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For weeks after the sports festival, everything was different. Walking through the halls of UA came with fear, people taking time to get out of his way or avoid hallways he was standing in even if it meant getting to class late. Small squeaks of fear and scared whispers appearing whenever he got too close to someone.
His hearing aid had broken during that fight, so he was forced to watch people’s lips as he walked the halls, people openly insulting him and taunting him, unaware he couldn’t hear it, and therefore, couldn’t react.
Ever since the god-damned sports festival, everything was off, as if the world had shifted 3 inches to the left and he was the only one who hadn’t been told. The dumb medal had been thrown into the trash can in the corner off his room and it had yet to be moved, for all intensive purposes, that’s were it belonged.
There were not a lot of things that he hated, sure he said he hated loads of things: Deku, bland food, stupid questions, Deku, shitty teachers, the list goes on. If you asked him to name one thing, pick one thing from that list, from every possible option, that he hated, he could only ever give you one answer:
People not giving it their all.
People who give so little respect that they don’t believe you are worth a full fight. Giving it your all was, what he considered, the highest form of respect. To not try, it was insulting and like a slap in the face.
Even with people physically running from him in public, and people who talked about him as if he wasn’t in the room, he still hated how that final match of the sports festival ended more than the torment.
Of course, people weren’t the only issue to come from the award ceremony. The media, like the heartless vultures they are, latched onto his loud actions with a grip so tight it felt suffocating, The one good thing about it was that the media was dragging UA’s reputation down the drain along with his own, a win lose in his of so traumatised opinion.
Now, don’t get him wrong, he knows he deserves this. After all the stunts he pulled in middle school that went unpunished, karma had to catch up with him at some point. Add on his loud personality and destructive quirk, eventually something had to be done about him, it only made sense. His mother had been telling him for years that eventually someone else would be able to put him in his place, and she was never wrong.
As much as he deserved this, it still hurt. Having messages full of threats and death wishes every time he woke up, article after article talking about his aggressive behaviour, multiple online petitions to have him expelled from UA that had a few hundred signatures each. Forums about popular opinions had his name plastered next to the word monster too many times to count, comment threads underneath each post reached the thousands. People calling for him to be arrested and locked up with the key thrown away so he could rot, away from his potential victims.
It was a lot.
But that's who he is now, the raging monster of UA, the villain who’s playing dress-up at a hero school, waiting to be kicked to the curb.
None of his classmates noticed, all of them having the awareness of an empty bookshelf in the Sahara. Lucky him. None of them noticed how their fellow students, their friends were talking, or how they were acting. No-one saw his flinch whenever Midnight got too close or gestured towards him. Somehow, as if that wasn’t bad enough, they also didn’t notice the major media shit storm happening online. Were they all stupider than he thought, or were they all just not mentioning it in fear of how he would react? Not even his teachers had mentioned it!
Then, it started to die down. Articles stopped coming out when they realised he wouldn’t be talking to any reporters, no more petitions popped up and less people were talking about him at school (the death threats and online messages stayed around).
But then, because the universe hates him, he got kidnapped. Thrown into a marble only to be brought back and used as bait. It was almost flattering that the League thought anyone would care to come after him.
Any miniscule amount of respect he held for them for managing to pull this whole ‘kidnapping’ thing off, was quickly crushed once they stepped into the bar. Chains, sperecent cuffs and a too tight muzzle were waiting for him, each piece looking far too familiar for his liking.
If the good guys chained him up, and the bad guys muzzled him, what did that make him? Was he worse than the villains? So dangerous that wanted criminals wouldn't let him walk around or talk.
And then All-Might came, delivering pizza and punches trying to save him. But he wasn’t strong enough and now All-Might was gone, retired and broken after working to save a teenager that had been branded a villain from both sides. He did some fucked up shit in middle school, but did he really deserve to be the reason All-might had to retire?
He was only granted one night to stew in his thoughts, one night at home with his mother who rightfully reminded him of All-might's retirement and what (or more who) caused it because before he could get back into the school routine, he had to sit through a press conference.
Sitting in a too tight suit shirt and having a tie locked around his neck should have been the worst part of this whole experience. Should being the key word. The pitying stars from the audience as they eyed the scars along his face and arms were far, far worse than any piece of formal clothing.
Some of the scars were, of course, from the kidnapping, injuries too deep even for the glycerin in his sweat to smooth over. But others were left behind from the sludge villain and from the sports festival. Patches of skin that weren’t usually visible were suddenly put on display under hot studio lights that seemed to pull each and every injury to the surface.
The first ones people noticed were the obviously the ones on his face. Lines trailing from his ears down towards his nose, muzzle scars. The cuts from the muzzle at the sports festival hadn’t been deep enough to scar but when the league put it on again they made it too tight, aggravating the older injury while adding another in the same place. It was impossible to ignore.
Looking past that there were two deep lines going horizontally across both his arms, when he held them together they lined up perfectly. Again from too tight restraints that had aggravated the original cuts from the quirk suppressors from the sports festival and left him with a permanent reminder etched onto his skin.
The last set of scars, the last obvious ones anyway, were the ones that crawled up his forearms. His hands may be fireproof, but the rest of his body had a limit, sure that limit was well beyond most peoples, but that limit was still there. He had been careful about just how hot he let his explosions get because there was a limit before his arms felt the burn. His quirk miss-firing in the cuffs had nearly been the cause of these scars, nearly. Recovery Girl healed his arms before they were too damaged. Fighting the villains and having to send himself flying straight up into the air )higher than most of the buildings around him) was what had done it in the end. The heat burnt his skin and left the lower half of both of his arms a slightly pale pink colour
“Bakugou, do you think All-might is a good teacher?”
Oh, right. He was here to get questioned by a bunch of vultures. Ignoring the stare his teachers sent his way he decided he might as well answer one question, how bad could it be?
“No, good hero though.”
Answering one question, it turned out, was a bad idea. Talking, it seemed, opened the floodgates and very quickly everyone in front of him started talking at once, questions flying left and right so fast he couldn’t understand anyone.
“Bakugou, what do you have to say about your villainous actions at this years Sports Festival?”
There it was, the one question that reached his ears amongst the chaos and the one question that made everyone stop talking. Aizawa was already moving to stand, probably wanting to answer before he got the chance to make UA’s reputation any worse than it already was.
Well too fucking bad. There was no way he was letting this be twisted against him again, he had already dealt with the abuse from the public when he took to train home so there was no chance he was letting UA staff answer this question.
“What I did wasn’t villainous.” The reporters looked baffled, good.
One of the reporters near the back of the room finally found their voice, breaking the fragile silence that had engulfed the room, “Why do you think that?”.
“Because-” Glancing to his teachers quickly he gave them a split second to interrupt, a chance to try and stop him, nothing, “-it wasn’t my fault that I was chained up in front of all of you-”.
“You acted like a monster! How is that anyone but your own fault!” It was a different reporter this time, the one closest to the door. It was an older man, and Bakugou made a mental note to remember his face, if the coward thought he could talk shit because he was hidden at the back he was sorely mistaken.
Giving the man a glare, he continued. “As I was trying to say. What happened at the award ceremony was not my fault. Sure, I might have overreacted at the end of the fight but can all of you look me straight in the eyes and tell me restraining a child is the solution? Look at me and tell me that because I wanted to refuse the medal that I deserved to be cuffed and muzzled and chained to a piece of cement. Do it.”
Silence, good.
“Doesn’t sound very heroic now does it?”
A few reporters were fidgeting with their microphones and notebook. His teachers had the decency to look a little ashamed, and Aizawa, he looked almost proud. Damn, maybe he should lecture the press more often, this was fun.
“Teachers at UA are required to read the student files of everyone they teach. Obviously that means all my teachers should have read my file before I even opened the door on day 1. So imagine my surprise when I found out that none of my teachers knew that knocking me out could have killed me”
Midnight froze in her seat, All-might looked so uncomfortable that if it were any other situation he would think the man shit his pants or swore in front of a toddler. They both looked shocked though, had they still not read his file? Not even months later? They really are the best fucking teachers aren’t they.
None of the reports said anything, a few brave souls inched closer to him to make sure they caught everything he said.
“Imagine you wake up and find out you’ve been locked into cuffs that are digging at your skin enough to draw blood. Those cuffs aren’t designed to contain your quirk so when you try and get free, you give yourself 2nd degree burns all the way up to your elbows.” Just to make his point even clear, he pulled his arms up onto the table, making sure the faint pink scarring was in full view of everyone.
“Next, someone comes up and forces something over your face. You don’t know who is was or what’s happening because your vision is blurry. The knockout gas lowered your blood pressure any lower and your heart is in danger of stopping, instead you are teetering on the edge of passing out where you stand.”
Maybe it was how calm he was acting, maybe it was the silence from the adults beside him, whatever mood or emotion he was displaying to the world had forced everyone to stop and listen to him. Something about him was crying look at me and everyone was listening.
“Imagine you have been attacked by a villain who decided they wanted to spend their afternoon suffocating middle school kids. Imagine having gone through that and then having something heavy and cold forced onto you. Restricting your already panicked breathing and sending you into a panic attack. While all of this is happening, you’re being raised up into the sunlight after being locked in a basement for who knows how long. The light burns and you can’t breathe right, your vision is going black and what you can see is in doubles and blurry enough to warrant inch thick glasses on a good day.”
The realisation of what he was saying seemed to be setting in for some people. All-might, Midnight and Cementoss all looked ready to throw up, which was far more validating than it should have been.
“You start to struggle, find some way to get out of this situation but nothing works. Thousands of voices booing you and screaming obscenities are filling your ears, and they’re so loud that you can't even hear the click of the muzzle being undone until a piece of cold metal is shoved into your mouth. You can’t see who it is, but the loud voice announcing that this is apparently a win is unmistakable.”
The man in question paled further.
“All-might, the number one hero and Symbol of Peace is acting as if what is going on is okay.”
Pausing, he let the comment sink it. A few of these reporters were definitely going to use that quote when they wrote about this.
“At some point you’re back in the basement and the cuffs are finally taken off. Sure Recovery Girl comes in and heals your bleeding, burnt arms, but your blond pressure is still low and the panic attack is fading so it's getting lower because you are exhausted. You collapse and the only reason you don’t go into cardiac arrest is because Recovery Girl gives you an adrenaline shot. No-one else is in the room, if she had left you would have died via a very painful, very major seizure.”
The world froze. His teachers stopped breathing. The reporters mouths were open in shock, files taking full advantage of the situation. The only people who hadn’t been turned into metaphorical statues were himself and Aizawa. The other man had actually read his file and checked up on him when he was able to, as well as forcing him to rest for a few days before doing any more training.
“The muzzle doesn’t come off until later. Guess all the teachers thought someone else would deal with it. For months you flinch away from the Symbol of Peace whenever he raises a hand, you can’t answer to two of your teachers anymore. No-one notices. You can’t go out in public without being harassed and people spend there free time creating online petitions to have you removed from the hero course. Strangers send you death threats as if you’ve personally vindicated them and more than once someone in the general public has ‘accidently’ used their quirk on you. Your life has become a living hell.”
“So look me in the eyes and tell me all of that was my fault. I did not win that competition and I was not the villain on that day or any after it.”
It was still quiet, everything slowly sinking in. UA had released a statement the week after the Sports Festival but it had done nothing to help him, the twisted story had only helped rebuild UA’s own reputation. Now though, they had the truth. Soon everyone would know what had actually happened to him during that fateful hour and what had been happening since.
Standing, he let the room stew in what he had said, and left, pulling his tie off as he walked backstage. Before he could throw the piece of fabric in the bin, a hand gently grabbed his shoulder. Behind him was Aizawa, the man probably just as annoyed about having to do a press conference as he was.
“Get a fucking bell asshole.”
“Get better situational awareness problem child.”
Together the two of them made their way outside where a car was waiting to escort them back to UA so Bakugou could sort out his dorm room before his classmates filled the space with chaos (the good thing about being kidnapped, you get to move into the glorified safehouse first). Neither of them spoke during the car ride, Aizawa having fallen asleep as soon as he sat down while Bakugou was trying his hardest to ignore the constant buzzing from his phone. God why had he agreed to do a LIVE press conference.
Finally, they arrived, the only issue was that only teachers could get onto school grounds at the moment and his chaperone, his one person entourage, his old-man-in-waiting if you will, was in such a deep sleep he could pass as dead in a bad zombie movie.
“Oi homeless caterpillar, wake the fuck up we’re here.”
After a substantial amount of shoving, poking and yelling he woke up, his body half out of the car after Bakugou attempted to drag him to gates. Annoyed sigh aside, the two of them walked through the gates and towards the new dorms.
Finally there, Bakugou reached for the door handle only stopping to look back at Aizawa for permission before turning it. Giving the boy a nod, he watched as the door opened and Bakugou made his way inside, already scoping out the common room and kitchen area.
“You did good kid.”
There was no indication that what he said had been heard, the kid in question was already close to the stairs and on his way up to his room but something told Aizawa that he was heard nonetheless.