Chapter Text
It’s dark.
It’s been dark ever since the heat on the back of his neck vanished, leaving him with a racing heartbeat and his thoughts.
There are chains around his wrist, cinched tight enough to pinch the skin, and his hands are encased in a slab of metal.
Even if he could use his quirk- which he can’t, he’s been in quirk suppressors before, he knows what they feel like- it’s likely he would blow his own hands apart.
A muted sob to his left draws his attention, reminding him that he’s not alone in this.
Katsuki stirs- but it’s difficult to do more than that with his hands trapped as they are and chained to the wall.
“Stop crying,” he snaps into the darkness.
It’s dark enough that he can’t see the other person, but he knows who they are.
He doesn’t know her well enough to know if this should surprise him or not.
He knows Deku- more than he would like to- and the stupid nerd has always been a crier. There are a couple other kids in the class he’d have pegged as criers, but Miss Stoic Ponytail is a mystery to him.
Was a mystery to him.
Damn it.
Getting through this would be hard enough on his own. But with someone else…
He grinds his teeth together.
She better not get in his way.
A shape he can just barely make out in the shadows shifts a hair.
“Must you always be this unpleasant?” The girl across from him gives a shaky sigh.
Katsuki hears a rattle of chains, which he assumes means she’s in the same boat he is.
He wonders faintly what sort of restraints they’ve used on her. If they’re anything like his or if she can still use her quirk.
They probably are.
If these bastards are worth their salt, they wouldn’t be taking any chances.
Of course they’re not taking chances.
They kidnapped them both from training camp right out from under the noses of several pro heroes.
They wouldn’t go through that much trouble to get them just to screw it all up and lose them immediately.
Fuck.
“Shut up!” he snaps. Then, “What do they have you in?”
There’s a pause.
When she speaks again, he can tell she’s taking care to keep her tone level.
“I can’t use my quirk,” she says finally, though her voice is strained. Like speaking is taking a monumental effort on her part.
He snorts.
Well, that’s fucking great.
“Bakugo,” Ponytail says quietly.”Perhaps we should…”
“No one asked you your opinion,” he snaps back immediately.
“Listen,” Ponytail snaps back, just as fiercely, which takes him by surprise, “whether you like it or not, we’re in this together. If we put our heads together, maybe we can come up with a plan…”
That has him keeping quiet.
She’s right.
He doesn’t have to like it, but she’s right.
“The plan is I blow them all to hell once these come off,” he grinds out.
It’s entirely for show.
Because these won’t be coming off and he knows it.
Ponytail knows it too and that’s what irks him.
“We have good quirks,” she says, “so obviously these won’t be coming off.”
No shit, Katsuki thinks, but for once he keeps his mouth shut about it.
“But if we work together, maybe we can outsmart them.”
Katsuki opens his mouth to retort. He shuts it.
He wants to get out of this just as much as she does.
If that means working together… he’ll deal with it.
“There’s no maybe.”
Katsuki doesn’t deal in maybes.
He deals in absolutes.
“Well, then.” Ponytail sighs in the darkness. She sounds relieved, but that could just be Katsuki imagining things. What does she have to be relieved about after all? “It’s settled.”
Nothing is settled.
Because, see, working together kind of requires the two participants to actually be together.
Something that changes pretty quickly when the villains decide to remove Bakugo.
It goes about as well as to be expected.
Bakugo tenses when they come for him, shoulders hunching defensively, but it’s all posturing.
There are two of them.
The scarred man from before.
Dabi.
Someone had called him Dabi.
Bakugo bares his teeth, pulling back against the chain.
Momo wonders if he’s even aware of that last action.
There’s someone else too, someone in a bodysuit. Momo has no idea who they are. She’s never seen them before.
It’s Dabi who steps forward. Not towards her.
Towards Bakugo.
“Get away from me!” Bakugo is snarling and it has Momo’s attention snapping back so fast it almost gives her whiplash.
Dabi is completely unphased. He crouches down, a hand resting on the chains.
“You can fight me, kid, or you can make this so much easier on yourself. Your choice.”
Maybe it’s the memory of the flames that keeps Bakugo from acting out, but, much to Momo’s surprise, he refrains.
Apparently satisfied, Dabi unchains him from the wall, leaving the quirk suppressors in place.
It’s when he grabs for Bakugo’s elbow that he reacts.
“Don’t fucking touch me!” he snaps but it’s with significantly less ire than it might otherwise have been, jerking away.
Dabi fixes him with the most unimpressed stare Momo’s ever seen on anyone dealing with Bakugo.
The man in the bodysuit stands back, arms crossed and shaking his head, expressive enough even beneath the mask that he somehow appears sympathetic.
“Make this easier on yourself, why don’t you kid?”
His voice pulls her attention away from Bakugo.
“Go ahead and test us and see where that gets you!”
Two voices from the same man.
It’s… unsettling, to say the least.
“Lucky guy.” He’s at her side, his hand on her shoulder, and Momo yelps. “Boss just wants to talk to him.”
“Better be careful though. He’s already in a mood.”
“What does he want with him?” Momo blurts. Then, while she’s asking and while she’s in the company of someone who might be more than just a little forthcoming, “What do you want with us?”
The man shakes his head again, pantomiming the action of zippering his lips shut with a wink.
So much for forthcoming.
He repeats Dabi’s actions from before, unhooking the chains from the cuffs. He doesn’t grab her arm, just trusts that she’ll climb to her feet on her own.
She does.
His hand lands on her shoulder, just forceful enough to let her know he’ll be guiding her to wherever it is that they’re going.
She doesn’t fight him.
“Yaoyarozo Momo.”
He says it like he’s announcing something grand.
Momo grits her teeth. “Where’s Bakugo?”
She hasn’t seen him since they were separated.
Bakugo is… not her friend- she wonders if he even has friends- but that doesn’t mean she’s not concerned.
“Now, now.” He extends a hand to her. As though she would take it if she could. As though his touch isn’t that of death. “Is that really who you’re worried about?”
Momo can’t take her eyes off it.
She wasn’t there directly for what happened to Aizawa-sensei, but she remembers the aftermath very clearly.
It was like he only had his hand on him for a second.
Momo lifts her chin and looks Shigaraki straight in the eyes.
She won’t let herself be cowed.
“UA has been negotiating for your release.”
If he’s probing her for a response, he certainly gets one.
Momo falters, jaw unsticking.
“Wha…?”
It doesn’t surprise her. She’s known UA would attempt to get them back.
She just didn’t expect to hear about it so soon.
She didn’t expect to hear about it at all.
Her parents… Shouto…. Kyoka…
All of them.
She wants to see them again. She misses them so much.
To her horror, her vision blurs. She jerks her hands, struggling to bring them to her face in a move that’s completely instinctual, but she’s unable to raise them more than a few inches.
Shigaraki seems completely satisfied with her response.
“We may be villains, but we’re not monsters,” he says. “We understand it must be hard for you.”
“Shut up. I don’t want to talk to you.” Momo fights to regain control of her emotions. “Where’s Bakugo?” she repeats.
Shigaraki mentioned that UA is negotiating for her, but that automatically means they would be doing the same for him?
Correct?
She can’t imagine it being otherwise- the heroes wouldn’t save one student only to leave the other to rot in captivity- but something still twists in her gut.
That’s exactly the reason Shigaraki brought it up. To make her doubt.
Of course UA is negotiating for his release as well. Anything else would be utterly ridiculous.
Shigaraki twitches. One hand scratches at his neck with broken fingernails.
The skin there is already red and irritated.
He tilts his head, peering out at her from behind the hand-mask.
It leaves a chill sweeping over Momo’s shoulders.
“How funny,” he says, softly eerie in his tone, “that you should seem so concerned for him, when he hasn’t said a word about you.”
If there’s one thing Katsuki is certain of at this moment, it’s that the bitch in front of him is batshit crazy.
The scarred man lurking just behind her isn’t any better.
Katsuki tries to keep his eyes off of him.
All too easy when he’s acutely aware of the stiff leather biting into his arms, his waist, his legs. Of the knife in the blood-sucking bitch’s grip.
“You know Izuku, don’t you?” Her voice is shrill and loud, her face flushed with excitement.
It hurts Katsuki’s ears.
The scarred man- Dabi, Katsuki thinks, with only the slightest hint of hysteria. He’s pretty sure someone called him Dabi- tips his head back against the wall with a thunk.
“This isn’t about your little crush,” he grunts with remarkable patience considering the circumstances. Or maybe he just doesn’t give a shit. “Get a grip.”
“Right, right.” She giggles and winks at him. “Ah, don’t be jealous, Blasty.” She lunges forward, stabbing the knife into the chair beside his ear.
Katsuki jerks his head back, eyes blown wide, nostrils flaring.
She grins.
“I’ve got all the time in the world for you now.”
The second knife comes out of nowhere, plunging into and through his side, into the back of the chair behind him.
The sound, deep and wounded, that emerges from his own throat is entirely foreign to his ears.
He’s never heard himself sound like that.
Did she…? Did she just…?
Shit, she actually just stabbed him.
Toga doesn’t bat an eye.
“Oops.”
She yanks the knife out and Katsuki chokes.
Blood trickles down his side, down past the waistband of his pants.
A whine builds in his throat and, inwardly, he curses himself for being so pathetic.
It’s not deep- certainly not deep enough to have punctured important.
He’s fine.
(It hurts.)
(He’s not fine.)
Yes, he is.
Dabi sighs and drops his arms to his sides.
“I didn’t sign on to be your babysitter,” he says.
That catches Toga’s attention.
“Ah, Dabi,” she whines, “you’re gonna miss all the fun.”
“You have fun,” Dabi says, uninterested. “I have places to be.”
Toga watches him go, shoulders slumped.
She perks up almost immediately after, spinning back around on her heel to face him.
“Oh well.” She shrugs. “I guess that just means I have you all to myself!”
“So?” If he’s trying to phase her, Momo won’t let it work. “What’s your point?”
Is she supposed to stop caring just because Bakugo doesn't?
It’s never been a secret that Bakugo is not a people person.
That feels like an oversimplification.
Although she has noticed he and Kirishima seem to be getting along.
She doesn’t exactly understand, but she’s not sure anyone really does understand Bakugo.
Even Midoriya, who they all know grew up with him.
The skin under his eyes stretches, like he’s grinning under the mask even if Momo can’t see it.
“So,” he says, with a sigh that almost sounds like one of satisfaction, “you want to know where Bakugo is.”
Cold fingers grip her heart- and then extend, their tendrils pumped like blood through her veins- even as her ears prick up.
She feels almost light-headed, but she keeps her mouth shut.
Undeterred, Shigaraki continues,apparently content to carry on this one-sided conversation. He gestures widely with one hand. “Currently, I’d imagine he’s getting well-acquainted with our particular brand of hospitality. We did, after all,” he leans forward, scrutinizing her, “bring him here for a reason.”
Yes, she’s sure they did.
“Why should I,” she asks, “care about your reasons?”
“A fair point,” Shigaraki concedes. “But I suppose you would care about the reasons of UA and your precious heroes?”
“What are you…?” Momo struggles to see his point.
“I’m sure you remember the Sports Festival.”
Momo stills.
Of course she remembers the Sports Festival.
How could she not?
“A student,” Shigaraki is still speaking, “so violent he needed to be restrained in order to receive a medal. It caused quite a stir among the public, I’m sure you’re quite aware.”
The awards…
Momo feels sick to her stomach.
“Such extreme measures- they’re usually reserved for someone… villainous.”
She jerks.
“He’s not… he’s not a villain.”
Why is he doing this? She has no idea why he seems so dead set on getting her to believe Bakugo is a villain. Or capable of being one.
Is that why they kidnapped him? So then what about her?
“Is that so?” Shigaraki tilts his chin. “Your precious heroes don’t seem to agree.”
“That was…!” Momo snaps and then stops.
What had it been?
It had been wrong.
She’s certain of that.
She still remembers her own shock when the platforms had been raised and the winners had been presented.
“What are they…?” Uraraka had whispered behind her before trailing off into a stunned silence.
Maybe she had been the only one to notice the way Ojiro’s fists were clenched and trembling by his side.
She thought she understood.
Ojiro’s request to not receive credit for something he didn’t think he had deserved had been honored, so why hadn’t Bakugo’s?
(And when he’d protested, they’d chained him up and muzzled him on a television broadcast.)
It’s troubling.
But also… Momo trusts the heroes.
She trusts All Might .
She wants to believe that he wasn’t wrong, but… he was, wasn’t he?
“I suppose the question you should be asking yourself,” Shigaraki continues, “is if someone like that is really meant for the hero course.”
It bothers her how much time is spent discussing Bakugo.
He wants her to consider him a villain? Is that what this is about? Why does what she thinks matter?
Is he… is he hoping to somehow turn them against each other?
Her lips part, but she can’t find any words to say.
What would she even say anyways?