Chapter Text
When Shouta returns without Bakugou, Kirishima hurries up to him and asks, eyes wide, “What happened?” He looks around Shouta, asks, “Where is he?” and then moves forward like he’s about to go search for his classmate himself.
Shouta puts a hand on his shoulder, halting him. “Don’t,” he says.
There must be some kind of warning in his voice, because instead of protesting - which is definitely something that Kirishima would’ve done on a normal day - Kirishima goes so still that it's hard to tell if he’s breathing. There are several moments of silence in which Shouta can practically hear the wheels turning in the head, and then he says, “Oh, no, Bakugou -”
“He’ll be okay,” he decides, not sure which of them he’s trying to convince. He casts a glance over his shoulder, scanning his eyes over Ground Beta, then looks back at Kirishima with a sigh. “Just go back to the monitor room. I need to find a way to deal with this.”
“But…” Kirishima starts, and there’s the kid that Shouta remembers. “But what if he’s hurt? He is hurt, actually, and -”
“And what would you be able to do about it?” Shouta asks, not particularly unkindly. “Unless you have a healing Quirk that I don’t know about, there’s nothing that you would be able to do to treat Bakugou’s injuries.”
Kirishima wilts. “Oh,” he says, disappointed. “You’re right.”
Shouta sighs again, patting Kirishima on the shoulder before forcibly turning him back towards the monitor room. “Go on, then,” he says, prodding him forward. “Tell your classmates that the situation is being handled.”
Reluctantly and resentfully, Kirishima does as he’s told, jogging back to where the rest of his class is waiting, and Shouta waits until the kid is out of earshot to say, “Fucking Hell,” because what the fuck is going on? He takes out his phone and dials Hizashi’s number, saying, when he picks up, “So, I may have a problem.”
“Let me guess,” Hizashi says, sounding completely and utterly unsurprised, “it's about Bakugou.”
“... Well, yes,” Shouta concedes, glancing towards Ground Beta as if the kid will come wandering out at any second. That would make his job easier, at least. “How did you know?”
Hizashi laughs and says, “Because it's you.”
Shouta frowns, turning fully towards Ground Beta as he tries to puzzle out the meaning behind Hizashi’s words. Maybe it's because his nerves are a bit frayed, but he gives up sooner than he would otherwise, asking, exasperated, “And what is that supposed to mean?”
“I mean…” There’s a pause, and Shouta can imagine Hizashi spinning around in his damn rolling chair like he always does when he wants to avoid doing paperwork. “If it had been literally any of your other kids, you would’ve dealt with it by yourself. The fact that you’re calling me in the middle of your class says that it's about Bakugou, because something’s going on with him and you want to help but don’t know how.” He waits a few seconds, then asks, “Am I right?”
“Fuck you,” Shouta says, which basically answers Hizashi’s question.
Hizashi laughs, long and loud, then quiets down and admits, “Alright, I may be cheating a bit.”
“Oh, really.”
“Mhm.” Not sounding guilty at all, Hizashi says, “I’m looking at him right now.”
Shouta frowns, eyebrows furrowing. “He’s in your classroom?”
“Nope. I’m watching him on the cameras.” Hizashi makes a tsk ing sound, then says, “Well, he shouldn’t be going into that building.”
Shouta echoes, “The cameras?” then shakes his head, deciding to focus on more important things. “What building is he in?”
“North side of the city. It's that tall one, the one with all those offices? It has a bank on the first floor, and it's painted this really ugly shade of -”
“You said that he’s on the north side?” Shouta asks, interrupting before Hizashi can go off on a tangent about just how ugly the building’s color is. “And what did you mean, he shouldn’t be going into it?”
“Because it's fucking hideous, for starters,” Hizashi says. “And also because there aren’t any cameras in it. So I’d hurry, if I were you.”
“Of course he’d go into the one building that doesn’t have cameras.” Shouta curses and picks up a brisk jog, heading towards the building that Hizashi had specified. Or, rather, the direction that Hizashi had specified, because he hadn’t really described the building in any way other than it was tall, had a bank, and was a total eyesore. Oh, and that it had a lot of windows, which narrowed it down to about two dozen buildings on the north side of Ground Beta. “Can you still see him? What is he doing?”
“He’s messing with the lock - wait, no, he gave up. He’s - wow, okay, he looks pretty rough, what’s going on with him?” Hizashi pauses, then clicks his tongue like he’s just spotted something that he greatly disapproves of. Shouta can picture the way he’s shaking his head. “Christ, Shouta, he looks terrified. What’s going on?”
“I don't know,” Shouta admits. “He’s been like this since this morning. He came in and told me that it was about to be the worst fucking day of his entire life, and…” He hesitates, then sighs, glancing into alleyways as he runs past them. “I guess he was right, in a way.”
Hizashi gives a contemplating hum. “Well, I’ll figure it out. You should just focus on finding him and calming him down as much as he can. The first part should be easy, since he doesn’t look like he’s going anywhere anytime soon.”
Worst-case scenarios flash through Shouta’s mind - his student somehow managed to break his legs, or passed out, or was rendered incapacitated in a completely different way - and he hisses, “What the Hell happened?”
“He sat down,” Hizashi responds, and if he’s bothered by Shouta’s tone, he doesn’t show it. “I think he’s tired, and he’s hurt, too. You really need to get him to Recovery Girl.”
“I know that, but run away if I get close to him,” Shouta says, and saying the words out loud stings for some strange, inexplicable reason. Maybe it was stupid to make assumptions, but he’d thought that he’d built up a pretty amiable relationship with his student, and to see it shattered in the span of a single second hurts more than he cares to admit. “Or he’ll work himself into a panic. Or both. I don’t think that I’ll be able to get anywhere near him without freaking him out.”
“How do you know that?” Hizashi asks, sounding genuinely curious. “What exactly happened?”
“You tell me,” Shouta says, slowing to a stop of the corner of a street he doesn’t really recognize, looking around to reorient himself. “You’re the one with the cameras, apparently.”
“Just for this side of Ground Beta,” Hizashi says, and there’s a faint beeping noise from his end of the call. “It's so close to the barrier, you know? I’m worried that someone is going to try and break in or something, but that’s probably just me being paranoid again.” He clears his throat, effectively shutting down the conversation. “Anyways,” he continues, “you’re almost there. Just take a right at that corner - I said right! - and then keep going for a couple of blocks, take a left, and he’s in front of the building a few blocks down.”
Shouta follows the directions as Hizashi says them, and finds himself looking at Bakugou within a few minutes, who thankfully hasn’t spotted him. The kid is sitting down with his back against the wall, his hands clapped over his ears and his eyes squeezed tightly shut as he mutters frantically to himself, as if to stop speaking would do nothing but bring him harm.
And, suddenly, Shouta knows exactly what is wrong.
“Oh,” Shouta breathes, and his voice is quiet but Bakugou’s head snaps up so fast that you’d think that he’d yelled the word, his eyes zeroing in on Shouta, twin pin-pricks of fear lost in a sea of red.
“Uh-oh,” Hizashi says in Shouta’s ear, very helpfully. “Someone doesn’t look happy.”
“Shh,” Shouta says, not exactly harshly but none too gently, either, and Hizashi murmurs an apology. Shouta sighs. “I’ll call you back,” he says, then hangs up before Hizashi can respond, shoving his phone into his pocket. Refocusing his attention on Bakugou, who has stopped muttering but now looks physically pained by the fact, he asks, “Did you get hit by some type of Quirk?”
“Yes,” Bakugou grits out, just that one word, and then slams his mouth shut, as if he has an ocean of things he wants to say and to let more than a single drop escape would cause the entire dam to break.
This stupid fucking Quirk !, he had said earlier, before Shouta showed up and startled him so badly that he ran away. Shut up, shut up, shut up !
“Right,” Shouta says, and is careful to not make any sudden movements as he crouches down in front of the kid. “Do you know what Quirk you got hit with?”
“No,” Bakugou snaps, then, a second later, “I’m lying, I know exactly what Quirk it was, but I don’t wanna tell you because then -” He claps a hand over his mouth, going bright red as he avoids Shouta’s eyes, betrayed by nobody other than himself.
“... Right,” Shouta repeats, and can’t help but be amused despite the circumstances. “I’m assuming that it makes you speak your mind? Literally?”
Bakugou gives a tight nod. He pries his hands away from his mouth, balling them in his lap, then mutters, “It hurts if I don’t,” before clamming right back up again, glaring at the ground.
The brief flicker of humor that Shouta had felt disappears completely in the face of his words, and, because he is so very articulate, he asks, “What?”
“If I don’t talk,” Bakugou clarifies, and his voice is strained, his fingers flexing and unflexing as if he wishes he could grab the Quirk and rip it out of his mind. His eyes flick to Shouta’s before darting away once more. “It makes me feel like all my thoughts are just… piling up, and they’re drowning me, and I can’t fucking deal with it, I can’t -” He stops, fists clenched so tightly that his knuckles are white, and takes a shaky breath. He squeezes his eyes shut, but not before Shouta sees how shiny they are, filling with frustrated tears.
“I’m sorry,” Bakugou says, sounding absolutely miserable. “You shouldn’t have to deal with this. You shouldn’t have to deal with me.”
“You don’t have to apologize,” Shouta tells him, unsure of what else to say. He doesn’t even know how to handle this situation, for fuck’s sake. If it had been a civilian that had this problem, he’d just tell them to go get medical attention because this was clearly something he was not equipt to deal with, but this isn’t a civilian, this isn’t a stranger, this is Bakugou. “Look, kid, I think you need to go to Recovery Girl. Even without the Quirk affecting you, you’re injured, and maybe she can think of a way to help.” Bakugou keeps his eyes shut and doesn’t respond, giving no indication that he’s heard a single word that just came out of Shouta’s mouth, and he sighs. “If it's hurting you, you don’t have to stay quiet. You can talk.”
“I don’t want to,” Bakugou says, voice barely audible, and the pain must’ve crossed his threshold because he continues talking, the words spilling from his mouth like blood from a wound, “If I tell you what I’m thinking, then you’ll know that I’m a shitty hero and an even worse person, and then you’ll hate me, because I’ve been tricking you all this time into thinking that I’m someone who knows who to handle himself, but I’m not, I don’t know how to fucking handle anything. I’m fucking useless and you should just leave because I’m wasting your time and I’m not worth that, I’m not worth your time and I’m not worth your attention, and - and I’m not worth anything -”
And there goes the first tear, cutting a clean line through the mixture of concrete dust and blood still dried on his face. It's followed by another, then another, then another and another and another, until he’s full-on crying, and Shouta can only watch in horror as his student falls apart before his eyes.
Distantly, he wonders how long this has been building up. How long have Bakugou’s thoughts been like this? Why are Bakugou’s thoughts like this? They’re horrible and vicious and completely untrue, but Bakugou had sounded like he wholeheartedly believed them, and that makes Shouta’s chest feel tight, because why hadn’t he noticed this sooner?
“Hey,” he says, and feels like shit when Bakugou flinches at the sound of his voice. He swallows, tries again, “Bakugou. Talk to me, kiddo. What’s going on?”
Bakugou brings his knees up to his chest in response, folding his arms on top of them and ducking his head into them, and, like this morning, his meaning is clear: leave me alone.
But Shouta can’t do that. He couldn’t this morning and he can’t right now, because his student is in pain, and some scathing voice in the back of his mind whispers that maybe this all could’ve been avoided if he just paid a bit more attention. If he had just asked the right questions from the start.
Shut up, he tells it, because it isn’t helping matters at all. He can criticize himself in his free time, but right now he needs to focus on Bakugou, and so he does. “I’m going to be honest with you,” he says, because that seems like the best thing to do right now, “and say that I really don’t know what to do to cancel out this Quirk. But I’ll do everything I can to help, okay? You’re not alone in this.”
For a long, long moment, Bakugou doesn’t respond. He slowly stops crying, like that particular pain was just something that he needed to get out of his system, and then remains silent for a long while, punctuated only by the occasional sniffle or hiccuping breath.
Then, voice muffled, he says, “Thank you.”
And Shouta isn’t so stupid as to think that that’s the end of this problem, not when there’s still the Quirk to deal with, but it's a start. To what, exactly, he has no idea, but he’s always been good at figuring out things as he goes, and this will probably end up being no different.
“Yeah,” he says. “No problem.”