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It’s cold , the thought formed in Bakugou’s head as soon as he removed his gloves, the single layer of fabric that shielded his skin from the surrounding air. He winced, looking at his busted hands; If his mother was here, he was sure she’d be rattling off on how self-care was the most important form of care in the world, yada-yada, with other bullshit about basic first aid. She could shut up for all he cared, wait till she saw the atrocity that was Midoriya Izuku. If she ever saw him again.
Ever since he left, the class was in shambles. Every morning, they’d wake up with the sole intent of finding the green-haired idiot, disregarding meals or breaks almost every time. Iida, being the ever-so-reliable class chairperson, forced food down the throats of many. It was easier said than done, most would rather have spent their time locating the missing ball of sunshine that once lit up the hallways of the dorm and their lives.
It was frustrating, to say the least. The very night Deku had left without a single trace to his location, but letters to each and every one of them, the class had scoured the entire UA grounds, leaving no stone unturned in hopes of finding the boy. The night of the first day, their hope for him to return to the dorms at his own accord was sky-high. Their flame of hope began to waver on the second night, flickered on the second week, and was eventually reduced to a glowing splint in the second month of Deku’s absence.
What was most troubling was everyone’s reactions to the missing member of 1-A. Uraraka’s bubbly personality began to chip away, leaving the shell of a once cheerful and outgoing girl. Todoroki, who had begun to express even more emotion and initiate conversations, receded into himself yet again, snapping at anyone who dared approach him. Tokoyami’s initial apathetic persona began to show signs of worry, accompanied by Momo jumping at every opportunity to craft location-tracking tools and drones to seek Deku out. In short, everyone just wanted Deku home. Safe. Unscathed.
They all thought Bakugou wanted otherwise. Tracing their less than amicable history seemed to speak volumes for the blond, apparently.
Well, that’s what they thought.
No one needed to know that the extra hours spent away from the dorms meant extra hours slaving with All Might over the whereabouts of his successor, nor the fact that those extra hours had been spent over-exerting his body in the school gyms. His sessions always ended up with the room having yet another hole in the wall, or a piece of equipment blasted to smithereens. He’d soon opted to destroy Ground Beta to let off some steam instead, with Mr Aizawa’s consent, of course. It was a space that he treated as a haven, as a form of remembrance for his childhood friend. To Bakugou, their fight at Ground Beta was a culmination of miscommunication and aspirations. To be able to savour that again? He would give anything, everything in the world even, to relive the very emotions that had coursed through his veins that very night.
That chilly night, he had just finished yet another round of blowing shit up. Settling on a ledge on the second level of a building, he craned his head upwards to gaze at the sky. He was almost positive that Jirou and Kaminari were slaving over the screen of a drone Momo had sent out the day before, with Kirishima aiding Iida in his quest to feed the zombie-like members of 1-A. Hagakure would be with Mina, Ojiro and Sero, analysing numerous maps for possible routes that Deku could have taken. The rest would be scattered across the common area, or even in their rooms trying to force themselves to focus their disarrayed minds on school work. Bakugou scoffed, the extras probably couldn’t figure out a lick of their Physics homework with the states of mind they harboured.
Taking a large swig from the bottle that he had brought along, he slammed it into the concrete. Surprisingly, it doesn’t break, as with the average bottle. It was something Deku had recommended him to get made, convincing the bubble-gum bitch from Support to make it during one of their lunch breaks so he could chuck his water-bottle around without the fear of wrecking the poor container in the end. It was so Deku to analyse the little bits of a person, understanding their likes and dislikes, strengths and weaknesses, to help strategise on how one could overcome their own adversities with the right amount of support. For them to spearhead their own growth and have complete control over it.
It was so Deku to always look out for others and place anyone else above himself, ignorant of his own safety. It was so Deku to prioritise the greater good over whether a decision would affect his personal well-being. It was so Deku for him to run away, thinking that he could go through everything by himself.
“Fuckin- FUCK THIS!” Bakugou yelled, grabbing the object nearest to him and blasting it into the road two-storeys below. Luckily, said object turned out to be a huge chunk of concrete, rather than the electronic device perched precariously next to him. Sighing, he opted to scroll through his phone rather than staring blankly at the bright moon, hoping to find some form of solace through checking his messages. It turned out to be a mistake however, when he ended up scrolling through his chat history with Dek- Izuku.
In the time the boy had gone missing, Bakugou had been working on destroying bad habits and forming good ones, such as addressing Izuku by his actual name instead of the name he’d assigned to him as a brat. Of course, it was still relevant seeing that Deku had become the idiot’s Hero Name at the end of the day, but it was the least he could do as a form of repentance for the shitbag he’d been in middle school. Old habits die hard, after all.
Their conversations over text had never been the most content heavy. They were mostly a ‘good morning kacchan! :-D’, a ‘where tf r u, shitnerd’ from him, or a ‘good night kacchan! see you tmr <3’, and oh, how much Bakugou would give to have that again. After Izuku’s final greeting over text, the slew of Bakugou’s texts were left unread. Sent, but unread. The greenette had been avoiding him on purpose. Every time he’d hope for a reply, he’d laugh at himself sadly, before exiting the application and shutting down his phone. It was hopeless to get the boy to read his texts, what more for him to reply to them? The texts progressed from angry, caps-locked vulgarities and phrases, to softer words, forming sentences of deeper emotion. Aski- no, begging for him to return.
The clean ‘click’s of dress shoes are soon heard approaching him from behind, getting louder and louder each time, before they came to a stop next to him. Bakugou didn’t even need to look up to know who it was. He heard the rustle of fabric as All Might sat himself down at the edge of the building, joining him in the cool autumn air. The former Symbol of Peace fiddled with Bakugou’s discarded gloves, noting the new rips in the material, before placing it between them.
“Young Bakugou, isn’t it past your bedtime of,” the man looks at his watch, “8:30pm? What are you doing out here so late?” Hearing this, the blond checks the time on his phone. 22:20. Fifteen added to seven was twenty-two: Fifteen was Izuku’s birth date, with seven indicating July, Izuku’s birth month. His own birth date was twenty. He chuckled lowly, of course everything would remind him of the missing half to his whole, the missing member of the Wonder Duo.
“What’re you doing out here, old man? Isn’t it past your bedtime?” He turned to face the older, finding All Might’s lips pulled up into a small smile.
“It’s good to hear that you’re still able to humour my old soul. Now, worrying over Young Midoriya again?”
Silence filled the air for a moment, the man’s eyes widening as he watched the shoulders of the boy in front of him shake sporadically, before falling quickly into a steadier rhythm. Wretched sobs were ripped from his throat, body leaning forward, a single strong lurch threatening to catapult him off the edge. Instinctively, All Might pulled him into a warm embrace, being careful not to put too much force into the thin arms wrapped around the boy’s frame. He felt the fabric of his signature suit begin to grow damp from the waterfall of tears escaping Bakugou’s eyes. It took a full five minutes for the once-explosive boy to regulate his breathing, who soon after, wiped the remainder of his tears on his black tank top.
All Might smiled, “I take it that you have finally figured out your feelings for Young Midoriya.”
Crimson red soon met small blue orbs. “I think I fucking love him.”
“It’s so stupid. All I was to him was an asshole, a bigot, a fucking shitbag. And this nerd? He treats me like I hung the stars, like I deserve the entire world. He should be the one being held high up on a pedestal and appreciated by all beings in the universe. Why would he choose to stick it out with me? I tried to get him to quit following in my footsteps by bullying him, to quit trying to achieve his dream of being a hero when he’s literally Quirkless by demeaning his less than superhuman capabilities, and he still manages to exist. I went so far to even ask him to end it all. And he still dared to even dream and commit to a goal of keeping pace or surpassing me in the future.” Bakugou heard the small laugh the pro-Hero let out, prompting him to continue.
“I love everything about him. His stupid, geeky smile when he gets into analysing different Heroes. I love the way he supports his friends through different love languages, like when we dealt with Todoroki’s shitty dad. I love the way he protects who he cares for, like he took care of the kid from training camp with the Wild Wild Pussycats. And Eri when we rescued her. I love the way he laughs over the little things, like when we got popsicles on Nabu Island and mine fell to the ground the instant I got it out the packaging. But the one thing I hate about him is his determination.”
“It was more stubborn than determined, actually, more stubborn than me, believe it or not. He’s one of a kind, and I don’t mean that in a good way. I’ve always thought that his little fantasy of becoming a pro-Hero would never come true, and that it would remain in a land where pre-schoolers would run on top of clouds, chasing butterflies, and finding a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow,” Bakugou turned away, looking into the distance, ”Did you really think that I wouldn’t realise the grave mistake you’ve descended upon him by making him your successor?”
“Izuku was always strong, I’d never denied that. Being strong doesn’t mean possessing the best Quirk, and that’s something that I’ve learnt over time. I’ve come to realise that Izuku is strong, and strongest, when he fights for what he stands for. For what he believes in. It doesn’t take a genius to see it. You can tell it in the way he carries himself, looking forward to putting a smile on someone's face. You can see it in the way he pushes himself to his limits, breaking not just his bones but past mindsets, trying to achieve above and beyond. The sheer effort alone shocked me, terrified me even. I had every right to be at the time, realising that Izuku had always been stronger than me.”
“Granting him One for All must have been the breakthrough in his bleak world, a world of despair and sadness. It was his one-way ticket to the life he’d always dreamt of. But if I were you? If I had met him on the rooftop that very day? I wouldn’t have done what you did. Because not only did you disregard his well-being, but you overlooked one aspect of your biggest fan,” Bakugou paused, searching for the right word, “His naivety. You exploited his young mind, a mind that believed that possessing a Quirk would make one a hero. And you gave him just that- A Quirk. You bestowed upon him the one thing he deemed that barred him from becoming a hero.”
“But what exactly is a hero? The reason why I kept tormenting Izuku back then was because his dream was so fucking unrealistic. How was someone going to join the field of pro-Heroes without a Quirk? Of-fucking-course, you can’t be a hero if you didn’t have a Quirk: That isn’t even discrimination, that’s just the truth. How would he have defended not just himself, but others, against other Quirk-users without one? Sheer physical strength wouldn’t cut it. He could have been a hero in so many other ways. He could have saved lives through becoming a nurse or doctor, protected civilians as a police officer, saved others as a fire-fighter, or for god’s sake, pursued a career as a Quirk analyst with all his darn notebooks!”
“But you just had to be there to grant him your power. His intent had always been sound, and his heart will forever be in the right place. He wanted to win to save others, a goal leaps and bounds superior to my need to win for glory. But why did it have to be you? Do you even realise the pain he must be going through now?”
“Because of you, he’s out there in the cold alone, fending off Japan from the League of Villains single-handedly. Because of you, he made the decision to go vigilante and abandon his source of support, class 1-A. Because of you, he’s broken more bones in his body than I could ever count. It’s because of you, that his life got turned upside down in the worst way. You’ve cursed him, All Might,” Said man inhales sharply, evident that this was not something he’d ever have expected to hear that night, “And it’s all because of you that a group of Quirk-wielders looking to take over the world threaten to end his very existence every day. Face it: You’ve ruined his life, far more than I have. And that’s something I never thought I would ever say.”
The cool air had only gotten colder in the last minutes of his outburst. Bakugou glanced in All Might’s direction, whose blue eyes trained steadily on the ground below them. The teen took a huge breath that he never knew he needed, eyes closing as he exhaled slowly. He checked the time again, 22:30. With his Quirk, he’d be able to get back to the dorms, fix a quick meal and grab a shower all by 23:00. By then, he’d be able to catch a few hours of sleep, before setting off on class 1-A’s first patrol of the day with Shouji and Satou. The blond took a last look at the shell of the hero he once used to know, before slipping on his damaged gloves and sliding his bottle under his arm.
And as he made his way back to the dorms, he vowed that he’d always be waiting for Izuku to come back.
To come home.