Chapter Text
“Bakugou, can you hear me?”
He ignored the grating sound of the voice in his ear, gritting his teeth against the annoying sound of the static feedback that registered from the tiny, cheap earpiece. As if they couldn’t afford to give pro heroes better equipment, but no, the Hero Public Safety Commission were a bunch of old, washed-up rich guys who sat on their asses and sent other people out to save the world while keeping their wallets tightly locked up. He’d be better off without it. Without them, honestly.
“Bakugou!”
“Damn it, stop yelling! Or are you trying to draw them to your location?” Bakugou hissed, stopping his task long enough to let the anger rush through him. Bunch of idiots he worked with, honestly. If things had just gone according to plan after graduation...not that he had time to think about that right now.
“Well, if you would have answered me the first time I asked –”
“Yes, shit. I can hear you. Now shut the hell up. I need to concentrate.”
He rolled his eyes, but the voice on the other side was silent, which he was grateful for. He asked for backup, sure, but he hadn’t expected them to send him fucking Denki. Icy Hot would have been better than this shit. At least he would have kept his damn mouth shut and let Bakugou do his work.
Normally he wouldn’t have been assigned something like this; it was supposed to be a quick in-and-out scoping mission to gather intel on the wanted gang of villains calling themselves The Red Fury that had been wreaking havoc across the downtown area the past few months. The HPSC had actually contacted his former classmate Jirou – now pro hero Earphone Jack – to partake in the mission, but Bakugou had personally volunteered, despite his volatile nature. He had heard rumors around town about the group of troublemakers, and, well…he just had to be sure about them. See for himself. If he didn’t see it with his own eyes, he wasn’t sure he would be able to trust it.
“Hey.” Kaminari’s voice was soft in Bakugou’s ear, but it was still enough to break his concentration, and he growled under his breath and kicked at the loose pile of bricks in front of him.
“What?”
“Do you think it’s true?”
It felt like a heavy rock had settled in the pit of Bakugou’s stomach, and the taste of acid flooded his mouth. He licked his lips and sighed. “I don’t know.”
There was a second of silence as Bakugou began pressing at the wall again. There was supposed to be a place that opened up a secret door, if his information was correct, but so far, he had not been very lucky. If he didn’t find something soon, though, he would have to leave empty-handed. They had already been here long enough.
“That would explain where he’s been for so long,” Kaminari said. There was a hint of sadness in his voice, something that snagged on Bakugou’s heart and almost made him want to abandon the mission altogether, because Kaminari sounded so sure, and after all these years of losing himself in his own blame and grief, he hadn’t actually paused to think how everyone else was faring with the disappearance.
He wasn’t going to lose himself tonight, though. He couldn’t think about it. He couldn’t keep running through scenarios and trying to piece together what exactly had gone wrong. If he did, he thought it might drive him insane. “Are you watching the street or running your mouth, Sparky? I swear to God if you cause me to get caught –”
“There’s no one coming!” He paused again. Bakugou could hear his shaky intake of breath loud and clear in the earpiece, making him wince. “We’re still sticking with the plan, right? Even if the rumors are true? If he’s…you know.”
Bakugou snorted, pressing on the wall. Aha! Finally! The brick gave way, and a tiny shaft opened from underneath him. It wouldn’t be wide enough for him to go through with all of his gear, he realized. He would have to abandon all of his support items if he was going to get in this building and find out the truth he’d been running away from. “Yeah,” he answered, stripping off his grenadiers. “In and out. Don’t engage. You know I never stray from the plan.”
"You literally always stray from the plan."
"Yeah? Well, tonight, I'm not."
"Even if it's him?"
Bakugou hesitated. His heart picked up speed until it felt like it was sort of galloping behind his ribcage, wild and reckless and afraid. He pushed a lever against the shaft of light, bearing down on it with all of his weight to get it to crack open. "Even if it's him. Which we don't know that it is, so don't start getting teary-eyed and shit. You wait for information before you start thinking the worst."
The low, steady thrum of feedback was all that he registered on the other end. With a sigh, he wiped at his damp, sweaty forehead and hauled himself into the tiny hatch. He slid into a dimly lit, musty hallway that was so low and so narrow he was forced down onto his hands and knees to crawl through the building. The walls squeezed at his shoulders, and dust motes fluttered in the air. He could not see any sign of life anywhere, no doors leading to the great beyond, not even a spider to keep him company. The air was stale and had a strong stench like standing water.
"How long should we wait before we come in?" Kaminari asked.
"Give me fifteen minutes. I just need to find out where they're doing all their planning and who's in charge. If we can get that information, then this mission won't be a total failure."
"Aren't you scared of what you're going to find?" Sero chimed in on the earpiece, and Bakugou rolled his eyes and blew out a breath. He'd forgotten there was another idiot sitting on top of the roof being completely useless.
"What the fuck would I be afraid of, Sero? Please tell me what you think could scare me."
The challenging tone in his voice must have deterred whatever Sero was going to say to him, because all he got was, "Just hurry back, okay? Mina's waiting at the bar for us."
"Whatever."
He was glad that Sero had shut up when he did. They had all been choosing their words carefully, tiptoeing around each other with so much caution they were barely having conversations anymore. He saw the sidelong glances that he received from his friends when they thought he wasn't looking, he felt the pity in their stares, the weight of the questions they wanted to ask but were too afraid to speak aloud. It ate into him every single day, and even now as he crawled down this narrow, stuffy passageway he could feel the oppression of their questions and their concerns and their accusations. He knew they blamed him for the disappearance.
Not anymore. If all the rumors were true, then he was getting his answers tonight. He was going to look the devil in the eye and see what had become of him. And he was not going to feel guilty about it anymore.
"Any movement out there yet?" he asked as he got to the end of the passageway. There was no door, only a hole that had been boarded up and painted over crudely by someone who looked to be in a hurry. He ripped one of the boards loose and tossed it aside.
"There's someone on the top story, it looks like," Sero replied. "I can see movement, but I can't see their face. They're talking to someone else on the other side of the room."
"Still got eyes on the guards downstairs?"
"They're just sitting there talking. But we probably need to hurry this thing along. They keep looking around like they suspect something is up."
Bakugou sighed and kicked through the rotting wood. It cracked and fell away just enough for him to pull himself through to the other side, where he emerged into a wet green room with low lights. A broken skylight opened up onto the room, allowing the trickle of moonlight to dance on the surface of the nearly ankle-deep water below him. Some pipes were busted in the corner of the room, spilling water down the walls like a waterfall. A sour, fishy smell hung heavy in the air, and something blue and scaly lay across the floor underneath the running water. He caught his breath, half-expecting the thing to lunge at him after his violent entrance, but it didn't appear to be alive. There were smears of blood caked onto the wall, and bones stuck up like prison bars from the pile of scaly goo. Whatever lived here had just feasted recently, and judging by the size of the remains, it wasn't something he particularly cared about running into tonight.
"If this is true," he said to himself, kicking up some of the water, "why did you reduce yourself to this? What the fuck did we do to you?"
"What did you say?" Kaminari asked.
"Nothing. There's a gross ass den in here that I think some fish monster is living in."
"Fish monster?"
"That, or he has some pet alligators. Tch."
"Bakugou, you're talking like you know --"
"Shut it."
"What?"
"Shut your damn mouth! There's someone coming."
He rolled his eyes, cursing his rotten luck for being paired with Kaminari for this mission. The idiot couldn't keep quiet for even a few seconds. But now, with nothing but the sound of the static buzzing in his ear, he stood and listened to the water cascading down the wall and a faint sound in the distance like shuffling footsteps. He could not see where there was a door anywhere, but he had a feeling that whoever was outside this room was coming in somehow, which meant he needed to find a way out.
He sloshed through the water, careful to avoid the pile of blue, scaly things which, upon closer examination, he saw was raw fish that had been devoured by something. Kicking aside a fish bone, he grabbed onto the pipes and hauled himself up to a small opening in the wall to crawl through, just as he heard a door crack open in the room. He peered down at the watery graveyard he had left and saw the water draining toward the center of the room, where a trapdoor had been cracked and a large, bovine-looking man emerged. He was thick everywhere, from his neck down to his feet, and one of his eyes was sealed closed with scar tissue. Bakugou immediately recognized him as one of the wanted villains they had been broadcasting on the news every night for weeks. He called himself Orc or some shit like that, which was just the most original name in the world.
"All clear out here," the man grunted, stretching his massive arms over his head and yawning. "But I'll keep looking."
He started back toward the trapdoor, then looked over his shoulder at the opening Bakugou had crawled into. Bakugou did not flinch, did not hold his breath as he pressed himself against the wall as far as he could to stay out of the orc man's line of sight. He was almost certain he was invisible at this level, but the man lingered for maybe thirty seconds or more before he finally decided to go back through the trapdoor.
Complete fucking morons, the whole lot of them. If they were even the tiniest bit smart, they would have checked any opening they had. Bakugou rolled his eyes and leaned against the wall with a sigh. The thought occurred to him that maybe they wanted to catch him, but not just yet. Maybe they knew he was here, and they were playing a cat and mouse game with him.
Well, he was the cat, and it was way past his bedtime, so he was putting an end to this now.
"Where are you?" he murmured to himself as he began to crawl through yet another narrow passageway toward God only knew where. They'd spent weeks trying to map out this building from the outside, but apparently they had not done a very good job considering they didn't account for an alligator room.
Or sharks. Maybe they kept sharks. Something with sharp teeth that could tear through skin in an instant.
He shuddered, despite himself, though it wasn't an entirely unpleasant feeling. There used to be a time when he would melt at the feeling of teeth ripping into his skin, would actually beg for it. But that was before things went to shit. Now, he sat at home alone and wallowed. Wallowed. Like some punk ass teenager scorned by their first love. Like he didn't have better things he could be doing.
The passage ended with a massive fan that looked like it hadn’t been turned on in years, which explained the stale smell in the air. Below him, a vent opened up into a completely unlit room, and though he could not see anything, he could feel someone’s presence somewhere close by. It made his skin prickle and his blood run cold, and for the first time since he’d entered the building, he actually felt a little afraid. It left an acrid taste in his mouth that he couldn’t swallow down.
If it was him…and he had to look in those eyes after two long years of not seeing them…
He wanted to punch the wall, but he clenched his fists instead, biting back the scream that wanted to tear its way from his throat. He had never, ever admitted how badly it stung out loud. He’d moved on, acted like nothing happened, continued fighting his way up the pro hero ranks until he’d snagged the number four position, and he had not allowed himself to stop even for a second because if he did, he was afraid he would fall into some deep despair he would not be able to pull himself out of. He’d been through some shit, he’d been fucking kidnapped his first year of U.A., and yet, this was what had destroyed him the most.
If this was true…he wouldn’t be able to bear it. It would be the tipping point, the confrontation he was simultaneously running away from and running toward, the information he both desperately needed and never wanted to find out. It made him sick.
“Hey, the guards just left their posts on the bottom floor,” Sero whispered, though his voice was loud in Bakugou’s ear. “And whoever was on the top floor left too. I think they know we’re here.”
Bakugou cursed under his breath, staring into the void of darkness beneath him. There was someone there, someone who knew he was here, someone who had probably been waiting for him. He could feel it. He probably needed to exit the building and wait for another opportunity, maybe come back with a more competent team like Ashido and Uraraka. But he couldn’t. Not yet. He wanted to drop down into that room and find out who was waiting on him, who was lurking in the shadows and waiting for their moment to strike.
He heard the sound of something banging on the wall behind him, but before he could turn around, he felt a sharp pain in the back of his head. Stars danced before his eyes for all of two seconds before the world around him faded away.
There was a vague memory itching at the back of Bakugou’s brain. It was fuzzy, the details distorted after a couple of years of working to repress it, but he could see flashes of red, he could see himself smiling, he could feel the joy flooding his chest like the warmth of a fireplace. It had just been a joke, an offhand suggestion that wasn’t meant to go anywhere, but he had agreed, and damn it, if it wasn’t the most romantic fucking weekend of his entire life.
He didn’t like to think of his life in aspects of romance because he wasn’t really into romance, but when Kirishima had suggested they spend winter break hiking through the mountains together and he had actually gotten flustered for some unknown reason, everything in his life kind of flipped upside down. Then, in a week’s time, he found himself curled up in front of a fire in a snug little cabin in the woods making out with Kirishima, which is not exactly how he had planned their trip going, but he definitely had not complained then, and he wasn’t going to complain now.
He could remember the feeling of the fire warming his skin right after they had gotten in from the snow, the way Kirishima had immediately started helping him out of his scarf and winter coat, the way that, for the first time in their friendship, they had actually felt nervous around one another, watching where they touched, watching their words, chuckling awkwardly in moments of silence.
“This is where my moms came for their first anniversary when they were dating,” Kirishima had told him, grinning around the glass of champagne he had poured for himself, like that was the proudest fact he could possibly share. “They come back every once in a while.”
Bakugou wasn’t sure what had happened after that, which direction their conversation had steered them to get them to that point, but he could remember the feel of Kirishima’s lips sliding against his for the first time, clumsy and awkward at first, and mildly startling, something he wanted to run away from and then something that he quickly wanted to chase. They kissed for what felt like ages, with the fire roaring in front of them and snow falling outside, and he remembered he had fucking cried when he was sure that Kirishima was asleep and he wouldn’t get caught because as it turned out, he had had a big fucking massive crush on his best friend for a long time and had refused to confront it, and now he was scared and he wanted to wake Kirishima and yell at him, but instead he just curled closer into his arms and stared into the flames, wondering if he was going to end up burning this down like he had burned down so many things in his life.
The memory played out, the sound of the crackling fire slowly melting into the sound of some cheesy pop song that Bakugou recognized but could not think of the name of, and as he groaned in pain and cracked his eyes open to a dimly lit room and a couple of idiot villains staring him down, he realized that it was fucking Britney Spears, and then his heart sank because he knew that the information he had dreaded collecting was true all along.
“Damn it,” he murmured, wanting to rub at his aching head, but as he tried to move his arm, he realized that his hands were tied behind him, and he was sitting in a chair, unable to move. He grunted, trying to swing his leg out, but that was useless too, and he cursed himself, wondering how he had managed to let himself get dragged into this situation. He was the number four hero, damn it, he should be better than this.
"Look who's finally awake," one of the villains said, a large, shaggy man with a wolfish smile and hairy arms. "Took ya long enough."
There was a buzzing in Bakugou's ear, the sound of the earpiece going dead. He thought he could hear Kaminari's panicked screaming just a little bit, but it was so far away he didn't even bother trying to reply. If he did, he would tell the idiots not to come in, and he knew they wouldn't hear of that. They would bust in here whether he wanted them to or not, and they would find the same foul information that they had been hoping they wouldn't find.
"Where is he?" Bakugou growled, looking the dog man dead in his ugly, yellow eyes with a cool, collected stare. He hoped the villains couldn't tell how hard his heart was pounding, how badly he was panicking on the inside at the thought of seeing him again. He was so close, and yet --
"I really thought you would have come looking for me sooner," the familiar voice rang out from behind him, and the sound of it made his stomach flip over unpleasantly and almost made him lose all of his dinner. He squeezed his eyes shut and clenched his jaw, forcing himself to breathe through his nose so he wouldn't go into a full-fledged panic attack. He had been having a lot of those lately, mostly when he first woke up, sometimes when he watched the news. "I guess our relationship meant a lot more to me than it did to you. Did you not miss me?"
Something about his voice was off. It still sounded familiar, like Kirishima, but there was something else there, something dark, something sinister that made goosebumps rise along Bakugou’s arms and the back of his neck. He didn't move, didn't respond as he listened to the sound of heavy boots coming toward him from across the dark, empty room. Seconds ticked by, marked by the sound of his beating heart as he waited in anticipation and fear, fear that was so strong it nearly choked him, and finally, finally he felt a hand rest on his shoulder, and he recoiled automatically, not wanting to be touched. His breath caught in his throat, and he pushed it out painfully from his nose, forcing himself to sit still, to not look at him, to not see what had become of his best friend.
"Nothing to say?" Kirishima asked innocently, leaning in so that his breath tickled over Bakugou's ear. He draped his arms over Bakugou's shoulders as casually as if they had been dating all this time, as if he hadn't fucking disappeared and hadn't bothered to call. "That's weird. You've never missed an opportunity to insult me."
Bakugou cleared his throat, scrambling a little against the chair. The idiots had just tied him up with regular rope bindings, which would be no problem getting out of. But he sort of had a feeling they did that on purpose.
Kirishima rounded the chair, stopping in front of Bakugou and studying him with brightly lit, delighted eyes that almost looked like the same eyes Bakugou had looked into a thousand times, but there was something else there, something he had never seen before. Darkness. Pain. Regret. Betrayal. It didn’t look right on his face.
The squirmy feeling that crawled through his chest at the sight of Kirishima was unpleasant. He looked bigger now, like he had grown a couple of inches and filled out more in his chest and shoulders. His hair had gotten longer too, falling just below his shoulders. He hadn’t bothered to spike it up like he used to when they were in school, and instead, he wore it in a half-up, half-down sort of style. The roots showed up black where he hadn’t dyed it in a while. Despite looking more muscular, he also looked a little starved, like he might not have had a good meal in a long time. There was a hollowness about him, his cheeks a little sunken, his face gaunt. His skin was darker, tan, his bare shoulders dotted with freckles that Bakugou used to kiss over almost religiously. New scars bloomed over his skin: a few long lines down his neck and a couple of burns on his arms. He wore a dark, sleeveless shirt, tight black jeans, heavy combat boots, and a black and gray flannel shirt tied around his waist. All in all, he looked like a normal guy, not some low-level villain running around the streets wreaking havoc.
All in all, he looked like Kirishima.
And despite all of the anger and the hatred that Bakugou had let build up over two years, all of the conversations he had rehearsed in his mind, all of the things he wanted to yell at him, to tell him off, all of it disappeared in a whoosh, like they had been knocked right out of him.
Bakugou didn’t like to think of people as “attractive” or “sexy” or “handsome” because humans were gross, but oh god, Kirishima was the most fucking beautiful person he’d ever seen in his life, and it made him want to vomit.
“Really? Nothing?” Kirishima asked, raising an eyebrow and smirking. He dragged his tongue over his bottom lip, slowly, deliberately, and Bakugou watched with desire burning hot in his stomach.
Damn it. Damn it all to hell.
He wanted to beat the shit out of him for ruining his life, for ruining both of their lives, but he also wanted to beg him to come home. What the fuck kind of feeling was that?
“Kirishima,” he finally said, forcing himself to look into his eyes, to dig deep into himself and tap into that rage he had been bridling for so long. It was burning now, slowly, but soon it would consume him, make him go out in a blaze of glory. He smiled at him, sweetly, innocently, the sort of smile that Deku always told him made him look like a predator. “You’re looking shitty.”
Kirishima was silent for a moment, his eyes grazing over Bakugou’s body like he was tearing him apart and trying to see all of his inner thoughts. It was like he could read him, could see the turmoil that was unraveling inside his brain. His eyes stopped at his lap, lingered for a second, then snapped up to Bakugou’s face again. “I could say the same for you. So who’s with you? The usual? Midoriya and Todoroki?”
“You think I would bring that little crying bitch with me to see you? He would lose his damn mind. God, I’m never gonna hear the end of it from him as it is.”
“So who? Kaminari?”
Bakugou pressed his lips together in a thin line, glaring at him. The hate was coming back now, stronger than it had ever been before. He didn’t care now what Kirishima had been to him, what he was to him now. He didn’t care how attractive he was or how he looked at him like he was the only person in the world. All he cared about now was that he left, he threw Bakugou to the side and abandoned his entire life without a fucking trace, without even one single fucking hint of where he was or what he was doing, and he joined with villains to…what? What the hell was he trying to accomplish?
“Not talking then?” Kirishima asked, clicking his tongue and shaking his head. “That’s not the Bakugou I knew.”
“Yeah? Guess we’ve both changed then.”
“Aww, outgrown me so soon?” Kirishima poked his lower lip out into a pout, the corner of his mouth curling up into a little smile. “That’s sad. I thought we were soulmates, Katsuki.”
Bakugou rolled his eyes. “Tch. I don’t believe in soulmates.” He tried to ignore the sharp pain in his chest at the word, like pins being driven into his lungs.
“You never believed in much of anything, did you?” Kirishima cocked his head to the side, studying him in the same way a scientist might study a particularly gruesome, yet fascinating, specimen.
Bakugou grunted in response, rolling his eyes again as he pulled against his bindings. It would just take one tiny explosion to get those ropes to fall away, one brief moment. He just needed the right time, the right strategy to get out of this place. The building was a nightmare of crawl spaces and holes in the wall, places that most people wouldn’t be able to fit into. He could see a small exit at the top of a staircase on the other side of the room, but God only knew where that would lead him. Maybe to wherever they were keeping the alligators or the sharks or whatever weird fucking creatures they had decided to keep as pets.
“I believed in being a hero,” he said. “Everyone was so fucking sure that I had a mean streak and could be swayed to be a villain. Never would have fucking thought it of you, would they? Kirishima Eijirou, who never did anything fucking wrong except fail his damn tests because he’s a fucking--”
“Don’t come in here trying to be the moral police,” Kirishima snarled. Something dangerous flashed in his eyes, something vaguely threatening. If they kept this up much longer, Bakugou had a feeling there would be a fight, and damn it, he was ready for it. “You have no idea what I’ve been through.”
“No, because you shut down and didn’t tell me a damn thing, and now look at you!” Bakugou shot a glare at the wolf man standing there staring at him with flat, bored eyes. “How the fuck did you reduce yourself to taking care of Teen Wolf and his Monster High girlfriend?”
Wolf Man growled, and the girl standing next to him – a petite girl with purple skin and hair that looked like coils of snakes – placed a calm, reassuring hand on his arm. Still, if looks could kill, her pink eyes would be daggers making him bleed.
Kirishima merely frowned, all remnants of his former self disappearing in one smooth action. He looked older, but none the wiser. And tired. So, so tired. Sighing, he ran a hand through his hair and asked, “What are you doing here, Bakugou?”
Bakugou shrugged. “On a mission.”
“Yeah, but you don’t do recon. They could have sent Jirou or Shouji or any number of pros to scout out the place. I want to know what you’re doing here.”
Bakugou swallowed hard. It tasted like metal. “I wanted to know if it was true.”
“If what was true?”
A pause. Then, “If you were leading a bunch of dumbass villains in a shitshow revolution against the city.”
Wolf Man growled again. Kirishima held up a hand to silence him, and he obeyed without question.
“And?”
“And I came here to kick your ass and remind you what a fucking moron you are.”
Kirishima stared at him, his expression completely unreadable, which was unnerving because Kirishima used to be an open book. He never lived in fear of anything, was always very up front about who he was, even in times when he was struggling to figure it out himself. Finally, he sighed and crouched down in front of Bakugou so they were at eye level. “Moron isn’t exactly a strong enough word for how you feel about me right now, is it?”
“Not even a little bit.”
Kirishima shrugged, his mouth screwing up like he was thinking about something pretty intensely, then blew out a breath that made his red hair flutter into his eyes. “I know that you hate me. I can feel it. But do you know what else I know?” His eyes glimmered wickedly, and he leaned in, placing his hands on either side of the chair and caging Bakugou in. He smirked, and Bakugou felt like he couldn’t breathe as Kirishima’s nose brushed against his. “I know you haven’t been able to take your eyes off of me ever since you woke up. I know you still have feelings for me, and I know you’re trying to fight yourself on it because you think it’s wrong. But I can see it in your eyes.” He pressed even closer, his lips almost touching Bakugou’s. “You wanna fuck me just as bad as you did when we were dating.”
“Bullshit,” Bakugou hissed, and with one single, tiny pop, he had his hands freed and he was lunging, arms grabbing at Kirishima and pushing him backward onto the floor. Kirishima landed with a heavy thud, almost too easily, and Bakugou was on top of him, chair and all, panting hard and pinning Kirishima’s arms above his head.
His thick, muscular arms that used to wrap around Bakugou's narrow waist at night and keep him warm. God, he was so warm.
“Oh, did I strike a nerve?” Kirishima grinned, his tongue poking out tantalizingly between his lips. Bakugou tried – he tried so damn hard not to look – but he couldn’t stop his gaze falling to his mouth. And Kirishima fucking saw him too. He had him right where he wanted him. “Well, if you came here to fight, then let’s fight.”
Bakugou glared at him, his lips curling up into a snarl as he jerked his legs free from the restraints and kicked the chair to the side. It clattered and rang out through the room, causing the purple girl to shriek and Wolf Man to lose his temper and start howling with rage. Kirishima and Bakugou both ignored them, solely focused on one another.
“I should warn you,” Kirishima said, rolling out of the way as Bakugou reached for him, his hands igniting with explosions. The explosion cracked against Kirishima’s arm, but not in time to do any damage. He hardened quickly, blocking the blow. “I’ve gotten better since the last time we trained together. You don’t stand a chance.”
“Yeah?” Bakugou said, quirking an eyebrow. “We’ll see about that.”
The good thing about Bakugou’s Quirk was that he was fast, especially when he was in a rage. The bad thing was that, even after years of training, his rage blinded him at times, made his reaction times slow and his moves predictable. And right now, he was barely even thinking, could only see red, could only feel the white hot burning in his chest as he kicked out toward Kirishima's knees, trying to knock him off his feet. Kirishima, true to his word, was faster than he had ever been in their training, catching Bakugou’s leg mid-kick and jerking him clean off his feet. He landed on his back hard, the wind whistling out of his lungs as Kirishima descended on him, his red eyes shimmering maliciously. And in one moment of clarity, he was rolling out of his way, back on his feet, throwing an explosion at the railing of the staircase as Britney Spears blared happily in the background. The railing creaked and groaned, and the monster girl shrieked, pulling Wolf Man out of the way just in time before the railing crashed down to the floor below.
The distraction didn't work as he had hoped. Kirishima used to have a sort of short attention span, but he didn't seem to care anymore, focused intently on his opponent now.
"You can't use your old tactics and expect the same results," Kirishima said, shaking his head. "I'm not the same person that I used to be."
"You say that like you've grown up," Bakugou said, "but you just became a little bitch. Seriously, what the fuck happened to you that made you so damn pathetic?"
"Red Riot!" Wolf Man exclaimed, gasping. "You're going to let this little hero talk to you like that?" He growled, stepping forward to join the fight, but Kirishima waved him away.
"Using your hero name too, huh? Fucking trash." Bakugou watched him carefully as they circled one another, paying close attention to his feet movements. He kept shuffling forward like he was going to attack, then thinking better of it. He'd gotten faster, that was for damn sure. He used to move slow, like...well, a rock. "Thought you wanted to be just like Crimson Riot. And what would he think of this shit?"
Kirishima tilted his head to the side, considering him. Bakugou took the moment of silence as an opportunity and lunged, explosions popping in every direction. This time Wolf Man cried out, obviously having been struck, and the floor between them exploded into shards of dust and concrete that flew into the air and rained down on them. Bakugou could hear the coughing coming from somewhere amidst the dust clouds and cleared the large chunk of concrete pointed up toward the sky, using the cover of the dust to land a punch to Kirishima's stomach that felt like he had just punched a damn mountain. His skin cracked and bled, and he was sure that he had broken at least two of his fingers as they sang out in pain, but god it felt good to hit him, even if he didn't feel it.
"I don't think it really matters what Crimson Riot would think," Kirishima said casually, as if he hadn't even been struck at all. Dust settled on his clothes, in his hair, on his skin, leaving him looking halfway decayed like one of Shigaraki's victims.
"Does it matter what I think?" Bakugou asked, his voice sharper than he had intended, more pained. He was panting, his chest aching with each breath he pulled in, and there was blood dripping down his forehead and his cheek, though he had no idea where it had come from.
Kirishima fixed him with a level stare that pinned him to the spot, made him hesitate for just a moment too long, a foolish move that probably would have gotten him killed had he been fighting any other villain. "What do you think?"
Bakugou growled low under his breath. Nitroglycerin sweat dripped heavily on his hands, pooling in his palms. He could barely contain the crackles and pops of explosions erupting across his skin. "I think you're a weak, aimless, pathetic asshole," he said. "You saw things getting a little tough and you took off running like a little bitch instead of fighting for what you wanted, and you shut me out. You made me feel like I was just some stranger you'd never met. You got depressed and you wouldn't ask for help from anyone who wanted to help, so you took to the streets looking for other lonely, depressed losers to try to justify your feelings. And they were even more lonely and depressed than you, so you took advantage of that, and now look at you! Hiding in the shadows, trying to pretend you don't exist, making other people do shit for you instead of working hard for it yourself like you used to. You're a coward, Kirishima. And you're right. You're not the same person I used to know. But I'm not the same either. And I won't regret throwing your ass in jail. You can't make me feel sorry for you. You can't give me some sob story like all the villains try to make me feel sorry for them. Because I don't feel sorry for you. You weren't the one that was hurt. I was. And Kaminari was. And Sero and Mina and Deku and Tamaki and fucking Fat Gum. If you were trying to get back at someone, congratulations. You did it. I hope you feel fucking great about yourself because I'm going to destroy you."
He was crying, he realized. Hot tears pooled in his eyes and stung as they rolled down his cheeks, mingling with blood. His chest hurt so badly he almost couldn't breathe. Each breath he dragged in was like choking on sawdust. And Kirishima just stood there staring at him, eyes wide, like he wasn't exactly how to proceed from here. He opened his mouth to say something, then shut it.
"Just tell me it wasn't me," Bakugou said, his voice shaky and broken with sobs. He couldn't stop himself. He was crumbling. He could feel the panic settling in on him now, the dread that had been creeping up on him and haunting him for nearly two years now, reaching for him with clawed hands and threatening to drag him down into endless darkness. "Tell me that I didn't make you do this."
Kirishima softened for just a moment, looking almost like his former self, confused and concerned and far too sympathetic for his own good. It was the same look Bakugou had seen him give children he rescued from disasters, that sort of sad, lopsided smile that let them know that things sucked and he knew it, but that everything was going to be okay. It made Bakugou bristle with more rage than he could contain. He threw his head back and screamed, screamed until his lungs felt like they were going to burst, and the entire room exploded in flames and endless amounts of concrete and metal that showered them like rain. It hurt, the concrete scraping over his skin, and the dust and smoke nearly gagged him, but he just kept screaming, letting the panic wash over him and the building fall down around him.
His entire world was falling apart. It had been falling apart ever since he woke up that morning two years ago and found the note at the foot of the bed: I'm not cut out to be a hero. I'm sorry. That's it. No explanation, no way of knowing where he went or what he was doing.
"Fuck you!" Bakugou yelled, kicking at concrete as it settled around him, leaping in every direction and hurling explosions, aimless, blind, not caring who or what he destroyed in his wake. "I hope you fucking burn. I don't ever want to see your hideous face ever again."
Something creaked overhead. The ceiling was starting to come down. Pretty soon, the whole building would collapse. He had no idea how many people were in there, and he couldn't find it within himself to care if they made it out. He just wanted to burn it all down, to make Kirishima feel the sort of pain that he had been feeling every damn day since he walked out on him.
But he had to get out. There was no time for confrontation now, no need for him to try to apprehend anyone. He had been bluffing all along, after all, wearing the face of a hero with nothing but justice on his mind, when really he was too fucking weak and ridiculously head over heels in love to do anything about it.
Damn it.
The dust settled. Kirishima stood at the top of the staircase with its rickety, twisted stairs, covered head to toe in thick brown dust and clutching his arm, where a fresh cut oozed blood. He did not look angry. He did not look disappointed. He just looked...hurt.
And even after all the shit he had been doing, all the trouble he had been causing, it made Bakugou’s miniscule heart ache, and he wanted to fight him all the more.
"You were going to destroy me?" Kirishima asked, with just the slightest bit of amusement in his voice. He smiled, but there was no joy behind it.
Bakugou glared up at him. "Don't let me see your fucking face ever again. Because next time I will."
Kirishima raised an eyebrow. "That a promise?"
Bakugou’s lip curled back. He thought about attacking him then, putting an end to this before it could get any worse, but he was frozen to the spot, locked in by those eyes that he had slowly and surely fallen in love with, when he had never even wanted to be in love in the first place.
"You still have shitty hair," he said, and Kirishima actually had the audacity to laugh -- a real laugh, his old laugh, the laugh that Bakugou would never in a thousand years admit how much it warmed him. He flipped him off and, taking one last look at the destruction he had caused, he exited the building through a hole in the wall that he had blown wide open.
When he reached Kaminari and Sero seated on top of a nearby building, they were freaking out, screaming and waving their arms and asking so many questions that he couldn't even hear what they were saying. Nor did he care. He felt the familiar tightness in his chest that usually preceded his panic attacks, and his knees wobbled and gave out. He collapsed to the ground, sucking in a shaky, heaving breath that burned his lungs.
"Dude?" Sero said, his voice rising nearly an octave as Kaminari caught him and helped lower him to a sitting position. "What the hell happened in there? The whole fucking building is coming down."
Bakugou grabbed the water Kaminari was handing him and downed half the bottle, wiping at his lips as short, stuttered breaths continued to tear through his quivering lips. He couldn't bring himself to admit his failure, that he had looked Kirishima in the face and seen what had become of him, and he had not been able to treat him with the same poetic justice as any other villain. He let him get away. And he didn't even feel bad about it.
"Mina's at the bar, right?" he said. "Shouldn't keep her waiting."
Sero and Kaminari exchanged a worried glance. Sirens wailed in the distance. "We should probably stay for clean up, right?" Kaminari asked. "I mean, they're villains, but they're still people. Rescue heroes should be here soon. We'll be going in and apprehending them, I guess. If they're still alive."
"They're alive," Bakugou said, wiping the sweat and blood from his face, and suddenly he was very, very tired. He groaned, stretching his right arm to find that it was stiff and had cuts along the bicep from falling debris. Fucking great. "We'll see them again soon."
Kaminari opened his mouth to speak, then fell back, for once in his life rendered speechless as he picked at fuzz on his jacket.
"Kirishima?" Sero asked, daring to ask the question that none of them had had the nerve to speak out loud.
Bakugou watched as a few figures emerged from the destruction and darted off into the night. Maybe it made him a shitty hero, not going after them, but no one had told him when he signed up for this shit that he would have to be fighting against someone that had, at one time, been literally the center of his universe. He would find the strength one day, but it wasn't today.
"Yeah," he replied, his voice barely above a whisper. "It's him."