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“Here’s a rag, Kacchan.” The blonde caught the white towel with a scowl, and his arm ticked with the desire to hurl the cloth back at the green haired boy, but instead he just squeezed it harshly in his palm, and hissed as the soapy water spilled out and sprayed all over his clothes and shoes.
Nerd. It’s all his fault. He scoffed and turned on his heel to scrub a table, even though the traitorous part of his mind whispered at him: you know it isn’t his fault, Katsuki.
It was only the second day of camp, but jeez Bakugou’s arms burned with every swipe at the grime on the benches. It frankly baffled him how sloppy forty teens could be. In theory… if he really thought about it, it wasn’t that frickin’ hard. Just… chew with your mouth closed and eat over your own dang plate. However, a certain blonde in class B had a problem with both of those seemingly easy ideals, apparently, and now Bakugou was forcing down bile while he loosened spit encrusted rice from the table.
Abso-freakin-lutely nasty.
“Hey, Kacchan?”
At first, Bakugou pretended not to hear the scrawny nerd, but then Deku called again and again, and his voice just got more high pitched and whiny--
“ What do you want?!” He snapped, turning on his heel to round on the idiot. He fixed his darkest scowl on his face, but Deku didn’t seem very bothered by it. In fact, the nerd looked serene, even under the blazing summer heat.
“I just wanted to talk.” Deku shrugged, his scrawny arms looking pale with the blazing son rippling down on them. In the light, he could see where scar tissue pulled tight against his bones and shed streaks of light pink over his scattered freckles. He frowned deeper.
Idiot.
“Yeah? Well, I don’t wanna talk.” Bakugou spat, ice in his words. He aimed it directly at Deku’s heart, but the boy didn’t even flinch.
The green haired boy ignored him. “Remember when we were in first grade? You didn’t really hang around as much as you used to, but there was that one weekend where we went to a different park -- ya know, the one by Endeavor’s agency? Your mom took us there and we played heroes.”
Bakugou sniffed. No, of course he didn’t remember a random day when he was six years old. That was a Deku problem, and he sure as heck didn’t have Deku problems. “What about it?” He slammed his rag -- now more of a cream color -- into the wooden table and narrowed his eyes accusingly at Deku.
“I dunno.” Deku shrugged again, then went back to cleaning, a sort of smile on his face. “This reminds me of it a bit. Back then we would pretend that we were heroes all training together and we would have competitions -- like the Olympics! You always won, but there was that one time I won the race because your shoelace was--”
“You only won because Tsubasa stepped on my lace.” Bakugou hissed. He hadn’t expected himself, but the more Deku described the event, it came rushing back to him. He did remember the day at the other park. His shoelace was only untied because they had found a hole under a tree, and using Bakugou’s lace as a sort of fishing line, stuck various sticks down there. It was all fun and games until--
“Oh! And then we found that snake hole!” Deku laughed -- Bakugou didn’t laugh back, nor did he crack a smile -- “We were so scared!”
And that was when all mirth and sentimentality vanished from Bakugou’s brain. It wasn’t that he was offended by Deku saying indirectly that he was scared -- because he may or may not still be afraid of snakes to this day because of it -- but because he remembered how even when tears had flooded his burgundy eyes, the emerald pools of Deku’s had hardened, and when the venomous snake lunged at Katsuki, Deku put himself in between the two foes and had kicked the thing hard.
Deku was wrong. They weren’t both scared. Just Katsuki. Deku had been as fearless as a hero, and Katsuki had been just a victim, helpless to the strings of fate.
“Yeah. Whatever.” Was the phrase Bakugou finally settled on, reaching back to grab his rag and end the conversation where it started. He placed his hand on it, then felt his stomach lurch violently when his palm connected with the smushed remains of what was probably Sero’s bread. “Oi, nerd.” He yelled at Deku, a piece of his heart smiling when the idiots face reflected some sort of fear. That was more like it. Fluffy conversations were stupid.
“Yes, Kacchan?”
Without much thought, Bakugou reared his arm back and hurled the damp -- and slightly crusty -- rag at the other boy. “Clean that off and give it back to me.”
Bakugou should’ve expected Deku’s sickeningly sweet grin, but it still made him flush with anger. Of course, it was ignored, so Bakugou directed his anger at scrunching the joints of his fingers into the wooden picnic tables and grimacing when an ant threatened to climb on his finger. With a guttural growl, he seized it and crushed it satisfyingly between his two fingers, rubbing the calloused skin of his fingers over the annoying insect and then wiping his hand on his pants.
Disgusti--
Bakugou was thinking of the ant, originally, the nasty black thing with its six legs and massive head, but he directed the misplaced word to something infinitely more fitting -- the soapy, white rag currently clinging to his face like a cheese to a hamburger.
DISGUSTING.
“What the hell , Deku?!” He screeched, snatching the cloth from his face and slamming down onto the table. He glared at Deku and hoped that the look was enough to send the annoying brat to an early grave. The green bean only two tables away from him -- not nearly enough to be considered a safe distance -- squeaked, but not in fear, Katsuki soon realized as he swiped suds from his nose, from laughter.
The little turd was laughing at him.
“I-I’m sorry Kacchan!” Deku giggled, hiding his red face and piss face grin behind a loosely clenched fist. “I didn’t know you weren’t looking!”
“Shut up, idiot, yes you did!” Bakugou yelled, scrunching his forehead up. The motion was something so mundane, something so natural for him to do when he got angry, and he didn’t even notice that in doing so he set forth an oncoming burst of suds at ran every so slowly, just enough that in his seething rage he didn’t notice them trickling, down the bridge of his nose and diverting sideways into his burgundy eyes.
“Ah, jee- frick-- gah!” He yelped, scrubbing frantically at the antagonizing soap bubbles that make his eye sting and water. His mouth released a string of incoherent sounds as he flailed, eventually grabbing his shirt and absorbing the rest into the deep black fabric.
“THIS IS YOUR FAULT, STUPID DEKU!!” He bellowed, grabbing the still sopping wet rag and climbing like a warrior to the top of the table where he raised his fist high and--
Smack.
The white towel went sailing through the air and hit Deku square in the nose, sending water and soap splattering all over the other boy’s face. It slid off of his face, and though the nerd scrambled to catch it, it fell lamely to the ground.
“It’s on, Kacchan!” Deku laughed, grabbing his own rag from the bucket and hurling it at the blonde, then rinsing off the other and in rapid succession slinging it as well -- soap suds and all.
“GET BACK HERE YOU NERD!!”
“AH! Kacchan no!--” smack.
“Take that you little--” smack, “COME HERE SO I CAN DROP KICK YOU INTO NEXT TUESDAY!”
“What’s going on here?”
Both boys froze dead in their tracks, both with soaked, dripping, brown from dirt, covered in grass, rags raised high above their heads. Katsuki stood perched atop a picnic table, his lips pulled back in a savage snarl, and Deku was on another bench, only a few feet away, face red and flushed from laughter, and a stray clump of bubbles clinging to his nose. The picture was strange -- more so for Bakugou, who anyone could’ve supposed was… grinning? Or at least trying to grin, but miserably looking like a devil on crack. If the ashy haired boy were smiling properly, one could compare the scene to something in a children’s clothing ad.
“H-Hi, Aizawa-Sensei!” Deku squeaked, putting his rag down, and Katsuki supposed he should do the same. “We were just ah...uh…”
“I don’t really care, to be honest with you.” Aizawa sighed, his dark eyes flicking over the two teens. “Just finish up and get back to training. You’re holding everyone up.”
“Don’t look at me like I’m responsible!” Bakugou growled, his red eyes flashing, but Aizawa just rolled his eyes and pivoted on his heel, ignoring the boy with the quickly boiling temperature.
“Hey, Kacchan?” Deku asked once Aizawa got out of earshot, climbing down from his bench. “That… wasn’t all that bad. Huh? It was like playing heroes again!” He smiled, putting his grungy rag in the bin.
“Tch. Whatever, Nerd.” Bakugou shrugged, ignoring the stiffness in his shoulders and jaw. He hopped down from the table and hurled his rag into the bucket. “Let’s go change before droopy eyes gets on us again.”
“Droopy eyes?”
“SHUT UP!”
---
The whole ordeal didn’t mean a lot to Katsuki. He ended up forgetting all about it in the day that followed.
Izuku, on the other hand, lay in bed that night, his chest feeling lighter for the first time since maybe… kindergarten with Katsuki. Maybe, just maybe, they could fix things between them. Nothing ever stayed broken unless you wanted it to… right?
Izuku was bound and determined to repair whatever he lost with Bakugou.
---
And then he was gone. Bakugou. Kidnapped by the league. Held by the neck, ensnared in twisted and scarred hands and eyes blown wide open.
Izuku cried harder than he ever had before.
He was… supposed to fix things? How had he let this happen? This wasn’t...right at all.
This was wrong. All wrong. So, so, so, wrong.
This was no game of heroes and villains. This was life and death and Izuku was scared out of his mind for Kacchan and hoping that he would please, please, survive.
Izuku would save Kacchan.
He would.
To fix things.