Chapter Text
Bakugo Katsuki would call himself a pretty strong guy.
His friends would too. After all he’s saved them quite a few times, has kicked ass during training, and while he’s brash has managed to get through many hardships.
Which is why he has one part of himself that he is not, telling, anyone.
—————
It’s a Monday, the weather is actually pretty nice for once, but he really does not want to go to class today. He’s got a headache and he woke up with his thumb in his mouth.
“What...the fuck?”
He reaches over and turns his alarm off before getting out of bed, luckily he didn’t have any nightmares so he doesn’t have that buzzing of anxiety under his skin. (Well a strong buzz his anxiety is almost always there).
After a quick shower he comes back to his dorm, changes into his uniform and heads downstairs for some food, maybe that will get rid of this feeling.
(Spoiler it doesn’t). After scarfing down his rice bowl and huffing because he fumbled with his chopsticks a few times. He sits in the couch and waits for his “squad” Kirishima is usually first and Mina last, but this time it’s Denki that reaches him first. He has a little spark at his fingertips and looks a bit distracted.
“Hey. Pikachu you good?”
Denki looks up, tilts his head gently to the right, then gives a shaky nod and looks back down at his hands. Of course Bakugo notices that this isn’t normal but he’s not the emotional support one of the group, and he knows his gruff assurance isn’t what Pikachu needs. He also knows that with this weird slightly hazy feeling he probably can’t help him too much.
Kirishima comes down a bit later all smiles, his hair spiked up, uniform neat. Sero comes down looking similar to Kiri they’re both more...put together, and lastly we have Mina who’s hair looks very poofy today, but other than that the same as usual.
Arriving in class early they all have different reasons. Bakugo refuses to be late and mess up his perfect attendance, Sero is afraid to be late, Mina is just here to be with the squad and talk to Momo, Denki wants to talk to his classmates and move before he has to sit still for so long, and Kirishima says ‘it isn’t manly’ to be late.
While Bakugo avoids people in the morning his headache makes it worse, the clock on the wall ticking is driving him mad, everytime someone enters and their shoes squeak on the linoleum his head and eyes throb he just wants to sit and nap somewhere.
The school day passes uneventfully, in home room Aizawa-sensei sleeps in the corner while Momo and Iida take over. The rest of the day Pikachu pets Ojiros tail while watching Iidas hands with a weird intensity. There’s a small hiccup where Todoroki messed up and gets embarrassed cause him to blush the heat making his left side activate.
Bakugo doesn’t know what’s happening but he knows he wants to sleep, his focus has been weird all day, at lunch none of the food looked good so he ended up not eating even tho he was definitely hungry, he tried to drink but that stupid small feeling made holding his cup hard which cause him to set off a small explosion out of frustration that made Mina jump and get acid on her tray. Overall Bakugo was having a bad day.
Back in his own dorm room he gets on his bed and...waits. He’s not sure what he wants to do. He feels oddly emotional and whenever something bad happened he had a strong urge to cry, which sucks because he prides himself on not crying. He also really wants a hug, he’s distanced himself from most people so he’s not even sure any of them would want to hug him but right now he just wants to be held while he naps his headache away.
“What. The. Fuck.”
He groans into his pillow, nothing he’s tried has worked. Napping, showering, eating, sparring, nothing worked. He feels small, it’s making him frustrated but the feeling is turning his frustration into tears which is making him more frustrated and he’s trapped himself in a cycle.
*knock knock*
“Hey Bakugo, are you in here?”
Why is Kirishima here, of all times he chose now.
“What do you want shitty hair?” He opens the door, squinting a bit at the light from the hallway.
“We were worried, we have a study session and you’re late. You’re usually on time so I came to check. Are you...sick? You’ve been a little weird today.”
Not one to have people worry about him, the last thing he needs is to be called weak.
“I’m fine just have a headache.” Kirishima gives him a weird look but let’s it slide as Bakugo starts packing his bag for the study session. He doesn’t want to set off Bakugo and have it turn into an argument.
—————
The study session did not help. He still has that stupid small feeling. His headache is worse. Pikachu was still distracted which means he got frustrated easily with his work, he shocked Sero on accident, Sero jumped and knocked over juice onto minas floor, Mina complained about it staining, Kiri and Bakugo just watched from the background. Kirishima looks entertained, fond even. Bakugo usually would the situation is pretty funny but with today it just makes him irritated so he grabs his thing and leaves when he feels tears gather in his eyes.
“What is this. Why do I keep feeling like this?”
—————
Bakugo feels tears and for once lets them fall. Fighting them all day is tiring and just made the feeling stronger so he lays on his bed changed out of his uniform, which took longer than it should have, wearing gray sweats and his skull shirt he lays in bed and cries.
It’s overwhelming.
He hasn’t cried like this since he was a kid, his headache gets worse, his eyes are pounding, his throat hurts, he’s attempting to quiet his cries in case his neighbors are in their dorms. In the middle of crying he hears another knock at his door.
“Bakugo. Are you alright?”
Holy...shit. Why is Aizawa here, he can’t let him see him like this. He’ll kick him out of the hero course. Especially because he can’t even explain it.
He hears another knock
He can’t move.
He’s pretty sure his eyes are open but why can’t he see? His chest feels tight like someone’s sitting on his chest. His whole body is tense, his legs are rigid where he lays. His hands are clenched on something he can tell, but why can’t he feel it, what are his hands doing? What is he holding? He feels weight but doesn’t know what it is. His face is covered in snot and now he can’t breathe, he feels like he’s drowning, why can’t he breathe, is someone choking him? Is he back with the slime villain? Oh god he’s gonna die oh no oh fuck fuck it’s heavy fuck it’s so heavy wh-
“Bakugo!”
“Bakugo, hey lo- at m-, I need yo- breathe. Breathe wi- me ok, in the- then out”
He tries to follow the instructions, breathe in and out right? That’s what they said he thinks, he can’t hear very well, why can’t he hear. No no breathe ok breathe he has to breathe. He feels his chest rising and falling but it’s not helping why isn’t it helping is he drowning what is happening
“Hey kid, hey ok, ok, no kid, too fast, you’ll hyperventilate. Breathe with me, in, hold, out”
Aizawa knows Bakugo can at least kind of hear him so he speaks in concise sentences. Exaggerates his breathing as an example.
When Kirishima had approached him after class about Bakugo’s behavior, he had noticed his student acted weird but thought maybe he was tired. So when Kirishima arrived at his door asking him to check on Bakugo this was not what he had been expecting.
Helping someone from a panic attack is not a fast task. 8 minutes later he had Bakugo’s breathing regulated. The kid is looking down still clenching his arms in his hands. He knows there will be crescent shaped marks from how hard his nails are digging into his body but he can get to that later. For now he wants to know what caused it.
“Bakugo. Can you talk?”
He can see that the kid doesn’t want to, but Aizawa needs to know what happened to set his kid off like this, the last time he’d seen him emotional like this was his fight with Izuku after All Might’s retirement.
The kid still looks tense though, this clearly isn’t going to be easy to get him to speak on but Aizawa needs to know what caused this, he’s concerned not even as his teacher but as an adult in his life.
“Is stupid.”
Bakugo’s voice is soft. Like he’s trying to hide it. Aizawa is quick to assure him.
“It’s not stupid. Bakugo your feelings will never be stupid. I just want to know why happened.”
The blond shakes his head, “Is stupid”, Aizawa wants to ask why he sounds different, why he’s saying is instead of its, he doesn’t want to set the kid off though, maybe he just has trouble talking after a panic attack?
“Bakugo it’s not stupid. At all. I need you to understand that.”
The kid still looks reluctant, but it’s more the anger in his eyes that has Aizawa concerned.
“Look. Bakugo kid you don’t wanna talk about it but I need to know. Don’t fig-“
“No! You don’t need to,” it’s such an abrupt switch it leaves Aizawa reeling, “you don’t need to know anything. I don’t have to tell you anything. And, and, stop calling me kid I’m not a kid. I’m a hero in training. I’m fine, I’m just fine.” He hops off his bed and before Aizawa can even think of what to do he’s out of his dorm room.
When Aizawa exits he sees a few students in the hall confused, Denki, Kirishima and Todoroki. He can see the question on their faces but waves his hand dismissively before following the now angry blond.
—————
He finds him outside sitting on a bench, his hands giving off little sparks as he attempts to breathe. Aizawa gives him a moment to cool down. He isn’t really sure how to approach him it’s important. It’s affecting his kid like this and he feels like he failed knowing his kid feels he can’t trust him.