Chapter Text
“I need to go back,” were Bakugou’s words--soft and surprising and said in the dark, long after Todoroki thought Bakugou had finally, finally , gone to sleep.
Bakugou hadn’t slept properly in weeks. Todoroki knew--because he hadn’t been sleeping either.
“I need to go back .”
There were a lot of things Todoroki could have said. And even more things he thought, but would never say. Hundreds of thoughts and images filled his mind.
Todoroki had watched and waited. For hours and hours. Then he had stepped in when it was time. He gathered up Bakugou and led him home. They were never going to return. That was the agreement. That had always been the agreement.
“No,” Todoroki said. No.
Todoroki could have said more than that. A lot more. But his mind was drowning in too many memories. Old conversations. Old agreements. Things Todoroki could and would never say.
They never returned.
They’ve been visiting old crime scenes and disaster sites for years now. But only ever once each time.
They made the agreement after the first visit. “Let’s not make this an addiction,” Todoroki had thought. “Let’s not make this a ritual.”
But it was a ritual, wasn’t it? Todoroki had always known that much. In hindsight, perhaps what he really meant was, “Let’s not make this ritual worse. ”
Let’s put some boundaries on it. Some rules.
Once. And only once.
But the first visit had lasted only 15 minutes. Todoroki had been surprised by the brevity.
Breaking in had been easy. An old, and long since demolished, convenience store that had been left abandoned ever since the incident. Todoroki froze the lock of the backdoor then busted the door open. Bakugou turned on the lights. He scoped out the whole building. Todoroki followed.
Bakugou pointed to a wall in the front of the store.
“There,” Bakugou said. “That’s where it happened.”
Bakugou spent 10 of the 15 minutes inspecting the wall.
Then, he said he was done.
Halfway home, Bakugou asked to go back.
“No,” Todoroki said, “I’ll go with you once. And only once. You can take as long as you need to the first time. But I think that should be the only time.”
Bakugou had been silent for a long time. Then, he agreed.
Their second visit--3 months later at a park-turned-crater--lasted 18 hours.
That was years ago. Todoroki still thought about that place. He was certain Bakugou did, too.
“No?” Bakugou echoed.
“No,” Todoroki repeated. He swallowed painfully around the lump of unspoken words in his throat.
Todoroki’s mind was back at that park-turned-crater. There had been a tree, a single tree, left standing at the edge of the park. Todoroki had sat under that tree while he watched and waited.
Todoroki wondered where Bakugou’s mind was. Almost certainly back at the bottom of the great pit, his hands full of dirt and debris. It had been three weeks since Todoroki led Bakugou out of there.
But Bakugou still wasn’t sleeping.
“I don’t need your permission,” Bakugou said. His voice, sharp, cut through the dark and the quiet.
Todoroki folded his hands, rested them on his chest. He stared up at the bedroom ceiling. Kept his eyes there. He couldn’t bear to look at Bakugou. Couldn’t bring himself to face what he might find in Bakugou’s eyes. Perhaps Todoroki simply wasn’t strong enough.
“I know,” Todoroki said.
“I can go without you.”
“I know.”
Todoroki sometimes wondered--briefly, in passing--if Bakugou ever returned without Todoroki knowing.
Ultimately, did it even really matter? Bakugou likely spent his nights withdrawn into his own mind, reconstructing every single detail, every square inch, every note and statistic and figure. So that Bakugou could revisit every tragedy and failure again and again and again.
Bakugou was silent for a long time.
Todoroki watched the shadows dance on the ceiling.
“Do you understand,” Todoroki found himself asking, “why we only go once?”
Bakugou said nothing.
“You spent three hours at the bottom of that pit,” Todoroki said to the ceiling. “If it had been three days, you would have the same doubts. No amount of time there is going to take those doubts away.”
Bakugou said nothing for a long, long, time.
Then, Bakugou said, “I need to.”
“I wish you wouldn’t.”
“You don’t have to go with me,” Bakugou said.
The shadows blurred into one another. Todoroki blinked rapidly.
Todoroki willed his voice to be steady. “I won’t,” he said.
When morning finally came, Todoroki woke to an empty bed. And an empty apartment. No note. But there was a text.
“I’ll be back for dinner. ”
Todoroki sat on the couch. And he stared at the text. And he waited.
And he imagined Bakugou at the bottom of the great pit. At the center of where it ‘all went to hell.’ It was well past dawn, now. Bakugou had likely been there for several hours already.
Bakugou could pull himself out of that great pit.
But should he have to ?
But, then again, did it even really matter?
Bakugou had reconstructed every detail of that pit in his mind. So he could circle it again and again and again. Searching for some surprise, some new detail, some explanation, some blame, some vindication. Certainty. Searching the pit again and again because Bakugou just wasn’t certain .
But, as well constructed as Bakugou’s mental replica was, nothing could beat the feeling of the actual dirt in your hands, Todoroki supposed.
Perhaps it didn’t even matter.
Perhaps the agreement wasn’t for Bakugou at all. Maybe it was for Todoroki. Maybe Todoroki simply wasn’t strong enough.
Bakugou could pull himself out of that great pit.
Bakugou could --because he had to.
Todoroki wasn’t sure Bakugou should have to do it alone.
But there was an agreement in place.
And maybe Todoroki just wasn’t strong enough.
So, Todoroki sat. And he waited.