Chapter Text
They weren't told anything when UA went into lockdown.
The alarms blared overhead. The cafeteria immediately became a crush-risk as everyone leapt out of their seats and rushed to the exits. Kirishima tried to stay afloat in the crowd but ended up needing to harden to be able to stand. He held Bakugou's wrist tight, knowing he was a flight risk during tense situations.
Pro-heroes flooded in through every entrance, flew in, shattering windows, crawled out of vents, somehow emerged from under tables.
Bakugou laughed, a quiet unfamiliar giggle.
The pros formed a perimeter, blocking anyone from leaving the room through any route. Then, they ran towards Bakugou. They were targeted missiles with one target.
In a second, Bakugou was on the floor. Quirk-cancelling handcuffs were roughly forced onto him. A muzzle, which he bit and struggled against, was strapped tight on his face. A knife was pulled from his pocket. And another from his sock.
Kirishima's ears rung.
They weren't told anything as they dragged Bakugou out.
Needless to say, Kirishima hadn't slept or eaten in days. Classes were cancelled and they were instructed to remain in the dorm buildings, so, there wasn't anything to distract him from the fact that he hadn't received a reply to any of his thousands of messages. He didn't know anything. Nausea wiggled through his gut, his throat, and played with his heart on the way up. His head filled with a growing list of questions, each of which he texted to Bakugou, and, to each text there was no reply.
There was a brief stint when they were instructed to remain only in their rooms, again, no one was told why. Kirishima had heard fumbling, something falling to the floor with a thud followed by a few muffled sobs from the room next door, Bakugou's room. He heard a soft mumbling that sounded like Aizawa sensei, but without any of his usual gruffness.
On the third day, they resumed classes. Aizawa did not take their home group. Instead, they combined with Class 1B for a joint home group. Everyone was gossiping about what Bakugou could've possibly done, what could've happened to him. The topic hadn't been dropped since they’d been forced back to the dorms on the first day. But Kirishima didn't tolerate it. When Kaminari began spouting baseless chatter at lunch, he flicked his fork at the blonde. He truly didn't believe it. He was sure Bakugou couldn't have done anything, Kirishima spent almost every waking hour with him and heard him snore softly next door every night. So, he moved to sit with Midoriya, who also refused to entertain the whims of their classmates.
After the final bell, they were instructed to gather in the dorm common area and stay put. They were told not to stop by any other classroom, go to their rooms, or even the bathroom. Kirishima's nerves were fried.
Aizawa stood in front of the commonroom TV, not entertaining any of the millions of questions he was bombarded with while he waited for his class to sit.
"I need you all to listen quietly and patiently," Aizawa spoke again in a soft voice that they had only heard him use with Eri, further aggravating Kirishima's anxieties. "This is going to be hard to hear." He took a pause, gathered himself with a deep breath. "Im sure you all witnessed or heard of the arrest of Bakugou Katsuki the other day. Well, that was not Bakugou. UA has been infiltrated for a year by Himiko Toga."
No one was quiet or patient. The class immediately divulged into shouts and screams, Midoriya broke out into loud broken sobs. Kirishima was going green in the face.
Instead of stopping them, Aizawa waited. He knew how awful this must be to hear, it was terrible for him and he wasn't Bakugou's closest friends and classmates.
Once the shouting simmered down to softer sobbing and confused gaping, Aizawa continued.
"Toga has been taking the form of Bakugou using his blood, which we found large stores of in his dorm. We haven't been able to interrogate her properly yet, but we assume this infiltration was intended to obtain information and instil distrust in UA."
Kirishima did throw up, then, over the side of the couch.
Everyone knew Bakugou had been different after his kidnapping. Before it, he had been making slow progress on his anger and didn't feel the need for friends, but after, he was strange. He spent more time with his friends, he gossiped with them, he seemed happier. But... he also got into more fights, 'accidentally' hurt his classmates to the point of drawing blood in training exercises, fell behind in his development as a hero, and was fiercely protective of his room. Not even Kirishima was allowed in, despite the two dating since I-Island. It had all been attributed to the obviously traumatic event that was the training camp and spending 3 days trapped with the League. Now, though...
"Where is he?!" Everyone jumped. Midoriya yelled through gasping sobs. "Did you find him?!"
Aizawa rubbed his neck and looked away. I should have started with that. Now they think he's dead. He placed his hand on Midoriya's shoulder. "We found him, don't worry. We have him and he's safe now."
Midoriya didn't lose the tension in his spine. "Where? Where, please, I need to see him." He begged.
"You can't see him now. We found him in a cellar underneath a shutdown Nomu production facility in Nagoya. His injuries were severe but he's made a very good recovery physically so far, he's out of the hospital and staying with me. Eri is staying with Mirio for the meantime. We can't let him leave to see you, or go home, as it would risk his and your safety, but his parents are visiting tomorrow. Depending on how he reacts, I may let a few of you see him afterwards. But it might take a while for him to be ready to see you." He left out the part where his parents had already visited him at the hospital and Bakugou had panicked so badly that he had had to be sedated. "For now, he needs everyone to be quiet at night. He needs a lot of rest and doesn't sleep well with the noise."
Everyone nodded at that. They wouldn't sleep in their own rooms tonight anyway, curling up on the couch together after a long, long, bath.
"But, I also need you to not discuss this with anyone outside of Class A or B, myself or Hounddog, whom you are encouraged to reach out to. Your parents have not and will not be told anything for the foreseeable future. We are keeping his state and the event secret from the press for as long as we can, for his sake."
It had been an hour after Aizawa left before anyone but Midoriya -- who had been steadily mumbling and blubbering while an endless stream of tears puddled on the floor beneath him -- spoke. Kirishima's vomit had been cleaned up by Sero, who sat beside him now while Ashido and Kaminari clung to him. Kirishima himself hadn't moved from where he had slumped over.
"What do we-" Kaminari's voice cracked "-Even do now?"
"We could get him something?" Yaoyorozu said.
"Yeah, sorry we didn't save you, and hung out with a villain wearing your skin for a year. Here's a gift basket!" Uraraka grumbled. She wasn't really angry at Momo, no one was, they were more pissed off at the situation as a whole. A gift felt pitifully inappropriate compared to the horrific scene that had been laid out before them. Like a bandaid on a gaping wound, a get-better-soon-card for a terminal patient. Uraraka had gotten along well with Bakugou after he had been rescued, gossiping and working out together. It sent shivers down her spine to think that ‘he’ was actually the same person who had stabbed her at camp.
Sato eventually came out with fried rice for everyone. He had been in the kitchen for a while, there was cake in the oven and muffins cooling in the fridge. Usually, baking would dissolve his worries, but he was still shaking.
They ate on the couch, not being physically able to get to the tables. Kirishima's legs were like twigs that would snap if he put any weight on them. He felt weak.
"Do you think they'd let us in the interrogation room?" Shinsou broke the silence. "Behind the one-way glass, maybe?"
"Why?" Mina questioned.
"I don't know," Shinsou said, quickly. "Like, I know she's definitely going to Tartarus forever, but it doesn't feel like enough, I want to make sure she gets what she deserves. Not that I'd do anything but-"
"Nah man, we get it." Sero said. "There's no way they need the interrogations to charge her, though. It's probably just for more information on the league's plans. For all we know she's already rotting away waiting for her court date. If they need us to testify though..." He trailed off. Picturing her sitting there in the courtroom was hard. Anytime he did, she would have Bakugou's face, or hair, but always her own deranged grin. The one that they had seen at the training camp, that she couldn't quite perfect in Bakugou's body. It stretched his lips wide and thin, pushed his cheeks up until they wrinkled beneath his eyes. And his eyes... the smile never reached his eyes. He couldn't quite remember Bakugou's real smile, perhaps he'd never even seen it, but he was sure it was nothing like Toga's.
Tears finally prickled behind Kirishima's eyes. It still didn't feel real to him, but, talk of court, Tartarus, and interrogations, made it all the more overwhelming. Mina patted his back in a rhythmic pattern. Denki had long since crashed, with his arms still around Kirishima and drooling onto his side.
"We didn't save him." Kirishima said. Not with the tentative caution his classmates spoke with, but with the deep conviction of an exhausted man.
Midoriya's eyes snapped to him. He stomped to face Kirishima where he sat. Midoriya studied his face with an unfamiliar contempt. His eyes darted from his bent nose, -- which 'Bakugou' had given him -- his cracked lips, and deep into his eyes. Searching for something Kirishima wasn't privy to. Then, as quickly as he stood up, he sat back down between Uraraka and Todoroki.
"We didn't save him." Midoriya agreed.