Chapter Text
Bakugou slouches in the loveseat, staring at his knees with his hands shoved into his pockets. He feels his back protest, aching to stretch, with a nagging voice in his head nervously proclaiming the slouch bad for his health. Fucking nerd.
An analog clock grows louder the more attention he gives it. It’s probably the only thing in the room that deserves his attention. He breathes in for five ticks and holds, challenging himself to keep the stale air long past the pain he rightfully deserves.
“How are you?” Hound Dog asks; the growl reminds Bakugou of the sound of distant thunder. With thunder comes lightning, bright and green and gone.
“I don’t know, what do you fucking think?” He exhales too soon, souring at this redundant conversation and refusing to look up at the pro hero. “You ask the same stupid question every time. You should just expect there’s just never anything fucking new.”
“It doesn’t have to be new. Our minds work in unique ways that simply recounting the week can be beneficial. Having someone willing to listen, having someone there for you can be enough. As heroes, that’s what we do. Bakugou, know that we’re in your corner.” Hound Dog leans back in his plush gray armchair, which is starkly different than the Pro Hero appearance.
It sucks. All of this fucking sucks. This fucking counseling room bathed in whites and grays and accented yellows is an interior designer’s dream. It’s a room that pretends to sympathize, empathize, or whatever the fuck it is, but it doesn’t mean anything. It doesn’t do anything, and it sets Bakugou on edge.
He should be doing something. Hound Dog should be doing something more than sitting in this room doing fuck all nothing. If there’s anything Bakugou wants this damn dog to do, it’s getting off his case or getting lost in the forest in an explosive game of fetch. Bakugou nearly smirks at the thought of Hound Dog chasing a burnt tennis ball into thick trees but keeps his frown firmly in place. He hates giving this hero anything to work with.
Bakugou should be doing something that’s not sitting in this fuck whatever room. He should be looking for the League, looking for something to punch, looking for Deku’s body. Bakugou should be at Exit Island digging through the rubble, searching for any sign of hope.
“Bakugou,” Hound Dog’s voice is sharper, which snaps Bakugou’s gaze up for an instant, red eyes capturing the counselor’s in a burning glare before drifting back to his knees. “How are you?”
“What do you fucking think?” He says again, adding a shrug for emphasis. Bakugou turns his gaze to the wall of windows, and the thick green forest U.A. claims as private property. The rich color and dark shadows remind Bakugou of unkempt curly hair and unfortunate clown freckles. “I’m the one who ended All Might. I’m the one who ended shitty Deku. Some hero I am, ending fucking Symbols of Peace left and right.”
“This is not your fault.”
Bakugou whips his head towards Hound Dog. “Yeah? Then whose is it? Someone has to take the blame for all this shit.” He growls through gritted teeth.
“And that doesn’t have to be you.”
“Clearly, no one else is fucking willing!” Bakugou narrows his eyes, hands ripping from his pockets as he throws his arms wide with miniature explosions igniting on his palms. “You weren’t there! You didn’t see! You can’t possibly know what it’s like!”
Hound dog huffs, which only irritates Bakugou more. “I have some idea. I’ve been a pro for some time.”
“Yeah? And fuck all that’s done for you.” Bakugou snaps back. “I ended Deku. All I’ve done is laid the groundwork for his death, and just when I fucking finally start making up for my dumbass shit, he dies. He’s dead, and it’s because of me. Can you get that through your ugly muzzle?
“We were friends and then we fucking weren’t, but that idiot still said we were. I said and did so much shit to him. Then we’re here,” He gestures around the room, “and it’s everything we dreamed and I,” Bakugou chokes, hunching further into himself as his hands dive into his wild hair pulling spikes to feel some semblance of pain. “All I had to do was take his hand.”
Silence falls between the two, the ticks from the clock grow louder once again, but the sound is no match for Bakugou’s heavy breathing.
Bakugou counts twenty-seven ticks before Hound Dog takes a deep breath.
“Thank you for sharing, Bakugou. I understand this must be difficult –”
“Oh, fuck off.” Bakugou rolls his eyes, glaring at the muzzled hero. He’s disappointed to find that Hound Dog’s hackles don’t rise to his bait, though if Hound Dog did, he’d be just as much of a failure as Bakugou.
Thirteen ticks this time.
“How long has it been?”
“Too fucking long.” Bakugou slumps deeper into the loveseat, folding his arms firmly across his chest. Deku’s last battle was three months, six days, and twelve hours ago during the spring work-study. The fight ended in the middle of the night with a flash so bright, the battlefield was illuminated in day. What remained was rubble, blast shadows, and a distinct lack of bodies.
“Do you miss him?”
“What kind of shit question is that?” Bakugou flicks his gaze to Hound Dog, who remains patient, and if anything, resembles a kicked puppy. Bakugou isn’t sure a pro who wears a muzzle for fun should ever look like a kicked puppy. That’s some next-level evil shit right there, and Bakugou’s the one that caused it. Great.
“These answers,” Hound Dog gestures with one hand, “Your defensiveness around what happened may be blocking your ability to mourn. We’ve gotten far in our past few sessions, but we seem to be back at the beginning whenever we start again each week. Addressing your feelings, sorting them out is the first step –”
“To get out of this shitty hell hole? Yeah, you’ve said a million annoying times. We’ve been over this already; when are you going to say something new?” He pushes against his biceps with his crossed arms, straining his muscles to mimic the tension of a blast kickback in his shoulders. The end result is nothing like the kickback in battle, and Bakugou is left gritting his teeth and more irritated than moments before.
“Do you not want to mourn him?” Hound Dog asks with genuine curiosity in his rumbling voice. While the mangy dog may be calm, Bakugou feels everything in him spike.
“What the fuck did you say?” Bakugou leaps to his feet on top of the loveseat with hands clawed and ready to attack. “Mourn Deku?” As if he hadn’t for the past three months, six days, and twelve hours. “Get your fucking facts straight. This ain’t over until he fucking gets to go home. Got it?”
“Sometimes heroes don’t get to go home.” Hound Dog states so quietly Bakugou almost misses it. The guidance counselor chooses to look at the floor instead of at Bakugou, which is the wrong fucking move, and fuck the hero’s fake sympathy. Fuck all of this!
“Deku does!” Bakugou roars. He’ll fight anyone who says otherwise.
He counts thirty-two ticks in the silence that follows. It gets awkward after the first three, Bakugou loses the intense anger within the next twenty, and he flops back down on the couch with muttered grumbles, laying so his head rests on one armrest, and his legs dangle off the other side. Deku used to mumble.
“Could you clarify something for me?” Hound Dog asks. Bakugou groans, throwing an arm over his eyes. “You claim that you ended Midoriya but also state it isn’t over until he’s home. Which is it?”
“Fuck if I know.”
“That’s fine; I understand it’s a difficult question to answer. We can pick it back up another time.”
Bakugou is so sick of the word ‘difficult.’ Hound Dog knows every synonym for the word difficult. Hard, challenging, confusing, demanding – the damn hero knows them all. It doesn’t mean anything. The more the hero says, the less Bakugou trusts. How could this fur for brains ever understand?
“Bakugou,” Hound Dog’s voice is far from wanted in Bakugou’s homemade darkness. “We’ve still got plenty of time on the clock; let’s try this again. How are you?”
Bakugou seethes.
After a therapy session that results in fuck all nothing, Bakugou trains. Every Thursday – Deku died on a Friday – he misses heroics for dumbass sessions with Hound Dog and less dumbass one on one training with All Might, who clings to Bakugou like he’s a lost son. It’s fucking annoying, but he doesn’t tell the former number one to stop.
Three months, six days, and seventeen hours; the sun is setting with the promise of summer, warm and golden and innocent – like Deku. Bakugou’s lungs burn. How long has he been running? It was lighter outside when he started. Did he lap the school? Did he take a new path? He doesn’t know; maybe the ache means it’s time to stop.
Bakugou slows in front of U.A’s main gates, bending over to rest his hands on his knees, heaving as if air could be a foreign concept. Maybe it is. How can Bakugou breathe when Deku can’t? How can Bakugou keep training when Deku’s probably out there broken, cold, and alone?
He could be alive, the smallest part of Bakugou’s mind whispers. It’s the thought that keeps him up at night imagining shitty fucking Deku underneath tons of rubble calling out for help. It imagines Deku minutes before that blinding light with a wrecked arm, ruined costume, and a head wound painting his face red. He has a stupid fucking smile, and he’s promising Bakugou everything will be all right because I am here. It plays on loop with those three words, each time showing more wounds Bakugou didn’t notice because he’s not a good enough hero to save by winning. There’s no way anyone could survive that crater, even if Deku didn’t look mostly dead.
He could be alive, it whispers again; and what Bakugou wouldn’t give to find Deku on some shitty sunny beach in a god-awful Hawaiian shirt retired from his hero career before it began. Fuck.
Deku would probably be surprised, nervous like the shitty nerd he is. He would lower his sunglasses to reveal green eyes that are definitely alive. He would probably smile so brilliantly Bakugou would want to kick his ass all the way back to U.A.
But Bakugou wouldn’t.
Not just then because there’s only one real way to tell if Deku is out to pull a fast one on him again. Bakugou would wait for that shitty nerd to open his mouth and say –
“Kacchan?”
Bakugou jerks up, stumbling a couple of steps back, eyes wide as he searches wildly for the source of the sound. He’s not going insane, is he? The last thing he fucking needs is for Hound Dog to get the fucking satisfaction that Bakugou is crazy.
His eyes land on an extra who stands inside the gate. The height isn’t familiar, but they have the same shitty humor as Deku because their plain white t-shirt says Aloha Shirt just to mock Bakugou’s innermost thoughts. Fucking hell, they fucking cower like Deku too. Bakugou has the desire to yell at the damn nerd for slouching.
A breeze surges through the trees, ruffling the extra’s green hair, now cut short save for the unruly top that could never be tamed. Scars litter every bit of exposed skin, threatening to make the extra before Bakugou unrecognizable, but those freckles are unmistakable. The perfect diamond shape is great for coloring in when the nerd falls asleep. He winds up looking like a sad clown, and he does end up crying when the freckles are colored in with a permanent marker. Bakugou feels himself tense at the memory.
“Uh, h-hi K-Kacchan,” Deku laughs, “I’m home.”