Chapter Text
Bakugou Katsuki is four years old when he decides he doesn’t care about soulmates.
Two weeks after Bakugou’s Quirk comes in, two weeks after he is told in no uncertain terms that he’s the best, the strongest, Midoriya walks into their preschool classroom with red-tinged eyes and tells Bakugou with a forced smile about his doctor’s appointment. About his own Quirk, and how it doesn’t exist.
All Bakugou can think is I’m better than you .
The dusting of soot black on Midoriya’s—no, he’s just Deku now—on Deku’s fingers disappears pretty quickly after that. It’s there and then gone all at once, and a few days later, the green on Bakugou’s knuckles disappears too.
His father is concerned at first, worried about why his son’s soulmark would just disappear. It’s not unheard of—people stop loving each other, or in the worst cases, die, all the time. But a mark disappearing off of a four-year-old whose friend is still very much alive?
“Don’t you find that a bit strange?” he asks Bakugou’s mother.
Mitsuki laughs, a harsh, unforgiving sound. “Look at him. Little bastard probably thinks he’s too good for soulmates.”
The thing is, she’s right. Except it’s not that he thinks he’s too good for soulmates. He is too good for soulmates. Whatever force in the universe that decided these things thought him and a weakling like Deku were soulmates. And how ridiculous is that?
Bakugou doesn’t need soulmates or their stupid marks. He’s just fine on his own.
For a long time, the only soulmarks Bakugou has are from his parents.
Mitsuki’s is a long purple streak on the back of his shoulder, the meeting point between her forearm and his newborn body as she cradled him. Masaru’s is a beige spot on the side of his ankle, the first spot he could reach leaning over the hospital bed. Neither of them are easily visible when he’s wearing his school uniform, and they’re both hard for his parents to access. Bakugou likes it better this way. Less gushy shit about cuddling, or touching soulmarks, or whatever.
The other kids try to touch him a lot. He lets it happen, just for the satisfaction he feels when they pull away and realize they haven’t gained a new color. Their empty space is just another reminder of the distance between them, of how much better Bakugou is. He doesn’t give a shit about any of them.
(Sometimes, though—sometimes Umeda high fives him or Osaki hands him his lunch and as their bare skin touches, Bakugou feels a little jolt. Not the kind that announces a new soulmate, but the kind that says he’s afraid. He always double checks afterwards that his skin is still colorless.)
All Might never shows his soulmarks. His suit reaches from the top of his neck to the tips of his fingers, and there isn’t a single color on his face.
There’s an interview that comes out when Bakugou is nine. The TV show host, a woman with bright green hair and scales on her face, leans forward in her chair with a mischievous smile. “So,” she says in a mock-whisper, “I know we won’t get any details out of you, but at least tell us, are there any special marks under that costume of yours?”
His smile doesn’t waver. “Of course! But you know I can’t say much else than that, for the protection of those close to me.”
Bakugou rolls his eyes. He knows the truth. Under that blue, red, and gold is just bare skin. There’s no way anyone could match the strength of All Might. He’s just lying to make people feel better, like they have a shot.
(He does wonder what it would feel like, briefly, to touch All Might and see that soot black appear on his skin. Probably pretty good. But it would, of course, disappear when Bakugou takes number one.)
Every once in awhile, he sees Deku rubbing at his hands during class. He always glances up at Bakugou as he does so, his eyes pathetically shiny with tears, and it makes this heat spark in Bakugou, the kind that simmers deep down in his bones, impossible to ignore.
Those are the days when he hits hardest. Just to prove that his knuckles still come away clean.
A new kid shows up during their first year of middle school. His name is Amari Haruto, and his Quirk lets him dissolve things into big puddles of goo.
Bakugou doesn’t really think he’s all that, but everyone else does. Amari gets the third best test score a week after he arrives, placing only after Deku and Bakugou, and when he demonstrates his powers at their next Quirk assessment test, the teachers marvel over the control and precision he has.
He’s debating whether he should punch Amari to put him in place or knock him on his ass with an explosion when said asshole plops down at Bakugou’s lunch table with a smirk.
“So,” Amari says, not giving Bakugou any chance to speak. “Heard you were the top dog around here.”
“And?” He growls. He can already feel the nitroglycerin collecting in his palms, and the itch of sparks beneath his skin. Umeda and Osaki not-so-subtly start scooting back in their chairs, giving each other nervous glances.
“Figured I should formally introduce myself.” The other boy leans forward, and even though he’s smiling, Bakugou recognizes the competitive glint in his eye. “Amari Haruto. Guess we’re both going to be vying for the top spot, huh?”
“I already have it,” Bakugou snaps back, comment emphasized by the pop-pop-pop of his palms.
“Not for long.”
The chair screeches as Bakugou leaps to his feet, hands slamming down on the table. “Watch your mouth, you motherfu—”
“Calm the fuck down,” Amari says, entirely unphased. He sticks his hand out. “Just looking for a little friendly competition, that’s all.”
Anger burns its way through Bakugou’s veins as he glares at Amari’s hand. He doesn’t hesitate before slapping it away, but everything comes to a stand still when their skin touches and he feels a jolt of something.
It’s not possible. It’s not. Amari isn’t anywhere near Bakugou’s level, there’s no way. His heart thumps rapidly as he turns his hand over, checking.
Nothing’s there.
Amari gets up and walks away without another word, leaving Bakugou just...standing there. Looking at his hand. Confused.
(Why does the emptiness feel wrong ?)
“Are you okay? Did he try and melt you?” Osaki says.
“No,” he growls as he thumps back down into his seat, hands still popping a bit. “Worry about yourself, shit-face.”
A few weeks later Amari leaves and doesn’t come back. Something about transferring to some fancy private school or whatever. Bakugou ignores the voice in the back of his head that says thank fucking god and pretends that seat has always been empty.
Despite that one Amari-shaped exception, Bakugou’s middle school experience is mostly more of the same. He trains as hard and as much as he can outside of school. His parents can’t afford to hire a personal trainer or whatever, but he doesn’t need that shit anyways. Everything he needs, he’s got with the fire in his hands and the abandoned lot a mile from his house. During school, Umeda and Osaki keep following him around like stray dogs, and he keeps putting losers in their places.
And then, one day, that changes.
It starts with stupid Deku announcing that he’s going to apply for UA. Everyone starts laughing, but Bakugou nearly explodes. Who does that little bastard think he is? Doesn’t even have a Quirk, and he wants to compete with Bakugou to get into the top hero school in Japan? And the worst part is, even as Bakugou has him literally cornered, on the floor, back to the wall, Deku still tries to explain himself. Still tries to argue that he can be a hero.
His green eyes shine with determination, and Bakugou remembers the empty space on his knuckles, the space where there used to be that same green, where the connection that he—that he severed used to be.
Deku’s eyes flicker to his hands, so he must be thinking about the same thing, and when he makes eye contact with Bakugou again, the look on his face is pleading but hopeful. And Bakugou can feel it again, those pricks of heat along his bones, and he’s—
He’s had enough.
After class, when the teacher is gone, Bakugou opens his mouth and does more damage than his explosions ever could. Says a casual “take a swan dive off the roof,” and feels something in those green eyes flicker out even though he’s not looking at them.
His hands always itch with the need to burn, but as he walks away, he swears his knuckles itch the most.
His whole life, Bakugou’s counted on the fire in his hands to get him through anything. It’s what made everyone look at him as a four year old and whisper he’s special, it’s what made other kids bow to his every whim, and it’s what’s going to carry him to number one. And yeah, Bakugou forged that fire, trained it, made it stronger, but at the end of the day, he still depends on it.
So when it fails him, his world shakes.
The sludge is everywhere—all over his skin, soaked into his clothes, seeping down the back of his throat like it’s trying to claim his lungs. And he tries, he tries so hard to blow it all away, but any of it that he destroys comes right back.
“You’ve got so much power,” the villain growls above him, around him. “I really hit the jackpot. With a Quirk likes yours under my control—”
Bakugou doesn’t hear the rest over the pounding of his own heart in his ears. He wants to scream at the thought of his power being someone else’s, at the idea that this villain could just use his explosions like he was the one who’d spent hours, days, weeks, months mastering them.
And then, out of the smoke and the flames and the wreckage, there’s Deku, sprinting towards him like something invisible is dragging him along.
(He thinks about the empty space on his knuckles. About the connection that is supposed to run more than skin deep.)
You didn’t help me.
Mitsuki drags him into a hug as soon as he’s stepped through the door, ignoring the sludge that still sticks to him. His school jacket is gone altogether, collected by the cops as part of the evidence. She pushes aside his collar enough to touch the beginning of the mark on her wrist to the mark on his back. Bakugou lets her, for just a moment.
You did nothing.
He spends an hour in the shower, the water turned as hot as it’ll go. For once, his mother doesn’t yell at him for wasting water.
Don’t forget it.
Afterwards, he goes to his room and locks the door. Sits on the bed, tangles his fingers in the sheets. Presses his knuckles into the blanket.
I don’t owe you anything!
He doesn’t think about Deku trying to claw the sludge off of him so he could breathe, frantic tears spilling out of his green eyes. He doesn’t think about All Might saving the day with a single punch, about the few colors that Bakugou spotted on the man’s bare arms. He doesn’t think about anything.
Something about Deku has changed.
It’s not like he was ever really involved in school. Most of the kids either laughed at him or talked over him whenever he rose his hand, if the teacher bothered acknowledging him at all. But now, whenever Bakugou glances at him, that shitty nerd doesn’t even seem to be taking notes. He’s always muttering under his breath about something and rushing off right after school, like he used to back in elementary school when Bakugou and Tsubasa used to chase him.
And sometimes, Bakugou catches Deku rubbing at his wrist through the fabric of his sleeve with a soft smile. But he doesn’t look at his hand the way he used to.
Whatever. Bakugou’s got better things to do than pay attention to a loser like Deku. The UA exams are in a few months, and he’s not gonna let that weirdo distract him from his goals. Nothing can stop him from getting into that school.
Seventy seven points. The bell rings, and Bakugou stops, chest heaving, palms burning. Robots lay in a halo of wreckage around him. Deku is nowhere in sight.
This , he thinks, this is what victory feels like .
When Deku walks into the classroom, it takes everything Bakugou has not to explode. Especially when that annoying round-faced girl barrels into Deku, shouting about how they’re soulmates or whatever. That’d explain the fresh pink soulmarks on his cheek, then.
Even as Eraserhead comes in and introduces himself, even as he leads them out to the field for their first Quirk assessment test, Bakugou can’t help but glare at Deku.
All Might’s not wearing his gloves when he explains the exercise to them.
One of his palms is stained green.
Green, like Deku’s hair. Like Deku’s eyes.
It’s not possible, Bakugou decides. Plenty of people have dark green as their color. Deku’s not fucking special.
It all comes to a head at the end of the first hero training.
Bakugou’s chest is heaving, and the gauntlets are like blocks of cement weighing on his tired arms, but he lifts one up anyways. There’s a small voice in the back of his head telling him to stop, reconsider, but then Deku stands up by the window, and in the light of day Bakugou finally sees his bare wrist, exposed by the burnt away fabric of his costume.
It’s gold, like the accents on All Might’s suit.
Bakugou charges.
He lost. He fought Deku, that shitty ass nerd who apparently just got his Quirk, and he fucking lost.
(Deku was weak. Deku got soulmates. Deku, suddenly, isn’t as weak anymore.)
No. It was a one time thing, a fluke, and he tells Deku as much before beginning to storm away. It won’t happen again. He won’t let it. He’d rather blow the school to hell than lose to fucking Deku again.
He feels more than hears it when All Might arrives. The shadow he casts is large, engulfing Bakugou altogether as he comes up behind him and exclaims, “Bakugou! There you are! I wanted to say—”
The hero’s hands come down heavy on Bakugou’s shoulders, and one of his thumbs brushes dangerously close to Bakugou’s neck, and all Bakugou can see is the green that stains one of the man’s palms and the empty space on his knuckles and he doesn’t think. Just yanks himself out of All Might’s grasp, snarls an “I don’t need you,” and runs.
Bakugou spends the next few days largely ignoring his classmates. There’s some kind of class president election, he knows, but he doesn’t really care about it. He doesn’t give a shit about Deku sitting behind him, he doesn’t give a shit about the kids who’ve already come up and tried to introduce themselves, and he certainly doesn’t give a single shit about a bunch of them being soulmates or whatever.
He does, however, give a shit about his stupid classmates talking crap on him.
“Bakugou’s always angry, so he’ll never be that popular,” says Frog Girl, and if it wasn’t for Aizawa already eyeing Bakugou in the bus’s rearview mirror, he’d probably blow her up. It takes nearly all of his control not to let a few sparks loose when fucking Pikachu jumps in too.
Deku smiles, but it drops when he spots the glare Bakugou shoots his way.
For a guy who can basically turn his skin into rock, Shitty Hair is way, way too soft-hearted.
“Since when do you act all calm and rational? Usually you’re all like...I don’t know. Explosions, ‘die die die!’, you know?”
He’s also a fucking idiot.
“I’m always calm and rational, you red-haired loser,” Bakugou growls. He doesn’t have time for this. That warp bastard could be anywhere, and who knows how many villains he’ll run into on his way. And there’s this weird feeling he can’t shake, not adrenaline or fear or anger, just this sensation like he’s being drawn towards something. He doesn’t know what. His gut says he’d rather not find out.
Shitty Hair grins, exposing those fucking daggers he calls teeth. “Nah, I think what you’re saying is that you believe in our classmates. And that’s thinking like a man, Bakugou.”
He says nothing, just glares at the other boy, but that’s a mistake, because as soon as he makes eye contact, that feeling of being sucked in gets stronger and stronger, like a force of gravity, until he feels like he might fall over.
It takes everything he has to turn and start walking. He almost thinks it works, for a second, but then Shitty Hair catches up.
“You know, Bakugou, we made a pretty good team back—”
It should just be a simple touch. Shitty Hair bumps his knuckles against Bakugou’s bare bicep, and then that’s it. Except the second it happens, the feeling releases, like whatever’s been dragging him towards it has found him.
He doesn’t want to look at his arm. He does anyways.
Imprinted on his skin is the outline of a crimson red fist.
“Oh,” Shitty Hair says, and all Bakugou can think is Kirishima . Shitty Hair’s name is Kirishima.
After the fight, after the villains, after watching Deku shatter half his limbs to protect someone who shouldn’t have needed protecting, Bakugou stands outside the USJ and watches the paramedics and police stream in and out of the building. With the exception of Deku, the entire class is with him, waiting for one of the teachers to get freed from duty and drive them back to campus.
Which means there’s exactly nowhere to stomp off to when Kirishima approaches.
“Hey, Bakugou,” he says. He’s smiling, but it’s more cautious now. Like he’s approaching a dangerous animal. Bakugou doesn’t know whether he should be proud or offended. “So, uh, we’re soulmates.”
Bakugou rolls his eyes and drags Kirishima by the arm to the edge of the group, out of earshot of the more gossipy ones. Bird Head eyes them as they move away, but for the most part, everyone is still coming down from their terror-fueled adrenaline rushes.
“I know we haven’t known each other very long, but honestly I feel—”
“Shut up,” Bakugou growls. “It doesn’t mean anything .”
“I mean, it kinda does, dude,” Kirishima says, giving a light, disbelieving laugh. “We’re soulmates. You know, marked?” He holds his hand up, waggling the knuckles at Bakugou like he can’t see the soot black stained across them.
“Soulmates are a load of bullshit.” Tiny explosions pop in Bakugou’s palms, but they’re not big enough for Kirishima to notice. He’s used a lot of nitroglycerin in the last couple hours.
Kirishima frowns. “That’s not right, man.”
“Whatever,” Bakugou turns, begins walking back towards the group. “Think whatever the fuck you wanna think. But I don’t need your stupid fucking mark, and I don’t need you.”
(The empty space on his knuckles. The feeling of slapping away Amari’s hand. The red on his bicep, clear as day, that no matter how much he glares at, won’t disappear.)
This doesn’t change anything.
Honestly, Bakugou should’ve realized that the boy who somehow marked him and also appears to have a head as thick as his skin wouldn’t accept that the universe made a mistake. Or at the very least, would be scared off by Bakugou’s carefully cultivated Resting Bitch Face and the sporadic popping of his palms to burn off nitroglycerin. But no. Apparently, Kirishima is determined to follow him everywhere.
It starts with lunch. Bakugou snags his own table with a few glares and carefully controlled pops, but as he unpacks his bento box, Kirishima drops into the seat next to him and immediately begins talking. When Bakugou lifts his hand threateningly, the other boy merely hardens the skin of his arm and keeps going.
And, of course, because Kirishima is Class 1A’s resident ball of sunshine (seriously—the morons actually voted on that) all of his friends follow him. Bakugou’s solitary lunch table becomes the gaggle of idiots’ table, and any time he tries to switch tables, they just follow him.
It doesn’t stop there. Kirishima sticks by him during the training exercises, and any time they get to pick pairs for sparring, he claims Bakugou right away. Bakugou would fight it more, but Kirishima is one of the only ones who has a natural defense against his Quirk. Makes for more interesting fights, even if Bakugou still ends up winning every time.
(He knows it’s not permanent. He’ll get rid of it, eventually. But for now—he can deal with it.)
Deku has more soulmarks.
Bakugou’s been pointedly ignoring him since the USJ, so it takes him a bit to notice, but once he does, it feels like they’re all he sees whenever he looks at Deku. The green stripe over his forearm. The blue smudge on his elbow. If Raccoon Eyes wasn’t practically a walking painting, maybe he’d have more of a reaction to the collection Deku seems to be starting.
(The handprints on Frog Girl’s arm, neatly placed. The brushes of various colors on that one kid’s tail. The spots on the animal freak’s hands that he rubs whenever he gets nervous, which is all the damn time apparently. All of them are a multitude of colors, yet they’re still so much weaker than him.)
(Except Kirishima, who’s practically got a rainbow over him, a rainbow that now includes Bakugou’s soot black, who deflected a surprise explosion from Bakugou the other day that had defeated every other sparring partner Bakugou had had—)
(Except fucking Deku, who seems to be getting stronger and stronger with every damn mark he puts on himself—)
No. Bakugou is the best in the class. In the whole school, even. The only one who’s even close to his level is Icy-Hot, and he’s seen that kid in the locker room. If he’s got more than the one silvery mark on his shoulder, it’s somewhere no one can see it.
He’s not wrong about soulmates. He knows he isn’t.
When Kirishima asks him to team up for the cavalry battle, Bakugou hesitates. He doesn’t want to say yes and have everyone assume it’s because they’re fucking soulmates or whatever. But when Kirishima explains why they’d work, he doesn’t have any choice but to accept.
He needs to win. He needs to grind Icy-Hot and that useless fucking nerd into the dust once and for all.
Everything goes according to plan for about thirty seconds before those 1B freaks swoop in and Bakugou feels every ounce of his body light on fucking fire with rage. He lets that anger push him, lets it fuel the blasts coming out of his palms so he can get as high as possible, lets it eat any fear he should probably feel at the idea of plummeting towards the ground.
The second time they pull off this maneuver, Bakugou falls wrong. He’s off just a bit, and ends up tumbling mostly into Tape-Boy’s arms. His elbow hits Tape-Boy’s neck, sending him into a coughing fit. Kirishima and Raccoon Eyes barely manage to keep Bakugou from falling. It takes precious seconds that they don’t have to get back into formation and moving, even as Tape-Boy struggles to catch his breath.
“After them!” Bakugou growls. Beneath him, Raccoon Eyes huffs like she’s going to say something, until she glances over at Tape-Boy and yelps.
“What’s wrong? Is someone coming after us?” Kirishima asks.
“No, just—Sero, look at your neck!”
“Wha-?” Sero wheezes, craning his head awkwardly. “I can’t-can’t see anything—”
But Bakugou can. A giant smudge of soot black stretches across the front of Sero’s neck. He might’ve mistaken it for a part of Sero’s hair, if it wasn’t for the matching orangish-yellow on Bakugou’s elbow.
“It doesn’t matter!” Bakugou snaps, ignoring the knot forming in his chest. “Those fuckers’re getting away!”
That refocuses their attention. They’re smart enough to know it’s cavalry battle first, soulmarks later.
(He avoids Sero’s gaze and keeps an eye on Raccoon Eyes’ hands for the rest of the fight. Makes sure her grip doesn’t slip from his calf to the sliver of his exposed ankle. Just to keep his own damn sanity.)
Sero turns to him the second Midnight’s done announcing the results, his mouth already open. Bakugou doesn’t wait to hear whatever bullshit he’s about to spout. He immediately storms towards the locker rooms, ignoring the pounding of his heartbeat, the pulsing of nitroglycerin below his skin.
The door slams open, smacking off of the wall. There’s scorch marks on the handle, but he doesn’t remember setting off any explosions. He moves to the center of the room and sucks in a deep breath, trying to suppress the sparks in his hands.
“Dude, you good?” Kirishima says from behind him, making him almost jump as he turns. He hadn’t heard Kirishima following him. What the hell is wrong with him?
“I’m fucking fine,” he says. It’s supposed to be a growl, but it’s too rushed, too short of breath.
“Is this about Sero? Because I promise, he’s a really cool—”
“I don’t give a shit about that.” The splotch on his elbow is practically taunting him with its obnoxious brightness. It makes him want to scream. “It doesn’t matter.”
It’s quiet for a moment, and then Kirishima says, “It’s okay if you’re scared, Bakugou,” and there’s such an earnestness to the way he leans forward, the shine in his eyes. “Soulmates are—”
“I’m not scared !” Bakugou shouts, explosions popping like firecrackers in his palms. He jabs a finger in Kirishima’s direction. “Listen up, Hair-For-Brains, ‘cause I’m not gonna say it again. I’m here to become the top hero, not prance around bonding with my fucking soulmates or whatever. Got it?”
Hurt flickers across Kirishima’s face, and for a split second, he almost wishes he could take the words back. Almost. Then the other boy nods and says, “Yeah, okay. Got it.”
As Kirishima walks towards the door, Bakugou leans against the lockers and takes a deep breath in, trying to quell the fire building up in his palms. He has to save it. He’s going to need it, if he wants to beat De—whoever he’s going up against. Icy-Hot, probably.
It’s so quiet that Bakugou nearly misses it, but before the door shuts, Kirishima says, “If soulmates really don’t mean anything to you, then why do you have any marks at all?”
His head snaps to the doorway, but Kirishima’s already gone, the door clicking softly shut behind him.
Uraraka reaches out to touch him, and Bakugou catches a glimpse of the green on her fingertips.
The explosion nearly blows her out of the ring with its force.
When the bell rings, Todoroki just stands there. Staring, lost. Like his fucking brain has been scooped out. His defense against Bakugou’s explosions is weak, and he’s not using his left side. He’s not giving it his all. And Bakugou—
Bakugou is worth more than that. Worth more than some halfhearted fight for the top. If Todoroki needed to use his fire to take down that shitty nerd, then he needs to use it now too, so why—
Todoroki huffs, his white hair falling out of his face. There, on his jaw. A stripe of dark green. Deku’s green.
Bakugou sees red.
After the debris clears, Bakugou stands on the platform, shaking with the effort it takes to keep his palms from going off. Midnight had to be talked out of tying him to a post and muzzling him, and that’s the one thing that would make this whole shitty situation even worse, so he keeps his jaw clenched shut as All Might drapes the medal around his neck.
He can’t see Deku or either of his soulmates out in the crowd.
But he won. He won a hollow, worthless win, and he is alone.
(Is this what victory feels like?)
That night, after his father finally convinces that hag to leave Bakugou the fuck alone, he sits in his room. The gold medal is buried in his trash can, covered in scorch marks. Music blasts from his computer, loud enough to fill the room, but it won’t drown out the thoughts in his head.
He stares and stares at his hand, at the empty space on his knuckles. No matter how hard he tries, he can’t remember what the mark that was once there looked like.
An hour after he usually goes to bed, Bakugou turns off his light.
There’s barely any breathing room between the sports festival and their internships, and Bakugou’s fucking glad for it. Less time he has to spend avoiding Kirishima’s sad puppy eyes and Sero’s awkward attempts to initiate a conversation.
Well, he’s glad about it until he ends up walking down the street in fucking jeans with gel in his hair.
“Appearance is just as important as combat skill,” Best Jeanist says, and he keeps talking but Bakugou cannot possibly listen over his desperate need to take that fucking jean turtleneck and strangle him with it.
They get through the whole patrol without seeing one bit of combat. Not that he would’ve technically been allowed to participate anyways, but still. It’s frustrating. He didn’t sign on with the number four hero to coddle kids on the street and wave at civilians and yet, here he is, having spent six hours doing exactly that.
Bakugou’s waiting for Best Jeanist to hand him the paperwork for the day so he can get the fuck out of there when the hero suddenly hums and points a pen at Bakugou’s arm. “You should get your costume altered to cover that. Wouldn’t want to put your soulmate in danger.”
He glances down, at Kirishima’s mark, and scoffs. Like he would be the one putting Shitty Hair in danger. “Not gonna bother. It probably won’t stick around.”
Best Jeanist stops, hand in the air, before he slowly puts down the pen and says, “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be,” Bakugou says. “I don’t fucking want it anyways. I don’t need it.”
A perfectly sculpted eyebrow raises, a far arch over the circle of denim. Best Jeanist considers him for a moment as Bakugou scowls, and then, slowly, takes his gloves off (denim, of course, because why fucking not) and begins rolling up the sleeves of his costume. Underneath, his bare forearms are littered with a scattering of different marks, some big and bright, others small and muted. There’s even one tiny pink handprint.
“Do you know what I was trying to teach you today, Bakugou Katsuki?”
“That denim is the most godawful fucking fabric—”
“I was trying,” Best Jeanist interrupts, “to show you that being a hero takes more than just extraordinary control over your Quirk. It takes compassion and—” he gestures to the marks on his arms “—a willingness to connect with others. I am not the number four hero because I can capture a villain in less than five seconds. I am the number four hero because people see me and they know that I care .”
He wants to scoff again. Roll his eyes and blast a chair over, or something. But instead he stays quiet, glaring at the man.
(It’s not the answer he wants.)
When it’s clear Bakugou isn’t going to say anything, Best Jeanist sighs and rolls his sleeves back into place. He signs one last line and then hands the paperwork over. “Here. I expect to see you bright and early tomorrow morning.”
Bakugou snatches the papers and storms out.
When Aizawa announces that he’s paired with Deku for the final exams, Bakugou almost laughs. Of course. When will the universe stop trying to shove them together?
Whatever. He has more important things to consider than that shitty nerd. Like how he’s going to fight against All Might and win, a real victory this time. This is his last chance to prove himself, to prove he can do this alone.
And it’d be a lot easier if he could actually be alone.
“I just think,” Deku says behind him, too close, “that we should reconsider. This is All Might, Kacchan!”
“Then hide like a coward. I don’t need you anyways.”
“Kacchan—”
“Fuck off, Deku,” Bakugou says, and for a blissful moment, the footsteps behind him stop, and he thinks maybe this time it worked. But of course it didn’t.
The footsteps pick up, until Deku is practically running behind him. “Kacchan, if you would just listen to me —”
There’s a tiny voice in the back of his head that says just listen , don’t do it , but there is also a louder one that says sever it , and that heat roiling in his bones is back, and for a second, Bakugou forgets where they are. Forgets UA, the test, his gauntlets. It’s just him, Deku, and the empty space on his knuckles.
He turns around and swings.
Bakugou wakes up in Recovery Girl’s office to see Aizawa at his bedside. He’s slumped over in a plastic chair, but not asleep—no, he’s currently staring at Bakugou through his shaggy mess of hair, looking more haggard than usual. Probably not a good sign.
“I thought that bonding with Kirishima and Sero would improve your hostile demeanor,” Aizawa begins, and even though his voice is low and even, Bakugou can hear the simmering underneath, “but it appears that I was wrong.”
Part of him wants to open his mouth. Defend himself before the accusations can really begin. But the crunch of Deku’s nose against his gauntlet and the repeated impact of All Might’s fists to his stomach are far too fresh in his mind.
“I’m aware that you and Midoriya have somewhat of a history, one which neither of you seem to be willing to elaborate on, but there is no excuse for hurting your teammate,” he says and then pauses, an eyebrow raised. “This is the part where you try to justify your actions anyways.”
Bakugou stays quiet, gaze averted.
“Shocking,” Aizawa mutters, and then continues, “Why do you want to be a hero, Bakugou?”
“To win.” The answer is immediate, a practiced phrase that drips from between his teeth without even thinking about it. But his voice is weak, shaky, not all there.
Aizawa hums, not looking surprised by his answer. “Is that all?”
“What else would I fucking need?”
“Being a hero isn’t about winning. It’s about saving people.” His eyes glint as he leans forward. “Only villains fight just to win.”
That lights a spark. Bakugou snarls. “I am not a goddamn villain .”
“If I believed you were, you wouldn’t be here still. I think deep down, there is a part of you that wants to be a hero because you want to do the right thing. Otherwise, I doubt you’d get either of those.” He nods at the marks on Bakugou’s bare arms, stripped of their gauntlets and gloves at some point in his unconsciousness. “But something is holding you back.”
“Nothing is holding me back,” Bakugou says through gritted teeth. “I’m not weak.”
“No, you’re certainly not. But you will be if you continue to push away the people trying to help you.”
“I can do this on my own.”
“Relying on other people isn’t a weakness, Bakugou,” Aizawa says, pinching the bridge of his nose between his finger and thumb for a moment. Then, he takes his black gloves and slips them off.
“Fuck, not again,” Bakugou mutters.
“Quiet.” He holds his hands up so Bakugou can see the scattering of marks across them. The warm green splotch across the heel of one palm. The light pink kiss mark on his wrist. The blood red streak across the back, like someone dragged the tip of their finger over it. The pristine engine silver on his thumb. “I cover them up to make sure they’re safe and I’m less recognizable. Not because I’m ashamed of them. They’ve made me a better person and a better hero.”
He means to yell. To tell Aizawa that he’s different, he’s better. But all that comes out is a quiet, “I’m good enough by myself.”
“To just be a hero, perhaps,” Aizawa says as he slips his gloves back on. “But there’s a reason Endeavor isn’t the number one hero, and All Might is.”
Bakugou looks at him, that heat finally dying down to a mere prickling beneath his skin.
“I believe you can be better, Bakugou. Truly. And that is why I am not expelling you right now. But let me clear: if I ever see a repeat of today’s actions, I will not hesitate to change that decision.” He stands, but keeps his eyes on Bakugou’s. His Quirk doesn’t activate, but Bakugou swears he sees red anyways. “And that does not mean you are without punishment. Upon our return from the training camp, you will be suspended for a week.”
“A week? That’s fucking—”
“Merciful? Yes, it is,” Aizawa snaps. He turns to leave, but before he walks out the door he says, “Keep this conversation in mind, Bakugou.”
All Bakugou can do is stare at his bare hands.
The orangish-yellow mark on his elbow looks garish in the bathroom light. Bakugou traces it with a frown, then looks at the red one on his bicep.
If soulmates really don’t mean anything to you, then why do you have any marks at all?
They should be gone. He should be able to sever them, the same way he severed Deku’s all those years ago. But the thought of looking at his arms and seeing empty space doesn’t feel right anymore. Doesn’t feel like power or victory or whatever. It just feels...wrong.
He grits his teeth as several pops come from his palms, nearly smothered by the cool porcelain of the sink. When he looks up, his own red eyes glare back.
Only villains fight just to win.
He’s not a fucking villain. He just wants to be the best, and he knows what it takes. Has known, since he saw All Might for the first time and watched him carry those people out of the train wreck on his own.
But as Bakugou looks at the marks, his marks, remembers what his soot black looks like on Kirishima and Sero in turn, imagines what it would feel like to press their marks together, he thinks—maybe.
There isn’t much time for talking on the bus or the grueling survival trek to the actual training camp, but at dinner, Bakugou grabs his food and makes his way over to where Kirishima and the others are sitting. Part of him—okay, most of him—is tempted to find a secluded table and eat by himself, but he knows he needs to do this.
Their conversation dies down as Bakugou comes to a stop at the end of the table. Sero stills with a fork of noodles halfway to his mouth while Kirishima leans in hesitantly, and Raccoon Eyes and Pikachu just stare.
“There room for one more?” he asks, voice low and gruff.
Kirishima’s smile is nearly blinding as he quickly scoots down and pats the bench. “Of course, man! Take a seat.”
He sets his bowl down with a heavy clank and sits, not bothering to say anything before digging in. After a couple of bites, when he realizes the rest of them are still silent and staring at him, Bakugou growls, “Keep. Talking.”
“Right!” Raccoon Eyes—Ashido, Bakugou remembers Sero calling her—squeaks. “Um, where was I? Oh, yeah, one of the 1B kids overheard Blood King and Aizawa-sensei talking and apparently tomorrow’s training…”
Bakugou mostly tunes out after that, as Ashido and Pikachu jump around conversation topics at the speed of light. Somehow Kirishima and Sero keep up with it, making comments here and there. Closer to the end of the meal, while the other three are loudly discussing whether All Might’s bangs stick up because of gel or because of his Quirk, Kirishima leans over and nudges him gently.
“Hey,” he says quietly, with a smile far too soft for his sharp teeth. “I’m glad you’re here.”
“Yeah, well,” Bakugou mutters. “Get fucking used to it.”
Kirishima knocks shoulders with him again, and Bakugou will never admit it but he does feel a twinge of a smile pulling at his lips too.
It really doesn’t take long for everything to turn to shit.
One minute they’re walking through the woods, preparing to encounter the dumbasses from 1B, and the next there’s smoke everywhere and a brilliant blue fire in the distance. Bakugou’s about ready to run towards the fire to find the villains when one finds them first, and the fight is on.
But even as he throws explosion after explosion at the metal-toothed fucker, part of him is somewhere else. He can’t stop thinking in the back of his mind about—about Sero. Kirishima is safe, he thinks, with the other two idiots back at camp, but he has no clue where Sero is. No clue if, at any moment now, that mark on his elbow is going to disappear.
He takes that thought and wrangles it into a locked box in the back of his mind. He has bigger things to deal with at the moment, like the massive form of Dark Shadow coming right at them —
Bakugou should’ve run the second Deku said the villains were here for him. He should’ve left, made his own way back to camp on his own because fuck you, he’s capable of taking care of himself, and because if the villains are after him, then they’ll probably blow through the rest of the idiots just to get to him. But he knows if he did, Deku would just drag him back with those mangled arms of his and get himself killed anyways.
(He won’t admit it, not even to himself, but there is another reason. A small, quiet voice in the back of his mind that says I don’t want to be alone .)
Not that it matters in the end, anyways. They’re only a few minutes down the path when a hand lands on his shoulder and the world goes too smallcrampeddark to even breathe, and when he finally, finally comes tumbling out of that space, it is only to feel a hand clamp around his neck.
He can see Deku through the purple mist descending around him. He’s staring at Bakugou, his face wracked with desperation, and Bakugou feels that tug at the empty space on his knuckles again. But it’s too late.
“Stay back, Deku,” he pleads, and then the mist closes in.
They want him to become a villain. They tell him he’s already got the makings of one. They tempt him with the prospect of being the best, of always winning.
Bakugou snarls as he spits in their faces.
(He’s got two marks on him that should’ve told them that would never happen.)
That crazy knife bitch gets near him exactly once.
It’s the middle of the night. The rest of the villains are asleep or out, but Bakugou is wide awake. He refuses to let any of these fuckers get the jump on him again.
(Not that it would matter. Not that he could do anything if they did, with his hands like this.
He doesn’t let himself think about that.)
Fangs doesn’t even both sneaking, though. She saunters into the room with that creepy ass smile of hers, brandishing two large, jagged knives like they’re playthings.
“Stay the fuck away from me,” he growls. If his hands weren’t stuck in a block of cement, he’d have already blown her ass up.
“Aw, that’s no fun!” she whines as she approaches, but her smile doesn’t falter. “I haven’t even gotten to play yet, and you’re already being mean.”
His head jerks back as she boops him on the nose with one of the knives, giggling like a goddamn maniac. He snarls, ready to bite back with a retort—and then she lifts up his sleeve, revealing the crimson mark.
“I love messing with soulmarks,” she says, tracing the mark with the sharp point of the knife. “The blood from them always tastes better. You know, I’ve tried taking them before, as souvenirs. But they always disappear when I’m done cutting off the skin.” Her amber eyes flash dangerously in the low light. “Maybe this one’ll stay.”
Of all the things the villains could do to Bakugou, this ranks pretty goddamn low. Compared to Manchild’s disintegrating Quirk, this will probably be like a paper cut. The pain doesn’t frighten him.
(So why is he so fucking afraid right now?)
The knife starts to press into his skin, into his mark, and Bakugou is about ready to blow his own fucking hands up if it means keeping those crimson knuckles on him when a voice comes out of the dark.
“Shigaraki said no hurting him.” Patchwork stands in the doorway, a blue light conjured in his palm casually.
“Awww, come on, Dabi,” Fangs pouts, but she steps back. (Bakugou isn’t relieved . He isn’t.)
Dabi moves into the room. Maybe it’s a trick of the shifting lights, or maybe Bakugou is just sleep deprived, but he swears he sees a little flash of icy blue peeking out from under his collar, a stark contrast against the gnarled purple skin.
“Go to bed,” he says pointedly. “And leave the kid alone.”
Bakugou refuses to give any sort of thanks to this bastard. But the glare he sends his way is slightly less murderous than it could have been.
When he sees Kirishima’s hand, Bakugou hesitates. He doesn’t run away from a fight. That shit’s for cowards.
And then he catches a glimpse of the black that stains the other boy’s knuckles, and he makes his decision.
Bakugou flies .
Kirishima drags him through the crowds by his arm. Normally he’d protest, maybe blast him away, but his body is still shaking. Bakugou hasn’t really eaten or drank or slept much in nearly three days. It’s a miracle he hasn’t passed out yet.
Like a magnet, Kirishima’s other hand finds Bakugou’s bicep, mark pressing into mark. From the concentrated look on the other boy’s face, it’s not intentional, just a subconscious thing.
Bakugou doesn’t protest this, either.
(For the first time since the forest started burning, he feels safe.)
Turns out he doesn’t need to worry about the week-long suspension, because UA puts him on “medical leave” for a week anyways. Something about students who go through extreme trauma have to take time off for their psychological stability, or whatever. He tries to fight it, but his mother yells at him for an hour and Aizawa tells him it’s this or take the suspension and have that on his record. Bakugou can be a hothead, but he’s not an idiot.
Being stuck in a house with his parents for a week, however, makes him feel like this is more a suspension than a mental health break anyways.
Mitsuki refuses to let him leave, not even to shop for groceries with her. He tries to go on a run the second morning. When she says no, he says then fucking stop me , and she sets his running shoes on fire. The resulting argument probably would’ve gotten the cops called on them, if his dad hadn’t gone to the neighbors and reassured them no one was getting murdered.
Masaru keeps reminding him that we’re worried about you, son, those three days were the most terrified we’ve ever been, please be patient with her , and he wants to bite back with imagine how terrifying they were for me, but that would mean admitting he feels anything besides anger about what happened, and he’s not ready to do that.
There are a hundred and six unanswered texts on his phone that have accumulated since the kidnapping. Some of them are from his parents, during those three days. Some of them are from his classmates, or so he assumes. He doesn’t have their numbers saved. Most of them, though, are from Kirishima and the others. They’d made a group chat and added Bakugou to it against his will, so it seems like a lot of the notifications are just memes. But there’s a few personal messages.
There’s one from Sero that reads Are you ok? and is followed by Stupid question, sorry.
And quite a few from Kirishima, though the last one is i kinda wish u would respond, but i get if u need time dude. just...lmk if u wanna talk.
Bakugou looks at those for a couple minutes, thumb hovering over the keyboard, before turning his phone off.
On the fourth night under house arrest, his parents sit down on the couch after dinner and he makes what he hopes is a stealthy break for his room, to no avail.
“Get your ass back here!”
“Katsuki, why don’t we watch a movie together? You know, as a family.”
He groans, but doesn’t protest as he plops down between them. He’s pretty sure if he refused, his mother would completely fucking lose it and finally take an axe to his bedroom door like she’s been threatening to for years.
Mitsuki wastes no time before pulling Bakugou to her side. He’s wearing a tank top, so it’s easy for her to slide her arm around his shoulders, connecting their soulmarks. Bakugou shouldn’t have been surprised, but he jumps anyways.
“Get your hands off of me, hag!”
“Knock it off, you little shit!”
“Do you guys want popcorn?” Masaru says, standing up. “I think I’m gonna go make some popcorn.”
“Jesus fuck, kid,” Mitsuki says after she strongarms him back into sitting with her. For a brief, brief second, he considers setting off a few explosions. “How the hell do you still have those if you act like this much of a twerp?”
Bakugou follows her gaze to the marks on his arms and scowls. “Because they don’t make me do stupid shit like this.”
“Yeah, because they’re not your mother.” She snorts. “Doesn’t mean they don’t want to.”
Huffing, he shifts around, trying to get comfortable. It’s not that the warm feeling across his shoulders is bad; it’s just...weird. And not nearly familiar enough.
“How are things going with them?”
“Why do you wanna know?”
“For fuck’s sake, because I’m your mother , Katsuki.”
“Whatever,” he snaps. “It’s fine.”
“Definitely sounds fine,” she says. “What’s the problem? They’re not a fan of your never ending charm?”
He swallows the urge to throw her arm off of him. “No, I just…”
“Don’t know how to connect with them?” she finishes, and Bakugou glances at her, surprised. She sighs. “I get it. It’s hard, for people like us. Sharp edges, your father likes to say.”
“I’m nothing like you.”
“Shut up, yes you are.” Her other arm reaches up, and for a second he thinks she’s gonna swat him over the head, but she just scrubs her fingers gently through his hair instead. “Your father and I...things weren’t easy between us, at first. I was...difficult. Still am. It’s just important to remember, Katsuki—” she raps her knuckles lightly against his skull, so he turns and looks her in the eye “—that just because someone can take your shit, doesn’t mean you should give it to them.”
He opens his mouth to say—something, he doesn’t know what, but then his dad chooses that moment to walk in with a big bowl of popcorn.
“Alright! Popcorn is ready to go, so what’re we watching?”
(Bakugou sits in the quiet of the dark room, the movie flashing light across all three of them, and lets the warmth of his mom’s mark wash over him. And if halfway through, he pulls his feet up on the couch and puts his ankle in easy reach of his dad’s hand, nobody mentions it.)
He arrives at the dorms early Sunday morning with his bags in tow. His parents walk him to the gate, and his mom hugs him so tightly he thinks he might explode, and not because of his Quirk. Aizawa escorts him the rest of the way, not really saying much, at least not until Bakugou speaks up.
“My mom showed me the press conference,” he grumbles. Aizawa looks at him, brow raised. “Thanks. For what you said.”
“I was only stating what was clear to me,” his teacher says with a sharp nod as he opens the door for Bakugou. “Your room is to the left. Fourth floor, third down the hall. Don’t forget your meeting with Principal Nedzu and I at noon.”
Bakugou makes his way to the room. Luckily, he got in early enough that everyone else seems to still be asleep, although he wouldn’t be surprised if a couple of the nerdier ones were already out of bed and working out. He opens the door and flicks on the light.
It’s simple. He hadn’t been expecting much, honestly, but this is about as nice as his room at home and his screaming mother is nowhere in sight, so it’s an upgrade. As he goes to put his bags down on his bed, though, he notices something sitting on the desk.
He picks it up. It’s a bag of Kara Mucho, one of his favorite snacks, with a post-it attached to the front.
glad ur back!!! -kirishima
Bakugou feels the corner of his mouth quirk up, just a bit, before pocketing the post-it and grabbing an envelope of yen from his backpack. On the back, he scrawls for the goggles , and quietly pushes it under Kirishima’s door.
Somehow, it never really occurred to Bakugou that he probably wouldn’t cap out at two non-familial soulmates.
It happens during training. Most of their costumes are in the support department getting upgrades, so they’re all wearing their gym uniforms as Aizawa pairs them up for a rescue exercise.
As soon as he says they’re working together, Ashido practically glues herself to Bakugou’s side and doesn’t. Stop. Talking. She’s a bubbly stream of chitter chatter until they get to the actual stream, which they’re supposed to cross in order to reach the stranded civilians. And of course, the stream , as Aizawa described it, is actually a river at least thirty feet wide, with a single rope strung across.
“Roll up your pant legs,” he says.
“Ooo, good idea! Oh, wait, what about our shoes?”
“Unless you want to cross that shit barefoot, keep them on.”
“Fair point, fair point. Alright, Bakugou, I’m right behind you!”
“Yeah, I know,” he mutters under his breath as he takes ahold of the rope and slowly but surely, begins making his way across the river.
The current is strong, but not impossible to move through. Ashido is clearly struggling more than he is, as every few seconds she lets out a half-mumbled curse. Bakugou doesn’t say anything to her, but he does move a bit slower than he could’ve.
And then the current suddenly gets stronger, the water rising above mid-thigh, and Bakugou grumbles a quick “fucking hell.” Should’ve known it wouldn’t be that easy. He’d just wanted to get this over with as fast as possible.
“Bakugou! I’m losing my grip!”
“Shit, grab on—” he starts, but it’s too late. As he turns his head, Ashido stumbles forward, letting go of the rope and reaching for his shirt. He tries to reach back for her, but in the process he loses his own hold and they both go tumbling over each other into the current.
They’re barely in the river for ten seconds before Aizawa drags them to shore with his capture weapon like water-logged cats. He barely lets them catch their breath before turning on them, the lecture clearly already on his tongue, but then he looks down at them and pauses.
Bakugou follows Aizawa’s line of sight down to his own bare knee, and the brand new patch of hot pink on the side of it. He quickly glances at Ashido, who’s staring wide-eyed at the matching soot black on her knee.
“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” he says.
Aizawa shakes off his surprise before Ashido can, thankfully. “Soulmarks or no soulmarks, you both failed the exercise. If this was real, you would be dead right now. You shouldn’t just default to the obvious solution...”
Ashido doesn’t waste any time. As soon as the training is over, she bursts into the common room, kicks her leg up onto the table where Kirishima and the others are already sitting, and points at the black mark with a very loud, “Look what I got!”
Kaminari immediately pokes it. “Did you, like, break a pen or something?”
“No! It’s my soulmark from Bakugou!”
“Wow, really?” Sero leans forward, glancing between it and Bakugou, who had followed Ashido reluctantly and is now standing behind her with a scowl. “When did that happen?”
“During the training! It was really cool, we were in the river and—”
“We fell and failed the exercise,” he says, hands shoved in his pockets, shoulders drawn back, but it’s not actually as harsh and angry as he was going for. It’s just tired and resigned.
Kirishima grins up at Bakugou. “Congrats, man. Not on the exercise, obviously, but the mark.” He gets up and bumps his fist against Bakugou’s bicep, sparking heat between their soulmarks. Out of the corner of his eye, Bakugou can see Sero rubbing his own mark a bit awkwardly.
“Aw, man,” Kaminari groans. “That means I’m the only one in the Bakusquad without a Bakumark!”
“What the hell is the Bakusquad?”
“You know, all of us. Your friends? We’re the Bakusquad,” he says like that’s something Bakugou should just know. “You gotta give me a high five or something. Please.”
The muscles between his shoulders go taut. He bares his teeth.“Fuck no.”
“Come on, just like, touch pinkies with me. Two seconds.”
“No.”
“What if I just—”
“No.”
“How about—wait, no, I’m sorry, Bakugou stop sparking your palms like that—”
It’s official: Kaminari is hunting him.
He didn’t really notice at first. (He should’ve. He’s trained to be observant of his surroundings. But he’s just been so fucking tired since—since Kamino.) Now that he’s thinking about it, though, Kaminari’s been following him a little too closely the past week, since the whole Ashido thing. Always just on the edge of Bakugou’s vision. Not registered as a physical threat because, well, it’s fucking Pikachu, but in the context of the past two incidents, it’s just—it’s putting him on edge. Making him wonder why he wants to be close.
The first incident was in the locker room after hero training. Bakugou had been in the middle of putting his shirt on when there was a commotion behind him—Kirishima tackling Kaminari to the ground, yelling something about “not right now, man.” He’d slammed his locker shut, even as his hands shook a bit, and elected to forget about it.
The second was harder to ignore. They had been in the cafeteria. Bakugou was walking to his seat with his tray when Kaminari not-so-subtly stuck his foot out and tripped him. His food had spilled everywhere as he’d hit the tile hard .
“Oops,” Kaminari had said with obviously fake cheeriness, reaching his hand down. “Let me help you up, Bakubro.”
Afterwards, Midnight gave them a week of detention and a month-long ban from the cafeteria for nearly destroying several of the tables in the ensuing fight.
It all leads up to this, though: Bakugou walks into the kitchen late at night, flips on the light switch, and pauses. Slowly, he looks up.
“What. The. Fuck.”
“Hey, Bakubro,” Kaminari says with a nervous, strangled chuckle as he clings to the kitchen light. “How’s it going?”
He briefly considers blowing Kaminari’s ass up now, even with the threat of expulsion hanging over his head. Or jail. Either one would probably be worth it, at this point. Instead, he scowls. “How the hell did you get up there?”
“Well, funny story—” Kaminari’s fingers slip just a bit, and he yelps. “Uraraka! I bribed Uraraka, but ohmygod I regret itsomuch, please help me get down from here—”
Bakugou reaches towards the light switch.
“No, Bakugou, please!”
“What the fuck do you want me to do, catch you?”
“Yes, yes, that would work!”
“Absolutely fucking not.”
“Come on, man—oh shit —” Kaminari lets out a high-pitched scream as he slips from the light and crashes with a loud smack onto the tile. Bakugou watches, wondering how the fuck UA became the top hero school in Japan. “Owwww. Ow. I think I’m dying. Get Recovery Girl.”
“You think she’d heal you after hearing what your stupid ass did to get hurt in the first place?” He moves to stand over Kaminari’s limp form. “Why were you up there?”
Kaminari sits up, one hand on his head and the other curled around his ribs. “No reason. Just doing my usual, y’know, Saturday night hang in the kitchen.”
“It’s Sunday.”
“Wait, what? Oh, shit, I haven’t started the essay for—”
“Kaminari.”
“Fine!” He throws his hands up in the air and looks at the ground, avoiding Bakugou’s gaze. “Look, I’m the only one in our little group that you’re not soulmates with. I just wanted to find out, y’know? And like, I’d get it if we’re not, ‘cause I know I’m annoying and—”
(Deku, sitting across the classroom, rubbing his knuckles, glancing at him with those wide, shiny eyes—)
Bakugou drops into a crouch and flicks Kaminari on the temple.
“Hey! What gives?” he whines, rubbing at the spot before his eyes suddenly go wide. “Wait—”
Holding out his hand, Bakugou studies the new mark on the tip of his middle finger. It’s a light, almost neon blue, like the electric haze around a bright sign. Kaminari stares at it, too, before his face breaks into a wide grin.
“Go write your fucking essay,” Bakugou says before standing.
“You sure you don’t want to help me with it, Bakubro?”
“Yes.”
Things are weird, after that.
Everybody says finding your soulmates is like finding the other pieces of your puzzle. That once you’re altogether, you just fit. But Bakugou’s only ever finished one puzzle without blowing it up, so he’s pretty sure that’s bullshit.
They’re all just so awkward around him, like at any second he’s gonna blow up. Which might be fair, given his track record, but he’s trying . The only one who tries to even get close to him is Kirishima, and he’s got thick skin so he doesn’t count.
The problem is, Bakugou doesn’t know how to do this. Everyone else has had a whole childhood to figure out how to do the soulmate thing, and he’s had less than a semester. And yeah, maybe a little bit of that is his fault, but that doesn’t change the fact that he’s stuck .
And then opportunity busts down his door and interrupts his Friday night.
“I’m just gonna drop out of school now and become a fast food worker,” Ashido groans, face-down on the common room floor.
“Hey, fast food workers are skilled, valued members of our society,” Kirishima says. He’s on the floor too, sandwiched between the coffee table and the couch and directly beneath Bakugou’s propped up feet.
“Great, so now I don’t even have a back-up plan. Guess I’ll just die, then.”
Kaminari drags himself over the back of the couch, close enough that Bakugou raises his hand and lets off a few warning pops. He barely even reacts. “Nooooooooo,” he says. “Don’t die. Who will I watch the next season of Hero Fails with?”
“Oh, babe, that got cancelled.”
“No way! Babe, don’t lie to me about this, you know how much I love—”
Bakugou throws his book onto the coffee table. “What the hell are you all being so dramatic about?”
“The math test,” Kirishima says with a sob that Bakugou isn’t entirely sure is fake. “Ectoplasm’s killing us, dude. No way I’m gonna understand parabolas by Monday.”
“Why do we even need to know barapolas?” Ashido flips onto her back. “They’re just curves. Curves!”
Kaminari nearly falls off the couch as he half-laughs, half-cries. “ Barapolas .”
Bakugou considers for a moment, and then stands, narrowly avoiding stepping on Kirishima’s hair. “Fine. Get your math shit and meet me at the tables in five minutes.”
“Ooooo-kay?”
“ Go .”
“Going!”
Sure enough, five minutes later, they’re sitting at the back table in the common room, Yaoyorozu’s rolling whiteboard behind them. Bakugou flips through the textbook, trying to figure out which lesson to go over again first, while the other three glance nervously between each other.
“Uh, Bakubro? Are you gonna like… kill us or something?” Kaminari asks, shifting in his seat.
“No,” he snaps. “I’m gonna fuckin’ tutor you idiots so you stop complaining.”
Silence, for a moment. And then a chorus of: “Awwwwwwww—”
“Shut up, and tell me what problems on the worksheet you’re having trouble with.”
“Damn it, Shitty Hair, I told you to move the x to the other side.”
“Ooooooo, Kirishima, you got Shitty Hair-ed.”
“Shut up, Pikachu.”
“I do not look like Pikachu!”
“Oh my god, you so do! I have to take a picture of this, right now—”
“Ashido, stop it!”
“You’re even doing the face from the—I can’t, I can’t, this is too good.”
“I am not Pikachu!”
“Both of you, shut up!”
“Oops, sorry.”
“Sorry, Bakubro…”
“Back to work!”
Sero joins the tutoring too. Not the math sessions, because he’s doing just fine in there ( I kinda have to know it to make sure I don’t end up a splat on the floor , he explains, and Ashido sticks her tongue out) but for literature help, mostly. But he’s still a bit awkward around Bakugou. The other three have become perfectly comfortable practically climbing all over him and occasionally touching their soulmarks together, but Sero keeps a wider berth.
Probably fair, considering how Bakugou barely talked to him for a month after finding out they’re soulmates.
Still, he doesn’t know how to fix this. He doesn’t know how to say you can trust me without—
Bakugou’s train of thought is interrupted by Sero himself plopping down onto the couch next to him with a long groan.
“Sleep,” Sero says, “continues to evade me like the difference between a simile and a metaphor.”
He lowers his book. “You’re a moron.”
“Yeah, I know,” Sero says with a frown, and Bakugou rolls his eyes.
“Quit worrying. You’ve studied way more than them.” He jabs a finger towards the tables, where Kirishima, Ashido, and Kaminari all sit with their notes scattered around them. “You’ll pass.”
“Try telling my brain that.”
He stays quiet for a moment, thinking, and then slowly raises his arms. “Get over here.”
Sero blinks. “What, like… sit in your lap?”
“No,” Bakugou snaps. “Just—lay down so I can put my elbow on you.”
“Um, sure,” Sero says with a nervous laugh before painstakingly scooting across the couch and lying down, stiff as a board, with his head and shoulders across Bakugou’s thighs. “Okay?”
He snorts as he lightly sets his elbow across Sero’s neck, adjusted so he can prop his book up on the other boy’s chest. As soon as their soulmarks settle against each other, Sero lets out a sigh, the tension draining out of his body until he’s practically boneless.
(He won’t admit it, but—the contact, the warmth, the safety of it all makes something in him settle too.)
“Go the fuck to sleep,” Bakugou says.
Sero laughs a little, but his eyes are already closing. Before he falls asleep, though, he says quietly, “Thanks, Bakubro.”
“Call me that again and I’ll blow your ass off this couch.”
“Sure you will.”
Bakugou smiles, just a bit.
(When Aizawa comes in from his night patrol at one am to find the two of them asleep on the couch, he pauses. And then, gently, he pulls a blanket across them.)
He hasn’t talked to Deku much since coming back. And yeah, they’ve all been pretty busy with training for the provisional license exam, but it… it feels different. Deku stays around his soulmates, and Bakugou stays around his, and they don’t interact. At all. No jabs, no side comments, no “Kacchan!”s, no “shitty loser”s.
It’s like a sea of dead space between them that neither of them seems to want to cross.
(And yet, deep down, he still feels that pull.)
Since starting at UA, he’s gotten four new soulmarks on his skin. Four new soulmates in his life. Four people who are supposed to push him, make him better .
But he still fails the provisional license exam.
Some people try to stop him when they get back to school. It might be Kirishima, or Ashido. He doesn’t know. He doesn’t care.
Aizawa catches him by the arm as soon as they enter the dorm, asks him pointedly if he wants to talk. Bakugou shakes his head and yanks himself out of the teacher’s grip without a word, and then makes a beeline for Deku.
He and a few of his friends are gathered around Todoroki, who’s just sitting there blank-faced and silent. But as soon as he sees Bakugou coming, Deku freezes up.
“We need to talk,” Bakugou says, voice low but rough around the edges. He glances over his shoulder. Aizawa is still watching him, eyes narrowed. “Tonight. After curfew. Ground Beta.”
Deku looks at him for a second before giving a short, jerky nod.
Bakugou leaves for his room, dodging both Sero and Kaminari on the way.
By the time Deku shows up, Bakugou is ready to put his fists through one of the concrete buildings if it means shutting his damn head up. That heat is back, clawing up and down his bones and begging to be let loose. He’s already breathing heavy, and he hasn’t even done anything.
“Kacchan?” Deku says, quiet, careful, like he’s approaching a fucking animal. “What’d you want to talk about?”
“Your Quirk,” he says. He’s had a lot of time to think about this, and he knows. “It’s All Might’s. He gave it to you.”
Deku shifts in place. “Kacchan—”
“Don’t fucking lie to me.” His lip curls back in a snarl. “I just don’t get it.”
“Get what?”
“You were so goddamn weak,” he says, and there’s so many questions, so many things bubbling beneath his skin, but this is the one he needs to get out, “and you got his Quirk, and you were still fucking weak. And then you found your soulmates, and you got strong.”
“Yeah, well, having people whose marks stay helped,” Deku mutters under his breath, and it almost makes Bakugou stumble from the spike of heat between his ribs.
“But I got soulmates too,” he chokes out. “I should be better. Stronger. But today—”
Deku pauses, eyes wide, and then says “ Kacchan ,” and it’s so fucking understanding it makes him want to explode. “You’re not weak. You just made a few mistakes, that’s it.”
( I’m Quirkless, Deku had said, eyes watery. And then he’d reached his hand out, trying to touch their marks, and Bakugou had slapped it away.)
The heat inside him reaches a boiling point.
“Shut up!” He grabs Deku’s shirt and shoves him back, into the wall. But he doesn’t let go. His fingers twist in the fabric, clinging. Everything is—everything is crashing together, jumbled puzzle pieces so scorched their images aren’t recognizable anymore. Amari reaching his hand across the table. That creepy Fangs girl holding the jagged tip of her knife to his crimson mark. Deku rubbing his knuckles and glancing at Bakugou. Kaminari hanging from a ceiling light, trying so hard just to connect.
It’s—too much. He doesn’t understand any of it, and his palms are sweating, and the itch is pounding underneath his skin so he lets off a few pops in his hand, and Deku—
Deku flinches.
Bakugou lets go and takes three stumbling steps back.
“Kacchan?” Deku asks, concerned, like Bakugou is the hurt one. Like Bakugou is the one who just flinched at the sound of a few small explosions for no reason. No, not for no reason. Because—because Bakugou—
(The empty space on his knuckles. The thing he so cruelly severed again and again, and never once thought about how it felt to be the one on the other side—)
He can’t breathe. His lungs have turned to ash in his chest, and he can’t breathe. He wraps his arms around himself, one hand grasping the mark on his bicep, the other the mark on his elbow.
(What if—what if they disappeared? He’s seen the way Sero looks at him sometimes. Unsure. Doubtful. And he’s right to be. What if one day he wakes up and there’s nothing but empty—)
For the first time, Bakugou feels that heat crawling under his skin and recognizes it for what it is. Not anger.
“Fuck,” he says between heavy, mangled breaths. His eyes burn. “ Fuck .”
“You boys shouldn’t be out here,” a voice says from the shadow of the building. Of course, because that’s just Bakugou’s shit luck, All Might is here. “It’s past curfew.”
“Sorry!” Deku manages to squeak out. He slides past Bakugou (keeps his arms close to his sides, like he’s protecting himself, like he’s expecting him to just reach out and—) and moves closer to All Might, who’s come out of the shadows and now stands in the street, bandages practically shining in the moonlight. “We were just—uh, talking?”
All Might hums, like he knows that’s not the full truth. He steps closer, head tilted, eyes soft. “Bakugou? Are you alright? I heard about the provisional license exam. I’m sorry about the results, but at least—”
“I’m fucking fine.” His fingers dig into the marks. He swallows back the things rising in his throat, hopes that the hitch in his breath isn’t noticeable.
Footsteps, and then a tall shadow over him. “Young Bakugou,” All Might says, so gentle, so soft, that it nearly claws him in half, “it’s alright if you’re feeling bad, right now. But you must understand, failure is merely a setback. It does not mean you are any less of a hero.”
He can’t look him in the eye, not right now. Can’t admit to his hero that it’s not just the exam, it’s everything .
(Just because he won’t become a villain doesn’t mean he’s becoming a hero.)
A large, bony hand comes to rest over Bakugou’s shoulder. It’s wrapped in bandages, but the fingertips are exposed, and as they touch his bare skin, something slides into place.
All Might looks at his fingers, now stained with soot black, with a bit of surprise. “Huh,” he says, and then laughs a little. “I suppose I really should have expected this.”
Bakugou’s heart, meanwhile, has jumped into his throat. He barely manages to choke out, “How can you…”
( How can you love me after everything I’ve done? How can you love me when I push everyone away? How can you love me when I’m nothing compared to you? )
“How are you okay with this?”
All Might frowns. “Why wouldn’t I be okay with this?”
“Because,” he says, and this time he cannot hold back the sob that accompanies it, “it’s my fault . If I hadn’t been so damn weak—” (if he’d let them in sooner, if he hadn’t rejected them in the first place) “—then you wouldn’t have had to fight. At Kamino. And you’d still have your Quirk.”
There’s quiet for a moment, and then All Might’s hand is back on his shoulder. It hums against his skin, making the mark not just a splash of color but a reminder that he is here . His grip on his other marks loosens, just a bit.
“Bakugou, I need you to listen to me. What happened in Kamino was not your fault. I was always going to lose my power. You couldn’t do anything to change that. You are strong.”
Slowly, All Might uses his other hand to cup the back of Bakugou’s head and pull him in. Bakugou lets him, resting his forehead against All Might’s chest, hiding the tears streaming down his face. And for a moment, the air stills. The heat in his bones cools. The knowledge of what he’s done, of his own weakness, isn’t so heavy.
(Midoriya smiled when he handed Bakugou the All Might toy. Their hands brushed against each other. Soft, just a feather’s touch, but when they pulled away, the marks they’d left on each other shined. Bakugou looked at the dark green painted across his knuckles, and he smiled, and the world was, if only for that moment, right.)
Then someone else sniffles, and just like that, everything comes rushing back. Two short arms wrap around both All Might and Bakugou, and Deku says, “Kacchan, I didn’t realize you felt that way. You should’ve—”
(The empty space on his knuckles pulls and pulls and pulls, but this time when he pushes back, it’s not anger that fuels him.)
Bakugou shoves both of them off. Not hard, but enough that they know he’s done. He wipes at his face and avoids their gaze. “We should go back.”
“Aizawa knows both of you were breaking curfew,” All Might says, taking the sudden shift in stride, “but as long as that was the only rule broken, there’s no reason he should give you any punishment other than a warning.”
“Yeah,” Deku says, sounding surprised. “That actually was the only rule we broke.”
Bakugou walks away before the guilt can swallow him whole.
When he walks into his room, he’s not expecting to be met with four exhausted looking teenagers lounging around. As he stands there, hand hovering over the light switch, Ashido seems to register him and jumps up.
“Bakugou! We’ve been waiting for you. Look, we know today was probably pretty shitty for you, so we got Sero’s laptop and some snacks from the drug store and—”
(Empty space. Deku flinching. The sweet smell of nitroglycerin mixed with the acrid scent of burnt skin.)
“Get out,” he says. It should be a snarl, but it’s just fucking tired.
“What?” The rest of them are awake and aware now too, all of them looking confused.
“I said.” He grits his teeth against the reemerged burning in his eyes. “Get. Out.”
Hurt flickers across Ashido’s face. She opens her mouth, but Kirishima beats her to it.
“Ashido,” he says to her, but his eyes are on Bakugou and there’s something like understanding there that makes his stomach feel even more like a dead weight. “Why don’t you guys go hang out in Sero’s room or something? I’ve got this.”
She hesitates, but then nods in agreement, even if her face says she’d rather not. Without another word, she pushes past Bakugou and out of the room, pulling a groggy Sero and Kaminari with her.
“What happened with Midoriya, man? You look...not good. Wait, is that another—”
“Nothing,” he snaps, grabbing his jacket off the bed and pulling it on so the golden fingerprints are covered. (And, part of him thinks, so those crimson knuckles are covered too.)
Kirishima frowns. “I don’t think it was nothing, dude.”
He shouldn’t tell him. There’s no way that mark will stay on him if he does. But if he doesn’t, he’s afraid this feeling might eat him alive. So Bakugou sits on his bed, back against the wall, knees brought to his chest, and says, “Deku and I used to be soulmates.”
“But you’re...not anymore?” Kirishima asks as he settles on the bed next to him.
“But we’re not anymore. And it’s my fault.” And then Bakugou confesses everything. Every insult, every explosion, every bad thing he’s done. And other things, too. Amari. How frustrated and confused he felt during the sports festival. His fear when Toga came at him. Everything with All Might and him.
When it’s all out, Kirishima is quiet. He hasn’t said a word since Bakugou started, really, but now he’s not even looking at him, and Bakugou knows if he looks at his bicep right now—
“That’s...that’s not good, Bakugou,” Kirishima says, breaking his train of thought. “The stuff you did to Midoriya. That’s—that’s really not manly.”
He exhales and lets his head thud back against the wall. “I know.”
“But you know that’s not—you’re not—” Bakugou looks over at him. He’s frowning, but his eyes are wide with that signature earnestness of his. Gently, he pulls at the jacket. “Can you take this off, please?”
Reluctantly, he lets Kirishima pull the sleeve down, and he’s expecting bare skin but—but it’s still there. An outline of crimson red knuckles, imprinted into him. He stares as Kirishima presses their marks together, and the warmth of the comfort it provides is an anchor, but it makes that heat boil inside of him just a bit more.
“You’re not a villain. Like, yeah, you fucked up, man. But that doesn’t mean you can’t be better. Though, you know, you should probably start by apologizing to Midoriya.”
Bakugou looks forward, staring at the golden All Might keychain hanging off his desk lamp. “There’s something I gotta do first.”
“Class doesn’t start for another hour, Bakugou.” Aizawa leans forward in his chair. “Is there something you need?”
He drops his backpack on the floor and sits down, arms crossed. “Yeah.”
“I can’t do anything about the provisional license exam. You’ll just have to attend the remedial classes.”
“It’s not about that.”
A brow raises. “Oh?”
“I wanna talk about me and Deku’s history, or whatever the fuck you called it.” He shifts in his seat, his eyes fixed on the office tile.
“What about your history ?”
Bakugou takes a deep breath, meets Aizawa’s narrowed eyes, and for the second time in less than twenty-four hours, spills everything.
Four days suspension with house arrest and cleaning duty, as well as mandatory school-sponsored therapy with Hound Dog. He won’t lie; he was tempted to protest the latter, but the look on Aizawa’s face shut him right up. Considering he kinda thought he’d get expelled, this is probably the best he could’ve hoped for.
Kirishima knocks on his door an hour or so after class gets out.
“Hey, man,” he says from the doorway, scratching the back of his neck. “I, uh, heard about the suspension. Nobody else knows why it happened, by the way. They all think you like, attacked Midoriya or something last night. Anyways, we’re not allowed to tell you what we went over in class, but I just wanted to say, y’know...I’m proud of you.”
Bakugou’s not going to cry over that. He’s not Deku. But he does let Kirishima hug him, just for a bit.
After dinner, Bakugou drags three of the six trash bags Class 1A has managed to fill today to the dumpster behind the dorms. He’s pretty sure something is actively shifting in the third bag, and he’s debating whether or not he should set off a few explosions in the bin after he throws it in when there are familiar footsteps slapping against the concrete behind him.
“Kacchan!” Deku calls, and Bakugou turns to see him jogging with the other three trash bags in his arms. “Hey! I—I, uh, grabbed the other bags for you. So you wouldn’t have to make a second trip.”
Bakugou lifts the lid and throws his own bags into the bin before saying a dry, “Thanks.”
“I, um, I also wanted to—” he shifts from foot to foot, chewing his lip “—I just wanted to say I didn’t tell Aizawa-sensei anything. I mean, he said you told him, so I guess maybe you knew that already? But I wasn’t sure, and, you know—”
“You should’ve.” It’s low, but punctuated with the thud of the lid falling back into place. Deku just looks confused. “You should’ve told him.”
Deku rears back for a moment, blinking, but then he stills. Takes a deep breath. “Well, it’s not like anyone’s believed me before.”
(Their fourth grade teacher once asked Bakugou if he’d burnt Deku on purpose. He could see it in her eyes—she knew the truth. But there was a mischievous curve to her smile, one that said just tell me no . So he did, and Deku got detention for lying.)
“I know ,” Bakugou growls, scrubbing one hand down his face. He should—he should apologize, but...not now. Not here. Not when he doesn’t know what to say, just yet. So instead, he walks away.
“It’s okay if you’re upset,” Ashido says later that night, sprawled across his bed, “but you shouldn’t shut us out, Bakugou. You don’t make good decisions when you do.”
Bakugou huffs. “You forgot to change the negative to a positive here.”
“Oh shit, really?” She scrambles over the edge of the bed and takes the worksheet and pen from him, eyes scanning the problem in question. “Dang it, why do I always do that?” Dropping the paper, she boops him on the nose with the pen. “Thanks for the help, but I meant what I said! Don’t try to keep us away. We can help you, too.”
“I know.”
“Good.” She grins and boops him on the nose again, even though he raises his hands threateningly. As she walks out of his room, Ashido waves over her shoulder and says, “G’night, Bakubro. Don’t let the bedbugs bite!”
Bakugou stares after her for a moment before grumbling to himself, “She took my goddamn pen.”
On the third day of house arrest, Bakugou finds himself in the kitchen, scrubbing the sink, while Kaminari drapes himself over the counter and whines.
“It’s just so hard, you know?”
“No,” he says as he works at the stain that’s been next to the faucet for weeks.
“Come on, man, you know I’m not allowed to tell you what I’m talking about,” Kaminari says. “You just have to guess. Anyways, Kirishima’s already gotten started on it, and so has Midoriya and Tsuyu and Uraraka, and it’s like, overachievers, much?”
Bakugou grunts. Despite his best attempts, the ring of something red will not budge.
“Which, speaking of Midoriya, what did you do to him that got you suspended? He doesn’t look hurt, though I guess he could’ve gone to Recovery Girl. But I thought she said she was kinda done healing him—”
“None of your fucking business.” He throws the sponge into the sink, sending little spots of soap flying through the air. The stain looks like he didn’t even touch it.
“Whoa, dude, calm down,” Kaminari says with a laugh, but he can hear the thinly veiled hurt underneath. “I was just wondering.”
After one carefully counted breath (thanks, Hound Dog), he turns towards the counter. “Whatever the hell it is you all are working on, I’m sure you’ll find a way to do it. Probably.”
The other boy stares at him for a good few seconds before, Bakugou swears, honest-to-god tears start coming out of his eyes. “Bakubro, that’s—that’s the sweetest thing you’ve ever said to me.”
“Shut the hell up, fuckin’ loser.”
“Too late, you basically already said—oh, hey, Midoriya.”
Without Bakugou noticing, Deku had entered the kitchen. He waves a little at Kaminari, but doesn’t say anything as he grabs something out of one of the cabinets and dashes out of the room. As he goes, Bakugou gets a glimpse of the look on his face. It’s...lost. And conflicted.
They sit in quiet for a moment before Kaminari goes, “I wonder what was up with him.”
Bakugou keeps his eyes on the spot where Deku disappeared, frowning.
He finds Deku on the roof. Not near the edge, or Bakugou probably would’ve lost it, but on top of one of the vents, snacking on what looks like chips and furiously wiping at his face.
“The fuck happened to you?”
Deku nearly falls off the vent. “Ka-Kacchan! What are you doing up here?”
“You don’t own the damn roof,” he says as he pulls himself up onto the vent and sits cross-legged.
“I guess not,” Deku says under his breath, then straightens up again. “I just—Sir—I don’t know. I can’t really tell you, because of the whole...suspension thing.”
Bakugou nods, trying not to let his frustration bubble up at that. It’s his own fault that he’s falling behind, not anyone else’s.
“Why did you tell Aizawa-sensei anyways?” Those big green eyes are focused on him, now. “I don’t get it. One minute, you’re shoving me into walls, and the next you’re admitting you bullied me for most of our childhoods. What does that even mean?”
He looks out at the horizon. Studies the setting sun, the way it stains the sky orange and pink. Rubs at the empty space on his knuckles. And then: “I’m sorry.”
Deku splutters. “What?”
“I’m fucking sorry, alright? For everything I did. The bullying and—and hurting you.” The words come faster and faster. “I don’t—I can’t explain why I did it, I just—you kept following me, everywhere, and I needed to prove—I don’t know. It doesn’t matter. It was wrong, and I’m sorry .”
“Oh.” It’s a quiet, soft exhale. When Bakugou manages to look back at him, Deku’s staring, his eyes wide and shiny. “Kacchan, it’s—it’s—”
“It’s not,” he interrupts. “Don’t say that. And I don’t want your fucking forgiveness, either.”
The look of utter confusion on Deku’s face would’ve been funny in any other conversation. “What? Isn’t that why you’re supposed to apologize?”
“No. Well, fuck, maybe. But I don’t want yours right now, alright? Because you’re just gonna say it’s okay or whatever, even though it’s fucking not, and you’re gonna try to forgive me because you think it’s what a hero would do. And I’m telling you, I don’t want it. Not until you’re actually ready to give it. Not until I’ve actually earned it.”
Deku doesn’t say anything as Bakugou slides off the vent and starts walking towards the roof entrance. But, as he nears the door, he hears it: “Do you still feel it? The mark?”
His fingers twitch. He doesn’t look back. “Yeah. Yeah, I do.”
The suspension goes by quicker than he thought it would, but he’s still miles behind the rest of his class. While he was gone, everyone had gotten started on finding work studies. Turns out while he was scrubbing the bathrooms, Kirishima had already landed a position with Fatgum.
He pushes down the ugly, twisting feeling in his gut and just congratulates his soulmate.
(“It must be hard to watch everyone else improve,” Hound Dog says during one of their sessions. “But remember, other people’s progress has no bearing on your worth.”)
At the very least, he’s not completely alone in this. Icy-Hot, for one, doesn’t have his license either. And Sero, Kaminari, and Ashido haven’t managed to find work studies, so it’s not like they can shit on him for not having one.
(“I don’t believe they would look down on you because of your struggles. They’re your soulmates, Bakugou,” Hound Dog says, head tilted, notepad in hand. Bakugou just huffs.)
None of this is easy, but, hey. Bakugou’s never been one to back down from a challenge.
No one really knows what’s been going on with the work study students. It’s clearly something that’s affecting all of them because they’ve been talking a lot, huddled in quiet corners and shutting right up anytime someone comes close, but none of them will spill. Not even Kirishima. (Kaminari tried. It somehow ended with him falling down the stairs.)
The second all of them are pulled out of class, everyone knows shit is going down. They manage to get through the rest of the day relatively focused, but as soon as their last class is done everyone gathers in the dorm common room, stalking various news feeds and waiting for any shred of information about what’s going on.
The waiting nearly drives Bakugou insane.
Around three hours in, Yaoyorozu lets out a yelp. As everyone turns to her, she starts reading from her phone, “‘This just in: massive amounts of police officers, accompanied by at least a dozen pro heroes, were spotted making a move on a compound believed to be associated with the Shie Hassaikai. Among them were the BMI Hero: Fatgum and All Might’s elusive former sidekick Sir Nighteye.’ This has to be them, right?”
“I think I overheard Midoriya mentioning the yakuza were involved,” Jirou says, spinning one of her jacks around her finger.
“Were you spying on our classmates?” Iida asks, offended.
“No! I just...maybe, accidentally, poked one of my jacks into the wall near where they were all talking.”
“That is completely in—”
“They’re gonna be okay, right?” Sero interrupts, brows creased. He turns to Bakugou. “Right?”
Ashido jumps in before Bakugou can even think. “Of course! Kirishima’s tough as a rock, and so are the rest of ‘em. We just gotta believe in them!”
As everyone murmurs in agreement, Bakugou bites the inside of his cheek and keeps an eye on his bicep. Just in case.
It takes until eleven o’clock at night to get any updates. Present Mic had dropped by an hour earlier to try and get them all to go to sleep, since Aizawa wasn’t here to do it himself, but he seemed just as nervous as them, so everyone got away with staying up past curfew. Still, when Uraraka and Tsuyu walk through the door, most of them are half asleep or close to it.
Bakugou, on the other hand, is wide awake.
“Where’s Kirishima?” he asks before anyone has a chance to speak.
“Still at the hospital,” Uraraka says, stifling a yawn. At the panicked look rapidly spreading across the class’s faces, she tacks on, “He’s okay, though! He took some damage during the fight and he needs a couple more hours with Recovery Girl before they let him go.”
“What about Midoriya?” Iida asks, face tight with concern, and Bakugou listens for this answer too.
“He’s fine, too. But…” she trails off, and for the first time he registers the red tinge around her eyes, the way she’s shaking even as she tries to hold herself up.
“We can’t talk about everything yet,” Tsuyu jumps in, touching a hand to Uraraka’s shoulder.
Bakugou doesn’t care about everything else, as long as Kirishima is okay. (As long as Deku is, too.) He closes his eyes, releasing a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. Part of him wants to march out of here and right into the hospital, just to make sure. But somehow he doesn’t imagine Aizawa being too happy about that, and he’s on thin enough ice as it is.
“Should we go to bed, then?” Kaminari suggests, but even he doesn’t sound satisfied with that idea.
Ashido sits up, smiling. “I’ve got a better idea.”
At exactly 2:27 in the morning, Bakugou looks up from his phone as Kirishima opens his bedroom door and pauses. Everyone else is fast asleep: Sero in a tape hammock in the corner, Kaminari curled around a pillow on the floor, and Ashido on the bed, her face pressed into Bakugou’s side and her knee awkwardly bent to touch his. (He’d not-so-briefly considered shoving her off the bed the fourth time her horns had nearly stabbed him, but then she’d snored and he’d just rolled his eyes.)
“Wha-?” Kirishima says, voice groggy, hands rubbing over his eyes. He’s still got bandages around his forehead and down his arms, but he doesn’t look too badly hurt otherwise.
“Get in here,” Bakugou says, keeping his voice quiet. He scoots into the corner of the bed, pulling Ashido as gently as possible with him. “Don’t turn on the light. You’ll wake up the idiots.”
“They’re not—not idiots,” Kirishima says through a yawn as he shuffles in, closing the door behind him. There’s a dull thud and a quiet curse from Kirishima, but Bakugou knows he makes it when the bed shifts and creaks.
“You good?”
“Yeah, I think so.” A hand touches Bakugou’s chest, patting its way towards his arm. For a moment, Kirishima presses his knuckles into their shared mark, and Bakugou takes his first easy breath since that morning. Then it falls, as Kirishima lays down and starts pulling the blankets over himself. “Did what you said. Stood up. Tried to be strong.”
“You already were, moron,” he says, but he’s only met with a snore. Rolling his eyes yet again, Bakugou slips his phone in his pocket, adjusts until he’s lying on his side, and tries to keep two muscular hero students from crushing him into the wall.
“Kacchan? Can we talk?”
Bakugou looks over. Deku stands on the other side of the kitchen counter, his hands wringing each other so tightly Bakugou would be surprised if he didn’t manage to pop a finger off. “We’re already talking.”
“I know that, just—it can’t be here.”
He shrugs, abandoning his protein shake. Kaminari will probably come snatch it anyways. “Fine.”
They go up to the roof again. (He’s really not sure how to feel about this being their conversation spot, if he’s being honest.) Immediately, Deku begins pacing, muttering indecipherably to himself.
“If you want to talk to me, nerd, you have to actually fucking talk.”
“What? Oh, yeah, sorry,” Deku says, coming to a stop. “Kacchan, I need your help.”
He cocks an eyebrow. “With what?”
“My Quirk, or All Might’s Quirk, One for All.” His jaw is set. There’s a familiar fire in those wide green eyes. “I need to master it. So...so no one else dies.”
Bakugou exhales. He’d heard about Sir Nighteye, in the aftermath, but this is the first time he’s hearing Deku mention it. “What do you need from me?”
“You’re the only other person who knows about it, and All Might is great but…”
“But you can’t beat the shit out of him to figure out how your Quirk works.”
“Not how I would’ve put it, but yeah, pretty much,” Deku says, scratching the back of his neck. “Look, Kacchan...you were right. I’m not ready to forgive you yet. I don’t—I don’t know if I ever will be. But I think I trust you enough for this.” He reaches a hand out, corner of his mouth quirked up in a hopeful smile. “Will you help me?”
Bakugou slaps his hand into Deku’s. “Sure. Why the fuck not.”
(He tries not to be disappointed when his hand comes away bare.)
Remedial training is a pain in the fucking ass. Literally. Bakugou’s pretty sure he has a bruise on his butt from where one of those Gang Orca fuckers knocked him into a rock.
When it’s over, Bakugou changes in the locker room next to Icy-Hot—Todoroki. Deku keeps chiding him whenever he uses his nicknames for the bastard, even though he could’ve come up with much worse.
They usually go through this process in silence, too exhausted to even try making jabs at one another. But today, Bakugou catches a glimpse of something—a ring of brilliant blue around his upper arm. It’s gone in a second, covered up by his t-shirt, but he knows what he saw.
“What the fuck was that?”
Todoroki folds his hero costume carefully. “What was what.”
“The mark on your arm,” he says, too sharp. “Unless you got a fucking tat, that was a soulmark.”
“It’s none of your business.” Todoroki’s voice is as even as always, but the slight downward tilt to his mouth gives him away.
“What, is it from a villain or something?”
Ice crawls across the lockers as Todoroki slams his shut and turns his gaze to Bakugou. There’s only a small flicker of anger there, but it’s more emotion than usual for him. “Why don’t we talk about what you did to Midoriya instead.”
An obvious deflection, but it works. Bakugou shifts. “He told you?”
“It’s hard to hide those kinds of scars.” Todoroki tilts his head, red hairs falling away from his own burnt skin.
“I’m not like that anymore,” he says, crossing his arms over his chest.
“I’ve heard that before,” Todoroki snaps back.
There’s only one person Bakugou knows that would say something like that to him. “I am nothing like that shit bag—”
“That shit bag who wouldn’t stop at anything to become number one and didn’t care who got hurt in the process? Sounds familiar.” His eyes narrow, and ice cracks and splinters along his cheekbone. Then, he takes a deep breath, and the ice melts away. “I am letting this go because Midoriya asked me to. And…”
“And?” Bakugou exhales, trying to keep his palms from popping.
“And you and Midoriya were soulmates, once. He was never soulmates with any of us. But let me make this clear,” Todoroki steps closer, eyes flashing, “if you ever hurt him like that again, I will not hesitate to end you.”
A month or two ago, Bakugou would’ve fought him. He wouldn’t have thought twice before blasting that Strawberry Shortcake motherfucker through a wall.
Now, he just nods and keeps his jaw clenched shut as Todoroki leaves.
“Young Bakugou!” All Might calls after him as he leaves. Deku’s already gone, rushed off for a study session or something, but the retired hero had stuck around.
He briefly considers continuing on like he hadn’t heard him, but turns around instead. “Yeah?”
All Might comes to a stop a few feet away, one boney hand rubbing at the juncture between his neck and shoulder. A common gesture for him, Bakugou’s noticed. “I wanted to check in with you. We haven’t spoken much outside of Midoriya’s trainings since...well.”
“’m fine,” he says with a shrug.
“Are you sure? How is therapy going?”
“Why do you want to know?” he snaps, and then winces internally. Old habits die hard.
The older man frowns. “Young Bakugou, Midoriya may be my successor, but that does not mean I do not care for you and the rest of your classmates a great deal. If you don’t want to talk, that’s alright, but don’t think I’m doing this for mere pleasantries.” He reaches his hand out, lets his fingers rest on Bakugou’s shoulder, exposed by his tank top. It feels like rays of sunshine hitting Bakugou’s skin. “I thought this was proof enough of that.”
(His mark is still here. Even after he found out about how weak Bakugou is, even after he’s had plenty of chances to see what kind of person Bakugou is, or was . He’s still here.)
Bakugou exhales, a bit of the tension draining from his frame. “Sorry. Therapy’s...fine, I guess.”
“I can see you improving more and more each day,” All Might says, beaming. He breaks the contact in favor of wrapping his long arm around Bakugou’s shoulders instead, beginning to guide him. “Now, tell me more about your plans for the cultural festival…”
When Aizawa says that Bakugou and Deku are paired together for the day’s training exercise, he almost laughs. And then he realizes it’s not a joke.
Deku takes it in stride, immediately running over and beginning to mutter, but over his shoulder Bakugou meets the intense, narrowed gaze of his homeroom teacher. The message is clear: try again .
He turns to Deku, shoulders squared, and interrupts the buzz of his incomprehensible muttering. “What’re you thinking?”
Deku grins, nearly bouncing on his toes as he points at the ground. “There’s a tunnel system below these buildings. If we go beneath, we can…”
It’s not easy, not exactly. Bakugou still snaps and growls and dismisses stupid ideas, but now Deku pushes back just as much, and together, they manage to come up with a decent plan to take down that tail guy and Tokoyami. He hadn’t realized just how in sync their extra training together had made the two of them until they’re actually fighting together, moving in tandem.
Bakugou lets loose a big explosion, and Deku uses it as a cover to land a kick to Ojirou’s stomach.
Deku leads Tokoyami around a corner, and Bakugou catches Dark Shadow by surprise.
Ojirou manages to trap Bakugou in a hallway, and Deku comes blasting through the wall.
There’s ten minutes left on the clock when Ojirou manages to retreat. Bakugou starts to go after him, but then Dark Shadow smacks him through a window (already smashed, thankfully, or Bakugou would’ve been going straight to Recovery Girl) and he loses sight of both of them.
He tries to sit up, only to groan and fall back, his head thudding against the concrete floor. That stupid bird got him right in the chest and knocked the fucking wind out of him. He’s about two seconds away from blasting himself back onto his feet when a shadow moves over him.
“Are you okay?” Deku asks, squinting down at him.
“I’m fucking fine,” Bakugou growls. It’d have had a lot more bite if he hadn’t been wheezing so much.
“Here,” Deku says, offering his hand.
He stares at it, for a moment—
(A tiny hand, bare of any color, stretched out to him. Wide green eyes, looking worried, even though they weren’t soulmates, not anymore.)
—before reaching back, letting Deku pull him up off the ground.
“Come on,” Deku says, not pausing for even a beat as he starts to climb over the windowsill. “They’re getting away!”
Bakugou hangs back, though. He looks at his hand, and even though it’s gloved, he can still feel the empty space there. The way it still pulls, even if it’s a little more gentle now.
Things aren’t fixed. They might not ever completely be, he knows. He might not ever be able to rebuild what he tried to carve out of himself for so long. But, as Bakugou jumps through the window and starts to follow after Deku, he thinks maybe he’s starting to accept that.
All he can do is work as hard as he can, and keep reaching.