about the study guide you gave us.” He puts his backpack on the closest desk, unzipping it, then rummages through it until he pulls out a packet of stapled paper. He flips to a page, then points at a line of text on it, showing it to Midnight. “It says the the Quirk Discrimination Act of 2173 was meant to protect people with mutant Quirks, but it was actually made to protect people with mentalist Quirks, because there was an incident a year before where a nine-year-old girl had her vocal cords -” He falters, glancing over at Katsuki, then looks back at Midnight. “The Act of 2149 was the one that protected people with mutant Quirks, not the Act of 2173.”

Midnight frowns down at the paper, then sighs. “You’re right,” she says, somehow managing to sound apologetic without even saying the words. “I don’t know how I made a mistake like that. The years aren’t even similar. Sorry about that, Shinsou.” The boy - Shinsou, Midnight had called him - rubs at the back of his neck, looking like he regrets bringing up the mistake at all. “It's not a big deal,” he says. “I just remember it because it's the year I manifested my Quirk.” He shrugs, then lets Midnight take the study guide. As she walks away, he turns to Katsuki and says, “Wow, you’re tiny.” As if to prove it, he crouches down so that he can look Katsuki in the eyes. “I bet you can’t ride any rides at the fair.”

Katsuki scowls at him, crossing his arms. “You’re a jackass.”

“Yeah, well,” Shinsou says, shrugging again. “Doesn’t change the fact that you’re tiny.”

“Don’t antagonize him, Shinsou,” Midnight says, but she sounds like she’s smiling. “Aizawa-sensei is in charge of him. You don’t want him getting mad at you, do you?”

Shinsou tilts his head. “I guess not,” he says, straightening up. “He’d probably have me run laps until I dropped.” He pulls his backpack off the desk and puts it down by his feet, sitting in the chair. He props his chin in his palm and studies Katsuki, then says, “I bet you plan on coming to Yuuei when you’re older.”

Katsuki’s scowl deepens. He has the feeling that he’s being made fun of. “Yeah,” he shoots back, glaring. “What about it?”

Shinsou holds his hands up in mock-defense, his sharp grin giving him away. “Calm down,” he says. “I was just making an observation.”

Katsuki narrows his eyes, unwilling to let his guard down. There’s something about the way the boy speaks, like he’s purposefully keeping his voice flat, that makes him uneasy. “I can beat your ass, you know,” Katsuki says. “I could blow up this whole entire room.” He wouldn’t actually do that, of course, because he’d get in trouble and then his arms would get hurt again, but he wants Shinsou to know that he could.

Shinsou raises an eyebrow. “Christ,” he mutters. “You’re as touchy as always.”

Katsuki bristles. He doesn’t know exactly what Shinsou means by that, but he can tell it's a bad thing by the way the jerk said it like he didn’t want Katsuki to hear. “Shut up,” he snaps. “Leave me alone.”

And now Shinsou raises both eyebrows. “Hold on,” he says. “Calm down. I didn’t mean anything by it.”

“Bullshit.”

“No, seriously. I’m being serious. Dead serious.” He grins again as he says, “There's no point in picking a fight with someone I’ve just met, especially a six-year-old.” “I’m eight!”

“Well, an eight-year-old, then,” Shinsou amends. “I don’t make it a habit to fight eight-year-olds. Even if they do threaten to blow me up.”

“I wasn’t threatening you,” Katsuki says, even though, yes, that was exactly what he’s been doing. “I was just telling you that I could beat your ass if I wanted to.” He feels his hands start to get hot and curses, waving them through the air to cool them down before he actually does blow something up. “You’re fucking lucky that I don’t want to get in trouble, bastard.”

“I’m so relieved.”

Katsuki glares at him. This was how all fights started, usually. He didn’t try to get into fights, but people liked to taunt him until he got angry enough not to care anymore about getting in trouble, and then everyone said that it was his fault even though it wasn’t. And then his mother would yell at him the entire car ride home, and then, if the damage had been really bad, she’d shove his arms into those stupid restraints until he either learned how to control himself or threw a big enough fit that his father unlocked him just so that he’d stop screaming. The last option usually came first.

“Fuck you,” Katsuki says, rubbing at the thin scar wrapped around his arm, just beneath his elbow, as a reminder of what would happen if he let himself get too upset. He drops his hand, though, when he sees Shinsou’s eyes follow the motion. “The Hell are you staring at?”

“Nothing,” Shinsou says, which is total bullshit. “I was just wondering what your parents are like.”

“What kind of question is that?”

“It wasn’t a question.”

“Well, that’s still a weird thing to think about. I don’t wonder about what your parents are like.” Katsuki frowns, sitting in the seat across from Shinsou, turning to face him. “You’re fucking weird.”

Shinsou shrugs, not looking offended at all, which is fine. Katsuki hadn’t really been insulting him. He’d just been making an observation. “Yeah,” Shinsou says. “I guess I am.”

Katsuki goes silent, not sure about how he’s supposed to respond to that, then says, “You look tired.”

“Oh, really.”

Katsuki nods. “You’ve got bags,” he says, tracing his fingers under his own eyes to demonstrate. “You must stay up past midnight a lot. I tried to do that once and then I got in trouble because I fell asleep in class the next day.”

Shinsou huffs a laugh. “Sounds like your parents need to set a bedtime,” he says.

“I only tried to do it once!” Katsuki protests, rushing to defend himself. He pauses, considering, then points out, “Plus, it's not like my parents would know if I stayed up too late. Time doesn’t work the same in other places. One time my dad called me, and it was, like, five in the morning! He woke me up! When I asked him why he called me so early, he said that he got confused because it wasn’t that early in America.” He looks at Shinsou. “Isn’t that weird?”

Agreeably, Shinsou says, “Yeah, that’s pretty weird.” He pauses, then says, “I’ve never been to America before.” “I’ve been there,” Katsuki says, happy to share the knowledge he gathered from his one trip to the United States. “Everybody smiled a lot, and it was really loud. I got to see the Statue of Liberty and everything! I wanted to see more, but then I had to go to the hospital.” When Shinsou stares at him, Katsuki explains, “My dad hit me in the head with a vase.” Then, when Shinsou’s eyes go wide, “It was an accident! He was trying to hit somebody else, but I got in the way, so it was my fault.” He pushes his hair out of his face and points to the scar along the top edge of his forehead. He knows it by sight as much as he knows it by feel, the crooked line of it usually hidden by the fall of his hair. “The doctors had to stitch it up and everything, and my head was hurting really badly, so I didn’t even get to see the rest of New York. I’m still mad about that, actually.”

“Oh,” Shinsou says. “That’s… interesting.”

“Yeah,” Katsuki says. “It doesn’t hurt anymore, though. And my dad got me ice cream, which I don’t really like, but I ate it so that he wouldn’t feel bad.” He grins, remembering. “I had to eat it really fast so that my mom didn’t see, and I ended up getting a brain freeze.”

And that makes Shinsou laugh, even though it sounds more surprised than anything, like it's been shocked out of him. Maybe that’s just what his normal laugh sounds like. “Fuck,” he says, shaking his head. “That’s… not what I expected to hear.”

Katsuki’s smile falls. “What did you expect to hear, then?” he asks, not really knowing if he wants to know the answer. “I don’t know,” Shinsou says. “Something happy, I guess. Not a story about your dad throwing a vase at your head.”

“He didn’t throw it at my head,” Katsuki points out, irritated. “I literally just said that it was an accident.” He pauses, processing the rest of Shinsou’s words, and then scowls. “And it was a happy story!” “Your dad hit you in the head with a vase and put you in the hospital. That’s what I’ve gathered from this. It doesn’t sound very happy.”

“That’s because you’re trying to make it sound unhappy,” Katsuki says. “It's like you weren’t even listening. He got me ice cream!”

“You just said that you don’t like ice cream.”

“I don’t,” Katsuki huffs, crossing his arms. “But he got it for me, and he apologized.”

Shinsou blinks at him, eyebrows furrowing. “You never said that he apologized.”

“He got me ice cream,” Katsuki says.

“But he didn’t apologize.”

“He got me ice cream,” Katsuki repeats. What about this doesn’t Shinsou understand? Was he even listening?

“Yeah, but he never said that he was sorry.”

“He didn’t have to,” Katsuki explains. “I knew that he was sorry. He wouldn’t have gotten me anything if he wasn’t sorry. He never gets me anything unless he’s sorry.” Katsuki tilts his head back, trying to think of an example. He comes up with the most memorable incident, which also happened to be the one that he wasn’t allowed to talk about. His father made him pinky-promise to not tell anybody about it, but it’d probably be fine if he kept the details out of it. “There was this one time when I hurt my arm, and my dad took me to the zoo after I got my cast off. I got to see all the animals, but we didn’t go into the bug exhibit because he doesn’t like bugs. We took a bunch of pictures.”

“... I don’t see why he’d have to apologize for you getting your arm hurt,” Shinsou says. “Not unless you’re leaving something out of the story.”

Katsuki freezes. He hadn’t mentioned how much it hurt to have a bone broken, or how his father had gotten the doctor to make his cast bright orange to cheer him up even though it didn’t really work, or how Katsuki had to tell everybody that he fell down the stairs, or how all these years later all his mother had to do was grab his arm to make him behave, but he feels like Shinsou knows it all anyways, like he can see everything that Katsuki kept hidden, and he wonders if maybe it was a mistake to start talking about his family in the first place. His arm aches when it rains.

Shinsou says, “But I could be wrong.”

“You are,” Katsuki says. He thinks that he says it too fast, but he can’t stop himself. “You’re wrong. He apologized. He got me ice cream, and he took me to the zoo, so you’re wrong.” And Shinsou is looking at him in the same way that Present Mic had been looking at him, the same way that Midnight had been looking at him, like they thought that there was something wrong. Like they thought that there something wrong with him. “Stop looking at me like that!”

“I’m don’t know what you’re talking about,” Shinsou says. “I’m just -” “Shut up!” Katsuki snaps. His head is hurting again, and so is his stomach, and he feels like he’s about to cry. But he can’t cry, he can’t, he doesn’t even have a reason to cry. It's not like anybody is yelling at him. He’s the only one who’s yelling. “Leave me alone. I don’t want to talk to you.”

Shinsou frowns. “Hey, it's alright,” he says, and then he reaches forward.

Katsuki flinches, jerking back so hard that he almost falls out of the chair and has to grab onto the desk to keep from crashing to the floor. He watches as Shinsou quickly pulls his hand back, but Katsuki’s heart doesn’t slow down, just keeps beating so fast that he feels like he might throw up.

“Sorry,” Shinsou says. “That wasn’t - I didn’t mean -” He looks around the classroom like he’s searching for help, then says, “Kayama-sensei, can you…” And then he trails off, like he’s unsure of what he’d been about to ask.

Midnight asks, “Is something wrong?” There’s the sound of footsteps. “I finished editing the -” She stops. Katsuki can feel her eyes on him, burning into him. “Bakugou, are you okay?”

In response, Katsuki bursts into tears.

—

“He’s tired.”

Katsuki swipes his arm across his eyes and tries to focus on taking deep breaths, which is what Recovery Girl told him to do. He doesn’t look at where Present Mic and Eraserhead are standing in the corner, speaking quietly, like he can’t hear them. Like he doesn’t know that they’re talking about him.

“No,” Present Mic says. “He’s hungry.”

“Well, yeah, but he’s more tired than hungry.” Eraserhead waves a hand in Katsuki’s direction, and Katsuki closes his eyes. “Look at him, he’s exhausted. He should sleep.”

“He’s exhausted because he’s hungry. He needs to eat, and then he should sleep, not the other way around.” Present Mic sighs. “Christ, his head must hurt like Hell.”

And he’s right. Katsuki’s head does hurt like Hell. It's been hurting since he woke up and now it's even worse. It hurts so much that he feels dizzy when he pries his eyes open and says, “No, it doesn’t.” He doesn’t know why he’s saying it. He doesn’t know why he’s not telling the truth. He’s a liar and a baby and a weakling and he doesn’t deserve to have people be worried about him. He doesn’t deserve anything.

He feels his eyes start to burn and quickly closes them again.

“I think the hardest part would be finding food that he’ll actually eat,” Present Mic says. “He doesn’t like peanut butter, or caramel, or eggs, or cookies…” He trails off, then sighs again. “The only things that I’ve actually seen him eat are apples, toast, and, like, a few bites of dinner each night. I don’t know how he’s still awake. I don’t even know how he’s still alive.”

Katsuki brings his knees up to his chest and buries his face in his arms, trying to block out their voices. He’s doing the right thing. He is. Even when his parents weren’t home, he made sure that he ate properly. He checked the nutrition facts and everything because that’s what his mother taught him to do and he’s doing the right thing and he can feel his heartbeat against his ribs and he’s so fucking hungry.

“I mean,” Eraserhead says. “Why don’t you just ask him?”

“Don’t you think I’ve tried that? I’ve asked him what he wants to eat. I’ve asked him to eat. I’ve told him to eat.” There’s the sound of footsteps going back-and-forth and Katsuki can only assume that Present Mic is pacing. “Nothing works. If you put food in front of him and tell him to eat, he’ll just argue with you until you give him something he actually wants, which ends up being, like, a single piece of fruit.”

There’s a long pause, and then Eraserhead says, “He’s eight.”

“I know!” Present Mic says, and Katsuki flinches at the way his voice rises. “He’s eight! He’s a little kid! This shouldn’t be happening!”

Katsuki feels horrible. It's bad enough that Midnight had to carry him to Present Mic’s class, and now Present Mic and Eraserhead are arguing over him, and Katsuki wants to be with his parents again because at least then he knew what people wanted from him. At least he knew what it was that he had to apologize for.

His head hurts so much.

The voices drone on and on, and Katsuki’s thoughts are so loud that he can’t even understand them. His arm hurts and it feels like nails are digging into his skin and he wants to cry. He wants to fall asleep until everything makes sense. He wants to eat and eat and eat but he knows that he’ll just throw it back up, because that’s what happened last time, and he’s learned his lesson. Plus, wouldn’t that just be proving that he doesn’t have any self-control? If he loses control, he’ll ruin his future. Remember. He has to remember that.

There’s the sound of the door closing and Katsuki’s head snaps up. He blinks until his vision is clear and sees that Present Mic is staring at him, and when he sees Katsuki looking, he says, “He’s just getting Recovery Girl.” And he sounds almost scared when he reaches out a hand and asks, “Can I see your arm, Bakugou?”

Katsuki scrambles away until his back is against the wall. He shakes his head.

“I’m not mad at you, Bakugou,” Present Mic says, sounding pleading. “I just want to see your arm.”

Katsuki’s breaths are so short and shallow that he thinks he might fall over. He clutches his arm to his chest, wincing at the pain that flares through it, and somehow manages to say, “You said you weren’t mad at me.” And he should be grateful that nobody is calling his parents, but he can picture Present Mic’s fingers wrapping around his wrist and bending it until it breaks, and the mental image makes him feel so sick that he thinks he might throw up. “You said you weren’t mad. You said…”

Present Mic’s eyebrows furrow. “I’m not mad, Bakugou,” he says, still holding out his hand. “I just want to see your arm, alright?”

And he sounds so insistent about it that Katsuki knows that he doesn’t even have a choice. Maybe he had a choice before, but he must’ve done something to ruin it. He doesn’t deserve to have a choice. The only thing he can do is listen, and he can’t even do that properly. He inches forward and holds out his arm, eyes going wide at the red lines raked into his skin. He watches at Present Mic gently takes his wrist, inspecting the damage that Katsuki has done to himself.

Present Mic’s grip is so loose that Katsuki could yank out of it if he wanted to, but he knows that that’s what Present Mic wants him to think. It's a trap, and if Katsuki tries to escape his punishment, everything will hurt even more when Present Mic catches up to him.

After a few seconds, Present Mic frowns and says, “Bakugou, you’re shaking.”

Every moment feels like the moment before the pain comes, and the worst part, he thinks, is the waiting. He knows that he’s about to get hurt. He just doesn’t know when. Katsuki tries to answer, tries to apologize, but all that comes out of his mouth is a strangled sob.

Present Mic’s eyebrows shoot up. “Are you hurt somewhere else?” he asks, sounding frantic and worried. “Bakugou?”

His grip tightens, just a little, and Katsuki’s mind goes blank. The fear that rushes through him knocks the world off-kilter. He hears himself scream out, “SORRY!” and only knows that he’d been yelling by the way his throat feels like it's been ripped to shreds. He bursts into tears again and doesn’t even realize it until he feels them dripping down his cheeks, and he wants to run away, wants to hide, but that’ll just make everything so much worse. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m really sorry, please don’t -” He takes a gasping, heaving breath. When he speaks, his voice comes out thin and weak, “My arm -”

Present Mic lets go of him so fast that Katsuki flinches, scrambling away and shoving his back against the wall. Which is fucking stupid, because he’s just cornered himself. He digs his nails into his palms and tries to calm down, but he can’t, and he’s crying so hard that he feels like his chest might crack open.

Present Mic says, “Oh.” He looks down at his hands and then looks at Katsuki. “Bakugou, did you think that I was going to…” Behind his glasses, his eyes go wide. “Holy shit, did you think I was going to break your arm?” His voice gets louder as he says, “Did you think I asked you for your arm so that I could break it?”

“I’m sorry,” Katsuki says. He’s so fucking stupid. He always ruins things for himself. He thought that Present Mic wanted to break his arm and now he’s mad at him for thinking that and Katsuki doesn’t know what to do. He has so many things to apologize for that he doesn’t know which one to pick. He clutches his arm to his chest and feels his own blood on his fingers and that just makes him cry even harder. “I didn’t - I thought -”

“You thought that I was going to…” Present Mic’s voice trails off. He sounds sick. “You thought that I was going to break your arm. You thought that I was going to break your fucking arm -”

Katsuki opens his mouth to apologize again, but no words come out. His vision blurs and blurs until Present Mic is nothing but a smear of color. He can feel his mother’s fingers around his wrist and she’d been shaking him and she hadn’t meant to go that far, that’s what his father said, but she never said that she was sorry. She left that to him. She leaves all the bad stuff for Katsuki to deal with and takes all the good things for herself and she shows him off to her friends because he has good grades and a great Quirk and he’s going to be a hero when he grows up, aren’t you, Katsuki?, and that’s why she does this, to make him better, to make him stronger, and he knows that, he knows, but everything hurts so much.

Katsuki feels trembling fingers pry his hand open. He blinks away enough tears that he can see Present Mic trying to get him to stop digging his nails into his skin. He hadn’t even realized that he’d been clawing at himself again. “It's okay,” he hears Present Mic say. “It's okay, just - just let go, Katsuki, please -”

Katsuki manages to ask, “Are you mad at me?”

“No, no, no,” Present Mic says, shaking his head. “Nobody is mad at you. I’m not going to hurt you, please, Katsuki, you’re bleeding -” He finally loosens Katsuki’s grip and lets out a ragged breath, saying, “There we go.”

“Sorry,” Katsuki chokes out. The smell of blood makes his stomach lurch, and he doesn’t want to look down in fear that he’ll actually throw up. He guesses that it's a good thing that he’s in the nurses’ office and not in a classroom or something, but it feels like his arm has been ripped open and it hurts so much and he did it to himself so maybe he deserves it. “I don’t know why - I don’t - I -” The door opens and both of them flinch. Eraserhead starts, “Hizashi -” and then stops, staring. He’s silent for a moment, then shakes his head and goes to the cabinet above the sink, pulling down a box of badages. He takes out a roll of gauze and walks to the cot that Katsuki is on, saying, “I’m just going to stop the bleeding,” before taking Katsuki’s arm and pressing a wad of gauze to what looks like the deepest cut, a bloody trench ripped down from his elbow to his wrist.

Katsuki flinches in pain, screwing his eyes shut as he tries to take steady breaths. He feels someone rubbing his back and finds that he wants to both lean into and away from the touch. He tries to ignore the murmured conversation he can hear taking place over his head, tries to focus on the pain pulsing through his arm and his head and his chest, but his ears catch on the word stitches and he almost wants to cry again. Which is stupid. He’s stupid. He’s being stupid, crying so much over something like this. It doesn’t even hurt that much, and, even if it did, it’d still be his fault.

“You’re alright,” somebody says. “You’re going to be alright, I promise. Just hold on, and it’ll be over before you know it.”

It's never over, Katsuki wants to say, but he doesn’t have the strength to speak. It keeps going and going and it doesn’t stop. He doesn’t say that. He doesn’t say any of that. He just keeps his eyes closed, focuses on the pain of his arm, and lets the entire world slip away.

#de-aged bakugou week 2023 #day five: evil-doers #the evil-doers are mitsuki and masaru obvs #boku no hero academia #bakugou katsuki #present mic #eraserhead #midnight bnha #shinsou hitoshi #tw: abuse #tw: ed #fic #guys #my fucking internet cut out #like. my networks disappeared completely from the listing??#idk why #i paid the bill??#someone help lmao #my posts

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bkdk-fan4ever · 2 years ago

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Quirk Accident | De-aged Midoriya Izuku | Bkdk | Bakugou is good with baby Izuku

As The Years Hours Go By by pidge_it_up

“Give him to me!” Katsuki stepped forward.

Aizawa snapped his head to him and frowned. Katsuki knew what he was thinking. He knew what everyone in that room was thinking. Bakugou? Be trusted with a baby? No. No, thank you. He hated babies, or at least that’s what it looked like.

He can barely interact with kids older than 5, that can talk and be their own person. But babies? There wasn’t a baby that hasn’t cried in his arms.

But this wasn’t a. baby. This was Izuku.

Izuku gets into a quirk accident and turns into a baby, getting to live 17 years of his life in only a day, and Katsuki sure as hell will be there for him the right way this time.

#bnha fanfiction #ao3 bnha #bnha #boku no hero academia #bkdk #mha #my hero academia #midoriya izuku #bakugou katsuki #de aged

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incorrect-fanfiction-quotes · 1 year ago

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Oh my gosh this one was so fucking adorable; De-aged Tomura and Katsuki bonding as they get themselves out of a collapsed building/sinkhole.

#fanfiction #read on ao3 #ao3 link #mha #my hero academia #bakugou katsuki #tomura shiragaki #de-aged #so cute #Plz read it

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dollsmyname · 2 years ago

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Y’ALL!!! It is day 1 of @babybakuweek and todays prompt was “Attachment”!

Of course, I had to draw our favorite blast boy de-aged (I imagine it was a quirk accident that left him like this). He got a little bit attached to his favorite teacher, and didn’t want to let him leave for work!

I really hope y’all like this, as I had a blast drawing it myself, and can’t wait for the rest of this event!!

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pidge-it-up · 1 year ago

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This reminds me of a fic I wrote, called As the years hours go by. Izuku is his with a quirk that turns him into a baby, but he gradually grows back, and he gets to live years in hours.

And Katsuki is right there through everything ♡

Have a sneak peek below:

17:35

“Where is he?” Katsuki's voice thundered as he stormed through the main entrance of their dorm, worry bleeding out of his words. He had been worried since he got the message from Shouto while he was patrolling, saying Izuku had been hit with a strange quirk while they were trying to separate a fight in front of a school.

Bakugou immediately pressed the call button, and even though Shout guaranteed he was okay and that they were taking him back to UA, that wasn’t enough for Katsuki. No, he needed to see him. Besides, his shift was almost over anyway, so fuck that.

He rushed back to the agency, got changed, and exploded his way back to UA. Never mind that it was maybe a bit far for that, and a train ride would have been more comfortable, he just didn’t have time for that.

He had gotten to UA in 20 minutes, and he was taking the first step on the stairs leading to the entrance when he heard it. A desperate loud cry came from the open window.

Katsuki had urged past the last steps into the door, nearly tearing the door off its hinge.

“Shhhh, Bakugou!” Momo chastised as he walked into the living room. “You’ll only make it worse!”

Katsuki really didn’t bother providing her with an answer, too busy focusing on the (almost comical) scene before him.

Aizawa was looking absolutely distressed by the loud cry of the baby in his arms; All Might was desperately shaking his arms in front of him, chanting, “Oh, no, no, no! Sorry, young Midoriya, please don’t cry! Shh, please!”; Shouto was pacing back and forth with one finger in his ear trying to quiet the noise, while he held his phone against his ear with the other hand; and the rest of the class shying away in the background trying not to interfere while being visibly entranced by little Izuku.

Because, fuck, Izuku… He was tiny. Barely two years old, he guessed. Katsuki too was mesmerized by the little being that he was, even if all he could see was a puff of hair from that angle. But then another painfully sad cry came and that brought Katsuki back to himself.

“Give him to me!” Katsuki stepped forward.

He can barely interact with kids older than 5, that can talk and be their own person. But babies? There wasn’t a baby that hasn’t cried in his arms.

But this wasn’t a baby. This was Izuku.

So he ignored Aizawa’s doubt and the class’ surprise and stepped even closer, only now being able to take a good look at Izuku. Katsuki’s chest ached as he stared at something out of Inko’s wall photographs.

“Hey! Hey there, buddy!” He cooed to Izuku, announcing his presence before gently reaching under his arms and taking him. Aizawa grunted, but gave in, giving Izuku willingly. “Hey, shh, it’s okay! It’s okay!” Katsuki hugged him under his backside and around his back, pressing him close to his chest.

Izuku was so tiny in his arms, weighing close to nothing, and he was the most precious thing Katsuki has ever held in his hands.

“It’s okay, Zuku, it’s okay.” Katsuki rocked his tiny body up and down. He gave him tiny pats on his back. “I know you’re scared, but it’s going to be okay,” Katsuki leaned his head over his curls. His hair was so much softer than it was now, and he smelled like the morning breeze in the summer. Katsuki closed his eyes, inhaling that scent and imprinting it in his memory.

You can read the rest here:

get shrunk nerd

#my hero academia #bnha #midoriya izuku #deku #boku no hero academia #habs art #fic by pidge #fic writing #fanfiction #ao3 fanfic #de aged #ao3 writer #quirk accident #bakugou and deku #bakudeku #dekubaku #bakugou katsuki

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lightseoul · 2 months ago

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cw. worker!reader, prohero!katsuki, aged-up (25), cussing (bkg-typical), not many warnings needed for this one chat

words. 1.3k (i had to split it so that the chapter wouldn't be a whole ass novel. also for pacing purposes :0)

masterlist | part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5, part 6, part 8, part 9

Your eyes lazily trail the movement of the colleague you speak to at most twice a year as they give a presentation up front, the words they’re uttering slowly turning into a slew of blah blah blah, proper name, place name, backstory like in that TikTok you saw before falling into a fitted sleep the night prior.

Without you noticing, November has finally rolled around, and with it came one of the most important meetings involving Bakugou, Kirishima, and the agency’s department heads aimed at preparing the leaders for the year-end processes and reports.

The very meeting that you find yourself barely getting through at this exact moment.

Tanaka, the said colleague, seems like he’s explaining a pie graph about Dynamight, Red Riot, and their sidekicks’ stats, you think.

You shake your head in an attempt to bring your attention back to what’s in front of you, but your efforts appear to have been in vain as your mind, once again, drifts to the past, and you find yourself mulling over what Mina said two weeks ago.

It’s something that hasn’t left your mind since then, trailing behind you like a damned poltergeist who doesn’t know when to let up.

And as much as you’d hate to admit it, it’s caused considerable confusion on your part, and you don’t like how it may have inadvertently affected how you act around Bakugou, too.

You’re more fidgety, now, and you’ve since beaten your record of how fast you get flustered and stuttery around the man. Although if he’s noticed this humiliating, inexplicable change in your behavior, he isn’t showing it.

At least, not by much.

His gazes have been lingering for a beat too long whenever you stammered your response instead of doing so calmly like you usually do…

“Hey.”

You sit up in sudden attention, dizziness instantly hitting you from having been violently pulled from your reverie. You look at Bakugou, who’s staring you down from the end of the table, and scan the area around him, only to realize that everybody has apparently left, leaving the two of you alone in the conference room.

“Wha—”

“You weren’t listening, were you?”

You feel yourself flush in embarrassment. Guilty.

He shakes his head in what you think is disapproval, stacking the documents in front of him in a neat pile. You take that as a cue to follow suit, gathering your folders in front of you and hurriedly standing up to beeline out of the room.

The last thing you need is for these glass doors to magically lock you in, too.

But you don’t even get to reach the doorway, ass barely lifted a breadth away from your cushy office chair when he speaks up.

“I overheard you in the breakroom.”

You freeze in your tracks, lifting your eyes to meet his. “What?”

“Earlier this morning. You said—” he pauses, eyes shifting to your rear, “Sit back down, dumbass. Your knees are gonna kill you if you keep this up.”

You’re about to retort with a comeback when it dawns on you that the guy has a point, so you begrudgingly take a seat.

“As I said,” he shoots you a pointed look, “I overheard you saying you didn’t have plans for next week.”

“Next week?”

“Thanksgiving.”

“Oh, yeah,” you absentmindedly scratch your right cheek. “My family will be on vacation and all my close friends have plans with their relatives.”

One of his eyebrows raises in question, “And you won’t be tagging along?”

You shrug, “I don’t want to impose on my friends, and being with my family on a holiday isn’t exactly the most relaxing experience.”

Bakugou merely hums in response, seeming as if he’s pondering something in his head. Unable to sustain his gaze, you opt for looking around the room instead, suddenly finding the plain, gray ceiling wildly interesting.

A few moments pass before you decide that yes, this silence is going to kill you if you don’t get the fuck out now.

You lift yourself from your chair, “Well, I should get go—”

“Come over.”

As if you’re in a slapstick comedy, you, once again, freeze. “W-what?”

He clears his throat, “C-come over, to my parents’. For thanksgiving.”

You stare at each other for what feels like an eternity before his eyes gravitate toward your rear again, only this time you plop back down before he can order you to reseat yourself.

“I’m afraid I don’t follow…”

He sighs like he’s teaching you basic ass mathematics and you’re not getting it. “The old hag has been begging me to let them meet you ever since, you know…”

The news of you two “dating” broke out. Right.

You mentally slap yourself for forgetting Bakugou had parents who would eventually also catch wind of your silly little dating scandal.

At the thought of meeting the people who raised Bakugou, your throat suddenly feels a bit too dry. “I’m not sure that’s a good idea,” you manage to get out.

It’s one thing to go and pretend to be Bakugou’s girlfriend in front of the man’s fucking parents, it’s another to do so in this state that you’ve been in ever since that get-together with his friend group. You don’t exactly know why, but you’ve been fundamentally reconfigured since that fated night, and whatever the fuck is causing it, you’re sure won’t mix well with being in the same room as Bakugou’s parents. That, on top of having to act all lovey-dovey with their son around them.

You’re about to defend your case as to why they should just scrap the idea entirely when Bakugou responds.

“It’s either that or she visits us here in the agency.”

Your jaw drops, “Is that a threat?”

He draws his lips in a thin line, shaking his head. “It’s an ultimatum.”

“That’s more or less the same thing,” you counter.

“My mom likes to play with the shitty technicalities,” he retaliates, tone abrasive as ever.

You can only gawk at the guy as he shifts in his seat rather quite uncomfortably.

Is he seriously going along with his mom’s wishes now?

What happened to the ever-notorious Bakugou who just goes for what he wants without minding everyone else?

You study the man for a beat, weighing your options in your head. It’s obvious, which of the two is the wiser option. It’s a matter of going for where there are fewer pairs of eyes watching you and Bakugou’s every movement. But the real question is, why do you have to choose in the first place?

“I don’t understand,” you start, “Why can’t you just tell your mom that we’re not ready to do the whole ‘meet the parents’ thing yet?”

“Why don’t you be on the receiving end of her fucking nagging, hah?” he snaps, voice defensive and loud enough to make you jump.

“Okay, okay,” you immediately concede, tone placating, not willing for this to escalate into a fight. The last thing you need is for somebody in the building to overhear you, think you’re having a lovers’ quarrel or whatever the fuck they call it, and run to the media to gush all about it.

You’ve had enough media exposure to last you for a lifetime, thank you very much.

Chancing one last glance at your boss, you find him staring a hole into the pile of papers directly in front of him, a prominent scowl etched on his face.

His mom’s nagging must be weighing him down more than you thought.

As you study the visibly bothered man, you’re acutely aware of all the fight evaporating from your body, and you eventually find yourself slouching in your seat in what you reluctantly identify as defeat.

“…What’s your parents’ address?”

“Don’t bother,” he almost instantly replies. “I’ll pick you up.”

tagging. @kitthepurplepotato @katsukis1wife @brunnetteiwik @bunnysaursushii @beab19 @yawnzzzzzzzz @cholios @kashee-h @iluv-ace @lovra974 @chelbyisbord @k0z3me @meeeepsworld @asura-rose @dragonscribble @moonz33 @citrustsuki @deadhands69 @lemuhr @rosemarygalaxy @iluv-ace @eyesforbkg @carpe000diem @shushbruv @matchat3a @ttalgi @bakunianadecorazon @the2ndl @keiscwsz @onlyisaa @aizawa19

˖⁺‧₊ as always, reblogs, replies, and tags are appreciated <3 they make such a huge difference! have a lovely day ( ˘ ³˘)

#bakugou x reader #bakugou x y/n #bakugou katsuki x reader #bakugou imagines #mha imagines #bnha imagines #mha scenarios #bnha scenarios #bnha x reader #mha x reader #bakugou x you #bakugou imagine #bakugou drabble #bakugo x reader #bakugo x y/n

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jozstankovich · 8 days ago

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List 10 of your favorite characters from 10 different fandoms, then tag 10 people.

Thank you @melodymunson 💚

In no particular order:

Steve Harrington - Stranger Things

2. Garrus Vakarian - Mass Effect Trilogy

3. Spike Spiegel - Cowboy Bebop

4. Lucy MacLean - Fallout

5. Fabrício - Back to 15 / De Volta aos 15

6. Varric Tethras - Dragon Age

7. Bakugou Katsuki - BNHA

8. Han Solo - Star Wars

9. Nathan Young - Misfits

10. Maurice Moss - The IT Crowd

Tagging (w/o obligation): @super-unpredictable98 @batterycityghoul @cherrywade @thecreelhouse @sailorskunk

@destroya2005 @londonfog-chan @eddiemunsonsmum @heartbreak-sandwich @wroteclassicaly

#tagged #10 favourite characters #i kept drawing a blank lmao

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babybakuweek · 11 months ago

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THREE MORE DAYS! Until De-Aged Bakugou Week begins!

What’s up, soon to be heroes! Time flew by and debut week is almost upon us! Which prompts are you most excited about?

Reblogs are always appreciated! 🧡💥🍼

@faneventshub @bnhafandomcalendar @fandomevents

#de aged bakugou week 2024 #bakugou katsuki #baby bakugou #deaged bakugou #de aged bakugou week #bnha bakugo katsuki #bakugou #boku no hero academia #bnha #mha #my hero academia

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katsukikitten · 2 years ago

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Tw: Suicidal themes and description of attempt. Pt2

The American Hero commission is just as shady as Japan's, if not worse. Run in an obvious front to hide the "classified" floors that ran deep beneath the city, right under the feet of unsuspecting or uncaring citizens. The government is so desperate to hide secret divisions that not even heroes should know about it.

But Katsuki does.

Only because he can't let sleeping dogs lie.

Remembering Izuku spilling his guts to him one day, figuratively and literally, having had far too much to drink at his own birthday party. Izuku excused himself outside, vomiting up his anxious feelings that didn't mix well with his twelve shots of tequila.

Lady Nagant

And all that Izuku knew of her before that dumb ass passed out into Bakugou's arms. It wasn't unusual for this to happen when Izuku drank too much, hell even sober he'd call Bakugou in the middle of the night to tell him some dark secret he couldn't bear to keep with himself any longer. Katsuki was used to hearing things he shouldn't, normally he'd file it away and hardly gave it second thought.

But the name rang in Katsuki's ears until he searched it up himself, finding that she was part of something the hero commission tried so desperately to both cover up and "disband." A division that took care of threats to hero society no matter who or what the person was.

Any threat.

Bakugou was sure he fell under the category of any. Especially with his big mouth, accidents could happen, even to the strongest heroes.

Or so the virtuous society claims.

The irony of the city skyscraper isn't lost on Bakugou. Named after some long since dead hero who's estate paid for the construction of it but it doesn't take a genius to figure out that not a single cent went to anything that would actually help the community.

Instead living and dead hero's families all did the same, desperately clawing to ingrain and immortalize a hero into society in hopes to make a killing in profits.

Times like these Bakugou realizes why asshole villains like Shigiraki and Dabi wanted to send it all to hell.

Hero society was just another form of capitalism which bred nothing but greed.

The fuck was he fighting for anyway?

Nothing was going to change it and it was obvious every move he made was the wrong one.

Bakugou's leg bounces as he sits in the corner of the embassy lobby waiting to be called back into the shrink's office. Right arm pressed snugly into the wall before he grips onto his knee tightly to make it stop moving. Mind jumping back and forth between the day's earlier events with the hero, who's name he still didn't bother to remember, and how everything seemed to be askew.

Tilted, blurred or blacked out in globs of sticky ink, his view on life turning that much more nihilistic with each passing year while everyone around him felt the opposite.

He digs the heel of his palm into his left eye as if that will help him adjust. Spiced caramel scenting the air and he can feel eyes on him again.

Listen not with your ears but here.

Stupid fucking woman, why was she popping up into his head now as his heart races. Right eye burning, giving him a throbbing headache as he tries to force sight into it. Tries to will it.

But as it has been for the past eighteen years he can't see any more than he could yesterday.

Until he holds his breath to count and then for a fraction of a second he can see it. Can see the rough outline of a person, like a black silhouette on an even blacker backdrop.

"Bakugou Katsuki." He opens his eye with a squint as he stares up at the last minute appointment the old hag insisted he take. The doctor was young, around the same age as him, his thick file in her manicured hands has him grinding his teeth.

He hadn't had a mandatory session in years, probably since Kirishima couldn't hold up the rubble any longer, passing out while Bakugou watched him faint, his jagged cliffside skin turning soft and smooth before being nearly crushed to death under a half standing building. Kirishima was in the hospital for weeks and Katsuki struggled to eat.

It was the first instance of quirk failure, of losing his grip on the tightly wound fuse of his temper.

He leveled an entire block.

The second was with Izuku, when the emerald haired man was stabbed through his solar plexus, blood flying from his mouth, staining his chin and throat. And what did that dumb ass Deku say, "Are you alright, Kaachan?" before falling to his knees, further impaling himself on the rod that lodged in his body.

Katsuki blacked out after that. Not that his body fell from the sight, oh no. His mind switched off and Katsuki worked on rage and instinct alone.

The crater Bakugou created is still there today, record breaking and comparable to that of an atomic bomb or sizable meteor from space.

The media dubbed him nuclear after that.

But they didn't fucking know what it was like, watching your friends cheat death over and over again. In more horrific ways than the last.

But how many times could his friends win, even with a padded hand? Each time they cheated the meticulous god they raised their chances of losing the next time.

Katsuki knew from experience, with each brush with Death, he became closer than the last.

The ignorant public, the apathetic hero commission, they didn't understand.

Couldn't understand that Bakugou has an undying need to win. Not for bragging rights or to be the best, although those were welcomed, but because Bakugou Katsuki refused to have blood on his hands.

He needed his complete victory.

And having it since his first year at UA. Of saving his friends, his co workers time and time again over the decades despite the doctor's speaking of him never being able to do pro hero work again.

He saved them, he had to save them. Denki, Mina, Ochaco, Shoto, Kirishima, all of them. Yes, even Shitty Deku, especially shitty Deku, idiots all of them, pushing themselves too hard and never asking for help.

"Bakugou Katsuki." She repeats and this time Bakugou stands. His presence already making a hush fall over the lobby, more eyes on him except this time he could glare from his good side.

Snarling his teeth at their eyes fixated on him and their mouth agape like dead fish. They suddenly find the floor or their phones interesting as he stops in front of the woman.

He has to look down at her, even in her four inch heels, she gives a tight smile but turns in her long pencil skirt until they reach her office. She's smart and enters first, letting Bakugou stand by the door while she comes around her desk and sits.

Her hand gesturing for him to shut the door and take a seat, silently he obeys. But not without a suck of his teeth.

It smells like cinnamon and paper in the office, it's sparsely decorated, her degree and accomplishments hanging on the same wall as the door, had Bakugou's eye not wandered around the room he wouldn't have seen them.

So she liked her accomplishments but didn't wanna brag? Or was it one of those psychological tricks therapists do?

A box of tissues sits on her desk, a small crystal candy bowl that looks more like it belonged to an old woman. He snorts seeing the assortment of random candy. There was a three musketeers for Shitty hair, a twix for Icyhot and Deku, the couple always wanting to split, and even a lemon warhead for Dunceface.

He leaves the sweets alone as she settles.

"Coffee Mr. Dynamight?" She asks as she places her reading glasses near the tip of her nose.

"No." He spies the keurig, knows he doesn't want any of that shit.

"Well, I'm glad you're here today, when Clair-"

"Clair?" Bakugou scoffs, leaning back in his chair. She lets her dark eyes rove over his relaxed body language. How his arm slumps over the back of a chair and she almost misses his calculating eyes.

"Clair, Clairity, your hero mentor." She tries to keep the bite out of her tone, tries to remember Bakugou would sometimes use arrogance as a defense or wall but something tells her he really didn't bother to remember this time around considering the circumstances.

"Hmm." A non committal hum, a milky and sharp eye coming back to look at her. Burning gaze making even the professional shift in her seat.

"I'll get straight to the point then and won't waste your time but I believe we should start you off on a low dose of your old prescriptions again. Just to try to level you out."

"Why? I'm not suicidal?" He scoffs, glaring at his thick file, he hates that goddamn thing. Most doctors like her pushing for drugs first, although he'd never had it happen so quickly before.

Guess she could take the record for that.

"You were at one point, that doesn't just go away." She flicks through the papers, pretending as if it was a small thing she could have misread before looking back up at him. He returns her glare, snarling lips before he shifts in the chair, a more defensive stance, feigned arrogance thrown out the window in favor of full on agitation.

It wasn't like Bakugou thought medicine was pussy shit, he knew it wasn't. Was happy to hear it was working out for Kaminari's anxiety and especially Izuku's panic attacks but almost every brand he was on made him feel worse.

Less than.

Less than a hero.

Less than a man.

Less than Bakugou Katsuki.

Even if he'll never admit he set the bar at an impossible height.

"Maybe for me it did." Ironic he would lie when he hates a liar the most. Maybe because they remind him of himself sometimes.

Spreading half truths that he was fine when he wasn't. His blistering anger burns everyone around him, especially himself. Although he was on the mend until this past year.

Soon Katsuki's scent overpowers the cinnamon candle in the room. She gives him a long knowing look.

"Medicine paired with talk therapy is quite effective. It put your outbursts in remission and -"

"No." He barks, "I ain't taking shit. I'll talk to you til the fuckin sun explodes before I ever take another god damn zombie pill. Drop it." His quirk flares at the end, the smallest pop on his chest and several down his right arm. He stands, giving her his back as he leaves since he had nothing more to say.

Typical of Bakugou's luck it pours down sheets of thick freezing rain and there wasn't an umbrella in sight.

Not that he wanted one, hands angrily in the pockets of her hero suit that clung to him even tighter now thanks to the wet weather. Pressing his face in the high collar of his winter suit as he lets gravity pull his posture downward. Feeling as if he was walking through sludge, as if the steel of his knee plates and boots were attracted to the Earth's magnetic core making his legs feel as if they weighed a thousand pounds.

Still he pushes on, slowly as the cold sinks into his bone marrow until he's home.

The apartment complex smells worse when it rains, the old heating system of the building smells like it's burning something. Most likely the hair or paws of the scurrying rats Bakugou had heard last night and all he can think about is how badly he wanted a long hot bath and to never wake up when he went to bed.

Or at least be able to sleep in til noon, if his internal clock would allow him.

On the bright side his couch should be here, needing to be assembled but there none the less. As he comes into the narrow hallway of the sixth floor he snarls when he doesn't see a couch or a mattress, frame or box spring, anywhere to be found.

Quickly he pulls out his phone, droplets of water from his hair making it difficult for him to navigate the sensitive touch screen before he's biting off his thick gloves to tuck under his arm. Pulling up two emails. One saying his couch was delivered and the other claiming his mattress was delayed.

What the fuck? Delayed and delivered. Where the fuck was his couch?

He thinks maybe he should try to ask a neighbor if they'd seen any delivery guys or who walked off with his package.

He hears shuffling coming from apartment 6D and figured he'd start there.

Your door opens slightly before he can even knock.

"Oh my friendly neighbor." You let the sarcasm shine through, "I-"

But before you can finish Bakugou's already spying the oversized cardboard box propped up against the wall by your kitchen, a picture of the couch he ordered plastered on the side.

"Why is my fuckin package in your apartment?" His voice is a growl, strong hand gripping the door just above the chain. He's broken plenty of stupid little door chains and this cheap one that was probably on its last leg was going to be the last thing that stopped him now.

"I took it from the hallway so it wouldn't get stolen????" Your voice goes up at the end in disbelief.

"By you ya mean?"

"Wow." You bark out a humorless laugh as you unhook the chain, "I was trying to be nice. I was going to buy us takeout at the only nice place round here and help you build it but nooooo!"

"Noooo! Now my neighbor gets to try to build this complicated as fuck couch by himself, get frustrated, quit and sleep on the couch cushions wishing he'd been nicer to me." You hold open the door for him to drag the couch box out. He rolls his eyes as you speak. His gloves fall from under his arm onto the floor of your apartment as he grabs onto the box and lifts. Carrying the heavy and awkward couch on his own with ease before you slam the door the second the last of that cardboard clears your threshold.

"Asshole!" You call through the front door before he's fighting with his own to get it open.

Not even bothering to change as he rips open the box, flipping through the instructions. There were only pictures, the words in a language he wasn't familiar with.

"Fuck." He separated everything the best he could. Easily holding up the heavy metal as he tries to assemble but somehow the wrong leg or screw is used and after his fifth attempt at step four he loses it.

Letting it drop with a loud thud and a cuss. His downstairs neighbors quick to bang on the ceiling with their broom and he hits his fist back in response.

Rising to take a shower like that may be the solution and when he comes back the couch will be built on its own. Letting the hot water burn into his skin as he stands under the stream, using the last of his travel sized shit and thinking about the train stops from hell he'll have to take to find what he needs.

He comes back to the project at hand after dressing in a long sleeved shirt and boxers. There was just no way in hell he was going to be able to have the patience to do this tonight. His right eye and arm burning before he digs in his small bag to place two numbing drops into his eye to hopefully last him until he finally falls asleep.

"Sleep on the couch cushions"

Growling at how true your words turned out to be as he rifles through the box for the soft portion of the sofa.

He lies on the dark cushions on the floor. The half put together pieces of furniture, mostly incorrect, sits facing him. As if mocking him with a half smirk to remind him of another one of his failures. Because who the fuck couldn't put their couch together, the soft linen of the dark couch already suffering from a hand print singe or two as he needed to put the couch together for something to sleep on.

He checks his phone again and the mattress is still very much lost in this hellscape of a city. Makes Bakugou toss his phone roughly and the screen cracks even more.

What the fuck am I even good for? Can't even build a fuckin couch.

The late night thoughts creep in as they always do and now he's regretting not asking for those sleeping pills he used to get. Although she probably wouldn't have prescribed them considering what happened the last time he had them. Taking the orange bottle out of the medicine cabinet with blurry vision, reading his useless name before he titled the full month's worth into his mouth and swallowed thickly. Apathetic to the bitterant coating that stuck to his tongue and back of his throat. Forcing him to swallow mouthfuls of saliva as the small white pills struggled to make it down past the lump in his throat.

He only did it because he felt his double dose wasn't going to cut it, far from able to get a peaceful sleep. And it sure as fuck wasn't going to stop the sour, toxic voice in his head that monologues about everything he'd ever done. Forgiven or not.

Remember when Shoto got fuckin skewered because you couldn't respond fast enough? The pills made you sluggish as hell and icy hot almost died cause of it.

Remember when you had to tell Mina that Kirishima might not wake up because she was too hysterical to understand the doctor? You just had to take the weekend off because of your 'mental health' didn't you. Couldn't hold it together long enough for the doctor to clear you for the week.

Remember when you let yourself get taken by Touya and your friends put themselves in danger and almost got expelled because you're too weak?

Remember that little girl you couldn't save? It couldn't have been that hard to catch her, she was only four blocks away.

Remember when you were the downfall of Allmight?

You know you're not living up to Edgeshot or Beat Jeanist's legacy, they wasted their time and lives on you.

Remember when you told Izuku to take a swine dive off the school building cause he was quirkless? It should have been you, you worthless piece of shit.

What's the fucking point? Why fight? It never ends, just lie down and die like the pathetic dog you are.

Oftentimes Bakugou found himself agreeing, he wasn't living up to their legacy, his chest scars screaming at the thought. He picks at the fabric of the cushion as his mind marinates in his failures. In the fallen faces of his friends, of the quiet nights of sitting with their unconscious bodies and how he should have been with them and not on another mission. Of the aftermath of unspeakable shit and knowing exactly how the human body shouldn't bend or break.

Tears prick his eyes and slowly fall from his nose but he does nothing to stop it, he feels numb if anything, hollow feeling in his chest where the anger rotted away everything until his chest cavity was empty.

Nothing but a weighted nothingness, a void, or black hole that gnawed away at his insides, sharp cold teeth scraping at his bones until there was nothing left.

The smallest part of him, the part that took decades to give a soft voice to, whispers that he's glad he didn't have the pills right now. Because he would tip the bottle back and take as many as he could.

And this time Izuku wouldn't have a weird feeling to come check on Bakugou in the middle of the night.

Even if he did, he wouldn't make it in time thanks to the massive ocean and land mass between them.

The thought brings him some comfort as twisted as it was but at least he wouldn't have to gag around Izuku's panicked fingers just to vomit all over his friend again.

Stupid fuckin Deku.

Bakugou's phone rings once, then twice. Illuminating the living room with harsh artificial light, Bakugou waits for it to go to voicemail. If it's important they'll leave one and if it's from Japan they should be smart enough to do the math for the time difference and realize he was probably asleep.

At least he should be.

Fingers grabbing at the broken glass and letting his faceid open the phone. Palming his right eye where the tears burn when they escape in fat drops. Wiping them away with a stone cold face as he plays the one voicemail

Izuku: Kaachan, I just wanted to check on you, you don't have to call back. I know it's late. I'm just having a weird feeling. Eijirou-kun said he hasn't heard from you either. Which isn't unlike you but I know how you can be. Well not how you can be. Just- just you usually check in with one of us or you text fuck you in the group chat and-

Izuku's laugh rings out in the small space when he realizes what he's doing.

Izuku: I'm rambling! I know you hate that. …… I'm just worried about you, ev-everyone is. Anyway just a call or text away! Bye Kaachan. I love you. Oh uh that's weird I know but Dr. Yuki suggests I be more open about what I'm feeling, so I'm telling my friends I love them now. Since that whole thing with Shouto-kun. Hopefully it won't make you too uncomfortable. ….. even just a middle finger emoji, to let me know you're alive, would be enough. Bye Kaachan, I'll see you soon.

Finally that nerd shuts up, Katsuki's fingers moving against the fractured glass finding Izuku's direct chat at the way at the bottom of his logs. He clears his throat before tapping the mic symbol to send a voice memo.

Katsuki: Dumb ass Deku, do you know what time it is? Course I'm livin'! Ain't shit gonna kill me. Now fuck off if ya don't have anything better to do.

Three dots pop up quickly making Bakugou think that Izuku is glued to his phone while Shouto prepares cold soba for the pair.

Izuku: Sorry Kaachan I know it's late. Thank you ❤️

Katsuki: ❤️

Katsuki: 🖕

Katsuki shoots Kirishima and then the group text a quick reply, telling them America was as shitty as all the other times he's been here and that he hadn't had time to find a new hole in the wall restaurant to tell them about.

He locks his phone.

Thinks as he is shrouded in the darkness under the comforter he bought on the way home, couch cushions trying to slip as his hulking frame turns.

He thinks he should buy you coffee as an apology for his asshole behavior.

And maybe, just maybe, he won't choke on his pride as he asks you for help.

#bakugou x reader #bakugou katsuki x reader #katsuki x reader #tw suicidal thoughts #tw suicidal themes #kitten writes 🖤🐈‍⬛🖋️

285 notes · View notes

candleshopmenace · 2 years ago

Text

that saved a wretch like me.

SUMMARY

Carefully, Hizashi says, “I don’t think that anybody deserves to be hit, Bakugou.”

Bakugou stares at him with the unflinching gaze of someone who believes that what they’re about to say is the absolute truth. “I do,” he says, then cants his head, considering. “Sometimes.”

Holy shit, Hizashi thinks, equal parts horrified and bemused, this kid is going to be the death of me.

—

After spending a day with six-year-old Bakugou Katsuki, Hizashi is pretty sure that he wants to kick the kid’s parents off the roof.

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[ao3 link]

[discord server]

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“I’m bored.”

Hizashi glances back at Bakugou, smiling when he sees the kid perched on the edge of the bed, swinging his legs back and forth. “Why don’t you draw or something?” he offers, flicking his pen at the sketchbook and pack of crayons sitting beside Bakugou. “You like to draw, right?”

Quickly, Bakugou says, “No.” But his fingers twitch, like they’re itching to do the very thing that he just claimed not to like. “Not really.”

“Really?” Hizashi puts his pen behind his ear and turns to face Bakugou, leaning forward with his forearms braced on his knees. “You liked it yesterday.” He has no idea how it works, but today’s Bakugou apparently remembered everything that had happened in the past two days, but without the gaps that a year’s distance would’ve had. So yesterday, even though he aged a year between it and this morning, actually seemed like yesterday in his mind. It's fucking weird, but it makes things easier, so. “Like, literally. Those were your exact words. You said, I like to draw.”

“Well, I don’t like it anymore.” Bakugou shifts, crossing his legs beneath him, absently smoothing out a wrinkle in the blanket thrown over the messily-made bed.

“Oh, really,” Hizashi says. “What kinds of things do you like to do, then?” When Bakugou just stares at him, silent as a grave, he sighs and says, “That wasn’t a trick question, kiddo.”

“I don’t like anything.”

Hizashi snorts, disbelieving, and sits back in his chair. “Oh, c’mon,” he says, shaking his head. “You can’t be serious. Everybody likes something.”

“I don’t like anything,” Bakugou says, steely-eyed and insistent. He sounds upset, now, his fingers twisting at the hem of his shirt and his expression tight with what looks like a mixture of worry and anger. “Really.”

“Alright,” Hizashi says, holding his hands up in surrender. “You don’t like anything. I get it.” He props his elbow on an armrest and leans his cheek against his palm, watching Bakugou. Then, trying a different angle, he asks, “Why don’t you like anything?”

Bakugou’s shoulders relax, just a bit. He stops mauling his shirt with his nails and drops his hands into his lap, and, when he speaks, his voice has gone back to its normal, even-toned cadence. Simply, he says, “Because then you can’t take anything I like away from me.”

… Fuck.

Hizashi doesn’t really know what he’d been expecting the kid to say, but it wasn’t that.

“That’s -” he starts, then cuts himself off, wondering where he’d been going with that sentence. How does one respond to something like that? “Why would I take anything away from you?”

Bakugou shrugs. “I don’t know,” he says. “I don’t know what I’m doing wrong.”

Hizashi rubs at his temples, feeling a headache coming on. “Bakugou,” he says. “You’re not doing anything wrong. You haven’t done anything wrong.”

“I’m always doing something wrong.” Bakugou moves again, this time kicking his legs back out and hanging them over the edge of the bed. He doesn’t swing them, though, just stays still as he says, very matter-of-factly, “I mess things up. And I break things.” He pauses for a moment, then heaves a sigh. “I’m a bad kid.”

“Christ Almighty,” Hizashi mutters, feeling very, very tired. Then, looking at Bakugou, he says, “You’re not a bad kid. Just -” He stops, glancing at the paperwork stacked on his desk. The battle from yesterday left him saddled with a bunch of accident reports that he really doesn’t feel like filling out, mostly because they’re tedious and repetitive and he hates them from the very depths of his soul. But he still has to do them, unless he wants to get an earful from Nedzu. The principal’s soft spot for Shouta - which Shouta claimed didn’t exist but was glaringly obvious to all of his co-workers, Hizashi included - didn’t tend to carry over to him, even though he and Shouta were practically a package deal by now. “Just give me a few minutes, then I’ll take you to the park or something, alright?”

“Okay.”

With a sigh, Hizashi turns back to his paperwork, trying to ignore the way that Bakugou’s words echo through his head.

Hizashi finally finishes his work and stands up, planning to get Bakugou one of Eri’s jackets to wear for the trip to the playground. “Alright,” he starts, then pauses as a flurry of motion catches his eye. When he looks over, he sees that Bakugou is staring at him with wide eyes, his sketchbook shoved behind his back in what is quite literally the most obvious way possible. “Are you okay?” Hizashi notices the crayons lined up neatly on the bed and smiles as he asks, “Were you drawing?”

Bakugou gives a short, sharp nod, expression tense.

“That’s nice,” Hizashi says. Feeling Bakugou’s eyes on him as he opens the closet door and starts sifting through the clothes hung up inside, he asks, “May I see?” The question is almost automatic, an instinct borne from taking care of Eri - she loved to show people the things that she made, but would never do it unless they directly asked her to. Then, realizing that it's not Eri he’s talking to, Hizashi adds, “If you want to, of course.”

“Okay,” comes Bakugou’s quiet response.

Hizashi drapes a few jackets over his arm and turns back around, looking at the drawing that Bakugou is now showing him. It's a picture of a bright orange cat, lines thick and shaky with black crayon, and Hizashi finds himself grinning as he lays the clothes out on the bed. “That looks really cool, Bakugou!”

To his surprise, Bakugou frowns, flipping the sketchbook closed. He’s holding onto it so tightly that his nails dig into the cover. “Thanks,” he mumbles, sounding unsure.

Hizashi watches as Bakugou starts to put his crayons back in their box. “We should get you a pencil case,” he says, thinking out loud. “Or maybe -”

“No,” Bakugou says, glancing over at him. “You don’t have to.”

But I want to, Hizashi almost says, catching himself at the last second. Such a response would probably just make the kid upset. So, instead, he asks, “Why not?”

“Because you don’t have to,” Bakugou says, repeating his earlier reason.

“But wouldn’t it make you happy?”

“Yeah, but -” Bakugou huffs and goes back to arranging his crayons. It's one of those twenty packs, probably borrowed from a classmate, and Hizashi watches with raised eyebrows as organizes them by color and shade. “It's not your job to make me happy.”

“That’s true,” Hizashi says, keeping his voice carefully neutral, “but I still want you to be happy.”

Bakugou is silent for a moment, busying himself by stacking his crayons on top of his sketchbook beside him, and then he turns to face Hizashi. In a very serious tone that doesn’t at all match his young voice, he asks, “Why?”

Well, that’s an easy enough question.

“Because I care about you.”

“Why?” Bakugou repeats, eyebrows furrowing. “You barely even know me.” Without waiting for an answer - or purposefully avoiding receiving one - he leans forward, frowning at the jackets that Hizashi has laid out. “I have to wear a coat?”

“It's pretty cold out, Bakugou,” Hizashi points out. “These are my daughter’s, but I’m sure she wouldn’t mind you borrowing one.” He picks up a dark blue hoodie with white paw prints on the front and cat ears on the hood - he’s pretty sure that it’d been gifted to Eri by Thirteen, since they were pretty much the only person out of all of them who knew how to properly shop for childrens’ clothing. “How about this? You like cats, right?”

“Yeah, I guess,” Bakugou says, albeit a bit reluctantly, like he doesn’t understand why Hizashi won’t let him go out into the cold weather without a jacket.

“Great!” Hizashi says, handing over the hoodie and watching as Bakugou pulls it on over his head, then grabbing his wallet and his keys and putting on his shoes. He makes a mental note to ask Shouta to drop by a store and get some clothes for Bakugou - though he knows that she’d help out at a moment’s notice, he doesn’t want to tax Yaoyorozu any further. She’s still just a kid. “You ready to go, Bakugou?”

“Yeah,” Bakugou says. “Sure.” He slides off of the bed and pads over, shoving his feet into his sneakers and tying the laces into large, clumsy bows. Hizashi has the fleeting thought that they’ll be easy to trip over if they come unknotted. “Let’s go.”

Bakugou leads the way once they make it to Ground Beta, walking ahead of Hizashi like he actually knows where the Hell they’re going. Hizashi trails behind him, watching him with narrowed eyes. He’s well aware that two years can change a lot, can reshape a person completely, but a little kid? What the Hell happened? This Bakugou is nothing like the Bakugou that clambered over Hizashi’s lap on that first night and asked Shouta to come back soon.

“Hey, Bakugou,” he starts, trying to keep his voice light and casual, like he’s just trying to make conversation. A conversation that will eventually lead to him hopefully being able to ask the questions he wants to without raising suspicion. Right. Already knowing damn well that Bakugou is an only child, he asks, “Do you have any siblings?”

“No,” Bakugou says. “It's just me.”

“Really? Well, I bet you’ve got a lot of friends, right?”

“I guess?” Bakugou glances over his shoulder at Hizashi, frowning. “Why?”

Hizashi shrugs, nonchalant. “Just wondering.” They walk in silence for a moment, and then he asks, “So, how do you spend your free time?”

“I like to read.” Bakugou cringes a little as soon as the words leave his mouth, his pace increasing just a bit like he’s trying to subtly run away. “I -” The look he shoots at Hizashi this time is wide-eyed and wary. “I ride my bike. I go on adventures.”

“Adventures?” Hizashi echoes, genuinely confused. “What kind of adventures?”

Bakugou doesn’t relax completely, but at least it no longer looks like he’s about to pull a muscle with how tense his shoulders are. “In the forest. With my friends.”

Hizashi raises an eyebrow. “You play in the forest?” Then, before he can think about what he’s saying, “Don’t your parents worry about you?” And, shit. He hadn’t meant to bring up the kid’s parents so soon.

To his relief, Bakugou doesn’t get upset. He just asks, sounding puzzled beyond belief, “Why would they worry about me?”

Because that’s what parents are supposed to do, Hizashi nearly says, but bites his tongue just in time. “Why wouldn’t they worry about you?”

“Because I’m not a baby,” Bakugou says. “They don’t have to worry about me.” He glances once more at Hizashi and says, aiming the words like a dagger, “You don’t have to worry about me, either.”

Well. It seems that Hizashi was wrong about the part where he thought that Bakugou wasn’t upset. “Look, kid,” he tries, but everything he says only seems to agitate Bakugou further, and so in the end he just shuts his mouth.

For about a minute or two, nobody speaks. And then Bakugou snaps, “Will you stop following me?”

“I can’t do that,” Hizashi says. “You’ll get lost.”

“Bullshit.”

“This place is pretty big, Bakugou. Even I get confused sometimes, and I’ve been going here since I was fifteen. I assure you, you will get lost if I let you wander around by yourself.” He looks around to orient himself. He only knows that there’s a park in Ground Beta because of the fact that he got knocked out once by being chucked head-first into a jungle gym in his second year. There are probably several parks, actually, but it's nostalgic to go to the place he once got a severe concussion from. Cherished memories and all that nonsense. Also because he has no idea where to find the other parks because Ground Beta is so ridiculously huge. “Let’s go left at this corner, okay?”

“Fine.” Ground Beta is meant to resemble an actual city, which means that there are cars lining the streets, traffic lights that take way too long to turn green, and a truly unholy amount of cracks and breaks in the pavement. It's the first thing on the list that seems to catch Bakugou’s attention the most, though, and as they walk down the sidewalk, he points at a glaringly orange truck parked against the curb and asks, “Does that thing actually work?”

“Yep,” Hizashi says. He knows from personal experience that the keys for all the cars are left in the driver’s seat. It was a truly horrible idea to give kids access to fast vehicles when they were already armed to the teeth with whatever bullshit their Quirk was capable of doing, but, hey. That’s just his opinion.

“I can’t wait to go to school here,” Bakugou says, voice suddenly bright with what can only be awe. “It's going to be so cool.”

“You want to be a hero?” Hizashi asks, already knowing the answer.

“Yeah. I’m gonna be the best. Y’know, like All Might!” Before Hizashi can respond, the kid wrinkles his nose, grimacing as if deeply offended by something. “You know what that boy you left me with yesterday said? He said that he doesn’t even like All Might! Isn’t that crazy? Everybody likes All Might!” He pauses, considering, then amends, “Well, except for villains.” He looks up at Hizashi. “You like All Might, right?”

With the way he’s looking at him, there can only be one correct answer. “Yeah,” Hizashi says. “He’s pretty cool.” The grin that Bakugou gives him in response makes him feel like he’s just aced a very important exam, and he laughs, ruffling the kid’s hair. “You’re going to be a great hero.”

Bakugou’s eyes go wide. “You really think so?”

“I know so,” Hizashi says, smiling down at him, glad that he can grant Bakugou at least this small moment of peace. He doesn’t know how long it’ll last, but he wants to stretch it out for as long as possible. “You’re so brave and strong and smart. I can’t wait to be your teacher when you get older.” The park comes into view up ahead, and he starts, “Look -” before cutting himself off when Bakugou suddenly plows into him, wrapping his arms around Hizashi’s waist and squeezing so tight that he feels like he’s being attacked by a giant python. He stumbles a bit, then steadies himself, blinking down at Bakugou. “What’s up, kiddo?”

Bakugou’s voice is muffled when he says, “Thank you.”

Hizashi takes a deep breath, blows it out. “Yeah,” he says. “No problem.”

Half of Hizashi’s attention is on Bakugou, who insists on climbing as high as he possibly can on the terrifyingly tall jungle gym, and the other half is on the conversation he’s having with Shouta, who has somehow been roped into accompanying about half of 1-A - as well as Eri - to the mall. Not that Hizashi’s surprised about that - if Nedzu’s soft spot is for Shouta, then Shouta’s soft spot is for his students.

Hizashi asks, “How’s it going over there?” and watches as Bakugou, having successfully given Hizashi five heart attacks in as many minutes, drops down and runs to the massive slide set that takes up half of the playground.

“Well, nobody’s died,” Shouta says. In the background of the call, Hizashi can hear the chatter of too many people talking at once. If he had to guess, Shouta and his students are in the food court. “At least, not yet.”

“Not yet,” Hizashi echoes. “That’s reassuring.”

Shouta laughs, then asks, “What about you? How’s the kid doing?”

Hizashi hesitates, trying to figure out how to respond to that. Bakugou has been well-behaved - at least, by normal standards - but he’s also said some pretty concerning stuff, which is… well. Finally, Hizashi says, “He’s very different.”

Some of the humor fades from Shouta’s voice. “What does that mean?” he asks, sounding wary, and also like he already has a good idea of what the answer is going to be.

Hizashi tracks Bakugou’s movements, watching as the kid switches from one activity to the next, looking for all the world like he’s racing to get a chance to try everything before time runs out. “He’s a lot less open about the things he likes,” he says. “You know that first night, how he was basically fanboying over you? Like, openly? He’s more closed-off, and I don’t…” He falters, frowning deeply. “I don’t know what to do about it.”

Shouta makes a thoughtful hmm-ing noise, and Hizashi can picture the way his eyebrows are furrowing, the look of concentration on his face that shows up whenever he’s presented with a particularly difficult puzzle. “I don’t think that you can really do anything about it, because that sounds like the kind of thing that builds up over years. It can’t be reversed in just a few days.” He sighs. “Just keep things calm, I guess. Don’t give him a reason to get upset.”

“I’m trying,” Hizashi says, feeling completely helpless. He has more experience with kids than Shouta does, sure, but it's not like he spends prolonged periods of time with any of them - besides Eri, of course, and she could hardly serve as an example of a stable child - so he has no idea of what he’s supposed to do in a situation like this. “But I don’t know what’ll set him off!” He realizes that his voice is getting steadily louder and rushes to lower it, hissing into the phone, “He won’t even tell me what he likes!”

“Well, he likes to draw, right?”

“Yeah, I’m pretty sure, but he said that he doesn’t!” Hizashi drags his hand down his face, exasperated and frustrated and worried, all at the same time. “He won’t tell me anything, Shouta.”

Shouta hums again, then says, “He’s probably afraid that it’ll get taken away.”

Hizashi blinks. “Yeah,” he says. “That’s exactly what he said.”

“Oh.” Shouta makes a tsking sound under his breath. “Was hoping that I was wrong about that.” His voice gets muffled, like he’s covering up the microphone and talking to someone outside of the call, and then says, clearer, “Todoroki wants to know if Bakugou needs anything. Like, toys or clothes or books. Stuff like that.” Quieter, he says, “I’m pretty sure he feels bad about that burn that Bakugou got yesterday.”

Hizashi winces. “Ah, yeah,” he says, thinking of the faint scar on the side of Bakugou’s hand - the injury had the faded look of something that had been healing for a while, which Hizashi had thankfully managed to pass off as them taking him to see Recovery Girl during the night - and then of how pissed Shouta had been at him for leaving Bakugou in the care of Todoroki. Which, admittedly, was a pretty bad idea on his part. “You know, neither of them told me how that happened.”

“Nothing surprising about that,” Shouta says. “It's not like either of them is the type to talk for the Hell of it, and Bakugou’s gotten quieter than he was a couple nights ago.” He pauses like he’s thinking about something, and then asks, “So, does he need anything?”

“Hm.” Hizashi tilts his head, mulling the question over, then snaps his fingers as he remembers the conversation he had earlier with Bakugou. “Oh, yeah! I was thinking that we should get him a pencil case! Y’know, for his crayons and stuff.” He pauses, considering. “Maybe we should get him some colored pencils, too. And paint.” He looks at Bakugou, who seems to have gotten tired of the slides and is now clambering once again to the top of the jungle gym, and his eyes catch on the kid’s jacket. “And maybe some more clothes, y’know? I know that Yaoyorozu offered to make him an outfit for each day, but I don’t want to make her feel like she has to do that. Plus, he needs some more jackets. Or sweaters. He’s borrowing one of Eri’s right now, but he’s going to get older, so he’ll probably outgrow her clothes pretty soon, and, anyways, I think it’d be better to give him a choice of what he wants to wear. It's important to feel like you have control over something.”

There’s a pause - in which Shouta is most likely trying to process everything that Hizashi just said - and then Shouta asks, “Is that all?”

“Yeah, pretty much.” Then, remembering the thought he’d had about Bakugou’s shoelaces, he says, “Oh, and new sneakers. With Velcro.” In a way that’s almost incredulous, Shouta asks, “He can’t tie his shoes?”

“He can tie them, but not very well.” Then, jumping to Bakugou’s defense, “Which isn’t that weird, actually - I didn’t learn how to tie my shoes until I was, like, ten. It requires a lot of fine motor skills, which I absolutely did not have, so.” He shrugs, then remembers that Shouta can’t see him. “He can’t be perfect at everything, Shouta.”

“Yeah, I know,” Shouta says, then sighs. “I was just surprised. Anyways -” and he clears his throat, a transparent attempt at changing the subject “- what kind of pencil case?”

“There’s a hero merch shop at the mall, right?”

“Yeah. Why?” “Well, he likes All Might. Like, a lot. He went on this whole rant about how Todoroki said that he didn’t like All Might.” He sneaks a glance at Bakugou, then waves when he sees the kid look at him. “It was so cute.”

“Yeah, that sounds like him. I’ll check it out. So -” He pauses, then sighs. “The kids want to go to the arcade. I’ll see about getting him the stuff you said, then call you back. Love you.”

“Love you, too!” Hizashi says, then ends the call and checks the time. “Hey, Bakugou!” he calls out. “Let’s go get some lunch!”

Bakugou’s head pokes out from the opening of a brightly-colored slide - he’d been trying to climb up it, apparently - and he says, “I’m not hungry!” before disappearing back inside.

“Are you sure?” Hizashi asks, watching the kid pull himself out of the top of the slide on his hands and knees, scramble to his feet, and rush across the playset to the other slide. “I can get Lunch Rush to make you literally anything you want.”

“I’m not hungry!” Bakugou repeats, glancing back at Hizashi before going down the slide. He comes to a stop at the bottom of it and stands, padding over towards Hizashi, sitting down beside him on the bench. “Can Lunch Rush really make anything I want?”

“Definitely! He’s a really good cook.” Hizashi grins at Bakugou. “Can you think of anything you’d like to eat?”

“Hm.” Bakugou’s eyebrows furrow in concentration, and then he sighs, shaking his head. “Not really.” He shrugs and starts kicking his legs back and forth. “I’m not that hungry.”

Hizashi thinks it over, then says, “Well, okay.” Then, as a compromise, “But I still want you to eat something, alright? What kinds of snacks do you like?”

Bakugou blinks up at him. “Snacks?”

“Yeah, snacks. Chips? Fruit?”

Bakugou tilts his head, frowning at some unseen point in the distance. Finally, hesitantly, he says, “I like apples?”

You don’t sound very sure about that, is the automatic response, and it's totally what he’d say if he were talking to someone like Shouta. But, since he’s not talking to Shouta - and is instead talking to his miniaturized student - he says, “Great! My daughter loves apples, so we have plenty back at the dorm.” He stands and holds out his hand, grinning. “Let’s go!”

Bakugou stares up at him for a long, long moment, then reaches out and takes his hand.

Hizashi hums under his breath as he chops the apple into eighths, carving out the seeds with a quick flick of the knife. He scores the tops of the slices into a V shape, then wedges the blade underneath the skin to start peeling it away. Eri liked apples in general, but she loved bunny apples the most, so the process of making them is almost automatic by now. He glances over at where Bakugou is sitting in the doorway of the kitchen and asks, “Do you want anything with these? Caramel? Peanut butter?” To his surprise, Bakugou just shakes his head and wrinkles his nose at both suggestions. “I hate peanut butter,” he says, not looking up from where he’s collecting all the money from one of the many farming games that Eri downloaded to Hizashi’s phone without his knowledge.

Hizashi raises an eyebrow, remembering Bakugou’s student file - according to it, the kid had no allergies. “You’re the first kid I’ve met that has ever said that.”

“Hm.” There’s the sound of coins hitting the ground as he swipes his finger across Hizashi’s screen. “It's bad for you.”

“No?” The word comes out like a question. “I mean, it's not as healthy as, like, vegetables, but it's not bad for you.” He puts the apples on one of Eri’s plates - nonbreakable, decorated with pawprints - and, because Bakugou doesn’t seem to be very inclined to move, sets it down on the floor beside the kid. “It has a lot of protein.”

And now Bakugou looks up from the game, frowning at Hizashi in a way that’s thankfully more bewildered than upset. “And a lot of fat,” he says. “There’s, like, a hundred calories per tablespoon.” He glances back down at the game and grins. “Holy shit, you have chickens!”

Hizashi blinks at him. “Yeah,” he says. “I have chickens.” And then he shakes his head, jolting himself back to the more important topic of this conversation. “How do you know all that stuff about calories, Bakugou? You’re too young to be worrying about stuff like that.” Then, trying to make his admonition into a joke, “You should leave that kind of thing to old people like me.”

Bakugou gives a noncommittal hum, absently biting down on an apple slice. He chews and swallows, expertly maneuvering around the game with his free hand, buying plots of land and building structures on them. “It's important to eat properly,” he says. “I don’t wanna screw up my chances at becoming a hero.”

“Bakugou, I promise you that eating peanut butter will not mess up your chances of being a hero.” Hizashi puts the cutting board and knife in the sink and rinses them off, glancing over his shoulder at Bakugou, his attention drawn to the cash register sound that the game is making. “Hey, how many of those coins are you spending?”

Bakugou grins down at the screen as he says, “All of them.” “Hey!”

“Don’t worry,” Bakugou says, waving him off. “You get, like, a billion every hour. You’ll be fine.” And then he frowns, looking disappointed. “I wish this game had cats, though. Those are good for farms because they eat all the mice. And they’re cute.”

Hizashi smiles, fondly amused. “You like cats?”

“Mhm,” Bakugou hums, nodding. “I’ve got a cat at home. She’s orange.” He glances up at Hizashi. “Her name is Missie. That’s short for Missile Launcher.”

Hizashi’s smile widens into a grin. “Missile Launcher?” he echoes, trying and failing to keep the laughter out of his voice. “Did you pick that out yourself?”

Bakugou nods again, looking up from the game to focus on Hizashi. “Me and Kariage found her, but I was the one who got to keep her because his mom doesn’t like cats. Her food bowl is shaped like a fish.” He chomps down on an apple, chewing thoughtfully. “I think I like cats more than I like dogs,” he says. “Dogs are loud and kinda stupid. Cats are assholes sometimes, but they’re still really cool, and they’re quiet, so…” He blinks up at Hizashi. “Am I talking too much?”

Hizashi shakes his head and goes to work at unloading the dishwasher. “No way,” he says, opening a cabinet to put away a cup. “You can talk all you like. I don’t mind at all!”

From the way that Bakugou grins at him, he’s pretty sure that he just gave the right answer.

Shouta drops all the shopping bags on the floor and then face-plants onto the bed, grumbling into the sheets, “I’m not moving for an hour.”

“That bad?”

Shouta lifts his head just enough to look Hizashi in the eye and say, “You have no idea.” He rolls onto his back and stares up at the ceiling with the blank gaze of a man who’s just been through a war. “I had to stop Yaoyorozu from buying an entire candy shop for Jirou. And then Kaminari -” He sits up, looking around. “Where’s Bakugou?”

“He’s in Eri’s room,” Hizashi says, then pauses. “Speaking of, where is she?”

Shouta yawns and falls back down, throwing his arm over his eyes. “She wanted to have a sleepover with the girls. And then swordfight with Kirishima. Something like that.” He waves his hand in a vague gesture, indicating that their seven-year-old daughter could possibly be doing anything from getting her hair braided to playing with very sharp objects. “How was Bakugou?”

Hizashi sits down at the foot of the bed, still frowning slightly at the mental image of Eri attacking Kirishima with a sword. “Well, he spent all my coins in one of those farming games. And he complained about the game not having any cats.” He tilts his head, thinking. “And he doesn’t like peanut butter.”

Shouta frowns. “Bullshit,” he says. “All kids like peanut butter.”

“That’s what I said!” Hizashi sighs, shaking his head even though Shouta still has his eyes covered. “He went on this whole tangent about how unhealthy it is.” He crosses his legs and braces his elbow on his knee, resting his cheek against his palm. “It was weird. Everything about this is weird. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to look at Bakugou without seeing him as a little kid, which is going to be awkward because he’s changed so much. He’s all frowny when he’s older, y’know? He’s still frowny now, but he at least smiles sometimes.”

Shouta drags himself upright, looking offended. “Hey, Bakugou smiles!”

Hizashi hums, disbelieving. And then, reluctantly, he says, “You probably see him more than I do, anyways, since you’re his homeroom teacher.” He sighs, glancing at the doorway. “He’s just changed a lot, you know? And I don’t even mean when he’s older. He’s changed a lot since that first night.”

Shouta shrugs. “A lot can change in two years,” he says. “Hell, a single moment can define your entire life. You can’t really base anything off of how much time it takes.”

“I guess you’re right,” Hizashi says. “I just wish that I knew what was wrong.”

Shouta’s response is instantaneous. “Shitty parents.” When Hizashi looks at him, he shrugs again, though he’s tenser than he was before. “I mean, it's kinda obvious. You’re the one who said that he was getting more reserved, being less open about what he liked - he’s afraid that anything he shows interest in will get taken away. And on that first night, when I was talking to you, he thought that I was calling his parents and got so scared that he started crying.” He throws his hands out, his own exhaustion apparently forgotten as he snaps, sounding frustrated and pissed as Hell, “That’s not fucking normal! Normal kids don’t do that!”

Hizashi blinks at him, a bit startled by his vehemence. Cautiously, he asks, “What do you want to do about it?”

Shouta deflates. “I want to help him,” he says, crossing his arms over his chest and scowling down at the ground. “I want him to be happy.” He takes a deep breath, blows it out, and then says, “Speaking of making him happy, I got him a bunch of art supplies. There’s paint and colored pencils and I got him a new sketchbook, too. It's one of the spiral ones, since those are easier to tear pages out of. I wasn’t sure if he’d like watercolor or acrylic paint more, so I got him both. And then there’s a pencil set for when he gets older and starts caring about shading and stuff.”

“I understood about half of what you just said,” Hizashi admits. “I’ve never been that good at art.” He pauses, frowning. “There are different kinds of paint?”

“Yes, Hizashi,” Shouta says. “There are different kinds of paint.” He stands with a groan and stretches his arms over his head, then walks over to the bags on the floor. He crouches down and starts rummaging through them. “And I got him clothes, obviously. I had Asui and Sero help me with the sizing, and Midoriya helped me pick out things that the kid would actually wear, and -” He holds up a small pair of orange-and-black sneakers, triumphant. “Shoes. For tomorrow.” After a moment, he adds, “They have Velcro.”

Hizashi peers down at his husband and the bags he’s digging through. “That’s a lot of clothes,” he points out. “What are we going to do with them once the Quirk wears off?”

Shouta shrugs. “Save them for Eri, I guess. Or we could donate them.” He frowns at the shirt he’s holding. “I haven’t really thought that far ahead.”

“That’s a first,” Hizashi says. “Usually you overthink things.” “Oh, I’m still overthinking things,” Shouta assures him, shooting him a wry grin. “Just the wrong things.”

“Yeah? What are you thinking about, then?”

Shouta gives a noncommittal hum, shifting so that he’s sitting cross-legged on the floor as he starts to fold what can only be the clothes for tomorrow. “It just feels like Bakugou is trying to blend in, you know? Like he’s trying to make himself as unobtrusive as possible.”

“Like a chameleon?” Hizashi offers.

Shouta is still for a moment, his eyebrows furrowed, and then he nods in assent. “Yeah,” he agrees. “Like a chameleon.” He folds another shirt, this one black with white stripes, and then says, “And you know why they do that, right?”

“It's a defense mechanism,” Hizashi says. Hoping that he’s wrong, he says, “They do it protect themselves.”

Shouta nods, short and sharp, and finishes folding the clothes in silence.

Eri’s room - it used to belong to Kan, but he charitably packed up and moved to a spare two floors up - is right beside Shouta and Hizashi’s. Standing in it now, Hizashi wonders, as always, what the point of giving Eri her own bed was if she was just going to infiltrate theirs every night. But he had to admit that it came in handy at times like this. He has no idea what they’ll do when Bakugou decides that he no longer wants to sleep in a room with pastel pink walls, but he figures that they can cross that bridge when they come to it.

“This is so cool,” Bakugou says, which seems to be his favorite way to describe anything he finds even mildly interesting. He practically vibrates with excitement as he holds his new pencil box - decorated with All Might’s colors and a picture of the hero himself, obviously - then grins giddily up at Shouta. “Thank you!”

“No problem, kid,” Shouta says. “It's for your crayons and colored pencils. You know, so they don’t get lost.”

“Oh, I never lose anything,” Bakugou says, even as he plops down on the carpeted floor and starts to arrange said crayons and colored pencils in the box. “I’m not allowed to have a messy room.”

Hizashi raises an eyebrow. “Is that why you were cleaning when we came in here?” When they opened the door to show Bakugou his art supplies, they found that the kid hadn’t actually been playing at all, instead choosing to make the bed, organize Eri’s toys, and even meticulously rank the books on Eri’s shelf by height.

“Mhm,” Bakugou says, nodding. “It was a mess.” He carefully layers his colored pencils in the bottom of the box, then stacks his crayons on top. Shouta watches him, then looks up at Hizashi with a disbelieving expression. Hizashi, who’d already seen Bakugou do this once before, merely shrugs in response. Yeah, it was kinda weird that a six-year-old was so obsessed with making things look perfect, but stranger things have happened. Bakugou continues, seemingly unaware of the silent conversation taking place over his head, “Deku always leaves his room so messy. I always have to clean up after him.” He holds a red crayon in each hand, looking back and forth between them like he’s trying to determine which shade is lighter. “He pisses me off.”

Hizashi sits down in front of Bakugou and sees Shouta sit down as well, which is good, because Hizashi is pretty sure that Bakugou is about to go off on another tangent. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.” Bakugou finally decides that the red crayon in his left hand is the lightest and puts it down on top of the other one. “And he always follows me around, too. It's annoying. And he talks too much. He never gives anyone else a chance to speak, and my dad always tells me that I’m being rude when I do that. But Auntie Inko never tells Deku that! It's so unfair! But my mom says that Auntie Inko is going soft, so maybe that’s why Deku is such a deku.” He pauses to take a breath, then continues, “Plus, he cries so much. He cries when he’s not even hurt! It makes me mad, because Auntie Inko loves him a whole lot, so he has literally no reason to be such a fucking crybaby.” He finishes his rant, then looks at Hizashi, expectant. “Right?”

“Um,” Hizashi says, very unsure as to what the fuck just happened. “Well, I wouldn’t use the word crybaby -”

“But that’s what he is,” Bakugou says, stubborn as a bull. “He acts like a crybaby, so he should be called a crybaby, because that’s what he is.”

Hizashi looks over at Shouta for help, but his husband looks just as lost as Hizashi himself feels. Hizashi tries to think of what he’d say to Eri if she was acting like Bakugou was right now, but the problem with that is that Eri would never be in this situation. So, with a sigh, Hizashi shakes his head and says, “Even if somebody cries a lot, you shouldn’t call them names. It's not very nice.” He pauses, then asks, “Have you ever thought that maybe he cries because you call him names?”

And his words don’t have their intended effect at all, because Bakugou just crosses his arms and scoffs, “If he starts crying because of words, maybe he should toughen up.” He frowns, his eyes narrowing. “It's not like I hit him or anything, even though sometimes I really, really want to.”

Hizashi resists the urge to put his face in his hands. “Hitting people isn’t very nice either, Bakugou.”

“I just said that I don’t hit him,” Bakugou huffs, scowling at Hizashi. “Even when he deserves it.”

Holy shit, Hizashi thinks, equal parts horrified and bemused, this kid is going to be the death of me. He glances over at Shouta, who is watching the entire exchange with an unreadable expression, and then says, “I don’t think that anybody deserves to be hit, Bakugou.”

Bakugou stares at him with the unflinching gaze of someone who believes that what they’re about to say is the absolute truth. “I do,” he says, then cants his head, considering. “Sometimes.”

Jesus fucking Christ.

“No,” Hizashi says, slicing his hands in an X. “No. Nope. That’s not how it works.” He points at Bakugou, who blinks at him in confusion. “I just said that nobody deserves to be hit, and that includes you. I don’t care what anybody tells you, but you do not deserve to be hit, now or ever, and whoever hits you is wrong.”

Bakugou stares at him with wide eyes. His lips press into a thin, trembling line, and Hizashi only has time to think, shit, before the kid bursts into tears. Like a lot of things about him, it's loud and sudden, like his emotions are something that has been compressed and condensed until they finally exploded under the pressure, sending shrapnel flying everywhere.

Out of the corner of his eye, Hizashi sees Shouta reach out toward Bakugou, then yank his hands back like he thinks that he might make everything worse by touching him. He shoots Hizashi a helpless glance, looking hopelessly out of his element, and that’s enough to snap Hizashi out of his shocked daze. He takes a deep breath and falls back onto what knowledge he has gathered from years of interacting with kids. “Bakugou,” he says, keeping his voice calm and steady even though he feels anything but, “can you tell me why you’re upset?”

Bakugou sobs and shakes his head.

Patiently, Hizashi asks, “Is that a no as in you don’t know, or is it a no as in you can’t tell me?” When Bakugou continues crying, drawing his knees up to his chest and hiding his face in his arms, Hizashi says, “I want to help you, Bakugou, but I can’t do that if I don’t know what’s wrong.” But he already knows what’s wrong, doesn’t he? He pushed too hard and he pushed too fast and he completely altered the kid’s worldview in a way that was neither soft nor gentle. Fucking Hell. Feeling incredibly guilty, Hizashi starts, “I’m sorry -”

He’s cut off by a muffled sound from Bakugou.

Leaning closer, Hizashi asks, “What’d you say?”

Bakugou lifts his head and scowls at him with a suddenness that makes Hizashi wince. “I said,” Bakugou snaps, glaring at him through teary eyes, “don’t talk to me like that!”

Hizashi frowns, confused, then hurriedly smooths his expression over to avoid setting Bakugou off again by looking hostile. “I don’t think I understand what you mean, Bakugou,” he says, leaning forward again almost unconsciously, then sighing internally at the realization that trying to get answers from a six-year-old Bakugou Katsuki basically employed the same techniques that he’d use in interrogating a suspect, seeing as he nearly always got stuck playing the good cop. “I’m talking to you the way I usually do. That’s all that I’m doing, alright?”

“Stop it!” Bakugou slaps his hands over his ears like he’s trying to block out the sound of Hizashi’s voice, which is probably exactly what he’s trying to do, actually. “Stop it! Stop being nice to me!”

… Is that seriously what he’s upset about?

Hizashi pinches at the bridge of his nose, trying to stave off the headache he has felt steadily building over the course of the entire day. “Why would I be anything but nice to you?” he asks, hearing the utter confusion in his own voice as he speaks. He’s never met a kid who got mad that somebody was being nice to them, but he also never met a kid who spouted off things like the number of calories in a tablespoon of peanut butter or whatever, so it's not as if Bakugou really fits into the impression he’s gotten from kids in general - Bakugou, as always, is in a class all of his own. “I’ve had no reason to be anything but nice to you.”

“You don’t need a reason,” Bakugou snaps, irritated, and then his frustrated expression crumples and he starts crying again, sobbing as he goes back to hiding his face in his arms.

Hizashi stares at him, at a total loss for words. A glance at Shouta shows that he’s staring as well, but with an expression that is more pained than surprised. He’s focused on Bakugou with an intensity that reminds Hizashi of a sniper’s rifle, which is more than a bit unnerving. “Bakugou,” Shouta says, leaning forward, eyebrows furrowed in concentration, “you know that you haven’t done anything wrong, right?”

“I’m sorry,” Bakugou chokes out. “I don’t know why I’m crying.”

“That’s alright,” Hizashi says. “You don’t have to apologize for that.”

Shouta sighs, raking his fingers through his hair and shaking his head as he stands. “I’m just - I’m going to go get him some water,” he says, then quickly walks out of the room without waiting for a response. The elevator dings! a moment later, the doors slide shut, and, just like that, Hizashi is alone with Bakugou.

Bakugou says something indecipherable, punctuated by sniffles and hiccups, and huddles up further like he’s trying to disappear from sight. He looks so small like this, so sad and tiny, and Hizashi’s heart aches like somebody has grabbed it in a fist and squeezed.

I didn’t fucking sign up for this, he thinks, which is the truth. He signed up to watch over high-schoolers, not little kids - and he may have interacted with a lot of kids over the years, but never for more than a few minutes at a time, and most of those kids had been overjoyed at the chance to meet him. Not crying. Not sobbing like they were never going to stop. And this isn’t any little kid, either. This is Bakugou, who was going to remember this moment when the Quirk wore off and was probably going to be mortified about it for the rest of his life. This is Bakugou, this is the student that has clawed his way up to being Shouta’s favorite student, and Hizashi is struck with the realization that he has no idea of what he’s supposed to fucking do.

He read somewhere that you were supposed to ignore kids when they were throwing a tantrum, but this - whatever it was - doesn’t really count as a tantrum, does it? Because Bakugou isn’t crying for the sake of crying. He’s crying because of what Hizashi said, he’s crying because Hizashi was apparently being too nice to him - and that’s such a fucked up concept that Hizashi can barely even wrap his mind around it - which means that this entire situation, the tears and the sobs and the sharp bursts of anger, is Hizashi’s fault.

And if this is all his fault, maybe the best thing to do would be to leave.

As soon as the thought crosses his mind, Hizashi shakes his head. That was just the panic speaking - and he is panicked, getting worse with every passing second - and he knows that Bakugou would see him leaving as a kind of abandonment, which is not what Hizashi wants, now or literally ever.

Hizashi drags his hand down his face, takes a deep breath, and looks at Bakugou. The kid is getting quieter, which either means he’s forcibly muffling his sobs or that he’s getting tired - Hizashi is hoping that it's the latter, since that’s the least upsetting option - and he’s taking these hiccupping breaths that make his shoulders shake. His entire body is shaking, actually.

Hizashi knocks the heel of his palm against his forehead, hoping to jar loose some kind of arcane information about how to calm a crying child down. A crying child who hated it when people were nice to them. A crying child who thought that they were inherently a bad kid.

Right.

Hizashi kind of wants to find Bakugou’s parents and throw them off of the roof of Yuuei.

He pushes the thought away, focusing his attention on Bakugou. He’ll have time to deal with his own bitter feelings later, but, right now, he has to help Bakugou. It’d be great if he could figure out how to do that without setting the kid off again, because he’s pretty sure that it's literally impossible to comfort somebody without being nice.

“Alright,” he starts, then is thankfully saved from having to figure out what to say next by the ding! of the elevator returning to their floor.

Shouta walks into the room, looking far more composed than he had been when he left, and crouches beside Bakugou. “Hey,” he says, using the voice he usually reserves for skittish alleyway strays and Eri after nightmares, and it must work because Bakugou sniffs and turns his head slightly, peeking out at Shouta with one red-rimmed eye. Shouta holds up the water bottle - it's obviously made for a kid, but Hizashi doesn’t recognize it as Eri’s, so he wonders if Shouta had the forethought to get it for Bakugou at the mall - and shakes it slightly, like he’s trying to entice a cat into eating its food. “I got you some water. You should drink it.” He sets it down in front of Bakugou. “It’ll make you feel better.”

Or it’ll just replenish his stock of tears, Hizashi thinks, watching warily as Bakugou slowly uncurls, roughly wiping at his eyes with one hand and reaching for the bottle with the other. He whispers, “Thank you,” in the smallest voice that Hizashi has heard from him thus far.

“No problem,” Shouta says, then glances at Hizashi. When Hizashi mouths, How the fuck did you do that?, he just shrugs and looks back down at Bakugou. “What do you want to do now?” he asks, obviously trying to get the kid’s mind off of what just happened, which is probably the best course of action right now.

Bakugou shrugs and stares down at the water bottle in his hands. “I don’t know.”

Shouta looks at his watch, then says, “Well, it's only half past two, so…” He rocks back on his heels and studies Bakugou, considering, then offers, “Do you want to watch a movie or something?”

Hizashi isn’t really sure if this is the best thing to do - ignoring the core root of this problem and carrying on like nothing is wrong - but Bakugou is already nodding, and Shouta looks relieved, and so Hizashi asks, “What’s your favorite movie?”

Bakugou shrugs again.

“... Alright,” Hizashi says, standing up. “I’m sure we’ll figure something out. Let’s go into the other room.”

Bakugou obediently clambers to his feet and walks away without another word, his footsteps near silent on the carpet. Shouta and Hizashi share a glance before following, and Shouta says in a low voice, “Hopefully he’ll fall asleep.”

Hizashi frowns. “Isn’t he a bit old for naps?”

Shouta snorts in dry amusement. “Hizashi,” he says, shaking his head, “nobody is ever too old to take a nap.”

#de-aged bakugou week 2023 #bakugou katsuki #present mic #eraserhead #fic #boku no hero academia #dad mic #my posts

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