Chapter Text
Katsuki tried to focus on the television screen, but the bright flashes of light and shouts made it difficult. Without permission to do any real work, he had been left to slump around the quiet apartment and watch the hands on the clock tick by until his mandatory leave was up and he was free again. After hour three of laying on his bed and staring at the ceiling willing the dull ache in the back of his head to finally fade, he gave up and attempted to find something not completely mind-numbing to do. When he shuffled out of his room the blankets on the couch jumped out at him again and —his better judgement apparently out for a night on the town—he scooped them up, bundled himself into his orange one, and stuffed himself into the corner of the cushions to create as snug an arrangement as possible. He halfheartedly batted at the remote until it flipped to a channel playing reruns of the old All Might cartoons he and Deku used to watch. He let a small smile slip onto his face and settled in to watch.
For the most part, it had been going smoothly. The persistent headache he’d had that spiked every time he so much as looked at his phone over the past week had subsided after time alone in his dark bedroom and the volume on the television was already low enough that each word didn’t drag across his gray matter. Animated All Might sailed through the sky, waving to tourists and wagging a threatening finger at potential no-gooders, until he landed on the grounds of an elementary school to greet the children there. Katsuki watched him wade through the crowd of small two-dimensional hands and wide grins with a soft snort, recalling just how bad the real man was with anyone below the age of thirty. This peaceful charade lasted all of ten minutes before a villain burst through the doors of the school and threatened to take the children if All Might didn’t fulfill some vague request, ransom, whatever. Katsuki, however, couldn’t focus on the villain’s garbled words because the crash of the doors and walls as they used some sort of crane to get in sent his head spinning and his stomach rolling.
He squeezed his eyes shut, tugged whatever fabric he could reach over his head to block out the light and muffle sound, and took a number of long steady breaths until he stabilized again. Unfortunately, this was an activity he had become practiced at. A familiar smell crept in below the sweet hit of his nitroglycerin. Elements of citrus and something deeper, more woodsy: Kirishima’s cologne. In his hurry to block out the cartoon, Katsuki’d grabbed both blankets and the red one had made its way right next to his nose. He took in another breath and blinked away the unexpected moisture that crept to the corners of his eyes. He'd been denying just how different the apartment felt with Kirishima locked away in the hospital until the scent of the blanket knocked him back into reality. That bright red mug Katsuki detested still sat in the sink unwashed, Kirishima’s stupid crocs weren’t scattered across the entryway where he kicked them off as soon as he walked in the door, his side of the bathroom counter had a thin layer of dust across every tube and container, and the slightly obnoxious waft of his cologne that usually spread through the apartment when he applied it in the morning was gone. Katsuki complained about it most mornings, but now? Now he clung to it. The anger that flushed through him each time he thought about anything surrounding Kirishima and his current situation started to wane, leaving room for the unfamiliar and unwelcome sense of longing that caught in his throat. He and Kirishima had barely been apart since the dorms were instituted in high school and he didn’t know what to do with the alien empty space that now dominated every corner.
He shoved a hand out of the blankets, smacked the power button on the remote until the television turned off, and uncovered his head just enough to get some fresh air, but not enough that he was completely exposed. He kept both blankets pressed close to his face and tucked his legs up until he was curled around one of the back cushions of the couch. Eyes closed, he let himself drift off to sleep surrounded by the smell he hadn’t realized he associated with home.
~~~
An empty fridge looked out at him, soft glow illuminating the tiles of the cramped kitchen floor. He glared down at the produce drawer as if would magically grow something edible. The drawer stayed vacant, mocking him. He and Kirishima had been planning to go grocery shopping the weekend of the fight, but hadn’t gotten around to it before everything...happened. After clearing out the potentially toxic waste that was left once he returned home, Katsuki now faced the repercussions of their combined laziness.
He knew this was something Tsunagu had explicitly told him he was willing to help with. If not him, then either of the heroes appointed to his building. Katsuki, sick of being treated like a baby, refused to text him. If he couldn't manage going to get food then how the fuck was he going to face his coworkers tomorrow.
Besides.
The medicine cabinet in the bathroom was empty too and he had almost run out of the small supply of pain and anti-nausea pills the nurses had sent him off with. He’d rationed them as much as possible, but they were definitely still necessary if he wanted to even think about going to work. Mind made up, he shut the fridge and stomped over to the entryway. He grabbed his wallet, tugged on his last clean hoodie and a pair of sunglasses, slipped on his shoes, and opened his front door.
The fluorescent lights of the hallway almost immediately made him do an abrupt one-eighty. Specifically the one at the end that was on the fritz and made the entrance to the stairwell look like a very boring rave. The sunglasses made him look like a douche, but they were at least effective enough that they kept the direct force of the lights from hitting him. That strobing nightmare at the end of the hall, however, cut in around the edges of the lenses and nicked that wonderful spot right by his left ear that always produced the sharpest pains. He grit his teeth and speed-walked to the stairwell with his eyes open just enough to see while still keeping most of the light out.
The stairwell itself was dim and quiet and in less than a minute he was at the front gate.
God. Clearly, he’d fucked himself by not looking at the guard schedule Tsunagu sent him before he left.
There, leaning against one of the posts of the gate with a wide grin on his face, stood Present Mic.
“Hey there, listener! How’s it hangin’?”
Katsuki groaned to himself and flipped Mic off as he started to open the gate.
“Now hold on there, Bakugou. Last I heard Jeanist had you on lockdown ‘til tomorrow. What gives?”
“What ‘gives’ is I’ve got shit to do so move it, old man.”
“Afraid you’re gonna have to give me a little more than that.”
Katsuki ground his teeth. “I need to go to the corner store.”
“Great! I’ve been in a snackin’ mood for the past few hours, myself.” Mic pushed off the wall and started off down the street with his hands shoved in the pockets of his gaudy leather jacket. He turned after a few steps and cocked his head at Katsuki. “Aren’t you comin’?”
Katsuki spluttered, indignant heat rising to his cheeks. “What the fuck are you doing?”
He turned to the other hero assigned to the gate—he might have been one of Mic’s interns but Katsuki hadn’t bothered to learn all of their faces when the announcements went out—and the guy simply raised his hands and shrugged in a “what can you do” motion. Katsuki growled a curse at him and turned back to Mic.
“I’m not an infant, I can shop for two seconds by myself.”
“You may not be an infant, but you're definitely a non-infant who's potentially a target. The corner store is out of our line of sight, therefore you need an escort. I just so happen to be peckish right now so it all works out.” Mic sent him a finger gun and started walking again. “Meet you there!” he called with a wave.
“You-” Katsuki cut himself off and gave another frustrated grunt before storming off after him. The other hero tried to say something but was met with a middle finger to the face and stopped.
Once they reached the store, Mic gravitated towards the rows of chips and candy on the far end of the shop, giving Katsuki an obvious wide berth that he grudgingly appreciated even though he’d be caught dead before he ever said it out loud. The fluorescents here were brighter than the ones in the hall, but at least they gave off a steady searing glow that he could adjust to. He pushed his glasses further up his nose, squinted, and started down the first aisle.
He barely scanned the medicine rack before grabbing the strongest looking anti-nausea and migraine pills and slipping them into his basket, covering them with a bag of gum hanging from an endcap display. Nothing in him wanted to deal with the questions Mic was sure to have if he saw the medication or the attentive bullshit Tsunagu was prone to. He tossed a few bottles of water and tea into the basket as he passed the fridge, then paused in front of the case of fresh-made sandwiches and snacks. The rows of onigiri presented a challenge and he picked up two at random, running through the ingredients and weighing his options.
Seemingly without a cause, an itch started at the base of his neck and moved up to his scalp. He frowned and pressed his fingers against the spot to relieve both the itch and the muscles that were sore from being tensed so long as he battled the beams of the overheads. The itch didn’t leave with the pressure. Instead, it moved to the middle of his back where he couldn’t reach and then away. The hair on the backs of his arms stood up and a creeping sense of being observed traveled up the column of his spine. Hiding his discomfort under a stoic expression, he looked up and scanned the shop for Mic, cataloguing the other customers as he went.
In the corner by the register, an old man argued quietly with the cashier over the price of a magazine. A woman and her son flipped through a comic book by the front window, the kid pointing in excitement at one of the flashy illustrations. A slouched person in a hoodie and face mask was completely absorbed in a rack of sweets and didn’t seem to notice Mic standing next to them who, upon catching Katsuki’s eye, started to wave wildly. Katsuki flipped him off, gave the store another cursory glance, and turned back to the food in his hand. He made his choice and had just finished filling the basket with a few of the same flavor when that itch on the back of his neck returned.
He slapped a hand back over the spot and whipped around just in time to see the person in the hoodie exiting the store. They turned and, when the light of the “Open” sign caught their face, their eyes flashed a bright white over their mask before they turned away. By the time Katsuki’d recovered from the white-out of pain the turn earned him and his mind even had time to process what he saw, they were gone.
“Are you alright?” Mic placed a gentle hand on his shoulder and sent him a worried look.
Katsuki swallowed hard and shoved the hand away. “‘M fuckin’ fine. Let’s just go, you make me tired just looking at you.”
Mic nodded and took Katsuki’s basket from him. “I’ll be right back! Don’t burn anything down while I’m gone!”
Katsuki didn’t even protest, just flipped him off half-heartedly and kept his gaze locked on the doorway. Something about that person’s eyes set off a distant alarm bell in the back of his mind, but exactly what it reminded him of was just out of his reach. The outlines of the memory were frustratingly vague and he grasped at it only for it to slip away like the memory of the conversation in Kirishima’s hospital room. He chewed on his lip. Maybe the eyes were just a mutation he hadn’t seen before. There were plenty of those, after all, and he wasn’t in the most ideal condition to try and chase the root of that alarm bell down now. The best he could do at the moment was chalk it up to leftover paranoia from the fight and all of Tsunagu's ominous lectures from the past week. His decision was made for him when he finally broke his staring contest with the door and saw that Mic had started a passionate one-sided conversation with the cashier about the song playing over the stereo and she looked like she needed saving.
Finally, something useful he could do.