Chapter Text
When Bakugou Katsuki was four years old, he had stumbled upon a shiny, bright red racecar hidden underneath the shirt he had tossed on the floor the night before on the ground. The toy had looked brand new. The wheels moved great when he rolled the car across the floor while the flashing lights built into the toy would glow with every new turn of the vehicle's wheels. Bakugou had no clue where the car could have come from as it seemed to have appeared right out of thin air.
He decided to show off his new found toy to his father in hopes of some answers. (But, more so than that, wanting to make him jealous with the awesome new toy that he obviously must have deserved if it had appeared in his room like magic when it wasn’t even Christmas or his birthday.)
“You found this in your room, huh?” Masaru had asked, grabbing the toy car from his child's hands and inspecting the stickers on the sides of the doors someone clearly put on themselves.
“Uh huh. It lights up too, watch!” The boy made grabby hands at the car before taking it and crouching down to the floor, rolling it across the tile to show his father the flashing red, yellow, and white lights the car makes when made to drive. A smile found its way onto Masaru’s face as he crouched down beside Bakugou where he sat with the car.
“I think I know how that car managed to end up in your room.” He stated, quickly gaining all of Bakugou’s attention as he stopped rolling the toy across the floor momentarily to watch his father with curious eyes.
“Really?” He asked, his father responding with a nod and sitting himself down more comfortably on the floor beside him. “Magic?”
“No, no. Not magic, exactly.” He answered with a laugh. “This actually has to do with soulmates. You remember how me and mommy have explained soulmates to you before and how her and I are each other's soulmates, don’t you?”
“Kind of.” The boy answered truthfully before turning his attention back to the floor. His interest starts to wane slightly as the topic of his parents being soulmates wasn’t one that interested him very much before. “What's that got to do with this car?”
“Well, the way soulmates work is that if your soulmate loses something you end up being the one to find it for them. It’ll show up wherever you are. I think maybe your soulmate may have misplaced their toy, thrown it somewhere in their room without remembering where they had misplaced it, and that’s why it ended up wherever you found it.” He explained. Bakugou had started hanging off every word, not fully understanding why or how something like that could even be possible, but also not minding the idea of having this new toy because his silly soulmate can’t keep track of their things. That is, until a thought hit him.
“Wait,” he started, “does that mean that my soulmate is gonna take all my stuff too?! What if they take one of my All Might action figures, they can’t have that!”
Masaru all but laughed at this being the one and only thing this kid seemed to take from all of this, but also thinking that is the most Bakugou Katsuki thing to happen and he should have expected it once this finally started happening. He pulled his child into his lap, brushing some hair behind Bakugou’s ear.
“Then you better not lose it or else that’s exactly what might end up happening.” He told him truthfully.
Bakugou took that suggestion very seriously.
No matter where it was they were going, much to his mother’s horror, Bakugou refused to go anywhere without the doll. Grocery shopping, play dates, the dinner table, even to bed. The boy made sure to never be without his favorite action figure out of fear of losing it.
But he is only six years old. It is very easy to lose things at the age of six.
There was a long list of things Bakugou absolutely loved. He loved playing soccer, he loved playing superheroes, he loved being in the kitchen when his mom made his favorite foods and let him help sometimes, but his favorite thing in the whole wide world was All Might. More specifically than that, he loved the All Might figurine his parents had bought him as a birthday present for his sixth birthday just a few months prior.
When he realized one afternoon he couldn’t find that same All Might figurine, however, he was absolutely devastated.
He had just gotten back from visiting his grandmother with his parents after being rushed out of the house very early, a half asleep and foggy mind forgetting to grab the toy before walking out the door. He had only realized about half way through the car ride how it had been missing from his hands, but by then his mother had insisted it was far too late to turn around and grab it as they were almost to her mother's house, and he would find it wherever he left it once they arrived back at their home.
The problem, however, was Bakugou couldn’t for the life of him remember where it was he had left it or retrace his steps enough to even come close to locating the missing hero.
He spent the entire visit at his grandmother’s and the entire ride back home desperately trying to remember where he had placed the doll last, but no matter how much he attempted to wrack his little brain for answers, he was coming up empty.
Running on high hopes that despite not being able to remember exactly where he had last left the doll, perhaps he would get lucky and find the All Might figure waiting patiently and heroically on his pillow in the middle of his fixed bed as if waiting for him and expecting his arrival, somehow knowing just how much time Bakugou had been worrying about him and where he could be.
If only that were the case.
Bakugou had cried once he realized he couldn’t find his favorite toy anywhere in his room or any other room in his house. His parents helped him look, but after about ten minutes of searching they both seemed pretty convinced on what had happened and while Bakugou knew just the same where the doll had probably ended up, he refused to stop looking.
“You gotta stop, kiddo. You’re acting like it’s gone forever. You do realize once you find them, you’ll most likely get all the stuff you lost back, don’t you?” Mitsuki had stated, crouching down to put both her hands on her child's shoulders. She was finally hinting at the fact that the doll was safe, yes, just safe with someone else that wasn’t him. Bakugou didn’t seem like he wanted to acknowledge that fact but his mother had decided for him that there was no use in ignoring the obvious
“They could break it.” He argued, and while he wasn’t totally wrong, the chances could still be unlikely.
“I’m sure they wouldn’t do that. Besides, don’t you have that truck of theirs you showed your father a couple weeks back? Now you’re even.” She said, waiting semi-patiently for the crying kid in front of her to take a second to realize why this isn’t the end of the world.
“Can we buy a new one?” He asked, one final attempt at getting this toy back before calling it quits. Mitsuki was quiet for about 30 seconds, wiping away some stray tears continuing to fall down Bakugou’s already damp cheeks with a small sigh.
“I think it’d be better if you got the original back straight from your soulmate, don’t you think? You can keep that toy car, and hopefully they keep your All Might figure, and one day you both can trade back.”
Bakugou huffed at the idea, clearly not happy about it, making his irritation known by agrily wiping at tears that just won’t stop no matter how furiously he wipes at his eyes and trying but failing to choke back hiccuped sobs. He felt his mother attempting to pull him into a hug, but the last thing he wanted was comfort from someone who could make it better but was refusing to, so he made a noise of disapproval and squirmed his way out of her hold, crawling into his bed instead.
He’ll keep the stupid car. He had already planned on keeping it since the car was pretty cool even though the stickers are starting to peel a bit. His soulmate better keep his stuff safe too.
His mother better not be wrong.
***
Bakugou ended up cutting his own hair when he was nine.
He didn’t have any reason to do it other than ‘I don’t like it when it’s in my face and I hate wearing it up so I just got rid of it.’ In his eyes, this was the simplest solution to a problem that had no business even being a problem for him in the first place.
His mother was beyond furious upon finding out and immediately did what she could to fix the short hair herself and make it look somewhat like the cut was on purpose not done by the hands of a child who went into their hair blindly without so much as even looking in a mirror.
Mitsuki did her best to fix up his hair the best that she could, having to end up cutting the strands even shorter than her child had in order to make everything a bit more even. In the end, while his hair was significantly shorter than it had been before, it didn’t look terrible. Just very different. But Bakugou was very happy with the change. So much so, that he had been the one to later ask if his mother could call Inko and ask Midoriya if he would be allowed to go to the park with him if his mother wasn’t still too upset with him that she would say no to even letting him leave the house.
It had been the first time since Mitsuki could remember that Bakugou had actually been the one to ask if he could go hang out with his friends rather than Inko being the one to call and ask Bakugou if he wanted to see Midoriya.
He insisted he wanted to show off his new hair. He wanted to be able to play without feeling like he wanted to take the sharpest stick he could find off the ground and chop the blonde strands off his shoulders himself. He wanted to run around with this new light feeling on his head as it was getting hard to not wipe the smile off his face and messing around with Deku was always an interesting way to pass the time, especially when in a good enough mood like this one.
Mitsuki took mental notes. She decided from now on she would ask about haircuts much more often, keeping up with whether or not he wanted to ever grow it out again like it had been before or if he felt more comfortable with it short.
***
When Bakugou was 11, he found something special.
The most that Bakugou had ever found from his soulmate's end of missing items since the incident with the red car had mostly been missing clothes. A few shirts, a lot of missing socks, and one time he had even found a black hat. Today, however, was a bit different.
Bakugou had woken up to the sound of his mother yelling for him to wake up, the usual wake up call for the morning of a school day. Last night he hadn’t been able to get much sleep, accidentally staying up until eleven rather than falling asleep around his usual time of 9 pm. Getting out of bed was a challenge in itself, but stepping on something cold and slightly painful under his foot was enough of a scare to shoot the drowsiness right out of him as he jumped back from whatever he had landed on.
From where he was standing, he could see the shininess of a gold chain peeking out from underneath his bed. Without even needing to grab it yet, he could already tell that whatever this chain was did not belong to him. For a split second he had been extremely confused, not having found anything other than socks that didn’t belong to someone else for about four months, but quickly remembering this most likely belonged to his soulmate, and it seemed much more important than a random piece of clothing.
Bending down to pick the chain up, he instantly noticed something hanging from it, grabbing both sides of the gold to make sure it didn’t slide right out.
This chain was carrying a heart shaped locket.
The locket itself was beautiful, a heart shaped stone in the center of the golden locket that shone in light blue and slight pink and yellows. It was small in the palm of his slightly sweaty hand.
He contemplated opening the locket for what felt like hours. He knew he had a limited amount of time this morning, still needing to get ready for the school day ahead of him, so he had to make his decisions quickly. Anything could be in this locket. Any sort of clue as to who his soulmate was if it happened to hold a picture that his soulmate was a part of. On the other hand, it could just be a photo of a loved one or even something stupid like a tree. Who knows what kind of person his soulmate was and what his soulmate would find important enough to put inside for safekeeping and to keep around their neck with them at all times.
His mother calling him once more was what ultimately ended up pulling him out of this trance of contemplation. Shutting her up by letting her know he was awake, he finally decided to just go for it and open it. Sitting here staring at it would tell him nothing, and it’s on his soulmate for losing it in the first place. Or, rather, for breaking it, he corrected mentally as he took notice of the fact that this chain the locket was hanging off of had been broken. He would have to replace it.
Getting the locket open had been a slight struggle, taking him close to a minute to figure out which side it opened from and actually being able to reveal the inside in the first place. He wondered just how often his soulmate opened this, if they ever needed to or wanted to or if they simply felt content having it on their person and wearing it.
He didn’t contemplate it for long, however, as he finally got the locket open to look at the photo inside.
There were two women in this photo, both looking like they couldn’t be any older than 30. The one with brown hair was wearing a purple and black dress, hair flowing beautifully down to her lower back. Beside her was a woman that stood a few inches shorter than her, pin straight black hair resting at her shoulders, what appeared to be a matching wedding band on both their fingers. Between them, resting comfortably in the brown haired women's arms, was a child that looked couldn’t have been older than one years old. The baby had a small tuft of dark hair, chubby cheeks, red eyes, and goofy smile on their face.
This photo looked to be a family portrait of some kind, and that kid was probably his soulmate.
How strange to finally see something of his soulmate, even if it is just a baby picture with who Bakugou can only assume is probably his soulmate’s mothers.
He has been wasting far too much time. He needs to start getting ready and this locket can wait until he comes back home from school.
He gently closes the locket back up and holds it in his hand for a few moments as he tries to think up what to do with it. He doesn’t want to take it with him to school, but he doesn’t want his mother potentially finding it either. Clutching the necklace in his hand, he walks over to the very last drawer he has and opens it, placing it underneath the clothes he has there and making a mental note of where it is knowing his mother probably wouldn’t look here if she happened to randomly want to go through his things.
On that note, he heads to his closet and finally starts getting ready for the school day.
***
Bakugou learned a new word today.
After years of feeling the way he has, hating his long hair at a pretty young age, insisting on dressing and acting a certain way and constantly being labeled as a ‘tom boy’ by pretty much anyone who had the nerve to say it to his face or where he couldn’t hear it, and suddenly starting to feel more uncomfortable with his own body without really understanding why, he randomly stumbled upon a new word today on the internet and has been doing an ungodly amount of research on it instead of studying for the history test he knows he has tomorrow.
Transgender.
Reading up on this felt like a huge weight melting off of his shoulders. He could feel black spots of confusion that cluttered his brain start to clear away with every single new sentence he skimmed. Everything made sense, everything fit, the accuracy to what he was feeling and the definitions and personal experience stories he read from other people are uncanny.
His first instinct is feeling like he wants to cry. His next is telling his parents.
He doesn’t contemplate the idea that his parents might be anything other than supportive, considering how supportive they’ve been of him in every other aspect of his life, but perhaps he should have. Bakugou wasn’t sure why he was expecting this to be a one time conversation and then they’d be done talking about it and addressing it forever, but he was running on a high and just needed to get this over with as quickly as possible.
And he did.
Luckily for him, his parents were supportive. Almost too supportive, if Bakugou was being honest. As much as he didn’t hate his parents and obviously wanted some sort of approval when it came to this stuff, he wasn’t trying to sit through hugs and crying fests either. Sure, he felt like crying as soon as he was able to put a word on such an alien feeling, but he wasn’t in the mood to sit through a group hug where everyone's happily sobbing out their feelings. No, thank you.
Looking back on it, Bakugou felt extremely lucky to have found out about the terminology when he did as it was perfect timing for his parents to look into finding someone he could talk with about potentially being able to take testosterone. His hair was already short and he already wore whatever kind of clothes he felt like, as both his parents were always more than happy to let him express himself even before they knew Bakugou was actually a boy and not a girl, but now he could bind as well as wait on his voice to get a bit deeper once he takes T long enough.
On top of that all, he would be heading to a new school next year where pretty much no one would know who he was before. It would be a completely clean slate from who he had been in middle school and below, starting over much more comfortably on his road to being a hero.
Except for the fact that Deku would be there. Bakugou would have to deal with that reaction and he was not looking forward to it.
Finding out Deku would be attending the same school as him after all of the changes he had made and the fresh start he had been looking forward to was enough to piss Bakugou off, but finding out he would be in the same class as him was even worse.
But not worse than the mix between confusion and anger once Bakugou had realized Deku had a quirk.
Absolutely nothing about the situation had made sense, nothing was adding up, there was no way to know for sure how long Deku had been hiding the fact that he had a quirk and why, and there was no stopping Bakugou from wondering and trying to figure it out.
As annoying and frustrating as the whole situation was, it was even more annoying just how respectful Deku had been about everything that was going on with Bakugou.
Respectful of him and his pronouns while also lying about the fact he was quirkless? Bakugou wasn’t sure how he was supposed to feel or how he was supposed to react to this kind of situation.
His mother had been the one who ended up telling Inko about the news. Respectfully asking Inko to address her son as just that, her son, rather than anything else. Inko had been the one who told her son so Bakugou didn’t have to, both of them accepting of everything but the initial reactions had been so annoying Bakugou was tempted shoot 10 different blasts into Deku’s dumb face.
He stared at him a lot. That was the most annoying part, he thinks. He was always looking at him and sometimes he couldn’t tell if it was because he looked, acted, and sounded a bit different now or if it was because he was doing the dumb analysis thing he had always done when it came to paying attention to him and how his quirk changes.
It could be both. It could be neither. Bakugou does his best to not give a shit, which is easier said than done.
He was going to be the number one hero, it didn’t matter if Deku had a quirk now and it didn’t matter if Deku couldn’t keep his eyes to himself, he would still beat him and every other person that attempted to stand in his way.