Chapter Text
I feel far too young
and much too old at the same time
I am told that it’s the trauma
but what trauma?
Before the training camp attack—before the dorms and the close quarters and the security measures and the curfew and the living-in-his-classmates-back-pockets—Bakugou notices something.
Todoroki Shouto is fucking weird.
Bakugou is more observant than people give him credit for, alright? He has two modes—loud and in your face and quiet and bitchy. The thing about being quiet and bitchy is that people generally give him a wide berth out of fear of him getting loud and up in their faces again. It is that degree of separation that gives Bakugou the space to observe.
After the first few weeks of classes, Bakugou is pretty sure he has most of his class figured out. (Except for shitty Deku. “Late blooming quirk” Bakugou’s ass. There’s something else going on and it is definitely more complicated than that.) Hell, Bakugou even has some fucking friends that aren’t a bunch off ass-sucking groupies. (He’s working on puzzling this one out. Currently, his best hypothesis is that Kaminari, Kirishima, Ashido, and Sero pack bonded like a bunch of puppies and then followed Kirishima’s lead when he imprinted on Bakugou.) The point is, removing shitty Deku because he’s a fucking outlier , everyone makes sense… all except for Todoroki.
First off, the Sports Festival. Just… What the actual fuck.
Bakugou has been able to glean some details from the situation. Half-and-half’s bigshot dad shows up. Half-and-half gets even icier than usual. Half-and-half has a little chat with Deku. Half-and-half has some sort of emotional revelation moment mid-fight while Deku is screaming and breaking his own bones—like a fucking maniac, Jesus Christ, Deku, what the shit— and finally lets loose, kicking Deku’s ass.
Then, things get even weirder . After the Sports Festival, Deku gloms onto Todoroki like a particularly persistent shadow.
When Todoroki shows up to school in the morning looking exhausted and half-awake, Deku pulls out a thermos of coffee and coaxes it into half-and-half’s hands like a fussing Mom. When Todoroki moves gingerly during training exercises (almost like he’s injured ) Deku magically shows up and spirits him away to the bathroom or locker room or where the fuck ever. When Todoroki zones out and goes ghost-mode in the cafeteria, staring at his lunch tray like he doesn’t even see it and acting for all intents and purposes like he’s a million miles away, Deku is the one to coax him back down to Earth with a gentle touch or a look or a whisper.
All of that is fine and dandy—Deku tends to mom everyone —what’s weird is how easily Todoroki, the unflappable, the legendary snow-queen, the stone cold stoic, lets him.
What the fuck even.
Who the hell would be so wanting for attention that Deku’s overbearing fussing would be welcome and not suffocating?
Todoroki meets Deku’s wide eyes and gentle hands and coaxing touches like a sunflower turning towards the sun for the very first time.
(If Bakugou was the kind of person to give a shit, he would say those two nerds must really deserve each other. Hell, he might even admit it’s kinda sweet. )
Back to the question—who would be so hard-up for attention that they’d enjoy Deku’s brand of it?
Well, Bakugou has a theory.
Something is happening in the Todoroki household.
(He doesn’t have time to figure out what it is before he’s kidnapped. Sue him.)
Bakugou wakes from a nightmare at two in the morning with a painfully dry throat. The nightmares are… definitely new, but he’s coping. He’s fucking fine. His mom is even making him see a therapist to “process the trauma”. Whatever. He’s fucking peachy.
So after another dream where he fails to take Kirishima’s hand—another dream where he falls back down to the Earth and dozens of Shigakari’s skeletal, detached hands reach to catch him, twisting his body with blunt, jagged nails, completing a sick-circuit, and ripping him to dust—Bakugou decides to give up on sleep and go make some tea.
His therapist would be very fucking proud of this.
Bakugou steps off of the elevator into the common area kitchen and hears voices.
“You’re still not sleeping well,” Deku says.
It's Todoroki that replies because of course it is. Who else would Deku be talking to in the kitchen in the dark at two in the morning on a school night? “I’m sleeping alright," he says. It’s the most inflection Bakugou has ever heard in his voice. (That's not saying much, but it sure as shit says something.)
He presses himself flat against the wall, carefully out of sight of the kitchen, and listens.
“You’re sleeping worse than you used to, now.”
“It’s…“ Todoroki sighs. “ Before , it was easy to fall asleep because I was usually too exhausted to stay awake after training.”
“It’s not training,” Deku spits, anger bleeding into his voice like acid . What the fuck are they talking about?
“Fine. After… my dad would finish with me, I’d pass out no problem. Now… I just… lay there. I can’t turn my brain off.”
“Shouto…”
There’s a long stretch of silence.
“I’ll adjust. Probably.”
“I want to help you!”
“You are helping. You do help. Before… it was hard to see what was normal and what wasn’t. You’re… very good at giving perspective to these things.”
“You’re dad is a fucking asshole, Shouto.” There is pure poison in Deku’s voice. Bakugou has known him practically his whole life and never once has Bakugou heard him sound so venomous.
What the fuck is going on?
“I know.”
There’s no more talking after that. They must have moved elsewhere. Bakugou creeps carefully around the corner and they’re gone.
He’s starting to come up with a picture.
It’s a pretty fucking unpleasant picture.
They do an exercise in class about battlefield medicine. How to splint a broken arm, how to do CPR, what to do in case of a head wound… that sort of thing. Fucking lame, honestly, Bakugo thinks bitterly.
The class is split randomly into groups of four and then turned loose into the training course. Of course, Bakugo gets stuck with Kaminari (useless), Todoroki ( irritating), and shitty fucking Deku.
The course they’re using is a city with carefully timed explosions and other mishaps to simulate a mid-disaster situation. All they’ve been told is that there are dummies playing civilians hidden throughout the course and they’ve been marked with various kinds of injuries. The objective of the activity is for each group to treat as many civilians as possible-- and to do it as accurately as possible.
“This exercise isn’t just about speed. It’s about knowledge. You can be the fastest hero, perhaps even the very first one on the scene—but if you can’t tell a broken rib from a collapsed lung, you’re useless,” Aizawa says.
Recovery Girl has joined Aizawa to observe the class’ performance. She picks up explaining where Aizawa has left off. “Points will be deducted for each civilian left untreated as well as each civilian treated incorrectly. Each team will have a single basic med-kit with various first-aid supplies. Teams must work together. There are thirty civilians scattered throughout the course, therefore, thirty points in total to be earned. Each team has one hour to find and treat as many as possible.”
“Each team goes in blind. Unlike previous field exercises, no team will be permitted to view previous rounds. You all go in equally unprepared,” Aizawa smiles like nothing brings him greater joy than sending them into a simulated disaster-scenario with no foresight. Great.
“Hey, Baku-bro,” Kaminari rocks back and forth in place from the heels of his feet up onto his toes over and over again like a sentient crib with ADHD.
“Don’t call me that.”
“Do you think I could resuscitate someone with my quirk?” Kaminari mimes shocking someone with a truly concerning expression of glee on his face. “Like, zap-zap, turn ya’ into Frankenstein?”
“Frankenstein was the doctor, not the monster, dipshit.” Jesus, some days Bakugou doesn’t know why he even bothers talking to these people.
“Still, though. Think I could?”
“I think you’re an idiot,” Bakugou hisses. At this rate, Aizawa is going to give them a penalty for gossiping like a bunch of toddlers during his opening lecture.
“You didn’t think I was an idiot yesterday when I kicked your ass at Mario Kart.” Kaminari has the audacity to follow this up with a fucking wink like an idiot who craves death by Bakugou's hand.
“I’m going to kick your ass if you get us penalized for talking,” Todoroki deadpans. At his side, Deku tries and fails to stifle a laugh.
“Ouch, dude,” Kaminari whines. “I thought we were buds.”
“For the fucking record, Pikachu, you didn’t kick my ass. You won the set by one shitty point,” Bakugou growls between his teeth.
“Still one more point than you—”
Aizawa glares at them, cutting Kaminari off mid-taunt. It’s less satisfying than punching Kaminari in the throat would have been, but it’s still pretty satisfying to watch his balls crawl back into his body in fear.
“Team two,” Aizawa says, staring them down. “You’re up next. Five minutes.”
Recovery Girl hands Deku a gym-bag sized med-kit and they stand shoulder to shoulder in front of the entrance to the course. They wait in relative silence—Kaminari won’t stop humming the opening to the new Pokemon anime. Bakugou is going to fucking throttle him.
Soon, a haggard looking Iida followed by Ashido, Tsu, and Tokoyami emerge from the course. Ashido has what looks like soot streaked through her pink hair. Tsu and Iida both look pretty ragged. Tokoyami looks, for the most part, completely undisturbed.
“Twenty-one points,” Aizawa calls out. “You pass. Barely.”
Iida promptly face-plants into the dirt and groans . Tsu crouches down at his side and gently pats him on the back. Mina turns to Tokoyami for a high-five and, weirdly enough, gets a high five from Dark Shadow instead.
“Only a seventy percent?” Deku murmurs. “I was certain that Iida’s speed and Tsu’s experience with search and rescue would leave their team uniquely positioned for success…”
“Well,” Kaminari chirps. “We’re boned.”
“Team two, you’re up,” Aizawa announces, resetting his stopwatch.
“We stick together,” Deku says, giving Bakugou a pointed look. Bakugou feels himself bristle. “We comb the course as a unit, grid to grid. It’s not as fast but… it’s a better strategy, considering that speed wouldn’t necessarily guarantee us any points. Okay?”
“Don’t fuckin’ look at me, nerd,” Bakugou grumbles at the same time Kaminari says, “Yeah, alright” and Todoroki gives a curt nod.
Jesus, Todoroki looks at Deku like the sun shines out of his ass.
“Your time starts now!”
Half-way through the exercise, they’ve successfully located and treated most of the dummies. It’s been relatively straightforward—splinting a dummy with a broken leg, pulling another dummy from the rubble of a collapsed building and getting it in a neck-brace… that sort of thing. Boring.
“Got one!” Kaminari calls, waving over the others. They’ve been combing a warehouse type building from which a minor explosion detonated at the twenty-minutes to go mark.
Kaminari has already lifted the dummy into a fireman’s carry, and with no other dummies on any of the other floors, they make a swift exit out the fire-escape.
“Okay, get the oxygen mask, we’ll need to treat for smoke-inhalation,” Deku says, nodding to Todoroki, who’s carrying the bag.
“There’s shit on the abdomen,” Bakugou notices, nodding to where Kaminari has laid the dummy out on the ground.
The fabric of the dummy’s torso is stained blue and a deep purple, like a really nasty bruise.
“Soot?” Kaminari asks.
“Uhm—” Deku flounders. “I don’t—burns, maybe? It’s really dark in color. Kacchan?”
“Fuck if I know.” He ignores the stupid nickname, for now. It’s not the time. Deku’s working himself into a state easily enough without his help.
“I do.” Half-and-half passes the bag off to Deku and kneels at the side of the dummy.
“Fucking share with the class, Elsa,” Bakugou snaps. “In case you haven’t realized, this is a timed exercise.”
Todoroki ignores him. Fucking spectacular.
“We need to monitor blood pressure and possibly administer an IV blood transfusion,” Todoroki calmly says.
“O-okay!” Deku starts rummaging through the bag for the blood-pressure cuff.
Kaminari gets on Deku’s other side. “I’ll get the IV set-up started! The oxygen mask is on.”
“You still haven’t told us what this is,” Bakugo spits, frustrated. He’s so damn quiet and it's so damn irritating.
“Shouto?” Deku prompts.
“This kind of bruising indicates internal bleeding,” Todoroki comments, dry and unflappable.
“Yikes,” Kaminari comments. He hands the IV tubing over to Todoroki, who starts to go through the motions of setting up a proper IV on the dumb doll. At his side, Deku has gone deathly still.
“How the fuck do you know that? That wasn’t covered in class,” Bakugo spits out, half-doubtful of Icy-hot and half-frustrated at Deku’s general uselessness. He yanks the medical tape out of Deku’s limp hands and tosses it to Todoroki.
“Yeah, Shouto. How do you know that?” Deku’s voice is frigid.
Todoroki shrugs his shoulders. He’s almost done. They’ll move onto the next dummy soon.
“ Shou,” Deku repeats, startlingly firm. What the fuck?
“Training,” Todoroki replies, curt.
Izuku rubs a hand over his face like he’s trying to wake himself up from a really shitty dream. “You’ve gotta be fucking kidding me,” tumbles out of his mouth on a sigh.
“Woah! Deku! Do my virgin ears deceive me? Did you just say fuck?” Kaminari looks way too fucking excited.
“Izuku. Focus. It was a long time ago,” Todoroki shoots back. He's nearly finished with the doll.
Bafflingly, Deku proceeds to place both of his hands firmly over his face and lets out a scream of sheer frustration.
Wait. The gears turning in Bakugou’s head feel like they’re stalling. Like they're grinding against each other in pursuit of something that's so fucking close. Answers are right there, he can feel it. Training… Deku’s furious… knows what internal bleeding looks like… Unbidden, a memory comes racing back to the forefront of Bakugo’s mind.
Lots of celebrities were at the Sports Festival. Lots of famous heroes, too. He distinctly remembers, all at once, the expression on Endeavor’s face—Todoroki ’s father’s face—after the festival had concluded.
Your father is an asshole, Deku spat in the kitchen that night.
Oh.
Bakugou meets Todoroki’s eyes over the body of the dummy. The skin of his scar is shiny under the direct sunlight.
Jesus.
“Are we good, here?” Bakugou says. He doesn’t break eye contact with Todoroki.
He can feel Deku’s eyes on him. The weight of the revelation is heavy on Bakugou’s shoulders. It must be in his voice. Deku’s eyes are hot on him like a brand, like he can see what Bakugou knows--what Bakugou has figured out.
Todoroki’s gaze is fathomless. Ageless, even. His eyes are too old for his body.
“I said,” Bakugou repeats, “Are we good, here?”
Todoroki holds his stare. He nods.
“Okay,” Bakugou breathes.
Deku is still. Todoroki is still. Kaminari is blinking owlishly at the three of them. His mouth is open like he wants to say something but has no possible clue of what to say.
“Okay, assholes! Let’s go,” Bakugou tries again, waving at everyone to stand. He grabs Deku around the upper arm and tugs him to his feet. He’s not… gentle. But he’s not rough either. Todoroki watches him do it. “We have fucking mannequins to rescue, c’mon.”
Bakugou can feel Todoroki watching him the entire rest of the exercise.
“Twenty eight points,” Aizawa comments. “Excellent job.”
They were only missing one of the dummies, but lost two points.
Aizawa dismisses the group to go clean up. Bakugou finds himself hanging back. His hands twitch at his sides. He feels the urge to hurt something.
“Sensei,” Bakugou asks. Aizawa blinks down at him.
“What?”
“Was it the victim in the burning building? The one we got wrong?”
In the forefront of his mind, Bakugou holds Todoroki’s thousand-yard stare. It’s so fucking heavy.
“No,” Aizawa replies, looking at his tablet. It must have the data from their attempt at the course on it. “It was the crush victim from underneath the car. Readings from the dummy indicate that you moved it too harshly when you recovered it. The ‘victim’s’ neck broke.”
He wasn’t wrong.
“Fuck,” Bakugou says, stomping off towards the locker rooms.
He slaps a hand down with a bang onto the locker door. Deku jumps. Todoroki does not. Kaminari is already gone.
“Deku. Fucking beat it, I have to talk to Icy-hot.”
“Kacchan, we’re having a conversation right now—”
“Does it look like I care?” Bakugou can feel a headache coming. Even though he didn’t use his quirk during the exercise today, the tinnitus in his left ear is acting up. Long story short, he’s all sorts of pissed off right now. “ Go,” he growls, jerking a thumb over his shoulder back towards the door.
“No,” Deku says at the same time Todoroki responds, “Why should he?”
“Jesus fuck…” Bakugou takes a deep, calming breath. Suck on that, he thinks, sending spiteful thoughts to his therapist in the back of his mind. I’m doing your “calming breathing”, Dr. Roa. Spoiler alert, it doesn’t do jack-shit.
“Look, I’m not gonna start shit. Can you please,” he grits out, “just fuck off?”
Deku slowly stands up from the bench. “Saying ‘ please fuck off’ doesn’t make telling me to ‘fuck off’ any more polite, Kacchan.”
Bakugou tips his head back and stares at the ceiling.
“Oh my god, go suck a thousand dicks, please.”
Deku huffs out a laugh. Bakugou kinda misses the days where he had this fucking nerd under his thumb. He’s such a shit.
“Is this okay?” Deku asks Todoroki.
“Yeah,” he replies. Jesus, does his face never move?
“Alright,” Deku says, doing an awkward sort of shuffle-step in place. It’s like he knows it’s time to go but his body doesn’t want to move. “Um. We’ll talk… later?” His voice does a little crack at the end, there. It makes him sound even more pathetic than he usually does.
Todoroki takes Izuku’s hand gently into his own. “Yes. Later,” he says. Then, impossibly, he smiles, just a little. Todoroki gives Izuku’s hand a little squeeze and, hilariously, Deku goes cherry red from head to toe.
“ Yeah okay, bye, see you later—” and the motherfucker bolts out of the room like his ass is on fire.
Bakugou blinks. He looks at Todoroki, smiling smugly, still seated on the bench. He looks back at the door Izuku just skittered through. Bakugou blinks again.
“That’s… kinda’ gay,” he says.
“Yes, we’re aware.” Todoroki blinks at him like Bakugou is the idiot here.
Alright.
“Who is it?” Bakugou asks. He already thinks he knows the answer but he’s not gonna come straight out of the gate with so your daddy hits you? He’s not that much of an asshole.
Todoroki’s face betrays nothing. “What do you mean?”
“You know what I’m asking.”
“Do I?”
“ Jesus fuck! It’s like pulling teeth with you.” Bakugou takes another one of those bullshit calming breaths.
He crosses his arms and rolls his shoulders. Tries again, “Who is it that’s hitting you?”
The temperature in the room drops at least fifteen degrees instantaneously.
“I don’t know what you mean,” Todoroki says. His words are visible in the air. It’s like his insides are running hot— boiling, even—while his outside turns the room into the North Pole.
“It’s your dad, isn’t it?”
A muscle in Todoroki’s jaw twitches. After a moment, “What’s it to you?”
Bakugou scowls. “He’s the number two hero.” He forces himself to meet Todoroki’s eyes when he says it, “If he’s fucking hitting you, t hen he shouldn’t be. ”
Todoroki says nothing.
“Did he do that?” Bakugou asks. His own voice is so quiet that he can’t hear himself out of his left ear. “To your face?”
Todoroki swallows visibly. His expression never changes when he says, “No.”
Bakugou lets out a breath of relief—
“My mother did.”
Holy Jesus fucking fuck—
“Internal bleeding?” Bakugou forces the words out of his lungs. They feel deflated in his chest.
Todoroki shrugs. “Training accident,” he says. Then, he picks up his hands and makes air quotes. “Sorry, I mean, ‘training accident’. I was thirteen.”
“He still do that shit? He still fucking touch you?”
“Why do you care?” Todoroki asks. He rises to his feet. Takes a few steps towards Bakugou. They’re the same height but it’s the age in Todoroki’s eyes that really puts them on different ground.
“Your dad is fucking beating you. Why would I not care?” Bakugou feels himself getting worked up. He’s probably shouting. Todoroki is still furiously calm.
“Well, by all accounts, you spent the last decade doing the same thing to Izuku.”
The air in the room is suddenly too thick to breathe. The cold is biting. It sinks into Bakugou’s bones--leaves claw marks on his spine.
Todoroki walks up to him until they stand, shoulder to shoulder, Todoroki facing the exit and Bakugou frozen facing the benches.
“Color me surprised, is all. I didn’t peg you as the type with morals.” Todoroki doesn’t have to raise his voice or look Bakugou in the eyes or even raise his hand against him. The words strike him full in the face, as stinging as any slap could be.
Todoroki’s dress shoes squeak against the linoleum as he walks away.