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One.
Bakugo is sitting on his balcony railing when Kirishima walks into his dorm room, the wind catching the curtains through the open door, framing him in the shadows. If Kirishima was to sit down with a pen and paper, he would describe it like the frame of a painting. The curtains highlighting him in the same way the sun highlights a fallen angel, drifting from the heavens.
Bakugo catches him by surprise, being here so late at night. Being here after a day like today. But also, not really – It just seemed right that he be here now. Like they were entering the finale of a game neither of them knew they were playing.
The loser here is still unclear.
“Hey,” Kirishima says, throwing his bag underneath his desk and switching on his lamp. Illuminating his room in its soft yellow glow. “I didn’t think recovery girl would have let you out yet.”
Bakugo kicks his legs, once, twice, and for a brief moment Kirishima thinks he’s going to let go. To tumble back into the dark. Would he stop him? Would he be able to, if he tried? He isn’t entirely sure.
“She didn’t,” he said, face hidden by the dark. “I left.”
Kirishima sighs, running his fingers through his hair, messing his already messed up spikes even more, they flop across his face, across his eyes. He’s so tired. So very tired.
“Bakugo,” he says, slowly approaching him like a wounded animal. Afraid that if he got too close, too quickly, he would lash out and bite. “If you weren’t discharged you should go back.”
Bakugo raises a hand and Kirishima flinches back, afraid -and not for the first time- of what those hands could do. If Bakugo notices he doesn’t say anything.
“I’m not going back,” he mumbles, and then – clearer; “I’m leaving.”
“What do you mean?” Kirishima blinks and Bakugo’s swinging got worse. He’s not sure if he’s just imagining it, the exhaustion setting in behind his eyes is making everything spin.
Bakugo sighs and runs his hand through his hair, down his face. Mimicking Kirishima’s movements from before. But his were choppy, uncoordinated. As if he had forgotten what it even is to move. Like he’s being controlled by something else entirely.
He drifts back and Kirishima holds his breath.
“I’m leaving,” Kirishima could practically see him falling, could see the broken body on the ground. He wants to rush over, to pull him back from the ledge. “I can’t stay –“ Bakugo continues, words clogged in this throat. “It turns out, I’m not cut out for this shit.”
“Bakugo-“
“I just need to figure myself out. I just need some time.”
Kirishima closes the balcony door and leans against it, arms crossed. A feeble attempt at keeping Bakugo here, with him. Kirishima doesn’t believe for a second that Bakugo would stay, he could get around him in a heartbeat and then it would be all over.
“And what,” Kirishima snaps, already regretting the harshness of his voice, “you’ll go home? Spend some time with Mummy and Daddy dearest.” He clenches his fist and bares his teeth. “Because that goes so well.” He’s being unfair. He knows he’s being unfair.
Bakugo launches himself off the railing and into Kirishima, shoving him back with a thud, his armed bared across his torso. He can feel Bakugo’s hands heating up against his chest. But he doesn’t harden. Not this time.
“Fuck that,” Bakugo snarls. “I’ll fucking sort myself out.”
He turns his head slightly and that’s when Kirishima finally catches it, the bandage that covers his left side almost completely. The white rapidly turning a dark brown somewhere in the middle, right around where his eye is.
“That looks bad” Kirishima goes to brush his hand over it but Bakugo slaps him away.
Bakugo pulls away from people all the time, but Kirishima isn’t people and Bakugo never pulls away from him.
“Don’t fucking touch me” if he would to bring up a picture of a rapid dog, he figures this is exactly what one would look like. Its lips pulled back into a snarl, its eyes crazed and so very scared. “Don’t fucking come near me.”
“Bakugo,” he says. His voice so soft, “ask for help man.” He moves his head closer; feeling his ragged breaths across his lips. “What happened today, we can stop it. You just gotta ask.”
Bakugo pushes himself back, pulling away. Kirishima wonders if there was an explosion there. One against his chest. He wouldn’t be surprised with how much his heart was aching.
Kirishima could still see it, flashing behind his eyes every time they closed. The explosions growing larger and larger during training until Midoriya was begging him stop – crying out from pain and fear. Could see the way the class came to a complete stand still to watch it all fall apart. He could smell the ash that was falling from the roof, as if Bakugo had created his own storm system in his rage. He could feel the way Bakugo struggled beneath his hands as he held him while Awaiza cancelled his quirk. Could hear his cries as he was muzzled and taken away, again. Again, and again and again.
It left a foul taste in his mouth. The way Awaiza had blinked and in an instant Bakugo had turned his hands against himself.
Kirishima had never seen a brighter light than that moment.
And worst of all, the cries that had followed him as he carried him out.
Villain,
Villain.
Villain.
Kirishima wanted to cover his ears. To stop him from hearing the words being throwing at him. But he had been too busy holding him.
And now Bakugo is here.
“Fuck that.” Bakugo looks down at his hands, a step back, Another. “Fuck that, I can do it on my fucking own.”
Kirishima reaches out to him again, and again. He would, without a doubt, always have his hand open to catch Bakugo, no matter where he went, or how high he jumped. Kirishima would be there to catch him.
But this time, this time Bakugo brushes him off. As if he was ash on his hands.
Bakugo leans against the railing. “Tell Awaiza I’m sorry.” He says.
And falls back.
Bakugo’s seat is empty in class. There’s discussion about moving someone in from a different class. Like 2B or the support classes. It doesn’t happen. His seat remains empty, a beacon for him to come back.
He doesn’t.
And Kirishima can’t help but to compare it to the first causality of a war, one he didn’t fucking sign up for. The way in which the class goes grim. And the laughter fades away.
But really, what scared him the most is that Bakugo isn’t even the first causality. Just the one to hurt him the most.
Two.
Kirishima has been seeing him in places he shouldn’t be. Seeing him in the back seat of the cinema as him and his friends walk past, in a Café in a crowded shopping center, sipping something from a mug. In the alleyway of a darkly lit street, illuminated by a single streetlight.
In a room with a monster that breaks Kirishima down to his very skin, so soft and so fragile. Staring at him with cold eyes, finger over his mouth in silence as Kirishima opens his mouth to scream.
And nothing comes out.
But he had left. Bakugo had left and no one had seen him. His parents hadn’t heard a word, every pro-hero’s attempt has been met with stony silence. As if he had simply vanished.
(Kirishima told no one about the balcony, about their conversation.)
But Bakugo hadn’t vanished entirely, not really. His memory is still so strong, in his classmates, in All Might.
In the way that Midoriya cries at the smell of smoke, when ash settles in his hair after a fight and he’s so afraid it hurts, but it’s Kacchan and Kacchan would never.
In the way that Todoroki goes silent walking back from supplementary classes. Alone. When there should have been two.
There.
Should.
Have.
Been.
Two.
It’s in the way that All Might pulls back, throws up a barrier and slowly, slowly becomes untouchable. Like no one could ever get close. He was a god now, high on a pedestal he doesn’t know how to get off.
It’s in the way there’s always a spare spot for him. An open seat in every room. Waiting for the moment he returned. And Kirishima sees the cracks. In his classmates. But he doesn’t know what to do. How to help. Because he still sees him.
Sees him now.
“I saw you today,” he tells the figure hidden by the dark. The only light coming from the machines connected to him. Monitoring his heart, could they sense if it was breaking? “With Rappa. I was so sure you were there.” His bones feel like they’re cracking even now, under the casts and the bandages. Like they’re splintering under the gaze of Bakugo. “But it couldn’t be you, because there were only villains in the room with me.”
He thinks he’s starting to piece it together now. Why he keeps appearing. Why he never says anything. As if they didn’t exist for him anymore. The significant increase in arson cases, it was like the place exploded. How the League of Villains suddenly seem five steps ahead when before they were only ever two. Just within the hero’s reach.
“Kirishima,” Bakugo finally breaks and Kirishima knows for a fact, that this isn’t some shitty nightmare like the ones that plagued him after he disappeared. The ones where Kirishima reaches out to catch him but Bakugo never quite makes it. He’s always too far away.
No, this time it’s real.
“Fuck you Bakugo.” He could feel the pain building in his chest, in his lungs. In his heart. “Fuck you, what are you doing here?”
Bakugo doesn’t move, doesn’t shift under his glare. Like there is a veil separating the two. Something so fundamentally different from before – something creating a gap so large that Kirishima couldn’t even dream of bridging it.
Is it because the world seems so different now? Or is it them?
“I had to make sure you were okay.” He says gruffly.
Kirishima scoffs, his hands clenching into fists, “Well you’ve had your look,” he says. Angry that he’s here. Angry that he’s even alive. “I’m alive and kicking and if you don’t leave, I’ll whoop your ass.”
Bakugo growls and moves forward, away from the partly open window until he’s standing over Kirishima and for the first time since that night, he gets a good look at his face. His face – his eye.
Fuck.
“Fuck you,” he says, pressing down on Kirishima’s casts, making him wince as his arms throbbed. “Don’t pull that shitty attitude with me.”
“Like you’re one to talk!” Kirishima fights against it, raising his head so he’s facing off Bakugo as equals. “With your shitty attitude, and shitty disappearing act!”
Appearing only when Kirishima least expects it, a mask always covering half his face. But Kirishima would be able to pick him out of a crowd, always. He wasn’t imagining it. He knows it’s real. The way he would be there and then he wouldn’t. As if delivering a message.
Don’t look.
Well too fucking bad because he’s looking. His hands open, ready to hold on and never let go.
He’s piecing it together. But he refuses to give up.
The fight leaves him. Leaves them both. Despite everything, he’s so very glad that he’s here right now. Glad that he’s alive.
“Where the fuck have you been man?” Kirishima asks, collapsing back into the bed. Exhausted from the struggle. “I missed you.”
Bakugo winces and sits down tentatively next him, fully expecting Kirishima to push him away at any moment. To acknowledge what’s happening and cast him away.
Villain.
Instead he reaches out, grasping his hand and lacing their fingers together.
“I’ve been around,” Bakugo says, squeezing back gently. “But you know this.”
Kirishima nods, tears making his vision so blurry it hurts, because he can’t see Bakugo’s face through them. Can’t see the way his gaze softens when looking at him. “So, I guess you saw me break today then?” He asks, his voice bitter.
“You didn’t break Kirishima,” A hand rubs his cheek and Kirishima leans into it, begging for more. For just a little longer. “You were so fucking strong. So strong.”
Kirishima’s crying for real now, his sobs the loudest thing in the room. “I don’t want this,” he can barely breathe through how much it hurts. “I don’t want this anymore.”
Bakugo shushes him, continuing to use his hands - ones only family with destruction – to ease his pain. “I was so fucking proud, watching you like that. You were beautiful.”
He lets him cry into his shoulder for what seems like hours but realistically was probably minutes, until Kirishima’s eyes are dried from Bakugo’s soft movements, from his soft words.
They lay there, breathing in sync until, eventually, Bakugo moves his hand away, creating distance that he desperately wants to fill.
Instead, he stands up to leave. “You’re gonna be a fucking star someday.” Bakugo says, “and I can’t wait to see the way you’ll shine.” His own way of saying goodbye.
“Please,” Kirishima begs, grabbing onto his hand, trying to pull him back. “Please don’t leave again. Just come back. Whatever you’ve done we can fix it.”
Bakugo ignores him, pulling away all together and walks back to the window. “I’ll see you again I’m sure,” he says, climbing out as if there wasn’t a door just on the other side of the room. As if going past the pro-hero guarding it was a very, very bad idea.
“Please,” Kirishima begs. “Please don’t leave me.”
The room is empty except for him and the machines, creating a rhythm that seems to move in the night.
Please don’t leave again.
Three.
His room is dark when he walks in. Late, incredibly late. He’s bone tired. He just wants to collapse into bed and never move again. To become one with the blanket.
Now there’s an idea – something to consider.
His room is dark.
And there’s someone in here with him.
Kirishima sighs, dropping his bag and his dirty hero costume onto the floor, not even bothering to put them away before collapsing onto his bed. “I was wondering when you were going to show up again.” He says, voice muffled by his blanket and mountain of pillows.
The figure approaches and sits down next to him. “I didn’t think I was going to come back,” he says pulling off his beanie and mask and placing them onto Kirishima’s bedside table before collapsing next to him, making Kirishima bounce as he hits the surface with a thud.
Kirishima groans and Bakugo laughs, he has a feral laugh – not at all nice. Kirishima loves it anyway. Loves the way he radiates heat, warming him right down to his very bones. He could fall asleep like this, he thinks, with ease.
They’re quiet for a bit, soaking in each other’s presence. Basking in how close they are, a rarity as it becomes harder and harder to just exist in the same space.
Until, “I know you guys are gearing up, something big is about to happen.” Bakugo peaks up from where his head rests on the bed next to Kirishima, the left side completely hidden. “Should I be scared,” he teases.
He looks so normal, Kirishima thinks, so like before. Still so beautiful.
Fuck he wants to stop this. To protect him.
He never fucking signed up for this.
“Yeah,” Kirishima licks his lips, suddenly parched. “Bakugo, it’s getting serious now.”
Bakugo laughs and Kirishima feels it across his eyelashes. “As if it wasn’t serious before?” he says. It’s bitter, Kirishima realizes. He’s bitter.
“Bakugo I’m not joking,” He pushes himself up onto is elbows, forcing Bakugo to roll over if he wants to keep looking at him. His whole face revealed to the night, to Kirishima. “The pro’s – they’re going – they’ve got a plan.” He says, not wanting to reveal anything. Just to warn. To get Bakugo out of there, now.
Bakugo scoffs, “I can take them,” he says, reaching out as if to pull Kirishima back down. Down towards him.
Like he has countless times in this bed, in this room.
“Bakugo,” he begs, pleads. “it’s not just the pros. It’s all of us. It’s big and they’re not,” he takes a breath. And another. “This time they’re not planning on taking prisoners.” His voice cracks and he cards a hand through Bakugo’s soft hair, watches it as the light of his lamp catches it. Bakugo has always responded better to touch anyway. “This is it.”
“Well,” Bakugo smirks. His body giving him away, in the way his eyes darken. In the slight hitch of his breath. “I guess this changes things.”
Kirishima is afraid, so very afraid. That this is it. But it couldn’t be it. He refuses. His hand still reaching out, grasping at his shadow. Always there to catch. Whenever he needs it.
“Come with me,” he whispers. “We can leave. I promise, leave this entire fucking thing behind. No more pros, no more heroes. Just us”
Bakugo laughs and it’s so bitter. So empty. “You know we can’t do that.” He says, “you were born to be a hero. And I wasn’t” Bakugo leans up and brushes his lips against Kirishima’s chin. So gently that it felt like it could’ve been the wind. “This was always going to happen.”
Kirishima wants to cry. Wants to break down and sob. Beg Bakugo not to do this, to reach out and accept his help.
He’s so scared.
Instead he lets his arms give out, crashing down onto Bakugo. Letting him wrap his arms around him completely. Pulling him so close they’re practically sharing the same skin.
“I don’t want you to go” I don’t want you to die. “Please, you have to stay.” Stay here where I can protect you.
Bakugo squeezes him tighter. So much tighter, and it almost hurts. Kirishima never wants him to let him go.
“I’m not going anywhere,” he says. “You’ll see.”
Kirishima thinks he might be crying. Maybe they both are.
Because this feels so much like a goodbye.
He refuses to let it be goodbye.
Four.
There are whispers around the school.
Around the hero community.
In the back streets lit up by nothing except cigarette buds as low-lying thugs compare jobs and cuts.
There are whispers among the villains too.
Somethings coming.
Something big (it’s been coming for years, maybe now it’s actually finally here.)
Kirishima hasn’t spent a full day at school for months now, so close to graduation it hurts. Constantly being dragged of campus for rosters, for missions, for meetings.
Fatgum has already offered him a position for when the term finishes but Kirishima isn’t sure if he’ll accept it.
He doesn’t feel very heroic anymore.
Sometimes he only ever feels at peace when there is something between his hands, something to fix. To make something out of. A piece of metal he can twist into something beautiful, some wood he can chip away at until a familiar face stares back at him and he has to cast it aside.
Kaminari joked that if he wasn’t so set on being a hero that he could be a mechanic. Ashido said his talent lies in sculpting.
Kirishima likes the idea, but he thinks that if he wasn’t a hero, he would be a firefighter. Or an EMT. Something that could still help. Could still save people. Just not like this.
Because something is brewing, and it scares him in how big it is. He’s not prepared. It’s almost sinister in the way it approaches him. The way in which he will catch pieces of information between meetings, between patrols and paperwork that threatens to drown him.
He knows it’s scaring the rest of the class too. (They don’t mention the ones that have left, like it’s taboo. If he were to leave would they all forget him too?)
Like now, the last lap of his route before he can head back to the office and get changed. Before he can put on a dry hoodie and head home. Maybe Bakugo would visit tonight, covered by the darkness that’s just beginning to fall.
Except he’s standing here now. In the laneway obscured by a trash bin from a nearby restaurant.
“Bakugo,” he says, leaning against the wall, protected from the pouring icy rain by nothing except the slope of the roof. “We can’t be seen together.” Not like this, not now. Not while he’s in full uniform.
He looks to make sure there’s no one around. No shady drug dealer or lost tourist to spot them in the back alley. No one that could report back and reveal to the world that Bakugo is alive, and Kirishima knew the whole time.
Bakugo smiles, his teeth so sharp they’re almost fangs. Kirishima wonders if his canines could pierce skin. Adds it to his list of things to try.
“I know,” Bakugo says. He’s so soft – almost pleading with Kirishima, for what he didn’t know. “I just wanted to see you.”
He knows something is wrong, it tastes like ash on his tongue. He refuses to acknowledge it. Not yet.
“Well,” Kirishima says, already ready to leave. To go back inside where it’s warm, and bright. Not here in the dark. “You’ve seen me.” He desperately wants to reach out. Fall in close. To just exist with Bakugo just for a moment. Away from all this.
And as if he could read his mind: “Wait,” Bakugo says grabbing onto his wrist. “Just, something is going to happen soon.” He pulls him in close and Kirishima stumbles into his chest only to be caught by firm arms. Bakugo looks him directly in the eye. “I just want you to know that I don’t want to. Whatever happens, know that I don’t want to.”
Kirishima wants to grab him, to tell him to stay. To come back with him, they could still save him. Protect him.
But the heroes aren’t taking prisoners anymore.
It’s too risky.
“I know,” Kirishima says, brushing his lips oh so gently with his own. “I love you.”
Bakugo’s smile is like the sun, a blessing.
Come back to me.
Five.
The news is on, screening the villain attack that has taken nearly all the teachers from the school. It’s been raging for so long now. Spanned the afternoon and into the night – lit up by the flames that consume the vicinity of the fight.
He knows the pros are debating sending them in to assist. He heard Awaiza arguing about it earlier.
We’re just kids he wants to tell him. Don’t make us go into this mess.
“It’s Kacchan,” Midoriya yells. And the room erupts into panic. Because there on the screen was Bakugo, explosions ripping from his hands and destroying everything in his path. His face completely bare, exposed to the world.
“Come at me,” the Bakugo on the television screams, an explosion taking out the car next to him and Kirishima could almost feel the heat that would produce from here. “I fucking dare you!”
The broadcast had breaking news written across it in bright red letters. As if Bakugo was a headline to be chased rather than a boy, a boy with a power too great for him, a boy trapped in a situation that he can’t pull himself out of.
“King Explosion, previously known as the U.A student Bakugo Katsuki, has been wreaking havoc in downtown Musutafu for hours now.” The reporter said, crying as another explosion echoed in the background. “Any attempts by the pro heroes to subdue him have been ineffective.” The tears were rolling down the reporter’s face and Kirishima wondered if they were from fear or if they saw the situation the same way he did.
Bakugo was so young, he shouldn’t need a pro hero to subdue him. He needs help. He needs someone to reach out a hand and catch him.
To help him get out.
“This comes after the controversial news that the ex-hero All Might will be completely removing himself from the hero community, saying that he is retiring from his position as a teacher and will instead be focusing on his health.”
Bakugo launches an explosion at them and both the reporter and the camera man collapse to the ground.
“Rumor has it that King Explosion was a favourite of his, previous to his disappearance. Is this a ploy to bring him back into the public’s eye?”
How the fuck is this chick still reporting?
Bakugo walks over to the camera, and the reporter. Still talking despite the visible tremor in her voice and the tears streaming down her face.
“Fuck all might,” Bakugo says.
And the camera goes black.
Kirishima’s classmates are silent, and to him it makes sense. They haven’t seen Bakugo in years now. No one has. Except him.
But he hadn’t expected Bakugo to do this.
To go through with whatever plan the League had cooked up, because this reeked of them. The way Bakugo targeted UA’s home ground. The way the pros were unable to stop him. Something was brewing.
And Kirishima felt like a fool for not realising that Bakugo was in on it too.
Awaiza walks into the room, his phone nearly crushed into his grasp. “Gear up,” he says. “We’ve been called in.”
But we’re kids he wants to say, and that’s our friend.
They’re collapsed against the wall, together, an inferno of movement, heat and noise behind them. But now, in this second, in this moment. They have found solace. In each other.
“I’m scared,” Bakugo finally admits and Kirishima sobs, dust choking him. “I’m so fucking scared. I don’t even know how I got here.” He grasps at Kirishima’s hands, pulling them in close to his chest, as if to ask him to stay. As if Kirishima would ever leave. He could feel his arms shaking from the pressure.
Or maybe from the explosions he had been blasting off for hours.
Fuck he’s so tired, and he hurts so much. He doesn’t want to be here. He just wants to be home with his Mums and his sister. He wants to be in his bed surrounded by his band posters. And he wants Bakugo there with him. More than anything.
“I know,” Kirishima says, allowing himself to be pulled into Bakugo’s arms. To feel the heat radiating off him like a fever. “I know Bakugo, I know.”
He’s almost frantic now, pulling at him, his skin falling off his hands from where he’s overused his quirk. “I don’t know how it happened. How did I get dragged into this? I just wanted to be left alone.” He lets Kirishima’s hand go, to grab onto his hair, his face. “I swear I just wanted to be left alone.”
He’s so warm and Kirishima worries that he’s actually gotten a fever, pushed himself past the point of exhaustion until he’s nothing but overused raw power. Barely even a person anymore.
Kirishima pulls his arms down and back in towards him. Kissing each knuckle individually. “I know,” He says in-between each brush of his lips. “I know.”
He can feel Bakugo crack beneath him. The way he seems to fall apart piece by piece under Kirishima’s hands, beneath his lips.
“I’ve got to do something awful.” His breath is so shaky, so young and Kirishima is furious.
That no one stepped in when they had the chance, they could have stopped this. The pros. The school. His parents. His friends. They all say it’s inevitable, that they should have seen this coming. That a boy with explosions living inside him was always going to be a villain, that it was in his very nature.
“They want me to do something horrible, please! You have to stop me.”
But it wasn’t true.
They had let him down. All of them.
“You don’t” He finally responds, resolve settling within him.
Fuck this, Fuck them all.
“I do, I’ve been given a job and I –“
“You don’t” Kirishima repeats. “Come with me, we can both leave.”
Bakugo shakes his head at him, surprised. “What do you mean leave?” he asks, “you can’t leave. You’re going to be a pro.”
Kirishima gives a small smile, his wickedly sharp teeth barely poking through. “What if I didn’t?” he says, Bakugo leans into the touch of his hand – rubbing small circles onto his cheeks. Burns and all. Burns he gave himself so long ago, the ones that ruined his beautiful eye, the cast a scar so long and so deep it almost renders him unrecognizable. But Kirishima knows him. Always. “What if we just left?”
Bakugo laughs incredulously and Kirishima gives him a hard look, conveying more through his face than what he could ever say through words. Words had never come naturally to him anyway.
“I don’t like what’s happening.” Kirishima continues trying to explain, “I feel like we’re being used, for something that I don’t like. I never signed up for this.”
“Kirishima-“
“This wasn’t in my fucking job description when I enrolled. I was a fucking kid. I am a kid.”
“Kirishima-“
“And you! They should have helped you. You had such drive, and they just labeled you a villain. You’re a fucking kid, not a villain.”
“Kirishima-“
“Let’s go.” He says grabbing hold of Bakugo. Pulling him so close and pressing his face into his hair. “Let’s go, let’s go, let’s go.”
Bakugo smiles and from a brief moment he looks exactly like before. On their first day. When he was so sure of himself, of their future.
And now the very world is falling down around them. And they’ve been hurt beyond repair. The war raging on behind them.
‘Okay,” he says – hope in his eyes for the first time in a very, very long time. “Okay, let’s go.”
He grabs Kirishima’s hand, grasping on to it like it would save his life.
Let’s go.
Fin